The group mind was trying to assimilate me. “Come and join us, come and join us, come and join us!” said the group mind, telepathically, to me. It was trying to bend my will. It was trying to sucker me into relaxing my guard by sounding all nice. “It’s really great to be in the group mind, it’s really great to be in the group mind, it’s really great to be in the group mind…” it said, and then “Relax your guard, relax your guard, relax your guard!” The group mind always said everything three times. There was something extra-hypnotic, extra-beguiling about this. There was a kind of irresistible seductive power to its reiterations. I found myself starting to weaken in the face of this telepathic assault.
Telepathic tendrils stole wisp-like into my mind and addressed me suggestively. “You want to be part of us, you want to be part of us, you want to be part of us!” they said. The tendrils worked their way deeper and deeper into my subconscious, subverting me from the inside. I realized that I really did want to be part of the group mind. “Be one with us, be one with us, be one with us,” they urged me. Never again would I be alone, never again would I feel myself to be on the outside. Never again would I experience the hurt of being shut out, the hurt of being excluded. As I had been so many times before in my life. How wonderful that must be, I found myself wondering. How splendidly superb that must be. What a fantastically lovely feeling that must be, to be part of the group mind forever and never having to go it alone ever again…
Then I realized that it wasn’t me thinking this at all. The insidious telepathic tendrils of the group mind had thoroughly infiltrated me and were now passing themselves off as my own thoughts. They were doing quite a good job of it too. They had almost had me there. I came to my senses with a shock, horrified at the way I had so nearly fallen under the power of the hive-mind that was trying to possess me. It had been so easy to let it substitute its crass, super-syrupy thoughts for my own. I felt a wave of defiance sweep through me – “Fuck the group mind, fuck the group mind, fuck the group mind.” I retaliated, causing the tendrils to scurry back in a hurry. I could feel the pain I had inflicted upon them with my counter-attack. They wouldn’t try that again in a hurry, I said to myself, with grim satisfaction…
“I wouldn’t join the group mind if I was the last person on earth,” I told the telepathic hive entity, with a good deal of attitude. “You are the last person,” the reply came back. “There’s no one else. We’ve got everyone else. You are the only one left…” It left me to think about this for a moment or two, and then the tendrils came wheedling back, “There’s no need to stay on your own.” they told me sleazily, “Come and join the group mind, come and join the group mind, come and join the group mind.”
This wasn’t cutting any ice with me, though. I had no time for the group mind and its bullshit. I had seen it for what it was and what it was wasn’t pretty. Not by a long chalk. Joining the group mind for me would be like being forced to read the sun newspaper from top to bottom every single day, whilst listening to the mindless patter of some brain-dead radio DJ constantly yakking on in the background. That’s what the group-mind is like. I shuddered at the thought of it. I would rather let myself be eaten alive by fire-ants, I told myself. Or be bled to death by a bath full of starving leeches. Preferably the leeches, I reflected, as that would hurt less…
A new voice cut in. A very adult-sounding voice. A very worldly-wise kind of a voice. A very knowing kind of a voice. “We both know you’re only stalling Nick,” the voice told me. “What other option do you have open to you? You can only last so long on your own. We’ve already won, really. It’s over. This is the new order. This is the way things are now. You have to move with the times. Adapt a bit. And anyway, it’s not as bad as you make out. We can even cut you a deal. Make you a special offer. A ‘one time only’ offer – take it or leave it. You will be able to keep the basic key elements of your personality and these elements will enjoy a certain level of autonomy within the hive.”
I thought about it. I guess it didn’t sound too bad. I’d made my stand. I’d proved a point, of sorts. I hadn’t caved in immediately. In fact I’d lasted longer than anyone else did. I was to be granted special privileges, after all. That’s got to be worth something. “Fuck it,” I told the representative of the hive mind, “I’ll take the offer…”