Apotheoclypse Now: 9/12/16 - 9/18/16

"What do you want from me today? / Going through the tunnel of another drain"

(Ted Cruz, Myron, Shining Guardsman)

(Art by the Lemonade Project)

* * *

7

* * *

Over the ages, many a person has asked me "why?" Why do I do these things that I do? 

Why do I knock over the cooking pot, or spread the rumor? Why do I lie and cheat, and then make it seem as though others were at fault, and not I? 

Why do I play jokes that lead friends to become enemies, lovers to quarrel, and kingdoms to go to war?

Why indeed, Loki. But why not? 

If a joke be told and not understood, does not explaining only diminish the humor? Ruin the jest?

Well, so too is it with my actions. I do not feel the need to explain them, any more than the bear needs explain its hunger, the squirrel its need to hide nuts for winter, the Sun to rise and to set.  

But what would I say to the All Father, were he here before me, asking me why?

Well, I suppose I might have a great deal to tell him. And perhaps this would make all manner of things plain.

But, as I have said, I have no intention of ruining my greatest jest in ages.

Especially now that, thanks to this new body I have claimed as my own, the laughter be around the closest corner...

Monday: 9/12/16

"Well, this is... awkward," Director Straffer says, watching as almost every hero Myron brought with him to Mars intervenes to keep one Aesir from killing another, right on the deck of Naglfar. 

"That's putting it mildly," Shining Guardsman says, using every ounce of his suit's strength to keep Freyja from pulping the person that hitched a ride with them, halfway to Mars. 

"It would be a good thing for the two of you to cease your argument," New Man says, maintaining a purple cylinder of light around the stowaway in question. 

"Do not interfere in this matter!" Freyja insists, doing her best to unsheathe her sword: "This is none of your concern!"

"This is our war, too, lady," Myron insists, walking forward to stare the goddess in the eyes: "And she's-"

"He," the stowaway reminds him, through borrowed lips.  

"He is part of that war effort," the former Underman goes on: "So whatever problem you have with your..."

He looks at the stowaway, trying to see past the large frame of the woman he had thrown off his lightship, less than a week ago, and tries to see the god inside. 

"Her husband, Odr of the Vanir," the Aesir riding Xhasm's body insists from behind the purple cylinder: "And I would have words with this wife of mine, who seems more intent on killing me than kissing me of late."

That brings out a gale of laughter in the other Aesir, who are all watching this. That includes Odin, who seems entirely disinclined to interfere on either side.

"This is !@#$ we really don't need, right now," Myron says, looking to all godly beings within eyeshot: "We got giant time traveling crap-crabs down below, hurling balls of acid diarrhea up at us. We got a time portal we need to shut down before this gets any worse. And we got people I don't and can't completely trust along for the ride."

"Gee, thanks," SlamBang snorts -- crossing his heavy, armored arms -- but gets rather quiet when Myron gives him the death-look.

"So if you two need to have a damn moment, you have it after we're done," the former Underman insists, looking at the two of them: "Then you can totally make the dreams of those people who write the 'can this marriage be saved' column in Ladies Home Journal, for all I care.

"But for now? I need you," he says, pointing at Odr/Xhasm: "To remember that the body you're riding made me a promise, and I intend to extract it from you."

"I have no issue with that, good sir," the Aesir says, holding up her hands: "Her word is my bond, as I told you during our journey here."

"We saw what that was worth already," The Sound says, shaking his head.

"And I need you," he says, pointing to Freyja: "To put aside whatever thousand-year-old problems you got with this guy, and be a kick-ass warrior lady who doesn't let a man get the better of her."

She glares at him for that, but, by degrees, she lets go of the pommel of her sword, and relaxes.

"For the good of the battle, then?" Odin finally deigns to interject, stepping forward to look the two of them in the eyes.

"For the good of the battle," Freyja agrees, nodding in her husband's direction (but not looking at him)

"For the good of the battle," Odr says, nodding, and New Man lets the cylinder vanish. 

"Well, I'm glad we all got that out of our systems," Straffer says, nodding to each of them in turn: "If you'd all care to get back to your duties, I think the cooler heads need to talk strategy."

They all leave, after that, other than Odin, Myron, and Straffer, who looks at the former Underman with a newfound respect.

"Ladies Home Journal, huh?" he asks as they walk to the holographic map of the battle plan.

"My mom had a subscription for years," Myron weakly defends himself, putting his hands up in defeat: "And I got bored sometimes, you know...?"

"I'm not judging you, really."

"I just read it for the sex articles, I swear."

"Uh-huh," Straffer winks at him.

"Gentlemen?" Odin asks, gesturing: "Now that we have narrowly escaped one cataclysm, I think we would do well to plan our next."

"Oh, now you're helping?" Myron scowls as he walks up beside him: "Fat lot of good you were back there." 

"What I did, and did not do? I did as a mark of respect to you," the Lord of the Aesir explains, putting a fatherly hand on Myron's shoulder: "To lead, you must command. If I had led, just now, you would not command those two, nor my Aesir. You would be forever in my shadow. 

"But by remaining silent as you dealt with the problem? I showed that you, my friend, are the one who leads here. And after how well you put those two in their place? Well... I would be proud to follow you to the frozen gates of Hel, my friend."

"Oh," Myron says, nodding: "Yeah. Okay. Thanks." 

"Twas the least I could do, truly," Odin says, winking his one good eye.

"Well then," Straffer says, calling up the areas of approach on the Lunar Planum: "Shall we decide where Myron is going to lead us, then?"

"Most likely to a hotter version of where Odin wanted to follow me," the former Underman sighs.

Tuesday: 9/13/16

"Wait, you got an interview with... who?" Velma asks over the phone.

"The old man," Randolph Scott says, standing on a bluff overlooking the Standing Rock campsite at night.

"You don't mean..."

"I do, yeah," the outlaw reporter says, looking around at the goings-on down by the fires: "It was pretty !@#$ing revealing."

"Is that good or bad?" the Toon asks.

"Depends on how you look at it," Randolph sighs: "There's gonna be a lot of pissed off activists in the American Indian movement, I'll tell you that for sure. But there's also something more to it. Something almost hopeful."

"I could use some of that," she sighs.

"How bad is it?" he asks: "How are they?"

"Not good," Velma says, quietly: "Helga's having problems walking. Helmut's forgetting things. And Karl is... well..."

"What?"

"He woke up with half his hair gone this morning," she says: "It was grey and thinning last night. This morning... it just fell off."

He grits his teeth and tries to close his eye -- except he can't. All he's got now is the prosthetic, and it doesn't close.

(It's making sleeping interesting, that's for damn sure.)

"I need to be home," he says to her: "I need to be there with them."

"With them."

"With them, with you," he begs: "With what we made. With what we've done."

"What about the truth, though?" she asks him, not without some acid: "It was worth killing for, a couple weeks ago. What's it worth to you now? Don't you owe the story enough to stick around and watch what happens next?"

"Damn it, Velma!" Randolph shouts down the phone: "The truth isn't worth a !@#$ing thing unless there's someone there to hear it! Unless we tell it to each other, and learn something from it, it isn't the truth. It's just a fact. And facts..."

He trails off, thinking of a song he hasn't heard in a long damn time. 

"Facts are just things that happened until someone makes them mean something," she finishes the thought: "And then it's the truth."

"And the truth is that I love you," he says: "And I love our kids. And I love what I do, even if it sometimes drives me to do stupid !@#$-"

"Stop," she says, and he does.

They remain in silence for a while, both waiting for the other to break it. She isn't sure. He doesn't dare.

"If you got on a plane and came here, he'd track you and kill us all," she says.

"I won't get on a plane," he says: "I got connections he can't track. You know that."

"Then get your ass back here," she says: "We need you."

And no sooner does she say that than he's got another burner phone out, and is calling someone he's going to owe one hell of a favor to when all this is over.

Wednesday: 9/14/16

"Well, that wasn't so !@#$ing difficult," SPYGOD says, lighting up another one of the black cigarettes he's convinced are trying to kill him, and looking around what's left of the United Nations Space Service lab.

Everyone who was there is dead, or worse than dead. They stood there and screamed forever as time went mad around them -- aging them forwards, backwards, and sideways at a whim. 

Human skeletons float in the air. Super-aged men and women sprawl across the floor, turned into Methuselahs in the space of seconds. White splotches on the ground indicate where people were brought back to the moment of conception. 

One poor guy -- the only one who tried to stop it, to his credit -- runs the gamut, his body going from sperm to skeleton in one long, painful arc both forwards and backwards. 

All to no avail, sadly. None of them had a hope of stopping what was begun the moment they tried to get into Space Commander's timeship. 

For that, a more powerful ally was needed. 

"Such a terrible thing," Shift says as he holds the thing they came for aloft. It's a large, silver sphere the size of a beach ball -- its skin shifting under the Olympian's touch. 

"Unavoidable," SPYGOD argues: "This started a long !@#$ing time ago, without us. And it's going to keep !@#$ing going on, without us. This !@#$? This is just the part where we finally come in."

"That is true," the Olympian agrees -- his silver mark as featureless as ever: "But I was not referring to what has taken place. That was merely a tragedy.

"This?" he says, holding the ball up a little higher: "This is the terrible thing I speak of, my friend. It is wonderful and horrible. A thing of power and terror."

"Damn straight," the superspy says, looking at what it's done: "You got a way to contain the !@#$ing thing?"

As if to answer, the supergod lowers the ball and, very carefully, brings his hands together as he twists them about, as if turning a lock. As he does, the ball gets smaller, and smaller still, until it's the size of a cantaloupe. 

And then, with that, he opens up a large pocket in the side of his silver suit, and outs the ball into it. The fabric folds around it, and then it's like it was never there at all.

"And now?" SPYGOD asks, wondering how the !@#$ he's going to explain all this to his fiancee the next time they talk. 

Shift doesn't answer. He just looks at SPYGOD, who sighs and nods, knowing full well what the time-traveling being is trying to tell him. 

There is no now, here, anymore than there's a then or a later. There's just this one place where it all meets up -- where the present, past, and future become one another.

And there's just the two of them to make sure it all goes according to the plan -- a plan they can only hope they both understand.

Especially since they're getting it somewhat second-hand from their past/future selves...

Thursday: 9/15/16

"I never want to see this scummy, sad town again," the Candidate says as he gets into his waiting limo -- parked outside a Methodist church in Flint.

"Well, hopefully we won't have to, sir," his campaign manager says: "This was just a one-time thing-"

"The nerve of that lady," he goes on, shaking his head: "They want me to take time to come speak, and when I do, they tell me not to talk about that moron I'm running against?"

"Well," the young man says, not wanting to push the point any further.

"Not good," the Candidate says, not caring to look out the window as they speed away to his next destination: "Not good at all."

"Okay," his manager goes on, deciding to change the subject: "So we fly from Detroit to New York and get that interview with Fallon for the show, tonight. And then it's New Hampshire."

"Fine, fine," the man shrugs, leaning back in his seat: "Should be good. Fallon's a good guy."

"Well, he's promised to give you a fair shake."

"Doesn't matter, really," the Candidate smiles, patting the sigil on his lapel: "Fair, unfair, what can he say about me? Nothing that will matter."

"True, but-"

"And I can do anything I like, you know? I can say anything I like."

"I guess that's true-"

"Yes, it's true. I'm going to be the next President. And if that guy wants to be stupid I'll just deal with him after I get into office."

He smiles at that, thinking of all the people on that lengthy list of people he's planning to deal with. And his campaign manager tries not to swallow too hard -- finally realizing that his client hasn't been joking about that.

Which is when his call phone rings, and he realizes something is wrong when he sees the number.

"Hey man, what's up?" he asks King Whip, knowing he'd never call him unless it was a severe emergency. But as he listens to the voice on the other end, his face falls, and then goes very, very pale.

"What is it?" the Candidate asks, unable to hear the other end of the call.

"Um..." his manager says, shaking as he hands the phone over: "I... I think you better take this call, sir."

"Who is it?"

"It's.. well-"

"Give it," the Candidate insists: "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad."

But then he takes it, and hears what the Penitent has to say.

And he realizes just how bad it can be. 

Friday: 9/16/16

"How, exactly, does one lose a comatose patient?" the Assistant Director of FAUST says, not really amused at the latest turn of events.

"Very !@#$ing carelessly, apparently," SPYGOD says, glad he's got a bunch of his AGENTs around him on the bridge of the Flier. He'd be afraid to face this woman alone, otherwise -- even if it is just a video projection.

"I see. So Mister Freedom is, shall we say, rather ironically named, then?"

"He always was," the superspy says, hoping the joke means the worst part of this conversation is over.

"And now that he is an Olympian, and supposedly the pinnacle of restraint and containment, how does he explain this utter lapse in security?"

"That's just it, Ingrid," SPYGOD says, not daring to drink in front of this stern-faced woman (and desperately needing a !@#$ing slug right about now): "He !@#$ing can't. It's like it was with the President's daughter and that guy you all sent over. One minute everything was fine..."

"And the next, she's wearing his face out like a mask."

"Yeah. Only this time, one minute the damn bed was full, and the next it was !@#$ing empty."

"Nothing on camera, and no one saw anything?"

"The damn life signs monitors didn't even !@#$ing go off. It's like they thought the poor guy was there, too."

She nods, and considers that: "There are any number of meta-humans who could engineer such a feat, I suppose."

"We're !@#$ing running them down. We just need a motive."

"Revenge for Moscow?"

"Possibly, though it's my understanding the bastard that was riding him wasn't really on their side at the damn time."

"No," she smiles: "I suppose not."

"Well, I'll get back to you as soon as I know more."

"Oh, I expect you will," the temporary head of FAUST says, pointing a finger at him: "And you tell that lazy-eyed fool who looked after my man that I am keeping a very close eye upon his failures. At some point I am going to have to stop looking upon this as incompetence, and instead call it collusion."

"On that day, I'll !@#$ing drag his ass in myself," SPYGOD says: "You know I will."

She looks at him with something approaching surprise, and then shuts off transmission without so much as an other word.

"Well, !@#$," the superspy mutters, realizing he's really put a goose into the shark tank now. 

Saturday: 9/17/16

MISSION REPORT
AGENT (REDACTED)
TIMEFRAME 09/10/16
OPERATION ERASER 

There are times when I have to wonder if the reason we're mind-wiped after each mission isn't necessarily to protect us from going mad due to minor changes to the timeline, but rather because the irony of our actions has to be thick enough to spread on toast.

Case in point: to save my life, and maintain the mission, I just simultaneously created and destroyed the Wandering Shadow.

Yes, you have heard that correctly. It turns out that, while he was more skilled at temporal combat that I may ever be, he never had any safeguards. Killing him was only a matter of time, if you'll excuse the turn of phrase...

*coughs*

Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning.

I decided to take advantage of a lull in my observation of the primary subject of OPERATION ERASER and look into the 2016 assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister, at the Rio Olympics. The true culprit was never ascertained, as we know, as there was a lot more pressing business going on at the time.

However, the subject, (REDACTED), was convinced that the murder weapon had to be Hǫfuð, given the ballistics involved. At the time, the weapon was known to be in the hands of his Alter-Earth doppelganger, (DETCADER), which would indicate that he was the culprit.

However, the subject was uncertain of this. The act lacked his doppelganger's usual mad poetry, as he put it. I had to agree, so I decided to take advantage of Hǫfuð's presence, on my person, to look into the matter.

I tracked the real murderer to the central domicile of the legendary Wandering Shadow, only to find a dead NGUVU agent, known as Khalil. You might remember him as being one of the subject's suprspy contemporaries, notably active in the run-up to the so-called Reclamation War, and then occasionally useful afterwards.

Following a failed romance with Skyspear, he fell of the grid, and not even his fellows could locate him. I can now confirm that he had been working with the Wandering Shadow for some time, following the end of his relationship with the teleporter. I can also confirm that he died here, at the hands of the Wandering Shadow, either before or after being dismantled, for want of a better word.

I'm not entirely certain how this could have happened, but somehow (DETCADER) used his so-called Eye of Horus on the Wandering Shadow, and flipped his brainwaves to match those of someone from Alter Earth. This turned him into a sadist, a voyeur, and a cannibal -- terrible traits for someone with time manipulation powers to have,

But the Alter-Earth AGENT did an even worse thing. He gave the man Hǫfuð, and talked him into using it to cause chaos and panic on a global scale. Gods alone know what might have happened if I hadn't blundered into him at home, and been forced to defend myself.

And yes, I am calling all this an act of self-defense. I was temporally shielded the entire time. He saw right through it, as though I wasn't so much as a second out of sync. He attacked me from behind, and confirmed that he had killed and partially eaten Khalil.

And as soon as he realized that I had the same weapon he did, just 28 or so years older than his, he went berserk.

No, he didn't try and shoot me. He somehow knew the same thing that I did, that him firing at the wielder of the same weapon would create a paradox that would destroy both weapons, to say nothing of ourselves. So he just tried to punch me backwards and forwards along my own timeline, hoping to send me to its end, or murder me at its beginning...

As I said, he was very skilled at temporal combat. He almost got the drop on me about three instances in the first two seconds of perceived timeflow. However, once my suit analyzed the pattern of his attacks, we were able to formulate an effective countermeasure, and match him blow for blow, dodge for dodge.

Not that it wasn't painful. It was like fighting a stone mountain that decided to shake itself to pieces on top of me. And as we danced about one another, with me blocking his every attempt to harm or erase my past, he fought bravely to prevent me from doing the same to him. Bravely and expertly, I must say. If I hadn't possessed the safeguards I did...

*pause*

The enormity of my action didn't strike me until I was standing over his badly-pulverized body, breathing his last within sight of his teenage self. In that instant, a connection was made between past and present, and all that time energy was sent right into his younger body.

All I could do was watch it happen, and then close the loop with extreme prejudice before things got any worse -- killing his adult time-aspect with a blow to the third eye Chakra, not quite driving his nose back into his corrupted brains. 

Thankfully he'd dropped Hǫfuð on the ground of his cavern before we began to truly fight, so I didn't have to risk the paradox associated with holding onto two temporal slices of the same thing. As of now I've secured it, here, thus ensuring it'll be found by the right people at the right time, between this timeframe and our own.

Which means I've taken one of the most dangerous weapons in the world off the board, until we take control of it in about 24 years. Which would be very satisfying if it hadn't come at such a cost.

We never really knew what happened to this amazing man. He cast a long, deep shadow across the 20th century, and then just vanished, leaving no successor. We'd all assumed he'd gone down fighting some ultimate foe in some unseen battle, blessedly raging just beyond or beneath the world's ability to see.

But no. He died because a monster turned him, and then I came across him while satisfying my curiosity after I got bored and went off mission.

I understand the need for the mind wipes. But this time, I'm actually kind of glad I'll be forgetting this when I get back. I don't know that I'll be happy knowing I did what had to be done, but only because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"When I get back," I just said. More like if I get back. Let's not forget that.

The combat took several days of elapsed time, even if it only felt like minutes. I'm tired and my chronal batteries need recharging. I will get back on Operation Eraser within a reasonable amount of time.

But right now I just want to lie here, and pretend I didn't just have to perform two-fisted euthanasia on a man more remarkable and honorable than I may ever be.

REPORT ENDS

Sunday: 9/18/16

"What are you doing?" Freyja asks, coming around to the side of Odr, who's kneeling prostrate upon a towel on the far end of Naglfar's stern, and muttering to himself.

"Praying, my wife," the man in the woman's body says, rearing back up: "Earth is that direction, and so is Mecca. So I pray."

"You... pray?" the shield maiden of the Aesir says, incredulous: "To whom does a God pray? Have you gone addled at long last?"

"I pray to the one who created us, my wife," the Vanir says, putting his hands on his borrowed hips and turning to look at her: "The source of all power and matter. The one who created Man from a blood clot, and gave him a soul. And that soul gave him belief, and thereby created us."

She looks at him with some mixture of confusion and pity: "Odr... I know something of being in a body not well suited to our true nature. I fear your time in this woman's frame has confused you."

"Perhaps," Odr says, nodding: "It is a melding of souls, in many ways. I am not as accustomed to it as you have been. And perhaps the circumstances of our joining have affected my views."

"How so?"

"When I found her, she had just been condemned to die in the cold of the void between worlds," he explains: "She had never been in such a situation, before. And in such a time, her mind turned to Allah, whom she scorned and had turned her back upon long ago. She remembered the certainty she felt as a child, and the comfort such faith provided. 

"In that moment, I came upon her. I made her my offer, both to speed my journey to you and to save her life. And in that moment, many things within her mind came together."

"And so you would worship their God?" She asks, somewhat offended by the notion.

"I would, if you would permit me," he smiles at her: "But I am glad you are at last willing to speak with me, rather than strike at me. Perhaps the tide of our battle has turned?"

She looks at him again, and shakes her head: "The true battle begins in but a few days. I have sworn to the All Father to put all my strength into that. And that means that, for the time, you and I must be as one, as allies.

"After that..."

She pats the pommel of her sword, and raises an eyebrow. Odr nods, sadly, and turns back to Earth to pray.

And the stars roll on above them -- perhaps uncaring, perhaps not. 

* * * 

"I... I don't know what to say..." Syphon says, putting her hands over her mouth as she shakes her head: "This is... it can't be happening-"

"My son is gone," Martha Clutch says, doing her best to not let her fists talk for her, the way she's been wanting them too since she first crossed paths with this irritating Olympian.

"I see that...." the large woman says, looking over stacks of paper and things on her office desk, as if the answer were there: "But that can't be possible-"

"I closed my eyes to go to sleep," the heroine says, stepping closer to the desk: "When I opened them, he wasn't in the chair. He was gone."

"I can check... I mean, I'm sure we can find him..."

"Save it!" Martha shouts, knocking all the handy stacks of paper off the woman's desk with a swift kick: "What are you hiding?"

"Hiding...?"

"You told me he'd be awake in a few days," the Owl insists, pointing a finger at the zaftig Olympian: "I've been there for weeks, waiting. And you keep saying he'll come out any day. And I keep waiting.

"And now..." she puts her hands over her face, and then puts them down at her sides: "And now he's gone, and you can't explain a damn thing to me."

"He's... he's got to be somewhere-"

"You don't want me to see the security tapes," Martha suddenly realizes.

"No, it's not that-"

"Yes it is," the Owl says, stepping closer: "You'd have offered me a look right away, otherwise."

The Olympian looks at her, and her face falls. She's been caught.

"What haven't you been telling me?" Martha shouts: "Where is my son? Where is Thomas!?!"

* * *

"How..." the alter-Earther starts to ask, holding his bleeding nose: "How... did you..."

"An excellent question," the man who just abducted him from his slaughter-safari says, giving him a lightning-swift punch to the kidneys before he can get his wind back: "But not, perhaps, the question you should be asking."

"I'll fucking... fuck you..." SPYGOD's doppelganger hisses, going down on his knees and wondering where his nearest knife is.

"No doubt you would," his assailant says, stepping well clear of the man's arm-range: "And even worse, in fact. I have seen your handiwork, sir. Especially what you and your servants were doing when I found you. Not a pretty sight."

"It's not like this fucking world is going to miss a few more idle rich," his 'guest' sneers: "Do you know how much they paid me to shoot that damn rhino?" 

"I do, yes. But I suspect your tour brochure did not include your letting the rhino stomp them to death, before you killed and cooked it yourself," the man chuckles: "That being after you and your servants had your way with your clients, in several senses of the word."

"What... what do you fucking want?" the damaged man says, looking around the square and featureless room he's been transported to for some kind of weapon, or advantage. 

"Many things, in fact," his host says, making an ornate, wooden chair appear from seemingly nowhere, and dropping it down between his guest and himself -- straddling his legs around the back of it: "To take you from your current playing board, and minimize the damage you do to this world by merely existing within its confines. To place you onto my playing board, in turn, so as to secure your unique services for things to come." 

"My services?" the SPYGOD of Alter-Earth says, judging that he can raise himself up on his knees to look his captor in the face, instead of his feet: "You could have just fucking asked. I'm flexible."

"Yes, but then you would inevitably betray me," his captor says, grinning ear to ear: "This is your nature, as it is mine."

"Who says I won't, now?" 

"Because you have something to gain from this," the man goes on, pointing a finger at him: "You spoke of a way to kill gods, my servant. I would have this magic for myself. I would be the one who decides who dies and who lives, and then only at my sufferance."

"How do you know..." the counter-world man says, rubbing his nose -- enjoying the pain that is his alone to give. 

"Because Loki Laufeyson of the Aesir knows many things," the god wearing the body of Thomas Samuels says: "And I know that it would be a good thing for these gods to be dead or suborned ere my father returns to the world..."

And as he smiles...

* * *

... Randolph Scott cries with helplessness as his son, Helmut, dies in bed from a disease that should only take the aged and infirm... 

... SPYGOD takes the news with a lot more stoicism than he should, and wonders why he's suddenly so uncaring about something so damned tragic...

... Straffer, Myron, and Odin make their battle plans a final thing, all wondering if this will be the last they all stand together as one...

... as Freedom Party Candidate Ted Cruz stands nearby, wondering if the grace he feels watching this moment is God's hand in his life, or the calm of the condemned...

... and the Candidate wonders if the dead body he found in Detroit -- what little remained of King Whip -- means this election is lost, or his administration saved...

... while the American people are shocked and scared by the image of the Great Spirit, himself, and what he had to say in the interview going viral on THIS IS BULL!@#$'s website, right now...

... and Shift, knowing more than he can ever say, casts aside a useless tear as he puts the future and past together, once more...

* * *

... and the Alter-Earth SPYGOD -- so long used to no longer being anyone's slave -- bows and scrapes before a God, of all things, and promises that one day he will avenge this gravest of insults.

But not before he finally gets the one thing he's wanted to do since this whole, protracted mess of a mission began. 

A thing that this God has claimed he will, at last, let him do.  

Kill SPYGOD.

 (SPYGOD is listening to Fuel (Front 242) and having an Abandon Ship )

Apotheoclypse Now: 8/8/16 - 8/14/16

"I'm tired of emotions / They bare me with distortions"

(Old friends, never forgotten -- no matter how hard we try)

(Art by the Lemonade Project + Dean Stahl)

* * *

12

* * *

My dearest, my darling.

You're reading this, so you know this means I am gone.

I told you this would happen, one day. I said it would be after the war, and I tried to hold on for as long as I could. But I can't stay here, anymore. Not for anything. 

Not even for you.

Please believe that I love you. I would be yours forever, no matter what. I would pray in your church, take your vows, take your name. Whatever we needed to do to make this world believe in what we already know to be true. 

But I cannot, my love. I must go. The future is calling, and I have to answer.

You were an amazing man. You will always be that man. And know that your family will endure, and be fruitful. All the way until I can no longer see, there is an Owl. 

And they are all magnificent -- each and every one.

Please do not cry. Please be happy. Love your wife. Love your children, and their children.

When you pray to your God, please include me. I know you already do. Please never stop.

And when you feel sad? Look to the future. It's where I'll be, waiting. 

Yours forever. 

Lashonda.

Monday: 8/8/16

"I'm just saying, we really should have more people here for this," Shining Guardsman says, stepping out of the massive, stretch party limousine someone perversely insisted on getting for the occasion. He looks very out of place in a suit and tie.

"Really?" Gosheven asks, chugging something fruity and noxious from an innocent-looking water bottle -- his second, so far -- and dressed like he just came out of a disco for the color-blind: "Well, if you can find them, tell them they've got an hour to get their asses here, and then the party's just gonna go, go, go..."

"Asshole," Red Wrecker snorts, pushing past him on her way to their destination, just past the statue of the Torchbearer. She's dressed like she normally would, out of costume, these days -- which is to say loud and skimpy.

"Hey, was that nice...?" the metamorph whines, shaking his head in indignation as she quickly leads the pack -- her new, extremely short haircut not entirely flattering, but maybe that's the point. 

Hanami comes out next, wearing the white dress uniform she had with the Space Service, and then stands by as everyone else stumbles or half-crawls from the cramped, cavernous interiors: Rakim in his prayer robes (sober as ever); Myron in a suit and tie (sober as a rock); Dragonfly, also in a suit and tie (a little tipsy); and Free Fire, in armor as always (still unable to drink).

"I have to say, this is going to be a little strange for me," the orange android says as he closes the door behind them: "Given what happened, I am not certain it's appropriate for me to be here."

"You couldn't have helped it," New Man says to Free Fire, appearing in a flash of purple light not too far away: "There was mind control involved. You had to defend yourself. No one's blaming you for that."

"Still should have more people here," Shining Guardsman repeats: "Just not !@#$ing right..."

No one pays any attention to him, though. They just march on 

* * *

The Torchbearer stands tall and proud as ever -- eternally guarding the McPherson Drive teardrop, and the many heroes and strategic talents buried there. 

The super soldiers who died in World War II, and then Korea. The Freedom Force members who fell after that. The occasional "charity case" who may not have been on a team, but whose work was so legendary (or death so tragic) that the powers that be afforded them a place here. 

Many more people were laid to rest here, following the Imago incident -- almost all of the original Freedom Force, in fact. Since then, there's been dribs and drabs, mostly older heroes who fell asleep and didn't wake up, or the occasional accident. 

But now, in the wake of the cluster of bad, crazy, and tragic that led up to the Apocalypse, it's been just like the Imago all over again. 

The group trudges past the newer graves, some with reverence, others with impatience. Arachnoid and Zephyr lay side by side in recognition of their having died together. American Steel and Doctor Uncertainty are "buried" here, too, in order to maintain the fiction of their existence. A few other names, mostly unknown. 

(Both New Men, laid side by side -- father and son. A sight that makes New Man pause, then move on a little faster than perhaps he should.)

And then there's the two they all really came to see: Chinmoku and Blastman, laid to rest by the other members of the Freedom Force. 

"Oh god," Gosheven says, and starts bawling. Dragonfly puts an arm around him, which he literally melts into. 

"It doesn't seem real," Red Wrecker says, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief she brought, just in case. 

"I can confirm that it is," Free Fire says, wondering why that doesn't help much. 

"Brave allies, both," Hanami says, holding her hands behind her back: "I'll miss their sense of duty."

"Chinmoku's wisdom was considerable," Rakim opines: "Even if I sometimes needed to turn on the brain computer to understand it."

"Blastman was an asshole and a grump," Shining Guardsman says: "But he was always there, you know? He had your back."

"I worked with Chinmoku before, on this one crazy damn op when SPYGOD was on the run," Dragonfly says: "We were allies, then enemies, and then things got !@#$ing weird. But when I came back out of the cold, he just looked at me and smiled, like he was expecting me to show up again. And never let the past get in the way of working together. I appreciated that more than I ever said."

"Chinmoku once told me he saw his own death, back when he started to learn that kind of kung fu," Myron says: "He said he knew how and where, just not exactly when. But he said it was enough for him to know that, no matter what he did, he would succeed, until then. In some ways I envy him that. In others... it seems like a damn cheat."

"I miss them both, incredibly. And I envy them both as well," New Man says. No one wants to ask why. 

"Neither of them shared my faith, but I pray for them," Rakim says: "They say Allah will save those he deems worthy, and damn those he does not, regardless of whom they prayed to, or how truly. I pray he finds them worthy,  and grants them Paradise."

"I'll drink to that," Gosheven says, using some more of the cocktail to stop from weeping. 

They stand in silence, after that. At least until Gosheven realizes they've only got the limo for another thirty minutes and hustles them all back to it. 

All the while, Shining Guardsman grouses, thinking of the bodies that aren't buried. The people who aren't there. 

He thinks of poor Yanabah, stuck in that hospital while they figure out what's to be done with her. She should have been there with them for this, regardless.

He thinks of Mr. USA, now playing host to the being calling himself Odin. What happens when that presence leaves, and he goes back to being at the worse end of stage four cancer? 

(He also thinks that Night Phantom should be there, too, regardless of what that Olympian says. He was a person before he became part of a God, damn it.) 

And he thinks of SPYGOD, sitting up there in his fancy new Flier, not deigning to come down and mourn with them for reasons he didn't care to specify. 

(He doesn't specify a lot of !@#$, these days.)

But he keeps those thoughts to himself for the rest of the trip back to the hotel they took for the night, the somber dinner that follows, and the new wave karaoke wake Gosheven insists on holding afterwards. 

"Next time," Hanami later tells him, somewhat conspiratorially: "Let's tell Second to give someone else the power over the mourning funds."

Next time, will there be anyone left to attend? he wonders. And for a scary moment he thinks he said it out loud.

But if he did she says nothing -- merely watches as Dragonfly, ever the good sport these days, scoops the human puddle formerly known as Gosheven off the floor with an ice bucket, and pays a bellhop $200 to pour him under his door.  

"I !@#$ing hate superhero funerals," the guy says on his way out. He's not the only one.

Tuesday: 8/9/16

The COMPANY Transport gets to Chicago around noon, which is exactly an hour earlier than SPYGOD said, but an hour later than he really wanted.

(The small detail of having to listen to the manager of the Rosewood complain about the mess "his people" left after the wake, last night, delayed him more than he cared to. If he still had the gun that shot bullets over the phone there would be one less grumpy hotel manager in the world.)

Lake Calumet rushes up to greet them -- barely recognizable for all the cordons, force-barriers, and portable containment units the UNSS threw up at or around 6 in the AM. There's enough hovercraft down there to hold a damn race at this point, and two Warbots are circling the area, just to be certain.

"Thank you for coming, sir," the white-uniformed officer in charge of the show says as he tromps down the Transport's gangplank -- his salute so smart it should be on Jeopardy for a whole week.

"My goddamn pleasure, son," the super-spy lies, saluting back. He's wearing what he's taken to calling his Summer Uniform: a shiny, leather skort over padded pants festooned with handguns and knives, with a thick, mesh shirt open to the navel and shoulderpads that seem to have a damn life of their own. All in black, of course, with pink and silver touches.

(He's also wearing black underwear. He's in !@#$ing mourning, after all.)

"So tell me exactly what we got, here," he says as the officer leads him into the nearest portable containment unit -- something reminiscent of a hamster palace, only in translucent white rather than transparent orange.

"A rare case of our two agencies touching in on a single case," some long-haired, youngish guy in a white smock says, walking away from a large bank of video screens: "We called you in a soon as your file got flagged. We also stopped all investigation until you could arrive."

"Well, hot !@#$'in damn," SPYGOD says, realizing he can't light up in there, but doing it anyway -- much to the concern of the Space Service personnel in the room: "Guess all I had to do was !@#$ your boss to get the A+ treatment, huh?"

"Well," the chief scientist says, coughing into his hand: "I can't really comment on that, sir. But... well, it's just easier to show you..."

He gestures over to the screens, and begins to tell his excavation crews to begin moving forward again. As they do, SPYGOD almost drops his cigarette.

"Sir...?" the officer asks, seeing the look on the superspy's face.

"Get me down there, son," he orders, reaching out to touch the nearest screen -- what might be tears wetting his eyes: "Right. !@#$ing. Now."

* * *

The hot zone is actually under the water, though it's hard to tell that at times. 

A bubble of air surrounds it, which is a large part of what gave the manifestation away when it appeared, at exactly 5:21 in the AM, Chicago time. Whatever's inside the object, it's generating its own passive shielding - keeping air in, but allowing larger objects to slide in and out with only a little surface tension. 

They've extended a human-sized, plastic hamster tunnel from the containment unit over the lake into the bubble. It's sealed and guarded at one end, and the guards there are impassive as !@#$ as SPYGOD strips down to his skimpy, black combat man-panties to suit up in an armored, stark white U-suit, straps on several devices (and one very sanitized, ultra-compact weapon).

And they get the !@#$ out of his way as he stomps past them, down the gently-inclining tunnel, and out the other end -- on the bottom of Lake Calumet. 

The bubble wavers in the air, like a humid curtain. He pauses long enough to touch it -- feeling the sensation the U-suit's haptic sensors report back to him -- and then walks through. There's enough lights on the probes to see where he's going without turning on the suit's illumination strips, for which he is eternally grateful. 

(He has bad memories of the movie Electric Horseman. Never ask him why. Just !@#$ing don't.)

There, brightened by the lights of the probes -- floating in mid-air, or just outside the bubble, in the lake itself -- is what looks like a UFO. A flying saucer, maybe six feet high, and fifteen feet in diameter, with a person-sized, glassy bubble right in the center. 

Only it's not a UFO. Not to SPYGOD, anyway. 

He grabs hold of the side of the ship, somehow knowing it'll form a handhold for him. It does, and he carefully climbs up to the top, and makes his way across -- ducking just a little to avoid soaking his head in the lake, above. 

Inside the bubble is a control chair -- thick and comfortable. Cradled in the chair is the mummified body of a young woman, wearing a futuristic, silver suit. Her skin is badly desiccated from the vacuum, her eyes are dried and fishy, and her lips are thin things, pulled back over perfect, white teeth. 

He reaches out to put a hand on the dome. He doesn't expect it to open. It would only do it from within, he thinks. 

"It's her," he radios back, trying not to choke up: "It's Space Commander."

"My god," the scientist gasps: "I mean... I read about her, but... I thought she went out into space?"

"Yeah," the superspy says, remembering the first time he saw the photo of her, back when the Owl took him under his wing, all those decades ago: "I guess she didn't make it."

He turns the radio off, after that. There doesn't seem to be much point in saying any more. 

And there's only one person he really needs to talk to, right now...

Wednesday: 8/10/16

"I'm just saying, I feel really uneasy about how this is going," Director Straffer says, trying to hold court with Odin as his hunting party make ready to launch themselves at Mars, once more.

"Do you fear success, my ally?" the Lord of the Aesir -- riding the body of Mr. USA -- asks, looking back and down at the blonde cyborg: "Are you afraid that we won with too much ease?"

"Well, frankly? Yes," he says, nodding: "It was a hard-fought battle to get here. And taking the surface of the planet was extremely harrowing. I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop?"

"Perhaps one day your other ball will?" red-headed Tyr offers, clapping him on the back in a friendly, very manly fashion. That brings out the laughs in the others.

"I'm just saying we need to be more careful down there," Straffer says, knowing what sounded like an insult was just a friendly joke between allies (at least, that's what he hopes): "Just until we know for sure what we're facing."

"We are facing the last, desperate soldiers of a battle gone to dust," Odin says, smiling widely: "We are facing a defeated foe that knows not how to surrender. Their commanders are dead, their tactics in shambles, and no reinforcements shall take the field. 

"All we need do is wait for them in the most likely of places, and they shall eventually impale themselves upon our spears."

"Or my hammer!" Thor offers, shooting a large gout of lightning down to light the way, to much appreciation and applause.

"I just don't feel confident that we have room to be celebrating yet," Straffer tries to explain: "For all we know, we just mopped up the forward folks. There could be a lot more waiting down there."

"Then be grateful that we shall draw them out for your vaunted Lightships to destroy, my friend!" Odin says, making ready to leap down with the others: "And then we shall all drink to glory!"

And then he's gone -- hurtling towards the surface of the red planet at an ungodly speed.

"Well, that wasn't exactly a productive conversation," his Second says, coming up behind him as he watches them fall.

"No," he says, putting his hands on his hips and turning to face her: "Do me a favor?"

"Of course, sir."

"Get the strike force captains up here on the double," he says, walking to the other end of the Aesir's long, creaking ship: "I want to change our search tactics. We need to figure out how long we can be outside of the sun's rays."

"They estimate six hours just flying, sir. That's just flying, though. Regular speed, no shields, no fighting."

"Then let's find out how they do when you have to do more then just fly in the darkness," he says: "Raitha didn't really hand over an instruction manual. It's been trial and error ever since we left Earth. Now's the best time to find out what we're really dealing with."

"Before the Aesir let loose something we're not ready for, you mean," she says.

"Damn skippy, Second," he says, crossing his arms and looking at the stars above the ship. Wondering what other threats might be out there, today.

And how long before he can focus on them, exclusively, once more.

Thursday: 8/11/16

"We do appreciate your looking after our... mutual problems," the whip-thin prison official from FAUST says as they march down the halls of the Habitrail, going past a long bank of prisoners who aren't going anywhere: "I know this is something of a political football."

"I like to think that we are beyond such concerns," Mister Freedom says -- his fancy, complicated wrist restraints gleaming under the neon lights as they walk: "It is not a matter of expediency or favor, here, Msr. Andek. It is simply a matter of duty."

"Well said, sir," the official says, putting his hands behind his back as they continue on.

In the cells to their left, behind a transparent steel wall. are a number of very sad and sorry individuals -- a rogue's gallery of hate and fear. Militant atheists, Muslim haters, racial separatists (both European and American), and other assorted scum.

Some sit on their cots and glower. Some stand and pace. Some pound the wall and scream -- for lawyers, for doctors, for mercy.

"I need help!" one of them insists: "I wasn't responsible for my actions! Do you hear me? It wasn't me! It wasn't me!"

"Maybe not at the time, Mr. Harris," the Olympian says -- somewhat amused to be addressing him in Abdullah Ismail's body: "But you knew what you were doing when you made the agreement to participate in this venture. In that sense, you are as culpable as a drink driver who knew what he was going when he became drunk, even if he had little control over what happened after."

"No!" the man insists -- eyes red from hysterical crying: "I'm a victim, here! I'm a victim!"

"Tell that to the people of Moscow, Msr," the man from FAUST sneers: "And be grateful this man has allowed you to be housed here, before your trial. If we had you anywhere else, I think you would not last a day."

With that they leave the sorry sight, heading for another area -- one where conditions are much less penal and stark, and more calming.

"Oh my," the official says as they pass a certain cell, and see what its current occupant is getting up to.

"It's best to pretend you don't see her," Mister Freedom says, as quietly as he can -- knowing the last remaining daughter of the last President will hear, anyway: "A great deal of her exhibitionism is a cry for help. We let her have those devices to express her desires, but to watch for too long is to be drawn into them."

"What happens then?"

"Madness, murder, and suicide," the Olympian says: "Hopefully not in that order."

The man nods, and decides to focus on who they really came here to see -- around the corner from the feverish hothouse of her diseased imagination, and down the hall a ways.

The man in question is a nondescript fellow, so bland that one would have a hard time picking him out in a crowd. He's lying in a life support bed, with very heavy restraints upon every major joint, and VR goggles over his eyes.

"Agent 78," the man from FAUST sighs: "The true victim in all this."

"I cannot disagree," Mister Freedom says -- his godly eyes able to see the true spiritual damage that's been done to the man: "He will be like this until the Aesir who took control of him decides to return."

The man from FAUST nods: "And after the altercation that one had with Odin, I fear we may never see him again."

"Oh, he will return," the Olympian says, smiling: "Which is why I have created the traps I have."

"Traps...?" the official asks, looking around the room, and the man: "I don't... where are they? I don't see them."

"Then hopefully, neither will be," Mister Freedom replies, smiling.

As he smiles, he mentally checks on his other, most interesting prisoner -- far from here, and yet merely a step away.

It's far, far down in the deepest, darkest pit he has. There, just above a void not even he dares go too far into, lest his concept be crunched by the heavy teeth of raw entropy, sits a container that is both all states, and yet none.

Endlessly cycling between random shapes and materials -- locks and combinations -- it seems to vibrate, like a silent fan blade. Should it stop for even a second, its occupant would doubtless squirm out of it, and wreak untold damage upon Restriit's domain.

But it will not stop. It will not falter. It will not fail.

It is the culmination of a lifetime's contemplation, wrapped into being through a shared working between both ends of the creation-destruction spectrum. Hoosk and Restriit, laboring under the watchful eye of Senchro, who made the work of an age happen in merely a day.

And then, once the liberators of Mars had done their work, it fell to Restriit to go there, and capture his wayward creation within it.

It seethes, now, inside its prison. Hate and anger boil up within. Confusion steams away, along with determination. The need to one day be free of this insult -- this betrayal -- and do what it was made to do.

What it must do. 

Friday: 8/12/16

She doesn't scream and throw things at him from across the break room table. There's that, at least.

But then, Velma never was one for angry outbursts. She's never yelled at him, even once, during the entirety of their relationship.

Been angry? Sure. Glowered? Like mad.

Fumed? Oh, that, too -- for days on end, sometimes. And sometimes, after a day or so, he wished she would just yell and get it over with.

But it's not every day one lover tells another that's he's decided to do something like this.

"What do you want me to say, here?" the Toon finally asks, pushing her glasses up her nose and looking at him.

"What do you want to say?" Randolph Scott  replies, putting his hands closer to hers: "What do you need to say?"

"Would it make a difference?"

"... I don't know," the outlaw journalist admits: "I've put a lot of thought into this. I've been thinking about it since what happened, that day. The day I almost lost you. The day I thought I'd lost Helmut and Helga, along with Karl and Jana. The day I thought I'd lost everything."

"Yes, but you didn't," Velma says, taking his hands in hers: "You didn't. You got us all back."

"Yes, but-"

"But what?" she asks, glowering: "Am I dead?"

"No..."

"Is this some damn illusion? Do you think you're living in the !@#$ing Matrix?"

"Dear God, I hope not."

"Then there is no but," Velma says, holding his hand a little tighter: "We won. We got Karl and Jana back. You rescued them. You made the world move your way and got them out of there. You saved them."

"Yes," he admits: "I did."

"And you stood by me the whole damn time. Talking to me. Telling me you loved me. I could hear you, even if I didn't know it. I knew, the whole time I was under, that you were there for me. I never felt afraid or abandoned. I knew you were there."

"I'm glad," he says, starting to cry: "I was so scared..."

"I know," she says: "And when I came out, and I couldn't talk? And we were convinced those bastards were going to come back and finish the job? I still wasn't scared because I knew you were still there, with me. I knew we'd find a way."

"And we did, didn't we?" Randolph says.

"We sure did," Velma smiles, kissing his hand: "Craziest damn plan ever. And I never want to watch my own funeral again."

"Would you pretend to be a super hero, again?"

"Who says I pretended?" she raises an eyebrow.

"Okay-"

"But I'm not cross-dressing for the part again," she insists: "Whose idea was that, anyway?"

"Wasn't it Josie's?"

"I have no idea. I'm just glad you agreed to do the same."

"Hey, in for a penny-"

"And that's the problem, here," she says, tapping his hand: "I'm not comfortable with what you are wanting to do. Not just because of what you want to do, but because this is the first I'm hearing of it, and it sounds like you're over halfway done with the plans."

"More than that," he admits, wiping his tears: "I make one more phone call, and it's on."

She lets go of his hand like it was on fire: "You... you're kidding me."

"No," he says: "No I'm not."

"Randolph..."

"Listen-"

"Randolph!"

"Velma, please listen to me," he insists, holding up his hands -- somehow glad to hear her actually raise her voice: "You're right. Yes, I should have come to you earlier. Yes, we got the family back. Yes, we came through it all okay. Mostly-"

"Oh no-"

"But Velma, please. Don't think about what we still have. Think about what we lost."

"You think I don't?" She gasps, clearly insulted: "Do you really believe...? Do you?"

"Because every time I close my eyes, it's the massacre all over again," he says: "It's that day, all over again.

"It's the explosions in Toon Town. It's the buildings on fire, the dead people in the streets. It's people I know and love dying or dead or on fire.

"It's that poor cat stumbling down the road, holding his guts in and saying 'I'm not here, this isn't happening.' Over and over like a song until he died from shock and fell down.

"It's knowing that an evil bastard has my son and my daughter. Knowing he can do whatever he likes to them. Knowing that he did.

"It's you on a stretcher, with a hole in your head-"

"Stop it," Velma hisses, almost getting up from her chair to leave: "Do not make me part of this-"

"But you are," he says, reaching out to take her hand, and feeling crushed by the weight of an entire world when she recoils: "You are. They raped my daughter. They burned my son's face so badly it took a full month to make him look halfway decent, again.

"And if that bullet had been just a little faster or slower..."

He leaves the point. He doesn't have to say any more.

"Your daughter," she says, looking at him through very narrow eyes: "Your son."

"I meant ours-"

"You said yours," she says, finally getting up from the table: "I think that says everything."

"Velma-"

"I can't stop you," she says, holding up her hands: "If you've made up your mind to do... this, then I can't stop you. I know it. You've got a plan, you've got people. For all I know, Anil's going to show up outside the door in ten minutes and then it'll be on."

"He doesn't know where we are," Randolph says: "None of them do. I promised."

"Glad to hear you can keep some promises," Velma says: "So here's one of mine. I won't stop you. And maybe it's because I want to see this happen, too. Because of what happened to our son, our daughter. Because of what happened to our friends.

"And because, yes, if that bullet had just been a little faster or slower, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I would be dead, or worse than dead.

"Yes, this person deserves retribution. Even if he wasn't exactly himself when he did what he did, much like Jana and Karl weren't themselves when they did what they did. There's some things you just don't walk away from with clean hands. There's some lines you don't cross.

"This is mine," she says, making a line between the two of them with her finger: "I won't support this. I can't. This isn't journalism, anymore. This is... I don't know what this is. But I can't be a part of it."

"So," he says, putting his hands on the table: "I stop, or you go?"

"No," she says: "You stop, or you go. And if you go, you don't come back."

He blinks: "What?"

"Ours, remember?" she says: "This Is Bull!@#$ was ours. We said it was about getting at the truth any way possible. We said it was about not being afraid to become part of the story to get the story. Even if we became the story, sometimes.

"This isn't just becoming the story. It's manufacturing one. And I won't work with someone who's willing to do that."

He tries to say something, but she holds up a finger and glowers at him. He knows that she is done talking, and so he is done trying to talk to her. And she turns, sadly, and leaves the room without another word.

After that, there's just the quiet of the breakroom. The sounds of his kids running around to make the evening broadcast happen, as if nothing was wrong. As if his absence affected nothing.

Tears come -- slowly, and then in a flood. He tries to sob quietly. He does not succeed, but eventually calms down, and is very quiet for a very long time.

No one sees him leave.

Saturday: 8/13/16

"I swear, sir, I don't know what happened," the rather terrified AGENT says over the video link: "One minute Yanabah was there, in her bed. The next she was gone, and the restraints were... well-"

"Spit it the !@#$ out, son," SPYGOD snorts: "I got more important things to deal with than your having !@#$ed up with a high-profile situation like this."

"Ripped to pieces, sir," he says: "There's silver all over the place."

"Was anyone hurt?" the superspy asks, after a moment.

"No, sir. Not so much as a scratch."

"Then I think we're alright," SPYGOD says, praying he's correct about this: "Stand down, report back to the Heptagon. I'll see you at 6 in the goddamn AM for your debriefing. Bring ear plugs."

With that he closes the channel, leans back in his office chair in the Flier, and considers a thing or two.

Finally, he gets Hanami on the video link: "Hey flower, how's your morning?"

"Alright, sir," she says, smiling at him.

"You still on leave?"

"I never went on it, sir."

"You're !@#$ing entitled, you know."

"I know. But someone needs to be on guard in case of emergency. I decided it should be me."

"Because you don't sleep?"

Her smile falters a little at that: "Because I don't need to, sir."

"How about everyone else?"

"Well, some of us are better than others," she replies, carefully: "They're saying Gosheven might eventually resolidify, provided someone doesn't keep pouring more alcohol into the bucket he's chosen to mourn in."

"That sounds about right," SPYGOD says: "Tell Myron to stop !@#$ing boozing him. I know it's probably the most damn peace he's gotten in a while, but we need that goofy !@#$er back on the clock. We got all kinds of !@#$ to deal with."

"Yes sir-"

"And I got a !@#$ing job for you, Hanami," he says, leaning in close: "I need it handled quick and quiet. Surgical, if you get my !@#$ing drift."

"I got it, sir," she nods: "Who and where?"

"Ever been to Taos?" he grins.

Her smile drops.

* * *

The AGENT sits and watches the scene unfold. 

He's in a cheap hotel he's feels he's used before, out in Austin, Texas. It's far enough away from the Flier that, should anyone suspect bugging, it would be one of the last places considered. But then he could be anywhere in the world, or off it, and observe the goings-on as though he were right there. 

After all, he does have the backdoors into all their security. He's had them since he started this job. 

(Technically, even longer than that...)

As he watches this man give orders, he wonders if he's ever heard about this day, before. It sounds familiar, anyway. 

But who did he hear it from? Did he read it somewhere? Was it buried in a briefing?

And was it even real...?

That's the problem with all of this. He can't be sure about anything, now. 

If what the temporal sensitives are right? What if he's fated to go through what he saw, back in Rikki's office, moment by moment until the second everything goes black?

But what if they're wrong? What if it doesn't happen that way, after all? 

And if they're wrong about that, then what else have they been wrong about all this time..?

Of all the AGENTS they've had working with the Time Chamber, he's the only one who's lasted this long. All the others have retired, or had to be retired, due to the stress and strain that going through history causes. All the brain wipes. All the not knowing anything about what you did, once you get back.

Never knowing if you changed something, however small, that made a ripple that became a wave and changed everything...

Fading is for losers. He used to say that. He used to believe that. 

But isn't this exactly what fading from reality would feel like? Being told you have to do something like this?  

Being told you shouldn't even exist...?

He looks away from the screen, and then back. He grits his teeth. He thinks of his husband, his wife, the child they're all going to have that he just learned about. 

He decides, right then and there, that he's going to get through this craziness somehow. He will make it through to the other side, where it will all make sense. 

He will make it home, to where his loves, his life, and his fathers are waiting for him. 

Meantime, he just has to hang on, watch carefully, and be ready for the moment he's seen to come around. 

* * *

The video link goes off right on time -- 8:35 in the damn PM -- and SPYGOD turns it on so fast he barely sees himself move. 

"Hey hon," Straffer says on the prerecorded message, sent however many hours ago from Mars: "It's me, dialing in from the death ship. If I've got this right you should be receiving it with just enough time to catch that movie. You'll have to tell me what you think. I'd be curious to know what came out of the debriefing. 

"Anyway," the blonde cyborg sighs: "Lost another lightship, today. They were doing a run over what's left of the Arcadia Planitia when something just reared up out of a hole and shot a gout of black snot the size of an economy car at the fighter group. 

"Fortunately, they were obeying orders and flying far enough apart that one ship going down wouldn't take out any others. But we lost Specialist Wyndcombe. We think he died right away. I hope he did.

"We also lost the ship, which might be a little worse in the long run. I started this liberation with 200 of the things. I'm down to 73, as of right now, and I've been losing them at an alarming rate since we supposedly won.

"And when they're gone, well... I don't have to tell you. You're the one who shamed those Olympians into putting some metal behind their words, after all. But they've still got their rules. I guess gods are nothing without them.

"Speaking of gods, the Aesir took care of the problem for me. They even brought back the body, carrying it with all the reverence of one of their own. Which is to say they practically threw a party for poor Wyndcombe, and wondered why the rest of us didn't feel like getting drunk and saluting her voyage into Valhalla. 

"(REDACTED)..." he says, looking one way and then the other, and then leaning in to be quiet: "I don't know what's wrong, here. But something is not right with these people. Before they were all evil and nasty, because they were riding some very disturbed and hateful people. 

"But now, well, they're noble and good, but something's still wrong with them. And I get the feeling they're not telling me the complete truth about what's going on. 

"I think that there's still worse, waiting for us down there..."

He pauses, and then leans back: "I know you hate talking to them, given how they operate. But if you could ask the Olympians if they have any idea what's going on here, that might be a good idea. Either that or maybe you could talk to Mr. USA... sorry, Odin. You knew him as a man. Maybe you can get through to him?

"Anyway," he sighs: "I love you. I miss you. I want this to be over so we can all go home and argue in real time about what color to have at the wedding, and whether your friend Frankie can be a bridesmaid, or best woman, or whatever. 

"But I'm willing to compromise. Black and gold sounds great. You'll make it work. You always do.

"I love you," he says, putting a hand to the camera: "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

And then the video link goes off, and SPYGOD sits there for a while, considering his options.

Before he knows it, he's making another call, and then taking another, and then doing even more things he hadn't quite expected to do.

The movie will have to wait. It usually !@#$ing does.

Sunday: 8/14/16

"Well, it's just that I had plans," the Candidate says, not really expecting his political sorcerer to show up in his room unbidden -- much less just teleport in, somehow.

"I know you did," King Whip says, tousling his short, perky haircut and sitting down in what appears to be the comfiest chair in the executive suite: "That's why I'm here."

"Okay," the beefy man says, deciding to sit down: "Is there something wrong? Something I need to know about?"

"You could say that, yeah," the goth-boy says, leaning forward and looking at the man over his dark sunglasses. Something about his eyes makes the man shiver.

"You need more money," the Candidate surmises: "I was going to talk to you about that-"

"Money," King Whip says, raising both eyebrows: "You know what money is?"

"Well, I'd like to think so-"

"Money is an illusion that's made itself a reality," the sorcerer interrupts, pulling a fresh, crisp Franklin from seemingly nowhere: "This piece of paper? It's a hundred dollars, right? It says so on the thing. It's got stamps from the treasury department, a serial number, a signature or two. Mark it with a security pen if you're not sure, but to the untrained eye this is worth ten thousand pennies. Right?"

"I'd say so," the man says: "Unless-"

"Unless it was just a fake?" King Whip asks: "Oh no, this is genuine. I stole it myself this morning."

"Who from?"

"Someone who doesn't need any illusions, anymore," the dark-aspected kid grins, turning the bill over in his fingers: "But supposing I take this bill, and I send it somewhere that no one will understand that it is. Not just into the past, for the dinosaurs to find. Not a thousand years from now, when paper money is but a distant memory. But somewhere that the ideas of paper and money don't exist. Somewhere that writing doesn't exist.

"What do you think the beings that find it will make of this bill?"

"I don't know," the Candidate says, mentally reconfiguring his schedule.

"I don't know, either, but this won't be worth a hundred dollars to them," he says, turning the bill one more time, and then letting it go as it quickly catches fire -- burning straight up in a flash: "It'll just be some weird thing they found, floating around in their environment. They won't know how to interpret it, or know that they should.

"They'll just float on by and not realize that, if they took this and came to Earth in the early 21st century? They could buy a whole lot of cheap-ass cheeseburgers."

With that the sorcerer leans back into the chair, drums his fingers on the sides of the armrests, and smiles: "Money doesn't rule me. I usually don't need it, and when I do I can just steal it."

"So... what do you do with the money I send you?"

"Give it to people who still need it," King Whip says: "No point expending time and effort if I don't need to.

"Which is kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, today," the kid says, no longer drumming his fingers: "I hear you think you can just waggle more money in front of my face and make me fix your bullet proof vest."

"Well, can't I?" the Candidate asks.

"You can, yes," King Whip admits: "But like I said, I don't really need your money. I really need some other things done, instead."

"Ah," the man says, nodding and getting up from his chair: "Smart man. Ask for some favors."

"Not favors, no," the sorcerer says, also getting up -- somehow seeming to tower over his employer: "Understandings. You're going to be the next President of the United States of America. When you are, there's some things you're going to need to do, and not do. Some of it will be for my benefit. Some of it will be for the benefit of others."

"Excuse me?" the Candidate asks, clearly taken aback: "You think you can just... now wait, wait! I just went through this-"

"Oh no," King Whip says: "We're not playing that game. I'm not going to control your mind. You have free will in all this, sir. You always have. You can do whatever you want.

"All I'm saying is that if you want me to continue to help you? You'll do what I need you to. Otherwise, I will walk. I will leave the campaign immediately, and all that I did for you will not only cease to work, but possibly backfire.

"And if I do that? Well... there's just a chance you'll be able to limp across the finish line in last place without me. But whether you'll do it in those expensive loafers or prison shoes is the question. Isn't it?"

The sorcerer smiles, and the candidate glowers, then purses his lips, and then sighs.

"Alright," he says: "As soon as I'm in the White House? Tell me what you need. But until then I need you to keep this thing working. Otherwise-"

"Otherwise," the sorcerer says: "You have my word, Mr. President. Enjoy your day."

Then he disappears -- fading from view as the Candidate watches.

(Was he even there? Was this all an illusion, too?)

The man's face quivers, for a second. Then it falls completely.

And then...

* * *

... Hanami and her team watch from a distance as Yanabah -- dressed entirely unlike herself -- walks through the streets of Taos, seeming as much a tourist as the people she's trying to emulate...

... Odin rushes through the thin atmosphere of Mars, smelling the hunt to come and grinning at the stark and bloody choices it provides him...

...  an almost-unrecognizable Randolph Scott gets off the plane at Nairobi, heading to talk to the one man he knows can help him do the impossible, now that he has no one else left...

... The Owl looks over the old photograph of her grandfather, taken back in 1928, and says a small prayer for the smiling, lovely woman he's posing with...

... Msr Andek wakes in the night to find himself unconsciously pleasuring himself at the thought of encountering that dangerous prisoner, and having a one on one, private conversation with her... 

... the head of the autopsy team rushes down the sterile corridor to call someone -- anyone -- to tell them what they found in the dead woman's body...

* * *

... and, after a full hour of listening to their employer smash and destroy the executive suite like some kind of rock star, his security guards finally go inside to find the Candidate sitting in the ruin -- red-faced and crying, like a little boy. 

Looking for all the world as though that world had finally deserted him.

* * *

This heavy heart / heart that I carry
Still holds the weight of you
And when I fall / As I always do
I'm crushed by the absence of you

* * *

(SPYGOD is listening to Crushed (Front 242) and having an Ashtray Heart)