Supergirl Invictus - A Resurrection Comedy - Chapter 3 : Setting a Bad President...

The White House.

Kara had met a lot of Presidents in her time, Kennedy, Johnson, she'd shaken their hands and pledged her loyalty to truth and justice on many occasions.

And the funny thing was, ALL the First Ladies were charming, odd how that worked out!

But this time it was different; LUTHOR was President.

"I'll bet his First Lady is Catwoman or something freaky like that" thought the Maid of

Might.

Supergirl zoomed over the Capital and made a smart right turn at the Washington

Monument...in the good old days she showed up when asked and always made a point of passing through security in order to set a good example...which of course as everyone knows is a super power all it's own.

But now the Girl of Steel was mad, one of her most nefarious opponents was President and she'd know the reason why!

So fast did the Maid of Might fly that she neatly bypassed all the White House's security defenses...which is speed indeed dear readers.

Alighting on the Truman Balcony of the White House Kara could see through the gauzy curtains the familiar chrome dome of Lex Luthor-a skinnier version of Mussolini laying down the law to his Vice President Pete Ross.

"And after that Ross, we'll sell off the social security trust fund in a secret midnight auction" sneered the President.

"Was he talking to PETE ROSS!? Great Rao" thought Supergirl "things are in a devil of a state, Pete Ross used to be Superman's best boyhood friend".

Steeling herself for the confrontation Supergirl stepped through the unlocked door and said "Okay Luthor the game is UP!"

Usually this induced the super villain to confess his latest evil plan although who knows what the rules were on this cockamamie planet these days!!

Luthor affected a look of tender surprise..."Why my dear Supergirl how nice to see you!

It has been a while...!"

"Yeah long enough to sleaze your way into office Luthor!" taunted Kara.

"Oh my dear, please I did get in on a plurality in a three way race"...

"If the voters knew you like I do, they'd throw you out in a heartbeat! Sneered the

Heroine.

"Hardly a polite way for a proper young lady to address her President, but as you say we have a history you and I-have you met the Vice President, Pete Ross?"

Luthor turned solicitous; Kara suspected a trap but didn't wish to divulge all she knew about Ross...the heroine stepped over to shake hands with the Veep taking her gaze off Luthor for a mere instant.

"Please to meet you Miss...?" began the Vice President.

"Supergirl, call me Supergirl..." Kara smiled automatically and looked straight into

Ross' eyes...he had a curiously dead expression.

"Yes indeed Supergirl, shake hands all around, shake hands WITH DEATH" Roared Luthor.

Suddenly the President's chest popped open revealing a metallic chamber containing a healthy chunk of Kryptonite!

Still clutching Ross' hand, Supergirl wailed in agony as the awful kryptonite radiation swept her young shapely body.

"Arrgh Kryp-ton-ite-ah a trap!" gasped the Heroine.

"Master you were right" intoned Ross mechanically "The young kryptonian is unusually vulnerable to your radioactive emissions!"

The Mechanical Vice President relaxed his handgrip and Supergirl staggered away the room was spinning around her sickeningly.

Abruptly Kara's dimpled knees buckled and she fell to the floor in a helpless sprawl

"Good grief!" she thought, "The Vice President and the President are both ANDROIDS!"

The heroine groaned as the kryptonite was raking her mercilessly she kicked her long toned legs.... the world was turning green and even her peaches and cream complexion

(Once the wonder of the teenaged world circa 1965) took on a ghastly emerald hue.

"F-feel weak-woozy gotta get away..." gasped the Maid of Steel.

And then things really got crazy; the Luthorbot still washed her body with the enervating green-k radiation whilst behind "him" a naval painting abruptly morphed into a huge television screen-one that came to life with Luthor's fat face on it sneering in triumph.

"Feeling weaker and weaker Supergirl?!" gloated the television image.

"How, how did you do it L-Luthor?" gasped the heroine her face contorted in agony as she cringed.

"Simple you caped cretin, I built a pair of foolproof androids to run for office for me, I programmed them with 200 years worth of forward sounding rhetoric, the voters did the rest!"

"YOU FIEND!" Nothing angered Supergirl like subverting the constitution!

"Think of them as state of the art puppet rulers" smirked the evil scientist "I have so many interests these days ruling the USA is best left to a trusty machine!"

Kara's hand wavered in the air, the whole room was turning green now not much time left...her every breath brought brain searing pain...and then her had knocked something off a nearby end table right between her spread legs.

It was a bust, a bust of Lyndon Johnson.

A very heavy bust of Lyndon Johnson.

A light of recognition flitted through Supergirl's eyes.

The Presidroid stood closer to her pouring on the deadly kryptonite rays.

"Master, your captive's life signs are fast fading" reported the "Vice President".

"Wonderful!" Roared the real Luthor, "after she is gone I'll give her a proper autopsy-I've always wanted to know what made these aliens really tick!"

"Yes master I'll make the arrangements immediately" promised the Rossbot. Kara's eyes batted wide despite her mortal pain..."AUTOPSY what a sicko!" she thought wildly.

The Kryptonian Kutie looked down seemingly in defeat.

"At last!" bellowed Luthor "I'll go down in History as the man who killed Supergirl AND bankrupted the United States bwahahahahahahaaa!!!"

"Sorry Mister President" said Kara to the bust.

And with that Supergirl raised the statuary up to eye level and with her last bit of strength blasted it with her heat vision reducing the bust to blob of white-hot molten metal. Puffing on the liquefied mass with her super breath the resultant cloud of spattered all over the Luthorbot's exposed chest covering the green kryptonite fragment completely.

Instantly Supergirl felt her strength return, leaping to her feet she threw a fast punch that reduced the "Vice President" to scrap metal.

A spinning roundhouse kick hacked the "President" in two sparks spewing everywhere.

The danger was over....

Supergirl turned to the television screen Luthor's countenance was distorted with his usual loser-rage...a familiar sight to Our Heroine.

"Give it up Luthor, I remembered those Johnson busts from the 1960's they were made of lead with a thin gold sheen electroplated on!

Kara smiled in triumph easy escapes like this drove Luthor crazy!

Just then the doors of the Oval Office burst open and in came the Secretary of State, The

Defense Secretary, the National Security Advisor and a host of hacks and hangers on.

"What have you done to President Luthor!???" they shouted in unison.

Supergirl spun around to face them and favored the crowd with her biggest most guiless smile "Nothing!" she said "They were androids all the time Luthor was never President!"

This went down poorly until the Luthor on the TV screen spoke up "That is RIGHT Supergirl my cybernetic simulacrum was elected President, I was hoping to rule the world via my

Presidroid...but now I'll have to destroy goodness the old fashioned way!

HAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!"

And with that the screen went dark.

"So Luthor was a robot...and he is destroyed" murmured State.

"Yup looks that way" said the Pentagon.

"So who is President now?" asked The NSC.

"You are?"

"No you, I read it in the National Review".

"No...The Speaker of the House is third in line" said Treasury with bland confidence.

"Buh But...Speaker Nicholson died last month and the House hasn't formally elected a new

Presiding Officer..." said NSC.

"Well in that case..." muttered Treasury "The President Pro Tem of the U.S. Senate becomes Commander in Chief".

"And that is..." inquired State.

"Uhhhh Doug Dillman" replied Treasury a strickened look crossed his craggy features.

"Doug Dillman But for God's Sake he is a..." wailed NSC.

"Boy and Girls!" shouted Supergirl " I'm sure Mr. Dillman will make a fine President but the real Luthor is still out there plotting some new coup! But he has forgotten one thing...that I can see radio waves!"

Which is when The Girl of Steel leapt into the air with ballet grace and took off like a shot.

The crowd in the Oval Office still looked stricken...in the background a secret serviceman was sending a team to Senator Dillman's modest brownstone in Georgetown.

A Short Political Interlude in which the Author gets the boot in good.

Doug Dillman was a simple man as Senators go.

He was a widower, owned a modest Georgetown brownstone, kept fastidious professorial habits, and had few enemies and fewer vices.

As far as Illinois was concerned he was a natural U.S. Senator.

Maybe he didn't have the usual seniority to go with his largely ceremonial job as

President Pro Tempore of the Senate...but who could begrudge such a reliable honest fellow like Doug Dillman?

Oh there were mutterings of "affirmative action" and the like...but Doug just smiled and went his own way.

Illinois liked him and he had no beefs with the party leadership.

Every four years some tired national columnist tried to talk up a

Dillman-for-Vice-President boomlet. Doug would always smile and intone, "I've already got the Vice President's constitutional responsibilities...and who needs the secret service underfoot?"

This gubernatorial-style bon mot always got respectful laughs and the boomlet always withered by July.

On this fateful Saturday afternoon we find the President Pro Tem of the Senate in his shirtsleeves, seated at his kitchen table, and playing poker with three of his most reliable cronies.

Francis X. Shannon: the hated and feared senior Senator from Massachusetts...twice nominated and twice defeated for the U.S. Presidency.

Thomas "Doubting Thomas" Shepley, Publisher of a waspish Tory journal...once called Gore

Vidal a "degenerate" to his face.

And lastly Andrew Pierce a muckraking columnist and gentlemen farmer.

It is said you can't find an honest man in the District of Columbia or a decent card game, but Dillman's guests had somehow found both.

They were, males in a happy state of nature...at least until the doorbell rang.

"Who the hell could that be?" muttered Dillman crossly.

He made a motion to get up and answer the door, there seemed to be some commotion on the porch.

"No no I'll get it..." said Shepley, who pushed himself away from the table with a flourish...."a little service is required for so fine a host" remarked the polymath.

"Tommy grab a bottle of vodka from the sidebar on yer way back willya?" taunted Shannon.

"Freespending drunk!" came the reply from the living room.

"Careful boys Monday's column is coming up short" jibed the newspaperman.

The aforementioned commotion abruptly spilled into the house...a squad of muscular strangers burst into the kitchen looking forlorn and well...frantic.

"Dear God what is the meaning of this!" snarled Dillman.

"Agent Cade-U.S. Secret Service" said the tallest and hardiest specimen who produced an official looking ID.

"Doug I tried to hold them back..." said the old tory from the rear of the pack.

"Agent Cade why are you..." queried Shannon.

No more could he say as a torrent of babble filled the room from secret service agents, and Presidential Hangers-on.

"President is a robot..."

Veep a robot..."

"Y'see Supergirl flew in and...."

Triple vacancy..."

"Must take oath of office soonest..."

"Continuity of government..."

"QUIET!" howled Dillman who rose and put on his jacket magisterial calm.

"Agent Cade...am I to understand, that Lex Luthor our President is or was a robot the whole time? And that Vice President Ross was a robot as well...and they are both now piles of scrap metal on the floor of the Oval Office?"

Dillman looked hard at the agent.

"Uh yes sir...Supergirl exposed the whole thing" the agent looked abashed.

"Supergirl?" asked Senator Shannon.

"Uh yes Sir, she is back so it seems..."

"Well hell I'll pin a medal on her for this one! A robot fancy that..." opined the Acting President.

"A sophisticated robot...with real human skin to foil x-rays...the built in kryptonite chamber was dead giveaway though" replied the agent.

"Good lord Doug godspeed!" Shepley shouldered his way through the crowd and shook his old friend's hand.

"Doug be brave!" gasped Shannon who shook hands with the President as well.

"Mister President! Good luck!" added Pierce.

"Well boys have to cut out the card games for now, pray for me now I'll need it" said

Dillman who looked a mite overwhelmed with his sudden elevation to power.

And with that the secret service phalanx bore Dillman out of his home and to an unsought after destiny.

Shannon looked at Shepley...Pierce looked at them both.

The kitchen was otherwise empty...

"Good grief boys we were witnesses to history..." sighed the irascible publisher.

"Yeah how often does the President Pro Tem succeed to the Presidency?" said Shannon.

"The hell with that, an AFRICAN AMERICAN doesn't become President every day boys!" bellowed the columnist.

They looked at each other in shocked silence.

And then...as one they reached for their respective cell-phones...

"Lucy, tear up the cover, get a file photo of Doug Dillman...." said Shepley.

" Milo, Milo you'll never believe it Dillman's the President now...dust off that education bill we had..." said the Senator.

"New paragraph...today history was doubly made.." reflected the columnist.

And it was almost a time of peace.