"Okay, we all ready? Yep? Okay then.
"Man, I am not looking forward to this call. Not. At. All.
"Yes, I know we have to do it. I know it's gotta be done. I just don't want to say the wrong thing, you know?
"Yeah. It's kind of like arguing with your wife over something important, only your wife isn't going to threaten to cram a nuke up your !@#$ next time you're on the can. Well, maybe-
"Okay, we got him? We do? Alright, well, let's do this.
"Hi, SPYGOD? Are you reading me? There seems to be a lot of noise in the background?
"Oh, repairs? Oh, okay. How bad off is The Flier? The inspectors told me they had a hard time getting a tour of the stricken parts.
"Yeah, I guess it would have been bad to have them come back irradiated. That and they were really interested in talking to your people about what happened.
"Yes, I know you're not happy about that. I can't blame you, there. But I know you know why I had them do that. MMm-hmmm. Yes.
"Well, I think we both know why I'm calling.
"Okay, look. Now, I don't... look. Look.
"SPYGOD! Stop that, okay? Just stop it. Cursing at me isn't going to help things. All it's going to do is...
"Are you drunk? Are you drunk and talking to me?
"I know you're drunk most of the time, SPYGOD. But I need you sober for this. I need you thinking clearly. So you take one of those little red death pills you take to clear your systems out, okay?
"Yes, now. Right now. That's an order. And I know you don't like taking them, but we're not continuing like this.
"Okay, you sober? You with me? Okay, good.
"Bottom line? I am not happy, SPYGOD. Not at all. And I bet if you search that drug and booze soaked thing you call a brain you can probably remember why-
"Hey! Zip it! Zip it! I am talking! You are listening!
"We got that straight? Okay? Good.
"First of all, fair is fair, thank you for the warning about the phone. As a matter of fact, you were absolutely right. It did start ringing.
"No. No. No one answered it. I gave explicit instructions and they were followed-
"It went on for about a day, on and off. Why? Is that significant?
"No? Okay. Well, good. Hopefully that's that, at least for a while. Do you want to tell me how you knew, or is this another one of those SPYGOD knows all things?
"Fair enough. I wanted to start out with that because I wanted to be fair, but the rest of this... man.
"I'm sitting here, looking at that letter you wrote, and I can't for the life of me.imagine someone actually having the... well, let's call it what it is. This is !@#$ up, SPYGOD. It just is. I know you wouldn't tolerate one of your people talking to you like this. Why on earth should I tolerate you talking to me like this?
"Wait, what did you say? I didn't hear you right. Did you just say 'Victory is its own excuse?'
"You call this victory? According to you I was supposed to be able to go in front of the American people, right now, and tell them that, hey, sorry about that volcano thing in Costa Rica, but we just kicked GORGON's !@#$. Isn't that great? Vote for me.
"Yes, and I can't help but see that you did not call me. And I know for a fact it's because you got bad news to tell me, and for once you can't spin it around-
"Zip. It. Your boss is on a roll, SPYGOD. Don't interrupt. We'll get to your side of the story later. Okay?
"Okay. So, you tell me !@#$ you. You say I'm not a man because, unlike you, I tried to have my ducks in a row before I went into a potentially dangerous situation, namely firing you. And then you told me I was going to have this victory to sail on, and no one would care about any of those mistakes and near-disasters and actual disasters you've caused over the last year because of that victory.
"Well, there is no victory, SPYGOD. There is nothing I can tell the American people, other than the reason their cruise ships had heavy waves and their lovely Hawaiian beaches are full of washed up dead men is because you went after one of the most dangerous organizations on the planet, and !@#$ up.
"Well, no, I haven't actually asked them what they think. Most of them don't even know where Costa Rica is on the map, I'm sorry to say. But I have heard from their elected representatives. You know, the ones you think you have so much dirt on they'd rather jump into a pool of live, rabid weasels than say so much as boo to you?
"Yes. Well, they're saying boo, SPYGOD. I got the leaders of both parties behind me, now. And they are unanimous in their belief that you need to go.
"Yes. Yes they are. In fact, they're accusing me of stalling on the issue. I went to them a couple weeks ago to try and get support, and they said no. And now they're asking me why I didn't come to them? I guess you just can't win-
"No, I bet you don't want to hear about any of that. I'm sorry.
"Yes, SPYGOD. I am formally asking you to tender your resignation to me-
"No. No. Stop that !@#$. I don't want to hear about this being a battle and not the war. I don't want to hear about any of that. I heard every word of what you said to your men, yesterday, and maybe-
"Yes, I did. Someone taped it. I got it. Sometimes the President hears all, too.
"Anyway. Maybe they went for it, but I didn't. I've had it with your arrogance and unwillingness to face reality, or man up and accept the consequences of your failures.
"Oh no, that's not all. I've had enough of your cowboy nonsense. I've had it with waiting by the phone for news of the next disaster you didn't tell me was about to happen. I've really had it with reporters blindsiding me with questions about those disasters. I've had enough of you being dead and then alive and then dead and alive again. I've had it with your sleeping with the enemy. And I've had it with your constantly surly attitude and threats.
"Yes, threats. You're about to threaten me about Mr. USA. Don't. I've got that situation in hand.
"Yes, and the CIA matter, too. They're both being handled.
"No, you don't need to know by whom. That's no longer your concern. That's part of what happens when you don't work for us, anymore. You don't need to know, so you don't get to know.
"See, that's most of your problem right there. You killed Hitler in 1945. That was almost 70 years ago, SPYGOD. How long can you write checks on that bank account?
"Yes, I am aware of all the things you've done for this country since then. I am aware and I am grateful. But gratitude only goes so far.
"Well, maybe. But that's something I've had to learn since I moved into this place. You can't use your past successes to excuse massive failures, especially when most of the failures come about because you've convinced yourself, based on those successes, that you can't fail. No one and no thing is too big to fail, SPYGOD. Not even you. Sometimes you just have to man up and admit it-
"Yes, you were a man before I was even born. So how come I'm the one acting like the grown-up in this conversation?
"Oh please. Please. SPYGOD, rogue agent? How long do you think you could pull that off before it ended? Maybe you could get the Agents on board, but how long before you can't pay them, anymore?
"Yes, I know you've got money God doesn't even know about, SPYGOD. But eventually it's going to run out. And we will come for you. You know that.
"Yes. We have to. The Flier isn't yours. The Heptagon isn't yours. We let you live in the B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. Everything you have and use is Government property, SPYGOD. The moment you hand over the badge, you lose the gun. You of all people should know that.
"Yes, I've been thinking about that. The truth is that I don't know. Since you are technically a Super, yourself, whomever takes over The COMPANY next is going to be your boss, and you'll have to answer to him or her.
"I do have some people in mind, yes. But-
"No, not Mr. USA. Not him, not ever. We're in agreement on that, and hopefully that will soon be a moot point, anyway.
"Yes, that was me throwing you a bone. You're welcome.
"Well, you want my advice? I know you might not want to take it, but...
"Okay. You know what? In a way, I envy you. You're immortal. You're hard to kill. You have opportunities and abilities I could guess at. Why are you doing what you're doing, anyway?
"Yes,. well, I love my country, too. But when I stop living in this White House, whether that's next year or four years from now, I am going to take one !@#$ of a long vacation. Me and the wife and kids. Just get away from this office and all the !@#$ that comes with it. Because it's nasty !@#$, sometimes. And, to be honest, I really wouldn't want to jump into being an ex-President.
"Yes, especially if I lose in November. That's not a threat, is it?
"...
"Thank you for that. I appreciate that.
"So what I was saying? Why not disappear for a while? Take a year. !@#$, take five or ten. You're immortal and you have more than enough money. What's ten years?
"No. No one will come after you. I will see to it you're not bothered. I think your country owes you that much.
"Well, so long as you keep your head down and don't !@#$ with anything. You can do that, right?
"Okay then. Well, why don't you come to the White House in a couple days? We'll meet, we'll do this thing, and we'll find some way to spin it so we all come out looking good.
"Yeah, well, what's a few lies more? I figure you owe me one or two.
"Okay then.
"You know, that's funny, I was thinking about that conversation, too. I remember you sitting down with me, early on, and telling me that intelligence was like a big, ratty carpet up on the wall. It looked nasty and poorly thrown together, and there were all these little strings hanging off it, but whatever I did I should resist pulling. Because if I did, it'd all fall apart, and I wouldn't like cleaning it up.
"Yeah. So was that your way of saying 'stay out of my way,' then?
"Oh. Well, I didn't think about it like that. Heh. That's.. yeah, that's good.
"Okay, so a couple days? I'll keep quiet about it, you avoid blowing up Sri Lanka, and we'll be good.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, too. Okay. Goodbye.
"...
"Okay. Wow. I can't believe I actually lived through that. Am I the only one here who thinks that went way too easy?
"So, should we be worried, then?"
(The President is listening to 3 Libras (A Perfect Circle) and having a Yuengling)
Showing posts with label costa rica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label costa rica. Show all posts
Friday, February 24, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
1/21-31/12 - Countdown to Catastrophe - pt. 3
1/27/12
12:00 PM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON DC
My Fellow Americans:
Yesterday, at about 8 in the morning, Eastern time, while most of us were either getting ready for Church, or sleeping, a horrendous tragedy took place in the nation of Costa Rica.
The Orosi volcano in the Guanacaste National Park, long thought inactive, erupted with full and terrifying force. The resulting volcanic cloud killed tens of thousands of people, and has done millions, perhaps billions, in property damage. The human cost is, of course, incalculable.
As with any such tragedy, the United States of America stands ready to provide aid and support. We have already taken steps to do so, sending much-needed rescue workers and evacuation teams to the stricken areas. With their expertise, and God's help, we will do what we can to help our neighbor and friend.
But, in this case, that's not nearly enough. And that is why, on behalf of the United States of America, I am offering a full and complete apology for this disaster.
For some time now, the Agency known as The COMPANY has been in Costa Rica, dealing with the aftermath of what we had hoped was the final battle with the science terrorist organization, HONEYCOMB. We had destroyed their Central HIVE, and taken several steps to ensure that no more of their remote bases would be activated once it was gone.
I was personally assured by its commander, SPYGOD, that the matter was dealt with, and we were safe. Unfortunately, he was wrong. The matter was not completely dealt with, and we were not as safe as we thought we were.
Exactly what happened, yesterday, is still being assessed. The best explanation we have is that the volcano was altered by HONEYCOMB to go off in the event that the Central HIVE was knocked out.
Why it waited this long before exploding, or what we could have done to stop this matter, are questions we do not yet have the answer to. I promise here and now that we will have those answers, and when we do, I will make them known, both to you, and to the world community.
There are those who may say that, given the nature of the foe we faced, this is not really our fault. They say that in the same way that any occupying army might insist it was not their fault if someone stepped on a landmine left behind by the army they'd just defeated. They can only remove so many dangers at a time, after all.
But I reject that argument. We are responsible. We went in there, knowing that we dealt with a foe that was willing to create terrible doomsday weapons. We went in there knowing that they weren't above poisoning the well, or watching the world burn if they couldn't have it.
We went in there unprepared for all that we found, and this lack of preparedness has cost the nation of Costa Rica dearly.
It is a sad and sorrowful thing to see such a tragedy unfold before our eyes. It is even more sad and sorrowful to know that we are, at least in some part, responsible for its happening. But words like "I'm sorry" and "We made a terrible mistake" have little meaning unless they are backed up with direct and resolute action.
To that end, I have directed that all the rescue vehicles and agencies suited to handle this crisis make themselves available to the President and the people of Costa Rica. I have also directed the appropriate agencies to stand by with any monetary assistance that nation may require, both to respond to this crisis, and to eventually rebuild its Northwesternmost part.
I hope that our actions here today will assure the nation of Costa Rica, as well as the entire world, that the United States of America is a responsible nation, capable of not only admitting its mistakes, but taking steps to fix those mistakes when they occur.
As your President, I promise here and now that I will do what I can to ensure that something like this never happens again. There will be a full, high-level re-evaluation of how our various Agencies are comporting themselves in the War on Super Terrorism, and new, stricter guidelines issued, and followed up on.
Again, on behalf of the American people, I apologize to the Nation and the People of Costa Rica, their neighbors, and the world. We will fix this. You have my word.
Thank you, God bless us, and good afternoon.
(The President leaves the podium without answering any questions)
1/28/12
2:13 PM
SAN FRANCISCO
Oh, what a completely !@#$ day this has turned out to be.
First up, I finally get a call from the President, after about 48 frantic hours of trying to peg his !@#$ down for a conversation, and about 24 after he goes on the !@#$ television and cops a plea to the whole !@#$ world before even giving my plan a listen.
How did that conversation go? Well, there's smelly !@#$, there's deep !@#$, and there's bad !@#$. This one stunk so !@#$ bad you couldn't get away from the stench, no matter how big and deep you buried it.
(Yeah, it's not the greatest metaphor in the world. !@#$ it. I got nothing right now.)
The end result? We yelled at each other for about half an hour, with him telling me that this time I went too far, me telling him this wasn't really our !@#$ fault, and he should have just !@#$ went with my plan, him telling me he was sick and tired of me pulling supervillains out of the hat to use as patsies when I make a mistake, me telling him that's what they're !@#$ there for, and didn't we do that last time, and him telling me he was never happy about that, and me calling him a !@#$ wimp and a hypocrite and making us look weak and spineless right when I'm about to go up against the worst group of them all.
And then, he says the words. I know those words have been coming for some time, now, but I didn't know they'd be today.
The words are "I think you should really consider stepping down before I have to find a way to make you."
Well, you can imagine how the conversation went from there. I won't bore you with the details. But by the end my communicator was !@#$ melting. I can only imagine how his desk phone looked.
(To be continued? I sure as !@#$ hope not.)
Then, just as I'm getting my backup communicator out, I get a call from Karl. He's in San Francisco. Could I come as soon as possible? Randolph's been badly hurt.
I get to the hospital soon as !@#$ ten minutes before he called, and he takes me to where his brothers and sisters have been for the last few days. He went to a meeting with his editor and was supposed to just be gone a few hours, and when it got to be Midnight Karl started looking. He didn't have to look further than the news.
What happened? Of all the !@#$ things: poor Randolph got his !@#$ run over by a !@#$ bicycle courier. Dumb !@#$ ran him down while he was crossing the street, and then took off as soon as the ambulance got there, cursing the kid out for not looking both ways.
(Isn't that just a fitting capstone for his career?)
Fractured skull. Possible cranial bleeding. May have lost a !@#$ eye when his cheekbone went into his socket on the way down, but they're not sure how badly damaged it is, yet. Keeping his brains from being squished out his ears by the pressure is their number one priority,
So they've put him into a medical coma, hoping to slow things down enough so that the body can heal without any added stress. Hopefully he comes out without a substantial loss of IQ or faculties.
Hopefully rabbits fly out of my !@#$ with easter baskets full of grenades and combat knives.
The kids are strangely serene about this. Karl tells me they cried when they heard, and then, as soon as they got here, realized they needed to be brave for him. Pragmatic, I think he said, nodding at me like I would understand, somehow.
And I do, really. This is all part of the upbringing we were trying to !@#$ save them from. Maybe not a bad thing, overall, but these kids shouldn't have to act like they're on a firing line, somewhere, watching their buddies die and reminding themselves they have to mourn later.
Have to feel later.
These kids should !@#$ be kids. They should go see the world, have fun, have the kind of life they wouldn't have had if we'd never invaded the !@#$ Ice Palace, and just left them there to rot with ABWEHR.
Just like we would have done, if I had waited until we were 101% prepared for any and all eventualities before going down to Antarctica and blowing those super nazis out of the !@#$ ice for once and for all. We'd have never gone in at all.
And these kids would be down there, licking !@#$ out from between their masters' toes and waiting in fear of the day they looked more edible than !@#$able.
I got a million other phone calls coming into my phone, right now. Doctor Yesterday yapping about some other problem down in the Ice Palace, Myron wanting to sob about !@#$ing up, again, my Second wanting to know what now, !@#$holes pestering my media consultants, Congresspeople talking hearings, even a Presidential candidate or two wanting to talk strategy.
I let the phone ring and ring. I'm going to sit here, tonight, with the kids I saved from !@#$, and the person I failed to mend fences with, and have a think about what to do next.
(I wish Straffer would call. I really do. I could use hearing his voice, right about now. He'd probably have a good idea.)
1/29/12
4:30 PM
THE FLIER
Second walks down the halls to his room, sighing as he goes. If he didn't have so much on his plate right now, he'd be hitting the sauce before he got there. As it is, in SPYGOD's absence, he's having to maintain a certain standard of decorum, if only because his boss won't.
Where is he, anyway? He spent the night in Frisco, and when he checked in this morning he said something about seeing a man about a horse before he hung up, but that seems a little weird. He's not even on the tracker right now, which is worrisome in and of itself. But if the boss wants some privacy, then so be it.
(He's earned it, after the last few days.)
"I hope you get here soon, sir," he says, typing the combination into his door lock and going in, taking a moment to salute some Agents as they mill past. They salute back, and for a moment, just a moment, he feels something prickle up on his neck.
He's about to go into his room. He stops. He closes the door, instead, and, and turns to follow the Agents. He catches them in mid-turn, and then they try to continue the way they were heading, however clumsily.
"Excuse me, Agents," he says, wondering why they don't look at all familiar. Did they come on board three days ago, when they took on new people and materiel?
There's no reply. They keep walking.
"Agents?" He repeats: "I was wondering if you could help me with something."
They start running without looking back. He draws his sidearm and calls for a general alert. The red lights start flashing and the klaxon sounds like a sick, robot duck, honking over and over again.
He shouts for them to stop and fires a single warning shot. Neither of them obey. He could call it security here and now, and let the N-machine tell their story, but something tells him to pursue instead of kill.
He might learn something on the way, after all.
So he runs. They lead him and the security personnel that aggregate onto him like magnets through the length and breadth of The Flier, almost slowing down enough to shoot on more than one occasion, but then ducking and running just quickly enough to avoid getting tagged.
Finally, there's nowhere left to run. They're on the upper flight deck, on the end with no transports. They stand there, backs to the line of Agents and their drawn guns, all shouting for them to get down, now. Get the !@#$ down, now! Kneel down, cross your legs! DO IT NOW!
They don't. They stand there, side by side, instead. Apparently waiting.
"There's two ways we can do this," Second says, walking just a little closer, his sidearm raised to maximum firing position: "The first way is that we shoot you. The second is you step back here and we talk."
"You forgot the third way," one says, his voice soft and gentle.
"The third way is down," the other says, his voice a near mirror of the other.
"There's no sense being stupid," Second says, although he now knows how stupid he's been.
(No doubt these two were just backup. The real person they should have been concerned about was waiting in the room. They were just a failsafe. And now that they chased them, whomever was in his room is probably long gone. Or lurking for another try.)
"Love is never stupid," one of them says, taking the other's hand.
"Love will conquer all," the other replies, as they look at each other, smiling.
Their faces look beatific as they jump. The Second never gets a good look at them, but something about their eyes distinctly unnerves him.
There's a massive explosion, ten seconds later, right where they would have been. It's too far down to affect The Flier, but any chance The COMPANY had of salvaging the bodies and doing the usual postmortem memory extraction is gone.
"This ship gets locked down now," Second says: "Total search. Everything and everyone. I want all internal security recordings for the last three days. I want access to my own room's cameras. I want... !@#$ it, I want everything. In my office. Five minutes ago."
The Agents scramble to get him what he wants, but somehow he knows it's too late. Someone just tried to do him in, and he blew the followthrough.
"!@#$!" He yells, not caring if it's a massive failure of decorum. Sometimes it's the only thing to do.
(SPYGOD is listening to Deep Water (Seal) and having something unknown, somewhere unknown)
12:00 PM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON DC
My Fellow Americans:
Yesterday, at about 8 in the morning, Eastern time, while most of us were either getting ready for Church, or sleeping, a horrendous tragedy took place in the nation of Costa Rica.
The Orosi volcano in the Guanacaste National Park, long thought inactive, erupted with full and terrifying force. The resulting volcanic cloud killed tens of thousands of people, and has done millions, perhaps billions, in property damage. The human cost is, of course, incalculable.
As with any such tragedy, the United States of America stands ready to provide aid and support. We have already taken steps to do so, sending much-needed rescue workers and evacuation teams to the stricken areas. With their expertise, and God's help, we will do what we can to help our neighbor and friend.
But, in this case, that's not nearly enough. And that is why, on behalf of the United States of America, I am offering a full and complete apology for this disaster.
For some time now, the Agency known as The COMPANY has been in Costa Rica, dealing with the aftermath of what we had hoped was the final battle with the science terrorist organization, HONEYCOMB. We had destroyed their Central HIVE, and taken several steps to ensure that no more of their remote bases would be activated once it was gone.
I was personally assured by its commander, SPYGOD, that the matter was dealt with, and we were safe. Unfortunately, he was wrong. The matter was not completely dealt with, and we were not as safe as we thought we were.
Exactly what happened, yesterday, is still being assessed. The best explanation we have is that the volcano was altered by HONEYCOMB to go off in the event that the Central HIVE was knocked out.
Why it waited this long before exploding, or what we could have done to stop this matter, are questions we do not yet have the answer to. I promise here and now that we will have those answers, and when we do, I will make them known, both to you, and to the world community.
There are those who may say that, given the nature of the foe we faced, this is not really our fault. They say that in the same way that any occupying army might insist it was not their fault if someone stepped on a landmine left behind by the army they'd just defeated. They can only remove so many dangers at a time, after all.
But I reject that argument. We are responsible. We went in there, knowing that we dealt with a foe that was willing to create terrible doomsday weapons. We went in there knowing that they weren't above poisoning the well, or watching the world burn if they couldn't have it.
We went in there unprepared for all that we found, and this lack of preparedness has cost the nation of Costa Rica dearly.
It is a sad and sorrowful thing to see such a tragedy unfold before our eyes. It is even more sad and sorrowful to know that we are, at least in some part, responsible for its happening. But words like "I'm sorry" and "We made a terrible mistake" have little meaning unless they are backed up with direct and resolute action.
To that end, I have directed that all the rescue vehicles and agencies suited to handle this crisis make themselves available to the President and the people of Costa Rica. I have also directed the appropriate agencies to stand by with any monetary assistance that nation may require, both to respond to this crisis, and to eventually rebuild its Northwesternmost part.
I hope that our actions here today will assure the nation of Costa Rica, as well as the entire world, that the United States of America is a responsible nation, capable of not only admitting its mistakes, but taking steps to fix those mistakes when they occur.
As your President, I promise here and now that I will do what I can to ensure that something like this never happens again. There will be a full, high-level re-evaluation of how our various Agencies are comporting themselves in the War on Super Terrorism, and new, stricter guidelines issued, and followed up on.
Again, on behalf of the American people, I apologize to the Nation and the People of Costa Rica, their neighbors, and the world. We will fix this. You have my word.
Thank you, God bless us, and good afternoon.
(The President leaves the podium without answering any questions)
1/28/12
2:13 PM
SAN FRANCISCO
Oh, what a completely !@#$ day this has turned out to be.
First up, I finally get a call from the President, after about 48 frantic hours of trying to peg his !@#$ down for a conversation, and about 24 after he goes on the !@#$ television and cops a plea to the whole !@#$ world before even giving my plan a listen.
How did that conversation go? Well, there's smelly !@#$, there's deep !@#$, and there's bad !@#$. This one stunk so !@#$ bad you couldn't get away from the stench, no matter how big and deep you buried it.
(Yeah, it's not the greatest metaphor in the world. !@#$ it. I got nothing right now.)
The end result? We yelled at each other for about half an hour, with him telling me that this time I went too far, me telling him this wasn't really our !@#$ fault, and he should have just !@#$ went with my plan, him telling me he was sick and tired of me pulling supervillains out of the hat to use as patsies when I make a mistake, me telling him that's what they're !@#$ there for, and didn't we do that last time, and him telling me he was never happy about that, and me calling him a !@#$ wimp and a hypocrite and making us look weak and spineless right when I'm about to go up against the worst group of them all.
And then, he says the words. I know those words have been coming for some time, now, but I didn't know they'd be today.
The words are "I think you should really consider stepping down before I have to find a way to make you."
Well, you can imagine how the conversation went from there. I won't bore you with the details. But by the end my communicator was !@#$ melting. I can only imagine how his desk phone looked.
(To be continued? I sure as !@#$ hope not.)
Then, just as I'm getting my backup communicator out, I get a call from Karl. He's in San Francisco. Could I come as soon as possible? Randolph's been badly hurt.
I get to the hospital soon as !@#$ ten minutes before he called, and he takes me to where his brothers and sisters have been for the last few days. He went to a meeting with his editor and was supposed to just be gone a few hours, and when it got to be Midnight Karl started looking. He didn't have to look further than the news.
What happened? Of all the !@#$ things: poor Randolph got his !@#$ run over by a !@#$ bicycle courier. Dumb !@#$ ran him down while he was crossing the street, and then took off as soon as the ambulance got there, cursing the kid out for not looking both ways.
(Isn't that just a fitting capstone for his career?)
Fractured skull. Possible cranial bleeding. May have lost a !@#$ eye when his cheekbone went into his socket on the way down, but they're not sure how badly damaged it is, yet. Keeping his brains from being squished out his ears by the pressure is their number one priority,
So they've put him into a medical coma, hoping to slow things down enough so that the body can heal without any added stress. Hopefully he comes out without a substantial loss of IQ or faculties.
Hopefully rabbits fly out of my !@#$ with easter baskets full of grenades and combat knives.
The kids are strangely serene about this. Karl tells me they cried when they heard, and then, as soon as they got here, realized they needed to be brave for him. Pragmatic, I think he said, nodding at me like I would understand, somehow.
And I do, really. This is all part of the upbringing we were trying to !@#$ save them from. Maybe not a bad thing, overall, but these kids shouldn't have to act like they're on a firing line, somewhere, watching their buddies die and reminding themselves they have to mourn later.
Have to feel later.
These kids should !@#$ be kids. They should go see the world, have fun, have the kind of life they wouldn't have had if we'd never invaded the !@#$ Ice Palace, and just left them there to rot with ABWEHR.
Just like we would have done, if I had waited until we were 101% prepared for any and all eventualities before going down to Antarctica and blowing those super nazis out of the !@#$ ice for once and for all. We'd have never gone in at all.
And these kids would be down there, licking !@#$ out from between their masters' toes and waiting in fear of the day they looked more edible than !@#$able.
I got a million other phone calls coming into my phone, right now. Doctor Yesterday yapping about some other problem down in the Ice Palace, Myron wanting to sob about !@#$ing up, again, my Second wanting to know what now, !@#$holes pestering my media consultants, Congresspeople talking hearings, even a Presidential candidate or two wanting to talk strategy.
I let the phone ring and ring. I'm going to sit here, tonight, with the kids I saved from !@#$, and the person I failed to mend fences with, and have a think about what to do next.
(I wish Straffer would call. I really do. I could use hearing his voice, right about now. He'd probably have a good idea.)
1/29/12
4:30 PM
THE FLIER
Second walks down the halls to his room, sighing as he goes. If he didn't have so much on his plate right now, he'd be hitting the sauce before he got there. As it is, in SPYGOD's absence, he's having to maintain a certain standard of decorum, if only because his boss won't.
Where is he, anyway? He spent the night in Frisco, and when he checked in this morning he said something about seeing a man about a horse before he hung up, but that seems a little weird. He's not even on the tracker right now, which is worrisome in and of itself. But if the boss wants some privacy, then so be it.
(He's earned it, after the last few days.)
"I hope you get here soon, sir," he says, typing the combination into his door lock and going in, taking a moment to salute some Agents as they mill past. They salute back, and for a moment, just a moment, he feels something prickle up on his neck.
He's about to go into his room. He stops. He closes the door, instead, and, and turns to follow the Agents. He catches them in mid-turn, and then they try to continue the way they were heading, however clumsily.
"Excuse me, Agents," he says, wondering why they don't look at all familiar. Did they come on board three days ago, when they took on new people and materiel?
There's no reply. They keep walking.
"Agents?" He repeats: "I was wondering if you could help me with something."
They start running without looking back. He draws his sidearm and calls for a general alert. The red lights start flashing and the klaxon sounds like a sick, robot duck, honking over and over again.
He shouts for them to stop and fires a single warning shot. Neither of them obey. He could call it security here and now, and let the N-machine tell their story, but something tells him to pursue instead of kill.
He might learn something on the way, after all.
So he runs. They lead him and the security personnel that aggregate onto him like magnets through the length and breadth of The Flier, almost slowing down enough to shoot on more than one occasion, but then ducking and running just quickly enough to avoid getting tagged.
Finally, there's nowhere left to run. They're on the upper flight deck, on the end with no transports. They stand there, backs to the line of Agents and their drawn guns, all shouting for them to get down, now. Get the !@#$ down, now! Kneel down, cross your legs! DO IT NOW!
They don't. They stand there, side by side, instead. Apparently waiting.
"There's two ways we can do this," Second says, walking just a little closer, his sidearm raised to maximum firing position: "The first way is that we shoot you. The second is you step back here and we talk."
"You forgot the third way," one says, his voice soft and gentle.
"The third way is down," the other says, his voice a near mirror of the other.
"There's no sense being stupid," Second says, although he now knows how stupid he's been.
(No doubt these two were just backup. The real person they should have been concerned about was waiting in the room. They were just a failsafe. And now that they chased them, whomever was in his room is probably long gone. Or lurking for another try.)
"Love is never stupid," one of them says, taking the other's hand.
"Love will conquer all," the other replies, as they look at each other, smiling.
Their faces look beatific as they jump. The Second never gets a good look at them, but something about their eyes distinctly unnerves him.
There's a massive explosion, ten seconds later, right where they would have been. It's too far down to affect The Flier, but any chance The COMPANY had of salvaging the bodies and doing the usual postmortem memory extraction is gone.
"This ship gets locked down now," Second says: "Total search. Everything and everyone. I want all internal security recordings for the last three days. I want access to my own room's cameras. I want... !@#$ it, I want everything. In my office. Five minutes ago."
The Agents scramble to get him what he wants, but somehow he knows it's too late. Someone just tried to do him in, and he blew the followthrough.
"!@#$!" He yells, not caring if it's a massive failure of decorum. Sometimes it's the only thing to do.
(SPYGOD is listening to Deep Water (Seal) and having something unknown, somewhere unknown)
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
1/21-31/12 - Countdown to Catastrophe - pt. 2
1/24/12
4:41 PM
OBOCK, DJIBOUTI
The city is warm and dusty, and smells of the sea. Brick houses with flat roofs bake and waver in the sun, and noisy cars and quiet people mill by the other side of an impressive cordon, manned by NGUVU agents with guns.
SPYGOD looks down at the reason for the large cordon, his face implacable in spite of what he's seeing. He pulls out a tjbang stick and chews on it, relishing the moment of clarity when his heart stops and brain tries to die on him.
"So you see why we called you out here?" The large and tall NGUVU Agent -- who still hasn't given SPYGOD his proper name, yet -- says, moving up behind him.
"Yeah," SPYGOD replies, kneeling down and looking into the face of the former head of BUSH. The last time he saw this man he was throwing his fat !@#$ 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)
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)
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
1/21-31/12 - Countdown to Catastrophe - pt. 1
1/21/12
6:39 PM
HOTEL RIU GUANACASTE
COSTA RICA
So I'm waking up, early this morning, and someone comes by and !@#$ bangs on my door. Not a good idea, as the head-shaped holes I immediately !@#$ shoot into it can attest. I hear some very girlish screams, and see something that might be a dead animal flop to the ground, smoking.
For a split second I wonder if America's enemies have discovered a way to uplift skunks and turn them into stinky little assassins, but then I realize I know that pile of dead animal. I was using it as a !@#$ rag not less than a week ago. It is, in fact, the much-abused toupee of the poor !@#$ who runs this swanky hotel, and was under the impression that The COMPANY was going to be leaving today.
(No, we're obviously not gone. Yes, there's a good reason why. No, the President isn't happy about it, and neither is the President of Costa Rica, the spies he's sent to check us out, or this half of the !@#$ country. !@#$ them. All of them.)
As soon as I realize my mistake, I come over to what's left of the !@#$ door with a fresh gun, stick it up his snot-filled nose, and ask what the !@#$ he thinks he's going, banging on my !@#$ door like that. Doesn't this room have a !@#$ telephone?
Well, he points out, it did. But when they tried to call me an hour ago, it went squawk and then decided not to work, anymore. A quick look back at what's left of the nightstand solves that mystery: the phone rang, I shot the !@#$ thing, and went back to sleep before it even registered that I'd done anything of the sort.
And don't they have communicators, then? Can't I be called that way? What are we spending all that !@#$ taxpayers' money on if we have to rely on the !@#$, easily-shot phones in this hotel?
Snot-nose whimpers and explains that, apparently, none of The COMPANY's communications devices have been working for the last hour and half. Which is why they called my room. And when I decided to shoot out the phone the Agents decided to try and fix the !@#$ problem without waking my !@#$ up, knowing I'd probably shoot their !@#$ heads off through the door.
So here's snot-nose hotel manager, cradling what's left of his toupee like a dead pet because my Agents didn't want to wake me. Well, !@#$ that. I throw on one of the complementary bathrobes, grab about ten more guns, and stride down the hall, ready to bust caps in several !@#$.
I get downstairs to our makeshift HQ, and then, in one sweep, I realize what's gone wrong. There's Myron over at the desk, drinking himself sober with a smoking gun in his other hand. There's Professor Nightmare on the floor, his brains splattered all over the floor. There's Toyboss, trying to console Myron but terrified of getting shot, next.
I do not see Icemaster, which is worrisome. I also do not see Zalea Zathros anywhere, which is !@#$ frightening.
"Icemaster's out back, frozen to death with his own gun, sir," one of the Agents tells me: "Agent Underman found him. It turns out Professor Nightmare got Zalea to organize an escape plan for the two of them, except that she double-crossed Nightmare. I guess Icemaster found out and was going to come tell us to score brownie points. He just never made it in."
"Where is the !@#$ now?" I demand. The Agent shrugs, and holds up a bloody chip.
"This was on Icemaster's body when we found him."
The first question I have is 'how the !@#$ did she dig that out of her own !@#$ brain?' But then I remember that I'm dealing with Zalea Zathros, who is, arguably, one of the smartest, most devious supercriminals on the planet. Someone that even The Big Man was wary of, to hear it told.
So of course the nasty !@#$ figures out there's no way we'd let her and her evil science friends wander around here unless we had a failsafe, just in case. And of course she figures out where it would be, and finds a way to perform surgery on herself and get that tracking chip out of her brains. Of course she also finds a way to turn our communications off so she can make her escape, but probably not before hijacking it to signal a ride out of here.
!@#$. Dirty !@#$ little !@#$. I should have shot her when the op was over. I should have had Myron !@#$ do it, or at least send her the !@#$ back to the Heptagon. But he thought he had it all under control. Jesus !@#$ Christ in a pickle jar with a robot !@#$ up his !@#$.
Three things happen more or less simultaneously. I shoot the bottle out from Myron's hand, and the legs from under his chair, in order to kickstart the process of sobering him the !@#$ up. I tell Toyboss to get the machine I know he was making out of spare parts to deal with her out of misplaced love for Myron and get it ready to go. Then I tell the Agent who got to play telephone for me to get on a landline, call The Flier, and tell them there's a good chance an unscheduled submarine's going to be surfacing somewhere up the coast, and to be ready to sink the !@#$ thing.
That was several !@#$ hours ago. The net-net as of the last two minutes is that Myron is learning a valuable lesson about when to stop trusting the team, the Toyboss can't put !@#$ together to save his life when he's in love with his jailer, and we were just a few minutes too late letting the folks in the Flier know that we had a bogey. The Costa Rican navy just got back and told us that, yes, they did have an anomalous sonar reading off the coast, this morning. Was it anything important?
Yes it was. Zalea Zathros, one of the most dangerous criminal geniuses The COMPANY ever had the good luck to catch, is out there in the world, again. And we have no way of tracking her whereabouts, much less blowing her the !@#$ up.
This is not going to look good on my report to the President. Not at all.
1/22/12
4:07 PM
NEW DELHI, INDIA
Dosha Josh and his man appear from nowhere, as always. The man they're going to meet has come to expect that, by now. The dark-skinned, well-dressed fellow waves theatrically and pours himself another drink.
"I'd offer you one, but I know you're working," he says, his accent a thick Parisian. He downs the glass not long thereafter.
"And you should know I'm always working," Dosha replies: "Persimmon."
"Coriander."
"A lamb with no hat."
"A cat with no boots."
The two men smile and clasp hands: "I will take that drink, friend," Dosha says, sitting down at the table where the man sits. Outside the window, in the streets below, the city's afternoon winds up. Car horns and people talking. Amazingly good and terrible smells mingle.
"So you have heard about our friends in Africa?"
"I have," Dosha replies, downing the glass in one go and putting it down for another: "Quite a shame about Jomo's agency, even if he was a sali kuta."
"Well, if the emmerdeur hadn't tried to kill SPYGOD's people, and blame it on the Israelis, we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"
"What's Direction Noir's take on the matter?"
"Our take is that the less we are seen to be involved, the better. We had nothing to do with the genesis of his foolhardy venture. We had nothing to do with its downfall. We have no plans to interject ourselves into the aftermath, either."
"Except to offer NGUVU an olive branch for being closer to BUSH than them for the last few years?"
The man smiles and pours another drink: "Francois is mulling the move over. I've already done it."
"Good. Nothing like some inter-agency intrigue to make certain the old guard falls and the new guard rises."
"And we sons of India must stick together," he says, clinking glasses: "But I didn't call you here to talk about endings. I called to discuss something... strange."
"Strange?"
He hands over a dossier: "Read that. Do not do it aloud. You do not know if a certain person is listening."
Dosha does. His face registers surprise, then disbelief. Then something more akin to puzzlement.
"They just let him go?" he finally says, realizing anything else he could say would be way too much.
"They did," the man says, putting his glass down: "Either that or he managed to escape so skillfully that they're denying he's no longer in custody. Given his reputation, I would not be surprised."
"This is... wow," Dosha stammers, at a genuine loss for words for once.
"Now, you've entered into something of a protective relationship with a certain person. You know what this means. I think I need to ask you, unofficially, what we should do with this person, given their special... relationship."
Dosha opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He thinks, he reaches for another glass. He sighs and shrugs.
His man finally breaks the silence: "I'd say give the bumchod to the ghondoo."
Dosha looks up at him, and then the other man, and, downing the glass, nods.
"What my man said," he said: "But you realize, if we do this, we may all be royally screwed."
"The longer he stays in Paris, the more likely the screwing will come in a way we cannot anticipate. And that could be bad for everyone. Especially the new guard."
And there is a silent agreement in the room.
1/23/12
1600 GMT
DEEP TEN
Director Straffer strides down the corridor linking Platform 34 to Platform 35, making the necessary maintenance checks as he goes. He could assign the task to his subordinates, but he doesn't care to. It's a simple enough thing to do, himself, and he feels a lot better when he's the one who does it.
This is Deep Ten, after all. It's his platform. His responsibility.
Sometimes, his heartbreak.
"Yeah, hey Straffer. It's (REDACTED) calling. Again."
As he walks, he thinks about the last phone message he got from SPYGOD, which he hasn't responded to, yet. It's joined the five previous ones that he hasn't responded to in his mind, becoming a big, seething mass of things he'd like to say, doesn't dare say, and doesn't know what to say, yet.
He really should sit down, have a think about what to say, and then call the man up and follow through.
But.
" Yeah, I know, I know. You're busy. So am I. But... listen, I miss you. I miss talking to you. I miss you telling me I'm full of !@#$."
But what? That's what Straffer doesn't know -- the what.
That's what's keeping him back. The uncertainty over what this actually is.
Is it love? Is it lust mixed with admiration? Is it just the good feeling to know that someone actually understands him, for once, and can accept him for what he is? Appreciate him, even?
(Or is it just the good sex? The really !@#$ good sex?)
"And... well, we're on an open channel, but I think you can guess a few other things I miss, too. I owe you a few rocket rides for the help you gave me. At least."
He smiles at that thought, and tries to get back to work. It's not working, and he leans up against a window and looks down at the horn of Africa, which doesn't help, either.
He'll make a decision, soon. He knows he will. Besides, as naughty as it is, it's kind of fun to have the man leaving messages every day. Anyone else would have given up by now.
"But I am not giving up, here. If I have to ride a !@#$ rocket up there, kick down your nonexistent door like I did the last time, and pin you to the wall like I didn't do, I will. Figure you owe me a reply. Figure I want you."
That's when he notices something that's been bugging him, all this time. Where are the robots in this section? He hasn't seen a one since Platform 32.
He presses the call button on the wall. If there are any robots active on the two closest platforms, they should home in on the signal and walk towards him, asking what he needs. He presses it once, then twice, and hears nothing.
Not good.
"And... well, there's something else. I know this is gonna sound !@#$ pathetic, but I'm a little worried. I mean, I know you can !@#$ take care of yourself, up there. You're the man with the hand on the pulse cannons, after all. But I keep getting this weird premonition about something bad going down up there. Probably nothing, really."
Oh, it's something, alright. They flanked him on both sides before he realized what was going on. Robed figures with faces he can't quite see, gliding towards him.
"Hello, Director," one of them says, voice gentle and soft as a teddy bear: "We've been waiting for you."
"I !@#$ bet you have," he says, grabbing his sidearm with one hand and his communicator with the other: "Second! We have intruders in Platforms 34 through 35. Seal decks and send backup!"
"That won't help you," someone says from behind him, and he recognizes the voice. It's the woman he just contacted.
"So," he says, turning to look at her, wondering why she's not showing him her face: "I thought you were a little too good to be true."
"Just too true to be good, Director," someone says from in front of him: "Honesty is something you're not used to."
"What do you want?" He asks, calculating shots and targets, and realizing there's too few of one to handle the other.
"You, Director," they say as one: "We want you."
"Well, maybe it's paranoia. Maybe it's just desire. I don't know. But I do know I want to see you. I want you."
There's a moment there when he thinks about what to do next. In that one, brief moment, he realizes two things. He does love SPYGOD. And he loves him because he makes him want to be honest about who he really is, at long last.
Maybe that's not the best reason to love someone, but it would do magnificently. It would have been magnificent.
But, once again, he realizes his lot is heartbreak. Cold and harsh, like the space surrounding him.
"We want you," they repeat, almost robotic.
"You don't get me," he says, and starts firing.
"Listen... I... ah, I'll tell you later. Call me. Please. There's things I'd like to say to you and not a machine, you know? You're much better looking. And trust me, I know what I'm talking about. You've seen METALMAID in action, right? I mean, !@#$...
"Yeah. I... will talk to you soon. I hope. Bye."
(SPYGOD is listening to Crazy (Seal) and still banging the expensive champagne.)
6:39 PM
HOTEL RIU GUANACASTE
COSTA RICA
So I'm waking up, early this morning, and someone comes by and !@#$ bangs on my door. Not a good idea, as the head-shaped holes I immediately !@#$ shoot into it can attest. I hear some very girlish screams, and see something that might be a dead animal flop to the ground, smoking.
For a split second I wonder if America's enemies have discovered a way to uplift skunks and turn them into stinky little assassins, but then I realize I know that pile of dead animal. I was using it as a !@#$ rag not less than a week ago. It is, in fact, the much-abused toupee of the poor !@#$ who runs this swanky hotel, and was under the impression that The COMPANY was going to be leaving today.
(No, we're obviously not gone. Yes, there's a good reason why. No, the President isn't happy about it, and neither is the President of Costa Rica, the spies he's sent to check us out, or this half of the !@#$ country. !@#$ them. All of them.)
As soon as I realize my mistake, I come over to what's left of the !@#$ door with a fresh gun, stick it up his snot-filled nose, and ask what the !@#$ he thinks he's going, banging on my !@#$ door like that. Doesn't this room have a !@#$ telephone?
Well, he points out, it did. But when they tried to call me an hour ago, it went squawk and then decided not to work, anymore. A quick look back at what's left of the nightstand solves that mystery: the phone rang, I shot the !@#$ thing, and went back to sleep before it even registered that I'd done anything of the sort.
And don't they have communicators, then? Can't I be called that way? What are we spending all that !@#$ taxpayers' money on if we have to rely on the !@#$, easily-shot phones in this hotel?
Snot-nose whimpers and explains that, apparently, none of The COMPANY's communications devices have been working for the last hour and half. Which is why they called my room. And when I decided to shoot out the phone the Agents decided to try and fix the !@#$ problem without waking my !@#$ up, knowing I'd probably shoot their !@#$ heads off through the door.
So here's snot-nose hotel manager, cradling what's left of his toupee like a dead pet because my Agents didn't want to wake me. Well, !@#$ that. I throw on one of the complementary bathrobes, grab about ten more guns, and stride down the hall, ready to bust caps in several !@#$.
I get downstairs to our makeshift HQ, and then, in one sweep, I realize what's gone wrong. There's Myron over at the desk, drinking himself sober with a smoking gun in his other hand. There's Professor Nightmare on the floor, his brains splattered all over the floor. There's Toyboss, trying to console Myron but terrified of getting shot, next.
I do not see Icemaster, which is worrisome. I also do not see Zalea Zathros anywhere, which is !@#$ frightening.
"Icemaster's out back, frozen to death with his own gun, sir," one of the Agents tells me: "Agent Underman found him. It turns out Professor Nightmare got Zalea to organize an escape plan for the two of them, except that she double-crossed Nightmare. I guess Icemaster found out and was going to come tell us to score brownie points. He just never made it in."
"Where is the !@#$ now?" I demand. The Agent shrugs, and holds up a bloody chip.
"This was on Icemaster's body when we found him."
The first question I have is 'how the !@#$ did she dig that out of her own !@#$ brain?' But then I remember that I'm dealing with Zalea Zathros, who is, arguably, one of the smartest, most devious supercriminals on the planet. Someone that even The Big Man was wary of, to hear it told.
So of course the nasty !@#$ figures out there's no way we'd let her and her evil science friends wander around here unless we had a failsafe, just in case. And of course she figures out where it would be, and finds a way to perform surgery on herself and get that tracking chip out of her brains. Of course she also finds a way to turn our communications off so she can make her escape, but probably not before hijacking it to signal a ride out of here.
!@#$. Dirty !@#$ little !@#$. I should have shot her when the op was over. I should have had Myron !@#$ do it, or at least send her the !@#$ back to the Heptagon. But he thought he had it all under control. Jesus !@#$ Christ in a pickle jar with a robot !@#$ up his !@#$.
Three things happen more or less simultaneously. I shoot the bottle out from Myron's hand, and the legs from under his chair, in order to kickstart the process of sobering him the !@#$ up. I tell Toyboss to get the machine I know he was making out of spare parts to deal with her out of misplaced love for Myron and get it ready to go. Then I tell the Agent who got to play telephone for me to get on a landline, call The Flier, and tell them there's a good chance an unscheduled submarine's going to be surfacing somewhere up the coast, and to be ready to sink the !@#$ thing.
That was several !@#$ hours ago. The net-net as of the last two minutes is that Myron is learning a valuable lesson about when to stop trusting the team, the Toyboss can't put !@#$ together to save his life when he's in love with his jailer, and we were just a few minutes too late letting the folks in the Flier know that we had a bogey. The Costa Rican navy just got back and told us that, yes, they did have an anomalous sonar reading off the coast, this morning. Was it anything important?
Yes it was. Zalea Zathros, one of the most dangerous criminal geniuses The COMPANY ever had the good luck to catch, is out there in the world, again. And we have no way of tracking her whereabouts, much less blowing her the !@#$ up.
This is not going to look good on my report to the President. Not at all.
1/22/12
4:07 PM
NEW DELHI, INDIA
Dosha Josh and his man appear from nowhere, as always. The man they're going to meet has come to expect that, by now. The dark-skinned, well-dressed fellow waves theatrically and pours himself another drink.
"I'd offer you one, but I know you're working," he says, his accent a thick Parisian. He downs the glass not long thereafter.
"And you should know I'm always working," Dosha replies: "Persimmon."
"Coriander."
"A lamb with no hat."
"A cat with no boots."
The two men smile and clasp hands: "I will take that drink, friend," Dosha says, sitting down at the table where the man sits. Outside the window, in the streets below, the city's afternoon winds up. Car horns and people talking. Amazingly good and terrible smells mingle.
"So you have heard about our friends in Africa?"
"I have," Dosha replies, downing the glass in one go and putting it down for another: "Quite a shame about Jomo's agency, even if he was a sali kuta."
"Well, if the emmerdeur hadn't tried to kill SPYGOD's people, and blame it on the Israelis, we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"
"What's Direction Noir's take on the matter?"
"Our take is that the less we are seen to be involved, the better. We had nothing to do with the genesis of his foolhardy venture. We had nothing to do with its downfall. We have no plans to interject ourselves into the aftermath, either."
"Except to offer NGUVU an olive branch for being closer to BUSH than them for the last few years?"
The man smiles and pours another drink: "Francois is mulling the move over. I've already done it."
"Good. Nothing like some inter-agency intrigue to make certain the old guard falls and the new guard rises."
"And we sons of India must stick together," he says, clinking glasses: "But I didn't call you here to talk about endings. I called to discuss something... strange."
"Strange?"
He hands over a dossier: "Read that. Do not do it aloud. You do not know if a certain person is listening."
Dosha does. His face registers surprise, then disbelief. Then something more akin to puzzlement.
"They just let him go?" he finally says, realizing anything else he could say would be way too much.
"They did," the man says, putting his glass down: "Either that or he managed to escape so skillfully that they're denying he's no longer in custody. Given his reputation, I would not be surprised."
"This is... wow," Dosha stammers, at a genuine loss for words for once.
"Now, you've entered into something of a protective relationship with a certain person. You know what this means. I think I need to ask you, unofficially, what we should do with this person, given their special... relationship."
Dosha opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He thinks, he reaches for another glass. He sighs and shrugs.
His man finally breaks the silence: "I'd say give the bumchod to the ghondoo."
Dosha looks up at him, and then the other man, and, downing the glass, nods.
"What my man said," he said: "But you realize, if we do this, we may all be royally screwed."
"The longer he stays in Paris, the more likely the screwing will come in a way we cannot anticipate. And that could be bad for everyone. Especially the new guard."
And there is a silent agreement in the room.
1/23/12
1600 GMT
DEEP TEN
Director Straffer strides down the corridor linking Platform 34 to Platform 35, making the necessary maintenance checks as he goes. He could assign the task to his subordinates, but he doesn't care to. It's a simple enough thing to do, himself, and he feels a lot better when he's the one who does it.
This is Deep Ten, after all. It's his platform. His responsibility.
Sometimes, his heartbreak.
"Yeah, hey Straffer. It's (REDACTED) calling. Again."
As he walks, he thinks about the last phone message he got from SPYGOD, which he hasn't responded to, yet. It's joined the five previous ones that he hasn't responded to in his mind, becoming a big, seething mass of things he'd like to say, doesn't dare say, and doesn't know what to say, yet.
He really should sit down, have a think about what to say, and then call the man up and follow through.
But.
" Yeah, I know, I know. You're busy. So am I. But... listen, I miss you. I miss talking to you. I miss you telling me I'm full of !@#$."
But what? That's what Straffer doesn't know -- the what.
That's what's keeping him back. The uncertainty over what this actually is.
Is it love? Is it lust mixed with admiration? Is it just the good feeling to know that someone actually understands him, for once, and can accept him for what he is? Appreciate him, even?
(Or is it just the good sex? The really !@#$ good sex?)
"And... well, we're on an open channel, but I think you can guess a few other things I miss, too. I owe you a few rocket rides for the help you gave me. At least."
He smiles at that thought, and tries to get back to work. It's not working, and he leans up against a window and looks down at the horn of Africa, which doesn't help, either.
He'll make a decision, soon. He knows he will. Besides, as naughty as it is, it's kind of fun to have the man leaving messages every day. Anyone else would have given up by now.
"But I am not giving up, here. If I have to ride a !@#$ rocket up there, kick down your nonexistent door like I did the last time, and pin you to the wall like I didn't do, I will. Figure you owe me a reply. Figure I want you."
That's when he notices something that's been bugging him, all this time. Where are the robots in this section? He hasn't seen a one since Platform 32.
He presses the call button on the wall. If there are any robots active on the two closest platforms, they should home in on the signal and walk towards him, asking what he needs. He presses it once, then twice, and hears nothing.
Not good.
"And... well, there's something else. I know this is gonna sound !@#$ pathetic, but I'm a little worried. I mean, I know you can !@#$ take care of yourself, up there. You're the man with the hand on the pulse cannons, after all. But I keep getting this weird premonition about something bad going down up there. Probably nothing, really."
Oh, it's something, alright. They flanked him on both sides before he realized what was going on. Robed figures with faces he can't quite see, gliding towards him.
"Hello, Director," one of them says, voice gentle and soft as a teddy bear: "We've been waiting for you."
"I !@#$ bet you have," he says, grabbing his sidearm with one hand and his communicator with the other: "Second! We have intruders in Platforms 34 through 35. Seal decks and send backup!"
"That won't help you," someone says from behind him, and he recognizes the voice. It's the woman he just contacted.
"So," he says, turning to look at her, wondering why she's not showing him her face: "I thought you were a little too good to be true."
"Just too true to be good, Director," someone says from in front of him: "Honesty is something you're not used to."
"What do you want?" He asks, calculating shots and targets, and realizing there's too few of one to handle the other.
"You, Director," they say as one: "We want you."
"Well, maybe it's paranoia. Maybe it's just desire. I don't know. But I do know I want to see you. I want you."
There's a moment there when he thinks about what to do next. In that one, brief moment, he realizes two things. He does love SPYGOD. And he loves him because he makes him want to be honest about who he really is, at long last.
Maybe that's not the best reason to love someone, but it would do magnificently. It would have been magnificent.
But, once again, he realizes his lot is heartbreak. Cold and harsh, like the space surrounding him.
"We want you," they repeat, almost robotic.
"You don't get me," he says, and starts firing.
"Listen... I... ah, I'll tell you later. Call me. Please. There's things I'd like to say to you and not a machine, you know? You're much better looking. And trust me, I know what I'm talking about. You've seen METALMAID in action, right? I mean, !@#$...
"Yeah. I... will talk to you soon. I hope. Bye."
(SPYGOD is listening to Crazy (Seal) and still banging the expensive champagne.)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
1/13-15/12 - My Mind Goes Sleepwalking While I'm Putting the World to Right
1/13/12
11:23 AM
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
"So, do you want to tell us why we're here, Mr. SPYGOD?" one of the Congressmen says, obviously feeling a little uncomfortable. Maybe it's the height, and maybe it's the way the COMPANY transport rocks back and forth in the strong winds, trying to maintain position over the sorry sight of what's left of The Flier, but he's looking just a little green. He's not the only one, either.
SPYGOD smirks: "Do I want to tell you? No, sir. I don't. I would much rather be flying that !@#$ thing down there down to Central !@#$ America right now, so I can mop up our operations in Costa !@#$ Rica just that much faster. Unfortunately, I can't. And you might well be wondering why."
"Look, if this is about the appropriations process-"
"No, it is not about the !@#$ appropriations process, you tax-fattened heap of !@#$," SPYGOD snarls, striding over to Congressman Green and staring down at him (easy to do when he's in high heels): "It's about protection. It's about security. It's about the fact that, if we don't have that machine in good condition, ready to respond to a threat at a moment's notice, all sorts of bad !@#$ could happen."
"I refuse to sit here and be berated about this," one of the other Congresspeople sniffs: "This is ridiculous."
"Well, you can swim home if you like, honey," SPYGOD shouts down at her: "This is what we call an object lesson."
"I don't believe this! I was called out of a meeting and practically kidnapped so I could be browbeaten for not moving fast enough-"
"Here's some tissues, honey," SPYGOD offers: "Dry your little eyes. Santa doesn't like tears. And I don't like !@#$ waiting for you all to get your !@#$ !@#$ moving so I can get the wherewithal to fix a crucial part of my !@#$ operations!"
"There are procedures, sir," another one insists: "It might be the black budget, but it's still a budget, and you and The COMPANY are still subject to our decision regarding that budget."
"Yes, and if you !@#$holes weren't so busy trying to get the President unelected, and intentionally stalling the budget so as to make him look bad-"
"How dare you, sir!" Someone says, and then gets sat back down with extreme prejudice as SPYGOD towers over him.
"... if you were actually being, dare I !@#$ say it, patriotic about the matter, not to mention pragmatic, we wouldn't be having this !@#$ conversation."
"Where is this conversation going, anyway?" The sniffler asks, wondering where the tissue he gave her has been, and deciding she doesn't want to know.
"About two hundred miles an hour in about a minute and a half, if I've got my timing right," SPYGOD says, looking at a very complicated set of dials on his wrist that seems the genius of all overblown superspy timepieces: "I've got good news and bad news for all of you."
"Oh dear god..." Congressman Green says, looking around in vain for a motion discomfort bag, or three.
"The good news is that the object lesson is about to commence. The bad news is, it's involving a high-speed takedown of a supply ship full of really nasty bio-warfare WMD things, guarded by some former Soviet Strategic Talents who've sold out to whatever nasty outfit is intent on selling them to homegrown terrorists in the heart of the US of A."
"Why are you telling us this?" The insister asks.
"Because, Congressman, since we don't have The Flier to go after these kinds of !@#$ things, anymore, I've had to make do with what I do have. And this platform is the only ship I have in the area that's capable of pursuing, immobilizing, and detaining the threat."
"You mean to say we're going on... on a mission with you?" The sniffler asks, clearly afraid now.
"Yes indeed, Madam. But the bad news doesn't stop there! Unfortunately, we're a little short handed. You know, that thing down in Costa !@#$ Rica? So, I am hereby drafting all of you into the SPYGOD SCOUTS for the day."
He tosses each of them a little, black leather beret, along with a big !@#$ gun, neither of which they catch with any degree of skill or grace.
"Your mission, provided you want to fly home instead of !@#$ swim, is to lean out those shield windows over there, and, when instructed, blow the living !@#$ out of anything that comes from whatever ship they have towards us. We'll take care of the offensive part of the program, including their supers. You guys deal with any missiles, mines, laser turrets, or whateverthe!@#$ they've got for countermeasures. Okay?"
He doesn't need SPYGOD Vision to know who just !@#$ in their pants.
A crackle from the front: "Sir! We have the ship on the scope! It's heading for Neo York City, about 150 MPH. Big !@#$, too. Hydrofoil."
"Oh goodie. I haven't trashed a hydrofoil since 1985 or so. Great !@#$ story. I'll tell you all later, provided we live that !@#$ long."
The platform churns and groans, speeding up to match the course and speed of its target. SPYGOD grabs a jetpack from a waiting Agent, and looks at his draftees.
"Remember, the shields won't let you fall, and the guns don't need reloading as long as they're plugged in. Just lean out into them and shoot like a mother!@#$. Pretend they're your constituents. I know I do."
"The President's going to hear about this!" The Sniffler screams, but SPYGOD's already jumped out the door, lit up his pack, and started racing towards the ship. As he gets closer, and sees the robots milling about, waiting for their cue, he remembers he'll have to do a really good job of thanking Dir. Straffer for setting up this little demonstration of how badly they need The Flier.
Is it love? Is it lust mixed with admiration? Or is it just the good feeling to know someone likes him for who he is, and isn't afraid to tell him when he's full of !@#$, mixed with really !@#$ good sex? He doesn't know, and right now he doesn't care.
But the next time he sees the man, he's going to give him the best rocket ride he ever got. To Jupiter this time. There and back and there again.
1/14/12
6:00 PM
HOTEL RIU GUANACASTE
"Yes, hello. I need to speak to the President, please. Yes, I know he's busy. Tell him to stop laughing at the debate and come pick up the !@#$ phone. The silly people my party are running against him will be there when he gets back. Yes. Thank you.
"Jesus !@#$. At least his predecessor know when to answer the hotline.
"Ah, sir! Hello. SPYGOD here. Yes. Sorry to interrupt the game.
"Oh, that? Well, you'll be happy to know the Congresspeople all got back to the Capitol safe and sound. They earned their Marksman Badges with distinction, too. And we're safe from those people... whoever the !@#$ they were. Good thing the self-destruct trashed whatever they were carrying, too, so as long as we don't get any Simpson Fish washing up on the East Coast I'll call that enough of a win to sleep easy.
"They're not happy. No, I don't think they are. But the good news is that you're going to get the Black Budget on your desk in a day or so. And if you'd be so kind as to sign it, we'll see about getting The Flier rebuilt, and I'll get back to protecting our fine country like everyone says I'm supposed to.
"Oh, the evac? Yes. Well, we've hit a bit of a snag. So it looks like we might be spending some more time here in scenic Guanacaste.
"Yeah, I know. I wasn't happy about that either. It turns out that HONEYCOMB was up to something with a nearby volcano. They've got copies of the petroglyphs from the one in the national park, east of here. That and a lot of high math flibberty-goo and weird science things. Since we've got it all turned the !@#$ off we can't really tell what it is or what it does. But, you know me, I like to be thorough.
"Yes, sir. Yes. I know. We didn't want to stay any longer. I realize the President of Costa Rica is tired of hearing complaints, and I know you're tired of hearing his complaints. But I don't want to leave any hanging bombs out here, sir. These people were !@#$ dangerous. The less we keep out here the better.
"Yes, sir. I will try to have it wrapped up within a week. No guarantees, though. I make the decision. Agreed?
"...
"Yeah, well, with all due respect, sir, you really should ask Mr. Presidente those questions about HONEYCOMB and his backyard. Especially the nasty stuff we've been excavating since we got down here.
"Okay, yeah, I know he doesn't want to talk about it. !@#$ him. You're the President of the United States of America. How many !@#$ science terrorist incidents did we suffer because of them? How many dead citizens? How many dead soldiers, supers, and Agents?
"Exactly. Too many to list. !@#$ tell him that, and then tell him to be !@#$ grateful I don't march down to his estate and tattoo their names on his fat !@#$.
"Yes, sir. No, I am not diplomat material. I'm the one you send in before you need to talk to the diplomats, and I'm the one you send in after talking to them's left you no better off than before. This isn't a matter for diplomacy. This is a matter for the big black boot. And I'm wearing the biggest, blackest mother!@#$ of them all.
"...
"Well, I'll try. I'm amazed they haven't name-dropped me, yet. I got fifty bucks riding on Paul being the first to make hay out of my fine gay !@#$.
"That's because he was the one who did it last time. History repeating itself and all that !@#$. Look, I need to get back to that petroglyph thing so we can get the !@#$ out of dodge.
"Yes, I got the hotel manager his head-rug back. I washed it and everything. He appeared grateful, but that may have been shock, too.
"Thank you, sir. Goodbye, sir."
*click*
"Jesus mother!@#$ !@#$ on a bicycle with a bottle of whiskey up his !@#$. Some people are just not !@#$ satisfied."
1/15/12
Dear (REDACTED)
I wanted to let you know that the matter we discussed, earlier this month, is well in hand. We have made the necessary modifications and are testing the prototype on the streets of Chicago as we speak. So far it seems to be handling beautifully, but we want to make sure the product is stress-tested to the maximum we can provide before handing it over.
You didn't answer one important question, though: interiors. Please tell us what you want, keeping in mind that any animal skin is out of the question. (I apologize, but my son's a bit funny on animal rights.)
Yours in Christ
(OvO)
***
Dear (REDACTED)
Black suede seats, black dash, simulated cherry-wood paneling. Lights should be bright green for visibility. And if you could throw in that extender in the back seat, that would be awesome.
Thank you again. I owe you a !@#$ big one.
SPYGOD
(SPYGOD is listening to Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello) and having a Hitachino Nest beer)
11:23 AM
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
"So, do you want to tell us why we're here, Mr. SPYGOD?" one of the Congressmen says, obviously feeling a little uncomfortable. Maybe it's the height, and maybe it's the way the COMPANY transport rocks back and forth in the strong winds, trying to maintain position over the sorry sight of what's left of The Flier, but he's looking just a little green. He's not the only one, either.
SPYGOD smirks: "Do I want to tell you? No, sir. I don't. I would much rather be flying that !@#$ thing down there down to Central !@#$ America right now, so I can mop up our operations in Costa !@#$ Rica just that much faster. Unfortunately, I can't. And you might well be wondering why."
"Look, if this is about the appropriations process-"
"No, it is not about the !@#$ appropriations process, you tax-fattened heap of !@#$," SPYGOD snarls, striding over to Congressman Green and staring down at him (easy to do when he's in high heels): "It's about protection. It's about security. It's about the fact that, if we don't have that machine in good condition, ready to respond to a threat at a moment's notice, all sorts of bad !@#$ could happen."
"I refuse to sit here and be berated about this," one of the other Congresspeople sniffs: "This is ridiculous."
"Well, you can swim home if you like, honey," SPYGOD shouts down at her: "This is what we call an object lesson."
"I don't believe this! I was called out of a meeting and practically kidnapped so I could be browbeaten for not moving fast enough-"
"Here's some tissues, honey," SPYGOD offers: "Dry your little eyes. Santa doesn't like tears. And I don't like !@#$ waiting for you all to get your !@#$ !@#$ moving so I can get the wherewithal to fix a crucial part of my !@#$ operations!"
"There are procedures, sir," another one insists: "It might be the black budget, but it's still a budget, and you and The COMPANY are still subject to our decision regarding that budget."
"Yes, and if you !@#$holes weren't so busy trying to get the President unelected, and intentionally stalling the budget so as to make him look bad-"
"How dare you, sir!" Someone says, and then gets sat back down with extreme prejudice as SPYGOD towers over him.
"... if you were actually being, dare I !@#$ say it, patriotic about the matter, not to mention pragmatic, we wouldn't be having this !@#$ conversation."
"Where is this conversation going, anyway?" The sniffler asks, wondering where the tissue he gave her has been, and deciding she doesn't want to know.
"About two hundred miles an hour in about a minute and a half, if I've got my timing right," SPYGOD says, looking at a very complicated set of dials on his wrist that seems the genius of all overblown superspy timepieces: "I've got good news and bad news for all of you."
"Oh dear god..." Congressman Green says, looking around in vain for a motion discomfort bag, or three.
"The good news is that the object lesson is about to commence. The bad news is, it's involving a high-speed takedown of a supply ship full of really nasty bio-warfare WMD things, guarded by some former Soviet Strategic Talents who've sold out to whatever nasty outfit is intent on selling them to homegrown terrorists in the heart of the US of A."
"Why are you telling us this?" The insister asks.
"Because, Congressman, since we don't have The Flier to go after these kinds of !@#$ things, anymore, I've had to make do with what I do have. And this platform is the only ship I have in the area that's capable of pursuing, immobilizing, and detaining the threat."
"You mean to say we're going on... on a mission with you?" The sniffler asks, clearly afraid now.
"Yes indeed, Madam. But the bad news doesn't stop there! Unfortunately, we're a little short handed. You know, that thing down in Costa !@#$ Rica? So, I am hereby drafting all of you into the SPYGOD SCOUTS for the day."
He tosses each of them a little, black leather beret, along with a big !@#$ gun, neither of which they catch with any degree of skill or grace.
"Your mission, provided you want to fly home instead of !@#$ swim, is to lean out those shield windows over there, and, when instructed, blow the living !@#$ out of anything that comes from whatever ship they have towards us. We'll take care of the offensive part of the program, including their supers. You guys deal with any missiles, mines, laser turrets, or whateverthe!@#$ they've got for countermeasures. Okay?"
He doesn't need SPYGOD Vision to know who just !@#$ in their pants.
A crackle from the front: "Sir! We have the ship on the scope! It's heading for Neo York City, about 150 MPH. Big !@#$, too. Hydrofoil."
"Oh goodie. I haven't trashed a hydrofoil since 1985 or so. Great !@#$ story. I'll tell you all later, provided we live that !@#$ long."
The platform churns and groans, speeding up to match the course and speed of its target. SPYGOD grabs a jetpack from a waiting Agent, and looks at his draftees.
"Remember, the shields won't let you fall, and the guns don't need reloading as long as they're plugged in. Just lean out into them and shoot like a mother!@#$. Pretend they're your constituents. I know I do."
"The President's going to hear about this!" The Sniffler screams, but SPYGOD's already jumped out the door, lit up his pack, and started racing towards the ship. As he gets closer, and sees the robots milling about, waiting for their cue, he remembers he'll have to do a really good job of thanking Dir. Straffer for setting up this little demonstration of how badly they need The Flier.
Is it love? Is it lust mixed with admiration? Or is it just the good feeling to know someone likes him for who he is, and isn't afraid to tell him when he's full of !@#$, mixed with really !@#$ good sex? He doesn't know, and right now he doesn't care.
But the next time he sees the man, he's going to give him the best rocket ride he ever got. To Jupiter this time. There and back and there again.
1/14/12
6:00 PM
HOTEL RIU GUANACASTE
"Yes, hello. I need to speak to the President, please. Yes, I know he's busy. Tell him to stop laughing at the debate and come pick up the !@#$ phone. The silly people my party are running against him will be there when he gets back. Yes. Thank you.
"Jesus !@#$. At least his predecessor know when to answer the hotline.
"Ah, sir! Hello. SPYGOD here. Yes. Sorry to interrupt the game.
"Oh, that? Well, you'll be happy to know the Congresspeople all got back to the Capitol safe and sound. They earned their Marksman Badges with distinction, too. And we're safe from those people... whoever the !@#$ they were. Good thing the self-destruct trashed whatever they were carrying, too, so as long as we don't get any Simpson Fish washing up on the East Coast I'll call that enough of a win to sleep easy.
"They're not happy. No, I don't think they are. But the good news is that you're going to get the Black Budget on your desk in a day or so. And if you'd be so kind as to sign it, we'll see about getting The Flier rebuilt, and I'll get back to protecting our fine country like everyone says I'm supposed to.
"Oh, the evac? Yes. Well, we've hit a bit of a snag. So it looks like we might be spending some more time here in scenic Guanacaste.
"Yeah, I know. I wasn't happy about that either. It turns out that HONEYCOMB was up to something with a nearby volcano. They've got copies of the petroglyphs from the one in the national park, east of here. That and a lot of high math flibberty-goo and weird science things. Since we've got it all turned the !@#$ off we can't really tell what it is or what it does. But, you know me, I like to be thorough.
"Yes, sir. Yes. I know. We didn't want to stay any longer. I realize the President of Costa Rica is tired of hearing complaints, and I know you're tired of hearing his complaints. But I don't want to leave any hanging bombs out here, sir. These people were !@#$ dangerous. The less we keep out here the better.
"Yes, sir. I will try to have it wrapped up within a week. No guarantees, though. I make the decision. Agreed?
"...
"Yeah, well, with all due respect, sir, you really should ask Mr. Presidente those questions about HONEYCOMB and his backyard. Especially the nasty stuff we've been excavating since we got down here.
"Okay, yeah, I know he doesn't want to talk about it. !@#$ him. You're the President of the United States of America. How many !@#$ science terrorist incidents did we suffer because of them? How many dead citizens? How many dead soldiers, supers, and Agents?
"Exactly. Too many to list. !@#$ tell him that, and then tell him to be !@#$ grateful I don't march down to his estate and tattoo their names on his fat !@#$.
"Yes, sir. No, I am not diplomat material. I'm the one you send in before you need to talk to the diplomats, and I'm the one you send in after talking to them's left you no better off than before. This isn't a matter for diplomacy. This is a matter for the big black boot. And I'm wearing the biggest, blackest mother!@#$ of them all.
"...
"Well, I'll try. I'm amazed they haven't name-dropped me, yet. I got fifty bucks riding on Paul being the first to make hay out of my fine gay !@#$.
"That's because he was the one who did it last time. History repeating itself and all that !@#$. Look, I need to get back to that petroglyph thing so we can get the !@#$ out of dodge.
"Yes, I got the hotel manager his head-rug back. I washed it and everything. He appeared grateful, but that may have been shock, too.
"Thank you, sir. Goodbye, sir."
*click*
"Jesus mother!@#$ !@#$ on a bicycle with a bottle of whiskey up his !@#$. Some people are just not !@#$ satisfied."
1/15/12
Dear (REDACTED)
I wanted to let you know that the matter we discussed, earlier this month, is well in hand. We have made the necessary modifications and are testing the prototype on the streets of Chicago as we speak. So far it seems to be handling beautifully, but we want to make sure the product is stress-tested to the maximum we can provide before handing it over.
You didn't answer one important question, though: interiors. Please tell us what you want, keeping in mind that any animal skin is out of the question. (I apologize, but my son's a bit funny on animal rights.)
Yours in Christ
(OvO)
***
Dear (REDACTED)
Black suede seats, black dash, simulated cherry-wood paneling. Lights should be bright green for visibility. And if you could throw in that extender in the back seat, that would be awesome.
Thank you again. I owe you a !@#$ big one.
SPYGOD
(SPYGOD is listening to Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello) and having a Hitachino Nest beer)
Sunday, January 15, 2012
1/10/12 - Talking with the President
*ringggggggggggg*
"Yes, what? Yes, this is he.
"Oh, the President? Yes, I'll hold. Not for long, though. Don't make me do something !@#$ unforgettable with this phone and my !@#$.
"Hello, Mr. President. How are you? Oh, good to hear. Yes, I'm just fine. Just fine.
"Explosions? Oh, you can hear them? Yeah, we're playing Detonation.
"Really? Oh, it's fun. It's what you do when you have a bunch of captured munitions you can't really bring back with you and don't want left lying around. You blow them the !@#$ up.
"Yep, absolutely. Same in every war, really. We just get a little more creative with the blowing up. Hence why it's a game.
"I see. Yes. I'm glad the President of Costa Rica is taking such a keen interest in our work out here. You have asked him if he was taking a keen interest in what was going on out here before we got here, right? When HONEYCOMB was !@#$ camping out in his own backyard?
"No? Well that's a little surprising. Disappointing, too, to be honest. I mean, he keeps sending envoys over, every !@#$ day I might add, just to see what stage we're at. I find it hard to believe he didn't exercise the same concern when a !@#$ science terrorist outfit was operating out of here.
"Yes, you're probably right sir. They'd have !@#$ killed him, alright. I guess it's good to know we have a President who knows how to stay alive, at least.
"Well, you can assure the President of Costa Rica, though our wonderful American ambassador to Costa Rica, that we'll be wrapping up operations here soon. Yes, we're almost done, sir. We just have a few more things we have to shore up and then we'll be gone.
"Yes, that is good news. I'm sure the hotel manager here in Riu Guanacaste is looking forward to the day that he doesn't have to wake up and find out a gay orgy's broken out in the pool. Or a barfight in the game room. Or a game in the bar. Whatever. Things get a little out of hand, sometimes.
"Oh, yeah. I was wondering when you might mention that, sir. As a matter of fact we have had a few phone calls from some of the people who want your job. Yes, sir. Yes.
"No, sir. No. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to pick sides. I serve at the pleasure of the President, and that's you. It's not my job to help pick your replacement, or urge others to choose one. That would be a really !@#$ thing for me to do.
"Oh.
"Well, yes, I did sort of intimate to my Agents that it might not be a bad thing if certain photographs of some of those candidates came to light. I did not, and would not, order them to place them up on certain web sites, or leak them to certain bottom-feeding members of the Washington press corps. But yeah, I might have said that if they had any in the files, it might not be a terrible thing if they got out into the hands of the electorate.
"Yes, sir. I know. I know, I know, I know. But to my credit, you know that I am very bipartisan when it comes to such things. In fact, I think you might remember that, back when you were running the office, I had a few of your fellows embarrassed in a similar fashion.
"Yes, that one guy and his dirty little secret. Aren't we just glad he didn't make it too far in the running? I know Bob Kerry is.
"Oh, your Secretary of State? Well, come on, sir. It's no secret. Everyone in Washington knows it except for her !@#$ husband, apparently, and we know how he spends his time.
"Yes, sir. Vegan chicks, now. A lot skinnier. Which is too bad. I really liked the last one. I figure if you're going to be a dog you should go for someone with hips.
"Yeah, true. Not my cup of tea. Let's not get into that.
"Alright, so you are giving me a direct order to not have my Agents embarrass your opponents? Well, alright. I will do that, sir. Anything else?
"Oh. Well, you have to admit... okay. Okay, yes sir. Yes sir. I will see the manager of the hotel gets his wig back. Even if he does look a lot better as a slaphead than with that dead mutt on his head.
"He's the President's cousin's uncle's cousin's next door neighbor? !@#$, what the !@#$ is this, the Middle East?
"Okay, okay. I'll give it back. I'll even !@#$ clean it. Anything else?
"GORGON. Well...
"We're working on it. Tell them that. They should know what that means by now.
"No, I am not timing those explosions to sound more ominous, sir. That's just dumb luck.
"Yes, always good talking with you, Mr. President. I'll bring you some interesting suds next time I'm up."
*click*
(SPYGOD is listening to Telephone (Lady Gaga) and having a Detonation Ale)
"Yes, what? Yes, this is he.
"Oh, the President? Yes, I'll hold. Not for long, though. Don't make me do something !@#$ unforgettable with this phone and my !@#$.
"Hello, Mr. President. How are you? Oh, good to hear. Yes, I'm just fine. Just fine.
"Explosions? Oh, you can hear them? Yeah, we're playing Detonation.
"Really? Oh, it's fun. It's what you do when you have a bunch of captured munitions you can't really bring back with you and don't want left lying around. You blow them the !@#$ up.
"Yep, absolutely. Same in every war, really. We just get a little more creative with the blowing up. Hence why it's a game.
"I see. Yes. I'm glad the President of Costa Rica is taking such a keen interest in our work out here. You have asked him if he was taking a keen interest in what was going on out here before we got here, right? When HONEYCOMB was !@#$ camping out in his own backyard?
"No? Well that's a little surprising. Disappointing, too, to be honest. I mean, he keeps sending envoys over, every !@#$ day I might add, just to see what stage we're at. I find it hard to believe he didn't exercise the same concern when a !@#$ science terrorist outfit was operating out of here.
"Yes, you're probably right sir. They'd have !@#$ killed him, alright. I guess it's good to know we have a President who knows how to stay alive, at least.
"Well, you can assure the President of Costa Rica, though our wonderful American ambassador to Costa Rica, that we'll be wrapping up operations here soon. Yes, we're almost done, sir. We just have a few more things we have to shore up and then we'll be gone.
"Yes, that is good news. I'm sure the hotel manager here in Riu Guanacaste is looking forward to the day that he doesn't have to wake up and find out a gay orgy's broken out in the pool. Or a barfight in the game room. Or a game in the bar. Whatever. Things get a little out of hand, sometimes.
"Oh, yeah. I was wondering when you might mention that, sir. As a matter of fact we have had a few phone calls from some of the people who want your job. Yes, sir. Yes.
"No, sir. No. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to pick sides. I serve at the pleasure of the President, and that's you. It's not my job to help pick your replacement, or urge others to choose one. That would be a really !@#$ thing for me to do.
"Oh.
"Well, yes, I did sort of intimate to my Agents that it might not be a bad thing if certain photographs of some of those candidates came to light. I did not, and would not, order them to place them up on certain web sites, or leak them to certain bottom-feeding members of the Washington press corps. But yeah, I might have said that if they had any in the files, it might not be a terrible thing if they got out into the hands of the electorate.
"Yes, sir. I know. I know, I know, I know. But to my credit, you know that I am very bipartisan when it comes to such things. In fact, I think you might remember that, back when you were running the office, I had a few of your fellows embarrassed in a similar fashion.
"Yes, that one guy and his dirty little secret. Aren't we just glad he didn't make it too far in the running? I know Bob Kerry is.
"Oh, your Secretary of State? Well, come on, sir. It's no secret. Everyone in Washington knows it except for her !@#$ husband, apparently, and we know how he spends his time.
"Yes, sir. Vegan chicks, now. A lot skinnier. Which is too bad. I really liked the last one. I figure if you're going to be a dog you should go for someone with hips.
"Yeah, true. Not my cup of tea. Let's not get into that.
"Alright, so you are giving me a direct order to not have my Agents embarrass your opponents? Well, alright. I will do that, sir. Anything else?
"Oh. Well, you have to admit... okay. Okay, yes sir. Yes sir. I will see the manager of the hotel gets his wig back. Even if he does look a lot better as a slaphead than with that dead mutt on his head.
"He's the President's cousin's uncle's cousin's next door neighbor? !@#$, what the !@#$ is this, the Middle East?
"Okay, okay. I'll give it back. I'll even !@#$ clean it. Anything else?
"GORGON. Well...
"We're working on it. Tell them that. They should know what that means by now.
"No, I am not timing those explosions to sound more ominous, sir. That's just dumb luck.
"Yes, always good talking with you, Mr. President. I'll bring you some interesting suds next time I'm up."
*click*
(SPYGOD is listening to Telephone (Lady Gaga) and having a Detonation Ale)
Friday, January 6, 2012
1/2-4/12 - Save it For Later
You know, son, you have never lived until you've had the manager of a massive hotel beg you not stay another day.
Not order, mind you. Not demand you get the !@#$ out before he calls the cops, or his cousins, or his cousins who happen to be cops. Not even strongly hint, but begs, because the government said we could stay, and he can't force us to leave, but every day we're here means at least another month he'll have to be shut the !@#$ down to clean up our mess.
So here's Hector, on his mother!@#$ knees, crying his eyes out and begging me to just get out. His bad hairpiece is falling down over his face and he looks as ridiculous as a drunk bum doing clown porn to get a six pack and a burger.
Me? I put my cigar out on his hairpiece, promise to think about it, and tell him to go make sure the Bavaria Negra keeps flowing in sufficient quantities. And keep the buffet going 24/7, would you? My boys and girls work up a real appetite.
(And the hookers! Can't forget those. Clean, preferably)
Not that the poor man doesn't have good reason to give us the heave-ho, though. The place has been through six shades of !@#$ since the COMPANY showed up, after the end of OPERATION: BUGSMASH. All their previous guests were scooted out toot !@#$ sweet in the name of international security, and they got replaced by all these gun-toting gringos, most of whom desperately needed to relax and unwind after dealing the death-blow to HONEYCOMB.
So there's been chaos at the scenic Hotel Riu Guanacaste. Bad enough that most of the floors have been appropriated and turned into large deconstruction areas, giving our science boys a place to take what we trashed apart and figure out how it !@#$ works. But there's also been a lot of hi jinks after hours, most of it drunk.
And when you have badly hungover COMPANY Agents trucking weird and often-experimental things in and out of the rooms, or using the swimming pool as a containment unit for certain exotic things we seized, or conducting interrogations of captured HONEYCOMB personnel, replicants, and would-be gene donors, accidents are going to happen.
I make no excuses for this. Mistakes have clearly been made. I think I'll be writing apology letters to everyone in the Costa Rican government for the ill-advised "fireworks" display that may or may not have caused cancer in everyone due West of our current location. Thankfully, that's not a !@#$ lot of people, but I think the fish are going to look a little weird for the next decade or so.
(Unstable reactor fuel we had to launch into near orbit before it blew up this side of the country. It happens.)
But, at the same time, I'm not making any apologies, either. The greasy, little mustachioed !@#$face that runs this swanky joint couldn't have not known what was going on up the road. And even if it just fell under the category of "bad mierda that, thank the blessed Virgin Mary, I do not have to deal with," like so many other things down here, I still think it's high time he licked some mierda off karma's well-worn boots for his obvious moral cowardice.
As it was, he was content to kiss my designer, lizard skin Pradas and pick cigar ash out of his hair. And be very !@#$ grateful I didn't do worse.
I have to be careful, though. It's just one slippery step too far to the right and then I'm in fascist territory. Something this region knows a lot about, unfortunately.
They tell me I act like one, already, but !@#$ that !@#$. I'm just a transitory state of affairs; a bad smell that shows up in your town a couple days after year and then leaves, having drank half your beer and stolen some boy's heart (and backdoor virginity).
The real fascists don't show up in costumes and special, black PVC suits to save you from some threat from beyond your understanding, shoot a few collaborators, and !@#$ off to their flying headquarters. They move in slow and quiet: taking over schoolboards and churches, maybe the chamber of commerce, and then the police and town hall. Next thing you know, the leader's picture's up in the schools and supermarkets, and then you're all being told not only what to think, but how.
Case in point: the HIVE we're cleaning up and out had plans towards that state. Nasty !@#$ plans.
Near as we can tell, there are at least 500,000 people around the world who have been victimized by a special treatment, courtesy of HONEYCOMB. It's similar to what was done to South Korea's Unit 684, only those men were actually activated and trained. These people, all recipients of certain, "special" blood transfusions during minor surgical procedures, are out there, living their lives, unaware of HONEYCOMB microtransmitters in their spinal columns, and dormant RNA in their systems.
One signal from the central HIVE, and they'd all wake up changed people, with enhanced strength and endurance, killer instincts, a soldier's skills, and a program to follow. They would no longer be who they were, but be murder machines for HONEYCOMB, ready to infiltrate key systems and governmental services, and then kneecap the major powers in one quick, coordinated action.
Yeah, son. Just like the toasters, only without the CGI cloning and nude Asians. And it could have been really !@#$ bad if that !@#$ had gone down.
The good news is that, thanks to the files we salvaged, we now know who's been tagged with this !@#$. Better still, we know how to cure it without harming them. So we can devise a careful and quiet program to inoculate them, singly or in groups, without them knowing anything ever happened to them, or what we're doing about it.
The bad news is that, based on the files we salvaged, there are countless other doomsday plans and sleeping threats that HONEYCOMB amassed over the decades. Some of these are only hinted at on what we've got, and some of them may have been completely spelled out on the files we didn't get, thanks to some badly-placed explosives and a very large tunnelator.
But that's acceptable, for now. We've got a foot in the door, and that's all we need. We can take today, tonight, and tomorrow as they come, and while it's a shame we don't have Gerde to explain a few things to us, I'm can't say I'm not sorry the !@#$ is dead.
(Haven't checked in with her sister to see how she's taking the news, but that's not much concern at this point. I think Professor Yesterday's got that in hand. He'd !@#$ better, anyway.)
I feel good, strangely enough. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to duck and !@#$ cover, but for some reason I can't help but look back at the last year and think we're on the right track. No more super-Nazis, no more organized super-crime, and now no more science terrorists.
There's just one more big domino to knock over, and then...
...
And then what? What do we do in a world where The COMPANY's biggest foils have been foiled to !@#$ and back? Put out small fires? Rescue cats from trees?
What does the small town policeman do when there's no criminals to arrest? Go fishing? !@#$ the secretary?
I don't know, yet. This all seems like it's going too easy, even if it hasn't been. I keep expecting someone to leap out of a door, yell "surprise," and throw a pie in my face.
And knowing my luck, it won't be my favorite flavor.
Ah well, another question for another day. I think I'm going to go down to the bar the poor manager's having to keep open all day and night and enjoy some of the fruits of my temporary fascism. Like a couple doubles drunk out of some poolboy's !@#$crack.
"O Sweet victory. How strange the taste."
(SPYGOD is listening to Save it For Later (English Beat) and having a ton of Bavaria Negra)
Not order, mind you. Not demand you get the !@#$ out before he calls the cops, or his cousins, or his cousins who happen to be cops. Not even strongly hint, but begs, because the government said we could stay, and he can't force us to leave, but every day we're here means at least another month he'll have to be shut the !@#$ down to clean up our mess.
So here's Hector, on his mother!@#$ knees, crying his eyes out and begging me to just get out. His bad hairpiece is falling down over his face and he looks as ridiculous as a drunk bum doing clown porn to get a six pack and a burger.
Me? I put my cigar out on his hairpiece, promise to think about it, and tell him to go make sure the Bavaria Negra keeps flowing in sufficient quantities. And keep the buffet going 24/7, would you? My boys and girls work up a real appetite.
(And the hookers! Can't forget those. Clean, preferably)
Not that the poor man doesn't have good reason to give us the heave-ho, though. The place has been through six shades of !@#$ since the COMPANY showed up, after the end of OPERATION: BUGSMASH. All their previous guests were scooted out toot !@#$ sweet in the name of international security, and they got replaced by all these gun-toting gringos, most of whom desperately needed to relax and unwind after dealing the death-blow to HONEYCOMB.
So there's been chaos at the scenic Hotel Riu Guanacaste. Bad enough that most of the floors have been appropriated and turned into large deconstruction areas, giving our science boys a place to take what we trashed apart and figure out how it !@#$ works. But there's also been a lot of hi jinks after hours, most of it drunk.
And when you have badly hungover COMPANY Agents trucking weird and often-experimental things in and out of the rooms, or using the swimming pool as a containment unit for certain exotic things we seized, or conducting interrogations of captured HONEYCOMB personnel, replicants, and would-be gene donors, accidents are going to happen.
I make no excuses for this. Mistakes have clearly been made. I think I'll be writing apology letters to everyone in the Costa Rican government for the ill-advised "fireworks" display that may or may not have caused cancer in everyone due West of our current location. Thankfully, that's not a !@#$ lot of people, but I think the fish are going to look a little weird for the next decade or so.
(Unstable reactor fuel we had to launch into near orbit before it blew up this side of the country. It happens.)
But, at the same time, I'm not making any apologies, either. The greasy, little mustachioed !@#$face that runs this swanky joint couldn't have not known what was going on up the road. And even if it just fell under the category of "bad mierda that, thank the blessed Virgin Mary, I do not have to deal with," like so many other things down here, I still think it's high time he licked some mierda off karma's well-worn boots for his obvious moral cowardice.
As it was, he was content to kiss my designer, lizard skin Pradas and pick cigar ash out of his hair. And be very !@#$ grateful I didn't do worse.
I have to be careful, though. It's just one slippery step too far to the right and then I'm in fascist territory. Something this region knows a lot about, unfortunately.
They tell me I act like one, already, but !@#$ that !@#$. I'm just a transitory state of affairs; a bad smell that shows up in your town a couple days after year and then leaves, having drank half your beer and stolen some boy's heart (and backdoor virginity).
The real fascists don't show up in costumes and special, black PVC suits to save you from some threat from beyond your understanding, shoot a few collaborators, and !@#$ off to their flying headquarters. They move in slow and quiet: taking over schoolboards and churches, maybe the chamber of commerce, and then the police and town hall. Next thing you know, the leader's picture's up in the schools and supermarkets, and then you're all being told not only what to think, but how.
Case in point: the HIVE we're cleaning up and out had plans towards that state. Nasty !@#$ plans.
Near as we can tell, there are at least 500,000 people around the world who have been victimized by a special treatment, courtesy of HONEYCOMB. It's similar to what was done to South Korea's Unit 684, only those men were actually activated and trained. These people, all recipients of certain, "special" blood transfusions during minor surgical procedures, are out there, living their lives, unaware of HONEYCOMB microtransmitters in their spinal columns, and dormant RNA in their systems.
One signal from the central HIVE, and they'd all wake up changed people, with enhanced strength and endurance, killer instincts, a soldier's skills, and a program to follow. They would no longer be who they were, but be murder machines for HONEYCOMB, ready to infiltrate key systems and governmental services, and then kneecap the major powers in one quick, coordinated action.
Yeah, son. Just like the toasters, only without the CGI cloning and nude Asians. And it could have been really !@#$ bad if that !@#$ had gone down.
The good news is that, thanks to the files we salvaged, we now know who's been tagged with this !@#$. Better still, we know how to cure it without harming them. So we can devise a careful and quiet program to inoculate them, singly or in groups, without them knowing anything ever happened to them, or what we're doing about it.
The bad news is that, based on the files we salvaged, there are countless other doomsday plans and sleeping threats that HONEYCOMB amassed over the decades. Some of these are only hinted at on what we've got, and some of them may have been completely spelled out on the files we didn't get, thanks to some badly-placed explosives and a very large tunnelator.
But that's acceptable, for now. We've got a foot in the door, and that's all we need. We can take today, tonight, and tomorrow as they come, and while it's a shame we don't have Gerde to explain a few things to us, I'm can't say I'm not sorry the !@#$ is dead.
(Haven't checked in with her sister to see how she's taking the news, but that's not much concern at this point. I think Professor Yesterday's got that in hand. He'd !@#$ better, anyway.)
I feel good, strangely enough. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to duck and !@#$ cover, but for some reason I can't help but look back at the last year and think we're on the right track. No more super-Nazis, no more organized super-crime, and now no more science terrorists.
There's just one more big domino to knock over, and then...
...
And then what? What do we do in a world where The COMPANY's biggest foils have been foiled to !@#$ and back? Put out small fires? Rescue cats from trees?
What does the small town policeman do when there's no criminals to arrest? Go fishing? !@#$ the secretary?
I don't know, yet. This all seems like it's going too easy, even if it hasn't been. I keep expecting someone to leap out of a door, yell "surprise," and throw a pie in my face.
And knowing my luck, it won't be my favorite flavor.
Ah well, another question for another day. I think I'm going to go down to the bar the poor manager's having to keep open all day and night and enjoy some of the fruits of my temporary fascism. Like a couple doubles drunk out of some poolboy's !@#$crack.
"O Sweet victory. How strange the taste."
(SPYGOD is listening to Save it For Later (English Beat) and having a ton of Bavaria Negra)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
1/1/12 - They Say This is the Golden Age
"Nothing changes, on New Years' Day."
Bono (that is, Paul David Hewson) wrote that more than 25 years ago. Every once in a while I have reason to visit that song, usually for silly !@#$ reasons that have nothing to do with the meaning behind the lyrics. Either that or they visit me by way of an 80's DJ with a limited back catalog and no !@#$ idea who John Foxx is (!@#$ Philistines)
But I'm splattered in someone else's blood, and for some reason the song is coming back to me. That line, especially, but of course "I will be killed again" is coming up for !@#$ air, too.
(It's actually "I will begin, again," but I know what I hear.)
I'm in Costa Rica, today -- about four miles Northwest from scenic and tiny Plazuela. About as far Northwest as you can get without falling off a cliff into the !@#$ Pacific. And the only thing around, other than a beach hotel we've taken over for the duration, is a large smoking crater that was HONEYCOMB's central HIVE.
"Was," until Myron and his boys drove his Tunnelator up through it like a drunk steroid-junkie leather daddy in search of a forced !@#$-slam in a toilet stall, that is. All there really is now is a shattered complex with a shut down reactor, hundreds of dead, dying, or mostly suicidal HONEYCOMB soldiers, thousands of broken and twitching giant metal bugs, and a few outlying structures we're going through with fine toothed combs in one hand, and big guns in the other.
Big !@#$ guns, like the one Myron just used on the prisoner we were interrogating.
Roll the !@#$ tape back a bit? Don't mind if I do.
Yesterday, I was in Washington D.C. enjoying New Years at the White House, for a change. Usually I spend it on the Flier with my Agents, having the party to end all parties, at least until next year. But, given the fact that the Flier is sitting in the Atlantic being rebuilt, well beyond the estimated date they gave me (!@#$ commie government contractor !@#$ !@#$) nand we're dealing with what's left of HONEYCOMB, the party's going to have to be postponed for a while. Which sucks !@#$ !@#$, but that's why we call it life.
The President and I were trying hard to not discuss certain matters that came up the last time we talked, but between what he and I didn't say I am reasonably assured that certain steps have been taken regarding a certain rival intelligence agency, its links to the late, unlamented Legion, and its dumb!@#$, supervillain-coddling Director. Given that, I don't feel the need to talk to some scandal-loving bottom feeder journalists I know.
But he can't help but ask me how things are going down in Costa Rica. Apparently, the Ambassador's been on the phone a lot, lately, and is gently relaying that country's growing unease at the COMPANY's presence inside their borders. I guess they don't like the fact that we're flooding their local businesses with yankee dollars?
Of course, this is by my third or fourth bottle of Tusker (say what you will about the man, he knows a good beer) and Dick Clark's face is about to drop, or maybe the ball is. So I tell the President that maybe he should ask their government where their concern's been all the years that HONEYCOMB's had their central !@#$ HIVE in their country. And maybe he should follow it up with "suck my mother!@#$ !@#$ you !@#$ !@#$."
Needless to say, that stops a few conversations, including our own. But a little later, after my liver's done what it normally does with a good beer buzz, I assure the President, on my way out, that I will go down to personally supervise the cleanup and see what we can do to expedite matters. Anything for an ally in whatever "war" we're fighting this week, right?
He makes a face like someone handed him a rotten lemon to chew on. Then I realize my kidneys have also dealt with the beer buzz how they normally do, only without the aid of the nearest bathroom. Which also !@#$ sucks, but it's nothing he's not used to.
(You should see what the veep does when he gets !@#$faced)
So instead of sleeping in all !@#$ day, brainslammed like a cheap nail that met a hammer forged by angry gods, I'm on a transport to Costa Rica. Of course we encounter chop. Of course I puke out the !@#$ window.
Of course I have to make a window to !@#$ puke out of.
Now, Myron's already down there to meet me, and he doesn't look happy. Oh no. In fact, he looks !@#$ pissed. Not at me, of course. But this isn't what he was expecting during the mop-up.
So I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he should have read the file. It was all there. I even smack him over the head with it a few times so it'll sink in, and I won't have to do that in front of his people ever again.
Though, in honesty, the often clinical nature of our write-ups tend to leave a few things filtered out. And maybe this is what Myron's having the problem with.
Like the smell of the reclamation plants. There is nothing that can prepare you for the meat, chemical, and !@#$ stench of what's left of massive amounts of human bodies. And while you might be able to visualize the sight of hundreds of human bodies, picked clean of all usable organs and parts, actually !@#$ seeing them is another thing.
Especially when you consider that these bodies, mostly locals who get too close, or the kidnapped victims of HONEYCOMB operations around the globe, are about to be turned into pinkish-red slush, and then either pumped into their gardens as fertilizer, or fed to their soldiers as food.
But there's a few other bodies in there, too. And this is what has Myron currently frothing at the mouth, insane with anger, and clicking an empty gun at what's left of the head he just blew up all over me.
Point of fact: HONEYCOMB does not want you to join them. They do not do recruitment drives. They do not bring willing people into the fold. Either you were amongst the original engineers, or you got kidnapped and worked to death, or you were spawned in a machine, fed a personality, and put to work.
But they will accept donations from interested parties.
HONEYCOMB has people all over the world, looking for potential donors. They want the smartest people they can find that are also in top physical condition, with minds that sit on that fine line between scientific detachment and unorthodoxy. And the occasional dip of the toe into the crazy pool is seen as an asset rather than a !@#$ deal breaker.
Once they find you, they scan you with their super science doohickeys, and find out if your genes are decent enough to pass their stringent qualifications. Then they slip you a puzzle to figure out, and if you get that far, they might just approach you with the offer.
The offer is simple: they want you to be a part of HONEYCOMB. But it's not what you might think. You will not be joining, as you would a company or military. You will be harvested for your genes and intelligence, which will be added to the group genepool, so as to make bigger, better, stronger, and smarter HONEYCOMB soldiers.
(It's a kind of immortality, I guess. But I know you can !@#$ guess what your pal SPYGOD has to say about that.)
The scary thing is how many of these kids say "yes." Scarier still is why.
You see, HONEYCOMB understands that these people have vivid imaginations. And they've probably spent their entire lives being told "no" when they want to exercise them. No, you can't do this. No, you can't do that. No, that's wrong. No, that's illegal. No, that's just sick. No, no, !@#$ no.
You know what happens to someone like that? Well, with any luck they eventually outgrow it, but chances are there's this beast raging inside them for the rest of their lives, waiting to come out.
As payment for being willing to !@#$ die (painlessly, admittedly) for HONEYCOMB, the group offers these kids a week in which anything they want will be given to them. !@#$ anything. At the week's end, it's the harvester, but until then, they get a large room, and anything they want.
You want a room full of action figures so you can play out the great battles you couldn't have after your parents tossed your toys? Done.
You want to !@#$ dozens, or even hundreds, of beautiful people? Or ugly ones? Midgets? Horses? Done.
You want to rape? Murder? Maim? Kill? Abuse children? Eat your weight in human flesh? Play "Hostel" or "Human Centipede?"
Done.
The Tunnelator came up under the central Nexus of the HIVE without much !@#$ warning. The central area was trashed. The Freedom Week blocks are outside the central area, and didn't take much damage. This means that we've been going from block to block, since then, "liberating" them from college age sociopaths who have no idea why the lights went out on their private little paradises.
And some of those paradises... well, you know SPYGOD is a hard !@#$ man, son. But that hardness wasn't always there. I threw up and cried when I got to Auschwitz. I still mist up when I think of some of the things I've seen since then. Some of the things I've done.
But this? Well, some of this is about more than yours truly really wants to remember, right now. Not without several drinks.
Which is why I am not stopping Myron from doing what he's doing. He made the mistake of walking into the room after we'd pulling this whiny man-boy out of it, stark naked and covered in dried blood and human !@#$, and demanding to know why his week was canceled. He still had two days left!
Myron walked in there, flashlight in hand, and saw what he'd been doing. And to who. Or what, rather.
Then he walked out here, took the gun right off my holster, and started shooting. I don't remember when he started crying (maybe the third bullet) but I'm not sorry to see those tears. They're proof that there's still something inside us that can be so outraged by needless atrocity that, even when doing the obvious thing to the person who made it happen, our humanity's coming up for air in the sea of !@#$.
I might have to take it away a minute or two, though. Dry-firing's not good for a gun. But for now, let him pull the trigger and cry. It seems a fitting epitaph for this whole !@#$ place.
I can only hope it's all worth it. This last year's led me to nastier places that I'd thought it might, and even though I !@#$ wrote most of the files, I'm still constantly surprised by the !@#$ we're finding under the rocks we're turning over.
(SPYGOD is listening to New Years Day (U2) and will be having something with very high alcohol content, soon)
Bono (that is, Paul David Hewson) wrote that more than 25 years ago. Every once in a while I have reason to visit that song, usually for silly !@#$ reasons that have nothing to do with the meaning behind the lyrics. Either that or they visit me by way of an 80's DJ with a limited back catalog and no !@#$ idea who John Foxx is (!@#$ Philistines)
But I'm splattered in someone else's blood, and for some reason the song is coming back to me. That line, especially, but of course "I will be killed again" is coming up for !@#$ air, too.
(It's actually "I will begin, again," but I know what I hear.)
I'm in Costa Rica, today -- about four miles Northwest from scenic and tiny Plazuela. About as far Northwest as you can get without falling off a cliff into the !@#$ Pacific. And the only thing around, other than a beach hotel we've taken over for the duration, is a large smoking crater that was HONEYCOMB's central HIVE.
"Was," until Myron and his boys drove his Tunnelator up through it like a drunk steroid-junkie leather daddy in search of a forced !@#$-slam in a toilet stall, that is. All there really is now is a shattered complex with a shut down reactor, hundreds of dead, dying, or mostly suicidal HONEYCOMB soldiers, thousands of broken and twitching giant metal bugs, and a few outlying structures we're going through with fine toothed combs in one hand, and big guns in the other.
Big !@#$ guns, like the one Myron just used on the prisoner we were interrogating.
Roll the !@#$ tape back a bit? Don't mind if I do.
Yesterday, I was in Washington D.C. enjoying New Years at the White House, for a change. Usually I spend it on the Flier with my Agents, having the party to end all parties, at least until next year. But, given the fact that the Flier is sitting in the Atlantic being rebuilt, well beyond the estimated date they gave me (!@#$ commie government contractor !@#$ !@#$) nand we're dealing with what's left of HONEYCOMB, the party's going to have to be postponed for a while. Which sucks !@#$ !@#$, but that's why we call it life.
The President and I were trying hard to not discuss certain matters that came up the last time we talked, but between what he and I didn't say I am reasonably assured that certain steps have been taken regarding a certain rival intelligence agency, its links to the late, unlamented Legion, and its dumb!@#$, supervillain-coddling Director. Given that, I don't feel the need to talk to some scandal-loving bottom feeder journalists I know.
But he can't help but ask me how things are going down in Costa Rica. Apparently, the Ambassador's been on the phone a lot, lately, and is gently relaying that country's growing unease at the COMPANY's presence inside their borders. I guess they don't like the fact that we're flooding their local businesses with yankee dollars?
Of course, this is by my third or fourth bottle of Tusker (say what you will about the man, he knows a good beer) and Dick Clark's face is about to drop, or maybe the ball is. So I tell the President that maybe he should ask their government where their concern's been all the years that HONEYCOMB's had their central !@#$ HIVE in their country. And maybe he should follow it up with "suck my mother!@#$ !@#$ you !@#$ !@#$."
Needless to say, that stops a few conversations, including our own. But a little later, after my liver's done what it normally does with a good beer buzz, I assure the President, on my way out, that I will go down to personally supervise the cleanup and see what we can do to expedite matters. Anything for an ally in whatever "war" we're fighting this week, right?
He makes a face like someone handed him a rotten lemon to chew on. Then I realize my kidneys have also dealt with the beer buzz how they normally do, only without the aid of the nearest bathroom. Which also !@#$ sucks, but it's nothing he's not used to.
(You should see what the veep does when he gets !@#$faced)
So instead of sleeping in all !@#$ day, brainslammed like a cheap nail that met a hammer forged by angry gods, I'm on a transport to Costa Rica. Of course we encounter chop. Of course I puke out the !@#$ window.
Of course I have to make a window to !@#$ puke out of.
Now, Myron's already down there to meet me, and he doesn't look happy. Oh no. In fact, he looks !@#$ pissed. Not at me, of course. But this isn't what he was expecting during the mop-up.
So I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he should have read the file. It was all there. I even smack him over the head with it a few times so it'll sink in, and I won't have to do that in front of his people ever again.
Though, in honesty, the often clinical nature of our write-ups tend to leave a few things filtered out. And maybe this is what Myron's having the problem with.
Like the smell of the reclamation plants. There is nothing that can prepare you for the meat, chemical, and !@#$ stench of what's left of massive amounts of human bodies. And while you might be able to visualize the sight of hundreds of human bodies, picked clean of all usable organs and parts, actually !@#$ seeing them is another thing.
Especially when you consider that these bodies, mostly locals who get too close, or the kidnapped victims of HONEYCOMB operations around the globe, are about to be turned into pinkish-red slush, and then either pumped into their gardens as fertilizer, or fed to their soldiers as food.
But there's a few other bodies in there, too. And this is what has Myron currently frothing at the mouth, insane with anger, and clicking an empty gun at what's left of the head he just blew up all over me.
Point of fact: HONEYCOMB does not want you to join them. They do not do recruitment drives. They do not bring willing people into the fold. Either you were amongst the original engineers, or you got kidnapped and worked to death, or you were spawned in a machine, fed a personality, and put to work.
But they will accept donations from interested parties.
HONEYCOMB has people all over the world, looking for potential donors. They want the smartest people they can find that are also in top physical condition, with minds that sit on that fine line between scientific detachment and unorthodoxy. And the occasional dip of the toe into the crazy pool is seen as an asset rather than a !@#$ deal breaker.
Once they find you, they scan you with their super science doohickeys, and find out if your genes are decent enough to pass their stringent qualifications. Then they slip you a puzzle to figure out, and if you get that far, they might just approach you with the offer.
The offer is simple: they want you to be a part of HONEYCOMB. But it's not what you might think. You will not be joining, as you would a company or military. You will be harvested for your genes and intelligence, which will be added to the group genepool, so as to make bigger, better, stronger, and smarter HONEYCOMB soldiers.
(It's a kind of immortality, I guess. But I know you can !@#$ guess what your pal SPYGOD has to say about that.)
The scary thing is how many of these kids say "yes." Scarier still is why.
You see, HONEYCOMB understands that these people have vivid imaginations. And they've probably spent their entire lives being told "no" when they want to exercise them. No, you can't do this. No, you can't do that. No, that's wrong. No, that's illegal. No, that's just sick. No, no, !@#$ no.
You know what happens to someone like that? Well, with any luck they eventually outgrow it, but chances are there's this beast raging inside them for the rest of their lives, waiting to come out.
As payment for being willing to !@#$ die (painlessly, admittedly) for HONEYCOMB, the group offers these kids a week in which anything they want will be given to them. !@#$ anything. At the week's end, it's the harvester, but until then, they get a large room, and anything they want.
You want a room full of action figures so you can play out the great battles you couldn't have after your parents tossed your toys? Done.
You want to !@#$ dozens, or even hundreds, of beautiful people? Or ugly ones? Midgets? Horses? Done.
You want to rape? Murder? Maim? Kill? Abuse children? Eat your weight in human flesh? Play "Hostel" or "Human Centipede?"
Done.
The Tunnelator came up under the central Nexus of the HIVE without much !@#$ warning. The central area was trashed. The Freedom Week blocks are outside the central area, and didn't take much damage. This means that we've been going from block to block, since then, "liberating" them from college age sociopaths who have no idea why the lights went out on their private little paradises.
And some of those paradises... well, you know SPYGOD is a hard !@#$ man, son. But that hardness wasn't always there. I threw up and cried when I got to Auschwitz. I still mist up when I think of some of the things I've seen since then. Some of the things I've done.
But this? Well, some of this is about more than yours truly really wants to remember, right now. Not without several drinks.
Which is why I am not stopping Myron from doing what he's doing. He made the mistake of walking into the room after we'd pulling this whiny man-boy out of it, stark naked and covered in dried blood and human !@#$, and demanding to know why his week was canceled. He still had two days left!
Myron walked in there, flashlight in hand, and saw what he'd been doing. And to who. Or what, rather.
Then he walked out here, took the gun right off my holster, and started shooting. I don't remember when he started crying (maybe the third bullet) but I'm not sorry to see those tears. They're proof that there's still something inside us that can be so outraged by needless atrocity that, even when doing the obvious thing to the person who made it happen, our humanity's coming up for air in the sea of !@#$.
I might have to take it away a minute or two, though. Dry-firing's not good for a gun. But for now, let him pull the trigger and cry. It seems a fitting epitaph for this whole !@#$ place.
I can only hope it's all worth it. This last year's led me to nastier places that I'd thought it might, and even though I !@#$ wrote most of the files, I'm still constantly surprised by the !@#$ we're finding under the rocks we're turning over.
(SPYGOD is listening to New Years Day (U2) and will be having something with very high alcohol content, soon)
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