《journal teleport science something》


 first thing

    typing into a little window thing oh hey look my words are popping right up there


    look at em


    popping


    up


    okay so power fluctuations are getting worse. set a couple of scamps to find me some internets and maybe see what''s going on topside. #4 and #2 still missing, ordered replacements.


    to-do:


    sandwich


    nap


    tea


    biscuit


    mobile teleport relay drone testing


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.cake


    <hr>


    no internets. scamps failed me. still love them. my metal babies.


    teleport relay tests goingso well


    so proud of me


    waiting for #1 and #6 to finish doing unthrilling menial labour junk


    thus journal


    kettle taking so long to boil


    so


    long


    to


    boil


    aha oh cool #4 reporting in. hey buddy! where you been? where that rascally ol'' #2 huh?


    huh


    huh


    HUH

 humans are the actual worst part 755234

    okay so just venting now because HUMANS ARE AWFUL and you know sometimes I think, you know, i sit here thinking oh maybe they''re not all awful maybe i should be making more of an effort to be part of ''society'' instead of ie living alone in a superscience lair under a biscuit warehouse while my robot drones obey my every whim


    when i write it down it really seems


    awesome


    but no. humans. HUMANS. can''t live with em can''t create an elaborate system of teleport relays to make the entire city like a travelling city and just see how they like it not knowing what kind of sun''s gonna be rising tomorrow


    when i write THAT down it seems


    totally


    amazing


    but yeah the can''t part of that is pretty strong actually. who knew this whole thing would be so flipping complicated.


    starting to think i need more than six scamps


    haven''t heard from project site in a while actually


    wonder how they''re getting on


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    oh yeah the reason i got so worked up. #4 got beat up. like kicked around. probably some idiots saw a ball-shaped robot and were all like oh hey let''s kick it yeah hilarious lets totally kick around a poor defenceless little robot without ever considering anyone elses feelings huh yeah HILARIOUS TOTLALY LETS JUST DO THAT HUH


    sensors got all busted. comms. probably the skull too. just intuiting that though. haven''t actually seen the little busted up darling. just got his report through.


    maybe i should take a look with my human eyes. get #4 down here. fix him with my own human hands.


    kind of weird


    kind of don''t want to even do that


    like even touching a robot is like


    yuck


    at this point


    but yeah. what else am i gonna do. more work on superscience projects i guess. lovely safe teleportation stuff. tea. guess I''ll make a list.


    to-do:


    [ get #4 down here and see if I can do something ]


    work on teleportal stuff


    grind tea making

 fixing up a drone doot doot dee doot

    okay so hmm


    hmmmmm


    this is actually pretty weird and by weird i mean interesting


    like i''ve seen a kicked around drone before and i''ve seen a drone that''s been like baseball batted and #4 has not been kicked or batted


    more like


    chewed


    anyway the mareo spat out a couple of new drones


    (that apparently i ordered?)


    which at least gave me materials for sciencing #4 the heck up. double armour double the fun plus double tracks because they were pretty mangled. double sensors. double comms. double everything because i mean i got two extra drone shells lying around here. sometimes triple because a lot of stuff was pretty okay. ultimate hulk drone #4 yay. thought about adding some kind of weapon thing but ehhhhh who can get excited about guns am i right?


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    maybe just like a laser


    maybe i like lasers


    dunno what chewed on it. something pretty big i guess with like metal teeth? or DIAMOND TEETH? rival superscientist out there doing rival superscience biz is my guess. giant robot maybe. giant robot dog with diamond teeth. that''d be pretty cool I GUESS


    wonder if #2 got eaten. can''t remember if they were doing junk together. what the flip were those two doing anyway.


    anyway


    today''s list of stuff i might do


    teleportal superscience travelling city junk


    look through booooooring drone records try to remember what #2 and #4 were actually doing


    maybe i do like lasers


    [ tea ]

 +250 tea xp

    so some kind of number of days ago i made a really good cup of tea and ever since then i''ve been like chasing that dragon


    took like fifty tries but maybe i got it figured out


    water 193degrees dunno if this matters but best not to take chances when tea''s on the line


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.5 minutes brewing yep basically torture waiting that long but you gotta do what you gotta do


    like 5/8ths cup tea 2/8ths milk 1/8th safety gap because spillage ain''t fun


    &ofcourse put that flipping milk in first ya nut


    happiness never sticks


    but in this tea


    i am happy


    to do:


    project site stuff neato


    drone records boo boring booooo


    [ light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation: do it awesome? what do it awesome? let''s find out ]


    why stop now lets just do even more tea

 hot light is not as fun as it sounds

    maybe i don''t like lasers so much after all


    or maybe


    dunno


    like i got one working and it looks all sweet and dinky on #4 hulk drone so that''s cool i guess, and i mean sure it does some damage but yeah whatever bored of weapons already


    anyway sent him up to be all armoured and lasered around the biscuit warehouse. like why did I even hulk him up and now like ARM him with an actual WEAPON like what''s that about? that''s not what I''m about. what''s he gonna shoot, like if someone messes with him do I want him to actually take them out? murder drone.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    yucky


    i mean people are gross but i don''t want to hurt them. i just want them to be somewhere i''m not. that''s all.


    why did i make a hulk laser murder drone. he won''t fit in with the other scamps. social outcast drone.


    oh no


    i have created in my own image


    to do:


    [ be sad and work ]


    be sad and tea


    be sad and be more sad and be just really sad

 not the best but getting better

    okay so whatever right? whatever. #4 hulk laser drone is still a scamp. they don''t judge. that is one of my favourite things about robots. no judging. no guilt. #1 and #3 and #6 and even cranky ol #5 still love him even if he''s a murderbot. stupid laser. i''d take it off but it took like fourteen hours to get it working. wasted progress is gross.


    did some teleporter stuff anyway. work helps. teleporters are friendly. a productive human is a happy human and i am still a human. just basic groundwork. calibrations. calculations. nothing fun or funny or interesting. necessary junk. the foundation of all superscience miracles.


    anywayThis story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    trying to figure out what to do next. superscience project maybe. drone stuff. wonder what happened to #2. maybe shes still out there somewhere. could actually send #4 out to look for her. avenging laserhulkbot. ugh. but kind of tempting. but ugh. maybe if i tell him not to use the laser except to burn graffiti onto buildings. like burn an enormous dong on the side of a corp hq. definitely seems like the most productive use of advanced laser technology. do it awesome? it do awesome.


    jin you babble some absolute nonsense when sad


    but that''s okay


    as long as youre smiling while you do it


    to-do:


    [ yeah let''s do amazing fun superscience by reading ten billion project site reports oh ]


    or maybe make a new drone? not a murderbot. nicebot. cuddlebot. smilebot.


    could send #4 out i guess while catching up on old drone reports zzzzzzz


    in this unworthy world there is always tea

 put a portal in my portal so i can portal while i portal

    okay cool progress like actual progress like actuallygetting somewhere finally jeez this project. why do i even. i mean yeah travelling city and all that but sometimes it feels like too much work. like what am i even gonna do with a whole city? don''t even know what''ll happen to the river. plus i still got to figure out how to make earthquakes or whatever to loosen up junk.


    note: fire a couple of teleportals at faultlines, see what happens


    so anyway all my theories about making teleportal generators smaller are basically 100% correct so yeah just doing my science genius girl thing over here. just blowing mainstream teleportation theory to pieces and all. no big deal or anything. would have gotten more done but playing with tiny teleportals is way too much fun. you can get some crazy acceleration going. only problem is there''s this like spin factor i can''t figure out. exponential escalation of instabilities woo. almost lost an eye haha.


    got the mareo to make me a couple of minidrones because teleportals + roundish robots = science fun


    did kind of wreck both of them but oh well superscience demands supersacrifice


    project site not so good. only read like seventeen percent of the five million banked up reports but yeah. scamps haven''t even dug down properly yet that is ridiculous. how am i expected to work with just one superscience lair. two is the absolute minimum. i mean how long have i been down here in this hole. like a year almost? actually have no idea. supposed to be temporary but man the life of a superscience genius girl can get crowded. lazy little scamps is the problem. i mean what the flip are they doing over thereIf you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    just having like a drone party or something


    little drone party poppers


    little drone dancings


    cute


    they should have dug the thing ages ago. like at this point i''d expect them to be setting up air and water and junk because breathing is nice and hydration is important and washing is sometimes necessary.


    speaking of washing my shower''s broken. dunno how long. haven''t done any hygiene biz for a while. too busy. had a bit of a wipe with a damp cloth anyway.


    fed old underwear into the mareo


    matter reorganised new underwear from old underwear


    thus i have both changed and not changed my underwear by changing my underwear


    i don''t know it seemed funny at the time


    in drone news #3 is seriously slacking off what''s up with that. she''s supposed to be the boring sensible one. maybe i should send #4 over to the project site. hulk slavemaster drone cracking a laser whip. teleportal isn''t even set up so have to move him at night i guess. so that''d be oh haha right now is night. circadian rhythms get donked to junk when you''re a quarter mile underground.


    anyway guess i better do something about all this. or just yknow do SOMETHING.


    to do:


    get #4 over to that silly ol project site kick some lazy little scamps into action


    read all these boring drone reports bleh


    super fun happy teleportal work fun work


    have my own dang party with tea and cigarettes and rollerblading


    [ shower? fix the shower? why did i write this ]

 um

    never in my wildest dreams did i think my life as a teenage superscience genius would come to this


    fixing a shower


    this is the stuff about self reliance they don''t tell you


    i mean they don''t tell you anything


    because you''re self reliant and didn''t ask


    but yeah forget that because there''s something weird going on and by weird i mean


    terrifying


    turns out the shower''s actually okay. just not getting any water. so i sent out #4 to check and the whole neighbourhood''s out of water as far as i can tell. i mean i got my private stash here, enough to last me a couple of months if i don''t waste it taking baths. which lets be honest is not likely. so that''s not a worry.


    no water though


    no internetsUnlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    no power, should''ve probably noticed that. again i got my own juice down here but yeah. should''ve probably noticed. last pulse was like two months ago which is basically unprecedented. power companies are complete dicks about this stuff. no way they just stop checking to see if freedom loving independent superscience girls are stealing their junk.


    so this is all weird right? weird enough that i actually went topside and walked around on my actual human legs and looked at things with my own human eyes which hasn''t happened for dunno not long enough tbh. took the opportunity to go restock on tea because why not. why not yeah. no problems in that department. got a good big haul of the stuff, didn''t even have to deal with anyone because i saw literally no one while i was up there.


    literally


    no


    one


    which is great, right? no humans around woo party or like the exact opposite of a party actually cool wow yeah!


    except actually the opposite of the opposite of a cool wow yeah anti-party


    because #2 went missing and #4 got all donked up. if it wasn''t humans doing that then uh


    yeah


    thought this was a science show but its kind of turning into a horror movie over here


    what the flip is going on


    no no no wrong way to think about this, bad braining jin


    not what the flip is going on


    more like what the flip happened


    what the hell did i miss


    to-do:


    maybe invent some kind of sensor or something i don''t know just something to maybe do something


    [ drones might be able to help i hope ]


    could always just ignore this and maybe it''ll fix itself on its own while i do stuff i want to do like teleportals maybe

 too wired for titles

    okay whoa like whoa like what the heck is evenhappening here


    something


    that''s for sure


    something is happeningStolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    drones are all like going nuts with their junk, no contact but actually yes contact which means no humans but SOMETHING and yeah so hahahaha kind of freaking out over here more than a little


    no. come on jin.


    you''re a big girl


    well not physically


    but you can take care of yourself


    can''t handle anyone else but you''re cool with yourself


    let''s get on this. let''s science this bitch the funk up.


    to-do:


    [ SCIENCE ]

 nope nope nope nope

    okay okay okay okay okay


    okay


    okay so


    okay


    okay so uh kind of looks like the city''s kind of been taken over by giant ants? and like all the humans either ran away or got eaten or whatever? so i''m probably like literally the only human left in the whole entire city? and this all happened like months ago? and I was so busy down here in my lair supersciencing that I just like completely missed the whole thing? and also there''s a hive pretty uncomfortably close and there are scouts and I live below a biscuit warehouse and do you even know how much a giant ant would love a biscuit warehouse?This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    so haha


    hahahaha


    i gotta do something


    what do:


    weapon i need a weapon


    defences drones science something


    [ teleport solveproblem somehow ]

 teleports make things better sometimes maybe?

    maybe i got something here. micro teleportal in a gun thing linked to a micro teleportal being fed by the crudmuncher


    crudmuncher munches crud. makes like a little dense ball of crud.


    crudball gets pushed down deep narrow hole by helpful drone


    teleportal at bottom of hole linked to teleportal in gun


    vertical drop speed becomes horizontal shooty speed


    crudball hits giant ant at high velocityStolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    giant ant explodes in shower of gore


    jin doesn''t die


    maybe this can work


    also dug up my old personal shield generator thing and did a test powerup and its still uh well its powering up anyway. threw some crud at it and the crud exploded. whole lair smells like cumin popcorn and burnt copper now. can''t remember if thats normal or what.


    anyway hard to test anything in here and just the thought of going topside is frankly terrifying right now so yeah gotta work up to that one


    so anyway


    teleportals


    crudmuncher


    gun thing gotta make the frame i guess or something


    weapon options:


    [ just try to make the crudballs as big and dense as possible ]


    [ stability might be important that spin thing could donk me up ]


    talking of stability safeifying the ports might be a good idea because exploding teleportals ain''t no joke

 if this is my last entry remember me as sometimes pretty okay

    so at first i was all like longer tube = more stability but thats pretty brute force and boring plus lugging around a massive huge gun thing doesn''t sound fun so in the end i just fiddled with compensator settings until i got something that feels good. its not sexy or anything but sometimes its just about hard work, you know? sometimes that''s the deal.


    so now I''ve got a cute little (not that little) shoulder mounted teleportal crudshooting thing.


    yay?


    had a go at biggifying the crudballs too. problem with that is you gotta widen the hole it drops down and if you widen the hole it drops down you''re looking at this whole big exponential expenditure of effort situation. it''s just honestly a mess. also how big can a micro teleportal get before it''s just like a regular teleportal.


    these questionsEnjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    they are beyond me


    or at least


    beyond my capacity


    for nonlaziness


    so yeah i guess i got the crudballs a little bigger and a little denser and they drop on through that hole pretty nicely. the kick on this thing is pretty weird. not quite sure what to do about that but oh well. probably this is good. good enough for giant ants. one hopes. haha.


    meanwhile i got diagnostics running on my shield thing, trying to maybe figure out how to get the weight down because it''s heavy as flip. so far i''ve managed to split the power pack so its not just weighing down my shoulders, plus if one of them shorts out or whatever the other can maybe keep at least a little up. thinking of putting another power pack in too like as an emergency backup. although that would be the exact opposite of decreasing the weight. main problem is


    oh flip


    scout ant in the warehouse


    crap i cant let it get back to the hive and tell them where i am if that happens its all over okay


    okay


    time to strap on a highly suspect energy shield harness and go kill a giant ant with an untested teleportal crudlauncher


    this is apparently something that is happening in my actual life


    to do:


    [ not die ]

 [BRAINTHOUGHTSCIENCESOMETHING CAPTURE DEVICE V0.00000001]

    CAPTURE LOG


    <hr>


    okay. here we go. this is real, jin. this is real now. you are going to do this because you have to do this. you''re not weak. it''s just one giant ant. you''re so much better than an ant. check the teleportal. it''s okay. of course it''s okay because you''re ace at teleports because you are a superscience genius. you''ll come out in the break room. behind the vending machines. probably too small for the giant ant to get in. it''ll be out in the main warehouse area. not sure how big it is. bigger than me. but i''m used to that. everything''s bigger than me. when has that ever stopped me doing anything.


    i am a superscience genius girl. i have a teleportal crudthrower.


    i can do this


    i can do this


    I can do this.


    <hr>


    oh gob i can hear it scuttling around out there maybe it''ll just go away on its own and ignore all the sweet delicious biscuits


    no jin


    bad


    can''t just ignore stuff. not when it''s important. can''t live your whole life underground.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    or could i


    no no no come on girl. come on. you got this. you know the deal.


    sometimes there''s no choice but to fight


    so


    yknow


    fight


    <hr>


    but let''s be really careful because oh glob i really don''t want to die i really really don''t want to get eaten by a giant ant


    <hr>


    oh man


    there it is


    just like


    there


    all giant anting and junk just like trying to get into that biscuit crate


    okay jin


    you got a shot here


    maybe just get a bit closer


    confidence in accuracy is not a guest at jin''s giant ant conflict party


    okay


    okay


    NOPE SEES ME SEES ME GIANT ANT SEES ME KILL TRIGGER DEATH NOPEMISSED TOTALLY MISSED RUN DODGE RUN RUN RUN RUN RUNRUNRUNRUNRUN


    <hr>


    okay okay. where is this. other side of warehouse. ant somewhere over there so okay okaythis feels good i mean not good good but yknow better than some potential alternatives that i could think of


    ant thinks i''m still over there i think


    so like


    element of surprise is mine maybe


    so like just creep up and peek around that corner and put some crudballs in that ants backside. moving now. moving nnnnnow. now. oh come on body get with the program we gotta do a thing here. okay here we go for reals now. mind over matter baby mind over matter.


    oh yeah there she is. thinks i''m still over there. stupid insect. yes that is how i win this battle. superior intellect and CHARGING ANT CHARGING ANT KNOWS IM HERE TRIGGER TRIGGER


    AH


    GOT IT wait did I though or did it just STILL COMING BLEW OFF A LEG BUT ITS STILL COMING AHHHH WHAT DO BISCUITS TOWER OF BISCUITS CLIMB TOWER OF BISCUITS


    wait can ants climb


    YEP THEY CAN CLIMB THEY CAN CLIMB REALLY FLIPPING WELL SHOOTY SHOOTY CRUDBALL AHHHHHH


    <hr>


    END OF FILE

 still here i guess

    i am allegedly still alive


    jury''s still out on the crudlauncher


    mercy killing might be the best option


    that thing is a heap of crap


    only got saved by #4 and his trusty laser


    and my shield


    12yo me was a tiny little superstar for inventing that thing


    burnt out a power pack though


    so yeah


    need something way better for next time


    and oh yeah there''s gonna be a next time


    inevitable


    you don''t just kill one giant ant and go home


    i mean you do but that''s not the end


    need better weapon


    need better shield


    need so much tea


    after me and #4 comboed the thing to pieces i rooted around in the corpse because hey dead giant ant. how often do you get the chance to loot one of those. anyway got a bunch of weird crystals from out of its weird goopy ant insides. pretty exciting. who knows what scientific wonders could come from antgutgems. storing them in my bathtub for now. shower still not working anyway. no real way to wash off all this ichor. smells like dirty lemon. could become a problem at some point. can''t honestly care about it right now though.


    found the hole where the ant got in. sealed it up but yeah theres gonna be more coming visiting. not just scouts either, flip that was just a scout, smallest weakest wussiest type of ant but yeah whateverStolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    so now i gotta make a plan. pick a path. i''m alone here. ants aren''t going away. yeah that''s the thing huh? i mean i have no precise idea about the extent of the infestation but i ran some sims and the chances of me not being completely surrounded are like uh well basically i''m definitely completely surrounded


    so it''s me alone in the middle of a city of ants


    no easy escape


    no hiding


    if i do nothing i''m screwed. eventually a scout''s gonna find this place and report back and bring more ants and they''ll dig down and get me. not like ants ever think ''oh you know what we got enough already we cool'' and just like stop. no. they spread and spread until there''s nowhere left.


    so i got some choices about how i deal.


    first, information. got to get some solid numbers. where are the ants. where are they strong. where are they weak. do they have weaknesses? they must. experimentation. dissection. maybe even a little vivisection. whatever it takes to get an edge on these freaky things.


    next, long term stuff. like could i just like make a run for it, invent some kind of vehicle thing and zoom off somewhere else. somewhere else with humans i guess gross but whatever, humans are yucky but slightly preferable to giant ants. humans at least won''t eat you alive. they do have that going for them.


    teleportation another option. have to get some serious juice and also find a safe place to teleport to like a receiver would be tops if i could somehow find one somewhere and get the code to it and everything. this was actually my first thought but it''s probably one of the trickier options. lot of variables. lot of what ifs. lot of stuff i need and lot of stuff that could go wrong.


    still. i do love teleports.


    next thing is yknow actually fight them. forget about escape. i mean what i got here is pretty amazing, a whole city to myself. isn''t that like a paradise? kind of feels like it. except yknow for all the giant ants. so if i could get rid of them all with like i don''t know maybe a bomb or something or sonic waves or some amazing science solution then i''d have a whole city yeah. all these resources. i could do amazing things.


    or as a modification to the fighting plan just like establish a kingdom for myself. don''t have to kill all the ants. actually keeping some around could be good. if i clear em all out other humans are going to notice and want to move back in. yuck. so just like marking out a decent area with all the stuff i need in it and rigging up some defences and such might work. natural living barrier of ants between me and the world. could be cool.


    and like as a modification to that there''s like the possibility i could maybe even make friends with the ants. and by make friends i mean dominate them with superscience.


    jin alakija


    queen of the ants


    not such a bad title


    man


    i am tired as flip


    guess i gotta do some deciding though


    just like basics


    so here we go


    to do:


    [ fortify. build. biscuit warehouse not exactly a fortress. yet. ]


    scout. explore. get drones out and build more drones and maybe cameras and sensors and no surprises


    weapon. personal defence. get myself geared the heck up


    would actually kind of love a shower right now but yeah

 at least im not bored

    okay so one positive about the whole giant ant invasion sitch. no humans means subtlety goes right out the window. i can just go nuts with my biz.


    problem is what does that look like


    i mean i''m not a superarchitect genius girl


    but eh that''s what drones are for. called in all my scamps from wherever, #2 and #3 are missing but the rest got here okay. fitted them out with some like basic building gear and told them to bulk up the biscuit warehouse, just get freestyle crazy with their robot brains. could probably improve a bunch of stuff to make them better at building things. give them swarms of minidrones to command. all that takes time though.


    felt like i had so much


    now its all


    HURRY UP


    like all the time


    anyway meanwhile i''m working on some stuff like yknow turrets and sonic repulsors and all that tower defence stuff but kinda hard to get a read on what''s gonna actually work without a test subject


    so yeah


    gotta nab me an antUnauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    probably means going out


    so i mean this is the point where i could just freak out textually and just write a bunch of AHGHHHHHHHs and DONT WANNA DONT WANNAs but where''s that gonna get me


    nowhere


    fast


    so instead i got to look at this the right way. like i''m going to have to go topside. probably a bunch, i mean my scrap supplies are already low, i gotta figure out how to get water down in this thing, some electricity might be nice for stuff like teleportal biz


    oh yeah teleports. think i might have something there. scrounged up my old prototype emergency teleport thing. power pack still got charge in it too. did a bit of fiddling and hooked it up to the shield and synced it to the teleportal i got down here and maybe it could get me out of a jam if things go real bad


    like i do not want to rely on this thing


    but if it gets to that point


    maybe


    anyway back to whatever i was talking about. topside stuff. i got my crudlauncher, it''s a failweapon but ehhhhhh dunno could just do something like slap a laser on the side or i dont know bullets? bullets seem pretty popular for weapon stuff. maybe i should try to get some. or make some.


    wait


    can lasers go through teleportals


    or would they just explode


    might test that


    anyway could also focus on the shield/emergency teleport combo deal. personal protection is important.


    maybe what i really want is ant repellent. repell-ant. there''s a way to make that work but i cant right now


    or also ant bait


    for traps


    for catching


    an army


    of ants


    i mean it''s a thought i suppose


    just typing now because it means i don''t have to actually do something that will take me a step closer towards going topside again


    have to make a choice


    so


    [ weapon stuff + potentially explosive in a literal way laser teleportal research ]


    shield teleport stuff


    construction drone improvements for constructing and improving

 cant believe i still have both eyebrows

    busy busy busy so busy the most busy


    tapping in a few words


    every time i go past


    like time travel


    five hours in just these five lines


    seven hours


    ugh lasers. i mean they''re okay. they work. just maybe not my style.


    about to shoot one through a portal


    laser that is


    fingers crossed nothing explodes


    welp nothing exploded but haha funny thing about laser/portal interaction is this wonkers diffusion effect


    so like


    goodbye bed i guess


    ventilation system working overtime to clear out all this smoke


    we have fun here


    wait a second. just had a thought. what if i put like a focuser and a nope thinking faster than i can type just gotta try this because i think i can make like a laser shotgun pretty easilyYou might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    haha why did i think this would work. laser shotgun that is NUTS


    i mean it does work


    but it is NUTS


    no idea about this thing. like how many times can i fire it? twice maybe with the insane power draw. like i could''ve reduced the output but i mean GIANT ANTS right? you don''t wanna aim low with that kind of crap.


    really need that test subject ant


    putting that right up there on the priority list


    anyway back to this laser shotgun i accidentally invented. the spread is crazy. my bathroom is basically wrecked and the test area isn''t even anywhere near the bathroom. although yknow in a little cute cosy lair like mine everything''s pretty close to everything else so yeah. funny thing all those antgutgems i got stored in the tub didn''t even get scratched. what the flip are those. should do some tests or something.


    aaaaaanyway so now i got a bonkers laser shotgun


    oh and yeah. the drones have done a real uh well let''s just call it scampish job with project biscuit fortress. sealed up all the cracks and hulked up all the walls and put in this big door thing. went up and had a look while the ol lair was burning to pieces. looking great. thumbs up for drone robot brain creativity. i mean probably ants will just dig underneath or something or i dunno. somethings gonna happen i didn''t plan for. that''s life.


    pretty much used up all my precious scrap but eh that stuff''s everywhere. i mean its scrap. hmm maybe should send scamps out scavenging before


    well speak of the devil proximity alert brilliant okay time to go catch some ants


    wait


    forgot to invent a thing to catch ants with


    whoops


    eh whatever lets lotech it, just try to get them into one of the buildings around here and worry about other junk later


    looks like there''s two of em


    just scouts again


    looking for the one i killed maybe


    explain to me your ant concept of friendship


    just delaying now but actually feeling pretty okay about this whole deal. I mean i got #4 to back me up. i got this wonko laser shotgun.


    I got this.

 typing this with one hand the reason why will shock you

    HOLY FLIPPING CRAP GIANT ANTS ARE FLIPPING INSANE


    THEY ATE MY ARM


    MY ACTUAL ARM


    lucky i had a spare one handy AHAHAHAHHA OH GOB THATS NOT EVEN A JOKE


    holy flip


    breathe jin


    breathe


    you ain''t dead


    just


    fliiiiip


    i mean you always wanted to be a cyborg right? robot girl. thats kind of cool i guess. i guess. iguuess


    by the way award for best invention created just to distract yourself from bad cramps goes to jin alakija 13yo version for the emergency personal teleportal system. saved my life. got me down here to bleed all over everything.


    oh hey


    you wanna know whats really flipping fiddly?


    replacing your arm with a robot arm when you''ve ONLY GOT ONE ARM


    thank flip for scamps is all i''m saying. bless their stubby little helper claws. anyway after i stopped fainting all the time i taped a camera to #6 and sent him over to the ant warehouse. got one in there with only two legs. my first test subject. hehehe.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    oh yeah laser shotgun story


    okay so you know how i was worried about power levels and that? like how i didn''t want to set it too low in case it wasn''t powerful enough and just bounced off an ant''s bum?


    well mission flipping accomplished


    first blast vaporised the sucker


    apart from the antgutgems which are apparently laserproof


    seriously it was total videogame situation for a second there


    kill an enemy


    shiny gem loot drops to the ground


    had to do the sound effect myself


    bwing


    caught the second ant with the edge of the blast. wiped out a bunch of legs. thing limped after me, managed to get itin the warehouse before the THREE OTHER ANTS JUMPED ME


    bit of warning about them might''ve been nice


    i need a minimap or something


    anyway you know the rest of the story. one of them ate my arm. emergency teleportal kicked in. bleeding. fainting. robot arm. i''m a cyborg now. #4 zapped a couple of ants before the laser battery ran out. didn''t kill them, just punched a couple of holes. made them leak a bit. but they got away. back to their hive. one presumes.


    i mean i can hope they''ll report that there''s just a crazy girl with a laser shotgun over in them parts so y''know just maybe leave that part of the city alone


    but yeah


    no


    hive knows where i am now


    only a matter of time before i get swarms of soldiers or whatever


    so i guess my only real option is like


    destroy the hive before it destroys me


    somehow i always knew my life would come to this point


    i mean not the specifics


    just generally


    so i guess i got to do a whole bunch of stuff all at once now. no time for sleep which is okay because i destroyed my bed already. no time to wash but thats okay because my bathroom is just a pile of gutgems.


    really would kind of like a wash though


    i mean i am not great personal friends with mr hygiene


    but things in here are getting to like crisis levels of filth


    but oh well


    better make a list of all the stuff i need to do then figure out what to prioritise


    so here we go


    to do:


    [ experiments on ant subject 001 hehehe ]


    shield stuff also battery stuff


    teleportation stuff because getting me out of trouble BEFORE limbs get eaten would be aces


    mo weapons less problems?


    realise it cannot be a priority right now but oh how i would love a tea party

 living that cyborg superscience life

    oh yes. #4 brought me bullets


    he''s my hero


    so now i got a bunch of these boxes of .50 which seems pretty big, I mean i don''t know a lot about guns but these seem big


    like, pretty big


    so i''m looking at making a basic bulletgun. can''t be too hard. some kind of tube i guess. its just basic chemistry right? chemistry + physics = gun. i can do chemistry. i can do physics. i can do this.


    anyway that''s a sideproject. everything''s a sideproject. what''s the main questline here huh? all i got is sidequests


    robot arm pretty okay. still getting used to it. weird not to feel stuff. wonder if i could do something. where did i even get this thing. didn''t make it myself that''s for sure. just part of the random junk that kind of just piles up around you as part of a superscience lifestyle.


    ooh yeah anty experiments. mostly right now i''m just trying to figure out what ants don''t like. specifically if theres a frequency of sound they hate. because being able to make some kind of sonic repulsor would be b.rill.i.ant. anyway promising results although it might be easier to spot the negative reactions in a non-mutilated ant. right now i''m mostly just playing random music at the thing. is there a track so majestic even an ant can''t resist grooving. let''s find out.


    oh but one good thing. did some tests on antgutgems. i mean i didn''t do it. computer did it. but i told it to do it. apparently. anyway i got RESULTS and that''s the important thing. so anyway antgutgems have all this insane potential energy and also like antigravity properties? don''t quite get that bit i mean they don''t float or anything. although they are pretty light. hmm. hmmmm. hmmmmmmmmwell anyway right now i''m mostly interested in power source stuff more than floatingIf you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    although


    if they could make stuff lighter


    i could carry more


    hmmmmmmmm


    what else. built a bunch of microdrones. i mean the mareo just spat them out. i must have told it to do that at some point. so i gave each of my scamps a bunch of minidrones as underlings. even my minions have minions.


    completely out of scrap now though. put #5 in charge of getting more. gonna strip this neighbourhood baaaaaare


    spending more time topside. i mean just in biscuit fortress. not outside-topside. the topsy-outsy. have to get used to walking around and stuff. using my human legs. also my lair is seriously stanking lately. not sure what to do about that. ignoring it becoming. difficult.


    anyway actually felt okay to be out. walking is okay. using these ol legs for intended human purpose. good to be doing solid basic work on solid basic stuff too. feeling kind of okay. better than before. tea supplies are good which definitely helps. the tea must flow.


    speaking of solid basic work i fixed up the shield. made a new power pack out of three dead power packs. that''s my last one though. need to get on those antgutgems as a power source. that or find more power packs. the power plant near abandoned superscience lair #2 probably has some stuff i could use. maybe i need to explore. but i need a shield to explore. but i need power packs for shield. and etc.


    also. pretty sure the emergency save my life teleportal won''t have enough power to work with just one pack. so that. is. a thing.


    no sign of avenging ant swarm yet. been vewwy quiet. #4''s out scouting. gotta find that hive. gotta get power. gotta get kitted up so i can maybe go scout some places.


    so yes


    to do:


    [ get my brain focused on e-lec-tri-ci-ty ]


    sensors are boring but practical also could i rig up a minimap?


    brother, we gotta do something about this stank

 thought i heard a bird but couldnt see any birds

    moved upstairs mostly. my lair was getting


    yknow


    super disgusting


    anyway got my scamp miniarmy to make me a new lair up in biscuit fortress. weird to be living above ground but yeah. got a pretty good door. swishes open like in scifi shows and everything. i mean its not actually automatic. i got a couple of scamps on standby to pull it open when i get close. so i guess it is actually automatic in a way.


    anyway


    some progress on bulletgun. i mean i got a tube. and a trigger. and a little striker bit that hits the thing on the bullet that makes it go out. and its hard to even pretend i''m into this stuff. but i mean i made it, it WORKS, those bullets definitely go banging out pretty fast and like I think, this is just me projecting but i think if i was a giant ant i definitely would not want to be standing where that bullet is going. just my opinion there.


    big problem is reloading is fiddly as flip. dunno what to do about that. rigged up this like shutter thing and i TRIED automating it but it kept getting my fleshy human fingers and robot fingers aren''t the best for fiddly high stress technical stuff it turns out.


    although maybe i could do something about that


    the thing about having a robot arm


    like the advantage over a fleshy human arm


    is


    upgrades


    well anyway back to the bulletgun and reloads, i put a switch thing in which is okay i guess. i mean it works. it opens and i put a bullet in and then it closes and the bullet can do its shooting off thing and then it opens and the empty bit of the bullet falls out and so on and on and whatever. i dunno. just feels like theres a better way that i''m just not seeing. not used to stuff being this hard. i''m so good at science! but gun science is sticky.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    lasers are way easier


    teleportal crudlauncher way simpler


    maybe i could do something with a teleport. teleport new bullets in? and that way i don''t have to lug around a big bag full of bullets. or maybe stick a drone on the side of the gun and the drone can reload it for me.


    huh


    that is actually


    genius


    but oh well sticking to the crudlauncher for now. upgraded it a bit. since i moved out of the lair i got more space down there so i had the scamps dig three more big long narrow holes and put three more barrels on the thing. now it''s a quadcrudlauncher. four times the crud four times the fun. that''s basic maths.


    hoping to do more laser stuff maybe. i mean not hoping hoping. lasers still make me uncomfortable. lot of complicated emotions there. can''t say they''re not super excellent at destroying ants though. so yeah. be pretty good to break out the laser shotgun again. can''t use it now. not enough power to spare.


    but


    maybe soon


    power will not be a problem


    because i''ve been experimenting with antgutgems and i''m so close to getting somewhere. i can feel it. my science gland is pulsating. breakthrough juice is dripping from my theory orifice.


    jin you are very gross sometimes


    or like


    all the time


    oh also update on anty test subject 001 because i think


    like this isn''t certain


    but i think i got a sonic wave thing that makes ants nervous. not actually scared. can''t go that far yet. but yeah. that ant definitely does not like it. if i can nail this thing down then i can start thinking about area denial. start taking back parts of this city. start ramping up my operation here.


    that''s if i don''t just get eaten by the massive swarm of soldier ants inevitably marching this way


    i mean i got no signs yet


    just y''know


    it''s gonna happen


    so. before that. gotta get cracking on all this science. gotta figure out how to unlock the energy inside these antgutgems. gotta make better weapons and better shields


    crap


    forgot about the shield


    because no power


    but i should still fix it or improve it or


    never mind


    to do:


    shield upgrade fixing power science something


    [ antgutgem power unlock very important ]


    haven''t paid proper attention to scamps lately


    feel like i''m forgetting something but eh

 the future is a thing

    hit a kind of block with bulletgun stuff. so i put a teleport on it. teleports make everything better. at first i was all like hey what if i ported a bullet into the reload thing


    but that was stupid


    because if i''m teleporting bullets then why not teleport a bullet that''s already going really fast huh? why not teleport a whole bunch of bullets that are all going really fast? why not outsource the whole tricky reloading shooting barrel length nonsense so i got just like a cool dinky little thing with a teleportal in it?


    so yeah that''s what i did


    now i got a tiny but mighty bulletgun pistol thing. easy to carry. easy to point at stuff i want to not be alive. put some dampening stuff in the teleportal to deal with recoil biz. got seven tubes in the bulletgun room at biscuit fort. got a couple of bulletscamps attending. now i can just upgrade the massive bulletgun contraption and keep all my bullets there instead of lugging all that junk around with me. set up some like basic turrets around biscuit fort too. hooked to the same thing. no idea how good scamps are gonna be at turret operation but eh. guess we''ll find out sometime.


    oh yeah anty subject 001 kicked it. too much dubstep i guess. also bullet practice. turns out my theory was correct and ants do not like being shot. tiny but mighty bulletgun seems pretty useful. holds up under test conditions.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    didn''t get a proper chance to test my sonic ant annoyer. put it in a toy voicechanger thing so i can just wear it over my face. guess i''ll get a chance to try it pretty soon. because oh yeah. grumpy ol #5 never came back from that scraphunt mission. i mean some of his minidrones did. brought me some scrap. good little guys. but #5 got eaten i think. or whatever ants do to metal. they eat it right? man am i gonna have to fight metal ants sometime. yeah i am. that is totally what i''m gonna have to fight.


    oh yes some good progress on antgutgems. got a thing set up. turning them into batteries. only getting like 8% efficiency but eh. good enough for field superscience. means at least i got my shield going again and also antgutgem batteries are way lighter than my bulky old power packs. so i can carry a lot more. emergency teleportal doesn''t like them though. like what''s up with that. how''s a thing gonna be picky about what kind of electricity it''s getting. laser shotgun = same thing. antgutgems really hate lasers huh. or just ghost them. refuse to acknowledge lasers existence.


    another annoying thing is that my shield doesn''t like getting too much power all at once. or from one source? can''t figure out the exact problem. irritating.


    well anyway overall feeling okay about survival stuff. i have shield. i have murdergear. i can shout at ants with this voicechanger and maybe they''ll get socially anxious about coming near me.


    so now i gotta decide about y''know actually being proactive about this whole deal.


    like what am i doing here


    so here we go:


    [ locate local hive and go check it out re: ant genocide ie attack attack attack ]


    lock down the neighbourhood with sensors and turrets and such ie defend defend defend


    look into just getting the flip outta this crazy town ie escape escape escape

 never been so much fun

    sooooo this is weird. and by weird i mean


    yeah no this time it actually is weird. antgutgem batteries don''t


    nope wrong way to put it. certain stuff doesn''t like antgutgem batteries is the thing. like lasers hate them. shields aren''t too happy with them. teleportals seem okay.


    but all of that is bonkers. because it''s energy. it''s power. electricity. relationships don''t come into it. right? or at least they shouldn''t.


    i mean half the reason i chose this solitary superscience genius girl life is because


    yknow


    relationships are


    gross


    but now i have to deal with this? being some sort of technical relationship counsellor between my flipping shield and its crapping battery?


    this is not what i signed up for


    then again i didn''t exactly sign up to be the last living human in a city of ants either


    guess you eat the pudding you''re givenThis content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    maybe if i put a teleport in the middle of things. maybe that somehow fixes it.


    or just forget that whole sticky deal and move on to more important stuff


    like hive assaults


    weird but i''m actually pretty wired about this junk. i mean i already lost an arm to these insects. so it kind of feels like the worst has already happened. and that wasn''t so bad. now i got a robot arm. i can stick notes to it with magnets. which is actually pretty bizarre because it''s not made of any kind of ferrous metal.


    anyway #4 found the hive for me. sent him out stalking ants. lot of activity on the big road north of biscuit fort. more activity in the mall over that way. the most activity in toystar, which at least shows that the ants have good taste.


    oh and i put the quad crudlauncher on #4. modified a bit. less barrel length. also its technically an octocrudlauncher now because it fires forwards and backwards at the same time. brute force solution to the recoil problem. equal and opposite reactions etc etc maybe next i''ll put some on the sides or point them out in all directions except if i do that then i''ll probably end up getting crudballed in the shin. that''d be embarrassing. also i don''t have a robot foot just lying around. hmm yes better to leave it like this. just have to be standing next to #4 and not eg in front or behind him.


    keep getting distracted. do i want to get distracted? being wired about something and actually doing the thing are pretty different. still feel weird about walking around like


    dunno


    easier to get excited about superscience junk. easier to muck around making stuff. instead of using the stuff to get things done.


    so yeah. gotta gear up. gotta go check out that mall. guess i could send scamps in. guess that''s a thing i could do. kind of want to do it myself. some kind of test maybe. some kind of like. proving something. to myself. self reliance, right? self reliance.


    kettle''s boiled


    tea time


    and then


    war

 got 99 problems and theyre mostly ants

    didn''t lose any arms this time


    did get really puffed out because distances are hard


    note: invent the wheel


    city isn''t as post-apocalyptic as i hoped. no like messages written in blood or anything. no prophetic graffiti. not even any like biohazard signs or whatever. just empty. abandoned. couple of crashed cars the closest it came to anything. couple of splatters that were maybe blood once. thing is even if there were bodies the ants would just be all like ''o look a tasty treat'' and eat them. so yeah. empty.


    tbm bulletgun held up good. a+++ would kill ants with tiny pistol thing again. shield okay but didn''t get much of a chance to test it. only one ant got close enough to bite me and the shield did its sparky thing and then #4 took out the ant with crudballs.


    might swap that one out actually


    crudballs flying around do not make for a stressfree environment


    then again pretty much anything is gonna be stressful. like a laser isn''t better. bullets wouldn''t be better. so what i actually need is something that kills ants but leaves superscience genius girls standing. hmm.


    oh yes the ant social anxiety inducer. didn''t exactly work as expected. kind of maybe slowed ants down a bit when i yelled at them. but also kind of just made them all come straight for me. aggroed them like wow. so my plan now is shove one on #4 and use him to aggro ants and then just snipe them all from a safe distance.


    didn''t actually get to the hive. didn''t even get inside the mall. i mean i saw it. big pretty building standing as a testament to glorious capitalism or whatever. totally covered in ants. crawling everywhere. big holes in the sides for them to get in and out of. seemed like mostly they were heading away from biscuit fort which is nice. maybe they don''t care about me and my delicious biscuits.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    but no


    silly to think that way


    so i chickened out and headed back. because what. i''m gonna take on a whole hive without even some kind of explosives or a rocket launcher or flamethrower or something? just this one tiny bulletgun and a frankly terrifying crudlaunching drone? nope nope nope. gotta plan this thing out.


    anyway got back safeish with only a couple of antcounters. i think just scouts. or scavengers maybe? i don''t know ants. worker ants? they didn''t seem much bigger than the scouts i saw before. maybe the important thing is that shooting them with bullets kills them. yes. that is a very important thing. sent out #6 with her minidrone scavenger army to collect corpses. got such a pile of antgutgems now. conversion process is really slow so i''m just doing a bunch of stuff with the leftover gems. smashing them to bits. heating them. cooling them. zapping with lasers. zapping with lightning. dunking them in tea. just whatever yknow? can''t let rationality kill your science vibe. i mean i''m not a common sense girl.


    also not a clean girl


    ran out of wet wipes


    water getting pretty low too


    can''t really afford a wash


    but


    want


    to


    wash


    like at this point i''m layering like crazy just to get more shielding between my sweaty gunky stanky human body and my sensitive human nose. i gotta do something about this. maybe some kind of brain alteration? like i don''t want to just burn out my sense of smell or whatever. but maybe there''s something that can be done. because something must be done.


    anyway


    in superscience news mostly i''m working on a scooter thing. thought about something bigger. like a car. but i feel like that''s just gonna end with me trapped inside the car while ants slowly


    or maybe not so slowly


    eat their way in from outside. anyway a scooter feels right. little and zippy and maybe i can mount some bulletgun portals on it or put the crudlauncher on there. or something.


    oh yeah had a little ant attack on biscuit fort while i was away. just a couple of scouts passing through. drones defended with their little crudturrets and bulletholes. nice to know they''re keeping the place safe for me. good little scamps.


    feeling pretty good lately. like things are happening. starting to figure this whole thing out. at least it''s nice and simple. just stay alive. kill ants. collect gems. create superscience solutions to superinsect problems.


    so what next huh


    what am i gonna do next


    water is boring but good for ie staying alive so sort out the plumbing situation


    antgutgems are useful and interesting and i got so many of them


    more scouting because field experience is good also the exercise wouldn''t kill me

 nobody told me scooters are fun and that is a crime

    right yes water. giver of life. cleanser of grubbiness. figured i should sort out this plumbing problem because dying of thirst in the middle of all this would be pretty embarrassing. also gave me a chance to test out starfax pimsneyback. my loving scooter. haven''t done much in the way of mods yet. just converted her to run on aggbies. antgutgem batteries are aggbies now. truefacts stated.


    anyway she runs pretty well. little starfax pimsneyback. zipped me out along the pipes. not literally along the pipes. like i wasn''t riding on top of a pipe. that''d be pretty rad though. beside the pipes i guess. also above them when they were underground.


    why am i writing so much about pipes


    anyway the important thing is that i got to like the water delivery factory? what the heck are those places called. anyway it was ant city over there. didn''t get close enough to engage because who needs the hassle. headed over to the river instead. not a lot of ants around there. water and ants doesn''t mix maybe? or they got no use for water. or they got their own water stuff. ant drinks. ant beer. cute little giant ant pubs where they forget their troubles and everybody knows your name. because everybody''s name is anthony.


    so at first i was like ''o no how am i gonna get this precious water all the way to biscuit fort'' but then i was like


    jin


    you beautiful foolThe tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    you are ace at teleports


    so now i got scamps making like a river thing near biscuit fort, also a reservoir, also an indoor swimming pool, also a waterslide. gonna be splash city over here. hey why not. restraint is not a major component of the superscience life. once its all finished just gotta put a teleportal in the river linked to one here and boom. water.


    big problem there is power. getting better at making aggbies and not running low on aggs but teleportal/aggbie interaction is still weird. can''t get enough stability. and trust me. you do not. want. unstable.teleports. seriously you don''t.


    thats just a superscience problem though. i can do those. just gotta figure this out. meanwhile i got #6 and her scavenger army doing the thing between here and the river, and #4 patrolling around there. oh yeah didn''t take the crudlauncher off him yet. figure if i''m not around then whatever. go ahead and launch that crud everywhere little buddy. just go on and have a great old time.


    anyway just setting up a teleportal in the river isn''t such a good idea for sustainability and etc so i''m gonna have to make like a facility there. like an outpost. that sounds cool. outposts. just like a little minifort. doesn''t have to be fancy. just sturdy. with some crudturrets and such. yes. i am liking this sense of progression.


    meanwhile in ant army thats definitely going to attack me any second now news. getting a lot more scouts and maybe workers lately. so far scamps and their turrets are doing a good job of yknow killing them dead. also good for constant supply of aggs. bullets are running out fast though. don''t know if i can get more anytime soon. so now i also got to figure out how to make my own bullets. i mean crudballs are okay. but bullets are like. way better. almost like they''re specifically designed to kill stuff or something.


    so yeah


    gotta make that facility


    gotta figure out this teleportal/aggby nonsense


    gotta make like a bulletmaker


    busybusybusy

 oh yeah gotta put a title haha

    first of all i have invented a spectacular new teleport-aggby vortex explosion device


    second i have accidentally destroyed my burgeoning second outpost


    these two things may be related


    oh well


    the positive i am taking from this setback is that stuff can get rebuilt but knowledge is forever. unless you forget it i guess. not gonna forget this one though. no way jones.


    good news is that scamps finished my river/reservoir/pool/waterslide combo. bad news is i still dont have water. because of the teleport-aggby etc explosion thing i mentioned. made a bunch more miniscamps anyway. assigned them to #1 because she is my number one construction girl. don''t really like sending her out but i really do want a wash pretty badly


    pretty


    flipping


    badly


    also made a special new scamp. scrapbag. his purpose is to die for my glory. put a teleportal-aggby vortex bomb on him. sent him trundling off towards that pesky old hive. sent a camera miniscamp to follow him. gotta record that stuff for science also if civilisation hasn''t completely collapsed i might get a few hits from the video. i don''t know maybe i want to start a stream channel or whatever sometime. gotta collect that content. envision the perfect future of your dreams. in which you are a streamer? well anyway i want to see the thing explode.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    have to maybe do something about the infested water factory also. that thing is pretty close. what are water factories actually called. they''re not called water factories. or are they. sometimes i miss internets. filling the gaps in this nutty brain of mine.


    also started a brand new thing in a brand new room. it is called


    actually i didn''t think of a name yet. so for now its called newproject. mostly its for aggby stuff. my thinking is that the problems i had so far is mostly me trying to retrofit existing gear to work with these ant batteries. and my existing gear really hating ant batteries. to varying degrees. so sometimes that''s good. or goodbad. like with the teleport aggby bomb. some pretty impressive destructive power there i am telling you. but usually it''s just annoying. because i want my shield to eg work and not eg decide it doesn''t like its power source and stop eg an ant from eg eating another one of eg my arms.


    robot arm doing good btw. i put some lasers on it. just little ones. no reason. just got in a laser mood. lasers are pretty okay sometimes maybe.


    oh yeah ant batteries. so basically i''m starting from scratch with all my gear. making completely new stuff. always so exciting. hard to pick a thing to focus on tbh. shield. teleport. new gun? kind of been getting more into weapons lately. like there are possibilities out there y''know? also once a thing saves you from getting eaten by an ant you start to feel more good towards the thing. also killing ants is. y''know. pretty fun actually. starting to get into it. been out a few times. riding around on starfax pimsneyback. looking for local ants to shoot and get their gems and use their gems to make better stuff to kill them with and mmmmm the progression


    so yeah


    gotta focus


    to do:


    make new aggby shield


    make new aggby teleport


    make new aggby gunweaponkillthing

 whoops were in a bullet calamity over here

    well i have run out of bullets. very suddenly. no more big chunky bullets for my cute dinky bulletgun.


    also completely forgot to make a bulletmaker


    so yeah


    no bullets


    this is problem


    but we are all about solutions over here in biscuit fort land. we are very big on turning that frown upside down and then putting a teleport on it and turning the frown into some kind of zipzapping laser boomerang. weaponised badmoods is what i''m talking about. believe it.


    first things first. send out scavenging scamp army to find more bullets. i mean there must be some lying around. people in games and movies and tv shows find guns and ammo just like literally everywhere in a post apocalyptic situation. why not me? #4 got those first lovely bullet cans from somewhere. went through drone records but it turns out i never got around to making location data nicely readable so i got bored of that super fast. asked #4 to go get more bullets anyway. he went off without a complaint. he''s a good boy really.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    although that means my precious water outpost isn''t as guarded as i''d like. i mean it didn''t get attacked last time. i just blew it up accidentally. that one is all the way on me. so maybe ants will ignore it. maybe. maybe. maybemaybemaybe


    second things second. what alternate weapons do i have now that my beautiful tiny cute mighty teenybulletgun is useless. crudballs of course. inaccurate. bulky. stupid. i mean they are stupid. it feels stupid to use them. they do splat ants if they manage to hit them but bleh.


    laser shotgun. still no power. so no.


    could possibly invent a new aggby powered gun or laser or something. or use drones somehow? could drones be a weapon?


    might look into that


    in the meantime well it looks like crudballs are my only hope. crap. but no jin. be not negative. do not get down on the innocent crudballs. they are doing their best. it is not their fault they are ugly and stupid.


    so okay. first step. make them not ugly. maybe what if oh okay what if they were not crudballs. what if they were crudbullets.


    like i mean instead of being like little cannonballs


    they were like little bulletballs


    wait no


    cannonbullets


    no


    crudbullets


    had it right the first time


    i could do different shapes maybe. like if a crudthing is pointy maybe it kill ant gooder? i can work with this. i can do tests and experiment this the heck up. different sizes. different shapes. oh and then i can put a switch on the thing and i can use different shapes and sizes for different things and i can line up a whole bunch of crudholes and okay i have found the excitement in this project.


    i am ready to science.

 v disappointed in this apocalypse

    so much stuff to do. somuchstuff


    crudbullets basically okay. got interested for a while figuring out how to get like rapidfire. like as many crudbullets as possible all in a row or whatever. built a new #2 to be like the official overseer of crudbullet town. made a new basement for them all because i figure scaling up production means lots of digging. we need a lot of crud to make crudtown a success. pulled some minidrones off the scavenging team to be crudminers instead. no complaints so far.


    so i got four holes. was gonna make more but mo holes mo teleportals and the more teleportals you got in one place the more chance you got of a blitterswijk scenario happening and you don''t need me to tell you that we do not want an invitation to that particular party. no sir.


    so yeah. sweet spot. four holes. four portals. three scamps per hole so you got one scamp dropping four crudbullets then grabbing more then the second one can drop theirs and then go grab more and etc so basically you got a pretty constant flow of crudbullets.


    kind of sick of calling them crudbullets. we got a branding issue here. just doesn''t sound cool enough. so now they''re dunno shards? shardrifle. shardgun. shardlauncher. shardtown. okay yes shards. it''ll do.


    so i got my personal shardrifle with two barrels because dunno just went that way. keeping the fire forward and backward thing from prototype crudlauncher because recoil is a boring thing i don''t want to think about. meant i had to do some insane fiddling with teleportal compensation settings but hey that''s not a chore. i could fiddle with teleportals all dang day. i mean that was basically my life until these flipping giant ants came along and messed up my biz.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    anyway


    got a shardrifle. went out on starfax pimsneyback and hunted a couple of ants. not hard to find around here. definitely getting closer. works pretty okay. not accurate at distance is the thing. or maybe i am just terrible at shooting. main thing is it splats ants and that is good.


    in other news


    scrapbag failed in his mission. don''t know what happened exactly but there''s a big big hole where a road used to be. took out camera drone in the explosion. maybe got ambushed by ants. checked the stream but it just cuts off before anything happens. one moment you got scrapbag trundling along ahead. next moment nothing. so. dunno.


    no bullets anywhere according to scamp bulletsearch parties. what kind of postapocalyptic wasteland is this. should be bullets everywhere. fiction has lied to me. also where the heck did #4 get those first bullets from. such a tease.


    anyway kind of trying to get into making bullets myself but apparently i don''t have the chems. so frustrating. i mean they''re so flipping simple. but i can''t make them. flipping nitric acid. flipping clean air initiatives. anyway working on a weather control device to make a lightning storm. seems like the simplest solution.


    outpost attempt 2 proceeding. no ant interference so far. all quiet on the river front. put #4 back on patrol duty around that area anyway. keeping a beady eye on that infested water factory.


    still no water


    still no wash


    i cry


    aggby research progressing slowly. got distracted trying to decide if aggby is a good name or if maybe agg-b is better or if there''s another fantastic potential name i''m just not seeing. agg-b aggby aggbat aggry angry? no stop this jin this is not productive.


    well anyway managed to get a 100% aggby-powered shield going but the power draw is stupid. like it''ll explode a crudball into like nothing but only for the two seconds it''s up before the agg battery runs out of juice.


    teleportal aggby interaction still broken


    just keep exploding


    weapons i dunno. you can get a lot of heat out of an aggby. i mean sure. electricity -> heat is so basic. mostly you''re trying to reduce that. so encouraging it is cake. maybe some kind of heat thing then. maybe a close combat weapon.


    maybe i want a heat sword


    hmmmmmmm

 remember those eyebrows i was so proud of

    right. so. not sure how i ended up here but i got two drones and modified them so i can wear them like gloves


    yeah


    i dunno


    seemed like a good idea at the time i guess


    anyway i got drone gloves now. put some heat coils on them because aggbys are pretty good with that sort of stuff. so now i got like drone heat claw gloves. actually pretty decent at destroying everything around me because i forgot to put an off switch on the stupid things.


    so that was fun


    after i got the things off and deactivated and put a bunch of off switches on them i was all like man how am i gonna direct this power. like how should it be focused. just make it really hot? take it to the limit as far as heat output gets? but i couldn''t get excited about that. focus on safety, put some limiters and stuff in there? containment focus system? be easy to do but again, boring. couldn''t get excited. but then i was like wait just a doggone second here. what if i combo those ideas. containment focus system but also super hot fire to create like a heat blast.Stolen novel; please report.


    so that''s what i did and haha wow goodbye eyebrows! eh i never used those things much anyway. it was always only a matter of time. inevitable. anyway the important thing is now i got a heat blast glove that blasts out this amazing fireball. triggered it up to yelling WAVE MOTION FIREBALL BLAST because honestly who could resist. oh also decided not to go for double gloves because i need hands free to do stuff. so now i got a little drone glove living on my robot arm. crawls over to fit on my hand when i need it. cute. dinky. just my style.


    so yeah


    that was my day


    meanwhile uh let''s see hard to think about other stuff when you''ve got a wave motion fireball blast drone glove to play with. oh yeah the outpost. got the teleportal working with this ridiculous stupid thing. i mean it is dumb as heck. but it gets me like three litres of water every seven seconds with zero explosions. so far. it is not a constant flow. but it is okay. should probably look into filtration or something. for drinking purposes. i still got my other water reserves. like a week left. so like a week to figure that out. otherwise for sure i''m gonna get the evil giardia. anyway used my other heat drone glove as a heating system for the pool. why not yeah. had a bath.


    had such a bath


    the bath of all baths


    the mood was


    light


    it is very strange to feel clean. very strange. put some scamps on cleanup duty. scrubbing this place. maybe i have matured. maybe i have finally learnt the true value of soap.


    or maybe


    the soap was inside of me the entire time


    other stuff is other stuff. really tired lately. starting to think modifying my brain to reduce need for sleep might have some side effects. maybe. anyway. nap time for jinjin.

 things could be better

    okay so


    whole bunch of giant ants are attacking biscuit fort


    i am under siege


    guess putting off destroying the hive had consequences huh


    who could possibly have predicted


    drone turrets are holding them off for now but there are some really big ants out there


    also some that can like


    shoot fire


    and others than can like


    shoot lightning


    and others than can like


    spit acid


    so on the positive side i am probably unlocking a whole bunch of new like enemy entries in my logbook. probably getting an achievement and everything.


    20pts - I HAVE SEEN THE FACE OF MY ENEMY


    sooooo well uh


    not really sure what to do. like i really don''t want to wade out into the middle of all that. i mean i got my drone fireball glove. got my shardrifle. but there are a heap of ants outside. just like bonkers numbers. should have made some like y''know explosive weapons or something. too late now.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    defensive tactic at the moment is to just put construction drones on wallbuilding duty. so as the ants eat and melt my walls i just build more walls behind those walls. thicken them up. which is working. for now. but the biscuit fort is shrinking. that is the downside to this action. it''s a big warehouse but i can''t keep this up forever.


    been working on my aggby shield as a priority while this nonsense occurs. think i''ve got something. kind of like a heat shield. heat aura. i''ve still got my 12yo version shield as a final backup, with my last oldschool power pack. then on top of that i''ve got my new aggby shield with the heat proc. basically if an ant tries to bite me this big old heatwave shoots out. fries the ant. uses up half an aggbattery every time that happens. so i''m like. covered in aggbatteries. have to reload them manually but i''ve got a two slot hotswap thing going on. should be okay. shouldbeokay


    tried to make a flamethrower but it went nowhere. couldn''t find a grip on the idea. just. didn''t work. no flammable stuff to shoot out was the problem. maybe if i could somehow convert antgutgems into a liquid form. problem for future jin. future jin. i hope she''s doing okay.


    one pretty idiot option is to make some aggby/teleportal void vortex bombs but those things are stupid dangerous. detonating one so close to my base seems like a really terrible idea. last ditch glory device i guess. or maybe


    oh no


    just figured out what i can do


    just really don''t want to do it


    but


    if i could get a vortex drone away from the base. and if i put a bunch of ant anxiety voicechanger agro pullers on it. and got all the ants away from the base. and then triggered the thing. that could maybe do something.


    but there''s like zero chance of a drone making it away from the base. can''t teleport it because teleporting a vortex bomb just makes everything explode. i mean that''s the trigger for the thing. don''t trigger a vortex bomb in your face/base is the rule.


    sooooooo


    it''s gotta be me


    going out


    into allthoseants


    with a scrapbag drone or three


    and some decoy drones


    and


    and


    nuts


    really


    really


    dontwanttodothis

 but my corpselooter drone will not be named igor

    man there is way too much actual stuff going on lately. way too much plot getting in the way of my sweet loving superscience. all this stuff i have to do to y''know not die or whatever. it is harshing my zen.


    but anyway


    vortex bomb scrapbags kind of worked pretty well. decoy drones are now called buzzers. buzzers work really well. ants hate those guys. or love them? have to upgrade mobility. speedy buzzers required. so they can just like pull ants then zip away like little stinkers.


    aggby heat blast shield works pretty good. except it gets pretty hot. for me i mean. need to put some heat shielding on my heat shield. or no wait just had an idea to reverse the reversal like a kind of feedback loop except expressed externally okay problem solved. theoretically. still have to actually make it and test it and etc


    oh anyway ants do not like heat. even the ones that spit fire. you''d think those guys would have some kind of elemental resistance but nope. they burn just as good as any ant. lightning guys were the real buggers. fried my junk. not my junk junk. i mean my gear. 12yo shield is goneburger. i spend a moment in silent respect for my fallen ally. f.


    so yes need a new proper shield. have to get into the guts of aggby stuff again. starting to get a handle on that nonsense maybe. did a thing to the battery maker and got efficiency up to like 14% which is a decent jump.


    oh right the actual mission. kind of blocking it out. wasn''t my idea of a good time although i did get such a bunch of antgutgems and the fire ants drop red ones which is so appropriate. so satisfying. lightning ants just drop regular antgutgems as far as i have seen. acid ants do not drop gems. such a rip off. what is even the point of them. those guys are the worst.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    right. so i went out. and i dodged ants and shot some and heat blasted others i guess. dunno. stuff happened. i got through and used my scrapbags and buzzers and the ants got all interested in the buzzers and chased after them and once they were far away from my precious biscuit fort i blew them all up. well most of them. had to pick off a few stragglers. that part was pretty fun i admit. shardrifle is good because it just keeps shooting and i don''t have to worry about running out of ammo. the thing about using compressed dense little bits of dirt and rocks is that well y''know dirt and rocks are basically everywhere.


    oh hey wait


    wait a second here


    oh man can''t believe i only just thought of this but i should totally be using ant bodies for something. like that goop blood maybe that can be used for something and also their thick shiny chitin could totally be useful


    man


    i got distracted by the shinies


    without thinking


    that an ant corpse


    could be somehow turned into a bullet


    i got to get on this. i mean there is no shortage of ant bodies around this place. not the ones that got shredded by the vortex bomb. antgutgem battery + teleportal malfunction = not much left to sift through. maybe it''s actually a mass-teleportation thing? huh yeah that is a possibility. not destroying stuff. just teleporting it somewhere else. but where though. man i hope i didn''t give people a nasty surprise. bunch of roads and buildings and v annoyed giant ants just dropping down into a nice normal neighbourhood. haha. that is if there are any nice normal neighbourhoods left. could be giant ants have taken over the whole entire world and not just this one city. but oh well. doesn''t do to dwell on nasty biz.


    time to go rob some graves


    experiment on corpses


    this is such classic mad scientist territory


    i mean they''re ant bodies instead of human but eh details


    also never really thought of myself as a mad scientist


    more like


    sad


    sad scientist


    well anyway


    science time


    muhahahahahaha

 they call me dr sparklebutt

    guess it''s not technically graverobbing if the bodies aren''t buried


    but i''m still calling it that


    getting into that mad scientist mood


    made myself a white coat and all


    why not


    i mean its already grubby as flip but eh


    kind of a weird cliche when you think about it


    white coats


    because doing mad superscience is like


    super messy


    maybe i could invent some kind of filth resistant everclean white fabric except no. don''t get distracted. you''re doing good work here jin. good weird dangerous exciting superscience superwork.


    so just to begin with even just feeding ant corpses into the mareo makes that thing superhappy. possibilities abound. got construction drones working on like a chute system. so the scavenger drones can just dump corpses in and they get autoconverted. put some like thresher blades in there too so if any ants try to sneak in that way heyoooo free antbits


    basic boring use is to make better shards for my shardrifle. ant chitin junk is way better than crud. this is not surprising. everything is better than crud. i mean i could have been using scrap to turn into metal shards. but i need that stuff for building. and repairs. so many repairs. giant ants will literally eat your house. so yeah.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    anyway i made a couple dozen chitinshards. added them to the selector dial on my shardrifle. made a lovely new label for it. decorated with sparkles and rainbows. why not be fabulous at the end of the world. glitterpocalypse.


    next is maybe some kind of armour? don''t know about that one. wearing dead ants and using dead ants to fight giant ants sounds cool but i feel like the reality isn''t so romantic. could get pretty bulky and annoying. maybe just like some kneepads or something. my knees always get donked up when i go out.


    also. ant chitin sword. or blades. claws! could add them to my roboarm. or my heat blast drone. or both! anyway got tests going figuring out how sharp and strong we can get ant chitin material. have to see if antsword is even viable. hope it is. sometimes you get an idea and it just sticks in your head.


    goopy dirty lemon ant blood might be trickier. got some tests running. it''s not flammable which is instantly disappointing. but y''know. could be useful for something. experiments continue.


    did some basic work on buzzers. started out bulking them up with armour and such but then i was like wrong direction jin. so now they''re tiny little things with buzzy giant ant attracting speakers and also these jump springs that are pretty hilarious honestly. they''re like crazy little fleas. bouncing all over the place. plus extra tracks and wheels AND robolegs so they are as all terrain as it gets. working on a microteleporter thing so they can actually like warp around. flashstepping microdrones. giant ants gonna be like whaaaaaat


    still getting a lot of attacks. constant stream pretty much. really ticked off that hive by yknow killing all their workers and special elemental ants and such. hehehe. i mean i have no idea about the actual state of things. the theatre of war or whatever. maybe i''ve got literally a million ants heading this way and i''m hopelessly doomed. but it kind of feels like i''m winning at this point. at least against this one local hive. haven''t much looked past this neighbourhood. pretty deep in the city here. industrial area. got like seventeen suburbs between me and anything that could be considered non urban. wonder if giant ants like residential areas. twenty reasons giant ants love suburban living. number seven will shock you.


    okay the thing''s bleeping at me. time to go see if antsword can be a thing.


    please let antsword be a thing

 i dub thee antwhack

    antsword is a thing


    so happy


    i cry


    also there''s an interaction between antgutgem batteries and ant materials in that they don''t just power them they also make them really light. that weird antigrav effect.


    this means not only can i make an antsword


    i can make a ludicrously enormous antsword


    my dreams of becoming an rpg character are closer to reality than ever


    so yeah anyway


    now i have a giant antsword


    wooooooo


    also while doing aggby experiments for to make giant antsword kind of tripped over something else interesting. antgutgems are putting out this constant antigravity wave. actually it''s not really antigravity but explaining is boring so we''re just going with that. it makes stuff lighter especially antstuff. move on. anyway the wave degrades fast but you can detect it + figure out how far away the source is with some applied maths. also if you put a bunch of detectors in a circle you can figure out what direction the signal is coming from.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    you know what this means


    jin got a minimap boiiiiiii


    i mean it only detects ants. well technically it detects those shiny precious antgutgems sitting in their antguts but same diff right? anyway rigged up a hud thing i can wear. scouter style. shows me where ants are. range is like a couple dozen metres. not sure if i can increase that. not without making it unreliable. maybe a switch. unreliable longrange. reliable shortrange. hmm. or no wait if i did overlays then cancelled display of longrange when within shortrange. yes. that could work. feels like mostly this is a ui issue. fiddly. sometimes fiddly can be fun.


    oh also realised something. teleporting aggbys is a terrible idea. that''s not the realisation. already knew that. i mean it leads to giant vortex explosions. teleporting raw antgutgems also creates vortex explosion. basically anything to do with antgutgems + teleport == badtimes. but for like ages i was walking around with my emergency teleportal thing while loaded down with like dozens of aggbys. if that thing ever activated i would''ve been sploded all to heck.


    so yeah


    pretty lucky it never activated


    haha


    anyway all my oldschool powerpacks are dead now so i''m not even using the emergency teleporter. and also probably cannot ever teleport while using any ant tech. i mean. it''s not such a big deal. i guess in a true emergency i could dump all my antgear and then activate a teleporter. if i made another personal teleporter. and found/invented a power source that is not antbased.


    superscience biz gets crazy complicated sometimes


    anyway


    time to go ride my loving scooter around a postapocalyptic city and detect some ants and then slice them to pieces with a giant sword


    welcome to my life ladies and gentlemen


    welcome to my cute little life

 the good doctors butt will sparkle no more

    haha so here''s a funny thing


    actually no i can''t be light about this


    i am out of water


    i mean i got water


    but it''s all unfiltered stuff straight from the river and who knows what kind of junk is in there


    also delivery is via teleportal


    extradimensional nonsense could be happening


    who knows how portals work


    yes yes i am good with teleports. it does not mean i know what kind of weirdness happens between point a and point b. could have a whole alphabet of troubles in there. could be like ancient chaos gods fiddling with my water and having a wee in it for all i know. also it''s grotty city river water that giant ants could be using as a sewer. could be full of radiations. i don''t know what kind of postapocalyptic nonsense is happening upstream. factories breaking down. leaking toxic junk everywhere. i''ve watched movies. i''ve read comics. i know how this stuff works. basically what i am saying is that drinking that stuff could kill me. or give me superpowers. either way it''s not a controllable scenario and i do not do well with those.


    right yes i am a superscience genius girl you do not have to remind me of that. i can run tests to see if its drinkable. i can invent filter stuff.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    but i didn''t do any of that because i was busy doing yknow actual fun superscience that i wanted to do instead of eg essential superscience to keep jin alive


    curse my enormous easily distractable brain


    so now my day is spent being thirsty and


    wait there are vending machines around here


    i have fizzy drink


    crisis averted. shut off the alarms. i can just loot drinkables. no problems here. does soda have an expiry date? eh even if it does. so much sugar in those things you could just


    wait without water i cannot make tea


    okay yeah we''re back to crisis mode. put that flashing red light back on. sirens activate.


    get your head down jin


    get inventing filters and junk


    no wait test the water first. figure out what we need to take out before you invent the thing to take it out. a before b before c.


    and calm down for flip''s sake. what is this? amateur hour? it''s like you never ran up against a bad dealio before. have a chip, jin. drink your disgusting fizzy drinks. get those tests started. think about good things.


    like giant ant swords


    and how they are


    *fun*


    so the thing about making a giant sword out of antbits. the really good thing. is that antbits


    in the shape of a sword


    powered by antgutgem batteries


    cut through ants so well. so satisfying. so crunchy. ant goo everywhere. ant legs flying through the air. did some jousting on starfax pimsneyback. just riding along with my giant sword. slicing through ants along the way. like some kind of bonus level or something. had a couple of scavenger drones with me. sucking up them gem drops. i got all the upgrades. minimap working so good. so sweet. it is just really nice when stuff you make does the thing it''s supposed to do and there are no problems or unexpected nonsense. or if there are surprises or problems or whatever they''re the kind where you''re like ''oh okay i can deal with this i know what to do''. that is a good feeling. one of the best.


    okay i got the bleeps. time to go see what kind of wriggling uglies this water''s packed with.

 like that bit where youre just staring at the keys like what do i do what do i do

    water crisis averted


    i can make tea


    river water is so gross though


    can''t believe i was washing in that stuff


    anyway


    figured out a filtration system. nothing fancy. but then i thought no. let''s be fancy. so i turned it into like an art installation thing because why not have fun doing necessary biz. so i got water dropping from a portal in the roof and falling into another portal that goes to a filter thingy and then another portal and it gets all shot around and stuff and it''s just fun. we have fun here. plus the portals are also killing stuff. horrible stuff. water is gross. everything is gross. there are tiny horrible things everywhere on everything.


    also inside you


    in your eyes even


    in your eyelashes


    probably best not to think about it


    anyway eventually the water gets boiled to heck and the steam gets collected and turns back into water and that water goes through one last filter thing just for luck and then it gets put in my big old water tank and i can drink it or wash in it or whatever. make tea with it. that''s the primary use. priority one for water.


    also made a sword gun. same basic principle as bulletgun and crudlauncher and shardrifle. why fix what''s broken. why not add a sword to it. so i made a bunch more giant antswords and i made a bunch of teleportal holes and i get drones to drop the swords into the holes and they go launching out of my gun and go spinning into ants and just slice them to absolute pieces. it is so impractical. so stupid. but you gotta have a laugh sometimes right? sometimes you have to shoot a sword at an ant just for the heck of it. also this is useful because if i lose my sword out in the field or if it breaks i can just shoot a new sword out of my gun. practical solutions to real life problems. that''s what we''re all about over here in biscuit fort.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    mareo also spat out some kneepads. made of antbits. they look like turtle shells. black creepy shiny glistening turtle shells. that go on my knees. armour class bonus? at least my knees won''t get so scuffed. maybe i should do elbowpads too. and maybe a helmet or something.


    or just a better shield


    that way i can keep my styles


    elbowpads are a bit dorkish


    anyway now i got all this home stuff sorted out i can finally go junk that hive. stop these ants from just constantly wrecking my stuff. basic plan is go in with antsword and swordgun and shardrifle and etc with a couple of scrapbag vortex bomb carriers and buzzers and #4 hulk drone backing me up.


    where even is #4 right now


    can''t even remember


    got to call that guy back in


    downside to using scrapbag bombs is no loot drops. on account of everything getting sploded all to pieces. or actually not to pieces. to nothing. scrapbag vortex bombs do not leave much in the way of traces. so any special hive loot would be lost. man i bet hives have such good loot. eh but whatever. not like i''m short of antbits or antgutgems or whatever. should actually take a look at those special fire gems sometime. unlock some upgrades or something.


    but yeah probably should take care of this hive biz soon. before they gear up for another big assault. antsiege was not fun times in my life. very distracting. very stressful.


    on the other hand my shield is not great


    probably could upgrade it


    use those fire ant gems


    fire gem + heat shield = elemental affinity bonus?


    i mean that would make sense


    decisions decisions

 there is no possible downside to giving a hammer to a robot

    huh


    went to do a thing with antbits


    and i don''t have any antbits


    maybe went a bit crazy making all those antswords.  didn''t even realise i used up all my dead ants. like i was all oh yeah ant corpses? i got ant corpses. i got ant corpses for miles. could open up my own antcorpse dealership. jin''s preloved antcorpses. come on down and we''ll make you a deal.


    what was i talking about


    oh yeah corpses. antbits. absence of. still got a bunch of goopy antblood lying around. haven''t figured out any use for that yet. i mean my computer took a look at it and was all like ''you could eat this jin'' and i was like computer you so crazy. then it said there''s a bunch of magnesium and calcium and nitrogen and other stuff in there so i was all like. yeah. great. grab that stuff. sounds useful. and the computer was all ''no jin you don''t understand you need to make this special goodstuff extractor if you want the good stuff in this disgusting smelly ant blood''


    and i was like. man. why does everything take so. much. effort.


    thank you for listening to today''s episode of jin and the computer. the heartwarming tale of a superscience genius girl and her crippling social issues.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    meanwhile i tracked down #4 hulk drone. that guy was miles away. i think maybe i set him to autohunt/autokill during the antsiege and also told him to stay way the heck away from where i was and then forgot to turn that off. so he was just like rumbling around launching crud at ants. for days. and days. and days. called him back in now anyway. hopefully he''ll get back okay. probably he will. that guy''s a real trooper. i mean he''s taken some damage but eh. there''s a reason i call him hulk.


    haven''t paid much attention to other scamps lately. been distracted by ants and things to deal with ants. and water. and the horrible things that live in water. and how to murder the horrible things that live in water. scamps just always in the background. doing their thing. fixing the place. cleaning the place. scavenging scrap. killing ants when i don''t feel like killing ants. should show them some love i guess.


    on the other hand they are my robotic minions and as much as i enjoy treating them as if they have personalities and hopes and dreams they are just drones


    wow jin


    you so cold girl


    talking about your scamps like that


    antwar has changed you


    it has taken more than just your arm


    it has taken


    your


    fingers


    maybe i will do some fiddling. get #1 in here. my first. my special. see if i can do some upgrades or something. she''s just on construction and maintenance but i dunno. put a superhammer on her or something. have to make a superhammer first of course. and also figure out what a superhammer is. those are just details though.


    kind of feel like i was supposed to be doing something


    but oh well


    tonight is all about me and my girl #1


    after all


    the greatest gift


    you can give your drones


    is time


    and a superhammer

 dont even know where i could get a potato

    well now i am out of scrap


    this is getting silly


    just keep running out of everything


    it''s almost like you have to replenish supplies or something


    like stuff doesn''t magically appear in your base


    like you have to do a thing to get a thing


    ridiculous


    what are my scavenger drones even doing out there. just like rolling around in circles laughing. digging holes and sitting in them. it''s not like scrap is hard to find. it''s scrap. just like metal and stuff. although i did use up a lot during that antsiege. and a lot got melted and eaten by ants. and then i used more making stuff like my waterpark. and my art installation/water filter.


    maybe i actually should have seen this coming


    anyway i''ll go out with scamps later. have an actual walk around and point at things and say stuff like ''there you drones that is what you are looking for add that to your visual database okay''


    i can take #1 with me. superhammer construction drone. turns out a superhammer is a kind of hammer powered by aggbys so you can make it really big but also pretty light. it looks a bit like one of those giant fake inflatable hammers. you know from carnivals. i mean i never went to a carnival. but i''ve seen them on tv. and there''s always a kid with a giant fake inflatable hammer. well that''s what #1 has now. big old hammer on her head. she can whack stuff with it. useless for construction. i mean that thing destroys. but yeah. superhammer. believe it.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    also did some fiddling and upgrades. 12% speed increase and 3% better power efficiency. look i know these are just boring numbers but this stuff is real. all those passive skill boosts add up you know.


    #4 continues to trundle home. that guy went faaaar


    had another look at my shield. still got that heat thing going on. heat pulse wave. problem is it doesn''t actually do any protecting. just really discourages anything from getting near me by means of fireball explosion. so what i have to do is ugh i know so effort but there''s no way around it because what i have to do is invent yet another power source. can''t use antgutgems because those things are too weird for regular protecting shields. need something else. so i''m over here researching like basic battery principles and it''s so boring and normal. once you''ve made a battery out of a gem you stole from a giant ant''s guts it is very difficult to go back to mercury and silver and stuff. that looks like the direction i gotta go in though. well not so much the mercury. that stuff is toxic as flip.


    maybe just get a whole bunch of potatoes and zinc and copper


    just kidding


    or am i


    silver. need to find silver. then i can make batteries for days. or gold would be good too. get some nanowire going. maybe i need to go loot a jewellery store or something. good news is that i can get all the nitric acid i need from all this ant blood i got sitting around. need to build a thing to extract it but that''s no big deal. another option is some kind of biobattery. can ant blood be a battery? why not. why could it not. no good reason. ant blood could totally be a battery. don''t tell me what i can''t do. you''re not my real vampire dad.


    still got that weird feeling


    like what am i supposed to be doing?


    there''s definitely something


    but oh well


    i got science to science

 if the last thing i hear before i die is a wet fart then okay

    can confirm that superhammer is useless for construction but good if there''s a wall in a place and you don''t want a wall to be in that place. or like a whole building even. kind of went a bit nuts with the old superhammers. drone construction crew pivoting to demolition. natural progression really.


    good news is we''re in scrap paradise now. because the thing about destroying a building is that buildings are filled with useful junk. especially if you break them into bits. so i guess in the end superhammers actually are good at construction. in a roundabout way. destroying buildings. grabbing the building bits. turning the bits into more superhammer drones. this is a very positive cycle that cannot possibly have negative longterm consequences.


    #4 still coming home. getting closer. should be here soon. what stories he will have to tell. what sights must he have seen. well mostly ants + the inside of ants i''m guessing. at least he''s getting that sweet ant xp. levelling up. drones don''t actually level up. be cool if they did. in reality they just tend to get worn out and broken over time. entropy kind of kills the idea of xp in the real world. everything falls. haha yes this real world of mine surrounded by giant insects making giant superhammers and working on a battery made of ant blood. so real.


    speaking of batteries made of ant blood


    i made a battery out of ant blood


    turns out that stuff is reactive as flip. scavenger scamps got me a bunch of gold and silver and the mareo ate that stuff right up, gave me some nice little base blocks to work with, so i went to my new best bud computer and was all like hey computer, got some stuff here, think we can science? and computer was all like ''oh jin you know we can science with this'' and so now I got these big heavy batteries. i mean these things weigh. dense as flip as it turns out. can barely even lift one. so that was a problem. had a couple of potential solves. could use antgutgem antigrav wave nonsense to make them lighter. but they''re still really bulky and annoying. had the idea of like making them so light they can float and just like towing them around like a bunch of balloons. be pretty funny probably. but no. go back to your roots jin.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    what is the solution to a problem


    teleport is the solution to a problem


    i mean electricity is just a thing right? and a thing can be teleported. that is a basic principle of superscience. a thing can do a thing. so i got some basic little relays set up and yeah this is a thing that can be thung. zapping sparks through teleports. what a good idea. what a smart cookie i am sometimes.


    couldn''t find my schematics or notes or anything for 12yo me''s shield so i just started from scratch. got a prototype up and running and it''s pretty okay. not fieldworthy yet but pretty good. seems to be cool with heatblastshield so that''s good. biggest problem is that there''s this like power limit. pump too much juice into the thing and it just like explodes. makes a noise like a really wet fart. so i had fun with that for a while. gotta test these things you know? got to explore every wet fart noise overcharged shield possibility. anyway got some numbers. put numbers into a thing. this is boring. i am boring myself. i have to work more on the shield but i know what i have to do. just time is all. like always.


    remembered the thing i should be doing. destroying that hive. forgot about it because there have been like zero ants lately. need to send out some scout scamps to see what''s up. need to get on top of that hive re: destruction. also there''s that water notfactory with all the ants. and also. the rest of the city. not just my local area. and possibly. the entire world.


    for now the local hive


    do the little thing before you do the big thing


    that is sensible


    so okay


    make a good shield


    go kill a giant ant nest


    that''s my schedule


    should probably stick to it

 do the thing you hate because otherwise: death, mutilation, embarrassment

    man #4 is really close


    want to wait for him to get home


    but computer keeps bleeping


    scout scamps keep telling me stuff


    like giant ants are definitely going to attack me


    lots of giant ants


    they''ve been banking them up. worrying. because that''s pretty smart. like first they sent a big bunch against me. and i killed those. then they sent just constant ants for days. and i killed those. then everything just stopped. because they were saving up ants for this one big horrible assault. could be coming from other places too. i put all this ant strategy data into my bff computer and computer was all like ''uh oh this isn''t good'' and if you can''t trust a computer to have a rational emotional reaction then i don''t even know what.


    am i making sense right now


    panic/fear/dread combo might be affecting my ability to rationally boop


    am i even smarter than an ant at this point


    i mean that was the thing


    i was holding on to that


    jin at least you''re smarter than an ant


    that''s what i''d tell myself in times of trouble


    now though


    are these insects actually pretty clever? are they doing superscience? are they over there in that hive writing their own weird little journal teleport science somethings? what''s the tech level is what i''m saying. man if they have their own waterpark it''s all over. give up humans. ants got us beat. game over. final score: 7


    probably should have anticipated this. giant ants have giant brains. and also crystals! antgutgems! those things probably do all sorts of crap i don''t even know about. man what have i been doing over here. wasting my time on all this survival stuff and weapon stuff. should have been investigating ant brains. rookie mistake jin. i mean what kind of superscience genius are you. not even thinking about brains. that''s like a science crime. you are no longer a mad scientist. you are back to just being a sad scientist again. big demotion there kid. gonna have to work your way up the insanity ladder to get that mad title back. maybe one day you''ll be a dad scientist. you must have goals. who can tell what future be.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    what the flip am i even writing now


    stressed jin is nonsense jin


    focus up now buddy. we got ant problems. survival stuff to do. you want to keep breathing right? yes you do. so how you gonna deal? huh? how. you. gonna. deal.


    shield. yes. finished testing. got all the numbers. good numbers. bad numbers. sad numbers?


    bloody hell jin you are such a little oddbag tonight. you have the spirit of applesauce in your idiot brains. you have to think of really solid practical solutions to current looming problems. that is what you have to do. so come on. go.


    could i build like power armour


    is that an option


    future jin. future jin it is your past self. did you build power armour? if so please also invent time travel and send it back to me. i could use a boost. come on. do it now. now. now.


    now.


    nuts


    future jin hoarding that power armour all to herself. when do i get so selfish.


    have to settle for shields. oh yeah shields! i solved the power overload problem. well not solved. hacked a hacky hacky hack for it. instead of one big shield now i have seventeen little shields. like layers of an onion surrounding me. and it also kind of smells onionish? like a real noticeable motor oil onion burning hair smell. anyway so i got those shield layers and yeah basically anything makes them pop but i got seventeen of the suckers. if they get low i can just reboot the whole thing, get seventeen more. until i run out of batteries of course. but is that likely? i wish i knew. really do wish that. anyway there''s still the aggby heat shield. so if i''m lucky maybe nothing will even get close enough to pop my onion shields.


    oh jin


    you cutie


    thinking you might get lucky


    don''t lose that innocence kid


    for weapons i got my shardrifle with swordgun switch and also heat drone glove which i haven''t used enough. i just forget about it. i also have ten scamps armed with superhammers. also three scrapbags with vortex bombs. they get to trail behind me. do not want a vortex bomb going off in my face. that would be a very embarrassing way to die. being telefragged by a thing i accidentally made myself. no. i will die by being eaten to pieces by giant ants like a dignified person thank you very much.


    could possibly use laser shotgun but i didn''t hook it up to the telepower system and i''d be scared that i''d like fire it once and it''d drain every antbloodbattery at once and my shield would just switch off and twenty ants would just instantly jump on me. that is definitely what would happen. sorry laser shotgun. you are amazing but so impractical. too good for this unworthy world. also you are a laser. lasers still make me feel complicated in terms of emotions. we all have our issues to work through.


    i have lasers on my robot arm


    i mostly use them to burn my name on things


    #4 is still out there. still not home.


    can''t really wait any longer


    computer keeps bleeping at me


    ''come on jin what you waiting for girl ants ain''t gonna splat themselves''


    so yep


    here comes antwar


    here comes jin

 at least now we know why jin is spelled with only one i

    well first let''s go with the good news


    who has one thumb and is slightly more pirate now than she was yesterday


    trying to think of some way to indicate that i''m pointing at myself with my single human thumb


    my other thumb got eaten by an ant


    that happened a while ago


    gotten pretty used to this roboarm


    robarm


    rob, the arm


    slightly less impressed with losing an eye. that is not such a fun time. by the way do you want to know what is also not a fun time?


    acid


    acid is not a fun time


    i have not invented a robot eye. i have not got a robot eye lying around. for now, eyepatch. i am a pirate. arr.


    let''s have some more good news


    the hive is dead


    the hive is so dead


    i tore that thing to pieces and stomped on the bits. triple vortex bomb attack. everything worked good. shardrifle, good. buzzer drones, good. superhammer drones, good. swordgun, surprisingly good. wave motion fireball blast droneglove, very good in a crisis situation. like having an acid ant come out of nowhere and vomit on you. and pop through all your shields. and acid your face.


    minimap. minimap. minimap not so good.


    minimap works by detecting antgutgem antigrav waveThis book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    acid ants do not have antgutgems


    two dots i completely failed to connect


    cost: one eye


    also some face


    how do acid ants work. if they don''t have antgutgems. theory was that antigrav nonsense stops giant ants from just imploding or whatever. all that square cube law ignoring crap. but if acid ants don''t have gems and don''t make antigrav field then what. is acid superlight or something. no. it is not. so what the heck. i mean acid ants are smaller than other ants. quite a bit smaller. maybe should have noticed that. as a thing. anyway i captured one. acid ant i mean. squished its face but its still twitching. got a bunch of other ants too. they followed me back here. after i emergency teleported out of there. did remember to dump all my aggbys first. i award myself a prize for clarity of thought while face is melting. reward: not killing self with accidental aggby/teleportal vortex interaction. i accept this award and would like to thank #1 drone and her superhammer minions. bravely sacrificing themselves in my name to cover my retreat. they will be missed. until i make identical replacements.


    phew


    what a day


    you know what you don''t really notice until it''s gone?


    half your face


    on the good side of things #4 is so close. i know that''s pretty small on a cosmic scale but i miss that guy. who knows how things would have gone if he was there to back me up. instead of getting my face melted i could have had my shins exploded by a wayward crudball. anyway i''m looking forward to seeing the little stinker. with my one remaining eye. sorry to keep going on about that. kind of occupies your headspace. what''s left of it anyway.


    other stuff. sending out scavenger drone crews to pick over the hive remains. don''t know if they''ll find anything. don''t know if there was like a queen ant or anything. might have cheated my way past a boss fight there. might have to focus on more area effect weapons. can''t just do this artisanal antmurder. each ant murdered by hand to the highest quality. no. soulless mass produced antdeath is the way of the future.


    also


    antbrains


    yes


    let''s get inside these insects heads


    figure out what makes them tick


    and then exploit that


    to punish them


    dominate them


    befriend them


    and then betray them


    no more sad scientist


    time for


    bad scientist


    no wait


    that just sounds like i''m rubbish at sciencing


    well i''ll think of a badass line later. right now i''ve got so much work to do. got another local hive to take out. waterfactory. next on my list. can''t delay these things. have to get back on that horse. i mean i still got both legs and every single internal organ. and one eye and one arm. that is what i call beating the average.


    but for now maybe just a cup of tea and a sit down


    and then a little nap


    and first of course some more lovely lovely painkillers. the real heroes here.

 robots do not recoil in horror at your hideous visage and that is nice

    resting. turns out getting your face melted comes with like. side effects. downtime. healing time. no ant activity. sent drones to scout around the waterfactory. result: ants. many ants. so that''s a thing.


    kind of nice to relax for a bit. tinkered with some tea stuff. same tech as my water filter portal art installation. well that''s where i started. somewhere along the way i figured out that


    just realised to explain this i have to go into deep teleportal principles


    and that is


    too


    boring


    basically i made a thing that keeps nicely brewed tea in a kind of teleportal stasis until i need it. it''s not really stasis. it''s just like a dimensional fold where time doesn''t exist. an eternal hot tea pocket dimension if you will. linked it to my tea room where all my tea drones hang out. so they just bum around making tea and when it''s all good and perfect they pour it into the tea dimension. meanwhile i got my favourite mug linked in with a cute little microportal. so when i want tea i just pick up my mug and it gets fill. so basically i have a mug of infinite tea now.


    there are times in my life where i just stop and kind of go


    this is greatIf you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    i''m having such a good time


    i love being a superscience genius girl


    oh sure i got problems. my face is all donked up. although not as bad as i first thought. still missing that old eye. aside from that its just like. scarring. no bone showing through or anything. just all shiny and smooth and weird. eh but diversity is good. kind of miss depth perception though. that stuff is useful. might have to maybe invent a robot eye eventually. could put some cool stuff in it i guess. like magnified vision. the classic. maybe a laser eye but then again maybe not. i can predict all kinds of potential calamities with that nonsense. heat vision, infrared, maybe like yeah just spitballing but maybe some kind of little hover eye that can pop out of my skull and fly around and i can look at stuff around corners and all that kind of business.


    that sounds pretty fun actually


    i wonder if i could put a teleportal in my eyesocket. could that work. could that be useful somehow. what if i put a microteleportal in there and could do stuff like pull a sword out of my head. is that practical? is that cool or just weird? not sure how i feel about this possibility. have to think about it more i guess.


    getting a new cavity in your head can be viewed as a chance to innovate


    perhaps losing my eye will turn out to be a happy crisitunity after all


    meanwhile scavengers are bringing in loot from the ant hive. i mean i telefrag vortexed most of it. but there was stuff left behind. plus all the ants i killed on the way there. so we''re swimming in antbits now. antgutgems oh yes. lots of those. plus my ant prisoners of course. got them in a warehouse that my new superhammer deconstruction drones are very definitely not allowed to crush. very specific instructions there. last thing i need is a giant ant jailbreak. anyway i''ll get to them soon enough. probably should make it a priority. giant ants are so squishy and biological. not like oh #4''s back! oh yay okay gotta get him down and see what''s up. take a look at the realistic battle damage and all that. cool cool.

 also im almost out of tea bags this is the worst day ever

    okay


    well


    there is no easy way to say this


    i am maybe not the last surviving human in a city of giant ants


    was getting into that idea


    not having to deal with people was a massive upside to this whole situation


    kept me going through hard times


    like


    cheer up jin at least you don''t have to talk to a human


    at least you don''t have to be asked something and then just stand there


    because what do humans say in a situation


    what do humans do


    at least you don''t have to deal with the possibility of being touchedThis content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    when you do not want to be touched


    which is basically all of time in an infinite loop


    +1


    oh right i didn''t put about the thing. #4 got shot. by some bullets. so unless giant ants have developed gun tech it looks like i got humans


    oh please gob


    let giant ants have developed gun tech


    so much easier to deal with


    positives. positives. #4 is bullet resistant. that is a good thing. trying to think of more stuff. i guess it is positive that giant ants did not eat every human in this city. generally speaking. i am fine with humans as a concept as long as they are somewhere i am not. it would be more positive if every human just went somewhere else. why have they not gone somewhere else. is there nowhere else to go. that would be a bummer. i wanted this city for me. and maybe some giant ants if we can work something out. people bring people problems. people problems are difficult. giant ants only bring giant ant problems. giant ant problems are so much easier arggggggh


    don''t want to think about this nonsense


    just want to make teleportals and shields and drones and even weapons are getting fun now


    build my little space


    make a fort


    hide


    in


    it


    forever but no come on jin. argh do i have a responsibility now. is that the deal.


    oh please let me not be humanity''s saviour


    last hope of the desperate survivors oh no nononononono that''s not me. ignoring. ignoring.


    need to focus. still got all the problems i had before this. waterfactory. acidproofing my shield. general power stuff.


    should maybe make a list


    so


    to do:


    plan for waterfactory assault


    shield upgrades because i''m running out of eyeballs


    [ prisoners do not last forever so ant research ]

 when theres nothing much to say but you say it anyway

    right yes okay let''s forget about humans and think about ants


    let''s think about ant brains


    let''s put an ant eye in my head?


    i''ll put that one on the maybe pile


    anyway first of all acid ants are weird as flip. they don''t have brains for one thing. mostly they just have acid. i think maybe they''re like cockroaches. with like brains all through their body instead of in one place. and also instead of big antgutgems they''ve got tiny little antgutgems. acid antbits are different to regular antbits. lighter, tougher, acidproof. actually all ants are acidproof. did some tests. i mean they don''t like it. but it doesn''t do a lot to them. so an acidgun is off the table. probably just as well. not the biggest fan of acid right now.


    second thing is that ants are easy as flip to control. you just gotta bung a bunch of electrodes in their muscle equivalents and you got yourself a remote control ant. not sure what i can do with this but so far it''s pretty fun. maybe i could mount weapons. antdrone. antscamp.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    but what i really want is some kind of mass control thing. like a signal or wave or something. dominate these insects. can''t think small. because there are a heap of these things around. i''m outnumbered a million to one probably. can''t electrocontrol every single one of them. why would i want to even.


    maybe i need a queen. that makes sense to me. if these things even have queens. i mean are they ants? or are they just ant shaped? they seem pretty antish. but then they''re also pretty smart. organising and planning and if something isn''t working they stop doing it. feels like there''s some kind of intelligence behind that.


    well. anyway. experiments continue. right now i need to go scavenge for tea. superhammer drones have completely wrecked this area. went a bit too nuts. now there''s just biscuit fort and prisoner jail and a bunch of rubble. like, for ages. whoops. not exactly inconspicuous there jin. anyway i saw a tea shop at the mall where the hive was. might zip over there on starfax pimsneyback. probably a good idea to take a look at the hive remains too. make sure scavengers aren''t missing anything.


    so


    that''s gonna be my day

 breaktime teatime mememetime

    so flipping tired lately. too much to think about all the time. at least i have tea now. at least i have a mug of infinite tea. these things are what sustain me.


    have not seen even one ant in the wild since i killed the hive. none at the mall. well i mean the remains of the mall. triple vortex bomb attack took out most of that place. it''s all collapsed and stuff now. still got my tea. that''s the important thing. got tea and no ants. maybe i got a break here. maybemaybe


    most ant prisoners are dead. acid ant prisoner is dead. i got a bunch of numbers and stuff. computer is doing stuff with them. i think i told it to do some stuff. can''t really remember. boring basic crunching is not worth brainspace memory.


    collecting notes. typing them up. need to do stuff but not thinky stuff. brain needs rest.


    so yeah


    stuff


    *** weapons ***


    teleportal crudlauncher quadx2


    -inaccurate


    -slow


    -but splatty


    -four barrels


    -now eight barrels


    -four forward four back


    -solves recoil issues


    -mounted on #4


    -unless i''m near #4


    -do not want to get crudballed in the shin


    laser shotgun


    -ridiculous spread


    -vaporises ants


    -op


    -but can''t shoot it because no power


    -nuts


    tiny but mighty bulletgun


    -call it tbm for short


    -pistol sized


    -.50 calibre


    -the bigger the bullet the gooder it is


    -linked via teleportal to bulletgun room


    -rapidfire


    -no reloading


    -ants hate it


    -but no bullets


    -so


    -bleh


    shardrifle


    -shoots crudbullets


    -but call them shards


    -sounds less cruddy


    -double barrelled


    -also shoots backwards


    -so quad barrelled i guess


    -low recoil


    -splats ants


    -i am not good at aiming


    -can shoot without stopping or reloading


    -inefficient but effective


    wave motion fireball drone glove


    -drone lives on robot arm


    -becomes glove when i ask politely


    -yell WAVE MOTION FIREBALL BLAST


    -makes big cool fireball


    -not fieldtested


    -don''t know if ants hate fireballs


    -hope they do


    -yep ants are not fireball fans


    -good in crisis situation


    -triggers on called attack &also just panic/pain screams


    -this is a feature not a bug


    *** me ***


    roboarm


    -left one


    -magnets stick to it


    -but 0% ferrous


    -?


    -has lasers


    -drone lives there


    -okay i guess


    -should maybe upgrade or something


    eye


    -just missing


    -along with some face


    -left one again


    -what is with that side of my body


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.-unlucky left i guess


    -scars


    -eyepatch


    -pirate


    -arr


    brain


    -fatigue mod


    -sleep mod


    -work longer work harder


    -hallucinations minor


    -headaches manageable


    -better living through chemistry


    -&bionetic implants


    -i am v cyberpunk


    -note: maybe do something to sense of smell


    -or just bathe


    *** drones ***


    DEAD #1 - menial labour junk, quirky, polite, favourite


    -construction


    -superhammer


    -slavedrone squad


    -died protecting me


    -need to replace


    new#1 - not the same


    -i was wrong


    -but has superhammer


    -and superhammer squad


    superhammer drones


    -deconstruction experts


    -antsplat do good


    -giant hammer on little drone


    -hilarious


    -died protecting me


    -rip in peace


    -should make more


    -made more


    minidrones


    -tiny


    -cute


    -handy


    -perfect


    MISSING #2 - cutie


    new#2 - sheriff of crudtown/shardville


    -minidrones(9)


    MISSING #3 - the boring one


    new#3 - minister of cleaning & soap


    -minidrones(7)


    #4 - hulk drone


    -toughness


    -laser


    -quadX2crudlauncher


    -miss this guy


    -come back safe buddy


    -came back safe


    -got shot


    -by probably humans


    -oh no


    MISSING #5 - cranky


    +construction


    #6 - menial labour junk


    -scavenging


    -minidrones(34)


    scrapbag


    -will die for my glory


    -died


    -no glory


    scrapbag v2


    -easy to make


    -just need a teleport and an antgutgem battery


    -create big vortex explosion


    -vaporises everything


    -or teleports it somewhere?


    -either way no longer my problem


    -effective but scary


    -not allowed near me


    -maybe shouldn''t use these so much


    -just a feeling


    *** shields ***


    12yo version (modified) (goneburger)


    -powered by agg batteries


    -doesn''t like aggbies?


    -don''t know


    -seems to work


    -sometimes


    -linked to emergency teleportal


    -which might not work


    -does work but unreliable


    -stressful


    -converted back to power pack


    -just one left so careful now


    -doesn''t matter because dead in the line of duty


    -f


    heatblast aggby shieldthing


    -aggby heat conversion is aces


    -gets hot


    -for me


    -also for ants trying to bite me


    -works out worse for them


    -seems okay


    -hotswap system gets stressful


    -weird cooldown problems


    -unreliable


    newshield


    -overloads so easily


    -layered like flip


    -seventeen layers


    -telepowered


    -onion oil burnt hair smell


    -kind of into it


    -ineffective against acid


    -rip my face


    *** things ***


    voicechanger ant social anxiety inducer


    -shouty


    -pulls ants


    -makes ants nervous?


    -needs more testing


    -don''t use this


    -seriously


    -just makes every ant come right at you


    -terrifying


    decoy drone buzzers


    -ants love them


    -or hate them


    -in any case chase them


    -good for distractions


    -or just funsies


    -tiny


    -jumpy


    -annoying for ants


    -but to me they are perfect


    *** primary lair aka biscuit fort***


    -under biscuit warehouse


    -small snug cosy


    -shower isn''t working


    -bathtub full of antgutgems


    -also no bathtub


    -just gems


    -no bed


    -full of stank


    -now living upstairs


    -less stank


    -weird


    -but okay


    -biscuit fort secure


    -turrets


    -bulletgun room


    -teleportal city


    -crudtown


    -shardplace


    -tearoom


    -waterpark


    -water oh yes water


    -don''t drink it though


    -okay you can drink it now


    -because art installation filter system works good


    -scamps everywhere


    -fun


    *** secondary lair ***


    -location scouted


    -near power plant


    -hidden anchors constructed


    -forgot about this


    -huh


    -power plant


    -i need that


    *** whole city teleport project ***


    overall: preliminary testing stage


    -teleport relay tests going well


    -so well


    -teleportal miniaturisation success


    -note: shoot teleportals at faultlines


    -oh yeah this thing


    -completely forgot about it


    -too busy surviving

 you have reached alakija enterprises specialists in ant bothering

    ran out of ant prisoners


    experimented to death


    but


    i might have something here


    turns out i was going the wrong way with that sound thing. ants do got some hearing going on. but its not their main thing. no sense of smell. made sure to check that. instead they got this weird radiation sensing crystal organ thing. like every ant is radiationed to heck. nothing harmful to humans which is frankly a missed opportunity on their part. or maybe i just haven''t met the rad ants yet. all skateboarding around and such. hanging out at the beach. surfing and extreme wakeboarding. i bet those guys are a party.


    anyway. the thing is that radiation is a thing that can be thinged. you can detect it. you can see it with the right stuff. you can muck around with it. even generate it.


    this could be the beginning of human ant relationsThe narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    i do not mean that in a sexy way


    please understand


    for now i''ve rigged up a goopthrower gun. teleportal fed. its not pure ant goop. had to muck around a bit. thin it out. add some stuff. take other stuff out. but this goop i ended up with should be very tempting to an ant. not to me. it smells like rotten lemon garbage puke. but i should be able to make ant trails with this thing. lead ants where i want. or away from stuff. made a new #5 to maybe be some kind of antgoop drone. like if i could get drones to lead ants around that could be something. have to test if this even works first. so yeah. need to go out and find some anthonys.


    also made a new minimap scouter. haven''t got a fix on ant radiation to the point of minimap update. i mean i tried some stuff. but it always ended up as just this big blotchy mess. everywhere is radded all to heck it turns out. props to the ants for taking advantage. so for now it''s still antgutgem detecting and me being very noticeful about the presence of acid ants. i got #4 specifically on acid ant detecting duty. and also half my superhammer guys. their job is to basically just roll around in a circle around me. and stop acid ants. from melting the rest of my face. it is a good job. drone satisfaction++


    also put a bunch of radiation filters on the scouter. probably none of them will be useful. but you have to start somewhere.


    okay. all geared up.


    time to go play in the garden

 if videogames are a lie then what is the point of anything

    goopthrower such a success. those ants didn''t know what the flip was going on. just kept running around in the circles i made. completely ignored me and drones and everything. ants are bonkers for the goop.


    two problems though


    one is that it takes a bunch of antgooblood and also a bunch of other nonsense to make this stuff. could maybe efficientise the recipe a bit. maybe dilute it more? but that''s okay. that is a solutionable problem.


    second is that all it does it make ants go to a place. also it doesn''t last that long. like an hour at most. so i can''t just put a trail of it around my base to lead ants away. what i am saying is there aren''t that many exciting applications. also ants could get wise to my tricks. these things aren''t stupid. i mean they are. but sometimes they aren''t.


    however overall this is an exciting step forward. another rung on the ladder to total ant domination. who know where this path lead? onward. onward to science. congratulations jin. you are leading the field in ant technology advancement. award yourself a biscuit. chocolate biscuit. eat it in your field. alone. good girl.


    meanwhile i am also furthering my understanding of ant communication and radiation sensation. please welcome to the stage the latest radiation sensation, ant singing ant. that tiny crystal radiation organ definitely has some interaction going on with ant eyes. maybe putting an ant eye in my head is not such a silly idea? although initial experiments in cyborg ant bionetic augmentations not promising. antbits just don''t get along with mechbits. maybe i could start with some basic grafting. put some chitin on my butt or something. make new eyebrows out of antennae. oh no yes i''d have to have antennae too because there''s interaction with them and the crystalradorgan. muck on it. my entire head is going to be like an ant head by the end of this. i just know it.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    in other self modification/mutilation news i got to messing around with my robot arm lasers and had a thought like. hey. jin. it is a crime that you lost an eye but don''t even have a cool scar. just this weird acid smooth skin. would it be a good idea. to maybe. make a scar on your face.


    so


    i lasered a scar over my socket


    oh boy did it hurt


    accidentally triggered my fireball drone glove with the noise


    pretty funny actually


    helpful drones put out the fire


    no big damage


    no big deal


    but


    maybe should''ve done some anaesthetic stuff


    before burning a scar in my face


    life is a series of lessons i guess


    anyway


    got a cool scar over my eye now


    looks good with eyepatch


    i feel slightly more complete


    computer is bleeping at me. apparently it''s working on this ant trail goo efficiency stuff. good computer. i probably told it to do that sometime. good jin. also at some point appraently i fitted out some drones with goopdrippers. they''re out between the base and the waterfactory. just to see what happens. is this viable? probably.


    also did a bit more fiddling with antblood batteries. man it is weird that antgoop is turning out to be so useful for everything. just totally ignored that stuff for so long. oh well now i know etc


    might just go check on my new prisoners. lured some back to my base with anttrailgoo. hey ant. get in my van. i got candy. hehe. anyway they are all in v good health due to not having to eg slap them with a giant sword. so they should last a while.


    note: make ant candy?


    need more antbits though. more antgoop. should maybe assault that waterfactory. if i could do it without using scrapbag vortex bombs and eg vaporising the place then i''d have ant corpses for days. might be a siege situation. or like. just gradual attacking. go in, kill ants, secure areas, work my way through until i take out the boss and put up a flag and then the thing belongs to me.


    videogames have taught me that this is how you capture an outpost


    i am sure they would not lie to me

 fun for all the well just yourself

    ran out of antbits again. man do i burn through that stuff. had to harvest a couple of ant prisoners just to do my stuff. on the plus side i have a friend on my arm now. not my roboarm. my human arm. grafting ant chitin to human flesh is a thing. have to wait and see if there''s any rejection or whatever. for now its just kind of itchy.


    also working on hmm how to put this. basically i am trying to transmogrify a bunch of antstuff into a kind of biomech thing. just a little one. antscamp. so far not a lot of progress. turns out creating life is pretty tricky. who would have thought.


    ant attraction goopdrippers reporting no activity. kind of a bust there. i mean what''s the point if no ants even come your way. might need to get them a bit closer to waterfactory. on the other hand it is good that i am being left alone. more time to plot and plan. thinking about secondary lair project. near that power plant. even if it shut down it can be fixed right? i can repair stuff. i can improve stuff. if i had a whole power plant i could start doing some real big stuff. power my poor neglected laser shotgun for one. hook that thing up to a power plant and woo boy you got a stew going on. stew made of lasers and disgusting blobs of partially vaporised ant. yum.


    anyway. sent out a party of drones to investigate. probably the whole thing is ant city now. haven''t really looked much in that direction. too busy with the hive. before i smashed the hive. good to get that out of the way. priorities.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    worked on roboarm a bit. didn''t want it getting jealous of my human-ant hybrid arm. bulked it up a bit. installed a secondary aggby power source with this hilarious emergency eject function. keeps triggering for some reason. i''ll just be doing something and suddenly pop wheeee oh there goes my battery again. launching off my shoulder and knocking a drone off a shelf. hilarious. have to get that sorted but for now i''m having fun. anyway with the aggby battery i added some basic antblade material reinforcing stuff. that comes off when the battery ejects too except with the battery gone it''s too heavy to go flying so it just kind of clunks to the ground. anyway when it''s all working i got like hmm basically just a bunch of blade stuff and claws and i don''t know mostly i was just trying to feel cool. antbladearm. i think a thing i like is when your roboarm looks basically like a normal roboarm but then suddenly all these blades and things come clacking out of it. thinking about it now i probably should have just plonked a bunch of microportals on it. man that would''ve been way easier. extendo blades sliding out of portals. space issues not an issue. oh well i learned a bunch about antgineering so it wasn''t a total wash even if i scrap the whole project. managed to make powered antmaterials even lighter so that''s a thing. almost got them floating. that''d be fun.


    in direction news i am feeling like i got some kind of direction here. keep my beady little eye on waterfactory. make sure waterants don''t come seeking revenge for their fallen sisters. look at power plant. make secondary lair there + harness the power of power. man i would actually love a lightning gun. i bet ants hate lightning.


    aggby roboarm battery just popped off again


    should really fix that

 honestly i am like a kid in an eyeball shop

    powerplant suspiciously empty


    sent a few more drones over


    really give the place a good scouting


    make sure it actually is safe


    before i wander on over and fall into an underground hive or something


    inevitably


    waterfactory still bursting with ants. crawling with the things. not interested in me. more interested in whatever''s over the river. not thinking about what is over the river. because it is probably. people. being hassled by ants. butnotmyproblem. this is all theoretical anyway. what evidence do i have. bullets. ants could totally invent guns. not even invent them. i bet there are guns lying around. probably just some enterprising young ant was all like ''oh yeah man i could totally use a human boomstick'' and picked #4 for target practice. yeah that''s the ticket.


    speaking of pathological distancing from humanity, roboarm stuff is going well. bulked her up. properly this time. no cheaty antigrav weightless stuff. just good old fashioned robowonking. took off some lasers. still like three on there. scrapped multibladearm project. kept the aggby. not powering anything. just sitting there waiting to emergency eject at any moment. have not got tired of that. still funny. every. time.


    anywa. roboarm felt a bit lonely with zero sword/blade/claw options so installed some antblades. just two. not going overboard. some good moments when testing. got them hooked to like a retractable thing so i can extend them and have like swordclawblades and slash stuff all to bits. overengineered the mechanism just a touch. first time i activated it they just went shooting straight into a wall. straight. in. there. adjusted down. they work now. keeping the powerlaunching option too of course. just in case i ever need to shoot swords out of my arm. i mean i can think of at least four scenarios when i''d need that. that''s just off the top of my head. definitely a useful function.


    also increased grip strength. just kept pumping it up until i could crush ant chitin. figure that''s about where i want to be. then doubled that. then doubled it again. i mean when you''re on a grip strength kick why stop the bus. accidentally destroyed my favourite mug during testing. crushed the microportal in it too. now i got this cute little dimensional tear in the middle of the room. permanently leaking perfectly brewed hot tea. set up a little thing around it. put a portal underneath to send the tea back to the tea dimension. i call this latest pieceIf you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    defiance


    my art is not there to be judged


    it is simply


    there


    anyway that is what''s going on with my robot arm. now for my human ant bionetic hybrid chitin arm i can report the following:


    did not wake up with a big pulsing organic mass growing on my arm


    have not experienced alien arm syndrome ie my new human ant hybrid arm trying to strangle me


    have not had any weird ant dreams where i''m an ant or where a hive mind talks to me with like this cool echoey voice-of-the-many effect


    have not looked in a mirror and for a second it''s like my reflection has an ant head or antennae or whatever


    have been very itchy around chitin graft area


    have had side effect reaction to anti-rejection drugs in the toilet department. nuff said bout that.


    in conclusion human ant hybrid experiments are v mundane. disappointing. maybe i should plug an antennae into my noodle or something. start tuning in to radio free ant. what if i hooked a giant ant antennae into my empty socket optic nerve area. i mean that guy isn''t even doing anything. just wasted space.


    or maybe i should work on that robot eye. little flying robot eye. so cute. so utility. how to make it fly though. little propeller. turns into an eyecopter. slices my face all to donk on its way out. i forgive. he do his best.


    or work on that microteleportal surprise eyesocket bag of holding deal. anything that can fit through an eye socket-sized hole can be mine at any time. like. hotdogs. i could definitely shoot hotdogs out of my eyehole. frozen hotdogs for added ice element damage. and of course. also. the element. of surprise. nobody expects eye hotdog launcher. nobody.


    life creation experiments continue to fail. i lose hope in this project. i mean i''m not even at the abomination of nature stage. haven''t created any little whining piles of organic nightmare. all like ''killllll meeeee'' when i walk past because i gave them a mouth and vocal chords for some reason. staring at me with all their baleful little eyes. all i got are a bunch of floppy nerve signals that die as soon as i cut power. can''t even make a basic nervous system. what kind of a sad scientist even am i.


    drones still haven''t finished scouting that power plant. should do something while i wait. eye stuff maybe. get something in there at least. roboeye. anteye. antennae eye. teleportal eye. i got options for sure. hard to choose.


    hard


    to


    choose

 still got the eyepatch but now it flips up like a spidercatflap

    welp couldn''t make a flying eyecopter. the disappointment is palpable. i mean i tried. i tried real hard. i superscienced my little heart out.


    but in the end i just had to accept


    that eyecopters only work


    in cartoons and stuff


    i know i know


    ''what is the point of superscience if you can''t do cartoon stuff''


    i am right on board with that junk. that junk is where i live. it is my garbage houseboat.


    but even so


    no eyecopter


    had to just make like an eyespider instead. climbs out of my socket with its little legs and scuttles all over the place.


    i mean it''s pretty good


    cute and useful


    but it''s just not an eyecopter. oh well. scientific progress marches on. one day maybe we will have caught up to my dreams. my dreams of having an eye that can fly around. for now i must be happy with an eye that can but scuttle.


    also it''s not technically an eye yet


    forgot to do anything with my actual optic nerve connection thing


    got too caught up with minimech fun


    so yeah that''s definitely next on my to do list. actually make my roboeye into an eye. instead of just a robot spider that lives in my skull.


    i mean yeah the spider has an eye. little camera thing. just doesn''t hook into my own optic nerves. so haha. yeah. i guess for now i could do some kind of autofeed back into my scouter hud. is that going to work or is it just going to make me puke instantly. well only one way to find out.


    the other thing is i had to put this like battery pack on the side of my head. you know something about the human head? it does not have a lot of real estate. for a bit i was like ''do i really need two ears'' but then i was like. jin. don''t go hastily hacking bits of yourself off. the ants will take care of that for you. let''s keep it a surprise. i wonder what i will lose next. maybe a knee.


    i mean i wanted to telepower the thing but one important thing about eyeball-sized robots is that they are the size of an eyeball. and eyeballs are not large. and as much as i pride myself on making the world''s smallest teleportals there is such a thing as markovian degradation. long story short you can''t make a teleportal small enough to fit inside an eyeball robot. physics can be such a harsh mistress.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    so yes. has to be a battery pack. teeny battery inside the thing that gives it like half an hour of freescuttle time. heavy little battery pack as part of my scouter rig that lets it recharge while it''s resting inside my skull. bff computer''s been working on antbloodbattery efficiency. doing a pretty good job i gotta say. got them batteries down to head-wearable size. still heavy though. probably doing spine damage. oh well what price progress etc. i mean sure i could put it on my shoulder or back or arm or something but who wants ugly clunky wires all over the place. wires! i reject that retro aesthetic.


    oh yeah i finally got around to doing something with those fireant gems. had them just sitting in my in tray for i don''t even know how long. months probably. time is relative. i have no idea what year it is even. i should have a birthday sometime. i''m sure i''ve stored up enough days to cash in.


    anyway fireant gems. turns out those things are really good at cooling stuff down. i know. total shocker. complete reversal of expectations. i mean the flipping things are glowing volcanic red. and they''re hot! normal antgutgems aren''t hot. they''re just kind of. warm. pulsating. but yeah i guess what happens is that fireants get really hot and they need something to counter that? because they''re definitely not heatproof. fireants i mean. you can burninate those things right to death just as easy as any ant. so they got these cold gems to make sure they don''t just like combust.


    haven''t actually figured out what to do with these new cold gems yet. make a fridge i guess. i mean of course naturally my mind went to freezeray but i dunno. would i actually even use it? i feel like it''s a thing i''d spend ages making and then i''d freeze a couple of ants and be like haha cool and make some ice puns and then throw it in a closet and never think about it again.


    hmm but wait a second. there could be times i need to cross water. and i might not want to build a bridge or whatever. if i could just freeze the water instantly then i could walk right over. so what i should do is invent like a freeze grenade.


    jin you are so practical today


    meanwhile chitin arm still chitining. less itchy now. my body accepts this alien addition. not sure where to go next. i have hit a wall in the area of ant human bodymodding. a wall made of. nonexcitement. i really thought i''d be at least getting those ant dreams. but nothing. nothing. just itchiness. guess its gotta be the brain huh? can''t expect just your arm to start linking you in to ancient giant ant hivemind mysteries.


    then again it''s probably not gonna be like how i think. i''m over here going ooh baby gimme those sweet enigmatic alien voices. all like be one with us jin give us the direction only your superscience genius human brain can provide. together we will be many. together we will be one. submit to the hive and fulfil your destiny.


    but i bet actually it''s just like eat eat eat eat eat makemoreants eat eat eat eat and that could get pretty boring pretty quick


    so maybe i shouldn''t be thinking about hooking in to hiveminds


    i should be more focused on


    dominating hiveminds


    so really what i need to do is more antvestigations. learn more about these chitinous suckers. do they even have queens or whatever? princesses? could i be an ant princess? do i want to be an ant princess? or do i just want to make myself a little crown. that can control ants. i think that''s the one. i don''t want to be a princess. i just want an antdomming crown.


    okay good. good to have a focus. current plan is fix this eye so i can see out of it and also reduce puking to a minimum. then go out and find a hive and kill a whole bunch of ants and find out what controls them and then use that controlling thing to become antboss. &also invent freeze grenade.


    good plan jin


    hop to it

 and the name of that octopus was samuel p fungusbangle

    right okay we''re getting somewhere in multiple directions. like a really competent octopus. had a time when things were just slow as heck then all of a sudden it''s like bam bam bam breakthrough breakthrough flipping breakthrough. i am on fire. not literally. although at one point yes i was literally on fire.


    first, eyespider works 100% as an eye. hooks right into optic nerve with just like three seconds of facial spasms. that is well acceptable. still getting used to having one robot eye and one squishy eye. couple of syncing issues. some puking. like at first there was this hilarious bug where the axis got all screwed up. so i''d look up and the view on that one eye would go off to the side instead. and i''d just throw up instantly. it was great. had a bunch of fun with that. got it sorted out now anyway.


    eyespider also works as a remote scout spider thing. hooks into my scouter hud. can send it ahead or behind or just like have it perch on my head as like a rear view mirror type situation or set it to scan for threats or motion or whatever. it can do everything. it''s great. i''m great. i am really feeling good about this whole eyespider situation.


    also working on an eyespider helicopter. i mean it has been established that you cannot fit all the bits involved in a helicopter into an eyeball-sized robot. but you could definitely outsource them. so my eyespider could have like little mech suits. like a flying suit and a little laser battler suit and oh the possibilities. it''d melt your face with the cute. pop that guy out of my skull and right into a tiny little tank or something eeeeeeeeeeThis story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    second, massive breakthrough with antbits and antgoop and antgutgems. bunch of basic level sciencing just all came together perfectly and produced an incendiary explosive. i was like, FINALLY. it is insane how little explosive stuff i have around here. anyway managed to blow myself up a bit and get myself on fire to some extent. nothing serious. didn''t lose any bits. aside from some hair. needed a haircut anyway. the stuff is this weird sloppy jelly, completely inert unless you introduce it to mr f.e. iron. then it gets real agitated to the point where it boils instantly and converts into this blue steam which ignites on contact with oxygen and there''s this big reactive chain of events. skip to the end, i got cannonballs! explosive fire cannonballs! made myself a little tin can thing with a grippy bit. hooked it up to a standard gravity hole teleportal vertical drop speed -> horizontal shooty speed cannonball delivery system. now i have a tin can explosive cannonball gun.


    third


    no


    we don''t talk about third


    but fourth! freeze grenade works pretty well. definitely freezes water right the heck up. also creates little black zappy crackly balls of negative energy. they go away after a while but they still make me nervous. also have to be careful about this stuff. i mean my water supply is from the river. if i freeze it upstream that could cut off my supply. until it thaws. and how long is that gonna take? hours probably. i don''t know it just seems like i could donk myself up somehow with this thing.


    probably putting freeze grenades in the emergency use only category


    computer''s bleeping at me


    oh


    looks like some test subjects have come to volunteer


    how convenient


    hehehe

 point that brain at a thing and be like get him girl

    hmm yes explosives certainly are satisfying


    enough of that one shot one kill inefficiency


    one shot one massive chain reactive firesplosion that ignites the very air into an inferno of mass antmurder


    yesssss


    only downside is less antbits to loot on account of antbodies being exploded + burnt to pieces. on the other hand more efficient antslaughter means a greater number of antbits overall. it balances out in the end and job satisfaction is the most important thing. if i really need antbits i can just use my giant antswords or even the shardrifle. or fireball drone glove. or roboarm swords.


    man i got killoptions


    in any case i don''t really need extra antbits right now. got constant scout ants coming in from hmm kind of nothing in that direction. just like houses and stuff. residential suburb areas. droneturrets taking good care of them. droneharvesters bringing in the usable bits. and it is all usable bits now. so efficient. the wily jin uses every part of the giant ant.


    while i was in an outdoors mood i saddled up starfax pimsneyback and headed for the power plant. had a look around with my own human eye and my cute robospider eye and it''s fine. no ants. no antsign. suspiciously clear. do the ants know something i don''t. i mean i checked for rads and stuff but i don''t know. seems fine. anyway sent a whole mess of drones out there to start building some stuff and checking the plant for potential massive electricity resource boost.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    when i got back my bff computer was all like ''hey jin here''s that portable away pack you wanted'' and i was all like come on computer. don''t try and stunt me. i never asked you for that. and computer was like ''yeah you did jin you forgetful goof'' so i just had to accept that i did. i mean whose memory are you gonna trust, the girl who burnt her initials into her own hypothalamus or a flipping computer. anyway i got this cute little portable away pack now. like a chunky sturdy laptop thing. i can take bff computer with me when i go out. i could do an entry on the road. i probably won''t though.


    speaking of going out. a decision has been made to attack that waterfactory. i got so many gadgets and offensive inventions around that it''s a crime to leave that place alone. pretty sure it must be a hive. i mean you don''t just get ants in a place unless it''s a hive or there''s something around they like. which is actually a possibility. waterants might just be scavenging and taking stuff back to a hive that''s somewhere else. hmm. well anyway it''s a place that has ants and i''m itching to splode some ants so that works out super fantastic for everyone involved. except the ants but screw those guys. they ate my arm and melted my eye. admittedly this led to some fabulous self modification opportunities but that is not the point. eating parts of a person without their permission is rude. melting a person''s face is almost certainly frowned upon in polite society. these insects have no respect for personal boundaries.


    just got to bulk up my shield a bit. got an idea about that power overload deal. need some proper fiddling time to get it nailed down.


    also should probably


    actually no


    focus jin


    focus

 i have lost and i have gained

    right


    shield is bulked


    got the power limit up to almost twice what it was before


    got twenty nine layers of the flipping things


    did some acid testing and i mean it still pops shields like whoa but as long as it''s not sustained aciding it shouldn''t get through more than like eleven layers at a time. i can hotswap reload the thing and restore all layers before any acid-skin interaction happens.


    also made myself another cannonball pistol


    gonna wield those things guns akimbo


    why not huh


    why the flip not


    although it is getting to the point now where i''ve got a bunch of stuff just like everywhere. most of it has straps or just like little cords so if i drop something it dangles down off my wrist. i know it''s dorky but when you''re fighting a giant ant and your gun slips looking dorky is not the worry you have. at that moment.


    what was i talking about


    right guns and organisation. so i had a look at my loadout. hip holsters for cannonball pistols seems sensible. plus wrist cords of course. got a teleportal on my chest for dispensing swords. works pretty good. just order one up and grab it as it emerges from my heart. v symbolic. by the way pulling a sword out of your chest is such a boss move it automatically cancels all dorkiness from gun cords. true facts stated.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    also got a couple of spare swords on starfax. just in case. those ones are bigger. you can''t aggby power a teleportal sword. because it will explode. also if you try to pull a massive sword out of your chest what happens is your arm isn''t long enough so it just kind of gets stuck. and you have to lean forward so it slides out. then you have to pick it up off the ground. coolness cancelled. go home. party''s over.


    shardrifle is on a strap. boring but practical. shield harness is like. everywhere. takes a while to get into that thing.


    stopped using the heatshield. it makes me sweaty and gross. also it has this cooldown thing where you never really know when or if it''s going to trigger. can''t rely on it.


    but mostly the sweatiness issue tbh


    roboarm with fireball drone glove + sword claw blades + tiny useless lasers. that all kind of takes care of itself.


    spidereye lives in my skull. snug and warm. didn''t get time to make a tiny battlesuit for it. we live in an imperfect world.


    scouter does its thing on the side of my head. no hands required.


    plus all my drone bodyguards. #4 crudlaunching. superhammer squads. buzzers for distraction. no scrapbags this time. we''re taking this thing alive.


    i think that''s everything


    seems like a lot


    and yet


    yeah no it''s a lot. man am i strapped. hey jin remember back when you just had a crappy sparky cumin popcorn-smelling shield your kid self made? and that stupid prototype teleportal crudlauncher? and one little scout ant was an issue?


    how far you have come


    huh. wasn''t trying to be real or whatever but honestly just had a little moment


    like


    yeah


    i really have come a long way


    i''m doing okay here


    enough patting yourself on the back there jin girl. gotta focus up. gotta get your eyes on the prize. got that juicy waterfactory crawling with ants. could be a queen in there. could be anything.


    are you ready for this?


    yeah you''re ready


    let''s go exterminating

 we all want to see a robot getting eaten by a mutant sewer ant lets just be honest

    should have made the keyboard on this thing bigger


    i mean i love a dinky micro travel computer as much as the next superscience genius girl


    but this is a bit


    annoying


    i am writing from the field. i said i probably wouldn''t do that. and yet here we are. life comes at ya. i am not in a cosy biscuit fort. with a roof. i am beneath a real sky. the weather is. normal? there is a sky. clouds. apparently the weather is a thing people like to talk about. today i saw a cloud. it looked like a cloud. the sky was blue. oh blue you say? yesterday it was blue also. but the day before that it was grey. gosh how interesting. do you think it will be grey tomorrow? who can say. i am excited to find out.


    well anyway that''s enough normality practice for. like. ever. let''s get to the meat of the meal. the gooey caramel centre. the potatoes of the night. waterfactory assault.


    more like


    waterfactory yessault


    my most successful mission yet


    didn''t lose even one bodypart


    all my stuff worked so good


    betternewshield still untouched and pure


    could''ve gone in naked


    no hit run


    cannonball pistols so effective. so efficient. where have incendiary explosives been all my giant ant fighting life.


    especially for indoor fighting


    i mean you shouldn''t use explosives if you are in the doors


    but if you stand out the doors


    and put a buzzer in the doors


    and wait for a bunch of ants to all try to come out at once


    and fire a cannonball into the middle of that mess


    from a safe distance


    that experience is


    *fun*


    i mean a lot of stuff in there got exploded or lit on fire. a lot. of stuff. but y''know those ants already chewed that place all to pieces. they were making these weird crystal things. like spiderwebs. except. antwebs. not really webs at all. more like. yeah i don''t know i''m just gonna go with webs. all glittery and glistening and weird. got scavenger drones to take some back to my base anyway. gonna turn it into. dunno. some kind of. jetpack. yes. i will fly with the power of antweb.


    alsoYou might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    one bonus eyespider benefit


    ants totally ignore that thing


    can literally get it to climb on an ant''s head and ride the ant around and the ant is just like. what. tiny eyespider on my head. big deal. like i''m gonna even regard that as a thing. whatevs.


    the nihilism of these insects re: tinybots may be their downfall


    as for ant variants eh. if there were any i didn''t notice. i mean they did not get much of a chance to pull any weird ant variant tricks. too busy exploding.


    can say almost for sure there were no acid ants. they leave a puddle of acid. no puddles. no acid ants. good good.


    no fire ants either because no fire ant gems


    deductive reasoning in action


    haven''t actually taken over the whole thing yet. just cleared upper levels. there''s a whole hive underneath. all creepy tunnels and stuff. partially flooded which is gross. all splashy and muddy and yuck. didn''t expect a sewer level. guess that''s the downside of a waterfactory. close to the river. ants don''t mind water and grossness apparently. tempted to just send a few scrapbags down there and be done with it.


    but no


    want to finish this thing. properly. that''s why i''m out here. setting up like a base of operations. got superhammer drones destroying buildings. got scavenger drones gathering the stuff. got construction drones building walls. making a fort around me while i just sit here writing my nonsense. very satisfying. i mean i can''t really make anything more complicated than walls. but it''s still pretty good.


    asked computer if a mareo can make another mareo. and computer was like ''come on girl''. and i was like well why not? and computer was like ''you think a matter reorganiser can reorganise matter into another matter reorganiser?'' and i was all well yeah that would make sense. and computer was like ''you tripping jin you don''t even know how wonkers you sound''. and i thought about that for a bit and then i was all like computer you better stop gaslighting me and computer was like ''hey hey don''t get all uptight and uncool about this i thought we were friends'' and so i was like okay well just tell me why a mareo can''t make a mareo and computer was all ''capitalism'' and i was like ooooooh yeah that makes sense. if the thing a company sells can make itself then that company has no reason to sell the thing etc etc


    anyway that was just a fun little interlude i had while sitting here waiting for my crudfort to get built around me. i mean maybe i could make my own mareo? could i though. that''s a big project. whole lot of new areas i never even looked at before. maybe i can''t make a new mareo. maybe i couldn''t even fix my one if it broke. flip. what if my mareo breaks? i use that guy for everything. oh great now i got anxiety. thanks a lot my own brain.


    sent eyespider out to have an explore. watching his progress will relax me. no ants nearby. just like. terrain.


    hope the antibacterial coating on my socket holds up


    eyespider getting pretty grubby out there


    i mean i put some cleanshield antiyuck tech on the thing


    i''m not stupid


    still


    brain infection from a grubby eyebot would be embarrassing as flip


    oh the things i must deal with in my cute little life


    should maybe put it through a cleansing series of portals and washes before i let it back in


    mister you better take off those shoes and wash your hands before you get back inside my head


    i embrace my new role as eyespider mum


    actually if i''m heading on down to blight town i might just keep the thing locked in my skull with a secure eyepatch sealing it in


    you''re staying in your room until we get through the sewer level


    you can come out once we''re in. like. the cloud kingdom level. or whatever. laundromat level. the clean worlds.


    oh yes. almost forgot. field test of freeze grenade went well. such a solid test. did the thing i wanted. froze a river. didn''t try crossing because i''d probably just slip over and break my nose or something. also still a bit nervous about those dark energy blobs. they remind me of like. raisins in porridge. gross and unnecessary.


    anywoo. should probably call back eyespider. wipe it off and shove it back in. get on with this thing. i had my rest. i played around building a sandcastle. crudfort. could send #4 down into the tunnels first. but then it''d probably just be a thing like where he goes down and then i lose contact and it''s all


    oh probably just the undergroundness of the situation cutting off sensor link


    but actually he totally got eaten by a mutant sewer ant


    so i''ll probably just send him ahead of me a bit


    that way at least i get to see a mutant sewer ant eat a drone

 why couldnt i have been right about ice cream dimension instead

    haha there really are mutant sewer ants


    was actually so happy when they turned up


    like


    wow


    how was i right about this


    anyway they didn''t eat #4


    too small


    smaller even than acid ants


    and way way uglier


    these things are gross as hell


    all drippy and bulging


    they explode if they get near you


    well more of a squelch than an explosion


    guts and goo flying everywhere


    but shields block the goop 100% without even losing a layer


    so yeah


    least effective suicide bombers i ever seen


    #4 did get gunked up. drones not strong against goop attacks. i mean it didn''t really do anything. just slowed him down a bit. still if like twenty more grossants exploded on him it could''ve maybe done something. honestly i''m reaching here. those things were like threat level -1. felt a bit sorry for the digusting little boogers tbh.


    oh mental note or reminder or whatever. incendiary explosives. in enclosed tunnels. are not the best idea. i mean i was okay. but there were a couple of points where i would not have been okay if it wasn''t for betternewshield.


    on the other hand incendiary explosives in enclosed tunnels do such a good job of making sure gross mutant sewer ants don''t even get close to me. i mean yeah shields block the stuff but it''s still super disgusting. seeing it all dribble down right in front of your eyes. nobody wants to see that. shields don''t block smell either. and if i throw up with shields then i don''t even know what happens. does the puke get trapped inside the shield? the chunkier bits probably would at least. man why am i thinking about this horrible nonsense. jin what is wrong with you.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    anyway


    turns out whatever is down in those hives is going to stay down there


    or actually


    is going to get vortex bombed to heck


    entire lower tunnel section is underwater as far as i can tell


    no way am i going underwater


    down there


    in the dark


    heck no


    once more i am denied my queen


    your ant princess is in another castle


    so that kind of sucks


    but oh well


    at least i don''t have to deal with any more gross explodey blobants


    hope the waterfactory isn''t actually doing anything. couldn''t be. right? because it was so donked up by ants before i even went near the place. vortex bombing it couldn''t possibly have terrible unforeseen consequences. no way. never. i refuse to believe.


    too late for regrets anyway. scrapbags already on their way. i''m back at biscuit fort. it was nice to have a day out but it''s good to be home. asked computer about antweb results but computer was like ''jin i am busy do not rush me okay do not RUSH ME'' so i was like okay chill whatever. computer is still my bff but man that guy needs to unclench sometimes.


    power plant reclamation going well at least. drone taskforce doing the necessary boring stuff i can''t be bothered with. man how does anyone get anything done without robots. it''d be all like. oh no i have to do a thing. can i make a robot to do it? no for i am a normal human and not a superscience genius. guess i have to do it myself. welp i tried can''t do anything about this situation just gonna eat nachos and talk about the weather.


    that''s my impression of a regular human doing problem solving


    100% accurate


    man we are getting some ants from down south. is it south? suburbwards. great for antbits but nubbins for peace and quiet. i got stuff i want to be getting on with here. do not need constant flow of


    wait


    this is like before


    this is going to become another antsiege oh no. i already did one of those. i am bored of antsieges. don''t want to deal with this. when are these insects going to get sick of hassling me.


    bleh


    tempted to just send a bunch more scrapbags down that way


    but


    probably shouldn''t


    like scrapbags are such an easy and effective solution to problems that i just know there''s going to be consequences down the line. like every scrapbag is actually taking a piece of my soul with them or something. like there''s this invisible counter going up towards 100% and once it reaches 100% it''s like. instant gameover. nonstandard. badend.


    plus the more i use them the more i get pretty sure that


    like


    they actually are just mass teleporting stuff somewhere else


    hopefully into space?


    but actually probably just somewhere pretty close. so all those ants aren''t dealt with. they''re just like. piling up.


    i mean i have zero evidence for this theory


    it''s just likely according to jin''s law


    jin''s law: the most annoying thing will happen because *long fart noise*


    man


    why is everything such a flipping hassle


    how am i gonna deal with this


    how


    todeal


    could i just build a giant wall no because ants can climb really well. we have learned this. we remember.


    should''ve done more work on ant deterrence. thought i''d have like sonic ant annoyers or something by now. chemical radiation weapons to bend these things to my will. stuff to control my environment. but no. all i got is this goop that ants like and buzzer drones that ants chase. these are temporary nonsense measures. not longterm solutions.


    man what even am i gonna do here


    what is the nonboring answer


    whatwhatwhat

 make an ant bite an ant and call that progress

    so the thing about ants ignoring eyespiders is true


    until eyespiders attack in any way


    so


    that first hit has to count


    to start i was working on some kind of insecticide or something


    gave that up pretty quickly


    wrong angle


    why kill an ant


    when you can


    well i can''t think of a good punchy little single word to describe what i''m doing to these things. berserk them. donk them up. if you get an eyespider equipped with a little chitindrill to inject a mixture


    just an aside here to say that antbrain experiments were such a good ideaThis novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    i mean i don''t got a good handle on these things yet


    but i did figure out the


    nope instantly bored by explanation


    basically there''s a thing in ant brains that makes them angry


    i have concentrated this thing


    so basically it goes like


    eyespiders creep among ants. undetected. ninjabots.


    eyespiders climb on ant heads. like little hats. so cute. so stealth.


    eyespiders simultaneously inject antsgonuts toxin


    ants go nuts


    attack other ants


    eyespiders find another ant


    continue process


    ends with a big brawl of insane ants biting each other


    i mean it''s not insect domination exactly but for now it''s pretty good


    btw even just as a bit of fun don''t hook a dozen eyespider''s feeds directly into your optic nerve all at once


    seriously


    just do not do that


    anyway suburban antvasion halted for now


    or at least turned into a pile of ant corpses


    your move, ants


    so that has let me get on with things i want to be doing. like. mostly just tinkering with eyespider designs but i wanted to do that so it definitely counts.


    power plant drones reporting good things


    waterfactory scrapbag squad report nothing


    because they vortexed themselves + waterfactory + creepy watertunnels beneath


    camdrone following them sent some pictures


    pretty big hole where the factory used to be


    like a big gross muddy lake


    not exactly feeling great about this solution but


    oh


    well

 terrible

    okay so


    you can''t tell but there''s an hour between that last sentence and this one


    hour of pacing and muttering and playing with eyespider


    original eyespider


    should think up name for ninja agrotoxin eyespiders to distinguish them from #1 eyespider. skullspider. myspider. okay that''ll do for now.


    good distraction jin


    that was like a minute


    need more distractions


    from the horrible thing


    that happened


    today


    well tonight


    it was pretty dark


    maybe she didn''t see me?


    no but then why would she scream and run away


    so yes


    the thing is


    there''s a human around


    probably more than one


    you get them in clusters


    unless maybe i just hallucinated her?


    oh please let me be hallucinating humansStolen novel; please report.


    maybe i''ve been hallucinating this entire time


    all the giant ants have actually been


    giant humans?


    no that doesn''t work at all


    i mean sure if it was zombies we were dealing with then i could buy the whole ''you''ve been killing regular humans the entire time jin you are the monster'' thing


    but no


    even the best hallucination can''t turn a regular human into a giant insect that eats your arm


    that''s just not believable


    gotta face facts here


    probably not hallucinating


    not her at least


    assuming gender a bit but that''s the least of my troubles


    let''s maybe get some stuff straight. that could help. so. i was out checking ninjaspider progress re: suburban ants. also checking giant ant progress re: rotting. how long can a giant ant stay just lying around before you can''t use its bits for stuff any more. these are important questions that should be answered. anyway i was just doing my thing amongst the antcorpses. recording potentially useful numbers. taking chitin samples. happy as a bee.


    then the scream


    the hideous scream of a human


    those things are so noisy


    not like giant ants. never really appreciated this before. giant ants don''t make much in the way of noise. little bit of clicking. little kind of cute six legged footsteps when they move around. giant ants are light. because of the antigrav antgutgem deal. i should invent a shockwave thing or an airblaster or something. just blast these things away. giant reverse vacuum cleaner the surprising answer to all my problems.


    well not all of them


    can''t blast a human away with a giant reverse vacuum cleaner


    or could you


    ah lovely distractions. you sooth my troubled mind in these stressful times. always comes back to humans though doesn''t it.


    the problem that cannot be ignored


    or could it


    no no because she saw me and went running off and i really doubt she''s surviving in this mess on her own. i mean if one little eyespider crawling out of a cyborg girl''s skull is gonna make you scream then i''m sorry but you are soft as flip. way too soft for giant ant shenanigans. right? yes. i am right.


    i think she had a gun


    not a cool gun like my junk


    regular bulletgun


    haven''t tested shield against bullets


    haven''t got any bullets


    i hope this does not become


    problems


    not sure what to do now


    before this happened i was all excited about power plant stuff


    excited to use my laser shotgun again


    excited to maybe invent a lightning gun


    drones doing good work over there


    that was going to be my next thing


    fixing up a power plant


    making another base over there


    cracking the mareo piracy protection drm junk so i can force it to make another mareo


    matter reorganisers reorganising matter into more matter reorganisers


    this is the stuff i wanted to be thinking about


    now


    i don''t even know


    bleh

 still terrible but with some kind of direction

    scared to go out


    don''t even want to send drones out


    what if a human finds one?


    they might kidnap it. or shoot at it. definitely a record of that sort of silly behaviour. i mean come on there are literal monsters around and you waste your bullets on a harmless little robot?


    okay fine technically not harmless


    terrifying quadx2crudlauncher mounted on top


    still though


    actually you want to know the worst thing


    that wasn''t even the same direction #4 wandered off in


    the girl who saw me fiddling with antcorpses i mean


    that''s nowhere near the river


    it''s in completely the other direction


    what i am saying is that there are probably humans across the river


    and also more humans in suburbland to the south


    is it the south?


    never actually checked


    doesn''t matterIf you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    we got a heap of humans around is what i''m saying


    well two


    at least


    but probably way more


    hives of the things


    or burrows


    there''s a proper word


    communities?


    no i like burrows more. sounds more. mammalian.


    what am i going to do with these pesky mammals


    what is going to happen when they find biscuit fort


    i mean i didn''t exactly make this place inconspicuous


    subtlety was not on the priority list at all


    thought i had this city to myself


    oh what a happy idiot i was


    so now i got


    like


    the only building standing in twelve blocks of scrapharvested rubble


    apart from ant prison of course


    what i am saying is that a big warehouse fortress with turrets and melted walls decorated with assorted antbits is just exactly the sort of place a human would look at and be like ''yep. that''s the one. that''s like the objective or whatever. gonna be treasure chests or something in there. or some dude to give me a new quest. maybe a blacksmith. new sword. gunmods. loot.''


    what was i talking about


    right humans yes. could i invent. like. nonlethal means of dealing? i mean for sure i do not want to kill anything that can beg for its life. that is a line i''m not gonna be able to just skip over. no killing anything that can potentially leave orphans that will notice its absence and cry about it. that''s the rule. don''t do stuff that creates crying orphans.


    so like


    sleep darts?


    why did my mind instantly go there


    so impractical


    you have to estimate weight and metabolism and all that junk to get the right dose and then what? just leave a sleeping human around? a tasty little treat for any giant insects that happen to be wandering past?


    jin you beautiful impetuous fool


    you are better than this


    so


    teleports?


    teleport a human somewhere i am not? i could make like a little cosy tea room somewhere way away from my base. and if i have to deal with a human and i do not want to deal with a human. just. like. bamf. teleport them to a lovely tea room. they can have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit and then keep doing their regular human activities. walk around. talk about the weather to each other. survive in this weird kind of apocalypse thing we''ve got going on. and most importantly leave me the flip out of things.


    okay


    think i got a plan here


    turns out teleports are the answer


    as always

 why is this my life now

    they found me


    they''re outside


    i can hear them


    like even without using an invention or anything


    just with my ears


    turrets didn''t attack them fortunately


    i mean they''re set to definitely not attack humans


    because i am a human


    technically


    and i do not want turrets to attack me


    so


    let''s all just be really quiet


    they were banging on the door before


    big solid door


    lovely big door


    stopped now


    think they''re talking


    i''m using minicomputer to write thisThe narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    because bigcomputer has clacky keys


    v satisfying


    but also bad for giving away the fact that you are hiding


    pretending to not exist


    while you wait


    for people


    to leave


    you


    alone


    haven''t finished teleportal nuisance remover yet


    haven''t even made the cosy tea room


    okay


    nope they''re still here


    think they''re trying to get into ant prison now


    bad idea humans


    management is not responsible for injury or death resulting from unleashing captive ants


    not that i got many in there right now


    and those aren''t in good condition


    still


    hope no one gets hurt


    just want them to gooooo awaaaaay


    maybe i could creep over to lair entrance


    teleportal behind vending machines


    snuggle in down there


    wonder what it''s even like now


    haven''t been down in like


    months?


    should probably check stuff first


    like if ventilation systems donked up sometime


    i could just teleport down into some kind of like


    deathcloud


    no


    i have grown beyond tiny safe underground lair


    i live above the earth now


    are they still there


    they are still there


    still there


    still there


    still flipping there oh come ON HUMANS JUST LEAVE ME ALONE


    YOU ARE MAKING ME USE CAPITAL LETTERS


    DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE THOSE


    okay wait


    waitwaitwait


    vehicle?


    combustion engine?


    leaving?


    question marks?


    okay


    okayokay


    they''re gone


    oh thank goodness


    i mean they will be back


    humans cannot leave a thing alone


    this is a fact


    should maybe send some drones after them


    if i know where they live i can keep far away from that place


    and work on my lovely tea room teleportal device


    to avoid


    social complications


    hmm let''s see though


    eyespiders or regular drones


    regular drones probably the safer bet there


    operational limits on eyespiders pretty low


    can''t fit much battery inside an eye


    okay


    go drones


    follow those mammals


    i will be here


    doing teleports


    and


    designing tearooms

 welcome to jins apocalypse cafe we have tea and biscuits and despair

    right


    getting somewhere now


    still haven''t gone outside but sent some drones to scout locations


    difficult to find a good spot for a tea room in this mess of a postapocalyptic city


    destroyed buildings everywhere


    i mean okay yes it was mostly me destroying them


    harvesting buildings for scrap


    that''s not the point


    what was the point


    right yes tea room


    so there''s a park away over in some direction. kind of between river and suburbs. but also off to the side. nicely distant from biscuit fort is what i am saying. there are trees and things. grass. bushes. one downside is that it is a bit anty. but i figure i''ll put some crudturrets on the tea room and that will maybe take care of that problem? and also if humans are out doing stuff in antlands then i have to assume they have ways to deal. like why are you walking around in this place. if you can''t deal. with an ant.


    so


    clear out park. might have to go help with that. drones are not efficient antkillers. honestly it gets pretty slapstick. no dignity to be found in a drone vs ant deathmatch.


    speaking of drones


    drones found the mammal burrow. across the river. but also. close. big fences covered in tangly wire. i guess ants maybe get their legs tangled pretty easily. so they can''t climb tangly wire walls. could be a good idea. if it works. no you''re mad that someone thought of a good antiant idea before you.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    base is smaller than i expected. maybe there''s more underground. bunker situation. defence on top. burrows below.


    do i have more thoughts on human base


    nope guess not


    one good thing is that aside from the base drones have not spotted any humans in the wild. this is fantastic news. long may the non spotting of humans continue.


    plan is to visit the park at night. humans fear the dark. ants don''t seem to care. scout the park. kill any ants around. make sure there are no hives or ant social spots. get drones started on the construction of a lovely tea room. then back here to continue work on teleportal gun.


    oh the teleportal gun


    why is this thing so flipping hard


    i mean i can make a gun that shoots a teleport


    that is not a complex task


    the problem is that a moving teleportal


    nope boring myself


    syncing teleportals is. messy. many variables. tiny change to one variable donks the whole thing. it''s not like one thing changes, fix that thing, okay we''re good. it''s one thing changes, right so we have to recalculate everything and also ten of the things are now completely different so the formulas have to be whole new formulas. plus you have to keep checking the things even if you think the variables didn''t change. because maybe they did change! why did they change? oh no reason teleportal just decided to change one just for funsies. what i am saying is that it is a headache. i mean the exit portal can be moving around no problem. but if that entrance portal isn''t stabilised then who knows what the flip is going to happen. stuff might get stuck between portals.


    stuff does not want to get stuck between portals


    especially if stuff is living


    that is a scenario we sad scientists call


    bad


    i mean generally i consider myself to be an unsqueamish person but thinking about teleport badends gives me the heebiejeebies


    anyway so i think maybe it can''t be a gun


    i think maybe it has to be a trap


    something i put on the ground and activate once a human steps on it


    then they can just fall through the portal to tea room


    note: put something soft under exit portal. or transfer energy of vertical fall to angled stumble? some kind of slope? anyway. make sure entrance to tea room is nontraumatic.


    where was i


    oh yes the trap idea. i think this is the best way forward. I guess the other thing i could do is make the teleportal gun shoot out teleport anchors? and then once they come to a stop do remote calibrations and sync them up hmm


    this is actually a pretty fun project


    lots of fiddly bits and rough edges


    just my style


    anyway should take a break and go scout


    give the old brain time to percolate some ideas


    is it dark?


    getting there


    okay let''s risk it


    what''s the worst that could happen


    oh jin you little fate tempting minx


    never change

 not like anyone else is stepping up

    maybe i am learning something about cause and effect here


    like


    if: you destroy the hives in a place


    then: there will be less ants in a place


    posit: humans like places without giant ants


    reasoning: humans enjoy not being eaten by giant ants


    conclusion: less ants = more humans


    what i am saying is that probably i should have left hives alone and dealt with individual ants


    rather than making the area around my base so safe and therefore v flipping attractive to humans


    bunches of them driving around


    they keep coming to biscuit fort and just i don''t know


    what do they want


    what is going on in their mysterious human brains


    i tried listening in but it was a bit too much


    hearing humans talk to other humans and doing all that


    it''s just


    just


    yuck


    also where the heck are they getting petrol for their cars


    i''m not exactly keeping a calendar but it feels like it''s been pretty long since the start of this thing


    like maybe a year even


    petrol doesn''t last very long


    can''t really see anyone making new petrol in the middle of a giant ant apocalypseUnauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    so what''s the deal huh


    what is the flipping deal


    maybe they converted vehicles to e100


    do they have superscience geniuses


    or even regular science geniuses


    or just


    science


    i know this is probably the wrong thing to be thinking about but man


    little things like that do bug me


    especially when i am already stressed


    all i want is to be left alone


    is that too much to ask


    then i can get on with important things


    like dealing with computer and all its perky little ''hey jin that antweb stuff is real interesting'' i know computer i know it''s probably so interesting but i just can''t right now okay? i have to deal with grownup problems like how to efficiently teleport humans to a tea room.


    so anyway


    went to the park and it''s a happy place for ants. they like it there. mostly used goopthrower just to keep them away. had the thought that. y''know. maybe keeping ants around my lovely tea room is not such a bad idea. i do not want humans to get eaten. but. probably if i leave my tea room unguarded humans will just come along and donk it up somehow. if it is in a park that is filled with giant ants maybe humans will avoid that park? there''s nothing there they want. no oil. no guns. just trees and stuff. a place with just grass and trees and ants is not an attractive place for humans. this makes sense. can i count on these mammals to be rational?


    well probably not


    but this is still my plan


    teleportal trap is working anyway. didn''t go with the gun thing. don''t need another bulky thing to lug around. and also don''t really want to point a shooty thing at a human. they''d probably get upset about that. and maybe try to bullet me. so it''s just a bunch of teleport anchors i can put down or throw i guess. then do calibrations. takes about seven seconds on average. give or take. seven seconds seems short but i bet it''s really long when you''re face to face with a person. anything could happen. oh glob what if they just scream at me. i bet when someone is screaming at you for seven seconds it feels like. at least three minutes. relativity in horrible social nightmares causes time dilation like donk.


    maybe i do need those sleep darts. maybe that was not a bad idea. if a human is unconscious rather than eg struggling then it is way easier to do stuff to them. please ignore badstuff implications of previous sentence okay thank you. also if they are relaxed on entrance to tea room rather than tense then there''s less risk of accidental injury. in conclusion unconscious silent human is easier to deal with than conscious screaming human.


    nuts


    just made more work for myself


    stop doing that jin


    tea room is coming along okay. drones doing adequate work. found a utility shed in the park. toilets attached. can build off that. easier than starting from scratch. tea room is going to be a bit smaller than i wanted but oh well. we live in an imperfect world.


    just got a report from power plant drones


    everything''s all set up


    even got a little outpost thing for me


    just need to get over there and figure out the last steps


    man i want to just be focusing on that but


    well have to sort out this other stuff first


    so here i go


    sorting out stuff

 i made doilies and everything so somebody just better appreciate that

    humans


    so annoying


    my misanthropy feels increasingly justified


    i mean could they just wait one flipping day for me to get this tea room finished. this is all for them! i''m not doing this junk for me you know! it''s not like i woke up and was all like hmm yes what is the most productive use of my superscience time o i know make a flipping tea room for ungrateful donking humans who probably don''t even like tea. probably all coffee drinkers. or. cocoa.


    note: variety of hot beverages in tea room


    what was i annoyed about


    oh yes


    right


    humans are trying to explode my biscuit fort


    i am not


    happy


    about this


    although i probably shouldn''t have opened ant prison and let out all my ant prisoners


    i only had three


    just thirteen legs between them


    humans were not impressed


    was kind of interesting to see regular humans fighting giant ants i guess


    bulletguns moderately effective


    i mean i knew that


    still miss tbm bulletgun


    these guys aren''t using big bullets though. their bullets are smaller.


    so it takes more to crack open an antUnauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    also one thing i never really appreciated


    all my offensive options are fairly


    y''know


    overkillish


    like even the crappy old crudlauncher takes down ants in a shot or two. shardrifle tears ants to pieces. antswords slice through chitin so easily. so easily. cannonball pistols. do i even need to say. everything works very well. because that''s how you solution. you science and you engineer and you make a thing that is designed to solve the problem as efficiently as possible. or yknow overengineer it to heck because why not right? better to go too far than not far enough. anyway my point is that this is basic stuff. if you need to kill giant ants regularly then maybe think about making something that is good at killing giant ants.


    but i guess when all you have is a bulletgun with small bullets that''s what you gotta use


    even if it takes ages


    and also the ant gets really annoyed


    and tries to eat you


    none of these humans got eaten


    none of them even lost an arm


    got kind of close a few times


    but in the end they killed my ant prisoners


    and then had a really good nosy look around ant prison


    nothing much in there except antcorpse bits''n''juice


    nothing to scare them away


    so i sent out #4


    not to kill them of course


    just to


    y''know


    be scary


    with lasers


    and crudlauncher


    i might have mentioned this before but there is something weirdly terrifying about shin height crudballs flying around


    you just get like


    man right at this moment i literally cannot think of a worse thing happening than getting hit in the shin by a speeding wad of crud


    anyway the important thing is that the humans all went away and biscuit fort remains unexploded


    so


    success?


    it''s not a success


    it just worked for now. that''s all.


    i feel bad about releasing ants and robot on the idiots


    even if they were trying to crack open my fort


    i took all the explosive stuff they were setting up


    if you try to explode me i get to keep your bombs


    this feels morally okay


    it''s all plastic explosive stuff. not homemade. military style. all with military writing and instructions and stuff on the packets. packets! so fancy.


    ended up feeding most of it into the mareo. that thing''s always crying out for more blowy uppy materials.


    anyway


    have to go make sure tea room is good. also add these ant candy things i made to launchers. it''s just basically a wad of antattracting stuff. ants love it. so i figure i''ll add that to the exit distraction protocol. buzzers go buzzing off. ant candy is deployed. with all that interesting nonsense going on any ants around won''t even notice a human or two leaving.


    well that''s the plan anyway


    fingers crossed it works out


    keep forgetting i have to check suburban ant situation. eyespiders are doing their thing and scavengers keep bringing back antcorpses so i guess it''s okay for now but


    oh also power plant. just want to be doing that. unlock laser shotgun.


    what is life without laser shotgun


    safer probably


    but i still want it


    problem


    problem is


    there is just too much stuff


    and only one jin


    well anyway


    got work to do


    tea time

 trying to think of every way a human might donk up a situation is the most exhausting thing

    i got ant problems


    thank goodness


    something i can deal with without feeling like my guts are going to crawl up through my throat and explode out of my mouth and strangle me


    which is what i refer to as


    the human mood


    i mean i got human problems too


    i am going to rant the flip out about them


    but first


    ants


    so the suburban ants have stopped coming. which means. probably. they are prepping for antsiege.


    there are two big problems there


    first is that i don''t actually know where the suburban ant hive is


    second is that suburbland probably has humans as well as ants


    so combining those two problems you get one ultraproblem


    that is


    finding and destroying suburbland hive means more humans to come and bother me


    on the other hand


    if there are humans in that area and also ants


    i can probably assume that ants are eating humans over there


    so


    the thing is


    i feel bad about that


    i mean


    i don''t want ants to be eating humansUnlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    specifically not this little human right here


    but also in a general sense


    so


    so


    man why am i in this ridiculous position. why can''t people sort out their own problems. i do not feel protective about humans. do i? no. i just don''t want to feel bad about ants eating humans when maybe


    i could have done something


    to stop that happening


    could i maybe just cut out the part of my brain that is causing these badfeelings. is that a solution.


    haven''t had such a good track record with selfbrainmods though


    kind of wary of that whole area


    well for now let''s just think about some good stuff


    like how the tea room is finished and looking pretty good. if i do say so myself. i made a dimensional fold for hot water. hooked it to a little jug thing. infinite hot water jug. put some coffee and cocoa and hot chocolate in the room. and biscuits. lots of those. and of course a teapot of infinite tea. hooked it in to my hot tea dimension. cute little table. red and white tablecloth. chairs. mugs. plates. doilies. all very clearly labelled so no confusion. everything a tea room needs. also a bunch of pillows for entrance. tested out the portal on myself. works pretty good. kind of fun. got roboarm caught on pillows but that is not a problem a regular human would have to deal with. haven''t made any kind of sleep dart or stasis thing or whatever. did get the syncing time down to five seconds which is. better. but not. ideal.


    distraction protocols also in place. antcandy launchers. buzzer drone dispensers. all linked up to a nice big friendly button by the door with a label saying ''press this button when you want to leave''. thought about doing more explanation. but then i was like. no. make it as simple and straightforward as possible. these are humans you are dealing with here jin. so because of that i also put another smaller button on the other side of the door. that one is labelled ''do not press''. it''s hooked in to the same distraction protocol as the big button. there''s also a thing that gets unlocked by a hidden key and behind that there''s another thing that only opens once you complete a sliding panel puzzle. and then behind all that is a secret button. which is also hooked in to the same protocol as the other buttons. just covering my bases here. humans are. paradoxical. contrary. you always have to consider the possibility that any given human is. y''know. a complete idiot dick.


    also the door doesn''t open unless a button gets pressed


    i don''t want to throw around terms like foolproof


    because some fool is definitely going to donk this up


    but


    i feel like i''ve done all i can


    in this situation


    v nervous about using tea room teleportal on live target


    i''ve got a pouch full of little teleport anchors i can place or throw


    also emergency teleport anchor launcher on roboarm


    might do the multianchor thing


    just scatter them everywhere


    do multiple syncs in different patterns


    so that at least one can port the human to the tea room


    i mean that''s kind of brute force


    but


    i don''t know


    at least i have one mechanism in place to deal with human encounters


    and of course i have lots of things to deal with ants


    so here i go


    off to deal with ants


    and if i meet a human


    well


    there''s stuff i can do in that situation also


    good?

 teenage cyborg science antgirl

    right well so okay


    tea room has its first customer


    teleport anchors work okay


    sync time was only four seconds


    got lucky there because she did not want to be teleported


    kept talking at me


    like


    like


    there''s a word for the way she was


    scared


    but


    notscared


    computer is telling me ''brave''


    thanks computer


    always such a pal when i need to figure out human emotions


    so


    she didn''t run away. didn''t try to put any bullets in me. she did have a gun. same as the other humans. smallbulletgun. she did some talking. four seconds of talking. then the portal under her feet opened and she went to the tea room. and i started breathing again.


    note: teleportal brings lots of dirt and rocks and outside stuff into tea room along with customer. assign cleaning drones.


    maybe it was the same girl as before


    maybe not


    i am not so good with faces


    i can remember them okay


    i just don''t like looking at them


    watched her for a bit in tea room


    she had a biscuit


    then read the button labelsThis novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    then sat in a corner for a while


    felt a little bit of


    like


    the thing when a human does something that maybe you''d do in a situation


    sitting in a corner usually feels like a good idea to me


    so


    that was


    something


    she didn''t have any tea


    but she looked at the things


    cocoa and hot chocolate and coffee


    she had another biscuit


    then she pressed the big button


    and went out


    and ran


    and


    that was that


    anyway i didn''t find suburbland hive


    suburbland is


    hmm what''s the word


    boring but not terrible


    little houses


    little trees


    some big trees too


    not so many ants around


    just three that i saw


    and killed


    buildings in pretty good shape


    not so wrecked


    i mean my superhammer drones haven''t been near that place


    giant ants don''t really tear stuff to pieces much


    except like


    dirt


    they love that stuff


    digging holes and all that


    eating the dirt


    no poop though


    that''s kind of weird


    where does all that dirt go


    is a giant ant a 100% efficient dirt digesting machine


    or what


    speaking of ants haven''t reported on chitin arm for a while. just became normal i guess. chitin doing well. been adding more gradually. about 40% coverage now on human arm. no real plan for this. just seeing how far i can push it. itchiness is gone. reduced antirejection drug dosage which solved toilet issues. v happy about that. no problems. still no ant hivemind dreams or anything. oh well. chitin is pretty tough. much tougher than squishy human flesh. skin of the future ladies and gentlemen. skin of the future. it is pretty inflexible though. i guess that''s the trade off. so for now i''m leaving joints uncovered. anything that needs to bend. mostly doing upper arm. then like a thinner plating over my lower arm. in case i want to wear a watch or something. don''t want to bulk that area too much. left my human hand alone. not messing with that precious baby. robot hand does okay but i am kind of attached to my human hand. arf arf. little bit of cyborg humour for you there. no charge. peace.


    so anyway


    that''s what''s been going on in my bionetic antmod chitin life


    the latest sitcom to warm your bloodorgan and tickle your laughmuscles


    yeah


    wonder where that girl lives


    are there others


    do they


    well whatever. need to go back to suburbland. find that hive before antsiege. although.


    huh


    what if i just let antsiege happen


    go into defensive mode


    let ants surround biscuit fort. kill any ants that actually attack. stop them if they try to kill my walls. collect antbits. make more weapons and ammo from antbits. to keep killing ants.


    humans will not come near while ants are around


    i could set up a teleport to power plant


    make that my exit


    okay new plan. new plan yes. new plan includes laser shotgun unlock. i like new plan. have to hurry though. set up stuff before ants come knocking. or more humans. suspiciously quiet on the river base human front. no vehicles for a while.


    oh glob


    is this the same thing


    is this going to be


    humansiege


    man what if they both come at the same time


    that''d be a heck of a fight for the last piece of pudding


    well anyway don''t think about that right now


    get out to that power plant


    wonder why no humans are around that place


    as well as no ants


    probably some kind of horrible radiation or something i just failed to detect


    probably end up mutated into a hideous radiation monster


    fingers crossed

 if this is the best of all possible worlds then well fine i guess

    didn''t mutate into a hideous radiation monster


    not yet anyway


    power plant is working


    so much electricity


    all mine


    mini outpost there too


    like a little room thing above a bunch of condensers


    everything is all crackly and magnetic and sparky over there


    kind of a festival atmosphere


    not that i''ve ever been to a festivalRoyal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    but i''ve seen them on tv


    and in my head i was always like


    if you took away all the people


    and it was just me


    walking in that place with those lights and those stalls and decorations and things


    alone


    but surrounded by that bright stuff


    then i think that would make me feel the same way i feel when i''m sitting above a bunch of high capacity condensers


    anyway just about to head to suburbland for hunting etc


    v dark tonight


    which is good


    if you have an eye


    that can see in the dark


    hehe


    kind of cold though so i pulled the old heatshield thing out of storage. tuned it down a bit. now it''s just like. a heater. to keep me warm. when it is cold.


    pulled something else out of storage while i was there


    yep


    op personified


    laser shotgun


    shoved a telepower converter in there.  no problems. no issues. put a little shot counter thing on it. shows me how many shots i probably have left with it. like an estimation. based on power stuff. at my power plant. that belongs to me. and no one else. i fixed it. i defend it. it is mine. no argue. only dreams.


    anyway


    right now


    my laser shotgun ammo counter


    says


    945


    hehehehehe

 well i cant say i didnt warn me

    more customers for tea room


    not girl


    different humans


    two of them


    got them both while they were pointing bulletguns at me and being really aggressive actually


    all yelling and looking at me


    this after they spotted me


    and chased me


    into an alley


    well more like the space between two houses


    it had grass and stuff


    and also


    teleport anchors


    had time to place them in this situation


    nice neat square portal


    probably a bit too big actually


    there''s some stuff with portal entrance/exit interaction where if the entrance is too much bigger than the exit then there''s some


    well


    i guess let''s call it stretching


    not great for the old internal organs let me tell you


    but oh well


    better than lasering a couple of dudes into just smoking boots


    which is probably what would literally happen?


    man


    i turned into a toon so gradually i didn''t even notice


    anyway


    they messed up my tea room


    should have maybe taken their guns


    although


    how could i do that


    they were twice as big as me


    i mean each one of them was twice as big as me


    together they were quadruple my size


    yes yes i know i have a robot arm. yes it has insane grip strength. that is not the issue. size is like. touchiness. awkward. explainhard.


    touching a person even with a robot arm


    nope okay nopeThis story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    stopping that line of thought


    moving on


    where was i anyway


    oh right


    trashed tea room


    humans are so ungrateful


    you''d think in this ant apocalypse people would maybe appreciate a lovely tea room. just a nice quiet place to have a hot drink and a biscuit and relax for a few minutes before resuming necessary survival actions.


    but no


    apparently not


    apparently people just want to break stuff and make a huge mess and shoot a teapot with a teleportal inside it hooked to a hot tea dimension


    and get blasted by a stream of hot tea


    that was pretty funny actually


    although now i have a little dimensional tear in my tea room


    really should figure out how to close those things


    i mean in this case i just put a fancy box around it and labelled it auto tea dispenser and hid another portal in the catch tray underneath to feed back into tea dimension


    but in other cases it might be useful to know how to actually get rid of these things


    anyway


    eventually they got bored of destroying my stuff


    and they pressed the do not press button


    and they went out and got instantly eaten by ants


    not really


    well i mean maybe that''s what happened


    but probably not


    i waited a while then went and tidied up the mess they made


    i am a builder not a


    whatever those guys are


    got my drone buddies to help me. robots are so reliable. a robot would never wreck a tea room. not unless you specifically told it to. or forgot to specifically tell it not to. anyway it wasn''t such a chore. kind of nice to take a break from stuff and just fix things. spent ages making the fancy box for the tea dispenser. designed a proper one with the mareo. that was pretty fun.


    oh yeah


    one thing


    think i might have found the suburbland hive


    or should i say


    dunno


    there is some weird stuff going on over there


    suburban ants have learnt subtlety or something


    subtleurban ants


    suburbtleants


    nope thought that would work but it doesn''t


    anyway no great big gaping hole with like ants swarming everywhere. like the mall hive. or the waterfactory biz with holes eaten out of the thing and. again. ants swarming everywhere.


    no no


    this is


    different


    want to know the creepiest thing a giant ant can do?


    carefully open a door with its mandibles


    go inside a house


    then close the door behind itself


    yick


    i mean what is the deal with these insects and their smarts? speaking as someone who has spent time mucking around with giant ant brains i feel like i can safely say. these things shouldn''t be clever. the goo inside their heads is not exactly tier 1 thinking gear.


    but they do have all those weird sensory organs and crystal junk


    there is the possibility that thinking of these giant ants as insects is completely the wrong way to look at it


    maybe i should be thinking of them as


    robots


    welp lots there to noodle over. the main thing i learned on my little outing is that in a suburban house vs laser shotgun deathmatch battle you should probably not place any money on the house. yes this may be the only situation where the house always loses. heyoo just a little casino joke for you there. i am on fire tonight. when i''m lugging around my laser shotgun stuff tends to just burst into flames around me. weird.


    anyway not sure what to do about this suburbland ant situation. all these minihives where


    oh


    didn''t actually talk about the anthouses


    yeah


    those things are


    gross


    as


    heck


    so okay. picture with me here an ordinary human house. from the outside it looks perfectly whatever. inside it is crammed full of giant ants. there are gaps between the ants. like tunnels. which other ants can crawl through. and then slot into gaps for themselves. i sent eyespider in to check stuff out. ants ignored it as usual. let me get a really good look around.


    so yeah


    that''s antburg


    not sure exactly how many houses are infested. it''s not like they take over a whole neighbourhood or whatever. it''ll just be like. one or two houses. on a street. are home to nightmares. and the rest are just empty i guess.


    didn''t see any humans


    aside from those two jerks


    not sure what they were doing there actually


    but


    well


    hmm


    nope i''m bored of thinking about this mystery. the problem is that i don''t care. so. hard to go anywhere from that point.


    anyway i think right now i want to go do a vaporise/burn/explode combo on some more anthouses with my magical laser shotgun


    actually turned down the power a bit. got this variable thing now. uses jump up to 1471 at regular strength.


    yay yay


    i know my plan was to let ants come and siege and make biscuit fort unattractive to humans


    but


    laser shotgun too op


    anthouses too gross to exist


    i feel a responsibility


    to use a fun weapon


    to destroy these things that creep me the flip out


    so


    that is what i am going to do

 things are getting better but things are getting worse

    tea house is getting popular


    which is another way of saying


    humans


    are


    everywhere


    this used to be such a nice neighbourhood


    maybe i should just move


    go back to basics


    underground tinylair


    inconspicuous


    subtle


    leave biscuit fort as a distraction. lock it all up and get some drones just continually making new walls. on the inside. as ants and humans destroy walls on the outside. drones digging out dirt. building walls out of dirt. until finally ants and humans get to the centre.


    and it''s just a really deep hole


    would that be funny


    or just sad


    well


    one good thing


    shield is great against bullets


    usually only loses a few layers


    so i can get shot like ten times before i actually


    y''know


    get shot


    i mean it''s not fun or anything. getting shot even with a shield is not a positive experience. although. seeing a human get really surprised and angry that the person he shot. is not dead. is pretty funny.


    note: humans expect guns to solve problems. especially problem of ''i want that thing to be dead''. when gun does not solve problem. human gets. angry. sad. not at gun. human still loves gun. human hates thing that didn''t die.


    given up on tidying tea room. drones can take care of structural damage. no more hot water. infinite tea hidden inside giant chunk of wall. nobody even tried to solve my puzzles. secret biscuits remain secret. everything else is. trashed. so. humans can just. i don''t know. eat raw coffee. hunt for biscuit crumbs. i tried to make it nice. i did try.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    last ones shot my buttons


    except buttons are bulletproof


    i am not silly


    i would not make a button. in a place. where humans will be. and not consider the possibility of a human shooting a button.


    that was like the first thing i thought of


    ''someone is definitely going to shoot this with a bullet from a gun''


    anyway


    one bullet bounced off and hit another human


    which would have been funny


    except


    well okay yes it was funny


    but also


    notfunny


    but really really funny


    but


    i don''t know


    this is why i tried to remove myself from things. it''s all just so complicated. i can''t understand any of it. it makes me feel. bad. tight. separated. more separated than when i am actually literally separated. i am also a human. i am also. weird. impossible. whatever. i don''t know. i just want to be left alone. i just want to do my things. even with the ants i didn''t mind so much. well it wasn''t great when my face got melted. that was a low point. but generally it was stuff that i was able to deal with.


    conclusion is always that humans are better without me donking their stuff up and i am better without humans donking my stuff up


    maybe teleporting the whole city was not such a bad idea


    maybe earlier version of jin is. alsogood.


    jin v3.147 cyborgantwarveteran might have things to learn. from just. jin.


    anyway


    finally had a look at antweb reports computer has been pestering me about. for. ever. that stuff is. wild. antigrav stuff going on except probably not anti gravity exactly. gravity is pretty tough. not something you can just rebel against. but definitely a lot lighter and tougher than it should be. computer keeps going on like ''jin this is not physically possible'' and i''m like yeah okay but i am holding it in my robot hand so probably it is a bit possible. and computer''s like ''jin you make a good point but jin listen to this'' and i''m all like yeah? and computer''s like ''jin this stuff is not physically possible'' and i''m all like oh you.


    missed my chats with computer


    haven''t done a lot with antweb findings yet. also regret exploding waterfactory before harvesting more of it. rookie mistake jin. you loot the place and then you vortex bomb it. get your order of actions right. did figure out a new chitinskin. got thinking about flexibility and stuff. ants have. weirdjoints. v strong necks. made a new connection thing for my roboarm out of antbit tech. can''t really feel any difference but it should be stronger and better. so. there''s that.


    but yes new chitinskin. softer. but still stronger than squishy human skin. i mean i know i got shields. just. its nice to have nonmelted skin on face. put like a black and white chessboard pattern on it. dunno. just like that pattern. put a new scar on it. improvement on old scar. chitinskin offers both texture and depth. feels a bit itchy and weird but eh. temporary stuff. soon it will be. normal.


    haven''t seen girl again


    respect girl i call her


    she respected tea room


    she sat in a corner


    maybe she''s dead


    eaten by ants


    or killed by humans


    saw humans shooting at each other one time


    stupid


    don''t care


    don''t know


    later

 turns out the real monsters were giant ants

    ants ate my power plant


    farewell once more


    laser shotgun


    we had fun


    but now


    bleg


    also


    antsiege is here


    bit bigger than last time


    came while i was out gathering numbers


    so now i can''t actually get back to biscuit fort


    which is


    problem


    power plant outpost already gone


    ants ate it


    most of my drones got eaten or just mangled


    toxic agro eyespiders did their best but just too many ants. just kept coming. should have made more eyespiders. at least you learned a life lesson huh jin. always make more eyespiders than you think you''ll need. that''s a keeper. you could embroider that one on a pillow.


    river outpost is still okay


    except it''s not really an outpost


    just a little box with a microteleport for water


    not for people


    never got around to upgrading


    maybe mistake


    so


    here i am


    camping inside tea room


    v sad place


    humans stole all my doilies


    who steals a doily


    who would do that


    at least i have secret biscuits


    nobody solved any of my puzzlesThe tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    so


    well


    just thinking


    should have decentralised


    especially weapons


    teleport ammo system is v convenient


    unless your base gets eaten


    then all your guns stop working


    not just guns


    all my stuff is there


    my precious mareo


    secret source of all my powers


    making things just by hand is so


    boring


    still have antswords. antblades on roboarm. heatglovedrone but without recharge limited fireballs available.


    everything dies


    entropy you rascal


    up to your old tricks


    so yep


    not doing so good over here


    at least i have minicomputer


    still have my weapons and shield and stuff


    ants haven''t actually eaten biscuit fort


    yet


    so well i don''t know just don''t want to go charging through thousands of ants. i mean it is crazy over there. don''t even know what direction they came from. assume suburbland. reaction to all those anthouses i destroyed.


    weird how they hit the power plant first


    especially when no ants even went near that place before


    almost like they knew i needed it. for laser shotgun. and backdoor teleportal to biscuit fort.


    did they know


    or did someone tell them


    and how. why. so many ants. where from? where were they hiding? just in houses i guess. lot of those in suburbland. underground too. all over the city. finally figured out i''m the biggest threat maybe. you got lazy jin. you stopped thinking. too distracted by humans.


    don''t really want to fight a thousand ants


    that sounds exhausting


    also don''t want to get more bits of myself eaten


    especially if i cannot make new improved parts


    like if an ant eats my knee


    and i cannot make a superknee


    then that''s just


    sad


    so


    so


    well okay let''s stop being pathetic and think a way through this mess. what is the actual problem here. what do i want to happen. well of course i want to defend biscuit fort. remove ants. no no. ants are fine as long as biscuit fort is okay. ants are good because ants discourage humans. but ants are bad because ants eat biscuit fort.


    jin you are just going in circles


    got to break through


    okay so if i could get into biscuit fort i could start defending properly. in a way that maybe doesn''t kill all the ants but which stops them from eating my home. use antcandy and buzzers and stuff. maybe make and deploy a few scrapbags if necessary. cannonball pistols so good for destroying massed enemies. fighting a thousand ants from inside feels more viable than trying to fight my way through them all from here. also even if it gets hopeless i can at least maybe teleport my best stuff out. like the mareo. really can''t lose that.


    okay


    so


    okay here''s a radical thought


    if i could make a new teleportal i could link it in to a portal in biscuit fort. i got the keys so syncing wouldn''t even be hard. doesn''t have to be a fancy teleport. and i am great at teleports. jin why do you always forget that. you don''t need a mareo. i mean how did you get it to begin with? did you use a mareo to make stuff? no of course not that''s a paradox. time travel was not involved. you made a teleport with your own two human hands because you had two human hands then and you teleported yourself inside that government research lab with nothing but your toolkit and you built another teleport there around the flipping mareo and then you teleported everything back to your treehouse. and the treehouse collapsed because mareos are heavy as flip but that''s not the point. they never caught you. probably still scratching their heads about it. how did this big heavy matter reorganiser just vanish? and where is most of the floor and part of a wall?


    early teleports were a bit


    indiscriminate


    anyway if i make this the thing then there is one question


    where can i find the bits to make a new teleport


    okay that''s a pretty big problem actually


    not like teleport parts grow on trees


    except the lemons of course


    i guess maybe that same government research lab


    back to the beginning


    not exactly in the neighbourhood


    way across the city


    through the unknown


    probably can''t get there before biscuit fort gets eaten


    but i don''t have any better ideas


    so


    here i go

 how did i even get here

    welp this game has turned into a survival simulator


    except it''s not simulation


    and it''s not fun


    suddenly all the numbers have meaning


    like i have two flasks of tea


    and when those run out


    well i won''t have anything to drink


    which is bad


    didn''t invent any kind of portable water filter thing did i


    nooooo


    invented an eyespider instead


    wait that''s a terrible example


    eyespider is amazing


    like even in my waterpoor state i would still not trade eyespider for waterfilter


    waterfilter so boring


    eyespider so good


    also useful for scouting etc which is good because this is also a stealth game


    death surrounds me


    in a literal sense


    i am hiding inside a hut made of antcorpses


    using my teleport dependent weapons while i still canUnauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    well not the cannonball pistols


    those things make a lot of noise


    stealth game remember


    shardrifle is pretty quiet though


    slicey armblades and antswords also v stealth and v efficient in terms of ammo


    because they don''t use ammo


    well i mean big antswords need aggbys or they''re too heavy to lift


    but i don''t have any big antswords


    just sensible ones


    +armblades as mentioned


    so for right now killing ants is not so difficult as long as there are not many ants around


    so far there have not been many ants around


    although there have been a few acid ants


    i hate those guys


    melting my antswords


    also just slicing up regular ants isn''t a forever thing


    i got equipment degradation going on


    yep another thing to worry about. just add it to the pile. did you notice the pile. it is this enormous mountain behind me. teetering precariously. about to fall over and crush me. that is my. worry pile.


    good news is that i managed to make an antblood battery recharging device. so as long as i have fresh antcorpses to poke the thing into i can very slowly and inefficiently charge some of my stuff. like eyespider. i am also at least halfway to making antgutgem -> power converter. i don''t know if that one will work. but if it does i should be able to just plug antgutgems straight into heatdroneglove.


    man i bet the efficiency is going to be so bad


    better than running out of power though


    better than yelling WAVE MOTION FIREBALL BLAST and nothing happens


    how embarrassing would that be


    also shield does not like aggbys. so shield will not like antgutgems. telepower seemed like such a good solve at the time. but when ants eat biscuit fort they will also eat my antblood batteries and my telepower device.


    i guess at least i''ll know when my home is gone


    because my shield will suddenly fail and an ant will appear out of nowhere and jump on me instantly


    anyway


    need to find more parts and proper tools


    creating without a mareo is so flipping tedious. although also satisfying. out here everything has. weight.


    especially decisions


    i am not near the research lab. that is still. far. but i am pretty close to humanriverbase.


    humans love stuff


    but humans do not love it when you try to take their stuff


    but


    so close


    so convenient


    so tempting


    food. water. the things i need to keep this stupid inefficient body working. might even be teleportal parts in there. all my dreams could come true. in humanriverbase.


    so. keep heading for research lab and hope it''s still there and hope it has stuff i need and hope food and water last and hopehopehope


    or. infiltrate humanriverbase for loot and deal with angry humans yelling at me and also killing me


    or i guess. give up and go back and get eaten by a thousand ants


    man these choices suck

 turns out the real monsters were giant ants

    ants ate my power plant


    farewell once more


    laser shotgun


    we had fun


    but now


    bleg


    also


    antsiege is here


    bit bigger than last time


    came while i was out gathering numbers


    so now i can''t actually get back to biscuit fort


    which is


    problem


    power plant outpost already gone


    ants ate it


    most of my drones got eaten or just mangled


    toxic agro eyespiders did their best but just too many ants. just kept coming. should have made more eyespiders. at least you learned a life lesson huh jin. always make more eyespiders than you think you''ll need. that''s a keeper. you could embroider that one on a pillow.


    river outpost is still okay


    except it''s not really an outpost


    just a little box with a microteleport for water


    not for people


    never got around to upgrading


    maybe mistake


    so


    here i am


    camping inside tea room


    v sad place


    humans stole all my doilies


    who steals a doily


    who would do that


    at least i have secret biscuits


    nobody solved any of my puzzlesLove this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    so


    well


    just thinking


    should have decentralised


    especially weapons


    teleport ammo system is v convenient


    unless your base gets eaten


    then all your guns stop working


    not just guns


    all my stuff is there


    my precious mareo


    secret source of all my powers


    making things just by hand is so


    boring


    still have antswords. antblades on roboarm. heatglovedrone but without recharge limited fireballs available.


    everything dies


    entropy you rascal


    up to your old tricks


    so yep


    not doing so good over here


    at least i have minicomputer


    still have my weapons and shield and stuff


    ants haven''t actually eaten biscuit fort


    yet


    so well i don''t know just don''t want to go charging through thousands of ants. i mean it is crazy over there. don''t even know what direction they came from. assume suburbland. reaction to all those anthouses i destroyed.


    weird how they hit the power plant first


    especially when no ants even went near that place before


    almost like they knew i needed it. for laser shotgun. and backdoor teleportal to biscuit fort.


    did they know


    or did someone tell them


    and how. why. so many ants. where from? where were they hiding? just in houses i guess. lot of those in suburbland. underground too. all over the city. finally figured out i''m the biggest threat maybe. you got lazy jin. you stopped thinking. too distracted by humans.


    don''t really want to fight a thousand ants


    that sounds exhausting


    also don''t want to get more bits of myself eaten


    especially if i cannot make new improved parts


    like if an ant eats my knee


    and i cannot make a superknee


    then that''s just


    sad


    so


    so


    well okay let''s stop being pathetic and think a way through this mess. what is the actual problem here. what do i want to happen. well of course i want to defend biscuit fort. remove ants. no no. ants are fine as long as biscuit fort is okay. ants are good because ants discourage humans. but ants are bad because ants eat biscuit fort.


    jin you are just going in circles


    got to break through


    okay so if i could get into biscuit fort i could start defending properly. in a way that maybe doesn''t kill all the ants but which stops them from eating my home. use antcandy and buzzers and stuff. maybe make and deploy a few scrapbags if necessary. cannonball pistols so good for destroying massed enemies. fighting a thousand ants from inside feels more viable than trying to fight my way through them all from here. also even if it gets hopeless i can at least maybe teleport my best stuff out. like the mareo. really can''t lose that.


    okay


    so


    okay here''s a radical thought


    if i could make a new teleportal i could link it in to a portal in biscuit fort. i got the keys so syncing wouldn''t even be hard. doesn''t have to be a fancy teleport. and i am great at teleports. jin why do you always forget that. you don''t need a mareo. i mean how did you get it to begin with? did you use a mareo to make stuff? no of course not that''s a paradox. time travel was not involved. you made a teleport with your own two human hands because you had two human hands then and you teleported yourself inside that government research lab with nothing but your toolkit and you built another teleport there around the flipping mareo and then you teleported everything back to your treehouse. and the treehouse collapsed because mareos are heavy as flip but that''s not the point. they never caught you. probably still scratching their heads about it. how did this big heavy matter reorganiser just vanish? and where is most of the floor and part of a wall?


    early teleports were a bit


    indiscriminate


    anyway if i make this the thing then there is one question


    where can i find the bits to make a new teleport


    okay that''s a pretty big problem actually


    not like teleport parts grow on trees


    except the lemons of course


    i guess maybe that same government research lab


    back to the beginning


    not exactly in the neighbourhood


    way across the city


    through the unknown


    probably can''t get there before biscuit fort gets eaten


    but i don''t have any better ideas


    so


    here i go

 how did i even get here

    welp this game has turned into a survival simulator


    except it''s not simulation


    and it''s not fun


    suddenly all the numbers have meaning


    like i have two flasks of tea


    and when those run out


    well i won''t have anything to drink


    which is bad


    didn''t invent any kind of portable water filter thing did i


    nooooo


    invented an eyespider instead


    wait that''s a terrible example


    eyespider is amazing


    like even in my waterpoor state i would still not trade eyespider for waterfilter


    waterfilter so boring


    eyespider so good


    also useful for scouting etc which is good because this is also a stealth game


    death surrounds me


    in a literal sense


    i am hiding inside a hut made of antcorpses


    using my teleport dependent weapons while i still canStolen story; please report.


    well not the cannonball pistols


    those things make a lot of noise


    stealth game remember


    shardrifle is pretty quiet though


    slicey armblades and antswords also v stealth and v efficient in terms of ammo


    because they don''t use ammo


    well i mean big antswords need aggbys or they''re too heavy to lift


    but i don''t have any big antswords


    just sensible ones


    +armblades as mentioned


    so for right now killing ants is not so difficult as long as there are not many ants around


    so far there have not been many ants around


    although there have been a few acid ants


    i hate those guys


    melting my antswords


    also just slicing up regular ants isn''t a forever thing


    i got equipment degradation going on


    yep another thing to worry about. just add it to the pile. did you notice the pile. it is this enormous mountain behind me. teetering precariously. about to fall over and crush me. that is my. worry pile.


    good news is that i managed to make an antblood battery recharging device. so as long as i have fresh antcorpses to poke the thing into i can very slowly and inefficiently charge some of my stuff. like eyespider. i am also at least halfway to making antgutgem -> power converter. i don''t know if that one will work. but if it does i should be able to just plug antgutgems straight into heatdroneglove.


    man i bet the efficiency is going to be so bad


    better than running out of power though


    better than yelling WAVE MOTION FIREBALL BLAST and nothing happens


    how embarrassing would that be


    also shield does not like aggbys. so shield will not like antgutgems. telepower seemed like such a good solve at the time. but when ants eat biscuit fort they will also eat my antblood batteries and my telepower device.


    i guess at least i''ll know when my home is gone


    because my shield will suddenly fail and an ant will appear out of nowhere and jump on me instantly


    anyway


    need to find more parts and proper tools


    creating without a mareo is so flipping tedious. although also satisfying. out here everything has. weight.


    especially decisions


    i am not near the research lab. that is still. far. but i am pretty close to humanriverbase.


    humans love stuff


    but humans do not love it when you try to take their stuff


    but


    so close


    so convenient


    so tempting


    food. water. the things i need to keep this stupid inefficient body working. might even be teleportal parts in there. all my dreams could come true. in humanriverbase.


    so. keep heading for research lab and hope it''s still there and hope it has stuff i need and hope food and water last and hopehopehope


    or. infiltrate humanriverbase for loot and deal with angry humans yelling at me and also killing me


    or i guess. give up and go back and get eaten by a thousand ants


    man these choices suck

 jin donks up is a constant

    it may be time


    to accept the fact


    that my life


    is a spiral


    of terrible decisions


    i am not captured by humans


    but i am a bit


    trapped


    they know i''m here


    or at least that something is wrong


    because part of their base is


    well


    missing


    got a bit frisky with teleport stuff


    got a bit


    y''know


    impatient


    frustrated


    stupid


    didn''t have the right things. not even any lemons. had to improvise. apparently lemon flavoured powdered drink mix. is not. an acceptable. substitute. i mean i knew it wouldn''t be. i just got. pretty desperate actually.


    you don''t even need lemons to make a teleport


    haven''t made a lemonteleport for


    years


    i think my mind regressed to


    jin.past


    when i didn''t have a mareo


    and had to just make stuff up by myself


    it might be that i am actually not that smart. i am just good at using tools to make myself feel smart. things do the work. i just. watch.


    although i did build a teleport and a shield and all sorts of stuff just by myself


    i mean i did not have a mareo or really even proper tools back atThe author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    well anyway


    one thing it would have been good to invent is. stealth tech. invisibility cloak. hidingthing. i did make some basic noisyboys. useful for distraction. throw one at a place. ''hey what''s that noisyboy noise better go investigate''. guard ai is not good here. actually they don''t have guards. just. people. also managed to pull some ants towards the base. more than i wanted. became kind of a fun slapstick chase by the end. except without the fun. anyway humans got busy fighting the insects while i cut a little jinsized hole in their fence. tangly wire is no match for roboarm''s tinylasers. i knew those things would be useful. out of charge now. no antcorpses around. only. people. you can''t recharge from a peoplecorpse. and i don''t want to make. a personcorpse.


    so anyway


    here i am


    underground again


    inside a


    cupboard?


    no there''s probably a word for it


    like


    mopspace


    cleaninghole


    sealed the door with some stuff. nobody''s getting in. also nobody is getting out. so. yep. nice job trapping yourself in a closet there jin. a+ work. flawless execution.


    managed to make a drone out of some junk in here. vacuum cleaner mostly. one good thing about these humans. they are hoarders. think this might be. military base? military bunker? or just some rich guy was really into survivalism and the postapocalyptic grey green aesthetic. kind of feel like these guys are not actual military though. just little hints. like. i mean military guys can get agro. but they are. what''s the word. professionals. they got training and stuff. chain of command. these guys just kind of. run around. shouting. shooting. more shouting.


    anyway the drone is not useful. it can move very slowly forwards until it hits a wall and then it stops. look i didn''t have a lot to work with okay. i just made it because. i don''t know. drones. somehow comforting.


    i do have all my weapons. but. my brain is not. good. about thinking. kill human. probably unlocks some pretty bad stuff. congratulations on destroying a sentient being with hopes and dreams and a future they were probably looking forward to. you have unlocked. worstnightmares lvl 1. trauma lvl 27. you get a ton of trauma xp for killing a person. easiest way to grind towards special passive skill completementalcollapse.


    weapons still working. shield still working. ants have not eaten biscuit fort yet. kind of weird. i thought. well. i''m not. don''t know.


    let''s think of some positives anyway. i have tea. humans have good food supplies. i also have water. but no jug in here. no access to hotwater dimension. or tea dimension. should have prioritised those. and also possibly made like. lemonwater dimension. just for general hydration needs. you always think of the useful stuff when it''s too late.


    i don''t think anyone actually spotted me. just. well there''s that big missing bit of the base. teleport shenanigans. also i exploded a room with a cannonball. it was a moment of. panic. i thought someone was going to look at me. so i made something else for them to look at. humans love looking at explosions. it was a good distraction but a bad decision. i am judging it. neutral.


    so humans are in. high alert. hunting mode. danger zone. maybe not specifically looking for a small jin but of course as soon as anyone spots me the jig is up. ''oh you think that tinygirl covered in weapons and shields and with a robot arm and an ant arm and a eyepatch that flips up and underneath is a robot eye and half her face is chessboard patterns and with a cool scar, you think she might be connected to these superscience hijinks''


    maybe i should cover my hideously deformed body with a cloak or something. scuttling around with just a ragged cloak disguising my. mods. glance back. the gleam of a robot eye the only hint that something is. wrong.


    maybe i just want a cool cloak


    no cloaks in here though


    just like


    mops


    one useless drone


    one minicomputer


    one jin


    one stealthy little eyespider i could send out through that little vent thing up there that i only just spotted


    guess that''s something

 trapped myself in a cupboard and before i knew it i was doing chemistry and creeping on a human

    been here i think a day


    everything still working


    it is a mystery but a positive one


    like maybe ants are just leaving biscuit fort alone


    having a picnic around it


    is it possible that ants have been trying to be friendly this whole time. eating my arm was their way of getting to know me. acid ants the annoying cousins nobody likes. ants are not bad. they have different ways. respect ant culture. eat an ant''s leg.


    or maybe drones are just much better at defending things than i thought


    or maybe something else is going on


    i don''t know


    just


    my stuff still works so


    good


    figured out a battery thing from cleaning chemicals and leftover vacuum cleaner


    good enough for recharges


    for now


    also made a


    well i can''t really call it a toilet


    it is a bucket


    but chemicals make it


    lessgross


    i have also improved uselessdrone to be less useless. usedrone can now v slowly move forward until it bumps into a wall. and then v slowly melt that wall. yep our new good friend chemicals doing their magic. i guess the lesson we are learning is that chemistry is fun and profitable. once you figure out how to separate a thing into all the little bits of a thing everything just kind of falls into place. shout out to minicomputer for being a pal and telling me when doing a thing will kill me. all like ''uh jin i see you''re about to mix together some stuff'' and i''m like yeah we''re having fun here and computer''s like ''but jin that will create hydrazine'' and i''m like woo hydrazine yeah like a hydra gonna get some multiheaded snakes going on and computer''s like ''no jin it will just poison you and then explode'' and i''m like oh okay that doesn''t sound as fun as regenerating snake monsters. i will not mix the things. thank you computer.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    also worked on chemical heat. but then realised that i have so many heat things already. heatshield heater can get hot. heatdroneglove is fire element.  so i can boil water. so i can make tea. so. i made tea.


    you know something


    it''s not so bad here in cupboardland


    could use a few more facilities


    but generally


    feeling


    kind of


    well i mean getting out of here is the priority. but. eyespider stealthing around has learned me some knowledge. human hoarding activities mean they have whole rooms full of such junk. teleport potential is. medium-high.


    thus wallmeltingdrone. slowly melting a passage to bigjunkroom. better than walking among the humans.


    oh yes


    the humans


    kind of interesting to watch them


    there''s one i


    well anyway i call her badgegirl


    she has badges on her hat. she likes being ignored. she likes private time in her room. well her shared room. bunk beds. not much personal space in survivalbunker. so she puts a sheet hanging down. to make a little. private world. not private from eyespider in sneakspy mode. hehe. mostly she reads. or writes in a paper journal with an actual pen. so quaint. or fiddles with little repair projects. she works in a workshop thing. making bullets and also fixing vehicles and weapons and things. the human in charge of the workshop is. big. loud. i mean i do not have sound on this thing. but. loud. he gets too close to her. well to everyone. he gets close and is big and loud at them.


    makes me feel


    bad


    but not the human mood. watching through eyespider. with no sound. is. okay. but i want badgegirl to be. not. feeling bad. and workshop boss makes her feel bad. wait maybe he doesn''t. what do i know. she is. notme. so. what do i know. about. her.


    bored jin is messy jin i guess


    just can''t think of much else to do


    while waiting for wallmeltdrone. to melt wall. and get me. to precious. junk.


    already messed with chemicals. no more to be done there. superscience potential of cupboardland cleaning chemicals has been fully explored & exploited.


    so now just watching humans


    do human stuff


    badgegirl is in bed. writing in her journal. like i''m writing in my journal. huh. both doing the same thing. at the same time. weird.


    well except she is not spying on me with an eye that is a robot. that''s an important difference. also mostly i''m not writing. just perving on her. i think maybe


    huh


    oh no


    ants

 just so flipping tired

    thought humans could at least deal with some ants


    how hard is it to kill a giant ant


    not very


    in my experience


    but


    these humans are not doing so good. despite tanglyfence. thought it seemed like a good idea. maybe okay against small numbers. these are not small numbers. bulletguns can kill ants though. and vehicles can be. useful. i have seen humans deal with ants.


    but


    humans are dead. because of ants. ants that are here. because of me. because i needed distraction. so. so. not. dealing. well.


    wait though


    that was. past. days. different ants. haven''t been fighting this whole time. have they? no. they haven''t. they killed the ants i brought. distraction ants. so these are new ants. so this isn''t me. maybe not me. don''t know. badfeelings still here. reason cannot defeat feeling. badgegirl is. don''t know. eyespider hiding. watching. humans running around. defending. but. lots of ants. antsiege maybe or just. don''t know.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    still not dealing well


    like humans are not dealing well


    with all these insects


    teleport almost done. maybe. junkroom turned out to be. mostly junk. but. good junk. got syncing protocols running. touched biscuit fort portal. just have to. fiddle. wait. ignore. escape.


    or


    notignore


    everything still working. shield. weapons. biscuit fort still okay. why haven''t ants eaten it? makes no sense. or. are these ants. my ants? if it''s not. biscuit fort. then. is it. me?


    i don''t know what the flip is going on


    but


    i could. actually. help. humans. in this. situation. but. probably i would just get shot or something before helping. yes that''s the thing. i can''t leave junkroom. or cupboardland. humans are running around everywhere. i would be spotted. i would be. something. therefore i can''t help. oh well. back to teleport fiddling. yay yay.


    ah no brain do not give me another possibility


    do not do that


    computer you better not tell me


    well thanks computer. thanks fingers for typing in questions to computer. thanks brain for thinking of questions. all such pals.


    so. could probably teleport myself up above ground. with this teleport. i made. from junk. this junkport. instead of syncing to biscuit fort. but no. why waste teleport. to kill these ants for these nonsense mammals. so they don''t get eaten. leaving humans free to hassle me. as they have been doing. and will continue to do. they won''t appreciate this jin. you know that. they will shoot you in the back while you are actively helping them. there is no reward for this course of action. only penalties. consequences. badends.


    but also. maybe. humans don''t die.


    so


    so


    so.

 i blame myself and also giant ants but mostly humans

    can confirm that getting shot with a bullet from a gun is horrible


    especially when you are fighting a hundred ants


    to stop humans from getting eaten


    by a hundred ants


    and your shield is down


    because ants get bitey


    also lots of lightning ants


    remember those guys


    they''re back


    in giant form


    yes yes i know these are already giant ants. but these lightning ants were v chunky girls. easy to spot at least. aim a cannonball at the tall ones. good strategy. lightning explosion also satisfying. but bad for shields. high damage. need to raise lightning element resistance.


    well i mean that''s the least of my problems right now


    where to even flipping begin


    didn''t finish telling the getting shot story. so. i got shot. by a human. not a giant ant with a gun. if only. don''t know which human. i mean i am not a. revenge sort of person. i think. but. maybe that human. deserves some kind of. dunno. minor brain modification maybe. not sure what i want. for a human. who shoots me. in the back. while i am busily protecting them. i do not know the appropriate social response. mostly i just want that event to not have happened.


    well anyway


    i got shot. in the lung. also in the skin. also some bones got hit. and muscles. blood was involved. bodies are messy things. especially when they are. punctured. should have replaced more of my useless human skin with superior chitin. isn''t that always the way.


    don''t remember much. after. or before. lightning ant zapped me. cannonballed lightning ant. sliced regular ants with armblade x 3. fireballed more ants. noticed shield was down. got shot. died.


    didn''t die


    apparently bullets are survivable


    v happy to be unconscious during that time in my lifeUnauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    surgery involves so much touching


    internal touching


    no


    bad


    moving on


    hurts to move. hurts to breathe. no new lung. no robolung or antlung. ants don''t have lungs. weird compression system like accordions driven by movement. i did not get an accordion lung replacement. all i got was a hole.


    and a room


    private room


    well cell


    captured jin is sad jin


    took my guns. took my shield. took my heater. took scouter. took roboarm. kind of impressed they figured out how to remove it. but also v unimpressed that they stole my arm.


    eyespider still in skull


    eyepatch remains


    everything else gone


    all my toys and special friends


    minicomputer here. obviously. i am not writing this on a hallucination.


    or am i


    well if this is not a hallucination then they gave back minicomputer. i have tricked them into believing i am some kind of mute social cripple. by being a mute social cripple. the perfect disguise. they gave me a thing to write on. and i wrote a polite note asking for minicomputer. and i guess because i was so polite. they gave it to me. so i can write this.


    they also gave me new clothes. not like prisoner clothes. although i would have been pretty okay with that. black top with rainbow. black and white stockings. big bulky green coat with many pockets. all empty. blue bunny slippers. i like those. they also gave me bandages.


    i have been here for


    days?


    not sure


    no windows


    underground


    don''t know if biscuit fort is okay. probably not. never got around to linking computer in to stuff. i mean i can use minicomputer to talk to regularcomputer. but all that tells me is that regularcomputer has not been eaten. which is. good i guess. maybe it''s just computer sitting there in the middle of a thousand ants while they eat everything else. all my stuff. all my biscuits.


    well anyway


    humans are. mostly. leaving me alone. i mean they come and try to talk at me. which is. difficult. don''t know what to do. current strategy is. sit in corner. press ear against wall. use remaining hand to block other ear. wait until humans get bored. then resume regular sitting in corner functions. sometimes they come into room. check lunghole. change bandages. v stressful time in the life of a jin. possible opportunity for escape. if i could do anything but scream internally while humans


    nope


    door is solid. locked. no keyhole. not electronic. probably bolted from outside. little window that comes open. they give me food. sometimes biscuit. never tea. they took back all their tea. maybe i could ask for tea via writing slab thing. that could be a positive next step. but it would probably give them ideas. better not to communicate. communication can only lead to trouble. maybe shouldn''t have written polite note asking for minicomputer. could''ve gone full speak-write mute. but then i wouldn''t have minicomputer. and i wouldn''t be just about finished linking eyespider to minicomputer. so i can use eyespider to. do something. haven''t figured out that part yet. eyespider has no arms or hands. can''t really carry stuff. too tiny. too weak. maybe could balance something small on top? maybe not. can at least look around. that will make me feel better. maybe i will even feel more like communicating. if eyespider can just. walk around. don''t know. just. have to do something. sitting in a small room with nothing to do is not good for a sad scientist. it is actually the worst. there is no telling what a bored superscience individual will do. so. it is lucky i have eyespider. if i did not have eyespider i would probably


    well


    better not to think about that

 Oh, look at this. I can write in your journal. Hello, Jin.

    I got bored waiting for you. You''ve touched base with the ''computer'' here so I assume you''re alive. Where are you? Did you get those numbers you were after? Find a new scooter? Did that odd little brain of yours get distracted by something?


    Anyway, as I said I got bored. You could have just come back, you know. My bioforms wouldn''t have harmed you. I had a whole thing planned, I wanted to surprise you but, well, obviously that didn''t work out. Maybe my intentions were overly optimistic, how broken are you, exactly? How long has it been since you spoke to another person? Have you ever done that? I did a little digging, you know. You''re not from around here. War orphan, is that right? Probably part of that heinous post-war child shuffling scheme. Painful memories? Lasting trauma? Or maybe I''m thinking of a different Jin Alakija.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Wherever (and whoever) you are, you can come home. Your ''Biscuit Fort'' is safe. I left a few guardians around but they won''t be a bother. Not to you, anyway. Once you''re comfortably settled I''ll make time to drop in for a visit. Or maybe you''d prefer to come visit me? I can send an escort. Your choice. We should meet, though. I think we have a lot to discuss. ''Superscience genius girl'' to ''superscience genius boy''.


    Yours in good faith,


    with apologies for the intrusion,


    Dr. Lucas Bedford

 what

    what


    what


    what


    what


    no but


    what


    someoneIf you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    no


    what


    can''t deal


    reading this?


    but


    but


    what?


    seriously though


    what the flip is going on


    how am i supposed to deal with this nonsense. what is. how. i mean. how much. junk. is going to just. get piled up. on me. before i just. collapse.


    trick. tricking me. humans here. put something in minicomputer. cracked my crappy security. i mean what security. didn''t exactly expect anyone to just. well anyway. doesn''t matter.


    superscience genius boy


    who made


    bioforms


    if it isn''t a trick. if someone attacked biscuit fort. and went in. and just. what. sat there waiting. and then got bored. and wrote. things. and. invented giant ants.


    he did all this


    don''t know how to


    need to


    think

 a journal entry just for me and no one else because who else would it be for

    badgegirl is alive


    so


    well


    that''s something


    think maybe doctor ant is not the only one reading this journal. i mean. i don''t really. care. it''s just. stuff. words. compulsive brainunload because computer kept telling me to do it. ''hey jin you better write something or talk to someone because otherwise parts of your brain are going to literally die'' and all that. and i mean. computer is usually right. so. journal. that humans. have read. i guess. because otherwise how do they know i something badgegirl. no one else. just her. and she is not. talkgoodperson. not first choice for. interrogator. negotiation role. maybe in theory it seems like a good idea. send the socially deficit person to communicate with the socially deficit person. well no actually even in theory that is clearly a terrible idea with obvious flaws. socially deficit people are socially flipping deficit and two negatives do not make a positive.


    i mean nontalker and nontalker does not somehow magically create talk


    how is that not


    so obvious


    well anyway. it could be worse. nontalky person is better than talky person. badgegirl doesn''t even look at me. i still don''t feel good. about human. near. but. badgegirl is better than. otherhuman.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    anyway she is not here now


    i am alone


    thinking about bunker construction. secret research workshop is of course on lowest level. basic survival bunker base architecture. you do not need to be a superscience individual to figure out this junk. that is where my stuff is. right humans? do not fiddle too much. teleports are not. fiddle friendly. humans do you hear me. do you read my words. leave. teleports. alone.


    also disregard stuff about escaping


    that was just a joke


    haha


    oh and eyespider is a delusion. my eye cannot really come out of my head and walk around. what a ridiculous idea.


    is this pointless


    why am i still writing


    should be making up distraction stuff. falseleads. to cover my real plan.


    or is that actually what i am doing


    right


    now


    you will never know. humans. until it is too late.


    that was another joke


    you are learning that i am secretly hilarious


    btw if you see a little eyesized spider thing scuttling around you are hallucinating. don''t worry. benign. ignore.


    if i did have an eyespider though i am sure that it would be making me feel better. to be able to walk around. and look at things. i am also sure that the eyespider would have no weapons and be no threat to anyone. it would just be a harmless cute little thing that could maybe stop a superscience genius girl from falling apart mentally. and maybe it would make her feel better about talking. if she could have that eyespider.


    this is all theoretical of course


    eyespiders don''t exist


    what an idea


    i am just a strange girl with a wild imagination


    but i am starting to feel


    like maybe


    well anyway


    i can''t help but notice that nobody has brought me tea


    oh what a shame


    that i have no tea


    gosh wouldn''t it be great if someone brought me tea


    that would make me feel more positive generally


    and specifically towards the humans who gave me tea


    just saying


    just talking to myself in my journal here


    not like anyone else is going to read this


    wink

 somebody made a mistake and it might have been me

    badgegirl is back


    she brought tea for me


    and she didn''t talk at all


    not even one word


    now she is sitting outside


    without looking at me


    badgegirl is


    well anyway


    tea time


    oh wow condensed milk and everything


    well lah dee dah


    look at the queen of the castle here


    sipping her sweet milky tea


    no badgegirl no do not ruin this moment by talking


    too late. she talked. waited until teatime. my most receptive mood. so cunning. i must respect.


    not sure what to do now though


    i can actually talk


    i mean you have to be able to use voice if you want to sing along with songs


    or mutter to yourself while fiddling with teleportsIf you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    muttering v important part of superscience process


    everyone knows that


    but


    well


    maybe i will just write out some stuff


    that seems


    safe


    so


    here i go i guess


    to: badgegirl


    it is difficult to say this


    and please note that i still do not want you to talk to me or look at me and especially not touch me


    but


    your tea creation skills are appreciated


    and i like your badges


    and your silence


    but when you do talk


    your voice does not make me want to scream except i can''t scream i can''t do anything


    which is what happens when most humans talk to me


    your voice just makes me feel like rats are inside me and trying to eat their way out


    trust me that is better than usual


    so take the compliment


    also


    i apologise for rendering you and every human in this bunker temporarily unconscious


    it''s not personal


    well except for that one human who shot me


    it''s a little bit personal for them


    anyway i have more to say


    but first


    to: notbadgegirl humans


    you leave a lot of chemicals just lying around your bunker


    might want to look at that


    also when you take someone prisoner


    make sure that one of their eyes is not an eyespider


    also do not give the prisoner their minicomputer back


    with a v obvious keylogger on it


    at least try to hide that nonsense


    oh and also do not read their journal without permission


    and if you do read their journal do not believe everything that is written there


    especially do not believe your prisoner when they say things like how letting them walk their eyespider around might make them better and more communicative and etc


    this is great advice i am giving you so please appreciate


    the next person you capture might be more


    y''know


    murderish


    oh yes also do not believe a superscience genius girl when she says that she did not give her eyespider hands


    of course i flipping well gave my eyespider hands


    what do you think i am


    stupid or something


    anyway


    enough of you


    to: badgegirl again


    you will probably have a headache when you wake up


    i have left a headache cure near you


    nobody else gets the cure


    so you can feel special about that


    thank you for the tea


    i am going to steal half your condensed milk before i leave


    just fyi


    okay


    bye

 not thinking about things is the greatest luxury and the ideal we all seek

    right


    well


    back at biscuit fort


    home sweet home


    except it feels


    different


    someone else has been here. doctor ant. probably not even a real doctor. poking around. made a hole in my wall. fixed it now. with a boring wall fixing device. drone stocks are low. haven''t made more. not sure why.


    lots of ants around biscuit fort. just regular giant ants. ignoring me. but the ones across the river. close to human bunker. did not ignore me. so. some complicated stuff going on there i''m sure.


    removed keylogger from minicomputer. bunker humans can no longer read my journal. v rude i must say. is nothing private in this modern postapocalypse.


    haven''t heard from doctor ant again. not sure what that whole situation is. i think what happened is. he came here. found computer. read journal entries stored on computer. wrote journal entry on computer. then left. so. what next. he said about meeting. of course that is a ridiculous nonsense idea. but he is probably controlling giant ants. so there could be. some kind of. thing.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    but


    the big problem is that giant ants enjoy eating humans. and he can make giant ants. noteat humans. but he is not doing that. he is just letting giant ants eat humans. so. doctor ant is. bad. right? if you make giant ants. and make them enjoy eating humans. and take giant ants to a place with humans. then that is. extremely antisocial.


    i thought at least giant ants were a simple problem


    but it turns out it''s just more humans donking stuff up


    at least i am safe for now. still have lunghole. hey you know what is not fun when you have a lunghole? moving and breathing. guess what i had to do a heap of to get back home. anyway. working on a thing. probably a robolung is. impractical. but maybe i got something cooking. also have to work on a new weapon. something with non teleport ammo.


    have to assume it was doctor ant behind power plant destruction


    didn''t want me to have laser shotgun


    i mean fair enough that thing is op as flip


    still though


    doctor ant must be viewed as


    problematic


    therefore


    new weapon


    i have a human bulletgun here. took it from their base. also took one of their vehicles. but. crashed it into river. let''s not talk about that. human bulletgun has some interesting design features. i think i can use this stuff. new chemistry skill levels also probably helpful. visit to human bunker was. overall. a mixture. ups and downs. swings and roundabouts.


    probably the best thing about the experience


    taken as a whole


    is that i never have to think about it again


    forward to the future jin


    forward to the future

 do not question my commitment to accordion motion

    new lung is not actually a lung


    had a look and decided


    this is extraneous


    who needs two of these things


    i''ll just make the good lung twice as powerful


    take out this damaged one


    and put in like


    a cupboard


    no wait it''s a chest


    a chest chest


    i can store secret things in there


    like minicomputer''s little brother


    tinycomputer


    had to take out a few bones and things but eh


    bones am i right


    those things barely do anything


    antweb based reinforcing lattice structure is way more efficient and practical. also turns out accordion motion antlung substitutes have some pretty efficient oxygenation stuff going on. first time doing major organ stuff but i only technically died for like three minutes consecutively and seventeen altogether which isn''t that much really. over the course of a lifetime. probably good for you. give the whole system a bit of a rest. bit of a reset. a little technical death never hurt anyone. drones v helpful for this kind of thing btw. don''t perform self surgery without a backup team of robots is my advice. when you''re in the middle of fiddling around inside yourself and you suddenly die it''s definitely helpful to have a robot there to just be like whoops better bring her back to life. because if you don''t have that then how are you gonna do anything? you can''t, is the answer.


    kind of babbling there. been a bit lightheaded lately. had a few blackouts. couple of random fugue states. probably just ptsd or something. not to worry.


    anyway while i was fiddling around with lung and respiration stuff i did think about fully converting to anaerobic respiration but. kind of a hassle. breathing is pretty. y''know. convenient. oxygen is everywhere. so i just shoved like a backup thing in there. just in case oxygen suddenly becomes. not everywhere. i don''t know. i mean i was messing around in that area anyway. so yeah. superlung. chest chest. backup anaerobic plugin that should keep me going for like ten minutes or so if oxygen isn''t available.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    feeling pretty good to just be doing some solid superscience again. self surgery much more fun than. the other kind. did a bit more chitinskinning while i was mucking around. covered up my back and sides mostly. really flipping itchy but well. hopefully that''ll pass.


    in weapon news yeah i got a thing happening. it''s pretty bulky. managed to get the weight down with some antweb tech. don''t have any left now but. well. it''s worth it to have a weapon that doesn''t rely on biscuit fort being here. kind of mixed together all the stuff i learned from all my weaponing. uses chitinshards for ammo. but bigger than the other ones. bigger to hold explosive cannonball mixture. so the shards explode. getting stuff to actually shoot out of the thing was an issue for a bit. bulletguns use chemical reactions but. well. initial experiments in that direction just resulted in the whole gun exploding. not exactly what you want in a combat situation. so i tapped into some teleportal pocket dimension stuff and got this air pressure vacuum situation happening where the explodoshard kind of gets sucked out the front of the gun. it''s hard to explain but it works really well. makes this fun noise. like. shwoop. fiddled with different stuff for getting a new shard up ready to get sucked out but. well that''s a pretty tricky part of a weapon to be honest. like you can shoot one ammo or whatever. but getting that next ammo ready takes some work. human bulletgun uses this weird springloaded bulletcatch thing. seems pretty. janky. i mean it works. but. i just don''t like it. instead i whacked a drone inside the thing. a little one. with tinyhands. and the drone''s job is just to put an explodoshard in the void chamber if it is empty. drone can hold. many shards. and can replace them. quickly.


    so now i got a big chunky explodoshard rifle that does not rely on teleports or on biscuit fort. it does need a pretty constant supply of antgutgems and antbits but well the only thing i use weapons for is to make antcorpses so. the problem solves itself. also explodoshards are 100% organically sourced from all natural antcorpse farming. no external materials necessary. every ant can make. like. hundreds of explodoshards. and it only takes one or two explodoshards to kill an ant. unless i miss a lot. in which case it can take. more. but anyway you can see the economic efficiency in play here.


    one nice surprise from computer. once again past jin told computer to do something and present jin has no memory of past jin''s actions but is reaping the rewards. anyway it cracked the mareo copy protection drm nonsense so now i can make another mareo. except i can''t because mareos need a bunch of weird stuff. who would have thought a matter reorganiser could be so complicated. well anyway the practical application means i can make an ammofactory. in my gun. i just need to feed it antbits and antgutgems and it makes more ammo automagically. so self sufficient. so satisfying. decorated the gun with sparkly purple glitterpaint and also rainbow decals. rainbows are my new thing i have decided. because i like this top the humans gave me. with a rainbow on it. even changed my facechitin to be rainbowed. instead of black and white. is that some kind of statement. is that. symbolic. no. i just like rainbows now. so anyway both my face and explodoshard gun are v style.


    haven''t gone out with it yet


    feel weird about shooting ants that aren''t actively trying to eat me


    but i mean


    it''s just a matter of time. right? doctor ant isn''t keeping these things around my base to help me. it''s like. i don''t know. some kind of standing threat. all like. yeah he can make these ants not eat me. demonstrably true. but that also means he can make them. eat me.


    so


    better to just kill them all before problems happen


    the jin method of trouble prevention


    and oh how convenient


    what a coincidence


    i just happen to have a big fun new gun i want to test out


    hehehe