CHRONICLE TWO: RISE OF THE BENEFACTOR
JUMP 34: WEST WING SIDE STORY
Previously: Whoops, No They Don’t
Themesong: Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson
“The new VMoD has been installed,” VIvian announced the fourth morning after They Live ended. I’d been waiting for that, since I had some business that I’d wanted to speak to the Banker about… assuming the machine was working properly. Of course, there was a slight delay when I found out what the next jump was.
Sometimes the boss is too nice to me. I know, many of you will disagree, but when I heard that theme song playing on the VMoD, I squealed. I love Sorkin. Best dialogue writer of the late twentieth century… or maybe tied with Mamet, but with much nicer themes. I may have started singing.
“EssJay…” Velma queried, “Why are you singing West Side Story?”
I laughed, then continued dancing about and belting, “Because it’s so nice to be in America! Okay by me in America, Everything’s Free in America!” I grabbed her and dipped her, not easy as I’m shorter than her, even if I am significantly stronger.
“Yes yes…” she giggled, struggling to keep from falling, “For a small fee… but-”
I didn’t let her finish. “In Amer-Eee-Kaaa!”
“Look, you insane goofball,” she said, bapping me on the head, “The cabinet says West Wing, not West Side Story.”
“Yeah, well…” I shrugged, “It could be West Wing Side Story.”
Zane, watching from nearby, snorted at the idiocy. “You don’t even like West Side Story…” he pointed out. “It’s based on Romeo and Juliet, which you also don’t like.”
Looking over, I retorted, “I like the Baz Luhrmann version. It’s bonkers. Sure, the ending still sucks, but in a kinda funny over the top way. Everyone in the BL version is just… insane, so it doesn’t seem real, you know? It’s not played for tragedy, but more for schadenfreude.”
Zane rolled his eyes, as he tends to do when I get professorial. “Fine… I don’t remember it.”
I righted Velma, then grinned. “Come on… we’ll watch it now. We probably have a copy in the archives.”
“Joooy,” he drawled.
“She can’t help you, dogboy,” the master spy said from where she was climbing the artificial rockface without safety ropes. We have anti-grav for a reason.
“I wasn’t asking for help, I was being sarcastic,” he growled.
“Sardonic,” Velma corrected.
He frowned at her, then grumbled, “Shadupic.”
Clearing the combative vibe, I chirped, “Anyway, I love West Wing. It’s all about how awesome politics could be!”
“For ten years? Politics?” Zane whined, “For ten years?!”
I laughed, then ruffled his head. “Awww… is the big Lucario crying?”
“Nooo,” he pulled away petulantly. “Shadup… You’re crying.”
“Very mature,” Kendra teased her boytoy.
“I may be 13,000 years old, but I can be as immature as I want to be,” he said with a disdainful sniff.
“I acknowledge your right,” I said, “But we still are going to be politicos for 10 years… or at least I am. If you’re very nice, you can be my secretary.”
“Oh?” He brightened. “Would that entail any combat?”
“No.” I smirked, “Your task would be to bring me the finest muffins and bagels in the land… and answer the phone.”
“Noooo….” he cried in his best Darth Vader impression, then sobered up and finished with a curt “Way.”
“But you’d look cute in a skirt!” I said, grinning wickedly.
“Not listening,” he yelled, covering his ears with his hands.
So, while being pointedly not listened too by Zane, I walked over to the VMoD and pressed the infobox icon at the top of the screen. As the West Wing Logo was replaced with a pulldown menu, I tapped ‘Purchase Clarification and Random Complaints’.
The screen cleared again, this time replaced with the words, “How are you going to make my existence difficult today?”
“Got four questions, oh mighty Banker… iffin it please your munificence,” I snarked.
“Questions. Always questions. Why can’t you jumpers simply read conceptual symbols?”
“Hey, you want to give me the gift of perfect understanding, I’ll take it any day, buddy banker. But until then, stop complaining.”
“Very well. Ask.” I could feel the annoyance behind those plain, emotionless words.
I ticked them off on my fingers as I spoke to the machine, my companions silent in the background. “First, Situational Sharpness says that ‘I will never lose my cool and look like a badass in the process.’… Can I assume that that ‘never’ only applies to the first clause? Because if it doesn’t, it means I will never look like a badass in the process of not losing my cool.”
“Ugh. Yes. It means that you won’t lose your cool unless you want to, and when you choose not to lose your cool, you will look like a badass. Is that better?”
“Yup. All good. Next… How similar to a rifle does a weapon have to be to use with Hip Fire? Is a Pistol close enough? how about a crossbow? Slingshot? Minigun?”
“It has to be a man-portable range-weapon that can be fired entirely using one hand and no other part of the body.”
“What about my eyes?”
“Trained on target and fired using no other part of the body besides a sensory organ.”
“Does it have to be an organ that generates the sense?”
The screen shivered with what I took to be frustration, then finally printed, “… or similar… anything else?”
“Does it have to be from my hip?”
“Meaning?”
“What about between my legs? or behind my back? or-“
“Any position you can possibly assume, as long as one of your senses is capable of sensing the location of the target and you have the capacity to train the weapon directly at the target using any means of doing so!” The screen flashed crimson. “Are you satisfied?!!!!”
“Cool… now… the Incredible Wealth perk and LOD… the lots and lots of money item… Incredible Wealth cost 100, and Loads of Money costs 400… Loads of Money says it gives 100,000 USD… the implication would be that Incredible Wealth gives a fraction of that. Sorry, but a hundred k is not a ‘small fortune’ and, what, twenty-five hundred dollars a year is not Incredible Wealth… it’s barely enough to cover rent on a decent apartment for a month.”
“We have no conception of money. It is meaningless to us,” the screen said, “As such, we rely upon the judgement of our Constructors, who are native to your state of existence, to put such things into perspective. Are you casting doubt upon the Constructor of the They Live Jump?”
“Yes. Yes I am. The implication of the pricing of those two line-items implies that Incredible Wealth is, at most, worth a quarter of the value of Loads of Money, since they come from the same background. Since LoM’s value is pegged at a hundred thousand United States Dollars circa 1988, that means that IW’s value is pegged at most at twenty-five thousand spread across a decade. Incredible Wealth in the eighties would be tens of millions of dollars, or an income at least a million a year. That should mean that LoM should be worth at least forty-million per jump… probably more, since the higher value line-items are seldom linear in power growth.”
“Reviewing…” the screen said. “Baseline from other jumps seems to, to a degree, support your conclusion. Very well. Incredible Wealth’s financial income has been pegged to 1,040,000 USD circa 2015 per year, or rather 20,000 USD per week of a standard Earth Year. LODSAMONE is pegged to be 25,000,000 USD circa 2015 per jump, with a provision that says that making more money will always be possible. Your Warehouse Bank has been credited with 98,600,000 USD from two counts of LODSAMONE and a further 6,090,000 from three counts of Incredible Wealth. Does this satisfy your concerns?” “Not as much as I’d like, but I’m certain we’ll cope,” I agreed. “We have a question for you then,” the screen said, turning a lime green. “If you are willing to answer.”
“Go for it,” I said, leaning back, curious.
“The proto-jump… the one you call Pokemon Trainer… It starts with 50,000 Pokebucks. We have asked our Constructors, who tell us that this amounts to roughly five hundred dollars, and does not constitute enough to live on for more than two or three months in the Pokeworld… It amounts to, what one of them called it, Touring Japan on 5 dollars a day… something that that individual stated was effectively impossible, since Japan is one of the most expensive tourist destinations on your home world. Why did you not complain about this then?”
“Three reasons, really,” I said, thinking way, way, way back. “First, I was a little overwhelmed by being, you know… in another world. Second, it didn’t dawn on me how incredibly valuable Choice Points were back then. Third, I wasn’t really thinking long term at that point. I didn’t even know it would respawn at the start of the next jump. So, sure, it was a waste of points, and I burned through it really fast and had to survive on other sources of income… but I was having fun and not worrying too bad. But yeah… funds were tight for a while. But those were early days. You called it the proto-jump… did you do that because it was my first… or the first?” “In each reality, once the media system reaches a certain critical level, we send an inspiration to the local sophonts. One of them will eventually become the first local Constructor. The first for your world was called Arthur Quicksilver. He constructed the first few jumps for us and gathered many of the subsequent Constructors under his banner.” “There are others who aren’t under his… banner?” I asked. “Indeed. There have been several schisms, and Arthur has largely distanced himself from the first group, though they claim his imprimatur still. They routinely claim superiority over the less numerous, younger factions of Constructors.” “Weird,” I said, “Having a hard time imagining it… must be like religions battling over dogma to a certain degree. That said, if you want to retcon Pokebucks, I won’t complain.” “Processing…” the screen said. “Currently, you have the following sources of Choice-backed Income;
- Pokebucks: 50,000 per jump
- Conflict Materials: Massive Batch per jump
- Burstone Fragments: 1,000 per Jump
- Fire Nation Yen: 4,500,000… A comfortable 10 Years worth
- Golden Dragons: 700 per Jump
- Lien: 800,000 per Jump… stated to be enough for 16 month’s rent.
- Wealth Income: 20,000 USD per week
- Loads of Money: 50,000,000 USD per Jump.
“Does that match your accounting?” the screen asked.
“To be honest, since almost all of that isn’t usable anywhere besides its source nation or melted down in the case of the gold dragons or sold in the case of the elements? I haven’t really been tracking it. Hell, I haven’t even ever looked at how much was in that Conflict Materials cache… it just said Massive Stash and I turned it over to my procurement people.” I swiveled on my stool. “VIvian. How much do we have in various currency?! And how much was in that cargo pod?”
The great cherry tree shivered, then stated, “We have 1,890,000 Pokebucks, including the two-hundred and forty-thousand Pokebucks you had in your backpack at jump end. Add to that four-point-five million Fire Nation Yen, fifty-six hundred Golden Dragons from the period just prior to the Birth of the Empire, and four-point-eight million Lien. Your cache of burstones contains twenty-five thousand burstones accumulated from jump renewal, and a further sixty-three thousand burstones accumulated from all the things you’ve smashed over the last few millennia. As for your Conflict materials, each cargo pod contains five hundred kilos of Element Zero, five tons of various rare earth elements, twenty-five tons of heavy metals, fifty tons of light metals, and eighty tons of gases.”
She had rattled off the numbers without emotional weight, so it took me a moment to process that last… that had been thirty jumps ago. I had forty-eight hundred tons of rare elements just filling up a corner of my docking bay? “… VIvian… how much… what elements are in those containers?”
In a completely business-like tone, she replied, “In addition to the fifteen tons of Element Zero, there are thirty tons each of plutonium-239, thorium-232, samarium, polonium-210, and uranium-235; a hundred and fifty tons each of mercury, gold, iridium, platinum, and palladium; three hundred tons each of lithium, cobalt, titanium, magnesium, and beryllium; and twelve hundred tons of xenon and helium-3.”
I choked. Zane choked. Joy choked. Ahab started laughing, and there was more than a little histeria in that laughter.
Zane was the first to recover. “That’s a fucking lot of gold! We’re riiich!”
Kendra smacked him upside the head. “We already were rich! It’s a lot of Platinum and Palladium too.”
Joy just shook her head “That’s nothing. The Plutonium is going to be worth at least ten times that much. I hope the shielding is good on those cases.”
Velma gasped. “VIvian? Are the radioactive elements undergoing decay?” That… was a very good question.
“Not as far as I am able to detect,” VIvian said calmly.
The screen cleared, then stated, “All elements are guaranteed to the highest standard of purity and exist in quantum stasis until each individual cargo pod is opened. Further, because this Personal Reality is equipped with the Eternalizer, radioactive decay cannot happen unless the substance is exempted from the anti-aging field.”
I sighed. That was excellent news. The Plutonium was, kilo for kilo, the most valuable substance in most settings I’d be going to… Though, to be honest, the H3 was far more useful and even though it was only, kilo for kilo, about three-fifths the value of Plutonium in the pre-fission world of West Wing, there was many many times the kilos… forty-times as many, in fact. Though H3 was stable, unlike any element of Plutonium… I had no idea there was so much… or how much any of it was actually worth, since these were commodity metals, not actual cash.
The screen cleared, then asked, “Do you desire all future funds from these sources to be converted directly into United States Dollars for purposes of accounting?”
“Uh… not the Burstones… I use those to make Cores… though I clearly need to do that more. VIvian, establish an automation protocol for Burstone Core Production. As for the Conflict Materials… no. They have other uses, and if I really need funds, I can probably just find a buyer… though I’ll have to be careful not to crash the global markets. As for the Dragons, Yen, and Lien… oh, and Pokebucks. Yes please. How much are they actually worth?”
The screen stated, “Pokebucks are valued at 90 to the american dollar. 1,890,000 Pokebucks are thus $21,000, with another $555.56 per jump. Based on an average major city rent of 2,000 US Dollars for a one bedroom apartment, 50,000 Lien is deemed to be worth $2,000. $22 dollars a day for eating out for a single person also seems within reason according to the data-web. That converts the Lien on-hand to $96,000 and another $16,000 per jump.”
“Well… both of those are chump-change,” Zane commented, and there was a general grunt of agreement. $117,000 was less than six weeks income for a single one of our three Incredible Wealths. As for the $16,555 and 56 cents per jump… that worked out to just under thirty-one dollars and eighty-four cents a week. As a group, that wouldn’t even pay for the amount of coffee we drank.
The screen continued, “The Yen is stated to be enough for one to live on comfortably for five years, and there were two purchases of it. An article found on the public databanks states that comfortable income is $80,000 dollars per annum, though it did not state if that was before or after taxes, which are, apparently a state sponsored form of either theft or cooperative cost sharing, depending on who is asking. Thus, ten years is $800,000, and that, over thirteen jumps, converts to a lump sum of $10,400,000.”
“That’s a bit more like it!” Zane commented, then grunted. “Oh… that’s a one time? That’s not much… Vel… what are we upto a jump?”
“Eighty-two million, sixteen-thousand, five-hundred fifty-five and change. But there’s still the Golden Dragons from Westeros,” she said.
The Banker, being very very Bankish, stated, “The Golden Dragons, of which you gain seven-hundred per jump, and based on an estimated income value of $80,000 per Dragon when converted from Westerosi to British Pounds Sterling at the time of the War of the Roses, which is said to have inspired A Song of Ice and Fire, then updated to 2015 Pounds and converted to Dollars, have a per jump income value of $56,000,000, and the lump sum, for eight jumps is $448 Million. Do you have any issues with these calculations?”
I opened my mouth to literally jew up the amount we gained from the Lien and Yen and Pokebucks… but realistically… what was I going to do? Demand an even hundred-forty million instead of $138,016,555.56?… ah, what the hell.
“Banker, do you object to making the future total $250,000 dollars a week?” I asked. That was actually sacrificing about $15,416 a week, but I had my reasons.
“That would grant you significantly more if a jump were to run longer,” the screen said. “Processing…… That is acceptable. Your bank will be credited a quarter million USD every Sunday that you spend in jump. Are there any further clarifications needed?”
“Mmmm… nope. All good. Though Friday is typically payday, so Thursday night would be better.”
“That is acceptable,” the screen flashed. “Close of Business Thursday.” Totally a Banker.
“Thanks boss,” I said, then tapped the Personal Reality button when the screen cleared. I had a hundred Warehouse Points and knew exactly what I wanted to buy with them. It was a shame we couldn’t use our ridiculous cash on hand to buy groceries from the PR’s Food Supply, but then again, the food supply just kind of came from out of the blue, and we could get fresh food from anywhere. Of course, most of what we used it for these days was hard to find stuff in whatever locale we were in… like Lion bars in Japan, or Asari gogeberries anywhere that wasn’t Mass Effect. Mmm… Gogeberry ice-cream… nomnomnom.
As I confirmed purchase of the Central Control upgrade, giving the authorization to integrate VIvian with the system rather than install the Smart Pseudo-Intelligent Computer System that the purchase came with, Zane leaned over my shoulder and asked, “What’s this?”
“It’s a system that allows VIvian to track the location and condition of any and all objects brought into the Warehouse. She’ll also be able to recall any of you if I tell her to… or you get your idiot selves killed. She’ll even be able to open any door out there in the real world that we’ve used an Access Key on, if I let her.”
“Any door?” he asked, “Even ones in previous realities?”
“No. not them. Not unless we use the Return Door.”
“Why don’t we?”
“Why don’t we what?”
“Use the Return Door? It’s been thirty-three jumps… well, for you I mean. Thirty-one for me… and you don’t use it.”
I considered, then shuddered a little, hugging myself. “I…” I took a deep breath and steadied myself. I could have used my perks to quash my emotions on this, but I really didn’t like doing that… it was like cheating. “Look… if I do that… and… and the first place I go isn’t back to get Jason… what does that say about me?” I asked, referring to the son I’d left behind in the PotterVerse.
“It says that you’re human,” Velma said, patting my other shoulder.
Zane grunted in agreement. “Yeah. I mean. You weren’t ready to be a mom then.”
“When will I be?” I asked, throwing my hands upward in a gesture of pure self-frustration. “And how can I face my son and say, ‘Yeah… see, kiddo… I know it doesn’t seem like a while since I dumped you with that jagg-off Snape’… what the hell was I thinking there?… and I know I should have come back for you… but I had to swing by the BuffyVerse to flirt with Spike and CivVerse to check on my Maegi and get a sonic screwdriver… Sorry?”
“You’re thinking about this too much,” Zane said. “He’s frozen in time. He won’t know, and he’s not going to care how many stops you made! You left him behind because you were afraid. He’ll either forgive you or not.”
“Afraid of what?” Velma asked.
“We’d just come out of our second major war,” I said, sighing. “And before that I’d killed a lot of gang-bangers in the Infamous Jump… I was not doing well, emotionally speaking.”
“PTSD?” she asked. I nodded and she hugged me. “I’d say you did the right thing… but you’ve had centuries to deal with that now… surely you’re better? You had loads of kids as the Maegi Kingpriests, right?”
“I guess?” I said. “But I only remember that as fact, not emotionally, you know? It’s distant. I think I pushed those personas back further than most because they weren’t as much me as my other jump memories are… and there are so many of them. I think I was afraid they’d overwhelm me.”
“Understandable. Well, if you do decide to go back for Jason, I promise to treat him as if he were my son too,” she assured me.
I patted her hand. “Thanks Red.”
“I can be a cool uncle,” Zane offered. “Well… I can be a fun uncle,” he corrected as Kendra snorted at the idea that Zane was ‘cool’.
All the bookkeeping finished, I finally loaded the actual details of the West Wing Jump on the VMoD. “Can you work with some of the brightest people in the world? Can you last where so many have failed? Can you survive the crucible of American Politics for ten years?” the screen asked. “You have to have a job as a major political player or be running a major presidential campaign at all times. You have a 30 day grace period, if you decide to quit your current job (or get fired) to find another job or a candidate to run for the presidency… oh… and don’t think you can go flashing your nifty superpowers here. The Secret Service gets upset when they find Shoggoths in the Press Pool. You begin, of course, in Washington DC, in August of 1999, the first year of the Bartlet Presidency… and the day he rode his bicycle into a tree.”
I laughed at that. I will always remember watching the first episode with my… my… there was someone there… it was important… hrrr… why couldn’t I remember? I shook my head, and the confusion cleared as the memory faded. Good times. Good times.
I rolled the Presidential Die of Aging and found out I was 28. The Drop-In option was cool, based off of and working with Charlie Young, President Bartlett’s aide. The Senior Staff option was the Hard Mode, but I’d get to work with Leo, CJ, Josh, Sam, and Toby… World Class people doing World Class jobs… The Press Corp option I dismissed; I didn’t feel the need to Clark Kent it up by playing Lois Lane, Ace Reporter… but there’s no way I could pass up the ‘Sir John Marbury’ option… Ambassador, even at a cost of two-hundred Choice, was just too cool for School House Rock.
The British Ambassador, Sir John, might not have been a major character, but in his few appearances, he was both amusing and sage in turn, an eccentric and alcoholic who absolutely dominated every scene he was in. “Thank God They Sent For Me!” I said, chuckling as I quoted a line Sir John had actually said.
I was now an ambassador to the US, a distinguished (in theory) and potentially influential individual, with responsibilities reaching further than I really could fathom at the moment. I’d never been an ambassador before. Whether I decided to take my job seriously and work toward improved international relations, goof off and drink all the President’s beer, or to help as much as I offended, I was bound to have an interesting time in the world of West Wing.
On the plus side, if I did my job well, I could probably prevent one or more major political snafus or crises… and people would (in general) be afraid to tell me off, what with me (in theory) having the backing of an entire nation, presumably one with a sizable military. On the downside, when and if the White House did summon me, it would mean that they almost certainly had a major problem at hand, one they’d be expecting me to fix.
Of course, one couldn’t be an ambassador without a nation to represent (and one to represent that nation to… but that side was already taken care of). Britain already had an ambassador, and his job was harder than he made it look, and the text pretty much said that being the DPRK Ambassador (North Korea) would be a bad idea… not that I’d want to be from that hellhole. Oh! There was a list! Hmmm… I flipped through the options… Israel? Too small… Japan? Not quite uptight enough to land that gig… Ditto China. India might be cool, but I don’t actually know that much about India. Sinnoh… wait, what the fuck?
Ambassador from Sinnoh? The Asari? Lothlorien? What in the name of Chuck Lorre? I clicked the infobox and a text tip said, in small letters, “If your embassy is populated with supernatural creatures that would be viewed as normal people in another universe you’ve visited, they don’t count as supernatural and don’t panic society. You could be that embassy’s ambassador, if you want.” I considered that, then chuckled… Sure, why the hell not.
“I hereby anoint myself Her Excellency, Silence Jumper of the House Infernape, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the Sovereign Nation of Poketopia to the United States of America, Court of Eagles!” I said, make my nano-clothing shift to a woman’s tuxedo and sash of office. My form shivered as my Infernape form became the default for the jump. “Note to self, do not burn down the White House with my hair.”
My transformation wasn’t the only one, however. There came a chorus of astonished outcries from around the Warehouse as my Pokecompanions reverted to their original forms en masse. Within moments, I was surrounded by old faces… though (rather oddly) they were all dressed in clothing, even RayRay, who looked… strange… in a suit, what with the whole ‘no-limbs, giant snake monster’ thing. Petra had leg-skirts and a hat. Dyna, Zane, Francy, and AJ were wearing fairly normal suits, though Francy’s was more a skirt-suit. Ziggy just had a big ribbon round his neck. They all looked like they’d been dressed by a professional wardrobe department.
Once I settled everyone down and assured them that this was all copacetic, I turned back to the machine and asked, “Okay. What’s Next?”
Heh… well, apparently, What’s Next was what was next. A universally free perk, ‘What’s Next?’ allowed the user to carry on highly technical conversations about policy or philosophy, plan what they were going to say in an upcoming meeting, and quip to nearby colleagues all at the same time without losing their train of thought. It was essentially a decent, low-level mental multitasking, that came with the ability to power walk without breaking a sweat. Time would tell if it could keep me from losing track of what I’d been saying. Two perfect memory perks still hadn’t been able to do that. I still got so tangled in tangents that it would take me several seconds of replaying my memories to remember what my original point had been some times.
As for ‘What’s Next’, it was a shame I couldn’t share that with my staff, since there wasn’t actually a companion import option, aside from just making everyone my embassy staff, but that didn’t come with any perks or whatnot. It did come with a background, since Poketopia had to be created wholesale out of my imagination. I could feel the VMoD sorting through my subconscious, asking a thousand different worldbuilding questions and, no doubt, sorting through the multiverse for something that matched… or maybe aging an entire universe into existence custom grown for that specific world. I had no idea what the limits of the Banker’s power was.
As for ‘What’s Next’, at least Joy and Ahab would get it. They weren’t Pokemon, but they’d be swapping in and out as my Human Protocol Officer. As soon as the system dinged as ready, I entered my Pokecompanions one by one into the system to see how they’d be naturalized as citizens of Poketopia.
Rayray du Legendaire was to be my driver (from the former French Quarter of Poketopia) apparently. Francine alAkazam was my intelligence officer (and apparently there were muslim Pokemen). A.J. Gallade y Gardevoir my charge d’affaire / attache and from the former Spanish Quarter). Dyna des Oxydes was my bodyguard, also French. Petra van Metagross, from the Dutch Quarter, was my secretary slash personal assistant, and Zane Lucario, from the English Quarter, would be my head of security. Ziggy would be Ziggy.
Stats and figures were already pouring into my head about the trade balance, balance of power, debt ratios… “Christ…” I muttered, eyes widening, “Poketopia is a military powerhouse, but our industry is for shit… and the crime rate is a real problem!” A map came to my head… Poketopia was Lemuria… well, smaller, but… it was right in the middle of the Indian Ocean… about a third the size of India… population 216 million.
Humans were second class citizens, but they still had higher social standing than ‘Commons’. Great! A caste system! Lovely! (/sarcasm) We had a government of ‘Starters’ and a landed gentry of ‘Legendaries’ although ‘Ubers’ (also called ‘Demi-Legendaries’) had made significant inroads over the course of the twentieth century, and now made up a growing class of wealthy and influential up-and-comers who were granted special legal exemptions due to their support of the government. Below them were the ‘Rares’ and ‘Uncommons’, who made up the vast majority of the enfranchised population. Most of them were second or third evolves… oh, and we definitely had a Rare Candy problem among them.
The country was divided into eighteen states, though almost all Starters come from only three of those states (the highly volcanic Aesh, the largely jungle Esev, and the mostly submerged Mayim), though there was one Starter family from each of Hushi, Offel, and Kerach, and two from Hashmal. I blinked… rifling through my memories… Ah… the names of the States were in Hebrew, oddly enough… and, aside from the House Raichu, all the non-Aesh, Esev, and Mayim Starters belonged to the Eevee Tribe… who were hated and feared since no one knew how their highly fragmented Starter Houses would vote… or even what they’d be when they grew up.
The nation itself had been partly colonized by the French, Dutch, British, Spanish, and Portuguese, then invaded by Japan during the Second World War before being liberated by the United States Navy. Since that time, the country had firmly been militaristic, proclaiming that Poketopia would be Collected No More! That was the mantra of the ruling elite, and Poketopia had actually invaded several smaller nations… and India… to stop trade in our people as pets, slaves, or (most heinously) food. That had led to a great deal of tension with China, as their blackmarket did big business in our body parts. We also had a troubling reputation for being a sexual-tourism destination, though Pokeranches and Eggfarms were both legal in Poketopia… Thankfully, we never produced crossbreeds with humans, right?
I did find it fascinating that there were seven… wait, seven? Huh… Sun & Moon weren’t even out when I left Origin Earth, Starter Houses from each of the big three states. In August of 1999… hmmm… I don’t think there were more than the original four Starters… ah… that had to be why. I was an Infernape… and Zane was a Lucario. We came from later generations, thus more generations… and why stop at just what was published then? Time was, in theory, frozen back home until I returned or decided not to, but when I’d left, most of the work for Sun & Moon had to have been finished already.
I shook my head to refocus; I’d gone too far afield inside my head. Back to the Perks.
‘I Suppose It’s Possible I was Drunk’ was free for Ambassadors (and awesome!). Ever wanted everyone to treat you like a distinguished guest, whether or not you were actually playing the part? Ever wanted permission to act as zany, quirky, whimsical, and occasionally offensive behind closed doors, and have it come off as charm rather than a lack of respect for the presidency? ‘I Suppose’ was just that! Carte blanche to treat the executive branch… and any similar governmental branches in future jumps… like they were full of old roomates from my college days and nobody would mind… as long as I wasn’t actively being an asshole… and it didn’t stop other people from acting like assholes… but when they did, it would be entirely on them for screaming at me to act my age and not my shoesize!
Hah! This was awesome! I was an Exiled Princess and a Drunkard! “Courts of future worlds, beware! You will love me for my eccentricities… I have poses for days of the week!” I cackled madly as Ziggy and I did my pose for Sunday, the wobble gorilla.
I had to take ‘Diplomatic Immunity’ (which really should have been the freebie, but what can you do?) because I totally had to. It was a Moral Imperative… opps. mixing my references. Ha! I have immunity, can’t touch me! Anyway, it was a hundred-and-fifty Choice and meant that scandals and mishaps would go out of their way to avoid me. I could hang around the White House, talk regularly with the President and his staff, and find myself sans subpoena when it was later revealed that he had been hiding a degenerative illness. It might not sound like much, but if I wasn’t looking for trouble, trouble wouldn’t come looking for me… though, to be honest, I was sooo going to abuse the shit out of it.
Parking Tickets? Me? I’m sorry, I have Diplomatic Immunity. Kleptomania? I’m sorry, I have Diplomatic Immunity. Talk to the State Department. Sure, that was the legal version, which I’d have either way, but the Perk Version practically guaranteed that if I decided to lay low in a future jump, drawbacks willing, I could and that would (most likely) be the end of it. Not sure there will ever be a jump like that… but better Immune than sorry, I always say.
The Ambassadorial Capstone ‘Lucid Moments’ wasn’t the most powerful thing ever, but the ability to get my point across using philosophy or history rather than polling data and political clout… to the level of defeating the likes of Leo McGarry in private debate? Yeah that would be worth it! I’d enjoy watching the shock on my opponents’ faces as I destroyed their arguments by waxing philosophical about the nuclear arms race… Okay, I wasn’t certain that it was worth three-hundred Choice, but it wasn’t bad… plus, I loved the idea of being a koan quoting Firemonkey. Dispensing wisdom and wisecracks and drinking all the whisky.
That took care of the must haves in Perks, but in the realm of Gear was ‘The Rolodex’ for another three-hundred. It was the holy grail of political tools, a listing of contact information and addresses and alternate methods of contact for, well, everyone. The President, the Chief of Staff, the Paramount Leader of the Chinese People, or the Indian Sub-Cabinet Member for Water Reclamation in Kashmir… cellphones, pagers, vacation homes, aide’s cellphone numbers, mistress’s numbers… and it updated automatically with each new jump!” Oh, I was sooo going to abuse that pretty little thing.
And among the other items… the one thing I’d been hoping was available for purchase, was ‘The Finest Muffins and Bagels’, which took my last fifty Choice. Not only did it give me the number of every fast food and coffee place in DC, it gave me a federal account to put purchases on. That account would follow me to to future jumps as long as anything like a fast food or coffee place existed there. An unlimited restaurant, bistro, and cafe expense account? As they say… Gravy.
I could have stopped there, but at its heart, West Wing was both drama and comedy… I needed Zany Wackiness. And that meant pointless complications. Complications like ‘Big Block of Cheese Day’, ‘I Had Woot Canal’ and ‘Appleanon.com’. Each of them were based on some of the more goofy elements of the show, but had just the right level of verisimilitude to make them believable.
On the annual Big Block of Cheese Day… and yes, there were more than one, since they featured in ‘The Crackpots and These Women’ and ‘Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail’… why yes, I was a huge fan of the show… Leo McGarry, as the White House Chief of Staff, would open the doors of the White House to groups that might otherwise have trouble being heard… like advocates for Map Reform, UFO conspiracy theorists, fringe environmentalists, and anti-free trade radical leftists. Occasionally those meeting would be enlightening (the Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality made several good points), but mostly they were pointless and deeply frustrating to the staffers, and amusing to the viewers… but they also showed just how far reaching the realm of politics is and just how busy the staff of the West Wing really was. Hell, the Obama administration had done it twice, in real life… though they used social media… man, what it would be like to go home after doing West Wing and be all, “Mr. President, I love the suit!”
Anyway, even though I wasn’t going to actually be a staffer, the drawback (which was worth zero Choice), Leo would find a way to include me in the ‘festivities’… probably as a kind of revenge. It wasn’t worth anything but laffs, but interesting laffs.
Woot Canal, which was worth a hundred Choice, meant that once a year I’d be faced with an annoying family or medical emergency that would make my job very difficult for three or four days… during which time my staff would helpfully and over confidently offer to do my job for me. Nothing terrible would come of it, but cleaning up the mess wouldn’t be fun. Sure, it sounded like it would be frustrating in the short term, but as a memory? It would be amusing to look back on, and those were the best memories. Well, good memories. The best were the most meaningful.
Appleanon.com was a play on Lemon-Lyman.com, which was a fairly creepy internet fanclub dedicated to Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman. His interactions with them had dominated the episode ‘The US Poet Laureate’. “The people on these sites, they’re the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” according to Press Secretary CJ Cregg and the idea of my own personal creepy Internet Fanclub was amusing. Further, since they’d pretty much only cause a PR disaster if I actually talked, it was essentially a hundred free Choice points. Plus, if I got bored, I could just give the press corp a field day, and rely on ‘It’s Possible I was Drunk’ to defuse the situation. It was practically a twofer!
With the two-hundred extra Choice, I promptly picked up the items ‘Sharp-Dressed Closet’ and ‘Armored Limousine’ and the perk ‘Jack of All Trades’ for fifty, fifty, and a hundred respectively. SDC was good, because one can have all the political capital in the world, and it wouldn’t matter because pretty much no one will take you seriously if you’re dressed like a wizard or magical girl. The limo was one build for a head of state and would show up to whisk me wherever I wanted in style, driven by either the US Secret Service or my home nation’s intelligence service. Not only was having my own diplomatic limo a bonus for comfort, it was a huge status symbol. Showing up looking good and in an armored stretch with flags-a-flutter? Hard to beat that for gravitas.
As for Jack? Well, life in the West Wing (or politics in general) wasn’t predictable. One day you might be briefing the press, the next you’re caring for a wild turkey. Seriously, that happened to CJ. Jack of All Trades would give me the ability to roll with the punches, learning enough on the go to avoid seriously messing something up until someone else can take over.
And that was my purchases. Ahab & Joy took Senior Staff… which came with ‘I Work With The Smartest People in the World’, a level of skill comparable with that of a graduate from a top college in one field of politics. Ahab went Law. Joy? Geopolitical Engineering. I didn’t even know that was a thing. They also got a ‘Red Rubber Ball’ to bounce off things and make them more creative… one each.
A bouncing rubber ball at all hours of the day and night… especially in high stress situations. I was going to have to shoot one of them before this jump was up. I just knew it… but still, with my snazzy new suits and my classy new Limo and my shiny new Diplomatic Immunity, I dropped into the world of ‘The West Wing’.
INSERTION
This is how Day One went. Sam Seaborn, President Bartlett’s senior speechwriter, slept with a Call Girl without knowing it, Josh Lyman, who I’ve mention was Deputy Chief-of-Staff, insulted some holy rollers, and several thousand Cuban refugees in makeshift boats were caught in a stormfront off the southern coast of Florida… There was no way I could help with problem one or two, these were both done deals by the time the jump began, and would be resolved with only minor fallout… at least in the short term…, but I could offer to help with refugees.
White House security didn’t blink as I entered the building without bothering with a visitor’s pass, didn’t twitch as I passed under the Ditto-Sensor and through the metal detector, and didn’t even try to stop me as I swept passed the Marine honor guard and stepped into the Oval Office as if I owned the place. The President, who did look almost exactly like Martin Sheen, raised an eyebrow as I helped myself to some whisky and sat on the back of one of the chairs.
“Jed… I can call you Jed, right? Jed, you have refugees off your coast…” I took a long pull on the really excellent scotch, licked my lips, and continued just as he was opening his mouth to say something. “Little fishes making their way to the big pond. Bunch of them are in the path of a storm, Jed. Not good. These fishies can’t swim.”
“Err, Yes,” President Josiah ‘Jed’ Bartlett allowed. “The refugees from Cuba. We were just-“
“Can’t look like you’re being soft on illegals, right Jed?” I interrupted, waving the half empty glass at the walls of the Oval Office. “I have… I say… I have a ship in the area. Big ship. Container ship bound to port of… what’s that little town called… I am I? Something like that.” I edited the past to actually make that true without even thinking about it… I guess I could have done something about the other two events.
Bartlett raised an eyebrow at me, “And then what?”
I shrugged. “Do a little fishing… pick up some extra crew… can’t get back to you… but… how do the little fishies get into the pond from my little shippy ship?”
Jed sighed. “I can’t order immigration to look the other way.”
“Indeed, no…” I agreed, then pretended to have just had a thought as I finished off my drink. “But once they get onto land, they can claim asylum? That’s your rule, right? Once on dry land? Someone could make a call to those nice people with the blankets and all the press. My captain, she’ll claim she didn’t know they weren’t Americans… humans all look the same to us… very regrettable.” My tone was light, conversational, as if I was talking about the weather or a garden party getting rained out.
The President was not fooled for one second… but I hadn’t really been trying to fool him. “You’d do that, Silence?” he asked.
“What are friends for, Jed?” I asked airily, then hopped up and poured myself another four fingers of amber liquid. “This is good whisky… very nice. Smooth…” I poured some on my head and it sizzled as my hair flared blue for a second. “Mmm… Oaky.”
Jed shivered. “Gives me the willies when you do that, Silence.”
I laughed. “That’s just the Catholic in you. Visions of Demons… or is it Devils? Strange Concepts. What’s so strange about someone who’s been KO’d getting better again?”
“Your people worship a Flying Centaur,” he said with a laugh.
“Well, sure,” I said with a monkey shrug. “Arceus is the Great Unifier. By grace of his Celestial Plates, of all Clades and None. He is the Diamond and the Pearl, the Gold and the Silver, the Ruby and the Sapphire.” I traced the sacred spiral of the Gamefreak Church on my breast, then added, “Pluswhich, he’s a very powerful Flying Centaur. Do you have any Oreos?”
Jed snorted, then shook his head. “My doctor tells me I should cut back.”
“Which one, the military one or your wife?” I asked.
“Both,” he said with a frown.
“Ah…” I commiserated, “Who am I to argue with them? Well then, I should be off. Give my love to Abby and the kids. Oh, and go easy on Josh, he’s a good kid.”
The President frowned slightly, then pointed out, “He’s older than you are.”
“Is he?” I asked archly, amused by the idea that any human could be older than I actually was. I smirked as I asked, “When does he evolve?”
That earned me a laugh and I sauntered over to CJ’s office to listen to her rant at some people… the boat was already on the way. This was going to be fun.
Of less fun, however, was figuring out how to deal with President Bartlett’s Multiple Sclerosis. I knew how to cure it, of course, but that knowledge was predicated on 23rd century technology and, more specifically, nanotechnology. Furthermore, it would raise a great many flags if his disease simply disappeared, more so if a nation of 90% non-humans introduced a spontaneous paradigm shift into human medical tech. So I had to work around.
My background was that of a Medical Doctor, specializing in human ailments and epidemiology. It was the area in which I was most confident I could make lasting and important changes, and a decent background for an Ambassador. My wealth, thanks largely to They Live and the conversion of all those Westerosi Golden Dragons, manifested in this world as part ownership in a major Pharmaceutical Corporation called PokePotions Inc.
That position allowed me to slip a few development programs into the works, and thus PPI was, within the year, to produce a working HIV vaccine, a near comprehensive Malaria Vaccine (there are five strains and our vaccine offered effective immunity to four of them), and a first stab at a general remission agent for Multiple Sclerosis that caused regeneration of the Myelin sheaths that MS damages, while lessening the severity of attacks. Documentation on this last was arranged to cross Abigail Bartlett’s desk and, as I’d known she would, she approached me about it.
Being myself, I allowed her to view the data, the clinical trials, and initial findings. As a professional courtesy, I made a supply of the drug available to her, no questions asked. Meanwhile, I made the research on the two vaccines public… a gift to the world from the nation of Poketopia… not that the humans of our country didn’t suffer from both diseases. We were subtropical after all. I figured that was my good deed for the year, and helped balance out the simply insane amount of coffee drinks, lox bagels, and pastrami reubens I was putting on my expense account… and the pranks I was playing on the Republicans in congress.
Little did I know that I was providing an enemy I didn’t know I had with ammunition that would make my pleasant little stint as Ambassador much less pleasant. I have to admit, without Zane (and his connection to the city of DC itself… a strange composite of Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and John Adams) and Joy (with her… ways), I would have been blindsided.
Little things started going wrong, rumors circulating among the Starters back home of my incompetence, my corruption by ‘Western Values’, my rampant carnivorality… it was a concerted push to discredit me among the political elite, and a good one. One of my junior (human) aides apparently committed suicide, photos on his body appearing to show me having sex with him… not that I hadn’t been with a human as Silence Jumper, but certainly not with said aide. Thankfully, Joy was first on scene and she made the pictures disappear. It was clear I was in a war of intrigue, and as yet I didn’t know with who or why.
Still, I had resources the likes of which no mere mortal could conceive, and there were a relatively finite number of people that had the clout and potential to gain by my disgrace. Indonesia, China, India, South Africa, Malaysia… all had reasons to want to hurt Poketopia, diplomatically, but not to hurt me specifically. Many people in DC would have reason to hurt me personally… but wouldn’t have the clout to do so back home. That meant someone in or from Poketopia… and that meant a Starter or Legendary. If it were one of the Trainers of the Gamefreak Church of Arceus the Unifier (and the attack would have to have come from one of the Champions, as Final Fours and Leaders were State and City level clergy), the attack would have been religious, not political, though I had no doubt from the nature of the propaganda that the intended audience was our nation’s more traditionally minded crowd.
The advantage of dealing with any oligarchy is the basically limited ruling body, which made eliminating potential enemies very much a checklist. It was like a murder mystery… Means, Motive, Opportunity. Eliminating those without Means was the easiest, though they weren’t so much eliminated as… moved down the list… same with Opportunity… but Motive… that was the hard bit. What could I have done to piss of someone this bad?
The answer, as it turns out, was that I had nabbed the golden cocoanut of political appointments… the US Ambassadorship. The shortlist for the post had had only three members. The contenders had been me (from the ruling Red Valor Party… though unlike American Politics Red was the color of action, liberality, and the war party), a token Green Instinct candidate (our collectivist, ecco party, and not part of the current power block), and a Blue Mystic Starter (our traditional, peaceful, and reactive party)… and that blue was Bonaparte de Champlain of the House Empoleon… hard working (i.e. corrupt), voice of the people (i.e. reactionary), and upright (i.e. egotistical as fuck). He was everything I wasn’t, politically speaking… and he’d been up for my job, and a front runner to boot, until someone had mentioned that I’d done my medical internship under the brand new US President’s wife.
Now he was the Poketopian Ambassador to Canada… which as political assignments go was pretty good, but compared to the US ambassadorship? It was like kissing your sister, as the saying goes.
It was a wake up call for me. I know, naive perhaps, but I’d never been an Ambassador before! How was I to know there was actual ‘politics’ to it instead of just diplomacy and the fate of nations? I was going to have to guarantee I didn’t get recalled by my government… and that meant intrigue, blackmail, and shenanigans. It also meant I needed to maintain my relationship with the Bartlett… and after that… Santos… Administrations. All without appearing to do anything at all. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t actually assassinate Bonaparte… because we were still Pokemon and we didn’t die from that kind of thing… we just went KO’d. And Pokeballs were banned by the Geneva Convention… Anyone caught with them would be stored in the SPC vault until they’d learned their lesson… i.e. forever.
But now that I knew, I could prepare my defenses, and give as good as I got. Pictures of him gorging himself on smelt, rumors of him leaving eggs at daycare, mating with Dittos… and actual testimony from his Poffin dealer all hit the wires in rapid succession. Publicly, I expressed nothing but support for my good friend Bonnie… I could call him Bonnie, right? But privately, I was cooking his penguinoid ass. No way was I, Dr. Silence Jumper, going to be Frank Underwooded by a Water-Steel Surfer. No one flings poo like a flaming monkey.
Still, with me distracted dealing with him, the MS scandal broke and I found myself, not in my capacity as Ambassador, but in my capacity as Chief Medical Consultant for PokePotions Inc’s American branch, Pokepharm, subpoenaed by congress.
“Miss Jumper-” Congressman Bruno began.
“Ambassador,” I corrected.
“We haven’t summoned you in your political role, which has diplomatic immunity,” the Congressman stated, for the record.
“Doctor then,” I clarified.
“Very well, Doctor,” he agreed. “You were aware of the President’s illness?”
“Yes.” I stated. It was a matter of fact, and when being interrogated, never give more information that you’re asked.
“How did you become aware?” the human asked.
I paused for a second, having expected the question, but not wanting my response to sound rehearsed. Finally, I said, “I could smell the presence of Betaseron on him.”
“You can smell Betaseron?” he asked, surprised.
“You can’t?” I replied, pretending an equal level of surprise. There was a faint giggle from the gallery.
“Please answer the question,” the Republican demanded, face clenched with embarrassment.
“Yes, I can smell Betaseron,” I said, then slightly broke my own rule. “And before you ask, I know what it smells like because my company has worked with the chemical in our research and my people have much more of our brains dedicated to olfactory processing and memory than humans do. On the order of ten-thousand times as much.” It was true. Humans have absolutely terrible senses of smell compared to almost every other mammal.
That took him several long moments to process, but then he asked, “Your company largely deals with antivirals, Dr. Jumper. If I might ask, why were you developing an drug for treating MS, a disease your people don’t get.”
“We weren’t,” I said, falling back to the rule.
“But your company just applied for FDA approval for a new, and many are saying, revolutionary new treatment for MS,” he pressed on.
I frowned dramatically to show my annoyance, allowing my hair to flicker a brighter hue. “The drug grew out of our research on AIDS,” I said, baring my fangs just slightly.
“I don’t see the connection,” the idiot human, who had no medical training at all and was thus as qualified to ask me questions on this topic in a serious forum as the average five year-old is to design a skyscraper.
I snorted, “Viagra grew out of heart medication, I believe. Go figure.”
“But-” he began, but I cut him off. This was ridiculous.
“Look you silly man,” I said, leaning forward. “AIDS, Lupus, MS… they are all related to the human immune system. That’s why they are called ‘AutoImmune Disorders’. It doesn’t make them similar in structure or harm to the body, but sometimes a drug developed for one purpose helps another. Happy accident.”
He grunted, unwilling to be sidetracked by my personal attack… good for him… the worm. “And you provided these drugs to the President?”
“Yes,” I said again, leaning back.
This was the golden cherry he’d been waiting for, and he pounced, unable to hide his glee at my admission. “So you admit to interfering in American Politics?” His eyes were actually sparkling.
I stared at him for a very very long moment, enough that the crowd began to murmur, then drawled, “You are a special kind of idiot, aren’t you?” my voice would not have reached the mic if the room had been any louder.
“I beg your pardon!?” he demanded.
“Not granted,” I said, finally leaning forward again. My voice much amplified, I continued, “As I am not here today as an Ambassador, but as a private medical professional, let me point out that I have sworn an oath upon my Rescuer’s Badge and before almighty Arceus to help those who need helping. A living being needed help, help I could provide. And I gave it.”
“And in doing so helped perpetrate a fraud on the people of the United States,” he pointed out triumphantly.
“There you go again, being stupid,” I sighed dramatically. “Your President Roosevelt the First had asthma, the Second… polio… JFK was a womanizer, LBJ a pervert… What business of the people is any of that? None of it has any impact on the person’s ability to do the job.”
He pounced, verbally speaking, “What if he were to die from his disease?”
I sneered back at him. “Do you actually think before words come out of your mouth?”
“You can be held in contempt of congress,” he threatened.
“I have your wife’s hairdresser on speed dial,” I pointed out, as if it were a threat.
Momentarily shaken, he grunted, “What does… never mind. What’s your point?”
“MS isn’t fatal…” I explained, but didn’t stop there. “And even if it were, so what? Presidents die. You have mechanisms to replace them.”
“But don’t the people have the right to know the President might die at any time?” he asked.
”Again, because you clearly weren’t listening…” and I leaned in close to the mic so my amplified voice practically echoed through the chamber, “Multiple Sclerosis isn’t fatal.”
“But-”
“Any Human might die at any time. My aide could walk out of this hall and be crushed by a falling light fixture. You could cross a street and be hit by a taxi. Even I could eat some bad shawarma and be KO’d. Nothing is certain.”
“But you did administer an untested, unapproved, highly experimental drug illegally to the President of the United States?” he asked, trying to salvage some of this.
“No.” Again the rule.
“You just-” he began, making him look like an idiot… which had been my intention all along. After all, he was an idiot, a grasping opportunistic idiot who cared more about personal and party power than about doing his Arceus be damned job!
“I didn’t administer it,” I clarified as if I wasn’t seething inside. “I distributed it to Dr. Bartlett for her evaluation… as a colleague.”
“Illegally,” he pointed out.
“No.”
“No?” he asked, surprised all over again. The man really was a dumbass.
“I brought the samples in legally,” I pointed out, “then turned them over to a licensed medical professional for review. At no time did I administer, prescribe, or advocate their use on a human being.”
“But you knew they would be?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We could ask your country to recall you for this,” he snapped, petulance tinging his words.
“Yes. You do that,” I retorted, almost chuckling. “Explain to the world why you’re condemning a medical practitioner for worrying about the health of a Human-being. I’m sure that will do wonders for your country’s reputation.”
In the end, I got a slap on the wrist, Pokepharm got hit with a fine we could pay out of petty cash, and that was that. And later that year I won the Nobel Prize in Medicine… I gave the prize money to the African AIDS Relief Fund.
I didn’t tell Congress that I’d somehow tapped into Whitehouse coms and found out when and where they were going to take out Ibn Abdul Shereef… then offered to remove the terrorist Ambassador from Qumar for my good friends America in exchange for the President’s support for an increase in the fees remitted to Poketopia for Voltorb Services in the US Power Grid. The plane broke up in midair from a massive lightning strike… So tragic.
I also didn’t mention that Secret Service Agent Simon Donovan, who’d died senselessly in a bodega robbery (maybe Mark Harmon pissed off Sorkin, maybe he really did create the action hero type just to kill him) in the original timeline, had been saved by Zane, who ‘just happened’ to be in the same shop at the same time.
I didn’t tell them that I hadn’t saved Deloris Landingham because it forced Bartlett to become more himself, something the old woman would have wanted. The number of things I didn’t tell Congress increased over the years, little things… like using a Human Alter-Ego with American Citizenship to campaign for Sam Seaborn in the California 47th, arranging for him to win against all odds, a massive upset brought about by the total collapse of his opponent on TV, ranting about Alien Mind Control, Shapeshifting Lizardpeople, and proclaimations of The Rapture being upon us. Fun times!
I did volunteer my services a third time upon the kidnapping of Zoe Bartlett, to keep the President from stepping down. Qumari sleeper cells aren’t really a match for The Bosses in action and it was nice to see them shine again.
As the years passed, I pondered what to do about Leo. If he didn’t have his heart attack, he’d never step down and allow CJ to take over. He’d never join the Santos Campaign in the VP slot. I knew he’d been killed not by the writers, but by the death of his actor on Origin Earth. But here… I could interfere. Of course, that meant getting invited to Camp David for a Peace Summit between Israel and Palestine (Probably the least realistic thing about the series) that had nothing to do with Poketopia. So I went in as a beverage cart, having tagged Leo with a tracking chip. Good thing I can shapeshift, huh? Hint hint.
I found him first, appearing as my most angelic (tengu) form, and injected him with a stabilizing agent and nanopaste solution which would slowly mend his heart, then vanished as soon as I heard others coming to Leo’s aid. Now all I had to do was make sure Vinick (played by Alan Alda) didn’t win the general election. That had been the original plan if John Spencer hadn’t passed away, believing that perhaps it was time to show a reasonable Republican in the Oval… not that West Wing got an eighth season… heathen network swine!
The fundamental problem with Vinick is that he was a decent guy… because in the Sorkinverse, such a thing as a principled Republican existed. Then again, in the Sorkinverse, Democrats were actually liberal and not centrist. But then I remembered what the idiot in Congress had said about influence… and I started making calls.
One by one, several prominent figures began to voice their support for a Vinick Presidency… ones who’d be anathema to the Republican mainstream… or foreign leaders who would be seen as trying to sway the American voting public. Meanwhile, my fiery Human Alter Ego was working on Getting Out The Vote and fundraising for Santos. Together all my efforts (and convincing Will Bailey to get on board with us early so Bob Russell dropped out faster), secured the White House after a very close run election. Still, Santos had his mandate, if only by less than 1%.
What can be said of the three years of the Santos Presidency I was there for? It was better than the Bush Jr Presidency? So would a Vinick Presidency been. So would practically anyone have been. Did the man from Texas bring the US into a golden age where the Great Recession never happened? Did the peace in the Middle East last? Hahah… no.
Bartlett’s Middle East plan was good, but it put Americans in harm’s way and when the Extremist Fundamentalists attacked, it drew the US into a war… a war that rapidly spread across the region, bringing Pakistan and Afghanistan in with the fundamentalists, who rapidly overwhelmed Iraq and Syria’s security forces. Arab Spring came right on time… but this time it was the harbinger of World War III. India came in against Pakistan… China came in against India… Japan came in against China… Russia moved on the Ukraine, Greece fell into economic ruin… and the US and the EU were trying to hold things together, trying to act as peacemaker to a world that was no longer listening. This was a World War in the Third World and it was all the main players could do to keep things from boiling down to nuclear weapons.
In the end, it failed. A terror cell detonated a dirty bomb in Mumbai, killing thousands and poisoning hundreds of thousands. In retaliation, a rogue Indian General glassed Mecca. The Muslim world went… mad. I honestly don’t know if there was anything I could do to stop it, but I tried. I tried like crazy… but when there’s that much hate built up over that long, it can be hard to keep it down any more.
Did the Bartlett Plan make things worse? Did it bring things to a head? Did it just delay the inevitable by putting off 9/11 and the Iraq War and the Afghan War? I don’t know if I’ll ever know… or even how this war will play out. It’s the last day here and I’m watching squadrons of Metangs and Nosepasses getting ready to lift. China’s sent a fleet against our waters and the Trainers have declared that China Shall Not Pass!
I silently watched the boys, girls, and things march off to war and sighed, “Love to Stay, Hate to Go… but I’m not getting stuck in this. Good luck Josh… you’ll need it.”
Next: World 33 – Eye of Gold
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Oh wait… there was some other stuff that happened. See… it turns out that VIvian and VIctoria wanted a few toys, but didn’t think to ask me to just get them. Noooo… they used my command overrides and biometrics to access the VMoD between the time I logged my build and Insertion… and added some complications to pay for their purchases. I don’t know if I should be pissed or amused, but regardless, new security features will be added to keep my clothes and my digital assistant from messing around with the Choice Store.
So, of course, I guess I should tell you what they bought and reveal how their meddling influenced the jump’s events, right? Right. Well, first off, they’d taken two drawbacks, ‘Conspirator’ and ‘The Other Side of the Coin’. The first is what got me caught up in that whole MS Scandal affair… apparently that level of annoyance was worth a whopping two-hundred Choice! Quite a bargain for something that lasted all of six months and, as an Ambassador, really didn’t affect my ‘reelection’ chances at all.
The Other Side of the Coin was what had (apparently) generated Bonnie. The political yin to my yang, he was essentially Frank Underwood in Metal Penguin Mode. I suspect there’s a Metal Gear Solid reference hidden in there, but either way? Oy. That one was worth three-hundred Choice! Sure, it was more painful and harder to deal with… but it hadn’t really been all that troublesome.
Ultimately I was more annoyed about them going behind my back and messing with my build than anything else. I’d have been madder had they screwed me more… or refunded anything I’d bought… but they hadn’t. So that brings us to what they felt they needed five-hundred Choice for. Well, it was more on the order of four-hundred. They’d spent the last hundred on a ‘present’ for me, something they felt I’d overlooked.
The stuff for them were a pair of import upgrades for themselves. For VIctoria, it was as an ‘Untraceable Phone’, a cellphone with the ability to make undetectable direct calls, as well as the ability to listen in on other forms of verbal communication, since it could tab virtually any office or phone line by use of a fairly simple app. For VIvian, it was something similar, only with a laptop, this one undetectable by any monitoring software once it was plugged into a network and equipped with a wide variety of encryption cracking tools preloaded. They were both two-hundred, and both required normal recharging… or would have had they not be integrated into a living biosuit and a tree.
The ‘gift’ they’d gotten me, paid for by me (which in a way is like getting a gift from your child, I imagine), was a perk called ‘Anything You Want to Talk About?’, and it was from the Journalist line that I’d just skipped right over. It made me into a gifted journalist and political writer, one able to ask the tough questions while entertaining my readers… not that I’d actually done any of that over the last decade, but it did explain why I’d been so good at picking up bits of political news or gossip, and why I’d begun to have a kind of sixth sense for misinformation. It wasn’t infalible, but it was quite reasonably accurate. I don’t know if it was actually worth it… but it’s the thought that counts… right?