Dogs of Orninica (13 page)

Since we had the brilliant idea to remove all the trees, oxygen is finally ready to become a valuable commodity exclusively controlled by your great companies, so we'll certainly need to watch the population levels closer than ever. It shouldn't be too difficult to keep their numbers manageable once they're huddled up together in the cities.

When we're mostly left with the younger generation, we'll orchestrate a world class propaganda campaign to shame them into forgetting everything they knew about their old ways. In twenty years, they'll look back at their past in complete disgust; the very mention of their parents four-legged antics chasing squirrels through the woods will be considered a grave insult as they sip their frothy designer coffee beverages in some yuppie cafe with the oxygen-pumps on full blast.

We won't let them get too modernized, of course. We'll still need to fester plenty of radicalized terrorists to blow their fellow aborigines up, allowing us to justify maintaining the occupation. I'm sure we'll find a good balance.

We'll need to pay special attention to keeping the natives well isolated from the expats that move into the more unspoilt regions along the coasts, so all the cities will need to be established far inland. I personally plan to buy one of the first beach condos you construct. I can't think of a better place I'd like to retire to with my wife, she's always wanted to live on a private beach. I hope one of you can give me a good deal?

We'll be looking to your well-paid and experienced private armies to take the lead in guiding the unruly mob of little punks we call troops. We expect all the real fighting will be done by your armies, with the armed forces filling inconsequential positions like couriering, cooking and guarding. It's a shame we can't use only private soldiers, but we need to keep up appearances.

We're going to need to make sure the terrorist attacks on our own soil continue, to keep the public support for the war in full swing. It's very unlikely any pissed off Nureongi is going to find his way to Orninica on his own now that we have them completely surrounded, so we'll need to continue with false-flag operations.

One attack every couple of years should be sufficient, unless of course there's some big embarrassing news story we need to bury. We can try to use undercover operatives to radicalize a few Nureongi, arm them, smuggle them to Orninica and point them to the nearest school or hospital, but I doubt the bumbling fools would pull off a successful attack. We'd need to hold their hand every step of the way, so it's really much easier just to false-flag and be done with it.

I should make it clear that the Nureongi false-flags won't replace the domestic terrorist false-flags, we need both kinds of attacks to supplement each other. The public need to fear each other as much as they need to fear foreigners. It's the only way to keep them down and to keep the drones herding them all unopposed from the sky.

We also will need to carry out false-flag attacks on some of our allies, so they can justify entering the war to their voters. I've attached a list of the countries we think will be most likely to resist joining the war effort. I've also drawn up some proposals for these false-flags, I think an attack on some train stations would be especially fruitful, but the final decision falls on the commanders of your private armies, since they'll be carrying out the operations. I'm sure they'll come up with some creative ideas. I served with a lot of them back in the good old days.

We're going to need to really squeeze every penny out of this war, it might very well be the last big war we get to start now that every other chickenhearted country in the world kowtows to our will. If it's going to be our last major war, then let's see to it that it's still being fought when our unborn descendants are calling the shots.

We really need it to drag on until it ceases to be profitable. That's why it's absolutely essential that we carefully manage the population count of the natives. We don't want the population to drop so low that there's no one left to fire on, but we don't want too many of them left alive or they'll be a threat to our development plans and a strain on the oxygen supply.

I look forward to working with you all closely over the coming years, this is going to be a very lucrative business venture. We're all very excited here in the capital, the anticipation is truly electrifying.

THE GENERAL THANKS YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION. PLEASE DESTROY DOCUMENT NOW.

Child

Glorious Orninica, home of liberty. Our hard fought land so bright and strong. Hail, oh hail, great Orninican patriots, which that fight with such determination. Come home from battle to rest your weary heads. Share the riches of your great successfulness, spread out far and wide and open up your shops of business. Sons and daughters of the great Orninican land, travel far and make your demands. You do proud, our everlasting battle for democracy, liberty and the majesty of the greatest country. Stand on our stoops and safe guard this elite society from outside hindrance. The orchestra plays for your mighty fists with each blow they land. The brave and the free marching constantly, under Bahman, glorious Orninica, home of liberty.

That's all of the national anthem, even the middle part. I remembered it without looking.

It's so scary what's happening, those yellow dogs from a different country exploding the schools. I wish I didn't have to go to school any more, what if they choose my school next time? I'm afraid to even go to sleep, what if the savage yellows come in my window at night and kill me while I'm asleep? I wouldn't even know that I was dead. And my parents would never remember to feed Tutu, my orange hamster.

I hope that the soldiers can kill all the yellow dogs soon, so they stop making their sneaky bombs. Maybe the President could make a big wall all around their country, to keep them inside, like a cage. Then they wouldn't be able to come here and kill us. Or maybe he could flood their country with water until it sinks into the sea so they all drown. Or he could shoot a really big laser to make it so hot that they all get thirsty and die. I'm going to write to him and ask him to kill them all quickly so I can stop being scared so much.

I have the Nureongi Peasant Princess doll, it used to be my third favorite doll, but now I'm never going to play with it again. I tried to pull the head off it, but it was too hard. She's a stupid doll anyway, she didn't even come with any good clothes, just a weird crown thing and a bow and arrow and a bikini.

When I made a drawing of my school exploding, my daddy said not to worry and that the Nureongi probably won't kill me because I go to private school and they only attack poor pups because their schools are in bad neighborhoods and all their security is robots. Our school has real security guards. He said I should be more worried about molesters than terrorists.

We're all going to wear a red rose on our shirts at school tomorrow to remember the pups that died. It was Mrs. Chi, my maths teacher that thought of it. I think it's red because of all the blood when they died. They keep showing a lot of blood on the floor on the news. We watched the news in class for basically the whole day, didn't even have to turn in our homework. And then they let us go home an hour early. But now we have to write this homework about how we feel about the terrorist attack and about the Orninican national anthem.

I'm not really that scared of blood. I cut my finger last week, and I didn't even cry a little bit. If I get cut again, I'm going to rub my finger on my Nureongi Peasant Princess. She really deserves to get hurt. I wish she were dead. She's so ugly.

Maybe my grandma will get me a new doll now to replace her. I'm going to call her and ask. If I explain it to her, she'll understand. Maybe I can even talk her into getting me another birthday cake since Nureongi princess was one of the princesses on my last birthday cake so it sort of didn't count.

Oh yeah, I think that our national anthem is really good. It has a lot of loyalty in it. I think it was the first song I remembered the words for because we have to say it at school every morning. I don't know what some of the words mean, but they sound really strong and brave.

The national anthem was written by Burt Fitz during the first great war. I think he was a really good soldier because he protected us from the evil communists and I think he was also pretty fashionable because he always wore a scarf and a hat in his pictures.

I think the national anthem should be made into a cool music video with modern music behind it and pretty dancing girls so that pups will like it more. And they can get someone to dress up like Burt Fitz and sing the anthem, but like as a cool hip hop song.

My favorite doll is my Orninican Business Lady doll because she's the prettiest and has the best shoes. She comes with a business suit and a cocktail dress and two different sizes of breast implants that you can switch out. I don't need the business suit so I'm going to put it on Nureongi Peasant Princess. If I color her in with a magic marker, I can make her into an Orninican too. She'll still be ugly, but at least she won't be a terrorist any more. She always tries to suicide attack the other dolls when I let her play, and sometimes she hides bombs in Orninican Business Lady's breast implant holes like the terrorist ladies did last year on that airplane.

I really hope that they stop letting foreigners into Orninica. They always try to kill everyone that lives here. I don't really understand why they want to hurt us, and every time I ask, grown ups just say that the terrorists don't like our freedom so they try to take it away. But I don't know what that means. Why wouldn't they like freedom? Is it bad for them? It just doesn't make sense. There must be a better explanation than that, but no one I ask seems to know what it is. Maybe we did something to hurt them first and no one said sorry for it so they're mad at us? Maybe if we say sorry to them they'll go away and stop being assholes.

Everyone always says that our freedom is so great and that everyone in the world wishes they were Orninican like us. I guess I don't really understand because I've always lived in Orninica, but it seems like we don't have very much freedom. The police dogs record everything we do all the time. Like, all the time. Even when we're asleep. I guess the terrorists want to take away the tiny little bit of freedom we have so that we don't have any left at all. But I still don't understand why. Maybe no one really knows.

It would really be so much better without foreigners. They're always standing around out on the street and in parking lots, and they never have any money. And also, they talk funny and their food smells like a poo. The drones should put all the foreigners back in the sea so that everyone can be safe again. And then the government could make the sea into acid so that anyone that tries to swim here again will get melted and die.

But they would have to take the seahorses all out of the sea first and put them in fish tanks so they don't melt too. I really, really love seahorses. Especially purple ones.

What I don't understand is how come Soupman doesn't ever come down to save us from the bad guys. He has all these magical powers and he's like, our savior and everything, but he let all those little pups and their teachers get killed, and the passengers on that airplane before. Why didn't he help them?

He could have used his laser eyes to make the terrorists bombs blow up while they were still holding them. Or, he could just pick them up and fly them to the moon so they can't breathe. Or he could blow them so hard that they turn into porridge. He can see everything, like a really powerful drone, but nicer, so why didn't he do anything?

Whenever we go to church, the vicar always says that Soupman cares about earthlings more than anything. But no one's ever even seen him for two-thousand years. He used to rescue humans all the time, but what about us? I guess maybe he always has a meeting to go to or something? Anyway, it's really bad. He should help us.

Professor of Antiquities II

My journey to Nureongi as part of Harvey Fidelbrook's historic expedition is complete. Though yesterday's unfortunate developments put a dampener on things, I did make a few discoveries on our trip that could be useful towards the war effort, so I'll go ahead and talk a little about my experience.

But first, I want to thank Mr. Fidelbrook for including me on the monumental three-dog voyage. I was touched to be chosen. I first met Harvey when I was working as a consultant on his historical religious epic 'Soupman: Savior of the Earth', where he played the titular messiah who sacrificed himself at the hands of the destructive purveyor of doom for the sins of all earthlings. We've been in correspondence ever since, and suffice to say, when he asked if I'd be interested in joining the expedition, I couldn't have been more excited.

The history of Nureongi has always been very sketchy. We know the natives weren't companions to man as were we, but rather a lowly livestock animal. Man clearly considered them a lesser dog. It is thought that the ancient Nureongi were highly inbred and of diminished intelligence, knowing no life outside of a cage. It is generally accepted by most scientists that they are a wholly separate subspecies than the rest of us.

When man left the earth two-thousand-and-forty-two years ago, the Nureongi freed themselves from their cages, and as their intelligence rapidly developed, they formed the first tribe; the Unata. Their founding fathers had suffered great hardships at the hands of man, and because of this, they didn't integrate any of man's culture into their own. In fact, they actively avoided the abandoned human cities, and instead made the wilds their home. The young were told stories of ghosts and demons that guarded the cities, and for centuries no one dared approach.

Because of this taboo, the ruins of these cities are practically undisturbed. There is so much we can learn about mankind from even the most cursory walk through these sites. It's really the closest we'll ever get to walking through a city at the height of the ancient human civilization. Sadly, the expedition was cut short before we were able to visit the cities, but we did do a low fly over one of them on the way in, and it was truly spectacular. Absolutely the pinnacle of my career.