[The newspaper magnate has just finished a wallpaper-singeing rant at Bernice Teschmacher, who is calmly preparing her riposte.]
“Of course, Mr. Jerkson, if you insist, I’ll just call the Times-Picayune and see if I can get access over there. I’m sure they’ll be most co-operative.”
”The Times-Picayune! That over-bred, under-circulated [remainder of rant omitted for reasons of space]. Fine. Sit in the corner there and take notes. And no cameras. You. Get out. NOW. I said, NOW!”
“O.K., Tim. This is just for background anyway.”
J. Jonah glowers at Bernice. “Nothing I do is background. I’m front page all the way.”
Bernice applies a simpering smile to her face. “We’ll get some tape of Mr. Jerkson directing his staff afterwards. I’m sure it will be inspiring.”
J. Jonah beams. Tim the cameraman mutters under his breath as he reaches the door, “First stuff we’ll erase.”
“So, Mr. Jerkson, what are your thoughts about our narrow escape from the Parody Master?”
The Trombone’s leader leans over his desk and attempts a smile that is more suited for scaring small children. “My thoughts, as you put them, belong to my readers first, madam. But I’d be happy to let you listen as I dictate tomorrow’s editorial on that precise subject.” He triggers the intercom. “Norbert! Send in the stenographer!”
“We don’t have any more, Mr. Jerkson, sir. You fired them all in the economy drive and sent them to Parody War headquarters. Our contribution to the fight, you said.”
“So how do I dictate my editorials? I get my best ideas on my feet.”
“The new voice recognition software on your computer, sir. Remember the training?”
“Of course I do. Just making sure you know what I’m going to do.”
After a few moments of fumbling at the keyboard, the Trombone’s editor and publisher stands up a microphone and begins pacing behind his desk, declaiming into the mike. “Ahem. We have observed the pretensions of one quote Baroness Elizabeth Zemo closequote to world dominion, and we find them to be laughable. Now, let’s see.” He flips through a thick manual and eventually mumbles, “to edit voice recognized text, click ‘edit.’”
A synthesized voice emerges from the computer as the text scrolls on the screen. “Aheegm. Wee ham served the plate sections and won cloaked fairness Elizabeth seem oh, clothes coke, to girled dough minion, and we fined them to see laugh-kibble. Now letzee.”
Jerkson glares at the monitor. “This is going to replace secretaries? I gave that Borovian software company 49 of my hard-earned dollars for that tripe. Norbert! Get in here with a pad and take this down!”
Moments later, Jerkson’s assistant rushed in with a pad, and the editor repeated his opening lines, continuing on:
“True, by some unknown means she caused this entire planet and its moon to be snatched from under the Parody Master’s very nose at the moment of our greatest peril, if the video supplied to us and running 24/7 on every world television network is entirely accurate. But that action, which benefited her and her commercial empire as much as any other person on this Earth and the concomitant gratitude that we owe her, hardly justifies her claim to despotic control of our planet. Even her dispatch of the loathsome and ultimately ineffective Goldeneyed and his female campfollower, of which more in a future editorial, should evoke only cheers of thanks.
“Even more troublesome is the general apathy with which this misguided woman’s acts of oppression are greeted. Sentinoid robots stalk the streets, snatching up random bystanders on suspicion of being metahumans or metahuman supporters, and observers step aside, neither cheering them on nor expressing any objection. The metahumans they do capture submit dully, passively.
“It is as if by saving Earth from the Parody Master’s carnage, Elizabeth Zemo has somehow bled it of almost all its energy, creativity, and challenge, leaving only dangerous psychopaths like the Dark Knight to stage puerile demonstrations against the new, leaden autocracy.”
A green, wire-frame human image appeared on the computer monitor, and interrupted. “Naughty, naughty, Mr. Jonah. You left your voice recognition software on, and I overheard you.”
“Hallie? You’re that Lair Legion android-cyborg thing! Get out of my computer!”
“I’m no thing, Jerkson, and I’m not getting out of anything. You, however, are going in. All the way in, just about now.”
Two men in dark suits burst through the office door. The first went straight for the desk. “J. Jonah Jerkson? FBI. You’re under arrest. Subversion."
The second special agent turned suddenly to glare at Bernice Teschmacher, standing in the corner. "Hey, Bill, we've got the Teschmacher broad here too. Wasn't there a special warrant for her?
"Yeah. Straight to Project Wexford. Good catch."
J. JONAH JERKSON
Voice of the People
Posted from U.S. Company using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6/Windows XP
