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"Rally Time" Claims Hundreds, Incites Rebellion by Roscoe Gortsky MONROE, CT- The fast-growing Connecticut town of Monroe was reported yesterday to have ceceded from its sovereign state and nation, declaring itself a "sweet, free-flowing Rally-brand utopia." The start of this rebellion all points to Dr. Rick Hardun, who began conducting an independent research project in the small town's two supermarkets just two months ago. The project was funded by Lackley Research, and had partnered with Big Y Foods and Stop & Shop Supermarket Companies to determine the impact of a new generic cola brand being released in the already crowded cola market. Dr. Hardun, who narrowly escaped capture by the Monroe "Order of Rally," was willing to tell us the story. "It was just supposed to be some behavioral research; we had no idea that one petty generic cola could do this much damage to civilization." Hardun and his team of researchers ordered the manufacture of a limited quanity of Rally Cola, the formula for which was designed to be of minimal difference from other cola brands. The cola was then distributed to the two Monroe supermarkets, and Hardun and his research staff made daily visits to the supermarkets in normal clothes, to observe people's reactions to the new brand. "We expected mild behavioral influence. At best, we thought the cola might become a favorite of the generic brands offered to this demographic. We never imagined that it would surpass Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and ultimately over-turn the government of the small town." For the first few days of research, Hardun and his staff reportedly saw little change in behavior, either social behavior or buying behavior, of the Monroe cola customer. After a week had passed, however, Hardun and his staff began noticing that Rally cola was flying off the shelves, and customers were displaying frenzied desperation for the cola product. "It's RALLY TIME!" many customers incessantly and desperately screamed as they entered the store, clawing and spitting while making a direct course for the soda aisle, according to Hardun and his team. "At first, the customers displaying fanatacism were a minority, and other customers watched in shock, not understanding what made them so psychotic." Hardun paused, and the tone of his interview became much more grave. "But soon...they all understood." In the second week, Dr. Hardun and his staff found the supermarkets thronged with people desperate for Rally Cola. The refrain "It's RALLY TIME!" echoed through the aisles of the supermarket as people bought case upon case of Rally Cola, sometimes trying to run right out of the store with it. Outside, many Rally-purchasing customers didn't bother to return home before guzzling gallons after gallon of the cola, resulting in a throng of groaning, half-consious people lying around the outside walls of the supermarket, soaked in their own waste. "When the Rally started running out...that's when things took a turn. The people were lying in the streets. Some were staring with blurred eyes up at the sun, while others vomited and shook violently, all the while chanting about it being 'Rally Time,' painfully licking the tops of long-empty cans. It was humanity as its worst..." Dr. Hardun and his staff alerted authorities in neighboring towns, and relief was sent for the citizens afflicted by the cola. But to the misfortune of all in the small Connecticut town, the very day the relief arrived was the same day that the next shipment of Rally Cola came to town. "We'd completely forgotten that there was another shipment scheduled...If only I had remembered, Barbara [a fellow member of his team] might still be alive..." The delivery truck reportedly pulled into the lot where the Rally victims were receiving Blood tranfusions and stomach pumps en-masse. To the horror of Hardun's team and the medical relief staff, the Rally victims sprung to life, and mobbed the delivery truck, screaming their psychotic slogan. Within seconds, the truck was emptied, several people had been fatally trampled, and mass-Rally consumption had begun again. This time, however, the Rally fever spread even more infectuously. Hardun, his staff, and the helpless medical teams were overcome by Rally fanatics forcing the cola upon all who seemed unaffected by "Rally Time." "The people became a mob, and were holding people down, pouring the cola down people's throats, bellowing their hellish catch-phrase and shivering with insanity as they did it. The team and I ran as fast as we could, but James [a graduate student intern] tripped, and they crawled all around him, forcing a torrent of the cola down his throat, as he helplessly seizured in resistance..." Hardun shed a single tear. "He didn't return to the laboratory the next morning. And I don't think a single one of the relief staff escaped...unchanged." Hardun reportedly evacuated his staff that night from the unstable town, but the van in which he and his researchers fled was intercepted by fanatics. Only Hardun and two other researches managed to escape the raid. Hardun added, "Many of my former colleagues are dead...or worse." The President has issued an ultimatum to the zealous rebels, commanding them to cede their territory back to the state of Connecticut within 48 hours, or face military action "sometime." Though the limited supply of Rally is now exhausted, the Monroe fanatics have reportedly reverse-engineered the recipe, and now make the cola in huge, bubbling vats, which lie in newly constrcuted cola bunkers underground. Though communication with the traitorous nation is sparse at best, the "Order Of Rally" has shown no intention of giving up power. The phrase "RALLY TIME" is spelled out in giant blazing letters in the town green, for all aircraft passing over to see. --Roscoe Gortsky Breaking update (10:44p 3-25-03): An FBI investigation of Rally Cola's influence has led them to question chemists hired to design the recipe for Rally Cola. Rally-designing chemist Ronald Coons commented: "We were ordered to make a recipe for some really bland cola, but we wanted to give it something different, even if it was subtle. A guy I knew said he had this great foreign recipe for cola, so we dumped it in. The taste-testers loved it, though they did all go insane...funny." This foreign recipe was later discovered to have been translated from an aramaic scroll found in a cave in Syria. Despite a warning at the top of the scroll that translated to "That which follows will bleed human hearts and rend souls, as the sounds of cracking bone and painful screams seal the door to heaven forever." The friend of the Rally chemists reportedly thought nothing of the warning, and translated the entire scroll, passing it along as a secret ingredient to the chemists designing Rally." The friend who translated the scroll and provided the recipe, Mark Souffrant, was found in his apartment crucified. No signs of forced entry were found.