by R L Saunders
About the same time they were flying over the terrorist camp, all sorts of chatter had started up. Apparently, they were missing their most seasoned fighters and top staff. There were reports of a windy day and the guy just disappearing, with a hole left where he was standing. New recruits were spooking as they had no leaders to tell them what to do. Many were deserting and the whole camp was being moved.
The technicians downloaded their research notes and recordings, putting them on the MAD network for analysis.
That's when they developed the first hypocrisy bomb. It was really just a Will-Be-Was battery, set between periods of known peace and prosperity and the present. Then added a small battery to hold the charge in a buffer until it could contact someone hypocritical. They packed some paper-mache around it and painted it orange. To see these come down was like seeing oranges drop mysteriously from mid-air. The platform carrying them was stealth, and the orange globes were dropped by emptying a crate of them over the side.
The communication experts found their new terrorist camp and gave the technicians the coordinates.
About half the oranges imploded in the camp. The rest stayed on the surface. Once some of them had been cut open, they were all shot up, figuring (correctly) that somehow they had caused their fellow terrorists to disappear.
Then the remaining terrorists again quickly picked up camp and fled.
On the way back to base, the technicians came up with the idea for hypocrisy IUD's. This time, they were small and brown and looked like camel dung. These were then gotten into mass-production and started being scattered along the main thoroughfares in towns where terrorists were suspected. Sure enough, there were various disappearances of people along with sudden appearances of potholes.
The funny thing was that there wasn't any noise, really. Just a sort of soft pop as the hypocrite disappeared. And it didn't get them all, just the worst two-faced and resolute propagandists out there. The people who were mostly, but not always, hypocritical just got very ill and tended to both throw up and empty their bowels at the same time. Very smelly scene.
Once some of these got delivered to a government building for inspection. The results were quite interesting. Because they were in an always-on state. The battery just held the charge that the circuitry was always generating. With a fully charged unit, the chronic hypocrite would disappear. With no battery, handling the device would make them immediately foul themselves.
Needless to say, there were quite a few soiled officials before they found out what was causing the disruption.
Of course, they were soon labeled dangerous ordinances, and had to be packed in enormous boxes to keep people (meaning: long-time and high-ranking officials) from getting close enough to be affected.
Unfortunately for them, we now get to the part of the viral effect.
When some contractors found out what was happening to their higher-ups, particularly those who had disapproved their financing, the circuitry found its way into various gifts, such as flashlights, electronic picture frames, and even electric staplers. Once these were turned on, they could make fatal disappearances, but just delivered in an unplugged state to offices would make several people nauseous as they handled them.
It wasn't long before the circuit was out on the Internet as a gag toy. Integrated circuits were printed about the size of a tiny battery, with self-adhesive. It didn't have to be hard-wired into the machine, but could be simply pasted inside the battery cover or any inconspicuous spot on or in it.
Toy bears with electronic pull-string circuits became poo-poo gifts. Several versions of "honesty" testers were developed, all powered by the people themselves and "no batteries required." Someone funded a program to get wooden pens gifted to every member of Congress and all their staffs. A month's supply of toilet paper ran out in a week. (The starting date for the circuit was when the Constitution was ratified.)
Soon people were finding new ways to create great gag gifts for relatives. Favorites were when they put it into sports team items.
And that is where the football and baseball players started disappearing.
Because they put them into LED buttons with patriotic displays, such as flags. With the battery in them, anyone who was putting on a lapel or hat button might just implode with a quiet poof.
TV shows who highlighted their pre-game protests found them filming holes in the sidelines or on the benches. And the lucky ones ran for the locker rooms. Often delayed the game. (How many millions in salary those players were getting didn't help them, except for stocking toilet paper.) Executive suites in the stadiums had more bathrooms installed, with a TV in them. Didn't help. Made it worse, actually. Some team owners found they had to sell to get a complete cure. Many ESPN shows did not go on-air as scheduled (or at least not shown unedited or live.)
And a religious TV interviewer found out that his button would affect his guests in different ways. He found that asking the person if they had ever taken money to throw a game, there wasn't any reaction. The circuitry wouldn't work on a bald-faced lie. But by asking pointed questions, such as "What they felt about people taking money to throw games?" That would get them leaving the interview quickly, and for obvious reasons. He later found out that he could root out sexual predators by asking how they thought people who sexually harassed others should be treated.
He found great popularity with his "Truth Detector" show. Wrote some great books on how it all worked, and how to expose hypocrisy in the workplace as well as government.
The circuit became known as the Do As I Say, Not As I Did bomb. Because it wouldn't go off on what they had done.
Eventually it calmed down. After a series of stories started telling how the circuit worked and explained the rise in stock of the adult diapers. (It was even rumored some of those manufacturers had installed the circuit into their product to increase sales.)
As for hypocritical politicians, they soon disappeared from public life (literally or figuratively).
This circuit never worked on purely bald-faced evil, unless they tried to be something they weren't. So criminals were still around, and the worst terrorists had to be dealt with by conventional means. However, their new leadership now had to be excruciatingly honest about their new recruits probably winding up in Islamic hell instead of getting all those virgins. And that wasn't a big recruiting tool.
All the Beltway lobbyist groups got very honest. Some, like HSUS, got out of lobbying altogether and started spending the bulk of their money on actually caring for animals for the first time. Planned Parenthood went through several sets of executives as well as policy changes. All national and state political parties of course had very difficult roads to travel. Clever reporters could expose any hypocrisy in full view of the camera. They would borrow EPA sensors to detect smells (pheromones) for that interview. Of course, their shows had cute titles: "Does Your Elected Official Stink?" and "How Long Can They Last: Interviewing Our 'Pampered' Officials".
Needless to say, special elections were required to fill vacant seats from sudden resignations. The Mark Twain quote, "Politicians and babies should be changed often. And for the same reason," took on new meaning.
And there was a big turnover among the un-elected Deep State employees. Staffers found they actually had to do their assigned job, or spend most of their day indisposed. Devoutly religious and strictly moral staff started replacing the die-hard hypocrites. Government workers started earning their pay, and there was more of it to go around.
Construction companies, the honest ones, got a boost. Major renovations needed in the Beltway area (something to do with massive sinkholes being found all across the D. C. area.) As well, New York soon became too expensive a city to broadcast from. Corporate media insurance rates skyrocketed from self-inflicted repairs to sets and bathrooms. CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, and news shows had to replace most of their talent. Finally, reporting on dog-shows and equestrian events became "safe" news to cover, along with local festivals and actual charitable events.
G-rated movies became a gold mine for movie theaters.
Las Vegas boomed as soon as they started advertising truthfully. Seems some people liked Sin-City just the way it was. As long as they also stuck to the mantra of "what you do in Vegas stays in Vegas" when they went home.
As people began to "see the light", integrity classes became the rage. Of course, the payment had to be made in full. And porta-potties lined the halls of the exhibition centers where they were being held.
A new era of honesty and compassion had begun.
Sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes the road to finding it stinks.
The Chardonnay Conspiracy
EVERY DAY, AFTER SHE got up and had her first cup of bitter black brew, Mrs. C_ stopped the clock.
Then she turned the hands back 5 minutes.
That was why she kept the old thing. She had to bring the clock weights up every night to “wind” it, and that’s when she would then re-set it to the correct time according to her flip-phone.
This routine was one way she could turn back time, if only for a short while.
She’d done this ever since her breakdown.
She didn’t remember what that Foundation-hired psych called it. Something with “denial” in the middle of it.
Gradually, over years, she weaned herself off the drugs. They kept prescribing them, and she kept storing them daily in the toilet. Just before she flushed. They thought she had gotten better because she was taking them. Let them be happy with that thought.
She had gotten better as her revenge.
It was all their plot to keep her down and out. To keep her from speaking. They told her no one would listen to her talks any more. Didn’t want to interview her. It was all a conspiracy. She knew her adoring fans still loved her.
But she quit mentioning it to her few visitors, as it upset them. And keeping them happy meant they wouldn’t change her prescriptions. As long as she kept “getting better.”
Two can play at this game.
Her only request was to keep the Chardonnay coming. A case every week.
That was her best friend these days.
She used to have a cat, but it ran off one day.
So she would talk to the empty bottle, recording her memoirs on her phone.
An old campaign adviser, fired and rehired more than once, came by once a week to transfer her recordings and drop off a sheaf of papers with the new transcriptions. Then they’d talk over her changes to them and what she had on the recordings, how she thought the outline could improve.
That old press agent, named Ron, was a big fan of outlining and detailing the story so it would be just perfect. That was to be her legacy, he often told her. He said she just needed to take her time and get this one absolutely right. After the fiasco’s of her last two memoirs, they both agreed that time was on her side with this last one.
He also wanted her listen to motivational talks as she walked in the woods behind her big white house. But she found that when she did, she didn’t have anything to record when she got back. After a few months of nothing to write down, she decided to change things.
Ron kept leaving her new motivational recordings on her phone when he’d take her personal recordings away. That was the only electronic piece she had. Like winding the clock, everything else was manually operated.
Of course, he liked to check she was listening to them, so she would skip around just before he came and look up the titles and listen to bits and pieces. Just so he thought she was paying attention to them if he asked.
Two can play at this game. Their conspiracy would lose.
She’d take her walks in the woods in her bib overalls and a heavy cotton turtleneck sweater, thick socks and comfy boots, nothing else. Gave her a feeling of freedom. No restraint. A personal display of Resistance. On summer days, it would be a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt. Winter would add an fleece-lined jacket. Nobody saw except her security detail. And they were paid not to notice.
In Spring and Fall, she’d often feel the breezes come up those overalls and give a thrill up her leg.
Her husband hadn’t done that for years. He just kept paying the bills out of her half of the Foundation monies.
Once a year or so, someone would drive up in a big stretch limo and pick her up for some gala or something. They’d stop to pick him up a block or so before the limo had to pull up out front. He always smelled of his girl friends. As least he had quit fooling with the minors. She could tell by how the perfume would change. The more expensive varieties meant he had someone with real taste. And taste is something you have to learn over the years.
On those evenings, they carefully watched her take and swallow her pills. Too often, that left her mostly preoccupied with just keeping awake and smiling at the right moments. Her husband would squeeze her hand as a signal. (Probably like someone had just squeezed his.) And two squeezes meant applaud. Otherwise, she was just waiting for the many tedious speakers and so on. She never got on stage any more, never had a prepared speech. They didn’t trust her to walk alone with all those drugs in her. Didn’t let her near reporters.
The end had come for both of them too soon. She had carefully tended his back trail all those years so that the minors and the others he had “met” would keep their personal stories to themselves. And those that didn’t would get discredited. He kept playing the distinguished statesman. And learned to keep his fetishes private.
Finally it became too much. The spider’s web of lies she had to spin finally collapsed of its own weight. Plus, it became popular to bash womanizers as predators. Very popular.
Then came her breakdown. Really, it was that she was tired of it all. No one believed in the conspiracy any more when she brought it up. She was just running out of people to blame, they said. No one thought she was motivational any more at the rallies, they told her. They all just wanted her gone.
So she obliged.
And every year, they’d open up the closets with the pant-suits and gowns. A hairdresser and cosmetician would show up. And she’d be dolled up and readied for the press. Then the long ride into the Big City. Ron would ride with her. He always wanted to talk about her book.
When it was over, they’d let her sleep it off in the back seat.
They finally pulled up through the gates to the old white house and there was someone waiting to help her undress. To put away the expensive gowns so they were ready next year. Then drop a flannel night gown over her head and let her toddle off to her comforter-piled four-poster. Just like the one in the Lincoln bedroom, she often thought.
By the next day, the drugs were out of her system. A stout cup of coffee and she was ready for the first walk of the day.
Yes, they had cameras on her. Security, they said. Every room. And the security staff stayed mostly at the guard house, but she had seen them walking the perimeter fences now and again. That happened when she was off her regular walking schedule. They had been told (and paid) never to talk to her. It was best they avoided meeting her entirely.
Inside the house, on warm days, she wore only a cotton t-shirt. Mainly because the backs of those chairs got uncomfortable. Whoever was watching those cameras were used to this.
There was a bell that chimed when their were visitors. That gave her time enough to find her bib overalls and slip into them. And some thick socks.
It was just Ron, usually. Maybe a secretary who’d be either gay or lesbian so he wouldn’t get into some hanky-panky - or maybe so he would. That one would stay in the limo, out of her sight. You couldn’t get answers to questions you couldn’t ask. Ron was part of the conspiracy, she knew it.
Ron also brought her books. Usually classics she hadn’t read. Nothing modern and nothing political.
She knew her husband had arranged for the psych to make sure of that. In between his humping some young thing. At least he laid off the minors. Or so she was told.
She and her humping hubby had their run in the spotlights. And now she got to live in a big white
house with columns out front for the rest of her days. With low maintenance shrubs all around it that didn’t really grow much.
There was a cottage out back that was her recording spot. When they painted her room annually, along with the rest of the house, she’d use that cottage couch over night. Couldn’t stand the paint fumes. Otherwise, she’d nap there when she got too tired. Or had too much Chardonnay.
The cottage had shelves that collected all those classics. And it had a pair of high-backed, padded arm chairs where she and Ron talked.
About her book. Always about her book. He’d bring her new printed transcripts and take away the ones she’d marked up.
She’d caught him in this conspiracy. Because she would repeat certain passages by heart. And always make the same grammar mistakes. Put them somewhere in the recording.
Ron never mentioned them. She knew that he knew she was doing it on purpose. And she knew he was doing something else to keep her busy and occupied. With anything except politics.
That’s why she had no news. She only had a flip-phone that wouldn’t connect to the Internet.
Ron got back into the car and kissed his lover, once they were securely behind the dark-tinted windows. He motioned for the driver to start on. The gates opened for them and they drove through.
“How was she?”
“Fine. Same as usual. Still flushing her meds. Chardonnay is her best medicine. Good thing we’ve put her drugs in it.”
“She looks really old.”
“Always has. Used to pack the makeup on. Now she doesn’t have to care.”
“How’s her book coming?”
“It will never see the light of day.”
“But doesn’t she work on it all the time — what about those recordings and transcripts?”
