1/15/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 4.0

"Dancing in formation with a couple of boys..."

 Mark Clutch, Director Straffer, SPYGOD, The Owl
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

I'm an artist honey

you'll see me sometimes

making crazy pictures

out of music and rhymes

* * *

The sun came up some time ago, and is all but staring them in the face, but they don't care, anymore.

Straffer and SPYGOD are wrapped around one another in the remnants of the bed they broke, late last night. The sheet they're tied up in is in flinders, and soaked with sweat and other, less-seemly substances. They're wet and mussed up and gooey and maybe a little too warm. 

And they don't give a good god!@#$.

A shame about the bed, though -- they don't make 'em like that, anymore. It was one of those old, well-used showpieces made with sturdy, all-American craftsmanship, and out of good, solid wood. It had lasted a hundred years or so, and probably would have lasted for another hundred, too, if it hadn't been for that fourth bout of escape sex they had last night.

And once it collapsed right under them, they paused only long enough to laugh, and then go for bouts five and six. 

The room is the upstairs master bedroom of a small, old mansion, well into upstate New York. It was purchased ages ago as part of one thing or another, and then passed around various intelligence agencies as a safehouse, before it was creatively shuffled into nonexistence more than a few years back. Now the only people who know about it are spies who once stayed there, and most of them are in no shape to volunteer its whereabouts to anyone. 

Mark Clutch and Martha Samuels are downstairs. SPYGOD can hear them tip-toeing about, down there, amusingly-embarrassed at their host's sexual exuberance. Maybe that's something of a counterpoint to their own embarrassment, as they had a perfect opportunity to sleep in the same room, last night, but chose to remain in separate beds, yet again. 

"I give it a week," SPYGOD muses, chuckling.

"What?" Straffer asks. 

"Mark and Martha."

"Oh," his lover says, kissing him: "You know, they can take as much time as they want to. Or need to. They've been through some rough stuff, together."

"Yeah, but isn't that the !@#$ing best cure for it?"

"What, sex?"

"Well, that and a !@#$ton of alcohol. And some good Italian."

"I think I had some !@#$ good Italian last night."

"And this morning. Don't !@#$ing forget that."

"As if I could," Staffer smiles, leaning in a little closer and stealing a quick, probing kiss: "But maybe they're just going to be friends?"

"Naah," SPYGOD says, kissing him back: "She wants him. He wants her. And they !@#$ing know this. They're just !@#$ing dancing around the god!@#$ fire instead of jumping the !@#$ on in because..."

"Because of all the ghosts," Straffer says: "All the survivors guilt."

"Really? I thought it was because they're too !@#$ churched."

"Well, that too," his lover chuckles, kissing him back: "But you know what? I think they can worry about their own problems. I'm more worried about ours." 

"Do we have a problem?"

"Well, let's see," Straffer says: "We're both wanted criminals, having just broken out of that house arrest we've been languishing in for far too long. And considering our high profile, and how publicly we escaped, there's no way they can cover it up. Which means that, as we're lying here, every single intelligence agency, armed force, and strategic talent we don't have on our friends list is going to be hunting for us."

"And we've got a !@#$ plan."

"True, but it's a risky one. And there's a chance it might all come to nothing. One wrong move-"

"Even if it all falls apart, as long as I have you, I have everything I !@#$ing need," SPYGOD says: "I don't care about the world when I'm with you. I don't care about the games I play or the plots I make or bust. The whole !@#$ing thing can burn and go to !@#$ for all I care."

"You mean that, don't you?" Straffer says, truly amazed.

"I do," SPYGOD says, holding his lover as close as he can while still looking him in the face: "You're the sun in my morning and the moon in my evening. You're my guiding !@#$ing star, day or night, and all the !@#$ points on my compass. I begin and end with you. If I had everything, it would mean nothing without you. If I had nothing, it would mean nothing as long as you were there, with me, in that nothing. 

"And that's because you are my everything."

Straffer looks at him, trying not to cry. 

"Will you marry me?" SPYGOD asks: "When this !@#$ is over. Well, it's never over..."

"!@#$ yes," Straffer says, kissing him before he can say anything else.

And for a time there's some blissful silence, upstairs, so Mark and Martha can go about making breakfast without wondering if the ceiling's going to break, too.

But as they make bacon, eggs, and coffee -- and try to avoid talking about what they almost did last night -- they realize this is not the calm before the storm. This is the eye of the hurricane, deceptively serene and never wide enough.

And the terrible wall of wind is getting closer by the second...

* * *

"Aw, !@#$," an intern curses as he inadvertently tips over a tottering pile of maps, sitting alongside a number of other stacks on the center table of the Oval Office.

His clumsiness is rewarded with someone chewing him out, the bites as much French as they are English. The President has no idea who the shouter is, any more than he can really remember the name of the shame-faced intern, now banished to go be "useless elsewhere."

But he's beginning to feel as though he could join that now-retreating kid, for all the good he's doing here, this morning.

The office -- normally an oasis of calm within the building -- has been transformed into ground zero of the effort to find the fugitives, as well as punish every strategic talent that may have thrown in with him. Their photos have been thrown up onto three-dimensional projections along the walls, along with any information about their whereabouts, past associates, and recent dealings. Technicians with special gloves twiddle their facts and fallacies this way and that, throwing scraps of data to one another like softballs.

And in the center, where Mr. USA sits -- surrounded by the heads of Agencies he didn't even know existed -- the map of the United States of America is being carved up section by section, with the most likely whereabouts of each person on their list being indicated by some complicated method involving different colors of push-pins.

The gang's all there, if you know how to look. Myron and Yanabah, on the run together. Blastman dead and Night Phantom in the wind. Shining Guardsman in one of several locations, Red Wrecker seen in Dallas, Gosheven under lock and key under the Heptagon.

And, most heartbreaking of all, The Owl -- identified only by the kind of cloak that flying car was packing -- now a fugitive right along with them. 

"Groupe B-3 a Brainman en vue," one of them is saying, tapping one of the Blue pins in New Jersey, around Trenton: "Observons-nous ou d'attaque?"

"Est-ce qu'il parle a quelqu'un?" another answers, calling up Brainman's information on his pad. 

"Non. Non, il est l'emballage."

"What's he packing?" Mr. USA asks, knowing at least that much French.

"They say... clothes," the man says, raising an eyebrow: "Possibly getting out of town, as you say?"

"Dites-leur de ne pas attaquer, encore," Ben Franklin -- the only person in the room that the President knows, right now, other than Jess Friend -- suggests, taking a sip of his rather large cup of coffee: "Quelqu'un peut communiquer avec lui. Attendez jusqu'a ce qu'il soit l'emballage, puis attaque terminee."

"Oui," the other man agrees, and gives the order.

"What was all that?" Mr. USA asks, sighing.

"Oh, well it seems to me that if we have him under surveillance, and he's not engaged in anything time-sensitive, we can at least observe his communications. Someone may try to contact him. If so, we may learn more. And if not, well, we can capture him when he tries to leave, and that will be that."

With that, the Founding Father smiles, and adds a splash more cognac to his already-aromatic coffee, and has yet another sip.

"I'm glad someone here knows what's going on," Jess says, leaning over the couch and looking with some dismay over the reports coming in from the now-surrounded Sonoma County Ashram: "All I can see is a big !@#$ mess."

"Oh, it's always messy, my young friend," Franklin muses: "You should have seen what happened behind the scenes when Napoleon left Elba. Now there was a mess-"

"Which side were you on?" Mr. USA asks, more than a little curious.

"Why, the same side I am now, my good sir," the Founding Father says, smiling: "In a time like this, law and order must be upheld. The citizens must see that their government is doing everything needed and necessary to bring these men back to justice. Likewise, they must also never see the extent to which their government has failed them by allowing such a brazen plot to come together right under their noses."

"Hence this Team Omega bull!@#$," Jess sighs, really wanting to be as drunk as his boss is, right now, but afraid of what he might say if he were.

"So, law and order from a hero of the Revolutionary War," Mr. USA says, chuckling in spite of the dire circumstances: "Isn't that a little out of character for you?"

"Well, Mr. President-"

"Facilitateur national," one of the people there corrects him: "Le President est in Paris."

"So true, do forgive me," Franklin says, waving an unsteady hand: "It's the drink, you see. I do forget myself, even if I am, indeed, unforgettable-"

"You were about to say that being such a character, nothing is truly out of character for you," Jess interrupts, not entirely unpointedly.

"Yes," Franklin says, suddenly not so jolly: "And indeed, given time I can justify almost anything, save my own demise."

"Well, that's one way to look at it," Mr. USA says, wondering if he could borrow some of the man's cognac at this point.

"Ou est Gold Standard?" One of the others asks, not seeing her on the table.

"Oh, she's on a separate mission," the President-cum-National Facilitator says, shaking his head: "It's good. She's trustworthy."

"Not anymore, I fear," Franklin sighs: "I am very much afraid that if we have no eyes upon her, she is as suspect as anyone."

"Well, I don't know where she is at this point," the older hero sighs: "She's on a mission of the highest priority, and she's operating under radio silence. As soon as she checks in-"

"Nous ne avons pas le temps pour ces conneries," one of the others waves him off, rudely: "Apportez dans le Coreen. Le Chasseur."

"Who's that?" Mr. USA asks.

"Better you not know, sir," one of the other agents says, winking.

"It's too bad that both Wayfinder and Disparaitre are dead," Mr. USA sighs, looking at Jess: "We could clear all this up with just a few jumps."

"Yes it is," Jess says, nodding and looking at the file they're throwing up for Gold Standard. Her name, her life, her likes and dislikes, and all the other things no one should ever have known about them, save by those most trusted and intimate.

And wondering if anyone's going to be left off such a file when this is all said and done.

* * *

"It's not that we don't trust you, Mssr," Le Femme Electrique says, smiling through blue lips, crackling with sparks: "But, if I am being perfectly honest?"

"You don't trust me," New Man sighs, looking at the fancy letter she's just handed him in his room.

There's a few other member of Le Compagnie there, with her, for this unpleasantness. None of them are people he particularly likes, especially that white-skinned Helvete freak. All of them are smiling at his departure. 

"Not at all," she says, trying to appear as kind as possible, which just makes this worse: "It is simply that, until we can be sure that we trust you, we cannot have you on the team."

"Is there something I can say?" he asks, getting to his feet as proudly as possible: "Can I state my case to the others?"

"We voted, my friend," El Khadir says, crossing his burly arms: "You lost."

"You put me on trial without having me there, in other words."

"Such things are possible, through our charter," La Femme says, smiling: "If you'd read it...?"

New Man looks over at the thick document in question, over on his table. It's the size of the Sears-Roebuck catalogs he used to hand his family around Christmastime. And the print is twice as small as what he remembers it being...

"Yeah," he says, knowing there was no other way this was going to go down.

"You have a half an hour to gather your things and leave," the electric lady says, turning to go: "Helvete has been kind enough to offer to help you pack. I'm sure you two have a lot to talk about-"

The purple glow that flares up just then is bright enough to shame the Sun. The lady only has enough time to turn around before the wave of energy overwhelms her and throws her up against the wall. The half-dozen stooges she brought with her fall over like tenpins, and the moment one of them tries to get up -- and it would be Helvete -- New Man uses his last reserves of strength to bring both his hands down on his pale, smoking, psychotic head, laughing all the while...

"Did you not hear her?" Helvete asks, bringing New Man out of his angry fantasy: "You get your skit out of here or I will burn it. And then I will burn you."

"You know what?" New Man says, looking around the otherwise-empty room: "Why don't you just do that, son? It's not like I brought my good clothes to this !@#$hole."

Then he walks past and away the man, all but daring him to try and start something. For once, the freak doesn't, which means he was told to be very careful about this.

And New Man knows by who, and why.

"!@#$ all of you," he mutters as he leaves the Palace, wondering how long it'll take him to get home to America if he pretends to be a normal person and takes a plane.

And wondering if SPYGOD will finally come to him if he does.

* * *

"Oh thank God you two are finally here," the guard says, his face a mess of scratches and small bandages.

Both of the strangely-handsome animal control officers seem to bristle a little at that, though the guy behind the desk does not care. He all but jumps out of his seat to get out from behind his desk, and leads them back into the warrens of the detention center as fast as he can.

"So here's the deal..." the guy says, looking at the small, steel cage the long-haired officer is carrying: "Are you sure that'll work on this... thing?"

"Quite sure," the man says, his voice a delicious thing to hear: "It's just the thing for the job, as they say."

"Alright then," the guard says, walking them down the concrete stairs to the supermax cells: "This thing is not of this !@#$ing Earth, okay? It's an actual Demon from Hell, if you can believe that !@#$."

"We can," they both say at once, which is quite unnerving.

"Well, okay then. But it's mean on top of it. And it grew to the size of a bear, and fired a !@#$ machine gun at them. Took a hundred men a whole !@#$ hour to bring him down."

"We hear someone got him drunk," the other one says, his voice a kind joy in the mind.

"Well, yeah," the guard admits: "That too."

They walk to the end of the hall where the large cells are, and then the guard looks at the monitor for the cell. A large black cat sits in the corner, surrounded by empty bottles of high-test, Russian vodka, and soaked in its own !@#$.

"Behemot," the one with the long hair and the delicious voice says.

"Is that it's name?" the guard asks.

"Yes," the other one says, putting a hand on the man's shoulder: "You can trust us. Go back to your desk. We will deal with this."

"Um... okay," the man says, smiling, all of a sudden not caring about the proper paperwork.

(Or why the concrete walls in this place are suddenly cracking, just as the paint is starting to flake and fall from the ceiling.)

As soon as the suddenly-rubbery guard walks up the steps, one of the animal control people looks to the other, and nods. The other opens the cage, and then his partner waves a hand before the electronic locks, making them tumble open and away.

The smell that comes from the cell is so offensive that it could almost kill a human being. If the sweet-voiced one notices, he makes no sign, and comes over to Bee-Bee with something approaching reverence, or maybe pity.

"Oh, how you have fallen, my sweet," the Beautiful Stranger coos, gently picking the drunken, insensate demon-cat up from its foulness, and putting it inside the carrying case. 

"We should leave," Aaron says from the door, looking at the cracks underfoot: "We've been here too long as it is."

"What's one more useless institution gone to ruin in our wake, lover?" the demon says, languidly closing up the container and sauntering out of the cell: "So many more will burn before we are done."

"I'd prefer to avoid unnecessary deaths," the turned Angel scolds him: "This place is melting around us. I don't want it crashing down on a bunch of rent-a-cops."

"Well, it would teach them to find better professions in their next life," the Beautiful Stranger chuckles, but complies with his lover's concerns. As such they all but sprint up the stairs, and navigate the maze of desks and corridors that lead outside with a speed that almost reveals their true nature. 

And then, before anyone notices, they're not there, anymore.

It's a whole hour before the guard who led them down realizes that they never came back to his desk to fill out the transfer paperwork. He's cursing himself for being so stupid, but when he looks down at the papers he sees they actually are done, and signed. 

He blinks a few times, puts it down to the weird morning he's been having -- was he actually feeling gay for that one dude? -- and decides he should lay off the heavy breakfast burritos in the morning from here on out.

He's just not half the man he used to be, apparently.

* * *

"Look, please, I am an old man," Rakim -- sometimes known as Brainman -- says, holding up his hands as the TU guards surround him in his office, the lights on the ends of their rifles all but blinding him: "I swear I will not hurt you. Please just listen to me."

The noise that responds is barely human. It is a chorus of the worst sort of things a man could ever hear -- a dissonance of curses and commands, issued from a dozen different mouths, all jumbled up between "get down" and "!@#$ you."

"Please, I will not harm you," Rakim says, getting down on his knees as carefully as he can: "I have sworn an oath of nonviolence. If you are here to arrest me you must know that. I have sworn before God that I will not take a life, even in self-defense-"

"Shut the !@#$ up!" one of the ones in front says, bringing the butt of his rifle down on the old man's head. He doesn't even put up his hands to ward off the blow.

"Please," the man says as he lies there in a heap, counting the teeth that have broken out of his mouth: "Let me speak to you... please..."

"You!" a familiar, imperious voice commands as its owner stomps into the circle of bright lights. Its Lt. Giscard Vipond, of all people, and he looks very annoyed to be here, right now.

"Giscard, please-"

"Rakim, for your own good you must cooperate," the slight man commands, pointing a finger: "Myron? Yanabah? Night Phantom? Do you know where they are?"

"I don't know..." the old man breathes, holding up a hand: "I don't know where any of us are... I swear."

"You swear," the guy who used his rifle butt on the old man sneers: "Sure. I believe you, you !@#$ing sand!@#$."

"You be silent," Vipond says: "I will not have such words said in my presence. They demean the very work that we do."

"I..." Rakim says, reaching towards the man who just spoke: "I forgive you-"

No one's sure who fires the first shot, but it's hardly the last person to do so. Within seconds the old man's body is full of holes, and Vipond is screaming to stop, stop, please !@#$ing stop.

"You imbeciles!" he shouts, waving his hands around: "Why did you shoot him?"

"Well, sorry," one of the others who fired says: "I thought he was going for a gun with his other hand."

"Um, yeah," the one Rakim was forgiving says: "So did I, man. Totally."

"Mon Dieu,"  Vipond says, kneeling down just outside the widening pool of blood as Rakin twitches and tries to breathe: "He's still alive. Someone get medical help. We may be able to save him."

"But-"

"Do it!" the Lieutenant shouts, realizing his career is about to bleed out right along with this man if he dies.

"Giscard," the dying man says, tapping him on the leg: "Is that... you..?"

"I am here, Rakim," the slight man says, bending over to hear his weak voice: "Please, tell me. What do you know?"

"I know... nothing..."

"Come now, sir. Do not die with a lie on your lips. Tell me what you know..."

But by the time someone can come back from the transport with a badly-managed medical kit, Brainman is dead. Vipond gets to his feet slowly, a stunned look upon his face.

"What did he say, sir?" one of the guards asks: "Did he know anything?"

"He said... 'game over.'"

"Probably some stupid Muslim bull!@#$" someone snorts: "Assa-lamma rama ding dong."

"Actually, I think it may mean there's a bomb, here," Vipond says, which silences the laughter the last comment made.

He's lying, of course. But the idiots he was forced to accompany here aren't so smart as to realize it, and immediately !@#$ themselves running out of the building before it can explode. 

"God be with you," Vipond says to the man he was going to divest of his pay for not being in a firefight. He's too sad and ashamed to say anything else.

* * *

"Well," SPYGOD sighs, reaching onto the kitchen table and turning over the piece of paper that says BRAINMAN.

"Well, what?" Mark asks, uncertain.

"Well, he's out of this," Straffer translates as he gets up to get some more coffee, as well as turn off the device they just got this news over.

"Which is doubly !@#$ing sad, because he wasn't really in it," SPYGOD says, looking at the remaining names they've got on the table, gleaming in the noonday sun.

"What do you mean?" Mark asks.

"I was leaving him out. He had beliefs. I respected them."

"It's a sad thing," Martha says, nodding: "I was glad to see him turn his life around."

"Some turn," Mark snorts: "One day you'd have shot him for being a criminal. Then he gets shot for being a hero."

"Mark," Martha sighs, putting her hand on his: "Not helping, hon."

Her touch makes him calm down, if only a little. 

"This is war, Mark," SPYGOD says, tapping his fingers on the table and taking a pull from the whiskey bottle he's currently working on: "We knew that, getting into this !@#$. Or at least we !@#$ing should have."

"No one's ready to see their friends die, (REDACTED)," Martha says, looking up at him: "And we've had a lot of that in our family, already."

"I know, Martha," SPYGOD says, casting an eye at Mark: "Believe me. And I !@#$ing appreciate your being willing to stick your !@#$ necks out for me. Especially after everything else."

"Yeah," Mark says, sitting down and feeling stupid. Straffer hands him a fresh mug of joe and sits down, looking at the map of names.

There's silence for a time, punctuated by sips of coffee. SPYGOD kills the bottle, and then reaches over to take another. 

"So where do we stand from here?" Straffer asks, looking who's left: "We've still got some surprises."

"We do, yes," SPYGOD says, taking another slug from his new bottle and then grinning: "Quite a few. Big !@#$ surprises."

"Like what?" Mark asks.

"Well, if I !@#$ing told you, it wouldn't be a big !@#$ surprise, now would it?"

Mark's about to say something to that, but Straffer holds up a hand: "Here's the real surprise. We're going back to Neo York City. And soon."

"Didn't you just escape from there?" Martha asks, uncertain.

"Yes, but it's crucial to the !@#$ plan," SPYGOD says, grinning even wider: "We're going to do what we !@#$ing did during the Reclamation War, all over again, hon. We're going to turn the entire city into a big !@#$ no-go area for the TU. They're all getting !@#$ing turned out by your son."

"What?" she says, suddenly incredulous: "You mean all this time I was hiding from him...?"

"He was in on the gag?" Straffer finishes for her, smiling: "Absolutely."

"He has been from day !@#$ing one," SPYGOD confirms: "And I think they know that, too. That's why they did that whole stupid !@#$ thing with that electropath they busted out of jail, the other week. They're getting ready to shut him the !@#$ down."

"Or try, anyway," Straffer chuckles: "Good luck with that."

"I don't appreciate your being so cavalier with my son's life," Martha glowers: "Either of you."

"Oh, it's not being cavalier, Martha," Straffer says, holding up a hand: "Far from it."

"Your son is a !@#$ing power to be reckoned with, hon," SPYGOD agrees: "I'm not even sure he knows how !@#$ powerful he is. Or could be."

"That doesn't make me feel much better, somehow," Martha says: "Why didn't we know about this?' Why didn't I know?"

"Compartmentalization," SPYGOD answers, having another slug: "I don't !@#$ing know who's with who or where, right now. And neither should you. If no one knows the whole !@#$ plan, no one can spell it out if they get !@#$ing taken down."

"Except you," Mark notes.

"Even me," SPYGOD corrects him, pounding the bottle down on the table so fast and hard it's a wonder it doesn't break: "Right now? I got no !@#$ing idea what all's going on, out there. I got plans inside of plans, outside of plans, around other plans... !@#$ me, I got plans going on that I didn't even !@#$ing sign off on, and just made their own @#$ selves up out of good luck and better coincidences."

"Then how do you know they're there?" Martha asks, somewhat archily.

"Because SPYGOD. Knows. All." SPYGOD announces, tapping the patch over the Chandra Eye: "I know things even I don't !@#$ing know, sometimes. And these plans I don't !@#$ing know about is one of them."

"So, you don't know who's out running with who, even though you could, because of security concerns," Mark says: "But you do know that things you don't know, even though you shouldn't, because... magic eyeball."

"Pretty !@#$ing much, yeah," SPYGOD says, nodding

"That's... !@#$ing crazy," Mark says, reaching for the bottle and taking a slug, himself: "And you sound !@#$ing crazy saying that."

"This is all perfectly normal," Straffer says, winking and having some more coffee: "You think that's bad, you should see him write a shopping list."

Martha giggles, in spite of herself. Straffer chuckles. SPYGOD grins.

And Mark sighs, and has another hit -- just before SPYGOD jerks the bottle back, gives him a look, and finishes it off in one decided gulp.

Which is about all that needs saying.

* * *

Sanyangkkun isn't one for superlatives. He calls them as he sees them, which is part of his charm. Provided you could call being a drunken sociopath with poor personal hygiene and a taste for stalking -- with one very useful power -- to be "charming."

For the longest time, he's been something of an also-ran, in spite that one very useful power: the ability to track anyone around the world, given enough of their scent. And the fact that they let him toy with his quarry for a time was considered an acceptable tradeoff for his talents, as long as he understood they were to be brought in alive.

Sadly, the time needed to find the quarry has always been a factor, which made it more likely that others would get the job. That dour Frenchman who could find anyone, anywhere, and didn't like to take undue advantage of it for some weird reason, was an ongoing thorn in his side. And there were others...

But just his luck, the Frenchman was dead.

Apparently, there'd been some strange goings-on, up on the Sled that the Space Service had been putting back together. The way they say it, Disparaitre had seen something he shouldn't have, up there, over a week ago. And while they weren't sure what it was he saw, whatever it was made him shriek and scream, and then teleport himself right into the Sun.

So much for that teleporter. And so much for the competition.

(Especially since Disparaitre's equally-powerful double was, by all reports, a total basket case, sitting in his cell crying and trying to forget something even worse)

So now, whenever they need someone tracked, they just have to call a certain, poorly-kept Soju house in downtown Chong-Ju, and get hold of Sanyangkkun. By the time he gets up to Seoul, they'll have a scent package waiting for him, along with the person's last known whereabouts. 

And once he's flown there, and has a good sniff around, the quarry is as good as caught -- though how long it could take would depend on a lot of things. Weather, rain, competing scents... things like that. 

Still, he's a professional. He accepts his job and devotes himself to it. He hunts alone so he doesn't get distracted. He doesn't get drunk while he's working, or play around on the clock, except once he's got the prey in hand.

And he never overstates or understates times or conditions, because that truly smacks of impropriety. 

So the fact that -- while looking for this Antonia Crisp person, AKA the new Gold Standard -- he's had cause to say something truly profane and outlandish is cause for concern.

So is the fact that, just a mile out from his quarry, deep in the deserts of Nevada, he's seeing what he's seeing -- the sort of thing that makes sane, well-adjusted people stop, drop, and stare for hours.

He, not being sane or well adjusted, would say more, of course. Maybe even radio it in once he could wrap his mind around it. That's what he does, after all.

And he would, except that, seconds after he says those unusually profane things, something small and very swift-moving neatly uncouples the top of his head from its bottom, leaving messy red parts of what used to be a very talented brain all over the state line. 

One of the people responsible for that rather gruesome death then searches the body for any tracking devices. Upon finding his phone, the assassin decides to talk a long but necessary walk to the nearest roadstop, back they way the victim had come. There, a car with its window left foolishly open is quickly located, and the phone is tossed on in.

Only then does that killer allow for the luxury of taking a much faster journey on to the next destination, not bothering to watch the strange sight that stopped Sanyangkkun in his tracks before a bullet stopped him altogether. 

That sight rumbles past on US-95, and with no undue speed. Before long it's gone from view, and as luck would have it, the car carrying the Korean tracker's phone goes in the opposite direction.

It's days later before its found. By then, it doesn't matter, anyway.

(SPYGOD is listening to Pet Shop Boys (Electricity) and having a Without You I'm Nothing, courtesy of Evil Twin brewing)

1/14/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 3.5

"Come outside and feel the morning sun..."
The Owl, Bee-Bee
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * * 

"Please, I am appealing to your humanity," the short-haired, white-robed woman says, sandals flopping on the dirt as she hurries after the Terre Unifee guards that have just stomped through the red, mostly-ornamental front gate of the Sonoma County Ashram.

"You have, yes," their leader says, indicating with a bored wave that the twenty highly-armored, heavily-armed men and women should continue forward, down towards the cliff overlooking the ocean -- high-tech stun-guns drawn and ready for use.

"This man is not a criminal. He is a spiritual pilgrim. He is a broken soul in need of healing-"

"He's also wanted for questioning," the man sighs, wondering if he can just taze the salope and be done with it: "If he has nothing to hide he has nothing to fear-"

"Please," she says, getting right in front of him, hoping that the others who live here will join her in this: "This man came to us in a very bad state."

"Hopefully he will not leave in a worse one. Now if you please." 

"What's going on, sister?" one of the others says, getting up from his afternoon tasks, a group of white-robed men and women following him right in front of the guards.

"They're here for him."

They all blanch at that, and the man holds up his hands: "Please, sir. let me appeal to your better judgment. If you know who he is, and what he can do-"

"We do, sir," the leader states, striding right over to the man and staring him right in the eyes: "That is why we have brought so many weapons. And if you do not get out of my way and let me do my job, we will use them on you, first."

He swallows, hard, and gets out of his way. As the leader smiles and stomps away, heading for the garden where -- according to near-constant satellite surveillance -- their target has been meditating since Midnight last night, the other pilgrims all drop their tasks and run for the entrance.

The man the guards are after is sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed in the small, well-maintained garden, watching with his mind as the water meets the land and retreats from it, over and over again. He's wearing a white robe like the others, here, and has shaved his head down so close that it's almost impossible to tell that his hair is blue.

If Mister Chaos is aware of the twenty-odd guards stomping towards him, he makes no sign of it. He sits and breathes in and out, trying to maintain some kind of rhythm with the crash of the surf. Letting its power wash through him, the better to scour everything away...

"Mssr!" the leader says, once his guards have surrounded him in a half-circle, guns ready to deploy: "Your attention please."

"Do you mind?" the man says in a gentle voice, not turning around: "I'm trying to meditate."

"We have some questions for you, Mssr. Chaos."

"That's funny, so do I," Mister Chaos sighs, opening his eyes a little: "I came here to get the answers."

"So have we," the leader says, taking a few steps forward, and indicating that his subordinates should lower their weapons just a bit: "Your former teammates have turned traitor, Mssr. Chaos. They have decided to conspire against the Terre Unifee to free SPYGOD from his incarceration. We have reason to believe that you may know something of this, and even if you do not, you may have some information that will help us to find them."

"Is that all?" the hero says, wishing so dearly he could just sit here and ignore them.

"You will cooperate, yes?"

"It depends," the blue-haired man says: "Did you bring guns to my Ashram?"

"We have, yes."

"Did you threaten my friends?" he asks, feeling the anger coming back to him, like the scent of the water.

"We told them to get out of our way. They seemed very concerned about your welfare."

"We do that, here," Mister Chaos says, sounding indignant as he turns around, ever so slightly: "We're like family."

"Well, you will be happy to know they shielded you as best they could," the leader chuckles: "Now, I am certain we can all be reasonable about this?"

"You come to my retreat, threaten my friends, and assume I'm committing treason," the hero says, getting up ever so slowly and turning to face his accuser: "I think we left reasonable a couple miles back, pal."

"Do not be foolish," the head of the guards says, taking a step back as his soldiers heft their weapons up and lock them into firing position. 

"I could say the same to you," Mister Chaos says: "Leave here, now. Do not come back here. If you want to talk to me, I'll talk, but we'll do it somewhere else."

"You are in no position to be giving us orders, mssr-"

"I am in the perfect position, sir. The morally correct one. Surely you can see that these people are here to receive help and peace? Your presence here is jeopardizing that."

"I could say the same to you," the man sneers: "You are the human weapon, are you not? One song and you turn the world upside down and inside out."

"Is that what you think?" the hero says, smiling just a little: "Is that what they told you?" 

"Well, yes-"

"You see, that's all wrong," the man says, smiling: "I don't need that song to use my powers. I use it to act as a lifeline, so I can find my way back to reality when it's done. Otherwise I might just change the whole world without even thinking about it."

Then he smiles and holds up his hands, revealing he does not have the tapeplayer on him...

A few seconds later, the other pilgrims are both startled and amused to see the guards go running right out the front of the Ashram, and into their troop carrier. Once the carrier is well back down the road, and they carefully return to the garden, they see that their blue-haired brother is back meditating, as if nothing had ever happened. 

And in a few hours, as he loses himself yet again, he begins to wonder if anything actually did. 

* * * 

"Well?" Straffer asks, looking over at the bathroom door as SPYGOD walks out of it, somewhat nonplussed.

"No, not yet," SPYGOD says, groaning and holding his stomach.

"Watched pot?"

"You could !@#$ing say that again."

"I think I did," Straffer chuckles, clicking through channels on the television: "I told you more fiber was a good thing."

"Yeah," he says, patting his stomach and stomping over to the fridge for another beer, or three.

As he does, he looks over at the main window. The usual protesters are down there, but he's not looking at them. He's looking at the boxes that are still stacked by them, awaiting unpacking.

He's also looking at the boxes he's taken from there and put over by the front door over the last few days, trying to figure out where to put what. 

He's also looking at his cat, over on the couch, lazily farting away the afternoon. 

And he's looking at his watch, wondering if they've got the timing right, after all.

He grabs a beer and pounds it down, tossing the can at the recycling bag. That it ricochets off three things before going in flawlessly isn't surprising, anymore. It's just a thing, and he's had a lot of time to get it right.

But in his mind he's already counting down. The last few trips to the john. The last few boxes moved around. The last few cans in the bag. The last meal, the last television, the last !@#$ on the table, or under it.

The last moments spent here, rather than somewhere else.

Something is winding down, so something else can start into motion. And he just can't wait.

Soon, he tells himself, grabbing another beer and going to sit with his lover in front of the idiot box before feigning intestinal distress yet again: Very !@#$ing soon. 

But how soon it will be is all going to depend on someone else.

* * *

'You called, Mssr. President?" Henri asks, coming into the President's office with all the care he can muster.

"Yes, I did," the President says, putting a now-depleted rifle down on his desk -- right next to a number other, fully-loaded ones -- and indicating that the gaggle of male secretaries nearby should run down to the other end of the room to replace the shot-up paper targets of SPYGOD with fresh, new ones from the very large stack in a chair. 

They all have ear-protecting headphones on, and for good reason. The wall across from the desk has been thoroughly shot to !@#$, back, and there again. The wood and plaster that hid the super-steel underneath is almost entirely gone, revealing only the metal beneath. 

And there's hundreds of flattened rounds down there, lying in random piles and pools on the floor. 

"I want you to be ready to go to America," the President tells him as he hefts up another gun and cocks it, making the secretaries work just that more quickly and efficiently. 

"Um... of course, sir," Henri says, taking a respectful step back: "May I ask why?"

"You may," the President says, not smiling: "I've got a feeling I'm going to need someone there to oversee operations, soon."

"I see. What sort of operations?"

"That would be telling," the President replies, chuckling over something: "But I think you can figure it out, given everything?"

"Oh, yes," Henri says, looking at the targets: "Are we adjusting our timetable after all?"

"You get along well with Josie, right?"

"Yes!" he says, brightening up quite a bit at the mention of her name: "Very well, in fact. Just the other day-"

"That's good, because you're going to be working closely with her from here on out," the President interrupts, assuming the proper firing stance and getting ready: "I've already approved your travel orders. You and her need to link up ASAP and talk cooperative measures."

"When, sir?"

"Soon," the President replies, smiling: "Don't worry about the timing. Just be ready to drop it all and go there when I tell you. You can do that, can't you?"

"I can, sir," Henri says, already looking forward to the side benefits of working closely with Josie.

"Good," his leader says, sighting down the line: "You might want to put on some ear protectors and watch this, Henri. It might be instructive."

"What is it?" he asks, getting a pair from one of the secretaries, now that they've all gathered around the back of the desk with him.

He doesn't hear the full explanation through the muffs. Something about a high-tech firm in Austria, a ridiculous rate of RPM, and certain, hard-to-get exotic materials that go into each and every bullet.

All he knows is that, when the gun speaks, he can't help but listen. And then he's amazed to see that the previously-smooth wall -- made to withstand a nuclear blast -- is ever so slightly pocked and pitted by what it's fired.

And then he's imagining what it'll feel like to fire such a thing, should the need arise.

"Magnifique," he whispers, enraptured by the thrill of it all.

* * *

"Well, this is exciting," Gunther says, scrolling through the late President of New Zealand's notes as he sits at the man's desk, naked as the day he tumbled out of the clone tank.

The two secretaries he seduced to get here -- a man and a woman -- are still going at it in the other room. The noise they're making is providing the perfect cover for his espionage, though at this point he's sure he could get away with just about anything and they wouldn't object. 

(He is that good, by all accounts.)

What's exciting, Gunther? Karl asks: I'm just seeing a long list of things done that day. 

What about the proof that Champain Enterprises was a shell corporation? Jana asks: You said you were getting somewhere with that. 

"Forget that, sister. I think I've found two things that are more interesting."

Do tell, Helga snorts.

"Well, for one thing, it turns out that the old fellow had just gotten through writing his notes for the day before he decided to kill himself, if you can believe that."

So he'd be an unusually-orderly suicide, Karl chuckles: Point taken. Go on.

"For another, it looks like the last person he talked to was Guillaume Brilland." 

The Director of the Space Service, Helmut adds: Now why does that sound importantly familiar?

"I don't know, but I know one of you knows. That name stuck out for me-" 

It's me, Helga says, no longer sounding sarcastic: I noticed that some of the other people I've been looking into have spoken with him recently as well. The Prime Minister of Canada, the President of Portugal, the Finance Minister of Uganda..."

And they're all sending things off and sending money to Champlain Enterprises, Karl intuits: So what's their angle with the Space Service?

Does Uganda want a spaceport? Helmut chuckles. 

Do you suppose they're all trying to go somewhere? Jana asks.

And with that they all instinctively look up at the sky, wondering...

* * * 

"Where the !@#$ have you been?" Blastman asks, sitting by the window of their bolthole and hoisting another can from the remnants of the six pack he got this morning. He looks utterly diminished in a flannel shirt and blue jeans, but he's trying to blend in.

"Had an errand to run," Night Phantom -- who's still in costume -- answers as he crosses the dusty, sparsely-decorated room, pulling a new six pack from the paper bag he's brought. 

"Don't tell me you actually went into a store..."

"Well, I couldn't just steal, could I?"

Blastman sighs: "Where did you go this time?"

"Berlin," the floating cloud of a man answers, tapping the Kaufland logo on the paper bag: "I hope you realize Bud Light is a pricey import over there."

"Well, that's the last of the beer money, then," the hero sighs, looking back out the window: "Unless you want to actually act like a !@#$ fugitive or something."

"Well, we don't have to-"

"We do," Blastman insists, popping the tab on the beer he's got in hand. 

The man laughs so hard he almost vanishes, and then realizes the man was being serious. So he sighs and "sits" down, his cloudy tentacles spilling onto the floor, and hands over the new six.

"How long do we have to wait here?" he finally asks, wondering if there's anything good on the old, half-broken television before the cracked mirror, over on the dresser with no shelves.

"You know the score, man," his partner in crime says: "Brainman's got a plan. Until we know what it is, we just sit tight, and wait."

"I wish I got to wait with Red Wrecker," Night Phantom sighs. 

"So do I," Blastman chuckles: "Tough luck for both of us, I think she likes Myron better."

"What, that drip?"

"Hey now," the older hero says: "That drip almost single-handedly won the Reclamation War, down at the South Pole. And he's been through !@#$ you wouldn't believe."

"Try me."

"Well, for starters..." Blastman starts to say, but doesn't get the chance before the entire wall he's sitting next to explodes inward, and he's thrown clear across the room by the man who caused it. 

"Hi there, brother," something wrapped in big, black armor says, his voice deep enough to shake the world. He looks down at Blastman from a helmet that's shaped like a bullet, and there's a broken planet Earth splayed across his chest. 

"Joey...?" Blastman says, shaking the fuzz from his head as he looks up at his older, evil sibling.

"That's right," Cataclysmo says, clanking his armored fists together: "Thanks for visiting me in prison, you sniveling little !@#$. I really appreciated the flowers, too."

"You twisted son of a..." Blastman starts to say, but can't get the words out before the black, human bullet is back on him again. This time he takes them both through the wall, the bathroom, the hallway, and the apartment across from it. 

He didn't even have to plant his feet and start running - he just moved. 

"Well !@#$," Night Phantom says, dropping his six pack and looking for a convenient shadow so he can help his friend. But then there are no shadows at all, and there's only a glaring, bright light within the room.

A light that casts no shadow, and never ever warms. 

I S33 Y0U, the Glimmer announces, shining through the hole in the wall its teammate created and spinning itself into humanoid form: T1M3 T0 3ND. T1M3 T0 D13.

"Yeah," Night Phantom says, putting up as much darkness as he can in the face of a psychotic, thinking star: "How about 'no'?"

The being laughs and shines all the brighter. Everything in the room catches fire. Night Phantom screams as his being is eroded away by the thing he's facing, but he realizes he's got one chance. 

He stumbles over to the mirror, and then turns it back at his attacker. The light can't harm a being made of light, but the strange effects made by its reflection momentarily distract the Glimmer, just enough.

And, with that, the Night Phantom flies over to the massive hole Blastman and his wayward, psycho brother just created on their way to wherever the !@#$ they went, and zooms into the smallest space he can find, hoping he can find some darkness down there.

The second he does, he goes through it, blindly entering the nightzone and seeing all the shadows and darknesses around. It doesn't take long to figure out which of the humanoid shapes out in the street are his teammate and his familial rival, and he comes back out of the dark and into the day nearby. 

He's about to say something witty and engaging, but then he sees that Cataclysmo has just about finished reenacting the Ur-crime with his brother. Blastman's chest is a broken and battered ruin -- ribs poking though his shirt like accusatory fingers.

"You !@#$er!" Night Phantom screams, hurling a line of darkness at the hulking, black-armored giant. It knocks him back just a bit, but that's almost enough time to give his dying brother a little room to breathe. 

"Game over," Blastman says, somehow able to speak with a crushed chest: "Do it."

Night Phantom doesn't want to do this, but he knows he has to. He can see Cataclysmo rallying, and can feel the alien heat of Glimmer approaching. There is no time.

So he slips into the shadow of a large piece of rubble, left from where the two men crashed to the ground. Then he comes up under the shadow below Blastman, gently taking the man's head in his hands.

And then he slips back into the dark, just enough to take his ally's head into the concrete, and leave it there.

Blastman's body jerks and twists, stuck into the ground from the neck-up. Then it lies still. 

"What the !@#$?" Cataclysmo roars, successful in his goal yet cheated of his prize: "What the !@#$ing fuck!"

The Glimmer can add nothing, other than to watch his partner destroy the concrete in vain. That and silently wonder where its foe has disappeared to, and where they might find him, now that he's gone back into the dark.

It would seem that timing is everything.

* * *

"Well, about !@#$ time," SPYGOD says, turning on the bathroom light right at 7:54 in the PM and seeing that something very !@#$ important has finally arrived.

He kneels down and takes it from its case, still slightly cold from the transit. It only takes him only three seconds to extract it, assemble it, load it, and check it to make sure it should work.

"Honey, is Top Gear on tonight?" he asks as he strides through the apartment, heading for where Bee-Bee is snoozing on the couch.

"Why, yes it is," Straffer says, turning the television up as loud as it will go: "I think they're in Barcelona, this week."

"Barcelona," SPYGOD muses, handing what he's got off to the cat, who wakes up, coughs, takes it, and heads for the front door -- growing larger with each step: "The sea, the sand, the sun."

"The amazing food," Straffer replies, heading for the window and the boxes stacked next to it.

"Sagrada Familia," SPYGOD adds, the syllables rolling off his tongue.

"I didn't think you liked churches?"

"I don't. But... !@#$, I told you about the time I-"

Straffer breaks the story with a kiss. He also hands him a pair of very large earplugs.

"Those aren't going to do me any !@#$ing good, hon," SPYGOD sighs, handing them back: "I hear through my eye, remember?"

"Well, just in case," Straffer says, and, just before he stuffs a pair in his own years, adds: "I love you."

"I love you," SPYGOD replies, but it's falling on deaf ears, now.

There's a banging at the door, just then. Clearly the guards outside have been informed as to what SPYGOD carried out of the bathroom. But no one seemed to notice that they've been slowly piling heavy things up in front of it all afternoon, which is going to make their breaking it down just a little difficult. 

And the moment they do, they run right into their worst nightmare: a drunk demon cat the size of a Wookie with a fully-loaded AK47.

"Poshel na khuy i vashikh matery vy pridurki!" Bee-Bee screeches as he opens fire, carefully aiming at nothing above the knees, as ordered. 

The guards scream and fire back. The bullets bounce off the cat. He just laughs and fires more, no longer caring about orders now that the stupid suki have tried to kill him back. 

Seconds later, the alarm goes off. 

Seconds after that, SPYGOD and Straffer step to either side of the window, each cradling a certain box under their arm.

There's a weird whine, just then -- one that builds in pitch and intensity until the whole world seems to shake and scream. 

Without warning, the large window shatters, along with every piece of glassware in the apartment. Flinders of transparent stuff go everywhere. 

And the moment the whine begins to die down, something shifts in the air outside of what once was a window, and a flying Aston Martin Spyder is there, instead.

One with a somewhat-unrecognizable woman behind the wheel, a strange white button glimmering on her shirt. 

"Cut that a bit !@#$ing fine, didn't we?" SPYGOD teases as he leaps from the apartment into the back of the car, indicating his watch. Straffer jumps in beside him just as she flips him the bird -- though not without a smile -- and re-engages the cloak. 

The car vanishes a second later, much to the disappointment and anger of the protesters down below. They throw eggs and tomatoes where they think it might be, but only succeed in getting themselves spattered with rotten food.

And then they're gone, with only impotent alarms, screaming guards, and gunfire to mark their absence. 

* * *

It takes fifty TU personnel and another hour to take Bee-Bee down. In the end, someone just has the good sense to throw bottles of vodka into the apartment and pray he gives up the gun for the booze and drinks himself stupid, yet again. Thankfully, it works.

Sometimes life is kind, even to the undeserving.

* * *

"I don't understand where they could have gone," the TU official in charge of keeping an eye on the five ABWEHR kids is saying, running his hands over the files on his pad: "It's like they just disappeared-"

"They have, obviously," his contact sighs, not in the mood to deal with this: "Any idea what they were looking into?"

"Something to do with the suicides of those two Prime Ministers, I think. Two of them were hassling the Australian's widow, and then there's this thing with the one in the New Zealander's office. I hear they're still cleaning up the stains on the carpet-"

"Get a kill team on it," the shadowed man snaps: "See them? Shoot them. Can make up any story needed after. Don't care."

"Very well," the man says: "It will be done. And what of their mentor, Randolph Scott?"

"Oh, don't worry about him," the man says, watching the footage from The Tokyo Kill Club, just last night: "Got something special planned just for him..."

The rest is darkness.

* * *

Somewhere there's a different door

To open wide

You've got to throw those skeletons out of your closet

and come outside...

 (SPYGOD is listening to Se a vida es (Pet Shop Boys, remix) and having a Champlain Orchards cider )

12/28/12 - The Master and Mother!@#$er - Epilogue

Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds
That lap against our side 

Moonlight Drive - The Doors (1967)

* * *

How best to describe what happened next?

It was as if the world had been holding its breath for two years, afraid of being heard by something terrible that had suddenly appeared. And then, just as suddenly, it could finally exhale, and take a deep, relieved breath of sweet, clean air.

The terror was over. The horror was gone. And the world would never know why or how.

True, some lasting damage had been done. The undead swarms created by the Red Queen stayed in the world, in spite of what had happened to her, and went on to cause numerous problems throughout Eastern Europe. Likewise, a number of demon-machines that were active when their misshapen master went back The Pit were also left behind, and either found new masters or went feral. The Holy See would never be quite the same again, thanks to certain obscene suggestions made over the telephone, and any number of strange, occult experiments would come back to bite the Soviets in the !@#$ for years to come.

(There was also a rash of dream-poisonings, some time later, when an overlooked pallet of bootleg Russian vodka was unearthed in Chicago, of all places)

But by and large, things returned to normal.

The barrier between Earth and Hell became strong, once more. Moscow no longer had a blood-red etheric glow, almost visible to the naked eye. Rogue magicians empowered by the negative vibes lost their mojo, would-be diabolists no longer enjoyed an unfair advantage, and the so-called Church of Satan (formed the same night the Supreme Six came through) lost any real sinister edge it may have developed as certain mysterious members dropped out of sight.

The shadows became less ominous. The light became that much more golden. The sunrise was truly gorgeous, once more, and the stars shone brighter at night.

SQUASH continued to be a problem, of course. There were more thaumathematical hi-jinx, ridiculous attempts at spiritual sabotage, and the like. But, by and large, it had had its last hurrah; it would never attempt anything that grand and dangerous ever again, either because the Kremlin simply would not allow it, or because its now-emasculated leader lacked the conviction.

Of the remaining members of the "Super-Lucky Six" -- as they would later call their fortunate band -- they maintained some degree of contact. Dr. Krwi and SPYGOD became better allies, and then friends, however tempered with tough love. Jim Morrison also aided the COMPANY on a few notable occasions, mostly involving strange magic and large parties. It's said that he and John were seen together in New York City, now and again -- talking philosophy in dark clubs or just tramping it up in the worse ends of town.

Doctor Power, on the other hand, remained somewhat aloof. He'd help SPYGOD out on a case or two, given his work with the Freedom Force, but wouldn't stick around long thereafter. He was also notoriously bad about taking phonecalls, much less answering them.

In fact, on the one, very memorable occasion that the other four got together, late in 1970, to stop something else from coming through into our plane, he was strangely nowhere to be found. It was as if there was something about what the six of them had done that he wanted to avoid revisiting at all costs.

Or maybe something in the future was concerning him.

* * *

July 3, 1971
Paris, France

It's early in the morning, and the Lizard King is getting ready to walk on down the hall.

He stares at the ceiling in his bath, his eyes unfocussed, seeing further than he should. His mouth is on fire with the blood he's just vomited up, and his nose still aches from all the heroin he snorted, this morning.

Pamela's in the other room, asleep. She begged him to call a doctor, the last time he puked, but he told her no. He said to just go to bed and sleep -- he'd join her, soon.

Of course, that was a lie.

He's known for some time how this song was going to end. He saw it before, down in that weird, domed room under Moscow. Every time the Demon Magician, Voland, threw the red fire at him, this moment in time became more certain a thing. More real.

It was just a question of how he would get from there to here, was all.

Not that he'd really been all that careful, between then and now. How could he? There was so much to do, the last few years. All those fights against the darkness, all those struggles against menaces too weird and insane to deal with.

(All those problems with the image his handlers helped him make...)

No. He can't think about that, now. He can't hate poor Ray-Ray or John, or anyone. There's no time for hate, now.

Not now that it's almost over.

He's known for for some time that the end was near -- little hints, here and there, that the world was beginning to reject him. The look of his bloated self in the store windows of Paris. His troubles with breathing, or moving. The spasms and the hiccups.

The blood he kept spitting up between drinks.

Even today, out with his old friend, Alain, that mustachioed demon had been mocking him. There'd been a laughing man with a crazy mustache on the way to the restaurant, laughing as he walked on down the road. There was the chance forming of hideous, prophetic words from noise when they went back out for another drink. And there'd been that leering face from that !@#$ movie he's watched with his woman, earlier in the night. "Pursued," it was called.

(Of course it would be, wouldn't it?)

"You know what you have lost here, Lizard King," Voland had sneered, just three years ago: "I'll see you in The Pit yet."

But the joke was on him, now wasn't it?

He wasn't put on this world to just die and go up or down. He was put here to go across, over and over again -- time to time, place to place, maybe even world to world. He was put here to be here when he was needed, and then charged with moving on when it was time.

And now -- now that his body was tired and used up, and someplace else needed him more than our world did -- that time was fast approaching.

So no. No hate. No regrets. No should have, would have, could have beens. No fear. No tears. Nothing to look forward to, here. Nothing to hold him back, anymore.

Nothing but the promise that his soul made, all those years ago, when he was young and fresh and had no idea of the great secret the world was keeping from him. Not until that trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, and the dead Indians on the road.

Not until he saw his life reflected in the death of someone else, and the endless spirit came to claim him, adding his face to the ancient gallery.

A line from that movie echoes in his mind -- almost something he might have written, himself, once upon a time.

"Out back there was some cattle bones. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe, and then as I walked around the side, I came upon some unmarked graves. If that house was me, what part of me was buried in those graves?"

No part, really. This failing vessel is only flesh. There is nothing here to take with him, where he is going, except maybe a small remembrance of times gone by, and friends he spent those times with. The ones his future selves will remember. The ones his past selves knew were coming.

The moment, singular and eternal, that no demon can even hope to occlude.

So Jim Morrison looks across the worlds, and smiles at what he sees there. Another boy, looking his way, with eyes just like him. A man-child with a mind ready for the experience of the lifetime, and a soul empty and waiting for a promise.

His face ready to take its rightful place in the gallery.

Jim shuts his eyes. He breathes in. He breathes out.

And then he walks on down the hall. 

* * *

There is no question that Colonel Bulgakov is dead -- and good riddance to him -- but what is not readily known is exactly how he died, or when.

It's generally accepted that he died at some point during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It may have been in the early years, after the Soviets finally decided they'd had enough of SQUASH, and left them out to dry. It may have been near the end, as its former super-agent Boris Yeltsin -- who'd made certain they were no longer available at the table -- became a hero during the attempted coup.

As for exactly what happened? Well, one must realize that, in all such matters, truth is highly subjective. There are any number of accepted stories, all of which carry the requisite SQUASH poetry. And there are any number of reasons why this, that, or the other theory is more likely than its cohorts.

And one overriding reason why none of them really work. 

So, in spite of how amusing it would be to believe that he was dragged screaming and alive off to The Pit after a final summoning gone wrong, we should remember that he was too good a thaumathematician to have that happen to him.

(We should also remember that, following the debacle of 1968, he had someone else do the summoning for him.)

And, in spite of the deliciousness of believing that, the night SQUASH's replacement came fully online, he was crushed under several tons of rock and concrete when the Beehive was destroyed without warning, we should also remember that he had any number of escape routes, and means to avoid serious injury.

(Plus, if anyone could have crawled out of a cave-in and come back, it would have been him.)

And while one can't help but be amused at the notion that whatever dark bargain he made in order to escape death, all those years ago, just ran out of time, and he had to pay the bill at last, those who knew him have often said that was never a barrier. In fact, they say the deal had actually run out some time before, but he'd always found a way to extend his stay on the Earth by a decade or so.

(There always were so many young and foolish thaumathematicians, ever-so-willing to assist the Colonel in a "late night experiment.")

So no. None of those stories are adequate or sufficient. None of them account for the fact that, though he could be a stupid fool at times, and so arrogant that he had no idea when he was committing the most disastrous of mistakes until well past the point of no return, he could always find some way to get out of it. Even if that escape was aided by his enemies, if only by accident.

But the fact remains: Colonel Bulgakov is dead. One can only hope that he died in a manner befitting the amount of woe and ruin he caused the world -- especially his own country, when all was said and done.

And good riddance to all of that.

* * *

John vanished, as they always figured he kind of would.

It was back in 1997, during that one weird thing some people call a Crisis, and others call The Opportunity. He was helping contain the structural reality damage in Trenton, of all places, and he stepped out of sight to do something. He must have done it, because the repairs held, but he never stepped back, either.

No last words. No goodbyes. No cryptic remarks. Just the utter absence of a man.

(Not even Wayfinder could locate him. He said it was as though he'd just never been. And that spooked the old !@#$ like you wouldn't believe.)

SPYGOD's dealt with a couple other Grey Men since then, all wearing the same kind of weird, film-grey coats. None of them care to say where John is. When he asks them, they just ask "which John?" and then smile.

(Bastards)

But every so often, when he's alone or maudlin or both, SPYGOD gets the feeling that John's nearby, somehow. Even with the Chandra Eye, he can't see him, but he can feel him, somehow. And he can feel he's telling him to get a !@#$ grip on himself, because nothing ever got solved by whining about a !@#$ thing, now did it?

And he would be !@#$ing right. 
 

* * *

11/4/2012
Rezscow, Poland

The sad thing was that, if he'd just called Doctor Krwi at his !@#$ safehouse when he realized he needed him, this could have been avoided.

Around the end of October, SPYGOD realized he really needed to talk to his vampire hunter ally. He'd been avoiding it for a time, because they'd had a serious misunderstanding towards the end of the Imago Occupation.

(In other words, SPYGOD had been a !@#$ing jerk, and Krwi had called him on it)

But needs must as the devil drives, as they say. So he'd started calling him, using the line he'd had before the Invasion. But he wasn't picking up.

So he got his people on trying to roust him from whatever hole he'd dug himself into. He'd made threats and promises, and delivered on some of both. And his subordinates scurried this way and that, searching for a man who was very difficult to find when he did not want to be found.

He'd been using his cellphone, which could usually get him anywhere, but that cellphone had been burned some time ago. But there was another number, somewhere in SPYGOD's possession, that led to a safehouse in scenic Rezscow, where he liked to hide out between killing runs.

And if SPYGOD had just called the old man there, when he'd realized he needed his help, Doctor Krwi would probably still be alive.

But he didn't. And on the 4th of November, SPYGOD got a call from one of his COMPANY Agents, out in Poland, telling him to get on a transport and come to south-eastern Poland as soon as he could.

He needed his boss to come and tell him if the sorry, bloated, and hideously-mangled body he'd found in what appeared to be a vampire hunter's stronghold was, in fact, the man he'd been looking for.

Sadly, it was him. Doctor Krwi had been dead for at least a week, maybe longer. And he hadn't died easy or well from the looks of things.

He'd died slowly, and in pain -- a lot of pain, from the looks of him. One wouldn't expect any less, given the number of horrible and sadistic enemies the old man had racked up over several decades worth of fighting the bloodsuckers. Indeed, he'd often joked that, when they finally got him, he'd be lucky if they just tortured him to death instead of giving him the bite, just to get revenge.

(He'd also said something about having enough garlic in his veins to marinate a whole herd of cattle for stew, which was how he planned to avoid that threat.)

But that wasn't what got to SPYGOD -- seeing the man he'd called ally, then friend, then pain in the !@#$ in that sorry state. That wasn't what made him go insane with anger and tear the place apart. That wasn't what made him burn it to the ground when he was done, and stomp back to his transport ready to kill the next person, place, or thing that even looked like it was going to look at him funny.

No. It was the fact that, when he looked at what was left of the old man, he realized he'd been raped. To death.

And then he realized by who.

He didn't want to go into details. He didn't want to tell anyone what he knew, for fear of word getting out. The trial had already gotten that cat out of the bag, but he didn't need anyone to know just how active the culprit was in the world.

All he could do was give the old man the dignity of making sure his body could in no way, shape, or form be revived by his true enemies. It's what he would have wanted, and all he could have done for him.

But as they flew back to America, and every mile on the way, SPYGOD was forced to realize that he knew. He knew, !@#$ it.

He knew that, if he'd called the old man, they would have talked about this little problem with what he'd been feeling in the White House, lately.

If they'd talked about the little problem, Dr. Krwi would have known that he was in America, and not Poland.

If he'd known he was in America, and not Poland, he wouldn't have opened his door up and let his murderer in, because he would have known that something was fishy.

And if he hadn't opened his door up and let his murderer in, he wouldn't have spent the last however many hours of his life being !@#$ed in every single hole he had, plus a few more that his attacker decided to make with that blessed sword the old man used on vampires.

Every mile on the way home, he realizes this. It makes him sick. He tries to drink it away but it doesn't help. He wants to smash things but then he'll just have to swim home, and haul his Agents besides.

All he can do is tell himself that he's done being careless, now. He's done with failing to anticipate this danger that's out there, loose in the world.

And when he finally finds his Alter-Earther, he's going to do things to him that will make what he did to Dr. Krwi look like an overly-firm handshake.

Oh yes. He will.

* * *

 

There's also the matter about a conversation that took place between Doctor Power and SPYGOD, not too long after SPYGOD found out what happened to Doctor Krwi. In fact, it took place after a very fateful and tragic Thanksgiving at the White House, when SPYGOD had to deal with the source of that nasty feeling he'd wanted Doctor Krwi's help with. 

"Dealing" meant bringing in a special gun, which resulted in a very unfortunate death. It also meant that whatever political and personal currency he'd cultivated with the President of the United States of America -- both during and after the Invasion -- was completely gone.

And it also meant that, given how Doctor Power was responsible for what happened, SPYGOD had no !@#$ing compunctions whatsoever about making good on his long-standing threat to take Doctor Power's namesake away from him.

It was quite an impressive conversation, really, but there was only one way it could end. And that was with SPYGOD striding out of the Doctor's sanctum with a former superhero in tow, and telling him how and where to get help for his serious problems.

Not the greatest end to one of the few remaining members of both the Liberty Patrol and Freedom Force, one might say. But it wasn't really his end, either. Just another serious bump in a lifetime full of them.

That is, however, another story for another day.

* * *

As for the Hell Blazer -- no one's entirely certain what the entity formerly known by that name is doing, down in The Pit. 

He has not made contact, ever, and he does not answer when called. Not even Doctor Power could ever summon him up. 

It's almost as if he didn't want to talk to anyone. 

Some say he's biding his time until he can break the entire operation. Some say he's gone bad, like he said he would, and that the increase in vampire attacks is his doing. But you can never trust Demons, as they tend to tell you exactly what you want to hear.

SPYGOD still keeps his gun handy, just in case.

* * *

There's also the other four members of the Supreme Six to consider, down there in The Pit.

They are not happy demons, those four. They scream and howl at the barrier between worlds, scrabbling to get out and away. They dream of atrocities and grand unmakings. They promise pain and pleasure, knowledge and experience.

And they would burn the world, if they only had another chance to get out and play.

Will they ever have it? Who can say? A year doesn't go by that some !@#$head with more old books than sense doesn't try to raise them from their prison, the better to curry their favor. Sometimes these idiots even manage to raise one of them, though not fully and never for long.

But so long as the Hell Blazer doesn't care to move, and Behemot is stuck in our world, calling up the whole gang to effect a great and terrible change just is not going to happen. At all.

But still they try, because they're greedy and short-sighted and mad and stupid. And still they die, because they almost always get Voland, himself, and he's still really !@#$ed off about losing out on Morrison. And still nothing really happens to change the balance between good and evil, light and dark, and up and down in our world.

Hopefully it stays that way. We have enough problems as it is.

* * *

And what of Behemot, then?

The demon cat has lived in Neo York City, with SPYGOD, ever since the events of 1968. He drinks between three and five bottles of high-test, liver-rotting vodka a day, and goes through a can of high-quality cat food every so often, when he remembers he needs to eat, too. He used to spend most of his days sleeping on an AK-47, but when that was lost SPYGOD got him a better gun, and now he sleeps on that, instead.

Once a member of the Supreme Six, he is now known as Bee-Bee, as his owner won't have "Commie" spoken in his house.  If he misses being a prince of Hell, he doesn't show it. He seems content to laze around, and seemingly aspires only to stay drunk, or maybe get it on when his biological urges send him off to tomcat.

He will not come when called. He tolerates no petting or belly rubs except once in a great while, and then only from SPYGOD.  And no one !@#$s with that cat.

No one at all. 

(SPYGOD is listening to The Best of Tchaikovsky and having a number of drinks for absent friends)