9/23/12 - How Bad It Gets, You Can't Imagine - Pt. 4 - Amporn

The old man coughs, and reaches for a bottle of water.

"Amporn survived, of course," SPYGOD surmises: "How many of the bastards did she take down?"

"Not a one," Dr. Krwi says: "In fact, they beat her quite badly. The only reason she got away from them is because one them somehow smacked her back into full consciousness, allowing her to marshal her powers and go intangible, once more. This way, she slipped through them, and into a part of the temple, itself."

"A strategic withdrawal. Good for her."

"And there she spent the next few days, hiding out from them and their patrols. She could either be invisible or intangible, but not both, which made resting quite a difficult thing. But she soon struck upon the idea of curling up inside a long box that was not occupied, anymore. So she searched for one, and in that searching she discovered more than she'd bargained for."

"Like what?" he asks, leaning forward and putting the bottle to one side, supremely interested.

"She did not get a full and thorough look at the temple, but she did learn that she was correct," Krwi says, also leaning forward, but not caring to look SPYGOD in the eyes: "The children were being drained of their life, a little at a time. Some of them were in the boxes, and being drained, and some were not in the boxes, and being used as slaves. Why some were in the boxes and others not, she did not discover, though the slaves were as old and drained as the ones in the boxes."

"So maybe they were drained for so long, and then given a chance to regain their strength?"

"Maybe. But she found a lot of empty boxes that were once full. And there were the ones who died and fell through the floor..."

"Wait," SPYGOD says, holding up a hand: "You said the girl in the box was seeing herself? Ten minutes of her talking about her life while she was going around the birthday cake?"

"Yes, but-"

"But nothing," he says, pounding that hand on the bar: "Those Imago !@#$s can absorb memories, right? I always thought it was just for interrogation purposes, or impersonation, but what if they actually need memories? What if they !@#$ing feed on them?"

The vampire hunter blinks: "Then perhaps they were showing those poor children videos of themselves in order to get them to remember?"

"Squeezing the last bits out of the !@#$ing toothpaste tube," SPYGOD says, wincing and helping himself to another bottle, closeby: "!@#$ers have officially succeeded in making me !@#$ing sick, today, Doc. And you know that's quite the !@#$ achievement."

"Yes," Dr. Krwi says, looking at his conversation partner: "I can well imagine."

There is silence between them, for a time. 

"So what happened then?" SPYGOD finally asks: "She got out, somehow. How did she do it?"

"Not by choice," the old man says, continuing her story.

* * *

On the third day, Amporn has had enough. 

She is weak, now -- weaker than she has ever been. Her organs are withered and shrunken, and her tail is starting to rot at the edges. Her lungwings have become brittle, and are barely capable of keeping her aloft. She spends most of her time crawling along the floors, hoping that the Imago do not find her, or that if they do, they kill her before she can register it.

So weak. So hungry. She has never known a hunger like this since when she was first cursed, all those centuries ago. The roaring, churning hole in her that yearns to be filled is normally a minor thing, and easily tended. But after three days and nights of being denied sustenance, the noise is so loud and dissonant that she can barely stand it.

She must feed. She must have energy, if she is to face these creatures again. She must have something if she is to escape this place, and fulfill her part of the bargain. 

Maybe this SPYGOD will be angry with her, and maybe he will understand. But either way she must feed, and that is all there is to it. 

So she crawls up to a long box in a room filled with them. She sticks her entire body into the thing, and regards the poor, blank-faced boy who lies in there, smelling like dust and rotten, sick flatulence. The shroud of wires and lights that surrounds him glows weakly in time with his breathing, and he's so weak that even a lick of her tongue might kill him.

She does not care, anymore. She must feed. He would die, anyway. What's one more body amongst the hundreds this terrible place has already created?

Her tongue flicks out of her mouth and into his neck. She begins to drain him, feeling the rush of fear along with the blood and the life as it all goes into her, in time with the weak beating of his heart.

But then, something happens. Something wrong.

* * *

"It fed on her,"  SPYGOD says, having a slug from the bottle.

"Exactly," the old man says, deigning to take it from SPYGOD when it's offered, in turn: "Apparently, even when they weren't on that !@#$able machine in the central temple, the things wrapped around the children were draining them. Not as much as there, perhaps, but enough."

SPYGOD sighs and shrugs: "I !@#$ing told her. It wasn't just because I didn't want to give someone like her the keys to the !@#$ candy store, either. I figured there was some kind of drainage going on, and if she ran in and acted like it was !@#$ buffet she'd regret it. I just didn't expect it on that kind of scale."

"How did you guess?"

"What they do? All that !@#$ teleporting and flying and eye-beaming? That takes a lot of energy, Doc. And whenever I see them, I can see lines of energy going to them from somewhere."

"Your eye," Dr. Krwi says, tapping his own temple: "Very useful, provided you can understand what it tells you."

"So now we know," SPYGOD says, taking the bottle back: "The kids have all been yoked up for their !@#$ life energy. I guess when they talk to their parents once a week it's a !@#$ing simulation, just like half the news on the !@#$ing internet, right now. They get drained directly at night, the power goes into those flying balls, and the balls..."

"She did not see where they went," the old man says as SPYGOD downs half the bottle: "She was too busy hiding. But when she did poke her head out, the next night, to see if the Imago had vanished, there were fewer balls than before."

"So at some point they were collected. But where the !@#$ did they go?"

"An excellent question," Dr. Krwi says, taking what's left of the bottle back: "All we know for sure is where Amporn went."

* * *

Oh God, oh Gods, the pain. The pain. Losing herself to the machine this child is hooked into. Her life and memories and the very marrow of her being sucked out through her tongue back into this child. Flesh on a grater, long ragged strips being pulled over and over and over and over and

(this is what it felt like this is what it felt like this is what it felt like all those years ago when she was bitten the loss the horrible terrible black sucking of all that she was all that she could have been going away going down the gullet of the thing that feasted on her the rotting churning of maggots in her soul the draining the sucking the slurping the nasty wet gooshy noises the creaking of dry tissues the cracking of bones and rents in the skin the massive holes in memory the broken pieces of a life gone under the tongue of endless ancient hunger that awful moment when what she was was all gone and then nothing remained but the gnawing absence that grotesque feeling of being on the edge of oblivion the black backwards orgasm the moment of No and then)

Amporn screams and shrieks. She pulls herself out of the body and crashes out of the box, exploding pieces of it everywhere. The boy dies and falls to the ground, his skin breaking open as it hits the ground, bleeding dust where it falls. Alarms go off everywhere and decrepit slaves stumble after her as she crawls along the floor, then flaps, and then takes to the air again by some dark miracle.

She's out of the temple in seconds, heading for the wall. She doesn't care if she runs up against the field, again. If she dies here and now it would be a mercy, and most likely justice -- the only kind she'll ever get.

But somehow she makes it through that wall. The field is not there. She sails through it effortlessly.

It isn't until she flies out into sunlight that she realizes the depth of her mistake.

* * *

"And then she rested, regained her strength on lesser victims, and returned to her body, but at a terrible cost," Dr. Krwi says, getting up and stretching his back muscles: "She could no longer persuade herself to feed."

"Why not?"

"Something with being sucked upon, I suppose," the old man answers: "When she had been bitten all those years ago, she knew what it meant to have a yawning black hole inside of her, and then sought to fill it in the same way that the creature that turned her had filled its own needs. But as soon as she drank of its blood, and the curse was transferred, she forgot that moment of horror. After that, there was only the need to feed, and the joys it brought her, and the dark delights she could manufacture while searching for her next meal."

"You sound almost sympathetic, doc," SPYGOD says, finishing the bottle: "I don't remember you being that kind the last few times we've waded into them."

"Then you know nothing about me," he says, putting his things away: "The truth is that I do retain some pity for these creatures that I fight. I see the victim behind the monster, still, as I know that is all that they are. As a victim, they are worth my pity. But as a monster, they must be slain. The pity forces me to make that second death as quick and as clean as possible, and to not be cruel or vindictive... if possible."

"And it isn't always," SPYGOD admits: "But yeah, you got me there. You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

"That, at least, was never in doubt," Krwi says, leaving some money behind for the bar: "When I visited Amporn, she wanted me to say two things to you. One was to thank you for her freedom. The other was to apologize for her mistake."

SPYGOD has nothing to say to that, and just nods. When he looks back at the old man, the fury in the vampire hunter's eyes is so fierce that he looks away, wondering what else he could do or say, now.

"Thank you for finishing her," he eventually finds the courage to say: "I know I asked a lot of you."

"It was all in a day's work," the old man says, getting ready to leave: "And I am glad that her sacrifice is not in vain."

"Not at all. This has actually been very helpful."

"Then there's only one thing left to do," Krwi says, pointing to the edge of town: "At the main road leading into Chaing Mai is a battered, red volkswagen. It's up against a tree, maybe two kilometers outside of town. Twenty paces south, in some bushes, you will find a woman's body. I'm sure you'll know it when you see it, as it's been drained to the point of becoming shoe leather."

"The victim from Bangkok?" SPYGOD asks.

"Yes. You will bury her, my ally. You will make this right by her, as I have made it right by Amporn."

"I don't know if funeral arrangement's really anything I have !@#$ing time for, right now," SPYGOD starts to say, but then the old man gives him that terrible look, again, and he falls silent. 

"If you do not do this for me, our agreement is over," the vampire hunter says: "Find some basic decency, somewhere within yourself. If not for the sake of her soul and yours, then for your !@#$ mission, and my part in it."

SPYGOD looks at him, and nods. The old man nods back, and then turns to go without saying another word.

Once he's completely gone, SPYGOD shrugs, sighs, and gets out another bottle from behind the bar. Then he drinks it down in less than a minute, and throws the empty bottle against a nearby post, watching it shatter into numerous pieces. He watches them all fall and tumble, and watches as they sit there, glittering in the sun. 

He watches for quite some time, and then he lies down on top of the bar, looking up at the sky. And he thinks really !@#$ hard at a lonely, dying communications satellite, far up there.

And while he knows that what he's saying to it is going to write him a first class ticket to the deepest pit in Hell, he says it, anyway.

(SPYGOD is listening to Coelacanth & This Big Hush (Shriekback) and having something you don't want)

9/23/12 - How Bad It Gets, You Can't Imagine - Pt. 3 - Amporn

"To her credit, she didn't just dive into the temple," Dr. Krwi continues, handing over the whiskey bottle, as he's had more than enough by now: "Amporn stayed above, and watched as the balls of energy accumulated, again, and then went up into the top of the temple after that strange noise was heard. It took them an hour, and in that time she counted the number of white boxes those poor slaves pushed up the temple."

"Let me guess," SPYGOD says, tossing aside his glass and drinking straight from the bottle: "Same number of energy balls as boxes?"

"Exactly the same," the old man says, trying to find something to sit down upon: "So now she realizes that this is nothing to do with building, or any of the other thoughts she had, flying around the place. Now she realizes that something else is going on here."

"Good for her."

"She wanted to be thorough, for you," Krwi says, giving him that nasty look, again: "She felt she owed you a boon, and wanted it to be fully repaid."

"Again, good for her."

"And now she is dead because of it."

SPYGOD shrugs, and knocks back some of the whiskey: "She did what I told her not to do. !@#$ happens."

"I can't believe you could-"

"You were going to finish telling me the story," SPYGOD says, giving the old man a look back: "Please do."

So he sits down on the upended crate the bartender was using, and he does.

* * *

Satisfied that she is not incorrect in her assumptions, Amporn hurls herself into -- and through -- the temple under the ziggurat, allowing herself to go intangible for however long it takes.

Once through the thick bricks, all made from the same strange, white substance that everything else here is, she finds herself within a great machine. It is filled with cyclopean gears, great belts, and strange pulleys, all positioned to efficiently move the white boxes from place to place. And their constant motion is eerily silent, as though she had lost her hearing in the journey there.

The boxes are taken down from the surface to the center of the temple by a helical screw, much like a wide conveyor belt, and righted up on their narrow end. They are then deposited onto a large, rotating central plinth, like cubist candles on a birthday cake. There, they slowly rotate about for one whole turn of the wheel, only to be dropped away just before a replacement is brought forth.

And just before that happens, a ball of light escapes from the top of the box, and makes its way up into the darkened corners of the machine, most likely to find a hole to escape from. 

It takes ten minutes for a box to go around the entire circle, she sees. She also sees that there is a large hole in the center of the circle, and a strange, bright glow coming from within it. She flaps to the center of the circle and looks down.

Whats he sees makes her recoil with dread.

* * *

"A giant ball, glowing almost as bright as the sun," Dr. Krwi reveals with a slight flourish: "And while she could not be certain in the brief time she looked at it, she thought she saw something moving within it. Something moving in a perfect spiral, within it, like a fish within an egg-"

"DEROS," SPYGOD says, pounding the bottle down: "And that would just !@#$ing fit, wouldn't it?"

"What is this thing you speak of?"

"Long story short? Big, fast metal serpent from beneath the hollow Earth."

"You're joking."

"I wish I was !@#$ing joking. Large, powerful, and !@#$ing dangerous as !@#$. We thought they were Japanese weapons, back during the War, but it turns out they weren't theirs. Just some weird thing that liked to attack our ships and planes but not theirs. We started running into them again when we tangled with GORGON, back in February, before everything went to !@#$, , so it fits that the Imago are using them."

"She said she thought it was being used to power the machine. Possibly the entire temple, as well."

"She'd probably be right. Those things give off a !@#$ of a lot of power. !@#$, we've seen them them use them as generators, before. But..."

Dr. Krwi raises his eyebrows: "'But?' You have a theory?"

"Keep on with the story, please," SPYGOD says, having some more whiskey: "I think some pieces are coming together."

* * *

Ignoring for the moment the fear she feels at whatever's in the center of the rotating platform -- and the increasing likelihood of running into the Imago, here at the heart of their temple -- the Krasue decides to investigate one of the upright boxes. 

She flaps over to the one that was just deposited onto the platform and pokes her head in, ever so slowly. The inside of the box is lit up with layers of alien, hissing machinery, so she goes just that much slower, just in case it's boobytrapped or something.

Inside the box is a wizened, old woman -- shrunken and sere. Her eyes are filled with cataracts, her teeth have fallen out of her mouth, and she's drooling all over herself. Her brain doesn't seem to be working so well, anymore; dementia, perhaps, or maybe she's so run down that she doesn't care to dignify her surroundings with any kind of response. 

Around her are white wires, wrapped all over her like vines over a ruined statue, deep in the jungle. Along those wires are small lights that slowly rise and lower in intensity, seemingly in time with her breathing. Thin, clear tubes snake in and out of her clothing, going to small, white boxes placed around the front of the box, with liquids of varying color and consistency sluicing to and away from her.

In front of the old woman's face is a screen. On that screen is a smiling little girl, dressed in a peasant girl's dress, and talking of her life in the town of Chiang Mai. She talks about school and friends and her favorite toys, and how sad she was when her cat was run over by a tuk-tuk, and that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up just like her mommy and...

And and and. She keeps talking like she has diarrhea of the brain, or someone is having her speak non-stop about herself for as long as she can.

As the girl prattles on, Amporn sees that the old woman is crying. She also sees that the lights on the wires are glowing a little brighter with each cycle.

She also realizes that the old woman must be related to the little girl, as their bone structure is eerily identical. Also her hairstyle, and the dress they're both wearing.

Amporn hears the little girl laugh, and she tips her hair back to reveal a small, puckered scar across her forehead. And then she looks to the old woman, and sees the same exact scar there, reflected under the lights.

* * *

SPYGOD spits up the mouthful of whiskey: "No !@#$ing way," he says, wiping his mouth.

"That is what she saw. And when she went from box to box, she realized that it was the same thing, over and over again. The children were in those boxes, watching themselves on the screens, and they had all become incredibly old and frail.

"Some were more mentally gone than others, of course. Some were actively sobbing, or begging the Gods for help. Others were like the first girl, missing behind the eyes..."

"And the lights came out of the boxes," SPYGOD says, after a moment's reflection: "So whatever they were doing with them, it was taking the life energy out of them."

"Yes," Dr. Krwi says, handing him a rag to clean up with: "And that light became a ball of energy that went up to the temple's surface, and joined the others."

"Holy !@#$," SPYGOD says, having another swig from the bottle, and then another right on its heels.

"It gets better, my friend," the old man says: "Because that was when she decided it was time to leave..."

* * *

She flies up and up as fast as she can, slipping through the gears and wheels and belts, the white glowing bricks, the schools of light. She gets past them all as quickly as her lungwings will carry her, now understanding how ordinary people must feel when they see her. 

She had no idea - no !@#$ idea. She didn't know they could make machines that stole lives like this. She didn't believe that you could turn a child into a whispering ghost, wrapped in papery flesh, without sinking your fangs into their necks. She didn't know it then and she doesn't want to know it now, either. 

She just wants to get out of here. Now. 

The wall of the box looms ahead of her. She increases her speed and prepares to fly through it, eager to be gone and away.

And then she's splatting up against something -- something unseen and painful -- and she's screaming and falling, her wings fighting to right herself as she fights off the numbness and strain and hopes no one heard that.

Of course, they did.

* * *

"Twenty Imago," Dr. Krwi says: "All of them literally came from nowhere, surrounding her as she fell. They did their usual greeting, and she was as well-spoken and polite as ever-"

"Which essentially means she told them to go !@#$ a blender," SPYGOD says, having another swig: "Something tells me they didn't !@#$ing appreciate that."

"Not exactly, no. She collected herself before she struck the ground, and tried to phase through it. But she encountered the same painful field there, too. Only this time she couldn't fall down, as she was already there."

"So she splattered"

"Badly. And then they were upon her..."

"And I bet that didn't end !@#$ing well."

"No," Dr. Krwi says: "Not at all."

(SPYGOD is listening to Evaporation (Shriekback) and having some more Wild Turkey )

9/23/12 - How Bad It Gets, You Can't Imagine - Pt. 2 - Amporn

"Amporn did exactly as you told her," Dr. Krwi begins, grimacing at the whiskey's bite as he downs his shot: "She came to Chiang Mai, hid her body, and infiltrated the white box outside of town."

"How did she get from Bangkok to the north without being caught?" SPYGOD asks, wondering when the vampire hunter is going to pour him that double, or if he's just going to withhold the bottle.

"She did not specify that. However, coming here, I heard tell of a mysteriously abandoned vehicle from the city, previously belonging to a young dancing girl who cannot now be located."

"That sounds about right-"

"A young. Pregnant. Dancing girl." The old man interrupts, his eyes filled with contempt.

"Yeah," SPYGOD sighs, looking askance and drumming his fingers: "She warned me. I guess it was too much to hope she'd slip into a !@#$ing smuggler's trunk and take her chances."

"Oh no. Of course not. She becomes free for the first time in years, so of course she is going to behave herself."

"So she kidnapped some pregnant hooker, stole her !@#$ car, and drove up to a former tourist mecca at night, sleeping and feeding during the day. She gets there, and... what?"

"It was as you told her," Krwi says, having another slug and trying to ignore his ally's complete lack of sympathy: "Her ability to become intangible allowed her to slip past the energy field that surrounds the place, and would kill a normal man. It also allowed her to enter unseen, at night, when the very interesting things are going on."

"Well, that's !@#$ing spiffy," SPYGOD says, pointing at his unfilled glass: "So she fulfilled her mission?"

"She did, yes," the old man says, pointedly pouring only a few measly fingers of the high mark stuff: "Admirably, I should say, considering you left quite a few details out when you explained it to her."

"Such as?"

Dr. Krwi scowls, puts down the bottle, and takes a deep breath to steady himself.

"You neglected to tell her what she was most likely to find."

* * *

Unseen and untouchable, the Krasue flaps over the structure within the white, plastic walls of the box, her gut-tail curling behind her. 

Below, rising from the blasted floor of the jungle, is a strange, temple-like affair, made of the same, white material as the walls she just came through. The structures are eerily reminiscent of ancient ruins all over the world -- temples and pyramids, theaters and tombs -- and make her somewhat nostalgic for times gone by, long long ago. 

The temple isn't what's got her immediate attention, though; She's more intrigued by the small, pulsing lights floating around the tallest spires of the structures, and the large, looming ziggurat that dominates the complex. 

Perhaps the size of a football, the lights cycle between colors, and move in large groups like schools of fish. They cast weird, throbbing shadows on the walls as they slowly cycle around one another in overlapping arcs -- sometimes overtaking, sometimes veering away.

She hovers above the color fields for some time, making certain they are not some kind of guardian or barrier. She also casts her bloated, starting eyes about to look for any trace of the Imago, who should be here, somewhere, but do not appear to be.

And then, satisfied that no one has seen her, and they will not attack her, she plunges into the smallest part of the symmetrical complex, hoping that it's also the most deserted.

* * *

"Of course, there was no one there, where she landed," the old man continues, finishing the bottle and opening another: "There should be no one here, either, come to think of it. How is it there is a bar in a town that the Imago have emptied out?"

"Smugglers," SPYGOD explains: "It's just like any other !@#$ing occupation, doc. There's a black market running, and someone's getting !@#$ing rich."

"I thought the Imago gave their slaves everything they wanted?"

"I guess those metal-plated !@#$holes aren't big on letting their workers get drunk or !@#$ed up. Who'd have thought?"

The old man shrugs, pouring SPYGOD another double: "Who indeed.

"So she lands, and enters this strange, white temple. Its walls are lit from within with a strange light that casts no shadows, and she hears strange noises echoing from ahead. So she slowly and carefully flaps her way forward, careful not to let her tail drag upon the floor, nor her wings touch the ceiling or walls..."

* * *

 The light flickers between pale green and pale pink, and makes her feel nauseous, somehow. She ignores the sensation and keeps going, intent on completing her mission.

"Mission." She sneers at the thought. She owes this SPYGOD a debt, and will repay it if only to be free of any obligations, now that she is once again free. But more of an errand, surely. 

That and a test of temptation.

'Go inside, find the children, and tell me how they are and what they're doing,' he said: 'And whatever you do, do not eat any of them. Not even a !@#$ing lick. I'll know if you do.'

She chuckles at that. Would he really? That strange eye he wore -- the one that made her cower in fear for a few seconds, before she realized what it actually was -- did it really allow him to watch her from afar, or is the notion that he sees all merely self-serving lies?

Either way, she would keep her promise. She will find these children that are living and working here, see what they are doing, and be gone in the same night before anyone can find her. Surely it could be no simpler a task?

* * *

"Of course, it didn't go according to plan," SPYGOD says, regarding the whiskey in his glass.

"Of course not. And that is why she is dead."

"That and I bet she got stupid."

"Oh?"

"I bet she did what I told her not to do," he says, looking at Dr. Krwi: "Didn't she?"

The old man bites her tongue, and then continues her tale.

* * *

The first doubt she has is waiting around the first corner, when she sees a slow-moving procession of robed and hooded priests, pushing long, white boxes along the floor.

It's a large group of them, maybe thirty or so, all heading in the direction of the main part of the complex. They wear filthy, black robes that stretch from their heads to their feet, and are all bent over, as though they had become too infirm to stand up. The only visible flesh she can see are their hands, which are bent and gnarled, and seem barely capable of pushing those boxes along.

She flaps past, and indeed through them, taking in their particulars as she goes. At first she thinks they may be some alien life form, but they're all too human -- just quite old. Indeed, she thinks they're maybe a few bad knocks away from falling into piles of dust and bone. 

Are the Imago employing the elderly here, then? She has no idea what has been done with people too weak to work in the tent cities; perhaps they wind up here, alongside the children, working towards their strange goals together. 

She could move on, she supposes, but she decides to stay with the group, and see where they go. If anything, their presence should mask hers -- especially given how much noise they make as they push the boxes along the floor.

* * *

"She follows them down that hallway, and into a large chamber, tall and wide. In that room are more groups of these hooded, robed priests, all pushing more long, white boxes along the floor. Some are pushing them in the direction of that her group are going, some are pushing them back the way they came. 

"She flies along after them, invisible and untouchable, as they go down one hallway, and then another. One of the priests falls to his knees, collapses, and dies of what is probably a heart attack. His last words are something akin to 'thank the Buddha,' she thinks.

"One of the stronger ones in the group takes the dead priest's box, puts it atop his own, and continues pushing it. The others do not slow down for him, so he must speed up to meet them. 

"No one sees to the body. She flies on, and then she thinks she hears a strange noise behind her. When she turns and looks back, the body is gone, and the floor seems to be rippling, somehow."

"!@#$," SPYGOD says, indicating he'd like another double, please: "And all this time she hasn't seen a single !@#$ing kid?"

"Not that she knows," the old man says, sighing: "But-"

"How about the mother!@#$ing Imago? None of them yet, either?"

"Not as yet, no," Krwi replies, clearly unhappy to have been interrupted: "But as the group continues on, she realizes that she can feel they are near, somehow. It is as though they are everywhere, and yet nowhere..."

* * *

The hallway leads to another large chamber, with many hallways going in and out of it. The procession halts for a time, and they sit down on the boxes, too winded to speak. Some of them seem to be praying, others meditating. One cries, weakly and alone.

After a time she grows bored of watching them sit, and goes ahead a little, following another procession as it goes down the hallway she thinks the others might have been heading towards. As they go further in, she becomes aware of the air being slightly charged, and a weird, crackling noise echoing down the hallway. 

Intrigued, she barrels forward, thinking that perhaps she will find the children there. Maybe they are toiling at some strange, highly-dangerous factory, and the priests are bringing them tools and materials in their boxes? Or maybe they are all learning, as promised, and the old beings are simply bringing white pieces of material to build their school around them?

Either way, she hopes she can find the answer soon. She would be done with this strange, eerie place with its sickening lights and strange noises, and sense of being watched. She would be back in her own body, and preparing to meet the strange human.

She would be far, far from here.

* * *

"She is now," the doctor sighs, downing another drink.

"You sure?" SPYGOD asks: "These !@#$ things have a way of coming back-"

"I think I know how to kill a !@#$ing vampire, you idiot," he says, pounding the bar with his hand and staring a hole through SPYGOD's forehead: "I blessed her in the name of her peoples. I made her tell me of everything she had ever done, and then forgave her for each and every dead person. Each and every woman, baby, child, and man. The people she had fed upon because she was hungry, and the people she had played with because she was bored, or they had offended her. I listened to every death she had caused and said I forgave her-"

"And then you shot her," SPYGOD says, tapping his own forehead: "Right in the !@#$ing head?"

"Yes. In the head. With bullets made from the special amulets they give to pregnant women up here to fend off the likes of her. And she cried with joy as she died-"

"And then you burned her."

"Every last scrap. And I did not set out for here until I was certain that her ashes were ashes."

SPYGOD nods, takes the bottle from the old man, and pours himself a drink: "I just wanted to be sure, old man. You know me."

"All too well," Dr. Krwi says, continuing to give him a dire look.

* * *

 

Up ahead, the hallway widens out and grows taller, so that she can get a better view. She is entering the largest chamber that she saw from above the complex, and here, under the central ziggurat, lies an interior temple -- its contours exactly matching the roof, and its surface crawling with the same kind of light swarms that she saw outside. 

The temple has a gentle slope, leading from the room's floor to its apex. The priests are pushing the white boxes up to it, and then laying them on the top. As she watches, a box is absorbed by the floor atop the temple, and then another box is placed in the same location. Over and over again this happens, like some strange production line.

She flies over the temple and looks at the other side. There, the priests walk down another, mirroring slope to reach the bottom of the chamber. On that side of the temple, long boxes are endlessly and slowly ejected from holes along the sides of the slope. The priests take one apiece, and start pushing them to other hallways on the other side of the temple.

Amporn watches this for a while, fascinated. She also notices that the boxes seem as heavy going in as they do coming out. 

A weird noise sounds, and all the priests stop what they are doing and fall to the ground, as though they were afraid. A moment later, the lights that crawl around the edges of the temple leave them, and fly up to the roof, seeking its very apex. 

There, they seemingly exit -- doubtless to join the others, outside. And once they're gone, and the priests pick themselves up off the floor and get back to pushing or collecting long boxes, more lights begin to come out of holes in the temple's walls. 

* * *

"So it's a factory of some kind," SPYGOD says, shooting down his booze and setting himself up for another: "Either that or they're having one guy pound in the peg on one side of the !@#$ing wall while the other person bangs it out, over and over."

"Nothing so amusing," Dr. Krwi says, having another swig, and grimacing at the bite: "Surely you can see where this is going? I have been trying very hard to avoid making this obvious, but-"

"It's going straight to !@#$, Doc," the man says, grabbing the bottle from the old man and pouring himself a drink: "I just want to know how !@#$ing deep the hole is, right now."

"Things are that good?"

SPYGOD scowls, and then relaxes his face a little: "Well, I managed to make contact with my people out East, in California. It's a touchy reception, lousy sending kind of deal, but at least we got to talk and compare a few notes. I don't feel like I'm feeling the !@#$ Elephant, anymore."

"And what kind of progress are they making?"

"Enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Enough to be ready to move when we know which way we're !@#$ing going," SPYGOD answers, pouring himself some more and handing the bottle back to the old man: "That's as good as I can say, right now. Don't !@#$ing get yourself killed anytime soon, though. We're gonna need you."

"Always good to feel wanted and appreciated."

"I'd appreciate it if you finished your !@#$ story," SPYGOD says, smiling.

"Then I will," he says, and begins to do just that

(SPYGOD is listening to Feelers (Shriekback) and having some Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit)

9/23/12 - How Bad It Gets, You Can't Imagine - Pt. 1 - Amporn

9/10/12
Bangkok, Thailand 

By the time Amporn gets back to her body, she's already resigned herself to her fate. She failed to kill her targets, and it's doubtful that the backup team had any better luck than she did.

The mission was a failure, and therefore her life is forfeit.

She knows that the agents will burn her body, and stand there and watch to be certain that not even the smallest scrap of her escapes the flame. And then they'll sweep her ashes into the crate, and dump it in the ocean, somewhere -- just to be sure they're rid of her.

(Whether they'll burn the box too, or keep it as some grisly memento, is something she'd rather not think about.)

So she's more dumbfounded than relieved when she re-appears in the room, and finds that one of the Agents is dead -- shot right through the forehead -- and the other badly wounded, groaning on the floor, and missing his firearm.

For a moment she isn't sure what to do. Should she take her body and her box and run? If so, where to? Everything North is an armed camp, now. How long could she survive?

Or should she sit here, in her crate, and wait for ISOC to send more Agents to replace these fools? Say she stayed out of loyalty, and maybe they'll overlook her failure? Would that even matter?

She looks to the table, thinking that maybe the box will have the answers. But when she does, it's not there. She hisses in anger and frustration. 

"'You're welcome' might be nice," someone says, stepping out of the shadows. He's a big and burly farang, dressed in the wrong black leather for this weather, and wearing an eyepatch.

And he has her box in his hands.

She's about to attack him, but something about the look from the eye she can't see makes her float backwards, instead -- instinctively terrified.

"Amporn, right?" he says, gesturing to her with the box: "Sorry if my colleagues were a little rough on you. We needed to make that look good."

"What are you talking about?" she spits, her voice a deep horn, her teeth extending sideways out of her mouth.

"We had no plans to kill you," SPYGOD explains, putting her box down on the table: "In fact, we are setting you free. It'll be dark, soon. You can get the !@#$ out of town."

"And why would you do that?" she asks, looking at him with what can only be called dire and utter suspicion: "Is this a peace offering? Do you think I will let you live?"

"I think you'd break your !@#$ing teeth on my fine, gay !@#$, honey," he chuckles: "It's been a while since I went at it with one of you, but it didn't end too well for her."

"Then what is this? What do you think you can command of me?"

"This isn't about commanding anything. I'm just tired of having these ISOC !@#$ers having a Penanggalan on their payroll."

"I'm a krasue, you fool" she hisses: "You're thinking of the ones from further South."

"There's a difference?"

"Oh, that's right. All Asians look the same to you farang."

He chuckles: "Good point. I apologize. But if you think I'm gonna take a lesson in racial awareness from someone who looks at me like a steak on legs, you're !@#$ing crazy."

She looks at him, her black in red eyes flaring, and then she actually smiles: "I see your point. So am I to expect that you will simply let me take my things and go, and that you will not try to stop me?"

"That's pretty much it, yeah," he says, lighting up a very noxious cigarette.

"You know I'll feed."

"I know."

"And you know who I will feed upon."

"Yep," he says, inhaling and exhaling, blowing strange rings of smoke into the air: "Pregnant women. Little kids. Puppies and kittens. See if I !@#$ing care."

"How are you so cold?" she asks, touching down onto the table and taking hold of the box with a fleshy loop of her muscular intestine tail: "Are you broken in your mind?"

"Not really," he says: "But they say one person's monster's just another person's predator. Antelopes got lions, bugs got bats, and we get... well, you."

"How very... cosmopolitan of you."

"Well, that and there's worse monsters out there, in case you hadn't noticed," he says, turning to leave the room: "Speaking of which, I have places to go and things to do. Don't mind me?"

"Wait," she says before he can put a hand on the door: "You cannot simply leave like this."

"I can't?" he looks back: "You sure you want to be !@#$ing telling me what I can and can't do?"

"We monsters have rules, same as you," she says, flapping forward and stopping right in front of him, looking him literally eye to eye: "You have saved my life, farang. I owe you a favor."

"A favor," he says, getting a weird gleam in the eye she can't see: "Are you sure you want to do that?"

"I am certain," she says: "A life for a life, that is the law."

"And don't we just !@#$ing love the law?" he smirks: "Alright, then. I'll accept. Come to think of it, your particular skill set might come in pretty useful for a job I need doing."

She laughs: "More killing? I am always happy to do that-"

"Not this time," he says, holding up a hand: "In fact, I want you to not kill someone. Several someones, in fact. Can I get you to promise me that?"

"What all does this favor entail?" she asks, clearly intrigued.

So he tells her, in crisp and exacting detail, exactly what he wants her to do. Somewhere in that telling -- maybe halfway through -- she becomes convinced that he knew the rules already, and has engineered this entire scenario just to get his hands on her 'skill set.'  But the rules are the rules, and without them she is less than nothing, so she bites back any comments she might have about his true motives, and agrees to his terms and his timetable.

After that, he leaves the room, and she takes the opportunity to feed on the ISOC Agent he left alive for her. It's not the slow, sick, and torturous fate she'd had planned for this one, but the fear in his eyes makes the meal sweet and full, if lacking in twisted invention. And when she pours herself back into her waiting body, she does so with a full belly and a content mind.

As soon as it's dark she leaves the room and enters the street beyond -- another lovely, young Thai out for a nighttime stroll in the humid, neon-lit Patpong night. She drinks deep of her freedom, mind roiling with the delicious, wet possibilities it holds, and cradles the box like it was her child.

A late rain shower slakes the city's thirst. When it abruptly vanishes, so has she.

* * *

9/20/12

Chiang Mai, Thailand

The jungle is hot and wet, and filled with layers of noise. Predators and prey, mostly, along with the wind and other, stranger noises. 

Especially the ones that come from the large, white box outside of the town.

The box is about the size of an olympic stadium, and made from thick, white sheets of plastic. It hums and thrums, and occasionally crackles. At night it's lit up from within, and the lights seem to be moving around, and casting strange, otherworldly shadows against the walls.

Nothing grows next to the box. The trees and grass have withered and died. Animals don't dare come too close, and on the occasion that one blunders into the dead zone by accident, it falls down dead and twitching within three steps -- their brains gushing out of their eyes, nose, and ears.

Even the insects will leave those festering corpses alone.

The box is where the children went, last June. Their parents were moved to a high-tech tent city, just north of the town, but all but their youngest kids were sent to the box, where they were promised educational facilities far beyond anything they could have dreamed of, and opportunities unknown to the world. 

The box was shut around them, and there they have stayed. Every week they hold a teleconference with their parents, and tell them what they've learned, but no visitations have been held, and no leaves of absence permitted. Except for the Imago, no one comes in, and no one goes out.

Until today.

The shrieking, whip-thin thing that was once a brilliant monster flies out of the side of the box, wide-eyed and panicking. Her red eyes are starting from her skull, and she's screaming so hard her long, barbed tongue seems in danger of popping out of her mouth. 

The moment she hits the sunlight, she catches on fire. She doesn't seem to care about this. Her lungwings smolder and blacken, her intestine tail goes up like someone soaked it in gasoline, and her other parts singe and smoke in the unforgiving rays of the Sun. All it does is make her fly even faster, aiming for the line of trees outside of the dead zone, and the cool, dark areas therein. 

She finally gets there, after what seems an eternity of burning, and crashes to the dense, wet ground. A shivering mess that's as much goosh as crumble, she inhales deeply of the air, and tries to force herself to heal. But with so little energy left to her, the effort proves too much, and she blacks out, instead. 

When she comes to, late that night, she discovers that scavengers have been feeding from her, thinking her just another body, ripe for the consuming. She gladly turns the tables on them, taking enough sustenance from their small and furry forms to heal the worst of her wounds.

And then, on crusty wings barely made airworthy, she takes to the skies: a wounded nightmare, seeking the warm, meaty safety of her hidden body.

* * *

9/23/12

Pong Pha, Thailand

At a small, frankly scruffy, open-air bar in the center of the village, a strange man dressed like a tourist -- but clearly anything but -- stands and sips an off-brand, local beer, feeling rather nonplussed.

The place promised Singha. The cracked and dirty mirror behind the bar says Singha. The non-functioning neon sign that's on the place's only outside wall says Singha. Even the cheap paper coasters says Singha. But it turns out it's the one beer they don't have, and the smiling, nervous barkeep's insistence that the watery, local brew is even better is not going to get him a good tip.

SPYGOD sighs, wondering if he should trade up for one of the imported Whiskeys the man's been encouraging him to try for the last half hour, but then he hears his contact coming down the road.

"You got anything Polish?" he asks the man in eerily perfect Thai. The man starts, and admits he doesn't know the first thing about European beers, but by the time he's made a complete fool of himself, SPYGOD can hear that Dr. Krwi is getting his flask out, which is good news for everyone, frankly.

"Buy you a drink?" he asks, anyway, turning around and smiling.

He takes the old man's fist in his face without so much as ducking. He closes his eyes, opens them up again, and sees that the vampire hunter is red and shaking with anger.

"That !@#$ing good, huh?" he asks, trying to regain his smile.

The bartender gasps and starts making useless threats, but SPYGOD tosses him some baht and tells him to take the whole !@#$ing day off. He does, and with a lot of dispatch.

"You are despicable," the old man says, taking a swig from his flask and pointedly not offering the man any: "Devoid of conscience. Uncaring and amoral. I... if I were not your ally-"

"How about my friend?" SPYGOD asks, crooking his nose back into joint and wincing at the pain: "Or have we crossed that line, too?"

"Oh, we crossed that some time ago," Dr. Krwi says, having another swig, and then going behind the bar to steal a bottle of whiskey: "There are times when I feel pity for those I slay, (REDACTED). They are often as much a victim of what's happened to them as their prey is. But you? You chose to become this. You choose to do these things."

"Cry me a !@#$ing river, Doc," SPYGOD says, knocking back the beer and thumping the bottle onto the table: "And pour me a double while you're at it. It sounds like I'm going to need it."

"You have no idea," the old man says, and begins to tell the story he just heard from a dying vampire. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Nemesis (Shriekback) and having a beer so !@#$ty we're not going to name it here)

9/10/12 (ARACHNIDS) Listen to the Silence - pt 4

When Khalil was a young boy, growing up in the mega-slums of Addis Ababa, his mother would keep her children in their beds with terrible stories of the monsters that lurked in the night.

She knew them all, that woman: the millions of horrifying creatures that Allah had created for reasons of his own; the scrabbling, ravenous things that lurked just outside of His purview; the beasts of a hundred different lands and religions, all eager to clamber into a young child's bed at night and slurp up their sweetmeats -- or worse.

Khalil loved a good scare, of course -- all children do, in their own way. But one of the stories really bothered him.

It was the legend of the most gruesome of the many, terrifying hungry ghosts of Malaysia. A terrifying being that had a different name in every country, but was essentially the same. A disgusting she-vampire that detached her head at night and flew, pulling her guts behind her as she went, and lapped the blood of pregnant women and young children who didn't mind their parents.

And while it had many names in many lands, the one that always stuck with him was Penanggalan.

Such was the fearful power of this thing that it not only made him nervous to go out at night, but also had him jumpy during the day. It even made him wet his pants at loud, sudden noises in the dark, and continued to disturb him all the way into manhood. In fact, every time he met a new young woman who seemed just a little "off" he would keep tabs on her, just to make sure her nighttime activities were legitimate, and that her head was always on her neck at the right angle from day to day.

One could say that this heightened sense of awareness served him well when he went into the NGUVU. And one could only imagine his reaction when he learned from its strategic talents handlers that the !@#$ things were actually real.

And one can only imagine his reaction, now, as one of those creatures is less than five feet away from him, floating in the air and drinking the life from his MI-6 contact.

It's nothing like what he imagined, though. He'd imagined something like what he'd seen in the movies or supernatural television shows, but this is much more terrifying. And as Mikhail bellows and throws his bottle of vodka at her, and Dosha pulls out a gun that he's not supposed to have in this bar,  Khalil leaps back to ready some kind of defense and get a better look.

The woman's head is at least three times the size of a normal head, all puffed up like an obscene basketball. Her black and red eyes seem about to burst from her blood-filled sockets, and her mouth is a roiling playground of teeth the size and random shapes of jagged, broken dinner plates. A long, red, and barbed tongue anchors her to Sir George, who's about as pale as a sheet after just five seconds of being drained.

As for the train of guts, the legends do not do this creature justice. They're not being pulled behind her like the manacles on a stately English ghost, but are actually part of her overall motion. The lungs have dissipated into millions of fibers and webs, forming sinister, batlike wings that keep her aloft. Her distended stomach and liver seem able to reach out and clutch objects, perhaps the better to perch with.

And her long, looped intestines purl and curl behind her as she goes, coiling and roiling like the tail of some magnificently long dragon. As Mikhail's vodka bottle arcs towards her, a quick, meaty flick of that tail sends it bouncing away -- off to land on the deaf waiter, who tried his best to run past the evil and down the stairs along with the rest of the guests.

(Crash goes the bottle. Thump goes the waiter. Stomp stomp go the frightened patrons' feet on the waiter.)

Khalil's mind reels with possibilities, and fear. He tries to remember what his mother told him to do if he saw one, and what defenses NGUVU's supernatural handlers advised him to take, but nothing that either of these wise fonts of information ever gave him is making itself evident, today.

"!@#$ me," Dosha spits, finally just shooting at the thing. Of course, the bullets just go through the ghostly head; it seems that she can hurt them, but they cannot hurt her -- not without magic, which he doesn't have on him, right now.

But then, there is something else...

"I can protect us, I think," Khalil offers, and crosses his arms just before his chest, willing there to be something between the monster and the rest of them. The effort makes his nose bleed, and his eyes turn red with burst vessels, but in seconds there is a strange opacity in the air between the creature -- and its victim -- and the other three.

But how long it can last is unknown.

"I am thinking strategic withdrawal, my comrades!" Mikhail says: "The window! Quickly!"

"It's no good!" Dosha shouts: "Internal Security's got snipers outside, by now."

"Who?" Mikhail shouts.

"Internal Security! ISOC! They know we're here!"

"How in the !@#$ are they !@#$ing knowing this? And how in the !@#$ are you knowing this?"

"I just do! And I know the only reason they haven't shot in is-"

A window blows out. The floor rips up and splinters. The sharp, echoing crack of a rifle comes a split second later. 

"You were saying?" Mikhail says, trying to find someplace that isn't accessible by a window.

"!@#$!" Dosha spits, looking at his watch scowling: "They should have been here by now..."

"Who should have?" Khalil asks, but then another bullet takes out another window, and he's showered with flying glass. A cut springs up on his cheek and he loses concentration, and the sudden, angry migraine that comes with using his new power smacks his brains into the back of his skull.

He winces and falls down, holding his head. St. George falls through the now-absent shield and hits the floor, pale and whispering. The Penanggalan laughs, twirls in the air, and lashes out with her tongue, ready to take on the next victim...

... and then recoils violently from something that's just entered the room, and hisses like a snake run over by a wagon wheel.

That something is an eight-sided medallion, made from strange, dark metal, and embossed with gold writing that looks like ancient Thai script.

It's being held up at eye-level by an old man, clearly not dressed for this climate. He wears a thick, heavy coat, a dignified European hat, and old-style "horse blinder" sunglasses. He also carries a silver-chased cane that seems heavier than it should be.

And on his tanned face is a commanding scowl -- the sort of look that says "you came here to die."

The black-clad, young Indian man who brought Dosha here, earlier, stands beside him, holding onto his shoulder. He steps back and takes a few deep breaths, and then assumes a place by Dosha, who's covering the old man with his gun.

"What took you so long, old man?" Dosha asks.

"I took a wrong turn in Turkey," the younger Indian says: "He squirms too much-"

"Be quiet, both of you," the old man commands, his voice thick and Polish: "And you, creature. These men are under my protection. You will leave, now. And consider yourself lucky I didn't have time to find your body."

"You will not leave here alive," she hisses, flapping away and becoming insubstantial: "The streets are lined with my people. You will be killed."

"Oh, do be quiet, you stupid !@#$," Sir George mutters from the floor: "At least let me die with an absence of bad dialogue. I'm owed that much, surely..."

"Away with you!" the old man shouts, and the metal suddenly seems more there, somehow. More solid. More real.

The Penanggalan shrieks and ripples, as though they were seeing her on the surface of a pond that's just had stones thrown into it. She turns even more ghostly, and within seconds she's vanished.

"Well, that was being anticlimactic, yes?" Mikhail asks from his spot between windows.

"We need to leave," Dosha says, extending a hand to the Russian: "Now."

And by the time the ISOC kill team runs up Poke's staircase to finish the job their pet vampire obviously bungled, they have.

* * *

"So, please to be explaining all this, again?" Mikhail asks, having another bottle of Dosha's emergency vodka as the old man tends to Sir George's wounds, over on the ratty couch. Every so often the fellow looks up and scowls, but he hasn't ventured a prognosis, yet. 

"We were bait, were we not?" Khalil asks from where he sits, up against the wall, holding a cold glass of water up to his left temple and checking to see if his nose really has stopped bleeding.

"Yes," Dosha admits, standing close to where Anil sits -- tired and dejected: "We were."

The apartment's small, with just a few pieces of furniture and minimal supplies. It used to belong to the Central Intelligence Agency, but the DIA took it over a few years back, when Thailand's most recent junta shifted numerous intelligence "understandings" around the board. So far as the DIA knows, it's been abandoned and decommissioned, but ISOC would probably think it to be the first place a former Indian Intelligence agency would go, which means it'll be the last place they search.

(A trick Dosha's used before, with some success.)

"A risky game, Dosha," Khalil accuses.

"Not really, no," Dosha explains: "We needed to know if we could trust what's left of Thailand's intelligence, right now, given their access to certain unique assets. We made an overture, and in reply they decided to turn on us, no doubt to curry favor with the Imago. I suppose they like having the illusion that they're still in charge of something."

"What about your sister, Anil?" Khalil asks, looking at the young man, who's still out of breath.

"I don't know," he says: "They say they have her, and they'd hand her over when this was all done, and you were all dead. But I think..."

He doesn't say it. He wipes away a tear, instead, and ventures nothing more. Dosha puts a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, but the young man brushes it away.

That's the last thing he needs right now.

"So you see why I couldn't tip you all off," Dosha says, trying to recover.

"No, comrade, I am not seeing that," Mikhail says: "Do you think they had me under surveillance? You could have told us we were walking into trap."

"That would have been nice to know, yes," Khalil says.

"I don't even know how they found Anil's sister," Dosha protests: "For all I know they have us all under some kind of observation. The best I could do was bring in Dr. Krwi to deal with their Penanggalan, and even that required me to be a lot more subtle than usual-"

"Krasue," the old man corrects him, standing up from his patient: "That was unmistakably a Krasue. The Penanggalan lives further south, and rarely ventures this far up the Malay Peninsula. It is an issue of territory and feeding styles, but nothing to be so concerned about... unless you wish to banish or kill them."

"Or be bitten by one," Sir George says, opening his eyes as much as he can: "How bad is it?"

"I can do nothing more," Krwi says, sadly: "I advise you to pray. It is all that is left."

"Well, then that's that," the Englishman says.

"George, I'm so sorry-" Dosha tries to apologize, but the dying man holds up a hand.

"Someone get me a brandy. If I'm going to die, I will have a brandy."

"I don't think we have any, here?" Dosha says, looking at his liquor cabinet. 

"There is being liquor store outside, and down the stairs," Mikhail says: "I will go and get you best brandy yankee dollar can buy-"

"You're not to leave this apartment until we're clear to teleport out," Dosha insists: "We've lost too much to risk more over a !@#$ing glass of alcohol-"

He doesn't see the Russian's fist flying for his face until it's knocked him across the room. Then Anil's up and at Mikhail's throat with a knife faster than the burly man can react, but there's a sword at his own before he can drive the blade home.

"Killing each other will not fix things," the old man says, adjusting his grip on his swordcane ever so slightly.

"You do not hit him, ever," Anil hisses.

"This man's stupid sister and idiot handler got good man killed!" Mikhail shouts at Krwi. 

"Neither will recriminations," Krwi insists, calm as winter snow: "Mistakes have been made. War is full of such things. Either we pull together and learn from them, or we lose."

"I am not going to war with a !@#$ing idiot who uses us like toys to save his boyfriend's family," the Russian spits, walking away from the knife: "Drop me where you like, but I am being done with this."

"Is that how we are to honor the dead?" Khalil asks, getting to his feet: "All those people in Israel and Palestine? Do they die for nothing, then?"

"Look at us, my friend," the Russian says: "We are nothing. Whole point of us was to get together and share information. To tell truth between lies and help each other.

"And now, what do we have, eh? Dosha uses us as bait for trap, and brings in outsider we know nothing of. Khalil, you do not tell us about your power. And God !@#$ only knows what Sir George is !@#$ing hiding-"

"That I know that Khalil wasn't... wasn't just hiding the fact that he's recently developed a strategic talent," the Englishman says, trying to avoid sounding as weak as he actually is: "In fact, I was going to bring that up before... we were so rudely interrupted."

"What do you mean?" Khalil sighs.

"The Object, Khalil. They should... know about the Object. They should know what a bad thing NGUVU did... handing it over to GORGON."

"We did not hand it over to them," Khalil protests: "If you think we would hand it over to anyone-"

"Then you don't know, do you?" the Englishman says: "Well, I guess that's that, then. I wasn't sure whether you were dangerous or clueless, Khalil. I suppose.... I suppose..."

"Oh, do be quiet, both of you," the old man sighs, putting his swordcane down, and reaching into his coat pocket to pull out a flask. He kneels down to the dying man and hands it to him. 

"Is this...?" Sir George asks, taking a good whiff of it.

"It is," Dr. Krwi says: "Honey vodka. It is the best thing in the world."

The Englishman smiles, takes a good swig, and hands over the flask: "Then I die content."

"Is there anything else we can do?" Dosha asks, finally getting up off the floor.

"Other than make sure my dead letter gets sent?" George asks: "Don't let my death be for nothing. I hated you all, each and every one of you. But we did good in our time. Do more good, gentlemen. Be better than this."

He takes a last breath, exhales, and is gone. 

Mikhail's face gets so red it's a wonder blood doesn't explode from his pores, and punches the nearest wall. His fist goes through the plaster right to the wood.

"NGUVU gave the Object to GORGON?" Dosha asks, looking at Khalil. 

"We didn't..." Khalil sighs, putting his head in his hands and wondering whether the others in the room are going to listen to what he has to say, or kill him.

"Will someone please tell me what this Object is?" Anil asks, finally putting his knife away, but still keeping himself between Dosha and the Russian. 

"This can wait for another time, surely," Dr. Krwi offers, having a slug of his own drink: "This room is burned. You must leave it. You must leave this country now and not look back.

"But as soon as we can reconvene, gentlemen, I think a number of things need to be said?"

Dosha nods, looking to Mikhail and then Khalil: "We'll leave here as soon as we can. Then-"

"I am being done with you," Mikhail says: "We have many supers left. I have rolodex full of names. I will !@#$ing go door-to-door if I have to."

"It would be quicker if I teleported you," Anil says, holding out a hand.

"I don't think-" Dosha starts to say, but one look from Anil shuts him up.

"I may not know everything there is to know about this world I've been brought into," the young man says: "And I may not have been 100% honest about certain things with you. But I do know that if we don't work together, we are !@#$ed. And we know who's going to be wearing the condom, don't we?" 

Dosha takes a moment, and then nods. Mikhail takes Anil's hand, and also nods. Khalil doesn't feel like moving, but nods as well.

"No more !@#$ing secrets, then?" Mikhail asks, looking around the room: "Not from each other?"

"No more secrets," Dosha says.

"No more secrets," Khalil adds. 

"No more secrets," Dr. Krwi says.

"And who are you being, anyway?" Mikhail asks.

"Doctor Krwi, of occupied Poland," the fellow says, passing around the Barenjager: "I kill vampires, primarily. But I also worked with the Polish resistance during the War, became far too familiar with Soviet Bloc intelligence after it, and have recently been moonlighting for several people. Most notably SPYGOD."

"I didn't think you wanted to be a party to that, old man?" Dosha asks: "I believe the phrase was 'one favor, since you know him, but that's it'?"

"Well, what can I say? I fear I may have gotten a reluctant taste for it, recently. And we are all that stands against whatever the Imago have planned."

"Oh, very well," Mikhail mutters, nearly downing the rest of the flask with one gulp: "But if any of you play me again, I will be !@#$ing you with my leg."

And on that -- and the need to toast their dead ally one more time before they all leave -- they can all agree.

(SPYGOD is listening to At Night (The Cure) and having a Barenjager)

9/10/12 (ARACHNIDS) Listen to the Silence - pt 3

"How bad is bad?" Khalil asks, getting more and more pale as Mikhail's story goes on.

"Let me put it to you, my friend," the Russian says, downing the rest of his bottle of vodka in two gargantuan swigs: "If you are not drunk now, you had best be soon. Or we will have to carry you out of here, after the story is done."

"You may have to carry him out, anyway," Sir George says, his tone rather archy. 

"It will not be from total destruction of his soul," Mikhail says: "In war, there comes time when every man sees a thing that puts his mind into that war, once and for all. For some, it is the first dead man you see. For others, the first man they make dead. And some must wait for the most horrible of things. Death camps, gulags, torture, slavery, the worthless slaughter of innocents.

"In this war, we have all these things. I would spare him full horror. I would offer him chance to make an anesthesia in his veins, first. I think it is most kind thing I can do."

"Ignorance would be the kindest thing," Dosha opines: "But in its absence, I suppose a good drink would be just the thing."

Khalil takes his point, and, buzzing for the waiter, orders a bottle for everyone -- even Sir George.

* * *

Warsaw is cold and wet, this morning. It's raining like mad, and that's making it hard for the people of the city to go about their business with no electricity. 

In the city, every Monday is a "no" day: no power, no telephone, no internet, and no work. The Imago need the power in the nearest work center, in Pultusk, at least for now. When winter comes, they plan to ease back, and say that only a few hours -- maybe between Midnight and Sunrise -- will be "no." But for now, the people are being asked to do without for the good of all.

Left without work or power, the people tend to take to the streets. They go for walks, read out of doors, play chess in the parks, and barter for goods in the open spaces. The Imago watch these "free markets" with a strange interest -- maybe because they're curious as to how they work, and maybe because they fear them.

They know what can happen when too many people gather in too small a place, after all.

So the Imago aren't really looking as a large, black-clad Indian fellow appears out of nowhere, in the heart of Zoliborz. 

He looks around him and takes a few deep breaths, as though he'd been running to get here. Then he pulls a large stack of photographs out of a deep pocket, and takes the top one to the bottom. He then proceeds to look at the new top one for a full minute, as though whatever he was seeing was the most important thing in the world. 

"Not too far, now," he says. His voice is ragged from crying and exertion. 

He huffs and puffs, and closes his eyes. Then he's gone, again. 

And when he comes back, a few minutes later, he is no longer alone. 

* * *

"The entire leadership?" Khalil asks.

"All of them?" Dosha tries to clarify.

"Yes, my friends," Mikhail says: "All of them, in one go. They knew the general shape of what was to come. Their precognitives, yes? They all woke up screaming, that morning, knowing that the end of the Palestinian Authority was at hand. So they chose to go out with defiant bang."

"Self fulfilling prophecy, eh?" Sir George snorts: "I expected better, quite frankly."

"!@#$ you," Dosha says: "They chose defiance over subservience. That's a !@#$ sight better than either of our governments have done."

"Your former government, you mean," he says, giving Dosha a gimlet eye: "I seem to remember they tried to burn you after your special friend shot his President."

"Is irrelevant, now," Mikhail insists: "All we hang together, or else they hang us separately, yes?"

"You're drunk," Sir George quips, having a sip of his own brew.

"And you're a goat!@#$er," Dosha says: "But at least in the morning he'll be sober."

"Well, if you have to mangle Churchill-"

"I heard they had been genetically farming certain powers in their children, but I had no idea the program was that advanced," Khalil interjects, hoping to change the conversation from an argument to a discussion, again.

"Advanced? Feh!" Mikhail says, having another drink: "Is not too hard to give a power to a person, so long as you do not !@#$ing care about their survival. In fact, is easiest thing in the world, it seems. Soviets, HONEYCOMB, Nazis, they do it all the time, back in the days. They create human equivalent of missiles. You fire them, they do their super thing, and if they die or melt or explode, well, they can not be interrogated if they are pile of ashes, yes?"

"And the Palestinians had a lot of contact with the Soviets, by way of Egypt, back in the 70's," Sir George adds.

"Which would have been when these children were altered?" Dosha asks.

"Their parents," Mikhail corrects: "Parents are altered, but do not show power. Their children show the power. And the power is sloppy, brutal thing, only really good for one use. You can guess which use that is, yes?"

"And how many children did it take to wipe that part of Ramallah off the map?" Dosha asks.

"That I do not know, my friend. I have heard maybe twenty. It was enough to destroy their administrative center, a few blocks outwards."

"And the Imago who came to see them?" Khalil asks.

"Not even !@#$ing scratched."

Khalil sighs, and downs a slug of his drink: "!@#$ me in prison like a white tourist. This is truly terrible."

"Still, it gets worse," Mikhail says, having another slug: "Because this is the moment, my friends. This is the moment in which Imago realize that they cannot rule this land. Not the way that they want.

"They prefer to tell no one nothing. They want the leaders there to tell them, and only speak once in a while. But there are no leaders left to tell the people what to do.

"And no one they approach to become new leaders will do or say these things. In all these lands, they only find people who will say 'no.' No one to say 'yes.' No one to suck their metal butts and tell them how much they love the chocolate, there.

"No one."

He sighs, and pulls out a blown up photograph. He puts it on the table, so the other three men can look at it.

"I'm... I'm not sure what this is," Sir George admits: "It's a little grainy."

"Gavril, he sends me this after he takes it," Mikhail says: "He is high up on building, shooting camera down. He cannot get very good shot, but you can see enough."

"Is that a crowd of people, running away?" Khalil asks: "Some of them falling down and dying when they're hit by... what is that?"

"Bright orange lines," Dosha says, tracing the course of one as it snakes from the top of the photo down to the face of one of the people who is running away: "I've seen them use that weapon. They fire twin beams from their eyes, and the beams follow you, no matter where you hide."

"And they strike you in the eyes," Khalil adds: "Your eyes turn to steam. Your brain becomes ashes in your skull."

"Once they fire these beams, there is being no escape," Mikhail adds: "You are dead man."

"And that's what this is?" Sir George says, pointing to the couple of Imago as they float above the crowd: "They just started firing at this crowd?"

"Firing at every crowd, everywhere," Mikhail says, sadly: "They float above gatherings for one hour, waiting for signal. People who do not know what has happened, they come out to look, wondering if is some announcement. They laugh and play. They have no idea.

"And then, when signal is given, the execution begins..."

Mikhail takes in a deep breath: "It takes them only two hours. They move throughout country, top to bottom, left to right. They fire beam after beam. Each one finds a target and kills. Men, women, children, babes in cradles. Everyone living is dead, and there is no escape.

"Gavril, he takes this picture. He maybe takes more, but they do not come to me. He sends me message, and says 'Remember us. Remember that we lived and died for right to say no.'

"Then he jumps from building, rather than be shot."

The Russian tears up, and puts a hand over his eyes: "My grandfather's brother, he left Russia many years ago. Went to Israel with other Jews. Said we were crazy to stay behind, but my grandfather, he was true believer. He said there was nothing in Israel but capitalists trying to !@#$ you and Arabs trying to kill you. In USSR, there was safety. In Israel, only danger.

"And look! He was right. He was right."

Mikhail sobs. Khalil tries to not be sick. Dosha closes his eyes.

Sir George stiffens and gasps, feeling a long, wet thing impale him through the back of his neck.

"Hello," Amporn says, her head floating up from behind the Englishman as he starts to die, and her tongue sucking the life from him: "I hope I'm not disturbing you gentlemen?"

(SPYGOD is listening to Three (The Cure) and having a Smirnoff, straight up)