0700:
"... well, I have to keep a few surprises up my sleeve, Mr. President. I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't, right?
"Yes, I will steer clear of Sir Lanka, sir. And, for the record? I am really !@#$ sorry it came to this. I really am. I tried to do the best for my country, but... well, you know how that goes.
"Goodbye, sir. I'll be in touch."
*click*
So, I got fired.
...
Yeah.
(Opens beer)
0800:
...
(Finally has a sip of that beer)
0900:
...
(Looks at the beer bottle for a long, long time)
1000:
...
(Snarls, yells, and throws beer bottle across room)
!@#$.
!@#$. !@#$.
!@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$.
!@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$. !@#$!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1100:
How? How the !@#$ did this happen? How?!?!
Someone has to tell me how this happened. This cannot !@#$ be real. The President of the United !@#$ States of America did not just fire the man who's done more to keep that country alive and !@#$ kicking!
And... what was that?
What?
(Shoots door)
Not a good moment, Agent! Keep it moving!
Thank you.
1200:
Okay, this isn't happening. This is not !@#$ happening. This is a joke. The President's !@#$ putting me on. This is some Chicago machine joke and he's going to call back sometime before I show up and say "ha! Punked!" and we'll be all good. All !@#$ good.
...
No. He doesn't roll that way. Man has no !@#$ sense of humor.
1300:
Oh man. Oh !@#$. Oh !@#$ !@#$ on a !@#$ with a !@#! !@#$ !@#$ up his !@#$ snorkeling in !@#$ while two !@#$ midgets !@#$ all over his wife's !@#$. This is not happening.
This. Is. Not. !@#$. Happening.
How does this happen? How does this happen to me? This is my !@#$ COMPANY. I built this !@#$ thing with my own two hands. This is my blood, and my sweat, and my balls, and...
And...
...
(Opens another beer. Drinks it down. Sits there in silence.)
(Has another.)
(Then another.)
(Another.)
(Another.)
(Another.)
(Another...)
1400:
What can I do? What can I !@#$ do? I can't threaten him, anymore. I can't force him. I sure as !@#$ don't dare harm him...
...
No. NO NO NO NO NO. NO. We are not going down that road. NO.
(Another.)
(Another.)
1500:
Okay. No threats. No anger. No loss of !@#$ control. We get together with everyone. We talk it over. We see if we can find some way to change his mind...
No. NO. That's just going to sound !@#$ pathetic and stupid. No way am I going to !@#$ beg. I do not beg. I am SPYGOD and I DO NOT BEG.
They can't fire me. They can't. I'm the one who knows where the bodies are buried. I'm the one who knows how the whole sloppy !@#$ thing works. They don't have me, they don't have !@#$ anything.
I can't be replaced. I can't. I won't. I will never be !@#$ replaced.
Never. Never. No.
...
1600:
(Chews tjbang stick)
Okay, get a hold of yourself. This isn't doing any good. We can't force the issue and we can't beg.
We can show up to the White House and tell him we've rethought, and he needs to fight to get us gone, though. Tell him to go ahead and push that issue with Congress. And while I've got one hand working them, I can go after GORGON with the other. And then there will be no !@#$ way he can fire me.
Yes, that's a plan. That's totally a !@#$ plan. I just have to make a few calls and...
...
No. That's not going to work, either. He wouldn't have called me if he didn't already have them in his hip pocket. He's not dumb. !@#$ naive, maybe, but not dumb.
1700:
Okay. Maybe I threaten to go public with everything I know. The drugs in the water, the number of times we've almost been invaded but did something really !@#$ nasty to avoid it, Deep Ten, the whole !@#$ deal.
They can't !@#$ deny it if I'm the one saying it, now can they? No they can't.
Yes, that's a plan. That's a good plan. Let's see that smartmouthed little !@#$ talk his way out of that...
...
No. I can't do that, either. If I did the world would catch fire and no one would put it out. I'd be ratting on everyone I ever worked with, and everything I ever worked for.
I'd destroy the whole !@#$ world better than all my enemies combined if I did that.
No. Never.
Never.
1800:
Oh dear god. How do I fight something I can't !@#$ shoot? How do I kill something I can't get my hands on?
I'm not a political warrior. Never have been. I got all the chips I ever needed by killing Hitler, and then after that went away I just piled on higher and higher. I played every hand I ever had, good bad or !@#$ up. And now I have nothing left to gamble with.
Nothing at all.
(Another.)
(Another.)
(Another...)
1900 - 2100:
(drunken stupor)
2200:
(Cold shower, tjbang sticks, crying jags, shooting walls, cold shower, tjbang sticks)
2300:
(Thoughts of suicide, pointed reminder that it doesn't work, healing)
0000:
Okay, so I can't !@#$ change things. I can't go back in time and stop myself from making stupid !@#$ mistakes. I can't !@#$ rewrite history. I can't call up any Gods and ask for a massive !@#$ favor.
I do have that black card the salesman left... but we're not even going to think about that. No.
In fact, I really need that thing burned. Direct sunlight oughta !@#$ do it.
I'll call METALMAID, later. Have her do it.
Yeah.
...
Maybe.
0100:
No. No Card. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
(Gives in and brews coffee from hidden stash)
No. No black card. No deals with the Devil. No Gods, either.
I'm all the god I ever !@#$ needed, and I'm enough !@#$ trouble as it is.
0200:
(Shoots through door)
I said no !@#$ visitors! Can't a man think in here?
(Cup of coffee -- halting at first, then fully and confidently. Sighs.)
0300:
Do I dare, then? Do I dare just let this happen? Just me, METALMAID, and Bee-bee against the world?
Well, they probably won't let me keep METALMAID. Just as well. Dumb !@#$ is getting really weird, lately. Let someone else handle her crazy !@#$.
So me and a cat against the world. Could be done.
!@#$, I started this whole !@#$ adventure with just what I had crammed into a sack to go to Camp Rogers. Do I really need anything else?
Well, okay. A !@#$ ton of money. That'll help a lot.
And friends. I still have a lot. Friends. Allies. People who !@#$ owe me.
People who are still !@#$ scared of me, COMPANY or no.
I got boltholes all over the world that no one knows about. I got friends in low places, patsies in high ones. I got everything I could ever need.
And I'm !@#$ immortal on top of it all.
Yeah. I could totally do this.
(Have more coffee, less haltingly this time.)
0400:
And maybe that takes care of that whole predestination trip, too?
Who's to say that the visions I've been shown have to come true? Who's to say they're not just more smoke and mirrors from people who've gotten way too !@#$ good at showing you what they want you to see?
Who says Heaven never lies? Hell does all the time. As above, so below, and all that !@#$.
Maybe this is how I break free from that chain of destiny. I just do the one thing they'd never expect me to do. Give in. Go quietly. Stop playing the game.
Let go.
0500:
(Drink black coffee by the pot)
Okay, so I let go of the wheel. What do I do instead?
Maybe I take the President up on his !@#$ advice. Take the money and run. Go vanish for five or ten years, go take that pleasure tour I've been wanting to have the time for since I really got to grips with this job and realized that I do not get much in the way of real R&R.
I see the world as a man with no cares. I climb its mountains and play in its pleasure domes. I see it from the perspective of a man who's got nothing on his plate but time, and needs to find a new way to fill it.
And when I've decided I've had enough of being a passenger, and want to grab the wheel again, I'll do it. And this time I'll do it my way.
Because nothing is holding me back, now, is it? I am finally off the !@#$ hook. No more late night or early morning calls from people I'd rather !@#$ in the ear with a .50 caliber. No more orders I can't verify from people I can't trust. No more being raked over the coals for failing to save the world according to their narrow specifications.
No more of that !@#$, ever again.
I can do anything I want. I can be anywhere I want. I can use what I've assembled off the books, and make it work for me, now.
I can be the invisible hand, working to keep America safe.
And what the !@#$ could they really say, then? "Oh, we told you to lay low?"
How are they going to !@#$ make me?
0600:
Alright, then. Let's do this.
I'll go to the President with my head held high, not a !@#$ tear in my eye. I did the best I could for as long as I could do it. There is no shame in this. No regrets.
I will insist that Second should have the reins. He's a good man. I can trust him to be tough when it's needed and be sensible the rest of the time. He learned the good things from me. I just wish I'd learned in return.
I'll also see to it that Randolph gets as much help as he needs. Poor guy's still in a !@#$ coma. God knows what shape he's going to be in when he gets out of it.
But let's leave it on a high note. Let's let that energy from the other day keep going. No last words, no goodbyes. No one's going to know I'm done until they see it on TV, and no one's going to know I'm gone until I'm way out the !@#$ door and banging trannies in Tahiti.
(Especially The Dragon. Oh, will I be glad to see that !@#% mistake in my rear view mirror!)
One last walk around the Deck. One last man missile to Neo York City. One last document dump for whoever has the bad !@#$ luck to get this job, next.
One more time for all the old times, before we do something entirely different.
It's morning in my America, finally !@#$ come around to call.
0700:
(Watches the Sun come up through the shot-out windows. Stares right at it, trying to see something there.)
(It's so rare he realizes that he can't go blind, doing that. So rare he watches it as it burbles and seethes like a cauldron, out there in space. Watches it breathe. Listens to it sing to its neighbors)
(Witnesses its life, so seemingly quiet for all that heat and power.)
(Looks around bunkroom. Realizes there's nothing here he needs, anymore.
(Well, maybe that one bottle of Chateau Adolf, hidden for a special occasion. Why not now? If not, when?)
(Takes the bottle and what little he has on his person.)
(Leaves.)
(SPYGOD is listening to 7th Symphony, Second Movement (Beethoven) and drinking one last bottle of Chateau Adolf)
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