10/01/12 - Bodies In Motion - Pt. 4 - Imaginary World is Fading Fast

It's 8 in the PM, local time, and I've just found out that we're all !@#$ing dead.

Yes, son. Dead. As in deceased. Erased. Offed. Murdered. Put down. Killed in action.

Blown to holy living !@#$, right along with everyone else on this !@#$ train, as soon as it gets into the station in about fifty minutes or so.

Now, I bet you're wondering how I !@#$ing know this. And this would normally be the part where I look at you funny, smack you upside the !@#$ head, and announce "SPYGOD knows all," as if saying that !@#$ing thing over and over again actually makes it true.

But this time? Son, I think it's time we had a little chat about a few basic facts. And that's not because I want to !@#$ing bore you to death, or anything. But you've probably started wondering what the !@#$ is up with me, lately, given every !@#$ thing that's been going on.

And I wouldn't want you to think that I'm slacking off on the !@#$ job, now would I?

So, here's the basic !@#$ situation. It's me, the ex-President of Russia, and a couple fake IDs on the Trans-Siberian Express from Moscow to Yekaterinburg. We're going to Yekaterinburg because there's something there that might be able to help us when we do the big !@#$ final push on the Imago. And it's a "we" because he's the only one who can get me into the !@#$ing place, which is why I dragged him out of his cozy little hidey-hole in the first place. And boy has he done nothing but !@#$ing complain, since.

Not that I can blame him. Getting transpistoled every !@#$ing day with one of those old models is probably doing his !@#$ some damage. But it's not like I really give a !@#$ about whether he's ever going to have !@#$ing children, so !@$# him.

And as to whether anyone's going to have time to !@#$ing have any more children, well... that's what this whole thing's about, isn't it?

My plan was to take the !@#$ train, get out at our stop, and go find what we !@#$ing came here for. In a perfect !@#$ world, we'd continue to be !@#$ing undetected, at least right up until we got what we !@#$ing needed. And then, if !@#$ got unleashed on our !@#$es, at least it'd be in keeping with what Second would have called "the proper poetry of things."

Gods I miss him. It just about broke my heart when I found out he died on 3/15. I can't begin to tell you how !@#$ing poorer my world is without him in it...

...

Anyway, that would be the proper !@#$ing poetry of things. But instead, we're getting something else.

My satellite of love is just over the horizon, now, so I decided to look out the !@#$ window and talk to it. Lucky for me, it talked back, tonight. And what it has to say is really not good news.

First bit of bad news? The President's pretty !@#$ sure our man in Beijing has gone off the !@#$ing reservation. They had a dinner meetup last night, and it got broken with no reasons why. And now no one's seen the !@#$er, but he's not dead, and the Imago are just that more active around the !@#$ houses of government.

So of course I told him to get his !@#$ emergency bag and get the !@#$ out. And while I'm checking up on that, I see if I can get my people on the West Coast to tell me what's up on their end. And they're still buzzing from the nasty !@#$ revelation that poor SPYGOD SCOUT dropped on them the other day, but they think they can use some of what they learned to make a tracking device, somehow.

And boy is that good !@#$ing news, because it turns out their potential tracking device also covers Specials, since those False Faces are operating with similar energy signatures. They don't have any !@#$ tracking devices set up, yet, of course, but they tell me what those energy ranges are, and I'm able to look ahead a little bit, through the cameras at the station we're about to come into.

Which leads to the second bit of bad news, which is the !@#$ing doozy. The Yekaterinburg railway station is a giant sausage fest of Specials -- maybe a hundred of the !@#$ers. And they're armed for !@#$ing bear, tiger, and lion.

I caught a little of their chatter. The orders are !@#$ simple. As soon as the train's pulled in, they're going to aim their big mother!@#$ing guns at it, and not stop shooting until the whole length of it is one big bloody hole.

And that brings us to the third bit of bad news, son. This train's going to be at the station in less than an hour, and everyone on board is going to die, and I can't do a thing to save them.

No, son. Not a !@#$ing, !@#$ thing.

If I stop the train, the Specials will teleport over from there to here, and !@#$ing shoot it, anyway.

If I warn everyone, they'll want off, and they'll start leaping off the back, and someone will notice. And then the Specials will teleport in, anyway and !@#$ing shoot them all.

And if I get on top of the train, pull out my guns, and start !@#$ing shooting at the !@#$ers when they get into range? Not only will they !@#$ing teleport over and blow the !@#$ train out from under me, but they'll just send in more !@#$ers where they came from. Maybe even a few Imago, while they're at it.

And they will !@#$ing rip everyone on this train to !@#$ing pieces, just to get to me.

Now, I can get away, son. I know I can. There's a dozen ways I can get the !@#$ out of here without anyone seeing or knowing, and a handful of ways I can get me and the Ex-President of Russia off this !@#$ing train without being spotted, too.

But everyone else?

The nice old guy in the berth next to me who chatted me up about the circus? The cute kid in pigtails whose parents kept apologizing for her running all over the place? The young couple who were going out East for their !@#$ing honeymoon?

The !@#$hole who took our tickets? The cute boy who brought our meals and kept staring at my "wife" because she looked familiar? The porter who brought around a never-ending supply of vodka so me and the Missus didn't have to leave the !@#$ cabin?

The engineer? The technician? The !@#$ing guy who sits at the back and watches the landscape go by?

They're dead. They're all dead. Every one of them.

And there's nothing I can do to save them.

This is a ghost train, now, son. Just another !@#$ mass murder I've created because I've gotten too !@#$ close to normal people again.

I remember, back in the 70's, when some !@#$hole with more armor than sense tried to attack The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G, just because he thought he owed me a punch in the face. Jack!@#$ launched a giant walking robot at New York City to try and get to me. !@#$er tore up about three blocks of the city fighting the automatic defenses, and one more fighting me, and then took one more out while it fell down to !@#$.

And when the shooting was all over, and I was standing there, triumphant on what was left of its head, some guy comes running at me, his hands all bloody, calling me every !@#$ name in the book. Lucky for him, the police tackle him before he touched me, and I just spit in his direction and tell him to !@#$ off home.

But then later, someone tells me that his wife had been stomped on by that armored idiot's deathmachine. Mashed her flat on the street while she was running away, and he saw the whole !@#$ thing.

And then when he realized what !@#$ing happened, and why, he came after me. Because if it hadn't been for me, that giant metal thing wouldn't have turned his wife into a red smear on the pavement.

If I didn't live in New York City, they'd be walking hand in hand down the street for home, right then. 

No, son, it's not good to think of !@#$ things like that. It's not right to blame myself for things like that. And it's really not healthy to think of my !@#$ contribution to the world in terms of how many people wind up dead because I'm nearby, having a !@#$ing drink and trying to get my !@#$ sucked.

But I'd be !@#$ blind to not notice that it happens. And !@#$ sorry to not care about it.

That's part of who and what we are. That's why we dress up in !@#$ing costumes and hide away behind secret rooms and hidden fortresses. That's why we have secret identities and alibis, all that !@#$. It's not to keep us safe. It's to save the people we live next to.

It's to save the people we love.

These people are dead. There is nothing I can do to save them. But I will see them avenged. I will see to it that their deaths are taken out on the Imago in pain and punishment. I will see to it that their names are held up high as victims of this occupation, and their families told of the role they played in freeing the world.

I will see to it that they are not forgotten, and maybe that's the best I can do. But it seems a !@#$ poor tradeoff for seeing these people I've shared this !@#$ ride with come out alive on the other end.

Really !@#$ poor. 

Less than an hour, now. I have to get that !@#$ing human monster up and running, and see to how we're going to sneak off this train before we get too close to the station. And he'll probably !@#$ing complain and I'll probably smack him around some more, and boy he had better not !@#$ me off, right now.

Because I am in a mood, son, and by now,you know what that !@#$ing means. It means payback, SPYGOD style.

Because I'm going to think about that little girl, and how she would have run off the train, happy and alive. And I am going to think about who I have to think about that not happening.

And I am going to !@#$ their !@#$ just that much higher up into the !@#$ing stratosphere because of it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Winter (The Cure) and drinking rage. Pure !@#$ing rage.)

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

Keeping up, son?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's talk about The Object, itself.

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

And !@#$ing badly, son.

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

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

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

Whoop! Duck.

...

Okay, think it's gone.

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

Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Speaking of which? On your belly, now.

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

You hear that, son?

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 3

Loving that Beijing Gold, son?

I sure !@#$ing hope so. It'd be nice if you saved a case for me, there. I mean, it's my drunk you're infringing upon, after all...

Relax, son. Relax. I'm !@#$ing kidding. It's cool. It's not like the Imago are rationing beer in the cities, after all. We could !@#$ing drink Beijing dry as a jaded, 90 year old hooker's !@#$ and they'd just make more.

Beer's a simple thing, after all. Water, hops, and barley, maybe some flavorings. That and time. And before you know, you can drink the !@#$, and it'll !@#$ you up.

Now, people? That's a different !@#$ing story, son. We aren't chemical combinations or mathematical equations. There's no physics of the human heart or soul. What turns one young man into a go-getting role model might turn someone else into a !@#$ing thug on death row.

There's a great mystery going on between our ears, and it doesn't always lend itself to easy !@#$ing classification.

But we can make guesses, son. We can observe patterns and make observations. We can try things out and see how they work, or, if all else fails, just take a !@#$ing page out of history. 

And that's all we really need to turn a group of ordinary people into !@#$ing faceless monsters -- the simple fact that, if you take someone who's in a bad place, and tell them that you love them, and that all they need to be happy is to accept and return that love, measure for measure, you can mold them like !@#$ing silly putty.

You can march them across minefields, make them slaughter their friends and coworkers, betray their countries, threaten the world.

You can make them shave their !@#$ing faces off to prove their love for you, and undergo radical cybernetic implantation that gives them a technical advantage when it comes to infiltration and impersonation.

You can make them willing to kill, and be killed, for an ideal that would sound like a bad horror novel if you read it in a newspaper.

Love, son. Love and hope. The two most dangerous weapons in the world.

Dark Star understood that. God only knows where or !@#$ing how she got the memo, but she proved it without a doubt in that separate area in Unit 731, where her and General Shiro Iishi watched group after group of Chinese prisoners carve their !@#$ faces off to show their love and loyalty to the woman who'd saved them from !@#$.

And then they gave them masks, called them False Faces, and set them to work around the camp, and then the war.

I never ran into one of those !@#$ers. I was in Europe, kicking Nazi !@#$, at the time. But some of the Strategic Talents who operated in Asia told me some really !@#$ing nasty stories about these faceless assassins the Japanese were using.

Most of the time they wore a plain, white mask with eyeholes. But they had portable devices that could take a dead person's face off at the skull, and then place it right on the assassin, like it had always been there. If they were caught, they fought like !@#$ to escape, and if that didn't work, they activated a suicide charge and blew themselves to !@#$ing pieces, rather than surrender.

Odd thing was that none of them were Japanese. They were Chinese, Russians, Jews, even captured Americans and Englishmen. Anyone that fell into Dark Star's clutches at Unit 731 might be turned into a !@#$ assassin and sent out into the field.

And Shiro !@#$ing loved this. He had visions of Japan ruling the world through the slow but steady absorption of all world leaders and high functionaries. He thought Dark Star and he would be the best servants of the Emperor, and help establish a beautiful new world in his name.

Oh, yeah, by this time the two of them were !@#$ing. He loved how she took his shame and dark memories away. Maybe that's how he could mentally handle doing the sort of things that should have made a good man cry for !@#$ing forgiveness and then put a bullet through his brains.

(Or maybe he was just too !@#$ed up to begin with. It's hard to tell.)

But then, just as he's mapped out the plans for his dream home, there to live with his sweet little memory-eating !@#$ of a wife, something happens that changes everything.

You remember how, before Dark Star created the False Faces, Shiro Iishi was convinced there was something she wasn't !@#$ing telling him? And you remember how he confided in her handler, and how he said he'd look into it? Well, that wasn't an empty promise, because by that point he was wishing he'd never !@#$ing seen her. 

You see, being a handler for a strategic talent's a lot like being someone's talent agent in Hollywood. If you discovered someone, that's !@#$ing great, but you better !@#$ well hope that star keeps rising. Because the moment it cracks and falls the !@#$ down? So do you.

So yeah, this guy got some massive !@#$ brownie points by finding this !@#$ing powerful kid in that whorehouse for freaks. But then she came around and claimed that she had the !@#$ key to a door that unlock weapons and tech for Japan. Massively game-changing weapons and tech, in fact.

So now, every !@#$ time the war came a little closer to home, all his superiors would look at him and say "So why haven't we gotten these things, yet?" And they'd say it in such a way that it was clear that it was his !@#$ing responsibility, even if it wasn't.

After all, he found her. So what she did, or didn't do, after that was kind of his.

(!@#$ing sucks, huh?)

So he took a photo of her, drove up the East coast of the main island, went into administrative offices and police stations, and asked if anyone !@#$ing knew who she was. Of course, no one did, but he kept !@#$ing looking. And finally, just about at his wits' end, he gets all the way up to Kitakami-Cho, and shows the photo to the chief of police there.

The old guy looks at it, takes his glasses off, and starts weeping.

Turns out that this girl is his !@#$ing granddaughter. She went out on the fishing boat with her father older brothers, maybe ten years back, and they got caught in a terrible eastward-heading storm. The best they could figure was they either capsized and drowned, or got pushed so !@#$ far that they wound up stranded in the middle of the Pacific. !@#$, they could have wrecked in !@#$ing Alaska, or something for all they knew.

Did she ever act strangely, as a child? No, the old man says she was normal. Maybe a little boyish, which is why she was on the !@#$ing boat in the first place. But normal.

Did she ever exhibit strange powers? No, the old man says she was normal. And what kind of a !@#$ing question is that? When can he see her?

I don't know what happened to the old man, or what they told him. For all I know they said they'd get in touch and never !@#$ing did. But Shiro Iishi gets word from the mainland that the girl's a !@#$ing liar, and is no more alien than he is.

Now, given how !@#$ing powerful she is, they aren't going to punish her, at least not yet. But, obviously, her status as "hand behind the scalpel" at Unit 731 is !@#$ing over, and everything she was doing has to be stopped. They want him to concentrate on plagues, like he was before, instead, and remove all evidence of what she'd been up to.

"It must be as though she had never been there" ... I think that's what this !@#$ing translates to.

General Shiro Iishi is sad, of course, but, as we've seen, his job is to obey. He shoots the latest crop of False Faces, himself, and has their bodies burned. And he tells the high command that there may be other ones, operating out there, but of course they know where they are.

Then the penny !@#$ing drops. The High Command asks him what the !@#$ he's talking about.

They never ordered these "False Faces" into combat or espionage missions. Not once.

Ever.

Which means that everything she ever did with them was something she wanted done for her own !@#$ reasons. And God and the Emperor alone know what the !@#$ those might have been.

So Shiro Iishi is broken, sad, and borderline disgraced at this point. It's all he can do to make sure that everything she did is trashed, and if she comes back, she's to be arrested at the gates for treason. And that's an end to his dream home and her sorry, nasty !@#$ in his kitchen, making death baby soup, or whatever.

But, of course, she doesn't get back. This is late June of 1945, and she's off in New Guinea, supposedly looking for the Australians' secret supers base with Thunder and Lightning. They go in and never come out, and two months and two A-bombs later Japan's !@#$ing surrendered.

Shiro closes and scorches Unit 731 well ahead of the Soviets. They even ram suicide trucks full of explosives at the building, just to be sure it's a !@#$ing hole in the ground. But they don't burn everything, and some things get taken with, or left behind.

And this diary was one of those lost things, son. It's burned at the edges and some of the pages have been torn out, most of them from between the time she made her False Faces and when he found out what was really !@#$ing going on. God only !@#$ing knows what all went on, there.

You see, we got hold of General Shiro Iichi, after the war. General MacArthur okayed a deal where we got their cooperation and research, and they avoided prosecution for war crimes. It's sick and !@#$ing disgusting, and contrary to all notions of decency and justice, but it happens, anyway, and that's that.

(Maybe another reason you never !@#$ing read about this !@#$ in school, son. We're too disgusted to admit that we prosecuted men for experimenting on Jews in Europe, but let the Japanese have a pass for doing the same !@#$ing thing to the Chinese.)

But the important thing is that, no matter what we ask him, and no matter what he says, he never !@#$ing talks to us about her, or anything they did. Ever. It seems he took that !@#$ order about her never having been there very seriously.

Likewise, we take our side of the agreement seriously. We protect him from official reprisal, harm, and the Soviets, who want to grill his !@#$ on a !@#$ing hibachi along with the other ones they captured. He lives fairly well, after the war, and finally !@#$ing dies in 1959 from throat cancer. All that smoking and drinking, I guess.

Some say he was never in Japan after the war, though. They claim that he'd been replaced with a body double, and was actually in the states, working on biowarfare projects. But that's complete and happy horse!@#$, and you know well enough to know how I know that, so let's not go down that !@#$ing road.

But a couple years later, GORGON shows up, and then the real fun begins.

Yeah, son. Have another beer. Because this is where it gets really weird.

 (SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure, live version) and having more Beijing Gold)

9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 2

And we're back, but really no !@#$ better.

I wound up taking a walk around the city, thinking that being around ordinary people would clear my !@#$ing head. But that was a big !@#$ mistake. Everyplace I went I saw signs of what the Imago have !@#$ing done to China, and the world.

And that just made me !@#$ing angrier.

I wanted to tear down all those !@#$ing posters on the walls, all gently demanding obedience and sacrifice. I wanted to kick in and !@#$ on all the video screens everywhere, playing endless propaganda loops and watching for "crimes against the people." I wanted to scream the truth at the top of my !@#$ lungs, especially now that I know a !@#$ of a lot more about that truth than I did before, or ever !@#$ing wanted to.

And then, just when I didn't think I could get any !@#$ angrier (at least not without !@#$ing exploding like a Halloween pumpkin) I actually saw one of the !@#$ers.

He was Silver and Blue, floating twenty !@#$ing feet above a busy intersection, slowly rotating like something on top of a department store Christmas display. The people who passed by him all nodded and half-bowed and moved past, like they'd run into a high party member or something. And he was looking down at the people, and smiling like an arrogant politician on a palm-presser, all smug and secure and knowing that he !@#$ing owned the !@#$ floor. 

That wasn't the worst bit, though.

The worst thing was that the corners of the intersection were piled high with !@#$ing offerings to the bastard. Fruit and flowers were heaped up in rotting piles no one dared to clean up or remove, and makeshift shrines had been made by them, with incense sticks lit from oil lamps.

And people were actually !@#$ing praying to the thing, like he was the shrine in a temple.

I stood there, wondering how high and hard I'd have to jump to grab his head and twist it the !@#$ off, and then someone half-punched me in the !@#$ing ribs and told me to bow and show respect. So I did, and kept moving, hoping the Silver and Blue thing didn't notice me, and just kept keeping the !@#$ on.

This is the answer, son. When you ask me how I can go on with this war, knowing that they could teleport into !@#$ing Southern Thailand and exterminate the whole !@#$ing population because they thought someone who'd hurt them had come from there, it's things like this.

The fact that humanity has meekly !@#$ing accepted these metal-plated monsters as their saviors, not knowing what they're actually capable of.

(Well, that and we're about to get !@#$ed by some weird-!@#$, big lethal Doom from beyond the stars, but that's another story for another time.)

So we're back to continue the big !@#$ true story of GORGON, son. But this time we are !@#$ing playing it smart. I am not even touching that baijiu !@#$, this time. Instead, I have elected to drink all the local beer I can, which means I made the grocers just outside this adorable guest house really !@#$ glad for the night.

And, two cases into my stash of Beijing Gold, I am finding that my brainmeat is less !@#$ed up, and I am better able to process and express the true horror that my highly-flammable fishing expedition uncovered. 

So, Dark Star, who's outed herself as a !@#$ing alien to General Shiro "Partyman" Iishi, is hanging around Unit 731 to see what makes us !@#$ pathetic humans tick, tock, and stop moving. This is all being done to supposedly help her help the Japanese make submarines capable to getting down to where her crashed spaceship is, so she show her gratitude to them (for rescuing her from a freaky gangster-run whorehouse) by loading them up with insane levels of technology.

That's what she !@#$ing says, anyway. But after hanging out with this girl with black, empty eyes for a while, and watching her suck the memories out of captives, and picking up on little things she says, and the things she doesn't say, Shiro gets the idea that she isn't being 100% honest with him. Of course, his job is to !@#$ing obey, so he doesn't make too big of a stink about it, but he confides his worries in his companion in trolling whorehouses (that happens to be her !@#$ing handler) and his buddy agrees to look into things for him. Somehow.

1941 comes and goes, and you know what !@#$ing happens then, son. The day that lives in infamy, and the end of our being able to sit on our !@#$ hands and support freedom in Europe with our money but not our blood. Things at Unit 731 reach a renewed pitch, now that they went and !@#$ed with the wrong hornet's nest, and the Imperial Army wants Shiro to give them more results, and faster.

Especially when it comes to that !@#$ submarine man thing, because if there was ever a time to get space guns and rocket ships from that spooky girl they "rescued" from the freakiest little whorehouse in Tairausuiso, now is !@#$ing it.

Dark Star isn't necessary to the program, seeing as how she's just observing and advising. So she isn't there as much, given that the Imperials are shuffling her around Asia and the Pacific to have her help make sure that places the Japanese have taken over stay taken over.

I've talked about the sick !@#$ she did, before, so we don't really have to get into that, again. Except that now she's got better ideas about how to hurt people, given how well she learned from watching us. 

...

That's what always !@#$ing gets me, you know? All these aliens and their weird tendencies to turn us into hamburger meat, or open us up and make us tick? So much of that isn't something they came up with on their own.

I mean, if you've got the power to fly across the !@#$ universe in realtime, then why do you have to get your tentacles bloody to see how we work? !@#$, most of them have medical scanners so precise they can see your !@#$ing DNA dancing around in your pancreas from ten !@#$ miles away. Our most sophisticated means of imaging the insides of the human body are !@#$ing antiques to them.

So all that !@#$ with them landing, collecting us like butterflies, and taking us to pieces like we're pigs in a butcher's shop? That's all !@#$ they learned from us, son. Either that or they're trying to scare us, because they're invaders and body horror is always a good way to strike fear.

(Or they're !@#$ing Spider People, but let's not talk about them today. I don't need another headache...)

...

Anyway. Dark Star. She's playing "I want your memories" with eligible bachelors on far-flung islands throughout the South Pacific with Thunder and Lightning, and Shiro Iishi is trying to develop ceramic bombs to spread the !@#$ing black plague. Then, one day, in 1943, Dark Star comes back with a wicked !@#$ing gleam in her eyes, and has a new idea.

It's not merely enough for us to be physically modified to withstand great oceanic pressures, she tells Shiro. We also have to be mentally modified. Our minds must be fused with discipline, determination, and will, or else we'll get down there, see a !@#$ing whale skeleton, and !@#$ ourselves to death.

Of course, Shiro Iishi's all about discipline (when he isn't out drinking and whoring) so he approves of this. And he lets her set up a new regime of testing within the pingfang compound. He gives her some guards, lets her have first crack at his supply of "logs" (that's victims, son), and asks her to have some promising results by, say, the end of a month.

And at the end of that month is where his diary stops being a clinical but !@#$ing disgusting read, and really goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel full of !@#$ and monkeys.

You see, the Japanese have this weird thing about self-harm as sign of devotion. Samurai would !@#$ing stab themselves in the guts to redeem themselves if they'd failed big time. Their gangsters still slice off their fingers, one knuckle at a time, if they screw up. And people are always throwing themselves in front of subway trains if they think they've screwed up, enough, just to say "sorry."

Well, it's not like she was experimenting on Japanese people, but you have to remember that her understanding of our culture was pretty !@#$ limited. What she got in the whorehouse, and was told when they inducted her, and what she saw at Unit 731, and out in the field? That's all Dark Star !@#$ing knew about us, at the time.

And it's not like the Imperial Army went out of their way to tell her otherwise. Not when she's doing such good and creative work, and has promised them the !@#$ing stars if they can get her back down to where she !@#$ing came from.

So she gets a group of healthy male prisoners together, and sequesters them from the rest of the population. She gets them to see her as their protector, and then she tells them things, together. And she tells them these things night and day, over and over again, until they believe them heart and soul.

And then, once she's convinced they really do believe it, totally and completely, she challenges them to prove it. She tells them to show her they have changed. Show her they have become something entirely new.

Show her they reject the life they had before, and with it the one thing that truly identified them from that life.

She gives them a small amount of powerful painkillers, a mirror, and a knife.

Not all of them live through the !@#$ing thing, as you might expect. But by the time the first experiment is done, she has two men who are so !@#$ing loyal that, once Shiro Iishi tells her to take it one step further, they gladly slit their own throats at her command.

He !@#$ing loves it. So they do it again, and again, each time changing things a little. And while they find that their prisoners respond to threats, and appeals to loyalty, the best results they get are by finding broken people and making them feel loved.

And that's how the first False Faces were made, son. Chinese prisoners of war who listened to an alien who told them that she loved them, and wanted them to change themselves for her.

There's still more, here, son. This diary goes !@#$ing bat!@#$, shortly thereafter, and you'll just love what happens when Shiro's party friend gets back to him.

But before we get to that, you are having a !@#$ing drink. Trust me, you're going to need it.

Down the hatch, son.

(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure, remixed by Denny JT) and having a !@#$-ton of Beijing Gold)

8/10/12 - The Big !@#$ Story So Far - Saving the Big !@#$ World Edition

SPYGOD.

Immortal. Superpowered. Drunk.

Highly conservative. Queer as !@#$. Out as Hell.

The man who killed Hitler with his bare hands, rescued the world too many times to count, and saved the lives of three Presidents (but had to shoot one).

Director of The COMPANY, tasked with handling (and occasionally killing) America's Strategic Talents.


And NOT the assassin of the President of the United States of America, though that's the least of his !@#$ing problems, right now.

(Or the big !@#$ing problem that's coming after that...)

The problem now is that, after more than half a century of trying, the science terrorist outfit known as GORGON has succeeded where all would-be world conquerors, megalomaniac super villains, invading aliens, and evil gods have failed. In their new, much friendlier guise of Imago, they have conquered planet Earth while claiming to have saved it. And they are now in the process of transforming it into what they might call paradise, but could only be the most horrible of hells to anyone who cherishes human rights, economic freedom, and self-determination.

Someone like SPYGOD, in other words.

Unfortunately, while he knew something really !@#$ bad was coming, he was not on this Earth to prevent it. And, by the time he finally got back, with the not-dead President, it was all over. All resistance had been either gently brushed away or ruthlessly crushed. The future is being shaped, the past is being rewritten, and the present is under complete control. 

Or so they think...

But let's back the train up a bit. You know what's happened up until now, but how did we get from the President being shot dead on live television to his being alive, and at SPYGOD's side as he plans the liberation of the planet?

As with most things having to do with SPYGOD, the answer is a !@#$ing doozy.

The simple answer is that the President who was shot was not the !@#$ing President, even if he was. He was actually the same person, only from Alter Earth: the terminally !@#$ed-up prime parallel to our world.

The false President was swapped for the real one, who was snatched and grabbed, and taken to Alter Earth's perverse version of Neo York City. Then he was "installed" at the bottom of a temple dedicated to the sacred mysteries of never-ending atrocity, so he could sit, watch helplessly, and go !@#$ing mad.

Because they could. Because they thought it was !@#$ing funny. 

Meanwhile, his hapless doppelganger was shot and killed by a man that not even SPYGOD knew existed: The SPYGOD of Alter Earth, who has apparently been operating in secret on our world for quite some time (mostly !@#$ing with poor Mr. USA, which explains a good deal of that man's antipathy for SPYGOD) and was so good at staying out of sight that not even SPYGOD knew he existed.

To his credit, SPYGOD realized that something !@#$ bad was going to go down that day. Unfortunately, he went the wrong direction in search of his antagonists, and by the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. All he could do was pilot his stolen Nazi UFO out to Nevada, and hide out with the Free Toon Nation for a time, seeing as how they sort of owed him one.

Meanwhile, things went straight down the !@#$ing toilet for his allies -- especially Dosha Josh, who lost his beloved teleporter, Daksha, in a retaliatory attack. A mysterious Colonel was assigned to bring SPYGOD down, only to encounter the horrid, Russian fury of his strange, gun-totting cat, BeeBee.

In the wake of New Man being appointed the interim director of The COMPANY, and The Dragon being tasked to aid in bringing SPYGOD down, Myron -- that is Underman -- chose to say "!@#$ no." However, this was all part of a plan that had been set in motion some time ago, and gave him an opportunity to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right level of authority to be useful.

(More on that later)

SPYGOD stayed with the Toons until he either drank himself sober, or they got tired of his drunken self pity and smacked him back into motion (depending on which version of the truth you believe). During, before, or after that, he did some thinking and planning, in anticipation of some great disaster to strike on March 15th, and got back in the saddle in a big way.

He decamped to scenic, sunny Key West, assembling a team of Strategic Talents, assassins, sell-swords, and highly !@#$ing dangerous beings along the way. And then he kidnapped the vampire formerly known as Ernest !@#$ing Hemingway, and held him in his safehouse on the Key.

Yes, son, you read that right. Ernest Hemingway is a vampire, courtesy of the long-established vampire bloodline of Cuba. And SPYGOD needed him to help them get into the dreaded House of Blood, all as part of a plan designed to extinguish that nasty group of bloodsuckers, end the existence of one of the more terrifying (in)human monsters he had ever had to deal with, before, and use The COMPANY's Flier to free Cuba from Communist tyranny for once and for all.

(That and finally pay that bastard !@#$ Castro back for a multitude of offenses and impositions, not least of which was being indirectly responsible for the death of his beloved brother, Ignacio, all those years ago.)

But as epic and shattering as all that !@#$ was, it was just a feint done to distract The COMPANY from his true objective: rescuing a young man with incredible -- and incredibly dangerous -- powers from Detention Camp Z, in Guantanamo Bay. He would need his dimensional-shifting abilities to get to Alter Earth and rescue the President, and, after making a few more stops along the way -- and reclaiming an ally in Mr. USA , after a very overdue heart-to-heart -- he did exactly that.

What kinds of !@#$ they stepped in over there is best left unsaid. Suffice to say that, at the end of that "adventure," both he and Mr. USA had faced an evil so pure and true that it almost broke both of them. And then, after succeeding against great and unexpected odds, they were undone by the mental instability of the troubled young man SPYGOD relied on to get them all home.

The good news? SPYGOD and the President were returned to Earth. The bad news? Mr. USA is lost, perhaps dead (or worse).

And the worst news of all? They returned months after the event SPYGOD had been warned about had come to pass. The Ides of March had come and gone, and with it the world's freedom -- taken by a deadly old enemy masquerading as a mysterious new friend.

GORGON had this well planned, alright. They slowly substituted key people with their own Falsefaces, taking control of the Ice Palace through Dr. Yesterday, the Central Intelligence Agency through its Director, Deep-Ten through Colonel Straffer, and then, in the last moments of preparation, the Flier, itself. They stocked the COMPANY, the Heptagon, and the Flier with their own Falsefaces, masquerading as faceless, armored troops called Specials. And they went after any and all Strategic Talents that might oppose them, along with any witnesses to what they had actually done to the President, or those who figured out that something was amiss.

When the date came, ignorant armies armed with amazing new weapons attacked the governments of the world, supposedly under the orders of the United States of America. The military installations, missile sites and submarines, and large civilian airstrips were blasted into atoms by the mighty particle cannons of Deep-Ten. The world held its breath, wondering what was going to happen next.

But then came the brightly-colored, metal-armored "saviors," teleporting in and floating down to stop the guerrilla armies -- suddenly no longer able to use their weapons -- from assassinating the world's captured leaders. These Imago claimed to have been the amazing supergods of old, banished so long ago, but now back, both to save humanity from America's dire plot, and from some strange, looming threat from outer space.

SPYGOD's allies -- and enemies -- tried to fight this off. After fulfilling his long-anticipated part in SPYGOD'S early warning from months ago, Myron found a way to temporarily disable GORGON technology, and used it to escape the Heptagon. But when he got to the White House to warn the President, he discovered that GORGON had not only beaten him there, but had been there all along. 

Meanwhile, after being supposedly killed by The Dragon -- who showed his true colors, and shape, at last -- Second and New Man tried to retake the Flier, only to be witness to its stunning transformation, and the raising of some strange city from the Pacific Ocean. Second bravely sacrificed himself to try and deny both himself and the Flier to the enemy, but only succeeded in suicide.

But no one would know of this horrible battle. The eyes and ears of the world went silent, only to be reopened some time later by Imago, once they had complete control of the Internet. And with all information running through them, they began to reshape people's opinions, hopes, and dreams, and then entire nations, to suit their needs.

Some resisted. Some investigated.

Some ran and hid. Some waited for the end.

Some were spared. Far too many were not so lucky. 

And in America, those who had supposedly shepherded the nonexistent plot to take over the world were put on trial, made to testify against one another, and then executed by being send on a one-way ride to the top of a space elevator. The last person to die in this fashion was the former Vice President, who went to his end with a grace not seen by many, and a great and terrible secret burning on his tongue.

(Though not for long, one hopes)

All this was waiting for SPYGOD, when he and the President returned to Earth. They landed close to Choibalsan, Mongolia: an area that had some history with him, and a questionable ally, who was more than willing to inform them as to what had happened.

Saying they took it badly is something of an understatement. SPYGOD's solution to the problem was to wander out into the desert and try to drink himself back into shape. But, after a very strange interlude involving Mongolian Shamans, talkative (and loving) ghosts, a visit to a parallel Earth's strange future, and fighting alongside its version of Jim Morrison, he returned, renewed and ready to tackle the world.

And that is exactly what he will have to do, this time. All the governments, everywhere, have been taken over. There are eyes and ears everywhere, and the televisions are watching us back.

That's not his only obstacle, either. Apparently still unbeknownst to him, METALMAID is still out there, ready to try and kill him, with or without her questionable allies. Old villains await, old rivals are hiding, and who knows what the !@#$ Aaron and the Beautiful Stranger are up to.

And beyond them all is Moloch, still waiting for a rematch...

Does he have a plan? No, probably not.

Does he have allies? Yes, but he'll have to find them, again, or make them.

Does he have a hope in !@#$? Maybe. But he doesn't have the time to !@#$ around on this one.

SPYGOD. Still a massive !@#$hole. Still our !@#$hole. And ready and willing to save the whole !@#$ world.

If he can get away with it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Rage Hard (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) and making his plans in secret.)

The Age of Imago - April

April brought with it two strange realizations, at least to most people in the so-called "first world." The first was that almost everything had changed by what people had taken to calling 3/15.

The second was that they didn't really miss it. (Mostly.)

Why? Perhaps because their economies did not crash or implode. There were no riots, no panicking in the streets. Some hoarding of food and supplies was reported, but after a while it became clear that no one really needed to.

Gas prices even went down, for crying out loud.

The Imago exhorted people to lick their wounds, pick themselves up, and go back to work. And so they did. And, for most people, nothing had really changed there, either. Supplies still came into factories and went out the other end as finished products. Items still showed up in the stores to be bought and sold. Banks held and loaned money, newspapers and magazines were printed, the mail was delivered and read, and the police and emergency services were still there.

Only now with the presence of the Imago, floating overhead with smiles on their faces.

True, the internet was down for a few days, but the phone lines weren't. So businesses dusted off their old FAX machines or made more calls, and things were worked around until the net came back up. And when it did, the new speeds were incredible -- courtesy of some special help the Imago gave, behind the scenes.

People whose lives had been highly disrupted were almost-immediately cared for, so as to avoid the market-destroying specter of bread lines, beggars, and angry mobs demanding food and justice. The Imago came to them with food, aid, and lines on jobs that needed doing -- all well within their areas of expertise.

Those blinded by the space weapons were taken by the Imago to be treated in special, high-tech hospitals that actually replaced the eyes of the stricken. And those who worked for the armed forces, or airports, or any other profession rendered inoperable due to 3/15, or obsolete by the Imago, themselves, were given other, meaningful work, or awarded grant money to try their hand at more creative occupations.

And, once people saw that the weakest amongst them had been taken in hand, the good feelings this created gave them the impetus to pay these kinds deeds forward. 

There were some things that were not coming back, though. Television and satellite radio were both gone -- victims of the orbital weapons. But, once the internet got back up and running, again, people started watching shows online, instead. Families gathered around televisions that were hooked up to their laptops, and listened to AM/FM. And while the movies were temporarily disrupted by the event, the studios quickly rebounded and started sending old favorites back to the theaters, or pushing ahead the scheduled DVD release dates of certain highly-anticipated films.

The Imago did not get in the way of anyone having a good time -- in fact, they seemed to be happy that people were happy. And so they were.

Yes, the news wasn't quite what it was, anymore. Online broadcasts seemed smiley and samey, and the people who told the world what was going on seemed to lack any fire or conviction -- expect when praising the Imago for what they were doing. Even the fractious talking heads found other things to complain about, rather than their leaders or governments.

Such as the upcoming trials in America, and the presumed guilt of the defendants. 

Some viewers missed the old days, when hot-headed opinion leaders -- or outright demagogues -- would rail at them from the television and tell them that they were in danger. But these persons could now only be found on the internet, in greatly reduced circumstances, and seemed only one or two massive broadsides away from "taking an extended break," and coming back much calmer, or not at all.

(Some wondered what happened to change their mind. Others wondered why this didn't bother them as much as it should.)

Case in point: when America was told to give up its handguns, one would have expected massive protests. The internet news should have been on fire with reports of pro-gun demonstrations, or passionate calls for armed citizens to hold onto their rights and not let them be taken away by as-yet-untested "allies."

But when the final day came and went, the news reported only that, except for a few, minor pockets of resistance, the American people were happy and willing to comply. The police were relieved to no longer need to carry death-dealing weapons on their person. And from now on, when things got out of hand, the Imago would be there to protect the people.

Too pat? Too corny? Too good to be true? Perhaps. But the internet news didn't care to dwell on it, and the chatrooms and political pages were deleting threads on the subject too quickly to really count.

It's almost as if someone had put a big band-aid on the issue -- one too big to peel away.

* * *

4/12/12

Dear Dagworth:

Hey, fellow Spygod Scout! This is Winifred Reed from Dublin (Kentucky, that is) Unit 54, and if you're reading this instead of a second paragraph full of 'remember when' about things you and I never did at Saturnalia, then you must have figured out the code. If so, awesome! 

(If not, well, I guess you're not !@#$ing reading this, and are probably wondering who this person is.) ;)

The reason I'm writing to you is that I read your SPYGODMAIL Letter in last June's issue of FC, and you sounded pretty !@#$ing smart. So I wanted to run something by you, just to see if maybe I'm going crazy or something. 

(I'd ask my fellow Scouts, but after the Incident we've all been told not to talk to each other. We don't really obey that, of course, but we have to be really !@#$ing careful. If they get two or more of us together they try to ask us if we got molested or something, again, and it turns into one big bad !@#$ing scene. Hopefully you haven't had to go through that. It !@#$es me the !@#$ off.)

That something is this. Do you think they did something to the internet when they turned it back on?

Reason being, my dad's one of those !@#$ing idiots who actually trusts the !@#$ government when it tells him things. I mean, he's not a complete dope. It's not like he !@#$ing loves the IRS, or anything like that. But generally if they wheel some !@#$ secretary out to tell us !@#$ like the sky is green, the grass is blue, and fluoride in the water is actually good for you, he just nods along and wonders why I turn red and threaten to throw the !@#$ fishbowl at the TV.

(We don't keep fish in it, anymore. They're in the water tank of the basement toilet. Long story.)

So when the Imago show up, and tell everyone that America was responsible for what happened on 3/15, he's more than a little !@#$ing skeptical. We both are, actually. Me because those Imago people give me a !@#$ing bad feeling, and him because, well, he doesn't believe the American government would ever do something like that. 

(Obviously he was asleep during Iran !@#$ing Contra. How is it I wasn't even !@#$ing born yet and I know more about it than he does?)

Well, the TV stays off, obviously, but the internet comes back on. Me, I'm busy trying to play catchup at school now that those creepy Imago people are floating all over the !@#$ing place and inspiring us to higher standards and all that !@#$, so I can't watch TV on the internet until my grades are up. 

But in the meantime, my dad goes from thinking the Imago are lying to thinking they're telling the !@#$ing truth. All he can do is sit there and watch the trials, and wonder when they're going to put the President on the stand so he can testify as to his guilt. Because he's sure he's !@#$ing guilty, and can't wait for him to pay for his crimes. (His words.)

And he's not the only one. And all the people who changed their minds have been watching TV on the internet. 

Every. !@#$ing. One.

So, of course, I figure there's something weird going on. That's why I'm contacting you. Because you sound like someone who knows things. 

Please, please tell me if you've noticed. It would be good to hear that I'm not going !@#$ing crazy. Ever since SPYGOD supposedly shot the President (and, yes, I said 'supposedly') the world's just gone !@#$ over heels in a bucket of heads. It would be nice to know that someone else noticed to.

Your fellow SPYGOD SCOUT

Winifred

ps: about that big boned thing? My father's wife (again, not my mother) was freaked out that I put on a bunch of pounds, a couple summers ago, and made me eat nothing but rabbit food. I hated salads every day, but it actually did work. So if you're worried about that, try that. If not, don't. ;)

* * *

"You know, my mother, rest her soul, always told me to be polite to ladies," the long-bearded militia boss says to the woman, perhaps more for the benefit of the other men in the long, log-cabin style hall that the group's meeting in: "But you are really pushing my patience, miss."

"Look, I'm sorry if I'm coming off a bit manic, here," the young woman in the heavy coat replies, putting both her hands down on the folding table the man's been using as a desk. The fellow doesn't seem to appreciate her doing that, any more than he's appreciated her taking up this much of his no-doubt valuable time, but he keeps his tongue in check for the moment.

"That's putting it kind of mildly, miss," he says, leaning back in his folding chair and stroking his beard: "Not to discount your concerns, or anything. But us Liberty Boys have been staying a few miles ahead of the authorities since before Ruby Ridge. I think we know how to deal with these Imago faggots, too."

Martha Samuels does her best not to roll her eyes straight back into her skull. As she takes a deep breath and gets ready to begin again, she can tell her brother-in-law, Mark, is doing his best to refrain from saying he told her so.

But did he ever.

The idea was sound, at any rate. If the Imago -- that is, GORGON -- were looking to take away America's guns, then cultivating potential allies in the rabidly pro-gun population just made sense. And while most of the militia movement was horribly wrapped up with racist, or at least xenophobic elements, the Liberty Boys of northern Wisconsin were one of the most inclusive groups to be found on the FBI's database.

Unfortunately, what the Liberty Boys made up in racial inclusiveness they lacked in smarts. The FBI had remarked upon this several times, and Mark, who was more cautious than ever these days, had pointed this out several times on their journey to scenic Land O Lakes.

But Martha had hoped he was wrong, or at least overstating things. Not so lucky, this time.

"This is a whole different ballgame," Martha began again, looking around the room and trying to take in each pair of eyes: "This isn't the feds, anymore. This isn't some BATF guy who wants your guns, or dumps flammable tear gas into your compound by accident and calls it a tragedy when you all burn to the ground. This is an invasion force. We have been invaded."

"We've always been under occupation, ma'am," a large, black man says from next to the overflowing beer cooler.

"That's right," the leader's stringy, horsefaced wife/co-leader/spiritual guide says, walking up behind her man: "And we know how to handle it. In fact, I think we've been handling it since before you were born?"

"So, again, what do you want from us?" the leader asks.

"You have the largest group by the U.P. border," Martha says: "You're in contact with other large patriot groups through clandestine means. And you're all savvy enough to know that the internet's not to be trusted, anymore. When the day comes, and we need to fight back-"

"What's with the 'we,' missy?" one of the other militia types asks, his squirrely face painted green and black: "You gonna put on camo and patrol with us? I bet you never took a fifty mile hike in your life."

Mark tenses up, but Martha holds in back with a hand: "You can test my experience any time you care to. But, unlike you, I've had firsthand experience dealing with these thing, and I've got the scars and the dead family members to prove it."

"So you said," the leader says as he leans back and his wife puts her hands on his shoulders: "But talk is pretty cheap, miss."

"Oh really?" Mark snorts, unable to hold back any longer: "I lost my wife to these things. She lost her father, the finest man I ever met. Her son still hasn't recovered from the attack-"

"Mark, please," Martha says, trying to calm him down before he loses it.

"And maybe you and Deer Hunter over there think we've got time to see who can !@#$ the longest after a few Pabst Blue Ribbons, or throw the most darts at a photo of a dead man..."

He points over to the wall, and a picture of the President duct taped to the dartboard, his smile pocked by a million little holes. 

"He ain't complaining none," the black man who spoke up earlier says, and half the room laughs.

"No!" Mark shouts: "This isn't !@#$ funny! We don't have time for this nonsense! America's going to need heroes, and soon! So are you going to stand up and be counted, or are you just going to drink bad beer and-"

"Your friend ain't helping you none," the militia leader says.

"Mark," the woman says, putting her hands on her shoulders and smiling at him: "I think I've got this one."

"I think we got bumpkiss, Martha," Mark replies, calming down in the face of her smile.

"Go outside," she says, kissing him on the cheek: "Let me handle this."

"Yeah, might as well," he says: "I've still got some dignity remaining."

"Hey, don't go away mad," the black guy says, tossing a beer at the back of Mark's skull as he turns to leave. He reaches behind him and catches it like he had eyes in the back of his head, without even breaking stride, and exits the room.

Outside, he sits down on the front steps of the tourist attraction the Liberty Boys took over, cracks open the beer, and sips at it. He really doesn't like this brand of beer at all, but at least it calms him down -- gets him to think about something other than how much he'd like to run back in there and beat them all down.

(Or how much he's come to like it when Martha kisses him to calm him down, which is something he's not wanting to think too much about, right now...)

There's talk for about two more minutes, followed by a tell-tale hush that lets him know that !@#$ just got real. He sighs, says a small prayer, and starts to take actual gulps of his beer. By the time he's finished with it, the crashing, cracking, and moaning is all over, and Martha walks out with bloody knuckles, and a sad look.

"Don't tell me," Mark says, tossing the empty can at the nearest trashcan, and missing: "He told you Jesus wanted you to fry up his fish, get him a beer, and shut the !@#$ up?"

"No," Martha says, sitting down by Mark and rubbing her hands, perhaps trying to remove some of the blood: "His wife did. And then they laughed."

"You didn't leave any Bibles tucked under their chins, did you?"

"Left my last one with that mugger in Pembine. I'm starting to think you're right, Mark. I think these people are useless. If we're going to raise an army, we're going to have to look elsewhere."

"Halleluiah," Mark says, putting an arm around her shoulder: "So what do we do, then? Concentrate on getting Thomas some better care? See about finding someplace safe for Kaitlyn?"

"Thomas won't get better care than in Owl 10's medical bay," Martha says: "And as for your daughter, well, I don't think there's anyplace safer than with her dad and her aunt, do you?"

"Probably not," he says, wondering if having his arm there's a good idea or not.

"So we go back to what we started with," she says: "We try to find any Supersoldiers who weren't vaporized on 3/15. Strategic Talents who haven't gone underground or walked in to testify. Anything wild, weird, or wonderful we can use."

"Sidekicks, robots, and animal companions might be all that's left, now, Martha."

"I'll take them right now," she says, leaning forward, away from the arm, which he tactfully withdraws: "I've prayed every day... heck, every hour. And I know God will help us, Mark, but we have to be open to what he sends. We don't have the luxury of picking and choosing."

"I hear you there," he says, wondering if he could go in for another beer. He looks back at the doors of the cabin, decides against it, and looks forward again. 

And when he does, he sees there's a strange, hooded figure less than five feet away from them.

Mark leaps to his feet immediately, assuming a self-defense stance and trying to protect Martha. Of course, she's already up before he is and trying to protect him. They make quite a pair, tripping all over each other, but the stranger holds up his hands and smiles disarmingly.

"I apologize for the shock," the Asian man says, taking his hood down to reveal his face: "I swear by all I hold sacred in this world, and the next, that I am not here to harm either of you."

"I have heard that before," Martha says: "And I'm not very big on trust right now-"

"Your father's spirit stands beside you, radiant and proud," the stranger says: "Your wife's, also, sir. I would not dare harm so much as your pride with such dangerous guardians to protect you."

That takes them both aback for a moment, and then, just before she can get angry that a complete stranger knows of her personal losses, she remembers something.

"I know you," she says, lowering her hands and indicating that Mark should do the same: "You're one of SPYGOD's allies, aren't you? We met once?"

"I am, and we did," he says, bowing deeply: "I am known as Chinmoku. And I am here on his behalf, after a fashion."

"You what?" Mark asks.

"I have been looking for you, as well as others, in the hopes of fighting back against what has happened."

Mark blinks and steps back: "Uh, yeah. Can we have a time out, here? I think Martha and I need to... well..."

"It's okay, Mark," Martha says: "He and I have worked together, before. Sort of. It was complicated."

"Indeed," Chinmoku says: "But if you will permit me to explain?"

"I am all ears," Mark says: "Does SPYGOD need us to hide the murder weapon?"

"Mark!"

"He has every right to be skeptical," Chinmoku says, which shocks them both: "This is an almost perfect example of quantum theory. The President is both dead and alive, and SPYGOD both did and did not shoot him."

"Well, that's unusual," Martha says: "I'm sure you have a really good explanation for this?"

"I do," Chinmoku says: "I also have someplace totally safe for us to talk."

"Well, let's go there?" Martha asks: "Please?"

Chinmoku nods and gestures. As soon as he does, alien engines can be heard, and a strange-looking UFO appears from nowhere, directly above. A cat wearing flight goggles stares out of the front observation window, partially entwined around an AK-47, and other figures stand around and behind it.

"Well, there's your animal companion," Mark sighs.

"Yeah, this is definitely SPYGOD's doing, alright," Martha says: "Mark, signal Owl 10 to engage autopilot and rendezvous? I think our army found us."

"I'm getting another beer, first," Mark insists, and turns to go back into the log cabin, wondering if this is God's way of telling Martha to lay off the frequent requests, or else be a little more specific. 

* * *

4/21/12

Dear Winifred:

I apologize for how long it took me to respond to your letter. At first, I was uncertain who you were, or why you were writing to me. But then, while looking back through my past issues of FC in order to find a piece of unrelated information, I came across your letter, and wondered if perhaps it was in the code that ran in the same issue that your letter appeared in. And indeed it was!

I hope this likewise-coded letter finds you well, safe, and still avoiding the internet, or at least the video components of the World Wide Web. You are, indeed, not crazy, my fellow Scout. You have correctly intuited that the so-called "TV on the Internet" is veritably pregnant with some kind of mind control. 

I suspect it is a synaptic soporific, making people lose their desire to question, much less rise up and fight. The fact that violence statistics have dropped considerably since the Internet came back on is possible proof of this, though the statistics could have been tampered with, courtesy of our new friends.

This has made keeping up with certain things a bit difficult, as I am loath to trust the internet for anything, now. This goes triple for the trials, which proceed at such a blinding pace that feel totally hamstrung by having to wait for print media to tell me what has occurred. Still, I find it comforting to be able to read of all the news in one, well-considered dose per day rather than the constant, fevered updates and oft-malodorous comments of other readers. 

Not so comforting are the trials, themselves. Like you, I am also a student of late-20th century American Intelligence malfeasance, and can indeed remember the importance of such things as Iran-Contra, not to mention the numerous other atrocities the other Company brought to the world in the guise of fighting Communism. 

But the sheer number of people they are calling out to try, testify, and accuse? I doubt if most of them had anything to do with 3/15, much less any other crimes that this could stand as karmic payback for. Our deceased President's immediate predecessor, for example, should have been excused from the dock for being too unintelligent to have been able to wipe his own anus with a map, four extra hands, and a video tutorial. I doubt he knew anything about this plot at all, but there he was, on trial.

And then there he was, riding the elevator. "Requiescat in pace!"


I fear for the President, himself. He sits there, day after day, watching as friends, foes, and complete strangers die or are committed to a lifetime of service for what is supposedly his ultimate responsibility. He seems on the verge of crying, but not tears of guilt. Rather tears of helplessness, or perhaps rage...

But as for other matters: my personal moment of satori came when I realized that, not long after the Imago came to our school to tell us all to "soar," the special education class was emptied of all moderately-to-seriously mentally challenged students, leaving only the slow, the spastic, and uncontrollably violent. 

I worked with the retarded quite a bit, given my family history. My older sister had Downs Syndrome, and we've always been involved in the Special Olympics. So I would always volunteer to help out in that class when I could, which was not often, but was at least somewhat appreciated by the staff.

So when I asked what had happened I was told, by the Principal, that they were taken "someplace special." And the way he said "someplace special" was the same way my parents told me that their old dog, who was too weak to go outside and relieve himself when I was six, was taken to "a farm." It's a comforting lie told so as to not have to explain the facts of life and death to a first grader. 

I never did forgive them for that. Every so often when something goes missing around the house I tell them it's at "the farm." They don't dare ask further.

So I did some searching, subsequently, and learned that this had happened in all other schools in central Ohio, at least from what I could gather when conferring with other Quizbowl teams, robot clubs, and archery leagues. 

As you might surmise, I do not dare approach other SPYGOD SCOUTS, as I have had a similar issue in my city, as well. In my case, they want to know if I was mentally and sexually meddled with, and have marched a sorry legion of regressive hypnotists past my door. I have sent them away with vivid and Lovecraftian tales of Venusian Crab Men filming my sigmoid colon for G-D while at school, which has, thankfully, taken the heat off of our dear fraternity.

If you would do me the favor, in return, of looking into the matter for me and seeing if the same disappearances took place in Kentucky, I would be eternally grateful. I fear the worst, my friend. I look at those faces smiling at me and remember the old "stranger danger" movies we watched as smaller children, and know that leer of old. 

Not an ally, these Imago, but predators -- simple and plain.

I look forward to future correspondences. But if I could ask for one favor? I am big boned, and shall always be, without shame. I appreciate the advice, but I could do without it. I would prefer to be accepted as the large fellow I am, in heart, mind, and, yes, behind. :)

I remain your servant, be I ever so non-humble.

Dagworth Harold Untley III

* * *

When they finally come for Myron, he's most probably insane. "Probably," meaning that, by that time, he doesn't even bother to jump up in bed and nervously await his end, or someone else's, because he isn't sure if he's dreaming it or not.

He lives in a waking dream, now. The past, present, and things that never happened wear each other's faces and play a game of "what happened when?" as he sits there, guest at his own surprise party, and wonders why Colonel Richter didn't try to talk to him, anymore.

(Every once in a while he remembers why, but doesn't care to, and lets the dream show him something else.)

The days and nights no longer have any meaning for him, and are punctuated only by sleep, food, and defecation -- sometimes not even in that order. Sometimes he gets up to use the toilet, sometimes not. Sometimes he thinks he ate, but realizes when new food comes and the old, untouched food is taken away, that he hasn't

So when the CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP reaches his cell and goes no further, he thinks it's the women he'd once paid to wear nothing but COMPANY boots and march around his bed, that one furlough.

When they open his cell door he imagines it's the back hatch of his drill tank, ready to take him to the center of the !@#$ing Earth at long last.

And when they yank him from bed, he thinks it's his mother from his earliest memory, picking him up to take him to the window so they can watch his father drive off to work --

"I swear you'll always be safe," she whispered to him as the man's car started and went out of the tree-lined driveway: "You'll always be my little man. You just remember that, no matter what happens. You go out and explore the world, and have big adventures, and be the best man you can, and when you need to you come right back here and I'll be waiting to tuck you in, make you warm milk, and sing you to sleep

"Always--

"Myron Volaar," the Imago says: "It is time for you to soar."

Myron blinks, suddenly back in the hear and now. He's naked and soiled and hasn't showered in weeks. His orange jumpsuit is in a corner, abandoned long ago. The cell smells like a toilet.

Two Imago are in the room. Both hold onto either of his arms. And standing in front of him is a naked man who looks exactly like him, except for a noted lack of genitals and a face like a halloween mask.

"!@#$ you," he says, realizing the dream is over: "I want that on my !@#$ing tombstone, too."

"You are a good and clever man, Myron," the other Imago says: "You will be a good addition to our ranks. You will do great things with us, and soon."

Myron tries to think of something pithy to say. Some great speech, like the one from A Tale of Two Cities. !@#$, even Kurtz's last words from Heart of Darkness. 

"You will join us," the skullfaced thing says, and extends his hands out to take hold of Myron's temples: "You will soar."

His mother. She died thinking he was working for the Peace Corps. He didn't have the words to tell her what he was really doing. But he thought he might have driven up through her front lawn, one day, in a drill tank full of treasure from a lost continent and told her to !@#$ the retirement fund -- they were off to Cancun for life, baby.

One big adventure, only this time together.

"'This is not an exit,'" he quotes, wishing he had an axe. And then the hands are at his temples, and the pain begins to pulse, and...

... when he comes to, he's wet and goopy, and the other prisoners are cheering. The one directly across from him is whooping it up and laughing like a loon.

He's sitting on the floor, !@#$ painful and bruised from where he landed. He's covered in red slop and electronics, most of which are smoking and warm.

A headless, sexless, naked cadaver is being dragged out of the cell by the two Imago, who are no longer smiling, but visibly shaken. The False Face's neck is a ragged stump, smoking and stinking up the place.

Myron sits there amidst cheers and laughter, realizing, piece by piece, what must have just happened, but not realizing how it could have possibly happened at all.

"Well..." he says, now truly and firmly back in reality: "That was !@#$ing unusual."

And realizes, as he goes to wash himself down with water from the toilet, that those words would have made the best tombstone of all.


(SPYGOD is listening to This World Must Be Destroyed (Front242) and having a Deadhead Double Red Ale)