by Anthology
I drank coffee as I mulled my options. I could divert my research into the necessary area to gain the knowledge I needed, but it would take months. Now Daddy was finally here, I didn’t intend him to leave until he was fixed. The thought of lugging him home again made my pulled muscle throb, despite the painkillers. I wanted him to walk out on his own, at my side. I wanted Mum to find him waiting for her when she got back from Scotland. My years of patience had run out. He was here, in a laboratory that had all the necessary means to cure him, and I was damned if he was going back in the cupboard.
I knew I only had one choice, but that didn’t stop me wrestling with it. My focus had been so intent I’d barely noticed what others in the lab were working on, but I knew that marked me as unusual. We were all ambitious, but my goals were personal. My fellow scientists would kill for a look at this magnificent piece of machinery. But if I didn’t ask for help, that’s all my dad would ever be.
I finished my coffee, took a deep breath, and phoned a colleague.
***
Mark’s jaw dropped when he saw my workbench.
“You never said you were working on something like this.” Awe permeated his voice.
“I’m not. He’s broken. I can fix part of the problem, but I need your help with the microprocessors.”
He seemed at a loss for words. “Where did you get this?!”
“Mark.” I made him look at me. “He’s my dad.”
For a long moment, he just stared at me. I met his gaze squarely and turned my monitor around so he could read the diagnosis.
“Why me?” His voice was hushed. “Why not Susie, or James? They both have the experience you need.”
“Yes. But so do you.”
“I’m flattered. Believe me. I’m just stunned that you’d give me this opportunity. I’ve only ever dreamed of seeing one of these up close. An android with living consciousness…and he’s your father? That’s…a colossal amount of trust to put in a direct rival.”
I took a deep breath. It was a risk, but I hadn’t chosen him at random.
“There’s no one else I’d trust with this. I can’t fix him on my own.” I could only hope he’d help me for the right reasons, but it was a gamble I had to take. Maybe he’d demand to experiment on Daddy, or expose my advantage and give others a reason to dimiss my real achievements as a mere rehashing of previous technology. It wouldn’t be true, but it would be enough to tarnish my career.
Either way, Daddy would be mended.
Mark stared at Daddy’s immobile frame. He touched his cold face and looked up at mine, as if noticing the resemblance between the artificial and the organic.
I met his eye again. “Please. He’s been broken for fourteen years.”
He set his shoulders as he reached a decision. “We’ll need parts. Very expensive parts.”
“I know. I have the funds.” Labour costs and lab hire were no longer an issue.
I wanted to ask if he’d sell me out. I wanted to know if he would ask for permanent access to Daddy in return for his assistance. But I couldn’t get the words out. What would I do if he said ‘yes’ to either question? There was no turning back, not now that I was this close. I decided I’d rather not know.
Mark and I didn’t leave the lab all weekend. We pilfered the parts from other projects and I ordered identical replacements. I told Mark all about Daddy, but I don’t think he believed in Daddy’s successfully-transferred consciousness until late on Sunday evening.
Everything was back in place and Daddy lay face up on my bench. I activated the power supply and closed his torso panel. Mark and I held our breath. Several tense seconds passed. And then my daddy opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Bethy?” He squinted and turned his head, clearly trying to orient himself. “Beth, is that you?”
It was like a tight string snapping inside me. My knees buckled and then there were strong, familiar arms around me, keeping me from collapsing, holding me up. I clutched him like I was five years old again and sobbed into his shoulder as he held me. He was warm, and real, and alive, and he was holding me all on his own.
When I finally looked at Mark, his eyes were glistening with tears.
“Mark, this is my dad.”
Mark and Daddy shook hands, though I could see Daddy was still befuddled. “It’s an honour, Mr Landry.”
“Where am I, Beth? You…you’re grown.” He cupped my face. “You’re a woman. What happened to me?”
I sat him down and told him everything. He had no memory of breaking down and no knowledge of time passing since. I was grateful that no part of his consciousness had been active. He didn’t recall the dark, dusty cupboard.
He hugged me close for a long moment. “Thank you. Thank you so much, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you. I can’t even express it.”
“You don’t have to. You’re here. That’s more than enough for me.”
He pulled away and looked at me in earnest. “Where’s Mum? Is she here?”
I smiled, imagining her joy. “She’s not expecting this. I didn’t want to get her hopes up.” I video-called her on my mobile and made sure she was sitting down before I passed the phone to Daddy.
“Hi, love,” he said. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Mum’s end, and then nothing for a long moment, and then crying.
I took Mark aside to give them some privacy. He and I both needed rest; I could see he wanted to get home.
“I’m in your debt, Mark. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He shook his head with a smile. “You don’t owe me anything. The chance to see him up close, to work on him, to actually meet someone like him in person…I should be thanking you.”
I felt the last shred of tension leave me. He was referring to Daddy as a real person. The way I’d always seen him. I somehow knew then that Mark wasn’t about to turn my lifelong secret to his advantage.
I took his hand. “Thank you. For everything.”
“He’s your dad. I’m sure you’d have done the same if it had been my old man lying on the table.” He looked down at the floor. “I wish I had that chance. My dad died five years ago. Go make up for lost time with yours.”
Before I could say anything, he gently nudged me in Daddy’s direction and picked up his things to leave.
“Any time you want to sit and talk with him, I’m sure he’d be happy to,” I called after him.
He just turned and smiled at me, one friend to another.
Frank Wu
http://www.frankwu.com
Season of the Ants in a Timeless Land(Novelette)
by Frank Wu
Originally published by Analog magazine, November 2015.
I. JOSHUA
Surrounded by foes, Zoe raised her weapon on high, bringing it crashing down, slaughtering a dozen enemies in one blow.
No, Zoe Rhodes was not a killer robot with concussion hammer fists, or a Mayan warrior with spear and atlatl.
She was a fifth generation Australian sweet corn farmer, with farmer’s tan to prove it. Her weapon was a square-headed shovel. And her quarry was the riot of ants, swarming and pooling at her feet.
“Bloody stinkin’ ants!” she screamed.
Her voice boomed over the rows of corn. Hers was a modest but smooth-running factory farm. Computers monitored the phosphate and saline. GPS helped plot efficient paths for harvesting. Her corn was healthy, the leaftips green, the silks dry and brown.
And into her orderly, pastoral domain trampled multi-legged chaos.
Ants!
Zoe stood between the stalks, feet shoulder-width apart. She inhaled deeply, clenching the shovel’s D-handle. Then she slammed down the blade, letting out another war cry.
“Not! On! My! Farm!”
Her strike left a square dent in the soil, studded with a dozen dead ants.
Victory!
She was grinning like a shot fox, but only for a moment. Like water re-filling a footprint on the beach, ants flowed back into the shovel print.
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The ants carried on their business, ignoring the crushed bodies of compatriots, ignoring the killing thing falling from the sky, ignoring Zoe’s war cries.
She cursed, picked up her sore ego, and slammed the shovel down again and again, crushing dozens and dozens more.
“You can’t kill them all!” a voice called from across the field. “At least, not like that!”
Two figures were approaching, a medium-sized man and a large, tall woman.
The oddest thing about them was their footgear. Zoe had tucked her jeans into her socks, but she was covered with ants. These two wore boots like white Santa Claus boots, topped with a thick fur cuff. The ants couldn’t make it north of the fur. So they walked without swatting themselves.
Clearly, they knew what they were doing.
The man held out his hand. “Hey there, I’m Dr. Todd McDaniels, myrmecologist.”
“G’day, mate,” Zoe said, shaking his hand with a very strong grip. “Welcome to Oz. You’re that ant scientist they sent from America?”
“Yup,” Todd said. “And this is Shyla Lethbridge, an entomology grad student at Adelaide.”
“You can call me ‘Shorty,’” the tall girl said, without a hint of irony.
“G’day.”
“G’day.”
“I’ve traveled all around the world fighting ants,” Todd said, mighty chuffed with himself. “From Lebanon to the Euphrates to the setting of the sun…And I was just in Mexico City. Really crowded subways, everything and everyone covered with ants.”
“So what did you do?” Zoe asked.
“Oh, we got them with a designer myrmicide,” Todd said. “A phenylpyrazole derivative, laced with—-”
“That won’t work here!” Zoe protested. “This is a farm, mate! No unauthorized pesticides!”
“So for you,” Todd said, “I’ve got something special. No insecticides. No residues.”
“Right-oh!” Zoe said. “Then let’s get crackin’!”
“In a moment!” Todd bent down. “First, study the enemy…” From his jacket, he pulled a small clear plastic vial with a built-in mag lens.
He caught an ant scout and dissected her with his mind. Reddish head and thorax. Black gaster, with flashes of purple and green. Only one petiole segment in front of the abdomen, which terminated in a slit without a stinger. His mind flipped through the catalog of eleven thousand known ant species. The shapes of the eyes and mouthparts confirmed his analysis.
After only ten seconds, he had completed the biologist’s most foundational but most complex task: species identification.
Proudly, he announced, “This is a subspecies of Iridomyrmex purpureus.”
Shorty and Zoe shrugged.
“Common meat ants.”
A strange expression passed over Zoe’s face, which Todd read as a mix of relief and disappointment.
The disappointment, Todd figured, was that they would not be defeating a more deadly foe. Australians, he had discovered, had a strange pride in surviving in a land where everything was trying to kill you—from crocodiles to snakes to giant spiders.
These weren’t fire ants, or jack jumpers, which leap from the ground to bite you in the backside. No, just common ants. Yes, they would beat them. But where was the glory in that?
“You know, I’ve been killing ants all day.”
Todd and Shorty shook their heads.
“An ant hill is like an iceberg,” Shorty said. “Most of it’s underneath, where it can’t be seen. A queen might pump out a hundred eggs a day. And a colony might have half a dozen queens.”
Todd added, “No matter how many you kill, they’ll just make more ants.”
Todd and Shorty nodded at each other.
“Then let’s get started!”
In the verge, the grass strip between road and field, Todd picked an ant hill for the first test. This subspecies made a cone-shaped mound, about a foot wide and half a foot wide. It was reinforced with mud made of dirt and ant spit, hardened in the sun. The area immediately around it was cleared. Ants had killed the grass by injecting formic acid, then chopped up the bits and carried them away.
Todd re-parked the truck, which Shorty called a ute, closer to the mound. Together, they unloaded a generator, a hot water tank, and several aluminum lances, each about five feet long.
“We’ll be killing the ants with boiling hot water.” Todd handed Zoe a stopwatch. “This is very important. When I say so, count off, every ten, fifteen seconds. What we’re gonna do, we have to do within a minute, or we fail.”
Todd and Shorty positioned themselves about three feet from the mound, on opposite sides. Each held a lance. The pointed tip, against the ground, was threaded like an auger. The near end was clamped in a power drill, with a quick release chuck.
Everyone was ready.
“Before we go,” Todd said, “I have a somber little ritual I started in Bolivia.” From the top of his shirt, he pulled a small plastic cross. It was painted gold and encrusted with fake jewels. “A little boy gave this to me, and he reminded me that ants are magnificent little machines. A symbol of industry, a fount of biodiversity, an endless source of marvel and mystery. But, unfortunately, we can’t have them here.” He kissed the cross, looked down and whispered, “I’m sorry, little guys.”
After a moment of silence, he steeled himself and said, “Ready?”
Zoe and Shorty nodded.
“OK, ready, set, go! Start the timer!”
Todd and Shorty flew into action.
Within seconds, Todd had drilled his pipe almost all the way down, leaving only a few inches above ground. Then, with one practiced move, he picked up another lance with the toe of his boot and flicked it into the air. He caught it mid-air, swung it around and screwed it onto the first pipe, slapping the drill onto it.
“Time!” he shouted.
“15 seconds, mate!”
Shorty had her first lance in, but was struggling with the extender. It made an audible twang and bent in the middle. The power drill almost leapt from her hand.
“I’ve hit something! A rock or—-”
“Forget it!” Todd shouted. “Move on!”
“25 seconds!”
Todd finished his extender and then rushed to help Shorty complete a full-length probe.
“35!”
“We have two good ones in—let’s hope that’s enough!”
“Hook up the hoses!”
Shorty jumped around the mound, snap-fitting hoses onto pipes, including the bent one.
“Time?”
“45!”
“Are we set?”
Shorty tugged at the hoses, checking the connections.
“Shorty!”
“50!”
Shorty flew from the mound, hands over her face. “Clear!”
Todd threw a switch on the water tank and the hoses twisted and writhed. Boiling water pulsed through the connectors, through the probes and deep into the mound.
“Time?”
“Just under a minute!”
Steam rose from the ruins of the ant hill.
Deep underground, ants were drowning by the thousands.
“So what was the point of this?” Zoe held up the stopwatch.
“Ants don’t care much about vibrations on the surface.” Todd kicked the generator. “But once you start drilling into their nest, they know something’s up. They don’t know what. Maybe they think it’s an anteater or pangolin. But their first instinct is to move the queen to safety. We got to get in there before they do.”
“Did we?”
“We’ll see.”
A few minutes later, a small dark spot appeared at the base of the mound. A single droplet of water appeared, then was re-absorbed. Then a trickle of water broke through.
A breach in the wall formed, and a rivulet ran out, hot, steaming.
And full of ant bodies.
Perhaps, though, they were merely stunned. Todd poked the ants with a stick. Yup, they were dead.
; “Ace!” Zoe exclaimed.
“Now, we wipe them out, mound to mound.”
“Bonza, mate!” Zoe clapped her hands. “Quick question, though. What are you pumping in there? Smells like…lager.”
“It’s just water.” Todd sniffed the air. Then he tasted the muddy water running out of the mound. “Must be washing out. You know, some ants are farmers like you. Some grow fungi for food. Some grow Aeromonas bacteria to make oxygen. These are apparently growing yeast. Maybe getting a buzz off the alcohol. Weird. I’ve never seen that in this species before—-”
“Cooee!” Shorty called out, pointing at the mound. “Over here!”
The rivulet running from the mound had coughed up a lump. It wasn’t a clod of mud, but dead ant bodies, riding the surface tension. It was a carefully assembled raft, the ants linked one to another, mandible clamping to leg or antennae. They were all drowned, except the one they had sacrificed themselves for. This one paced back and forth on the raft, walking on the heads of her dead sisters.
“Oh no,” Shorty said.
A second, larger clump rode the stream, out of the wrecked mound. It, too, was a tangled mass of linked ant bodies. As the water petered out, it grounded on dry land. The ball unfolded, revealing a single live ant in the center. It was larger than the others, its abdomen distended, with white lines clearly delineating the segments.
“They saved a queen!” Todd shouted.
“It’s like an escape pod, made of ants!” Shorty said.
“I thought they all carked it!” Zoe said.
As they watched the queen ant drag herself toward safety, Todd mumbled to Zoe, “Maybe it is time for your shovel, after all.”
Zoe used her shovel.
Then Shorty asked, “So, what do we do now?”
“I could have a go at the pipes, too,” Zoe said. Having grown up fixing tractors and disc harrows, she was quite mechanically inclined.
“Yeah,” Todd considered. “With three of us drilling, we should be able to put in enough lances.”
***
Half an hour later, all three were dancing around another ant mound. Metal probes flew through the air, as Todd counted aloud, One Mississippi, Two Mississippi.