You're probably !@#$ing wondering why I'm drinking a little more of my daily ration than usual son. And by "a little more," I mean !@#$ing all of it, down in about three !@#$ gulps?
Well, while you weren't !@#$ing paying attention, I just got a big !@#$ wonderful surprise at the door. That's "wonderful" spelled !-@-#-$ T-H-I-S !-@-#-$ I D-O-N-T !-@-#-$-I-N-G N-E-E-D.
The big !@#$ surprise? My new big !@#$ babysitter. One of the Three, and not one I'm particularly happy to !@#$ing deal with, either.
Oh yeah, son. Nailed it in one. The !@#$ in red who crashed my New Years party, and spent far too !@#$ long !@#$ing dragging me through my recent poor-seeming choices.
Ciel Rouge. Red Sky. Ally of Tempete Bleu and Foudre Blanc. One of the three big guns of the Terre Unifee, and a leader of Le Compagnie.
And, as of now? The person assigned to make !@#$ing sure I don't do anything naughty before my trial comes up. Naughty as in "use the Nthernaut to be somewhere else, again." Like I did at the !@#$ party.
She came in, had a few words, direct from the !@#$ President, or so she says. Not that I don't believe her, given how !@#$ angry he is with me, right now. But I don't need the Chandra Eye to know she's not exactly telling the whole !@#$ truth, either.
No, Red's !@#$ing getting something out of this, son. And normally I'd say "time will tell," but I don't have a whole !@#$ of a lot of it.
So I stood there and !@#$ing smiled while she searched the whole !@#$ apartment in a few heartbeats, and took a few things that maybe I wasn't supposed to have. Like the RPG I had in the closet for emergencies. Maybe a few of the bigger handguns... the limpet mine I forgot I !@#$ing had, mostly because it was !@#$ing diguised as a Russian tea-tray.
You know, son. Things like that.
(To her credit, she left Bee-Bee's gun alone. I think the kitty !@#$ing scared her. Good call, !@#$.)
Oh, and no more !@#$ dial-up katooeys, either. Some of those tender young call-girl-boys might be smuggling in !@#$ing weapons or something. Plus the door guards are getting really !@#$ uncomfortable searching them, before and after.
Anything else? Oh sure, son. She made some rather snarky remarks about what she !@#$ing thinks about me, and the COMPANY, and how I went about saving the !@#$ world while she was !@#$ing screwing up famine relief in southern Africa and making a hash of trying to "liberate" women from Islam in the North.
Got a long and big !@#$ list of complaints, that one.
What to do? I listened. I smiled. I asked if she wanted a beer.
And then, when she was !@#$ing done, I asked her if she knew who Foudre Blanc was oppressing, right now.
And when she just !@#$ing looked at me like I was nuts, I looked over in that direction of the world, and I !@#$ing told her.
So that was the end of that visit, but I !@#$ing know she'll be back soon. Especially when some more aspects of the plan kick into place.
But yeah, son. After New Years I figured there was a chance the big !@#$ gauntlet was going to be !@#$ing thrown down. Turns out I was right to be !@#$ing worried. The TU isn't messing around, anymore.
And I bet I know why, too...
But anyway, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why you haven't heard much about the Big Three from me? Well, son, up until recently there hasn't been a !@#$ of a lot to say.
Nothing good, anyway.
But yeah, let's talk about Direction Noir's Les Trois Grands. Especially that Red !@#$, as she seems to be the glue that holds their !@#$es together.
What's her story? She grew up on the island of Mayotte, which you probably !@#$ing never heard of. It's one of those tiny, French colonial holdings they gobbled up because it was either !@#$ing strategic, or might !@#$ing be strategic, or was just on the way to somewhere a lot more !@#$ing important and they said "what the !@#$, we need a buffer, anyway."
Difference being, they're so !@#$ poor, that when France was doing it's !@#$ing best to shrug off its Imperial past, the island actually !@#$ing fought to stay a part of them. Still is, in some ways.
Anyway, Red was born there, the child of seriously-underpaid French civil workers. Grew up part of a real small minority, went kind of !@#$ing native. Guess her !@#$ parents didn't approve, but it's not like they could pack her up to a girl's school back on the mainland, now could they?
Then, at some point, she has something you might !@#$ing call a "spiritual experience."
Turns out that, while the island's mostly Muslim, they hold to some old !@#$ beliefs. The kind that have you !@#$ing standing staring at the sky, talking for something else. Possession, you might say.
Well, one of these spirits takes a taste of her white !@#$ and decides it !@#$ing likes it, and decides to stay. And the next time Red's parents see her, well, she isn't quite their little !@#$ girl, anymore. She's got muscles you wouldn't believe, the ability to catch bullets in her !@#$ hands, and moves so !@#$ fast it's like she can !@#$ing teleport, or something.
(And maybe she can, too. My Direction Noir moles weren't too !@#$ sure about that.)
But she's also got this other ability, which is probably why the TU's got her !@#$ing looking after Straffer and me. And that's that, when she looks you right in the !@#$ eyes, you really find it !@#$ hard to !@#$ing lie to her. She looks at you long enough, you just feel you want to tell her !@#$ing everything, no matter how secret, incriminating, or flat out !@#$ing embarrassing.
Which is kind of why she walked out of here with the !@#$ RPG, and the limpet mine, and a few other things besides. Not because she it works on me or my lovely boyfriend, courtesy of the special nature of our eyes.
But because we didn't want her to know it didn't work.
Yeah. Pretty !@#$ clever, huh? Though I have to !@#$ing admit, it's a bit of a !@#$ struggle at times, even with this crazy !@#$ rock in my noggin. But now at least we've lulled those French !@#$s into something approaching a false sense of security.
The trick now is keeping it that way, which might be even more !@#$ difficult.
Anyway, so this girl takes off from Mayotte, goes to Africa, and starts trying to "help." Her idea of helping is messing with things she doesn't !@#$ing understand, or trying to replace something she doesn't like with "freedom," which doesn't always !@#$ing work so well.
But France was !@#$ happy to have her !@#$ing around with the continent, for one reason or another, and eventually came to get her !@#$ on board. Gave her a proper name, other than the one she was !@#$ing going by, which only made sense if you came from Mayotte or !@#$ing spoke "possessed."
And that was the birth of Red Sky.
The other two? Well, you've !@#$ing met Tempete Bleu. And you know how well the smug !@#$ handles himself, both on and off camera.
You remember when I !@#$ing told you about how the forerunner to Direction Noir was stumbling all over the !@#$ French landscape during the war, looking for strategic talents in small !@#$ villages and farmhouses? Well, they never !@#$ing stopped, and Tempete Bleu was one such find.
The way the story goes, some family calls up the French Government a few years back, telling them that they've got this !@#$ing kid that can pull school buses out of !@#$ing rivers and !@#$ like that. Can't fly just yet, but he can hop really !@#$ far. Sometimes sleeps above the !@#$ bed.
That and he's got this tendency to bring down the !@#$ing house when he claps his hands, which is about when they figured they'd better talk to the !@#$ing government.
Well, Direction Noir shows the !@#$ up, and is just pleased as punch to have this country bumpkin under their wing. They take him to the big !@#$ city, show him around, test him and train him, and turn his smiling, foie-gras-fed !@#$ into a French national symbol. Here to fly into your dens of contrary action and thunderclap them to
pieces in the name of Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood. All that !@#$.
Except when we really needed him, starting on about, oh, 3/15?
But hey, forget the !@#$ alllllllllll about that, son. Now he's the !@#$ing national symbol for the whole !@#$ country, especially now that they're in charge of most of the !@#$ world. And you better not !@#$ing forget it, either.
Of course, that's the official story.
What's the real story? Well, son, that's a !@#$ good question. It goes without saying that I don't !@#$ing trust Direction Noir's sweet-as-bee-!@#$ story any further than I could !@#$ing spit it in a big !@#$ hailstorm.
But I have to admit that, up until now, I really didn't make a !@#$ing priority out of it because, up until now, he wasn't a !@#$ing priority. I figured he'd eventually out himself as a joke, and that would be the end of that !@#$.
Except, now, well... let's just say he's given me a few reasons to actively !@#$ing dislike him. And we'll just leave it at that, son.
One thing, though. Someone I had inside at Direction Noir once told me that, when it came to Tempete Bleu, the official story wasn't just a cover story for the truth, but was a cover story for a cover story. Something weird involving a small town in some !@#$ing armpit of the country that got scribbled off the !@#$ maps in a hurry.
Something about a !@#$ing UFO, and what may have been in it...
Yeah.
So we'll just have to look into that, son. And while we're at it, we'll have to !@#$ing look into this Foudre Blanc guy. White Thunder, in case you didn't learn that !@#$ useless language in High School.
Who is he? Well, that's just it, son. We don't !@#$ing know, because I don't !@#$ing know.
And believe me, that is !@#$ing saying something.
What we do know is that he out of !@#$ing nowhere a couple years ago, and started doing that big !@#$ urban vigilante thing. Lots of big !@#$ expensive toys. Skilled in hand-to-hand fighting.
Won't kill, but loves leaving people !@#$ing crippled for life.
Now, I'm no shrieking violet, son. You know that, if someone's coming at me, they better be ready to throw the !@#$ down, because I will !@#$ing !@#$ them up one wall and down the other. Kill or be killed, son. No mercy, no quarter.
But this guy? He tends to spend his times in the suburbs outside of Paris, mostly. The areas where generation of immigrants have set up shop, decade after decade. And there's crime, yes, and sometimes violence. But also a close-knit group of people who feel, and rightly so, that the country that invited them in to make their postwar economy take off really didn't want them there after it got back on its feet, again.
And isn't too !@#$ing shy about making it known, either.
So the question is, is he !@#$ing smashing crime in the immigrant areas because it's just his thing? Or is he smashing crime in those areas because it's being done by immigrants, or their children?
Because I gotta say, son -- all those years I was running the !@#$ COMPANY, I ran across a lot of would-be Owls who talked big about justice and protection, but really just wanted a chance to beat the !@#$ out of people who didn't look like them, and were still struggling with !@#$ ing English however many years off the !@#$$ boat.
And as someone whose parents came to America from Italy, and got the same kind of raw !@#$ing deal...? Let's just say I wasn't too !@#$ appreciative of their initiative.
(Let's also say there's a reason my interview room in the late, much-lamented Flier had a trapdoor under the interviewee's seat. On bad days I forgot to put the automatic parachute in.)
Anyway, at some point this Owl rip-off gets brought in, fists covered in blood and teeth. And they ask him why he isn't working for the government.
What does he say? "The government should be working for me."
Not the sort of thing you want to hear someone !@#$ing drop on you, son. But they arrange a meet with him, Red, and Blue. And they turn out to have enough in common that they can !@#$ing create a team-up, kind of.
Hence Les Trois Grands, and hence my current !@#$ing headache. But I've given them enough to chew on for a while.
See, while I can't quite get a bead on who this White Thunder !@#$er is, I can tell where he is, sometimes, thanks to the magic of Paris' ever-present CCTV cameras. He used to avoid them, back in the day, but now that he's with the Big !@#$ Three he seems to !@#$ing enjoy smacking the !@#$ out of people on film.
So I wasn't kidding about what he was doing, at that moment in time. And when I told her, well, she thinks I'm telling the truth, aren't I?
And I told her the unvarnished !@#$ing truth, too. Every nasty, bloody bit.
Now, while I may not appreciate Red's tendency to liberate people from things they don't necessarily need liberating from, I can appreciate it means her !@#$ heart is in the right place. She genuinely wants to make things better for the Beurs, and people like them.
So it doesn't pay to have her partner out beating on them just because, now does it?
No son, it does not.
And while she's !@#$ing dealing with that, I can work on what I need to. Namely, connecting some big !@#$ dots and making this plan of mine work.
What plan is that? Well, figure it the !@#$ out, son. But don't take too long.
You never know when I might not be here to talk to, anymore...
(SPYGOD is listening to Red Skies (The FIXX) and having a really old can of Red, White, and Blue beer)
Showing posts with label house arrest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house arrest. Show all posts
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
1/2/13 - I Must Confess That Life Is Like a Game of Chess
So, how are we going to get out of this !@#$ing House Arrest thing and go save the !@#$ world, son?
Well, that's a !@#$ good question. Pity I'd have to !@#$ing kill you if I told you.
Hey, wait! Come back here, kid. I was just !@#$ing kidding. We're all friends, here. You, me, my boyfriend, the cat.
(Well, maybe not the cat. Let's steer clear of Bee-Bee. She may be awake and sober.)
Honey? Could you use the metal thing and give the cat another bottle of vodka before she wakes up and sprays the !@#$ing room, again? ... Okay, thanks, hon.
Okay, crisis !@#$ing averted! Used to be I could get my repurposed Slaughterbot to deal with that kind of !@#$ but I haven't seen METALMAID since before the President got fake-shot. Probably went looking for me to help out, so God only knows where that crazy !@#$ is now.
(I hope she's okay. She wouldn't last three weeks out there without me, given her programming.)
...
Anyway! We were going to talk about getting the !@#$ out of this jam.
Now, SPYGOD's got some money, left. And he's got some lawyers that aren't !@#$ing French. But that's not going to be nearly enough to get my fine gay !@#$ out of this jam, son. Not with the TU looking to slam it in jail for the next 200 years, which is 199 years and 11 months too !@#$ late to fix things.
So we're just going to have to go back to what SPYGOD does best, son. I mean, besides drink myself so far under the !@#$ing table I pass through the big !@#$ world and come up the other side.
And that's play the !@#$ spy game until the board !@#$ing breaks.
See, once upon a time, when dirty old uncle SPYGOD's !@#$ was still green and growing, my Handler gave me a lot of !@#$ good advice. And while some of it I'd have to !@#$ing kill you after I told you, I can tell you this much for free:
It's not what you know, son. It's what other people know. And, most !@#$ing importantly, it's what you have on them, and therefore can get them to do for you.
That's right, son. It's just that !@#$ing simple. Even a child could understand it.
Don't believe me? Okay, imagine you're ten years old, and you play marbles. Not the worst player, not the best, but you can hold your own.
Now, say that some other kid on the block's got the best !@#$ shooter you've ever seen. He regularly kicks everyone's !@#$ with it, including yours. And this sucks.
But hey, kids will be kids. Maybe you can give him something to let you !@#$ing use it, now and again? And if he does, well, great, and just don't lose it. Cooperation wins out, everybody happy, life goes on.
But if he says "eat !@#$, shrimp" and stomps your butt at marbles again, well, that's too !@#$ bad. Get a better shooter or learn to kick better !@#$ with your own. Survival of the fittest, one must lose for another to win, life just sucks that way.
But here's a big !@#$ question, son. Supposing you know that the only reason this kid's got that shooter is because he !@#$ing stole it?
Yeah, that's right. The little !@#$ took it right out of the pile of the brain-damaged kid sister of the biggest prepubescent lunkhead over on Bloody Dogkill street, three blocks over, where cops won't answer calls for fear of being the next !@#$ victim. The sort of socially-backwards area where they !@#$ their food to death in broad daylight and then eat it raw and heaving, and if wander down their way by accident they make you pay a toll to several people with your mouth or your !@#$.
Because they can.
Somehow, this little !@#$ snuck over there and got this lucky piece of glass. And here's your marble king, using that stolen shooter to make all the other kids look bad...
You see where this is !@#$ing going, right?
Now, maybe you decide to just !@#$ing tell the lunkhead? That might be dangerous, but it'd be !@#$ funny to see this uppity kid get a whooping from someone with more bone in his !@#$ skull than brains. And you never know, the lunkhead might get so !@#$ happy turning this kid into pulp that he'll forget why he's there in the first place, and you can retrieve the shooter from what's left of his pants.
(Wouldn't try and cash a check on that one, though)
Or maybe you let the uppity kid know that you know where the !@#$ing shooter came from, and could very well inform the owner's dog-humping, mouth-breathing, tin can-eating older brother from Hell of this theft... but choose not to.
Now, that action right there !@#$ing opens up a whole lot of maybes.
Maybe the kid figures you're all talk and !@#$ing ignores you. And maybe he's right? God only !@#$ing knows how you learned about the stolen shooter in the first place, but going back there's got its own big !@#$ risks.
Maybe the kid gets mad and kicks your !@#$ on general principle. And while you're crying and whining and telling him you're going to tell he'll remind you that the lunkhead in question's three blocks and a risk of forced public !@#$sex away.
Or maybe he's gets scared that you will do this. Which means you own the little !@#$er, and get to use that shooter whenever you want.
Or, maybe, if you present what you know in a different way, you are now partners. This means you get to share the shooter back and forth, and maybe get into some other deals with each other, here and there.
Got all that son? I sure !@#$ing hope so, because that's the principle the whole !@#$ spy game is based on, right there. You got something I want, and I know something about you that's going to make you want to !@#$ing give it to me.
Maybe it's that you did something naughty, and we got the pics. Or maybe you needed money and we know how you got it. That we were the ones who !@#$ing gave you the naughty things or the money, based on weaknesses we know you have, is not important.
Because that's also how the !@#$ game is played. Sometimes we give you the !@#$ing marble just to protect you from the dog-humper.
And you know something else, son? Sometimes the dog-humper is the law. Or your boss.
Especially if you work in a sensitive !@#$ing area.
I mean, I know we've talked about the !@#$ ugly reality of the spy business, before. How for every crazy !@#$hole running around in a flying car with a laser in his !@#$ wristwatch and a !@#$ing rocket launcher in his codpiece there's about a hundred slobs named Harold sitting in a room, reading foreign newspapers and wondering what weird !@#$ the commissary's going to be claiming is "lunch," today?
You remember that, right?
Well, here's the thing. Even when you're out of those !@#$ crazy, endless jags of watching South Korean soap operas for Uncle !@#$ing Sam, and you're out there actually gathering intel by recruiting the kind of people you used to be, people are still going to try and get a hand on your shooter marble.
It's just that now they have more tools to do it with, given your increased areas of responsibility.
They might try and kidnap your spouse, your kids, or your !@#$ing cat. They might bribe or blackmail you, or threaten to expose your secrets or your Supers' identities to the !@#$ media. They might even kidnap you while you're in !@#$ing Antigua and put a big !@#$ bomb in your skull, son. I've seen some heinous !@#$ in my time.
(!@#$, son. I've done some heinous !@#$ in my time. Ask anyone.)
But at the same time, you don't have to be an !@#$hole about it. You can just !@#$ing talk to them.
No, really son. I'm not joking. Remember when I said the kid could just wink and nod at the marble-thief and try to work together? Same !@#$ thing.
You can have a meeting of the minds on neutral territory. Maybe arrange for a prisoner swap, or an exchange of some kind. Maybe there's a mutual enemy you could team up on. Maybe there's something they don't know about one of their "friends."
So you shake hands, make a deal, and you get to look at the marble. Maybe play with it for a while.
This is the game we played all the !@#$ time, once upon a time, in case you were !@#$ing wondering. We kept the enemy just powerless enough to stop them from doing anything too terrible, but not so !@#$ed up that they activated some doomsday thing and blew up the !@#$ world.
But then I had to say "!@#$ it" and bring it all down, didn't I?
...
But, see, the real spy game? It isn't with your enemies, son.
Its with your friends. Or maybe the neutral parties you'd rather not be friends with, at least above the board.
After all, when the dog-humping lunkhead finally figures out who the !@#$'s got his sister's precious marble? Well, son, you do not want to be there for that !@#$ing conversation if you can help it.
Not at all.
And there's more I could tell you. Especially about a certain Middle Eastern astronaut, an Egyptian spook show organization, and how it is we're taking day trips out of this four star prison cell. But I think my dear sweetie's about to have some big !@#$ fun with the cat, and it'd be best if you didn't !@#$ing see this. So we'll talk more later-
Why? Because you're not !@#$ing bulletproof, kid.
You're welcome.
(SPYGOD is listening to It Ain't What You Do It's the Way That You Do It (Fun Boy Three) and having a Marble Brewing Stout Americano)
Well, that's a !@#$ good question. Pity I'd have to !@#$ing kill you if I told you.
Hey, wait! Come back here, kid. I was just !@#$ing kidding. We're all friends, here. You, me, my boyfriend, the cat.
(Well, maybe not the cat. Let's steer clear of Bee-Bee. She may be awake and sober.)
Honey? Could you use the metal thing and give the cat another bottle of vodka before she wakes up and sprays the !@#$ing room, again? ... Okay, thanks, hon.
Okay, crisis !@#$ing averted! Used to be I could get my repurposed Slaughterbot to deal with that kind of !@#$ but I haven't seen METALMAID since before the President got fake-shot. Probably went looking for me to help out, so God only knows where that crazy !@#$ is now.
(I hope she's okay. She wouldn't last three weeks out there without me, given her programming.)
...
Anyway! We were going to talk about getting the !@#$ out of this jam.
Now, SPYGOD's got some money, left. And he's got some lawyers that aren't !@#$ing French. But that's not going to be nearly enough to get my fine gay !@#$ out of this jam, son. Not with the TU looking to slam it in jail for the next 200 years, which is 199 years and 11 months too !@#$ late to fix things.
So we're just going to have to go back to what SPYGOD does best, son. I mean, besides drink myself so far under the !@#$ing table I pass through the big !@#$ world and come up the other side.
And that's play the !@#$ spy game until the board !@#$ing breaks.
See, once upon a time, when dirty old uncle SPYGOD's !@#$ was still green and growing, my Handler gave me a lot of !@#$ good advice. And while some of it I'd have to !@#$ing kill you after I told you, I can tell you this much for free:
It's not what you know, son. It's what other people know. And, most !@#$ing importantly, it's what you have on them, and therefore can get them to do for you.
That's right, son. It's just that !@#$ing simple. Even a child could understand it.
Don't believe me? Okay, imagine you're ten years old, and you play marbles. Not the worst player, not the best, but you can hold your own.
Now, say that some other kid on the block's got the best !@#$ shooter you've ever seen. He regularly kicks everyone's !@#$ with it, including yours. And this sucks.
But hey, kids will be kids. Maybe you can give him something to let you !@#$ing use it, now and again? And if he does, well, great, and just don't lose it. Cooperation wins out, everybody happy, life goes on.
But if he says "eat !@#$, shrimp" and stomps your butt at marbles again, well, that's too !@#$ bad. Get a better shooter or learn to kick better !@#$ with your own. Survival of the fittest, one must lose for another to win, life just sucks that way.
But here's a big !@#$ question, son. Supposing you know that the only reason this kid's got that shooter is because he !@#$ing stole it?
Yeah, that's right. The little !@#$ took it right out of the pile of the brain-damaged kid sister of the biggest prepubescent lunkhead over on Bloody Dogkill street, three blocks over, where cops won't answer calls for fear of being the next !@#$ victim. The sort of socially-backwards area where they !@#$ their food to death in broad daylight and then eat it raw and heaving, and if wander down their way by accident they make you pay a toll to several people with your mouth or your !@#$.
Because they can.
Somehow, this little !@#$ snuck over there and got this lucky piece of glass. And here's your marble king, using that stolen shooter to make all the other kids look bad...
You see where this is !@#$ing going, right?
Now, maybe you decide to just !@#$ing tell the lunkhead? That might be dangerous, but it'd be !@#$ funny to see this uppity kid get a whooping from someone with more bone in his !@#$ skull than brains. And you never know, the lunkhead might get so !@#$ happy turning this kid into pulp that he'll forget why he's there in the first place, and you can retrieve the shooter from what's left of his pants.
(Wouldn't try and cash a check on that one, though)
Or maybe you let the uppity kid know that you know where the !@#$ing shooter came from, and could very well inform the owner's dog-humping, mouth-breathing, tin can-eating older brother from Hell of this theft... but choose not to.
Now, that action right there !@#$ing opens up a whole lot of maybes.
Maybe the kid figures you're all talk and !@#$ing ignores you. And maybe he's right? God only !@#$ing knows how you learned about the stolen shooter in the first place, but going back there's got its own big !@#$ risks.
Maybe the kid gets mad and kicks your !@#$ on general principle. And while you're crying and whining and telling him you're going to tell he'll remind you that the lunkhead in question's three blocks and a risk of forced public !@#$sex away.
Or maybe he's gets scared that you will do this. Which means you own the little !@#$er, and get to use that shooter whenever you want.
Or, maybe, if you present what you know in a different way, you are now partners. This means you get to share the shooter back and forth, and maybe get into some other deals with each other, here and there.
Got all that son? I sure !@#$ing hope so, because that's the principle the whole !@#$ spy game is based on, right there. You got something I want, and I know something about you that's going to make you want to !@#$ing give it to me.
Maybe it's that you did something naughty, and we got the pics. Or maybe you needed money and we know how you got it. That we were the ones who !@#$ing gave you the naughty things or the money, based on weaknesses we know you have, is not important.
Because that's also how the !@#$ game is played. Sometimes we give you the !@#$ing marble just to protect you from the dog-humper.
And you know something else, son? Sometimes the dog-humper is the law. Or your boss.
Especially if you work in a sensitive !@#$ing area.
I mean, I know we've talked about the !@#$ ugly reality of the spy business, before. How for every crazy !@#$hole running around in a flying car with a laser in his !@#$ wristwatch and a !@#$ing rocket launcher in his codpiece there's about a hundred slobs named Harold sitting in a room, reading foreign newspapers and wondering what weird !@#$ the commissary's going to be claiming is "lunch," today?
You remember that, right?
Well, here's the thing. Even when you're out of those !@#$ crazy, endless jags of watching South Korean soap operas for Uncle !@#$ing Sam, and you're out there actually gathering intel by recruiting the kind of people you used to be, people are still going to try and get a hand on your shooter marble.
It's just that now they have more tools to do it with, given your increased areas of responsibility.
They might try and kidnap your spouse, your kids, or your !@#$ing cat. They might bribe or blackmail you, or threaten to expose your secrets or your Supers' identities to the !@#$ media. They might even kidnap you while you're in !@#$ing Antigua and put a big !@#$ bomb in your skull, son. I've seen some heinous !@#$ in my time.
(!@#$, son. I've done some heinous !@#$ in my time. Ask anyone.)
But at the same time, you don't have to be an !@#$hole about it. You can just !@#$ing talk to them.
No, really son. I'm not joking. Remember when I said the kid could just wink and nod at the marble-thief and try to work together? Same !@#$ thing.
You can have a meeting of the minds on neutral territory. Maybe arrange for a prisoner swap, or an exchange of some kind. Maybe there's a mutual enemy you could team up on. Maybe there's something they don't know about one of their "friends."
So you shake hands, make a deal, and you get to look at the marble. Maybe play with it for a while.
This is the game we played all the !@#$ time, once upon a time, in case you were !@#$ing wondering. We kept the enemy just powerless enough to stop them from doing anything too terrible, but not so !@#$ed up that they activated some doomsday thing and blew up the !@#$ world.
But then I had to say "!@#$ it" and bring it all down, didn't I?
...
But, see, the real spy game? It isn't with your enemies, son.
Its with your friends. Or maybe the neutral parties you'd rather not be friends with, at least above the board.
After all, when the dog-humping lunkhead finally figures out who the !@#$'s got his sister's precious marble? Well, son, you do not want to be there for that !@#$ing conversation if you can help it.
Not at all.
And there's more I could tell you. Especially about a certain Middle Eastern astronaut, an Egyptian spook show organization, and how it is we're taking day trips out of this four star prison cell. But I think my dear sweetie's about to have some big !@#$ fun with the cat, and it'd be best if you didn't !@#$ing see this. So we'll talk more later-
Why? Because you're not !@#$ing bulletproof, kid.
You're welcome.
(SPYGOD is listening to It Ain't What You Do It's the Way That You Do It (Fun Boy Three) and having a Marble Brewing Stout Americano)
Thursday, February 20, 2014
12/30/12 - Just Looking, Watching Your Love Action
If you asked me, years ago, what I !@#$ing thought about love, I'd say I didn't really have the time for that !@#$.
I mean, !@#$, I was busy. I had my !@#$ing duty, my guns, my booze, and my !@#$ country. And if I wasn't using one to perform another for yet another, I was using the last one of them to !@#$ing forget the nastier details, or get ready for yet another !@#$ round of it.
But it's not that I was really too !@#$ busy for love, son. It was just that I didn't have the !@#$ time for what it did to me. Because love will !@#$ you up, as I'm sure you know.
And love in the capes and tights set? Oh, son, the things I could !@#$ing tell you. The !@#$ crazy hookups and drama. The !@#$ing complications and plot twists. The big, weird !@#$ moment when you !@#$ing realize you're in love with the person who's been trying to kill you for decades.
(!@#$, you've heard me go on, right? Right.)
So I !@#$ing avoided it, son. I kept it the !@#$ away. If I needed to get !@#$ed, I could find all the !@#$ sex I wanted, anytime. But love, itself, was just some weird !@#$ing concept I didn't want invading my world and turning it inside !@#$ing out like a noggin-punched octopus.
And then Straffer came along, and as hard as I !@#$ing tried, I realized I couldn't shut him out.
Why do I love my boyfriend? Oh, son, if you let me !@#$ing count the ways we'd be here for more years than you have left, on average. I could go on about his better attributes. His sense of command and power of presence. That amazing body of his and that cute pageboy blonde haircut. The way he takes no !@#$ from anyone and never lets me get away with any. His "ask no questions of the one you love and trust" policy when it comes to extracurricular activities..
!@#$, son. He orders Ladyboys up for me when he knows I need some strange. How !@#$ awesome is that?
So yeah, it's love. But love alone is kind of !@#$ empty. You have to wake it up, every so often. Go out of your way to do something and !@#$ing remind the other person, and yourself, that the love is !@#$ real, and matters. You have to !@#$ing do things to show you care, and not just the ones that are expected.
You have to be ready to !@#$ing drop everything else and give, just because.
And that's part of why I !@#$ing avoided love for so !@#$ing long, son. I was afraid I'd have to choose between love and duty, and, back then, I was sure which side would !@#$ing lose.
Now? Well, obviously I haven't had much of a !@#$ chance to show him that I can handle the love, what with him being presumed !@#$ing dead and replaced by a !@#$ alien piece of !@#$, and then being a head on a bed for a while. But he stuck by me through !@#$, and there's no way that will go unrewarded.
But today? Oh, son, today he just upped the !@#$ing ante so high, I don't know how I'm going to respond.
See, tomorrow's New Years Eve, as you well !@#$ing know. And, knowing SPYGOD, you know that, any other year, I'd be !@#$ing partying down with all my Agents, somewhere. Because it's my COMPANY and that's how we !@#$ing roll, right?
Well, last year, I didn't really get a !@#$ chance to do it. The Flier was gone, and we were having to !@#$ing clean up Costa Rica after OPERATION: BUGSMASH was good and done. So it was something of a !@#$ing working vacation, and it didn't really turn out all that !@#$ good, as you may well remember.
No, son. Last year, New Years Eve was spent at the !@#$ing White House, !@#$ing sitting there with the President who, at the time, wasn't entirely !@#$ing sure what to make of me. And then all sorts of bad !@#$ happened, and he was firing me, and then he was dead, and then the world was !@#$ing taken over.
And since then? !@#$ son, haven't had a time to catch a breath. And after everything that just happened, well... since I got tossed out of my own !@#$ COMPANY and put under !@#$ing house arrest by the French !@#$holes that run the world, now, a New Years party was the last !@#$ thing on my mind. Especially since there's no !@#$ way I can leave, and there's no !@#$ing way we could fit everyone in here.
I mean, !@#$, even if they let them in, Bee-Bee would probably !@#$ing shoot them all for disturbing his sleep. !@#$ing cat.
So what does my boyfriend do?
Oh son, that man I love? He !@#$ing arranges for a party to be held in my !@#$ honor, here in the city.
No !@#$, son. You heard that right. While I wasn't !@#$ing looking or hearing, he snuck around, made a few deals, and got the mother of all !@#$ing New Years parties organized. He handled the invites, the catering, the music, the security. He !@#$ing handled everything.
And, thanks to a few tricks he cobbled up? I'm even going to get to !@#$ing be there. Sort of. But I can't say too much about that, now can I?
(I just hope it'll go better than this last Christmas. Jesus !@#$ was that a disaster)
So I am going to get my !@#$ New Years party this year, son. I will have to do it by !@#$ing remote, and I will miss actually being with people. But !@#$ it, it's going to happen, no matter what.
Of course, this means I don't have a !@#$ thing to wear, but he swears he's got that !@#$ing covered, too. And just for that, I am going to pick him up, carry him into our bedroom, and !@#$ him up one side of the room and down the other until we're both sloppy, salty, and as broken as the bed slats are going to be. Because I love him and he's !@#$ing awesome, and awesome !@#$ing.
And if a rocket ride to and from Pluto is all I can give him right now, then he's gonna get it. Good and hard.
See you at the party, son. Come as you are, leave as something else.
And if you hear screaming for the next few hours? That's me shouting I LOVE YOU at the top of my !@#$ lungs.
Because I do. Oh !@#$ing God do I ever.
(SPYGOD is listening to Love Action (Human League) and having... well, figure it out)
I mean, !@#$, I was busy. I had my !@#$ing duty, my guns, my booze, and my !@#$ country. And if I wasn't using one to perform another for yet another, I was using the last one of them to !@#$ing forget the nastier details, or get ready for yet another !@#$ round of it.
But it's not that I was really too !@#$ busy for love, son. It was just that I didn't have the !@#$ time for what it did to me. Because love will !@#$ you up, as I'm sure you know.
And love in the capes and tights set? Oh, son, the things I could !@#$ing tell you. The !@#$ crazy hookups and drama. The !@#$ing complications and plot twists. The big, weird !@#$ moment when you !@#$ing realize you're in love with the person who's been trying to kill you for decades.
(!@#$, you've heard me go on, right? Right.)
So I !@#$ing avoided it, son. I kept it the !@#$ away. If I needed to get !@#$ed, I could find all the !@#$ sex I wanted, anytime. But love, itself, was just some weird !@#$ing concept I didn't want invading my world and turning it inside !@#$ing out like a noggin-punched octopus.
And then Straffer came along, and as hard as I !@#$ing tried, I realized I couldn't shut him out.
Why do I love my boyfriend? Oh, son, if you let me !@#$ing count the ways we'd be here for more years than you have left, on average. I could go on about his better attributes. His sense of command and power of presence. That amazing body of his and that cute pageboy blonde haircut. The way he takes no !@#$ from anyone and never lets me get away with any. His "ask no questions of the one you love and trust" policy when it comes to extracurricular activities..
!@#$, son. He orders Ladyboys up for me when he knows I need some strange. How !@#$ awesome is that?
So yeah, it's love. But love alone is kind of !@#$ empty. You have to wake it up, every so often. Go out of your way to do something and !@#$ing remind the other person, and yourself, that the love is !@#$ real, and matters. You have to !@#$ing do things to show you care, and not just the ones that are expected.
You have to be ready to !@#$ing drop everything else and give, just because.
And that's part of why I !@#$ing avoided love for so !@#$ing long, son. I was afraid I'd have to choose between love and duty, and, back then, I was sure which side would !@#$ing lose.
Now? Well, obviously I haven't had much of a !@#$ chance to show him that I can handle the love, what with him being presumed !@#$ing dead and replaced by a !@#$ alien piece of !@#$, and then being a head on a bed for a while. But he stuck by me through !@#$, and there's no way that will go unrewarded.
But today? Oh, son, today he just upped the !@#$ing ante so high, I don't know how I'm going to respond.
See, tomorrow's New Years Eve, as you well !@#$ing know. And, knowing SPYGOD, you know that, any other year, I'd be !@#$ing partying down with all my Agents, somewhere. Because it's my COMPANY and that's how we !@#$ing roll, right?
Well, last year, I didn't really get a !@#$ chance to do it. The Flier was gone, and we were having to !@#$ing clean up Costa Rica after OPERATION: BUGSMASH was good and done. So it was something of a !@#$ing working vacation, and it didn't really turn out all that !@#$ good, as you may well remember.
No, son. Last year, New Years Eve was spent at the !@#$ing White House, !@#$ing sitting there with the President who, at the time, wasn't entirely !@#$ing sure what to make of me. And then all sorts of bad !@#$ happened, and he was firing me, and then he was dead, and then the world was !@#$ing taken over.
And since then? !@#$ son, haven't had a time to catch a breath. And after everything that just happened, well... since I got tossed out of my own !@#$ COMPANY and put under !@#$ing house arrest by the French !@#$holes that run the world, now, a New Years party was the last !@#$ thing on my mind. Especially since there's no !@#$ way I can leave, and there's no !@#$ing way we could fit everyone in here.
I mean, !@#$, even if they let them in, Bee-Bee would probably !@#$ing shoot them all for disturbing his sleep. !@#$ing cat.
So what does my boyfriend do?
Oh son, that man I love? He !@#$ing arranges for a party to be held in my !@#$ honor, here in the city.
No !@#$, son. You heard that right. While I wasn't !@#$ing looking or hearing, he snuck around, made a few deals, and got the mother of all !@#$ing New Years parties organized. He handled the invites, the catering, the music, the security. He !@#$ing handled everything.
And, thanks to a few tricks he cobbled up? I'm even going to get to !@#$ing be there. Sort of. But I can't say too much about that, now can I?
(I just hope it'll go better than this last Christmas. Jesus !@#$ was that a disaster)
So I am going to get my !@#$ New Years party this year, son. I will have to do it by !@#$ing remote, and I will miss actually being with people. But !@#$ it, it's going to happen, no matter what.
Of course, this means I don't have a !@#$ thing to wear, but he swears he's got that !@#$ing covered, too. And just for that, I am going to pick him up, carry him into our bedroom, and !@#$ him up one side of the room and down the other until we're both sloppy, salty, and as broken as the bed slats are going to be. Because I love him and he's !@#$ing awesome, and awesome !@#$ing.
And if a rocket ride to and from Pluto is all I can give him right now, then he's gonna get it. Good and hard.
See you at the party, son. Come as you are, leave as something else.
And if you hear screaming for the next few hours? That's me shouting I LOVE YOU at the top of my !@#$ lungs.
Because I do. Oh !@#$ing God do I ever.
(SPYGOD is listening to Love Action (Human League) and having... well, figure it out)
Monday, February 17, 2014
12/29/12 - Fata Morgana, She Keeps to Herself.
So, House Arrest.
I've gone on about it before, and how much it !@#$ing sucks. I mean, don't get me !@#$ing wrong, I'd much rather be here in my own bed, with my boyfriend, my music, (and, yes, my cat) than sitting in some super-slam, somewhere, along with all the !@#$ers I've locked up.
I mean, I have been !@#$ing jailed, before. It's usually some !@#$ing misunderstanding that gets cleared up well before I actually have to !@#$ing break out, or something. Nothing terrible. !@#$, by the time the government would !@#$ing call up and tell them to let me the !@#$ out they were just about ready to let me go, anyway, after what usually happened when they got my !@#$ pants off for the intake shower.
Yeah, you !@#$ing figured it'd be something like that, wouldn't you? You're getting to know me too !@#$ing well, son.
(Maybe we should do something about that...)
But no, son. I can live with being !@#$ing stuck here. I can live with having to watch the !@#$ world go apart when I'm not at the wheel. I can even !@#$ing handle !@#$ty post-Christmas TV with limited options due to the !@#$ channel package they arranged for this dump.
No, it's this not drinking thing that's really !@#$ing getting to me.
Oh, sure. They !@#$ing let me drink. They're still sending up my hooch when I !@#$ing require it, along with the daily food drop. Whiskey, beer, vodka, beer, port, beer, wine, beer, beer, beer...
But I'm not !@#$ing being allowed as much as I used to be. And that is a serious !@#$ problem.
You see, son, I'm used to drinking somewhere around twice my !@#$ body weight in alcohol every !@#$ day. And if you think that sounds extremely !@#$ing excessive, well, you'd be !@#$ing right. But I have what can be called a genuine medical excuse, as opposed to that wimpy rewrite of a certain metal-clad superhero by my least favorite homophobic writer.
It's this !@#$ alien peeper in my noggin, son. The Chandra Eye tells me everything that's going on around me, and a whole lot of that !@#$'s nothing I need to know. So I need to be pretty !@#$ing boozed up to be able to handle what this of mine's telling me. Otherwise I get knocked off my !@#$ !@#$ and onto the floor.
And I gotta !@#$ing tell you, son, I've been sitting on the ground a !@#$ of a lot, lately.
Fortunately, there are other things that can be done. I've got all kinds of interesting herbal remedies running around this place. The Martians !@#$ing owe me big-time, so they've got me done up on enough of their so-called cocaine to kill one of their living mountains. And while it's not !@#$ing dulling me, the way the booze does, it is getting my brain working fast enough to handle everything I'm seeing.
And do you know what it's !@#$ing showing me? The !@#$ing deleted scenes reel.
Yeah. You remember me talking about alternate timelines and all that crazy !@#$? Well, it turns out that, if you're !@#$ing able to ride some of what this weird !@#$ alien thing in my head's got to tell me, then it's possible to see how some past choices might have !@#$ing panned out, if I'd zigged instead of zagged, said "no" instead of "yes," !@#$ed this one instead of that one. You get the !@#$ing idea.
Well, just my luck I can't !@#$ing see these alternatives before I make my !@#$ choices. All I can do is make the best !@#$ choice I can, and every so often I get a quick !@#$ glimpse of what would have happened otherwise, but never with a whole !@#$ lot of preamble.
So I'll just be sitting there, !@#$ing some ladyboy in the mouth from across the !@#$ room, and I'll have a sudden flash of being shot to !@#$ing pieces by Superscience Commies from the other !@#$ side of the Moon, and I'll flip the !@#$ out and shoot the room up around my date, only to remember that almost happened back in !@#$ing 1960-whatever, and obviously I made the right choice to not !@#$ing open the airlock, and just press the red button and shove them the !@#$ out of the ship, now didn't I?
(Doesn't do the poor ladyboy any good, but hey, I always !@#$ing tip well if firearms get inadvertently involved.)
So imagine this, son. I'm sitting here, staring at the wall, and all these decisions I !@#$ing made, five, ten, twenty or more years ago are all coming back to !@#$ing haunt me, one after the other. And for once, I can actually !@#$ing see them coming, and know what the !@#$ they were from.
Now how the !@#$ do you like that?
It's not like I can !@#$ing steer this boat, of course. That would just be the bees knees, as they used to !@#$ing say. But I can at least make some sense of them, now. Maybe even follow one option into another, and a little further out...
What's it like? Well, !@#$, son, don't you ever wonder what would have happened if you'd !@#$ing asked that person out, back in !@#$ing high school? Or gone to that party your parents told you they'd !@#$ing kill you if they found out you went? Or not went to it, thus avoiding wondering if they !@#$ing knew you went and just kept !@#$ing quiet all those !@#$ years?
Yeah. Really weird.
So I've seen all kinds of things, tonight. I've seen me not agreeing to !@#$ing go to Camp Rogers, and just spending the war in some prison, somewhere, so I wouldn't !@#$ing talk to anyone. I've seen me not kill Hitler, that night, and not have to !@#$ing deal with ABWEHR all these !@#$ years. I've seen me not develop that weird hate-love relationship with the Dragon, and seen myself finally just snap his !@#$ing neck in Hong Kong in 1997, during the handover.
...
Yeah. That's a lot to process, son. A !@#$ of a lot. I'm finding I'm having to just shrug and let a lot of it !@#$ing go, so I don't go !@#$ing crazy with regret or anger or self-loathing or something.
But one thing that keeps coming back? One !@#$ing thing I can't just sort of shrug off?
One decision I really would give !@#$ing anything to do over?
A little over two months ago, I had someone's life in my hands, and instead of telling someone who needed to know about it, I kept it quiet because I was !@#$ing afraid he'd !@#$ up, go soft, and ruin the whole !@#$ thing for me.
I was afraid that when it came to his own !@#$ family, he'd choke and call off the !@#$ war.
And I should have known better. I should have !@#$ing known!
Should have...
...
Well, truth is, it didn't matter. Either way, we didn't get to the Ice Palace in time. My team was too late, either way.
But in this other reality, where I actually did !@#$ing confide in the President, he only hesitated a half second before telling me to get a team and get it going. He told me he trusted me to !@#$ing deal with it.
And when I had to tell him we failed? Yeah, he broke. And I don't !@#$ing blame him. But he had the family that remained to lift him up, and he got through it.
And...
Well, I can't see more than two more steps down the !@#$ing line from there. So I have no idea if he would have been complicit in my house arrest. I have no idea if he'd be defending me or leaving me out to !@#$ing dry. I don't know for certain.
All I know is that, when some of the !@#$ started to come down our way, he looked at me like he trusted me to make the right decision, in spite of everything.
And that says a !@#$ of a lot to me.
...
So yeah. My boyfriend's gone to bed, and told me to come when I can't stand to watch anymore. My cat's !@#$ing drunk and useless, as always. And all I've got are scenes from a film that went off-track, about two and a half months ago.
Or maybe longer than that.
...
Is love enough, son? Is pain all we have when the curtain comes !@#$ing down?
Because I'd give my life for this world, you understand. A million times over. You know that. You know that.
But what if it's not enough to be willing to die? What if I have to be able to do the right thing, for once?
And how will I know what it is when I see it?
...
You better go, son. I think that !@#$ing deleted scene's coming back around, and this time I might just shoot it away.
And if I hit some of those !@#$ing video cameras, outside, hoping to catch me in the nude, again, then all the !@#$ing better.
Nite nite, now.
(SPYGOD is listening to The Underwater Boys (Shriekback) and having not nearly enough booze )
I've gone on about it before, and how much it !@#$ing sucks. I mean, don't get me !@#$ing wrong, I'd much rather be here in my own bed, with my boyfriend, my music, (and, yes, my cat) than sitting in some super-slam, somewhere, along with all the !@#$ers I've locked up.
I mean, I have been !@#$ing jailed, before. It's usually some !@#$ing misunderstanding that gets cleared up well before I actually have to !@#$ing break out, or something. Nothing terrible. !@#$, by the time the government would !@#$ing call up and tell them to let me the !@#$ out they were just about ready to let me go, anyway, after what usually happened when they got my !@#$ pants off for the intake shower.
Yeah, you !@#$ing figured it'd be something like that, wouldn't you? You're getting to know me too !@#$ing well, son.
(Maybe we should do something about that...)
But no, son. I can live with being !@#$ing stuck here. I can live with having to watch the !@#$ world go apart when I'm not at the wheel. I can even !@#$ing handle !@#$ty post-Christmas TV with limited options due to the !@#$ channel package they arranged for this dump.
No, it's this not drinking thing that's really !@#$ing getting to me.
Oh, sure. They !@#$ing let me drink. They're still sending up my hooch when I !@#$ing require it, along with the daily food drop. Whiskey, beer, vodka, beer, port, beer, wine, beer, beer, beer...
But I'm not !@#$ing being allowed as much as I used to be. And that is a serious !@#$ problem.
You see, son, I'm used to drinking somewhere around twice my !@#$ body weight in alcohol every !@#$ day. And if you think that sounds extremely !@#$ing excessive, well, you'd be !@#$ing right. But I have what can be called a genuine medical excuse, as opposed to that wimpy rewrite of a certain metal-clad superhero by my least favorite homophobic writer.
It's this !@#$ alien peeper in my noggin, son. The Chandra Eye tells me everything that's going on around me, and a whole lot of that !@#$'s nothing I need to know. So I need to be pretty !@#$ing boozed up to be able to handle what this of mine's telling me. Otherwise I get knocked off my !@#$ !@#$ and onto the floor.
And I gotta !@#$ing tell you, son, I've been sitting on the ground a !@#$ of a lot, lately.
Fortunately, there are other things that can be done. I've got all kinds of interesting herbal remedies running around this place. The Martians !@#$ing owe me big-time, so they've got me done up on enough of their so-called cocaine to kill one of their living mountains. And while it's not !@#$ing dulling me, the way the booze does, it is getting my brain working fast enough to handle everything I'm seeing.
And do you know what it's !@#$ing showing me? The !@#$ing deleted scenes reel.
Yeah. You remember me talking about alternate timelines and all that crazy !@#$? Well, it turns out that, if you're !@#$ing able to ride some of what this weird !@#$ alien thing in my head's got to tell me, then it's possible to see how some past choices might have !@#$ing panned out, if I'd zigged instead of zagged, said "no" instead of "yes," !@#$ed this one instead of that one. You get the !@#$ing idea.
Well, just my luck I can't !@#$ing see these alternatives before I make my !@#$ choices. All I can do is make the best !@#$ choice I can, and every so often I get a quick !@#$ glimpse of what would have happened otherwise, but never with a whole !@#$ lot of preamble.
So I'll just be sitting there, !@#$ing some ladyboy in the mouth from across the !@#$ room, and I'll have a sudden flash of being shot to !@#$ing pieces by Superscience Commies from the other !@#$ side of the Moon, and I'll flip the !@#$ out and shoot the room up around my date, only to remember that almost happened back in !@#$ing 1960-whatever, and obviously I made the right choice to not !@#$ing open the airlock, and just press the red button and shove them the !@#$ out of the ship, now didn't I?
(Doesn't do the poor ladyboy any good, but hey, I always !@#$ing tip well if firearms get inadvertently involved.)
So imagine this, son. I'm sitting here, staring at the wall, and all these decisions I !@#$ing made, five, ten, twenty or more years ago are all coming back to !@#$ing haunt me, one after the other. And for once, I can actually !@#$ing see them coming, and know what the !@#$ they were from.
Now how the !@#$ do you like that?
It's not like I can !@#$ing steer this boat, of course. That would just be the bees knees, as they used to !@#$ing say. But I can at least make some sense of them, now. Maybe even follow one option into another, and a little further out...
What's it like? Well, !@#$, son, don't you ever wonder what would have happened if you'd !@#$ing asked that person out, back in !@#$ing high school? Or gone to that party your parents told you they'd !@#$ing kill you if they found out you went? Or not went to it, thus avoiding wondering if they !@#$ing knew you went and just kept !@#$ing quiet all those !@#$ years?
Yeah. Really weird.
So I've seen all kinds of things, tonight. I've seen me not agreeing to !@#$ing go to Camp Rogers, and just spending the war in some prison, somewhere, so I wouldn't !@#$ing talk to anyone. I've seen me not kill Hitler, that night, and not have to !@#$ing deal with ABWEHR all these !@#$ years. I've seen me not develop that weird hate-love relationship with the Dragon, and seen myself finally just snap his !@#$ing neck in Hong Kong in 1997, during the handover.
...
Yeah. That's a lot to process, son. A !@#$ of a lot. I'm finding I'm having to just shrug and let a lot of it !@#$ing go, so I don't go !@#$ing crazy with regret or anger or self-loathing or something.
But one thing that keeps coming back? One !@#$ing thing I can't just sort of shrug off?
One decision I really would give !@#$ing anything to do over?
A little over two months ago, I had someone's life in my hands, and instead of telling someone who needed to know about it, I kept it quiet because I was !@#$ing afraid he'd !@#$ up, go soft, and ruin the whole !@#$ thing for me.
I was afraid that when it came to his own !@#$ family, he'd choke and call off the !@#$ war.
And I should have known better. I should have !@#$ing known!
Should have...
...
Well, truth is, it didn't matter. Either way, we didn't get to the Ice Palace in time. My team was too late, either way.
But in this other reality, where I actually did !@#$ing confide in the President, he only hesitated a half second before telling me to get a team and get it going. He told me he trusted me to !@#$ing deal with it.
And when I had to tell him we failed? Yeah, he broke. And I don't !@#$ing blame him. But he had the family that remained to lift him up, and he got through it.
And...
Well, I can't see more than two more steps down the !@#$ing line from there. So I have no idea if he would have been complicit in my house arrest. I have no idea if he'd be defending me or leaving me out to !@#$ing dry. I don't know for certain.
All I know is that, when some of the !@#$ started to come down our way, he looked at me like he trusted me to make the right decision, in spite of everything.
And that says a !@#$ of a lot to me.
...
So yeah. My boyfriend's gone to bed, and told me to come when I can't stand to watch anymore. My cat's !@#$ing drunk and useless, as always. And all I've got are scenes from a film that went off-track, about two and a half months ago.
Or maybe longer than that.
...
Is love enough, son? Is pain all we have when the curtain comes !@#$ing down?
Because I'd give my life for this world, you understand. A million times over. You know that. You know that.
But what if it's not enough to be willing to die? What if I have to be able to do the right thing, for once?
And how will I know what it is when I see it?
...
You better go, son. I think that !@#$ing deleted scene's coming back around, and this time I might just shoot it away.
And if I hit some of those !@#$ing video cameras, outside, hoping to catch me in the nude, again, then all the !@#$ing better.
Nite nite, now.
(SPYGOD is listening to The Underwater Boys (Shriekback) and having not nearly enough booze )
Thursday, September 26, 2013
12/23/12 - Mr. USA - A Square of Hell - pt. 3
11/30/12
There's a moment of bright light, and then nothing, and then something again.
In the strange, seemingly-forever space between destinations, Mr. USA wonders if he'll be coming back, again. It's an old fear, maybe, but a sensible one. The human mind wasn't meant to be broken up in one place and re-assembled somewhere else, no matter what those with teleportation powers may say.
The world comes back suddenly, like a smoker's cough. He closes his eyes, and holds up his hand, suddenly hearing voices in French and unfamiliar smells.
"Ah, bonjour, Msr. Vice President," some tall fellow in a suit and tie says, extending a hand: "Welcome to Paris. It is two in the afternoon, if you care to set your watch?"
"I think I'll keep it set to my time, thanks," he says, looking around the small room the French hero teleported them into. There's no windows, a single chair and a small table, and a single door -- strong, with several locks.
Mr. USA can tell that they're underground, based on the poor air quality and decreased solar radiation, but how far down isn't certain. They didn't tell him where, exactly, they were going, other than "Paris." So he could be anywhere, and as far down as they care to dig.
Not exactly the greatest feeling in the world.
"Is he in there, then?" Mr. USA asks, gesturing to the door. The greeter's smile wavers just a little, and that's answer enough.
"He will send for us when he is ready," the hero who brought him here says, wandering over to sit down in the chair and light up some nasty, filterless cigarette: "In the meantime, you must get used to waiting. It is the way of things, here."
"I understand," Mr. USA says, understanding that there are several snubs going on here, but choosing to pretend not to notice them: "If you will tell Msr. Geraud that I'm here, and have a limited window?"
The greeter's smile wavers just a little more, and he nods, and, turning, talks into his watch. The tone and urgency of his jabber reveals quite a lot.
"Balto?" the hero asks, offering him a cigarette. Mr. USA nods, taking him up on his offer. Of course, he doesn't have a lighter, but the man's kind enough to touch the tip of his own, giving him a jump-start.
"Smooth," he lies, not really liking the taste or the sensation, but realizing that -- out of everyone he's met from the Terre Unifee -- this dark blue-clad fellow's the only one who seems to not be putting on any pretentious airs, and is just being himself.
And a man like that's a good person to have on your side, especially when the !@#$ starts pouring into the room and you need to know where and how to swim.
It takes an hour, ten minutes, and three seconds before Henri Valentin Geraud sends for him. They aren't offered a trip to the restroom, or any refreshments in this time.
(Lucky for Mr. USA, his bladder is still stronger than his right hook.)
A large, meat-faced guard with too many guns for his own good unlocks the door from the other side. He keeps a hand on his sidearm at all times when Mr. USA leaves the room, and walks right behind him as the thin fellow leads their procession. At some point in their march down the long hallway -- full of other, well-locked doors, all on the right side -- the blue-clad man teleports away without so much as an explanation, much less a goodbye.
The three men walk down that long hall, through another, and then through a well-guarded security checkpoint, full of men as meatfaced and overly-armed as the guard that brought them there. As they stand by, guns trained on his head, Mr. USA is scanned by several large machines, and then waved through.
The tall fellow does not advance with him. He merely gestures to a large, imposing door, past the human wall of guards: "Msr. President is expecting you now, sir."
"Thank you, gentlemen," Mr. USA says, smiling at them all and then heading for that door. It vanishes before he gets two steps towards it, revealing a well-lit office that's a strange mixture of neo-classical and futurist.
"Msr. (REDACTED)," a thick voice says: "Please do come in."
"Thank you," the hero says, walking into the room and looking around. The moment he's inside, the door re-appears behind him, and he can feel the room shudder into motion, somehow. The view outside the windows becomes rather bright, its illumination causing the gilded angels -- which adorn every flat surface in the room to varying degrees -- to glow like stars in the early evening sky.
"We are in transit, now," the small, thick fellow on the plastic couch -- made to look like a richly-embroidered and padded sort of thing -- says, gesturing to a plastic chair of a similar make and model: "We cannot be observed, overheard, or unduly influenced, here. We may say and do as we like."
"That's always good to know," Mr. USA says, sitting down and getting a good look at the short, fat-faced fellow who's so intent on getting the planet together.
"You knew my relation, I believe?" the interim President of the TU says, leaning forward: "Celestin Halevy, of the Armée de Libération du Peuple Supérieure?"
"I never met him," Mr. USA admits: "I heard of him, and all he did for your country during the War, of course."
"pfft," the little man snorts, waving a dismissive hand: "Grand-pere Celestin did nothing, Msr. Vice President, if the truth is known. He wandered about the landscape, looking for heroes to win our war for us. He had opportunities to find a better way to throw off the Germans, and he squandered them all, too fixated on his dreams of victory and revenge. It would not be until after the war that his true genius was discovered."
"Running Direction Noir," Mr. USA says, nodding: "And disguising its true intent, purpose, and efficiency."
The little man smiles and nods: "So you have understood?"
"I understand that we could have used some of your efficiency during the Reclamation War," he says, leaning back a little: "I lost a lot of good friends, that day. A lot of valuable allies gave everything they had to fight the Imago. And you pretended you had no one, and nothing, and all the while you were surrounded by wonder."
"We decided to become the unknown reserve, just in case-"
"You sat on your butts and did nothing so you could come out, after the war, and do this," Mr. USA states, calmly and without heat: "And there isn't a country out there that doesn't know that, either."
For a moment, Mr. USA thinks the little man is going to shout at him. Instead he laughs, and claps his hands. Three of the gold angels come to life, just then, and begin flitting about the room, assembling a wine and cheese repast for the two of them from a refrigerator and pantry, hidden in the corner paneling.
"I knew I would like you," Henri Valentin Geraud says, reaching up to take a glass of fine, red wine as it's gently flown to his hand: "So many of you Americans, you speak so diplomatically. I appreciate a man who will call me on my bull!@#$."
"Well, that is the Vice President's job," the hero says, also accepting a glass from the tiny, gold robots: "This is quite the layout you have here."
"Yes. We collected many things, over the years, in our quest to create a secure net of superhuman power. People, ideas, inventions, relics. This is but one of many things that The Maker created, before his unfortunate disappearance at the end of the Cold War."
"Not familiar with him," Mr. USA lies, having a sip of the warm, rich wine.
"Well, he was a quiet sort of fellow," Geraud says, sipping at his own: "He mostly stayed in his workshop, creating ingenious things for Direction Noir. Many of the small toys and weapons we carried into the field were of his design."
"Kind of like Q from MI-6?"
"Well, more like Z from MI-10, but that is another story entirely."
"Agreed," Mr. USA says, putting his wine glass down. One of the angels flits by and refills it by !@#$ing in it, as though it were a fountain. The look on the hero's face when this happens causes the interim President to laugh out loud for a full minute.
"So, what does the President think?" Geraud asks: "Does he believe that America should go it alone, as your God of spies and so many of your countrymen think? Or has he seen the wisdom in a world united against this threat that approaches, as well as so many other issues?"
"He thinks he needs more time to weigh the possibilities," Mr. USA says, hoping to avoid getting into any details: "He's also willing to discuss other arrangements. Trade agreements, military cooperation, the like."
"He does realize that, should he not join, he will soon be on the outside, looking in?"
"Hasn't harmed us before."
"In the world to come, it just might," Geraud says, holding his glass out for another angel to refill it: "I would hate to see America become the pariah nation it turned so many other states into, in its time."
"I don't think that would happen."
"Are you so sure? Did you know that England is about to sign up?"
"No I didn't," the hero lies, wondering if this small man knows exactly why they've done this: "I bet that must be a thrilling turnaround?"
"It is, yes."
"And that's why we're being cautious," Mr. USA admits: "You see, you have to admit... you're taking the wrong attitude towards this whole thing. It doesn't feel like considerate and careful nation building. It really just feels like a nation that had great ideas, but never put them into place before someone else came along and beat them to it, or beat them at it. And now, here you are with a winning hand at the table, and you're about to grab the whole pot."
"Strategy, I think your previous President would have said?"
"That's one way to look at it," the hero says, picking up his wine and sipping at it: "But, between you and me? That man couldn't even spell the word without using a dictionary."
"And your new President... what of him?" Geraud says, leaning forward: "Flailing at his desk as his country goes to pieces. People trying to leave, no one coming together, his own government trying to replace him during a crisis. You have heroes playing at being police and your money is worth nothing.
"And now... these problems," the man says, leaning backwards and waving a hand over his wine: "This delicate matter in Israel, handled in such a terrible and final way..."
"We had to act," Mr. USA says, not letting the man get to him: "Something I didn't see you exactly doing."
"We were waiting for the right moment."
"You were stalling to see what happened next. And I don't blame you. But while you waited, we acted. And maybe you don't like what happened, then. I know I sure don't. But I know why it had to happen that way."
"And then there are the matters of your unfortunate revelations," Geraud pushes: "You and what you did, or did not do. And SPYGOD! Mon dieu, Msr. I do not see how either of you can sleep at night."
"I was brainwashed-"
"That is a lie," Geraud says, smiling: "You forget, I know of you, and what you can do."
"You think so?"
"I know so."
"It was the Imago's early mind control tests, used by their agent on Earth. I got three times the normal dose-"
"Lies!" the little man shouts, spilling his wine: "Do you take us for fools, Msr? We have all the proof we need to know that you are lying."
"Such as?"
"Other than knowing exactly how and when the Imago created their mind control? Well, there is the matter of the phone call between you and your President..."
Mr. USA glares at the little man, who smiles back.
"So you're not above blackmail?" Mr. USA says, trying to calm down.
"No. And we would push the point home, in these negotiations, Msr. Vice President. In fact, I would call your superior right now, and tell him what a terrible job you are doing. But then, this horrendous thing that has happened, in the President's own home, to his own family..."
"Yes," Mr. USA sighs, thinking about that, and what the President had to say about it: "I remember all too well."
"I think, perhaps, the less stress upon his weary head...?"
Mr. USA glares at the little man, again: "You underestimate him. And his resolve."
"Do I?"
There's silence between them, then. The little man never stops smiling. And Mr. USA never stops glaring.
"So," Geraud says, snapping his fingers and attracting the attention of an angel with a sheaf of papers: "Shall we go over my proposal, again? I have made a few amendments since the last batch. Things that might, as you say, sweeten the pot?"
"I'm happy to listen," Mr. USA says, accepting one of the piles and getting out a pen.
And all the while thinking how good it would feel to fling that pen right through the interim President's tiny little skull.
12/14/12
Mr. USA nods to the guards outside the apartment door. The two men nod, salute, and get out of his way.
"Any trouble, so far?" he asks.
"No, Mr. President," the guard to the right says: "They've been in there about ten hours, now. Been some noise and some shouting, maybe some gunfire-"
"He still has his guns?"
"I think it's the cat, sir," the other guard says: "And I'm sorry, sir, but no one is getting near that thing. Not under Presidential orders, sir."
"I don't blame you, son," Mr. USA says, clapping him on the shoulder: "Let me in, please."
"Do you need an escort, sir?" one asks as the other opens the door.
"No, I think I'll be fine," the hero lies, and enters !@#$.
Inside is bedlam. Hundreds of boxes are everywhere, in various degrees of unpacking. There's the smell of fast food, stale beer, and mansweat.
And cursing, of course -- a bright, blue streak of it, coming from the front room.
"!@#$ing little ingrates," SPYGOD is hissing as he stands in front of the window, wearing only his boxers and shoes: "!@#$ing !@#$s! None of you are fit to sniff the !@#$ out of my !@#$, you know that?"
"Oh, give it a rest," his boyfriend sighs, tossing a kitchen towel at his head: "Come back and have some pad thai, hon. They'll be there in the morning."
"I'm afraid they will, too," Mr. USA says, breaking in on their reverie. For a moment he expects SPYGOD to spin and point a gun at him, but the man just turns around and heads for the table his lover's seated at, as though he wasn't even there.
"How are you, Mr. President?" Straffer asks, apparently embarrassed by his lover's lack of decorum.
"Never better," the hero sighs: "How are you two?"
"Pretty decent, actually," SPYGOD says, tucking into some of the Asian noodles: "For a house arrest, anyway."
"Any news on when they might schedule the trial?"
"After New Year's," Mr. USA says, sadly: "They want the Christmas season to be light and joyful, and then... back to reality."
"Some reality," SPYGOD snorts: "I feel like I'm being !@#$ed to death by a swarm of small-!@#$ed pygmies all strung out on martian cocaine."
"We'll get through it," Straffer says, gesturing to an empty chair: "Our legal team-"
"Said we're !@#$ed."
"No they didn't, hon. They said we had a challenging case."
"That means we're !@#$ed."
"Well, maybe-"
"You're !@#$ed," Mr. USA admits, declining to sit: "The TU are going to try you, just like they did the Imago, in Paris. They're going to drag every last grieving parent into that room that they can, one by one. And then they're going to bury you under the weight of their dead children. I'm sure your legal team might be able to get a word or two in edgewise, but..."
There's silence, then, broken only by SPYGOD continuing to eat.
"A challenging case," SPYGOD chuckles, having a hit of singha: "I think that's what Charlie !@#$ing Manson's court-appointed lawyer called it."
"Well, as long as you don't carve an X into your forehead?" Straffer says, winking: "I can forgive most fashion faux paus, but that's a step too far."
"I was thinking of shaving my head-"
"Aren't you taking this seriously?" Mr. USA shouts, trying not to bang his fists down on the table: "They're talking about putting you away for life, (REDACTED)!"
"I'm sure they !@#$ing are," SPYGOD says, eating some more pad thai: "So what do you think we should do about it?"
"Well, I don't know-"
"Well, I do," SPYGOD says, pointing his chopsticks at the man: "You're the !@#$ing President of the United States of America, now. You have the ear of the man who's the President of the TU. All you have to do is throw a !@#$ing wrench into the works by telling the !@#$ truth, and it's all over."
Mr. USA blinks. He coughs. He stutters.
"But you can't do that, can you?" SPYGOD says, looking away: "Because if you do, then that little !@#$ who was in charge of the TU, but is now overseeing their !@#$ing law enforcement branch, will make with the truth about what happened to you, all those years ago. And then the whole !@#$ing world will look back at you, instead of me. And then you'll be out of a job faster than you can slide a fresh baguette up an old leather queen's !@#$hole.
"And then... who !@#$ing knows," he goes on, looking back at him: "Riots in the !@#$ streets? Secessionists taking the initiative and seizing power? Chaos, anarchy, martial law?"
"You forgot cats and dogs sleeping together," Straffer says.
"Заткнись, иди на хуй," a growly voice comes from a box, nearby. An AK-47 is poking out the top.
"Sorry, Bee-Bee," SPYGOD chuckles.
"I can't do that," Mr. USA says, sadly: "I wish I could, but the stakes are too high."
"Oh, I understand," SPYGOD says, taking another hit off his Singha: "I know what it means when it's all on your !@#$ shoulders and you can't do anything."
"You do...?"
"Sure. What was that I said to New Man, back in Paris, before you all let the really bad news slip?"
"You said 'some rules you just can't break,'" Mr. USA says, trying desperately to hold onto his composure.
"And then New Man said that being a hero was all about breaking the rules," Straffer adds: "Something about upholding the right and good."
"I think those conversations went in reverse."
"Yeah, I think you're right," Straffer admits: "Want some pad thai, Mr. President?"
Mr. USA looks at them, and the food. He sees the smiles on their faces and know that they're false. He can see the contempt in their eyes and feel the helpless anger in their hearts.
And all he can do is smile, shake his head, and turn to leave.
"I'll do what I can," he says as he heads for the door: "It may not be much, but I will try."
"Eh, no bother," SPYGOD shrugs.
"No, it is," Mr. USA says, turning back: "I told you I had your back. And I do. I just have to find a way, here. But I will. I swear I will-"
"We understand, really," Straffer adds, pointing to the copious amounts of food on the table: "You want some to go?"
"Please!" Mr. USA cries: "Please believe me! Please don't hate me! Everything I've done... everything, I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. But... it's all going wrong. Just... terribly wrong...."
And the two men at the table just look at him as he tears up -- his face red and shaking -- but they say nothing. They just stare, as if embarrassed.
"I swear I will..." Mr. USA says, and leaves -- exiting the apartment so quickly that the guards at the door don't even have time to realize their President had been crying.
* * *
There's a moment of bright light, and then nothing, and then something again.
In the strange, seemingly-forever space between destinations, Mr. USA wonders if he'll be coming back, again. It's an old fear, maybe, but a sensible one. The human mind wasn't meant to be broken up in one place and re-assembled somewhere else, no matter what those with teleportation powers may say.
The world comes back suddenly, like a smoker's cough. He closes his eyes, and holds up his hand, suddenly hearing voices in French and unfamiliar smells.
"Ah, bonjour, Msr. Vice President," some tall fellow in a suit and tie says, extending a hand: "Welcome to Paris. It is two in the afternoon, if you care to set your watch?"
"I think I'll keep it set to my time, thanks," he says, looking around the small room the French hero teleported them into. There's no windows, a single chair and a small table, and a single door -- strong, with several locks.
Mr. USA can tell that they're underground, based on the poor air quality and decreased solar radiation, but how far down isn't certain. They didn't tell him where, exactly, they were going, other than "Paris." So he could be anywhere, and as far down as they care to dig.
Not exactly the greatest feeling in the world.
"Is he in there, then?" Mr. USA asks, gesturing to the door. The greeter's smile wavers just a little, and that's answer enough.
"He will send for us when he is ready," the hero who brought him here says, wandering over to sit down in the chair and light up some nasty, filterless cigarette: "In the meantime, you must get used to waiting. It is the way of things, here."
"I understand," Mr. USA says, understanding that there are several snubs going on here, but choosing to pretend not to notice them: "If you will tell Msr. Geraud that I'm here, and have a limited window?"
The greeter's smile wavers just a little more, and he nods, and, turning, talks into his watch. The tone and urgency of his jabber reveals quite a lot.
"Balto?" the hero asks, offering him a cigarette. Mr. USA nods, taking him up on his offer. Of course, he doesn't have a lighter, but the man's kind enough to touch the tip of his own, giving him a jump-start.
"Smooth," he lies, not really liking the taste or the sensation, but realizing that -- out of everyone he's met from the Terre Unifee -- this dark blue-clad fellow's the only one who seems to not be putting on any pretentious airs, and is just being himself.
And a man like that's a good person to have on your side, especially when the !@#$ starts pouring into the room and you need to know where and how to swim.
* * *
(Lucky for Mr. USA, his bladder is still stronger than his right hook.)
A large, meat-faced guard with too many guns for his own good unlocks the door from the other side. He keeps a hand on his sidearm at all times when Mr. USA leaves the room, and walks right behind him as the thin fellow leads their procession. At some point in their march down the long hallway -- full of other, well-locked doors, all on the right side -- the blue-clad man teleports away without so much as an explanation, much less a goodbye.
The three men walk down that long hall, through another, and then through a well-guarded security checkpoint, full of men as meatfaced and overly-armed as the guard that brought them there. As they stand by, guns trained on his head, Mr. USA is scanned by several large machines, and then waved through.
The tall fellow does not advance with him. He merely gestures to a large, imposing door, past the human wall of guards: "Msr. President is expecting you now, sir."
"Thank you, gentlemen," Mr. USA says, smiling at them all and then heading for that door. It vanishes before he gets two steps towards it, revealing a well-lit office that's a strange mixture of neo-classical and futurist.
"Msr. (REDACTED)," a thick voice says: "Please do come in."
"Thank you," the hero says, walking into the room and looking around. The moment he's inside, the door re-appears behind him, and he can feel the room shudder into motion, somehow. The view outside the windows becomes rather bright, its illumination causing the gilded angels -- which adorn every flat surface in the room to varying degrees -- to glow like stars in the early evening sky.
"We are in transit, now," the small, thick fellow on the plastic couch -- made to look like a richly-embroidered and padded sort of thing -- says, gesturing to a plastic chair of a similar make and model: "We cannot be observed, overheard, or unduly influenced, here. We may say and do as we like."
"That's always good to know," Mr. USA says, sitting down and getting a good look at the short, fat-faced fellow who's so intent on getting the planet together.
"You knew my relation, I believe?" the interim President of the TU says, leaning forward: "Celestin Halevy, of the Armée de Libération du Peuple Supérieure?"
"I never met him," Mr. USA admits: "I heard of him, and all he did for your country during the War, of course."
"pfft," the little man snorts, waving a dismissive hand: "Grand-pere Celestin did nothing, Msr. Vice President, if the truth is known. He wandered about the landscape, looking for heroes to win our war for us. He had opportunities to find a better way to throw off the Germans, and he squandered them all, too fixated on his dreams of victory and revenge. It would not be until after the war that his true genius was discovered."
"Running Direction Noir," Mr. USA says, nodding: "And disguising its true intent, purpose, and efficiency."
The little man smiles and nods: "So you have understood?"
"I understand that we could have used some of your efficiency during the Reclamation War," he says, leaning back a little: "I lost a lot of good friends, that day. A lot of valuable allies gave everything they had to fight the Imago. And you pretended you had no one, and nothing, and all the while you were surrounded by wonder."
"We decided to become the unknown reserve, just in case-"
"You sat on your butts and did nothing so you could come out, after the war, and do this," Mr. USA states, calmly and without heat: "And there isn't a country out there that doesn't know that, either."
For a moment, Mr. USA thinks the little man is going to shout at him. Instead he laughs, and claps his hands. Three of the gold angels come to life, just then, and begin flitting about the room, assembling a wine and cheese repast for the two of them from a refrigerator and pantry, hidden in the corner paneling.
"I knew I would like you," Henri Valentin Geraud says, reaching up to take a glass of fine, red wine as it's gently flown to his hand: "So many of you Americans, you speak so diplomatically. I appreciate a man who will call me on my bull!@#$."
"Well, that is the Vice President's job," the hero says, also accepting a glass from the tiny, gold robots: "This is quite the layout you have here."
"Yes. We collected many things, over the years, in our quest to create a secure net of superhuman power. People, ideas, inventions, relics. This is but one of many things that The Maker created, before his unfortunate disappearance at the end of the Cold War."
"Not familiar with him," Mr. USA lies, having a sip of the warm, rich wine.
"Well, he was a quiet sort of fellow," Geraud says, sipping at his own: "He mostly stayed in his workshop, creating ingenious things for Direction Noir. Many of the small toys and weapons we carried into the field were of his design."
"Kind of like Q from MI-6?"
"Well, more like Z from MI-10, but that is another story entirely."
"Agreed," Mr. USA says, putting his wine glass down. One of the angels flits by and refills it by !@#$ing in it, as though it were a fountain. The look on the hero's face when this happens causes the interim President to laugh out loud for a full minute.
"So, what does the President think?" Geraud asks: "Does he believe that America should go it alone, as your God of spies and so many of your countrymen think? Or has he seen the wisdom in a world united against this threat that approaches, as well as so many other issues?"
"He thinks he needs more time to weigh the possibilities," Mr. USA says, hoping to avoid getting into any details: "He's also willing to discuss other arrangements. Trade agreements, military cooperation, the like."
"He does realize that, should he not join, he will soon be on the outside, looking in?"
"Hasn't harmed us before."
"In the world to come, it just might," Geraud says, holding his glass out for another angel to refill it: "I would hate to see America become the pariah nation it turned so many other states into, in its time."
"I don't think that would happen."
"Are you so sure? Did you know that England is about to sign up?"
"No I didn't," the hero lies, wondering if this small man knows exactly why they've done this: "I bet that must be a thrilling turnaround?"
"It is, yes."
"And that's why we're being cautious," Mr. USA admits: "You see, you have to admit... you're taking the wrong attitude towards this whole thing. It doesn't feel like considerate and careful nation building. It really just feels like a nation that had great ideas, but never put them into place before someone else came along and beat them to it, or beat them at it. And now, here you are with a winning hand at the table, and you're about to grab the whole pot."
"Strategy, I think your previous President would have said?"
"That's one way to look at it," the hero says, picking up his wine and sipping at it: "But, between you and me? That man couldn't even spell the word without using a dictionary."
"And your new President... what of him?" Geraud says, leaning forward: "Flailing at his desk as his country goes to pieces. People trying to leave, no one coming together, his own government trying to replace him during a crisis. You have heroes playing at being police and your money is worth nothing.
"And now... these problems," the man says, leaning backwards and waving a hand over his wine: "This delicate matter in Israel, handled in such a terrible and final way..."
"We had to act," Mr. USA says, not letting the man get to him: "Something I didn't see you exactly doing."
"We were waiting for the right moment."
"You were stalling to see what happened next. And I don't blame you. But while you waited, we acted. And maybe you don't like what happened, then. I know I sure don't. But I know why it had to happen that way."
"And then there are the matters of your unfortunate revelations," Geraud pushes: "You and what you did, or did not do. And SPYGOD! Mon dieu, Msr. I do not see how either of you can sleep at night."
"I was brainwashed-"
"That is a lie," Geraud says, smiling: "You forget, I know of you, and what you can do."
"You think so?"
"I know so."
"It was the Imago's early mind control tests, used by their agent on Earth. I got three times the normal dose-"
"Lies!" the little man shouts, spilling his wine: "Do you take us for fools, Msr? We have all the proof we need to know that you are lying."
"Such as?"
"Other than knowing exactly how and when the Imago created their mind control? Well, there is the matter of the phone call between you and your President..."
Mr. USA glares at the little man, who smiles back.
"So you're not above blackmail?" Mr. USA says, trying to calm down.
"No. And we would push the point home, in these negotiations, Msr. Vice President. In fact, I would call your superior right now, and tell him what a terrible job you are doing. But then, this horrendous thing that has happened, in the President's own home, to his own family..."
"Yes," Mr. USA sighs, thinking about that, and what the President had to say about it: "I remember all too well."
"I think, perhaps, the less stress upon his weary head...?"
Mr. USA glares at the little man, again: "You underestimate him. And his resolve."
"Do I?"
There's silence between them, then. The little man never stops smiling. And Mr. USA never stops glaring.
"So," Geraud says, snapping his fingers and attracting the attention of an angel with a sheaf of papers: "Shall we go over my proposal, again? I have made a few amendments since the last batch. Things that might, as you say, sweeten the pot?"
"I'm happy to listen," Mr. USA says, accepting one of the piles and getting out a pen.
And all the while thinking how good it would feel to fling that pen right through the interim President's tiny little skull.
12/14/12
Mr. USA nods to the guards outside the apartment door. The two men nod, salute, and get out of his way.
"Any trouble, so far?" he asks.
"No, Mr. President," the guard to the right says: "They've been in there about ten hours, now. Been some noise and some shouting, maybe some gunfire-"
"He still has his guns?"
"I think it's the cat, sir," the other guard says: "And I'm sorry, sir, but no one is getting near that thing. Not under Presidential orders, sir."
"I don't blame you, son," Mr. USA says, clapping him on the shoulder: "Let me in, please."
"Do you need an escort, sir?" one asks as the other opens the door.
"No, I think I'll be fine," the hero lies, and enters !@#$.
Inside is bedlam. Hundreds of boxes are everywhere, in various degrees of unpacking. There's the smell of fast food, stale beer, and mansweat.
And cursing, of course -- a bright, blue streak of it, coming from the front room.
"!@#$ing little ingrates," SPYGOD is hissing as he stands in front of the window, wearing only his boxers and shoes: "!@#$ing !@#$s! None of you are fit to sniff the !@#$ out of my !@#$, you know that?"
"Oh, give it a rest," his boyfriend sighs, tossing a kitchen towel at his head: "Come back and have some pad thai, hon. They'll be there in the morning."
"I'm afraid they will, too," Mr. USA says, breaking in on their reverie. For a moment he expects SPYGOD to spin and point a gun at him, but the man just turns around and heads for the table his lover's seated at, as though he wasn't even there.
"How are you, Mr. President?" Straffer asks, apparently embarrassed by his lover's lack of decorum.
"Never better," the hero sighs: "How are you two?"
"Pretty decent, actually," SPYGOD says, tucking into some of the Asian noodles: "For a house arrest, anyway."
"Any news on when they might schedule the trial?"
"After New Year's," Mr. USA says, sadly: "They want the Christmas season to be light and joyful, and then... back to reality."
"Some reality," SPYGOD snorts: "I feel like I'm being !@#$ed to death by a swarm of small-!@#$ed pygmies all strung out on martian cocaine."
"We'll get through it," Straffer says, gesturing to an empty chair: "Our legal team-"
"Said we're !@#$ed."
"No they didn't, hon. They said we had a challenging case."
"That means we're !@#$ed."
"Well, maybe-"
"You're !@#$ed," Mr. USA admits, declining to sit: "The TU are going to try you, just like they did the Imago, in Paris. They're going to drag every last grieving parent into that room that they can, one by one. And then they're going to bury you under the weight of their dead children. I'm sure your legal team might be able to get a word or two in edgewise, but..."
There's silence, then, broken only by SPYGOD continuing to eat.
"A challenging case," SPYGOD chuckles, having a hit of singha: "I think that's what Charlie !@#$ing Manson's court-appointed lawyer called it."
"Well, as long as you don't carve an X into your forehead?" Straffer says, winking: "I can forgive most fashion faux paus, but that's a step too far."
"I was thinking of shaving my head-"
"Aren't you taking this seriously?" Mr. USA shouts, trying not to bang his fists down on the table: "They're talking about putting you away for life, (REDACTED)!"
"I'm sure they !@#$ing are," SPYGOD says, eating some more pad thai: "So what do you think we should do about it?"
"Well, I don't know-"
"Well, I do," SPYGOD says, pointing his chopsticks at the man: "You're the !@#$ing President of the United States of America, now. You have the ear of the man who's the President of the TU. All you have to do is throw a !@#$ing wrench into the works by telling the !@#$ truth, and it's all over."
Mr. USA blinks. He coughs. He stutters.
"But you can't do that, can you?" SPYGOD says, looking away: "Because if you do, then that little !@#$ who was in charge of the TU, but is now overseeing their !@#$ing law enforcement branch, will make with the truth about what happened to you, all those years ago. And then the whole !@#$ing world will look back at you, instead of me. And then you'll be out of a job faster than you can slide a fresh baguette up an old leather queen's !@#$hole.
"And then... who !@#$ing knows," he goes on, looking back at him: "Riots in the !@#$ streets? Secessionists taking the initiative and seizing power? Chaos, anarchy, martial law?"
"You forgot cats and dogs sleeping together," Straffer says.
"Заткнись, иди на хуй," a growly voice comes from a box, nearby. An AK-47 is poking out the top.
"Sorry, Bee-Bee," SPYGOD chuckles.
"I can't do that," Mr. USA says, sadly: "I wish I could, but the stakes are too high."
"Oh, I understand," SPYGOD says, taking another hit off his Singha: "I know what it means when it's all on your !@#$ shoulders and you can't do anything."
"You do...?"
"Sure. What was that I said to New Man, back in Paris, before you all let the really bad news slip?"
"You said 'some rules you just can't break,'" Mr. USA says, trying desperately to hold onto his composure.
"And then New Man said that being a hero was all about breaking the rules," Straffer adds: "Something about upholding the right and good."
"I think those conversations went in reverse."
"Yeah, I think you're right," Straffer admits: "Want some pad thai, Mr. President?"
Mr. USA looks at them, and the food. He sees the smiles on their faces and know that they're false. He can see the contempt in their eyes and feel the helpless anger in their hearts.
And all he can do is smile, shake his head, and turn to leave.
"I'll do what I can," he says as he heads for the door: "It may not be much, but I will try."
"Eh, no bother," SPYGOD shrugs.
"No, it is," Mr. USA says, turning back: "I told you I had your back. And I do. I just have to find a way, here. But I will. I swear I will-"
"We understand, really," Straffer adds, pointing to the copious amounts of food on the table: "You want some to go?"
"Please!" Mr. USA cries: "Please believe me! Please don't hate me! Everything I've done... everything, I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. But... it's all going wrong. Just... terribly wrong...."
And the two men at the table just look at him as he tears up -- his face red and shaking -- but they say nothing. They just stare, as if embarrassed.
"I swear I will..." Mr. USA says, and leaves -- exiting the apartment so quickly that the guards at the door don't even have time to realize their President had been crying.
* * *
"Well, that !@#$ing sucked," SPYGOD says, pushing his noodles away from him.
"Yeah," Straffer admits, daubing at his eyes with a paper napkin: "Did we really have to do that?"
"I was talking about the noodles," he says, winking: "After I've had yours, everything else tastes like !@#$."
"I'm serious, (REDACTED)," Straffer says, holding his hand: "Did we have to do that to him? Really?"
"Yes," SPYGOD sighs: "I don't !@#$ing like it any more than you do. But there's a sequence to these !@#$ things, now. And that's part of it."
"I just wish we knew more."
And SPYGOD looks out the window, knowing who's watching him.
"I'm afraid we're going to wish we knew nothing at all, here, pretty !@#$ soon."
And there's precious little to say after that.
Friday, June 28, 2013
12/15/12 - Hold Your Head Up, Keep Your Head Up
- SPYGOD stands naked before the burning, twitching corpse of the Flier, strewn across the ruins of the Lost City, and knows peace for the first time in months.
He watches as cyclopean War Spawn heave and slither across the crumbling ziggurats and pyramids, searching for more paralyzed Imago to stuff into their fanged and puckered orifices. In the dying light of the setting, Pacific Sun, they become less things from nightmare, and more like weird forces of nature. Rarely-seen elementals, perhaps -- mighty knots of earth, wind, and water given both form and a voice, however disturbing.
He turns to regard the steaming, stinking mess he's turned the Dragon into, but cannot find any sign of that grotesque act of violence left. Not even the massive, caustic pool of long-withheld god-urine remains, now, to say nothing of the battered lump of plastic, metal, bone, and brain it was so angrily unleashed upon.
All he can find is a large plastic spoon, still in its see-through wrapper.
SPYGOD considers this, and picks up the utensil. As he looks at it, he realizes that it has become night. What he thought the last, wavering rays of the Sun are merely the great, unearthly fires that burn uncontrolled under a dark sky, bereft of Moon and star.
The great white robot is nowhere to be seen, now. The War Spawn have all gone. Only the fires remain, casting their ominous shadows about the cracked surfaces of the Lost City.
Or is it? Now this city has changed its shape, before his eye -- becoming a single, small temple that SPYGOD remembers all too well.
It a small and beetling thing, this temple; a throwback to a truly ancient time in a distant land that was fought over for so long, but for all the wrong reasons. Its towering, rhomboidal entrance blazes with pure white light, and strange and angry noises issue forth along with that pure and brilliant illumination.
SPYGOD doesn't so much walk over to the door as he simply appears before it. He smiles, just a little, knowing that this must be a dream, or else a very skewed memory, and what happens next proves him quite right.
Inside, he sees himself as he was, a little over fifty years ago -- a vision in tight black leather, with not nearly enough guns and knives at hand. He is a man who appears younger than he really is, but has the eyes of an old man who's seen too much. He's just just starting to sag in the wrong places, and really feel the weight of what he's signed up for.
Especially here and now.
He has just shot his way through every doughty, vermillion-robed warrior monk of the temple, perhaps a hundred in all. They all attacked him, as they attacked the one who came before him -- the one he was trying to beat here -- and seemed almost apologetic about trying to kill him. But he had no such sentiments in return, and gladly shot, stabbed, and punched them all into the oblivion they claimed to be guarding against.
(Or served, perhaps? Nothing here was quite what it seemed at the time, he would later realize.)
Now, at the end of his quest, he is carefully approaching their great and only treasure. It sits on a small dais in the center of the main room, glittering every color known to man, and many that are mysterious and incomprehensible.
The Chandra Eye, itself.
"I pity you..." the eldest monk is saying as he bleeds out, not bothering to staunch the sucking wound below his heart: "This burden you must take upon yourself. We would have stopped you, but you alone have proven worthy. For that, we can only apologize..."
"Apology accepted," the younger him says, holding a hand up to his eyes (my god, two eyes!) and reaching towards the treasure: "Now, if you don't !@#$ing mind, I got a world to save, and not a lot of !@#$ time to do it..."
"But do you know what saving it like this will mean? The burden... it will bring upon you?"
"Yeah, well, I got a bad !@#$ing habit of getting burdened. Kind of goes with the !@#$ job description."
"This is nothing like that," his dying attacker says, watching as the man's hand closes around the treasure: "Other things, you could walk away from. Once this is inside you, there is no escape. It will be you, and you it, from now until forever, and perhaps beyond."
"So it's just like Camp Rogers, again," he says, taking the eye from the dais and holding it in his hand. As he does, it shrinks down, becoming exactly the size of a human eye.
"That experience you could understand, my friend. What is to come, however, will constantly confound you. You will slowly learn what it means to be a God, one revelation at a time. And in the ages to come, you will know nothing but change... and obligation...
"And regret..." dreaming SPYGOD says, in time with the last words of the monk, who closes his eyes and slips away.
"Yeah, well, !@#$ regret," the man SPYGOD was says, searching his pockets for the right tool for the job. All his knives are rusty or bloody, and not really good at gouging...
The dreaming SPYGOD looks at the plastic spoon he's had in his hand the entire time, and chuckles darkly. He assumes the right throwing stance, cocks his arm back, and tosses the spoon in such a way that it lands in the very pocket his old self found it in, all those years ago.
"How the !@#$ did that get there?" that one says, looking over where his future, dreaming self stands, as if he can see him, though he cannot.
But a few fevered seconds later, after he's done the bloody and irrevocable thing that spoon needed to be used for, and put the Chandra Eye in the ragged, bleeding socket that action has created, he can.
"But you didn't know what you saw, then, did you?" a familiar voice asks from right behind dreaming SPYGOD as his old self holds his head and screams: "You didn't recognize yourself, any more than you could have recognized me..."
"You...?" SPYGOD says, turning around as-
- he's shaken from dreams by the sound of a shrill and insistent alarm clock that is not is own.
His eyes crack open. His mouth sours. He reaches for the gun he normally keeps by the side of the bed for the purpose of shooting his alarm clock, but cannot find it, and wonders what the !@#$ is going on here.
Then he remembers, and would much rather be !@#$ing asleep.
In the end, he extends his penis out of the sheets, and over to the night stand, where it becomes a giant, meaty fist and beats the living !@#$ out of the offending noisemaker. The sound the device makes in its last seconds on earth -- five considerable thumps into its demise -- is akin to a pocket video game in desperate need of new batteries.
That done, SPYGOD snuggles up to the person in his bed, trying to get back to sleep. But something's not right. The exertions of his motile manhood have disrupted the cozy configuration they were in, and now they can't quite get it back. He moves one way, the other man moves the other. He tries to compensate, so does the other.
And he'd love to wake his partner up and try to coordinate their shared movements, but Straffer looks so angelic when he's asleep, SPYGOD doesn't dare disturb him.
So he just watches him sleep, for a few minutes, smiling as he does. And then he slips out of bed, realizing he's not getting any more rest this morning, and pads naked through his new bedroom, towards the kitchen.
(Their new bedroom, he has to remind himself. Theirs.)
The halls are jam-packed with hastily-packed boxes and things, some of which are marked with where they're going to go. Remnants of an old life, and reminders of a new reality, all stacked atop one another in teetering piles one bad move from crumbling over and down.
He remembers MacArthur leaving Korea, after Truman had had enough. How that stately General had looked at his packed-up office, and then at him, and said "It's the old rule about changing assignments, son. You can't stay here, anymore, but you can always take it with you, one !@#$ box at a time."
"Good thing you've got people to carry them for you, sir," SPYGOD had said. He'd never known if the man had appreciated the joke or not. He was always hard to read, MacArthur.
On the way to the kitchen, he comes across Bee-Bee, who's sprawled atop a tall tower of boxes, snoozing next to an empty bottle of vodka. They got him a new pillow to make up for the one he lost (along with a much better gun than that old, museum piece) but the cat's turned up his nose at both of them, clearly preferring this dangerous perch, instead.
SPYGOD reaches up to scritch him under the chin, but the cat mumbles sleepy obscenities at him ("Eбут выключен, мудак...") and he decides to let the ungrateful bag of fuzz and farts sleep it off.
At last the kitchen, full of thai takeaway boxes and empty cans of Singha. They haven't properly set up in there, yet, but the important things are out. A microwave, plastic silverware, a big block of sharp, long knives.
And, most important of all, a coffee machine that's set at the same time as the alarm.
As he watches the coffee drip down into the pot, SPYGOD thinks about the dream/memory he just had. He remembers how he saw himself, all those years ago, when he put the Chandra Eye in his skull. He also remembers who was standing with him, though he didn't know him yet.
(This changes things, to say the least. Something to look into, when he has the ability, again. Whenever that is...)
Before he knows it, the pot is full. He takes the entire thing with him into the living room, and, staring at the windows with their heavy drapes, absentmindedly drinks the whole !@#$ thing down in two gulps. Then he tosses it onto the couch, and belches loud enough to make the windows shake.
"Ah, !@#$ it," he says, striding over to the drapes: "No sense delaying it."
He opens the drapes up and looks down from his high window, Life of Brian style. It's a beautiful, winter's day. The sun is shining, the air is clear, the snow is new and sparkling.
And someone down below screams "Murderer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and throws a bottle up at him.
She's not alone in this. Before he can even blink that bottle is joined by snowballs, trash, cans, and the occasional moltov cocktail. The massive crowd down there, far below his window, is screaming and baying for blood, holding up signs that scream "Murderer of children!" and "Assassin of the poor" in a dozen languages.
He can count them with ease: two thousand, five hundred, forty-nine -- six more than yesterday. He can tell they come from all over the world, based on their looks and the languages he can hear them using. He can practically smell their hate from up here.
Between the throng and the building is a line of police. They look like they would rather be anywhere other than here. One of them turns and flips SPYGOD the bird, eliciting cheers from the nearby crowd.
And beyond them all, a solid line of news vans, and reporters with video cameras, all happy to lap this up for the constant news feed.
"House arrest, day two," SPYGOD sighs, watching them burn him in effigy, and wondering how much trouble he'd get in for putting out the fire by peeing on them.
(SPYGOD is listening to Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics, by way of Emily Browning) and having black coffee by the gallon.)
He watches as cyclopean War Spawn heave and slither across the crumbling ziggurats and pyramids, searching for more paralyzed Imago to stuff into their fanged and puckered orifices. In the dying light of the setting, Pacific Sun, they become less things from nightmare, and more like weird forces of nature. Rarely-seen elementals, perhaps -- mighty knots of earth, wind, and water given both form and a voice, however disturbing.
He turns to regard the steaming, stinking mess he's turned the Dragon into, but cannot find any sign of that grotesque act of violence left. Not even the massive, caustic pool of long-withheld god-urine remains, now, to say nothing of the battered lump of plastic, metal, bone, and brain it was so angrily unleashed upon.
All he can find is a large plastic spoon, still in its see-through wrapper.
SPYGOD considers this, and picks up the utensil. As he looks at it, he realizes that it has become night. What he thought the last, wavering rays of the Sun are merely the great, unearthly fires that burn uncontrolled under a dark sky, bereft of Moon and star.
The great white robot is nowhere to be seen, now. The War Spawn have all gone. Only the fires remain, casting their ominous shadows about the cracked surfaces of the Lost City.
Or is it? Now this city has changed its shape, before his eye -- becoming a single, small temple that SPYGOD remembers all too well.
It a small and beetling thing, this temple; a throwback to a truly ancient time in a distant land that was fought over for so long, but for all the wrong reasons. Its towering, rhomboidal entrance blazes with pure white light, and strange and angry noises issue forth along with that pure and brilliant illumination.
SPYGOD doesn't so much walk over to the door as he simply appears before it. He smiles, just a little, knowing that this must be a dream, or else a very skewed memory, and what happens next proves him quite right.
Inside, he sees himself as he was, a little over fifty years ago -- a vision in tight black leather, with not nearly enough guns and knives at hand. He is a man who appears younger than he really is, but has the eyes of an old man who's seen too much. He's just just starting to sag in the wrong places, and really feel the weight of what he's signed up for.
Especially here and now.
He has just shot his way through every doughty, vermillion-robed warrior monk of the temple, perhaps a hundred in all. They all attacked him, as they attacked the one who came before him -- the one he was trying to beat here -- and seemed almost apologetic about trying to kill him. But he had no such sentiments in return, and gladly shot, stabbed, and punched them all into the oblivion they claimed to be guarding against.
(Or served, perhaps? Nothing here was quite what it seemed at the time, he would later realize.)
Now, at the end of his quest, he is carefully approaching their great and only treasure. It sits on a small dais in the center of the main room, glittering every color known to man, and many that are mysterious and incomprehensible.
The Chandra Eye, itself.
"I pity you..." the eldest monk is saying as he bleeds out, not bothering to staunch the sucking wound below his heart: "This burden you must take upon yourself. We would have stopped you, but you alone have proven worthy. For that, we can only apologize..."
"Apology accepted," the younger him says, holding a hand up to his eyes (my god, two eyes!) and reaching towards the treasure: "Now, if you don't !@#$ing mind, I got a world to save, and not a lot of !@#$ time to do it..."
"But do you know what saving it like this will mean? The burden... it will bring upon you?"
"Yeah, well, I got a bad !@#$ing habit of getting burdened. Kind of goes with the !@#$ job description."
"This is nothing like that," his dying attacker says, watching as the man's hand closes around the treasure: "Other things, you could walk away from. Once this is inside you, there is no escape. It will be you, and you it, from now until forever, and perhaps beyond."
"So it's just like Camp Rogers, again," he says, taking the eye from the dais and holding it in his hand. As he does, it shrinks down, becoming exactly the size of a human eye.
"That experience you could understand, my friend. What is to come, however, will constantly confound you. You will slowly learn what it means to be a God, one revelation at a time. And in the ages to come, you will know nothing but change... and obligation...
"And regret..." dreaming SPYGOD says, in time with the last words of the monk, who closes his eyes and slips away.
"Yeah, well, !@#$ regret," the man SPYGOD was says, searching his pockets for the right tool for the job. All his knives are rusty or bloody, and not really good at gouging...
The dreaming SPYGOD looks at the plastic spoon he's had in his hand the entire time, and chuckles darkly. He assumes the right throwing stance, cocks his arm back, and tosses the spoon in such a way that it lands in the very pocket his old self found it in, all those years ago.
"How the !@#$ did that get there?" that one says, looking over where his future, dreaming self stands, as if he can see him, though he cannot.
But a few fevered seconds later, after he's done the bloody and irrevocable thing that spoon needed to be used for, and put the Chandra Eye in the ragged, bleeding socket that action has created, he can.
"But you didn't know what you saw, then, did you?" a familiar voice asks from right behind dreaming SPYGOD as his old self holds his head and screams: "You didn't recognize yourself, any more than you could have recognized me..."
"You...?" SPYGOD says, turning around as-
- he's shaken from dreams by the sound of a shrill and insistent alarm clock that is not is own.
His eyes crack open. His mouth sours. He reaches for the gun he normally keeps by the side of the bed for the purpose of shooting his alarm clock, but cannot find it, and wonders what the !@#$ is going on here.
Then he remembers, and would much rather be !@#$ing asleep.
In the end, he extends his penis out of the sheets, and over to the night stand, where it becomes a giant, meaty fist and beats the living !@#$ out of the offending noisemaker. The sound the device makes in its last seconds on earth -- five considerable thumps into its demise -- is akin to a pocket video game in desperate need of new batteries.
That done, SPYGOD snuggles up to the person in his bed, trying to get back to sleep. But something's not right. The exertions of his motile manhood have disrupted the cozy configuration they were in, and now they can't quite get it back. He moves one way, the other man moves the other. He tries to compensate, so does the other.
And he'd love to wake his partner up and try to coordinate their shared movements, but Straffer looks so angelic when he's asleep, SPYGOD doesn't dare disturb him.
So he just watches him sleep, for a few minutes, smiling as he does. And then he slips out of bed, realizing he's not getting any more rest this morning, and pads naked through his new bedroom, towards the kitchen.
(Their new bedroom, he has to remind himself. Theirs.)
The halls are jam-packed with hastily-packed boxes and things, some of which are marked with where they're going to go. Remnants of an old life, and reminders of a new reality, all stacked atop one another in teetering piles one bad move from crumbling over and down.
He remembers MacArthur leaving Korea, after Truman had had enough. How that stately General had looked at his packed-up office, and then at him, and said "It's the old rule about changing assignments, son. You can't stay here, anymore, but you can always take it with you, one !@#$ box at a time."
"Good thing you've got people to carry them for you, sir," SPYGOD had said. He'd never known if the man had appreciated the joke or not. He was always hard to read, MacArthur.
On the way to the kitchen, he comes across Bee-Bee, who's sprawled atop a tall tower of boxes, snoozing next to an empty bottle of vodka. They got him a new pillow to make up for the one he lost (along with a much better gun than that old, museum piece) but the cat's turned up his nose at both of them, clearly preferring this dangerous perch, instead.
SPYGOD reaches up to scritch him under the chin, but the cat mumbles sleepy obscenities at him ("Eбут выключен, мудак...") and he decides to let the ungrateful bag of fuzz and farts sleep it off.
At last the kitchen, full of thai takeaway boxes and empty cans of Singha. They haven't properly set up in there, yet, but the important things are out. A microwave, plastic silverware, a big block of sharp, long knives.
And, most important of all, a coffee machine that's set at the same time as the alarm.
As he watches the coffee drip down into the pot, SPYGOD thinks about the dream/memory he just had. He remembers how he saw himself, all those years ago, when he put the Chandra Eye in his skull. He also remembers who was standing with him, though he didn't know him yet.
(This changes things, to say the least. Something to look into, when he has the ability, again. Whenever that is...)
Before he knows it, the pot is full. He takes the entire thing with him into the living room, and, staring at the windows with their heavy drapes, absentmindedly drinks the whole !@#$ thing down in two gulps. Then he tosses it onto the couch, and belches loud enough to make the windows shake.
"Ah, !@#$ it," he says, striding over to the drapes: "No sense delaying it."
He opens the drapes up and looks down from his high window, Life of Brian style. It's a beautiful, winter's day. The sun is shining, the air is clear, the snow is new and sparkling.
And someone down below screams "Murderer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and throws a bottle up at him.
She's not alone in this. Before he can even blink that bottle is joined by snowballs, trash, cans, and the occasional moltov cocktail. The massive crowd down there, far below his window, is screaming and baying for blood, holding up signs that scream "Murderer of children!" and "Assassin of the poor" in a dozen languages.
He can count them with ease: two thousand, five hundred, forty-nine -- six more than yesterday. He can tell they come from all over the world, based on their looks and the languages he can hear them using. He can practically smell their hate from up here.
Between the throng and the building is a line of police. They look like they would rather be anywhere other than here. One of them turns and flips SPYGOD the bird, eliciting cheers from the nearby crowd.
And beyond them all, a solid line of news vans, and reporters with video cameras, all happy to lap this up for the constant news feed.
"House arrest, day two," SPYGOD sighs, watching them burn him in effigy, and wondering how much trouble he'd get in for putting out the fire by peeing on them.
(SPYGOD is listening to Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics, by way of Emily Browning) and having black coffee by the gallon.)
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