[Election ‘016 018] O’No!

O’No!

Thedude3445

“Witness me!”

“Witness him!”

The pale-skinned man sprayed his face with metallic paint, and, as the men next to him cheered him on, leapt onto a nearby car in a fiery explosion of stupidity and also fire. The car was perfectly intact, because, obviously it was protected from suicide bombers. It was the President’s fucking car. They thought of shit like suicide bombing road bandits when they built cars for Presidents.

“Dammit!” Martin O’Malley shouted, slamming his fist onto his desk. The sheer force of the impact cratered the desk. “Get me a new desk, this one is wearing out!” Several men rushed in, grabbed the desk, and carried it away from the Campaign HQ control room, hopefully bringing in a new one soon enough.

None of O’Malley’s plans ever fucking worked. It was like, wow. He just hired some Cult of Benghazi fanatics to bomb-throw themselves at some vehicles and make the President look bad for not protecting his citizens. And guess what? They just so happened to throw themselves onto a car owned by the President himself.

“Fuck.” Nobody was around to hear him, but he said it anyway. “Fucking fuck.” There had to be something he could do to catch fire with the voters. Some tragedy or scandal to make a beautiful speech about.

It made no sense that he had to resort to this. He said all the right things and Hillary was one of the most hated people in America. He was a good speaker, young, good-looking, had a good track record, everything pretty perfect about him. Hillary was a convicted criminal who served 10 years in Guantanamo for her involvement in Emailgate.Why did people care about her and not Marty?

O’Malley looked at one of the full body mirrors that he personally installed throughout the control room. He looked gorgeous. “I look gorgeous,” he said to himself, delighted to hear the soothing tones of his Maryland accent resonate through the empty room. Why didn’t people care about this chiseled face, and these twinkling emerald eyes, and that sophisticated grey tinged hair?

There had to be something more he could do.

“Sir,” an aide said as she walked into the control room. “I think there’s something better we can do.”

“Finally, someone knows what’s up,” O’Malley said.

“We can give up,” she said.

“NO!” O’Malley jumped at the aide and punched her across the face. “YOU ARE TEASING ME! I WILL MAKE HER RUE THE DAY GOD GAVE HER BREATH!”

The aide passed out, but O’Malley continued to beat her up.

***

“Fuck, I missed a note.” O’Malley put down his guitar. The other members of his fantastic Celt Rock band, O’Malley’s March, stopped playing. They huddled around him and laid their hands on him like he was in the middle of a revival. “Guys, thanks for everything. It’s been a tough time.”

“We notice you,” they said in unison.

“Thanks for everything. It’s been a tough time.”

He picked his guitar back up and began strumming, ready to get back into the set. He reflected back on the words of his peers. “We notice you.” The song they played was an autobiographical one, about a time he succeeded at becoming mayor of Baltimore. It felt so good.

***

The Democratic Debate. The Democratic Debate. Here was the Democratic Debate and here was O’Malley’s chance at finally being noticed. “Please, notice me,” he said to no-one as he sat in his control room, alone.

The man up on the debate stage was actually not a man at all, but a highly advanced replicant of his own making. He looked just like the real deal, and responded to his every command, but had some useful upgrades from the OG O’Malley, such as being able to explode on command.

The silver-haired fox in front of the synthetic O’Malley gazed at the candidates with that weird smirk he always had. Not the George Pataki kind of smirk, but, you know. “Governor O’Malley, what do you think of what Secretary Hilldog just said?”

“I think Dear Leader Bernie should answer this question!” The synthetic O’Malley shouted with an obviously robotic voice. Nobody seemed to mind, though. They were too busy ignoring Martin and focusing on the Bernmeister.

“Hi,” he said. The crowd went wild. There was a standing ovation for twenty minutes. Joe Biden, sucking in a massive cloud of Slim Jim flavored e-cig vapor, nodded in approval. His eyes were hidden behind the opaque mirrored lenses of his aviators though, so there was no telling what he was actually nodding at. Chances are he was just remembering a rerun of Baywatch he saw in his hotel room the previous night.

Lincoln Chafee tapped on the ROBO’Malley’s shoulder and whispered something to him. Shit. Back in the control room, the real O’Malley slammed his fist against his desk, again denting it. He forgot to install microphones into the ROBO’Malley itself; he had been using the debate footage to listen in beforehand, and there was obviously no microphone anywhere near Lincoln Chafee. Linc seemed very confused when the synthetic O’Malley didn’t respond so the real one decided to just wing it.

“I agree with you, Linc,” O’Malley said through the speaker. Linc’s face brightened up, so it must have worked. Linc was probably just asking if his macaroni art owl was pretty or something.

The debate was not going the way he had planned. The Hill and the Bern were outmaneuvering his attempts at success at every turn. He couldn’t figure out how to destroy them through his words, so it was time for more drastic measures.

“The next question is for you, Grand General Webb,” the silver fox said. “How do you feel about China?” Webb, more machine than man now, was famous for his recent battles against the Neo-Union Army; everyone waited on the edges of their seats for what he had to say–

“NO! I WON’T STAND FOR THIS!” O’Malley screamed through his synthetic self. “ASK ME A QUESTION! ASK IT TO ME!”

The silver fox shook his head. “Wait your turn, Mr. O’Malley. You’ll be able to reply when the General is through with his answer.”

“NO! I WILL SPEAK NOW!” The synthetic O’Malley jumped out in front of Hillary and Bernie. “WITNESS ME!”

In the control room, O’Malley pressed the self-destruct button, and sat back in his chair, ready to watch the fireworks.

The synthetic O’Malley started spraying sparks from its eyes, its mouth, and its… whatever and collapsed onto the stage… The fuse to the explosive charges must have malfunctioned, because there wasn’t a two block wide crater where the Wynn Resort used to be.

The real O’Malley collapsed onto the floor of the control room and broke out into sobs. On the computer screen, the debate continued, uninterrupted. Webb gave a good speech.