The Milestone, the Monarch, and the Mixer

1

“You’re late,” Liz said to John when he approached the gate a few days later.

“What? No, I’m not. It’s today. Today is when I said to be here. If anything, you’re early.”

John smiled after his tease, just to let Liz know the consequences of trying to chastise him. She took it well enough, but she was not to be dissuaded so easily.

“Do you always make pretty girls wait this long?”

“If one ever agrees to meet me, I’ll let you know,” John shot back with a crinkled nose.

“Bitch, I’ll turn into a bear and eat your ass,” Liz said challengingly.

Despite her words, John could tell she was in good humor. It was refreshing to find someone that wouldn’t hesitate to threaten violence during a friendly bout of verbal sparring. John smiled even wider before responding.

“You can always try, but it didn’t work out so well for the real bear,” he shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

That stopped Liz for a moment. She seemed for the first time to consider just how John and therefore she had come to possess the wizened soul in the first place. She looked at John with an inscrutable expression.

“Thinking better of it?” He asked, smiling all the wider.

“Fuck off,” she smiled back.

The two of them gave their names and left the base in a hurry. John had a very particular goal in mind. He was going to gain advanced genes today.

The day started off uneventful. The pair made their way east from the base. The found little to hunt in the grasslands. It wasn’t until they came into a valley two hours into the journey that anything interesting happened.

As they were climbing across an area of large rocks, the worst came to pass. John lifted his foot to top over a particularly large rock when he heard the sound. John’s instincts took over.

Liz would later recount to him that his feet reached an entire four feet into the air in his attempt to get away from the certain death he knew awaited him. If he had the presence to pay attention to his own body, he would have probably agreed with her. As it was, he was entirely occupied by the source of the noise that triggered him.

There, on the rock he had been about to drop onto, was a fucking snake. John hated all snakes equally, and in almost any situation, if asked, he could tell you the species of any snake he saw. They were easy to categorize for him. It couldn’t have been simpler.

This snake, like all other snakes, was the well-known and often avoided Nope-Snake. Never mind that his ears gave away the true species before he ever spotted it. Never mind that he had heard it a thousand times exploring the untamed wilderness with his dad.

Wether it was a black snake, a garter snake, a big snake, a small snake, a dead snake, and alive snake, or even the rattlesnake in front of him now, if asked, they were all Nope to him. That was his one and only phobia in this world. In any world, he guessed, given his current location.

“Wow. The big bad hunter reduced to a twentieth century housewife that just seen a mouse. This sure is doing wonders for my heroic image of you. It’s just a snake.”

“Feel free to lay down and have a cuddle. I’m gonna go this way,” John said, pointing well away from the waiting snake.

“Okay but watch your step. These rocks are warm. There are probably a dozen or more snakes trying to get some heat before going off to hunt. This might even be where they sleep at night,” Liz said.

“Now why would you tell me that?” John asked.

Looking around, John could see that they had made their way almost to the very center of the rock outcropping. No matter which way he decided to walk, he would have to cross several minutes of rocks to make it away from the area. John sighed in anxious resignation.

Twenty minutes and four snake encounters later, John and Liz had made their way past the rocks. John vowed to take another way out of the valley, no matter how long a detour it proved to be. Liz only shook her head at his proclamation.

Snakes and detours aside, John was happy to keep moving toward the goal of the day. They were looking for a large dirt mound somewhere in the valley. It was supposedly home to a colony of ants.

The report he had based the adventure on said that the area was excellent for gaining low level genes. However, that wasn’t the reason John chose it. Liz could benefit from those, John was in it for the queen.

The report said that after hunting a dozen or so lower-level ants, a really big one had come out. It moved insanely fast, and some had died trying to retreat from it. The survivors estimated it to be the advanced queen. John had his doubts.

If he knew anything about ants, the queen wouldn’t have come out in person… in insect? right away. It would have sent out some henchmen to take care of things. Only a last resort would bring the mama out.

If the ant the group had seen was advanced, chances were, it was just a lieutenant. That meant that if all assumptions about the hive were accurate, there was probably a wizened ant queen somewhere inside. John planned to find out.

After another hour of travel, a mysterious mountain came into view. John didn’t remember reading about it, so he was confused. He thought they had missed the anthill somehow.

“Should we go back?” Liz asked.

She hadn’t read the report, but John described their goal in enough detail that she knew what they sought. She had obviously came to the same conclusion that he had. John was about to agree, but his eyes drifted back to the giant landmass ahead of them.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw a flash of movement going up the mountain. It was the strangest thing, because the mountain seemed to be extremely far away, but the creatures moving up it were perfectly definable.

They were ants. Either he was perceiving the mountain incorrectly, or the ants were way more massive than the largest dog that had ever lived. John couldn’t make sense of it.

Clearly, the anthill was extremely understated in the report. John knew from his deviant childhood that digging up an anthill the size of his palm produced millions of ants. It was the proverbial iceberg, only showing a tiny piece of their complexity on the surface.

If this gigantic anthill was anything like a normal sized one back home, the real breadth of it probably reached all the way to where they stood, stretching underground. The thought made him start to seriously reconsider his decision to come.

He had expected the ants to be bigger than usual. The report called them large dog sized ants. But the report made it sound like the anthill itself was marked by a mound. This was undoubtedly something altogether more dangerous.

“Let’s go. This thing has to have millions of ants in it. If those ones running up the hill are the weak ones, I’m not surprised that something stronger could threaten a group of humans. We should go before they take offense at our presence,” John said to Liz.

“Hold on. I’ve got my bear body. And my gene count has increased enough that I can use it for almost half an hour before I get pushed out. Let me practice on these things. We can always run if they start getting too numerous,” Liz replied.

John had his doubts about that claim, but he would have been lying if he said he wasn’t curious how well the ants stacked up in a fight. He wouldn’t risk Liz’s safety, but he also wasn’t there to boss her around. Part of the reason he had leant her the bear soul was so that she would have the ability to protect herself and make her own decisions in a world that would take advantage of any weakness.

So, John stood ready to act while Liz ventured carefully forward. She didn’t take her bear form while she walked, wanting to save it for combat. As a result, after a few dozen yards, she stopped and looked back at John with a peculiar face.

“Come look at this,” she said.

John was intrigued if nothing else. He walked slowly forward, trying to see what Liz was distracted by. Try though he might, he couldn’t see anything interesting.

There were no tracks that he could find. Nor was there anything big or noticeable between her and the giant hill. He stopped a step behind her and concluded that he was obviously blind.

“What is it?” He asked in bemusement.

Liz grabbed his shirt and pulled him slowly forward. She pointed to the anthill while she did. John’s eyes fixed on it while Liz brought him level with her.

“Well that’s weird,” John said.

2

As John moved into relative position with Liz, he realized that his vision was shifting. Even as he watched it, the massive anthill shrunk. It contracted to a much more manageable, though still massive size.

“What the hell?” John asked.

“It’s an illusion,” Liz said.

“Yeah, no shit. But to what extent?”

John took another step forward and his vision continued to rein in the home of the ants. With each new step he took, the anthill shrunk more. Perhaps of more importance, was the fact that the ants themselves did not shrink with the hill.

“Interesting,” John said.

The ants didn’t seem to be a part of the illusion. The phenomenon was limited to affecting the landscape. Just what caused said phenomenon was, though reasonably suspected by John, unknown.

Liz joined him and the two continued to approach the hill. It shrunk steadily all the way down to a size much more fittingly deemed a mound, as the report had said. When the two were only twenty yards away, the illusion was completely dispelled.

What was left was an anthill protruding from the ground roughly at the height of an average human. The ants that were constantly coming in and out of the colony now looked perfectly proportional to the nest. John was glad that Liz had decided to venture forward or he would have taken the threat at face value.

“Wait, take this,” John said.

He transferred the crocodile club soul to her. She summoned it and looked at it with some interest. Nonetheless, she wore a puzzled expression when she looked back at him.

“Insects have exoskeletons. I think our best bet is stabbing and smashing attacks. Also, you should save your transformation for as late as possible. And one more thing,” John said.

He got out a pen and a small piece of paper and wrote down Jules’ room number. He handed it to her and once again her eyes held a question.

“If things get out of hand here, I’ll distract them while you get away. Go find Jules at that room number and tell him that if he doesn’t hear from me in three days, cancel the meeting. He will know what you mean.”

Liz just looked at him for a second, but she didn’t question him. With a shrug, she put the paper away and hefted the club. Then she advanced with steady movements toward the anthill.

Her approach didn’t go unnoticed, and as the report had seemed to imply, the ants began to offer themselves as targets to Liz. The smallest of the ants were about the size of a really big rat. She made short work of any that got near her.

The next size of ants were less plentiful, but still impressive in numbers. They were more of a lapdog in size. Massive for ants, but John expected much bigger foes to show themselves.

Liz began whacking the bugs left and right. She took a few tries to actually kill one of the smallest ants. When she did, she looked up in surprise.

“Awakened! The small ones are awakened!” She exclaimed.

John’s eyebrows rose in shock as well. The report had made no specification on the level of each ant. That led him to believe that the larger ants hadn’t shown themselves.

At the very least, none of them had been killed by the information source. If they had, the report would surely have noted the existence of so many enhanced beasts. Perhaps their last human encounter had driven the colony to better protect the lower drones.

Liz was able to stem the tide of small ants easily. Several died relatively quickly. Liz had to take more time and care to evade the enhanced variants, but still only a few smacks per insect were needed.

John moved carefully while Liz worked. He kept his bow out and prepared himself to enter the fight. But his main focus was moving wherever Liz dropped an ant after she moved on to collect the genes.

She hadn’t been lying, and soon John had more awakened genes than he would ever need. A few enhanced genes went to the bag as well, but Liz they were fewer in number and harder to kill. The smaller bugs seemed almost predisposed to die by comparison.

After twenty minutes of relentless kiting by Liz, John told her to get ready. He took a few steps away from the nest himself and readied his bow. The ants continued to berserk towards Liz, who was happy to keep smashing them with her club.

John felt the disturbance before it came. Like a tremor beneath his feet, a chittering shriek vibrated his whole body, from the soles of his feet to the top of his scalp. He knew the time had come.

“Liz! Lead them this way,” John called to her.

To her credit, she didn’t hesitate to follow his instructions. She immediately started making a roundabout path toward John. The various ants in her wake furiously swarmed after her.

John raised his bow but didn’t draw. He kept his eyes trained on the top of the mound. After almost a minute of anticipation, a single ant emerged.

It was black like all the rest, but much larger. Moreover, the pincers that were the collectible gene on the smaller ants were razor sharp and when it clicked them together John could feel the vibration from his position. The gene was also much larger, the entire head appeared to be shining in the evening light.

Before John had finished taking all of this in, the ant was down the mound and in quick pursuit of Liz. She continued to retreat, but it was clear which of the two was faster. She noticed it advancing on her and called out with a note of panic.

“Uhh, John?”

“Im on it. Don’t stop moving.”

John drew back his bow and took aim at the ant. He didn’t spend a lot of time on his aim, hoping to break through the exoskeleton with the sheer force of the arrow. As a result, his shot glanced off the abdomen of the ant and went spinning away.

John cursed, the chitin of the insect was seriously tough stuff. This was the first time his bow had failed to penetrate a target. John’s confidence would have wavered, but he clenched down on his doubts and returned the arrow to his string.

The ant didn’t miss the attempt on its life, however. It turned its bug eyes on him and chittered angrily at him. Surprisingly though, it continued to pursue Liz.

John drew the string once more and this time allowed the scope of the bow to extend. He sighted the ant down the lens, having no trouble at the extremely close range. The ant continued to chitter and clamp its mandibles as it chased Liz.

John studied the bug and found that there were only two parts of the whole ant that shone as a weakness to his sight. The point where the head met the abdomen and the point where the abdomen met the thorax.

Of the two spots, the head and abdomen was undoubtedly the more fatal. One shot there might decapitate the bug. But John decided against aiming there for two reasons.

First of all, John was a good shot, but a moving target that small was not within his level of confidence. Secondly, John’s arrow was venomous. The gene itself seemed to be the head of the ant. If his arrow infected the gene, it would be dangerous to consume and therefore worthless.

So instead, John quickly took aim at the proverbial ass crack. He took an extra couple of seconds to track the movement of the ant. Liz shot another frantic request for aid his way as he calculated his shot.

John released the string with his next exhale. Before the twang could even reverberate in the air, the ant was bisected at its midsection. It chittered louder than ever, though the unmistakable urgency of agony was now present in the sound.

Though it had been halved, all six of the ant’s legs remained attached to the insect. It had no problem continuing to chase Liz. At least, not for about two seconds.

The potent sedative properties of the Drowsy Muckray arrow quickly slowed the scuttle of the ant to a crawl. Within another dozen seconds, it stopped moving altogether. The insides of the ant poured out onto the ground as it lied there impotently.

Advanced Ant Drone killed. Gene available for harvest.

“Get the gene!” John yelled as soon as he got the message.

“On it,” Liz said.

“Be quick, we’re not done here,” John warned.

Sure enough, while Liz was still trying to separate the head from the tough exoskeleton, John felt the very same tremor course through him as he had preceding the advanced ant. This time though, it lasted for several seconds, and Liz looked over at him with an ounce of trepidation on her face. John gestured at her to wrap it up.

He took aim at the mound while he waited for what was to come. He was ready for the worst. Or at least, he thought he was.

But when over a dozen advanced ants spilled down the hill at the same time, John’s stomach almost fell out of his ass. He immediately prepared to launch an arrow, but waited for the leading ant to make some distance from the dome before shooting. It only took about two seconds.

By that time, the rest of the ants had already spread out in a scatter pattern. John let loose his arrow and returned it to the string almost as soon as he heard the crunch of the ant’s chitin. Liz screamed in surprise and fell backward as the bug all but drug itself into her lap.

It slowed to a stop just before it’s pincers could snap around her ankle. It chittered for a few more seconds before sleep, and shortly after, death took it. Liz looked to him with blatant panic on her face.

“On your feet! It’s time to transform,” he shouted to her.

Liz scrambled backward and rose messily to standing position. She hastily stowed the advanced gene she had been prying loose into her travel bag. She was halfway into a bear by the time she finished.

Two more ants were on her seconds later, but one of them immediately received its own arrow to the butt. The other managed to make an attack on Liz, but she was already swinging a taloned paw at the insect by then.

John watched as the bug latched its razor-sharp mandibles into the leg of the bulky bear just as its devastating paw raked across the ant’s back. An ursine scream left Liz’s grizzly mouth as the pincers locked themselves in place in her leg. Unfortunately for the bug, she also inadvertently ripped the head of the ant clean off in her reflexive jerk backward.

Her claws had raked most effectively across its back. One of them had made a lucky incision almost perfectly across the crack between its head and abdomen. The result was that by locking its bite on her leg, the ant provided both the means and motivation for Liz to decapitate it.

Counting the one in her bag, that made two advanced genes she had. John watched as her bear hands seemed to struggle to open the sharp pincers in her leg. It didn’t appear that she had enough dexterity to accomplish the task.

A moment later, the entire head of the ant began to dissolve as Liz found a solution. She stood tall and screamed her victory to the sky as the advanced gene sunk into her bear flesh. John turned away from her in time to fire an arrow out of reflex into the face of yet another Advanced ant.

Three others were advancing on him from different angles, while Liz had five coming for her. John mourned the contamination of an advanced gene by his arrow, but had no time to dwell on the fact. He would just have to do better.

Liz was pummeling the ants left and right but unwilling to let them get close enough to sink their jaws into her again. As a result, she wasn’t able to make any easy kills. The chitin of the creatures was really something special.

John took his shot at the next closest ant while doing a good impression of a backward unicycle ride. He missed the sweet spot, but his arrow did cleave through a single leg in its way. The ant slowed visibly, but John was unsurprised that it took almost half a minute to stop altogether. Another minute after that would pass before it finally succumbed to the arrow’s venom.

By that time, John had taken a half dozen similarly unsuccessful shots at its fellows. None of them hit their mark, and to make things worse, he didn’t get another lucky limb severance either. The two remaining ants on his tail were too nimble to be easily beaten.

At such close range, John had little hope of beating them with his bow. Luckily, he hadn’t used all his cards yet. A flash of light signaled a new entrance to the battle.

Jane burst from John’s chest, taking solid form in less than a second. It had taken a surprising amount of time for her most recent food coma to run its course, but only a few days ago, it finally happened. Jane was a new and improved soul once more.

The ants chittered in anger as the majestic fox leapt into the fray. It wasn’t the little baby soul it had been when he gained it. Two back-to-back fortuitous encounters had led to it first becoming Advanced and now Wizened.

Jane leapt at the nearest ant and bit down on its entire head as it tried to fix its mandibles on the fox. A loud crunch could be heard before the canine-like soul companion moved on to the next.

The ant it left behind collapsed instantly to the ground, unmoving. Before Jane had even pounced on the other, John was hearing the voice ring out in his head. He smiled at his little killer.

Advanced Ant Drone killed. Advanced gene available for harvest.

The voice hadn’t even finished speaking before it started again, overlapping with the first as Jane crunched another ant head. John unleashed Jane on the four advanced ants Liz had yet to kill next. I’m a matter of seconds, only one was left.

Before Jane could make a chew toy out of it, the bug had skittered back into the anthill. John ignored its retreat and quickly set to work removing all the genes he could from the dead ant bodies. Liz didn’t hesitate to join him.

They both put a few genes each away while Jane stood guard. John left the gene he had ruined with venom, but still managed to pry loose four of the ant heads and Liz three before the most infuriated rumbling yet shook the ground beneath them.

John knew what this meant. The queen was finally ready to come out and play herself. John signaled to Liz to abandon her attempts at another gene.

“Jane can kite the queen when it comes out. Just try to stay out of its reach the best you can. If one of us gets all the attention the other will draw it back away. Are you ready?”

Liz nodded her bear head, having transformed back from human after getting John’s warning. John nodded back and raised his bow. He took aim on the anthill just before the largest ant yet popped out of the hole.

John was ready to let loose the second Jane gained the insect’s ire. But the rumbling beneath his feet hadn’t yet subsided, and John began to feel the nagging sensation of anxiety that always preceded disaster. A second later, the mound of the anthill exploded with activity.

John turned to Liz in a heartbeat and shouted new instructions. He quickly grabbed a gene from his bag and pushed it into her clumsy bear paws. She tilted her head in question, but a John was already yelling his orders to her.

“Take this gene and go. Find Jules and give it to him. Tell him what I told you before but also tell him that this is advance payment for any babysitting he might have to do if I don’t come back. Got it? Now go! Don’t stop running and don’t leave your bear form until you’re forced to,” John turned away from her without another thought.

Her lumbering gallop was all he needed to hear to know she had followed his instructions. John sent a command to Jane as well. The fox obediently bounded off after Liz to protect her retreat. John himself took aim down the sight and prepared for his last stand.

He knew he wouldn’t get out of this one. There would be no tree to climb. There would be no last minute upgrade that gave him the advantage he needed. This would be it for him.

That wasn’t lack of confidence. It wasn’t giving up. It was acceptance of a fate he couldn’t possibly escape.

He knew that, because the ants that stormed out of the hill now were not awakened. They weren’t enhanced. No, not even an army of advanced ants stampeded his way. The ants the swarmed out of the nest by the dozens, by the hundreds even, were all of the wizened tier.

John knew he was going to die. He knew that without the shadow of a doubt. And even if these innumerable and undeniably superior insects couldn’t kill him, John now knew the truth.

Even if he could kill them all with impunity, not a single one of them was the queen. And John’s critical thinking skills were sufficient to piece together what that meant. The queen, the ant in charge of all of this and undoubtedly the same ant that had been shaking the very ground with its fury, was something a step above even this army of wizened drones.

That was the reality of it. John had tested his luck and pulled the short straw. With no other option available to him, he took aim at the face of the closest ant and closed his eyes as he let the string go.

3

Crack!

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

John heard the arrow impact the skull of the ant immediately after it left his string. He didn’t open his eyes, but he knew by the way he wasn’t pincered in the guts that his arrow killed the bug. But a second later, John’s eyes opened in shock when the system voice spoke in his mind.

Wizened Ant Guard killed. Soul armor gained. Wizened gene available for harvest.

John couldn’t believe the words. He immediately summoned the soul around him. With the defense of the armor, he might just be able to survive the attacks of the ants long enough to get away.

But when he looked up and saw the literal army of insects surrounding him on all sides, his hopes were dashed. He dialed back his hopes to “play dead and hope they eventually leave”. John felt the armor encase his entire body as he fell to the ground and curled up in a tight ball, doing what he could to protect his vital organs.

John waited to feel the sharp attacks pierce his flesh. At the very least he figured he would get some serious bruises from the force of the attack. But after about ten seconds, John hadn’t felt so much as a nudge.

Even as he had the thought, he did get a nudge. It came from behind him. It wasn’t so much a shove as it was a poke. John pretended he was already dead and tried not to react to the push.

He heard a lot of chittering all around him, and to his astonishment, he began to understand it. He felt, almost like thoughts channeled into his brain, feelings and sensations from various ants around him. He would later learn that the suit of ant armor he wore was more anatomical than he had thought to consider.

On his helmet, so to speak, we’re two extremely thin feeler like projections that seemed to catch and translate the vibrations of the chittering creatures into recognizable concepts. The miniscule antennae were so sensitive that John couldn’t hope to process all the sensations it picked up. Words and emotions slammed into his mind like a tidal wave.

“Eat!” “Trick!”

“Dead!” “Return!” “Anger!”

“Revenge!” “Eat!” “Gather!”

“Bring!” “Save!” “Mother!”

“Mother?” “Mother!”

“Bring Mother!” “Lift!” “Come!” “Return!” “Mother.”

John had no idea how to make sense of the tide of information he was being blasted with. His head was spinning like a top as he remained motionless while the torrent or ant debate washed over his mind. Before he knew what was happening, John was being lifted into the air by innumerable insect arms and ferried toward the nest.

He opened his eyes, finding that the ant armor he wore almost perfectly took the shape of an ant from the head to the waist. From there down it was less accurate, having no thorax of his own. But for the helmet, his head was inside a passable representation of an ant head. As such, the eyes of the ant were black and allowed no perception within to John’s face.

With that being said, he didn’t have to worry about actually playing dead, he just had to be still. His eyes were constantly roaming over the army of ants that escorted him to the nest. As he had thought, each of them were wizened.

Their size wasn’t much bigger than the human sized advanced ones they had fought, but the spreading of the gene was much more pronounced. It was the same as it had been after the bear had eaten the gorilla. Each of them had a differing level of gene progression across their abdomen.

Some genes had barely spread further than the head of the insect. Others were approaching their thorax in gene completion. More than a few had one or more of their legs included in the hardening process. John wondered just what the queen would look like.

His speculation was much longer lived than he hoped. He was brought into the hole at the peak of the anthill and carried down a steep decline before moving impossibly through tunnel after tunnel in a manner that made it hopeless to remember his way back. That worry was still secondary to the very real fact that John was being brought before the leader of the hive herself.

An hour-long passage through the hive made John less anxious and more impatient. His legs and arms were cramping from the forced stillness. It made John wonder just how large and powerful the queen must have been to shake the ground from so deep within it.

John’s mental image was a gargantuan carapace with limbs as long and thick as telephone poles. Mandibles that could cleave thick oak trees would fill its mouth in his mind. The truth, when it finally came, was something far more incredible.

John was led deep into the heart of the nest. The amount of smaller, less evolved ants grew fewer and fewer as the bugs carried him. Soon only advanced and wizened ants could be seen, but their numbers were nothing short of astonishing.

Hundreds, thousands of ants the size of Great Danes scurried back and forth through the various tunnels that crossed with the one his procession used. John’s guts were in an uproar trying to remain calm. Then again, he had thought we would have been dead an hour ago, so he didn’t give up hope.

After endless turns and constant descent for longer than John could possibly have calculated, the tunnel suddenly opened up. He couldn’t move his head, lest his game of play dead would end in disaster. As a result, he only beheld his destination after the group of ants dumped him messily on the tunnel floor.

John looked out the ant eyes on his helmet and was unable to understand what he saw. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He understood perfectly well that the ants had brought him to the queen.

It moved with more certainty than any other. Admittedly, the movement it did was very minute. It mostly consisted of a strangely ritualistic looking shake of its thorax that would produce a seemingly random number of what John guessed were eggs.

Numerous wizened ants came and went behind the queen, appearing to sort the many eggs by criteria unknown to John. They then sped off through various other passageways leading to what might have been different egg nurseries. The queen didn’t interrupt her reproduction, and the ants that brought John to her waited without approaching further.

All of these observations gave John the certainty he needed that this was indeed the queen. But all of that made John’s confusion even more profound. He expected to see a nightmare made reality; a monstrosity, a terror to behold.

But the queen of all these millions of ants, from awakened to wizened, from rat sized to human length, was an ant barely the length of his foot. John couldn’t understand what he was seeing. Smaller even than the smallest of awakened bugs, the queen could have been the weakest of any ant he had yet seen.

He couldn’t inspect it very well given the position he was thrown down in. His peripheral vision was also constricted by the helmet. What he could see of the relatively small ant was that its whole body glowed with the brilliance of a gene. But how did such a small ant reach such evolutionary heights?

“Mother!” “Killer!” “Retrieved!”

“Killed!” “Dangerous!” “Protected!”

“Brought back!” “Saved body!”

John could again hear the confusing babble of thought forced into his brain by the many chitters of the ants that had brought him. He tried not to twitch in discomfort. Before it became too much to handle, a new voice cut in. This one was clear and concise, but it had much more cohesion than even the greatest of the wizened ants that spoke into his antennae.

“Stop. Speak only when directed. What is this?”

“Killer!” “Human!”

“This is no human. It looks like one of the mutated ones.”

“Human!” “Changed shape!”

“Is it dead? I care not what it is so long as the hive is safe.”

“Dead!” “Still for long!”

“Good. Take it with the other gatherings to the pile. Good child.”

That was all the conversation John heard before he was being lifted again. His head lolled to the side as the ants moving him positioned him between them. From the new position, he got his first clear look at the queen.

It was still busying itself with the many eggs it produced per minute. Even as he watched, the ant shook its butt in a particularly rigorous egg dump. But when the single egg came out, everything changed.

The ants in charge of transporting the eggs approached to move it to wherever they took the eggs, the queen moved in a terrifyingly fast manner. Before John understood what was happening, three wizened ants were sliced into pieces.

As he was carried further from the queen, John’s mouth dried like the desert. He hadn’t even seen the attack, only the single swiping motion the queen had made in the direction of the other ants. Yet not one of them was left in less than a dozen pieces. The queen chittered angrily at the other ants still moving nearby to collect the eggs.

With alacrity, every ant moved away from the small monarch. When she was standing solitary, the queen turned to her single egg and lifted it gingerly with two of her six appendages. Then she walked alone to a tunnel John had not seen any other ant enter.

“The egg must be special, even among all the high level bugs around here. Could the queen have produced another ant like her? What was the evolution of the queen anyway? Clearly it was far stronger than the wizened ants it just ribboned. But could it have made another as strong as it?”

John’s mind was a jumble of thoughts as he was carried out of sight. He knew something special was up with the egg, and he thought about any way he would be able to get to it. Unfortunately, he had no hope of finding his way out, much less down a secret tunnel that no other ants seemed to be allowed to enter.

So, when the ants carrying him began to climb a giant mound of leaves, berries, and other oddities he supposed were meant for food, John finally started to relax. He was dumped on the top of the mound and left without a further glance. John waited for several minutes to be sure the ants were gone before daring to move his head slightly.

He turned his head down the pile of food and could see innumerable smaller ants than the ones that brought him all dropping food off at the base of the mound. The sheer amount of food collected by the ant colony each minute was something approaching impossible by human standards. Nevertheless, the pile grew constantly.

The good news was that none of the ants were climbing to the top of the pile to throw down their gains. They all just chucked their stuff at the bottom and took off to find more. Not one ant bothered to look up the mound to his supposedly deceased form. John watched uncomfortably for several minutes just trying to be sure of his assumption.

After almost half an hour of this, John began to make minute changes to his position. He always moved a single part of him at a time, and never more than a few inches. After each adjustment he would obsessively study the ants below for signs of alarm. Never did they look up to him and not once did he draw any attention. The ants seemed almost vulnerably oblivious to him.

John couldn’t believe the situation he was in. He was stuck far underground, alone and completely unable to find his way out even if he could escape. He did have one thing to help though.

Jane had been automatically returned to his mind some time ago when the distance from John had become too great to sustain. He was sure that would mean the difference between living and becoming true food for the colony of hungry mouths. He stayed on top of the mound of food for several hours, until what he supposed was late into the night.

Ants kept bringing food the entire time. Only long after John had felt the need to sleep himself did the colony of ants seem to slumber. John made sure that no other bugs would be coming before summoning Jane to his side.

“Sit here. Don’t move. And wake me if anything comes.”

John gave his orders and tried to nestle himself comfortably into the pile of food. He closed his eyes drifted into an extremely uncomfortable sleep. But uncomfortable or not, John was exhausted, and he slept like the ants really had killed him.

That was necessary, because tomorrow he would begin his plans to escape. Yes, escape was the number one priority. But he knew that the opportunity for growth was also just out of reach. So, tomorrow would also begin the suicidal plan to take and consume as many genes as he could. Hopefully, it wouldn’t turn into actual suicide.

4

“Alright Jane. You know what to do,” John said two days later.

He had been nested on top of the pile of food observing the mannerisms of the colony. He learned that the hive was at rest for no more than a few hours a night. Jane had woken him all too soon the first night, and though John had no frame of reference, he assumed it was sometime around dawn.

The day had passed excruciatingly slowly for John. He was forced to sit as still as possible for hours on end as ants piled morsel after leafy morsel around the base of his mound. John had long since found the least popular side of the food pile and nestled himself as comfortably as possible while he waited.

He had nothing to do all day but to watch the ants. Sometimes throughout the day, a larger morsel would be carried up the mound before being dropped off. Very few things were as big as he was, but he did see a few animals the size of large dogs added to the pile.

John also noticed that some of the ants brought eggs the size of his palm to be added to the food store. He was curious why they would throw away, much less eat their own young. After some cautious digging through the pile, he was able to find a few of the eggs.

He inspected it, but as he thought, it was simply an ant egg. There was no reason that he could find that it would be discarded with the food. Shrugging his shoulders, he had went to put the egg back, but accidentally squeezed it too hard.

Primitive ant larva gene absorbed, you have gained three primitive genes.

John’s eyes had widened at the voice in his head. The egg in his hand seeped into his skin like a regular gene. When it was finished, only the shell remained.

John had quickly found four more eggs after that to bring his primitive gene total to 100. It was easier than he had ever thought it could be. He was starting to think being taken as food wasn’t such a bad thing. He had been reveling in his accomplishment when he heard the voice of The Garden speak again.

Congratulations. You have gained 100 genes in one or more genetic tiers. You may now use your transport pad to proceed to the evolution pool. This is optional and will have to be manually selected before stepping onto the pad. Evolution is a one-time affair and may not be undone once commenced. Procedure to Stage Two of The Garden will immediately follow successful evolution. Choose your evolution wisely.

John couldn’t believe that after only two months in The Garden he had the opportunity to evolve into a higher grade of being. Of course, he would never dream of doing such a thing yet. There were three other tiers to max out at least. Perhaps four, he had thought when remembering how far above the other ants the queen was.

John’s next thought was that he hadn’t received the message from maxing out his enhanced genes. He wondered why that was, but he supposed it probably had something to do with him finishing his progression while on earth. He supposed it didn’t really matter in any case.

John had spent the rest of that day scheming and formulating a plan to make the most of his captivity as it were. He searched the pile some more, but he found nothing else that would progress him in gene tally. But when the ants had called it a night, John had once again summoned Jane.

She was as silent as a hunting cat, and he had planned to make use of it. He let her sniff one of the primitive eggs. Being a wizened soul companion, Jane turned her nose up at the low-grade egg. John smiled at the stuck-up beast but gave his orders all the same.

“If you don’t like the quality, find us some better ones.”

John had waited patiently as Jane foraged the hive silently for a couple hours. She had orders to simply return to his mind if discovered. But that had never happened. Only twenty minutes or so before the hive would stir to life, Jane returned, bloated and waddling.

The fox had struggled up the mound of food and settled into John’s waiting lap. He patted her on the side and gave her a good scratch on the chin. She chirped softly in a contented manner before John returned her to his mind.

An entire hoard of eggs popped into existence on John’s lap. There were about two dozen in total. John knew they were of different tiers because of the difference in durability he could feel in the many eggs.

He started with the weakest feeling eggs, of which there were two. Upon crushing them he received a de awakened genes. Bringing his total to ninety. The vast majority of eggs unfortunately were enhanced, which he could gain nothing from.

There had been a few advanced eggs as well and a single wizened egg. John doubted the scarcity of the latter as much as the inability by his soul companion not to crunch the wizened eggs herself. In any case, John received a total of five advanced genes and another two wizened genes.

That brought both of them over ten, a milestone which the advanced tier had been lacking even behind the wizened. John wasn’t disheartened to find that he gained much less from eggs than regular beasts. It would have been entirely too easy for everyone to become insanely strong.

So, John had sat through yet another day of playing dead with slightly more gusto than your average corpse. He had formed a plan much better than the last day’s. This time, Jane would take him to the exit.

His faithful foxy companion did indeed know what to do at his previous command. And so, John slid carefully down the pile of food, passingly careful not to disturb or smash the mound too badly on his way. He didn’t know how deductive these ants truly were, but there was no reason to test their attention spans unduly.

Jane trod down the pile as agile as a cat. She loyally took up position in front of John. After making certain that he would leave no trail, they set off.

The dark attuned vision of the ant helmet made it easy to see where he was going in the lightless passageways. Jane led him by smell through tunnel after tunnel, but John felt certain that it would still take them hours to find the exit. They moved with surety, at least John hoped Jane was as confident as she seemed with every turn and choice she made.

After only a few minutes though, Jane stopped short. John almost bumped into her before noticing she had paused. She looked back at him with a very doglike expression and let out an almost silent whine.

“What is it? Which way is the surface?” He asked.

Jane whined again before pointing her head in the same direction they had been moving. John didn’t understand what her problem was if she wasn’t lost. After a second or two, she turned to another passageway and dug her feet lightly into the dirt like she was trying to indicate something.

“What’s down there?” He asked.

Jane whined again but didn’t give any obvious response otherwise.

“What is it? We don’t have time for this!” John urgently whisper screamed at the fox.

Jane was obstinate though. She trotted down the tunnel she had indicated for a few feet before turning around and staring at John once more.

“Why are you being so stubborn? Are there eggs down that tunnel?”

Jane immediately hopped several times excitedly. She ran to John’s legs and pushed on the back of his knees. An excited series of whines came forth from her as she tried to force him down the tunnel.

John’s reluctance diminished greatly as he confirmed that there was something to be gained from the detour. Still though, he knew they had no time for lolligagging. So, he turned to Jane and spoke to her seriously.

“Ten minutes and we are gone. Do you understand? We can’t be caught here when the ants wake up.”

Jane yipped quietly and trotted forward. John followed as quietly as he could, careful not to leave footprints where possible. Soon they passed through what John recognized as the chamber where the queen had the audience with John’s captors.

Jane led him straight into the passageway John remembered the queen taking the egg down. The queen herself was nowhere to be seen, luckily, and John followed Jane down the tunnel like the ghost of a mime. It came fairly quickly to a small chamber that only had one feature.

In the back of the small room, which John almost had to double over to pass into, was an alcove of dirt. Inside the alcove was a small pile of eggs. Truthfully, pile was being generous. Four eggs sat nestled within.

Jane moved straight to the eggs, clearly wishing to take one for herself. John gestured for the fox to go ahead, but Jane whimpered softly. She nudged one of the eggs with her nose until it fell away from the others. Then she picked it up in her mouth and attempted to bite down on it.

The egg shot out of her mouth like a dart and hit the side of the tunnel. It fell to the ground intact and rolled close to John’s foot. He picked it up with a confused expression on his face.

The egg as completely unharmed. Not a tooth mark could be found on the shell. John’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He squeezed it himself and found that it didn’t give a millimeter under his grip. Whatever class the egg was, it was far above the wizened eggs Jane had brought him the day before.

Without hesitation, John took all four of the eggs and stored them in his bag. The bag was oddly concealed beneath the carapace of the armor until he needed it. It was extremely weird, like the bag was vacuum sealed between himself and the armor, barely needing any space at all.

John looked to Jane, who had a disappointed look on her face. She seemed like she expected John to have cracked the egg open immediately so she could enjoy it. He rolled his eyes at the greedy fox.

“We have to go. I’ll save one for when you can break it open. Come on! Go!”

Jane huffed but turned to lead the way back through the maze. Her steps were much more sure than the path she took leading to the eggs. John forgot all worry of covering his trail as the fox bounded forward through the passageways.

They moved without stopping for over an hour, twisting and turning through tunnel after tunnel. Jane didn’t falter once in her pursuit of the surface. John stayed hot on her heels, knowing full well how soon the ants would begin their day.

It turned out, the queen rose even earlier than the drones, as John discovered shortly after Jane had turned their path into the wide main tunnel that John remembered coming down during his capture. He stumbled as the familiar shriek of the queen shook the entire passageway they ran through. John fell to his knees and continued to scramble forward as the most furious wail he had felt yet vibrated his bones within his skin.

The queen was not only awake, but she had already went to check on her precious eggs. John clutched at his chest as the tremor all around him grew to a painful degree. Jane whimpered too, clearly not immune to the effects. They had to get the hell out of the nest before the millions of ants caught up with them and finished what they thought they had before.

Jane scrambled up the steeply inclining tunnel with John digging his hands into the dirt to follow. They both slowed considerably, but John much more so than Jane. He couldn’t grip the dirt as well as her naturally suited paws.

John frantically began jabbing his hands as far into the dirt as he could to keep pulling himself up the passageway. He was surprised at how well it worked. His armor was not only hard as steel, it also allowed him to ignore the many bothers that might have come with trying to use his bare hands as makeshift ice picks.

In this last ditch manner, John was able to ascend ever so slowly. Ahead of him, Jane suddenly disappeared before turning back and popping her head into the hole of the anthill once more; she had made it out. Behind him, John could feel a constantly growing vibration through the soles of his ant armor boots.

The entire hive was awake and quickly closing the distance between themselves and John. He turned back to Jane and scrabbled his way up the hole like a drowning man searching for the surface. Only ten feet separated him from his freedom, but he could feel parts of the anthill collapsing both from his barbaric efforts and from the thundering stampede of oversized insects barreling through it towards him.

John reached for Jane as he came to the last few feet of the tunnel. The faithful fox but down on his armored wrist and pulled for everything she was worth. She couldn’t hope to pull him up by herself, but John was doing a hefty majority of the lifting himself. With their combined efforts, John finally topped the mound of dirt and rolled clumsily down the outside.

Jane was right behind him, and they both made a messy escape from the anthill as the ground beneath them began to buck like trying to run on a trampoline that five larger people were actively jumping on. John fell several times in just a few seconds, but always managed to find his feet again in his desperation for survival. Jane was better off than him, having twice as many feet.

The two of them struggled forward as yet another furious exclamation rumbled beneath them. John didn’t want to, but he had to turn back to the nest to understand how dire the situation was. When he did, the definition of the words completely fucked became suddenly clear to him.

The anthill itself was chaos, hundreds of ants poured down the hill, all at least advanced in tier. The ground was covered in black insects swarming toward him and Jane. But that wasn’t what truly drove home how dire the situation was.

The bucking and caving dirt beneath their feet had given way several feet behind them to reveal innumerable ants of undoubtedly wizened tier forced their way from the cracks in the dirt. The entire world seemed to be demolished under the inexorable tide of insects hell bent on ripping John limb from limb. He turned back to Jane who was unceasingly running from their impending deaths.

“Fucking bugs,” he lamented to her.

5

John rushed past Jane who turned off to the side slightly. After a few paces, she turned back and darted under the body of one of the ants closest to John. The bug tripped as he had hoped when giving the order, but was back in pursuit too quickly to make the maneuver worth the effort.

Jane tripped a few more bugs and chomped on the heads of a few more as she tried to widen the distance between her companion and the foes. John knew she would be okay; her agile body was much quicker than even the wizened ants, and it was really only John that was keeping her from moving even faster. Nevertheless, she took a few scrapes and close calls from a few of the more ready ants she provoked.

Ineffective or outnumbered though she might have been, Jane’s efforts gave John precious ground as he moved like a man possessed. All too soon he came to the rocky outcropping where he and Liz had encountered all of the snakes. John cursed at the quickly rising sun when he realized that all of those snakes would probably be in the vicinity again, hoping to get some morning sun before heading out to hunt.

John recalled Jane and summoned her again. She appeared at his side, ready to take the lead again. He pointed ahead of them and gave her a simple command.

“Find all the snakes and then keep us the fuck away from them,” he said.

Jane bounded forward with her nose to the ground. She sniffed almost obsessively as they progressed. Every few seconds, she sniffed sharply in a particular direction before turning well away to continue. John didn’t question her or watch his footing as they moved through the rocks. Behind them, John could feel the rumbling ground of the ants catching up slowly but surely as they lost time avoiding the reptiles of the area.

John and Jane soon made their way from the rocks and their pace once again increased. Contrariwise, the ants seemed to get held up with the rocks and the snakes that took badly to their close intrusion. Nevertheless, John knew he was far from in the clear as he and Jane sprinted openly for the first time since their flight began.

Hoping to lose them entirely, John sent Jane back to distract the best she could. She turned immediately and ran to harass the ants once more. John sprinted as fast as he could while Jane made a more crooked path, subtly leading the ants off to one side as she continually turned back and ran among the ants.

They weren’t stupid creatures, that much they had proven by their actions to date. But strategy was something the hive lacked. Their best tactics were limited to dog pile the enemy and hope they weren’t too fast. As a result, Jane was able to slowly but surely lead them off course from John.

John himself didn’t slow his pace for a moment. He ran like his heart wasn’t about to explode from the adrenaline coursing through him. He made the straightest path back to Emerald Base he could, clutching desperately at the stitch in his side and praying his feet wouldn’t trip on a root.

His flight remained uninterrupted as the rumbling of the army behind him slowly calmed. He didn’t know if the ruse had fully succeeded, but at the least Jane had given him time to make some distance. John didn’t stop or even slow down for the next hours.

His pace was one that few could match, as few had gained as many genes as he had. He could feel the amazing difference between his physique now and a few months ago. He was still falling over with pain and exhaustion, but his body would have given out long before then without his advancements.

After what seemed like the entire day, but in truth wasn’t even half the morning of running, John saw the beautiful sight of Emerald walls surrounding his familiar safe haven. He had long since stopped feeling the stampede behind him, but had only doubled his efforts. He had recalled Jane over an hour previously when she had moved too far from him.

John didn’t think he was free and clear, but he hoped he would be able to make it back into the base without detection by the ants. Alas. The flat plains around the base were not his friend in this regard. As he was within a mile of the gates to Emerald Base, John turned back to casually check his tail as he had been doing all day.

There, at the top of the nearest hill in the distance was a growing hoard of insects. They didn’t chase him further, but it was clear they were taking in the base for all of its strengths and weaknesses. John worried for the first time since entering the nest if his actions might lead to horrible consequences for the people of Emerald Base.

Nothing to do for at the moment, John turned back and ran the last distance to the base. When he painted through the gates, he turned to the guards standing there. He held up a finger to let them know he had something to say, then he caught his breath loudly at their knees.

“Don’t… let… the ants… in,” he wheezed between breaths.

“What?”

The men at the gate were alarmed at his frenzied entrance, and they all knew all too well how dangerous the world beyond the walls could be. His words rattled more than one of them.

“There’s… an army… of ants out there… if you see a single one… shut the gates.” John panted before stumbling past them to clear protest.

John ignored them entirely and moved through the streets of Emerald Base until he was well away from the gates. Then he finally returned his ant armor after days of being stuck within it. Within moments of entering the base, besides the quickly regulating heavy breathing he was doing, John had become anonymous.

He moved without stopping until he came to Jules’ room. Without preamble, he banged a fist on the door. He could tell by the immediate and startled exclamation from within that Jules was already there despite the fairly early hour.

“John!” He shouted as soon as he saw who was standing in the doorway.

He was ushered quickly into the man’s small room without another word. John fell onto Jules’ bed in an exhausted heap. He turned his head to barely face the man before addressing the Jules.

“Give me four hours.”

When John opened his eyes again, Jules was sitting patiently on the counter next to his cooking area. He was looking at John with interest. Before John could excuse himself for the rude entrance, Jules spoke.

“Damn dude. Who is the hottie?” He said.

“Oh yeah. Liz,” John smiled.

“Where did you meet her?”

“She needed a bit of help,” John shrugged, not answering the question.

“I’d like to give her some help, too,” Jules said greasily.

“For one, I’m pretty sure there’s a law against that. And for two, she would literally rip your dick off. You should know better than anyone that when I help someone, I really help them.”

Jules looked like he was trying to decipher what John meant. Eventually, he shook his head and held up something in his hand. After a second, John recognized it as the gene he had sent with Liz.

“You helped her out quite a bit by the looks of this gene. Is this what I think it is?”

“Like I said. And yes, it’s an advanced gene. And it’s yours. After all the work you’ve been doing on my behalf, I owe you at least this much. Also, as these past few days have proven, if I keep trying to get stronger, things are going to keep getting in the way of my residence quota. If my mom ever comes to you, do what you can to help her. I’m return I will keep bringing you these when possible.”

Jules had listened to John speak without interrupting. He looked completely taken aback. He shook his head lightly before laughing, exasperated.

“Do you even know how much you’ve done for me? I would do you a thousand favors after the boost in genes you’ve given me. But this? This is…”

Jules shook his head, apparently unable to find words for how he was feeling. John sat up on the man’s bed and looked at him squarely for the first time since waking. He was as serious as John had ever seen him.

“No worries, man. Without your arrow, I could have never made it half as far as I have. I owe you just as much as you think you owe me. And anyway, I’m glad you’re so willing to do me favors. Because I’m ready to start taking escort missions. Can you set things up?”

“About that,” Jules said.

“What?”

“You remember when you said to tell everyone that one gene was the price of your services?”

John nodded, narrowing his eyes.

“Well it turns out, pretty much everyone was willing to pay up front. I told them that you were still preparing things, but they all insisted to put the payment in.”

“What do you mean?” John asked.

Jules hopped down from the counter and retrieved the travel bag that hung at the door. John watched in interest as the man opened the bag and upended its contents on the bed. A very respectable pile of primitive and awakened genes fell onto the mattress beside him.

“Holy shit. How many people want to hire me?” John asked.

“So far? Somewhere between three and six dozen. It’s hard to say, really. Plenty of them want to hire you for several jobs of differing difficulty. Some people are putting in multiple payments for future relatives coming of age in the next few months. It’s hard to get it all sorted out. But it’s more than enough work to keep you occupied for several weeks.”

“Okay,” John said, a bit overwhelmed by the number of debts in front of him.

“I can start setting you up with wards after your hunt tomorrow, if you’re still up for it?” Jules asked.

“Hunt?” John asked.

“You set up the meeting with Sean Ross to help him hunt the Advanced beast he’s been studying. Do you not want to go anymore? I can reschedule.”

“No, it’s okay. I just forgot how long it had been since we last spoke. I’m sorry, man.”

“No worries just don’t work yourself to death,” Jules said.

“Tell him I’ll be at the gate tomorrow at noon if he wants to go.”

“What should I tell him to look for? You’re still trying to hide your identity, right?” Jules asked.

“Yes, tell him to look for this,” John said before summoning his wizened and armor to his body once more.

Jules’s head rocked back in surprise at seeing the clearly amazing armor John now had. He smiled in reluctant respect before shaking his head at John.

“You just can’t help but make the rest of us look bad, can you?”

John bid Jules farewell after collecting the pile of genes he now had no use for apart from the two awakened genes he had quickly used to bring his tally to 100. The voice of The Garden had once again congratulated him on reaching maximum potential in one or more genetic tiers. He tucked the rest of the genes into his own bag and made for his room, unable to wait a moment longer.

What followed was a night and morning after of John trying to convince his mom that he was both safe and sane after his three-day sabbatical in The Garden. The night he returned was much easier to convince her of his safety than dawn of the next morning when he assured her quite untruthfully that he was only returning to The Garden to practice with his trial.

His mom had not been happy nor convinced to receive the excuse, but had tearfully held back her protestations after John made it clear he wouldn’t be dissuaded. He clenched his guilt down tight at how he knew he made his mom feel, but it was only his own efforts that made it possible for her or his sister to advance.

He had given her all of the advanced ant genes he had collected. He found that after only a couple, he couldn’t gain a gene from them anymore. He had been upset, but remembered the eggs he had absorbed previously. He guessed that was the downside of taking advantage of unfinished ants.

Even with the loss, John’s advanced count finally surpassed his wizened tally, coming to twenty four. He was happy to give his mom enough advanced genes to raise her far above others. For her part, his mom seemed much less thrilled to get a pile of high-level genes from her teenage son right after being reassured that he was being safe.

John told himself he would take some time off after today to prove to his family that he was really okay. He didn’t plan on spending all of his time away from home. Time simply ran away from him the last few days.

John stepped onto the transport pad that would take him to his room in The Garden. He felt the familiar feeling of a limb asleep wash over his body as he stood there patiently. The darkness washed over him and he felt himself shift away.

But as the seconds passed, John began to think something was wrong. He waited for far longer than he usually had to, but nothing happened. Just when he was about to panic, he heard the voice of The Garden address him.

“Congratulations! You’ve been shuffled!”