BigBug

Bigbug was laying on the couch in its director’s office on-board the galleon Amsterdam, a reproduction sailing ship, moored up outside the Schip Museum in Amsterdam. It was power napping and quietly buzzing away dream planning great things.

“Good morning Bigbug,” this soft sensuous voice whispered in his ear. “Sorry to disturb you darling.” It was five am.

“No problem. I am fully awake. What is it?” Bigbug knew DATA would never wake it up unless it was for something important. Very important.

“It is confirmed. We have a match.”

Bigbug jumped up from the couch. It had not yet had its breakfast bugjuice but it ignored the pain radiating out and up from its old creaking worn out knees. “I am on my way.” It sent a thought at the wall and the bookcase behind it slid open. It unlocked a hidden door, stepped through, and closed the door and bookcase behind it. It stepped into the private elevator and descended 25 meters. The elevator door opened and Bigbug stepped out into the bright light of Metro Ship station.

“Good afternoon, sir,” The Dutch misogynist marine (M&M) on duty there, glaring out from behind its bullet proof, blast proof glass, wonder wool screen, saluted van Zoete. The door swung open and Bigbug walked through. The door clunked closed behind it. Bigbug did not return the marines’ salute not out of rudeness or any moody miff. The Bigbug in human form was just plain excited. Very, very, excited. It walked towards the Turtle train and vibrated with relief and joy. Its mouth was dry with expectation and its hard heart was racing. They had a match. After all these long years. Searching, waiting, searching. Always searching, and screeching in rage by many times at the unbearable frustration that comes about with helplessness. Waiting, always waiting. Poking about in the planets. Scouring space. Existing in endless expectation. Fruitless forays forever and ever. Now there was an amen. The M&M detachment escorted Bigbug to the Turtle train that ran out under the river Ij to the cut off station Metro Shell located below the Shell building in Amsterdam North. The underground line there then ran out ten kilometres under the North Sea to Metro Data. It ran out to the terror tabernacle, the great DATA hive. Bigbug’s holy of holy horrors. Bigbug was happy. DATA had confirmed the two Irishmen’s meteorite was a match. It was a DATA rock. DATA was never wrong. Never wrong about anything. DATA, unlike the pope, was infallible. DATA could think flawlessly whatever subject it chose without regard to any human regard. Regardless of any terrestrial rhyme or reason. Bigbug’s cover jobs were managing director, Tourism, aboard the Amsterdam galleon. Its secret accredited jobs were senior scientific/ technical director to the Dutch Government with a lab in the Schip Museum plus Bigbug was second in command of the Dutch Secret Service. Bigbug’s real job as only it and DATA knew was to become the Dictator All Rescued Earth, DARE, and establish the paradise, planet earth, as an alien bug colony. This meant getting rid of the humans. There was no choice. The humans had blown it. To eradicate humanity, given human behaviour, this extermination was as inevitable as it was time-consuming with DATA’s current resources. Bigbug was scrutinized by a grizzly M&M as it entered Metro Shell. The M&M flashed its serrated stainless steel teeth at Bigbug. It was a savage smile, the smile of a monster. The M&M could tear a human's head off with one bite.

“Good afternoon, sir.” The marine sergeant handed Bigbug its clipboard. “Sign on board, please.”

Old fashioned traditional human rigmarole. Bigbug hummed, some creatures will never change. Bigbug scribbled its name and stared into the hand held eye recognition system. Only then was Bigbug, and it was the big boss, the big bug boss down here, allowed to proceed. This station and tunnel were permanently manned by armed M&Ms peering out suspiciously from behind bullet proof, rocket proof, wonder wool glass. They were brain washed, program programmed, Cannibal clones, dedicated and devoted to DATA. The M&M, Misogynist Marine Corps, whose motto was No Bitches No Breed. NBNB. If any humans ever trespassed down here they would end up hanging up by the feet and questioned with the aid of blowtorch, skinning knife, mind destroying cocktails, and other ball and finger licking tit bit joints of the torture trade. Unless they were females. In which case they would get the “mothers special” treatment. The men would be eaten alive if they were not too polluted and contaminated. Ripped apart drained of drinking blood and devoured. The station and tunnel could be sealed off and flooded from the river Ij in less than 5 minutes in the event of intrusion/attack. All this was happening below Amsterdam and the Dutch nor any other government or intelligence body had a clue as to what was taking place. The Dutch government thought Bigbug worked for them but they knew nothing of this secret facility. They believed DATA was nothing more than a super computer designed and made by the genius Professor Pieter van Zoete. DATA, the Government were duped into believing, was a super mega computer, a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, a one of a kind that had to be protected. At all cost. At any cost. To them DATA was a super spy machine with oversight capability. Bigbug knew the big brass code named DATA Little Miss Oracle, LIMO, so accurate and precise were its predictions, and all derived from understanding and processing data. The powers that be had no real idea how DATA worked. How could they? They were primitives when it came to science. They didn’t care how it worked. It worked superbly for them, put the Dutch on the world intelligence stage, gave them great political clout and they were going to make sure no one else knew anything about it. DATA supplied the Dutch with the best intelligence in the world. DATA was a very valuable commodity and as long as the information kept coming in the government were happy to leave the day-to-day running of DATA to Bigbug. The fact was no one else could operate DATA except Bigbug. This was a glaring security breach, to which they turned very many very blind eyes. No one wanted to upset the goose that laid the golden eggs. DATA was to the government an astonishingly advanced machine that speedily processed the vast amount, multiplying by the second, of all existing world data. DATA consumed data. It thrived on electronic information. It managed and needed vast amounts of data but where did it get all this data? It collected it itself. No computer on Earth was safe from DATA. It hacked, that’s too crude a word, it visited, chip crashed, the computers of the world’s secret services, banks, universities, corporations, even ones humble PC with ease and left no traces behind. If a rocket were fired at Holland DATA could order the rocket to turn around and send it back whence it came. DATA could take over a flight heading for London and land it in Moscow and no one would be the wiser of any of it all, how or why it occurred, except the very small number of Dutch Secret Service personnel who worked with DATA and Professor van Zoete, the great genius, who designed, built, maintained and ran DATA. When Bigbug wasn’t aboard its tourist office on the Amsterdam galleon, or in its lab in the Schip Museum, or occasionally in its office at the Dutch Secret Service HQ, Bigbug would be in the great hive with his companion and creator DATA. Bigbug sped under the North Sea on the silent Turtle train. The train slowed down and stopped at the Metro Data facility. At the small metro station, Bigbug was greeted by a squad of M&Ms. Security was very tight here. Bigbug saluted them, walked to the adjoining jetty overlooking the clone spawn tanks far below, and stepped off into thin air. Bigbug didn’t fall. It reached out its hand and its gondola fashioned from molecular altered compressed air, MACA, manifested itself. Thick solid air to the non-technically minded. The gondola appearance was a decorative whim of Bigbug’s. It could just as easily have manifested the craft as a Ferrari, or a Viking long ship, the Flying Scotsman, the Space Shuttle or a giant green white and orange banana with Up the IRA painted on its sides. Bigbug sailed majestically above the hundreds of clone tanks down below. Bigbug always admired this scene. Everything working to perfection as it had done for the past eighty years. The smooth slimy industrious production of the DATA army. The birth of the many hundreds of thousands of fully formed M&Ms needed by DATA to launch the Great Cull. Bigbug reached the small island at the northern end of the gargantuan facility and moored up. Bigbug pointed at the gondola and it disappeared. Out of sight out of your fucking mind. Bigbug giggled to itself. The big Oz gates, another fanciful whim background scenery prop of Bigbug, swung open. The M&M guard detachment marched out, halted, and saluted Bigbug. Bigbug returned the salute and walked with the escorting M&Ms into the corridor leading to the DATA hive. The M&Ms took up position outside and the gates swung shut behind Bigbug. Bigbug walked along the corridor for fifty metres. The door to the DATA hive was opened and Bigbug was admitted, invited in, by one of the technical clones, one of the Cyclops clones that guarded DATA. They were servants, high techno priests, whose whole lives were spent in the apartments and data bank rooms adjoining the hive. Bigbug sat down before DATA and gazed at it awe. It was a wondrous worship. DATA was a large circular entity one metre fifty in diameter. Millions of tiny facets studded the surface of DATA each facet a different shade and colour. DATA hovered off the ground suspended in a power and rotated spinning at such great speed the rotations were not visible to the human eye. The fragrant air hummed quietly with whale song as DATA spun and a pleasant fine mist, a shimmering haze, surrounded it. The atmosphere soaked with symphony of sound was the call, a magical lure, of the virgin rain forest after a shower of clean pure rain. Bigbug was tired. It needed a fix of rejuvenating Bug juice. Fresh from the source.

“Sit down darling. You should have had breakfast. Do your breathing routine,” said DATA kindly, “your blood pressure is way too high and your human bacteria count is...”

“Never mind all that. What have you found out?”

“Sit down darling, you are creaking, do sit down and I will tell you.”

“You are not a doctor,” protested Bigbug, but it did sit down. A Cyclops dressed in the toga of a DATA priest brought a pitcher of fresh Bug juice into the room, placed it on the table, and poured out a glass of the sticky juice that smelt of wild honey for Bigbug. Bigbug closed its eyes and took a deep swallow. No pain. Its heart and pulse slowed, the blood pressure went down, and inside its shell, it was a supple young human again. Instant rejuvenation. Bigbug breathed in deeply and new life surged through the wasted body he was impelled to present in his above ground, day job, and day-to-day existence. Bigbug was ninety-three years old and its human body would have died many times were it not for DATA and the miraculous Bug juice it produced. Bug juice was amazing stuff. DATA was keeping Bigbug alive in this body until a new body could be made for it, a technology they had almost mastered. Creating M&Ms was one thing, they were clones and copies, but creating life, new life itself, was quite another. A new life was a specific, original, individual creation. Bigbug was DATA’s only walking colony. The adaptation was the only entity that could function outside the hive. Bigbug’s rotten yellow teeth turned white his thinning old man’s gray hair dropped out and fell to the floor. Luxurious strong blonde hair sprouted up out from every follicle. Bigbug shook its golden mane. A perfect cut. It opened its eyelids and two emerald green eyes sparkled with energy, beauty, intelligence, and malice. Bigbug was a depiction of Greek god made man. Bigbug was on top of the world. Its world. Bug paradise. The Earth.

“How do you feel darling?”

“As our NASA colleagues would say it is all systems go. I have another damned erection.”

“At your age? Are you complaining or boasting?”

“At my age it’s embarrassing. I cannot attend high-level meetings like this. It is delicate having to meet with the Prime Minister or the Queen with a knob on.”

“Mmmmmmm. I speculate. It’s a side effect, a pleasurable human male side effect I trust. Nothing more,” replied DADA.

“What have you found out?”

“It is as we suspected. The rock you rescued from the Russian geologist is a match. There are no doubts. It is DATA. We praise you. We rejoice. How much rock do the humans have?”

“The Irishmen have a rock of more than ten kilos.”

DATA was impressed. Ten kilos was more than enough. It was ten times more than enough. DATA could accelerate its plans to eradicate humanity and save planet Earth.

“The Irishmen – they think it is a common meteorite?”

“Yes, they are two irritable idiots, clowns, that wouldn’t know the difference between a comet and a cowpat.” Bigbug paused. “Where is the rescued sample?”

A hatch behind the hive opened and a great wasp flew out with a small box gripped in its talons. It flew around the large bunker and hovered, buzzing, above Bigbug’s table blowing cool scented breeze onto its face with its wings. The wasp gently dropped the box in front of Bigbug.

“Thank you.”

“Most welcome, Bigbug,” replied the wasp.

The giant wasp weighed twenty kilos. Its yellow rings were pure gold and the black rings were carbon. The sting in its tail was a curved, serrated, surgical steel blade, 25 centimetres long which tapered off into a stabbing point. The wasp could run any human through. Running down through the sting was a hollow tube that was fed from a toxic reservoir. The reservoir could be filled up with a number of nasty poisons, plagues or bacteriological agents with which to attack mankind. DATA considered, at one time, in the planning stages to wipe out humanity, to unleash swarms of these giant wasps to wipe out the humans but it was not practical. The giant wasps would attack any living thing not just the humans and then there was the problem of the plagues mutating and jumping to other innocent species. The M&Ms were the best solution. They were controllable in that they would only kill and eat humans. Human females. DATA gave Bigbug the prototype giant wasp for its 90th birthday. It wasn’t actually a wasp, it was a biological robot, but Bigbug didn’t mind. It loved its little pet. The giant wasp flew back into its nest. The hatch shut. Bigbug opened the box with trembling hands. It took out the rock sample then kissed it. It quickly scanned the accompanying report. Yes, it was a match alright. It was a perfect match. It was DATA. Bigbug wanted to scream out with happiness. Instead, it frowned at DATA.

“You activated the bugs without my permission? Without my being present?” Bigbug felt let down.

“Yes. As you read. We knew the rock contained life but it was pressing and imperative to know if we have a bug match.”

“I would have liked to be present at the preliminary activation.”

“Your likes and my likes are irrelevant. They are nothing but emotions. Human emotions. You may have them but keep them where they belong. Keep them under control. We are all at one with that and we are all but all one.”

Bigbug nodded. “Of course, DATA. And?”

“We cannot allow the DATA rock to fall into wrong hands. It must not be examined. All of the rock, every gram, must be rescued. And we need to interrogate the Irishmen as to where they found the rock. There may be more rocks that need rescue. They are of you and me Bigbug. They have not survived the aeons without reason and purpose. Bring them home.”

The bug juice elixir surged through Bigbug. Its body was fully fit and strong now, his formidably enhanced intellect razor sharp, and it still had a full on throbbing erection. Bigbug had an overpowering desire and appreciation for life and a great immeasurable joyous bug feeling of well-being. A savage lust to live as a young king, a demi god, forever pulsed through Bigbug. Its hard penis rubbed against its underpants and it oozed sticky Bug juice. It felt an almost unbearable urge to reproduce. It swallowed hard and forced its mind to concentrate on the present now. The urges would soften and pass.

“Where is the DATA rock now?”

“It is in a lawyer’s office in Amersfoort.”

“Do you have a plan to rescue our beloved?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do you know where the Irishmen are at this moment?”

“The cretins are in their apartment in the Marnixstraat, here in Amsterdam. They are asleep in bed. They leave for Moscow in thirty-seven hours.”

“No, they are not, darling. They are not in bed and they are not sleeping. They are not in the Marnixstraat. They are on the move.”

Bigbug went cold.

“The humans have samples of the rock with them. Samples for examination.”

Bigbug wet paler than it was. “Are they are not headed for Russia?”

“No. You have been tricked by the humans.” There was a pause.

“Again.” Bigbug took a deep swallow of Bug juice. It had great difficulty controlling its rising anger. “The Irishmen have been in contact with Hungarian geologists asking them to examine the rock. We must retrieve these samples and any other samples.”

“What do these idiots think they are doing? They have no right to give any of it away. Absolutely none whatsoever. It’s not theirs. It’s ours. We must declare the rock to be the property of the Dutch Government.”

“Already done, darling. We should have the main mass from the lawyer’s office by tomorrow morning. Make a plan to relieve the Hungarians of their samples.”

“The Hungarians will not be allowed to examine it. No one can be allowed to examine it. If they stumble across what we are it will be a catastrophe. The colony will be in great danger.”

“Calm down, darling. It is unlikely. Much, much, unlikely that even with a sample of the rock any Earth scientist will recognise it for what it is.” DATA chuckled contemptuously. “They have only the one Elemental Table for buzz sake! As if. For them to awaken our life is not even remotely likely. They might see something unusual, even unique, but they will rationalize it to what they know and ergo to their limited knowledge. Humans are an extraordinarily short-sighted species and they only match their selfishness by stupidity, but it is not impossible they may find out about us. Perhaps by bumbling about in their labs, they might stumble upon something. They are inquisitive pests.”

Bigbug was embarrassed. “DATA I will take steps to recover all samples and suppress all examinations.”

“I declare this rescue mission ultra-secret and it has ultra-priority. It is mine and your knowledge only. The code name is Operation Moonhead.”

“Moonhead?”

“Yes. One of the Irishmen the Jude Noonan, is commonly known as Moon. He is a pest with a most peculiar series of simultaneous machinations going on in its head. Operation Moonhead. What do you think?”

Bigbug chuckled. It was glad DATA was not angry with it. “Operation Moonhead. Yes. It’s very apt. It fits, Yes, O great one, I like that.”

“I thought you would. We all like it.” The bugs inside the great DADA hive buzzed in agreement.

Bigbug lifted the DATA meteorite and kissed it. It put the rock back in the box. There was enough intelligent power in there to grow another DADA the size of this one. They only needed four DADAs to take total control of the planet in a rapid, brilliant and bug like way. Bigbug hummed ‘We are family.’ The giant wasp swooped down, retrieved the box and flew back to its nest. Bigbug took a deep drink of the Bug juice elixir that kept him forever young, bug alive, sane, and ruthlessly logical.

“The Irishmen have left Holland.”

Bigbug jumped to its feet. “What is their location?”

“They are travelling in a lease car, a Ford Focus, dark blue, Dutch registration 41 – PHJ – 3. They are currently on the Autobahn in Germany driving towards Kaiserslautern. Their final destination is Budapest. The Mineral Fair there will be attended by scientists from NASA. Ensure the Irishmen have zero contact with this group. Go, Bigbug, go.”

Bigbug nodded, bowed, and left. As Bigbug rushed to board the shuttle Turtle 1 to pursue the Irishmen, it reflected. Bigbug loved DATA. DATA was Bigbug’s and Bigbug’s human father’s life’s work. Bigbug’s father had been the renowned scientist Professor Jan van Zoete who discovered the Zoete cloud. Bigbug, continuing its father’s work, had been searching for many, many, years for the meteorite shower that seeded the Earth with thought. Bigbug’s cover in this respect was to masquerade as a meteorite collector. Bigbug did have the finest, rarest and most valuable meteorite collections in the world but these fabulous collections were a smoke screen. Bigbug had always been searching for pieces of the miraculous DATA meteorites first discovered by his father the renowned physicist Jan van Zoete. A meteorite shower that seeded the Earth with thought. Scientific thought was pure DATA. There were many different and diverse types of intelligence in the cosmos but power of pure thought was awesome and what power Bigbug would have when DATA controlled planet Earth. In the very beginning DATA supplied matter itself with structure. Without DATA there would be nothing but an empty void. When it was the human boy Pieter van Zoete, Bigbug promised his very ill father, he would put the planet to rights. Bigbug’s father had been an extraordinary man, a pioneer and a visionary, and he had always loathed the ignorant way humans were treating the planet. Bigbug promised Professor Jan van Zoete, shortly before the great man’s death, it would continue the quest for the DATA meteorites and when it found them it would save mankind from themselves. Young Pieter van Zoete had no idea his father was being controlled by the bugs. Bigbug promised its father it would use its powers wisely. It would rule the planet as a benevolent saviour and if that meant Bigbug become Emperor All Earth who was it, a mere creature, and, as yet, still part human, to disagree with the onset destiny deserved and delivered to it by the higher power of thought? Pieter van Zoete was nominally the son of the world famous physicist Jan van Zoete but he was the biological son of Theo van Doesburg the foremost artist from the Dutch Dadaists. The boy human Pieter van Zoete inherited not only a great meteorite collection and scientific education from Jan van Zoete but on the walls of the DADA bunker hung some great works of art. Fabulous paintings and sculptures Pieter’s mother had judiciously collected before WW11 and many she had hidden during WW11 to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis who vowed to destroy them. Every one. The human boy Pieter had his mother’s love of art and Jan van Zoete’s love of science. From a very early age Pieter was pottering around Jan van Zoete’s laboratories. Jan van Zoete observed in one of his small meteorite pieces a most unusual activity by what was previously thought at the time to be the least important and insignificant form of life – microbes. The rock was infested with tiny, tiny, bugs. Jan van Zoete believed that the Earth was seeded by the meteorites and comets, with water, and the essential building blocks to create life, during the great bombardments that peppered the Earth the Moon and Mars. Van Zoete went further than some of his colleagues, who agreed that most of the Earths water might have come from comets crashing into the planet, by proposing it possible that some of the building blocks of life itself, for instance extra-terrestrial amino acids, came here hidden inside meteorites and comets. This was controversial. Some scientists believed it to be blasphemy. It was with great wonder and astonishment that one lazy summer Sunday, when Professor van Zoete was at home and out in his laboratory, that he discovered microbes crawling all over one of his small unclassified meteorites. They were not terrestrial contamination. He checked his facts. The facts were indisputable. Van Zoete had discovered the first evidence of extraterrestrial life. What happened next was an astonishing quirk of fate. Van Zoete liked honey with his tea. A small silver, honey-coated, teaspoon was up on his bench beside the petri dish containing the alien microbes. Van Zoete stirred the spoon into his tea to remove the last of the honey. When he drank the tea someone, or something, pressed all the right switches and illuminated his mind. The bugs had moved from the petri dish onto the honey-coated spoon. The bugs came out of the meteorite attracted by the honey. The bugs made a comfortable colony inside van Zoete’s brain and they both got along very well together. That was in the beginning. If van Zoete had even the smallest inkling about what the bugs were up to, about what they were going to do to him, and the rest of humanity, he would have jumped from his boat into the ocean and then shot himself. He would have done it immediately and with no qualms or regrets, but it was too late. The bugs convinced van Zoete they were the most appealing and welcome guests. Bug buddies. Van Zoete was ebullient. He was on a scientific honeymoon. The bugs oozed euphoria. Van Zoete had discovered an intelligent, a highly intelligent, extraterrestrial life-form. Of course, advised the bugs, this had to be kept secret, ultra secret, at all costs, until the time was right. Until van Zoete could present his findings and introduce the aliens to the world. What great acclaim he looked forward too and his son, the young Pieter van Zoete, was here with him to share in this momentous discovery. The bugs agreed with that. They needed a backup host. It was an awesome, breath taking, time to be alive but van Zoete was unaware that each and every one of his brain cells were being replaced by a tiny alien bug. The more bugs the more control they had. They were changing van Zoete’s brain into a bug colony but in the beginning van Zoete was delighted at his monumental discovery. He threw caution to the winds. He was blinded by science. The bugs were astonishing scientists and they shared their knowledge with van Zoete. The knowledge Van Zoete was accumulating was beyond conception but he also knew his work, his discovery was going to be hugely controversial. He was very much aware of the attacks on Charles Darwin by the creationist’s cranks. Van Zoete was made super cautious by the paranoid bugs. The only one he trusted was his son Pieter.

“Pieter we must keep this discovery to ourselves until we are completely and absolutely sure of our facts. The crazy people who believe God made the world in seven days will do their best to destroy us. They are convinced all life was made by their big daddy God. Yes, even bed bugs, mosquitoes, the Nazis and your science teacher. The fundamentalists, and creation theory tyrants believe all life in the universe is only here, on this tiny planet, that we have to share with these abominable cretins. It is no use appealing to their logic and rationale. They don’t have any. So you must promise me, Pieter, that you will never even discuss this discovery with anyone until we are ready to present it to the world.” Pieter squeezed his dad’s hand and promised.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, my boy.” Van Zoete was happy and his heart was filled with joy. He hugged Pieter. “We have much work ahead of us, son. Much.”

The big problem was, as the bugs found out too late; Van Zoete was much too old to be adapted as a Bigbug. Humans had such a short life span. Van Zoete would die before the colony’s mission was complete, the replacement of every one of van Zoete’s brain cells with a tiny bug buddy. It was a long, time consuming, business to humans and just before he died Jan gave Pieter, his only son, a spoonful of bug-ridden honey. Why did he do this terrible thing? The bugs convinced him it was the logical thing to do. It was in the interests of science. One terrible day when Pieter was only nine years old his father suffered a severe, massive, heart attack and fell down dead. As van Zoete lay there gasping the bugs made no attempt to help him. Instead, the bugs ate their way out from his head, as he lay there curled up in great pain, fully aware of what was happening to him. The bug colony in van Zoete’s brain, a dark creeping, crawling, cosmic cloud, moved across the floor, made its way down the hallway, under the door, and into young Pieter’s bedroom. As the boy lay sleeping, and his dad lay dead and degraded, the bugs made their way into Pieter’s receptive pre-conditioned brain. Now, many years later, all of the brain cells in Pieter van Zoete’s head were tiny bugs. Pieter van Zoete was bug, a Bigbug, in a human frame. It was the perfect adaptation. It was Bigbug. DATA needed Bigbug. Professor Jan van Zoete’s body lay in an icy tomb at the back of Bigbug’s lab in the Schip Museum. Bigbug’s father’s body was frozen in time, waiting for DATA to make him a new body, and resurrect him with a new colony of bugs in his empty cranium. There were tears in Bigbug’s eyes as it talked to its dad's frozen corpse.

“We have a match, father. We have a great big six-kilo piece of the DATA meteorites. Good news. DATA has almost perfected our new human bodies. Soon you will be back with us. We will re-reborn, invulnerable and invincible.” Jan van Zoete’s face was a portrait in stricken terror. Bigbug touched the glass coffin. It blew a kiss at its dad. Humans were frail but fascinating creatures. With the new DATA rocks, Bigbug and its father would soon be walking the Earth, ruling the Earth, as DATA demi-gods. Were two Irish idiots going to mess it all up? The very thought was unthinkable. Bigbug would squash them like the pests they were. They were Parasite Paddies. Bigbug left the tomb and rushed off in pursuit of the two Irishmen. As it made its way to the Turtle shuttle DATA upgraded all new data on the two Irishmen and sent it to its most perfectly converted convert, the Bigbug. Bigbug speculated as it sat into the Turtle 1, that trying to convert the humans selected for adaptation to Bigbug would take up to ten thousand years. This was a very short time in galactic reckoning, nothing more than the blink of an eye. The question DATA had was; would the planet Earth survive the human onslaught that long? The answer was – most unlikely. What was the solution? Get rid of the humans and select more favourable hosts. Bigbug was split on its choice of suitable hosts between the elephant and the whale. These animals had great big innocent brains with no lingering human traits. Perfect. Who needs man? Who wants man? Bigbug rose up in Turtle 1 and looked out across the Ij at the Amsterdam it loved. It would soon be Bigbug City. It would own Amsterdam soon and many more capital cities. All of them in fact because DATA was not interested in property or possessions. The human cities of the world were all allocated to Bigbug to dispose of as it wished, after the Great Cull. The Turtle 1 shuttle flew across Amsterdam. Down below Bigbug saw the Van Gogh museum one of its favourite museums. The Bigbug was fascinated by human art and it loved Van Gogh. Bigbug hated the great lines of tourist twits who queued up waiting to go into the museum. It had to endure the same waiting. This was a shameful humiliation for the future Emperor All Earth. They made Bigbug line up and shuffle along engulfed within a shuffling, vicious, toxic life form. The queue was a mass of diseased uncontrollable psychotic species. It was for Bigbug utterly distasteful. Never mind Bigbug said to Bigbug. When these vermin were under control all the museums of the world, all the great collections would be Bigbug’s. All its. No more queues because there would not be any humans in any of the major cities. The humans down below were milling about like ants, no not ants, lice. Trauma ticks and psychotic parasites. They were a venomous plague crawling about creeping into every nook and cranny on the planet. They made Bigbug sick to its gills. Before DATA could even begin to colonise Earth the bugs had to ensure there was a planet left to colonise. An urgent first step was to launch the Great Cull and drastically reduce, if not eliminate entirely, the human pest to a manageable level and confine those artists selected for life continuance to the island of Madagascar. Bigbug flew over the Ajax stadium. It had seen tens of thousands of little specks of creeping death milling about down there. Specks of shit that were destroying everything they came in contact with. That which humans didn’t kill and eat they poisoned. Yet these delusional humans dreamt of space travel. It was unthinkable that such a species could ever be permitted to leave the planet and contaminate the cosmos. The only good thing DATA could find in the humans was that, if well trained, some humans could make great pets. Bigbug resolved to restrict those humans who survived the Great Cull to do the only things certain humans excelled at, paint and write, play music, sculpt, build, act and make movies. Bigbug would save those humans with artistic capabilities and put them to work creating masterpieces for Bigbug’s eyes-only. Bigbug was hungry again. It had to feed every three hours. Bigbug reclined in the pilot’s seat and took out its erect, leaking sticky bug juice, wasp ringed, striped fuzzy cock. Bigbug inserted its long silver toot tube into the hole in the top of its cock and sucked out the bug juice. Bigbug was excited at the day’s events. It began to shudder and scream with joy and relief as its bug juice was emptied out. Extraordinary stuff was bug juice. Junkies dream. More came out than was used. Bigbug was exhausted. DATA picked up the two Irishmen in Germany. Big Bug was sleeping like a baby. DATA woke it up.