9/15/12 - Another Blind Game

Addis Ababa
21:34 Hours

 "The Object," Khalil says to the late night visitor to his apartment: "You would ask me about that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," the mysterious man says from where he sits, in the shadows. A very nasty looking gun rests on his thigh -- glinting menacingly in the half dark.

"Why do you want to know about it?"

"Because it's in play," the other man says: "And I have a really uncomfortable idea who's got it, and why."

"I thought you would have known all about it?"

"Pretend I don't," he says, tapping his hands on the gun: "Indulge me."

Khalil sighs and sits down on his bed, across from the man, and lets his suit jacket slump from his shoulder. He'd just come home from another grueling, late-night meeting with what little was left of NGUVU's leadership, post-3/15, and found that he wasn't alone in his apartment.

And while the identity of his houseguest was not entirely a surprise, the fact that he'd ask about that was something of a shock.

"Alright, then," Khalil says: "I'll indulge you. And I should remind you that if you're deciding to finish what you started, back in January, that you'll be dealing with far more than an angry, pan-African intelligence group-"

"Threats are meaningless, now," the man says: "There is no cavalry to save you. There is no hope that you can persuade me to do anything other than what I came here to do. The best you can do is cooperate and tell me the truth, and maybe I'll just leave when we're done."

"And if not?"

"Then I'll just finish the job, won't I?"

Khalil sighs, and stands up: "I'm getting myself a drink."

"I found the gun you keep over there, already."

"I knew you would. I just really need a drink. Can I offer you one?"

"No thank you," the man says: "But make yourself a double and have some for me, okay?"

"Very generous of you."

"I try."

* * *

"So, The Object," Khalil says, after having both drinks at the urging of his 'guest': "It's always been something of a matter of pride that we managed to keep it secret and safe, here, far from you Europeans."

"You mean us White folk."

"Well, safe from outsiders, then," Khalil says: "Even in olden times, before we had our continent carved up into geographically convenient divisions, and there were only empires won through blood and struggle, and areas no one wanted, its secret was kept."

"It fell from the sky, didn't it?" the visitor asks: "It came from the stars."

"That is how the story goes. It fell to the Earth, deep within the heart of the continent. It struck the Earth hard enough for the sound to be heard for hundreds of miles, and yet when the locals came looking, there was no massive crater, or area of destruction. It was just sitting there, in the center of what had once been a jungle, like it had been there all along."

"So maybe it didn't actually fall," the other man says: "That could have been the sound of one reality giving way to another. Like what happens when lightning strikes, and the air is displaced. Pressure differentials."

"Well, perhaps," Khalil says, shrugging: "I was not there, as you might understand. This was thousands of years ago, and while what they saw and what they found was written down, that language has not been spoken or written since the time of Christ. Perhaps we have made mistakes in translation."

"But the gist of what it says is that the wise men who found it recognized it for the dangerous thing it was?" 

"What would be correct," Khalil says: "The jungle that had once been alive and lush was twisted and gnarled, and the beasts that lived there were dead or dying, with all the life gone from them. As they approached it, their minds were filled with terrible visions of a great kingdom, built on butchery, and filled with shining demons that smiled like panthers sighting prey. It was not a good thing to behold, and they sought to stop others from falling victim to it."

"So their solution was to take it and bury it as deep as they could," the visitor says: "And it worked, mostly. But the visions leaked, didn't they?"

"Oh, they did," Khalil says: "But in a strange way. If you do not look at it, the visions do not enter into your waking mind, but slip into your sleeping brain. And they go far afield to do this. It's as though it knew that no one around here would be tempted by its power, so it went to other lands, to tempt other peoples."

"And so Europeans looked to the Dark Continent, and searched for massive, rich empires."

"Yes. The legend of Prester John, the idea that Great Zimbabwe was some relic of a white man's kingdom, ideas of our great hordes of gold and jewels... all implanted by that !@#$ object."

"Well, I guess if they didn't get those dreams, there would have been another excuse," the visitor says, tapping his fingers on the grip of the gun, again: "I seem to remember the Muslims swept into Northern Africa to make an empire. Did they have the same dreams, or different ones?"

"I do not know. Maybe you should ask them."

"You're not Muslim?"

"Not anymore," Khalil admits, swirling his drink: "My mother raised me in the faith, but they won't let you into NGUVU if your faith is stronger than your conviction to their mission. But I was dead to it by the time I went to college, anyway. I really never could believe... and why am I telling you this?"

"I just have that kind of face," the visitor says, smiling there in the dark: "So, they buried it. The White Men came and looked for it. And they never found it?"

"No," Khalil says: "It was too well-hidden. But then came the War, and your Hitler decided that all the great, powerful objects of the world had to be his. So he sent some of his men down here to look for the fabled city, and the great object of power that sat at its center. His people might have been able to find it, given time, so..."

"So it was moved," the visitor says.

"No. Not just yet. It was guarded, and those who guarded it would be the ones who became BUSH, back in the 1960's. But over time, BUSH became something of a sad joke, as I'm sure you well know. And the NGUVU was made to replace it, after a fashion."

"In 2002," the visitor says: "And that's when it was moved."

"Yes. To a more secure location. And the memories of those who knew where it was were locked away using a very specific medical procedure-"

"The Seyoum Treatment. Deep hypnosis used in tandem with certain neural chemicals to lock down information. Great for storing secrets, not so great for getting them back when you need them. What's the casualty rate up to, now?"

"We've gotten survival up to 75 percent," Khalil sighs, not really wanting a lecture on safety from this man: "And the whole idea was to give them information that would only be needed if the stakes were high enough to justify that risk."

"Like needing access to the one thing the Object could really lead you to," the visitor says: "The great city with its shining demons with terrible smiles. Hidden away, somewhere."

"And Allah only knows why GORGON wanted it."

"Oh, I think that, if you think about it, you might come to realize what they've used it for," the visitor says, getting to his feet and taking his gun in hand: "And that makes that foolish little game you tried to play on the former head of BUSH all the more sad. If you'd been smart and killed him, rather than letting his contact walk into your prison and take him out of it, just to see where they went, this could have all been avoided."

"I guess so," Khalil says, looking at his drink: "So what are you going to do with this information, then? Are you going to go after them? Will you bring the Object back to us?"

"No, I don't think so," the man says, walking over to where Khalil sits, and raising the gun: "I think I'm to have a good think to myself about what I can do with this information, and then I'll see if I can turn it around to my benefit. Same as always."

"I thought better of you," Khalil replies after a moment, crossing his hands over his chest and holding onto his shoulders, as if cold: "I guess you fooled us all."

"I wish I could take my time with this, with you," the man says: "It's been a while since I've had the time to really let loose, and here you are, all helpless."

"What?" Khalil asks, his eyes getting wide: "What are you !@#$ing saying, man?"

"I'm saying that this gun's a weak weapon. It's made to kill you without even leaving a visible wound. One shot to your head and your brain's turned to jelly in your skull, but that's just too easy. Especially when I could have you all night long, any way I want, and then just leave you to bleed out on what's left of your bed."

"What..."

"Oh, don't be coy. You do strategic talents for NGUVU, right? So you've seen what happens when ordinary people get worked over by people who can throw cars and topple mountains, right? People with their guts half in, half out of their backsides, their jaws broken in three or more places by the stress and strain of having a steel hammer going in and out of their mouth, women bleeding out through what's left of their cunts..."

The man shudders, changing the angle of his aim: "I so love that word, don't you? It just sounds different, here. More direct, somehow."

"I have no idea what-" Khalil starts to say, but then the gun goes off with a sound like bees humming at a hive, and he's flopped backwards over the bed, shivering and shaking, his eyes starting from their sockets.

"And you never will, will you?" the man says, putting his gun away and leaving the way he came in. He walks down the hallway, gets into the elevator, and heads for the ground floor, confident that no one will see him leave, either.

When he gets to the ground floor he looks up at Khalil's still-lit window and smiles, wishing he'd had more time, but knowing that he can have all the atrocity he can handle once he's at least a few miles away from this building, and safe.

"Cunts," the SPYGOD from another, darker Earth mutters under his breath, savoring the taste of it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Faith (The Cure) and having a Castel Beer)

1/21-31/12 - Countdown to Catastrophe - pt. 2

1/24/12
4:41 PM
OBOCK, DJIBOUTI

The city is warm and dusty, and smells of the sea. Brick houses with flat roofs bake and waver in the sun, and noisy cars and quiet people mill by the other side of an impressive cordon, manned by NGUVU agents with guns.

SPYGOD looks down at the reason for the large cordon, his face implacable in spite of what he's seeing. He pulls out a tjbang stick and chews on it, relishing the moment of clarity when his heart stops and brain tries to die on him.

"So you see why we called you out here?" The large and tall NGUVU Agent -- who still hasn't given SPYGOD his proper name, yet -- says, moving up behind him.

"Yeah," SPYGOD replies, kneeling down and looking into the face of the former head of BUSH. The last time he saw this man he was throwing his fat !@#$ at NGUVU. And now...?

"I thought you guys were keeping a close watch on him?" he asks, an accusation by any other name.

"We were. But he escaped. He had an unauthorized visitor in his cell our security procedures were apparently unprepared for. They left ahead of our Agents coming to debrief him. And now, here he is."

Here he is, alright -- what's left of him. Sprawled on his back, his face turned up in a rictus of fear, pain, and the soul-shattering loss that comes from having your entire mind and memory ripped from you, one painful moment at a time.

The NGUVU Agents are staying well clear of the hideous sight, keeping curious civilians and what passes for a press in Djibouti at bay. SPYGOD doesn't blame them. The look in those blasted, sunken eyes is enough to make someone !@#$ sick.

"So he vanishes from your !@#$ headquarters. He's gone for four days. Sometime in that time he and his liberator come here, and then... this happens."

"He's been dead two days," the Agents says, kneeling down alongside SPYGOD: "We do have ample crime scene technology in this country, you know."

"Okay, so he's alive the first day. That's getting him out of Ethiopia."

"Actually, we think he was there the entire time. A chartered flight left the Obock Airport yesterday under what can only be termed suspicious circumstances. The body was found not long thereafter. The car seen speeding from this location is parked at the airport, not far from where the plane took off."

"And the plane?"

"Gone. Vanished off the radar over Yemen. We're trying to get the authorities there to cooperate with us, but-"

"Don't bother," SPYGOD says: "The plane's a !@#$ distraction. If you had anything resembling a navy, you'd find anomalous sonar readings off the coast from a few days ago. His liberator took a sub."

"And how do you know that, Mr. Quatermain?"

"Because it's !@#$ GORGON," SPYGOD says, lighting up a cigarette and ignoring the insult: "It fits, and what's left of this poor !@#$ clinches it."

"Do enlighten me, sir," the Agent says, not bothering to get up: "I do so love being lectured."

"Excuse me?" SPYGOD says, looking down: "You called me, friend. You asked that I come out here."

"As a courtesy, only. You gave him to us. We thought it best you know what had happened. And please do not call me your friend."

"So what do you think happened?"

"I think..." the Agent says, rising up to his full height, "I think you are right. I think this is GORGON at work."

"So you recognize her work?" SPYGOD asks: "The Black Star? This is her-"

"One step at a time, please," he says, waving a dismissive hand: "I know for a fact that this fool was playing both sides of the fence, claiming he was going to rid the world of that group at the same time he was making overtures towards them."

"... That I didn't know."

"Ah, then perhaps SPYGOD does not know all. But whether this fool hoped to loot their treasury and then entrap them, or simply string them along for the entirety of his career? That is something we do not know. And it is a question we may never solve, now. But the fact is that he and GORGON were well acquainted."

"Another fact," SPYGOD says: "She worked on him. That means she knows everything he knows. Including the stuff that he didn't know he knew, anymore."

"Your English is tortuous, sir."

"Look, maybe you didn't know this, but our friend here had some work done on him, back in the 70's. He and a number of other intelligence operatives underwent an experimental procedure that would ensure that certain secrets were locked in his brain, hypnotically. They couldn't be accessed by him without the proper trigger word, which were kept under lock and key-"

"Again, Mr. Quatermain, you presume too much," he says: "Who do you think developed the Seyoum Treatment? Who do you think has the trigger words under lock and key? We already know these things, sir."

"So you know what he had in his !@#$ noggin, and you just let someone from GORGON walk into your cell?"

"We did not let anyone simply walk into-"

"Then how in the !@#$ !@#$ did he get past your guards?" SPYGOD yells, getting the attention of the men on the cordon: "Don't you have anti-teleporter shields? Psychics to watch for invisible people? No-Suit radiation detectors? What kind of !@#$ operation are you idiots running?"

"We do not know at this time how he got into our complex," the Agent says, looking askance and trying to keep his cool.

"Bull!@#$," SPYGOD spits: "BUSH was toast the day before. You have an N-Machine, and if you're the ones who came up with the treatment, then you have to have a hypnotist in house. You just admitted you had the trigger words under lock and key. So the moment it went down, and he was as expendable as a day old muffin, you could have moved and gotten it all out of his !@#$ head and then tossed his stupid !@#$ in a dumpster. But you waited. Why?"

The Agent tries to say something, but falters. At that very moment, something goes wild in SPYGOD's very demeanor, and he grabs the man by the lapels and throws him down onto the ground. Before anyone can do anything he has his gun out and is sticking it between the man's eyes.

"Let me explain something to you, you arrogant mother!@#$," he says, ignoring the guns all pointing at him: "There may be things I don't know, but there's a lot more I do. I understand that you knew he was in bed with GORGON. I understand you knew they'd come to get him. I understand you knew why. So the only question worth asking right now is why the !@#$ did you dangle his !@#$ out as bait?"

"We wanted to know what the plans were," he admits, still trying to keep his dignity: "We wanted to know what their working relationship entailed, exactly. We injected him with radiotransmitters in his sleep and listened into their conversations. Or we tried to, anyway. As soon as they left the building, we lost all contact."

"Organic teleportation !@#$ fries most injected radiotransmitters, you stupid !@#$," SPYGOD snorts, shooting just to the left of the man's head. The blast knocks the man for a loop, maybe giving him a concussion. SPYGOD clearly does not !@#$ care.

"So you got nothing for intel, you got a dead man on your hands, and, worst of all, all the stuff he didn't know he knew is now known by one of the most !@#$ dangerous group of fanatics on the face of this !@#$ planet. Do you feel proud yet, Umslopogaas?"

The Agent doesn't say anything. He's shaking and bleeding from one nostril. Concussion, alright.

"Call me Allan Quatermain, huh?" SPYGOD says, putting the gun away: "At least he could !@#$ shoot straight. You couldn't hit the broad side of the planet with that dumb!@#$ plan of yours, !@#$hole."

"Sir, I think you need to leave," one of the guards says, sweating profusely but trying not to show his fear.

"!@#$ right," he says, turning to walk towards COMPANY transport: "You all call me when you're ready to actually deal with your !@#$-ups like adults."

He stops for just a moment, and then longer. He looks down at the head of BUSH, cocking an eyebrow. Then he reaches down, grabs the head with both hands, and pulls it clean off the neck.

"What are you going to do with that...?" the stricken Agent says, too !@#$ up to yell about evidence or anything of the sort: "Make it into wine?"

"I didn't kill him, so no," SPYGOD says: "But I know a man who's excellent with leather. I'm having this made into a hat."

All the way back to his transport he hears curses he's never heard before. He smiles wickedly, head tucked underneath his arm. This trip has been educational, after all.


1/25/12
10:34 PM
ALTERNET HEADQUARTERS
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA


"I don't understand what you're saying, here," Randolph's editor says, looking at the hardcopy he's just been handed: "Could you please break this down for me?"

"Well, look... I don't know that I really understand it all, myself," he starts to say, looking at the latte he hasn't really had anything of, yet: "But I do know one thing. Whatever they're saying about him and the assassination? I don't buy it."

"You don't buy it," the man repeats, somewhat incredulously.

"No. It's... look, you'd have to be around him for as long as I have to really get it."

"Get what, Stockholm Syndrome?"

"No. I remain critical of the man and his methods. But I'm not going to accuse him of something like that."

"I'm not asking for accusations. I'm asking for you to look for some proof."

"There is none."

"Do you really know that?" The editor asks, looking down his glasses: "You know the kind of people he surrounds himself with. You know the kind of things he's done in the past, both that we know about and that we don't, but we have a !@#$ good idea he did. Can you really say with any certainty that he didn't do this?"

Randolph tries to protest, but he can't: "No, I can't. But it just doesn't seem like his style. It's... well, it's stupid is what it is."

"And peeing on General Park's grave in Seoul wasn't?"

"He was mind controlled."

"That's what he says. I have a source who tells me that he's immune to mind control. Always has been, at least since he got that eye."

Randolph blinks: "He's... immune?"

"Yes. Totally."

Randolph doesn't know what to say to that. He finally takes a sip of that latte. It burns his tongue.

"So that opens up a whole lot of other questions, now doesn't it? What else has he lied to us about? What else has he lied to you about?"

"He didn't do it. I'd swear to it. It's just not his style. Or in his interests."

"We're talking about a man who blows !@#$ up because he woke up on the wrong side of the bed, Randolph. Who can say what his interest is?"

"America's best interest, at least as he defines it. He'd die before he did something like that."

"Uh huh," the editor says, reaching into his desk: "Tell me, Randolph. What do you know about the assassination of William McKinley?"

"Uh... what does that have to do with anything?"

"Just tell me."

Randolph sighs, looking up at the ceiling and thinking: "Turn of the century. McKinley had just been elected. Anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shoots him while he's shaking hands. He dies after a while, Teddy Roosevelt becomes president. Hilarity ensues."

"That's one way to put it."

"Yeah, and it's been making the rounds a lot lately. Assassination Vacation, that one thriller the other year. So what's the big deal?"

"Who was Leon Czolgosz?" he asks, handing Randolph a signed affidavit. Randolph skims through it quickly. It turns his blood cold.

"You can't... this isn't..."

"We can. We have to. Especially given what's just happened."

"But he didn't !@#$ do it!" Randolph screams, standing up from his chair: "I know this man. Whatever his faults, whatever he's done in the past, or had to do... I mean, you're reading this thing. It says he had to! But-"

"It says he's capable of killing anyone if he thinks he has to," his editor says, not deigning to rise: "And for all we know, he thinks he had to. Or maybe will, one day. And how would we know?"

"But... it'll destroy him."

"Maybe it's time he was destroyed, then," the man says: "I thought you were interested in the truth, Randolph. This is what it looks like. This is how we get to it. And if you'd been actually doing your job, and not just singing his praises in Libya, and then getting turned into a !@#$ babysitter for his Nazi clone kids-"

He doesn't get any further than that. Randolph's over the desk in seconds, hitting him. He bloodies his eye and breaks his nose before the office can react and pull them apart. It takes everyone there to do it.

A half hour later, Randolph's outside, shaking and pale. He's also unemployed, but somehow that doesn't matter right now.

He has to find SPYGOD. He has to tell him what's coming. And he has to do it in person, too, given that SPYGOD hasn't been answering his phone calls after that misunderstanding they had in Tanzania.

He's crossing the street, wondering how to get down to Costa Rica, when something slams into him. Things go white, then red, then black.

And the last thing he thinks, there in that blackness, is that he's failed a friend.

1/26/12
4:41 PM
THE FLIER

Dear Mr. President:

I kind of have a good news, bad news report to make.

The good news is that, as requested, The COMPANY has quit Guanacaste, Costa Rica. At of 815 in the AM, we packed up, cleaned up, and got our personnel and materiel out of the country. What we could carry away in a hurry, anyway.

That's the good news. The bad news is why we had to leave in such a hurry. It's the same exact reason you've probably fielded several dozen angry calls from the President of Costa Rica, as well as a number of requests for aid, and questions from the international media.

Sir, with all humility, I regret to inform you that we blew up the Northwestern part of Guanacaste.

Well, scratch that. We didn't blow up anything. It was the act of HONEYCOMB, which means it's possibly, or at least hopefully, one of their last ever acts. But as last mad acts go, it was a !@#$ doozy.

A few days ago, Agents, following up on a few things we found in what was left of the central HIVE, went to the nearby Guanacaste National Park to look at some petroglyphs by one of the inactive volcanoes, there. It turns out they were boobytrapped.

We're still trying to figure out exactly what happened. As far as we can tell, the machines we discovered there were set to cause the volcano to go off if it didn't receive a signal from the HIVE. And since the HIVE is inactive, well... it blew.

I don't have words to express how incredibly sorry I am about this. We had no way of knowing, but we should have suspected something like this could have been the result.

I'll see what I can do to come up with a good scapegoat to minimize PR damage, as always. The good news is that we've got at least one supervillain on the run we can blame for this, and she's a handy one to do it with, too, I have to say.

We'll talk later, I'm sure. I'll make certain my phone's available to you, sir.

Yours

SPYGOD


(SPYGOD is listening to Human Beings (Seal) and staying sober, waiting for the call)