Nothing like a !@#$ hurricane to un!@#$ your head.
That and our ongoing investigations as to the whereabouts of GORGON, which bore some strange and disturbing fruit last night, thanks to Thurl. But I'll get to that !@#$ soon enough! We have a slightly more pressing problem right now.
The problem, in case you've been locked up in your master's basement for the last few days, is that mother nature, grand !@#$ queen that she is, has decided to visit some fun on our Eastern shores. Her name is Irene, she measures in at a few hundred miles across, and her category 1 !@#$ just slammed into North Carolina this morning.
And guess where she's heading? Right up the coast to us, taking in New Jersey along the way. Which may or may not be a terrible thing, depending on your opinion of the !@#$ Garden State. Me, I always associate it with second rate mobsters, drunken casino bums, and playgrounds full of toxic waste, so I suppose a 75 mph cleanup wouldn't hurt too badly.
Except of course for the fact that, when idiots decide to hole up and brave the elements, they invariably have their children with them. And they're not any !@#$ better at surviving idiot-killing storms than their !@#$ parents are. So I have to temper my normal lack of sympathy for denizens of the Trash Can State with the fact that there's kids involved.
Fortunately for them, a number of our strategic talents are at work as I speak, shoring up beaches and streets, battening down hatches, zipping up and down the coastline and trying to rescue idiots ahead of the storm. I hear there's a running, one-sided gun battle with some fools out the Outer Islands who are insisting they're going to wait it out, but that should end right the !@#$ quick as soon as we have Tank walk in and explain where they're spending the night, tonight.
(He has to stick a 30-ought up his !@#$ and pull the trigger in order to get off. No joke.)
But that leaves Neo York City, smack in the !@#$'s path.
The good news is that they must still have hurricanes 500 years in the future. The city's defensive grid handles high winds the same way it handles bombardments, space lasers, and hijacked passenger planes, which to say pretty !@#$ well. Once the storm gets to the point that it starts doing damage, the grid essentially forms a bubble around the entire city, and we have the privilege of watching the wind and rain roll right past us, like we were watching it on TV.
The bad news is that, much like giant metal insects coming up from under the harbor, the defensive grid isn't worth !@#$ against flooding. Which means that we're still in danger of major water damage, especially in the low-lying areas. We have some pump systems in place, of course, but we're still looking at the water level rising and spilling into the streets, which means washed out basements, disrupted services, stranded folks, possible drownings, exposure, the whole !@#$ seafood dog.
Which is why hizzoner is telling people to get the !@#$ to the shelters, right the !@#$ now.
Now, you'd think we could fine-tune the defensive grid. There is something that looks a lot like a control room, right in the middle of the city. It's a big sphere that's made of the same metal that's coated the other buildings and streets. No matter what happens during the conversion, it always stays just where it is, right at the center of the storm of streets and buildings, which would indicate it's got some kind of sway in things, right?
But all that's in there is a big chair and a lot of screens. The screens flip through the streets in a swift, endless loop that's too fast to really watch, and don't connect up with any cameras we've ever seen, which is kind of spooky. And sitting in the chair does abso!@#$inglutely nothing but give you a good view of the screens.
Dr. Yesterday tried working on the chair and the screens, back in the day, which means to say he put his wife on the job. She got absolutely nowhere. And that's saying something.
But all that really means is that the city isn't going to completely save our bacon. That means it's up to us to handle this, like any other city would. However, no other city has yours truly as a proud, civic-minded citizen.
So, once again, I have been named first assistant storm warden. This essentially means I get to prowl around the streets in the areas most likely to be affected with my trusty megaphone and scream abuse at people who are not getting a !@#$ move on. Tragically, I am not allowed to shoot anyone for not complying, as apparently not evacuating a dangerous area in time of civic emergency isn't a shooting offense.
Looting, on the other hand, is. So you better !@#$ behave, certain people who I just know are going to take advantage of a bad situation. SPYGOD sees all.
Well, okay, not as much as I'd like. There's still that issue with GORGON and where they decamped to after they ran from West Papua. But thanks to yet another waterlogged favor to the Kingdom of Atlantis, we have something approaching an answer.
It seems that one of GORGON's subs went down on the way. Crashed and imploded well north-west of their starting destination, right around the middle of the East Mariana Basin. It was barely recognizable by the time his people found it, but I guess some things remain as they are, even 6000 meters down on the ocean floor.
Which means, unless it was really !@#$ lost, we have a general heading. And that makes finding them a little easier than before. Not a lot, to be truthful, but at least now we have something of a starting point, rather than "anywhere but where they left from."
(Unless it's a ruse, or they doubled back)
Anyway, that's for another day. For now, I've got my Versace waders on, a trench gun across my back, and I'm out telling people to get back in, or get to the shelters. No one's questioned why I'm wearing a rubber dress so far, and with any luck they'll remember what happened the last time some drunk !@#$ tried.
Come on, Irene. We're !@#$ ready for you.
(SPYGOD is listening to Here Comes the Rain Again (Eurythmics) and staying sober until this is over. Maybe)
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