“My name is Augustine Hand. I understand you want to hire me as a writer for your magazine?”

The old man looked at him. They were sitting in a small wooden building in the Nevada Desert. “I’ll be frank, boy. Your writing is terrible. But your ideas, well…they’re first class. That’s what we’re looking for at this organization.”

Hand wasn’t happy to hear this. “Look, I don’t want to be an idea pimp, I want to write. I know I’m not the best writer, but it’s just sci-fi, we’re not talking literature here.”

“Oh, but we are talking literature, boy. Myth, in fact. And a very important myth. You know all about this business with us trying to keep ahead of the Ruskies, what with them having the bomb? Well, you’re about to help us with a much more vital part of the campaign.”

The old man stood up, and walked to a closet. Opening the door, Hand saw an elevator. “Come with me boy, and let me tell you about the Fiction War. About the UFO tech the Ruskies have. And the UFO tech we have to make them think we have.”

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“I hate fucking Virginia,” said Washington. “Makes me sweat like a fucking pig from April to October. And the mosquitoes…” He shuddered.

“But many of us feel that the capitol should be in Virginia. It’s the center of our country, after all.”

“No. No, no, no. Not only does it make me sweat, that fucking bitch-monster wife of mine is down there at Mount Vernon. I want as far away as possible. I don’t want to hear her talking about how the money’s all hers. Of course it’s all hers, why else would I marry a woman who insists on owning her own sister? I’m staying in Philadelphia. Do what you want after that.”

“But we have the plans for this new city…we want to name it for you, sir.”

“Do you know what the Iroquois call me, you pathetic little bastard prick? ‘Town-Destroyer’. You build that city, I’ll call back up the army-they’ll come, too-and I’ll level it.”

Just then, the door flew open. A short, ugly old woman, carrying a whip in her muscular right arm walked in.

“Fuck,” said Washington. “My wife.”

“I need a drink.”

“Sir, you know how you get…”

Silence.

“Sir, think of the men. Last time you had a drink, we had to stay in Valley Forge for six months while you recovered from your hangover.”

“Fuck the men. If I hadn’t gotten drunk, would I have crossed the Delaware? In winter? I don’t even know how to goddamn swim—you think I’d go near the fucking Delaware sober?”

“Yes, we did indeed inflict a defeat on the Hessians. But you were looking for whores.”

George waved away the objection. “We don’t judge history by intentions, Alexander. We judge by results.”

Alexander tried the last argument available to him. “But sir, the Continental Congress specifically passed a law against you ever drinking again. It’s too demoralizing for the men.”

George glared with eyes colder than his wife’s tits. “Alexander, alcohol will pass my lips this night if I have to suck an Irishman’s cock to get it. Which I think would be far worse for the men’s morale.”

Alexander sighed a long suffering sigh. “I’ll go get the whiskey, sir.”