This is an original short story, a last-minute entry to the technological-horror contest: Cryptails #1.

I wrote it as an exercise in dialogue, with an eye to horror, but every time I turned my back it had slunk away to make a nest out of sci-fi pulp fiction novels and episodes of The Office. It seemed happy there. Who wouldn't be?

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Antstronauts

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‘I’m looking at an ant riding a bicycle, Jeff. A video of an ant riding a tiny bicycle across some kind of tightrope strung between two miniature models of the Empire State building.’

‘It’s the Huaguoyuan Towers, Mr Kelly. The twin towers in Guiyang. Where the investors are based.’

Jeff noticed the CEO’s frown. He straightened his posture in the leather chair and tried to appear a little more businesslike. The plush office was a world apart from his spartan laboratory. The disparity made him uncomfortable.

‘Thank you for that clarification, Jeff. So to recap. Ant. Bicycle. Tightrope. Towers. Which leaves me with just one question. Why?’

The CEO had a tendency to talk with his hands. They were open now, palms upwards, awaiting Jeff’s offering.

‘Well, when it gets across to the far tower the second ant team have the tools to release the organic materials in the basket. You can see it at the end of the recording. Wait a moment…just there. See the little dance? Mission accomplished! Go Antstronauts!’

Jeff resisted the urge to put his hand out for a high-five by tucking it into a lab-coat pocket. The CEO did not appear to share his enthusiasm.

‘I appreciate that Jeff. I’m not overly interested in the ant’s motivation at this point. My question is, why, when we have investors coming in tomorrow for a presentation that will determine the fate of this company, are you offering me this insectoid parody of a silent movie? When I asked you for something ‘more entertaining’ I simply meant ‘Please do not bring me three hundred hours of ants collecting mineral chippings for the replication of a electronic component. Or a screw’. How exactly does this support our proposal?’

‘It’s a test of an unknown unknown, Mr Kelly. A challenge totally outside their sphere of experience to demonstrate their capacity to react to something we haven’t predicted. The colony will be twelve light years from Earth. We’ll be able to communicate the tasks but they’re going to need to be almost totally self-reliant. Et voila! Challenge passed with flying colours. With the additional benefit of a little light-hearted entertainment. Not something the investors are likely to forget in a hurry.’

Kelly pressed his hands together. Jeff had the distinct impression he was praying.

‘Do you not feel that we’ve perhaps skipped over some of the middle ground though Jeff? Between rolling pebbles across a sandpit and this circus tomfoolery there is, I would suggest, an entire world of possibilities. Please tell me that you have something else. Please tell me that tomorrow, when the investors arrive, we will have something to show them that doesn’t require me to dress up in a top hat and a scarlet tailcoat and that doesn’t make us all look like clowns?’

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In his self-built laboratory Jeff went over the events of those two days again. Three months had passed and the details were becoming hazy. He tried to picture Kelly’s face but all he could see was a pasty blandness behind a pair of oversized glasses. They should have gone with the video, he thought. A different action, a different reaction, and the world unravels down a different path. A path that didn’t involve him being strung up by his neck from a warehouse ceiling.

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The investor presentation had gone well, up to a point. Their solution was bold and revolutionary but more importantly it was cheap. Whilst their competitors proposed advanced robotics, AI systems, vast fleets of ships, and eye-watering expense, the Kelly Exploration Corporation would build the infrastructure for the human colony using ants; a labour force that was tireless, scalable, cheap to produce, and entirely unpaid.

Jeff knew ants; he had studied them all his life. Pound for pound their strength and survival abilities outstripped almost anything else on Earth. They also had more human traits than people cared to realise. Ants were meticulous in cleaning their young. They were farmers, growing fungi for food and corralling other insects as livestock. Most importantly they were social creatures, communicating and collaborating to solve problems that were impossible for any single individual.

It was in this last area that Jeff had made his greatest breakthrough. The mental capacity of each ant was small but their pheromone communication system was incredibly complex. By selecting for this ability Jeff had been able to enhance it. Through the evolutions in the genetic code he had learned to manipulate it. And with the assistance of the AI team he had finally transformed it, turning the ants’ communication system into a functional network; a colony of ants thinking in parallel with each ant a small component of the overall thought process. A decentralised colony-sized intelligence responding to Jeff’s coded instructions.

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The pain in Jeff’s foot flared again; a needle of sensation that streaked up his leg and fired every warning signal his body could muster. His back arched and the electrical wire cut deeper into his neck. He gasped and coughed and tasted blood.

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‘So for the final part of our presentation I’m going to you put you in the capable hands of Dr James. Jeff is the lead researcher for our project and, I think it’s no exaggeration to say, the world’s foremost expert in ant-based technology. Everything ready Jeff?’

Kelly stood at the side of the laboratory flanked by the investor team. The suit jackets they wore under their lab coats given them a bulky, robotic appearance that reminded Jeff of airport security. The thought added to his nerves. A live experiment was always a bad idea.

‘Thank you, Mr Kelly. Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you to move up to the enclosure here for a short demonstration. That’s right, move right up close, you’re perfectly safe this side of the glass.’

‘They are much larger than I expected.’

‘Our ants are around four times the size of the largest natural species. Our record holder to date is around fourteen centimetres in length so just smaller than my hand. We’ve managed to scale up our ants whilst retaining proportionate levels of strength and mandible power. They are capable of carrying around fifty times their own body weight, so the four hundred ants you see here could shift around ten kilograms working in unison.’

‘And how will you ensure that, once released onto the planet, the population will not run out of control? It would be unfortunate for our settlers to arrive to a world covered with highly intelligent giant ants.’

There was gentle laughter around the laboratory.

‘Let me reassure you on that point. The base for our genetic material comes from soldier ants which are female but also sterile. The only way for them to reproduce is through the DNA printer. This process will require the ants to gather organic material from the planet surface. The printer will then convert this material into new eggs based on the genetic code that we have developed. At the end of the project, once the colony is complete for habitation, we can deactivate the printer and, within a few years, no more ants.’

Jeff moved across to the control panel and released the pheromone encoded with the concept for the task.

‘So as you can see, we have set up the challenge that you selected this morning. The landscape is broadly representative of the colony planet. The ants will now build a simple bridge allowing them to cross the river and plant the flag on the other side.’

The ants gave no indication of having understood. They continued to scuttle between objects, their behaviour indistinguishable from any common or garden variety. Jeff released the signal again, without effect. He watched in horror as the ants slowly chewed the Chinese flag into small pieces and piled the remains in a heap.

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Within a week the company was in liquidation and Jeff had lost his job, his reputation, and access to his life’s work. So he had gambled hard. The sale of his house had paid for the rights to his discredited research and the equipment he needed to continue the experiments. His life savings went on bribes to smuggle out the now worthless ants. An out of town warehouse became his laboratory and his home.

Nothing had worked. The ants had simply stopped responding. They seemed lethargic, incapable of even basic cooperation. Had he asked too much of them? Somehow overloaded the system? What if they just needed more processing power? More ants for the network? He dusted off the DNA printer and set the wheels in motion.

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Twisting in a circle, the toe of his remaining shoe scraping the floor, Jeff linked together the chain of events. He must have fallen asleep at his desk without securing the enclosure. The brush against his cheek had been the noose being lowered; the noise had been the counterweight sack of rocks toppling from the wardrobe.

Around the warehouse his ants busied themselves with the tasks of their new existence, expanding into the area they now controlled, ready for an increase in numbers. Beneath his bare, bloody foot a small assembly waited patiently; ambassadors to humanity. The DNA printer pinged, signalling another batch of eggs was ready.

Jeff gritted his teeth but could not prevent the scream from emerging. He looked down as the ant recovered his toe from where it had fallen and carried it away. He had shown them the replication process. They had waited, watched, and learned. Now all they needed was a supply of organic material.

Jeff thought back to the CEOs office, to Mr Kelly with his hands pressed together. He wandered down the path from there to here and observed where it led into the future. He prayed that the path be a short one.

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