The large glass cylinder slowly drained of liquid as Alpha ran some final internal tests.
Alphantonso IV was finally ready for testing!
Project Antborg had gone smoothly, for the most part. Simple borging insects was a relatively common practice in the Federation. They were mostly used to control uninvited guests on spaceships. After all, losing your hydroponics to alien insects could be a death sentence in the vast expanse of space. It was mind-boggling how many pests a ship could pick up from just a brief stop on a less-developed planet. The practice was so common that the main character of one of the Federation’s most popular and long-running anime would knit little uniforms for the cyborg insects in her crew.
Nanites couldn’t directly interact with organic tissue. This was hard-coded into their design, mostly due to fear of another nano-plague. What they could do, however, was build implants that could be used as an intermediate. The children’s HUDs were examples of this. They could control the nanites that made up their [Wasp] drones without any other equipment.
Augmented Soldiers were another example. While they weren’t full cyborgs like the insects, many Federation soldiers could earn credits to upgrade themselves with things like synthetic muscles, skin resistant to small arms fire, and even neural implants that greatly boosted their cognitive power and reaction times. The most powerful Augmented Soldiers were on par with small mecha, and some, like General Haldorðr, could even fight Alpha’s TAWP bare-handed. Though soldiers capable of that kind of feat could be counted on a human hand.
That said, implants used to monitor and control insects onboard ships weren’t meant for creatures the size of the mega ants. Alpha had to go through several iterations just to get them to set properly. After that, it was just a matter of sticking the ant into a translight bubble and waiting for it to mature.
Alpha had rushed over the moment the monitoring AI had reported that Alphantonso IV’s pupa was cracking. The incubation chamber finally drained, and the large ant pupa floated to the bottom. It lay still for a moment before shaking slightly. A large crack formed along the back of the pupa, and slowly, a dog-sized, white ant pushed itself out of the shell.
The newly born Alphantonso IV flicked their antennae and looked around before moving to a prepared pile of stolen mushrooms.
“It worked!” Alpha cheered as he watched the antborg take its first meal.
Well, so far. It didn’t fall over dead as soon as it emerged… this time. Progress! Alpha would still have to see how well it did in the colony. He pulled up a holographic display of Alphantonso IV.
Most of the ant was still ‘ant,’ and on the surface, one would be hard-pressed to spot any real difference. Most of the actual changes were inside. Other than various sensors and monitoring equipment, he’d reinforced the carapace some and added synthetic musculature to boost its overall strength.
Its eyes had also been totally replaced with high-grade optical sensors disguised to look like compound eyes. That had taken some work, but the ant’s natural eyesight was just too poor to act as a proper scout in the way he needed it to.
Alphantonso IV was just a test run. There wasn’t much need to go all out until the concept had been proven to work.
That said, while the antborg wouldn’t win against one of the much larger soldiers, it could easily deal with even several of the common workers if the need came.
The biggest change was to its nervous system. The main brain and stem were mostly untouched, except for monitoring devices designed to record brain activity. Most of the sub-brains dedicated to movement had been totally replaced with specialized implants. Most of the time, they would act just like the ordinary sub-brain but would also allow Alpha or an assigned AI to take control of the ant’s movements.
This was only possible thanks to how simple these sub-brains were, but in effect, Alpha could use the antborg like he would any other drone and the ant itself would be none the wiser. In theory, when the ant was in ‘standby’ mode, it would behave just like any other ant in the colony, allowing it to blend in perfectly with no input from Alpha or the monitoring AI.
The only sub-brain left relatively intact was the one Alpha suspected was dedicated to pheromone signaling. That they had an entire sub-brain dedicated to pheromone signaling only further strengthened Alpha’s theory that the ant’s “pheromone language” was far more complex than their smaller cousins.
This sub-brain, Alpha had surrounded in monitoring equipment to track how it worked and the various ‘signals’ the ants used. With any work, Alpha could start laying down his own signals, either to keep ants away from areas he didn’t want them in, or ‘order’ the workers to gather certain things. Gaining control of how the ants communicated would be an important part of taking control of the colony.
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A few hours later, Alphantonso IV’s carapace was hard enough to venture out into the colony proper. Alpha had struggled to figure out how to get the antborg inside without being noticed. He’d played with slipping them in with a patrolling group but quickly dismissed that. It might work for now, but once Alpha had dozens, or hundreds, of antborgs, that would soon become a logistical nightmare.
Eventually, He’d settled on a far simpler method. Parallel to several of the more important thoroughfares, the large main shaft included, Alpha dug his own tunnels, just large enough for 1-2 antborgs to pass through. These tunnels would exit out into the colony, appearing like just another side tunnel. Once the antborgs had passed through, though, the entrance would seal back up, preventing other ants from getting inside. If they did somehow slip in, several barriers would block the way further in.
Ready to get the show on the road, Alpha directed Alphantonso IV toward the hatch that would lead into the colony. It was time to see if Alpha’s experiments had paid off.
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Bosco forgoed the rope hanging from the excavated entrance and jumped the full 10 meters to the bottom of the tunnel. A few men had already climbed down and started establishing a perimeter. You could never be sure what kind of things called these tunnels home. But then, that’s what you had underlings for.
The large man hadn’t stopped grinning since they’d uncovered the tunnel. Some people became adventurers for the fame and prestige. Some for the power and the ability to grow without the aid of a sect or clan. Bosco? Bosco started for a much simpler reason.
Wealth.
The Crimson Mountains were bursting with all sorts of treasures… if you could find them. Yet, even in the Adventurer’s Guild, nepotism abounded. Hell, that was true for Halirosa as a whole. Many of the choicest hunting grounds had already been claimed by the ‘old families’ and other clans who had come to plunder the mountains. Sure, on paper, they still had to obey the laws of fair exploration. In practice? Any adventurer without the right connections would soon find themselves having to travel for weeks through dangerous lands before they could find anything worth the effort.
Being an adventurer in Halirosa was just as much about who you knew as what you could do.
That was the primary reason Bosco had thrown his lot in with Icefinger. As the man at the very top of Halirosa’s underworld, Icefinger had his finger (ha!) in every pot in the city.
Bosco walked toward a nearby squirrelly man, who was staring up at the ceiling, jotting down notes. “Seeker,” as he was called (no one knew his real name), was on loan from the Boss. As one of Icefinger’s direct subordinates, those elites often nicknamed ‘Dogs’, Seeker didn’t fall into the traditional hierarchy of their ‘organization’.
Icefinger’s Dogs were all a strange bunch. Eccentric to the extreme, but every single one was an expert in what they did and a powerful combatant in their own right. Seeker had the look of a grimy merchant at first glance, someone who could have been knocked over by a stiff breeze. But for a man who specialized in locating valuables, the rumors surrounding the man-made even Bosco step lightly around him. The old bloods like to joke that when you were as good at finding things as Seeker was, you were just as adept at making sure they could never be found.
Bosco knew the Boss hadn’t lent him Seeker just to help find the best stuff. No, Seeker was Icefinger’s eyes and ears on this mission. If they found something truly valuable, the Boss would know. Seeker was a powerful tool, but he was also the leash around Bosco’s neck.
Seeker turned toward Bosco and grinned a toothy smile, then spoke in a raspy voice. “I must say, Bosco. You’ve really outdone yourself with this one. This place has a lot of potential. Look,”
He pointed to the ceiling where patches of lumoss grew, filling the tunnel with a dim light.
Seeker turned back to his notepad and continued. “As I’m sure you’re aware, lumoss is a plant that can be found in many places underground. It’s very useful for adventurers, and Halirosa has perfected its growth.”
Bosco nodded. Lumoss lanterns were a staple of any adventuring kit. Not only was the luminous moss easy to take care of, needing only a bit of dirt, water, and spirit energy, but it could live for years in a lantern and was resistant to things that would snuff out mundane flames. Pieces could even be pinched off to mark locations, and it would regrow after a bit of time.
Seeker nodded along before asking. “How do you think it grows in the wild, though?”
Bosco opened his mouth, but paused. He… wasn’t actually sure. Not that it mattered. It was moss. Not something valuable enough to pay attention to past its utility as a light source. If he’d had been asked before, he would have said the patches of lumoss you could often see in the wild were left there by adventurers who’d come before. But no… that couldn’t be it. This was supposed to be an untouched system.
Seeker smirked at the look of confusion on the larger man’s face. “Lumoss grows by spreading spores. These spores latch onto passing creatures. Beast, humans, insects, they will shed these spores as they move to new locations, and new patches of lumoss will grow from there, repeating the cycle,” the squirrelly man said.
Bosco frowned and folded his arms as he asked, “Ok, so what? What does that tell us?”
Seeker sighed and answered, “It means this isn’t just an undiscovered tunnel leading to a small cave or the like. It means that something frequents these tunnels, traveling back and forth regularly. So let me ask you. Why would something travel through the same tunnel on a regular basis?”
Basco furrowed his brow, and then it clicked, and he voiced his thought. “It means… either this is the lair of something…or…”
Seeker nodded and motioned for him to continue.
Bosco’s eyes widened as he finished, “Or… there’s something at the end worth returning to!”
Seeker grinned from ear to ear and nodded, pointing his expensive mana pen toward the large man. “Correct! And given that we don’t see signs of further excavation or the remains of any other creatures, I think we can rule out it being a lair for now. Not that it isn’t possible. Some creatures can dig extensive tunnels that stretch for miles. But typically, such things have clear indicators. This place seems more naturally formed.”
Bosco’s grin returned. He looked down both ends of the tunnel and muttered to himself. “Now, the question is, which way do we go?”