Insecticide, Part VII: Finale

Yesterday. We crept our way through the brush leading up to the Bugs’ Lair. We knew this would probably be an all-or-nothing fight, so we didn’t leave anyone behind at the complex. There would be no need to defend the place anymore. We needed all of our manpower to fight the bugs, to hit them where it count. We knew we would be meeting fierce opposition just getting close to the lair.

And the bugs didn’t disappoint.

We lost a lot of good men out there in the brush, leading up to the underground entrance. But we made it.

Once inside, we fought until we were hopelessly surrounded. Bugs of every type closed in around us, and just before we were completely overrun they stopped moving. It seemed as though they reluctantly ceased their fight and took to the sidelines of the cavern as three man-sized bugs approached us.

We kept our backs to each other, our weapons trained on the various bugs who stirred impatiently, waiting for the order to resume.

In the background we say that redshirt guy from a while back, the one who was captured on my watch. He had been… altered. He was a bug now.

The approaching triumvirate of bug leaders resembled a cross between the Boss Bugs and humans… some sort of hybrid, perhaps?

One of the triumvirate spoke in English, astonishing us with his Terrence Stamp-like voice: “Which of you is the leader? To whom shall we speak?”

I stepped forward, pointing my gun at Terrence Stampbug, my visage a paragon of stony resolve. “You can speak to me.”

Terrence Stampbug gave a diplomatic sigh of satisfaction, spreading his palms out in a gesture of good will. “Ah. So you have found our sacred place. Perhaps this conflict has been thus far unsuccessful on both our parts. Please, put your weapons down and let us offer terms.”

“Terms? We’re here to put an end to this invasion of yours. We’re ready to die trying.”

“Perhaps it is that fanaticism that has led both sides of this conflict in a hopeless direction,” spoke one of the other elders.

The third chimed in, “Perhaps there are ways we can coexist.”

I refused to mince words, but I waited to hear their terms. They explained that they did, in fact, intend to replace humans with servile human-bug hybrids, but would reconsider executing this apocalyptic metamorphosis if we humans would give our unconditional surrender. In return, they would allow half of the human population to retain their DNA structure. The rest would be altered.

Apparently this was a costly war on their part, and they felt it would be worth losing a large percentage of their potential hybrid work force if they could just have an early victory.

Never, I told them.

We readied our weapons for a last stand.

“Then prepare yourself, Texans, for the end.”

“I’m not from Texas,” I retorted.

The triumvirate was taken aback, and all the other bugs in the cavern stirred in unease and confusion.

“But you are human,” Terrence Stampbug stated. “Is not ‘Texas’ the name of your world?”

I blinked. After two seconds of complete mental shutdown, I something clicked in my brain and I started to understand.

Unbelievable. Even the bugs around here think that the world starts and stops with Texas.

“Uh… no. Texas is only one small part of the world, and humans dominate the whole planet. Didn’t your grand-scheme invasion plan include anything beyond Texas?”

“But… there is nothing beyond Texas!”

And then I realized I had the upper hand. I threatened them with annihilation, because only in Texas, where “everything is bigger,” did the bugs have any such power. I told them that they could never, ever, truly win, that their master plan to replace the human race was folly.

Terrence Stampbug seethed with rage as the other two members of the triumvirate seemed to be crippled with shock. The lesser beings on the sidelines were on the brink of anarchy.

“Very well,” sniffed Terrence Stampbug, “then we can have no accord. It is decided… the humans shall all be eradicated.”

It was a fight to the finish. No quarter, no mercy—only death. Somehow, that made the odds seem more in our favor. We stood in a circle, guns facing outward, ready for the end.

And then I gave the command to fire. Mayhem ensued.

We pulverized the triumvirate with beams of Aristocrat Vodka and they recoiled in agony, dropping to the ground as their outsides sizzled.

From the background, the genetically altered redshirt jumped in the way of the streams of alcoholic ammunition intended for Terrence Stampbug, taking the brunt of the attack in his stead. Terrence Stampbug, unscathed, slinked away while we dueled.

The human-bug hybrid redshirt guy couldn’t be taken out by alcohol like the rest of the bugs; his human properties made him impervious. We wend hand-to-talon as the right raged all around us.

With the triumvirate’s control shaken, the lesser bugs went haywire. Many of the drones zigzagged around, crashing into each other, while others simply froze in their spots, making them easy marks. The more advanced warrior bugs seemed troubled but still in control of their own actions. The tide was turning in our favor; we knew we actually had a fighting chance of getting out of this alive.

Hybrid Redshirt was beating me down. I had a few nasty gashes and I was already getting winded, but he just kept coming at me. He finally had me pinned down and was choking me when I tried to bargain with him, telling him that his defection wasn’t his fault and that we would gladly take him back, but he refused. He said that his place was with his people. I told him that he was just a fool, because they were using him for hard labor and dirty work, and he came back with, “How is that any different than being a blue collar employee in the human world?”

Well, I had to admit he had a fair point. But I wasn’t about to philosophize with a half-bug. As he squeezed harder around my neck, I put my supersoaker of bourbon right up to his lips.

“Foolish monkey! You can keep trying, but you can’t hurt me with alcohol!”

“I don’t intend to hurt you,” I rasped. I pulled the trigger, and a shot of Wild Turkey went right past his tongue and down his throat. “I intend to cure you.”

Wide-eyed, he released his hold on me and staggered backwards, retching and dry-heaving.

I slowly, deliberately rose to my feet, rubbing my bruised throat and finding my voice. “A hundred and one proof, bitch.”

Hybrid Redshirt convulsed and curled up in the fetal position. I took to fighting the other drones who were coming out of the woodwork in a last-ditch, desperate attack.

“Where’s Terrence Stampbug?” hollered one of the grunts. I realized that the bug boss had gotten away.

I looked over to see that Hybrid Redshirt had completely reverted back to his human form, cured by whiskey. He looked disoriented and weak. I tossed him a gun and told him to fight.

Ordering the others to cover us, I took a team of the de-bugified redshirt and two other guys to chase down Terrence Stampbug through the side tunnel he had taken.

The din of combat gradually died down the farther we delved into the tunnels. Finally, the tunnel opened up into a chamber where Terrence Stampbug was frantically searching a slimy honeycomb structure that filled the entire cavern. The four of us fanned out before he heard us and swiveled around, startled.

His resolve had obviously been shaken. His voice quavering, he warned us, “You’re too late. We have a safeguard in place, an automatic assimilation plan that does not require command structure to infect all of Texas.”

I just shrugged. “So I’ll go back to Missouri. I’ll probably be happier for it.”

And then I sheepishly realized that the three guys who had my back were Texans. “Sorry,” I offered.

We proceeded to systematically destroy the honeycomb structure, whatever it was. Like a boss fight in Contra, we just kept shooting and blowing stuff up until there was no more stuff to be blown up.

Terrence Stampbug fell to his knees, his hands up as if to persuade such events to cease. It was the pose of someone who had lost all power and control, a desperate, losing bug leader. “No! No!”

The beefy guy to my left kicked Terrence Stampbug in the face, knocking him down. He placed a boot on the bug leader’s neck and pointed his gun right up against Terrence Stampbug’s half-melted visage. “What do I do with this one, boss?”

I scowled. “He wanted all-or-nothing. So it’s all-or-nothing." I paused for dramatic effect, my eyes boring into my enemy's. "Extermination,” I growled.

“But I’m defenseless! You have already defeated us,” wailed Terrence Stampbug.

I winced, looking at the others. We debated whether killing in cold blood would cost us some of our humanity, whether that would make us no better than the bugs. The debate itself, to me, was proof that we were far superior. And while we were considering options, Terrence Stampbug took the opportunity to lash out with a retractable set of pincers and fillet the guy whose boot was pinning him down.

We reacted with immediate, final force. Discussion over: Terrence Stampbug was squashed like a bug for his dirty tactic.

Stone-faced, the other three of us hauled our compatriot’s body back through the tunnels… to a scene of total victory.

The men and women of our task force were celebrating despite traumatic losses over the past several weeks. The levity of defeating the bugs at long last overwhelmed them. Taking it all in, I clapped the cured redshirt on the shoulder and smiled.

Dang it, for the life of me I still can’t remember that guy’s name.

We headed back to the compound, cleaned up, and spread the word that the bugs were neutralized, to keep swatting away until the natural order had been completely restored.

The rest of the day had been spent drinking the ammunition that wasn’t spent. It’s going to be a little while before things return completely to normal, but the day is won.

So, in closing, it seems to be true that everything is bigger in Texas (or at least almost everything), and different climates have weird stuff. The bugs here suck, but we can take ‘em.

The moral of the story is that alcohol is not only an essential part of our humanity but vital to our survival as a species.

Stock up and enjoy.