“This is our deadliest weapon,” explained Wrjinn. “Aeshna euplagia atrox procto. The procto-dragonfly! These insects are derived from the DNA of the dragonfly, the African killer bee and the tapeworm.”
Within several minutes, the larvae had completely unfolded their four wings to their final wingspans of five inches, blood visible pumping through the tiny veins in the clear membranes. All three thousand, three inch-long insects were now flying around the booth, forming an organized swarm.
Rush Limbaugh knew that he was in a very bad situation. He ran to the end of the booth, screaming at the She-Huns sitting only inches away from him on the other side of the viewing glass. Pounding his fists against the wall, he pleaded, “Nitra, my master, I’m so sorry! I take it back! I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly to you today!”
A part of the swarm now flew directly at Limbaugh. He ran back and forth across the booth, but there was nowhere to hide. A procto-dragonfly landed on his buttocks, and in a flash crawled under his loincloth and pushed its way into his rectum, secreting a lubricant through tiny glands on its skin.
Limbaugh faced the women once again, “What kind of warped minds do you have, you lesbian perverts?” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Limbaugh felt a sharp pain in his anus as the insect used its thick, stiff bristles to work its way farther up the canal. He tried in vain to pull the insect out; the bristles acted as anchoring hooks and pricked his fingers, releasing a strong irritant. He screamed again in both fear and pain, looking at Khan with pleading eyes, jumping up and down as he tried to extract the insect with both hands.
Khan switched on an intercom into the booth and said, “I’ve seen your show, you chubby pill-popper. This is what you deserve for spouting such bald-faced lies and oversimplifications. And besides, you’re a terrible servant.”
In his heart of hearts, Limbaugh knew Khan was right; he had made millions of dollars promoting beliefs he himself did not believe. Hate and intolerance sold well in America; for him, it was as simple as that. Suddenly, as if struck by lightning, he fell to the ground, motionless.
“Is he dead?” asked Khan, without emotion.
“He will be. His muscles are useless and he will die within minutes,” replied Wrjinn, equally indifferent.
“How?” Khan asked.
“Well, a procto-dragonfly pushes its body six inches up the anus of the victim, where it injects a paralyzing poison through its bee’s stinger. The lungs can’t move and the victim dies of suffocation,” explained Wrjinn with clinical aloofness. “I derived the chemical formula of the poison directly from that of American nerve gases, excuse me, weapons of mass destruction, that were stockpiled at Rocky Flats in Colorado last century. But that’s not all; the invading insect also lays about one hundred eggs, which develop in the lower intestine. Shortly after injection, the original insect dies, however, the deposited eggs will develop into full-fledged procto-dragonflies within twenty-four hours. Unless the bodies are burned, one hundred new insects will come from each original procto-dragonfly!”
“My Hunza,” said Boota, as she looked down at the motionless Limbaugh, whose eyes were still open and alive with terror. “Sorry I doubted you earlier, Nara. You’ve really outdone yourself on this project.”
“Thank you very much, Boota.”
“I’m very impressed, professor,” said Khan. “Okay. This was a lab test. I think it’s time for a field test. Present me with three attack options by tonight at midnight.”
“My queen, I’ve already taken care of it. I’m sure you will find my idea satisfactory. We can leave in one hour.”

Cloud Base Calling

It was 6:30 in the evening. Danton Gore ate his McSalad. He had just finished a brief emergency shift patrolling the tunnels after having been called in to work straight from lunch at his parents’ house earlier in the afternoon. He took a long sip of his BushCoke, the recipe unchanged for more than one hundred years – fifteen teaspoons of sugar for every twelve ounces – except for the addition of a one-tenth dose of blue ice. Unexpectedly, his MFD buzzed with an incoming text message that showed on the holographic viewing screen projected from the device:

Secret sweethearts, Linda, ten minutes.

Immediately, Gore became anxious, looking around him to see if anyone was watching. This McMeatball’s restaurant was only one block from Military HQ, Las Vegas South; he was surrounded by government soldiers. Finishing his meal, he got up and left the restaurant, heading two blocks away to a quiet, down-scale bar that had public, anonymous access to the internet.
Gore ordered a cup of bootleg organic green tea and sat down at a computer terminal. He logged into a chat room on the Secret Sweethearts website, a site where married people advertised themselves to have affairs. Reading some of the postings, he laughed out loud, no wonder the divorce rate in America is at eighty-five percent.
Several minutes later, a message from Linda appeared. “Go to abcdzxyv.com. Use password for Saturday, 16:00.”
Gore went to the website indicated and used the appropriate password; Cloud Base’s technical team had just set it up, it would have a cyber-lifetime of only a few minutes. Cloud Base was already online waiting for Gore, who was one of only five people that had direct internet contact with the Free Vegas leader. After receiving directives from Cloud Base, Gore relayed them to five other two-person cells, each of which then relayed them to five other cells, and so on, and so on. All communication was untraceable, thanks to Cloud Base’s technical people – the best money could buy.
“Freedom fighter x158, have you been sailing lately?”
“No, my ship is in dry-dock,” Gore answered the question, one of more than 200 that could be asked of him to verify his identity within the Free Vegas movement. Such communiqués were also digitally encrypted for even higher security.
“We have three minutes. First, assassination plan with Nana Pavlov approved for Wednesday night at 20:30 hours. My technical team will provide you with the exploding, RDX-loaded device and a new MFD containing a hair analyzer that will verify identity after the kill. After identity confirmation, you will send your five sub-cells and me an MFD message on a secure frequency that I will have set up. I will then give the go ahead to the other four cells in the inner circle. Within minutes we’ll call out a total of 60,000 fighters in the first wave or the revolution. We’ll then call a wave of 10,000 reinforcements every twenty minutes after that, sending them where they’re needed most. We have a total of 90,000 willing to lay down their lives for our cause. Any questions?”
Gore looked all around him; no one was paying him any attention. His adrenal gland was dumping its heart-racing stuff into his bloodstream – the revolution was on! It seemed surreal. A second American revolution was really going to happen and he would go down in history as having had a key role in it. He could not help wonder if history would remember him as a hero or as a traitor. He typed, “What are primary targets?”
“Primary targets are the four military headquarters at Las Vegas north, south, east and west. Secondary targets such as television stations and key transportation routes will be determined during the battle. We will gather the revolutionaries in large groups near the targets and they will hit the streets en masse when we call them to arms at 20:30. The future is green! Cloud Base out.”
The website closed automatically, disappearing from the information highway forever. Gore stood up, paid his bill and went out onto the street. He felt as if he were walking through a dream, the import of what would happen in a few days’ time not having completely sunken into his psyche yet.
Danton Gore stood outside the entrance to Military HQ, Las Vegas South, and concentrated on composing himself. He walked in, paranoid, feeling as if everyone were scrutinizing him, and headed over to the parking lot to retrieve his car. Without incident, he left the military base and headed home.
It had been a very stressful day and he looked forward to his appointment that night with one of his favorite clients, Gwen Stephens.