NOVEL SIMPLE B2 – Lesson 7: “When in Rome.”
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One Week Later
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Was it big enough? It felt big enough… but you never knew with these kinds of things… What if he brought someone over, and they laughed at it?! How was Alpha supposed to make a good first impression then?!
Alpha flew the [Wasp] drone through the first completed chamber of his new base. Currently, it was little more than a hollowed-out room with a few nooks where equipment would eventually go. In the center of the room, a new nanite nest silently floated in the air. It had taken too long for the [Clouds] to carve out the area, transport the materials to the first nest, and then return. So, as soon as there was enough space, Alpha set up a second nest for this area.
The first nest would focus on drones and processing the materials from the ant's stash, while this new nest was being used to build the base's infrastructure and compact materials for later use. The first components for the first real printer stations were going down as he watched. This was a tremendous step toward really establishing himself.
Federation molecular printers might have used the same principle as nanite nests, but the products they could produce were of far higher quality and quantity. A group of dedicated printers meant better sensors, better equipment, and less time doing things that shouldn't need his input. Once they were set up, monitoring AIs could order everything from new drones to better equipment and even replacement parts. They could even expand the floor plan based on Alpha's design!
Once that was done, he could start to work on the various projects he'd set aside for so long.
Analyzing the various samples he'd taken.
Studying the arrayed drone in-depth,
Maybe even understanding the weird energy that permeated this world.
"Good thing I have all the time in the world to get things done. It feels so much better to not be on a time crunch," Alpha said as he finalized the design for the next chamber.
"Though, if the base keeps expanding at the rate I need it to, I'm going to have to… borrow space from the ants after too long."
Thankfully for Alpha, he had just the plan for that.
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"Hello, fellow ant! My name is Alphantonso! Nice to meet you!" the tiny white, newly pupated worker ant said to the larger caretaker ant.
The larger ant stared at the soft-carapaced 'ant' and tilted its head. It leaned down and tapped the small ant with its antennae several times.
{Yeeees! It's working!} thought Alphantonso… up until the point the larger caretaker ant opened its mandibles and bit poor Alphantonso in two.
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"Noooooo!" Alpha cried as the connection to the ant-shaped drone he'd affectionally named 'Alphantonso' (because it was his drone and no one was here to stop him) was cut.
Alpha sighed and crossed that design off the metaphorical whiteboard.
"At least this model had lasted longer than the previous two. Who would have ever thought trying to infiltrate an ant colony would be this hard? How did some species make myrmecomorphy look easy?!" Alpha complained to the half a dozen dissected ant bodies lying around his new 'medical' wing.
Tons of creatures used ant mimicry for various purposes, from protection to hunting. Some even tricked ant colonies into raising their young or to scare away competitors. Alpha had spent the last five days attempting something similar. But these ants seemed smarter than their smaller cousins. More than just copying their physical shape was needed. Or at least for what Alpha had planned.
It worked fine for luring ants in, but if Alpha wanted to be more than just a hidden hunter, he needed to be able to do more. He needed to be able to communicate in so much as ants could communicate. These creatures weren't sapient, but they could communicate and pass on information to an astounding degree, even by ant standards.
Several tests had shown they could pass along exact directions, details about enemies or targets, and even if a particular piece of food was contaminated with something. It wasn't quite a language as far as Alpha could tell, but it was possibly the closest thing to it possible without being a sapient species. The only creatures recorded to have such a complex internal communication system had been lifeforms like higher-order mammals and mammal equivalents.
This could vary from planet to planet, of course, but this was the first time it had been recorded in insects.
On the first attempt, Alpha had modified the outer shell of a scout drone to mimic the shape of the worker ant he'd captured. It had lasted only seconds upon exiting into the royal chambers.
"You will be remembered, Sir Alphantonso, the First of his Name." Alpha solemnly swore.
Alphantonso II had lasted only slightly longer after uploading recordings of the ant's general behaviors and mannerisms into the drone's AI. It wasn't instantly swarmed like the first drone had been, but the ants could still tell something was off about the drone. Maybe they thought it was a foreign ant?
Whatever the reason, Alpha decided to try something different for Alphantonso III. Rather than try to slip in with the crowd, Alpha figured they would be more accepting if he could convince them to 'adopt' the drone instead. To that end, he'd sneakily replaced one of the pupating ants with his drone, by boring a small hole into a pupa and breaking it down little by little.
The ants were none the wiser, taking care of the changeling as if it were their own. The next day, Alphantonso III 'hatched' and joined the gathering of young ants as they waited for their carapaces to harden. Everything had gone well for the first few hours. The young ants weren't very active, mostly focusing on eating their first meals as adults.
Then the caretakers had arrived. They'd passed along 'assignments' one by one, and each new ant began their first day of work. The caretaker only paused at Alphantonso III, seeming unsure of something, and well… the rest was history.
Alpha fumed. He was certain this one would work! What could be the problem? There were only a few things Alpha could really think of if he was honest. The most obvious being pheromone signaling, but that would take time to crack… if he did this the boring way.
Alpha refused to do it the boring way!
The [Wasp] drone launched from its perch and flew out of the medical room into a side chamber. Alpha still had yet to set up cameras or other monitoring devices, and besides, there was something satisfying about traveling physically through your own base.
This particular chamber Alpha had set up for a future project, but had been modified to hold his contingency plan in case Alphantonso III failed. If this worked, he'd had to expand the area to hold dozens more, but for now, a single glass cylinder took up the center of the room. Inside the glass, floating in a nutrient bath, was a single, small ant embryo extracted from a freshly collected egg.
As Alpha watched, nanites worked to build the appropriate augmentations and connections that would grow alongside it. Once that was done, the incubation chamber would be wrapped in a translight bubble to accelerate the embryo's growth.
In just a few short days, Project Antborg would be ready for testing.
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"Are you sure this is the place?" asked the large man in ill-kept leather armor.
The small, squirrelly man in front of him raised his head and nodded. "It's gotta be, Bosco. That bastard Robert said Sundown Mountain, and this is the only place that doesn't match the surrounding destruction; like someone came by and covered it up after the fact."
The large man grinned from ear to ear. He knew it was a good idea to have someone watching the shiny bastard. The Adventurer's Guild upper brass had a hard-on for Robert and always gave the man the best missions, leaving others to pick up the scraps.
Once they'd gotten word that Robert was holding his little meeting, it took barely any effort to tail those present and… extract the information from one of them. Who knew it would have been this big?
Once he understood exactly what they were dealing with, Bosco had taken the information straight to Icefinger. As expected, the Boss had been so impressed, Bosco had gotten a promotion then and there and told to scout the place out before Robert ever got there.
Hell, if this went well, he might even make Capo!
“Let’s go, everyone! I want this tunnel cleared within the hour! Then it’s time for some explorin’!” Bosco said, clapping his hands.
Yet, like everything in Bosco's life, someone had to come along and rub dirt on it.
Most of the three dozen gathered men and women moved forward to start clearing out the blockage. Most, not all.
"Hey, Bosco… are you sure about this?" an unfamiliar voice said.
Bosco frowned and slowly turned around, staring down at the speaker from his massive 7'1" frame.
The speaker's eyes widened slightly, and he took a step back. It was one of the New Bloods who'd smooth-talked their way into the mission. Thomas was his name, if Bosco remembered correctly.
"And why’s that, boy?" Bosco asked as he folded his arms.
Thomas took another step back, looking around for anyone who would back him up. Unfortunately for the young man, everyone present pretended they were too busy working to notice the confrontation.
Thomas clinched his teeth, but decided he should still speak his mind. "I-I mean, i-if the Guild thought Robert was the best man for t-this, and he thought he needed a big team, s-shouldn't we at leas—Oomph!"
Thomas' words were cut off as a massive fist slammed into his gut. The young man was lifted off his feet and thrown into the air for several meters. He hit the rocky floor and rolled even further before coming to a stop. The young man tried to push himself up on shaking arms, but a massive, booted foot came down on his head and pushed him back to the ground.
Bosco leaned down and sneered at the young man.
"Oy! Dumbass! Where's your pride as one of Icefinger's men? Ah? You think we can't do what the pretty boy could? Pathetic." Bosco turned to the crowd behind him and called out. "Ain't that right, lads?"
A few muttered cheers of confirmation, but most were simply staring, wide-eyed.
"I said, 'Ain't that right, lads'?!" Bosco yelled with a growl.
The second cheer was louder, and Bosco grinned. He turned back to Thomas and spat on his bleeding face as he continued. "Let me give you a bit of advice, New Blood. If you're going to survive in this profession, learn to keep your mouth shut. I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to think about that on your climb back up."
With that, Bosco hooked the young man with his foot and kicked him off the nearby ledge. Bosco slowly walked toward the edge and smiled as he watched Thomas tumble down the mountainside.
Someone of the boy's cultivation? He'd live. Barely.
Bosco didn't need the Boss breathing down his neck about 'wasting resources’… again. Although, it was doubtful he'd make it back before they were done stripping the place of anything of value. Or if he did, he wouldn't be in any condition to help. That was fine with Bosco. One less share to split.
When Thomas finally reached a standstill at the bottom of the mountain, Bosco straightened and turned around. "What are you looking at?! GET BACK TO WORK!" he yelled at the gawking crew. The crowd jumped and started working again, faster this time.
Bosco grinned from ear to ear as he watched the rest work. The grin grew wider as he daydreamed of the treasures they were about to uncover.