10/15/12 - The Reclamation War - Pt. 10

The Aztec ghosts rouse themselves first, perhaps because they have the least to lose.

One moment the giant, white cube to the West of Mexico City is sitting in the sun, unmolested and surreal. The next it is surrounded by legions of resplendently-feathered warriors -- wispy, transparent, and ready for battle.

And very, very angry.

What happens next is best likened to what happens when an animal has the misfortune of falling sick on the plains of Africa, right in front of a column of driver ants -- only sped up by a factor of a thousand. First there is a cube, then there is a cube covered by hordes of obsidian-blade wielding Aztec ghosts, and then there is nothing but a smoking, broken heap of otherworldly, white plastic.

To the crystal eyes of Deep Ten -- not really attuned to ectoplasmic threats -- it seems as though the cube has fallen apart on its own accord. And by the time it fires at what's left of it, hoping to annihilate its unseen attackers, the ghosts have moved on to their next target.

And then, shortly thereafter, the next after that.

Bolstered by their success, the other assembled, weird armies of the world surge into overdue action. Squads of planes that look more like Mayan temples than aircraft hurl themselves at the Imago's installations, dodging particle beams and orbital heavy lasers with uncanny ease as they destroy target after target. Squads of Specials in Eastern Europe are suddenly overrun by black-clad dhampir commandos and aging men and women trained to seek and kill renegade strategic talents, giving the rusty, Soviet cyborgs they brought along the time needed to aim their decrepit, heavy weapons at their true targets.

Men become tigers and attack squads of Specials. Mountain warriors no one's seen since the Hong Kong handover come from nowhere and slaughter their enemies with long knives that shouldn't be able to cut through their armor, yet somehow do. Elephants modified for war stomp down the walls to the white tent cities of the plains and take the battle to the nearby cubes, howling and whooping as their ancestor spirits infest their weapons, making them more than a match for metal and plastic. 

In the mountains of Afghanistan, the plains of Mongolia, the Jungles of Vietnam. In the suburbs of Paris, the north of London, the outskirts of Madrid. In the savannas of Tanzania, the sprawls of Kenya, the slums of South Africa.

The world is fighting back, now -- coming to the aid of those few, brave shadow people who have fought and died on their behalf. There is no longer an option to do otherwise.

And as the weapons platform above their heads sends beam after beam down to punish their arrogance -- the simple, base arrogance that men should be free to conduct their own affairs -- even more strange armies follow in their wake.

The tide has turned. The war has gone weird.

And what it will leave in its wake is anyone's guess.

* * *

Alpha Base Seven is a tomb -- cold, silent, and potentially eternal.

The particle cannons made short work of what little remained. Nothing that the survivors of 3/15 had rebuilt and adapted is still intact. Nowhere remained intact.

No one survived.

On his way to find what he's looking for, Director Straffer encounters numerous corpses, floating weightless in the smoldering, shattered chambers and tunnels. Their bodies ruptured by exposure to the void -- mouths filled with bloody froth, eyes started from their sockets -- they trail red droplets behind them as they tumble slowly through their high-tech mausoleum.

He passes them, trying to avoid touching them, or even looking at them. He does not want to see their faces. He knows that if he sees someone he actually liked -- and there were a few -- he might waste precious seconds regarding their fate, and apologizing for having failed them.

And right now, in this moment, he does not have the luxury of sadness or apology.

He stumbles through the wreckage, climbing over and under the piles of rock, plastic, and steel. He pushes aside what he can, and scrambles over what he cannot. He forces open massive, stuck doors, and rifles for keys through the pockets of the dead.

And then, at long last, he gets to where he needs to be.

In a makeshift hangar, not far from what was the secondary control center, sits the base's last intact lifeboat. And, by some miracle, it was not even scratched by the attack.

The lifeboats were small and pathetic things, meant only to be used if all other means of evacuation failed. They could carry three people into near-lunar orbit, the better to be picked up by a rescue ship and ferried back to Earth. And they could keep those three people alive for about a week as they waited for deliverance from whatever fate had befallen their base.

After 3/15, there was just one lifeboat available. Some of the survivors said they should board it and try to contact Earth, in the hopes of getting the others rescued. Most of them realized that no rescue could come from that direction, and that if they launched it, their attackers would know they were still alive, and set about finishing the job.

And that's why Straffer isn't planning on launching it. He just needs a few of the things it has on board. If they work the way he hopes they will, he might just be able to put things right, again. He might actually be able to fix the mess today's treachery has created.

And if he's really lucky, he might just be able to survive that fixing.

* * *

"... have to remember that, when they injected us at Camp Rogers, no one had any idea what was going to happen," Mr. USA says to Mark as they rest up against a wall, on the way to the blasted, wrecked infirmary: "As it was, we were lucky more than half of us didn't die."

"I heard about it," Mark says, standing ready to catch the old man if he falls: "The original Owl came in afterwards to train you guys. He saw some of the results..."

The old man nods and smiles: "I remember. I was a cocky little son of a gun, flush with new powers and wondering why they didn't just let us loose on Hitler right then and there. He kicked my butt to the ground the first time I went toe-to-toe with him. Didn't even break a sweat."

Mark laughs, and then thinks better of it:"Sorry, that was rude of me."

"Don't be. I deserved it. And I knew it. After that, I smartened up... mostly."

"I guess we all need to learn a thing or two the hard way," Mark says, knowing just how true that was.

"We sure do. But he was a real gentleman, Mark. Someone to look up to and be proud to know."

"I consider you the same, sir," Mark says: "I wish there was something I could do, here."

"Don't worry," Mr. USA says, leaning forward and cracking his arms and hips, grimacing as he does: "I'm getting it back, I think. Maybe another few hours and I'll be back up to speed."

"So you were saying about the treatment?" Mark says, hands still ready to catch him if he falters, again, but slowly realizing he IS actually regaining his balance: "Your aging?"

"Well, there was some thought it might retard the aging process, and they were right. But it was like the powers. It all depended on the individual. Some of us stopped aging altogether, up to a point, and some of us just slowed."

"And you?"

"Near as we could tell, I didn't age at all for a few years, and then after the war I started going reverse exponential."

"Oh?" Mark says, smiling as the old man's gait becomes more even as they go.

"Yes. As near as they could tell, I aged one only year for every four for about 16 years, there. And then one for every three for the next nine, and every other year for the next two. After that, I starting aging normally, again, but unevenly. I didn't get wrinkly or feeble, or anything like that. I just had to start using hair dye to avoid looking older."

"Well, like I said, the last time I saw you...?"

"I was about 87 and looked on the kinder side of 65."

"And now?"

Mr. USA sighs, straightening up a bit more: "Well, Mark, I think I see why ladies don't want you to ask their age, after a certain point. But how about we say I'm 154-"

"Jesus!" Mark gasps.

"And let's pretend I'm only in my 130's, somewhere," the old man winks at him: "In truth, I think I hit terminal velocity thirty years ago. I don't seem to be getting any more decrepit. It just takes me a little longer to bounce back whenever I go all out, is all."

"Why?" Mark says: "What happened? How is this possible?"

"It's a long story," Mr. USA sighs, putting a hand on his shoulder: "Let's just say that, after the War, I did something really dumb. And I didn't realize just how dumb it was until last February, or so. And I told myself, then, if there was any way to make up for it, I'd do it."

"And did you?"

"Oh yes," the man says, his gait returning to normal: "And I had to do it the hard way..."

* * *

What is happening? the leader asks, sensing that something is wrong.

"I'm not certain," The Fist says, looking at his screens and wondering why things haven't changed. He has fired at Tokyo three times, and at the giant, striding robot twice, and yet the massive city is still standing, and the robot is still walking.

Where is the Android? The Dragon asks: Is she protecting the city, or the white robot?

"Let me check..." he says, adjusting his viewscreen a few levels, so that he can find the flying girl. And, as soon as he does, he gasps, unable to believe what he's seeing.

Well? The Motion asks: What's going on, Fist? My eyes have all burned out from watching the particle beams.

The Fist just stares, uncomprehending. The android girl is floating in the air, between the colossus and the city it is walking away from, her arms raised in either direction. Her skin is glowing a strange color, and the air around the Dignitary and the city is flecked with motes of light the same color.

"Um..." he says, shaking his head: "This is incredible. The little !@#$ is shielding both the robot and the city, somehow."

How can that be possible? the leader hisses: Can she be that powerful?

Yes, she can, The Dragon says: Perhaps you never saw her in action. The Organization did a superb job of hiding her exact capabilities-

How long can she keep this up? the leader asks.

"I don't know," the Fist says: "I could fire every cannon I have at her, but then I'd have to ease up on the forces attacking us. And that might be fatal at this juncture-"

I don't have time for this !@#$, The Motion says: How about we let the big dogs loose?

If you mean we send our freed brothers and sisters into battle, I say that would be a foolhardy idea, the Dragon counsels: It might tip our hand too soon-

A few squads, aimed at that !@#$ robot, just to add their firepower to the mix and drain her shields, the Motion offers: I can do it before I head out. Just give me the word.

The word is given, the leader commands: Fist, continue to strike at the city and the robot. Motion, beam them in just outside the cannon's strike zone. Dragon, begin to formulate a firing strategy in case that robot does succeed in coming this way. 

We must win this day, my loves. And to win we must be ready for every eventuality. 

Of course, they all obey. And this is because of both the wisdom of her words, and the hint of menace they can detect, there. It speaks volumes that she is no longer so concerned about The Sight, and what has happened to him. They know that, even if they should win this day, there is a good chance she may just leave him screaming in his own prison -- a sad casualty of war.

None of them want to wind up like him. 

And as they adjust their plans, the android they are so concerned with grits her metal teeth, unwilling to budge. She knows that she cannot keep this massive expenditure of energy up for much longer, and can only hope that her allies find a way to end the deadly threat from above, and soon.

But she will not bend or break. She will defend both the city and the robot that is walking away from it for as long as she can. Even if she must expend every last curl and trace of energy to do it, and burn out every last one of her circuits in the attempt, she will.

She was never promised an easy time of things, either in her time or this one. She was never told that she could expect simple choices or easy challenges. She was only ever given the opportunity to serve, and the rationale for doing so.

And if she must die in that service, then she is happy to oblige. Even now, weary and in great pain, she smiles brightly -- happier than she has been in years.

Could she be anything other, in this moment in time?

* * *

"I just don't like it," Myron says, getting ready to affix the small, glowing, brass cube to the great machine: "It really seems too easy."

"It is, yes," Winifred agrees, handing him a lead: "But do you have a better !@#$ing idea?"

"No," he admits, taking the lead and attaching it to one end of the cube: "I don't. And that bothers the !@#$ out of me."

"It hasn't been the best day for good ideas."

"No," he says, putting another lead on the cube, and making sure the switch attached to it is in the OFF position.

"Speaking of which, do you have an idea about what do to when we get back?"

He looks at her: "What do you mean?"

"I mean, with the satellites gone, the Imago and Specials are still fighting. And that means Deep Ten is still firing down at us. And that means fighting them is going to be really !@#$ difficult."

"Then I guess we'll have to come up with another plan," Myron says, checking the energy flow: "And hopefully it'll hold up better than this one did."

"I have every confidence in you," Skyspear says, looking a little more rested, now: "God willing, we will succeed."

"I sure hope so," Winifred says, looking over at Thomas, who's breathing is becoming shallower all the time: "I just keep thinking things are about to get really !@#$ ugly."

* * *

"Who are you?" the former First Lady of the United States of America asks, not liking the look of the man that's just teleported into her living room, where she's been hiding with the children since the rumbling and fighting started, and since they learned that her husband -- their father -- is still alive.

"Oh, you probably don't remember me, Ma'am," Doctor Yesterday says, taking off his hat while addressing her: "I usually stayed in the background and handled the big science while the guys in the flashy costumes did all the punching. But I used to be in the Freedom Force, once upon a time."

"Oh!" she says, getting up and extending a hand: "That's right... Bob, isn't it? And your wife was Geri-"

"I prefer Doctor, actually," he says, putting his hat back on his head before shaking her hand. And something about how he interrupts her, and how long he holds her hand in his, unnerves her just a little.

"Well, what can I do for you? I heard some of the heroes were out, fighting?"

"Yes! We are. And that's why I'm here. We need to collect you and take you somewhere safe."

She blinks: "Is anywhere safe, right now?"

"You'll see," he says, gesturing towards the two girls as they sit on the couch: "It's probably only a matter of time before the Imago show up, and then... well, let's not get into that. I can take you someplace safe to wait until this all blows over."

"Is daddy there?" the oldest girl asks.

"Yes he is, sweetie," Yesterday says, smiling at her: "You'll be safe as houses there, I guarantee it."

The First Lady smiles at him, but it's a hollow and guarded smile: "Did he say anything?"

"I'm sorry?"

"My husband," she continues: "Did he tell you to tell me anything?"

For a moment there's some confusion in his eyes, and then it's gone, and he tells her the sort of things any husband presumed to be dead might tell his wife when he's back to life, and fighting to regain their world. But in that moment of confusion, the First Lady stops listening, and starts thinking of a way to get her and the children away from this man, and out of this house.

"Well, how about we pack up, first?" she says, looking over at the girls: "Go get the small suitcases and pack up a few things, okay?"

She looks at them and half-smiles, and they smile and charge off, doubly excited. Not only do they get to see dad, again, but they also get to sleep over someplace! What fun!

As soon as they're out of earshot, she turns and looks at him: "Please don't hurt them," she asks: "Whatever you're going to do, take me. Leave them here."

"I don't think so," Doctor Yesterday says, his smile sharp and cruel: "We're going to need all three of you for what comes next."

"What's-"

"I'll make you a deal, though," he says, taking a step closer to her, and looking down at her: "If you say nothing, and cooperate, I won't make you pick which one dies here and now, in front of you."

She gasps and takes a step back: "Please..."

"We need three, but I can do without one," he says, stepping even closer, this time: "Maybe even two. Maybe if we tell him to surrender and stop after we kill those two little !@#$es, and it's just you, he'll be too shocked to think straight. You want to try it like that?"

"No..."

"Then you keep your !@#$ mouth shut," Doctor Yesterday hisses, running a finger down the side of her face: "And tell them to dress appropriately. It's a little cold, where we're going."

"You're evil," she says, some measure of steel coming back into her eyes: "You will pay for what you've done."

"We are what we are," he says: "And if we were really evil, we wouldn't be trying to stop this from getting worse, now would we?"

Something about his smile makes her blood run about as cold as where he's intending to take her.

(SPYGOD is listening to New Life (Depeche Mode) and having a few bottles of Antarctic Nail Ale)

2/8/12 - My Mind Behind A Cigarette (VII)

I remember, years ago, back when they were getting ready to drop me and the other Camp Rogers folks into Europe, that I wasn't entirely sure about the plan. I think I might have actually been ballsy enough to raise my hand during the debriefing when we were asked if there were any questions, and ask who the !@#$ thought this one up, Donald !@#$ Duck?

(And, no, son, I didn't actually put it that way. It's what I was thinking, but it wasn't what I said. Yours truly did not have the bones nor the moxie to dare question a superior officer in that manner in those days. That only came later, after Korea.)

You know what my superior told me? He said "The plan's the plan, soldier. They wrote it, we've got it, and you're doing it. I expect you all to follow all orders within that plan to the letter, up until the moment they don't work, anymore. And then I expect each and every one of you to amaze me by making the mission work, anyway. Because you are the best, and I expect nothing but the best from you."

One of my many regrets from the War is that the superior officer in question didn't live to see that mission work. He took a bullet to the head somewhere outside of Paris, and, not having been remade into the same, sterner stuff as his soldiers, did not survive the experience. But we soldiered on, and, in spite of the many twists and turns the plan took between imagination and implementation (like what to do if you actually !@#$ kill Adolph Hitler on the way) we won through to Berlin, as ordered.

I always try to remember that little humbling moment at sea when I stride down the airway and give everyone their marching orders. I try to set fire to hearts and minds, and make anyone who isn't sure about what we're doing, and when, and how, sure enough about the overall mission, and their role in it. I may have the path to the finish line marked out, but I sell them on the !@#$ finish line over all other things.

That way, if something goes totally pooch!@#$ wrong, and we have to improvise under fire, they'll feel empowered to change the !@#$ dance steps in such a way that they can not only survive the floor with their dates, but go on to get the dreamed-of handjob in the backseat, and still have him or her home before dad comes looking for them both with a shotgun in one hand, a chainsaw in the other, and murder on his mind.

(No, son, I didn't date in High School. Why do you ask?)

So there I was, a couple hours ago, giving that same speech I've given hundreds of times, for ops big and small. I told them that we had to do this. We had to do this for America, for the world. We had to do this for the President and the people. We had to do this for the victims -- past, present, and future.

And we had to do this because it was only right and good to live in a world were crazy mother!@#$ who think they can rule it, whether through fear or love, and didn't want to take "no" for an answer, were denied the opportunity to stomp on our rights to say "no."

I gave that speech. I !@#$ aced that speech. If I'd nailed it any harder, I'd have hit the ball into !@#$ orbit and given someone a full magazine of home runs at the World !@#$ Series.

And they looked at me like I was on drugs.

Now, to be fair, I am on drugs. But no more or less than usual. Drunk, too, but, again, this is nothing new or shocking. I've given that !@#$ speech ten sheets to the wind with tissues shoved up my nose to keep the Martian Cocaine from leaping out of it and going airborne, for !@#$ sake. Why would this be any different?

Why should it?

But there they all were, saying "yes, sir!" and "no, sir" and "!@#$ GORGON in the !@#$ with a big rubber !@#$ full of plastic explosive, sir!" with their mouths, when they weren't drinking the Chateau Adolph with them, while giving me that look with their eyes.

You know that look, son. It's the same look you give the crazy guy standing outside the subway, wearing a tin foil hat, new sneakers, soiled underwear, and !@#$ nothing else as he tries to tell you about how women from Venus stole his penis and turned it into a coin purse for Buddha.

(Of course he's !@#$ nuts. There are no women on Venus, and the near-immortal crab people who live there have no space travel capabilities or understanding of the superfine nuances of Buddhism. I think they think they're Jewish, somehow, but no one's been able to !@#$ explain that to me.)

So yeah, son. We're standing there just before the big op, my people think I'm nuts, and when I said dismissed I got no whoops, no applause, and no great big "America, !@#$ yeah!" I got the quietest march off deck I've had since the last funeral we had up here, leaving me cold, alone, and no longer enthusiastic drunk but very disappointed and worried drunk.

Also pretty !@#$ cold. Chinese Silk is not meant for Pacific winds.

What went wrong? That's a good !@#$ question, son. I wish I knew the answer.

Maybe it was the way the lights kept flickering on and off on the flight deck as I strode up and down it, preaching the word. Or how the stabilizers on the left side kept !@#$ faltering in strong winds, and giving everyone the sense of vertigo in the split second before the right side kicked into overdrive to compensate. Or the way the main guns kept clicking on and off, like a cartoon skull clacking its bony teeth on someone's !@#$ butt.

(No, we still don't know what's causing these random !@#$ malfunctions, and it's starting to really !@#$. Me. Off.)

Maybe it's the plan, itself. Like NAZISMASH, it's a series of feints that eventually come together at the end to form a single, big !@#$ kick to the jimmy. Unlike NAZISMASH, we have no idea where we're going, or exactly what we'll find when we get down there, except that, courtesy of Atlantean intelligence, there is something big going on at a secondary juncture of those huge, submerged tunnels.

Hopefully it's not a breeding ground for those Deros that Underman keeps going on about, or this is gonna be a short !@#$ trip. But I have confidence that we are going in the right direction, here. Confidence backed up by more firepower than I have ever brought to bear on anything, including the last time we got !@#$ invaded by something smart enough to get past Deep-Ten.

(Well, okay. Confidence and some insider intel from The Dragon, who's been kind enough to inform me about what the Chinese know. I guess GORGON made some inroads there, recently. Who would have guessed?)

Speaking of Deep-Ten, maybe it was the fact that, some time prior to having that speech, I finally got through to Director Straffer to talk strategy and a little personal business. As anticipated, he was happy to help if needed, though he didn't think it would be, given that GORGON tends to keep its nose on the ground. And, as anticipated, I got the brushoff.

It was something of a !@#$ relief. I was not looking forward to telling him that The Dragon and I were an item, now, and I didn't know I was going to explain what had happened.

In reality, this has been a long time coming. But it could also be perceived as me being a !@#$ stereotypical gay man and going from !@#$hole to !@#$hole like a frog leaping from lily pad to lily pad. If you didn't know any better, it would look like, since he hadn't gotten back to me, my feelings had been hurt, and I went with what made me feel better.

Straffer? He just smiles like a choirboy, tells me he already knew, and says that he'd realized it wouldn't work. We're too far apart physically and too close to each other in position for this to have been a good idea.

"But it was nice while it lasted?" I asked.

He paused for a second, as if thinking of the right !@#$ thing to say, and then smiled and said "It was, yes. It was the best dinner date I've ever had, and one of the best desserts."

"I felt the same way," I said: "I'm sorry it couldn't have been more."

"So am I. So why don't we just leave it at that?" He offered, smiling at me again. That smile. The one I can't say no to.

And I said sure, let's. And he said goodbye and good luck. And I said thanks, we'll take all the luck we can get. And that was that. Static, carrier signal, my reflection in a dark screen.

...

I'm not ashamed to say I went back to my quarters and !@#$ Dragon non-stop for a full hour after that. I pounded his hips into the !@#$ wall until we left a dent in there, and then I let him return the favor with interest. I broke most of my new furniture and left holes in the walls. I kissed him so hard it's a wonder I didn't pull his lungs out of his mouth.

And you know what I felt when I was sitting on the edge of the bed, afterwards, one hand on that nice, tight !@#$ of his and one holding the cigarette I was smoking?

Nothing.

Not a !@#$ thing.

I loved this man when we were fighting tooth and claw across the world. I wanted him when he was on the other side, and then the same side but not quite within reach. I wanted him when he was locked down like a pro-democracy activist and unable to get normal letters like normal people.

Now I have the man I loved and I wanted, here with me. And all I feel is that I want to !@#$ him, again. Just that and nothing more.

This isn't love. This was never love. I chased a devil for so long I mistook the hunt for the trophy. And now all I've got is a strategically useful man in my bed. 

Meanwhile, the man I actually, really was falling in love with is literally millions of miles away, having decided that distance and political realities were more important than the fact that, when I was with him, I felt more alive than I had in decades. And I thought he felt that way, too, but he didn't, and now I know.

And it hurts worse than fire.

"SPYGOD knows all." Bull!@#$, son. SPYGOD knows nothing.

Nothing at all. 

Faced with that snapshot of an empty and broken soul, I went out and tried to rally the troops. So maybe it's no wonder I fell flat on my face. Maybe they saw past the silk and the eyepatch and the fake !@#$ eye and bravado and implicit threats.

Maybe they knew what I'm just now admitting to myself, here, in a rare moment of total, gray sobriety. I got nothing.

Never !@#$ have.

...

Dr. Yesterday's on the horn, now. He's got something to tell me about the nanotech swarm we put The Flier back together with. I bet he's going to try and blow sunshine up my !@#$ about how the process (his process, since it's his nanotech) is a little erratic at first, but will eventually settle down. It's just like new regenerations on Doctor Who, he'll say.

You don't want to !@#$ know what I'm going to tell him in return. It won't be pleasant, to say the least. But hopefully the sting will get him to get his !@#$ in gear and get this tub fixed in time for the operation.

Saying I've stuck my neck out for this one is putting it mildly. Nothing can !@#$ go wrong with this. There's too much riding on it. America. The World. The Presidency. The COMPANY.

My fine, gay !@#$, however caught in stupid gay love drama bull!@#$ that it is.

Do I dare pray, here? Who do I !@#$ pray to? This world has more !@#$ gods than it knows what to do with, sometimes.

World, you owe me a favor.

Gods I don't care to worship because I know what you !@#$ look like, you need to come down and make yourselves !@#$ evident.

God I do know exists, if only because I've been led along by your !@#$ workers and chatted up by your disgruntled former employees, this is one of those times we're both on the same !@#$ side. Have some pity for this wayward son and his sloppy attempts to keep the world safe and sane. I won't promise anything because they'll turn to dust before I'm even done celebrating the victory, but let's at least come to a !@#$ gentleman's agreement that it would be really !@#$ bad if we lost, tomorrow.

Past that, I got nothing. And maybe you've known it, all along, but now I do, too.

So let's get through this fight for truth, justice, and the American !@#$ way, and maybe then I'll have something, again.

Amen.

(SPYGOD is listening to Seven Nation Army (White Stripes, Glitch Mob remix) and having a stale, flat Tsingtao)

10/5/11 - More Crass Commercialism - SPYGOD's ABCs (pt 1)

Note: This was done as a mockup for a book project by The COMPANY's licensing and merchandising wing. It was going to be presented as a children's book for adults, much in the same vein as "Mommy! There are Liberals Under My Bed!" 

Given the poor sales of such things, the project was quietly mooted. However, as the recent success of such works as "Go The !@#$ To Sleep," the copy's been moved back onto review pile. 

Whether SPYGOD will approve is a matter of some conjecture. As of this writing, the licensing reps are drawing straws to see who has the pleasure of calling him up to get a preliminary approval. 

No one wants to draw the short straw.

A is for !@#$hole

And boy, is SPYGOD ever a massive one, kids! He's been known to shoot people for moving too slow, too fast, and not at all! He blows up people's cars for getting in his way, steals their money, and spends it at the Gucci store! Even powerful people like Presidents and Superheroes are afraid of him, and what he might do, but it's all done in the defense of the U S of A, so it must be okay!

Put another way -- he's an !@#$hole, but he's our !@#$hole. For America.

But you still have to mind your parents, keep your hands to yourself, and watch your mouth. You'll understand when you're older!


B is for The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G.

Invented by the insane, fat, and disgusting Dr. Grosz in the late 1940's, The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. was a giant weapon disguised as a skyscraper. It was built in New York City over a period of four years, starting at the end of World War II. The porky mad doctor almost had the last laugh on America, but SPYGOD and The Liberty Patrol figured out what he was up to and stopped the weapon before the countdown started!

Exactly what the device was meant to do is still highly classified, and large parts of it have been sealed off and walled up forever to stop it from getting into the wrong hands. To safeguard it, The Liberty Patrol made it their headquarters, and after the Patrol was disbanded, during the Korean War, it was handed over to The COMPANY.

Now SPYGOD lives there, making sure its secrets stay secret! No one gets up there without his express invitation, kids, so don't even try to sneak in. (Unless you're over the age of 18 and have something he might want.) 

C is for The COMPANY

The COMPANY (not to be mistaken with the Central Intelligence Agency, who are spineless wimps by comparison) is the best spy agency in the world! Anyone who says otherwise is an America-hating Communist, because SPYGOD says so!

The COMPANY deals with threats that are above the normal things that other spy agencies could ever handle, even on their best days. Every day they fight science terrorists, supervillains, and other countries' strategic talents! They stop invasions of all kinds, intervene in situations where superhuman threats are disrupting other nations' welfare and commerce, and put an end to the abuse of science!

The COMPANY has two headquarters. The Heptagon, in Washington D.C, is where they train Agents, park most of their amazing vehicles, and do the majority of their research. The Flier is their mobile base of operations, able to travel the world at lightning-fast speeds to fight any threat, anywhere!

(There's also rumored to be a secret, third base somewhere, but where it is and what it's named is completely unknown, even to most COMPANY Agents! How's that for top secret, kids?) 

D is for Drunk

Yes, kids, SPYGOD is a drunk, a junkie, and several other things as well. He spends most of his day completely !@#$ up on alcohol, drugs, and strange, exotic substances that bring him up, drag him down, stop his heart, and turn his brains to jelly for a whole minute. In fact, some of the things he sticks into himself don't even exist in this reality!

They say that no less than Hunter S. Thompson once described him as "the single most !@#$ed up human being I have ever encountered, including my attorney," Timothy Leary told him to "lay off the stuff, man," and the Grateful Dead went off all substances after seeing him in action.

(Well, okay, they only gave it up for a week. But it was still a week without drugs. They took up Rolfing, instead. It did not help.)

The official reason for this magnificent self-abuse is that, because SPYGOD's senses are so hyper-attuned, he has to cripple his brain through this punishment, or else he would go incurably insane. And, since his immortal body can't be destroyed, it all works out in the end. However, people who knew him during World War II say that he was a massive drunk, even then, so this may be total bull!@#$.


Either way, kids, just remember that SPYGOD can take all the booze and drugs he wants, for America, but you still have to keep your noses clean. Again, you'll understand when you get older. 

E is for Eyepatch

SPYGOD wears an eyepatch. It's big, it's black, and it's made out of special leather. The leather comes from an animal that's been extinct for millions of years, and it's the only thing that can really cover up the light from the Chandra Eye. If he didn't wear it, the stark horror and raw power of the Eye would make anyone who saw it go blind, mad, and incontinent in less than a second.

(Incontinent is a fancy way of saying you poop in your pants. No one likes that !@#$.)

Every so often SPYGOD lets someone catch a little peek of the Chandra Eye. He calls this SPYGOD VISION, and it does no one any good at all. He can even use SPYGOD VISION over the phone, or through a television. So it's a good idea not to be mean or rude to him, because he can make you !@#$ yourself from half the world away!

The Eye makes him immortal and all-seeing, but the human brain wasn't made to operate that way. This is why he's such a massive !@#$ drunk. It sounds like a lousy excuse, but maybe someday, when you're older, and the weight of a lifetime of bad decisions and dumb mistakes are staring you in the face, and you need to drink half your weight in Tequila Sunrises to begin to forget every !@#$ stupid thing you ever did, you'll begin to understand.

Until then, do everyone a favor and keep your !@#$ do-gooder bull!@#$ to yourself. No one needs to hear it, kid. 

F is for The Flier

The Flier is The COMPANY's mobile headquarters. It's the size of three aircraft carriers put together, it goes around the world in twelve hours on a good day, carries enough aircraft to blow the !@#$ out of most small, unfriendly countries without them having to come back for rearming and refueling, and has enough weapons on board to blow up whatever the planes miss.


The Flier generally floats around Neo York City so it can pick SPYGOD up in the morning. Or it might be on patrol anywhere in the world. So all you kids out there reading this book in something other than American English be sure to tell your stupid, socialist leaders to play nice with America, or else you might be seeing it overhead real !@#$ soon. 

G is for Guns

Guns? Oh yes. SPYGOD carries guns. He carries a lot of guns. Sometimes he carries twice his weight in guns, through means that no one really needs to understand but him.

And, given the effect the Chandra Eye has had on his private parts, he is a gun, technically. And he's almost always ready to go off, so don't make him angry, okay?

Okay. 

H is for Hitler

Adolph Hitler was a really bad man who tried to take over the world, back in the early 20th century. If you have to have us explain why, or what he did, then your school obviously !@#$ sucks, and you should have your parents sue your teachers for malpractice. Seriously.

The important thing to know is that Hitler got all of Germany's superheroes and supervillains to join the Nazi party (if they wanted to live) and sent them off to fight other countries. The fighting was known as World War II, and, even though most Americans didn't want to get involved, smart people like President Roosevelt knew that it was only a matter of time before we would have no choice.

So they started recruiting American superheroes and supervillains to fight, and found ways to make ordinary people into superheroes. SPYGOD was one of the superheroes they made, and he fought in World War II, in Europe. And one day, after stalking him for weeks in the ruins of Germany, he killed Hitler with his bare hands!

It didn't end the war, of course, but it made it a lot harder for Germany to keep fighting when their beloved junkie !@#$ Fuhrer was dead. And this is why SPYGOD can do just about whatever the !@#$ he wants, kids. He killed Hitler. He !@#$ killed Hitler. Killed him D E A D.


There's a lesson here, somewhere. Maybe someday you'll learn what it is. Hopefully it won't be because you did it, yourself. 

I is for Immortality 

Immortality means you live forever. But nothing is supposed to live forever. All living things are supposed to get old, stop working, and die.

Your parents are going to get old and die. Your pets are going to get old and die, probably sooner than your parents do. And your grandparents are probably already old, so they're going to die pretty !@#$ soon, so make sure you're good when you're at their house or they might cut you out of the will.

You are also going to die, kids. You might not even get to be old, first. You might get a bad disease, get killed in an accident, or get shot at school. You might even get that nasty thing where you suddenly start aging really fast, shrivel up like a mummy, and croak of old age before you're fourteen. Life is !@#$ cruel that way.

But that's how life works. We're born, we live, we !@#$ things up, we die. Immortality means we !@#$ things up forever and ever, and never learn from those mistakes because there's no sense of impending doom or shortness of season to make us want to learn better, and stop being such a !@#$ dumb!@#$, and mend our ways.

Immortality means we are dumb!@#$% from now until the end of !@#$ time, itself. Which is why most gods are apparently major !@#$holes who don't learn a !@#$ thing.

Not mentioning any SPYGOD names, here. No sir. Just flip the page over and hopefully he won't have heard you reading this out loud.

(But if the phone rings in the next minute, don't answer it.) 

J is for Japanazis 

(ED. NOTE: Look, Florence. I know this is humor, and I know we can be kind of risque, here, but for !@#$ sake, this is the 21st century. I really don't think it's appropriate to refer to people who fought on the losing side of World War II in this way. You wouldn't use the N-word in context, would you? That's how this word rings, now. It brings up nasty memories of internment camps and anti-German sentiment, and we'd rather not offend in such a way as to get ethnic groups on our !@#$. 

(Find something else for J, please. Maybe Jack Off? I know he can kill people with that weird, mutant penis of his...)

(SPYGOD is listening to King for a Day (XTC) and drinking the blood of an advertising executive)

8/9/11 - HONEYCOMB pt.1 - Yesterday, Tomorrow, and the Days Before All That

So, HONEYCOMB.

We haven't talked a lot about HONEYCOMB. I think I mentioned that I knocked their !@#$ down after they tried to bust into the Heptagon, back in May, and that they were at Outland hawking their weird science wares. And you know that, after the little run-behind-the-referee maneuver GORGON just pulled in West Papua, they're going to be #1 on my Doomlist, now.

But HONEYCOMB, itself? That's one of those complicated !@#$pile stories where you turn over one piece of !@#$ and find another, and another.

So, from the beginning.

I know I've talked about Dr. Yesterday and his ethical lapses in the pursuit of science for America. But I haven't really mentioned his fabulous family, other than those creepy sex dwarfs he generates for cheap, non-union labor.

There's him, obviously. Dr. Bob Yesterday. There's also his wife, Dr. Geri Yesterday, and his brothers Frank and Hector, both Doctors. And that's a lot of Piled Higher and Deeper for one family, let me tell you.

Not that he came by it honestly.

Tune the pages of your history books back to World War II, or what happened immediately afterward. You might have heard of a little thing called Project Paperclip. That was us getting a lot of the Third Reich's brains out of Germany and over to the United States to help us in various fields where the Nazis were actually ahead. Rocketry, genetic engineering, xeno-retro-engineering, all kinds of super-duper-secret high-tech things.

We did it to keep the Soviets from getting them, as our wartime allies were quickly becoming our next big rivals, and we didn't feel like sharing anymore. And it turned out to have been a !@#$ good decision, regardless of how tainted or stained some of the people we brought over here were. We did win the Cold War, after all.

At least that's what we keep telling ourselves.

Anyway, so after the war they're grabbing any German brainbox they can find who's willing to say "!@#$ Hitler" and come work for us. The ones that say "Nein" wind up in an ashpile, somewhere. The ones who say "Ja!" get a sneaky removal from Deutschland, a new job, a new name, a new face in some cases, and some semblance of a cover story.

Gertrude Hoffstatler got a husband.

It turned out that Bob Yesterday, all-around-tinkerer amongst the Strategic Talents set, had a wife all along he just failed to mention. He also failed to mention anything about his brothers Fritz and Helmut... er, excuse me, Frank and Hector, even though they'd been living in Baltimore the whole time.

Imagine that!

Now Bob's a stand-up kind of scientist, even though he spends most of his time in the back of the crowd, well behind the people who actually did something for the war effort. While the folks at Camp Rogers were busy giving men and women superpowers, he was trying to create strategic talents through the admittedly limited genetic science of the day.

How far did he get? Those creepy sex dwarfs he keeps around "for nostalgic purposes" were the best he could do. And admittedly, for the time, that was pretty !@#$ good. But could you imagine them at Omaha Beach, biting the kneecaps off the Wehrmacht?

No, I didn't think you could. I know the top brass in charge of Camp Rogers didn't. That's why I got what I got, and he got accorded also-ran status, which meant he got to be one of the people who did important things on behalf of the people who got the credit for those things.

At least until after Germany surrendered, when his knack for retro-engineering Nazi occult technology was accidentally discovered. After that, he could finally write his own !@#$ meal ticket, and took the dwarfs along for the ride.

Now, Dr. Bob Yesterday is a very smart man. He possesses .78 of an Einstein Unit, an Einstein being how they measure genius in this day and age.

(Personally, I think they need to upgrade the scale to Hawking. But apparently they don't name things after you until you're dead, and Stephen is going nowhere, mother!@#$. So, so much for that idea.)

And his brothers? They are also smart, as you might expect, but not nearly so much. I think Frank's got .65 and Hector is around .56, depending on what day it is and if he's had enough coffee. Or if they're having another tiff like an old married couple.

(Yes, there's some "brotherly love" going on in that family. Makes things a nightmare for their handlers, I'm told. Tough !@#$, says I.)

But Gertrude? Sweet, diminutive, soft-spoken little Gertrude? The one who smiles and lets her husband do all the talking when the big men come around with their big problems?

She's got 3.5 !@#$ Einsteins rattling around that pretty, seemingly unageing blond head of hers.

She understands theoretical physics theories that make Stephen's chicken neck spin around like a record, baby. Back during the War, she took a UFO apart and put it back together again, with improvements. She sees patterns in seconds, calculates electron valences in her head for fun, and picks up languages in minutes just by hearing them spoken.

In short, she makes everything Bob, Frank, and Hector do, combined, look like a snot-nosed kid showing off his latest finger painting at an art museum.

So yes, it must be galling her to no end to see her husband looking Mr. USA in the face and telling him that, no, he can't open the door to The Chamber, when all she'd have to do is look at it funny and it'd probably not only open up, but make her a cup of that weird, stinky tea she drinks to stay young, too. (I think that's her secret.)

But she's learned the value of discretion over the years, our Gertrude has. And it's not only because of what she did during the War, and has done after the war. It's because of what was done to her before the War.

And what yet remains.

(SPYGOD is listening to Lost Souls Forever (Kasabian) and having a Warsteiner, for his many sins)

6/17/11 - An Ocean Not to Break

Had another unpleasant run-in with Mr. USA this morning. I think he's starting to get the idea that we're not exactly happy to have him and his blue helmet party friends here at the Ice Palace. I don't know what could possibly have given him that crazy idea, but he chewed me up one side of the commissary table and down the other.

Or he would have, if I hadn't reminded him just how much SPYGOD hates to be interrupted in the middle of my first cup of coffee of the day.

(I stir it with a tjbang stick to take some of the non-alcoholic edge off. Trust me when I say it's nothing you want to have to resort to. Stay away from the brown bean heroin, kids.)

So, one almost irreversible intra-national incident later, and a number of The COMPANY's best agents somewhat bloodied and battered keeping one of us from doing the obvious thing under the circumstances, he's off on his side of the Ice Palace, and I'm in mine. And it'll probably stay that way until one or both of us leaves.

This is what we've been reduced to, the two of us. Squabbling children, fighting over a toy that neither of us really wants anymore.

We weren't always enemies, he and I. We knew each other before I was SPYGOD and before he was Mr. USA. Back in the war, when we had crazy patriotic codenames that had nothing to do with our ranks.

(Me not a Sergeant, he not a Captain. You know how that goes.)

Whatever we started off as, wherever we came from, and whatever background we came from, we all came out of Camp Rogers as good friends. We'd been through the crazy hell of science gone patriotically haywire, together, against all odds. And that forges a bond you don't break all that easy.

And going into action together? That just made it all the more stronger. We weren't just fellow soldiers, son. We were brothers and sisters, together.

But then I had to go and do the one thing he wanted to do.

What can I say? We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hitler was supposed to be north of Berlin, where he was, not east, where I was.

The official story makes it sound like my unit had been tracking him for days, scrabbling for information and putting pieces together. Knocking over informants and kicking in doors, looking for the most evil person in the world. Just the sort of thing you'd expect out of the man who would one day be heading up The COMPANY.

Except it's bull!@#$. We got lucky was all.

Hitler was on his way to the Fuhrerbunker and stopped at a church. From what I heard, he was trying wheedle some favors out of the god he'd spent the last few years letting his SS pagan !@#$ friends try to tear down and replace with some weird-ass, pre-new age Viking mystery religion.

And if one of my people hadn't wanted to stop there to pay some respects, we'd have missed him completely. He probably would have wound up in the bunker, months later, on the night of the Black Pill, and we'd have had a real problem on our hands.

But we didn't miss him, and we snuck in, and then I did the deed that's made me so famous over the years. While the other guys were tangling with his U-Men bodyguards, I leaped on top of him and tore his !@#$ head right off his neck.

The guys later told me I looked like one of those gargoyles we saw in France, all smashed up and lying on the ground around a demolished church. I sat there bathing in his neck stump juices like I'd wanted to drink them, or just received some cosmic message from the gods and was taking the time to process it.

I don't know what was thinking right then. Maybe just amazed that this !@#$ little !@#$ of a man who'd caused so much trouble just came apart in my hands like a roast pig. And I had his head in my hands and didn't know what to do with it, yet.

I killed our enemy, but in doing so I made another one.

I wasn't there when he got the news but he was apparently livid. I didn't find out how livid until Korea, when we were operating on the same side under new names, and finally had a chance to have it out. I think we tore half of one town apart going at it, that day.

But I've never learned really why it was that important to him. He refuses to discuss it, even to this day. And for all my digging and all my probing, nothing concrete has ever come to light.

All I know is that's how love turns to hate, kids. One wrong move in someone else's zen garden and suddenly you're a sandbox wrecker.

Two more days and I punk GORGON, again, and hopefully get the show on the road. I don't like living in a confined space with someone I want to love again, but have to hate because he's decided that's the way it is.

(SPYGOD is listening to Terrible Love (The National) and drinking more of that nasty black bean heroin)