CSI: American Carnage, Nov. 9, 2020
“Master has told us to fight until the death! Freedom!”
ELYRIA, OH – From the front, the house is unremarkable in the neighborhood just off Russia Road: roof covered with blue plastic sheeting, rotted grey shutters, lintels collapsing through the front façade. Like its neighbors, multiple Trump yard signs are set deep into the muddy front-yard dirt and the American flag flaps on a pole jabbed in above the front door. Window blinds are drawn. Within the house tells a different story. The Professor and his small strike force have been holed up within their old safe house for close to two months. Boris, genial triple agent, has been entertaining his fellows with boisterous stories of Kremlin atrocities, poisonings past, lavish sex parties involving horses, and other inside anecdotes. He is just ending one such story — and eet was so big everyone back away until Poohteen say, I’ve seen much bigger than that! He remove shirt and – when Little Timmy, pup reporter, interrupts. What’s that sound? Timmy says. There’s someone else in the house. The Professor says, Timmy’s right! There are voices coming from the storm cellar. Sarah, Timmy’s friend from the resistance potluck, says, Be careful! This area is crawling with the Trump Army. They flooded the zone with reinforcements brought in by the carload last week on the Trump Train. The Professor leads the group to the cellar. He puts a finger to his lips and nods towards the door. Bill the Cadaver, a former passenger on the Great Ship of Black Eternity, steps forward and opens it. There are scuffling sounds coming from below. Bill descends, one boney foot at a time, until he disappears in the murk beyond the stairs. There are sounds of frantic whispering, then a shriek. Bill calls, Okay, come on down, y’all. The strike force descends. At the bottom of the stairs they can see a man and woman huddled down. Neither wears a mask. Intermittently the pair stands, raising fists until Bill the Cadaver turns their way and they shrink down again in terror at his skeletal features. The Professor approaches. He says, There, there, Trumpsters. You have nothing to fear from us. Do you have masks or would you like one of ours.? He holds out a blue mask as though it were a stick of chewing gum. The man says, You can’t fool us! You are the enemy. You are Bidenites! Get away. Master has told us to fight until the death! Freedom! We will never submit and neither will Master. The election has been stolen. Hammer has delivered on Scorecard. Tche de Guava has sent out the alerts. Back away or we will cough. Mohammed, Timmy’s friend, says, What the heck is he talking about? Sarah steps forward and says to the man, The election is over. The autocrat has been defeated. The man says, Back away, Jezebel! The woman laughs and crouches in a defensive posture. The man says, We have been in the jungles of the internet. We know what is going on. We are at war. Tche de Guava has informed his soldiers of the hack and theft. Bernie Kerek confirms. Back off! Timmy says, They have been deep in the jungle and believe the war continues. Who is this Tche? And what’s Hammer? Mohammed, Timmy’s friend, says Hammer is a supercomputer and Scorecard is tabulating software. Bannon has been broadcasting to his troops that Hammer and Scorecard have been used to change the vote counts in Ohio and elsewhere. Tche de Guava is Bannon’s current nom d’internet. This is a deadly example of misinformation. The poor wretches. Mohammed shakes his head sadly. The man says, Ok, Mr. Wizard, look at this. He pulls a crumpled paper from his pocket. Bill takes it in his boney fingers. He slumps and passes it to Timmy. The man says, These are the dead people the president has discovered voting. Bill shakes his head. No, he says, this is a list of those just dead from the virus raging across the country. It is a list of tragic failure, not of fraud. The list is a simple tally from the Lorain County coroner’s office. See, here’s the seal. It’s dated today. He passes the paper back to the man, who stares at it. He looks up, Sure it is, he says. Sure it is. And I’m Santa Claus. This here list was made in China. China is now sending the dead to vote in the Great US of A. You’d look Chinese if you had any meat on the bone. The president warned us about that too. Say, he says, looking right at Bill, you got any I.D.?