by: Dennis R. Humphreys
Countries depend on insects for their crops. Without them pollination would be at the mercy of the winds and a lot less efficient. Governments would topple; people would starve; disease would be rampant; even cannibalism would arise among those desperate to stay alive without conscience guiding them anymore.
In the middle ages greedy lords wanting his neighbors land would starve castles out, disrupting their supply chain in trade and burn their crops. It didn't take long before the white flag was raised and the people inside put themselves at the mercy of their aggressors. Control the food and you control the population whether it be inside a castle, inside a city, or inside a country.
Brant Tucker was a third generation farmer married to Sara for five years now. She met him when she had left her Amish community in Pennsylvania to see if she wanted to continue with the community. Brant was a year older but they fell in love immediately but had to wait three years to get married. Meanwhile his father, who didn't have long to live, allowed her to stay with them in the farmhouse that was now theirs. She took care of him his last year of life and she helped with the choirs and did the cooking. Brant's father put the land into a trust until his son could take over the farm placing his older brother in charge of it.
It was sixty acres of good land and Brant had ideas for it. He decided to raise nothing but organic crops of corn, kale, collards, squash, and melons. There were special varieties that provided huge amounts of nutrition, more than their counterparts in the grocery stores. There was even perennial acreage set aside where the vegetables didn't need replanting every year. Sara was a big help working beside him constantly. The first year was difficult but the second year took off well. Organic stores' orders began pouring in, and his roadside stand began a constant flow with restaurants in the area wanting his produce. Brant was busy so he kept most of his clientele within a fifty mile radius. Still, his days began at sunrise and ended at sunset. But this was what he wanted. Once dirt got in your veins it was hard not to stay part of the land.
“You're eighteen now, I think we should get married, unless you object,” he stated to Sara one morning at breakfast.
They had been running the farm for three years now anyway and had been living together as husband and wife as well. Brant wanted to make the commitment to her though that he planned to always be here for her and thought this was the best way to express that promise. She left her skillet and leaped on his lap, covering him in kisses and repeating 'yes' a hundred times over. She couldn't imagine ever being with anyone else and she was committed to Brant, the farm and their way of life.
“Shall we have a small wedding? My family won't come anyway. Let's keep it simple, here on the farm.” she suggested.
And that's what they did. Brant's uncle came and a couple of cousins. Both he and Sara had a few friends locally and the came. And of course there was the minister. Sara spent days cooking for everyone and two of her friends helped to provide a reception after the service. There were in all sixteen people there. It was the best party anyone had ever attended.
“I can't believe it's all over and we're married,” Brant told Sara that evening as the last of their guests left.
“Days to prepare the meal and only a few hours to finish it! But that was so much fun. Maybe we can get married every year,” she joked.
Life was good as husband and wife. The farm was now completely theirs and Brant planned on making it a success.
For three more years he worked hard and his clientele base expanded to the point he wanted to buy more land.
“Why buy it?” Sara asked. “Provide the seeds and let others use your equipment to plant and harvest while you oversee everything. Teach them about some of the unique things you have to make sure they stay organic. Take a percentage off the top. Buying land is expensive and takes too long to pay back.”
“You know that's a great idea. The marketing has already been done. I have a customers and can get plenty more at the drop of a hat. Anyone going in with me would have an advantage,” he acknowledged.
“Exactly,” Sara responded.
Two more years went by and Brant contracted with three more farms with a total of three hundred and ten acres to become part of his efforts. They surrounded his own farm so it was as if working one large contiguous plantation. The produce was pouring in. When one raises organically you typically raise about thirty percent more than you expect, to take into consideration pests and other varmints since you don't use pesticides or other chemical fertilizers. But they didn't seem to have a thirty percent loss to such things so their production was high and successful.
"What is that in the sky?" Sara asked her husband coming out onto the porch after dinner. She brought him a cup of coffee. They did this often in nice weather and would sit talking until after nightfall. The land was pretty and the sunsets over it, prettier.
"I've been watching it. I think it's one of those drones the government has," her husband reported.
"Why is it out here?" she asked.
"I don't know. I guess they're keeping an eyes on everyone," Brant answered.
"What's there to keep an eye on out here?" Sara asked.
"Heaven only knows. We're supposed to have a transparent government but stuff like this goes on. If I were to call someone about it they'd act like I was crazy and didn't know what I was looking at. Makes a person paranoid or you end up being made fun of as a conspiratorialist,” he answered her while burning his mouth on a swig of coffee.
For a week they both watched the ominous drones passing overhead. They were low in the beginning but were now higher as if to escape notice. All day long they flew in grid patterns across the sky. They left no trails so there was nothing coming from them but still it was creepy knowing someone was watching, and to what point? The only thing out here were farms... a rural community of people like him and Sara.
Then they were gone. Brant and Sara sat on the front porch and watched the skies. There was nothing to see.
“I guess they found whatever they were looking for,” Brant commented.
“Maybe they were just surveying or doing weather studies,” Sara commented.
“You'd be good working for the government... the Department of Misdirection,” he joked.
“I could be Miss Direction herself,” Sara replied with a laugh.
Brant was out in the field with one of his neighbors he contracted with to raise produce some days later walking though the corn field. They had planted a field of maize in the midst of all the farms. Doing so increased corn production by three hundred percent a really organic way of producing more corn on the same acreage.
“Look there, it's one of those things,” Hayes, his neighbor shouted and pointed at the drone passing just over the crops.
“It's a drone,” Brant answered him, ”I wonder what it's doing?” Brant commented.
“Looking for illegal plants?” Hayes asked watching as the drone began making crisscrossed moves across all the fields. As it passed there was something being dropped from it.
“I don't think so,” Brant answered as he ran towards where the drone had dropped whatever it was.
When he got to the spot he wanted, he looked. The ground was moving. There were bugs hundreds of them about an inch large moving around. You could barely see them because they were brown, almost the color of the earth. As one crawled by Brant, he stomped on it. His neighbor, Hayes picked it up to take a close look.
“I've never seen a bug like that,” he commented, turning it over in his hand. “I swear it looks like it has a little circular saw there instead of mandibles.”
“Let me see that thing,” Brant demanded, holding out his hand.
He turned it over a few times looking at it. Then he glanced at his neighbor who was watching him. Brant took the bug and snapped it in half revealing circuitry and mechanical works more intricate than he had ever seen before. He just looked up at Hayes as he looked back at him surprised.
“The damn thing's not a real bug!” Hayes cried unbelievably.
“It's about as artificial as that sweetener you use in your coffee, Hayes,” Brant responded.
He took it and put it into his pocket planning on getting to the bottom of it all. What were these things meant to do? Was it some kind of surveillance? Were they monitoring the farmers through them and for what purpose?
That evening when he got back to the house he sat down at the dinner table while Sara was dishing out dinner.
“I want to show you something and see what you think,” Brant told his wife as he dug into his pocked and produced the 'dead bug'. Brant plopped it onto the table in front of her place. Sara picked it up and looked.
“It looks like a robot bug of some sort. Where did you get that?” she asked scrutinizing it as she spoke.
“One of those drones dropped it onto all the fields around here...thousands of them,” he told her. “I have no idea why.”
“For nothing good I can tell you that. When you hide whatever you're doing from the everyone else it's a devilish thing you do,” Sara reasoned. “I don't trust whoever is behind this thing, I don't care who it is.”
The hair on the back of Brant's neck was itching. He thought it an ominous sign of some kind... almost biblical with the prophecy in the Book of Revelations regarding plagues of bugs. Who said they weren't man made? Someone has the technology for it and like anything, the object or technology wasn't bad itself, it was how it was used by the people pulling strings that made it good or evil. They would just have to wait and see what came of this and talk to other farmers.
After that day no more drones flew overhead. Brant deduced they had accomplished what they were supposed to.
Then it began as if a signal was broadcast. It appeared to be some mechanical infestation uncontrollable by standard means. They were organic farmers here but they couldn't use pesticides if they wanted to. Brant walked onto his front porch one morning with his cup of coffee to notice part of his field of corn had been cut down. It was about a half acre over night. He walked out into his field to see the damage. Entire stalks with their ears lay on the ground. Looking at the ends of the stalks they were cut at ground level... a smooth, clean cut. He looked around for the cause, assuming it was those villainous looking bugs with the strange circular saw mandibles. Nothing was there so he stooped down and began running his hands through the soft dirt. Finally he found what he was looking for... a handful of earth he removed had one of the bugs there, motionless. He looked at it. Since it was mechanical it wasn't dead but it was motionless. Then he thought it was in some suspended animation, thinking they may only be destructive at night and motionless during the day. That way they could go undetected while being destructive. The results being seen when the sun back up.
“I see you found what I found this morning,” a voice said from behind him. It was Hayes.
Brant stood to talk with the man holding onto four of the bugs.
“They got about half an acre overnight. It won't take many nights to destroy everything,” Brant complained.
“Here's four more of these things for you,” he announced handing Brant the bugs. “What are you going to do with them.”
“Put them in a jar first and watch what they do tonight. I want to know what we're dealing with here. I want to talk to the others and see what they know. I'm not letting them go. I'll take a ride into the extension service tomorrow and see what they say,” Brant informed Hayes.
Sure enough, he and Hayes drove over the two other farmers he had under contract for produce. Both of them reported finding the same thing but hadn't realized what caused it. When they went into the field with a mattock and dug an inch down they exposed a few more of the mechanical bugs. Brant threw them into the jar with the rest.
“Who the hell would be doing this,” Carter, one of the farmers questioned.
“Well, it's not the Chinese, that's for sure. They might blame it on them but who's going to buy that?” Brant told them cynically. “But why would they even think of doing this and how wide spread have these drones been doing this?” Brant commented to the others.
“What are we going to do about this?” asked Carter.
“I'm headed to the extension service in the morning and see what they have to say,” he informed Carter.
“And I'm going with him,” replied Hayes.
“I'd like to go too,” Carter told them both not knowing what else to do but support the others now.
“No you stay here. You've got enough to do. Keep an eye on things. I'll let you know what happens when I get back,” Brant insisted.
That night Carter decided to go out with a spotlight into his field and see what would happen exactly. He took a game camera with night vision that he had for hunting and set it up to catch whatever was happening. He set up a chair and sat back waiting for the bugs to activate. It didn't take long before he saw movement in the earth and stalks began to fall. He sat there with the camera going thinking Brant and the rest would love to see this. Little movements in the dirt came towards him as he sat and watched the stalks fall around him, then there was pain as he pulled his feet back. The little creatures, not differentiating corn stalks from Carter's feet had begun cutting through his shoes rapidly and had sliced pieces of the bottoms of his feet off. Carter jumped up and out of their path. His folding chair soon fell crooked as the bottoms of the legs were cut unevenly. Having enough he went into the house to doctor his wounds. He hoped he could catch Brant before he left in the morning to view the camera. It might even be worthwhile to take it with him.
“Good morning Brant,” said Elsie, Carter's wife. “Carter wanted me to give you this. He sat out last night to record those bugs destroying the crops and they got to his feet...sliced them all up. He had a hard time walking this morning so I'm giving you this.”
“Thanks, Elsie. I hope he's not too bad. I told him I'd stop back after we see the extension service to let him know what we found out. I'll check on him then,” Brant told Carter's wife before he got into the truck to go pick up Hayes.
“Hi, I'd like to speak with someone here at the extension service about a bug problem,” Brant asked after he and Hayes walked into the office.
“That would be Carl Setz. Have a seat, I'll tell him you're here,” the middle aged woman told them both. She looked the model of efficiency and glanced at them with some disdain as if they were beneath her attention.
They sat for awhile waiting when a weak little man with thick glasses came out from the door behind the secretary's desk. Brant watched as the man walked to them and he stood.
“Hi...I'm Carl Setz. I understand you have a bug problem. How exactly can I help?” the man asked, pushing his glasses back to the bridge of his nose.
“I'm Brant Edwards. Well, it' seems these bugs have been raiding several farms in our area. They seem to be nocturnal so none of these are moving,” Brant explained as he held a pickle jar with several of the bugs including the first one he busted, in it, in front of the man's face, and shook it a bit.
“Perhaps we should go into my office to discuss your problem,” he suggested so they followed him through the door he had entered through when they first saw him.
“Have a seat...it's Brant?” the man asked holding the jar as he sat down behind his desk.
“Yes, and this is Hayes Paulson, my neighbor and associate in our organic farming venture,” he told the man.
“Well, Brant, I don't see anything unusual about the beetles you've brought here,” he said looking at the pickle jar. “They're a common form of what they call the Saw Beetle. We've been getting reports of them migrating into the area from further south.”
“You don't see anything unusual about them! What do you mean by that?” Brant answered unbelievably.
“Just that...” Carl Setz began saying.
“They're fucking mechanical. Any idiot can see that, especially the busted one. It's all micro circuitry there,” Brant told him.
“Are you an qualified electronics expert?” Setz asked.
“What the fuck does that have to do with it. A moron could see what they are! Are you a qualified moron?
“I'll have to ask you to watch your language or you'll have to leave,” Setz warned the farmers.
“You mean to tell me you can't tell these bug are mechanical when you look closely?” Brant asked the man while Hayes shuffled in his chair looking like he was ready to give him a right hook.
“Tell you what, I'll give these to my lab people and have them take a look. Give me a few hours and come back. I'll let you know what they say,” Setz recommended.
“Fine...we'll be back after lunch,” Brant told him getting up with Hayes pissed off from the apparent run around.
“Maybe you should have given him the game camera,” Hayes suggested.
“Maybe not. No, he's nothing but a bureaucrat. I'm not going to put all our eggs in one basket,” Brant acknowledged.
* * *
“Hi...we're back to see Mr. Setz,” Brant announced to the secretary they had seen earlier. “He told us to come back in a few hours.”
“Have a seat,” she said, more of a command than an invite. “I'll see if Mr. Setz is available.
“More bullshit,” Hayes mumbled as they took a seat.”
“Hello, Brant? I'm Carl Setz... what can I do for you?” the man asked as if he had never seen him before.
“We were in earlier and dropped some bug samples to you. You asked us to come back in a few hours,” Brant told him.
“I'm sorry... Brant, but we've never met before,” Setz told the farmer.
“He gave you a pickle jar with bugs in it earlier right in front of me,” Hayes interjected.
“A pickle jar? Full of bugs? I don't think so. I've never see you gentlemen before,” Setz told them, Hayes came out of his chair ready to pull Setz across the desk. There was fear in Setz's eyes as Brant grabbed his neighbor by the arm and held him back.
“Never the fuck mind. You told me what I wanted to know,” Brant told Setz. “If we come back we'll both be pulling your ass across your desk,” Brant warned him as he headed out the door pulling Hayes with him.
“What do you make of that?” Hayes asked his neighbor.
“It's our government behind this, probably with big business. He basically told us he knew what those things were and where they came from otherwise he would have been as curious about them as we are. Then to lie and cover it up... he knows. We can get more of those things and we still have Carl's game camera here. I say we make copies and put it on the Internet along with filming those beetles. We can smash another one and get a tight shot to show to everyone. We film continuously so people know we haven't doctored anything. We put it out to a million or more viewers and ask them to make copies and send the link out to more people, a lot of people will know about this before they take it down,” Brant planned.
“The bugs...they're all gone, ”Hayes told Brant while they were outside when they got back from the extension service. I've been digging for an hour at the line of damage in the field and there isn't anything in the ground like before.”
“We'll watch tonight and see if there's anymore damage. They probably activated those things and had them move on to somewhere else, after we showed up at the extension service. Covering their tracks just confirms more of what we suspect,” I saved two of those bugs in another jar Hayes. Wait here on the porch let me get the jar.”
When he did the two bugs were active and scrambling to get out of the jar even using their circular mandibles to try and cut their way out. Brant handed Hayes the jar.
“You guys eat a lot of pickles!” Hayes joked. “Yeah, for being nocturnal they sure are being fussy during the day here.”
“They're probably trying to get to the coordinates they were given to leave this place. We'll show them on YouTube maybe and I'll smash one without stopping the camera so viewers know it's real. We'll go in close so they see it's not a real bug,” Brant told Hayes.
“You're still going to get people that say it's all a fabrication and things like this just couldn't be going on here,” Hayes countered.
“Sure, there will always be the doubters but more people than not will realize something's happening. It will also give other farmers enough to know what to look for,” Brant surmised.
* * *
“Those two fucking hay seeds just left the office,” Setz informed the voice on the other end of his phone. “I kept their proof of the bugs. The ass holes have nothing.”
“Don't you think they probably kept some of their evidence?” the voice asked Setz.
“They're just a couple of Neanderthal sod suckers... they're too stupid to think ahead like us.” Setz told the man.
“Still, we're relocating the infestation. We don't need the publicity right now. It's not that I don't believe you but I've learned over the years never to underestimate the other person,” the voice said, disconnecting the call.
Setz didn't want the publicity either. It would probably mean his job, not because he was inept in some way but this was big, destroying crops throughout the country to control the food supply, the population and legislation. He meant the ones at the top would cover their tracks and someone like Setz could get buried in the process.
The Saw Bugs
by: Dennis R. Humphreys
Countries depend on insects for their crops. Without them pollination would be at the mercy of the winds and a lot less efficient. Governments would topple; people would starve; disease would be rampant; even cannibalism would arise among those desperate to stay alive without conscience guiding them anymore.
In the middle ages greedy lords wanting his neighbors land would starve castles out, disrupting their supply chain in trade and burn their crops. It didn't take long before the white flag was raised and the people inside put themselves at the mercy of their aggressors. Control the food and you control the population whether it be inside a castle, inside a city, or inside a country.
Brant Tucker was a third generation farmer married to Sara for five years now. She met him when she had left her Amish community in Pennsylvania to see if she wanted to continue with the community. Brant was a year older but they fell in love immediately but had to wait three years to get married. Meanwhile his father, who didn't have long to live, allowed her to stay with them in the farmhouse that was now theirs. She took care of him his last year of life and she helped with the choirs and did the cooking. Brant's father put the land into a trust until his son could take over the farm placing his older brother in charge of it.
It was sixty acres of good land and Brant had ideas for it. He decided to raise nothing but organic crops of corn, kale, collards, squash, and melons. There were special varieties that provided huge amounts of nutrition, more than their counterparts in the grocery stores. There was even perennial acreage set aside where the vegetables didn't need replanting every year. Sara was a big help working beside him constantly. The first year was difficult but the second year took off well. Organic stores' orders began pouring in, and his roadside stand began a constant flow with restaurants in the area wanting his produce. Brant was busy so he kept most of his clientele within a fifty mile radius. Still, his days began at sunrise and ended at sunset. But this was what he wanted. Once dirt got in your veins it was hard not to stay part of the land.
“You're eighteen now, I think we should get married, unless you object,” he stated to Sara one morning at breakfast.
They had been running the farm for three years now anyway and had been living together as husband and wife as well. Brant wanted to make the commitment to her though that he planned to always be here for her and thought this was the best way to express that promise. She left her skillet and leaped on his lap, covering him in kisses and repeating 'yes' a hundred times over. She couldn't imagine ever being with anyone else and she was committed to Brant, the farm and their way of life.
“Shall we have a small wedding? My family won't come anyway. Let's keep it simple, here on the farm.” she suggested.
And that's what they did. Brant's uncle came and a couple of cousins. Both he and Sara had a few friends locally and the came. And of course there was the minister. Sara spent days cooking for everyone and two of her friends helped to provide a reception after the service. There were in all sixteen people there. It was the best party anyone had ever attended.
“I can't believe it's all over and we're married,” Brant told Sara that evening as the last of their guests left.
“Days to prepare the meal and only a few hours to finish it! But that was so much fun. Maybe we can get married every year,” she joked.
Life was good as husband and wife. The farm was now completely theirs and Brant planned on making it a success.
For three more years he worked hard and his clientele base expanded to the point he wanted to buy more land.
“Why buy it?” Sara asked. “Provide the seeds and let others use your equipment to plant and harvest while you oversee everything. Teach them about some of the unique things you have to make sure they stay organic. Take a percentage off the top. Buying land is expensive and takes too long to pay back.”
“You know that's a great idea. The marketing has already been done. I have a customers and can get plenty more at the drop of a hat. Anyone going in with me would have an advantage,” he acknowledged.
“Exactly,” Sara responded.
Two more years went by and Brant contracted with three more farms with a total of three hundred and ten acres to become part of his efforts. They surrounded his own farm so it was as if working one large contiguous plantation. The produce was pouring in. When one raises organically you typically raise about thirty percent more than you expect, to take into consideration pests and other varmints since you don't use pesticides or other chemical fertilizers. But they didn't seem to have a thirty percent loss to such things so their production was high and successful.
"What is that in the sky?" Sara asked her husband coming out onto the porch after dinner. She brought him a cup of coffee. They did this often in nice weather and would sit talking until after nightfall. The land was pretty and the sunsets over it, prettier.
"I've been watching it. I think it's one of those drones the government has," her husband reported.
"Why is it out here?" she asked.
"I don't know. I guess they're keeping an eyes on everyone," Brant answered.
"What's there to keep an eye on out here?" Sara asked.
"Heaven only knows. We're supposed to have a transparent government but stuff like this goes on. If I were to call someone about it they'd act like I was crazy and didn't know what I was looking at. Makes a person paranoid or you end up being made fun of as a conspiratorialist,” he answered her while burning his mouth on a swig of coffee.
For a week they both watched the ominous drones passing overhead. They were low in the beginning but were now higher as if to escape notice. All day long they flew in grid patterns across the sky. They left no trails so there was nothing coming from them but still it was creepy knowing someone was watching, and to what point? The only thing out here were farms... a rural community of people like him and Sara.
Then they were gone. Brant and Sara sat on the front porch and watched the skies. There was nothing to see.
“I guess they found whatever they were looking for,” Brant commented.
“Maybe they were just surveying or doing weather studies,” Sara commented.
“You'd be good working for the government... the Department of Misdirection,” he joked.
“I could be Miss Direction herself,” Sara replied with a laugh.
Brant was out in the field with one of his neighbors he contracted with to raise produce some days later walking though the corn field. They had planted a field of maize in the midst of all the farms. Doing so increased corn production by three hundred percent a really organic way of producing more corn on the same acreage.
“Look there, it's one of those things,” Hayes, his neighbor shouted and pointed at the drone passing just over the crops.
“It's a drone,” Brant answered him,”I wonder what it's doing?” Brant commented.
“Looking for illegal plants?” Hayes asked watching as the drone began making crisscrossed moves across all the fields. As it passed there was something being dropped from it.
“I don't think so,” Brant answered as he ran towards where the drone had dropped whatever it was.
When he got to the spot he wanted, he looked. The ground was moving. There were bugs hundreds of them about an inch large moving around. You could barely see them because they were brown, almost the color of the earth. As one crawled by Brant, he stomped on it. His neighbor, Hayes picked it up to take a close look.
“I've never seen a bug like that,” he commented, turning it over in his hand. “I swear it looks like it has a little circular saw there instead of mandibles.”
“Let me see that thing,” Brant demanded, holding out his hand.
He turned it over a few times looking at it. Then he glanced at his neighbor who was watching him. Brant took the bug and snapped it in half revealing circuitry and mechanical works more intricate than he had ever seen before. He just looked up at Hayes as he looked back at him surprised.
“The damn thing's not a real bug!” Hayes cried unbelievably.
“It's about as artificial as that sweetener you use in your coffee, Hayes,” Brant responded.
He took it and put it into his pocket planning on getting to the bottom of it all. What were these things meant to do? Was it some kind of surveillance? Were they monitoring the farmers through them and for what purpose?
That evening when he got back to the house he sat down at the dinner table while Sara was dishing out dinner.
“I want to show you something and see what you think,” Brant told his wife as he dug into his pocked and produced the 'dead bug'. Brant plopped it onto the table in front of her place. Sara picked it up and looked.
“It looks like a robot bug of some sort. Where did you get that?” she asked scrutinizing it as she spoke.
“One of those drones dropped it onto all the fields around here...thousands of them,” he told her. “I have no idea why.”
“For nothing good I can tell you that. When you hide whatever you're doing from the everyone else it's a devilish thing you do,” Sara reasoned. “I don't trust whoever is behind this thing, I don't care who it is.”
The hair on the back of Brant's neck was itching. He thought it an ominous sign of some kind... almost biblical with the prophecy in the Book of Revelations regarding plagues of bugs. Who said they weren't man made? Someone has the technology for it and like anything, the object or technology wasn't bad itself, it was how it was used by the people pulling strings that made it good or evil. They would just have to wait and see what came of this and talk to other farmers.
After that day no more drones flew overhead. Brant deduced they had accomplished what they were supposed to.
Then it began as if a signal was broadcast. It appeared to be some mechanical infestation uncontrollable by standard means. They were organic farmers here but they couldn't use pesticides if they wanted to. Brant walked onto his front porch one morning with his cup of coffee to notice part of his field of corn had been cut down. It was about a half acre over night. He walked out into his field to see the damage. Entire stalks with their ears lay on the ground. Looking at the ends of the stalks they were cut at ground level... a smooth, clean cut. He looked around for the cause, assuming it was those villainous looking bugs with the strange circular saw mandibles. Nothing was there so he stooped down and began running his hands through the soft dirt. Finally he found what he was looking for... a handful of earth he removed had one of the bugs there, motionless. He looked at it. Since it was mechanical it wasn't dead but it was motionless. Then he thought it was in some suspended animation, thinking they may only be destructive at night and motionless during the day. That way they could go undetected while being destructive. The results being seen when the sun back up.
“I see you found what I found this morning,” a voice said from behind him. It was Hayes.
Brant stood to talk with the man holding onto four of the bugs.
“They got about half an acre overnight. It won't take many nights to destroy everything,” Brant complained.
“Here's four more of these things for you,” he announced handing Brant the bugs. “What are you going to do with them.”
“Put them in a jar first and watch what they do tonight. I want to know what we're dealing with here. I want to talk to the others and see what they know. I'm not letting them go. I'll take a ride into the extension service tomorrow and see what they say,” Brant informed Hayes.
Sure enough, he and Hayes drove over the two other farmers he had under contract for produce. Both of them reported finding the same thing but hadn't realized what caused it. When they went into the field with a mattock and dug an inch down they exposed a few more of the mechanical bugs. Brant threw them into the jar with the rest.
“Who the hell would be doing this,” Carter, one of the farmers questioned.
“Well, it's not the Chinese, that's for sure. They might blame it on them but who's going to buy that?” Brant told them cynically. “But why would they even think of doing this and how wide spread have these drones been doing this?” Brant commented to the others.
“What are we going to do about this?” asked Carter.
“I'm headed to the extension service in the morning and see what they have to say,” he informed Carter.
“And I'm going with him,” replied Hayes.
“I'd like to go too,” Carter told them both not knowing what else to do but support the others now.
“No you stay here. You've got enough to do. Keep an eye on things. I'll let you know what happens when I get back,” Brant insisted.
That night Carter decided to go out with a spotlight into his field and see what would happen exactly. He took a game camera with night vision that he had for hunting and set it up to catch whatever was happening. He set up a chair and sat back waiting for the bugs to activate. It didn't take long before he saw movement in the earth and stalks began to fall. He sat there with the camera going thinking Brant and the rest would love to see this. Little movements in the dirt came towards him as he sat and watched the stalks fall around him, then there was pain as he pulled his feet back. The little creatures, not differentiating corn stalks from Carter's feet had begun cutting through his shoes rapidly and had sliced pieces of the bottoms of his feet off. Carter jumped up and out of their path. His folding chair soon fell crooked as the bottoms of the legs were cut unevenly. Having enough he went into the house to doctor his wounds. He hoped he could catch Brant before he left in the morning to view the camera. It might even be worthwhile to take it with him.
“Good morning Brant,” said Elsie, Carter's wife. “Carter wanted me to give you this. He sat out last night to record those bugs destroying the crops and they got to his feet...sliced them all up. He had a hard time walking this morning so I'm giving you this.”
“Thanks, Elsie. I hope he's not too bad. I told him I'd stop back after we see the extension service to let him know what we found out. I'll check on him then,” Brant told Carter's wife before he got into the truck to go pick up Hayes.
“Hi, I'd like to speak with someone here at the extension service about a bug problem,” Brant asked after he and Hayes walked into the office.
“That would be Carl Setz. Have a seat, I'll tell him you're here,” the middle aged woman told them both. She looked the model of efficiency and glanced at them with some disdain as if they were beneath her attention.
They sat for awhile waiting when a weak little man with thick glasses came out from the door behind the secretary's desk. Brant watched as the man walked to them and he stood.
“Hi...I'm Carl Setz. I understand you have a bug problem. How exactly can I help?” the man asked, pushing his glasses back to the bridge of his nose.
“I'm Brant Edwards. Well, it' seems these bugs have been raiding several farms in our area. They seem to be nocturnal so none of these are moving,” Brant explained as he held a pickle jar with several of the bugs including the first one he busted, in it, in front of the man's face, and shook it a bit.
“Perhaps we should go into my office to discuss your problem,” he suggested so they followed him through the door he had entered through when they first saw him.
“Have a seat...it's Brant?” the man asked holding the jar as he sat down behind his desk.
“Yes, and this is Hayes Paulson, my neighbor and associate in our organic farming venture,” he told the man.
“Well, Brant, I don't see anything unusual about the beetles you've brought here,” he said looking at the pickle jar. “They're a common form of what they call the Saw Beetle. We've been getting reports of them migrating into the area from further south.”
“You don't see anything unusual about them! What do you mean by that?” Brant answered unbelievably.
“Just that...” Carl Setz began saying.
“They're fucking mechanical. Any idiot can see that, especially the busted one. It's all micro circuitry there,” Brant told him.
“Are you an qualified electronics expert?” Setz asked.
“What the fuck does that have to do with it. A moron could see what they are! Are you a qualified moron?
“I'll have to ask you to watch your language or you'll have to leave,” Setz warned the farmers.
“You mean to tell me you can't tell these bug are mechanical when you look closely?” Brant asked the man while Hayes shuffled in his chair looking like he was ready to give him a right hook.
“Tell you what, I'll give these to my lab people and have them take a look. Give me a few hours and come back. I'll let you know what they say,” Setz recommended.
“Fine...we'll be back after lunch,” Brant told him getting up with Hayes pissed off from the apparent run around.
“Maybe you should have given him the game camera,” Hayes suggested.
“Maybe not. No, he's nothing but a bureaucrat. I'm not going to put all our eggs in one basket,” Brant acknowledged.
* * *
“Hi...we're back to see Mr. Setz,” Brant announced to the secretary they had seen earlier. “He told us to come back in a few hours.”
“Have a seat,” she said, more of a command than an invite. “I'll see if Mr. Setz is available.
“More bullshit,” Hayes mumbled as they took a seat.”
“Hello, Brant? I'm Carl Setz... what can I do for you?” the man asked as if he had never seen him before.
“We were in earlier and dropped some bug samples to you. You asked us to come back in a few hours,” Brant told him.
“I'm sorry... Brant, but we've never met before,” Setz told the farmer.
“He gave you a pickle jar with bugs in it earlier right in front of me,” Hayes interjected.
“A pickle jar? Full of bugs? I don't think so. I've never see you gentlemen before,” Setz told them, Hayes came out of his chair ready to pull Setz across the desk. There was fear in Setz's eyes as Brant grabbed his neighbor by the arm and held him back.
“Never the fuck mind. You told me what I wanted to know,” Brant told Setz. “If we come back we'll both be pulling your ass across your desk,” Brant warned him as he headed out the door pulling Hayes with him.
“What do you make of that?” Hayes asked his neighbor.
“It's our government behind this, probably with big business. He basically told us he knew what those things were and where they came from otherwise he would have been as curious about them as we are. Then to lie and cover it up... he knows. We can get more of those things and we still have Carl's game camera here. I say we make copies and put it on the Internet along with filming those beetles. We can smash another one and get a tight shot to show to everyone. We film continuously so people know we haven't doctored anything. We put it out to a million or more viewers and ask them to make copies and send the link out to more people, a lot of people will know about this before they take it down,” Brant planned.
“The bugs...they're all gone, ”Hayes told Brant while they were outside when they got back from the extension service. I've been digging for an hour at the line of damage in the field and there isn't anything in the ground like before.”
“We'll watch tonight and see if there's anymore damage. They probably activated those things and had them move on to somewhere else, after we showed up at the extension service. Covering their tracks just confirms more of what we suspect,” I saved two of those bugs in another jar Hayes. Wait here on the porch let me get the jar.”
When he did the two bugs were active and scrambling to get out of the jar even using their circular mandibles to try and cut their way out. Brant handed Hayes the jar.
“You guys eat a lot of pickles!” Hayes joked. “Yeah, for being nocturnal they sure are being fussy during the day here.”
“They're probably trying to get to the coordinates they were given to leave this place. We'll show them on YouTube maybe and I'll smash one without stopping the camera so viewers know it's real. We'll go in close so they see it's not a real bug,” Brant told Hayes.
“You're still going to get people that say it's all a fabrication and things like this just couldn't be going on here,” Hayes countered.
“Sure, there will always be the doubters but more people than not will realize something's happening. It will also give other farmers enough to know what to look for,” Brant surmised.
* * *
“Those two fucking hay seeds just left the office,” Setz informed the voice on the other end of his phone. “I kept their proof of the bugs. The ass holes have nothing.”
“Don't you think they probably kept some of their evidence?” the voice asked Setz.
“They're just a couple of Neanderthal sod suckers... they're too stupid to think ahead like us.” Setz told the man.
“Still, we're relocating the infestation. We don't need the publicity right now. It's not that I don't believe you but I've learned over the years never to underestimate the other person,” the voice said, disconnecting the call.
Setz didn't want the publicity either. It would probably mean his job, not because he was inept in some way but this was big, destroying crops throughout the country to control the food supply, the population and legislation. He meant the ones at the top would cover their tracks and someone like Setz could get buried in the process.
* * *
By nine o'clock that night Hayes and Brant did their expose on the Internet. They did everything
they said they were going to do, recording it onto video CD camera. Brant wanted the original copy but then he downloaded it to his laptop where he in turn uploaded it to YouTube and sent links out to everyone he knew. He posted links on various social media where he and Sara had followers with instructions to copy it before it disappeared off the net. Keep sending it out to others and keep uploading it to YouTube. 'I want to be a nuisance' Brant told Hayes and Sara who had come to join them.
By late the next morning their work was down. However, a lot of people had seen it, as the blog they set up was still there and people mentioned it. By early afternoon, the blog site was gone.
“I think it's time to hide what we have. I'd like to make copies of the CD but the damn laptops don't have CD writers or readers on them anymore,” Brant said.
“Get a couple of thumb drives and put it on there. We can find a computer geek to make CD copies somewhere,” Hayes suggested to Brant realizing they had to protect what they had now. The powers that be knew who they were and where they were. It was a matter of time before they came looking for the bugs they had and any other evidence of this infestation.
Sure enough by early afternoon the next day, a line of dark cars carrying men in suits came up the drive. By the time they pulled up to the house the vehicles looked more off white. Still it couldn't hide the fact what was concealed inside were government agents.
Brant and Sara met them on the porch.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” Brant asked.
“We're with the FBI,” the lead man announced flashing, his badge so quickly all Brant and Sara saw was something metallic.
“Again, what can I help you with?” Brant reiterated.
“I have a search warrant to search your premises. We have reason to believe you've been involved in terrorists activities,” the man announced smugly, motioning three other men to start the search process.
“Please be careful of my things,” Sara told the men in the house. “It's one thing to falsely accuse someone of something and another to treat the like dirt... there is due process in this country... at least I think that still exists. Doesn't it?”
But the men didn't answer. They just continued ripping the place apart.
“Just what are you looking for?” Brant asked the lead man.
“Anything subversive,” he answered.
“And that is?” but Brant's question went unresolved as well as they were looking for whatever they could try and hang him with.
Brant went into the kitchen under the sink and pulled out a bottle of ammonia and a bottle of bleach and came back into the room handing the bottles to the agent.
“Here is this subversive enough for you? Hey, asshole, I'm asking you a question,” Brant spoke again.
“Please leave me alone or I will cite you with obstruction,” they agent warned him vehemently as if he were charged, tried and convicted.
“Seems this was the kind of thing the people of this country fought against in the Revolutionary War to gain independence from England,” Sara commented but with no response.
“History repeats itself, Sara. Most people never learn that leopards don't change their spots especially the grunts that do the work for the guys at the top. They're only smart enough to follow orders. They know if they kiss ass enough they may be rewarded. What they're too stupid to realize once they've done what's ordered they're expendable, along with the other shit in the toilet. They just get flushed... “ Brant was saying but got caught by the shirt by the agent who then slammed him up against the wall.
“Listen asshole...shut the fuck up before I take you in or shove my fist down your throat. I'm sure you'd like that. If you start choking I'll consider that resistance. Got it?” the agent warned Brant.
Sara was on the man in an instant, slapping him in a very un-Amish way and speaking in a private Amish verbiage.
“Let go of my husband you mother fucker,” she screamed while one of the other agents grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her.
“Your wife has some fight in her. Do all these x Amish women act like this?' he asked obviously knowing all about them, probably down to their underwear.
“Leave her the fuck alone,” Brant yelled.
“What the hell are you going to do?” taunted the lead agent. “You couldn't even stop me if I wanted to see what it was like to have some of that Amish pussy. I'd just run you in for obstruction and we could keep you locked up for as long as we want for subversion. Maybe all the guys in the office could stop by to make sure your wife was well taken care of until you hooked up again when you were fifty,” the agent threatened.
The men searched for almost three hours inside the house and the three out buildings but found nothing. Brant was thankful he hid everything he had off site and wrapped it in a Faraday cage. He thought it was a good idea...the cage, in case they could track the bugs he had through some signal, since they could activate and deactivate them remotely. The cage would interfere with signals going in and those going out.
“Nothing here, sir. They're all clean,” he heard the one agent dictate to his senior.
“Are you sure? Nothing?” the lead agent asked his underling who just shook his head 'no'.
“OK, Edwards. You slipped by this time but we'll be watching you. Understood?” the man told Brant as they all started milling out the door.
“Go fuck yourself,” Brant told the man who turned around angrily.
“Listen fuck head, I'm right about there...this close,” he dictated holding up his index and finger and thumb showing a small space.
“I wonder... “ Sara began speaking but her husband held up his hand for her to stop. He watched as the men left down the drive and then took Sara outside away from the house.
“Don't say anything in the house. I'm sure they bugged the place while they were in there. We don't want them taking anything we say and twisting it to their benefit,” Brant warned her. He wasn't just paranoid anymore he had good reason to be skeptical. Too much had happened the last several days not to be and it was obvious they stepped into the middle of something they weren't supposed to know about, or the others doing this, thought they were too stupid to figure.
“Where did you hide everything?” Sara asked.
“You don't need to know. If something happens to me one of the other guys knows where everything is,” he told his wife. He knew if they couldn't find what they were looking for they would try and go though the wives with some intimidation routine. He believed Sara was feisty enough she'd never give in but they had reasons in their heads never to give up either.
A little while later there was a knock at the door. It was Hayes.
“I had visitors,” said Hayes through the screen door. Brant held his finger up to stay quiet and then went out on the porch leading his friend across the front lawn.
“Yeah we did too for three hours almost. The threatened me and Sara,” Brant told him. “I didn't want you saying anything because I figured they bugged the place while they were inside.
“I didn't think of that. Thank God you thought of hiding everything off the premises here. Not only would the evidence be gone they'd probably charge us for having the stuff and subversive activities, like it was ours,” Hayes pondered. “What do we do now.?
“Meet with Carter and John. Make sure we're all on the same page and aware of the same things. I'm hoping our message keeps going out on the Net as fast as they take it down. These things crop up somewhere else at least people will be looking for them,” Brant told his friend.
So they met up with the others.
“That pisses me off and it really pisses me off if they've bugged my place and are listening to everything I say in my house,” John spoke angrily turning red in the face. His was not a poker face but expressed everything he felt.
“Well, I'm going to look for the bugs tonight. The most likely place for them is in the land lines and the lamps, probably a living room lamp and a bedroom lamp but they could be anywhere. If I find them I'm going to collect them and pile them together in front of the radio. That should give us some degree of privacy as long as no one speaks loudly,” Brant told them.
“If I find them I'll stomp on them even with these sore feet,” Carter promised.
“No, don't do that... they'll probably charge you with destruction of government property. I'll help you check your place since you're still hurting. We'll do the same thing with any bugs we find.
After a day there was a small pile of bugs discovered at each house. Brant was right. The landline phones had one bug in each and the bedroom and living room lamps all had been wired. There were fifteen bugs in all discovered. Brant assumed they might have missed a couple so he warned everyone to be discreet.
* * *
“Sir, I think these guys discovered our transmitters. They are all being interfered with the same radio broadcast from Sean Hennedy... all the bugs,” the agent mentioned to his boss.
“Son's of bitches... they're not as stupid as they look. We need to scare them... give them a warning, show those assholes we mean business,” the leader told the agent.
“Is there something you want me to do?” the agent asked.
“How far away are the beetles from those farms?” the head agent asked.
“About half a mile. They're dormant right now in a few farms there,” the monitoring agent told his boss.
“I think we need to activate them tonight and their infrared sensors,” the lead agent told him.
“Are we authorized to do that?” the agent underling asked not wanting to end up as a fall guy like usually happens to those in his position.
“I have complete authorization if it's a matter of national security and this is. Reprogram a few hundred of those things and get them over to that John Harrison's place tonight. They all get the message in the morning,” outlined the agent.
“What time sir?” the monitoring agent asked his superior.
“Start them out right at dark. I want them to strike sometime during the night when everyone's asleep. Got that?” he commanded.
So the agent went about programming four hundred of the beetles in the area, activating their infrared sensors and their movement at sundown, leaving all the others in the area dormant.
It was 2am when the dog started yelping and crying. The family lab always laid on the cool floor of kitchen in the summer. It was made of flag stone from a bygone era where stone was not combustible in an area and a time they cooked with wood in the big iron stove that used to be there. It was replaced by a pellet stove to help keep the house warm.
John Harrison awoke to the dog crying and got up to see what the problem was.
“Is everything OK,” his sleepy wife, Lena, asked as he put on his robe.
“Go back to sleep. The dog's fussing about something. I'm going downstairs to see what going on,” he told her as he turned and went down stairs. He checked first on their seven month old baby, Stacey, asleep in her crib. She was fine.
Harrison went downstairs and down the hall to the large country kitchen. It was his favorite room in the house. You could get fifty people in there easily and get togethers were lots of fun over pot luck dinners.
It was dark when he looked in but he heard the dog, Cocoa whining. So he flipped the light on as he spoke.
“What's the matter girl, bad dreams...” he began but looking at her there were beetles all around her as she laid in a pile of blood, bleeding profusely.
John immediately went to her and began stomping on the little mechanical beasts. Others came out from nowhere and attacked him slicing into his bare feet. The pain was unbelievable as they tore through his soles. He turned to run down the hall but he slipped and fell from the bloody steps he took. No sooner did he hit the floor than all the beetles attacked him with their circular saw mandibles, slicing through his flesh efficiently with their diamond toothed blades. He began to yell but two entered his open mouth with their spinning saws and slice quickly through his soft tongue. Within a short time, John's body finished bleeding out on the floor like the family dog and they were both dead.
The creatures mounted the stair steps in a ribbon of death cutting flesh now instead of plant matter. When they got to the top of the stairs the next closest infrared signal they detected was coming from the nursery. There they went climbing up the legs for the crib to little Stacey and there they set on her like the family dog and her father. She was small so it would only take a few of them and very little time to end her future. Stacey let out a shrill scream when they started, awakening her mother, as they cut into her flesh.
It took Lena a couple of minutes to become conscious from her sleep. She never heard Stacey cry like that before...something was seriously wrong. She didn't even put on her housecoat as she ran down the hall to the nursery to see what was wrong. When she flipped on the light her reaction was one of pure horror and terror. Her baby lay dying on a mattress soaked in blood as it began dripping to the floor. There were bugs on the baby cutting away with the sounds like little circular saws buzzing away at her dying body. She ran to the crib to pull the baby free but the baby was beyond saving. Still she brushed off the bugs and picked her daughter up holding her close to her and turned to leave the room. When she did, there was a ribbon of death coming into the room from the hall, blocking her escape. Still she tried escaping as the bugs began tearing into her feet. She slipped too, like her husband from the pain and the blood. As soon as she fell flat on the ground, she was engulfed with the creatures that had killed everyone else. In moments Lena realized it was hopeless and gave up. She had nothing to live for, maybe that's why she just stopped desiring to live suddenly, knowing her family... her life had been taken, not by the bugs, but those directing them. Just like the person squeezing the trigger... the intent determined whether it was good or bad.
“I've been calling Lena all morning, Sara told Brant, ”we're supposed to get together today and bake for the church bake sale and there's no answer. Something's wrong.”
“I'll go over there right away and see,” Brant said. He wanted to make the rounds to his three other associates anyway without using the phone or even the cell phone.
What he saw there made him puke. He ran to the bathroom to do so. It was a scene of carnage. The creatures hadn't just killed the family they mulched them as long as there was heat registering in them. There were piles of pieces of flesh and no one was recognizable by anyone that didn't know them. The clothes they wore had also been cut into small pieces intermingled with flesh that appeared to be emulsified.
Once he was able to get hold of himself and begin thinking rationally , he made a call to his wife and each of his other friends to warn them and to meet there at John's house.
“I think this was a warning. Right now I don't think anyone will do anything else to any of us but I swear I will get these fuckers if it's the last thing I do,” Brant promised.
“You have to get to the guy at the top, whoever that is,” Carter told him.
“How can we do that?” Hayes asked openly but no one could answer.
Finally Brant broke the silence.
“If we try and get that Gunther Mano guy with the FBI for any reason, he'll bring his crew with him. The guy's got an ego a mile wide but I think he'd like to have a crack at Sara. If he's like most guys like him... if Sara were to call him up and invite him over with the idea I'm not here, I'll bet he'd come over alone,” he told the others.
“I can't do that...I can't stand the guy,” Sara told her husband.
“I can't either, and it gives me the creeps letting him lay a hand on you but that shouldn't happen, if he's alone... I'll get to him first” Brant guessed.
“If he's not though what am I supposed to do?” she cried.
“I'll come home unexpected,” Brant figured.
“He'll know then we were trying to set him up. We won't be able to anything like that again,” Sara warned him.
“Yeah but I think he's got a big enough ego to be predictable,” Brant assured her.
“Then if I'm going to do this, let me orchestrate it my way. First thing to do is make sure the bugs in our place are transmitting,” Sara informed him.
Sara was lying on the bed that night with the bug on the night strand Brant had yanked from the lamp. It was clear to transmit so anything said would be heard by the listeners. The Gunther guy was egotistical enough to believe anything he heard while anyone else would figure it was a setup.
She started with Brant about how she got a little turned on when Gunther told him about coming back and taking her and maybe including the other men. Brant acted incredulous and a little angry at first but she continued with the fantasy. Brant acted more outraged and called her a whore.
“Isn't that every woman's fantasy... to be a whore at the beck and call of her master. It turns me on. At least maybe you can consider trying out a few things sometime. We're getting into a rut. I didn't stay in the Amish community because I was so conservative. Quite the contrary. You don't know what's going in my head that's why I'm telling you this. You know that Gunther guy probably has a nice pair of handcuffs,” she said as sexually as she could.
“I can't believe I'm hearing this let alone listening to this garbage. I'm going downstairs to sleep,” he informed her.
“But I thought we could at least have a fantasy night before you go away tomorrow of two days trying to find out more about those stupid bugs,” she told him.
“No fucking way. That Gunther agent is the last one I want in my fantasies if we're going there. I'll be leaving early in the morning don't bother to get up, I'll stop at Dunkin' Donuts and grab something,” he told her and left the room. He gave her the OK sign as he left.
She sent to work then making all the sounds of a woman possessed by passion and finally after some time she took it to a hi pitch resolution that would be the envy of every porn star. This was the icing on her cake and she knew even a normal man's ego would find it hard resist. Gunther's ego was beyond that.
* * *
“Sir, I think you have to hear this,” the monitor told Gunther Mano, his superior.
He played back the recording taken the night before as Mano listened intently, a small smile coming over him. The other agent watched him and knew he was buying into the scenario.
“Sir the transmitters weren't working until last night and then this confession from this Sara person. You're not buying it are you? The agent asked.
“Don't worry your head, I can take care of myself,” Gunther told his underling arrogantly.
The monitor, Tony Pactore didn't like his boss but he was still his boss. They guy was arrogant and ignorant. He thought it was funny to subject a room full of his people to his flatulence like some two year old, as if his stuff didn't stink. He respected no one. They say you don't respect yourself if you don't respect others so he must have really considered himself a pile of crap to be like he was to the people around him. If that was the case maybe somewhere deep inside there was a redeemable conscience but don't ask anyone to hold their breath, unless he was around.
Gunther Mano found himself driving up the drive to Brant Tucker's home. “That Sara Tucker has some sweet shoe fly pie to offer I bet', he thought to himself as he fantasized pounding her head into the headboard of her husband's bed. Then he thought to himself, 'that's why they call it a headboard'! He brought wildflowers with him he thought Sara would like, under the pretense of an apology for his behavior a couple of days ago.
He knocked at the door. Sara had already seen him coming but wanted to make him wait so it didn't look like she knew he was there. He knocked again and after a minute she answered the door.
“Agent Mano. My husband isn't here at the moment if you came to see him,” she told him looking at the flowers.
“Actually I came to see both of you to apologize for my behavior the other day. It wasn't one of my better days. These flowers are for you by way of an apology. I hope you accept them,” he told her stepping back so she could open the door. A woman can't turn down flowers so when she opened the door he felt he had already won her over. He was inside about a minute when he made his play. 'Where the hell are you, Brian?' she thought to herself as he buried his face in her breasts and pulling the front of her V-neck dress open. The slobber from his mouth was making her sick. 'Brian, if you don't show soon I'm going to start beating at this guy's balls like there's no tomorrow,' she thought. She played along telling him how she wanted the feel of another man's body in hers. Finally the screen door popped open and both Brian and Hayes came in the door.
Mano looked surprised as he turned and took a two by four up the side of his head before he could react further. While he was down Sara kicked him.
“That's not very Amish of you Sara! Why don't you slip your breasts back into your dress. I think you've traumatized Hayes here,” Brian told her, seeing Hayes standing there wide eyed.
Help me get him over to the Casey farm. He told me he had crop damage last night with our bug friends. I want to see what Gunther has on his phone if we can. He probably has a password or number to open the damn thing. We'll find something out when we tie him on the ground where the damage stopped last night. When the critters are activated tonight he'll find out what's it was like for the Harrison family.
“Sounds like a plan,” supported Hayes as he slapped the man enjoyably a few time to get him awake.
“That fucking bitch whore of yours did this?” the agent screamed . It was more of an affront to his ego and intelligence than an insult to her.
“Shut up you moron,” insulted Hayes. “You think we're stupid but you're the one who was duped into coming here and has his hands tied now.”
“You're in such fucking trouble. Abducting, assaulting, and kidnapping a federal officer, you won't see the light of day,” Gunther cried trying to stiffen his legs so as not to be forced to where they were taking him.
“You may not see the light of day tomorrow if you don't tell us what we want to know tonight,” Brant told him. “Throw the son-of-a-bitch in the trunk...he's not good enough to ride in up front with us.”
So they threw him into the trunk of his government car and took his keys to drive over to the other farm. If push came to shove Brian figured on leaving the car somewhere else with Gunther in it after the bugs got through with him. It would look like some kind of accident but no one could point an actual finger at any of the farmers.
Bryan and Hayes tied Gunther spread eagle to four corn stalks, crotch first facing the path of the beetles. He set up a LED light so they could clearly see and they sat in lounge chairs they brought for the occasion. Gunther kept throwing curses, accusations and insults so Brant finally stuffed a rag he had in his back pocket deep into his mouth making him gag.
“Now you know what it's like when you're around decent people. You make them gag.,” Brant insulted him but people like Gunther are hard to insult.
“What's the password for your phone,” Brant asked.
“Fuck you,” Gunther yelled defiantly.
“That's fine. I'd prefer watching those saw beetle cut through your nuts anyway after what you people did to my friends... an entire family including a baby seven months old. How the fuck do you sleep at night?” Brant told him.
“Fuck you,” Gunther repeated.
“That's the one thing you won't be doing any more of when the bugs saw into your crotch,” Hayes countered with savagery appearing in his eyes...something Brant had not seen before.
“Oh look,” Brant exclaimed the dirt is starting to move. Do you suppose our little voracious bug friends are awake?”
“Yes... I think they are, Brant. This is going to be so enjoyable. This may turn me into a serial killer... of government agents after this,” Hayes taunted.
“Now, now, Hayes, you don't want to grow up to be like our deceased friend, Gunther Mano do you? Oh I'm sorry, I'm jumping the gun here...you're not deceased... yet,” Brant pushed harder.
“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” cried Gunther indignantly but you could tell he was getting worried by the tone of his indignation and the look in his eyes. These guys had the upper hand and even his arrogance couldn't prove otherwise. He was destined for departure by sunup because of what he had done to their friends, unless he cooperated.
The bugs moved slowly forward. Gunther had his head up as far as he could to watch their progress. He was beginning to sweat but the air was warm.
“I'd be sweating too Gunther. A botched vasectomy without any anesthesia. But the good part is that won't last long,” Brant assured him.
They all watched as the moving dirt edged closer.
“You fucking guys will be in so much trouble,” Gunther warned.
“If anyone finds out. Who's going to find out, it's just the thee of us out here,” Hayes added.
Gunther felt the first clip of a small saw blade cut his trousers... then as it scratched the surface of his skin. The bug went deeper and this time it was painful.
“Oh you fucking ass holes are going to be in such trouble,” he yelled as it sounded like he was about to cry not from the pain but the humiliation. He was probably reliving a distant memory from childhood now that made him the way he was. All these years he had turned it around so things would be in his control but now things weren't.
“Are you scared, Hayes? I'm not scared. I look at it this way, even if I get in trouble I've revenged the death of a friend and his family. This makes it worthwhile even if you don't give me what I want. Otherwise I have to live up to promise and let you go when you tell me what I want,” Brant announced in finality.
“Oh God that hurts. They're slicing my leg,” the agent cried.
“Who's behind this whole scheme?” Brant questioned.
“Ah, shit that fucking hurts... Bonito... it's the Bonito Corporation. They want to control food production and supply,” he yelled.
“Not good enough. They can't get away with it unless someone in the high level of our government let them get away with it and help pull the strings,” Brant told him. “Tell me the name and give me your password for your phone.”
“I don't know...God that hurts one is almost at my balls,... I only have my contact name in the government...it Senator Wainright. There's an x president involved in organizing this whole thing too and has been at it for years since he had an executive from Bonito in his cabinet,” he cried more seriously this time.
“I need you password and if you give me the wrong one it's just going to take longer and those bugs keep getting closer...” Brant taunted.
“BigDIck... no spaces capital B and capital D,” he clamored, getting more frightened by the second over his jewels.
“I should have figured that one out. Wait until I tell Sara. Ha...it works. Thank you for providing that,” Brant said as he stood to leave. “I see quite a few calls here to Wainright and the CEO of Bonito but what's this L. D.? There are a ton of calls here... that wouldn't be by any chance President Lou Darnell?“
“OK, smart ass you figured it out, now let me go,” the agent yelled, getting really exasperated.
Are you married Gunther?” Brant asked incidentally.
“No! What does that have to do with anything?” Gunther cried in desperation as there were two beetles approaching his crotch.
“It saves me the effort of having to inform the next of kin,” Brant told him as he and Hayes left the scene and Brant called Carter to come pick them up.
“Are your feet OK to drive over here to Casey's farm? It's ten minutes away... alright see you then,” and he disconnected the phone.
“Ten minutes... we have to listen to that asshole being ravaged by bugs for ten minutes?” Hayes asked. Hayes didn't even like the sound of the man's voice.
“He last the full ten minutes, just consider it justice,” Brant told him, “meanwhile we have our work cut out for us.”
* * *
By nine o'clock that night Hayes and Brant did their expose on the Internet. They did everything
they said they were going to do, recording it onto video CD camera. Brant wanted the original copy but then he downloaded it to his laptop where he in turn uploaded it to YouTube and sent links out to everyone he knew. He posted links on various social media where he and Sara had followers with instructions to copy it before it disappeared off the net. Keep sending it out to others and keep uploading it to YouTube. 'I want to be a nuisance' Brant told Hayes and Sara who had come to join them.
By late the next morning their work was down. However, a lot of people had seen it, as the blog they set up was still there and people mentioned it. By early afternoon, the blog site was gone.
“I think it's time to hide what we have. I'd like to make copies of the CD but the damn laptops don't have CD writers or readers on them anymore,” Brant said.
“Get a couple of thumb drives and put it on there. We can find a computer geek to make CD copies somewhere,” Hayes suggested to Brant realizing they had to protect what they had now. The powers that be knew who they were and where they were. It was a matter of time before they came looking for the bugs they had and any other evidence of this infestation.
Sure enough by early afternoon the next day, a line of dark cars carrying men in suits came up the drive. By the time they pulled up to the house the vehicles looked more off white. Still it couldn't hide the fact what was concealed inside were government agents.
Brant and Sara met them on the porch.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” Brant asked.
“We're with the FBI,” the lead man announced flashing, his badge so quickly all Brant and Sara saw was something metallic.
“Again, what can I help you with?” Brant reiterated.
“I have a search warrant to search your premises. We have reason to believe you've been involved in terrorists activities,” the man announced smugly, motioning three other men to start the search process.
“Please be careful of my things,” Sara told the men in the house. “It's one thing to falsely accuse someone of something and another to treat the like dirt... there is due process in this country... at least I think that still exists. Doesn't it?”
But the men didn't answer. They just continued ripping the place apart.
“Just what are you looking for?” Brant asked the lead man.
“Anything subversive,” he answered.
“And that is?” but Brant's question went unresolved as well as they were looking for whatever they could try and hang him with.
Brant went into the kitchen under the sink and pulled out a bottle of ammonia and a bottle of bleach and came back into the room handing the bottles to the agent.
“Here is this subversive enough for you? Hey, asshole, I'm asking you a question,” Brant spoke again.
“Please leave me alone or I will cite you with obstruction,” they agent warned him vehemently as if he were charged, tried and convicted.
“Seems this was the kind of thing the people of this country fought against in the Revolutionary War to gain independence from England,” Sara commented but with no response.
“History repeats itself, Sara. Most people never learn that leopards don't change their spots especially the grunts that do the work for the guys at the top. They're only smart enough to follow orders. They know if they kiss ass enough they may be rewarded. What they're too stupid to realize once they've done what's ordered they're expendable, along with the other shit in the toilet. They just get flushed... “ Brant was saying but got caught by the shirt by the agent who then slammed him up against the wall.
“Listen asshole...shut the fuck up before I take you in or shove my fist down your throat. I'm sure you'd like that. If you start choking I'll consider that resistance. Got it?” the agent warned Brant.
Sara was on the man in an instant, slapping him in a very un-Amish way and speaking in a private Amish verbiage.
“Let go of my husband you mother fucker,” she screamed while one of the other agents grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her.
“Your wife has some fight in her. Do all these x Amish women act like this?' he asked obviously knowing all about them, probably down to their underwear.
“Leave her the fuck alone,” Brant yelled.
“What the hell are you going to do?” taunted the lead agent. “You couldn't even stop me if I wanted to see what it was like to have some of that Amish pussy. I'd just run you in for obstruction and we could keep you locked up for as long as we want for subversion. Maybe all the guys in the office could stop by to make sure your wife was well taken care of until you hooked up again when you were fifty,” the agent threatened.
The men searched for almost three hours inside the house and the three out buildings but found nothing. Brant was thankful he hid everything he had off site and wrapped it in a Faraday cage. He thought it was a good idea...the cage, in case they could track the bugs he had through some signal, since they could activate and deactivate them remotely. The cage would interfere with signals going in and those going out.
“Nothing here, sir. They're all clean,” he heard the one agent dictate to his senior.
“Are you sure? Nothing?” the lead agent asked his underling who just shook his head 'no'.
“OK, Edwards. You slipped by this time but we'll be watching you. Understood?” the man told Brant as they all started milling out the door.
“Go fuck yourself,” Brant told the man who turned around angrily.
“Listen fuck head, I'm right about there...this close,” he dictated holding up his index and finger and thumb showing a small space.
“I wonder... “ Sara began speaking but her husband held up his hand for her to stop. He watched as the men left down the drive and then took Sara outside away from the house.
“Don't say anything in the house. I'm sure they bugged the place while they were in there. We don't want them taking anything we say and twisting it to their benefit,” Brant warned her. He wasn't just paranoid anymore he had good reason to be skeptical. Too much had happened the last several days not to be and it was obvious they stepped into the middle of something they weren't supposed to know about, or the others doing this, thought they were too stupid to figure.
“Where did you hide everything?” Sara asked.
“You don't need to know. If something happens to me one of the other guys knows where everything is,” he told his wife. He knew if they couldn't find what they were looking for they would try and go though the wives with some intimidation routine. He believed Sara was feisty enough she'd never give in but they had reasons in their heads never to give up either.
A little while later there was a knock at the door. It was Hayes.
“I had visitors,” said Hayes through the screen door. Brant held his finger up to stay quiet and then went out on the porch leading his friend across the front lawn.
“Yeah we did too for three hours almost. The threatened me and Sara,” Brant told him. “I didn't want you saying anything because I figured they bugged the place while they were inside.
“I didn't think of that. Thank God you thought of hiding everything off the premises here. Not only would the evidence be gone they'd probably charge us for having the stuff and subversive activities, like it was ours,” Hayes pondered. “What do we do now.?
“Meet with Carter and John. Make sure we're all on the same page and aware of the same things. I'm hoping our message keeps going out on the Net as fast as they take it down. These things crop up somewhere else at least people will be looking for them,” Brant told his friend.
So they met up with the others.
“That pisses me off and it really pisses me off if they've bugged my place and are listening to everything I say in my house,” John spoke angrily turning red in the face. His was not a poker face but expressed everything he felt.
“Well, I'm going to look for the bugs tonight. The most likely place for them is in the land lines and the lamps, probably a living room lamp and a bedroom lamp but they could be anywhere. If I find them I'm going to collect them and pile them together in front of the radio. That should give us some degree of privacy as long as no one speaks loudly,” Brant told them.
“If I find them I'll stomp on them even with these sore feet,” Carter promised.
“No, don't do that... they'll probably charge you with destruction of government property. I'll help you check your place since you're still hurting. We'll do the same thing with any bugs we find.
After a day there was a small pile of bugs discovered at each house. Brant was right. The landline phones had one bug in each and the bedroom and living room lamps all had been wired. There were fifteen bugs in all discovered. Brant assumed they might have missed a couple so he warned everyone to be discreet.
* * *
“Sir, I think these guys discovered our transmitters. They are all being interfered with the same radio broadcast from Sean Hennedy... all the bugs,” the agent mentioned to his boss.
“Son's of bitches... they're not as stupid as they look. We need to scare them... give them a warning, show those assholes we mean business,” the leader told the agent.
“Is there something you want me to do?” the agent asked.
“How far away are the beetles from those farms?” the head agent asked.
“About half a mile. They're dormant right now in a few farms there,” the monitoring agent told his boss.
“I think we need to activate them tonight and their infrared sensors,” the lead agent told him.
“Are we authorized to do that?” the agent underling asked not wanting to end up as a fall guy like usually happens to those in his position.
“I have complete authorization if it's a matter of national security and this is. Reprogram a few hundred of those things and get them over to that John Harrison's place tonight. They all get the message in the morning,” outlined the agent.
“What time sir?” the monitoring agent asked his superior.
“Start them out right at dark. I want them to strike sometime during the night when everyone's asleep. Got that?” he commanded.
So the agent went about programming four hundred of the beetles in the area, activating their infrared sensors and their movement at sundown, leaving all the others in the area dormant.
It was 2am when the dog started yelping and crying. The family lab always laid on the cool floor of kitchen in the summer. It was made of flag stone from a bygone era where stone was not combustible in an area and a time they cooked with wood in the big iron stove that used to be there. It was replaced by a pellet stove to help keep the house warm.
John Harrison awoke to the dog crying and got up to see what the problem was.
“Is everything OK,” his sleepy wife, Lena, asked as he put on his robe.
“Go back to sleep. The dog's fussing about something. I'm going downstairs to see what going on,” he told her as he turned and went down stairs. He checked first on their seven month old baby, Stacey, asleep in her crib. She was fine.
Harrison went downstairs and down the hall to the large country kitchen. It was his favorite room in the house. You could get fifty people in there easily and get togethers were lots of fun over pot luck dinners.
It was dark when he looked in but he heard the dog, Cocoa whining. So he flipped the light on as he spoke.
“What's the matter girl, bad dreams...” he began but looking at her there were beetles all around her as she laid in a pile of blood, bleeding profusely.
John immediately went to her and began stomping on the little mechanical beasts. Others came out from nowhere and attacked him slicing into his bare feet. The pain was unbelievable as they tore through his soles. He turned to run down the hall but he slipped and fell from the bloody steps he took. No sooner did he hit the floor than all the beetles attacked him with their circular saw mandibles, slicing through his flesh efficiently with their diamond toothed blades. He began to yell but two entered his open mouth with their spinning saws and slice quickly through his soft tongue. Withing a short time, John's body finished bleeding out on the floor like the family dog and they were both dead.
The creatures mounted the stair steps in a ribbon of death cutting flesh now instead of plant matter. When they got to the top of the stairs the next closest infrared signal they detected was coming from the nursery. There they went climbing up the legs for the crib to little Stacey and there they set on her like the family dog and her father. She was small so it would only take a few of them and very little time to end her future. Stacey let out a shrill scream when they started, awakening her mother, as they cut into her flesh.
It took Lena a couple of minutes to become conscious from her sleep. She never heard Stacey cry like that before...something was seriously wrong. She didn't even put on her housecoat as she ran down the hall to the nursery to see what was wrong. When she flipped on the light her reaction was one of pure horror and terror. Her baby lay dying on a mattress soaked in blood as it began dripping to the floor. There were bugs on the baby cutting away with the sounds like little circular saws buzzing away at her dying body. She ran to the crib to pull the baby free but the baby was beyond saving. Still she brushed off the bugs and picked her daughter up holding her close to her and turned to leave the room. When she did, there was a ribbon of death coming into the room from the hall, blocking her escape. Still she tried escaping as the bugs began tearing into her feet. She slipped too, like her husband from the pain and the blood. As soon as she fell flat on the ground, she was engulfed with the creatures that had killed everyone else. In moments Lena realized it was hopeless and gave up. She had nothing to live for, maybe that's why she just stopped desiring to live suddenly, knowing her family... her life had been taken, not by the bugs, but those directing them. Just like the person squeezing the trigger... the intent determined whether it was good or bad.
“I've been calling Lena all morning, Sara told Brant, ”we're supposed to get together today and bake for the church bake sale and there's no answer. Something's wrong.”
“I'll go over there right away and see,” Brant said. He wanted to make the rounds to his three other associates anyway without using the phone or even the cell phone.
What he saw there made him puke. He ran to the bathroom to do so. It was a scene of carnage. The creatures hadn't just killed the family they mulched them as long as there was heat registering in them. There were piles of pieces of flesh and no one was recognizable by anyone that didn't know them. The clothes they wore had also been cut into small pieces intermingled with flesh that appeared to be emulsified.
Once he was able to get hold of himself and begin thinking rationally , he made a call to his wife and each of his other friends to warn them and to meet there at John's house.
“I think this was a warning. Right now I don't think anyone will do anything else to any of us but I swear I will get these fuckers if it's the last thing I do,” Brant promised.
“You have to get to the guy at the top, whoever that is,” Carter told him.
“How can we do that?” Hayes asked openly but no one could answer.
Finally Brant broke the silence.
“If we try and get that Gunther Mano guy with the FBI for any reason, he'll bring his crew with him. The guy's got an ego a mile wide but I think he'd like to have a crack at Sara. If he's like most guys like him... if Sara were to call him up and invite him over with the idea I'm not here, I'll bet he'd come over alone,” he told the others.
“I can't do that...I can't stand the guy,” Sara told her husband.
“I can't either, and it gives me the creeps letting him lay a hand on you but that shouldn't happen, if he's alone... I'll get to him first” Brant guessed.
“If he's not though what am I supposed to do?” she cried.
“I'll come home unexpected,” Brant figured.
“He'll know then we were trying to set him up. We won't be able to anything like that again,” Sara warned him.
“Yeah but I think he's got a big enough ego to be predictable,” Brant assured her.
“Then if I'm going to do this, let me orchestrate it my way. First thing to do is make sure the bugs in our place are transmitting,” Sara informed him.
Sara was lying on the bed that night with the bug on the night strand Brant had yanked from the lamp. It was clear to transmit so anything said would be heard by the listeners. The Gunther guy was egotistical enough to believe anything he heard while anyone else would figure it was a setup.
She started with Brant about how she got a little turned on when Gunther told him about coming back and taking her and maybe including the other men. Brant acted incredulous and a little angry at first but she continued with the fantasy. Brant acted more outraged and called her a whore.
“Isn't that every woman's fantasy... to be a whore at the beck and call of her master. It turns me on. At least maybe you can consider trying out a few things sometime. We're getting into a rut. I didn't stay in the Amish community because I was so conservative. Quite the contrary. You don't know what's going in my head that's why I'm telling you this. You know that Gunther guy probably has a nice pair of handcuffs,” she said as sexually as she could.
“I can't believe I'm hearing this let alone listening to this garbage. I'm going downstairs to sleep,” he informed her.
“But I thought we could at least have a fantasy night before you go away tomorrow of two days trying to find out more about those stupid bugs,” she told him.
“No fucking way. That Gunther agent is the last one I want in my fantasies if we're going there. I'll be leaving early in the morning don't bother to get up, I'll stop at Dunkin' Donuts and grab something,” he told her and left the room. He gave her the OK sign as he left.
She sent to work then making all the sounds of a woman possessed by passion and finally after some time she took it to a hi pitch resolution that would be the envy of every porn star. This was the icing on her cake and she knew even a normal man's egoi would find it hard resist. Gunther's ego was beyond that.
* * *
“Sir, I think you have to hear this,” the monitor told Gunther Mano, his superior.
He played back the recording taken the night before as Mano listened intently, a small smile coming over him. The other agent watched him and knew he was buying into the scenario.
“Sir the transmitters weren't working until last night and then this confession from this Sara person. You're not buying it are you? The agent asked.
“Don't worry your head, I can take care of myself,” Gunther told his underling arrogantly.
The monitor, Tony Pactore didn't like his boss but he was still his boss. They guy was arrogant and ignorant. He thought it was funny to subject a room full of his people to his flatulence like some two year old, as if his stuff didn't stink. He respected no one. They say you don't respect yourself if you don't respect others so he must have really considered himself a pile of crap to be like he was to the people around him. If that was the case maybe somewhere deep inside there was a redeemable conscience but don't ask anyone to hold their breath, unless he was around.
Gunther Mano found himself driving up the drive to Brant Tucker's home. “That Sara Tucker has some sweet shoe fly pie to offer I bet', he thought to himself as he fantasized pounding her head into the headboard of her husband's bed. Then he thought to himself, 'that's why they call it a headboard'! He brought wildflowers with him he thought Sara would like, under the pretense of an apology for his behavior a couple of days ago.
He knocked at the door. Sara had already seen him coming but wanted to make him wait so it didn't look like she knew he was there. He knocked again and after a minute she answered the door.
“Agent Mano. My husband isn't here at the moment if you came to see him,” she told him looking at the flowers.
“Actually I came to see both of you to apologize for my behavior the other day. It wasn't one of my better days. These flowers are for you by way of an apology. I hope you accept them,” he told her stepping back so she could open the door. A woman can't turn down flowers so when she opened the door he felt he had already won her over. He was inside about a minute when he made his play. 'Where the hell are you, Brian?' she thought to herself as he buried his face in her breasts and pulling the front of her V-neck dress open. The slobber from his mouth was making her sick. 'Brian, if you don't show soon I'm going to start beating at this guy's balls like there's no tomorrow,' she thought. She played along telling him how she wanted the feel of another man's body in hers. Finally the screen door popped open and both Brian and Hayes came in the door.
Mano looked surprised as he turned and took a two by four up the side of his head before he could react further. While he was down Sara kicked him.
“That's not very Amish of you Sara! Why don't you slip your breasts back into your dress. I think you've traumatized Hayes here,” Brian told her, seeing Hayes standing there wide eyed.
Help me get him over to the Casey farm. He told me he had crop damage last night with our bug friends. I want to see what Gunther has on his phone if we can. He probably has a password or number to open the damn thing. We'll find something out when we tie him on the ground where the damage stopped last night. When the critters are activated tonight he'll find out what's it was like for the Harrison family.
“Sounds like a plan,” supported Hayes as he slapped the man enjoyably a few time to get him awake.
“That fucking bitch whore of yours did this?” the agent screamed . It was more of an affront to his ego and intelligence than an insult to her.
“Shut up you moron,” insulted Hayes. “You think we're stupid but you're the one who was duped into coming here and has his hands tied now.”
“You're in such fucking trouble. Abducting, assaulting, and kidnapping a federal officer, you won't see the light of day,” Gunther cried trying to stiffen his legs so as not to be forced to where they were taking him.
“You may not see the light of day tomorrow if you don't tell us what we want to know tonight,” Brant told him. “Throw the son-of-a-bitch in the trunk...he's not good enough to ride in up front with us.”
So they threw him into the trunk of his government car and took his keys to drive over to the other farm. If push came to shove Brian figured on leaving the car somewhere else with Gunther in it after the bugs got through with him. It would look like some kind of accident but no one could point an actual finger at any of the farmers.
Bryan and Hayes tied Gunther spread eagle to four corn stalks, crotch first facing the path of the beetles. He set up a LED light so they could clearly see and they sat in lounge chairs they brought for the occasion. Gunther kept throwing curses, accusations and insults so Brant finally stuffed a rag he had in his back pocket deep into his mouth making him gag.
“Now you know what it's like when you're around decent people. You make them gag.,” Brant insulted him but people like Gunther are hard to insult.
“What's the password for your phone,” Brant asked.
“Fuck you,” Gunther yelled defiantly.
“That's fine. I'd prefer watching those saw beetle cut through your nuts anyway after what you people did to my friends... an entire family including a baby seven months old. How the fuck do you sleep at night?” Brant told him.
“Fuck you,” Gunther repeated.
“That's the one thing you won't be doing any more of when the bugs saw into your crotch,” Hayes countered with savagery appearing in his eyes...something Brant had not seen before.
“Oh look,” Brant exclaimed the dirt is starting to move. Do you suppose our little voracious bug friends are awake?”
“Yes... I think they are, Brant. This is going to be so enjoyable. This may turn me into a serial killer... of government agents after this,” Hayes taunted.
“Now, now, Hayes, you don't want to grow up to be like our deceased friend, Gunther Mano do you? Oh I'm sorry, I'm jumping the gun here...you're not deceased... yet,” Brant pushed harder.
“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” cried Gunther indignantly but you could tell he was getting worried by the tone of his indignation and the look in his eyes. These guys had the upper hand and even his arrogance couldn't prove otherwise. He was destined for departure by sunup because of what he had done to their friends, unless he cooperated.
The bugs moved slowly forward. Gunther had his head up as far as he could to watch their progress. He was beginning to sweat but the air was warm.
“I'd be sweating too Gunther. A botched vasectomy without any anesthesia. But the good part is that won't last long,” Brant assured him.
They all watched as the moving dirt edged closer.
“You fucking guys will be in so much trouble,” Gunther warned.
“If anyone finds out. Who's going to find out, it's just the thee of us out here,” Hayes added.
Gunther felt the first clip of a small saw blade cut his trousers... then as it scratched the surface of his skin. The bug went deeper and this time it was painful.
“Oh you fucking ass holes are going to be in such trouble,” he yelled as it sounded like he was about to cry not from the pain but the humiliation. He was probably reliving a distant memory from childhood now that made him the way he was. All these years he had turned it around so things would be in his control but now things weren't.
“Are you scared, Hayes? I'm not scared. I look at it this way, even if I get in trouble I've revenged the death of a friend and his family. This makes it worthwhile even if you don't give me what I want. Otherwise I have to live up to promise and let you go when you tell me what I want,” Brant announced in finality.
“Oh God that hurts. They're slicing my leg,” the agent cried.
“Who's behind this whole scheme?” Brant questioned.
“Ah, shit that fucking hurts... Bonito... it's the Bonito Corporation. They want to control food production and supply,” he yelled.
“Not good enough. They can't get away with it unless someone in the high level of our government let them get away with it and help pull the strings,” Brant told him. “Tell me the name and give me your password for your phone.”
“I don't know...God that hurts one is almost at my balls,... I only have my contact name in the government...it Senator Wainright. There's an x president involved in organizing this whole thing too and has been at it for years since he had an executive from Bonito in his cabinet,” he cried more seriously this time.
“I need you password and if you give me the wrong one it's just going to take longer and those bugs keep getting closer...” Brant taunted.
“BigDIck... no spaces capital B and capital D,” he clamored, getting more frightened by the second over his jewels.
“I should have figured that one out. Wait until I tell Sara. Ha...it works. Thank you for providing that,” Brant said as he stood to leave. “I see quite a few calls here to Wainright and the CEO of Bonito but what's this L. D.? There are a ton of calls here... that wouldn't be by any chance President Lou Darnell?“
“OK, smart ass you figured it out, now let me go,” the agent yelled, getting really exasperated.
Are you married Gunther?” Brant asked incidentally.
“No! What does that have to do with anything?” Gunther cried in desperation as there were two beetles approaching his crotch.
“It saves me the effort of having to inform the next of kin,” Brant told him as he and Hayes left the scene and Brant called Carter to come pick them up.
“Are your feet OK to drive over here to Casey's farm? It's ten minutes away... alright see you then,” and he disconnected the phone.
“Ten minutes... we have to listen to that asshole being ravaged by bugs for ten minutes?” Hayes asked. Hayes didn't even like the sound of the man's voice.
“He last the full ten minutes, just consider it justice,” Brant told him, “meanwhile we have our work cut out for us.”
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