The Terrorists Go Out of Business (RB Vs. Empress Theresa, Chapter 18) · 5:13pm May 7th, 2021
Previously, on Empress Theresa:
Vehicular vengeance.
And now:
Did I know what I was doing? Heck no!
Well, at least she admits it.
Four men sent by the ambassador from the last chapter arrive at the Parker estate. They introduce themselves as Bob, Jack, Harry, and Chuck. Theresa comments that these are obviously fake names. Also, she calls Bob a clown because he has the gall to be a CIA agent and be slightly jovial. How nice. To be fair, his jokes are terrible. On stopping an airplane mid-flight:
“HAL would stop the plane instantly. The passengers would be crushed like apple sauce.”
“Ouch! Cancel my reservation!”
Comedy!
The agents want to know if she can find a person again after 'grounding' them (their term, not mine); Theresa responds that she can.
They get to work. Theresa uses her remote viewing to spy in on terrorist camps on maps provided by Bob. It's the Stargate Project's wet dream. They tag everyone at each camp, then wait for a few of them to leave the camp before grounding everyone else, so they can lead them to more camps and so on.
The team meets three days a week, tagging or grounding sixty to a hundred terrorists a day. After two weeks, the story hits the press. People are mentioning her name and the Nobel Peace Prize in the same sentence.
In the midst of all of this, Theresa finds time to extract a bunch of silver from the sun. The sun actually contains (relatively) very, very little silver. She manages to get twenty times more of it than she did the gold earlier. Silver coinage becomes the new standard. Everyone in England now owns a silver dinner set. Theresa is making more than a billion dollars a week. Once again, she takes a shot at her old boyfriend.
Then the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries becomes relevant. Weren't expecting that one, were you? The secretary general of OPEC, Khaled bin Azad, has been making low-profile calls. He's trying to get new member nations. This has people worried, including President Stinson, who goes to visit Theresa. The 'summit of summits', as some are calling it.
Theresa figures this is a mainly political move, as people have been criticizing the prez for not doing much during the wind crisis. Which is true, I suppose, or at least, as far as the book has shown us.
Theresa goes to the airport to meet the PoTUS. They go to the U.S. Embassy to talk in private.
Stinson is worried OPEC is going to use their position to blackmail Theresa into doing what they want, as apparently they all crave that kind of power. Theresa responds that she plans to bring a bunch of carbon down from the sun, which can be burned for power. Never mind global warming or anything; we're going all carbon, baby! At least everyone will switch to electric cars, but, as Blair points out, converting the current transportation system from gas to electric will take years.
Theresa responds by suggesting she—ugh. By suggesting she raise the sea floor in the Caribbean to make offshore oil drilling easier. This is a horrendously bad idea for obvious reasons, but we'll just have to go with it.
In exchange for doing this, Theresa wants immunity from the courts.
Stinson agrees to this.
Stinson agrees to this.
Way to take that whole system of justice America's been trying to get to work since its inception and throw it right in the garbage, prez.
Blair agrees, too, and says he'll pull some strings with his friends in Europe. Ultimately, they decide to let OPEC make its move first.
Oh, and Theresa has adopted a new catchphrase for people she doesn't like: "They can all drop dead." She uses it twice in this exchange. Lovely.
Stinson convinces Congress to pass laws exempting Theresa from lawsuits (somehow). Apparently, the only people to object were the lawyers. Funny, that.
OPEC meets. Afterwards, Azad demands that the grounding stop for 'freedom fighters', that Theresa put a billion dollars a month into a fund for the world's poor, and that Israel be returned to those who lived there before '47.
Theresa cries. Steve threatens that they'll kill the bastards.
Steve does some research on the internet and comes to the conclusion that there's probably a bunch of oil off the coast of Antarctica, based on some reasoning about Madagascar and plate tectonics. Soon, they have a plan. They evacuate anyone who might be in the area they're working in.
Meanwhile, the Israeli PM, a mister Benjamin Scherzer, flies into London, wishing to meet with Theresa. Theresa complains that everyone wants something from her. She brings up a short story she once read about a Prince who received wisdom and immortality from a Hindu god, then threw himself off a cliff because people wouldn't leave him alone. Mrs. Parker's response to this is "The Prince had nobody who loved him". Theresa decides to meet with Scherzer. They meet at Number 10.
Turns out, Scherzer graduated from the same college as Theresa and Steve. What a big coincidence!
Scherzer is, of course, worried about OPEC's demands.
Steve talking:
“As we say in America, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is you can’t stay where you are. Theresa is going to clobber these bastards. When they find out what’s going on they’ll be mad as killer bees. They’ll swarm over you.
“The good news is Theresa can give you a new homeland. She has two plans, A and B. Plan A is moving Israel.”
So yeah. Plan A is that Theresa takes chunks of Israel and moves them out to the Mediterranean. I'm sure that'll go over just peachy.
Plan B is that Theresa raises an island for them. In the shape of the Star of David, because why not at this point.
Scherzer points out that, had OPEC known she could do this, they might not have made their demands. Blair apologizes for their inexperience in diplomacy, ignoring the fact that he was there at the time, too.
Anyway, they decide to go with plan B, and decide that the island will be in the north Atlantic. And also to move Jerusalem to the middle of the island, because again, why not. I'm sure the Palestinians won't mind. Scherzer vetoes the Star of David idea, though, in favor of his own design. Must be a great privilege, being able to design your own country. Someone should make a game series about that.
The deal is made, the map is signed. To take care of the issue of timing, Theresa will raise a land bridge between Israel and Crete for evacuation purposes. It's pointed out that Israelis may be killed during the evacuation process. Theresa is at a loss as to how to stop that.
The chapter ends with Scherzer thanking Theresa. This was a long chapter, folks; I saved you from some of it, because I love you that much.
See you next time.
The sea floor thing? The immunity thing? The flubbed diplomacy and relocating Israel as a designer island thing?
This is BEYOND stupid.
5514654
The mind boggles at the depth's of man's hubris.
You know, there are rumors that when a few suffer - it's not so sad. Our segment also has a tradition of writing reviews of bad books, and goddesses... This time we found something extremely epic. This is a fan fiction from Fimfiction, a multi-part, for that matter. The total volume of the five parts exceeded three hundred thousand words.
At the same time, all but the first one have an empty rating. There are so few likes/dislikes that they are not even displayed. Something tells me that the three of us will be the first people to read this story to the end.
And it's scary. Just a very minor fact. In less than three thousand words, the author managed: to introduce Vinyl, who for some reason became a human and lost her memory, to arrange a date with Mothra (yes, they had love at first sight, no, Mothra was then in the form of a butterfly), and reveal the full depth of their love relationship, making a time skip from the first date - to the twelfth.
So just remember that you are not alone. And hold on tight.