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Coordination
Deep beneath the Circus of Oxford in the heart of the city of London, Queen Aki-35850/B was attempting to coordinate her fellow queens. She had doused the hollow chamber they were all crammed into with her pheremones to attract them here and she now flicked through the pages of her agenda with her right front tarsal claw.
"Tuesday the 25th?" she called out to her fellow queens.
"Can't" shouted a voice from across the caverns, "I'm getting my mandibles manicured"
Queen Aki-35850/B glared across at Queen Ser-55316/A, hating the other queen's vanity. She flicked her agenda to the next page.
"Thursday the 27th?"
"No good for me, the entire Aenictogitoninae sub-family is visiting me that day" shouted out Queen Del-11909/F before munching a delightful trophallaxis macaroon that Aki always prepared for these gatherings.
Aki surveyed the several billion other queen ants in the chamber and, undaunted, flipped to the next page.
"Saturday the 29th?"
Nobody said anything.
"Right" she began, before noticing that one of the youngest queen ants present, Zew-99786/X had raised a quivering antenna. "Yes?"
"I have a date that day"
Queen Aki-35850/B was flumoxed. "A date? You can't have a date, that's not how we socialise with the male drones... you mean you're actually treating one of them as... an equal?!"
Zew-99786/X could feel the fearsome combined rage of the biomass superorganism of queens directed at her. She plucked up all of her courage and stood her ground.
"He's a Solenopsis Invicta from Texas, and he loves me. We're going to settle down and have our own little colony somewhere and maybe six or seven million children. I don't want to participate in flying ant day this year..."
Jul.19.2006