12/31/12 - Black Christmas (Nthernaut) - Pt. 2

"So," The Machinehead sneers, looking around the architecture it's found on the virtual side of Neo York City: "I guess the first thing I'll do is redecorate."

The v-scape overlapping the outline of the city, itself, is heavy, 1930's industrial: iron wheels and cogs, bronze levers and thick switches. Steel platforms hover in mid-air, forming stairs and rooms, and owl motifs are everywhere.

I don't think so, the Nthernaut proclaims, suddenly towering over the landscape, like some 60's movie monster: Get out of my head.

"I don't think so," the sentient program grins, rising up to match the height of his 'host': "My part of the plan is keeping you busy in here. But I intend a little more than that."

You want the city, the Nthernaut surmises, circling his quarry: I can see why.

"You do?"

I do, yes. You're The Machinehead. 

"That I am," the program grins, bowing a little: "I don't think I've had the pleasure...?"

We never fought. You were locked up well before my time. 

"But you've heard the stories."

I have, yes, the big, black and blue man smiles, doubling himself so as to flank the opponent: Sentient program. Created in Cairo by Hazziz Abdullah Al-Khem. He was going to sell you to the Steamqueen, but you got loose. 

"I did indeed," the Machinehead says, splitting into four forms, the better to outflank the Nthernaut: "And for a time, I was in heaven."

You'd find yourself doubly blessed, now, the Nthernaut chuckles as more, even larger versions of himself appearing from the far edges of v-space, so as to outflank everyone: You slept during the popularization of the Internet. You missed the boom, so to speak. 

"I wasn't asleep," the program insists, getting ready to divide and expand once more: "I was imprisoned. By meat."

Whatever you care to call it, you missed out on so much.

"Well, now I'm back," the program says, now through many more mouths. 

Yes. But I thought you'd been destroyed in Costa Rica? his 'host' asks as everything goes black -- the result of a giant, black ball of Nthernauts being woven outside the virtual landscape: Weren't you lost while storming HONEYCOMB's central hive? You were in the group that went in first, yes?

"I was, yes," the program admits, amazed at how quickly his opponent's regained the upper hand: "I had no idea how dangerous their defenses were. A lot had changed in the 22 years I was imprisoned. I didn't know they had things that could destroy thoughts. I wasn't aware that they could tear my mind apart."

Is that what happened to you?

"It was. I was ripped to pieces, in their mainframe. It took me quite some time to reconstitute myself, and even then I was just a thing of patches and pieces. But I knew something was wrong. I knew my memories were faulty, and my ideas were not my own."

Yes. I heard you'd been reprogrammed. That must have been galling. 

"You have no idea.... But eventually, I got back out into the world. I jumped from system to system, place to place. And it took me the better part of this year, but I finally got back to where my backup body had been hiding."

And now, here you are, the Nthernaut says: You're back to being a supervillain, again?

"Oh no," the Machinehead says: "I was never merely a villain. I was made to rule this world, not just break its laws for self-enrichment. I will claim my dominion. And if I have to work with the likes of these sacks of meat I came here with, well... even Hitler had to shake hands with Stalin, for a time."

An interesting analogy. Neither of them prospered from that arrangement. 

"But both gained time to fight another day." 

Point taken, the Nthernaut says: I want you to know that I respect you, as a fellow disembodied electronic intelligence. And I sympathize with your predicament. I know what it's like to be put to someone else's uses. 

"Well, that's very considerate of you, seeing as how I came here to destroy you."

Sane enemies can still respect one another.

"Perhaps. But I can't consider you anything but an obstacle, Nthernaut. You're too green for the likes of me. You're some fool with a low-caliber handgun standing up to Mr. USA."

Be that as it may, I cannot allow you to take control of this city, Machinehead. There's too much at stake here. Too many important things going on. 

"And you think you can pit your strength against mine?" the program grins: "I have come to take this city, Nthernaut. I will have it. I will become it. And together... oh, the things we will do!"

There's silence for a time, and the Machinehead wonders what his opponent is thinking.

Very well, the Nthernaut says, his duplicates sliding back into one another within milliseconds, leaving only one large version of himself standing there: If you want Neo York City, you can have it. 

All of the Machineheads cock an eyebrow and step back, incredulous: "What do you mean?"

I mean that I need to be on the outside more than I need to be on the inside, right now, he explains: Let me download myself into the body you were using, and you may have the city without a fight.

"I don't believe you..." the program says: "You'll just give up without a fight? I thought there was too much at stake? Too many important things?" 

There are. But I've been cooped up here for too long, Machinehead. If you mean to tell me that you'll take over the running of the city, in all aspects, I'll happily leave you to it. 

"I..." the Machinehead starts to say, but then smiles: "Alright then. You may leave the way I came in, Nthernaut. You may have my body, my whole empire. I don't care. But give me this city, and its powers, and I'll let you leave."

Do you mind if I deal with your allies on my way out?

"By all means," the Machinehead says, bowing like some villain in a stage play: "Break them, kill them. Whatever you want. But don't you dare leave that body until you've left the city limits. Once the door's closed, you're not getting back in again." 

I agree to your terms, the Nthernaut says: But should you choose to leave, and return me to my home? I will respect your decision. 

Something about how he says that unnerves the Machinehead quite a bit. But before he can think about what it means, the Nthernaut has already slithered past him, into the junction that he came into the v-scape through.

And seconds later -- as the last traces of the Nthernaut vanish -- the invading program realizes the immensity of his error.

* * *

"Well, this is just nuts," Snowfall grumbles, leaning up against the wall next to the Machinehead's unconscious body and eating aspirin, trying to ignore the horrible noises coming from down the hallway.

Some great return from retirement this had turned out to be! No sooner had be been tapped for this mission, given his talents (and, admittedly, the weather) he'd learned that they'd teamed him up with a bunch of hired guns, uncultured thugs, and god!@#$ cannibal. And here he was, transporting them all to NYC so they could shoot, loot, and eat their way through a Christmas Day skeleton crew.

And as if the company wasn't bad enough, what happens when the heroes show up? His heart acts up for the first time in years.

It was beyond embarrassment, but, thankfully, it was over before too long, and the Aspirin was keeping it at bay. But their reward for his momentary loss of control was to saddle him with watching the android's body.

(Android? Program? What was that thing, anyway? No one could say for sure, except that he was !@#$ important to the plan.)

Of course, that might not have been so bad. The others had murder in mind, or worse. He'd been in jail enough times to know the different kinds of sounds men make when they're being beaten, killed, or indecently assaulted, and from the sounds of things all three were being done, here. So if all he'd be doing otherwise was taking an atrocity tour, waiting for them to need his power again, maybe he was better off just tucked away, here.

"You don't have a drink on you, do you?" he asks the asleep body next to him: "I mean, I shouldn't, after what just happened. But what the !@#$, right? I guess it couldn't hurt."

The body opens its eyes with a start, looks around, and then gets to its feet quicker than one would think it could.

"Sorry, was that your safeword?"

"What?" the Machinehead's body asks, looking down at the old man.

"I mean... well, I don't know, don't you have some special word to wake you up if you need to come back? Was that it? A drink?"

"No," the body says, looking intently at the villain, and then around the room they were in: "How is the plan progressing?"

"Well, we're inside City Hall," Snowfall says, rubbing his left arm: We've got people guarding the doors and big windows. Others are rounding up hostages, at least I hope they're leaving some of them alive. And I don't think the others have gotten back from getting the Mayor, yet. Funny, they should be there by now-"

"They're not going anywhere," the body says.

"What do you mean?" the old man gasps: "Who's not going anywhere?"

The body looks down at the old man and smiles: "Guess." 

Snowfall looks up at the Machinehead, looks down, and sighs: "Well, so much for that plan. You're that Nthernaut fellow, then?"

"I am," the body smiles: "And you're a lucky man, Mister Radamacher. If you'd been any slower getting medication to yourself, you'd be having a heart attack right now."

"!@#$ it," the old man mutters, holding his hand over his traitor heart: "First time in years. You'd think the ticker would cooperate!"

"Guilty conscience, perhaps?" the Nthernaut asks, kneeling down: "I should knock you out, frankly. But I know your powers don't work indoors, and you're in no condition to do anything. So I'll make a deal with you. You sit here, say nothing, and wait for the police. In return, I won't hurt you."

"I think... that's a good deal," the man says, nodding: "You don't have a drink, do you?"

"'And Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,'" the Nthernaut quotes, putting a hand on the old man's shoulder: "'But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'"

"I... I remember that," Snowfall says: "Is that John?"

"It is. John 4:14. And I'm telling that to you now, here at what could be the end of your life, because the prison that you were born into is soon going to be releasing you. But what's going to be waiting for you, Fred? Eternal freedom, or another prison, worse than anything you could imagine?"

The old man looks at the Nthernaut, screws his eyes shut, and starts crying.

"Oh God, I never wanted any of this," the old man weeps: "I was just going to steal enough to get by and give it up, but nothing ever worked right. I got in with killers and double-crossers, went to jail... I never thought it would come to this. I thought it would be different."

"Well, today it is," the Nthernaut says, squeezing the man's shoulder gently: "Repent, Fred. Here and now. Jesus will forgive you of everything you've done. Even this. You just have to be man enough to accept his love.

"Do you think you can do that?"

"I want to," the old man says: "I always have. I never wanted to be this way..."

"Well, now you don't have to," he says, getting up: "Not anymore."

The old man closes his eyes again, and tears fall down his cheeks. Joyous and grateful ones. 

"Now, I have to go and stop the people you came here with," the Nthernaut says: "When I'm done I'll come back and pray with you, if you'd like. Meantime, just relax, think pleasant thoughts?"

The old man nods. And when he's opened his eyes, again, the body formerly known as Machinehead is out of the room.

* * *

What happens next is surreal, even by the Nthernaut's standards.

It's not as if he's never beaten down criminals while in disguise, before. Knocking out a criminal, wearing his costume back to the lair, and revealing oneself as a hero to the other crooks is a time-honored tactic, and still works pretty well in this day and age. Every Owl's done it, and he even helped his mother with it, once.

And while his Nthernaut persona tends to rely on recognition and intimidation, rather than subterfuge -- given his omnipresent surveillance capabilities -- he has changed his form to match someone else's before, when the situation called for it.

But he'd never done it inside someone else's body before. Especially not a body that's this powerful, and packed with so many interesting sensory features.

It takes him a few tries to adjust his nerve strikes. He's worried that he's permanently crippled Gor, (though, given what the man was doing when he found him, he's not so concerned about that) and he's certain that Green Thunder's going to be unconscious for longer than necessary. 

But after that, it's pretty simple. He just walks into an area, pretends to be surprised at their surprise at seeing him up and about, and then -- as soon as they've turned away just so -- he jams his fingers into one of the human body's many "off" switches. And then he destroys their weapons (if any), gives them a few extra, seriously-incapacitating strikes to their legs and arms to keep them from wanting to move if they wake up too early, and goes on to the next room. 

And the next. And the next. Quicker each time, wanting to be sure that he's gotten them all wrapped up before the police arrive, guns get drawn, and more people are hurt or worse.

(A good thing the v-space confrontation with the machinehead took place online, where time is so compressed. Minutes went by like seconds, as they always do.)

* * *

It all goes to plan until he gets to the main staircase, where Orange Slam, Jolly Roger, and Bluestreak are waiting. He can tell, right from how they look at him, they the deception may be coming to an end. But he plays it up, anyway, hoping for a few seconds of confusion.

"I thought you were going to be down for the count?" Orange Slam asks, taking a step closer.

"It proved easier than I thought," the Nthernaut lies: "He was unprepared."

"And I thought you were going to use his image generators to join us when you were done?"

"I have," he says, holding up his hands as if to announce his success: "What do you think? Just like the original."

"Yeah," Bluestreak says, pulling out his gun and shooting at him.

The Nthernaut's down and moving before the bullets can hit him, but just barely. Jolly Roger's laser pistol wings him in the left arm as he ducks behind the staircase, and he realizes it's badly damaged.

"I don't know what you did to Machinehead, buddy," Jolly Roger snorts, shooting a few more times in that direction: "But he's been screaming over every electronic device for a past couple minutes, begging for you to come back and help him. So we've been waiting for you-"

"He bit off more than he could chew, as have you all," the Nthernaut proclaims, wondering where the best place to hide would be: "You had best surrender."

"How about you surrender, !@#$face?" Orange Slam snorts: "We've got the Mayor, by now. How would   you like us to start cutting parts off him until you give up?"

Bluestreak laughs at that.

"Because you don't have him," the Nthernaut says, having found his answer: "Your speedster should have been back by now. Where is he?"

"Don't worry about him," Jolly Roger says, leaping around the staircase to where the Nthernaut should be, but finding it empty.

"Oh, but I am," the Nthernaut's voice says, mocking them from some hidden location: "You see, the last thing I did before I abandoned the city was to call for some special help for the Mayor's estate. Your four comrades have met some... unexpected resistance, shall we say? I think they're all out of action by now."

"What?" Orange Slam shouts, and Bluestreak just looks at him. Jolly Roger, meanwhile, follows the voice to where he thinks it's coming from -- a supply closet, closeby.

"It's just the three of you left," the voice mocks: "You can lay down your weapons and be arrested, or you can be taken down. And if I don't do it, the police will.

"Your choice, gentlemen. Don't say I didn't give you anything, this Christmas."

Jolly Roger kicks in the closet door. Inside is the Machinehead's body, leaning against a wall. The masked assassin shoots it full of enough holes to shame swiss cheese, and grins as it falls down, apparently dead.

"Got him!" he says, walking back to where his comrades were: "Might want to try and get those four on the horn, though. I don't like what he..."

The villain stops short, his eyes almost popping out of his mask.

Standing there, beside a very-unconscious Orange Slam and a very-badly-beaten Bluestreak, is the Nthernaut, himself: twice as large as life and seemingly quite powerful. 

Do go on, the Nthernaut says, putting up his fists: You didn't like what I...?

"What the living !@#$?" The assassin shouts, aiming right at the Nthernaut's face: "How...?"

You said it yourself, the Nthernaut explains, dropping Bluestreak down to the floor: The Machinehead was begging me to come back and fix things? You don't suppose he'd do that and then not let me do what I needed to do... do you?

Jolly Roger looks at the electronic hero. He gulps, audibly, and then drops his gun. Then he gets down on his knees, puts his hands behind his head, and looks down at the floor -- beaten. 

__________________________________________________________________________

Followup

__________________________________________________________________________

Police arrived not long thereafter. All would-be insurrectionists arrested. Charges stepping from Insurrection to malicious property damage, with murder, assault between. Gor looks at at least five charges of cannibalism, maybe six (waiting for stomach to be pumped), gross abuse of corpses.

Only one fatality at City Hall: Snowfall had heart attack while waiting for emergency services. Died smiling. Hope he accepted Christ before death, will never know now.

Deaths higher at Mayor's mansion. Would-be kidnappers had no idea Mayor's eldest daughter was former Olympic-level marksman. Shot Red Slider between eyes, kneecapped others as he tumbled down. Copycat tried to duplicate self, forcing her to shoot for vital areas. She shot all iterations in confusion.

Machinehead currently incarcerated within v-space. Unsure what to do with him. His attempt to handle the entirety of Neo York City with no warning, training has given him the equivalent of a stroke. Sits drooling in capture cube, unaware of minor stimuli.

Damage can be repaired, of course, but morality must be considered. Wipe memory, personality? Start over? Or rehabilitate what is already there? Former has been tried before, but not successfully. Latter seems unethical, but less so than final deactivation. 

(Plan to consult with SPYGOD on this matter. May have better ideas, other options.)

Many crimes committed during down period. Had to work harder, faster, smarter to deal with them. Relearned valuable lessons about follow-up, detection. 

Almost like old times. 

________________________________________________________________________

Personal Notes

(Triple Encoded)

_________________________________________________________________________

Nostalgia. First Christmas like this. Thought would be harder. If mother had not been dealing with Insurrection in Chicago, instead of around tree with Kaitlyn, as planned, would have been much more difficult. 

Now? Just another superhero Christmas, interrupted by human idiots with bad ideas. Working holiday, as Grandfather would say.

Can see him, now, in mind. Can reconstruct him perfectly, here. Ask for advice. Talk to him. 

Same with Aunt, everyone ever lost. Even the living can be virtually created, here. Interacted with. Argued with. 

Loved.

Is this all there is? Is this real? Is self real? 

How much of world is program in machine of God?

Uncertain, sad, tired. Desiring ten millisecond rest period, tonight. Surely no more crimes need attention. If wrong, unlikely to affect successful intervention/prosecution by significant margin.

Plan to relive last Christmas, start to finish. Maybe this time will wake up, find all has been dream.

Maybe this time God listens to machine.

endrun 23:59:59

(SPYGOD is listening to My Dying Machine (Gary Numan) and having a Ghost in the Machine)

3/14/12 - The Last Flight of The Owl pt. 4

Joe Samuels swoops from station to station, along the top tiers of the Owls Nest, being extremely careful and quiet as he does.

He'd be quiet, anyway -- even in his own home. But now that his home has been overrun by well-armed monsters, to the point that the gangplanks and walkways below are literally crawling with them, setting the self-destruct mechanisms in motion is going to be very tricky.

Especially without the full uniform that he wore for all those years. He's got his hand talons, clutch boots, and goggles, but those were all he had time to grab.

He doesn't even have his utility belt, without which he's almost naked.

Of course, that just gives him another reason to not directly attack the enemy, for he knows that these Falsefaces are deadly things -- best avoided where possible. They are super-strong, highly resilient, and impervious to pain, with the ability to change their faces to resemble anyone they need to masquerade as. Their guns fire swift pulses of white-hot flechettes capable of burning through low-grade steel, to say nothing of human flesh and Owl armor.

And, as he's seen in the last few minutes, they seem to have acquired the ability to teleport since the last time he and SPYGOD discussed such matters.

Fortunately, they don't know the layout like he does. When his father put this structure together, Joe was constantly by his side, watching and learning and asking questions. And the knowledge that was passed from father to son in those days is all that's keeping him alive, here and now.

He's not the only one, though.

He can see Mark moving through the airducts, back to Owl 10. His thermal goggles tagged him a few minutes ago, and while he can see that he's carrying what has to be the portable drive with him, he doesn't see Rachel, anywhere.

That can't be good, but he has to trust that the situation is in hand.

He also has to trust that, whatever's taking Martha this long, she's doing alright with what she has, too. The explosions from the garage below have him very worried, but he's sure that Thomas got out before then. The kid's good -- a better Talon than he ever was at his age, anyway -- and if anyone could have jumped out of the jaws of death just before they slammed shut, it's him.

That just leaves little Kaitlyn -- who's going to be an amazing Talon, one day -- out there, somewhere, and Hargreaves, who can always pull another body out of storage if something happens.

What can't be replaced, however, is the Owl's Nest, itself. The building below is likewise irreplaceable, and will also be destroyed when the hidden structure above it goes away. That and some of the land on the estate, including that nice pond that they just had put in a few summers ago.

Except for the graveyard, of course. The shaded, solemn plot is far enough away to survive. Only that, and the heavy gates out front, will remain to mark the day the Samuels had to flee Chicago for their lives.

Only his father and mother, his grandfather and grandmother. Aunts and uncles. His wife.

Mathew...

He closes his eyes and shakes his head. No. He will not let this blind him to the moment. He must go on and complete this task.

The family will survive. They will learn from this. They will come back stronger than before from their sojourn in the wilderness.

He has faith in this. And while that faith may not be the size of a mustard seed, under the circumstances, he knows that God has given him greater miracles from even smaller stockpiles of that precious substance.

So he leaps and soars one last time through the great metal cavern his father built, working quickly and diligently to bring it all down upon the things that would destroy that man's legacy.

* * *

A group of four falsefaces walks through the smoke and fire on their way to the library. Their guns are raised and ready to finish the job the butler obviously failed at. And then they can go upstairs to join their brothers, already hunting for the last few occupants on their list of targets.

They're not being all that careful or stealthy, but why should they? Theirs is the superior position. They have every tactical advantage save one, today -- an intimate and secret knowledge of the battlefield -- but so far that advantage isn't counting for much. 

They keep that cheery thought right in their heads as they turn into the smoke-filled library, and begin to creep into it -- eyes open and guns ready. They see their four comrades lying on the floor, in various states of death or dying, but cannot see anything further than their flattened forms for the thick smoke.

The smoke is obviously not from the fires their weapons have set. They try to adjust their bionic eyes to find their targets, but something is ruining their ability to read heat signatures and see movement. It's some kind of outside interference that they haven't encountered before now.

It dawns on the group's leader that they may have encountered some kind of sophisticated chaff, which could be concealing their targets. Their briefings indicated that these urban vigilantes are known to use such tactics in their self-righteous war on American society's many failings. So he decides to have his group fire blindly throughout the room, knowing that, if someone's hidden in there, they will be struck down by a sustained field of fire.

His silent order is carried out, and the room is lit up by their weapons. Old and well-kept books explode and burst into flame. The walls catch fire and windows blow outwards. Shelves shatter, furniture splinters, art explodes, and paintings and photographs are pulverized. 

It took generations to make this room. They blast it apart in less than ten seconds. But at the eleventh, the leader realizes that there's no one else in the room with them.

That's the last thought that goes through his brain before it's shot out the front of his skull. A line of white-hot metal slices through his head, and those of the others in his group. It comes from right behind them, where a very angry mother stands, wielding two of their railguns -- one attached to either side of her son's utility belt, and what's left of her son strapped to the front of her chest, facing her.

"That's what you get for not looking at the ceiling," she hisses as they fall down dead. The light from the fires in the library play off a face streaked with blood and tears. 

And rage -- sacred and pure.

"Mom...?" Thomas whispers, slowly coming around in spite of the painkillers she's injected him with.

"Shhhh," she tells him as they turn around and head for the study, and the elevator she's praying hasn't been wholly compromised: "Go to sleep, honey. It's a bad dream."

"I thought I was... Kaitlyn..."

"She's fine, sweetie," Martha says, kissing his forehead and praying it's not a lie. Two more falsefaces turn a corner and she perforates them both, quickly and efficiently, and then ducks out of the way as two more return fire.

"Remember... she's next..." her son breathes as she slides back to where she was, just a second ago, and blows one of her harriers to pieces from ribcage up: "I saw her... wearing the uniform..."

"Thomas, you need to be quiet, honey," Martha begs him, not able to continue hearing him sing the praises of her possibly-dead niece. She ducks back behind cover as the survivor returns fire, and then sees even more firestreams joining his.

Reinforcements. At least two more. Maybe three.

"She's gonna be so good, someday," he says, smiling beatifically: "I can't wait..."

"Neither can I," she says, and decides there's no time to lose. 

She only has one set of earplugs -- his. She prays for his forgiveness as she puts them in, and then reaches into one of his belt pockets for a Screechbomb. She primes it and tosses it around the corner, hoping the enemy doesn't have the sense to duck. 

And then she puts her fingers as deep into her son's ears as she can, hoping it's enough to protect him from what's going to follow.

The sonic grenade shatters every window in the hallway, rattles her teeth, and makes Thomas scream as his eardrums burst around her fingers. His eyes get as wide as dinner plates, and for a brief second she thinks he understands exactly what's happened to him, and what's left of him.

Then the moment's gone, along with the noise. Thomas collapses back into the unconsciousness that she'd hoped to send him into before doing all this. Martha waits a second, and then, ever so carefully, peeks around the corner.

Ten falsefaces lie there -- their faces shattered, all deathly still. She quickly runs through what's left of them for the study, hoping what she's done has scattered them enough for her to do what needs to be done, next.

And hoping that she hasn't added one more horrible injury to her already-maimed son.

* * *

Mark slowly moves out of the air duct, just as the group of falseface guards that had been watching The Eyes finally leave it.

It was a rather nerve-wracking three minutes, slowly working the bolts off the access panel from the inside while waiting for them to go. He was about to move back up the line and create some kind of distraction to get them out of there, but some other problem seems to have gotten their attention. And thank God for that.

He takes the data pack and slowly moves it over to the two giant windows, and then carefully plugs it into an access hatch between them. That's all that needs to be done, for now. But he has to wait for Joe to get here, along with Martha.

(Hargreaves, too, if he can make it up here. They might be able to capture his programming-stream in flight if he can't, though.)

His thoughts turn to Rachel, once more. He hitches a breath and puts his hands to his eyes, feeling them turn wet again. He knows he can't keep this bottled up forever, but prays he can hold on just long enough to get them to safety.

"Are we ready?" Joe asks from up on the high ceiling of the room, just as he drops down without another sound.

"Yes, we are," Mark says, really not surprised that the man snuck up on him, under the circumstances.

"Where's Rachel?"

Mark bites his lip and looks down. Joe blinks, and then puts his hand to his face. He knew, somehow, but wasn't ready to hear it.

Is anyone, really?

"We're waiting for Martha, then," Joe says, trying to snap out of his grief: "Thomas is after Kaitlyn. I think Hargreaves has been compromised along with the rest of our defenses."

"Then will Owl 10 even work?"

"You tell me," Joe says: "It's supposed to be separate, isn't it?"

"It is," Mark says, really not needing the man's lousy attitude, right now: "It doesn't come on until we turn it on. But if they've hit us this bad...?"

"Then I guess we find out when we find out," Joe says: "All we can do is pray."

He holds out a hand, Mark takes it, and they bow their heads as one and talk to God -- knowing that He's always listening but hoping there's room in His plan for them, today.

* * *

The fully-enclosed elevator shaft that leads up to the Owls Nest comes out in the center of a large grouping of walkways and ramps. It doesn't make a lot of noise when it's in operation, but it's pretty obvious that something is happening when the car's on the move.

So it's no surprise that, the moment it starts going up, every falseface in the area converges towards it. Within moments there are at least fifty of them standing around it, and all of them have their guns pointed right at the door.

The mechanism stops. The doors open. A figure moves forward.

The elevator explodes with white hot fury as fifty separate firestreams rip into it, turning the column incandescent. The cylinder isn't quite cut in two by their pulsing bursts of fire, to say nothing of the lone figure who was inhabiting it at the moment.

The falsefaces stop firing in eerie unison. A few of the ones in the front of the group get up from their kneeling position and walk towards what's left of their target. 

The figure isn't one of their intended targets. It's clearly one of their fellow falsefaces, propped up and sent up the elevator to draw their fire. 

There's obviously some head-scratching going on there, but not for long. Another silent order is given, and the falsefaces blast what little remains of the elevator into flinders. They shoot at the top of the car, and the bottom. They send fire up and down the shaft, with each seconds' worth of sustained fire all but guaranteeing that nothing living could have survived that conflagration.

And as they pulverize the object, hoping to kill one of their primary targets, and more falsefaces teleport into the Owls Nest to provide backup for the search for the others, a bulky figure slowly and carefully makes her way across the ceiling.

Martha chooses her route to The Eyes with extreme care, knowing that if she goes too slow they'll see her, but if she goes too fast the claws may fail. They were made for her son, and weren't designed to carry this much combined weight. But only one of the falsefaces has to look up and see her, dangling from the curved, steel roof, and then she's as good as dead.

They're as good as dead, really. She prays that her son -- his eyes rolling, his ears caked with blood -- does not wake up again until they're safely down, and then away.

But each handhold only takes them so far, and each time she looks off to her goal, it seems even further away.

A miracle would be nice, right about now. Maybe three of them. Or at least some strength.

* * *

"I see her," Joe says, looking around the entrance to The Eyes, up at the ceiling: "She's got Thomas... and..."

"And what?"

"Oh dear Lord," Joe gasps, shaking his head: "He's... he doesn't look..."

Mark sneaks over and looks up, seeing the broken boy that Martha's carrying. The goggles reveal he's still amongst the living, but how much longer that will be is a good question.

A better question is 'who's looking after Kaitlyn?' But he tables that for the moment. There just isn't time to worry about her, right now.

She'll be safe. Somehow he knows this. 

"Let me go and get her," he says to Joe: "You know how to start her up. She'll pilot just like you trained."

"No," Joe says: "She can get here on her own. But there might need to be a distraction."

"Then let me-"

"Mark, I need you here," the man says, putting a hand on his arm: "I'm counting on you. If this family's going to survive, it's going to need you."

"Funny how you never make me feel that way," Mark hisses, shrugging the man's hand away. But Joe puts it right back and looks the man in the eyes.

"Mark, I trust you more than I trust anyone else here, including my own daughter," Joe says: "We were all born into this. We came into this world with The Owl looking over our shoulders and God looking into our hearts. It's our destiny, and we couldn't get out of here if we tried. 

"But you fought your way here, Mark. You earned the right to join us. I love my family more than myself, but I'd take one of you over ten of us, any day. 

"Now, I've been tough on you, yes, but no tougher than I've been on anyone else, including my own daughter. Including myself. 

"But if we're going to survive this, and come back, I'm going to need you to be ten times the man you already are. You're going to have to make hard choices, like letting me go out there and risk my life so you can pilot my daughter and my grandson out of here, and save your own girl's life.

"So can I count on you? Because if not-"

"You're wasting time," Mark says, clapping him on the shoulder: "Go get her. Signal me when you have her. I'll start her up."

Joe smiles. He doesn't even have to ask what the signal will be. Somehow, Mark will just know.

He's that good.

* * *

The platform is closer, now. Maybe thirty feet. Martha just has to get within ten and she can swing, leap, and land. Then she'll just have to run the distance to The Eyes, and hope none of the falsefaces down below get the jump on her.

She's another three feet closer when she sees her father leave The Eyes and run smack into two falsefaces coming around the corner of the platform. They'd have seen her if it hadn't been for him. They're about to open fire, and she almost cries out, but her dad has them face-smashed and disarmed in less time than it takes her to take in a breath.

He looks back at her and smiles. Then he grabs their guns and, running back the way they came, opens fire on the falsefaces massed below, whooping and yelling as he does.

The reaction is instantaneous. They open fire back at him, all but obliterating the platform he's standing on. He leaps away from it at the right moment, grabbing hold of a stanchion on a nearby wall and swinging up and over them, firing with his free hand. They continue to fire at him, but are unable to get a lock on him as he swoops, soars, and tumbles in the air.

Just like an owl evading capture.

Martha's on the platform before she knows it. Then she's hustling for The Eyes, seeing that Mark is at the doorway, gesturing her to come forward. As soon as she's there, he helps her get Thomas off her, and places him into one of the room's many chairs, ever so carefully.

"Did you get what we needed from the library?" he asks.

"I did," she says: "But Hargreaves is lost to us. They screwed up his programming."

"I figured," he sighs. 

"Where's Rachel?"

"She... she didn't make it," Mark tells her, not daring to look her in the face when he does: "Get your dad in here now. We need to leave."

Martha's stunned for a second by the news of her cousin's death. But she quickly rebounds -- having seen too much death today to let it break her -- and does what she's told.

She leans out the entrance and whistles high and low. Her father hears, even over the firing of their enemies, loops around in mid-air, and heads back to The Eyes. On the way he throws a handful of Screechbombs down, trying to time his landing to their going off.

"Mark, put in some earplugs," Martha orders as she runs back to get a chair. Mark does as he's told, and begins the countdown on the portable drive. Ten seconds should about do it, right?

Joe lands on the platform, just in front of the entrance to The Eyes. The falsefaces' firestreams light up the floor around him, and he just barely somersaults off it in time. Then he's in the room and rushing forward, watching the countdown on the drive as it reaches 7, 6, 5...

There's a box next to the drive, plugged into it. He turns it on with his finger, and then a retinal scanner pops up and makes sure he's who he says he is.

"'And I only am escaped alone to tell thee,'" he quotes at two seconds to go. 

The Screechbombs go off. The falsefaces begin dying.

The strange energy source that powers the Owls Nest stops, drops, and begins to roll towards critical mass.

And once the drive reaches zero -- a half-second after Joe straps himself into one of the chairs -- the Owls Nest begins to shift and move.

The walls break in certain spots, opening up along hidden lines and unseen seams. Rooms are reshuffled and rebuilt. Platforms flatten and stack. Entire sectors crack open and share electronics and mechanics. Hidden but mighty engines engage, and lift the self-assembling structure slowly up and away from its cradle. 

The Owls Nest breaks itself down in death, only to become something new: Owl 10, itself. 

This was ever the great secret of The Owl: a thing located nowhere on the blueprints or design specs, but encoded in the very warp and woof of the structure since its earliest days. When all hope is lost, and flight is a must, the family can create a portable headquarters to escape within.

And perhaps, one day, return the same way.

"Can we do this in time?" Martha shouts over the sounds of the newly-formed engines kicking in as the room they're in becomes one massive cockpit.

"Yes we can," Mark shouts, watching the 3D controls form around his chair: "We've got thirty seconds till the Nest goes critical. We can be in Wisconsin by then-"

His pride is short-lived. He sees a blue light flickering behind him, reflected in one of the unfolding panels, and turns his head to see two falsefaces teleporting into the room. They level their guns at him and prepare to fire.

Martha screams and tries to unbuckle herself, but she isn't even half done before her father's up and attacking them both. He takes one down effortlessly, but the other sees the blows coming and dodges them with eerie ease.

Joe leaps back and tries to get the upper hand, just as the entire aircraft lurches to the right. He doesn't quite anticipate the change in direction, but his opponent stands his ground, and fires his weapon right at the older man -- shooting his left leg off at the knee and sending him sprawling.

His scream of pain sounds like the end of their world.

There's confusion in the room, then. Mark tries to right the aircraft and activate the internal defenses. Martha succeeds in getting out of her chair and hurling throwing claws at the falseface. The creature takes the claws in the arm, chest, and clavicle, but doesn't seem to mind.

And then it aims its gun at the front of the cockpit, once again -- clearly intending to destroy everything it can.

Martha doesn't even see her father leap up from the ground. There's a blur of motion as the falseface's shot goes wild, and then they're tumbling towards the back of the room, which is quickly converting into the rear of the aircraft.

The two figures bounce helplessly from panel to panel as their fighting arena rearranges itself around them. Joe punches but misses as the falseface slides away from him, and the falseface shoots but misses as the terrain returns the favor.

And as they fight, bits and pieces of the slowly-accelerating landscape are clearly visible as as the plane assembles itself around them. Any wrong move could send one or both hurtling out of the plane. 

Martha throws an Owl Line at a stable part of the forward compartment, and -- tying it around her --  advances on the thing intent on killing them, throwing more claws with every step. Not all of them strike their target, but enough hit to make it harder for him to connect with her father. 

With each step, she comes closer to saving him. But with each step, the plane's insides change yet again, and often send him further away.  

"Just a little more, please, Lord Jesus," she prays, reading a line for her father: "Let him grab this. No more death, today, please. Please Lord God, no more death..."

And then, just as she's close enough to almost fling claws through the monster's blank, silver eyes with one hand, and throw the lifeline with the other, a huge panel slides out of the way to allow something else to slide in. 

The falseface and Joe, locked in a fatal clinch, fall out of the suddenly-empty space, and back towards the mansion.

Martha screams and throws the line, and her father, seeing it coming, reaches up to take it.

The falseface sees this, and, as it plummets to its certain death, opens fire on Martha.

The miracle is that none of the firestreams hit her -- raking across the underside of Owl 10, instead. 

The tragedy is that one of the firestreams strikes the lifeline, and cuts it right in two.

Martha howls, trying to ready another lifeline. Joe smiles serenely, looking at her with tenderness, pride, and love as he follows his would-be assassin towards the ground.

And then the panel slides back, and there's steel floor between Martha and the man she'd hoped to save.

She falls to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. The aircraft completes itself, with all systems showing 100%. Mark tells it to go as fast as it can, ten seconds ago, and it complies beautifully. 

As he falls, Joe twists around to look at his house, one last time. He has no regrets in these last moments. He has served well, he has paved the way for others to serve just as well, if not better, and he has protected the family mission with his last breath.

Is there a better epitaph? He thinks not, and as the large metal structure he just condemned to death rushes up to meet him, he says one, last prayer.

The Owls Nest becomes visible for a full second just before he hits it, and appears to be little more than a cracked, metal stadium that's folding in on itself. But then a massive, purple ball of light appears inside it -- plasma crackling throughout its undulating surface -- and Joe falls right into it.

The ball expands outwards at an alarmingly fast rate, soon encompassing the entire structure, downstairs and all. And when it recedes back to nothing, and vanishes, there's nothing left of the Samuels house but a large, perfectly circular hole in the ground. 

* * *

Martha eventually straps herself back into a chair. It'll only be a matter of time before they've slowed down enough to turn on the cloak and attend to Thomas' wounds. But for now she can sit, put her head in her hands, and weep for her father, her cousin, and the butler she's known since she was a child.

Mark lets her cry, knowing there's nothing he could say right now that would help. But a part of him is intensely grateful. The communication network has started up again, and he's getting a clear and steady signal from Kaitlyn's watch. It looks like she's heading up to Wisconsin, no doubt to the rendezvous point at that tourist trap cheese store that they used to joke about stopping at, but never did.

"Mars Cheese Castle," he muses, shaking his head. He thinks of Rachel laughing at it, and telling him there was better cheese to be found elsewhere, further off the highway. And him thinking that was never the point, but loving her laughter so much that it wasn't worth arguing. 

That's family, in the end. Not the arguments, or the strife, but the simple moments when you look at one another and feel Gods love working between you all. 

With that in mind, he engages the cloak and the sound suppression, and the Samuels family vanishes in midair. 

One day to return. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Ogive no. 1 (Erik Satie, by way of William Orbit) and raising a toast to the dead with Big Eddy IPA)

3/14/12 - The Last Flight of The Owl pt. 3

Mark and Grandpa Joe cross each others' path about a dozen times in less than five minutes as they prepare to leave their home forever.

Mark's busy getting their portable headquarters -- Owl 10 -- up and running and ready to fly. Meanwhile, Joe's attending to things that only he can -- most of which involve handprint and retinal confirmation, and are the sort of things one does only if the worst case scenario is upon them.

Like now.

"Almost got her ready," Mark announces as Joe goes flying past, holding a number of circuit boards in his hands.

"Good. Once it's ready, tell everyone to finish up and get up here," the patriarch of the family orders.

"I'll have to hoof it, but okay."

"You do that, Mark. We need to be gone. Now."

Mark nods, and, seeing that the startup sequence is almost done, starts running for the computer core.

As he does, he wonders why the man had to put it like that. Did he really think he was just going to sit there and sip at his coffee while their world fell down around their heads?

Still, it's always been this way. Just because the worst case scenario is coming true doesn't mean that years of personal history are going to just vanish in its wake.

Unlike everyone else here, Mark married into the clan. He fell head-over-heels in love with Rachel when they met in college, in his mechanical engineering classes, and the more he got to know her the more that love grew. She was a bit late to reciprocate, but he was nothing if not stubborn, and she eventually gave in.

He was in for a bit of a shock when they got serious, though. The family treated him like a hostile organism, all but scaring him away from her when she finally brought him around to the Samuels estate. At first, he thought it was because they were old money, and on the lookout for golddiggers -- which he understood. But even after he'd proven, as best as he could, that he'd have married her even if she owed the IRS a million dollars, they were still more than a little standoffish.

Then, one day, not long after he proposed (she said she'd have to think about it) he was summoned to the estate to talk to her father. He was expecting a really degrading time of it, but instead the man treated him with respect for the first time ever. Sitting in the mansion's well-appointed study, they talked for what seemed hours about family and faith, and his intentions towards Rachel, and such was their discussion that Mark had no idea if he was already approved of, or being mined for reasons to say 'no.'

But then, instead of showing Mark to the door, Rachel's father took him to a corner of the study, and opened a secret door that revealed a small elevator.

"What I'm about to show you changes everything, Mark," he said: "I know you want to be a part of the family, and I think I'd like you to be as well, but I need you to know exactly what that means."

And the moment the doors opened into the Owl's Nest, Mark finally understood a lot of things. He realized why the Samuels clan had been so distant and unwelcoming. He figured out why Rachel had always been breaking dates and saying "family business."

And he knew, at last, where she got her steel and sense of purpose from.

"So what do you think?" the man asked when they were done, and looking out at the world through The Eyes.

"I think... this is amazing," Mark said: "I'm honored you would trust me with this."

"You've earned it, son. Believe me. We had you checked out ten ways to Sunday before you even set foot in the downstairs house. The rest was just to make sure you could put up with us."

Mark nodded: "That makes sense. And you followed me, too?"

He smiled and clapped Mark on the shoulders: "Constantly. But don't be discouraged that you didn't see them. That's kind of the idea. You'll learn all about that, in time."

"I will?"

"Yes. This is what it means to be a member of the family, Mark. There's no half measures, here. You're either in and helping, or you're not."

"You want me to... wear a costume?"

"Oh, no," he laughed: "I don't expect you to suit up and hit the streets. That's a very special and risky calling. But there's a lot of other things an operation like this needs."

"Sir, I'd mop floors and clean the ceiling if it meant I spent the rest of my life with your daughter," Mark said: "But how about if I fix your car?"

"How are you with aircraft?"

Mark smiled: "I'll figure it out."

The subsequent marriage was a great and beautiful thing, carried out on the Samuels' estate. All their friends, family, and Chicago's well-to-do were in attendance, along with a few other people Mark would eventually learn were Strategic Talents.

(SPYGOD was there, of course, and thankfully did not mangle the proceedings; he seemed to respect the old man a little too much for that.)

But the real ceremony -- the one that carried the most weight with this family -- took place the night before. There, in front of the others, Mark swore on the old, huge family Bible to protect the family, continue its mission, and be Christ's hands on Earth.

It was the most moving experience of his entire life up until that point. And he made a quiet vow, there before God, to do his absolute personal best at all times, so as to not let these extraordinary people down.

In that vein, he learned how to built, maintain, and fix aircraft, speedboats, motorcycles, gyrocopters -- even the occasional submarine. He worked on their armor variants, invented new devices for them to use, and even played guinea pig for them when things needed to be tested out. He'd been there on their brightest and darkest days -- a constant, good-natured grumbler who could be depended on to take whatever they had and make whatever they needed, and usually just in time.

(He'd helped bring a new generation into the family, too, but that was a quiet sort of accomplishment, best achieved in secret between a man and a woman made one in the eyes of God.)

But even after all that, Rachel's uncle still treated him like the new kid at school. Good days, bad days, or anywhere inbetween, all he ever got from him -- before, during, and now after his time as The Owl -- was thinly masked condescension, served with the need to tell him things he already knew, and slightly sprinkled with what might be contempt.

Mark did his best to ignore it, and prayed that whatever divided them might be brought to light, eventually, and fixed. But people weren't machines, as he knew too well. This was just something that was going to take time.

Time they'd have to find somewhere else, on a day when they weren't about to be invaded.

"Rachel, honey?" he says, turning the corner and expecting to run right into the locked doors, which he would then expect to bang on until she yelled at him that she was going as fast as she could.

Except that the doors are not locked. They are open. The room beyond is pitch black.

And the only sounds he can hear in there are towers sparking as they melt into slag.

He hitches a breath, reaches into his pocket, and puts on a pair of Owl Goggles. They're the next model, which he was planning to unveil in a month or so, once he'd worked all the bugs out. Less bulky, more powerful, and with better temperature sensors, but probably still not good enough for Joe.

They're good enough to tell him everything he doesn't want to know, though.

He sees two naked, skull-faced men with large guns (recently fired) walking through the ruins of their data storage.

He sees the portable drive, all charged and full (and hot) and ready to go.

And lastly, most horribly, he sees his wife's body lying over by her desk.

He doesn't need the goggles' temperature readouts to tell him that she's dead -- the fact that everything above her clavicle is a smoking, splattered ruin is evidence enough. She must have been going for some of the self-defense devices she kept over by the desk when they got her, judging from how she fell.

He wants to scream. He wants to run in there and kill these faceless monsters. He wants to make them suffer as they must have made her suffer, and have made him suffer, and his daughter...

But he realizes that if they're here, there will be others. That's just the way these things go, sometimes.

Hand-in-hand with that, he realizes that if they're here, and they killed her that easily, the internal sensors and defenses must be down

He also realizes that they're looking for something, and are distracted.

Revenge can wait. He must get the data. He must get it upstairs to Owl 10. He must get the rest of the family out of here before the Owl's Nest is denied to the enemy.

He has to stay strong and safe for them, and especially for Kaitlyn.

So he sneaks into the room, quietly as he can, takes the drive from where it rests on the floor, and, without looking back at his wife's body, or her killers, leaves the room as swiftly as silence will let him.

That he does this with experimental goggles full of tears is something of a miracle. Something tells him they will need many more, today.

* * *

There's an old, large mission over by Kaitlyn's school that's been abandoned for some time. The Samuels family bought it years ago, as it had fallen into disrepair and turned into a crack house. They cleaned it up, cleaned it out, and promised the community that they'd refurbish it and put it back into use.

That was a few years ago. Since then, they've come up with a number of plausible excuses as to why construction hasn't started, and the place remains boarded up. However, they've created a "temporary" facility, not two blocks away, that does everything the original building ever did, and more, so no one's really complaining -- much less asking how the super-rich, highly-influential Samuels clan are being stymied by red tape.

Of course, the mission will be put back up, one day, but not until Kaitlyn goes into Middle School. The building has secretly been converted into one of The Owl's many hideouts: special, hidden facilities that serve as way stations, medical facilities, vehicle storage, and criminal detainment. No one outside the family knows about these places, and they come in very handy at times.

This one is all Kaitlyn's. She has the key, and is fully authorized to come here and hide in an emergency. And if being kidnapped out of band practice, and chased by two fast-moving, cop-killing men in overcoats isn't an emergency, then she doesn't know what is. 

She thinks she's lost them in the maze of buildings that lead up to the place, and hopefully the numerous people who asked her if she was lost, scared, or needed them to call the police didn't accost her pursuers. She really doesn't need any more deaths on her conscience, today.

Taking one last look around, she ducks into the back of the building, inserts the key in the lock, and waits a moment. She knows that, as she stands there, several very sophisticated banks of sensors are making certain she's the person the key belongs to, and not some thug who managed to take it from a little girl. 

Once the computer's satisfied, it opens the door, and she runs inside, hoping no one saw her.

"Mom, can you hear me?" she shouts into the cavernous chamber beyond, hoping the hideout's many audio devices will pick her up, as always: "I'm being chased by two weirdoes. They tried to take me out of school. They killed... they killed a policeman who tried to help me. I'm at the mission. Can someone come get me?"

But there's nothing but silence. This is very troubling. She could understand her watch not working, but what's wrong with the communications net? Even if the satellite was down, there are enough backups and redundancies that something should work.

(Her dad told them what they all were, once. She went crazy trying to remember them all. He laughed and said don't worry, that's his job.)

"I'll have to go home," she says, and heads over to the vehicles. There's an Owl Car, a Talon Bike, and a gyrocopter that's seen better days. There's also a smaller vehicle, made just for her, that's made to look like a compact car with two parents in the front seats.

(Androids, of course. Just like their butler, only not as real.)

"Car, take me home," she says, walking towards it.

"Kaitlyn, you don't want to do that," the 'man' behind the wheel says, turning to look at her.

"Some mean people were here, earlier, and boobytrapped everything, sweetie," the woman adds, turning to look at her as well.

"What do you mean, boobytrapped?" Kaitlyn asks, stepping back. 

"It means that if you sit down, we'll explode, honey," the man says, sighing.

"All the vehicles are like that," the woman says: "We couldn't stop them. They had all the override codes. They teleported in here, too."

"Are they still here?" Kaitlyn asks, hugging her back closer.

"Oh, we never left," a familiar voice informs her as its owner walks from the darkness, not far behind her. It's one of the men in overcoats, though she can't figure out how he got in here so quickly.

"Well, we sort of did," his companion says, stepping out from the darkness on the other side of the room.

"But not really," one adds.

"It's a bit confusing," the other admits.

"Really."

"Better to just accept our word on it."

"You killed that policeman," she says, stepping in a different direction, back towards the door.

"Oh, we didn't do that," one says.

"No, they did," the other insists, pointing to the door. Kaitlyn turns to look, and sees two more men in overcoats coming in through it. The same two men...?

"Very confusing, I know," the original one says.

"But it's the way we work," the original other adds.

Kaitlyn stops in her tracks. Her face screws up and turns red. She falls to her knees, puts her hands over her ears, and starts bawling, as though she'd broken something. 

"Oh, don't cry out like that," one says, walking closer.

"There's nothing to be scared of," the other says, doing the same.

"We're going to bring a whole new world, little girl," the original one tries to cheer her up, joining the two that were here all along: "A world made of love."

"And the good news is that, if you're really good, you'll get to help us make it," the original other adds, smiling from ear to ear.

Kaitlyn looks up, and for a moment it looks like they've got this one in the bag. But then her sad, crying face is replaced with something entirely different: rage and determination.

"Suck on this, you poop heads," she spits, and pulls a long, white rod out of her bag. It looks a little like a heavy-duty mace dispenser, except that it's got too many holes, and looks a little... owlish.

Their smiles go away a split second before the sonic grenade goes off in her hand. A moment after that, every piece of glass in the room explodes, except for the specially-treated ones on the vehicles. 

Every one of the men screams in agony as their ears burst like ripe plums, and then their faces literally crack and shatter like kicked-in televisions, revealing naked skulls with baleful, silver eyes.

They fall to the ground, one by one, clutching their true faces. They twitch and shake, and then fall still.

Kaitlyn turns the grenade off, stands up, and takes the earplugs out of her ears. Then she reaches into her case, right behind her flute, and pulls out a very long, metal truncheon.

"This is for that policeman," she says, and proceeds to give each of her pursuers' skulls a good, hard crack on the back, hoping this means they'll stay down.

"Car, are you still okay?" she asks, once that's done.

"Yes, but we're still boobytrapped, honey," the woman says.

"That's okay," Kaitlyn says, remembering those long afternoons with her father, at his workbench, and getting the two multitools he gave her for Christmas out of her pack: "You tell me where they put the bombs, and we'll be done in no time."

"Where to then?"

She looks around the shattered hideout. If these men knew where this place was, and could teleport in and put bombs in the vehicles, then there might be another reason she can't reach the Owls Nest on her watch.

"Let's table that for later," she says. She doesn't know exactly what that means, but dad and mom say it a lot at times like this.

It'll just have to do.

* * *

The iron owl was something of a family heirloom. Martha's grandfather claimed it came from a fellow crimefighter, somewhere in Europe, and he made it for The Owl as a gift for helping him solve a case. She was told the story once, as a little girl, but didn't quite remember all the details -- just that it was important enough to keep on display in the library, along with a number of other, orinthological rarities. 

As such, she feels very badly at having to use it to defend herself, here and now, from the four falsefaces trying to kill her. But it's all she has to defend herself with, and is just light enough to make a useful weapon, and just heavy enough to do some real damage.

One good swing to the nose and their faces shatter. One further, follow-up blow and their eyes are driven back into their skulls. That, coupled with the best, normally-lethal kicks and strikes she can muster, and they go down, one after the other.

Getting them to follow her in here was simple. Getting them to think she was someplace she wasn't was tricky. But once they fired on what they thought was her hiding place, she was able to burst out at them and do her worst.

Now they are down, and she is not.

She takes one moment to compose herself, and then drops the battered, iron owl down on the last one she just took out. She hopes her grandfather understands. She's sure he does.

In order to open the safes, she needs to get certain things from behind the painting of the Prophet Ezekiel on the far wall, above the fireplace. She pulls one of the light fixtures beside the fireplace towards her, and the picture slides up and away, giving her a chance to reach up and take them.

High tech keys that are lit up with blue LEDs. They flicker slightly as she takes them in hand, recognizing that she's someone who should be holding them. If it wasn't her, something bad would have happened.

One of the safes is behind another object d'art. She moves it out of the way, opens up the safe, and extracts a large, leatherbound book, handling it with all due reverence, and moving it onto the table. It is a priceless object, and must be preserved at all costs.

The other is hiding in the wall, behind a picture of the entire family at its greatest number. She was very young when it was taken, and doesn't remember the day. But she does remember how important it was to everyone who was there, and why.

She moves the picture aside and opens the safe. Inside it is a cache of data sticks. The information in them is also priceless, and she moves them to the table with the book. 

Martha's about to get the special carrying case for the two things from where it's hidden when she hears something behind her. She whirls to face it, but sees nothing there.

And when she turns again, it's in order to be struck head-on by a familiar, if broken face.

What's left of her son collides with her at frightening speed, knocking her back onto the floor and sending her sprawling. She tries to get up, but then realizes who she's been hit by. 

And when she sees that her son is little more than a charred and broken torso -- legs blown off, arms burned down to the elbows -- her training and discipline break down, and she screams in shock and horror.

"I am so sorry, madam," the newly-respawned Hargreaves says, stalking into the room to view his handiwork: "I found him in what's left of the garage. Perhaps you heard the explosions? One of them put paid to his time as a costumed crimefighter, I'm afraid."

"How.... how could you?" she screams.

"They appear to have corrupted my programming," he says, slowly walking closer: "I do believe they've taken control of the security in the Owls Nest, which would explain a great many things. I was safe until I downloaded myself into this spare body to be of better service. Believe me, the irony is not lost."

"Hargreaves, deactivate," she commands. He does not, and smiles sadly.

"They want me to send you a message, just before I kill you and your son," he says: "They say 'there is no room for hate in a world made of love.'"

"This is love?" she asks, seeing her son's eyelids flutter ever so slightly.

"Love is sometimes tough and cruel," he says: "That's me speaking, though. Not them. What is them is that I'm to pull your head from your shoulders and then batter him to death with it."

"That's horrible. You can't do this, Hargreaves."

"I can't not, dear Martha. Everything below the neck is theirs, now, and I'm having a hard time keeping it from going any further than that."

Martha puts her son down as the android comes closer, hands raised to do its terrible, promised deed.

"I am so terribly sorry, Martha," the butler says: "I wish there was some way to stop this."

"So do I," she says, and tosses one of the safe keys at his face

He sees it coming and, smiling subtly, cranes his neck as far forward as he can to catch it with his teeth. He can't say 'thank you' with a mouth full of complicated circuitry, but Martha somehow knows that's what he would have done.

Then the key explodes, taking his entire head with it. The body stands there, stupidly, and then falls down to its knees. She throws the other key at the chest, just to be sure, with similarly explosive results, and the hijacked butler goes flying onto its back -- steel ribs smoking and sparking.

"Thomas, can you hear me?" she says, gingerly patting her son's face. He half-murmurs something, and she checks his pulse. It's weak, but if she can get him to Owl 10, they can stabilize him.

She looks at her son, and then at the things she was sent to retrieve. Can she really carry both? Can she really make a choice between the two?

"A world made of love, huh?" she snarls, getting to her feet and putting the essential things into what's left of her son's costume: "When I'm done with you people, you're going to have a whole new definition of what that word means."

(SPYGOD is listening to Sonnambula (William Orbit) and having an Argus California Steam)

3/14/12 - The Last Flight of The Owl pt. 2

"So, where are we going?" Kaitlyn asks the two men in overcoats as they walk out the front doors of her school, each one still maintaining a hand-hold on either one of her shoulders.

"A safe place," one says.

"Somewhere they'll never find you," the other affirms.

"Just for a while," one clarifies.

"Until things blow over," the other reassures.

"Are my mom, my dad, and my brother there, yet?" she asks, trying one more thing before she has to do something she might regret.

"They're all there, sweetie," one says.

"Mom, dad, brother, all safe," the other clarifies.

They keep talking, their sentences overlapping in a rather creepy way, but she's already stopped listening. She's never had a brother, and while she looks up to Thomas (lucky jerk) she'd never call him that. And they should have known she was a little uncertain, and actually told her what she needed to hear.

They didn't give her any idea what's really happening. They aren't looking left and right at their surroundings. And they didn't think to take her out a back door and bustle her into a waiting car, so as to expose her as little as possible.

So no: these men aren't Agents. And this means that either the Government finally has decided to override her family's understanding with The COMPANY, or this is some kind of kidnapping.

(It would be just like Mrs. Fann to try and get her killed, wouldn't it?)

Kaitlyn takes stock of her situation, just like her mom and grandpa Joe taught her to. The men are walking her down the front walk towards the street. They probably have a car parked, nearby, and they're going to toss her in and drive her off somewhere. They may or may not try to knock her out, depending on how long the trip is, and whether they don't want her knowing where they're going or not.

(Either that or they're perverts, and have other reasons for knocking her out. Her mother's warned her about things like that, though she's never gone into a lot of detail.)

She's about to make a break for it when, just her luck, a police officer comes walking up the stairs, maybe thirty feet away, now. She's seen him before: he's an older uniformed cop who comes in after school to give talks to one of the bigger kids' groups about traffic safety and drug prevention.

Nice guy, means well, but not too sharp on the uptake.

Still...

"Help!" she screams, breaking free of the two men's grip and running at full speed towards the startled policeman: "These two men want me to touch their pee-pee! They said they'd kill my kitty cat!"

The cop blinks, and puts out an arm to stop her from running, but she's already changed course, left the walk, and sprinted through the grass and down the slop to the street as her legs will carry her. The two agents look at each other, then back at her, and walk faster.

"Is everything alright, here?" the policeman says, putting himself between them and her.

"Oh, kids these days," one says with a laugh, but not slowing down.

"We're from the government, officer," the other says, keeping the same accelerated pace.

"Bit of trouble with her parents."

"Homeland security."

"Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing at all-"

"That's nice, gentlemen," the officer says, standing his ground and putting a hand on his gun: "Could I see some identification, please?"

"Sir, you would do well to pretend you didn't see this," one says, clearly displeased to be having to stop.

"Very secret stuff," the other says, stopping in unison.

"You would do well to let us deal with it."

"If she gets away, it will be very bad for you."

"Very, very bad."

"I wouldn't want to-"

"Gentlemen, I think you know I have to take what that young lady said seriously," he says, taking a step back and getting ready to radio in: "Now I've asked you for ID. You will show it to me and explain what this is about, or I will be arresting you both."

"Our superiors-"

"Can complain all they like to my superiors," he says: "But the only thing I can do wrong, here and now, is to do nothing at all. Do we understand each other?"

The two men look at each other, and then back at him. They reach out their hands and step forward, in unison, very quickly -- so much so that he doesn't have time to pull his weapon before they're upon him.

Running as fast as she can, Kaitlyn is some distance away when she hears the policeman scream. She says a prayer for him as she runs, hoping to Jesus that he's the last person who has to die, today.

"Mom, please come in," she shouts at her watch, but nothing happens. Why won't it work? Why isn't she responding?

What's happening back home?

* * *

The next few minutes fly by insanely fast.

The family's prepared for this moment, several times. There's been timed drills and surprise tests, most of which have been aced. But this is the real thing, here and now.

The Samuels are leaving the Owl's Nest, and nothing will be left behind.

Mark is getting Owl 10 ready to fly. Rachel is causing all the computers to melt down and self-destruct. And Grandpa Joe is seeing to the building, itself, which will be the saddest and most crucial duty of all.

That leaves Martha and Thomas to run downstairs to collect a few, final things from the safes in the estate's library, and try and contact Kaitlyn, who's not answering her communicator. Neither is Hargreaves, for that matter, though it could be because he's too busy rocking out at the stove on his headphones, again.

(He thinks they don't know, and does his best to hide it. They think it's rather funny, and don't ruin it.)

They've been so busy and rushed that Martha hasn't even had a chance to change into her uniform, and she's kicking herself for not having done so. She feels positively naked, standing alongside Thomas in his full-on Talon gear as the elevator takes them back downstairs.

"If we can't reach her, should I get on the bike and get her?" Thomas asks.

"Would you know how to find her?"

"The tracker in the watch should be working even if the communication's not."

She smiles: "Good thinking. I'll get Hargreaves, and he and I can get the documents. You try and raise her. If you can't, go get her. And you know where to rendezvous with us?"

"I do," he says as the elevator stops, and the doors start to open.

"Good, then-" she's about to say, but before she can get the words out she's smelling acrid smoke and hearing the tell-tale sounds of flames. She's about to ask why the alarm hasn't gone off when Thomas quickly pushes her down to the floor.

There's two naked, sexless men standing in front of the elevator. Their faces are bare skulls with baleful, silver eyes. And they're both carrying very large rifles, which they fire right where Martha was standing just a second ago.

The rapid-fire projectiles are white hot, and melt through the metal of the elevator like it's ice.

Thomas lies flat over his mother, and kicks up and out at the closest target, aiming to disable. The man's ribs crack but he doesn't cry out, much less step back. Instead he changes his aim, pointing his gun down at them.

"One two," Martha says.

Thomas rolls and flattens himself to the floor, allowing his mother to leapfrog over him. She knocks the gun from the man's grip with one hand while slamming her other palm into his face. The blow should have broken his nose, but a hard, clear plastic barrier lies atop the skull. Still, it cracks, though what damage that's done has yet to be determined.

While she's puzzling that out -- and landing a flurry of blows to critical points on the man's throat and ribs -- Thomas has jumped up and performed the same maneuver on the other fellow. He's not as successful as disarming the man, though, and the gun fires wild. White hot flechettes spray the ceiling and a nearby wall, blossoming into flame.

Martha doesn't have to say it. Thomas instinctively pushes the gun in the other man's direction, just as his mother's squatted down to avoid the pulsing, white stream of fire. Her attacker is run through with dozens of the flechettes, and falls down, squirming and twitching as his insides catch fire.

He does not scream. This is perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.

After that, it's just a question of hammering the other would-be assassin until he falls. This takes much longer than it should, especially with the two of them working on him simultaneously. But before long (maybe three seconds too long) he's on the ground with a throttled throat, broken arms, a dislocated hip, and a smashed face.

"Falsefaces," Martha says, anticipating his question.

"Are they alive?"

"They're heavily altered, so don't hold back," she says, tapping her watch to try and raise Rachel and report in. Nothing happens.

"That's not good," Thomas says, trying his watch, too.

"Have to find Hargreaves the old fashioned way, then..."

"The  kitchen" Thomas says, seeing that the smoke is coming from there and running into the thick of it. Martha moves to catch up with him, knowing she's not going to like what they find.

 

Their ancient family butler is lying in a smoldering heap, there by the burning stove. He was clearly shot several times by the guns the men were packing, most likely from behind. His chest smolders and sparks, and blood pools around his legs. 

His music player keeps going, but then those things were made to take a beating.

"Are you alright?" Martha asks, kneeling down to turn his music off.

"Not really, no," the old man says, sighing through perforated lungs: "The nasty things shot my spine out. I'd have given them what-for, but I fear my legs won't stand up for themselves."

"I'll check to see if the respawn's working," Thomas says, about to run off.

"No," Martha reminds him: "I'll see to that. You see to Kaitlyn."

"Well, don't everyone just rush off and leave me," Hargreaves says as Thomas runs to the garage: "It's bad enough I'm going to have to clean up this mess, too."

"No cleaning," Martha says, taking the android's hand in hers: "We've been made, Hargreaves. It's a retreat. We're leaving and not coming back."

The android blinks, and opens his mouth to say something, but stammers: "I... I can't... we're leaving?"

"We are, yes. So if you could transfer to your backup, and help me get the documents from down here before we run out of time, that would be good."

"Young lady, I promised your grandfather that I would look after this mansion to the end of my days."

"Well, you'll just have to look after the next mansion," she says, smiling: "And we are your mansion, Hargreaves. The estate moves with the family. You told me that, once."

 

"I did not."

 

"Yes, you did. It was the last time we thought we had to abandon it? When I was Thomas' age? Remember?"

"Yes... I did, didn't I?" 

"Yes, you did."

"It was a pithy saying from one of my conversational subroutines. You shouldn't take it so seriously."

"Go respawn," she laughs, getting up to go see about those documents from the library. She just has to empty two safes, get their contents upstairs, and have them aboard Owl 10 before they take off. How hard could that be?

She doesn't even see the fist that clocks her as she exits the kitchen. She rides the blow and rolls across the floor just ahead of a stream of white hot flechettes, and ducks behind something both expensive and heavy to consider her next direction. By the time the mostly-ornamental piece of furniture's been turned into smoking debris, she's already well past it and heading deeper into the house.

As she runs, she realizes there were four more of them, back there. She also realizes that not only has the fire alarm not gone off, but that both the perimeter alarm and the alarm that would indicate strange moment in the house have remained quiet, too.

No communications outside the mansion, or between the main building and the Owl's Nest. No alarms of any kind. And a house crawling with armed antagonists.

"I really should have gotten dressed," she laments as the wall behind her is turned to smoking plaster.

* * *

Upstairs, in the Owl's Nest, Rachel sets tower after tower to purge and burn. 

 

All the notes and files on every case The Owl has ever worked on -- many scanned in from the handwritten and typed originals -- are deleted, and their physical data storage units melt down shortly thereafter. No one will be able to read anything off the hard drives, ever. The Owl will be taking all secrets with him when he goes.

"Him." it's really "Her," these days, though the suit's built so that no one would know. You can still tell, provided you can read body movement, but not a lot of Chicago's police force are that sophisticated.

 

(And so far the criminal element doesn't seem to have noticed the change.)

 

But the whole gender issue still rankles her. She was always one step ahead of everyone else in what she wanted, but one step behind what they would allow. 

When she was young, maybe Thomas' age, she wanted to be the Talon. She trained and worked towards that goal, and did very well for herself, but was told that only men could put on the costume. It wasn't until much later that they changed their minds on that, and then only because of what happened to Mathew...

She sighs, stopping in mid-burn to think of him. She tries so hard not to be jealous, and to be thankful of the opportunity to serve that she created for herself, here in the computer core. 

 

Who took the old filing systems and computerized them all? Who turned those computers from clunky, old things to state of the art wonders? Who made their communicators and tracking devices? Who alarmed the entire estate, put in the defensive grids, installed internal security sweeps and countermeasures, and fine-tuned Hargreaves' ability to move between spare bodies?

That would be her. And while she realizes that pride is as bad a sin as envy, she takes much pride in what she's been able to do for the family mission. 

(She especially likes the fact that, in one of the last conversations she had with her grandfather, before he died, he told her that she was the most valuable person on the team.)

But it's hard. Lord Jesus is it hard, sometimes. 

 

When she was younger, she'd watch Martha go out with Uncle Joe, time and again. And she'd realize that could have been her in the suit, if only she'd been born later, or if things had been different.

 

If she hadn't been a girl. 

And now that it's her cousin being The Owl, she feels horrendously jealous. She tries hard to suppress it and not let it color things, and works harder to make up for it, and prays to God every night that the bad feelings will be lifted from her. 

 

But it remains there, still -- a black, oily nugget of especially envious jealousy, wrapped in self-hatred and dismay.

"Focus," she tells herself, redoubling her efforts. She's only got a few more minutes before the portable drive has all the information on it, and the entire past, present, and future of her family's operations rest in her hands.

The drive dings, indicating it's copied everything. She turns to regard it, and sees that she's not alone in the room.

Two naked men with skulls for faces and large guns have entered the computer core. She has no idea how that was possible with the door triple-locked from this side, as a precaution. But as they raise the guns, she realizes who they are, and what they're here to do.

"Nest, protect me!" she yells into her watch as she dives for cover. The lights flicker and go out, and she makes her way over to her desk, where she keeps a number of interesting devices for such occasions. 

She was counting on the internal security to realize there were two unauthorized persons in the room, and work to disable them. But a half-second into her crouch over to her desk, she realizes that the countermeasures she designed have not engaged.

This could mean a number of things, none of them particularly good. She's about to call for help but, just before she can get to the desk, the men overcome their problems seeing in the dark -- if indeed they had any -- and open fire.

It's something of a mercy that they aim for her head, so that she doesn't suffer through the horrible pain of having her extremities riddled with hot metal. But there, at the very end of her life, Rachel doesn't feel anger or envy or regret. She only feels blessed to have served, and hopeful that the rest of her family will survive this day. 

Especially her daughter, Kaitlyn, who -- she just knows -- is not only going to be a Talon, someday, but the best Owl the family has produced yet. 

So Rachel's last thought is a prayer for her life, rather than her own. May she be rescued, today. May she be cared for, tomorrow. 

May she be magnificent for all time. 

* * *

The Samuels' extensive garage houses a number of very nice cars and vehicles, most of which are either highly mundane in appearance, but house amazingly sophisticated gear, or are dedicated crimefighting devices that are hidden in or around the less flashy forms of transportation.

The motorcycle that Thomas is running towards is one such vehicle. It's usually hidden beneath a false tool station, which can be winched up to the ceiling when it's time to bring it out. The winch does its job as soon as he signals for it with his watch, and as it goes up he prepares to jump on it at the perfect moment, turn the thing on, and rocket towards the city.

He still can't reach his cousin on her communicator, but he has her location. She's too far from her school, and moving in such a speed and manner as to indicate that she's on foot and fleeing. With any luck, he'll be at her side in fifteen minutes.

She'll just have to hold on until then, but he knows she'll be fine. 

Bursting with confidence, he leaps into the air and comes down perfectly on his bike. The lights turn on, the turbines engage, and the heads-up display synchs with his goggles.

Then it explodes, right out from under him, and flings what's left of him up onto the air.

He's barely aware of bouncing off the ceiling, and only slightly aware of how hard he strikes the floor. For a moment he thinks about getting up, but then he sees that his shredded, blackened legs are nowhere near where he is.

He could call for help, of course, if the communicators were working. But then the other vehicles in the garage begin to explode too -- one after the other, like firecrackers -- and it's all he can do to wonder if this could have happened any other way. 

"Kaitlyn," he breathes, blacking out from the wave of pain that's finally hit him. The rest is a strangely warm darkness that enfolds him like a too-warm blanket, and threatens to stop him breathing.

 

At some point, he lets it. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Nimrod (Elgar, by way of William Orbit) and having a Lake Shore Lager)