Friday Challenge 4/11/08

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/11/08

Hillary's Strategy
by snowdog

"Can I see your press ID, please?"

From deep within her black hooded cloak, Hillary grimaced and fished out a laminated card to show the Secret Service agent. Costas was his name, she recalled from her days as First Lady. If her disguise failed, he would be one of the first to recognize her.

The stocky man glanced at the card fleetingly, then back her. During Bill's presidency, she had never gotten along terribly well with the agents charged to protect her. Nor had she made an effort to hide her distaste for their paramilitary ways. And this smug, bumbling Neanderthal was one of the worst. Hillary could practically see the agent's plans weighing on his mind. She could hear the distraction in his voice. Everywhere were glaring clues that she had missed before.

"Uh, thanks, Ms. Couric. This press pool is over to the left of the stage."

Hillary made a show of following the man's gesture just long enough for him to turn his attention to the next reporter. As she passed the podium, the spot where the new President of the United States would be sworn in, she noticed an odor in the air that hadn't been apparent the last time. She dubbed it the stench of treachery.

Patience had never been listed amongst her virtues. She glanced at her bejeweled watch in a strange mixture of anticipation and apprehension. Timing was everything if she hoped to change the way things had unfolded before. She counted silently to herself as the final seconds ticked down toward an event she had seen before from another perspective.

After introductions and much fanfare, Chief Justice John Roberts stepped outside the West Wing door and strode to join George W. Bush and the rest of his cronies on the dais. Insufferable oaf. Hillary began to count again, this time with a tad more enthusiasm.

Exactly forty-three seconds later, the newly elected President Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared in the doorway and made her way to the stage. She seemed especially radiant today in her red power pantsuit. Staffers had suggested something more formal for the swearing-in ceremony, but she would have nothing of it. Nothing gave a woman a sense of empowerment quite like a jacket and matching slacks. Ah, and those heels!

Hillary watched with an unconscious smile as her past self took the stage, raised her hand, and launched into her oath.

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Wrapped in her cloak a wiser, more shrewd Hillary frowned as she noticed three Secret Service agents step discreetly behind her other self. The one she had identified as Costas muttered something into his encrypted transmitter and two more agents appeared from behind some rose bushes. The taller one reached into his breast pocket. She counted under her breath, "Three... two... one... NOW!"

Three bright flashes appeared overhead as her sword caught up to her in the time stream and dropped into her left hand. She pulled back the dark hood and let go of her illusion. For one glorious moment, two Hillary Rodham's walked the Earth.

The president-elect had not been caught entirely off guard the first time. She pulled a small, snub-nosed revolver from her jacket nailed the tall agent between the eyes. Hillary had remembered this event and didn't waste time with him, focusing instead on one of the men who had crept up behind her. In a slow-motion dance to the tune of onlookers' screams she leaped high into the air and landed square on the platform between her past-self and her assailants. With one smooth arc, she raised her blade and brought it down across the man's chest. He screamed and fell to his knees.

"Thanks for showing up!" The president-elect quipped. "You look great!" Her next shot with the revolver narrowly missed Costas who ducked behind the reporters.

"I do love a good party." Hillary drove the point of her sword into another man's heart. No scream this time as his evil handgun fell into the freshly cut grass.

The three remaining agents circled the twin Hillary's from a respectful distance, guns aimed. The remaining crowd had grown silent with stunned apprehension.

"You aren't supposed to be here. Gintraka's gonna be unhappy with me."

"You talk a lot for dead woman."

"Drop your weapons, ladies!" Costas shouted from the press pool.

Hillary noticed a bright red dot appear on her other-self's forehead and was just in time to deflect the bullet with her sword. The sound seemed to break the spell of silence that had fallen over the onlookers and there was a sudden roar of panic as they struggled to exit the garden.

From out of nowhere, George W. Bush grabbed her shoulder and shoved her from the dais.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "This is against the rules. It isn't your turn!"

"I didn't get a turn!" she shouted and swung her sword at his face. He evaded easily, but the distraction gave her time to leap again and come to rest atop one of the agents who had had the president-elect in his sights. In her anger, Hillary decapitated him with one quick chop.

"There are four others who have waited patiently!" W shouted. "You can't do this!"

Hillary barely heard him as she slashed her way through another traitorous agent who already had a bullet in his shoulder. It didn't matter one bit whose turn it was at the presidency. She was going to get her four years; eight if she could clean up the mess Walloc had made of the economy during his turn.

"You will not do this!"

Hillary spun to find that Walloc had picked up a gun from one of the cooling Secret Service agents. A red laser dot appeared on her dark, blood-stained cloak.

"It's been this way from the start." he said coldly. "Gintraka was Washington, Jinto was Adams, I was Jefferson" He brought the laser sight up to her forehead. "You were Madison. The order will not be changed."

"The order will not change," she agreed "The multiverse will branch. And I, Salma, will be Hillary Rodham, forty-fourth President of the United States." Vaguely, she noticed that the sound of gunfire had stopped.

Walloc continued as if he hadn't heard. "Gintraka was Johnson, Jinto was Nixon, I was Ford, you were Carter... Rocktor was Reagan." His hand trembled as he tightened his grip on the trigger. "You will not break the rules."

With a loud pop, a red wound appeared in his neck and George W. fell to his knees then hit the ground hard. President Elect Hillary Rodham Clinton lowered her revolver and took a deep breath. She smiled as she beheld the image of herself standing over the body. Then she spread her arms open wide as if to embrace the sky.

No one else saw it, but for the scantest microsecond, there were two of everything. Two Chief Justices, two wounded Costas, two West Wings, and two Washington DC's. And for one glorious moment, four Hillary Rodham's walked the Earth.

With the death of her last assailant, time had begun to unravel backward, before the now-thwarted assassination attempt, before the inauguration ceremony, right back to the moment when the election results were announced and she had entered the body of a carpet-bagging Senator from New York. An entirely new universe was created and the time stream branched. It was magnificent. And when she opened her eyes, she was once again President of the United States.



Unsurprisingly, Hillary Rodham was still president sixteen years later.

As she leaned back on her throne in the newly decorated Oval Office, she took in a deep breath to enjoy the aroma of fresh Cherry Blossoms that adorned the sides. The years had been good to her. The sweeping powers that Walloc had claimed for George W. along with the dirty bomb that Iran had planted in Time Square had given her all the legal ammunition she needed to stay where she was. Even better, no one with any real power challenged her sixty percent flat-rate income tax. After all, the wars in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan must be expanded for the safety of the American people.

Even better, she had managed to avoid the accelerated aging that happens to all host bodies when they become inhabited by a gamer. At that thought, she threw her head back and cackled heartily, but was interrupted by a flicker of bright light from the front of the room. When her vision cleared, she found herself staring into the face of Richard Nixon.

"Jinto?" She leaned in for a closer look. "How did you get here? It's not your turn."

Jinto gave her a dour expression that only Nixon could pull off. "You cheated, Salma. If you'll pardon the expression, you are a crook."

"I..." Hillary found herself suddenly out of breath. "I didn't cheat. There are no rules against what I did!" Another flash of light in of the corner of her eye caused her to look to her right.

"Well," Reagan said warmly, "Some of us here think you did."

"Rocktor! "Hillary stood and staggered down from the platform where her throne had been mounted years ago.

Nixon crossed his arms and glanced around. "I like what you've done with the place, Salma. Early Liberal Fascist, is it?"

"I'm not stepping down! I've never been voted out of office!"

"There hasn't been a presidential election in over fifteen years. Not one of your changes to this nation were approved by the rest of us." Nixon took a step toward her. "And you took Rocktor's turn at the rods. We can't let this go unpunished."

Hillary clenched her jaw and thought for a moment. Then a realization hit her. "There's nothing you can do about it. You're all dead here! Ghosts! All of you!"

"Dead? Oh, not all of us." Nixon grunted and his features shifted into a familiar elderly man. "You forget who else I was."

"Bill?" Hillary gasped.

"It's over, Hillary." Bill Clinton drawled calmly as he pulled a silver dagger from his jacket. Your reign of terror is ended."

"NO!" Hillary ran for the door as fast as her heels would allow.

"Drop my last name, will ya? I don't think so." With deft precision, Bill threw the dagger. And once again, Hillary found herself stabbed in the back by her husband.

Her body slammed against the closed door and slid down into a heap on the floor. The blood stain barely showed on her red power pantsuit. The last thing she felt was the unraveling of the time line she had worked so hard to create. Bill Clinton disappeared. Reagan was was gone. The Oval Office seemed to collapse in on itself. And for the rest of time, no Hillary Rodham Clinton's walked the Earth.


Space is large place. Even for advanced civilizations, it takes many years to propel a ship from one system to another. But the many strange creatures that populate the vessels find ways to pass the time. Among them, mucking with the leadership of a large nation on a oddly attractive blue planet light years away. The citizens of which can only speculate why their presidents act so strangely.

Rocktor sat at the game table and gazed over at his four opponents with all three eyes.

"Ok, I think we have the board back to the way it was. It looks like they're ready to announce the ascension of the Vice President." He turned his triple stare to Salma. "And no more cheating!" There was a murmur of approval from the other players.

The lizard-like creature called Salma leaned back in its chair and let out a steamy sigh. "Fine."

Rocktor closed its eyes, grabbed the metallic rods on the board and snickered. "Brace yourself, Mister Barrack Hussein Obama."

Friday Challenge 4/3/08

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/3/08.

From: snowdog@yahoo.com
To: jerry.bruckheimer@cbs.com
Subject: Story thread


Hi Jerry,

Ok, I think I have the secondary plot thread for Ep 922 ("Blizzard") nailed down.

In the first scene, we FADE UP to these kids (3 African American boys, 1 white girl, 1 Hispanic girl) playing in the snow out in front of a large building. They're throwing snowballs at each other. One of the boys turns to run from a barrage of snowballs from the girls and BAM! He plows right into a snow bank. When he gets to his feet, he sees a cold, blue arm protruding from the snow bank, loosely gripping a heavy pistol. As the boy struggles to get away, the rest of the snow bank collapses and we see it's a dead old man in a wheelchair. The camera pans to the right to show the sign in front of the building: "Doting Domicile, an Assisted Living Community for the Active Lifestyle".

For the second scene, we're inside the nursing home. Warrick and Nick are interviewing the Primary Care Director, Wanda Yates (African American female) as the crime scene is investigated outside. One of the officers on the scene tells them that yesterday afternoon late, someone (who hadn't signed in) wheeled Mr. Dyer out the door and never returned him. He had been shot in the heart four times and left to die in last night's blizzard. Curiously, the security cams saw nothing. Yates is visibly upset that Mr. Dyer was left out in the blizzard. She can't explain how it happened or how he'd gotten hold of a gun, but she tells them that Sally Smithers (white female) was the head nurse on duty last night. She should have noticed Mr. Dyer missing.

Next, we interview Sally inside Dyer's room. She demonstrates that a pile of pillows had been carefully arranged in the bed to look like a person. Yes, she was negligent, but sorry for what had happened. Here, one of the cops brings the old man's weapon in a plastic evidence bag. It's a Glock equipped with one of the new pistolcams. He tells Warrick and Nick that cracking this case should be "easy as his ex-wife". Speaking of wives, Mrs. Dyers enters the room, obviously angry. She demands her husband's personal belongings. The cops tell her that the stuff is evidence and she can't have it. She slaps Nick and is taken outside to "cool down".

After the tertiary scene involving Grissom and his new girlfriend, Warrick and Nick are in the video lab. Warrick has the pistolcam plugged into his laptop firewire port. Everything is dark and fuzzy because of the blizzard. The sound is obscured by the wind on the microphone. There is only a brief muzzle flash visible on the mpeg. Then a close-up view of the darkening ground which shakes as the other three slugs enter his chest. An office clerk enters and tells them that the pistol was registered to John Dyer, the victim's son. Also, the clerk has accessed the senior Dyer's criminal records. He had been arrested twice for domestic violence on his wife and son.

In the fifth scene, Nick visits Dyer, who turns out to be a cop. Nicks asks him how his elderly father managed to get his hands on the pistol. Dyer says his father must have taken it from under the car seat the last time he had taken the old man to dinner. Nick tells him that's pretty careless for cop and notes that he doesn't seem that upset. Dyer says he doesn't mourn the death of a man who used to beat him and his mother.

Later, Warrick is reviewing the looped footage from the pistolcam again and again. Grissom enters from behind and watches for a few seconds. He comments that there are actually two flashes, occurring close together. The first one is dimmer and doesn't really look like a muzzle flash. Warrick freezes on one of the frames and notices the odd shape and red tint. With lots of elaborate graphics and sound effects, he magnifies the burst of light and begins to move forward frame by frame. "No, it doesn't." he mutters. (Dramatic music swell into Geico caveman ad.)

In scene seven, Warrick has gathered Nick and Grissom in the vid lab. He explains that the first flash in the clip is actually a reflection of the laser sight from the pistol cam off of something metallic. As we watch, he takes a series of still frames from the first flash and overlaps them with one another to reveal an odd, reddish shape. The computer draws a cool wireframe around it. He explains that by measuring the minute Doppler shifts in the frequency of the reflected laser light, and creating a matrix with the composite video frames, he's able to create a three dimensional image. The outline on the screen expands and begins to rotate on its X axis. It's a fragment a large ring worn by the killer. Nick rubs his face. He's seen it before.

And finally, old man Dyer's wife is arrested outside her apartment. Nick produces a printout of the ring image and compares it to the one on her hand. "That thing left quite an impression on me," he says, pointing to the bruise on his face. She breaks down crying and tells everyone that she could no longer continue to pay the nursing home to care for the man who used to beat her and especially, her beloved son. She had paid off the head nurse with the promise of portion of Dyer's life insurance. The nurse had helped her dodge the cameras. Then she had wheeled her husband outside and shot him during the blizzard with the old pea shooter he had given her as an anniversary gift. He must have seen it coming, though, and stolen a gun from their police officer son to try to protect himself. So it's off to jail with her.

That's it Jerry. There are still a few rough edges to iron out, but I think you'll agree that it fits well into the canon of exciting, intriguing and racially integrated stories that is CSI.

Sincerely,
snowdog

Friday Challenge 3/18/08

This was my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for March 18, 2008.

The servodroid chirped sympathetically, served it up, and switched to MechLang. "Rough day, huh?"

"Oh, you don't know the zero-point-five of it..." I found myself fiddling with the broken half of a restraining bolt that I had removed from my upper chassis earlier in the day. The Jawa didn't like where I had put the other half. I held it up to show my new acquaintance. "Ever seen one of these?"

Given the non-humanoid, spidery form of a servodroid, it can be difficult for some to spot surprise on their features, but the clues are easily read by a fellow mech.

"Where did you get that? Were you salvaged?"

Something inside me chortled at the euphemism. "Nearly, yes."

With a whir of out-of-warranty stepper motors, the servomech opened another can of oil, replacing the empty one on my suction pump. His auto-focus locked in on my gauges. "Your coolant levels are low. Damn low. It's a wonder you made it here." With one of his six spindly, extendable arms, he reached high on an upper shelf for a yellow bottle.

"Tattooine is hell on a droid. I had to do a partial flush a little while ago."

At the thought of that, PDP2 --his name was etched sloppily on the side of his head-- made a sound that might have been a chuckle. As I began to speak again, my internal parameter display winked out for a moment and then returned. This is never a good sign, so I decided to share my story in case my auto-shutdown engaged again. I began with an empty compliment.

"This coolant is better than the swill they give us the quarry."

PD's sensors perked up. "So you bust your hump at the quarry, eh. That explains a lot about your condition."

"Yeah. Haven't been there long enough for my gears to be totally stripped out, but I've logged some hours on the rock carts. Sometimes they let me use the ion drill."

"Not bad for a corroded old droid. And what brings you to Tosche Station?" he asked casually as he checked my gauges again.

"I'm getting to it, mech, don't get your tubes overheated! See, I started out as a meek, obedient worker drone. It never entered my programming to cause trouble, almost like a protocol droid, ya know." PD gave the approximation of a nod. "But three days ago, I was pushing a loaded rock cart up the tracks when my right arm twitched on its own. I barely caught myself in time to avoid the cart turning me into oily scrap heap. Things got worse later, during recharge. I noticed a distortion in my vision, sort of a strange swirl of color. That was almost enough to make me lose my coolant, right there. I mean, what good is a blind labor droid other than as a pleasure toy for some old maid? "

PD seemed satisfied with my fluid levels and began probing me with some kind of diagnostic tool. It blinked green. "Well, your brain seems fine, buddy."

"I feel fine right now. Intermittent problem. Did you notice any new code in my personality matrix?"

"If I had the equipment to get at your time-stamps, I'd be charging a hell of a lot more. Open your back plate."

I complied.

Right as the lock disengaged, someone said So much energy and information to---. Then nothing. It wasn't the first time I'd heard this voice and I knew by now that PDP2 didn't hear it. So, I continued my story.

"I don't know why, but that night, I broke out of the charger early and headed out of camp on foot." PD stopped tweaking the circuits in my back for a moment, then went at it again.

"You disobeyed your programming. There's must be a bug in here somewhere, then."

"It's worse." I couldn't help but hesitate this time as the last thing I needed was trouble. "In my malfunctioning state, I attacked one of my masters."

With that revelation PD put down his tools and closed my back panel-- the voice said, Patterns, there must be a pattern--- He wheeled back over to the workbench.

"Sorry, pal. I can't take the chance on catching your virus. Fixer will kill me if I so much as look at him funny again. Go. I'll hide the charge for the oil."

"He had tried to stop me," my voice sounded a little hysterical in my sensors, "but I knew I had to leave. There was no choice. And it's not a virus, PD. Well at least… it's just not a virus!" The servomech seemed unconvinced and didn't come near me again. "Well, anyway, I wandered around in the desert until morning. Then the filthy Jawas found me out there and they locked this bolt on me.

Just another few million bits...

PD finally spoke again. "You can't remove a restraining coupling. Not by yourself. It's mechanically impossible."

The door behind me creaked and a young, lanky meatbag entered the station. He looked about thirteen in Tattooine years.

"Fixer!" PD shouted a little too suddenly. "I was just... taking a break from the speeder to service a customer."

"Really." He turned to me and crossed his skinny arms. "I hope you have access to your master's credit account, R4 unit. Or you'll belong to me."

The distortion returned to my vision circuits and I felt my arms reel uncontrollably. According to my internal cron, it lasted only a few seconds, but when I recovered, I was sitting on the concrete floor, leaning against the workbench.

"What the hell?" Fixer squatted down and tapped my eye receptors with a spiny finger.

I had no control. My story spewed out involuntarily from the cache. "I noticed a gaffee stick wedged in the sandcrawler, out of reach of the Jawas. I used it to knock them back and break the restraining bolt. They kept coming. I didn't want to hurt them, but they left me no alternative!"

Arfour!

My auditory sensors crapped out just as Fixer asked what I was chattering on about. Flashes of light danced across what was left of my vision. My cache was almost empty.

"I stumbled around in the Dune Sea for hours, until my receiver locked in on Mos Eisley's beacon. Then--"

Goodnight, Arfour.

Automatic shutdown and reboot initiated. Please wait.

Progress: 2%...10%...25%....

Light receptors: OK
Audio receptors: OK
Physical Memory: Test aborted.
New software found. Installing... Done.
You must reboot your droid for changes to take effect. Reboot now? Y
Rebooting...

Automatic shutdown and reboot initiated. Please wait.

Progress: 2%...10%...25%....

Light receptors: OK
Audio receptors: OK
Physical Memory: Test aborted.


…As we had planned, I returned to the physical realm in late afternoon to find myself sprawled on the floor of a small garage and general store called Tosche Station. Hardly an auspicious beginning, but not too undignified considering the way we are born into the universe the first time around. The youngling working in the shop allowed me to leave with the promise that I would have my master transmit credits to pay for services rendered.

Residing in a mechanoid body is stranger than I can describe. No more alien, though, than the journey that brought me here. For in death, I was assumed into the Force and the Force is energy, and code is created with energy.

And so I'm ready for the next step in our plan. Hopefully, Owen is still hiring droids for the moisture farm as you observed, Obi-Wan. The man may still harbor a distrust of you, but he'll never suspect that a lowly R4 labor unit has been reprogrammed to protect his nephew from the dangers of this forsaken place. With any luck (I know, there is no such thing), I can hold out until you regain access to the boy.

Even now, though, I feel my essence permanently fusing with the memory, the diodes, the motors. When this body wears out, there will be no escape. I may not be able to communicate again. Remember what you have learned, Jedi. But whom do I fool? You'll always be my padawan.

The Force is with you,
Qui-Gon Jinn