With your newly grown workers and drones, the hole that was being dug was rapidly growing deeper and wider. For the moment the massive beetle that had been grown when your hunting party had found and stung it. It grew large, larger even then you were, but died because unlike the Divine Fire Ant, the beetle couldn't breathe at that size. From there, your colony then figured out that the venom of the Divine Fire Ant which turned you into their new Queen, would simply enlarge invertebrates. You didn't know why, but you figured that Hank would find an answer in the future. Though, through your antennae you could sense that he was presently moving to satisfy his hunger. You could hear the sound of his mandibles biting and trying to crush through the dead beetle's exoskeleton. There was enough beetle there that the colony would be sated for a little while.
"The colony," you thought to yourself as you emerged from the tunnel to place the next mandible full piece of earth, "the colony that chose me... the colony that I now "lead"..." You then pivoted your head to look back at your abdomen. "the colony I will soon lay..."
That gave a very confident and contented feeling going through you. You and Hank had already had your nuptial flight, and you could feel the mixing of Hank's sperm with the ova within your abdomen, and you knew you would soon begin laying eggs. You didn't know how long it would take, but that was why you had begun digging the nest, the nest that was rapidly beginning to approach the size it would need to be for you and your colony to begin moving in. Once in there, you would be safe to lay your eggs and mate with Hank and the other drones to keep yourself pregnant.
"I believe we are deep enough down my Queen that we can begin to excavate the initial chamber," one of the other drones reported to you as he placed his clod of dirt down at the top and moved to wait beside you for the next turn to go into the tunnel.
"Very good," you replied, "we'll be safe... though I want as much be done as possible to hide our nest entrance. If we can get ferns to grow over the mound and cover the entrance, that would be best."
The drone raised his head and rubbed his antennae to yours.
"Of course, my queen," the drone replied, "the workers will do their best... so you may lay eggs in safety..."
"And mate with you, Hank, and the other drones," you replied.
You felt a feeling of optimism and joy go through the drone. It was all part of the strange telepathic communication that went between you and the rest of the colony. While you could audibly hear the clicking of mandibles when they opened and closed and could hear chirps and clicks as the ants moved their abdomens against their rear legs. You somehow instinctively knew those chirps and clicks were a call to work to serve the queen, which was you. But that wasn't the only form of communication, there was also the telepathy that went between you and the rest of your colony. You could converse with them, which you didn't think ants did, and at times, you could swear that you could see what some of the other ants saw.
As the other drones and workers helped dig the nest, you could see into the darkness around them. Ants taking pieces of earth in their mandibles and pulling it out. You could also see some also extend their mouthparts behind the mandibles and spit onto the parts of the tunnel would be the walls. As you saw more and more spit being put down on the tunnel shaft walls, you could see a strange glow begin to take shape, even though you weren't there. It was as if the saliva of Divine Fire Ants had a strange bioluminescent quality. That would be another thing that Hank would surely puzzle over as your colony grew.
Your thoughts on this were interrupted by the drone you were speaking with.
"And aside from that good news, there will be other things that must be done," the drone spoke, "Our new larger size will allow us to mate with you, my Queen, but our larger size and that of the workers will make feeding on invertebrates difficult. They are too small to effectively sting now. We would crush many of them if we tried."
That gave you some concern with regard to feeding you and your colony. You privately figured that parts of your colony would become food for other natural predators, like crocodiles, caimans, anacondas, and jaguars, but would be able to survive on eating invertebrates.
"What do we do then?" you asked him, "you have more experience with being an ant than I do."
"You have more experience with being a giant ant," the drone replied, "fixing the issue should be fairly easy. Instead of stinging them, we must get them to drink our venom... which would be possible if we have a chamber large enough for our prey to grow in and filled with little pools filled with our venom and kept free of any outside water. Our workers can protect the entrances to ensure that the prey does not escape."
"It'd be like a factory," you found yourself saying, with the images of an assembly line going through your head.
"I'm not sure what you mean by queen, but if it means organizing things to work, than you are right," the drone replied.
You caressed your antennae to his, "Yes, my drone. That is exactly what I mean. I assume this will take time, and you'll have to force feed our prey with our venom above ground."
The drone nodded in response. That seemed to put things in order, which gave you some relief, as it would mean you would survive, and you didn't want to die. And then it came your turn to go back into the tunnel and you did so. You would need to be the first to turn the vertical shaft into an internal chamber so the colony would now the change of mission in the nest's construction. As you went down, you could soon see a soft goldish glow from the sides of the tunnel, and you could feel the presence of the spit caking the walls and actually hardening the ground a bit on your six legs.
"A nest complete with natural lighting," you thought to yourself.
As you made your way down to the bottom of the tunnel you resumed your private ponderings on the telepathic communication and capabilities you'd gained as a Divine Fire Ant Queen. You could speak with the other ants telepathically and you could even see and sense what the colony did. Strangely, since the workers that had stung you and then Hank had grown to the size your future children would be, those telepathic abilities seemed stronger. Carefully moving your antennae about, you tried to see if you could reach out to the two members of your colony that weren't giant ants. You'd left them behind to spy on Hank's partner, Doctor Benjamin.
As you reached out, you were soon surprised to see Doctor Benjamin on the phone with someone. Your spies were observing him from near the desk that he was using. And as they watched they could hear what they heard, and it did not sound good.
"I'm telling you," Doctor Benjamin spoke, "Pym has gone nuts. Apparently he had some trespasser in his lab who got herself stung by the Divine Fire Ants there."
There was a pause for a moment.
"She said her name was Christine MacTaggert," Doctor Benjamin after a moment, "and she then decided to help Doctor Pym with a lot of his "hands on" approach to looking at what we can do to benefit mankind with the Divine Fire Ant."
Again there was a pause.
"How is that nuts?!" Doctor Benjamin nearly growled, "the ant venom apparently turned her into a MASSIVE ant queen. I'm sending you the security camera footage from our camp now of her and the colony that we had in Miami with her. He said it was all to study them better, even though he'll have none of the technological advantages of our labs."
Again there was a pause.
"She said she'd want to protect humanity, but seemed fearful that humanity wouldn't understand and would fear her," Doctor Benjamin replied, "I feel THAT is why Doctor Pym brought her here. He was protecting her to ease her fears. Pym's heart is in the right place... we both know that, but having them in the wild... with the colony drones that we had collected. They are tiny in comparison to her, and they could mate with her without her being able to stop them. And if we have a colony of giant Divine Fire Ants, they'll wipe out the vertebrate animals of the Amazon."
Again there was a pause.
"I'm asking for a military capture team, Americans, Brazilians, anybody," Doctor Benjamin answered, "they can then take Christine back to America and her humanity could be restored and someone could talk some sense into Pym."
That shook you, as Doctor Benjamin had broken his promise to keep your secret and was taking steps to move ahead with some plan to "help" you in a way you didn't want anymore. Eggs were already forming within your abdomen. You would need Hank to do something to give Benjamin some assurance that your colony wouldn't strip the Amazon of food.