“I don’t like it.” Gina told me. She was walking critically around the grand chamber. I had several of my models out for display. “This looks unnatural.”

I looked towards Queen Bitey. “Help me out here?” I begged her.

“No, Gina is right.” Queen Bitey told me. “This is an abomination.”

“But it’s so cool looking.” I replied. “Look, the hands or the graspers; hold the mana gun like this.” The small model moved at my words. The model fired small blasts into the chamber.

Little pops followed as dust settled in the air.

Pew pew pew.

“How cool is that?” I asked.

“Warriors need to smash their enemies with their graspers.” Gina explained. “This feels wrong. Unnatural.”

“Well, these antauri can also handle weapons.” I tried again. “The graspers make them more versatile. We need a ranged option. We won’t always be able to get close to our enemies.”

“What else do you have?” Queen Bitey asked me. “You never have just one thing going on.”

I sighed. Queen Bitey knew me so well.

“Okay.” I sighed. I brought out another design. I wasn’t as fond of these ones as I was the antauri. If I was being truthful it was because I couldn’t come up with a cool name for them. I must never tell Bitey this.

“Right.” I began to explain. “These ones still retain all six legs. No graspers. But it comes with a turret.”

A new ant model walked in. It was jet black. Light glimmered across its shell. Attached to the middle of the thorax was a gun emplacement.

“Of course the real one is much bigger.” I explained. “The ant carries a gunner. Between the ant and the gunner, they should carry quite a punch. I have accessories for a high rate of fire and slower but harder hitting.”

There was now another ant on the table. One ant had a gatling gun like emplacement. The other had a single barrel cannon.

“Gina, I thought your Gi-ants could take on this responsibility.” I told Gina.

“Why didn’t you lead with this?” Gina asked. “These are glorious weapons, fit for a queen.”

“I didn’t have a cool name.” I replied. “I really liked the antauri.

Queen Bitey turned towards the giant wooden head. “Tree, is there a reason you couldn’t just make both types?”

I thought about it for a while. “Not really.” I finally said. “I think the bottleneck would be you. You’re the one laying all the eggs. At the very least, the first batch has to be laid by you.”

It was Queen Bitey’s turn to be silent. “I don’t like being an egg machine. Also it takes time to switch between types of eggs. It's not like flipping a switch, you know.”

“What if we had sub-queens that handled each different type of ant in the nest?” I asked.

“Tree, Tree, Tree.” Queen Bitey told me. “There can only be one queen in the nest at a time.”

“But you would be the mega queen or something.” I wheedled. “You would still be in charge.”

“Let me think on this.” Queen Bitey told me as she left.

“How about you Gina?” I asked. “You want the new weapons and weapon-ants?”

Gina finally nodded.

“Alright.” I said. My day was looking up.

I went back to my tinkering.

Well, I meant I went back to looking up into the blue sky and greedily sipping down all the solar mana I could get my hands on. I liked watching the clouds being tossed about by the winds. Now it was even more hypnotic. I could see the mana currents generated by the winds. It was interesting to watch wind and water mana mix together and swirl about.

I was distracted by Kendra coming down into the gallery. I wondered why she just didn’t talk to me in her apartment.

“Sup. Kendra.” I greeted her. “What can I do you for?”

Kendra seemed a little anxious. “I just got back from talking with Keeley.” She began. “Would you like to know what she told me?”

“I really don’t like playing twenty questions Kendra.” I said. “Just spit it out.”

“I am pregnant.” Kendra said.

I was silent. I knew about the birds and bees. But I didn’t recall seeing Kendra having anyone over. Must have happened while I wasn’t paying attention.

“Uh, congratulations.” I told her.

“Wanna guess what else?” Kendra asked.

I knew this was going to be bad. No good ever comes from a woman asking leading questions.

“No.” I replied flatly.

“Keeley says I am not the only one.” Kendra went on. “In fact, every female in this camp is pregnant.”

“Huh.” I said. “That’s weird.”

“Did you do something Tree?” Kendra asked with a dangerous edge to her voice.

“No.” I said. “Nothing in particular. I’ve been making mana guns, flying boats. Bigger better ants. You know the usual.”

“I don’t know.” Kendra said. “I have my eye on you. Everyone being pregnant at the same time is more than a little inconvenient.”

“Look.” I said. “I’ll have Gina step up her security patrols. Maybe there is a sneaky fucker running around. We’ll figure it out.” I assured Kendra.

“You’d better.” Kendra said as she stormed out.

Yikes. This day suddenly took a turn for the worse.