12/21/12 - The Trial of the Imago - pt 8.

So, scandals.

I've been involved in enough of them to know how they !@#$ing go, son. And I think the best thing I can !@#$ing liken them to is a bad !@#$ing fart.

Now I know you know what I'm !@#$ing talking about, son. Imagine you've shoveled down half your weight in Indian curry that may have been made from a dead dog they found in the !@#$ing alley behind the restaurant, and drank five bottles of overpriced "imported" beer that may have been bottled next to where they found the pooch for all you !@#$ing know. And, now that you're working on some slimy concoction they jokingly call a dessert, you feel this gassy rumbling and thundering between your stomach and your !@#$hole.

And you  know how !@#$ bad this is going to be.

Now, in a perfect world, you'd get up, wander somewhere semi-deserted, and expel it out of earshot (and, more importantly, immediate noseshot). That way, as long as you don't !@#$ out half of what you ate in the process, you can just flee that !@#$ing stinkcloud of doom like you'd scamper away from some crazy-eyed greenhorn bugchaser at the leather bar.

But then, on your way to the can, you trip over your shoelaces or fail to hold it in for one, crucial second while getting around someone's chair... and then BOOM.

Next thing you know the whole !@#$'s room's filled up with the horror of what you've been eating. Everyone's holding their noses and screaming. Someone !@#$ing throws up, the manager threatens to kill you, and the EPA kicks down the !@#$ door to take you to a containment unit in the name of public safety.

Because's there's no !@#$ question you're the culprit.

Got all that? Well, that's scandal for you, son. One wrong !@#$ word, one wrong !@#$ move, and the stink-lines appear over your !@#$ing head like you're Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon.

And they don't !@#$ing go away for a long !@#$ time.

So, I'd just shoved my big !@#$ foot straight down my big !@#$ mouth and out of my big !@#$ !@#$hole, in court, and it was sticking out so far I could !@#$ing hop to work. The bad !@#$ing vibes were swirling around me like the smell of that bad Indian food doomfart. And I knew there was no !@#$ing getting away from it.

Not this time, anyway.

See, in the past, I could always find a way to !@#$ing deflect it. I could !@#$ing blame it on mind control, finger some third-rate supervillain from the Legion, shoot them full of !@#$ing holes, and call it a day. I could tell the press to shove it and hope some other scandal came along to take me off their mind, or arrange to have another scandal come along.

Now? I ain't got !@#$. The Legion is gone. The COMPANY doesn't really exist, right now. I have no real support structure to get my fine, gay !@#$ out of trouble once I get into it.

And boy, was I ever in it, after that little admission, and that was just a !@#$ing taste of treats to come.

See, I got on the plane for America feeling like a !@#$ing pariah, and wondering when those horse-eating !@#$ers were going to start throwing rotten tomatoes and stale baguettes at me. And I got off the plane to a mob of !@#$ing reporters who wanted to know what the !@#$ was going on, and what did I mean by what I said, and what about Hawaii?

What about Hawaii...

...

And then I went to the White House for Thanksgiving dinner, and wound up having to kill someone after dessert. Which is when everything I'd worked for since the President was !@#$ing kidnapped went right down the !@#$ing toilet, leaving only the bad smell behind.

Which is why I'm in this well-heeled prison apartment, with my boyfriend and my cat, and awaiting trial. Not for having killed that person at the White House, but because of it.

(If that makes any !@#$ing sense? But if it doesn't now, trust me, it !@#$ing will.)

No son, I'm being tried because I couldn't do the impossible in the middle of a war, but someone else did.

* * *

Let's talk about Hawaii. 

There was a cube on Kauai, by Waimea. I sent Mister Chaos, Ironface, and Brightstarsurfergirl there to knock out the Specials around it. And then they were to hold down the fort and nail anything the enemy sent West, towards the Lost City.

At least so far as they knew.

The truth was that I put them there for damage control, as I wasn't a hundred percent sure of any of them. Ironface had a bad !@#$ing habit of losing his !@#$ and attacking his friends, Brightstarsurfergirl gets tied into the whole !@#$ universe and goes flyabout if her meds are just a little off.

And Chaos? Well, his dad, Captain Chaos, was able to cause disruptions in physical laws by looking at something, but he couldn't control exactly what happened. He'd look at a car and want it to stop moving, but instead he'd reverse gravity and next thing you know the !@#$ thing was heading for the !@#$ing stratosphere.

Now, back in the War, when we needed massive amounts of !@#$ing destruction, that was great. But come peacetime, that never !@#$ing worked out too well. I mean, if you needed to catch someone who was in the car, and he went into !@#$ing orbit, well... there you go.

(We solved that problem by partnering him up with someone who could fly, in case you wondered.)

So his son comes along, and his power set is controllable, in an uncontrollable way. He could keep the effects contained within one area, and if anything got outside, they'd be reversed. Which was good because he had a habit of seriously overdoing it, and we'd have to move his victims away to bring them back to normalcy.

So, given their little problems, I figured we were better off keeping the three of them away from anything sensitive. And !@#$, they might learn something while they were !@#$ing cracking heads. Like control, maybe. Or how to !@#$ing pay attention.

But then, after I !@#$ing tell them not to attack the cube, because it's full of kids (not that they !@#$ing know that) they go in there and start blowing !@#$ up, anyway. And that would have been !@#$ing tragic on its face, except that they got disgustingly lucky not too long into the war.

And we owe it all to The Fist trying to !@#$ing kill them from trans-lunar orbit.

* * *

Ironface is crying, now. Black, gritty oil is leaking from his tin and glass eyes, shorting out external circuits as they course down his face and chest, but he doesn't care. He's crying and screaming and smashing things because he can't stop, anymore.

He just can't.

"Come back, sweetie..." Brightstarsurfergirl is saying, flying after him on her ruby board. Broken bodies wash to the sides of the corridors as she goes -- things that were once children, but now only resemble what happens when a small boy or girl is stretched out past the point of skeletal collapse, and then welded back together with metal clamps and bone glue.

Ironface killed a hundred of them before he ripped off one's robes and saw what he'd been killing, all along. Now he's regretting it. 

Now they're all regretting coming here.

"up is !@#$ed this !@#$," Mister Chaos says, looking around, seeing the energies at play, and wondering what it all means.

He reaches out to take hold of the wall, and it gives up its secrets to him. Suddenly, he knows everything, and understands why SPYGOD told them not to come here. 

"off feeding of are kids they...." he stammers, almost in danger of losing his chaostrance, but for the music he's listening to: "kids just. kids..."

There's an explosion nearby, and then another. The whole cube shakes, and it brings him back into the here and now, the then and when. 

"'they shot the pope...'" he sings, letting it all go wrong around him: "'they shot his !@#$... it's over now... that's what I said...'"

The explosions continue. White light falls in from the crack they made in the ceiling when they broke into this place. Chaos knows what it is a split second before it comes down to scour them all clean.

Particle cannon fire. 

And, smiling, he raises his hands to the sky and lets the power wash over him, and then through. Just enough to get a taste of the death he's being denied, today. And just enough to know its shape, and how to bend it.

How to change it. 

And he does. 

* * *

According to the debriefing we had, about a week later, Brightstarsurfergirl comes to a couple minutes later, and finds out that she's alive, somehow. Must be something to do with how she can !@#$ing handle cosmic radiation, I figure.

Ironface wasn't so !@#$ing lucky, poor bastard. She said that there was a robot-shaped shadow up against a wall and a few scorched parts on the ground in front of it. I guess that's the way that goes...

...

So she flies over to where she left Chaos, and finds him !@#$ing sprawled out on the floor, alive and human, again. All around him are children. And they're alive and whole and wondering what the !@#$ happened to them, because they can't !@#$ing remember a thing.

Last thing they can remember, they were coming into the doorway of the box and being told something special was going to happen. And then everything goes mercifully blank. 

What happened? Well, son, somehow, Mister Chaos turned that big !@#$ing wave of destructive energy into something else entirely. He made it heal them all. He made it bring them back to life, in some cases. He made it like nothing had ever happened to them. 

And when he woke up, an hour later, he couldn't stop !@#$ing smiling.

Of course, I ask him how he did that, and he just !@#$ing shrugs. He had no idea. And I don't !@#$ing think he ever will, either.

But that's how the ten thousand kids in that !@#$ing white cube lived while every other kid in every other white cube died, that day. 

And that was somewhere around a billion kids, son.

I mean, can you even !@#$ing conceive that? A billion. People throw big numbers around and no one ever gets any !@#$ing clue as to what they really mean. But a billion?

Hitler killed kids, too, but how many were in that ten million? Not even a !@#$ing drop in the pond compared to what I ordered my people to do, that day.

And you could say, yeah, they were already dead. And yeah, they were. And yeah, maybe there was nothing you could have !@#$ing done about it, either.

But then you look at that, and you wonder if maybe there wasn't something we could have done, if we'd just tried.

If...

...

Yeah.

So, there I am, and I !@#$ing had homicide for dessert at the White House thanksgiving, and the only reason I wasn't in !@#$ing jail, or worse, is because one of !@#$ of an extenuating circumstance. And instead of everyone being grateful and saying "hey, way to go, SPYGOD. Tough choice, tough world, tough man," suddenly people are asking about the White Boxes, and Hawaii, and everything else. 

And that's about when I just know that I ate the !@#$ing dead dog curry and sharted out the mother of all !@#$ scandals into my pants on the way to the can.

Stink lines and all.

* * *

Now, I bet you're wondering what, exactly, I noticed at the trial? That little thing I've been playing close to my chest?

Well, it was just a look between the Prosecutor and the Judge, at some point during my testimony. At the time I really didn't think anything of it, because I was too !@#$ing busy trying to save my fine gay !@#$ from looking like a fool, or a monster. But I did notice, and something made me !@#$ing file it away for later.

So it's a week after what happened at the White House, on Thanksgiving. And me and my man are heading through NYC, and we get set on by some !@#$ paparazzi.  Now, me, I'd just !@#$ing shoot the !@#$holes on sight, but Straffer's a cool cucumber, and figures out some way to get us past them and into where we were going. And he figures out how to tell me by just looking at me, and then where we need to go.

And you know how he looks at me, right?

Well, I remember, at some point, that's how the Prosecutor looked at the Judge. Like they were sharing a secret plan that had another secret behind it. The sort of secret that you really don't want people knowing.

(Not such a secret in my case, of course)

And, a week ago, I got it confirmed thanks to some little birdies in the TU. The Judge and the Prosecutor are carrying on something of a big !@#$ affair, and don't think anyone actually knows.

Now, there's not a lot I can !@#$ing do with that info, now. I can't even !@#$ing bring it up without sounding like a !@#$ing hypocrite, or some kind of wuss. But it means that Jean-Jacques Excephir Geraud, whose ancestors did not like me all that !@#$ing much, conspired with his Prosecutor to put the !@#$ing screws into me when he got a chance.

And we've !@#$ing seen what's happened since, haven't we?

Yes we have.

...

Another drink, I think. This story needs a !@#$ing ending, and that's just what you're going to get.

If only everything was that easy.

(SPYGOD is listening to Return of the She King (Dead Can Dance) and having a Taj Mahal)