UNDERCOVER HENCHMAN

You probably don't know me, and you never will either. I am a henchman, working (secretly, of course) for the supervillain that in oh-not-till-long will rule the world. It is my firm belief that this will happen pretty soon, much due to my villain's ingenious plan for World Domination. I am sad that I cannot share my identity with you, nor the alias of my villainous master, but you shall know one of them soon enough. As I am a mere henchman, I do not know the master's complete plan, though he has my complete, blind and utter belief that he will complete in, and thereby achieve his goal. 

I am writing this at night, in my bunker. It's past midnight, and everyone else is sleeping. Tomorrow is the biggest day of my life. This is due to the fact that I am working undercover, and have been a long while. I cannot tell you where I'm working undercover, or what position I am in, but what I can tell you is that I have a huge responsibility. 
  I have set my computer to upload this text two hours after take-off. I am currently in Africa, prepared to save the world from itself. Prepared to watch my master save the world for what shall surely be known as "E-Day".

 "Elephant Day".

Now, let's get right on the plan, shall we?  

22 YEARS EARLIER

It was noon. I was in a meeting (a henchman-meeting, if you're really, really, super-interested in the details), and we were (supposed to be) plotting  various ways of world domination. We were quite bad at this, but who can blame us? We were new to this whole thing. Hell, this was probably the first (successful - there had been others before it. Particularly one in Norway. That one ended with treason. I think the Super Villain called himself Captian Sabretooth. The henchmen-group was called "The Trolls". Yeah, stupid names, I know. It was probably a henchmen who came up with both, something that would explain the treason. I mean, you wouldn't believe how bad we're treated by our masters sometimes; they're not doing ANYTHING beside "working on their laugh" or "wondering what my nemesis'll be like". And they're so marvelously unfair. Treat us like we're their minions. Hmpf. One day, we'll show 'em. The Scumbags. Assholes. Scullywags. Brilliant. Oh, wait, that last one was a good thing! Hmm... HEY! I know the perfect insult!) henchmen-group in the world! So, after we've all had a lovely cup o' tea and were all caught up on what had happened since the last meeting, the boss suddenly showed up (atrocious, I know) and demanded to hear our plan for world domination.

It was at this moment that everyone shut up. We all realized we hadn't been really professional about this, and I was almost about to mention the big elephant in the room, so to speak, when a thought came into my head... I thought, fast, "Would it be possible? Can it be done?", and decided that it could. And then I told the Master Supervillain (the villainous name he went by at the time) my idea. I had no way of knowing how it could lead to World Domination, but he certainly thought it was brilliant, and obviously knew how he would go from there. 

What I said was this;  

"Oh, you villainous sir. May I lay something pretty weird upon you?"
He looked at me, dark, serious and grievous as ever, and said "You may."
I nodded, humbly. "Very well then. I will talk a little about the big elephant in the room - the World Domination plan that we had just gotten into when you walked in. I had an idea that if we took a large male adult African elephant and dressed him from head to toes in the friction-reducing fabric that swimmers use in the Olympics, then put him on the spaceship, fly about 150 miles (or 240 kilometers, if you're a moron (oh sorry, I meant European. Which I totally not am. Britain is, as you very well know, its own continent) up in the air. This would put the spaceship, with the elephant on it, in the thermosphere, at about the maximum height where the elephant won't catch fire. We would then proceed to PUSH (by now, I pretended I was pushing the elephant off the spaceship, something that, I was told later, did not look good. I however, did not care, because... Oh, fuck it. You'll know soon enough.) the elephant out of the spaceship.

<artistic pause, while everyone stared at me as if I was a moron. Which I am totally not. (I'm more like you're average twat. (Oh, sorry, I meant twit. Whichever sounds more British, because that's what I am. British. And I live on the continent of Morania, which is, as every smart person knows, is where Britain is. Duh. (Or whatever the British equivalent of "Duh" is. Because I'm British. Yup. That's what I am) ) artistic pause/>

Now, you may wonder what this will do to achieve World Domination. And the truth is, it's a big, big threat. Let me explain further...

A large male adult African elephant weighs about 7 tons. According to my quick, correct, and not to mention, brilliant, calculations, an elephant free-falling for 150 miles without friction, should reach the ground (at sea-level) at a velocity of approximately 50,000 metres/second. Using the simple momentum calculation we all know from physics class (p = mv), the elephant's momentum should be about 7,000 * 50,000 = 350,000,000 kg m/s.

An elephant hitting the ground with such a momentum will deliver the equivalent of about 10,000 atomic bombs, something that will create a crater 50 miles wide, and send enough dust into the atmosphere to block the sun's light for 200 years, killing all life forms on the planet.

And then I ask you, dear Master Supervillain... What would you rather do? Put one, yes that is ONE (this is the part where I pointed ONE finger high and, rather triumphantly, in the air) elephant in space, or get 10,000 atomic bombs?" 

This is the part where I finally shut up, everyone was baffled at my plan, the Master Supervillain smiled villainously and I got promoted to "Undercover Henchman". This is the most prestigious position any henchmen in the entire world (except the sole Swiss henchman, who created his own henchmen-group, started at the bottom, rose through the entire hierarchy all the way to the top, and then became the frightful Supervillain Swiss Chiss, who continued to rule his group of evil henchman singlehandedly. This proved not a hard feat to perform, especially because he was the only one in it. He died when he was 84, only to see his grand plan of World Domination fall apart. (After all, no one could perform it for revenge, because he was the only one who knew it, and he was dead. Also, he was the only supervillain in all of Swiss. His plan, however, has an infamous reputation, and is currently being guarded by the Ünters at the InterGalatic Space Station That Is Top Secret And Who No One Has Heard Of (IGSSTITSAWNOHHO for short) The plan is supposedly brilliant, and it's the only World Domination-plan that Governments have read, are afraid of, and are completely sure that'll work, hence it's heavy guarding by the Ünters themselves) has recieved. 

 BACK IN PRESENT DAY

Um, yeah. That's basically it. That's all I have to say.

And keep in mind that I'm British. Very, very British. I live in Moronia, am 29 years old and a genius. And I drink lots of coffee.

Or tea. Whatever the British equivalent of tea, or coffee is. Maybe hot chocolate?

Man, I sure wouldn't mind some of that right now.

And maybe a donut to go... 

THE END

and remember to watch out for Elephants in the sky, eh?

END OF THE WORLD-PLOT SHAMELESSLY STOLEN FROM "footprints" AT [linkage]