1/4/13 - Lone Rangers and Strangers - Pt 2

How's your !@#$ing Moutabal, son?

Yeah, good? Glad to hear it. I wasn't totally sure I still knew how to !@#$ing make it. The Lion taught me, a long time ago when we were still !@#$ing friends, and he was still alive...

...

Yeah, the trick's to get the !@#$ eggplant right under the !@#$ing broiler. You gotta char it just enough to get it smoky, but not so much you got a big !@#$ fire in your oven instead of mezze. That and some garlic, tahini paste, lemon juice, maybe some chopped parsley, too.

And I mean the real kind of !@#$ing parsley, son. Not that curly sprig !@#$ they put on your plate when you get a burger at !@#$ing Dennys. I mean the kind you buy by the pound at the !@#$ing supermarket and never quite use before it's gone brown and nasty in your !@#$ing veggie cabinet. That's the !@#$ you need, here. Chopped just enough to give it some !@#$ing texture.

Yeah, I learned a lot about Mediterranean cooking from the Lion. That man's wife could make a tabbouleh salad that'd make you run !@#$ing barefoot across the mountains to get to dinner on time.

Better days, those, son. Better days.

...

So, one big !@#$ cooking demonstration and ten !@#$ing Flag Speciales ago, we were talking about the big !@#$ magic of favors in the superspy game. Possibly the second most important thing you !@#$ing need to know, after how and when to !@#$ing blackmail someone, and to never !@#$ing pick a !@#$ fight unless you got a back-up plan that could get the Devil out of Hell.

(Well, okay, third most important thing. What the !@#$ is this, the Spanish Inquisition?)

Anyway, here's the score so far. Morocco no longer has a !@#$ing space program. Israel's HAGANAH owes Egypt's El Wedjat a big !@#$ favor because they're the ones who made that !@#$ing happen. By extension, NASA owes HAGANAH a favor, too, seeing as how the Israelis fixed it so their Space Shuttle didn't get !@#$ing preempted by a big !@#$ Nazi Silbervogel on a !@#$ing rocket sled.

(And yes, son, that's even though HAGANAH asked NASA to be the ones to do it, and they didn't. I told you this !@#$'s pretty complicated.)

Conversely? The Space Service is owed a little payback from HAGANAH for having !@#$ing flat-out refused to do any of it for strategic and ethical purposes. But, since the COMPANY never had time to properly !@#$ing refuse, we're still on HAGANAH's good list. Especially since HAGANAH was too !@#$ busy arguing with Molchanie to deal with something we were dealing with... and so on.

Plus, now I've got a piece of information I can use against el Wedjat, in case I need to blackmail them into !@#$ing doing something for me, someday. As I'm sure the Moroccans won't be !@#$ing happy to learn that their fellow North African, Muslim brother country !@#$ing sold them out to god!@#$ Israel all for the sake of the !@#$ing Camp David Accords.

Oh, this surprises you? Son, it shouldn't by now. We !@#$ing spy on our friends, they !@#$ing spy on us, and when we get a chance to get them to do something for us you bet your sweet, greenhorn !@#$ we bring up what we know.

Because you better !@#$ing believe they'll do the same. 

So, all well and !@#$ing good. NASA's got a Space Shuttle, Israel owes Egypt a favor, Morocco has no !@#$ idea that they got !@#$ed over, and I got something I can use against Egypt if they ever !@#$ing get uppity with me. Life goes on, everybody happy, on to the next crisis. And the next. And the next.

But hey, son, you know how I always say that sometimes crises come in !@#$ing chapters? The next chapter in this crisis comes a few years later. 1984, I think. And by this time, the board's changed a little.

Anwar Sadat's !@#$ing dead. Israel and Egypt are still allies, but the leftover wedding cake's gotten a bit !@#$ing freezerburned. But at least HAGANAH and Molchanie aren't hating each other, anymore, because, since that science terrorist outfit was neutralized with extreme !@#$ing prejudice, ABWEHR is their big !@#$ primary threat once again. 

Which is when Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir, would-be Moroccan astronaut, comes back to Earth -- alive and well and more than a little pissed off.

What happened, you may well !@#$ing ask? Well, that's a !@#$ good question, son, because no one has any idea what the !@#$ el Wedjat's high muckety-muck two-fisted pulp sorcerer !@#$ing did to that spacecraft. Not even the sorcerer, himself.

Oh, he claims he sent it through a gate into the !@#$ing sun. It's something one of the arch-magicians of the Upper Nile learned to do from those !@#$ aliens that were !@#$ing around in Egypt, back before the Pharaohs were a thing. It seems there were other aliens trying to get in on the !@#$ action, and these folks had a knack for !@#$ing zapping them while they were still in the upper atmosphere.

All well and good, son. But this was written down back in the time before people really kept good !@#$ing records. And this was the first !@#$ time in thousands of years that anyone had !@#$ing tried to fire that !@#$ing spell off.

So, needless to say, the guy got it a little !@#$ing wrong, and we really have no idea what the !@#$ happened.

Did Faraj get flung into some far !@#$ corner of the universe, where our physical laws don't mean jack or !@#$? Did he get hurled into an alternate dimension, or some parallel world? Did he wind up in the !@#$ing collective unconsciousness, or the god!@#$ Dreamlands? The future? The past? !@#$ing Hoboken on a really bad night?

Who can say? All we know is that the big !@#$ hole in reality that the sorcerer created when he made it look like the !@#$ing Silbervogel blew up was still there, !@#$ing keeping time with the !@#$ Sun. And occasionally some weird !@#$ would tumble out of it.

And every year, after that, when the Earth passed it by again, some of that weird !@#$ would tumble out on us.

Not anything really awful. Not at first, anyway. Space junk for the most part. Weird monster things that couldn't !@#$ing handle the vacuum. Ships that weren't made to handle entering our !@#$ atmosphere.

Even more dead spacecraft, floating in the black between worlds.

But then, five years after there's this !@#$ing boom directly over Morocco, and something that looks like a god!@#$ diving bell made out of ceramic plates the size of VW Bugs comes hurtling out of the !@#$ing sky, heading straight for Algeria. It smashes into a mountain range, and should !@#$ing make a crater the size of a city, but somehow it doesn't.

The !@#$ thing just melts, all the heat and kinetic energy it absorbed finally bleeding away.

Inside, wrapped in the arms of some gelatinous thing that looks like a jellyfish someone fed a !@#$ of a lot of steroids to, is capitaine Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir. Only he's bigger and stronger, his hair's down to his !@#$ing knees, it's gone steel grey down to the roots.

And he's !@#$ing naked except for a pouched, black-leather belt, a black choker around his neck, a red shoulder cape, and a weapon that looks like a gun and a sword made sweet metal love one night and cranked it out a month or two later.

The jellyfish dissolves. He comes out, only slightly disoriented. The Algerian border patrol's not sure what to !@#$ing make of all this, but one of them looks hard at the guy's !@#$ face and realizes this is the Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir. And they all start !@#$ing cheering, like it's Major !@#$ing Tom come home at last.

But then he ruins it all by telling them that Earth is in deadly danger, and, worse, tells them from what.

...

You see, son, there's only so much a person's mind can !@#$ing take in. It's kind of like your stomach, you know? You see a huge table of good food, and you start !@#$ing piling up your plate. But sooner or later you get full, and then if anyone tries to make you eat any more you'll throw the !@#$ up.

You've been there and done that, right? I know I sure as !@#$ have. Half the Chinese buffets in this town have orders to !@#$ing shoot me if I show up again.

(Especially on Christmas.)

Well, Faraj tried to tell them about where he'd been for the last fifty !@#$ing years. The massive sea in space he'd navigated. The island-planets where time stood !@#$ing still, or moved at different rates. The creatures and kingdoms between them all.

All the different places and people and things, all more amazing and terrible than anything we could !@#$ing imagine.

And the Endless Empire, made of people whose minds had been !@#$ing invaded by an intelligent virus with a group mind. A malevolent and cunning consciousness spread across trillions of !@#$ing beings, all over the place, all seeking to make his mind the only mind in all creation.

The Unseen Emperor and his Unknowing Armies, most of whom had no idea they'd been infected until he needed to turn them the !@#$ on...

He told them, Faraj did. He tried. But in spite of all the !@#$ they'd seen that night, they just couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that this man, who'd vanished just five or so years before, had aged 50 !@#$ing years in the meantime, even though he doesn't look a day over 30.

(That and he suggested they all have a hot, manly gang!@#$ while he was telling them the story, which didn't help matters at all.)

And so they thought he was !@#$ing nuts, and tried to club the !@#$ out of him. He responded in turn, but overestimated his own !@#$ing strength, killed three people before he realized what he was doing, and, horrified, ran like !@#$ for Morocco.

Of course, Morocco's happy to see him, again. They hail him as the prodigal son returned, and one they got over on the world. And there's talk of parades and parties and all that good !@#$.

But then, you guessed it, he starts !@#$#ing talking. He won't put !@#$ing clothes on. He won't go to mosque. He won't let go of his !@#$ sword. He won't stop trying to get !@#$ing laid.

And he won't stop !@#$ing telling anyone who will listen that the world is in big !@#$ deadly danger.

But you know, that last bit? He wouldn't be the first to come down from the !@#$ing mountain and warn people that Soylent Green is Charlton !@#$ing Heston. That they can deal with, usually.

It's everything else, son. It's the nudity and the !@#$ing. It's the fact that he isn't down with Islam, anymore. It's the horrible way he looks at people when they !@#$ing disappoint him, and that he has to be physically restrained from killing the stupid, the officious, and the !@#$ing useless.

How can I put this... tell me, son, when you were going to that awful, commie-run public school, did you have to read all of Gulliver's Travels? Not just the bit with the little !@#$ing people that's all that people tend to remember, but the whole !@#$ thing? The flying island, the trip to Japan, all that good !@#$?

Well, you remember when he goes to that island where the horses are the smart and beautiful ones, and the people are !@#$ing ugly and stupid? The Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos? And then he comes back to merry old England and he can't !@#$ing stand people, anymore, and just sits in the back of his estate talking to the !@#$ing horses?

And they think he's the crazy one?

That's the closest !@#$ thing I got for this one, son. Faraj was this fresh-faced, well-placed 25 year old kid with a lot of pluck, nationalism, and know-how when they put him into the Silbervogel and launched him up into the black. He then spent 50 !@#$ing years -- twice his age when he'd left -- living and loving and fighting alongside beings that make us look like plodding, grotesque idiots in comparison.

It took him forever to prove he was worthy of their company, and by then he'd changed so much that I'm not sure we can even call him !@#$ing human, anymore.

So he makes what's essentially a one-way journey back here to warn us that this Unseen Emperor wants the !@#$ earth, too. But Faraj has been gone so !@#$ long, and done so many amazing and crazy things, well, it's like zooming along at 100 MPH in the best sports car you can buy, and then having to slow it down to 10 when you aren't stuck in a tollway tailback a whole state long.

And you know how I feel about things like that.

So, what do you do with a crazy-sounding septuagenarian space warrior apostate with a taste for naked swordfighting and polysexuality? You toss his !@#$ in jail, obviously.

But how he got there, and who lost and profited from it? That's where this whole !@#$ favors thing comes back around on itself, son.

Eat your Moutabal. Drink your beer. This goes best on a full stomach.

(SPYGOD is listening to Contact (Daft Punk) and having some more Flag Speciale)

1/4/13 - Lone Rangers and Strangers - Pt 1

So, we were talking about how the spy game actually !@#$ing works, the other day. And I told you about having things on people, and !@#$ like that. 

You remember that, son? Or are you still scared some dog!@#$ing punk with no brain, a !@#$ longer than his arm, and more guns that Al !@#$ing Capone is going to hunt you down, eat your skin, and bang your skull because you got hold of his sister's favorite marble?

Well, put that fear aside, son. Bloody Dogkill street's long-since gentrified. Now you're in more danger of being hit up by yuppies selling Civet Cat coffee than what used to go on in that place.

(Or maybe it's gotten worse. Ever tried that cat butt stuff? I'm still tasting it, years and years and ten million beers later.)

Anyway. That !@#$ about the fine art of blackmail, threats, and cooperation? That's only half the story, son. Because while it's one thing to have something on someone, you can't !@#$ing blackmail your allies into doing what you want if you actually want them to be !@#$ing allies, as opposed to people who will turn around and !@#$ you in the back with a very large knife the first chance they get.

No, son. For that, you need something different. You need favors. 

Yes, son. Favors. As in "Do this for me and I owe you one." Or "I will do this for you, but I'll ask for something in return, someday."

Or, even more rarely, "Now we're even."

It's a dangerous game. You need a lot of memory and a !@#$ good sense of bargaining. But if you can keep it all down in your little black book, you'll be ahead of the game.

Especially when you can combine favors and threats into one tasty package...

Now, you got all that? I mean, I know it's a lot to !@#$ing take in, son, but what do you expect? There's a reason us superspies make the big !@#$ bucks. Or get to !@#$ing steal them, anyway.

(But that's another big !@#$ story for another day...)

So let me give you a perfect !@#$ing example of how this all !@#$ing works. And that would be the tragicomic tale of one Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir. Would-be Moroccan astronaut, accidental interplanetary revolutionary, space pirate of the Viridian Sea, the greatest nemesis of the Emperor, the current head of our new Space Service.

And the last man in the Solar System you want to !@#$ with, after yours truly.

How he got to be where he was, and is now, is a quiet little story with loud !@#$ing consequences. It also perfectly illustrates what a massive cluster!@#$ the international superspy game can be.

It all starts in the mid-60s, when our friends in ABWEHR decided to hook up with people who !@#$ing hated Jews as much as they did. This meant making some inroads with various governments in Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Africa, and some of those folks were !@#$ing stupid enough to bite.

Now, some of these relationships would never quite get off the !@#$ ground, thanks to Israel finding out and kicking !@#$. And some would eventually have severe !@#$ing ramifications, especially in Libya, and some eventually bled into things like the Yom Kippur War.

But some of them went right the !@#$ under the table, because, to those countries' credit, they decided to take what their new Nazi !@#$buddies had given them and did not advertise it, nor get really deeply involved with any heavy !@#$ that came after.

That's what happened in !@#$ing Morocco, for example. In the 50's and 60's, they were buddies with the !@#$ing Soviet Union, mostly because everyone else was. After that, they kind of swung our way, if only because they wanted better trade partners, not to mention better !@#$ing weapons.

But, all along, they maintained a number of alliances with creepy !@#$holes, if only because it worked out to their benefit, and it made them a lot of !@#$ing money. And when they got caught, they could always claim they were shocked, shocked to find out that super villain bull!@#$ was going on in their country.

(You do know Casablanca's in Morocco, right? Just making sure, son.)

So, one of the wedding presents that Morocco kept, post-divorce with ABWEHR, was the functioning start of an actual, for-!@#$-real, !@#$ing space program.

No, really. I'm sure you knew that some of those mother!@#$ing Nazi scientists had some amazing !@#$ ideas on getting into orbit, and beyond. But you may not have known that not all of those folks got snapped up by Operation Paperclip, grabbed by the !@#$ Soviets, or shot in the back of the !@#$ head at the end of the War. Some of them actually made it out with ABWEHR, and their researches continued, just along slightly different lines.

Well, the Moroccans wanted to go into !@#$ing space. And if they'd managed to make it work, using ABWEHR's tech, they'd have cleaned up pretty !@#$ well. Especially if the Silbervogel spaceplane worked as advertised, and they could deploy a payload during the flight.

Oh, that surprises you? You think that NASA, the ESA, and the Soviets were the only major players in the outer space game? Think the !@#$ again, son. There were bunches of folks trying their hand at the table. It's just that we were the only ones who had any real !@#$ success, for one reason or another. 

I mean, !@#$, son. You know about the Space Race. You know about the probes, the satellites. The Moon Landings. Alpha Base Seven. You even know about Deep Ten, rest its massive soul.

But there's tons of !@#$ you never !@#$ing heard about. Big !@#$ science that was not done by governments with rational, well-funded research divisions. Reckless experiments by high-science weirdos, all tweaking the !@#$ boundaries of the possible and impossible.

And occasionally they'd find some gold, up there in the black, but more often than not they just crashed and burned.

I mean, you think the early American space program had some really big !@#$-ups during the testing stages? You should have seen some of those poor fools who thought they could fly to Mars or beyond on a literal wing and a !@#$ prayer. There's !@#$ing dozens of dead spaceships floating between here and the outer and inner planets. Silent eternal graveyards in space, their crew flash frozen in the moments between life and death when something went horribly wrong.

Or worse. Much worse.

So just imagine, son. Imagine a reusable spaceplane that was actually based on sound, scientific principles. Imagine it being accelerated up to speed by a rocket sled, and then using its own engine to get up into the deep blue sky. Imagine it skipping across the atmosphere, tossing a satellite up, and then coming back down half the !@#$ world away.

Imagine us having that kind of technology in the !@#$ing mid-70's, instead of having to go through that sorry, expensive farce with the !@#$ing Space Shuttle for all those !@#$ years.

Well, that's all well and good. But come the late 70's, when Morocco managed to put all the !@#$ pieces together, no one was really wanting to see them come out on top. Especially not Israel, considering that Morocco had helped out during the Yom Kippur War.

So, as soon as Israel realized that this country was about to beat it to the stars, not to mention beat America to having a reusable suborbital spaceplace, they decided to !@#$ing do something about it.

But here's the problem. Israel could do a lot with what it had. Unfortunately, it needed to do it quietly, so as to make whatever it did look like a massive !@#$ing accident. The kind of mishap that sets a space program back years, if not decades.

So sending Supers over to smash the Silvervogel? Not going to !@#$ing happen. And they can't sabotage it on the ground, thanks to some talents the Moroccans had watching over the program. And they can't blast it out of the !@#$ air on the way up or someone might !@#$ing see.

No, son. In order for this !@#$ to work they needed to blast the !@#$ing silver bird out of existence while it was out of our atmosphere, and skipping along to its destination.

Now, Israel does not a !@#$ing space program. However, it has understandings with various organizations that do. It's got us, of course. And it's got the !@#$ing Space Service, which is mostly us. And it's got the COMPANY, too, and MI-10, Direction Noir, and anyone else involved in the !@#$ ESA.

Now, the ESA people all beg off, mostly because they want to see this !@#$ thing work and buy the tech, so as to steal a march from NASA, which is still having a problem getting it's !@#$ing Space Shuttle off the ground. NASA's keen to stamp on this !@#$, too, but they're not going to make a !@#$ recommendation until they see which way the Space Service is going to !@#$ing jump.

But the Space Service? Get this, son. They say no. 

Why? Well, I doubt it's because they wanted to take the high road (stop laughing) but they do say that, if they started shooting at !@#$ing humans, instead of alien invaders, no one would ever be able to !@#$ing trust them again. That and they did not want others to learn what kind of weapons capability they ahd.

And they were !@#$ right to be leery of that, as we've since learned. 

Now, that leaves the COMPANY. And, given a chance to stomp Supernazi !@#$, however removed, you know I'm going to leap at that !@#$. Normally.

But here's the thing, son. At the time, the COMPANY was in a bit of a !@#$ing match with Israel over turf. Israel's two major spy organizations, HAGANAH and Molchanie, were at cross purposes over what to do with a certain other science criminal organization. And while we really could have just !@#$ing settled the matter over a few drinks and a good argument, the two groups were not wanting to talk to each other, but rather around each other, using the COMPANY as a go-between.

So I was pretty !@#$ing sick of them, by then, and decided to try and use the issue as a big !@#$ bargaining chip to get to the table. And I figured it'd work, right? I mean, it wasn't like they were going to go to the !@#$ing Soviets, were they?

(And, yes, they did. But the Soviets told them to suck it up, too. Go figure.)

Well, they drag their !@#$ feet, and eventually stop calling me. So I figure they're playing hard to !@#$ing get. And the time to the launch gets closer and closer, and I'm wondering if I'm going to have to kick !@#$ all by myself.

However, the Moroccans get wind that something's !@#$ing up, somehow. And they bring the launch forward a whole !@#$ week, which if you know !@#$ing anything about space travel is just !@#$ing unheard of.

At or around 6 in the AM, local time, they strap Captaine Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir into the cockpit of the Silbervogel. The preflight checks are rushed though as quickly as possible, the area cleared by force and fire. He waves once and smiles, saying that he's as ready as he's ever going to be, and all systems are go, go, go.

So they hit the big !@#$ red button, and the rocket sled takes off. They travel at ridiculous !@#$ speeds until they get just below where they need to be !@#$ing going. And then Faraj somehow presses the !@#$ button to activate the ship's own rocket engine. There's a burst of white-hot fire, and the ship flies off the sled, nearly straight up into the atmosphere.

It goes up, up, up. Faster and faster. The light blue of the desert sky turns into indigo, and then into black, and Faraj becomes the first Moroccan to see the stars from outside the atmosphere.

Only then, something goes terribly wrong. There's a flash of light, brighter than the Sun. A ring of fire floats in the upper atmosphere, just about where the Silbervogel would have been.

And, so far as anyone knows, the ship is lost, and Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir. is dead.

What happened? Well, son, you remember me telling you about el Wedjat? The Mukhabarat's occult secret police? The kind of people you call when the !@#$ing Sphinx wakes the !@#$ up and starts munching down tourists?

Well, remember this was just after the Camp David Accords, son. This was when, after years of being !@#$ing enemies, Israel and Egypt were going to try being peaceful neighbors, again. And that opened a number of diplomatic options back up, not to mention a few back-channels.

So yeah. When we were stalling, and they couldn't !@#$ing agree, HAGANAH got in touch with el Wedjat. They explained the situation, and their people agreed that they didn't want any !@#$ing supernazi tech in space.

Plus, getting one over on a former partner in the Yom Kippur War would make certain there was no question that Egypt was now on the side of the angels.

So they had one of their more powerful ceremonial magicians do... something. !@#$ if I ever knew what, or ever will. All that we know is that it was supposed to make it look like the ship blew the !@#$ up at the most critical point in the mission, setting the Moroccan space program back enough to give NASA the breathing room it needed to make the Space Shuttle a reality, and everyone else enough time to deal with the ramifications of what just almost !@#$ing happened.

And it worked, but not without consequences far beyond what they !@#$ing thought...

Yeah, more on this later. I need another !@#$ing beer, and you look like you've had your mind blown enough tonight.

Because if that was some crazy and complicated !@#$, what happened next is going to turn your brains to Moutabal. And !@#$ am I hungry for some of that stuff, right about now.

(Unfortunately, we can't order out, anymore.)

(SPYGOD is listening to Silver Bird (Mark Lindsay) and having a Flag Speciale)

1/3/13 - Someone's Taking Over, and It Looks Like They're Aiming at Right At You

You're probably !@#$ing wondering why I'm drinking a little more of my daily ration than usual son. And by "a little more," I mean !@#$ing all of it, down in about three !@#$ gulps?

Well, while you weren't !@#$ing paying attention, I just got a big !@#$ wonderful surprise at the door.  That's "wonderful" spelled !-@-#-$ T-H-I-S !-@-#-$ I D-O-N-T !-@-#-$-I-N-G N-E-E-D.

The big !@#$ surprise? My new big !@#$ babysitter. One of the Three, and not one I'm particularly happy to !@#$ing deal with, either.

Oh yeah, son. Nailed it in one. The !@#$ in red who crashed my New Years party, and spent far too !@#$ long !@#$ing dragging me through my recent poor-seeming choices.

Ciel Rouge. Red Sky. Ally of Tempete Bleu and Foudre Blanc. One of the three big guns of the Terre Unifee, and a leader of Le Compagnie.

And, as of now? The person assigned to make !@#$ing sure I don't do anything naughty before my trial comes up. Naughty as in "use the Nthernaut to be somewhere else, again." Like I did at the !@#$ party.

She came in, had a few words, direct from the !@#$ President, or so she says. Not that I don't believe her, given how !@#$ angry he is with me, right now. But I don't need the Chandra Eye to know she's not exactly telling the whole !@#$ truth, either.

No, Red's !@#$ing getting something out of this, son. And normally I'd say "time will tell," but I don't have a whole !@#$ of a lot of it.

So I stood there and !@#$ing smiled while she searched the whole !@#$ apartment in a few heartbeats, and took a few things that maybe I wasn't supposed to have. Like the RPG I had in the closet for emergencies. Maybe a few of the bigger handguns... the limpet mine I forgot I !@#$ing had, mostly because it was !@#$ing diguised as a Russian tea-tray.

You know, son. Things like that.

(To her credit, she left Bee-Bee's gun alone. I think the kitty !@#$ing scared her. Good call, !@#$.)

Oh, and no more !@#$ dial-up katooeys, either. Some of those tender young call-girl-boys might be smuggling in !@#$ing weapons or something. Plus the door guards are getting really !@#$ uncomfortable searching them, before and after.

Anything else? Oh sure, son. She made some rather snarky remarks about what she !@#$ing thinks about me, and the COMPANY, and how I went about saving the !@#$ world while she was !@#$ing screwing up famine relief in southern Africa and making a hash of trying to "liberate" women from Islam in the North.

Got a long and big !@#$ list of complaints, that one.

What to do? I listened. I smiled. I asked if she wanted a beer.

And then, when she was !@#$ing done, I asked her if she knew who Foudre Blanc was oppressing, right now.

And when she just !@#$ing looked at me like I was nuts, I looked over in that direction of the world, and I !@#$ing told her. 

So that was the end of that visit, but I !@#$ing know she'll be back soon. Especially when some more aspects of the plan kick into place.

But yeah, son. After New Years I figured there was a chance the big !@#$ gauntlet was going to be !@#$ing thrown down. Turns out I was right to be !@#$ing worried. The TU isn't messing around, anymore. 

And I bet I know why, too...

But anyway, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why you haven't heard much about the Big Three from me? Well, son, up until recently there hasn't been a !@#$ of a lot to say.

Nothing good, anyway.

But yeah, let's talk about Direction Noir's Les Trois Grands.  Especially that Red !@#$, as she seems to be the glue that holds their !@#$es together.

What's her story? She grew up on the island of Mayotte, which you probably !@#$ing never heard of. It's one of those tiny, French colonial holdings they gobbled up because it was either !@#$ing strategic, or might !@#$ing be strategic, or was just on the way to somewhere a lot more !@#$ing important and they said "what the !@#$, we need a buffer, anyway."

Difference being, they're so !@#$ poor, that when France was doing it's !@#$ing best to shrug off its Imperial past, the island actually !@#$ing fought to stay a part of them. Still is, in some ways.

Anyway, Red was born there, the child of seriously-underpaid French civil workers. Grew up part of a real small minority, went kind of !@#$ing native. Guess her !@#$ parents didn't approve, but it's not like they could pack her up to a girl's school back on the mainland, now could they?

Then, at some point, she has something you might !@#$ing call a "spiritual experience."

Turns out that, while the island's mostly Muslim, they hold to some old !@#$ beliefs. The kind that have you !@#$ing standing staring at the sky, talking for something else. Possession, you might say.

Well, one of these spirits takes a taste of her white !@#$ and decides it !@#$ing likes it, and decides to stay. And the next time Red's parents see her, well, she isn't quite their little !@#$ girl, anymore. She's got muscles you wouldn't believe, the ability to catch bullets in her !@#$ hands, and moves so !@#$ fast it's like she can !@#$ing teleport, or something.

(And maybe she can, too. My Direction Noir moles weren't too !@#$ sure about that.)

But she's also got this other ability, which is probably why the TU's got her !@#$ing looking after Straffer and me. And that's that, when she looks you right in the !@#$ eyes, you really find it !@#$ hard to !@#$ing lie to her. She looks at you long enough, you just feel you want to tell her !@#$ing everything,  no matter how secret, incriminating, or flat out !@#$ing embarrassing.

Which is kind of why she walked out of here with the !@#$ RPG, and the limpet mine, and a few other things besides. Not because she it works on me or my lovely boyfriend, courtesy of the special nature of our eyes.

But because we didn't want her to know it didn't work.

Yeah. Pretty !@#$ clever, huh? Though I have to !@#$ing admit, it's a bit of a !@#$ struggle at times, even with this crazy !@#$ rock in my noggin. But now at least we've lulled those French !@#$s into something approaching a false sense of security.

The trick now is keeping it that way, which might be even more !@#$ difficult.

Anyway, so this girl takes off from Mayotte, goes to Africa, and starts trying to "help." Her idea of helping is messing with things she doesn't !@#$ing understand, or trying to replace something she doesn't like with "freedom," which doesn't always !@#$ing work so well.

But France was !@#$ happy to have her !@#$ing around with the continent, for one reason or another, and eventually came to get her !@#$ on board. Gave her a proper name, other than the one she was !@#$ing going by, which only made sense if you came from Mayotte or !@#$ing spoke "possessed."

And that was the birth of Red Sky.

The other two? Well, you've !@#$ing met Tempete Bleu. And you know how well the smug !@#$ handles himself, both on and off camera.

You remember when I !@#$ing told you about how the forerunner to Direction Noir was stumbling all over the !@#$ French landscape during the war, looking for strategic talents in small !@#$ villages and farmhouses? Well, they never !@#$ing stopped, and Tempete Bleu was one such find.

The way the story goes, some family calls up the French Government a few years back, telling them that they've got this !@#$ing kid that can pull school buses out of !@#$ing rivers and !@#$ like that. Can't fly just yet, but he can hop really !@#$ far. Sometimes sleeps above the !@#$ bed.

That and he's got this tendency to bring down the !@#$ing house when he claps his hands, which is about when they figured they'd better talk to the !@#$ing government.

Well, Direction Noir shows the !@#$ up, and is just pleased as punch to have this country bumpkin under their wing. They take him to the big !@#$ city, show him around, test him and train him, and turn his smiling, foie-gras-fed !@#$ into a French national symbol. Here to fly into your dens of contrary action and thunderclap them to pieces in the name of Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood. All that !@#$.

Except when we really needed him, starting on about, oh, 3/15?

But hey, forget the !@#$ alllllllllll about that, son. Now he's the !@#$ing national symbol for the whole !@#$ country, especially now that they're in charge of most of the !@#$ world. And you better not !@#$ing forget it, either.

Of course, that's the official story. 

What's the real story? Well, son, that's a !@#$ good question. It goes without saying that I don't !@#$ing trust Direction Noir's sweet-as-bee-!@#$ story any further than I could !@#$ing spit it in a big !@#$ hailstorm.

But I have to admit that, up until now, I really didn't make a !@#$ing priority out of it because, up until now, he wasn't a !@#$ing priority. I figured he'd eventually out himself as a joke, and that would be the end of that !@#$.

Except, now, well... let's just say he's given me a few reasons to actively !@#$ing dislike him. And we'll just leave it at that, son.

One thing, though. Someone I had inside at Direction Noir once told me that, when it came to Tempete Bleu, the official story wasn't just a cover story for the truth, but was a cover story for a cover story. Something weird involving a small town in some !@#$ing armpit of the country that got scribbled off the !@#$ maps in a hurry.

Something about a !@#$ing UFO, and what may have been in it...

Yeah. 

So we'll just have to look into that, son. And while we're at it, we'll have to !@#$ing look into  this Foudre Blanc guy. White Thunder, in case you didn't learn that !@#$ useless language in High School.

Who is he? Well, that's just it, son. We don't !@#$ing know, because I don't !@#$ing know.

And believe me, that is !@#$ing saying something.

What we do know is that he out of !@#$ing nowhere a couple years ago, and started doing that big !@#$ urban vigilante thing. Lots of big !@#$ expensive toys. Skilled in hand-to-hand fighting.

Won't kill, but loves leaving people !@#$ing crippled for life.

Now, I'm no shrieking violet, son. You know that, if someone's coming at me, they better be ready to throw the !@#$ down, because I will !@#$ing !@#$ them up one wall and down the other. Kill or be killed, son. No mercy, no quarter.

But this guy? He tends to spend his times in the suburbs outside of Paris, mostly. The areas where generation of immigrants have set up shop, decade after decade. And there's crime, yes, and sometimes violence. But also a close-knit group of people who feel, and rightly so, that the country that invited them in to make their postwar economy take off really didn't want them there after it got back on its feet, again.

And isn't too !@#$ing shy about making it known, either.

So the question is, is he !@#$ing smashing crime in the immigrant areas because it's just his thing? Or is he smashing crime in those areas because it's being done by immigrants, or their children?

Because I gotta say, son -- all those years I was running the !@#$ COMPANY, I ran across a lot of would-be Owls who talked big about justice and protection, but really just wanted a chance to beat the !@#$ out of people who didn't look like them, and were still struggling with !@#$ ing English however many years off the !@#$$ boat.

And as someone whose parents came to America from Italy, and got the same kind of raw !@#$ing deal...? Let's just say I wasn't too !@#$ appreciative of their initiative.

(Let's also say there's a reason my interview room in the late, much-lamented Flier had a trapdoor under the interviewee's seat. On bad days I forgot to put the automatic parachute in.)

Anyway, at some point this Owl rip-off gets brought in, fists covered in blood and teeth. And they ask him why he isn't working for the government.

What does he say? "The government should be working for me."

Not the sort of thing you want to hear someone !@#$ing drop on you, son. But they arrange a meet with him, Red, and Blue. And they turn out to have enough in common that they can !@#$ing create a team-up, kind of.

Hence Les Trois Grands, and hence my current !@#$ing headache. But I've given them enough to chew on for a while.

See, while I can't quite get a bead on who this White Thunder !@#$er is, I can tell where he is, sometimes, thanks to the magic of Paris' ever-present CCTV cameras. He used to avoid them, back in the day, but now that he's with the Big !@#$ Three he seems to !@#$ing enjoy smacking the !@#$ out of people on film.

So I wasn't kidding about what he was doing, at that moment in time. And when I told her, well, she thinks I'm telling the truth, aren't I?

And I told her the unvarnished !@#$ing truth, too. Every nasty, bloody bit.

Now, while I may not appreciate Red's tendency to liberate people from things they don't necessarily need liberating from, I can appreciate it means her !@#$ heart is in the right place. She genuinely wants to make things better for the Beurs, and people like them.

So it doesn't pay to have her partner out beating on them just because, now does it?

No son, it does not.

And while she's !@#$ing dealing with that, I can work on what I need to. Namely, connecting some big !@#$ dots and making this plan of mine work.

What plan is that? Well, figure it the !@#$ out, son. But don't take too long.

You never know when I might not be here to talk to, anymore...

(SPYGOD is listening to Red Skies (The FIXX) and having a really old can of Red, White, and Blue beer)

1/2/13 - I Must Confess That Life Is Like a Game of Chess

So, how are we going to get out of this !@#$ing House Arrest thing and go save the !@#$ world, son?

Well, that's a !@#$ good question. Pity I'd have to !@#$ing kill you if I told you.

Hey, wait! Come back here, kid. I was just !@#$ing kidding. We're all friends, here. You, me, my boyfriend, the cat.

(Well, maybe not the cat. Let's steer clear of Bee-Bee. She may be awake and sober.)

Honey? Could you use the metal thing and give the cat another bottle of vodka before she wakes up and sprays the !@#$ing room, again? ... Okay, thanks, hon.

Okay, crisis !@#$ing averted! Used to be I could get my repurposed Slaughterbot to deal with that kind of !@#$ but I haven't seen METALMAID since before the President got fake-shot. Probably went looking for me to help out, so God only knows where that crazy !@#$ is now.

(I hope she's okay. She wouldn't last three weeks out there without me, given her programming.)

...

Anyway! We were going to talk about getting the !@#$ out of this jam.

Now, SPYGOD's got some money, left. And he's got some lawyers that aren't !@#$ing French. But that's not going to be nearly enough to get my fine gay !@#$ out of this jam, son. Not with the TU looking to slam it in jail for the next 200 years, which is 199 years and 11 months too !@#$ late to fix things.

So we're just going to have to go back to what SPYGOD does best, son. I mean, besides drink myself so far under the !@#$ing table I pass through the big !@#$ world and come up the other side.

And that's play the !@#$ spy game until the board !@#$ing breaks.

See, once upon a time, when dirty old uncle SPYGOD's !@#$ was still green and growing, my Handler gave me a lot of !@#$ good advice. And while some of it I'd have to !@#$ing kill you after I told you, I can tell you this much for free:

It's not what you know, son. It's what other people know. And, most !@#$ing importantly, it's what you have on them, and therefore can get them to do for you.

That's right, son. It's just that !@#$ing simple. Even a child could understand it. 

Don't believe me? Okay, imagine you're ten years old, and you play marbles. Not the worst player, not the best, but you can hold your own.

Now, say that some other kid on the block's got the best !@#$ shooter you've ever seen. He regularly kicks everyone's !@#$ with it, including yours. And this sucks.

But hey, kids will be kids. Maybe you can give him something to let you !@#$ing use it, now and again? And if he does, well, great, and just don't lose it. Cooperation wins out, everybody happy, life goes on.

But if he says "eat !@#$, shrimp" and stomps your butt at marbles again, well, that's too !@#$ bad. Get a better shooter or learn to kick better !@#$ with your own. Survival of the fittest, one must lose for another to win, life just sucks that way.

But here's a big !@#$ question, son. Supposing you know that the only reason this kid's got that shooter is because he !@#$ing stole it?

Yeah, that's right. The little !@#$ took it right out of the pile of the brain-damaged kid sister of the biggest prepubescent lunkhead over on Bloody Dogkill street, three blocks over, where cops won't answer calls for fear of being the next !@#$ victim. The sort of socially-backwards area where they !@#$ their food to death in broad daylight and then eat it raw and heaving, and if wander down their way by accident they make you pay a toll to several people with your mouth or your !@#$.

Because they can.

Somehow, this little !@#$ snuck over there and got this lucky piece of glass. And here's your marble king, using that stolen shooter to make all the other kids look bad...

You see where this is !@#$ing going, right?

Now, maybe you decide to just !@#$ing tell the lunkhead? That might be dangerous, but it'd be !@#$ funny to see this uppity kid get a whooping from someone with more bone in his !@#$ skull than brains. And you never know, the lunkhead might get so !@#$ happy turning this kid into pulp that he'll forget why he's there in the first place, and you can retrieve the shooter from what's left of his pants.

(Wouldn't try and cash a check on that one, though)

Or maybe you let the uppity kid know that you know where the !@#$ing shooter came from, and could very well inform the owner's dog-humping, mouth-breathing, tin can-eating older brother from Hell of this theft... but choose not to.

Now, that action right there !@#$ing opens up a whole lot of maybes.

Maybe the kid figures you're all talk and !@#$ing ignores you. And maybe he's right? God only !@#$ing knows how you learned about the stolen shooter in the first place, but going back there's got its own big !@#$ risks.

Maybe the kid gets mad and kicks your !@#$ on general principle. And while you're crying and whining and telling him you're going to tell he'll remind you that the lunkhead in question's three blocks and a risk of forced public !@#$sex away.

Or maybe he's gets scared that you will do this. Which means you own the little !@#$er, and get to use that shooter whenever you want.

Or, maybe, if you present what you know in a different way, you are now partners. This means you get to share the shooter back and forth, and maybe get into some other deals with each other, here and there.

Got all that son? I sure !@#$ing hope so, because that's the principle the whole !@#$ spy game is based on, right there. You got something I want, and I know something about you that's going to make you want to !@#$ing give it to me.

Maybe it's that you did something naughty, and we got the pics. Or maybe you needed money and we know how you got it. That we were the ones who !@#$ing gave you the naughty things or the money, based on weaknesses we know you have, is not important.

Because that's also how the !@#$ game is played. Sometimes we give you the !@#$ing marble just to protect you from the dog-humper.

And you know something else, son? Sometimes the dog-humper is the law. Or your boss.

Especially if you work in a sensitive !@#$ing area.

I mean, I know we've talked about the !@#$ ugly reality of the spy business, before. How for every crazy !@#$hole running around in a flying car with a laser in his !@#$ wristwatch and a !@#$ing rocket launcher in his codpiece there's about a hundred slobs named Harold sitting in a room, reading foreign newspapers and wondering what weird !@#$ the commissary's going to be claiming is "lunch," today?

You remember that, right?

Well, here's the thing. Even when you're out of those !@#$ crazy, endless jags of watching South Korean soap operas for Uncle !@#$ing Sam, and you're out there actually gathering intel by recruiting the kind of people you used to be, people are still going to try and get a hand on your shooter marble.

It's just that now they have more tools to do it with, given your increased areas of responsibility. 

They might try and kidnap your spouse, your kids, or your !@#$ing cat. They might bribe or blackmail you, or threaten to expose your secrets or your Supers' identities to the !@#$ media. They might even kidnap you while you're in !@#$ing Antigua and put a big !@#$ bomb in your skull, son. I've seen some heinous !@#$ in my time.

(!@#$, son. I've done some heinous !@#$ in my time. Ask anyone.)

But at the same time, you don't have to be an !@#$hole about it. You can just !@#$ing talk to them.

No, really son. I'm not joking. Remember when I said the kid could just wink and nod at the marble-thief and try to work together? Same !@#$ thing.

You can have a meeting of the minds on neutral territory. Maybe arrange for a prisoner swap, or an exchange of some kind. Maybe there's a mutual enemy you could team up on. Maybe there's something they don't know about one of their "friends."

So you shake hands, make a deal, and you get to look at the marble. Maybe play with it for a while.

This is the game we played all the !@#$ time, once upon a time, in case you were !@#$ing wondering. We kept the enemy just powerless enough to stop them from doing anything too terrible, but not so !@#$ed up that they activated some doomsday thing and blew up the !@#$ world.

But then I had to say "!@#$ it" and bring it all down, didn't I?

...

But, see, the real spy game? It isn't with your enemies, son.

Its with your friends. Or maybe the neutral parties you'd rather not be friends with, at least above the board.

After all, when the dog-humping lunkhead finally figures out who the !@#$'s got his sister's precious marble? Well, son, you do not want to be there for that !@#$ing conversation if you can help it.

Not at all.

And there's more I could tell you. Especially about a certain Middle Eastern astronaut, an Egyptian spook show organization, and how it is we're taking day trips out of this four star prison cell. But I think my dear sweetie's about to have some big !@#$ fun with the cat, and it'd be best if you didn't !@#$ing see this. So we'll talk more later-

Why? Because you're not !@#$ing bulletproof, kid.

You're welcome.

(SPYGOD is listening to It Ain't What You Do It's the Way That You Do It (Fun Boy Three) and having a Marble Brewing Stout Americano)

1/1/13 - A Shadow of Life - Pt. 2

Where the !@#$ we? Not that important, son. We could be a big !@#$ mile under Paris, London, Neo York City. Anywhere the Terre Unifee's got its fat, French fingers into, we could be there, watching our man get the mother of all debriefings.

(I'm betting Rome, though. The guards all look like pictures of my Great Uncle from my !@#$ing family album. Especially the women.)

What is important is what this guy is saying, and you can bet everyone worth a !@#$ in this new, post-Imago world is listening in.

That goes for me, too, of course. And you can bet your big !@#$ $800 Prada belt I'm looking in on this third man, along with Straffer. 

What, they trust us again, now? !@#$ no, son. We're still on the outs. It's just that we sort of !@#$ing invited  ourselves. 

But here's the kicker. No one else in the room can !@#$ing see us, but we can see and hear every !@#$ thing that's going on. 

(And how we're doing that is something I'm going to have to keep !@#$ing quiet for now, son. I'm supposed to be under House Arrest, after all. We wouldn't want to get in any worse trouble than we're already in, would we? Though it'd be hard !@#$ing work to do that, at this point.)

But we're watching and listening as the TU's best interrogators are working this man over, ever so gently. As someone who's had to "welcome" any number of superspies, villains, and idiots with more power than ethics or brains over the years, I have to say they're doing a !@#$ good job.  

Even with that weird, green-haired woman standing right behind them (the one who makes it so his powers don't !@#$ing work) I wouldn't be worried that he'd try to jump the !@#$ out of here with the sugar trail they're leading his dead-eyed !@#$ down.

Not that he has anywhere to jump, now. Not really. Not now that his double, Disparaître, has his scent and can follow him !@#$ing anywhere he tries to go. 

And not that he can really go home, either, which is the whole !@#$ point of this discussion.

I'd almost feel sorry for him, except that I'm still too !@#$ed off at what happened there, a couple months back. That and I'm still trying to wrap my !@#$ing noggin around what he's saying he saw. 

And yes, son. Now more than ever, that is saying something.

* * *

You see, son, something has gone wrong. Badly wrong.

The whole Alter Earth plan revolved around one big !@#$ fact. And that was that, while both our planet and theirs was going to be visited by this big !@#$ space monster to end all big !@#$ space monsters, we were going to get hit first. 

How did they even !@#$ing  know this? !@#$ed if I know, son. I know that they had some records left over from the time before, when other things were living on their Earth, but how they knew how to interpret them, and how those things even !@#$ing knew? Kind of makes my !@#$ head hurt. 

!@#$, son. For all I know their Zombie Emperor Jesus gave the !@#$ing date ex !@#$ing cathedra, at some point during his centuries-long reign. Who can say? 

Alter Earth was never what you'd call a !@#$ good source of reliable intel. Most of what we got, prior to my discovery in the HONEYCOMB's central HIVE, was courtesy of people who got zapped over here for however long before they faded back home. 

And as you might !@#$ing imagine, they really did not feel like cooperating. Even when we were really !@#$ nice to them. 

(Especially when we were really !@#$ nice. It scared them more than the threats.)

But here's the big !@#$ deal, son. Like I said earlier, we were supposed to get !@#$ing nailed by this space beast a year and three months before them. And the idea was that they had some machine that might help, and they wanted to test it out.

So big !@#$ space monster day would come, they'd turn their !@#$ing technogooble on, cook up some !@#$ing popcorn, sprinkle butter-flavored powdered baby parts over it, and munch and !@#$ while watching us burn, or melt, or whatever. And then they'd go home, intel in hand, and either build a bigger version of their !@#$ing machine, or prepare to bring people over here to ride out the storm.

Whichever, whatever. But they had a plan, based on a rough time estimate, and they were !@#$ing sticking with it. 

Well... you know what I say about plans, by now.  Right, son?

* * *

So our third man, this double of Disparaître, he's spent the last couple months carrying on like nothing's !@#$ different, because for him it really isn't. He can go back and !@#$ing forth, right? Who cares about the !@#$ Imago if you can just wink anywhere you !@#$ well like?  

He comes here, sees !@#$, doesn't !@#$ing care, does nothing. Maybe he gets in contact with the other me and the nasty !@#$ they were partnered up with, maybe he doesn't. And then he goes home, checks in, feeds them intel that's a mix of true and false, just to keep things !@#$ing interesting. 

Comes here, goes there, repeat as !@#$ing needed. 

So he's telling these nice TU interrogators that the last time he was there was a day at the end of !@#$ing November. They were having Market Day, then, apparently, and he had a few big !@#$ing purchases he wanted to make.

(And you do not want to know what he bought, son. Just trust me there.)

He buys some... things. He makes his !@#$ report. It's half true, half bull!@#$. They don't !@#$ing call him on it, he doesn't give them a reason to, and then he !@#$ing comes back over here.

And then, on Christmas Day, he teleports the !@#$ back home, expecting to find people preparing for another !@#$ing festival. Something to do with the Unconquered Son, or some such.

And instead...

...

The first thing he noticed was the Moon. It was gone. A big !@#$ piece of it was tumbling away from view, end over end like some poor !@#$hole falling out of a plane without a chute. 

Then the smell hits him. The kind of horrible charred smell you get when the mother of all pot roasts gets left in the oven just long enough to turn into coal, mixed with damp rot, methane, and !@#$ knows what else.

He looks down. It's the worst thing he could have done. Nothing is left of the city he once came back to. The buildings are all shattered and razed, covered in some weird, black !@#$.

There are people still alive. Just not a lot of them, and not for long.

The first one he comes across is kneeling with her back to him. She's a slave, he thinks, because she's naked. She's dirty and bruised and bloody, she's messed herself.

And there's something about the noises she's making...

* * *

At first, he thinks she's just crying, as her face is wet and she's making low noises. And who wouldn't be? Her world is destroyed, her master probably dead. There's no reason to stay silent and stoic, anymore.  

Who would be so cruel as to beat her for a lack of composure at a time like this?

But when he walks around, he sees his error.

She is not weeping. She is making the sound that people do when their minds have finally failed, and their bodies are shutting down. The low, endless "uuuuuuu" of the lost and the dying.

And she is not crying, either. The black, lumpy streams of matter oozing from her blasted and smoking eyesockets are not tears.

He has the uncomfortable feeling they may be what's left of her brains. 

He steps away from her, quickly, and looks around. He sees there are more just like her, living and dead. All with the same open, blackened, and smoking eyesockets, leaking charred and filthy matter down their faces.  

The few living ones making that horrible noise, the only sounds over the rushing wind and licking flames.

He whirls around, seeing that the buildings are alive with gruesome things. A pulsing, living darkness, clinging to their cracked surfaces. Insubstantial but ever-present, smelling of something truly awful.  

Something infectious, hanging in the wound between worlds.

He jumps, heading to the one place where there should be actual survivors. The place prepared for the highest amongst the high. Those whose robes are so white it actually hurts to look at them, and their servants must have their eyes altered accordingly.  

The Sleep Chamber, the last hope of their world. Mighty and inviolate, and still intact, there in the distance.

But the moment he teleports, he screams. The air is wrong, somehow. The substance tainted.

Something dark is waiting for him, there.  

He flails away, landing outside the building he was aiming for. And then he realizes what is wrong. The strange, pulsing darkness that has coated the broken buildings is here as well, sliding over the outside surface.  

Feeding on what is within.

He hears their screams from the high windows. They howl that they were cheated. That they should have been given a new world they could live in, and not this sere and carnivorous landscape.  

Not this shattered, black mockery of a world. 

He could go up there and save them. He knows this. But he also knows that this would risk going into whatever darkness hangs in space between here and there. The scalding, acidic foulness that almost devoured him the last time.  

And so he turns, and ignores his masters in their moment of need.

He's crying, now. It's finally sinking in. His world is gone. There is nothing left for him now, here. Their plan is over.  

It was all a terrible mistake.

But then he makes an even greater mistake. He looks up, past what's left of the Moon, still falling away from his world.

And he sees... something. A blackness, where there should be stars. A dark shape, getting smaller as it moves away from the planet it just wrecked.  

And for the briefest moment, maybe the space between two heartbeats, he can make out its shape...

* * *

And that, son, is when he finally did the sensible thing and got the !@#$ out of dodge.

He's not entirely sure what happened next, to hear him tell it. He says he !@#$ing wandered around in a daze for a while, alternating between crying and drinking. And then he just settled on !@#$ing drinking, and went to that nasty Cairo bar, knowing they'd leave him the !@#$ alone.

That's where they found his sorry !@#$, like I said. He wasn't trying too hard to hide, anymore, though. He just didn't !@#$ing care. In fact, according to him, he was working up his courage to go step into the !@#$ Sun when they arrived.

(One way to dodge the mother of all bar bills, I guess?)

All well and good, of course. But looking at this broken bastard, crying into his hands now that the massive pile of nasty !@#$ we used to call Alter Earth is a !@#$ing tomb, here's the big !@#$ question, son. 

How do I feel about this? 

See, I used to dream about a day like this. I used to imagine a final !@#$ end to that !@#$hole of a world. All their rape as punishment, torture as entertainment, child sex as family business, death!@#$ing as ritual... just to find out it all ended at 5 in the PM on an otherwise-boring friday would have !@#$ing made my weekend. 

Especially after what happened, last year.

But now? Looking at this creepy !@#$ copy of Disparaître crying because he !@#$ing feels he should be dead, too? That he failed them, somehow? 

It reminds of of this time after the War, when I was looking at the dossiers of Hitler's Ubermenschen. The before and after photos Hitlers oh-so-exacting record keepers kept, year after year. All those fresh-faced kids and young people, some staring ahead like soldiers, some smiling like kids having their !@#$ graduation photos taken. 

I remembered some of them. I fought them. I cut them to pieces, shot them full of holes, ripped them apart with my !@#$ing hands. I cheered to see them dead and dying. !@#$, I even laughed  as they bled out.

But looking at their pictures, all there in their fresh, new uniforms, their faces full of hope and pride? I couldn't see any !@#$ difference between them and the pictures of the kids and young people I volunteered with, after Pearl Harbor. 

Just different uniforms. Different countries that couldn't settle things peaceably. Different ideologies that couldn't coexist. 

Differences that killed. 

Was it their fault those German kids were born into a broken world? Was it their fault they were told evil was good, wrong was right? Did most of them really know what they were !@#$ing doing?

I was never !@#$ing sure with some of them. But I think of all that !@#$ potential wasted. All that possibility gone.

And you know what? Even of Alter Earth was broken, so that the good was bad and the bad was really !@#$ing bad? How do we know there weren't some !@#$ points of light, there in that darkness? How do we know there weren't saints, alive and working in secret?

Did the good deserve to die along with the evil? 

... 

I don't know, son. Sometimes I make like I'm the biggest !@#$ing authority on everything in the !@#$ world, and maybe sometimes I am. But at a time like this, I can't be of any !@#$ing help at all. 

At times like this, I'm just an !@#$hole with a gun who's famous for all the wrong !@#$ reasons.

* * *

Sow what?

My wonderful boyfriend, he talks to aliens for a living. Usually from the other end of a very large !@#$ing gun, of course, but we've always had other species living here, on Earth. And so long as they behave themselves and don't !@#$ing cornhole cows and steal farmers' daughters off to Zeta Omicron IV and a !@#$ half for fun and profit, we're fine. 

Sometimes they're even !@#$ing useful, because sometimes they have actionable intelligence. And even when they don't, well, at least they've got stories.

So you can imagine that, when I realized what this ((UNINTELLIGIBLE CONCEPT)) thing was about, I wanted to !@#$ing know everything. And while a lot of them don't have more info than we did, at least they had stories. 

Horrible stories.

Stories of entire !@#$ing solar systems wiped out in days. Stories of big !@#$ empires brought to nothing. Stories of the greatest !@#$ing armies and armadas wrecked to !@#$ and left burning in space.

Stories of how this !@#$ing thing's presence within a lightyear was enough to make entire planets pack the !@#$ up and go in the opposite !@#$ing direction, hoping it didn't notice them. 

Stories about how nothing could !@#$ing save those who were hit by this thing. Not bomb shelters or shields. Not all the !@#$ armaments in the world.  

Stories about how the few survivors didn't last long...

But this third man? This Omega-class teleporter sitting in this room, trying not to cry? He's the only person who's ever actually seen the immediate aftermath of this thing.

So now we know the stories we've been hearing are true. 

We know that, once we see that !@#$ thing, it'll be on us in less than a month. 

We know exactly what it will do when it gets here, and that nothing we can do will save anyone. 

We know that the disturbing news we got some time ago is even more disturbing than we'd thought.

We know what we are up against.  

And for me, that means that, now more than ever, we have to come together. All the plans, all the plots, all the problems. None of them are with a good god!@#$.

And that, son, means this House Arrest !@#$ needs to end, one way or another. I don't have time to be sidelined or out of action. Neither does my lover.

The good is not going to end here, son. Not so long as I have a !@#$ing breath. 

This fight must be fought, and I've got to be there, for all our sakes. 

(SPYGOD is listening to In a Dark Place (Gary Numan, remix) and having nothing now)

1/1/13 - A Shadow of Life - Pt. 1

The first thing he'd noticed, our man, was that there was no Moon up in the sky.

And yeah, that seems like a !@#$ing funny thing to notice first, given everything else that was waiting for him. All those !@#$ing horrible sights and terrifying sounds. All those sickening odors, coupled with the knowledge of what those ghastly !@#$ smells were.

The brain-!@#$ing understanding that can only come in a moment like that.

(And, yeah, the increasing, big-!@#$-iron-brick-in-the-stomach feeling you tend to get the moment you know that either you've !@#$ed it all up, or someone else has.)

But it actually makes perfect !@#$ sense, given that our man always liked to look up at the sky when he did this. He'd look at the Sun or the Moon, or the clouds or the stars. He'd see where they were, up there, far far from anything on the ground.

And then he'd close his eyes, and smile, and then open them up somewhere else.

Somewhere different, let's say. 

So this time, there had been this bright, beautiful thing up over the cold, December horizon, waxing so full and fat he could make out most of the craters. It was a clear night, and the moonlight on the snow was a !@#$ beautiful thing. So !@#$ beautiful that it was hard to believe it was happening on the same day so much bad and crazy !@#$ had happened.

(Not that he was really all that shocked by it, as we're now learning, one big !@#$ interrogation at a time.)

Our man? He'd looked up at the big !@#$ moon, held out his hands, and closed his eyes. And he'd done that thing that he did so !@#$ well, knowing at least the sky would be the same when he got to where he was !@#$ing going.

That different place he liked to call home, when he wasn't over here, !@#$ing up our !@#$.

But when he'd opened his eyes again, our man, the big !@#$ thing just wasn't there. It was gone, leaving nothing but the cold, distant stars, barely visible from the fast-moving, sickly clouds that were streaking over him like they had somewhere more !@#$ing important to be.

And there was no big !@#$ Moon in the sky because the big !@#$ Moon was no longer there.

It was gone from the sky. Missing from orbit. And if he squinted his eyes just so, he could see that a bright patch, just past those streaking clouds, was a big, jagged piece of it, flying away from the Earth.

Which may or may not have been when his mind gave our man a mercy he really did not !@#$ing deserve and just shut the !@#$ down, sparing him the full realization of what he saw next.

The realization we're all !@#$ing wishing we didn't have to deal with, ourselves. 

* * *

There's a lot of reasons why this is happening right the !@#$ now, son. But by and large (as my beautiful boyfriend tells me) his new friend Disparaître was the key.

He's !@#$ quiet for a Frenchman, that guy. Just doesn't like to talk at all. Not too unpleasant to look at, but not gonna win any !@#$ing awards from the body nazis at the bar. Likes dark blue suits and !@#$ty, cheap cigarettes. Doesn't get !@#$ing drunk with everyone else, either.

Maybe because he's afraid of what might happen if he !@#$ing loses control. 

You see, Disparaître is the best !@#$ing teleporter the Terre Unifee's got in its stable of postwar supers. He was Direction Noir's dirty little secret for decades, going here, there, and !@#$ing everywhere in the blink of an eye, getting !@#$ done on the quiet, and then vanishing before anyone could figure he'd been there. 

And since the Reclamation War, and TU's slow takeover of the rest of the !@#$ world, he's been working for their Space Service, making sure our best !@#$ defense against a certain thing that's !@#$ing coming to kill the !@#$ planet can be anywhere it needs to be. 

And I do !@#$ing mean anywhere, son. 

You see, most teleporters are only able to tekeport within line of sight, or maybe someplace they know. Some of them can even muster up enough !@#$ moxie to take you somewhere they feel they know because they more or less know where it is. Like the !@#$ing Eiffel Tower or something. 

(That's Skyspear, in case you were !@#$ing wondering.)

And some of them? Well, they're good enough to take you someplace they don't know, but they have seen. Show them a !@#$ picture and they'll get you where you need to go. Might take a whole bunch of stops, but they'll get you there, eventually. 

(And that's Anil, in case you were wondering about that.)

But some of them? Well, !@#$, son, you give them coordinates? Show them someone's picture? Give them a general idea? They think for a minute, if that, and then poof, they're there, surprising the !@#$ out of someone, and moving through space in such a way that no one -- not even someone like Wayfinder, rest his soul -- could ever find him?

And that's Disparaître for you, son. Anywhere in a few seconds, with or without company, and totally !@#$ing undetectable. !@#$ useful to have around.

But there's more to his power than he lets on.

See, if Disparaître wanted to go to the !@#$ing moon? He could. He's even done it before, once, when Direction Noir needed to deal with something pretty !@#$ heinous and alien, back in the 90's. All he needed was a !@#$ spacesuit they stole from the ESA, and away he went.

If he wanted to go to Pluto? He could do that, too. Might be a little hairy, and he'd need a better !@#$ing spacesuit, but sure.

And if he wanted to !@#$ing end his life with a !@#$ of a bang, and just walk on the !@#$ Sun...? Well, I guess you can figure that out, huh? 

Like I said, son. Quite a useful guy to have around. 

But there's a reason why Disparaître avoids talking to people, unless he feels he needs to. There's a reason why he doesn't lose control. And there's a reason why he's !@#$ glad most teleporters of Anil's level or higher just don't need to sleep, for one reason or another. Though most folks I know figure it's to keep them from accidentally teleporting themselves someplace dangerous in their dreams. 

And that's because Disparaître can go somewhere else, if he really wants to. 

But he went there once, when he was very young. In fact, that was the first place he ever teleported to, and it drained him so badly it took him three whole days to come back. 

And as for what happened in those three days? Well, it's part of the reason why he's so quiet and reserved, I guess you could say. But it's also the reason why he never teleported again until Direction Noir's scientists found him in a home for mentally disturbed young adults, dragged him the !@#$ out of there, and gave him a choice between a uniform and a lobotomy. 

(And they thought The COMPANY was !@#$ing brutal? Give me a !@#$ break.)

But he took the !@#$ uniform. He became their teleporter. Over time, he even came to appreciate it, as doing something constructive with his talents made some of the rage and pain go away, and helped him to conquer what had been done to him.

He was becoming a survivor, as they like to say these days. And rightfully !@#$ing so.  

A survivor, he served with Direction Noir, until it stopped !@#$ing existing on 3/15. At that point he became part of what would become the Terre Unifee, which has yet to stop existing. And that led to him becoming part of their Space Service, tasked with protecting our world from all external threats. Especially the big !@#$ one that's on its way here.

The thing we call ((UNINTELLIGIBLE CONCEPT))

Which led to him being a part of a post-Christmas meeting with the new President of the Terre Unifee, being the former President of the United States of America. During which time he finally got to meet the new boss for the first !@#$ing time.

Which led to a very frenzied few minutes as the President all but freaked out, and accused poor Disparaître of having once done a very terrible thing. 

* * *

Which terrible thing? 

Well, !@#$ son, you were there. You know what happened to my former Commander in Chief. About a month before GORGON !@#$ing dropped the boom down on the world, they arranged to have him !@#$ing kidnapped, right out of the Oval Office, and zapped over to !@#$ing Alter Earth. 

And just so we wouldn't look for him, and just to !@#$ with my ability to stop their alien !@#$es, they brought his twin from Alter Earth here, to be shot and killed on live television by my !@#$ing Alter Earth twin.

So eventually, I figure out what the !@#$ happened, and find a way to get my !@#$ over to Alter Earth and save him. And I did, though things got a little !@#$ing weird with the plan, and the complications nearly !@#$ed the greater plan right in the !@#$ behind with a !@#$ing giant robot jackhammer, minus the lube. 

Eventually, we find out what the big deal was, courtesy of one of the nastiest !@#$ing things I've ever had the displeasure of having to sit in a courtroom with. Turns out the Imago had a deal going with the !@#$ing Alter Earth crowd, courtesy of a rather twisted !@#$ who fooled us all into thinking she was the good twin of the now-dead head of HONEYCOMB, and her bodyguard, who turned out to be my twin. And it all revolves around that thing that's on its way to Earth, here to eat us up like a big !@#$ bag of !@#$ing jellybeans, or whatever. 

See, according to Dark Star, these Alter Earth people had known for quite a long !@#$ time that this thing was on its way. And they also knew that our planet was going to get hit first, about a year and a quarter before them. And since they'd had time to prepare, they had a big !@#$ing machine they wanted to turn on, here, and see if it worked. 

So, it works? Hip !@#$ing hooray, and they'll use it at home. It doesn't? Well, tough !@#$ing !@#$, and they'd get ready to just move their people from there to here after we got all !@#$ed up, wait for the storm on their end to die down, and then either go back or stay here... whichever. 

Got all that?

Now, it goes without saying that the Alter Earth people had their own !@#$ agenda and weren't playing straight with the Imago. And it also goes without saying that the Imago weren't going to just !@#$ing sit around and wait to see if the Alter Earth people's big !@#$ machine worked or not. 

In fact, I don't think the big !@#$ machine even got built on their watch, mostly because I think the machine was just The Chamber, sitting down there in the !@#$ Ice Palace, and waiting for Geri Yesterday to figure out how it worked, and use it to drive the thing off, just like it did a million years ago. Only once the Imago took over, their absorbed version of Doctor Yesterday kind of !@#$ed around and didn't get anywhere figuring it the !@#$ out, and Geri kind of vanished... maybe. 

(Still not !@#$ing sure what all happened there, son, though I'm hoping for more answers, soon.)

But let's do some math, shall we? We got the Alter Earth Geri Yesterday accounted for, and she's probably out there somewhere, being a dangerous !@#$. And we've got my Alter Earth double accounted for, and he's out there, somewhere, no longer able to be me with !@#$ing impunity but still dangerous. 

But to borrow a line from an old movie, what about the third man?

* * *

Oh yes, son. There's a third force in play. Kind of sneaky, too. 

See, on the day the President was supposedly killed, but actually was taken, he was approached by someone in the Oval Office. Someone that even Wayfinder couldn't see, somehow, though he knew I was there... even if it wasn't me.  Someone in a weird uniform no one had ever seen before, and one that a certain former Secret Service Agent named Jess Friend (who had what was, hands-down, the worst first day of any SS Agent ever) just knew was up to no !@#$ing good. 

But then the other me showed up, just in time to make !@#$ing history the worst !@#$ way possible. And then Jess was missing parts. 

So this third guy took the President to Alter Earth, dropped him off to his captors, and then replaced him with his double. Said double gets his head !@#$ing exploded in the Rose Garden, and fools a bunch of people. Anyone who doesn't get fooled gets vanished by the Imago, who've got Men in Black walking around disappearing people who know too !@#$ much before 3/15. 

But here's the real kicker, son. Remember what I said about Alter Earth, and how when people from here go over there, due to some weird science !@#$ery, or a big !@#$ cosmic accident, their double usually shows up over here, at least until the effect wears the !@#$ off?

Well, you'll note how that hasn't been !@#$ing happening in this case. And we know HONEYCOMB figured a way to make it work, though not without a big !@#$ science donut from !@#$. But here's a !@#$ case where another me, and another Gerde Hoffstatler, are walking around on this world without the two of us being flung the !@#$ over there.

(And yeah, Simon Pure was able to get us the !@#$ over there without doing a doubling, which is probably a !@#$ good thing because there's no way I want to unleash the Mr. USA of Alter Earth on us, though that might be a big moot point, now. But I digress...) 

Anyway, what we've learned from all this is that one of the interesting things about superpower-based trips to Alter Earth is that there is no reversal effect. You go over there? Your other does not come here. You take someone over there? Their other does not come here. 

Unless you !@#$ing make them, of course, hence poor Jess Friend's confusion that day in the Oval Office. He couldn't !@#$ing tell how many people were there. First there were three, then two, then four, then two, all with weird spatial distortions that make onlookers a little queasy if their brains aren't !@#$ing wired up right. 

So what about that third man, then? Where did he !@#$ing go after he dropped off the other me and the other head of HONEYCOMB? Where's he !@$#ing been since then? 

Well, son, you want to hide something? You put it right in !@#$ing plain sight, or else hide it along with something else you keep hidden.

* * *

And that's why Disparaître, after figuring out what was going on (with a little help from Faraj, who had some under-the-table help from his former Director) used his power to find someone, anywhere, on himself. 

Which is why a bunch of very powerful people stepped into a rather scummy sex club in Cairo, a couple days back. And when they got there, they immediately collared a very morose person who'd been there, literally drinking nonstop since the day after Christmas.

Because the place runs 24/7,as Faraj well knows. And because that person has a lot of money and can make people who !@#$ wiith him just disappear.

And because that fellow, our man, doesn't need to !@#$ing sleep. 

Our man. The third man. The dimensional teleporter that arranged for the arrival of Alter Earth's science atrocity ambassadors, not long after the War, and attended to the kidnapping and replacement of the President, just under a year ago, and has done who !@#$ing knows what the !@#$ else before and since.

Someone who looks exactly like Disparaître, right down to the DNA... except for a few different scars, a proclivity for sadism, and the fact that there's nothing in his eyes but a flat and terrible blank where there should be a soul. 

And it's not the usual darkness people from Alter Earth tend to have, either. The people who took charge of his !@#$ and remanded him into the TU's expert interrogators say he looks like he's seen the mother of all ghosts. 

And that's just it, son. He !@#$ing has. 

...

You'll have to excuse me for a second, now. They're coming back in to talk to the !@#$er and I don't want to miss any of this. Not after all this time.

And not after what he's had to say so far. 

(SPYGOD is listening to In A Dark Place (Gary Numan) and having a Faustian Stout)