BUGS

When Comet C-103 Atlas/Rahi passed within one hundred thousand miles of Earth, it granted stargazers a rare, special treat. The Comet’s path took it between the Earth and the Moon, and had a strange, iridescent glow. Its tail shone with a peculiar greenish blue hue, and was close enough to our planet to interact with our atmosphere.

People and partiers gathered on rooftops with binoculars, telescopes and hot cocoa. Influencers live-streamed. Amateur astronomers expounded with self-proclaimed authority. News anchors used words like spectacular and once in a lifetime, their smiles bright as polished chrome.

For three nights the sky shimmered, as if someone had gently shaken a snow globe the size of the Moon. The Comet, which was traveling at over a million miles per hour in relation to the Earth, left a streak across the sky that persisted for several weeks. In fact, satellites and ground-based sensors detected residue from the Comet penetrating the atmosphere and settling within the oceans and on land.

The world’s scientists were abuzz about the rare celestial treat, but several expressed their concern. Little is known about the origin of comets, and many astrophysicists suspect they contain numerous heavy and exotic elements, perhaps some that are unknown on the Earth.

Bob Landry and his wife sat quietly in their back yard, sipping lemonade and fanning themselves from the sweltering humidity. The sun, as usual for this time of the year, blazed mercilessly.

It was a somnolent, lazy Sunday morning in Huntsville, Alabama, and Bob deserved a day of rest and relaxation. After all, his position as associate director of U.S. Space Command and the founder of the Center for the Detection of Approaching Celestial Objects (CDACO) was a rather intense position.

Bob’s wife, Sally, sat back on her lounge chair, and while sipping her icy concoction, made an observation.

“Hey, Bob, have you noticed that there are no bugs flying around? We’ve been sitting here for over two hours, and I haven’t seen one fly or June bug.”

“You know, now that you mention it, you’re right. Look at the ground. Not even an ant. That’s really weird, especially considering how hot and humid it is.”

Just then, Bob’s phone rang.

“Bob, it’s John Ackerman over at CDACO. Sorry for bothering you on a Sunday, but we’ve had a bunch of unusual readings on our monitors that I thought I should run by you.”

“Sure thing, John. What’s going on?”

“Well, first of all, our ground-based sensors continue to detect quite a bit of exotic residual from that comet that passed by a few weeks ago. It’s not registering as a known isotope or molecule. The substance has a chemical signature that is similar to ribonucleic acid, but with unusual elements and associated moieties. It resembles a viral genome, but like nothing we’ve seen before.

Secondly, our satellites are picking up several very unusual atmospheric structures over the oceans. There doesn’t appear to be a significant barometric change, so it’s not related to storms or hurricanes. They appeared to consist of particulate matter, formed in huge circles, well-defined, each measuring hundreds of miles in diameter. One of the formations over the Pacific Ocean measures approximately 1000 miles in diameter. There are five total structures over the Pacific, three over the Atlantic, two over the Indian Ocean, and one over the Baltic Sea, mostly stationary. There are also smaller structures forming over numerous lakes throughout the world.

When we realized that these findings were not related to storm activity, we ran a special scan from our thermal imaging satellites. This may seem kind of crazy, but it looks like these structures are alive.”

Bob sprung up in his lounge chair, his brow furrowing.

“John, when you say that they’re alive, what does that mean?”

“We don’t know yet, although I’m really concerned about it. We have several planes on their way to get an up-close view and some samples. I’ll call you as soon as we have any additional information.”

Bob sat for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. He then picked up the phone again and called his friend, a beekeeper in Florida.

“Hi, David. It’s Bob. Quick question. How are your bees doing?”

David was quick to answer.

“It’s funny you should ask. My bees are gone. I came out this morning and the hives were empty. Not a bee in sight.”

“I’m afraid that’s what I expected. OK, Dave, I’ll let you know if we figure this out.”

Realizing the potential impact of all these events, Bob drove to CDOCA headquarters. By the time he arrived, his entire team had been alerted and were already at their desks and monitors. He immediately received a full briefing, which included reports from numerous scientific stations and entomologists from across the globe.

One scientist from Ohio who studied the mathematics of murmuration and swarm logic reported that her lab colony of ants had begun to demonstrate collective behavior. Where the ants usually flowed along invisible highways, they now stood still. Thousands of them formed a perfect circle around the colony entrance. Not milling about or foraging. Waiting.

When she touched the soil near the entrance to the nest, antennae lifted in unison and pivoted towards her finger like a field of microscopic radar dishes.

A ripple passed through them. Not movement, but alignment.

A scientist from Kenya reported: Locusts grounded. Just sitting on crops, all facing in the same direction. A forum thread exploded with posts about silent crickets, motionless flies, dragonflies clinging to reeds like ornaments, but oriented similarly. Footage poured in. Termites leaving mounds. Beetles emerging from bark. Moths peeling off porch lights and flying in formation.

One entomologist reported that his research indicated that there was likely to be the emergence of all the prior known species of cicadas simultaneously within the subsequent week, comprising upwards of 100 quadrillion individuals.

A pattern overlaid the planet.

By noon, the world’s background noise had thinned.

No buzz at the window. No chirr in the grass. No hum in the air.

Bob placed a conference call to the heads of NORAD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Military, the Secretary of War, and FEMA. His initial discussion was simply to report the findings at hand. However, during the phone call, his assistant interrupted to tie in the pilot of one of the interceptor planes approaching a structure over the Pacific Ocean.

The radio communication crackled. “This is Captain Daniel Bosworth, aviator call sign Scorpio, piloting E-2 Hawkeye A-840 over the Pacific, approximately 300 miles west of California. We are at the edge of the disturbance and have visual contact. The structure appears to consist of a thick cloud of large hornets, horseflies, locusts, and other flying insects. The structure is extremely dense, almost totally blacked out. Flying is difficult due to ongoing impacts against our windshield, producing a thick slime. We cannot fly into the structure as our engines would become overwhelmingly clogged with biomass. The bugs appear to be unusually large, at least 10 times the normal size. We were able to harvest a sample with our external collection tubes. We will be returning to base shortly.”

Bob thought for a moment, then said, “Gentlemen, I think we need to include the White House on this call.”

Within 30 seconds, the President and his aides were brought into the conversation.

“Mr. President, this is Bob Landry, the director of CDACO. Included on this call are the director of NORAD, the Secretary of War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Military, and the director of FEMA. Mr. President, there is an impending global emergency occurring that, unfortunately, we do not yet truly understand. We have reports coming in from all over the world that something very dramatic has changed within the global insect population.”

The President opined, “This all seems impossible. How could this be happening?”

Bob answered, “Honestly, Mr. President, we don’t know yet, but I believe this may represent an impending attack.”

The President asked, “An attack? By bugs? A coordinated attack. But they’re just bugs. How could they coordinate anything?”

Bob stated perfunctorily, “Mr. President, I wish I knew the answer to that. But that’s what the data seems to indicate.”

Based on what they had heard, and so as not to precipitate nationwide panic, the White House issued an advisory that, due to a geomagnetic storm, until further notice, everyone should stay indoors and not go outside unless absolutely necessary. But nothing to be overly concerned about.

About an hour later, the European Space Agency noticed through thermal satellite imaging faint, shifting heat signatures across continents, thin filaments radiating toward cities. The data looked like vascular maps, with capillaries feeding larger and larger vessels.

Soon after that, NORAD satellites and telescopes indicated the “structures” over the oceans had started to move toward land, all in different directions, but accurately to encompass the most densely populated areas.

At dawn, the attacks began.

Joggers in Chicago stumbled as swarms of stinging beetles and fire ants engulfed them, climbing up their legs with unsettling coordination, targeting eyes, nostrils and mouths.

A farmer in India disappeared beneath a churning carapace tide.

In Sydney, wasps abandoned their papery fortresses and converged on open air markets, stinging in precise repeated strikes at any exposed areas.

The “structures” finally reached the shores of six continents, hundreds of miles wide and at least 5 miles high, the blanket so dense that it blotted out the sun.

The land became as dark as midnight but there was no letup in the ferocity of the attacks.

Waves of giant horseflies rocketed through the streets, descending upon any hapless individual who had not heeded the warnings. Windows became a target for winged palmetto bugs, slamming into the glass until it shattered into a million shards, opening a path for stinging flies and yellow jackets.

The attackers targeted infrastructure. Tidal waves of grasshoppers and locusts purposely flew into electrical transformers, knocking out power.

Hordes of trillions of gnats and June bugs hunted for car transmissions, factory machinery, agricultural and farming equipment, and communication towers.

The world’s scientists watched models form in real time. Swarm intelligence normally emerged from simple rules. This was different. Global synchronization. Role differentiation. Sacrificial waves that tested defenses so later waves could exploit gaps.

A planetary brain with a quintillion jointed tendrils.

The military response was swift and spectacular and useless. Flamethrowers turned sidewalks into sizzling carpets that simply rerouted. Pesticide clouds drifted over fields where grasshoppers lay flat until the mist passed, then rose again like reanimated flying darts. Ultrasonic devices triggered momentary pauses, not retreat, as if the swarm were recalculating.

They were not enraged.

Something had clicked.

Not a mind inserted from outside, the scientists realized. More like a lock opening. A latent capacity snapping into alignment across species that had never shared a meeting, now sharing a signal.

They were executing their plan.

The world’s scientists traced the timeline of the attack back to the comet’s passage. Atmospheric sensors had recorded exotic ionization in the tail’s dust. Not strong enough to harm humans. But insects, with their delicate neural ganglia and magnetite particles used for navigation, had bathed in it.

Humanity had built cities. Insects had built networks.

On day three, power grids began to fail. Substations clogged with compacted exoskeletons. Data centers overheated as cooling vents filled. Airplanes grounded after tubes and engines were methodically obstructed. Cars became traps when vents and door seams sealed with living plugs.

People fled indoors, sealing windows with tape and towels. It bought time, not safety. Termites worked on foundations. Ants mapped micro-cracks. Silverfish infiltrated book spines and drywall seams like six-legged locksmiths.

And Bob Landry, now hunkered down in a secure command center at FEMA, sent out email blasts to anyone who could still receive them.

“They are not just attacking,” he said as he wrote, voice hoarse, eyes rimmed red. “They are dismantling our ability to respond. Infrastructure first. Food supply next. We are nodes in their model, not targets of anger.”

His feed cut out as a wave of bombardier beetles found a passageway in through an air vent, turning the hallways black, spraying their boiling venom at will, their faceted eyes reflecting off the monitors in a mosaic of terrified fragments.

Weeks passed.

Cities dimmed. Highways grew quiet except for the steady, whispering flow of chitin over asphalt. Crops fell to coordinated consumption that left geometric patterns in fields, as if harvested by a mathematical appetite.

In remote places, some humans adapted. Sealed habitats. Positive pressure rooms. Carefully filtered air. Small communities living like deep sea creatures in artificial bubbles, venturing out only in armored suits.

They learned something else. The swarms did not pursue endlessly. Once an area’s systems were neutralized, activity dropped to maintenance levels. Patrols. Monitoring. Like gardeners checking soil.

The planet became different now. Without the constant presence of mankind, lights and engines, the nights deepened. Plants, spared pesticides, grew thick in abandoned suburbs. Rivers ran clearer. Bird populations initially crashed but soon thrived on a new and plentiful diet of bugs.

The insects had not erased life. They had edited it.

Decades later, a child pressed her helmet against the reinforced glass of a learning dome overlooking what had once been downtown Atlanta. Vines entwined the skeletons of towers. Sunlight flashed off beetle wings drifting between floors that used to hold conference rooms and coffee machines.

“Why did they do it?” she asked her teacher.

The teacher considered the question, watching a small cloud of hornets flying by, just outside the heavily reinforced windows.

“Maybe,” she said, “they finally agreed on something. Or perhaps it was just an example of evolution, the survival of the fittest.”

Outside, and across the planet, the swarm ebbed and flowed, vast and quiet and busy.

And for the first time in its long history, life on Earth was at peace.