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Chapter 3 - Chapter 2; Abuzz

(Third person POV)

The ants, they had indeed proven useful. Once they had done their job, it was now only a matter of time before she would create the optimal situation for a clean escape. Now, her only grievance was with time.

Ironically enough, it was not the time for that.

Her lunchtime meal had just arrived. It wasn't much, even considering they had enough of a soul to change up the menu every now and then. Grilled steak with artichokes, sweet carrots and mashed potatoes were on the plate. A simple meal, to be sure, not lacking in nutrients however.

Now that the ants had done their part, it was her turn.

The tests were coming up soon, she would run her first test phase then.

This, in her young adolescent mind, was a clear hit-or-miss plan.

On one hand, if she successfully pulled off the elaborate scheme, she'd be free. On the other, if she failed, the White room may very well become her permanent residence thereafter. In short, not very good odds.

That only left her with the option of success, however slim the chance may be. She'd begun to dig into the mildly interesting plate of food, her mind wandering off once again. The other man, with the slim eyes. He was different from the other man behind the window, the way he looked at her was different, like he was trying to ask her something with his eyes. She cocked her head to the side, just slightly, and thought,

I wonder, what is his name?

Meanwhile,

Dr. Fuyomi was once again in his office, sorting through information while gathering more from the specimen insects. Queen ants and bees reproduced the same way, but that wasn't the case with the Queen specimen they were going to produce. The Queen didn't need to reproduce the way ants and bees do, the human body would not be able to handle it.

He respected his colleague and mentor, but his ideals had skewed to the worse. The man used to be bright, full of energy and curiosity. Now the man was a driven, power-hungry maniac.

Now the author wanted to have that revealed later, but he felt it is a bit obvious.

He wasn't the same man who had inspired him, and likely was not ever going to be again.

Then again, in his depth of focus, he had missed something crucial.

His favorite subject was far more intelligent than he had anticipated, that in and of itself was quite horrendous. In most cases, that was. In this particular, rather discouraging case, the subject in question was intelligent, quite so for her age. It was an anomaly, how she had managed to grow her mind in such strenuous conditions.

Natural talent, could it be? Perhaps, but that would only drive the conclusion that she was planning escape further into the light.

There was a chance that he, along with many of the personnel and even the subjects could end up dead, although, he felt little for the rest of them. No, subject 000 was different, she was special, in every sense imaginable.

If she had some assistance, escape was definite. However, she had none, so it was more likely that her plan would be bust. Just to sum it up in layman's terms.

He continued to sift through information while his mind endlessly drifted through the possibilities. While he had the opportunity to perhaps lend her some assistance, the risk they would both be caught out was rather grizzly, assuming that Dr. Warne would find out. It was not a favorable situation, obviously, but for her sake, he would not intervene.

And who knew, perhaps she needed this to sharpen her intellect some more. It would be a harsh challenge, but perhaps needed.

The subject in question was currently tapping slowly on the glass of her forimcarium, her fingernail colliding softly on the smooth surface feeling oddly satisfying. The ants were shifting in position with every collision, various patterns being created.

Soon enough, the doctors and guards would be next. Her next blood test was roughly 47 hours from now, she would attempt it then. It had worked with the ants; it had left her astonished, an expression completely separated from apathy adorning her features.

The ants, they responded to commands. They followed orders.

She still hadn't discovered the purpose of the tests or the serums and surgeries. But now she had a clue, a piece of the puzzle that revealed more pieces, a picture forming in her young mind. This, whatever this was that allowed her dominion over her Myrmica rubra, this was the purpose. Control, whatever they had done to her granted this in excess.

46 hours, 32 minutes and 19 seconds until her next surgery. She could prod the boundary of this unknown ability then. The extent of its reach was still unclear, but as with all theory, testing and application was the only solution for analysis. Was this her metanoius beginning?

Preposterous. No such thing existed in this twisted world.

But she would escape, that was certain. That man with the slim eyes must have been on her trail. He had caught her suspicion the very second he hadn't looked at her the same way the Man in the Window had, not that she trusted the latter any more. There were two, but one was likely to know. This could have been disastrous to her plans if suspicion got out. But her hands were tied, there was nothing she could do but hope. How long had it been since she'd done that, the thought blitzed through her mind, gone before note could be made of it.

There was no more mistaking it, the time would be here soon. She had to place all her cards if her ploy was going to have any hope. The first would be the doctors. She needed to know how far her reach stretched, but for now, she could work with the ants. Small as they were, they could get to places no human could dream of ever going, she would use that to gather information in the meantime.

Her eyes flitted to the door, a maintenance worker doing the routine check on the control panels. From what she understood, they manually locked the whole room through the main frame from top to bottom before deactivating the control panel. The room was not going to be opened until the checkup was complete. An idea crawled up into her brain, and she fixed her eyes on the man with the utility belt just beyond the glass, trying to grasp onto him with her imagination, with no effect. After several minutes of staring at him with very little blinking, he packed up his tools and reset the panel before taking his leave.

Other than feeling sort of idiotic for staring at a random man for who knows how long, she fixed her attention back onto her forimcarium, and came to a realization. It was likely that this ability only worked when the target was in her immediate vicinity, with no blockers to interfere with whatever had taken grip of the ants, she suspected glass may have been a particular weakness, for now.

Her thoughts were paused when one of her ants presented itself to her, crawling atop her pale hand and raising it's small head upward. She had brought her face slightly closer to examine the odd little insect, and she looked up toward the ceiling vent. There was a line of ants marching up to it and moving through the metal slots.

Hold on, how had she known to look up? And what were they doing? She looked back down to the fire ant specimen on her hand, which seemed to almost look back at her before scuttling off. Did that ant just communicate with her? Impossible, how would that work?

.....But wait, how do ants communicate? Pheromones, scent chemicals that deliver messages from ant to ant and also how the Queen ant controlled the workers. But then, if that was how they communicate, how could she have gotten the message? She does not know how, or why she could. Her body did not do that like a Queen ant...

But now it did. It finally clicked together in her mind, the missing piece of the puzzle. The experiments modified her body to produce and secrete pheromones that could allow her control of entities in her vicinity. But why, then?

The air would not answer, obviously. So instead, she turned to the crawling critters to assist her. They crawled and crept through the vents, looking for something of importance while information was being relayed back autonomously. Sub groups split off from the colony to cover more ground, scuttling about the facility on their search.

Dr. Fuyomi was typing away on his workstation laptop, when he noticed a small black figure crawling about the monitor. His brow crinkled in confusion, this facility was almost a thousand feet above sea level, in the Himalayas. It was far too cold for any ant species to survive out here.

He let the ant crawl up on his hand and he examined it closely. Myrmica rubra, common fire ant.

But what could they be doing all the way out here? The question would continue to plague his thoughts for the rest of the night.