So,” I began, “I think I want to start with the oldest and work my way to the youngest. Daniel, aren’t you older than David?” Go get the other boys,” I said to her quietly. If they looked anything like their brother Tyler, I wanted to see them. “Then bring them to his house.” I nodded in Lester’s direction. “Lester, please tell Karen how to get to your home.” Smiling at the older man, I then entered the dressing room.

The following night was spent in an Albuquerque hotel. As I was entering my room, the door down the hall opened and a mother with her three kids exited, the three youngsters dressed in swimwear and the mother clearly taking them to the indoor pool. The youngest and oldest were boys and, as the four passed, I reached out with catlike reflexes and touched each of them. The mother and daughter went to the pool. Skyler and Dylan followed me into my room for the night. Lobelia produces masses of small purple or blue blooms from June through to September and in my garden, I saw it spread to around 35cm. I think it’s the perfect choice for summer hanging baskets, tubs and troughs where it can spill over the edges. My time with Liam did help me get over my concerns about the philosophical and moral implications of my actions, though. There was something about a hot piece of boy-ass that grounded me in the real and allowed me to let go of those airy and ephemeral objections. It is in no way presumptuous of me to say that I am the single most influential human to have ever lived. Years later, I had a team try and figure out exactly what had happened. They couldn’t. To this day, it remains a mystery exactly how everything went down and thus I have no real explanation for how I ended up with the powers I now wield. How I became the Ant King.To tell the truth, I have no idea how long I sat there in the silence and the darkness. A second? A minute? A year? No way to know. What I do know is that, at some point, the red light began to grow once more and I heard the low rumble of sound begin to fill my ears. Only, the sights and sounds around me were... wrong. It’s all good, Theo. Just watching other boys who’ve gone through what you're going through. Having a bit of fun. Having a ton of fun, actually.” WHAT?

My worries were for not. My grandmother’s screen door was already open when I arrived at her home and, after announcing myself, I was swarmed by two aunts, an uncle, two cousin’s in their twenties who lived in south Florida, several of my grandparents elderly friends, the next door neighbor couple who had helped take care of my grandfather over the previous few weeks, and my startled but incredibly grateful grandmother. My mother arrived several hours later, as did a second uncle and a few other adult cousins. By the end of the night, my colony had grown to twenty drones and I knew, as I closed my eyes to sleep, it could grow much much bigger. I think the best part of that last thought is the desperation of humanity. They sort of know that things are ending for them - their time in the universe as "masters" is coming to an end and all that will be left is a slave race used for their seed. Fleets destroyed. Communications lost with outlying colony worlds. Terrified reporters and experts telling the public to remain calm while everyone knows the government is powerless to stop the ever increasing raids. Parents, their minds under extreme stress, gathering their families together and heading towards raids so that they could all get scooped up at the same time and be "together" for the end.Young boys venture out from the sheltered safety of their homes to explore the mysterious lands of Lapras otherworld.

What’s the wealthiest neighborhood you know of?” I asked a cabbie outside just after I touched him.Just as I was about to leave his mind and give him what he wanted, a stray impulse had me pausing. Taking a minute, I closed my eyes and began to explore his mind once again; a feeling of dread washing over me as I did. In the Milkmen-controlled parts of Terra, all teachers have to be approved by the Milkmen leadership, and principals are often just Milkmen agents making sure that the curriculum is appropriately perverse and sexual, staffing the school nurse, janitor, and groundskeeper from the local sex offenders registry. Tony was my drone, now, and was mine to command. Through the simple act of touch, he would do anything I wanted him to do without questions or hesitation. I was his King. I was his God. And I knew all about him - his life story, his ATM pin, his favorite movies. Our hands parted and Tony smiled at me. “Well… Anyway, thanks. I’ll return it in a bit.” This afternoon? I can't take another one this afternoon Nurse Bradshaw! Please, don't do it again! It was too intense!" Of course, most boy scouts aren't actually members of their own volition. Parents usually pay local administrations to take troublesome children away on a 'summer scheme' retreat into the woods to learn about life in Terra, eagerly signing a waiver which states that the administration is not at fault if the boy goes missing or meets with an unfortunate fate in the middle of the woods. Towns may also shove asylum seekers or orphans into the scouts if they're young enough. If they go missing, well, one less mouth to feed. If they survive, then they're a valuable asset to the town.

I immediately called my mom and gave her my condolences. She was weepy and sad, the loss hitting her hard. Grandpa Pete was a great dude who had been a wonderful father to her and my aunts and uncles. The last few years had been tough, I knew, because his health had declined so rapidly. Over the past few weeks, I had heard through the family, Grandpa Pete had become incredibly ill with the flu and hospice had even been called a few days earlier. But while those folks all changed the world around them, I altered the very nature of the human experience. He nodded, looking much wiser than any fourteen year old had the right to look. “You’re not. I promise you, you’re not. Now that we are your drones, we want what you want. Period. End of discussion. It’s the biological peritive.”The other twin nodded as if this was the most natural thing in the world. “I can do that,” he replied, grinning at his brother. Pete, my thirteen year old brother, was about to start eighth grade and the latter half of the summer was filled with him strutting around the house like the soon-to-be big-man-on-campus he thought he was. It was funny, actually, and I teased him about it pretty regularly. Wiltmore Middle School, where I had been big-man-on-campus years earlier, had a pretty close-knit student body in part because there was slightly less than one hundred kids split between the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades and in part because the school was a very respectable private institution flushed with well-to-do families. Cheyenne was not a huge town by any stretch of the imagination and Wiltmore was generally well regarded within the community for it’s academic prowess.