Created

Part 3, Chapter 12

Skyler

CHESF front lawn

The grass rose like trees high above Sky's head. Each little pebble in the way of the track was a hurdle. Sky had shrunk to the height of half of an inch. The test was to try to make to the end of the lawn while following a little maze of grass they had cut prior to her getting powers. They also released blood ants to hunt her down before she got there. No big deal.

Blood ants were genetically altered ants that were huge, vicious, controllable, independent, blood sniffing ants. And they were hunting her.

Her new powers were awesome. She could grow and shrink at will, along with having awesome bug wings that aloud her to fly. Her suit had a black leather base with yellow armor on her chest, thighs, ankles, and biceps. Instead of hands, her gloves ended in a sharp black point that she could free fire, stap things with, and shoot poison out of. They could retract so she could grab things. Her helmet was a triangle. It jutted off of her chin in a sharp point, but it wasn't airtight. The mask ended at the top of her forehead allowing her golden yellow hair to flow down. It made the top of her head vulnerable to attacks, but it was strategic. Her bug wings couldn't fly up super high, so they told her that when the top of her head feels numb, that's as high as she could go. Any higher and she wouldn't be able to get any air in them, and she would fall.

They had strictly told her no flying during the exercise. She grudgingly said yes. Sky hurdled over another pebble and ran into a dead end. She doubled back and turned right, then ran down a path, turned left at a T and ran into a four way crossroad. She could hear the growling, clicking sounds of the ants right behind her. This choice could make or break the exercise. She turned, and ran down the left path. She had always favored going left. It was a habit.

She ran straight for a long time. Her legs were really starting to hurt. She could still hear the clicking sounds of the ants. She turned to the right, and went down a path that ended in a dead end. She ran to the wall hoping to push through the wall of grass. She couldn't. Stupid genetically altered grass.

She turned around and waited as the clicking got closer. Within seven seconds, the ants turned around the corner and in a wave, rushed her. It was like in that old movie that June saw. World War Z, when the zombies all came rushing down the hallway, forming a wave of rotting flesh. It was very much like that, only a little worse. The zombies would kill her in 12 seconds, the ants would kill her in 2. They were coming down the corridor, and were speeding up, faster, and faster. They would over take her in 5 seconds, 4. 3. 2. Please don't kill me. She thought timidly in what she thought to be the last seconds of life. All at once, the ants froze and stopped advancing. The ants that were stacked on top of each other crawled down to be on the ground. They were now a vicious, terrifying, surprisingly neatly ordered army. There were rows upon rows of ants stretching down all the way the path, and around the corner.

And it seemed like Sky controlled them all.

"End the exercise. She got it." Sky heard a loud booming voice coming from behind her. She looked up and saw the huge form of Commander Glass walking towards her. "You can grow now." He said. Sky focused her thoughts, and returned to her normal size of 5' 8". She looked down at the ants, now little specks on the ground. It was hard to believe those little critters were about to kill her a minute ago.

Sky looked over the maze of grass that she was just in. She saw all of the corridors where she made the right descisions, and the corridors where she didn't. She noticed one thing she didn't see before however. She noticed that the entire maze was surrounded by a wall of grass except for the hole in which she entered. There was no solution to the maze.

"Why did you make a maze with no exit?" Sky was furious. "The ants could have killed me! Why did you do that?!"

Glass just looked at her with his signature stoic expression. "They wouldn't have killed you. We would control them before it came to that. They have implants in there brain that allows us to communicate with them. We needed to make a maze with no answer so that we could see if you could access their frequency, which you could."

"So you were seeing if I could talk to bugs?"

"Not all bugs. Just a limited amount. Ants, wasps, hornets, bees, and some beetles. All those bugs with a creature index of 7-12."

"What do you mean by a 'creature index'?" Sky was a little calmer now. It was cool that she could talk to insects. They had always fascinated her.

"As you know, all matter is constantly vibrating as a result of atoms being in constant motion. Each creature vibrates at a different frequency. We have measured each frequency and label it as a 'creature index'."

"Oh cool. So why not all animals?"

"If we gave you all animals, your brain would overload. That is why we didn't give Lizzie more than humans. It would fry your synapses and you would become catatonic."

"So, that is Lizzie's powers? She can read minds?"

"Yes. We gave her advanced neural powers just to handle humans, and you for all of those animals. In order to give you all animals, we would need to increase your brain power over 5 billion times what it is right now."

"And that would be expensive."

"Money is not an object to us. We have all the funding in the world. It would be impossible is a better statement."

"Okey-Dokey."

"Would you like a nap? A break? Some food? All that running must have made you tired."

It did. Her legs were weak, and her calves were raised and about to cramp. But she wanted to do one more thing before she laid down.

"I want you to show me how to use my wings."