Notes from the Mad Science Lab: Ants and their uncles

I opened the testing room this morning, and found that those meteorite samples I've been testing have mutagenic properties. At least, that seems the most likely explanation for why the ants had broken out of the ant farm and grown to enormous size.

I suppose I should clarify that. After all, I'm not talking about anything on the order of my wooly spider-mammoths. Still, a mutant pseudo-ant the length of my arm is impressive in its own right.

Their size isn't really a problem, though. Nor is the impressive strength of their exoskeletal body structures. No, the real problem was that they've been cannibalizing the rest of the testing room... and building something in the open area down at the far end. I can't be sure of what it is, but it appears to be some sort of hyperwave communicator powered by a rather neat little cold-fusion reactor.

I'm really torn. On the one hand, I'd like to give them a chance to finish, so I can see what they're trying to build. Destroying them now could be an incalculable loss to the cause of science. On the other hand, I'm looking at a group of ants that have been given inhuman intelligence by an extra-terrestrial source in order build an alien communication device. That never ends well.

Hm. It seems they're preparing to connect the reactor to the communicator. Time to put an end to this. We'll start with chlorine gas... there.

Now to suck the atmosphere out of the room completely. Even if they survived the chlorine, the void should kill them.

There we go. The screen is clearing, the ants are dead, and... oh, my. It seems they were more intelligent than I realized. As they felt themselves dying, they arranged their bodies to spell out an obscenity on the floor. This may very well be even more of a historical event than I realized: not only can I now examine their devices, but I may very well be the first man in history to be cussed out by alien pseudo-insects.