12/26/12 - Randolph Scott - No Words But the Truth - pt. 3

11/15/12

Who is Zalea Zathros?


Before today, if you grabbed a microphone, hit the streets of DC, and asked a dozen people, you'd probably get a dozen answers. Maybe a baker's dozen, if someone wanted to hedge their bets.

You see, there's the Zalea Zathros the authorities want you to know: the amoral mega-genius supercriminal who's been on the loose since last January. The one who kept trying to take over the world, back in the 70's, and was so duplicitous and dangerous that even the Legion didn't want her on board.

(That and she probably would have supplanted and killed The Big Man, for many obvious reasons.)

That's one Zalea Zathros, and -- thanks to the authorities -- probably the best-known one. But there are many others, depending on your point of view. And all of them are equally valid.

There's Zalea Zathros the socialite, who was born into the wealthiest family of Lamia, in Greece. They say she only needed to snap her fingers and every servant in the house would crowd around her, asking how they could make her day just that much better.

There's Zalea Zathros the coldblooded killer, who schemed to do away with her father for her tenth birthday, and kept her mother so out of her mind on tranquilizers that she was effectively running the house. Some say this was self-defense, but there's been no proof to suggest that her patrician father was physically or sexually abusive. It's more likely she just really wanted to be in charge of things.

There's Zalea Zathros the child prodigy, who astounded all of Greece by attaining a dual doctorate in Genetics and Robotics by the time she was twenty. They say that she literally rewrote the book on human genetics in her office at the University of Athens, achieving insights that stunned even people like Dr. Yesterday.

There's Zalea Zathros the robotics savant, who created a self-replicating army of humanoid robots in her spare time, just so she'd have time to work on "important things." Zalea Zathros the cloning pioneer, who created a working, fully-adult copy of herself by the time she was 25. Zalea Zathros the mental engineer, who perfected a working hive-mind at 26, allowing her to simultaneously exist within ten clones at once.

And then there's Zalea Zathros the feminist icon, whose third Doctorate -- in Sociology, at age 27 -- laid out a near-perfect blueprint for a genetically stable world. A planet where women took specially-prepared pills to become pregnant, and produce children that were perfect, 50/50 genetic amalgamations of their lovers and themselves.

A planet where men were useless, and not worthy of further production.

Zalea Zathros the sexual revolutionary, whose book -- One Love with No Limits -- advocated the love of the self as the highest and purest form of spiritual, mental, and physical love. Zalea Zathros the objectivist, who found in Ayn Rand's teachings the perfect philosophical support for her ethical and sexual revolution. Zalea Zathros, who planned to create a floating island paradise for her and her female followers (and all their clones), but never quite got enough people on board.

Zalea Zathros the controversial firebrand, who spent her 30's being both lionized and demonized for her achievements and ideas. Zalea Zathros, who, by the time she was 39, seemed so intent on putting her theories into action that Athens University barred her from the premises, and destroyed her equipment for fear of her doing something "rash and hasty."

Zalea Zathros the science terrorist, who -- on her 40th birthday -- unleashed a genetic plague on AU that targeted only men (and women of inferior genetic stock). Zalea Zathros the super villain, who declared that the "Athens Action" would be the first of many "genetic geldings" until the world was ready to accept her blueprint.

And Zalea Zathros, who was captured by SPYGOD after one of her better, subsequent schemes went awry, and spent the next thirty years locked up in a cell in the Heptagon basement. Shackled and stuffed away, knowing that her original body was gone, and all her clones were likewise dead and burned.

Mostly because he handed her a bag with the ashes, and told her to choke on them.

Thirty years, down there in the dark, stuck in one perfect, seemingly non-aging body. Three meals a day and no news of the outside world. Somehow she maintained her sanity and her resolve. Somehow she persevered.

And then came the day they made the mistake of letting her out, not really realizing that she would find a way to turn the tables and get loose. Sure, they took precautions, but they should have known better than to think she wouldn't see a way past them. And they should have known that, given enough time, she'd come and get revenge.

But no one could have ever expected something like this. 

* * *

I'm looking at a live satellite feed from the former state of Israel, right now. Former both because the Imago killed every single person within its borders -- Israeli, Palestinian, or other -- one day, during their occupation, because both sides refused to serve them.

And because it's new owners have given it a new name.

I say "owners," but I really only mean "owner." That would be Zalea Zathros, who has been burning up the airwaves to tell us about what's just happened, there.  

When she speaks it's with many voices, from many mouths. This is something she's done before, when broadcasting demands or manifestos to the world. It's distinctly unnerving and yet strangely compelling to watch several Zaleas Zathros speak and move in unison, which is probably why she does it.

This time, it's just outright eerie and wrong.

Eerie because, this time, it's not a multitude of Zaleas doing it. And wrong because of who it is. 

You see, when the Imago destroyed Israel (and Palestine, to be fair) they blanketed the entire area with their deadly eyebeams. Anyone who was struck by them was killed automatically, with effects ranging everywhere from a pair of holes burned through them to total destruction -- a process that left a puff of ash-cloud in the shape of a person.

The entirety of Israel and Palestine was reduced to ashes, that night. Ashes so thick that they rolled about like sand in the wind, forming strange, pale dunes in the streets and the fields. 

Ashes that, pulverized as they were, still contained enough DNA to do something with -- especially to a mega-genius who solves complex genegineering puzzles while having wild, sweaty, four-way sex with herself. 

This is what Zalea Zathros has done, since the end of the Reclamation War. She has brought the entire population of Israel and Palestine back to life -- men, women, and children -- and incorporated them into her hivemind. Over eight million people, give or take a hundred thousand.

And all of them are Zalea Zathros.

What does she want? Autonomy for the Nation of Atlas, as she has rechristened the area. A lack of interference from the Terre Unifee, or any nations that also choose to retain their independence. The ability to do their own thing, in their own way.

And if they attack, or interfere, or cause the Nation of Atlas any problems whatsoever, she will retaliate by killing a thousand members of the population per "unfortunate incident."

This is the twisted genius of the situation. The memories and lives (and maybe the souls) of all the people who died in Israel and Palestine, on that horrible day, are there, within the bodies she's controlling. We know because she let some of them speak, for a time, before resuming control as easily as slipping a hand into a glove.

And so she is both hostage and captor, using the bodies of those she's recreated to carry her consciousness as she goes about creating her perfect world, at last. 

It's like something from a comic book: how do you strike at a foe made of people? How do you dislodge her from their minds without killing all those people, all over again?

How do you make this kind of thing right?

I have no !@#$ idea. I can only sit and watch and recoil in horror at what I'm seeing on the screen.

And realize that, after today, there's no denying what Zalea Zathros really is, past all her achievements and atrocities, nicknames and titles.

The most dangerous person alive.

(SPYGOD is listening to Phantom Living (The FIXX) and having a Goldstar Dark Lager )

12/26/12 - Randolph Scott - No Words But the Truth - pt. 2

Notes of Randolph Scott, outlaw journalist

10/31/12

It's Halloween, tonight. But right now -- at 8 in the morning our time -- all the masks are on television, turning France into a wonderland.

Human blurs rebuild national monuments and apartment buildings. Dynamos on legs bring electricity back online outside the big cities. The sick and the wounded are healed with a touch, food sprouts from the trees along the sides of the road.

And above it all, streaks of color fly across the screen, like jets with shaded contrails, just one step ahead of the cameras' ability to zoom in and see their faces. 

I've been watching this happen live, courtesy of a call from a source in Paris a few hours ago. I thought he'd bought it during the Occupation, given his tendency to stick it to whatever "Man" he could put himself in front of. But here he was, alive, and telling me I needed to tune into France 24 as soon as possible.

So I did, and I was watching as they interrupted their 1 PM news coverage to bring us what may the most important development in the half a month since the Imago were defeated: the rise of an organization that promises to use Strategic Talents to solve the world's problems, as part of an overture to an actual, working world government.

They're calling themselves the Terre Unifee. Their "interim President" is some short, stout, and impeccably-dressed fellow named Henri Valentin Geraud, who never goes anywhere without Tempete Bleu, who was France's best-known superhero before the Imago took over.

A small man behind a large, well-appointed podium, he talks with reverence about the amazing things his people are doing for France, here and now. He speaks of a place where want and need are outlawed, and wonders will be around every corner.

And then he makes an offer to the rest of the world.

"Join us," he says to the cameras, looking at each one in turn: "Let us put aside all past rivalries and hostilities. Let us clasp hands and celebrate our differences, instead of relying upon them to keep us apart.

"As one planet we have kicked these creatures to the ground, and risen up as one people. Let us continue to rise as one unified planet! Together, we can reshape the world into what it should have been all along, and not what the old powers, run by madmen or imperialists, would have has us believe was the correct configuration..."

That's about as far as I got before I started feeling very uneasy. Not only because I don't remember France actually doing anything, during that war, but also because, once upon a time, France was one of the old powers.

And as I watched these heroes perform miracles, and create a whole new world in front of the cameras and their disbelieving crews, I realized that I knew a few things about this that they, perhaps, did not.

I know, courtesy of SPYGOD, that France never had too many Strategic Talents to begin with, thanks to their Direction Noir being a joke. 

I also know that, apart from that Tempete Bleu guy, and maybe one or two of the others, the vast majority of the ones I'm seeing in front of me are a complete mystery.

So where did these heroes come from? Where have they been all this time, especially when we needed them? How do we know they're going to stick around?

And what price are we going to pay for these miracles?

All the world's agog, and France 24 is claiming that the Terre Unifee already has ten would-be members calling Paris on the phone. And all I can think of is that, given what happened to our Vice President just yesterday, the timing on this is !@#$ suspicious.

And while part of me thinks that it's !@#$ing sad that I think that way, the other half knows better. 

11/9/12

His name is Frank McGarrick. He's 47 years old, married with two adult children. He describes himself as a capital-C conservative (as opposed to a small-r Republican), a Christian, a believer in America's God-given special destiny.

And he's just shaken hands with a supervillain.

We're standing on the side of a hill in Northern Montana, right now. I can't tell you exactly where because, to be honest, I have no !@#$ing idea. We took the long route to get here, today, and when I'm done telling the story I'm going right back by a different route, just to make sure I stay ignorant. 

Not Frank, though. He's come all the way from Santa Fe to be here, today. And he and his wife aren't leaving for anything, now that they've finally made it to God's Country.

Home of the American Secessionist movement. 

So how did this man get here? It's a story that involves a small business, a world without guns, and a squandered chance to do things differently. It also involves an organized group of supervillains who've capitalized on what's been going on, hoping to offer something unique to people like Frank.

A place to do things their own way.

Back in March of this year, Frank ran a gun shop in Santa Fe. He describes his life as quiet and ideal, in spite of taxes and Federal meddling in his affairs. He admits he cheered when the President was apparently shot, as he was convinced he was ineligible for the office, given the "facts" of his overseas birth and "Unamerican" parentage.

(He does, however, refuse to believe that he was a secret Muslim, as so many of his friends at World Net Daily did. I'm sure the President is glad for such kind considerations.)

Then the Imago came, and he was put out of business. Their ban on guns meant he had no livelihood, anymore. And he says he'll never forget the vapid smile on the blue and purple spaceman that had come to tell him in person, acting like he was doing Frank a favor.

He complained at first, of course. You don't just run a business for twenty years and then walk away from it with no feelings. He thought of protests and organizing, maybe marching all the way to what was left of Washington D.C. with all the other deprived gun store owners and traders and letting these "outer space faggots" know just what they thought about their rules.

But after a time he realized that he didn't care as much as he thought he might. Like so many others, he soon became content to watch TV over the internet, participate in milquetoast debates over the course of the nation on what was left of his old, conservative haunts, and enjoy the new job the Imago had given him.

He'd been victimized, just like the rest. 

Once the War was over, and his mind came back to him, Frank was understandably furious. He wanted to grab every gun he could get his hands on and deal with the Imago personally. More importantly, he wanted to re-establish a stronger, better America, where no one would ever take them over, take their weapons, and leave them stupid and pacified in front of a literal idiot box.

And that desire would require a Second -- though some, like Frank, say third -- American Revolution. 

He was far from the only person who wanted that, but his ideas got no traction. Most people were simply grateful to be free, and, thanks to the deputizing of America's Strategic Talents -- and their massive relief actions throughout the country -- no one was starving or deprived enough to be desperate enough to attack the government.

What was a capital-c Conservative to do? Frank decided to throw in with the secessionist movement, which was a major improvement over the old one, as he likes to tell people. Now they've got momentum, and purpose, and a real sense of what can happen when the government drops the ball and lets their country get taken over by outside forces.

Before, the threat was just some vague boogeyman. Now the threat had a face they could attach to it. And it scared the !@#$ out of them that this could ever happen again.

And that's why he's up here, in God's Country, shaking hands and getting set-up directions from a man who, at last count, has at least ten warrants out for his arrest for everything from bank robbery to murder one.

That man's name is Richter Scale, as in the Richter Scale. At some point in his teens he learned he could cause localized tectonic events, just through touch. He probably should have done the "right thing," and turned himself in to the COMPANY for testing, evaluation, and -- one hopes -- a snazzy uniform.

But he could only see dollar signs, fast cars, and women who would actually talk to him, provided he had the other two.

Along came the Legion, who snapped him up well before the COMPANY could get there. He spent 40 years with them, pulling heists and doing whatever they wanted him to, so they he could turn around and do whatever he wanted to do in his own free time. Mayhem, murder, team-ups, pitched battles in the streets of Anywheresville, USA -- everything, all the time.

Four decades of supervillain hijinks, just so he could have his memory wiped, and retire somewhere warm and sunny on money he couldn't remember making. Down in the tropics, surrounded by hot cars and hotter girls, wanted and desired at last.

Unfortunately for him, SPYGOD got tired of dealing with the Legion, last year. He brought them down like a stack of cards. Erased their political connections, destroyed their ace in the hole, put their leader in a medical coma. And suddenly Richter Scale was off the leash and without a cent.

But connections are connections, which bring us to this sad thing I'm watching here.

How many secessionist sympathizers are in the American intelligence community? More than you want to know. Most of them are just the crazy crank down the hall who works for a body that serves a thing he hates, and all his hate talk goes nowhere because, frankly, neither does he. He doesn't get promoted or advanced because no one likes him or trusts him, and he's kept around just to keep an eye on him, and make sure he doesn't do any damage.

Or maybe to have someone to burn, if it goes that way.

But every so often a smart little turd manages to swim in the punchbowl long enough without being noticed. He keeps his !@#$ty opinions to himself, until after hours, and uses what he knows to keep them hidden.

And, after getting enough promotions, he turns whole departments septic and brown.

These turds clump together and have meetings and get-togethers. They attend rallies incognito and make deals in back rooms. They shake hands with people who should be in jail, or shot on general principle. They put arms, cash, and materials into the wrong hands, hoping for the right results.

Which is why, thanks to certain elements of the CIA's old domestic spying program, and what was left of the Legion after the organization tried to burn itself down in self-defense, and SPYGOD !@#$ed on the flames, those persons who want to create a sovereign nation, right here on US soil, now have a place to go.

And this is quite the layout, I have to say. From here I can see impressive, ultra-modern armaments on the wooden palisades, like some alternate-history retelling of fights between cowboys and Indians. Inside I can just make out log cabins with satellite dishes and gun emplacements, and a few other things here and there that speak of technical superiority and heavy firepower.

And everywhere you go, some big, old man or woman who used to be an Operator for the Legion -- back in uniform, again -- is on patrol, making sure their new guests come to no harm.

They're not letting me in the palisade. They know my connections, and what I might do, or what I might say to those connections. But they wanted me to come here and talk to the people who are going into God's Country, knowing that it's going to be their last, great hope to stand against the One World Government that's coming.

(After what happened to Israel, I don't hear any talk about ZOG, anymore. I guess that's a small blessing.)

So I talk to people like Frank, and his friend Charlie, and their wives. I hear them tell me about how they hope their kids will join them, up here. I bite my tongue when they go on about how the world's now a lot less safe than it was before the Imago took it over, because at least we knew they were evil.

I shake their hands and wish them well as they turn to go. I do so knowing all too well that the next time I see them it'll be when I come here to report on the aftermath, and walk through the morgue. Because when it gets out that there's a separatist colony, up here, I have little doubt that Federal weight will be brought down on it.

And even in its weakened condition, there's enough firepower behind that weight to turn this place to matchsticks -- villains or no.

No one should have any illusions, here, and yet everyone's full of them. This is the answer to so many hopes and dreams that so many people have had for so long. It's a perfect little secessionist snowflake, floating down from heaven out of the clear sky.

And nothing is perfect, especially when it comes to things like this.

So it doesn't take someone like me to see that there's an angle, here. Someone is playing these people like camouflaged vioilins. And either their death is inconsequential, or just part of the plan.

I think about all that as I greet another pair of sacrificial doves, all kitted up in duck hunting gear and M-16s, and get ready to wade through another pile of bull!@#$ from the damned.

(SPYGOD is listening to Lost In Battle Overseas (The FIXX) and having a Bitter American)

12/26/12 - Randolph Scott - No Words But the Truth - pt. 1

Personal Notes of Randolph Scott -- Outlaw Journalist:

Woke up early, after that crazy !@#$ party SPYGOD threw by remote. I may have had too !@#$ much to drink, and may have said some things I really shouldn't have said. But I figured they needed saying, and I needed the drink, and if I really did get my !@#$ thrown out, like I think I did, then maybe I needed that too.

So of course, I wake up with a head full of broken pottery for brains. My kids were good enough to leave me some water, some painkiller, and a thing of yogurt by my bed. Thankfully I didn't need the bucket, but they thought to leave that, too.

I guess that's what happens when you grow up serving Supernazis. They expected you to expect !@#$ing everything. One wrong move and you lost parts. Too many wrong moves and they made you suffer before they killed you as an example to others.

So now they're free, and we're together, and sometimes when I go off the !@#$ rails they get this blank look in their eyes and go right into "take care of the crazy man who might kill us at any moment" mode. And I wonder if I've really taught them a !@#$ing thing.

I don't think I'll know I helped them until they leave me for good. And that's the sad truth.

Speaking of servants, it's Boxing Day, today. It's so named because, once upon a time, when the British had legions of servants in their large houses, they'd give them the day after Christmas off. The servants would thoughtfully leave their employers a boxed meal to enjoy while they went out, shopped and ate, danced, drank, and acted like normal people. And in return, their employers gave them a box of money and presents to take with them.

I've always wondered what it must have been like to only have that one day a year to go see your family and be yourself. To be trapped behind a black, Edwardian suit and social role until that one !@#$ day, right after the craziest day of the whole year.

Just 24 hours to let loose, go crazy, blow off steam. Cry and laugh with the people you grew up with.

How must it have felt at the end of that day, when you went back to the manor and realized that you had another 364 days of dawn-to-dusk servitude awaiting? How could that building have been anything but a black pit of despair and loathing?

I remember, when I was a kid, and the final hours of summer vacation were ticking down, knowing that I'd soon be walking into school, again. That horrible feeling of knowing that freedom was over.

Your life was over, it felt like sometimes.

Now they say there should be year-round schooling. They say it'll help get you ready for work, and life. I say kids should be able to go have fun for a few months. No one should be in any hurry to grow up.

Growing up !@#$ing sucks, sometimes.

...

Boxing Day's a holiday in just about every English speaking country. Except for America, of course. I guess we didn't have enough servants to consider giving them a day off. All equals and all that !@#$.

But then, some people are more equal than others. And that's also the American way.

Someone's got to do the jobs no one wants, and all you can say is that you hope they get paid well.

* * *

10/21/12

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

His name is Charlie Phelps. He's 24 years old. Seven months ago, he was a Marine, until the Imago came and told him he wasn't needed anymore.

And then, a week ago, he got to return the favor.

"It was crazy," he tells me, resting on the bulldozer he's been running for the past seven days: "When the fighting started, and we all got our minds back, I kept thinking maybe I ought to go back to the base, get back in uniform. Do something, you know? But then I remembered they dismantled the base and turned it into a recycling center, or something like that. So I just hunkered down in our house and told my kids to play zombie attack, so they'd hide under the bed and keep quiet.

"And then the fighting was over, and all these Imago were falling right out of the sky like dead birds by a power plant. We couldn't believe it. We all came out and watched them sit there, smashed out on the ground. They could look at us, and maybe they tried to talk, but that was all they could do."

No one's sure who had the idea to start pushing them into a pile for pickup. But when they needed to know who could drive a bulldozer, Charlie was happy to volunteer, seeing as how it was his Military Occupational Specialty in the Corps.

"I think that got more stares than the Imago on the ground. Whoever heard of a Marine construction expert? Well, that's me."

So Charlie spent the last seven days driving all over Baton Rouge in a truck that hadn't been converted yet, offloading his bulldozer, and picking up fallen Imago for the Strategic Talents to collect. It was challenging, considering he had to find gasoline anywhere he could to fuel both the truck and the bulldozer, but somehow he got by.

"By the end, we had a pile of those metal ------s reaching up ten feet tall, and fifty feet wide. All of them just staring at us like fish out of water. And everyone was coming by and throwing trash at them. I think some kid tagged a few, and some others were going to do the same. 

"But then the government showed up and took them away, and that was kind of the end of the party."

Charlie isn't sure what's next. The Imago put him to work doing community cleanup, and over time he came to like it. But he says that, should his country need him back in uniform, he's ready to serve.

"Over the last seven months, I've been living a lie," he says: "Now the truth's come back, again. And it's set me free."

* * *

Her name was Helen, and we met through the Free. 

She was crazy and impulsive, warm and passionate, daring and uncompromising. She'd been a hacker back in the time of the phone phreaks, and had kept up with the times. Most of her friends from back in the day were either dead, busted, or working for "the man," as she put it. She alone endured, maybe because she knew when the storm was coming.

So when the Imago had come, she'd gone underground before they could even catch her. She'd killed her internet before they could turn her into an idiot, and then set up shop down below Neo York City. Every so often she sent up a pulse of unfiltered news, going out over the television satellites whenever she could chance it.

We met, and it was like this weird void that I didn't know I had was filled. She finished my sentences, shared my thoughts, and made me feel like I was a part of something, and not just an outrider. 

She didn't care that I looked like I went ten rounds with a sewing machine. She loved the "menagerie" I had with me to pieces. She was willing to risk everything to help others, and me.

She lived for the truth, and said she'd die for the story, too. I just didn't realize how soon that would happen.

It happened during the battle for Neo York City. She stepped between me and an Imago that I didn't even see. It was almost as if she'd know it was going to shoot me, just at that second, and had been waiting for it to happen so she could stop it from killing me.

It just killed her, instead. 

That was over two months ago, now. I'm still !@#$ed up, disbelieving. I still think all of this is a !@#$ing dream, somehow, and keep hoping I'll wake up and find her sitting there, at a computer, finding common ground between underground stories and making them jibe with one another, somehow.

But I wake up and there's no one there. Just my heart, beating a lonely tattoo in the dawn's early light.

Just me, alone again.

 * * *

10/27/12

Arlington National Cemetery

All the way at the East end of the Cemetery Grounds, in the center of the McPherson Drive Teardrop, there's a statue that's visited almost as much as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.

It's called the Torchbearer, as most schoolchildren could tell you. They could also tell you that it's meant to serve as a memorial to every Strategic Talent who's fallen in the service of America -- either during wartime, or as part of the COMPANY.

And they could also tell you that each of those heroes is afforded a spot, there in that teardrop, if they so desire it.

Major Force is buried there, along with Captain Liberty, Lt. Lightning, Captain Chaos, and numerous others who fell during the war they helped win, and the subsequent conflict that they prolonged to grotesque lengths. 

Stone after stone, row after row, all within the sight of the eternal flame of liberty that they died defending.

It always seems like there's been a funeral party here, once or twice a month. An old hero dies from advanced age, a young hero is taken too soon. Sometimes their colleagues make jokes about how long it'll take before they come back, and sometimes they know there's no return from this one.

And today, on an incongruously bright and sunny day, just about every member of the Freedom Force has been laid to rest in this place.

The Red Alchemist. The Visionary. Freedom Belle. American Shield. Mrs. Liberty. All gone, now, lost in the fighting against the Imago, along with so many others. The new heroes who came out of nowhere, as well as the older ones who were hiding in the wings, and the heroes from all over the world who stood side by side that day.

One planet, united, that would not be defeated.

The President speaks first, commending them for their service and their sacrifice. Then up steps the Vice President -- Mr. USA -- who fought alongside them for so long, speaks to their families and friends, as one who loved them, too. Then there's Doctor Power, who barely gets through his speech without breaking up and crying.

And finally, the last speaker strides up to the podium, clearly drunk but not willing to let his state of mind get the better of him. The man who ordered them into battle, this time. The one who told them to stand and fight, and ultimately die.

SPYGOD himself, the architect of the world's freedom, having to commemorate the men and women he told to give their all that humanity might yet survive. 

He looks up at the sky, and then down at the ground. His one eye lands on Mrs Liberty's grave, and he clearly starts to cry, but then he gets hold of himself, takes a deep breath. 

"If I hear one more long-winded pile of !@#$, I'm going to be !@#$ing sick," he says. There's some chuckling, a few gasps. But they should have known, and, knowing that they should have known this, he gathers his strength.

"Mrs. Liberty, she kicked my !@#$ all the time," he says: "She wasn't the only woman who came out of Camp Rogers, but she was the only one who could take me on. She knew right where to punch, you see. It's a skill a lot of people don't get. They get the power and just think it's enough, but they don't put it together.

"She had it down from day one, though. No messing with that !@#$ broad. I saw her take Nazis on and go toe-to-toe with them all the way across France and Germany. No stopping her. No surrender. No retreat.

"But what I'm going to remember the most about her? She knew me. I mean she knew me. When most of you thought I killed the President, and she got sent after me, she was at least willing to give me a chance. She was willing to listen. 

"And when I let her know I wasn't coming quietly, which was as much of my plan as I wanted to tell her, she trusted me enough to let me knock her out cold. And she covered for me the rest of the time, in spite of it all.

"You can't buy loyalty like that. You can't command it, either. It has to be forged, in here," he says, thumping his chest: "It has to be hammered out, day after day. Tempered with understanding. Watered with will. And then shined up with the conviction that you can trust these people you've stood side-by-side with to do the right thing, even if it appears otherwise."

He stops, then looks like he's going to say something else. Then he shakes his head, smiles a little, and pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"We had a bet running," he says, holding it aloft: "If I died first, she had to read a poem for me. And if she died first, well, I read hers. I guess I won the bet, so... here we go. 

"Bit long, but that's Tennyson for you:

 There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

With that, he looks around the crowd. He nods. And then he walks away. 

No "God Bless America." No "Amen." Just the weight of that poem, still reverberating. The 21 gun salute seems perfunctory after that. The missing man formation overhead a distraction. 

The words have been given, to burn in the mind forever. If only our heroes could last as long.

If only our saviors were not so disposable.

* * *

"Fly and be free," I imagine her saying to me as I cradled her body: "Be happy for this."

I heard her say it. I know I did. I !@#$ing know.

But when  I dropped the camera to run to her, one of my kids picked it up and caught the whole thing on tape. Me holding her, her dying, me screaming.

At no point does she say anything. How could she draw breath to speak with her chest in pieces? How could she make words in a mouth full of blood?

I heard it in my mind. I felt it in my heart. But reality says otherwise, and aren't I supposed to be going with facts?

Isn't that what a !@#$ing journalist does?

I don't know, anymore. I sit here and watch the snow fall and wonder if I should take the aspirin and water or just get drunk again.

I'll decide soon, I think. But for now I want to watch the snow, like a kid home from school.

Just that, for a while.

(SPYGOD is listening to Woman on a Train (The FIXX) and having a Gales Prize Old Ale) 

12/25/44 - Le Réveillon - pt. 2

* * *

premier cours

oie rôtie avec farce orange et gelées de pommes de terre

* * *

"Oh man, this is !@#$ing incredible," (REDACTED) says, ripping off a hunk of the massive, fragrant roast duck for himself, just before Faust -- who's risen to carve for the others -- can get to it. The others just roll their eyes and laugh, somehow knowing that's just the way he is.

(Though how they know is not any more certain than this place, here, or how two groups of sworn enemies are willing to sit and eat a meal with one another.)

"Good of you to wait, my friend," Faust says, smiling as he forks him some potatoes and stuffing to go with his duck: "I presume all would care for some?"

"Oh please," Major Force says, making a show of being polite, and realizing that his subordinate just does not care: "You're the one who carves at home?"

"I am," Faust says with a smile, making sure the man gets a good measure of what's on offer: "Well, it's been a while since I've had that pleasure. I've been rather busy, these last few years."

"Same here," the Major admits, waiting until all others are served before having some of his own. Faust serves Lightning, then Heimdall, then Nacht-Maske, and then himself. 

"Should we say grace?" Lightning asks: "I feel like we kind of skipped that part."

"I don't remember whether we did or not," Nacht-Maske agrees, looking around: "We just sort of were drinking, I think. And then the waiters brought the food."

"Well, if no one has any objections?" Faust asks, bowing and looking around -- especially at (REDACTED), who's scarfing down his plate. The man realizes all eyes are on him, stops chewing, and then nods.

"Sorry," he says: "Big family. If you waited you starved."

"I think we are in no danger of that," Nacht-Maske says, bowing his head and delivering it. 

The prayer is a simple one:

Vater, segne diese Speise
Uns zur Kraft und dir zum Preise.
Hilf, Gott, heut und allezeit,
Mach uns bereit fuer die Ewigkei

Amen

"Amen," Major Force and Lt. Lightning echo. (REDACTED) has already tucked back into his food, which -- as the others soon discover -- tastes as amazing as it looks and smells.

* * *

"I just think I've had much of a choice in things," Major Force admits, his mind reeling from the taste sensations he's enjoying: "I was in the Army before the war started. Everything since then's just been a big blur." 

"Why did you join the Army?" Nacht-Maske asks, pushing his plate away, as he plans to save room for dessert. 

"I just felt it was the right thing to do, though... if I'm honest? My father was in it. And so was my grandfather. And his father before him. We've had an unbroken line of men in uniform in my family, all the way back to the Civil War." 

"Which side?" Lightning asks, smiling a little. 

"The right side," he replies, clearly not wanting to elaborate. 

"You know, we'd get along a !@#$ of a lot better if you'd !@#$ing open up more," (REDACTED) says, shoveling down a succulent piece of duck, stacked high with gooey potato: "That's the one !@#$ thing that's bugged me since you joined up with us. It's like we're holding out our hands and you're just batting them away."

"It's not a leader's place to be friends with his men, Sgt," Major Force rebuts: "I have to be alone and above. If I come down to you, then it becomes harder to rise above you when I need to. And I can't lose that edge. Not in peace, not in war."

"I cannot disagree," Nacht-Maske says.

"I can't disagree more," Faust replies, getting some more duck: "I think you need to know when to be steel and when to be skin, yes. But a leader can be both. Especially when men are demoralized and uncertain."

"I'd love to see you ask Der Fuhrer to be soft and meek," Heimdall snorts.

"We don't need him to be. He is our symbol of our nation, which should be the rock upon which we stand. But though we lead for him, we can still be human beings. That's how I do it, anyway."

Lt. Lightning smiles, thinking of the last pieces of advice his father gave him before he went off to Boot Camp. General advice any man might give his son, along with the most important ones at the time -- how to take orders and how to give them.  

And how to lead from behind. 

* * *

les treize desserts

* * *

And then comes dessert: deceptively simple at first, and then more complex.

Plates full of crisp nuts and dried figs give way to succulent, fresh fruit -- the first some of them have seen in months. The apples, oranges, pears, and grapes are eagerly devoured, and then replaced by further delights, most notably black and white nougat, warm spiced bread, and light thin waffles.

Finally, a yule log, which everyone seems to have just enough room for a slice. Coffee, tea, dessert wines, warm milk...

"So..." Nacht-Maske says, barely able to think from all the food he's eaten at this table, this night: "After the war?"

"I'm going back home, finding the best woman I can find, raising a family, and telling my kids to go be better than they started out," Lightning says, patting his chest and wondering how they made this amazing coffee.

"That is all that's important to you?" Heimdall asks.

"Well, let me put it this way," Lightning says: "I get out of this war, I got another one waiting at home. Same one I left, really."

"Is it really that bad for you at home?" Nacht-Maske asks: "We were told you and those like you were all over the place. It's what we're supposed to tell our men, anyway."

"Oh we are, but we're treated like dirt under your foot. Basically, most folks would rather we just stayed invisible.

"Like, for example, back in town? You all are fighting us, and our men are stretched tighter than a bed at bootcamp. But you know what all the soldiers like me are doing right now? Driving !@#$ cars and cleaning up mess halls. They trained us to fight when we joined, but they won't give any of us guns and tell us to go fight now, because the rest of the men won't have it."

"A tragic waste of resources," Faust says.

"That's what I said. So yeah, I want my children to be better than this. I want them to earn their way, but I want them to be allowed to earn it."

"Hear hear," (REDACTED) says: "My people got the same !@#$ when they came over. No one wanted any Italians doing a !@#$ thing for them-"

"Or the Irish," Major Force chuckles.

"Yeah, well, maybe if they got sober enough to work," (REDACTED) shorts: "But at least we could pretend to be something else. My friend Rob, here? Good !@#$ing luck with that."

"So you may win a war here, only to have to fight another one at home," Faust says: "A sad thing. I wish you well in that."

"Not that you're going to win, of course!" Nacht-Maske quickly adds, which makes everyone laugh.

"I do not think the war will end for me," Heimdall says, still working on his spiced Christmas Bread: "I see myself fighting for Der Fuhrer until the day I die. I imagine it will be overseas, perhaps in your streets in America. Or perhaps in Asia, when we finally turn the tables on the Japanese."

"And what happens there?" Nacht-Maske asks.

"I think I will finally meet a worthy adversary, and he will best me. I will die happy to have met him, knowing my death will be avenged."

And he goes back to eating, hoping no one realizes all that was a lie. 

"Ah, that's !@#$ing crazy," (REDACTED) says, cutting some more Yule Log for himself: "I'm gonna kick !@#$ until they say we're done and then go back to New York City. And then..."

He thinks for a moment, and then shrugs and goes back to eating.

"And then you don't know?" Major Force asks, disbelieving.

"I haven't !@#$ing thought that far ahead yet," he admits: "I guess I'm too !@#$ing much in the here and now, you know?"

"I know how you feel," Nacht-Maske admits: "I keep thinking I'll get home to Berlin, and party like there's no tomorrow. I say I'll burn down the officers' clubs with my antics, maybe get disciplined, busted back down to corporal. But I just don't see it."

"You think you're going to die?" Lightning asks.

"No. Maybe. I don't know," the man sighs: "It's hard to see, you know? Ever since I got the power, the more time I spend in the darkness, the more it calls to me. Sometimes I dream I've died and gone to hell, but then I wake up and realize I went into the darkness when I slept, even without my mask on.

"One day, I'm afraid I'm going to forget to wake up."

That sours things a little, and there is silence for a time.

"I don't see a future for me, either, " Major Force admits: "Maybe that's why I can't open up to people, (REDACTED). I feel like I'm just passing through. I don't want to weigh you down with a memory."

"Too !@#$ late for that," (REDACTED) says, and there's some laughter at that.

"My wife will never worry, and my children will never want," Faust says, gesturing for one of the waiters to bring him some more coffee: "I will be the best father they could have. The best husband. And hopefully, in the future, they will remember that everything I did, I did for them."

"I'll drink to that," Nacht-Maske says, and all glasses of dessert wine or coffee are brought together for that.

It helps him forget that his fears are even more bleak and terrifying than he's willing to say.  

* * *

assiette de fromages

* * *

 "So this is the Reveillon?" Heimdall asks, helping himself to a slice of something gooey and tart.

"I guess so," Lightning says: "I had some people back in Paris tell me I had to go to one, when Christmas or New Years' rolled around. Now I see why."

"What the !@#$ does that mean?" (REDACTED) asks, not sure about some of the cheeses the others are enjoying.

"Well, it's a traditional feast amongst the French," Faust explains: "Reveil means 'wake,' which they use because they eat so !@#$ late. You gather your friends and family, and eat a wonderful meal, and stay up as late as you can."

"Does that mean we're friends, now?" Nacht-Maske asks.  

"Aw !@#$ no," (REDACTED) snorts: "I mean, no !@#$ing offense, but as soon as we're done here, I plan on killing your kraut !@#$es. I don't know how this happened-" 

"I've been wondering about that, myself," Faust says: "This is like a dream, isn't it? The sort where you're having lunch and suddenly your first school marm makes you a sandwich, and you talk for hours about something you never had in common, but yet you did." 

"The waiters all have the same face," Heimdall announces, looking around: "The stones are the same pattern, over and over again. The torches make the same swirls of flame, every minute, like the workings of a clock." 

"And you didn't tell us this before because...?" Nacht-Maske asks, to which Heimdall shrugs and has some more of the gooey cheese.

"So this is a dream," Lightning says: "Not a bad one, really. But !@#$ if I know what it means-" 

"It means we're family," Major Force answers: "Brothers in arms, I think. No different than any other soldier, just different sides of the war."

"I like that," Faust says, clinking his glass to the Major's: "But it still doesn't explain what we do next."

"Kill or die?" Heimdall asks, maybe a little too eagerly. 

"Fight and live," Lt. Lightning says.

"Maybe learn something to take back with us," Nacht-Maske hopes.

"Maybe go get some !@#$ing answers," (REDACTED) says, getting up from the table and, once he remembers how to walk, heading for the area where the waiters are bringing the food and drink from: "I'll be back. Gotta take a !@#$."

He wanders all the way down the hall, growing smaller and smaller as he does. How far down does the hall go? 

(And would anyone stop him if he just !@#$ed up against the wall?)

"He's quite a fellow," Nacht-Maske says to the others, once (REDACTED) is no longer visible.

You have no idea, a voice says to them.

They all turn to look at the being that spoke those words. The shock and surprise on their face is a palpable thing.

"How..." Major Force asks, looking around. They are no longer alone: all the waiters that have been serving them have appeared from nowhere.

And they all know them -- every single face is totally familiar. 

"Mien Gott..." Faust says, suddenly realizing something.

In a sense, yes, Werner. But that's not important now. We have other things to talk about, you and I.

Heimdall inexplicably starts to scream, reaching for his eyes. And then- 

* * *

 Der Faust die Vaterlandes and Sgt. Shatter stand in front of each other, shaken by what has just occurred. 

The blonde man's silver hands are gone. Sgt. Shatter's blade is also missing. And everything around them is dust and ashes.

It is as if they were in the center of a bomb blast. The trees are on fire, the snow is turning to steam, and everything around them for a mile is flattered and smoldering.

(Including the tanks they'd come to destroy.)

Lt. Lightning is cradling Major Force, saying things that (REDACTED) can't quite make out. Heimdall is knocked out cold, and Nacht-Maske is picking him up and spiriting him away, back into the darkness.

For a second, the only things in the world are those two men. There's no hate or anger on their faces -- only puzzlement and shock.

They know each other, somehow. Did they meet once? Did they have dinner together, somewhere?

Do they actually know each other's names?

They take a step back from each other. As they do, Faust's hands reappear, as does (REDACTED)'s sword.

The two men look at one another, and their extremities. And then they look back up again, and slowly nod.

"Merry Christmas," (REDACTED) says, reaching out a hand to shake.

"Froliche weihnachten," Faust says, taking it in his and giving it a firm and friendly pump.

And with that -- slowly, and with many looks over the shoulder -- they both walk away, back to where they came from. The war can keep for the night. 

It's Christmas, after all. 

* * *

The Battle of the Bulge went on until the 25th of January, 1945, but Bastogne was the turning point. When Hitler's primary offensive was shattered on the weight of the Allies' air and ground power, it was all the Wehrmacht could do to stumble backwards in an orderly fashion.

It's been said that was one of the major turning points of the European Theater. But maybe that's just how we deal with the fact that 100,000 Americans died to make that happen.

One other good thing: faced with incredible odds, certain people got their heads out of their !@#$es and let African-American men take up arms and fight, which led to the desegregation of the American armed forces. And about !@#$ing time, too.

Nacht-Maske was recalled to Berlin following the American breakthrough on the 25th of January. It's said he had a private meeting with Hitler, but no one knows what was said or ordered during it. All that's known is that, after that meeting, no one ever saw Nacht-Maske again. Not even ABWEHR, after the war.

It's like he vanished into thin air, or maybe something else.

Lt. Lightning survived that battle, and kept on going. After the war, he went back home, got a good job, got married, had kids, became a superhero, got divorced, wrote a best-selling autobiography, got remarried, had more kids. He died happy, surrounded by friends and family who loved him and thought the world of him. He was a veteran, he was a super hero.

He was a man. 

Heimdall surrendered to the Allies after Germany's surrender. Unfortunately, he surrendered to the Russians, rather than the Americans, and they scooped his eyes out with a rusty spoon before his trial. No one's really sure what happened to him, but rumors of a blind German prisoner in a Gulag made for "Super War Criminals" persisted up until the late 70's. That could, of course, be bull!@#$.

No one's sure what happened to his magnificent gun. 

Major Force died at the end of the Battle of the Bulge. He strode into a column of enemy soldiers and knocked them down until a bullet finally returned the favor. He was the last member of the Camp Rogers crew to die in Europe, and would later be recognized as America's first strategic talent.

He never told his fellow STs his real name. They had to find out by visiting his grave.

  

Der Faust die Vaterlandes disappeared into the war, shortly before Germany's surrender. He was last seen defending Berlin on the west, as the Soviets approached, and may have simply been annihilated during their advance. Or perhaps he saw a chance to get away, once he realized all was lost, and went back to Dusseldorf to find his wife and children. One can only hope he found them alive.

Rumors persist of his possible involvement in West Germany's postwar, anti-Soviet Strategic Talents program, but no one from that organization (or what remains of it, today) will confirm or deny anything. 

Sgt. Shatter may or may not have won the war in Europe for the Allies, depending on who you listen to. He went on to do several secret missions in postwar Europe, taking on both ABWEHR and the Soviets. He should have died several times -- due to both the odds and his own recklessness -- but somehow kept on going, as if someone was watching out for him.

Which is why, in the early 50's -- when it was decided that having superheroes running around with military ranks they hadn't earned was bad for morale -- a certain Warrant Officer from New York City was sarcastically codenamed "SPYGOD" by his handler. By all reports, he didn't like it at first, but, by the time he became the handler, the name had become as well-weathered as an old glove, and he kept it.

But why he doesn't use his signature superpower -- the basis of his wartime codename -- is not a subject he cares to bring up, these days.

(SPYGOD is listening to Le Huron Overture (Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry) and having more of that god beer)

12/25/44 - Le Réveillon - pt. 1

December 25th, 1944
Bastogne, Belgium
21:45

At night, in the forests surrounding Bastogne, there seems to be nothing but darkness.

The moon's waxing gibbous, and the skies are clear -- thanks to Patton's prayers, or so they say. But in the trees there is still snow, and when a good, strong gust of wind blows, the world turns into a dark and grey void. A cold and utter emptiness, within which nothing exists but the self, and one's thoughts and fears.

And the sound of terrible battle -- raging even on this night.

Moving silently through those trees are three men, all dressed in winter camouflage. They're some distance behind the front lines, stealthily advancing on the German flank. They have orders to deal with the tanks that the Allied bombing can't quite dislodge, after which they're free to deal with any other targets of opportunity that happen to wander into them.

Like the group of soldiers they just quietly dispatched, here in a slight depression they stumbled right into.

"That was scary," Lt. Lightning says, shaking his still-crackling hands in the cold: "For a minute there I thought they had us cold."

"You had to !@#$ing say that, didn't you?" Sgt. Shatter laughs, making his sword glow a little less.

"Laugh if you want, (REDACTED)," Major Force says, looking at what was left of the three men he battered without even having to touch them: "I told you to look where you were going. We should have died, here."

"Speak for your !@#$ing self, sir," Shatter replies: "Mama's angioletto's getting back in time to carve up some !@#$ Christmas rations tonight if I have to !@#$ing kill every !@#$ kraut in the valley."

"That's not on the menu tonight," the Major says, not really caring for his subordinate's tone, but not caring to yell at him about it here and now: "Where are we, Rob?"

"About a mile away from the target, sir," Lightning answers, looking around: "This direction, I think."

"Must be great to be your own !@#$ compass," Shatter says, making his sword go completely dark as he takes point, again: "I'll signal if I see something."

"That'll be a novelty," the Major hisses: "I swear, (REDACTED), it's like you're blind in one eye or something."

And the Sgt. -- really a Warrant Officer, same as the rest of them -- chuckles and moves forward, wondering how many more Germans he can "accidentally" stumble upon before his CO gets suspicious.

Or how many more it'll take before it's just him and Lightning, again. 

* * *

Halfway up a hill, overlooking the Strategic Talents' objective -- a group of tanks, hidden under camouflaged tarps -- a trio of black-clad men stand and watch.

"How close are they, Heimdall?' asks a tall, blonde man with silver fists.

The small, balding man with the large, complicated rifle looks through the scope again, and then over it, focusing his glittering eyes on the target: "A mile and a half away, Faust. There are three of them, in the trees."

"Can you recognize them?" the third member of the party asks, a smooth, black mask hiding his face -- with two bright stars for eyes -- and an officer's cap on his head.

"They do not appear to be wearing their uniforms under their coats, Herr Nacht-Maske. But one of them is the madman with the sword. The two behind him I am not certain."

"Can you get them from here?" the man with the silver fists asks.

"I can. And with the bullets I have, I can kill them all with one shot."

"Your command?" Der Faust die Vaterlandes politely asks the man in the dark mask.  

"I must admit I am torn, dear Faust," he replies, walking towards them with his hands behind his back: "On one hand, I wish to fight them, and test our mettle against these American heroes. I think it would do our men a great deal of good to see that they can die like any other soldier."

"And on the other?" Faust asks, trying not to smile.

"On the other, I would very much like to get out of this cold and back into the officer's mess. The meal they have prepared for us this night will be a splendid thing, and I do not wish to miss it."

"Are you more worried about the meal or morale, Herr Nacht-Maske?"

"Both, in truth. It would do the officers well to see us amongst them, do you not think?"

"I think I can make out one of the others," Heimdall says, squinting his eyes: "And if so... Herr Nacht-Maske, I am thinking the one in the back is the schwarze."

Faust raises his eyebrows, and the bright stars in the other man's mask narrow and burn colder: "Are you certain?"

"I am," he replies, wondering if the man truly doubts his abilities.

"Well then," Nacht-Maske says, bringing his hands out and rubbing them together: "We have no choice. Your bullets would destroy them all, and Der Fuhrer has ordered that, if possible, we are to bring that one back to Berlin, alive and in chains."

"Really?" Faust says: "What of the others?"

"Oh, them we can kill and arrange any way we wish, though I think our scientists would like at least some of the parts for study. But after the last Olympics..."

No more needs to be said. 

So Heimdall gets up from the ground and, in a few speedy movements, has broken down his fantastic weapon into something a lot smaller and sharper. Faust has unclenched his hands, feeling the waves of force emanating from them.

And Nacht-Maske -- the primary political officer for all of Germany's Ubermenchen -- reaches out to take their shoulders, and then leads them into the dark spaces between worlds.

And then, hopefully, to victory.

* * *

Sgt. Shatter feels it before he sees it. Things get a lot colder, and the darkness ahead of him isn't because of snow.

"Duck the !@#$ down!" He shouts, leaping backwards and igniting his sword for all its worth. Lt. Lightning runs to the Major's side, hands as bright as fire as he gets ready to hurl his namesake at whatever enemy's on the way. And Major Force turns and looks right behind them, knowing that's where the enemy's actually going to attack from.

His instincts save them all from instant death. When Heimdall leaps from the darkness, wielding something sharp enough to slice through the trees on either side of them, it's only a burst of kinetic energy from his outstretched hands that deflect the blow, and send the short man hurtling back the way he came. 

"Wilkommen Sie bei Bastogne, Amerikaner!" Nacht-Maske announces, striding from an impossible angle and hurling burning, black globs of night at everyone he can see. His shots go wild, but they're not intended to hit their quarry -- just keep them off-balance.

At the front, Sgt. Shatter gets out from behind the tree he ducked behind and gets ready to kill someone -- anyone. This is hardly the first time he's gotten to throw down with these super-krauts, and it won't be his last, either. He just needs for the !@#$er in the mask to stop sliding in and out of shadows, that's all.

Before he can get good angle on the man throwing the dark, he hears something right behind him. He turns and sees a tall, blonde man with silver hands -- gauntlets of some kind. And the smile on the man's face makes it clear that he's been his intended opponent all along.

"Guten Abend, Schwertkampfer," he says, hands up and ready to box. 

"Let's !@#$ing do this," (REDACTED) spits, and spins around, ready to test this man's metal against his. 

(REDACTED)'s sword is his will, made manifest by something that even the people at Camp Rogers could never figure out. Faust's gauntlets, by some weird coincidence, are the exact same thing -- taking the place of his crippled hands.

And when they collide-

* * *

"Okay, I know from beer," (REDACTED) says, holding up a pewter tankard in the direction of Faust's: "And this is !@#$ good beer."

"You Americans know nothing of beer," Faust laughs, but clinks his against the man's anyway.

"Are you kidding me? I got enough bathtub brewers in the family to know a good dark when I drink it, you dumb !@#$."

The blonde man raises an eyebrow, and then laughs uproariously. So do the other four at the table in the long and cavernous, torch-lit stone hall they've been drinking in since...

Since they can remember, really.

"I forgot, you all got rid of your alcohol for a few years there," Nacht-Maske says, looking somewhat plain and ordinary without his strange mask: "How could you have done this?"

"Bad mistake," Major Force sighs, having a sip of his own.

"Well, I don't know," Lt. Lightning says, swirling his around: "I think the temperance movement had a point, but it should have been voluntary. You should have had a choice. Not made it law."

"It's always the place of those who know more to see that those who do not are called into correctness, though," Heimdall says, putting his empty flagon down so one of the passing servers can fill it for him: "This is why we have moral leaders, to make us follow morality. Otherwise, we become nothing more than beasts."

"But Helmut, they took away their beer," Faust insists, waving his flagon: "We didn't even do that to the French."

And there is laughter from all parties on that note.

* * *

Hors D'oeuvre

huîtres à la sauce échalote

* * *

"We came up with Patton, when he !@#$ing got to town," (REDACTED) says between bites of oyster: "Mostly just doing damage control at the !@#$ front line. You know, 'this far and no farther.'"

"Further, Sgt.," Major Force chides him: "We'll teach you how to speak English someday."

"Mangiare merda, mafanculo," he replies, making a gesture that's unquestionable in any language. The Germans all laugh at this. 

"I did some time down in Rome, so I think we're on the same wavelength," Faust says.

"And since then?" Major Force asks.

"We were sent to the frontline in order to bolster morale, and provide a counter to your activities," Nacht-Maske admits, still picking around his course: "Der Fuhrer is counting on this being a decisive blow."

"Well, too bad our General knows how to pray," Lt. Lightning says.

"Yes, I heard about that," Faust says: "Did your Patton really make all your fighting men pray for good weather?"

"He did, and it worked, Fist of the Fatherland."

"Well, that's quite the claim Lt. Lightning."

"Oh, !@#$ it," (REDACTED) says between bites of oyster: "It's (REDACTED). I had enough of this codename bull!@#$. (REDACTED) from New York City."

"Werner," Faust says, raising a glass: "From Dusseldorf."

"Helmut," Heimdall admits, his eyes glittering like diamonds: "Strassfurt."

"Heinrich," Nacht-Maske states as he also raises his tankard, smiling as if enraptured by the brew: "Berlin."

"Robert," Lightning says, also raising his tankard: "Small town outside of Lexington with no name."

"How does your town have no name?" Major Force asks.

"Someone burned down the sign on account of it was full of people like me," he says: "So, way we figured, if they don't know what our town's name is, they can't come looking for us. So we stayed incognito."

There's laughter at that. And then the subject changes once, then twice, and yet again, and still no one's gotten around to asking Major Force his name.

And he does not offer it.

* * *

Soupe

soupe de haricots et de jambon

* * *

"I really didn't want to go, to be honest," Major Force admits, his face looking somewhat eerie under the flickering lights of the torches on the walls: "When they told me I was special, well, I sort of looked them in the eyes and asked 'what do you mean?' And then they said that I had one-of-a-kind physical qualities. The kind they were looking for. The kind that could help win the war."

"That's never a good thing," Faust nods, understanding all too well.

"So they ordered me to report to Camp Rogers, and next thing I know I'm getting injected with this stuff, along with five other people. I'm the only one who lived through it, but once I did, well, they fine-tuned it a little, and then brought in more people-"

"That's us," (REDACTED) says, slurping down his soup and hoping for more, provided he can flag down one of the mayfly-like waiters in this joint.

"And everyone's looking at me like I'm their older brother, or something. And all I want to say is that I don't know any more than they do, but the camp commander tells me I'm the leader, so... I lead."

"And a fine job you do of it, too," Nacht-Maske says, raising his tankard: "I've heard of your exploits. Every one of us has. You and that one fellow, Colonel USA?"

"Oh yes," Lt. Lightning says, tipping a wink to (REDACTED).

"I don't know why you always !@#$ with me about him," the man sighs: "He's a good guy, (REDACTED) is. You know he's got your back."

"There's something about him I just don't like," the Major says, shrugging.

"Jealousy?" Faust asks: "Sometimes I find I dislike people for the wrong reasons."

The Major shrugs again and goes back to his soup.

"They call him 'The Death Who Runs For You' on the frontlines," Heimdall intones, seemingly awestruck by the thought: "They say he killed Der Totenkopf at Normandy with just his little finger, just by poking it into his head."

"Eh, not really," Lightning says: "They had a knock-down and drag-out up and down the emplacements, once we broke through. By the time it was all over, neither of them looked all that good. But our guy was still breathing, and your guy wasn't."

"Maybe that's when he used his little finger," Faust offers, taking a sip of his beer: "Sort of like giving a good beast the mercy of a quick death when you bring it down."

If the thought mollifies Heimdall at all, he doesn't show it. But then, his eyes don't show much of anything.

Not to others, anyway.

* * *

Entree

pâté de foie gras en champignons forestiers

* * *

"The way I !@#$ing see it, it's a matter of standing together," (REDACTED) says: "It's like of like family, you know? You might !@#$ing hate your older brother and want to kill your younger brother, and maybe your sister's a stupid !@#$ on top of being a !@#$ and a !@#$."

"He's got a way with words," Lt. Lighting says, winking at the Germans. 

"Just because I went to school," he says, knuckling his friend in the shoulder. "But anyway, your family's a bunch of !@#$ in pants and shirts, and you know this. But if some !@#$er comes around and starts something with one of them? You forget all of that, and you grab a rock or a brick or a broken bottle and you start something right the !@#$ back."

"Because they're family," Lightning says, smiling because he's heard this story a million times before, and because it's true.

"!@#$ straight. Because they're your flesh and blood, and that means something. !@#$, it means everything."

"So you can hate them and hurt them, but no one else can?" Nacht-Maske asks.

"Give that man a prize!" he says, smiling and going for a shot of beer: "When your family's in danger, you put up your !@#$ fists."

"I can see that," Faust says.

"I would follow Der Fuhrer into Hell," Heimdall says with all due reverence: "Before him, our country was lost. We had nothing. No pride, no character, no will. We had forgotten what they meant. And then he came to us, and he spoke, and he showed us the meaning of these things that we had forgotten. And then we rose from the dust of the weltkreig, and became a proud people again. A proud nation. I gladly serve our leader, and our people through him."

There's a moment of silence, and then Nacht-Maske snorts: "Hitler is an imbecile."

"I beg your pardon," Heimdall tries to say, but he's quickly waved down.

"Helmut, you don't get summoned to meetings in the middle of the night and told that everything you understood to be true a day ago is no longer true at all. You don't look at battle plans and see the disasters he makes after the Generals give him sound advice. You don't have to listen to the group of freaks and circus people he calls on for occult advice. I do, because I am your political officer. And I can tell you, the man is insane."

"So what do you fight for, then?" Lightning asks: "Me, I want to be worth something. A lot of folks look at me and think I'm less than they are. I want to walk back home in my uniform, right down the !@#$ main street in Lexington, and say that I came here and fought for you, and !@#$ but you are going to show me the respect I'm due. Not as a black man, but as a man."

"I fight for Germany," Nacht-Maske admits: "I will fight to keep the Fatherland safe and strong, no matter who is ruling it. Hopefully, when that idiot we call a leader gets deposed or put out of the way, whoever takes over will keep it safer and stronger than it already is. But until then, I must be a patriot. It is all I ever ask of those who fight under me. It is all I can ask of myself."

"I'll show you what I fight for," Faust says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a billfold, tucked into which is a photograph. It's of a woman and two children, all pretty and smiling.

"Oh, hey," Major Force says, looking at it: "You're a family man, too?"

"Indeed I am. I've been married for six years, and I have two daughters. They're four and three. And when the first one was born, I looked into her eyes and I said that I would throw myself at a thousand bullets, just to keep her safe. Before then, I just moved through life, even through marriage, as good as it is-"

"Which he never stops telling us about," Nacht-Maske laughs.

"But when you make a life? It's like you had this wheelbarrow of money, all the time, and you finally bought something with it. You finally made a mark in this world. And whatever happens to you, or what you do, or what you think, this mark must continue on. And that's why I'm here, doing this."

"That and the hands," Heimdall says.

And Faust smiles and lets the others laugh it off. But anyone who knew him could see that his teammate had touched a real nerve, just then.

Not anything he cared to admit, though.

(SPYGOD is listening to Zemire et Azor Overture (Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry) and having the beer of the Gods)