The advanced sentry post towers around the 47th weren’t as tall as the ones around the 43rd city. They were barely as large as an average grass shoot, making them almost indistinguishable from far. While we build high and few, the termites seemed to find the solution to build small and many as a much better alternative. It didn’t make sense to my young mind, but Bella would have had much to add to my contemplation had I asked, but I was more worried about something else.
How many termites were there? Because my heart wanted me to save my friends and was on a war against my brain that wanted me to go to the city, meet the citizens, get my answers, and finish my mission. The friends could come next. But I knew that wasn’t true. I could accomplish one goal and the security at the other will tighten enough to make it mission impossible.
We could either save my friends, my companions who had believed in my mission and Princess Tinbuji’s concerns; or search the elusive rock city, Door-Darshan-Ji, for answers I had been through hell and back, again and again.
Choosing one meant abandoning the other. The dilemma was torturous. It was Friends over society. Present versus the future. The queen would have asked me to pursue the present. She would have something like: The illusory future captivates so that we forget how dazzling and absolutely marvelous the preset is. She talked like that. That was the issue she had raised to deny Princess Tinbuji’s help the first time around.
Princess would surely— she wasn’t heartless enough to give up on her friends was she? How could I doubt that? Hadn’t she tried to stop me? Hadn’t she?
What are you doing there with your abdomen? Are you self-servicing? Well, come on, now. The patrol has passed. We can leave. Bella didn’t know. Hence she could still make jokes. But when I told her she left the decision to me. Your mission, your choice, She said. That’s all the help she offered.
Even greed didn’t care. It was happy with whatever I chose. It was a win-win situation for it.
In the end, I chose to save my friends. I— can’t abandon them. I told Bella. I chose to save and tried to justify it with reasons and excuses.
I couldn’t dare lift my head. Eyes watched the grains of dirt beneath my feet that made the ground. What happens if you take away a handful of grains? You are left with a hole. What if you take away all of them? The foundation crumbles and you are left with nothing to stand upon. I was choosing the latter by giving up on my goal, the destination I had given so much for.
I had chosen to look away; like the time I was forced by the workers union to abandon my digging method. I thought I had changed. I thought, I thought I was no longer the same ant. But deep down I was still the same —a coward.
Break free!
I can’t!
Break free!
You are not giving up! The voice in my head bellowed. The ember glowed with a spark hot and bright. You can do this. You are not the same. You wouldn’t have gone against the frog, or taken the mantle for the chick if you hadn’t changed! You wouldn’t have saved your precious Madhuri, and you went against the hisser, didn’t you. And you did it all alone.
Alone—
It clicked. The word brought me back to my feet. I started moving and then running. I was going alone. I had done it before. I—
Oye, what’s wrong? Bella asked.
I’m doing it. I was too confident, too invested. I couldn’t even see her. My eyes were already on the prize. I was so excited about coming up with the path with no regrets that I had forgotten to tell Bella her role in my solo plan.
What are you doing now? Are you running away? I don’t think Barry will like it much if I told him that a few torn limbs and empty eyes had you shaking like a witless brush, and scared you into abandoning the job what you had set out to do.
No. I pushed my face right against her. Where was this rush coming from? Whatever the case, it was working! I’m saving them, my companions. I pushed the pheromones out of my antennae, a whole bucket load of them. They gave me their faith. I have to return the favor.
That’s good and all, but why are you in such a hurry. Were you going to leave me behind?
NO. You-you will go to the city. Shading hell, I forgot to tell you. I want you to go alone. We won’t abandon anyone. We will get them both. Greed won’t get the last laugh?
I was so excited at the prospect that I had almost forgotten the other side of the story: the reason she was with me in the first place. But I already had one leg out and the rest in motion; there was no stopping me now.
Greed? What’s that? Bella said. I really want to hit you on the head and take you back so Barry can have some words with you, but I like this train of thoughts. I can have some fun if I’m to do this alone. Tell me more.
And we planned. We spent a long-long minute planning the ins and the outs, the dos, and don’ts. Time slows down when you know what you are doing when you have a plan, and when your partner is as stupid as you.
So we decided that she would go to the rock city because there was no way I was making it here all alone. We didn’t know but our fate was written the moment we made the choice. The only thing left to do was for us to get into motion and play our roles as we had decided.
I told her everything she would need to know to find survivors.
If the city’s compromised, which it most likely is, then the survivors will be at the center of the city inside the vault, that’s the queen's chamber.
I’ve never been to one. It’ll be exciting. I heard all your queens are so fat and bulbous that they can’t even move. Is that right?
I ignored her commentary. Actually, it didn’t even register in my mind. That’s what happens when you are too focused on something. It’s not good to be too enthusiastic. It would have been bad if Bella was only all talk and no bark.
I continued. The city might be different with no towers and hidden constructions, but there is no way they changed the queen chamber. It will be protected and impenetrable from the outside. They won’t allow you in, even if you have my sent, but I want you to have it, in case the situation isn’t as hopeless as I’m assuming.
She’d need my scent to convince the survivors that she was a friend —if there were any survivors. We were banking on the positive— so I gave it to her. Even though she could exploit it, but from what I had seen I knew she didn’t need such an underhanded method. Subterfuge was reserved by the weak.
I’m a wasp. I have my pride. She let me know when she saw me hesitate.
They will fear you. I told her. They won’t open the vault. Don’t let them. Ask them what happened. When the termites arrived and what was the message that the ant marked 171113, (first-generation, 3rd lay and number 7111) carried. Ask them if the mother city is in danger, and anyway, we can help them.
What if I find only termites inside and no ants? Bella asked. Do you want me to kill them?
No. I didn’t let the thought take hold. We had much to accomplish. I didn’t have time for self-doubt. There will be some survivors. I told and pressed as if repeating the same words would turn them into truths. The nurses would have tried to save as many eggs as possible. And if we aren’t too late, they will be alive down their somewhere, feeding on the eggs and waiting for a chance to pass on the news of the cities fall.
As for her other offer, I refused it. Please, don’t put your life in danger. Come back if you find no ants. I don’t want to lose you and Barry needs you.
The last bit just escaped from me and it humored her.
She asked me what I was planning and I told her about the scent trail that led toward the advanced post. Seeing as how there was no scent of death or pain lingering inside the burrow, chances were they had only been taken captive.
I’m going to infiltrate the advanced post. I told her and she stood up a bit straighter, eyes sharper. Her antennae twitched. She was uncertain.
Do you want to go alone? She questioned, buzzing to reason. I knew she had much to say, but she stopped herself. For the first time, I saw her being concerned. Even Madhuri’s condition hadn’t baffled her so.
You won’t let me come with you? She asked when I didn’t respond.
I shook my head. You know I can’t let you do that. We both have to act at the same time. It’s the only chance we’ll get. I want to do it right.
Besides, I started, the scent trail—
She interrupted and finished the sentence for me. The scent trail could be bait for a fool to give his life. I shivered at the thought. Anyways, she buzzed to annoyance and then to contemplation. I thought she was going to reject my offer, but she had news for me.
Since we are already doing this, She said. How about I help you get inside first.
My antennae stood erect. I was interested. How?
She buzzed to mischievousness. Didn’t you say the termites attacked your city from the west to distract your forces?
I almost jumped up in elation. Are you proposing—
Yes, She slapped me on the back with an antenna, and gave a hearty dose of signals that screamed danger in my mind and sent a shiver down my spine? She was planning something big, bad, and ugly. I knew from the way her abdomen quivered that she was excited, and not many things excited her.
Let’s give them a flavor of their own brain matter.
That’s not the saying—
Oh, who cares. Are you in or not?
Let’s do this.
She left the burrow ahead of me and went exactly in the direction opposite to the advanced post I was targeting. The termites didn’t create their posts tall, but there were many of them spread across the territory.
She needed to choose the perfect place to act so our target group was alerted first. I was not worried about her. She planned to distract the patrolling guards and then rush for the 47th city.
The termites shouldn’t be able to make the connection. But I planned to be quick so there were no mishaps.
The alarm rose.
ENEMY! WASP! WEST: BETWEEN W7 AND W8!
And it repeated over and over again, spreading and moving with the wind, alerting the patrolling sentries and opening my path.
They rushed past the burrow, antennae straight and heads vibrating in a low warning. They were pulling away from everyone, even those on the lookout over the grass blades. Did they not care about the chaos being a distraction? Did they not even think about it? Perhaps they had so few ground encounters that they didn’t know about the concept. Or they were worried about something? What? About the city's retaliation? It was too late for that.
Whatever the case, their poor coordination meant I would have an easier time sneaking past the patrolling sentries. However, the numbers congregating in the west did get me worried for Bella’s safety. I hoped she’d see the termites coming before they had her surrounded. The city was our goal, not mutual destruction.
The ground vibrated regularly; I waited for the termites to pass. It was all the same for sensitive hearing. Anyone could feel the vibrations, heavy or soft, low, or high, but only a handful few knew how to read them, to know the information that vibrations contained. It was a sense lost to most. I would have missed so many things had the aged warrior not beaten it into me.
The skill was bound by range, however. Still, it allowed me to read the position and the numbers that passed overground. I had counted one hundred and the termites were still going strong. Bella really needed to get her to move on. It would be a lost fight soon. The termites might mean nothing to her, but they could shoot a jet of acid from their foreheads. A few shots connected at the wrong place would easily injure her, too.
I left the burrow as soon as the ground stopped rumbling. The wind had blown the alarm east. Hopefully, it wouldn’t cause her too much problem.
Since the sun was right over my head, the shade was lighter and shadows all scrunched up at the foot of the grass shoots.
There was a time when the rock lying in front of me would have seemed an obstacle to cross; it still did, but now I knew I could hide behind it. I did hide behind the rock when I saw a soldier rushing directly toward me. The scent of death masked me. I would have problems once I was out of the battlefield, but until then I didn’t need to worry about anything thing other than hiding.
I rolled into a ball and the termite passed by without noticing anything unusual. There was no need to butt heads unnecessarily.
But the area wasn’t all empty. Some of the sentries had remained, and they were vigilant. That time Bella might have simply tried to test me by joking about a termite on the grass blade, but I saw one right outside. It was a royal male with infrared eyes and was looking directly in my direction.
I waited for him to turn, but a gust ruffled through the shade before that. It was enough distraction for me to sneak past. I hid behind a piece of old and dried broken branch to see if he had noticed me, or had turned. He showed no interest and I pushed deeper.
I had to climb a grass blade and lie flat when a patrolling party of seven went past me. They were scared for some reason and kept looking in the direction where Bella had caused the commotion. Did they fear the disturbance to reach them? Just what had happened here? Ultimately Bella would have some answers for me, but for now, I needed to get into that advanced tower and do my part.
However, the patrols doubled from there. The difficulty rose substantially. I really missed Bella; she would have swished and swooshed me over and under the crevices and grass shoots, not letting anyone know. It was not easy to keep my senses spread out for such a long time. It was exhausting to simply keep my eyes focused, but to have my senses spread and antennae searching for signs of termites approaching was just cruelly painful.
I dug into the dirt to hide from another party. My heart thrummed deeply when one of them stopped right next to me, antennae vibrating. She had found something. I prayed to the shade to help me out this time. I was a goner, otherwise.
What is it? Her friends asked, but she couldn’t explain what she had found and was called back but the leader of the patrolling unit. I finally relaxed when they disappeared somewhere to my left.
Just where were they hiding so many of them? It was like a whole battalion was out in the field for training or something. And to think Bella had so easily led me around them when they were still spread out and not distracted. Respect rose instantly for her.
If I was to believe the connection I had shared with the termite back in the city, then there were millions of them living in that giant tree in the middle of nowhere. If even a portion of them had made it to the 47th city; now that’s what you call a nightmare.
However, Just a bit further up and I had to confront one of them. She was refusing to budge from her position and standing right outside a white hollow something that really looked like a buried skull of something gigantic. I neither doubted nor accepted the thought. What it was but an excellent place to hide and make a dash for the dried bush a bit further up, that’s it. There was no need to needlessly add emotions to landmarks I was not going to visit again.
I charged right at the termites and carried her right into the fake skeleton. I got up covered in her blood; she didn’t. I looked around for trouble, but no one had noticed anything. I cleaned myself, rubbed some dirt back on my body, and charged for the bush.
I would have left a giant trial in my wake had I not been thorough with the cleaning.
The bush was dry and made sounds as I picked my way through it, careful as I was I still was but an amateur. I peeked through it; the tower lied just up ahead. To think I made it so far, Bella would be proud. And ready to point out the mistake I had made on the way, the situations I could have avoided, and the time I had wasted. There was probably no getting around that.
I was getting ahead of myself. There was still much to do.
The advanced post was definitely a termite creation. It was short, wide, and oval; not the geometry that an ant would choose.
Ten winged males surrounded the post, keeping watch. A group of four covered the entrance. I saw two groups of ten patrolling nearby.
This was too much protection for a single sentry post. They were treating it like a Queen’s antechamber chamber.
One thing was sure: the termites didn’t know how to use an advanced post. They were having the sentries protect the construction, instead of it being the other way around. It looked pretty amusing to my ant brain.
But the trail led directly into the post. Most surprising was its consistency. There were no signs of struggle, panic, or alert and alarm. I did, however, detect confusion from both the trail and the guards. It wasn’t actually even a trail, just the leftover emissions of a group that had passed through. Just what had caused a group of ants to casually walk into an enemy lair without a hint of struggle?
However, everything ended when an alarm rose into the air behind me. A group stood there, proud. The female soldier who I thought I had evaded stood beside the leader; her gait was confident and mandibles snapping.
That wasn’t all. The patrolling squads that covered my left and right were slowly closing in. I was trapped. It was laughable. However, the entrance was only blocked by four soldiers. Inside would be narrow tunnels and closed chambers. I could make a stand in there. And the others were also inside, somewhere. Together we could hold off the termites until Bella returned from the city. She would come for sure once she knew I wasn’t back yet.
I had a plan.
I pushed for the entrance.
I charged right through the guards but found myself in a wide antechamber with even more soldiers waiting for some action.
The termites outside blocked the exit, while the ones inside slowly approached me, antennae pointed and heads vibrating in a warning.
Don’t do anything reckless. Don’t be afraid.
Tricks, my thoughts said. All are ploys to make you drop your defenses.
The tension gnawed at my sanity. The situation was on the cusp of exploding into a mess.
Then a snap echoed and they rushed me.
I fought. I fought. I charged and slashed and stabbed. I pushed them to create some space. I jumped over them, rolled under their legs. It was tiring, but I tried to push deeper, to find my friends. I needed to see for myself. Was this it? Was this all I had? My endurance fell. I could no longer charge at the termites. My head had been ringing constantly. The system congratulated me for gaining experience, for leveling up, for some of my skills gaining levels.
Only five dead; there was still so many to go through. I was tired.
I needed a weapon, something different; something that wouldn’t take an arm and a leg to use. What if I whipped with stab coiled around my antennae?
I whipped one and cut her head off clean. They stopped attacking. I whipped and another leg fell to my right, and an antenna fell to my left.
My sight had turned blood red. I could no longer see the termites. I knew they were all around me, trying to catch me. My intelligence was dwindling with every second, but why weren’t they attacking? I stabbed one directly in the head and she only tried to defend. Where were the acid jets, the razor-sharp mandibles that could eat right through a tree?
My antennae were caught.
Someone held me from the chest, another grabbed my abdomen. I was going to die. They were going to make an example out of me for retaliating against them, for others to see and fear.
They stretched my legs. I remembered the graveyard, the torn limbs, and the missing bodies. They were going to kill me like that. Fear overtook anger. My sight returned, but eyes still couldn’t see. I was spent, my consciousness was fading. I couldn’t do anything. I was bound.
What do you want? I overwhelmed. That was all of my pheromones, released in one quick blast. It worked against the termites. They dropped me. Perhaps, I should have started with it and then picked up with charge. A thought to feed my stubborn will. I was free but too exhausted. I couldn’t get up.
A pair of antennae touched my head.
It’s alright. They said. Don’t be afraid. It’s alright.
How could it be alright? I was in the middle of enemy territory. I was—
I remembered that scent. It was the 5555th soldier, the stubborn fool who had raised the alarm on me when I had no passport. She was not alone. I sensed other ants beside her. Some I knew, others I didn’t. The hateful one was trying to force an I.C on me, but pulled back when I noticed. That was so like her.
The termites were around. They hadn’t saved me, but they weren’t attacking. They—
What happened here? I asked, stupefied and the leader Star —of course, he was with them. Who would have brought them other than him?— answered.
You need to hear what the termites have to say. He said. They have a very interesting story to tell. I, personally, never thought I’d say this but, there’s a chance that the termites aren’t the enemies you were looking for.
