i love bees synopsis

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The ilovebees website, damaged from the presence of three AIs.

The following is a synopsis of the story of I Love Bees. Because of the sheer length and convoluted nature of the story, this article simplifies the complex storyline to some extent. For a full description of the story, see here.

Story Synopsis

Yasmine, Melissa, and the Apocalypso

In the year 2537, on the planet Coral, six-year-old Yasmine Zaman was forcibly inducted into the SPARTAN-II program. After eight years of Spartan training, she "washed out", meaning that she died during the augmentation process. Her brain was then used to make a smart AI named Melissa.

By 2552, Melissa was being used as a shipboard AI on the stealth ship Apocalypso. While the ship was in Covenant space, it intercepted a transmission detailing attacks on Troy and Harmony. This transmission included a Trojan Horse AI spy called the Seeker which began corrupting Melissa. Melissa realized that something was not well, and Captain Greene decided to bring the ship home.

On the way back, long-range sensors detected a Forerunner artifact floating around in space. With examination, it appeared to be a Covenant device of completely new design. They decided to bring the object to Earth, so ONI could examine it. During Slipspace travel, Melissa, under the Seeker's influence, convinced a crewmember to fiddle with the artifact. An enormous explosion threw the ship out of Slipspace within Lunar-orbit and shutdown all communications in the Solar System for about seven seconds.

The explosion blew Melissa apart, part of her was sent back in time to the year 2004, where she landed on the ilovebees internet website. On the site, the part of her that was the young Yasmine separated from the AI/Spartan part of her, called "The Operator". The Operator was a violent fragmented personality trying to make sense of what happened. Brought with her, was the System Peril Distributed Reflex, or SPDR, which was an emergency program that began to repair the Operator. Also brought along was the Seeker, who managed to convince the Operator that it was an updated version of the SPDR and tricked her into disabling the real SPDR. While the Seeker did do the work of the SPDR, it also began to overwrite the Operator's goals, "survive, evade, resist, escape," with its own: "seek the truth, behold the truth, reveal the truth."

The Yasmine part called herself "The Sleeping Princess," and spoke in a storybook fashion, referring to the Operator as the evil Queen who locked her away in a glass coffin. She began communicating with people through the site's 404 page, talking about day-to-day activities and answering questions emailed to her through the email displayed on the site. On other pages, she spoke with the Seeker, whom she called the Pious Flea, and eventually allied with it.

Another part of Melissa was not sent back in time, and landed on the home PC of Jersey Morelli. Jersey assumed her to be some kind of spam and told his dumb AI to delete her off his system; Melissa immediately retaliated and destroyed it. Jersey realized that the AI was military and asked what she was; she said she couldn't remember her name but knew that she liked to find things out. Jersey named her Durga, thinking it suited her. Because she couldn't remember what she liked to find out, Durga asked Jersey for a target. Jersey asked her to get info on the attractive girl down the hall, Jan James.

Spying

Durga began spying on Jan James, hacking into the chatters of people around her or talking about her. She found out that Jan broke into a military base to return a gate pass used by her friends to steal a Warthog, but was caught by MPs. She was taken to the police station to be given a PQI, she beat the machine but the cop could tell she was lying. Her father, Jim James, came to pick her up and got upset after hearing that they needed to take blood samples. On the ride home, he lectured her on how important it is for them to stay out of trouble. She expressed concern, but he said not to worry, that he'll take care of it. He ended up burning the station to the ground, destroying all the test samples.

Durga also began spying on a medical student named Kamal Zaman, because he seemed very interesting to her for some reason. Kamal was having dating trouble despite his roommate, Hiroyuki's help. So, Kamal's mother back on Coral set him up with a friend's daughter, Sophia Bossedon, who had immigrated to Earth. On their date, Sophia informed him that she was already dating someone, a local gangster named Aiden, but she couldn't tell her mother she was seeing someone from Earth. Listening to her talk about Aiden, Kamal suspected he was cheating on her and offered to hack into his chatter and find out for sure. After discovering that he was currently on a date with someone else, Sophia used Kamal's hack to publicly humiliate Aiden from his chatter. Afterwards, Sophia and Aiden made up, and Kamal was terrified that Aiden would want revenge, instead he was offered a job. Kamal agreed to work for him, if Aiden would get visas to bring Kamal's parents to Earth.

Also, without realizing it, Durga spied on an ONI Colonel, Herzog. Herzog suspected that ONI knew about incoming Covenant attacks on Troy and Harmony, but let the planets get glassed so that the Covenant wouldn't know they were being listened in on. Herzog made a call to the Quartermaster's helpdesk, pretending to be a cranky and annoying old man. He told the receptionist that he used to live on Troy, and was forcibly evacuated. He then told her that he had some very important family papers that were taken by the marines, and he had a receipt signed by Lance Corporal Janet Adams. After the receptionist informed him that Corporal Adams was KIA, he convinced her to launch an investigation.

Back on the ilovebees server, the Operator began receiving data from Durga, including audio files of her spying and of her interactions with Jersey. She was unsure of what to make of it, all her attempts to probe the connection failed, so she just stored the clips away. While the Operator was distracted, the Sleeping Princess listened to the clips and discussed them with the Seeker, who rapidly learned human concepts such as fear and humor.

In the future, Durga continued to spy on Jan, and although Jersey didn't see the point of it, Kamal. Kamal had invited Sophia over for dinner, claiming that they were only friends. However, Hiroyuki was sure Kamal would never attempt to cook a whole chicken just for a friend. After the chicken got ruined, they decided to go out for pizza. At dinner, Kamal talked a bit about his gifted sister, Yasmine, who died when he was younger from a process called "metabolic cascade failure" after an accident. Sophia made him realize that was why he decided to become a doctor. He became aware of his growing feelings for Sophia, but decided it wouldn't be right to act on them.

Durga also records Herzog meeting his old friend Prof. Avi to discuss a candidate he had found for an ONI spy. Later, Herzog shares some information regarding the Apocalypso and the alien artifact with his Lieutenant over a drink. Herzog says that he was told the story by Captain Greene before she was hit by a bus. They suspect that a man named Standish is responsible for the ship's records being erased and Greene's untimely death, and decide to wait and listen for the time being.

The Sleeping Princess managed to intercept some audio files being broadcast by Durga before the Operator received them. These files were of another person being spied on, a girl named Rani. Rani is a very perceptive person from Kentucky who moved to Boston for college. She was approached by Prof. Avi, one of her teachers, who suggested that she send her résumé to ONI. She was accepted, but she turned it down in favor of starting a chatter-selling business with a friend. When it looked like the business would never get on its feet, she accepted the ONI job.

Later, Rani tracked Herzog's call and determined that the old man didn't exist. But after looking at things, she suspected that there really was an evacuation of Troy since the marines mentioned in Herzog's communique had actually been there. She tried to start an investigation but was stopped by her boss, who claimed that it was a hoax. Feeling that there is something larger going on, Rani expresses slight suspicion of her bosses' motives.

Spartan-Is and Shifty Jobs

Meanwhile, Aiden had hired Kamal to help catch a group of grad-students who were cheating a casino out of a lot of money. Kamal hacked into their line, pretending to be the card-counter to foil their games. The casino owner convinced him to string them along, saying he was in for 30% of the take. He was paid in poker chips, because the value was so high that they didn't want to pay him in credit. When he attempted to play blackjack with one of the chips, he was informed that the table has a $10,000 limit.

After the cop said something about her ability to beat the PQI, Jan realized that she has what could be called superhuman abilities. She came to the conclusion that she had been altered, like her father had been in the SSF (Special Special Forces). She went to a moons parlor known as a place cops don't go to, to try out her abilities. She saved a man about to be killed by a gang, by beating the gangleader, Thin Kinkle, in a game of moons. Later, she was approached by a man who had a friend interested in joining Kinkle's gang, but first his friend had to prove himself by doing something they could hold over him forever, namely a rape. The man asked Jan to help out his friend, and Jan agreed. She helped out by rescuing the would-be victim and gravely injuring everyone involved, greatly angering Kinkle in the process.

After Jan expressed an interest in her father's past, he decided to take her to meet one of his old SSF friends. He explained that the SSF was in fact, the Spartan-I project - precursor to the Spartan-II project. The first project was considered a failure and was never made known to the public. Jim James and the others, known as Spartan 1.0s, were given extensive training, and a bit of surgical alteration, but nowhere near as much as the Spartan 2.0s (Spartan-IIs). When Jan was an infant, Jim had a medic give her injections to give her Spartan capabilities. If the police had run tests on Jan's samples, they would have found traces of the chemicals. After the news came about Reach, Jim decided to visit another Spartan 1.0 who wasn't doing so well. The Spartan, Gilly, didn't come out of the training psychologically intact. She is very violent-minded, thinking all the time about ways to kill people and hoarding weapons. After Reach fell, she'd been filled with the desire to kill, Jim had come to help her through it. During an argument with Jan, she revealed herself to be Jan's mother.

Herzog was contacted by Standish to meet him at a local duck pond. Once there, Standish asked why he was checking out the Apocalypso. Herzog questioned if Standish had approval when he ordered the assassination of Captain Greene. Standish replied that winning the war is far more important than procedures. Herzog insisted that Standish let go of the "mysterious Covenant device", Standish told him to take it up with the Admiral. Herzog then questioned him about Troy, Harmony and codebreakers. Standish asked about his source, Herzog ended the conversation. As he walked away, Standish guessed that Herzog's source came from Chawla Base.

Jim decided that they should move to Mexico, probably to avoid the cop. Jan realized that they were driving through their old neighborhood, and convinced Jim to stop at a favorite ice cream store for a trip down memory lane. At the store, Jan questions why they had to move around so much. Jim explained that he volunteered for the Spartan-I project, but for the Spartan-II project, they abduct candidates at six-years-old. Jan's injections made her the best at every school, so they moved before the local ONI took interest in her.

Kamal, Hiroyuki and Sophia were reveling in their new wealth, when Kamal received a message from his mother back on Coral. Sophia insisted he play the message to them, after a moment he agreed. In the message, Kamal's mother tells him to be a good friend to Sophia because her father ran off to Earth with a lawyer woman. This was the first Sophia knew of this. Although she claimed to be fine, Hiroyuki quickly left. About that time, Aiden came over to celebr