Ding. The elevator doors parted to the bright lobby, and the sound of Siafu Moto.
CHAPTER 35
THE COLONY POURED DOWN the stairwell like black torrential rain. Churning rivers of ants slid down the steps and dangled in ropes between the railings. A second army shot up from the basement and joined forces at the front entrance.
Paul stumbled to his feet and slammed the button to close the door. It didn’t. He knelt down and shook the backpack, scattering supplies all over the elevator floor. The gun spun into the corner. “We’ll have to make a run for it! As fast as we can! Right over them! Out the front door,” he said in rapid fire over the noise of the ants.
Kendra zipped her hood and grabbed the bug vacuum. She looked angry, revved up, raising her chin with defiance and pointing the nozzle straight ahead. She stepped out of the elevator. “Not without a queen.”
The drugs are making her loopy, Paul thought and flipped his hood. He followed Kendra into the lobby, but then retreated, still unnerved by her accident. Realizing there was no way he could chance losing her again, Paul took a breath and stepped out of the elevator, easing up behind Kendra.
She hit a button on the bug vacuum and the nozzle elongated.
The ants suddenly surged toward them like a tsunami.
Paul prepared for the most terrifying experience imaginable. He closed his eyes and knelt down with his hands on guard, but the suspense was too great. So he turned to Kendra, who was staring wide-eyed through the plastic window, unable to believe what she was seeing.
The ants parted. They broke into regiments and formed a wide ring around the two stunned scientists. The colony began circling them in unison.
New reinforcements filled the lobby and swarmed the elevator. The room darkened as ants covered the track lighting above and two lamps on a table. They spilled across sofas and chairs and a large framed wall mirror, where Paul briefly caught his reflection before it disappeared. The wallpaper, a pattern of pink roses, became black. He squinted through the plastic window of his hood. Beads of sweat covered his face and stung his eyes as he braced for the onslaught.
Just don’t panic, he told himself, hoping he didn’t do something crazy again, like rip off his suit. “Kendra,” he said aloud, “don’t panic!”
She wasn’t listening, but was intensely focused on the only corner in the room completely undisturbed by the crazed colony. A potted dwarf palm stood under the bright beam of a single bulb. Paul followed her line of vision and saw it too.
Kendra was staring at one leaf, and on that leaf, something was staring back.
The mammoth queen stood motionless, except for the slow snapping of her mandibles. It was her enormous size that made her so conspicuous, like the tail of a rattlesnake, along with her threatening stance, as if she were standing on hind legs, like the striking position of a praying mantis. The queen stretched her abdomen and opened her mandibles in a roar, as if straining to smell her prey through their thick white shells.
“Is that—?” Kendra signaled to Paul, pointing the bug vacuum at the plant.
He blinked away the sweat in his eyes. “It can’t be.”
“But it is,” she replied. “Just hold steady. We won’t see luck like this for the rest of our lives.” Kendra stepped forward, toward the queen.
The colony surged.
The assault was so quick Paul thought the ants magically appeared on him. He had barely sucked in a breath when they covered his legs. They swarmed the body of his white suit to the zippered neck without giving him a second to react. By the time Paul let out a gasp, they blanketed the head cover. The sound rang in his ears as they raced across the window, inches from his face. Paul staggered backward, crying out to Kendra, but he could see only bits of light between flurries of a thousand legs. The weight of the ants, over eighty pounds, was unexpected and he dropped to his knees. He managed to brush the window free long enough to see a five-foot mound of ants in front of him. Then he realized it was Kendra, encased by the colony.
Kendra staggered blindly toward the potted palm. She could feel the heaviness of ants on her shoulders and held tight to the insect vacuum while one hand frantically swatted the plastic window like a windshield wiper.
The queen was still perched on the leaf, undisturbed, mandibles wide open.
Kendra could no longer brush the multitude of ants away or hear her thoughts over the buzzing. A blanket of Siafu Moto smothered the suit, four inches thick. Her neck strained at the burden of the bloated hood. Unbalanced and disoriented, she fell to her hands and knees.
The suit became stifling and Kendra sweated in darkness, as tiny vents in the material sealed shut and the air inside thinned. She attempted to stand, but 130 pounds of excess matter clung to her body. At the same time she was losing strength, a rage was building inside her.
This is not how I’m going out. Adrenaline exploded through her veins and she reached behind her neck for the zipper, tearing the hood cover from her sweaty face.
Her eyes focused. The queen was right in front of her. Ants crawled up her hair and she raised the length of the vacuum, pressing the button. Suction whirled. They scurried across her neck as she aimed the nozzle.
Kendra sucked up the queen.
Instantly, she felt a rush of cold air as the intense weight lifted from her body. Brightness stung her eyes and she knew right away what was happening. Ants were pouring off the suit and the entire colony was vanishing. They scurried off lights and furniture, headed under doorways, down stairwells and into every nook and cranny in seconds. The room brightened. The wallpaper was once again pink. Kendra saw the reflection of her glistening face in the mirror.
Paul was sitting on the floor clad in white, peering out of the plastic window with terrified eyes. Kendra sank to the cool marble tiles beside him.
The two scientists sat dumbstruck all alone in deafening silence. Paul uncovered his soaking wet head. “What the hell just happened?”
Kendra held up the trapped queen. “We got her.”
“Great.” Paul looked at the tiny prisoner. “But what the hell just happened?”
“They disappeared,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense. The second we trapped the queen, the whole colony took off.”
Paul was silent, processing this information, wondering if it meant something useful.
Kendra studied the queen in the glass chamber and grimaced. There was more to this queen than anyone had been told. Her voice was laced with promise. “Maybe we just found our signal. Let’s get back to the bunker.”
CHAPTER 36
BY 9:00 A.M. MOBS OF civilians were making their way to the United Nations, drawn to a fleet of army helicopters that circled the roof, landing and taking off in quick succession. The streets became a surging human river, and Paul and Kendra were caught up in the current. They drifted with the crowd in every direction, bodies pressed together like floating debris. National Guardsmen had taken position around the perimeter of the building, visors down, rifles ready.
Swirling in a whirlpool of panicked refugees, Kendra felt someone grab her hair from behind. A couple of men were clawing at her white suit, yelling something with an accent. The larger one latched onto the dangling headpiece and pulled, choking Kendra around the neck, while the younger one, practically a kid, grasped her shoulder trying to unzip the back.
“Ant suit! Ant suit!” he cried “Give me, please—for my mum.”
“I’ll pay you!” the other man said and held up a wallet.
Paul tried to slap the men away, but the big one caught his gloves and tried to snatch those too. Paul looked back at Kendra, practically being strangled. “Unzip—!” He choked on his own words as the large man grabbed his hood as well.
Kendra punched her fist into the man’s face and he fell back, only to resume the fight.
Paul unzipped his own headpiece and the man grabbed it in his hand and ran, waving the white hood like a winning lottery ticket, leaving Paul angry and bewildered why anyone would want a
piece of an ant suit that was useless by itself. He ripped off his gloves and threw them at the youngster, who was still struggling with Kendra. The kid grabbed the mitts, equally excited, and took off. Another idiot, Paul thought.
The two scientists were still churning along the streets and were nearly separated trying to make their way to the entrance. Paul considered firing his gun, but these maniacs would probably try to steal that too. The mob reached the brink of the barricades but held back, seeming to sense if they came any closer, shots would be fired.
Paul and Kendra hurled themselves onto a walkway, where they spotted a soldier with sergeant stripes. Paul tried to explain that they needed to get inside the UN.
The young sergeant was dizzy with frustration, his crew cut soaked in sweat. His bellowing answer seemed to be directed at everyone. “The building is closed! Go back to First Avenue and head north to the park. There are helicopters landing and plenty of boats leaving by the Queensboro Bridge and Roosevelt Island.”
A strained voice broke through his walkie-talkie, shouting commands. The sergeant once again yelled to the crowd, “Please, folks! The ants are headed this way, they’ll be here any minute. You’ve got to get out of this area!” He threw his arms out to the crowd but no one moved.
“We need to get inside the bunker,” Paul demanded.
“What bunker?” The sergeant seemed genuinely clueless and Paul figured even at this crucial hour, not everyone was privy to the city’s secrets. He tried to explain, but the sergeant just shook his head, and then finally pushed his way through the crowd, escorting them to his commanding officer at the main entrance of the UN.
The moment Paul mentioned the underground bunker, the officer became alert. He slid both their ID tags through an electronic scanner and allowed them back into the building.
Paul and Kendra quickly retraced their steps through the cafeteria, down a hallway to the stairwell leading to the top floor. As they neared the roof, they heard the thunderous sounds of helicopter engines and shouts of commands.
Choppers were taking off from the blacktop, evacuating the last few civilians from the bunker. All of the UN delegates had been hastily assembled over the course of three hours and forced to make the three-hundred-foot climb up the ladder. Those physically unable were airlifted by a harness.
“That’s the last of them,” a captain shouted to the pilot and then scowled at the approaching scientists. “Where did you two come from?”
“We have to see General Dawson,” Paul said.
The captain vehemently shook his head. “Everyone is to be evacuated immediately. Those are the general’s orders.” He turned to the pilot, “Can you take two more?”
Kendra wasn’t about to board any helicopter. She broke for the hatch with Paul. The captain grabbed her arm. “Get your ass in this chopper, lady—now!”
Paul pushed the officer aside and reached into his bag. As the man drew his gun, Paul withdrew the queen, displaying it plainly. “Do you know what this is?”
“I have my orders, sir.”
“This is a queen ant. It may hold the key to killing off these insects. The general is waiting for it. Do you wish to keep the general waiting?”
The captain stared at the enormous ant for a long moment. “The last evac is coming at seventeen hundred. That’s five o’clock. You be on that flight.” He frowned at Paul and got into the helicopters with the others. The civilians buckled up, and he yelled to the pilot, “Let’s go!”
As the helicopter tore into the sky, Paul and Kendra headed for the bunker.
* * *
Kendra held tight to the rungs. The pounding in her head had returned, along with nausea and body aches. Below her wobbly legs, Paul stayed close, talking her down. They hit the dirt floor and collapsed against the bedrock, dirty, bruised and exhausted. Kendra clenched her chattering teeth. She could almost feel the poison still lingering in her body, a living surge of heat through her veins.
“You need another dose,” Paul said, fumbling through the backpack for his medical bag. “Something’s wrong. You might be falling back into shock.”
“Nothing is wrong. I haven’t slept for days. We took the Twilight Zone tour of the city. I missed being an ant hor d’oeuvre by two seconds.” She had other examples but the truth was, she felt terrible. Kendra stood up with a forced grin, refusing the shot and taking the medical bag from Paul. “I’ll be fine.”
They started through the bunker, but pretty soon she was losing strength and fell behind Paul as they headed toward the lab. She nonchalantly pulled an EpiPen out of the bag, pricked her arm with the needle and pinched her eyelids shut, imagining the chemicals filling her body.
This better work. If there were something to worry about, they would know soon enough. Meanwhile, there was no need to throw Paul into another anxiety attack. There was plenty of work to do and not a lot of time.
The Siafu Moto queen was bumping around inside the rucksack, not appreciating the hurried ride. For most of the trip, she’d scurried furiously around the glass. Having gotten used to the bottle, she appeared much calmer. Kendra imagined how long it would take to extract her pheromones and create enough serum to blanket a city. But would there be time to stop the colonies before they spread? Would her breakthrough research even work? She felt suddenly full of doubt and wondered how many other scientists were trying to come up with an antidote. What were they doing while she and Paul were scouting for a queen? Perhaps some entomologist in Australia, South America or right here in the United States had already found a solution or discovered there was none at all.
The hallways were eerily silent. The bunker was almost abandoned and there was no longer anyone running the city’s power, water and security systems. The heart of Manhattan had fallen under the order DO NOT RESUSCITATE.
Paul and Kendra reached the control room. It loomed empty, like a forgotten cathedral shrouded in darkness, except for the flickering blue screens overhead. Mayor Russo slouched at a podium in a rumpled black suit, looking solemn and somewhat befuddled, like a minister who had lost his parishioners.
His hoarse voice was barely a whisper: “The ants are moving across bridges and tunnels. The president has given orders to speed up the evacuation of New York, destroy all passages to Manhattan and bomb the island with nuclear missiles. We have just hours left.”
Kendra gasped, “You can’t be serious.”
Russo had a far-off gaze. “Tens of thousands of people are still out there. Some of them badly injured. This city…” His voice trailed off. “Everything is moving so fast.”
“Where’s Dawson?” Paul snapped.
The mayor shrugged. “The decision has already been made.”
Paul put the queen into Russo’s hand. “Maybe this will change their minds.”
The mayor looked down at the ant and folded his hand around the bottle. He turned to Paul and Kendra, steely-eyed. “Follow me.”
CHAPTER 37
PAUL AND KENDRA SPENT the next thirty minutes in the laboratory setting up computers, analysis equipment and preparing the queen for the painstaking operation. The extraction and isolation of her pheromones would not be an easy task, and it had to be performed perfectly. The slightest error would result in failure.
News of the queen’s capture was met with guarded optimism. Mayor Russo stood anxiously behind the scientists, listening to them exchange concerns as they began the procedure. General Dawson, too, regarded Kendra’s every move like a hawk, recording the entire undertaking with some hand-held military device. The general had bought them some time by delaying the bombing operation till 6:00 P.M.
Colonel Garrett watched impatiently from the back of the room, his expression grim. “Assuming the experiment fails, there will be a helicopter landing on the roof at eighteen hundred,” he warned. “We will all be on it.”
Kendra noted the clock on the wall read 1:45. They were in good shape. It would take about an hour to extract the correct pheromones and come up with the molecular struc
ture. The formula would be handed off to Jack Carver at the USDA, where the queen’s scent would be synthesized and mixed with a metric ton of a soybean oil base. It would take another hour to load the aircrafts that would fly over the city and drop their loads. There was no doubt they’d be cutting it close, but certainly the planes could reach the city by nightfall.
The thrashing queen had been calmed inside a cooler and placed under a microscope. Kendra handled the insect with utmost care, as strictly instructed by Colonel Garrett. The queen must be kept alive, he told her. As the last of her kind in captivity, she was vital to national security.
Kendra used a syringe to withdraw liquid from her poison sac, where the queen-recognition pheromone was located. In their haste, Paul could only conduct a speedy exam of the queen’s morphology—and she was outstanding. Everything about her was enormous and strangely different from any normal insect. A quick ultrasound showed her brain size to be at least one hundred times larger than any other ant’s on earth, and Paul found himself wondering if any intelligence lurked inside that cranium.
“Ridiculous,” he mumbled.
“What?” Kendra asked.
“She’s ridiculously large.”
“She’s lovely,” Kendra replied, carefully depositing the drop of venom into a vial with solvent for analysis. Within fifteen minutes, the mass spectrometer software was able to distinguish the correct compound from other substances in the poison sac by comparing them to a library of all possible monounsaturated compounds related to known pheromones.
“We’ve got it,” she said, downloading the data.
Jeremy entered the room. “Can I help?”
“We’ve just isolated a pure version of the queen’s recognition pheromone,” she told him. “We could use another computer.”
“What can I do? Just tell me,” he said eagerly.
Paul handed him a flash drive. “You can send this over to Jack Carver at the USDA.”
“Good old Jack,” Jeremy chuckled. “He still around?”
The Colony Page 17