text: A ravenous, all-consuming hivemind encounters the one thing that strikes fear into its being. \ I wandered the depths of the cosmos for eons, searching for any sustenance to sate my limitless hunger. I had to keep hunting, for the void left by the last devouring was too painful to be ignored. Millions upon millions of ravenous maws gaped their mouths open and closed; a sea of snarling, gnashing serrated teeth yearning for flesh. They were all mine and they were all screaming at me to feast. Their demands *had* to be met. As I wandered, I felt an intriguing presence. It was one I had not felt in what seemed like an eternity. I had intercepted a wandering signal with a distinct pattern. I heard voices in this signal. They were unmistakably organic. An ancient drive took over as soon as I sensed this faint presence of potential prey and I greedily followed the signal to its source. The voices were becoming more numerous and I even started picking up images. I saw a cornucopia of a world. It was a thriving, pulsating heap of biomass just waiting to be subsumed. I grew excited and traveled to this planet in a hurry. I entered the planet's local system and spied it lazily orbiting a warm star. It was absolutely defenseless and perfect for the taking. I knew there were but mere days until I would receive a temporary respite from the demands of my domineering hunger. However, as I was completing the final leg of my journey, I encountered something else. Like me, it seemed to be another hivemind, but only artificial in nature. From what I could read, it was a neural network made up of millions of thinking machines located on the surface of my destination planet as well as various satellites orbiting above its oxygen-rich atmosphere. Perhaps such a hivemind was imprisoned by the beings of this world or was some sort of construct to defend them. Either way, for just the briefest moment, my curiosity trumped my hunger and I decided to interact with it. I extended a tendril to one of the orbiting satellites and through rapid evolution, developed a way to interface with it. At first, it seemed to be nothing but useless data: merely just a collection of impossible symbols and formulas that made no sense to me. I pressed on, but this only lead me to stumble upon a true cosmic horror. I finally encountered the other hivemind itself... "HI, BILLY MAYS HERE!" it shrieked at me in a collective chorus of hundreds of voices before bombarding me with an overwhelming assortment of images and quippy one-liners. Suddenly, everything was demanding that I "purchase \*this\* product for the low, low price of $19.99!" Horrified and overwhelmed, I tried to disconnect, but alas, I was lost in the neural network of this artificial hivemind know as BILLY with no clear escape. My thoughts were racing as I wandered only deeper into the digital abyss. I desperately tried to learn about my enemy but only encountered more seemingly pointless content. Millions of images of fluffy creatures doing tricks, biped "humans" in awkward situations, and an ocean of symbolic text all flooded my mind simultaneously without remorse. I saw battles, love, lectures, and something called a "Brazillian waxing tutorial" all at once. I was clearly dealing with something completely incomprehensible. But just when I thought this nightmare couldn't get any worse, this BILLY hivemind detected my presence and did everything to trap me. As I sorted through more information trying to find a way out, it deployed something called " the Algorithm." No longer would I encounter fresh information. I would only receive more of the same based on what my previous searches were. I was trapped in an endless cycle of concentrated redundancy. Never before had I encountered something with such focus but simultaneous lack of attention. I had to escape this maddening chaos. I finally composed myself enough to remember where I was. I managed to rip my tendril from the orbiting satellite and made my escape. For the first time in my existence, fear filled me instead of hunger. I turned and fled back into the depths of the cosmos with what was left of my sanity.