The SCP Experience - The Ant Colony That Declared War | SCP-9029

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

When an anomalous ant colony begins adapting faster than the Foundation can contain it, one researcher is forced to weaponize the same nightmare that killed his best friend. But once the insects start dying, he realizes the cure may be just as terrifying as the outbreak. This story is derived from ⁠The SCP Foundation Database⁠ and is released under Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0.⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ⁠⁠⁠ Author:  Matt Doggett * * * CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content not limited to intense themes, strong language, and depictions of violence intended for adults. Parental guidance is strongly advised for children under the age of 18. Listener discretion is advised.  #thescpexperience #scp #scpfoundation #scpencounters #securecontainprotect #scpstories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I sat outside the quarantine chamber. Wade sat inside, slumped in a wheelchair, discolored skin visible everywhere that wasn't covered by his gown. The sickly greens, alarming purples and disturbing reds, made him look like a piece of modern art. His swollen lymph nodes, the size of golf balls, made his neck look thick. I could hardly look at my friend.

I wanted to go out and find whoever was responsible for this. I wanted to grab them by the neck and tell them, fucking fix it! but no one was responsible for this. No person anyway. Nothing with a neck that I could ring. This sucks, I said, leaning down elbows on knees. And it cuts.

Wade Rasp, his voice coming through the intercom set into the wall. I looked up to see him smiling. Actually, smiling. The dude was something else. It certainly does suck, I said, finishing the Wayne's World quote. We'd been working together for over 10 years, trading movie quotes daily. Our very first interaction featured a dumb and dumber quote. On our second day, Wade had come up to me during lunch to ask if I knew the name of another junior researcher who was in orientation with us.

We spent a few moments trying to remember, testing out different names, when Wade finally said, Samsonite, I was way off. It was a fantastic Jim Carrey impression. By the time I finished laughing, my abs hurt. We had been good friends ever since. Now, even though Wade was dying, he still traded movie quotes with it. me. Turn it off.

He said, doing his best Garth impression. I laughed once before the comment hit. It was too close to home. Rage taking over, I stood, flinging my chair out of the way before pacing in the small room. There had to be something I could do. Come on, man. Wade said, chuckling. Lighten up.

It's just... Wade convulsed violently and slid halfway out of the wheelchair. Blood filled his eyes and poured from his nose. He coughed, sending a fountain of red splattering against the window before falling into a supine position. I rushed over and banged uselessly on the window, shouting that he'd be okay. As I lied to my dying friend, I thought once again about finding someone to blame. Only now, I knew there would be no fixing it. There would only be payback. But the problem persisted. There was no one person to blame, no neck to ring. There were tens of millions. And as I watched my

friend die horribly, I realized I didn't care what the 05 counsel said. I would kill them all. to take the rest of the week off, damn it. The combination of Philo's Texas lilt and the nasally tone he developed when angry was like a kebab skewer in my ears. I knew that turning around to see his melanchite gut and wide, ruddy face might send me over the edge. I remained at my desk,

staring at my computer screen as I answered. And I told you, I don't need any time off, sir. Fylo crossed from the door quickly. The next words came on a breath that disturbed the hairs on my left ear. I don't want to have to revoke your security clearance. It's too much paperwork, but I will if you don't leave right now. I don't want to see your face here until Monday.

My eyes ranged over the newly generated report on the pathogen that had killed Wade so quickly. I had arrived early and spent several hours researching it and entering data. I had even done some in vitro experimentation. You hear me, Connor? I spun in my chair and stood, fists clenched. memories of Wade's bloody convulsing body played in my head. Philo stood a few inches shorter than me, and I looked down into his coffee-colored eyes. His curly brown mustache twitched as he sneered, daring me to make a move.

In my head, Wade suddenly stopped convulsing. He sat up and said, "'Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room.'" The Dr. Strangelove quote, even if conjured by my own imagination, broke through my rage. Philo wasn't a bad guy. We had our differences, as is often the case with supervisor and employee, but he was doing what he thought was right. Taking the breath, I stepped back.

You need me here to figure out exactly what happened to Wade. The sooner we find out, the sooner we can properly contain them. Philo stepped back, crossing his arms. We have our orders. No more experiments for now. All teams are taking a step back while we reevaluate. No action will be taken until you return with your head on, straight. Huh, that's a fantastic idea. Those fucking things may have just developed biological warfare

and your idea is to wait and see. Don't you see how stupid? Careful now. You're about to step right over the edge, Connor. An alarm interrupted us, blasting its ear-splitting noise through the small building. I glanced around before meeting Fylo's gaze again. What the hell did I just say? Enough! Get into full hazmat now! I was already halfway to the hazmat locker on one side of the room. followed. Five minutes later, we were completely sealed into our suits, breathing canned air from small tanks at our hips. We hustled out of the lab and onto the dirt lot dotted with other small buildings. Patches of squat, drought-resistant trees made an irregular border around the lot. The Texas Sun immediately started baking me in my suit. Our destination was the most robust of the

nearby structures, which wasn't saying much. It was a low cinder block building with a metal roof that housed the security office, the armory, and any other sensitive items such as pesticides and chemicals. It was our designated gathering spot in case of an emergency. To our left, a stretch of the enclosure's border fence was visible 80 yards distant. The wall was made of cinder block, but a dirt track led up to the large gate, the doors of which were made of solid metal. The whole thing struck me as security theater. Without a completely sealed enclosure, the insects could go wherever they pleased. So far, they hadn't. But that didn't mean they never would. I stopped, realizing that, even through my helmet, I could hear shouts from inside the enclosure.

What are people doing in there? I asked Philo. I thought you said it was a watch and wait situation. Fylo stared at the gate. When he spoke, I could hear him clearly thanks to the earpiece as we wore inside our suits. I sent a small team in to set up a few passive sensors far away. Never killed anyone with some unknown infection before either, I thought. The sound of a revving engine reached my ears. The gate started opening, but not quickly enough. A Humvee barreled out, smashing into either side of the double-door gate. Neither door broke completely, but they both went to skew as the powerful military vehicle knocked them aside. As it rushed toward us, what I saw produced several warring feelings. The first was fear. The second

was concerned for those security officers in the Humvee. The third was a dark joy. They were attacking. Now I had every excuse to eliminate them once and for all. The vehicle was covered in ants. They coated the windows and obscured most of the windshield. The wipers swiped at them, but the sheer number of the maroon and black insects meant that for every thousand swiped away, another thousand quickly replaced them.

On the next swipe, one of the wipers came off and tumbled at the ground, covered in ants. I didn't have to guess to know the wiper hadn't broken. It had been chewed off by the ant's powerful mandibles. Come on! Philo said, yanking me by the arm. I'd been so lost in the spectacle and its implications, the danger hadn't yet landed. Philo and I sprinted toward the security building.

As we closed in, three security officers ran out in full hazmat, holding items that looked like flamethrowers, complete with tanks on their backs. They moved to meet the Humvee, yelling for the driver to stop. Since I wasn't on the open security channel, I couldn't hear it in my earpiece, but they were shouting plenty loud enough. The Humvee came to a skidding halt. The three security officers worked their devices, but instead of flames,

fountains of milky white liquid came out, expanding quickly to foam. Within moments, they had the entire Humvee covered. The foam was a specific kind of pesticide used by the foundation that was harmless to humans. I stood outside the security station door and watched. The three foam spraying guards stopped and waited as the foam turned back to liquid,

sloughing off the vehicle, tiny bubbles sizzling and popping. It seemed to be working. One of the guards moved forward, yanked open the driver's door, and pulled the man out. I was relieved to see the driver wore a hazmat suit as well. But something was wrong. The man stumbled, his head down, preventing me from seeing his face. The other two foam-wielding guards stepped toward the vehicle and then started dancing. That's what it looked like at first anyway. They shimmied away from the liquefying foam soaking into

the dirt, kicking their feet. It didn't work! I said, more to myself than Philo. It didn't work! The foam's movement had obscured the fact that the ants were still alive. Their powerful mandibles made quick work of the tough hazmat suits and soon of the skin underneath. The two dancers sprayed their own legs, but it didn't work. They soon fell to the ground, writhing. Their suit helmets did little to dampen their screams.

Meanwhile, the driver who'd been pulled out of the Humvee fell to his knees and straightened enough for me to see through his visor. The flesh of his face bubbled and twitched as hundreds of insects marched around under his skin. His mouth opened to scream, disgorged a soup of blood heavy with ants. The guard who'd pulled the driver out made his real. retreat, but the ants were already inside his suit, tearing into his legs. Thinking once again of Wade, I started toward the man, but Philo jerked me back. He was right to do

so. I didn't know what I could do for the guy. Over there! Philo cried, pointing a gloved finger toward the enclosure. A river of ants poured down the dirt track 70 yards away, angling toward us. We retreated inside the security building, which immediately felt like little more than a fancy tomb. The frightened eyes of a dozen other staff members met us from behind their faceplates as they huddled together behind a desk. They had been watching the events outside on a computer screen via a security camera. The first one to speak, even before we had the metal door shut behind us, was a woman named Fontana.

There's still time for us to run before they get here. Don't be stupid. You'll make it as far as the... Bilo said. We can these creatures better than they know themselves. I scoffed. Right. Which is why we've never seen them attack anything that wasn't posing a direct threat to their colony.

We never even seen one of them. trying to venture outside the enclosure. Now they're on a war path? I'd say we don't know Jack's squat about them. I'm open to suggestions, Philo said, flapping his arms in exasperation. They want to go to war? I hustled toward the room where they kept the hazardous chemicals. We'll give them a fucking war. I remembered what Wade had been working on before his death, but quickly dismissed it as too slow. Another idea came on its heels, an idea incorporating Wade's final project and the mystery pathogen that had taken his life. No way. I thought. Too dangerous. Instead, I thought about all the experiments I had done on the insects

and all the reports left by the previous researchers. Nothing had worked to kill the colony, but that didn't mean the workers wouldn't die. If we could hold them off for long enough, I could figure something out. I wouldn't stop trying until I did. I stepped into the room and looked around, eyes fixing on two pesticide sprayers hanging on the wall. While the foam was harmless to humans, the stuff in those two wearable sprayers wasn't. The caustic liquid was, had quickly killed the worker ants in previous experiments. It was the queens who refused to die. I smiled as I pulled a sprayer off the wall,

slipping the tank straps over my shoulders. Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fans, and they're here with me on Spotify.

Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip, they stay for hours. They don't move on, they manifest. They're not a demographic group, they're fans. Spotify advertising, you're among fans. I frowned as the ants kept coming. Most of them headed toward Philo and me as we'd backed toward the woods, but a column had already reached the security building.

The pesticide seemed to slow them down, but it didn't kill them. When we'd experimented with the stuff months ago, it had killed them. Same with the foam. I was starting to see a pattern. We had covered our hazmat suits in a layer of grease from the nearby garage, where mechanics worked on the vehicles we used around the site. The stuff caused any ants that reached us to get stuck, but we tried to stay away from them as best we could. Enough of them could overwhelm us and eliminate the grease's efficacy.

We have to do something else. Fylau shouted, his own sprayer running low. He had a direct line to his boss and had been talking to him, trying to convince the man not to do what foundation brass always did when they got nervous. Bomb anything in sight, and then bomb it again. I have one more option, I said. That thing Wade was working on. Normally it wouldn't, but I have an idea to make it work faster.

How exactly? I think they've developed an immunity to anything we've tried on them, some sort of hive-mind immune system. But what I'm thinking about, if I can make it work, they won't have time to develop an immunity. I held my breath, hoping Philo would overlook the fact. that I hadn't answered his question. He grumbled. His pesticide sprayer sputtered, running out of fluid. I dropped the sprayer and sprinted toward the lab, which the ants had left

untouched, probably because no one was inside. As I got to the door, I turned around to see Philo spraying the last bits of his pesticide at the ants as he ran toward the small trailer where we took our brakes. The river of insects, now 10 feet wide at points, had forked. One tong was heading toward me, the other headed toward Philo. Across the way, the security building was three quarters covered in ants. I had no doubt they could get through the cinder block walls given enough time. I turned and rushed inside, determined to kill them all before they could end any more lives. My first stop was to turn on a TV.

I pulled up a camera feed that provided a wide shot of the buildings, so I could see how much time I had. Paralletic fear cemented me in place at what I saw. The lab was already almost covered in ants. Same with the trailer Fylo was in. The security building, underneath the writhing black-red mass, looked like it had been doused with acid. The ants were eating through the cinder blocks faster than I anticipated. Terror jumbled my thoughts.

What had been a clear plan earlier was now a chaotic maelstrom of fleeting notions, dissipating as I reached for them. Vague but disturbing images of death battered me. My co-workers in the security building getting torn apart by the ants, philo screaming in pain, and then my own death as the ants ripped through my skin. I thought about my parents, my sister, my girlfriend, about never seeing them again. It all seemed inevitable, like I had already failed, like I was in the middle of failing, but I could do nothing about it. I wasn't just failing those of us still alive, but also Wade, failing to exact revenge

on his killers. That brought clarity. Wade, his bloody bloated corpse lying on the floor, along with it, feelings of guilt, sorrow, dejection. Through the maelstrom came one word, directed at my dead friend. Sorry. Wade twitched. His corpse sat up.

Remember this one? He asked. We know what fear is. We live with it all our lives. Only the dead are without fear. I shook my head, trying to remember what movie it was from. It was infuriatingly familiar. So close, on the tip of my tongue.

As I thought about it, the swirls slowed enough for my plan to resurface. I couldn't help but smile. Even from the grave, Wade was still the best friend I'd ever had. I rushed away from the TV, still trying to be. trying to remember the source of the quote. At the rear of the lab, I punched in a code and opened the cooler. I grabbed the two vials I needed and headed for a Class 2 safety cabinet. Normally, this kind of task would have been done using a Class 3 biological safety cabinet

to prevent possible contamination, but I didn't have the time. Besides, if this had any chance of working, I would have to disperse it into the environment. I was fairly confident it wouldn't be transferable to humans, but I had no time to make sure. Injecting a syringe into one of the vials, I pulled out the biological weapon Wade had been working on, suspended in a 0.1% tween 80 solution. I injected the high-tider solution into a petri dish. With a separate syringe, I extracted another solution containing the mystery virus that had killed Wade, which I put into the same petri dish. My experiments from the morning gave me hope it would work, but I was far from sure. Hurry up!

Vylo screamed over the radio. I glanced at the security feed, watching as one of the windows in front of the windows in Philo's building fell out, frame and all. Ants streamed through the gap. Almost there, hang on! I brought the dish over to a heat lamp and started to warm it up. After a few moments, I used a dropper to pull some of the liquid out, placing a single drop between two slides to examine under a microscope. Collidoscoping bacterial and fungal formation spread throughout the solution as the symbiosis took effect. Sunlight streamed into the lab. The door fell inward, its hinges having been chewed through. Ants scurried in, tendrils of them reaching out for me.

I stepped back to the heat lamp, picked up the petri dish, and hesitated. If I was wrong about this, I would be releasing into the world one of the most virulent and deadly pathogens since the bubonic plague. As the ants closed in, I heard Philo shout over the earpiece.

Connor! And suddenly, the problem I'd been working on at the back of my mind solved itself. Of course, the answer had been there all the time. The Wade I'd been talking to was just part of my imagination, and if he knew it, I knew it. Only the dead are without fear, I muttered, repeating the last part of the quote from the 1960s, the Magnificent Seven.

I slung the contents of the Petri dish onto the nearest ants. To the naked eye, it looked identical to water, and as it hit the ants, it seemed to slide harmlessly off their hard exoskeletons. There was no change. They continued closing in. I stumbled back until I was pressed against the wall, nowhere else to go. The first of them reached my feet, which were heavy with grease and other writhing ants. They started up. I shut my eyes and recalled another quote. This wasn't from any movie. It was one of the last things Wade had said before he died.

Lighten up. It's just death. When moments passed and my legs didn't grow heavier with thousands of ants, I opened my eyes again. The ants in the lead were still there, still moving, but their behavior had changed. What had once been an impressive display of cooperation, all of them moving together toward a common goal, was now a chaotic spectacle. The insects nearest me now moved in every direction, seemingly without rhyme or reason. But as I looked closer, I saw the pattern. Those lead ants that had been doused with the pathogen-laden liquid were under a different directive. They turned on each other, appearing at first to be biting their brethren, but I knew they weren't biting. Ants used their saliva for many important things in the colony, such as communication via pheromones and larvae development via hormones. Wade's goal had been to weaponize this fact with cordyceps spores.

In nature, these fungal spores come into contact with an ant and hijacked the insect's body through a series of roots in the muscles and chemicals in the brain. These chemicals prompt the so-called zombie ant to seek out an ideal place for the parasitic fungus to grow. Once the ant reaches this destination, it will clamp down on the tree or branch with its mandibles. It will remain there, the fungus killing it as it grows, eventually sprouting out of the ant's body and developing spores to start the whole process over again. Wade had developed a strain of cordyceps that prompted the ants to spread the spores throughout the whole colony. But during his experiments with the isolated lab colonies, the spread had taken weeks.

We didn't have weeks. My hope was that, by adding the mystery pathogen, I had sped up the process considerably. As I watched in awe, it quickly became apparent that my gamble had paid off. Chaos spread back to the river of ants like dominoes toppling. The orderly uninfected were quickly turned, as the infections swept through their numbers like. wildfire on a windy day. Philo? I asked, walking toward the door, feet crunching on the ants. You okay? Holy shit! Holy shit, it worked! I breathed this sigh of relief at the sound of his voice. By the time I stepped out into the sunlight, the next phase of the infection had started.

Instead of seeking an ideal place for the cordyceps to grow and develop more spores, the insects were marching back to their colony. They moved drunkenly, the fungus damaging their bodies irreparably. Pilo step out of the trailer. We both looked at the security building. It was mostly intact. If any ants had gotten inside, it wasn't enough to kill the people in there. As I followed the ants back toward their colony, I wondered if adding the deadly mystery pathogen would have any other effects. I was still 50 yards from the colony entrance when I got my answer. The insects stopped being able to walk. They dropped to the dirt, their little legs twitching ineffectually, antennae jerking back and forth. One by one, starting to be able to walk. They dropped to the dirt, their little legs twitching

Antenny jerking back and forth. One by one, starting with those at the back who had been infected first, the ants slowly melted as if they were made from chocolate. They left bits and pieces of their exoskeletons along with their legs, but otherwise little remained of them, at least to the naked eye. By the time the sun was touching the western horizon and a containment team was ensuring I really hadn't loosed a deadly pathogen on the world, things looked very different.

Wherever the ants had fallen, there were now tiny white fungal shoots sticking up from the ground, a whole forest of them, leading all the way back to the colony. I stared at those growths for a long time, thinking about Wade. I felt like I had done right by him, like his death had been for the greater good. As I turned to leave the now useless enclosure, one more quote came to mind, also from the magnificent seven. Once you begin, you've got to be ready for killing and more killing, and then still more killing,

until the reason for it is gone. I hoped my reason for it was gone. There had been enough death recently, more than enough. SCP 9029 refers to an anomalous colony of ants, located in southern Texas. While mostly resembling a mature colony of leaf cutter ants, workers have never been seen cutting or consuming any type of leaf. The colony has also shown to be polygynous,

with a number of queens estimated to be over 50,000, paired with an exceedingly quick egg-to-work or development of just under two weeks, and the ability to inbreed, the colony is able to expand rapidly, should sufficient nutrients be available. SEP 9029 queens have also shown to be invulnerable to all forms of common pesticide. The colony feeds by anomalous means whenever invertebrates near its sphere of influence. Once in this sphere, the invertebrates bodily systems gradually fail, with the rate and severity of these failures varying between subjects and species.

When the subject is dead, the ants will harvest its corpse for nutrients. Thanks for listening. Be sure to click that follow button with all notifications on to get notified every time a new episode is released.