“And as I am speaking, speaking very well to you from my big desk in my big office, in a room that is powerful and strong, I can tell you what I am going to do…”
The mouth opened and closed from a dark orange face with white panda circles around pisshole eyes beneath bright straw bumhair. The signature dark blue suit and skinny long red tie completed the look – the simulation was so bad it was even better than the real thing. Behind him the standard Oval Office garden had been upgraded to a bright Floridan ocean. The President who didn’t exist stared into the camera that wasn’t there and rambled on. The point of no return was long gone.
“On this great day, one of many great days, but greater than many others, we will be doing things that haven’t been done on other days…”
It was word salad nincompensie in purest form, 100% proof. The geeks had nailed the rhythms of the Presidential gibberish to a tee. Brewster smiled as the first broadcast wrapped up and collective sighs were relieved. There was always a point during his many schemes where everything could fail, where he half-expected it himself. Not this time, not yet.
All eyes were on him, expectant for a speech, a nod, something. In that moment, once the thrill of the chase had subsided as the race was won, came the realisation that something had to happen next.
“Now all we have to do is getting on with running the country…”
SHITTING IN YOUR BOSS’S MOUTH AND GETTING A FIVE STAR REVIEW FOR THE SERVICE
“Yada, yada, yada, yada…”
Brewster sat alone, drinking in the dive bar while the TV played overhead. Half the flies around him gristled and moaned as their elected fuhrer rambled on, half stared in their sours wondering if they could afford another. The smell remained the same.
Brewster had been frequenting bars for longer hours once the plan started working by itself. The AI-bots were doing all the heavy lifting, leaving him less to do. He told himself he was observing life hanging amongst the sheeple, listening to the wank-spurts of the common people, but it was really just an excuse to drink more.
He’d long turned his back on the office drone lifestyle and clocking in and out to keyboard shuffle sure as hell didn’t suit him now. That was the downside hitting the goals you set. The thrill was in the chase. Absolute power and control, once achieved, was really fucking boring.
“Didn’t he say they was gonna do somethin’ ’bout dem migrants…”
“Nah, we need the workers, we just don’t have to pay them…”
He looked down at the moaners and cheerers, regurgitating their indolent spite from muscle memory. The red hats they wore had faded (inevitable result of dirt-cheap production using low-quality ink), so once garish blood cotton was now tarnished to a rich shit-brown. They wore what they were.
Brewster chuckled. No wonder they were confused. None of the AI-advised actions corresponded with the garbage that came out of the simulation’s cakehole.
The programme wasn’t basing decisions on greed as it didn’t need money. Without a dictator’s micro-penis to suckle, the fake brain had been fed a diet of Marcus Aurelius, Smith, Chomsky and Marx. Medicare, national health insurance and diplomatic relations were levelled out for the common good. Minimum wage was looking to be increased, roads were being swept and even the mail got delivered.
Brewster had got away with it again. The mob who hired him were getting charged twice, especially now the off-shore bank accounts were busted and everyone paid their fair share of taxes. Karma on a Biblical scale. Nothing more satisfying than shitting in your boss’s mouth and getting a five star review for the service.
He slapped an extra tip for the tender on the bar as he stood with a drunken creak, nodding to the shitheads both ways.
“The ones who wanna do the fucking always get fucked themselves.”
He said it loud and proud and didn’t care if anyone heard, no-one listened anyway.
This story is a sequel to previous Brewster adventures – The Falling Man and Eskimos on TV.
Hove Press 