The early spring sunlight slipped through the cracks of Leon Ford's old, slightly worn window frame. A thin beam of warm gold fell across his face, waking him gently and filling the room with a sense of quiet peace. The same light washed over the table in front of him, illuminating the scene he had been observing carefully for the past hour.
Twelve tiny ants crawled around the base of a teacup, circling it over and over but unable to climb inside. The tea cup's porcelain surface was too smooth for their small legs to grip. They kept releasing short, sharp streams of pheromones—signals filled with urgency and frustration—hoping their trapped companion inside the cup could find a way out.
Inside the cup, one lone ant continuously crawled along the inner wall, trying again and again to escape. But after sensing the pheromones from the others outside, the ant finally stopped moving. It knew escape was impossible.
This particular moment made Leon lean in, watching closely. His Dream Device—technology from a civilization far beyond Earth—allowed him to interpret pheromones as clear emotional meanings. Through it, he understood exactly what the trapped ant was expressing.
The ant was saying goodbye.
As soon as the others outside sensed its farewell message, they paused, as if preparing to leave it behind. For ants, farewells had no emotional weight; they simply meant one thing: your life is no longer useful to the colony. In the world of ants, survival mattered more than individuals.
But then something strange happened.
The ant inside the cup released a new pheromone, one that no ant had ever produced in their entire evolutionary history.
It was sadness.
The Dream Device vibrated slightly in Leon's hand as it translated the pheromone. Leon sat straight up, shocked. Ants did not have emotions—not in the way humans understood them. They had pheromones for hunger, fear, alarm, death…but never sadness.
The trapped ant kept pushing its tiny body against the smooth wall while desperately releasing more pheromones, as if trying to empty out the complicated thoughts crowding its tiny mind. The information inside its brain—the fragments Leon had implanted earlier—was overwhelming it. The ant tried to communicate the knowledge swirling inside it but lacked the ability to express such complex ideas.
It attempted again, releasing a wordless, broken pheromone meaning:
"Name…name…"
But the ants outside could not understand. To them, these strange signals were nothing more than scattered fragments. They responded with their own pheromones—simple messages of confusion.
The trapped ant grew even more frantic.
It tried again:
"Life…life…life…"
Its pheromones were too complex, too advanced, carrying information that normal ants had never processed. Realizing this, the ant did something incredible—it simplified the message.
It chose one piece of information from the overwhelming storm inside its mind.
Life.
That word—expressed through pheromone—caught the attention of all twelve ants outside the cup. They stopped, touched antennae with each other, and repeated the same pheromone over and over until each one memorized it.
Then the ant inside released another new pheromone—one representing itself.
It was trying to name itself.
After a few long seconds, the message became clear through Leon's translator.
It called itself: Fate.
The small ant continued releasing its "name pheromone," repeating it until the twelve ants outside understood and recorded it.
Then "Fate" moved to the next step—one even more astonishing.
It began naming the teacup.
It crawled in circles around the inner wall, touching the surface with its antennae, trying to express the idea of a circular boundary. Leon noticed its struggle; its brain was far too small to conceptualize the idea of a "circle." Wanting to help, Leon used the Dream Device to send a single mental image—a simple "circle."
But this was too much information. It misunderstood.
The ant interpreted the concept as:
"Destiny."
And so, the teacup became Destiny.
Leon let out a long breath. This was history unfolding under his table.
The ant named Fate then turned toward the twelve ants waiting outside. Using its final reserves of energy, it released a unique pheromone onto each one, granting every ant an identity.
One became Life One.
Another, Life Two.
And so on until all twelve ants bore the names Life One through Life Twelve.
This was something ants had never done in millions of years.
Names.
Self-identity.
Individual recognition.
This was the first spark of ant civilization.
The tiny ants stood frozen in place as the meaning settled into their minds. Something was changing inside them—something profound. A new chemical pattern formed in their brains as the identity pheromones mixed with their natural pheromone patterns.
These twelve ants were no longer ordinary ants.
They were the first individuals of their kind.
Fate, though tired, wasn't done. It began explaining how it ended up trapped inside Destiny, how it received complex knowledge, and how it gained something no ant before it ever possessed—awareness.
Each of the twelve ants reacted differently:
Life One believed what Fate described was a holy miracle, sent by a higher power. It became a fanatic follower, worshiping the unknown being responsible for Fate's awakening. It called this event "the Coming of the Lord."
Life Two and Life Nine dismissed the phenomenon as meaningless coincidence. To them, the strange knowledge Fate described held no value.
Life Ten was deeply curious and wanted to enter "Destiny" itself to witness and understand the impossible phenomenon.
Life Eleven showed no interest at all. It cared only about finding food for the colony and serving the queen. To it, survival mattered more than mysteries.
Life Twelve trembled in fear. The knowledge Fate shared shook it so deeply that it refused to receive any more pheromones, terrified by concepts beyond its understanding.
As Leon watched the ants expressing fear, curiosity, belief, and confusion, he felt a chill run through him.
These were emotions—true emotions—behaviors no ant colony on Earth had ever shown.
The Dream Device hummed softly as it translated their pheromone exchanges. Leon leaned back, stunned.
This was a civilizational leap.
He had only implanted small fragments of human consciousness into Fate's mind. He never imagined it would lead to this—twelve ants forming the foundation of a new culture.
He whispered to himself:
"They're evolving… They're becoming a civilization."
In the Three-Body Universe—the world he was trapped in—there was a well-known truth:
every weak civilization eventually experiences a technological or conceptual explosion, a sudden jump in intelligence that propels them thousands of years ahead.
The Trisolarans feared this very possibility.
It was why they tried to suppress humanity's technological progress after discovering Earth.
They knew even a weak species could suddenly leap forward and surpass others.
And now, incredibly…
That same phenomenon was happening at Leon Ford's table.
A small group of ants—once simple creatures ruled only by instinct—had begun developing identity, belief, culture, and personal thought. They had taken their first step toward civilization.
Leon stared at the ants, overwhelmed.
He had not created magic. He had not used supernatural powers.
He had witnessed the purest form of civilization's birth.
A teacup became Destiny.
An ant became Fate.
A colony gained names, beliefs, doubts, desires, and fear.
And all of this had begun because of the faint whisper of human consciousness he introduced into a tiny creature's mind.
Leon exhaled slowly.
"This is only the beginning…"
At that moment, under his table, the first ant civilization in human history quietly flickered to life.