Wildlife Of Mass Destruction

The President slammed his gavel on the little wooden block. “With all parties in agreement, I hereby call the 27^th summit of the Warnot Alliance to a close.”

What all the parties had agreed this year, as in the previous 26 summits, going back a quarter of a century, was that they would not invade each other’s territories. They agreed to be accountable for their own respective WOMD (Wildlife Of Mass Destruction) and to maintain respectful levels of fear for whatever WOMD their neighbours acquired over the coming year.

Commander Irons rushed back home, eager to announce his big news at the post-summit debriefing: he had been granted approval to replace the brown bear that had guarded Bearsdale for as long as he’d been leader. As he trekked across the overgrown terrain that separated the 5 villages of the Warnot Alliance, he tried not to listen to the strange chattering, screeching, and indecipherable sounds that competed for his attention. He allowed his thoughts to drift back to that auspicious day when he had unveiled Ursula.

What a fine specimen of a bear she had been. The separation from her cubs meant that she needed almost no provocation to get her to flash her teeth and snarl most terrifyingly. But over the years, she had become sullen and silent; her once shiny coat was now dull and greyed at the edges; and a gummy grimace was all that was left of those deadly mandibles. It was a good job the Warnot Agreement didn’t call for the WOMD to be on show because a bear sitting in the corner of her cage sucking on over-ripe fruit wasn’t anyone’s idea of an effective deterrent. It wasn’t unusual for the keepers to find errant squirrels tucking into Ursula’s fruit pile these days, and on colder mornings, even attempting to snuggle in her fur.

No, to be the laughingstock of common squirrels simply would not do.

Irons crossed the threshold of Bearsdale, stopping to admire the village gates which were adorned with the pelts and skulls of Ursula’s predecessors. The villagers were already gathering on the common. Just as the folk of Lionshill, Wolveswood, Gaterpool, and Sharkscove gathered on their respective commons. As the crowd parted, allowing him to pass through and take up his place on the podium, his ears pricked at the phrase on everyone’s lips: new beast. Grasping the sides of the podium (really just a zhuzhed-up bird table) Irons delivered the momentous decree. This was met with cheers of approval and applause by the majority.  

But a voice of dissent broke up the revery. “Where on earth will we get a polar bear?” It was Charity Freelove, leader of the Elderly Bears Protection League.

“I intend to lead the expedition,” the Commander said. “And I invite any Bearsdale man who thinks he’s got the grit, to join me.”

A number of groupies in the front row, known as Irons’ Filings, immediately stormed the stage.

“Man?” Rose Blore, leader of the Make Keeping Equal Commission, was quick to raise her objection. The male keepers always got the adventurous jobs, like hunting down the predators, or painting the increasingly menacing posters that adorned the outside of Ursula’s pen, or growling loudly into a bucket. The womenfolk were left to peel the pineapples, mash the raw fish, and shovel up the scat.

Back in the undergrowth, three members of the Metaphorical Gorilla Rebellion had been listening very carefully to proceedings. Their leader, code name Bergamot, hoping against hope to turn the post-summit tide against any further advancement of the WOMD program.

“She’s dead right, isn’t she?” Sandalwood whispered. “I hate all that sexist bearscat.”

“No,” Bergamot whispered. “The gender agenda is just a distraction. We must focus on the animals.”

“Yes, I get that,” said Sandalwood. “But I’m not sure our messaging is on-point. I mean, our nom de geurres…”

“Now is really not the time to bring up the names again,” Bergamot snapped. How many times did she have to explain? They were metaphorical gorillas. It was all about the aura, the essence. She subdued the urge to launch into another lecture on mindfulness; better wait until they got back to camp.

If the spies were caught, they would be fed to their respective WOMD for conspiring against the Alliance. The First Rule of the Warnot Agreement was that no member of any village should fraternise with members of the other villages. Other than for the yearly summit, of course. Such liaisons would only encourage curiosity about what the other villages had. And that was what led to the Dark Days Of Invasion.

One thing that made the rebels absolutely certain of their cause was the fact that nothing remotely dangerous ever happened in the unprotected scruburbs of the villages which they now inhabited.

They made their way back to the rest of the MG’s and Bergamot relayed the latest information.

“But where will they get a polar bear from?”

“Exactly.” Bergamot had to raise her voice to be heard over the general consensus of outrage in the camp.

“We should strike now,” a voice came from the edge of the forest. “It’s the exact same thing back in Lionshill.” The stranger walked closer to the fire and Bergamot was glad to see her old comrade, Neroli. “Well, not exactly, not a polar bear. They plan to upgrade their cougar to an Atlas Lion. Brigadier Strong and a team of hunters leave at first light tomorrow.”

They all knew how it would go: the bulk of the village budgets would need to be invested in these Preservation Hunts. And the new WOMD would eat further into their resources with the need for increased Keeper numbers and endless supplies of meat to satiate the newly captured beasts’ appetites. Then there was the elaborate façade of the posters and twenty-four-seven simulated roaring.

“It’s now or never,” Bergamot cried, fist defiantly raised to the sky. “The powers of Warnot are weakened on two fronts: the village leaders are about to leave their posts and the WOMD is on a no lumps diet. We can’t fail.”

An enormous cheer resounded through the camp. Well, it would have resounded if the MG’s, well versed in covert comms, didn’t have their hands clamped over their mouths.

All that remained was to work out the details of the Release Plan.

“We just need to ensure that the WOMD of each respective village is released at exactly the same moment,” Bergamot said, spreading out the map on the floor (close enough to the fire that they could see by it, but far enough away that it wasn’t a health and safety hazard).

“Here.” She plucked a handful of blackberries from a nearby bush and marked an X dead-centre. “This is us: we made our camp equidistant from the five villages, right?”

“Well, as far as we know,” Sandalwood said. “I mean, has anyone ever actually measured?”

“It’s clear for anyone to see,” Bergamot replied. “But if you insist.” She fumbled around in the bushes and broke off a suitable sized stick, which she used to demonstrate her point.

“I don’t mean on the map,” Sandalwood said. “I mean in real life. After all, a poster can make a senile, blind, arthritic wolf look like Fenrir. I thought we didn’t trust things written on paper.”

Bergamot sighed and hung her head. “You’re right, we don’t,” she said. It was good that Sandalwood was asking questions. It was just bad timing. She’d used the exact same map when Sandalwood joined the group – to illustrate the story of the Dark Days Of Invasion and the origins of Warnot. Why didn’t she raise this then?

“Look,” Bergamot said. “You know how we’re metaphorical gorillas?”

“Yes.” Sandalwood nodded. “Because at some point one of the villages is bound to upgrade to an actual gorilla, and we don’t want to appear biased in any way.”

For a renegade, she certainly did a good impression of rote obedience. “The map’s a bit like that. We don’t know the exact distance from here to Bearsdale, or Lionshill, or Sharkscove, or Wolveswood, or Gaterpool. But when groups have gone out to the five villages on intel retrieval, they all tend to get back around the same time… give or take.”

“I’ve been to all five and the journeys all seemed to take roughly the same time,” Neroli agreed, standing beside her old friend.

“Well. So have I,” Peony said. “But I’d say it’s definitely furthest to Sharkscove; almost twice as far as Lionshill.” She stood beside Sandalwood.

“No,” Verbena said. “That’s just because you sprained your ankle on the way to Sharkscove. It was rain season: you slipped on that boulder.” She scanned the flame-lit faces. “Lemongrass, you were there, you remember, don’t you?”

Lemongrass nodded. “Yeah, I do. But I’ve never been to Lionshill or Gaterpool. She’s got a point. We don’t know for sure.”

Bergamot noticed that Neroli was grinding her teeth. All these years, building up the resistance, for things to collapse now. “Does it really matter?” she asked. “We just need five groups to head off to the five villages. When they get there, they set the WOMD free. Within days, the villagers will see that they never needed the WOMD at all. By the time the preservation parties return, we’ll have won over the majority. We’ll be the majority.”

The two old friends shared a look of solidarity across the campfire. Spurred on, Bergamot continued, “there are some rebels who join the cause because they like singing protest songs around a campfire, they like the transgression, they like how tight their skin feels after they wash the mud off their cheeks. But most of all they like the impossibility. It’s easy to strive for something you don’t actually believe in. Any fool can dream. But making it a reality, now that takes guts.”

“Or stupidity.” Sandalwood would not be labelled as a coward. “Pull a lever, release the WOMD, and leave your village wide open to attack. Some strategy.”

“Whose village?” Bergamot asked. “We wouldn’t send a Wolveswooder to Wolveswood. There are no loyalties here; that’s the whole point of the centralised camp and the new names.”

“But how do you know?” asked Sandalwood. She stepped closer; close enough that their auras were able to shadow box. Bergamot’s third eye, misted-up with utopian visions, was rendered sightless by a flying roundhouse kick.

“I don’t know. I trust,” Bergamot replied, rubbing at her forehead.

And there was the rub. Every time they got close, this happened. Bergamot didn’t know if she had another recruitment drive in her.

The Warnot Alliance worked on mistrust: while any one village had WOMD, the others all had to follow suit because of the “what ifs”. The whispers of “what if” had now infiltrated the opposition.

They grew louder and louder and louder, until they drowned out the birdsong and the waterfalls and the rustling of the leaves and the crackling of the fire and the swarming of insects and the roar of the caged bears, wolves, and lions.