(with apologies to Hans Christian Anderson)

The conference room was silent, except for the ponderous ticking of an ormolu mantel clock.  Tension in the air almost palpable, the grave expression on the face of the Director of the National Security Agency was reflected in the faces of a select few gathered around the table as he began to speak.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a situation.

What I am going to tell you now must, for the time being at least, remain in the room, but be in no doubt that we face a potent threat to the stability of the nation, and its international reputation.

A few months ago, the President’s favourite technology adviser had an unscheduled meeting with him.  Also in attendance were the head of the special coatings division of Boeing, and the CEOs of 3M Adaptive Fabrics Division, and the prime suppliers of spacesuits for Space X. 

Collins Aerospace, who make space suits for NASA, were apparently not invited.

There are no minutes of the meeting, but we know that they came to the President with an idea so fantastic that I can barely believe I am saying this.  The technology adviser’s team came with a fully developed proposal for a material that would allow the president to be, for all practical purposes, invisible.  In short, a stealth suit.”

A gasp of disbelief rippled round the room, punctuated by a few guffaws, until it became clear the Director was deadly serious.  The head of the President’s security detail groaned and buried her face in her hands.

“I know, I know.  It’s completely nuts. Except that, apparently, it is technically feasible. The technology adviser was promoting the idea as a countermeasure to assassination attempts, but the President has seen other possibilities.

He has ordered two prototypes to be ready for the upcoming G20 meetings, one each for him and his adviser.  It appears he truly believes that he will be able to pass invisibly around the delegates and hear what their negotiating positions might be.  However, being the man he is, the possibility of discovering what they really think about him, of being undetected in female delegates’ hotel rooms, of wandering amongst the press corps on the presidential aircraft, even of checking up on the First Lady, is also attractive to him. 

So, I’ve called you together because we need to stop this madness or, if we cannot, we’ll need a plan for protecting us all from a President who we may not always be able to see.  Go to it, people.”

The most elegant solution came from the female head of the science department.  She used her backdoor channels with NASA, MIT, and the disgruntled scientists at Collins Aerospace, to devise a way of disabling the cloaking properties of parts of the suit’s material.

The President and his tech adviser tried the suits in public for the first time on the evening before the opening G20 plenary session. Delegates attending a cocktail and canapes reception were dumbfounded by the sight of two disembodied pairs of boxer shorts drifting around the room. 

Nobody wanted to admit to what they saw for fear that they would be ridiculed, or the governments they represented embarrassed.  However, the fact that one carried a red, white, and blue “Make America Great Again” slogan, while the other declared “Put your tush in a Tesla”, was noted by a zero-hours agency waitress.  Unafraid she playfully slapped a passing buttock, and said “I see your booty, Mr President, yes I do!”, and the floating underwear wobbled, hurriedly, towards the door.

The moral of this tale is that, however powerful, the mind of a narcissist is vulnerable to the influence of sycophantic conmen.