Partly Cloudy, 64°
What in God’s name is going on!? Our radar is showing that you, the reader, have commandeered a helicopter and are flying it across the 44th parallel—headed directly for enemy lines! You know damn well that this entire operation depends on the element of surprise! If you do not immediately return to base the whole mission is scuppered beyond repair!
I am giving you, the reader, a direct order!
I don’t know what you, the reader, think you’re accomplishing with this blatant act of disobedience, but I assure you it is nothing good. You are betraying your commanding officer, your President, and the very oath you swore when you, the reader, entered the service. You are putting the lives of millions at risk! Disengage at return to base at once! Then I will deal with you, reader. Oh yes.
Did you let those backward, godforsaken villagers talk to you? Have you listened to their lies? Have you, the reader, bought into their misbegotten resistance to our forces? If so, reader, you are making a grievous mistake. Our mission is essential to our national security. It’s a dirty business, but older and better minds than yours have determined that this mission must succeed. Are you so insolent that you would defy the entire American military over the claim of some mere peasants? Well, reader? Are you!?
I’ll have you arrested! I’ll have you clapped in irons! I’ll have you, the reader, thrown in a hole so deep you’ll never see the sun!! Turn back, I say! Turn back at once!
Come, come. We are reasonable men, you (the reader) and I. Surely we can work this out. Nothing irreversible has happened. Simply return to base and we can discuss this whole thing. As gentlemen. You have my solemn word.
Turn back, damn you!! Turn back!!
Where do you think this ends for you, reader? You will never return to your country again, unless it is in a body bag. The life you knew will be dead to you. You, the reader, have a wife, do you not? Bernice, was it? And three small children? You will leave them with nothing. Worse than nothing. The bastard family of a traitor who’d side with a gaggle of mud-slinging, hut-dwelling rats over his own countrymen. Shame, reader! Shame!
Our scans show that you, the reader, are rapidly approaching the enemy’s base. This is your last chance, reader. Think about it. The fate of the world versus one small village, one recalcitrant outpost, meddling in affairs far beyond its comprehension. All will be lost! You will be a Judas! A Quisling! A Benedict Arnold! A black mark on the fine tradition of the service! Damn you, reader! Damn you straight to hell!
Reader, I implore you. Think of all the hours we trained together. All the meals we shared in the my office, I the mentor, you, the reader, the wet-behind-the-years enlisted man. We were going to run this army together, remember? You, the reader, and I. We had dreams. But you were always too damn stubborn. Too independent. Too ready to question the orders of your superiors! And now it has come to this! You, the reader! Whom I trusted! Whom I loved! Whom I fought with side by side, the son I never knew! Always friends, always rivals, always striving to be the best we could possibly be!! And now!? You are finished, reader! Dead to me! You are nothing, reader, do you hear me? Nothing!!
That’s that, then. My sensors indicate that you, the reader, have crossed into enemy territory. Guess you’re a fascist now. Damn!
