The journalist traveresed the steps of the building the best he could; the whole thing wasn't a regular vertical staircase, for some reason it was this apparent maze of sporradic upward footsteps. The building, as he came to realize was what he considered somewhat of an architectual failure, the layout was not symmetrical and did not make sense. It required the journalist to think, and he did not like that, he preferred a labeled sign and an orderly fashion any day of the week.

As he stepped up onto a particular landing with a door sitting nonchalantely to the left of him on the wall he reached into his pocket to retreive a crumpled up peice of paper wich had,
"607"
written on it. "This is it" he inhaled to himself before stuffing the peice of paper back into his suit pant pocket and opening up the door.

He was greeted by a long hallway, with no doors whatsoever except for the one at the end. The color scheme of the hallway was that of a crimson red; the journalist noted it at a near unconscious level. He continued down the hallway, staring at the ominous nature of the hinged rectangle that lie in his path, blocking him from what truly rippled the calm waters of his thought process. The door was completely void of decoration or color, it was a simple wooden door of 'wood' colors; yet for some reason it disturbed the reporter, it's very existence seemed to annoy the man, his distain for the texture and the sight of the object was only outweighed for his love of it's lack of transparency.

He stood there, for a couple minutes with his hand on the doorknob, contemplating why he had been called here, and for what purpose. Alot of ideas raced through his head, and he almost wished he had a pen and paper to write down some of the fear inspired ideas he was having at the moment. The one idea he was unable to shake was that of free will. The fact that he was here, with his hand on the doorknob was indicative of his seemingly fated nature; sure he has the choice to turn around and run away, but wouldn't serve him an almost more certain fate? It seemed to him that we rely on the myth of free will as much as it depends on us to exist as a thought in the first place. Indeed, it was with this thought that he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

The room revealed a much different scene that the reporter thought it would. Instead of the 'animal-head-on-the-wall' theme he expected from a ruthless dictator, the reporter instead was presented with what appeared to be a.. ..comic book inspired theme. The reporter walked forward slowly towards the desk in the middle of the room trying to contain his grin; who would have thought that Rudolf was such a fan of comic books?

Rudolf appeared to be a small man, but he was covered in a number of electric gizmos which sat atop of an extremely complex clothing ensamble. He sat at the desk with his hands folded in a rather stereotypical 'bad guy' fashion. He did not really move, aside from his eyes which watched the journalist take a seat on the other side of his large, but simplistic glass slab desk. He was a pale man, but had a strange glow to him, a self assuredness the reporter did not often run into.

"Do you know why you are here?" Rudolf asked the reporter.

"I mean no offense Sir, but I haven't the faintest clue" the journalist replied, trying his best to appear what Rudolf would describe as 'not guilty' and at the same time confident.

"Good" Rudolf replied, pausing for a moment to rub his goatee, as if in thought. "Another question my friend, do you know why I prefer to have a neatly cropped facial hair style, such as the 'goetee' type I am sporting as of right now?"

"I am sorry Sir, I do not"

"Good" Rudolf replied, smiling openly to the reporter. "Then I shall tell you the answer to both questions" he stated, drumming his fingers against the glass plane that basically comprised the entirety of his 'desk', which upon closer examination was more of a table than anything. He gestured around the room to the various comic book pictures and posters. "Every story must have a villian, and out of determination on my part, and some luck, I happed to land in the villianous role. This is not to say that I am a 'bad' guy persay, but every person goes through life with a purpose, be it to be great' or to do shit all, both are a purpose for the sake of this discussion. The problem though, as you may know, is that once I made it to the top, I no longer had a purpose. I could get no more power other than already had in my country, and so I had to make some changes" Rudolf explained, staring into the eyes of the reporter the length of the speech.

The journalist did not quite know what to think of this, he supposed it made sense at one level, but he would rather the dictator would just tell him what he wanted, rather than ramble on. "Please.. go on"

Rudolf nodded, his thin smile widening for a fraction of a second as he saw he was getting through to the reporter. "As I said, we all need a purpose.. we choose it of course, but without one we are damned to a personal hell, and that is not something I want to endure" he stated, before pointing to his goetee, "I am an evil man! I will conquer the world with fear and violence, and I will be known for it!" he affirmed, more himself than anyone.

"As you wish Sir"

Rudolf slammed his fist down at these words, and the reporter stiffened in his seat. "This is not what I command you to do, this is reality, this is the life that we both endure." He scratched at his goetee again, a bit more agressive than the previous time, "Do you know how much I loath the feeling of this hair on my face? Of hair in general? I must endure this life, this toxic waste of a proper species, this inherent forum of specialized idiots and regular idiots alike. I am too smart for it, and for this reason I am in the role you see before me. What else can be my purpose to distract me from this noise, this.. quicksand that I call reality?" he paused for a second, looking at the reporter Rudolf did not feel like the man was going to repond with anything useful, including a typical scared yes-man response so he continued. "What else can I do besides sculpt the hair on my face to distract my mind from the behive of distraction, of iching and uncomfortability? What else am I to do but continue with my 'reign of terror'?" he used his hands to indicate the last phrase was 'in brackets', but the look his eyes seemed to betray his actions; the man seemed torn. "What am I to do, listen to the critics and do the 'right thing'? Give up all I have worked to accomplish? How can I accomplish this task, how can I itch the feeling that is so pervasive in my mind, that only seems to be affected by the fingernail of death? I need purpose as you need words, without it we are nothing, and I cannot turn back now"

The journalist did not really know how to repond to this. Was this an elaborate speech to indicate his usefulness had been outlived, or was the leader of all leaders simply ranting?

It seemed the latter was correct when Rudolf said, "You may go now, communicate your opinion as per your service to the empire"

The reporter nodded and after getting up he gave a slight bow to the pale leader and turned back towards the door he had entered. Trancending the threshold of the frame the reporter thought that it was ironic he was now fearing what he would have to do on this side of the truth: How on earth was he going to turn this into a story that his, or any news organization would accept? After all, the opinion of the most powerful man on earth means nothing if it does not correspond to the artificial attitude many have already grown to love. For the reporter, to tell the truth is to be branded a liar and sentenced to death.
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