10/15/12 - The Reclamation War - Pt. 7

Seven months ago, the sky became the enemy.

The air was full of blinding, white beams of energy: annihilating columns that marched from target to target, one by one, until the world was crippled. All airports and fleets were compromised. All military bases and missile sites were annihilated. All nuclear submarines were sunk, and warplanes swatted down.

By the time it was over, thousands were dead, and many more were wounded or blinded. The financial cost was truly incalculable, both due to the damage, itself, and its effects on global commerce and transportation. Indeed, the world may have collapsed back into a second dark age if the Imago had not stepped in and "fixed" what they'd broken.

Back then, they told the people that this terrible thing had been done by America. They'd lied and claimed that it had been a scorched-earth policy, of sorts -- one carried out when it became clear that its plan to use proxy warriors to take over the world had failed. And they forced all living Presidents, past and present, to testify to that, so that their families would be spared.

Ever since then, the guns of Deep Ten have remained mostly silent. When they are activated, the Imago have been quick to come on the internet and tell their slaves that the people did not see a giant, white column of heat evaporating a target. How could that be? The "weapons satellites" were supposedly destroyed, after all.

No, what they saw was simply the detonation of a massive and terrifying weapon -- one that produced an explosion that looked a lot like the deadly, particle-cannon blasts of 3/15. Such devastating attacks were the doing of dangerous elements, in league with either the old American government or the looming threat from beyond the stars. And, thanks to the mental programming that went over the internet, all day every day, the people believed it.

But now there is no longer an internet. Now the brainwashing has been eliminated. Now an active rebellion is happening.

Now the Imago are actually in danger of being supplanted from their perch, just as the final stages of their plan are within sight.

So now, there is no longer any need to lie, or dissemble, or soothe the worries of the population. There is no need to keep up appearances or avoid contradicting previous statements. There is no longer a need for a soothing voice and a patting hand on the head, and a gentle promise of better things to come.

Now there is only war, and a war needs a victory.

And the Imago will have that victory, no matter the cost.

* * *

Alpha Base Seven dies first -- The Fist makes certain of that, partially as a test of the weaponry, and partially because it amuses him.

The particle cannons fire at the lunar surface from four different directions. They strike the remnants of the base from directly overhead, from the sides, and from below.

The time before, the base lost much of its above-ground presence, and a great deal of its personnel. This time, it loses everything. Volley after volley, strike after strike, what the survivors of the last lunar holocaust had quietly rebuilt is atomized.

Tate dies trying to get people to safety, which is -- if you'd asked him -- exactly how he'd wanted to go out. Clifton dies at his post, cowering under the computer he'd spent so many months rebuilding and perfecting. Marcus dies screaming at God, begging him to stop the killing long enough for him to tend to the casualties he's already gotten that day.

Acting Commander Barbara Martin dies in her room, weeping as she comes to realize that her plan -- rather that Director Straffer's -- has been the one to kill them. 

As for Director Straffer, he is nowhere near the conflagration. He is quite some distance away, sitting on the edge of a crater, with his back turned on the base as it's taken apart from above, between, and below. His eyes can handle the blinding blasts from Deep Ten's weaponry, but he doesn't care to see the full cost of his betrayer's actions.

It's just too painful to think about, right now.

Idiots, he thinks as he repairs the damage to his body and legs as best as he can. He wonders if Prentice acted alone, or if Martin put him up to it. And he counts the number of seconds between firing solutions, hoping that they're increasing, and that the being pretending to be him up on his station has either gotten bored or is about to move on.

Doubtlessly on to the satellites, and then probably the world. 

Even now, Straffer has a plan. It's not the best plan, and it's something he'd rather not do. It's something he's avoided doing this entire time, even though it would have been so !@#$ simple -- obvious, even. 

And now he has no choice. 

He feels a mighty moonquake rumble. He stops working on his knee until it passes. He counts the seconds between flashes. 

He promises the dead their due. 

* * *

"!@#$," SPYGOD mutters, seeing the telemetry from the satellites vanish, one by one: "!@#$ !@#$  !@#$ on a !@#$ing !@#$."

He doesn't need to see the blips on the screen go away. Thanks to the Chandra Eye, he can hear as, in upper reaches of the atmosphere, the rockets' roar is replaced by a loud, atom-rending scream.

And then he can sense their absence in the dark silence that follows, thereafter. 

"!@#$ing !@#$," he shouts, tossing an empty bottle at the walls of his flying saucer: "!@#$ !@#$ !@#$!!!"

He knew the plan had risks. He knew it might not work as intended. He had no idea what went wrong on the Moon (or even who was doing it, up there). 

And he had a backup plan -- several backup plans, in fact.

But it would have been so nice -- so !@#$ing nice -- if things had just gone right for a change.

Still, it's somewhat comforting to know that God is up there, laughing at him.

"Mister Ten," SPYGOD says, looking at a face on a screen: "Is the Dignitary ready?"

"It is," the Japanese man says: "But we will need some time to warm up the engines, and coax it into motion. It has not been in battle for so long-"

"Tell that giant white !@#$ to get its star-metal !@#$ in motion before I put the mother of all !@#$ing guns up its giant white !@#$hole and give it a laser enema," SPYGOD snarls: "No excuses, no delays!"

He turns the screen off. If he could shoot it without damaging his ship, he would. So instead he grabs another bottle of hooch and drains it in one, gargantuan gulp.

Plan B is in motion. And now, so is he. 

"Take us up, Bee-Bee," he says to his cat, who's downed his own bottle of emergency vodka while waiting for his owner/staff/hooch-provider to stop cursing and drinking and start thinking, again. 

The cat nods and says something in Russian, which could be best translated as "About !@#$ing time, idiot." And then the flying saucer SPYGOD took from the Fourth Reich, all those years ago, engages its cloak and leaves a lonely rooftop in Tokyo, heading for the mighty Ocean to its West.

And battle, though whether victory follows thereafter is even more uncertain, now.

* * *

The six rockets never even get to proper cruising altitude before they are picked off, one by one.

Each streaking projectile is enveloped in its own, personal line of white. Touched by fire, they melt almost instantly. All the hard work that went into making them -- to say nothing of their payloads -- is undone in less than a second.

That necessary task done, the firing solution moves on to more complex targets: the area surrounding the massive, white cubes that the Imago have erected outside of major cities, and in the wilderness areas beyond their sprawling, high-tech tent communities. Anywhere they are being attacked, they fire -- knowing that the shields surrounding their cubes can be adjusted to repel the deadly particle cannon fire they're raining down.

American Shield wonders why the sky is so bright, and reflexively holds his namesake up over his head. That gesture buys him only an extra millisecond of life, but it's enough time for him to realize that the weird dreams he's been having recently (him standing by an empty grave with his name on the headstone) were actually an omen. Had he more time, he would have prayed, but before he can even think to begin he has already joined with the body of his God, in a place where prayer is somewhat unnecessary.

He is not the only one to die, then and there, and he is not the only member of the Freedom Force to die in similar circumstances. The Visionary goes intangible a second too late, his last thoughts a cacophony of irony and annoyance. The Red Alchemist is too slow to remember the formula for energy transubstantiation, and can only hope that the new Golden Standard lives through this, and that their explosive comrade is not vulnerable to this kind of energy while he's scattered atoms.

Around the globe, American supers and foreign strategic talents wither and melt under the horrible, white glare that comes down from Deep ten.  And those few that survive, either due to their power sets or some obscene act of luck -- perhaps both -- have only moments to call in and warn their allies of what's happening, and to either take cover somehow or get away.

Some are able to do so. Others are not so fortunate.

And they may be the first of thousands. 

* * *

"Everyone Toon up!" Fred screams into his intercom as he realizes what the energy buildup the sensors are detecting right above them is: "Toon up and Toon everything you can!"

Within seconds, almost every Toon that has become real in order to perform tasks that must affect the real world has pressed their personal Tooninator -- a small box, usually worn on the belt, that turns them back into cartoons. It won't work in reverse, but it's good enough for them to escape real world damage. 

As for the few that remain, they bravely forgo taking care of their own safety, and instead grab their massive, Tooninator guns and begin turning every important gizmo, device, and mainframe in the place into a cartoon. Hopefully there will be just enough time for them to Toon up when their work is done.

But if not, then theirs is just yet one more sacrifice on a day that's going to be full of them.

As this takes place, an old man that everyone knows -- yet hardly anyone has actually seen before -- walks up to the massive television that the Toons have built to connect them with B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4 . He sees that the machine is warming up, and therefore preparing to transport things from the other side to this one.

And, before anyone can stop him, he presses the override switch, and throws it into reverse. 

"Fred, when I'm through, if they haven't blasted this place yet, turn this thing off and Tooninate it," he shouts at the Toon who's been in charge of things. The look the Toon gives him is priceless, but the look the man gives in return both destroys all questions and makes it clear that his orders must be obeyed.

"You got it," the Toon says, nodding reverently: "It's... it's good to see you again."

"It's good to be seen," the man says, and steps into the machine's blinding, flickering field. 

A second later, he's through. A second after that, a beam of brilliant, blinding white comes down from the sky to the ceiling, and then though every floor in the place.

Some die, then and there. Thankfully, most do not. And the machine is rendered into stray molecules within moments. 

B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4 is now on its own.

* * *

"Oh my God," Myron says as the machine stops working: "You have to be kidding me. You have to be !@#$ing kidding me!"

"Something must have gone wrong at the other end," Winifred shouts, continuing to aim her gun at the smashed-up, smoldering hallway that Moloch is coming down. The SPYGOD SCOUTS on the platform all shout and howl as one, both disappointed and afraid in equal measure.

"Try to re-establish contact!" Mark shouts, forcing himself to his feet and fighting off the wooziness that causes: "We'll hold the thing off!"

"Moloch doubts that," the brass beast exclaims, clanking into their view as it does. 

For a moment, Winifred allows herself to feel hope, for this is not the massive, raging beast they were fighting a few moments ago. It stands only as tall as Myron, and has no fire, nor any victim to fuel it. 

(Was this lesser body made in advance, in case something happened to the other one? Or did he just assemble it out of brass and steel, and pilot it down here? Winifred isn't certain, but already certain plans are forming, should the gun she's aiming at its head fail to work.)

But then it steps into the room, and her confidence goes away. The body jackknifes open into a much larger, more deadly form: sharp swords and cutting arms spread out in every direction, and the monstrous, raging head splits several times to become many things, all terrifying in their hate.

"Moloch will have its day!" the beast howls, slicing its way through the weak, wounded, and slow: "Bring Moloch the boy, Thomas! Thomas will bring SPYGOD here. And Moloch will destroy SPYGOD!"

"Don't you understand?" Mark shouts, firing his gun at the thing: "It doesn't matter, anymore! The plan's over! The machine won't work!"

"What?" the beast shouts, stopping in mid-stride.

"The machine's stopped" Myron says: "It stopped in mid-transfer, and we can't get it started again. And that means that either it's broken, or something's happened to the machine on the other end!"

"You lie!" Moloch rages, raising its sword-arms to the ceiling and slicing right through it: "Make the machine work! Or Moloch shall destroy you all!"

"Oh, !@#$ off," Winifred mutters, pulling the trigger. The bullets hit the beast right in the center of its cluster of faces, making it withdraw them into itself for a moment, and step backwards. But then it surges forward again, doing its best to kill her before she can fire once more.

Myron shouts and leaps forward, pushing her out of the way. Mark yells and fires, distracting the beast just as it's about to slice into Myron. Moloch turns on Mark and prepares to cut into him. 

And just then -- seconds before the brass blade can eviscerate its new target -- the machine surges into life, again. 

Moloch stops in mid-slice and turns to regard it: "The machine is broken, you said?"

"It's receiving!" Myron yells: "Everyone get off the platform!"

He doesn't have to tell them twice. The healthy haul the wounded away quickly, all moving to the far end of the room, well away from the metal creature that means them ill. In seconds, the area is blanketed by a white strobe light, and then a single figure can be seen through the haze and flickering fog.

Mark gasps as he realizes who it is. Myron blinks a few times, confused. Winifred squirms from underneath him to see.

"Who are you?" Moloch challenges the newcomer, looking down at an extremely old man wearing an ill-fitting but still-distinctive costume.

"Me?" the old man says, putting up his fists: "I'm your worst nightmare, you butcher. I'm someone you can't hurt, but who can hurt you."

"You defy Moloch?" the brass beast laughs, expanding itself out just a little more, as if to engulf the stranger in its sharp embrace: "You test the patience of a god, little man."

"You are not God, buddy," the newcomer says, levitating off the floor, electricity crackling between his knuckles: "But I'll be happy to introduce you to him..."

And Mr. USA flies right at the brass beast's numerous mouths, ready to show him the meaning of fear.

(SPYGOD is listening to Christmas Island (Depeche Mode) and having a Moloch)

10/15/12 - The Reclamation War - Pt. 3

All around the world, the people stand in a state of shock -- their minds suddenly free of the subtle, but all-pervasive mental control they've been enduring since the Imago took control of the internet.

Some are angry enough at what's been done to them to want to fight. Some are ashamed enough of what they've done -- or not done -- to want to hide. But the vast majority is lost and shaken, uncertain of what this means, or how to approach it, or even what to say.

And when they reach for the internet, hoping to find information, or facts, or at least hear the voices of those who are feeling as they do, and add their own words to that stark, growing rumble of confusion, fury, and hurt, they find that they cannot.

All their smart phones and blackberries, all their tablets and laptops, all their computer labs and internet cafes -- all are black and still, unable to connect. The other programs work fine, and there doesn't seem to be any malicious, memory-eating worms working through their systems. But nothing can get the net working, anywhere, for anyone.

And, bereft of easy answers in a time when they need them most, people start to talk. They speak of what's been going on, and all the weird things they've noticed. All the strange lags and oddly-cadenced emails. How the news has seemed too good to be believed, or too strange to be understood.

And their children! Some of them -- especially in the less-developed countries, where they've been put to work for the Imago -- have had their children off in those big, white boxes since this all started. The Imago told them they'd be teaching them amazing things, in there, and they got to talk to them once a week. But the things they said, and how they said them?

The blank way they acted, at times? How far away and distant they seemed?

No, something is not right, here. Something has not been right since this all started. And now that they know -- now that they understand -- they won't be taking any easy explanations from glib-tongued metal people.

One by one, and then two by two, and then in large and shouting groups, the people of the world leave their blank computer screens behind. They head to their houses of government, and reason with the guards there to let them past, or else they'll stand outside and shout until they are acknowledged by their keepers.

And they will shout and chant and congregate, in their hundreds and thousands and millions, until they at last get the precious answers they have clearly deserved for so long.

* * *

Good afternoon, my fellow Americans. This is the President of the United States of America, reporting to you from a secret location.

I know that seeing me here, alive, must be a shock to many of you. I know that you saw me shot on live television. I know that you saw me die, and saw that SPYGOD was the one who fired the bullets.

But I assure you that this is me. I am alive. I am not the man who was shot dead, any more than SPYGOD was the man who shot that person. We have, both of us, been the victims of a very elaborate, and very deadly hoax.

A hoax that helped enslave the world.

The how and the why of what happened to me are not so important now. Not now that America, like the rest of the world, languishes under the thumb of otherworldly tyrants. Alien beings who quietly conquered our planet while we slept, and then engineered certain events to make us all fall right into their hands.  

The hands of the Imago.

Tonight, I accuse the beings who call themselves the Imago of being liars and monsters. I accuse them of working in collusion with a science terrorist outfit, GORGON, to lay the groundwork for an invasion of our world. I accuse them of duplicating thousands of people, around the world, and killing the originals. 

I accuse the Imago of using those duplicates to create a worldwide crisis. I accuse them of stepping in to exploit the chaos and terror they, themselves, engineered for that purpose. I accuse them of using our orbital defenses to destroy and kill on a global scale, both on 3/15 and ever since.

And, on a more personal note, I accuse the Imago of blaming that crisis on the American government, of holding false trials with duped witnesses and bullied defendants, and of executing without cause the surviving members of several Presidential Administrations, Federal Departments, and Congressional leaders.

I accuse the Imago of executing without cause my Vice President, who was one of the finest men I have known and worked with. I accuse the Imago of duplicating his wife. I accuse the Imago of using the safety of his family and mine to threaten him into saying anything they wanted him to.

I accuse the Imago of using the internet to subject the people of the world to mind control, and using their control over you to get you to look the other way as they quietly committed atrocity after atrocity.

I accuse the Imago of deeds of a scale of villainy that I couldn't even have imagined existing in this world, until I actually got back here to find out what they'd done, and how.

My fellow Americans, my fellow people of the planet Earth, right now the confusion you are feeling is a result of their influence over your minds leaving you for the first time in months. These signals are being broadcast to you over the televisions that, I am advised, most of you kept, even though they didn't work after 3/15. It will continue to play, over and over, until this crisis is past, and we have taken back our world.

I urge you, for your own safety, and the safety of your loved ones, to stay off the streets. Do not take matters into your own hands. Heroes from around the world are fighting for your freedom, this hour. 

And they will win.

To the Imago, I say your time has come. You are done. Leave this planet now, if you even can. And if you can't, we'll be happy to kick you off of it.

To the world, I say that America stands with you, tonight. Whatever we have been to each other in the past, in different times, does not matter in this moment. At this moment we are all a people under threat. At this moment we are all as one in the struggle to be free. 

To my country, I say that, in the words of Mark Twain, reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I hereby resume the office, duties, and responsibilities of the office you elected me to. I once said 'Yes we can.' Today I say 'Yes we must.' 

And together, and with God's blessing, we will. 

Good afternoon, good luck to us all, and may God bless us, the United States of America, and the world in this, our hour of need.

* * *

"This should be all you need, mate," Tate says, handing the small cylinder over to Prentice in the back of the workshop: "I've rigged it with a three second delay, in case you want to throw it and run or something..."

"That won't be necessary," Prentice answers, looking at the tiny switch on the underside. He doesn't even look at Tate when he says this; he's hardly looked at him at all.

"Yeah," Tate replies, putting his hands on his hips and looking around: "Look, I know we haven't always gotten on too well. It's been a rough couple months-"

"I never liked you at all," Prentice says, finally really looking at the other man: "Not before, not then, and not now."

"Well, it's all coming out in the wash, now-"

"But I will say that you are one of the few truly professional people I've dealt with, up here," Prentice says, tucking the weapon under his arm: "We're alike in that way. We both know we have a job to do, so we do it. Anything else is irrelevant. And liking anyone up here's just something else to get in the way of tough decisions."

"Well, I liked you, sometimes," the other man says, extending a hand: "And I've always respected you. And I want to say thank you, before I can't anymore."

Prentice looks at the hand. He takes it carefully, and shakes it. He even smiles, just a little, but it means nothing to him. 

It's all for the man who actually made the bomb, just to make him feel better about all this. To feel better about being the man who finally said what they were all thinking, and put forward the need to do this in the first place. To feel better about not drawing the shortest straw, after all that agitation. 

To feel better about not being the one who dies today. 

With that, Prentice turns and leaves the workshop, heading for the chamber where the former Director of Deep-Ten is holed up, creating a weapon that could destroy Alpha Base Seven if it's turned on. Which is why he's not going to let him turn it on. 

Everything else that's gone into this decision is irrelevant. There's only the here and now, the many and the one.

There is only this action, which will reverberate throughout history.

* * *

From his high perch, looking down at the great chasm below, Emperor Thurl must confess to fear. 

He has heard the words of the Overlander President. He knows that the time to act has come, and that he has pledged to do so. He knows that everything he has done, of late -- indeed, the entire reason it is he who stands here now, and not his previous formlife -- has led to this very moment. 

But yet, the decision will be a momentous one. The Kingdom is no longer held by the Overobligation. They no longer owe the air-breathing denizens of the Overland any fealty or apology for the actions of the past. They could live down here, in the dark, and never have anything to do with the surface or its wars again.

Now that the Imago are about to be wiped from the face of the Overland -- and hopefully their City of Darkness with them -- the Kingdom need never be involved with that again.

But he has made his promise to the one coordinating the attacks against the Imago. He has told this man that the Kingdom will send help, the best way it can. And in return he has been promised true absolution for the Great Mistake, and a place at the table of the surface world. Inclusion in their "United Nations." A proper trade treaty. 

(And maybe even an end to the garbage that is being constantly dumped into their world.)

It is a great leap forward. It can bring new and good things with it. It could also bring new dangers. Unseen obstacles. Maybe even untold disaster.

No adviser can make this decision for him. There is only the wisdom within his mind, and all the voice of all the formlives he's had. 

And they all say the same thing.

"My Emperor?" the warden asks, kneeling before him: "I tell you truly, the moment is upon us. If you would let it happen, it should be now, or they will surely begin to eat one another."

"Then let us give them something else to eat," Thurl says, holding his claws up: "Release the War Spawn!"

And with the rushing of many unfathomably-large beings -- the very stuff of nightmares, Overland or otherwise -- his words become law, and the decision is made. 

Hopefully it will be one the Kingdom can live with.

* * *

"Yes, I know you're getting !@#$ing hammered," SPYGOD shouts at one group of heroes, watching their movements on one of the many screens he has up in Lady Gilda: "Fall back a little. Let them think they're !@#$ing driving you back. Hold on-

"Okay, good. Well done, American Shield. Now hold that !@#$ position. Pretend it's !@#$ing Korea, again, and the Chinese are coming over the !@#$ hill. Okay? !@#$ing awesome. Hold on-

"Bee-Bee? Pass me some of that !@#$ vodka, will you?

"Okay, go ahead. What, how many times has the kid blown up? Not even a !@#$ scratch? Well !@#$. Okay, start using your alchemy thing, then. Have him blow up the !@#$ Specials when they show up. Hold on-

"Bee-Bee? This !@#$ sobriety isn't going to !@#$ing cure itself! Move your fuzzy !@#$ and give me booze!

"Sorry, yelling at the cat. Where are you? China? Okay, that's not where you were !@#$ing supposed to be... oh, you got that other one? Okay, then. Good work. Now if you take this one out, too? Just !@#$ing stay there. I may need you to go on to... hold on-

"Yes, Owl, go ahead. Oh, he did? Well !@#$ me running, that's !@#$ impressive. Okay, you hold that position. Do not go further. I may need you to swap with... ah, !@#$. Hold on-

"Okay, thanks Bee-Bee. You know I get if I don't get my !@#$ing vodka.

"Yes, Mister 10. We have you. Please don't start !@#$ing moving until we've got a green board on the satellites? I don't want you to get !@#$ing zapped from orbit-

"Come to think of it... Hey? How's that satellite situation going? They loaded up, yet?

"Hello? Earth calling !@#$ing B.A.S.E.C.AM.P. 4! Where the !@#$ing !@#$ are my !@#$ing satellites?"

* * *

"Tell him we're having some difficulties!" Mark Clutch shouts to Skyspear as he grabs the biggest gun he can find and runs off to the infirmary, leaving the massive, tv-like machine that dominates the grand buffet room to hiss and spit: "Just that!"

"And what if the difficulties come here?" she shouts, looking at Winifred, who's white-faced and crying, spattered with what's left of Running Bird: "That monster could destroy the machine with ease!"

"I trust you to keep him back," Mark says, stealing back one last look at her. And he does, too. 

A lot of thoughts are going through his mind, right now, as he runs. Where the heck is the Lion? Where are the satellites? Where's Myron, for that matter? Can they get the equipment back to the real world before the beast smashes their way in and out?

And are they going to have to sacrifice themselves to hold it here, so that what needs to get done on the other side of the television can be done?

On the way he has two of his questions answered when he runs into Myron, who's struggling to carry one of the satellites to the main room all by himself. He's been burned, and is either bleeding or covered in someone else's blood. 

"You alright?" he asks.

"That's a !@#$ stupid question," Myron hisses: "Is Winifred okay?"

"She's shaken, but not hurt."

"Oh thank God," he says, and continues a little faster: "I'll see if I can get the rest of them to the main room. But I'll need help!"

"I can get you some time," Mark says, continuing to run: "Hopefully that'll be enough!"

Myron says something in return, but Mark doesn't hear it. He's running too fast. Praying too loudly. 

Scared too much.

Outside the infirmary, there's fire and blood. SPYGOD SCOUTS are struggling to put it out with halon fire extinguishers, but the flames are proving intractable. If this gets any worse, the whole treehouse may go up. 

In fact, the only flames that are being put out are the ones doused in human blood. A good thing there's so much of it, Mark thinks. And then he curses himself for ever even being able to think it. 

(What the !@#$ is happening to him?)

He gets inside the infirmary, jumping over a charred lump of flesh and fat that was once their doctor, right through a broken, smoldering hole in the wall that used to be the door. Just past it is the broken, shattered remains of what used to be the examination room and operating theater. 

And beyond that is a sight he never thought possible -- someone actually holding off the monster that's rampaged through their base.

It's the Green Man, and he's moving so fast that Moloch can't get a hit on him, using surgical implements and steel bars to block and parry the numerous, slicing arms that the brass beast's limbs have separated into.

"You will fall before Moloch!" the monster rages, smoke and fire tumbling from its mouth.

"You will tire and give up before I'm even scratched," Green Man taunts him, leaping up and throwing a knife right at the thing's eye. It melts into metal steam before it can do any damage, but the skill needed for such a throw is unnerving, and makes the monster take a step back.

"Hey, ugly!" Mark shouts, and opens fire. 

The beast turns around to regard him as the bullets bounce from its hide. As it does, Mark sees where the Lion has gone during all this. And the sight of the man in the machine makes him hesitate, just for a second.

And in that moment, Moloch strikes, shooting a gout of hellfire right at Mark's face.

In the split-second before everything explodes, he wonders how Martha is doing, and if she'll ever know what he'd been trying to tell her, all these months.

And he thinks what a stupid and sudden way to die this is.

And he prays that Thomas' father can save his son, and that the others can save the planet. 

And he closes his eyes, hoping that the next thing he sees is Jesus, welcoming him home at last.

And then everything goes hot and noisy and yellow, then cold and silent and white, and he follows the cool, pale quiet down, wondering what he'll find at the bottom of it all.

(SPYGOD is listening to Fly on the Windscreen (Depeche Mode) and having a Fireball)

10/15/12 - The Reclamation War - Pt. 2

When the Lion was a young man, living in Algiers, he knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up -- a superhero.

His personal hero was a cunning and seemingly-unstoppable man from Tunisia: a man who had fought against fascists in World War II using only his cunning and reputation. A covert operative who struck from the shadows, leaving broken and groaning men in his wake, and then vanished before anyone could ever see him -- leaving only a claw-mark on the door or window he'd come in as testament to his having been and gone. 

They called him El-Asid -- the Lion. It was not a name he chose for himself; the enemy gave it to him. But when the war was over, and their evil defeated, he eventually adopted it with pride as he rededicated himself to fighting corruption and injustice in his own country. And then, with others like him, he did the same for the whole of North Africa.

For several years, it was said that God, himself, was on the side of The Lion. The criminals whispered that any cruel or evil deed done in the sight of God would be met and punished by that man. And those criminals were often condemned by their own words, as such base and superstitious men often are.

But the Lion was just a man, like any other. When he fell -- after fighting a being that claimed to be a god, himself -- there was no getting back up again. He died a hero, and was buried and mourned by his peers, his government, and those he had protected over the years.

And one could only hope that God had taken him into Paradise early, for he had surely deserved such a reward.

Seeing the pictures of his dead hero turned that young man's life around. He trained himself secretly, he amassed techniques and talents, and then, when the time was right, he stepped forward to claim the mantle that his hero had lost in death.

At first, others scoffed at this youthful upstart -- who was he to claim this man's good name? The ones he wanted as peers and allies shunned him, and told him to begone. But over time his dedication and zeal shone though, and even the old allies of the dead hero were willing to admit that the young man who'd taken his name had proven worthy of it. Indeed, in recent years he had transformed into a leader of other heroes, and -- thanks God -- had seemingly been worthy of such a position. 

Was he worthy now, then?

Now that he had been all but lured into a trap that even a fledgling hero should have been smart enough to avoid? Now that he was trapped within the body of a brass monster as it raged through a fantastic treehouse? Now that his body burned like a candle to provide the beast with the hellfire it launched at others?

Now that he suffered the same fate as his daughter had, all those months ago?

(A death he'd foolishly blamed on a friend and ally, rather than the beast that had done it.)

The Lion is not certain of this, any more than he is certain of anything. The fire rages about him -- rages from him -- but yet does not kill. But the pain it causes takes him in and out of consciousness, and in those moments of blackness he imagines himself standing before both his hero and God, and trying to explain exactly how he came to this horrible moment.

He can only hope they will be merciful, as he sees his friends and allies fall before the fists and fire that he is helping this infernal beast provide. Because he knows that he is the one who is directly responsible for bringing the monster here, amongst them. He is the one who vouched for the hero, based only on his seeming zeal and piety, and his ability to destroy the Imago with ease.

He is the one who looked into the metal man's eyes and thought he saw a reflection of his younger self, and decided to give him the chance that he, himself, had not been readily given at the start of his own career.

God have mercy upon him, it is almost as though this creature knew of the old scars in his heart and took advantage of them. And, given what a terrible foe he has proven himself, he would not be at all surprised if that was the truth.

If it is, then the Lion may have doomed their entire plan to take back the world from the Imago.

And if that's true, then when things finally go entirely black -- and his candle mercifully burns itself out -- he will indeed have much explaining to do.

Someone he called a friend screams as the fire takes him whole. The noise follows him down into blackness, and he prays that he will die, here and now, rather than contribute to the deaths of any more people.

He prays through the noise, and into the dark, that he can at least die like a hero. 

* * *

The alarm clocks on Alpha Base Seven are all the same: small, atonal things that start off softly, and then get even more atonal as they continue, but don't get any louder.

It's all based on some old, long-disproved idea that the strangeness of the noise they make will wake you up better than their increasing volume. But even though the theory's been shot down with holes large enough to hide Tranquility Base, itself, in, no one's gotten around to getting better alarm clocks for the crew.

There's always some boilerplate excuse about weight restrictions and priorities, which make sense. But then those excuses are salted with word of taxpayer grumblings, and lovingly glazed with the suggestion that the intrepid crew -- often marooned for years at a time -- have to do more with the less that they have, unless they want to risk losing even more.

And since 3/15, and the punishment they took from the Imago, they've had to do everything with hardly anything at all.

Prentice has been sitting at the edge of his Commander's bed for the last fifteen minutes. He's been awake for the last hour. The alarm has been going off for just under a minute, now, and he knows that he should really get up, turn it off, and let her sleep though his dressing and leaving.

He really should just pass out of her secret life as quickly as he's slipped into it.

He doesn't look at her, sleeping. He doesn't want to. That would ruin it. He only wants to remember the look on her face when she stood before him, naked and ready. He only wants to remember the sounds she made when he first slipped into her.

Everything else since then was a blur of various expectations met, exceeded, or dashed, but he wouldn't have it any other way. Everything went the way he'd more or less imagined it would.

Everything happened the way it was supposed to.

"Today, then," he says, getting up to dress. And by the time Barbara Martin finally does realize her alarm's going off, and it's time to get up, he's long gone. She never sees him alive again.

And all the questions she might have asked him are left unanswered, which -- in his estimation, at least - is also how things were supposed to go. 

* * *

"We are ready, then?" Ben Franklin asks the West Coast, where a number of people whose existence he can't quite understand are putting the last touches on a plan that's been months in the making.

"We are, yes," the masked and cowled man he's been taking most of his orders from replies: "If the President's ready?"

"I am ready," the President says, taking one last look at his notes before tossing them away, and no longer caring if his !@#$ tie is on straight or not. 

"Then I guess there's just one thing to do," Ben says, gesturing to the big red button on his control bank, right in front of all the screens he's got running: "This is the Rubicon, Mr. President. We press this, and the counter-signal is given. And sixty seconds after that, the FDOS is activated, and we go forward. No time for second thoughts."

"'We hang together, or they'll hang us all separately?'" the President quotes.

"Well, that wasn't exactly what I said, and I don't know if it's entirely applicable in this case. But, yes, I'll take that as a final word."

"Actually, I think my final words are..." the President muses, and then says something absolutely, mind-blowingly brilliant. The sort of motto that belongs on statues and memorials.

But no one's writes it down, because Ben Franklin isn't paying attention, anymore. He's just pressed the big red button, and started the revolution. 

For one full minute, anyone who is currently looking at a computer, monitor, or screen that's hooked directly into the internet has their brains soaked with a signal -- that that acts to directly counter the Imago's perniciously passive brainwashing. 

In that time, they find themselves realizing that things have been weird for the last seven months. They wonder why they've been so acquiescent about things. They wonder why they've been annoyed, rather than furious. Why they've been content to grumble instead of taking up arms and running into the streets -- deathrays be !@#$ed. 

And they question -- for the first time in more than half a year, they truly question what's been going on, and why.

And, after that sixty seconds of long-denied mental freedom has elapsed, the world comes slamming to a halt as the entire internet goes black, rolls over, and dies.

* * *

First there is a smart-phone. Then there is no smart-phone. Then there is.

An older, balding man in ornate, red robes looks at the black screen that was downtown Neo York City, just a few seconds ago, and gets up from the yoga pose he's been engaged in for the last hour.


"Did they do it?" he asks Sambulat as they sit just outside a large clearing North of Manila, in the Philippines. Beyond the brush lies a massive, white cube -- gleaming in the morning sun, and seemingly-unguarded.

"I've got nothing on my pad," the scruffily-dressed, young Filipino man says, tossing his now-seemingly-useless tablet aside: "Check your phone?"

"I've got a better idea," the woman in thick, glittering armor behind them says, looking off to the side and then back at them: "Yep, I'd say they did it. My anti-viral guards just shut down my access ahead of an attack wave. And they only do that if it's something they don't think they can handle."

"And if Gold Standard can't handle a computer virus, it's a !@#$ bad one," the bald man says, throwing his cowl over his head and getting ready for battle: "Nice to have you along, by the way."

"I owe it to all of you, Red Alchemist," she replies: "It's what I think my father would have wanted, anyway, if he'd been himself at the end, there."

"You Americans and your dynasties," Sambulat says, popping open a can of Royal Tru-Orange and guzzling it down: "What is it with tradition? I thought the whole point was to tell your parents to step off."

"Yes, but you eventually become your parents, son," Red Alchemist says with a smile: "And I guess that's why I never had any kids."

"Any regrets?" Gold Standard asks, looking at the giant, white cube they're about to attack.

"Not a one. You?"

"I'm regretting signing up with you old fogies," the young man says, winking as he tosses the empty can aside, belches, and walks out of the brush and towards the cube: "Remember to give me a wide berth. When I go boom, I go boom."

The two Freedom Force members -- one old, one new -- look at each other, smile, and kneel down, waiting for the Filipino hero they've teamed up with to live up to his name.

And when he does, maybe ten seconds later, they, like every other such group of strategic talents around the world, press the attack on the Imago's power supply, hoping to leave them both blind and crippled before delivering the final death-blow.

* * *

Moloch strides through the warping, wooden hallways of the prehistoric treehouse, smiling at the devastation and fear it's causing.

It's waited so long for this. So !@#$ long. Days upon days of smiling at faces he would rather burn off. Weeks of enduring social niceties and pretending to care. Months of biding his time and wondering when this plan would finally pay off.

And the praying! Oh, the praying. Kneeling to a false God five times a day. "God be praised this" and "thanks God" that. Inshallah, Inshallah, Inshallah...

No more of that. No more disguises. No more cocoons. No more of the wolf hiding his fur, fangs, and claws while amongst the sheep.

Today, as these so-called heroes prepare to fight their war against the metal creatures who've usurped their control of the Earth -- when they simply cannot afford for anything to go wrong -- Moloch strikes.

And SPYGOD will doubtlessly, finally come to accept his punishment at the hands of the one, true God.

The initial plan had made perfect sense: to mangle a saying from Moloch's meat childhood, if SPYGOD would not come to Moloch, then Moloch would come to SPYGOD. So Moloch had perfected a final form of itself, and hidden it inside a metal shell that, while not having the perfect conductivity of brass, would still suit his needs.

So did the Man of Steel came into the Gulf States -- a local hero, born from the Emirate of Fujairah, and as kind and pious and righteous a soul from such humble beginnings could be. This metal man fought meat crime and righted meat wrongs, and did so with such zeal and efficiency that it could not escape the notice of other heroes within that region.

And so, when 3/15 happened, and the Man of Steel's uncanny powers over metal proved a valuable defense against the Imago, the other heroes rushed to bring the young, fresh-faced talent into their fold. Moloch hoped that, within time, they would be brought together to form an ultimate plan, and that SPYGOD -- who had been missing in action since he killed the American meat President, a month before -- would come from hiding, and try to rehabilitate himself by taking back the world.

At that moment, Moloch would strike.

SPYGOD remained absent, however -- there was only the strange, masked leader of the revolution, and his weird comrade. But when that duo began recruiting for their revolution, and came upon the few remaining heroes of North Africa and the Middle East, the Man of Steel was all too happy to join them.

So Moloch had waited, biding time. Moloch waited while SPYGOD returned, but was ever elsewhere. Moloch waited while the plan was built and parts assembled. Moloch waited while tactics were plotted and ideas raised, and either mooted or adopted.

A week ago, Moloch snapped and acted out -- a poor decision, but not a fatal one. It gave the Man of Steel a social excuse to be seen less and less, so that Moloch could prepare more and more.

And now, here at the edge of the cliff all the world was about to leap over, Moloch could rise up from the depths and strike with full force.

The treehouse has things that SPYGOD wants -- those six satellites, ready to be shot into space -- but SPYGOD could always send people though to collect them from Moloch. Sooner or later, after enough heroes lay dying at Moloch's feet, SPYGOD might eventually deign to come through on his own. But that would take time and could backfire, or be worked around, and then Moloch would be back where he started -- waiting again, interminably.

So Moloch will take advantage of SPYGOD's one, great weakness -- a weakness Moloch had used against him before.

In the infirmary, propped up in a plastic tent, is a maimed young boy. He is the Talon, son of the Owl, and nearly destroyed when the Imago attacked their rich, American mansion ahead of 3/15. He was brought here to heal, in the belief that this was the safest place for him, though to hear the doctor tell it the only thing keeping the child alive is either God, or that no one's told him it's okay to die.

(And Moloch certainly has not authorized such a kindness.)

So will Moloch use this boy to lure SPYGOD here. Moloch will take the child into the main room, where things are brought to and from the real world. Moloch will call out to SPYGOD to face him, once and for all, or the Talon will be rent asunder. And should SPYGOD send others to fight for him, the satellites will be destroyed.

Moloch does not care if the satellites survive or not. Moloch does not care if the Imago have the Earth or not. Let them have the meat, or kill them, or whatever they plan.

Moloch is eternal. Moloch will gladly rule a black and broken planet. So long as there is metal, there is life, and Moloch will be God over that cracked and desolute landscape of rock, waste, and gleaming brass.

Moloch is. 

The infirmary poses no barrier to Moloch. The doctor tries to defend his patient, but soon blazes like one of the fireworks the Indian meat is always launching from Satwa, back in Dubai, when the police aren't looking. And now there is just the room, and the boy in the plastic tent.

And...

Oh. Yes, he would be here, wouldn't he? The pale, sallow-faced fellow with green eyes who was brought here against his will. The father of the stricken boy.

The Green Man.

"Do you mind?" the fellow says, looking at Moloch through his long, black, and greasy hair: "We're trying to read the Bible, today."

"Get out of way of Moloch, meat," the brass monster hisses, the victim trapped inside his ribcage stirring to life as another gout of fire is readied: "You cannot stand against God."

"You're here for him, aren't you?" the Green Man says, pulling a number of sharp, metal objects out from behind his back, and getting ready to use them: "Might not want to use the flames. There's oxygen in use, here. SPYGOD won't come to fight over a corpse."

"You...?" Moloch asks, uncertain how this meat-thing could know.

"I've known what you were since you lost your temper, your Mohammedan buffoon," Green Man spits: "I was just waiting to see what you'd do. And now I know. And now I stop you."

"You cannot win," Moloch says, his arms coming apart, readying to rip the man apart.

"I cannot miss," Green Man says, smiling and making ready to fight. To save the son he didn't know he had.

To die.

(SPYGOD is listening to Stripped (Depeche Mode) and drinking a Devils Head Red)