3/14/12 - The Last Flight of The Owl pt. 2

"So, where are we going?" Kaitlyn asks the two men in overcoats as they walk out the front doors of her school, each one still maintaining a hand-hold on either one of her shoulders.

"A safe place," one says.

"Somewhere they'll never find you," the other affirms.

"Just for a while," one clarifies.

"Until things blow over," the other reassures.

"Are my mom, my dad, and my brother there, yet?" she asks, trying one more thing before she has to do something she might regret.

"They're all there, sweetie," one says.

"Mom, dad, brother, all safe," the other clarifies.

They keep talking, their sentences overlapping in a rather creepy way, but she's already stopped listening. She's never had a brother, and while she looks up to Thomas (lucky jerk) she'd never call him that. And they should have known she was a little uncertain, and actually told her what she needed to hear.

They didn't give her any idea what's really happening. They aren't looking left and right at their surroundings. And they didn't think to take her out a back door and bustle her into a waiting car, so as to expose her as little as possible.

So no: these men aren't Agents. And this means that either the Government finally has decided to override her family's understanding with The COMPANY, or this is some kind of kidnapping.

(It would be just like Mrs. Fann to try and get her killed, wouldn't it?)

Kaitlyn takes stock of her situation, just like her mom and grandpa Joe taught her to. The men are walking her down the front walk towards the street. They probably have a car parked, nearby, and they're going to toss her in and drive her off somewhere. They may or may not try to knock her out, depending on how long the trip is, and whether they don't want her knowing where they're going or not.

(Either that or they're perverts, and have other reasons for knocking her out. Her mother's warned her about things like that, though she's never gone into a lot of detail.)

She's about to make a break for it when, just her luck, a police officer comes walking up the stairs, maybe thirty feet away, now. She's seen him before: he's an older uniformed cop who comes in after school to give talks to one of the bigger kids' groups about traffic safety and drug prevention.

Nice guy, means well, but not too sharp on the uptake.

Still...

"Help!" she screams, breaking free of the two men's grip and running at full speed towards the startled policeman: "These two men want me to touch their pee-pee! They said they'd kill my kitty cat!"

The cop blinks, and puts out an arm to stop her from running, but she's already changed course, left the walk, and sprinted through the grass and down the slop to the street as her legs will carry her. The two agents look at each other, then back at her, and walk faster.

"Is everything alright, here?" the policeman says, putting himself between them and her.

"Oh, kids these days," one says with a laugh, but not slowing down.

"We're from the government, officer," the other says, keeping the same accelerated pace.

"Bit of trouble with her parents."

"Homeland security."

"Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing at all-"

"That's nice, gentlemen," the officer says, standing his ground and putting a hand on his gun: "Could I see some identification, please?"

"Sir, you would do well to pretend you didn't see this," one says, clearly displeased to be having to stop.

"Very secret stuff," the other says, stopping in unison.

"You would do well to let us deal with it."

"If she gets away, it will be very bad for you."

"Very, very bad."

"I wouldn't want to-"

"Gentlemen, I think you know I have to take what that young lady said seriously," he says, taking a step back and getting ready to radio in: "Now I've asked you for ID. You will show it to me and explain what this is about, or I will be arresting you both."

"Our superiors-"

"Can complain all they like to my superiors," he says: "But the only thing I can do wrong, here and now, is to do nothing at all. Do we understand each other?"

The two men look at each other, and then back at him. They reach out their hands and step forward, in unison, very quickly -- so much so that he doesn't have time to pull his weapon before they're upon him.

Running as fast as she can, Kaitlyn is some distance away when she hears the policeman scream. She says a prayer for him as she runs, hoping to Jesus that he's the last person who has to die, today.

"Mom, please come in," she shouts at her watch, but nothing happens. Why won't it work? Why isn't she responding?

What's happening back home?

* * *

The next few minutes fly by insanely fast.

The family's prepared for this moment, several times. There's been timed drills and surprise tests, most of which have been aced. But this is the real thing, here and now.

The Samuels are leaving the Owl's Nest, and nothing will be left behind.

Mark is getting Owl 10 ready to fly. Rachel is causing all the computers to melt down and self-destruct. And Grandpa Joe is seeing to the building, itself, which will be the saddest and most crucial duty of all.

That leaves Martha and Thomas to run downstairs to collect a few, final things from the safes in the estate's library, and try and contact Kaitlyn, who's not answering her communicator. Neither is Hargreaves, for that matter, though it could be because he's too busy rocking out at the stove on his headphones, again.

(He thinks they don't know, and does his best to hide it. They think it's rather funny, and don't ruin it.)

They've been so busy and rushed that Martha hasn't even had a chance to change into her uniform, and she's kicking herself for not having done so. She feels positively naked, standing alongside Thomas in his full-on Talon gear as the elevator takes them back downstairs.

"If we can't reach her, should I get on the bike and get her?" Thomas asks.

"Would you know how to find her?"

"The tracker in the watch should be working even if the communication's not."

She smiles: "Good thinking. I'll get Hargreaves, and he and I can get the documents. You try and raise her. If you can't, go get her. And you know where to rendezvous with us?"

"I do," he says as the elevator stops, and the doors start to open.

"Good, then-" she's about to say, but before she can get the words out she's smelling acrid smoke and hearing the tell-tale sounds of flames. She's about to ask why the alarm hasn't gone off when Thomas quickly pushes her down to the floor.

There's two naked, sexless men standing in front of the elevator. Their faces are bare skulls with baleful, silver eyes. And they're both carrying very large rifles, which they fire right where Martha was standing just a second ago.

The rapid-fire projectiles are white hot, and melt through the metal of the elevator like it's ice.

Thomas lies flat over his mother, and kicks up and out at the closest target, aiming to disable. The man's ribs crack but he doesn't cry out, much less step back. Instead he changes his aim, pointing his gun down at them.

"One two," Martha says.

Thomas rolls and flattens himself to the floor, allowing his mother to leapfrog over him. She knocks the gun from the man's grip with one hand while slamming her other palm into his face. The blow should have broken his nose, but a hard, clear plastic barrier lies atop the skull. Still, it cracks, though what damage that's done has yet to be determined.

While she's puzzling that out -- and landing a flurry of blows to critical points on the man's throat and ribs -- Thomas has jumped up and performed the same maneuver on the other fellow. He's not as successful as disarming the man, though, and the gun fires wild. White hot flechettes spray the ceiling and a nearby wall, blossoming into flame.

Martha doesn't have to say it. Thomas instinctively pushes the gun in the other man's direction, just as his mother's squatted down to avoid the pulsing, white stream of fire. Her attacker is run through with dozens of the flechettes, and falls down, squirming and twitching as his insides catch fire.

He does not scream. This is perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.

After that, it's just a question of hammering the other would-be assassin until he falls. This takes much longer than it should, especially with the two of them working on him simultaneously. But before long (maybe three seconds too long) he's on the ground with a throttled throat, broken arms, a dislocated hip, and a smashed face.

"Falsefaces," Martha says, anticipating his question.

"Are they alive?"

"They're heavily altered, so don't hold back," she says, tapping her watch to try and raise Rachel and report in. Nothing happens.

"That's not good," Thomas says, trying his watch, too.

"Have to find Hargreaves the old fashioned way, then..."

"The  kitchen" Thomas says, seeing that the smoke is coming from there and running into the thick of it. Martha moves to catch up with him, knowing she's not going to like what they find.

 

Their ancient family butler is lying in a smoldering heap, there by the burning stove. He was clearly shot several times by the guns the men were packing, most likely from behind. His chest smolders and sparks, and blood pools around his legs. 

His music player keeps going, but then those things were made to take a beating.

"Are you alright?" Martha asks, kneeling down to turn his music off.

"Not really, no," the old man says, sighing through perforated lungs: "The nasty things shot my spine out. I'd have given them what-for, but I fear my legs won't stand up for themselves."

"I'll check to see if the respawn's working," Thomas says, about to run off.

"No," Martha reminds him: "I'll see to that. You see to Kaitlyn."

"Well, don't everyone just rush off and leave me," Hargreaves says as Thomas runs to the garage: "It's bad enough I'm going to have to clean up this mess, too."

"No cleaning," Martha says, taking the android's hand in hers: "We've been made, Hargreaves. It's a retreat. We're leaving and not coming back."

The android blinks, and opens his mouth to say something, but stammers: "I... I can't... we're leaving?"

"We are, yes. So if you could transfer to your backup, and help me get the documents from down here before we run out of time, that would be good."

"Young lady, I promised your grandfather that I would look after this mansion to the end of my days."

"Well, you'll just have to look after the next mansion," she says, smiling: "And we are your mansion, Hargreaves. The estate moves with the family. You told me that, once."

 

"I did not."

 

"Yes, you did. It was the last time we thought we had to abandon it? When I was Thomas' age? Remember?"

"Yes... I did, didn't I?" 

"Yes, you did."

"It was a pithy saying from one of my conversational subroutines. You shouldn't take it so seriously."

"Go respawn," she laughs, getting up to go see about those documents from the library. She just has to empty two safes, get their contents upstairs, and have them aboard Owl 10 before they take off. How hard could that be?

She doesn't even see the fist that clocks her as she exits the kitchen. She rides the blow and rolls across the floor just ahead of a stream of white hot flechettes, and ducks behind something both expensive and heavy to consider her next direction. By the time the mostly-ornamental piece of furniture's been turned into smoking debris, she's already well past it and heading deeper into the house.

As she runs, she realizes there were four more of them, back there. She also realizes that not only has the fire alarm not gone off, but that both the perimeter alarm and the alarm that would indicate strange moment in the house have remained quiet, too.

No communications outside the mansion, or between the main building and the Owl's Nest. No alarms of any kind. And a house crawling with armed antagonists.

"I really should have gotten dressed," she laments as the wall behind her is turned to smoking plaster.

* * *

Upstairs, in the Owl's Nest, Rachel sets tower after tower to purge and burn. 

 

All the notes and files on every case The Owl has ever worked on -- many scanned in from the handwritten and typed originals -- are deleted, and their physical data storage units melt down shortly thereafter. No one will be able to read anything off the hard drives, ever. The Owl will be taking all secrets with him when he goes.

"Him." it's really "Her," these days, though the suit's built so that no one would know. You can still tell, provided you can read body movement, but not a lot of Chicago's police force are that sophisticated.

 

(And so far the criminal element doesn't seem to have noticed the change.)

 

But the whole gender issue still rankles her. She was always one step ahead of everyone else in what she wanted, but one step behind what they would allow. 

When she was young, maybe Thomas' age, she wanted to be the Talon. She trained and worked towards that goal, and did very well for herself, but was told that only men could put on the costume. It wasn't until much later that they changed their minds on that, and then only because of what happened to Mathew...

She sighs, stopping in mid-burn to think of him. She tries so hard not to be jealous, and to be thankful of the opportunity to serve that she created for herself, here in the computer core. 

 

Who took the old filing systems and computerized them all? Who turned those computers from clunky, old things to state of the art wonders? Who made their communicators and tracking devices? Who alarmed the entire estate, put in the defensive grids, installed internal security sweeps and countermeasures, and fine-tuned Hargreaves' ability to move between spare bodies?

That would be her. And while she realizes that pride is as bad a sin as envy, she takes much pride in what she's been able to do for the family mission. 

(She especially likes the fact that, in one of the last conversations she had with her grandfather, before he died, he told her that she was the most valuable person on the team.)

But it's hard. Lord Jesus is it hard, sometimes. 

 

When she was younger, she'd watch Martha go out with Uncle Joe, time and again. And she'd realize that could have been her in the suit, if only she'd been born later, or if things had been different.

 

If she hadn't been a girl. 

And now that it's her cousin being The Owl, she feels horrendously jealous. She tries hard to suppress it and not let it color things, and works harder to make up for it, and prays to God every night that the bad feelings will be lifted from her. 

 

But it remains there, still -- a black, oily nugget of especially envious jealousy, wrapped in self-hatred and dismay.

"Focus," she tells herself, redoubling her efforts. She's only got a few more minutes before the portable drive has all the information on it, and the entire past, present, and future of her family's operations rest in her hands.

The drive dings, indicating it's copied everything. She turns to regard it, and sees that she's not alone in the room.

Two naked men with skulls for faces and large guns have entered the computer core. She has no idea how that was possible with the door triple-locked from this side, as a precaution. But as they raise the guns, she realizes who they are, and what they're here to do.

"Nest, protect me!" she yells into her watch as she dives for cover. The lights flicker and go out, and she makes her way over to her desk, where she keeps a number of interesting devices for such occasions. 

She was counting on the internal security to realize there were two unauthorized persons in the room, and work to disable them. But a half-second into her crouch over to her desk, she realizes that the countermeasures she designed have not engaged.

This could mean a number of things, none of them particularly good. She's about to call for help but, just before she can get to the desk, the men overcome their problems seeing in the dark -- if indeed they had any -- and open fire.

It's something of a mercy that they aim for her head, so that she doesn't suffer through the horrible pain of having her extremities riddled with hot metal. But there, at the very end of her life, Rachel doesn't feel anger or envy or regret. She only feels blessed to have served, and hopeful that the rest of her family will survive this day. 

Especially her daughter, Kaitlyn, who -- she just knows -- is not only going to be a Talon, someday, but the best Owl the family has produced yet. 

So Rachel's last thought is a prayer for her life, rather than her own. May she be rescued, today. May she be cared for, tomorrow. 

May she be magnificent for all time. 

* * *

The Samuels' extensive garage houses a number of very nice cars and vehicles, most of which are either highly mundane in appearance, but house amazingly sophisticated gear, or are dedicated crimefighting devices that are hidden in or around the less flashy forms of transportation.

The motorcycle that Thomas is running towards is one such vehicle. It's usually hidden beneath a false tool station, which can be winched up to the ceiling when it's time to bring it out. The winch does its job as soon as he signals for it with his watch, and as it goes up he prepares to jump on it at the perfect moment, turn the thing on, and rocket towards the city.

He still can't reach his cousin on her communicator, but he has her location. She's too far from her school, and moving in such a speed and manner as to indicate that she's on foot and fleeing. With any luck, he'll be at her side in fifteen minutes.

She'll just have to hold on until then, but he knows she'll be fine. 

Bursting with confidence, he leaps into the air and comes down perfectly on his bike. The lights turn on, the turbines engage, and the heads-up display synchs with his goggles.

Then it explodes, right out from under him, and flings what's left of him up onto the air.

He's barely aware of bouncing off the ceiling, and only slightly aware of how hard he strikes the floor. For a moment he thinks about getting up, but then he sees that his shredded, blackened legs are nowhere near where he is.

He could call for help, of course, if the communicators were working. But then the other vehicles in the garage begin to explode too -- one after the other, like firecrackers -- and it's all he can do to wonder if this could have happened any other way. 

"Kaitlyn," he breathes, blacking out from the wave of pain that's finally hit him. The rest is a strangely warm darkness that enfolds him like a too-warm blanket, and threatens to stop him breathing.

 

At some point, he lets it. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Nimrod (Elgar, by way of William Orbit) and having a Lake Shore Lager)

3/14/12 - The Last Flight of The Owl pt. 1

Outside of Chicago, Illinois, over in the Northern suburb of Glenview, there's a large, sprawling estate that's been there since forever.

Built by the incredibly well-moneyed Samuels family, back around the middle of the 19th century, the mansion and its 10 acre, well-wooded lot have stood testament to the history of the nearby city, and the family's not-inconsiderable fortunes. Even today, many people in and around the city work at something bearing the Samuels family name.

Anything to do with trains entering or leaving Chicago is obvious, but there are many hospitals and free clinics that were either founded by the family, or given a generous kickstart in their funding by them. And there are also many missions, emergency pregnancy centers, homeless shelters, rehab facilities, and halfway houses that operate almost entirely on the Samuels' dime.

Some may ask why the Samuels are so keen to give their hard-earned wealth away almost as fast as they can make it. The answer to that stretches back more than 150 years, when Robert Samuels went West from New York City with a portion of his family's money, looking to make a fortune.

By 1847, he'd gotten no further than the Windy City, and no more rich than he'd started out. But a sharp mind and a genius for long-term investments got him heavily involved in the town's railroads, and a good marriage cemented his place in the city's upper crust. So it was little surprise that, before long, if it had a locomotive engine and ran on rails, Robert was the man to go to.

More surprising was that, in spite of his many gifts, he was a totally greedy man who would sooner spit at a fellow down on his luck than help him. "Those who can, do, and those who can't, don't exist" was one of his famous maxims. He refused to hire anyone whose family hadn't been in the country more than two generations, did not tolerate mistakes of any kind, and was known to fire people just for looking "stupid," or being unable to answer a difficult question to his liking.

And when asked of his sense of Christian charity, he said, simply, "God only helps those who help themselves." 

Then, one day, in 1878, Robert went missing while at lunch at a well-to-do restaurant, downtown. No one could find him, and Chicago's police were next to useless in the search, believing he'd been abducted for ransom and that the kidnappers would be making demands, soon. The family made numerous public appeals, but after a month passed it became apparent, to the police at least, that Robert was most likely dead -- no doubt killed by the abductors when he tried to escape captivity. 

Thankfully, the police were wrong, and Robert appeared on his front doorstep three days after his family were told he was probably gone. He was much skinnier, quite unkempt, and dressed only in the raggedy clothes of a bum. And his gaze was so serene it was hard to imagine that he'd been in less than ideal circumstances for the month.

In fact, such was the change in his appearance and demeanor that, at first, even his butler refused him entry to his own home, not knowing who he was. When he realized his mistake, and fell all over himself apologizing, realizing he'd probably just talked himself out of his position, given his master's bullheaded intolerance for mistakes of any kind. But Robert just smiled and clapped him on the shoulder, telling him to never mind, and he went into his home without further mention of the incident.

After he'd bathed, fed, and spent some time with his wife, he told his family and servants what had happened. The police were actually correct: he had been taken from the restaurant -- while using the gents, no less -- and quickly bustled out a back door to a waiting carriage. He was stripped of his clothes and valuables in the car, and told to keep quiet or he would die; his family would be receiving their demands, soon, but they didn't have to follow through on a promise to deliver him alive, now did they?

But on the way to the gang's hideout, down in one of the poorer areas, the driver lost control of the horse and the carriage slammed into a wall. His abductors were either killed or seriously injured, but he was miraculously thrown clear. He struck the ground head first, and having no idea who he was or what had just happened, wandered in a daze from the wreckage. 

The poor people of the neighborhood came to him, not long thereafter, as he was about to collapse in fear and pain. He could not answer their questions about who he was, or what had happened, but, recognizing a soul in need, they helped him. They took him to a nearby church, bound his wounds, and nursed him back to health.

And they named him Job, on account that, when they found him, he appeared as though the world had smacked him down for no reason but God's.

"Job" lived amongst the poor and destitute for a month, working alongside them to gather what food they could and improve their lot. He read the Bible through a new pair of eyes, unbound by what he'd learned at his stately, childhood home. And while he couldn't remember why he would know such things, he gave what fiscal advice he could to the church and the people who lived there, in the hopes that they would prosper.

30 days later, while in church, praying for the needs of others, he received a vision. He not only recalled his entire life up until the accident, but remembered that the horse had been startled by an owl, which had swooped down and attacked it. In fact, the last thing he had seen before he'd flown out the door of the carriage had been the owl, flying away.

He recalled the chapter of the Bible that bore his namesake: "I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls." It was a portion of Job's lengthy lamentation of the state of his life -- a righteous man cursed by God to prove a point to the Devil.

Robert realized, then and there, that while he had been as wealthy as a king in the flesh, he had been as poor as a beggar in the spirit. His gifts and talents had been used shamefully, and without compassion. The poor men and women who had tended to him in his time of need were worth a hundred men such as he.

And there, surrounded by the poor who had given him what little they had, and expected nothing of him but that he give the same kindness to others, he realized he owed more to this city than wealth and industry.  He owed it kindness and charity, without which great wealth truly meant nothing.

From that day forward, Robert Samuels became Robert Job Samuels, and dedicated his life to Christ. He began to put his wealth to work for the poor and needy, and stipulated that at no time should any less than 50% of the family's earnings be put towards charity -- preferably ones they established themselves, so as to retain full responsibility over the money.

It was a tradition that was built upon, year by year, generation by generation. Some say that they gave even Andrew Carnegie, himself, something of a black eye when it came to how much they handed out. And the result was that, while Chicago still had many blights and poor areas, the city's destitute could at least be certain of a hot meal, a decent place to stay, a competent doctor, and a place to worship.

Such was the obvious legacy of the Samuels family. But there has been another, more secret legacy -- one born out of disgust at the almost-endemic crime spawned by the way large cities degrade the mind, body, and spirit.

Since the early parts of the last century, Chicago has been protected by a dark presence: one seen yet unseen, flitting across the rooftops and skittering through back alleys, and occasionally rocketing down its streets and highways. It quickly and overwhelmingly attacks crime and criminals, but also seeks to cure the roots of the problem through compassion and rehabilitation, as well as the words of Christ.

Whether its targets truly learn from the experience of meeting it or not depends on the individual criminal, of course. But in a world where so many urban vigilantes are willing to break crooks' bones and leave them tied up and bleeding for the police to find, only one is known to disable as non-harmfully as possible, and slip small copies of the Bible into their pockets.

And some repentant criminals have said that one act of kindness was what made them turn over a new leaf. 

He is called The Owl, and, both singly and alone, he has protected Chicago -- and sometimes the entire world -- for over 100 years. He has done this without direct supervision from the Federal Government, thanks to a special "understanding" with The COMPANY. And, in spite of what is either extremely advanced age, or several changes of person, he shows no sign of  hanging up his wings, or turning his back on the ethos that fuels him.

As Job, Jonah, and Robert could have told you, when the Almighty calls, you don't get to say no.

* * *

March 14th is a Wednesday. Wednesday means that, by late afternoon, the Samuels family is mostly together, except for young Kaitlyn, who's at band practice at her school. 

"Together" means "working," of course. Grandpa Joe is "researching." Uncle Mark is "fixing the car." Aunt Rachel is "updating files." And Martha and her son, Thomas, are getting ready to "do homework."

(Conversely, the butler, Harcourt, is actually butlering.) 

It takes a full minute for the hidden elevator in the study to deposit its riders in the Owl's Nest. Thomas doesn't really care for the ride up. Not because he doesn't enjoy what's awaiting him, up in the Nest, but because the elevator's one of the few times he and his mother have to themselves.

So, of course, it's the perfect time to nag him about something.

"I just don't like you listening to that kind of music," she continues, maybe thirty seconds away from the doors opening: "I can't stop you when you're not in the house, but when you are here, I'd really rather you didn't."

"I know, mom," Thomas sighs, trying to avoid eye contact: "But all my friends like him. He's a good musician."

"I know he is. But I don't care for his lyrics, and I don't like the message behind them. He's not a good example to young people."

"Well, maybe not, but..."

Martha looks at Thomas, with one eyebrow cocked way up her forehead, and he sighs again, knowing he's not winning this one.

"I just really like 'Lord of All,' you know?" he says: "It says something."

"I met him, once," she explains, putting a hand on his shoulder: "Back when I was close to your age. He talked up a storm about how we had to band together as an army for Jesus and take back the country from homosexuals and liberals, so as to make America a great Christian nation, and pave the way for Jesus' return and rule. When I asked him where it said this in the Bible, he blew me off, and one of his assistants told me I was going to Hell for not believing the truth."

"Wow," Thomas says: "What did he do?"

"Nothing. He just stood there and shook hands with people who liked what he had to say, and there's a lot of them. But he's insincere and mean-spirited and, while I forgive him, I don't think he's the best person to be putting in your ears."

"Okay."

"Is that 'okay' as in 'yes, mother,' or 'okay' as in 'I'll think about it'?"

"'Okay' as in 'if he dissed you, then forget him.' I'd rather listen to Marilyn Manson."

Martha's about to say something to that, but the elevator comes to a stop, the doors open, and he races off to change into his uniform before she can. She just smiles and heads over to the Eyes, where her father's been working most of the day.

* * *

The Owl's Nest is located above the mansion: well-hidden by a number of holographic projections, as well as a battery of sophisticated devices intended to scramble and confuse all terrestrial scanning options into thinking there's nothing above the roof but air. In reality, a beetling, metal structure with notably strigidian lines enshrouds the entire structure, with specially-built light-carriers bringing sunlight down to the building, as though nothing were standing between it and the sun.

Inside is a well-structured, if dimly-lit, network of open platforms and hanging rooms, all suspended above a massive vehicle bay and state-of-the-art armory. Both levels are encircled by a loop of trophies and memorabilia, which document the story of The Owl from its earliest beginnings -- the day Robert Job Samuels was saved -- up until now. 

The Eyes are the forward observation posts, providing a pair of lookouts on the world, as well as a good place to take meetings and receive debriefings. Thanks to the Nest's interactive, totally mobile, 3-D computer system, it also makes a good place to monitor the city, as opposed to the darkened and cavernous insides of the Nest.

Up the stairs from the elevator, up a walkway, and around a barrier, and there, in the long, wooden-paneled section before the eyes, sits Joseph Samuels, sipping coffee from a mug that proclaims WORLD'S FINEST FATHER. While he looks nowhere near his age (65, this year), she can tell that he's actually feeling it, now that he doesn't have to put the uniform on, every night.

'People in motion remain in motion,' he used to tell her when she was younger -- the Talon to his Owl -- and tired of running across rooftops all night long. It was a saying his father told him, when he was the Talon, and his father The Owl. Not that it made the run any less grueling, but it gave her something to focus on other than the exhaustion.

And now that he wasn't in motion, anymore? She could see him slowing down -- taking longer to get up in the morning, a little achier around the edges. But his mind was still as sharp as it ever was, and she was glad to have use of it, here in the Nest.

"How's it going, pops?" Martha asks, kissing the older man's temple. He looks up at her, smiling, and taps a few buttons floating in the air to change the pictures from traffic cameras to mugshots.

"Looking over the arrests from last week," he says: "These would-be kidnappers you and Thomas busted just made bail, today."

"Of course they did," she sighs, grabbing a chair and sitting down: "So we tail them, and see where they lead us. Hopefully it's a step up in the chain."

"And hopefully it's something as mundane as a normal kidnapping," he says: "Fatso's been seen in the tri-state area, again. You know what that means."

"Do I ever," she shudders, remembering the time she went up against the gargantuan pervert all by her lonesome, in a well-lit warehouse filled with gruesome, oversized toys and the broken bodies of his past victims.

"So," he says, dropping the photos down with a wave of his hand and turning to look at her: "It's been a month and a half. How are you feeling?"

"Like I just got handed the keys to the biggest, scariest car in the world," she laughs, leaning back in the chair: "That and the most wonderful."

"It'll be like that," he says: "Just remember, when the darkness hits, and it will, the wonderful will outshine it, given time."

"I know that."

"I know you know that," he winks: "But I'm gonna keep reminding you, anyway."

Martha's watch communicator goes off, and she answers it. A hologram of her son, dressed as the Talon, pops up in mid-air, projected from her watch.

"I'm going to work on the obstacle course, again," he says, adjusting the big, round goggles on his mask: "50% visibility, like you said."

"Do it in five minutes?" she says.

"Mom, that's impossible."

"Loaves and fishes, Thomas."

"Yes, mom," he says, and breaks communication. She sighs, and Joe chuckles.

"Remind you of anyone you know?" he asks, winking.

"Was I really?"

"Yes you were. And I loved every minute of it."

"Really?"

"Well...." he winks, sipping his coffee: "Most of it. But I think you turned out just fine."

"It's him I'm worried about. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing enough. He's asking questions I can't answer."

"They're in the Bible, somewhere."

"Yes, but finding them is something of a challenge, as I'm sure you're well aware."

"If all else fails, just still your mind and listen to your heart," he says, tapping his chest: "Jesus is in there, talking to you. You just have to know how to listen."

"Well... I wish he'd tell me what to say about the question Thomas hasn't asked yet."

"You mean, his real father?"

She nods, looking out the large portal, and the world outside of it: "I don't know what I'm going to tell him. I know he's curious. He talks about his friends' dads a lot. I think he's warming up."

"And you don't want to lie."

"No," she says, looking back: "That would be cowardly and wrong. But how do you tell him something like that?"

"You just do," he says, putting the coffee down and taking her hands in his: "It won't be easy, and it won't be something he wants to hear, but if all else fails you just remind him that he's got us for a family. You're a wonderful mother and a stellar daughter. I think Mathew..."

He starts to say it, but can't finish it. She takes his hands and puts them to her forehead, like she used to when she was younger.

They don't need to say any more about Mathew, tonight.

* * *

Kaitlyn Clutch tries to concentrate as her music teacher -- maybe two more sour notes away from a mental breakdown -- imperiously directs her side of the room to tighten up its playing. 

She'd really rather be back home, helping her mom use the computer to catch crooks, and watching her cousin leap around the training areas. But her dad insisted that she go do other things, outside the Nest, saying that it would be "good" for her. So here she is, playing a flute in a grade school band, and having a woman ten times scarier than any of the criminals they've taught her about hover over her every movement.

"No, no, no!" Mrs. Fann exclaims, punctuating each 'no' with a jab of her baton: "I swear! I have never, ever, in all my years conducting, heard such a sloppy, disjointed rendering of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.' The way you're doing, that poor lamb is being sold as Chops in Behemart! On sale! As yesterday's meat!"

A few of the kids start crying. Kaitlyn just sighs, putting her flute down and wondering when Mom's going to be allowed to teach her something really cool. 

(Thomas had to wait until he was twelve before he could be the Talon. That means she has four more years to go, unless they change the rules again. And adults are always changing the rules, darn it.)

She ponders that sad fact of childhood for a moment, and is relieved when a knock at the door interrupts her music teacher in mid-rant. A pair of men in overcoats are at the door, looking into the room with friendly but plastic-looking smiles. 

"Mrs. Fann?" one of them asks.

"We need to talk to you for just a second," the other says.

"Won't take too long," one reassures her.

"Just something important about one of your students," the other adds. 

They smile in unison, and Mrs. Fann stomps out, obviously displeased to be derailed in her quest to crush any imperfections in her prized possession. The moment she leaves the room, the crying kids are comforted by their classmates, and tissues and hankies are passed around. Kaitlyn just rolls her eyes, and looks at the ground, thinking about some of the things that she's looking forward to learning, once she's old enough. But, halfway through her mental gymnastics routine, she realizes that Mrs. Fann is shrieking her name.

"Kaitlyn Marie Clutch!" she says, all her black and capped teeth showing.

"Yes, ma'am!" Kaitlyn says, looking up like a startled rabbit: "I'm paying attention, ma'am."

"Well, that's good to know, young lady," she says, gesturing to the door: "I'm sure these nice men from child services would like to hear all about that. They're here to pick you up and take you home."

The moment Kaitlyn hears that, her blood runs cold, as it can only mean one of two things. The first thing is that something's gone wrong, back at the house, and government's here to help. 

The second is that the government's here, but not to help.

She quickly packs up her flute, collects her other stuff, nods to the teacher, and walks out into the hall with the men.

"Is everything alright?" she asks.

"We'll explain on the way," one says, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"It's a bit of a thing, I'm afraid," the other says, putting his hand on her other shoulder.

"Quite a kerfuffle, really," one says, using the codeword the government came up with for situations just like these. The moment he says it, she's quite relived, as it means that whatever's gone wrong, the men are just here to help her family through it, same as always. 

"What's a kerfuffle?" she asks, sounding as innocent as possible.

"A commotion," the other says.

"Sometimes a fuss," one adds. 

"Nothing good, at any rate."

"No, not at all."

Kaitlyn nods, playing along, but feeling her previous relief breaking apart at the seams. 

Something is not right, here. Not right at all. 

* * *

 "Ten minutes, huh?" Martha asks Thomas as he leaps from bar to bar in the large, aerial course that makes up the topmost part of the Owl's Nest.

"It's harder at 50%, mom," he shouts down, trying not to lose his concentration. There's nets to catch him if he falls, but if he falls in front of her he'll never hear the end of it, tonight.

"You did worse than last time," she chides: "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," he lies, not wanting to let her know how much a certain thing is bothering him.

She's about to call him on the lie when both of them receive a message from her cousin, Rachel: "Guys, come to the records room. Now. We have problem."

"On the way," Martha says, looking up at Thomas as he executes a perfect move to get down to her level, just as she's running towards the computer core, where Rachel spends most of her time.

Once they get there, Grandpa Joe and Rachel's husband, Mark, are already there. Mark has his favorite wrench with him, and doesn't look to happy to have been called off whatever repairs he was working on, today. But if she wanted him here then it must be something really serious.

"What's up?" Martha asks: "Did you find something out?"

"Okay, do you remember that, four days ago, we got a garbled message that we couldn't decrypt?" Rachel asks: "The one that I thought came from the Eye-Phone?"

"Did it?" Grandpa Joe asks, leaning over his late brother's daughter and looking at the jittery mess of a hologram that she's been working with.

"It did," she says, applying a few filters: "It's The COMPANY, alright."

"What the heck do they want, now?" Mark sighs and leaning up against a wall: "If they're gonna ask us about where he is, one more time..."

"The COMPANY's always done right by us, Mark," Joe says, not looking at the man: "Even after what happened to SPYGOD."

"You mean what he did."

"He means what happened, Uncle Mark," Martha says: "SPYGOD's innocent. I know it."

"How do you..." Mark starts to say, but soon feels every eye in the room upon him -- including his wife's - and puts his hands up in mock surrender: "Okay, fine. It wasn't his style. We can take a number of things on faith, here."

"Well, let's see what they have to say," Thomas says, hoping to stop yet another family squabble over the subject before it starts.

"It's not good," Rachel warns, and then plays it. The garbled hologram regains some level of cohesion, and turns out to be the head of the man they know as Second -- SPYGOD's long-suffering assistant, now something of a fifth wheel in The COMPANY, now that others are running the show around him.

"... in terrible danger," he says: "... they know who you are. They have access to all our files. They know your identities, your hideouts, your families, skillsets, powers... they know everything. And I've received word that they're on the move, in preparation for something that's supposed to happen on the 15th of this month."

Martha and Joe look at each other, and then at their watches. That's tomorrow, isn't it...?

"... I repeat... GORGON has control of a number of key installations and organizations. Do not trust anyone from any government agency from this point on. Get your close friends and families to safety. Abandon your homes and headquarters. Go as underground as you can. 

"As soon as we know what's going on, I'll send word. But for now-"

The message degenerates again, and Rachel throws up her hands: "That's as much as I could get it to play."

"That was four days ago," Joe says: "Rachel, have we heard anything from anyone else? Old Liberty Patrol people? The League?"

"Nobody," Rachel confirms: "And that's really unusual. Someone's usually calling for Martha-"

She could say more, but decides not to. Martha knows why, and is very grateful.

"How much do they know about us?" Martha asks Joe, hoping to change the subject: "SPYGOD always told us that he told them as little as possible."

"If he knew how to find us, we can be certain they do, too," Joe says, looking around the room: "And that means that..."

He doesn't want to say it. He doesn't have to.

"How soon can we be gone?" Martha asks.

"Ten minutes," Rachels says, opening up a panel that no one ever wants to see activated, and looking to Joe for confirmation.

"We're just going to leave?" Thomas asks: "All this? Our home?"

"Sometimes you have to run, son," Joe says, putting a hand on his grandson's shoulder: "It's the hardest lesson to learn. But when we run, we come back stronger, together."

"Oh my God," Rachel says, looking at Mark. 

"Kaitlyn," Mark says.

* * *

Downstairs, in the kitchen, Hargreaves -- the elderly, long-suffering butler of the Samuels estate -- sees to the preparation of several different meals for those headed in separate directions, and listens to his one guilty pleasure on his headphones as he does so. 

"I need your discipline..." he sings, quite-off key as he stirs Rachel's chicken soup: "I need your help..."

So intent is he on getting everything just perfect for everyone else -- and enjoying the one time he can actually listen to his one favorite, modern musical combo -- that he doesn't notice that a pair of naked, sexless beings have teleported into the dining hall, behind him. Both of them carry very large, long gauss rifles, and the moment they've fully materialized, they point them in his direction.

"I see you left a mark..." he croons: 'Up and down my skin skin skin... I don't know where I end... and where I begin..."

Not the greatest choice in last words, perhaps, but the False Faces are happy to oblige him. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Aquarium (Saint-Saens, by way of William Orbit) and having a Goose Island India Pale Ale)

2765 - pt. 4

So how !@#$ed is !@#$ed?

Well, I'll admit it's seemed like forever since we were outside, but I really do not remember there being a big, tall, stark white marble wall wrapped around the !@#$ing place. I mean, I think we would have noticed on the way in.

And if I had noticed that, going in, I'm pretty !@#$ sure I would have noticed a giant face carved into the wall, looking down at us like it just scraped us off its giant, white shoe.

I'm wondering what this might mean when I take a good look at that scowling face, and see that it's female. And then I realize who it is, and I just about !@#$.

"Holy !@#$," I say: "That's Zalea Zathros."

"It isn't..." Mr. USA says.

"It is. Trust me."

"Are you sure?" the President asks.

"Well, I've shot at her enough times. !@#$, I have shot her enough times. That's her."

"No way," Mr. USA says.

"Yes," the giant face says in a loud, deep voice, the stone moving like flesh: "I am."

"Oh, that's not good," the President says.

"That's..." I start to say it's impossible, but I really should !@#$ing know better: "Let me guess. The Compuconqueror came here, too?"

"He did, yes," the stone head says: "And we welcomed him with open arms for the kind gift he brought us from the future."

"Is that what he told you it was?" I ask: "Wait til he comes back, honey."

"Oh, that is no longer a concern," she says, smirking, and I know exactly what she means by that. Kindness is weakness, here on Alter-Earth.




"So the whole city's alive, and they gave it to you to play with. Great."

"Play?" she smirks: "No. Shepherd. Protect. Occasionally discipline. But I reserve my play for... other things."

"Like what?"

She gives me that nasty smirk, again, and suddenly my head's being used as a TV Set. I see the face of a young man in extreme distress, and from the way he's babbling and moaning, I know it's my "friend" Juan, the Alternaut who's been over here since HONEYCOMB ported him through the dimensional barrier.

The view pulls back, and now I can see his head and shoulders. Further back, and I can see that all he has is head and shoulders. That and a bunch of tubes and pipes leading from it to his organs, which are secured and floating under the surface in a large tank of what I hope is nutrients.

Further back still and I see the nutrient bath is a weird shade of yellowy brown, and there are things floating in it. Brown things.

And then, once we're pulled back far enough that now that I can see the whole tank, I see that people are hanging their bare !@#$es over the side of the tank and !@#$ing into it.

A turd drops onto his head, and he tries to scream through de-diaphragmed lungs that just barely keep him oxygenated. The TV show picks that moment to go off, and I feel very, very sad that I couldn't have kept my promise to myself to just !@#$ing shoot him.

"You look a little pale, (REDACTED)" Mr. USA observes.

"Yeah, let's not !@#$ing get into that, right now," I say, looking up at the white face: "You feeling !@#$ing proud of yourself, you nasty !@#$?"

"Traitors and spies deserve no less," she answers: "You should approve. I am certain you have done worse things to the ones you catch?"

"Not like that I don't. Is that what he does, then?"

"You mean your reflection, here?" she says: "I could spend all day telling you the things that he does, but I think this has gone on long enough. You have intruded within my city. Within me. You have harmed its people and broken its laws. These transgressions will be severely punished."

At that moment, the wall shudders, and a number of nude, white marble statues of Zalea Zathros walk right out of it as though stepping out of water. They step forward and stop in eerie unison, staring at us with that haughty smirk of hers.

Mr. USA just smiles: "It's been a while since I got to let loose on walking statues, lady. I'm not impressed."

As if to answer him, the statues open, just slightly, revealing that they're not hollow, inside. Each one contains a nude, teenage girl, wide-eyed and in pain.

Zalea closes the statues back up again before they have time to scream, and suddenly Mr. USA isn't smiling, anymore.

"Can you shoot your way through an entire city?" the face and the statues all ask, as one: "Can you smash through innocents? There are many, many more where these ones came from. You will have to kill them all to get through me."

"That won't stop me, lady," he says, putting up his fists: "You all made a bad mistake, taking our President. Where I come from, that's an act of war. And if we're at war, then I'll kill every teenager on your planet to win."

The President's jaw just drops to hear him say that. I maintain a poker face, knowing it's bull!@#$, and hoping that's just him stalling her in the hopes that I've got something up my sleeve.

And yes, son, I do. We just have to give it time, apparently.

"You know, I like to say that I know everything," I say, holding up my gun in what could be misconstrued as a peaceful gesture: "But I have to say, I'm a little confused about something."

"Given your mental state, that is not surprising," Zalea says through her legion of press-ganged girls: "I'm detecting at least twenty chemical substances in your bloodstream."

"What can I say? Live hard, ride long, leave a pickled corpse. But let's just clear the air, here?"

"That depends on what you wish to know."

"How about 'Why?'" I ask: "What's the endgame, here? The me from here goes over there, to us, hamstrings my friend, here, and pretends to kill our President? Then brings him back here, running the risk that I'll follow?"

"Those are statements posed as questions. What is your question?"

"Well, it's just that it seems a really complicated scheme just to mess with me. There's dozens of other ways he could have put me out of the way. Why this one?"

The mouth opens, and for a moment I'm about to get my answer, or maybe an insult or two. But then there's a flash of light, and Simon Pure is standing right next to me, his silver suit gleaming with eerie light reflected from another world.

"Thank !@#$ing God you came-" I start to say, but then he scowls and hits me, right in the kisser. As he does, my entire life sails in front of my eyes, and I find myself literally reliving every sad and disappointing moment, stacked atop one another like a poorly-curated exhibit in a museum of personal failure.

As the exhibition unfolds, and I see my many mistakes and shortcomings, I keep coming back to a sad, solemn day, close to the start of the 21st century, when Dr. Yesterday and I, along with a few other strategic talents, saw to the freezing of one Simon Pure. After the fifth time I see him going under, and us locking the cryo-coffin down, I realize what this means.

It means that, while we've been rescuing the President, the nice, happy, but still confused kid I unfroze from his life support has fully come to, and found some things out.

It also means that, rather than being philosophical about it, or understanding that we had no choice, other than killing him in his sleep, he's gotten angry at having lost ten years of his life.

And that means that one of the most powerful beings to ever walk the planet is up, awake, and one temper tantrum away from destroying not only me, the President, and my ally, but possibly the entire world, or more.

In some ways, I almost wish I don't wake up. But when I come to, as I know I eventually have to, the scene has shifted.

There is no longer a white wall. There is no longer a city around  us. There is only bare earth, the President, Mr. USA, Simon, and a white, marble statue of Zalea Zathros who's screaming as she turns every which way but back to what she was.

"You wanted to live without limits?" Simon asks, watching as she splashes on the ground like water, and then rises up into a form that doesn't resemble anything so much as a gelatinous, deep sea creature. She continues to scream and shift, spiraling up, down, and out into a dozen other, less recognizable forms in the space of a few seconds.

All the while she's screaming and in agony. I almost feel sorry for her.

Almost.

"What the !@#$ just happened?" I ask, getting to my feet. I can see the President is white-faced and terrified, and Mr. USA is... well, I think the last time I saw him like that was one of the concentration camps.

"He made the city vanish," the President says: "He waved his hand and it all went away, like... like the tide going out. They had enough to time to scream, but then..."

I look around, and realize he's not talking out of his !@#$. The landscape looks exactly like Neo York City would have looked if you just scooped up all the buildings, filled in the basements and underground structures, and left nothing but the ground. I can still see their version of New Jersey, across the way, so I guess his rage had limits.

This time, anyway.

"You are worthless," Simon hisses, letting her drop to the ground in a rough approximation of her own form. Then the marble goes away and there's just Zalea, there, naked and afraid. She !@#$es herself in pain and fear and goes fetal, her eyes bugged right out of her head, and Simon can't resist kicking her in the !@#$.

"I think that's enough, son," the President says: "We're safe, now."

"Safe," he repeats, mockingly: "You do not want to be talking to me about safe, right now."

"Why not?"

"Ten years," he says, turning around so we can see the anger that's practically running from his eyes like tears: "Ten years. Three months. Ten days. Eleven hours."

"And you look magnificent," I say, smiling and hoping he just kills me quick. But better me than the President, and that's how this is going to end if it escalates.

"I don't know what you mean, son-" the President says, but falls quiet when Simon's suddenly up in his face.

"My name is Simon Pure, sir. I went to sleep in January of 2002. They told me they were going to help me, and I went to sleep believing them. Now I wake up and I find out I was in a metal coffin all those years, locked away like a criminal."

"Not a criminal," Mr. USA jumps in: "Simon, you have to believe me. We did it for your safety."

"I make cities disappear in my sleep. Tell me how my safety was at risk."

He's got nothing, and he knows it. So I say it: "Our safety, Simon. You're a good kid and you mean well, but you couldn't control your powers. We put you under in the hopes that one day we could find a way to make it happen. And, offhand, it looks like it's worked?"

"Yes, it does," he says, looking at his armor: "For now, anyway. This suit gives out in ten hours. That gives me enough time to find a replacement, or find someone who can fix it."

"So there's a plan?" I say: "Great? Why don't we just go back to our world, and then-"

"But maybe you could tell me why you didn't use this before," he says, now up in my face: "This suit was in the museum basement since before I was born. You can't tell me it wasn't on the list of options."

"It was, yes," I admit, seeing no sense in lying to him: "But, like you said, it was a quick fix at best. A day, maybe. And it would have been cruel to give you your life back, only to have it be gone again in less than a day."

"So what were you going to do when the day was up, this time?" Simon presses me: "Put me back to sleep? Put me back in that coffin? Forget about me for another ten years?"

"I was going to move heaven and earth to get you the help you needed," I said: "I have connections I didn't have, back then. I have more options. One of them would work out."

"You hope."

"Hope's all we have, sometimes," the President says: "And-"

"Thank you, Mr. President, I have seen your !@#$ing campaign posters," Simon spits, not bothering to turn around and look at him: "And unless you want to change into something easier to step on, I'd suggest you shut the !@#$ up and let the adults talk for a change."

"Hey!" Mr. USA says, putting himself between Simon and the President: "You will not speak to this man in that fashion, young man. This is the President of the United States. You will show him the respect he is due."

"He's just a man," Simon says: "I am..."

"You are a citizen of the United States of America. You are a young man who is expected to behave in a responsible and respectful manner. And you will respect this man and what he stands for."

Simon turns to look at Mr. USA, who's putting as much steel in his eyes as he can. If I didn't know any better, I'd never know he was !@#$ing terrified, right now.

Not for his life, of course. For the President's. For the world's.

Simon just shakes his head, and then waves a hand. Mr. USA has enough time to try and say something, and then he's gone.

Vanished, like he was never there. Even his footsteps in the bare earth are missing.

The President gasps, and I step forward to protect him, gun raised. Of course, the gun vanishes, too, a second later. Then the rest of my guns as well.

"Appeal to my humanity," he mocks me: "Tell me I have an obligation. Tell me to be grateful."

"How about I beg?" I ask, putting my hands up.

"Don't debase yourself-"

"It's what you want, isn't it?" I ask, getting down on one knee: "You want me to humble myself? To say that I'm sorry for abandoning you? I will."

"Too little, too late."

"And I'll go a step further," I say, just as he's about to wave me out of existence, or worse: "I'll tell you the truth, Simon. You were right. We could have gotten that armor out of storage anytime. We could have woken you up and told you what was going on, and tried to fix things with you being awake.

"But we were scared, Simon. We were terrified. And you know why, right?"

He blinks, and takes a step back, putting his hand down.

"It was January, 2002," I tell him: "There was a fight in Steubenville, Illinois. We weren't there too long. You did the things you can do, and the Hyperboys were locked up in no time. I know you remember that."

"I remember," he admits, and knows what's coming next.

"And then someone in town said something rude to you," I remind him: "He laughed at you because you weren't wearing a costume. He asked if you were the mascot. And I know you laughed it off at the time, but you were hurt. I know you were hurt."

"I was," he says, tearing up a little.

"And that night, while you were asleep, Steubenville disappeared," I tell him, watching his face fall: "The whole !@#$ing town, gone. 5000 people, gone. And not only was it gone, but other than the people who'd been with us that day, no one remembered it had ever been there."

He sits down on his haunches, white-faced and crying.

"That was in your sleep. And I know you didn't mean to do it. You're a good kid, Simon. You mean well. But you did it in your sleep. Unconsciously. And we were scared. We were scared you'd do it again. Or worse."

"I didn't mean to..." he whimpers.

"I know," I say, putting a hand on his shoulder: "And I know you wouldn't mean to do anything else, either. But what if you got angry at someone, and made them vanish? What if you got angry at a country, or a planet? What if someone broke your heart, or was mean to you? Could you really be sure you wouldn't fall asleep and make them disappear, too?"

He shakes his head, but he knows I'm right.

"So we were scared, Simon. And every time we thought about getting you out of there, we had to ask if we were sure that, when we did, we could be sure that whatever we were going to do would work. And even Dr. Yesterday... okay, even his wife couldn't figure out a way to be sure."

"His wife," Simon says, his face suddenly going from sad to angry again: "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

He just smiles, and I don't like the look of the smile: "'SPYGOD knows all.'"

"Well, don't believe the hype," I try to joke: "But look, let's get back to our world. I'm going to try and get in touch with Shift, okay? If there's anyone who could help you-"

He backs up, shakes his head, and screams. I try to calm him down but he won't stop screaming.

The world goes white and black, and we-

(Sephiroth - The Clock of Distant Realms. Oblivion)

2765 - pt. 3

So, when we last checked in with Mr. USA and yours truly, we went to the sickening abomination that is Alter Earth, trudged through a sea of blood, come, and !@#$ to the bottom level of The Prosperpinium, found the real President of the United States of America, and blew the happy unholy !@#$ out of the people who'd been mentally and spiritually torturing him for the better part of a month.

I did my best not to shoot anyone who was just here to beg favors from the ultra-white folks, down here, but the fact that I winged a few is not really weighing on my !@#$ing conscience, right now. Conversely, I don't know that Mr. USA held back at all, given how much red he's got all over his face and hands. But thankfully, I think most of the slaves were smart enough to run when their masters were splattered by his fists and feet.

(The clothing here repels liquids better than oil does water, and thank goodness for that.)

I let Mr. USA handle the gentle work, now, while I try to listen into comms chatter and find out what the appropriate response from the city's authorities will be. I can hear the IV and life support being torn off the President, and the moment the gag's off I half expect him to collapse into hysterics and beg us to get him out of here. But, to my surprise, he doesn't.

"Please tell me this is real," he says, getting up on shaky legs, leaning on Mr. USA for support: "Please tell me this isn't just another trick."

"It's no trick, sir," Mr. USA reassures him, helping him walk away from the chair: "It's us. It took us... well, it took him a whole month to find you, but-"

"A month?" the President gasps.

"Yes, sir. How long as it been here?"

"I... I lost..." he shakes his head and can't go on, weeping openly. I figure he meant to say he lost all track of time. And I figure the tears are for his wife and children.

So we let him cry, because it'll be a while before the enemy can muster a response to what just happened, here. And after everything we've walked through, and the horrors we've witnessed, it's the most human thing we've seen all !@#$ing day.

Also the most beautiful.

* * *

At some point, he stops crying so much and talks. 

He remembers how he got here, to Alter Earth, even if he didn't know where he was for a few days. On the day he was going to accept my resignation, a visitor came into the Oval Office and approached the desk, and then something happened. He said he felt weird, as though every piece of his being was being turned inside out and sent somewhere else.

Next thing he knew he was somewhere else, tied up and naked and gagged and blindfolded. Then he was beaten up in a dark room, "abused," (that's all he wants to say) dressed in those clothes, and marched through The Proserpinium in an evil and debased ceremony, with all tableaux and exhibitions going full !@#$ing tilt. 

They put him in the chair, and the people who ran this part of the show explained what had happened, up to a point. They told him he had been taken from The Otherworld (their term for us), and that no one would come looking for him here because everyone there thought he was dead. They told him that he would never leave this place, and would not be harmed, but he would not be allowed to die, either.

But he should not feel as though he were a mere captive! Oh, no. In this fashion, he was as Proserpine, Herself: raped from the world above, and taken down here, to the seat of Plutonian glory, to be treated as a queen.

As a sacred and royal captive, he would spend the rest of his days here, in this place. He would have the esteemed privilege of watching all the glory of the Mysteries unfold before his eyes. And if he came to love these things, in his heart, and truly embrace what was offered, then they would let him out, and he could spend his remaining days as one of the elite.

Was this not the most supreme of honors? Was this not a boon beyond compare? Was this not the gift of a lifetime?

Were they not !@#$ing merciful? 

Needless to say, the President, being the bleeding-heart, overly-compassionate, and generally well-meaning person I've come to know and loathe (and occasionally respect) did not see this as a privilege, an honor, a boon, or a gift. He saw this as torture, and a living !@#$ing death, and refused to cooperate. And he did his best to try and rise above what was happening, or at least imagine he was somewhere else.

Unfortunately for him, they anticipated this. They let him get so far, and then hooked up a machine that jolted the back of his knees at random intervals, just to keep him from nodding off into memories or dreams. He got six hours of sleep a night, when the place was closed, but the rest of the time his eyes had to be open and facing forward, so as to enjoy his special little gift.

The sadistic !@#$ers wouldn't even let him go insane in peace.

He gets done with his story just as I get word that they've sent in the Marines, as it were. Somewhere between 100 and 200 fully armored Police are on their way into the building, now, shock batons at the ready. They chant as they march, and while my Latin's a little rusty I'm pretty sure it's praise for Hades and Proserpine, and a promise of doom for us.

I wonder why they're not sending armed folks. Maybe they really think they can just weigh us down with their bodies until we run out of bullets or steam. Maybe they just have that much of a mad-on against guns in this town. 

Me, I'm not looking this gift horse in the !@#$ing mouth before I blow Mr. Ed's brains out. No guns in their hands mean easier going for us. And right now, that's all I !@#$ing care about.

"We need to end this," the President says, rising up steady on his feet.

"I agree, sir," Mr. USA says: "We are getting you home. I swear to you that before this day is over, you will be with your wife and children, again."

"No. Not me. This whole... obscene thing. This place. It needs to end."

"We'll be happy to trash it on the way up," I say, reloading my guns and noticing that some of the Whiter people we thought we'd killed were stirring and groaning.

"This world," he insists: "We are not leaving these people to this... mockery. We are toppling this government. We are not leaving until we have liberated this world."

"There's no point, Mr. President," I say, looking back: "This whole !@#$ing world's hardwired to be bad. You'd have an easier time winning every !@#$ heart and mind in Afghanistan-"

"I don't have time for your usual, sour nonsense, mister," the President lets me know: "You say you can topple governments for breakfast in the name of freedom? Then free. These. People."

"Sir, I think-" Mr. USA tries to say, but I cut him off.

"Look, Mr. President," I sigh: "I know you read the !@#$ing files on Alter Earth. I was there when you did. And I know you were !@#$ scared of the notion that there was an evil reflection of us, just hanging there, one dimensional jump away. And I am really !@#$ing sorry that you had to see it up close and personal, like this. But you might as well ask me to change the laws of !@#$ing physics. These people were wired up wrong from the !@#$ing get-go-"

"Don't you !@#$ing say no to me!" he shrieks, getting up in my face so fast you'd think he was a speeder in disguise: "You didn't see this! You can't know! You have no !@#$ing idea what I've been shown!"

"Oh, I have some idea, Mr. President. I just walked through hell to rescue your ungrateful little !@#$, didn't I? 

"Well I wouldn't have needed rescuing if they hadn't pretended to kill me to get your crazy, gunhappy !@#$ out of the way, now would I?"

"No," I say: "They'd have just killed you. For real. Maybe your wife and kids, too."

"I do not want excuses, (REDACTED)," he yells: "I want you to obey my orders for once. He's the most powerful superhero we've got, and you know how to break things. We smash this rogue nation-"

"Rogue world," I correct him, gently as I can, becoming all too aware that they can hear the marching, chanting cops, now, too: "Rogue populations. Rogue moral codes. Rogue Gods. Rogue destinies. We have no business trying to fix things here, Mr. President, because we can't, any more than they can fix us. 

"Every time they've tried to conquer us, they've failed. It's not because they don't have the firepower, or the might. It's because nothing they do !@#$ing  works. They can kill people and cause panic, but when it comes to putting a government together, or making us obey, it all falls flat on their face. 

"Our world rejects them, just like your body does to a splinter. That's why there's usually a time limit as to how long we could be over here, and them over there. The universe is trying to tell us something. Maybe we should listen?"

"That's just an excuse," he says, but I can see the wind's gone out of his sails. That and maybe, with the enemy's voices getting louder and faster, he's feeling the time for argument slipping the !@#$ away.

"Sir, please," Mr. USA says, putting a hand on his shoulder: "I know you mean well, I know you feel for these people, and I can't blame you for being a little hesitant to believe (REDACTED), after everything that's happened."

"Thanks, (REDACTED)," I tell him.

"But, sir, he's right. There is nothing we can do, here. We're in Hell, right now, and these people are condemned. There's no saving them. The best thing we can do is leave."

The President looks at me, then back at him, and sighs, nodding. 

Just then one of the half-dead, whiter folks raises up a little bit and, gurgling blood, lets the President know exactly how disappointed she was in him. How dare he turn his back on this most glorious of opportunities? Did he not understand how lucky he was to be seeing these things, down here, day in and day out?

"We should have killed you when you arrived, you fucking worm," the lady says: "May Hades grind your shade to paste, the better to soothe his sore feet on the worthless jelly of your soul."

Something in the President's eyes changes, just then. He goes from being angry at me for denying him a greater, seemingly more noble kind of revenge to being angry at the people who did this to him in the first place. Being that this is an excellent development, I hand the President the only gun I carry that won't break his wrist if he fires it. 

And I feel very !@#$ good to see him take it, walk over to that lady, and fire it at her face until there's no bullets in the gun, and no face on her skull. 

He stands there, looking down at her for a while. I let him. And then, when we really can't wait any longer, and I don't need super senses to know that the cops have run down to the 5th level, I walk back over, gently take the gun from his hands, and tell him what the plan is.

Not that it's a really great plan, or anything. It involves him staying right behind me, and us standing behind Mr. USA. Quite some distance behind Mr. USA, in fact, so he can take them out for us. 

Unsurprisingly, he's okay with this. So I put my off arm around his shoulder, pull out a gun that I keep for just such one-handed occasions, and give Mr. USA my special, little smile.

"Still want to kill the whole !@#$ing town?" I ask, just as a sea of white-armored cops turns the corner of the 6th and last level, thundering down at us as fast as their burdened legs will take them, and screaming at the top of their lungs.

"And how," he says, and, rolling up his sleeves, walks towards them very !@#$ing quickly.

The rest is white and red.

* * *

One thing that a lot of people don't know is that, while everyone swears they watched lots of Movietone news footage of Mr. USA (known as Captain Courage, back then, they actually didn't. 

Sure, the newsreels said it was him. And there were a lot of shots of him with the troops, before and after the battle. They really liked the ones where he was showing mercy to captured Germans, and accepting surrenders on behalf of the Generals.

But the bits where you actually saw him in action? Leaping into firefights and running between explosions, and picking things up and throwing them? Stopping tanks with a punch and laughing off bullets and shells?

Sorry to disappoint you all, but that was not him. That was an actor in a costume. Those battle scenes were staged well behind the lines, and the German tanks were captured. And the captured Germans were either Allied soldiers dressed up (usually the French, just to !@#$ them off), or out of work actors who'd followed the movietones to do work on propaganda just like this.

The reason is that, in an occasional moment of clarity, the Allied Command realized that it would be a very !@#$ing bad thing if the folks back home saw Captain Courage, Lieutenant Lightning, or any of the other Strategic Talents actually fighting. It would be hard to capture on film, for one, and really dangerous to be around.

And for another, it would be !@#$ing disgusting.

Why? Well, son, let's put it this way. You've heard me talk about how strategic talents liked to take tanks, artillery, and other battlefield objects and toss them around, but do you know what that really means?

Let's take a Panzer IV. They weigh about 25 tons? A ton is 2000 pounds. 

And how much do you weigh? Maybe 200 pounds? And maybe your friends are around that weight, too?

Okay. So imagine maybe ten of your fat!@#$, World of Warcraft-addicted computer friends, sitting in chairs pretending to be researching but really looking at internet porn. That's one ton.

Now multiply that by 25. That means 250 WOW junkies, all sitting around wondering if Leroy !@#$ing Jenkins is going to show up and !@#$-!@#$ their dungeon crawl.

Now imagine a person coming along, and picking all 250 of your friends up, over his head, and throwing them about a quarter of a mile. Hard.

Have you ever seen what a 50. caliber bullet does to a man's head, or body? Imagine something with a !@#$ton more destructive force going through an enemy soldier. 

Imagine slapping someone out of the way and seeing the center of their body just collapse into mush.

Imagine missing when punching at someone's head, but still causing a nasty, skull-rattling concussion, just like a near miss of a large bullet. 

Imagine being able to shrug off all conventional small arms fire, and only being knocked down, or just back, by artillery shells. 

Imagine only having to be worried about other Strategic Talents, which, as the war rages on, get fewer and fewer, and aren't replaced as fast as they once could have been. Which means that, after a while, you really don't feel the need to be all that !@#$ing careful.

And imagine that, when you aren't careful, losing all control on the battlefield becomes extremely !@#$ing easy. 

That, son, is why you never saw film of Mr. USA fighting. Not only did he not play nice, or fair, he didn't leave any Germans alive to surrender to him. Not because he's an evil mother!@#$er, or thinks the Geneva Convention was made for him to wipe his !@#$ty !@#$ on. But because in the heat of the fight, without any U-Men to slow him down, he would kill anywhere from 100 to 500 of the enemy in less than a minute, without even realizing he'd done it.

After a battle, I got drunk to celebrate, or honor the dead. He got drunk to stop seeing the faces of the dead, staring up at him, as though the vision of his world-destroying, near-godhood had been the most mind-blowing thing they'd seen in this life.

That and, just maybe, the last thought to run through their heads was how sorry they were to have not prayed to him for mercy, or deliverance. 

That's what we just sent up ahead of us. Right now, we're carefully walking through what little he's left behind. Every so often I shoot someone who looks like they're on the wrong side of dead or dying, and I recognize that they've got the same look as those German soldiers, back during the War.

The President doesn't know why I'm laughing. It's just nostalgia, really.

I hope so, anyway. 

* * *

The trip up seems a lot slower than the trip down was, oddly enough. Maybe it's because I spent so much of the way down in a daze, trying to convince myself to keep living through it. And maybe because I really want to get the !@#$ out of here.

The President makes most the journey with his eyes squinted or shut. I don't blame him. It's bad enough he can hear what we're walking through, but seeing the occasional remnant of what was left behind in the various alcoves and tableaux on the way down is nothing short of nauseating.

"Should have !@#$ing brought a flamethrower," I mutter after passing the area where the young boy's !@#$-stuffed mouth was being used as a jerk-off sleeve. The only salvation is that the couple that didn't want to be rude or anything was lying there, trampled to death in each other's !@#$-stained arms.

(And, yes, I shot them both in the noggin, on principle.)

By the time we did get all the way up to the top floor, I was smiling. Not long now, I thought. We'd call for Simon, he'd come get us, and then we'd be home, quicker than goose out of a !@#$'s butt.

But then I see Mr. USA, standing just inside the portico, by a statue of Hades mouth-banging Proserpine. He looks back at me, and sighs.

And then I look past him, and realize that we are, indeed, quite !@#$ed.

(Sephiroth - Uthul Khulture. And no, still no drinks)