Extinction Event: Monarchs vs. Military

This is a summary of a scene from The Butterfly Bard.

Now enter one of the biggest battles of this contemporary age, a possible extinction event. Ray and Geordie are the only ones who know it is about to occur. The place is just outside Abilene Texas, over the Dyess Air-force Range. Following the worldwide Start Two disarmament agreement the Minute Man III missiles are being retrofitted with a single more accurate warhead.

These missiles are being tested at the same time as the three major flyways containing 90% of the world’s Monarchs are converging over Texas.

In the Q-Bee, Ray and Geordie are able to visually confirm this convergence event and using the onboard computer they are also following and sending data to Monarch Watch. They receive an auto-transmitted radio signal that they are entering restricted airspace and that they are inside the missile launch window. It is a crushing moment when Geordie and Ray realize that the Monarchs and their non-metal ultralight will not show up on radar and, with the control team out of visual range and below ground in the command center, they might be the only ones to know that the majority of the world’s Monarchs are flying over a Minuteman launch site. Will they follow the Monarchs into the no-fly zone? Can they even contact Military command? And if so will the chain of command be willing to postpone a multimillion-dollar test? What follows is a collision of two worlds and what emerges is a triumph of social media and the most unlikely of heroes.