You know, son, you have never lived until you've had the manager of a massive hotel beg you not stay another day.
Not order, mind you. Not demand you get the !@#$ out before he calls the cops, or his cousins, or his cousins who happen to be cops. Not even strongly hint, but begs, because the government said we could stay, and he can't force us to leave, but every day we're here means at least another month he'll have to be shut the !@#$ down to clean up our mess.
So here's Hector, on his mother!@#$ knees, crying his eyes out and begging me to just get out. His bad hairpiece is falling down over his face and he looks as ridiculous as a drunk bum doing clown porn to get a six pack and a burger.
Me? I put my cigar out on his hairpiece, promise to think about it, and tell him to go make sure the Bavaria Negra keeps flowing in sufficient quantities. And keep the buffet going 24/7, would you? My boys and girls work up a real appetite.
(And the hookers! Can't forget those. Clean, preferably)
Not that the poor man doesn't have good reason to give us the heave-ho, though. The place has been through six shades of !@#$ since the COMPANY showed up, after the end of OPERATION: BUGSMASH. All their previous guests were scooted out toot !@#$ sweet in the name of international security, and they got replaced by all these gun-toting gringos, most of whom desperately needed to relax and unwind after dealing the death-blow to HONEYCOMB.
So there's been chaos at the scenic Hotel Riu Guanacaste. Bad enough that most of the floors have been appropriated and turned into large deconstruction areas, giving our science boys a place to take what we trashed apart and figure out how it !@#$ works. But there's also been a lot of hi jinks after hours, most of it drunk.
And when you have badly hungover COMPANY Agents trucking weird and often-experimental things in and out of the rooms, or using the swimming pool as a containment unit for certain exotic things we seized, or conducting interrogations of captured HONEYCOMB personnel, replicants, and would-be gene donors, accidents are going to happen.
I make no excuses for this. Mistakes have clearly been made. I think I'll be writing apology letters to everyone in the Costa Rican government for the ill-advised "fireworks" display that may or may not have caused cancer in everyone due West of our current location. Thankfully, that's not a !@#$ lot of people, but I think the fish are going to look a little weird for the next decade or so.
(Unstable reactor fuel we had to launch into near orbit before it blew up this side of the country. It happens.)
But, at the same time, I'm not making any apologies, either. The greasy, little mustachioed !@#$face that runs this swanky joint couldn't have not known what was going on up the road. And even if it just fell under the category of "bad mierda that, thank the blessed Virgin Mary, I do not have to deal with," like so many other things down here, I still think it's high time he licked some mierda off karma's well-worn boots for his obvious moral cowardice.
As it was, he was content to kiss my designer, lizard skin Pradas and pick cigar ash out of his hair. And be very !@#$ grateful I didn't do worse.
I have to be careful, though. It's just one slippery step too far to the right and then I'm in fascist territory. Something this region knows a lot about, unfortunately.
They tell me I act like one, already, but !@#$ that !@#$. I'm just a transitory state of affairs; a bad smell that shows up in your town a couple days after year and then leaves, having drank half your beer and stolen some boy's heart (and backdoor virginity).
The real fascists don't show up in costumes and special, black PVC suits to save you from some threat from beyond your understanding, shoot a few collaborators, and !@#$ off to their flying headquarters. They move in slow and quiet: taking over schoolboards and churches, maybe the chamber of commerce, and then the police and town hall. Next thing you know, the leader's picture's up in the schools and supermarkets, and then you're all being told not only what to think, but how.
Case in point: the HIVE we're cleaning up and out had plans towards that state. Nasty !@#$ plans.
Near as we can tell, there are at least 500,000 people around the world who have been victimized by a special treatment, courtesy of HONEYCOMB. It's similar to what was done to South Korea's Unit 684, only those men were actually activated and trained. These people, all recipients of certain, "special" blood transfusions during minor surgical procedures, are out there, living their lives, unaware of HONEYCOMB microtransmitters in their spinal columns, and dormant RNA in their systems.
One signal from the central HIVE, and they'd all wake up changed people, with enhanced strength and endurance, killer instincts, a soldier's skills, and a program to follow. They would no longer be who they were, but be murder machines for HONEYCOMB, ready to infiltrate key systems and governmental services, and then kneecap the major powers in one quick, coordinated action.
Yeah, son. Just like the toasters, only without the CGI cloning and nude Asians. And it could have been really !@#$ bad if that !@#$ had gone down.
The good news is that, thanks to the files we salvaged, we now know who's been tagged with this !@#$. Better still, we know how to cure it without harming them. So we can devise a careful and quiet program to inoculate them, singly or in groups, without them knowing anything ever happened to them, or what we're doing about it.
The bad news is that, based on the files we salvaged, there are countless other doomsday plans and sleeping threats that HONEYCOMB amassed over the decades. Some of these are only hinted at on what we've got, and some of them may have been completely spelled out on the files we didn't get, thanks to some badly-placed explosives and a very large tunnelator.
But that's acceptable, for now. We've got a foot in the door, and that's all we need. We can take today, tonight, and tomorrow as they come, and while it's a shame we don't have Gerde to explain a few things to us, I'm can't say I'm not sorry the !@#$ is dead.
(Haven't checked in with her sister to see how she's taking the news, but that's not much concern at this point. I think Professor Yesterday's got that in hand. He'd !@#$ better, anyway.)
I feel good, strangely enough. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to duck and !@#$ cover, but for some reason I can't help but look back at the last year and think we're on the right track. No more super-Nazis, no more organized super-crime, and now no more science terrorists.
There's just one more big domino to knock over, and then...
...
And then what? What do we do in a world where The COMPANY's biggest foils have been foiled to !@#$ and back? Put out small fires? Rescue cats from trees?
What does the small town policeman do when there's no criminals to arrest? Go fishing? !@#$ the secretary?
I don't know, yet. This all seems like it's going too easy, even if it hasn't been. I keep expecting someone to leap out of a door, yell "surprise," and throw a pie in my face.
And knowing my luck, it won't be my favorite flavor.
Ah well, another question for another day. I think I'm going to go down to the bar the poor manager's having to keep open all day and night and enjoy some of the fruits of my temporary fascism. Like a couple doubles drunk out of some poolboy's !@#$crack.
"O Sweet victory. How strange the taste."
(SPYGOD is listening to Save it For Later (English Beat) and having a ton of Bavaria Negra)
Showing posts with label silmido. Show all posts
Showing posts with label silmido. Show all posts
Friday, January 6, 2012
Saturday, September 3, 2011
9/1/11 - Talking with the President
(PHONE CALL BEGINS, 3AM EST)
OPERATOR: Hello, is this SPYGOD?
SPYGOD: It !@#$ well is, sweetie. Who the !@#$ is this?
OPERATOR: Please stand by to receive a call from the President of the United States of--
SPYGOD: Blah blah !@#$ blah. Put him on, !@#$ it.
POTUS: Hello, SPYGOD?
SPYGOD: No, this is his Asian stunt double, Fred. SPYGOD's out back smoking a cigar the size of a battleship. And you wouldn't believe who it's attached to.
POTUS: Um, okay. I don't think I want to know what that meant.
SPYGOD: Well that's why I'm in charge of The COMPANY, Mr. President. I go places you don't want to go, see things above your pay grade, and !@#$ them in the !@#$ with guns for America.
POTUS: I see. So there was some overriding issue of national security that necessitated your publicly urinating on the grave of General Park Chung-hee, last night?
SPYGOD: Well, no... not really, sir. Spending the previous two days !@#$ing !@#$ up in Incheon was an issue of national security. Peeing on that !@#$'s grave was just stress relief. And overdue revenge.
POTUS: *sighs* Okay, you know, this is not how I expected this call to go.
SPYGOD: If you called to hear me say the magic "sorry" word, sir, you are sorely mistaken. I regret nothing.
POTUS: You... regret nothing?
SPYGOD: That's !@#$ right.
POTUS: Look, I get a phone call telling me that the Seoul police found you roaring drunk, buck naked, and peeing on the grave of one of their national heroes--
SPYGOD: Actually, I was still wearing my high heels, sir.
POTUS: Look--
SPYGOD: The red ones that light up, act as backup phones, and spray eyeball-eating gas out the back.
POTUS: You know--
SPYGOD: Which, you'll be happy to know, were not used on the park police when they came by and did their honest duty. In fact, if you ask them you'll find I was a perfect gentleman once they explained the magnitude of my error.
POTUS: They say you tried to start a homosexual orgy--
SPYGOD: And the only people who think General Park was a !@#$ hero are all in their !@#$ 70's and dropping like flies. The man was a dirty !@#$ bastard who ran disappearance squads and put a rubber stamp on HONEYCOMB using their people as test subjects.
POTUS: Yes, I have read your initial report--
SPYGOD: They should be lucky I didn't eat half the bulgogi in town and take an elephant-sized !@#$ on his grave! Except I think it'd probably gain some weird kind of sentience and go eat a few buildings.
POTUS: SPYGOD...
SPYGOD: I mean, sometimes I think I hear my !@#$ screaming when I flush the commode. Have you ever had that happen to you?
POTUS: The President of South Korea is furious. I'm furious. The only reason the press isn't having a field day with this is because Libya is in the headlines, right now!
SPYGOD: Yeah, I bet they are. Did you tell my friends in the other Company that they should have been a little more careful when they got into bed with Khaddafy's people? There's a reason we wear protection in this business.
POTUS: I've already had words with them.
SPYGOD: Yeah, I bet you told them.
POTUS: Now that's just--
SPYGOD: You know I can hear them laughing right now, right? Something about a dumb-!@#$ moron who doesn't understand how this business works reprimanding them for taking any avenue they could in order to deal with a potential asset, in spite of his numerous shortcomings.
POTUS: Well, yes, the Director did mention that.
SPYGOD: Minus the parts about your being a dumb-!@#$, I'm sure.
POTUS: Well, what do you want me to say?
SPYGOD: The truth would be a nice thing, once in a while. But we know you have a problem with that, don't we, Mr. President?
POTUS: Oh, Jesus !@#$ Christ. That is it. I want your letter of resignation on my desk first thing tomorrow morning, once you sober up and make it back to D.C.
SPYGOD: No.
POTUS: No? What the !@#$ do you mean no?
SPYGOD: I mean no, Mr. President. I am not resigning. You will have to fire me.
POTUS: I thought I just did.
SPYGOD: No, you asked me to resign. That's something entirely different. That makes it sound like it's my idea, and then you can always say you're sorry to see me go. If you have to fire me, that's a whole different busload of prison fish.
POTUS: Not from where I'm standing.
SPYGOD: Then sit down a second, sir. Because then you have to say why. And then you have to explain why this particular excretory outburst from yours truly is any different from any other time I've whipped the glowing alien mansnake out and peed on something sacred. And then you have to explain to everyone, which includes your colleagues, your own intelligence agencies, the worldwide intelligence community, and, most importantly, the American voting public, why this was necessary. And what the blazing living !@#$ are you going to tell them?
POTUS: ...
SPYGOD: Yeah, that's what I thought. You can't tell them a god!@#$ thing because there is nothing. To. Tell. I get drunk, I get !@#$ up, I shoot guns at people who probably don't deserve it, I expose myself in public, and have probably done even more outrageous and inappropriate things than you and I both know about because my overworked but well-compensated COMPANY spin teams are so good that sometimes they can even reverse the !@#$ flow of time itself. And yet, if you ask most Americans about good old SPYGOD, they give me a glowing 95% approval rating almost every !@#$ time.
POTUS: Because you killed Hitler.
SPYGOD: Because I killed Hitler. Because I kept the commies from nuking us back in the Cold War. Because I fought SQUASH to a standstill, and beyond. Because I helped keep those idiot Jihadis from flying planes into buildings. Because when the Computer Hell Virus hit NYC, I was the one who held it off while Dr. Yesterday and his people found the way to stop it. Because when GORGON takes over a town, or HONEYCOMB pulls another science raid, or the Legion's in fine form yet again, I'm the one who rolls in and deals with their !@#$. Because I just blew up Outland, and stomped ABWEHR, and--
POTUS: After years of letting them slide. After years of sitting on your !@#$ and letting them get away with murder just so you could stop them from doing something worse.
SPYGOD: ... I know. It was the way we used to do things. I never liked it.
POTUS: You never liked it? Well that's good to know, SPYGOD. Now imagine me having to realize that I'd inherited that terrible history the moment I stepped into this position. Imagine me now knowing that I was partially responsible for all those deaths. When I read the report when I got into the Oval Office I had to not cry.
SPYGOD: Well at least you fought crying. Your predecessor just shrugged it the !@#$ off.
POTUS: You never did like him, did you?
SPYGOD: No, but I don't like you, either.
POTUS: Gee, thanks.
SPYGOD: The difference is I would like to like you, Mr. President. You seem like someone who actually thinks about things, once in a while. Your predecessor left that up to his cabinet. We all know how that went.
POTUS: We can't think of everything. That's why we have a cabinet.
SPYGOD: And you can't deal with everything, either. That's why you have people like me.
POTUS: And the other Company.
SPYGOD: Whether we can trust them to clean up after their own !@#$ mess or not.
POTUS: So what are you suggesting, here? I can't just let this slide.
SPYGOD: Mind control.
POTUS: What?
SPYGOD: I was under mind control. We'll blame someone disposable from the Legion. I'll go deal with him or her with extreme prejudice, probably well overdue. And then we can all laugh about it the next time we're at the UN.
POTUS: Are you... are you !@#$ing with me?
SPYGOD: In return, I won't say anything about the real reason you wanted me out of Ice Palace.
POTUS: ...
SPYGOD: Remember, SPYGOD hears all.
POTUS: So where's GORGON?
SPYGOD: ... we're working on it.
POTUS: I certainly hope so.
SPYGOD: Mr. President, back when we started The COMPANY, I promised the President at the time that we would, forever more, do our best to protect America from all threats beyond the scope of normal intelligence to handle. Maybe we haven't always been successful, and maybe some of the things we've done to do it have been questionable. But in the end we've done our best. I don't go for the whole 'history will judge us' bull!@#$ because it doesn't mean anything in the here and now, and that's what ultimately matters at the end of the day. But if I can keep us all alive and safe for another day, I call it a day well spent. Even if it involves me peeing on General Park's grave for an entire hour when I clock out.
POTUS: There's gonna come a time when your best won't be good enough, SPYGOD. You do know that, don't you?
SPYGOD: Maybe more than you realize, sir.
POTUS: Okay, then. Mind control. I'll let you have your spin teams handle the fallout. Try not to make a mess of it, okay?
SPYGOD: I think we'll be alright, sir. This isn't my first round of Blame The Bad Guy, you know.
POTUS: I know. That's what scares me.
SPYGOD: Good afternoon, sir.
(CALL TERMINATED AT SEOUL END)
(SPYGOD is listening to I Am The Best (2NE1) and drinking a suspicious microbrew in Seoul)
OPERATOR: Hello, is this SPYGOD?
SPYGOD: It !@#$ well is, sweetie. Who the !@#$ is this?
OPERATOR: Please stand by to receive a call from the President of the United States of--
SPYGOD: Blah blah !@#$ blah. Put him on, !@#$ it.
POTUS: Hello, SPYGOD?
SPYGOD: No, this is his Asian stunt double, Fred. SPYGOD's out back smoking a cigar the size of a battleship. And you wouldn't believe who it's attached to.
POTUS: Um, okay. I don't think I want to know what that meant.
SPYGOD: Well that's why I'm in charge of The COMPANY, Mr. President. I go places you don't want to go, see things above your pay grade, and !@#$ them in the !@#$ with guns for America.
POTUS: I see. So there was some overriding issue of national security that necessitated your publicly urinating on the grave of General Park Chung-hee, last night?
SPYGOD: Well, no... not really, sir. Spending the previous two days !@#$ing !@#$ up in Incheon was an issue of national security. Peeing on that !@#$'s grave was just stress relief. And overdue revenge.
POTUS: *sighs* Okay, you know, this is not how I expected this call to go.
SPYGOD: If you called to hear me say the magic "sorry" word, sir, you are sorely mistaken. I regret nothing.
POTUS: You... regret nothing?
SPYGOD: That's !@#$ right.
POTUS: Look, I get a phone call telling me that the Seoul police found you roaring drunk, buck naked, and peeing on the grave of one of their national heroes--
SPYGOD: Actually, I was still wearing my high heels, sir.
POTUS: Look--
SPYGOD: The red ones that light up, act as backup phones, and spray eyeball-eating gas out the back.
POTUS: You know--
SPYGOD: Which, you'll be happy to know, were not used on the park police when they came by and did their honest duty. In fact, if you ask them you'll find I was a perfect gentleman once they explained the magnitude of my error.
POTUS: They say you tried to start a homosexual orgy--
SPYGOD: And the only people who think General Park was a !@#$ hero are all in their !@#$ 70's and dropping like flies. The man was a dirty !@#$ bastard who ran disappearance squads and put a rubber stamp on HONEYCOMB using their people as test subjects.
POTUS: Yes, I have read your initial report--
SPYGOD: They should be lucky I didn't eat half the bulgogi in town and take an elephant-sized !@#$ on his grave! Except I think it'd probably gain some weird kind of sentience and go eat a few buildings.
POTUS: SPYGOD...
SPYGOD: I mean, sometimes I think I hear my !@#$ screaming when I flush the commode. Have you ever had that happen to you?
POTUS: The President of South Korea is furious. I'm furious. The only reason the press isn't having a field day with this is because Libya is in the headlines, right now!
SPYGOD: Yeah, I bet they are. Did you tell my friends in the other Company that they should have been a little more careful when they got into bed with Khaddafy's people? There's a reason we wear protection in this business.
POTUS: I've already had words with them.
SPYGOD: Yeah, I bet you told them.
POTUS: Now that's just--
SPYGOD: You know I can hear them laughing right now, right? Something about a dumb-!@#$ moron who doesn't understand how this business works reprimanding them for taking any avenue they could in order to deal with a potential asset, in spite of his numerous shortcomings.
POTUS: Well, yes, the Director did mention that.
SPYGOD: Minus the parts about your being a dumb-!@#$, I'm sure.
POTUS: Well, what do you want me to say?
SPYGOD: The truth would be a nice thing, once in a while. But we know you have a problem with that, don't we, Mr. President?
POTUS: Oh, Jesus !@#$ Christ. That is it. I want your letter of resignation on my desk first thing tomorrow morning, once you sober up and make it back to D.C.
SPYGOD: No.
POTUS: No? What the !@#$ do you mean no?
SPYGOD: I mean no, Mr. President. I am not resigning. You will have to fire me.
POTUS: I thought I just did.
SPYGOD: No, you asked me to resign. That's something entirely different. That makes it sound like it's my idea, and then you can always say you're sorry to see me go. If you have to fire me, that's a whole different busload of prison fish.
POTUS: Not from where I'm standing.
SPYGOD: Then sit down a second, sir. Because then you have to say why. And then you have to explain why this particular excretory outburst from yours truly is any different from any other time I've whipped the glowing alien mansnake out and peed on something sacred. And then you have to explain to everyone, which includes your colleagues, your own intelligence agencies, the worldwide intelligence community, and, most importantly, the American voting public, why this was necessary. And what the blazing living !@#$ are you going to tell them?
POTUS: ...
SPYGOD: Yeah, that's what I thought. You can't tell them a god!@#$ thing because there is nothing. To. Tell. I get drunk, I get !@#$ up, I shoot guns at people who probably don't deserve it, I expose myself in public, and have probably done even more outrageous and inappropriate things than you and I both know about because my overworked but well-compensated COMPANY spin teams are so good that sometimes they can even reverse the !@#$ flow of time itself. And yet, if you ask most Americans about good old SPYGOD, they give me a glowing 95% approval rating almost every !@#$ time.
POTUS: Because you killed Hitler.
SPYGOD: Because I killed Hitler. Because I kept the commies from nuking us back in the Cold War. Because I fought SQUASH to a standstill, and beyond. Because I helped keep those idiot Jihadis from flying planes into buildings. Because when the Computer Hell Virus hit NYC, I was the one who held it off while Dr. Yesterday and his people found the way to stop it. Because when GORGON takes over a town, or HONEYCOMB pulls another science raid, or the Legion's in fine form yet again, I'm the one who rolls in and deals with their !@#$. Because I just blew up Outland, and stomped ABWEHR, and--
POTUS: After years of letting them slide. After years of sitting on your !@#$ and letting them get away with murder just so you could stop them from doing something worse.
SPYGOD: ... I know. It was the way we used to do things. I never liked it.
POTUS: You never liked it? Well that's good to know, SPYGOD. Now imagine me having to realize that I'd inherited that terrible history the moment I stepped into this position. Imagine me now knowing that I was partially responsible for all those deaths. When I read the report when I got into the Oval Office I had to not cry.
SPYGOD: Well at least you fought crying. Your predecessor just shrugged it the !@#$ off.
POTUS: You never did like him, did you?
SPYGOD: No, but I don't like you, either.
POTUS: Gee, thanks.
SPYGOD: The difference is I would like to like you, Mr. President. You seem like someone who actually thinks about things, once in a while. Your predecessor left that up to his cabinet. We all know how that went.
POTUS: We can't think of everything. That's why we have a cabinet.
SPYGOD: And you can't deal with everything, either. That's why you have people like me.
POTUS: And the other Company.
SPYGOD: Whether we can trust them to clean up after their own !@#$ mess or not.
POTUS: So what are you suggesting, here? I can't just let this slide.
SPYGOD: Mind control.
POTUS: What?
SPYGOD: I was under mind control. We'll blame someone disposable from the Legion. I'll go deal with him or her with extreme prejudice, probably well overdue. And then we can all laugh about it the next time we're at the UN.
POTUS: Are you... are you !@#$ing with me?
SPYGOD: In return, I won't say anything about the real reason you wanted me out of Ice Palace.
POTUS: ...
SPYGOD: Remember, SPYGOD hears all.
POTUS: So where's GORGON?
SPYGOD: ... we're working on it.
POTUS: I certainly hope so.
SPYGOD: Mr. President, back when we started The COMPANY, I promised the President at the time that we would, forever more, do our best to protect America from all threats beyond the scope of normal intelligence to handle. Maybe we haven't always been successful, and maybe some of the things we've done to do it have been questionable. But in the end we've done our best. I don't go for the whole 'history will judge us' bull!@#$ because it doesn't mean anything in the here and now, and that's what ultimately matters at the end of the day. But if I can keep us all alive and safe for another day, I call it a day well spent. Even if it involves me peeing on General Park's grave for an entire hour when I clock out.
POTUS: There's gonna come a time when your best won't be good enough, SPYGOD. You do know that, don't you?
SPYGOD: Maybe more than you realize, sir.
POTUS: Okay, then. Mind control. I'll let you have your spin teams handle the fallout. Try not to make a mess of it, okay?
SPYGOD: I think we'll be alright, sir. This isn't my first round of Blame The Bad Guy, you know.
POTUS: I know. That's what scares me.
SPYGOD: Good afternoon, sir.
(CALL TERMINATED AT SEOUL END)
(SPYGOD is listening to I Am The Best (2NE1) and drinking a suspicious microbrew in Seoul)
Thursday, September 1, 2011
8/30-31/11 - Operation Bad Soju
Let me start this out by saying that I didn't intend to spend the last two days beating the !@#$ out of giant metal wasps on a tiny island in the Yellow Sea, just off Incheon.
The fight took in a lot of the nearby, larger island of Muui, as well as the Incheon international airport. Seeing as how giant metal wasps and passenger planes do not mix very well at all, the Korean authorities are not happy with us, right now.
But I'm pretty sure they'll get over it. Especially when I show them exactly what we've been doing, and why they really don't want to make too much of a fuss about it.
Because they really do not want this !@#$ to go public. Not now. Probably not !@#$ ever.
What are we doing here in the first place? Glad you asked that, son. As you know, we've been working on mining what data we could out of various computer drives we've salvaged from HONEYCOMB installations, so as to facilitate what we've come to call OPERATION BUGSTOMP: the total eradication of the entire science terrorist outfit, the horse it rode in on, and it's nazi eyeball thieving dog Gerte, too.
If you've been paying attention, you know why this is absolutely necessary. But let me show you yet another reason why this must be done.
Let me take you back to South Korea, back in the late 60's and early 70's. This was back in the General Park, days, when a pro-business totalitarian dictator was running things south of the 38th parallel. The KCIA was running a tight ship, and making so many "dissidents" and "communist spies" disappear that it they were making Pinochet's death squads look like amateurs.
Believe me, that's saying something.
In January of 1968, North Korea sent a small detachment of men from Unit 124 into Seoul in an attempt to kill General Park. These were some scary and dedicated bastards, willing to dig up graves and sleep with !@#$ corpses to avoid being seen at night. They had excellent training, adequate equipment, and total commitment.
The only reason they failed was because Park, nasty monster that he was, was !@#$ lucky that day.
Needless to say, General Park wasn't in a mood to let it slide. So he had his military goons in the Air Force put together a revenge mission. They swooped down and gathered up their own "dirty dozen": 31 criminals, outcasts, misfits, and aimless youths who were promised money and rewards if they'd just do their country a little favor.
And after that horrible war, which !@#$ flattened everything between Pyongyang and Pusan, who wouldn't want to be well paid to go North and kill Kim Il-Sung? It must have been how it felt to be in the Dolittle raid after Pearl Harbor, only maybe a little less visceral (unless you lived in Hawaii).
But this was not the Dolittle raid, which is a time-tested textbook case of professionalism, planning, and daring-do. This was a cluster!@#$.
The 31 men who would be turned into Unit 684 were shipped off to Silmido, a tiny island, not far from the shores of Incheon. Over the next two years they were trained past the limits of their endurance and sanity, to the extent that seven of them died just from exhaustion. The instructors didn't give a !@#$, and just pushed the survivors harder.
Their training started in 1968. They were deemed ready to go by 1971. But by that time, Kim and Park had had something of a meeting of the minds. There was talk of reunification, which, as we well know, did not, has not, and will probably never !@#$ happen. But it sounded good after everything that had happened before, and Park, for whatever reason, wasn't of a mind to return the assassination favor, anymore.
So Park did the unthinkable. After spending two !@#$ years training these guys to go do the mother of all wetwork jobs, he canceled the !@#$ mission with extreme prejudice.
(Which means, in civilian terms, he ordered the Unit to be assassinated, themselves, in order to keep the North Koreans from finding out what he'd been planning.)
What happened next, just a little over 40 years ago, is one of the blackest acknowledged chapters in South Korea's history. August 23rd of '71, the remaining members of Unit 684 rebelled, slaughtered their guards, left the compound, and fought their onto the mainland, towards Seoul. What they were going to do, or where they were going to go, is still largely uncertain. But they fought to the death, using every tactic they'd been trained with, and some they'd probably learned before all that.
They were magnificently terrifying, by all accounts. In the end the police just barely stopped the Unit, and most of what was left of them killed themselves with hand grenades. The remaining four were executed after a drumhead trial a year later, and the government sat on the whole !@#$ thing until they were more or less forced to fess up to it, thanks to a movie of all things.
So what does that have to do with anything? Well, son, I'm glad you asked.
While we were decrypting the files we got off those HONEYCOMB servers, we uncovered notes about a PROJECT DANCERS DRESS. Something about taking 31 men and turning them into Supers through a low-impact regimen of training and chemicals. The project wasn't a success, but they didn't go into much detail as to why, or what happened.
And then SPYGOD got to thinking, as SPYGOD is likely to do after a few really strong drinks and a ladyboy or two. Why does 31 sound so familiar? And "Dancers Dress"?
It took me a little scouring, but we eventually figured it out. I'm sure you realize, by now, why 31 is important. But it turns out that the larger, populated island of Muui is right next to Silmido. Muuido means "Dancers Dress Island."
Oh those sneaky HONEYCOMB people. So of course we suit up and zip over there, letting the South Koreans know we're on our way but exactly telling them why. Some bull!@#$ about a rogue strategic talent they really don't want drunk and on the rampage in Seoul, which is good enough for them.
We do some digging on Silmido, and we find a treasure trove of old HONEYCOMB materials, including the aforementioned giant metal wasps. Cue a massive battle that rages across both islands and their precious !@#$ airport for two days, thankfully won by the good guys once the new tech we've been trying out pays off and we trip their kill switch.
So here's the real story about Unit 684, son.
For some weird reason, the Korean peninsula is just not super central. Maybe being the hermit kingdom for so long denied them some essential strands of DNA, and maybe they're just not lucky that way, but you can count the number of known supers in North and South Korea on both hands and have room for a few fingers and a thumb.
So maybe General Park, who got to see some Strategic Talents in action (sort of) during the Korean War wanted some of his own. Maybe having a group of mere men almost cap his sorry butt in 68 brought it home to him that he really needed some special talents guarding him. Maybe he was worried that Kim Il-Sung already had more than he was letting on, and there might be a god hovering outside the Blue House any day now.
Some discrete inquiries are made, and some friends are introduced. Promises are made and plans are cooked up. But tests and trials are required, so raw material is needed.
Hence Unit 684.
Which means that, for two years, while we were fighting them across the planet along with ABWEHR and SQUASH, one of our more rabidly anti-communist allies, and a country in which we actually had a major !@#$ military presence, was clandestinely linked up with HONEYCOMB in a bid to make them their own rabidly loyal, mind-controlled supers.
And then it all went to !@#$.
What happened on that August day, 40 years ago? Did Park finally realize what he'd made a deal with and try to get the !@#$ out of it? Did HONEYCOMB get angry that their plan was botched and decide to punish their former allies? Did the men of Unit 684 just rise up to save their own lives?
We may never know. The answer may be in these drives we've painstakingly excavated. It may remain a mystery forever.
But the scary thing is this: from what little we've been able to determine, PROJECT DANCERS DRESS was just the tip of the iceberg. Ever since 1971, HONEYCOMB has created numerous "Unit 684s" all over the world. They've taken normal people, altered them, and then let them loose amongst the populations.
This means that, much like GORGON, there could be any number of sleeper agents waiting to rise up when they get the signal. They may not even know what they are, or what they can do. And when it happens they may not be in total control of their own actions, which will make what has to happen next very heartbreaking.
But, unlike GORGON, who are fanatical but still mostly baseline, these sleepers will be very hard to deal with.
You see, the men of Unit 684 didn't kill themselves with hand grenades just to make a statement. They used hand grenades because, by that point, that was probably the only thing that would kill them.
Yeah.
General Park is dead, shot by the director of his own KCIA in 1979. So I can't force him to tell me what the !@#$ he was thinking. I can't berate him for having been so !@#$ short-sighted, envious, and dumb.
I can, however, go find his grave and !@#$ on it for a full hour. And after I have another few bottles of this nasty soju I've been drinking since they told me about this new problem we have, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
And I'll toast the men of Unit 684 when I do it. Magnificent doomed bastards, one and all.
(SPYGOD is listening to Tell Yourself (Clazziquai Project) and drinking some very awful Soju)
The fight took in a lot of the nearby, larger island of Muui, as well as the Incheon international airport. Seeing as how giant metal wasps and passenger planes do not mix very well at all, the Korean authorities are not happy with us, right now.
But I'm pretty sure they'll get over it. Especially when I show them exactly what we've been doing, and why they really don't want to make too much of a fuss about it.
Because they really do not want this !@#$ to go public. Not now. Probably not !@#$ ever.
What are we doing here in the first place? Glad you asked that, son. As you know, we've been working on mining what data we could out of various computer drives we've salvaged from HONEYCOMB installations, so as to facilitate what we've come to call OPERATION BUGSTOMP: the total eradication of the entire science terrorist outfit, the horse it rode in on, and it's nazi eyeball thieving dog Gerte, too.
If you've been paying attention, you know why this is absolutely necessary. But let me show you yet another reason why this must be done.
Let me take you back to South Korea, back in the late 60's and early 70's. This was back in the General Park, days, when a pro-business totalitarian dictator was running things south of the 38th parallel. The KCIA was running a tight ship, and making so many "dissidents" and "communist spies" disappear that it they were making Pinochet's death squads look like amateurs.
Believe me, that's saying something.
In January of 1968, North Korea sent a small detachment of men from Unit 124 into Seoul in an attempt to kill General Park. These were some scary and dedicated bastards, willing to dig up graves and sleep with !@#$ corpses to avoid being seen at night. They had excellent training, adequate equipment, and total commitment.
The only reason they failed was because Park, nasty monster that he was, was !@#$ lucky that day.
Needless to say, General Park wasn't in a mood to let it slide. So he had his military goons in the Air Force put together a revenge mission. They swooped down and gathered up their own "dirty dozen": 31 criminals, outcasts, misfits, and aimless youths who were promised money and rewards if they'd just do their country a little favor.
And after that horrible war, which !@#$ flattened everything between Pyongyang and Pusan, who wouldn't want to be well paid to go North and kill Kim Il-Sung? It must have been how it felt to be in the Dolittle raid after Pearl Harbor, only maybe a little less visceral (unless you lived in Hawaii).
But this was not the Dolittle raid, which is a time-tested textbook case of professionalism, planning, and daring-do. This was a cluster!@#$.
The 31 men who would be turned into Unit 684 were shipped off to Silmido, a tiny island, not far from the shores of Incheon. Over the next two years they were trained past the limits of their endurance and sanity, to the extent that seven of them died just from exhaustion. The instructors didn't give a !@#$, and just pushed the survivors harder.
Their training started in 1968. They were deemed ready to go by 1971. But by that time, Kim and Park had had something of a meeting of the minds. There was talk of reunification, which, as we well know, did not, has not, and will probably never !@#$ happen. But it sounded good after everything that had happened before, and Park, for whatever reason, wasn't of a mind to return the assassination favor, anymore.
So Park did the unthinkable. After spending two !@#$ years training these guys to go do the mother of all wetwork jobs, he canceled the !@#$ mission with extreme prejudice.
(Which means, in civilian terms, he ordered the Unit to be assassinated, themselves, in order to keep the North Koreans from finding out what he'd been planning.)
What happened next, just a little over 40 years ago, is one of the blackest acknowledged chapters in South Korea's history. August 23rd of '71, the remaining members of Unit 684 rebelled, slaughtered their guards, left the compound, and fought their onto the mainland, towards Seoul. What they were going to do, or where they were going to go, is still largely uncertain. But they fought to the death, using every tactic they'd been trained with, and some they'd probably learned before all that.
They were magnificently terrifying, by all accounts. In the end the police just barely stopped the Unit, and most of what was left of them killed themselves with hand grenades. The remaining four were executed after a drumhead trial a year later, and the government sat on the whole !@#$ thing until they were more or less forced to fess up to it, thanks to a movie of all things.
So what does that have to do with anything? Well, son, I'm glad you asked.
While we were decrypting the files we got off those HONEYCOMB servers, we uncovered notes about a PROJECT DANCERS DRESS. Something about taking 31 men and turning them into Supers through a low-impact regimen of training and chemicals. The project wasn't a success, but they didn't go into much detail as to why, or what happened.
And then SPYGOD got to thinking, as SPYGOD is likely to do after a few really strong drinks and a ladyboy or two. Why does 31 sound so familiar? And "Dancers Dress"?
It took me a little scouring, but we eventually figured it out. I'm sure you realize, by now, why 31 is important. But it turns out that the larger, populated island of Muui is right next to Silmido. Muuido means "Dancers Dress Island."
Oh those sneaky HONEYCOMB people. So of course we suit up and zip over there, letting the South Koreans know we're on our way but exactly telling them why. Some bull!@#$ about a rogue strategic talent they really don't want drunk and on the rampage in Seoul, which is good enough for them.
We do some digging on Silmido, and we find a treasure trove of old HONEYCOMB materials, including the aforementioned giant metal wasps. Cue a massive battle that rages across both islands and their precious !@#$ airport for two days, thankfully won by the good guys once the new tech we've been trying out pays off and we trip their kill switch.
So here's the real story about Unit 684, son.
For some weird reason, the Korean peninsula is just not super central. Maybe being the hermit kingdom for so long denied them some essential strands of DNA, and maybe they're just not lucky that way, but you can count the number of known supers in North and South Korea on both hands and have room for a few fingers and a thumb.
So maybe General Park, who got to see some Strategic Talents in action (sort of) during the Korean War wanted some of his own. Maybe having a group of mere men almost cap his sorry butt in 68 brought it home to him that he really needed some special talents guarding him. Maybe he was worried that Kim Il-Sung already had more than he was letting on, and there might be a god hovering outside the Blue House any day now.
Some discrete inquiries are made, and some friends are introduced. Promises are made and plans are cooked up. But tests and trials are required, so raw material is needed.
Hence Unit 684.
Which means that, for two years, while we were fighting them across the planet along with ABWEHR and SQUASH, one of our more rabidly anti-communist allies, and a country in which we actually had a major !@#$ military presence, was clandestinely linked up with HONEYCOMB in a bid to make them their own rabidly loyal, mind-controlled supers.
And then it all went to !@#$.
What happened on that August day, 40 years ago? Did Park finally realize what he'd made a deal with and try to get the !@#$ out of it? Did HONEYCOMB get angry that their plan was botched and decide to punish their former allies? Did the men of Unit 684 just rise up to save their own lives?
We may never know. The answer may be in these drives we've painstakingly excavated. It may remain a mystery forever.
But the scary thing is this: from what little we've been able to determine, PROJECT DANCERS DRESS was just the tip of the iceberg. Ever since 1971, HONEYCOMB has created numerous "Unit 684s" all over the world. They've taken normal people, altered them, and then let them loose amongst the populations.
This means that, much like GORGON, there could be any number of sleeper agents waiting to rise up when they get the signal. They may not even know what they are, or what they can do. And when it happens they may not be in total control of their own actions, which will make what has to happen next very heartbreaking.
But, unlike GORGON, who are fanatical but still mostly baseline, these sleepers will be very hard to deal with.
You see, the men of Unit 684 didn't kill themselves with hand grenades just to make a statement. They used hand grenades because, by that point, that was probably the only thing that would kill them.
Yeah.
General Park is dead, shot by the director of his own KCIA in 1979. So I can't force him to tell me what the !@#$ he was thinking. I can't berate him for having been so !@#$ short-sighted, envious, and dumb.
I can, however, go find his grave and !@#$ on it for a full hour. And after I have another few bottles of this nasty soju I've been drinking since they told me about this new problem we have, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
And I'll toast the men of Unit 684 when I do it. Magnificent doomed bastards, one and all.
(SPYGOD is listening to Tell Yourself (Clazziquai Project) and drinking some very awful Soju)
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