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Updated Sunday 15 August, 2010 12:14 PM |
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SNAKE OIL
By Doctor What
Money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the "gotta have it" scale. ~ Zig Ziglar
~~~
January 20, 2017
Matthew Jackson McDonald ignored the cold wind that was getting through the woefully inadequate wool suit jacket he was wearing. This was his day and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like the weather ruin it.
He stared out at the assembled crowd that had braved the unseasonably cold weather.
They were standing there, in rapt attention, waiting on his every word.
He glanced up at the grey skies.
There were even a few flakes of snow coming down. Unbelievable! Where the hell was his global warming?
McDonald turned his gaze back to the man in the judge’s robe.
Oh yeah—the moment of truth.
McDonald raised his right hand.
"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."
The cheers that rose up from the assembled crowd lasted for a full minute and drowned out the rest of the speech and were indirectly responsible for giving the television director in charge of the inauguration yet another ulcer.
January 21, 2017
President McDonald leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hand once again over the desk.
He could pick up every imperfection, every splinter, every scratch and every crack.
He could almost feel the…history…flowing from the desk.
He shifted his chair around and glanced out the window of the Oval Office.
He couldn’t see them, of course, but he knew that out there, somewhere—on various rooftops and other hidden nooks and crannies—were a plethora of some very highly trained and well-armed men and women who were in dire need of a humour transplant—but were also tasked with protecting his life at all costs. Even at the cost of their own, if need be.
It was a sobering thought.
Still…
President… Matthew… Jackson… McDonald…ah…practically rolls right off the tongue…definitely destined to end up in the history books…
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in!”
A man walked in, the blue of his uniform in stark contrast with his stark white hair. There were enough medals pinned to his chest to probably set off metal detector from a hundred yards away.
“General! What brings you here? I thought that the tour wasn’t going to occur until—“, started McDonald—then he saw the look on the General’s face.
And the five Secret Service agents behind him.
“General?”
“Sir—I really do think you should come with us. Now.”
McDonald didn’t even have a chance to reply before the agents swiftly ran into the office and practically carried him out.
The seven of them ran through a bewildering maze of corridors until they got to an elevator. Two of the agents stayed behind while the others went into the elevator with McDonald and the General.
With a slight hum, the elevator began to descend.
“General? What the hell is going on?”
“We’re going to a secure underground bunker, Sir.”
“Are we…we…being attacked? Did the Russians launch some missiles? The Chinese? North Koreans?”
The general shook his head.
“No sir. We…well…we have detected…an object.”
“What kind of object?”
The general glanced at McDonald for a very long moment, and then turned his gaze forward again.
“Approximately twenty minutes ago, a dozen mile long rectangular objects suddenly appeared in orbit over the North American and European continents. We’ve had both radar and visual confirmation of the objects. They don’t belong to us or any other nation on this planet.”
There was a very long moment of silence.
“General—are you actually telling me that there’s a fleet of alien spaceships in orbit?!”
“Yes Sir—I am.”
McDonald was still in shock when the elevator doors opened and he walked into the bunker.
The bunker was immense.
It also looked like the War Room from Dr. Strangelove, with massive display panels, computers, communications gear and what looked like a small army of technicians running around.
McDonald remembered seeing that movie as a kid and being impressed with how it looked. That’s how a Presidential super secret bunker was supposed to look like!
Then McDonald remembered what had happened to the world at the end of that movie…
He was led to a large table, around which were seated over a dozen or so individuals. Some looked military—others looked civilian.
He only recognized a handful of them, mostly from seeing them on CNN or reading about them in Time, Newsweek or The Economist. One had acted as an ‘unofficial’ advisor to no less than three different Presidents. Another was Director of the NSA. A third was the Administrator of NASA.
“Sir—I’ll forgo with the introductions for the moment. I’ll let these individuals bring you up to speed.”
McDonald sat in a chair at the head of the table. He realized that his throat has gone dry. Swallowing hard, he spoke.
“So—what have you got for me?”
NASA man leaned forward.
“The ships have made no hostile actions whatsoever. They’re just sitting there. I was going to suggest that we contact them by radio but –“, he turned to give a brief megawatt glare of anger at the NSA guy before returning his attention to McDonald, “ –somebody overruled me.”
“We don’t want to let them know we’re here.” said NSA guy.
“Are you retarded?” screamed NASA guy, “How can they not know we’re here?!”
“My job is to protect this nation and I won’t have its security compromised by some idealistic naïve scientists who want to speak to E.T.!”
NASA guy turned red-faced and looked like he was actually going to start hitting NSA guy when McDonald intervened.
“ENOUGH!”
Instantly the table became silent.
In the brief silence that ensued, an aide came in and gave a note to the General and scurried off. The general looked at the note and raised his eyebrows. Sighing deeply, he turned to look at the table again.
“It appears that we don’t have to argue about whether or not we should make contact. They have contacted us. They are requesting that we allow a small ‘scout ship’ to land on the White House grounds and have the lone representative in it –they used the term ‘negotiator’ - meet with President McDonald in this bunker. Yes—it appears that not only are they aware of the existence of this bunker but also know that the President is in it at this very moment.”
“Oh fuck…” muttered someone at the table.
“Sir?” asked the general, turning to look at McDonald.
McDonald sighed.
Be careful what you wish for….
“Do we have a choice?”
“It appears not, sir”
“What the hell do they want?”
“They wouldn’t say—they insist that they need to talk to you.”
McDonald sighed again.
I could have spent the rest of my career as a senator but noooooo – I just had to decide to go for the brass ring…
“Tell them—we accept.”
McDonald had to admit – he never expected the alien to look…human.
Well…humanish.
A mere ten minutes after the message was relayed that they will accept the ‘negotiator’, a small grey wedge shaped ship about the size of a Hummer noiselessly and calmly came to a landing on the White House front lawn –in full view of literally thousands of people across the city.
Within one minute of the landing, CNN was already showing film of the alien ship landing with such calm inducing headlines as ‘ALIENS LAND IN D.C. – INVASION IMMINENT?’, the 911 emergency lines more or less melted from overuse and the highways out of the city already had thousands of panicked residents fleeing the city.
In retrospect—McDonald realized it actually went quite well, all things considered.
A figure –nearly hidden under a dark robe and hood--calmly walked out of the ship and met the assembled soldiers and Secret Service agents at the front entrance and was just as quickly escorted inside.
Within a few moments, the elevator doors of the bunker opened to reveal Earth’s first glimpse at a real honest to goodness extraterrestrial.
He – or at least it looked like a he – was tall, easily over six feet tall. But he was quite thin—no more than one hundred fifty pounds, if that. The alien quickly undid something on the front of his robe and pulled it open, yanking down his hood as he did so.
He was yellow.
Well—mostly yellow. His skin had a strange mottled design of black spots of various sizes covering the sides of his necks, his cheeks and most of the top of his bald head. What looked like two blue coloured feathery antennae sprouted on either side of his head.
Incredulously, he appeared to be wearing what looked like a three piece black business suit that looked like it came straight out of a Brooks Brothers ad.
He smiled, showing a mouthful of white teeth—and blue gums.
“Greetings President McDonald. May I sit?” said the alien in English.
McDonald wordlessly nodded his head and indicated an empty chair.
The alien handed his robe to a nearby Secret Service agent.
“Hold this please.”
The agent looked at the robe, blinking in confusion. He glanced at McDonald –who nodded his head. Shrugging his shoulders, the agent draped the robe over his arm and took a few steps back.
The alien sat down with a smile.
It didn’t escape McDonald’s notice that the alien had barely glanced at the agent during the whole exchange—as if he automatically assumed that the agent was there to hold his robe.
The alien leaned back—and gave another smile.
“Now—allow me to introduce myself. My race is known as the Lytasians. As for my name—well, it is extremely difficult to pronounce in your language but you can refer to me as...Bob.”
“Bob?” repeated McDonald.
“Yes. Bob will do.”
“Why are you here...Bob?”
“We have a business proposal to offer you.”
Bob leaned back a few more inches and grinned again. Steepling his fingers in front of his face, he continued.
“Our observations of your planet indicate that you have yet to perfect fusion technology and, as a result, have to resort to using a variety of other highly inefficient methods to generate your power. I am authorized to sell you a dozen working copies of our fusion generators. Each generator is approximately, using your units of measurement, 2500 cubic feet in size and is capable of producing over 30,000 megawatts of power.”
McDonald raised his eyebrows in shock and surprise. He noticed out of the corner of his eye the NASA guy pulling out a calculator and making some frantic calculations.
“Sir—according to my calculations—just those twelve generators will be enough to generate over forty five percent of the necessary power supply for the contiguous United States!”
“Forty seven point three six percent to be precise,” said Bob.
McDonald narrowed his eyes.
“You said ‘sell’. What’s your price?” asked McDonald, suspiciously.
“More of an exchange, to be accurate. Your Moon has a great deal of useful minerals and elements. In exchange for the generators, you allow us to build a mineral processing plant on the south pole of your Moon and leave it there for the short, short period of 99 years. The plant will be fully automated and require merely a dozen or so of our people to operate it and we will not process more than twenty thousand metric tons of minerals per year. At the end of the 99 year period, we will be quite willing to renegotiate any renewal deals.”
There was a period of silence lasting over thirty seconds. McDonald finally broke the silence.
“We...ummm...the U.S. does not have any official authority regarding the Moon...”
“We understand that. But by agreeing to this deal, you will agree to not interfere with our operations there in any shape or form, directly or indirectly, and render aid and assistance to our people there if we ever request it.”
“And the nature of this...aid and assistance?” asked McDonald.
“All manner of aid—up to and including military assistance.”
There was a murmur of gasps from around the table.
“In addition,” continued Bob, “-we will be more than happy to turn over exclusive rights for all the spec plans and blueprints for these generators as well--for the rights of a mineral processing plant to be left unmolested on Mars for the same period and under the same conditions.”
“That is...an unusual offer...Bob.” said McDonald, trying very hard to choose his words carefully.
“But nevertheless a potentially highly useful and lucrative offer. If I may continue?”
“There’s more?” said McDonald, incredulously.
“Much, much more!” replied Bob, grinning again. “We’ve noticed that your space faring technology is woefully inadequate and primitive. Fortunately, we happen to have three dozen freighters equipped with fully functional Faster than Light drives. They're a bit old by our standards but at least a century ahead of anything that you may be able to develop. With careful maintenance and upkeep, they should serve you adequately for another thirty or forty years. The FTL drive is quite complex and beyond your capabilities to replicate but suffice to say that the speed of the FTL drive is equivalent to about sixty times the speed of light.”
There was a gasp of shock from the NASA guy.
“Sixty...times...the speed...of...light...?” he repeated. He sounded like he was going to have a heart attack at any moment.
“Yes. Quite slow compared to our current engines but still a most impressive achievement. Oh—and just to forego the next question—we are not opposed to any expansionist efforts you may have. For your information, it may be of interest to you to know that there are no sentient space-faring races within a seventy-five light radius of your planet. You are free to develop that region to your heart’s desire—we will not interfere with those ships or those efforts in any shape or form.”
“And beyond that radius?”
Bob cocked his head to one side, his antennae waving.
“There are several races there that may have...issues...with any colonization or exploration operations you may conduct. Fortunately we are on good terms with those races and we will be happy to offer our services as brokers. For a small and quite reasonable fee, of course.”
There were a few grumbles from around the table.
Ignoring the grumbles, McDonald spoke.
“And what is the price for these freighters that you are offering to us?”
“We'll give you these ships in exchange for allowing us to build a shipyard in orbit around Jupiter and allowing us to leave it there for the next 99 years as well. If you like--we'll be able to build a training facility for 1000 of your people to learn how to operate the ships. Regrettably--this will require us to need an extension of an additional 99 years on said facility but you can see the obvious benefits from such a training facility.”
Bob leaned back and nonchalantly pulled out a small device from a pocket. It looked very similar to a BlackBerry. Pushing a few buttons with a black thumbnail, a screen lit up.
“Now about those nasty diseases like AIDS and cancer and so forth. Our medical technology is extremely advanced and we believe that we will be able to create cures for virtually every disease that plagues your race. These cures will offer one hundred percent immunity to the diseases and be one hundred percent successful in curing any of those who have been afflicted by those diseases.”
“Uh...”, interjected someone from the back of the table, “...that’s not how vaccines work. They can’t cure those already afflicted with the disease...”
“As I indicated—they are not vaccines but cures. Alas, the cures are far too advanced for your race to replicate for the moment but we will be more than happy to make as many doses as you require. Regrettably—the process to make the cure for each individual disease is a bit expensive and time consuming but we value you as good customers so we will be giving you the cures for the low, low, low price of an immediate and upfront fee of 100 kilos of gold or processed uranium – your choice -- and an additional 1000 kilos of either gold or processed uranium per year for the next 10 years.”
Bob passed the ‘Blackberry’ to McDonald.
“That price I quoted was for the lung cancer cure. The prices for the rest of the diseases are indicated on that list.”
McDonald looked at the screen.
It was a very long list.
And the prices covered nearly every mineral, metal and commodity that was produced on Earth.
McDonald looked around at the rest of the table.
There were a lot of very confused and angry faces.
He turned his gaze back towards Bob.
“I have a question.”
“And hopefully I will have an answer for you!” replied Bob cheerfully.
“What if we turn down your offers? Every single one. What would you do to us?”
Bob actually looked...confused. His antennae started waving again.
“I don’t understand your question. What do you mean by ‘do to you’?”
“Will you...attack us?”
Bob’s antennae were nearly a blur at this point.
“Why will we do such a silly and idiotic thing like that?” Bob shook his head with a visible effort, his antennae slowly stopping waving.
“No—if you choose not to do business with us then we will just attempt to do business with one of your competitors, that’s all.”
“Competitors? You mean—the other nations?” said the NSA guy.
Bob’s antennae started waving again.
“I’m sorry? Am I to understand that you actually thought that we will only negotiate with your country and your country alone?” Bob stared at the rest of the people at the table. “As I speak, my colleagues are currently in negotiation with the leaders of the nations of Russia, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.”
Ignoring the gasps from the table, Bob continued speaking.
“Shall we continue our negotiations? We have quite a lot more to offer and I’m sure that you will find our prices most reasonable.” Bob suddenly got what appeared to be a pained look on his face. Cocking his head to one side, he shut his eyes and appeared to be listening to something.
After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and faced the assembled group.
“Alas—I’m afraid I have to rescind the offers for the lung cancer and leukemia cures. Russia has successfully finalized a deal for exclusive rights for the cures for those two diseases and is currently negotiating for the pancreatic cancer cure.” Bob shrugged his shoulders. “What can I say—they appear to be most eager in cornering the global market on the cancer cures.” Bob shrugged again and then grinned. “Fortunately—that still leaves over one hundred other diseases that you can still negotiate on. I would advise you to make your decisions soon however—France is close to closing the deal on the malaria cure and Japan seems most eager for the multiple sclerosis cure.”
McDonald glanced around the table for a few seconds before turning to face Bob again.
“We need to discuss your offers before negotiations can continue. Will you leave us for a few moments?”
“But of course! I assume that there is a waiting room in this bunker I can make use of?”
The general nodded his head and waved a few of the Secret Service agents over. Bob, still smiling, stood up and followed the agents out the room.
When he was gone, McDonald turned to face the table.
“Well?”
“Fuck them,” said the general. “We do this and we’ll just end up becoming their lapdogs.”
NSA guy spoke up. “I agree, sir. I say that we tell them to get lost.”
“I’ve been thinking...”, spoke up a third guy, this one very young looking and obviously a civilian, “...why not let them make a deal with the other countries and then we can just...I don’t know...buy the tech off of them. Or steal it. Or take it from them.” The general and the NSA guy nodded their heads in approval.
McDonald stared at the three of them.
“Buy the tech? If we were the exclusive owners of a faster than light spaceship, would we sell it to anyone else for any price?”
Young Dude reluctantly shook his head.
“And stealing it may be an option—but that will take time and effort. And we’ll always be one step behind.”
NSA guy—his face pinched like he had just swallowed a whole lemon—nodded his head as well.
“And ‘taking it’? I’m assuming you mean possible military options? Well—we haven’t exactly had what you would call stellar successes in some of the last few military operations we’ve had. And how would we know that the ... Lytasians ... won’t help their new business partners by giving them a shit-load of hi tech weapons?”
“Knowing our ‘friend’ there,” replied the general, “I think it’s more likely that they’ll sell them some hi-tech weapons but point taken sir.”
McDonald leaned back, nodding his head.
“By the way, not that I don’t trust that guy...”, McDonald suddenly trailed off. “Well—actually—I don’t trust that guy but has anyone actually bothered to find out if the other leaders have been contacted?”
The general glanced over to one of the numerous computer technicians. The technician looked down at some screens and then yelled back.
“Confirmed landings of alien scout ships in the capital cities of all the mentioned countries! Moscow is refusing to return our calls! The rest of NATO are screaming at each other about the Russians!”
“So what do we do?” screamed Young Dude. “We’re fucked no matter what. If we take their deal, we might as well hand over the keys to the planet.”
McDonald leaned back in his chair.
“And if we do nothing, the US will be a fourth rate nation by the time my first term ends,” finished McDonald.
McDonald let out a deep sigh.
“Gentlemen – it appears we have limited choices. To paraphrase an old saying, we have no choice but to bend over, close our eyes and think of Mom, apple pie and Old Glory.”
McDonald leaned forward.
“Somebody bring that snake oil salesman back in here. We have some contracts to sign....”
~~
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