And we're back, but really no !@#$ better.
I wound up taking a walk around the city, thinking that being around ordinary people would clear my !@#$ing head. But that was a big !@#$ mistake. Everyplace I went I saw signs of what the Imago have !@#$ing done to China, and the world.
And that just made me !@#$ing angrier.
I wanted to tear down all those !@#$ing posters on the walls, all gently demanding obedience and sacrifice. I wanted to kick in and !@#$ on all the video screens
everywhere, playing endless propaganda loops and watching for "crimes
against the people." I wanted to scream the truth at the top of my !@#$ lungs, especially now that I know a !@#$ of a lot more about that truth than I did before, or ever !@#$ing wanted to.
And then, just when I didn't think I could get any !@#$ angrier (at least not without !@#$ing exploding like a Halloween pumpkin) I actually saw one of the !@#$ers.
He was Silver and Blue, floating twenty !@#$ing feet above a busy intersection, slowly rotating like something on top of a department store Christmas display. The people who passed by him all nodded and half-bowed and moved past, like they'd run into a high party member or something. And he was looking down at the people, and smiling like an arrogant politician on a palm-presser, all smug and secure and knowing that he !@#$ing owned the !@#$ floor.
That wasn't the worst bit, though.
The worst thing was that the corners of the intersection were piled high with !@#$ing offerings to the bastard. Fruit and flowers were heaped up in rotting piles no one dared to clean up or remove, and makeshift shrines had been made by them, with incense sticks lit from oil lamps.
And people were actually !@#$ing praying to the thing, like he was the shrine in a temple.
I stood there, wondering how high and hard I'd have to jump to grab his head and twist it the !@#$ off, and then someone half-punched me in the !@#$ing ribs and told me to bow and show respect. So I did, and kept moving, hoping the Silver and Blue thing didn't notice me, and just kept keeping the !@#$ on.
This is the answer, son. When you ask me how I can go on with this war, knowing that they could teleport into !@#$ing Southern Thailand and exterminate the whole !@#$ing population because they thought someone who'd hurt them had come from there, it's things like this.
The fact that humanity has meekly !@#$ing accepted these metal-plated monsters as their saviors, not knowing what they're actually capable of.
(Well, that and we're about to get !@#$ed by some weird-!@#$, big lethal Doom from beyond the stars, but that's another story for another time.)
So we're back to continue the big !@#$ true story of GORGON, son. But this time we are !@#$ing playing it smart. I am not even touching that baijiu !@#$, this time. Instead, I have elected to drink all the local beer I can, which means I made the grocers just outside this adorable guest house really !@#$ glad for the night.
And, two cases into my stash of Beijing Gold, I am finding that my brainmeat is less !@#$ed up, and I am better able to process and express the true horror that my highly-flammable fishing expedition uncovered.
So, Dark Star, who's outed herself as a !@#$ing alien to General Shiro "Partyman" Iishi, is hanging around Unit 731 to see what makes us !@#$ pathetic humans tick, tock, and stop moving. This is all being done to supposedly help her help the Japanese make submarines capable to getting down to where her crashed spaceship is, so she show her gratitude to them (for rescuing her from a freaky gangster-run whorehouse) by loading them up with insane levels of technology.
That's what she !@#$ing says, anyway. But after hanging out with this girl with black, empty eyes for a while, and watching her suck the memories out of captives, and picking up on little things she says, and the things she doesn't say, Shiro gets the idea that she isn't being 100% honest with him. Of course, his job is to !@#$ing obey, so he doesn't make too big of a stink about it, but he confides his worries in his companion in trolling whorehouses (that happens to be her !@#$ing handler) and his buddy agrees to look into things for him. Somehow.
1941 comes and goes, and you know what !@#$ing happens then, son. The day that lives in infamy, and the end of our being able to sit on our !@#$ hands and support freedom in Europe with our money but not our blood. Things at Unit 731 reach a renewed pitch, now that they went and !@#$ed with the wrong hornet's nest, and the Imperial Army wants Shiro to give them more results, and faster.
Especially when it comes to that !@#$ submarine man thing, because if there was ever a time to get space guns and rocket ships from that spooky girl they "rescued" from the freakiest little whorehouse in Tairausuiso, now is !@#$ing it.
Dark Star isn't necessary to the program, seeing as how she's just observing and advising. So she isn't there as much, given that the Imperials are shuffling her around Asia and the Pacific to have her help make sure that places the Japanese have taken over stay taken over.
I've talked about the sick !@#$ she did, before, so we don't really have to get into that, again. Except that now she's got better ideas about how to hurt people, given how well she learned from watching us.
...
That's what always !@#$ing gets me, you know? All these aliens and their weird tendencies to turn us into hamburger meat, or open us up and make us tick? So much of that isn't something they came up with on their own.
I mean, if you've got the power to fly across the !@#$ universe in realtime, then why do you have to get your tentacles bloody to see how we work? !@#$, most of them have medical scanners so precise they can see your !@#$ing DNA dancing around in your pancreas from ten !@#$ miles away. Our most sophisticated means of imaging the insides of the human body are !@#$ing antiques to them.
So all that !@#$ with them landing, collecting us like butterflies, and taking us to pieces like we're pigs in a butcher's shop? That's all !@#$ they learned from us, son. Either that or they're trying to scare us, because they're invaders and body horror is always a good way to strike fear.
(Or they're !@#$ing Spider People, but let's not talk about them today. I don't need another headache...)
...
Anyway. Dark Star. She's playing "I want your memories" with eligible bachelors on far-flung islands throughout the South Pacific with Thunder and Lightning, and Shiro Iishi is trying to develop ceramic bombs to spread the !@#$ing black plague. Then, one day, in 1943, Dark Star comes back with a wicked !@#$ing gleam in her eyes, and has a new idea.
It's not merely enough for us to be physically modified to withstand great oceanic pressures, she tells Shiro. We also have to be mentally modified. Our minds must be fused with discipline, determination, and will, or else we'll get down there, see a !@#$ing whale skeleton, and !@#$ ourselves to death.
Of course, Shiro Iishi's all about discipline (when he isn't out drinking and whoring) so he approves of this. And he lets her set up a new regime of testing within the pingfang compound. He gives her some guards, lets her have first crack at his supply of "logs" (that's victims, son), and asks her to have some promising results by, say, the end of a month.
And at the end of that month is where his diary stops being a clinical but !@#$ing disgusting read, and really goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel full of !@#$ and monkeys.
You see, the Japanese have this weird thing about self-harm as sign of devotion. Samurai would !@#$ing stab themselves in the guts to redeem themselves if they'd failed big time. Their gangsters still slice off their fingers, one knuckle at a time, if they screw up. And people are always throwing themselves in front of subway trains if they think they've screwed up, enough, just to say "sorry."
Well, it's not like she was experimenting on Japanese people, but you have to remember that her understanding of our culture was pretty !@#$ limited. What she got in the whorehouse, and was told when they inducted her, and what she saw at Unit 731, and out in the field? That's all Dark Star !@#$ing knew about us, at the time.
And it's not like the Imperial Army went out of their way to tell her otherwise. Not when she's doing such good and creative work, and has promised them the !@#$ing stars if they can get her back down to where she !@#$ing came from.
So she gets a group of healthy male prisoners together, and sequesters them from the rest of the population. She gets them to see her as their protector, and then she tells them things, together. And she tells them these things night and day, over and over again, until they believe them heart and soul.
And then, once she's convinced they really do believe it, totally and completely, she challenges them to prove it. She tells them to show her they have changed. Show her they have become something entirely new.
Show her they reject the life they had before, and with it the one thing that truly identified them from that life.
She gives them a small amount of powerful painkillers, a mirror, and a knife.
Not all of them live through the !@#$ing thing, as you might expect. But by the time the first experiment is done, she has two men who are so !@#$ing loyal that, once Shiro Iishi tells her to take it one step further, they gladly slit their own throats at her command.
He !@#$ing loves it. So they do it again, and again, each time changing things a little. And while they find that their prisoners respond to threats, and appeals to loyalty, the best results they get are by finding broken people and making them feel loved.
And that's how the first False Faces were made, son. Chinese prisoners of war who listened to an alien who told them that she loved them, and wanted them to change themselves for her.
There's still more, here, son. This diary goes !@#$ing bat!@#$, shortly thereafter, and you'll just love what happens when Shiro's party friend gets back to him.
But before we get to that, you are having a !@#$ing drink. Trust me, you're going to need it.
Down the hatch, son.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure, remixed by Denny JT) and having a !@#$-ton of Beijing Gold)
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 1
It's a humid, rainy night in Beijing, and I'm half-in, half-out of the window of the room I've been dossing down in, trying to un!@#$ my brain.
Normally, getting outside in this kind of weather clears my head up faster than a bullet through the noggin. But not this time. This time, my brain is being a stubborn little !@#$hole, and hanging tooth and nail onto the nasty drunk I've foisted on myself.
(And I would be right out of tjbang sticks, now wouldn't I? God !@#$ing !@#$ it...)
Now, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why my !@#$ neural matter is being so mean about this? Well, there's two reasons, son. The first is that, after drinking about ten pots of the !@#$, I am righteously !@#$ing toasted on baijiu, which is some really nasty stuff, and best left to the locals, foolish tourists, and diesel engines. And the second...
...
The second is that, after burning down a !@#$ing building to get to the truth, last night, I have just discovered that the truth is way more than I can wrap my head around, right now.
Way !@#$ing more, son.
You see, all this time I've been treating GORGON as just another !@#$ing group of science terrorists. And while I always believed that they were the most !@#$ dangerous and messed up of all of their peers, it turns out I had no !@#$ing idea just how bad they actually were.
!@#$, son, if the Nazis had fallen in with the Spider People, recruited a few nasty, best-forgotten gods to their cause, and set up shop on that one certain sunken city just south of Easter !@#$ing Island, they wouldn't be a tenth as !@#$ing dangerous as GORGON has been all along.
Turns out we've been living on borrowed time. It's only now that they've !@#$ing taken over that I finally get to see the !@#$ing clock.
And I am so very, very !@#$ing sorry to have to say that I have clearly been dropping the mother of all big !@#$ balls for the last five decades or so...
But yeah, let's back this caravan up to the county line, son. I went into a somewhat-unassuming repository for dodgy data that the People's Republic of China would really rather not admit to having, took quite a bit of it under my arm, and then lit the place on fire behind me so they wouldn't !@#$ing know what I took.
It went up like a charm, and then down like a Thai Ladyboy on my magic alien lovesnake. And by the time the !@#$ Harbin fire department made it around, the place was a glowing pile of cinders, and I was halfway back to !@#$ing Beijing with the goods.
Since then, I've been alternating between reading what I got, cross-referencing what what I knew, and drinking myself blind on this nasty, pungent !@#$. And while I'm happy to say that my hunch was right, and there was a definite connection between Unit 731's activities, Japan's Super Soldiers, and what would eventually become GORGON (and now !@#$ing Imago), that hasn't detracted at all from the harsh as nails understanding that I !@#$ed up.
Bad.
How bad is bad? Well, son, let's review some ancient history, and stop me when get to something you already !@#$ing know.
At some point after we decide to !@#$ing open them up like can of sardines, the Japanese go on a war footing and start doing a Pacman on their neighbors. Now, there's a lot of reasons behind it, and while there's some things I could say about the truth behind those reasons, a lot of it's !@#$ you're either not cleared for or !@#$ I don't feel like getting into.
Why? Because I'm !@#$ing drunk and testy, son. And armed.
So let's skip to the !@#$ing obvious. The Japanese go into China and decide to stay. They set up a puppet government, move troops further into the interior, and plan to march across Asia, one little bit at a time.
While they're here, in China, they set up what they call the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwangtung Army, otherwise known as Unit 731. And it's a classic case of !@#$ing army doublespeak, because what they're really doing is looking into causing epidemics. It's a giant skunkworks for making !@#$ing plague bombs and researching how to spread diseases amongst the enemy in wartime, and they're using human prisoners as test subjects.
And that wasn't all they were !@#$ing doing, there. In addition to finding new and cruel ways to give people typhus, the black plague, and the !@#$ing clap, they were also performing weird and cruel medical experiments. They'd yank your stomach out and sew your neck-tube straight to your !@#$ing intestines. They'd freeze you and thaw you to watch you melt like an ice cream bar. They'd cut your !@#$ arms off and sew them back on backwards, just to see how they worked.
And then they'd !@#$ing vivisect your !@#$, without anesthesia, just to see the effects on living tissue.
You knew all that already, right? It's something you don't get taught in !@#$ing high school, 'cause Pearl Harbor was bad enough, apparently. But there are reasons why a lot of South Asian countries still !@#$ing hate Japan, almost a century later, and they never really appreciate the fact that we somehow don't know why.
Lucky for you, son, you got SPYGOD to tell you what's !@#$ing what. So you know the score. Or, at least we thought you did.
I told you that the Japanese had their own strategic talents, before and during the War. I told you they were some nasty !@#$ers, put to work in a nasty war against soldiers and civilians. And I'm sure you remember that three of the nastiest, most sadistic ones vanished towards the end of the war, somewhere in New Guinea.
And I know you remember when happened when I found the three of them, June of last year, when I made the really bad !@#$ing mistake of trying to go after GORGON with a handful of Agents and a single, poorly-used Super.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the worst of the three, son. Let's talk about Dark Star -- the nasty !@#$ing !@#$ that eats your memories right out of your head like a woodpecker knocking on a tree.
I knew that the Japanese found her in a brothel for really !@#$ weird clients, and that she was turning tricks for men who wanted her to suck the bad memories right out of them, right along with their joy juice. And I knew they took her in, brought her up to speed, gave her a !@#$ing uniform, and sicced her on whatever nation they were invading at that time as a combination interrogator and fear weapon.
What I didn't know? When she wasn't traipsing through the jungle, looking for villagers to terrorize and partisans to brain-!@#$, she was hanging out at Unit 731, "observing."
One of the things I got out of that lockup are fragments of the diary of one General Shiro Iishi. He's the mother!@#$er who put Unit 731 together, designed the set-up, and oversaw its operations, right up until the war came crashing the !@#$ down around his head, and he and his cronies all ran like !@#$ before the Soviets caught up to them.
After the War, we got hold of him, and essentially let him off the !@#$ing hook in exchange for his information on biowarfare. It wasn't one of our country's best !@#$ing moments, but it was nothing I was involved in. In fact, by the time I found out about it the deal was decades old, and all I could do was keep the !@#$ing secret.
But looking over those files, and reading about his debriefings, I always got the sense that he was holding something back. There was something missing in his otherwise-frank recollections of what they'd been !@#$ing doing, there, with all those prisoners.
And when someone'll !@#$ing calmly tell you about how they put some poor Chinese guy in a pressure chamber, just to watch his guts fly out his !@#$, you really have to wonder how bad what he wasn't talking about actually was.
Well, here's the big secret, son. You want to know the reason why they were doing those nasty-!@#$ medical experiments that didn't have anything to do with spreading disease?
He was doing them for her.
Apparently, not long after he got the Pingfang facility up and running, he received orders that this weird-!@#$ girl was coming over to observe the goings-on, and that he should indulge her curiosity. Of course, they never !@#$ing told him why, and he didn't ask, but over time she told him enough that he not only understood, but supported it enthusiastically.
According to Dark Star, she wasn't just some !@#$ weird kid they'd found in a seaside whorehouse. She was a member of an advanced race of beings, whose ship was crashed underwater, halfway across the !@#$ing Pacific. She'd managed to come ashore, years ago, but the experience had messed up her mind to the point that she was lucky she should walk and chew gum at the same !@#$ time.
So of course, when she accidentally puts the whammy on some fishermen who find her, the underground gets their hands on her, she winds up at the freak whorehouse in Tairausuiso. But with the push on to find people with usable powers, the Army comes in and collects her. And it just so turns out that her handler's a friend of Shiro Iishi, who's also quite fond of paying for !@#$, as it turns out.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Dark Star tells the Army that there's a ship down there with massive amounts of weapons, wealth, technology -- everything they !@#$ing need to win the war. And they believe it, but obviously they don't have the technology to go down there and get it. So she agrees to help them look into finding ways to help humans survive down there.
And that's why they've got soldiers testing frostbite conditions and pressure situations on Chinese and Russian prisoners, and why they're messing with the human body and seeing what kind of stress it can take and still survive. She wants to find out how much work they have to do in order to get men down as far as her ship is, and rescue her people.
At least, that's what she !@#$ing says.
There's more son. Lots more. But if you'll excuse me for a moment, I think I felt the atmosphere shift, and that means I might just be able to get my ears to pop, and get myself on the road to un!@#$ing my skull.
Help yourself to some Baijiu while you wait. Don't have more than a few sips, though. That !@#$ will !@#$ you up.
Doesn't it always, though.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure) and having some really strong, Chinese alcohol you should !@#$ing avoid)
Normally, getting outside in this kind of weather clears my head up faster than a bullet through the noggin. But not this time. This time, my brain is being a stubborn little !@#$hole, and hanging tooth and nail onto the nasty drunk I've foisted on myself.
(And I would be right out of tjbang sticks, now wouldn't I? God !@#$ing !@#$ it...)
Now, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why my !@#$ neural matter is being so mean about this? Well, there's two reasons, son. The first is that, after drinking about ten pots of the !@#$, I am righteously !@#$ing toasted on baijiu, which is some really nasty stuff, and best left to the locals, foolish tourists, and diesel engines. And the second...
...
The second is that, after burning down a !@#$ing building to get to the truth, last night, I have just discovered that the truth is way more than I can wrap my head around, right now.
Way !@#$ing more, son.
You see, all this time I've been treating GORGON as just another !@#$ing group of science terrorists. And while I always believed that they were the most !@#$ dangerous and messed up of all of their peers, it turns out I had no !@#$ing idea just how bad they actually were.
!@#$, son, if the Nazis had fallen in with the Spider People, recruited a few nasty, best-forgotten gods to their cause, and set up shop on that one certain sunken city just south of Easter !@#$ing Island, they wouldn't be a tenth as !@#$ing dangerous as GORGON has been all along.
Turns out we've been living on borrowed time. It's only now that they've !@#$ing taken over that I finally get to see the !@#$ing clock.
And I am so very, very !@#$ing sorry to have to say that I have clearly been dropping the mother of all big !@#$ balls for the last five decades or so...
But yeah, let's back this caravan up to the county line, son. I went into a somewhat-unassuming repository for dodgy data that the People's Republic of China would really rather not admit to having, took quite a bit of it under my arm, and then lit the place on fire behind me so they wouldn't !@#$ing know what I took.
It went up like a charm, and then down like a Thai Ladyboy on my magic alien lovesnake. And by the time the !@#$ Harbin fire department made it around, the place was a glowing pile of cinders, and I was halfway back to !@#$ing Beijing with the goods.
Since then, I've been alternating between reading what I got, cross-referencing what what I knew, and drinking myself blind on this nasty, pungent !@#$. And while I'm happy to say that my hunch was right, and there was a definite connection between Unit 731's activities, Japan's Super Soldiers, and what would eventually become GORGON (and now !@#$ing Imago), that hasn't detracted at all from the harsh as nails understanding that I !@#$ed up.
Bad.
How bad is bad? Well, son, let's review some ancient history, and stop me when get to something you already !@#$ing know.
At some point after we decide to !@#$ing open them up like can of sardines, the Japanese go on a war footing and start doing a Pacman on their neighbors. Now, there's a lot of reasons behind it, and while there's some things I could say about the truth behind those reasons, a lot of it's !@#$ you're either not cleared for or !@#$ I don't feel like getting into.
Why? Because I'm !@#$ing drunk and testy, son. And armed.
So let's skip to the !@#$ing obvious. The Japanese go into China and decide to stay. They set up a puppet government, move troops further into the interior, and plan to march across Asia, one little bit at a time.
While they're here, in China, they set up what they call the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwangtung Army, otherwise known as Unit 731. And it's a classic case of !@#$ing army doublespeak, because what they're really doing is looking into causing epidemics. It's a giant skunkworks for making !@#$ing plague bombs and researching how to spread diseases amongst the enemy in wartime, and they're using human prisoners as test subjects.
And that wasn't all they were !@#$ing doing, there. In addition to finding new and cruel ways to give people typhus, the black plague, and the !@#$ing clap, they were also performing weird and cruel medical experiments. They'd yank your stomach out and sew your neck-tube straight to your !@#$ing intestines. They'd freeze you and thaw you to watch you melt like an ice cream bar. They'd cut your !@#$ arms off and sew them back on backwards, just to see how they worked.
And then they'd !@#$ing vivisect your !@#$, without anesthesia, just to see the effects on living tissue.
You knew all that already, right? It's something you don't get taught in !@#$ing high school, 'cause Pearl Harbor was bad enough, apparently. But there are reasons why a lot of South Asian countries still !@#$ing hate Japan, almost a century later, and they never really appreciate the fact that we somehow don't know why.
Lucky for you, son, you got SPYGOD to tell you what's !@#$ing what. So you know the score. Or, at least we thought you did.
I told you that the Japanese had their own strategic talents, before and during the War. I told you they were some nasty !@#$ers, put to work in a nasty war against soldiers and civilians. And I'm sure you remember that three of the nastiest, most sadistic ones vanished towards the end of the war, somewhere in New Guinea.
And I know you remember when happened when I found the three of them, June of last year, when I made the really bad !@#$ing mistake of trying to go after GORGON with a handful of Agents and a single, poorly-used Super.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the worst of the three, son. Let's talk about Dark Star -- the nasty !@#$ing !@#$ that eats your memories right out of your head like a woodpecker knocking on a tree.
I knew that the Japanese found her in a brothel for really !@#$ weird clients, and that she was turning tricks for men who wanted her to suck the bad memories right out of them, right along with their joy juice. And I knew they took her in, brought her up to speed, gave her a !@#$ing uniform, and sicced her on whatever nation they were invading at that time as a combination interrogator and fear weapon.
What I didn't know? When she wasn't traipsing through the jungle, looking for villagers to terrorize and partisans to brain-!@#$, she was hanging out at Unit 731, "observing."
One of the things I got out of that lockup are fragments of the diary of one General Shiro Iishi. He's the mother!@#$er who put Unit 731 together, designed the set-up, and oversaw its operations, right up until the war came crashing the !@#$ down around his head, and he and his cronies all ran like !@#$ before the Soviets caught up to them.
After the War, we got hold of him, and essentially let him off the !@#$ing hook in exchange for his information on biowarfare. It wasn't one of our country's best !@#$ing moments, but it was nothing I was involved in. In fact, by the time I found out about it the deal was decades old, and all I could do was keep the !@#$ing secret.
But looking over those files, and reading about his debriefings, I always got the sense that he was holding something back. There was something missing in his otherwise-frank recollections of what they'd been !@#$ing doing, there, with all those prisoners.
And when someone'll !@#$ing calmly tell you about how they put some poor Chinese guy in a pressure chamber, just to watch his guts fly out his !@#$, you really have to wonder how bad what he wasn't talking about actually was.
Well, here's the big secret, son. You want to know the reason why they were doing those nasty-!@#$ medical experiments that didn't have anything to do with spreading disease?
He was doing them for her.
Apparently, not long after he got the Pingfang facility up and running, he received orders that this weird-!@#$ girl was coming over to observe the goings-on, and that he should indulge her curiosity. Of course, they never !@#$ing told him why, and he didn't ask, but over time she told him enough that he not only understood, but supported it enthusiastically.
According to Dark Star, she wasn't just some !@#$ weird kid they'd found in a seaside whorehouse. She was a member of an advanced race of beings, whose ship was crashed underwater, halfway across the !@#$ing Pacific. She'd managed to come ashore, years ago, but the experience had messed up her mind to the point that she was lucky she should walk and chew gum at the same !@#$ time.
So of course, when she accidentally puts the whammy on some fishermen who find her, the underground gets their hands on her, she winds up at the freak whorehouse in Tairausuiso. But with the push on to find people with usable powers, the Army comes in and collects her. And it just so turns out that her handler's a friend of Shiro Iishi, who's also quite fond of paying for !@#$, as it turns out.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Dark Star tells the Army that there's a ship down there with massive amounts of weapons, wealth, technology -- everything they !@#$ing need to win the war. And they believe it, but obviously they don't have the technology to go down there and get it. So she agrees to help them look into finding ways to help humans survive down there.
And that's why they've got soldiers testing frostbite conditions and pressure situations on Chinese and Russian prisoners, and why they're messing with the human body and seeing what kind of stress it can take and still survive. She wants to find out how much work they have to do in order to get men down as far as her ship is, and rescue her people.
At least, that's what she !@#$ing says.
There's more son. Lots more. But if you'll excuse me for a moment, I think I felt the atmosphere shift, and that means I might just be able to get my ears to pop, and get myself on the road to un!@#$ing my skull.
Help yourself to some Baijiu while you wait. Don't have more than a few sips, though. That !@#$ will !@#$ you up.
Doesn't it always, though.
(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure) and having some really strong, Chinese alcohol you should !@#$ing avoid)
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
9/18/12 - An Echo And a Stranger's Hand
Ah, Harbin. Lovely !@#$ city, especially at night. From up on this rooftop, looking down and out at all the lit up streets and buildings, it looks something like a city a kid would make from all the pieces of all his different toy sets, doesn't it?
No? Well, maybe your childhood was different. I know mine sure as !@#$ was. We didn't even have proper toys, back then, so we made our own out of what was left of the Irish kids up the block...
Oh !@#$ - Duck!
Ah, that was !@#$ing close. You can't be too !@#$ careful when you're across from a high-tech, very !@#$ secure building made to safehouse things you really don't want to !@#$ing talk about, now can you?
That's right, son. That's where the !@#$ing trail leads. End of the gods!@#$ yellow brick road, right in that old, repurposed, classical monstrosity. And all the information the Chinese got on Unit 731 is stuffed right up the Wicked Witch's !@#$, and guarded by enough flying monkeys to make a couple of pro football teams.
My job, tonight, is to sneak in there, get what I need to see, and then get the !@#$ out. And I need to do it in such a way that they can't !@#$ing connect it to me, the COMPANY, or anyone I'm currently working with. And I also need to see to it that they never !@#$ing realize that I took what I'm going to take, just so the Imago can't figure that someone's looking into their dirty little secrets.
And that means, son, that tonight we infiltrate.
Oh, yeah. I !@#$ing bet you were wondering about that. When's the last time you saw SPYGOD put on a fake beard, walk into a Soviet embassy, and walk out again with a microfilm canister shoved up my !@#$? All that crazy-!@#$ superspy stuff you see in the movies where Lestat, Hawkeye, and Shaun of the !@#$ing Dead put a million crazy gadgets to good !@#$ing use?
Well, son, most of the time that's just bull!@#$.
Yes, son. BULL!@#$. Flashing font, red color, capital letters. Why would we risk our !@#$es when we have perfectly good dupes and traitors to do it for us? Especially when they can do it in such a way that people have no !@#$ing idea that anything was stolen, much less copied or photographed?
But tonight, I don't have a Harold who can get in there, get out, and get me what I need. I have to actually go in and retrieve a few things, and they will notice they are missing within 24 hours. And that would bring the Imago parade down on my !@#$ing head, as well as this area of the world, which I'm not keen to have happen for reasons I'm trying to drink myself into !@#$ing forgetting.
So, just this once, no bull!@#$. I'm going in there, and coming out with the goods.
Now, there's a couple different ways you can play this infiltration game, son, and I've !@#$ing done them all. Which one you choose generally depends on how much !@#$ time you have, what your ops budget is, and how badly you do or don't want them knowing it was you that squeezed their !@#$ing charmin.
The first way is all sneaky, with all the "Mission Impossible" gadgets you can carry on your person, and a few crammed right up your !@#$ butt for good measure. You walk slow, have two keys for every lock, holograms and glue guns and duct tape for the rest, and something nice and quiet for every !@#$ing guard you run into.
Good news is that you can be as !@#$ quiet as you can be, and no one will ever know anything's missing or wrong. Bad news is that, sooner or later, one or more of those gadgets are just not going to !@#$ing work. And then you're !@#$ed, son.
Hard.
The second way's also sneaky, but not as reliant on those !@#$ crazy toys. You worm your way into the place by using information you either stole from the !@#$ers, or got one of your Harolds to make for you. That and a few gadgets, or maybe just your !@#$ hands, and a convincing disguise, and you can walk in like you !@#$ing belong there, and walk back out again before anyone realizes you've stolen their !@#$ing flag.
Sounds great, but takes more time than just gadgeting your way through. And there's always the chance that some overzealous guard might notice you just don't "fit," or see right through that cheap-!@#$ ID badge you xeroxed and x-actoed together last night at the Kabul Kinkos. And there's always the chance that Harold might have grown some !@#$ balls and decided to turn you over to his masters, or a third party that's got better !@#$ payouts than the two of you combined.
And then, you guessed it, you're !@#$ed. Again. Hard.
The third way? That's where you just say "!@#$ it in the !@#$ with a god!@#$ chartreuse flamethrower" and muscle your !@#$ way in. Kill the power, nuke the computer security, and shoot the place up before anyone can do a !@#$ thing to stop you. Then you just get what you came for, step over the bodies you made on your way in, and pray you don't have ten divisions of the Iraqi National Guard out the front.
Or, worse, Strategic Talents. Because nothing makes a good plan go bad in 60 seconds or less like the untimely arrival of some !@#$er in long underwear who wants to foil a perfectly legitimate bout of espionage, or actually got ordered to go stop your !@#$ theft.
Oh, and then there's the problem with the fact that you just killed a whole !@#$ of a lot of people to get what you needed. Good guys aren't supposed to do !@#$ like that, apparently. And while I've never really been what you might call a straight-shooting good guy -- especially not that "straight" bit -- I always preferred to do my shooting of faceless guards when I'm up against science terrorists, bad guys, rogue nations, and merciless Soviet client states.
And China, for all its many problems and tyrannies, isn't so much !@#$ing evil as it is misguided. Or so they !@#$ing tell me, anyway.
(That and we owe them way too much !@#$ money to be picking a fight -- even now.)
So, you guess which door I'm picking tonight, son. It ain't gadgets and a silent entry, because I don't have them. And it ain't sneaking in with a fake ID because they'd !@#$ing spot me in a minute. And I sure as !@#$ ain't gonna shoot my way in there after I've spent all this !@#$ time -- and killed way too !@#$ many people -- making the Imago look somewhere !@#$ing else.
Oh, right. That's all three of my options gone right there. How about that?
Well, I guess you !@#$ing know what that means. And that means, son, that SPYGOD's just gonna get !@#$ing creative.
You see, this is an old building. It has a lot of high tech security !@#$, and its guards are carrying all the latest toys and bells and whistles, but the building itself is a sorry piece of !@#$ that probably should have been torn down a dozen years ago. !@#$, it's a wonder it hasn't fallen down, itself.
But they can't, because of what's in there. They don't dare risk moving it, much less admitting it's there to be moved in the first !@#$ place. So much needed renovations and fixes have not really taken place to the outside structure in a long !@#$ time.
Which is why I snuck up on top of the building, earlier, dressed like a worker, and had some fun with their ventilation systems.
Oh no. Not like that. There's no !@#$ing way I am even going to try squeezing into one of those !@#$ air vents. Life doesn't always work like "Doctor Who," son. They're too !@#$ing small, and I'm too !@#$ing big. And they're probably boobytrapped, anyway, just for good !@#$ing measure.
But they sure didn't seem to !@#$ing mind when I slowly lowered some !@#$ing radio-controlled smoke generators down into them, now did they?
No, son. They did not.
So in about ten seconds or so, here, I am going to light the building up. The information I need is on the top floor, and the apparent fire's going to start on the bottom. Which gives me quite some time to be sure it's all good and !@#$ing evacuated before I slip on in during the confusion, run up the stairs, get what I want, and then slip on out via the roof.
Sounds !@#$ing crazy? Son, these are very special smoke canisters, courtesy of our now-deceased friend down on Xiosanmen island. They put out enough haze to cover up a !@#$ing tank battalion, generate enough heat to fool thermal sensors, and smell exactly like what you'd expect to smell if your building was on fire.
The alarms will sound, the people will panic, and I'll just take advantage of both. Once I'm up there, I'll drop a few incendiary devices behind me, and that'll start a nasty, white-hot fire that'll burn right through the !@#$ing floor to the god!@#$ basement, and turn the whole !@#$ building into ash before the fire department can even get its !@#$ out of the station.
And if I'm really !@#$ good, and really !@#$ing lucky, I can be in and out without having to !@#$ing kill anyone, tonight.
Getting soft? Me? No !@#$ way, son. I just don't need to hurt anyone to do what I need to do, tonight. Especially since dead people will bring those metal-suited !@#$s around faster than flies to a fresh piece of dog!@#$.
And as long as they don't come up here, and no one has to ask our latest Harold any uncomfortable questions, we can take the time to find out what we need to know. Which would be really !@#$ nice for a change.
So, ten seconds, son. Watch the !@#$ birdie. This is gonna be fun.
"Hot in the city... hot in the city tonight..."
Yeah, son. I sing Billy !@#$ing Idol before I do infiltration gigs. You got a !@#$ problem with that?
Okay then. And off... we...
Go.
(SPYGOD is listening to A Short Term Effect (The Cure) and having a Fire Island Lighthouse Ale)
No? Well, maybe your childhood was different. I know mine sure as !@#$ was. We didn't even have proper toys, back then, so we made our own out of what was left of the Irish kids up the block...
Oh !@#$ - Duck!
Ah, that was !@#$ing close. You can't be too !@#$ careful when you're across from a high-tech, very !@#$ secure building made to safehouse things you really don't want to !@#$ing talk about, now can you?
That's right, son. That's where the !@#$ing trail leads. End of the gods!@#$ yellow brick road, right in that old, repurposed, classical monstrosity. And all the information the Chinese got on Unit 731 is stuffed right up the Wicked Witch's !@#$, and guarded by enough flying monkeys to make a couple of pro football teams.
My job, tonight, is to sneak in there, get what I need to see, and then get the !@#$ out. And I need to do it in such a way that they can't !@#$ing connect it to me, the COMPANY, or anyone I'm currently working with. And I also need to see to it that they never !@#$ing realize that I took what I'm going to take, just so the Imago can't figure that someone's looking into their dirty little secrets.
And that means, son, that tonight we infiltrate.
Oh, yeah. I !@#$ing bet you were wondering about that. When's the last time you saw SPYGOD put on a fake beard, walk into a Soviet embassy, and walk out again with a microfilm canister shoved up my !@#$? All that crazy-!@#$ superspy stuff you see in the movies where Lestat, Hawkeye, and Shaun of the !@#$ing Dead put a million crazy gadgets to good !@#$ing use?
Well, son, most of the time that's just bull!@#$.
Yes, son. BULL!@#$. Flashing font, red color, capital letters. Why would we risk our !@#$es when we have perfectly good dupes and traitors to do it for us? Especially when they can do it in such a way that people have no !@#$ing idea that anything was stolen, much less copied or photographed?
But tonight, I don't have a Harold who can get in there, get out, and get me what I need. I have to actually go in and retrieve a few things, and they will notice they are missing within 24 hours. And that would bring the Imago parade down on my !@#$ing head, as well as this area of the world, which I'm not keen to have happen for reasons I'm trying to drink myself into !@#$ing forgetting.
So, just this once, no bull!@#$. I'm going in there, and coming out with the goods.
Now, there's a couple different ways you can play this infiltration game, son, and I've !@#$ing done them all. Which one you choose generally depends on how much !@#$ time you have, what your ops budget is, and how badly you do or don't want them knowing it was you that squeezed their !@#$ing charmin.
The first way is all sneaky, with all the "Mission Impossible" gadgets you can carry on your person, and a few crammed right up your !@#$ butt for good measure. You walk slow, have two keys for every lock, holograms and glue guns and duct tape for the rest, and something nice and quiet for every !@#$ing guard you run into.
Good news is that you can be as !@#$ quiet as you can be, and no one will ever know anything's missing or wrong. Bad news is that, sooner or later, one or more of those gadgets are just not going to !@#$ing work. And then you're !@#$ed, son.
Hard.
The second way's also sneaky, but not as reliant on those !@#$ crazy toys. You worm your way into the place by using information you either stole from the !@#$ers, or got one of your Harolds to make for you. That and a few gadgets, or maybe just your !@#$ hands, and a convincing disguise, and you can walk in like you !@#$ing belong there, and walk back out again before anyone realizes you've stolen their !@#$ing flag.
Sounds great, but takes more time than just gadgeting your way through. And there's always the chance that some overzealous guard might notice you just don't "fit," or see right through that cheap-!@#$ ID badge you xeroxed and x-actoed together last night at the Kabul Kinkos. And there's always the chance that Harold might have grown some !@#$ balls and decided to turn you over to his masters, or a third party that's got better !@#$ payouts than the two of you combined.
And then, you guessed it, you're !@#$ed. Again. Hard.
The third way? That's where you just say "!@#$ it in the !@#$ with a god!@#$ chartreuse flamethrower" and muscle your !@#$ way in. Kill the power, nuke the computer security, and shoot the place up before anyone can do a !@#$ thing to stop you. Then you just get what you came for, step over the bodies you made on your way in, and pray you don't have ten divisions of the Iraqi National Guard out the front.
Or, worse, Strategic Talents. Because nothing makes a good plan go bad in 60 seconds or less like the untimely arrival of some !@#$er in long underwear who wants to foil a perfectly legitimate bout of espionage, or actually got ordered to go stop your !@#$ theft.
Oh, and then there's the problem with the fact that you just killed a whole !@#$ of a lot of people to get what you needed. Good guys aren't supposed to do !@#$ like that, apparently. And while I've never really been what you might call a straight-shooting good guy -- especially not that "straight" bit -- I always preferred to do my shooting of faceless guards when I'm up against science terrorists, bad guys, rogue nations, and merciless Soviet client states.
And China, for all its many problems and tyrannies, isn't so much !@#$ing evil as it is misguided. Or so they !@#$ing tell me, anyway.
(That and we owe them way too much !@#$ money to be picking a fight -- even now.)
So, you guess which door I'm picking tonight, son. It ain't gadgets and a silent entry, because I don't have them. And it ain't sneaking in with a fake ID because they'd !@#$ing spot me in a minute. And I sure as !@#$ ain't gonna shoot my way in there after I've spent all this !@#$ time -- and killed way too !@#$ many people -- making the Imago look somewhere !@#$ing else.
Oh, right. That's all three of my options gone right there. How about that?
Well, I guess you !@#$ing know what that means. And that means, son, that SPYGOD's just gonna get !@#$ing creative.
You see, this is an old building. It has a lot of high tech security !@#$, and its guards are carrying all the latest toys and bells and whistles, but the building itself is a sorry piece of !@#$ that probably should have been torn down a dozen years ago. !@#$, it's a wonder it hasn't fallen down, itself.
But they can't, because of what's in there. They don't dare risk moving it, much less admitting it's there to be moved in the first !@#$ place. So much needed renovations and fixes have not really taken place to the outside structure in a long !@#$ time.
Which is why I snuck up on top of the building, earlier, dressed like a worker, and had some fun with their ventilation systems.
Oh no. Not like that. There's no !@#$ing way I am even going to try squeezing into one of those !@#$ air vents. Life doesn't always work like "Doctor Who," son. They're too !@#$ing small, and I'm too !@#$ing big. And they're probably boobytrapped, anyway, just for good !@#$ing measure.
But they sure didn't seem to !@#$ing mind when I slowly lowered some !@#$ing radio-controlled smoke generators down into them, now did they?
No, son. They did not.
So in about ten seconds or so, here, I am going to light the building up. The information I need is on the top floor, and the apparent fire's going to start on the bottom. Which gives me quite some time to be sure it's all good and !@#$ing evacuated before I slip on in during the confusion, run up the stairs, get what I want, and then slip on out via the roof.
Sounds !@#$ing crazy? Son, these are very special smoke canisters, courtesy of our now-deceased friend down on Xiosanmen island. They put out enough haze to cover up a !@#$ing tank battalion, generate enough heat to fool thermal sensors, and smell exactly like what you'd expect to smell if your building was on fire.
The alarms will sound, the people will panic, and I'll just take advantage of both. Once I'm up there, I'll drop a few incendiary devices behind me, and that'll start a nasty, white-hot fire that'll burn right through the !@#$ing floor to the god!@#$ basement, and turn the whole !@#$ building into ash before the fire department can even get its !@#$ out of the station.
And if I'm really !@#$ good, and really !@#$ing lucky, I can be in and out without having to !@#$ing kill anyone, tonight.
Getting soft? Me? No !@#$ way, son. I just don't need to hurt anyone to do what I need to do, tonight. Especially since dead people will bring those metal-suited !@#$s around faster than flies to a fresh piece of dog!@#$.
And as long as they don't come up here, and no one has to ask our latest Harold any uncomfortable questions, we can take the time to find out what we need to know. Which would be really !@#$ nice for a change.
So, ten seconds, son. Watch the !@#$ birdie. This is gonna be fun.
"Hot in the city... hot in the city tonight..."
Yeah, son. I sing Billy !@#$ing Idol before I do infiltration gigs. You got a !@#$ problem with that?
Okay then. And off... we...
Go.
(SPYGOD is listening to A Short Term Effect (The Cure) and having a Fire Island Lighthouse Ale)
Sunday, November 25, 2012
9/17/12 - So Perfect As We All Fall Down
It's one in the morning, B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P 4 time, and Myron's lying in his room, looking at the ceiling, and trying to feel bad about what he and Winifred have just done.
It's not the first time this has happened. It's been three times, now, and each time he's told himself that it was a mistake, and they shouldn't have done this, and what was he thinking.
But then, once the day's done, and their work's completed, they're back here. They always say they're just going to watch some BSG and have some popcorn, but they don't even get through one fraking episode before they're tearing out of their clothes and tumbling into bed.
He shouldn't be doing this, something in his mind tells him. He's more than twice her age. She's a !@#$ing teenager, for Christ's sake.
(And, yes, in her home state of Kentucky, she's legal at 16, but still...)
So he looks at the ceiling, maybe searching for the hand of a God he doesn't believe in, anymore, and tries to feel terrible for this. But try as he might, when he looks back down at her -- cuddled up against his side and snoring gently -- he can't feel that he's done anything wrong at all.
Does that make him a pervert, then? Some kind of pedophile? Is he going to the special hell for this?
He doesn't know. All he knows is that he really likes her, and she's special, and she's crazy in the sack (the best !@#$ of his life, to be honest) and while he knows that this probably won't last, it's good for now.
That and, for all he knows, the world might !@#$ing cave in on them, tomorrow, and who would be left to judge them for this?
Still.
"Send me a sign?" he whispers at the ceiling, wondering if the man with the long beard and stern countenance will be kind enough to send a clear, easy-to-understand memo as to whether he should keep letting this brilliant kid with great taste in TV shows -- and an awful secret she doesn't want to confide, yet -- ride him like a pony, late at night.
And something tells him that God isn't going to be that nice about complying.
"Oh, that was just exquisite, my dear Scarlet Factotum," Doctor Kyklops says, wrapping a green silk robe around his grey but lithe frame with a magnificent flourish: "Perfectly exquisite. I have not had such pleasure from a business partner in quite some time."
METALMAID lies on the bed, staring up at his bedroom's massive, painted ceiling to avoid looking at him, and deciding what to say next. She decides the best thing to do is to be as dishonest as possible, given that she still needs this old, rich pervert for her plans.
"I am confused," she stammers, wondering how many times he needed to have himself painted on his !@#$ing ceiling: "I have never felt this way before, and I am unsure of what it means. Could it be that I am falling in love?"
"Oh, it's just possible," the old fellow says, farting as he goes over to a nearby, gold table and pours himself a drink from a crystal decanter: "I am told I have that effect on women."
"Well, they told you correctly," she says, rolling over and crossing her legs as seductively as she can, focusing on how nice it will be to feed him his own intestines while he's still alive enough to chew and swallow.
(She also debates whether to keep this exquisitely gaudy, Sardinian castle of his for her own purposes, or tear it apart, brick by brick, and fling it down into the Mediterranean Sea as a final revenge on this well-moneyed fool.)
"So, your company was most kind to send you along to, as they say, 'seal the deal,'" he says, turning to regard her as he brings over his drink (and not, she notes, offering her one): "Did they think I would pay faster?"
"They think you are a good customer in the making, and are exciting to be working with you on this venture."
"Ah, that is good to know," Kyklops lounges on the other side of the bed, regarding her: "I think I will be putting my plan into motion, soon. The recent events in Indonesia have revealed our conquerors to have feet of clay, and I do not wish for them to recover and rebuild."
"A wise maneuver."
"Of course it is, my dear," he winks: "I am an old hand at this game you know. Yes, I think I shall strike while they are still repairing their space elevator. And then..."
"And then?"
"And then," he knocks back his drink, tosses the doubtlessly-priceless crystal glass to shatter on the floor, and crawls back onto her, reinvigorated in all senses of the word: "The world shall be mine, your company shall have the privilege of arming its master.
"And you, my dear, shall be fortunate enough to serve my other, more baser needs..."
And as he sticks himself into her, yet again -- pulling her hair and grabbing her breasts so hard it's a wonder they don't snap off -- she closes her eyes and thinks of the money, and her own plan.
And she wonders where the Violet Demon is, and what he's doing tonight.
Meanwhile, back at the lair she doesn't really have control over, anymore, Zalea Zathros is !@#$ing herself.
More correctly, five of her are !@#$ing each other. Another five are working on making more Slaughterbots for METALMAID. And the remaining five are watching television, eating junk food, and having a nap.
Such is the connection between the fifteen of them that they're all more or less aware of what's going on with one another at any given moment. The ones working smile as they receive pleasure, and occasionally chuckle or gasp along with the insipid Greek soap opera that's playing upstairs, on the landing. Those loving themselves gently discuss plot points and design details as they nibble and lick one another into a frenzy. And those before the television languidly close their eyes every so often, and shudder with shared orgasms, or make a mental list of things they'll have to do when it's their turn at the lathe and soldering iron.
This is Zalea Zathros' signature achievement: a fully functioning hivemind, spread across a potentially infinite number of clones. A clone might die or be injured, but the overmind continues to function without cease. And should all but one be destroyed, that one would assume all knowledge and experience, and then be able to generate more clones from itself.
It is her dream made flesh, this life without limits. She would have made a gift of this blessed state of being to the entire world, if she'd only been allowed. But those with limited views and phobias of true scientific achievement were always out to stop her, for whatever reason.
And SPYGOD? That !@#$er locked one of her up, and then hunted down and exterminated every other clone she had remaining. He even found and burned her original body -- withered and sere, by that point, but still gloriously full of her meticulously altered DNA -- and informed her of this by dumping its ashes into her cell in the Heptagon basement.
Revenge, then, was her key goal once she escaped from his clutches. But that goal has been put aside by her former houseguest, now jailor and slavemaster. And try as she might, there's nothing she can do to get out of her bondage.
She keeps thinking there's something she could to do stop this. There's something she's doing, or not doing, that's keeping her like this. She has no idea what it could be, though, and so far every attempt she's made to narrow it down's been sidetracked, somehow.
(It's like something's aware of her investigations and is carefully moving the results of her quiet, slow experiments, so as to stop her from reaching definite conclusions.)
So she !@#$s herself. She works as ordered. She laughs and cries at the television and eats snack cakes and gets fatter than she'd like.
And as she comes and welds and passes the remote, she's all too aware that she's !@#$ed herself in more ways than one.
It's late at night in New Delhi. Dosha Josh is sleeping in the room of the safehouse he's "appropriated." Anil is standing nearby, watching him sleep.
He watches his chest rise and fall, ever so slowly, grateful for each new breath. He studies his face as he reacts to dreams, and as he lies peaceably, with no expression whatsoever.
When he's asleep he's the most beautiful man, this Dosha Josh. His scars are merely character. His eyes are kind and understanding. His lips full and luscious.
It's taken Anil some time to muster up the courage to stand there and watch, rather than to sit in the other room and keep an ear open for the two of them, like he's supposed to. Dosha only meant it jokingly, but he didn't know -- and still does not know -- that Anil does not need to sleep.
(Some strange trick of biology? No other teleporter Anil's ever met or heard of has such an issue. And while he's happy to not be enslaved to the cycle of wakefulness, he wonders what it must be like to truly lose himself to dreams, for a time. Perhaps only death will teach him this.)
But he daydreams. He fantasizes. He imagines.
And as he stands there, looking at Dosha's body under the thin sheet, imagining its hard surfaces and warm hollows, he dreams of a day when he might crawl into that bed and lay with him.
This is another thing that Dosha does not know about Anil, and probably never will. Anil has known what he was since he was old enough to know how men and women fit together, in the larger scheme of things. And while Dosha has never had time for love, sex, or any other "grotesque entanglements," as he puts it, he's quite clear about the fact that, if he ever desired to be so entangled, he'd look no further than some lovely, young Indian woman -- a vision of brown curves and fragrant hollows, with eyes that sparkle and hair that never ends.
(And a body that falls to ruin either right after the first baby, or sometime in one's 40's, Anil can't help but notice...)
Anil is none of those things, and would not care to be. He is a man, and he loves as a man does: a careful balance between firm directness and gentle suggestion. To make either to Dosha would be fatal to their working relationship, and shatter any hopes of a friendship beyond that.
So he watches Dosha sleep. He listens to him breathe. He promises to all Gods he knows that he will protect this man from all things, in all ways, and in this way show him his love.
It's not enough -- it could never be anywhere near enough -- but given that fate has decided to play this hand for them, in this lifetime, Anil will take the cards and hold them with silent gratitude.
And love.
Elsewhere in B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, Mark Clutch sits at the console, counting the seconds until Martha comes on to talk to him. Her and Kaitlyn have been up to a lot -- most of it quiet errands for their mysterious backer -- and there's a lot to talk about. Plans, errands, concerns, things like that.
Tonight could be the night he lets it slip that he's been thinking about her a lot.
It could actually happen, tonight. It's been a good day, and nothing feels like there's a disaster looming. He could just slip it into the conversation, as they get ready to sign off, and see what she says.
He could. Really.
But how does he say a thing like that? Really?
And how is she supposed to take it? Really?
Because he knows how this sounds: pathetic and base. It sounds like he's lonely, and missing his wife, and horny, and looking for a new mother for Kaitlyn, and a million other things that just scream "woah, back up, buddy."
And it's true, that sometimes when Martha laughs or cries -- or kicks people's !@#$ -- she reminds him of her so much. So !@#$ much...
But there's other things, besides. The way she talks, the way she thinks, the way she trusts to God always, and in all ways. The way she looks after his daughter, and will not give up on her son.
The way she's become the head of the family, now, and has learned to trust her own judgment and see what the Lord provides.
He has fallen in love, again. He has seen things in her he never saw before, and probably just as well given that he was married to her cousin. But fate has cleared the way between them, and, with the world hanging in the balance, can they not try to be happy as they save it?
But how can he say those things? How can he think those things? Rachel hasn't even been dead a year, and he's already trying to see her cousin. Surely there's something about that in the Bible. Somewhere.
(Though, the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks there's something about someone in the family having to marry the in-law who's lost her husband? Does that count for him? Does that even count at all?)
But all the reason and morality and propriety in the world can't cast aside his feelings. It's more than just loneliness, or wanting to make love to a smart, capable, and very lovely woman. It's a small spark that was lit when they met, all those years ago, and has blossomed into a full and beautiful flame now that the fire of his lost wife has dwindled away.
And if he doesn't do something about this blaze, it will burn him down.
Maybe tonight will be the night he says something they'll both regret hearing. Maybe tonight he'll just leave it lay for a better time.
Maybe.
It's not the first time this has happened. It's been three times, now, and each time he's told himself that it was a mistake, and they shouldn't have done this, and what was he thinking.
But then, once the day's done, and their work's completed, they're back here. They always say they're just going to watch some BSG and have some popcorn, but they don't even get through one fraking episode before they're tearing out of their clothes and tumbling into bed.
He shouldn't be doing this, something in his mind tells him. He's more than twice her age. She's a !@#$ing teenager, for Christ's sake.
(And, yes, in her home state of Kentucky, she's legal at 16, but still...)
So he looks at the ceiling, maybe searching for the hand of a God he doesn't believe in, anymore, and tries to feel terrible for this. But try as he might, when he looks back down at her -- cuddled up against his side and snoring gently -- he can't feel that he's done anything wrong at all.
Does that make him a pervert, then? Some kind of pedophile? Is he going to the special hell for this?
He doesn't know. All he knows is that he really likes her, and she's special, and she's crazy in the sack (the best !@#$ of his life, to be honest) and while he knows that this probably won't last, it's good for now.
That and, for all he knows, the world might !@#$ing cave in on them, tomorrow, and who would be left to judge them for this?
Still.
"Send me a sign?" he whispers at the ceiling, wondering if the man with the long beard and stern countenance will be kind enough to send a clear, easy-to-understand memo as to whether he should keep letting this brilliant kid with great taste in TV shows -- and an awful secret she doesn't want to confide, yet -- ride him like a pony, late at night.
And something tells him that God isn't going to be that nice about complying.
* * *
The President sits at a desk in the apartment he's currently inhabiting, and cries quietly, watching his wife and children at their new home.
The surveillance pad was supposed to make him feel better about things, and what he's had to do, recently. He knows that's how SPYGOD meant it, and he's grateful for the gesture. Really, truly grateful.
But as he watches his wife walk through the home she's been forced to live in, by the Imago, he can see that look in her eye: the one he's been dreading seeing. It's a certain, sagging tiredness that betrays how broken she is, inside -- both by his apparent assassination, all those months ago, and the fact that she's being kept on a leash by the things that now rule the world.
The children are sad, too, but they're clearly moving past it a lot faster than she is. They've just lost their father, and aren't really old enough to understand what's just happened to their world.
Her? She's lost her lover. Her partner. Her best friend in the whole wide world. The father of her children, and the man she was going to spend her future with.
All gone with two shots of an impossible gun.
He wants to go to her, right !@#$ing now. He wants to fly there, to the armed camp for high-level prisoners they've turned Washington D.C. into, and get them all out of there. He wants to swoop in with guns he now knows exactly how to use, blast his way in there, and blow them all back out again.
He wants his wife back at his side, in his arms, in his bed. He wants his children to look him in the face and call him "daddy" again.
He wants his !@#$ing life back.
But he can't have it. Not yet. Not now.
And he knows he has to wait, and he knows why it's the right thing. But !@#$ if it doesn't hurt worse than crawling naked over broken glass.
And he knows he has to wait, and he knows why it's the right thing. But !@#$ if it doesn't hurt worse than crawling naked over broken glass.
He should really just stop looking at this. He should turn it off. Better yet, he should throw it across the room and step on it a few times, just to be sure.
But he keeps watching and crying. He can't not. And !@#$ him for that.
And !@#$ SPYGOD for his kindness.
* * *
METALMAID lies on the bed, staring up at his bedroom's massive, painted ceiling to avoid looking at him, and deciding what to say next. She decides the best thing to do is to be as dishonest as possible, given that she still needs this old, rich pervert for her plans.
"I am confused," she stammers, wondering how many times he needed to have himself painted on his !@#$ing ceiling: "I have never felt this way before, and I am unsure of what it means. Could it be that I am falling in love?"
"Oh, it's just possible," the old fellow says, farting as he goes over to a nearby, gold table and pours himself a drink from a crystal decanter: "I am told I have that effect on women."
"Well, they told you correctly," she says, rolling over and crossing her legs as seductively as she can, focusing on how nice it will be to feed him his own intestines while he's still alive enough to chew and swallow.
(She also debates whether to keep this exquisitely gaudy, Sardinian castle of his for her own purposes, or tear it apart, brick by brick, and fling it down into the Mediterranean Sea as a final revenge on this well-moneyed fool.)
"So, your company was most kind to send you along to, as they say, 'seal the deal,'" he says, turning to regard her as he brings over his drink (and not, she notes, offering her one): "Did they think I would pay faster?"
"They think you are a good customer in the making, and are exciting to be working with you on this venture."
"Ah, that is good to know," Kyklops lounges on the other side of the bed, regarding her: "I think I will be putting my plan into motion, soon. The recent events in Indonesia have revealed our conquerors to have feet of clay, and I do not wish for them to recover and rebuild."
"A wise maneuver."
"Of course it is, my dear," he winks: "I am an old hand at this game you know. Yes, I think I shall strike while they are still repairing their space elevator. And then..."
"And then?"
"And then," he knocks back his drink, tosses the doubtlessly-priceless crystal glass to shatter on the floor, and crawls back onto her, reinvigorated in all senses of the word: "The world shall be mine, your company shall have the privilege of arming its master.
"And you, my dear, shall be fortunate enough to serve my other, more baser needs..."
And as he sticks himself into her, yet again -- pulling her hair and grabbing her breasts so hard it's a wonder they don't snap off -- she closes her eyes and thinks of the money, and her own plan.
And she wonders where the Violet Demon is, and what he's doing tonight.
* * *
Meanwhile, back at the lair she doesn't really have control over, anymore, Zalea Zathros is !@#$ing herself.
More correctly, five of her are !@#$ing each other. Another five are working on making more Slaughterbots for METALMAID. And the remaining five are watching television, eating junk food, and having a nap.
Such is the connection between the fifteen of them that they're all more or less aware of what's going on with one another at any given moment. The ones working smile as they receive pleasure, and occasionally chuckle or gasp along with the insipid Greek soap opera that's playing upstairs, on the landing. Those loving themselves gently discuss plot points and design details as they nibble and lick one another into a frenzy. And those before the television languidly close their eyes every so often, and shudder with shared orgasms, or make a mental list of things they'll have to do when it's their turn at the lathe and soldering iron.
This is Zalea Zathros' signature achievement: a fully functioning hivemind, spread across a potentially infinite number of clones. A clone might die or be injured, but the overmind continues to function without cease. And should all but one be destroyed, that one would assume all knowledge and experience, and then be able to generate more clones from itself.
It is her dream made flesh, this life without limits. She would have made a gift of this blessed state of being to the entire world, if she'd only been allowed. But those with limited views and phobias of true scientific achievement were always out to stop her, for whatever reason.
And SPYGOD? That !@#$er locked one of her up, and then hunted down and exterminated every other clone she had remaining. He even found and burned her original body -- withered and sere, by that point, but still gloriously full of her meticulously altered DNA -- and informed her of this by dumping its ashes into her cell in the Heptagon basement.
Revenge, then, was her key goal once she escaped from his clutches. But that goal has been put aside by her former houseguest, now jailor and slavemaster. And try as she might, there's nothing she can do to get out of her bondage.
She keeps thinking there's something she could to do stop this. There's something she's doing, or not doing, that's keeping her like this. She has no idea what it could be, though, and so far every attempt she's made to narrow it down's been sidetracked, somehow.
(It's like something's aware of her investigations and is carefully moving the results of her quiet, slow experiments, so as to stop her from reaching definite conclusions.)
So she !@#$s herself. She works as ordered. She laughs and cries at the television and eats snack cakes and gets fatter than she'd like.
And as she comes and welds and passes the remote, she's all too aware that she's !@#$ed herself in more ways than one.
* * *
It's late at night in New Delhi. Dosha Josh is sleeping in the room of the safehouse he's "appropriated." Anil is standing nearby, watching him sleep.
He watches his chest rise and fall, ever so slowly, grateful for each new breath. He studies his face as he reacts to dreams, and as he lies peaceably, with no expression whatsoever.
When he's asleep he's the most beautiful man, this Dosha Josh. His scars are merely character. His eyes are kind and understanding. His lips full and luscious.
It's taken Anil some time to muster up the courage to stand there and watch, rather than to sit in the other room and keep an ear open for the two of them, like he's supposed to. Dosha only meant it jokingly, but he didn't know -- and still does not know -- that Anil does not need to sleep.
(Some strange trick of biology? No other teleporter Anil's ever met or heard of has such an issue. And while he's happy to not be enslaved to the cycle of wakefulness, he wonders what it must be like to truly lose himself to dreams, for a time. Perhaps only death will teach him this.)
But he daydreams. He fantasizes. He imagines.
And as he stands there, looking at Dosha's body under the thin sheet, imagining its hard surfaces and warm hollows, he dreams of a day when he might crawl into that bed and lay with him.
This is another thing that Dosha does not know about Anil, and probably never will. Anil has known what he was since he was old enough to know how men and women fit together, in the larger scheme of things. And while Dosha has never had time for love, sex, or any other "grotesque entanglements," as he puts it, he's quite clear about the fact that, if he ever desired to be so entangled, he'd look no further than some lovely, young Indian woman -- a vision of brown curves and fragrant hollows, with eyes that sparkle and hair that never ends.
(And a body that falls to ruin either right after the first baby, or sometime in one's 40's, Anil can't help but notice...)
Anil is none of those things, and would not care to be. He is a man, and he loves as a man does: a careful balance between firm directness and gentle suggestion. To make either to Dosha would be fatal to their working relationship, and shatter any hopes of a friendship beyond that.
So he watches Dosha sleep. He listens to him breathe. He promises to all Gods he knows that he will protect this man from all things, in all ways, and in this way show him his love.
It's not enough -- it could never be anywhere near enough -- but given that fate has decided to play this hand for them, in this lifetime, Anil will take the cards and hold them with silent gratitude.
And love.
* * *
Elsewhere in B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, Mark Clutch sits at the console, counting the seconds until Martha comes on to talk to him. Her and Kaitlyn have been up to a lot -- most of it quiet errands for their mysterious backer -- and there's a lot to talk about. Plans, errands, concerns, things like that.
Tonight could be the night he lets it slip that he's been thinking about her a lot.
It could actually happen, tonight. It's been a good day, and nothing feels like there's a disaster looming. He could just slip it into the conversation, as they get ready to sign off, and see what she says.
He could. Really.
But how does he say a thing like that? Really?
And how is she supposed to take it? Really?
Because he knows how this sounds: pathetic and base. It sounds like he's lonely, and missing his wife, and horny, and looking for a new mother for Kaitlyn, and a million other things that just scream "woah, back up, buddy."
And it's true, that sometimes when Martha laughs or cries -- or kicks people's !@#$ -- she reminds him of her so much. So !@#$ much...
But there's other things, besides. The way she talks, the way she thinks, the way she trusts to God always, and in all ways. The way she looks after his daughter, and will not give up on her son.
The way she's become the head of the family, now, and has learned to trust her own judgment and see what the Lord provides.
He has fallen in love, again. He has seen things in her he never saw before, and probably just as well given that he was married to her cousin. But fate has cleared the way between them, and, with the world hanging in the balance, can they not try to be happy as they save it?
But how can he say those things? How can he think those things? Rachel hasn't even been dead a year, and he's already trying to see her cousin. Surely there's something about that in the Bible. Somewhere.
(Though, the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks there's something about someone in the family having to marry the in-law who's lost her husband? Does that count for him? Does that even count at all?)
But all the reason and morality and propriety in the world can't cast aside his feelings. It's more than just loneliness, or wanting to make love to a smart, capable, and very lovely woman. It's a small spark that was lit when they met, all those years ago, and has blossomed into a full and beautiful flame now that the fire of his lost wife has dwindled away.
And if he doesn't do something about this blaze, it will burn him down.
Maybe tonight will be the night he says something they'll both regret hearing. Maybe tonight he'll just leave it lay for a better time.
Maybe.
* * *
In a shadowed apartment in Washington DC, a Beautiful Stranger frantically surfs the internet, looking for signs of a disaster.
He knows the net's been censored, courtesy of the new masters of this planet, but he figures that news of earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes are probably let straight through. And after what he and Aaron did in the bedroom, earlier tonight, surely there has to be some sign of displeasure from on High, or Below. Some sort of cosmic comeuppance must have been levied against this trembling, moral world.
Surely the Earth must have moved.
As he searches, terrified of what he may have done, Aaron lies back in the bed they just broke, remembering the moments leading to here, at this moment. The lead-up to them was slow, sweet, and exquisitely tortured -- often a two steps forward, one step back sort of affair.
And, now that that's done, everything from here is likely to be fast, sour, and harsh.
He does not cry. He does not smile. What's happened has happened, as he knew it would the moment he looked at that entity.
And as for what happens now? Well, he'll probably find that out tomorrow, or maybe the day after.
People think he knows everything that's going to happen, but that's not true. He only ever gets small glimpses of most of what's coming down the pipe -- small flares sent up from the font of Creation which are gone before they're really understood. It's only the big things that light up his mind, and make him ever so aware that everything he's doing has been planned since his creation, countless aeons ago.
This? Well, it was nice while it lasted, and might last longer than tonight. But in the grand scheme of things, it's was just a !@#$.
(A very nice !@#$, though -- one billions of years in the making.)
The stranger's weeping at the keyboard. Something about Vanuatu, or the coast of Japan. Aaron smiles and wills himself back to the closest he can approach sleep, knowing he'll just have to deal with it tomorrow. Maybe with more of the same.
* * *
In a small, Bridgetown shack, on the Southwest corner of Barbados, a cat is snoozing, curled up around a bottle of vodka and an AK-47. Three very tired hookers are conked out in a pile around him. Every so often he wakes up, halfway, mutters something in Russian, and then goes back to sleep, knowing that tomorrow he's going to be really !@#$ing busy.
He'd better get his relaxation when and where he can.
* * *
In a safehouse in the Bronx, two war vets alternate between !@#$ing and fighting. He's old, with the scars to prove it, and wearing nothing but a black mask with an ace of spades on it. She's young, but has almost as many scars as he does, and is wearing a blindfold, just to make this interesting. They'll do this until they're too weak to do anything but sleep, and maybe in the morning they'll do some business, but for now it's been too long since they've thrown down.
And they both need this -- badly.
* * *
And in China, not too far from where the President is crying, and the man he got the information from is sleeping, SPYGOD sleeps with his guns crossed over his chest, clearing his mind and making himself ready for what he's going to do, tomorrow. But every so often, he can't help but remember the Dragon, and relive that lovely bit of ghost sex they had, there in that fire, as the barriers between worlds and futures was shattering around them.
He tries not to cry for that lost moment, wanting to have a blank mind for the job. He tries to resist the sickness of regret, which can both paralyze and kill an Agent -- even someone like him.
But here -- in this place and time -- he can't help but let the sorrow wash over him, so he gives in, and loses himself in that rush of dark emotions. He puts his guns down, grabs his mutated, lovecraftian !@#$ and masturbates weakly, trying to let the wave of light and airy endorphins this brings counteract the sour mash of loss and horror.
In his mind, one man becomes many men. The Dragon of then becomes The Dragon of now becomes Director Straffer becomes a mindless, soft parade of Thai ladyboys, MI-6 agents, and fighting men from every war he's ever been in One set of buttocks melds into another, all !@#$s become one !@#$, all torsos and shoulders and hips and calves and necks and jawlines and lips and eyes are pieced together from the honeyed trap of his memory, becoming a frankensteinian patchwork doll, there for him to !@#$ from all angles, in all ways, in all times.
One man in one moment, shining and resplendent, taking him in his arms and calling him home.
He's come three times before he knows it -- sperm bullets shattering portions of the drywall and ceiling. The resulting rush of bliss washes over him, knocking the sorrow out of his skull, at least for now. And then he lies back, watching with some fascination as his twisted manhood slithers and slurps itself back into his pants.
"I love you," he says to the piece of the Dragon left behind in his mind's eye, just before it becomes Straffer and then vanishes with the wink of a winsome katooey's eye: "I loved you all."
And then he gently takes his guns up, crosses them over his chest, and goes about clearing his mind for his mission -- the only real and true love he has left, now.
And the only one that can really love him back forever.
(SPYGOD is listening to Pornography (The Cure) and having something you never want to taste)
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
9/16/12 - (Unit 731) - I Would Have Left the World All Bleeding
COMPANY
files
RE: Unit
731
Cross-reference:
Anthrax Outbreak; Biowarfare; China; Human Experiments; Harbin; Imperial Japan;
Manchukuo; Pingfang; Shiro Iishi; Soviet Union; Sverlovsk Closed City; War
Atrocities; World War II
"I heard about preparations
for bacteriological warfare in Japanese Army for the first time after assuming
my post on December in 1939 as a member of the Quarantine Unit of the Kwantung Army... namely the Ishii Unit, by the War
Ministry, and assumed my post... On the basis of the facts and the work carried
on in the corps under the leadership of ... Ishii, with which I was well
acquainted, I hereby certify on my responsibility that experiments were conducted
in the Ishii Corps in which living human bodies were sacrificed in
testing."
- Major Karasawa Tomio, September
1946
Unit
731 was the proper name of the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification
Department of the Kwangtung Army. It operated in China,
in Japanese-conquered Manchukuo,
from 1937-45, when the end of World War II put a halt to their experiments. Its
commander was General Shiro Iishi -- a highly brilliant researcher with a taste
for baser pleasures, and no compunction against committing atrocity in the name
of science.
Ostensibly
created to research the prevention of plagues, and develop cures for
epidemic-causing diseases, Unit 731 truthfully acted as a means for the
Japanese Army to spread those maladies amongst the enemy. They experimented
with transmitting cholera, anthrax, typhoid, tuberculosis, and the bubonic
plague, as well as venereal diseases, and other incapacitating diseases, during
wartime.
"No matter what was done,
anything was permissible so long as it was 'for the country' or for the 'good
of society.' ... In everyday society, there is no such distinction on reasons
for killing. In the field of science, however, killing can result in new
findings or a revolutionary breakthrough which would benefit all of mankind."
- Tsuneishi and Asano, 'Suicide
of Two Physicians'
To test
their numerous theories, they needed massive amounts of human subjects.
Somewhere between 3000 and 12000 people -- mostly Chinese citizens -- were
slaughtered by the Unit's scientists at the central camp at Pinfang, in Harbin. How many victims
died at other, more far-flung experimental camps at the edges of Japan's zone of
conquest is still not known.
They
were not called prisoners, or even subjects; they were called "maruta"
-- "logs."
Later, they passed through
tunnels to an underground laboratory. "Instantly, an unbearably strong
odor choked me. I remember that we passed through a hallway with at least 10
doors on either side. Each doorway was covered with black and red curtains."
Suddenly, "a door opened. Three men pushed a surgical bed that contained
at least 3 corpses into the hallway. They were covered with a white sheet"
- Harris, "Factories of
Death”
Such
"logs" were infected with various strains of diseases, introduced to
them through many different vectors. They ate infected food, drank poisoned
water, or were "inoculated" with the disease. They were also
subjected to explosives designed to spread the diseases, and then watched as
they died from wounds and sickness. If a subject survived too many experiments,
he was considered "ruined," and put down with an injection of
potassium cyanide.
The
Unit's victims were also experimented on in various different ways, in order to
satisfy the researchers' medical curiosity. They were subjected to frostbite to
test new cures, taken apart and sewn back together, and injected with horse
urine. They were placed in special pressure chambers, and observed as their
eyes popped from their skulls, and organs from their anuses. Some were spun to
death in centrifuges, others left hanging upside down for hours to see how long
it took for them to die.
They were exposed to phosgene gas to discover the effect on their lungs, or given electrical charges which slowly roasted them. Prisoners were decapitated in order for Japanese soldiers to test the sharpness of their swords.
Others had limbs amputated to study blood loss -- limbs that were sometimes stitched back on the opposite sides of their body. Other victims had various parts of their brains, lungs, or liver removed, or their stomach removed and their oesophagus reattached to their intestines.
- Hudson, "Doctors of Depravity."
For
many "logs," their time at the Unit ended in extreme pain and horror,
as they were wheeled to an operating room and vivisected. The doctors wanted to
see how their diseases had worked on living, pulsing tissue, and not the cold,
dead remains of a man or woman put down by more humane means.
That
this operation is not better known throughout the Western world is no accident.
After the Japanese surrender that ended World War II, the Americans declined to
put the Japanese officers of Unit 731 on trial, as they had with German war
criminals. Instead, they appropriated their researches for their own use, and
quietly allowed even the most heinous researchers to re-enter Japanese society
without so much as a slap on the wrist.
General
Shiro, in particular, opened a free clinic after the war, and died quietly of
throat cancer in 1959. Some sources claim he was actually in America the
entire time, advising on bioweaponry.
Some
sources make darker suggestions.
If Ishii or one of his co-workers
needed to do research on the human brain, then they would order the guards to
find them a useful sample. A prisoner would be taken from his cell. Guards
would hold him while another guard would smash the victim's head open with an
ax. His brain would be extracted and rushed immediately to the laboratory. The
body would then be whisked off to the pathologist, and then to the crematorium
for the usual disposal.
- Harris, "Factories of
Death"
The Soviets,
however, took a much less generous view of the ill treatment of their Chinese
allies. Any members of Unit 731 they got their hands on were put on trial,
excoriated for their misdeeds, and sent to do hard labor in Siberia.
America discounted the
trials as "communist propaganda," and refused to comment on what the
Soviets may have done with the information, researches, and materials it
confiscated from its prisoners.
Their tour concluded with a visit
to still another exhibition room. Before entering, the veterinarian cautioned
them that "Nothing in here is pleasant. All the specimens you will see
came from dead bodies of different infected disease carriers. You can look
through the open door." The veterinarian opened the door to the frightened
youngsters. They observed a "room full of glass jars containing human
heads, arms, thighs, hearts, spleens and sexual organs. All the specimens were
soaked in formaldehyde."
-
Harris, "Factories of Death"
In 1979,
at the "closed" military city of Sverdlovsk, a horrific outbreak of Anthrax
spores took place from its clandestine biowarfare lab. The accident was
typically Soviet: caused by bureaucratic bungling, its true reason was covered
up, and true effects were grotesquely downplayed.
According
to the Soviets, only 100 people died from eating tainted meat. However, after
the end of the Cold War, subsequent international investigations turned up the
fact that Sverdlovsk
had bred one of the deadliest anthrax strains in the world using research taken
from its Unit 731 prisoners; it had been those spores that had caused the
deaths, and not food poisoning.
But,
thanks to non-bungling state suppression of the truth, the real death toll
might never be known.
The
remaining grounds of Unit 731's main facility, in Pingfang, is a people's
museum that purports to tell the whole story of what the Japanese did there.
The retreating army supposedly took all their notes and samples with them, but there
has always been suspicion that some of what they made or used was hidden away,
somewhere that neither the Americans nor the Soviets ever found. Whether the
Chinese found these things or not remains a point of speculation.
Another
point of speculation is what the Soviets did with their bioweapons laboratory
in Sverdlovsk
after the accident in 1979.
Their
guide had still one more treat in store for his visitors before they were
permitted to return to their school. Once outside, he ordered a soldier to
bring him a horse. He then fed it some wheat that had been contaminated with a
pathogen. "A few minutes later, the horse lay dead."
While
waiting, they observed that "the great chimney was sending out dark yellow
smoke that discharged a terrible odor. We thought that the veterinarian gave an
order to burn the horse he had just poisoned."
- Harris, "Factories
of Death"
(Notes
on possible GORGON
involvement with Unit 731 are classified at Triple Black, Directors' Eyes
Only. Do not even !@#$ing ask, Agent.)
Last
amended: 12/28/11
(SPYGOD
is listening to The
Drowning Man (The Cure) and having a Harbin Lager )
Monday, November 19, 2012
9/15/12 - Another Blind Game
Addis Ababa
21:34 Hours
"The Object," Khalil says to the late night visitor to his apartment: "You would ask me about that, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," the mysterious man says from where he sits, in the shadows. A very nasty looking gun rests on his thigh -- glinting menacingly in the half dark.
"Why do you want to know about it?"
"Because it's in play," the other man says: "And I have a really uncomfortable idea who's got it, and why."
"I thought you would have known all about it?"
"Pretend I don't," he says, tapping his hands on the gun: "Indulge me."
Khalil sighs and sits down on his bed, across from the man, and lets his suit jacket slump from his shoulder. He'd just come home from another grueling, late-night meeting with what little was left of NGUVU's leadership, post-3/15, and found that he wasn't alone in his apartment.
And while the identity of his houseguest was not entirely a surprise, the fact that he'd ask about that was something of a shock.
"Alright, then," Khalil says: "I'll indulge you. And I should remind you that if you're deciding to finish what you started, back in January, that you'll be dealing with far more than an angry, pan-African intelligence group-"
"Threats are meaningless, now," the man says: "There is no cavalry to save you. There is no hope that you can persuade me to do anything other than what I came here to do. The best you can do is cooperate and tell me the truth, and maybe I'll just leave when we're done."
"And if not?"
"Then I'll just finish the job, won't I?"
Khalil sighs, and stands up: "I'm getting myself a drink."
"I found the gun you keep over there, already."
"I knew you would. I just really need a drink. Can I offer you one?"
"No thank you," the man says: "But make yourself a double and have some for me, okay?"
"Very generous of you."
"I try."
21:34 Hours
"The Object," Khalil says to the late night visitor to his apartment: "You would ask me about that, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," the mysterious man says from where he sits, in the shadows. A very nasty looking gun rests on his thigh -- glinting menacingly in the half dark.
"Why do you want to know about it?"
"Because it's in play," the other man says: "And I have a really uncomfortable idea who's got it, and why."
"I thought you would have known all about it?"
"Pretend I don't," he says, tapping his hands on the gun: "Indulge me."
Khalil sighs and sits down on his bed, across from the man, and lets his suit jacket slump from his shoulder. He'd just come home from another grueling, late-night meeting with what little was left of NGUVU's leadership, post-3/15, and found that he wasn't alone in his apartment.
And while the identity of his houseguest was not entirely a surprise, the fact that he'd ask about that was something of a shock.
"Alright, then," Khalil says: "I'll indulge you. And I should remind you that if you're deciding to finish what you started, back in January, that you'll be dealing with far more than an angry, pan-African intelligence group-"
"Threats are meaningless, now," the man says: "There is no cavalry to save you. There is no hope that you can persuade me to do anything other than what I came here to do. The best you can do is cooperate and tell me the truth, and maybe I'll just leave when we're done."
"And if not?"
"Then I'll just finish the job, won't I?"
Khalil sighs, and stands up: "I'm getting myself a drink."
"I found the gun you keep over there, already."
"I knew you would. I just really need a drink. Can I offer you one?"
"No thank you," the man says: "But make yourself a double and have some for me, okay?"
"Very generous of you."
"I try."
* * *
"So, The Object," Khalil says, after having both drinks at the urging of his 'guest': "It's always been something of a matter of pride that we managed to keep it secret and safe, here, far from you Europeans."
"You mean us White folk."
"Well, safe from outsiders, then," Khalil says: "Even in olden times, before we had our continent carved up into geographically convenient divisions, and there were only empires won through blood and struggle, and areas no one wanted, its secret was kept."
"It fell from the sky, didn't it?" the visitor asks: "It came from the stars."
"That is how the story goes. It fell to the Earth, deep within the heart of the continent. It struck the Earth hard enough for the sound to be heard for hundreds of miles, and yet when the locals came looking, there was no massive crater, or area of destruction. It was just sitting there, in the center of what had once been a jungle, like it had been there all along."
"So maybe it didn't actually fall," the other man says: "That could have been the sound of one reality giving way to another. Like what happens when lightning strikes, and the air is displaced. Pressure differentials."
"Well, perhaps," Khalil says, shrugging: "I was not there, as you might understand. This was thousands of years ago, and while what they saw and what they found was written down, that language has not been spoken or written since the time of Christ. Perhaps we have made mistakes in translation."
"But the gist of what it says is that the wise men who found it recognized it for the dangerous thing it was?"
"What would be correct," Khalil says: "The jungle that had once been alive and lush was twisted and gnarled, and the beasts that lived there were dead or dying, with all the life gone from them. As they approached it, their minds were filled with terrible visions of a great kingdom, built on butchery, and filled with shining demons that smiled like panthers sighting prey. It was not a good thing to behold, and they sought to stop others from falling victim to it."
"So their solution was to take it and bury it as deep as they could," the visitor says: "And it worked, mostly. But the visions leaked, didn't they?"
"Oh, they did," Khalil says: "But in a strange way. If you do not look at it, the visions do not enter into your waking mind, but slip into your sleeping brain. And they go far afield to do this. It's as though it knew that no one around here would be tempted by its power, so it went to other lands, to tempt other peoples."
"And so Europeans looked to the Dark Continent, and searched for massive, rich empires."
"Yes. The legend of Prester John, the idea that Great Zimbabwe was some relic of a white man's kingdom, ideas of our great hordes of gold and jewels... all implanted by that !@#$ object."
"Well, I guess if they didn't get those dreams, there would have been another excuse," the visitor says, tapping his fingers on the grip of the gun, again: "I seem to remember the Muslims swept into Northern Africa to make an empire. Did they have the same dreams, or different ones?"
"I do not know. Maybe you should ask them."
"You're not Muslim?"
"Not anymore," Khalil admits, swirling his drink: "My mother raised me in the faith, but they won't let you into NGUVU if your faith is stronger than your conviction to their mission. But I was dead to it by the time I went to college, anyway. I really never could believe... and why am I telling you this?"
"I just have that kind of face," the visitor says, smiling there in the dark: "So, they buried it. The White Men came and looked for it. And they never found it?"
"No," Khalil says: "It was too well-hidden. But then came the War, and your Hitler decided that all the great, powerful objects of the world had to be his. So he sent some of his men down here to look for the fabled city, and the great object of power that sat at its center. His people might have been able to find it, given time, so..."
"So it was moved," the visitor says.
"No. Not just yet. It was guarded, and those who guarded it would be the ones who became BUSH, back in the 1960's. But over time, BUSH became something of a sad joke, as I'm sure you well know. And the NGUVU was made to replace it, after a fashion."
"In 2002," the visitor says: "And that's when it was moved."
"Yes. To a more secure location. And the memories of those who knew where it was were locked away using a very specific medical procedure-"
"The Seyoum Treatment. Deep hypnosis used in tandem with certain neural chemicals to lock down information. Great for storing secrets, not so great for getting them back when you need them. What's the casualty rate up to, now?"
"We've gotten survival up to 75 percent," Khalil sighs, not really wanting a lecture on safety from this man: "And the whole idea was to give them information that would only be needed if the stakes were high enough to justify that risk."
"Like needing access to the one thing the Object could really lead you to," the visitor says: "The great city with its shining demons with terrible smiles. Hidden away, somewhere."
"And Allah only knows why GORGON wanted it."
"Oh, I think that, if you think about it, you might come to realize what they've used it for," the visitor says, getting to his feet and taking his gun in hand: "And that makes that foolish little game you tried to play on the former head of BUSH all the more sad. If you'd been smart and killed him, rather than letting his contact walk into your prison and take him out of it, just to see where they went, this could have all been avoided."
"I guess so," Khalil says, looking at his drink: "So what are you going to do with this information, then? Are you going to go after them? Will you bring the Object back to us?"
"No, I don't think so," the man says, walking over to where Khalil sits, and raising the gun: "I think I'm to have a good think to myself about what I can do with this information, and then I'll see if I can turn it around to my benefit. Same as always."
"I thought better of you," Khalil replies after a moment, crossing his hands over his chest and holding onto his shoulders, as if cold: "I guess you fooled us all."
"I wish I could take my time with this, with you," the man says: "It's been a while since I've had the time to really let loose, and here you are, all helpless."
"What?" Khalil asks, his eyes getting wide: "What are you !@#$ing saying, man?"
"I'm saying that this gun's a weak weapon. It's made to kill you without even leaving a visible wound. One shot to your head and your brain's turned to jelly in your skull, but that's just too easy. Especially when I could have you all night long, any way I want, and then just leave you to bleed out on what's left of your bed."
"What..."
"Oh, don't be coy. You do strategic talents for NGUVU, right? So you've seen what happens when ordinary people get worked over by people who can throw cars and topple mountains, right? People with their guts half in, half out of their backsides, their jaws broken in three or more places by the stress and strain of having a steel hammer going in and out of their mouth, women bleeding out through what's left of their cunts..."
The man shudders, changing the angle of his aim: "I so love that word, don't you? It just sounds different, here. More direct, somehow."
"I have no idea what-" Khalil starts to say, but then the gun goes off with a sound like bees humming at a hive, and he's flopped backwards over the bed, shivering and shaking, his eyes starting from their sockets.
"And you never will, will you?" the man says, putting his gun away and leaving the way he came in. He walks down the hallway, gets into the elevator, and heads for the ground floor, confident that no one will see him leave, either.
When he gets to the ground floor he looks up at Khalil's still-lit window and smiles, wishing he'd had more time, but knowing that he can have all the atrocity he can handle once he's at least a few miles away from this building, and safe.
"Cunts," the SPYGOD from another, darker Earth mutters under his breath, savoring the taste of it.
(SPYGOD is listening to Faith (The Cure) and having a Castel Beer)
Friday, November 16, 2012
9/14 - Take a Stand to Change my Life
It's midnight in Beijing, and the Chinese General Secretary is sneaking through a public park like a common criminal, hoping no one sees him.
Wen Boxiong is in his forties: balding, plump, and plain. His thick, black eyeglasses are the most remarkable thing about him, so he's wearing them down his nose in a pathetic attempt at disguise.
He's also wearing a hooded windbreaker against the chill, with his hands stuffed in the pockets. Between that and how often he stops and looks around it's a wonder no one's mistaken him for a drug dealer, or a male prostitute.
Wouldn't that just be a great thing? "General Secretary Arrested on Suspicion of Importuning!" would scream the foreign papers, if the foreign papers cared to report actual news, anymore.
If the Imago would actually let them.
Eventually, he gets to the secluded, hardly-visited place where his contact offered to meet him. There's a aged metal statue, here, in a copse of trees that hasn't been trimmed or cleaned up in decades. And while it's not exactly a secret that it's there, no one likes to go there, anymore, as what's behind the wood has fallen into disfavor.
That statue's a large group of smiling, larger than life soldiers and peasants, who brandish weapons and tools, and urge their fellow citizens to fight against the fascists for the People and the Dream. Pretty innocuous, really -- it's just that it was made back when the Soviet Union and China were allies, and the plaque that was originally on it was exhorting those passing by to join their Russian allies in the struggle.
So when relations fell apart, the plaque came down. But putting another motto on there would be tantamount to admitting the failure of the ideal behind the statue. And while the statue was stirring without the plaque, the loss of that plaque marred the whole experience for those who knew what it once had been.
But taking the statue itself down? Unthinkable. That was something the Soviets did, not the Chinese.
So instead, they compromised; they transplanted trees around it, to hide it from immediate view, and as the trees grew, the statue was obscured. After a generation or so, no one knew what the statue had been for, or meant. It was just another visually-stirring but conceptually bland piece of state art that had been left to rot -- a hidden treasure no one knew about, unless you knew where to look, and why.
Beijing was full of such places, so when his new ally suggested they meet there, Wen had to ask which hidden statue he was talking about. And, in a way, he was glad it was this one; he'd discovered it, himself, as a young man, when he'd first come to this city to be part of its government, and over time it had figured into his dreams, and his personal mythology.
As he approaches, he whistles low, three times. Three high whistles greet him, and he enters the copse of trees. There, his contact leans against the statue, and walks forward to clasp his hand as Wen approaches.
"You ditched your guard?" the tall, skinny, and curious-looking Chinese man says, looking past Wen's shoulders.
"I did. I evoked my high party infallibility. Who could argue with such a thing?"
"Who could? I have to say I'm jealous. I could never shake my security details. They were stuck like glue."
"Well, I suppose you live in a more dangerous country than I?" Wen offers, smiling: "All those guns! And the freedom to stalk your target."
"Not so much, anymore," the man says, sadly: "But that's what we're here to talk about, right?"
"Yes, but... you are prepared to prove what you said?" Wen asks, taking a step back: "Because I have to say, the last place I expected to meet you again was as my new personal assistant. And while I only ever met you once, I do not remember you looking so... handsome?"
The other man smiles and nods. He pulls out something that looks like a small but technically complex flashlight.
"Now you don't see me?" he asks, turning the light on and holding it up to one side of his face. Then he slowly draws it across the bottom of his jaw, right to left.
As the light plays over his features, they change into something completely different. The Asian face melts into a different racial group, the ears move forward and shrink, and the hair gets short, tight, and curly.
By the time the light's at his left ear, Wen is convinced that he is talking to the former President of the United States of America.
"Now you do," the President says, in English, as he tries to smile.
"Does it hurt?" is all Wen can think to ask.
"Not as much as it should," the President admits as he rubs his cheeks: "I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a little, though."
"What is it?"
"It's called a Fleshlight," he says: "Please don't laugh. They made them back in the 60's."
"Why would I laugh?" Wen asks.
"Oh, thank God," the President says, relieved. "Well, anyway, I'm not sure how this thing works, but if I don't change back soon, my real face will reject the false one, and if I try to use it I'll look like melted candle wax for the rest of my life."
"That sounds terrible."
"Yeah, that's why they stopped using them. So if you'll excuse me?"
The President turns the light back on, and moves it from left to right. As the light moves, it changes him back, so that he looks like the young, Chinese man that Wen Boxiong met three days ago.
"Remarkable," the General Secretary says: "So... what you said about our situation? This is also true?"
"Very true," the President says: "I have an ally, and he's very good at getting certain things accomplished. If we can get him some useful information, he might be able to use it against the Imago. And once we've got all our people up to speed on what we know, we can strike them as one fist, all at once, and they won't know what hit them."
"Not like the space elevator, I hope," Wen shudders: "They paid me a very pointed visit, today. They showed me exactly what happened to Southern Thailand."
"What?" the President seems confused: "What happened?"
"Oh, terrible things," Wen says: "Apparently, the group that took credit for the attack is a Muslim terrorist outfit from that part of the country. And since a lot of the people down there are Muslim, and might know who these people are, they went into their work camps to interrogate the young men and religious leaders."
"Interrogate," the President repeats, looking the man in the eyes.
"Yes, it's just as bad as it sounds. And any work camp they went into had to be silenced, afterwards. Something about conserving resources, whatever that means...?"
The President shudders, and turns around so Wen can't see his face.
"Are you alright?" Wen asks: "You're not... thinking of backing out, are you?"
"Of course not," the President says, not turning around yet: "I'm just... I didn't know they would be that brutal."
"Oh, they are," Wen sighs: "I've seen it firsthand. They are not nearly as kind and caring as they pretend to be. I think they are the most evil things I have ever met, and I have met and seen some very evil things."
"I'm sure you have," the President says, turning around and hoping that the General Secretary can't tell how wet his eyes just were: "That's part of what we were hoping to talk to you about."
"Oh?" Wen asks, looking around and wondering if they've been here too long: "What do you mean?"
"Part of what we need from you is information about some things that went on during the War," the President says: "I know that, in your previous position, you oversaw the curators of some of those things. So you might be able to tell us where to find what we're looking for without actually doing a search, which might raise flags somewhere."
"Well, I do have a good memory..." Wen offers: "I do not mean to boast, but I once remembered a thirty-two digit entrance code after only memorizing it for a minute or so. That was when I was younger, of course. But still, I think I could remember most of what I knew?"
"Good. What can you tell me about Pingfang, during the War?"
"Unit 731?" Wen gasps, and takes a step back. He puts his hand to his mouth and shudders.
"I know it can't be easy," the President says, stepping forward: "I know it was a dark time for your country, and a lot of bad things happened there. But-"
"What in the name of..." Wen asks, holding up a hand: "When you... what you're asking. Do you really want to open that door, Mr. President?"
"What will we find on the other side of it?"
"Horror," Wen Boxiong says, looking the President in the eyes: "True, bloody horror. The most terrible things were done there, at that place, by the Japanese, before and during that war. Inhumane, savage butchery. And then your government went and snatched them all up, just like they did with the Germans."
The President sighs and nods: "I know. I agree that was a bad call. Those men should have faced justice. In fact, I know the Soviets tried the ones they got their hands on, right?"
"Yes. And then they took all the horrible things they learned from them and put them right to work for themselves."
"I hear they paid for that mistake."
"Not dearly enough," Wen sighs: "It could never be enough."
The President nods: "I'm sorry to have to ask it of you. But we think that some of what happened there has a bearing on what's happening now."
"How so?"
"I can't say," the President replies: "And that's both because I don't know and because if I told you..."
"... and I was caught, the entire thing would be in the toilet," Wen finishes the thought: "That I do understand."
"Then we can get your help?"
"Yes," Wen says: "Ask me questions, I will answer. But I'm telling you this, Mr. President. What the Japanese did to us, they also did to themselves. If you're looking for an answer there, you may not like the shape of that answer."
"I haven't liked anything I've had to learn, lately."
"Perhaps not. But this time? Your digging may unearth something that will kill you with your own shovel."
The President nods. So does Wen Boxiong. They shake hands and make arrangements. And then they leave, first the President, and then Wen.
As he's waiting for a good moment to leave, he looks at the smiling soldier in the statue behind him. Even after all this rain and snow and elemental decay, his eyes still seem bright and his smile still seems genuine.
"What do you know of fear?" he asks the metal man, and then leaves, all too aware of his own.
(SPYGOD is listening to Doubt (The Cure) and having a glass of Great Wall Wine)
Wen Boxiong is in his forties: balding, plump, and plain. His thick, black eyeglasses are the most remarkable thing about him, so he's wearing them down his nose in a pathetic attempt at disguise.
He's also wearing a hooded windbreaker against the chill, with his hands stuffed in the pockets. Between that and how often he stops and looks around it's a wonder no one's mistaken him for a drug dealer, or a male prostitute.
Wouldn't that just be a great thing? "General Secretary Arrested on Suspicion of Importuning!" would scream the foreign papers, if the foreign papers cared to report actual news, anymore.
If the Imago would actually let them.
Eventually, he gets to the secluded, hardly-visited place where his contact offered to meet him. There's a aged metal statue, here, in a copse of trees that hasn't been trimmed or cleaned up in decades. And while it's not exactly a secret that it's there, no one likes to go there, anymore, as what's behind the wood has fallen into disfavor.
That statue's a large group of smiling, larger than life soldiers and peasants, who brandish weapons and tools, and urge their fellow citizens to fight against the fascists for the People and the Dream. Pretty innocuous, really -- it's just that it was made back when the Soviet Union and China were allies, and the plaque that was originally on it was exhorting those passing by to join their Russian allies in the struggle.
So when relations fell apart, the plaque came down. But putting another motto on there would be tantamount to admitting the failure of the ideal behind the statue. And while the statue was stirring without the plaque, the loss of that plaque marred the whole experience for those who knew what it once had been.
But taking the statue itself down? Unthinkable. That was something the Soviets did, not the Chinese.
So instead, they compromised; they transplanted trees around it, to hide it from immediate view, and as the trees grew, the statue was obscured. After a generation or so, no one knew what the statue had been for, or meant. It was just another visually-stirring but conceptually bland piece of state art that had been left to rot -- a hidden treasure no one knew about, unless you knew where to look, and why.
Beijing was full of such places, so when his new ally suggested they meet there, Wen had to ask which hidden statue he was talking about. And, in a way, he was glad it was this one; he'd discovered it, himself, as a young man, when he'd first come to this city to be part of its government, and over time it had figured into his dreams, and his personal mythology.
As he approaches, he whistles low, three times. Three high whistles greet him, and he enters the copse of trees. There, his contact leans against the statue, and walks forward to clasp his hand as Wen approaches.
"You ditched your guard?" the tall, skinny, and curious-looking Chinese man says, looking past Wen's shoulders.
"I did. I evoked my high party infallibility. Who could argue with such a thing?"
"Who could? I have to say I'm jealous. I could never shake my security details. They were stuck like glue."
"Well, I suppose you live in a more dangerous country than I?" Wen offers, smiling: "All those guns! And the freedom to stalk your target."
"Not so much, anymore," the man says, sadly: "But that's what we're here to talk about, right?"
"Yes, but... you are prepared to prove what you said?" Wen asks, taking a step back: "Because I have to say, the last place I expected to meet you again was as my new personal assistant. And while I only ever met you once, I do not remember you looking so... handsome?"
The other man smiles and nods. He pulls out something that looks like a small but technically complex flashlight.
"Now you don't see me?" he asks, turning the light on and holding it up to one side of his face. Then he slowly draws it across the bottom of his jaw, right to left.
As the light plays over his features, they change into something completely different. The Asian face melts into a different racial group, the ears move forward and shrink, and the hair gets short, tight, and curly.
By the time the light's at his left ear, Wen is convinced that he is talking to the former President of the United States of America.
"Now you do," the President says, in English, as he tries to smile.
"Does it hurt?" is all Wen can think to ask.
"Not as much as it should," the President admits as he rubs his cheeks: "I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a little, though."
"What is it?"
"It's called a Fleshlight," he says: "Please don't laugh. They made them back in the 60's."
"Why would I laugh?" Wen asks.
"Oh, thank God," the President says, relieved. "Well, anyway, I'm not sure how this thing works, but if I don't change back soon, my real face will reject the false one, and if I try to use it I'll look like melted candle wax for the rest of my life."
"That sounds terrible."
"Yeah, that's why they stopped using them. So if you'll excuse me?"
The President turns the light back on, and moves it from left to right. As the light moves, it changes him back, so that he looks like the young, Chinese man that Wen Boxiong met three days ago.
"Remarkable," the General Secretary says: "So... what you said about our situation? This is also true?"
"Very true," the President says: "I have an ally, and he's very good at getting certain things accomplished. If we can get him some useful information, he might be able to use it against the Imago. And once we've got all our people up to speed on what we know, we can strike them as one fist, all at once, and they won't know what hit them."
"Not like the space elevator, I hope," Wen shudders: "They paid me a very pointed visit, today. They showed me exactly what happened to Southern Thailand."
"What?" the President seems confused: "What happened?"
"Oh, terrible things," Wen says: "Apparently, the group that took credit for the attack is a Muslim terrorist outfit from that part of the country. And since a lot of the people down there are Muslim, and might know who these people are, they went into their work camps to interrogate the young men and religious leaders."
"Interrogate," the President repeats, looking the man in the eyes.
"Yes, it's just as bad as it sounds. And any work camp they went into had to be silenced, afterwards. Something about conserving resources, whatever that means...?"
The President shudders, and turns around so Wen can't see his face.
"Are you alright?" Wen asks: "You're not... thinking of backing out, are you?"
"Of course not," the President says, not turning around yet: "I'm just... I didn't know they would be that brutal."
"Oh, they are," Wen sighs: "I've seen it firsthand. They are not nearly as kind and caring as they pretend to be. I think they are the most evil things I have ever met, and I have met and seen some very evil things."
"I'm sure you have," the President says, turning around and hoping that the General Secretary can't tell how wet his eyes just were: "That's part of what we were hoping to talk to you about."
"Oh?" Wen asks, looking around and wondering if they've been here too long: "What do you mean?"
"Part of what we need from you is information about some things that went on during the War," the President says: "I know that, in your previous position, you oversaw the curators of some of those things. So you might be able to tell us where to find what we're looking for without actually doing a search, which might raise flags somewhere."
"Well, I do have a good memory..." Wen offers: "I do not mean to boast, but I once remembered a thirty-two digit entrance code after only memorizing it for a minute or so. That was when I was younger, of course. But still, I think I could remember most of what I knew?"
"Good. What can you tell me about Pingfang, during the War?"
"Unit 731?" Wen gasps, and takes a step back. He puts his hand to his mouth and shudders.
"I know it can't be easy," the President says, stepping forward: "I know it was a dark time for your country, and a lot of bad things happened there. But-"
"What in the name of..." Wen asks, holding up a hand: "When you... what you're asking. Do you really want to open that door, Mr. President?"
"What will we find on the other side of it?"
"Horror," Wen Boxiong says, looking the President in the eyes: "True, bloody horror. The most terrible things were done there, at that place, by the Japanese, before and during that war. Inhumane, savage butchery. And then your government went and snatched them all up, just like they did with the Germans."
The President sighs and nods: "I know. I agree that was a bad call. Those men should have faced justice. In fact, I know the Soviets tried the ones they got their hands on, right?"
"Yes. And then they took all the horrible things they learned from them and put them right to work for themselves."
"I hear they paid for that mistake."
"Not dearly enough," Wen sighs: "It could never be enough."
The President nods: "I'm sorry to have to ask it of you. But we think that some of what happened there has a bearing on what's happening now."
"How so?"
"I can't say," the President replies: "And that's both because I don't know and because if I told you..."
"... and I was caught, the entire thing would be in the toilet," Wen finishes the thought: "That I do understand."
"Then we can get your help?"
"Yes," Wen says: "Ask me questions, I will answer. But I'm telling you this, Mr. President. What the Japanese did to us, they also did to themselves. If you're looking for an answer there, you may not like the shape of that answer."
"I haven't liked anything I've had to learn, lately."
"Perhaps not. But this time? Your digging may unearth something that will kill you with your own shovel."
The President nods. So does Wen Boxiong. They shake hands and make arrangements. And then they leave, first the President, and then Wen.
As he's waiting for a good moment to leave, he looks at the smiling soldier in the statue behind him. Even after all this rain and snow and elemental decay, his eyes still seem bright and his smile still seems genuine.
"What do you know of fear?" he asks the metal man, and then leaves, all too aware of his own.
(SPYGOD is listening to Doubt (The Cure) and having a glass of Great Wall Wine)
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