As the lights went back on in the assembly room President Humongous Testicles tried to make a quick dash for the door. Robert Loblaw, his chief of staff however, was there waiting for him. It was as if he’d somehow anticipated President Humongous’ incredibly obvious plan of sneaking out.

“Mr. President, you wanted to speak with Mr. Smith of Yoyodyne. Shall I send him in?” said the Chief of Staff.

“Bob, you’re a real buzz kill. Has anyone ever told you that? Sure, why not, send him in.” Humongous plopped himself back into his chair. He looked over at El Presedente and the Prime Minister and said, “you want to stick around for this, or do you want me to jerk him around while you guy high tail it out of here? This meeting is going to be agony enough.”

“I will stay. Some of us take our duties as Heads of State, seriously,” said Kimberly Clark-Trudeau.

“I too will stay.” Said Presedente Fernando Ortega. “The misadventures of el Humongous Cojones have many followers in my country. There is even talk of making a telenovela. As I watch you fail in your negotiations I will bring back many stories to tell my people of this journey.”

“Hey!” said Humongous.

Robert Loblaw came into the room and with him came Mr. Smith from Yoyodyne. Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems was very particular about their employees. When they were on the job they were all named Mr. Smith, and they all looked almost exactly like Hugo Wallace Weaving. Though not quite enough to infringe upon any copyrights.

“So I hear that one of your Labs was raided by Gamers this morning.” Said Humongous trying to throw Mr. Smith off balance.

“Terrorists Mr. President. They came in, and left a swath of destruction in their wake. They killed our NPCs and infected our computer systems with some sort of virus. We haven’t been able to determine the purpose of that virus as of yet.”

“So these ‘terrorists’ did nothing else besides leave some sort of virus? I got a virus on my PC a month ago. It made the AI in my computer think it was a dog. All day it sat on my desk whining because had no legs to play fetch. Tech services came in and cleaned it off. What sort of research was Yoyodyne performing at that facility anyway? Last I heard, you were doing research on how to make… what was it Bob Loblaw?” Said the President.

The Robert Loblaw spoke up, and said “A hybrid cat and dog.”

“A Hybrid cat and dog? Sounds stupid to me. Does it sound stupid to you Madame Prime Minister Kim?” Said the President.

“Not really Humongous. I would imagine that there would be a market for something that looks like a Cat but has all of a Dog’s loyalty.” Replied Canada’s Prime Minister.

“What about you el Presidente? Do you imagine one day going out to play fetch with your dog, and all your half Lab half Persian only wants to do is cough up hairballs, play with yarn, and rub up against your leg? Sounds useless to me.”

Then before the el Presidente could answer the great and wise Humongous Testicles, President of these United States, turned to Mr. Smith and said “Why are you bringing this to me? Gamers will do what Gamers do. Of course your facilities got raided. Did you have a great boss monster there? Massive Loot. Hours of Epic Fun? I seriously doubt that you came all this way because your precious… what do you call them anyway… Cogs? Dats? Dachshiamese? Got a teeny tiny virus. There is gamer insurance that can cover your loss. All registered adventurers, and legitimate corporations, pay into it for situations just like this one.”

“The cat and dog experiments were, I admit a cover story to keep the facilities true nature secret. There were no actual cats or dogs at the facility except a stray that answered to the name Mr. Sulla who showed up from time to time. And while I am afraid that I cannot tell you the exact nature of our research…” said Mr. Smith.

“Bull hockey! You want my help, you give me the details. I am not going to let this escalate like the Cedar Rapids Godzilla incident. If I am going to have giant radioactive chameleons blending in with the Downtown Washington DC background, or Laser guided chickens clucking and pecking in L’enfant Plaza I want to know about it. I already have Chelsea Clinton XXIV campaigning to steal my Presidency for Christ Sake! It isn’t even primary season.”

Mr. Smith paused. He was obviously communicating with someone via his cybernetic interface.

Now that Humongous though about it, Yoyodyne must have spent a fortune custom designing a clone that looked and sounded almost exactly like Hugo Wallace Weaving except different enough to avoid a copyright suit. The President wondered if Yoyodyne had managed to get ahold of any of the actor’s actual DNA or if they had just reengineered it from movies.

Yoyodyne would have had to track down the real Hugo Wallace Weaving, grave site. They would have had to dig up his corpse, sample his DNA, added a few select mutagens to keep the legal department happy. Or maybe they had custom designed the DNA. It would be enough, the genome for blue eyes, dimples, piercing glare were all fairly simple.

Either method indicated planning and cost. Especially when you considered they must have grown a whole set of pseudo Hugo Wallace Weaving clones for whatever business they did on Earth.

Mr. Smith spoke up “I have been authorized to let you know that we were doing research into toilets and showers for the Arc Ship project.”

“What?”

“Toilets and Showers for the Arc Ship project.” Mr. Smith repeated.

“You mean to tell me that the 10 ships we’ve built to hold the future of humanity in suspended animation as they cross through the boundless reaches of space, carrying our legacy of genes further and further outwards into distant and unexplored reaches of space, that these 10 ships might have compromised toilets? Why do they have toilets in the first place? The people onboard are in suspended animation. And why do you think the gamers targeted the toilets? Do you think that the gamer virus has something to do with deep-space swirlies?”

“In a word,” said Mr. Smith, “yes.”

“Yes to Swirlies? Kim, Fernando, what say you we hold Mr. Smith’s head in the toilet. Who wants to flush first!” Yelled Humongous.

“Yes, to infected toilets in our interstellar fleet. This was a highly organized and tactical attack that was meant to strike at the very heart of Yoyodyne Industries deep space engineering and development departments. My corporation demands that you find these terrorists and bring them to justice.”

“Mr. Smith, you still haven’t given me one solid reason to bother. I’ll be honest. I think the problem you are having with your toilets is hilarious. Do you agree Prime Minister? El Presidente? Hilarious right? As much as I personally find, the idea that some sleeping corpse-sicle will stumble out of their suspended animation pod, try to take a massive dump only to discover a fountain of toilet water shooting out of their porcelain space-throne and into their bung hole, to be… deeply disconcerting… it does not seem to be a matter of national and international security at the very highest levels. And I’m the very highest level.”

“So I still don’t see why this involves me. They planted a virus. So what? Run an anti-virus. And as to the “highly organized” and “tactical” from what I have been told, they were driving a truck with the words “Free candy” written on the side, while playing the music “Pop Goes the Weasel” on the loudspeakers. To me that doesn't sound like a serious attack, it sounds like a gamer guild having fun. What else aren’t you telling me?”

Humongous Testicles eyes tried to bore into Mr. Smiths very soul. Some of Humongous’ political opponents had described this gaze as ‘deeply creepy and borderline offensive.’ But all President Humongous Testicles cared was that it yielded results.

Mr. Smith looked at the President. His Hugo Wallace Weaving eyes resistant to the implied alpha male nature of Humongous’ gaze.

President Humongous Testicles almost whipped it out right there, as he once had during a debate with a rival in senatorial race. He almost dropped his pants to show Mr. Smit who was the bigger man, but then at the last moment, realized that he was wearing a clone body and was, at the moment simply ordinary sized.

Mr. Smith smiled as if in that instant he knew he’d won a hard fought victory. “Nothing Mr. President. The terrorist gamers came in, killed some security, planted a virus and left. We wanted you to be aware of this. We hoped you could take steps. I see our thoughts were wrong.” Mr. Smith smirked. He had won this round.

“If that is all, I hope you don’t mind if I take my leave.”

President Humongous Testicles waved him off. “Go. Go. As always Mr. Smith.”

Once Mr. Smith was out of the room, el Presidente said “Senior Humongous, what was that about. I do not understand. Toilets. Who cares.”

“Nobody cares, Fernando. Nobody cares. That is the reason why they came to me. They wanted to tell me something had gone wrong at one of their important facilities, but they didn’t want to tell me what. Now they can say that the President of the United States knows what is going on, and shift some of the blame and responsibility, without actually letting me know anything.”

Kimberly Clarke-Trudeau said “This kind of politics is abooot diverting suspicion, el Presidente.” She turned towards the fridge in their VIP lounge. “We still have Pizza, a two-four of Sleemans, plus some Modelo Especial and Blue Moons. Wanna get drunk and cause an international kerfuffle? Maybe get see if we can get kicked off the planet.”

“I’d love to, but I’ve got Chelsea Clinton XXIV to think about. Ever since that shikse realized she could simply clone herself to get around term limit laws, a version of her is always campaigning. Why on my server, I ask and keep asking myself. Why my server.” Said President Humongous Testicles.

“Au revoir then”

“Hasta luego Humongous”

“Bye everyone.”