Ray Sullivan SciFi Zone: Project: Evil – Design Freeze Meeting part 3

‘You’re nuts,’ shouted O’Feld, which caused one of the scientists to interject.

‘No, not Alec’s, the Armadillo’s,’ he said, adding, ‘it’s not as stupid as it sounds. Well, perhaps it is as stupid, but hear Alec out before you shoot him,’ he said. O’Feld considered this and decided to go against company protocol, which insisted you asked questions only after shooting. Alec pulled a sheet of paper out from his folder and passed it over.

‘Most organic material is shredded when exposed to space radiation, but experiments have shown that armadillo gonads actually become harder than depleted uranium balls when subjected to this radiation. Release enough armadillo gonads in space and they’ll hop around the stratosphere ripping apart every defence and communication satellite they come across.’ O’Feld looked a little impressed, but also had that “so what” look as well. Brian felt that the pitch had gone better than he’d expected, so he crawled from under the table sized boogie box he’d insisted on being in the meeting. O’Feld looked at Brian.

‘Is this true?’ he asked.

‘According to Wikipedia it is,’ replied Brian, adding, ‘Think of the impact this would have – no defence networks, Twitter and Facebook reduced to semaphore, Rupert Murdoch’s empire smashed to smithereens in seconds…’ O’Feld thumped his fist on the table.

‘I like it, blackmail the planet and threaten to destroy a Megalomaniac peer in the process,’ said O’Feld, rubbing his hands together. ‘And I take it that armadillo gonads are cheaper than antimatter?’ Brian nodded, he had two in a cage ready to start breeding already, they looked like armour plated rats and it was his expectation that by January he’d have seven generations humping away.

‘Our calculations are that we only need five thousand pairs of gonads to destroy the satellite networks, and we’ve got a vet on our books ready to start harvesting them.’ O’Feld looked satisfied.

‘The vet, is he fully qualified?’ he asked. Daw pitched in as this was his department.

‘Of course not, he’s only fourteen. He just got released from Borstal having served two years for torturing animals. Absolutely psychotic killer tendencies in the making, so we’ve put him on a modern apprenticeship scheme.’

‘Good,’ said O’Feld. ‘Anything else?’ Brian pulled out roll after roll of technical drawings.

‘The mock volcano is a standard design made from Papier-mâché and polystyrene blocks, mission control we’ve discussed already,’ he said, scattering drawings around the room as he looked for the one he wanted. ‘And the rocket is a standard three stage Atlas style model, stolen from your cousin in Ireland, from his RyanSpace project, designed to challenge Richard Branson’s Virgin Space venture as a low cost space travel company.’ O’Feld looked fit to burst – two of his biggest evil Megalomaniac competitors hurt in one project. He pulled out his pen.

‘That’s fine, Brian, you really do run the best bunch of TWATs this company has ever produced,’ he said, signing off the project. Brian gathered up the various documents as O’Feld slipped his pen in his top pocket. He turned to the TWATs.

‘Good work, men. Now this is signed off we can set up the work orders. No more redesigning from now on, it’s time to make this project run,’ he said, waving to O’Feld as he walked out of the meeting room. Then the door reopened and O’Feld popped his head around it.

‘Just a couple of things, Brian. I’m not keen on the colour scheme for the rocket, I hate NASA white, change it to beige; I’d like a fourth stage adding to the rocket, double the size of the crocodile pool and find a way to have both a pointless monorail and golf buggies. I notice your design only allows for one or the other.’ Brian felt his heart sink.

‘Sure thing, boss,’ he said, hoping that was it.

‘And I notice the mission is meant to be unmanned as henchmen would be pretty useless in space when all we are doing is deploying a load of armadillo balls, but I’d like the mission to have a full complement of henchmen to fight off an attack by US Space Marines using the Space Shuttles they have just dismantled,’ he said, slamming the door as he left.

Public Sector man sidled up to Brian. ‘That seems to be a result, looks like you’ve got everything you wanted, and more,’ he said. Brian just shook his head; he knew that he’d have to compromise again on the specification to fit in all of O’Feld’s requests. He didn’t quite know how he was going to break it to Public Sector man that the Safari Suit Detection System was going to be compromised.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The characters, companies and places referred to in Project: Evil are fictitious and any resemblance to people, companies, businesses or places is entirely coincidental

If you've enjoyed this chapter of Project: Evil then check out the blog every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday as the story unfolds and, if you haven't done so already, why not follow the blog.

If you know someone who has a warped sense of humour please pass them the link to my blog so that they can enjoy 'Project: Evil'.

I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books

To View My books In....