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Alright. I wrote this as a in-timeline story that would be published sometime around the 1910s or 1920s. There is some license to be taken with this, but since it's in-universe I feel it's okay. And apologies to catboy for being unable to fit in the phrase "I'm Teddy Roosevelt, bitch!"


The Undisclosed Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt stood at the window in the Oval Office polishing his spectacles. He was admiring the greenery of Lafayette Park, with the domed structure of the National War Memorial in the center. The Secretary of the Interior ran up to Roosevelt holding a letter.

"Mr. President, Mr. President!" the aide yelled. Roosevelt turned.

"Yes, Mister Muir, what is it? Did Taft get stuck in that damned bathtub again?"

"No, sir. It is more worrisome than that. Nikola Tesla has been kidnapped!"


Roosevelt grabbed his hat and strolled south from the White House to the waiting airship moored at the top of the Washington Monument. The President rushed into the airship and it took off for Central America. Upon nearing the isle of Omotepe in Lake Cocibolca, Roosevelt told the gondolier to hover there until he was given the go-ahead to leave. Taking out the grappling hook that Tesla had designed for him, Roosevelt launched it at the mountain below. It sped through the air and stuck into the side of the mountain just above a large pane of glass. Theodore connected the other end of the rope to the cabin, wrapped a sock around the line, and jumped.

"BULLY!" Roosevelt screamed as he slid down the line.


Cornelius Vanderbilt was pacing the main room of his lair. He smiled wickedly at Tesla in a hold on the far side of the room.

"Now then, let's get down to business. You will assist me in finishing my doomsday device or I will end your life!"

"That depends. What is the nature of your device?" Tesla said defiantly.

"The device that you are going to build for me will harness the natural electric fields in the Earth's atmosphere and generate an electric charge of tremendous capacity that can be directed anywhere in the world! Once the device is built, I can use it from this island to destroy whole buildings half the world away! The governments of all nations will be at my bidding, forever!" Vanderbilt threw his head back and began laughing maniacally.

"Never! I'll never help you, you capitalist pig!" cried Tesla.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash of shattering glass. Vanderbilt turned around to see Roosevelt standing up.

"You can lift off now!" Roosevelt yelled back toward the gondolier.

"Roosevelt! Curse you, do you know how much it costs to get a pane of glass that size?

"Well, considering how I read in the papers about some idiot venture-capitalist starting up a glass factory every week or so I would think it would be pretty cheap."

"It may seem inexpensive at first, but the shipping costs are enormous! And installing it in a volcano just drives the cost up even more."

"Well maybe you should have thought about that when you set up shop here." Roosevelt picked up a shard of the window and threw it with alarming precision at Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt expertly jumped out of the way and ran over to a control board. He flipped a switch and a door in the floor opened up. Rising up out of the floor came a large sparking orb mounted on a steel construction. As it dwarfed Roosevelt, Vanderbilt, and Tesla, Vanderbilt cackled.

"Ha! I was going to wait until your friend here finished scaling the device up for me to give a demonstration of its power, but I suppose it has enough power now to reach Rivas or San Carlos."

"But won't that ruin the trade going through the San Juan Canal?" Tesla wondered.

Vanderbilt turned to the hold. "That's exactly the point! Now shut up while I deal with Mister Roosevelt."

As Vanderbilt turned his attention back toward the President, Roosevelt asked, "Then why did you so graciously fund the construction of the canal Cornelius? If there were to be any disruptions of service in the canal or the lake through the use of your doomsday device, you would lose millions."

Vanderbilt responded, "Ah, the canal was simply a diversion; a front, a ruse if you will. Whether it succeeds or not does not concern me. And if you object to using it on the canal so much, killing the President of the United States can always serve as an adequate demonstration."

Cornelius flipped a switch on the machine and got into a chair mounted on the steel structure. He maneuvered the orb so that it was pointing at Roosevelt and pushed a button. The orb began glowing with a whirring noise emitting from it, and static charges cackled on the orb.

"Now Mister Roosevelt, prepare to die!"

A directed charge of electricity burst from the orb toward Roosevelt. The President jumped to the side and somersaulted as the charge hit where he was standing and left a scorch mark on the stone floor.

Vanderbilt swung the machine to where Roosevelt had stood up. He fired again and Roosevelt dodged in turn, rolling over to a stack of crates. Seeing a crowbar, Roosevelt quickly grabbed it and climbed to the top of the crates as another blast of electricity surged from the orb. While Vanderbilt kept maneuvering the machine, Roosevelt leapt from the crates and lifted the crowbar over his head. As he fell through the air, the President brought the end of the crowbar down, piercing the orb. A large explosion threw Vanderbilt and Roosevelt to opposite sides of the room. The President staggered to his feet.

The smoke cleared, revealing Vanderbilt standing between Roosevelt and the cage holding Tesla. "You think you've won, Roosevelt. But I've still got Tesla and the plans for my machine. I will build another; you can't stop me!"


Theodore grimaced. He quickly drew the pistol at his side and pointed it toward Vanderbilt. "Yes I can."

Roosevelt fired. Vanderbilt flinched as the bullet whizzed past his shoulder.

"Ha! You missed." Vanderbilt sneered at the president.

"Oh, did I?" Roosevelt smirked and pointed past Vanderbilt to the far side of the room. Vanderbilt turned to see that the bullet had hit the lock on Tesla's hold. The door swung open slowly and Tesla stepped out.

"You know, Cornelius, you really should get stronger locks on those cages if you want to keep prisoners in them for very long." Roosevelt said, lowering his pistol to his side.


Vanderbilt staggered backward and began stammering; "What? No, this cannot be! You have foiled my plan! But...but I am invincible! Why - why you - I'll get you yet! You haven't heard ze laast oof me. I'll be ba-"

Thump!

Vanderbilt's body slumped over in a heap on the floor. As he fell unconscious, he revealed Tesla standing behind him holding an iron bar.

"I could not stand his blathering any longer. And he had started to slip into that horrible German accent. He would always do that when he got angry."

"More of a Dutch accent actually," Roosevelt responded. "But let's not discuss these trivialities now. We need to get out of here."

Roosevelt and Tesla ran toward the edge of Vanderbilt's lair as lava began flowing into the room. Spotting the airship hovering above the island, Roosevelt turned around to Tesla and grabbed his hand as they continued running.

"Jump!" Roosevelt yelled above the roar of the volcano. As they reached the ledge, Tesla and Roosevelt jumped off of the edge of Vanderbilt's lair. As they fell, Roosevelt caught a rope hanging down from the airship and helped Tesla latch onto it as well. They swung on the rope as the airship rose into the sky. As they flew away, the volcano on Cocibolca erupted spewing smoke and a cloud of ash over the island and into the lake.

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Keep your eye out for next month's issue featuring "The Undisclosed Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt", in which Roosevelt must stop Queen Victoria from discovering the Fountain of Youth! Here's a sneak peek!

Roosevelt and the rest of the expedition cut through the jungle on Saint-Domingue. In the afternoon, they finally broke through and arrived at a vast lake with three islands in the middle.

"There it is, Lake Enriquillo. The lowest point in all of the Caribbean, just like in the description." Roosevelt said in awe. The water was almost clear and the biggest of the three islands was teeming with lush forests. Looking to his right along the beach, Roosevelt scowled. The tents on the beach meant that the British had already arrived. A tall lanky man in a pith helmet was sitting at a table, alone. The President walked up to the man who looked up at him casually.

"Where is Victoria!" Roosevelt demanded. The man broke into a smile.

"Oh, Teddy." The man's voice was condescending. "You're so naive for a world leader. You can't just barge in on a British expedition and throw your weight around willy-nilly. That's why you'll never win. You lack the finesse requi-"

The man was cut off as Roosevelt picked him up and threw him into the sand. As the man looked up and began to scramble for his pith helmet, he froze on his elbows as his nose almost met with the end of Roosevelt's machete.

"I can do whatever I damn well please. Now tell me, where is your Queen!"

"She- the expedition went to the island," the man said pointing across the water. "There is a pyramid of the Mesoamerican style that was covered by the forest."

"Thank you," the President smiled and began walking away. The man struggled to his knees.

"Oh," Roosevelt said turning around, "and don't call me Teddy." Suddenly there was a glint of the sun off metal and the man found a coattail pierced by Roosevelt's machete. The President lightly tipped his campaign hat to the man, picked up his machete, and walked back to the waiting expedition.