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 )

12/21/12 - The Trial of the Imago - pt 1.

You know, son, it's funny. I've lived through so much !@#$ history that I often forget that I should be !@#$ing present when it actually !@#$ing happens.

I mean, Nuremberg. The main trial of all the major Nazi bastards? Took just under a !@#$ing year, and defined so much !@#$ that happened after. All those awful people, all those terrible revelations, all those weird moments of dark humor...

And where the !@#$ was I? Well, that's still !@#$ing classified, son. And believe me when I say you really do not want to !@#$ing know anything about that one.

(!@#$, I don't want to know about it.)

But I was not any!@#$ingwhere near Nuremberg, and since I'd single-handedly deprived the tribunal of their biggest potential defendant I don't think they'd have !@#$ing wanted me there, either.

That's not to say it was a star-free affair, though. !@#$ no. Mr. USA was there, keeping an eye on things along with a few other Strategic Talents. They were mostly making sure ABWEHR didn't try to !@#$ all over the proceedings with their super-Nazi bull!@#$, but they were also keeping an eye on the !@#$ super-commies, because !@#$ knows what they might have gotten up to if we hadn't had certain precautions in place.

(Though, given what I was doing at the time, I had some pretty !@#$ good ideas. But that's classified, son.)

We weren't talking, then, Mr. USA and I. I had no idea that I'd !@#$ing ruined our friendship (or even why), but I could tell he was angry about something. How angry I wouldn't know until Korea, when he and I actually smashed half a !@#$ing town down, arguing, and he still wouldn't !@#$ing tell me what I'd done wrong.

But while was wasn't talking to me, then, he was still talking. And I remember overhearing him telling someone that the whole year just seemed to go by in slow motion, like when your life is so !@#$ty that you only live for a dream.

Well, for him, the trial was the dream, if you can !@#$ing believe that. He was there in his dress uniform, day after !@#$ing day, watching this great !@#$ing piece of history get made. This massive case against these men, like a sword being smashed into shape. It was pounded by hammers and shoved back into the fire, over and over, until the day would come that it was heavy enough to wield and sharp enough to cut.

And after watching that sword get made, hour after hour, he'd go back to his barracks and lay awake all !@#$ing night, haunted and unable to sleep.

And yes, he can sleep. He doesn't like that I know that, but I do. SPYGOD knows all.

(Sometimes.)

...

So that brings us to the !@#$ing Imago trial. As you probably know, it happened. It's over. 

And we lost.

Oh, they didn't !@#$ing walk, son. No !@#$ing way did they squeak out of this one. They were found guilty ten million ways to Sunday and !@#$ing back again.

But did they pay for it?

...

I don't know, son. I really just don't.

It !@#$ing started on the 12th of November, and it ended on the 26th. Two whole weeks (including !@#$ing weekends) to officially !@#$ing catalog the total known offenses, hear from key witnesses and carefully selected survivors, and make the case that these metal-plated !@#$-weasels deserved to have a book the size of a !@#$ing planet hurled at their skulls.

And yes, I was there. I was a witness, both for the trial and of the trial. I got up on that stand when it was my turn and I !@#$ing said my piece, which was quite !@#$ing lengthy, and...

And.

There's some !@#$ here, son. Bad !@#$. And it's a sad thing that it's four !@#$ days till !@#$ing Christmas and all I can !@#$ing think about it that moment when it all went !@#$ing wrong, both for me and for us.

And the bad thing I had to do while the !@#$ trial was going on.

But I guess Christmas is a good time for ghosts?

So let's talk about bad spirits, son. Let's talk about the trial of the !@#$ing Millennium.

And let's talk about who really got found guilty, at the end of it.

(SPYGOD is listening to All in Good Time (Dead Can Dance) and having a Gavroche)

12/18/12 - Some People Understand Their Dream

Got a call from the President of the United States, today, and that could have been a total !@#$ing disaster.

Why? Well, son, as you !@#$ing well know I'm under house arrest. And one of the conditions of my incarceration is that I'm not !@#$ing allowed to drink more than my weight in alcohol per day. Something about how it makes me make bad !@#$ing decisions, though that's total bull!@#$, as you well know.

(I'm also not allowed to have more than three !@#$ing guns at any given time, or engage in direct contact with any past or current members of the COMPANY. They even took away my !@#$ tjbang sticks, the !@#$ers.)

So I'm !@#$ing sober, at 9 in the !@#$ AM, and haven't even been able to get myself some of that nasty, black heroin I'm drinking to pretend I'm the sort of person who gets up that !@#$ early, and suddenly the !@#$ President is on the horn, asking for me.

(Oh, yeah, and I'm !@#$ing naked, though that's nothing he hasn't !@#$ing seen before.)

What does he want? The !@#$ing usual. He wants to know how I am, how things are, how I'm adjusting.

"Adjusting." !@#$ of a !@#$ing word for this kind of situation. I'm essentially going on trial for doing my !@#$ing job because a bunch of bean-counters and ant-!@#$ers don't agree with all the decisions I made.

(Not that I don't agree some mistakes happened along the way, of course. But Jesus !@#$ing Christ, let's keep things in perspective.)

So of course I have to !@#$ing push it. I ask him how he's !@#$ing "adjusting," since he kind of had the office !@#$ing shoved onto him after its previous owner vacated, a couple weeks ago, after some really bad !@#$ went down.

And he says "oh, that's not fair." And I say "well, that's life, and maybe you should have thought about that before you agreed to be his !@#$ing veep."

And Mr. USA sighs and says a bunch of !@#$ that I'm not really all that !@#$ing interested in, because it all comes back down to one thing. It's him waving and !@#$ing drowning because, for all his powers and experience, he has no !@#$ing idea how to handle a country that's in the kind of !@#$ing shape America's in right now.

We have nothing beyond the state level, right now, son. We have no!@#$ing federal infrastructure, anymore. No military, no disaster relief, no money.

No nothing.

Which would have been okay if we'd been able to keep the Imago's technology, and let the states get back on their feet using it. But it turns out when we pulled the !@#$ plug on it, the whole !@#$ thing fell down and did not get back up again.

(Plus, after their trial, which I was !@#$ proud to help with, whatever wasn't down on the ground got put away for perpetuity. So there goes that idea.)

So there's your big !@#$ irony for you, son. The federal government is finally small enough to drown in a !@#$ing bathtub, and all the people who wanted to do it are either dead, insane, or wishing it would come back to life and save their !@#$es.

And as for the Presidency? To mangle John Nance Garner, the position is now not worth a bucket of warm !@#$. Especially since the TU wants to "help" us with our Federal Problem by swooping in and doing it for us.

And, at this !@#$ moment, that's not my problem.

Of course, if the President of the United States of America wants to put a good word in for me with the President of the TU, I'd be happy to suit the !@#$ up and come back to work. But he can't do that, and I know he won't ask.

So he ends the call, somewhat red-faced, and goes back to trying to manage a herd of cats in the dark. And I go back to grousing and grumbling and wanting a real !@#$ing drink, and settling for brewing up some !@#$ing coffee and drinking it right out of the !@#$ pot.

Mr. USA. We were allies, then rivals, then enemies, then allies, and then friends again, after all the !@#$ we went through at the end, there. And now I'm feeling like busting out of here, going to the White House, and kicking his head through his !@#$hole until he gets his !@#$ testicles back.

Still, I can't totally blame him. He's as much a creature of duty as I am. It's just that he takes orders from people, and I take them from me. 

Which probably explains why I'm !@#$ing here, now, doesn't it?

...

Ah well, enough of that !@#$. My lovely man is up and moving, and there's a full day of !@#$ on television. And if I'm really !@#$ing nice, he might just make me some more of that wonderful baked french toast he made, yesterday.

(Lucky me, my man spent all his time on Deep-Ten wishing he could actually !@#$ing cook in a real kitchen, for people in his own pay grade, and saved up decades worth of recipes, techniques, and ideas. Now we get to do it for real, amongst other things...)

So there's that to look forward to, at least. And while it doesn't really help with the lack of booze, it's a start.

And I'm never going to turn down a good !@#$ start.

(SPYGOD is listening to Some People (Belouis Some) and having a !@#$ton of coffee)

12/17/12 - A Way To Break Through This Cellophane Line

You know, son, the last !@#$ time I was in prison for any appreciable length of time, it was back in !@#$ing Korea, all those !@#$ years ago.

The !@#$ commies had me locked down in a POW camp, and chained up with these special Chinese manacles that kept me from using my !@#$ing powers. And, as I didn't have this shiny little beauty of an eye in my noggin, then, I was pretty well !@#$ed.

Or so they !@#$ing thought, which shows you what your average stupid-!@#$ commie !@#$ knows.

Truth was, I could have broken the !@#$ out of those power-dampeners at any time. I had the know-how, the skills, and an ace up my sleeve that I'm still not !@#$ing allowed to talk about. But I had my orders, which said that I had to stay there until I could ascertain what the Chinese and Soviets were up to.

And you know why orders are !@#$ing orders, son? Because you don't have to !@#$ing like them, but you gotta !@$#ing do them.

So I sat still, played helpless, and watched while terrible things happened all around me. I saw good American GIs and Koreans get starved, beaten, and shot. I saw Strategic Talents get tortured to death, just inches away from my !@#$ eyes.

!@#$, son. I saw ten men raping a South Korean fighter with nightsticks until his intestines fell out of his !@#$hole like bloody !@#$ sausage, just to make the other South Korean prisoners more compliant.

And I watched this, knowing that I could have !@#$ing saved them. But if I did I'd have blown the mission open like a monkey in a barrel of !@#$ing dynamite who's crammed a book of matches up his !@#$.

So I just sat there and watched, manacled by orders stronger than any chain their commie science buddies could have come up with. And I kept my eyes and ears open, even though I did not want to see. And only when I had the information that I'd come for, courtesy of The Dragon's presence in their camp, did I finally !@#$ing shake off those !@#$ chains and get some payback.

Oh, did I ever get some !@#$ payback. I hear the North Koreans still whisper about the Night of SPYGOD, just in case I ever make it North of Seoul, again. Something about fists and guns and fire and the honest power of American revenge.

(And how !@#$ hard it is to run away with a lit nightstick up your !@#$ing !@#$...)

Anyway, that !@#$ed me up something severe for quite a while, sitting there and watching all that without being able to do anything. Thankfully, General MacArthur understood, and graciously set my !@#$ straight, courtesy of my first ever skull-!@#$ing. And I know that makoli house still remembers me.

After that, I kind of associated prison stays as either a temporary setback, or an opportunity to get intel. But I never, ever let myself get !@#$ing maneuvered into a situation where I'd have to watch my friends die and do nothing. Never ever again, son. Never !@#$ing ever.

Which is why I'm not feeling very !@#$ happy to be sitting here, in this nice apartment the city of Neo York City has thoughtfully given the TU to cage me in, along with my boyfriend and my cat, prior to my trial for crimes against Humanity.

That's right, son. TU. As in Terre Unifiee. As in the !@#$ing French, who didn't even have any !@#$ skin in the game while their friends and neighbors fought and bled, and then walked out of the !@#$ end of the Reclamation War with a ton of stuff and strategic talents.

And then they all said "Bon !@#$ing jour, mes amis. Let us tell you how to run things, now."

Okay, okay. No. It didn't exactly happen like that. But it's !@#$ near close enough for !@#$ing government work.

See, all those years we were laughing at Direction Noir and their pathological do-nothing ways, it turns out those horse-chewing !@#$ers were playing it smart. They had a doomsday plan all ready to go, ever since the !@#$ 60's. They horded and they tweaked it and they waited, and, most !@#$ing important of all, they kept their !@#$ mouths shut,

And now, here they are, and they're in charge, and it's like !@#$ing Esperanto all over again.

And it's not like they're doing a bad !@#$ing job of it, either, son. That's what really sucks about this. If they'd been cruel or conquering, or even somewhat graft-handed, then I could justify sneaking out of this well-heeled !@#$hole and kicking their pasty white !@#$es back to Paris and shoving fresh baguettes where la soleil does not !@#$ing shine. 

But it's not like that at all. They've actually done a good job under the circumstances. Things are better than they were two months ago. !@#$ they're better than they were a week ago. They even got the !@#$ internet back up and running again...

But we could have done so much more.

The world was down to pieces, son. Just parts and people, looking up at the sky and asking "what now?" We could have built a new world up from that. A free world, full of free people and free markets. We could have had gun rights, civil rights, everything...

Instead, we get francophone caretakers who think they know what's best for us.

And worst of all, especially for me? They're being led by someone who's got it in for me like you would not believe.

Which sort of explains why I'm here, right now. Although there are many other reasons... not all of which are my !@#$ing fault, but some of them might as well be. You know how !@#$ing reckless I can get when I need to kick some !@#$ for life, liberty, and the defense of America.

And oh, isn't that just !@#$ing ironic, now.

So yeah, son. Long story, short time. The trial's due to start after New Years, which gives me a couple weeks to figure out what the !@#$ we're going to do. My legal team thinks we're !@#$ed, and I can't see that they're wrong, either. And if they aren't, and we are, well... SPYGOD could be in some deep !@#$ing !@#$ come the trial.

But this also gives me some time to take it easy, and enjoy actually !@#$ing having a boyfriend, and a cat. Not having to worry about the whole !@#$ world, anymore, is something of a novel experience. Sort of like realizing you didn't have to recite Shakespeare while you took a !@#$, after years of going through play after play, sonnet after sonnet.

It also gives me time to play around with a few things I've been learning about myself, too, though that's not something you have to know about just yet, son.

(Though the TU might just be learning about it before too !@#$ long.)

So, why don't we call it a night on getting maudlin and complaining? I'll fill you in on what !@#$ing happened as we go along, here, I promise. But for now, I'd like to settle in, have some wonderful homemade Pad Thai, watch some tube, and have hot gay sex in front of an open window just to make those protesters out there really !@#$ing angry.

Because I'm not the one who's locked up here, son. And by the time they figure that out, well... I think the world will have well and truly !@#$ing turned.

Bon apetit, mother!@#$ers.

(SPYGOD is listening to Living in a Box (Living in a Box) and having a bottle of La Biere du Demon )

9/20/12 - (The Owl) Bigger Than God - Interlude

... Martha remembers:

She's twelve, and sparring with her father in the Owl's Nest. It's been a rough and bruising session, because they're trying something new, but she's riding high on adrenalin and pride, and not minding it at all. Not much, anyway.

Pain means she's alive, unlike her brother, Mathew.

"Okay, and stop," her father says, putting his hands down and smiling at her: "How are you doing? Do you feel like you can go on?"

"I can," she says, rubbing her arms.

"Are you sure?" he asks, raising an eyebrow: "I don't want to break you."

"I'm sure."

"Okay then. But first, a question."

She sighs, hopefully not too audibly. He always does this to her, between workouts. If she answers wrong then he makes her change, read something appropriate from the Bible, and then go do her homework for an hour or two.

"Yes sir," she says, standing up as straight as she can.

"You're in pursuit of a criminal, and civilians have mistaken you for the criminal you're after. They're all over you, and not listening, and he's getting away. What do you do?"

She blinks. That's not something they've ever talked about.

"Um... I'd ask them to let me go one more time, and then..." she stammers, unsure.

"He's getting away, Martha," her father says, looming over her and speaking in that scary, booming voice he uses when he's in uniform: "You don't have time to think-"

"I'd beat them off me, and then continue pursuit," she says, quickly: "I can't let him get away."

Her father looks at her, and sighs, and she realizes she's made a mistake.

"You can't do that, Martha," he says, putting a hand on her shoulder, and getting her to look him in the eyes: "We protect the public. If we hurt the public, then we're no better than the people we're defending them against. You want to get away from them with as little damage as possible."

"I don't know how to do that, yet," she protests, weakly.

"No, but that needs to be your first impulse, honey. I'll show you how the next time we train."

Her eyes fills with tears, and he pretends not to see them: "In the meantime, I think you should read... hmm... "

"I think she's right, actually," someone announces from across the room, walking closer. Someone she does not recognize, at least not right away.

Martha immediately assumes a self-defense stance, ready to attack the person who's somehow invaded the Owl's Nest, and wondering why her father isn't doing the same.

"Don't tell me you did it again?" her father says, crossing his arms as the stranger walks closer.

"I told you, Joe. I have the greatest respect for your mission, but your security system needs some serious !@#$ing work."

"Ahem," her father says, indicating Martha.

"Oh, sorry kid. I keep forgetting I gotta keep it clean in here."

The stranger walks closer. He's large, well-built, and wearing a black leather uniform. As soon as he gets into the light, she sees he's wearing an eyepatch over one eye, and has a glass eye in the other.

And then she remembers him. He was at her brother's funeral, for a time. They weren't introduced. 

"Are you SPYGOD?" she asks, relaxing her stance a little.

"That would be me," he says, smiling: "And I think I won my bet with your father, again."

"Is that the only reason you're in town?" her dad asks, walking up to him to shake his hand.

"Well, I wanted some real pizza, too, " SPYGOD answers, laughing and clapping her dad on the shoulder.

"Pie, (REDACTED)," Joe laughs: "It's pie here in Chicago. Someday I'll teach you that."

"Maybe someday," the glass eye winks: "And I did have a few other reasons for dropping by. I didn't get a chance to talk at the funeral, and it wasn't the right time anyway..."

Her father looks at SPYGOD, SPYGOD looks at Martha, nods, and looks back: "Still isn't," he says.

"Not here, anyway," her dad says, trying to smile: "But while I've got you here, SPYGOD, maybe you can help us reason out something."

"What might that be?"

"I presume you heard the entire conversation that Martha and I were just having about public safety and fleeing criminals," he says, walking towards his daughter: "If you were training my daughter the way you train your Agents, then how would you want her to answer the question?"

"You sure you want me to do that, Joe?" SPYGOD asks, putting his hands behind his back: "It's bad enough I showed up your security system. I don't want to make a hash of your ethics lessons, too."

"Try me," her dad says, clapping his daughter on the shoulders and walking off to the side: "I wouldn't be training her to be the Talon if I didn't think she could handle it."

"Well, okay," SPYGOD says, walking closer and looking down at Martha: "Dang, kid. You're four foot nothing and weigh about as much as that pizza... that pie I was going to have, tonight. You ready to kick criminal !@#$ for your hometown?"

"Ready, sir," Martha says, remembering the funeral they don't want to talk about, and her brother's face in the casket, and the oath she took not long thereafter. Somehow SPYGOD doesn't seem as sure of himself, anymore.

"Well, then let me give you some advice," he says, reaching to pull out a cigarette, only to be *coughed* at her father, and then abandon the idea: "You're pretty lucky. Unlike most people I oversee, you've got your whole family in on the team. There's someone there to pick up the baton if you fall, and, well... yeah., I guess I don't need to remind you of that, do I?"

(Martha tries not to tear up at that.)

"But there will be times when you may be all alone. There may be no assistant to come get you, no group to call for help, no wandering hero to team up with. There may be a time when someone's life depends on you catching that criminal, or maybe the whole city. !@... er, heck, the whole world might need you to save it, someday.

"And if you fail? If you fall? All your knowledge goes down with you. The answers are all down for the count, and even the best of your allies and friends might not be able to solve the case in time.

"And that means that innocent people pay the price. The bomb goes off. Hostages die. The water supply gets filled with cyanide. Whatever crazy garbage the idiots you're chasing have planned happen.

"And you're lying in a ditch, or a hospital ward, somewhere, and can't do a darn thing to stop it.

"So you need to remember that the mission comes first. Always. And if that means you have to beat down a few civilians who don't read the darn newspapers, and can't tell the Talon from the Troublemaker, then so be it."

"And what if they're policemen?" her father asks from across the room: "Two beat cops, late at night? They've got you in your sights, and if you try to beat them down, bullets are going to be fired, and someone is going to get killed."

"Then you overpower them as quickly as possible, and send them flowers in the hospital," SPYGOD says, without missing a beat: "I remember this one time-"

"Not possible," her dad says: "Bystanders are in the shooting zone. If you move, they fire. If they fire, they're going to hit innocents."

"Well, then you kill them before they can shoot," SPYGOD says: "Quickly, efficiently. You can apologize later."

Martha blinks. The two men look at each other, and her father nods.

"Martha, I need to talk to SPYGOD about something that's strictly between us, as men," her dad says: "Homework, and then... Colossians, I think. 3:12 to 17. It might help."

"Yes, sir," Martha says, nodding to him, and then looking at SPYGOD.

"Are you Christian, sir?" she asks.

"Martha!" her dad exclaims, shocked that she'd be so rude.

"The answer's classified, young Talon," SPYGOD replies, winking at her: "But if I might suggest some readings? Romans 13. Whole !@#$ thing."

"Sir?" Martha asks, looking at her dad. He sighs and nods: "Homework, young lady. We'll talk about manners later."

With that, Martha wisely heads off to shower and change, not stopping to look back for fear of seeing two grown men argue over the word of God.

Later, when her father comes up to her room to see how she's doing, she doesn't get the expected lecture. He asks her what she thought of the two things she read, and seems satisfied with both her answers, and her confusion.

"Well, let me put it to you this way," he says, sitting down on her bed and look at her: "Do you remember what I told you about how the government looks into what superheroes do?"

"Yes. They have them all under orders, and can come in and tell them what to do at any time. They can even tell them to stop."

"That's right. And you know that the man who was just downstairs is the person who makes those decisions?"

She gulps: "I... I didn't get us into trouble, did I?"

"Oh no," her dad says, smiling: "Everything's fine. We have a special understanding with him. We always have. It goes back to the days of my Grandfather, who you never met. You see, when SPYGOD was growing up, as a child, he was a big fan of The Owl. He cut clippings out of the newspaper when he made the news out East, and just loved him.

"So when they met during World War II, when my grandfather helped train him and the first superheroes America made, it was like a dream come true. And when they made The COMPANY, and put SPYGOD in charge, he promised him that we'd be a special case. Can you guess why?"

"Is it because we're Christian?"

"No. And you always want to remember that just because someone disagrees with you, it's not because they're not Christian. Being Christian is between you and the Lord, but what really matters is what you do with other people, and what's in your heart. So maybe we shouldn't ask people who they pray to when we disagree with them?"

"Yes, sir," Martha says, properly chastised.

"I think the reason he trusts us is because we're a family. Reading between the lines, I think he came from a big family, himself. And when you're in a family, you look out for each other, and keep each other on the straight and narrow. Because you love your family like yourself."

"So why is he willing to kill people like that?" Martha asks: "The whole world is one family."

"That's right. And I'm glad to hear you think of it that way. But he..."

Her father looks like he's about to say something, and then looks askance, and doesn't.

"Dad?" Martha asks, getting up from her chair and walking to him: "What is it?"

"He walks a darker path than most of us, honey," her dad says, taking her hands in his: "He sees things we pray we never have to see, and does things that we never want to hear about. I think it's changed him. I fear for his soul, sometimes. But he is a good man, under all of that. I just wish I could help him the way he's helped us."

"Maybe I can pray for him?"

"I think that would be a wonderful thing," her father says, taking her in his arms and hugging her tightly: "Just don't tell him, okay? He gets a little weird about that."

"Yes, sir," she says: "He goes right on the list, right after..."

She doesn't say it. She doesn't have to. He smiles and nods, and just knows.

The next time she sees SPYGOD is a few months later, when she officially puts on the uniform and becomes the Talon. He's there at the handover ceremony, at the Owl's Nest.

(This time he doesn't succeed in sneaking in.)

"So, did you think about Romans?" he asks her, shaking her hand.

"I did, sir," she says: "And I think I have to go with life rather than death."

"Really?" he says, kneeling down so he can look up at her: "Every time?"

"Well, the Owl Line can get me out of most pile-ups, and screechers can paralyze most policemen before they fire."

"I hope so," he says, tapping her on the forehead: "But just remember. If you ever run out of tricks and toys, and the world's leaning on you? You have to go with the needs of the many over the few, or the one."

She raises an eyebrow, just like her dad does: "You got that from a movie."

"That's classified, kid," he chuckles, slapping her on the shoulder: "Go make me proud."

As he walks away to talk with her younger cousin, Rachel -- who's clearly upset about something -- she wonders why she'd want to make him proud, rather than her father and family. But as the years go on, and they encounter each other again and again, she realizes that it's actually a good thing that he's proud of her. Good, but sad.

For she realizes that he's on the outside, in the dark, looking in at a brighter world that he cannot be a part of, anymore.

And now, at this moment -- with death staring her and Kaitlyn in the face, and not nearly as many tricks and toys as she'd like -- she realizes that the darkness has come upon her, and she must put the many over the one, or the few.

God forgive me, she thinks, wondering how she'll send flowers, and to what hospital.

And...

(SPYGOD is listening to Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky, by way of William Orbit) and having that shake, !@#$ it)

9/03/12 - 9/08/12 - The Learning Curve - pt. 5

"So, what do we learn today?" the President asks, looking at what's left of the rock they spent yesterday shooting and exploding into little, smoking pieces.

"That's a !@#$ good question, Mr. President," SPYGOD says, sitting down and having some more of the tea his pupil learned the truth about, last night: "How about I leave that up to you?"

"Me?" the President asks, turning to look at his instructor with some incredulity.

"Yes, you," SPYGOD replies: "You ever wanted to ask me a question about how to do something, now's the !@#$ing time."

"Any question?"

"Well, within !@#$ing reason. There's some things I'm not telling anyone, no matter what."

"I bet," the President says: "I'm sure your trade secrets have secrets."

"Lies wrapped in truth," SPYGOD says, looking off into the distance: "Best way to serve 'em up."

"That's what the head of the CIA used to tell me," he says, sighing: "I wonder if he was actually him when he said that. How long was he one of theirs?"

"Near as I can tell?" SPYGOD asks: "I'm guessing sometime after I !@#$ed up the Legion, back in early December. Probably not too long after that."

"Why would you say that?"

"Well, after that whole mess with Agent S, I went over to his office and had a few words with him. And I don't mind telling you that I scared the living !@#$ out of him."

"Oh, the bathroom incident?" the President asks: "Yeah, his executive secretary wrote me a complaint about the smell. I told him to dip into the funds and buy a gas mask."

SPYGOD chuckles: "And they say you have no sense of humor."

"At times. You were saying?"

"Oh, right. Well, at that moment he was very !@#$ing afraid of me. That I got into his private little sanctum and interrupted his afternoon poop, that was bad enough. But the fact that I knew he was involved in that fiasco, and didn't need to prove it to act on it? That was terrifying.

"And the fact that I'd given you all the dirt I'd had saved up for a rainy week? Well, that !@#$ing petrified him, Mr. President. And that's a !@#$ hard thing to fake."

"And the next time you saw him, he wasn't afraid, anymore?"

"Not at all. Now, to my shame, at the time, I thought he was just being brave and putting up a front. And I was so !@#$ing busy with what happened after that, and then HONEYCOMB, and Costa Rica, and then GORGON, that it really slipped my mind."

"Yeah, you were a little preoccupied, there. One disaster after another."

SPYGOD scowls, but takes the criticism in stride: "And over time, towards the end, there, a small piece of my brain was telling me that he hadn't been putting up a front. The !@#$er just wasn't afraid of me, anymore. But even then, I wasn't sure why. Did he have a better angle? Was someone else helping him? Did another plan to de-SPYGOD his Washington D.C. come along? And-"

"And you told yourself you'd look into it, and you never did."

"Because I didn't !@#$ing have the time."

"And you don't delegate responsibility very well."

"No," SPYGOD admits: "I don't. I have Agents all over the world doing a multitude of things, strategic talents at my beck and call, and all kinds of ways to put pressure and heat on people and things. But when it comes to things like that? I want to look into them myself. I need to be the one to look in on them."

The President nods: "Trust issues?"

"Maybe. Or maybe perfectionism."

"I think our definitions of perfect might not agree with one another."

"Possibly. You wanting another impromptu training session where I kick your !@#$ with moves you never even heard of?"

The President smiles: "You really don't to be criticized, either, do you?"

"Does anyone?"

"No, not really," the President says, sighing: "Neither do I. And I have to be honest, here, (REDACTED). I dropped the ball, too."

"Really?" That gets SPYGOD's attention.

"Yes. There were things I noticed as well. Little things, weird coincidences. Things people said or left unsaid in Cabinet meetings, intelligence reports that didn't make much sense, or made too much sense. And, yes, the CIA direction being afraid to have a meeting with me, and then being this smiling, over-agreeable, obsequious nonentity..."

The President looks askance, and then back: "I should have said something. I should have done something."

"So why didn't you?"

"You."

"Me?"

"You. All the while, I knew I should come talk to you about this. About the head of the CIA, the weird things, all those concerns. But at the time, I was angry with you, and trying to find a way to fire you. So I didn't want to feel like I was too dependent on you, and I sure didn't want to take you into my confidence just to say 'oh, by the way, have your resume updated.'"

"So you didn't say anything."

"I didn't say anything. And, well..." He gestures to the open sky: "Here we are."

"It's got nice sunsets," SPYGOD offers, sipping his tea.

"And excellent sunrises. And the cuisine is superior."

"And how about that Olympic pool?"

"Best bed I've ever slept in."

"And the entertainment is just !@#$ing non-stop."

They both laugh at that, for a while, and look at the sky.

* * *

"So what is the CIA Director, now?" the President asks, after a time: "Is he really dead?"

"That's what they said. But I suspect he's been recycled by now. Probably sucking !@#$ in their machine, somewhere. Little worm."

"But that isn't really him, is it? Was it ever really him?"

SPYGOD shakes his head: "No, Mr. President. That seems to be the truth of their new conversion process. When a False Face gets hold of you, they make a copy of your brain patterns, memories, and physical structure, and then use the energy of your body to fuel the change. You collapse into a big !@#$ing pile of nothing, and they walk away looking and talking and !@#$ing sounding just like you."

"That's not what they used to do, though?"

"Well, no. Used to be, they got you to carve your !@#$ing face off after they brainwashed your !@#$ six ways to Sunday, and then had you impersonate someone else. But these new false faces are something entirely different."

"And the Imago, themselves?"

"Now that's the ten million Dollar question right there," SPYGOD says, raising his tea mug in the President's direction: "What the !@#$ are they? Where the !@#$ did they come from? What's the endgame, here?"

The President raises both eyebrows: "You mean you don't know?"

"No, I don't," SPYGOD says: "That's what I'm hoping we can find out, you and I."

"And how are we going to do that?"

SPYGOD smiles: "That's the other ten million dollar question, Mr. President. And you're going to have to trust me on that, because I don't want you knowing too much of how we're going to play this one."

The President sighs, nods, and gets himself some tea.

"So is there anything else I need to know?" he asks after a while: "Something else you need to teach me, while I can still handle this tea?"

"A few things, but they can't be really be taught," SPYGOD says: "They have to be learned. And the only way you're going to learn them is to do them, or be them."

"Which means what?"

"Which means, Mr. President, that you can start packing things up, if you'd like."

The President blinks: "Really? We're done?"

"We are. Camp !@#$-You-Up is officially closed for the season."

"Well, how about that," the President says, getting up, cracking his back, and looking around at all the things they were shooting off yesterday: "And I suppose I'm the one who gets to pack everything up?"

"You handle the guns. I'll get everything else. Call it a graduation present."

The President smiles and bends over to start collecting things. Each gun he handles reminds him of a specific lesson, a specific stance, and for a few moments he's lost in thought, remembering those lessons almost perfectly...

That's when he realizes he's just walked into a trap.

"That was pretty dumb," SPYGOD says, and the President can hear the tell-tale sounds of a knife being pulled from a sheath. 

He turns to confront SPYGOD, but it's too late. He's already lifted up his eyepatch, and the waves of dizzying, nauseating SPYGOD VISION are buffeting the President's brain like a sudden whirlwind does a pile of leaves.

He staggers backwards, resisting the urge to scream, or flee. He gags back bile, and fights to retain control of his bowels and bladder. He scrambles, looking for any kind of weapon or advantage, but can't concentrate on what's what, anymore.

"What did I !@#$ing tell you about this sort of thing?" SPYGOD asks, his voice seeming to come closer, step by step: "First !@#$ing day we were here, Mr. President. Lesson number !@#$ing one. Never fail to expect danger. Lesson number !@#$ing two. Never turn your back on a potential opponent."

He closes his eyes. He tries to shut out the crazy, vertigo-inducing light show, and the auditory bombardment that threatens to send his mind over the edge of sanity, hurtling to the soul-wrecking cliffs far below.

"Consider this the final lesson, Mr. President," SPYGOD taunts, coming ever closer, no doubt with the knife at the ready: "What do you do when the enemy has you pinned down with something you didn't train for? Can you adapt? Or are you !@#$ed?"

The President scrambles away from the voice, trying to find something to fight back with. A rock. A stick. A !@#$ing pen.

Anything.

"Cause from where I'm standing..."

His hand brushes against something metal. Hard and cold.

"...you are so !@#$ed."

A handle. A trigger.

A gun.

"And I'm the one that's gonna hold you down..."

The President holds the gun up, trying to focus enough to shoot it with his eyes closed. But he can do this. He's done it before.

He knows how to do this.

"Oh, a gun? Well, you have to !@#$ing shoot straight, Mr. President. You think you can do that?"

The President takes a deep breath, creating an area of stillness in his mind. He blocks out the nausea, the fear, the million jabbering noises that are trying to crawl into his brain through his ears and eyes and threaten to rip his brains into bloody grey pudding.

"You really think you can find me, if I move?"

The voice shifts direction. He concentrates on it, following it with the barrel of his gun.

"And what if I-" SPYGOD says, and then falls silent. The President almost panics, but then regains control and listens for the telltale sounds of his instructor's breathing, the shuffle of his feet on the uneven sand and rock, the sound of the knife whistling through the air-

BANG

The shot goes wild. he knows he missed. But then he hears a hissing intake of air, and the sound of a foot pushing off from a rock to come closer still-

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The first shot misses again. The second does not. Neither does the third.

SPYGOD falls down, silent. The ground thumps beneath him. His knife clatters away from his spasming hand.

The President shakes the vertigo and nausea loose from his head. His eyes clear and his ears go back to normal. He can see, hear, feel again.

He looks over where SPYGOD is lying, with two bullet holes in his forehead. He's gurgling blood and twitching and looking too !@#$ good.

He is trying to talk, though. It sounds like "Well done," but it could be "!@#$ you" or "That hurts" for all the President knows.

The President gets to his knees, and then his feet. He is violently sick, but does not turn away from his fallen foe. He wipes his mouth, regains some measure of his dignity, and keeps the gun trained on SPYGOD as the man's shattered skull heals back up.

"I graduate," the President says, lowering his gun just a little: "We're partners in this, now. No more ambushes. No more tests. You tell me what to do and I'll do it. But I need to be able to !@#$ing trust you, now. Agreed?"

"Agreed," SPYGOD says, his word more blood than air.

"Then here's my present," he says, tossing the gun aside: "You get to !@#$ing pack up everything, and carry it back."

"... lot of stuff..."

"Next year you can buy me a Corvette, or something," the President says, and goes to get himself some water, carefully keeping an eye on his vanquished instructor. He feels elated, shaken, relieved, worried, expectant, washed clean.

And free. Finally, totally free.

(SPYGOD is listening to Clean (Depeche Mode) and having a Chinggis)

7/3-7/12 - The Gate is Straight, Deep, and Wide - pt. 3

They say things come in threes, and this skull!@#$ing was no !@#$ing exception.

Surprise number one was having three !@#$ Mongolian Shamans show up to share my fire, steal my !@#$ing hooch, and bring the dead with them. And surprise number two was being greeted by The Dragon, himself, as he was, so far as I knew, very much among the living, and !@#$ing working for GORGON.

Of course, being all drunk and maudlin, I started to blub a little bit, as soon as I realized what that !@#$ing meant. But, thankfully, he smacked me back into sense with a loving hand across the face.

And when you've had a cold, misty, and strong breeze slam across your face, it wakes you right the !@#$ up.

You were saying, lover? he says, looking into my eyes as the Shamans watch him in something approaching religious awe. For all their work with the dead, I don't think any of them have actually seen a !@#$ing ghost, before.

(They tend to raise them up internally, as they're easier to control, that way. More dangerous, also, but that's why it's a !@#$ scary job.)

"I didn't think... I mean..." I stammer, shaking off the effects of the kumis and the etheric slap: "Something was off. You weren't quite yourself."

You were right to be suspicious, he says: I wasn't myself for quite some time.


"How long?" 

A few years ago, they came for me, he explains, looking at the fire: You must understand things. I was not doing well at the time, and there was no exit left for me. So when they offered me a way out...

"I would have..." I try to say, but he quickly puts a cold finger to my lips.

I lied to you, lover: he says, looking back at me and smiling in his own way: I was not under house arrest. I was dying. We stole the formula for what they gave you in Camp Rogers, before the World War, but key elements were missing. We had fewer successes, and of those successes only a few did not develop problems, later.

I was one of the luckier ones. My problems did not manifest until much later. But when your entire body decides that you have lived long enough, and need to shut down...

He stops smiling, puts his ghostly hand down on top of mine, and looks to the fire.

The last time I actually answered one of your letters I was little more than a sack of papery skin barely holding meat and bone together, my love. I was on life support. I could not move, I could not eat. But no matter how much of my body dissolved from the inside, every day, my brain was unaffected.

And they wanted my brain, my love. They promised me a new body, a new life. All they asked was that I trust them, and they would bring me back to life. 

"So you went with GORGON."


I went with them, and they told me a part of their plan, and... and I agreed to it, he admits: They did not tell me that when they remade me, I would not survive.

"What do you mean?"


I mean, my beloved enemy, he says, leaning close to me: That the thing you had in your bed, and your confidence, and then hot on your tail for all the wrong reasons, was not me. It was their copy of me. Everyone who is Embraced dies during the procedure. Only a copy remains, and a bad one at that.

"Which is why I realized something was off," I say: "I just thought you were hiding a little more than usual."

Well, you were right, he smiles, running a finger down my chest: It was hiding a lot. Plans and plots, and a blueprint for this terrible time that you've returned to.

"So what happened then?" I ask, trying to put an arm around him and failing: "Heaven didn't want you and Hell was afraid you'd take over?"

Why do you think there's only two options? You should know better than that, lover. There are worlds of choice, out there. Heaven and Hell don't own the whole of the spirit world. They just have better advertising. 

"Isn't that the !@#$ing truth?" I say, opening another bottle of kumis and taking a swig: "I'd been having some problems with their telemarketers, recently."

Yes, I saw. A very elegant solution, lover. It will soon bear good fruit.

"Or just produce another !@#$ing cluster!@#$ with my name on it. Hard to tell, right now."

There is that possibility as well.

"And I bet you can't tell me which it is, can you?"

He just smiles, and I take that as a 'yes.'

"So what did you do?"

I was confused and scared, after it had happened, he says, looking at the shamans: The Embrace was something new, you see. Something much more radical. The body they built around and within me was filled with very... intriguing structures.  Strange things I'd never seen or encountered, before. Things that not even the Chandra Eye could see.  

So I wandered their installation in West Papua, slowly regaining my memories and my self as I haunted them. I was there when you sent poor Goldenfist in to infiltrate them, but I didn't know why this was so significant. And I watched as you and your Agents tried to follow after, and witnessed the battle that happened, but I didn't know why I was so attracted to your soul. 

But when the Black Star was trying to devour you, I finally realized who I was, and who you were, and that I had spent years hating you, and plotting against you, and trying to kill you, only to eventually learn that I loved you more than anything. And wasn't that just the strangest discovery?

In that moment I would have obliterated myself ten times over to save your life, my lover. So I stepped between the two of you and...

He pauses, maybe not really sure how to explain what happened next.

"You overloaded her?" I finally ask.

I do not think I could adequately explain what took place, next, he says, looking back at me: Or how it may have affected things. But I do know that, instead of your energy flowing directly into her, some of it flowed into me before it flowed into her. 

And I know that I was able to maintain some kind of a hold on what went through, into her, as though I were holding onto a long rope made of your soul. So when the blast from that plowshare struck, and she let go of you, I was able to pull it back just before her hideous mouth snapped shut on it, and you.

And that is why you were still yourself, lover. And that is how I can be here, now, to haunt you.

"Why didn't you find me earlier?"

Oh, that, he sighs: Well, unfortunately, being a little more together than most ghosts did not enable me to simply appear by your side. I still have to take the bus, as it were. And thanks to your Indian friends, you were gone rather quickly. 

And while I could generally know where you were, I did not know exactly where. And by the time I'd gotten close enough, well, off you went again. Another adventure. Another disaster. 

So it has taken me just over a year to finally be where you are, here and now. And even then I had to hitch a ride with these other shades in order to finally be here, just in time.

"I'm sorry," I say: "I guess I didn't make this easy for you."

You never have. It's in your nature. Just as this sorry display of self pity and self destruction is in your nature. You really don't learn anything, do you?

"It's been said," I reply, and have another swig: "So are you going to haunt me for the rest of my life, then? Ride my monster !@#$ when I'm asleep like some kinky Chinese vampire ghost? Whisper sweet nothings and state secrets in my ear while I'm trying to save the !@#$ing world?"

Oh, you should be so lucky, you sorry gweilo dog, he says, standing up and looking down on me: No, lover. This is agony for me. To have you so close and yet so far away is worse than lying in that safe house, knowing that you'd come and rescue me even if I was nothing more than a brain in a tank, and still tell me you loved me. 

It's pathetic, and sad, and so far beneath my sense of dignity...

He stops talking, then, hitches a breath, turns around and shakes his shoulders. It takes me a minute to realize that he's doing something I never thought he was even humanly capable of.

The Dragon is !@#$ing crying in front of me. 

I have come to tell you these things, lover, because you need to know them, he says, not turning around: And I have come to tell you, to your face, that I loved you. And I still do. But this is not something we can have, anymore. This is a cruel and cosmic joke, worthy of the most sadistic of torturers. 

I couldn't be more agonized in Feng Tu, lover. This is Hell in every sense of the word-

"Will you just shut the !@#$ up for a minute?" I ask him.

What? 

"What, did you forget how to speak English while you were talking pure Pity Me? Shut the !@#$ up for a minute, (REDACTED). I can't hear myself think over all that whining."

He turns around like he was going to try and kill me, his eyes literally blazing red with anger. You dare?

"Yeah, well, it's !@#$ing going around, Dragon. Everyone I've talked to tonight has been telling me to quit moping and crying and get my !@#$ together. Everyone's told me that there's an army for me to command and a world to save and shoes to shine and blah blah !@#$ing blah. I can't even have a minute to weep, apparently.

"So if I don't get to drink myself sober, cry myself back to usefulness, and walk out of this desert with all my doubt and self-pity properly exorcized, the way this whole thing is !@#$ing supposed to work, then you don't get to burden me with all your regrets and can't-haves.

"So no, Dragon, I don't want to hear about how you're so close and yet so far away. And I sure as !@#$ don't to hear about how you can't !@#$ing quit me, either. This isn't some stupid doomed gay romance. This is me putting myself back together so I can go save the !@#$ing world, again. By my !@#$ing self if I have to.

"And while I do appreciate that you saved my life, back in West Papua, and that you came after to find me for a whole !@#$ year, this is not the time or the place to drop your !@#$ on me. I got enough drama of my own, right now."

For a second, I think he's going to try and kill me. But he doesn't. He stands there, swaying like a tree that's just been chopped down but hasn't fallen, yet, and then slowly nods.

I understand. Please forgive me. It's just been... so hard. So long.

"I know," I say: "But you know what? We're here, now. And we're together. And maybe we can do something about it that doesn't involve a bunch of bittersweet bull!@#$ that's going to make me want to listen to The !@#$ing Cure all night long."

What do you mean?

"I mean, you're connected to me, and I'm connected to you," I say, putting the bottle of nasty, radioactive !@#$ down: "And you followed me around the world for love. And I've got something in my skull that lets me do crazy-!@#$ things and get away with them. Don't you think we can make something happen, here?"

He just looks at me, and I smile and stand up without leaving my seat.

I never knew I could do it before, but I guess it should have been !@#$ing obvious. After all, how much of what I can hear and see is something I'm actually seeing, and just something that my brain's reaching out to take hold of?

And if I can do that, then why can't I reach out so far that I can walk outside myself?

We could say a million things about that, or anything else, but we don't bother. I take his head in my hands and kiss him. He wraps his arms around me and kisses me. Time goes sideways for a second there, and before I'm aware we're both naked as the day we were born, strong and hard and unashamed, and standing in the fire I made to light my way back to who I am, again. 

And then I'm in him, and he's in me, and there is no him or me -- only us. We two ghosts, making love in a fire in the desert while my body sleeps and dreams and heals.

Breaking cracks in the spirit world as we !@#$ for the first time, ever, with all the power that two supermen can bring to bear on each other.

And love. Finally, at long last, love.

* * *

I'm pretty sure I sleep the whole day, after that. When I come to I'm back in my body, by the remnants of the fire. But something is wrong.

For one thing, the fire's been dead a lot longer than a day. For another, the three shamen are also dead, and have been there for so long they've mummified: parchment skin stretched across their skulls, red-stained teeth making surreal death-smiles in contrast to their moldering, yellow hats.

The kumis bottles are dry and broken glass that smell of dust and uranium. The moon is cracked like an egg. And the sky is filled with strange lights that promise love, happiness, and consumer products I've never !@#$ing heard of. 

"Dragon?" I ask, but it's useless. He's not there, anymore. I can't feel him, and for a second I almost panic, wondering if I've been gone, again, and for how !@#$ long this time. 

"Dragon?" a voice asks, strangely familiar: "No one's ever called me that, before. I kind of like it."

I turn and reach for a gun I don't have, but before I can draw what isn't there, and get caught up in that weird brain!@#$ moment between one big realization and another, I see who's talking to me, and then I remember what day it is. 

Jim Morrison died, today, 41 years ago. Every year, when I eventually remember, I try to honor him, in my own way. And, as usual, I !@#$ing forgot all about it, this year.

Looks like he didn't, though.

"Well, I was wondering when you were going to show up," the Lizard King says to me, walking close to the fossilized remnants of my fire and offering me what looks like a yellow-tinted champagne flute full of bubbling, dark froth.

"Jim?" I ask, taking a glass and wondering what the !@#$'s happened to my clothes, and what the !@#$ he's wearing.

(And what the !@#$ he just handed me.)

"Sometimes, yes," he says, tinging his glass against mine: "Drink up, my friend. We have some things to do, today, and they're best done with your mind not quite on straight."

"Like what?"

"The music's almost over, man," he winks: "Time to turn out the lights."

And that, son, was surprise number !@#$ing three. 

 (SPYGOD is listening to Indian Summer (The Doors) and having hot love and strange dust)

7/3-7/12 - The Gate Is Straight, Deep, and Wide - pt. 2

Ghosts, son? You're asking me if SPYGOD actually believes in ghosts?

Well of course I !@#$ing believe in ghosts, son. What kind of a dumb!@#$ question is that? Don't you remember when I was running with Chinmoku? They don't call him the only living master of Hungry Ghost Path of Kung Fu for nothing.

(The others failed, and became -- you guessed it -- ghosts.)

Now, yes, we can be objective about this. It's true that, sitting at that fire, I'm not really in my right !@#$ing mind. I'm fighting a black hole of depression, suicidal urges, and god knows what other long-repressed mental problems. I'm crying like I won an Oscar, thinking I could just die right about then and no one would give a !@#$, and !@#$sing myself just after I realized I really needed to go water the beer garden.

That and the radioactive !@#$ I'm drinking could probably kill a !@#$ing atom-powered cyborg tyrannosaurus rex if you shoved it down the wrong !@#$ hole.

So, yes, given that by the time those yellow-hatted mystics show up, I'm so !@#$ing drunk that I've lost all sense of time, distance, proportion, and dignity, it's just possible that I imagine everything that comes next. But I don't believe that, son.

Not for a !@#$ing minute.

How does it go? Well, talking with the dead ain't like Charles !@#$ing Dickens, son. You don't get a herald, you don't get told how the ride's going to go, and you sure don't get away !@#$ing clean. Sometimes you don't even !@#$ing get away at all.

There's reasons that Shamen are both revered and feared for what they do, son. Any sensible person would run away from a job like that, but some people just have to be the ones to peek behind the veil and see what's there.

And you know what curiosity got that poor, dead cat.

So when they inform me that there's people who want to talk to me, and I realize what they !@#$ing mean, I realize that I am in for a world of !@#$. Of course, I'm so !@#$ing drunk I can't even stand, much less crawl away, so they got me where they want me, these yellow-hatted, grinning freaks.

And so do the dead.

I see that one of the Shamans isn't there, anymore, and Second is there instead, smiling at me with that special, little smile of his. The kind that always said that he knew, deep down, what a goofy, drunk !@#$-up I could be, but that he admired me, anyway, and wouldn't have wanted to work for anyone else.

And there's a second when I just chalk it up to the !@#$ I've been pounding, and wishful thinking, and regrets? But then he starts !@#$ing talking, and I know it's him. 

I'm sorry to report I kind of !@#$ed up, sir, he says: I did my best while you were gone, but they had us beaten at every turn. Dragon played us all against each other, they snuck in a bunch of GORGON troopers, and... well, they had it well in hand, sir. I can only apologize.

"You shouldn't have to apologize," I tell him (well, blubber out, really): "I was your C.O, (REDACTED). I should have been the one giving the good orders, not you. And if I hadn't made those dumb !@#$ing mistakes... if I hadn't gone South instead of to DC... if I hadn't..."

If you had, you'd be dead, too, sir, he tells me: They had us cold, sir. Dead !@#$ing bang to rights. They had a plan for everything, including you.


"Well, it should have !@#$ing been me, not you," I blubber: "It should have been me..." 

No sir, he says: It was always supposed to be me. You said it, yourself. Soldiers are there to die. The fact that you get another day is a blessing, and I had a lot of them. All of them good... well, most of them. 

I have no regrets, sir. I had a good run, and I died fighting. I went down hard and I tried to take as many of them down with me as I could. !@#$, I even pulled the wool over the Dragon's eyes for a little bit, and that's not something you can say all that often.

"That's... that's good..." I say, not knowing what else to say. If I wasn't so !@#$ing drunk I'd have actually given him a real complement for that one. 

Well, I learned form the best. And that's why you need to get back on your feet, sir. I did my best to save as many strategic talents from what was coming as I could, and they're going to need a leader. 

And that's you, sir. And you know that.

Of course, I can't say anything to that but to make excuses, wallow in self-pity, and continue blubbing. I can't even !@#$ing look at him, son. He's looking at me like a proud parent, and all I want to do is crawl under a rock and die.

So it's a while before I look up, and when I do he's gone, and the Shaman he was inhabiting is looking at me with a nasty, red-toothed grin.

I never thought I'd see the day when SPYGOD got all maudlin and self-pitying, says another one of them. I turn and look, and it's Joe Samuels, who was the Owl, up until just recently. And seeing him there, dead, kicks me even harder.

"What... what the !@#$ happened?"

Well, I'm dead, he says, matter of fact as always: GORGON hit the Owl's Nest hard. They teleported in in droves and shot us to pieces. Your man, Second, tried to warn us, but we missed the message until it was too late. I had to atomize the Owls Nest in the end, just to deny it to the enemy. 

"Oh gods... I'm sorry..."

He smiles: I took them all out with me, (REDACTED). You should have seen it. I showed them what it meant to try and take us on our own turf. 

And next time they tangle with my family, they'll be in real trouble.

"What about Martha? Thomas? Kaitlyn?"

Martha's fine, and she's with your friends, getting a resistance together. Thomas was hurt very badly, but he'll be alright. We're seeing to that. 

And Kaitlyn... he smiles: She's going to be the best Owl that ever was, my friend, but she'll need your help do to it, just like you helped Martha and Thomas. Can I count on you?

Of course, this leads to me trying to blub some more, but he's not having it: Oh, stop it, (REDACTED). We don't have time for tears. Too many people have died, and too many people are going to die, for you to sit around a fire crying your magic eye out. 

"Easy for you to say... you're dead. You don't have to face this failure-"

I didn't say it, my friend, he says, smiling and pointing at me: You said it. You said it to me. And if you think really hard, you might just remember when, and why. 

And I never told you this, because I was so embarrassed, later? But thank you for that. 

So, this is me returning the favor. Tears later, soldier. Action now. You fall apart you're no use to anyone.


"I'm already broken..." I try to say, but it comes across as a tangle of words. By the time I get my tongue unglued, Joe's gone, and in his place is that tall, black Colonel that'd been hounding my !@#$ since the assassination. Colonel Richter.

And he's not looking so !@#$ing good, either. His bald head's a misshapen mess, and one of his yellowed eyes has bugged out of its socket. It almost looks like someone smashed his brains in.

Well well, he says, smiling: Here we finally are. You know how long I've been looking for your sorry !@#$?

"I know... I'm sorry..."

Oh, don't you dare !@#$ing apologize, SPYGOD. Don't you !@#$ing dare! You don't have the right! !@#$, you don't even have the right to speak to me right now, you sloppy !@#$hole.

Now, for some !@#$ dumb reason, this takes me aback. Everyone else so far's been trying to shove complements up my !@#$, in spite of my getting them killed. But he's actually !@#$ing angry.

And, for some reason, that actually brings me up from the slippery, dark hole I've drunk myself down, just a little bit.

"What the !@#$ are you talking about?" I ask, rearing up a bit: "I didn't kill you-"

Oh, but you did, he says, sitting straight up and leaning towards me: That crazy-!@#$ vendetta of yours? Well, while you were !@#$ing liberating Cuba, you sent us off in ten directions at once, trying to catch your !@#$. You had the COMPANY so !@#$ busy chasing its tail that GORGON was able to walk in and !@#$ us without us even noticing. 

If you'd just done the right thing and given yourself up, we could have been united. We could have stopped them. All those people would still be alive. 

I'd still be alive-

"!@#$ you, Richter." I spit at him: "I didn't !@#$ up the COMPANY. You did."

What... he says, the anger bleeding away as confusion sets in: What the !@#$ do you mean?

"Why... why do you think they put you onto me?" I ask him, still too groggy to talk too fast: "What were you doing... before the President was assassinated?"

He tries to open his mouth, and then he closes it.

I... I don't remember...

"No. Of course you don't. Not your last birthday. Not your first kiss. And why do you suppose that is?"

I knew... I used to know...

"Yeah, when you were !@#$ing breathing. But now you aren't, anymore, and when you died all those memories just went away, didn't they?"

I... what are you-

"Because you weren't doing anything, Richter. They activated you. And then, when they didn't need you anymore..."

I point to my head, right about where his has been clearly bashed in, and then roughly pat it a few times.

He opens and closes his mouth a few more times. Then he screws his eyes shut and screams so loud my eardrums almost blow out of my !@#$ing head.

And then he's gone, leaving a hoarse shaman who's trying to hog the kumis bottle he and his two friends are passing back and forth.

How long did you know about him? asks a mellifluous voice I know all too well.

"About as long as... well, about as long as I suspected about you," I say, turning to look to my left. The Dragon is sitting there, smiling that slight, inscrutable smile of his.

And he doesn't even need a shaman to talk to me.

(SPYGOD is listening to Soul Kitchen (The Doors) and drinking... well, yeah. Don't ask.)

7/3-7/12 - The Gate is Straight, Deep, and Wide - pt. 1

Well, son. As skull!@#$ings go, that was just about the best one I've ever had.

No, son, a skull!@#$ing is probably not what you think it is, for which I can be eternally !@#$ing grateful. There are no new holes in my noggin, no !@#$ on my brains, and no whiplash, either.

Skull!@#$ing is just a simple little ritual that America's armed forces came up with to better deal with the severe stress that comes from less-than-satisfactory contact with the enemy. Put simply, it's the mother of all alcohol binges, to be performed by a soldier when that person has endured something so !@#$ terrible, horrible, and !@#$ing demoralizing that the only reason he hasn't blown his brains out, committed suicide by enemy combatant, or  tossed his bars into a fire and gone AWOL is because he still !@#$ing wants to believe.

And hopefully, by the time it's over, that soldier will not only have drunk himself sober, but rekindled his belief, to the point where he can crawl upright, clean himself up, and get back to work.

A long !@#$ing time ago, back when things went seriously south in Korea, no less than General MacArthur, himself, introduced me to this ritual. After my time as a POW I'd fallen down to the raging, ragged edge of the !@#$ing abyss, and wanted to throw myself into it. So he had a few of his boys drive my gelatinous, miserable !@#$ to one of the best makkoli houses in Pusan, and something like five or six large and pungent bowls of warm rice wine later, I was a new man.

Makkoli is the best !@#$ to get hammered with. It's sneaky. You don't realize how much trouble you're in until you try to stand up, and then you realize why they gave you scallion pancakes along with the booze. Me, I made it through a whole bowl and a half before I had to take a slash, and then I was !@#$ing stumbling into the head, breaking !@#$ as I went -- mostly by accident.

(That building still stands in Pusan. They have a three bowl limit for wayguk, now. I'm the reason for that.)

But, unfortunately, I did not have any makkoli, here with me today. All I had was that nasty, tooth-rotting, radioactive kumis that Altan Aduu ferments, himself. So I took every single bottle they had, and then took it out into the deserts north of Choibalsan, bottles clinking in the bag as I dragged it out far enough for them to not see the fire I was going to build.

And, in true skull!@#$ing fashion, I drank about three bottles of that !@#$ on the way to that place, so I was already good and hammered before I even arrived.

(This is also a part of the skull!@#$ing ritual: start before you get there, so that you'll be on a !@#$ing roll when you arrive.)

But man, son, I really was !@#$ing hammered. I didn't realize that I'd made a fire until I was actually sitting in front of it, opening up another bottle of that radioactive !@#$ and gulping it down like it was water. I didn't realize that day had turned into night until I saw that I'd gone through about half of what I'd brought out with me to drink.

And when I howled in despair that I might not have enough to last until morning, I looked at my watch twice to see how much I had to pace myself, and it was two whole hours between checks, even though it seemed like it had only been a minute!

Time does strange things when you're angry, sad, dehydrated, and massively drunk, son. Especially out in the deserts. Things happen out on the peripheries of civilization, sometimes, and it's like it's all reality can do to just keep itself on this side of unglued.

It's like that old question about the tree falling in the forest -- if no one's there to see it, is there a sound? Well, if no one's around to say "hey, that's !@#$ed up," are there laws of physics?

If not, that goes a long way in explaining how yours truly, who can see way too much for his own !@#$ good, did not see the Shaman walk up to my fire and plop his !@#$ down.

One minute, there's just me and a fire. I take a drink, and the next time I look up, there's this grizzled, red-toothed fellow with spaced-out eyes and a yellow hat. He's grinning at me with those red, stained teeth and chuckling, and in the amount of time it takes me to threaten to kill him for messing with my skull!@#$ing, there's two more of them.

Yes, shamans. Mongolia's still got a !@#$ing lot of them around, even in this day and age. Most of them are pretty decent guys, even if I'm not convinced about their power levels. But someone's got to be the one to talk for the dead, and over here that's them.

So they're !@#$ing jabbering and talking and laughing, and passing a bottle of kumis I don't remember offering them, and I'm telling them to go the !@#$ away and just let me get hammered in peace. But when I say "peace" I think "piece," and then I think "pieces." And then I realize I really am nothing more than a man-shaped pile of glass shards, and the crying jag part of the skull!@#$ing sets in.

This is also perfectly !@#$ing normal. Before you can put yourself back together you have to completely fall apart. That's what the booze is for. It takes away all your inhibitions and shackles, and tears your structures down to the ground.

It makes you forget you're supposed to be some butch, disciplined soldier, and lets you let go and cry your eyes out like your momma just died all over again.

And while I'm crying, the Shamen are jabbering at me, and whatever kind of Mongolian they're talking I can hardly get every other !@#$ing word. But eventually I realize they're asking me if I want to talk to anyone.

Who the !@#$ would I want to talk to? Who the !@#$ would want to talk to me, right now? I'm a nasty stain on the floor. I'm a dog turd in a punchbowl. I'm lower than worm !@#$.


But oh, they have people who want to talk to me. And, one by one, they bring forward the dead to speak. 

All my ghosts, come 'round to haunt me at last. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Break On Through to the Other Side (The Doors) and having something really !@#$ nasty)

7/2/12 - A Weak Sun Hanging Low

So, in a nutshell, son? We're !@#$ed.

GORGON has succeeded where I don't know how many !@#$ing other groups of science terrorists, super villains, and would-be world-conquerors failed. They took over the !@#$ing world, while I was away rescuing the !@#$ing President from Alter-Earth.

Not that I hadn't intended to get back and kick their !@#$es in time, of course. But then my !@#$ing trans-dimensional taxi had to go and blow a !@#$ing brain-gasket on me, do who knows what to poor Mr. USA, and toss me and the President into the !@#$ing future, making sure that I missed any and all chances to stop the takeover.

While I was away, the past and present American Presidents, and probably 9/10s of their Cabinets and various Agency Directors, were all tried for their supposed crimes against humanity and shot into !@#$ing space in their gods!@#$ space elevator. They also turned the entire world into a !@#$ing labor camp, too, and gently held their kids hostage against their continued good behavior.

I've come back to a world in chains with no heroes. There's no masses of American Strategic Talents, anymore. They all either ratted on their bosses, and got !@#$ing ratted out in return, or got killed for holding the line.

And I know some of them were probably smart enough to !@#$ing duck and cover. And I know I left instructions with some of them, but...

*sigh*

Yeah, son. No COMPANY, no Super Soldiers, no Liberty Patrol, no nothing.

And maybe that wouldn't be so bad, except that the global satellite communications grid is !@#$ing down, too. So I have no eyes in the sky, anymore. No ears, no ways to ping for info I'm not supposed to have. No nothing.

I don't even have any !@#$ing tjbang sticks left, son. And with all that radioactive kumis I drank I think I really should be clearing my head, right about now.

But you know what? !@#$ it.

Exactly one year ago, today, I was waking up in a !@#$ty little room in a private hospital in Jakarta, after narrowly surviving a really !@#$ing bad run-in with GORGON. I made the mistake of trying to take them on their own turf, with minimal planning and prep, and hardly enough people. I paid the !@#$ing price for that stupidity, too, but worse than that?

They almost !@#$ing killed me. 

I lucked out, son. There's no other way to say it. If they hadn't obeyed what could have been my final instructions, right when I told them to, and sent that plowshare's payload down onto West Papua like I said, I'd be rattling around in a very nasty skull, right now.

They almost killed me, son. And that made me really !@#$ing mad. And when I get mad, I make really !@#$ing stupid mistakes.

And everything I did after that to try and take down GORGON was a !@#$ing stupid mistake, son. I'm not going to mince words, anymore.

I should have been sneaky. I should have been slow. I should have crept up behind them, at night, with a knife in my hand.

What do I do instead? Kick in their front door dressed in a bright yellow rubber Issey Miyaki suit, shooting a gun the size of !@#$ing Rhode Island, and screaming some number from 'Guys and Dolls' at the top of my lungs.

And I don't know how much you know about wetwork, son, but take it from SPYGOD: that does not !@#$ing work.

So I !@#$ up. I fail. I get my !@#$ and my job handed to me on a plate. And then, while I'm in the middle of feeling !@#$ing sorry for myself and trying to figure out what to do next, all the little things I didn't notice while I was really !@#$ing mad all come up and make themselves known to me at last.

And you know what that makes me? Really !@#$ing mad. So I make another really !@#$ing stupid mistake, and... well, I figure you know how that ended up, son. Wrong place, wrong direction, wrong time.

And because of that, the President paid a terrible price. And things spiraled right the !@#$ out of control.

Now, I don't need my ears all up in some mother!@#$ing satellite to know what you're going to ask, next. "But SPYGOD, you say that every time you get really !@#$ing angry, you make really !@#$ing stupid mistakes. Doesn't that mean that, now, you're !@#$ing doomed to make yet another big !@#$ing mistake?"

And you know what, son?

...

You're right. You're totally, absolutely right.

I am not merely really !@#$ing angry, right now, son. I am so !@#$ing angry it's a wonder I'm not eating sand and pounding rocks into powder with my !@#$ing space alien love penis. I have never !@#$ing been this !@#$ing angry in my entire !@#$ing life, and all I want to !@#$ing do is grab the !@#$ing neck of the world and !@#$ing squeeze it until it stops !@#$ing moving through space, leans sideways, and !@#$ing dies.

I want to gun-!@#$ the brains of the world out its !@#$ing skull, son. I want blood and veins in my teeth. I want brains in my hands. I want a line of organs stretched from here to !@#$ing Pluto and back ten !@#$ing times over.

I want to break reality in half and !@#$ in the wound. And...

...

And it still won't change anything.

And it still won't bring those people back.

And it still won't stop GORGON, or save the world, or free everything they've taken prisoner.

All it will do is leave me holding an even bigger !@#$ing mess than before. And this time, it'll all be on me.

All on me.

...

God help me. What have I done?

What have I done?

 ...

I need to go beyond anger, son. I need to get my !@#$ing head clear, or I'm going to be !@#$ing useless.

So I hope the President can fend for himself for a day or two, son. Because I need to go out into the desert with as much booze as I can carry, and go rip!@#$ until this white hot anger I'm just barely holding onto can be turned into something else.

Something...

...

You're going to have to excuse me, son. I don't want you to see me like this. Just go away, please.

Just let me go away.

...


(SPYGOD is listening to Love is a Catastrophe (Pet Shop Boys) and is about to drink things you never want to hear about)