A Bug's Life 2: Out from Ant Island

Chapter 5

●•●

They traveled swiftly at first, in case anyone decided to come after them, but as there was no sign of circus pursuers, Chili slowed to his regular pace. He seemed to know where he was going, so Sinny let her guard down for a while. She eventually fell asleep on top of the tarantula, and it was nearly morning when she found herself slipping off sideways and falling to the ground. Chili narrowly missed trampling her, and doubled back.

"You okay, chica?" he asked, looking down at her. Sinny sat up and rubbed the back of her head; as an after thought, she checked to see if her bag was intact.

"Never better," she said, and stood up, slinging the pack over her shoulder. "How much farther do you think?"

"Hard to say, man, I don't come over here too often." He looked around at their forest surroundings. There were a few crickets calling to each other in the gloom, but it was eerily still otherwise. "The quieter it gets, the more we know we're headed in the right direction."

"Oh. Good." Sinny frowned, finding she desperately wanted to be perched on the tarantula again. A bit of fog still lingered around her feet, and it was difficult to see too far through the grass stalks in any direction.

Something rustled behind them suddenly, and Sinny scrambled up Chili's leg back to her perch. A moment later, a weevil came out from behind a dead leaf, looked at them, and continued on his way. Chili laughed, and Sinny smacked the back of his head.

"That could've been anything," she admonished, but the tarantula kept laughing.

●•●

She must've fallen asleep again at some point, because the next thing Sinny knew, she was being roughly dragged to her feet in the dirt, both her arms tightly gripped behind her. She called out and struggled, but the ant apprehending her was larger and stronger than she was. He tied some stringy, thick material around both her wrists and then let her drop face first to the ground.

"Is it just you?" he asked. Half of her face still pressed to the dirt, Sinny tried to scan her surroundings. Chili wasn't here.

"Who wants to know?" Sinny said, and was kicked in the face several times.

"You a scout?" her captor asked. Sinny shook her head, the vision in her left eye blurring as it swelled up.

"No… just a traveler."

The captor paced around the area for a while as Sinny breathed into the dirt. She tried to feel for vibrations, in case Chili might be returning, but there were none. Sinny didn't know what to make of his disappearance – then again, she didn't know where she was or what was happening.

Her captor finished his pacing and hoisted Sinny to her feet, saying nothing, dragging her along with him. They came across other guard ants, most as blue as Sinny was; they all had a look to them, somewhat different than Ant Island stock (the same look Leaf had? She wasn't sure). Sinny was handed over to another guard, and as she was taken away, she realized the first guard had her pack. She had an overwhelming urge to yell at him, but knew it wouldn't do any good.

She was pulled along until her legs gave out, then the guard hoisted her over his shoulder and carried on. After a stretch through the forest, the guard paused to call out to someone, and then continued after a great creaking and rustling had taken place. From Sinny's view at the rear, she watched as they passed through some sort of twig and thorn barricade – although, at the time she didn't know what to call it. She hadn't seen such a thing before. Part of the barricade swung closed behind them.

She surmised she'd been carried right into the colony she'd been looking for, but it was very quiet, especially for midday. There was no socializing hum, no children running and screaming – just quiet, and occasional harsh words to one another.

The place felt dry, hot, and barren, although Sinny didn't get a good look at it before she was taken underground. She was tossed into a cell at the end of a dark tunnel, and the door secured behind her. The door had bars she could see through, made of wood and some strange shiny material; she gripped the bars and looked out at the other cells, each one occupied by several ants. None of them looked back at her. The guards convened and then left together, one remaining behind to be stationed at the entrance.

Sinny's cell had just enough room for her to stretch out in, but she found this unwise, since the majority of the cell floor was covered in muck and decay, and something resembling an exoskeleton, which was disconcerting. She curled up in the corner with the least muck, waiting out this shared isolation. Occasionally the guard paced the tunnel, surveying the inmates. The weak bit of light showing through the entrance waned, and the tunnel darkened. Sinny slept in fits, jerking awake now and then to find she was still in the cell.

A few times someone came to look at her, even open the door and speak; someone asked her name, and she might have given it to them. She dozed; when she woke again, there was a very pink presence in front of her, crouched at her side.

"Sinny?" said her sister's voice. "Are you alright? Oh, what're you doing here?" Lily addressed the guards over her shoulder, "She's sick. She needs to go to the med cell. Please."

There was some mild protest, but Lily picked up her sister and carried her out of the cell, and the guards stepped aside.

●•●

Sinny woke in a med cell bed, both her hands tied to the frame, which she thought was excessive. A screen blocked her view of the rest of the cell, but she could smell the presence of about a dozen other workers and the bitter scent of herbs, several she didn't recognize. The guard next to the screen noticed her looking around, and disappeared; Lily came around the screen a moment later. There was nothing discernibly different about her, except for the yellow-leafed tiara she wore. Sinny wanted to greet her, but coughed instead. It was flemmy, and lasted longer than she thought it should.

"Not doing so good, huh?" said Lily, sitting on the bed and putting a hand on Sinny's forehead. "Your fever's breaking, at least. How did you get here?"

"By glider, and by tarantula." Sinny shrugged. "You're a hard ant to find, you know that?"

"You couldn't just leave well enough alone, could you?" Lily stood and paced in front of the bed. "Did Mom and Dad send you?"

"Send me? By myself? No." Sinny coughed again. "They were going to let the guards try and find you. I didn't think that would do much good." She watched as Lily continued to pace. "You didn't want to be found, did you?"

"Sinny, I… it's a little more complicated than that." Lily sat back down on the bed, whispering conspiratorially. "I thought I'd be able to do some good by coming to this colony, but… it's not what I was expecting." She checked over her shoulder for eavesdroppers. "I'd help you escape, but the queen's going to give you an audience tonight, whether you're better or not."

"Audience?" said Sinny. "That's not code for public execution, is it?"

"No – not yet, anyway. You did something to catch her attention." Lily looked more put out than worried, as though Sinny had planned the whole thing. "Whatever it is, I'd comply. At least for now. The queen here isn't the forgiving sort."

"And what about you?" Sinny looked at her sister, not sure what to make of her anymore.

"I'll be there. At the audience. Just… don't say anything too forward, alright?" Lily looked over her shoulder again. "I should go. Try to get some rest for now – you still look terrible."

●•●

Against her better judgment, Sinny was dozing when she found herself untied from the bed, given another drink of medicinal herbs from a harried-looking nurse, and escorted by two guards to the audience chamber. Ants stopped in the tunnels to watch her pass, some following behind at a distance – many congregated at the entrance to the audience chamber, none making a sound, just staring. Sinny stumbled at the entrance, her legs shaky from effort, and she was picked up on either side, a hand under each armpit, and half-dragged the rest of the way.

The chamber was wide, spacious, and dimly lit, but there was no council here, only the queen's throne, and the queen upon it. She was not much older than Atta, younger perhaps; her exoskeleton was a pale blue, almost white, and it made her seem rather frail. The throne itself was made of thorns, poking up in all directions except where one needed to be seated, and was impressively large.

Sinny was dumped within speaking distance of the throne, and she made every effort to stand up-right immediately and face this queen, even though she still felt weak and ill from her fever. What made her crumble a little was spotting Lily off to the side, not a prisoner but a participant. The queen flew down from the throne and landed in front of Sinny.

"Yes, your sister's here." The queen seemed to be speaking more towards the ants congregated outside the door, as though the statement applied to neither sister in particular. She let this sink in, and then addressed Sinny directly. "You're not what I expected. You're not a queen ant."

"I am, I just didn't grow any wings-"

"Then you're not a queen ant." The queen twitched her own wings for emphasis. "Pity. Both you and your sister come from impressive lineage. At least one of you is fulfilling her potential – but what to do with the defective one?"

Sinny balled her fists but said nothing, keeping her rebuttals at bay with every fiber of her being. One side of the queen's mouth tensed in a kind of half smile. "Luckily another option has presented itself," the queen continued, gesturing for one of the guards to bring forward what looked like a jumbled mess of twigs. It took Sinny several moments to recognize what it was. "My scouts found this – Princess Lily says it's your creation."

"It is," said Sinny, fighting the urge to glance at her sister. "That's my glider."

"How does it work?" the queen asked.

"Well, uh – when it's not broken it has a frame like this." Sinny outlined the shape with her arms. "And I glued leaves to it, to catch the air currents. You grip it in the middle, and then jump off something high."

"And it takes you through the air?" said the queen. "The rider controls where it goes?"

"Most of the time," said Sinny. The queen looked at the jumbled mess, doubtfully.

"And, yet, you crashed this one?"

"A bird snatched it in mid-air," Sinny said. "Couldn't help that."

The queen said nothing for a while, staring at what used to be a glider. And then her gaze shifted back to Sinny, as though appraising her, and Sinny held eye contact with the queen for as long as seemed necessary. "Well, then," said the queen. "I have a proposition for you, Common-Ant Sinnia. You create what I ask of you, provided these flying contraptions of yours actually work, and you won't be executed."

"You want me to make… gliders?"

"In a sense," said the queen. "I had something much larger in mind. Is that a yes or a no, Common-Ant?"

"I…" Sinny looked over at Lily, hoping for some clue, some support, anything to tell her where this was going. Lily only stared back, looking terrified. "Yes, I'll try."

"You won't try," said the queen. "You either will or you won't."

"I… yes, I will," Sinny replied.

●•●

Later, when she was secured to a bed in the med cell again, Sinny ran the conversation over in her mind several times. Yes, I will? What was she thinking? What had she even agreed to? And why did she have the audacity to face this queen, in front of an entirely foreign colony, like it was no big deal? She figured being medicated was somewhat to blame.

She waited all day to give Lily a piece of her mind, but didn't get the opportunity – she had no visitors, no friendly faces except for the harried-looking nurse who asked her questions and checked her temperature. A guard later gave her the message to, "recover quickly," as much good as that would do. She burrowed into her blankets, as well as she could with her hands tied, and didn't get any better.

There was on-and-off arguing in the med cell between the guards and nurses – the queen wanted Sinnia to get to work right away, but she wasn't going to do any good while she was ill. And who knew what foreign diseases she'd brought to the colony? Sinny was ultimately given an extra day in bed, and tested for any odd symptoms that could be the plague.

The nurses didn't exactly give her a clean bill of health on the third day, but Sinny's convalescence came to an end regardless – she was scrubbed down with herbs first, ones that smelled suspiciously like what she'd been drinking, and then she was taken to Ant Services to be processed. They registered her with the title of Production Overseer, which sounded more important than it felt, considering two guards twice her height were jostling her around the entire time. And then she was carted off to a large, mostly empty cell, where several workers ants were at her disposal, including a familiar face.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," Sinny said, turning and walking away immediately. She sat on the first rock she saw and hugged her knees.

"I'm sorry, Sinny," Leaf said, following her. "I didn't have a choice in this-"

"Oh, really?" Sinny said into her knees.

"The queen – you saw her – she threatened to hurt my family if I didn't take that scouting job. She wanted me to bring back a princess."

"That justifies you kidnapping my sister?"

"Lily wanted to come with me," said Leaf. "I didn't force her. She didn't tell you?" Sinny said nothing, and after a while Leaf approached her, giving her a closer examination. "You okay?" he asked. "You don't look so good."

"Of course I'm not okay," Sinny said, uncurling and standing up to face Leaf. "I came all this way for nothing – not only that, my tarantula's missing, my sister's a pawn for a queen who's a tight-ass dictator-" The worker ants in ear-shot gasped at Sinny's audacity, and Sinny rolled her eyes at them. "And I'm stuck here trying to build who-knows-what, with no clue how or why. I'm just-"

Her tirade came to an end with an abrupt coughing fit, and Leaf watched as she struggled to catch her breath. He tried to help by patting her on the back when she seemed to be choking, but Sinny shrugged him off and plopped down on her rock again.

"And your family?" Sinny asked when she could speak again. "Are they all right?"

"My wife and daughter?" said Leaf. "Yeah. Yeah, they're okay."

"Good." Sinny looked up at the worker ants who were watching her from a distance – they were a motley crew, but looked capable, at least; an older man, a few women maybe ten seasons her senior, and a boy. Leaf cleared his throat as Sinny regarded the lot.

"I know you're not feeling too great," said Leaf, "but I'll have to report today's progress at the end of the day, so…"

"So, does the queen have something specific she wants me to make?" Sinny asked, rubbing her eyelids with the palms of her hands. "Or do I have to guess?"

When she opened her eyes again, Leaf was holding a rolled parchment in front of her. She took it from him and inspected it for a while, and then she stood up and started pacing.

The plan called for a flying contraption that could carry several soldiers at the same time, but that seemed impossible. Sinny shook her head at the idea, and the workers watched while she seemed to have a conversation with herself. There were a few worktables against the wall, and Sinny laid the parchment out on one, weighing each corner down with a nearby tool.

"Some sort of large-" She stretched her arms out for emphasis as she addressed the workers. "Large, uh, transport. For several ants at the same time. That will fly through the air." She pointed at the air, once again for emphasis. "Any ideas?"

The workers shifted their footing and looked at each other.

"Does anyone have experience building anything that flies?" Sinny asked, feeling a little desperate.

"Just you," said the older man. Sinny sighed and began rummaging through the supplies piled around the worktables, pulling out parchments and pining them to the wall. Then she found a quill and drew a schematic of her glider on one of the parchments. There was a stunned silence as Sinny then proceeded to create a miniature glider out of twig bits.

When she finished, she threw the glider towards the workers, who watched as it sailed over their heads; the boy laughed and ran after the glider.

"That's all I got," Sinny said. "One glider for one ant." The boy returned to the group glider in hand and ran around with it, pretending it could swoop and dive-bomb. "Obviously this won't work," Sinny continued. "Even if we built a larger one and had several ants hold onto it, that doesn't seem practical."

There was a mild hum of agreement from the worker ants. Sinny waited for suggestions, and was finally able to coax some out of the workers, drawing them on the parchment – larger gliders with a bird-like wingspan, a place for ants to sit inside the plane instead of out in the open. There were no ideas on how to actually keep the thing in the air, though.

Sinny continued to draw out ideas through the noon-break, opting to eat what the workers brought back for her; by the time the work day came to an end, they had drawings of several impressive looking but ultimately convoluted planes. Sinny hoped it would be enough for now as she rolled them up and handed them to Leaf – the queen could punish Sinny however she liked, she just didn't want the workers to get into trouble.

●•●

She was surprised to find she had a small cell of her own to sleep in – Sinny fully expected to be led to the barracks after the evening meal, but she figured it must be easier to guard her when she was alone and there was only one exit. Or else they didn't want her infecting all the workers.

Either way, she sat on her bed in the dark for a while, feeling the outline of her miniature glider, wondering if there was anyway out of this predicament. She couldn't relax enough to sleep, and every time she dozed she immediately jerked awake again; eventually, though, she slept long enough to dream, and when she woke she jumped from her bed to ask the guard outside her door to bring a light-source, as she had a long night of drawing ahead of her.

When morning came around she was led back to the workshop, new drawings in hand, although presenting them on the wall proved difficult; she dropped the pins several times, and Leaf eventually had to do it for her.

"Heat," she told everyone, or at least she tried; her voice was thick, and she found she couldn't raise it above a loud whisper. She cleared her throat several times and tried again. "Heat – heated air currents, actually – carry the glider up higher than cold ones. Yesterday my model glider flew higher than it should have because of the warm drafts in here. Birds use the same idea, and I used it with my glider, to fly long distances. But, I thought – what about something that wasn't a glider, but could catch the heat, anyway, you know?"

The workers didn't, and most of them seemed visibly worried; Sinny didn't know what she looked like after her sleepless night, but it probably wasn't becoming. She took out the small lantern she'd constructed out of thin leaves; there was an opening at the bottom, and a small cradle for a wick underneath. Taking out a striking stone, she lit the wick and then handed the round lantern to the air, where it began to float on its own towards the ceiling. The workers watched the lantern's progress, and then stared at Sinny in disbelief.

"And you figured this all out last night?" said Leaf.

"I got the idea from something my dad tried once," Sinny admitted. "Except his caught on fire." Everyone looked up at the floating lantern in alarm. "Anyways," Sinny continued, "that's my idea."

"You want to make a big lantern?" one of the women asked.

"I want to combine this-" Sinny pointed to the diagram of the plane from the day before, "- with something like the lantern, able to lift itself into the sky."

The workers chatted amongst themselves about the idea, showing the most animation Sinny had seen from them thus far. They began creating models and tossing around ideas, trying to figure out how much of a lantern was needed to lift the enclosed plane, how to make it go forward, and how to make it come back down again.

Sinny fell asleep during the noon-break, and when she woke the workers had almost finished a decent looking model of their lantern plane. There were still plenty of kinks to figure out, but it worked.

The workers were determined to present it to the queen that night, as a show of good faith that her wishes were being carried out quickly and efficiently. Sinny was fading fast though, especially after Leaf insisted she take more medication, and he had to help keep her upright in the audience chamber. The group of workers presented the model to the queen, explaining how it would be operated, and the queen seemed genuinely surprised by what they showed her. She flew down from her throne to examine the model, and beckoned for Lily to join her.

"Not a glider," said the queen. "Not a glider at all; and yet, something better. Much better. This is remarkable." She looked over at Sinny, who was leaning on Leaf's shoulder apart from the group. "You've only been in the workshop for two days, and already you've created the most amazing thing I've ever seen. How did you come up with this?"

Sinny tried to respond, but found she had no voice left. She pointed to her throat and shrugged in apology.

"She's still unwell, your Highness," Leaf explained.

"I see," said the queen, and shifted her attention to Lily. "Your sister's exceeded expectations."

Lily had been staring at Sinny in concern since she entered the room, but now she seemed disappointed – no, Sinny thought, something worse, like she was trying to hide how horrified she was by Sinny's achievement. Sinny's blood ran cold. What had she done wrong?

"We'll start construction immediately," the queen continued, "and begin working out how this model translates to full size. I want all of you to supervise tomorrow," she said to the workers, and then considered Sinny. "Maybe not you. Take her back to the med cell and have a doctor look at her, I can't lose her now."

Leaf began to follow the Queen's orders, but Lily flew up behind him. "I'll take her," she said, and scooped up her sister before Leaf could protest.