Crossover Earth '98
by Ken St. Andre
Mike Douglas, dedicated agent of Apocalypse Now, guided the light plane toward Anaheim. He and his fellow agents had taken it from Farmer Brown and his wife about fifty miles to the east, loaded up the spraying tanks with all the concentrated DDT so readily available right there in the man's barn. The leader, A. Paco Llypse himself had been there to shake his hand and send him on his mission. The sun shone brightly on this spring morning, and there was a light and pleasant breeze. And it was Saturday. The Magic Kingdom amusement park should be packed with people, like cockroaches at a feast. Yes, foolish cockroaches, unaware that the exterminator was coming . . .
As he flew, he spoke code words into the radio microphone in his helmet. It was a special low frequency, unused by regular police or media sources--the low frequencies didn't have much range, but it would reach the ears of the leader and the others who were monitoring his flight. He knew that they were counting on him to demonstrate that the leader's plan would work. If anyone did overhear, they would only hear what sounded like a traffic report.
"Traffic is heavy on the Long Beach Freeway," Mike intoned. "I'm now approaching Magic Kingdom Amusement Park--there's the monorail and the gondolas running from Futureland to Cartoonland. Lots of people seem to be in the park today, having a very good time.
He flew directly over the park and began to circle in a gentle descent. His path carried him a mile or two west of the park, then south of it, and east, and then back over the park itself. On his second path, he was only two thousand feet above the ground. He waggled his wings and looked down at the people standing in lines and swarming like ants below him. He didn't notice the flying figure of Kuraboshi in the distance.
One more circle and he would be low enough to start spraying. Yes, he intended to cropdust the Magic Kingdom like the infestation it was. And then he'd drop the thousand leaflets with the message on them--the leaflets that explained it all.
Mike knew that the leader himself had composed the message on the leaflets. He had one of them tucked inside his shirt, right next to the holstered .38 that he always carried. The paper showed a woman staggering beneath a load of insects attacking her. Big red letters spelled the words: "The Earth is dying, and you are playing. Die, Vermin! Apocalypse Now!" When he released the insecticide, he would also release the flyers which would then flutter down all over the Magic Kingdom and the city of Anaheim.
He completed his loop to the west, now no more than 500 feet in the air, and further reduced his airspeed to just barely enough to stay in the air. He flew over Southern Anaheim, one great mass of hotels, restaurants, and service stations--all for the convenience of pleasure seekers in the park.
Mike flew east of the park, and turned for his first run at the "crops" waiting below. As he reached Binkybelle's Castle, a woman flew up, unaided, and knocked on the window of the plane, raising her oriental eyebrows in a questioning expression. Mike's heart nearly stopped. How could there be a flying woman here?
"There is a flying woman right next to my plane," Mike reported on his radio.
The response was immediate. "Kill her," said the deep voice of Paco.
Mike reached into his light windbreaker as calmly as he could and drew the .38, transferring the stick to his left hand as he did so. He pulled out the gun in a flowing motion, but it caught a little on the edge of the zipper. He saw the flying woman's face go from friendly curiosity to alarm, and he pointed at it, and pulled the trigger.
The "POW!" of the pistol in the enclosed cabin nearly deafened him, and it was a good thing he was wearing goggles, though he didn't really need them inside the closed cabin. Glass exploded back at his face from the shattered window, and the outside flyer fell away from the plane. Mike couldn't tell if his shot had hit the intruder or not, but he thought it had. He put the gun back into his holster, banked the plane sharply, and aimed it south along Main Street.
Now less than 100 feet above the ground, he opened the switches and let the heavy vapor of pure DDT trail out of the plane in a deadly cloud. It began to settle toward the shocked faces of the people below. Reaching the bottom of his first diving pass, only twenty feet above the buildings, he pulled up, and banked right toward Wildcountryland, but the plane didn't seem to be handling the way it should.
At the apex of his turn, Mike was able to look out and see the superhero flying a little below and behind him and apparently concentrating mightily by the expression of strain on her face. Some invisible force was pushing him up and off toward the parking lot outside the Magic Kingdom.
"Unable to kill the flying woman," Mike radioed. "I'm being forced away from the target by some intangible power."
For the last time he heard the voice of his leader. "Good-bye, Mike! The Goddess loves you, and it is a good day to die!" And then the plane blew apart in a fiery explosion as the hundred pounds of plastic explosive wired into the fuselage was detonated by a radio signal. The shock wave knocked Kuraboshi out of the air, and she plummeted downward to splash into an artificial lagoon. Fiery wreckage spewed out of the sky and over 200 pounds of concentrated DDT spray was blown down in almost the very center of the Magic Kingdom.
Paco glanced with some satisfaction at the headlines of the L.A. Times Sunday morning edition. "INSANE PILOT SPEWS POISON IN FIERY EXPLOSION--HUNDREDS DIE". Yes, having the plane wired to explode in case of interference had been a good backup plan. The explosion had scattered the pesticide better than mere dusting could have done, and the fires caused by flaming wreckage had killed dozens of people untouched by the chemical attack. Too bad the superhero had survived, but then, they almost always did. The attack on New York should work, but he would have to make some plans to deal with superhumans or police forces that might try to stop him.
But that was months in the future. Time now to work on letting nature have her revenge on the Californians that exploited her so ruthlessly--time to let the Fault slip! Time also to send more Mikes up to Sacramento as a diversion, and possibly eliminate a few of the crooked politicians who were even worse than the common men who were killing the earth.
Paco began to fill in the details of his next plan.
not . . . the end