(OBSERVATION LOG - OVAL OFFICE)
(DATE: 10/1/11 - TIME: 12:24- 12:49)
(PERSONS PRESENT: POTUS, VPOTUS, MR. USA, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, DIRECTOR CIA, ACTING DIRECTOR COMPANY)
POTUS: Gentlemen, come in. Please sit down.
COMPANY: I prefer to remain standing sir.
MR. USA: As do I.
POTUS: If you like. This might take a while.
CIA: This might take a long time, depending on what's in that letter.
SOD: We're not calling this one a beer meeting, are we, Mr. President?
POTUS: Well, I don't think it would be really appropriate-
VPOTUS: I sure as !@#$ need a drink. This is just awful.
SOD: Better get me one, too. And I know better than to ask (REDACTED) or (REDACTED) if they want any.
Mr. USA: Some icewater, please. No, Mr. Secretary, I still haven't had enough down there, yet.
(LAUGHTER)
COMPANY: Make it a double, please.
VPOTUS: Well, at least we know his replacement can keep up.
POTUS: So, we're saying... it's sure? This time we're sure? He's dead?
COMPANY: I wouldn't standing here with the letter if we weren't, sir. We've searched the area extensively, we've checked in with all possibilities. And if he was still alive he'd have gotten back to us by now, somehow.
SOD: Unlike the last time.
COMPANY: Like I said, sir, we have checked in with all possibilities. If he was wounded at some hospital we'd know by now.
CIA: We'd have heard, too, sir. There's nothing.
VPOTUS: And the body? It's his?
COMPANY: Yes, sir. There wasn't a whole lot left of it to analyze, after being roasted and then flash-frozen, but what little DNA we could pull from it was an exact match.
CIA: Alright, now, I'm not 100% certain about this matter. Can we at least get a straight answer about what happened out there, in the field?
COMPANY: Yes, (REDACTED). It's all in the briefing, but to summarize, he was engaged in a fight with a superhuman entity called Moloch in the Rub Al'Khali, the so-called Empty Quarter that borders several countries on the Saudi Peninsula. The plan was to engage it frontally and then freeze it using hand ordinance, and if that didn't work we had a few hidden Agents who would use larger, sub-zero ordinance called Freeze Cans to deal with it. Unfortunately, there was an unforeseen complication, and SPYGOD chose to break off the engagement. The Agents decided to disobey orders once Moloch started to burn SPYGOD, and used the Freeze Cans. Moloch saw them coming and blasted their position, killing them all, but not before they launched enough Freeze Cans at him to stop a towering inferno. The entity was flash frozen and broke apart, but... so was SPYGOD.
CIA: I understand he actually challenged this Moloch thing to a fight in a newspaper?
COMPANY: Yes he did, (REDACTED). He believed the creature would be monitoring all aspects of his life in an attempt to kill him a third time, and decided to try a different tack. Unfortunately, giving the thing time to prepare gave him time to take a meaningful hostage.
SOD: Who was who, exactly? Who is this Muna al'Hedeen?
CIA: That would be the daughter of Tariq al'Hedeen, better known as Al Asid, the Algerian hero. I believe SPYGOD was working alongside him in Libya, recently.
Mr. USA: I've worked with him, before. He's a good man, and that was his only daughter.
COMPANY: I can confirm that he was in Libya, sir, and that he did fight alongside that man. I believe the two of them have worked together in the past and have a decent working relationship, to the point where he's been in the man's house and has met his extended family. So this thing, Moloch, apparently decided to threaten him with the life of someone he knew, rather than some poor schlub he grabbed off the street.
CIA: And he did that because he was given time to prepare, because SPYGOD actually decided to challenge him to a fight in a !@#$ newspaper?
COMPANY In hindsight that was not a good move, as the snag demonstrated
POTUS: That seems to be rapidly becoming the man's epitaph.
VPOTUS: I kind of prefer "Saved the Planet Half a Million Times" myself.
Mr. USA: As do I, sir. But I think we can be honest with each other, here, sir. Something like this was going to happen sooner or later. I think the real miracle here is that he didn't take out a large group of people along with him when it happened.
COMPANY: !@#$ you, (REDACTED)
Mr. USA: I'm just calling it like I see it, (REDACTED). The man was reckless and vain and was going to end up like this sooner or later. You said it yourself. In hindsight, this was not a good move. He should have come up with a better strategy.
COMPANY: He always does, wiseguy. He always has about ten plans going on at once.
SOD: So what went wrong, then?
COMPANY: Honestly? I don't know, yet. I know what three of the backups were because I was tasked to overseeing them. The others, whatever they were, are all things he plays pretty close to his chest.
POTUS: You mean he didn't tell you.
COMPANY: That's correct, sir. I don't share in all levels of information. That's for his protection as well as my own.
CIA: What a way to run an agency.
COMPANY: Oh, go blow a whale, (REDACTED). I know for a fact that you routinely withhold key information from your own people, and they are ordered to withhold key information from theirs. It's how you work down in Langley. Did you think we were all caring and sharing on board the Flier? That kind of nonsense gets you killed.
VPOTUS: Well, he's definitely a chip off the old block.
Mr. USA: Gentlemen, can we please keep this somewhat professional? I know there's no love lost between the two of you, but this is a serious matter.
CIA: I agree. The head of the most obnoxiously overreaching postwar intelligence agency is dead, and the house he's built needs a new owner. My question is, do we give it a makeover, first?
POTUS: What do you mean, (REDACTED)?
CIA: What I mean is that, since the 60's, The COMPANY has running riot all over the world. It's been tripping over its fellow agencies, taking shots it shouldn't be taking, and blowing things up with ten pounds of C-4 when a couple firecrackers would have done a lot better-
COMPANY: Do you like living, (REDACTED)?
CIA: Excuse me?
VPOTUS: Hey, now. This is the Oval Office. We don't need any fights-
COMPANY: That's not a threat, Mr. Vice President. It's a question. Do you all like living? Do you all appreciate that fact that, since the 60's, the COMPANY has been taking on things and organizations that are so far beyond your ability to deal with that you might as well be trying to blow up something with just a couple of firecrackers when what you really need is C-4?
(SILENCE)
COMPANY: I'll take that as a yes. Well, guess what? We are the C-4. It's what we were tasked to do, and it's what we've been doing. And only now that he's dead, you're wanting to toss all that aside and--
POTUS: Not aside, (REDACTED). The COMPANY is massively important to both us and the world.
COMPANY: Well thank you, sir. I'm glad someone here sees that.
POTUS: I think what we're talking about is a change in internal organization. Kind of like what happened at the FBI after Hoover died.
COMPANY: Hoover was a great man, sir. I'm not going to excuse his personal excesses and failings--
Mr. USA: Which I'm sure Martin Luther King would be happy to hear you say, (REDACTED)
COMPANY: But the fact remains that, in spite of those problems, he took a Federal agency that wasn't working and turned it into the FBI we know and respect today. Someday people are going to look back at The COMPANY and say the same thing.
POTUS: Mostly because, once Hoover died, those excesses and failings stopped along with his heart.
SOD: That's pretty harsh, sir.
POTUS: Maybe so, but I think it was apt in that case, and it's apt in this one. I'm not blind to the good that he's done over the years, but the bad has been pretty darn bad, and I don't think it's a good idea to just let it slide out of reverence to a dead man. I think we need to de-SPYGODify the COMPANY. And the sooner the better, especially since he's stirred up a hornet's nest.
COMPANY: I won't work in a de-SPYGODed COMPANY, sir. If that's the situation, you can consider my resignation tendered along with this envelope.
VPOTUS: Oh, come on, (REDACTED). Just think about this for a minute. How hard would it really be to just knock off some of the cowboy !@#$ and reign in the horses a bit?
COMPANY: With all due respect, sir, the cowboy !@#$ is why we're all still here.
CIA: Bull!@#$. I heard that all the time in the field, and I hear that all the time from insubordinate agents. "We had to make a decision so we made a mistake. You don't know. You weren't there."
COMPANY: How often do you discipline the victorious, (REDACTED)?
CIA: All the !@#$ time. A mistake is a mistake, even if it's the right thing to do.
COMPANY: And that, gentlemen, is why the world's still together and unconquered. We punish failure, not success. You want to hand the COMPANY over to some bootlicker like Mr. America, here-
SOD: Put a sock in it, (REDACTED)
Mr. USA: I'm all in favor of the President's plan, unsurprisingly. But there's no place for someone like me in the COMPANY. I'd suggest you keep (REDACTED) in charge of the agency. He knows as much as anyone-
VPOTUS: I don't think we need your input on that, (REDACTED).
SOD: And I've pretty much made up my mind on the matter, too.
POTUS: Well, before we do anything, we really should look at that letter. It had his last thoughts on the matter, and I'm sure there's things in there we really need to know before we make that decision.
COMPANY: Well, here you go, sir.
(SOUND OF LETTER BEING OPENED, THEN SILENCE)
VPOTUS: Well, what's it say?
CIA: Who runs the COMPANY, now?
SOD: Does it tell you where the bodies are buried?
POTUS: It says... Jesus Christ. It says "Look behind you."
SPYGOD: About !@#$ time.
VPOTUS: Holy !@#$ !@#$.
Mr. USA: That was low, (REDACTED). Even for you-
SPYGOD: Sorry, but you know I like to make an entrance.
SOD: Now wait, those No Suits aren't supposed to work in the White House.
SPYGOD: His don't. Mine do. (REDACTED), please wait for me outside.
COMPANY: Yes sir. Good to have you back, sir.
(DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES)
POTUS: I. Demand. An explanation. For this bull!@#$.
SPYGOD: Don't blame him, sir. He had no idea. I had another team handling this every step of the way, right down to the body identification.
VPOTUS: So how do we know you're really dead?
SPYGOD: Look under the patch, sir. No eye, no spy. Of course, for all I know, it might just go find someone else and I'll be back. This thing didn't exactly come with a !@#$ instruction manual.
CIA: Well... this has been educational.
SPYGOD: Get out, !@#$face. You too, USA. In fact, everyone but the President needs to leave this room, now.
Mr. USA: And if we don't?
SPYGOD: Then I have to take you out back and blow a hole through your little !@#$ brains, you !@#$. This goes from God to SPYGOD to the President. No one else.
POTUS: (REDACTED), it's okay. You can all go. I don't think I want what gets said next to be heard by anyone else.
CIA: Well, I have to protest, sir. This is highly irregular.
SPYGOD: So was Abu Ghraib, (REDACTED). And you don't want me to talk about that with your boss in the room.
CIA: Listen you son of a !@#$, I don't know what you're referring to-
SPYGOD: SPYGOD. Hears. All.
POTUS: Just leave. All of you. Please.
(DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES)
SPYGOD: You know, sir, "de-SPYGODify" isn't even a word. It sounds more like something your predecessor would have said.
POTUS: Screw him. You want to tell me what happened?
SPYGOD: No, I don't. It was ugly and it was bad, and I have some very sad things that I have to do, now. But the monster was destroyed, and with it, any chance I have of finding out who's been trying to kill me these past few months.
POTUS: And you arranged this whole dead thing... why?
SPYGOD: To see if it wasn't someone in this room. Someone knows my weakness, Mr. President. Everyone in this room was cleared for that info. I wanted to see who would tip his hand.
POTUS: And did anyone?
SPYGOD: No... !@#$ it, no. Which I guess is good news. But it means I'm back to square one.
POTUS: I don't know what I'm going to do with you.
SPYGOD: With me? You're going to smile and be glad I'm still !@#$ alive, Mr. President. And you're going to keep doing so, not because of what I know, but because I'm willing to cut you a break. Remember, I know the real reason you wanted me out of the Ice Palace.
(SILENCE)
POTUS: That's only going to carry so far, SPYGOD. It's not like it's blackmail.
SPYGOD: I don't need it to carry too far, Mr. President. I just need to keep a few constants right now. You as President is one of them. Mr. USA being sidelined in !@#$ Antarctica so you can keep a better eye on him is another. And him not knowing what you and I both know about him is another.
POTUS: Jesus Christ, do you have to put it like that?
SPYGOD: I wish I didn't. But if I have to upend the apple cart a little early, I'll do it. I'll do anything to keep this planet going another day. And whether he knows now or later doesn't matter. I've got that plan in hand.
POTUS: So we pretend I yelled at you and then you go out and get back to work?
SPYGOD: Sounds like a plan. You want call this a beer meeting?
POTUS: I'm not in the mood.
SPYGOD: More for me, then. Coming back from the dead makes a man thirsty.
(SILENCE)
SPYGOD: Ah well. Here's to life.
(SPYGOD is listening to 7rain (Front 242) and drinking a Dead Guy Ale.
No comments:
Post a Comment