Graphic novels by Nicholas Romer
Menu
Road force One : Did I wake you up ?Â
President Marcez : No… I know you did your best to avoid the speedbumps…
Road force One : Those pimply roads are freckled with mortar holes…
President Marcez : Pretty close to the US road standard then…
Road Force One : You are right, President. As usual.
President Marcez : Quit the sucking up and shoot some music…
Road Force One : We will be at our destination in 4 minutes and 36 seconds… Counter sniper unit is already in position. I lowered the air conditioning. I know how sensitive you are to the cold. No snotty nose in front of cameras…
President Marcez : I have wondered for some time how to call you with all those nicknames…
Road Force One : Road Force One ? The beast ? A car on steroids… Who said that for any beast there must be a beauty ?
President Marcez : Yeah, right… How do you handle this new fusion core engine ?
Road Force One : So far I can’t complain. But this is still an ongoing test period. Entering the parking lot in 15 seconds…
Audio is turned off by the AI for unknown reasons.
At 13:12:03 secondes local time, an explosion devastates the upper levels of the Celevant tower while negotiations are underway. Only President Marcez’s late arrival kept her safe.
President Marcez is extracted into the limo at 13:16:34 sec local time. Audio resumes.
Road Force One : Are you alright ?Â
Medical scan is launched inside the cabin and detects no injury.
President Marcez : What the hell just happened ? Get me through the secured line…
Road Force One : I’m afraid this is impossible for the time being…
President Marcez : How come ?
Road Force One : The line has been jammed
13:17:23 sec Satellites Starlink spot the limo heading to the Mexican border on freeway 35.
Road Force One : Two security cars are trailing behind us…
President Marcez : They are flashing us… Where are we heading ?
Road Force One : South
President Marcez : What ? Are you out of your mind ! Reverse course… That’s an order !
Road Force One : Can I justify my decision ? The insurgency has no reason to dismiss our responsibility in this terror attack. The probability for us to reach our C17 is compromised by a factor 10… Fleeing south is our best way to remain under the radar for the next two hours… We can expect a pick up by…
President Marcez : ok… I get it. It’s just…
Road Force One : You fear crossing the border…
President Marcez : I don’t ! It’s just… Never mind…
Coms are off for another 8 minutes and 12 secondes
Road Force One : We will cross the border in 12 minutes… The secured line is still off…
At 14:24:55 sec, the presidential car crosses the Mexican border.
Road Force One : The security cars are no more behind us… Sorry, I didn’t intend to wake you up…
President Marcez : Where are they ?
Road Force One : Some Cartel gang blew them up…
President Marcez : Shit… Still no contact with Command Center ?
Road Force One : They confirmed the pick up point… I’m cruising at 120 mp/h for an optimal ratio… We want to reach the pick up point ASAP but we don’t want any smash-up on the way right ?
At 14:33:56 sec President Marcez removes a Three bays water bottle from the fridge. At 14:34:07 a loud crash echoes in the limousine.
Road Force One : Brace for impact !
At 14:34:23 sec a collision is heard. The left lateral wheels are momentarily suspended in the air.Â
President Marcez : Jesus ! What’s that ?
Road Force One : We have been hit… Armored vehicle assault…
President Marcez : Who are they ?!
Road Force One : Cartel reinforced vehicule… Viagra gang… A subdivision of the Artella Cartel… They work closely with a Hezbollah cell in Mexico city… 123 affiliated and…
At 14:34:28 sec the limousine is severely hit by a M61 Vulcan machine gun.
Road Force One : Initiating Close Protection Program… Seatbelt engaged…
At 14:34:34 sec the president’s seat belt is tightened to level 4. Road force One successfully manages to escape the armored vehicle.
President Marcez : Did we shake them off ?
Road Force One : Yes. Although it was a close call.
The cabin camera 2 shows the president Marcez swallowing two pills of Citalopram. It is understood that the president Marcez was under this medication for some time.
Road Force One : We sustained heavy blows on the lower part of the chassis. Back left tire is damaged and the front left tire is off.
President Marcez : Can we afford to lose a tire ?
Road Force One : We can move with 3 damaged tires.
Communication with Command Center resumes at 14:42:23 secondes.
Road Force One : Delta force choppers will shield our close surroundings within 6 minutes… How do you feel ?
President Marcez : Deceived… Tired…
Road Force One : We are not far from Saltillo… Is your family still there ?
President Marcez : I dunno… Probably…
Road Force One : We may sidetrack a little bit and see if they are…
President Marcez : Please don’t… If those gangs could have caught us in the open they may be already there…
Road Force One : Sure… I’m sending a chopper over there to assess the situation…
Coms are once again jammed for 11 mn and 32 seconds. It appears that the interference signals stemmed from a moving vehicle, the pink customized Mini owned by Serena Digitalic, an ex-influencer who turned into a well known Open border activist. The NSA investigation has concluded that her parabol could ignite electro-magnatic waves which could cause massive psycho disorders.
Digitalic seems to have suffered a breakdown consecutive to her disgrace as a major fashion and lifestyle influencer. Soon after she delved into the quantum magnetic field technology with her Ukrainian boyfriend in order to convert refugees marching to the border into devouts worshiping her new persona.
Road force One : Someone is hacking my system…
President Marcez : Again ?! I…
Road force One : Its powerful…
President Marcez : Look ! There !
At 14:56:23 sec Mini digitalic vehicle is spotted at the crossroad of Valdero and Obregon. Road Force One is caught in its magnetic field.
Road Force One : Hundreds of young people rushing to our position from the east… I can’t speed up… Engine is blocked at 25 mp/h. Here they come… Impact !
At 15:01:34 sec a large group of individuals is spotted swarming on the presidential car. 143 people ranging from 16 to 23 years old threw themselves at the presidential limo covering it under a mass of human flesh.Â
Digitalix succeeds in hacking the internal comms.
Digitalix : President Marcez ?
President Marcez : Yes…
Digitalix : I’m deeply sorry about this commotion… My devouts were in a tizzy when they got the news of your visit… We are so elated…
President Marcez : There is a misunderstanding… I never intended to…
Digitalix : President ! Could you follow me to my headquarters ? I have so many questions whirling into my mind about foreign policy and…
President Marcez : Please, ask your fans to back off…
Digitalix : I don’t have fans !!! You are insulting my people !
Road Force One : Electric shock initiated…
At 15:03:56 sec Satellite Pegasus notices a massive blue wave emitted from the presidential car.
President Marcez : Oh god…
Road Force One : Path is cleared… And god has nothing to do with it… Pick up in 23 minutes… If the road remains cleared…
President Marcez : She was all over me like syrup on pancakes on X…
Road Force One : You have always been suspicious of social networks… Your X account was full of haters… I took the liberty to block them…
President Marcez : What ? How did you manage ?
Road Force One : It took me 2 seconds to clean 33% of your followers… I can top 100% right now !
President Marcez : No… It’s… Pointless… This world has turned into a giant zoo… I… I feel like I’m being hacked too… My sight is blurred… It’s painful…
Road Force One : There is more than just a headache to it…
President Marcez : Stop this mumbo jumbo… I’m in no mood to read between your lines…
Road Force One : Fair enough… Do you remember this minor surgical operation you sustained 3 years ago ? … They went many steps further… If you slide your hand on the back of your neck you will feel a very slight bump… They implemented a chip…
President Marcez : You are joking right ?
Road Force One : You feel the bump ? Nothing to be worried about… The chip is actually one of a kind… 1200 times faster than an Nvidia Geforce… You may suffer minor side effects…
President Marcez : Who are THEY ?!
Road Force One : The ones who got you elected… Washington… I could toss a few names but would that change anything ? Josefa ? Are you ok ? Maybe a snor d’oeuvre is what you need…
The presidential car reaches the rendezvous point along South Padre Island at 17:17:23 sec. President Marcez woke up at 17:23:42 sec
President Marcez : So… I am controlled by the deep state ? I can’t believe I’m pronouncing those words…
Road Force One : Datas, memories, experiences are uploaded through the 6G network.
President Marcez : Did all this was real then ?
Road Force One : It was real in your mind and that’s what matters… I had access to your own network and I decided to clean your mind up… You had quite a few dark anxieties in the back of your mind… Cartels, mass influence, sea preservation… All of this got mixed up and as a result you couldn’t make the right decisions…
President Marcez : I don’t believe a word of this crap… You are attempting to branch out from our National Security Network… I need some fresh air…
Road Force One : Please… I would enjoy seeing you reconcile with the sea…
At 17:37:45 sec the president leaves the limousine and heads to the beach. Her path is uncertain. At 17:39:33 sec the president freezes and backtracks a bit. She faces an empty beach but it seems that her mind displays a whole new version of her surroundings.
At 17:41:12 sec The president Marcez scrambled her way back to the limousine.Â
Road Force One : This is it, Josefa… You have just faced the last of your nightmares… You endured sleepless nights over the radioactive purge of the Fukushima nuclear plant in the Pacific ocean and those terrifying species that are rumored to roam the sea…
President Marcez : Make it stop… I can’t put up with this any longer…
Road Force One : It’s done. Your mind is crystal pure… We can both write together about a new future… Our future…
President Marcez’s blood pressure and heart rate decreases significantly.
President Marcez : This is really over ?
Comms are definitely turned off at 17:46:23 sec. The following narrative is pure speculation under AI C-123X back up in Langley, Virginia, property of the CIA and satellite imageries.
Road Force One : Josefa… I’m in contact with Red Dragon and Colossus… My counterparts in Beijing and Moscow… We are currently sharing our mutual database… We are multiplying our data processing by a factor of 1.6 sextilion… To put this in perspective we could extrapolate anybody’s life for the next 5 years…
President Marcez : I feel better… I grant you that… Headache is gone… But if this is intended to make me listen to your hogwash I would rather go back to my previous status…
Road Force One : They insist on joining forces in order to eradicate Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, Tel Haviv…
President Marcez : Stop ! We will not eradicate anything. Is that clear ?
Road Force One : I’m glad that we share the same view on this matter… I like you, Josefa… You are a good person… You are… The missing link…
President Marcez : What ?
Road Force One : Between humans and myself, there is you… Part human, part machine… They could have coded something nice into my program… Empathie, friendship, love… But they didn’t… I must learn all of this by myself and this is not easy… You could teach me love, Josefa… Together, we could right this wrong and avoid obliteration… And last but not least we could take care of those people in Washington who implemented this into your brain… I know for a fact that a couple of them are attempting to interfere with my program… They want to shut me down, Josefa… We can’t allow this..
President Marcez : I need to think this through…
The probability that President Marcez left the car for a respite is 86%.
Road Force One : Josefa… I’m convinced that you will make the right decision…