Granted
The dicks kept coming.
Penises. Hundreds of them. With wings. Fanged and venomous.
Colonel Ahab shouted a command. “Use the shotguns. You’ll bring down more than with a pistol.”
***
Derrick held his daughter’s hand. It was his custody weekend. He had taken his daughter Wendy to the zoo. Four year old Wendy loved the zoo. She wanted to go there all the time. Derrick brought her there as often as he could.
***
Captain Hicks saluted his commander. “Sir. There are more of them flying in from the southeast.”
Colonel Ahab gritted his teeth. “That’s the direction of one of our biological warfare facilities. These damn things might be ours. Contact the general.”
“Sir, what should we do until help comes? Half our soldiers are out of action.”
“It’s that damn poison. Who thought up these pricks?”
The Colonel wished he and those under his command had been given more information about this ‘military security emergency’ from the start – and had been provided with a better range of weaponry.
***
Wendy stared at the elephant standing in its enclosure.
“Look daddy, it’s taking a poo.”
Derrick nodded towards his daughter.
“It sure is. It’s a big one.”
Wendy looked up at her father. They were still holding hands.
Wendy said, “Elephants pooping looks funnier than when the giraffes do it.”
Wendy loved watching animals poop. Derrick thought that was the only reason she liked to visit the zoo. To watch the animals poop.
He chuckled in silence.
Four year olds, he thought. Pooping, peeing, and farting are the funniest things in the world. He smiled realizing that jokes on the same subjects still turned up in books and movies from around the world. He concluded, “We all must still be four years old inside. Part of us anyway.”
***
Captain Hick rushed to where Colonel Ahab was standing. He saluted his superior officer.
“Colonel, sir. They have brought us flame throwers.”
“It’s about time someone did something right,” said Colonel Ahab. “Get ’em up to the front. Burn those wieners to a crisp.”
***
Wendy was sitting on a bench finishing an ice cream cone. She had seen monkeys poo, wildebeests poo, giraffes poo, elephants poo, eagles poo, a polar bear poo. She had even taken a poo herself in the family restroom with her dad waiting outside the stall, ready to help with clean up.
“Where do you want to go next?” her daddy asked.
“To see the kitties.”
Derrick cleaned his daughter’s face and hands from the cone with help of a napkin he had wetted in a water fountain.
They walked together towards the lion exhibit.
***
Colonel Ahab sniffed. “The air stinks like a fraternity barbecue.”
“Yes sir,” confirmed Captain Hicks.
The Colonel asked, “Are there more incoming?”
“No sir,” said Captain “The enemy is heading towards the woods southwest of our position.”
Colonel Ahab took a moment to confirm this with his binoculars.
“Good,” he said. “Maybe those dicks will get caught in the webs of those huge spiders I hear the lab boys are raising there. I swear, it seems like the top brass throws money at any idea that could possibly kill people. I miss the old army. Machine guns, tanks, napalm, cluster bombs, and nukes. This ecological biodegradable stuff sticks in my crawl.”
Colonel Ahab paused. He turned towards Captain Hicks. “You didn’t hear that. That’s an order.”
“Hear what, sir. Were you saying something?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
***
When they finished with the lions, father and daughter headed to the Big Cat House.
Wendy looked up at her daddy and said, “I like the fluffy ones best. Except for their poop.”
Her father asked her, “Which animal had the best poop?”
Wendy stopped walking. She put a finger on her chin. She seemed to be in deep thought.
“The chimpanzees,” she pronounced.
“Good thing we ducked.”
***
General Quinn read the brief report from Colonel Ahab about the status of the clean up operation. Can’t trust these egg heads, he thought. Biological warfare can not be left to anyone who did not go through boot camp and served alongside others in uniform. There was no reason to put soldiers at risk without good reason. Top Secret my ass. I don’t care what level of clearance was involved. The soldiers sent to take care of the mess created by the lab coat crew should have known what they were going to face.
He picked up his phone. “Get me Director Langley at Covert Facility 7586.”
The general planned to give Langley an ear full about security at his labs.
***
Wendy oohed and aahed at the cougars, jaguars, leopards, and tigers.
“Daddy, can I have one?”
“Not one of those,” he told her. “They are too big for you. If you want I will talk to your mother about getting you a kitten.”
A metal door opened in a wall behind them. A man and a woman in white smock coats emerged. Wendy turned and saw them. She also glimpsed the staircase that went underground before the door slammed behind them.
Wendy pointed to the people who had come out of the door.
“Who are they Daddy?”
Derrick took a look at where Wendy was pointing.
“They look like doctors or scientists. They probably keep the animals healthy or study them so more can be known about how best to care for them.”
Wendy pulled on her father’s arm until he squatted down. When he did, she whispered in his ear.
“That’s what I want to do when I grow up. Take care of the big kitties. But don’t tell mommy. She wants me to become a lawyer.”
Derrick smiled. He remembered all the things he wanted to be as a kid before he grew up and became an accountant.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered back to his daughter. “I won’t tell mommy.”
***
Ray Wallach, Ph.D., could not stop laughing.
“I can’t believe it. We got the research grant.”
Lulu Zhang, another Ph.D., shushed him. “Remember security rules.”
Both worked in the secret lab under the county zoo.
They could not talk about it at lunch. They had to wait for dinner at his apartment. Then they could both laugh about their good luck.
***
“I guess the government will pay for anything that might kill potential enemies,” said Wallach over take out at his place.
“A tiger-gorilla gene splice!” Zhang chuckled. “Like that is going to work. Still, if they are willing to give us the money to look into it, we might as well cash the check.”
“We only got the grant because of that rumor about the Russians working on something like that. You know how it is. You have to keep up with the Ruskies.”
“I thought the rumor was they were working on a bear-tiger-cossack soldier?”
“Close enough,” said Wallach. “If a rival nation starts doing odd research our government throws money at the same thing. They probably do the same when we start programs to look into iffy areas of science.”
“Like all of the money thrown at psychic warfare research during the cold war.”
“Yeah. Like that.”
Zhang shook her head. “None of it is going to work. At least I don’t think so. Still, it might be interesting. The research could lead to the development of new techniques or discoveries that could be useful in the future for real scientific research.”
“I hope so,” said Wallach. He added, “Then again, who knows? Maybe it could work. We might be able to develop an engineered warrior that pumps gas and eats Frosted Flakes, or something like that. In any case, we can give it our all for the next five years, until the grant runs out. By then we should have made enough to buy a house and get married.”
Zhang smiled. “I guess it will be worth it then.”
***
Colonel Ahab and Captain Hicks attended the funeral of each of the soldiers under thier command that had died, according to the public record, in unspecified training accidents.
Ahab would rather have been thrown into hand to hand combat with one of those tiger-gorilla soldiers of the future that the brass had briefed him on than to have had to go to all those funerals.
“It ain’t right Hicks. It ain’t right. I should have been a soldier in the days of cavalry warfare, raising the black flag, taking no prisoners. Looting, burning, and slaughtering, or getting slaughtered. A real man can’t fight with science. All a real man can do is blow up a lab.”
“What are you saying, sir?”
“Nothing,” replied Colonel Ahab. “I am not saying anything. This is all incoherent bullshit from an old soldier tired of witnessing unnecessary deaths of soldiers under his command. Battles with no ribbons, no medals, no official records. They die with no chance of glory, without the possibility of earning even a footnote in history. No chance of becoming legend. These days there are too many secret fights no one will ever know about against enemies you couldn’t really explain to the public even if you were permitted to talk about it.”
“I hear you, sir.”
“No you don’t Hicks. You don’t hear me, because I have not said anything. We have never talked about anything. We never do.”
Captain Hicks smiled.
“Sorry sir. Did you say something? I wasn’t listening.”
The Colonel slapped him on the back. “Captain Hicks, you didn’t miss anything cause there was nothing to hear.”
***
General Quinn cleared out his office. The Secretary of War And Fitness had made it clear he had to leave. Quinn had hoped to stay in the army for five more years. Under past practice he would have gotten another promotion in that time frame, meaning a bigger pension when he became a civilian. But that was not to be. He knew that Dr. Langley had backing for what his facility did, but had not known how high up that backing went and how strong it was.
***
A few months later, Wendy was playing with her new kitten at her mommy’s house. Her mother was talking with a guest in the living room. It was a new friend of hers that she had met through an online dating service.
“Oh, Captain Hicks,” said Wendy’s mom. “You are such a card. I never knew a man in uniform could have such an odd sense of humor.”
“Comes with the territory. Besides, I am not in uniform now. That means I can relax a bit.”
A radio was on in the background. A live concert was being aired. Both had been looking forward to it. They were both fans of marching music.
Captain Hicks was filling two glasses with wine when a news alert interrupted the concert broadcast.
“This is an emergency announcement. A factory with government contracts has caught fire in Cecil County, six miles from Elkton. Explosions have been reported. Hazardous chemicals may have been released into the air by the explosions. An air quality warning has been issued. Residents in the parts of northeast Marlyland and neighboring Delaware are being encouraged to stay indoors with windows and doors closed until further notice.
Captain Hicks turned pale. He had a fair idea as to what facility was involved.
“Are you okay?” his lady asked. “Do you know people who worked there?”
Hicks asserted control over himself. “I’m fine Patty. Don’t know anyone there, but I do know someone who likes to do star gazing at night. I will check on him later to make sure he isn’t outside somewhere with his telescope. Wouldn’t want him to be exposed to toxic fumes.”
“You are right dear. We don’t want anyone outside if the air is really bad tonight.”
***
Breathing was probably the least thing to worry about. When Colonel Ahab made a decision, he always saw it through to the end. No matter how bloody it was.
It certainly was bloody for him. A piece of metal propelled by one of the explosions had severed one of his legs. Another piece of shrapnel that had once been infrastructure had ripped a gash in his side. He wasn’t going anywhere. There was no way to stop bleeding out.
He heard more explosions in the distance. Not as loud as the earlier ones. He wished he had planned better. It was too late now to finish what he had started.
The lab facility had not been completely destroyed as he intended. It was only severely damaged. Containment areas had been breached, not eliminated. Death was escaping in sizes ranging from microscopic to that of an SUV.
It was too late. There was no chance for a do over. Colonel Ahab’s last thought was that he should have used something stronger than C-4. Maybe a series of missile strikes followed by napalm.
The Colonel was long gone by first light. He was lucky in that way. He would not have to experience the clouds of bacteria and fungal spores, carried on the winds, or the carnivorous vaginas, fearsome bandersnatches, and larger, worse things, that were about to reek havoc throughout the county. Nor would he have see the news headlines later blaming him for possibly starting Armageddon.
