Premable: Dropping the Bomb

Huntress Thompson looked outside her news helicopter with a sense of fear and loathing.

Two rival armies clashed against each other on the streets of Baltimore down below. The warriors used a variety of deadly weapons, from machine guns and flamethrowers, to cutlasses and cannonballs; their wailing screams of pain audible even from the sky above. Thompson gave one last look across the bloody battlefield, then raised up her hand high into the air.

“Power: Gonzo Journalism.”

Instantly, a pair of tall lanky figures with cameras for heads materialized inside the copter.

“Mornin’ boss,” one of the Gonzo’s spoke. “How you doing?”

“Shut it!” Thompson hissed. “I don’t have time for niceties. I just wanna get this crap over and done with already. Understood?”

The Gonzos gave a collective nod.

“Good.”

Thompson moved out of her seat, letting one of the Gonzos step in and take hold of the controls. Thompson adjusted her white bucket hat and yellow-tinted glasses, then popped a cigarette into her mouth as the other Gonzo pointed his camera lens towards her. Gonzo raised three fingers…two…one…

“Hello,” Thompson spoke with a monotone voice as a tall building crumbled just behind her. “As anyone with half a brain cell could have told you, the ongoing turf war between the Jacksonian and New Dealers continues on without any signs of slowing down. Given this volatile situation, any reasonable news organization would of course choose to spend their limited airtime covering this awesome footage happening just below our feet.”

Thompson gave a forced smile.

“But…since we’re a `family friendly’ network…our bosses have decided to give you an `informative’ traffic report instead. So; here’s how to get to wherever you want to go…”

Thompson straightened up her back and took an exaggerated cough to clear her throat.

“…pull out your damn phone…tell it where the hell you’re going…and figure out the rest yourself!”

Thompson glared at the camera, then raised up another fake smile.

“And now, a word from our sponsors; aka, the only people dumb enough to spend their money on our worthless programming.”

Gonzo turned off his broadcast and gave a shake of his head.

“You know boss, it’s stunts like these that got you demoted to traffic duty in the first place.”

“Seriously!” the other Gonzo chimed in. “Remember that time you cursed out a middle schooler on live TV?”

“That snotnosed brat had it coming!” Thompson hissed, taking another drag on her cigarette. “I mean seriously, who picks Dixie Nixon as her favorite President? If anything, the network should be thanking me for setting our troubled youth straight! But that’s enough chitchat from us,” she gestured to the towering pillars of smoke behind them, “let’s get to where the real action is already! I’ve heard there’s a whopping four Presidents in the fray today, and I’m just itching to see some Executive Powers in action!”

And so, the trio flew out over the city, searching for Presidents.

“I found some!” one of the Gonzos exclaimed, zooming his camera onto a plain looking woman facing off against a large cowboy down below.

The woman stepped forward, raising her hands with a proud smirk.

“Executive Power,” Jade Polk screamed, “Manifest Destiny!”

A pair of ornamental blades materialized inside her hands as she swung down at the cowboy’s overly protruding stomach.

“Woahhh now!” Landon B. Johnson hollered, moving himself aside. “Hurry up, JFK! I could really use some backup over here!”

Across the street, a young man shook his head as a giant chunk of concrete hurtled towards him.

“Ask not what your Party can do for you…” Jay F. Kennedy grumbled, “but what you can do for your Party!”

JFK crouched down, the Presidential Seal on the back of his hand glowing red, white, and blue.

“Executive Power: Man on the Moon!”

JFK leapt into the air, his body floating gracefully through the sky as the concrete passed just below his feet. He looked down, watching as a handsome man lifted up a car with his bare hands.

“Give it up already!” Hank Pierce quipped as he threw the vehicle towards JFK, “I’ve got you beat in terms of both looks and power!”

In the air, Thompson grinned to herself as she watched the Presidents clash against one another.

“Now this is a story worth covering! I tell ya, I’d give up drugs and drinking if I could just get the chance to report on some more Presidents fight…ing…”

Thompson slowed her speech, her attention drawn to something on the horizon.

“Gonzo…?” she asked, pointing over to a mushroom shaped cloud blossoming in the distance. “Am I on too many shrooms right now, or is that—"

A giant shockwave slammed into the city, flinging their helicopter out across the sky. The piloting Gonzo yanked hard on his controls, fighting to keep the copter afloat. Meanwhile, Thompson continued staring at the cloud, her mind lost deep in thought.

“Boss?” a Gonzo asked, resting a hand on her shoulder as the copter steadied itself. “You doing alright?”

Thompson turned to him, her face brimming with glee.

“I will be once we get over to whatever the hell that thing was!”

“But boss,” the other Gonzo interjected, “we need to stay here for the second half of the traffic report. Otherwise, the higher ups will—"

“Screw the higher ups!” she screamed. “I’m not letting another scoop pass us by just because those fat-cat dumb-nuts wanted to stay home and scratch their own asses!”

Thompson huffed and puffed, then quieted herself down.

“No…you’re right,” she spoke softly. “We have a job to do after all. Let’s just…let’s just go ahead and do the traffic report.”

The Gonzos looked to each other, then back to Thompson as their recording lights blinked on. One of the Gonzos counted down, then pointed over to Thompson.

“Hello Baltimore!” Thompson spoke with genuine cheer. “Today, we’re excited to launch a new segment for our traffic reports called: `What’s the fastest way to get to the weird cloud I saw just before the giant shockwave slammed into our city?’.”

The Gonzo’s gave a joint sigh.

I knew it, the two thought in unison as the piloting Gonzo pulled on his controls, steering the copter towards their new destination.

The trio flew out for some time, with the mysterious cloud dissipating long before they could reach it. However, what remained in its place appeared just as shocking.

“Jesus Christ; are you seeing this, folks?” Thompson exclaimed, looking to the titanic crater carved into the earth below. “This must be where our bizarre shockwave came from! Offhand, the crater looks to be around 300 feet deep with a radius of 1200 feet. Moreover—”

“Woah, woah, woah!” the closest Gonzo screamed, aiming his camera past Thompson’s head, “There’s something going on down there!”

Thompson looked out, spotting a bright light flickering at the crater’s edge.

“Well, would you look at that…” She glanced behind her, a wide smile creeping over her face. “Take us down, Gonzo!”

“Uhhhh,” the piloting Gonzo replied, “I’d rather not, boss…I think I'm starting to get the fear…”

“Like hell you are! We came all this way to figure out what happened here! And you must realize,” she pointed to the light below, “that we’ve found the main nerve!”

“I know…” Gonzo gulped, “…that’s what gives me the fear…”

Reluctantly, Gonzo lowered down the chopper, with Thompson jumping out and sprinting ahead well before he could finish the landing.

Thompson mentally prepared herself as she ran, anticipating every possibility for what might lie within the mysterious light.

However, she was entirely unprepared as a large, ordinary man with short gray hair and wide, circular glasses stepped out from its glow.

“Greetings!” the man exclaimed with a strong midwestern accent as the light faded around him.

Thompson skidded to a halt as she approached, her eyes gazing up at the man as the second Gonzo ran up just behind her.

“I see you’re all a bunch of journalists!” the man remarked, looking to Gonzo’s camera head. “Well that’s just perfect! Tell me, are you with local or national news?”

Thompson blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Local…news?”

The man kept smiling, but he was clearly disappointed.

“Well, it’ll get there soon enough I suppose. You rolling now by any chance?”

Thompson stared blankly ahead, then gave a quiet nod.

“Excellent!”

The man stepped back, clearing his throat as he looked towards the camera.

“My fellow Americans…”

He raised a hand, inciting Thompson to instinctively take a step back.

“Jesus!” she whispered as she took in the symbol of a bald eagle inscribed within a circle of 13 stars burned onto the back of the man’s hand. “That’s a Presidential Seal right there!”

“…my name is Henry S. Truman,” the President continued, ignoring Thompson’s remarks, “and the destruction you see behind me,” he gestured to the massive crater around them, “is the aftermath of my Executive Power: The Manhattan Project.”

Thompson paused for a second, taking in the weight of his words.

“…and what exactly do you want?”

Truman gave a sigh.

“As things stand, our country finds itself torn apart by the senseless battles waged between the Presidents and their Parties. As a President myself, I know this is bad, and I’ve come here today with the hope of putting an end to all these pointless feuds.”

Truman gave a shake of his head.

“But of course, it is not enough to yearn for peace. We must work for it, and if necessary…” he raised a slight smile over his somber face, “…fight for it!”

Thompson looked to Gonzo, then back over to Truman, furrowing her brow.

“The hell are you talking about?”

Truman transformed his smile into a devilish grin, then threw his arms out to the side.

“In order to form a more perfect union, insure domestic tranquility, and to secure the blessings of liberty; I am declaring today the establishment of a grand tournament that will decide once and for all: which President stands as the greatest of all time?”

Truman stopped speaking, his eyes looking expectingly to Thompson.

“…uhh,” she spoke up, “please…tell us more?”

Truman raised three fingers into the air.

“This experiment of ours will be organized by a trinity of Presidents consisting of myself, Bill Taft, and Ruth Hayes.” He raised up a fourth finger. “It will take place at this very spot, four months from today, on Tuesday, November 4th. I’m also very pleased to announce that we’ve already secured the participation of four prominent Presidents for our event.”

Truman lowered his fingers one at a time, his voice lingering on each name as he spoke.

“Theo Roosevelt…Gabe Lincoln…Tanya Jefferson…and Jordan Washington.”

Thompson widened her eyes.

“That’s…” she stuttered, “…that’s every member of Rushmore!”

“That it is!” Truman chuckled, then tightened his gaze back to the camera. “And so, my fellow Presidents, I hope you’ll join us for what is sure to be…a Revolutionary War!”

Thompson stood stiff, her mind overflowing with everything she just heard, then gave a frantic wave to Gonzo as she came back to her senses.

“C-Cut!” she screamed as Gonzo’s recording light flickered off, shutting down the broadcast.

Truman gave a heavy sigh and wiped a hand across his sweating forehead.

“Welp; I guess the die is cast now! And if you don’t mind me asking,” he pointed towards their news helicopter in the distance, “could you all give me a ride back into town with you? The car I drove over didn’t quite survive the blast!”

“…uhh…yeah…sure…” Thompson replied thoughtlessly, her brain still in a daze. She continued staring a moment longer, then gave a violent shake of her head.

What the hell am I doing? she thought. The opportunity I’ve always been waiting for is literally standing right in front of me, and all I can do is stand around gawking like an idiot?

Thompson gritted her teeth, then slapped herself hard across the face.

“You can come with us,” she screamed, regaining her former sense of composure, “on one condition!”

She pointed to herself.

“I get to be the emcee for your tournament!”

Truman looked down at Thompson, instantly transforming his friendly smile into a cold, icy glare.

“…are you seriously making demands of me…” he asked, gesturing to the crater behind him, “…after witnessing the kind of destruction I can bear against you?”

Thompson maintained her iron gaze at Truman, unwilling to yield a single inch against his tremendous pressure. Truman stared for a bit longer, then broke into a hearty laugh.

“Man alive!” he gave Thompson a friendly pat on the back, nearly toppling her over from the force of his push. “You’ve certainly got enough gumption to do the job, I’ll give you that much at least! We’ll need to run things by the other organizers first, but I think something like that will work just fine. Why don’t we go and hash out the details on our way back into town?”

Truman chuckled to himself, jaunting over to the copter as Thompson and Gonzo followed shortly behind.

“…something’s off here,” Thompson muttered under her breath.

“What do you mean?” Gonzo asked.

“The Rushmores have never all agreed on anything before; let alone something as big as this!”

Gonzo rubbed the bottom of his lens.

“So you think he’s lying about them participating in the tournament?”

“Hell no! If that were the case, then this entire project would be doomed the moment the Rushmore’s found out he was spreading nonsense about them.”

“Hmm,” the Gonzo hummed in thought. “So he really must have gotten their approval then…but how could he manage to do something like that?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.”

Thompson took a drag on her cigarette, then shook out her head.

“Actually, there’s another question we’ll need to answer before we can figure that one out.”

“And what’s that?”

Thompson looked ahead, carefully watching the strange man as he geeked out over their news helicopter before them.

“…who the hell is Henry Truman?”

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The Bracket.  Honeyfeed doesn't seem to allow posting pictures, so if you want to see a picture of the full bracket you can go to https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1659359-executive-powers-super-powered-fighting-tournament-between-presidents/chapter/1703330/ 

Schedule. I’m tentatively planning to post new chapters daily until I get caught up with the couple of chapters I have posted elsewhere, after which I'll post twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. 

Historical Notes. To make the many historical references made throughout this novel more accessible, I’ll be including optional historical notes at the end of each chapter which discuss some of these references at greater length.

Thompson. The character Huntress Thompson is based off the journalist Hunter S. Thompson who is best known for writing the book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” as well as for his unique style of “Gonzo Journalism;” a style largely defined by including the writer (i.e. himself) as a central character in the stories he wrote.

Preamble. Henry Truman’s speech regarding “a more perfect union” is based on the Preamble of the United States Constitution, the full text for which goes: