Mr. President, Nebraska is missing, episodes 1-15
Created | Updated Jan 16, 2024
Mister President, Nebraska is missing,episodes 1-15
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 1
It had not been a good day for President Woodhed. Morning had brought new reports about rising unemployment, high inflation, and a trade deficit big enough to start a country of its own. Then there had been a noontime campaign meeting at which his pollster had informed him that "half the people who voted for you three years ago have forgotten that you won, and another 20% think you died last Easter.
The afternoon had started off on a more hopeful note when a boy scout troop had come in for a photo session with the President. Photo sessions had always gone well for Woodhed, so he wasn't expecting the chaos that was to erupt when the White House sound system inexplicably began playing "Put a weasel in the White House," a wildly popular song that had been made possible by Woodhed's former campaign manager,a man who, in a moment of drunken indiscretion, had told a reporter "Woodhed is so unpopular he couldn't even beat an extraterrestrial weasel." As luck would have it, the boy scouts had a weasel as a mascot, and the jeering song was interpreted as a putdown of their troop.
Woodhed was alone in his office now, nervously watching the clock's hands creep toward four p.m., and hoping that the day would end without any further embarrassments. A top secret campaign report sat on his desk. "We can still win this campaign if there are no more adverse revelations," it concluded, "and if we can keep our base of support in Nebraska." How encouraging to be ahead of all potential opponents in only one state, Woodhed thought bitterly. Well, it could be worse. Nebraska could sink into the ground and never be seen again, right? No, no, that would be too implausible, even on a bad luck day like today. And at that point in time the phone rang.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 2
"Mister President, this is General Millaise calling from NASA," said the voice on the phone. "Our surveillance satellites have picked up a possible problem with one of the Midwestern states, Nebraska to be exact..."
"Is it tornadoes again?" President Woodhed said hopefully, remembering that the last round of tornadoes in that state
had given him some much-needed favorable publicity. "I can be out there first thing in the morning. Oh, and I think there's still some money in the Federal Disaster aid account."
"Well, sir there *might* be tornadoes there, but we can't be sure," General Millaise said. In fact, we can't even see the state any more. To put it in plain English, Mr. President, Nebraska seems to be missing altogether."
President Woodhed frowned as he scanned the caller ID device for signs that the call was from a prankster rather than NASA. "Mister President," the white House switchboard operator broke in, "You have an urgent call from the Secretary of Transportation. Will you take it?"
"Gladly," the president replied, little realizing that the next call would be even stranger than the last one.
"Mister President, this is Diesel Trayenne," the Secretary began. "We have quite a lot of truckers who are disappearing on the Des Moines to Omaha routes. A couple have returned to des Moines unable to deliver. They say there's a big crater where Nebraska used to be. We didn't believe them at first, but NASA confirmed it. Anyway, one of them says the crater is turning into a giant lake because of the Oglalla Aquifer, or something like that. I hope we can straighten this out soon, 'cause the trucking industry is hurting."
"Thanks, Choo Choo," President Woodhed said sadly. This was looking like a one-term presidency for him, and the worst part was that he wouldn't have a home state to return to.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 3
The next call was from the Secretary of Agriculture, who reported plummeting estimates for the corn and wheat crops because of Nebraska's disappearance. "Gosh, Sir, maybe you should get the National Guard and station it around the borders of Kansas, Iowa, North Dakota, and Colorado so nobody steals those states too," he drawled.
"I don't think North Dakota is in danger of being stolen," President Woodhed said.
"If this were yesterday, I wouldn't have thought Nebraska would disappear, but it did anyway."
The FBI and CIA also weighed in with advice, much of it conflicting. The FBI wanted to blame Nebraska's disappearance on renegade Indians who had been lobbying for expanded territory. Apparently some of them had seen "Killers of the Flower Moon" and thought public opinion would finally be on their side. The CIA, on the other hand, was sure that extraterrestrial mischief was involved.
President Woodhed had no choice but to combine the two theories. He wrote a brief speech expaining the situation, and then went on live television to tell the good people of America that extraterrestrial Indians had abducted Nebraska for unknown reasons. This announcement was greeted with sidesplitting laughter in every corner of the globe. Opinion was divided among those who doubted that Nebraska had ever existed in the first place, those who thought it did exist but wasn't answering its phone, and those who felt it really had disappeared but none of Woodhed's theories had ever panned out so why trust him now? A certain former president speculated that this proved the last election really was stolen. Little did anyone realize jsut how prescient Woodhed's analysis would turn out to be.
Sure enough, at 6:00 p.m., just in time for the evening news, spokesmen for an extraterrestrial tribe of Indians appeared on TV via communicaitons satellite to take credit for Nebraska's disappearance. "Greetings to The United States of America," the tribe's spokesman said in flawless Engish, "My name is Hard Drive, and I'm here with the leaders of my tribe, the HTTP Indians. We have Nebraska. If you want Nebraska back, you must meet our demands. We've been told that that a man named Woodhed is in charge of your country. Our operators are standing by to receive his call."
President Woodhed dialed the number that Hard Drive had given. "Mr. Hard Drive, Sir," he began, grateful that no one could see how hard he was sweating. "I've only just found out about this, so bear with me. Where is your tribe's homeland located?"
"Mr. President, we've told you that we are extraterrestrials," Hard Drive said dismissively. "We used to live on your planet, near the place you call Omaha, but we left because we had so little in common with the other tribes in the area. Our technology was *way* ahead of theirs. Then this Columbus guy and his successors came along with inferior technology. We could have coped with that, but they began raising larger and larger armies. One day we got tired of having the threat of invasion hanging over our heads, so we just left for another planet. Our technology is still way ahead of yours, but we don't have to worry about invasion. We have gotten a tad homesick for what you call Nebraska, so..."
"So you decided to take Nebraska to your planet." Woodhed could tell where this was leading.
The people around Hard Drive saw a look of annoyance cross his face. "That's for us to know, and for you to guess," he said with a sneer, "and let me just say that some of our tribal elders have *reservations* about returning Nebraska at all."
"Perhaps we could all get together soon and smoke the peace pipe," President Woodhed offered.
The Indians were overcome with laughter at this proposal. Finally Hard Drive stopped laughing long enough to say, "Don't do us any favors, Mr. President. Our tribe stopped smoking 500 years ago. That's more than your tribe can say."
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 4
Motherboard, who was Hard Drive's wife, came on next. Mister President, what your tribe has done to Nebrfaska's topsoil is unforgiveable. And your society doesn't have a clue about building it up again. We can dothis for you, but you'll pay extra."
"It's not just a matter of the land," President Woodhed cautioned. "Millions of American citizens were in Nebraska when it disappeared, and their constitutional rghts have to be protected."
"Let's call a spade a spade, Mister President," Hard Drive replied. "You want Warren Buffett back because he's rich. But suppose I told you that BUffett, like almost all the other Nebraskans, has a much better life with us, and would prefer not to return to your planet. According to our polls, most Nebraskans feel that way. They love our planet, which has olots of parkland, crystal-clear water, clean air, and no man-made deserts or asphalt jungles. It all boils down to what you're willing to pay to get Nebraska back. You can make us an offer, but don't insult our intelligence by expecting us to accept your printed currency. And PLEASE, we're not amused by cheap trinkets either. We'll give you 24 hour tothink about this. Be forewarned, though. Nebraska has a lot of valuable minrals that you aren't advanced enough to make use of, so be prepared to pay plenty. We'll be in touch. Goodbye."
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 5
As the world's richest man, Irving Sprilznick was accustmed to top-flight accommodations everywhere he went, as well as luxurious surroundings when he chose to stay home. Sometimes, though, he liked to spend a whole weekend hunting ducks in the marshlands along the Platte River in Nebraska. For this, he needed just two things: his deluxe helicopter and the companionship of Spot the Wonder Dog.
Although Sprilznick hated to admit it, Spot was the key element in the success of these getaways. Because Spot could fly the helicopter (indeed, Spot had invented the helicopter and assembld it himself), Sprilznick had no need to hire a pilot to fly it. Spot had been vetted by the Secret service, so it wasn't even necessary to have them along for the ride. Spot could flush out the ducks with aplomb, dress and cook them in a variety of sumptuous ways, and even play flute and violin simultaneously while Sprilznick was eating. And, if any important business calls happened to come in while Sprilznick was taking an afternoon snooze on the airbed that Spot had invented, Spot knew how to deflect them. All in all, a most agreeable arrangement.
Then there were the times like this, when Sprilznick was celebrating a business deal (which, come to think of it, Spot had suggested, for Spot read the business media in about six different languages). This was an occasion when Sprilznick could allow himself the luxury of a Friday afternoon departure. As the helicopter moved West across Iowa, Sprilznick sipped champagne and worked on the latest Wordle puzzle. Today's puzzle was especially vexing. Would Sprilznick have to call on Spot's experise again? No, Spot was busy flying the helicopter, and Sprilznick hated to be reminded that Spot could do so much for him. Sprilznick looked up from his Wordle and watched the countryside pass by. There were tiny cows scattered among the silos, trees sagging with ripe apples, and immense combines rolling through the corn fields. Wait, wasn't that combine manufactured by Sprilznick Farm Products? Yes it was! Come to think of it, Sprilznick owed Spot another bonus for having invented it. Here and there a shopping mall or airport would pop up, only to give way once again to farms and orchards. Soon the Missouri River would appear, and then the broad, blue-green expanse of the Platte River in Nebraska. Sprilznick could hardly wait.
Something very strange was going on this time, however. The Missouri River came and went, but instead of wetlands, all that greeetd Sprilznick's eyes was a deep canyon stretching to the horizon. A closer look revealed that much of the canyon was flooded. So, had Nebraska washed away in some tsunami that the news media had failed to notice?
"Spot, could you put the helicopter on autopilot for a moment?" Sprilznick asked, trying not to let the panic he was feeling creep into his voice. "Have you noticed that Nebraska is ot there?"
"Of course I have!" Spot retorted. "You were napping, so I put in a call to Deus Ex Machina. I've also called President Woodhed, who had been having a very bad day even before this happened. He's waiting for you to get back to him."
President Woodhed thought Irving Sprilznick was a complete waste of life and breath, but couldn't say as much to his face. After all, Sprilznick was the world's first and (so far) only trillionaire. Sometimes he was a very useful man to have around, though, because he had had the cash to buy Tweetblitz from an erratic dweeb named Asinus Muscus. Tweetblitz had become a thorn in Woodhed's flesh when it started allowing trolls with conspiracy theories to dominate it. Woodhed didn't ordinarily mind conspiracy theories, but these trolls thought he was central to the conspiracies. Fighting back against them would only have alerted them to the fact that Woodhed wasn't competent to manage even one conspiracy. So, having Tweetblitz in the hands of a trillionaire whose worst quirk was duck-hunting was a slam-dunk. It also didn't hurt that Woodhed and Sprilznick had attended school together in Omaha, wherever it had gone to.
Spot landed the helicopter on a grassy knoll on the Iowa side of the Missouri while Sprilznick talked to the President. When Sprilznick finally ended the call, he was not the happiest of men. "The extraterrestrial Indians that have taken Nebraska are not interested in American money," he exclaimed. Spot rolled his eyes at this, but said nothing.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 6
"If the HTTP Indians won't take American dollars, what *will* they take?" Sprilznick exclaimed.
"If it's any consolation, they would probably reject Mr. Fujikuji's yen as well," Spot said, referring to the world's second-richest man. "All I know is that Hard Drive and his people must have some pretty advanced technology if they can whisk Nebraska away without anybody seeing them do it. We probably shouldn't seriously annoy them if we want to keep our scalps." Sprilznick shuddered at the mention of scalps, so Spot added, "That's just an expression."
"How soon do you think Deus Ex Machina will arrive?" Sprilznick asked.
"It'll take a couple of hours to summon the governing board," Spot said. "Why do you ask?"
"As long as we're here, maybe we could do a little fishing." Sprilznick cast a longing glance at the water-filled chasm that had usurped his favorite hunting grounds. He also felt bad for his cousins who were abducted, and hoped Hard Drive was right about their treatment.
"It's your helicopter and your vacation," Spot said with a shrug. There might not be any fish in that canyon yet, but go ahead. Just remember that if Nebraska gets returned while we're here, the shock waves might not be any too pleasant. For one thing, we'd probaby face a nasty tsunami."
Deus Ex Machina, Inc. was a company that few people besides Spot and Sprilznick had ever heard of. This was intentional, because the company existed for the sole purpose of monitoring the universe for potential threats to life on Earth, then neutralizing them before the earthlings even knew they were there. NASA knew about Deus Ex Machina, of course, but any references to them were contained in government documents so secret that it was a crime to reveal this informaiton to anyone. Bridge Toofar, Woodhed's predecessor, was going on trial for taking such secret documents to his home in Merry Largo when he left the White House.
The chairman of the board was Spot himself, which was understandable give that Spot had formed the company in the first place. Sprilznick was also on the board, as well as a blind inventor named Pollonius Neinstein. Neinstein had been an interesting choice for the board. He had invented the company's cutting-edge asteroid-sensors, and his close association with Spot went back to the time when Spot served as his seeing-eye dog. The remaining two board members were advanced lifeforms from another dimension. They went by the aliases of Extraterrestrial Weasel and Nostradamus. The company's entire workforce was small enough to fit in a minivan, but of course the company's importance was not a function of its size. Spot had formed it as the planet's last defense against asteroid impacts, supernovas, and alien invasions.
Hard Drive's little escapade definitely qualified on the last count.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 7
Since Deus Ex Machina's home office was hard for some members to get to across the vast expanses of space, the board had gotten into the habit of meeting in the members' homes. It was Extraterrestrial Weasel's turn to host the meeting, a task that he was happy to take on, even on such short notice. There was really very little work involved: setting up the conference table and chairs in the front parlor took all of five minutes. Making coffee took another ten. That still left Weasel with half an hour to spare. There was plenty of time to dig into a bowl of fergerquargs, which were Weasel's favorite fruit. True, Weasel's apartment could have used some more cleaning--the florgars in the solarium needed dusting, for instance. But no one would notice the dust anyway, because none of the other board members could get close enough to see the florgars without getting a nose or a finger bitten off. Weasel ate another spoonful of fergerquargs and thanked his/her lucky stars that none of the other board members liked them. Come to thiink of it, fergerquargs could only be found in Alternate Universe #236,985, Dimension #1,720. In other words right here. Home sweet home!
Weasel suddenly remembered that it would be necessary to adopt a gender while the meeting was in session. Now, this did bother Weasel a bit. Npstradamus couldn't care less whether Weasel was male or female, but the other three board members were from Human Scenario #79, that strange neighborhood of Alternative Universe #521 in which people placed such importance on meeting gender expectations. In some countries, the language was set up to torment new learners if they could not remember whether a pencil was masculine or feminine. After a quick look in the closet, Weasel decided to be a female this time. But which kind, Gamma or Delta? Weasel had alreayd tried alpha and beta, and had been scolded for being too bossy (alpha) or ignored (beta). Still, being female had worked well for Weasel, given that the other board members were male.
B-R-RONG! That was Nostradamus ringing the doorbell, even though he didn't need to use the door at all, being perfectly adept at materializing inside Weasel's apartment. Good old Nosty must be getting old and forgetful. Come to think of it, he was nearly 500 Earth-years old, which would explain a lot.
Nostradamus had a reputation as a shape-shifter, even though he didn't deserve it, at least not usually. It was more accurate to think of him as a master hypnotist who could get inside your mind and persuade you that he was a young, powerful man or a kindly old doctor or any of a number of other things that your mind might want to see. But Nostradamus' real self was not often revealed. Tody he chose to appear as a levitating bowling ball of nondescript coloration. A forgetful levitating bowling ball that got too close to the florgars--SNAP! "OUCH!"--and suffered a small nick on his otherwise smooth, hard surface. NO great harm done, though, to Nostradamus at least. The florgars, on the other hand, were writhing in pain, which they didn't often do. Weasel drew the curain around the Florgar display so they could be left in peace to lick their wounds and rest.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 8
Weasel gently guided a subdued Nostradamus to the front parlor, where five chairs and a handsome oak conference table were set up for the meeting. Spot the Wonder Dog soon materialized at the head of the table. "Spot, I didn't know you could materialize like that!" Weasel exclaimed.
"I can do lots of things," Spot said with a wink. "I can also enter through the door." He vanished. A moment later, the doorbell rang.
This time Weasel opened the door to find Spot and Irving Sprilznick waiting in the hall. Sprilznick complimented Weasel on her hairdo. Indeed, so enamored did he seem to be that Spot intervened. "Irving, she's not your type," he whispered. "Wrong species, wrong universe, definitely wrong occasion."
Doctor Neinstein arrived a moment later, accompanied by his android. Weasel led them to the conference room/parlor, and then came back for the coffee urn. Over in the solarium, Neinstein's android was talking to the florgars in their native language. This bond between them was as welcome as it was unexpected, since the android was not going to attend the meeting, but expected someone to provide him with a useful function. The florgars were happy to meet such a kindred subject, judging by the pink and blue blossoms that were opening now. Minutes erlier, they had been black and bilious green.
Meanwhile the meeting was about to begin. Weasel had put the coffee urn on a nice little mahoganny side table, next to a lovely Friendly Universe coffee pot and mugs and plates. A large tray heaped with what Earthlings called Danish pastries was next to them, along with matching creamers and sugar bowls.
"Your planet is doomed," Nostradamus thundered. "The Antichrist is in control, and all you can do is evacuate."
"Wilson Woodhed is not the Antichrist," Irving Sprilznick objected. Spot's eyes were rolling. You could tell he regretted ever letting Nostradamus onto the board.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Weasel said, handing Nostradamus a mug of steaming coffee (what Americans called French roast, and the French just called coffee). "If you can tell me why you think the Earth is doomed, there might be something I can do."
"It's all in his name," Nostradamus persisted. "I investigated Woodhed's family tree and found that their original name was Yepswoop." He printed the name on a tbale napkin and turned it upside down to revea that letters spelled "doomsday." Woodhed may have changed his name, but he will bring doom to the planet just the same."
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 9
"Nosty, he's been in office three years, and nothing particularly terrible has happened, unless you count most of his speeches," Professor Neinstein reasoned. "If someone had to remove a state, they could have removed a far more essential one than Nebraska. I know we need their crops, but we could live without it."
"If we don't give these thieves a hard time, they'll be tempted to take Iowa too," Spot warned. "And then Kansas and maybe even South Dakota. I don't like where this is leading."
"I did a little research on Woodhed too," Weasel said, taking a bite of Danish pastry and wishing it were a bowl of fergerquargs. These Earth pastries from Alternate Universe 521 were too sweet and sticky. They stuck to the roof of your mouth when you tried to chew them. "I know you like conspiracy theories, but Woodhed is no relation to the Yepswoops. His grandfather was Ashram Woodshed, who dropped the "S" without thinking of the consequences. Ever since then his descendants have endured endless teasing about being blockheads."
"I knew Woodhed's parents and his sister, who definitely weren't blockheads, but Wilson really *is* one," Sprilznick said. "Did he really think Congress was going to let him raise taxes on the top 1%? Still, that hardly makes him the embodiment of evil. "
"I think we've gotten off the track," Spot said. "For better or worse, without our help Woodhed is not going to be able to get Nebraska back. We must therefore intervene. Nebraska is our problem now."
"Tht's because you live in an alternative universe that has lost its Nebraska," Weasel said. "Here in the good old 236,985th A.U., Nebraska is doing fine." What was it about the Americans in A.U. 521 anyway? They were *all* blockheads, except for Spot. Weasel was sorely tempted to get some fergerquargs and to heck with the consequences.
"Maybe we can find an alternative universe that has *two* Nebraskas?" Nostradamus wondered in his woolly-headed way.
If he hoped to prove that he wasn't an out of touch crackpot, this wasn't the way.
"I also did some research on the HTTP Idians," Weasel said. "I looked for them in ten trillion universes, and could only find them mentioned in one."
"Which was?" Spot was definitely interested in knowing.
"Number 521, the same one that you and Sprilzick and Neinstein live in. Hard Drive and his associates are *not* extraterrestrials."
"I suspected as much," Neinstein lied. "but the proof of the pudding is in knowing what universe they really live in."
"Well, that's the bad news," Weasel said. "They're in A.U. 521, same as you guys, but they're in Dimension 666."
Not much was known about Dimension 666, but the few reports that existed were uniformly bad. There was a moment of silence. Those who knew about Dimension 666 were depresed. Those who didn't know didn't like the number 666 because of its association with the Antichrist. This lull in the conversation was broken by the sound of wind chimes as Weasel opened the door and trudged back to the kitchen ro mke more coffee. The "wind chimes" were the florgars singing. This meant that they were happy. They were the only happy lifeforms in Weasel's home at the moment.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 10
Wilson Woodhed had spent most of his life trying to attract the media's attention, but sometimes enough was enough. This was one of those times. He had been hounded by them about the Nebraska crisis throughout the night. Eventhe public was getting on his nerves. Frantic calls about relatives or loved ones in Nebraska had jammed the White House switchboard. In some ways this was a blessed relief because they blocked public reaction to the world's various ongoing wars, or the public outrage over inflation, investgations of prominent politicians of the other party, and
the government's overspending on a wide variety of things.
So Saturday morning found Wilson Woodhed in an uncharacteristically reclusive mood as he sat with his wife Wilhelmina in the Burger Download Restaurant a couple of blocks from the White House. "I need to get away from the madness so I can think about solving this crisis," he had told her.
"You're just going to bring your own madness with you," she had said sweetly. "But, hey, I'd like to escape this place too. How about Burger Download? They have clowns, Cheery meals, and customers who think the coffee is too hot or too cold."
"What if someone recognizes me?" Woodhed said.
"Just come as you really are, and no one will recognize you."
To Wilson's surprise, this was turning out to be a brilliant idea. Without the false chin, elevator shoes, and makeup that he always wore in public, he was just an average Joe with a weak chin, short legs, and pasty complexion. As for Wilhemina, disguise took the form of leaving her platinum blond wig behind and wearing jeans and and "I'm with stupid" T shirt. The four Secret Service men who accompanied them looked like the gangsters in the average movie about organized crime figures. Or maybe they were bodyguards for actors who didn't want to be recognized. It all worked out the same in the end.
Unfortunately, Wilson and Wilherlmina had been here for half an hour and no ideas had presented themselves. Wilson's Gigabyte Gourmetburger sat uneaten on his plate as he wrestled with his demons. Wilhelmina was worried about Nebraska, but she was also relieved that she wouldn't have to deal with her scary mother-in-law as long as the state was missing. She cheerfully dug into an Eggcitement Omelet and two URL of Sandwich croissants. When those were gone, there as still a Surf's Up fish fillet sandwich on her plate, but nothing to wash it down with.
"I could use more coffee," she said, getting up. "Can I get you anythig?"
"Coffee for me too, dear," he replied.
Although she was only gone for a few minutes, there was still time for three clowns to amble past his table and drop a small white object on the floor next to him.
"Excuse me, you dropped something," he said, picking the object up and hurrying after them as they turned the corner to the rest room. They couldn't have been out of his sight for more than ten seconds, but when he rounded the corner they had vanished. They weren't in the men's rest room. If they were women, he sure wasn't going to look in the women's room. The object was a small, crumpled wad of paper. Was it important, or just trash?
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 11
"Wilhelmina, did you happen to pass any clowns just now, on your way to the counter?" Woodhed asked as his wife returned form the counter.
"I didn't notice any, dear," she said, "but then, there are always clowns in this place. You've seen them before, haven't you? T. C. Pip and Dotty?"
Come to think of it, one of them *had* looked like Dotty. The others not so much. One of them had been wearing dark glasses, and the other was a seeing-eye dog. Woodhed was pretty sure T. C. Pip didn't have any dogs. And this dog seeemd oddly familiar. Where had he seen him before? "Well, whoever they are, one of them dropped something," he said, showing her the crumpled note.
"They probably meant for you to read it," Wilhelmina said. Honestly, she sometimes wondered how her husband have ever managed to get elected Preident with the amount of brain fog he suffered. Well, he wasn't going to take the obvious hint, so she opened it herself. "It says, 'Dear Mr. President, I have discussed the benraska crisis with some very knowledgeable people, and can give some good news and some bad. The good news is that the HTTP group is not from another planet. More good news: it is not from another universe. Now for the bad news: they hace access to another dimension, a dimension so frightfully horrifying that you woudlnt want to hear about it while you are eating. That is all I dare tell you for now. Call me after 3:00. I might have more to say. Sincerely, Irvig Sprilznick.'"
She gave the note back to Woodhed and said brightly, "See, dear? I told you this was the place to look for ideas."
Woodhed suddenly realized that his Secret Service agents might be worth quesitoning about the clowns. Surely they had witnssed the whole scene with the clowns and the crumpled paper? But when he looked over to where the agents were sitting, he saw that they were dozing. They were lucky there hadn't been any assassins in the restaurant! He stood up, colelcted them, and marched back to the White House in high dudgeon, or at least as high as he coud manage without his elevator shoes.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 12
Emily was glad that the strange visitors were finally gone, even though she liked the metallic one a lot. Sylvie didn't mind the visitors, but she wished Weasel would pay more attention to her and Emily, who had done so much to brighten up Weasel's apartment over the years. Didn't Emily and Sylvie provide colorful new blossoms every day? Didn't they purify the air in the apartment, imparting a tinge of lilac scent? Didn't they obligingly rid the air of flies and mosquitoes, not to mention chasing away silly old levitating bowling balls? Yes, yes, and yes! And these things, praiseworthy though they might be, were but a tenth of what Emiy and Sylvie were capable of doing.
So, after a night of thinking and communal dreaming, Emily and Sylvie woke up resolved to solve whatever crisis it was that Weasel's visitors were so worked up about, so Weasel would not have to invite them back to the apartment.
Emily took the lead as usual. She directed her fastest-moving vine along the wall of the solarium and down the hall to the little office where Weasel's computer was located. She wrapped a couple of tendrils around a pencil and used it tap the ENTER key on the keyboard. This woke the machine up. She listened for the familiar hum of the machine, then started tapping on the keys with her pencil. The metallic visitor had mentioned something about a tribe of Indians which had stolen something called Nebraska. He had also said something about Dimension 666 just before he had left with the others. Let's see, we want type Nebraska and Dimension 666. Emily wasn't sure how to spell these, but Weasel wasn't the greatest speller, and he/she usually found what he/she wanted, so Emily gave it a try.
In the blink of an eye, Weasel's apartment vanished. Emily found herself padlding lazily in a broad, shallow stream filled with bulrushes. The edge of the stream was filled with cottonwoods and box elders. There was a duck next to her, and he introduced himself as Swiftwing. "You're lucky to be here in this marsh, miss," he said.
"And why is that?" Emily asked, trying to hide her astonishment at having a speaking voice after so nany years as a largely silent Florgar.
"Because all the other marshes that we usually visit have disappeared," Swiftwing explained.
"Vanished!" she exclaimed, wondering what kind of oddball world she had gotten herself transferred to. "Let e get this straight. They just vanished? Does this sort of thing happen often here?"
"Happily,no," Swiftwing said. "Never before, at least not in the lifespan of our flock's oldest member. As of yesterday morning, all was well. We were flying South to our usuall Wintering grounds, and we happened to sotp here for some rest and a bite to eat. Then this morning when we set off for the rest of our trip, we found ourselves flying over a huge canyon that was filling up with water and lost our bearings. We tried goiing East a ways and then West, but the land seems to have been stripped away in every direction."
"So you came back here?" Emily said.
"Yes, exactly. We hope this is a temporary glitch, but in the meantime we've asked Sunwing, our strongest flyer, to go as high as he can. Maybe if he goes high enough, he can see where our Winter home has gone to."
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 13
"Swiftwing, come quickly," said another duck who was flying by. Sunwing is back from his mission."
Emily and Swiftwing followed the other duck downstream and into a clearing in the middle of an island. Thirty or forty other ducks were gathered in a circle aorund a muscular young duck who was out of breath from his arduous flight into the upper reaches of the sky. "I looked in vain for our Winter home," he told the others. "Something has eaten it."
"Can we winter in a different place then?" asked a young mallard.
"I flew as high as I could," Sunwing said, "and the higher I went the bigger the canyon around us grew. North, South, East, and West, everything is gone: mountains, plains, rivers. The only place that is left is the marsh where we are now. This will have to be our Winter home."
Some of the other ducks seemed to have questions to ask, but the whole flock suddenly scattered as a dog dashed into view and swam across to the island. A hunter who was waiting on the bank shot a couple of ducks as they flew away.
Emily stood her ground and glared at the dog. She picked up a pebble in her bill and spat it at him as he approached. Suddenly she realized that the dog was Spot. And the hunter was: Irving Sprilznick. This made Emily even more furious than she had been before, but she had no chance to act on her fury, because a searing pain suddenly shot through her body. She blacked out.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 14
Extraterrestrial Weasel was in good spirits when she got back to her apartment. Spot and Professor Neinstein were less exuberant. The message dropoff in Burger Download had been successful, but not without some close calls along the way. Spot reflected on the terrible moment when his clown costume had almost come off. In fact, he was pretty sure that Wilson Woodhed had realized that this "clown" was a dog. The professor was brooding about how close Woodhed had come to seeing the three of them vanish into thin air. Given Woodhed's suggestible nature, there was no telling what insane theories he might have concocted had he seen three clowns disappear before his eyes.
There were more things to worry about when the three of them entered Weasel's apartment and found that Sprilznick nd the android had spent all morning playing Kazoongaball rather than researching the HTTP Indians on Interdimensional Internet. Given the huge amount of work that had to be done in a short time, even Weasel was annoyed.
The android apologized, though he had no idea why it had been wrong to play Kazoongaball. Weasel had to explain the situation despite her concern that the android could become a security problem in the event of an abduction, since he was incapable of lying.
"You must understand," Weasel explained, "that all of space and time is threatened when people of questionable integrity find out how to move things between dimensions and universes. The case we're dealing with now involves *both.*
"...So does that mean problems for us in *our* universe?" the android wanted to know
"Absolutely. Even if the HTTP tribe never sets foot in or near our universe, the weight of overall probability is affected nonetheless, and our world is likely to move in that direction sooner or later. We need to render our adversaries harmless in perpetuity if we can, or destroy them if no other choices are available."
"Weasel, I sense that you don't want me to know very much about this because it would make me a security risk," the android said."
"Oh, great, I'm dealing with an android empath," Weasel thought.
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Mister President, Nebraska is missing, episode 15
Spot and Professor Neinstein had collaborated on the android's original blueprint, so they must have had more expertise than Weasel realized. Well, if the android could understand complex matters, then it was up to Weasel to keep him in the loop. "All right, I will explain," Weasel said. "Spot and Professor Neinstein and I have spent the last three years building a seris of machines that are capable of screening 100 trillion alternative universes an 2,000 dimensions for probable threats to the lifeforms on planet earth in any of those universes and dimensions, because what happens in one could affect the others, including the one that Spot and Neinstein live in. Anyway, as far as our machines can determine, no one else, in any other universes or dimensions, has come up with anything comparable."
Irving Sprilznick, who was listening in on this exchange, was getting very bored. Why did Spot and Professor Neinstein and Extraterrestrial Weasel have to keep throwing their genius-level inventions in his face? What was next? The android, which had been invented to help the blind professor get around now that Spot was no longer his seeing-eye dog, didn't need to know much, but these inventors had over-designed him. If this kept up, Sprilznick was going to have to resign from the board of Deus Ex Machina. Nevertheless, he needed to support the effort for now. "It is terribly important that we try to keep our edge," he said, embrrassed that he had let them down earlier this morning. "We never saw the HTTP tribe coming. This might mean that they have expert cloaking abilities. Or, they might be playing some kind of trick on us."
"Could that mean that Nebraska is right where it has always been, but we can't see it for some reason?" the android wondered.
"Bingo!" Weasel exclaimed. How was it possile that a mere machine had come up with a scenario that none of the other Deus Ex machina board members had managed to think of? And now Weasel thought of yet another possibility: suppose that one of us has been helping our adversaries? This made Weasel uneasy. The android smiled; maybe he was on his way to real sentience. Weasel was now sure that he was not only empathic but also maybe telepathic. What Weasel did not realize was that the android was about to demonstrate a talent of even greater significance.
