"Yo John! I think I isolated the part that does the radioactive absorption!"

"Did you chuck a rat in the testing chamber yet?"

"Nah, we're getting a contractor to do all these experiments, apparently we broke some codes when we gave the cockroach some waste!"

"What codes? The ones that they made up just now?"

"Nah, general code for that was established well before that."

"What general code? No general code applies to us right?"

"Well what happens is that we sign off on not following these codes and away they go cause codes are for nitwits and we aren't nitwits are we?"

"Apparently we are now. Which nitwit has been exposing the waste to an unsealed environment?"

"Well all of us apparently, we just dumped that stuff in there. That stuff's not rated for high levels of radiation is it?"

"Well it's a sort of layered plastic and I think one of those layers is supposed to reduce some sort of radiation. We did some tests back then with irradiating animals to cause mutations remember?"

"Yeah and that yielded nothing except it dying within a couple of days remember?"

"So have you figured out how they don't die? Surely the energy being emitted off would kill them right?"

"Well come over to my microscope. You see that? That's the mole cell and on that microscope is a normal mole's cells!!"

"So what am I looking for?"

"You see that thing next to the nucleus of each cell? The normal mole cell doesn't have that now does it? That might be the organelle that allows the animals to absorb radiation!"

"Have you tested this yet?"

"Nah, not yet, I'm still trying to extract the DNA from it but it hasn't been successful so far. Let me clean these slides real quick and let's see what the other guys are doing."

"Well ok, I'll go check up on sample-458421, I kinda wanna see how much it's grown since then."

"I'll pass on that, all the safety gear is a pain! You're basically wearing chainmail! My back always hurts after wearing one of those!"

"Yeah but you wanna check up on sample-5044027? How about 505 and 506 as well while you're at it? Don't know how they are after feeding."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Yeah sure, I'll go check up on what the caretaker recorded while I go see the others."

--Colony--

"Hey Joeseph, how do you like that progress you've been making huh?"

"I don't know, How close am I to becoming a scavenger?"

"You can become a scavenger whenever you want!"

"Really? Right now?"

"Sure! Becoming one's the easy part! Surviving is a different story altogether though… hehehe. You're quite a bit off from being as strong as a scavenger though, might be about halfway to killing a guard though."

"So about this nursery…"

"Yeah what about it?"

"So how much energy will I gain?"

"Oh you'll gain plenty! Enough to kill a guard several times over!"

"So what's protecting that energy?"

"Hah! Nothing! That's why you're going there!"

"Huh, seems easy enough."

--Inside the walls--

"Hey you seem to be helping him quite a bit there…"

"Yeah what about it?"

"You know attacking a nursery is pretty bad for the queen right?"

"Look, we work for the queen, we don't worship her."

"Yeah, but wouldn't this be a breach of the agreement we had?"

"What agreement? The one where we secure the nest? Providing a strong mole is helping them be more secure! Don't you see!?"

"I don't know about that, but it seems like you've got him under your thumb good and proper…"

"The whole act might be ruined if he leaves and nothing happens to him though, permission to leave the walls and climb on the mole?"

"Ehhh any other reason?"

"Yeah, I want to harvest some of the energy while he's doing his massacre! He'd notice any loss in energy if it was under normal conditions, but when he's gaining energy, he wouldn't notice a thing! Such an opportunity can't come so easily! We have to take it!"

"Yeah sure, go for it!"

A short round creature with relatively stubby legs crawled out from under a grain of dirt. It had 8 legs and a set of mandibles which were thick and stubby, but oversized on the small body.

As it attempted to catch up to the unassuming mole down the tunnel, its legs went into overdrive, no longer being able to take the shortcuts it used to travel across the tunnels. Looming closer, the legs springing itself across the bottom of the tunnel barely caused a sound as they hammered against the ground in an attempt to provide as much force as they could.

The legs drew itself closer and closer until it had reached the final leap. But at the crucial moment, the dirt sent down by the mole traversing a steep incline fell apart below it and it continues smoothly onwards. Things did not go so well for the determined eight-legged creature as the ground beneath it fell apart and it was caught in the avalanche. There was no way it could match the speed of the mole as it ran around, drawing ever closer to the nursery.

How would the small bug reach its destination? It was simple, just take a shortcut across the dirt. Dirt that was compacted so much by the unceasing amount of tunnel making that had taken place around here that it was nigh impossible to dig anymore tunnels without causing the collapse of them all. As it raced through one of the many small tunnels its kind had dug for ease of access, it measured its speed against the moles.

Racing through the tunnel, there was nothing about where the mole was to be gleaned from the dark and solid tunnel.

It reached the end, but where was the mole? Nowhere in sight. Had it chickened out at the last moment? A series of vibrations would bring the determined runner its joy. The sight of its competitor soon coming. It was a delightful sign, finally alleviating the uncertainties that the lack of the mole had brought him.

Timing the leap such that it landed on top of the mole, the mole barely felt a thing as the creature latched onto its skin right with its legs and crawled into one of the many folds of skin on the mole body. Finding a secure place, it was finally time for the overinvested in jaws to shine.