You stand and say, as loudly as you can, “HILLARY CLINTON! WHERE ARE YOUR EMAILS?!”
She turns and hisses like a teakettle.
“WHO DARES?” she screams.
You nail her in her pendulous breast with a piece of snapped off stalagmite and start down the narrow stairs carved into the rock face.
“SEIZE HIM!” she screams to the hooded figures already ascending the stairs. You kick the lead cultist in the face as hard as you can and teeth spray into the air. You see a thin, bearded face, mouth a toothless gory hole, fall back on the others. They tumble down the three or four steps they had climbed and land in a heap of moaning robes.
Descending, three steps left, you jump off the side to avoid them, even though none of them seem to be trying to get up. One of the hooded cultists from the semicircle glides toward you, the drooping fabric of his wizard sleeves outstretched. You step in and punch him in the chest, hoping to knock the wind of out him. Your fist goes straight through his sternum and crushes his heart.
“What the fuck?!?” you yell, surprise and disgust mingling.
Another comes at you, screeching, “He was a raw vegan and I loved him!” You simply stand aside and let her crush herself against the wall behind you.
“You don’t work for Vox! We all work for Vox!” another screams, rushing you.
You bound to the altar, and break the legs of the one holding the sacrifice’s left hand, and tear off the arm of the one holding her right.
“Stop killing my minions!” Hillary screams, taking wobbly steps toward you, her gunt shaking with rage.
You point at her and throw the vilest curse to be put on her kind: “President Trump made America great again!”
She falls back, howling in inchoate rage, the skin around her eyes smoking. You take the opportunity to get your arms under the sacrifice and pull her away from the cultists holding her legs. They fall back, whining and rubbing their hands.
You put the girl on her feet and turn back to the fight, but there seems to be no fight. You see the waddling form of Hillary moving to the pool of seawater, the surviving acolytes guarding her flight. Hillary awkwardly falls into the water and the hooded ones turn toward you to guard her escape.
“Do you know how to get out of here?” you ask her, not taking your eyes off the cult.
“Qui êtes vous? Où suis-je? Qu’est-il arrivé à mes vêtements? Qui sont ces monstres?” she babbles.
“Are you OK?” you ask. “Were you hit on the head? Why are you talking all funny?”
You turn and try not to ogle. Thin and blonde and tall. Willowy, you decide. She has one arm across her small breasts and her other hand covers her crotch demurely.
“Une brute qui ne parle pas français. Je gèle mes seins. Donnez-moi une de ces robes,” she says, pointing at the cultists then crossing her arms and shivering.
“Oh, yeah,” you say. Picking up a robe by the hood, you shake the cultist out of it. He is thin and bearded and moans something about chia pudding as he dies.
You sweep the robe around her and she murmurs, “Merci beaucoup,” and then, “Mes parents m’ont prévenu de ne pas venir en Amérique. Ce ne sont que des coups de feu et des accidents de voiture, ont-ils dit. Personne n’a rien dit sur les cultes meurtriers. Je voulais juste un travail pour l’ambassadeur de France.”
“That’s all just great, I assume, but we need to find a way out of here,” you tell her and smile. You mime running in place and shade your eyes with your hand and look around with an idiot grin. She throws her hands in the air and sighs.
“How do we get out of here?” you holler at the cultists who were guarding the pool and now mill around aimlessly.
“She’ll kill us!” a girl’s voice says, grating along the edge of hysteria.
“I’ll kill you!” you yell back. You leave the altar and stomp toward them.
They huddle behind the tallest, their hoods down now, most of them were crying.
“Back off,” the tallest says, trying to sound brave. “I’m no vegan pushover. I’m a pescatarian!”
“I just want to know how to get out of here. I’ll leave with the girl and everything will be OK.”
A keening wail begins to come out of each of their mouths.
“SHUT UP!” you shout and they all fall to their knees and quiet.
“The exit and no more fucking around,” you tell the pescatarian. You have no idea what a pescatarian is but the word alone just makes you angry.
“That way,” he says, pointing past the altar to the right. “It leads right out to the street.”
“How? I rode that elevator down for a good five minutes.”
“Magic? I don’t know,” the pescatarian blubbers.
You go back to the altar. “Kyle,” you say, pointing at yourself, “Kyle.”
“Ravi de vous rencontrer, Kyle Kyle. Je m’appelle Tristesse,” she says, hitting the last word hard and touching her chest. She leans forward and kisses you on each cheek. You blush furiously.
“Tristesse, we are leaving,” you tell her. Taking her hand you lead her around the altar and the awful stone face and find a door. Just a regular steel door. There is even a dimly glowing EXIT sign above it. You push it open and the smells of Washington alley hits you: condoms, garbage, dead hooker, Congress members sleeping rough before the weather turns.
You walk together to the street, still holding hands. She looks up at the street signs and laughs.
“L’ambassade est à seulement trois pâtés de maisons d’ici, Kyle Kyle,” she says. She wraps her arms around you and kisses you, a real American kiss this time.
“J’aimerais pouvoir vous récompenser correctement, mon héros. Mais hélas, l’ambassadeur m’a donné une dose de gonorrhée résistante aux médicaments. Je suis vraiment la colombe souillée,” she says in a sexy low voice, almost whispering into you ear. She hugs the robe to herself and sets off down the street. She turns back once, and waves, but then is gone.
You pull out the phone you were given and call for extraction.
DO YOU proceed to the USPS sorting center to search for the ballots? TURN TO PAGE 15
DO YOU return to the White House to begin searching there for the ballots and the nefarious members of THE DEEP STATE? TURN TO PAGE 70
