“… reporting from the Bruits Sprigstern concert in front of the capitol building in Jersey City, where Bruits Sprigstern has apparently repatriated twenty thousand fans to what he is calling the British colony of New Jersey.”
By the time the local station had rerun the minutes-old tape of Bruits’s odd message to the fans, the concert was paused for a message from the governor of the colony of New Jersey.
“I believe the man we’re seeing on stage is Oscar Dowzall, the former governor and current star of several extreme gay pornographic videos. Governor Dowzall was also knighted by the queen of England during his last term as governor. Bruits Sprigstem also holds an honorary title. I believe we’re looking at a takeover attempt in New Jersey, just as occurred in one of the small African nations and as was attempted hours ago on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. There are even reports of just such an attempt in a rumored territory of Newfoundland, and now Dowzall is starting to speak. Let’s go live.”
The concert volume was adjusted. The volume went up. The levels went down. The multimillion-dollar sound system had been broadcasting voice messages like a high-school public-address horn; now it sounded as clear and rich as the sound system in a well-equipped Pontiac. Every word spoken by Dowzall was like he was talking to you in your own living room.
“Thank you, all of you, for what you have done. I am gratified that you have shown such enthusiasm and eagerness. Thanks to my special guests. We have most of J the New Jersey government sitting, right here. Please welcome them!”
Cheers. How cool that politicians were watching a rock and roll show.
“Hey, who’s minding the store, anyway?” Dowzall asked. If anybody understood the pilfered quip they didn’t think it was funny—except for Bruits Sprigstern, who laughed into his microphone like Ed McMahon. Dowzall laughed with Bruits, then addressed the people. “And thanks for welcoming me back—you people are the best!”
Twenty thousand fans still didn’t have any clue what he was talking about, but they knew he was being flattering. They cheered.
“I said, New Jersey is the best!”
“Yeah!” the crowd responded.
“Let’s make it official!”
“Yeah!”
Dowzall handed the mike back to Sprigstern and, of all things, a horse was led onstage, with a gleaming silver breastplate and silver blinders and wild peacock feathers standing from its mane guard.
“We’re gonna raise the flag,” Sprigstern shouted. “You helped us do it. I knew you’d come through for me. The people from New Jersey are the best people in the world! Way to go. New Jersey Colony!”
Bruits’s infectious enthusiasm got the crowd chanting, “New Jersey, New Jersey,” and most of them were wondering what this was all about, but most of them were too embarrassed to turn to ask the people around them; everybody else, after all, seemed to understand what was going.
A wheeled set of stairs was positioned alongside the horse, and Dowzall stepped up and gingerly swung one leg over the back of the horse. The handler gave him the ceremonial reins—keeping a set of reins for himself—and a stagehand gave Dowzall a gleaming chrome helmet. He held it under one arm, waved to the crowd, then put the helmet over his head. It was custom made for him by an armor maker he had met at the Annual Newark Renaissance Festival. Across the nose bridge was an evil-looking gash of an opening, fitted with darkened glass. When his head was fully inside the helmet, the top of his head pressed together a pair of contacts, and a rhythmic bar of light began to travel back and forth across the eyepiece. Annoying from the inside, and probably not authentic, Dowzall knew, and yet it made him look quite intimidating and frightening. He had been very afraid of the Cylons from the original
The stagehand put his chrome lance into his hand.
Now all he had to do was stand there, while the official transfer of power happened.
Bruits Sprigstern and the band was jamming on “God Save the Queen,” filled with so many extraneous guitar fills and saxophone improvisations that it was unrecognizable.
All eyes turned to the opposite side of the stage, where the capitol building flagpoles stood. They were empty, and the concrete circle was surrounded by a stony-faced ring of state troopers.
“Under normal circumstances, we should be seeing the Stars and Stripes flying there, alongside the flag of the state of New Jersey,” reported the mousy blonde woman. “Both are conspicuously absent today.”
Two state troopers in dress uniform, walking in a stiff, military gait, entered the ring of guards and ceremonially unfolded a banner between them. They attached it to the flag line. The Sprigstern band had now completely lost the tune and was simply jamming messily, but they raised it to a fever pitch as the flag was raised.
