1/20/13 - And Sometimes I Worry and Fear What Tomorrow May Bring

The Crew of the Egress: Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

(Front) Brightstarsurfergirl, Dr. Heila, Walker In/With the Darkness
(Middle) Hanami, Dir. Straffer, SPYGOD, Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir
(Back) Mr. Chaos, Myron, Dr. Fuller, Night Phantom (w/Glimmer)
(Way Back) Disparaitre
(art by Dean Stahl)

 * * *

*BEGIN TRANSMISSION*

*cough* Yeah. Um, Is this !@#$ing thing on?

Yeah? You sure? *thump thump*

Oh... the red light, okay.

*cough cough* 

Alright then. Goooooooooooood morning, planet Earth!!!!

This is SPYGOD, speaking to you over every radio station, TV channel, and projected broadcast medium we could get our !@#$ing hands on.

Now, I sure hope we didn't interrupt anything too !@#$ important. But, you !@#$ing know how emergency broadcasts are. They happen, and usually when you're in the middle of something good.

!@#$, I remember I was in a movie theater watching Scanners when President Reagan got shot. I was just at the part where the guy's head blew the !@#$ up, too. So, of course, when they call me to tell me I need to get the !@#$ to Bethesda, you can imagine what's going through my !@#$ mind...

Oh, right. Sorry, planet Earth. My amazing boyfriend is telling me that I am !@#$ing rambling, again.

(It's a habit. I know....)

Anyway, I am broadcasting to you live from the good ship Egress, currently orbiting the god!@#$ moon along with all the leftover Apollo parts that someone !@#$ing forgot to pick up after landing. That and a few other things I'm really not supposed to be !@#$ing talking about. You know how that goes.

But, as fate would have it, that is a lot of what I have to talk to you about today, boys and girls. Things we aren't supposed to be !@#$ing talking about, much less even !@#$ing thinking about if we know what's good for us.

I'm talking secrets and lies, folks. Big !@#$ ones, too. The kind of things you get !@#$ing shot for telling people about, or just knowing.

Unfortunately, they're things that, as of right now, we have to !@#$ing talk about.

And there's things you really !@#$ing need to know. 

Case in point, I'm sure a lot of you are pretty !@#$ shocked to be hearing from me at all. You all went to bed last night thinking that awful SPYGOD person was locked back up, again, in Neo York City. Right?

Well, surprise surprise. It takes a lot more than a !@#$ty apartment and a !@#$ton of Terre Unifee guards to keep me the !@#$ down. I'm proud to say I pretty much walked out of there, almost exactly when I intended to, and pretty much exactly how I'd planned.

And yeah, I'm sure that sounds like !@#$ing gloating? Well, you can sue my fine gay !@#$ when I get back to Earth, if you want to.

That is, of course, provided we get back to Earth at all.

Which is part of why I am talking to you, right now.

* * *

You see, boys and girls, you have been !@#$ing lied to for quite some time, now.

Well, maybe "lied to" isn't the right term. "Misled" might be more like it. 

See, you remember when those Imago !@#$holes had us all under their control? And you remember how they told us that there was a big !@#$ spacemonster coming to get us?

Well, I'm sure you all know that they had no room to talk about space monsters. And since we threw them under the !@#$ bus, well, everyone's kind of forgotten that silly !@#$ they told us.

And who can blame you? They were genocidal !@#$wads who put their minds inside the bodies of retarded people, and used our kids like batteries.

And when push came to shove, well... we know what they were willing to do.

(Nuff !@#$ing said about that.)

Well, since then, a lot of people have been telling you that we are about to have some issues with outer space. Just not like that the Imago told us.

Mostly it's been sober astronomers and science guys, all smiling into the !@#$ cameras and telling you that, well, it's just !@#$ing possible that something might just be intersecting with our orbit in a few months or so.

And yes, if you press them, they might fess up that, yes, it's one of those planet killer things. Kind of like the one that John McClaine and Daredevil took out in that one !@#$ing movie. 

But it's nothing too serious! Not really. Oh no. Just a thing, and we're working on it.

Oh, how?

Well, we've got superheroes. And superscience! And weapons you normal !@#$heels in TeeVeeLand haven't even !@#$ing heard of, before now.

So yeah, just go back to your television and internet. Watch your shows, sneak some porn, go sign up for a !@#$ hookup with an ugly but desperate married stranger on that one site. Everything's going to be juuuust fine. Really.

I mean, !@#$, you know how many times the world's almost ended in your lifetime, alone? You'd run out of fingers and toes trying to count them all. And you'd go !@#$ing crazy trying to handle all that with the brainmeat you got between your ears.

Just relax, they'd say. Don't worry about it. We've got it all under control. Nothing to worry about.

Nothing. At. All.

Well, folks... that was a big !@#$ lie.

* * *

The truth is that, in this one !@#$ thing, the Imago were not !@#$ing lying.

If we've got an accurate reading on it, sometime in the next year Earth is going to be visited by something. Something huge. Maybe about the size of !@#$ing Jupiter.

Maybe even larger.

And reason no one can get an accurate size on this !@#$ thing is because, once it's close enough to really see, anyone who can see it apparently goes completely !@#$ing insane.

This thing isn't some asteroid we can just nuke on one side and nudge away before it !@#$ing gets here. It's too !@#$ big for that.

And it isn't the sort of thing we can really plan for, either. Because once we really see it? It'll be !@#$ing be on us inside of a !@#$ month. 

And even if we did have the time to plan? It still isn't the sort of thing we can nudge away.

Because it's not just happening across our !@#$ path, folks. This thing isn't just on a !@#$ing collision course.

No folks. It's !@#$ing coming right for us.

Some of the more ancient beings we've encountered, over the years, refer to it as the Decreator. It's more commonly known as (Unintelligible Concept), but that doesn't make a whole lot of !@#$ing sense. And maybe we should be glad for that.

All we know for sure it that, when it gets here? The lucky people will just die. Maybe of fright, maybe of the sort of !@#$ that happens when a planet a lot larger than your own gets a little too !@#$ close for comfort.

Everyone else? They're going to be !@#$ing destroyed. 

To see this thing is to die. Your brains turn to black !@#$ in your skull, and then blow the !@#$ out of your eyesockets. And somehow, in spite of all that? You're still !@#$ing alive and in pain.

And god!@#$ insane on top of it all

* * *

Now, you might well be asking "SPYGOD? How the !@#$ do you even know about this?" And that's a !@#$ good question.

The answer is that we have the testimony of someone who saw it happen. He managed to get to a place where it already happened, not knowing what the !@#$ he was heading into. Lucky for him, he got there just after it started heading the !@#$ away.

And lucky for us, he came back to tell the tale.

Unfortunately, he's no longer able to take questions. He had a bit of a debt hanging to someone, and, well, he paid it. That's enough !@#$ing said about that.

But what we do need to talk about,  here, is the fact that we don't meet this !@#$ thing out there, in the black, before it gets too close?

Well, then the Earth is dead, folks. That's all there is to it.

And I know you've grown up in a world where this kind of !@#$ has happened before. We've had alien conquerors show the !@#$ up before. Strange invasions. Surreal encounters. All kinds of big !@#$ weird menace that just sort of !@#$ing appears at 3 in the !@#$ AM on a Monday morning and decides to eat Mumbai.

I mean, you all !@#$ing remember THAT, right? I know I sure as !@#$ do. Let me tell you, boys and girls, THAT hurt. 

But this is not THAT, folks. This is something that makes THAT look like some world-eater in a silly helmet who gets scared the !@#$ away by some weird-!@#$ sex toy in the hands of a human.

This is the apocalypse, folks. This is Armageddon wrapped up in Ragnarok with the Day of Four-Motion wrapped the !@#$ around that, and some sparkly Frashokereti sprinkles drizzled over the !@#$ top like bacon bits.

Not a fun scene, folks. Not at all.

* * *

So yeah, we have a problem. And it's a !@#$ big one, too.

Fortunately, we also have a solution. It's a long shot, but that's a !@#$ of a lot better than no shot at all.

Now, most of you probably remember that the Imago were building a giant spaceship, up here.  They claimed they were going to use it to go fight this !@#$ thing?

Well, the truth is that they weren't going to do any such thing. In fact, they were going to use to to get the !@#$ away from it. They were going to load up as much of our preteen population as they could, burn !@#$ing rubber out of our solar system, and leave us to face it alone.

Now, they're gone. And I blew the !@#$ out of their !@#$ing space elevator, too. But the ship is just fine.

In fact, we've spent the last couple of months getting it into shape. Seeing what kind of propulsion it's got. What we can use for weapons.

And, if all else failed, what kind of weapons we could bring up from the surface and put right onto the ship.

Now, there's been another a lie that's been going on, but it's probably not one you would have heard. It's a lie that was told by certain elements within the Terre Unifee to other groups both inside and outside of it

That lie was that the ship was going to be used to defend the Earth.

Yes, I know that sounds !@#$ing shocking. I mean, if they weren't going to save the Earth, then what the !@#$ were they going to do with it? Beat New Horizons to !@#$ing Pluto?

Actually, no, boys and girls. They were going to take a !@#$ing page from the Imago. They were going to get on board the Egress with certain world leaders, and their families and friends, and say adieu  to Earth.

And then they were going to leave us to !@#$ing rot. 

Yes, you heard that right. Some of your TU-appointed National Facilitators were going to take the last train for !@#$ing Clarksville and leave you all to die. Screaming and in pain. 

Now, there's a lot more I could say about that !@#$, right now.

I could tell you how those certain elements were linked up with !@#$ing European racist parties, all jockeying to get in on the ultimate White Flight away from the planet.

And I could tell you how they told the leaders of, shall we say,  less white countries they could get in on the action, too, in exchange for aid and materials under the !@#$ing table, but had no !@#$ intention of letting them in on it at all.

And I could also tell you about all the super villains they turned into super heroes to help with this, all the crazy !@#$ they did to keep this under wraps, the fact that they started !@#$ing killing journalists to keep their !@#$ secret...

Yeah, I could waste your time and tell you all about that.

However, I am not. Because I have friends who have been very good about finding out all this information. And as soon as I'm done with my part of the show, they're going to pick up where I left off and tell you what's been going on these last few months.

No, boys and girls, I'm going to tell you about something else.

* * *

Long story short, this spacecraft, and this crew? We're going out there to stop that big !@#$ space monster from getting any further than !@#$ing Mars.

Now, I know that, given everything I've told you, that doesn't sound too comforting. !@#$, maybe it sounds like sending some kid with a !@#$ bb gun out to take down the sex-crazed, steroid-jacked mutant lion that escaped from the !@#$ zoo, ate half the police, and !@#$ed the other half to death.

But that's the big !@#$ plan, anyway. And we've got things to do it with. 

We've got this amazing ship that the Imago built to take them across the !@#$ing galaxy from this thing. We've got heroes, scientists, and engineers from all over the !@#$ world. We've even got volunteers from Mars and !@#$ing Venus, ready to try and fight this thing the !@#$ off.

And sure, maybe all we need to have a plan is an actual plan. But those of you who've known me long enough? Well, you oughta !@#$ing know by now that I make my best plans on the !@#$ run, at the last minute, with all odds stacked so !@#$ high against me that you can't even see over them.

And that's why we're going to !@#$ing win, folks. Because of you. Because what we're leaving behind us is too !@#$ bright and beautiful for us to fail it. Too precious to lose.

That's Earth, folks. That's you.

So we're going to go and do this on a wing and a !@#$ prayer. Hopefully you'll be good enough to send some of your own that we can win this one. Or at least kiss your own !@#$es so !@#$ hard that God moves heaven and Earth to save them from this thing if we really can't pull it off.

Sometimes he really does listen. I ought to !@#$ing know.

* * *

But there's one other thing I really should !@#$ing talk about, before we take the !@#$ off. And that's a really !@#$ simple thing to say, but not so easy to explain.

So, the easy bit first. My trial? Consider it !@#$ing cancelled.

Oh, I'm !@#$ sure I probably deserve to be put on trial. Make no !@#$ mistake about that. I can't disagree that I screwed up when I was fighting against the Imago. I can't deny that I made some really !@#$ serious mistakes.

And I sure as !@#$ won't stand in front of you all and say that my actions, my plans, my ideas... all those things I said and did and plotted?

I can't stand here and honestly tell you that they all worked out for the best. Or that I always had everyone's best interests at heart when I rolled up my sleeves and went out to beat the !@#$ out of those metal-plated !@#$ers. 

I was at war, folks. I prosecuted that war to the best of my ability. And yeah, I made mistakes. I took shortcuts. I worked my way through the !@#$ed impossible calculus of combat in the hopes of winning back the world.

And yeah, I won. We won. But we lost so !@#$ much.

And yes, I lost so much of that for you.

Me.

But here's the thing, folks. While maybe I should have my day in court? And maybe I should answer for my mistakes? Maybe even my crimes?

Well, the Terre Unifee are not the body that gets to try me.

As of right the !@#$ now, the United States of America is no longer under the authority of the Terre Unifee. A second American revolution has taken place. We have won our freedom, yet again.

And as a citizen of the United States of America, I refuse to submit myself to the justice system of an international organization that we just left.

It isn't just the revolution, folks. The TU is broken. I know it, you know it. And now that the vast and complicated chain of strategic talents they relied on to keep the world fed, heated, hydrated, and safe is falling the !@#$ apart, I think the gloss is going to come off the !@#$ hooker really !@#$ing quick.

I mean, !@#$, folks. The President, who you might remember used to be my !@#$ing boss? He hates me because of a certain decision I made, and then a thing I had to do. A terrible thing, yes, but something that had to be done.

I had to kill his daughter because she wasn't his daughter anymore. And what she had become...

...

Yeah, maybe that's a secret we can keep to ourselves for right now, folks. Sorry about that.

But bottom line? He's gone stark raving mad, up there in that pyramid of theirs. He's fixated on revenge. And while there's a lot of good people in his justice department? Well, some of that crazy's going to !@#$ing rub off, somewhere.

And it's going to taint the results like you would not !@#$ing believe.

* * *

In the meantime, here's how it !@#$ing is.

We're leaving orbit to go deal with this !@#$. We have teleporters with us. They may come back and forth to pick up supplies and !@#$.

They will not be !@#$ed with. 

If any crazy !@#$ comes to hit Earth while we're gone?  A very good friend and ally is in orbit, right now, piloting one of the most powerful pieces of cosmic god technology we've ever found on our planet. I wouldn't put their chances of getting through too !@#$ high.

Because no one !@#$s with him. 

America will be choosing its leaders, soon. It will be reforming its government. And while I am gone, it is protected. Do not think otherwise.

You know the kind of people we have on our side. 

If and when I get back, I may need to stand trial. But I am not going to submit myself to trial at the hands of the Terre Unifee.

If they even !@#$ing exist when we get back to Earth, when this thing is done? I'll gladly stand trial at the hands of a reliable third party.

!@#$, even if they don't exist? I'll stand trial, if you want me to.

Maybe I should be held accountable. And that's for you to decide.

But if I'm going on trial? Let it be a fair one. Let me lay out my side and hear yours.

Let me !@#$ed for the right reasons, or freed for the right ones.

That's all I ask. !@#$, I demand it. I am a free being and I have rights, same as you.

The same rights I fight for every !@#$ day I'm breathing.

And... while I'm at it? I'm demanding one other thing, folks.

You see, we're all willing to lay our lives down to save our world. But we'd really like that world to be worth saving, once in a !@#$ while.

So, since we might be gone a while, dealing with this thing? How about you take this opportunity to take a long, hard look at the world we're going to be protecting, and make it better?

Yes, boys and girls, you heard me. Fix. Your. !@#$. 

Because if we're going to lay it all on the line for you, up here in the black? We want to come home to a world that actually acts !@#$ing grateful for a change.

...

That's about all I have to say. There's some other people who would like to talk to you, now. I suggest you listen to what they have to say, as it's the sort of thing that might help you decide which pile of !@#$ to throw away first.

Be seeing you.

SPYGOD out.

*END TRANSMISSION*

* * *

Your eyes are like saucers 

but mine are just clouded in gray
I've so much to tell 

but I can't tell you just go away
Anyway, won't you stay?

 * * *

Hey Kids! SPYGOD returns in two weeks with more wholesome fun for the whole family!

* * * 

(SPYGOD is listening to Monochrome (Lush) and having a Dark Sun Black Ale)   

1/15/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 4.5

Les Trois Grandes
Foudre Blanc, Tempete Bleu, Ciel Rouge
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

Far off the beaten path, in the mountains of India, there's a particular peak that does not appear on any map. 

It's a terrifying thing -- tall and scraggly, utterly bereft of plant life. The animals all give it a wide berth, and people who look at it don't care to stare for too terribly long.

It's just not a healthy thing to consider, for some odd reason -- especially not on a night like this.

Before that unholy mountain is a windswept plain. In that plain, well within the mountain's moon-shadow, is a cairn of black and tan rocks. It's maybe two feet tall and four feet wide, and with no writing to explain why it's there. 

Suddenly, there's a wavering motion in the air, and someone appears directly in front of it.

It's a man, dressed in what might be some kind of sterile suit. It's got a clear facemask and an oxygen tank. It's also got blood spattered all over it. 

The man reaches down into a pouch, on the suit's belt, and pulls up a small, plastic communicator. He says something into it, and then tosses it off into the dirt, where it sparks, smokes and warps itself into uselessness within seconds.

By the time it's broken itself down into nothing but unhappy molecules, the man has vanished again. This time it's by an entirely different mechanism, and for a much different purpose. But the disappearance is so seamless and smooth that, if anyone had been out here to watch, they might think they just saw a magic trick. 

And they might just have applauded, in spite of themselves. 

* * *

“Quite the speech, my friend,” Foudre Blanc says to a well-dressed man, shaking his hand as he does: “Very convincing.”

“Thank you,” the fellow says, clasping the hero’s hand with both of his own and smiling: “I certainly hope so. They say you can lead a horse to water…”

“But you can’t get him into the boat?”

“Exactly!” the man laughs, his voice echoing across the large, tightly-packed hall he was just addressing.

The room is filled to bursting, tonight. Hundreds of Front Nationale representatives are there, along with delegates of other likeminded groups from throughout Europe. They all press flesh and chortle, so high on the fumes of what they just heard that their normal antipathy for one another is mostly absent.

“So, do we have a timetable?” the white-clad hero asks, wondering how long it’ll be before the Lega Nord people start a fight with the Golden Dawn, just because.

“Soon,” the man says, nodding at that mousy woman from the Danish People's Party as she touches his sleeve and thanks him.

"Just soon?" Foudre Blanc replies, a little dumbfounded: "My understanding is that that... thing is getting even closer. Surely we have to be ready to move soon?"

"And we will," the man assures him, patting him on the back: "It's just a delicate thing, you understand. All these people, all these technical setbacks. And then the matter of getting us up and away in the first place..."

He pauses for a moment to nod at that weird-haired fellow from Party for Freedom, who's entertaining a gaggle of starstruck NF people with his own tales of making things difficult for Negros.

"If there are still difficulties, you can count on my help," Foudre Blanc says: "My company has gladly given time, money, and resources towards this goal. And will gladly continue to do so."

"And it's greatly appreciated, Bruno," the man says, nodding to others still as they pass (Jobbik, Finns, those ones from Spain who change their name every other year): "Indeed, if it hadn't been for Industries Roquer, I doubt we'd have gotten this far this fast."

"Even with the backing of the Terre Unifee?" the white-clad hero chuckles.

"Well, it's one thing to have the reins, and another to be able to gallop the horse out of the stable at any time," the man winks: "I'm sure you understand, having your own group of secrets to tend to."

"I do indeed," Foudre Blanc says, quietly wincing as Julien starts heading their way, the better to schmooze on the man of the hour, too.

"Have no fear, my friend," he says, smiling at the hero: "We will take to the skies, as I have promised. We will leave this sorry mess of a world behind. And we will set up a new, more pure one elsewhere."

"A noble goal," the hero says, taking a step back as the Old Man's number one comes up to fawn.

The after-speech festivities go on for some time. And with each passing moment, Foudre Blanc becomes more uncertain of things. More ambivalent.

It's not that he's against the plan -- indeed, he's one of the principal bankrollers. But rather that, when he started his campaign, he imagined that he would be cleaning up Paris of the human filth that had infested it, so that future generations could once again live in a clean and beautiful city. 

But this way? They'll be leaving it in the dust to be destroyed whenever that massive space disaster gets here. One of the greatest cities in the history of the world, rendered unto dust by some horrible thing beyond human imagining. 

Does that mean his mission is a failure, then? Or is he simply trading what would otherwise be a lifetime of work for a sharp and final lateral move? 

He's not sure. He resigned himself to a lifetime's crusade, back when he began it. Indeed, he knew he might die with that mission unfulfilled.

But now -- as he stands on the brink of seeing it done by default -- all he knows is that he will be disappointed that the final piece of negro filth that dies in his city will not perish by his hand, but instead by some abomination that he'd never dare to look upon, himself.

Disappointed, and more than a little cheated to see his promise to Sabine fulfilled by default. 

Eventually, the evening comes to a close. People leave in small knots and whorls, and then in one final trickling. On the steps, at the end, Julien shakes the man's hand, and then walks away quickly before Foudre Blanc comes up to pay his own respects. And then he's gone too -- zapped off into the electrical wires -- leaving only the man of the hour, who must now catch a cab, as though he were simply another businessman out at night. 

Unbeknownst to him, as he hails a taxi, he is being watched.

One of his spies is a woman wrapped in a red shroud, who lurks in the shadows of a nearby building and glares at him. If looks could kill, he would have died a thousand deaths by now. Indeed, it’s rather difficult for her to avoid going over there, right now, and giving the dead their due.

Especially after everything she just heard inside that hall…

But Ciel Rouge is not stupid. She knows she cannot touch him, here and now. Not with the power he holds. Not by herself.

No. She must wait for the right moment to expose him, and his followers. She must gather more facts and gain more allies. She must be ready to bring the house down in such a way that it wouldn’t collapse on her, instead.

And she thinks she knows just what to say, when she finally gets the chance. 

She vanishes, leaving him no wiser. And as he finally gets a cab to stop and pick him up, he's observed by yet another person -- a black-clad, young blonde woman who kneels on a rooftop, miles away. 

If anyone came onto that rooftop, just then, they might think she’s making ready to take his head off with the rifle she’s wrapped around. But the rifle has a long-range microphone where the barrel should be, and a large telescope attached to what should be a sight. 

Helga smirks, watching as Guillaume Brilliand, Director of the Space Service, gets off the street at last. 

I've got him, she tells the others. 

And suddenly, something becomes very clear to them all.

* * *

“So, you want to tell me what’s really going on, here?” Mark Clutch asks SPYGOD, walking into the otherwise-deserted room the man is sitting in. It might have been a library, once, except that all the shelves are empty, save for dust and cobwebs.

“Well, I’m having a !@#$ing drink,” SPYGOD says, raising a glass from the side of his ratty chair: “Straffer’s taking a !@#$ shower. Martha’s making sure the car’s good to go-“

“And you’re going to answer some !@#$ questions for a change,” Mark insists, leaning over him.

“You sure you want to take that tone with me, son?”

“!@#$ straight I am,” Mark says, too angry to be properly scared.

“Okay…” SPYGOD says, having a sizable gulp of his drink: “Let’s have it.”

“What are we doing?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I did, Mark. That’s just kind of !@#$ing broad.”

“What are we doing here?”

“Well, that’s kind of !@#$ing existential-“

“Shut up!” Mark shouts, knocking SPYGOD’s drink out of his hand and putting his fist in the man’s face: “I swear to God if you get smart one more time I’ll-“

He doesn’t even see SPYGOD move. One moment he’s standing in front of a sitting man. The next he’s sitting in the chair, and SPYGOD’s standing over him.

“What?” he says, his brain still reeling from the sudden movement.

“Now it’s my turn,” SPYGOD says, pointing to the glass where it lies on the ground, empty: “And before I !@#$ing say anything, you better understand something son. I love Martha with all my !@#$ heart, but you ever knock anything out of my !@#$ing hand again, you’re going to be making yourself a new one with your other one broken and shoved right up your !@#$. You !@#$ing got that, son?”

“Well, at least now we’re being honest,” Mark snorts.

“What the !@#$ do you mean?”

“I mean you’re finally showing us how it is.”

“You mean you didn’t !@#$ing know, already?” SPYGOD asks, raising an eyebrow: “I shoot people for less backtalk, Mark. You know that.”

“Yeah, and that’s one of the few things I do know.”

“Look, son, I !@#$ing told you,” SPYGOD sighs, putting his hands to the sky in exasperation: “I’m not telling you a !@#$ thing more than you need to know because it’s not !@#$ing safe. Not for the plan, not for me, not for you.”

“Maybe I should decide that?”

“Because I am sick and tired of not knowing anything,” the man says: “I am sick and tired of being led around by the nose from place to place. I am sick and tired of following mysterious leaders who don’t tell me who they are and ask me to put my !@#$ life on the line, and then-“

“You realize you just !@#$ing described being someone’s sidekick to a t, right?”

Mark blinks a few times, and then, sighing, just looks down at his hands: “It’s just… I love Martha, (REDACTED). I’d follow her around the world. I’d trust her with my life. And the reason for that is that she does not play this secret agent man game with me.”

“It’s not a !@#$ game, son.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Pretend I !@#$ing don’t. Explain it to me, Mark. Small words, long sentences.”

“Alright then,” Mark says, looking him in the eye: “I spent a long time hiding in a treehouse on another planet, following the orders of a guy in a mask who claimed to be working for you, but really wasn’t. And then almost dying because one of the people we thought you vouched for turned out to be… what the !@#$ WAS that thing?”

“Moloch?” SPYGOD says, shrugging: “Damn if I know. Dangerous, that was for !@#$ sure.”

“Yeah. And come to find out it’s Mr. USA-“

“That was not Mr. USA.”

“No, I mean the leader of the resistance, who was Mr. USA, who’d been living a parallel life to the Mr. USA we all knew, and acting in secret all this time, and not stopping !@#$ from happening, and-“

“Stop it,” SPYGOD  commands, waving a hand in front of the man’s face, as if to wake him up: “We just got over this !@#$. Let’s not !@#$ing start it again, okay?”

“Well, that’s just it. Maybe I’m not over it. Maybe I still have a problem being led a mysterious leader who not only doesn’t want to tell me what’s going on, but just admitted even he doesn’t know what’s going on. Maybe I’m sick and tired of being in the dark.”

There’s silence for a time, then. Mark sits there, unsure if he’s going to get smacked, shot, or yelled at some more. But whatever anger he felt when he strode in here seems to have dissipated, somehow.

Better out than in, maybe.

“Look,” SPYGOD sighs, trying to be a little more gentle: “Do you know what a !@#$ N-Machine is, Mark?”

“I think they might have told me, once or twice.”

“Then imagine this, son. Imagine you !@#$ing know something, and you know you !@#$ing know something. Okay?”

“That’d be a first.”

“Now, imagine you get !@#$ing captured by someone who wants to know that something. And imagine they have people who are !@#$ing good, I mean really !@#$ing good, at figuring out that you know something they !@#$ing want to know. And imagine they’re in a !@#$ing hurry and don’t care to try to talk or torture it out of you. Especially if they’re !@#$ing smart enough to know that torture doesn’t !@#$ing work?”

“Then they’d use the machine on me,” Mark says, sighing.

“Exactly, son. They’d use the !@#$ machine on you. They’d drain your whole !@#$ing life out of your !@#$ eyes, just to find out that something. They’d inflict that horrible agony on your !@#$, just to know what you know. And then you’d be !@#$ing dead, and we’d be down a !@#$ good person at a time when we can’t afford to !@#$ing lose anyone.

“And Martha would be !@#$ing heartbroken,” SPYGOD continues, leaning in a little more: “She lost her whole !@#$ family that night. You and her son are all she’s got left, and he’s kind of !@#$ing stuck in the Big Apple. And she loves you back.

“So don’t !@#$ing ruin it,” he finishes, tapping a finger on the man’s forehead with each word.

Mark just nods, looking down and feeling really !@#$ stupid.

“Alright,” SPYGOD says, standing fully up and getting ready to go: “I’m glad we had this talk, Mark. I feel we really had a productive !@#$ing discussion, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, weakly.

“And just for future reference?” the man says, pointing to the glass on the floor: “That whiskey was !@#$ing older than both of us put together. If you can’t respect me, at least respect my hooch.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mark sighs, but the man’s already gone.

* * * 

"Tasukete..." the guard on the floor keeps repeating, weakly holding his guts in as his life trickles between his fingers. 

His words might have some weight with his killer, except that the man's not paying any attention to him. Indeed, he's not paying attention to anything in the room. Not the other Space Service guards, here in the room, who had the courtesy to die quickly, or at least more quietly. Not the alarms that are ringing helplessly, as there's no one else alive in this part of the Rebun Island facility to come answer them. 

And not the guards in the rest of the facility, as they have their own problems, now...

The beefy, Japanese man in a floral shirt sits in a chair at the central terminal in the room, which is filled with other, smaller terminals. Under normal circumstances, it would be filled with communications personnel, all eager to talk with the various missions going on right now. 

But they're not here, right now. They're all on the other side of things, fighting for their lives against some horrible monster that, up until now, they thought was a story for children, or at least people who refused to grow up. 

And as they aren't able to stop the man, he's used his recently-reinstated access codes to link up with the Sled, and look at their executive security logs. 

What he's watching is making him cry.

It's hard to be certain what's going on, in the knot of bodies that's floating in zero-G. There's men and women in there, all sliding over and around one another. People are !@#$ing and being !@#$ed, in various ways and combinations. Lots of moaning and groaning, cries and laughter. 

And in the center of that flesh frenzy is an adorable, young woman who seems lost in wonder, and yet all too eager to take part in it. 

"Hanami..." Ju-San -- aka Mister 10 -- says between sobs, pressing his hand to the screen and closing his eyes as she finally decides where to start. 

And when he opens her eyes -- just as she really starts to enjoy herself -- he sees the face of Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir above her, doing things to her that he so desperately wanted to be doing himself. 

He knows, in that moment, that everything he had feared has come true. Everything that outlaw reporter intimated to him was correct. 

He's lost her. They've taken her away from him. 

And the only way to get her back is to go up there and take her back.

"(I will kill you,)" he promises the spaceman, his sadness being replaced by a white-hot anger he can barely control: "(I will kill you with my own hands, you !@#$ing outsider worm!)"

And then he's gone to make good on that threat, leaving only the dead and the dying he used to command in his wake. 

* * *

 "So..." The Scarlet Factotum says, retracting all of her blades and guns back into herself, and holding up the Pusher's severed head for inspection: "Does anyone else have any {quote}complaints{endquote} about how I run things?"

No one does. Her personal army of supervillains and technicians all hold up their hands, doing their best to distance themselves from the steaming human meat on the ground. 

"Good," the freakishly-ugly robo-woman in the extremely revealing -- and now incredibly-torn -- red dress says, tossing the head onto a nearby table: "Because if there's one thing I cannot !@#$ing stand, it's disloyalty. Especially now that we've actually gotten to our goal!"

She waves her bloody hands at the board, where, just sixty seconds ago, they got the last piece of their plan into place. They now have either replaced or recruited all the human machinery that the Terre Unifee uses to run the world. All the super-powers they've put to civilian and military use are either under the thumb of their organization, or have been cunningly swapped out with one of their own number.

The world is hers now, all she has to do is give the order.

The world is hers now, all she has to do is give the order.

The world is hers now, all she has to do is give the order-

"Is that actually going to hold her?" The Emperor of Pain asks, looking at their now-deposed leader as she lies in a heap on the floor. 

"I think so," the Pusher says, adjusting his million-dollar tie and looking at the specialist he hired for the job: "How long can we have her like that?"

"Indefinitely," the grey-suited woman with television static for eyes says, handing over the remote box: "As long as her CPU is active, she'll loop that over and over again and have no idea anything's wrong."

"Well done," he says, nodding to her: "The money's in your account. Are you sure you won't join us?"

"I prefer being independent," she says, winking a flickering eye: "But remember me, when you come into your new kingdom."

"I will," he says, shaking her hand before she turns to go. 

"We're just letting her go?" Lord of Spiders asks once she's out of earshot.

"No one messes with Joy, or they answer to me," the Pusher insists, looking down at his twitching, former client: "We are clear on that?"

"Yes," the Emperor of Pain says, nodding a little too quickly for his own liking.

"If you really want to kill someone for real, go find that Violet Demon guy and air him out," the Pusher says: "He's a little too queer for her.  If he comes back and finds her gone, well, we might have a real problem on our hands."

"I'll do that," the Lord of Spiders says, as he never really liked the kid, anyway. 

"Chassis?" the Pusher says, gesturing at the woman made from a white car: "Take her down to the shop. Take her CPU out, hook it up to a battery, and bring it back to me. We're keeping her as a souvenir."

"I hear you," she says, grousing: "And then what?"

"And then..." the man says, sitting down in his now-deposed leader's big chair, looking at the big board: "We let the world know we're actually in charge."

* * *

To her credit, Martha feels it first. 

She's out working on the car in her civies, just to make sure it's going to be in good working order. And somewhere between checking the oil and putting the cap back on she suddenly gets the feeling that something is wrong. 

She can't say what it is for certain. Maybe a change in the breeze, or a sudden stillness. Maybe the loss of certain sounds, rather than the introduction of new ones.

But after having her own home invaded, last year, she's rather sensitive to that awful feeling that someone is looking at her with ill intent.

When she was young, and being the Talon to her father's Owl, he always told her to value her instincts. He said that perception and a clear head was one thing, but that one always had to be ready to go beyond them, and just trust that the sudden need to duck and back away, or stand up and rush in, were being guided by something. 

(They'd say God, of course. Others would say luck. Still others would say "synchronicity," but she always !@#$ing hated that word.)

So when she turns right around, swinging a crescent wrench in a long arc at what seems empty air, and connects -- hard -- with what was probably someone's jaw, judging by the crunch, she's not at all surprised. 

"We've got company!" she shrieks, bobbing and weaving her way back to the mansion as fast as she can from however many invisible people are right on her tail.

There's firing, right behind her. She can hear the distinctive sounds of darts as they thud into the dirt and trees around her. Martha's scared as !@#$ and all-too-aware that she could be hit at any moment, but right now she's too focused on getting into the house to worry about that.

It's simple math in her mind, really: house, suit, retribution. She might not even need the suit, given how badly these idiots are aiming. Just her fists, maybe-

Something hits her, right in the temple. A fist, not a dart. Excellent follow-through. Hurts like !@#$.

She crumples and goes down, but does her best to leap back up again. They call it Kip-Up. Her dad trained her for hours to get her to do it. And she trained Kaitlyn just as hard.

(My God. If they know she's here, they'll be after her next. And John.)

She leaps up and kicks blindly, somehow knowing where her opponent will be. Something cracks under her foot. A scream, then flailing strikes she can easily block in spite of their transparency. 

Martha ducks down once more, managing to narrowly miss being hit by another wave of darts. They slam into the back door of the mansion, less than six feet away, now. 

(People inside the room. Looks like fighting. Maybe Straffer, maybe Mark.)

She sweeps with her leg and takes her invisible enemy's out. There's a surprised cry and then a massive THUD in the dirt that brings up a comical cloud of dust. 

She leaps back up to continue running. "Company!" she shouts again, ducking and weaving as she runs for the door. 

The darts keep missing. Are they really that bad?

"My god," she says, getting into the kitchen and slamming the door behind her, eyes adjusting to the figures in the dark. Straffer by the door, Mark up against the wall. 

"Are you okay?" Straffer asks.

"Yeah, but they're in no-suits," she breathes: "And they've got tranq darts. Tell me we've got glasses or something."

"We do, yes," Straffer says, turning around suddenly. He's wearing a pair of black wraparounds. And he's got two things in his hands. 

One of them shoots a dart right into Martha's neck before she can even say anything. 

"What...?" she asks, feeling the drugs course through her body. She starts to fall before she can say anything more, suddenly realizing that Mark isn't just up against the wall. He's slumped there -- full of darts and barely conscious. 

"What the !@#$?" SPYGOD shouts, running into the room. He's got just a second to take it all in, and then, just before he can say or do anything, Straffer uses the thing he's got in his other hand.

Whatever it is, it makes SPYGOD jerk and dance like a puppet whose controller has just had a seizure. 

He drools and flails, unable to control himself. He falls to the floor herking and jerking. And when he tries to talk it sounds like a sped-up record.

"Don't bother, hon," Straffer says, standing close to him: "It's someplace you're not going to be able to get to, anytime soon. I slipped it in this morning while you were... compromised."

SPYGOD is trying to talk. It's not coming out well. It's shouts and tears and a question. Why?

"I'm sorry," his lover says, taking off the glasses as the door opens, and the invisible agents begin to come into the room: "I really am. I do love you, (REDACTED). I always will."

Again the question, sped up and nearly incoherent: "Thenwhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy y y y y"

"They promised me I could be in charge of the Space Service again," Straffer explains, having to raise his voice to be heard over the decloaking TU transports, outside: "All I had to do was turn you in and I'd be reinstated immediately. I'm sure they'll want to debrief me first, of course. That's how it works. But soon, I'll be back up where I belong."

More stammering. More crying. 

"Sorry, hon. I told you I valued my career. You'd have done the same."

Martha tries to fight the drugs, almost getting up to get forward and rip Straffer's smug, lying face off. Except that, before she can raise her arm off the floor, something steps down on it. A white boot, connected to a blue leg. 

A blue leg with a white lightning bolt arcing up it, towards a mocking, almost sinister face.

"Bonjour, Mdme Samuels," Tempete Bleu says, as his transparent men become translucent, and then fully visible. 

And just as she loses consciousness, she thinks she can see another face behind his own.

It makes her scream to look at it. 

* * *

 It's all about wonder

The power to be

Like thunder expressing

Electricity

* * *

(SPYGOD is listening to Axis (Pet Shop Boys) and having a WBC PsycHOPath)

1/11/13 - Les Hommes de Pourpres - (Les Trois Grands) - pt 1

It's noon in middle America, and two men are sitting down to eat lunch in a Burger King.

One man is old, or at least appears to be. He's got short, silver hair and is conservatively dressed in a blue suit, with a muted tie. He's also wearing nice, tasteful sunglasses.

The other is young, or at least appears to be. He's got long hair and a wisp of a goatee, and is wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt that has Nikola Tesla shooting Thomas Edison in the face. He also wears sunglasses, but there's something strange about them.

(Something just out of the ordinary, and purple). 

"Did we have to eat here?" the older man says to the younger one, looking down his nose at the lunchtime crowd sitting around them: "Really?"

"Hey, one thing about this place," the young man says, tapping at his sorry, greasy Big King: "No one ever listens into anyone's conversation. You could be talking about killing the old lady you got tied up in your trunk, and the worst thing that's going to happen is someone nearby will ask if you're Brad Pitt."

"That's highly unlikely to happen to me," the older man sighs, wondering if he really needed all that whopper: "But still, as far as things like this go-"

"I love bestiality," the younger man announces, just a little louder than needed: "Dogs, cats, parakeets-"

"Son," the older man hisses, looking around.

"Best time I ever had was with my neighbor's pet rabbit. I hugged him and loved him and banged him till his ears fell off, and then I called him George."

The young man smiles like a kid who just got a balloon from a clown. The older man turns white, and then red. But then, ever so slowly, he realizes that no one has so much as blinked an eye, much less looked in their direction.

"See?" the younger man says, smiling as he gets ready to take a bite of his burger: "We're cool to talk here, dad. Trust me."

And all his companion can do is sigh, nod, and join him in eating their lunch.

* * *

"This is insane," the President of the Terre Unifee says, shaking his head as he flops the paper down on his rather large -- and very empty -- desk: "Both of them?"

"Yes, sir," his secretary, Henri, says: "Last night, in fact. I'm not sure what could have possessed them to... well..."

"Kill themselves just after getting home," the President finishes for the young man: "In as messy a fashion as possible, you said?"

"Yes, sir. I understand the press is keeping certain matters out of the news for public relations purposes-"

"The Presidents of Australia and New Zealand go home and kill themselves, just after signing on with us," the President restates, getting up from behind his desk as if he's trying to achieve dramatic effect: "Is there any good PR left? Really?"

"Well, we don't know what's happened," Henri says, trying not to sigh as the President walks across the large, sunlit office to his well-used liquor cabinet for a drink: "There is a possibility this was an action by one of the last few holdouts, to send a message. Terrorism could be involved-"

"Then where's the badly-done video message claiming responsibility?" the President asks as he pours one, downs it, and then pours another: "Where's the intel we should have gotten about this threat?"

"It's... well..."

"It's not there," the President says, taking the whole bottle back to his desk along with the glass: "And it's not there because it's not there, Henri. This isn't either of those things. This is something entirely different."

"Well, sir, I don't know what it could be."

"Neither do I," the President lies, plopping down in his chair and pouring himself yet another: "Have a good speech written for me in an hour. Talk up how senseless this is, and that we're working with local authorities to get to the bottom of it. Have some answers ready for the questions I can't answer, yet, if ever."

"Yes sir," Henri says, stiffening as he gets ready to leave: "Anything else, sir?"

"Do we know where Brave Dreaming is?" he asks, almost absentmindedly. 

"Sir?"

"The hero who came with the President of Australia. The Aborigine. Do we know where he is?"

"No sir, we don't. He went home on the same flight, but after that, well... I'm told he vanishes. A lot. Walkabout or something."

"Find him," the President insists, pointing a finger: "Do whatever you need to and find him. I want to talk to him."

"Yes sir," Henri says, and leaves, wondering what all that's about.

The President nods, as if approving of that decision. He looks at the bottle and the glass. He thinks about the empty bed he's been sleeping in, the wife who won't speak with him, and the child who can't stop crying. 

He thinks about what the man told him, just after the ceremony, and how he brushed it off as some weird thing from a weirder man. But now he knows he was told the truth, and didn't listen. 

Now he knows to be afraid of the lightning.

* * *

"You know, I remember when these places had ash trays on the counters," the older man says, tapping the table: "Little gold things, I think. They had the BK logo in them, too."

"Yeah, McDonalds had proper ones. You had to wash them out and reuse them."

"I don't remember that."

"Well, did you smoke at McDonalds?" he asks, putting his last remaining french fry in his mouth.

"No. I only went there on Sundays after church. And my wife had one rule, then, no smoking after church."

"Must have been one !@#$ of a drag."

"You have no idea."

"Yeah," the other man says, taking a bite of his sandwich: "I don't."

There's silence between them, then -- sharp as a knife.

* * *

Ciel Rouge puts her hands on the table, in the Palace's otherwise-empty dining room, and snarls like a wild dog -- her fingers splintering the table in careless rage.

She wants to scream. She wants to howl and beat things until they break. She wants to run downstairs, through the dungeons, and rip open door after door to let all the prisoners down there loose.

She wants to smash through the system, now that she knows it has been corrupted. And she wants to break a certain individual, now that she knows he is the source of that corruption. 

Or has strong reason to suspect, at any rate. The word of a dead man's soul might not be good enough for the law, but it's gospel for her -- especially as there was no way he could lie to her.

(Though, now that she knows Foudre Blanc has been lying to her all along, she's not completely sure of that, anymore.)

But she dares not make a move -- not now, at any rate. The timing is all wrong, especially with an action against SPYGOD looming. And even if it wasn't, the means of her discoveries are still highly suspect. 

And would anyone actually believe her...?

But maybe someone would. 

Maybe, in spite of how strange Tempete Bleu seems about these things, she can count on him to back her up. Maybe she can get him to look into certain matters on her behalf.

Maybe she can use his clear dislike of Foudre Blanc to aid her against him, when the time comes. 

Yes. She will do that, then. She will wait until this SPYGOD matter is settled. She will keep an eye on the white knight she now knows to be a black villain. And she will cultivate an alliance with a person that, while she doesn't entirely trust, she can at least believe will do the right thing, if prompted -- or persuaded. 

But as she makes up her mind -- and wonders what she'll tell the others about the state of the table -- she can't help but remember that someone did warn her about Foudre Blanc. He told her exactly what their white knight was up to, even if he didn't give the whole picture. And he told her this freely, expecting no reward or quarter.

And in seven days, they're going to put him on trial for his life, thanks to the technology of a man who's sold the Terre Unifee out to a disgraced fascist party, populated their National Police with its members, and had those members slip supervillains into numerous other departments.

She doesn't disbelieve that SPYGOD is guilty of the crimes he's been charged of. His cavalier treatment of the lives of millions of innocents deserves its day in court, and, if found guilty, he deserves to pay the ultimate price. Justice calls for no less. 

But yet, there was something in the way he looked at her, when he accused Foudre Blanc. A shared disgust of what he was doing, and why, and for whom. 

A call for justice, even if from a condemned man...

No. He is guilty. He will pay. That he told her of this sad truth -- a truth she did not believe, but now cannot ignore -- does not wash the blood from his hands. Even the warlords she dispatched in Africa loved their wives and children. 

Even Hitler was moved to tears by what he considered an injustice.

And yet, she hesitates to turn her back completely upon him -- still. And that confuses her.

* * *

"So I bet you want the story," the young man says, after a minute or two of very uncomfortable silence.

"You bet right," the older man says.

"Okay," the younger man says, having a sip of his fountain soda: "I'm not going to tell you everything-"

"Now wait, we agreed-"

"We agreed that I'd be your ear on the inside. I didn't agree to tell you all the details. Trust me, you do not want to know some of this !@#$."

"This isn't my first rodeo, son."

"No, and it isn't mine. But at the end of the day I do not want to get caught with my !@#$ in the door."

"Do you think it will?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I'll put in a good word, son. You know that."

"But will that be worth a !@#$ when it all goes down?" the young man asks: "Really?"

"Son, what are you afraid of? We cleared all this before you went in."

"Yes, I've had to do some... highly questionable things since then" the younger man admits: "I've gotten my hands really dirty, here, just to maintain cover. And if it ever gets out how much !@#$ I was involved in, the last time I dressed up and played supervillain? I am so @#$ing dead." 

"And you think we'd just hang you out to dry? You're my son, !@#$ it."

"Yeah, and SPYGOD killed Hitler. Look where that got him when it all came out."

"Well, he was stupid, son. He overextended himself-"

"He took direct action, dad. In wartime. And that's something you should understand?"

More silence, and then a long sigh and a nod from the older man: "I think you'll be okay, son."

"Right now? Maybe. But I'm not sure which way the wind will be blowing in a month or two. And the !@#$'s going to get blown onto someone. And I'd like to go home with clean pants."

* * *

"Merde,"  Foudre Blanc says as he steps through a puddle of something nasty, there on the stone steps.

"What was that?" the person he's talking to via hologram asks, his unamused face floating over the hero's wrist.

 "Nothing," he says, answering the clod he wishes he didn't have to talk to "And no, I don't know what happened."

"How can you not?" Julien demands: "You made it to Marie's apartment, didn't you?"

"I did, yes," the white knight sighs, stomping down yet another flight of the ancient, stone stairs, a sheaf of plans in one hand, and a warm, paper bag in the other.

"And did you find anything?"

"I found a sink full of what was left of our person, yes," he says: "Whoever was there before me didn't have enough time to dispose of her, properly."

"What do you mean?"

"Nique ta Mere! Do I have to draw you a picture, Julien? They killed her, and needed to get rid of her. How would you have hid the body so no one could find it?"

Julien turns a little green at that, and Bruno takes that as a minor victory.

"At any rate, I sanitized the place. I finished the clean-up job they'd started. Anything that could have pointed to the group, or me, or anything else, I disposed of. So far as anyone who looked into the matter would know, she was just a nurse, and then she disappeared."

"And how are you explaining the death of Maximillien?"

"I'm not," Foudre Blanc says, finally getting to the bottom of this ancient, underground complex, and the dripping, stone tunnel that lies between him and one of the greatest secrets he knows. 

"What do you mean-"

"I mean that, in our line of work, it's perfectly normal for a Capitaine to be taken over by someone, be programmed to violate our security, and then be blown up by his new master on the way home."

"I don't understand-"

"You don't have to," the white knight sighs: "But when I stand in front of that salope rouge, all I have to do is make certain suggestions. And since she's got a suspicious mind, she can make the connections without any help from me."

"Ah, so your plan is to say nothing, and let them imagine everything."

"Yes," Foudre Blanc says, now able to see the door at the end of the long, dark hallway. 

"What about your blue friend?" Julien says: "You know how we feel about him."

"I know," he replies, not really wanting to talk about him, right now: "But he's easily distracted by anger. All I have to do is taunt him a little and he'll leave, and then it'll just be me and her, and that'll be that."

"But do you know what he was after?" Julien demands.

"No, not yet," the hero lies: "And if you'll excuse me, I'm here."

With that, he terminates the call, and stands before the door that lies between him and The Maker. 

"Old man?" he says, putting his hand on the door, and feeling the locks and tumblers within it stand at attention: "We have need of your skills, once more. May I come in?"  

For a moment, nothing happens. He wonders if he's come at a bad time, or is actually being denied, for once. 

But then the mechanisms begin to whirl and click, and the door opens, revealing a brightly-lit magician's cave of strange and wonderful beauty. 

"Did you bring my Beignets?" a strong but old voice demands from deep within the light.

"Of course," the white knight replies, holding up the warm, paper bag as he reverently steps within. 

(SPYGOD is listening to The Collector (Cerrone) and having La Choulette Fraise)

1/10/13 - Peur Bleue (Les Trois Grands) - pt 4

"Nique ta mere!" Foudre Blanc hisses as he sprints down the hallways to the exit. The phone of Nurse Marie Corisande keeps ringing, and ringing. But Nurse Corisande -- aka Madame Slithertongue -- is not picking up, even though she's supposed to be at home.

And he can't port out of this facility because of the safeguards, here.

There's no limit to how bad this could be for all involved. There's just a possibility that Corisande finally decided to flip on the arrangement with the Front Nationale, in spite of their efforts to get her out of jail. She might just have used her hold over that con Capitaine to get information on what's really going on at the Police Nationale. And maybe she's planning to sell it to a high bidder, get out of Paris, and start her life over somewhere else -- truly free at last.

It wouldn't be too much of a stretch, given her past dealings with fellow supercriminals and underworld types. She's a snake, after all. What else could they have expected?

But if it isn't the Nurse? If it's some imposter wearing her looks, and using similar powers of mind-control?

Then someone has clearly broken their operation wide open. Then someone is in possession of something that could bring that operation straight down, to say nothing of the NF, itself, and certain aspects of the Terre Unifee as well.

And that someone would have a piece of information that would make Foudre Blanc look very bad in the eyes of his two, ultra-powerful teammates in Les Trois Grands...

So he runs for the open air, knocking people down and cursing every step of the way...

* * *

The dead woman's phone is ringing and ringing. Nefartiti is grumbling and cursing, tossing every last piece of dead person in the apartment into the frothing sink with what's left of the nurse, and throwing all the Dark Alchemist's special dissolving powder she has left in along with it. 

This hasn't been the best-run job in the world. She will readily admit that, now. !@#$, she'll even tell that crazy robot they all work for that they stepped right into the !@#$, here.

But how were they supposed to know how big of a pile it really was?

All they had to do was infiltrate the Police Nationale's prison system, and get information on the super villains that the Terre Unifee was holding, around the world, so they could add the useful ones to their side when the time came. But how were they supposed to know that the super she'd been sent in to replace had been a supervillain? How were they supposed to know that the Terre Unifee didn't even know she had been one?

How were they supposed to know that there was another hand in play, here -- working the TU for its own purposes?

If things had gone according to plan, her and Husqvarna would have kept this deception going right up to the point where the big plan went down. But instead they walked right into two ongoing things that no one had any idea of. And, as soon as they realized the depth of their mistake, it was all they could do to get what they'd come for, burn their tracks, and get the !@#$ out. 

She'd convinced the Capitaine to go in and get the information, which he had done according to their admittedly-shaky, last-minute plan. She was currently getting rid of all evidence, which was not going according to that same plan, but at least going in that direction. 

Now they just had to get out of Paris without being seen, which would require Husqvarna to stand by and do nothing while she did away with the Capitaine.

Nefartiti walks over to the black box on the table. She turns the key, and the blinking red light goes solid. 

"Has it been a !@#$ing half mile, yet?" she asks Husqvarna, who's been oddly silent since their last communication.

"Yes he is," the man says: "I was just about to call you."

"Well then, this is for !@#$ing staring at my !@#$ boobs all night, you !@#$ing horse-eating yahoo," she snorts, and presses the button.

* * *

When Capitaine Maximillien DuNord was six years old, he watched with amazement while his father curb-stomped a black tourist in broad daylight. 

The man was from Mali, of all places. He'd been visiting France on his own, rented a car, and drove off into the northern countryside to see something off the map. And, just his luck, the car had broken down in their small, little town.

He spoke excellent French, but seemed a child in a man's body. Maybe that's why he didn't realize the drunken, violent men he approached for assistance were not going to aid him. Maybe that's why it took him forever to start screaming for a different kind of help when Maximillien's father and uncles grabbed him, tossed him to the ground, and kicked him for what seemed an entire hour.

And then, when the fellow seemed more red than black, his father dragged him over to the side of the street, adjusted his head just so, and killed him with one solid stomp to the back of the head. 

When the police eventually came, Maximillien could only stand helplessly by as his father was betrayed by his own brothers. He couldn't do or say much at the subsequent trial, and they wouldn't let him go to prison to visit him until he turned 18, by which point his father -- having fallen in with some disreputable types, even there -- had been killed with a makeshift weapon in the showers.

So when Maximillien got old enough to decide upon a career, he didn't choose law enforcement because he wanted to help people. He chose law enforcement so that the "right people" would be there, should someone like his father ever need help for doing the "right thing" for France and its people. And went into the Police Nationale because it was somewhere that someone with his temperament could be an asset, rather than a liability; the fact that he got to beat up negros almost every day and claim it was part of the job was just the icing on the cake.

So when his friends in the Front Nationale needed his help with their plans for the Police Nationale, he was happy to extend them every courtesy. He even went well above and beyond their needs, just to be sure that lovely, persuasive woman he'd met had everything she needed to do her job. And the fact that he got to help her with her unique and deadly methods of feeding and stress relief? A major side benefit, to be sure. 

(Who knew there was so much happiness in slavery?)

As such, any honest appraiser of Capitaine Maximillien DuNord of the Police Natonale would have to declare him a piece of human filth, barely worth the genetic material used to create his body, much less the biochemical energy needed to animate and maintain it.

Which is why it's bizarrely fitting that the scarab-like device that blows his skull apart is not only keyed to his loathsome gene structure, but also draws its explosive energy from his body's biochemistry. And he must have been a well-fed man that day, because the blast not only turns his head into a cartoon-like, atomic cloud from the jawbone up, but also takes out every window on his side of the street, and maims quite a few hapless pedestrians in the process.

"Well, !@#$," Husqvarna says, swiveling his sniper helmet's aim back to focus on the headless corpse as it stumbles a step forward, and then falls down on its con: "I had no idea those Scarabombs were so nasty, hon."

"Whatever," Nefartiti mutters: "Wheels up, Husqvarna. Burn your !@#$ and go."

"Totally," he says, re-acquiring Ciel Rouge a split-second later: "Just a moment..."

* * *

That was not a bullet, her Other says, but Ciel Rouge doesn't need that presence's say-so to know that. She'd have felt the explosion from the barrel, and heard whistle of the bullet through the air. She'd have experienced a slight sympathy as his head caved in on one side and blew out on the other. 

She'd have known it for what it was, and this was not that. Not at all. 

She teleports, quickly, to the side of his jerking, twitching body. It's a mess to say the least, and the smell nearly overcomes her equilibrium. But she commands herself to be at peace, on the inside at least, and her body obeys.

And then, before the pyramid-headed, would-be assassin on the rooftop can draw a bead on her, she teleports both herself and what's left of the Capitaine somewhere that the bastard can't see them. 

Somewhere she can have privacy for what must happen next.

* * *

At last, the well-guarded front doors to the prison facility are in sight, and with them freedom.

Foudre Blanc shouts for people to get out of his way. He screams abuse and hurls himself at them, making them come to heel. Confused guards shout and then flatten against the walls, knowing that if one of Les Trois Grands is acting this way, there must be some emergency. 

(And boy are they !@#$ing right about that.)

He leaps over the line for the body imager, making sure no one smuggles anything in or out. He powers past the front doors, running through an alarm as he does. 

And then, not three steps from those doors, he screams in anger, and then goes to electrify himself, s as to enter the maze of wires and cables that allow him to zip around the city. 

But something goes wrong, just then. He jumps up, but then falls down, right onto his well-armored chest.

"What?" he sputters, chuckling the readings on the computer on his wrist. Everything is charged and working. Why hasn't he transformed?

Why?

 * * *

"What the !@#$?" Husqvarna says, suddenly unsure of some things. 

"What?" Nefartiti asks.

"Nothing," he lies, quickly shrugging the sniper helmet from his head and shoulders, ducking down to get out of them, and allowing them to clatter to the roof: "Meet you at the rendezvous point. Out."

He looks down at the sadly-unused weapon, and says its self-destruct code ("Bring me cheese, love slave") at which point it begins to smoke, sputter, and turn to metallic sludge. 

"Nice," he says, admiring Doctor Playgood's handiwork. All he has to do now is get down the same service elevator he came up, get into the special car that's waiting in the garage -- the one with holographic screens for windows, to disguise its real driver and passengers -- and get the !@#$ to their air transport, just south of town.

And if he can do it without having to kill anyone, all the better.

He's about to turn around and do just that, but then someone's right in front of him. Someone dressed in a blue uniform, with red and blonde hair, and a very strange smile on his face.

(Made stranger by the fact that his eyes are closed.)

"Well, how about that?" Husqvarna says, looking at Tempete Bleu: "Figures you'd show up just after I melted my !@#$ gun."

The French hero doesn't say anything in response. He just stands there and smiles.

"Oh, the silent type, huh?" Husqvarna says, roaring up his chainsaw-hands and getting ready to throw down: "Well, let's see if I can't make you !@#$ing scream, you piece of !@#$. Been sneaking around too !@#$ much on this job."

Still nothing, except the smile's gotten a little wider.

"What, too scared to look?" the assassin taunts.

"I don't need eyes to see, anymore," Tempete Bleu says, his voice strange and echoing: "Let me show you."

He does.

Husqvarna screams. 

* * *

"Yes, we're about to !@#$ing head out," Nefartiti says into her communicator as she heads for the now-completely-sanitized apartment's front door: "He's meeting me on the !@#$ street, and we'll rendezvous at the agreed point."

"Good," the voice on the other end says: "I gotta tell you, though, this isn't going to look good-"

"Can it, Buzzard," she mutters: "This whole operation's gone !@#$s up into a sea of merde due to bad intelligence, and if you think I'm taking the !@#$ing fall for that, you've got your beak up your brainstem. Now fire up the !@#$ing engines and get ready to-"

A massive thunderclap interrupts her rant. It shakes the entire building, and makes car alarms go off all over the place.

And somehow, Nefartiti just knows something has gone wrong.

"What was that, lady?" the Buzzard asks.

"Never mind," she hisses: "I'm going dark. Don't take off 'til I !@#$ing get there, or I swear I will cram so much natron up your !@#$ you'll !@#$ dust for the next two thousand years."

And then she's out of the apartment, down the hall, and running for the elevator like the devil himself was after her.

* * *

Ciel Rouge appears in a small doctor's office, not far from the explosion. Nurses and patients scream, but she ignores them, and all but runs into an examination room.

"Get out!" she shouts at the doctor and patient in the room, just about to undergo a prostate exam. The two men stammer and shout, but then, seeing who it is -- and what she's carrying -- begin to be sick, grab their clothes, and run out.

She lays the headless body down upon the table, then. She puts his cold, dead hands over his long-stopped heart. Then she puts her hands over his, takes a deep breath, and stares at the empty space on the table, right where the head should be. 

Maximillien Emanuel DuNord, you have died, she lets the Other speak through her: I see you remain around your body, though you no longer belong to it. I see you should be gone, but yet here you are. I name you in-between, and I command you to speak.

In her mind's eyes, she sees that the space is no longer empty. A ghostly image of his head floats there, now -- his eyes wide and scared.  

What's happened to me? he whimpers, clearly terrified. 

You died, mortal man. We have already said this. 

I... I can't be dead. No... 

Be brave, mortal man. You have only left one hut for another. 

But... I had so much to do... so many more things... 

You should have done them while you could, mortal man. Now stop your crying. It will not do to have your new friends see you come unto them a weeping shell of a man.  

I can't see them... 

You are in-between. I can send you where you need to go. 

You... you can? the ghost says, suddenly hopeful. 

Such is my power, mortal man, for I am the one who dances between the worlds. I can send you to your Heaven, I can cast you to your Hell. I can even place you up above the gods, should you prove yourself worthy of it.

But I have some questions, first. And you had better be able to answer them...

* * *

A bright bolt of lightning all but explodes from the wall socket of the nurse's apartment. It hovers in space for a second, and then turns into a human form. Foudre Blanc stands there, looking extremely upset.

And with good reason.

Apparently, they'd upgraded the security at the place, last weekend. The zone that kept people like him from coming in or out had been increased some distance past the front, too. And had anyone told him? Well, of course not. 

But he'd deal with their !@#$ing incompetence later -- right now he has a job to do. And he'd better do it quick, because he can feel Tempete Bleu, nearby.

And he can tell that something's seriously off with the man, today.

 * * *

"So that's what all that was about," the blue-clad hero states, looking off into the distance as what's left of the idiot with chainsaws for hands burns at his feet. 

(The chainsaws are strangely intact, even after all of that.)

From here, he can see the woman he came here with running down the street. He can almost sense her desperation, and her fear. 

If he doesn't do anything, she'll probably steal a car, and then go meet up with the third member of their party. He can hear a peculiar set of jet engines, out there, south of the city proper -- sitting in an abandoned field, hidden from view. 

Not from him, though. 

He doesn't even have to wave a hand, now. He simply wills it, and the lightning comes -- sharp and jagged, and with a force that can topple towers, and burn cities. 

It's enough to turn the hidden plane (shaped like a Buzzard, of all things) into scrap metal, to say nothing of its poorly-attired pilot. 

As for her, he'll just follow, ever so slowly, watching her every illegal move along the way. And he'll do so from far above -- savoring the moment when she finally gets to her destination, and sees what's happened. 

Only then will he appear to her, however briefly before the end.

And he will show her such wonderful things before it happens...

(SPYGOD is listening to Ripe with Decay (Nine Inch Nails) and having an Electrostatic Ale)