The lab of the Royal Academy of Sciences fell deathly silent. The three stood like statues, only the rapid thump thump of their heartbeats echoing in their ears.
After a long while, Anna, pale with fear, glanced at Rick and Lav, both equally ashen, and whispered tentatively, "Let's get out of here?"
"Great idea!" Rick and Lav shouted in unison.
No need to wonder why the city was so empty, not even a single corpse in sight. The top priority now was to leave this cursed place before who-knew-what happened next.
As for the 300-year-old insect eggs, Rick had lost interest. The lab notes made it clear they were incomplete prototypes—valuable only for scientific and historical research, certainly no better than modern eggs. Still, Rick tucked the stone disk and experiment notes into his pack. Though seemingly worthless, his instincts told him they might prove useful, and the disk's unique texture deserved study.
Hastily gathering their things, they bolted from the lab like fleeing rabbits, hurtling down the building's distinctive spiral staircase.
Click click
Suddenly, two sounds like insect carapaces clashing echoed from below. Rick flipped backward to a stop, yanking Lav and Anna back just in time before they crashed ahead.
His abrupt move scared them half to death, draining the color from their pretty faces. "What's wrong?"
"Movement downstairs."
Rick fell silent after this reply, but they all knew the score—they'd seen no living things here, and being underground, not even a breeze stirred. So where had the sounds come from?
After a tense pause, the click click returned, clearer and closer.
"Upstairs—back the way we came!"
Rick shoved them forward, then flipped out through a stairwell window, hanging by his feet to peer through the next floor's window. Below, two Black Tiger Ants came into view. Not as huge as rumored—about three meters tall—their glossy black exoskeletons shone. Frontal antennae twitched, sensing the air, and their near-meter-long, serrated curved fangs were especially striking.
"Just as I thought." Rick took out the stone disk. The ninth clockwise slot showed an ant, matching Test Subject 9 recorded in the notes as the escaped experiment.
"Unbelievable—just what I didn't want!" Rick cursed under his breath, flipping back into the stairwell.
He rejoined Lav and Anna, who waited anxiously around the third-floor corridor corner. Seeing him, they rushed over chattering: "What's downstairs? Insects?"
"Correct, and they're exactly the Black Tiger Ants we were looking for." Rick forced a bitter smile.
"Black Tiger Ants?" Lav and Anna exchanged a glance, finally recalling the original purpose of their desert adventure. Why did they have to show up now of all times?
"What do we do?"
"What do we do?" Rick shot Anna a look. "You want to stab them with your tiny stinger? We hide, of course, and see what they're here for."
"Good idea! I know a place—follow me."
Lav led them to an observation room in the lab—a fully enclosed glass chamber with thick tempered glass. The special mirrored glass made it look like a mirror from the outside, hiding the interior, while those inside could see out clearly.
Entering and closing the door, Rick scanned the room. "Great spot—how'd you find it?"
"I noticed the sign when we passed. Our current observation rooms look the same, so I thought I'd check if 300-year-old ones were too. Lucky for us."
"What do you observe in your observation rooms?"
"Insect-humans. Insect hunters capture them occasionally, and the Insect Association buys them for experiments, extracting data. How else do you think we get egg modification data!"
Lav rambled on, oblivious to Rick's suddenly grim expression.
Soon, the two Black Tiger Ants arrived. Their massive bodies cramped the human-designed corridor, their hard exoskeletons scraping the walls with click click sounds that made Lav and Anna tremble in fear.
Rick, already in combat form with dual scythes, shielded them, tensed as he watched the giant insects through the glass.
Thump!
A heavy crash made Rick's muscles tense like steel. Behind him, Anna readied her tiny stinger, while Lav covered her mouth to stifle a scream.
"Dammit, can it see me? Can it?!" Rick stared into the ant's teacup-sized black eyes, his breathing growing ragged in the standoff.
"It... it can't see us," Lav suddenly said.
"Are you sure?!" Rick whispered harshly, turning back. "Can't you see it looking at me?"
"From outside, it's a mirror. It must see its own reflection and think it's another Black Tiger Ant."
"Are you an insect? How do you know?"
"Look—its frontal antennae are twitching, a unique way Black Tiger Ants communicate. If it saw you, it wouldn't twitch like that." Lav had regained her composure, speaking clearly.
Rick felt a surge of relief at Lav's words, finally noticing the Black Tiger Ants' twitching antennae. Still, staring at the insects through a mere sheet of glass was stifling—years of combat instinct made him flinch every time their massive bodies shifted, certain they would lunge.
At last, the ants seemed to realize the reflective surface wasn't a rival. Shaking their heads, they shouldered open the lab door with familiar ease and stumbled into the empty chamber beyond the observation room.
"Have they been here before?"
The three exchanged a glance, seeing the same astonishment in each other's eyes. It was surreal, but the ants moved with such purpose—scuff marks crisscrossed the mirrored glass, tiny scratches from countless encounters where they'd "communicated" with their reflections, a detail Rick had missed earlier.
"What are they after?" Rick frowned as the giants rambled aimlessly around the lab.
"Searching for something, maybe?" Lav sounded unsure. The idea of Black Tiger Ants rummaging through human ruins was preposterous.
But the proof came when the ants smashed through a side door to reveal sacks piled high. With their serrated mandibles, they hauled the sacks into a pile, each ant grabbing three or four in their jaws before staggering away.
What had they taken?
Curiosity overcame fear. As soon as the ants vanished, the trio burst from the observation room. Scattered across the floor where the sacks had been: black gravel. Meteorite sand. Empty rooms nearby held only stray grains, confirming the ants had returned repeatedly to loot the stash.
"Do these bugs eat sand? They're porters!" Rick's mind reeled—too many mysteries.
"Maybe... we should follow them?" Lav's eyes lit up, forgetting her earlier terror.
"Are you insane?!" Anna protested. Courting trouble with giant ants was suicide.
But Rick shocked her by nodding. "Their nest might hold answers. Maybe we'll find Moya there, or even the eggs we need."
As the de facto leader, Rick's decision was final. Grumbling, Anna trailed after them—if he was hell-bent on danger, she wasn't about to be left behind.