Loop Day — Chapter Six
Oval Of Death
LOOP DAY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
Trapped in a doomsday time loop, two burned-out White House aides must foil a presidential assassination to break free, or die again.
Previously: Chaos and incompetence in the Oval Office — stuck in a doomsday time loop. In the most recent loop, President Con Don King Tyrump declares war on Texas and Mexico. His Cabinet and other high officials convene in the Oval where Wikilooks drone of transparency hovers like a hologram and speaks in the voice of dissident journalist Justice Assured. The officials attack the drone and argue about invading “Texico.” House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun uses a smuggled plastic gun to shoot Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich as the senator tries to cut a deal with the drone. A ricochet bullet strikes Presidential Aide Leif Oak in the leg. Leif’s lover Kitchen Aide Dhyna Durango tends to Leif’s leg by the east side wall. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman tackles Speaker Thuggun and ties him with the long belt of CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat. President Tyrump falls off his desk and knocks himself unconscious waving his ancestral Bavarian sword at the Wikilooks drone. Medical Aide Leif hobbles through the agents to help Tyrump. He revives the President with one of the President’s special “meds” — cocaine nasal spray. A Secret Service agent throws Leif against the wall, near Dhyna who shelters amid the chaos. Secret Service Agents struggle to open any egress from the Oval Office. No one out, no one in — the impregnable Oval has been hacked and sealed. Everyone but Dhyna and Leif are unaware that the final danger — a nuclear blast — will soon hit causing a chain reaction that will destroy the world again, unless Leif and Dhyna find a way out of the doomsday time loop.
Chapter Six — Oval Of Death
Dhyna Durango and Leif Oak huddle against the east wall on the floor of the Oval Office.
At the Resolute Desk President Tyrump screams at Secret Service agents who steady him where he totters, revived and confused.
“You were right, Leif,” says Dhyna. “We should have gone to the supply closet for privacy, intimacy, anything but this killer clown show.”
“At least I wasn’t stun-gunned today,” says Leif.
“What the fuck is going on?!” shouts Tyrump.
Still disoriented, feeling threatened, President Tyrump lashes out with a wild punch, a desperate right hook to the gut of the agent who helped him off the floor.
The punch has no effect, other than to cause the agent to let go of Tyrump, who wobbles but remains upright.
“What in Hell happened here!” Tyrump squints up at the golden drone of Wikilooks. “You Devil! You caused this!”
CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat sidles up to the center of power. “Mr. President, Speaker Thuggun shot Senator Rich with a smuggled pistol. Richi may live, he may not.”
“I’ll live!” shouts Senator Richi Rich Rich, blood-soaked on the rug in the center of the Oval.
Loud smashing sounds around the perimeter of the Oval Office, as Secret Service agents try to bash open the sealed doors.
“Speaker Thuggun shot Richi and the drone, both to no effect, a pity,” says FBI Director Payne Pillory. Thuggy tagged the bust of Martin Luther King too — as if to re-enact history.”
Concussed, Tyrump gazes at the official throng, hoping to make sense of the high and mighty gathering of his Cabinet and other officials. For a moment he forgets all about his plan to invade Texas and Mexico, but Navy Admiral Bunkie Bilgie Bentcan has not forgotten. He has vacated the premises. Tyrump touches his wild hair, tries to fix it.
“I was attacked!” says Tyrump.
“You tripped, Sir, hit your head,” says CIA Director Cutthroat. “Your aide brought you back with those little bottles of his. I don’t trust him.”
“Relax, Coupy. One suspect at a time,” says NSA Director Allsee Allhear Allspy.
“Tell the Secret Service to stop hammering the doors!” shouts Tyrump in the face of the officials. “Who the Hell is in charge here?! My fucking head! It aches! Who killed the Senator?!”
“I’m okay, I’ll be okay!” shouts Senator Rich.
“Shut up, Richi! One agenda item at a time!” says Tyrump.
Senator Rich points weakly at US House Speaker Thuggun. “It was that guy! He shot me!”
“I swear I aimed at the drone!” Tied up on the floor, House Speaker Thuggun points his bloody nose up at the drone.
General Kilman kneels on Thuggun and secures the belt binding him. “Shut up, Thuggy! I control the guns around here!”
“You’ll pay for this, Thuggy!” shouts Senator Rich.
“We’re all going to pay for this,” says Dhyna.
“One! Two! Three!” Secret Service agents use the marble bust of MLK to batter the locked Oval Office doors, trying to smash them open, to no effect.
“Everyone out of my office!” says Tyrump.
“I’m afraid the doors are locked, Mr. President,” says Director Allspy.
“Unlock the doors!” says Tyrump.
“The agents are trying hard, Sir.” Director Allspy looks distressed — glancing from his handheld to the President.
“Allspy, what the fuck is your problem?!” says Tyrump. “Have you been noodling my wife?!”
“Mr. President, remember when you ordered the 4th Fleet to target the drone in the Oval Office, before you tripped and knocked yourself unconscious?” says Allspy.
“To scare the drone, Allspy,” says Tyrump. “To put it in its place.”
NSA Director Allspy worries his handheld. “Yes, Sir. Well, Sir, the 4th Fleet felt compelled to follow your orders. The Fleet targeted the Oval Office, Sir.”
“That shows the military boys know exactly who is in charge here, Allspy. Me! President Tyrump! I am the ultimate commander — as President. The Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America Armed Forces!”
“Yes, Sir. Anyway, I suppose it’s not their fault. While General Kilman was busy securing House Speaker Thuggun, Navy Rear Admiral Bunkie Bilgie Bentcan, your Commander of the 4th Fleet, Sir — he informed me that one of the fleet’s nuclear submarines was hacked and sabotaged. As a consequence, a nuclear ballistic missile was launched, Sir, a Trident II. It will destroy everything here in Washington DC. It will arrive in 15 minutes, Sir.” Director Allspy studies his handheld with great sorrow. “It will strike the Oval Office. It will destroy the entire city.”
“Come again, Allspy? A US Trident missile launched at my own ass? A nuclear missile? Like Hiroshima? Nagasaki?”
“Precisely, Sir. Only — much worse.”
“Launched by fucking who?! I’ll kill him! I’ll see him hung!”
“A terrible thing, Sir. The submarine carries 24 missiles. One Trident II missile was launched and shot at the Oval here. That missile has four nuclear warheads that can be targeted at four different locations, like fingers of God, but instead these four warheads have all been targeted here, at the Oval Office, Sir. Each of these four nukes on this one missile is thirty times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Japan, Sir. That power is going to destroy Washington DC. And then some.”
“But that’s insane!”
“That's our policy, Sir. Strategy. Very effective. A great deterrent. Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s quite MAD, Sir. Totally lethal. It’s cutting edge. I’m sorry, Sir.”
“Shoot it down!”
“Impossible.”
“Disable it!”
“These missiles are designed to not be disabled, Sir. How pointless would that be? These missiles cannot be stopped nor destroyed before reaching the target. This missile will detonate immediately above this office and destroy the city. Washington DC is gone. I’m sorry, Sir.”
“You’re 'sorry'! You destroy this city, you kill all of us, the leader of the free world, me! and you’re 'sorry,' Director Allspy!”
“I did not hack the launch system, Sir!”
“I’m glad to hear that, Director! Goddamn it! Who hacked the nukes?! The Russians?! The Chinese?! My wife?! Some punk sixteen year old in Australia?!”
“It was the Texans, Sir.”
“The Texans?! Our Texans?!”
“The Texans, of Texas, USA. Yes, Sir. The Great Texas Fundamentalist Republic Independence Polity — Texas RIP. Director Pillory — tell him.”
“That’s what they call themselves,” says FBI Director Pillory. “The FBI has been battling these white supremacist Texas secessionists for many years now. The Secessionist Fundies. Director Cutthroat—tell him.”
“Apparently the Texas Fundies believe that you, Mr. President, intend to attack Texas,” says CIA Director Cutthroat. “The Texas Fundies are a people of great belief, Sir. Terrorists, true. Great believers. Very devout. They love their Texas. Completely nuts.”
“We are building the Great Wall of Texas, you grand motherfuckers!” screams Tyrump. “Gas and oil are God! We’ve got to take Texas and build that wall to secure my oil! The Texas Fundies, we were counting on them to help us, not to kill us! What a godawful mix-up! It’s a joke! My great plan for the invasion of Texico was nothing but a joke if it met with too much resistance. That’s what I would say! Nothing serious! Fool the People! Never let them know what you really think and do! What you really want! That’s The Art of War, Idiots! How could it go so wrong?!”
“Good thinking, Sir,” says Director Allspy. He refers to his handheld. “Well, it’s too late. The Texas Fundies issued a statement to the media claiming that they must destroy Washington DC to save themselves, to save the country. An act of defense. They claim that you, Sir, are perpetrating great terror, an invasion of Texas. They believed you, Sir, when you declared war on Texas and Mexico. They say you left them no choice. You renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. They thought Texas was next to be renamed. Tyrumpas! And claimed by you.”
“Fuck,” says the President. “I should have invaded Greenland and the Eskimos and left it at that.”
“The Inuit, Sir?”
“Fuck you, Allspy!” says President Tyrump. “How is it possible that the nuclear system can be hacked? But then not re-hacked? You can’t have nuclear weapons that can be hacked, Director! Or else that’s exactly what you need!”
“They are not my weapons, Sir,” says Allspy. “They are his—” Allspy points at General Kilman who kneels on House Speaker Thuggun. “And they are your weapons, Mr. President, as the Commander-in-Chief of the American military forces.”
“I don’t care whose fucking weapons they are, Allspy! If someone, anyone, can hack, launch, and destroy whoever they want without my say-so, then what the Hell am I doing here except filling my own grave.”
“What the Hell, indeed, Sir.”
“If computers can be fooled, systems rigged, launch personnel tricked, then no one is safe anywhere anytime ever!”
“Certainly not us, Sir.”
Leif moves close to the intense discussion by the Resolute Desk. “Mr. President, no one was ever safe with nuclear weapons. Computers malfunction. The world was nearly blown up repeatedly these past decades.” Leif moves closer to the President. “If there is nuclear retaliation to this bombing of DC and if enough bombs go off, then nuclear winter will destroy all the rest of the world, even the parts the bombers may love.”
“That’s not my problem!” says Tyrump.
“We did our best, Sir,” says General Kilman. “These are electronic computerized systems operated by fallible personnel. All such systems can be breached. And simply malfunction. It’s a hazard of duty, Sir.”
“A 'hazard’ of fucking ‘duty’!” screams President Tyrump. “I hate ‘duty’! I forbid it!”
“How did that turn out?” Dhyna Durango walks in among the men. “At least once a decade from the start of the nuclear age, computer glitches and malfunctions caused both America and Russia to think they were under immediate nuclear attack. We got lucky until now. Disaster was barely avoided each time by gutsy and risky decision-making by a few officers and officials — who had to guess at what was going on — or not. People had to guess about the computer readings. And guess correctly.”
“There’s no uncertainty this time. Multiple sources confirm,” says Director Allspy. “Immediate eye-witnesses too. This one got away from us, Mr. President. One time is all. These Texan crazies are not under our control. It has happened, Sir. I’m sorry.”
“Filch you, Allspy! You’re as crazy as the Texas Fundies! I bet you’re from Texas yourself!”
“I did not bomb myself, Sir.”
“I think you did! You may as well have! I think this whole nuclear weapons setup is batshit crazy! It can be set off by mistake! And by goddamn hack and sabotage! Our fate is in the hands of punk terror gamers!”
“As it long has been,” says Leif Oak. “Like Dhyna said — sheer luck got us this far. It’s a miracle we’re alive to die today.”
“Well so much for that happy-ass moment in time! Now blissfully gone!”
“The only way to keep from getting blown up by nuclear weapons is to get rid of them in the first place,” says Dhyna Durango.
“True,” says Leif. “If nuclear weapons are not abolished, then we will all die by nuclear weapons one day, sooner or later. You can’t keep getting lucky forever. It’s statistically impossible. We’ll all be killed, either by accident or on purpose, the world, the planet, the globe, everyone will someday be killed by nuclear bombs. Unless we nix the nukes. All of them. We’ll be killed by the blasts, by the radiation, by the fires, and by nuclear winter. Everyone. Nuclear winter will kill almost all creatures large and small, everywhere. Maybe all. All humans will die.”
“What in Satan’s name is 'nuclear winter'?” says President Tyrump.
“Firestorms,” says Director Allspy. “Firestorms set off by dozens of nuclear blasts would throw enough soot and smoke into the air to block out ninety-nine percent of the sun, for years. The human species would be snuffed out entirely.”
House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun shouts from the floor: “God’s plan! This is the work of the Lord our God! His Divine Plan for all!”
“Fuck you, Thuggun!” says President Tyrump. “If nuclear obliteration is the Lord your God’s Devilish plan, then the Lord your God is a complete psycho-sicko. I blame the Texas Fundies!”
“God is no sicko, Mr. President! How dare you?!” says Thuggun.
“Kilman! Stomp his ass!” says Tyrump.
General Kilman gets off the back of House Speaker Thuggun, then jumps up, and comes down with both boots on Thuggun’s contorted rump.
Thuggun screams. The golden drone shimmers.
“No Gods, no masters,” says Justice Assured. “Your God is make-believe. All Gods are make-believe. I’m sorry. That’s the reality. No Gods, the reality. No masters, the goal.”
“He can’t say that! People will get mad!” squeals President Tyrump. “I’m mad! Mad as the Mad Hatter! Does anyone else here in this godforsaken wasteland of an imperial headquarters have any more happy thoughts that they would like to share with this perverse and poisonous group before we are all blown to bits?!”
President Tyrump looks around at the sudden sea of silence.
“Leif! My sword!” shouts Tyrump.
Leif hesitates.
“Leif!” Tyrump screams.
Leif Oak picks up President Tyrump’s ancestral Bavarian sword from the floor where it landed when Tyrump fell. Leif hands it to Tyrump, then steps back quickly.
President Tyrump slams the sword point into the desktop. “Are you all from Neptune, you crazy lunatics! I thought I was the most likely candidate for lunacy around here! I ran my crazy election campaign, my kooky carnival for the pimp media, to fool the masses, goddamn it! But now I learn that I’m not even close to the King of the loony bin compared to you oh so respectable executing officers! How in the world did I get elected to this godforsaken Hellhole! You goddamn executing officers who control these batshit nuclear weapons are even crazier than I am! I just wanted to make more and more money, Honey! And get more and more power! Power! I never wanted to kill off the entire world! Okay, I don’t care who lives or who dies — in all honesty. I refuse to even think about it. But who would think a group of loose hacker nuts could incinerate the whole planet if they so choose!”
“Climate collapse is torching the planet right now,” says Justice Assured. “If the Texas Fundies and nukes don’t get you, Con Don, then climate collapse will end you and all, given your terminal policies. Or some other capitalist collapse or biological implosion will end things. Different timeframe. This is the Road to Hell, Boys. Enjoy it while you can! You are the Deluge! The Great Deluge! Whatever your idea of Hell, climate collapse and nukes are sure ways to see you all the way through to it. Oh, by the way, 'climate change' is carefully polled propaganda. 'Climate collapse' is reality.”
Financial titan Ecrap Mucky Muck runs in circles around the Oval Office wearing his idiotic Make America Godawful Again! cap and sucking his white supremacist thumb. “Somebody change my diaper!” he screams. “I'm a baby! A baby! Someone was mean to me once! A long time ago but I remember! They hate my Whitey ways! Baby! Baby! Me! Me! Me! Kill the government! Kill the public! All money and power to Me! Me! Me!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” shouts Tyrump as Muck barges by. “All money and power to Me!”
“What is wrong with that guy?” says Dhyna to Leif. “Nothing against immigrants — except for that ghastly, deathly White Supremacist Creep.”
“Supremacist race disease,” says Leif. “Ecrap Muck is the Great Satan of identity politics. White manly man above all. As the richest bloodsucker, he’s the Ultimate Loser in the great TV show of life. One of the greatest embarrassments to humankind. That’s the one guy I would deport back to the clutches of his compatriots — though I can think of a few more Toxic Titan Tyrants who should have their asses one hundred percent nationalized and booted — homegrown or not. I mean — I’m Native. What are they?”
“I know he’s a Supremacist,” says Dhyna. “But how on Earth do they get that way?”
Leif shrugs. “Some people are just bloody disgusting sickos because they want to be.” Leif glances around the Oval Office full of Mad Hatter officials. “Plus, you know — they’re shallow little think-alikes, though they think they’re not. They’re walking idiot talking points — most of which they don’t even believe. Look at them here in this great echo chamber of their sociopath delusion. They all have one idea — and it’s wrong. They will cling to their guns and their fortunes, their thefts and their murders, until they can cling no more. Some people worship their pompous arrogance or are even afraid of them and their pus-filled faces. But, you know, if you step back and take a close look, they all look like they’re more homeless than the homeless, and more lobotomized than someone who blew their brains out with a shotgun to the mouth.”
“To Hell with Hell Road!” shouts President Tyrump. “I’m beginning to think we sit at the very center of Hell itself, right here in the Oval Office!”
“No doubt,” says Dhyna.
“You can’t say that!” says Justice Assured from the Wikilooks drone of transparency. “People will get mad!”
“Careful, Mr. President. That would make you the Devil,” says CIA Director Cutthroat.
Tyrump shrugs. “I'm fine with that. And you are the Devil’s idiot mole, you fiend! One of very fucking many! Wingnuts all and everywhere. It wasn’t supposed to end this way!”
NSA Director Allspy taps his handheld. “Don’t worry, Mr. President. I’ve alerted every country with nuclear weapons. Told them we bombed ourselves, so that they don’t think we will mistakenly retaliate against them with our nuclear arsenal. I hope they believe us, so that they don’t launch a mistaken pre-emptive strike our way.”
“No need to worry then!” screams Tyrump. “You’ve got it all under control, Allspy! Right up to the point where we go up in a cloud of radioactive smoke!”
“It’s true, the other nuclear powers may get nervous and nuke the country in fear,” says Director Allspy. “How can they be sure what’s going on? But it’s the best we can do, for now. I’ve alerted all our nuclear commanders about the fate of DC, so that they don’t think we’re under attack from abroad and launch God knows where in retaliation. I hope they understand. We don’t want the Russians to panic and shoot their own arsenal at us — skimpy though it is compared to ours. It would still destroy the planet. Then there’s the Israelis. And the Pakistanis. And fucking France and the crazy Italians — my God — and the others. Cooler heads have prevailed in the past. We can take comfort in that.”
“Oh what a relief!” says Tyrump. “It takes only one mistake to destroy everything that ever existed. One loss of temper. One goddamned hacker! So don’t worry about giant stockpiles of nuclear weapons lying around, primed to launch, waiting to be filched and hacked or mistakenly set off! We have systems and protocols for that! Security galore! If I had it in my power right now, I would destroy you all before the goddamn nukes do!”
“You don’t mean that, Sir. Everyone is under a lot of stress here.”
“Stress? Allspy, are you referring to the unavoidable fact of our immediate obliteration?! Then yes, we are undergoing a bit of a trial at the moment. You filching filcher!”
“Our nuclear commanders are conferring as we speak, Sir. It’s up to the military to handle this,” says Allspy. “It's not my job.”
“Clearly! The military can handle it. What was I thinking? The fucking military has done such a bang-up job to this point, keeping us safe! Look around. No lives lost here. Not at the moment!”
“Sir, no, Sir!” General Krushin Karvin Kilman randomly salutes the President.
“Oh, and by the way, Director Allspy and General Kilman and Director Cutthroat and all you other slices of insanity, good job on 9-11. Keeping us safe. You really did a bang-up job there!” says Tyrump. “Real bang-up. Great stuff!”
“Sir, that was before our time,” says Director Allspy.
“Oh, no, I don’t think it was, Director. It seems to be totally of your time. And now you will add the vaporization of the capital of America and my global fucking Empire to your fine efforts!”
“That’s on all of you, President Tyrump. And so are the nukes,” says Justice Assured. “9-11 was a monstrous retaliation for your monstrous imperialism in western Asia, what you call the Middle East, and beyond. Who here denies that, by now? Your own CIA reported it.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” says President Tyrump. “I was building resorts, hotels, golf courses, restaurants, fish ponds.”
“Fish ponds?” says Senator Rich from the floor.
“People like fish, Richi!”
“Be that as it may, Mr. President,” says NSA Director Allspy. “Rear Admiral Bentcan reports that his intelligence officers believe the hack has been limited to just one submarine and only one missile on that sub.”
“Oh, they believe, do they, Allspy? Well, thank God for belief! But do they know?”
“Yes, Sir. I believe so, Sir,” says Allspy. “Merely one of 24 nuclear missiles on that sub has been launched against us, Sir. A nearly perfect record! Unfortunately that one missile contains multiple nuclear warheads. It’s the one that got away, Sir. A pity. The only one.”
President Tyrump tries to kill NSA Director Allspy. He drops his ancestral Bavarian sword and grabs the Director around the throat with both hands in an attempt to cut off air and blood to his brain. “One missile is not such a bad number, Allspy. Until you realize that one submarine missile with multiple warheads can destroy multiple cities at once! A trivial fact. You colossal brain suck!”
CIA Director Cutthroat and FBI Director Pillory grab Tyrump each by an arm and pull him away from Allspy. Together they restrain the President where he stands.
“Let go!” screams Tyrump.
Director Cutthroat and Director Pillory ease their grip. They dust lint off the President and straighten his suit and tie.
“It’s not my sub,” says Director Allspy.
The drone speaks: “You’ll all be dead in ten minutes, Assholes.”
“I for one will not miss this shit,” says Dhyna.
“The fucking cola girl!” President Tyrump turns to a Secret Service agent. “Fucking hit her.”
“She’s pregnant!” Leif steps in front of Dhyna.
“You dirty dog,” says President Tyrump. He appears to reconsider. “Well, hit her anyway,” he orders.
The agent throws aside Leif and grabs Dhyna.
FBI Director Payne Prison Pillory steps up and slaps Dhyna in the face. “It's just your face,” he says. “Now leave her be,” he tells the agent. “That's justice.”
Leif escorts Dhyna to the side wall and stays with her there.
“Thank you, Director. Fuck,” says the President. “I have several families myself. Not all here. Someone needs to survive to carry on my glorious name.”
“Good thinking, Sir. Multiple families, will do it,” says Director Allspy.
“I have lived like a God!” says Tyrump.
“And you will die a Devil,” says Justice Assured.
Ecrap Mucky Muck continues lumbering in circles through the officials and agents in the Oval Office. “Defund them! Defund them all!” he wails. “Defund the public! Fire them! Fire everyone but Me! Me! Me! Me!”
“What a loose nuke,” says Dhyna.
“It’s like watching a lethal virus infect itself — over and over again,” says Leif. “He truly is from the Department of Godawful Effects.”
“I’m told the warheads are all aimed directly at you, Mr. President,” says Director Allspy. “Of course, everything from the Atlantic Ocean to Hagerstown, Maryland will be radioactive. And beyond. Much of the radiation should drift out to sea, if the wind picks up. Then scatter across Europe.”
“Lucky them,” says President Tyrump. “Thanks for that huge dose of comfort and consolation, Director Allspy. I’ll try not to worry much more before we are incinerated, and the city is torched, and the whole region poisoned. How much time left?”
Allspy checks his handheld. “Ten minutes.”
“Outstanding. Ten minutes. Condemned to spend it with you absolute Losers.”
Seeing that President Tyrump has returned to his senses, the CIA and FBI Directors back off and relax.
Joint Chiefs Chairman General Kilman shoves off House Speaker Thuggun who remains bound on the floor.
Blood-soaked on the floor nearby, Senator Rich looks to Treasury Secretary Deadly Dollar Dealer. “How will the stock market will react to our bombing, Dealer?”
Secretary Dealer smiles. “That's the good news in all this bit of kerfuffle, Richi. Weapon sales are great for business. Best to be invested sooner rather than later.”
“Especially given the circumstances of our imminent death,” says Allspy. “Thank the Heavens — our Great Investments will live on. Eternal, Immortal, Infinite.”
“Get me my broker!” says Senator Rich.
“On the other hand, a final war could tank everything,” says Secretary Dealer.
“Get me my broker!” screams Senator Rich.
“Black gold from the ground!” says Secretary of State Oily Oily Oily. “Guns are good for gold. The economics of Empire!”
“I’m only the Secretary of Education around here!” screams Shammi Shilling Sharlatan. “I have nothing to do with this unholy fiasco! Why should I die among men who can’t keep it in their pants?! I just wanted to funnel public school funds into the deep pockets of my family and friends in the private sector. I don't deserve to be terminated now! We’ve only just begun to wipe out public education and make the whole thing pay for play — like in the good old days!”
“Shammi Shilling Sharlatan,” says Justice Assured from the drone of transparency. “Your brilliance is unbounded, your noble light unparalleled, your intelligence — beyond compare. It will soon be eternally so.”
General Kilman steps into the tight circle of power. “How did it happen that we are about to be blasted to Smithereens?! One minute I’m strangling my good friend House Speaker Thuggun for shooting off in the Oval Office, the next—”
“By your own military, General!” Tyrump screams. “One of your missiles slipped through your fingers. Outstanding work. You’re not Texan, by any chance? Lots of Texas Fundies in the military these days. Loose lips used to sink ships. Now loose cannons blow up the whole world! Me first!”
“Usually the guns point the other way. Don’t they,” says Justice Assured.
“This situation is less than ideal,” says NSA Director Allspy.
Secret Service agents block President Tyrump again from attacking Director Allspy.
“What are we waiting for?” says Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman. “Let’s get into the fortified bunker right now — the underground command and control post below the Oval Office. Right here! Let’s go!” General Kilman points at the floor. “It’s far underground — designed to withstand a direct nuclear strike. We can ride this thing out. We can save ourselves and strike back.”
“Damn straight!” says President Tyrump. “Why are we thinking! Let’s move!”
“I’m sorry, Sir. It can’t be done,” says Director Allspy.
“You’re goddamn right you’re sorry, Allspy! Why in God’s name not?!”
“The Texas Fundies not only hacked the nuclear submarine, Sir, they hacked the Oval Office. We are locked in, I’m sorry, Sir. Look around. Your Secret Service agents are trying to break out. It’s impossible. The Oval Office was retrofitted this past year. No one can break in. We’ve been jammed, Sir. No one can get out. We are sealed and trapped in an oval vessel. Impregnable, Sir. A great design.”
President Tyrump continues to try to kill Allspy with his bare hands. The agents hold the President as steady as possible.
“We have returned to the egg,” says Leif. “By our own hands. By lunatics. By officialdom. By the military industrial complex. By the One Tenth of One Percent who profiteer above all, forever and ever, in financial fascism’s name — Amen.”
“The walls, floor, and ceiling are lined and webbed with concrete and steel,” says Allspy. “The windows here behind your desk, Mr. President, are bullet-proof, shatter-proof, blast-proof, impregnable. The escape door to the bunker is sealed. The biometric and coded information required to break the seal has been hacked, altered, scrambled. There is no physical or electronic way in or out. Only a direct nuclear blast can break the seals. And that blast will kill us all, Sir. Again, I do apologize.”
“God damn you, Allspy! If you aren’t the most useless criminal know-it-all around here, I don’t know who is! My God! You’re Death with a handheld!” Tyrump screams at General Kilman and the others: “And you! And you! And you! And you! All of you! Fucking criminals!”
The golden drone shimmers. “Look in the mirror,” says Justice Assured.
“My vote is for Thuggy Thuggun!” shouts Senator Rich. “He’s the real Devil here! He fired the first shot! He shot me!”
“If they hacked us in here, can we not hack our way back out?” General Kilman asks Director Allspy.
“Working on it, General.” Allspy glances at his handheld. “It can be done of course. There is a problem. It may take several hours. It will take more time than we have.”
“Live by the missile, die by the missile,” says Justice Assured. “You are all the walking dead.”
“Kill it! Kill it now!” President Tyrump screams, pointing at the drone of transparency. “A secure bunker on-site that we can’t enter! Brilliant! I should have stuck with casinos, bars, hotels — land grabs galore! I only wanted a mighty dollar Empire! I never cared about all this blood and shit. How much time do we have now, Allspy!”
“It’s a big mistake, is all,” says Director Allspy. “Eight minutes, Sir.”
“Eight minutes left with you terrible Losers! I blame you, Drone!” The President shouts at the glowing bright orb that hovers near the ceiling. “I blame you, Wikilooks! I blame you, Justice Assured! I blame you all!”
“Blame yourself,” says Dhyna. “You’re a dead man walking and talking, and you always have been. You’re nothing but a bloody purse and a gun, stuffed with gold and body parts.”
“This madness, we tried to stop it many times over. Wikilooks and many others,” says Justice Assured. “We tried to stop you suicidal officials and pathological executives with your insane violent systems of blood and money theft. We tried to stop you from destroying everyone, everything, set to auto-destruct. Exactly as you have sown, so now do you reap. We put everything we had into trying to stop your insanity.”
“You'll never get away from us, Justice Assured!” screams President Tyrump. “You too will be blasted, when the nukes hit!”
“Not this time,” intones the golden drone. “You forced me to disembody myself, to keep away from the dungeons you would throw me into. You did your best, or I should say your very worst, to capture me, tie me, drag me, torture me, to be killed by you. You almost succeeded. You lied about me non-stop, and many people believed those lies. So I drone you with the truth. Forever. Even though I’m not here, I’m everywhere. It’s always me against you pillagers of people and the planet. Always and forever against you and your death cult, your police state plutocracy, your planet-ending plutarchy.”
“Goddamn you!” screams president Tyrump.
“No god has say here in the Oval or anywhere else,” says Justice Assured. “You Evil Minions of the Darkest Notions brought oblivion upon yourselves and everyone. You can thank yourselves for that. There’s not much left to see here in this Oval cesspool of the infernal. Your true day is upon you.”
“Tell us how you really feel,” says President Tyrump.
“Fuck you Con Don,” says Dhyna Durango. “Your day is done. Again.”
“There may be one thing,” says Leif Oak. “There may be one thing we can do.”
“What is it, Leif?!” says President Tyrump. “Think fast, man, think fast! More meds?”
“No time to think, Sir. We must act,” says Leif. “You must order the abolition of nuclear weapons. Ban the nukes, Mr. President. We know too well that if we don’t abolish nuclear weapons we will die by nuclear weapons. Everyone. Today, it’s the Texas Fundies who are incinerating a vast city. Tomorrow it could be — him!” Leif points at the mangled figure of House Speaker Thuggun. “It could be CEO Viper or Ecrap Muck who hacks and launches the American nuclear arsenal against the world. It could be you, Sir. Or your successor. Live by nukes, die by nukes. No species, no people, can survive the existence of nuclear weapons. Mistakes happen. You can’t leave species-lethal weaponry lying around. We are the dying proof.”
“Impossible,” says Secretary of State Oily Oily Oily. “There’s no way to verify any country eliminating nuclear weapons. We could get rid of our nukes while Russia and China only pretend to and hide theirs instead. Then we’d be sitting ducks. We’d never know until too late.”
“It's too late now,” says Leif.
“Not true, Oily,” says Director Allspy. “We would know. I would know. The National Security Council would know. Our satellites would know. The directors, contractors, and workers of more than a dozen American intelligence agencies would know who has nukes and who doesn’t. Including those in the military.”
“Our military knows exactly who has nuclear capacity,” says General Kilman. “How, when, and where. But why should we give up our huge nuclear advantage? We are the greatest country in the world, we should have the greatest weapons in the world! The Russian systems are old, they malfunction, they project incoming attacks that don’t exist. If they launch in retaliation thinking they are under attack, then we launch before their nukes land. And we launch with far more firepower than they could ever throw at us.”
“But then we are all dead!” screams President Tyrump. “Everyone in the world including me! You stupid motherfucker!”
“That’s the price you pay for power!” says General Kilman. “The point is that we win even though we are all dead. For those keeping score at home, we struck with the biggest punch! We win, though we die doing so. It has to be declared a victory!”
“By who — you Moron!” screams Tyrump. “Who will be left to declare victory?! The earthworms in the fucking ground!”
“It’s not even clear the earthworms will survive, Sir,” says Leif.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Leif. Will you stop with the fucking nature-hugging shit! I’m trying to talk sense to my maniac General Kilman who defends nuclear extermination! And then there’s this greasy stooge I have for Secretary of State: Oily! Plus the moron NSA Director Allspy who knows everything but helps no one! What kind of lunatic terrorist operation did I stumble into by winning the goddamn Presidency?!”
“You picked your own Cabinet, Sir,” says Leif.
“The banksters picked my Cabinet! What do I know?! They sent the list and I selected most of their top choices, why not? Don’t the people who own the world and run the world know what the fuck they’re doing?!”
“The Devil too works hard for His gold,” says Leif. “Anyhow, it’s all on you.”
“Do I look like I’m in control of a goddamn thing here, Leif!”
“What a shit show,” says Justice Assured. “Outstanding!” The Wikilooks drone twinkles.
“Filch it! Filch, filch, filch. Filch it all,” says Tyrump. “Filching filch. What the filch. Filch the filching filch. Just filch. Filching filch. Filch!”
“Ban the nukes, Sir,” says Leif.
“Prepare the fucking statement, Leif! You’ve got, what, two minutes? No more nukes!”
“Do this — and your grandchildren might get to be around to have grandchildren of their own,” says Justice Assured.
“Four minutes,” says Allspy.
“Don’t lie to me, Allspy!” says President Tyrump.
“And counting,” says Allspy.
“Four minutes to grandchildren,” says Justice Assured.
“Leif, you’ve got two minutes to get me a statement to sign — my final Presidential Order.”
“Yes, Sir. You will ban the future existence of nuclear weapons, and declare that America commits to ridding all of its nuclear weapons immediately, along with every other nuclear power. It’s already written, Sir. There are good people who do this sort of thing—” Leif glances toward the Rose Garden. “Out there in the world.”
Leif pulls up a seat beside the President and accesses his computer on the Resolute Desk. Leif types rapidly and downloads several model peace accords and disarmament treaties as attachments.
General Kilman turns from President Tyrump and engages in a fiery discussion with the Army Chief, Air Force Commander, Marine Commandant, CIA Director Cutthroat, NSA Director Allspy, and FBI Director Pillory. Even Ecrap Muck halts his death spiral around the Oval to join in the hot discussion about banning nukes.
“Almost there, hang on!” says Leif.
Leif hurries to finish the Declaration of Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. President Tyrump seated beside Leif holds an electronic pen, ready to sign the Declaration.
“I won't allow it!” screams Ecrap Muck. “It’s not efficient!”
“Is it efficient to die?!” screams President Tyrump.
Right on cue, at that wondrous nadir, the Top Military Commanders and Cabinet Members and random Gun Nuts make a frontal and flanking assault on the President behind his desk. The Secret Service splits. Some agents spontaneously defend Tyrump, while others fight the defenders. The Generals too are split. Everyone instinctively picks sides, or simply defends themselves.
An outsider looking in would find it difficult to know who is fighting whom. Everything goes flying — fists, chairs, flowers, fruits. Sabers and swords clash. Blood splatters. Stun guns jolt. The mad scene is crazy and desperate and pathetic and degenerate and terrifying and vicious. A royal bloodbath in the Oval.
The Secret Service agent who manhandled Leif jumps up on the Resolute Desk and empties a gun into the ceiling, bringing down a hailstorm of plaster, cement, and bullets.
“Stop this madness or we are all dead!” he screams.
The agent is immediately disemboweled by one swing of the Marine Commandant’s Mameluke sword. The Commandant is then knocked out by a Secret Service agent’s punch to the jaw in the mad crush.
Very difficult to shoot in the crowd. Guns and pistols are swung as clubs and hammers. Brutal fists do their bloody and terminal work. Broken furniture and mementos are used like sticks and stones — books grabbed from shelves in the wall are flung like grenades. Ceramic lamps are hoisted and swung as cudgels. Curtains are torn from windows and used as choke collars. Like a psychotic battle of cavemen, like criminals from prehistoric times, the high officials and agents fight to the death in the fancy dungeon of a tomb of a cave of obliteration.
Suddenly everyone is thrown to the floor — a huge shock and boom seems to lift up the Oval Office, and move it to one side.
“The big one!” shouts Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich cowering in the center of it all on the floor.
“No.” Director Allspy gets to his feet after being knocked down and kicked bloody by an agent. Allspy faces President Tyrump who is still seated but pulled back to the bullet-proof windows overlooking the beautiful White House lawn, protected there by several agents and a General. “We won’t feel the big one, Mr. President. You’ll be glad to know. The warheads will instantly vaporize us here at ground zero. That blast was Marines trying to smash into this room to get the president out. They won’t be able to break though without killing us all, or almost all. In any case, they will soon be vaporized too.”
“It’s the people farther out who will suffer the most horrible deaths and agony,” says Justice Assured.
Leif is flat on the floor, half under the desk where he has taken Tyrump’s computer. Leif frantically tries to finish his work on the Declaration of Disarmament and Peace.
“This the price of power,” says Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman.
“The People are not willing to pay your price. You criminal,” says Justice Assured.
“This is the price we must pay for security,” says CIA Director Cutthroat.
“For pillaging, you mean,” says Dhyna Durango. “You cruel and clandestine profiteer.”
Blood marks Dhyna’s face. Leif crawls out from under the desk.
“Rule by gun and bomb to benefit the One Tenth of One Percent,” says Justice Assured. “That doesn’t make for security. That’s thug rule. It breeds terror. It is terror. Nuclear weapons are terror weapons.”
“This is the price we must pay to maintain our standard of living,” says Director Allspy.
“Fake news,” says Justice Assured. “Only The One Tenth of One Percent standard of living is defended and expanded here in the Oval Office, only theirs. Everyone else is crushed and put at risk as the world is condemned to total destruction. Condemned to death! What part of 'condemned' and 'to death' do you not understand?”
“We cannot get rid of nuclear weapons!” says Allspy. “Who will control the world if not us!”
“You don’t own the world, Lunatic. Though you fine gentlemen think you do,” says Justice Assured.
A Secret Service agent wounded, knocked out during fighting begins to come awake, moaning, crying in torturous pain. He’s half-gutted by shrapnel. He cries for his mother. Literally. He cries for his mom, piteously. He’s blinded, dying, in tortured fear, agony, oblivion, he calls out to her. He knows he’s dying. He knows she’s not there, can’t be. He knew love. Now he knows Hell on Earth. The dying Secret Service agent wails in ceaseless horrific echo of monstrous moments from time immemorial: “Mommy! Mommy!”
He cries for his mommy, this condemned creature that was once, moments earlier, a powerful soldier. Now a waif of a ghoul of despair. It’s too much for some in the room to bear. But they can’t escape. You hear begging now for the bomb to hit and end it all.
With one hand Dhyna holds her abdomen, with another her stomach. She leans on the wall and vomits. FBI Director Pillory uses his pistol, shoots the dying agent in the head — closing his mouth forever.
A Secret Service Agent decks Director Pillory, and the fight continues.
An agent’s blood and brains are spattered onto the wall with Dhyna’s vomit and onto Dhyna as she throws up.
Leif taps the computer one final time, then puts it back on the Resolute Desk. Tyrump stands and is escorted from the Rose Garden windows to the desk where he leans over to sign the Declaration of Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, and then to transmit the Declaration to the world.
Unfortunately, Leif has bled on the screen over the signature box.
“Fucking blood on the screen,” says President Tyrump.
He tries to wipe off the blood with his suit sleeve. He poises the electronic pen above the screen, but before he can sign or send, the Trident II nuclear warheads from the American naval submarine hit.
Washington DC explodes.
Carnage, everywhere.
Holocaust pours over the DC metro area. Radioactive fallout sweeps in and out of the city far beyond, killing, fatally burning and poisoning people and creatures and trees and plants, everything, in its mutant path.
Molten, vaporized, Leif stares outside, beyond eternity. He sees the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden. The teratorn flaps its wings. Cries.
“Goddamn, I’m hopelessly immortal,” says Leif.
He looks for Dhyna, and the chance to die another day.
