1/14/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 3.5

"Come outside and feel the morning sun..."
The Owl, Bee-Bee
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * * 

"Please, I am appealing to your humanity," the short-haired, white-robed woman says, sandals flopping on the dirt as she hurries after the Terre Unifee guards that have just stomped through the red, mostly-ornamental front gate of the Sonoma County Ashram.

"You have, yes," their leader says, indicating with a bored wave that the twenty highly-armored, heavily-armed men and women should continue forward, down towards the cliff overlooking the ocean -- high-tech stun-guns drawn and ready for use.

"This man is not a criminal. He is a spiritual pilgrim. He is a broken soul in need of healing-"

"He's also wanted for questioning," the man sighs, wondering if he can just taze the salope and be done with it: "If he has nothing to hide he has nothing to fear-"

"Please," she says, getting right in front of him, hoping that the others who live here will join her in this: "This man came to us in a very bad state."

"Hopefully he will not leave in a worse one. Now if you please." 

"What's going on, sister?" one of the others says, getting up from his afternoon tasks, a group of white-robed men and women following him right in front of the guards.

"They're here for him."

They all blanch at that, and the man holds up his hands: "Please, sir. let me appeal to your better judgment. If you know who he is, and what he can do-"

"We do, sir," the leader states, striding right over to the man and staring him right in the eyes: "That is why we have brought so many weapons. And if you do not get out of my way and let me do my job, we will use them on you, first."

He swallows, hard, and gets out of his way. As the leader smiles and stomps away, heading for the garden where -- according to near-constant satellite surveillance -- their target has been meditating since Midnight last night, the other pilgrims all drop their tasks and run for the entrance.

The man the guards are after is sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed in the small, well-maintained garden, watching with his mind as the water meets the land and retreats from it, over and over again. He's wearing a white robe like the others, here, and has shaved his head down so close that it's almost impossible to tell that his hair is blue.

If Mister Chaos is aware of the twenty-odd guards stomping towards him, he makes no sign of it. He sits and breathes in and out, trying to maintain some kind of rhythm with the crash of the surf. Letting its power wash through him, the better to scour everything away...

"Mssr!" the leader says, once his guards have surrounded him in a half-circle, guns ready to deploy: "Your attention please."

"Do you mind?" the man says in a gentle voice, not turning around: "I'm trying to meditate."

"We have some questions for you, Mssr. Chaos."

"That's funny, so do I," Mister Chaos sighs, opening his eyes a little: "I came here to get the answers."

"So have we," the leader says, taking a few steps forward, and indicating that his subordinates should lower their weapons just a bit: "Your former teammates have turned traitor, Mssr. Chaos. They have decided to conspire against the Terre Unifee to free SPYGOD from his incarceration. We have reason to believe that you may know something of this, and even if you do not, you may have some information that will help us to find them."

"Is that all?" the hero says, wishing so dearly he could just sit here and ignore them.

"You will cooperate, yes?"

"It depends," the blue-haired man says: "Did you bring guns to my Ashram?"

"We have, yes."

"Did you threaten my friends?" he asks, feeling the anger coming back to him, like the scent of the water.

"We told them to get out of our way. They seemed very concerned about your welfare."

"We do that, here," Mister Chaos says, sounding indignant as he turns around, ever so slightly: "We're like family."

"Well, you will be happy to know they shielded you as best they could," the leader chuckles: "Now, I am certain we can all be reasonable about this?"

"You come to my retreat, threaten my friends, and assume I'm committing treason," the hero says, getting up ever so slowly and turning to face his accuser: "I think we left reasonable a couple miles back, pal."

"Do not be foolish," the head of the guards says, taking a step back as his soldiers heft their weapons up and lock them into firing position. 

"I could say the same to you," Mister Chaos says: "Leave here, now. Do not come back here. If you want to talk to me, I'll talk, but we'll do it somewhere else."

"You are in no position to be giving us orders, mssr-"

"I am in the perfect position, sir. The morally correct one. Surely you can see that these people are here to receive help and peace? Your presence here is jeopardizing that."

"I could say the same to you," the man sneers: "You are the human weapon, are you not? One song and you turn the world upside down and inside out."

"Is that what you think?" the hero says, smiling just a little: "Is that what they told you?" 

"Well, yes-"

"You see, that's all wrong," the man says, smiling: "I don't need that song to use my powers. I use it to act as a lifeline, so I can find my way back to reality when it's done. Otherwise I might just change the whole world without even thinking about it."

Then he smiles and holds up his hands, revealing he does not have the tapeplayer on him...

A few seconds later, the other pilgrims are both startled and amused to see the guards go running right out the front of the Ashram, and into their troop carrier. Once the carrier is well back down the road, and they carefully return to the garden, they see that their blue-haired brother is back meditating, as if nothing had ever happened. 

And in a few hours, as he loses himself yet again, he begins to wonder if anything actually did. 

* * * 

"Well?" Straffer asks, looking over at the bathroom door as SPYGOD walks out of it, somewhat nonplussed.

"No, not yet," SPYGOD says, groaning and holding his stomach.

"Watched pot?"

"You could !@#$ing say that again."

"I think I did," Straffer chuckles, clicking through channels on the television: "I told you more fiber was a good thing."

"Yeah," he says, patting his stomach and stomping over to the fridge for another beer, or three.

As he does, he looks over at the main window. The usual protesters are down there, but he's not looking at them. He's looking at the boxes that are still stacked by them, awaiting unpacking.

He's also looking at the boxes he's taken from there and put over by the front door over the last few days, trying to figure out where to put what. 

He's also looking at his cat, over on the couch, lazily farting away the afternoon. 

And he's looking at his watch, wondering if they've got the timing right, after all.

He grabs a beer and pounds it down, tossing the can at the recycling bag. That it ricochets off three things before going in flawlessly isn't surprising, anymore. It's just a thing, and he's had a lot of time to get it right.

But in his mind he's already counting down. The last few trips to the john. The last few boxes moved around. The last few cans in the bag. The last meal, the last television, the last !@#$ on the table, or under it.

The last moments spent here, rather than somewhere else.

Something is winding down, so something else can start into motion. And he just can't wait.

Soon, he tells himself, grabbing another beer and going to sit with his lover in front of the idiot box before feigning intestinal distress yet again: Very !@#$ing soon. 

But how soon it will be is all going to depend on someone else.

* * *

'You called, Mssr. President?" Henri asks, coming into the President's office with all the care he can muster.

"Yes, I did," the President says, putting a now-depleted rifle down on his desk -- right next to a number other, fully-loaded ones -- and indicating that the gaggle of male secretaries nearby should run down to the other end of the room to replace the shot-up paper targets of SPYGOD with fresh, new ones from the very large stack in a chair. 

They all have ear-protecting headphones on, and for good reason. The wall across from the desk has been thoroughly shot to !@#$, back, and there again. The wood and plaster that hid the super-steel underneath is almost entirely gone, revealing only the metal beneath. 

And there's hundreds of flattened rounds down there, lying in random piles and pools on the floor. 

"I want you to be ready to go to America," the President tells him as he hefts up another gun and cocks it, making the secretaries work just that more quickly and efficiently. 

"Um... of course, sir," Henri says, taking a respectful step back: "May I ask why?"

"You may," the President says, not smiling: "I've got a feeling I'm going to need someone there to oversee operations, soon."

"I see. What sort of operations?"

"That would be telling," the President replies, chuckling over something: "But I think you can figure it out, given everything?"

"Oh, yes," Henri says, looking at the targets: "Are we adjusting our timetable after all?"

"You get along well with Josie, right?"

"Yes!" he says, brightening up quite a bit at the mention of her name: "Very well, in fact. Just the other day-"

"That's good, because you're going to be working closely with her from here on out," the President interrupts, assuming the proper firing stance and getting ready: "I've already approved your travel orders. You and her need to link up ASAP and talk cooperative measures."

"When, sir?"

"Soon," the President replies, smiling: "Don't worry about the timing. Just be ready to drop it all and go there when I tell you. You can do that, can't you?"

"I can, sir," Henri says, already looking forward to the side benefits of working closely with Josie.

"Good," his leader says, sighting down the line: "You might want to put on some ear protectors and watch this, Henri. It might be instructive."

"What is it?" he asks, getting a pair from one of the secretaries, now that they've all gathered around the back of the desk with him.

He doesn't hear the full explanation through the muffs. Something about a high-tech firm in Austria, a ridiculous rate of RPM, and certain, hard-to-get exotic materials that go into each and every bullet.

All he knows is that, when the gun speaks, he can't help but listen. And then he's amazed to see that the previously-smooth wall -- made to withstand a nuclear blast -- is ever so slightly pocked and pitted by what it's fired.

And then he's imagining what it'll feel like to fire such a thing, should the need arise.

"Magnifique," he whispers, enraptured by the thrill of it all.

* * *

"Well, this is exciting," Gunther says, scrolling through the late President of New Zealand's notes as he sits at the man's desk, naked as the day he tumbled out of the clone tank.

The two secretaries he seduced to get here -- a man and a woman -- are still going at it in the other room. The noise they're making is providing the perfect cover for his espionage, though at this point he's sure he could get away with just about anything and they wouldn't object. 

(He is that good, by all accounts.)

What's exciting, Gunther? Karl asks: I'm just seeing a long list of things done that day. 

What about the proof that Champain Enterprises was a shell corporation? Jana asks: You said you were getting somewhere with that. 

"Forget that, sister. I think I've found two things that are more interesting."

Do tell, Helga snorts.

"Well, for one thing, it turns out that the old fellow had just gotten through writing his notes for the day before he decided to kill himself, if you can believe that."

So he'd be an unusually-orderly suicide, Karl chuckles: Point taken. Go on.

"For another, it looks like the last person he talked to was Guillaume Brilland." 

The Director of the Space Service, Helmut adds: Now why does that sound importantly familiar?

"I don't know, but I know one of you knows. That name stuck out for me-" 

It's me, Helga says, no longer sounding sarcastic: I noticed that some of the other people I've been looking into have spoken with him recently as well. The Prime Minister of Canada, the President of Portugal, the Finance Minister of Uganda..."

And they're all sending things off and sending money to Champlain Enterprises, Karl intuits: So what's their angle with the Space Service?

Does Uganda want a spaceport? Helmut chuckles. 

Do you suppose they're all trying to go somewhere? Jana asks.

And with that they all instinctively look up at the sky, wondering...

* * * 

"Where the !@#$ have you been?" Blastman asks, sitting by the window of their bolthole and hoisting another can from the remnants of the six pack he got this morning. He looks utterly diminished in a flannel shirt and blue jeans, but he's trying to blend in.

"Had an errand to run," Night Phantom -- who's still in costume -- answers as he crosses the dusty, sparsely-decorated room, pulling a new six pack from the paper bag he's brought. 

"Don't tell me you actually went into a store..."

"Well, I couldn't just steal, could I?"

Blastman sighs: "Where did you go this time?"

"Berlin," the floating cloud of a man answers, tapping the Kaufland logo on the paper bag: "I hope you realize Bud Light is a pricey import over there."

"Well, that's the last of the beer money, then," the hero sighs, looking back out the window: "Unless you want to actually act like a !@#$ fugitive or something."

"Well, we don't have to-"

"We do," Blastman insists, popping the tab on the beer he's got in hand. 

The man laughs so hard he almost vanishes, and then realizes the man was being serious. So he sighs and "sits" down, his cloudy tentacles spilling onto the floor, and hands over the new six.

"How long do we have to wait here?" he finally asks, wondering if there's anything good on the old, half-broken television before the cracked mirror, over on the dresser with no shelves.

"You know the score, man," his partner in crime says: "Brainman's got a plan. Until we know what it is, we just sit tight, and wait."

"I wish I got to wait with Red Wrecker," Night Phantom sighs. 

"So do I," Blastman chuckles: "Tough luck for both of us, I think she likes Myron better."

"What, that drip?"

"Hey now," the older hero says: "That drip almost single-handedly won the Reclamation War, down at the South Pole. And he's been through !@#$ you wouldn't believe."

"Try me."

"Well, for starters..." Blastman starts to say, but doesn't get the chance before the entire wall he's sitting next to explodes inward, and he's thrown clear across the room by the man who caused it. 

"Hi there, brother," something wrapped in big, black armor says, his voice deep enough to shake the world. He looks down at Blastman from a helmet that's shaped like a bullet, and there's a broken planet Earth splayed across his chest. 

"Joey...?" Blastman says, shaking the fuzz from his head as he looks up at his older, evil sibling.

"That's right," Cataclysmo says, clanking his armored fists together: "Thanks for visiting me in prison, you sniveling little !@#$. I really appreciated the flowers, too."

"You twisted son of a..." Blastman starts to say, but can't get the words out before the black, human bullet is back on him again. This time he takes them both through the wall, the bathroom, the hallway, and the apartment across from it. 

He didn't even have to plant his feet and start running - he just moved. 

"Well !@#$," Night Phantom says, dropping his six pack and looking for a convenient shadow so he can help his friend. But then there are no shadows at all, and there's only a glaring, bright light within the room.

A light that casts no shadow, and never ever warms. 

I S33 Y0U, the Glimmer announces, shining through the hole in the wall its teammate created and spinning itself into humanoid form: T1M3 T0 3ND. T1M3 T0 D13.

"Yeah," Night Phantom says, putting up as much darkness as he can in the face of a psychotic, thinking star: "How about 'no'?"

The being laughs and shines all the brighter. Everything in the room catches fire. Night Phantom screams as his being is eroded away by the thing he's facing, but he realizes he's got one chance. 

He stumbles over to the mirror, and then turns it back at his attacker. The light can't harm a being made of light, but the strange effects made by its reflection momentarily distract the Glimmer, just enough.

And, with that, the Night Phantom flies over to the massive hole Blastman and his wayward, psycho brother just created on their way to wherever the !@#$ they went, and zooms into the smallest space he can find, hoping he can find some darkness down there.

The second he does, he goes through it, blindly entering the nightzone and seeing all the shadows and darknesses around. It doesn't take long to figure out which of the humanoid shapes out in the street are his teammate and his familial rival, and he comes back out of the dark and into the day nearby. 

He's about to say something witty and engaging, but then he sees that Cataclysmo has just about finished reenacting the Ur-crime with his brother. Blastman's chest is a broken and battered ruin -- ribs poking though his shirt like accusatory fingers.

"You !@#$er!" Night Phantom screams, hurling a line of darkness at the hulking, black-armored giant. It knocks him back just a bit, but that's almost enough time to give his dying brother a little room to breathe. 

"Game over," Blastman says, somehow able to speak with a crushed chest: "Do it."

Night Phantom doesn't want to do this, but he knows he has to. He can see Cataclysmo rallying, and can feel the alien heat of Glimmer approaching. There is no time.

So he slips into the shadow of a large piece of rubble, left from where the two men crashed to the ground. Then he comes up under the shadow below Blastman, gently taking the man's head in his hands.

And then he slips back into the dark, just enough to take his ally's head into the concrete, and leave it there.

Blastman's body jerks and twists, stuck into the ground from the neck-up. Then it lies still. 

"What the !@#$?" Cataclysmo roars, successful in his goal yet cheated of his prize: "What the !@#$ing fuck!"

The Glimmer can add nothing, other than to watch his partner destroy the concrete in vain. That and silently wonder where its foe has disappeared to, and where they might find him, now that he's gone back into the dark.

It would seem that timing is everything.

* * *

"Well, about !@#$ time," SPYGOD says, turning on the bathroom light right at 7:54 in the PM and seeing that something very !@#$ important has finally arrived.

He kneels down and takes it from its case, still slightly cold from the transit. It only takes him only three seconds to extract it, assemble it, load it, and check it to make sure it should work.

"Honey, is Top Gear on tonight?" he asks as he strides through the apartment, heading for where Bee-Bee is snoozing on the couch.

"Why, yes it is," Straffer says, turning the television up as loud as it will go: "I think they're in Barcelona, this week."

"Barcelona," SPYGOD muses, handing what he's got off to the cat, who wakes up, coughs, takes it, and heads for the front door -- growing larger with each step: "The sea, the sand, the sun."

"The amazing food," Straffer replies, heading for the window and the boxes stacked next to it.

"Sagrada Familia," SPYGOD adds, the syllables rolling off his tongue.

"I didn't think you liked churches?"

"I don't. But... !@#$, I told you about the time I-"

Straffer breaks the story with a kiss. He also hands him a pair of very large earplugs.

"Those aren't going to do me any !@#$ing good, hon," SPYGOD sighs, handing them back: "I hear through my eye, remember?"

"Well, just in case," Straffer says, and, just before he stuffs a pair in his own years, adds: "I love you."

"I love you," SPYGOD replies, but it's falling on deaf ears, now.

There's a banging at the door, just then. Clearly the guards outside have been informed as to what SPYGOD carried out of the bathroom. But no one seemed to notice that they've been slowly piling heavy things up in front of it all afternoon, which is going to make their breaking it down just a little difficult. 

And the moment they do, they run right into their worst nightmare: a drunk demon cat the size of a Wookie with a fully-loaded AK47.

"Poshel na khuy i vashikh matery vy pridurki!" Bee-Bee screeches as he opens fire, carefully aiming at nothing above the knees, as ordered. 

The guards scream and fire back. The bullets bounce off the cat. He just laughs and fires more, no longer caring about orders now that the stupid suki have tried to kill him back. 

Seconds later, the alarm goes off. 

Seconds after that, SPYGOD and Straffer step to either side of the window, each cradling a certain box under their arm.

There's a weird whine, just then -- one that builds in pitch and intensity until the whole world seems to shake and scream. 

Without warning, the large window shatters, along with every piece of glassware in the apartment. Flinders of transparent stuff go everywhere. 

And the moment the whine begins to die down, something shifts in the air outside of what once was a window, and a flying Aston Martin Spyder is there, instead.

One with a somewhat-unrecognizable woman behind the wheel, a strange white button glimmering on her shirt. 

"Cut that a bit !@#$ing fine, didn't we?" SPYGOD teases as he leaps from the apartment into the back of the car, indicating his watch. Straffer jumps in beside him just as she flips him the bird -- though not without a smile -- and re-engages the cloak. 

The car vanishes a second later, much to the disappointment and anger of the protesters down below. They throw eggs and tomatoes where they think it might be, but only succeed in getting themselves spattered with rotten food.

And then they're gone, with only impotent alarms, screaming guards, and gunfire to mark their absence. 

* * *

It takes fifty TU personnel and another hour to take Bee-Bee down. In the end, someone just has the good sense to throw bottles of vodka into the apartment and pray he gives up the gun for the booze and drinks himself stupid, yet again. Thankfully, it works.

Sometimes life is kind, even to the undeserving.

* * *

"I don't understand where they could have gone," the TU official in charge of keeping an eye on the five ABWEHR kids is saying, running his hands over the files on his pad: "It's like they just disappeared-"

"They have, obviously," his contact sighs, not in the mood to deal with this: "Any idea what they were looking into?"

"Something to do with the suicides of those two Prime Ministers, I think. Two of them were hassling the Australian's widow, and then there's this thing with the one in the New Zealander's office. I hear they're still cleaning up the stains on the carpet-"

"Get a kill team on it," the shadowed man snaps: "See them? Shoot them. Can make up any story needed after. Don't care."

"Very well," the man says: "It will be done. And what of their mentor, Randolph Scott?"

"Oh, don't worry about him," the man says, watching the footage from The Tokyo Kill Club, just last night: "Got something special planned just for him..."

The rest is darkness.

* * *

Somewhere there's a different door

To open wide

You've got to throw those skeletons out of your closet

and come outside...

 (SPYGOD is listening to Se a vida es (Pet Shop Boys, remix) and having a Champlain Orchards cider )

5/5/61 - The Things We've Done Together While Our Hearts Were Young - Pt. 3

The only three extant photographs of Hǫfuð - COMPANY Archives
Top Left: Photo from Ahnenerbe-backed archaeological dig in Bolivia, 1939
Middle: Thor, Heinrich Himmler, and Heimdall, 1942
Right: Possible photo of the Crimson Assassin at work 1958)
(Art by Dean Stahl)

"Mister President, I can assure you that this not our doing," the translator says over the phone: "Our Premier sends his complete denial of having had anything to do with this-"

"Now come on, sir," the President says, doing his best to remain composed as a group of four-star Generals hover around his desk: "I have reports that your people have clearly been identified at the Cape."

"We are not accepting that they are ours, Mr. President-"

"And a Russian submarine was just forced to the surface off the coast by one of our strategic talents. I could go on, but I shouldn't have to."

There's a moment of silence, and then cross talk. As they're talking, one of the Generals leans in and starts talking about getting birds in the air. The President waves him off, angrily, hoping no one on the other end heard that.

And then someone rather angry takes hold of the phone.

"Mr. President?" Nikita Khrushchev says, his accent thick and uncertain: "I swear you, not President to Premier, but man to man. We are not doing this. We have no knowing who doing this."

"Are you certain?" the President asks, somehow believing this.

"Is not being SQUASH. They are not knowing. Is not being KGB. They are not knowing. Is our people? Yes. Is my orders? No!"

"So what are you saying, Mr. Premier? Your people have gone rogue?"

"We are not knowing. Please to be leaving them alive so we can learn."

"Well, no promises," the President says, watching on the television as Mr. USA continues to fly around the rocket. So far as the world knows, he's just showing off. But should the people inside the control building be unable to hold off the combatants they've engaged, and he has to swoop down to attack a super-commie on national television...

He hears the Premier talk of forgiveness, and avoiding a war, and he hopes he can agree with that in good conscience, and not go back on it.

* * *

"LookLet'sTalkAboutThis," Swiftfoot says to the red-suited speeder who's running the perimeter of Cape Canaveral with him.

"IAmNotThinkingSo," Sovetsky Skorost replies, trying to place his feet right up against his rival's: "ThereIsBeingNothingToTalkAbout."

"ButWeWereAlliesOnce!@#$It!" he says, doing his best to avoid being tripped, as well as keep him from arcing inside the Cape, and heading for the rocket: "WeShookHandsInBerlin! Don'tYouRemember?"

"IShookHandsWithTheFistOfTheFatherlandInBerlinYearsBefore," the Soviet hero sneers: "FriendIsBecomingEnemy. EnemyIsBecomingFriend. OnlyCauseIsStayingTheSame."

With that, he catches Swiftfoot with a one-two-three punch to the face, knocking him for a loop.

Swiftfoot slips, trips, and tumbles for a hundred feet. He tries to get back up from off his !@#$ but fails. And as he gets to his knees he feels a foot in his kidneys, another in his solar plexus, and then yet another in an even more sensitive area.

He screams and falls back down, clutching at his parts. As he does he sees the red-suited speeder hovering nearby.

"YouAreBeingWeakAndSoft," the man says, pulling out a pair of long, curved knives and whipping them around so quickly they appear to be a steel blur: "IWillBeCuttingItOutOfYouNow. ThenIWillBeKnockingDownYourYankeeRocket."

"That'll be the day," someone says from nearby.

The Speeder turns, but just a second too late to realize how much trouble he's in. And then a wall of sound strikes him square in the chest, knocking him right into the dirt.

Liberty Belle strides towards the fallen Soviet hero, her mouth a wide and distended thing. Before he can get back up she's screaming again, only this time it's even louder, somehow -- and aimed right at his chest.

Swiftfoot closes his eyes, not wanting to see what happens next. The sounds are bad enough. The caught scream that goes nowhere. The cracking of bone and collapsing of soft tissues.

The nasty, wet noise a human ribcage makes as it collapses under the sonic equivalent of being run over by a tank...

And then it's over, and the woman he's supposed to be dating is standing over a twitching pair of legs that's poking out of a man-shaped hole in the dirt.

"Are you alright?" she asks, not bothering to turn around.

"Yes," he says, trying not to show her how much pain he's actually in. He feels like the guy popped one of his testicles.

"Then get up and get back to work," she commands, turning and striding past him, clearly disgusted: "And for God's sake, act like a man."

To his credit, Swiftfoot doesn't start really whimpering until she's well out of earshot. 

* * *

As far as areas to shoot down a rocket being launched from Cape Canaveral go, you couldn't have found a better place than Bird Island, over in Lake Kissimmee.

The well-forested island is mostly deserted, especially on a day like today. It's got lots of places to hide, so that a careful person could do almost anything there and never be detected. And, perhaps most importantly, it's not easily reached unless you have a boat, or a helicopter.

Or, in SPYGOD's case, a flying car.

SPYGOD drives his noisy, relatively slow-moving Aston Martin Spider over the water, heading for the area where Wayfinder told him to find the Crimson Assassin, right on one of the lower points of the center of the island. Every foot of the way, he expects a deadly, car-destroying bullet to come racing out of a tree, a bush, or even the air itself.

But for some reason, Malinovyy Ubiysta lets him land. He even lets him get out of the car -- guns drawn, ready for a fight.

"I know you're !@#$ing here, Gregor," SPYGOD says, looking around: "I also know what you're here to do. And I can tell you right now, it's not going to !@#$ing work. Why don't you give yourself up? We can talk-"

As if to answer him, a loud report comes from somewhere, and the ground between SPYGOD's feet explodes as a massive bullet destroys it. It also deflates one of the car's tires.

"Well, that's just !@#$ rude," SPYGOD says, tossing his guns at the ground and raising his hands up.

"The time for talking is past, American," a voice comes from a copse of trees, deep and growling: "I have my mission. You will not stop it."

"Well, that's just it, pal," SPYGOD says, balling his empty hands into fists: "I !@#$ing will."

* * *

"...somewhat anticlimactic, really," Gold Standard is saying to Mrs. Liberty as they stand out in front of the control center, watching their fellows drag a single captive out onto the front steps: "Two depth charges and their submarine popped out of the water like the cork from a bottle of Bollinger. Pity about the crew, though..."

"Maybe you should have boarded her first," Mrs. Liberty offers, looking up as Mr. USA zooms overhead, winking at the two of them as he completes another circuit.

"Well, maybe," the gold-suited man says, shrugging: "This suit isn't so good under the seas, though. And if I'd forced my way in, well, I think I would have just made things worse."

"Poisoned, you said?"

"One and all," he confirms, shaking his head sadly: "Cyanide molars, if I had to guess. Those sailors weren't going to be talking to us."

"I'm surprised there's any super soviets left to do the same," Mrs. Liberty sighs, looking at the state of the eight-eyed woman that American Lightning is hauling out by the legs. She reminds her of a cartoon she watched, once, where a cat stuck his tongue in a light socket. 

"Well done, by the way," New Man is saying, patting Lightning on the back as they go: "We didn't even have to shout 'high' and 'low' this time!"

"We didn't, did we?" Lightning chuckles, all the frustration of their earlier talk seemingly gone: "Too bad yours got away."

"Yeah, well, I think I blasted him into whatever black hole he lives in when he isn't threatening decent American taxpayers," New Man winks, which leads to another round of chuckling -- at least until Mrs. Liberty walks over and glowers at them.

"Is there any reason you're dragging her along like a caveman?" she chides them, shaking her head.

"Sorry, (REDACTED)," Lightning says, a little sheepishly: "It's just that if she comes around, and gets her hair or her fangs into us, well..."

"And we ran off without proper restraints," New Man says, coughing a little: "Which was my fault. Entirely."

"I see," Mrs. Liberty says, pulling out a pair of very strong wrist cuffs from her utility belt and handing them over the Lightning: "Well, let's get this done properly, gentlemen. I don't think we want to have our picture taken like this, do we?"

"No," New Man admits as Lightning does as he's told, somewhat shame-facedly: "Anyone heard from Dr. Chaos and the new kid?" 

"We have not, no," Gold Standard says, looking on the side of the building where they'd gone to: "I wonder what's going on in there?"

"I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," Mrs. Liberty says, looking off at the rocket as it waits for 'better weather,' and wondering if they've put out all the fires or not. 

* * *

After a full minute of silence, and not being shot, SPYGOD decides to push his luck.

He slowly puts his hands down, pulls out a cigarette, and lights it up, taking a long drag. Then he holds out the pack, offering: "Smoke while we're waiting?"

Nothing happens.

He shrugs, puts it away, and resumes talking: "So while I'm here, about to !@#$ing stop you, maybe you could clear something up for me?"

No answer. Is that him aiming the gun at him from that copse of trees, then?

"See, here's the thing," SPYGOD says: "I just got off the !@#$ phone with the President, before I came over here to your little island. He just !@#$ing talked with your President, over in !@#$ing commieland. And it turns out that your President has no !@#$ idea what the !@#$ you all are doing here, cause he sure as !@#$ didn't order you here."

Silence, still.

"And neither did SQUASH, apparently. I know sometimes you supercommies all go off the !@#$ing reservation, but not this time."

(Was that a shifting of feet? A gun being raised?)

"And, well, seeing as how you red !@#$s can't even wipe your !@#$ !@#$holes without clear permission, I can't see you just deciding to do this on your own, either."

(Yes. A gun. he can hear a finger on a trigger. Or maybe that's just the car engine cooling. !@#$ it. So hard to tell...)

"So you want to tell me what the !@#$ is going on here? " SPYGOD says, finishing his smoke and tossing it towards the copse of trees he heard the voice coming from, before: "Because I figured out what you're !@#$ing doing, but I really can't figure out why you're !@#$ing doing it. This doesn't make much !@#$ sense..."

That does it. There's a rustling in the grass, nearby, and what SPYGOD thought was a small little patch of brush reveals itself to be the Crimson Assassin: seven feet of muscle, big hair, and righteous Soviet anger wrapped in red and black, wearing big, silver sunglasses.

And carrying a very long, fantastic-looking gun that seems to be breathing...

"Well, that's a blast from the !@#$ing past," SPYGOD says, looking at the weapon: "The last time I saw that !@#$ thing it was being handled by some supernazi with eyes the size of dinner plates. How the !@#$ did you get a hold of it?"

As if to answer, the man twists the weapon just so, turning it from a super-long sniper rifle into a much smaller, short-range handgun. Then he aims it at the hood of SPYGOD's car, and shoots it three times, right through the engine block.

"Okay..." SPYGOD mutters, seeing the oil and gas leak onto the ground and wondering how long it's going to take to fix that: "I'll take that as not !@#$ing wanting to say-"

"I do not know what our Premier has told your President, American, and I do not care," the Crimson Assassin insists, pointing the gun back at his interrogator: "I am on a legitimate mission for the Soviet people. The Premier has ordered us here, though SQUASH. There is no uncertainty or doubt in my actions."

"And with your death, there will be nothing to stop this mission."

"Well, !@#$," SPYGOD sighs, figuring it was too much to hope the Premier wasn't !@#$ing lying, after all: "I guess there's nothing else to !@#$ing say, then."

"No," the Soviet hero says, aiming the gun at SPYGOD's head: "There is not."

* * *

"Well, here come the others," Gold Standard says, seeing Dr. Chaos and Corporal Flag walking out and down, one captive apiece. 

Flag's gently escorting a trussed-up, ugly woman who looks like she's gone a few rounds with Cassius Clay -- as does Flag, himself, frankly. Meanwhile, Chaos is carrying a red-suited man in his arms, his head covered by a plastic mop bucket. 

"I hate to ask...?" American Lightning says, watching as the two heroes maneuver their defeated opponents close to where a vaguely-conscious Zhenshchina Pauk sits. As soon as she sees the man with the bucket on his head, she begins to come out of it, clearly concerned for his welfare. 

He does not say anything at all. 

"Well," Corporal Flag sighs, looking at Dr. Chaos, whose hair is still glowing blue, and whose eyes are staring in a thousand impossible directions at once: "We encountered the enemy, and... things got messy."

"How messy?" Mrs. Liberty asks, looking at the man with the bucket on his head, and noticing the glowing, red ring on his finger: "Is that Krasnoye Koltso?"

"Was it..." Dr. Chaos proudly proclaims, taking the plastic bucket off, which prompts a number of sickened reactions -- and a genuine scream of horror from the restrained woman-spider.

"Oh my god," New Man says, putting his hand up before his eyes: "How can he even be alive like that?"

"Yevgeny!" Zhenshchina Pauk wails: "Yevgeny!"

"Was that his name?" Mrs. Liberty asks gently, indicating that Dr. Chaos should really put the bucket back over the sputtering, anti-dimensional ruin he's made of the man's head and neck. 

"Yevgeny..." the spider-woman weeps.

"Mulchat, durak," Matryoshka spits out through a busted mouth: "Nashi vragi nam."

"What's she saying?" American Lightning asks.

"She told her to be quiet, rather rudely I might add," Gold Standard says, leaning over the multiple woman: "And then reminded her they were captives, which is quite true. I'd watch them carefully. They might also have poisoned molars."

"mouth I think If Wraith The her did beat she them of out..." Dr. Chaos intones, chuckling evilly at the thought.

"What are you saying?" Mrs. Liberty asks, looking at the blue-haired man: "Jonathan? I know you're in there. You come out of that state right now and tell us what happened."

"There's nothing to tell," Corporal Flag insists: "We got clobbered for a bit, but Dr. Chaos did... that, and when this lady saw it happen I took advantage and-"

"That is not being what happened, lying pig," Matryoshka snorts: "I would have killed this fool, but for black man with mop. He was truly superior foe, worthy of respect. This one... feh."

She spits a mouthful of blood and broken teeth at Corporal Flag, who grits his own teeth and shakes his head: "Lying commie. I beat you fair and square!"

"Yeah, sure, kid," New Man says, patting him on the shoulder: "Let's you and me take a walk. I'm thinking Liberty Belle might need some help."

"So you do speak English," Mrs. Liberty says, staring down at the beaten woman: "That's good. How about we talk, woman to woman, about what it is you were doing here."

"I am saying nothing," Matryoshka sneers: "Think what you want."

"Well, that's just it, sister," Mrs. Liberty says, getting right into her face: "I can think of a lot of things. And the first thing I'm thinking is that, given the sorry state of your friend under the bucket, here, there's no reason for us to turn this into a photo-op. And given that you happened to interrupt something so vitally important to our country, today, I'm also thinking that we really wouldn't want to have word get out about this at all."

"We are being ready to die."

"I'm sure you are," Gold Standard jumps in, relishing the chance to play worse hero to Mrs. Liberty's bad: "But, as our friend with the blue hair has aptly demonstrated, death isn't the only thing we can do..."

He points to the bucket. Dr. Chaos laughs backwards. It makes the hair stand up on the back of Mrs. Liberty's neck.

The defiance on Matryoshka's face begins to wilt.

* * *

The wind picks up, blowing through the island's trees. The two men face each other, and a crucial second ticks by too long.

The Crimson Assassin narrows his eyes behind his glasses: "A shame this must happen so fast."

"I agree," SPYGOD says.

"They say that you are... how do they say it, the 'American me?' Is that correct?"

"No," SPYGOD grouses: "I don't !@#$ing think so."

"Well, English is a difficult language. I mean to say that we are alike, you and I. Not the same, but similar?"

"Maybe we are," SPYGOD admits: "It changes nothing, Gregor."

"No, (REDACTED)," the tall soviet operative says, grinning: "It does not. But I have been looking forward to this for some time. Often I have dreamed of the day I might have a reason to kill you."

"You know, that's !@#$ing funny," SPYGOD says: "I can honestly say the exact same !@#$ thing. Who'd have thought?"

"But I will not kill you like this, though," the tall man says: "I do not mind destroying lesser men from afar, or even up close. But to kill someone like you like this? Trapped and helpless? There would be no sport in it."

"Oh?" SPYGOD says, looking down at the guns he threw to the ground: "You want to have a duel, Gregor? My .45s, your supernazi gun?"

"It is called Hǫfuð," the Crimson Assassin gently corrects him: "We took it from the hands of the fascist you knew as Heimdall. I have had the privilege of using this on the behalf of the Motherland many times. Today, you will have the privilege of dying by it."

"So I pick mine up, we face off...?"

"No," the man says, smiling: "I count to three. Then you try to get your weapon off the ground and shoot me before I shoot you."

"That's... not very !@#$ing fair."

"No," the Crimson Assassin says, grinning: "But it is a better chance than nothing at all. You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you were killed with this superior weapon, wielded by a truly superior foe, than whatever sorry fate would otherwise await someone of your profession."

"Well then," SPYGOD says, smiling just a little: "I guess I'll consider this !@#$ for the honor it is."

"May we begin, (REDACTED)?"

"Please !@#$ing do, Gregor." 

The wind blows across Bird Island, again, bringing with it the crisp, earthy smells of a Florida afternoon. Trees sway and creak, wild grass ebbs and flattens, marking its course.

And, at its center, SPYGOD and the Crimson Assassin face one another from twenty feet away -- each ready to kill the other.

The tall Russian adjusts his grip on his wondrous weapon, making certain his foe's eyes are square in his crosshairs. SPYGOD looks at the guns he'd dropped by his feet, wondering if he can get to them in time.

The wind blows once more, and the Russian starts to count, ever so slowly.

Three...

Two...

One...

And then-

(SPYGOD is listening to Running Scared (Roy Orbison) and having yet even more !@#$ Blatz)

11/1/11 The Big !@#$ Story So Far - Take II

SPYGOD.

Immortal. Superpowered. Drunk.

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

Killed Hitler with his bare hands. Saved the lives of three Presidents. Had to shoot one.

Safeguarded the world more times than he'd care to count, really, but if you listen carefully, and parse out all the !@#$, you might just learn about one or two on the sly. 

Leader of The COMPANY. Resident of The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. Head of SPYGOD SCOUTS.

Owner of METALMAID and one of the last few flying spy cars left in existence. At least until persons still mostly unknown blew it out from under him.

The one they call in when a "strategic talent" has to take a dirt nap. (Do not remind him of this.)

Since The War, SPYGOD has been a major player in the international spy game. From his post at The COMPANY, he has overseen America's part in the zero-sum dance that keeps the world from being annihilated, invaded, eaten, or just plan vanished. Sometimes this involves the use of Supers, sometimes conventional forces, and sometimes just a single bullet in the right place (or head).

Until earlier this year, the dance involved detente with hideous partners; mostly leftovers from World War II or the Cold War that followed. In a sane, rational world, those partners would have been wiped out ages ago. However, given their global entrenchment, and capacity -- and willingness -- to create and employ doomsday devices, it was decided to dance instead of destroy.

Put bluntly, the world and its governments could handle risking a few hundred dead a year, but not the millions or billions risked by all-out war against the likes of ABWEHR, HONEYCOMB, or GORGON.

This year, SPYGOD decided that, in the words of Groovie Mann, some have to dance, some have to kill. One large explosion later, the dancing years were over, and all the world's science terrorist and supervillain organizations were on notice. All their asses are belong to him.

(Did it make him popular amongst the spy community? !@#$ no. But that's never stopped him before.)

The first salvo was against ABWEHR, when he invaded their Ice Palace in Antarctica, putting a stop to their inhumane breeding program, and the mother monster behind it, as well as purging it of any leftover surprises.

The second salvo was against GORGON, whom he learned was routing its communications through the wondrous global defense platform codenamed Deep Ten. One massively surreal punking later, he tricked them into revealing their true location.

Unfortunately, they were waiting for him, and set out several nasty operatives to deal with him - harshly.

In true SPYGOD fashion he alone survived, but came back to life to discover that The President felt The COMPANY's presence was no longer required at the South Pole. From now on the United Nations, along with America's favorite son Mr. USA (SPYGOD's personal nemesis) would be looking after things, there.

(It's like the President had a grudge or something?)

Still, it's not like he was entirely surprised -- in fact, he'd already planned ahead. There was no way he was going to let those blue-helmeted commies have access to a powerful and mysterious alien artifact, now was he?

Getting back on the horse proved challenging, as GORGON had quietly and messily vacated their island paradise. He was also involved in a strange interlude where he was turned into a cartoon, and exiled to a cartoon colony "for his own good." In true SPYGOD style he was present, but deniably plausible for the ensuing patient revolt and exodus.

Then came a wave of assassination attempts, all involving his own weakness. Small but potentially-deadly nuisances gave way to a truly monstrous assassin -- Moloch -- and it became clear that one of his biggest secrets had gotten out of the bag. But who was trying to kill him, this time?

(Hint: not Colonel Khadaffy, though he might have had reasons.)

While fighting more than usual for survival, SPYGOD started to go after another target: HONEYCOMB, who quite clearly have it coming. An attempt to attack Neo York City during one of its citywide conversion processes led to a gruesome discovery in South Korea, which led to SPYGOD making a controversial statement in his own unique idiom.

This, in turn, led to letting the organized super-crime outfit Legion know he was coming after them, too, in a roundabout way. (More on that later.)

Tired of being used as a punching bag by !@#$holes who knew his super-secret weakness, he challenged Moloch to a fight. But Moloch threw him the mother of all curve balls and he died. Sort of.

Thus began the surreal spectacle of SPYGOD coming back to life, just to wind up dying several dozen times. It turns out it was all a ruse to lure out whoever was trying to kill him, but that produced some mixed results.

(It may have also compromised his effectiveness in the field, if the overly-publicized misadventure in Libya just prior to Colonel Khaddafy's inglorious end is any indication.)

Now what? Traitors are poised to strike from within. Fiendish plots are being laid. Questions remain unanswered.

And there's still a lot of enemies to take down. Starting with HONEYCOMB... or is that the Legion? Depends on whom you ask.

SPYGOD. A massive !@#$hole, yes. But, God help us, he's our !@#$hole. And heavily armed.

(SPYGOD is listening to Relax (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) See if you can find him in the video! Hint: not the fat dude on the balcony)

9/20-22/11 - A Week Among the Dead and Dumb pt. 1

(As part of our current "understanding," the President would like to know what all I do on his time, and on his dime. I figured I've put this !@#$ off long enough. So, here's the straight story, or at least as straight as things get around yours truly.)

Tuesday:

Mostly alliterative morning ritual: Snore, Shoot alarm clock #s 1, 2 and 3, Snore, Shoot #4 and admit defeat, Shower, !@#$, Shave, Overdose, Tjbang Sticks, !@#$ last night's entertainment one last time before sending hir out the back elevator, Overdose, Tjbang Sticks, Suck down nough alcohol to numb my kidneys, Slide my hot !@#$ into the Flier.

Look into GORGON's possible whereabouts with our new recruit, the fake supervillian. It turns out he's explored very little of the subsurface world, which does me !@#$ all worth of good. However, he's more than willing to use our superior facilities to refit the Superdrill, which will make going after them a lot easier.

(It will also figure into my plan for dealing the deathblow to HONEYCOMB, but I don't tell him that because he doesn't need to know that, yet. Neither do you, come to think of it. Pretend your read nothing there, son.)

One piece of genuine excitement: I get an early morning phone call from DARPA, informing me that they have heard of the "unfortunate incident" with my beloved Aston Martin. Of course they're terribly sorry to hear, but would like to know if I'd like to "view this as an opportunity?"

"Why, what sort of opportunity would you be alluding to?" I ask, scrambling around my desk for something nasty and brain-destroying to shoot down over the phone lines.

It just so transpires that they're about to release the photos for their flying battlefield car, aptly named "The Transformer." It will combine the ruggedness of a humvee with the lift of a twin-rotor helicopter, allowing the best of both words when it comes to handling the road and then rising above it to avoid rubble, IEDs, and camels that just will not get out of the !@#$ road.

So I play along, and look at the work that Lockheed's done, and try not to vomit down the line. And then I explain to the person on the other end why I wouldn't really be interested in giving this abomination any face time (or !@#$ time, really, since I'd just be sitting in it).

I give him about a dozen problems, but the real issue is that it's ugly as happy unholy !@#$. It looks like someone took the Batmobile from the new movies and made it have rough and nasty machine-sex with a bargain basement VTOL. And then he wiped his cam shaft off on her bedposts when he was done.

I want something I can look good in while I trundle down to the Bangkok Eight and try to score in the other other meat market. This would make me look like some paranoid urban vigilante with a daddy complex and no sense of !@#$ style.

And I can tell you from second-hand experience, one does not score while driving such a beast. One gets laughed at and then chased away by the strange, butterfly-like entity that patrols that meat market and keeps the katooeys safe from harm. And you do not want that nasty !@#$ on your !@#$ in any way, shape, or form.

I think the phone guy is a little put out, but he's more than receptive to my counter offer. I tell him I'll give him five billion dollars if they come up with a reasonable alternative to my melted car. Preferably something with excellent gas mileage, superior handling, and the same crazy !@#$ weaponry options I had from before, only this time with spinning wheels.

(How's that for creating jobs, Mr. President?)

Oh, yeah, and I do some more super spy stuff. Mostly just check in with my contacts from the other Company about the intel I'd given them. It is apparently being well used by our friends in Libya, which means that the Colonel's chicken is gonna be !@#$ deep fried any day now. Really.

(Put that in a speech, why don't you...)

The rest of the evening is !@#$ redacted in the name of not turning any more of your hairs white as snow. It involves at least three katooeys and enough exotic, extraterrestrial marital aids to keep the flying saucer nuts' heads spinning for years. Sometimes I leak photos onto the internet just for laughs, because I am an evil man. Really.

Wednesday:

Previous night's debauchery makes the morning ritual a little edgy. I might have actually taken the tjbang sticks before the overdose, which makes the morning meeting much more surreal than usual. I think I actually succeed in shooting out the conference room ceiling, but that may be because, after years of shooting the occasional bullet into the light fixture, the poor !@#$ thing finally gave up the ghost. RIP 1.5 Million Dollar Light Fixture. Cost to replace: 2.4 Million.

(Which reminds me. We are having some problems maintaining The COMPANY's fleet. The Flier is old and sagging, the drones are starting to rot, and our remaining subs need a serious refit. I think we need another couple decimal points on the Black Budget this year, sir.)

Amongst the things we were discussing: the plans to deal with HONEYCOMB. You don't need to know all the details. Just know that it's coming real !@#$ soon. There's one last piece of "!@#$ you" I intend to perpetrate on them just before the end, but it's been in the works for some time now, and all I have to do is sit back and light the fuse. Watch for the boom, Mr. President.

Speaking of boom, I got 48 hours, and then me and Moloch are going for round three. I've got a plan. !@#$, I've got ten plans. But this is going to be interesting, no matter what.

"Interesting" being code talk for "I wonder if I'm getting out of this one or not."

The rest of the day paled in comparison. I treated my morning staff for some decent pizza and brews at an out of the way place I know in the city, and we took turns throwing trash can lids into the air and shooting them out of the sky over the back porch. You never know when we're going to be invaded by flying trash can lids, so we called it a preparedness exercise when Neo York City's finest showed up.

I think they bought it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Its My Life (Talk Talk) and having a Magic Hat Hex Ourtoberfest)

9/15/11 - Brief Notations from The Black Rat of Armagh

* It's been a little under a month since the city Converted. Since then, everyone's been able to be reunited with their homes and things. As usual, there's the normal Conversion insurance claims to deal with, and insurance scams to investigate, but that's not my !@#$ problem. My !@#$ problem is where the !@#$ I'm going to get another perfect, pre-secondary revolution marble bust of Lenin for my toilet tank. It was a gift from Boris, himself, after the attempted coup pretty much spelled the end of any hope of a Communist revival. It was also something of a peacemaking gesture on his part, as it was accompanied by a few crates of good, proper Russian vodka. I have a lot of fond memories about what I did when I was drunk on that vodka, and fond memories of what other people tell me I did while drunk on that vodka, so having the bust get smashed during the Conversion is a real !@#$ letdown.

* What wasn't a letdown was to see that the city's gotten to grips with its new landscape rather nicely. They've made new friends, new enemies, and new relationships, same as always. The days of this neighborhood and that neighborhood have been effectively over since then, and any attempts to put them back together on ethnic or societal lines have been rendered futile. What's the point of having a Chinatown if the thing's likely to be scattered all over town every few years? Some people say this is turning the city into a monoculture. I say it's becoming more of a melting pot. And I have a gun, so there.

* And no, I didn't need my spy network to tell me this. I'm learning it from walking. Between yesterday's trip to the Bangkok Eight, and today's slog down to the Black Rat, I've had time to get a good long look at things. Which is !@#$ hilarious if you think about it. How many times did I stand up, wave a gun around a black budget hearing, and insist that, new super technology fliberty-goo things or not, we needed boots on the ground, eyes in the walls, and ears in the cornfields more than spy satellites and boom mikes? Not that we didn't need those other things, too, but HumInt is worth more than its weight in gold.

* Speaking of The Black Rat, it's deserted today, which is weird. It's just me and the bartender, and he looks kind of scared. I think it's because Aaron isn't here to protect him from me and my needs. Not that I really need anything from him, anyway. Gods know where his hands have been, much less his !@#$. No, as long as he keeps bringing me my Singha, no one will get hurt, which is a lot more than I can say for some of my other projects.

* Project Number !@#$ One: GORGON. We have tracked their subs. We know where they went. The bad news is that it's not underwater. It's !@#$ underground. And that means they could literally be anywhere. So I think our good friend Myron the Ersatz Underman is going to be earning his !@#$ keep real !@#$ soon.

* Project Number Two: HONEYCOMB. Thanks to them tipping their hands a little too much, lately, we have developed the technology needed to be able to intercept and change their HIVE signals into meaningless noise. This means that, the next time we take one down, another one will not reactivate to take its' place. This means that we can actually fight them to a !@#$ standstill for once, provided we can determine the location of most of those currently active HIVEs and carry out a simultaneous strike on at least three-quarters of them. That'll keep them from manually turning the others on, or changing the signals.

* Project Number Three: The Legion. I was not amused by the exploding Katooey. I was really not !@#$ amused by the Flaming Patriot. And I sure as !@#$ !@#$ was not !@#$ amused by that Moloch !@#$ during the hurricane. But turning my flying car into a death trap is the absolute !@#$ !@#$ !@#$ limit. I have some plans in motion to deal with them, as of this morning's revelation from the Ice Palace, at which point the proper equipment and personnel will have to be brought into play. But as soon as we got that up and running, there's going to be a !@#$ reckoning that will make what I've done so far look like a playful little slap on the ass at your birthday party.

* Speaking of "what I've done so far," so far no one suspects a !@#$ thing other than the official story. Even the President's come around on it. But I have this weird feeling that this one's going to blow back on me, somehow. That could just be post-wetwork guilt sneaking in around the corners of my well-trained lack of a conscience, of course, but it feels different, somehow. So thank the gods for beer or I'd be really paralyzed right now.

* Speaking of which, where the !@#$ did that bartender go? I need another Singha. Hey, !@#$head! Beer! ... Hmm, !@#$ disappeared. That's weird.

* On the subject of disappearing, I had a weird bit of info come across my desk this morning, courtesy of the Director of DAMOCLES. It seems the Lizard People are leaving Earth in large numbers. Not all of them, obviously, but enough to be concerned. They won't say why, either, except to say "(Unintelligible Concept) Is Coming," which is no !@#$ help at all.

* Oh yeah, DAMOCLES. I am now enjoying a much better working relationship with their Director, after I got the goods on him and kicked down his wall. Our first big collaboration is going to be figuring out what the !@#$ happened to that ufo his people went after, over a month back. We now know that we know absolutely nothing, except that once his people got close enough, their last transmission was a Code Triple Black order to vaporize the area from orbit. Under those circumstances the Director's unable to override it, or stop to ask questions. He just authorizes the switch and tries to figure out what the !@#$ happened based on what's left, which, in this case, was less than nothing. And he hates not knowing, hence his reluctance to tell me a !@#$ thing. I can respect that. I can respect him. (He's also got nice buns...)

* !@#$ it. I called for beer. If I don't get it I'm just gonna get it myself and put it on the !@#$ tab...

*Oh.

* Well, of all the places to run into an old friend. You gonna waste time talking or you just gonna try and burn me again? Cause boy do I have some surprises for --

TRANSMISSION LOST

(SPYGOD was listening to Monoculture (Soft Cell) and enjoying a Singha. Now...?)

9/14/11 - Walkies

So, no flying car. Not anymore. It went boom.

No vehicle of any kind, for that matter. This kind of crimps my style, as you might expect.

But I can't just stay in The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. all night long. I can't and I won't. I'll get cabin fever, son. The kind that ends with me drunk as !@#$, horny as all !@#$, and trying to bring down the Moon with a big enough rocket.

And no one !@#$ wants that.

So tonight I'm going to go out on foot. I'm going to walk the streets of Neo York City, just another person in the multitudes.

(Another person carrying enough ordinance to blow up three tenements and a McDonalds, maybe, but still just another person.)

I pause a little too long by the door, watching the crowds go up and down the street. I see their eyes and wonder if I can stand to be seen by them. Am I really this scared of normal people? Or just unused to human contact without being in charge of it?

Come on you old !@#$ queer. One foot in front of the other. You and me and he makes three, up and down the streets of the city fair.

It takes a strong person to take these kinds of streets and not collapse inwards, like a snowman in the sun. The heaving mass of humanity presses up against, going this way and that, forwards, backwards, sideways, all ways.

The way is full of endless jostling and bumps, and hardly a "sorry" to be heard. But what would be the point, anyway? It's not like you know them, or will ever see them again.

No, son. "Sorry" is for people you want to remember you kindly. But here, it's all persons for themselves in the sea of the city. And with faceless waves battering to port and starboard, it takes me a full ten minutes to acclimatize to the concrete surf.

600 nail-biting, teeth-grinding seconds of not punching, gouging, and biting the noses off of the many people who get too close for comfort. 600 seconds, and then it finally occurs to the small, throbbing lizard portion of my brain that I really can just walk down this path without killing every person who steps into me.

After that, it's easy, and I can save my viciousness for the truly clueless and rude, of which there are far too !@#$ many. Thankfully there are several open trash cans between here and my destination, and the rude often fit perfectly after a few small alterations.

(Is that cheering or screaming from the masses? Running feet or applause? I can't tell, now.)

The route is an endless pattern of sidewalk and intersection, with white walkers and red hands guarding the spaces between. I'm tempted to ignore them but I seem to lose the will to do so after a while. The city has me, now, and I'm nothing more than a cell in her bloodstream, pumped along in time with the secret heart buried under the concrete and steel.

There's a cloud of noise settled around me, now, floating in time with my own two feet. Whistles and horns. Squeals and revs. Curses and hellos. Cellphone jibber-jabber. The occasional thing even I can't identify, but might be a cosmic string !@#$ something in the Oort cloud, or maybe one of those new cars backfiring.

Signs everywhere in every language. Coffee. Restaurants. Hair places. Boutiques. Corner stores. Bars. Pubs. Clubs.

More restaurants. More bars. More !@#$ coffee.

Eventually I get where I'm going. Bangkok Eight. The crazy man behind the counter has my order waiting and just sort of smiles at me. I'm a little afraid to know when and how he's smiled it before, given his unique job history.

(I also know not to ask.)

Food in hand, it's back the way I came. I should be going to get a katooey or two from the other other meat market, but for some reason I just can't do it on foot. I need the extra armor of a car around me to buy sex. It differentiates me from the skeedy weirdos who come up on foot, and usually go running the other way when they realize the ladies are packing something more than Asian delight in their panties.

I need that edge. It's part of the unwritten contract we have with this city. You wear ties and jackets for upscale diners, and drive mean cars for hooker negotiations. Everything else can be handled by explosive-tipped bullets.

Or a trip to the corner store to get some decent beer. Mr. Singh keeps a good rotating selection in the back. I pick out something from somewhere I've never had before and hope it goes well with Baby Head Noodles, or whatever the !@#$ I've ordered with my Tom Yam Goong tonight. 

Back to The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. Back upstairs. I regain my sense of self in the long elevator ride up. I'm no longer lost in the crowd. I remember who I am and what I could have done to most of the people out there while I was amongst them.

I want to say !@#$ this. !@#$ this in the ear until the brains fly out the other side. I want to say I need a new car, as soon as yesterday.

But at the same time, I recognize something important. I'm someone different out there. I'm no longer just SPYGOD, lording it over the masses in a dangerous vehicle. I'm another man in Neo York City, just trying to get from here to there in one piece.

Maybe I need to go walkies more often, just so I remember what it feels like to be them.

(SPYGOD is listening to Mmm Skyscraper I Love You (Underworld) and wondering what the !@#$ he bought at the corner store)