UnNews:Latest evil genius holds Earth to ransom
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This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
23 April 2009
ENGLAND, United Kingdom -- James Bond, Austin Powers and all active superheroes are on stand-by today as the latest evil genius to endanger worldwide security threatened to release an army of cyborg ants if he does not receive £100 million by midnight on Saturday 25th of April.
Insane boffin Dr. Evil Robinson, who is believed to be holed up in a subterranean lair somewhere in the west of England with several billion of his nightmarish creatures - some of which are feared to be as large as grains of rice - is listed by the United Nations as the third most dangerous person in the world, coming after Osama bin Laden (second place) and Noel Edmunds (first). Though Dr. Robinson has in the past not kept a high profile, which means that his is not yet a household name, his entry on the LinkedIn business networking Internet site states that he has been a professional mad scientist for more than thirty years, leading experts to theorise that he has spent much of his adult life perfecting the cyborg insects. "If we are right in saying this, we may be facing the greatest threat to humankind since the neutralisation of Scaramanga's solar-powered laser cannon in 1974," says Professor Arlan Coprinus, author of "Evil Scientists - Insane Plots and How to Combat the Menace".
The ants are thought to be a genetically-modified form of the common Temnothorax albipennis species, which is native to the Middle East and has not been recorded as an aggressive species. However, Dr. Robinson - who was once employed by Bristol University's School of Biological Sciences but subsequently ostracised by peers after his experiments to produce killer sparrows with nuclear capability in a campus laboratory were uncovered - has surgically fitted a microchip to each ant, allowing him to remotely take full control of his legions from his secreat hideout.
"Remotely controlled cyborg ants are, undoubtedly, a terrifying prospect," Prof. Coprinus claims. "Ants are capable of getting just about anywhere and they can survive in a wide range of conditions that would prove hostile to other life-forms. As an example, ants were found still surviving in the Nevada desert after atom bomb tests in the 1950s - although it should be said that some of them were vastly increased in size, they were completely unharmed. Like all ants, T. albipennis is equipped with a formidable set of jaws. One individual would be unable to inflict any damage to an animal the size of a human, but it must be understood that ants do not attack larger prey individually - an ant attack would involve a large number of insects, perhaps a thousand or more, biting their victim in a synchronised fashion so as to bring about maximum effect. Any form of armour would be useless, as the ants will be able to gain access to the unfortunate wearer's soft tissues through even the tiniest gaps in the structure's plates."
Adrian Veidt, who is now retired but once fought crime as Ozymandias, acts as a spokesman for the League of Costumed Adventurers, the regulatory body that also acts as a superheroes' trade union. "It is important that we do not in any way play down the severity of the situation," he told UnNews, while completing the New York Times crossword, filling in a tax return and writing a mathematically-accurate method of predicting patterns formed in fluid dynamics simultaneously, "nevertheless, citizens can rest assured that we are fully confident of our capability to prevent Dr. Robinson from carrying out his nefarious plans should we be given the go-ahead to act by the world government." Though Mr. Veidt was reluctant to divulge the finer details of precisely which actions would be put into place, he did reveal that involved a giant kettle-like device which would be used to pour boiling liquids - known to be detrimental to all ant species - into Dr. Robinson's lair once its location is ascertained.
UnNews was granted an exclusive interview with Dr. Robinson after a stunning piece of journalistic detective work in which we found his telephone number listed in the Yellow Pages directory under "Geniuses - evil (see also Scientists - mad and Power-hungry Lunatics)". We spoke to him last night.
UnNews:"Dr. Robinson, thankyou for granting us this interview. First of all, is it true that you have been an evil genius for 30 years?"
Dr. Robinson:"Oh, don't mention it. I'm a frequent reader of UnNews myself, so I'm more than happy to oblige. You're quite right there - I became an evil genius after I was kicked out of Bristol University when an experiment of mine was deemed morally questionable. I had a look at the job market, which was in a rather unhealthy state back in the late 1970s, and decided to become a freelance mad scientist which is how I've earned a living ever since."
UnNews:"We believe it'd fair to say you have kept yourself largely out of the public eye for most of that time. Why was that?"
Dr. R.:"Well, like many evil geniuses, the majority of my day-to-day work is really not of any great interest to the layman. I imagine that a lot of people think that criminally insane inventors like myself spend our days using teleportation machines to transfer gold bullion from Swiss bank accounts to our secret bases, shooting down communications satellites with our giant lasers and so on. Well, to be fair, we do do quite a bit of that sort of thing, but we can't just go to Maplins or Radio Shack to buy devices like those ready-made - there's a lot of quite tedious background stuff going on too, laboratory research, testing and the like. Producing something so horribly ingenious and dispicably evil as an army of cyborg ants is a long and very intricate process. Once I'd developed the custom-made microchip, I had to genetically modify the ants and then fit each and every one of them with the device. That takes a long time."
UnNews:"But, Dr. Robinson, assuming you've made a perfectly satisfactory career for yourself for all these years, why suddenly hold the world to ransom now?"
Dr. R:"I'm sure I speak for all evil geniuses when I say that all of us share an ambition to carry out some sort of reprehensible plot at least once in our professional lives, even if it's not successful and does not result in payment of the ransom - we're in it more for the recognition really. It's a great feeling to know the entire population of the world is watching you with baited breath, anticipating your next move, wondering if they are about to die. I'm rapidly approaching retirement age, and before I settle down in the cosy cottage my wife and I have bought on the coast, I wanted to make my mark on the world, achieve immortality if you will."
UnNews:"Once again, thankyou for granting UnNews this exclusive interview. We usually ask subjects to sign an ambiguously threatening legal statement at this point to prevent them from talking to other news agencies, but in this instance have decided not to as we are informed that you eep a large pool full of rabid sharks in your lair and don't wish to be turned into fishfood."
Dr. R:"Oh, the pleasure was all mine and there's no need to worry about the sharks, they're really fed rather well on minions that have displeased me for any reason. Tell you what, assuming the government has paid the ransom and Western society hasn't been destroyed by my ants by Sunday lunchtime, why don't you give me a ring and we'll go out for a beer or two? I'll get you a couple, I ought to have a few quid spare by then. On the other hand, if it hasn't been paid, well...MwahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaha! Ha! Haha!"
Sources[edit | edit source]
- "Ants fitted with radio transmitters for scientific study" Telegraph.co.uk, April 21, 2009