Variation on the standard Disclaimer: Good evening, from Los Angeles, I am not Dan Rydell, nor am I Casey McCall. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a million times: the Power Rangers are the property of Haim Saban, Disney, and whoever else may or may not be in charge of them now. Portions of the plot (and some dialogue) are straight out of The West Wing, which was created by Aaron Sorkin.) And with that, you're watching WWPR on CSC, so stick around!

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Scene 4: Psychics; psychos; same difference

11:30 a.m., Roosevelt Room, West Wing

Rocky walked in as Billy was wrapping up a meeting with a few of the President's economic advisors. "That's fine," Billy told one of the suits across the table," but when the President gets the Cliff's Notes version of this report, he's going to think that economists were put on this earth to make astrologers look good. We all remember what happened to Miss Cleo, right?" That elicited a chuckle from everyone in the room.

"Bill…"

"Dexter, one year from today, where's the Dow?"

"Tremendous. Up 10 percent" responded the stout Asian gentleman on his right.

"Seth, one year from today?

"Not good. Down 15 percent" was the alternative the blond Caucasian across the table offered up.

"A year from now, at least one of you will look pretty stupid. Okay, we're done."

As the rest of the room (save Billy and Rocky) cleared out, Tommy came in.

"We have a storm system moving into South Florida," the former leader of the gang informed the two.

"See? With any luck, the Cubans will conduct a hasty retreat and live to defect another day," Billy said, as much for his own conscience's sake as for Rocky.

"Yeah, because they've all got the satellite feeds from NOAA," Rocky fired back.

"Ugh! You're right. We've got to move on this now." Turning around, he headed back towards his office. "Kiley! Get me Admiral MacMillen at Kings Bay on the phone, post haste. Tell him to mobilize…" Billy's instructions to his secretary faded out as he entered his office and disappeared from view.

As Tommy and Rocky watched their old friend leap into action, they paused in the same doorway. Tommy turned to his fellow former Red and stared intently at his clothing. "You wearing the same suit you wore yesterday?"

"Yeah. You, too?"

"Yeah." They were, but for entirely different reasons. With nothing else to say to each other, the two turned and left the room going in different directions.

Tommy's route took him into the path of his secretary, a full-figured brunette named Whitny, who dumped another problem onto his lap. "Mr. Cranston's father called."

"He hates me now."

"So it would seem."

"What did I do?"

"In his words? You let his only son disappear off the face of the earth for the better part of a decade and didn't tell him."

Yeah, literally Oliver thought to himself. Then again, Billy didn't tell any of us when he got back. At least, none of the ones I was still in touch with. "Well, how much longer am I going to be paying for that?"

"It's going to be a little while longer."

"Well, what does he want?"

"He had arranged a tour for some students in his niece's civics class, and since he can't get here in time, he wants you to do it."

"I can't."

"You have to."

"No, I mean I can't. I don't know anything about the White House."

"You want to tell Billy to tell his father you stood up his neice?"

"His father's niece? Which would make this Billy's cousin?"

"Yeah."

"No, I'm not standing her up. I'm just going to farm it out to Adam."

"Isn't Adam your boss?"

"Yeah, but he'll understand." Besides, Adam's just as guilty as I was of the offense Mr. Cranston is holding me responsible for. We all were.

Tommy was never more relieved to hear his pager went off. Not recognizing the number, he stopped at the nearest phone and dialed it. Naturally, he was shocked when an escort service answered. After apologizing to the anonymous voice on the other end, he turned to his secretary.

"Whitny, page me."

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

As she dialed the appropriate number, Tommy stared intently at the device he held in his hands. Nothing.

"You've switched pagers with someone," Whitny said, stating the obvious. Suddenly, the events of this morning came flooding back to Tommy, and he knew exactly what was going on.

"A woman's about to call me; she's not going to know why. Put her through." With that, he retreated to his office to await one of the more bizarre conversations he had had since…well, probably since he had left Reefside two years ago when Billy and Adam had shown up, asking him to help them with the campaign. His thoughts were starting to drift to the nostalgic, but were interrupted by the phone ringing. Without further ado, he explained the delicate situation to his lady-of-last-evening, and made a lunch date on the shortest notice he'd given since high school.

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12:45 p.m., Billy's office

Billy was on the phone, becoming increasingly irritable as he tried to settle the biggest problem he had yet to make any headway on that day.

"Seventeen across…Yes, 17-across is misspelled...How do I know? I just do…What's my name? My name isn't important. I'm just an ordinary citizen who gets a great deal of mentally-stimulating recreation from your fine paper, and I'm telling you that I've met the man twice, and recommended a couple of missile strikes against his bases, so I think I know how…"

"Billy, is this a good time…" Kat interrupted, but wasn't really interrupting, as he slammed the receiver back down just then.

"They hung up on me again. Do you believe these people?"

"Well, I'm usually more concerned about whether their beat writers can believe me, but I'll go out on a limb and say yes."

"Fair enough. So what brings you to my little corner of the institution?" It was a valid question. Aside from the daily staff meetings, the two didn't cross paths often, unless there was a major announcement whose details needed to be filtered in the interest of national security. In that sense, absolutely nothing had changed since high school.

"We might have a press leak on Brady II."

"That'll be Eric Myers shooting his mouth off, as we all know he is prone to do."

"Why would someone in the Secret Service have something to say on a gun-control bill?"

"This isn't someone. It's Eric. What else."

"Billy…"

"Don't ask me about Rocky."

"I was going to ask…"

"I honestly don't know anything."

"You know the President."

"So do you."

"You know him better."

"Not that much better. I've known him for almost thirty years, Kat, and I can tell you this: if his emotions are involved, as they certainly will be here, there's no telling which way he'll lean on anything."

"Right."

"I'm sorry, I'm late." With that, Billy gathered the papers on his desk and hustled out of the office, leaving Kat to stare out the window and wonder.

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