He had worked on it for ages. Herb stared at the broken remains of his robotics project in shaken awe at the comprehensive demolition job that had just taken place before his bespectacled eyes. One, small part of his mind had had to admire the anti-craftsmanship that Chad had displayed as he systematically and dispassionately destroyed Herb’s work with a thoroughness that removed any chance of restoration. “This”, Chad had said as he dexterously dismantled the fruits of Herb’s labour, “is what you get for being a stinking, filthy-haired nerd”. He had gone on to cuff Herb across the back of his uncombed head before strolling off with his arm around Lydiard, his beautiful and curvaceous red-headed girlfriend. Herb was hugely upset, but in another way oddly calm. He could feel the anger rising, but the knowledge that his peers around the globe suffered similar treatment at the hands of jocks, cute surfies and even the alternative musician types who strummed acoustic guitars under spreading chestnut trees made him feel less of an outcast. Some claimed that the internet was destroying community. People did not talk anymore, they complained. Herb e-laughed at such a preposterous notion. Without the internet he would probably be suicidal, if not homicidal. As it was he could feel that he was only a few gruelling tortures away from acting out. He scanned the remains of his robotics project for a moment, sighed and waked away. Nothing was salvageable. Nothing. Not a single LED. He was sure he would feel better once he had written down the events of the day in his blog.

Halfway across the world and ten hours later, Cade looked down at a similar scene. He was looking down because he was gangly, tall and - most importantly - hanging from the school flagpole by his reinforced underwear. His lank brown hair rippled in a desultory breeze, and the flag whipped about his face. Cade too had worked long and hard on a personal interest project. His was a fictional schematic, accompanied by a well-realised short story about a creature he had devised in his spare time. Cade had a lot of spare time, because he had few hobbies and fewer friends. He called his creation Meganerd, and through the catharsis of his creative outpourings he dealt with the poor treatment he received at the hands of his peers. It was the sort of thing which could be brought up as evidence of the ill effects of certain geekish activities: in this case, science fiction which dealt with unimaginably huge monsters. Daikaiju, he would have corrected anyone who asked. No-one did, of course. Unfortunately one of Cade’s peers, who went by the name of Peter, had found the schematic and story, and did not like the way he had been represented in the text. As the callously torn remains of his work scattered in the wind below him, Cade seethed with anger and pain. The pain came mainly from his underwear.

After he had managed to work his way free from the flagpole (skinning his knee on the asphalt in the process), Cade was summoned to the principal’s office. He assumed that this was so that he could put forth his side of the story, and hopefully receive justice at last. He mentally prepared his statement, and opened his mouth to begin. It was quite a rude shock for him when the principal raised his hand disdainfully, and suspended him indefinitely on the grounds of anti-social behaviour. His stammering protests were met with ‘official school policy’, ‘parents will be notified’ and ‘reasonable grounds for expulsion’. Cade was crippled with anger when he realised that not only would his grades be affected, but he was effectively barred from the Space Camp he had been so looking forward to.

Even this was not the final straw. On his way out the school gates, a half-eaten Granny Smith apple (no doubt launched with such pinpoint accuracy by Peter or one of his cronies) smacked him right in the side of the head with a sickening chok. Knocked him out, dead cold. Oddly, a jaunty Weird Al Yankovic polka echoed through his mind as he staggered forward, dark wings closing in on his vision. He fell to the ground as the polka reached a crescendo, drowning out even the mocking laughter of his schoolmates. His overly large head bounced off the asphalt path, twice, before coming to rest.

On a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it awoke, and blinked twice. An objective observer would have called Meganerd colossal, and indeed it did seem to block out the sun. In form, it was the wet dream of any geek. It combined elements of robot, dinosaur, alien and dragon. Meganerd’s face was human, though, and twisted in righteous anger. The enormous countenance was male, and it resembled a mélange of Captain Kirk, Fox Mulder, Caramon Majere and Han Solo. There was even a slight suggestion of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft to it. The unfeasibly large creature slowly studied its own form, flexing pneumatic joints and swishing a long, reptillian tail. It smiled the most effortlessly charismatic of smiles, ran long, metallic figures through a light, clean, flowing head of hair, and unleashed itself upon an unaware world.

Herb was the first recipient of Meganerd justice. It was as though the beast was drawn to his pain, or perhaps his love of robotics. He was sitting alone on the edge of the playground, on a hill, under a tree which currently had no leaves. Another day, another beating. He slowly chewed his Vegemite and cheese sandwich, thinking concurrently of ways to fix his project and ways to destroy his enemies. How he longed to drive them before him and hear the lamentations of their women. Lydiard’s lamentations would be especially sweet. Herb realised with a start that he had crushed his sandwich in a pathetic, bony fist. Blecch. As he looked around for something to clean the mess off, a shadow fell across the playground. From his vantage point, Herb could see Meganerd coming. His heart skipped a beat, then proceeded to make up for it by doubling in speed. Somehow he was not scared of this mechanical monstrosity. It seemed to nod at him slightly as it thoughtlessly kicked at and destroyed the school gymnasium.

Herb watched in bewildered wonder as the creature made a beeline for Chad. Students and teachers fled for their lives, dived out of Meganerd’s path, or simply stood and gibbered in shock. Chad was one of those. He had been coming over to torment Herb, and stood quite near to him - close enough that Herb could smell the bodily waste rapidly filling Chad’s cargo pants. Meganerd stopped in front of the school football hero, who stared up with wild, uncomprehending eyes. The geek-champion face smiled cruelly, and reached down with a massive metallic claw, which dwarfed Chad. Meganerd scooped him up, and slowly electrocuted him. Wisps of smoke rose slowly from its hand, fading away on the breeze. That done, the burned husk was hurled into a nearby classroom. Lydiard, who had been hiding within, shrieked like Sarah-Jane Smith and promptly fainted. Her head caught the corner of a desk as she fell, and before long blood pooled around her unconscious body. Meganerd turned first its head and then its body to the right, in the same manner as Robocop. It sniffed the air like Wolverine and left, leaving huge furrows in the grass of the playground.

No computer geek could have programmed the beast better. It swept across the Western world, weeding out bullies and the ignorant with a systematic efficiency. The revenge fantasies of poindexters worldwide were realised in the space of a week. The Meganerd did more than a simple Hulk Smashing or Clobberin’ Time (although these were well-represented). No, the creature was creative in the removal of the jock/bully cancer from the globe. Scenes from the favourite movies, television programmes or comics of nerds were re-enacted before their myopic gaze. Some died like the Immortals from Highlander, decapitated with Meganerd’s enormous Samurai blade. Some perished on the end of a lightsabre. Many were blown up with Meganerd’s inbuilt death rays or transmuted into bowls of petunias. One unfortunate was ripped to shreds by bullets shot from a gun in the creature’s arse, whilst another was suffocated with a rolled up magazine.

Peter was saved until last. He had avoided the creature for a time, managing to run and hide from its piercing gaze. Now he was trapped against the red brick wall of a school bulding. He looked left and right, desperately seeking an escape route. His fingers were red as he scratched pathetically at the wall behind him. The creature bent right down next to Peter, staring almost eye to eye. A huge range of emotions crossed Meganerd’s face as it systematically dismembered and devoured the individual it was created to destroy. Delight, rage, determination and even regret flashed alternately across the lantern-jawed countenance, now slick with the spray of blood. There was no doubt in the minds of any of the witnesses present – those who managed to retain their lunch in the vicinty of their stomachs - that this one was personal.

As quickly as it had arrived, Meganerd left. The nerds cried out for it to stay through myriad email petitions and emotional website pleas, but it was deaf to their desires. It spoke one sentence before it departed. Later, nerds would argue over whether Meganerd had sounded more like Mr. Spock or Stephen Hawking. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and with great power comes great responsibility”, it said. Then, like the T-800 in Terminator 2 being lowered into a vat of molten metal, Meganerd walked slowly back into the Pacific Ocean. It had resolved to lay dreaming with Cthulhu in the watery depths of R’lyeh. Never once did it look back on the fledgling nerdtopia it had created.

Meganerd was never seen again, except in iron-on form on the unwashed, faded black T-shirts of its human followers. Within three years the world was a grimy, stinking, unbathed nerd heaven. Empty V bottles and discarded pizza boxes lined the streets. Player Characters reached previously unbelieveable levels. Miniatures were undercoated, painted and shaded. Books were read and re-read. Clumsy copulation occurred, as the sudden depletion of perfect-toothed, Cleo-mag, sun-kissed, young-gun rivals stacked the reproduction deck in the favour of the brainy and academically gifted.

This Shangri-La, this so-called Golden Age, could not last. The nerds had grown complacent. The lessons of the past were not passed on: instead minds were filled with the minutiae of classic science fiction quotes and arguments for and against the combining of Alien and Predator. In a generation or two, the geeks forgot, and Meganerd became just another awesome graphic novel. Little did they know, that certain genes were still present, lurking malevolently behind the eyes of Eugenes and Nigels around the globe.

“Let’s call him Chad”, said the proud parents.

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