“I swear to
fucking god cunts….” growled Max angrily to his captors “When I get big again,
I am going to spray all of you with so much fucking Mortein....”
“Aww, how cute!” jeered General Sting as the
large group of ants scuttled through the dense grassy undergrowth towards the
anthill, moving parallel to the concrete barrier of the backyard concrete pergola.
“The little faggot seriously thinks he can ever return back to normal size!”
As soon as
Max heard that statement his blood turned cold, mortified at the mention of
such a predicament. “What the fuck did you just say to me?” he stammered.
Surely his
captors couldn’t be so cruel and ruthless to keep him at this pathetic puny
size for the rest of his life…. could they? He was so young and had so much
going for him, he had so many dreams and big plans. If he was shrunk to a
height of only 5 millimetres for the rest of his life, his life might as well
be over and done with. He seriously thought death would be a better alternative
than being reduced to such a pathetic grovelling existence.
“Nothing...”
snickered General Sting under his breath.
This made
Max’s blood boil with rage. Not only had this arrogant ant army general almost beaten
him within inches of death, but now he was also fully relishing in his pain and
suffering.
“FUCK
YOU!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “YOU ARE THE BIGGEST CUNT OF THEM
ALL!!”
“Wow!”
giggled General Sting. “That’s quite the potty mouth you have got there for
such a little boy!”
“Just
ignore him” sighed Princess Penelope as she squeezed in between 2 large green
trunks of grass blades that were very close to each other. “He’s just
traumatized and upset”.
This
annoyed Max even further. At least General Sting was being completely honest
about his true feelings and attitudes towards him from his perspective. This
girl on the other hand was using flattery to try and soothe him, disguising her
true intentions from his perspective.
“Yeah, fuck
you too bitch!” snarled Max angrily. “Eat a bag of dicks!”
Princess
Penelope was shocked at the hurtful and foul-mouthed insults being hurled at
her by the older teenage boy. “Wow!” she gasped in shock. “Talk about being
ungrateful! I have defended you, nurtured you and even saved your life and this
is how you repay me!”
Max laughed
and replied “Let me tell you something, your royal highness! If a farmer raises
a piglet, feeds it, cares for it, and protects it from predators and pests
until it is fattened enough as an adult to be killed and slaughtered for pork,
is the pig supposed to be grateful to the farmer?! If anything, that’s even
more fucked up than if the farmer just killed the piglet on the spot!”
With angry
tears in his eyes, he stated “You are only keeping me alive so you can kill me
at the proper moment. I just know it”
Princess
Penelope was heartbroken that the teenage boy in front of her who was only 6
years younger than her would think of her as a cruel executioner. “No! No! No!”
she stammered “It’s not like that I promise!”
“Oh
really?” retorted Max. “Because I have been here just 2 hours, and all I have
seen you do is suck his cock!” gesturing at an enraged General Sting.
This made
General Sting furious to the point of being an exploding volcano. “Why you
little fucking wretched brat! You worthless little cunt! How dare you talk to a
member of royalty like that?! I ought to fucking punch your head in!” He began
to approach Max with his 4 fists raised.
“All right, that’s enough bickering the 3 of
you…” groaned Squirt’s mother who was walking several metres in front of them.
“My 6 children at home get along better than this and are more well-behaved
than you 3.”
“Okay we
are here now!” called out one of the soldier ants.
“Holy
Shit!” gasped Max.
The large
group of ants had now made their way out of the shadowy twilight of the dense
grassy undergrowth into a small clearing where fresh direct sunlight was
showering them from above. Behind them lay a quarter semicircle circumference
perimeter where the Amazonian grassy green jungle just abruptly ended, with the
continuous rows of 50-foot-tall grass green blade stalks immediately stopping. It was pretty obvious to Max that this small
clearing had been artificially cleared since plant growth didn’t just abruptly
stop in an open space area naturally for no reason. The ants had painstakingly actually
cleared dozens of grass blades to make way for a small clearing. Given their
size Max wondered how long it had taken to do it since a human could do it in
less than a minute by ripping a tuff of grass with a single hand.
Max’s eyes
then darted to his front. In front of him lay a yellowish-whiteish desert with
cricket ball-sized yellow and white grains crunching underneath the exoskeleton
feet of the ants as they walked. It was the colossal structure directly in
front of him though, that shocked him to his core the most and made it really
sink in how small he had physically become.
A massive behemoth sand dune hill towered in
front of him, 50 feet high (15m) and the height of a four-storey building,
towering above them, casting a twilight shadow around it for several metres. On
top of the sand dune, however, Max spotted a perfectly symmetrically circular
hole opening which meant that this structure had also been artificially
created. Looking at it in its entirety reminded Max of a sandy volcano, in
fact, it was shaped just like a volcano with sloping conical sandy slopes and a
crater-shaped hole embedded symmetrically into the top.
It was the
surrounding environment that disturbed him the most though. Behind the ant hill
was a 100-foot-tall wooden fence overshadowing it which Max identified as the
wooden lining fence separating the grassy lawn from the garden patch where the
small shrubs and flower bushes grew. However, they were no longer small; now they
were the size of a mountain range with shrubs overlooking the anthill like the
Himalayas and he was at the foothills. On the right-hand side was the concrete
barrier of the backyard pergola running parallel like the Great Wall of China
in a continuous unbroken straight line, 5 metres high. The backside of the
anthill and the right-hand side was resting directly against both structures
for support.
For a
second Max wondered if he had been transported to a strange foreign alien world
valley but then the haunting truth dawned on him that this was no alien world.
This was the area where just a few hours ago he could completely stomp and
obliterate the entire small clearing and corner with his right shoe in a single
stomp. The concrete wall which had only reached to his ankle was now like the
Great Wall of China and the wooden fence lining which he could kick over in a
single kick was like a towering iron barrier fence.
His entire
perspective of the world had changed like he had taken a long journey, but he
hadn’t even moved an inch in his journey, literally.
As the
large group of ants began to make their way up the sandy slopes at a 40 to
45-degree angle like an intrepid group of mountaineers Max had a few more
questions for his captors about the development work they had done.
“If you guys
live underground, why do you need to build a 4-storey tall anthill?” inquired
Max. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just make a hole in the ground at ground level?”
“Because
you stupid little child we need to be able to see over the dense canopy of
grassy blade stalks!” groaned General Sting as they trudged up the sandy slope.
“When your colony is located in a sheltered corner where your view is
obstructed by a grassy jungle, a wooden fence and a concrete wall you must be
able to peer over them to spot any immediate dangers within a few kilometres
radius.”
“No need to
get so hostile and grumpy I was just curious!” groaned Max, rolling his eyes.
As the ants
reached the rim of the perfectly symmetrical circular-shaped crater hole Max
gasped at the scale of the opening.
From his
perspective, the crater was at least 10 metres in diameter, with several
flights of stairs lining around the circular perimeter leading down the crater
slopes which were inclined at an even steeper 60-to-65-degree angle. Max also
observed that around 10 metres inclination down the crater slopes the flight of
stairs abruptly ended in a 50-foot (15m) vertical drop with strong flexible
grass fibre ladders attached to the last stair rung, leading in a 90-degree
angle straight downwards onto a grey circular platform around 25 metres in
diameter.
“You can’t
be serious!” gasped Max in horror. “That’s more than a fucking 50-foot drop. I
will fucking break my neck and spine if I drop from that height!”
“Oh yeah
sorry I forgot you humans are vertebrates that have an endoskeleton, meaning
that your skeleton is on the inside of your body,” replied Princess Penelope.
“For us ants, we have an exoskeleton which means our skeleton is on the outside
of our body making us a lot tougher and more resilient and able to survive
higher falls from greater heights. You humans are so delicate…”
“Hey!”
shouted Max angrily. “You don’t need to baby-talk me you know!”
“Yeah, you
humans are not so cocky and powerful when your immense size has been stripped
away from you, are you?!” sneered General Sting.
As they
proceeded their descent down the flight of stairs, Max observed that the stairs
had actually been carved in and embedded into the crater slopes themselves,
with a 1.5-metre-high sandy reinforced wall on both sides and stairs made up of
grey gravel rectangular stone blocks. As they reached the vertical drop, Max
shivered as all the surrounding ants from the large group on adjacent stair
pathways turned backwards and took their first step onto the first rung.
“This is
fucking insane…” he gasped.
As Princess
Penelope took her first steps onto the ladder, the ladder actually buckled and
started drifting back and forth from the force being distributed. Max suddenly
felt extremely nauseous like he was on a rollercoaster.
Glancing to
his left and right he was shocked by the brazen behaviour of the other fellow
ants. Some ants weren’t even bothering to use the ladders and instead were just
jumping 50 feet down, directly onto the platform, landing on their feet,
completely unscathed. Other ants were casually and deliberately swinging back
and forth on the ladders like a jungle vine as they descended downwards, not
even bothered by the thought of slipping and falling.
‘I really
wished I had an exoskeleton’ thought Max to himself.
When they
reached the enormous grey circular platform, Max noticed several different
elevator doors lining the circular wall surrounding the platform with different
names etched on top. Narrowing his eyes, he noticed some of the names above:
Metropolis, Hell’s gate prison, army headquarters, breeding chambers, food
processing sector, scientific research and Insectwood.
“What?” he
gasped “Do they have an entire society down here?”
“Squirt and
I have decided that we wouldn’t miss this trial for anything your majesty and yes,
we will be attending this human’s trial!
This is a very historic day for all of us. The first time a human has
ventured into Antopia!” exclaimed Squirt’s mother.
“Are you
sure?” inquired Princess Penelope. “There are two other trials that need to be
done before Max’s. I don’t want to waste any more of your time!”
“Oh, don’t worry” stated Squirt’s mother
angrily glaring at Max. “I really want to see this”
“Oh, suits
yourself” stated Princess Penelope. “You can follow right behind General Sting and
me”
Max noticed
General Sting and Princess Penelope whose back he was quite literally still piggybacking
on were still with him as for several other soldiers which meant they were
going to be present while he was being assessed under whatever this trial was.
What really disturbed him however was their idea of justice and punishment. For
the first time in a long time, he was utterly petrified and the worst part
about it was he couldn’t reach out to his parents to protect him, let alone
anyone else.
Ching!
Max heard
the elevator doors open and he, Princess Penelope, General Sting, Squirt’s
mother, and Squirt crammed themselves into a silver shiny rectangular prism
elevator only 2.5 metres wide. However, this elevator only had two buttons, a
red arrow pointing upwards and downwards. Max noticed that several of the other
soldier ants were waiting outside the elevator doors since there was no way a
single other ant could fit in. The ants were packed in, with limbs and bodies
rubbing against each other.
“You would have
thought that the idiot that designed this thing would have made it a little
bigger!” Max remarked sarcastically.
“We have
limited space, smartass!” General Sting replied angrily.
General
Sting looked at the soldier ants waiting outside and said, “Sorry lads you are just
going to have to take the next one!” as the elevator doors closed.
Squirt’s
mother was pressed right up against the buttons.
“I am sorry,
this is embarrassing but I never even asked your name!” stated Princess
Penelope sheepishly. “What’s your name?”
Squirt’s
mother smiled and replied “My name is Ava”
“Ava, can
you please press the downward button?” asked Princess Penelope.
“No
problem,” said Ava, pressing the downward arrow button.
The
elevator burst into life as they were showered in a glow of blue electrical
light and the sound of grinding gears filled their ears as the elevator lurched
vertically downwards.
‘Damn they
have electricity as well’ Max thought to himself. Looking upwards he saw the
name inscribed just above the elevator doors: High Court Chambers
Max didn’t
know how deep they were travelling underground but he estimated that they were
moving pretty fast at around 40 to 45km/h which meant they were going at least
250 to 300 metres underground from an ant’s perspective. From a human perspective,
it would probably be around a bed or table height underground.
Around 90
seconds later the elevator finally grinded to a halt with another bell ching.
As the 5
ants stepped out of the elevator doors Max gasped in awe and shock at the sight
that lay before him.
The
elevator had stopped at a rectangular prism platform inside an enormous tunnel
around 100 metres in diameter, with blue neon electric lights running parallel
along the circular circumference of the tunnel. The silvery grey rectangular
prism platform was attached to the middle cross-section line of the tunnel and
extended outwards from the perimeter, 10 metres inwards. After the platform lay
a lane of parked traffic where electrical mechanical pods were parked adjacent
to the platform, running alongside the stone platform perimeter. From where the
elevator door had opened, it was located right in the middle of the platform
with 40 metres of platform on the left and right-hand sides. The elevator doors
were embedded into the circular surface area of the tunnel itself right above
the cross-section line and after the parked lane of vehicles lay 7 lanes of
traffic where dozens of mechanical pods were zipping past every second.
Max looked
above the elevator doors and saw a large red neon sign attached above that
read: Surface Exit Pod Depot Station. Looking ahead he saw another large
tunnel red neon sign attached to the top cross-section line of the tunnel that
read: High Court Chambers Exit 750 metres ahead, Metropolis Exit 2km ahead,
Hell’s Gate Prison Exit 3km ahead with a large red arrow pointing straight
ahead.
“Welcome to
our transport tunnel network” explained Princess Penelope. “You can think of it
as being very similar to your human subway train tunnel network but instead of
trains we use mechanical pods”.
“Just wait
till we give you a grand tour of Antopia!” exclaimed Squirt.
“Shut up
you stupid boy!” growled Ava. “I thought I told you not to engage with the
disgusting human in any way”.
“Uggggh”
groaned Squirt.
“Okay this
isn’t a fucking tour show, we don’t have time for this!” snarled General Sting
as he approached a mechanical pod that was parked alongside the platform. As
the 5 ants walked towards the mechanical pod Princess Penelope decided to ask
some more questions about human culture to Max.
“Driving a
pod is very easy as long as you have a license. Do you have a license, Max?” asked
Princess Penelope.
“Umm sort
of…” grumbled Max. His license wasn’t really a full license, just a learner’s
permit that was issued to him 5 months ago. He had practised nearly 60 hours of
driving on quiet suburban roads with his experienced driver father, however, he
was still really shaky when driving on high-speed freeways and highways
especially.
“What do
you mean sort of?” inquired Princess Penelope.
“It’s a
learner’s permit which means I have to practise driving with an experienced
fully licensed driver to learn how to properly operate and navigate a vehicle
on the road, hands-on style” explained Max.
Princess
Penelope was baffled and very curious about the process of obtaining a human
vehicle licence. “Well, here you don’t have to do anything like that! Here you
can just read a manual and book your test where you just have to drive in a
straight line for 20 metres!” she exclaimed.
“What”
gasped Max. “That doesn’t sound like nearly enough training to properly operate
a vehicle!”
Max was in
for even more of a shock as his eyes fell upon the vehicle, he would be travelling
in.
The
mechanical pod was a spherical oval shape; however, the pod didn’t even have
any doors, just outside perimeter metal bars separating the driver’s section
from the passenger section. Both sides were completely open and exposed with
only a fabric curtain covering the roof and a single glass pane for the windscreen.
It was pretty obvious to Max that large surface area sections of the pod had
been completely removed for convenience, for passengers to hop in and out
faster. Looking at the resemblance it reminded him of the tuk-tuks
(three-wheeled auto rickshaws) he had seen throughout South Asia, especially
Kolkata India, where his class had gone on a field trip last year.
What
shocked Max the most, however, was that there was only one driver’s seat in the
front and two passenger seats in the back. And they had 5 passengers….
“Are you
fucking crazy?” gasped Max. “There is no way that pod is fitting 5 fucking
passengers inside!”
“Oh, it’s
fine!” laughed Princess Penelope. “Ants overload the pods with more passengers
than the built capacity all the time!”
“I’m driving…..”
growled General Sting as he hopped into the driver’s seat, gripped the
handlebars, and kicked the foot pedal with his exoskeleton foot to start it. A
low vibrating hum was heard and felt as the machine roared into life.
“Is this
your own vehicle?” Max asked.
“Nah Boy,
these are all government-owned vehicles, which means anyone can use them as
long as you have a license” General Sting replied
Ava was the
first to hop into the vehicle, followed by her son Squirt who sat on her lap.
Before Princess Penelope jumped in, she turned and twisted Max around in his
weed rope-bound state so that instead of being attached to her back he was now
attached to her chest area. Satisfied she also hopped in with Max also now
sitting on her lap.
“I feel
like a fucking baby” Max complained as he sat in the older girl’s lap.
Max was
about to get a taste of the shocking road rules or should be said tunnel rules that
operated in the tunnel transport network.
Imagine Max’s horror when General Sting
suddenly pressed on the accelerator underneath the handlebars and lurched
forward and in the right direction, suddenly into the moving lanes of traffic
without even indicating or doing a shoulder check. A loud high-pitched beep
filled the air directly behind them as General Sting deliberately and very
aggressively cut in front of the lane of traffic.
“What the
fuck?!” snarled Max. “You didn’t even indicate!”
“Oh, fuck
off cunt!” growled General Sting “Don’t tell me how to drive!”
This was just
the first in a long line of traffic violations that Max was about to witness.
Max spotted
that while their pod was overloaded, other pods were overloaded to a whole new
level with some pods carrying double or triple the number of passengers. Some
ants were riding off the roofs of the pods while others were hanging off the
metal bars and exterior of the vehicle, tightly clutching.
‘How do
they not fall off’ Max thought to himself in horror.
Max also
quickly found out that while there were 7 marked lanes, no one was following
the lane marking with ants driving in the middle of the lanes, frequently
cutting in front of each other and continuously blasting their horns. Max
spotted 100 near misses in just one minute and he was starting to get an ear-splintering
headache from all the beeping and traffic noise.
‘Fucking
hell’ Max thought to himself. ‘It’s just like driving in Kolkata, India’
“Oooh this
is going to be tight,” said General Sting as he accelerated between two pods on
both sides with only a millimetre gap (ant perspective). Max closed his eyes
and shivered as General Sting squeezed in between the two pods and he swore he
could feel the sides of the pod scrape against both vehicles.
“Aww it’s
ok buddy...” cooed Princess Penelope as she rubbed Max’s head.
This really
irritated Max, he was no child anymore. At least from his perspective.
“You know
you’re not my fucking big sister!” he growled angrily. Princess Penelope
giggled.
Another Pod
whizzed past at a frighteningly fast speed on their left-hand side.
“Holy
Fuck!” gasped Max in horror. “That guy is driving on the wrong side of the tunnel!”
Max screamed
as he saw two more pods whizz past him on both sides in the opposite direction,
blasting their horns as they went past. It had also become apparent that there
was no speed limit inside the tunnel.
“I just
don’t understand what we are doing! I don’t understand the rules inside this
tunnel!” exclaimed Max as they continued their insane journey down the tunnel.
“Everyone seems to drive one minute on the left, one minute on the right. Some
pods stop to let you overtake, sometimes they don’t. Others come up barrelling
up behind you doing 3.5 times the speed of sound, it’s completely baffling!”
“Okay we
are reaching the exit now!” called out General Sting.
Max once
again shut his eyes as General Sting cut across 4 lanes of traffic, without
indicating or shoulder checking once. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a
smaller breakaway tunnel splitting from the main tunnel on their left-hand side
with different coloured green neon lighting. Max looked above and saw a large
sign hanging on the top circular cross-section line where the tunnel started
which said: High Court Chambers Exit
Max
breathed a sigh of relief as he saw up ahead another rectangular prism platform,
50 metres up ahead and the tunnel abruptly ending in a dead end 75 metres up ahead,
which meant they were definitely parking in the parking lane. It had been the
most terrifying car ride (or should it be said pod ride) of Max’s life. He
swore to himself that when he got his full license he would never drive so
selfishly, recklessly, and dangerously.
As General
Sting very abruptly and sharply swerved left into the parking lane running
adjacent to the platform Max had quite a lot to say about General Sting’s
insane driving skills.
“That was
fucking awful!” Max exclaimed as the mechanical pod lurched to a standstill and
the engine turned off. “That was the most terrifying ride in my entire life!
It’s a miracle there aren’t mountains of corpses piled up in the tunnels with
the insanity I just witnessed!”
“Actually
Max, many ants have gotten used to this driving style so there aren’t as many
deaths as you would expect” replied Princess Penelope as she hopped out of the
pod onto the platform with Max attached to her like a giant baby carrier.
“Also, an exoskeleton can absorb shock a lot better”
“Lol, what a fucking pussy!” sneered General
Sting as he jumped out of the driver’s seat. “Can’t even handle a little bit of
danger and excitement!”
“Oh, I’m
sorry!” replied Max sarcastically “Who is really the pussy? The one who has a legitimate
fear of shitty driving or the one who is petrified of an 11-year-old little
girl!”
This sent
General Sting into a wild rage. Already he had developed PTSD from seeing his
colleagues slaughtered by the demon child and here was this arrogant brat
making light of it. Violently grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, he
pressed his mandibles very close to Max’s face.
“You know
you have a very fast tongue…” snarled General Sting. “Be a shame if someone
fucking ripped it out…”
“Sting…
STOP!” gasped Princess Penelope as she frantically pushed him away from Max.
“Why are
you defending this little shit all the time!” muttered General Sting angrily.
“I mean all he does is talk shit about all of us!”
“Kind of
like you, Huh?” Princess Penelope replied.
General
Sting frowned and crossed his 4 arms.
“Hurry up,
let’s go inside the High Court and get it over and done with!” said Ava as she
and Squirt jumped off the mechanical pod. “We don’t have all day!”
Max glanced
upwards to see a bright red neon lighting sign plastered on the left circular
wall above the platform that read: High Court Chambers Depot Station.
Underneath
the sign located in the middle cross-section line of the platform were two
large stone doors, with a small scanning machine on the side. As the group of
ants made their way towards the door with General Sting leading the way,
General Sting crouched downwards, holding one of the antennae and moving it
towards an electric gridded scanner circle in the centre of the machine.
“What….”
gasped Max.
When the
antenna was pressed against the scanner circle, the machine responded with a
high-pitched beep and the doors opened for around 5 seconds to allow just one
ant to pass through, which in this case was General Sting.
“It’s just
like the metro ticket gates we have at Flinders Street Station,” said Max.
The remaining
ants all repeated this process to allow them to pass one at a time, with the
exception of Max and Squirt who hitched a ride with their adult guardians. The
scanner machine appeared to be some kind of biometric identification security
system.
The group
of 5 ants trudged their way through another narrow tunnel which was only one
ant wide and had green neon lighting above them, basking them in a warm green glow.
As they walked another 100 metres down the tunnel Max noticed the exit opened
into a vast chamber. He could tell because there was a considerable amount of noise
and different coloured lights reaching them which gave the impression that the
chamber was really big.
What Max
failed to comprehend was just how enormous the chamber actually was.
As he
walked through a narrow passageway, he noticed that on either side of him were
two enormous, towering right-angle triangular-shaped structures with a maximum
height being at least 10 metres in height, with the inclination slope gradually
decreasing at a 45-degree angle as he proceeded further down the passageway. As
he looked up and squinted his eyes, he could make out the outline of what
looked like red velvet chairs.
When he left the narrow passageway section and
into the exposed central area with bright yellow light showering him from the
ceiling lighting above and illuminating the majority of the chamber, he finally
got a real good look at the structure of this chamber. Looking upwards he saw a
large conical shape structure network of bright yellow lights hanging off the
ceiling by several chains.
Surrounding
him at a 360-degree angle were rows and rows of red velvet chairs, with each
row raised one step higher to gain a full view of the central area. It was like
a stadium or theatre-styled seating you might see in a sporting match or
musical drama theatre. Max could see at strategic intervals of the circle; a
flight of stairs had been carved from the very first row at ground level with
the central area to the highest and last back seated row at the top at a
10-metre vertical height above the central area. Max also spotted 4 single
narrow passageways at quarter-circle intervals, signalling they were the entrance
and exits, cutting right in between the seating at the same level as the
central area.
What
shocked Max however was the fact that every single one of these seats was
occupied. Judging by the volume, he estimated at least 1000 ants had come to
watch these High court trials and suddenly he felt very exposed. He had not
expected the population of ants to be this high.
Looking
into the central area, he noticed that it was at least 50 metres in radius
which was the same size as the MCG pitch (Melbourne Cricket Ground). He noticed
that the central circle was coloured in a way, like the circular sections of an
archery circle board. Around 40 ant guards were placed around them, monitoring
their every move.
In the
centre of the central area was a giant white stone carved throne at least twice
his height, decorated with rainbow butterfly wings coming out on each of the
backsides of the throne. On each side of the throne lay 3 and 4 smaller-sized,
grey-coloured stone carved chairs also decorated with colourful spotted and
swirled patterns but not nearly as beautiful as the throne right at the centre.
The seven chairs were arranged in a circle with the throne in the centre of
this circle and an oval-raised platform directly in front of it with a single
podium post with chain hooks attached.
As Max
glanced around, he noticed two other ant criminals in two sets of handcuffs to
restrain their four arms were kneeling in an area very close to the throne and
chair arrangements with 5 ant guards watching them closely. But it was one ant
guard that really stood out for Max closely however due to his immense size.
This ant
was 3 times the height of every single other ant in the room, dwarfing every
single individual and had a rippling robust body with bulging muscles and was also
wearing a military jacket with war medals and an army commander’s cap. Max
estimated he must be at least 17 to 20 millimetres (human perspective) in
height which was more than 3 to 4 times the height of the average ant.
“Who is
that man?” Max asked Princess Penelope, beckoning to him.
“Oh, that’s
General Claw, he’s second in command of our army after General Sting” she
replied.
“He’s
huge!” gasped Max “What have you been feeding him!”
“You know
he just has a form of gigantism in his genes, he
was born that way” explained Princess Penelope. “Kind of like some really tall
humans who also had a form of gigantism”
Max thought
back to a man he had read about in the Guinness Book of World Records called, Robert Wadlow,
the tallest man ever. He was also known
as the Alton Giant and the Giant of Illinois and with a height of 272cm (8
feet, 11 inches) (human perspective), no other human had ever come close to
beating his record. He also had a severe form of gigantism.
When Max
looked back at General Claw, he was shocked to see that he was eyeing him and
staring at him directly with his bright yellow eyes, smiling.
Suddenly he
approached him and grabbed his leg, injecting him with some yellow fluid into
his left ankle with a syringe, pulling his sock down. For some reason, Princess
Penelope did nothing to stop him
“Ouch, what
the fuck!” Max squealed. “Let go of me!”
“Max calm
down, he’s helping you!” exclaimed Princess Penelope.
Suddenly
his ankle felt fine, and he could move it around freely again. It was no longer
broken. Sighing with relief, Princess Penelope undid the weed rope and freed
Max from being attached to her body.
“Hey, I can
walk again!” exclaimed Max jumping up and down and skipping happily. However,
his freedom didn’t last long.
General
Claw suddenly grabbed him in a tight bear hug and pinned his arms behind his
back. Max felt a set of handcuffs wrapping around his wrists.
“Get your
filthy hands off me, faggot!” Max snarled. “Fuck off!”
He kicked
and wiggled and squirmed, but he soon gave up and accepted his fate. There was
no point trying to fight someone three times your size with an insane amount of
strength. With a sharp click, the handcuffs clicked and locked around his
wrists.
“Love the
fact that I only need one set of handcuffs for a human” snickered General claw
under his breath.
“Sorry Max
I don’t make the rules,” said Princess Penelope as Max was led away in
handcuffs by General Claw towards where the other 2 ant criminals were also
kneeling in handcuffs.
As Max
looked upwards, he was shocked to see a giant double-sided plasma screen tv
hanging off the ceiling by two stone-reinforced chains, around the size of a
sticky note to a human, however to an ant it would be the size of a cinema
screen. The bottom side of the plasma screen tv was hovering just 2.5 metres
above the central area.
‘I wonder what
that’s for?’ Max thought to himself.
He then
turned his attention to the two other ant criminals who were also going to be
on trial with him. One ant was dressed in a security guard uniform and the
other was extremely mean looking with bloodshot red eyes, bulging muscles, and
patterned yellow and white swirls covering his four arms which Max assumed had
to be their equivalent of tattoos.
“What did
you guys do?” Max inquired. The criminals simply ignored him and scoffed,
turning their heads away like he was some kind of diseased infested parasite.
‘Yeesh
tough crowd…’ Max thought to himself.
Darting his
eyes towards the white stone rainbow butterfly throne, his eyes fell upon the older
female figure that was residing on the throne.
The ant was
an older female in her early 50s and was also wearing a grass-stitched silk
woven dress, however, this dress was a lot more extravagant and beautiful with
a rainbow pattern of swirls and polka dots covering the dress’s entire surface
area. He also noticed two large pairs of translucent wings that sprouted from
her back and was slightly bigger than the rest of the ants at around 1.5 times
the average size. She also had very large yellow eyes with black pupils which
very much resembled that of her daughter Penelope. On her head rested an
enormous shiny metallic gem incrusted crown, shaped like a flower petal which
was gold plated and had rubies, diamonds and emeralds embedded into the base.
Max understood that this special ant must be the queen of Antopia and the
monarchy ruler of the entire ant colony.
“Hey!” Max
called out to Princess Penelope. “If she’s really your mother and you really are
a princess how come you don’t have wings!”
“Wings in
royal ants aren’t fully formed until you are 25 which is the average age for
coronation for the next ruler “explained Princess Penelope showing her stubby
little lumps on her back which Max now understood to be the roots of the wings
he had been brushing up against when he was attached to her back. “Mine haven’t
fully formed yet”
Looking back,
he saw the queen pick up a curved cinnamon pipe, resting on her right-hand side
next to her on the armrest, and took a large drag out of it, blowing a cloud of
smoke out of her mouth.
‘Damn your
mother smokes too, Penelope’ Max thought to himself.
He noticed
that 7 other ants were also sitting on either side of her, however, they were
average-sized and wore white ceremonial robes with different icons embedded on
their fronts. They also had no headgear and had large tables in front of them
with a stack of documents. Max made a guess that these ants must be members of the
government or high court judges or something.
“Okay
everyone the first trial is about to start!” called out Princess Penelope.
Meanwhile……
“Oh,
Divya….” cried Lucy with a few tears trickling down her cheeks.
Angrily she
looked across the hallway to her brother’s closed bedroom door.
‘Wow,’ she
thought to herself. ‘Some brother he is! He hasn’t even come to comfort me let
alone ask me what happened or why I’m upset!’
Lucy
Firewall was sitting on her flowered patterned blanket and blue bedspread on
her bed, pushing her back against two pink pillows which were resting up
against the bedhead. She was holding a brown framed photo that was of her and
Divya that was taken just a few weeks after they had first met 4 years ago. The
two 7-year-old girls had their arms wrapped around each other in a tight hug, their
faces pressed up against each other, smiling with their missing-gapped tooth
smiles. The photo had been taken by Divya’s father in front of a 50-foot-tall Eucalyptus
tree at the base of the trunk in a parkland reserve with both girls wearing
matching green dresses with white polka dots.
It had been their first official ‘play date’ in the park and had been so
memorable for them that Lucy had asked Mr Bandaranayake for a printed copy so
that she could frame it and put it on the shelf in her bedroom.
“Carrot Top
didn’t mean anything she said Curry Spice” she tearfully smiled, looking at the
photo.
Divya and
Lucy had gotten so close over the last 4.5 years that they had given each other
cute nicknames based on their appearances and ethnic features. Divya called
Lucy ‘Carrot Top’ due to her red hair while Lucy called Divya ‘Curry Spice’ due
to her Singhalese ethnicity.
She had
deeply regretted calling her a coconut and had tried desperately to apologise
to her, running all the way down the street barefoot to her house. However,
Divya was so deeply hurt by what Lucy had called her that she locked herself
inside her house and refused to come out, even to talk to her.
‘We have
been best friends for so long’ she optimistically thought to herself. ‘She
can’t stay mad at me forever. She will cool down eventually’
No one
could ever understand why she had such a deep-seated hatred for insects.
Already they had fucked up her life in more ways than they could ever possibly imagine.
She swore to herself that she would never ever reveal her insect-homicidal
hobbies to anyone ever again.
Suddenly
she heard the clicking of the front door opening, like the sound of a key being
inserted into a keyhole and the twisting of a lock latch in a door being unlocked.
The front
door swung open to reveal a 34-year-old woman in a flowery blouse, blue jeans,
and saltwater sandals and a 39-year-old man in a white shirt, red tie, black
pants, and black laced shoes.
“Lucy! Max!
We’re home!” they called out.
Lucy’s
parents, Rebecca and Robert Firewall had just arrived home.
Meanwhile……
“Okay
silence everybody!” the Queen shouted into a megaphone, attached to a stand
directly in front of her throne, with her voice echoing around the walls of the
High Court chamber and banging her royal staff on the ground, which consisted
of a long stick with a green emerald attached to an orb. Immediately the
murmuring of the crowd quickly died down.
Sucking on
her cinnamon pipe in her mouth, she took another long drag and blew three
whisps of smoke out of her 3 ocelli holes (ant
nostrils).
“I, Queen
Dakota would like to welcome everyone to the 41st weekly high court
chambers reserved for trials concerning suspects with very serious criminal
charges. 1000 members of the public are encouraged to watch the spectacle with
a first-in, best-served service for tickets,” she stated loudly into the
megaphone to the cheering crowd.
Every
single ant in the chamber then proceeded to stand up and salute their queen
with a salute with their right arms, extending their arm from the top of their
head at a 90-degree angle to a 180-degree straight line.
Everyone
that is, except Max Firewall.
This caught
the attention of Queen Dakota, who turned her pupils in Max’s direction.
“Oh, it
seems we have an unusual guest” she smiled coldly at him.
“Max, what
are you doing?!” muttered Princess Penelope angrily. “It is customary for their
royal subjects to salute their rulers. Even the suspected ant criminals did
it!”
“She’s not
my queen, nor my ruler!” Max angrily replied. “She never will be!”
“Excuse
me?” said Queen Dakota, frowning angrily at him. “As long as you are in my
kingdom, you abide by my rules and regulations”.
“Oh really”
sneered Max. “If you think I am obeying you, here’s my response. You can suck
my dick!”
Loud boos
and gasps were heard from the audience with many growling and scowling at Max’s
rude response. One teenage girl around the same age as Max shouted from the
crowd, “How fucking dare you!”
Princess
Penelope was also disgusted and appalled by Max’s response. “How dare you talk
to my elderly mother like that!” she cried.
Max growled
and glared at her and stated, “You can suck my dick as well!”
Max looked
to the audience and shouted, “In fact, all of you cunts can suck my dick!”
Queen
Dakota rolled her eyes and stated “He’s just a stupid foul-mouthed teenage boy.
I will deal with that little shit later”
The crowd
shouted more boos at Max and hurled insults such as scum, faggot, fuckwit,
dickhead, asshole, and cunt.
“Okay, now I
would like to introduce the government ministers that will be aiding me in my
criminal trials!” she stated. “Here we have ministers for all 7 different
sectors of Antopia: Metropolis, Breeding Chambers and Nursery, Transportation,
Education and Scientific Research, Food Production, Media, Communications,
and Entertainment and finally Defence”.
6 male and
female ant government ministers stood up in their white ceremonial robes and
bowed down to the cheers of the crowd.
“Hold on, where’s
the Minister for Defence?” asked Queen Dakota.
“Here I am
your majesty!” called out General Sting, putting on his white ceremonial robes
which had a symbol of two swords crossing each other in a cross. When he
finished putting on his ceremonial robes, he pulled a cinnamon pipe out of his
pocket and popped it into his mouth, walking up to his grey stone-carved seat.
“What?!”
gasped Max in horror. “You can’t be fucking serious!”
“Yep, you
better believe it kid!” sneered General Sting, jumping into his seat and
lighting his cinnamon pipe with his lighter, taking a long drag and blowing a
large cloud of smoke out of his 3 ocelli holes (ant nostrils). The circular end
of the pipe glowed bright orange as it burned and simmered, filling the air
with a burning cinnamon smell. “I am the minister for defence”
“Your
majesty, you can’t be serious!” gasped Max. “This guy fucking hates my guts! My
trial is going to be completely rigged and bullshit if he’s allowed to
participate in the decision-making!”
“Silence
child!” barked Queen Dakota loudly. “I think you will find that I am in charge
around here!”
“Oh, so now
you respect her when your life is on the line!” jeered General Sting, blowing
another cloud of cinnamon smoke from his mouth.
“Fuck you
bitch!” Max growled under his breath. “I swear when I get big again, I am going
to hire a pest exterminator to kill all of you assholes”
“I’m sorry,
what was that Max?” Princess Penelope frowned, looking at him.
“Nothing” Max grumbled.
“Okay bring
out the first suspect on trial!” called Queen Dakota.
General
Claw grabbed the first ant suspect in handcuffs next to Max, who was an ant in
a security uniform, dragging him to the oval raised platform and clicking his
handcuffs into the chain hooks, so that he was forced into a kneeling position,
grovelling directly in front of the Queen’s feet with the 7 government
ministers surrounding him, seated in a circle.
“Okay, Mr Node Abraham Exoman” stated the
Queen, reading out a piece of paper that had been handed to her by one of the
government ministers. “You stand here today accused of gross negligence and
intoxication and failing to do your job which had disastrous consequences”.
“Your
majesty please!” pleaded Node with tears in his eyes. “I have never drunk
alcohol in my life!”
“Then how
come when my guards found you, you were found smelling like sugar whiskey,
completely passed out!” stated Queen Dakota angrily.
“I don’t
know to be honest” stammered Node. “To be honest I think I have been set up!
Someone spiked my drink and framed me!”
Queen
Dakota laughed and said, “You really expect me to believe all that fanatical
bullshit!”
Node
whimpered and turned his head down, a few tears trickling down his cheeks.
“Because of
your negligence of failing to guard the gates at the exit depot station, a
little child was able to escape all the way up to the surface and almost got
himself killed!” shouted Queen Dakota. “A fucking child almost died because of
you! May I remind you how serious your charges are!”
“Hey, I’m
no child!” called out Squirt, stepping forward much to the shock and
embarrassment of his mother Ava.
“What the?”
gasped the Queen. “Why aren’t you two with the rest of the public audience?”
“Mum, they
came with me” replied Princess Penelope.
“Oh,
sweetheart thank you for letting me know,” said Queen Dakota.
“Please I
don’t want anyone to be executed because of me…..” stammered Squirt.
“Squirt, be
quiet!” squealed Ava. “Sorry your majesty for my son speaking out of term”
“Your son
also committed some very serious crimes” explained Queen Dakota. “He hid as a
stowaway at the back of one of the mechanical pods and snuck onto the surface 9
years under the legal age!”
Ava’s face flushed red with embarrassment.
“You are so
young,” said Queen Dakota, looking at Squirt. “You are not even old enough to
go into our juvenile detention facility where you must be at least 12 years
old. Just 6 months under the minimum criminal age of responsibility.”
“But I…”
began Squirt.
“So, I
think your punishment can be handed down by your mother” stated Queen Dakota.
“Oh, don’t
worry,” said Ava. “I assure you your majesty; Squirt will be severely punished”
“As for
you,” said the Queen, angrily glaring at Node who was shackled in front of her.
“You will not be receiving the death sentence….” promoting a relieved sigh from
Node. “But you will still be punished….”
Queen
Dakota then turned to the minister of the nursery and breeding chambers, which
was an elderly woman wearing glasses and an emblem of two-parent ants and a
baby ant breaking out of an egg on the front of her robe. “What do you think?”
“I say
definitely add child endangerment as a charge” she replied.
“And job negligence” piped the minister for
transportation. “Since this is my sector that this happened in, I think it is
fair to add this charge as well”
“Okay it is
decided then,” said the Queen, opening up a large book on judicial law on her
lap. “Let’s see child endangerment + job negligence =?”
“You are
sentenced to 21 days general imprisonment at Hell’s gate prison” she stated
finally.
“WHAT?!”
screamed Node. “NOOOO!!!”
“Maybe next
time you will take your job more seriously and not get others killed…” she
warned him sternly.
“Your
Majesty PLEASE!” screamed Node as two ant guards, wrapped their 4 arms around
his body and unshackled him from the post, dragging him away towards an exit
passageway in handcuffs.
“PLEASE I
BEG YOU!!” he screamed.
“He
deserves it” smiled Ava, rubbing her son Squirt on the head, “After almost
getting you killed”
“I didn’t
want anyone to get hurt because of me” stammered Squirt with tears in his eyes.
“I HAVE
BEEN SET UP!!” wailed Node as he was dragged away. “WE HAVE A TRAITOR AMONG
US!!”
“Yeesh,
what a whiner” smirked General Claw.
“Okay
that’s one guy down” sighed Queen Dakota. “Who’s next?”
Max started
shivering uncontrollably in fear, terrified of what could happen in his trial.
If this was how ruthless and savage the queen was towards crimes like this, he was
petrified of what kind of sentence he would receive for literally threatening
their very society. A few tears trickled down his cheeks.
He suddenly
felt a feeler on his shoulder and spun his head around and was shocked to see
Princess Penelope beaming at him, just above his head while he was kneeling
down.
“Don’t
worry” she smiled. “I am the queen’s daughter. I will make sure that my mum
goes easy on you!”
“Okay,
bring out the next suspect!” called out Queen Dakota, taking another long drag
out of her cinnamon pipe. The end of the pipe turned bright red as she sucked
in the smoke and blew a puffy cloud of smoke.
The next
suspect was not so innocent looking like Node and was quite intimidating and
scary. He had the body of a bodybuilder with rippling muscles and an 8-pack,
wearing a bright red-orange jacket with a flame design pattern logo on the back
of his jacket. Covering his 4 black exoskeleton arms were red and orange
flame-patterned swirls which Max recognised had to be their equivalent of
tattoos.
Since he
was a stronger figure, General Claw himself and two other ant guards dragged
the handcuffed suspect to the oval raised platform and locked his handcuffs
into the chain locks of the podium post, forcing him to also kneel directly in front
of the queen and be surrounded in a circle by the 7 government ministers.
“Mr……Cuddles!”
Queen Dakota frowned in surprise, looking over his documentation that had been
handed to her by one of the government ministers. “That’s seriously your name?
You are not known by any other names?”
“Yes, your
majesty” grunted the Prisoner.
“Okay….” said Queen Dakota, shuffling through
the documentation. “You stand here today accused of………HOLY FUCKING GAIA!!” she
squealed. “40 FUCKING HOMICIDES!!”
The
audience gasped with shock and horror as the Queen read out his charges.
“You, Cuddles,
are a convicted serial killer known for murdering 40 ants over a period of 11
years, throughout the whole of Antopia” the Queen read out in disgust.
“Multiple corpses have been found in the Metropolis, Insectwood, The Food
Processing factory and even the transportation tunnels.”
“Holy
fuck!” she muttered to herself. “40 murders. “My mind fails to comprehend what
a sick bastard you are!”
‘He’s been
murdering since my sister was born’ thought Max as he was listening to all of this.
‘Damn’
“For so
long the authorities could never find the evil killer. But thanks to advances
in technology by our friend over here, the minister for education
and scientific research” she stated pointing to an ant in a lab coat. Max
gasped in shock as he squinted his eyes and recognised the ant in the lab coat,
it was Dr Thorax, the ant that had created the formula and shot him, to shrink
him in the first place.
‘So, Dr
Thorax is the minister of education and scientific research’ Max thought to
himself. ‘Damn I can’t believe I have already met several members of the
government of this weird society
“We have
been able to do advanced DNA testing to find the culprit” she concluded.
Cuddles
remained silent, looking at the ground solemnly.
“Well!” she
snarled. “Why did you kill all those innocent ants!”
“Oh, come
on your majesty, they were complete fucking assholes!” he replied angrily.
“They deserved what they got!”
Disgusted,
the Queen looked at him with angry tears in her eyes.
“You are so
disgusting…you know that right?” she said, glaring at him.
“When you
were being an asshole to me, I wasn’t just going to stick you an inch, I was
going to run something all the way fucking through you….” he jeered.
Another
elderly ant in a white ceremonial robe with an emblem of a few city skyscrapers
on his front piped up and added “It says he your majesty” flicking through the
pages of a document “That all the victims he hated and had personal grudges
with”
Max assumed
that this had to be the Minister for The Metropolis.
“Is that
so” snarled Queen Dakota. “That’s your response? They were being a bit mean to you,
so you decided to fucking kill them all!”
“Yes”
replied Cuddles sarcastically.
“Oh, my
Gaia” the queen sighed, facepalming.
“That’s not
all he did your majesty” replied General Sting. “The way he killed his victims
was absolutely barbaric and depraved…” fiddling with a few buttons and a
control button on the desk in front of him.
Suddenly
the plasma tv screen above them burst into life and the crowd gasped in horror
at the graphic images being displayed on the screen.
A
photograph of an autopsy of one of the victims showed her face so fucked up and
disfigured, it was to the point it was completely unrecognisable. Her eyeball was
ripped out of her socket and hanging by a single fleshy thread, the mandibles
ripped clean off and her mouth and cheeks bludgeoned to the point of being a
twisted, mangled pile of exoskeleton shards and flesh pointing inwards into her
shattered skull. It was clear that Cuddles bashed this victim to death by
bludgeoning her to death with a rock by smashing her face 50 times.
“Why did
you kill this poor woman?” inquired Queen Dakota.
“She was
being a dirty little slut and a fucking whore!” laughed Cuddles. “I fucked her
at the brothel and asked her if she wanted to go out for dinner, but she said I
had a small cock!”
“So, you
killed her because she said you had a small penis,” asked the queen in
disbelief.
“Um, yeah!”
snickered Cuddles.
“You know
you are really making it hard for me to find excuses not to impose the death
penalty on you” she stated.
“Fucking
hell, the only other creature who fucks up an ant corpse this bad is the demon
child,” she said to herself while looking at the grotesque gruesome photo of
the poor ant prostitute.
“That’s not
all he has been up to your majesty,” said Dr Thorax who was also the minister
for education and scientific research, handing her a stack of equipment.
“Cuddles has also been involved in several gang-related activities,
particularly involving smuggling technology to prison gangs inside Hell’s gate
prison”
“What?!”
gasped the Queen. “Let me see!”
Picking up
the equipment piled up at her feet, Queen Dakota was shocked to find earthworm
summoning and communication sets, sand grain guns, light rays, splinter swords
and raw cinnamon smoking powder and pipes.
“So, this
is why there have been so many murders and breakouts in Hell’s gate prison
recently!” exclaimed the queen. “I was wondering where they were getting all
this stuff from!
Narrowing
her eyes on Cuddles she inquired, “How did you get past all the security to
smuggle in all this stuff?” she inquired.
“I think I
can answer that as well your majesty” stated Dr Thorax. “He has been using
earthworms to carve secret elaborate tunnels using the communication equipment
under his complete control.
Queen
Dakota then came across a chest with a large bulky metallic latch.
“What’s in
here?” she frowned.
“No don’t
open that!” squealed cuddles as the queen jerked it open.
“I beg to
differ” she snorted.
“What the?”
she gasped, “What are all these unlabelled conical disks with weird symbols on
them?”
“I will
play it on the plasma screen and see what it is” replied General Sting grabbing
one of them and pushing it into the conical, disk slots on the table in front
of him next to the control panel.
“Noooo
please don’t play it!!” Cuddles screamed.
The crowd
was in for the shock of their lives.
Imagine
their horror when they saw a sexually graphic x18+ scene flash on the plasma
screen in front of them, loud, big, and bright for everyone to see. The scene
depicted a female ant prostitute or porn star in a gimp mask and a collar,
performing oral sex on a male ant. The male ant was holding a leash attached to
her collar with her kneeling down and her face in his abdomen crotch area where
the semi-circle opening was fully open and exposed. He was erotically moaning
as the female’s mandibles gripped tightly and moved up and down his erect penis
with a little bit of blue-coloured semen leaking out as he repeatedly called
her a dirty whore and a slut and pulled on her leash. It appeared that it was
some kind of illegal hardcore BDSM pornography film with prohibited sexual
exploitation content.
It is safe
to say that Queen Dakota was not amused.
“Ewwwww!!”
she screamed closing her eyes and waving her arms around. “Gross! Gross! Gross!
Fucking Gross! Turn that off right now! My daughter is here! There are children
here!”
The parents
in the audience screamed and covered their children’s eyes, not wanting to be
exposed to that disgusting sexually graphic content
Red-faced
and embarrassed, General Sting frantically began pressing buttons, desperately
trying to eject the conical disk from the plasma disk player, next to the
control panel. After around 10 seconds the disk ejected, disappearing from the
plasma screen. Unfortunately, around 12 seconds of the illegally made and
distributed pornography film had already been shown to an audience of around
1000 ants.
“You sick
fuck….” she snarled at Cuddles. “You must be into sexual sadism or sadomasochism!”
“That
wasn’t for me!” he explained.
“What?!”
gasped Queen Dakota.
“It appears
that Cuddles has also been smuggling hardcore pornography to the prison
inmates,” said General Sting, as he looked through the chest on his desk that
had been given to him by Queen Dakota. “Particularly the sexually exploitative
and sexually graphic violent ones”
Max was
also trying not to puke after seeing that x18+ snapshot scene. That was the
first time he had actually seen non-human pornography and he was quite
disturbed by it.
‘Bestiality
porn’ he cringed to himself. ‘I swear I need to wash my eyeballs after seeing
that….’
“Check this
out,” said General Sting, going through a stack of photographs that had a bunch
of scantily clad ant prostitutes and porn stars smoking cinnamon pipes in very
sexual and erotic poses, blowing smoke out of their mouths. One image even had
a cinnamon pipe inserted into one woman’s vagina, the pipe fully lit while it
was inserted and blowing smoke out of the remaining bottom gap of her vaginal opening.
“I swear Cuddles; you definitely have some kind of smoking fetish!”
Sneering at Cuddles, he took another drag of
his cinnamon pipe and blew a cloud of smoke in his face.
“Does that
turn you on?” he jeered.
“You know
what, I have seen enough!” growled Queen Dakota. “You, Cuddles, are clearly a
very disturbed man who can never ever be released into society. I have only one
final solution….”
The
government ministers all turned their heads towards him, glaring at him with
pure hatred in their eyes.
“The
sentence of this court!” she called loudly into the megaphone. “Is this man be
taken to our lawful prison!”
The crowd
erupted into cheers and whooping.
“Then to a
place of execution!” she exclaimed. The crowds cheered loudly and cries of
‘kill that fucker!’ and ‘he must die painfully!’ were heard throughout the
crowd.
“Where he
will be showered with Mortein in an execution chamber!” she growled sinisterly
into the megaphone.
“Until he
is dead!” she concluded loudly into the megaphone.
“Fuck
Yeah!” the crowd shouted.
“What kind
of a sick society is this?!” gasped Max. In Australia, they hadn’t carried out
executions in nearly 50 years in the justice system. Even in America where they
still carried out executions of convicted criminals, it happened behind closed
doors, not publicised like this.
‘The crowd
are baying for blood like in a gladiator match!’ thought Max to himself. ‘They
are just a bunch of fucking savages!’
It is safe
to say Cuddles was absolutely shocked by his sentence.
“What!” he
shrieked. “I thought I was getting a life sentence, not the death penalty!”
“Take this
fucking scum away!” she growled, pointing at him.
“NOOO
PLEASE!!” screamed Cuddles as he was detached from the podium post and roughly
handled by 5 ant guards. He screamed with tears flowing down his cheeks,
kicking, thrashing, and squirming, trying to break free. The guards responded
by roughhousing him and hitting him with their stone truncheons, resulting in him
moaning in pain.
“YOUR
MAJESTY, PLEASE HAVE MERCY!” he cried, sobbing as he was being dragged towards
an exit passageway. “I DON’T WANT TO CHEMICALLY BURN TO DEATH BY MORTEIN!”
“Your majesty, please don’t sentence my nephew
to death!” cried out a voice in the crowd. Shocked, Queen Dakota looked up to
see an elderly female ant in a brown bonnet and black dress with white polka
dots, running towards them, from the first row of seating towards the central
area.
“He didn’t
seem to care about the families and friends of his victims when he slaughtered
them” explained Queen Dakota sternly. “He didn’t seem to care that the victims
had a mother, a father, a brother, and a sister that would miss them dearly. So
yeah, I think the death penalty is very appropriate in this case”
“My nephew
is mentally unstable,” cried the old lady ant, kneeling in front of her with
tears trickling down her cheeks “He has bipolar disorder and an IQ of 65.
Please spare him from the death sentence and give him life in prison instead”
“You must
be his great aunt….” concluded the Queen. “I am sorry, but your nephew seemed
to be very cunning and intelligent when he was smuggling all that disgusting
shit into Hell’s Gate prison. So sorry I will not be revoking the death
sentence”
This was
the final straw for Cuddles’ great aunt. She had tried being so kind and polite
to the queen and tried to convince her of her case, yet she still stated that
her nephew deserved to die.
“FUCK
YOU!!” she screamed, charging at her. “YOU EVIL BITCH!!”
Cuddle’s
great-aunt tried to lunge at Queen Dakota, but she was intercepted by General
Claw who grabbed her and hoisted her up onto his shoulder, slinging her onto
his shoulder with her facing backwards towards the Queen.
“This isn’t
over!” she screamed. “You will pay for this!”
“I will take
her just outside the High Court Chambers for some time-out,” said General Claw
as he carried the screaming and wailing elderly woman towards one of the exit
passageways.
Max was
greatly disturbed by the savageness and ruthlessness Queen Dakota had shown
towards her perceived enemies. Once she decided you were her enemy, she showed
you absolutely no mercy.
‘Note to
self’ he thought to himself. ‘Don’t fuck with Queen Dakota’
“Okay
then!” exclaimed Queen Dakota, focussing her attention on Max Firewall. “I
guess that just leaves you, huh young man?”
Max gulped
nervously.
“The very
first human on ant trial!” she smiled, rubbing her feelers with glee. “This is
a historic day for all of us! This is going to be a very interesting trial
indeed….”
Meanwhile……
Rebecca
crouched down and unclipped the back strap buckles of her saltwater sandals at
the back of her heel, sliding her naked bare feet out of her sandals. Wiggling
her dark green-painted toes happily, she sucked on the cigarette in her mouth,
with the butt end glowing bright reddish orange. Gripping the cigarette between
her purple-painted middle finger and pointer finger, she blew a cloud of smoke
from her mouth.
Her husband
Robert Firewall rolled his eyes as his wife blew a cloud of tobacco smoke
directly in front of his face, with the real estate agent coughing and
spluttering a little bit as he breathed in the smoke.
“You know
honey, you have been smoking since you were 17” he lectured sternly. “You
should have quit by now! All this smoking is really eating away at our bills
you know!”
“Oh, come
on Robert, it’s a great stress reliever!” pouted Rebecca. “Ugh, my feet are all
slimy and sweaty” she frowned, feeling a coat of sticky foot sweat covering her
entire foot. Wiggling her slimy toes, she noticed that she was leaving sweaty
footprints everywhere she walked. Embarrassed she wiped her feet on the welcome
mat.
As she
walked a little bit further forward, a poor little pill bug that had wandered
into her oncoming path didn’t realise what had hit him until it was too late.
Pill bugs were a lot bigger than ants at around 4 to 5 times their size, around
the size of a large shirt button. However, Rebecca was too busy enjoying her
cigarette and walking around lazily that she didn’t even look down. He looked
up one final time to see an enormous barefoot with a filthy brown sole covered
in dark brown dirt covering his entire perceptual vision with dark green
wiggling painted toes. He closed his eyes and braced for the end.
Squish!
Rebecca
frowned with the cigarette in her mouth, feeling a jelly-like squelch under her
dark, green-painted big toe on her left foot as she lazily trudged down the
entrance hallway. Pulling the cigarette out of her mouth, blowing a cloud of
smoke, and flicking the ash out of the smouldering end of her cigarette butt,
she balanced on her right foot and looked down at the sole of her left foot.
“Ewww I
feel something squishy!” she exclaimed.
Narrowing
her eyes, she noticed a mangled, gooey black fat blob pasted on the bottom of
her big toe, with a haemolymph puddle surrounding it with bits of insect legs
sticking out.
“Ewww
gross, I think I just crushed a bug!” she squealed. “Since when do we have bugs
in this house?!”
Robert
snickered under his breath.
“This isn’t
funny Robert!” she yelled. “Ewww, its disgusting goo is all over my big toe!”
she squealed, rubbing her toe vigorously and frantically, smothering his broken
corpse into the tiled floor, trying to get the nasty stuff off her toe, leaving
a long blackish brown smear on the white tiled floor.
“Oh, come
on….” she moaned as she looked at the black dried patch on the bottom of her
big toe. “Now I have to go and wash my feet. I just took my sandals off….”
Robert
looked down at the black smear on the floor. “Yeah, I am not cleaning up your
mess….”
“Whatever!”
she replied taking her last drag of her almost finished smouldering cigarette
and blowing out one final cloud of tobacco smoke. Reaching for an ashtray on the entrance
table, she pressed her cigarette butt into the ashtray, the butt folding and
bending into a scrunched ball of tobacco paper, as she squeezed the butt
between her purple-painted pointer finger, middle finger, and thumb. The butt
sizzled and fizzed out as she twisted and pressed the butt into the ashtray,
leaving nothing but a fresh layer of tobacco ash and a shrivelled cigarette
butt.
“Lucy!
Sweetheart!” Rebecca called out upstairs.
“Go Away!”
Lucy screamed.
Robert
raised his eyebrows. “Well, she’s certainly turning into a moody hormonal
teenager,” he said.
“I will go
talk to her….” sighed Rebecca, starting her ascent upstairs.
“And I will
talk to Max…” stated Robert, also trudging up the stairs.
Rebecca
Firewall trudged up the wooden u-shape staircase and walked into Lucy’s room, which
was on the left-hand side of the upstairs hallway. She spotted her daughter
sitting on her bed with her legs stretched out and back pressing up against two
pink pillows, sadly staring at the photo of her and Divya.
“What’s
wrong sweetheart?” she asked. “Why are you so grumpy?”
Lucy looked
up angrily at her mother, glaring at her and replied, “Leave me alone!”
Rebecca
smiled and sat beside her on the bed on the right-hand side, also putting her
legs up and wiggling her dark green painted toes in the coolness of the room
and putting her hand on her shoulder.
“You know
when things can seem a little bit blown out of proportion? You know when it is
around that age when girls start becoming young ladies and get their first you
know?” she asked sheepishly.
This
infuriated Lucy even more, with her jerking her head towards her and saying “Oh
my god! Is that why you think I am upset?! You think I got my first period!”
Rebecca was
surprised that her daughter had mentioned it so directly without her even
mentioning it, asking “Oh, you know a lot about it already?!”
“Yes!” she
replied grumpily. “Mrs Stevens, our health, and human development teacher have
already started teaching us girls about what is happening to our bodies around
adolescence. So yes, I am very fully well aware of what a period is!”
“Oh, okay
sweetie!” said Rebecca, holding her hands up defensively.
“For your
information, I am not moody and grumpy because I am on my first period!” she
shouted.
“Oh, okay
so then why are you upset?” questioned Rebecca.
Sadly, Lucy
confessed “Divya hates me. I think I pushed her away forever...”
“Oh sweetie,” said Rebecca, putting her arms
around her in a tight hug. “Sometimes as you are growing up you accidentally
push away your closest childhood friends because we as people change, as our
interests, character, and behaviours develop as we get older. But it’s not always
forever. You and Divya have been best friends for 4.5 years. I am sure you two
will work out your differences eventually…”
Tearfully
smiling, Lucy hugged her mother back; “Thanks mum”
Getting up
off the bed, Rebecca stated, “Now I have to go talk to your father” she said
sauntering out of the room, towards the opposite side of the hallway where she
was shocked to see Robert just loitering around outside Max’s closed bedroom
door.
“What’s
going on?” she questioned him angrily. “Why aren’t you talking to him?”
“A closed
bedroom door for a teenage boy is a bad sign” explained Robert sheepishly. “He’s
probably doing something really private and intimate”
“I don’t
follow!” shouted Rebecca angrily. “What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“Because”
Robert sighed “I don’t want to barge in there and catch him with his pants down
and his dick hanging out. I get the feeling that he is jerking off to porn….”
This enraged
Rebecca: “That’s disgusting Robert! Not in my House!” she yelled, charging
towards the closed bedroom door, however, Robert put a hand on her shoulder to
stop her.
“He’s 16
now, he’s at that age now Rebecca…” he sighed. “Let’s just let him be….”
This shook
Rebecca right to her core. “Oh my god Robert, did all the reckless stuff I did
as a rebellious teenager really set the bar that fucking low!” she gasped in
horror.
Robert just
facepalmed. She just didn’t understand how the teenage male brain worked. Let
alone any other woman.
“So, you
are perfectly fine with your 16-year-old son, accessing x18+ sexually explicit
porn sites when he is clearly underage!” she yelled.
“You would
be shocked to know that 90% of underage teenage boys have accessed adult 18+
sites when they were clearly not supposed to!” stated Robert. “They are curious
and a little bit rebellious, it’s in their nature. When an underage teenage boy
sees an 18+ age rating he’s thinking to himself fuck that, I’m mature enough to
handle it!”.
Rebecca
couldn’t believe the shocking and disgusting filth coming out of her husband’s
mouth, trying to justify their son’s actions. “So, you are perfectly fine with
your son touching himself to images and videos of scantily clad, half-naked
women?” she snarled.
“Well, at
least he’s not gay!” laughed Robert.
“Un-fucking
believable!” Rebecca snarled.
“I have
something to confess,” said Robert sheepishly. “When I was 14, me, my younger
brother and my best friend stole my father’s adult 18+ Playboy magazine to have
a sneak peek at it.”
“I can’t
believe this!” said Rebecca in disgust walking away from Max’s closed bedroom
door and walking back towards the wooden u-shape staircase. “I think I need
another cigarette….”
“And I
think I need a can of Mercury Cider…” stated Robert, rolling his eyes and
sauntering after her.
Lucy heard her parents arguing and smirked to
herself ‘Happy family’.
A few
minutes later she heard more shouting downstairs.
“REBECCA!!
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!!” screamed Robert downstairs. “DID YOU SPEND
$45.99 ON FUCKING CIGARETTES?!”
‘Yep,’ Lucy
smirked to herself. ‘One big happy family….’
None of the
Firewalls had noticed that Max was missing yet……
Meanwhile….
“Ladies and
Gentlemen!” loudly called out Queen Dakota into the megaphone, to the audience
of 1000 ants. “Today is one of the most important and most historic days in the
entire history of Antopia! For the first time in history, our species has
managed to capture and control a human! Think about that for a second! A
creature 50000 times bigger than us and with 100000 times the strength was able
to be shrunk down and held at our mercy because we were able to use our brains
instead of our brawn! This really has shown us brains truly is better than
brawn!”
The crowd
erupted into cheers and roars of approval, with dozens of ants even throwing
their caps into the air and jumping up and down in glee.
“Bring the
prisoner here!” announced Queen Dakota.
Max
shivered with fear as two ant guards grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged
him to the oval raised platform and podium post, hooking his handcuffs into the
chain hooks. This left Max completely at her mercy as he was forced to kneel
and be shackled directly in front of her throne at her feet with all the government
ministers surrounding him in a circle, glaring at him angrily.
When the
crowd and some of the government ministers looked at Max’s face, however, their
cheers immediately died down.
“The little
monster was a human girl, not a boy!” called out someone in the crowd.
“Do we know
this human?” called out another.
“He also
looks kind of familiar?!” piped another.
“Apologies,
ladies and gentlemen,” said Queen Dakota sheepishly. “I was informed earlier
today by my daughter Penelope, General Sting and the Minister for Education and
Scientific Research Dr Thorax that the wrong human was accidentally shrunk by a
misfired shrinking dart and a case of mistaken identity. Unfortunately, only
one dart was prepared so we are unable to shrink our intended target at the
moment…”
This sent
the crowd into a panicked wild rage. Screams of panic and horror echoed
throughout the crowd with some ants breaking down and sobbing into tears.
“Does this
mean we are still going to become attacked by the little monster?” cried an ant
mother in the crowd.
“Well done,
Dr Thorax you fucking dumbass!” yelled another man in the crowd. “All your
research and hard work were for nothing! Thanks to you we are still going to
get continuously attacked by her and ants will continue to die! What use is
this random human?!”
“SILENCE!”
screamed Queen Dakota into the megaphone, banging her staff onto the ground.
The crowd immediately hushed and fell silent.
“Now this
would normally be bad news, but General Sting and my little girl have given me
some more inside information into who this human actually is. Turns out he’s
not just some random human. Turns out he’s actually the older brother of our
enemy!”
The crowd
gasped in shock and awe as this new information was brought forward into the
light.
“That vile
cruel monster actually has a family?” gasped the Minister for the nursery and
breeding chambers. “Damn she’s so ruthless, self-absorbed and full of hatred
you would think she doesn’t care for anything and anyone other than herself and
has no one that actually loves her and cares for her”
This deeply
offended Max. No one talks shit about his sister other than him!
“How
fucking dare you talk about my sister like that bitch!” he yelled at her.
The
Minister for the nursery and breeding chambers laughed and jeered at him,
stating “I can see where she gets her aggression from!”
“Yes”
agreed Queen Dakota. “In fact, after obtaining some more evidence from Dr
Thorax I think many of our enemy’s traits have been picked up and learned by
others.”
The crowd gasped. Max could feel around 1000
pairs of eyeballs pointed in his direction.
“Particularly
him” she snarled, pointing at him.
Max gulped
nervously as he saw the queen staring him down.
“Okay,
Mr………. Fuck, what’s your name again? You are not a citizen of Antopia so I have
no identity documents on you….” said Queen Dakota, looking around in confusion.
“His name
is Max, mum” replied Princess Penelope, stepping forward.
“Okay, Mr….
Max” sighed the queen. “I grew up with 4 older siblings. 2 brothers and 2
sisters. And believe me, when I say it, the younger siblings learn a lot from
their older siblings. Even if they don’t show it or admit to it, they will
always eventually try to imitate them and pick subtle messages of what is right
and what is wrong”
Queen
Dakota then death stared him right in the eye.
“And you as
the older brother haven’t exactly been setting a good example…” she growled.
“Particularly for how she treats us…”
“Should we hold him for ransom your majesty?”
suggested the Minister for the nursery and breeding chambers. “I will be very
curious to see how much his sister cares for him or whether his sister even
cares about him at all!”
Max’s blood
had really started to boil now. The nerve of these ants to get so up and
personal about him!
“I guess we
will have to wait and see after his trial has been completed” stated the queen.
“Dr Thorax, please bring out the first batch of evidence”
“You know what they say, as a line from a
famous movie once said” stated the queen. “There is no such thing as a bad
student, only a bad teacher…”
‘Wait,
what?’ thought Max to himself. ‘Isn’t that from the Karate Kid? How the fuck do
they know about that film?!’
The
audience had now erupted into a bloodthirsty hungry mob, hurling insults at Max,
and even throwing projectiles at him. A large chunk of seed hit Max square in
the back, knocking the wind out of him for a second. Several loud boos were
also heard throughout the crowd.
“Disgusting
creature!” yelled out one woman in the audience.
“Fuck off
and die!” yelled another man.
Princess
Penelope stepped out in front of him in a protective stance. “Okay that’s
enough now everyone, knock it off!”
The crowd
stopped throwing projectiles but continued loudly booing and hurling more
offensive insults.
“Anyway…,”
said Queen Dakota. “Let’s get this trial underway then…”
Dr Thorax
picked up a silver conical disk from the desk in front of him, grimacing at the
violent and graphic content contained on it.
“Do you
want to see something really disturbing your majesty?” stammered Dr Thorax
fearfully.
“If I need
to” replied Queen Dakota. “For any sensitive members in the audience and
children, it is strongly recommended that you please not watch the terrifying
and gruesome footage”
Dr Thorax
inserted the disk into the plasma disk player.
Children
being children, especially teenagers did not look away and decided to watch,
thinking they were mature enough to handle it.
To say the
footage was disturbing was an understatement. No one was prepared for the
horrors that were about to unfold on screen.
The plasma
screen portrayed what appeared to be medium close-up footage of a soldier ant,
screaming, and writhing in excruciating pain under the concentrated rays of the
hot sun. The sun’s heat and intensity seemed to have been greatly increased in
strength by a large circular sheet of glass passing the rays of the sun through
it, hovering above him with a black plastic frame and a long thin black handle.
As Max focussed his eyesight, he realised he was looking at a magnifying glass.
The
magnifying glass had concentrated the spread-out rays of the sun ray into a
packed singular beam, greatly increasing the temperature and burning anything
that came into contact with it due to its high temperature. The poor ant was
literally being cooked alive by a giant light beam, his exoskeleton absorbing
all that heat and cooking his insides.
“AAAAAAAHHH”
shrieked the ant on screen. “OH FUCK, IT BURNS! IT BURNS! PLEASE SOMEBODY
HELP!! IT HURTS! PLEASE SOMEBODY AAHHHHHHH!!!”
His
exoskeleton had literally started to form large cracks with whisps of steam billowing
out. His organs were literally being evaporated at boiling point, every second
he was exposed, and the exoskeleton began to crack and split apart to relieve
the heat and pressure building up inside of him.
As the pain
intensified his movements became more frantic, twitching and desperately trying
to crawl to get out of the palm of the light beam but it was in vain as the
death ray followed him wherever he went. As the footage continued, the sound of
giggling could be heard.
The footage
then cut to a different camera angle and a new zoomed-out perspective. It
showed Lucy Firewall kneeling in her blue chequered school dress, holding a
magnifying glass over an ant. As the ant’s movements of pain grew more
vigorous, her enjoyment only seemed to grow, with her smiling and laughing, as
the ant’s pain grew greater and greater.
“Look at
the pathetic little thing, wiggling!” she jeered.
After
around 20 seconds, the ant stopped wiggling, indicating it had died. Lucy was
disappointed that he had died so quickly.
“Aww he
stopped moving” she pouted. “I thought he was stronger”
The footage
then changed to another close-up shot of the dead ant’s corpse. The audience
screamed in horror as they saw what had become of the poor soldier ant. The
ant’s corpse had literally split open like an egg due to the build-up of heat
and pressure with charred ash and charcoal remains covering his entire body and
surrounding it.
The footage
then changed back to the zoomed-out shot of Lucy hovering over the group of
soldier ants and harvester ant workers on no man’s land, kneeling and holding a
magnifying glass over them. The ants shook in absolute fear as their entire
perpetual view was filled by a giant sheet of glass moving above them like a
judgement cloud, deciding which one of them was going to die next.
“Oh well, I
guess that’s why there are more of these little fuckers for me to play with!”
Lucy sneered
A montage of footage was then displayed,
showing ants screaming and running away from the path of the magnifying glass
in different directions, trying to escape the carnage and death path of the
magnifying glass as it burned anything that was unfortunate to stay under the
glass for too long. It took around 5 to 10 seconds for the magnifying glass to concentrate
a light beam lethal enough for killing or destruction, hovering above a certain
area or group of ants, sometimes creating little black burnt spots in the
ground after 15 seconds. Some ants were lucky enough to hide under the grass
blades to protect themselves from the rays, while others were not so lucky and
were exposed to the lethal rays, succumbing very similarly to the first ant
death.
Queen
Dakota grimaced and cringed at the brutal violence. Max was so shocked he
couldn’t utter a single word.
When a
creature is small enough or distanced themselves enough, it is easy not to
regard that creature as even a proper living thing. When you can’t see their
facial expressions, their cries, and screams and most of the time even the
close-ups of their body language or movements, what’s to stop a person from
feeling any emotional connection at all? After all pain and suffering are
measured by all of the factors above and when a person can’t see these things
it becomes very easy to desensitize themselves to their suffering.
In this
case, the sheer size of humans and the tiny size of the ants had created this
gap in understanding.
“Okay, now
let’s look at what the wise big brother’s response was” stated Queen Dakota
sarcastically.
New
snapshot footage at a different camera angle and perspective was shown
replaying what Max had said to his sister when he caught her in the act.
“I would have thought this behaviour was cute when you were
7 years old but now you are going to become officially a teenager in less than
a year. Here you are, 11 years old and three-quarters and still fucking around
with the ants outside!” said a Max on a giant plasma screen to an audience of
around 1000 ants.
The audience gasped
in shock and horror at such an insensitive and trivial response.
“You know if your sister was killing other humans or even
creatures slightly larger than ants, I bet you would have intervened and
stopped her immediately” lectured Queen Dakota.
“But I did intervene” stammered Max. “I did stop her from
what she was doing”
“Yes, but not for the reasons that would be ethical and
right,” said Queen Dakota.
The footage
then cut to an excerpt of Max saying: “Go inside and study now sis! I am not
going to ask again!”
“So rather
than tell your sister how wrong it is to kill others for fun, you instead
brushed it off as a minor inconvenience and told her to study instead!”
lectured the queen. “In fact, I heard you say something really disgusting! You
said her behaviour was cute!”
Max was now
fed up with being attacked and now had some things of his own to say in his
defence.
“Wait for a
second! Wait! Wait! Wait! Time out!” shouted Max. “How was I supposed to know
that ants had feelings, families or even a functioning society?!”
“What’s
that supposed to mean?” growled the queen angrily with disgust.
“Well, I
just thought ants were mindless clone drones with no self-consciousness and
awareness of their surroundings that did nothing but wiggle and crawl around
all day,” explained Max. “Let’s be honest, I just thought you were a bunch of
stupid ants!”
“Wow!”
gasped Queen Dakota with incredible disgust and disbelief. “You know I am
starting to think that General Sting has a point. You humans think you are gods,
and the entire world revolves around you!”
“Also” she
snarled, “What do you mean we have to be intelligent for you to respect us? Do
you just kill stupid people because they haven’t gained your respect?!”
“Umm no,”
Max confessed.
“Precisely,”
said the queen. “How about leaving us the fuck alone and respecting us just
because we have the will to live just like any other creature on the planet!”
Max looked
down red-faced and embarrassed. The queen had demolished every single one of
his arguments. He had been utterly destroyed in his debate with her.
‘Now I see
why no one fucks with Queen Dakota’ he thought to himself. ’She’s such a badass.
“Hey wait a
minute?” he asked. “If you are so small, how did you get all that footage from multiple
different zoomed-out angles?”
“That would be thanks to our resident genius
over here” she stated, pointing at Dr Thorax who waved at him and smiled
proudly. “The minister for education and scientific research. Very recently he
was able to create around 100-sugar aphid-sized drones that hover in the air at
different heights in the air, above the surface to capture all the shenanigans
that happen on the surface. The best part about them is that they are too small
to be seen with the naked human eye, so they go completely unnoticed!”
‘So now
they are spying on us’ thought Max to himself. ‘How charming’
“Your
majesty one of the drones captured some shocking audio of the demon child that
was captured just last week” stated General Sting. “I think we better play it
as well”
“Oh yes, we
definitely should,” said the queen. “I want Max to see who his sister really is!”
Dr Thorax
ejected the conical disk containing the magnifying glass massacre and inserted
the disk containing Lucy’s rant.
The crisp audio contained Lucy’s voice;
however, it wasn’t the sweet innocent voice Max had gotten accustomed to when
she was younger, nor the annoying little sister’s bratty voice now. It was a
hate-filled voice, dripping with absolute genocidal hatred.
“I AM
COMING BACK HERE LIKE A FUCKING 100 TIMES!! I AM SO MAD!! I AM SO FUCKING MAD
AT THESE DISGUSTING LITTLE ANTS!!” shrieked Lucy’s voice on the plasma tv, her
terrifying voice bellowing from the speakers, striking fear throughout the
entire audience.
The rant
continued: “THEY DROVE HIM AWAY FROM ME!! THEY DON’T DO THIS TO FUCKING ME!! I
AM GOING TO FUCKING RITUALISTICALLY HUMILIATE AND EXTERMINATE THEM ALL!!”
‘What?’
thought Max to himself. ‘Whose him? Who is she talking about?’
“I AM
COMING BACK HERE EVERY FUCKING WEEKEND IF I HAVE TO!! LIKE THIS IS NEVER OVER!!
I WIN!! THEY FUCKING LOSE!” Lucy continued screaming.
‘Holy shit’
gasped Max. ‘She sounds just like fucking Adolf Hitler’
“I RULE THE
FUCKING WORLD!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “THOSE PIECES OF SHIT GET
RULED BY PEOPLE LIKE ME!! THEY LOOK UP AND SEE A FACE LIKE MINE LOOKING DOWN ON
THEM!!”
“THAT’S HOW
THE FUCKING WORLD WORKS!!” concluded Lucy. “I AM GOING TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE
FUCKING ANT COLONY AND THEIR PATHETIC LITTLE HILL, WHEREVER IT IS, WHEN I FIND
IT!”
“Jesus
Christ” gasped Max.
He knew
that his sister didn’t like ants, but he never imagined that she hated ants on
this level, like Adolf Hitler had with the Jews. Watching that rant made Max
feel like he had been transported back to 1930s Germany.
“You know
Max, we have more footage, incriminating your sister” stated the Queen. “Would
you like to see?”
Max didn’t
respond.
“Mum, maybe
we are being a little bit too harsh on him!” cried out Princess Penelope. “I
mean he’s not the one actually killing us!”
Queen
Dakota looked at her daughter “Yes, but he has certainly encouraged her
behaviour. Remember the Aesop’s fable I told you about called ‘The Trumpeter
Taken Prisoner’ when you were little? Remember the moral you learnt from that
fable: He who encourages others is just as bad as the person actually committing
the actions.”
Queen
Dakota glared at Max and stated “We need to make sure that the message sinks in
for him”
“I think
these next few images will definitely help your majesty!” said General Sting,
pulling out another conical disk and ejecting the previous audio file disk
before injecting this one.
The
following images displayed on the screen were nothing short of horrific.
Autopsy
images had been taken of the soldiers that had been brutally killed by Lucy and
brought back to the funeral parlour for identification, burial, and time stream
processing. However, their bodies were so gruesomely mangled and ripped apart
that it was impossible to tell what creature they were anymore, let alone who
they actually were. And unlike the ant prostitute Cuddles had killed earlier,
these ants were mutilated on a scale 1000 times worse.
The crowd screamed
and sobbed in horror as the extremely graphic and disturbing images flashed in
front of their eyes. Some ants’ intestines, stomachs, lungs, and hearts had
been squeezed out of their mouths like toothpaste and left half hanging out,
while other photos showed their corpses literally ripped to shreds and pieces,
with their insides liquified into goo and spread out in a puddle. Looking at
the images Max could tell they had been crushed by immense pressure causing
their bodies to be so mutilated in such a way. It would be like placing a human
in a trash compactor and flattening him until his body exploded into a fleshy
mess of guts and bone shards.
When Max
was normal-sized, it never bothered him since the gruesome gore was so small,
he couldn’t even see it properly. But now close-up, he felt like he was looking
at the bodies of people that had been blown to pieces by bombs or gone through a
meat grinder.
“Oh my
god,” Max groaned. “No more, please! It’s too disturbing”. Max then started making
puking sounds, feeling extremely nauseous. “Oh no, I am going to be sick! Oh no,
I am sick!”
“Blaughhhh!!”
Max vomited all over the exoskeleton feet of the queen, covering them in
yellowish-greenish vomit.
“Ah” she frowned.
“All over my fucking feet. How charming”
“Do you
understand what is at stake now?” she asked Max sternly.
Suddenly
two ant guards came running from the entrance passageways, through the central
area towards the throne to where the queen was sitting.
“Your
majesty!” they cried. “We have some urgent news!”
The queen
sighed and said, “This better be important! I am in the middle of a trial!”
“Horrible
news!” they gasped. “Jack Feeler escaped, just hours before his scheduled
execution!”
“What?!”
shrieked Queen Dakota. “Put the whole of Antopia on lockdown and tell
authorities to search every nook and cranny of the entire colony. I do not want
that disgusting man escaping justice!”
“Actually,
your majesty that won’t be necessary” piped Dr Thorax enthusiastically. “I
actually invented biological chip trackers recently that are embedded in all
death row inmates, while they are sedated within the first 7 days they are on
death row, to ensure they don’t escape justice! Not only do they pinpoint the
exact location of the death row inmate, but they also film their surroundings
within a 200-metre radius. The best part about this is that they have no idea
they are being tracked!”
Queen
Dakota was ecstatic to hear this news. “Oh, thank you Dr Thorax!” she
cried. “I knew I made the right decision
by making you the Minister for Education and Scientific Research! I am so sorry
I yelled at you earlier for shrinking the wrong human! Your inventions have
really helped Antopia in the last several months!”
“Thank you,
your majesty!” he said proudly, smiling and beaming happily. He then proceeded
to pull a portable device out of a sack on the ground next to his chair and
began fiddling with a bunch of buttons.
“Okay let’s
see here what the status of the device is,” he said looking at the device.
“What?” he gasped. “Your majesty it says here he’s dead!”
“Really?”
said the queen curiously. “I wonder who killed him?”
Dr Thorax
then started playing the footage of the last 5 minutes taken of Jack Feeler’s
life. When he saw the footage of what had happened to him, he started laughing
then gasping in awe.
“What is
it?” asked the queen. “Play the footage on the big plasma screen right now!”
“No
problem” smirked Dr Thorax, plugging his device into a cable extension plug
point that was protruding outside the control panel. “Everyone needs to see
this”
The
audience gasped in shock and horror as the face of a giant tween girl filled
the screen of the plasma tv. However, it wasn’t the face of the demon child, it
was the face of a brown Sri Lankan girl they had never ever seen before. The
girl they were looking at was Divya Bandaranayake and she was exhibiting a
completely different set of behaviours that they thought hadn’t been possible
in humans before.
They saw
the adorable 11-year-old girl deposit giant Oreo crumbs in front of Jack Feeler
saying, “Eat up little guy!”
No one
however was more shocked than Queen Dakota herself. She could not believe a
human was capable of feelings like compassion and love towards her species
before.
“Who is
this sweet girl?” she asked. “I never ever, in 50 years of my life, see a human
being behave like that with ants before!”
“Princess Penelope stepped forward and stated
“Mum I think that human said her name is Divya. I have more footage of how gentle
she was being with some of the other ants today!”
“Oh wow!”
exclaimed the queen. “Sweetheart, you have got to show me the footage after I
am done with this human!”
The
audience also had some questions.
“Are their
other humans like this?” asked one woman.
“She can be
our guardian angel!” cried out another man. “She can protect us from the little
monster!”
Princess
Penelope smirked and thought to herself ‘I really like the sound of that’.
“Okay
people” interrupted General Sting. “Let’s not forget she represents only 0.01%
of the human population. The rest of the humans either hate us or don’t give a
shit about us!”
This
greatly annoyed Princess Penelope, who believed humans could be made good by
guidance and gentle persuasion. “Shut the fuck up, General Sting!” she
snarled.
The footage
continued with Jack Feeler shouting obscenities at Divya.
“What a
fucking scumbag!” snarled the queen. “Out of all the ants she could have cared
for and looked after, it just had to be him that she came across! He certainly
doesn’t deserve her kindness!”
Suddenly
the footage took a dark turn. Jack Feeler cried and screamed like a baby,
begging for mercy as a giant white barefoot with white toenail polish crashed
on top of him. The audience heard the sickening sound of his body crunching
under the immense weight of the 11-year-old tween girl. The audience knew
exactly whose foot it was, since they had gotten accustomed to it slaughtering
their friends and family.
“Wow”
gasped the queen in awe. “Karma is beautiful, isn’t it!”
“Hell yeah
it is!” shouted a woman in the audience.
Even though
everyone hated him, they grimaced as they saw him first suffocating, then his
organs including his lungs, stomach and intestines becoming grossly and
violently squeezed out of his body through his mouth like a tube of toothpaste.
Finally, they saw his exoskeleton shredding and ripping into several pieces.
The
audience then heard the cruel sound of the voice of the demon child stating “Yuck….
That was a crunchy one…”. They also heard the voice of the other girl in the
footage, Divya, screaming at her before punching her right in the face. The
footage then cut out to black.
“Holy shit”
gasped Queen Dakota. “The Divya girl is willing to fight for my people! Maybe
she really can become Antopia’s guardian angel.”
The Queen
then looked at Max with disdain. “You know your bitch of a sister could learn a
lot from that other adorable angel girl. You as well, young man!”
Max just
looked at her, baffled. “I’m sorry can you give me some context here? Why are
you saying that guy deserved what he got?”
Queen Dakota
sighed and said “Max that man was a convicted sex offender and paedophile with
no remorse for his actions at all. He was an inhumane depraved monster. Well
maybe not as much as your genocidal sister but pretty close”
The
Minister for media, entertainment, and communications, who was a 30-year-old
man with a cinnamon pipe in his mouth and a bowler’s hat on his head with his
antennae peeking out on the sides of his hat stated “In fact, I think we need
to show Max how truly evil this man was. Do you mind if we rerun our news
broadcast saved on the database from 3 months ago, your majesty?”. He then
readjusted his robe with a symbol of a camera filming studio set on the front
of his robe.
“Sure, no
problem!” replied Queen Dakota.
The plasma
screen then showed footage of what appeared to be a suburban street in the
Antopia Metropolis, with little half-spherical dome houses lining the street
and a narrow street to allow what looked like quad bikes to pass through, and a
footpath on both sides. There was no natural sky, just a ceiling of brown hardened
rock and dirt with artificial lighting. Despite being underground, Max couldn’t
help but notice that the street he was looking at on the screen looked so much
like the street he lived on.
‘They are
so much like us!’ he gasped.
The footage then cut to a news ant lady
sitting at her desk, with a map of what appeared to be Antopia’s entire layout
of chambers as the backdrop.
“We all
want our children to be safe and make friends” she began reading off a large
stack of papers on her desk. “But no parent would want their child exposed to
the influence of this man” she continued before taking a deep breath.
“Convicted child rapist Jack Feeler. How he feels about what he has done and
his behaviour towards our interviewer in the next report will absolutely
disgust you!”
The footage
then cut to Jack Feeler and the interviewer standing on the footpath outside a
dome house. Jack Feeler was getting really aggressive and cocky, getting right
up in the interviewer’s face.
“Yeah, terrible things happened!” he jeered.
“You didn’t have any sex when you were young? Did you? Did you? Did You? No,
you did not! You never pulled your dick out of your semi-circle opening when
you were 16,17!” he continued on in his insane rant.
“Excuse me,
stand back from me sir” sternly warned the interviewer.
The footage
then cut back to the news lady, with her saying “He was once a prestigious
teacher and tutor. He’s a 53-year-old man. And now he’s a convicted child
abuser and proud paedophile who has no remorse for his actions. In fact, he is
boasting about his actions! This is despite his trial by the queen starting
tomorrow, with his crimes already worthy of the death penalty”.
“Do you
feel sorry for the poor young girls’ Jack?” questioned the interviewer as the
footage transitioned back to their conversation. “They were your students you
know!”
“Nope,” he
jeered to the disgusted interviewer.
The
conversation continued on-screen, becoming more erratic and unhinged.
“For the
rest of their lives Jack, they will be thinking about that evil monster who
stole their innocence!” snarled the interviewer to a defiant Jack as he turned
his back towards him and started walking away from him.
“What about
the last time you had sex with anybody?!” jeered Jack, turning around, walking
back towards him, and getting very up, close, and personal in his face,
pointing at him. “That was an evil occasion, wasn’t it? There was no consent
there, was there?”
“What are
you saying Jack?” asked the interviewer, completely baffled by where this was
going.
“I am saying
that you too sir, are a rapist!” jeered Jack.
As Max
watched the news footage on the plasma screen, he couldn’t help but become more
and more disgusted with it every second.
“You are
enjoying this, aren’t you sir?” sneered Jack later on in the interview.
“Imposing your noble morality on me and feeling so much better than me?”
“Do you
think those young teenage girls enjoyed it when you abused them?” asked the
interviewer.
“Yes, they
did!” he exclaimed, almost with a sense of sick pride.
The footage
then switched back to the news lady, with her stating “He’s clearly a very
disturbed man”.
The footage
then abruptly cut to black, with Queen Dakota grimacing in disgust and stating,
“You know what, I think we have seen enough!”, with her gesturing to the
minister for media, entertainment, and communications to cut the footage.
Max was
shocked at the depravity and cruelty of the man he had just witnessed.
‘Fucking
hell’ he thought to himself. ‘I seriously wonder how Chris Hansen from To Catch
a Predator would handle this guy…’
“You know
Max,” said the Queen. “I think that was the first time your sister has actually
done something good for this colony for once! It’s so good that she killed him!
Saves the time and organisation for an execution!”
Princess Penelope snickered and exclaimed “I
love the fact that he fantasised about and committed acts which involved dominating
and controlling young teenage girls. And that in the end, he ended up crying and
sobbing, being overpowered by the one thing he lusts after, teenage girls!
Serves him right to feel the feelings of his victims! How scared they must have
been, knowing there was nothing they could do to stop him! And he died at the
hands, or should I say feet of an 11-year-old tween girl whom he was absolutely
terrified of and there was nothing he could do to stop her! Oh, I love
karma!”
“Yes
sweetheart,” said Queen Dakota. “It would be great but let’s not forget the
fact that his sister has literally killed hundreds of completely innocent
people”
“Oh yeah”
replied Princess Penelope dejectedly.
“Now!”
stated Queen Dakota, glaring at max again. “The Minister for Media,
Entertainment and communications says he’s found some more evidence to convict
you! Now let’s talk about your mother’s so-called family-friendly advertising
blog!”
“Oh, come
on!” groaned Max.
“With this
new evidence brought forward into the light, let’s finish and conclude this
trial!” stated Queen Dakota.
Before
Rebecca Firewall had gotten the higher profile accountant job 6 months ago, she
was working for an advertising agency for a few years that had several
businesses specifically trying to cater to parents with lots of children and
big families. The advertising agency was called Happy Family, Happy Life and
worked with several big businesses such as Coles and Dettol to specifically
target these families using tactics such as relatability to hectic family life
and portray these products as essential to practically function in everyday family
life. As they said in advertising, you don’t sell the steak, you sell the
sizzle and what essentially these companies were trying to do when working with
this advertising agency is to sell the concept of an everyday family lifestyle
while incorporating their products. They were partially behind the reason for
Coles’ Sports for Schools and subliminal advertising of their products in
family-friendly movies.
Since
Rebecca was a mother of two, the advertising agency saw her as a perfect fit to
promote their products. Rebecca had a deep understanding of family life, so
representatives from the companies had decided they would pay her to promote
their products. What Rebecca had done was essentially start a parenting blog
called ‘My 2 Little Angels’ where she would promote different products by using
them in everyday life, while praising them. Many of the blog posts had included
Max and Lucy.
When she
left the advertising agency job for the accounting job, Max had begged her to
take it down since it was embarrassing because his classmates always managed to
find the blog whenever they googled his name. However, Rebecca wasn’t willing
to destroy 4 years of hard work building up a website.
Never in a
million years could he have imagined the ants having access to that website.
“Are you
fucking kidding me?” snarled Max. “You have access to the fucking internet as
well?”
“You really
love to ask so many questions about us, don’t you boy?” sneered General Sting.
“Well let me assure you there is so much more that you don’t know about us!”
“Okay”
stated the Minister for Media, Entertainment and Communications. “Let’s look at
this first post called ‘My Daughter’s First Pedicure’. Is the Plasma Tv connected
to the internet?”
“Yes”
replied General Sting.
The plasma
screen then proceeded to portray a set of enormous bare feet with pink nail
polish on the toenails, topped off with a little intricate design of a daisy on
each toe, with white petals and a yellowish centre. The bare feet filled the
entire frame of the photo, which were standing on the backyard concrete
pergola. It appeared that the person taking this photo had taken a zoomed-in
shot of just her bare feet, omitting the other person’s body, face, and general
surroundings. As Max focussed his eyesight on the photo in front of him, he
realised that he was looking at his sister’s feet.
“Go ahead,
boy…” General Sting sinisterly snarled. “Read the caption underneath”
Max sighed
and read the caption underneath the photo.
My
little girl got her first pedicure today for her 9th birthday! Lucy
absolutely loves her pink nails with the white daisies! She had such an amazing
time getting her toes done at the Golden Duck salon. It really was some incredible
mother-daughter bonding time. As soon as she got home, however, she immediately
went outside in the garden to squish bugs with her new pedicure!! God, I
remember what it was like to be a carefree kid 😂
“Oh, come
on!!” groaned Max. “I had nothing to do with that post!”
“You are going
to continue to lie to us, huh boy!” snarled General Sting. “Do you want me to
bring up your Instagram profile?”
‘Get
absolutely fucked’ Max thought to himself. ‘There is no way these ants know
about my social media profiles, do they?’
The Minister for media, entertainment and communication scrolled down Rebecca’s post to the
comments section, which was powered by Instagram plug-in software.
“That’s your
username right there, isn’t it?” inquired General Sting. “You are Max the Fire
King?”
“Yes”
confessed Max. “That’s my Instagram handle”
“Let’s look
at what you said, shall we?” said General Sting.
Max’s
comment read: ‘Mum this is so cheesy and cringe, please delete this 🙄
“See!”
exclaimed Max. “I never supported that post!”
Max turned
his head around and noticed that several of the soldier ants around him had
already started shivering and crying in fear. Apparently, this post had
triggered some PTSD. It had been a terrifying day for them when the demon child
had first painted her toes. They had gotten so used to anticipating her
unpainted toes squashing them for so long, they initially first thought that
these new fleshy structures were new exotic plants after seeing the paintings
of the white daisies on her toes. It wasn’t until the nail polish started
wiggling and hovering very close to their faces that they realised it was human
toes and that from their perspective the Demon Child had camouflaged her toes
with some kind of war paint. But by now though it was too late, however, and
Lucy ended up squishing more ants in a single day than ever before. Lucy had an
amazing time showing her pretty little toes to the little ants before crushing
them. From that day on she started wearing toenail polish regularly since she
found it helped squish higher numbers of ants. This was because the ants also
had the problem of the sunlight reflecting off the nail polish into their eyes,
causing temporary blindness and leaving them like sitting ducks.
“He’s
right” stated Queen Dakota. “We are going to need more incriminating evidence
than that…”
“Not to
worry” boasted The Minister for media, entertainment,
and communication. “I have another post that fully incriminates this little
fucker!”
“Okay let’s
bring that up then!” replied the queen
“This
second blog post is called Dettol Wipes are a must-have for Every Family”
stated The Minister for media, entertainment, and communication.
The next
photo that was shown on the screen sent terrified screams throughout the entire
crowd.
The photo
showed a 10-year-old Lucy sitting on the bottom step of the backyard concrete
pergola, in light blue denim shorts and wearing a light grey short-sleeved
t-shirt with the words GIRL POWER written in
bold red lettering, across the front of the t-shirt. She was smiling at the
camera happily, with her red ginger hair flowing freely over her shoulders,
with the glass sliding door and expanse of the concrete pergola and veranda
poles partially visible in the background. It was what she was doing however
that was really disturbing to the ants. Lucy’s right foot was plastered firmly
to the ground with the toes painted a light lime green colour. Her left foot
was pointing upwards onto her knee, showing the underside of her sole which was
dotted with little black dots that the ants now understood to be the corpses of
their fallen comrades, family, and friends. In her right hand, she was
clutching a Dettol wipe which she was using to start wiping the ants and their
gooey stains off the bottom of her foot.
“Oh my gosh” stammered
Princess Penelope with tears in her eyes. “It’s like she almost wiped out a
whole generation in a single fucking day….”
“Go ahead, boy…”
General Sting sinisterly snarled. “Read the caption underneath”
Trembling and nervously
Max read the caption underneath the photo.
Anyone with children
just knows how messy and dirty they can be. Especially when you have a
15-year-old son that rolls around in the mud all day when playing footy and
comes inside the house and steps all over the floor with his filthy bare feet
leaving mucky bare footprints everywhere. Ewww
Lol, I bet you know
what my little girl Lucy is doing in that photo. Yep. She’s cleaning the little
bugs and ants she squished off her feet with a Dettol wipe. They are so
effective at cleaning up any quick spills that my two clumsy children have or
wiping away greasy stains off the table after dinner.
And their size makes
them so convenient. I can carry a whole packet in my handbag while travelling.
I also keep some in the glove compartment of my car. You can also fit a few
wipes in your pocket of whatever clothing you are wearing. That’s why my
daughter also kept some in her pocket while she was at her best friend Divya’s birthday
party because she’s quite a messy eater. That and also one of her favourite
side hobbies which is squishing the ants in our backyard. She’s getting to be
quite the little pest control exterminator! That’s why she is using one of the
leftover ones in the photo above to wipe her feet after squishing some bugs.
“Good grief” stated
the queen with disgust. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?”
“Yeah, your majesty and
the comments left by the other humans are really something else!” stated
General Sting with disgust. “Some of these are really quite borderline
psychopathic!”
“Okay let’s see some
of them,” asked Queen Dakota.
Diana: I love Dettol wipes! And EW at the squished
bugs! Lol
Emily: Eww with the squished ants between the toes
Jenny: Kids are gross, and it’s expected of them to be
gross, just like squishing bugs lol. It’s quite a yucky childish hobby. That’s
why Dettol wipes are the best!
Christine: That is so funny, cute, and adorable about
your daughter squashing bugs! We go through tons of Dettol wipes at our house too!
Monique:
Squishing bugs is sooooooooooooooooooooo much fun…I used to do it when I
was a kid!
“Who are these fucking
demented monsters?!” gasped Princess Penelope. “They are literally laughing at
mass murder!”
Max sighed and said
“They are just a bunch of stupid suburban mums”
Princess Penelope
looked at him with absolute horror in her eyes. “If that is how the mothers of
your society behave towards other people’s children dying, I am completely lost
for words!” she cried.
“Hold on a minute”
frowned General Sting. “One of these comments is not like the others.”
Clicking on the hidden
and archived comments section he spotted a different comment that had caught
his eye. “Check this out everyone!” he exclaimed.
The comment was from
Divya’s father.
Dinesh Bandaranayake: This is appalling behaviour,
Rebecca! Teaching your daughter, it’s okay to kill sentient life for fun! Did
you know that devaluing violence towards innocent animals often leads to
real-world violence against humans?! I encourage you to reflect on your
approach and teach your daughter to respect the personal space of insects
because they have the will to live just like any other living creature on the
planet. That is what I have taught my beautiful sweet little angel Divya. She
would literally would not ever even think of harming a fly.
“One in a million….”
grunted General Sting, realising Dinesh’s comment was literally the only
comment that had stood up for their species out of 50 others. Looking at Ava he
said to her “Looks like you were right about these kinds of humans. They really
do only represent 0.01% of the population.”
Focussing his
attention on Max, he glared at him and stated, “Now let’s look at what Max the
Fire King said, shall we?”
Scrolling through the
comment section he exclaimed “Ah Ha! There you are!”
Max the Fire King: This is actually kind of funny mum.
Lucy using Dettol wipes for her childish hobby. But don’t you think she is
getting a bit too old for this now?
“Throwing the corpses
of my people away like they are used play toys and pieces of fucking garbage is
funny huh?” snarled the queen. “I think I just found my incriminating evidence
ladies and gentlemen”
“Oh Fuck…” muttered
Max under his breath. “Listen I can explain!” he exclaimed. “You see what I
meant was-”
“Enough!” shrieked the
queen. “I think my time is done here!”
“Wow” exclaimed General Sting. “I just got
access to his Instagram account. Turns out not only did he trivialise the
suffering of our people, but he also actually shared and distributed these blog
posts with smiling and laughing emojis!”
Queen Dakota glared at him with absolute
disgust and simply stated “You are so bad!”
This greatly angered
Max who yelled “For your information, I only shared those posts because my
pestering and annoying mum was asking me repeatedly to do so in order to boost
her advertising profile! She promised me a pack of Arnott’s Shapes if I did!”
“Actually Max,” said
the Queen coldly “That doesn’t really help your case. The fact that you are
willing to distribute and glorify the genocide of my people for a packet of fucking
biscuits just shows that you are just as much of a psychopath as the rest of
your family”
Looking to the
government ministers she proclaimed “I hereby declare the human guilty of being
an honorary associate for mass genocide! All those in favour?”
To Max’s absolute
horror, all the government ministers raised their arms in approval.
“Okay then!” she
stated. “This trial has almost concluded. It is decided then. Now how will we
punish you?” she frowned, looking at him with curiosity.
“NO! NO! NO!” cried
Max in horror, thrashing frantically on his chain shackles, trying to run but
he was well and truly firmly locked to the podium post.
“BUT I’M INNOCENT!!
INNOCENT!! PLEASE!! PLEASE!!” he shrieked with tears in his eyes, terrified
that his fate was going to be 1000 times worse than the two criminals before
him.
“Shut the fuck up you
little shit!” barked Queen Dakota. “One more word out of you and I swear to fucking
Gaia I will ask one of the guards to pull your fucking pants down and spank you
in front of fucking everyone!”
This quickly shut Max
up, who just knelt on the ground in his locked position, looking at the ground
with tears in his eyes.
“Now where were we….,”
said the queen, turning back to the government ministers.
Princess Penelope
approached Max and put her hand on his shoulder. “My mum’s bark is worse than
her bite” she smiled. “Don’t be scared”
Max looked up at her
with angry tears in his eyes. “Fuck you!” he growled, sniffling a few tears.
“You are just as bad as them!”
Meanwhile, an in-depth
discussion was taking place between all 7 government ministers and Queen Dakota
herself about the best way to punish Max.
“I still say we hold
him for ransom!” suggested the Minister of Breeding Chambers and the Nursery.
“We can tell the Little Monster we will let her brother go if she stops waging
war on us!”
“That would never
work!” groaned General Sting. “As soon as we grow him back, they could both
turn on us and he could go back on his word and completely obliterate us within
a day! Humans can never be trusted!”
Glaring at Max with
intense hatred he snarled “I say, let’s just sentence him to death by the
Mortein Chamber! It will fill me with great pleasure to watch him scream like a
little bitch as he chemically burns to death by Mortein!”
Queen Dakota sighed
and turned to General Sting; “General, we have been over this earlier. He is simply
too young to be sentenced to death!”
“Oh, come on!!”
groaned General Sting. “Can’t we make an exemption in this case? I mean, think
of the gravity of the situation!”
“Well since he hasn’t
actually directly mass murdered us, we can’t” replied Queen Dakota. “However,
we could make that exemption for his cruel devil sister when we shrink her
later on…”
“NOO!!” shrieked Max,
horrified when he heard a discussion of the possible execution of his dear
sweet little sister. “DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER!!”
Queen Dakota chuckled
when she heard Max screaming at her. “He certainly is a feisty one, isn’t he?
Doesn’t like being told what to do, huh?”
Looking back at
General Sting she explained “We can’t even send him to Hell’s gate Prison
because he is still a minor. You must be at least 20 years old to be sent to
Hell’s gate prison!”
“Booo!!” moaned
General Sting. “I really wanted to make him suffer!”
“I suppose we could
send him to our smaller juvenile facility called Naughty Pupas for 12 to
19-year-old teenagers …” suggested Queen Dakota. “There isn’t really much of
another option, is there? Now how long should we sentence him for….”
This cheered General
Sting up a little bit who stared at Max with glee in his eyes and sneered “I
can’t wait for our boys in there to start beating the shit out of you!”
“No wait mum!” called
out Princess Penelope. “I think I have an even better idea!”
Queen Dakota, clearly
annoyed by her daughter interrupting her, turned to her grumpily and said “What
possible better idea could you have, sweetheart? This better be good!”
“Well,” proposed
Princess Penelope with a sympathetic look in her eye. “I think the problem here
as it has been for so long is that ants and humans don’t understand one another
at all. There is no understanding of each other’s lifestyles and both sides
despise each other because there is zero communication!”
“Go on, I’m listening
sweetheart,” said the queen sternly.
“That’s why I am
suggesting we can change the nature of this human and create a brighter future,
an alliance between humans and ants!” exclaimed Princess Penelope proudly.
“Oh, get absolutely fucked!”
interrupted General sting loudly. “That’s never going to work! Didn’t your mum
teach you Aesop’s fable about the brass pot and the clay pot!”
“Do you mind!” shouted
Princess Penelope angrily. “I haven’t finished!”
“What was it you used
to teach me, mum? That you can never fully understand how hard someone else’s
life is unless you walk a mile in their shoes!” boasted Princess Penelope to
her mother.
“Please proceed”
replied the queen.
“That is why I think
it would be better for this human boy to serve inside Antopia. To learn the ins
and outs of our society, culture, and every aspect of our lives. When he begins
to understand how much we are alike, maybe he can spread this vital information
back to his species, including his sister and they can stop treating us like we
are nothing!” stated Princess Penelope.
“So, what you are
saying is that you want the human boy to perform community service across all
areas of Antopia?” asked Queen Dakota.
“Yes, mum” replied
Princess Penelope.
“Hmmm,” said Queen
Dakota. “But it is hard to fill a cup which is already full….”
Princess Penelope
sighed sadly and said to Max “I’m sorry, I tried…”
“But...” she said. “I
am very curious to see how this will play out....”
Princess Penelope
suddenly became optimistic. Finally, someone was starting to listen to her
ideas….
“Very well then” stated Queen Dakota, getting
up and speaking into the megaphone and announcing to the audience of 1000 ants
curiously watching: “This human boy will learn our ways. He will become an
ant….”
“But for how
long….” she hummed into the megaphone.
“We don’t even have a growth potion to grow him back yet….”
“WHAT?!” shrieked Max.
“YOU MEAN I AM STUCK AT THIS SIZE FOREVER?!!”
“Well yes…” replied
the Queen cheekily. “And no. You see I will instruct Dr Thorax to start working
on a growth formula only if……” she paused for dramatic effect. “Only if you
behave yourself, young man...”
“You can’t be
serious!” snarled Max angrily. “You are gambling my entire life on a game of
fucking chance!! You’re going to put the stake of my life in the hands of ……HIM!!”
he growled bobbing his head at Dr Thorax. “How do you even know he can ever
make the growth formula?”
“Well given the fact that he shrunk you to our
size, I’m pretty sure he can create the opposite!” laughed Queen Dakota. “Stop
being such a pessimist!”
Dr Thorax then piped
up and defended his reputation by stating “I have invented more than 10000
inventions and all of them have been successes so far. Even my shrinking dart
worked perfectly, the only issue was that it shrunk the wrong person. That and
also, I have been a little unprepared. But don’t worry I will whip up a growth
formula when your punishment is over”
“Very well then”
announced Queen Dakota into the megaphone. “It is decided then. I hereby
sentence this human boy to live and work in Antopia for an undetermined amount
of time”
She then proceeded to
look Max right into his eyes and stated “My daughter will teach you our ways.
Learn well…. Max Firewall. Then we will see if your insanity can be cured.”
This infuriated
General sting who protested: “Your majesty you can’t be serious! Giving the
brother of our sworn enemy a free tour of all our well-kept best secrets! He
will betray us all!!”
Silence!” she barked.
“It is final!”
She looked at her
daughter. “This is the first time I have decided to test out one of your ideas.
I hope you know what you are doing sweetheart…...”
“Don’t worry” beamed
Princess Penelope. “I will make you proud mum!”
Queen Dakota smiled
and replied “That’s my girl. Now unshackle him, sweetheart”
Readjusting herself
she announced into the megaphone “Okay everyone! That concludes our 41st
weekly high court chambers trials for the week!”
As soon as Max was
unshackled by Princess Penelope he tried to run forward and confront the queen,
but Princess Penelope stopped him.
“Hey!” he yelled.
“That’s it! How long am I going to be like this? I want to go home!”
Queen Dakota and the 7
other government ministers turned their backs on him, ignoring his cries.
“You can’t fucking do
this to me!” he yelled. “This is inhuman!”
This time Queen Dakota
did turn back to face him with a snarky reply. “Yes, it would be inhuman. But
you are forgetting one thing….” before pausing for dramatic effect before
cheekily grinning and saying, “We are not humans!”
“This is fucking
bullshit!!” he yelled.
Suddenly Max realised
some of the phrases he was using, and this exact same scenario sounded and
seemed very familiar to him.
‘Wait a minute’ he
thought to himself. ‘A trial by ants. Being kidnapped by an ant colony. Being
sentenced to live among them. Shouting catchy phrases. I swear I have
definitely seen this exact same scenario in a kid’s animated film before. One
starring Nicolas Cage and Julia Roberts. Damn but I forgot what that film is
called though…….’