Cursing her habit of nervous snacking, Daria mentally slapped her fingers from the bowl of roasted kitten nuggets on the conferance table, and continued reading from her legal pad. "...all you will lose is the emotion of pride. The choice is simple: obey us, and know the peace of plenty and content; or disobey, and you will know the 'peace' of unburied death. The choice is yours."

She cleared her throat, and glanced up at the freakshow seated at the other side of the gleaming black table. Not that it did her a whole lot of good--the two men were still wearing their steel masks, and the woman was still glaring over the top of her glasses with barely veiled hatred.

Oddly enough, Daria got the odd impression of jealousy coming from the woman. Which, even as things were, didn't make a lot of sense. Aside from the fact that she was younger, and bore more of a passing resemblance to--

"Young woman, do you have any idea of what you've just read?"

The sudden, booming brougue of the masked man with the red lapels nearly made Daria jump out of her skin. But she managed to maintain her composure, and in her best "interview voice," the one she'd practiced at, calmly said, "I've written an ultimatum to the rulers and the people of the world, on five minutes notice, with 'utter explicitness of intent,' clear language, and 'grand, terrible beauty to echo down through the ages.'" she paused, and added, apologetically "I'm not sure you can read my longhand, though. But if you'd given me a word processor to work with, or a couple of more minutes to write print, I'm sure I could have--"

"ENOUGH!" barked the other masked man, banging his fist on the table. Although "bark" was probably too nice a word for a voice that shrill.

"Unless my asssosssiatess disssagree, I think we've heard all we've need." The man turned towards his companions, who nodded, gravely.

Daria felt her stomach drop--another rejection was bad enough, but with these kind of people, it probably wasn't going to stop there.

The man rose from his chair, and seemed to slither over to Daria's seat. "I have only one thing to sssay to you" suddenly, the man thrust his hand towards Daria--palm open, ready for a handshake.

"...welcome to Cobra's Public Relations Divisssion, Misss Morgendorffer!"

Three weeks later, "Spindoctor" sat in her cramped cubicle in the Weather Machine Control Base, pecking away at an 'Extensive Enterprises' press release. As soon as she'd finished writing the cover story prospectus for the accelerated pitchblende harvesting program, she just had to knock off a quick rally speech for Cobra Commander to deliver at the Crimson Guard bidecennial banquet, before she could go home for the night. Wait, was it Crimson 'Guard' or Crimson 'Brigade'? She still had trouble keeping all the wacko names straight.

Daria allowed herself a sigh, lifting her glasses up to rub at her tired eyes.

Well, she thought, all things considered, it was still better than working retail.

Author's notes: Richard Lobinske was kind enough to do a proper hair colorizing in the above file card. I am in your debt, sir!

And yeah, I cribbed the ultimatum speech.