The Colony

by A. J. Colucci

  Sarah swam under the bridge, taking erratic strokes. The icy water slowed her muscles, froze her lungs, and she sucked in small gasps of air. Faint moonlight beckoned her to the other side of the overpass. She was shivering like mad, but the sound had stopped for a moment. Out of fright, she dove underwater, but a moment later broke the surface.

  That’s when the floating beast surged toward her from every shore. She paddled back toward the bridge, teeth chattering so loud she couldn’t hear the strange sound anymore. Her legs retreated sluggishly in the mud until she was directly under the archway, hyperventilating and muttering to herself.

  Help me. Oh God, help me.

  A black speck fell onto Sarah’s cheek. She peered up at the bridge, no longer able to breathe, and a million ants rained down on her.

  CHAPTER 14

  “I’VE BEEN DOING QUITE a few experiments but getting nowhere.” Paul stood in front of a glass tank and pried off the lid, releasing the putrid odor of dead rat.

  Kendra peered into the tank, holding her breath. Swarms of ants smothered the remaining fur and flesh of a single rodent. They tunneled deep into its guts and black holes that used to be pink eyes.

  “Plain-old African Siafu,” said Paul, seeming less repulsed than Kendra. He sealed the lid tight. “As expected, they killed their prey in minutes. So what about this new species—Siafu Moto? Since I’m using rats in my experiments, we should get the same reaction.”

  He snatched an empty plastic tank off the counter, strolled to the back of the lab and stooped down in front of a small knee-high door. When he opened the latch, another pungent smell wafted into the room: cedar chips and food pellets. Inside the closet were a couple of metal cages filled with common white lab rats. He chose a fat one that nearly bit him before he dropped it into the tank.

  “Rattus Norvegicus,” he said. “A nice juicy one.”

  Paul brought it back to the counter and picked up a bottle of brown ants. He unscrewed the lid, dangling the bottle over the tank. “Now here’s what happens when you introduce a yummy meal to Siafu Moto.”

  Kendra gave a look of disgust as he poured the enormous ants over the rat. Nothing happened. A few took a leisurely stroll down the fur, but mostly they stood still. One ant crawled along the tail and was quickly eaten by the hungry rodent.

  “All the specimens have responded the same way,” he said. “They don’t eat or hunt. Just scurry around in a daze.”

  “Why don’t they attack?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” he said, raising a brow. “Ready for this? They don’t have alarm pheromones. I tested all of them for every pyrazine. Shook them till they were nearly dead, but not a drop of fighting chemical.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. They’re attacking people.”

  “None of this makes sense.”

  “So maybe the ants don’t communicate with chemicals.”

  “Actually, they carry all the other normal pheromones: primer, signal, trail, aggregation. Not to mention they have extremely sensitive antennae. I ran an EAG using trail pheromones and their response was off the charts.”

  Paul set up an electroantennogram by removing an antenna from one of the Siafu Moto. He lodged it between two electrode devices and sent the antenna a whiff of pheromone extract, secreted on a test strip. An enormous electrical activity registered. Paul tried it with other test strips. “As you can see, the antenna proves highly sensitive to all colony pheromones, as well as rat and human odors.”

  Kendra nodded. “So they have all the functions of normal ants, except they can’t attack.”

  “But they do attack.” His fingers tapped the glass tank, but it failed even to startle the docile ants. “Perhaps they’ve been designed to fight as a group, not individually—and only at tasks they were programmed for.”

  Programmed for? Kendra thought. Ants couldn’t be taught how to walk a straight line. They weren’t trainable. They acted on instinct and chemical secretions. Working for the needs of the colony, not some group of ecoterrorists, was an uncompromising principle ingrained in their DNA.

  “I know it’s crazy,” said Paul, reading her thoughts, “but I’m well past crazy. We have to assume they’ve done it somehow. Laredo and his scientists must have found a way to program behavior down to the DNA level.”

  “They just get freakier every minute,” said Kendra. “If only we had access to Laredo’s experiments.”

  Paul was thinking the same thing. He didn’t believe the army destroyed all the files on the Siafu Moto, and he couldn’t imagine the ants were created by ecoterrorists. The amount of time, money and resources would be enormous, and they would have employed the most brilliant entomologists in the world. Paul had never even heard of Dr. Laredo.

  Kendra cocked her head, thinking out loud. “The army claims they eat only rats and people, so maybe we can starve them. Kill off the rats and evacuate the people.”

  “Those ants are eating more than rats and people,” Paul replied. “I’ve been doing some digging of my own and I don’t like what I found.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. Not a single living thing.”

  Three days ago, Paul had enlisted the help of a buddy, Jack Carver at the USDA’s Department of Urban Entomology, and a bunch of his newfangled field study equipment. Paul regarded the older entomologist as the best in the business, next to himself. Jack was a laid-back kind of guy who had taken to wearing flannel, blue jeans and a canvas hat full of fishing hooks, to remind him that retirement was less than a year away. His white trailer had pulled into Battery Park, loaded with computers and a six-wheeled explorer, which looked vaguely similar to a Martian rover and was able to drill through pavement and quarry soil. Its robotic arms were equipped with life sensors and a video ANTCAM that gave close-up views of insect activity.

  The sun had set over the grassy field. Inside the trailer, Paul sat stiffly in a three-piece suit. Jack slouched at the control panel with his feet up, fishing hat over his eyes, peering down at the monitor as the explorer dug up the park lawn.

  A couple FBI agents had parked next to the trailer. They had been following Paul around for days, which annoyed him no end.

  Two other entomologists were assisting in the dig, young women who eyed Paul as though he were a god. They had read all his books, attended every lecture and followed Paul’s career as if he were some rock star. They kept sneaking glances while working the rover controls.

  “Don’t gawk, ladies,” Jack warned them. “Staring at such brilliance can burn your retinas.”

  They laughed, but Paul clenched his jaw in embarrassment. The last couple of weeks he had learned nothing useful about the ants. Having to call upon his most respected colleagues was grossly upsetting. Paul tried to focus on the video screen—the black silhouette of the New York City skyline, the floodlights and camera boom and heaps of dirt being lifted by the excavator and poured out in dusty heaps. Once the pit was three feet deep, the robotic arm lowered a life sensor. It could distinguish heat, movement, noise and chemical secretions at a micro level. Any living tissue would appear as an infrared glow, with colorful rings of red, yellow and blue. It could detect every worm and beetle, down to the smallest egg of a mite.

  The team was expecting to sift through a huge assortment of specimens. It was the time of year when all the parks would be teeming with an explosion of life: birds, tiny mammals and crawly things. They started in Battery Park at a spot known for its fertile soil. If they were lucky, the rover would unearth a Siafu Moto colony, possibly a coveted queen. At the very least, they hoped their intrusive equipment would coax the ants into an observable attack that might lead to an important discovery about their behavior.

  Everyone in the van was silent as the sensor moved slowly across the pit. It picked up good reception on the video screen. The rocky crust, dense soil and specks of glittery particles appeared in various tones of black, gray and white.

  That was it. No color. No Siafu Moto. No sign of life—anywhere.r />
  Jack bolted upright and scanned the pit, fumbling with the controls. “That’s astounding. In thirty years I’ve never come across lifeless soil. Not in any city we’ve studied.”

  “Keep digging, Jack.” Paul turned to his friend, pale-faced, eyes bloodshot. He hadn’t slept for three days and his hands were shaking.

  “You look like doo-doo,” Jack told him.

  “Just keep digging.”

  The excavator swung around and the robotic arm dug deeper into the soil, finally hitting bedrock. The life sensor showed no change in the image.

  “Not even a pill bug,” Jack gasped. “Impossible.”

  Paul gritted his teeth. “We’ll find another spot. It’s a big island. We can dig all night.”

  Jack shrugged. “You better cut me in on the reward, Kemo Sabe.”

  The trailer followed the rover all across Manhattan and the FBI agents followed the trailer. The ANTCAM was lowered again and again: Central Park, Bryant Park and all along the riverfronts. Each time they watched the image on the monitor Paul’s breath would stop with a sense of anticipation, but each time his hopes were dashed.

  Jack was flabbergasted. “A city with no bugs? This could destroy the whole ecosystem, maybe even collapse the town.”

  “We keep digging,” Paul insisted. The hours went on and Paul grew impatient, and then frantic. Worst-case scenarios filled his head and a feeling of incompetence he’d never known. It just wasn’t possible that he’d sat in a trailer all night, looking at nothing, knowing nothing and unable to answer the most basic questions about the ants.

  What the fuck?

  All week long these beasts were emerging, attacking New Yorkers, and yet he couldn’t find a single egg. He was chewing on white knuckles, staring at the black monitor, and began to wonder if this was some act of God. Perhaps this was personal. Some kind of punishment for dealing with the devil, looking for fame and glory under the guise of helping humanity.

  The women were staring at Paul, murmuring to each other with a look of concern, as he fell into the grip of a severe panic attack. He shot up like a rocket, threw open the trailer door and raced across the grass, his jacket and tie flittering in the wind. He headed for the rover, which was digging a wide pit.

  “Gosh darn it,” Jack bellowed. “Shut it down!”

  One of the women pulled the plug and the robotic arms dropped lifelessly.

  In wingtip shoes, Paul dove into the pit and burrowed frantically into the earth. The heat sensor picked up the warmth of his body and Jack watched Paul glow infrared on the monitor, arms flailing in blue, yellow and red rings like some demonic alien.

  Paul heard nothing but his own breath as he plowed through the cold, damp ground. He didn’t notice the headlights splash his face, the FBI agents getting out of the car or the sounds of doors slamming. His hands were raw and fingertips numb and he realized he’d hit upon a sharp object. Paul pulled up the skull of a small mammal, stopped only briefly to look at it, and then excavated a dozen more skeletons, all picked clean and gleaming white in the glare. He was panting hard, digging fiercely, and seemed completely unaware that he was muttering a sting of profanities.

  “Dr. O’Keefe!” someone shouted.

  Paul abruptly turned around, his chest rising and falling.

  In the headlights of the sedan was an FBI agent, legs spread wide, fists clenched at his sides. He had an authoritative voice. “Sir—could you get out of that hole? Please.”

  Paul sunk down in a pile of dirt. His trembling fingers cradled the skull of a rabbit. At his knees were the bones of numerous squirrels, moles, birds and a dog.

  “Paul?” Jack gazed down at his friend with kind eyes and held out a hand. “Get up, Paul.”

  * * *

  “You didn’t find a single ant?” Kendra asked. “I imagine the mayor loved that bit of news.”

  “Oh yeah.” Paul narrowed his eyes. “The ants must have tunneled down deep, but they’re in that soil, eating everything in sight.”

  “Why not just rats, like they were designed to eat?”

  “Like all living creatures, they learn to adapt.”

  “Well, you can’t eradicate a hundred million years of instinct in a twenty-five-year science experiment.”

  “There’s only one question we have to answer.” Paul strolled over to the tanks, thinking hard. He leaned over the Siafu Moto and tapped the glass again. “What makes them attack?”

  Kendra collapsed onto a stool with her elbows on the counter. She stared at the ants, palms pressed to her forehead. An idea was forming and she pondered it out loud. “For two years they’ve been dormant, living on rat meat and furry creatures. Now suddenly they’re surfacing, killing people. Why?”

  “Running out of food, perhaps.”

  “What if they’re just getting … antsy?”

  “Oh, that’s bad.”

  “Think about it. What makes ordinary Siafu surface?”

  Paul’s wheels were spinning too. He moved to the first tank, pointing a finger. “Siafu move out to hunt when the queen reaches full maturity. And then bam, first rainfall and they hit like a tidal wave, killing everything in their path.”

  “So if the queens mature this spring—”

  “They’ll hit all at once. Consuming a hundred thousand animal prey in just one night.”

  “You mean people,” Kendra corrected.

  “So let’s hope it doesn’t rain.”

  Kendra folded her arms at the disturbing thought. “Rain. The tides. The sun. It could be any natural trigger.”

  “Or we may be jumping to conclusions,” Paul rubbed his beard, looking doubtful. “Hopefully those reports tomorrow—”

  “Reports?” Kendra scoffed. “Reports are crap. The only way to destroy ants is by killing the queens.” She walked into the closet and emerged with two Bug Out suits, tossed them on the table. “That means we have to go find one.”

  “Too dangerous.”

  “Same old Paul.” Kendra sighed. “Try to think back to the actual work you did before you traded in your hiking boots for Italian leather.”

  Paul’s voice was steady, but the tips of his expensive shoes retreated beneath the table. “Field study without research is kids stuff, Kendra. It’s just playing in a sandbox.”

  “Well, I’ve been killing off colonies in that sandbox.” Kendra let out a breath of frustration. “Paul, listen to me. I’ve discovered a combination of pheromones that entices the workers into killing off the queens, and then killing off each other.”

  “Really?” he asked, sounding only slightly interested. “Pheromone manipulation is hardly new. It’s fraught with inconsistencies.”

  “It works, Paul. I focused on the queens’ chemicals instead of the workers’, and the entire colony responded. We wiped out nearly a dozen colonies in four months.”

  Paul’s expression told Kendra he wasn’t quite convinced.

  “I’m pretty sure if we can find a queen by daylight, we can create enough synthetic duplicate to blanket the city and destroy the ants in two or three weeks. Maybe sooner, if we get Jack and the USDA involved.”

  He narrowed his eyes, mulling over the proposition.

  “Are we here to kill ants or what?”

  “Of course,” Paul replied. “And I’d be more than happy to try your experiment, but capturing a queen is harder than finding a beetle in a haystack.”

  “Do you have any other ideas?”

  “Actually, yes.” He checked his watch. “We have a meeting right now with someone who might be able to locate those queens for us.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jeremy Rudeau.”

  Kendra was shocked. “Oh, Paul, you didn’t.”

  “Don’t blame me. The army wanted Jeremy on this.” He sounded defensive. “You think I’d bring you two together myself? Hopefully he can add something useful to our efforts.” Paul was suddenly vexed and started for the door. He glanced back at Kendra. “Coming?”

  She exhaled and w
alked with Paul to meet the man who had put the final nail in the coffin of their marriage.

  CHAPTER 15

  JEREMY RUDEAU HAD ALL the makings of a movie star. He was tall and broad-shouldered with high cheekbones that always looked sun streaked, a strong jawline and a mane of black wavy hair. His pale gray eyes picked up every color in the room like a prism and his deep baritone voice added nicely to the package. Yet it wasn’t just stunning good looks that sent Kendra’s heart pounding, as she walked into the conference room and found Jeremy talking to the mayor. Seeing Paul and Jeremy together felt like getting caught with her hand in a cookie jar.

  Jeremy paused midsentence and stood to greet them, extending a hand. “Paul, so good to see you.” He noticeably brightened and said, “Kendra, I didn’t realize you would be here as well. That’s wonderful, wonderful.”

  He leaned in to kiss her. It was the casual cheek kind, but she noticed Paul straighten. Kendra was well aware that Paul and Jeremy had been bitter rivals since prep school. At Georgetown they had competed in fencing and the debate team. At Harvard, they became associate professors of entomology and vied for department chair. They wrote scientific papers disproving each other’s theories. However, their biggest rivalry by far was Kendra. She had been dating Jeremy when she fell hard for Paul.

  “Glad you could make it.” Paul’s voice sounded strained.

  “Too happy to help, really. This is the craziest thing I ever heard.” Jeremy took his seat. “I was just about to explain the fundamentals of swarm intelligence to Mayor Russo.”

  The mayor waved a dismissive hand. “No offense, but you’re a computer guy. How do you plan to kill real ants?”

  “While it’s true I haven’t chosen the same route as Paul, studying ants down in the dirt,” Jeremy smirked, “I am quite a shark at catching them. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “Don’t be so modest, Jeremy.” Paul’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “You’re by far the leader in the field of ant tracking.” He turned to the mayor. “Jeremy uses computers to make simulated ants so he can figure out where the colonies nest. Sort of like a computer game developer. Really, he’s the best in the business.”