McDougal in the Twenty-Third Century (excerpt)

Copyright 1983, Starbox Press

McDougal angled the starship down toward the surface of the alien planet, firing off several bursts from the laser cannons. His newly formed army sat quietly below him, in the ship's cargo hold. McDougal chuckled to himself, thinking about how surprised the Alien Overlords would be when they encountered these tiny humans they had so carefully bred to be docile and obedient. The lobotomies had fixed all of that. Certain traits of mankind can be suppressed, but they can never truly be eliminated. Certain circumstances, such as a strategically placed ice pick, can unleash the basest instincts of even the most civilized human. No one knew the awesome potential of viciousness, gluttony, lust and altered brain chemistry like McDougal. Certainly not the Alien Overlords. The surgery had succeeded beyond McDougal's wildest hopes. The future humans were now so aggressive and prone to violence that even McDougal himself sometimes had trouble controlling them, and in minutes they would be unleashed on their unsuspecting oppressors.

McDougal felt a slight twinge of guilt about lobotomizing Xerxes. After all, he had taught McDougal so much in the preceding months. Like how the tools and equipment the Alien Overlords issued to all human workers could be extremely dangerous if mishandled. And the exact locations of the safety devices installed in all of those pieces of equipment which kept them from being even more dangerous. Xerxes even taught him how to operate the starship which was now diving directly toward one of the alien planet's major cities. One thing McDougal did not feel a bit guilty about was wiping out the entire population of that miserable planet on which he had been imprisoned. They were nothing but surly and rude toward McDougal from the day he arrived, but they made excellent live targets when it came time to train his army.

McDougal pressed the button to activate the ship's primary weapon and fired off a single shot. As he watched the entire city below him dissolve into white-hot liquid, his chuckling grew into great peals of laughter.