1/13/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 2.5

Team Omega
(Cataclysmo, Friendly Fire, Underman (original), The Technocrat, Suzi Slam, Glimmer)
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

There's a room in the White House basement that cannot be found on any map or floorplan, past or present. 

It's a small thing, that room -- barely noticeable for its absence. People walk by what used to be its door every day and never think that the rhythm of the hallway is slightly off, or that its proportions seem a little out of kilter. 

If it had a function before it disappeared, it was clearly not a greatly-important one. 

Behind the wall is a thick slab of metal that has replaced its door -- an impregnable alloy forged on another plane of existence. Behind that door is a fire so bright it could blind half the world in seconds, yet so cold it could freeze it shortly thereafter.

An eerie fire that pulses from a glorious, golden sword that has been thrust halfway into the pale grey concrete floor -- both as sign of an empire’s dominion and protection from its opposite number.

A protection that has remained, though the yoke of its dominion has long since been thrown off.  

Once the fire was as golden as the weapon it emanated from, but for the last eight months or so its light has been less like the summer sun and more like an autumnal moon. Now it more closely matches the color of a bulbous, inedible gourd, festering in pallid and unhealthy soil.

It almost seems as though it’s been poisoned, somehow. Lord alone knows how that was even possible.

For some reason, at or around 7:25 in the morning – just as the morning sun’s rays strike the stately building that houses this unearthly, wounded wonder – the light changes once more. It wavers between a bilious orange and a darker shade, almost red, before steadily sliding over to that alternate hue.

And as the change occurs, a strange feeling begins to radiate out from that room that no one knows about. The feeling that something else is about to change....

* * *

… especially for Prisoner 52, who stops his stride through the superslam for a beat as he shivers a little, wondering why he feels so absent.

For a moment, he feels as though he almost sense the syllables of his own name, sliding across his tongue. He thinks he knows who he is, and why he’s really here.

For the first time in untold ages, he thinks he can see the whole picture, and his place within it.

But then, just as soon as he gets a sense of that picture – or at least the shape of its frame – it’s gone from his sight once again, leaving him blind and frustrated.

He hisses and pounds his fists on the metal railing. The sound is like a mighty boulder smashing against the hull of a ship, and the ringing causes the din to subside, suddenly and nervously – but only for a moment.

The Choosing is today, after all. And while the prisoners’ god might be angry, their new masters are here on a mission.

A mission that could mean everything to a lucky few.

* * *

“Yes, I’m aware of the privilege I’m being offered,” Foudre Blanc says as he stomps down the wet and dripping underground hallway to where the Maker holds court, really not wanting to talk to the person whose holographic head is floating above his wrist.

“Do you really, Bruno?” Julien asks, raising an accusing eyebrow: “Sometimes I cannot help but wonder. You do so say the most unkind things to us.”

“Maybe if you gave me reasons to say better things, I would say them,” the white-armored man growls as he approaches the man’s door.

“Now, see, that’s the kind of attitude I’m talking about,” the man says, sighing: “It doesn’t do our movement any good to have this kind of infighting between the people in charge-“

“Look, you putain,” Foudre Blanc hisses, stopping in his tracks: “The only reason you’re in charge is because the old man can’t get out of that bed and see what you’re doing in his name. And the only reason I don’t tell him is because it would kill him to know.”

“Now, that’s-"

“That’s the last thing I intend to say on the matter, Julien,” the hero says: “Now casse-toi or I’ll tell him, anyway, if only to see if he’ll tell me to deal with you before he has a heart attack. I will see you at the meeting on Friday. Goodbye.”

He cuts off the communication, sighs, and bangs on the door.

“Did you bring my Beignets?” the old man asks.

“Of course!” Foudre Blanc answers, holding up the still-warm bag. As soon as he does, the sound of magical, amazing gears and pistons tinkling and turning comes from within the door, and he is once more allowed into the magical cave of wonders beyond.

Pick any astounding invention of the last fifty years or so – record-setting vehicles, paradigm-changing appliances, or things once considered science fiction that are now so commonplace that no one wonders at their presence in their lives.

Now imagine their prototypes and forerunners – all invented ten to fifty years too soon, yet created with materials from over a hundred years in the future.

Now imagine each and every one of those magnificent things were housed here, with the man who either created them for someone, or else came up with them well before someone else did, and then went on to create something else, and then something else beyond that.

Here, in this seemingly-endless stone chamber, well below the sewers and catacombs of Paris, are all the unsung and unseen wonders of the modern world – all created by a single set of hands over the last century or so, all constantly repaired and dusted by a legion of clockwork, golden cherubs, flitting this way and that in an endless geometric pattern.

“Up here,” the wizened and tiny man says from a floating, square platform of bronze and marble, some distance away. As soon as he gestures, a set of bronze stairs clatters itself together, one step at a time, eventually reaching the ground just inches away from his visitor.

“Thank you, Maker,” Foudre Blanc says, quickly skipping up the steps: “I appreciate that.”

“I should hope so,” the old man says, scratching at the tuft of wild, white hair that grows between his two, large ears: “No electrical ports in here to fly through, eh? A bit difficult for you, yes?”

“All too true,” the white-armored hero sighs, surmounting the final step and standing before the man’s magnificent workbench, where he needs only gesture to have any tool he needs literally jump from its storage space and into his hand.

The old man reminds Foudre Blanc of that tiny, green Jedi master from the second Star Wars movie -- all head and hands, with eyes that see more than one might care to reveal. He wears a pair of overalls that seem as old as he is, stained with an age's worth of oil, grease, and less salubrious fluids. Beneath that, a shirt that proudly proclaims La Propriété Ce Est Le Vol!

“Put them over there,” the old man commands, not ceasing in his work on the oblong, wire-laden thing he’s working on: “And open the bag for me.”

“Of course,” Foudre Blanc says, doing as he’s told, and trying to get a good look at what the Maker is making. No sooner does he comply than he’s swarmed by golden cherubs – half of whom reach into the bag to take a beignet apiece, and the other half of whom place themselves between his eyes and the man’s work.

“Trying to get a preview, yes?” the old man cackles, happily taking a bite from what one of the cherubs offers him.

“An update, actually,” the hero says, taking a polite step back: “Things have changed a little.”

“Things often do, yes,” the Maker says, talking through his beignet: “I may have anticipated that. I have decided to kill two birds with one stone, yes?”

“You have…?”

“Yes,” the old man cackles, tapping the box: “This device will now do two things. The first will be to short out your Nthernaut, and take him right out of the system. The second will be to take over that system mere microseconds after he is gone.”

“It will?” Foudre Blanc says, blinking behind his mask: “That’s amazing, sir. Truly.”

“I should say so,” the Maker says, gesturing for a soldering iron, which duly leaps into his gnarled hand: "You will have need of it, now that your Eclat is gone, yes?"

"Yes, that's true," the white-clad hero says, quite surprised: "How did you know about that-"

“You may go now, yes?”

“Yes, of course,” Foudre Blanc says, realizing he's either offended or just overstayed his welcome: “And I can tell them it will be ready on time?”

“I should say so,” the Maker repeats: “You may go now, yes?”

“Yes, of course,” he repeats in turn, unable to help himself.

On the way down the stairs he feels as though a pair of large eyes are glaring a hole into his back. He can only hope the old man will be over his parting jest the next time he comes down; there are reasons he brings pastries from the world above, after all.

As if to answer his question, the stairs begin to disassemble themselves just as he’s on the final step down. He takes the hint and hastens his departure, trying to avoid breathing too heavily as he marches for the door, which is already closing ahead of him.

That it doesn’t slam shut right on his con the second he walks through it is either a miracle or a reminder of precarious their understanding with this tiny fellow is.

"More Beignets next time," Foudre Blanc promises, if only to himself. But he's so wrapped up in that litany that, as he strides back up the steps he came down, he doesn't realize he's being followed.

A lady in red lurks behind him, wrapped in ghosts and shadows exactly ten paces behind. With each step the anger within Ciel Rouge grows -- the desire to do justice upon him though the heavens fall.

Justice that will come, and soon. 

"More Beignets next time," Foudre Blanc repeats utterly oblivious: "And maybe some coffee."

* * * 

"That'll be six-fifty, ma'am," the skinny, pockmarked kid behind the Sixth Avenue Starbucks counter says. 

"Thank you," Martha Samuels says, handing him a ten and pretending to not be amused when he has problem counting out the change. She's heard that sometimes they do that on purpose to get customers in a hurry to say 'keep it' so they can add it to the tip jar. So she puts a dollar in the jar and smiles, which seems to miraculously trigger the part of his brain that handles mathematical calculations. 

After that, she puts her sunglasses down, takes her coffee, and walks out into the scrum of Neo York City's morning foot traffic.

She goes down one block, then over another, and then up yet another. She retraces her steps every so often, as if she's lost, but doesn't do anything to attract attention to herself. She stops into a chintzy Asian "souvenir" store for a time and leans over the long tables, pretending to be interested in their suspect, plastic wares. She watches a raggedy street performer busk for coins as he plays "Wonderwall," over and over again on a guitar that's seen better days.

(She does not, however, leave a donation. She merely hated that song the first ten thousand times she heard it. Now she truly loathes it.)

As she does her best to blend in without seeming too anonymous, she thinks she can hear the omnipresent street cameras whirl and click in her direction, every so often. But when she checks to look she sees they're not following her, after all. Just moving in random tracks, depending on what the mind behind them is choosing to focus on.

Much to her joy and surprise, she's not one of those things.

She smiles and taps the white button she's wearing, wondering what her son would think about all this. But then, Thomas -- now better known as the Nthernaut -- not only has no idea she's here, but he can never know she was here.

Not now, not ever. 

"Absolute deniability," she whispers under her breath, finally knowing the meaning of those words. The dire personal cost of each syllable.

At some point, she decides she's thrown off whatever eyes -- human, mechanical, or some combination of the two -- would have had cause to follow her, and moves towards her true goal. It's a small lockup, not too far from the Starbucks she'd gotten her coffee at. She ducks down an alley as though she owned the place, which she does (through a few shell companies), goes up to a door and puts her hand on the knob.

It unlocks, just then, and lets her into a small garage that no one outside of her small, crimefighting clan knows about. It hasn't been used in years, except as storage for various endeavors based in Neo York City, and even then it was more of a drop-off and rendezvous point than anything else.

But there has been something here, all along. Something that was meant to be handed off to someone else, quite some time ago, but that never quite got to where it needed to go in time.

Something wonderful, waiting under a dusty, cobwebbed tarp.

She pulls it off in one, fluid motion, sending a rapidly-unraveling cloud up to the naked lights in the ceiling. A line from an old song from her childhood comes to mind, and she quickly checks to see if the package has held up, after all this time.

It has, and why wouldn't it? Mark and her father worked on this, together. Assembled it in precious, spare moments in the Owl's Nest, ever-arguing over the precise placement of things. Each part laid down with care and precision. Each inch fought over and argued for, put together and taken apart, done and undone and redone until they'd gotten it just right.

And now, at long last, this masterpiece was going to see its moment come 'round at last.

She smiles a little, wiping away a tear at the thought of how her father had beamed to see it completed -- a good and worthy gift for the oldest of family friends -- and takes out a cell phone. It's a cheap, anonymous, one-shot job she's kept laying around the apartment for such an eventuality.

"Hello, hon," she says to Mark Clutch, who, wisely, does not reply: "Tomorrow's looking good. I'll see you at 8. And we'll have guests..."

* * *

And just like that, the Choosing is over, and the lucky few have left the building. 

It's always something of an anticlimax -- at least at first. The Terre Unifee's guards come out of the reinforced bunker at the bottom of the elevator to the outside, bearing weapons that could shred even the toughest amongst them, and carrying nuclear weapons on deadman switches in case those weapons do not work. 

One of them has a list. It is read off, with all the pomp and circumstance of a lowly and bored soup kitchen worker listing off the wares of the day. It's a sign that those prisoners should come forward, provided they're still alive, or in any shape to present themselves. Should they not do so in a timely manner, they read off from the list of alternates, which is quite extensive. 

It didn't take too long, this time: the ones they called for were hard cons -- tough, experienced, or at least well-versed in how to survive life in such a place. One by one they came down, and extended their necks to be scanned for the combination ID chip and micro-bomb inserted at the start of their incarceration. And after they proved they were who and what they said they were, they got lined up under guard, by the door, and waited.

Just a short wait, after having waited for so long. 

One of them had to be withdrawn from the vault, down below: the place where those convicts too powerful, unusual, or just plain weird to be locked up in a standard prison cell were kept. It's the one made of hard light, Prisoner 52 remembered. Sometimes he can hear him weeping -- even from down there -- to be so far from the Sun. 

Weeping in the dark, and slowly going insane. 

The other five were less exotic, but no less remarkable. The middle-aged human bullet eager to kill his arch enemy. A betrayed, octogenarian gadgeteer with a score to settle. A furious woman more muscle than skin. A morbidly obese man who could make machines with his mind.

And, most frightening of all, the smiling, blind assassin who hunts with maniacal laughter.

All of them had been useful assets, down here, once upon a time. After the Imago left them all to die, and the riot broke out, they'd been as instrumental in establishing their new community as anyone. They'd banded together for survival's sake, one and all, and while leaders and regimes may have come and gone -- and rivalries been forged, fused, and then settled in blood --- the simple work of life had gone on.

It was only when the TU came, afterwards -- bearing real food and poisoned favors -- that the prison truly fell to barbarism and anarchy.

And now that no one needs to be presentable, any longer, those states of being descend once more.

It's like someone threw a switch. Punches are thrown, and blows traded back and forth over seemingly nothing. Arguments become fights, beatings become murders, and long-planned assassinations become truly gruesome and degrading things.

Here, a pyrokinetic roughly violates a seemingly-indestructible man in the showers, highly amused as his burnt skin keeps healing over, second after second, as the ordeal continues. There, a man explodes as someone who can shrink to infinitesimal size flies into his gullet and then regains his normal proportions, reveling in how far his rival's remains spray across the cell block.

High above it all, Prisoner 52 stands watch. The death below feeds him, without his even having to be present at the moment where life ends and something else begins. He grips the railing tight as his bones glow from within his pale skin, skull-pupils rolled back into his eyesockets as he rides the edge of what he can know, and what still eludes him.

A name. His kingdom for a name. The world for a name, if need be.

And if the world must drown in burning blood to bring it to him, then so be it.

* * *

"You think that's enough for the gravy?" Straffer asks as he scrapes the pan under the roast.

"I should !@#$ing hope so," SPYGOD says, stirring the vegetable curry just fast enough to keep it from burning: "Not sure how the !@#$ yorkshires are going to turn out..."

"Magnificently," the blonde man says, kissing his lover on the cheek. They smile, pause a moment, and then go back to making dinner. 

"You know what's going to be nice?" Straffer says after a time as the gravy begins to gel.

"What?"

"Eating dinner in a proper restaurant."

"Oh, !@#$ yes," SPYGOD says, taking an appreciative whiff of the curry: "Something someone else !@#$ing made for us."

"That didn't come in a !@#$ pizza box."

"Or a takeaway pack, for that !@#$ing matter."

"A long walk on a sunset beach, after that meal."

"!@#$ing like people who just !@#$ing met at a bar on that beach."

"Maybe we could do it at the meal?" Straffer asks, grabbing his !@#$ as he walks past.

"What, and get @#$ing arrested?"

"Well, we'll just have to do it somewhere it's legal," his lover chuckles.

They look at each other, then, and then over at the window, overlooking all the protesters. 

They look at certain bags and boxes that are stacked on either side of that window -- seemingly innocuous, but containing things that no one knows about. 

Secret things, meant to speed them to that special somewhere that no one can touch them. 

And they smile, just a little, wondering if they can get away with this, after all. 

* * *

"(You should not be here, outsider)" the beefy, salf-and-peppered Japanese man drinking alone at the mostly-deserted, bone-white bar says, regarding the strange thing that floats in his glass.

"(I know, Ju-San)" the shadowed stranger says, walking on up and putting away the taser he just used on the man's guards. They lie on the white marble floor, gibbering as the electricity leaves them. The few other patrons are getting up to go somewhere else, clearly terrified of the cyborg as he ascends the stairs to the bar.

"(Then tell me why I should let you leave?)" the former head of the Organization asks, swirling his drink so that the human eyeball in it floats to the top: "(This is not for the likes of you. You exist to expose the truth. But here, where all things are possible, we live with secrecy and lies to hide it.)"

As if to emphasize his statement, someone screams from a hidden room, nearby. A ragged, wet cry that ends as quickly as it began. 

"(All things are possible, here, yes,)" the man says, pulling out a short stack of photographs, but not yet showing them to the man he's intruding upon: "(Even the real truth, after a fashion.)"

"(Explain yourself!)" Ju-San snarls, downing his drink -- hooker's eyeball and all -- and then slamming the glass down on the bar's surface:  "(I can have you raped, killed, and eaten here, outsider. And not in that order!)"

"(I know,)" the man says, as respectful as possible: "(And I come to you with an explanation. But also a challenge.)"

"(What is that challenge?)" 

"(To become what you once were,)" the man says, flipping through the photographs like they were cards: "(Once, the name of the Organization was enough to cause even SPYGOD to be afraid. But now that the Terre Unifee has taken it from you, and confiscated the weapons and objects you once safeguarded?)"

"(Go on,)" Ju-San says. It sounds like a threat. 

"(They say you are a joke, weeping into a drink in a Tokyo murder bar,)" the man continues, shrugging: "(And, with all respect? I cannot say they are wrong.)"

"(You dare-)" 

"(I. Dare. Everything.)" Randoph Scott insists, banging his free fist down on the bar's marble surface, shaking the empty drink of the world's most dangerous man: "(I get the truth, Ju-San. I get it any way I can. And when I get it, I hand it out freely.)"

"(The truth can kill, Outsider.)"

"(So do lies,)" the outlaw reporter says, pulling up a white and silver stool to sit right next to him: "(And I think you've been lied to enough already.)"

"(What do you mean...?)" Ju-San asks, suddenly unsure.

"(Hanami,)" he says, pulling out one of the photographs in the deck. It's of the young woman he once commanded, but no longer has much contact with. The bright, beautiful, and immensely powerful android that saved Tokyo, but at a terrible cost to her mind.

"(What of her?)" the man says, trying not to show his true emotions, just now.

"(They told you they would help regain her mind,)" Scott says, pulling out photos of various members of the Space Service -- especially Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir -- and placing them down by the man's empty drink: "(But I believe they have been lying to you. I believe they have no intention of bringing her back to you. They've emasculated your Organization, after all. Why would they fix such a powerful weapon, and then hand it to you?)"

"(You have proof?)" Ju-San asks, his eyes growing darker by the second.

"(Not yet, but I know how you can get it,)" he says, handing him a card with a string of numbers upon it: "(Your access codes were rescinded. This will allow you to log back in under your old name, with all permissions given. You can look at all files, just as you once did. And I recommend looking at the personal logs and security footage.)"

"What will I see...?" Ju-San asks as Scott gets up from his stool, lapsing into English for the first time in decades. 

"The truth, Ju-San," Randolph Scott answers, bowing respectfully before he turns to go: "I hope you will know what to do with it."

And then he's gone, leaving only a mystery behind. 

* * *

It's night in Korhogo, and the killing has stopped. 

Prisoner 52 sits in his cell, unable to sleep. He doesn't need to, though he sometimes likes to close his eyes and pretend. And when he does, the ghosts around him walk into his dreams, as though they were the court of their king.

A new spectre has joined the other four: one of the ones who was slain, this afternoon, after the Choosing. He's weak and uncertain, muttering of pain he can't really feel anymore, and the horrible injuries his former allies wreaked upon him as they decided he was more fun dead than alive. 

He should be greeting him, tonight. He should speak to him of the things he must know, and the strange places that they will have to walk, together. All those kingly duties and responsibilities. 

But right now, the king of the dead doesn't care about that. 

What he does care about is something he realized, today, as the wave of murder and mayhem washed over his mind and body. The strange and bloody overwhelming of his senses acted to shake two things loose, within his glowing skull. 

The first was a single letter. S. 

And the second was an understanding -- crystal and clear -- that before long he would not only know the rest of the letters he'd been deprived of for so long, but that he'd be returned to full power once he spoke that word aloud. 

"A king in his kingdom, once more," he says, sniffing one of the sickly roses his living followers have strewn in his cell -- grown fat and wrong in the gardens where the dead have been laid to rest.

And he closes his eyes to dream of change, sweet and certain after so very, very long.

* * *

It May Not Last

But Here Am I

Once a Caterpillar 

Now a Butterfly

* * *

(SPYGOD is listening to Metamorphosis (Pet Shop Boys, remix) and having a Mephistopheles Metamorphosis) 

1/11/13 - Les Hommes de Pourpres - (Les Trois Grands) - pt 2

"MMM," the older man says, taking a happy bite of the weird, oreo-filled concoction in front of him: "Now this is what I call a pie."

"I'd sure hope so," his younger dining companion says, not looking very enthusiastic about his own: "If you thought it was a shoe I'd be worried."

"No, it's just that I got really sick of those pies they have at McDonalds, these days."

"Oh, those pieces of !@#$," the young man agrees, noticing that the Burger King's dining room is just a little less occupied than it was before: "You remember when they used to fry them?"

"I do I ever. Those were so good."

"Hot apple pies, cherry pies. Every so often they'd have something else instead of the cherry."

"Do you remember what the others were?" the older man asks, taking a last, loving bite of his dessert: "I mean, now they've got pumpkin and whatever, but I don't pay attention, really."

"Me neither. But I remember I used to get a couple hot apple pies to go, take them home, nuke 'em in the microwave for a couple seconds, and then put them on a big bowl of vanilla ice cream and call that dessert."

"Oh, that sounds really good, son. When did you do that?"

"When I was a kid," he tells the older man, not without a little bite.

"Right," the older man says, trying not to sigh: "When did they stop frying them?"

"Sometime in the 90's. All that health-conscious bull!@#$. They stopped using beef tallow for the fries and stopped frying their pies."

"That's right. The fries haven't been nearly as good since."

"No, they haven't," the younger man says, and hopes they can just be silent for a while.

* * *

"What do you mean by 'be quiet?'" Abdullah Ismail asks, looking at the very thick, ultra-official stack of documents he's been asked to sign.

"Just that, really," the well-dressed prison official says, putting his hands on either side of the sheaf and scooting them towards Abdullah, just a little bit more: "You keep your mouth shut about what's happened, and you go free, and stay free. So long as you don't do anything else, of course."

"Or talk about it."

"Well, naturally," the man says, waving a hand over the stack of paper: "You can be quiet, can't you?"

Abdullah raises an eyebrow, and then winces, rubbing his sore head with the less-painful side of a broken hand. Apparently he all but smashed them both against a wall at some point during his soon-to-be-brief captivity, here in the dungeons of the Police Nationale. But he can't remember a thing about it. 

He remembers being in his friend's darkened apartment. He remembers the horrible things he discovered there. And he remembers one of Les Trois Grands beating him unconscious.

But past that? It's all bits and pieces. A dream of a snake-faced woman who meant him harm, a lady in red who was concerned for his dreams, and a nurse who poorly tended his wounds while whispering poison into his ears. Then it's just hate -- waves of blinding, utter hate he hasn't experienced since he encountered a childhood friend who'd gone jihadi on him after graduation.

And now, this morning, he wakes up in pain and confusion, and barely has a chance to come to grips with any of it before guards come in, wash him and dress him, and gently but firmly bring him into this stark, small room (barely enough space for the desk and the chairs they're all using) and ask him to fill out... this. 

"'I was a victim of mistaken identity,'" Abdullah quotes, looking halfway down the top sheet: "'This was due to my being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I acknowledge my error, and absolve the Terre Unifee, and its agents, of all culpability in the matter.'"

"Yes," the official says: "And it goes on and on like that for several more pages, before the really dense legal things come up. But in a nutshell? We are sorry we mistook you for a terrorist. There were extenuating circumstances and we didn't have a lot of time to deal with them-"

"Obviously," Abdullah snorts: "Punch first, ask questions later."

"It happens."

"Yes, and mostly to Beurs."

"We acknowledge your pain and suffering," the official goes on, clearly not wanting to discuss that side of the issue at length: "And we are willing to recompense you for them at a fair amount. But if you discuss our ongoing security efforts, you may jeopardize a number of other operations currently in play against the real terrorists, and that would create problems."

"So I sign this merde, walk out of here... well, limp out of here, and don't tell anyone why I have a broken leg, cracked ribs, and a face that looks like a punching bag, and that's that?"

"Or you stay here, locked down, until our current security crisis is over."

"Which will be never."

"Well, I refuse to be so pessimistic," the official says, dying for a cigarette: "I fully believe that, one day, you all will realize how good you have it here, in France. I also believe that you'll come to understand that the best way to integrate is to accept the discomfort of those you're integrating into, and work harder to prove yourselves to them."

"So we can't have equality and freedom until you see us as brothers, is that it?"

"Well, look, you can't just expect everyone to get along from the start. There's always going to be this sort of thing, in any society. And protesting and being angry when we make mistakes? Well... that doesn't help."

Abdullah Ismail just looks at the man. He thinks of his friends, beaten and fingered by lazy, racist cops. He thinks of the constant racist taunts and suspicious looks from the people on the streets. He thinks of how his more pious friends can't wear hijab or prayer beads to work, and how their children can't wear them to school. 

And he thinks of the awful smile on the man in white armor as he called him a negro and beat him like a dog. 

Somehow, Abdullah gets the strength to stand up, tip the table over, and send the sheaf of papers every which way. He also maintains the strength to scream, and fight with the first two guards that come rushing into the room. And he doesn't stop struggling until someone succeeds in putting him in a choke hold -- knocking him out and down.

Down into the darkness of his broken, half-memories, in which some things are finally beginning to make sense.

* * *

"I guess we're all let down by our childhoods, eventually," the older man says: "I can remember when you could have a quarter last all day. It'd get you a movie, a couple candy bars, and bus fare. Now, they won't even get you a half an hour on a parking meter."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You go most places, you're lucky to get ten minutes."

"I thought you didn't have to worry about things like that, anymore."

"Why?"

"Well, being an official hero and all? I figured you could just park wherever, and put a little sign on the dashboard saying 'on business,' or something."

"If only," the older man says: "And you should know. Didn't you read that phone book the TU sent when it absorbed us all?"

"No. I think it's still sitting on my coffee table. My real coffee table, that is. Not the one I'm using now."

The older man nods: "How long do you think you can retain your cover with the Scarlet Factotum?"

"With the crazy red robot? Indefinitely."

"Really?"

"Sadly, yes. She's angry as !@#$, naive as !@#$, and so fixated on her big plan to conquer the world that she's !@#$ing missing the forest for the trees, not to mention half the continent."

"What about her allies?"

"Those morons? Well, one of them's just there for a paycheck. As soon as the !@#$ hits the fan, he's gone. The others are a leader who's better as a follower and a useful idiot who can't even die correctly. So long as they think I'm down with the program they won't stick their noses in too deeply." 

"Do you think you can rein her in a little? Keep this from getting as bloody as it could be?"

The young man looks at his father, and then slowly shakes his head: "I hate to quote movies, dad, but I'm afraid there will be blood. The good news is that, if our latest intel is correct, a lot of it's going to be supervillains killing supervillains. But no one's walking out of this with clean hands. You knew that, right?"

"I know, yeah." the older man sighs, having a sip of the coffee he got with the pie: "I just keep hoping for a miracle, you know?"

* * *

"!@#$ing stupid meatbags!" METALMAID screeches, pounding her fist into a nearby wall. It breaks around it like it was made of glass, and she just stands there, amazed at her own strength.

"Well, look, I know it looks bad," the Sound says, waving a pad up as he follows after her: "And no, I'm not happy we lost three operatives in one go. Especially not Nefartiti. She was !@#$ fine-"

The Pusher coughs into his fist, and the Sound grits his teeth and gets back on subject: "But the mission was accomplished. They uploaded the information we needed. We now know a lot more than then we did before about how their super structure works."

"Super structure," the Pusher nods: "I like that. Very catchy."

"I could care less about {quote}buzzwords{endquote} right now," METALMAID hisses: "What I care about is the fact that they probably know what we were looking for."

"Well, we can't be sure of that," the Sound says: "I mean, she was supposed to tell her meat puppet to trash the computer he was working on so no one could tell what files he accessed."

"But do we know if he did that?"

"Well, no."

"And why do we not know?" METALMAID growls, looming over the Sound as if she was about to bite his head off at the neck: "Because they had to kill that {quote}meat puppet{endquote} prematurely. We don't know what he did or didn't do. And that means that our operatives could be walking into a trap!"

"Well, yes," the Sound says, and then wisely turns himself into noise as she tries to rip him apart.

"Oh for God's sake," the Emperor of Pain sighs, coming onto the sorry scene: "Can't you not try and kill your subordinates for bringing you bad news? It's bad for morale. Even I can tell you that."

"It's okay!" the sound says, his voice strange and echoing as he loops around his homicidal boss: "I've got this..."

"Best to let her let off some steam," the Pusher says, very quickly putting an arm around the older villain and leading him out of the room before she tries to kill them, too: "That and I think it's time we talked about what we'd been talking about earlier."

"Right," the old man nods: "Especially now that her boyfriend isn't around to crawl up her nose."

"Indeed," the well-dressed man whispers, imagining a much larger dollar sign as he gets ready to make a much better deal. 

* * *

 "So, we're all good?" the younger man says as he and his dining guest leave the fast food restaurant, heading for the parking lot.

"Yes," his father says, not quite sure when to break off and head for his own vehicle: "You tell us what's going on, and I'll make sure you skate away from it all when it's over."

"All of it," the young man insists: "Because when they make their move, the TU's going to come down on them like a pile of bricks, and I don't need them messing with me, either."

"Aren't you going to come back to us, son?" the old man says, a little confused: "After all we've done with the new group. All we worked for?"

"Eventually," he replies: "But not until we're free again, dad. I can't work for the TU. Not really."

The old man sighs, and then nods: "I'll... do what I can. I just... I miss you, son."

"I know," the Violet Demon says, giving New Man an unexpected, big hug: "Just don't think badly of me. Whatever happens. Please just remember I did what I had to, okay?"

"Okay," the old man says, overwhelmed by this sudden gesture from his long-estranged son. And for a time, they just stand there, holding one another. 

And then it's over, and the young man is heading off to his car, getting in it, and driving away without looking back. 

"Did you get all that?" the old man says, looking to the empty space to his left as he heads back to his own vehicle.

"I did, yeah," a disembodied voice says, keeping in time with the older man: "Sounds like he's got it well in !@#$ing hand, if you ask me."

"I don't like this, (REDACTED). I don't like my son being in that nest of vipers."

"I do," the voice says, and New Man can almost imagine him lighting up a phantom cigarette to accompany it: "He's well !@#$ing suited for this kind of work. He's got the right !@#$ attitude for it, and if anyone tries to !@#$ with him, well, I'm more worried about them."

"But can we keep him safe?" the hero asks as he puts a hand on his car door, as if steadying himself: "Can we save him from prosecution if it all comes out? All those things he told me..."

"I heard him," the voice says: "I heard every one. And you of all people ought to know that we can !@#$ing get him out of it. Even if we have to pull a vanishing act, he'll be in the clear."

"You promise me that, SPYGOD," the old man hisses: "You make a god!@#$ promise to me right now that he walks free and clear after all this, or else..."

"I promise, (REDACTED)," the voice says, and New Man can almost imagine him putting a hand on his shoulder: "Free and clear, one way or another."

That seems to reassure the old man, and with that he nods, gets into his car, and drives away as well.

"Of course, that all depends on whether you and I can get away free and clear after all this is over," another disembodied voice adds.

"Jesus !@#$, hon," SPYGOD snorts: "You think I don't have a plan for that?"

"I know you do, lover," Straffer says: "I know you got fifty of those things. I helped you pin them up on the fridge, remember?"

"I do, yes. That was a !@#$ interesting evening."

"I'm surprised we didn't break the refrigerator."

"We did."

"We did?"

"Yes. They !@#$ing fixed it the next morning while you were still zonked out. And they just put all the magnets and sticky notes on the new one, just like they'd found them."

"All well and good. But we've got to get at least one of those plans to work."

"That's why I've got fifty, this time."

The one voice laughs: "You're horrible." 

"I am, yes. !@#$ing horrible." 

"And the repairmen didn't notice a thing, huh?"

"Nope," SPYGOD chuckles, kissing his ghostly lover in the middle of the Burger King parking lot: "How very !@#$ing French of them..."

* * *

The day recedes into night, night slowly gives way into day, and then it's another early morning in France. And in a brightly-lit city that refuses to sleep, certain inhabitants move about -- watching as important events take place.

Abdullah Ismail staggers back home to his apartment, a brutalized but free being. Apparently nothing he could do could convince them to keep him in prison longer than necessary. They didn't even try to hold him to that merde agreement they initially asked him to abide by.

Zaid and Samir were not so lucky, but something was clearly wrong with them. They spoke like monsters when Abdullah tried to reach out to them on his way out, raging in unreasoning hate and anger rather than fear or friendship. 

(Apparently, whatever had been done to him was not as powerful as what was done to them.)

But as he walks up the cracked, burned steps to his building, fumbling for the keys with a broken hand, he wonders how many eyes are watching him, right now. How many police wanting to bust him for breaking wind, much less "stirring up trouble."

Oh, they've got trouble now. All the trouble in the world, if he's got something to say about it.

And, Inshallah, that trouble will finally bring about something good. 

As he goes back into what remains of his life, he is, indeed, watched. A white knight stands on a building, nearby, looking down at him in anger. Wondering why they let him go, and told him to back off. 

Foudre Blanc is wondering a lot of things, actually.  

But one thing he doesn't have to wonder about is the most important things of all. The secret is safe. No one knows anything about what he's done, or how, or why. And in a week, once The Maker has made what they will need, and all eyes are fixed on the trial of SPYGOD, all the recent excitement will be overlooked. 

All he has to do is wait, and be calm and careful. Things he should be able to do.

And yet, he keeps going back to that horrible night, on that horrible day. The day his face was destroyed. The day he learned how little wealth and power actually meant. 

The day his lover was destroyed by human monsters, and all he could do was crawl towards her, a wreck of a man, and comfort her in her last moments on this world. 

"Destroy them," she whispered weakly as he held her: "Destroy them all."

And so he would, one way or another. He swore it then. He upholds that promise now. 

Forever and ever until the last breath leaves him, he will destroy them all. 

As he swears eternal vengeance, yet again, he is himself watched. Ciel Rouge lurks nearby, wondering if the man she arranged to have freed will give her fallen comrade a chance to hang himself before her, or else make him more reckless in his movements -- more scared. 

She knows the truth about him, now. But to gain the trust of others, she must have proof. Hopefully this man will help provide her with proof, but not even her Others can say for certain. 

All she knows is that she must act, and soon.

Meanwhile, far above the three of them, Tempete Bleu is once again up above it all. He sits upon his throne of spacejunk, overlooking the world, watching the sun rise over the Earth.

Or so he says.

He doesn't watch the sunrise while he's up here, floating above the world. He doesn't watch the stars, or the Moon, or the sled, or any comets or meteors that might be rushing on by.

He doesn't look at anything at all.

He just sits there and imagines the world as he would make it -- especially now that he knows who and what he is. The sweeping changes, the small alterations, the inevitable breaking of people, places, and things.

The bloody, blackened ruins he'll leave in his wake. 

He thinks through each and every thing from start to finish, large to small. Then he goes through them again, over and over until a crimson blueprint lies before the eye of his mind

And he smiles to think of what we would think of that world, if he gave us leave to speak our minds.

Or planned to let us live in it at all...

(SPYGOD is listening to Love in C Minor (Cerrone) and having a Melange a Trois)

1/11/13 - Les Hommes de Pourpres - (Les Trois Grands) - pt 1

It's noon in middle America, and two men are sitting down to eat lunch in a Burger King.

One man is old, or at least appears to be. He's got short, silver hair and is conservatively dressed in a blue suit, with a muted tie. He's also wearing nice, tasteful sunglasses.

The other is young, or at least appears to be. He's got long hair and a wisp of a goatee, and is wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt that has Nikola Tesla shooting Thomas Edison in the face. He also wears sunglasses, but there's something strange about them.

(Something just out of the ordinary, and purple). 

"Did we have to eat here?" the older man says to the younger one, looking down his nose at the lunchtime crowd sitting around them: "Really?"

"Hey, one thing about this place," the young man says, tapping at his sorry, greasy Big King: "No one ever listens into anyone's conversation. You could be talking about killing the old lady you got tied up in your trunk, and the worst thing that's going to happen is someone nearby will ask if you're Brad Pitt."

"That's highly unlikely to happen to me," the older man sighs, wondering if he really needed all that whopper: "But still, as far as things like this go-"

"I love bestiality," the younger man announces, just a little louder than needed: "Dogs, cats, parakeets-"

"Son," the older man hisses, looking around.

"Best time I ever had was with my neighbor's pet rabbit. I hugged him and loved him and banged him till his ears fell off, and then I called him George."

The young man smiles like a kid who just got a balloon from a clown. The older man turns white, and then red. But then, ever so slowly, he realizes that no one has so much as blinked an eye, much less looked in their direction.

"See?" the younger man says, smiling as he gets ready to take a bite of his burger: "We're cool to talk here, dad. Trust me."

And all his companion can do is sigh, nod, and join him in eating their lunch.

* * *

"This is insane," the President of the Terre Unifee says, shaking his head as he flops the paper down on his rather large -- and very empty -- desk: "Both of them?"

"Yes, sir," his secretary, Henri, says: "Last night, in fact. I'm not sure what could have possessed them to... well..."

"Kill themselves just after getting home," the President finishes for the young man: "In as messy a fashion as possible, you said?"

"Yes, sir. I understand the press is keeping certain matters out of the news for public relations purposes-"

"The Presidents of Australia and New Zealand go home and kill themselves, just after signing on with us," the President restates, getting up from behind his desk as if he's trying to achieve dramatic effect: "Is there any good PR left? Really?"

"Well, we don't know what's happened," Henri says, trying not to sigh as the President walks across the large, sunlit office to his well-used liquor cabinet for a drink: "There is a possibility this was an action by one of the last few holdouts, to send a message. Terrorism could be involved-"

"Then where's the badly-done video message claiming responsibility?" the President asks as he pours one, downs it, and then pours another: "Where's the intel we should have gotten about this threat?"

"It's... well..."

"It's not there," the President says, taking the whole bottle back to his desk along with the glass: "And it's not there because it's not there, Henri. This isn't either of those things. This is something entirely different."

"Well, sir, I don't know what it could be."

"Neither do I," the President lies, plopping down in his chair and pouring himself yet another: "Have a good speech written for me in an hour. Talk up how senseless this is, and that we're working with local authorities to get to the bottom of it. Have some answers ready for the questions I can't answer, yet, if ever."

"Yes sir," Henri says, stiffening as he gets ready to leave: "Anything else, sir?"

"Do we know where Brave Dreaming is?" he asks, almost absentmindedly. 

"Sir?"

"The hero who came with the President of Australia. The Aborigine. Do we know where he is?"

"No sir, we don't. He went home on the same flight, but after that, well... I'm told he vanishes. A lot. Walkabout or something."

"Find him," the President insists, pointing a finger: "Do whatever you need to and find him. I want to talk to him."

"Yes sir," Henri says, and leaves, wondering what all that's about.

The President nods, as if approving of that decision. He looks at the bottle and the glass. He thinks about the empty bed he's been sleeping in, the wife who won't speak with him, and the child who can't stop crying. 

He thinks about what the man told him, just after the ceremony, and how he brushed it off as some weird thing from a weirder man. But now he knows he was told the truth, and didn't listen. 

Now he knows to be afraid of the lightning.

* * *

"You know, I remember when these places had ash trays on the counters," the older man says, tapping the table: "Little gold things, I think. They had the BK logo in them, too."

"Yeah, McDonalds had proper ones. You had to wash them out and reuse them."

"I don't remember that."

"Well, did you smoke at McDonalds?" he asks, putting his last remaining french fry in his mouth.

"No. I only went there on Sundays after church. And my wife had one rule, then, no smoking after church."

"Must have been one !@#$ of a drag."

"You have no idea."

"Yeah," the other man says, taking a bite of his sandwich: "I don't."

There's silence between them, then -- sharp as a knife.

* * *

Ciel Rouge puts her hands on the table, in the Palace's otherwise-empty dining room, and snarls like a wild dog -- her fingers splintering the table in careless rage.

She wants to scream. She wants to howl and beat things until they break. She wants to run downstairs, through the dungeons, and rip open door after door to let all the prisoners down there loose.

She wants to smash through the system, now that she knows it has been corrupted. And she wants to break a certain individual, now that she knows he is the source of that corruption. 

Or has strong reason to suspect, at any rate. The word of a dead man's soul might not be good enough for the law, but it's gospel for her -- especially as there was no way he could lie to her.

(Though, now that she knows Foudre Blanc has been lying to her all along, she's not completely sure of that, anymore.)

But she dares not make a move -- not now, at any rate. The timing is all wrong, especially with an action against SPYGOD looming. And even if it wasn't, the means of her discoveries are still highly suspect. 

And would anyone actually believe her...?

But maybe someone would. 

Maybe, in spite of how strange Tempete Bleu seems about these things, she can count on him to back her up. Maybe she can get him to look into certain matters on her behalf.

Maybe she can use his clear dislike of Foudre Blanc to aid her against him, when the time comes. 

Yes. She will do that, then. She will wait until this SPYGOD matter is settled. She will keep an eye on the white knight she now knows to be a black villain. And she will cultivate an alliance with a person that, while she doesn't entirely trust, she can at least believe will do the right thing, if prompted -- or persuaded. 

But as she makes up her mind -- and wonders what she'll tell the others about the state of the table -- she can't help but remember that someone did warn her about Foudre Blanc. He told her exactly what their white knight was up to, even if he didn't give the whole picture. And he told her this freely, expecting no reward or quarter.

And in seven days, they're going to put him on trial for his life, thanks to the technology of a man who's sold the Terre Unifee out to a disgraced fascist party, populated their National Police with its members, and had those members slip supervillains into numerous other departments.

She doesn't disbelieve that SPYGOD is guilty of the crimes he's been charged of. His cavalier treatment of the lives of millions of innocents deserves its day in court, and, if found guilty, he deserves to pay the ultimate price. Justice calls for no less. 

But yet, there was something in the way he looked at her, when he accused Foudre Blanc. A shared disgust of what he was doing, and why, and for whom. 

A call for justice, even if from a condemned man...

No. He is guilty. He will pay. That he told her of this sad truth -- a truth she did not believe, but now cannot ignore -- does not wash the blood from his hands. Even the warlords she dispatched in Africa loved their wives and children. 

Even Hitler was moved to tears by what he considered an injustice.

And yet, she hesitates to turn her back completely upon him -- still. And that confuses her.

* * *

"So I bet you want the story," the young man says, after a minute or two of very uncomfortable silence.

"You bet right," the older man says.

"Okay," the younger man says, having a sip of his fountain soda: "I'm not going to tell you everything-"

"Now wait, we agreed-"

"We agreed that I'd be your ear on the inside. I didn't agree to tell you all the details. Trust me, you do not want to know some of this !@#$."

"This isn't my first rodeo, son."

"No, and it isn't mine. But at the end of the day I do not want to get caught with my !@#$ in the door."

"Do you think it will?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I'll put in a good word, son. You know that."

"But will that be worth a !@#$ when it all goes down?" the young man asks: "Really?"

"Son, what are you afraid of? We cleared all this before you went in."

"Yes, I've had to do some... highly questionable things since then" the younger man admits: "I've gotten my hands really dirty, here, just to maintain cover. And if it ever gets out how much !@#$ I was involved in, the last time I dressed up and played supervillain? I am so @#$ing dead." 

"And you think we'd just hang you out to dry? You're my son, !@#$ it."

"Yeah, and SPYGOD killed Hitler. Look where that got him when it all came out."

"Well, he was stupid, son. He overextended himself-"

"He took direct action, dad. In wartime. And that's something you should understand?"

More silence, and then a long sigh and a nod from the older man: "I think you'll be okay, son."

"Right now? Maybe. But I'm not sure which way the wind will be blowing in a month or two. And the !@#$'s going to get blown onto someone. And I'd like to go home with clean pants."

* * *

"Merde,"  Foudre Blanc says as he steps through a puddle of something nasty, there on the stone steps.

"What was that?" the person he's talking to via hologram asks, his unamused face floating over the hero's wrist.

 "Nothing," he says, answering the clod he wishes he didn't have to talk to "And no, I don't know what happened."

"How can you not?" Julien demands: "You made it to Marie's apartment, didn't you?"

"I did, yes," the white knight sighs, stomping down yet another flight of the ancient, stone stairs, a sheaf of plans in one hand, and a warm, paper bag in the other.

"And did you find anything?"

"I found a sink full of what was left of our person, yes," he says: "Whoever was there before me didn't have enough time to dispose of her, properly."

"What do you mean?"

"Nique ta Mere! Do I have to draw you a picture, Julien? They killed her, and needed to get rid of her. How would you have hid the body so no one could find it?"

Julien turns a little green at that, and Bruno takes that as a minor victory.

"At any rate, I sanitized the place. I finished the clean-up job they'd started. Anything that could have pointed to the group, or me, or anything else, I disposed of. So far as anyone who looked into the matter would know, she was just a nurse, and then she disappeared."

"And how are you explaining the death of Maximillien?"

"I'm not," Foudre Blanc says, finally getting to the bottom of this ancient, underground complex, and the dripping, stone tunnel that lies between him and one of the greatest secrets he knows. 

"What do you mean-"

"I mean that, in our line of work, it's perfectly normal for a Capitaine to be taken over by someone, be programmed to violate our security, and then be blown up by his new master on the way home."

"I don't understand-"

"You don't have to," the white knight sighs: "But when I stand in front of that salope rouge, all I have to do is make certain suggestions. And since she's got a suspicious mind, she can make the connections without any help from me."

"Ah, so your plan is to say nothing, and let them imagine everything."

"Yes," Foudre Blanc says, now able to see the door at the end of the long, dark hallway. 

"What about your blue friend?" Julien says: "You know how we feel about him."

"I know," he replies, not really wanting to talk about him, right now: "But he's easily distracted by anger. All I have to do is taunt him a little and he'll leave, and then it'll just be me and her, and that'll be that."

"But do you know what he was after?" Julien demands.

"No, not yet," the hero lies: "And if you'll excuse me, I'm here."

With that, he terminates the call, and stands before the door that lies between him and The Maker. 

"Old man?" he says, putting his hand on the door, and feeling the locks and tumblers within it stand at attention: "We have need of your skills, once more. May I come in?"  

For a moment, nothing happens. He wonders if he's come at a bad time, or is actually being denied, for once. 

But then the mechanisms begin to whirl and click, and the door opens, revealing a brightly-lit magician's cave of strange and wonderful beauty. 

"Did you bring my Beignets?" a strong but old voice demands from deep within the light.

"Of course," the white knight replies, holding up the warm, paper bag as he reverently steps within. 

(SPYGOD is listening to The Collector (Cerrone) and having La Choulette Fraise)

1/10/13 - Peur Bleue (Les Trois Grands) - pt 3

Paris, France

October 18th, 2005

"Mon Dieu," Bruno Roquer is quietly begging as he crawls on his hands and knees, trying to get away from the burning wreckage of his car.

His handsome face is slashed by broken glass, and burned from where the petrol bomb went off. He can barely see for all the blood in his eyes, and can hardly hear after the explosion that nearly tore him apart.

But he's moving, at least. That's a good thing. His parents always taught him that if he could move, he could do anything.

And maybe he can still save his fiancee, Sabine...

This had been stupid and ill-considered. He knew that, now. He shouldn't have insisted on going out to their favorite restaurant, on the outskirts of the city. Yes, they had reservations that took months to get, and, yes, it was her birthday. But they still should have stayed inside, during this time of unrest and violence.

They should have been sensible, and waited out the storm.

But it was her birthday, and he insisted. His car was faster than any mob, surely. They'd just slip through the crowds at high speeds and run around the mobs as they set fire to the world. They'd be out of the conflagration before they knew it, and sipping aperitifs above it all, watching Paris burn.

Just the two of them, up on high while the world came down around them.

She'd said it wasn't a good idea, but he hadn't listened. He never did. He always told her what he wanted, and she gave it to him, one way or another. She claimed she liked that in a man, but there were times he wondered if she was really happy.

Would he ever know, now? The mob that had abducted her at gunpoint, and then tossed the flaming bottle into his passenger seat, seemed intent on terrible actions with her. 

But he cannot think of that, now. He can only move forward, one inch at a time, and hope he's not too late-

The explosion propels him forward, maybe twenty feet or so. In its wake he's left deaf, dumb, and blind -- drowned in a black and silent sea. 

When he comes to, some time later, he can see the car burning behind him, though he can't feel the heat. The city burning around him, though he can't hear it scream. 

He crawls on his hands and knees, no longer able to feel the pain that wrapped him up when his world exploded into fire.

And with each inch -- each thick, dragging, painless inch -- he comes closer and closer to the woman lying in the street... 

Foudre Blanc exits the city's electrical system just then, and reforms in the middle of a thankfully-deserted cul-de-sac.

He wants to scream, but he cannot, because the only sound that can leave his lips is a pathetic whine. So he raises his fists to the sky, grits his teeth, and then sinks to his knees, shaking with rage.

There's a rational explanation for this, he knows. Turning himself into a bolt of electrical fire plays havoc with his memories, and causes some of them to replay before his eyes. He's seen millions of old memories while traveling through those wires -- things long-forgotten, or else only half-remembered, suddenly accessible as though he'd put them through a film projector in his mind.

But for some reason, almost every memory he's been witness to has been bad. The time he broke his arm at age seven. The time his cat was run over by a car. The first breakup with a serious girlfriend. The day his parents died.

And Sabine...

It's this city, he thinks -- this painted putain they call Paris, that attracts human filth and scandalous behavior like flies to merde. She's hated him since he took up arms to tame her racial and religious imbalances, all those years ago. And when he and those like him stand up and say "no more," she finds some way to hobble them, just so she can keep wallowing in excess. 

"You'll be tamed, you whore," he hisses, grabbing hold of the street and crackling the asphalt with electrical fingers: "We'll make you behave, even if we have to burn you to the ground, street by street, and start all over again..."

She doesn't have anything to say about that. She never does -- not directly, anyway. But he's sure that, as soon as he regains his strength and goes back into her wires, she'll find some other, truly awful memory to dangle before him.

It's just her way of letting him know that, while he might call Paris his city, the salope is going to fight him every step of the way.

* * *

Che diavolo...

When Tempete Bleu comes to, there's nothing but blackness and fire all around him. The sounds are strangely muffled, as though he were hearing them through miles of water. And while he can feel the ground below him, as he crawls forward in confusion, his senses are dulled and uncertain.

Stai bene?

Slowly the murky disconnection resolves itself. Now he sees columns of smoke so thick they almost look solid, as though he'd entered some stygian cathedral. Rubble is strewn everywhere, the world is cracked and crumbling around him, and the heat makes rippling waves in the air.

Che cazzo è successo?

A silver angel approaches through the haze and the heat, waving a hand in greeting. For a second, the hero wonders if he's died and gone somewhere else. 

Altrimenti è qualcuno vivo?

But then the angel comes closer, and he can see it has airtanks and a helmet, and the hero realizes he's still in Rome. 

Mi puoi dire che cosa è successo?

It's just a firefighter in a bomb squad suit.

Era una bomba?

And all of his questions are !@#$ing stupid. 

"(Sir, are you hurt?)" the man asks, walking carefully through what's left of the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo: "(Do you need assistance?)"

"I'm fine," Tempete Bleu says, not fully turning around to regard him: "Never better, in fact."

"Oh, well..." the firefighter stammers, as his French is a little rusty: "What has happened?"

"Something exploded," the hero answers tersely, looking around the flattened building. Nothing remains but rubble, now -- centuries of prayer and song wiped away in a second.

"Was it a bomb? A villain?"

"A villain..." the hero muses, looking around for any trace of the man he came here to meet. There is none. 

There wouldn't be.

"Who was it?" the firefighter asks.

As if to answer, Tempete Bleu rises up from the ground, and floats a full foot above it. Then he turns around, ever so slowly, so as to look the firefighter in the face.

The scream that man gives just before he dies is the best thing the hero's heard in years.

* * *

"Jesus !@#$ing Christ," Husqvarna mutters as he stands at the edge of a tall, windy building, staring down the scope of his sniper helmet at the meat-faced target he's been tracking for a few blocks, now.

The helmet's a weird sort of thing: an elongated, high-tech facemask with a sniper rifle on one side, a targeting mechanism on the other, a tripod under his chin to steady his aim, and a neck-brace to make sure he doesn't break his neck when he fires it.

It's not the sort of thing he'd recommend to anyone, even if it is accurate as !@#$. But when both your hands have been replaced by massive, deadly chainsaws, you have to learn to adjust.

Point of interest: when Husqvarna lost his hands in a horrible logging accident, he didn't cry or whine about it at any point during the whole ordeal. In fact, he was secretly glad, because he understood that this gruesome occurrence -- and all the bull!@#$ that happened afterwards -- was not a tragedy. This was an origin story, and one that had been waiting for him his whole life.

(That didn't stop him from using his new, ill-gotten chainsaw-hands on his safety-adverse lumber baron boss his first day as a legitimate supervillain, though. The !@#$ing cheapskate had it coming.)

But, special destiny or no, it was quite the thing to go through life with chainsaws for hands. Anytime he had to step outside of his relatively-narrow special skill-set, he needed to have accommodations made. So he had a car he could steer with his shoulders, waiting back at home. The doors in his lair were motion sensitive, and there was voice activated !@#$ all over the place. He'd even hired a few live-in ladies to come in and deal with his hygiene issues, because nothing is worse than having to go when you can't deal with it properly.

(Oddly enough, that's how he'd met his girlfriend.)

And since he had been teamed up with Nefartiti for this job, and he'd drawn the role of "quiet problem remover," he'd been given the sniper helmet, which was pretty darn cool. It sort of reminded him of the guys from the Spy vs. Spy comics he read as a kid. But then it also sort of reminded him of that one freaky pyramid-headed monster from Silent Hill, only with a massive gun attached.

He looked at the capitaine, marching back home to what he thought would be an afternoon abattoir blowjob. He looked at Ciel Rouge, who was following him closely, and slowly but surely catching up to him. Back and forth, forth and back.

Nefartiti said she could deal with the guy, herself -- just let her know when he got a half mile away. And he trusted her to know what she was going, as she'd carried her end of the bargain thus far. But that left him wondering what he should do, instead.

And that made him wonder if maybe he could kill a flock of birds with one stone, and maybe put that red !@#$ out of his fellow criminals' problem zone once and for all.

"One bullet can change the world," he mused, changing his helmet's targeting program, and aiming the sniper rifle at the teleporting woman, instead.

* * *

"La Vache! What do you mean the Capitaine isn't here, today?"

"Well, just that, Msr," Pierre says, shrinking into his desk as Foudre Blanc towers over him: "He was here for a time, this morning, but then he left. I think he was a bit off from the night before-"

"A bit off?" the white knight asks, incredulous: "That man can hold anything you put down his throat."

"Well, I'm sure I wouldn't know about that, Msr."

"No, you wouldn't," he sighs, shaking his head. He really needed to talk to Maximillien, right now.

"Well, you're not the only one who's been looking for him, today."

"I haven't?" he asks, intrigued: "Who else was interested?"

"Well, I probably shouldn't say anything-"

"No, Pierre," the hero insists, leaning over the desk so much that the front of his helmet is almost in the man's face: "You should."

"Well, Ciel Rouge... she was, um, convinced that she saw him in the records room, earlier today," Pierre stammers: "But I told her that he'd left."

"Even though she saw him with her own eyes?"

"Well, yes. He'd used his passkey to get out, you see."

"Really?"

"Well, yes. And then she asked if he'd used his passkey to get in there, but I said that no, he hadn't."

"Really?" Foudre Blanc asks, wondering why that salope was so interested in his comings and goings.

"Well, yes. She was also asking after Nurse Marie, but I told her she came in early, too, and then left-"

The white-clad hero holds up a hand to shut him up: "Pierre, you can see what everyone does from this office by seeing when and where they use their passkeys, correct?"

"Yes, I can-"

"So could you show me those records, Pierre?"

"I'm not really supposed to," Pierre starts to say, but before he can finish it Foudre Blanc's on his side of the desk, and moving the monitor around so they can both see.

"Capitane Maximillien DuNord, please," he demands, pointing to the screen. Pierre sighs, takes a deep breath, and calls them up, also pointing to the screen.

"You see, Msr?" he says, moving his finger down the line: "He came in this morning, at six. He was here for a few hours, and then he left around nine or so. Between those two times, he was in the new prisoner intake almost the entire time-"

"Is that what you see, there?" Foudre Blanc asks.

"Well, yes, Msr. What do you see? I know you don't normally know what to look for-"

"I know enough to know that says Records Room, from 9:30 until 10:15," the hero insists, tapping the screen in the relevant places: "It also says he accessed the prisoner database the entire time. And it has him leaving the building at 10:19, and not nine or so, as you said."

"But..." Pierre says, looking at the screen: "That's not what it says..."

"Pierre, did you have any other visitors, today?" Foudre Blanc asks, realizing this could mean something very bad, especially for him and his people.

"Well..."

"Did the Nurse come to see you, this morning?" he asks, putting his hands on the man's shoulders and looking deep into his eyes: "Were you visited by her?"

"No..." the man says, but there's something uncertain in his eyes.

"Merde," he sighs, and looks Pierre in the eyes again: "Pierre, this is important. 'Une France pure dureront pour toujours.'"

"What?" Pierre asks, confused.

"Oh no," Foudre Blanc says, uncertain of what's happened here. Clearly this man's mind has been messed with, but the trigger phrase Madame Slithertongue agreed to use if she had to work on their own people was not erasing the programing. So either the Nurse wasn't doing what she was supposed to do, anymore, or that wasn't their nurse that came in, this morning.  

And if that wasn't their nurse, then something was seriously wrong. 

"I'm... I think I can remember something," Pierre mumbled, his eyes darting all over the place: "What on Earth... mon dieu, what did I do?"

Foudre Blanc sighs, and, tapping the man on the forehead, kills him with a massive bolt of electricity to the brains. He then does something similar to the computer, making certain anyone who didn't know better would think a freak electrical accident killed this man. 

And then, on his way out of the room, he starts calling their Nurse at home, praying there's an easy explanation for all of this merde. 

* * *

Saint Paul Trois Chateaux looks much the same as Tempete Bleu remembers. Red roofed, white buildings, all smashed in with each other along twisting, old roads that have too many cars. Friendly people and the noisy tourists they have to put up with.

(Stray animals running in fear as he looks at them, even from up here.)

But something is different, now. He can't quite put his finger on what, but as he floats above the center of town, looking down at the streets of his childhood, something seems amiss.

Ah, there. In the thick forests south of town, close to where he used to play as a child. Something is calling to him, there.

Something that has a voice he can no longer ignore.

As he moves in that direction, he thinks he remembers what really happened to him, as a child. So much of it was so jumbled, all those years. Had he been taken into a cave by tall men in robes, or pulled into the sky by swirling aliens? Did he pull the bus from the river with a wave of his hand, or push it there?

Did he save his school or destroy it?

The answers are coming to him, now. And as he gets just past the farmer's field he used to squish insects in, before he became something more than human, he now realizes why he went there to do it.

That voice was nearby, calling him with words he couldn't quite hear, yet. Singing a tune he could only just sense on the periphery of his senses.

Calling him home, but only when he was ready.

And as he approaches the forest, he's not surprised at who he finds standing there, waiting for him.

"Welcome, Armilus," it says, holding what may be hands up to greet its long-lost son.

* * *

You know someone's about to shoot at you, woman?

"I do, yes," Ciel Rouge says as she teleports again, making sure she's just out of the Capitaine's range of hearing.

You think you can dance out of that one?

"Why not? We've handled worse."

Only when we've needed you to.

"True," she admits, wondering if her Other is trying to set up yet another painful object lesson, just to show her who's really in charge.

The ridiculous-looking man with chainsaws for hands and a gun for a helmet has been following the two of them for some time, now. At first, the gun was trained on her target, but now it's on her. There could be a number of reasons for him to do this, but she won't get any answers if he's dead.

And she really won't get any answers unless she sees what he's actually going to do, next.

If he had fired at the Capitaine, she was going to put herself between him and the bullet, knock the Capitaine down and out, and then go deal with that fool. But now, she runs the risk of her quarry getting away while she deals with the would-be assassin. But she figures she can teleport him somewhere safe, knock him out, and then go corner the man on the rooftop before he can get away.

She doesn't like teleporting that many times in quick succession -- especially after having been porting from spot to spot this entire way -- but she figures it'll work.

So she keeps going, feeling the nasty sensation of having a weapon aimed at her, and hoping to resolve this matter before too long.

The truth will be hers soon. She just has to wait for it, and hope it costs as few lives as possible.

(SPYGOD is listening to The Mark Has Been Made (Nine Inch Nails) and having a Pont du Diable Malbec)