WASHINGTON, DC—Forced to take desperate measures in a last-minute attempt to avert disaster and save the free world, President Clinton ordered top military scientists to inject his body with a highly unstable experimental growth serum Monday.
“Earth is threatened on every side by danger. We must act now to save humanity,” Clinton said in a prepared statement prior to receiving the untested super-serum. “Our rapidly fragmenting societal infrastructure faces myriad crises: drugs in our streets, guns in our schools, economic collapse in Asia, military aggression in Europe, and global environmental destruction creating an unstoppable army of six-legged mutant frogs. If nothing is done, disaster is imminent.”
“This experiment, risky as it is, is a gamble I cannot afford not to take,” Clinton said. “It may be our only hope.”
The serum, still considered “extremely dangerous” by Pentagon researchers, was originally developed as a means of creating the ultimate fighting machine of the future, but rejected when initial readings indicated that it was too unstable to test on human beings. Despite being warned of the potentially disastrous consequences, Clinton demanded to undergo the controversial procedure.
“It’s the only way,” Clinton said. “Someone has got to take the risk.”
Strapped into a chair and surrounded by bleeping equipment and digital displays in a laboratory located beneath the city, at exactly midnight Clinton was injected with the serum known outside of Department Of Defense high command only by the code name “Project Proteus.”
The injection took place as scheduled, despite the 11th-hour protests of the serum’s creator, Dr. Emilio Zardoz.
“Don’t do it, Mr. President! It hasn’t been properly tested!” Zardoz shouted, bursting into the lab just as technicians moved toward Clinton with a syringe. “In the name of science, man—stop before it’s too late!”
In the confusion, the military scientists hesitated, unsure of whether to proceed, but Clinton countermanded Zardoz’s urgings.
“Inject the drug!” Clinton said. “That is a direct order from the president of the United States!” When his command was not immediately obeyed—exhibiting what the scientists later called “heroic determination against all odds”—the president struggled free of one of the straps, grabbed the syringe from a technician, and administered the injection himself.
“I tried to warn him,” Zardoz later told reporters, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his lab coat. “God help me, what have I done? Has science birthed a benevolent superhuman champion to save us all—or an inhuman mutation?”
White House spokespersons acknowledge the great risk undertaken by Clinton, but insist that he made the decision because “he had no other choice.”
“We admit that the Project Proteus superserum was extremely unstable, and still required extensive research before it could be ruled safe,” press secretary Stephen Drachler said Tuesday morning. “Yet, as the president himself pointed out, that could have taken months, and there simply wasn’t time. Our situation grows more grim with each passing moment.”
Drachler continued: “The interest on the national debt continues to swell, causing Earth to spiral ever closer to the sun. Baron Milosevic, although defeated for now, may return unexpectedly in future episodes, augmented by a powerful new missile-equipped Serbi-Suit. Clinton had to act now, before his enemies in Congress, working in conjunction with the Squadron Of Evil, finally complete work on the dreaded Bureauchronic Ray.”
Several White House associates, including Zardoz himself, had begged to undergo the injection in Clinton’s place in order to protect the office of the president from potential side effects of bioplasmorphic mutation. They report that Clinton refused, maintaining a courageous, patriotic stoicism in the face of their emotional pleas.
“The people of this country elected me to do a job, and I can’t turn my back on them,” Clinton said. “This is my fight. I am the president, and the responsibility must come down to me and me alone.”
The second Clinton injected himself with the glowing, bright-green substance, chaos and confusion engulfed the lab. Clinton began to uncontrollably convulse, bolts of electricity shot out of his eyes, and his head jerked backwards, every muscle in his body straining.
“Power! Power beyond all imagining!” Clinton shouted. “The tortures of the damned! The swirling abyss of the void! I gaze into the very eye of God!” All the computers in the room then simultaneously exploded, showering the president in sparks as he collapsed, unconscious.
Many political analysts have come forward to denounce Clinton’s move as a “rash action.”
“This scenario leaves many unanswered questions,” said Harvard political-science professor F. Jacob Hinden. “Will the president mutate and become an evil ’Anti-Clinton’? Will his controversial environmental-clean-up and tax-reform initiatives continue to be blocked in the Senate? And meanwhile, back at H.Q., will Buddy’s malfunctioning Negato-Collar render him permanently invisible?”
Clinton is currently under 24-hour supervision, with doctors waiting to see if the serum will infuse him with superpowers or kill him.
If all goes well, doctors say, the president is expected to develop supergenius brain capacity, enhanced reflexes and agility, and the power of flight. In the event the serum drives Clinton mad and he escapes to wreak havoc on innocents, the National Guard unit mobilized on the White House lawn has been ordered to shoot him on sight.
