"That's it!" Christy Todd Whitman stomped into Dick's office. Her hair was covered with what looked like Vanilla pudding, and her white blouse was ripped down the front. A small, wrinkled nipple poked out from inside. "What's wrong now. Did George give you trouble in the bath tub?" Dick snickered, eyeing the errant nipple and surreptitiously fingering his manhood through the hole he'd cut in his right pants pocket earlier in the week. "Trouble! My dog is easier to wash than that inhuman monstrosity! He doesn't even want to eat his dessert! He just throws anything he can get his hands on at me and pees himself over and over!" Christy followed Dick's gaze down towards her chest, then turned away and tucked her breast back into her ripped shirt. "I quit. You can find someone else to tell you where to drill. I'm going back to Jersey!" She turned back around with a hand on her head, and scooped a handful of what turned out to be butterscotch pudding into her right palm. She then flung this at Dick's head. Dick had long ago had his reflexes improved with high-powered oil based hydraulic systems, and easily dodged the dessert. "Fine," he said, rising back to upright in his chair. "We'll find someone else to survey the Alaskan wilds. You were 0 for 20 anyway. Maybe this time we'll find someone who majored in hydrology instead of getting a masters degree in stupid bitch!" Christy scoffed at him, mouth open in desgust. Then she turned and stormed back out the way she had come in. Dick turned a full circle in his chair and kicked his feet up. Good riddance, he thought. He knew of a perfect replacement for her anyway. He stuck a wrinkled, bionic finger to the hind-side of his ear and was immediately linked into the White-House's phone system. This neural communications implant was even more useful than the ultra-shock 5000 pacemaker he'd had installed ten years ago, he smiled to himself. "Joey, get Kenneth Lay on the phone. I think we've got a position open for him. And send in Ashcroft." His lips still moved when he used the phone system implant, something the doctors hadn't yet been able to rectify. For this reason, he was unable to use the system without being detected, which prohibited him from having someone sureptitiously stabbed during a conversation. In a moment, John Ashcroft marched into Dick's office. He stepped up to the white line in front of Dick's desk, rose onto the balls of his feet and kicked his heels together at attention. "Yes, my master!" he shouted, and extended his right hand out, stiff as a board. Dick leaned back in his chair and slapped his chubby legs up onto the desk in front of him. He pulled out an oil can and pulled his suitpant legs up to the knee. The joints underneath throbbed and whirred as he began to apply oil to the underside. It looked as though a thousand tiny worms writhed under his skin, lapping up the black liquid. "Johnny my boy, you and I both know there is a great cancer growing within this nation. A cancer that you and I have both attempted to cure through rational measures over the past few years." Dick finished off the right knee and began working on the left now. John responded, eyes looking upwards toward the ceiling behind Dick. "Yes my master! I have failed you! Shall I sing the failure song as punishment?!" "No! No singing!" Dick leaned forward, dropping his oil can and slamming his firm metalic feet onto the floor behind the desk with a resounding thud. "No, you haven't failed. No more than you failed when you lost your seat to that dead man. It is the American people who have failed us Johnny. The people of this great nation are weak. They are unable to excise the cancer." "Certainly sir! I shall have them all exterminated immediately. The death camps can be made operational within the week!" John turned and began to leave the room, but Dick stood and called after him. "No! Dammit, John, stop going off half cocked!" "How shall I go off then sir?" John turned and faced the aged mechanoid now, puzzled and perplexed. "I have not yet been required to use my whole cock by the holy father." Dick sighed and sat back down in his black leather chair. "John, all this killing is getting us nowhere. We need to win over hearts and minds. We need these people to love us, not fear us." "Yes sir. We have the FBI's forced lobotomy division ready to strike at California when you give the order sir. I'm not sure if they can extract hearts, but they can certainly give it a shot, sir!" Dick sighed again. He was ready to give up on the whole conversation. "You know John, there are certain people in this administration who think your lack of listening skills are something of a hinderance to the position you hold." "Would you like them killed, sir?" John looked pleased now, ready to do something he would enjoy. "No! Dammit, I don't want anyone killed today! I was taling to Madam Rice last Thursday. She wrote up a report on the habits and customs of black people. i think it will help you out with those two opperations we've been descussing. Wait...." Dick touched a firm, metal finger to the rear of his skull and accessed his internal memory database. "Yes," he finally said, checking his logs. "I can print you out a transcript." A whirring noise came from Dick's posterior and his stood up to loosen his belt. "No need sir, I already read it. Evidently, the little buggers enjoy water melons. Orange soda too! Whoda thunk it? But hey, she's the one who'd know! In fact, I started 'Opperation Limp Buiscut' on Wednesday." Dick looked perplexed. "What does that entail?" John smiled broadly, placing his thumbs under his armpits. He quoted from memory: "Large doses of salt peter have been inserted into all shippments of Fanta Soda, Aunt Jemima Syrup, and Shack and Bake. This should effectively eliminate all sexual drive in the male black population, thus ending all crime." He nodded, punctuating his finale. "Yes, exactly, my boy!" Dick sat back down now, touching his finger tips together and flexing them mellifluously. "You may go now, John. The Lord God says you don't have to take yourself out back and put a bullet through your head!" "Aye aye, sir!"John turned on his heels with a quick motion, rose to the balls of his feet once more, and began stomping out of the office, legs long and straight out in front of him. He kicked higher and higher with every stride until his form vanished around the corner at the end of the long white hall leading to Dick's office. And once again the balding turle-like cyborg leaned back in his chair twiddling his thumbs and wondering how far off his next oil change was. His internal gyroscopes were beginning to go off kiltter, he felt, and it was making him wobble in his chair when he spun in place. Dick looked down and drew a bead on a ball of lint on his suit vest. He began to aim his head-mounted laser cannons at it, but a loud buzzing noise came from his intercom halting his actions. Dick sighed and leaned forward, pressing the talk button on the square silver box on his desk. "What now?" Either he had ordered food, or something was wrong. He knew that this case was likely the latter of the two scenarios. The box screeched back at him now, the nasal voice of an intern coming back across the speaker, "Sir, there's trouble down in the press room, Ari is threatening to resign." Dick leaned his head forward, exhaling audibly. He replied through the intercom, "I'll be right down. Activate Nixon's Dick-chute." Dick's chair started emitting a low hum, then slide backwards toward the wall behind the desk. An opening began to form at his feet, and the leather bound chair tilted forward, sending Dick pnematically hurtling towards the press room. Within minutes, Dick was deposited onto the blue carpeted floor of the White House press conference facility. His steel, gas powered leg joints whirred and clicked as they cushioned the landing. Dick rose to his full height and turned to face a madding crowd of hysterical press representatives milling about attempting to exit the sealed room. On the dais, behind the oak podium stood Ari Fliescher frantically trying to calm the room by waving his hands wildly about his head and shouting into the microphones in front of him. Dick walked to the stage and motioned for Ari to speak with him. "What's the situation, Jew boy?" the vice-president asked gruffly. Ari turned with a look of despair and desparation in his eyes. "Situation?" he shouted insanely. "The situation is that I'm going to quit! Every time that nincompoop fucks up, I have to explain it! How the fuck am I supposed to clean this up? Do you know what he did this morning! Do you have any idea what he just did to me!?" Ari was gesticulating madly. Dick placed a firm, vice-like hand on his shoulder and began ushering the ravaged spokesman off stage. "OK, OK, come on, what happened." Dick turned and spoke to Ari once more as they stepped out of view and out of earshot of the press corps. Ari spat forth a blurry description of the morning's events, punctuated with mad laugher and heaving sobs. "I was assuring them all that Saddam had a metric ton of anthrax hidden inside the robot death army he built and then sold to Iran the day before the invasion, They were buying it hook line and sinker, but just as they started asking me questions about my shoe size and the president's favorite color, George burst into the room." Ari paused here and caught his breath. He continued after a moment, running his words together like a hurt toddler. "Then all hell broke loose. Why was he allowed out? I thought Christy was giving him a bath!" Dick sighed again. He was doing that a lot today, and his air ballast sacks were beginning to feel low. "She quit this morning. She'll be dead by noon, Ari. I have robots that do a very good job of impersonating retired politicians. I hate quiters, Ari. Don't be a quiter on me!" "What else can I do!? I can't sleep at night! Go up to the booth, watch the video of George today! You tell me how I was supposed to deal with it!" Ari began crying again while leaning up against the wall behind him. He slid down it slowly, hands over his eyes, tears streaming across the backs of his palms. Dick shrugged and rotated his torso to face the stairway up to the video booth. With a whiz, his legs and hips swiveled to face that direction as well, and they propelled him quickly and smoothly up the staircase and into the sound proof video booth. Inside, rows of monitors lined every wall while four young white interns sat cackling at the controls. When they noticed Dick entering the booth, they straightened up and tried to look busy. "Hey, playback this morning's interview. I want to see from the question session on." Dick plopped himself into a director's chair and watched the giant screen at the front of the room. After a moment of clicks, punches and swivels from the board, the video began to play across all screens. Shortly after, the sound kicked in. Cookie Roberts was standing at the front of the press corps with a pad and pencil in her hand. The audio kicked in mid sentence. "...president have for dinner last night?" Cookie asked petulantly, just as she had asked every previous day for the past two years. Ari smiled and looked through his notes. Shortly, he found the information and responded. "Strained Peas, mashed carrots, and chocolate pudding. He didn't want to eat the peas, but we insisted. A growing president needs his greens!" Ari chuckled slightly, and the press corps politely laughed in response. Ari polished the issue off with a final "He's just like his father!" Just before the laughter died down completely, a strange crashing sound seemed to come from behind the stage, followed by a loud high pitched wail. Suddenly, a naked figure came bursting onto stage, seemingly covered in brown paint. It was unmistakably George, covered in what Dick hoped was his own feces. Dick tilted his head forward, resting it in his weary hand. The snickers began again behind him now. The interns were having trouble keeping themselves from outright guffaws. Dick snapped his head around at a 180 degree angle and snarled at the four video techs. They all started in their seats and immediately began busying themselves with imaginary tasks, faces now devoid of glee. The tape marched on: now George was in the front row of the press corps trying to stuff his fist down George Will's throat. Two secret service agents stood beside him, berating the collumnist for his attempts to pry the president from his face. Suddenly, the president leapt from Will and landed in the lap of ABC's John Cochran. Cochran gasped in horror, instinctively clawing at the president. He was immediately rebuked by two angry secret service agents who instructed him not to touch the president. George was now sucking on his right foot, and Cochran yelped from the pain of the boney presidential posterior grinding into his thigh. Then George rolled off of John's lap and onto the floor, shouting "I wanna go on the plane again! Vroooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmm!" With this, the president stood up and extended his arms outward perpendicular to his body. Arms extended like wings. He ran head-long, dodging through rows of reporters and cameras. He stopped at the stage, and butted his face into the microphones with an amplified thud. The room immeditaely filled with the wet fart sound of a deafening presidential rasberry. Dick sighed once more, and grabbed his forehead. He looked down at the floor, away from the bank of monitors, but his independantly-tracking-omnidirectional -penile-camera-emplacement repositioned itself, filming the onscreen action. The first image through the optical read out was of Ari being pushed to the floor and covered in presidential excretions. The Commander in Chief now addressed his people. "I demand that congress pass my newest tax cut! Terrorists will not prevail.... 1000 points of lalalalalalalalalalala-Liberia!! Liberia Liberia Liberia Liberia! Lalalalalalalala Bomba!" The President looked down at his hand as though reading, then brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply. His eyes grew wider suddenly, and he lurched forward into the microphones once more. "Blarrgleargleargleargleargle!" Mercifully, the president ran off stage. His secret servicemen ran after him, hands on their ears listening to the play by play. Dick sighed once more, but his air sacks were almost completely depleted and it sounded like a steam whistle. He stood and walked out of the video booth, resolved to solve this problem the same way he had solved it numerous times before when the president had made unscheduled appearances. Dick left the video booth, slamming the door behind him. A blast of laughter came from behind him, but he paid it no mind. Down the stairs he slid and onto the stage he climbed, gears and motors whizing inside his 60% zinc body. The Vice President demanded that his media filled audience calm itself and sit. It was useless by now, however, as every reporter in the room was either clawing at the barred exit doors or trying desperately to clean the emperor's brown crust off of their neatly pressed clothing. Dick raised his right hand out in front of him and flexed his buttcheeks. With an rising whistle the panel on his forearm opened, revealing a row of shiny buttons and knobs to the world. He pressed the third one from his wrist with a precise index finger, and suddenly the room went silent. Every reporter in the press room shook uncontrollably as though they were being riddled with electricity. Some clawed at their necks while others howled with pain as the convolutions took them. Finally, Dick released the button, and the forty odd journalists all fell to the floor with a quiet whimper. Dick smiled. The neural control implants were a throw back to the Nixon administration, but these new ones were much more vicious. They were also mandatorily implanted in all press officials on White House grounds, and Dick alone held the reigns to them all. "Look. What you saw here today never happened. We will be providing you all with computer generated photographs and videos of the day's proceedings. Take them back to your studios and play them tonight. The subject will be the greatness of our president's peace talks in the middle east. That is all. Leave now, or I'll crank the power up and shock you all again." Dick huffed into the microphones and then stormed off stage. As he stepped off stage, he found Ari lying in a heap, continuing to cry and shake with terror. Gently, Dick leaned down and pulled Ari to his feet. He dusted him off and looked his square in the eye. "Christy quit. You're on bath detail. Get up there and wash the shit off of our commander in chief." Ari sniffled, nodded, then walked off towards he nearest staircase. Dick nodded too, and walked towards the White House mechanical garage. He needed a tune up and a reinflation of his air sacks.