Engels and Marx, the Wright brothers, and all other great duos

Chapter 26

Engels and Marx, the Wright brothers, and all other great duos

Nom and Tollen met for beers the next four evenings. The process of forming the outline for an end game plan took almost the first three. Was it enough to simply threaten the world, and its leaders with oblivion, if they failed to start behaving like the highly evolved sentient life that they were? What if some resisted or fought back? Given the general temperament of American conservatives, and religious conservatives around the world, it did seem like an inevitable result.

If he showed a religious person that their book of fairy tales was unreliable, they would politely mount an insurrection. Though, while they tried to remove his head, they would be kind enough to damn him to the hell of their choice. If he told a conservative their old-fashioned ways of living and thinking were holding back the advancement of mankind, they would pass another law trying to ban his right to say it.

The walls of Nom's apartment were slowly filled with sticky notes, scotch taped up to ensure that they did not fall from their appointed places. Note pads were filled and hours of research done.

In the end, the pair concluded that a war with the religious sects and conservative sects of humanity was inevitable. Slow evolution of culture, to reduce their numbers to irrelevancy, would simply take far too long, assuming it ever happened.

Simply culling the human population would not do the trick, it would be impossible to get all the bad eggs while sparing the good ones. A line in the sand had to be drawn, and people had to be given the free right to choose their own side. Simply killing every person who seemed to meet the stereo types of those destroying society, would inevitably eliminate some good people and leave many bad. One could not, for example, eliminate every religious person. Many people were religiously active solely from social pressure, or ignorance. Even style of music would be a miss. One could eliminate country music fans and still miss hip-hop. No, a true war had to be started.

People needed to openly fight for their sides, not in the polls or the media, but literally hand to hand. The idea was that if a person truly believed in their side, they would charge to the vanguard of the battle. If they were forced into service against their will, they would find a way to reduce their risk, since they were not vested in war. By stirring up the pot, Nom could see actual battles and know exactly who the worst people were. Then a true cull would be possible.

The question for Nom and Tollen was how to trigger such a war. A mere Facebook post wouldn't exactly do the trick. It was obvious that he would need to start his 'War of the Cull' in the western world. The United States would be ideal. As the most visible country in the world, once serious battle lines started being drawn, the various nations would line up to support the side of their choice. This would likewise cause schisms in their own cultures, highlighting who should be targeted for culling.

To start the war in the US he would need a public venue, a Casus Belli and a suitably monstrous act to attract the necessary attention. For days they went back and forth arguing the merits of one act over another. Wait and target the next Super Bowl, or the coming Olympics, or target the capital during the next joint session of congress? Take out the White House or the Pentagon? Perhaps a corporate target such as Wall St., or the next NRA convention, or the conservative media machine?

The end of their debate was so obvious, that neither could believe they had not thought about it in the first place.

They were once again in Nom's living room. Caffeine had replaced the alcohol, and they were hunched over the pile of papers on the coffee table.

"Nom." Tollen said. "What about a target that combines all of our ideals into one?"

"Naturally that would be best, but I'm not seeing one yet." Nom replied.

"The President."

"You may be getting ahead of yourself here, Tollen." Nom said. "I'm all for exterminating that orange disgrace, but there are millions more where he came from. Plus, it is normal in warfare to avoid killing the leaders of the enemy. That way you have someone to negotiate with when it comes time to end the war."

"But is that Nazi really a leader, or is he simply the most public manifestation of the illness that is conservatism and fundamentalism?" Tollen asked.

"Both, I guess." Nom replied.

"The Presidency is bigger than the person sitting in the seat. That's why they can be removed from office, voted out, or, in the event of their death replaced." Tollen said.

"The line of succession?" Nom asked. "You may have a point there. I can eliminate one man, and yet there will always be a leader to take his place. I can simply slide down the line of succession, until I get the person I want. The President is irrational, emotional and unpredictable. Hell, he makes a PMSing woman look calm and controlled. So odd that the very thing he is best at, irrational, hormonal flip outs, was the reason so many the President's voters gave for voting against a female Democrat. In this case, he fits to the woman stereotype far better than she ever could. The Vice President may be a twisted bastard, one who genuinely believes things that even old German Nazis would cringe at, but he is at least predictable. He would be a far easier man to negotiate the end of a war with. That, and I think we can rely on him keeping his word, unlike the orange douche." Nom said.

"Ok, so the President is your target." Tollen said.

"Not so fast… I agree that eliminating the President would make negotiations easier, but how is he the combination of everything? Sure he represents the sum, but how is he 'it'?" Nom said.

"Ok… let me think." Tollen said. "We want to take down corrupt Wall Street right?"

"Yes."

"Well, if you take out the President, you take out the figurehead of corruption on Wall Street. You take out a man who has literally swindled billions from poor investors and lied his way out of billions in taxes." Tollen said.

"So we have him for two things. He is the head of the government, so taking him out would undoubtedly be an act of war. Then we have the Wall Street bit. He certainly covers the NRA too… Wait… I think I just figured out how to cover our conservative media brainwashing element with him.".

"How?"

"The President loves the Der'Mo News morning show Der'Mo in the Morning. He calls in frequently, and, once a month or so, he is an actual in studio guest." Nom said.

"It's hilarious, that you are so familiar with that show. The entire channel might as well be the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment. Now, how would you get in? The Secret Service will have Manhattan locked down tighter than a drum when the President is there. Unless you just plan on killing everybody." Tollen said.

"They can't stop life from going on. People still have to go to work, move, shop, and live. The people at the Der'Mo parent company, ZLOY Inc., still have to show up for work. So I'll just have to find a way to work for ZLOY. Then I can be at their building the next time the President shows up." Tollen said.

"You pushed Pham's mind. Can you control other people too?" Tollen asked.

"I can, but it is harder if I don't know them. It's like trying to steer a car while blind folded."

"But if you had a direct task you wanted a person to do? If you were in the room with them?" Tollen asked.

"I guess that would be easier. Especially, if we were alone and unobserved. Then I would have no distractions, and their mind would be far easier to focus."

"So, we need to find you someone to push. Someone, that can get you into ZLOY." Tollen said.

"And we need to decide what's going to happen when I get to NYC."

"Something on par with 9-11 and Pearl Harbor." .

"I think, assassinating the sitting President of the United States, while issuing a manifesto, is up in that league." Nom said.

"Not gory enough."

"Did you not get enough gore with Pham? You do know that at most one day from now he is going to die? Nice thing about dehydration is that he didn't do much to cause a smell yet, but even a dry corpse smells." Nom said.

"So, we'll move this effort over to my place. I have that new pole barn I put in last fall." Tollen said.

"And the gore?" Nom said.

"Why you take out the Der'Mo in the Morning people of course." Tollen said with a smile.

"Of course." Nom said. It was so clear. Take out the President and the hosts of Der'Mo in the Morning live on the air. Force them to stay on the air, by delaying the casualties until it was too late for them to cut.

Nom got a grin. "Know how I'm going to do it? I'll leave the hosts for an impromptu surprise. But the President? I have a number that will bring down the curtain. Here…"

Nom pulled out his laptop and opened YouTube. In a moment, he had a clip of a popular conservative provocateur playing. Despite being the chief orator, for the most insane wing of American conservatism, the man was an amusing buffoon to watch. Every day he would find something to go ballistic over. A few weeks before, it had been a conspiracy theory that American liberals were hording guillotines in their basements. All so, they would have the means to mass slaughter conservatives 'when the time comes'.

After five minutes of trying to regain their breath from laughing their lungs out at the sheer asinine stupidity, Tollen slapped Nom on the shoulder.

"But you'll need to give credit to that red headed comedian as well. She kind of already stole your fire on that gag."

"Oh, that's right, I forget her name but she had that picture of her holding the Presidents fake severed head. Well I'll give her a shout out credit when I do it."

"You're right, that is the way to do it." Tollen said.

"Nice and public on the show." Nom said nodding.

"But how?" Tollen asked.

"I don't know. Thank the nonexistent god, you have that pole barn, so I can tinker. Tollen, my man, we need to build a guillotine. One I can smuggle into Der'Mo News and use on the President of the United States.