Your sleep through the day didn't go very well. Some of it was getting used to the new way of sleeping that you'd likely endure for the rest of your life. The ants' stings and turned you into their new queen. As a result, between having six legs on the sides of your body and the wings on your back, you couldn't sleep any other way. Drifting off to sleep with your compound eyes still wide open, as you didn't have eyelids anymore as an ant, was also an odd sensation. You supposed that it would all be stuff you'd get used to in time. You were already finding yourself accepting the "ant instincts" in many ways, and you were even looking forward to the day when your colony could sting Hank Pym and make him your drone. You'd merely have to get used to the build and layout of your body, thought that might take time.
And that led to you not sleeping well...
++++++++++++++++++
"Why are you here, Christine? Shouldn't you be off chewing through some's electrical wires or something like that?" you heard your mother say as your mind visualized your parents home. You were standing at the dinner table with your parents seated across from you in your present form... a queen ant.
"We don't do that, mom," you heard yourself say vocally, "haven't you noticed that my colony has been removing the excess rats from the area, including some of the imported ones that have begun to invade the area? We're helping humanity. Maybe even protecting it!"
"All I see, is a giant freak of nature," you saw your father say aggressively, "why we even kept you is beyond me!"
+++++++++++++++++++++
You half startled yourself awake after that. You weren't in your parents home. You were still in a large crate that was housing you and the colony of ants that had made you their new queen yesterday.
"Are you alright, my Queen?" came the voice of one of the drones from below you.
"I'm fine," you reply, "Just a bad dream, that is all."
"About what?" this time the one who asked was actually one of the worker ants. You supposed that without a lot the work to physically maintain the nest, they then turned their attention to their queen, which was you now.
"I was with my parents... and they rejected and hated me for what I am now," you told them, "a nightmare."
"You need not worry about such things anymore, my Queen," one of the other drones told you, "your life will be better now. In time, we will be back home, the human... Hank Pym will become your Drone and your colony will grow and will love you for a very long time."
"We will love you for a long time!" the rest of the drones and even the workers echoed.
"Thank you," you replied to all of them and then lowered your head and brought your antennae down to try and caress members of your colony, which were tiny compared to you.
You had a feeling of contentment flow through you as you could somehow feel their smaller antennae rise up to touch yours. They loved you, a total stranger to them, and stranger still, you loved them back. Maybe it was your growing acceptance of who and what you were now, and no matter how much your mind found it strange, you loved them. You were unable to think over that further as you suddenly heard the crate being opened from above you. It startled you a bit, as you knew that the ship crew would certainly hurt you or force you overboard if they found you. As you lowered yourself trying to hide, you felt the worker ants beginning to swarm up your legs and onto your back, as if they were going to swarm whoever might be attacking you.
It turned out not to be an attacker, but Hank Pym.
"Hello," he said to you and the colony, "I know you can't really tell what time it is down here in the hold... but the sun has gone down and most of the crew has gone to bed. Don't worry, they won't be coming down here during the night."
You slowly climbed up so that your head was now outside the crate and looked around. You were now inside a hold inside the ship. You detected strange scents through your antennae, which smelled bad and unnatural to you know, but you couldn't identify it. The colony soon climbed off of you and took up positions on the side of the crates in the hold, including the one that held you and your colony and the food they had gathered for the journey. You then sighed heavily. You were far to be big to mate with the drones that could talk to you and the man that would become your drone couldn't understand you at the moment and needed your colony to spell out what you communicated to them. It struck you as the world's oddest dating technique.
"I'm feeling a little hungry," you said some of the ants, "could you bring me some?"
"At once, my Queen," several workers answered, nearly in unison, and they then broke off from the main body of ants and went back into the crate to the pile of food they had collected before leaving the lab you had wandered into as a human and left as a queen ant.
You then turned back to Hank Pym and broadcast your message for the ants to spell out.
"Good evening, Dr. Pym. I trust they're treating you well."
"As well as can be expected," Hank Pym shrugged, "and call me Hank. How have things been for you? I'm sorry you're having to travel this way..."
"We both know I wouldn't survive if humans saw me as I am now," you reminded him, "and I'm doing this for my own safety. I don't want to be a lab experiment and I don't want to die."
"Of course," Hank nodded, "the revelation that you were human is surprising, but the wish is one that any human would have... though sometimes I'd think people give too much credit to humanity and fail consider what the animals on this planet want. Just because they can not easily communicate with humans doesn't mean that they don't have their own feelings and preferences."
"Thank you," you spoke and let the ants spell it out for you.
Hank nodded. At this time the workers that had gone back for food were beginning to return. Each ant was carrying what looked like a strange sort of pellet. Like it was a processed food that Hank Pym's lab had fed them in the artificial nest they had created. However, you were feeling hungry and didn't really care what the food was. You raised up your front legs and gripped the pellet in your claws and then brought it up to your mandibles and mouth. The worker that you took the pellet from went back into the crate to get more for you. Hank Pym merely stood by, quietly watching you eat.
"You don't mind?" you asked.
"No," Hank Pym answered, "I don't mind. Considering that I've agreed to join your colony once we're in the Amazon, I shouldn't mind."
That reminded you of what you observed in the lab when he agreed to do so after you had asked him through the other ants if you would join the colony. He had actually been aroused by it. Clearly he was not as your nightmare had envisioned your parents being with regard to seeing you as a queen ant.
"Hank, may I ask why you're so willing to join us?" you asked, "you have the choice to become my drone. I didn't get a choice to become the new queen, though I wouldn't give that up now for anything in the world, but you do have a choice. And you seemed to be very accepting of it... eager even."
You watched as Hank read what the other ants spelled.
"Of course you can ask," Hank answered, "and I suppose I am eager in a way. I've always had an interest in insects. They live without a skeleton inside their bodies. And ants, wasps, and bees were always a personal favorite, even after I was stung for the first time by either Invasive Fire Ants, Yellowjackets, or Honeybees. Honeybees make honey, that people like. Wasps are brilliant in their yellow and black coloring. And everyone knows the story of the hardworking ant versus the lazy grasshopper."
"The ant rules, obviously," you snickered, making the other ants laugh to you through their antennae.
Hank nodded and continued, "and I'll admit, I enjoyed things that portrayed ants in a good light. Even as I grew older. Be it "A Bug's Life," "Antz," or the "Ant Bully." I became a biologist and learned all that I could because of it. And learning about some ants' venom being potentially medically helpful drove me on. It's why I ultimately paid attention to anything that might help make ants look good. After all, if ant venom could help cure cancer, blood diseases, or anything of that nature and help humanity, it'd be worth it."
"You won't be able to do that as a drone," you commented.
"Don't be so sure," Hank commented.
You titled your head to one side in confusion.
"Don't be so sure," Hank replied, "while among ants, wasps, and bees the male usually dies after mating, among the the species you've become, that ISN'T the case."
"Huh?" you asked, you had actually thought he couldn't do the work because you didn't have human hands and thus couldn't do things humans could.
"Normally after mating the male dies," Hank explained after the ants spelled it out for you, "The drones here are more then proof of that. They came in with your previous queen and that was more then three years ago and they did mate with her at least once and haven't died yet. The explanation for it I don't know, yet. Maybe these ants have a different life cycle and they die later, maybe they simply become the Queen's protectors after mating I don't know, yet. The fact that males do not die among the species you've become was the last reason I accepted to join the colony."
Great relief went through you. You then approached him and put your head against him and then hugged him with your antennae. The fact that he would live made you inwardly smile as he softly rubbed you back from your neck up to your wings. His soft touch made you feel good.
"But we'll still have to wait until we get to my company's Amazon outpost," Hank fished, "I'll need to sign a few things when we make it to Macapa... a city on the Amazon River."