12/27/12 - Straffer - One Look Up I Can See Down - pt. 3.1

11/7/12

Mount Sinai Hospital has an amazing secret, hidden behind an ordinary-looking pair of swinging doors.

To get to that secret, you must be clean. You must walk down a hallway that has been specially built to detect any pollutants, toxins, or dangerous substances. If your scan comes up "red," the hallway shuts down, and a force wall pushes you back to its start, like an angry wind that will not take "no" for an answer.

The things on the other side of those doors are delicate, fragile. They require constant maintenance and upgrading. And the men and women who tend to those things have no time for dirt or dust, or anything that might cause a problem for their patients.

Their patients are very grateful for this, or so I am told. I was only allowed to see one of them, today. But then, this man is the star attraction on this day.

Director Straffer, formerly of Deep-Ten: the massive, trans-lunar weapons platform that ringed our Earth and Moon, and protected both from invasion for decades. For all that time, he watched out for us, up until the Imago attempted to kill him and take his place, and then used that platform for their own evil and destructive ends.

But then -- after surviving a fall from there to the Moon -- this man came back to return the favor, and destroyed Deep-Ten.

Some say this may have won our war against the Imago. If so, today I speak to a war hero, about to be given the best honor any such man could be given.

For today, the doctors and scientists of  this place will be wheeling what's left of him from his room, and taking him into a surgical suite so advanced it makes terms like "state of the art" trite and useless. There, over the course of a day, they will labor to make a true miracle.

Over the door of that surgery are the words Melior, Ocior, Fortifor. "Better, Faster, Stronger" -- the motto of Mt. Sinai's Cybernetic Prosthesis Surgery.

Words that will be at the forefront of their minds as they rebuild this man.

* * *

"So let me explain what's going to happen, today," the barrel-chested chief of Surgery says to his patient and his lover, pointing to a high-tech diagram he's printed out: "Before we do anything, we're going to go directly into your cranium, and replace the existing conduits in your neural matter-"

"You can do that?" Straffer asks, cocking an eyebrow. SPYGOD -- ever nearby, today -- gets the feeling that if his lover still had hands, they'd be squeezing his for all they were worth.

The chief smiles: "Been able to do that for about a decade, now. Advances in medical nanotech have been nothing short of astounding. Thought you'd have kept up with that?"

"Well, not really," Straffer admits: "After the last surgery I had, in the early 90's, I was told this was really as good as it was going to get."

"Well, that's the Space Service for you," the man winks, getting up and walking over to put the diagrams on a lit panel, up on the wall: "Think we both know how that goes. We can do better for you. We're going to."

"And if they don't, I'll put lead in his !@#$ing noggin so quick he'll be in Hell before the !@#$ Devil knows he's there," SPYGOD whispers into Straffer's ear.

"Heard that..." the man says, not turning around.

"You'll have to pardon my boyfriend," Straffer chuckles, rolling his eyes: "He wants me up and out of here as soon as possible."

"So do I, frankly," he says, coming back with some new diagrams: "You're a great patient, but I'm kind of tired of having my staff threatened and shot at."

"Sorry," SPYGOD lies, shrugging.

The man smiles, somewhat weakly, and then goes back to explaining the wonder they're going to perform, today.

* * *

Up in the observational theater, I look down at a bare room. No banks of machinery, no life support systems, no pallets of surgical tools. Just a plain white room with a plain white floor, seeming grey and misty under the dim lights.

Then the doctors and technicians come in, and everything changes.

The room is washed in brightness as lights glare, and then dim. Things begin to appear around them: cabinets and tables push up from the floor, light fixtures slide out from the walls, and 3-D screens float in the air. 

Finally, a table appears: a table with a white, metal square looped around it. One of the technicians tests to make certain it has free movement -- sliding it from one end of the table to the other, smooth as glass. Someone else tests the various tanks that sit under that table: reservoirs of mineral and biological material, all hooked up to the metal square. 

There's a bustle of movement from the doors, and a small tray is wheeled in. On top of that tray is the patient -- a head, still plugged into his batteries and nutrient tanks. 

And still wide awake, because they will need him to be fully conscious for what happens next. 

There will be two things going on, here, today. They will happen at the same time. If everything goes well, they will also be ready for each other at the same time. 

And in this case, they cannot do any less than well. They cannot mess this up. They cannot do this over. If it does not work the first time, when they get into the more delicate (and dangerous) part of the operation, there will be no going back.

So they check everything one more time, and then yet another. The equipment, the patient, their screens, themselves. Everything and everyone is double-checked, just to be sure, and then checked one more time to be absolutely certain. 

And then, when they are as sure as they're ever going to be, they all nod to one another, and start building an enhanced human.

* * *

"Wow," Straffer says as they sit in the waiting room, waiting for the doctors to finish conferring in the next room over: "Just... wow."

"!@#$ing tell me about it," SPYGOD says, tousling his lover's hair: "I thought your old body was something amazing, but this... I had no idea they'd come this !@#$ far."

"And that's you saying it."

"Right, so that's saying something."

They both laugh at the joke, weak as it is, and then go back to snuggling, such as they can.

"Like comparing an edsel to a formula 1 racer," Straffer says.

"A cannon to a minigun," SPYGOD continues: "You're going to be the prettiest !@#$ing man this side of the Atlantic."

"And the most enhanced. I mean... !@#$."

"Are you worried, at all?" SPYGOD asks: "I mean, about the operation."

"Not at all," Straffer says: "I really just wish they'd get on with it. The waiting's what's driving me crazy."

"Well, it's going to be a long haul in there."

"I know, believe me. I think they've got it all timed out and planned, even the cigarette breaks."

"Never a bad idea," SPYGOD winks, revealing that he brought a flask of whiskey: "Speaking of which, want a hit?"

"Is that Wild Turkey?"

"You know it. Your favorite."

"Oh !@#$ yes," Straffer replies, and greedily laps down a few drops as his lover drops them on his tongue. He closes his eyes as he does this, eager for the sensations that will quickly come, and leave just as swiftly -- filtered out with mechanical precision by the machine acting as his liver.

"Not too !@#$ much," SPYGOD says, hiding the flask: "They need you running on all four !@#$ing cylinders, I think."

"I'm good," Straffer says: "This blood scrubber's pretty fast. Too fast, really."

"Makes you !@#$ing wonder what the new one's going to be like, eh?"

"Oh, they better let me get drunk," Straffer says, looking up at him: "I want to be drunk with you. I want to feel like my belly's about to explode after a good meal."

"And after a good !@#$?" SPYGOD asks, grinning

"Like I'm about to explode," Straffer says, shuddering just a little: "Pity it's gone so quickly. I could use a good drunk right about now."

SPYGOD smiles and, tipping the flask back, swallow mightily and then leans down to kiss his lover. As their tongues slide over each other, the alcohol travels with them, giving Straffer at least the illusion of the kick he was looking for. 

They look at each other, then -- eyes hazy from the alcohol, yet sharp with desire -- and all that needs to be said between them is contained in that look. Acknowledgement that one went through the fire for the other, and would do so again and again to be with him. And a promise to honor that sacrifice for as long as they both shall love.

When the doctors come back, a few seconds later, they can't help but feel like they've interrupted something sacred. And maybe they have, too. But it's time to get this show on the road, and if they don't go now, it might not happen at all. 

And so the two men must part, for a time. But neither will be far from the other, during this ordeal, nor far from each other ever again, after it's over.

The whiskey may as well have been a ring.

* * *

"Enhanced human." 

It sounds like a cold and clinical term, but I am told that, despite the name on the hospital wing, they medical profession now likes to think in terms of "enhancements," instead of "bionics" or "cybernetics." So long as even a single piece of a naturally-created being is within the framework, somewhere, all they have done is enhanced its existence, somehow -- made it healthier, stronger, hardier. 

Made it more than it was.

(I am also told that, for a time, they wanted to use the term "enhancile," but it sounded even worse than "cyborg." So "enhanced human" it is.)

I lean over a bit more as they get ready to begin, barely aware that SPYGOD has slipped into the theater, beside me, and taken up watch without saying a word. I wish there was something I could say to him, here and now, but I fear that nothing I could speak would be even adequate at this point.

He watches in silence as they prepare to remake his friend, and I choose to honor it. There will be time for talk, later. Talk, and hopefully many other things. 

But this is a separate matter. Below my vantage point, they have begun creating a skeleton -- one that shines under the bright lights as though made of silver.

The white square goes back and forth, from one end of the table to the other. In its center lies the skeleton, floating in the air as it is built up, layer by layer. The minerals and metals are sprayed out, and then funneled and shaped by force fields, slowly becoming more recognizable with each swift pass of the square.

The skeleton does not have a skull, we notice. That is because it is being holographiclly recreated above a smaller, white square, over on the smaller table, right next to the disembodied head. Scans are being made of the organic remnant, and with each scan the hologram becomes more complete, more detailed.

As the metal skeleton is finished, other things are added onto it -- weird, efficient-looking meshes of red flesh and gleaming metals. We see the webwork of nerves, branching out from the spine, and waving in anticipation of things to plug themselves into. A red carpet of muscle to hold it all in and together.

Then the square stops going all the way up and down, and instead focuses on specific areas, building them up one at a time. We see the genesis of the renal system, with small but powerful kidneys leading to a muscularbladder. A large loop of chunky intestines -- designed to create organic nutrients for the organic remnants, and also manufacture synthetic lubricants for the body's many moving parts -- is spiraled out and curved around. 

A large stomach, bulging and wired, is laid down alongside a slim and efficient liver. Something that may or may not be a pancreas is nestled between them, along with several other structures that seem to have more to do with the mechanical systems than the organic.

Strong, filtered lungs, designed to work in a vacuum, are put down on either side of a heart wrapped around a nuclear battery. Then a webwork of arteries and veins is spun out, connecting all things up and down the line with that strong, central organ. Glands are inserted, lymph nodes positioned, and millions of other things brought into life, and then online. 

Each slide of the white square creates yet another portion of yet another biomechanical wonder, gleaming under the lights. Each pass challenges the work of the gods, who labored with mud and stone and divine breath to shape the rude clay into something that could stand tall and say "I am." 

Each pass says "I am God, here," and no one seems willing to disagree. 

* * *

"So, you wanted to !@#$ing talk?" SPYGOD asks the chief surgeon, not long after his lover is wheeled away for pre-op.

"Yeah," the barrel-chested man says, walking across the waiting room and extending a hand: "Let's start over."

"What do you mean?" SPYGOD asks, looking at the hand as though there was a gun in it.

"You're being an !@#$hole, (REDACTED)," the man says, keeping the hand right there: "An !@#$hole to me, to my staff. From the first day here, all up to now. No one's done or said anything to you, now have they?"

"Well-"

"Answer you're looking for is 'no,'" the man pushes: "Either you are an !@#$hole, or we got off on the wrong foot. Since I'm going to be putting your lover back together...?"

SPYGOD looks at him, and then the hand, and then takes it, sighing.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he says, puffing his cheeks and exhaling: "It's just... I just got him !@#$ing back, you know? I thought he was dead for months. I mourned him and made my peace. And now he's back, and he's alive, and we're taking the future together-"

"As you should. He's crazy about you."

"Yeah, and I'm !@#$ing crazy about him. But then... well, this surgery. A whole !@#$ton of things could go wrong-"

"They won't," the man says, putting his other hand on SPYGOD's shoulder: "Won't let them. Outside of here, you call the shots. Here? I'm in charge. Pins don't drop without my say so."

"If you say so."

The man smiles: "Control, isn't it? Don't like to not have it."

"!@#$ no."

"Then we got one thing in common," he says, clapping SPYGOD on the shoulder and getting ready to walk away: "Another thing? Not gonna let him die. Not in there, anyway."

"But that is a risk?" SPYGOD asks, taking a half step towards him as he goes: "No bull!@#$, doctor. Could we lose him?"

The man looks back from the door, and nods: "We could, yes. Surgery's always dangerous. This kind's really dangerous. But like I said? Not gonna let him die, here."

"You promise?"

The man smiles a little: "Promise. He dies over my dead body. And I don't plan on dying again."

And with that, and a manly wink, he's gone, leaving SPYGOD somewhat chastened, but no less worried.

(SPYGOD is listening to Sunshine in the Shade (The FIXX) and having a Steelhead Broadway Blonde )

12/27/12 - Straffer - One Look Up I Can See Down - pt. 2

11/2/12

In a room at the far end of the main hallway of Mt. Sinai's Cybernetic Prosthesis Surgery wing, there's a large private room, playing host to a human head.

The head in question has clearly seen better days. It's battered and bruised, its eyes are red and nearly sightless, and its skin is turning black from frostbite in spots. But then, after spending so long in a vacuum, it's a wonder it's not worse off.

The doctors have managed to pull off a small miracle, just getting him conscious, again. Tubes and hoses snake in and out of the head at its neck, nose, and ears, bringing much-needed warmth, nutrients, and electricity to the human brain within it. In such fashion they could keep him alive indefinitely, thanks to the myriad modifications to his physiology.

But the will to live, itself? Anyone could tell you that must come from within.

And, as far as the hospital's dedicated staff can tell, this guy's a fighter. 

* * *

Straffer cocks an ear and looks to the door as he hears SPYGOD coming down the hall. It's getting to the point that he can tell when he's on his way, if only because he can hear the doctors getting out of his path, not to mention a gunshot or two.

"Afternoon, handsome," SPYGOD says as he walks into the hospital room, a huge, overly-cutesy floral arrangement in his hands.

"More flowers?" Straffer asks, trying to smile as he looks at the table across from his bed, which is practically filled with vases.

"Ah, room needs some !@#$ing color," he says, putting it along with the others and sprucing it up a bit, maybe defensively.

"Or you're not sure what to do, for once in your life."

SPYGOD sighs, and looks over at his lover, trying to smile: "Yeah, I think you !@#$ing got me there. Never !@#$ing liked hospitals. Not since my mother..."

Silence, then. If Straffer could nod, he would, but he looks over at the chair SPYGOD's been parking his !@#$ in, these last few days, and his man gets the message.

His "man"? Is that the best word for it? Would boyfriend be better? Are they boyfriends, now that they've finally said all the right things to each other? Or are they just lovers, even if it's been way too long since they !@#$ed, given all the crazy things that have happened since then?

(Man, this love thing is !@#$ confusing.)

SPYGOD sits down, looks at what's left of Straffer, and gingerly runs his hand through the man's hair, as though he were just lying down, rather than propped up by a couple dozen tubes and cables. And Straffer closes his eyes and smiles, happy for the touch.

"So," he says, after a time: "I caught you on TV, this afternoon."

"Oh, that !@#$ about the TU and their !@#$ing bull!@#$ offer?"

"Yeah. Quite the eloquent speech. I don't think I've heard a better disabusing of international relations since the time I stumbled into a John Birch Society meeting, back in college."

SPYGOD snorts: "Well, that's what they !@#$ing get for ambushing me on my way to a perfectly decent lunch."

"Not at a French restaurant, I take it?" Straffer teases.

"Eh, close enough."

"Vietnamese?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Oh, god," Straffer moans: "Food, (REDACTED). Real food. I floated through space for ages, and all I had to eat at Alpha Base Seven was the !@#$ they'd been able to salvage from their hydroponics section. I kept thinking of real food, all that time. Real meat, cooked on a real stove, with potatoes..."

"What about me?" SPYGOD asks: "Don't I rate above a steak?"

"Meathead," Straffer winks: "Of course. You don't think I want to eat alone, do you?"

"I didn't think so."

"That and I kept thinking of that meal we had, that one night at Per Se. The one you owed me?"

SPYGOD smiles at that: "I remember. That was... we skipped dessert, didn't we?"

"We were dessert."

"Oh yes," SPYGOD says, closing his eyes and remembering: "First rocket ride."

"One of the best ever."

"I bet you say that to all your boyfriends."

"Well, only if they're worth it."

SPYGOD smiles: "Music to my ears. Alright, then -- let it be resolved, as soon as you're out, you and I are going insane with food."

"And !@#$ing?"

"Oh !@#$ yes," SPYGOD says: "Here to Pluto and back, at least."

And for a time, there's happy silence.

* * *

"So what's bothering you?" Straffer asks after what might be an hour, or maybe more. It's hard to tell time in a room with no clocks.

"Eh, lots of !@#$," SPYGOD sighs, cracking his back as he sits up: "Trying to figure out what the !@#$ to do with the !@#$ Imago, other than flushing down the biggest !@#$ing toilet I can find. Worried about poor Myron, after what happened in the Lost City. Wondering if I should be worried about what the !@#$ Thomas Samuels is becoming, for that matter. And really wondering when the !@#$ Dr. Krwi is going to get back with me..."

He lets that slide away for a moment, before starting back up again.

"What's happening that you need his help?" Straffer asks: "Vampire problems?"

"Eh, I don't know," SPYGOD says, shivering a little: "There's... ah, this is going to sound silly-"

"If it's got you spooked, it's not silly. What is it?"

"There's something evil at the White House," he reveals, trying not to sound melodramatic. 

"Evil? How?"

"It's a feeling. I don't know... I mean, you deal with crazy aliens and !@#$ like that, but-"

"Oh, I've dealt with evil up there, before," Straffer says: "Things like what's coming? There are entities out there that might not be as powerful as the Preternaturals, but they're genuinely evil. The sort of things that, when you meet them, you just want to crawl under a rock and hide. And when they talk to you... well, you want to take that rock and beat your !@#$ brains out with it so you can't hear them, anymore."

"That bad?"

"Oh God, love. It's like having !@#$ and honey dribbled into your ear. Some of the beings I've had to confront, up there? I'm still waking up in the night, worried that they might be coming back."

SPYGOD nods. He remembers holding him in the night, once, as a bad memory disguised as simple nightmare came and took him, leaving him shivering and incoherent until morning. 

"So you've got evil down here?" Straffer asks, breaking the new bout of silence. 

"Yeah. I can feel it in my bones. I'm not sure who or how, but there's something bad crawling through the hallways, over there."

"Any idea how it got there?"

SPYGOD nods: "I have an idea. Someone did something for me, not that long ago, as part of the ongoing plan. I'm thinking maybe it did more than I intended."

"Can you undo it?"

"No," he sighs: "Not without !@#$ing up that plan."

"Well, sounds like you better clean up the mess," Straffer says: "So if I were you, I'd get Krwi as soon as possible."

"Preaching to the choir, there," SPYGOD sighs: "But I'll give the old man his due. When he wants to go !@#$ing underground? He's gone. And now Wayfinder's dead, and I don't even think Doctor Power could..."

He thinks about that for a moment.

"You talked yourself into a plan, again?" Straffer smiles.

"I did indeed," he says, leaning over and kissing him: "Thank you. I knew you had uses."

"Wait until I'm up and running."

"I can't wait," SPYGOD says, getting up: "They let me look at the blueprints. I knew you wouldn't mind."

"Six billion dollars, if you can believe that?" Straffer sighs: "It was only one and a half the first time."

"Well, inflation," SPYGOD shrugs: "But you know what they say. 'Better, stronger, faster.'"

"I will kill you if you put me in red tennis shoes."

"I wouldn't dare," he says, and leans over to kiss him once more: "I love you."

"I love you, too. Be careful?"

"Don't I always?" SPYGOD chuckles, and then he's gone, again.

"Better, stronger, faster," Straffer muses, remembering. When he closes his eyes he can remember when he first opened them as a cybernetic organism, all those decades ago. He can remember the look on the doctors' faces -- all breathless with anticipation, worry, and fear.

And he can remember how relieved they were when he cracked a joke, as if that alone guaranteed that they hadn't made a monster.

No. He will be alright. They will remake him, and he will be better for it. He will walk and move, again. Go to dinner at great restaurants. See the world he'd spent all those years protecting. Spend time with the man he fought death tooth and nail to be able to see again.

And then, once that's all straightened out, he will go and get his old job back if it !@#$ing kills him. 

Satisfied, he closes his eyes and wills himself to sleep, dreaming of hands, legs, and appetites denied too long. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Read Between the Lines (The FIXX) and having a Homo Erectus)

12/27/12 - Straffer - One Look Up I Can See Down - pt. 1

10/26/12

He's dead. That much he knows for certain.

He doesn't know his name, anymore. He doesn't know what he did, or how, or where. A whole, rich life, full of people and places and things, and all he's got are a few pieces, sliding past each other in what's left of his mind.

A trio of fragile icebergs, crackling in the water as they float away from the larger, cold and quiet land.

One piece is sweet and calming. It's him and another man, locked in an embrace on a warm, tropical night. The sweat they share may have been from the heat, or may have been from what they were just doing -- maybe both. But as they stand on a balcony and watch the sun go down, arm in arm, wrapped only in a crisp sheet and each other, there is nothing but trust and happiness.

And love, full and complete.

Another piece is spicy and challenging. It's him and yet another man, only they're arguing over something. The silly fellow's come and knocked down his office wall, such as it is, and is laying into him for something he did, or else something he didn't do. The conversation could go a couple different ways, but somehow they wind up agreeing with one another, and laying out a path to something better than this.

A trail that leads to another balcony, in another place, and another, even stronger feeling.

And then there is a horrible one, where he's forced to watch as everything he's worked for decades comes falling apart -- exploding, really -- because of a long string of mistakes and misfortunes. He's no longer sure if the destruction is necessary or not, or if it's by his hand or someone else's. All he knows is that when the blast engulfs him, he feels himself fall into a deep pit, sick with despair.

A pit made all the worse for the simple fact that, once there, he will never enjoy that truly challenging emotion again.

The pieces crack and collide with each other, there in the dark. He can feel the pieces of them melding, and slowly becoming one. Maybe they're trying to give him a more complete picture of who and what he was, or maybe they're sliding into each other, like old files on a disk in bad need of a defragging.

Maybe they're all he has now, here in what may be the last moments of a life he can barely claim to know.

* * *

"I need to know if you're serious, son," the man is saying. His chest seems ready to explode with rank bars and medals, and his desk is littered with scale models of spaceships -- some that everyone knows, and some that very few have seen.

"A chance like this?" he replies, looking at the schematics he's been handing: "An assignment like this? Sir... there's no way I could turn this down."

"I know. Your psychological assessment said as much, and so have your superiors and everyone you've ever worked with in the Space Service. Your time with Icarus and on Alpha Base Seven has proven your worth, especially under highly trying circumstances. You're the right man for the job in every way, as far as we're concerned. But..."

"But?" he says, putting the schematics down and looking at the man. 

The man opens his mouth, and then leans back in his chair, sighing: "This thing with the people who made it. It's a complicated thing that I don't pretend to understand. The incoming President's telling us to just shut the !@#$ up and deal with it, but the longer we wait, the greater the chance that the Soviets might get hold of it. Or maybe one of the others. You know...SQUASH, HONEYCOMB, or whoever else..."

"I thought SQUASH were the Soviets, sir?"

The man smiles and nods: "And that's another reason we want you there, son. You know the situation."

"I do, and I know that we need to send a group up to take control as soon as possible, sir," he says, pulling his chair closer to the desk: "And like you said, I'm your man. I agree. Sir."

"I know," the man says, patting his desk: "But it's like this. We need assurances. Insurance that you're not going to get up there and go crazy, or sell us out. Insurance that someone won't get up there, somehow, and force you to use it against us."

He thinks for a moment, and then nods: "Well, sir, my time with the Service should prove that I'm not likely to go space crazy, but given the circumstances of the assignment, I can understand the concern. And as for being forced, well... that is a real concern."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, son," the man says, getting up from the desk and going to get a folder from a nearby table. It's black, marked ULTRA BLACK, and has a different set of schematics poking out of it.

"Another part of the duty?" he asks, looking at it as the man hands it over.

"No son," the man sighs, sitting on the corner of his desk: "This is the part of the duty that we have no precedent for. The part where they make certain you can't be used, and can be stopped if we have to. The part where you give yourself to the Space Service, body and soul, now and forever."

"Oh?"

"Do you... do you know what a cyborg is, son?"

He looks at the pictures, his mind wanting to shut down, and yet not quite getting there. Memories of 70's television and a hundred dimestore paperbacks. A word that's always fascinated him, but not quite been real, somehow.

Cyborg.

"So, to be in charge of Wonderwall-"

"Deep-Ten, son," the man smiles: "Small change in nomenclature, as per the current situation."

"In order to be in charge of this installation, I have agree to be... altered."

"They need to turn you into a cybernetic organism, yes."

"And I basically sign on for life?"

The man doesn't speak. He just nods, and stares at the wall. It's not every day he has to ask this of someone, apparently.

"Sir, I'm in," he says, standing up and extending his hand to shake. The man looks at it like it's some crazy thing that's been shoved in his direction for a moment, but then takes it, tentatively.

"Are you sure, son?" he asks, raising an eyebrow: "You don't want to think it over? Maybe take some time-"

"I'm positive," he says: "I assume I'll need to report right away?"

"You could... you know, take a vacation? See the world a bit before...?"

"Sir, with all due respect to the Space Service, we know how this works. We're not the only one with an interest in this installation. If I go out on a last trip around the world, the chances that someone might get hold of me and try to turn me into some kind of Manchurian Candidate are pretty !@#$ high. And then you'd have a compromised agent in charge of the kind of weapons no enemy government should even know exist. Sir."

The man blinks, frowns, and then nods. He shakes his hand, reverently. 

"Report to the medical wing, Commander," the man says, saluting: "And on behalf of your country, thank you."

"Thank you for this amazing opportunity, sir," he says: "I won't let you down."

The man doesn't even dismiss him -- just nods and lets him go.

And as he walks down the hall, his heart pounding in his chest, and he feels as though every single moment of every day in his life has led him to this exciting chance, he wonders who the red and silver girl is, down the hall, and why she's looking at him so strangely...

* * *

"Do you know where you are?" a voice asks him, dreamy and far-away, in the black. A girl's voice, he thinks. But so echoey and ethereal...

He tries to answer. He can't. He can hear the words, and knows what they mean, but they might as well be another language for all he can communicate back.

"Do you know who you are?" the voice asks again.

And he has to think about that for a moment. Who is he, really? 

Who's holding who on that balcony in Thailand? Who's yelling at who in his office? Who's destroying whose machine, on the Moon?

Where does he fall in these few memories he has left?"

"Come back to me," the voice gently persuades him: "I'm right here. Let me help you..."

* * *

"I don't know how you feel about this, but..." the Lt. hands him a small jar, full of something, glinting in the light from the tall windows of the small hospital room.

He picks it up and tests its weight, still getting used to how things feel with his new hands, and how they move. 

"Are these my ashes?" he asks, giving it a shake. From the way the Lt. looks at him, that would be a 'yes.'

"Well," he says, smiling and putting the jar down on the table: "That's a conversation piece."

He's in yet another medical facility -- the third one in two weeks. This time they're calling it "Post-Op Re-Evaluation," which is just another phrase for "Making Sure We Didn't !@#$ Up," so far as he can tell. He's been poked, prodded, opened, closed, refitted, and partially rebuilt about a dozen times since the operation.

But then, each time he goes under, he comes back out a little more functional, a little less freakish.

"Anything else, Lt.?" he asks, casting his eyes around for the latest Omni: "If they want to know if I'm hungry, the answer is yes. I can actually feel the sensation, again."

"Well, that's good," the man says, still a little uneasy at this whole thing: "I'll let them know, sir. Any requests?"

"Well, the chicken last night didn't do so well, I don't think. Maybe some simple proteins and starches?"

The man nods, not wanting to know what 'didn't do so well' means. He salutes and leaves, and then it's just the room and the magazine.

And the silver and red girl, again. 

"How can I help you?" he asks, putting the magazine down: "Are you part of the staff, here?"

"No," she says, echoing and uncertain as she walks to his bedside: "Are you?"

"No," he replies, not certain what kind of crazy question that is: "I'm definitely a patient."

"Do you know why?"

"Full body replacement," he answers without thinking: "Everything but my head, and I think they fortified my skull... come to think of it, I think the only thing they left alone was my brain."

"Not alone, no," she says, looking at the side of his head: "I see structures. Many structures. New and alive."

"Yeah, well, go figure," he says, tapping his temple: "I guess they had to wire things up a bit. I don't know what all they did, anymore."

"No," she says, leaning back as if she was about to do a backstroke in the air: "I think they avoid telling you. It's not a good thing to know how you come together. How you come apart."

"Are you sure?" he asks, really wondering who this person is.

"A long time ago, in a garden, a woman was made for a man," she explains, waving a hand through the air, leaving red and silver motion lines behind it: "He saw her as she was made. Bone and muscle. Fat and gut. Blood and secretions. All that stuff we have locked inside the skin, made piece by piece and then wrapped around like a Christmas present."

He blinks, imagining that: "That's... that must have been horrible to watch."

"It was. And he couldn't ever see her, after that. He only saw her pieces. And he was afraid."

"Who was she?"

She giggles and shrugs: "No one knows. He never named her. And the One who made her took her away."

"Did he ever get another woman?"

"Yes," she says, waving her hands again: "But this time, the One made him sleep. There was a rib taken out, and she was woven from it, like from a loom. One flesh, they were. Two parts of the same body. Man and woman."

"Adam and Eve," he says, realizing where she's coming from: "Are you Eve, then?"

"No," a smile, and her fingers in his hair: "But I was also remade, as you have been."

"Really? Like this?"

"Not like this, no," she replies, running a hand down his chest: "The One touched me, inside. I became a new thing, inside and out. A runner on the waves of the world. A herder of comets and a watcher of the stars. A witness to time, ongoing."

"The One?" he asks, sitting up a bit: "Do you mean God?"

She giggles a little, pointing out the window. He realizes she must mean the Sun, but that makes no !@#$ sense. 

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Brightstarsurfergirl," she says, the words rolling off her tongue: "What's yours?"

"I'm..." he says, but then realizes he doesn't know.

"See, that's a problem," she says, leaning in closer: "How can I save you if you don't know who you are?"

"I need saving?"

She smiles again, and points back outside the window. He looks and sees that the Sun seems so far away, and the sky is black and full of stars.

The Moon is nearby, and beyond it is a ring of twisted, broken wreckage, floating in a loose orbit around the Earth.

And the Earth is shining and beautiful, down below.

"Come back to life," she whispers in his ear: "Come back to the world."

And he might ask why, or who she is to demand these things of him, but something makes him think. The way she whispers in his ear. The way another person once whispered in his ear.

The way he held him down on the bed, strong and hungry. The way he entered him, swift and loving.

"I love you," he said, over and over, there in the heat and night. Over and over and over again.

"I love you," SPYGOD is saying, holding him close after.

"I love you," he is responding, loving to be loved.

"Come back to us," she is saying, whispering so deep inside his ear that she might as well be in his mind.

The jar of ashes falls to the ground and shatters, and-

* * *

he is opening his eyes, again -- crusty and frozen in the shattered life pod.

He looks around, all too aware that his body is ruined. Only his head has survived, as he thought it might. Only his thoughts and memories are intact, now.

"Hello," someone says to him, through the void. How he can hear her in a vacuum is one of those mysteries that will just have to keep. But she's red and silver and floating alongside him, smiling through the broken window.

And as she moves him out of his dying lunar orbit, and flies him back to Earth like a glorious red and silver comet, he remembers her name from a strange dream -- a memory she invaded, somehow, and made her own.

And he remembers his own name, at long last. An old friend, waiting at the door.

Director Straffer smiles, closing his eyes. If he cries, the water will freeze his eyes shut, again, so he does not. There will be time for tears in the days to come.

He only hopes they will be tears of joy, this time. 

(SPYGOD is listening to One Look Up (The FIXX) and having a Brewfist Spaceman)

12/26/12 - Randolph Scott - No Words But the Truth - pt. 5

12/7/12

"A date which will live in infamy."

There's no other way to say it. Not a one. Not if you've been paying !@#$ing attention, anyway.

(Or at least have an eye for unfortunate historical coincidences.)

At 9:35 AM, EST, the President of the United States stood in front of the Washington Press Corps, neatly wedged between two Strategic Talents: Mr. USA, who happened to be our Vice President, and Tempete Bleu, who happens to be France's best-known hero.

He thanked everyone for coming, as usual, and then launched into a speech that was, at least for the first five minutes, one of the best things I've ever heard come out of his mouth since the Reclamation War speech.

He spoke of our nation, proud and unbroken. He talked of how it had been tested during its history, time and again. He paid tribute to those who had fought and died to keep it safe, and those who had lived and toiled to keep it free and prosperous.

He reminded us of what we'd come through, lately. How we'd all been "broken on the wheel of others' ambition, and rolled down a steep hill to global catastrophe." He spoke of how we were nearly destroyed, both as a planet and as a species.

And how, as a single planet, we fought back and won.

All well and good, but then he began going further along that line, stepping further away from our comfort zone.

He said that, after having come together, and achieved mighty things as a single, unified planet, we had all gone back to being small and divided once more. He said that we had been so badly damaged by what our oppressors had done that getting back up again was going to require "that single strength, total and complete, wielded in such a way as to bring us from our knees to our feet, and from the ground to the skies, once more."

And maybe there were one or two people, there, who didn't know where it was going. But as soon as the token goon from FOX News started praying to Jesus (and the Secret Service hustled them out of the room), they all wised up.

Which meant they were all silent as ghosts when the President of the United States of America announced, then and there, that he was taking up the offer of the Terre Unifee to become its President.

He had not taken this step without a great deal of thought. He had considered other means, or so he said. He thought that America was strong enough to deal with its own problems, and come out stronger for it. He thought we could go it alone, and be an example to the rest of the world that self-reliance could carry the day.

But then he realized that this was selfishness and pride talking, not sense.

"As one world, we threw off our aggressors. As one world, we took our lives back from an enemy older than our recorded history, and more powerful than we can imagine, even now. As one world, we made war and won it.

"And, looking at our problems, and our challenges, and the dilemmas that faced not only America, but all other nations in the world, I had to ask 'What else could we accomplish as one world?'

"And once I began to realize what the answers were, I also realized that it was foolishness and vanity to deprive my fellow Americans of these great answers, and to, in turn, deprive the rest of the world of what our nation has to offer this world."

So he did it. He accepted the offer that the interim President of the TU had made to him, and took over its Presidency, effective immediately. 

And his first act as President of that body? To accept America's joining of that "noble body," courtesy of the new President -- the former Vice President, Mr. USA, who is apparently becoming our "national facilitator," whatever the !@#$ that means.

There were no Congressional leaders present. No Speaker of the House. No Senate Majority Leader. No Supreme Court Justices. Not even a !@#$ing Cabinet member, which is hardly surprising at this point.

Just two men, a podium, and the eyes of the world watching as our great Republic effectively disbanded its Federal Government, and handed its reins over to a world government.

There were a million questions, but none of them were answered. All they got was the speech, and the announcement, and a promise that -- whatever our crumbling Federal government has failed to do, or would not even try to accomplish -- help and aid would be coming as soon as possible.

Our rights are going nowhere, or so they claim. Our freedoms remain. All the TU are going to do is help, and who doesn't want that?

Someone started booing. I'm not sure who. But by the time the call was picked up, and people started shouting questions instead of asking them, the people who could have answered those questions were long gone.

All that was left were the reporters, and they had a stupefying story to report back home.

I never thought I would live to see this day. I never believed I would see our country admit that it couldn't take care of its own !@#$ problems. I never imagined that this President -- any President -- would effectively surrender his or her nation over to a third party, even if he was then going to be in charge of that third party.

Are we all Americans, now? Or are we citizens of the world, whether we would or not?

Do we still have the right to think and speak? Can we protest this? Is there anyone we can call to get this reversed if it doesn't work out?

And how long do we have to wallow around in broken promises and uncertain expectations before we get to tell them to shove their help where the sun doesn't !@#$ing shine?

I don't know. I feel sick. I feel like punching things, or people.

But the flags are coming down all over the nation, and being replaced with that !@#$ty, designed-by-committee travesty that the TU hands out to its signatories. Some collection of colors that mean nothing at all to anyone.

A rag with no !@#$ing history, except for what's in front of us, here and now. 

History? On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Some say we knew it was going to happen, and most agree that we knew it might happen. But everyone can agree that we knew war was coming, whether we were ready for it or not.

Those bombs and planes brought an isolationist nation, scarred and broken by the Great War, back into the world, again. It got us into a conflict that would otherwise have ended with an enslaved Europe and shackled Asia. It turned us into a global power, and set us on a collision course for a long, cold war with an wartime ally turned ideological enemy.

That day made the future. Maybe every day does, but if you had to peel history back, day by day, like an onion, you'd find December 7th, 1941 right around the center -- stinking and rich.

Now, on a different December 7th, we're back in the world again. Only this time we haven't just rejoined it in order to save it, and ourselves.

We've surrendered to it, instead.

I never thought I would live to see this day. I'm not sure I want to. Everything I've ever known and believed and taken for granted has been thrown down to the ground, shattered like glass on bricks.

My ship in a bottle, smashed and ground underfoot.

But I've got to keep going. I've got to keep !@#$ing talking over the noise. Because it's who I am, and what I do.

And because I've got the biggest !@#$ing mouth for the job, right now.

God help America. God help us all.


(SPYGOD is listening to Woman on a Train (The FIXX) and having a La Fin Du Monde

12/26/12 - Randolph Scott - No Words But the Truth - pt. 4

11/26/13

And then it was all over, except for the fine details.

I've been in Paris for the last two weeks, watching what can only be called the Trial of a Civilization -- both in terms of what it is, and its magnitude. Never in human history, recorded or otherwise, have we had the duty, or the right, to put an entire civilization on trial for its actions against us.

Hopefully, after this, we never will again. 

I've been in the courtroom, watching it happen. I've been out in the streets, afterwards, talking with the people who couldn't be there, or really shouldn't have been allowed in. And I've been pouring over the testimony and depositions, the evidence and conclusions.

I was there the day we got to hear what is, without a doubt, the most horrifying testimony to come from from a defendant's mouth, ever.  I was there when we heard just how small and inconsequential we are, in the galactic scheme of things, and how far we have yet to go.

I was there when the truth about what happened to the American President was told, and the existence of Alter-Earth -- and, by extension, the SPYGOD of Alter Earth -- made public for the first time ever. I was there when America's greatest and finest Superhero came clean about having been blackmailed into inaction for decades by that man, thinking he was actually SPYGOD.

And I was there when SPYGOD got on the witness stand, and admitted to authorizing a war plan that resulted in the deaths of billions of children, in order to deprive the Imago of their energy reserves.

(An admission that, it is said, may land him in that same courtroom at a later date.)

I was there. I saw. I listened. I made connections and looked them up. I went out and asked people what they thought, or what they knew.

And now here I sit, three days away from an ultimate reckoning, and I have to ask myself a very tough question: Do I think justice was served?

I'll have to wait three days for the sentencing to be certain, of course. But at this point, based on what I know, I'd like to say yes. I want there to have been a final, satisfying conclusion to everything that's happened. A way to say that we got through this terrible, truly-worldshattering event with at least our basic human dignity intact.

A way to say that everything we have suffered -- both as individuals, and as a species -- has at last been answered for.

A way to say that justice for what we have lost has been achieved.

But I know that I can't. I cannot say that justice has been served, here, today. Not by any standard we care to uphold, anyway.

I think we have only served the cause of revenge.

Why would I say such a thing? Well, that should be !@#$ing obvious to anyone who's ever been in court, much less read about it. And ayone who's sat through the process of jury duty, or actually gotten through to serve on one, should know where I'm going before I get there.

Because what's the one thing they always ask you, after your name and profession? What's the one sure way to get out of jury duty, if you really feel like being a shirk?

They ask you if you personally know anyone in the case, or are a party to it. They ask you if you have any kind of a personal stake in what's happening, in that court, and cannot render a fair verdict.

And if you answer "yes," then you're out of the pool right then and there. Do not pass go. Do not lose however much money and time because of someone else's problems.

Walk out the !@#$ Courtroom doors and be free, for now. 

So consider the following statement: the Imago took over our planet.

Consider that they left no part of it untouched or untransformed. Consider that they changed our entire way of life and doing things, and saw to it that we either didn't notice, or no longer cared.

Consider that they warped our perceptions and our sensibilities, and told us that it was all for the best and that we should be happy -- grateful, even -- and just accept this new way of thinking and doing.

And consider that, all the while, as we were being happy little busy humans, they were using us as raw material and a slave labor force, the better to build them a rocket ship to get the !@#$ off this planet before a really nasty thing comes to destroy the world.

Consider all those things, and then ask yourself whether we could render any kind of a fair verdict on these Imago.

Yes, they plead Guilty. Yes, the outcome was never in doubt. Yes, everything we heard and learned just emphasized and underlined the reasons why it was right for them to plead guilty in the first place.

But there was no impartiality at work, in this trial. There was no detachment from the personal. There was no divorce from injury and suffering.

There was no fairness, and therefore no fair trial.

What else could we have done? I don't know. Apparently, just about every alien race that lives amongst us, here on Earth, left either before or during the Occupation. Some left of their own accord, and some were apparently forced out while we weren't looking.

(And many say that it was this approaching, cosmic doom that they fled, and not the Imago.)

But I can't help but think that there had to be some other body that could have adjudicated this. Some higher court or arbiter that could have looked down upon the facts and rendered a totally fair and impartial judgment.

Some force, beyond our petty concerns and injuries, who could have seen the whole thing from afar, and been moved to find a righteous verdict.

But none came forward. None appeared. And if anyone involved in this injurious farce of a trial sought them out, I have no idea, and may never.

All I know is that, in spite of the cheers and the jeers, and the cathartic "human scream" that was uttered in that courtroom when the sentence was read, we have only gained revenge, this day. I can only hope that, for the sake of posterity -- if not our souls -- the sentence they mete out in three days' time is much more real.

Those we lost deserve it. We deserve it.

And so do the Imago.

(SPYGOD is listening to I Will (The FIXX) and having a Kanterbrau Biere de Noel)