The Only Winning Move Is Overwhelming Firepower

Chapter 17

Barging In

I finish pulling open the Oval Office's door with gusto, spreading my arms wide. "Honey, I'm hoooooome!"

Dead silence meets me for several seconds. And then…

"Planetcaller?!"

I start, looking for whoever called my name. "Huh?"

Kate stares at me, agape. "Planetcaller!" she repeats, clearly annoyed. "I'm in a meeting! You can't just-"

"I need to buy Maryland," I say, cutting her off. I also continue on into the room, closing the door behind me.

She sighs and entirely cuts off her tirade, somehow sensing the headache she's about to get. She reaches up to rub her eyebrows. "Why."

"That's where Bethesda is!"

She drops her hands and stares at me again, this time very flatly. "The game company?" she asks.

I nod vehemently. "Yes."

"Why do you want to own the state where a game company is?" Kate asks me incredulously.

"So I can either buy them out or take them by governmental fiat," I reveal confidently.

Kate blinks in surprise, then her gaze turns incredulous. "What?"

"I need to own Bethesda. I promised Kayaba I'd do it," I explain succinctly, shrugging. "It's part of his therapy."

"...Kayaba," she deadpans. Her look of utter bewilderment informs me that she definitely thinks I'm not running on full brainpower. Er, nanitepower.

"Akihiko Kayaba, Madam President," her aide informs her. "Creator of the Nerve Gear."

Kate nods to her. "Ah."

The entire room finally finds that, of all places, a good enough spot in time to begin talking over each other.

Eventually the room ends up shutting up after neither I nor the President respond to them. The entire time, Kate's studying me like a particularly interesting zoo exhibit.

"Is this why you bought the west coast?" Kate suddenly asks, realization dawning on her face.

I quickly feel less confident in my current plan. "...Yes?"

Kate slumps in her chair and puts her face in her hands. "God damn it, Planetcaller."

"What?"

"Only you could accidentally buy the wrong coast of a country," she mumbles.

My protest is vehement. "Hey now, it's not the only reason-"

"To buy a game company!" she continues, pulling her head back up. She splays her hands out towards me in disbelief. "And not even a major one!"

"You take that back! Bethesda has made many great games! Sure their more recent ones have been dogshit, but still-!" I start to fire back, only to find myself cut off by another swiftly approaching Kate Lethbridge-Stewart trademark tirade.

"I've heard of corporate espionage, but this is insane," she fires my way, almost sounding accusatory. "What did Kayaba promise you to get you to do this?"

"That he'd get therapy," I flatly declare.

That takes the wind out of her sails. The building storm vanishes, replaced by a mixture of what I will henceforth call 'what the ever living fuck' and 'what did you say?' combined with sympathy.

"...Therapy?" she asks, bewildered.

"I've said that twice now," I confirm with a decisive nod.

"You're willing to buy parts of countries because someone who works for you needs therapy," she succinctly sums it up.

I nod again and clasp my hands behind my back. "Yup!"

She sits there in stunned silence for several long moments.

"...Are you insane, or are you just fucking with me?" she finally asks.

"Neither," I honestly reply, "at least not right now. I'm very serious about buying or conquering Bethesda."

She screws up her eyes at me and gives me a look of flat disbelief.

"Are you taking the President seriously, son?" a stereotypical old war general that my quick internet lookup says is Kate's Joint Chief for the Army speaks up. "Because you are not acting like it, and you are disrespecting her and this country."

Did he just…?

I review my memories as I shift my jovial look into a cold, hard one, and turn to glare at him.

He fucking did.

And it was the same guy who declared me an unstable maniac when he didn't know I could hear him through the wall.

Well then.

Time to use that acting skill I honed in all those plays.

Maximum ham with a side order of deadly serious dictator coming right up!

...Now I just have to figure out how to come across that way. Shit.

Welp, I'm fresh out of ideas, time to wing it.

"No, Clark, I'm not," I inform him, using his name as a sign to him about just where on the totem pole of the power hierarchy I am. "I'm not taking your entire planet seriously. Not you, not Kate, not your country, not any country." My eyes narrow as he tries not to gulp. "You'd better pray to whatever fake mythological deity you believe in that my state continues, because once it stops, once I stop having fun, I will do whatever it takes to resume my fun and no longer have to worry about whatever stopped it. Permanently."

That sounded decently menacing! Alright, now let's see, how can I make it stick- I KNOW!

To complete the suitable amount of drama I'm pouring into my little performance, I step forward, bend down, put my hands on the table, and as I say my last words, squeeze just hard enough to make the wood creak ominously loudly. "This will occur no matter who, what, or which ideas attempt to stand in my way. You've got millions dying on your planet every day from disease, oppression, war, slavery, ideological viruses, sycophants, psychopaths, extortion, and regimes. So long as the effort it takes for me to override your entire planet to solve that once and for all is more than my desire to actually do so, you'll remain in power and your systems can keep rumbling along, only with me cleaning up behind and around you. But… if you make me care, if I actually have to listen to my conscience and all that is good, just and kind?" I sigh and shake my head, closing my eyes momentarily. "Look, I don't recommend choosing the other option. It'll be annoying for me and devastating for you."

I look around the room at the pale faces, not the least of which is Kate's, and internally grin. Mission accomplished, message delivered, now I can be fun again.

I shift back into jovial joker mode with the ease of coming home. Which, you know, it is, as that's my neutral state at rest. I take my hands off the slightly cracked table, then stand up.

"Now, how about Bethesda?"

Kate picks up one of her pens with an admirably steady hand. "We'll… I'll uh… I can eminent domain them, at least their businesses here in America, and give them over to you." She takes the offered calming tea her surprisingly unfazed assistant offers her without her even having to ask and takes a sip to recenter herself. "If that's alright with you gentlemen?"

The various, delayed, and very cowed voices around the table slowly saying variations of 'Yes' just make my grin wider.

The President sighs with relief. When her eyes open, she's all business again, good old unflappable Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.

"And then you can stop buying up parts of my country for the sole purpose to get at a video game company." She shakes her head and mutters something rather unkind about my priorities under her breath. "Does that sound good to you?"

I give her a grin and a thumbs up. "Exactly what I needed. Thanks."

Kate shakes her head yet again, sighs, puts down her tea, and starts writing on a fresh and very official looking sheet of paper inside an extremely expensive looking leather bifold case her aide hands to her as if she's actually a part of Kate.

She's the only one besides me and Kate who are daring to do more than breathe.

I stare suspiciously at the aide, who ignores me. I need to get me one of her, because holy shit, her coordination and preparation is impressive.

Elsa is great, but she's not Super Secretary great. She's a bodyguard and doesn't try to hide it.

I need a desk jockey. Wonder if she went to a prep school for assistants or something? Maybe they've got more of her for hire?

One lookup later, she pops up in the totally not SHIELD's ranks.

Ah. Spy. Well, at least her nonchalance towards me makes sense now. And her near superhuman secretary powers.

...I wonder if the totally not SHIELD, and boy do I need a proper name for them, would let me hire one of their spies as a secretary?

Food for later thought. And maybe I can get Elsa to convince Nicki Fury that it's a good idea, too.

I'm sure at least one of the other 12 people in the room will relearn how to talk other than one affirmative word by the time Kate's done.

One of those other people in the room does figure out how to talk again. And walk, even.

Shame he didn't learn not to poke bears. Bears which give speeches about how bad an idea it is to fuck with them. Especially after having said yes to something they want to backtrack on now, so they go up to the bear and demand it back.

Seriously, how do these Darwin Award candidates keep getting into government on fictional Earths?

He's currently standing in front of me, trying to stop me from leaving. "Now hold on there just a minute, Planetcaller," he says. "Ya can't just go off and start takin the product of hard work from job creators, ya hear?"

I blink at him, look down at the copy of Executive Order 66 in my hand, then back at him. "Ten bucks says you're wrong," I inform him.

He chuckles and shakes his head. "I'll have that taken all the way to the Supreme if you push too hard, little fella," he retorts.

I look at him strangely. "Little fella?" I repeat his words. "Do I look or sound little to you?"

One of his fat hands starts reaching for the order slowly. He also seems to be completely ignoring my previous question. "Why don't ya just gimme the thing and we can put this all behind us?"

...Why would he think me giving him this would help him in any way? It's just a copy. Kate, the President glaring daggers at him from behind my back, has the official one.

Also, 'little fella'? Really?

And yes, I'm still on that!

I'm a gods damned space alien from space who can reverse hurricanes, bought a significant part of America and formed my own country, is good mutual annoyance buddies with his leader, and oh yeah, have about a foot and a half of height on him. Not to mention the weight difference, despite his chubby disposition.

Is this guy a moron and a dumbass?

I pause just to humor him while I look him up online. He keeps talking, badly veiled threats flying a mile a minute, and I totally ignore all of it. I even pull my hand back as slowly as he's inching his forward.

Old pasty white guy, southern accent, overweight, dense as a brick and fully of the belief in his own power over me, so let's check the reds first. Oh look, there he is, and he's been responsible for a ton of dangerous and shitty bills. Lots of them in service of those 'job creators' he so loves talking about on the campaign trail.

Not that I'm surprised.

...Huh, and he also is involved with Bethesda. One of the minor shareholders who just got Eminent Domained.

That does surprise me. Small World Trope, pure coincidence, or the more likely one, Writer Me screwing with me?

In any case, I'm not interested in anything he might manage to bubble forth from the sewer that is his brain, so I cut him off. "Jim-" I say, entirely uncaring about his actual name, "can I call you Jim? Here's the thing."

I lean into his personal space and I'm pretty sure he just now realizes how much taller and wider I am than him.

"I don't care about you, I don't care about your opinion, and your entire party deserves to be shot out of a railgun into the sun," I inform him. I point behind me at Kate to emphasize my next statement. "Kate has impressed me. She's interesting. I actually care about her and her opinion." My arm drops to my side. "I do not give a shit about yours." I mime slapping the annoyance in front of me to the side while I step around him. "Begone, thot."

Nobody else tries to stop me from leaving.

I take to the sky and orient towards Bethesda's HQ, making sure I don't break the sound barrier until I'm far enough up. Only just, though.

I've got a Presidential Order to deliver and a company to receive!

Seriously, it really is Executive Order 66. I'm not sure if that's a numbering system that Writer Me set up to screw with me, Kate herself screwing with me, or both, but I don't really care.

Because I get to go Order 66 the company that made Fallout 76.