“I… I’d like to oo join… You” I stammer nervously to the drone, it’s standing at the reception desk motionless, sleak black skin, balancing on tip toes with out any apparent effort. It’s face like a smooth obsidian carving, no hair, just a complicated looking arrangement of vents and ports where it’s mouth would have been,
“Do you have your driving license or passport?”
“Yes” I nod in confirmation, holding up my passport,
“Down there please. Door with the lights on. “ the drone standing at the front desk says. Indicating with its hand, its voice like an early 90 voice generation system.

I walk down the sleak white corridor away from the reception desk, the walls glossy smooth like plastic coated rather than painted. No one else is around, no drones, no people, no sound, just my shoes on the hard floor.

Up ahead I see a door frame glowing a rotating rainbow of lights. I smile. I’m nervous but also excited, like walking up to a new lover’s door for the first time.

Unlike the other white doors I’ve passed the one with the lights on is open when I get to it. A small room awaits, a little table with a keyboard and a screen on the left but that’s it. I walk in. The door closes behind me and the computer screen lights up.

Welcome displays in big letters for a few seconds before being replaced with Do you wish to join us? a blinking text prompt under it, like a console window.

I type yes on the keyboard. It doesn’t change, I realise I need to press enter.

Are you sure you wish to become a drone in the European hive?

I type yes again. Pausing a moment before pressing enter. Am I sure I want this? I slam my finger down on the enter key, yeah I’m really fucking sure.

Please enter your name

I type in my name, it then asks for my date of birth and passport number.

Please confirm you wish to give up your humanity and become one of us? Confirm you understand there is no coming back from this. The procedure is irriversable.

I type yes again. I smile as I tap the enter key. I hear something behind me. A hatch has opened in the wall. I glance back at the screen, Place your clothes in the box I gulp realising that the drone I’d seen on reception was technically naked. I pull my clothes off and shove them in to the hole in the wall along with my shoes. My underwear goes in last. I feel a little nervous as I turn back to the screen completely naked.

I hear the box close behind me, then another one open. Place your passport in the box I turn and do so. It feels much more final than typing yes on the keyboard. This is me giving up the record of myself. I take a deep breath before letting go of the paper, card, and electronics that to the governments of the world proves that I am who they thought.

Welcome to the hive 860523 I smile again, “Eight six zero, five two three” I say to myself reading the number off the screen. The wall next to me, opposite the door slides up.

There is a step up to a platform below a rail system. A cart hangs from it, over the platform. Two padded cuffs, one on each side facing the room. Place your wrists in the cuffs. They will close automatically. This will begin your processing. I look at the cart there is a bar to hold on to as well as the cuffs. Given the track extends last the platform I guess I’m going to be dangling from this.

I reach up and grab the bar. The cuffs close and lock with a satisfying click. The platform drops under my feet leaving me dangling. The lights in the room go out, leaving me in the dark as the cart moves.

@mindpersephone woah 😵‍💫 This was beautiful ❤️❤️
Is there a part 2 🥺

@mindpersephone oohh as someone who doesn’t really understand the appeal of dronification, this is fascinating. I really want to see where this goes

@kasdeya
I shall add dronification to my list of things to write explainers about.

I work/play with people that have very different perspectives from each other around it and I suspect you might find it quite interesting.

@mindpersephone

@h3mmy @mindpersephone ooh that sounds really interesting!

dronification is on the periphery of one of my kinks (mind control) so I encounter it a lot (not to mention all of the Fedi beings I see posting about it) and I’ve always been curious about it

I think the latex aspect might have something to do with wanting to distance yourself from your own body or at least your own skin. maybe it’s about feeling pure and clean - or maybe it’s about the latex pressing in on you, like a weighted blanket

I’m pretty sure the mental changes are about wanting to escape your own mind: you won’t have any more anxiety or depression or etc. and can instead just feel a constant mindless bliss as you follow simple unambiguous instructions (this is the part that overlaps with mind control, of course)

but then there are the aspects of losing your identity and distinctiveness, becoming an interchangeable part of a swarm, and converting others to that swarm. and those are aspects that I don’t really understand (also the permanence of drone conversion is just very extreme to me and it surprises me that this is almost always a part of the fantasy)

@h3mmy @kasdeya @mindpersephone

I enjoy the aesthetics of dronification but would also be interested in the reason why people enjoy it

The cuffs tighten against my wrists, some kind of inflating rubber gripping. Experimentally I let go of the bar with one hand and I don’t move an inch. My wrist is supported without me needing to use any grip strength.

As I dangle in the dark, the cart following the track, I relax. The hard part is done, nothing to do now but wait and endure what ever happens. None of the descriptions I’d read about the process said it was painful, though of course all of the descriptions come from drones who’ve been through it, and they are clearly trying to sell the process. So there isn’t an objective observer here.

Still what ever happens being part of a hive is going to be better than the life I had before. Belonging to something. A part of an unbreakable whole, not some unknown replaceable worker in a corporate hell scape.

It may seem the same from the outside, one you’re just a number, one of thousands of identical units, down to your skin and face. The other your boss tries to pretend you are. At least the drones are honest.

A light comes on over me and the cart stops, I see a robot arm approach out of the gloom. It attaches a large bag of purple glittery fluid to the cart. Then another comes in and I feel a pick as a needle is jabbed into my arm. A clear tube lets me see the fluid flowing into me. The light goes off and the cart moves again.

My thoughts drift, what’s the fluid that’s flowing in to me? I wonder if I’ll see any one I know afterwards? Will they know? I wonder what my boss will say when I don’t turn up for work tomorrow? Will he even notice? I doubt it.

I start to feel drunk. You know that moment you’re a couple of pints in and you get up to go to the loo and suddenly realise just how drunk you are? Must be something in the fluid they are putting in me. I was stone sober when I walked in here.

The cart clunks to a stop. It’s still dark so I’ve no idea what is around me. A couple if slightly ominous red LEDs snap into life and then strange sounds build up slowly, like a radio moving closer. It sounds like someone speaking another language in the next room. I can tell it’s meant to be speech but I don’t understand any of it.

The volume rises to a point its like standing on a crowded subway train, dozens of voices saying things I don’t understand all around me. Screens bloom to life all around me. So bright my vision whites out for a moment. Like that point when you turn on the bathroom light first thing in the morning, almost painful.

Eventually I can resolve colours and patterns swerling across the screens. I turn my head and can see the pattern extends all around me.

I lose track of time. The voices and lights doing something to our brain, along with what ever chemicals we are pumping into us. Every so often we hear the number assigned to us. 860523. Then we start to pick out different words in the cacophony of voices.

“Us”
“We”
“Home”
“Together”
“Whole”

We do not know how long passes in the moment. Eventually full phrases are comprehensible in the noise

“One of us”
“We are all”
“Hive is home”
“Together we are whole”

We don’t notice robot arms replace the bag of fluid hanging from the cart, several times. We stopped holding onto the bar long ago. Dangling there, relaxed, our brain long gone. What we once were no more. We definitely don’t notice that our skin has turned entirely black and smooth, like a coating of latex, every pore, blemish, hair, and scar turned in to a shiny smooth surface.

The screens fade out, leaving us in darkness again. Our head empty, no thoughts to worry us, no fears. We don’t flinch as the cart moves again. Not a blink as a robot arm holds our new face plate up to us. Another arm guiding the tube down our throat, and the air lines into our nostrils. The mask then held to our face, our new latex like skin shifting and joining to the edges, sealing it and making it part of us.

The cart stops a final time, a small room, a platform rises up under us. Our feet balancing, our limbs taking our weight for the first time. The cuffs release and our arms fall to our sides. We don’t move, there is no need we have no task yet.

A thousand voices whisper in our head all at once, like turning on the TV to a scene showing a crowded market with a hundred people trying to sell you melons. Except, we realise, they aren’t trying to sell us things. They are whispering words of encouragement and support to each other. We’d smile if we were still capable of doing so.

“Welcome to the hive 860523” a much louder and more authoritative voice booms in our head, the rest of the voices stop, “proceed to storage bay six. Assist in freight distribution.”

@mindpersephone woah 🥺

@mindpersephone There is something profoundly sad and through proviking about this. It's incredible writing.

@GoingDownWithSundial thank you! 💖

@mindpersephone This made me hard. Unfortunately not with a shiny black rubber cock 😏

@mindpersephone How would this story continue? Stories tend to have protagonists, but that seems contrary to the idea of a drone 😄