9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 5

Keeping up, son?

I sure hope so. We can't !@#$ing afford to be caught out here by those metal-plated !@#$holes. Not only is it going to lead to a big !@#$ fight I'm not sure I can win, here and now, but the best weapon I got going for me, right now, is being dead.

And if they actually see me, well... there's that gun gone. Right before I really got to !@#$ing fire it, too.

Eh, don't worry about the security cameras and TV screens. That's what I was really doing, earlier, when I was walking around Beijing to clear my !@#$ head. I was really picking a safe route though the city, son. And I think I got the perfect one to get us to where we need to go, tonight.

Yeah, yeah -- alleys and tunnels and rooftops. Go !@#$ing figure. Kind of like Berlin after the War, minus the fog, supercommies, and pretzels.

And plus those Imago !@#$ers, which is really what we've been talking about all !@#$ night long, huh? Unit 731 plus Dark Star equals False Faces. False Faces plus Indonesia equals GORGON. And then GORGON plus the Object plus the city under the waves equals Imago.

And Imago plus 3/15 equals a big bag of !@#$ that we get to wade through for what may be a very !@#$ing short rest of our lives, unless we're careful, and !@#$ quick. And very !@#$ing lucky.

But that's me babbling like a !@#$ing brook, son. Let's get back on track here, while we wait for that Silver and Blue !@#$er I saw earlier to pass us on by, up here on this nice roof with its body-blocking, highly inefficient air conditioners.

Let's talk about The Object, itself.

What's the Object? Well, that's a good !@#$ question, now isn't it? Not a whole lot of people know it even !@#$ing exists, and no one's really been brave enough to try and study the !@#$ thing. And people who do tend to die.

And !@#$ing badly, son.

You see, it's one of those cosmically nasty kinds of things that really have no !@#$ing business even being in this reality. They come through and land here, and !@#$ up the landscape, and turn anyone and anything nearby into a mockery of what they'd been, before. And anyone smart enough to realize it tends to do anything they can to lock it the !@#$ away, if only to save others from !@#$, and possibly save the entire world.

Things like poor Gilligan's mask, if you want a more recent example. That god!@#$ed chunk of metal that turned him from a mild-mannered, decent man into a !@#$ing monster from beyond space and time. We thought we could control it, but we were wrong, and it took me decades to be able to !@#$ing deal with it.

Decades, son. And you don't want to know how much collateral !@#$ing damage I have on my plate from that thing alone-

Whoop! Duck.

...

Okay, think it's gone.

Now, that was Blue and Silver, again, but last time I saw him he was headed away from the center of town. Now it's gone back, again. Is it establishing a !@#$ perimeter?

Hmm.

Anyway, onward. Couple of blocks this way, I think... yeah. Keep it going, son. We're doing fine.

So anyway, this nasty thing that should not be appears, messes up the landscape for miles around, and attracts the attention of some !@#$ smart people. They realize it's a big disaster, and post guards around the edges of the zone of disruption. And it's so !@#$ing dangerous, they actually !@#$ing sealed it up.

That's right, son -- wise men in Africa invented the closed city concept ages before the Soviets did. They took their best, most dedicated soldiers, teamed them up with farmers and craftsmen, and saw to it that they lived, worked, and died inside a closed area of the jungle, just outside the distortion zone. They worked there, and never left, and had strict orders to !@#$ing kill anyone who didn't come to them with certain words and objects, for only they were allowed to see the Object.

After that, and a few sad but necessary deaths, there was only one man who knew !@#$ing anything about this thing, and he went so !@#$ far underground that most people today don't even know his real !@#$ing name. It's probably no small thing to say that we owe our lives to the Wandering Shadow and his family, because they kept that secret safe for thousands of years. He took the objects and words into his care, and then acted to stop or kill anyone who went looking for that !@#$ing thing.

And there were a lot of them, son. Too many to count.

You see, that's the weird thing about this thing. It sends dreams. People half the world away go to sleep and dream of strange cities, full of riches. And they just know, somehow, that the city is somewhere in !@#$ing Africa. They just have to go and find it.

Now, not every person out there that gets these dreams can do anything about it. But some can. And some of those dreamers are able to interpret what they see in their mind when they're !@#$ing konked out. So they stage expeditions, get money and helpers, and before you know it, they're trudging through the !@#$ing Congo, looking for gold pyramids and rubies as big as !@#$ houses, or something.

So what does the Wandering Shadow do? Intercept them. He does his best to !@#$ with their supply chains, send them down the wrong paths, mess with their maps, give them diseases. Anything this man has to do to stop them from getting to the jungle, and risk they actually overcoming the guards, he does. No matter how hard, how bloody, how brutal.

And when World War II happens, and the Nazis start searching the world for objects of power? The man figures out a way to trick the Allies into intercepting the Germans before they even get within 100 !@#$ miles of the edge of the disruption zone. He actually !@#$ing impersonates Field Marshal Harold Alexander to pull it off, and does it so well that no one knew what had happened until well after the !@#$ war was over. 

He's a man's man, this Wandering Shadow. I actually admire the son of a !@#$. All of them. 

Anyway, it gets to be the 1960's, and the world's gotten too !@#$ big to keep a secret like that, anymore. They can !@#$ing see the sealed off area of the jungle from space, now. Europe and Russia and America are all fighting over who gets to politically influence Africa, and it's only a matter of time before someone finds the distortion zone, and tries to exploit it.

And this time they might be more powerful than even the Wandering Shadow and his family to deal with.

So the current Wandering Shadow finally reveals himself to the right people in power in Africa. Then he goes to the ancestors of the guards of this weird-!@#$ thing, and shows them the proper objects and words. Turns out they're a hardy lot, these guards, and he takes the best of them back to civilization, and they become part of what eventually becomes the Organization of African Unity's strategic talents organization, BUSH. 

Oh yes, son. Them. The incompetent mother!@#$ers who didn't know what the !@#$ they were doing when it came to matters on this planet, but were amazingly expert on dealing with threats from outer space. There was a time when an ET couldn't even !@#$ing fart without them knowing about it.

But one of their primary jobs was to look after the blasted area of the jungle, and the Object within it. That job fell to the guards who'd come back from the edge of the distortion zone, and in that area BUSH did not !@#$ up. At all. They put more guards around the central guards, and locked the !@#$ing thing down like a champ. Missile banks, big guns, certain strategic talents whose only purpose was to watch the skies, the land, and what lay below...

Speaking of which? On your belly, now.

...

Him again? I wonder what the !@#$ he's up to? Is this a regular patrol?

Well, never mind. Let's keep going, son. 

The Object was secured for more years, thanks to BUSH. But, eventually, that organization turns into a !@#$ing textbook case of just about everything bad about modern Africa. Political infighting, political incest, naked aggression, and dumb mistakes cripple their credibility, but given the complicated !@#$ing web of loyalties and statures of those involved, you can't just get rid of it. It takes a massive !@#$ing thing to do that.

That massive !@#$ing thing happens in 2002, when the African Union supersedes the Organization of African Unity's. At that time, a number of things that people didn't like come under the microscope, including BUSH. So, web of loyalties and simmer conflicts be !@#$ed, they get partially replaced by NGUVU.

I say partially because some African countries still liked those !@#$ing idiots, and helped keep them around. Sadly, that included the current Wandering Shadow, who had a nasty feud going with the family of the man who was tapped to run NGUVU. And you can imagine this makes it difficult to deal with questions about what to do with the Object.

So what happens? NGUVU !@#$ing take the thing from where it was, and put it into a new facility. But people can't know what it is, or why, because that would be really !@#$ing bad. So, to ensure that no one knew what was really going on there, the only people who did, including the guards, were subjected to a very !@#$ing dangerous neurochemical treatment, the Seyoum treatment.

What's that? Well, it's pretty !@#$ ingenious, son. It buries the information so far down in your brainmeat that no one, not even the best psychic you can get your hands on, can !@#$ing get to it. The only way to unlock it is to take a drink of this nasty, top secret concoction that will probably turn your brains to goo rather than get the secrets out.

So you know you know something, but you can't remember it for the life of you, and what you'd have to do to remember it would probably !@#$ing kill you. How's that for secrecy in the modern world?

Well, we saw how well that worked, anyway. The head of BUSH gets taken into custody after I smash them for what they did to my kids. Then NGUVU lets him !@#$ing escape, just to see what kind of a weird deal he had going with and against GORGON. Then he winds up dead, with his brain wiped, and we find out the hard way that Dark Star can crash though the Seyoum Treatment with no !@#$ problem whatsoever.

And that's that, right? So much for !@#$ing African unity, and score one for the bad guys. 

So where do we come into all of this? Well, that's an interesting !@#$ story. How about we hide in this alley while I tell you?

Yeah, this smells !@#$ing great, son. Rotten cabbage and burned wet cardboard. Or maybe it's the dinner special. !@#$ if I know. There's places here where they pickle eggs in urine and sell them to you.

Anyway, me. Having this eye in my !@#$ing head, it opens up my mind to a whole lot of !@#$ that really doesn't make a lot of !@#$ing sense. At least not at first. Maybe later, after a few beers or some thought, or maybe !@#$ing years later, it'll finally hit me.

And when I finally saw that that city in the waves looked like? I got hit, son. Hard.

You see, when NGUVU moved the Object? I was !@#$ing there.

Oh yes, son. I was. They didn't know it then and they sure as !@#$ don't know it, now, but I got wind that something really big was on the move, in that one spot where BUSH had people on guard. So I figured there had to be something in there worth guarding, and kept an ear open for big projects around the continent.

After that, it was just a matter of being in the right place in the right one at the right time to see what all the !@#$ fuss was about. Sure enough, I laid low long enough, and was rewarded by being in the chamber when they !@#$ing brought it in. Three remote controlled robots trundled it in, carrying it in a clear plastic case, treating it like it might !@#$ing explode at any moment. And then they left it there and scooted out as fast as they could, leaving me all alone with it.

I saw it, son. I saw the Object, itself, and it was a strange, shifting piece of thin, coppery metal. I saw how it waved and curled at the edges, like it was a flag caught waving in the breeze, and slowed down. I heard it singing with a voice like a hyena crying, distorted and warped underwater, and then echoed across the stars.

And in my mind, I saw the same !@#$ thing that all those explorers and conquerors and treasure seekers must have seen. Temples and pyramids and towers, columns and slabs, arches and aqueducts. All time periods, all civilizations, all places lost and found, reflected within it.

The genius of all lost cities, there in my minds eye. Maybe the lost archetype of all great human settlements, sending out ideas to architects and artists throughout the ages, informing their hands as they shaped clay and drew plans.

And it promised me wealth and power if only I could get there and take it.

So I left that chamber as quickly as I could, son. I knew that, whatever the !@#$ this was, it was something best left alone. Something that should not have !@#$ing been on our planet at all.

I was !@#$ing petrified, son, and I still am.

But I wasn't so scared that I couldn't realize what I was seeing. It wasn't just some weird thing sending out dreams, son. It was the key to that fantastic city, and, more importantly, it was the map to get there.

And my eye told me where that map was leading, son. The Pacific Ocean. Not that far from where we had it out with Gorgon, back in February. 

And if I hadn't been !@#$ing distracted and second-guessing myself, back then, I would have known the !@#$ we were about to stumble into, down there.

So yes, son. That city that's risen above the waves? GORGON found it a long time ago, but they needed the key to really unlock it. And once they had the Object, they needed only get the rest of their plan into action in order to wake it the !@#$ up.

Which means that Dark Star wasn't !@#$ing lying about there being a treasure trove of weapons and tech down there. It just means that maybe she wasn't an alien, after all.

Maybe she was out there at sea, capsized, and her power picked that traumatic moment to wake up. Maybe she ran into one of the aliens from that city. Maybe she drank down his memories and became him, or her, and knew all that he knew.

And maybe she's been doing everything possible since then to wake that city up, somehow.

"Maybe." I !@#$ing hate that word, son. It's so !@#$... diffident. Uncommitted. It just says that you don't know something really !@#$ing important, and that you're left with guesswork and hunches.

But it's not a hunch to say that GORGON was connected, all along, to something !@#$ing alien, there under the waves. And they've been working towards getting that alien city up here since then, and finally !@#$ing succeeded.

And now... now we see what they're really !@#$ing up to, now don't we?

...

Okay, and this is our stop, right here. I am going to go into this building, and meet with someone I really !@#$ing need to talk to. And you are going to wait right here, in this nasty-smelling trash can, until I !@#$ing come out.

Yeah, yeah. It stinks in there. Better than being found by the Imago, right?

I thought so. Try not to throw up, son.

(SPYGOD is listening to Walking with Shadows (Gary Numan, extended mix) and having something with someone you don't want to meet)

9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 4

You hear that, son?

Yeah. That. The silence, out there, late at night in this city. Curfew's from two in the AM to six in the AM. No one's supposed to be out on the !@#$ing streets, much less looking out the !@#$ windows.

Me, I don't have to risk !@#$ing vanishing. I can just sit here and listen, and hear more than I really !@#$ing want to.

I can see the lights flickering, here in this !@#$ room. But I can hear the power being diverted. A steady, electric river, leading right out of town to that !@#$ing facility the Imago built, over in Luanping.

Yeah, son. The big, white box no one wants to !@#$ing look at. The one with a five of those metal-plated !@#$ers floating above it like angels on a !@#$ing Christmas tree.

The one that lights up like there's a big !@#$ rave going on, there, every night. Two in the AM to six in the AM, it's weird-!@#$ lights and strange !@#$ing noises.

And as for what goes on there, well... I can't hear everything, but I can !@#$ing hear enough. 

...

This world needs to be free, son. Soon. And as soon as I get the !@#$ing power, I will by God be the one to free it from these !@#$s.

Anyway. Beer. Swig it down, and let's consider the power we do have, so far. And that would be information, courtesy of the People's Republic of China, and their tendency to not know what to keep and what to throw down the !@#$ing shredder.

(Lucky for them old SPYGOD helped them out with some well-placed incendiary devices, huh?)

So now we've got proof positive that, unbeknownst to us previously, there was a definite connection between Japan's nasty body horror science facility, Unit 731, and GORGON, by way of Dark Star, the memory-eater.

We know that Dark Star has a really interesting !@#$ing story, including tales of having escaped from some water-logged spacecraft in the middle of the !@#$ing Pacific. A spacecraft filled with tech and weapons that could put Japan miles ahead in the !@#$ war, and maybe even win them the !@#$ing world, too.

Now, it later turns out that this might not have been completely !@#$ing true, courtesy of some digging on behalf of the whore-mongering officer who found and recruited her. But the truth comes so !@#$ late that the Japanese can't do anything about it before a certain Fat Man and Little Boy come around to !@#$ up their !@#$, and end the war.

But we never find out about this, do we? We arrange to have General Shiro Iichi, and some of his other Unit 731 alumni, hidden from view and shielded from postwar prosecution for the sick !@#$s they are because they had such well-documented information about spreading diseases, amongst other disgusting things. And to his dying day, he never !@#$ing says anything about this sick !@#$, and what she was doing there.

Now, the real question is, did the Soviets ever learn? They rounded up a bunch of fleeing Japanese scientists, put them on trial for the deaths of their Chinese allies, as well as their own people, and sent them off to work in a !@#$ing katorga. But they confiscated every !@#$ thing they found on those people, and we know they !@#$ing "debriefed" them, before and during their stay at the Siberian Sheraton.

And we know about the Anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk, in 1979. Boy do we ever !@#$ing know about that.

So do the Russians know a little more about this than they're letting on? Well, maybe. And maybe I should !@#$ing look into that, when I have the time...

But, important things first. We now also know that the first False Faces were made at Unit 731, by Dark Star, with Shiro Iishi watching and loving every !@#$ing moment of it. Which fits with the timeline I had before, after other Strategic Talents came back from the War and told me that they !@#$ing ran into !@#$ False Faces in the South Pacific, during that time.

Now, since that predated the existence of GORGON by about twenty !@#$ing years, we were never sure if it was a coincidence, or if maybe GORGON had stolen its considerable tech from someone else. After all, these were primitive ones, comparatively speaking. They didn't have replicator masks or bionic eyes, back then, and their suicide charges were shoved up into their !@#$ing guts, rather than in their eyes.

We also weren't sure if they were working for the Japanese or not. And now we know why. The High Command had no !@#$ing idea that Dark Star was sending these people out into the field. Everything they did was done for her.

Point of interest: most of the time my allies ran into those !@#$ers, it was in and around Indonesia. And where do Dark Star, Thunder, and Lightning vanish into the jungles of, just two months before the end of the War?

That's right. The Irian Jaya, better known as West Papua. Gold star, son. Have another beer.

So, time goes !@#$ing by, and then GORGON shows up in the 60's, along with a few other groups of science terrorist !@#$holes. We think they're just another such group, at first, but then we find out how they recruit people, and what their driving forces are, and we realize that we've got a real !@#$ing problem on our hands.

But, thankfully, we've got a system and they seem to stick with it. We spy on them, they spy on us, we all spy on each other at Outland, and things don't get too !@#$ing out of hand too often.

At least until I change the rules of the !@#$ing game by refusing to play, anymore. And then they get really !@#$ nasty, really !@#$ quick.

And when I do encounter them, after I !@#$ over ABWEHR, and decide to go after them, next, rather than HONEYCOMB, I make two interesting discoveries. The first being that they somehow managed to turn Deep Ten into their communications hub, which brings up a whole lot of nasty !@#$ing questions I didn't have the heart to ask Director Straffer.

And the second is that their False Faces are using gauss rifles that are just !@#$ing magnificent pieces of work, and unquestionably alien in manufacture. At the time, I figure they made a deal with some !@#$ing bunch of squidgy ET salesmen at a previous OUTLAND, and go back to defending my fine, gay !@#$ from certain doom.

I just barely !@#$ing get that fine, gay !@#$ out of there. And, after what happens, we eventually get back to tracking them down, and find out that the !@#$ers swarmed out of the bowels of West Papua, and evaced into submarines of uncertain make and model.

Alien-looking submarines, son. And they vanish into those !@#$ing tunnels that riddle certain parts of the floor of the Pacific Ocean, making tracking them !@#$ing impossible. Oh, and they're full of DEROS, too, so there's that.

A whole bunch of other !@#$ happens, and some of that does not need to be retread over. But, bottom line, we finally get up and go after their !@#$es, and we get ours handed to us. They've been down in those tunnels forever, it seems, and they have total !@#$ing control over the DEROS.  And I'm left with a broken Flier, a crew on the edge of mutiny, and a President who decides that now's a good !@#$ time to bench me.

More !@#$ing things happen that we don't really need to retread over. Have another !@#$ing beer, son.

Now, jump ahead to 3/15. GORGON has !@#$ing infiltrated everywhere, especially in America, where a whole generation of high-tech, anonymous soldiers called Specials turn out to be !@#$ing False Faces.
Then they cripple all world governments, using a worldwide collection of useful idiots who thought they were being handed the keys to their respective kingdoms.

They take over Deep Ten, and use it to blow the !@#$ out of anything that could be used as an air or space based weapon. And then, finally, the !@#$ Imago show up, displaying powers of teleportation and near-invulnerability to weapons. And everyone in those surviving governments gets told they were saved, except in America, where they're actually willing to be !@#$ing honest, since there's nothing the former Administration can do about it but look brave.

For all the good that !@#$ing does them.

...

And then, out of the middle of the !@#$ing Pacific, not too !@#$ far from where we fought that one, sorry battle against them, and lost, a strange city comes out of the waves...

Now, son. I know you remember my concerns about the Object, over in Africa. Remember when I found out that NGUVU more or less let its location slip to persons unknown, and how I just !@#$ing knew that GORGON was behind it?

Well, son, I am one of the few people on this Earth who actually saw the !@#$ thing, and knew where it !@#$ing was. And that just about cements my understanding as to what actually !@#$ing happened, here, with Dark Star and GORGON and that !@#$ing city.

And like I said, son. We had no !@#$ing how bad GORGON was. Not until now.

...

Come on, son. Grab a beer. We're gonna go break !@#$ing curfew, you and me, just for laughs.

That and I think we'll talk better on the go. I suddenly have a bad !@#$ing feeling about all of this.

And I know it's not a good idea to ignore any of that.

(SPYGOD is listening to Coming Up (The Cure) and having yet more Beijing Gold)

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But then, there is something else...

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

But how long it can last is unknown.

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

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

"Who?" Mikhail shouts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

"A risky game, Dosha," Khalil accuses.

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

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

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

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

That's the last thing he needs right now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you mean?" Khalil sighs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No more secrets," Dosha says.

"No more secrets," Khalil adds. 

"No more secrets," Dr. Krwi says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1/19-20/12 - So Cut the Rose in Full Bloom

1/19/12
7:20 IN THE !@#$ AM
HOTEL RIU GUANACASTE
COSTA RICA



Well, I'll say one thing for the Secret Service. They do not !@#$ around.


It hasn't been a full !@#$ day since the Governor of Texas, a Candidate for the Republican Primary, got his uptight, homophobic !@#$ shot at the press conference he called to announce he was quitting the race. And, already, due to certain "unfortunate" comments he made about me, I'm a person of interest in their investigation.


"Unfortunate" was their word. Given that "unfortunate" includes such snippets as "an embarrassment to this country," "drunk more than sober," and "a sexual deviant," I call them "obnoxious !@#$ bull!@#$." Either way, the Secret Service thinks said bull!@#$, however occasionally true, especially when I'm !@#$ drunk off my !@#$, was a logical reason for me to go ape!@#$ and kill him.

Also logically actionable, in their way of speaking, was his claim that I tried to "indoctrinate him into the joys of homosexuality," and had to be removed from the Texas State House. I can't !@#$ think of what happened in that instance, or when that might have been. I like to think that, drunk or sober, I'd have better taste than to try and cornhole that !@#$, but I don't know. It's just possible, even if I don't !@#$ remember it now.

(I have been having some weird memory blackouts, lately. Something to talk to Doctor Yesterday about next time I see his !@#$ north of the Ice Palace, anyway.)

At any rate, I woke up this morning about as hung over as a whale !@#$ after the truly epic party we had to celebrate the return to glory of The Flier, and there's these two, blacksuited mother!@#$ outside my hotel door, needing to talk with me. I didn't even know the !@#$ was dead, so the news came as some surprise.

I also didn't know the Secret Service was violently opposed to drinking on duty, which is just as well, as I sure wasn't keen on offering them any of the leftover champagne from the night before. That !@#$'s a grand a bottle, and I think I bought enough cases to fill the hotel's pool up three times over and have enough left to drown an elephant.

So if they want to be !@#$ about me offering, well !@#$ them! So much for interdepartmental !@#$ cooperation.


The investigation consisted of them showing me video of the assassination, which I did not need to see that early in the !@#$ morning, and asking my opinion while gauging my reaction. Which is !@#$ interesting: how are you supposed to react when you watch some poor !@#$ have the back of his head blown half the !@#$ off, stand there stupidly, and fall the !@#$ down?

Me, I had them rewind it about ten or twenty times, called up for room service to get me some proper !@#$ coffee, the more of it the better, and immediately went into Scooby !@#$ Doo mode. Which is to say "We got a mystery to solve, you pot-smoking teenage reprobates. Stop !@#$ the poor dog and put your detective panties on."

Of course, they weren't too happy to have me poke my nose in. Too !@#$ bad. By the time the coffee was there I was already skimming files to see how many invisible people we can currently account for, the availability of No-Suits, and whatever facts they wanted to give me.

It eventually turned into a really ham-fisted session of Quid Pro Quo, which I don't think I came out ahead in. I managed to learn it was three shots from a .45 caliber, done at medium range, straight on. I also learned that the usual equipment they use to watch for No-Suits did not go off, which means it's either some invisible !@#$ their watchers couldn't see, or one of our No-Suits, which do not have the flaws that give them away to scanning.

(I also got to read the rest of his prepared remarks. They nauseated me more than the video. Go !@#$ figure.)

On the other hand, the !@#$ learned what all I carry on me, which includes two .45 automatics, which are usually strapped around my !@#$ high heels for emergencies. I offered to allow them to take them for ballistics checks, and told them they could have access to our stores, though we don't have a lot of those pistols around. We prefer our agents use .50 calibers, as they're big, nasty, and hard to turn around and have them used on them given the training needed to even shoot yourself in the !@#$ foot with one.

I also had to hand over the keys to our No-Suits, which means that they are no longer undetectable by our fellow Agencies. They swore up and down it'd go no further than the Secret Service, but I believe that as much as I believe the one Agent wasn't a bigger !@#$ than Billie Jean King. Though she denied it, of course.

(I told her she could be out and open in The COMPANY. She told me to stop trying to bribe her. I told her to find out what Hell Month entailed, and then get back to me about whether than was a bribe, a dare, or a !@#$ warning.)

And then they were gone, back to catch some plane and tell their superiors things I'm really not !@#$ happy they know now. That and leave me to crawl back into one of these super-expensive bottles and get our taxpayers' money's worth.

Am I worried? No, not really. I mean, I didn't really like the guy, obviously. But he had about as much chance of winning the race as I have of being crowned Ms. Ladyboy of Bangkok, so there goes my motive. Plus, I was on a platform, watching The Flier get rebuilt from the atomic level up at the time he was having his brains turned to jelly on live TV, which gives me enough witnesses to cover my fine, gay !@#$ a hundred times over.

BUT.

I could have bribed them.

I could have used some time machine bull!@#$ to go cap his !@#$ at any time.

I could have used mind control or holograms to make them think I was there.

I could have !@#$ hired someone to do it, for that matter. Or ordered someone, if it's one of our No-Suits.

Worse, it doesn't even have to have happened yet. Maybe I didn't kill him yet. Maybe in a week, a month, a year, or sometime next !@#$ century I find out that I have to be the one to go back in time and do this because he was going to turn into a giant mouth on legs and !@#$ eat Houston like a big, gay bonbon if I didn't?

They wonder why I'm drunk more than I'm sober? It's because of !@#$ like this. Not knowing if I am really innocent of anything I get accused of, ever. And that is the dictionary definition of "!@#$ Terrifying," right there.

(I wish I could call Straffer and talk to him about it, but I suspect he's busy. He hasn't called me since the plan went off, and that was a really short !@#$ call. I feel like something's amiss but maybe that's just nerves. Or missing him. Or... yeah, that one word.)

I've got that petroglyph thing to look into, but I think that's a tomorrow kind of thing. Today I'm going to sit here, drink champagne and coffee, and wish I could be someone else, somewhere else.

I have the feeling this is the start of something !@#$ nasty. Or maybe it's already starting and this is just the first domino I've seen fall. Another definition of "!@#$ Terrifying."

Or "!@#$ Annoying."

1/20/12
11:20 AM
NGUVU HEADQUARTERS
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA 


The former head of BUSH wakes up in his cell, aware that he's got a visitor. He snorts when he sees who it is, though, and rolls over on his bunk.


"Go away, please," he says: "I told you people before, I am not interested in a link-up."

"Oh, this is not that, my friend," his visitor says, the iron door slamming behind him: "The time for link-up is past. Well past."

"What do you mean?" the prisoner says, rolling over just a little.

"Link-up suggests a meeting of two groups. A temporary blending of strengths to meet a challenge, or deal with a threat."

"I do know how my language works, sir."

"Yes, but do you realize you no longer have a group to link up with?"

That gets his attention. He rolls over and sits up, disbelieving.

"BUSH no longer exists, as of yesterday," his visitor says, sitting down next to him on the bunk: "NGUVU has taken control of it, at the urging of the African Union. Your more useful services, such as dealing with extraterrestrials, are being handed over to NGUVU to deal with. Everything else... well, I think there are a lot of underemployed men and women in Johannesburg, tonight. Many widows and orphans, also."

"How could they do that?" the man spits, disbelieving: "They do not have the authority!"

"Well, might is right, my friend. So long as you had some might to balance out theirs, you may have had a point. But then you had to be embarrassed by that SPYGOD fellow."

Oh yes. That. The former head of BUSH glowers and looks away, obviously not wanting to discuss the matter. But his visitor presses the point.

"Tell me, my friend. You are not a stupid man. You are well educated, well versed in the art of spycraft. What were you thinking, engineering such a colossally foolish scheme?"

"I was thinking it was time he was made to pay for what he did."

"You would have done better to pay back the people who fooled him into doing it."

"I do not accept his excuse. It doesn't make my great aunt any happier to know her husband's assassin was tricked into killing him."

"And there, I think, is the truth of the matter," the visitor says, standing up and looking down at the prisoner: "Ego, my friend. Pride. You allowed them to get the better of you. And now, you are a man without power. Without a country, too, as of this morning."

"What?"

"Yes, you've been washed away. Between the embarrassment SPYGOD dealt you, in your own headquarters, and some very upset Israelis, South Africa has washed their hands of you. As far as they are concerned, you no longer exist. Which means NGUVU can keep you here as long as they want. And that could be some time."

"What are you offering?"


"Who says I'm offering anything?"


"You wouldn't be here if you weren't. Taunting me is not your style."


"Who's to say it isn't? How do you know what my style is?"

More glowering. More looking askance. This isn't going well at all.


"But let's pretend for a moment I am offering something. What are you willing to offer, now that you have nothing?"


"I have a working knowledge of everything my organization has been up to since its inception," he says, trying desperately to sound as non-desperate as possible: "I know things that are not in the files. Operations so classified we didn't even write them down. I know where the bodies are buried, where the treasures are kept. I can be the best ally you didn't know you had."


"Which is, presumably, why NGUVU hasn't come in here, yet," the man says: "But we could always just use an N-Machine and take all that, which they may yet do. What can you do for my people that is separate from that?"


"Some of the information isn't accessible without certain hypnotic triggers," he says: "If you used the Nebylitsin machine on me, you would never get it."


"Which they probably know. Otherwise they'd be working on you, even now. They must be getting a hypnotist."


"They wouldn't..."


"Oh, they would. They will. You are no one, belonging to no thing and nowhere. This the price of failure."


"What do you want?"


"I want access to The Object," he says.


The man's eyes go wide and he gasps: "You... you know what you're saying? You know what it is?"


"Yes. I do. We need it. You can lead us to it. And in return I will get you out of this cell, and free."


He doesn't need to be told twice. He agrees. And when NGUVU's operatives come to retrieve him, N-Machine in hand, he's long gone.


(SPYGOD is listening to A Love Like Blood (Killing Joke) and still downing that expensive champagne)