The meeting went well. The rest of the Staff went along with the new president's orders, for fear of the same fate that Kevin was being carted off to.

GJ: Now, for our first order of business, I'm afraid there are a few of you who are completely and totally useless. The following Staff members will be scheduled for execution along with your Director of Stupidity. Those people are-- (he consults his list)-- Austin Rochford, Kevin Bushek, Jackie Love, Rachael Krystoforski, and Chris Millen.
Austin: What the hell? I'm not even supposed to be here, I erased myself!
GJ: Yeah. Sure. Anyway, you'll all be carted off to the execution block. Guards!
Mojo and Mofo rush in and begin to beat those five Staff members vigorously, and Austin squeals like a little girl. When the monkeys are finished, they cart out their new prisoners.
GJ: Now there are only eleven of you left. You will all be demoted to B-Level Staff, if you weren't already. Included in my first circle will be Mojo, Mofo, a Super-Intelligent Rock, a Blivit, a Fish, and the Color Blue. Are there any questions?
Stroobie: Uh… any chance that I get diplomatic immunity?
GJ: …
Stroobie: I thought not.
GJ: Right. Now, if there are no more problems, I'd like to introduce my next order of business.
Tom: Uh… will we keep our previous jobs?
GJ: Heh. You'll be given back all previous privileges once I am sure I can trust all of you. Until then, you'll all basically be my slaves. Now—
Courtney: That's not very fair.
GJ: … Should I even grace that with an answer?
The Color Blue: No.
GJ: Right. Now—
Bryan: Steak?
GJ: (a really long pause) … I think I know why my predecessor gave up on all of you. But, no more questions. On to the second order of business. I have five projects, one for each member of my first circle except for a Blivit. I will send two of you on each of the projects, and hold one of you behind to help me out with things here. The projects will be a trip to the war-torn Congo to see what we can do about liberating a few megatons of that ore stuff, to help out our economy. The second project will be working in the new Spangladeshian school. The third project is to gain a military outpost in America, you'll learn more in the briefing. The next mission is tracking down the murderer of my father Gimpy, Joe D'Agostino.
Joe D: Uh… I'm right here…
GJ: (takes out shotgun, starts loading it) Then I'd suggest you start running. (Joe D. stands up, screams, runs and leaps at the window. He hits it then bounces off the plexiglass. Then he stands up, screams again, and dashes out the door.)
GJ: … that was sooooo sad… Oh well. The fifth, and last project, is yet undisclosed. Here are the people assigned to each project. The first one, headed by Mojo, will include Larry Dooling and Ed Wrezniewski. The second, headed by Mofo, has Bryan Pirolli and Rob Kasten. The third, headed by a Super-intelligent Rock, will be done by Michael Zalewski and Courtney Bowers. In the fourth, a Fish will be assisted by Joe Kerns and Leet Panda. And the fifth, headed by the Color Blue, will have Tom Sabbatelli and Kate Strubinger. The first group will come with me. I suggest the rest of you go home and get some rest. The second group should report here tomorrow, the third group on Saturday, and so on. Larry and Ed, come with me.

At this point, everyone quickly left the room, and Mojo and Mofo followed the main group of people. GJ, Larry, and Ed, however, walked out of a different door.

In the briefing room, Gimpy Junior consulted some maps hanging on the wall. He pointed to seemingly random spots on the giant map, then frowned and took out a large red marker. Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean he drew a circle, colored it in, then scrawled C-O-N-G-O right next to it, with a little arrow going from the words to the "island". He paused, thought, then wrote in little letters "Here Be Monkeys".
Larry thought for a moment, then finally said, "Uh… I'm pretty sure that the Congo's in Africa. It's not an island."
GJ threw him a look that said, "Your head looks good on your shoulders, don't you want to keep it there," and the Prime Minister shut up. Beelzebub growled. Ed picked a bug out of his hair and ate it.
GJ gave him a disgusted look, but decided not to mention it. "You'll be airlifted to this spot along with Mojo, and after that you'll be on your own. Mojo knows your orders and objectives. You ship out today. If you're captured, and you claim to be from Spangladesh, I'll say you're hermaphroditic Canadian mental patients with delusions of demon-possession." He thought for a moment, then said to himself, "Those Canadians'll be delightfully surprised when the Congo ships a demoniac right onto their doorstep…"
Larry looked around the room, checking for any available exits from the room. Ed picked some lice out of his hair and ate them. GJ pulled himself out of a daydream filled with screaming Canadians, and shuddered as he watched Ed eating his own head lice. “Ewww… but anyway, the stealth jet that’s going to take you to your drop location is up top. Mojo’s already there, as is your pilot.” He sniggered, but there was no explanation for this. Larry shrugged, then hopped out of his booster seat and walked out the door. Ed followed, dragging his knuckles on the ground and making strange grunting noises.

Larry got up to the top of the building before Ed and crossed to the large stealth jet sitting in the middle of the roof. However, on closer examination, he realized that it was really just a child’s sled with wooden planks going off each side with small fans on them. A battery was seated in the back of it, and hooked up to what looked like a Dixie Cup. The whole thing was painted in shades of green and brown, and on the one side in big white letters was the word “Stelth”. In the “cockpit”—a cardboard box duct-taped to the main body of the plane—sat Mojo T. Monkey, reading a flight manual upside down. Larry would have been frozen to the spot in fear, but this kind of thing was usual to him—after all, he had been on the island for quite a long time. He hopped into the back, followed by the unassuming Ed. Mojo looked back at them, gave a clumsy thumbs-up, and stood, holding the plane around his hips.
Then, like it was a Flinstones car, he ran it off the side of the building. It then began a long, completely vertical drop towards the ground, but pulled up at the last second, just before the g-forces punched Larry’s eyeballs back into his brain.

After a rather long flight that would have given Dick Cheney about twenty-five consecutive heart attacks, Larry was awoken to a loud popping sound. He would have been quite disturbed by this, if not for the fact that he realized it was his ear.
Then, when he looked to his left, and saw the “engine” falling quickly away from them, he realized that it was not his ear. Mojo looked back, swore a little monkey swear, confessed his love to Ed, and pushed a large red button.
When he pressed that button, a steel shield formed around the cockpit in a silver sphere containing the pilot, and shot into the air, back towards Spangladesh.
“You goddamn monkey!” shouted Larry, as the “stealth plane” began a steep descent. Again, he would have been worried, until he noticed the wings growing out of his shoulder blades. He decided this was probably a side-effect of demon-possession—along with that annoying morning sickness—and took it in stride. He swooped down and lifted Ed from his precarious descent and began to glide slowly downwards. To his surprise he realized that there was, in fact, and island here, and it did, in fact, look rather much like the Congo.
He swooped down into a rather tame-looking bit of forest, and hit the ground with a thump. It was then that he would have been slightly disturbed by the hair growing all over his body, and the fangs forming out of his teeth, but this had to be demon-possession too. He shrugged, and led Ed through the surrounding forests.

Hours later, they were still tramping through unending forest, and Larry could only think one thing—they were lost. It was getting dark, and he was getting sort of worried. He used one of the many eyeballs growing out of the stalk on his head—another side effect of demon-possession—to go above the trees and look around. But as it was going up, he suddenly felt a rumbling in the ground. He froze, and then shot his eye all the way up above the trees.
About half a mile away, a rather large black monkey was tearing through the forest like it was tall, but weak, grass.
Larry ran.
Beelzebub flew.
Ed ate a tic.

Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Island.
The second part tells of the escape from the Congo, the Second Project, and the fate of Kevin Wyrauch and Julius Ferraro in We Don’t Need No Education.

Episode #2: We Don’t Need No Education

Over the great Bluer Sea, a Wee Bit (a Wee Bit is equal to about a thousand Smidgens, and is about one tenth a Way) from the eastern (keep in mind that Spangladeshian east is rather different than ours. In fact, it’s more like West than East… I could explain this, but maybe at a later time) coast of Juliantis, is a figure.
Swimming through the torrid waters of the Bluer Sea, the figure is carrying a large package of goldfish on his back—the large cardboard packages, not the little paper ones—and is making very little progress.
This person, however, is not who he seems to be. We come in closer to see that this person, although it is supposed to be Julius Ferraro, ex-President and newly appointed Economy Bitch, it is, in fact, a Swimmer Barbie—you know, the one that can actually swim, if you compress the button on her back—with a bit of duct tape over that very button, holding it down.
Where is Julius? What is this little plastic female doing delivering packages to the USA?
Spooky X-Files music starts, then ends abruptly. Instead, the steady beat of the bass in the Jaws theme begins, and a fin of the Great Cheddar Shark looms up on Barbie.
It’s a good thing it wasn’t our hero.

Ex-Vice President Bryan Pirolli stumbled bleary-eyed into Gimpy Jr.’s office. He and Tomas Sabbatelli had been working all night at finding some sort of escape from the Spangladeshian mainland, but were unsuccessful in their attempts.
So now, as Tom slept, he had to come and report to his new president. Today wasn’t going well with him. And the worst part was, he had missed the Martha Stewart special last night! It was on drapes, too… the Pink House drapes were soooooooo last Tuesday.
But when he walked into the office, it felt comfortable to him. It had been the room that he had spent most of his time as Vice President. There were a lot of memories here: the chair that Julius had led the country from, the balcony with the chicken wire around it to block flung beer bottles and such when Julius and he made their speeches, the white spot against the wall where there had once been a stack of Better Living magazines, the pink paint on the walls, the black dashes on the wall that had marked Gimpy Jr.’s growth, the black dashes on the wall that had marked Larry Dooling’s growth…
The memories were endless. It was hard to believe that they hadn’t even been there for a year yet. He sighed as the emotions of homesickness and betrayal hit him like a ton of bricks, then stumbled through the doorway. At least he was awake now.
Gimpy Jr. sat—that is, he sat as well as a camel could sit—in Julius’ old chair. It was—he had to admit—a bit of a relief not to see Julius there for once. The old tyrant did get annoying every once in a while.
“So, you finally decided to show up. Rob’s already in the meeting room, lets go.”
“What, no hello?”
Gimpy thought for a moment, then, “Nope, no hello.” He led Pirolli through the door to the conference room. Inside, Rob had somehow gotten into a position where he could pick his toenails and read one of Pirolli’s old Better Living magazines at once, as well as draw beards and glasses on the various faces in the magazine. He looked up and greeted Pirolli with a nod, then untwisted and sat right in his chair, as if nothing strange had happened.
Gimpy gave a sigh that seemed to say, “There’s always one,” then went to the head of the table. Pirolli sat down a good distance from the president. Gimpy frowned, then cleared his throat. “Okay, I assume you remember yesterday when I mentioned that you will be working in the new Spangladeshian school?”
“Yes,” responded Pirolli coldly.
“School?” asked Rob, “we have schools?”
“We do now,” snapped GJ. “Do you realize that over ninety percent of the island couldn’t even read the word ‘I’?” Rob chose a strategic spot on the floor to fix his eyes. Bryan tried his best to look shocked. GJ rolled his eyes and continued. “So the new academy, S.H.I.T., will help lower levels of ignorance on the island.”
“Wait, what?” asked Rob, “shit? The new academy is called shit?”
“S-H-I-T. SpangladesH InstitooT. It was bad planning on our part. But anyway, you two will overlook the first few days of the school, and teach a few classes while we try to ‘obtain’ a few qualified ones from other countries. Mofo will be aiding you of course.”
“Oooo, oooo,” shouted Bryan, suddenly excited, “can I teach a course on domesticity? Like cooking and stuff?”
“No,” replied Gimpy, scowling. “I already decided on the classes you’ll be teaching. Bryan, you’ll teach Calculus and a high-level English course. Rob, you’ll be teaching Black Supremacy and Women in History.”
“Wait, what?” Rob looked suddenly worried. “Do we even have any black people on our island?”
“We made a trade agreement with America. We send them idiots, and they send us smart people. I didn’t bother asking why. But there’s no more questions. Outside there’s a car waiting for you. Mofo’s inside already, and the school day starts in half an hour. Report back here at the end of the day with a status report.”
Bryan stood, started towards the door, then paused. He looked around suspiciously, then grabbed the Better Living magazine off the table, then continued out the door. Rob skipped after him.

The car was actually rather nice. Mofo, however, was impatient to get on the road, and peeled out of the driveway before Rob was all the way through the door. Bryan watched semi-amusedly as Rob struggled against the ever-increasing g-forces. After a short time, he finally threw himself into the car.
Then it came to an abrupt stop, hurling his inert form out the door again. Mofo leaped out and ran up to a large building with the letters SHIT painted in large, scrawled words on the front of it. Bryan stepped out of the car and over the inert, twitching form of Rob Kasten lying on the ground, and up to the building.

The school was nice. Or at least, nicer than the Pink House. It did this with one major change—it was brown.
Besides that, however, it was a dump. Rob rubbed his painful head as he wandered through the asymmetrical hallways, crouched under doorways that were too small, stumbled over almost invisible dips in the floor, and tripped over a doorknob… what it was doing on the floor, he couldn’t guess. He tried to get the door it was attached to open, but it didn’t budge. He guessed it was either decorative or locked.
He finally found the room marked “principle,” and stepped up through the doorway, the bottom of which was raised about two feet off the ground. When he brought the other leg through, he stumbled a bit, but eventually stood in front of a desk, at which Bryan Pirolli sat, at a slant.
Rob puzzled over this, then realized that he was standing on the wall. He stepped down, and addressed the new principle.
“Yes, what do you want,” asked Bryan distractedly. Rob realized that his “paperwork” was the magazine. He was trying to get the black marker out. Rob also realized that this would be a bad time to ask for it back.
“Ummm… I was just wondering, when do classes start?”
“A few minutes. You might want to brace yourself, I don’t think this building can handle a couple hundred teenagers in stampede mode.”
“Ah.” Rob couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “Well, I’ll just go to my first class… where is it again?”
“Room 425.76 repeating.”
“Uh… this building only has three floors…”
Bryan sighed. “I know. Just do your best. I’m free first period, so I’ll be staying in here. Be kind to replace the bolts on the door when you leave?”
“Yes sir.” Rob leaped up over the doorway and began a long search through the halls, trying to get to class before the students got there.

In a cell deep underground, Kevin Wyrauch sat slumped against a wall.
He was doing absolutely nothing. He had tried to think, but it had given him a headache, so he stopped. The room was very quiet and very dark, which suited him just fine. He just wanted to sit here in the darkness and do nothing.
Life would be over shortly anyway.
When the tapping sound emitted from the wall behind him, he was rather annoyed. This distracted his mind from the nothing it was working on. He swore, and turned around to see what was making the sound.
There was a small hole in the wall about the size of a quarter. He put his eye up to it, and saw a large, one-eyed creature. He screamed and leaped back, then realized that it was really just one eye from a large, many-eyed creature. He screamed louder.
“Shut up!” came a voice from behind the wall. “It’s just me.”
“Who? The large, one-eyed creature, or the large, many-eyed creature?”
“Julius!”
Kevin thought for a moment, then looked around. “He’s not here right now. Can I take a message?”
“What are you talking about?”
“… Who is this?”
“This is Julius!”
“Oh… then why were you asking for yourself?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“… Never mind. Look, I’m here to free you. It’s too late for the others, and besides, they were merely extras and the script calls for some thinning of the herds anyways. Get away from the wall while I blow it away with this silenced stick of dynamite.”
“Silenced dynamite?”
“Wouldn’t want to raise an alarm.”
There was a hole in this logic, but Kevin couldn’t quite spot it. He shrugged, and stepped back from the wall. In a moment, the wall blew apart, sending small pieces of mossy, black rock flying through the air. A burst of flame exploded from the center—but without a sound. Now, all there was was bright white light and Julius Ferraro.
“How did you…”
“It’s a little thing I’ve been working on. Come on.”
Kevin shrugged and rushed out through the hole, blinking at the new light. He covered his eyes. “I thought we were far underground?”
“Yeah, well let’s call that a missing plot point. Just follow me!”

Larry suddenly found himself flying far, far over the head of himself… or at least where he would have rather been.
The giant monkey was now rushing directly at Ed, with the intent to kill. Ed didn’t notice anything because, well, he’s really really stupid.
In a stroke of brilliance, Larry thought up a heroic strategy of just how he would swoop down and save Ed—but then discarded it in favor of saving his own ass. It didn’t matter anyway, Beelzebub was carrying him far away already.

Rob skipped through the halls, and found Pirolli wandering through the halls with Mofo. Upon seeing him, Mofo screeched a funny, high-pitched monkey screech and dashed away down the hall. Pirolli turned, and smiled.
“How are things going?”
“Great! I somehow ended up in the kindergarden, and taught sex ed to a bunch of five year olds!” He paused, thought this over, frowned, then grinned again. “I just found three semi-automatic weapons in lockers, almost got in between two gang wars, scolded a group of bra-burners, and I think that someone just put a bomb in your office! It’s soooooo cool!”
The large explosion rattled through the uneven hallway. Pirolli licked his gums in inert irritation, then said, “Kasten?”
“Yes sir.”
“You are just about the most incredibly worthless person on the planet.”
“Thank you, sir!”

To Be Continued…
Stay tuned for scenes from next week’s Spangladesh Public

See the third project—Camp Granada! And find out what SHIT is really for… and discover how Larry escapes from the Congo… and finally, find out what our ex-president’s plan really is! In episode three… “Hello Mudda Hello Fudda”.

Rain splattered the ground, stirring up dirt and churning it into mud.
At least, what rain made it to the ground did so. Most of it, however, was halted by the heavy, leafy umbrella of the forest, and dripped down slowly.
The forest was in a sudden state of calm. A moment ago, there had been that horrible, loud, crashing sound, accompanied by the equally bad rumbling of the ground. A good bit of the rain had been shaken loose from the treetops and fallen to the ground.
Ed scratched his head, found a tic, ate the tic, then scratched his head again.
If his brain had worked on a higher wavelength, like the one used by most other human beings, then he would have noticed the giant, Congo-ish man-eating gorilla standing over him. But seeing as he was about three or four quarters monkey himself, he had no knowledge of the hairy black behemoth.
That is, of course, until the giant monkey hand closed around him, crushing him.

In his apartment, Alan Sherman looked over the script to this story.
“It stinks! It stinks! It stinks!”
“Yes,” said an attendant comfortingly, “Yes mister Sherman, everything stinks.”

“Another day,” mumbled Bryan Pirolli, as he stepped into SHIT, the new Spangladeshian Academy, “another forged green paper bill from our corrupted government.” This was a popular cliché in Spangladesh for the common, working class.
He stumbled over the trick rug on the floor, bumped his head on the speed-bump coming down from the ceiling, and tripped over the doorway into his office after avoiding the randomly placed all the way down the hallway.
He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto the coat hanger, turned on the coffee maker, set the swinging blade trap in front of the door to his office meant to keep out the random student, and slumped into his chair. He sighed, and at that moment, the bell marking the beginning of the school day rang, and the building shook. He stood, and walked over to the doorway—after all, if the school fell apart, this was supposed to be the safest place.
He gasped as the door opened, and he fell out. The swinging blade passed directly over his face, cutting his chin a tiny bit, then swung back. He collapsed to the floor on top of a startled Rob Kasten.
“Woah,” said Rob, rolling his employer off of him, “what was that all about?”
“Earthquake,” was all Bryan could say. He grunted as he stood and stepped through the door, ducking under the still swinging door-sized blade with the barbs and electrodes and spikes and torches and such—a rather normal precaution.
Rob hopped in after him, and unfortunately made it past the blade, then slumped into another chair. “So,” asked Rob, as his employer slumped into the chair behind the desk, “what’s the game plan for today?”
“Ummm… don’t you have class first period?”
“I asked a few of my first period students, but they said I didn’t.”
Bryan thought about this, but decided not to comment. “Ah,” was all he said.
Well, he would have said it, if the building hadn’t collapsed before he had the chance.

Gimpy Junior heard the rumbling, but decided it was probably just a rhino stampede—perfectly normal in these parts. They stampeded as often as drugged-up hippies protested. He just hoped some day they would stampede off a cliff.
Of course, he had similar hopes about the hippies as well…
The knock on the door shook him out of his fantasies of thousands of falling bodies, leaving a thick stream of smoke and those stupid feathered hats behind them.
“Come in,” he snapped. That was one of his better fantasies. The door opened, revealing Michael Zalewski. Nothing was said, he just walked in with that shit-eating grin on his face, and sat down in a chair in front of GJ’s desk. Then he leaned forward really close, still grinning unnervingly, causing GJ to shudder.
“Where’s the other one? Courtney?”
Mike didn’t answer. He just grinned. GJ frowned, then scowled. He got really fed up, and went to bite the man’s nose off, but at that moment, the door swung open again, and a bleary-eyed Courtney stumbled in.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, slumping into a chair, “very little sleep. They put everyone into a communal room for the night, and I got stuck near this kid... Mike kept staring at me… and staring… and staring… and then about halfway through the night he started the poking (finger of course... God Tom, get your mind out of the gutter)… God it was horrible.”
“Ah… well, can you make him stop?”
Courtney frowned, thinking, then punched Mike in the gut, causing him to double over and get a sick look on his face. At least he wasn’t grinning like that anymore.
“Good,” said GJ, “now lets get down to business. What exactly do you already know about your mission?”
“You said something about a military outpost in America. Some camp or something…?”
“Camp Granada.”
“Ah… wasn’t that the name of that stupid song by Alan Sherman?”
“Yes.”
“Ah…”
“Well, the guy who’s writing this doesn’t have much imagination, so he decided to use Camp Granada. Also, something about annoying Tom…? I really don’t know. But that’s where you’re going, and you’re going now. A Super-Intelligent Rock will fly you there.”
“Okay.” Courtney got up to leave, then froze. “Wait, what?”
“No time for questions,” said GJ hurriedly, “run along now. I’ll get your debriefing later on. Bye.” He herded the two out of the room, then slumped against the door, images of them leaping after the hippies invading his thoughts, then setting up camp and staying for the night.

The thing that was going to get them there was a large fish bowl resting on skis, with a ceiling fan on the top. Courtney supposed this was a helicopter of sorts.
That along with the thing that was piloting it convinced her that there was no way in hell she was setting foot in that monstrosity.
“Come on, get in,” said Mike, “What harm could it do?”
“I thought we went through this already. Broken ribs, smashed femur, brain splattered all over the sidewalk…”
“But those are all material concerns. What about the philosophical concerns?”
“Philosophical?”
“If a helicopter made of cardboard crashes in a giant fireball, and there’s no one left alive to hear it, does it make a sound?”
“Fuck you.”
“Whatever, I’m getting in. You can face GJ’s wrath.”
Courtney was tempted to laugh at this, but didn’t. The idea of a two-foot-tall camel having any sort of wrath was almost hilarious. But she held back the laughter and instead stepped into the helicopter—after all, there was nothing better to do at 9 o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, besides fall screaming out of the sky in a cardboard aircraft piloted by a rock.
It wasn’t until after the safety lock on the cardboard-and-plastiglass doors had activated that she realized what she had just thought. But before she could get the door open, the ceiling fan started up and a Super-Intelligent Rock told them to buckle their seatbelts.
Courtney wondered what the seatbelts were for. If they did crash in a giant fireball, was there much chance that the seatbelts would make much of a difference? But she buckled hers, right before she realized that a rock had just talked to her.
Maybe she needed some sort of medication. She looked over at Mike, but he was staring at her with that stupid grin again. She turned away, and he started poking her in the shoulder.
It was going to be a long trip.

“Where are we going?”
“Away,” replied the ex-president. Kevin took this at face value. Besides, he didn’t know how else he could take it—Julius didn’t want to reveal anything about anything right now. He didn’t know why, but he guessed that Julius did.
They were paddling across an ocean in a wooden boat. Only Julius wasn’t paddling, Kevin was—Julius had the difficult job of management. He would sit at the front and check the compass, and every once in a while kick Kevin when he did something wrong. The ocean stretched on forever in every direction, especially forward.
It was going to be a long trip.

“Gimpy sir?”
GJ often wondered at a Blivit’s ability to talk. It really didn’t make sense. It didn’t even have a mouth. And when it did talk, it was the kind of thing that would make a dog go into a berserker killing fit. It was painful… it felt like someone was taking five or six razor sharp axes to his eardrum.
“Yes?” he asked painfully through gritted teeth.
“There seems to be a problem with the latest delivery.”
“… What exactly do you mean, ‘problem’?”
“Well, sir… it seems that the courier—Julius, that is—was eaten by something called the Great Cheddar Shark.”
GJ smiled. “When did this happen?”
“Earlier today, sir.”
“What? How do you know so soon?”
“I was reading ahead, sir.”
“Ah.” Gimpy thought. This was a good thing—his predecessor dead, it not being his own fault, he could go into a political state of mourning, gaining the peoples’ respect and admiration. Or… or he could throw a giant keg party with lots of hot bitches.
“A Blivit?”
“Yes sir?”
“Get the beer supplier on the line. We’ve got a hefty order to make.”

Courtney was falling, miles and miles, nothing to stop her—she screamed.
She knew this was a dream, at least she hoped it was. Because the parachute on her back didn’t work, and the rock piloting the cardboard-and-ceiling fan helicopter she was falling away from was laughing, and for some reason Mike had been allowed to follow her and poke her repeatedly in the shoulder.
She frowned. This was just getting worse.
Then she remembered where she was, and started screaming again.
The ground was rushing up towards her. It was a dream, she thought, just a dream… a dream of falling… she would wake up just before she hit that o-so-solid ground.
But it was coming so fast… it was about half a mile away… the g-forces were pushing against her eyes… a quarter-mile… it felt like she would be torn apart by the speed… a few meters… a foot—
She was pulled out of the nightmare by being pushed out of a helicopter.

Mike stumbled away from the spot where his parachute had dropped him. It had been dangerous, because he had forgotten to move the second he hit the ground, and was almost stuck under the heavy, tangled mass of cloth and strings that was his parachute. Luckily, though, he had had one of his patented half-gopher half-dagger mutants stuck into his boot.
He looked around. Where was Courtney? The ground was devoid of movement, and covered in rocks and grass, and the occasional gopher hole or tree.
Tree, he thought.
He looked up, and sure enough, there was Courtney, her parachute tangled in the branches of a tall Oak tree. He sniggered, but made sure she didn’t hear it. He walked over to the spot below her. He could climb the tree and let her down easily enough.
But he thought he would spend some time here staring satisfiedly up at her. It was fun. She would kill him when she got down, but it was fun anyway. Besides, he could always try running. So he stood there, bearing her curses and insults and death-threats for about five or six minutes, then climbed the tree and cut the cords, one by one. It was only after he had cut the last one that he realized that once there was nothing holding her up, she would fall.
Yeah, he was right. He looked down at her from the tree, tangled in strings and cursing futilely up at him. He dropped down next to her and helped her out of the strings. She stood and glared at him, trying to burn holes in his forehead with her eyes.
Oh yeah, she thought, I don’t have super powers yet.
Yet.
At that point, a group of natives—Americans (Americans are an ignorant and unintelligent race of humans—if you can call them that—who delight in the pain and suffering of others. They like to poke things with sticks, but are rather timid when being stared down. They are, if it is at all possible, the only race of humans less intelligent that Spangladeshians)—wandered up to them and started poking them with sticks. Courtney glared at them, too, and they ran away screaming.
She brushed herself off, and was about to ask Mike which way they should go when he fell over with a loud thunk.
Thunk? She would have expected a whump, or a slump. But a thunk?
She looked over, and saw the screaming rock lying beside his head. That explained the thunk.
“Why didn’t you use a parachute?” She asked the Super-Intelligent Rock.
The rock cursed her impertinence, then explained that the parachute couldn’t fit around it’s round rockish form. Then it ordered her to pick it up and take it north.
“What about Mike?”
It explained that it was every man/woman/rock for him/her/itself, and that they should just leave him. She shrugged, picked up the rock, and started off Northward… at least, in the direction that she thought was north. After so much time in Spangladesh, her mind still worked on directions like NorthSouth and EastWest.
But eventually, by following the direction of the small natives, they came upon a large indigenous base-like structure, with log cabins, lots of little tents, and a Coke machine. This reminded her of something, but she couldn’t remember what.
She wandered into the base. She supposed that if she was doing something wrong, a Super-Intelligent Rock would let her know. Maybe they weren’t supposed to make a stealthy entrance, like she thought.
There were hundreds of the little natives here, all dressed in dark green and this weird sort of army-camo beige color. They all carried around little sticks and took turns poking each other, or in some cases, her and a Super-Intelligent Rock.
She pushed through the crowd of jabbering natives and eventually came to the building with the Coke machine out front. There was a sign that said Cafeteria. She didn’t want the cafeteria. She turned, and glared at the annoying little natives. They screamed and ran away.
Except for one, a taller one, probably the elder in their civilization. This person started talking rapidly and southernly, and she found it hard to keep up. Eventually held up her hand in what she supposed might be some sort of greeting for these people, and the strange person stopped talking.
She thought, then said, “Take me to your leader.”
The strange man started jabbering again. She was starting to wonder why GJ wanted an outpost in America, after all.

Kevin pulled the boat onto the shore, then further up to where the shore was rocky and dry. Julius looked at him expectantly. He sighed, and continued pulling, until the sand receded into cement. Julius looked at him expectantly, then pointed in a sort of “onward” fashion. Kevin groaned, and continued pulling the boat.
This was turning out to be a very, very long trip.

Larry collapsed to the ground, when he finally touched solid earth, and felt Beelzebub surrender control to him.
The wings shrank into nothing, the hair fell off, the fangs turned into regular teeth, the eyes went back to their normal, non-red color. And everything came into focus, especially the exhaustion and pain.
But it was too late. They were already back on Spangladesh, and Ed was probably dead already. Stupid monkey-man. Oh well, it was sort of like a mercy-kill, wasn’t it? Life was probably more painful than death for someone so stupid as him.
Larry confirmed this to himself, then pulled himself to his feet. He had to make it to someplace where he could sleep. The question was, where? He thought he was on Juliantis, so that meant that GJ’s palace couldn’t be too far away. His own castle was here, too, but there Beelzebub was too powerful. And then there was Tom’s flat. Tom might be able to help him. He would rather not report to GJ right now anyway.
He nodded, and limped off towards the spot on the island where Tom’s flat was.

It was really dark under all that rubble, but he could tell he was near the surface. There was a light peeking between the rocks above his head, and he pushed towards that. He needed to escape before he couldn’t move anymore. That light was so close, so close.
And finally, with his last burst of strength, he pushed upwards and reached that light… that bright, light of the sun on a summer morning… that flashlight.
He swore, and continued upwards.

To be continued.

Lets face it. We know why you’re reading this. Because you’re bored. Because it’s rainy out. Because you might be in a place like Camp Granada, maybe with Alan Sherman. He likes to bitch, doesn’t he? So you’re submersing yourself in this. It’s like self-induced torture.
Wait a minute…
It stopped hailing.
Guys are swimming.
Guys are sailing.
Playing baseball.
Hey that’s better.
Mudda fudda kindly disregard this letter.

Hee hee I just had to get that in there sooner or later.

Next episode, see the fourth project—the hunting of Joe D. (God I’m gonna have fun with that), as well as the keg party of GJ! Find out where Kevin is dragging Julius… if I ever decide to show you! And see the fate of Michael Zalewski, and whether Courtney will find a way to kill a Super-Intelligent Rock! Because you know she wants to…

Later today, in the Election Saga part 4! Because this one was supposed to be out yesterday! Because its contents are Saturday! But because I was lazy, I didn’t write it then! And I have to write another one now!

“Joe… Leet… I’m taking special interest in your project especially.”
“Really?” Leet was eager to be part of something, because this was the first real job he had had so far. “Thank you sir, thank you.”
“Asskisser.” The half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a half of the head of Joe Kerns was bitter, because he was beheaded a couple times last night and it always made him upset. That along with the fact that Leet was being a complete asskisser really made him angry.
“Yes, boys, this will be my greatest work. I will finally slay the murderer of my father…”
“Ummm… doesn’t it bother you that he didn’t really kill your dad?”
“What?”
“Uh… nevermind.”
“Right… anyway, once this Joe D’Agostino fellow is killed, I will probably promote you two up to A-Level Staff. Mojo and Mofo continually disappoint me, so they’ll probably be demoted. But for now, I’d like to show you the arsenal you’ll be taking with you.”
“Sweet!” Joe was finally coming out of the funk he had been in all morning. Arsenals included things to kill with, and Joe D. was something to kill. Today would be fun.
Gimpy Junior stood from his camel-chair and led them out of the room. He walked down the stairs and out the door, and there, in front of the Pink House, was a long, long line of really large, butch tanks. Leet grinned.
“I’m sorry the air support’ll be a bit late, but I’m sure you can find some way to manage without it for now.”
“I think so too,” Leet couldn’t stop grinning. “But sir, I can’t help but wonder, why did you pick us for this mission? Isn’t there someone better qualified for this job?”
“Oh, plenty of people. But I like you two best, because Joe was the most hated on the island and you were the most… ambiguous. That is, until now. You see, I tend to favor the underdog in these sorts of situations.”
“Ah… well… thanks, I think. Which one do I get to drive?”
“That really big one in the front.” Gimpy pointed over all the others. In the front was a rather shoddy, but large tank. It looked like it was something out of WWI.
“Ummm… sir? That one looks like it’s going to fall apart when I step into it. Why am I getting that one?”
“Think of it as a plot device. Now get in, and get the hell out of here. Come back and report only when he’s dead.” GJ turned and walked back into the Pink House. Leet sighed, lifted up the hamster ball that Joe was rolling around in, and carried it over to the large WWI tank. The idea that old computers were big, but not necessarily good, crossed his mind. He groaned, and climbed in.
This was one sucky plot device.

Kevin Wyrauch fell exhausted to the sandy ground of the beach. So far he had dragged Julius all the way across the mainland of Spangladesh, going Northwardly. Now he was on the opposite side of where he had started, and Julius was about to order him to paddle the boat all the way to Juliantis.
He knew it.
When Julius looked at him expectantly, he growled and pulled himself to his feet.
“Wait,” said Julius, “you’ll have to go chop up some wood and make a new paddle. I sorta lost the last one about halfway through Pirolliopolis.”
“What are you gonna do about it?”
“I’m going to watch the boat.” He then leaned back and went instantly to sleep. The urge to push the boat out into the ocean right now was great, but he refrained. Instead, he walked over to a tree, realized he didn’t have an axe, walked back to the boat, and pushed it out into the ocean.
Screw him anyway.
Kevin started off back to Pirolliopolis. He was going back to prison, where he could get some well-deserved rest.

Mike felt sort of like Gulliver.
Only Gulliver had it easy—the little midget things that tied him up and poked him with sticks were a lot smaller. For Mike, they were only about one third his size, and poked him with bigger sticks. And the fact that they were talking about cooking him didn’t help, either.
Where was Courtney? And what had hit him in the head? And why was he stuck in this stupid plot loop?
One of the little bastards poked him in the groin. It was time to play the giant and try to snap the ropes. But he couldn’t reach his half-gopher half-dagger thing, because it was in his boot. But he could call to it.
He whispered down towards his boot trying to coax the thing out and up to his hand. Eventually, it did stick its head out of the boot, but one of the little kids saw it and picked it up.
“Oooo, it’s a gopher!”
“No its not,” shouted another, in a voice higher-pitched than Joe Kerns’—Mike was impressed. “It’s a knife with eyes!”
“Gopher!”
“Knife!”
“Gopher!” With that, the kid with the gopher-knife dropped it and attacked the other one—the little natives were having a clan war! Mike reached for his gopher-knife, and it crawled into his hand. He grinned, and cut the ropes, while more and more of the natives joined the brawl. He stood, and inched away, until he was out of sight.
Now he had to find Courtney and the rock.

As Tom promised, he sat in the bleachers with a bag of popcorn.
Out in the middle of the field were six people standing in a row. There should have been seven…
Where was Kevin?
It was raining in Spangladesh, and he was the only one in the bleachers. He grinned and waved hello to Rachael, who looked grimly back at him. He wondered why she didn’t wave back. Was she mad or something?
Six big pale guys with large axes and black masks over their heads walked out into the field. Tom was just beginning to wonder at how medieval this was when they lined up in front of the five degenerate prisoners. Tom waved at Austin, who grinned and waved back. See, he thought. If Austin could be happy, why couldn’t Rachael?
The axes swung through the air. Six whooshes, six thumps. Six bodies.
Hmmm… Tom started to wonder if he should have done something. But then he decided that if he had gotten up to help them, his popcorn would have gotten all soggy and stuff. He shrugged and stood, stretching out his legs and arms. He walked out of the stadium and back towards his flat.

A Fish was in the cockpit of the lead plane in Joe and Leet’s air support.
As the fleet soared over the Bluer Sea, A Fish picked something up in its radar—it seemed to be a small, canoe-shaped wooden boat with a single person lying inside it. It seemed to just be drifting aimlessly along the waves, bobbing up and down.
On a normal day, A Fish would have just left it there, but today wasn’t a normal day. Why wasn’t it a normal day, you ask? Let’s just call it a plot hole. Maybe its wife left it earlier today, or something. But I really don’t care.
So a Fish sent out a mayday signal over the boat, then continued on.

The WWI-style tank actually ran pretty nice. But that wasn’t what Leet was worried about.
It was the giant globs of pre-chewed gum clogging up the tank’s main cannon that worried him.
He addressed Joe Kerns, “So, uh, what happens when we try to fire something?”
“We die. If we’re lucky.”
“Ah…”
But there were a few advantages to having a WWI tank. Like the old playboys lying around inside it. Leet spent a good amount of quality time with them. He felt a bond, seeing as they would probably be the last women he would ever see in his lifetime. You know, until they tried to use this tank?
But then, there was a good chance they might not even have to. It wasn’t as if Joe D. would be packing any sort of heat. And there were lots of other tanks around them, driving over trees and such and firing random shots at squirrels or birds.
Then, after driving for almost ten hours strait, they saw him.

Fifteen minutes later, every tank in the fleet was destroyed, and the air support didn’t seem to be able to find them. It seemed that someone had clogged all the tanks up with bubble gum, and the ones that didn’t try to fire had been destroyed by those around them doing so. Joe D. had thought ahead.
Now Leet was running through the sunless forest with Joe’s hamster ball cradled in his arms. He had seen Joe D. running this way, unarmed. And he had a pistol, as did Joe… but he didn’t know how Joe would be able to use it, being just a bit of flesh in a hamster ball.
He saw Joe D. run across a clearing, and changed direction. The shadow dashed into a log cabin, and Leet ran in after it. Across the dark room was the figure, lighting a match. Suddenly the room bounced into vision—explosives everywhere. Leet panicked. What should he do?
He looked around, and saw the man with the match, Joe D’Agostino, was about to set off the explosives. He didn’t have time to think. He hurled Joe’s hamster ball at the villain and leaped out the window, rolling down a long hill.
A moment later the house blew sky high.

Tomorrow, in the Election Crisis:
See the scenes leading up to Tuesday’s exciting conclusion: What is this secret mission? Will Kevin repent? Will Julius survive? What was Julius’ plan, in the first place? And is Ed dead, or was he just abandoned because he was a repetitively annoying character? Find out tomorrow in: "Good Morning, Angels."

Gimpy sat in his presidential office, reading.
“‘One fish, two fish, red fish, blue’… what’s that word? Oh yeah, ‘fish’. Man, these books are trick sometimes. So it’s ‘one fish, two fish, red fi--’” and someone knocked on the door.
Gimpy slammed the book on his desk and asked angrily, “Who is it?”
“Ummm… not Tom and Stroobie, that’s for sure,” came the answer. Two people started giggling uncontrollably right outside the door, then one of them shushed the other.
This was going to be another one of those days.
“Come in, come in, I haven’t got all day.” The door opened, and there stood Tom and Stroobie. “Betcha’ didn’t know it was us, huh?” said Stroobie as she sat down.
“Oh yeah,” responded Gimpy in a tone one uses on the clinically stupid, “no idea.” Stroobie started giggling again. “Look,” said Gimpy, “could you two take just one thing seriously for once?”
Tom and Stroobie looked at each other, then broke out laughing. They didn’t stop for quite a while, and eventually GJ had to tell them to shut up.
“Okay, that’s okay. But follow me, for you to truly understand your mission, you’ll need to see something.” GJ stepped out of his chair.
“Kay.” Stroobie stepped out of her chair and followed GJ out of the room. Tom giggled and jumped behind the desk. A moment later GJ returned to find him bouncing up and down on the chair and making strange sounds with his lips.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Tom looked at him like he was stupid. “Jumping up and down and making strange sounds with my lips, duh.” Then he grinned, and said, “Wanna join me? It’s fun.” He then proceeded with his jumping and sounding.
“No, that’s okay, would you like to join me?”
“Nope.”
“Ah.” GJ thought, wondering how he could get this moron out of his office. Then he realized that he was the one in charge, and frowned. It certainly didn’t seem like that anymore. No wonder Julius seemed to suck at his job. He thought, and carefully chose his words. Then, “Would you please come with me, you raving fucking lunatic?”
“Sure.” Tom jumped off of the chair, onto the desk, then onto the floor beside Gimpy. The camel groaned, and led him out of the room.

Kevin paced.
He had been pacing for quite a while, and he found it to be somewhat helpful for thinking—you see, with the strange sort of metabolism Kevin had, when he paced, for some reason the pain in his mind from the extra strain seemed to seep out and into the air behind him. The only problem was, the thoughts did pretty much the same thing, only faster.
Finally, though, he came to a decision: he had abandoned his ex-president, and he felt pretty shoddy about that. He had heard that Julius had been found by a Fish, who apparently had been piloting a jet over the Bluer Sea when he crossed the boat that the ex-president was sleeping in.
Kevin sighed. He had to do something about it. He would get back to the Pink House in Juliantis and save his president, like he had saved him. Sure, Julius had made him drag his stupid boat all the way across the mainland and more… but he felt like he owed him.
It was time for a trip to the gun shop.

Larry stumbled into Tom’s flat, but it was empty.
He had expected it to be. Tom was out at the Pink House right now, getting his project assignment from GJ.
Damn, he wished he knew what their assignment was. It was undisclosed at the meeting, so it was either really important, really nasty, or GJ just couldn’t think of anything. Either way, there was something bad going on, and Larry needed to reach someone.
But who? The only person he could think of was Julius, but for all he knew, his ex-president was still paddling across the ocean right now with Goldfish on his back. He would just need to make himself accessible, in case someone tried to reach him.
He would need to go back to his mansion.

Courtney ran.
She had left the rock in Camp Granada. There was no reason for her to stay there.
This mission was a crock. Mike had been left behind, and now she was lost too. They were both stranded in the middle of America, of all places. But at least she knew how to get back home.
But she’d have to find Mike first. She couldn’t just leave him there. Then she’d make her way to some sort of dock or bay, and get a boat. Steal it, if she had to. Whatever it took to get home. These stupid natives were dumber than even Kevin… and that was pretty sad.
Yes, it was time to get home.

GJ, Tom, and Stroobie stood outside the dungeons.
GJ had told them that their mission would be disclosed inside. But they were almost afraid. The air smelled wrong… sort of like sweaty gym socks wrong, only not quite… a bit less smelly than that. More like old banana wrong, or dirty Popsicle wrong. Either way, it was a pretty nasty wrong.
Gimpy pushed past them and opened the door. Inside was…
“Julius. Hey.” Tom saw his ex-president, tied to the wall with a shotgun on the ground below him, and then looked around the rest of the room. Then he turned to Gimpy. “So, uh, what are we doing here?”
“Hi,” replied Julius.
GJ frowned. “Well, isn’t it obvious?”
He got blank looks from all three people. He wasn’t dealing with the brightest crayons in the box.
“You’re going to kill him, of course.”

Pirolli sat across from Rob, leaning against the wall, thinking.
Things were going badly for the home team. He had gotten news from all the fronts from Mofo after they had ro-sham-bo’ed him into submission and tied him to a large brick. The first project was a horrible failure—Mojo had returned with word that the others were missing, presumed dead. That was Larry and Ed. A shame, too… Ed wasn’t very smart, but he was strong, they could have used him in a fight, and Larry had the demon. He would have been helpful.
The third project seemed to be going smoothly, although it would take a while. The fourth project was another failure—all the tanks and jets destroyed, and Leet and Kerns dead. Joe D. was still alive, somewhere. A Fish was the only survivor. And lastly, Julius had been captured. Now they were the only ones left to stop GJ’s plans.
The prisoners would have been executed by now. There was rumor of one of them being missing, but they had looked into it—none of them had showed up at their mansions. Not that they would have, anyway… half of them lived at the Pink House, and going anywhere public would be too dangerous for an escaped prisoner.
He couldn’t help but think they should have acted sooner.
But now they just had to do what they could. They would have to confront GJ for what he had done. Make him either see the light or get the hell out of here. Spangladesh was falling apart, and it was their job to create a last-ditch effort to save it.
It was all up to them.

“So… let me get this strait,” said Tom slowly, thinking hard.
“Yes?” prompted GJ.
“We kill him…”
“Yes?”
“And we get to live?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Sound’s good to me,” he said happily. He picked up the gun and aimed it at Julius’ head.
“Hey, what?” Julius looked surprised. Stroobie covered her ears.
“Fire away, Tom!” she said with a grin. Tom played around with the aim for a moment, then fired.
At least, he would have, if the wall behind him hadn’t exploded silently. And there, in the smoke, stood Kevin Wyrauch, all butched up and loaded with guns. He had dark sunglasses on and held a shotgun in his hand, pointed directly at GJ.
“Don’t move, camel,” he said threateningly… well, it would have been threatening if his voice hadn’t cracked the last syllable… but still, it was pretty damn cool.
Gimpy found some way to put his hooves up, while Tom untied Julius and took him down. He later claimed that “he knew Kevin was coming because of… psychic images… and was just waiting” and since the people of Spangladesh are simple people, it was accepted. Stroobie claimed to be momentarily possessed.

Next Episode:
The climactic ending of the Election Saga: watch everything come together in one final awesome battle, with lots of kew guns and colorful pictures in: “Live and In Color.”