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."