It was just easier. She understood now why adults lied to children. It wasn’t love. It was exhaustion. - James S. A. Corey

Like the roaches and the rats, ants had learned to live with their human neighbors without much trouble. When the concrete of human cities spread across the globe and half the animals on Earth were on endangered lists, no one had worried about the ants. They were doing fine, thanks, and spilled fast food was just as plentiful and delicious as dead forest animals had once been.
Adapt or die.

It also meant that their reaching out to the artifact had gotten it to reach back. Her experiment was working.
She’d expected success to feel less like fear.

She had been a pawn in Holden’s chess game. And Holden had gotten her to the last rank and promoted her to a queen.