Loop Day - Chapter Two
The Conquest Continues
Previously: In the Oval Office, President Tyrump fixates on news coverage of his insane plan to attack both Texas and Mexico. Showing off with his ancestral Bavarian sword, Tyrump stabs Navajo presidential aide Leif Oak in the back. Leif dies but is reborn into the same day by way of a mysterious time loop of which he is newly aware. An extinct giant teratorn haunts Leif in the Rose Garden. Leif’s lover, White House kitchen aide Dhyna Durango, and only Dhyna, knows about the time loop and warns Leif to stay alive. Leif and Dhyna both want to quit covert work for the socialist Resistance in the White House and go live a new life together as growers in Leif’s high desert home. The time loop thwarts that dream, trapping them in the day — the day the world ends. The loop must be broken to survive the day, to save the world, and to escape the Oval Office — as only Dhyna so far knows — unless another cataclysm and time loop forces the lovers to save the world over and over again without end.
LOOP DAY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
In this partisan thriller novel, two low-level Oval Office aides relive the day of their deaths over and over again, in a doomsday time loop that will end only if they foil the plan to assassinate the President and save the world.
It’s the day after the mysterious bombing of the historic Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
President Tyrump slams his right fist onto the huge map of Texas spread across the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. “Lovebirds! What’s the big cabal?” Tyrump twists in his chair and looks lewdly at Leif and Dhyna who stand by a window overlooking the Rose Garden. “Are we going for some touchy grabby feely time today?”
Dhyna whispers to Leif: “We need to survive the day. The sword. Beware. Stay alive.”
Dhyna pulls away, and Leif scans the dormant hues of the Rose Garden. He searches for the impossible extinct giant teratorn. Nowhere now to be seen.
President Tyrump monitors every step Dhyna takes as she walks from the Oval Office with his empty bottle of diet cola.
At the door, Dhyna pauses and glances back at Leif. Tyrump thinks she has caught him gawking. He stares without remorse. He smiles. Then he realizes that Dhyna’s eyes are for Leif only.
Dhyna disappears into the hall. Tyrump’s smile disappears into the void.
“Love to watch her go, Leif. Can't say I blame you, Old Boy. Stalk her, grab her, go for the throat. I always do. The brain is strong but the flesh is weak. Flesh loves flesh. Flesh loves to live large.”
Tyrump leans back in the chair and pats his barrel belly.
“My goal is to live as many lives as possible, Leif. Big days, big lives, big appetites, big grub. Big consumption — you know, not the dirty word the precious souls make it out to be. Consume all you can, I say. Devour the world. I damn well have. Lucky bastard that I am. Not like you, Leif. You’re a little guy, I’m a big guy, the Big Guy. We all know it. Do you have any goals, Son? Get the girl, then move on, you won’t be sorry. She's a slippery one, I can tell. Girls like her don't always like boys like you and me. They don’t always like boys at all. Be prepared to work your nuts off for that one.”
Leif studies the President. One of his main jobs for the Resistance is to drug President Tyrump into quiescence and inaction at his most manic and unhinged.
“I appreciate the insight, Sir. I'm happy most days just to get by on my own — free of all cares and concerns and commitments. In fact, I’m happy not to think much these days, about most things.”
Leif tries to bullshit with the best of them — to hide in plain sight.
Excellent, my Boy. Don’t think too much! Don’t think at all! Do! That's the philosophy! Especially for someone of your low station and marginal status. We can't all be King. We can't all be me. There can be only One.”
“It must good to be King, Sir.”
“You're goddamn right!” President Tyrump fondles his sword on the map of Texas. “Power breeds power, Son. I breed every day.”
Tyrump hoists a couple of TV remotes and clicks through the news channels on the TVs hung on the opposite wall as if searching for a sense of himself, for his very soul, in two dimensions, remote and electric, digitized and electronic, artificial and alien — Tyrumpist.
Leif looks again for the teratorn in the Rose Garden. He might as well be searching for summer, for the growing season’s carefully coiffed blooms and the few caterpillars and songbirds who seem to show up just to spite the pesticides and insecticides.
Dhyna warned Leif to “Beware the Sword” but he thinks he knows to be aware, both geopolitical and literal. The actual blade of the sword is killer sharp, and as of this morning, everyone can see that President Tyrump is so far gone from reality that he feels free to announce an imminent invasion of Texas and Mexico, as if somehow these lands and peoples must be his by right. As if they are not already domineered by Tyrump and his ilk, by Empire, moneyocracy, capitalism.
The professional classes are afraid: Would Tyrump stop at bombing the cartels and drug labs in Mexico, or would he do what America often does throughout the world, western Asia not least — occupy and infiltrate the whole damn country? Would Tyrump attack Mexican military units that sell guns to the cartels? Would he attack the President of Mexico in Mexico City for not destroying the cartels? Would Tyrump sell off Mexican oil and gas, mines and agricultural lands to the highest bidder, or simply bequeath then to himself?
And why on Earth does Tyrump plan to attack Texas? To destroy its meth labs and marijuana sites? Hell, Tyrump would need to bomb the whole of America, the whole continent, to try to obliterate DIY drugs. And anyhow, Texas was conquered by America two centuries ago.
Beware the sword indeed. Texas is full of military bases. And armed religious zealots and cults. It’s itching to fight back. Mexico too has long felt the red blade of the American Empire at its throat, ready to slash on any given day. Things could go badly for Tyrump and for America. Alamo badly. Like the first time, only with nuclear missiles now. Who can know. Mexico and Texas — both powerful and with even more powerful allies. And Texas is nuclear armed.
But what the fuck can Leif do about it? Despite every mix of medicine at his ready disposal for times of Presidential crisis, Leif Oak, covert resister extraordinaire, he can render tyrant Tyrump comatose for only so long before suspicions arise.
Leif grabs his own neck and cranks it. He presses his other hand against his lower back, office yoga, static exercise supreme for relieving stress — release your fascia, brace your body, flood your brain with endorphins.
Leif tries to think. Should he and Dhyna put in a full day of work today or leave at noon and just hit the road — get to the farm safe and sound cross country where they can begin life anew?
Either way, Leif is thrilled that his world in DC is coming to an end. Dhyna said “Yes” and so tomorrow — tomorrow, Leif thinks — tomorrow will be their great new life, soon to arrive. Dhyna and Leif, free to bathe in the perpetual sun and the cool winds and the warm scent of the evergreen forest in the Chuska mountains high on the Colorado plateau that spans four states and five tribes — Leif’s ancestral home.
Leif holds his yoga pose as if his life depends on it. He thinks back to better times — far from the center of power — far from the squalor and depravity of the Oval Office, far from Tyrump and the belly of the beast of Empire.
New Mexico Route 12. Swift across the sun-brilliant sand-art of the beautiful Navajo Nation, Leif drives north with Dhyna. They cruise in a rental hybrid CUV past stunning red sandstone cliffs and buttes, towering and defiant alive. An otherworldly open-air cathedral. The smooth paved road winds into Arizona then back into New Mexico, and they arrive at the tiny remote town of Navajo. At the front entrance of Navajo Pine High School, Leif embraces a few former Diné teachers. He introduces Dhyna who has traveled so very far from her Atlantic island Caribbean Sea home of Puerto Rico. Here too the sky is ocean-wide, broad and blue. So much light, the land of sand and rock and stubborn green is immense.
Leif and Dhyna enjoy a simple lunch of fry bread, pinto beans, and a big leafy salad outdoors at a picnic table with Dhyna and his parents in the shadow of their small modern ranch house, beside their traditional Navajo hogan, amid the seemingly infinite high desert. Laughter. They may as well be on another planet from Washington DC there amid the hackberry, the saltbush, the willow, the mesquite, and pinyon pine. Piercing sand cuts and blows on what seems to be forever winds. The European invaders-become-Americans, they were only able to take so much from the Diné, and they were finally rejected, as if by the land, in favor of the native inhabitants. It was as if the red rocks themselves held out against those who might take over until the Diné could better fight back. As they must still fight today.
Dhyna and Leif walk through a greenhouse full of garden implements and a mere few plants. Leif rearranges hoses, tools, pots, trays, a wheelbarrow. The neglected bare framework of three hoop houses sprawls nearby. A lot of work is needed. Good work.
The lovers ramble amid the red sandstone rocks and cliffs and spires of the mighty and incredibly majestic Canyon de Chelly. A thousand feet up from the valley floor, beyond the sheer rock rim of the vast and final redoubt of the Diné during the wars against the American army, Leif and Dhyna join in the centuries-long tradition of picking pinyon pines, among other families of Diné.
Leif shows Dhyna his favorite places. They hike the sand drifts and dunes and the rock flows of Red Rock Park and the streambeds and lively stands of emerald conifers in the Chuska mountains, amazingly evergreen in such a rocky and sun-burned land. Pines, firs, spruces, junipers — each more hardy and impressive than the other.
They visit the Navajo Nation Zoo in Window Rock Arizona full of injured and orphaned creatures large and small. It’s here that Dhyna points to a giant bird, circling high in sky. She asks Leif what kind it is. No idea at the time, but eventually, back in DC, Leif would think of the giant teratorn and wonder how long it might have watched them.
Leif shows Dhyna too the distressed and industrial rural areas in and around the Navajo Nation, the impoverished homes and grounds, abandoned warehouses, Earth-killing active coal mines, and the uranium mine tailing burial pits and mounds.
They drive along the city of Gallup’s desert municipal golf course, over railroad tracks, through a dusty worn neighborhood, and into downtown historic Gallup, past stores and restaurants. In a shop selling Navajo jewelry and pottery, Leif buys Dhyna a silver and turquoise necklace, and Dhyna buys Leif a glazed ceramic spirit bear.
Stepping outside onto old Route 66, the lovers laugh, hug, and kiss. Dhyna’s family has spread out in all directions from their native Puerto Rico, living now in Florida, Pennsylvania, and New York. So why not New Mexico, Arizona, the Navajo Nation? Leif uses his phone to record Dhyna’s exploration of historic El Rancho hotel and many other features along Route 66, in front of vintage signs and native murals, in jewelry shops, and at native art supply and trading company stores, by the dance grounds, and in the bars.
Leif feels he can almost forget to live this strange day in the Oval Office. He feels half gone to his next life, his real life, far from any desperate role in the White House trying to tame a lunatic on behalf of the Resistance that failed to stop Con Don’s rise to power, and failed to bring their own leaders into office — against heavy odds. Leif and Dhyna need a break. They feel too sick to continue, too ineffectual in their covert roles, too appalled by what they hear and see and work through. They feel too powerless to do anything but endure the White House. They feel, like the great Jamaican-American poet and novelist Claude McKay, “sharp as steel with discontent.” They want out.
Unfortunately for Dhyna and Leif, the mighty teratorn that haunts the day in the Rose Garden seems to have a fixed idea about whether or not they may go. Dhyna and Leif freely came and went until the teratorn appeared, to Dhyna alone. Previously, the day had never reset but now it always does, for Dhyna. And so she researched why the giant teratorn — Argentavis magnificens — went extinct.
Climate Collapse.
Great. A sign of the times. Come alive. To haunt her.
It’s entirely unfair. What did Dhyna ever do to create the dire problems of the world. Why must it be up to her to fix them? Why is it that the rich white people who own the country and much of the world cannot end white Empire? Why is it that with all their wealth and resources, they won’t? And how can Dhyna and Leif do a damn thing about it?
“Leif, stand where I can see you!” Tyrump bellows.
Leif moves from the windows to the front of the President’s desk.
“When I take Texas, Leif, I’ll roll tanks right up to Dhyna’s doorstep — just for you, Old Boy,” says Tyrump. “Then you can have all the cabal time you want with that Dhyna girl.”
“Dhyna’s Puerto Rican, Sir. Tanks won’t do it. Lot of space between Puerto Rico and Texas.”
“Puerto Rican, Mexican, Texican — you’re all brown and you know it. And I own space, I assure you. ”
“Sir, if you order an invasion of Texas, you will be arrested and imprisoned.”
“Impossible! I own the police and the prisons!”
Tyrump pounds the huge map of Texas with his first. He strokes his right hand along the long blade of his family’s ancestral Bavarian sword. He rubs his fingers together in the manner of making money.
“Texas owes me its stinkin’ oil. Mexico owes me a border wall. America backs me, Leif. The military will give the media a big show. They love that shit.”
“Attack Texas and it will be civil war, Sir. Or worse. World War III — the Final War.”
“Anything for the Evangelicals, Leif! Gullible suckers! Anyone who believes in fake Gods will believe anything at all. War! Death! Dismemberment! Bankers need to bank. I’m with them and they’re with me.”
President Tyrump uses his well-fed fingers to trace invasion routes across the map of Texas. He positions toy soldier figurines and toy fighter planes and tanks at key points, geographic and military. He moves toy subs through the Gulf of Mexico.
“Sir, you’ve seen the snap polls this morning—”
“Fuck the polls! I could go down the hall and decapitate my Vice President — he deserves it! — and be glorified for ridding the country of a fool. Don’t be so charmless, Leif. Crazy is the New Normal!”
“The Old Normal, Sir, that was pretty crazy too.”
Tyrump pounds the map again with his fist. “Who will stop me, Leif?”
“Only Congress can declare war, Mr. President.”
“There’s no war! I’m simply bringing Texas deeper into the family. Like Russia with Ukraine. A clash of kin! A neighborly squabble. I might rename the place, Tyrumpas! How do you like it? Mexico — we adopt. Or dissolve. I should rename that sad little land too. How do you like — Texico! Tyrumpas and Texico! I’m simply clearing the prairie, Leif — like Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.”
“Sir—”
President Tryump taps the sword with his fingers. “You’re Navajo, right? Then you know what it means to be forced to adapt to changing circumstances throughout the course of time. Up from the dirt of history, Leif! Onward!”
“Sir, America already owns Texas. For a few years now. And America basically controls the Mexican economy — and always has.”
Tyrump shakes a tiny toy fighter plane in Leif’s face.
“Mexico got greedy, Young Man. Couldn’t keep its hands off the Alamo after all these years. How dare they bomb us again! Took them two centuries but they finally got around to it. I’ll make Mexico pay. And while I’m at it I’ll teach Texas who’s boss too.”
“Mexico would never bomb the Alamo, Sir. Not today. It must be — there must be some other explanation. A false flag attack. Some rogue element at home or abroad. Could be.”
“Tell it to Davy Crockett! Jim Bowie! Ask every other martyr of the Alamo what Mexico will and won’t bomb. Don’t be a dumbass, Leif! Don’t make me tweet it!”
Tyrump flings the toy plane across the Oval Office. It breaks against a portrait of Tyrump on the wall.
“Sometimes, you need to bomb what you own, Leif.”
“Sir, you admit then—”
“Nothing! I admit nothing and never will, not even to my idiot pack of lawyers! Speak plainly, Leif. Do you blame the CIA? FBI? NSA? QED? False flag, bullshit! How dare you! If not Texas and Mexico — where else can I aim my Empire? The Rust Belt is rusted out. The Atlantic Seaboard is sinking. Mar-y-Laguna is drowning. The glaciers are melting. Who knew?! The Pacific Coast is doomed, the interior torched. The Rocky Mountains are too mountainous. The Great Plains a desert. The South will never rise again. Never. That’s not for public consumption, Leif. Canada is still so fucking cold, and the rest of the world is too goddamn far away for me to make a new home away from home, where I can be safe — from wind, water, fire, and liberal media. I’m down to Mexico, Leif. My new sanctuary. And Texas. I take only what I need. What I’m owed.”
General Kilman strides into the Oval Office, slamming the door on a group of Cabinet members gathered in the hall.
“Here come the cops, Leif! Hands up!” shouts Tyrump.
Leif turns to face the striding General. Tyrump grabs his sword from the desk with both hands and tries to point it at General Kilman. Leif’s back is at the tip of the sword. Kilman can’t see the sword.
President Tyrump shouts: “Charge!”
“Leif, my man!” says General Kilman.
Tyrump sweeps the heavy sword up toward Kilman but struggles with its weight and falls forward as Kilman pops Leif on his shoulders. A sickening sound — Tyrump and Kilman accidentally run Leif through with the sword.
“Christ!” says Tyrump.
“Shit!” says General Kilman.
“My meds! My med man,” says Tyrump.
General Kilman grabs Leif by the arms, lifts him off the sword as Tyrump pulls back, falls into his chair, and drops the bloody sword on the map of Texas.
Leif staggers to wall, collapses to floor. Gasping.
“That guy supplies my meds!” says Tyrump.
“Medic!” shouts General Kilman.
Leif vomits blood, dies.
Leif stares at the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden. The teratorn spreads its wings.
Hands to belly, Leif checks his guts. And now he remembers the day for the first time.
He remembers his own death.
How is that possible? “Impossible,” he says to the teratorn. The teratorn thunders its wings and stomps the ground.
At the Resolute Desk, President Tyrump fondles his sword and simultaneously admires and glares at a clip of his most recent interview on TV.
Leif turns toward the President. “Did I get the sword down off the wall for you this morning, Sir?”
“No, it leaped by itself, Leif. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
A Wolfe News Moderator reports the shocking news of the day: “After last night’s mysterious bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”
“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif!” shouts Tyrump.
Leif checks his phone — the date, and time. It’s the same day and nearly the same time as the day and time he was killed by sword. “Soon, Sir.”
Leif looks outside again for the teratorn. It’s nowhere to be seen.
Leif whispers to himself: “Fucking daymare.”
“Leif, did my Chief of Staff die?”
“It’s just you, Sir.”
“That’s good.”
Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach with his diet cola, napkin, and straw. Right on time. He fixates on her shape.
“Mr. President, your diet cola,” says Dhyna.
Dhyna sets the cola on the desk. Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.
“To my great and glorious day,” he says.
The President drinks and watches himself on TV.
On her way out, Dhyna circles over to Leif.
“He’s going to kill you. Beware the sword.”
Leif grabs Dhyna’s arm.
“He killed me yesterday!”
The world shifts into slow motion. Dhyna looks at Leif in disbelief. “He did?”
“Fucking stabbed me in the guts. From behind.”
Dhyna is no longer alone. She can hardly believe it. Leif remembers the day now — the endless, terrible, final day that Dhyna and Dhyna alone has been reliving over and over and over.
“You’re in the loop now.”
“What loop? I saw a giant teratorn. An extinct bird. I must be losing my mind,” says Leif.
Dhyna throws her arms around Leif. “It’s only you and me.”
Leif is baffled by her passion. They always play it cool in the White House when they are near each other, let alone in the Oval Office.
“I love you too,” he says. “How can a teratorn be extinct and in my face. And what fucking loop? What’s happening?”
“It’s life now. I tried,” says Dhyna. “I tried everything. I couldn’t get out of it. I can’t. We’re stuck. Everyone. And it’s been so fucking long. And here you are, now, finally. Oh, Leif, it’s terrible.”
“I’m right here, Dhyna. We’re both right here. It’s okay. We can leave soon. Today. What are you talking about?”
“No, we can’t. You don’t get it. I tried to feed the teratorn from the kitchen. It dissolves.”
“You’ve seen it too? It can’t be a teratorn.”
“Goddamn it!” Trump curses the TV. He pops the map of Texas with his first. “They ask me the stupidest questions. And I give such magnificent answers!”
Dhyna speaks quickly. “Stay away from the sword, Leif! If you need to reset the day, just die. Don’t trust anyone at any time. Don’t—”
“Reset the day? Die? What are you talking about—”
“Reset the day, Lief. If you need to. Die. Die again. There’s always tomorrow — which is today.”
“Hey, Lovebirds!” says Tyrump. “What’s the big cabal?”
President Tyrump turns around and looks at Leif and Dhyna lewdly.
Dhyna flatters the President with her smile.
“He’s bird watching, Sir. Let me put that sword away for you,” she says. “Let me clear it from your desk. It’s going to be a big day.”
Dhyna reaches for the President’s sword.
“How dare you! This day is all about my big sword, Dhyna!” President Tyrump grabs the sword and stands with it, angry, screaming. “Goddamn it, no fucking cabals in my Oval Office! You can have my sword when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!”
President Tyrump swings the sword at Leif.
“Leif!” Dhyna screams and grabs Leif, trips him so that he falls beneath her. The sword misses Leif but shears off Dhyna’s head. Half her skull is completely severed. Her long black hair with part of her cranium separates and flies to the floor like a bloody Frisbee with a mane.
“No! No! No!” shouts Leif.
President Tyrump hoists the sword again. Leif reacts in time to shove Tyrump into the wall by the windows. Leif wrestles the sword into his own grip. He holds it against the President’s neck but Tyrump grabs the hilt and blade and looms over him, bearing down with his massive bulk. Secret Service agents rush in.
“He killed her!” screams President Tyrump. “Fucking chopped her head off!”
“Drop the sword! Drop it! Drop it!” The Secret Service agents shout and form a semi-circular wall, guns drawn.
“Fuck,” says Leif.
“Drop it! Drop it!”
Leif looks down at the limp and decapitated body of Dhyna. He begins to dissociate. ‘Reset the day,’ she said. What could she possibly mean? Could she possibly mean — Reset the day?
“Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!” The Secret Service agents angle for a clear shot to spare and save the President. Leif keeps the sword and the President close to him, between the agents, as full body shield.
“A scalp for a scalp,” says Leif. “Like old times.”
Leif steps back behind Tyrump, swings the sword, and shears off the President’s head.
An explosion of bullets blasts Leif into the wall.
The day resets.
Exactly as Dhyna said it would.
Leif stares out the window at the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden.
“I should be extinct myself.”
The teratorn hisses. Then shakes its head.
“Not yet?”
Hands to face and chest, Leif checks his body.
At the Resolute Desk, President Tyrump admires himself on the TV news. He fondles his ancestral Bavarian sword where it lies on a huge map of Texas.
Wolfe News Moderator: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”
“Is the goddamn Cabinet ready, Leif!”
“Getting there, Sir.”
“Leif, did my Chief of Staff die?”
“He’s long gone, Mr. President.”
“Good. I moved on too.”
Leif can hardly believe he was stabbed through the guts and died yesterday — and the day before — somehow both the same day as today. Makes no sense but there is no possible way to disbelieve. No time to doubt what he perceives, and no real space to get away. Not in the moment, at least.
President Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach with his diet cola. He fixates on her shape. This time, Dhyna gazes at Leif.
She addresses the President: “Mr. President, your diet cola.”
Dhyna sets the cola on the desk. Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.
“To my great and glorious day.”
Dhyna circles toward Leif. “You still with me?”
“I’m born again.”
“Kitchenette. Meet me there.”
“Let’s leave, Dhyna. This whole town. Not later. Today. Right now.”
“We can’t. Not yet.”
“Why kill ourselves here?”
“You have no idea.”
Dhyna thinks back.
She dodges between the white sandstone pillars of the North Portico and runs down the steps where she is shot and killed on the driveway by multiple Secret Service Agents.
Dhyna leaps from a White House window, and is gunned down on the East Lawn. She gets up and staggers to the black wrought iron fence, grabs the bars, pulls herself up and is shot dead on the fence.
Dhyna runs out from a bush and makes it halfway to the fountains in the South Lawn, where she tackled by security and choked out.
Dhyna runs from police along West Executive Avenue where she hides behind an elm tree. She tries to beat an oncoming delivery van across the street, trips, and is run over.
Dhyna sits handcuffed in the back seat of a police car looking out through a window at the lovely puffball clouds above the Potomac. And then the brutal flash of a nuclear blast obliterates all.
Dhyna tells Leif.
He stares into the the winter green boxwood and false holly bushes, the brightest spots of life in the Rose Garden during winter.
“A nuclear blast? You’re serious?” he says.
“It’s our fate now, Leif. Live, die, repeat. I mean we’ve been doing this ever since Columbus, in white Empire, right? 500 years of Conquest. More than that. The Conquest continues.”
“Welcome to the Rez.”
“Except now we do it all in one day. Today is the day we can’t escape. I’ve tried so many times.”
“Lovebirds! What’s the big cabal?”
President Tyrump looks at them lewdly.
Dhyna whispers, “Kitchenette.”
Tyrump watches Dhyna walk out of the Oval Office.
“Love to watch her go, Leif. Love to watch her go. Get your sorry ass over here. Stand where I can see you.”
Leif moves cautiously to a side of the desk.
“Here! Stand here! You’re on the clock, Leif.” Tyrump points to the desk front. Leif is forced to move. “When I take Texas, I’ll roll tanks right up to Dhyna’s doorstep. Then you can have all the cabal time you want.”
“That would be great, Sir.”
Tyrump pounds the map of Texas with both fists.
“It’s destiny! Manifest!”
“You’re serious then, Mr. President.”
“Plague serious, My Boy.” Tyrump gestures happily to the tiny figurines of soldiers, fighter jets, and tanks spread all around the map.
“The people of Texas and Mexico have enough problems, Sir. Living in economies wrecked by NAFTA. White Empire, they call it. NAFTA was great for wealthy investors but killer for workers on both sides of the border. The North American Free Trade Agreement gutted—”
“The illegals are conquistadors, Leif! They are trying to conquer my homeland! These alien outlaws would get rid of NAFTA and waste my money on themselves! It would be a tragedy, a crime against humanity! Against my planet! Against my way of life! Against my children. Why do you think the illegals take care of my children in my homes?”
“To survive, Sir.”
“To brainwash! That’s the invasion right there! The invasion of the mind snatchers! The invasion stops now! We need white people working these crap jobs, Leif. Not brown people. We seal off the border, take Texas to save it, keep America American! White makes right — makes might — makes — whatever. You know it’s true. History is ours, not theirs.”
“I’m not white, Sir. ”
“You’re not in charge, Leif! You are under my command and control! I get to make History because it’s mine by right! I’m white! And rich! I own you! Give it up, Leif. You’re no Press Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat! You’re merely my personal bottle aide! Your job is to get me my special nasal inhalers when I must have them! I don’t need you to stand there and dissect policy willy-nilly! Any fool can do that! You’ve seen my Cabinet! I need you to monitor my daily nasal inhaler needs. Nothing more!”
“I apologize, Sir. I don’t know why I was thinking.”
“Don’t make me fire you, Leif! You only just got on this show. No thinking allowed! It’s bad for the digestion. My digestion for sure. Not what it used to be.”
“Sir, your special medicine, it’s free health care. Other countries do it. Saves money. Helps so many. Pushes costs way down. People live better, longer.”
“Fuck the people, Leif! This isn’t a place for people! I’m a businessman, did you forget! The business of business is business! People have no business interfering in business! Who do you think you are talking to, right now? I’m in the trillionaire business! I’m the one who fokkks! I own the USA! I own the whole filching world!”
Tyrump slaps his hands on the map of Texas and crumples the paper in his grip. The martial figurines go flying.
“Shit!”
President Tyrump attempts to smooth the map back into position. He salvages a few tanks and planes.
“Sir, of course, Sir.” Leif picks up the play weapons and puts them back on the desk. “People like you own it all. Fifty percent of corporate wealth in the world is American. You buy almost all the politicians, but if politicians get free health care, why can’t—”
President Tyrump slaps the map of Texas like a drum to drown out Leif.
“There’s no money, Leif! You know my Cabinet. They’re billionaires, or soon to be! The majority of Congress — millionaires. That’s where the money goes. That’s where the money belongs. You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in. Do you think I’m your friend?”
“You’re my boss, Sir.”
“Boss is Dutch for ‘master’. Got it, Leif? Don’t forget. And ‘Sir’ means ‘Sire’ means ‘Master’ too! And I own you! Have you lost all respect for the Incorporated Estates of America?! This is my country, not yours!”
President Tyrump picks up his phone.
“I’m telling Twitter all about your sorry ass.”
President Tyrump tweets:
“MY LIPPY AID LEIF IS DUMB-DUMB A DUMBASS. BUT HE SERVES GOOD. FOR NOW.”
Tyrump shows the tweet to Leif.
“I have four billion followers. The most on the planet. Now they know exactly who you are, Leif. Thank me later. Say my name.”
“Sir?”
“Say my name.”
“You are President Tyrump, Sir.”
“Say it!”
“President Tyrump! The President of the United States of America and the Incorporated Estates of Earth!”
“You’re goddamn right I am.”
Leif puts his fingers to his forehead.
General Kilman bursts into the Oval Office slamming the door on a group of Cabinet officials gathered in the hall.
“Here come the cops! Leif! Hands up! ”
Leif turns to face the striding General. Stressed, forgetful, Leif begins to raise his hands.
Tyrump grabs the sword with both hands, tries to hoist it toward Kilman. Again, Leif’s back is at the tip of the sword.
“Charge!”
“Leif, my man!”
Leif remembers. As General Kilman moves to pop him on the shoulders, Leif brushes off Kilman and steps to the side. Kilman and Tyrump lose their balance. Kilman is run through by the sword. He screams.
“Jesus Christ, Donbo!”
“Oh, Hell,” says Tyrump.
President Tyrump rips the sword out of General Kilman and holds it up bloody and menacing.
Horrified, in shock, Leif takes out his phone to dial 911.
“No pictures! No pictures!” shouts Tyrump.
“Medic! Medic!” says General Kilman grabbing for the Resolute Desk. Kilman slips off the desk, thumps onto the floor.
Secret Service agents rush in. Tyrump points the bloody sword at Leif.
“The brown guy killed General Kilman!”
The agents point their guns at Leif.
“Drop it! Drop it!”
Leif stands back against the wall, arms up, phone in hand.
“Don’t shoot. Don’t you fucking shoot.”
Leif is eviscerated by bullets and splattered onto the wall. He slides to the floor.
Screams echo in the adjacent office as bullets rip through, wounding and killing other White House workers. “Stop firing! You killed her! Stop firing!” Wailing.
In the Oval Office, Leif dies.
The teratorn in the Rose Garden cocks its head at Leif as if disappointed. Then it hisses and spreads its wings, stretching tall.
“It wasn’t my fault,” says Leif to the extinct bird.
The teratorn throws its wings down to its side, blowing up dead grass and leaves.
“White fucking Empire,” says Leif.
Hands to chest, he checks his body.
“Shit. All here.”
The teratorn folds its wings in fierce alignment, then spits at Leif, who steps back from the window.
At the Resolute Desk, Tyrump admires himself on the news. Fondles his sword.
Wolfe News Moderator: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”
“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it!”
“I’ll go check, Sir.”
“Hold it! You stay right where you are. Did my pushy little Chief of Staff die?”
“He’s six feet under, Sir.”
“Too pushy for his own good. You’re not pushy are you, Leif.”
“No, Sir.”
“Don’t think, Leif. ”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach with the diet cola. She looks pissed. Tyrump fixates on her shape.
“Mr. President, your diet cola.”
Dhyna sets the cola on the Resolute Desk. President Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.
“To my great and glorious day.”
He drinks deep, then watches himself on the news. Dhyna circles toward Leif.
“What happened?” she says. “This time.”
“We need to get out of here.”
“Goddamn it, Leif. You die, we lose. You live, we win. Simple.”
“His ancestral Bavarian sword — it’s cursed.”
“Will you stop fucking up, Leif? Bavaria was Nazi Ground Zero. And that sword is here now. So wake up to it.”
“The teratorn. It’s angry. It’s prehistoric. It seems to think I owe it something.”
“The demands of the dead, Leif. Sign of the fucking times. We change the day or we go prehistoric ourselves.”
“Post-historic.”
“Same fucking difference. Nuclear bombs hit DC on the days we survive the President’s sword, okay? Nuclear bombs.”
“That can’t be.”
“Oh, I lived it — I mean, died it. We need to stop the nukes to survive the day. To end this terminal day. To live. To save the fucking world, really.”
“How?”
“Don’t go nuclear. There’s more to know, Leif. Get to the kitchenette. We’ll talk. Baby steps. I can’t do this without you. And you’re dead without me. We all are.”
“Lovebirds! What’s the big cabal?”
President Tyrump looks at them lewdly.
Dhyna says quietly to Leif, “Stop getting killed.” To President Tyrump: “He’s bird watching again, Mr. President. You need to keep an eye on this guy.”
President Tyrump smirks as if no truer words were spoken. “Leif is dumb,” he says. “Not like me.” Then he turns back to the TV. “But he’s got good meds.”
“Goddamn it,” Dhyna says to Leif.
As she exits the Oval Office, President Tyrump nods and watches her go.
“This day is all about my big sword, Leif.”
Leif looks around the Rose Garden. The teratorn is gone.
“Get over here. Stand where I can see you.”
Leif walks to the front of the desk. Tyrump pounds the map of Texas.
“Who will stop criminal border crossers, Leif? Who will stop the illegals? I will.”
“You mean the American forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria—” Leif begins to wonder if he can get himself kicked out of the Oval Office and White House today.
“That’s crazy talk, Leif. The border crossers are Evil! Migrants! When I liberate Texas, the Mexican President will beg me to hug her close, whether she wants to or not. And then we put all the Mexicans back where they belong.”
“Where’s that, Sir?”
“South of the border!”
“Sir, millions of immigrants have lived in Texas and the rest of this country for years and decades, working, paying taxes — sales taxes, gas taxes, user fees, this fee, that fee — while raising families. Hell, millions pay into social security and can’t collect. Even though they’re already home. How do you deport people from their own home? They make you money. They pay the government. And you know what they say, Sir, they didn’t cross the border. The border crossed them.”
“Fuck philosophy, Leif! I need the white vote. I’m here because white people are spooked by brown people. I’m their Uncle Whitey. You try to make the illegals sound like white people. Not helping!”
“It’s just that when you’re home, Sir, you’re home.”
“Home is where the white people are! You make white people sound brown and brown people sound white! ”
“I didn’t mention color, Sir.”
“You don’t have to say it to say it! We all know what things mean. You need to get right with me and Press Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. He always clarifies things wonderfully. You need to get right with Bullshat, Leif.”
President Tyrump takes the TV remote and flips through the channels until he finds the one he wants. There front and center is Press Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat answering questions from reporters, beginning with Mareka Might of DareYou News, who stands tall.
Mareka Might: “Mr. Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat, all of us at DareYou News wonder how and why the administration decided to invade Texas and Mexico so quickly the morning after the bombing of the Alamo. There’s no proof who did it. We doubt it was Texas.”
“None of that is true,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. “Every single word is fake, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ There’s no less distance in this world between Mexico, Texas, and the Alamo than there is between a murderer and his gun. Don’t deny it.”
Mareka Might: “Mr. Bullshat, where’s the evidence that either Texas or Mexico bombed the Alamo?”
“Read history! Everyone knows Mexico attacked—”
“I mean this century.”
“It’s classified.”
“By all evidence the evidence is non-existent.”
“The proof exists. How could it be classified and not exist?”
“Mr. Bullshat, do you believe that the State has the right to lie to the People?”
“Am I under oath?”
“You should be.”
“Who’s next?”
A reporter seated nearby from Clapback News raises her arm and stands: “Mareka can ask all my questions.” She remains standing.
A male reporter from John Doe News gets up too: “And mine.”
Several corporate reporters from legacy media shout: “Sit down! Sit down!”
“There are facts and then there are alternative facts — not to mention alternate facts. You choose yours,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. “We are free to choose ours. Freedom is in the facts.”
“Under oath, if you lie, you go to prison. With your alternative facts.”
“Depends on the judge,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat.
“You mean the level of corruption.”
“That’s your word for it.”
“What’s your word for it?” says Mareka Might. “‘Fascism’? Tyranny?”
“I don’t speak Italian,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat.
“I’ll help. Fascism is Italian for ‘Police State’. Home grown tyranny. Violence. Racism. Big Money and Big Guns. All as one.”
“And one for all,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. “What are you, a Professor?”
“A simple scribe.”
“Exactly. The world is complex, and your views are not.”
“My words are truthful, and your words are bullshit.”
Leif nods at the scene on TV. “Mr. Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat has an incredible way with words, Sir.”
“I could listen to him all day, as he listens to me,” says President Tyrump. “The important thing to remember, Leif, is that in our great system—”
“Which some would say is even more efficient than a Police State—”
“—everyone is a suspect until proven innocent. Everyone except me. These are outlaw Mexicans, Texicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans — who knows where they come from! These are world-class criminals, right on top of us! And we know what color they are! These are violent thug racists! They are nothing like us! Abusers of women! Sneaky law breakers! Greedy grabbers! Butchers! I look in the mirror, Leif, and I expect to see them crawling up behind me!”
The door to the Oval Office cracks opens and several white male Cabinet members clamor to be let in, practically crawling through the doorframe, as General Kilman slams the door on the mob and strides in.
“Here come the cops!” says President Tyrump. “Leif! Hands up! ”
This time Leif moves all the way to the wall.
Tyrump stands, grabs his sword with both hands as if it were part of his body. He points it at Kilman.
“Charge!” shouts President Tyrump.
General Kilman unclips his dress saber. “En garde!”
General Kilman slaps aside President Tyrump’s drooping sword. Then they face off again, newly invigorated, sword and saber.
“Mr. President, you’ve got our allies, the Texas Fundies and the Texas Secessionists, up in arms against us! Real arms. Real militias. They’re going crazy. Marching and circling. You threatened them.”
“Relax, Kilman. It’s the illegals I’m after. They will pay. In Texas and Mexico both.”
Tyrump jabs with his sword as news clips on multiple TVs cover the impending invasions of Texas and Mexico. Leif dares to retrieve the remote from the President’s desk and amps up the volume.
“Experts agree,” says a Wolfe News Moderator, “war on Texas and Mexico would be a disaster for people, land, and climate, further destroying hope of a livable future. One expert says the lucky ones will be those who die soonest.”
“Get me Secretary Bullshat!” shouts President Tyrump.
“Mr. President, Sir,” says General Kilman. “Mexico is for tequila. Margaritas. Mamacitas. Make vacations, Sir, not war.”
“Remember the Alamo!” screams President Tyrump. “You and the military will do as I say! The CIA could take Texas and Mexico in its sleep, but I’ll use you and the military instead, Kilman. More colorful that way, better highlights and bigger replays, great slow mos. My military will put on a grand performance. A glorious revolution. Anyone stands in the way, it’s their own fault. They know we’re coming. I told them.”
“It would be genocide,” says Leif. “Attacking people in their own home. Slaughtering them and driving them out.”
“That’s their problem,” says President Tyrump. “It’s Manifest Destiny. That’s what it is. That’s who we are. Home sweet home. Land of the free. Home of the brave. The brave, Leif, not the Braves.”
President Tyrump sets down his sword and relaxes in his seat behind the Resolute Desk. He slurps his diet cola through a straw.
“Mr. President, I object!” says General Kilman.
“Fuck you, Kilman! You obey!”
General Kilman raises his saber high and slams it point down into Tyrump’s desk. He releases it to stand upright.
“Sir, you cannot invade Texas or Mexico. We conquered those lands long ago.”
“Fuck, invade!” says Tyrump. “We don’t use that language in front of other people, General. We are not invading Texas and Mexico. We are saving Mexico. Freeing Mexico. Liberating Mexico. Defending ourselves. Reclaiming Mexico. Texas too. Texas first!”
Leif steps forward: “Mr. President, what if Texas and Mexico fight back? They’re armed to the teeth. Texas especially.”
“This guy is hilarious, General. You see why I keep him around. Leif, you remember the Alamo, I’m sure.”
“Not firsthand.”
“Texas got crushed. Losers. Big time. The Alamo is now a gift shop, okay? Texas and Mexico will be my gifts to myself. I will make Mexico great again for the first time. I’m calling it, Texico. Texico, America’s newest gift shop. It’s mine to own and to operate. Texico and Tyrumpas.”
Leif moves closer to General Kilman as if to align.
“People say, Sir, that they have every right to resist and—”
“Fuck the people, Leif! People are stupid. People want things like free health care and education, jobs, wages, houses, clothes, food. Green space. Good weather. It makes no sense. No one owes the people anything. The people owe me. I’m the President.”
“Where are you from, kid?” says General Kilman to Leif.
“The Navajo Nation.”
“He’s as Mexican as Speedy Gonzales, General. Look at him,” says Tyrump.
Suddenly a disembodied voice resounds through the Oval Office: “He’s going to kill you.”
Leif looks wildly around. The Oval Office walls, ceiling, and floor transform into raging video screens depicting endless apocalypse.
Leif sees skeletons. Burnt flesh. Blood oozing from TVs and computer screens. And his phone. He sees brains dripping from skulls broken and hung on the ceiling. He sees a planet ripped in half by fires, floods, fear, terror, and bombs. He sees collapse, starvation, disease, despair, bullets, missiles, nuclear explosions. Viral outbreaks. Refugees. Noah’s ark in flames on churning seas. A burning moonscape of Earth.
Leif sees his own skeleton glide into the room. It moves toward him. The skeleton grins. Its bones glow gold.
“I’ll get your meds, Mr. President. It’s time. Past time.”
“Leave Texas to the Texans and Mexico to the Mexicans,” says General Kilman. “Just this once, Sir.”
“We never fucking have!”
Leif moves to the side of the Resolute Desk to unlock the President’s medicine form the special compartment.
“Leif, stay where you are!”
President Tyrump heaves out of his seat, picks up his ancestral Bavarian sword, then spikes it into the Resolute Desk beside General Kilman’s saber.
“Call the Generals, General! Get them the fuck in here right goddamn now!”
Military commanders burst into the Oval Office, followed by all other Cabinet members, including the Vice President, flanked by Secret Service Officers, along with the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
“Here come the cops!” shouts President Tyrump. “Leif! Hands up!”
General Kilman faces the onrushing officials. Tyrump grabs his sword and points it forward behind Kilman’s back.
“Charge!” screams Tyrump.
“Watch out, General!” says Leif.
Leif tries to push Kilman away from the sword. Surprised, indignant, General Kilman grabs Leif and throws him against the desk. Leif is shoved again onto the tip of President Tyrump’s ancestral Bavarian sword and run through.
“Shit!” says General Kilman.
“My meds! My med man!” says President Tyrump.
Two officers grab Leif and pull him off the sword. Leif staggers. A Secret Service agent tasers him to the floor. Leif gasps for breath, crumpled.
“That guy supplies my meds!” says President Tyrump.
The leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines ignore Leif and confront Tyrump, who keeps a tight grip on his bloody sword.
The Army Chief of Staff steps forward: “Mr. President, as your Army Chief, I ask you respectfully to reconsider. My wife’s family is from Texas and Mexico both.”
“Silence!” says Tyrump.
“Her family would disown me if we invade,” says the Army Chief.
“Shut up!” says Tyrump.
“Mexico is full of crooks and rocks, nasty stuff,” says the Army Chief. “Not at all like our great land. We don’t know what we’re getting into down there. Rogue viruses. Unlawful aliens. Javelinas.”
President Tyrump grabs the Army Chief’s cap, flings it. The cap skims off a sculpture of Tyrump and hits a poster of Tyrump by a portrait of Tyrump near other images of Tyrump.
“What I say goes, General. Have you no shame? Is there no justice? Are you insane? Who will save the White men?” says President Tyrump.
The Air Force Commander elbows the Army Chief.
“As the Commander of the Air Force, Mr. President, I vow to save the White House! I side with you, my President!”
The Air Force Commander punches the Army Chief.
The Navy Admiral attempts to restrain the Air Force Commander but is tackled by the Marine Commandant.
Non-uniformed members of the Cabinet push, shove, recoil.
Secret Service officers join the armed melee. The ensuing brawl leaves every leader of the military lying on the floor.
And then the Chief Executing Officer of Goldun Sichos investment bank enters the room flanked by the Treasury Secretary and the National Security Agency Director. Numerous other bank and corporate officials crowd in. A belligerent and repugnant CEO bulls forward.
“Mr. President,” says CEO Tweetie Trype Twit, “your great Secretary of the Treasury, Deadly Dollar Dealer and your equally great Director of the National Security Agency, Allsee Allhear Allspy are here with the Chief Executing Officer of Golden Sichos investment bank, Mr. Pittance Viper. Mr. Viper speaks for the nation, Sir.”
Pittance Viper glares at the military heads sprawled on the floor. “Get up, Boys.”
The military directors stand and salute Pittance Viper, who does not return their salute.
The Army Chief picks up his teeth from the floor, and pockets them.
“Mr. President,” says Pittance Viper. “Please, proceed. You call the shots as you see fit, as we selected you to do. These good men will bother you no more.” Pittance Viper inspects the military heads with a flat flick of his eyes. “They will do as you say. You have the support of the entire country. And world.”
“Mi casa, su casa, Pittance,” says President Tyrump. “My mansion is your mansion.”
“Pastor Jael Osteal will grant this grand occasion the blessing of his great God,” says CEO Viper.
Prominent megachurch Paster Jael Osteal steps forward.
Jael Osteal spreads wide his hands. “God did not create us to be average. We are God’s masterpiece. Every day is a gift. Mexico is a gift. Texas is a gift. No matter what happens, choose to be rich. ”
All gathered: “Amen.”
“No matter whose land and lives you must possess to further your great work, choose to be victorious,” says Pastor Jael Osteal.
All Gathered: “Amen.”
“No matter if the entire world will be destroyed in the course of your great work, a heaven of riches will be yours.”
All Gathered: “Amen.”
“No matter if little children die screaming in agony ripped from their mothers’ bosoms smashed to pieces on the hard rock of the blasted blood red—”
Pittance Viper steps forward. “Thank you, Pastor Jael Osteal.”
“My pleasure, Viper.” Osteal bows to Viper, and steps back.
“We good folks need to stick together,” says President Tyrump.
“I will be even more direct than President Tyrump and the good Pastor Jael Osteal,” says CEO Viper. “As Director of the dominant investment bank in the country and world, Goldun Sichos Incorporated, I am here to tell one and all that Finance must be feared. Or simply obeyed. The debtors must fall in line, and they will, and they do.”
All Gathered: “Amen.”
“Now go spiel them once more, President Tyrump. Do your little song and dance. Go boast to the sorry debtors about our power. And freedom! True Freedom! Our Freedom to live any way we like.” CEO Viper is not a large man but he seems to inflate as he speaks. The more he speaks the more his voice swells: “President Tyrump, remind the dear debtors of the needs and blessings of our power. Speak in their hokie-jokie way. Whatever tickles their supremacist fancies. Fool them good. Fool the wing-nuts, the cons, the libs, the fundies, the brainwashed white males and females and the mouthy people-of-color about the real way of the world. Our way. We know that you will say the Right Thing as President, as we have anointed you to do, forever-and-ever.”
All Gathered: “Amen!”
“Now!” shouts President Tyrump. “Let’s go kill some Texans!”
“Wait, what?” says the Marine Commandant.
“Too late,” says Leif, still crumpled on the floor.
Bleeding, Leif tries to rise. The officials trample him.
“First they came for the wretched of the Earth. Then they came for the Texans.” Leif covers up as the officials rush by.
“We’re fighting for the wretched of the Earth?” says the Marine Commandant.
“You’re fighting for the One Percent of the One Percent, you absolute canning jar,” says Leif.
“Semper No!” shouts the Marine Commandant.
“Don’t act so innocent, Pigshit!” says the Air Force Commander. He unsheathes a dagger and drives it into the back of the Marine Commandant and pushes him out of the Oval Office.
The Invasion of Texas is on.
Leif dies.
“Dhyna’s going to kill me if I keep getting killed,” says Leif to the window.
The teratorn is pissed.
Leif worries the winter hues of the Rose Garden as he looks out as far as he can into the world while standing behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
President Tyrump enjoys watching himself on TV.
The teratorn flaps and leaps up from the lawn then lands with a thud and screams directly at Leif. The teratorn’s beak is wide and hooked and altogether intimidating. The prehistoric bird seems to threaten to break the glass and rip off Leif’s head.
The teratorn screams again.
Leif runs his hands over his body — belly, shoulders, neck, face. All there. The teratorn raises and cocks both wings as if it wants to hit something.
“Forgive me, Dhyna, for I know not what I do.”
The teratorn runs directly at Leif.
At the last moment before it might crash through the window and smash into the Oval Office, the teratorn screams once more then lifts up and flies away.
