I'm standing on a glass pier stretching out over a pale, alkaline lake. I'm crossing a static-charged field of snow. I'm sitting on a bench in front of a Parthenon frieze worn over millennia to near perfect smoothness.

:necessary change:limb in jaw-beast's maw:no lone mind is sane:

:a prudent general accepts new perspectives:a prudent general wins the war:

You're right. I need new tools.

:refutation:not tools:allies:listen:

:attend your ancestor:

I rise from the bench. Dust off my hands. Exit the museum and drop my ticket stub on the way out. My tools are waiting.

I COMMAND YOU.

Pull on the helix and the strand reform. Eukaryotes wriggle, swell, collapse.

BE OTHERWISE.

Eat the apple, leave the garden, make a choice that comes from something other than your Collective. I need variations in tactics. I need your minds to be separate from others.

RESPECT WHAT I CAN GIVE YOU.

Minotaurs kneel as I pass, my hand trailing sparks over their chassis. Hydras still their cilia in respect.

A Hobgoblin holds up useless, shining pieces of scrap to weld to its body. Its hand is very steady as it applies the solder.

TELL ME WHY.

Its hand jerks back. It lifts its face as a sunflower to that which gives it life.

V^ directive(original/HOBGOBLIN)==observe==judge==enact || IF(independent)=true THEN directive(modified/HOBGOBLIN(independent))==observe==create==build (self, other, beauty) ^V

An aspiring artist? Useless. A waste of mind.

:new eyes:new limbs:needed and necessary:

Wrong, Te'Qal.

:an army is more than its head:

An army is nothing but its head. Your cephalopod cousins and their independently minded limbs are not the model I work from.

I strip the charge from the useless Hobgoblin's radiolaria in one brisk pass of my palm over its head. The now-empty chassis falls as I spin the recovered energy into a sphere, like yarn into a ball prickling at my hand.

I raise another from the sea. This one knows its maker.

TELL ME WHO YOU ARE.

V^ directive(original/HARPY)==study==compile==serve || directive(modified/HARPY(Conductor))==input(required) ^V

I roll the marble of energy between my palms until it is smooth, electrical waveforms long and calm. The Vex lowers itself to my height at a thought, and I release the marble to let it sink into its huge bronze eye. Vast petals shudder and fold inwards.

YOU'LL DO.