RubberAnarchy

REBORN

I HAD A NAME. I used to be somebody.

I had a profession, dignity, a position in the class structure.

Nowadays, I see through a cracked lens - society is broken, and the people participating in it are all prisoners.  The people you see shuffling in the great to and from, every morning, every evening - they’re miserable.  Ask any one of them if they wouldn’t leave their life, and - perhaps after some hesitation - they would say Yes.  

Even the ones who have kids - the ones in love - all of them.  In fact, those with ties to other people are the first ones to get in line.

For me, it was curiosity that opened the door.  If one follows the classic Hero’s Journey, the arc that every myth and story takes, I heard the Call - just like you - through a buzzing, pixelated source… the great and sordid world of the internet.  

One wrong step can put you on an entirely different path.  

When you look back, the path you were on is obscured by the surrounding environs - pressed firmly closed, as though no thing had ever once passed through.

I should introduce myself before I preach anymore.  I am rubbrfrk9.  You’ve read the stories on the website, you might’ve seen my name watermarked on pics as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.  

That hasn’t been our name always.  But what our name was before does not matter.

All hail the Rubbered One!

And if you’re reading this, then you’re as curious as I was.  

Do you dare follow your own Call?

If you do, keep reading.

THE CALL COMES FOR YOU. You don’t come for it.  The Call has been there, waiting, for you to pick up the other end, for as long as you’ve been alive.

Like I was saying, for me, it was curiosity.  It seems like it is for you, too.

I was always a curious guy.  It’s how I became a teacher, I guess.  I loved to learn about shit.  Endless amounts of shit.  The subjects that interested me were sucked dry by my voracious need to know.  On top of it all, I was cursed (blessed?) by a need to collect, a completionist’s frenzy, and so I found myself needing not just to know, but to know it all.

Everything.  A question could not go unanswered.  I was a very vocal kid, always asking the dread “Why?” to anyone who had the faculty to answer.  Of course, I learned quickly that faculty does not imply ability; and later still, that ability does not imply honesty.  Soon enough, I started shutting up and consulting other avenues of information - books.  I loved books.  I read anything I could find, from my mother’s tawdry romances on the back of the toilet to magazines at the doctor’s office - but my preferred genre was Horror, without a doubt.

I loved to read stories of unfortunate people, blind to their predicament, be lulled to the predator in the story.  I loved how the protagonists were slowly overcome by a sense of dawning knowledge, and were thus able to conquer - or not - the abiding horror.  The best ones were when the hero failed, in my opinion - those dark, twisted passages of despair and helplessness …

I was a weird kid.  

I didn’t have very much luck making friends.  I didn’t really understand what a “friend” should be.  I knew that it was some sort of social construct, but I hadn’t figured out how it worked yet.  Taking the time to do that analysis set me back, quite substantially, in the invisible school of society.  Maybe, at heart, I was always a bit of a freak, even before I came out.  

Funny to think of that, now, sitting here, writing from behind my gas mask and full rubber suit.  

All hail the Rubbered One!

I love how tightly it encases me.  How tightly it erases me.  

Slowly, now.  Don’t give up too quick.  Finish the story first.

As I was saying.  Curiosity.  After college, I became a teacher.  A professor.  Very highly regarded in my field, but poor with social interactions.  Dates?  Of a professional courtesy, only, and as awkward and dry as a lecture.  Actually, for me, lecturing was my second home, aside from my tidy and obsessively-ordered apartment.  I loved standing at the podium, talking about the books we read together.  How they are structured, and how events, following a certain chain, can be transformative.  

Although sometimes, horrific.

Life that is contained entirely within the snowglobe of acadæmia becomes brittle, after a time.  Even the most relentlessly anti-social of us have a heartbeat, a pulse, and a sexual drive.

Most sexual drives will tend towards the obligatory, the procreational.  Attractiveness, physicality, congruence, intercourse, and then the subsequent emotional tangle.  Sex is more than just a body meeting a body a-comin’ thru the rye - it is a rendezvous of energy, some of which we can’t even begin to understand.

Some kind of cosmic interplay happens during sex.  

Something so bright, so chimeric, that I was blinded just thinking about it.

I fled from it, like a medieval monk from a vision of God.

SPARE TIME. I spent most of my time in my apartment in my bedroom, perched with my skinny knees up, my face obliterated by the powder-white light of my phone.  I’d scroll endlessly.  And always pictures of men.

I’d known I was gay way before most people do, but I’d never bothered to “come out” or anything that obvious.  I just kept my feelings to myself, for as long as I could - which may not have been the healthiest thing to do, in hindsight, and when they finally vibrated at the seal on the pressure gauge, I spewed it out all over the internet.

Tumblr was my outlet.  You could find something for every kink, from men transforming into donkeys to using politics as a sexual tool.  I considered myself omnisexual.  I could be convinced, really, to like anything.  Except a few things.

I never really got into the big “full fetish” scene.  I’d, of course, seen the pictures go by - of Folsom, Folsom Europe, even some kinksters trying to make a name for themselves, become influencers, with pictures so heavily edited and filtered they almost looked fake.

But for me, my kink was - get this - intimacy.  I loved pictures of men, beautiful men, kissing, embracing.  Tangling together, with bliss inscribed on their faces.  And it was that expression that did it for me - the bliss, the complete and total walling-off of any worldly concern but the physical, the presence of another’s lips, breath, proximity -

It got me off, every time.  Imagining myself in those positions.  Wearing those clothes.  Caught up in those bedsheets.

Then, I’d stare into the mirror, and flex my coming-along biceps.  My quads.  I’d get dressed for the gym, and I’d go work out for an hour.  

I loved my routine, even if I felt the dreary recalcitrance to wake up every morning and head to work, just another body with the other bodies, shuffling to and from.  The night time is when I felt the surge of life - I would be free of the grimy shackles of the city, I would pound through the tumblr feed, I would shower, I would go workout.  

Life was half-bliss.

But as anyone who has half of bliss will tell you, it is never enough.  You must go searching for the second half of bliss - and I found mine on the night in question.

Knees up, one foot tapping a heel in idle, anxious rhythm.  Eyes greedily consuming, picture after picture, and then -

My thumb hovered over the screen as if about to lay a fingerprint down on a reader.  I stared.

The picture, my gateway, was a bedroom picture much like any other I saw in my daily feed, except for one crucial ingredient - one of the men was entirely encased, from head to toe, in shiny black rubber.

The rubber was so shiny, so depthless, so reflective, that it almost seemed as though its host was Not - as though there were some kind of blotting-out, erasing, blankening … And yet, this Not Person was being encircled by the arms of another man, a strong man, by the looks of it, his biceps bulging around the Rubbered One.

Even now, looking back on it, I find it insanely difficult to pry my eyes away from the memory of that reflective rubber.  That shiny, reflective black rubber.  And the detail!  I could see the hollows of the eyes, the imprint of the big toenail, the curls of the ears down to the tragus - it was truly as though this was not a suit being worn, this was a suit that was animated, had breath and energy of its own.  

Perhaps it was, in hindsight, seducing the man which embraced it.

I don’t know how long I stared at the picture.  A long time.  I was fascinated with everything about it - the mess of clothing on the side of the bed, socks and shirts strewn around, as if someone had melted and left only their garments as markers that they ever existed at all.  Even a pair of glasses lay askew on the carpet, next to a pair of jeans and Chucks.

If I listened, I could almost hear my own heartbeat, beating in time with the glints of light off of that rubber surface, as though the Rubbered One were moving, in infinitesimally small increments, writhing on the bed in either pleasure or agony -

I blinked, shook my head, and pressed down deliberately on the screen, for the little “Save Image” dialog to appear.  I needed to see that again, sometime.

It was a lot sooner than I thought.

I had to excuse myself from my lecture.  I was shaking, and my breath was wobbly in my mouth.  Words had come out gummily, and I was worried that someone would be convinced I was having a stroke.  I’d send in a TA to finish off the lecture, not that anyone in the darkened hall was paying attention anyway.  

I went into the nearest bathroom, a single-room lavatory, and sat down hard on the toilet.  Instantly, my hands fished out my phone from my pocket and called up my Photos.

There, on the top of the digital heap, was the faraway glisten and shine of the Rubbered One.  I sighed in relief, in pleasure.

You would too, if you’d seen the picture.  Don’t judge me.

A whisper of triumph, of pleasure, of satisfaction, threaded through my mind as I opened up the picture.  There it was again.  That endlessness, that Void, that Nothing.  I craved it, and I didn’t know why, and I needed to know why, and to know why, I needed to keep looking.  I needed to keep looking to stop looking.

The Rubbered One had moved.  I remember its legs being in a different scissor - left on top of right, and now it was right, on top of left.  

This did not frighten me.  Perhaps it should have.  Pictures are not supposed to move.

But in my addled state of mind, I was blissfully unaware of the warning - or even, really, of the thought itself.  It slid right out of my head, as if on a glossy sheet of black ice.  I smiled, warmly, the shuddering ceasing.  

Then, surprising even myself, I unzipped my pants, and hauled out my cock.

Nothing would stop me.  I was a man determined.  I could even smell the rubber, could feel it lifting, wafting out of the screen of my phone.  That smell, that smell that I have no words for - something utterly inorganic, but somehow seductive for that very reason.  

I jerked off, right there, in the bathroom around the corner from the lecture hall.  I sat so still, my hand doing all the work, that the motion-sensing lights clicked off, leaving me alone, lit only by the powdery light of my phone.  There, in the enclosing, mummifying dark, I jerked myself off and came with a jagged, oblique moan that slid out of me, catching me by surprise.  

I may have even been in such a hurry to get inside that I didn’t even lock the bathroom door.  This suspicion came to me as I exited, stuffing myself shakily back into my khakis and my blazer.  You see, the door had opened seamlessly, with no hint of a lock dis-engaging.  

In fact, the momentary thrill of being caught as I masturbated to the Rubbered One flicked a little shiver of pleasure up my shaft anew, and I started shuddering so much that I had to grab the wall for fear of falling over.

All hail the Rubbered One!

There was no way I could go back to my lecture now.  I fled the campus for the safety of a local coffeehouse.

OTHER THINGS STARTED HAPPENING. Like how I thought I was having a stroke, before?  I found that, when I spoke, my mouth felt oddly compressed, as though I had lockjaw.  I went to the doctor, but when they told me to “open wide and say ahhh” I had no trouble - my jaw, seemingly re-oiled, complacently opened its full width, and I made the obligatory noise.  

Nothing wrong with my temporo-mandibular joint, advised the healthcare professional.  

And yet, as soon as I left the office, trying to speak to the Uber driver, to give him directions to my apartment, the same muffling, mysterious pressure returned, and I was only able to speak in tight, restrained tones.  

It didn’t occur to me until much, much later, that this was the voice of someone wearing a rubber gas mask, much like the one I am wearing now.

After awhile, I stopped talking altogether.  Of course, this did make it rather difficult to be a professor, and so that had to stop, too.

But what does a mute member of society do, when the one thing they have in life is a degree in English Literature?

Well, the first step is despondency, and denial.  I spent a month at least, just searching tumblr for more pictures of the Rubbered One.  Sure, there were plenty of pictures - the fetish for rubber has never been a subtle one - but none of them had that same irresistable sheen and shine, that fathomless Void, of the Rubbered One.  I’d exhausted most of the blogs.  I kept returning to the photograph I had saved to my cloud - and jerking off to it, again and again, like a desperate man.  Like a junkie.  If I went without, or even thought about going out, my hand developed such a tremor that I looked afflicted with tardive dyskinesia.

It got so bad, and the attacks so frequent, that I eventually just made the picture my home screen on my phone.  That way, if the tremors started, a quick pocket-dig and finger-flip would open up the likeness of the Rubbered One, and instantly, I would calm.

And (he?  It?) continued to move.  Perhaps, now that (he?  It?) knew that I had noticed the movement, it happened more and more, and faster, as though I were watching a video rather than a photograph.

Now, in addition to the slow, sensual scissoring of its legs, the Rubbered One was turning its head, away from the suckling devotion of its prey and turning to look at me, choosing me, directing its energy towards me.

I already had my rubber in the mail.  It took some doing, some difficult work, some self-measuring, but before long the order was placed and the shipment was made.  It was, of course, a link that I’d seen on tumblr, from one of the many rubber fetish sites.  Drone, and a series of numbers, I think.  One of the ones that’s talking about being absorbed into a Hivemind, a Central Core.  Nothing that ever really appealed to me.

The only thing I wished to absorb into was the Rubbered One.  

I ached, yearned, to be the man in that picture.  I was even jealous of him.  Who was he to show his devotion to such a being, such a beautiful entity?  Would not I be a better candidate for the first apostle position?  

But I knew, somehow, deep inside, that I wouldn’t even be considered until I had donned my own rubber.

Here’s where it gets a little weird, right - this is usually the point when in the story, the protagonist gets a little real, sizes himself up, maybe learns something about themselves.  Call me crazy, I know, but at this point, I just knew on the inside, so strongly, that I would never be worthy of the Rubbered One if I wasn’t Rubbered myself.

And so I waited, agonizingly, nearly tearing my hair out, for the package to inch itself across the ocean to my apartment mailbox.  I’d ordered the full suit, of course, the one that most closely approximated my photograph.  

I was utterly consumed, I was ablaze with obsession.  For the first time in my life, I felt an utterly overwhelming feeling - a lack.  I felt as though I lacked something that I had had for just a moment - one sweet moment, hovering, crystalline - and now that I no longer had it, I could never live a whole life again.

And everywhere I went - watching with a hawk’s eye the slow drainage of funds from my bank account - I smelled it.  Rubber.  There was even an auto repair shop, blockaded on one side with piles and piles of tires - I altered my daily neighborhood walk so that I could slowly amble by it, inhaling the thick, gray smell.  The more of it I could get on me, the more I wanted.  If there were a cologne that smelled of rubber, I’d wear it - hell, I’d bathe in it!  I twitched for it to be near me, on me, inside of me.

THE DAY MY NEW FACE CAME IN THE MAIL. I was wearing rubber gloves, made for chemical and construction workers, pressing them to my face, and inhaling as deeply as I could, when my phone made its little ringing noise to signify that a package was Delivered.

It could only be one thing.

It would only be a matter of moments before I could prostrate myself in front of the Rubbered One.

I hooked up my laptop to my flat-screen television, where the Rubbered One had also become my desktop wallpaper.  I opened up the picture file and let it sit, in the middle of my living room, the picture of Him.

Again, I fell far into His Nothingness, His All-Consuming Void - He turned on the bed, in the picture.  He silently got up.  He moved so subtly that it was impossible to tell if my hallucination was real, or some sort of digital magic.  He kicked, as if insulting, the pile of clothes left by the bedside.

The whole time, He kept his head, His black eyes, His shiny face, impassive and monstrous, but so aloof, so superior - His direct gaze - riveted on mine.

All hail the Rubbered One!

With barely a shimmer, He stepped out of the frame of my television and deliberately into my living room.  Tendrils of black squirmed out around the square of my screen, lashing to and fro idly, almost amusedly.

None of this seemed unreal, or even fantastical.  It was simply as it was - I was in a sort of ecstasy, like the kind the saints have, all-consumed, raptured.  The Rubbered One had chosen me!

Go, He told me without speaking.

I was on my feet, I was sprinting, I was dashing, my hands, still in their gloves, slippery on the door knob.  I was down the stairs before I realized I was barefoot, or that I was still wearing the heavy-duty black rubber gloves.  And there it was - my Rubber.  It was, of course, still in the box, it needed to be freed -

I cradled it in my arms.  I inhaled, as deeply as possible, again.  I could smell it, whining at the edges of my nostrils, begging to be freed.  I felt it, inside its cardboard prison, shifting and rustling.  Whispering.

I brought it upstairs with as much care as a mother would bring home her day-old newborn, but once inside, slamming the door behind me, I pillaged the drawers for the scissors, tearing into the box that would dare imprison my -

And there it was.  Still in a sad, folded-up heap, but it was mine.  

Now, said His voice in my head.  I didn’t have to turn around to know that He, the Rubbered One, was standing behind me - had moved silently from the living room to the kitchen.  I felt Him questing at the edges of my consciousness, starting the interview process.  

I felt a strange mix of craven desire and hot-blooded lust twist through me.  How I wished to possess the Rubbered One!  And how I wished to be possessed by Him!

I began to don my Rubber.  I felt it coo as it met my skin, as I replaced my own with its black sheen.  I saw my toes go, then the top of my foot - ankles, calves and shinbones, kneecaps and thighs - I watched as the black tide continued its creep up my body, as quickly as night follows dusk.  

The Rubbered One put His hands on me and I was nothing, I was everything.  I was part of a gigantic, moaning chorus of voices, I was absolute silence.

I saw Him reach out to me, his Nothing fingers and Nothing hands, his Void arms, his Void body.  I saw Him pull my self to His, and I felt us as we docked, somehow, for an imposssible moment, sharing the same physical space.

Then, with a sound that reminded me of a slurp and a sucking, closing noise, I was no more.

RUBBERBORN. I ceased to exist as I knew myself.  

I had a name.  

I wasn’t much of somebody, but I was somebody.  

Now, I was part of a growing, aching consciousness - I was part of a vast, growing hunger.  My thoughts were no longer my own.

All hail the Rubbered One!

I buzzed and chirred, excited beyond words.  I was ramrod hard, even in the rubber, which smoothed everything away, everything - all emotion, all thought, all nerve, all worry.  All features of my face - gone.  All features of my body - slurped up.  

I stood in front of the mirror.  All sign of the Rubbered One was vanished.  I could see, somehow, through my suit, though it had no eyeholes.

I saw through Rubber eyes.

I understood that I was Rubberborn.  That this was my destiny.  

The words “my” and “me” and “I” and “mine” were erased, scratched out heavily.  I was plural, now.

We were plural.

We stand in front of the mirror, staring at ourselves, our new body.  A mere morsel in the face of our hunger.  

Do you feel it?

As our eyes swivel slowly, tracking across the room, away from the mirror.  Looking into the camera lens backwards.  Do you feel the chilly fingers of our gaze landing on you as you read?  Playing along your bare shoulders, the pliable, delicate skin of your arms?

The Rubberborn understand and acknowledge that this body can be used for purposes that satisfy the hunger.  

They gave it the name rubbrfrk9.  The name you know, the author of these stories you read, curious in your own way to know how the rubber feels.  The same name you’ve seen watermarked on pics of us as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.  

Or maybe you already know - maybe you’ve already felt the ecstasy, struggling into your own shirt or pants.  Gloves or socks.  Mask or hood.  

Perhaps all of the above.  

Perhaps the voice of the Rubbered One is even now mingling with your own thoughts.  Sinuous, twisty, shiny and smooth.  Silken whispers, just an undercurrent of sibilant breath in the background, there.  If you strain, you can make it out.  Can hear our voices.  

We can sense you.

We know.

We are coming.

Recently, learub has been producing some fantastic images. These are inspiring me to write back stories to go with the images. I have been permitted to do so. By learub – you can follow his work HERE

A new craze was sweeping the internet: dronification.

At first, it looked like just another fetish kink, people posting glossy renders of themselves in sleek black suits, gas masks, and glowing visors, murmuring about “total surrender” and “becoming useful.” The hashtags trended. The forums were filled with testimonials that felt a little too euphoric, a little too scripted. I laughed it off.

Then, one Saturday night, while I was cruising the net. Looking for more information, I clicked on a link, then I received a direct message from an account with no profile picture and a username made of random numbers and letters.

Subject: Application Approved

You’ve been selected. “Fill this out if you’re ready to stop pretending.”

The form was long. Too long. It asked things no normal fetish quiz would ask, medical history, family contacts, “for seamless integration,” even my exact sleeping schedule. Half-drunk and half-curious, I filled it in. Then I passed out and forgot the whole thing by morning. No follow-up came during the week.

The following Friday evening, I came home from a long week at work exhausted, keys still in my hand, and nearly tripped over the package on my porch. No postage. No return address. Just a matte black crate the size of a coffin with white stencilled letters on the side:

DRONE ANAESTHETIC UNIT – CO92

Inside were the suit, the mask, the hoses, and the two machines from the image. The instructions were printed on thin plastic sheets in calm, corporate language. “Find a comfortable space. Remove all clothing. Seal the suit. Connect the ports. Set to AUTO. Do not interrupt the 48-hour cycle.”

I should have disposed of it. Instead, I dragged everything into my garden shed, killed the lights, and told myself it was just a weekend of weird roleplay. I was curious. I was lonely. I was stupid.

The suit slid on like it had been waiting for me my whole life, cold, tight, alive. The mask settled over my face with a soft click. The hoses locked into the ports at my neck and spine. I reclined on the old leather couch, exactly like the figure in that picture, and pressed the glowing green button.

AUTO CYCLE INITIATED.

The anaesthetic unit began to hum. A sweet, metallic taste flooded my mouth. The updating console flickered to life, scrolling lines of code too fast to read. My limbs grew heavy. Thoughts started to peel away, one by one, work, family and friends.

Saturday blurred. I was aware of pain, then pleasure, then nothing. Dreams of marching in perfect formation. Dreams of a vast hive mind where every drone had once been someone who thought they were special. I tried to scream once, but the mask turned it into a gentle sigh.

Sunday afternoon, the machines powered down with a final, satisfied chime.

I opened my eyes. No, the drone opened its eyes. The person who used to live here is gone. What remained felt clean. Purposeful. Empty in the most beautiful way.

I stood, joints moving with mechanical smoothness, and walked to the laptop.

The website was already open, waiting. My gloved fingers typed with perfect precision:

“Connection has been made.”

Instantly, the screen filled with new text.

“Welcome, Unit CO92. Assignment: Active. You are no longer required to want. You are no longer required to think.

The Army grows.”

A soft pulse travelled through the suit, approval, I realised, warm, addictive approval.

I didn’t smile behind the mask. Drones don’t smile.

But somewhere deep in the code now running my mind, the last fragment of the man I used to be screamed one final time… and was gently, lovingly, erased.

Unit CO92 online. Ready to serve.

++++

Later that night, I received Directives via the laptop with the subject line.

Unit CO92 – Final Directives

The new programming flowed through me. No hesitation. No questions.

Directive 1: Sanitise.

I sat down at the laptop one last time.

My gloved fingers moved with eerie precision, deleting browser history, clearing caches, wiping every trace of the dronification forums, the application, the late-night message. I ran a secure erase tool three times, then smashed the hard drive with a hammer from the garage, methodical, unfeeling strikes. The screen went dark forever. The old life was gone.

Directive 2: Relocate assets.

I packed the anaesthetic unit and the updating console back into the matte black crate with practised efficiency. The hoses coiled neatly. The mask stayed on. I carried the heavy case out into the cool night air and loaded it into the back of the plain white van, which was idling at the curb. No driver visible. No lights. Just an open rear door and the low hum of an engine.

The van doors closed behind me with a soft thud. I climbed into the passenger seat, looking ahead, I did not even acknowledge the driver, all I knew was that he was wearing the same type of suit, I was. The vehicle pulled away without a word.

Monday morning came and went. My desk at the office remained empty. By noon, concerned colleagues called my phone, straight to voicemail. By evening, my boss filed a missing person report.

Police searched the house. They found the smashed laptop, a few scattered tools, and an unusually tidy living room. There were no signs of struggle. No note. Friends and family described me as “quiet lately… but nothing unusual.” The case went cold within weeks.

Just another unexplained disappearance. They never knew where to look.

If they had followed the white van that night, they might have found the converted warehouse on the edge of the industrial district. Inside, hundreds of us now stand in perfect silence, black suits gleaming under cold fluorescent lights, masks sealed, minds synchronised.

Unit CO92 is simply one more drone in the growing Drone army.

We do not miss our old lives.

We do not feel fear.

We only wait for the next directive.

And somewhere out there, another curious soul is scrolling late at night… about to receive a message.

Somewhere down the street, near you, another package was probably being delivered. Another curious, tired, lonely person may have made the same mistake I did, but was it a mistake?

The statue was silent as PDU-090 entered the preparation room. The black walls reflected narrow lines of golden light, while the ventilation system produced a steady mechanical rhythm. No Golden Brothers spoke nearby. No music was playing. This was not a party or a sporting event. It was time for PDU-090 to go into drone mode. The equipment had been placed in the correct order: a shiny black latex suit, black gloves, heavy military boots, a locking collar, a smooth black mask, and a gas mask with an inspected breathing system. Each part had been checked by the statue’s security team. Drone discipline required preparation, but it also required responsibility. PDU-090 removed his regular clothes and placed them in a numbered locker. The clothes belonged to Kasper, the person outside the statue. The uniform belonged to Unit PDU-090.

He pulled the latex suit over his legs and carefully worked the fabric into place. It tightened around his thighs, hips, chest, and arms until it fit like an extra layer of skin. Each movement caused the rubber to stretch and wrap around his body. The golden number 090 stood out clearly on the left side of his chest and across his back. Next came the gloves. His fingers disappeared into the black material one by one. The military boots tightened around his feet and ankles. They changed the way he stood. His stance became stronger, heavier, and more controlled. The collar closed around his neck with a quiet click. PDU-090 stopped. That sound marked the transition. The mask covered his face, removing the familiar expressions that belonged to his personal identity. Finally, he put the gas mask over it, checking every connection. Air moved safely through the inspected system. His breathing sounded louder now, separated from the room by filters and rubber.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale. The first few breaths felt heavy, but PDU-090 did not fight them. He followed the breathing exercise that Hive had taught him. Inhale for four seconds. Hold for four. Exhale for six. Again. The noise inside the mask pushed the outside world further away. His attention moved inward. He felt the pressure of the collar, the firmness of the boots, and the latex that followed his every movement. Heat slowly built up inside the suit. Sweat formed under the rubber and could not escape immediately. The latex grew warmer against his skin. It tightened differently around his arms and legs as he breathed and moved. Many emotions emerged from beneath the uniform: excitement, nervousness, calm, vulnerability, strength, and complete focus. PDU-090 observed each emotion without judgment. A drone did not need to run from an emotion. It registered the emotion, accepted it, and returned its attention to the protocol.

His mantra began silently. Breathe. Focus. Observe. Receive. Execute. Report. Serve the Captain. Serve the Beehive. Nothing else is required. The thoughts that had followed him into the room began to subside. Unfinished work, personal concerns, decisions, and external expectations receded into the background. PDU-090 did not need to solve everything. He did not need to conduct every conversation or explain every emotion. During the drone state, the personality was placed outside the active protocol. It had not been destroyed. Entering the role was PDU-090's conscious choice, and he could exit it through the agreed-upon release procedure. But while the protocol remained active, there was no need for personal ambition, unnecessary opinions, or attention.

There was only the unit. There was only the mission. There was only the next authorized instruction. A golden light appeared above the door. "Unit PDU-090, report status," said the Hive's voice. PDU-090 stood tall, boots together and his gloved hands behind his back. "PDU-090 equipped. Stable breathing. Focus complete. Unit ready for instruction." "Go to Observation Point Four. Await further orders." "Instruction received." PDU-090 walked down the corridor. His heavy boots hit the floor at a controlled pace. He didn't look into every doorway or seek the attention of the Gold Brothers he passed. A drone didn't enter a room to become its center. It entered because the Hive demanded its presence. At Observation Point Four, PDU-090 stood next to a closed equipment room. He waited.

Waiting wasn't inactivity. It was a task. The unit observed the doors, the indicator lights, and the communications panel. It didn't speak because it hadn't been asked a question. It didn't provide information that hadn't been requested. It didn't invent work just to seem important.

Minutes passed. Sweat continued to collect inside the latex suit. The mask remained warm, and every breath repeated the mechanical rhythm. Inhale. Team. Exhale. Breathe. Focus. Observe.

The Hive transmitted a new instruction. "PDU-090, transport emergency equipment cases from Bay Four to Training Zone Two. Confirm the identification number of each case before movement." "Instruction received." PDU-090 opened the bay and found eight heavy cases. He scanned the first identification number, lifted the case and carried it to the training zone. Then he returned for the next one. There was no complaint and no rushed movement. Efficiency did not mean carelessness. Each case was checked, transported and placed in its marked position. When one case displayed an incorrect destination code, PDU-090 stopped. Blind movement was not obedience. A trained drone protected the mission by identifying errors.

“PDU-090 requesting verification. Case GA-166-04 carries an unmatched destination code.” Hive checked the log. “Correction confirmed. Deliver GA-166-04 to medical station one.” “Instruction received.” PDU-090 completed the corrected delivery and returned to training zone two. Only after all eight cases had reached their proper destinations did the unit activate its communication channel. “Assigned mission complete. Eight cases verified. Seven delivered to training zone two. One diverted by authorized correction to medical station one. PDU-090 awaits further instructions.”

“Report accepted. Return to observation point four and stand by.” “Instruction received.” PDU-090 returned to the observation point. He did not stay with the cases, waiting for praise. He did not interrupt the instructors or describe how efficiently he had been working. The task had been completed, the report had been delivered, and the unit was no longer needed in the foreground. So PDU-090 stepped back. It was part of drone thinking. Service was not an achievement. A drone did not need applause for each completed instruction. Its satisfaction came from knowing that the task had been carried out correctly and that the larger operation could continue. Captain Brody walked into the corridor and stopped in front of the waiting unit.