A. Colucci - The Colony

“Follow your instincts,” Paul whispered back. “They’ve gotten you this far.”

Kendra squared her shoulders and turned to the general. “The gas analysis didn’t work. I need to dissect her glands.”

Her words hit a wall of silence. Dawson and Garrett eyed each other for a moment.

The colonel spoke, “Under no circumstances can you destroy that ant. It’s the property of the United States Army.”

Dawson seemed more compromising. “Is it absolutely essential?”

“Dissecting her mandibular glands is the only way to get enough of the pure pheromone that I need.”

“General, we have no way of knowing if this experiment will work,” Garrett protested. “It probably won’t, and then what? The colony could spread and this queen might be the only key to destroying them.”

Dawson gave a slight nod. He told Kendra, “Do whatever’s necessary.”

Garrett huffed and retreated to the back of the room.

As Paul prepared the queen for dissection, Kendra felt suddenly exhausted and her vision blurred. She chugged down some water and tried to stay focused.

The clock on the wall read 2:30.

The queen was frozen in a dry ice acetone bath and placed on a watch glass under the microscope, dorsal side up. The top of her head was punctured and the cuticle layer peeled away toward the front. The remaining part of the head shell was held back, and one of the mandibles was pulled out gently, transferred to a clean probe and placed in a vial.

This time the chromatographer came up with a pure form of the pheromone.

It was minutes before Jeremy returned for the information. Kendra washed up in the sink and handed him another flash drive.

“Get this to Jack,” she said.

Jeremy took off, with a small salute.

Garrett shook his head in doubt. “It will never work in the field.”

“It’s our only hope,” Russo said.

“Our best hope is still Operation Colony Torch. Unless you can prove this method will work, the president will not change our strategy,” said Garrett.

“You may be right,” the general replied.

“How on earth will we test it?” the mayor asked. He turned to the general. “We need more time. You’ll have to call off the operation until tomorrow.”

“He can’t do that,” Garrett answered for his superior. “These ants must be stopped before nightfall. We’ve been given a green light by the president and there’s no turning back.”

The general told Kendra, “Hold on to that queen. Don’t let her out of your sight.” He started for the door.

Paul said, “So I guess there’s nothing to do but wait.”

“Pack up your belongings,” the general said before heading out. “Get ready to evacuate. Pheromones or bombs, I want everyone on the roof by eighteen hundred hours.”

COLONEL GARRETT WAS ALONE with Paul and Kendra as they placed the dissected queen in a specimen bottle. She might have been dead, but she was still precious cargo, a valuable commodity that Garrett eyed curiously, biting his lower lip.

“So you managed to find a queen,” he said. “They aren’t easy to spot, lost in a sea of twenty-two million.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Kendra replied sternly. “This queen was isolated, all alone on a leaf while the rest of her army was trying to kill us.”

“Don’t you find that strange?” Paul asked, equally intense. “In every ant species, the queen is the source of life. In the field, the guards engulf and protect her.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Why do I get the feeling you do?”

Garrett didn’t answer.

“Come on, Colonel, we’re in this together,” Kendra said. “Maybe we can help each other.” She tilted her head back and smiled at the colonel, batting her thick lashes, awkwardly running her fingers through her blond locks.

Paul rolled his eyes at Kendra’s obvious attempts to woo Garrett. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kendra. This guy’s no scientist. He’s just an army pawn, as clueless as the ants.”

Garrett stroked his chin in thought. Then his expression shifted and he was beaming as if he’d struck upon an idea. “All right, Doctor. I will admit we recovered some of the genetic information from the laboratory. It’s highly classified, but I’m willing to share some of data—if you’re willing to make a deal.”

Paul stared with a dubious expression. “I’m listening.”

“You are correct, these are not ordinary queens. Laredo programmed their DNA for specific behavior and selectively bred them over twenty generations. The queens, in fact, control the whole colony.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Because these ants are a weapon. A very important weapon that now belongs to the United States military. Shall I continue?”

Paul nodded.

“The workers have no fighting pheromones. Laredo isolated the alarm pheromone and removed it from all the ants. Without the queens, they won’t attack. You see, it’s the queens’ alarm scent that sends the armies into battle, while the workers merely repeat her orders through stridulation, that chirping sound you hear.”

“In other words, Laredo turned an ant species from a cooperative society into a murderous dictatorship.”

“You obviously don’t understand the implications of this colony. These ants are a weapon to end all wars. There isn’t a nation that would use nuclear bombs after seeing what these insects can do. Not as long as America has possession of these ants.” Garrett approached Kendra with a look of expectant applause. “Siafu Moto are the perfect weapon: all the power of an atomic blast without the radioactive mess.”

The room fell silent.

“So what’s the deal, Colonel?” Paul asked.

“I want your cooperation,” he said, with a hint of desperation. “There are things I know that would send you screaming into the night. For twenty-five years I’ve worked with the CIA. I’m one of the few people who know how close this planet is to extinction. Iran and Iraq, their secret alliance formed with Russia. They’ve enriched enough uranium to blow up Israel, Britain and America ten times over. Then we have North Korea and China teaming up to beat them to it. The end of humanity is inevitable. It’s just a matter of who will be the last to go.”

Paranoia, Paul thought. An unavoidable consequence of working too long for the CIA. He looked at Kendra and rolled his eyes.

Garrett continued with a hazy expression, “Don’t you see? The Siafu Moto changed everything. ”

“Why don’t you cut to the chase?” Paul said.

“Tell the general you were mistaken, that your pheromones cannot work.”

“Colonel, no disrespect—but fuck you.”

Kendra put a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “So you’re asking us to help destroy a city, kill thousands of people for a weapon that’s so unstable it should never have been developed in the first place?” She shook her head. “Forget it. In a couple of hours we’ll have enough formula to stop the bombing. We’ll kill these insects and your weapon will be lost forever.”

The colonel gave a rakish smile. “You think the president of the United States is going to change his strategy on a hunch? Unless you can prove your formula works, Operation Colony Torch will stand.”

Paul looked at the clock. They had less than two hours. No one said a word, until someone cleared his throat, and they all turned to the doorway.

“Operation Colony Torch is finished,” General Dawson announced. “The formula has been analyzed and approved by our scientists. They ran preliminary tests and they’re certain it will work.”

Kendra looked shocked. “I’m glad to hear that, General. But how can your scientists be so sure?”