Challenge #00772 - B041: Veni Vidi Vetinari

A magic demonstration goes wrong, and Lord Vetinari finds himself in modern conservative backwoods Texas.

The smoke cleared and Lord Havelock Vetinari raised an eyebrow. He was now seated on the stump of a tree and facing a very surprised and sunburned family who were evidently cooking something on a portable grille.

They were a mixture of scrawny and over-fed. And the most overfed were the adult males. Their bellies lapped over their pants. The females were underfed. Or rather, the young ones were. The eldest of them had a body made by bearing children young, and then bearing them often. At least two of the older females were in the transition betwixt rail-thin weed and earth-mother.

All this, Vetinari saw before one of them reached for his weapon.

It looked almost exactly like the Gonne, but this was significantly more advanced. Reason dictated that he take charge.

“Good day to you and blessings on your household…”

*

President Gunther was permanently red-faced and bamboozled. Everyone knew he was the puppet of the angular gentleman all in black, murmuring behind his left shoulder.

The Media called him The Thin Man and never acquired his name because President Gunther always called him ‘Slim’, and so did his multitudinous family that managed to occupy almost all of the bedrooms in the white house.

But, they all agreed, America had never done better. All with simple changes to the laws of the land that guaranteed freedom for all its citizens. In two short weeks in office, President Gunther and his svelte puppeteer had eliminated crime of all kinds, illegal immigrants, poverty, and the welfare debate.

He also championed the rights of the downtrodden and worked on a rather strict system to eliminate racism across the country.

All by doing almost the exact opposite of what the Conservatives used to champion.

When told of the mythical welfare queens, the Thin Man said simply, “Show them to me.”

When told of the drug cartels, the Thin Man went on a brief sabbatical and returned with names and addresses for the FBI and the CIA. Including, embarrassingly, the cartels run by the FBI and the CIA.

All in all, the people in power were rather glad when he vanished without a trace.

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