Keeping up, son?
I sure hope so. We can't !@#$ing afford to be caught out here by those metal-plated !@#$holes. Not only is it going to lead to a big !@#$ fight I'm not sure I can win, here and now, but the best weapon I got going for me, right now, is being dead.
And if they actually see me, well... there's that gun gone. Right before I really got to !@#$ing fire it, too.
Eh, don't worry about the security cameras and TV screens. That's what I was really doing, earlier, when I was walking around Beijing to clear my !@#$ head. I was really picking a safe route though the city, son. And I think I got the perfect one to get us to where we need to go, tonight.
Yeah, yeah -- alleys and tunnels and rooftops. Go !@#$ing figure. Kind of like Berlin after the War, minus the fog, supercommies, and pretzels.
And plus those Imago !@#$ers, which is really what we've been talking about all !@#$ night long, huh? Unit 731 plus Dark Star equals False Faces. False Faces plus Indonesia equals GORGON. And then GORGON plus the Object plus the city under the waves equals Imago.
And Imago plus 3/15 equals a big bag of !@#$ that we get to wade through for what may be a very !@#$ing short rest of our lives, unless we're careful, and !@#$ quick. And very !@#$ing lucky.
But that's me babbling like a !@#$ing brook, son. Let's get back on track here, while we wait for that Silver and Blue !@#$er I saw earlier to pass us on by, up here on this nice roof with its body-blocking, highly inefficient air conditioners.
Let's talk about The Object, itself.
What's the Object? Well, that's a good !@#$ question, now isn't it? Not a whole lot of people know it even !@#$ing exists, and no one's really been brave enough to try and study the !@#$ thing. And people who do tend to die.
And !@#$ing badly, son.
You see, it's one of those cosmically nasty kinds of things that really have no !@#$ing business even being in this reality. They come through and land here, and !@#$ up the landscape, and turn anyone and anything nearby into a mockery of what they'd been, before. And anyone smart enough to realize it tends to do anything they can to lock it the !@#$ away, if only to save others from !@#$, and possibly save the entire world.
Things like poor Gilligan's mask, if you want a more recent example. That god!@#$ed chunk of metal that turned him from a mild-mannered, decent man into a !@#$ing monster from beyond space and time. We thought we could control it, but we were wrong, and it took me decades to be able to !@#$ing deal with it.
Decades, son. And you don't want to know how much collateral !@#$ing damage I have on my plate from that thing alone-
Whoop! Duck.
...
Okay, think it's gone.
Now, that was Blue and Silver, again, but last time I saw him he was headed away from the center of town. Now it's gone back, again. Is it establishing a !@#$ perimeter?
Hmm.
Anyway, onward. Couple of blocks this way, I think... yeah. Keep it going, son. We're doing fine.
So anyway, this nasty thing that should not be appears, messes up the landscape for miles around, and attracts the attention of some !@#$ smart people. They realize it's a big disaster, and post guards around the edges of the zone of disruption. And it's so !@#$ing dangerous, they actually
!@#$ing sealed it up.
That's right, son -- wise men in Africa invented the closed city concept ages before the Soviets did. They took their best, most dedicated soldiers, teamed them up with farmers and craftsmen, and saw to it that they lived, worked, and died inside a
closed area of the jungle, just outside the distortion zone. They worked there, and never left, and had strict orders to !@#$ing
kill anyone who didn't come to them with certain words and objects, for only they were allowed to see the Object.
After that, and a few sad but necessary deaths, there was only one man who knew !@#$ing anything about this thing, and he went so !@#$ far underground that most people today don't even know his real !@#$ing name. It's probably no small thing to say that we owe our lives to the Wandering Shadow and his family, because they kept that secret safe for thousands of years. He took the objects and words into his care, and then acted to stop or kill anyone who went looking for that !@#$ing thing.
And there were a lot of them, son. Too many to count.
You see, that's the weird thing about this thing. It sends dreams. People half the world away go to sleep and dream of strange cities, full of riches. And they just know, somehow, that the city is somewhere in !@#$ing Africa. They just have to go and find it.
Now, not every person out there that gets these dreams can do anything about it. But some can. And some of those dreamers are able to interpret what they see in their mind when they're !@#$ing konked out. So they stage expeditions, get money and helpers, and before you know it, they're trudging through the !@#$ing Congo, looking for gold pyramids and rubies as big as !@#$ houses, or something.
So what does the Wandering Shadow do? Intercept them. He does his best to !@#$ with their supply chains, send them down the wrong paths, mess with their maps, give them diseases. Anything this man has to do to stop them from getting to the jungle, and risk they actually overcoming the guards, he does. No matter how hard, how bloody, how brutal.
And when World War II happens, and the Nazis start searching the world for objects of power? The man figures out a way to trick the Allies into intercepting the Germans before they even get within 100 !@#$ miles of the edge of the disruption zone. He actually !@#$ing impersonates Field Marshal Harold Alexander to pull it off, and does it so well that no one knew what had happened until well after the !@#$ war was over.
He's a man's man, this Wandering Shadow. I actually admire the son of a !@#$. All of them.
Anyway, it gets to be the 1960's, and the world's gotten too !@#$ big to keep a secret like that, anymore. They can !@#$ing see the sealed off area of the jungle from space, now. Europe and Russia and America are all fighting over who gets to politically influence Africa, and it's only a matter of time before someone finds the distortion zone, and tries to exploit it.
And this time they might be more powerful than even the Wandering Shadow and his family to deal with.
So the current Wandering Shadow finally reveals himself to the right people in power in Africa. Then he goes to the ancestors of the guards of this weird-!@#$ thing, and shows them the proper objects and words. Turns out they're a hardy lot, these guards, and he takes the best of them back to civilization, and they become part of what eventually becomes the Organization of African Unity's strategic talents organization, BUSH.
Oh yes, son. Them. The incompetent mother!@#$ers who didn't know what the !@#$ they were doing when it came to matters on this planet, but were amazingly expert on dealing with threats from outer space. There was a time when an ET couldn't even !@#$ing fart without them knowing about it.
But one of their primary jobs was to look after the blasted area of the jungle, and the Object within it. That job fell to the guards who'd come back from the edge of the distortion zone, and in that area BUSH did not !@#$ up. At all. They put more guards around the central guards, and locked the !@#$ing thing down like a champ. Missile banks, big guns, certain strategic talents whose only purpose was to watch the skies, the land, and what lay below...
Speaking of which? On your belly, now.
...
Him again? I wonder what the !@#$ he's up to? Is this a regular patrol?
Well, never mind. Let's keep going, son.
The Object was secured for more years, thanks to BUSH. But, eventually, that organization turns into a !@#$ing textbook case of just about everything bad about modern Africa. Political infighting, political incest, naked aggression, and dumb mistakes cripple their credibility, but given the complicated !@#$ing web of loyalties and statures of those involved, you can't just get rid of it. It takes a massive !@#$ing thing to do that.
That massive !@#$ing thing happens in 2002, when the African Union supersedes the Organization of African Unity's. At that time, a number of things that people didn't like come under the microscope, including BUSH. So, web of loyalties and simmer conflicts be !@#$ed, they get partially replaced by NGUVU.
I say partially because some African countries still liked those !@#$ing idiots, and helped keep them around. Sadly, that included the current Wandering Shadow, who had a nasty feud going with the family of the man who was tapped to run NGUVU. And you can imagine this makes it difficult to deal with questions about what to do with the Object.
So what happens? NGUVU !@#$ing take the thing from where it was, and put it into a new facility. But people can't know what it is, or why, because that would be really !@#$ing bad. So, to ensure that no one knew what was really going on there, the only
people who did, including the guards, were subjected to a very !@#$ing
dangerous neurochemical treatment, the Seyoum treatment.
What's that? Well, it's pretty !@#$ ingenious, son. It buries the information so far
down in your brainmeat that no one, not even the best psychic you can get your hands on, can !@#$ing get to it. The only
way to unlock it is to take a drink of this nasty, top secret
concoction that will probably turn your brains to goo rather than get
the secrets out.
So you know you know something, but you can't remember it for the life of you, and what you'd have to do to remember it would probably !@#$ing kill you. How's that for secrecy in the modern world?
Well, we saw how well that worked, anyway. The head of BUSH gets taken into custody after I smash them for what they did to my kids. Then NGUVU lets him !@#$ing escape, just to see what kind of a weird deal he had going with and against GORGON. Then he winds up dead, with his brain wiped, and we find out the hard way that Dark Star can crash though the Seyoum Treatment with no !@#$ problem whatsoever.
And that's that, right? So much for !@#$ing African unity, and score one for the bad guys.
So where do we come into all of this? Well, that's an interesting !@#$ story. How about we hide in this alley while I tell you?
Yeah, this smells !@#$ing great, son. Rotten cabbage and burned wet cardboard. Or maybe it's the dinner special. !@#$ if I know. There's places here where they pickle eggs in urine and sell them to you.
Anyway, me. Having this eye in my !@#$ing head, it opens up my mind to a
whole lot of !@#$ that really doesn't make a lot of !@#$ing sense. At
least not at first. Maybe later, after a few beers or some thought, or
maybe !@#$ing years later, it'll finally hit me.
And when I finally saw that that city in the waves looked like? I got hit, son. Hard.
You see, when NGUVU moved the Object? I was !@#$ing there.
Oh yes, son. I was. They didn't know it then and they sure as !@#$ don't know it, now, but I got wind that something really big was on the move, in that one spot where BUSH had people on guard. So I figured there had to be something in there worth guarding, and kept an ear open for big projects around the continent.
After that, it was just a matter of being in the right place in the right one at the right time to see what all the !@#$ fuss was about. Sure enough, I laid low long enough, and was rewarded by being in the chamber when they !@#$ing brought it in. Three remote controlled robots trundled it in, carrying it in a clear plastic case, treating it like it might !@#$ing explode at any moment. And then they left it there and scooted out as fast as they could, leaving me all alone with it.
I saw it, son. I saw the Object, itself, and it was a strange, shifting piece of thin, coppery metal. I saw how it waved and curled at the edges, like it was a flag caught waving in the breeze, and slowed down. I heard it singing with a voice like a hyena crying, distorted and warped underwater, and then echoed across the stars.
And in my mind, I saw the same !@#$ thing that all those explorers and conquerors and treasure seekers must have seen. Temples and pyramids and towers, columns and slabs, arches and aqueducts. All time periods, all civilizations, all places lost and found, reflected within it.
The genius of all lost cities, there in my minds eye. Maybe the lost archetype of all great human settlements, sending out ideas
to architects and artists throughout the ages, informing their hands as
they shaped clay and drew plans.
And it promised me wealth and power if only I could get there and take it.
So I left that chamber as quickly as I could, son. I knew that, whatever the !@#$ this was, it was something best left alone. Something that should not have !@#$ing been on our planet at all.
I was !@#$ing petrified, son, and I still am.
But I wasn't so scared that I couldn't realize what I was seeing. It wasn't just some weird thing sending out dreams, son. It was the key to that fantastic city, and, more importantly, it was the map to get there.
And my eye told me where that map was leading, son. The Pacific Ocean. Not that far from where we had it out with Gorgon, back in February.
And if I hadn't been !@#$ing distracted and second-guessing myself, back then, I would have known the !@#$ we were about to stumble into, down there.
So yes, son. That city that's risen above the waves? GORGON found it a long time ago, but they needed the key to really unlock it. And once they had the Object, they needed only get the rest of their plan into action in order to wake it the !@#$ up.
Which means that Dark Star wasn't !@#$ing lying about there being a treasure trove of weapons and tech down there. It just means that maybe she wasn't an alien, after all.
Maybe she was out there at sea, capsized, and her power picked that traumatic moment to wake up. Maybe she ran into one of the aliens from that city. Maybe she drank down his memories and became him, or her, and knew all that he knew.
And maybe she's been doing everything possible since then to wake that city up, somehow.
"Maybe." I !@#$ing hate that word, son. It's so !@#$... diffident. Uncommitted. It just says that you don't know something really !@#$ing important, and that you're left with guesswork and hunches.
But it's not a hunch to say that GORGON was connected, all along, to something !@#$ing alien, there under the waves. And they've been working towards getting that alien city up here since then, and finally !@#$ing succeeded.
And now... now we see what they're really !@#$ing up to, now don't we?
...
Okay, and this is our stop, right here. I am going to go into this building, and meet with someone I really !@#$ing need to talk to. And you are going to wait right here, in this nasty-smelling trash can, until I !@#$ing come out.
Yeah, yeah. It stinks in there. Better than being found by the Imago, right?
I thought so. Try not to throw up, son.
(SPYGOD is listening to Walking with Shadows (Gary Numan, extended mix) and having something with someone you don't want to meet)
Showing posts with label shiro iishi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shiro iishi. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 4
You hear that, son?
Yeah. That. The silence, out there, late at night in this city. Curfew's from two in the AM to six in the AM. No one's supposed to be out on the !@#$ing streets, much less looking out the !@#$ windows.
Me, I don't have to risk !@#$ing vanishing. I can just sit here and listen, and hear more than I really !@#$ing want to.
I can see the lights flickering, here in this !@#$ room. But I can hear the power being diverted. A steady, electric river, leading right out of town to that !@#$ing facility the Imago built, over in Luanping.
Yeah, son. The big, white box no one wants to !@#$ing look at. The one with a five of those metal-plated !@#$ers floating above it like angels on a !@#$ing Christmas tree.
The one that lights up like there's a big !@#$ rave going on, there, every night. Two in the AM to six in the AM, it's weird-!@#$ lights and strange !@#$ing noises.
And as for what goes on there, well... I can't hear everything, but I can !@#$ing hear enough.
...
This world needs to be free, son. Soon. And as soon as I get the !@#$ing power, I will by God be the one to free it from these !@#$s.
Anyway. Beer. Swig it down, and let's consider the power we do have, so far. And that would be information, courtesy of the People's Republic of China, and their tendency to not know what to keep and what to throw down the !@#$ing shredder.
(Lucky for them old SPYGOD helped them out with some well-placed incendiary devices, huh?)
So now we've got proof positive that, unbeknownst to us previously, there was a definite connection between Japan's nasty body horror science facility, Unit 731, and GORGON, by way of Dark Star, the memory-eater.
We know that Dark Star has a really interesting !@#$ing story, including tales of having escaped from some water-logged spacecraft in the middle of the !@#$ing Pacific. A spacecraft filled with tech and weapons that could put Japan miles ahead in the !@#$ war, and maybe even win them the !@#$ing world, too.
Now, it later turns out that this might not have been completely !@#$ing true, courtesy of some digging on behalf of the whore-mongering officer who found and recruited her. But the truth comes so !@#$ late that the Japanese can't do anything about it before a certain Fat Man and Little Boy come around to !@#$ up their !@#$, and end the war.
But we never find out about this, do we? We arrange to have General Shiro Iichi, and some of his other Unit 731 alumni, hidden from view and shielded from postwar prosecution for the sick !@#$s they are because they had such well-documented information about spreading diseases, amongst other disgusting things. And to his dying day, he never !@#$ing says anything about this sick !@#$, and what she was doing there.
Now, the real question is, did the Soviets ever learn? They rounded up a bunch of fleeing Japanese scientists, put them on trial for the deaths of their Chinese allies, as well as their own people, and sent them off to work in a !@#$ing katorga. But they confiscated every !@#$ thing they found on those people, and we know they !@#$ing "debriefed" them, before and during their stay at the Siberian Sheraton.
And we know about the Anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk, in 1979. Boy do we ever !@#$ing know about that.
So do the Russians know a little more about this than they're letting on? Well, maybe. And maybe I should !@#$ing look into that, when I have the time...
But, important things first. We now also know that the first False Faces were made at Unit 731, by Dark Star, with Shiro Iishi watching and loving every !@#$ing moment of it. Which fits with the timeline I had before, after other Strategic Talents came back from the War and told me that they !@#$ing ran into !@#$ False Faces in the South Pacific, during that time.
Now, since that predated the existence of GORGON by about twenty !@#$ing years, we were never sure if it was a coincidence, or if maybe GORGON had stolen its considerable tech from someone else. After all, these were primitive ones, comparatively speaking. They didn't have replicator masks or bionic eyes, back then, and their suicide charges were shoved up into their !@#$ing guts, rather than in their eyes.
We also weren't sure if they were working for the Japanese or not. And now we know why. The High Command had no !@#$ing idea that Dark Star was sending these people out into the field. Everything they did was done for her.
Point of interest: most of the time my allies ran into those !@#$ers, it was in and around Indonesia. And where do Dark Star, Thunder, and Lightning vanish into the jungles of, just two months before the end of the War?
That's right. The Irian Jaya, better known as West Papua. Gold star, son. Have another beer.
So, time goes !@#$ing by, and then GORGON shows up in the 60's, along with a few other groups of science terrorist !@#$holes. We think they're just another such group, at first, but then we find out how they recruit people, and what their driving forces are, and we realize that we've got a real !@#$ing problem on our hands.
But, thankfully, we've got a system and they seem to stick with it. We spy on them, they spy on us, we all spy on each other at Outland, and things don't get too !@#$ing out of hand too often.
At least until I change the rules of the !@#$ing game by refusing to play, anymore. And then they get really !@#$ nasty, really !@#$ quick.
And when I do encounter them, after I !@#$ over ABWEHR, and decide to go after them, next, rather than HONEYCOMB, I make two interesting discoveries. The first being that they somehow managed to turn Deep Ten into their communications hub, which brings up a whole lot of nasty !@#$ing questions I didn't have the heart to ask Director Straffer.
And the second is that their False Faces are using gauss rifles that are just !@#$ing magnificent pieces of work, and unquestionably alien in manufacture. At the time, I figure they made a deal with some !@#$ing bunch of squidgy ET salesmen at a previous OUTLAND, and go back to defending my fine, gay !@#$ from certain doom.
I just barely !@#$ing get that fine, gay !@#$ out of there. And, after what happens, we eventually get back to tracking them down, and find out that the !@#$ers swarmed out of the bowels of West Papua, and evaced into submarines of uncertain make and model.
Alien-looking submarines, son. And they vanish into those !@#$ing tunnels that riddle certain parts of the floor of the Pacific Ocean, making tracking them !@#$ing impossible. Oh, and they're full of DEROS, too, so there's that.
A whole bunch of other !@#$ happens, and some of that does not need to be retread over. But, bottom line, we finally get up and go after their !@#$es, and we get ours handed to us. They've been down in those tunnels forever, it seems, and they have total !@#$ing control over the DEROS. And I'm left with a broken Flier, a crew on the edge of mutiny, and a President who decides that now's a good !@#$ time to bench me.
More !@#$ing things happen that we don't really need to retread over. Have another !@#$ing beer, son.
Now, jump ahead to 3/15. GORGON has !@#$ing infiltrated everywhere, especially in America, where a whole generation of high-tech, anonymous soldiers called Specials turn out to be !@#$ing False Faces.
Then they cripple all world governments, using a worldwide collection of useful idiots who thought they were being handed the keys to their respective kingdoms.
They take over Deep Ten, and use it to blow the !@#$ out of anything that could be used as an air or space based weapon. And then, finally, the !@#$ Imago show up, displaying powers of teleportation and near-invulnerability to weapons. And everyone in those surviving governments gets told they were saved, except in America, where they're actually willing to be !@#$ing honest, since there's nothing the former Administration can do about it but look brave.
For all the good that !@#$ing does them.
...
And then, out of the middle of the !@#$ing Pacific, not too !@#$ far from where we fought that one, sorry battle against them, and lost, a strange city comes out of the waves...
Now, son. I know you remember my concerns about the Object, over in Africa. Remember when I found out that NGUVU more or less let its location slip to persons unknown, and how I just !@#$ing knew that GORGON was behind it?
Well, son, I am one of the few people on this Earth who actually saw the !@#$ thing, and knew where it !@#$ing was. And that just about cements my understanding as to what actually !@#$ing happened, here, with Dark Star and GORGON and that !@#$ing city.
And like I said, son. We had no !@#$ing how bad GORGON was. Not until now.
...
Come on, son. Grab a beer. We're gonna go break !@#$ing curfew, you and me, just for laughs.
That and I think we'll talk better on the go. I suddenly have a bad !@#$ing feeling about all of this.
And I know it's not a good idea to ignore any of that.
(SPYGOD is listening to Coming Up (The Cure) and having yet more Beijing Gold)
Yeah. That. The silence, out there, late at night in this city. Curfew's from two in the AM to six in the AM. No one's supposed to be out on the !@#$ing streets, much less looking out the !@#$ windows.
Me, I don't have to risk !@#$ing vanishing. I can just sit here and listen, and hear more than I really !@#$ing want to.
I can see the lights flickering, here in this !@#$ room. But I can hear the power being diverted. A steady, electric river, leading right out of town to that !@#$ing facility the Imago built, over in Luanping.
Yeah, son. The big, white box no one wants to !@#$ing look at. The one with a five of those metal-plated !@#$ers floating above it like angels on a !@#$ing Christmas tree.
The one that lights up like there's a big !@#$ rave going on, there, every night. Two in the AM to six in the AM, it's weird-!@#$ lights and strange !@#$ing noises.
And as for what goes on there, well... I can't hear everything, but I can !@#$ing hear enough.
...
This world needs to be free, son. Soon. And as soon as I get the !@#$ing power, I will by God be the one to free it from these !@#$s.
Anyway. Beer. Swig it down, and let's consider the power we do have, so far. And that would be information, courtesy of the People's Republic of China, and their tendency to not know what to keep and what to throw down the !@#$ing shredder.
(Lucky for them old SPYGOD helped them out with some well-placed incendiary devices, huh?)
So now we've got proof positive that, unbeknownst to us previously, there was a definite connection between Japan's nasty body horror science facility, Unit 731, and GORGON, by way of Dark Star, the memory-eater.
We know that Dark Star has a really interesting !@#$ing story, including tales of having escaped from some water-logged spacecraft in the middle of the !@#$ing Pacific. A spacecraft filled with tech and weapons that could put Japan miles ahead in the !@#$ war, and maybe even win them the !@#$ing world, too.
Now, it later turns out that this might not have been completely !@#$ing true, courtesy of some digging on behalf of the whore-mongering officer who found and recruited her. But the truth comes so !@#$ late that the Japanese can't do anything about it before a certain Fat Man and Little Boy come around to !@#$ up their !@#$, and end the war.
But we never find out about this, do we? We arrange to have General Shiro Iichi, and some of his other Unit 731 alumni, hidden from view and shielded from postwar prosecution for the sick !@#$s they are because they had such well-documented information about spreading diseases, amongst other disgusting things. And to his dying day, he never !@#$ing says anything about this sick !@#$, and what she was doing there.
Now, the real question is, did the Soviets ever learn? They rounded up a bunch of fleeing Japanese scientists, put them on trial for the deaths of their Chinese allies, as well as their own people, and sent them off to work in a !@#$ing katorga. But they confiscated every !@#$ thing they found on those people, and we know they !@#$ing "debriefed" them, before and during their stay at the Siberian Sheraton.
And we know about the Anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk, in 1979. Boy do we ever !@#$ing know about that.
So do the Russians know a little more about this than they're letting on? Well, maybe. And maybe I should !@#$ing look into that, when I have the time...
But, important things first. We now also know that the first False Faces were made at Unit 731, by Dark Star, with Shiro Iishi watching and loving every !@#$ing moment of it. Which fits with the timeline I had before, after other Strategic Talents came back from the War and told me that they !@#$ing ran into !@#$ False Faces in the South Pacific, during that time.
Now, since that predated the existence of GORGON by about twenty !@#$ing years, we were never sure if it was a coincidence, or if maybe GORGON had stolen its considerable tech from someone else. After all, these were primitive ones, comparatively speaking. They didn't have replicator masks or bionic eyes, back then, and their suicide charges were shoved up into their !@#$ing guts, rather than in their eyes.
We also weren't sure if they were working for the Japanese or not. And now we know why. The High Command had no !@#$ing idea that Dark Star was sending these people out into the field. Everything they did was done for her.
Point of interest: most of the time my allies ran into those !@#$ers, it was in and around Indonesia. And where do Dark Star, Thunder, and Lightning vanish into the jungles of, just two months before the end of the War?
That's right. The Irian Jaya, better known as West Papua. Gold star, son. Have another beer.
So, time goes !@#$ing by, and then GORGON shows up in the 60's, along with a few other groups of science terrorist !@#$holes. We think they're just another such group, at first, but then we find out how they recruit people, and what their driving forces are, and we realize that we've got a real !@#$ing problem on our hands.
But, thankfully, we've got a system and they seem to stick with it. We spy on them, they spy on us, we all spy on each other at Outland, and things don't get too !@#$ing out of hand too often.
At least until I change the rules of the !@#$ing game by refusing to play, anymore. And then they get really !@#$ nasty, really !@#$ quick.
And when I do encounter them, after I !@#$ over ABWEHR, and decide to go after them, next, rather than HONEYCOMB, I make two interesting discoveries. The first being that they somehow managed to turn Deep Ten into their communications hub, which brings up a whole lot of nasty !@#$ing questions I didn't have the heart to ask Director Straffer.
And the second is that their False Faces are using gauss rifles that are just !@#$ing magnificent pieces of work, and unquestionably alien in manufacture. At the time, I figure they made a deal with some !@#$ing bunch of squidgy ET salesmen at a previous OUTLAND, and go back to defending my fine, gay !@#$ from certain doom.
I just barely !@#$ing get that fine, gay !@#$ out of there. And, after what happens, we eventually get back to tracking them down, and find out that the !@#$ers swarmed out of the bowels of West Papua, and evaced into submarines of uncertain make and model.
Alien-looking submarines, son. And they vanish into those !@#$ing tunnels that riddle certain parts of the floor of the Pacific Ocean, making tracking them !@#$ing impossible. Oh, and they're full of DEROS, too, so there's that.
A whole bunch of other !@#$ happens, and some of that does not need to be retread over. But, bottom line, we finally get up and go after their !@#$es, and we get ours handed to us. They've been down in those tunnels forever, it seems, and they have total !@#$ing control over the DEROS. And I'm left with a broken Flier, a crew on the edge of mutiny, and a President who decides that now's a good !@#$ time to bench me.
More !@#$ing things happen that we don't really need to retread over. Have another !@#$ing beer, son.
Now, jump ahead to 3/15. GORGON has !@#$ing infiltrated everywhere, especially in America, where a whole generation of high-tech, anonymous soldiers called Specials turn out to be !@#$ing False Faces.
Then they cripple all world governments, using a worldwide collection of useful idiots who thought they were being handed the keys to their respective kingdoms.
They take over Deep Ten, and use it to blow the !@#$ out of anything that could be used as an air or space based weapon. And then, finally, the !@#$ Imago show up, displaying powers of teleportation and near-invulnerability to weapons. And everyone in those surviving governments gets told they were saved, except in America, where they're actually willing to be !@#$ing honest, since there's nothing the former Administration can do about it but look brave.
For all the good that !@#$ing does them.
...
And then, out of the middle of the !@#$ing Pacific, not too !@#$ far from where we fought that one, sorry battle against them, and lost, a strange city comes out of the waves...
Now, son. I know you remember my concerns about the Object, over in Africa. Remember when I found out that NGUVU more or less let its location slip to persons unknown, and how I just !@#$ing knew that GORGON was behind it?
Well, son, I am one of the few people on this Earth who actually saw the !@#$ thing, and knew where it !@#$ing was. And that just about cements my understanding as to what actually !@#$ing happened, here, with Dark Star and GORGON and that !@#$ing city.
And like I said, son. We had no !@#$ing how bad GORGON was. Not until now.
...
Come on, son. Grab a beer. We're gonna go break !@#$ing curfew, you and me, just for laughs.
That and I think we'll talk better on the go. I suddenly have a bad !@#$ing feeling about all of this.
And I know it's not a good idea to ignore any of that.
(SPYGOD is listening to Coming Up (The Cure) and having yet more Beijing Gold)
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 3
Loving that Beijing Gold, son?
I sure !@#$ing hope so. It'd be nice if you saved a case for me, there. I mean, it's my drunk you're infringing upon, after all...
Relax, son. Relax. I'm !@#$ing kidding. It's cool. It's not like the Imago are rationing beer in the cities, after all. We could !@#$ing drink Beijing dry as a jaded, 90 year old hooker's !@#$ and they'd just make more.
Beer's a simple thing, after all. Water, hops, and barley, maybe some flavorings. That and time. And before you know, you can drink the !@#$, and it'll !@#$ you up.
Now, people? That's a different !@#$ing story, son. We aren't chemical combinations or mathematical equations. There's no physics of the human heart or soul. What turns one young man into a go-getting role model might turn someone else into a !@#$ing thug on death row.
There's a great mystery going on between our ears, and it doesn't always lend itself to easy !@#$ing classification.
But we can make guesses, son. We can observe patterns and make observations. We can try things out and see how they work, or, if all else fails, just take a !@#$ing page out of history.
And that's all we really need to turn a group of ordinary people into !@#$ing faceless monsters -- the simple fact that, if you take someone who's in a bad place, and tell them that you love them, and that all they need to be happy is to accept and return that love, measure for measure, you can mold them like !@#$ing silly putty.
You can march them across minefields, make them slaughter their friends and coworkers, betray their countries, threaten the world.
You can make them shave their !@#$ing faces off to prove their love for you, and undergo radical cybernetic implantation that gives them a technical advantage when it comes to infiltration and impersonation.
You can make them willing to kill, and be killed, for an ideal that would sound like a bad horror novel if you read it in a newspaper.
Love, son. Love and hope. The two most dangerous weapons in the world.
Dark Star understood that. God only knows where or !@#$ing how she got the memo, but she proved it without a doubt in that separate area in Unit 731, where her and General Shiro Iishi watched group after group of Chinese prisoners carve their !@#$ faces off to show their love and loyalty to the woman who'd saved them from !@#$.
And then they gave them masks, called them False Faces, and set them to work around the camp, and then the war.
I never ran into one of those !@#$ers. I was in Europe, kicking Nazi !@#$, at the time. But some of the Strategic Talents who operated in Asia told me some really !@#$ing nasty stories about these faceless assassins the Japanese were using.
Most of the time they wore a plain, white mask with eyeholes. But they had portable devices that could take a dead person's face off at the skull, and then place it right on the assassin, like it had always been there. If they were caught, they fought like !@#$ to escape, and if that didn't work, they activated a suicide charge and blew themselves to !@#$ing pieces, rather than surrender.
Odd thing was that none of them were Japanese. They were Chinese, Russians, Jews, even captured Americans and Englishmen. Anyone that fell into Dark Star's clutches at Unit 731 might be turned into a !@#$ assassin and sent out into the field.
And Shiro !@#$ing loved this. He had visions of Japan ruling the world through the slow but steady absorption of all world leaders and high functionaries. He thought Dark Star and he would be the best servants of the Emperor, and help establish a beautiful new world in his name.
Oh, yeah, by this time the two of them were !@#$ing. He loved how she took his shame and dark memories away. Maybe that's how he could mentally handle doing the sort of things that should have made a good man cry for !@#$ing forgiveness and then put a bullet through his brains.
(Or maybe he was just too !@#$ed up to begin with. It's hard to tell.)
But then, just as he's mapped out the plans for his dream home, there to live with his sweet little memory-eating !@#$ of a wife, something happens that changes everything.
You remember how, before Dark Star created the False Faces, Shiro Iishi was convinced there was something she wasn't !@#$ing telling him? And you remember how he confided in her handler, and how he said he'd look into it? Well, that wasn't an empty promise, because by that point he was wishing he'd never !@#$ing seen her.
You see, being a handler for a strategic talent's a lot like being someone's talent agent in Hollywood. If you discovered someone, that's !@#$ing great, but you better !@#$ well hope that star keeps rising. Because the moment it cracks and falls the !@#$ down? So do you.
So yeah, this guy got some massive !@#$ brownie points by finding this !@#$ing powerful kid in that whorehouse for freaks. But then she came around and claimed that she had the !@#$ key to a door that unlock weapons and tech for Japan. Massively game-changing weapons and tech, in fact.
So now, every !@#$ time the war came a little closer to home, all his superiors would look at him and say "So why haven't we gotten these things, yet?" And they'd say it in such a way that it was clear that it was his !@#$ing responsibility, even if it wasn't.
After all, he found her. So what she did, or didn't do, after that was kind of his.
(!@#$ing sucks, huh?)
So he took a photo of her, drove up the East coast of the main island, went into administrative offices and police stations, and asked if anyone !@#$ing knew who she was. Of course, no one did, but he kept !@#$ing looking. And finally, just about at his wits' end, he gets all the way up to Kitakami-Cho, and shows the photo to the chief of police there.
The old guy looks at it, takes his glasses off, and starts weeping.
Turns out that this girl is his !@#$ing granddaughter. She went out on the fishing boat with her father older brothers, maybe ten years back, and they got caught in a terrible eastward-heading storm. The best they could figure was they either capsized and drowned, or got pushed so !@#$ far that they wound up stranded in the middle of the Pacific. !@#$, they could have wrecked in !@#$ing Alaska, or something for all they knew.
Did she ever act strangely, as a child? No, the old man says she was normal. Maybe a little boyish, which is why she was on the !@#$ing boat in the first place. But normal.
Did she ever exhibit strange powers? No, the old man says she was normal. And what kind of a !@#$ing question is that? When can he see her?
I don't know what happened to the old man, or what they told him. For all I know they said they'd get in touch and never !@#$ing did. But Shiro Iishi gets word from the mainland that the girl's a !@#$ing liar, and is no more alien than he is.
Now, given how !@#$ing powerful she is, they aren't going to punish her, at least not yet. But, obviously, her status as "hand behind the scalpel" at Unit 731 is !@#$ing over, and everything she was doing has to be stopped. They want him to concentrate on plagues, like he was before, instead, and remove all evidence of what she'd been up to.
"It must be as though she had never been there" ... I think that's what this !@#$ing translates to.
General Shiro Iishi is sad, of course, but, as we've seen, his job is to obey. He shoots the latest crop of False Faces, himself, and has their bodies burned. And he tells the high command that there may be other ones, operating out there, but of course they know where they are.
Then the penny !@#$ing drops. The High Command asks him what the !@#$ he's talking about.
They never ordered these "False Faces" into combat or espionage missions. Not once.
Ever.
Which means that everything she ever did with them was something she wanted done for her own !@#$ reasons. And God and the Emperor alone know what the !@#$ those might have been.
So Shiro Iishi is broken, sad, and borderline disgraced at this point. It's all he can do to make sure that everything she did is trashed, and if she comes back, she's to be arrested at the gates for treason. And that's an end to his dream home and her sorry, nasty !@#$ in his kitchen, making death baby soup, or whatever.
But, of course, she doesn't get back. This is late June of 1945, and she's off in New Guinea, supposedly looking for the Australians' secret supers base with Thunder and Lightning. They go in and never come out, and two months and two A-bombs later Japan's !@#$ing surrendered.
Shiro closes and scorches Unit 731 well ahead of the Soviets. They even ram suicide trucks full of explosives at the building, just to be sure it's a !@#$ing hole in the ground. But they don't burn everything, and some things get taken with, or left behind.
And this diary was one of those lost things, son. It's burned at the edges and some of the pages have been torn out, most of them from between the time she made her False Faces and when he found out what was really !@#$ing going on. God only !@#$ing knows what all went on, there.
You see, we got hold of General Shiro Iichi, after the war. General MacArthur okayed a deal where we got their cooperation and research, and they avoided prosecution for war crimes. It's sick and !@#$ing disgusting, and contrary to all notions of decency and justice, but it happens, anyway, and that's that.
(Maybe another reason you never !@#$ing read about this !@#$ in school, son. We're too disgusted to admit that we prosecuted men for experimenting on Jews in Europe, but let the Japanese have a pass for doing the same !@#$ing thing to the Chinese.)
But the important thing is that, no matter what we ask him, and no matter what he says, he never !@#$ing talks to us about her, or anything they did. Ever. It seems he took that !@#$ order about her never having been there very seriously.
Likewise, we take our side of the agreement seriously. We protect him from official reprisal, harm, and the Soviets, who want to grill his !@#$ on a !@#$ing hibachi along with the other ones they captured. He lives fairly well, after the war, and finally !@#$ing dies in 1959 from throat cancer. All that smoking and drinking, I guess.
Some say he was never in Japan after the war, though. They claim that he'd been replaced with a body double, and was actually in the states, working on biowarfare projects. But that's complete and happy horse!@#$, and you know well enough to know how I know that, so let's not go down that !@#$ing road.
But a couple years later, GORGON shows up, and then the real fun begins.
Yeah, son. Have another beer. Because this is where it gets really weird.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure, live version) and having more Beijing Gold)
I sure !@#$ing hope so. It'd be nice if you saved a case for me, there. I mean, it's my drunk you're infringing upon, after all...
Relax, son. Relax. I'm !@#$ing kidding. It's cool. It's not like the Imago are rationing beer in the cities, after all. We could !@#$ing drink Beijing dry as a jaded, 90 year old hooker's !@#$ and they'd just make more.
Beer's a simple thing, after all. Water, hops, and barley, maybe some flavorings. That and time. And before you know, you can drink the !@#$, and it'll !@#$ you up.
Now, people? That's a different !@#$ing story, son. We aren't chemical combinations or mathematical equations. There's no physics of the human heart or soul. What turns one young man into a go-getting role model might turn someone else into a !@#$ing thug on death row.
There's a great mystery going on between our ears, and it doesn't always lend itself to easy !@#$ing classification.
But we can make guesses, son. We can observe patterns and make observations. We can try things out and see how they work, or, if all else fails, just take a !@#$ing page out of history.
And that's all we really need to turn a group of ordinary people into !@#$ing faceless monsters -- the simple fact that, if you take someone who's in a bad place, and tell them that you love them, and that all they need to be happy is to accept and return that love, measure for measure, you can mold them like !@#$ing silly putty.
You can march them across minefields, make them slaughter their friends and coworkers, betray their countries, threaten the world.
You can make them shave their !@#$ing faces off to prove their love for you, and undergo radical cybernetic implantation that gives them a technical advantage when it comes to infiltration and impersonation.
You can make them willing to kill, and be killed, for an ideal that would sound like a bad horror novel if you read it in a newspaper.
Love, son. Love and hope. The two most dangerous weapons in the world.
Dark Star understood that. God only knows where or !@#$ing how she got the memo, but she proved it without a doubt in that separate area in Unit 731, where her and General Shiro Iishi watched group after group of Chinese prisoners carve their !@#$ faces off to show their love and loyalty to the woman who'd saved them from !@#$.
And then they gave them masks, called them False Faces, and set them to work around the camp, and then the war.
I never ran into one of those !@#$ers. I was in Europe, kicking Nazi !@#$, at the time. But some of the Strategic Talents who operated in Asia told me some really !@#$ing nasty stories about these faceless assassins the Japanese were using.
Most of the time they wore a plain, white mask with eyeholes. But they had portable devices that could take a dead person's face off at the skull, and then place it right on the assassin, like it had always been there. If they were caught, they fought like !@#$ to escape, and if that didn't work, they activated a suicide charge and blew themselves to !@#$ing pieces, rather than surrender.
Odd thing was that none of them were Japanese. They were Chinese, Russians, Jews, even captured Americans and Englishmen. Anyone that fell into Dark Star's clutches at Unit 731 might be turned into a !@#$ assassin and sent out into the field.
And Shiro !@#$ing loved this. He had visions of Japan ruling the world through the slow but steady absorption of all world leaders and high functionaries. He thought Dark Star and he would be the best servants of the Emperor, and help establish a beautiful new world in his name.
Oh, yeah, by this time the two of them were !@#$ing. He loved how she took his shame and dark memories away. Maybe that's how he could mentally handle doing the sort of things that should have made a good man cry for !@#$ing forgiveness and then put a bullet through his brains.
(Or maybe he was just too !@#$ed up to begin with. It's hard to tell.)
But then, just as he's mapped out the plans for his dream home, there to live with his sweet little memory-eating !@#$ of a wife, something happens that changes everything.
You remember how, before Dark Star created the False Faces, Shiro Iishi was convinced there was something she wasn't !@#$ing telling him? And you remember how he confided in her handler, and how he said he'd look into it? Well, that wasn't an empty promise, because by that point he was wishing he'd never !@#$ing seen her.
You see, being a handler for a strategic talent's a lot like being someone's talent agent in Hollywood. If you discovered someone, that's !@#$ing great, but you better !@#$ well hope that star keeps rising. Because the moment it cracks and falls the !@#$ down? So do you.
So yeah, this guy got some massive !@#$ brownie points by finding this !@#$ing powerful kid in that whorehouse for freaks. But then she came around and claimed that she had the !@#$ key to a door that unlock weapons and tech for Japan. Massively game-changing weapons and tech, in fact.
So now, every !@#$ time the war came a little closer to home, all his superiors would look at him and say "So why haven't we gotten these things, yet?" And they'd say it in such a way that it was clear that it was his !@#$ing responsibility, even if it wasn't.
After all, he found her. So what she did, or didn't do, after that was kind of his.
(!@#$ing sucks, huh?)
So he took a photo of her, drove up the East coast of the main island, went into administrative offices and police stations, and asked if anyone !@#$ing knew who she was. Of course, no one did, but he kept !@#$ing looking. And finally, just about at his wits' end, he gets all the way up to Kitakami-Cho, and shows the photo to the chief of police there.
The old guy looks at it, takes his glasses off, and starts weeping.
Turns out that this girl is his !@#$ing granddaughter. She went out on the fishing boat with her father older brothers, maybe ten years back, and they got caught in a terrible eastward-heading storm. The best they could figure was they either capsized and drowned, or got pushed so !@#$ far that they wound up stranded in the middle of the Pacific. !@#$, they could have wrecked in !@#$ing Alaska, or something for all they knew.
Did she ever act strangely, as a child? No, the old man says she was normal. Maybe a little boyish, which is why she was on the !@#$ing boat in the first place. But normal.
Did she ever exhibit strange powers? No, the old man says she was normal. And what kind of a !@#$ing question is that? When can he see her?
I don't know what happened to the old man, or what they told him. For all I know they said they'd get in touch and never !@#$ing did. But Shiro Iishi gets word from the mainland that the girl's a !@#$ing liar, and is no more alien than he is.
Now, given how !@#$ing powerful she is, they aren't going to punish her, at least not yet. But, obviously, her status as "hand behind the scalpel" at Unit 731 is !@#$ing over, and everything she was doing has to be stopped. They want him to concentrate on plagues, like he was before, instead, and remove all evidence of what she'd been up to.
"It must be as though she had never been there" ... I think that's what this !@#$ing translates to.
General Shiro Iishi is sad, of course, but, as we've seen, his job is to obey. He shoots the latest crop of False Faces, himself, and has their bodies burned. And he tells the high command that there may be other ones, operating out there, but of course they know where they are.
Then the penny !@#$ing drops. The High Command asks him what the !@#$ he's talking about.
They never ordered these "False Faces" into combat or espionage missions. Not once.
Ever.
Which means that everything she ever did with them was something she wanted done for her own !@#$ reasons. And God and the Emperor alone know what the !@#$ those might have been.
So Shiro Iishi is broken, sad, and borderline disgraced at this point. It's all he can do to make sure that everything she did is trashed, and if she comes back, she's to be arrested at the gates for treason. And that's an end to his dream home and her sorry, nasty !@#$ in his kitchen, making death baby soup, or whatever.
But, of course, she doesn't get back. This is late June of 1945, and she's off in New Guinea, supposedly looking for the Australians' secret supers base with Thunder and Lightning. They go in and never come out, and two months and two A-bombs later Japan's !@#$ing surrendered.
Shiro closes and scorches Unit 731 well ahead of the Soviets. They even ram suicide trucks full of explosives at the building, just to be sure it's a !@#$ing hole in the ground. But they don't burn everything, and some things get taken with, or left behind.
And this diary was one of those lost things, son. It's burned at the edges and some of the pages have been torn out, most of them from between the time she made her False Faces and when he found out what was really !@#$ing going on. God only !@#$ing knows what all went on, there.
You see, we got hold of General Shiro Iichi, after the war. General MacArthur okayed a deal where we got their cooperation and research, and they avoided prosecution for war crimes. It's sick and !@#$ing disgusting, and contrary to all notions of decency and justice, but it happens, anyway, and that's that.
(Maybe another reason you never !@#$ing read about this !@#$ in school, son. We're too disgusted to admit that we prosecuted men for experimenting on Jews in Europe, but let the Japanese have a pass for doing the same !@#$ing thing to the Chinese.)
But the important thing is that, no matter what we ask him, and no matter what he says, he never !@#$ing talks to us about her, or anything they did. Ever. It seems he took that !@#$ order about her never having been there very seriously.
Likewise, we take our side of the agreement seriously. We protect him from official reprisal, harm, and the Soviets, who want to grill his !@#$ on a !@#$ing hibachi along with the other ones they captured. He lives fairly well, after the war, and finally !@#$ing dies in 1959 from throat cancer. All that smoking and drinking, I guess.
Some say he was never in Japan after the war, though. They claim that he'd been replaced with a body double, and was actually in the states, working on biowarfare projects. But that's complete and happy horse!@#$, and you know well enough to know how I know that, so let's not go down that !@#$ing road.
But a couple years later, GORGON shows up, and then the real fun begins.
Yeah, son. Have another beer. Because this is where it gets really weird.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure, live version) and having more Beijing Gold)
Sunday, December 2, 2012
9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 2
And we're back, but really no !@#$ better.
I wound up taking a walk around the city, thinking that being around ordinary people would clear my !@#$ing head. But that was a big !@#$ mistake. Everyplace I went I saw signs of what the Imago have !@#$ing done to China, and the world.
And that just made me !@#$ing angrier.
I wanted to tear down all those !@#$ing posters on the walls, all gently demanding obedience and sacrifice. I wanted to kick in and !@#$ on all the video screens everywhere, playing endless propaganda loops and watching for "crimes against the people." I wanted to scream the truth at the top of my !@#$ lungs, especially now that I know a !@#$ of a lot more about that truth than I did before, or ever !@#$ing wanted to.
And then, just when I didn't think I could get any !@#$ angrier (at least not without !@#$ing exploding like a Halloween pumpkin) I actually saw one of the !@#$ers.
He was Silver and Blue, floating twenty !@#$ing feet above a busy intersection, slowly rotating like something on top of a department store Christmas display. The people who passed by him all nodded and half-bowed and moved past, like they'd run into a high party member or something. And he was looking down at the people, and smiling like an arrogant politician on a palm-presser, all smug and secure and knowing that he !@#$ing owned the !@#$ floor.
That wasn't the worst bit, though.
The worst thing was that the corners of the intersection were piled high with !@#$ing offerings to the bastard. Fruit and flowers were heaped up in rotting piles no one dared to clean up or remove, and makeshift shrines had been made by them, with incense sticks lit from oil lamps.
And people were actually !@#$ing praying to the thing, like he was the shrine in a temple.
I stood there, wondering how high and hard I'd have to jump to grab his head and twist it the !@#$ off, and then someone half-punched me in the !@#$ing ribs and told me to bow and show respect. So I did, and kept moving, hoping the Silver and Blue thing didn't notice me, and just kept keeping the !@#$ on.
This is the answer, son. When you ask me how I can go on with this war, knowing that they could teleport into !@#$ing Southern Thailand and exterminate the whole !@#$ing population because they thought someone who'd hurt them had come from there, it's things like this.
The fact that humanity has meekly !@#$ing accepted these metal-plated monsters as their saviors, not knowing what they're actually capable of.
(Well, that and we're about to get !@#$ed by some weird-!@#$, big lethal Doom from beyond the stars, but that's another story for another time.)
So we're back to continue the big !@#$ true story of GORGON, son. But this time we are !@#$ing playing it smart. I am not even touching that baijiu !@#$, this time. Instead, I have elected to drink all the local beer I can, which means I made the grocers just outside this adorable guest house really !@#$ glad for the night.
And, two cases into my stash of Beijing Gold, I am finding that my brainmeat is less !@#$ed up, and I am better able to process and express the true horror that my highly-flammable fishing expedition uncovered.
So, Dark Star, who's outed herself as a !@#$ing alien to General Shiro "Partyman" Iishi, is hanging around Unit 731 to see what makes us !@#$ pathetic humans tick, tock, and stop moving. This is all being done to supposedly help her help the Japanese make submarines capable to getting down to where her crashed spaceship is, so she show her gratitude to them (for rescuing her from a freaky gangster-run whorehouse) by loading them up with insane levels of technology.
That's what she !@#$ing says, anyway. But after hanging out with this girl with black, empty eyes for a while, and watching her suck the memories out of captives, and picking up on little things she says, and the things she doesn't say, Shiro gets the idea that she isn't being 100% honest with him. Of course, his job is to !@#$ing obey, so he doesn't make too big of a stink about it, but he confides his worries in his companion in trolling whorehouses (that happens to be her !@#$ing handler) and his buddy agrees to look into things for him. Somehow.
1941 comes and goes, and you know what !@#$ing happens then, son. The day that lives in infamy, and the end of our being able to sit on our !@#$ hands and support freedom in Europe with our money but not our blood. Things at Unit 731 reach a renewed pitch, now that they went and !@#$ed with the wrong hornet's nest, and the Imperial Army wants Shiro to give them more results, and faster.
Especially when it comes to that !@#$ submarine man thing, because if there was ever a time to get space guns and rocket ships from that spooky girl they "rescued" from the freakiest little whorehouse in Tairausuiso, now is !@#$ing it.
Dark Star isn't necessary to the program, seeing as how she's just observing and advising. So she isn't there as much, given that the Imperials are shuffling her around Asia and the Pacific to have her help make sure that places the Japanese have taken over stay taken over.
I've talked about the sick !@#$ she did, before, so we don't really have to get into that, again. Except that now she's got better ideas about how to hurt people, given how well she learned from watching us.
...
That's what always !@#$ing gets me, you know? All these aliens and their weird tendencies to turn us into hamburger meat, or open us up and make us tick? So much of that isn't something they came up with on their own.
I mean, if you've got the power to fly across the !@#$ universe in realtime, then why do you have to get your tentacles bloody to see how we work? !@#$, most of them have medical scanners so precise they can see your !@#$ing DNA dancing around in your pancreas from ten !@#$ miles away. Our most sophisticated means of imaging the insides of the human body are !@#$ing antiques to them.
So all that !@#$ with them landing, collecting us like butterflies, and taking us to pieces like we're pigs in a butcher's shop? That's all !@#$ they learned from us, son. Either that or they're trying to scare us, because they're invaders and body horror is always a good way to strike fear.
(Or they're !@#$ing Spider People, but let's not talk about them today. I don't need another headache...)
...
Anyway. Dark Star. She's playing "I want your memories" with eligible bachelors on far-flung islands throughout the South Pacific with Thunder and Lightning, and Shiro Iishi is trying to develop ceramic bombs to spread the !@#$ing black plague. Then, one day, in 1943, Dark Star comes back with a wicked !@#$ing gleam in her eyes, and has a new idea.
It's not merely enough for us to be physically modified to withstand great oceanic pressures, she tells Shiro. We also have to be mentally modified. Our minds must be fused with discipline, determination, and will, or else we'll get down there, see a !@#$ing whale skeleton, and !@#$ ourselves to death.
Of course, Shiro Iishi's all about discipline (when he isn't out drinking and whoring) so he approves of this. And he lets her set up a new regime of testing within the pingfang compound. He gives her some guards, lets her have first crack at his supply of "logs" (that's victims, son), and asks her to have some promising results by, say, the end of a month.
And at the end of that month is where his diary stops being a clinical but !@#$ing disgusting read, and really goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel full of !@#$ and monkeys.
You see, the Japanese have this weird thing about self-harm as sign of devotion. Samurai would !@#$ing stab themselves in the guts to redeem themselves if they'd failed big time. Their gangsters still slice off their fingers, one knuckle at a time, if they screw up. And people are always throwing themselves in front of subway trains if they think they've screwed up, enough, just to say "sorry."
Well, it's not like she was experimenting on Japanese people, but you have to remember that her understanding of our culture was pretty !@#$ limited. What she got in the whorehouse, and was told when they inducted her, and what she saw at Unit 731, and out in the field? That's all Dark Star !@#$ing knew about us, at the time.
And it's not like the Imperial Army went out of their way to tell her otherwise. Not when she's doing such good and creative work, and has promised them the !@#$ing stars if they can get her back down to where she !@#$ing came from.
So she gets a group of healthy male prisoners together, and sequesters them from the rest of the population. She gets them to see her as their protector, and then she tells them things, together. And she tells them these things night and day, over and over again, until they believe them heart and soul.
And then, once she's convinced they really do believe it, totally and completely, she challenges them to prove it. She tells them to show her they have changed. Show her they have become something entirely new.
Show her they reject the life they had before, and with it the one thing that truly identified them from that life.
She gives them a small amount of powerful painkillers, a mirror, and a knife.
Not all of them live through the !@#$ing thing, as you might expect. But by the time the first experiment is done, she has two men who are so !@#$ing loyal that, once Shiro Iishi tells her to take it one step further, they gladly slit their own throats at her command.
He !@#$ing loves it. So they do it again, and again, each time changing things a little. And while they find that their prisoners respond to threats, and appeals to loyalty, the best results they get are by finding broken people and making them feel loved.
And that's how the first False Faces were made, son. Chinese prisoners of war who listened to an alien who told them that she loved them, and wanted them to change themselves for her.
There's still more, here, son. This diary goes !@#$ing bat!@#$, shortly thereafter, and you'll just love what happens when Shiro's party friend gets back to him.
But before we get to that, you are having a !@#$ing drink. Trust me, you're going to need it.
Down the hatch, son.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure, remixed by Denny JT) and having a !@#$-ton of Beijing Gold)
I wound up taking a walk around the city, thinking that being around ordinary people would clear my !@#$ing head. But that was a big !@#$ mistake. Everyplace I went I saw signs of what the Imago have !@#$ing done to China, and the world.
And that just made me !@#$ing angrier.
I wanted to tear down all those !@#$ing posters on the walls, all gently demanding obedience and sacrifice. I wanted to kick in and !@#$ on all the video screens everywhere, playing endless propaganda loops and watching for "crimes against the people." I wanted to scream the truth at the top of my !@#$ lungs, especially now that I know a !@#$ of a lot more about that truth than I did before, or ever !@#$ing wanted to.
And then, just when I didn't think I could get any !@#$ angrier (at least not without !@#$ing exploding like a Halloween pumpkin) I actually saw one of the !@#$ers.
He was Silver and Blue, floating twenty !@#$ing feet above a busy intersection, slowly rotating like something on top of a department store Christmas display. The people who passed by him all nodded and half-bowed and moved past, like they'd run into a high party member or something. And he was looking down at the people, and smiling like an arrogant politician on a palm-presser, all smug and secure and knowing that he !@#$ing owned the !@#$ floor.
That wasn't the worst bit, though.
The worst thing was that the corners of the intersection were piled high with !@#$ing offerings to the bastard. Fruit and flowers were heaped up in rotting piles no one dared to clean up or remove, and makeshift shrines had been made by them, with incense sticks lit from oil lamps.
And people were actually !@#$ing praying to the thing, like he was the shrine in a temple.
I stood there, wondering how high and hard I'd have to jump to grab his head and twist it the !@#$ off, and then someone half-punched me in the !@#$ing ribs and told me to bow and show respect. So I did, and kept moving, hoping the Silver and Blue thing didn't notice me, and just kept keeping the !@#$ on.
This is the answer, son. When you ask me how I can go on with this war, knowing that they could teleport into !@#$ing Southern Thailand and exterminate the whole !@#$ing population because they thought someone who'd hurt them had come from there, it's things like this.
The fact that humanity has meekly !@#$ing accepted these metal-plated monsters as their saviors, not knowing what they're actually capable of.
(Well, that and we're about to get !@#$ed by some weird-!@#$, big lethal Doom from beyond the stars, but that's another story for another time.)
So we're back to continue the big !@#$ true story of GORGON, son. But this time we are !@#$ing playing it smart. I am not even touching that baijiu !@#$, this time. Instead, I have elected to drink all the local beer I can, which means I made the grocers just outside this adorable guest house really !@#$ glad for the night.
And, two cases into my stash of Beijing Gold, I am finding that my brainmeat is less !@#$ed up, and I am better able to process and express the true horror that my highly-flammable fishing expedition uncovered.
So, Dark Star, who's outed herself as a !@#$ing alien to General Shiro "Partyman" Iishi, is hanging around Unit 731 to see what makes us !@#$ pathetic humans tick, tock, and stop moving. This is all being done to supposedly help her help the Japanese make submarines capable to getting down to where her crashed spaceship is, so she show her gratitude to them (for rescuing her from a freaky gangster-run whorehouse) by loading them up with insane levels of technology.
That's what she !@#$ing says, anyway. But after hanging out with this girl with black, empty eyes for a while, and watching her suck the memories out of captives, and picking up on little things she says, and the things she doesn't say, Shiro gets the idea that she isn't being 100% honest with him. Of course, his job is to !@#$ing obey, so he doesn't make too big of a stink about it, but he confides his worries in his companion in trolling whorehouses (that happens to be her !@#$ing handler) and his buddy agrees to look into things for him. Somehow.
1941 comes and goes, and you know what !@#$ing happens then, son. The day that lives in infamy, and the end of our being able to sit on our !@#$ hands and support freedom in Europe with our money but not our blood. Things at Unit 731 reach a renewed pitch, now that they went and !@#$ed with the wrong hornet's nest, and the Imperial Army wants Shiro to give them more results, and faster.
Especially when it comes to that !@#$ submarine man thing, because if there was ever a time to get space guns and rocket ships from that spooky girl they "rescued" from the freakiest little whorehouse in Tairausuiso, now is !@#$ing it.
Dark Star isn't necessary to the program, seeing as how she's just observing and advising. So she isn't there as much, given that the Imperials are shuffling her around Asia and the Pacific to have her help make sure that places the Japanese have taken over stay taken over.
I've talked about the sick !@#$ she did, before, so we don't really have to get into that, again. Except that now she's got better ideas about how to hurt people, given how well she learned from watching us.
...
That's what always !@#$ing gets me, you know? All these aliens and their weird tendencies to turn us into hamburger meat, or open us up and make us tick? So much of that isn't something they came up with on their own.
I mean, if you've got the power to fly across the !@#$ universe in realtime, then why do you have to get your tentacles bloody to see how we work? !@#$, most of them have medical scanners so precise they can see your !@#$ing DNA dancing around in your pancreas from ten !@#$ miles away. Our most sophisticated means of imaging the insides of the human body are !@#$ing antiques to them.
So all that !@#$ with them landing, collecting us like butterflies, and taking us to pieces like we're pigs in a butcher's shop? That's all !@#$ they learned from us, son. Either that or they're trying to scare us, because they're invaders and body horror is always a good way to strike fear.
(Or they're !@#$ing Spider People, but let's not talk about them today. I don't need another headache...)
...
Anyway. Dark Star. She's playing "I want your memories" with eligible bachelors on far-flung islands throughout the South Pacific with Thunder and Lightning, and Shiro Iishi is trying to develop ceramic bombs to spread the !@#$ing black plague. Then, one day, in 1943, Dark Star comes back with a wicked !@#$ing gleam in her eyes, and has a new idea.
It's not merely enough for us to be physically modified to withstand great oceanic pressures, she tells Shiro. We also have to be mentally modified. Our minds must be fused with discipline, determination, and will, or else we'll get down there, see a !@#$ing whale skeleton, and !@#$ ourselves to death.
Of course, Shiro Iishi's all about discipline (when he isn't out drinking and whoring) so he approves of this. And he lets her set up a new regime of testing within the pingfang compound. He gives her some guards, lets her have first crack at his supply of "logs" (that's victims, son), and asks her to have some promising results by, say, the end of a month.
And at the end of that month is where his diary stops being a clinical but !@#$ing disgusting read, and really goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel full of !@#$ and monkeys.
You see, the Japanese have this weird thing about self-harm as sign of devotion. Samurai would !@#$ing stab themselves in the guts to redeem themselves if they'd failed big time. Their gangsters still slice off their fingers, one knuckle at a time, if they screw up. And people are always throwing themselves in front of subway trains if they think they've screwed up, enough, just to say "sorry."
Well, it's not like she was experimenting on Japanese people, but you have to remember that her understanding of our culture was pretty !@#$ limited. What she got in the whorehouse, and was told when they inducted her, and what she saw at Unit 731, and out in the field? That's all Dark Star !@#$ing knew about us, at the time.
And it's not like the Imperial Army went out of their way to tell her otherwise. Not when she's doing such good and creative work, and has promised them the !@#$ing stars if they can get her back down to where she !@#$ing came from.
So she gets a group of healthy male prisoners together, and sequesters them from the rest of the population. She gets them to see her as their protector, and then she tells them things, together. And she tells them these things night and day, over and over again, until they believe them heart and soul.
And then, once she's convinced they really do believe it, totally and completely, she challenges them to prove it. She tells them to show her they have changed. Show her they have become something entirely new.
Show her they reject the life they had before, and with it the one thing that truly identified them from that life.
She gives them a small amount of powerful painkillers, a mirror, and a knife.
Not all of them live through the !@#$ing thing, as you might expect. But by the time the first experiment is done, she has two men who are so !@#$ing loyal that, once Shiro Iishi tells her to take it one step further, they gladly slit their own throats at her command.
He !@#$ing loves it. So they do it again, and again, each time changing things a little. And while they find that their prisoners respond to threats, and appeals to loyalty, the best results they get are by finding broken people and making them feel loved.
And that's how the first False Faces were made, son. Chinese prisoners of war who listened to an alien who told them that she loved them, and wanted them to change themselves for her.
There's still more, here, son. This diary goes !@#$ing bat!@#$, shortly thereafter, and you'll just love what happens when Shiro's party friend gets back to him.
But before we get to that, you are having a !@#$ing drink. Trust me, you're going to need it.
Down the hatch, son.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure, remixed by Denny JT) and having a !@#$-ton of Beijing Gold)
Thursday, November 29, 2012
9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 1
It's a humid, rainy night in Beijing, and I'm half-in, half-out of the window of the room I've been dossing down in, trying to un!@#$ my brain.
Normally, getting outside in this kind of weather clears my head up faster than a bullet through the noggin. But not this time. This time, my brain is being a stubborn little !@#$hole, and hanging tooth and nail onto the nasty drunk I've foisted on myself.
(And I would be right out of tjbang sticks, now wouldn't I? God !@#$ing !@#$ it...)
Now, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why my !@#$ neural matter is being so mean about this? Well, there's two reasons, son. The first is that, after drinking about ten pots of the !@#$, I am righteously !@#$ing toasted on baijiu, which is some really nasty stuff, and best left to the locals, foolish tourists, and diesel engines. And the second...
...
The second is that, after burning down a !@#$ing building to get to the truth, last night, I have just discovered that the truth is way more than I can wrap my head around, right now.
Way !@#$ing more, son.
You see, all this time I've been treating GORGON as just another !@#$ing group of science terrorists. And while I always believed that they were the most !@#$ dangerous and messed up of all of their peers, it turns out I had no !@#$ing idea just how bad they actually were.
!@#$, son, if the Nazis had fallen in with the Spider People, recruited a few nasty, best-forgotten gods to their cause, and set up shop on that one certain sunken city just south of Easter !@#$ing Island, they wouldn't be a tenth as !@#$ing dangerous as GORGON has been all along.
Turns out we've been living on borrowed time. It's only now that they've !@#$ing taken over that I finally get to see the !@#$ing clock.
And I am so very, very !@#$ing sorry to have to say that I have clearly been dropping the mother of all big !@#$ balls for the last five decades or so...
But yeah, let's back this caravan up to the county line, son. I went into a somewhat-unassuming repository for dodgy data that the People's Republic of China would really rather not admit to having, took quite a bit of it under my arm, and then lit the place on fire behind me so they wouldn't !@#$ing know what I took.
It went up like a charm, and then down like a Thai Ladyboy on my magic alien lovesnake. And by the time the !@#$ Harbin fire department made it around, the place was a glowing pile of cinders, and I was halfway back to !@#$ing Beijing with the goods.
Since then, I've been alternating between reading what I got, cross-referencing what what I knew, and drinking myself blind on this nasty, pungent !@#$. And while I'm happy to say that my hunch was right, and there was a definite connection between Unit 731's activities, Japan's Super Soldiers, and what would eventually become GORGON (and now !@#$ing Imago), that hasn't detracted at all from the harsh as nails understanding that I !@#$ed up.
Bad.
How bad is bad? Well, son, let's review some ancient history, and stop me when get to something you already !@#$ing know.
At some point after we decide to !@#$ing open them up like can of sardines, the Japanese go on a war footing and start doing a Pacman on their neighbors. Now, there's a lot of reasons behind it, and while there's some things I could say about the truth behind those reasons, a lot of it's !@#$ you're either not cleared for or !@#$ I don't feel like getting into.
Why? Because I'm !@#$ing drunk and testy, son. And armed.
So let's skip to the !@#$ing obvious. The Japanese go into China and decide to stay. They set up a puppet government, move troops further into the interior, and plan to march across Asia, one little bit at a time.
While they're here, in China, they set up what they call the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwangtung Army, otherwise known as Unit 731. And it's a classic case of !@#$ing army doublespeak, because what they're really doing is looking into causing epidemics. It's a giant skunkworks for making !@#$ing plague bombs and researching how to spread diseases amongst the enemy in wartime, and they're using human prisoners as test subjects.
And that wasn't all they were !@#$ing doing, there. In addition to finding new and cruel ways to give people typhus, the black plague, and the !@#$ing clap, they were also performing weird and cruel medical experiments. They'd yank your stomach out and sew your neck-tube straight to your !@#$ing intestines. They'd freeze you and thaw you to watch you melt like an ice cream bar. They'd cut your !@#$ arms off and sew them back on backwards, just to see how they worked.
And then they'd !@#$ing vivisect your !@#$, without anesthesia, just to see the effects on living tissue.
You knew all that already, right? It's something you don't get taught in !@#$ing high school, 'cause Pearl Harbor was bad enough, apparently. But there are reasons why a lot of South Asian countries still !@#$ing hate Japan, almost a century later, and they never really appreciate the fact that we somehow don't know why.
Lucky for you, son, you got SPYGOD to tell you what's !@#$ing what. So you know the score. Or, at least we thought you did.
I told you that the Japanese had their own strategic talents, before and during the War. I told you they were some nasty !@#$ers, put to work in a nasty war against soldiers and civilians. And I'm sure you remember that three of the nastiest, most sadistic ones vanished towards the end of the war, somewhere in New Guinea.
And I know you remember when happened when I found the three of them, June of last year, when I made the really bad !@#$ing mistake of trying to go after GORGON with a handful of Agents and a single, poorly-used Super.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the worst of the three, son. Let's talk about Dark Star -- the nasty !@#$ing !@#$ that eats your memories right out of your head like a woodpecker knocking on a tree.
I knew that the Japanese found her in a brothel for really !@#$ weird clients, and that she was turning tricks for men who wanted her to suck the bad memories right out of them, right along with their joy juice. And I knew they took her in, brought her up to speed, gave her a !@#$ing uniform, and sicced her on whatever nation they were invading at that time as a combination interrogator and fear weapon.
What I didn't know? When she wasn't traipsing through the jungle, looking for villagers to terrorize and partisans to brain-!@#$, she was hanging out at Unit 731, "observing."
One of the things I got out of that lockup are fragments of the diary of one General Shiro Iishi. He's the mother!@#$er who put Unit 731 together, designed the set-up, and oversaw its operations, right up until the war came crashing the !@#$ down around his head, and he and his cronies all ran like !@#$ before the Soviets caught up to them.
After the War, we got hold of him, and essentially let him off the !@#$ing hook in exchange for his information on biowarfare. It wasn't one of our country's best !@#$ing moments, but it was nothing I was involved in. In fact, by the time I found out about it the deal was decades old, and all I could do was keep the !@#$ing secret.
But looking over those files, and reading about his debriefings, I always got the sense that he was holding something back. There was something missing in his otherwise-frank recollections of what they'd been !@#$ing doing, there, with all those prisoners.
And when someone'll !@#$ing calmly tell you about how they put some poor Chinese guy in a pressure chamber, just to watch his guts fly out his !@#$, you really have to wonder how bad what he wasn't talking about actually was.
Well, here's the big secret, son. You want to know the reason why they were doing those nasty-!@#$ medical experiments that didn't have anything to do with spreading disease?
He was doing them for her.
Apparently, not long after he got the Pingfang facility up and running, he received orders that this weird-!@#$ girl was coming over to observe the goings-on, and that he should indulge her curiosity. Of course, they never !@#$ing told him why, and he didn't ask, but over time she told him enough that he not only understood, but supported it enthusiastically.
According to Dark Star, she wasn't just some !@#$ weird kid they'd found in a seaside whorehouse. She was a member of an advanced race of beings, whose ship was crashed underwater, halfway across the !@#$ing Pacific. She'd managed to come ashore, years ago, but the experience had messed up her mind to the point that she was lucky she should walk and chew gum at the same !@#$ time.
So of course, when she accidentally puts the whammy on some fishermen who find her, the underground gets their hands on her, she winds up at the freak whorehouse in Tairausuiso. But with the push on to find people with usable powers, the Army comes in and collects her. And it just so turns out that her handler's a friend of Shiro Iishi, who's also quite fond of paying for !@#$, as it turns out.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Dark Star tells the Army that there's a ship down there with massive amounts of weapons, wealth, technology -- everything they !@#$ing need to win the war. And they believe it, but obviously they don't have the technology to go down there and get it. So she agrees to help them look into finding ways to help humans survive down there.
And that's why they've got soldiers testing frostbite conditions and pressure situations on Chinese and Russian prisoners, and why they're messing with the human body and seeing what kind of stress it can take and still survive. She wants to find out how much work they have to do in order to get men down as far as her ship is, and rescue her people.
At least, that's what she !@#$ing says.
There's more son. Lots more. But if you'll excuse me for a moment, I think I felt the atmosphere shift, and that means I might just be able to get my ears to pop, and get myself on the road to un!@#$ing my skull.
Help yourself to some Baijiu while you wait. Don't have more than a few sips, though. That !@#$ will !@#$ you up.
Doesn't it always, though.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure) and having some really strong, Chinese alcohol you should !@#$ing avoid)
Normally, getting outside in this kind of weather clears my head up faster than a bullet through the noggin. But not this time. This time, my brain is being a stubborn little !@#$hole, and hanging tooth and nail onto the nasty drunk I've foisted on myself.
(And I would be right out of tjbang sticks, now wouldn't I? God !@#$ing !@#$ it...)
Now, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why my !@#$ neural matter is being so mean about this? Well, there's two reasons, son. The first is that, after drinking about ten pots of the !@#$, I am righteously !@#$ing toasted on baijiu, which is some really nasty stuff, and best left to the locals, foolish tourists, and diesel engines. And the second...
...
The second is that, after burning down a !@#$ing building to get to the truth, last night, I have just discovered that the truth is way more than I can wrap my head around, right now.
Way !@#$ing more, son.
You see, all this time I've been treating GORGON as just another !@#$ing group of science terrorists. And while I always believed that they were the most !@#$ dangerous and messed up of all of their peers, it turns out I had no !@#$ing idea just how bad they actually were.
!@#$, son, if the Nazis had fallen in with the Spider People, recruited a few nasty, best-forgotten gods to their cause, and set up shop on that one certain sunken city just south of Easter !@#$ing Island, they wouldn't be a tenth as !@#$ing dangerous as GORGON has been all along.
Turns out we've been living on borrowed time. It's only now that they've !@#$ing taken over that I finally get to see the !@#$ing clock.
And I am so very, very !@#$ing sorry to have to say that I have clearly been dropping the mother of all big !@#$ balls for the last five decades or so...
But yeah, let's back this caravan up to the county line, son. I went into a somewhat-unassuming repository for dodgy data that the People's Republic of China would really rather not admit to having, took quite a bit of it under my arm, and then lit the place on fire behind me so they wouldn't !@#$ing know what I took.
It went up like a charm, and then down like a Thai Ladyboy on my magic alien lovesnake. And by the time the !@#$ Harbin fire department made it around, the place was a glowing pile of cinders, and I was halfway back to !@#$ing Beijing with the goods.
Since then, I've been alternating between reading what I got, cross-referencing what what I knew, and drinking myself blind on this nasty, pungent !@#$. And while I'm happy to say that my hunch was right, and there was a definite connection between Unit 731's activities, Japan's Super Soldiers, and what would eventually become GORGON (and now !@#$ing Imago), that hasn't detracted at all from the harsh as nails understanding that I !@#$ed up.
Bad.
How bad is bad? Well, son, let's review some ancient history, and stop me when get to something you already !@#$ing know.
At some point after we decide to !@#$ing open them up like can of sardines, the Japanese go on a war footing and start doing a Pacman on their neighbors. Now, there's a lot of reasons behind it, and while there's some things I could say about the truth behind those reasons, a lot of it's !@#$ you're either not cleared for or !@#$ I don't feel like getting into.
Why? Because I'm !@#$ing drunk and testy, son. And armed.
So let's skip to the !@#$ing obvious. The Japanese go into China and decide to stay. They set up a puppet government, move troops further into the interior, and plan to march across Asia, one little bit at a time.
While they're here, in China, they set up what they call the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwangtung Army, otherwise known as Unit 731. And it's a classic case of !@#$ing army doublespeak, because what they're really doing is looking into causing epidemics. It's a giant skunkworks for making !@#$ing plague bombs and researching how to spread diseases amongst the enemy in wartime, and they're using human prisoners as test subjects.
And that wasn't all they were !@#$ing doing, there. In addition to finding new and cruel ways to give people typhus, the black plague, and the !@#$ing clap, they were also performing weird and cruel medical experiments. They'd yank your stomach out and sew your neck-tube straight to your !@#$ing intestines. They'd freeze you and thaw you to watch you melt like an ice cream bar. They'd cut your !@#$ arms off and sew them back on backwards, just to see how they worked.
And then they'd !@#$ing vivisect your !@#$, without anesthesia, just to see the effects on living tissue.
You knew all that already, right? It's something you don't get taught in !@#$ing high school, 'cause Pearl Harbor was bad enough, apparently. But there are reasons why a lot of South Asian countries still !@#$ing hate Japan, almost a century later, and they never really appreciate the fact that we somehow don't know why.
Lucky for you, son, you got SPYGOD to tell you what's !@#$ing what. So you know the score. Or, at least we thought you did.
I told you that the Japanese had their own strategic talents, before and during the War. I told you they were some nasty !@#$ers, put to work in a nasty war against soldiers and civilians. And I'm sure you remember that three of the nastiest, most sadistic ones vanished towards the end of the war, somewhere in New Guinea.
And I know you remember when happened when I found the three of them, June of last year, when I made the really bad !@#$ing mistake of trying to go after GORGON with a handful of Agents and a single, poorly-used Super.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the worst of the three, son. Let's talk about Dark Star -- the nasty !@#$ing !@#$ that eats your memories right out of your head like a woodpecker knocking on a tree.
I knew that the Japanese found her in a brothel for really !@#$ weird clients, and that she was turning tricks for men who wanted her to suck the bad memories right out of them, right along with their joy juice. And I knew they took her in, brought her up to speed, gave her a !@#$ing uniform, and sicced her on whatever nation they were invading at that time as a combination interrogator and fear weapon.
What I didn't know? When she wasn't traipsing through the jungle, looking for villagers to terrorize and partisans to brain-!@#$, she was hanging out at Unit 731, "observing."
One of the things I got out of that lockup are fragments of the diary of one General Shiro Iishi. He's the mother!@#$er who put Unit 731 together, designed the set-up, and oversaw its operations, right up until the war came crashing the !@#$ down around his head, and he and his cronies all ran like !@#$ before the Soviets caught up to them.
After the War, we got hold of him, and essentially let him off the !@#$ing hook in exchange for his information on biowarfare. It wasn't one of our country's best !@#$ing moments, but it was nothing I was involved in. In fact, by the time I found out about it the deal was decades old, and all I could do was keep the !@#$ing secret.
But looking over those files, and reading about his debriefings, I always got the sense that he was holding something back. There was something missing in his otherwise-frank recollections of what they'd been !@#$ing doing, there, with all those prisoners.
And when someone'll !@#$ing calmly tell you about how they put some poor Chinese guy in a pressure chamber, just to watch his guts fly out his !@#$, you really have to wonder how bad what he wasn't talking about actually was.
Well, here's the big secret, son. You want to know the reason why they were doing those nasty-!@#$ medical experiments that didn't have anything to do with spreading disease?
He was doing them for her.
Apparently, not long after he got the Pingfang facility up and running, he received orders that this weird-!@#$ girl was coming over to observe the goings-on, and that he should indulge her curiosity. Of course, they never !@#$ing told him why, and he didn't ask, but over time she told him enough that he not only understood, but supported it enthusiastically.
According to Dark Star, she wasn't just some !@#$ weird kid they'd found in a seaside whorehouse. She was a member of an advanced race of beings, whose ship was crashed underwater, halfway across the !@#$ing Pacific. She'd managed to come ashore, years ago, but the experience had messed up her mind to the point that she was lucky she should walk and chew gum at the same !@#$ time.
So of course, when she accidentally puts the whammy on some fishermen who find her, the underground gets their hands on her, she winds up at the freak whorehouse in Tairausuiso. But with the push on to find people with usable powers, the Army comes in and collects her. And it just so turns out that her handler's a friend of Shiro Iishi, who's also quite fond of paying for !@#$, as it turns out.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Dark Star tells the Army that there's a ship down there with massive amounts of weapons, wealth, technology -- everything they !@#$ing need to win the war. And they believe it, but obviously they don't have the technology to go down there and get it. So she agrees to help them look into finding ways to help humans survive down there.
And that's why they've got soldiers testing frostbite conditions and pressure situations on Chinese and Russian prisoners, and why they're messing with the human body and seeing what kind of stress it can take and still survive. She wants to find out how much work they have to do in order to get men down as far as her ship is, and rescue her people.
At least, that's what she !@#$ing says.
There's more son. Lots more. But if you'll excuse me for a moment, I think I felt the atmosphere shift, and that means I might just be able to get my ears to pop, and get myself on the road to un!@#$ing my skull.
Help yourself to some Baijiu while you wait. Don't have more than a few sips, though. That !@#$ will !@#$ you up.
Doesn't it always, though.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure) and having some really strong, Chinese alcohol you should !@#$ing avoid)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)