A. Colucci - The Colony

“What’s going on?” Kendra’s voice came from the elevator.

“Shhhh.”

“What do you see?”

“Would you hush?”

Paul shifted his attention back to the ants, with a glint in his eye and a growing sense of excitement. He examined them closely through the plastic window of his hood. At that moment, the Siafu Moto were not a weapon but a colony like any other. It’s what he wrote about, spoke about; it was his passion. A society based on equality and cooperation. If people could emulate ants in this regard alone, they could be saved from certain extinction. He wondered to himself if perhaps the ants were here to teach us a lesson.

“Do you see the queen?” shouted Kendra.

Paul’s thoughts evaporated. “Hold on.”

He orbited the beam of light over thick layers of insects. If they were anything like ordinary Siafu he would find the queen laying eggs under a large mound of protective soldier ants. The mound would be easy to spot. Sometimes they were as big as soccer balls. Paul surveyed the area for another minute, until he was satisfied that the lobby level was clear.

“Start her up,” he yelled softly down the hole.

Kendra pushed the button for the first floor. Instantly, sparks exploded from above. Like shooting stars, they soared gracefully through the air and then burned into cinders halfway down the shaft. Ants scrambled out of the electric box, where they bit wires and crammed gears.

Unaware of the malfunction, Paul rode the elevator car on his knees. When it stopped gently, he climbed to his feet and lifted the lamp to the wall, when a noise startled him. He turned to find Kendra pulling herself through the hatch.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She got to her feet, equally covered in grime. “You didn’t think I was going to miss this, did you?”

“No.” It was an honest answer.

Wide-eyed and mouth gaping, Kendra strolled across the roof of the car. “Just look at them,” she gasped. “This is what it’s like, being on the inside.”

“Yeah, I feel it too.” He smiled like a young boy finding the most remarkable bug for his collection. “I’d forgotten the allure of nature’s most coveted secrets.”

“Too busy cashing checks.”

“Ouch.” His face pinched. “That hurt.”

Kendra crouched lower, examining them closely. “They seem normal enough.”

“Yet for some reason, they’re oblivious to us.”

“So much for your theory they attack in groups.”

Kendra held up her flashlight to a nest, where hundreds of ants linked together to form an oval bed three feet across. There was no sign of a queen, but thousands of eggs were being coddled and licked clean by nurser ants: small, delicate capsules, waxy yellow in color, yet transparent enough to distinguish the wormlike larvae inside.

“Paul, take a look.”

Below the nest were broken eggshells and a multitude of pink, squirming newborns. Adults crawled over the brood, checking each one like a new mother trying to find her only child in a sea of look-alikes.

“Trophallaxis,” Paul said with a sense of awe. The ants were regurgitating liquids into the mouths of the juveniles. “Not something you see in the field every day.”

Kendra nodded. “Maybe if we observe them long enough, we’ll learn something useful.”

“I think we’re better off finding a queen and getting the hell out of here.”

There was a sudden knot in his stomach and he backed away. The light spread over a mass of crawling winged ants. They moved restlessly in circles over one another, occasionally lifting their wings and catching air.

“Alates,” he said anxiously.

Kendra took a closer look. Although the ants were indeed future queens, they were useless for her purpose, as their glands wouldn’t secrete the proper pheromones until the nuptial flight. “It won’t be long before they take off.”

“So now we have to worry about flying monsters.”

Both of them scanned the elevator shaft with renewed alarm.

Kendra stood on her tiptoes, trying to get a better view of mysterious movement along a section of wall. “Bring the light closer. There’s something here.”

Paul held the lamp over her head, illuminating a mound of ants in the shape of a football. They moved slowly, in a tightly packed huddle.

“Hallelujah. It might be a queen,” Kendra said.

“All right. You get ready with that bug vacuum. I’ll try to sweep them off.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

She nodded and stepped out of his way.

Paul held up a gloved hand, pointed like an arrow ready to strike. He took several deep breaths and raised the lamp higher. Kendra swallowed hard and held the vacuum in a tight grip to steady her hands.

Paul struck swiftly into the center of the mound and scooped out a layer of ants. They felt soft and light against the white glove. He winced and danced on his feet as they all sprinkled to the floor like sand.

Ants scattered from the mound and the prize they coveted came into view.

It was a hand. A left hand, adorned with a platinum wedding ring. It was cut ragged at the wrist, the flesh chewed off and bones pulled apart.

Paul gagged and dropped the flashlight.

Kendra fell back in silence.

The hand plunged down the shaft.

“Well. That was fun.” Paul checked his glove for stragglers. He tried to wipe the sweat from his brow, but instead left a smear of grease on the plastic window of his hood. He walked to the hatch. “I’ll take us up a floor. You keep an eye out for Her Majesty.”

Kendra nodded, speechless, as Paul lowered himself into the car. She braced her knees and steadied herself as the elevator began to rise. She picked up the lamp and the bug vacuum, as the car passed the third floor, then the fourth, then the fifth.

“Paul, stop!” she yelled.

The car didn’t stop. In fact, it was gaining speed.

Paul was pushing every button.

“It’s not stopping, Kendra!” he yelled back.

Suddenly sparks were shooting everywhere. Kendra ducked as they pelted the elevator. Five floors from the top, Paul noticed the bright red Emergency button and pounded it with his fist. The elevator screeched to a bumpy halt.

They both fell to their knees.

“Shit,” he winced.

Kendra could hear pain in Paul’s voice, but it was another sound that kicked up her heart rate. It started at the top of the shaft and traveled down in waves: the same angry chimes she’d heard in the street.

Kerka kerkosh keka kerkosh kerka kerkosh kerka kerkosh

In a flash, ants were streaming down the walls, the entire colony on the move. The sound bounced through the shaft and became deafening. Kendra pressed the hood against her ears and looked up to see ants spiraling down the heavy twisted cable, straight toward her. A few dropped to the floor, right by her knee, and she kicked them, brushed them away with her shoe mitts. She scrambled backward like a crab and her hand clipped the flashlight. It rolled to the edge and down the shaft, taking the last bit of light and leaving her in darkness.

Something grabbed her ankle. It was Paul, reaching through the hatch door and shouting something, but Kendra couldn’t hear anything over the ants. The elevator buckled and swayed and then there was the straining sound as the cable’s hanger began to give way. Smoke poured from the engine and then it shorted out with loud popping sounds and a burst of flames.

“Hold on—we’re going down!” Paul shouted.

Kendra held her breath, trying to make herself lighter. There was a thunderous snap as the pulley broke loose and the elevator began to free-fall.

Two corner wires snapped under the tremendous weight and the bulky car jammed against the narrow walls, metal against brick, slowing down its plunge and sending more showers of sparks into the air.