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Nov. 29th, 2007 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gone_byebyeAnother ambassador down. President Randall M. Winston, Jr., slid his hand under his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. The Deep Ones were behaving pretty congenially for an unknown foreign power, considering that there had yet to be an American ambassador who lasted more than about a week and a half, but the President was pretty sure that the situation couldn't last. At least they'd nominated a couple of acceptable candidates themselves, this time. Scientists, not diplomats. Maybe someone who spent her or his life staring into the faces of bug-eyed things with too many teeth and the wrong color skin would be a better idea. You could probably train them up to act like diplomats better than you could train a diplomat to sit across the table from a fish-person and behave as if everything were perfectly normal.
His musings on the subject were interrupted by a rap at the door. "Come in," said the President.
The man who slipped into the Oval Office was about halfway between Mike Flaherty and Winston himself in height, his dark hair going widely grey at the temples and lines around his eyes starting to etch their way into his skin in earnest. "Mr. President," he said with a nod.
"Morning, Jay," Winston answered. Jay Fortescue was the closest thing the administration had to a technological advisor right now. "What've you got for me?"
"Well, Mr. President, I've gone over everything that the Foliage Census gang had on the subject, and I have to say- if the Ghostbusters weren't working in conjunction with the boys and girls at FLAG, they sure as hell thought along the same lines. That car of theirs was boosted in every possible way, at least as much as the two Pontiacs that we know of, and that was before FC went dark."
Winston nodded. "So it was dangerous even then?"
"Sir- Mr. President- that car was one step shy of being the Defense Department's dream tank of tomorrow. The only thing that kept it from reaching that status was the fact that they never installed any of their weapons in it. If they had, I really don't think the FC boys were too far off when they said the Ghostbusters could probably have conquered a few West African countries with it."
"Gotcha. Big scary car, big scary capabilities. What about now?"
"Now-" Fortescue riffled his papers. "Well, sir, we haven't seen it demonstrate any built-in weaponry yet, either on satellite or on the Internet. We did catch a few shots of it handling one of their proton packs, though. Looks like the fingers might just be up to working the controls. Not to mention that it's got that walker drone, and that thing's everything the Advanced Defense Initiative's been dreaming about in terms of both a cargo walker and a hunter-seeker. Stantz knows about domestic satellite surveillance, and he's been going out of his way to keep the car's transformation sequence away from the public eye whenever possible. I'm gonna have to assume that there is built-in weaponry and they just haven't been using it yet because they don't wanna get spotted."
Winston compared this to the mental image he would always have of the Ghostbuster- a man doing his best to listen attentively and answer questions coherently despite being made to meet with the President in his sweatpants and Mr. Stay-Puft slippers- and nodded anyway. "All right," he said, since Fortescue seemed to expect agreement with his assumption. "And your suggestion?"
"Mr. President," said Fortescue, "I gotta say- in the interests of national security- I don't think any private individual or corporate concern ought to have that kind of combat vehicle at their fingertips. With that kind of combat robot at their beck and call these guys can do things that Blackwater can't pull off."
"So-"
"Mr. President, you gotta confiscate that car."
His musings on the subject were interrupted by a rap at the door. "Come in," said the President.
The man who slipped into the Oval Office was about halfway between Mike Flaherty and Winston himself in height, his dark hair going widely grey at the temples and lines around his eyes starting to etch their way into his skin in earnest. "Mr. President," he said with a nod.
"Morning, Jay," Winston answered. Jay Fortescue was the closest thing the administration had to a technological advisor right now. "What've you got for me?"
"Well, Mr. President, I've gone over everything that the Foliage Census gang had on the subject, and I have to say- if the Ghostbusters weren't working in conjunction with the boys and girls at FLAG, they sure as hell thought along the same lines. That car of theirs was boosted in every possible way, at least as much as the two Pontiacs that we know of, and that was before FC went dark."
Winston nodded. "So it was dangerous even then?"
"Sir- Mr. President- that car was one step shy of being the Defense Department's dream tank of tomorrow. The only thing that kept it from reaching that status was the fact that they never installed any of their weapons in it. If they had, I really don't think the FC boys were too far off when they said the Ghostbusters could probably have conquered a few West African countries with it."
"Gotcha. Big scary car, big scary capabilities. What about now?"
"Now-" Fortescue riffled his papers. "Well, sir, we haven't seen it demonstrate any built-in weaponry yet, either on satellite or on the Internet. We did catch a few shots of it handling one of their proton packs, though. Looks like the fingers might just be up to working the controls. Not to mention that it's got that walker drone, and that thing's everything the Advanced Defense Initiative's been dreaming about in terms of both a cargo walker and a hunter-seeker. Stantz knows about domestic satellite surveillance, and he's been going out of his way to keep the car's transformation sequence away from the public eye whenever possible. I'm gonna have to assume that there is built-in weaponry and they just haven't been using it yet because they don't wanna get spotted."
Winston compared this to the mental image he would always have of the Ghostbuster- a man doing his best to listen attentively and answer questions coherently despite being made to meet with the President in his sweatpants and Mr. Stay-Puft slippers- and nodded anyway. "All right," he said, since Fortescue seemed to expect agreement with his assumption. "And your suggestion?"
"Mr. President," said Fortescue, "I gotta say- in the interests of national security- I don't think any private individual or corporate concern ought to have that kind of combat vehicle at their fingertips. With that kind of combat robot at their beck and call these guys can do things that Blackwater can't pull off."
"So-"
"Mr. President, you gotta confiscate that car."
