Myrmarachne are cunning creatures, mimicking the behaviorism of prey with acute accuracy. These creatures are nearly synthesized for the part, some even hosting minute eyes that merely blend amongst the red of the body, only benefitted by the poor eyesight of ants.
However, they do not always succeed. Ants, of course, have ultimately unfamiliar physiology, but more importantly- unfamiliar motivations. The spiders are wanderers and mild, the ants are social and obsessive with their goal of the hive. If this compromise in behavior was not enough of a strain, The spiders lack the ability of the chemical trail system and must pretend to sense with antennas some obvious sense of direction, but ultimately they must follow other ants carefully, never being alone with too many or too few, lest what appears poised quickly becomes awkward and aimless. To make matters worse, ants have an exceptional sense of smell, but the poor spiders can only aspire to be odorless if at all ridding themselves of the stench of decay and vinegar, some odd arachnologists note. But it's often only a matter of time.
Finally: Many ants have no problem with eating a spider. Some ants even find them pretty tasty. Ironically, the best prey is the worst predator.
Luckily, Miles Morales did not have to deal with ants, and was one of the best clones from this project.
The scientists had declared that in both physiology and mental testing, 'Miles Morales' was a perfect copy. Now, it was time to let him out into the open and see how well he performed.
—-
It was a rainy Monday night throughout the city, and front lights shone across wet pavement and a shadowy parade of traffic. Miles knew which way he was going, even if he was born yesterday.
At this point, he was at Myrtle avenue. He simply had to go diagonally across Broadway and various stores, a left turn on Kent avenue, go down Wilson St. and he would end up on Wythe avenue. The house had a red brick lower exterior that tapered into beige, number 17, and parked nearby was a yellow minivan that seemed to never move, if his memory serves him right.
The clothes they bought him were soaked, but he didn't shiver as he walked through the city streets. He slept in a human sized vial of antiseptic, after all.
His eyes darted around the nascent yet familiar city and cacophony of lights, although lights didn't make sounds. A spectrum of bold clashing colors is what he meant. It was as though the wonder was simply locked under a cage of nostalgia that itself was unfamiliar.
He watched as the people around passed by with umbrellas, giving him somewhat odd looks. He understood why. They didn't give him an umbrella, as that would seem too off. "He" didn't take an umbrella that day. The blue umbrella in his dorm was also slightly bent and stained, but the scientists couldn't be bothered to replicate it. It didn't help that.. well.. he kinda didn't have the mental imagery "He" had. "Aphantasia" is what the scientists called it. Just their luck.
His drawings struggled like a neural network sorting between what was right and wrong, working purely on synthesized muscle memory. Strong, he might add, but a tedious process.
It was ironic. The scientists somewhat thought he was messing with them. He remembered everything to a hypersensitive degree, they remarked.
He could describe it- but he couldn't replicate it beyond a fuzzy intuition, he was given the constraints but not the exact model. It was as though the memories flooded out of a black box that he himself couldn't look into.
"Are you sure you-he- didn't miss anything?" They probed.
"....No."
"Okay, we'll leave it at that."
They had no way to entirely verify whether the memory was accurate since "He" wasn't very responsive.
They also said it would be too risky to suggest he went back to his dorm, as they didn't really know whether his guardians would have visited by then. They had surveillance, but it wasn't omnipresent. Legality, and all that, they said.
From what Miles remembered of his father, he seemed very devoted to his son, and had probably roamed the entire city at least twice looking for him.
By the time he stopped monologuing, He had ended up at a crossing point. He almost continued but promptly stopped at the horn of a car which didn't quite make him flinch, retracting his leg from the crossroad.
I can go when the light turns green.. obviously. He muttered to himself. Miles would probably add that to the end of his sentence, right? Right. Miles muttered to himself as well, right? Right. He took a brief second to look at the pedestrians around him as well. Did his posture look right? Did they notice that?
They were strangers, they wouldn't know- but in general. Why is that lady staring at him so hard?
He tried to recall whether he met her before, but came to a blank. Should he be worried?
He tried to take a deep breath. He technically had an hour to go, for an ordinary human. He would probably get there quicker. Soon he'd be home.
As he kept walking, he saw sirens that caught his eye. His dad is a policeman. Is that him?
What was his license plate? Miles never really looked, did he?
Suddenly, the car began to slow down. Uh oh.
Nevermind. It was just a red light.
Miles kept walking through the night.
—---
He had finally arrived..
The house felt haunted. Not that he entirely knew what that felt like.
The lights were on, except for the top floor.
He could see silhouettes pace through the house. He could hear shouting, voices grown shrill out of stress.
Despite this, he didn't hesitate to press the white button that was the doorbell. Not a second later, he wondered if he should've.
The silhouettes paused. One began to move out of sight, supposedly to the door.
He looked aimlessly into the oak patterns of the door before it receded, revealing a familiar figure- his father. His eyes looked worn and tired, a little puffy, as though he hadn't stopped crying for weeks.
He was in a grey shirt and sweatpants.
He looked as though he saw a ghost.
"Miles?"
In barely a millisecond Miles was suffocated into the tightest embrace he ever felt in his life.
He felt tear stains drape on his already soaked outfit and the erratic rise and fall of the man's chest. The man held onto him like they'd both crumble to pieces if he let go.
He tried to contort his disaffected expression into something more.. Milesy? Sad. Guilty. He should look guilty. He tried to furrow his brows in a sad way and closed his eyes. He wasn't sure if he was doing it right.
Suddenly, another figure came into view, his mother.
She also looked shocked and pained. She quickly joined the silent, shaky hug.
He didn't know where the impulse came from, but he followed it.
"I'm sorry." He silently uttered.