“About what?” Laura said with equal quiet.
“About what I just said,” Henderson responded. “We were definitely headed the right way this entire time.”
Chapter Ten
The only way to describe the structure they were seeing was as a city, but it was unlike any city that a human being had ever dreamed of living in. Hundreds of stalagmite-like spires reached up into the massive cavern, and while each one looked like it was made out of something like stone, the shapes were somehow organic. There were thousands of holes and balconies along the spires, none of them placed with any apparent rhyme or reason. From a number of them they could see some of the ant creatures scurrying out, easily gripping the sides as they went up and down the structures on tasks that the four of them couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“That is so cool,” Jesse said.
“And so big,” Laura responded. “How are we going to find where they took the townsfolk?”
“If this even is where the ants took them,” Henderson said.
“Make up your mind,” Laura said. “First you say we went the wrong way, then you say we went the right way, and now you’re back to where you started?”
“I don’t know,” Henderson said. “This is amazing, but for all we know there’s hundreds of these city things down here.”
“Um, I think this is the right place,” Murky said. “Look down over there at that place that looks like it might be an entrance.”
She pointed, and the rest looked in that direction. It appeared to be a weird color in the cavern’s green glow, but there was a smear of something near the entrance that looked a lot like blood, and there were a few pieces that might have been torn-off human limbs, but thankfully they were too far into the shadows for them to see too many details.
Even in the cave’s weird green glow, it was still easy to see Laura turn pale. “Is… is it anyone we know?”
“Looks like there might be some torn pieces of camo, so I’m thinking it’s some of the soldiers that Agent Larson said they took before,” Henderson said.
“So this is where the soldiers were taken,” Jesse said. “But how do we know that the townsfolk were taken here as well?”
“And even if they were, where would we even begin to look?” Henderson asked. “This place is huge, and for all we know they stuffed everyone in a broom closet somewhere.”
“I don’t know,” Laura said. “We’re going to have to get in there and start searching for any clues.”
“Okay, but how?” Henderson asked. “We would have to get past the guards.”
“What guards?” Laura asked.
“Look right over there,” Henderson said, pointing at a spot not too far from the tattered camo. It was in a corner with less of the glowing fungus, so it was hard to see at first, but there was indeed one of the ant creatures standing there. Murky had thought she’d be prepared to see one after the description they’d heard from Agent Larson, but it was completely a different thing when she finally saw one with her own eyes. In her mind she’d suspected something kind of cartoony, not the brown-carapace six-foot monster that was doing something like a patrol near the door. In almost all ways it looked like any other ant, or it would if real ants were the size of a motocross bike. Just as Agent Larson had said though, it had eight appendages instead of six, and its oversize mandibles included spikes that looked like it could impale someone if it ran headfirst into them. At the end of its top two pairs of legs it had small, thin claws like two thumbs right next to each other. In two of its hands it was carrying something long that looked like some kind of organically made spear, except with a large number of wicked-looking barbs and hooks at the end. It wasn’t anything any one of them would want to face down, especially when they themselves didn’t have anything at all that could be used as weapons. Well, not unless their dinosaur counted.
“I don’t know if we would be able to get past that thing,” Laura said. “There’s also probably a lot more inside. This isn’t looking very good for us.”
Murky looked to Chicago. “What do you think? Do you have any ideas?”
Henderson gave an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “Even if he was capable of having an idea, it’s not like he could tell us.”
Maybe not, but Murky couldn’t help but notice that something else farther away down the cavern had caught the velociraptor’s interest. She followed his gaze down what almost looked like it could have been a road to see a number of large, strangely shaped green insects coming down it at a steady pace in single file.
“Hey look,” Murky said, pointing at the line. “What’s that?”
They all turned to look. The beginning of the line was some distance away, but it looked like it went on for quite a long way. The insects were nearly three times the size of the ants, but like the ants they had eight legs instead of six, more like a spider than an insect. Everything else about them though, made them look like nothing more than gigantic versions of bugs Murky had seen plenty of times out in the world.
“Those look like they could be this place’s version of aphids,” Jesse said.
“Isn’t that what doctors call it when someone has a heart attack or something?” Henderson asked.
“That’s afib, genius,” Jesse said. “An aphid is an insect that has a symbiotic relationship with ants. Ants use them for nectar or something like that, and in turn the ants keep them safe from predators.”
“So, uh, they’re the
