She crumpled up the receipt for hive repairs. Gnash didn't care much about money. She had all the wealth she could possibly desire, and having her hive damaged didn't bother her too badly. Most of her important possessions were fine, what few of them there were. It'd been a wild week, but she wasn't upset about that. It was something else, that shook her more deeply than a few damaged walls, or seawater leaking into her dry rooms. She threw the balled up receipt into the garbage. She remembered.
***
The box was a surprise! Gnash had never had such a large package come for her before (or really, much of any, as she tended to do business in person), and she wanted to see what was inside. The note talked about a social experiment, and something about lusus awareness. She didn't bother reading it too deeply, and pushed the box inside her hive as soon as she could. She pried it open with her bare hands, digging through the packing material to unload a manual and finally, the grub bot.
There was something a bit unnerving about the bot, and while she knew that was what young trolls looked like (she'd seen anatomy books, knew her own growth cycle) it still had the feeling of being something a troll wasn't supposed to see, like if you cracked open a germinating seed and saw the small plant within. Too early, and not meant to be seen in broad moonlight. Still, it was cute! Like a toy, and she would get to raise it.
"I bet I would be a pretty good lusus and I could make it happy and feed it and protect it and stuff!" she said aloud, mostly to herself, and she picked up the bot and swung it around.
You think you would have what it takes to raise a child? Angel snorted from across the block, curled lazily on her sleeping spot.
You are a pathetic, weak mess of a child yourself. You would lead it to ruin before it even pupated. Best to cull it now and save it the life of misery you would give it raising it.She flinched, realizing how stupid she'd been to say that out loud.
Idiot. But how hypocritical it was for Angel to say that, when it was her fault she was like that in the first place. Gnash frowned, and held the grub closer to her chest. It was cold, not yet activated.
"Well I would be better than you," she said, defiant.
"I bet Beetle would be happy with me, more than I am with you. I will show you and you will see you were wrong and I was right and raised a better kid than you did," she said with a challenging edge to her voice. This was a dangerous gamble, probably. But if she did well, maybe Angel would be impressed. She'd see that you don't need to degrade your grub to make them grow up well! After all, that wasn't what other lusii did, right?
Beetle? What a stupid name, you named it after the currency you use. Angel seemed surprised by the choice. But otherwise unimpressed, by either the threat or her sudden defiance. Gnash knew it was a good name.
"It is a good name because beetles are cute and strong and they have pretty wings and also we use them as money because they have value and are wonderful," she said stubbornly. Beetle was a fitting name for her grubling! As fitting as Angel's was, since she was also a terrible mythical demon that seemed to usher in the end. And what about her own name...? She didn't want to think about that.
The instructions said to put the grub in a dark place, and it would activate the next night. She placed the bot carefully in a closet in her hive, patting it gingerly. A soft clang of metal on metal. Maybe Beetle would like her more than anyone else who got a grub because she was part robot now too. All that was left now was to sleep and await her new life as a lusus.
***
It was a rude awakening. A deep buzzing woke her from sleep, and she dragged herself out of her recuperacoon, dripping from slime still. She hurried to the closet where she stored Beetle, and found it awake and buzzing loudly, with no end in sight.
"Oh no... Beetle please you need to be quiet and stop making that noise! It is not good!" she said, before it occurred to her. It was probably hungry! She grabbed the bot's hand, dragging it unwillingly to the nutrition block. Gnash was pretty hungry too, so this worked out well for her! She grabbed some grubloaf from the fridge and began to try and feed the robot.
"Open up Beetle! Here comes the grubloaf, yum yum," she cooed, smooshing the loaf against the mouth grate of the bot. It didn't seem to help, or maybe it was? The bot never stopped buzzing. She eventually just ate the rest of the loaf herself, wondering how to take care of it.
She spent all of the first night chasing after the bot, trying to appease it with gentle pats and food. Angel watched her, not saying anything, which only made her madder. She shouldn't get to judge, when it was only the first day!
***
The next day she was awoken by a crash. Beetle was crawling face first on the floor of the hive, bumping into walls and furniture. It had even knocked some stuff over in its movement. Gnash tried to get it to stop, picking it up and setting it on the couch, and eventually offering it something to play with. For a while, it seemed appeased.
And not a few hours later, it was belching a thick, oily smoke. Gnash held her nub and patted Beetle gently, looking for... some reason it would do this. Was it because she fed it grubloaf before? Was it broken?
"Beetle, you need to stop that because it is icky and bad and I do not think you are icky or bad so you should be good and nice and clean and not do that," she said. Her delicate seadweller respiratory system couldn't handle smoke very well. Maybe it needed to go outside for a bit. Or maybe she could just ignore it for a bit until Beetle stopped. She locked it in the block, leaving it so she could have some fresh air.
She gnawed on her lip anxiously until it started to bleed. Were troll children this impossible to understand, for a lusus? Why wouldn't Beetle just do the things she said, so they could live happily and prove her lusus wrong! But nothing Beetle did made any sense, screamed and damaged her hive... it was like a malfunctioning robot and not a child at all.
***
Another night, she found Beetle beside the load gaper, oozing some weird corrosive substance from its rear.
"Beetle no!" she cried, and picked it up and shook it a little. Maybe she should put it on the toilet? But she worried further damage to the ablution block would make it impossible for her to use it later. She put Beetle down, for just a second, so she could fix the hole in her hive. Gnash put down a towel, and when that burned through from the acid, she put down another, before she noticed Beetle had run off.
She ran downstairs, to find Beetle was ramming its head into the walls with its horns, much stronger than it had been even just a few nights ago. Gnash grabbed a pillow and rammed it between Beetle and the wall, but it merely moved to the side to slam its head into another wall. She was desperate, and angry.
"Stop it!" she yelled, and pushed the bot over.
"Bad Beetle! Naughty!"It lay still on the floor, and twitched for just a moment. Gnash realized what she'd done and covered her mouth. She said she would be better than Angel, but she'd done something just the same, unable to succumb to the urge of violence. Did she break it...? Angel watched her expressionlessly but her lure heaved slightly. She was amused by this! She thought it was funny!
I warned you, didn't I dearest Gnash?***
The robot pinched her legs, and ate her flooring. It destroyed everything in its path and burned, hugged and inconvenienced her at every turn. It even embarrassed her, waving buckets on the roof and printing out copious copies of high art from its rear. She had no idea what she was doing. Beetle was loud and obnoxious, and she clenched her hands to her sponge clots, just wanted to block out the noise and rest for once.
The more the nights had progressed the less patience she had, and the quicker she'd resorted to hitting the bot and trying to physically restrain it. She called it names, said it was horrible, mean, disgusting. She couldn't stop herself, they came, unwittingly, when her frustration peaked. Then, the bot's limbs grew, taller than her, stronger too, probably. Beetle probably hated her, but it was all she could do to keep it from running loose and ruining everything!
But then, just as soon as it had come into her life, Beetle vanished. There was a hole in her hive the shape of the mysterious bot, and it was gone.
***
She had failed. Miserably. She wasn't any more fit to be a lusus than her own awful parent. Maybe even because of it. Gnash avoided her lusus around the hive, using the excuse of the drones rebuilding the hive to stay far away. She couldn't bear to hear Angel repeat all the same, horrible thoughts she already had. She failed at everything she did anyway, so it shouldn't have hurt so much, but it did. Angry, she brushed away her tears. She couldn't let Angel see her like this, especially. It would only invite more derision.
Even worse, she felt the foreboding sense that Beetle wasn't gone for good. That maybe she'd find the bot again, and that it wouldn't be happy with her...
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