DAYS SURVIVED: 58
COLONY SIZE: 7
DAYS UNTIL FLOODS: 112
Quick's first surface report changed everything.
The kit returned at dawn, moving even faster than usual, scent markers practically screaming urgent information.
"Gather everyone," Kai said immediately. "Emergency briefing."
The colony assembled in record time—even Dig, who had been three levels deep working on a new tunnel system.
Quick's report came in rapid-fire scent markers and body language:
Surface terrain: Hostile. Temperature extremes. Day: Deadly heat, exposed position means death in minutes. Night: Manageable but cold, many large predators.
High ground: Located. Ancient rock formation, eight hundred body-lengths northeast. Stable. Defensible. Above projected flood line.
Water sources: Three identified. Two seasonal (will dry up). One permanent spring near high ground.
Threats: Multiple. Large hunting birds (daytime). Lizards (anytime). Scorpions (nighttime). Unknown large predator tracks (massive, clawed, purpose unclear).
Other colonies: Evidence found. Ant colony evacuating to surface. Beetle colony fortifying. Spider colony web-building between rocks.
"Hold on," Kai interrupted. "Other colonies are already preparing? Already moving to surface positions?"
Quick confirmed. Started weeks ago. They know floods are coming. They're ahead of us.
Twitchy's paranoia spiked immediately. We're behind. Behind is dead. We need to move faster.
"We need to move smarter," Kai corrected. "Quick, the high ground you found—is it occupied?"
Not yet. But the ant colony is moving toward it. They'll claim it in maybe twenty days if no one stops them.
Twenty days. Less than three weeks before their best survival option got taken by a colony that probably remembered Kai from the previous confrontation. The colony with Scar-Mandible.
"How many ants?" Kai asked.
Thirty, maybe forty. Led by a large soldier with— Quick's scent markers paused, uncertain how to describe something specific.
"Missing antenna?" Kai offered. "Scarred mandibles?"
Yes! You know this ant?
"We have history," Kai said grimly. "Not good history. If they take the high ground first, we're in trouble. We can't fight forty ants for territory."
"Then we take it first," Bitey said immediately, always ready to solve problems with violence.
"We can't hold it," Shadow countered. "Seven of us can't defend against forty of them, even with Tank."
"So what do we do?" Twitchy asked, anxiety making the kit's voice high-pitched.
Kai thought about it. Remembered the flood battle from the genetic memory's historical records. Remembered temporary alliances. Remembered that survival sometimes meant working with enemies.
"We talk to them," Kai said. "Before they reach the high ground. We propose a division. Territory sharing. They get one section, we get another. Both colonies survive."
"They'll never agree," Bitey said flatly. "Ants don't share."
"Some ants do. And Scar-Mandible is smart. Smarter than most. If I present it right, make the math clear—shared territory with defined boundaries is better than a war that kills half of both colonies—maybe they'll listen."
"And if they don't?" Shadow asked.
"Then we fight. And probably die. But let's try diplomacy first."
The colony looked skeptical but deferred to his judgment.
"Quick, can you track the ant colony's movement?" Kai asked. "I need to know their route. Where I can intercept Scar-Mandible before they reach the high ground."
Easy. They move in formation. Very predictable.
"Good. Shadow, you're in command while I'm gone. Continue preparations. Dig, focus on the main surface access tunnel—I want it finished in fifteen days. Everyone else, support Shadow's decisions as if they were mine."
Shadow looked terrified and determined in equal measure. "You're really going alone?"
"Have to. A large group looks like an invasion force. One individual looks like a diplomat. Or at least less threatening."
"When do you leave?"
"Tomorrow at dusk. That gives me tonight to prepare."
That evening, Kai sat in the den with Shadow, teaching the kit everything he could think of about leadership.
"The hardest part isn't making decisions," Kai said. "It's living with the consequences. You'll make calls that get people hurt. Maybe killed. You can't let that paralyze you, but you can't ignore it either. You feel it, you learn from it, and you do better next time."
"What if there isn't a next time?" Shadow asked quietly.
"Then whoever survives learns from your mistakes. That's how colonies grow. Through accumulated failure."
"That's depressing."
"That's life. You think I know what I'm doing? I'm making this up as I go. The only difference between me and you is I've failed more times, so I know more ways to fail."
Shadow pressed against Kai's side, seeking comfort. "I don't want to lead. I want you to lead."
"I know. But you need to be ready anyway. Just in case."
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the colony. Dig excavating three levels down—the rhythmic scrape of claws on stone. Twitchy checking perimeter alarms for the eighth time that hour. Bitey and Tank having a shoving match that was probably meant to be play but looked like prelude to murder.
This was his family. This strange, dysfunctional, beautiful collection of specialized killing machines that somehow cared about each other.
"I'll come back," Kai said. "I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
"Then I'll make it anyway and do my damnedest to keep it. How's that?"
Shadow managed a small chirp that might have been a laugh.
DAY 59
Kai left at dusk, moving alone through territory that suddenly felt much larger without his colony around him.
Quick had marked the route with scent trails—subtle enough that predators wouldn't notice, obvious enough that Kai could follow them. The kit's pathfinding was incredible, choosing routes that minimized exposure while maximizing speed.
Going to miss having Quick around if I don't make it back, Kai thought, then immediately pushed the thought away. Negative thinking led to mistakes. Mistakes led to death.
The surface was exactly as hostile as Quick had described.
Even at dusk, the heat radiating from the stone was oppressive. Kai's paws burned. His breathing came fast and shallow. The air was too dry, sucking moisture from his mouth and nose.
And the space. After weeks underground in tight tunnels, the open surface felt wrong. Exposed. Vulnerable. No walls. No ceiling. Just endless emptiness above and around.
He forced himself to move, following Quick's trail toward the intercept point.
The ant colony appeared an hour after full dark.
They moved in perfect formation—a living organism with forty bodies and one purpose. At the front, easily identifiable even from a distance, was Scar-Mandible.
The scarred ant spotted Kai immediately. The formation stopped. Scouts spread out, flanking positions. Soldiers moved to the front.
Kai raised himself to full height—not aggressive, just visible—and produced a carefully composed pheromone marker:
Peace. Request parley. Mutual benefit proposal.
The ants held position. Scar-Mandible moved forward alone, stopping ten body-lengths away.
This close, Kai could see the damage from their previous encounters. The missing antenna had never regenerated. The mandible scars were permanent. But there were new marks too—injuries from other battles, other survival struggles.
Scar-Mandible had been through hell since they'd last met.
Just like Kai.
The ant produced a pheromone response: Recognize you. World Cat. We fought before. You survived. Unusual.
You survived too. Equally unusual.
What do you want?
Kai took a breath and made his pitch. He explained the high ground. Explained the floods. Explained that fighting over territory would kill members of both colonies unnecessarily.
He proposed a division: the northern section for the ants, the southern section for his colony. A barrier zone between them—neutral territory, no hunting, no conflict. Cooperation against larger threats. Mutual defense if the flood predators appeared.
Scar-Mandible listened without interrupting. When Kai finished, the ant was silent for a long moment.
Then: Your proposal is logical. But it assumes trust. We do not trust.
I'm not asking for trust. I'm asking for pragmatism. We both want to survive. Fighting decreases both our chances. Cooperation increases them. The math is simple.
Math is simple. Ants are simple. World Cats are not simple. Your kind destroyed colonies before. Killed without purpose. What stops you from killing us after we establish position?
"I have kits now," Kai said, switching to vocalization because pheromones couldn't convey what he needed to express. "Six of them. Young. Vulnerable. I'm not interested in conquest or conflict. I'm interested in keeping them alive. That's all. Just survival."
Scar-Mandible's remaining antenna twitched, processing.
Show me. Show me these kits.
"They're back at the den. Four hours from here."
Then we go to den. I see kits. If kits exist, if you speak truth, we consider proposal.
It was a risk. Leading forty ants to his den. But Kai understood what Scar-Mandible was really asking for: proof that this wasn't a trap. Evidence that Kai had something to lose, something that made him predictable.
"Follow me," Kai said. "But know this: if you attack my colony, I will kill as many of you as I can before I die. And then my kits will spend the rest of their lives hunting your colony. Make sure that's a trade you're willing to make."
Understood. Lead.
The journey back took three hours. Kai sent a runner ahead—Quick, who'd been shadowing him at a distance the whole time—to warn the colony.
Ants coming. Forty of them. Don't attack. This is diplomacy, not war.
By the time Kai and the ant formation reached the den, his colony was arranged in a careful display: visible but not threatening. Shadow at the front with Twitchy, both demonstrating leadership. Tank positioned defensively but not aggressively. Bitey held back—barely—vibrating with the desire to attack. Dig working on a tunnel, apparently unconcerned by the presence of forty ants, because structural integrity mattered more than politics.
And most importantly: the three youngest kits positioned where Scar-Mandible could see them clearly. Small. Vulnerable. Real.
Scar-Mandible approached slowly, studying each kit, reading pheromone signatures to verify they were genuine offspring, not adults staged to look young.
Kits are real, the ant confirmed. You spoke truth.
"I spoke truth," Kai agreed. "So. Do we have an agreement?"
Scar-Mandible consulted with the ant formation through rapid pheromone exchanges Kai couldn't fully parse. Debate. Calculation. Risk assessment.
Finally: Agreement. Territory division as proposed. Northern section: ants. Southern section: World Cats. Barrier zone: neutral. Cooperation against major threats. Trial period: thirty days. If either colony breaks terms, agreement void and war begins.
"Thirty days," Kai agreed. "After that, we renegotiate or make it permanent."
Acceptable.
They marked the agreement formally—pheromone signatures witnessed by both colonies, scent markers placed at boundary points, terms encoded in chemical language both species could read.
When the ants left, moving toward their section of the high ground, Shadow approached Kai.
"That was either brilliant or insane."
"Probably both," Kai admitted. "But we have high ground now. Defined territory. A temporary ally. That's better than we had this morning."
"What if they betray us?"
"Then we fight. But I don't think they will. Scar-Mandible is a survivor, like us. Survivors understand the value of reliable allies."
"You like that ant," Shadow said, surprised.
"I respect that ant. There's a difference. But yeah, maybe a little. We've both lost people. Both made hard choices. Both trying to keep our families alive. That creates... understanding."
Bitey approached, having finally gotten permission to move. "Does this mean I can't fight ants?"
"You can't fight those ants," Kai corrected. "Other ants are still fair game. Try not to start any wars, though."
Bitey bit the air, disappointed.
DAYS SURVIVED: 62
COLONY SIZE: 7
DAYS UNTIL FLOODS: 108
The next week was a frenzy of construction.
Dig worked like a machine, excavating surface access tunnels with Twitchy's paranoid security specifications. Multiple exits. Redundant routes. Emergency collapse points in case of invasion.
Quick and Twitchy mapped the southern section of high ground in exhaustive detail. Every crack. Every shadow. Every potential threat. They identified three priority shelter locations and had Dig reinforce them with packed earth and stone.
Tank claimed the most defensible position—a narrow pass between rock formations that anything trying to reach their territory would have to go through. The heavy kit settled in like a living wall and didn't move for three days.
Bitey and Shadow worked together on supply caching—storing food and water in multiple locations across their territory. Redundancy. If one cache got destroyed or flooded, others would survive.
And Kai hunted.
He needed mass. Needed to recover from the breeding energy drain. Needed to be ready for the next expansion phase because seven kits still wasn't enough.
On day 65, a messenger arrived from the ant colony.
Not Scar-Mandible. A smaller soldier, moving carefully, broadcasting peaceful intentions.
The message was simple: Large predator detected. Moving toward barrier zone. Too big for either colony alone. Cooperation requested.
"This is it," Kai said, reading the chemical markers. "First test of the alliance. Everyone, combat positions. We're helping the ants."
"Why?" Bitey asked, eager but confused. "Let the ants handle it."
"Because if this predator breaks through the ant lines, it's heading straight for us next. Better to stop it in the barrier zone with the ants' help than face it alone in our territory."
Shadow understood immediately. "This isn't about helping them. It's about helping us."
"Exactly. Now move. We've got maybe ten minutes before contact."
The colony mobilized with practiced efficiency. Twitchy and Quick to reconnaissance. Tank to the pass, holding the last line of defense. Bitey and Kai to the barrier zone, where forty ants were already forming up.
Scar-Mandible saw them coming and produced a simple pheromone: Good. We fight together.
"Together," Kai agreed.
The predator emerged from the darkness like a nightmare given form.
Centipede. The same one that had destroyed their first den. Massive. Armored. Intelligent.
And it had learned from its previous encounters.
When it saw Kai, it stopped. Recognition in those compound eyes.
Then it saw the ants. Did the math. Decided the odds weren't worth it.
And retreated.
No fight. No blood. Just a predator that had learned not to pick battles it couldn't win.
The ants and Kai's colony stood together in the barrier zone, watching the centipede vanish into the darkness.
Scar-Mandible produced a pheromone laced with something that might have been satisfaction: Cooperation successful. Enemy deterred without casualties. Agreement proves valuable.
"Agreed," Kai said. "Want to make it permanent? Skip the thirty-day trial?"
Permanent agreement: accepted. We are allies. Not friends. But allies.
"Works for me."
They marked the permanent treaty that night. Both colonies witnessing. Both leaders understanding that this strange alliance might be the thing that kept them alive when the floods came.
As Kai led his colony back to their den, Shadow pressed close.
"You just made peace with the thing that tried to kill us."
"I made peace with someone who wants to survive as badly as we do. That's different from being friends. That's being professional."
"Is that what we are now? Professionals?"
Kai looked at his six kits—tired, dirty, but alive and victorious despite never throwing a punch.
"We're survivors," he said. "And now we're survivors with backup. That's an upgrade."