Apotheoclypse Now: 9/5/16 - 9/11/16

"Punishes disclosure / And never gets rattled..."

(The Time AGENT)

(Art by the Lemonade Project)

* * *

8

* * *

So, you want to know why we're still here, on this line, standing for our land, our people, our water?

I could just bull!@#$ you. I could just say we're too proud to bend. Too tough to fold.

Too strong to be scared by private guards and angry dogs.

But the truth is that, today, we know we are not alone.

Today, we were expecting more fighting, more guards. We were committed to non-violence, but we were ready to defend ourselves.

Things could have gotten ugly. 

But we remembered to pray, today. We prayed to our spirits. Our ancestors. The ones who walked the land before us, and the ones who will walk it forever and ever.

We prayed, and this time they didn't just send us their strength. 

This time? They came.

So if you're wondering why the feds are allowing an injunction, and why the private guards are gone, and why their dogs are whimpering like they got whipped?

Well, you just look up at that cloud, there, in the sky. The one that doesn't move. 

The one that looks like the face of an old man. The one with lightning in its eyes, and its mouth.

You hear the boom of thunder in an otherwise clear sky, and know that our spirits walk with us, today. 

So you let us have our water, our land, our rights. You stay away from our sacred land, and do not dig under it.

And you take your oil pipeline, and you shove it.

Because the thunder comes from lightning, sir. And you don't want to be standing there when it hits...

Monday: 9/5/16

Labor Day. Supposed to be the day we all !@#$ing put up our feet, crack a beer, cook a couple dogs, and do a whole lot of nothing to celebrate our tradition of American working practices, right?

Well, not here, son. Not anywhere !@#$ing near here, frankly. I got the whole !@#$ing COMPANY on high alert, after the last couple weeks, which means every available AGENT is doing double shifts, and two-timing duty stations on top of it...

Why? Jesus !@#$ing Christ in a go-kart going over goddamn Niagara Falls backwards in a barrel full of horse!@#$ and dead monkeys, son, have you been paying attention?

 First off, I got a ton of Gods all coming back to the world and wanting to !@#$ing set up shop like nothing's changed over the last couple centuries or so.  And for some !@#$ing reason, known only to those Gods, they all want to !@#$ing come to America. It's like some lousy modern fantasy novel coming to life or something...

And then I got a dead Japanese Prime Minister, blown away at the !@#$ing Olympics. Which wouldn't normally be my !@#$ing business, except I thought it was done by my evil twin from Alter Earth. Not that the Japanese, the Brazilians, or the !@#$ing Olympics people wanted to hear what I had to say.

Of course, it's just as well they didn't !@#$ing listen to me, as it was actually done by the !@#$ing Wandering Shadow, himself. I hear he hates me now, and actually tried to have me !@#$ing killed while I was still brainsmashed, a while back. 

But now he's got that damned alien supergun the Nazis used to have, and then the Soviets, and that I stole from them for safekeeping, only I gave it to one of our people and she got snatched by my evil twin, so he had it, only now he !@#$ing doesn't...

Confusing? !@#$, son, just wait. It turns out that assassination by !@#$ing proxy was just his funny way of saying 'hi,' and 'oh boy do I have a deal for you.'

That's right, son. Turns out my doppelganger's rightly freaked the !@#$ out about the god thing. Except that he's !@#$ing telling me he's got a way to kill them. And he wants to do a deal with me where he tells me how to !@#$ing kill them.

And in return I let him have Africa. Like this was !@#$ing Risk, or something. 

Got all that?

Now, on a more personal note? I got an outlaw reporter minus one eye because of that
!@#$ing bastard. And he's got some real !@#$ at home, waiting for him...

...

And I've sent a bunch of my heroes and turned villains off to !@#$ing Mars so my fiancee can turn what should have been an aerial bombardment into a full on ground war... underground, at that. 

And Myron decided to take !@#$ing Ted Cruz with them, since they're up against bits and pieces of the goddamn Decreator, which means one of the people who might be President is on what might be a one way trip to the red planet, with a bunch of supervillains along for the !@#$ing ride. 

And then, as if I didn't need any more !@#$ing !@#$ on my goddamn plate? I just !@#$ing found out that the daughter of the last President? The one my evil !@#$ing twin turned into a goddamn monster, just like him? 

Well, she's on the lam, now. Got the !@#$ out of the Habitrail that Mister Freedom's supposedly got locked up tighter than a drum. Somehow managed to talk her FAUST case officer into stepping into her cage, and she skinned him and wore him out like a !@#$ing human suit.

Big damn fun, son. I gotta tell you. 

So no, son. No sleep over !@#$ing Brooklyn, tonight. I'm pulling a triple shift watching everyone's double, so there's no rest to be had on the Flier until I got this god !@#$ settled, I know where my evil twin is, and Mars is back under !@#$ing control again. 

So if anyone wants to know if I got a comment about Phyllis Schlafly finally popping her clogs at 92? You tell them I said that I'd shake the hands of any good Anti-commie, but that as one of the people she wanted to deny marriage rights to? She can so take a big old suck off the Devil's pecker, as they say down in Texas. And choke on the load.
 
Now, if you'll excuse me, I got some !@#$ to do and less than zero time to !@#$ing do it.

Tuesday: 9/6/16
 
(From the Personal Log of Myron "Underman" Volaar)

Day two of a week long voyage and I just had to toss someone out the damn airlock. Not exactly my finest moment, but it was necessary.

That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. I figure if I stick to that story I'll eventually believe it, and not second guess myself into a perfect circle of blame and remorse.

The reason's pretty damn clear, though. I made a bad mistake while I was playing Suicide Squad with the Heptagon's prisoners, and brought along someone that had no damn business being on the team.

Someone who turned out to be more stupid than I realized. 

I thought I could work with Xhasm. I really did. I thought the time she'd spent down in the basement prisons had made her more cooperative, and more open to rehabilitation.

I really did, but I guess you don't know which way someone's gonna jump until they're just over 24 million miles away from the pale, blue dot we all call home, and deciding it's the right time to try and pull off a hijacking, or whatever the !@#$ she was doing.

I mean, in some ways, I can't blame her. We are heading into what well be a goddamn suicide mission. We are preparing to go down below the surface of Mars and attack things that eat conventional weaponry for !@#$ing breakfast.

We are going up against a steady stream of the last remnants of the Decreator, on turf that it's had the run of for quite some time now.

And while you can say we've brought along a great deal of firepower, and we'll be allying with the Aesir once we can get there... well, for some that's not enough.

It's not like I didn't tell her this. I told them all what they were up for, and what they'd be going into. I told them they could volunteer to take time off their sentence, or say no and continue to rot down there, in the concrete. Like I might have if a certain one-eyed maniac decided not to take pity on me.

(To this day I don't know why. I doubt it was my impassioned speech about freedom and exploration. He probably just thought I was a damn loser because I was an Eagle Scout.)

So I told them, and some of them volunteered. And, to their credit, most of those volunteers did not get involved with Xhasm's crazy scheme to try and take over the ship.

She had to know it wasn't going to go anywhere. Not with over 100 COMPANY AGENTS on board, all wearing ground combat armor and ready to throw down. Not with a number of heroes here, too, just waiting for an excuse to kick some ass. Not with a Presidential Candidate who can punch the Devil into near Earth orbit, either.

And to top it all off, we're heading to Mars in a massive lightship, with Raitha, herself on the prow. Did she really expect to convince an Olympian to heave to and let her commandeer the ship?

Like I said, stupid.

Of course, she had a plan. It involved the interesting, mostly explosive devices I brought her along for, and a few other things she thought of on the fly. I have to give her credit for ingenuity, really.

But I can't have a saboteur on board for something like this. I can't have someone encouraging the others to riot and try another go. I've seen enough bad Sci-fi TV to know what happens when you let someone live after an escape attempt.

So I told Rahine to form a hole under her feet, and drop her out into the black.

And then Xhasm was gone, flying behind us at half a million miles an hour. Normally bodies in space tend to orbit the ship, but we were going too damn fast for that, which was just fine by me because I really didn't need to see her lifeless, vacuum-pressed body bouncing along with us like some kind of grotesque pool toy...

...

Yes, I'm !@#$ing angry. I didn't want to have to do this. I thought we could all act like goddamn adults, here, for once.

But the last time something like this happened, I sort of let my guard down. I blinked when I shouldn't have. I trusted when I shouldn't have.

As a result, things got really damn bad. Zalea Zathros, one of the most dangerous evil geniuses in the world, got loose. It took SPYGOD forever to put her ass back in the damn box.

And I remember, after Israel, he found me, and made me buy him enough damn drinks to put a herd of elephants down under the table. Because what he had to do to stop her almost killed him, and he...

...

Well, he said some things. Things I'm not allowed to repeat, even to myself, on pain of death.

But one thing's for sure. The look in his eyes as he drank himself sober? The way he looked at me as I tried to apologize, and explain, over and over?

I never want to be looked at like that by anyone, ever again.

And I would space everyone on the damn villain team to keep that from happening. Even the ones I kind of like, in spite of it all.

Besides, now they know they can't !@#$ with me. So maybe all further attempts to get stupid will be nipped in the bud, which might save time and trouble later. So maybe it's a good thing the dumb !@#$ decided to get herself killed now.

Maybe.

In the meantime, I'm going to sit here, in my hard light cabin, have a few sips of this very potent !@#$ I brought from home for just such an emergency, and hope the rest of the trip goes a hell of a lot smoother.

And I don't have to become a worse monster than I appear to be, right now. 

Wednesday: 9/7/16

I'll say one thing about this backwards and broken world. It never fails to fucking amaze me.

Because just when I think I have it all figured out? That I have all variables accounted for, all slaves lined up, all helping hands at the ready, and all situations in hand? 

Well, that's when it all goes wrong. 

And the more certain my understanding was? The more it goes wrong. 

It's like this world was created just to fuck with me. I swear to the Gods.  

Case in point. No sooner do I deliver my offer to my wayward other, by way of that reporter he decided to adopt a few years ago, than the best thing I have going seemingly self-destructs on me. 

That would be the nigger, of course. The Wandering Shadow I turned into a madness junkie, thanks to the Eye of Horus, and gave the alien weapon to. 

Everything was fine when I left his mountain. But now, when I try to get back in? The fucking thing won't open for me. 

Which means one of three things, none of them any damn good.

One is that he's dead, which I fucking refuse to believe. Either that or incapacitated, which is more possible, but also not very likely.

Two is that he's cured himself, somehow, which I find even harder to believe. 

Three is that he's just gone out and not told me, contrary to my orders.

As the days have gone by, I think it's more likely the first option is correct. If he'd cured himself, he would have come to kill me. If he'd gone out, he'd be back by now, with the shivers coming on. 

So I have no Wandering Shadow in my arsenal, any longer. Which is not essential to my cause, now, but still would have made handling Africa once it was handed over to me a lot fucking easier. 

Meanwhile, I can't lean on the reporter and his squalid brood. They've left Prague, and are on a constant move. By the time I can scry them, they're already gone, which is highly sensible of them. 

Maybe I shouldn't have fucking told him that I knew where he was. Maybe I should have kept quiet, and paid them a visit when he failed to do what I asked, instead. 

I think coming home to find one of his children unencumbered by the iron rules of this sorry, sordid world, and putting their new freedom into practice on the others, would have gotten the point across very well...

But then, I do sometimes overdo it. I probably didn't need to eat his eye, after I took it out of his skull. I really should have just fucking stepped on it, or maybe shoved it up his ass and then made him eat it.

But I was hungry, still. And it was so juicy, and so sweet, just like so many things in this world...

How good a feeling it is to stand proud and tall, above it. To see it kneel before me and do my bidding.

Me, the son of a slave. A nameless, stationless lesser! Who could have guessed my face alone would mark me for greatness? 

Who could have said this nameless child, otherwise fated for a life of servitude, would one day hold the fate of two worlds in his hands?

I must always remember that. I must always have in my mind that I went from being someone's fucking property to being the most important person in those two worlds, almost overnight.

And no matter how bad things seem, I must remember that I planned for this. Even if I didn't know what was coming, I still have one more trick I can pull out of nowhere.

One more plan I can execute, as surely as any of my servants...    

Speaking of juicy and sweet things, and of servants, that cunt I set free a few months ago has freed herself, and now wants to rekindle our previous relationship. And that complicates matters even worse than not having the Wandering Shadow on my side, any longer. 

Not that I didn't enjoy her company, and what it provided. She was quite instrumental in making her sorry shithead of a father lose his mind, and play into my hands. And very useful in dealing with my wayward other, though she completely fucked up the job, as it turns out. 

(How hard can it be to do a simple cascading neuron failure? I showed her a dozen times on those prostitutes we failed to turn. Apparently she wasn't paying fucking attention, or else my other is made of sterner stuff than I credit him for.)

At any rate, the cunt is back. She sent me a note by way of the emergency channel we established before she let herself be taken. And now she wants to meet somewhere and talk strategy, and what to do from here, and how she can help me in whatever I'm planning now. 

To her credit, she'd guessed some of it. Not all of it, of course. No one has any idea what I really want, or they would never have sent me over here from my world in the first place. Not without some severe mental alterations, first. 

I think I will let this play out for a time. She may prove useful to me. And if she does not, she will provide quite the distraction as I get away. 

Meanwhile, I need to think about what to do now. I have not heard from my other, which means he has not taken my offer seriously. 

Which means I will have to up the ante, as they say here.

A good thing, then, that I fucking planned ahead. Because he is nothing if not slow and stupid. 

And I am nothing if not prepared for all eventualities...

Thursday: 9/8/16

(Notes of Randolph Scott, Outlaw Reporter)

The first thing I noticed, when I got to Standing Rock -- and got through their impressive guerilla security -- was the dining facility.

I know it sounds like a weird thing to fixate on, but there it was, dominating my attention. A kitchen some people set up, going all day and into the night, to make sure everyone who's there gets fed and taken care of.

I've been to mass protests before where there wasn't so much as a !@#$ing thought put into things like that. Everyone got wrapped up in the idea of sticking it to the man, or whoever, and before you knew it there was a sprawling mob with no coordination, no facilities, no nothing.

(The Bundy Ranch people's lack of snacks being an amusing example)

Not here, though. Not at all.

Not perfect, of course. Nothing is. It's hard to keep a crowd like this going without housekeeping issues. But they're sincere about keeping drugs, guns, and alcohol out, and keeping a cool head, in spite of what's going on.

Case in point -- they didn't just let me waltz in here and set up shop. They made sure I was who I said I was, and not some outside agitator sent in to cause trouble. I'm currently wearing two badges and a yellow wrist band, and they wrote on my rental car so no one messes with it.

I'm impressed. Very !@#$ing impressed.

Also more that a little unnerved, but that might be because there's a !@#$ing god over at the campfire, telling stories like it was another family campfire, or something.

Yeah, you heard that right. The gods are here, walking among their people, again. And considering how many tribes have a representative here, that's a lot of gods.

I can't really tell who's who, at least by sight. It's taking some practice just to see through the prosthetic, by itself. But I'm discovering that they shine at the edges, more than normal people do.

And sometimes, if you look at them long enough? They shift, just so. Like they were made of water.

Yeah, it's quite a thing. Which is one way to say this is !@#$ing amazing. And another say this is !@#$ing scary.

What's really scary? How these folks are just so accepting of all this !@#$. Like they're used to having this happen, which I know they were in theory, but not to this extent.

This? It's like someone took a Leslie Marmon Silko novel and turned it into magical realism. It's like something out of American Gods by way of N. Scott Momaday.

And I don't know whether to be amused or insulted that, in a campground full of activists, seekers, and gods, no one -- and I mean no one -- wants to talk to me.

Yes, I flew my flag. I'm the guy from THIS IS BULL!@#$. I am here to cover this situation, and help expose what's going on here, at a time when the national media would rather focus on a football player not doing the national anthem, or the latest load of !@#$ that imbecile who's running for President is saying.

But they don't want to talk to me, for some reason.

Not that I can really blame them for that. The bad side of having the press suddenly give a damn about their situation is having the usual establishment vultures show up, cameras in hand, and wait for someone to bleed so they can !@#$ing lead with it. It's almost like they want something to go wrong so they'll have a headline, a byline, and a chance for an award or two.

(And no, they don't want to talk to me, either. I'm something of a pariah, right now. The guy from Alternet's flipped me off twice.)

But the real people, here? The ones I've come to watch, and support? I want to scream at them. I want to jump on top of someone's shoulders and say "hey! I just tried to have that orange-skinned mother!@#$er assassinated! And do you know why? Because he !@#$ing kidnapped and brainwashed my kids! He had my girlfriend shot! Killed dozens of my friends in Toon Town, just to !@#$ with me!"

And I would, too. Except that we're not !@#$ing talking about that.

No, I'm not. SPYGOD's !@#$ing orders. And Velma...

...

I wanted to be honest with her. I did. He lied on my behalf, and I was going to tell her the truth. I was.

But then Karl and Jana and Helmut and Helga came into the room, looking like utter !@#$. And they told me something that Velma had begun to fear, and I hadn't even had !@#$ing time to suspect because it happened while I was away, in Kenya, trying to do that thing.

They're dying. My kids are !@#$ing dying, and there's nothing I can !@#$ing do about it.

* * *

It's ABWEHR's fault, of course. It always !@#$ing is.

My kids are clones, all descended from Martha and Joseph Goebbels. At some point she turned into some obscene baby-making shoggoth, and they'd get together and make supernazi love, there in the Ice Palace, and she'd !@#$ out dozens of fully-formed kids for the master race at regular intervals.

Which was fine for ABWEHR, seeing as how they were never going to use them as shock troops for the Fourth Reich. They were too busy researching ways to end the world that they never really put into action, and trying to get back at one another for dozens of years' worth of slights and insults.

So these poor kids got used as toys. They were screwed, beaten, and eaten, and not always in that order.

When the Ice Palace was liberated, there was one last group in the tank. They decanted while we were there. And SPYGOD, in something approaching wisdom and compassion, wanted me to be the one to look after them.

Why me? Why not. I thought it would make a good story to take these poor kids around the world and show them what they'd been missing. What they would have never seen.

And I did. And somewhere along the line they became more than a damn story. They became my family. My soldiers. My helpers.

My family.

 But the whole time, I knew something horrible. And that was that these kids came with a !@#$ing time limit.

The ABWEHR folks didn't really breed them for longevity, you see. It's like that NIN song, you know, you have a copy of a copy of a copy, and sooner or later it all breaks down.

So they had only years to live, really. And one day they'd start growing old, and begin to fail.

And what's what's happening, right now, while I'm in !@#$ing South Dakota.

* * *

Not that I had much choice in the matter. I literally got !@#$ing marching orders.

Velma handed me the camera and the ticket. It was her way of welcoming me back. It was also her way of telling me I was going to have to work to get back into this thing we made.

Not even a damn kiss. Just told me to go get the !@#$ing story, even if it killed me.

And yeah, it just !@#$ing might. Especially if what I hear is true.

They've activated the National Guard. Supposedly it's just to have people police the highways, but some fear it'll be to turn people away from coming at all. Which means supplies won't come, and the camp might falter.

And there's a good chance they'll come here to kick some ass if the Governor decides private guards with angry dogs can't stop the people. 

They're also talking about drones flying over, and as this state is one of the few where it's !@#$ing legal to let police fly armed drones into lawkeeping operations...?

Yeah. That sound you hear is the sound of things possibly circling the toilet on their way down.

But tomorrow's make it or break it. Tomorrow the Federal Judge might call a halt to this whole !@#$show, and halt all further work.

But then again, the Judge may not. And then it'll be protests and citizen action until it's stopped from higher up, or something ugly happens to force their hand.

And if that happens? I have a hard time imagining these American gods will stand idly by as their people are beaten and brutalized, or told that their ancestors' bones are just clay to be shaped, and dirt to be bulldozed.

Which means I might be standing here, camera in hand, as the cloud face in the sky brings down the lightning.

Me, I could use a good rain. It'd make me feel clean, again. It might even make me feel whole.

I just don't want anyone else to suffer because of my needs. I've had enough of that, lately.

I've had enough.

Friday: 9/9/16

(Yanabah's Private Journal)

Not every day I get to tell the Interim President to shut the !@#$ up and listen to me, but that is exactly what happened, early this afternoon.

Why me? Why the !@#$ not. But I guess there was a practical reason. The boss man always !@#$ing has one.

He drags my ass off Freedom Force duty this morning. I tell him we're already shorthanded, what with our heavy hitter on their damn way to Mars and all. He says shut up and get in the car, we're going to DC.

Now, when he says we're going to DC? That means the White House. And he never !@#$ing takes any heroes to the White House unless he needs us, either as an example or a peace offering. So of course I'm !@#$ing wondering if this is the moment I pay for what went down the other week, in Taos.

But no. He's actually got me along because I'm the only one who can really tell the asshole in the Oval Office what Taos meant. Because I'm the only one who's actually talked with Grandfather Thunder long enough to get more answers than questions.

So we drive there. It's his new flying car, which he says he got from one of the Olympians. It was their way of making amends for Moscow, and everything. Or maybe he's full of !@#$ and it's just something else. He's always lying.

He has no idea I know this, now, and I find this !@#$ing hilarious. The monster in me can tell when people aren't being honest. I can actually smell it on them, somehow. Big lies, little lies, half truths, they all have their own smell. And I know them all.

(Which is how I know he's also lying about his new eyes. He tells people they just grew back, but I know there's more to it than that. I just don't know what it is, yet. But I will.)

He talks !@#$  for fifteen minutes, and then we're over the White House. He spirals the thing down and parks on the front lawn and just gets out. He even has the nerve to toss the keys to one of the Secret Service Agents and tell him not to scuff up the paint.

Then we're in the White House, and I think it's the first time I've been in here since they used Grandfather Wayfinder to try and find SPYGOD, all that time ago. They were scared of me, then. Now they're not sure why I'm there, but that's okay. They let us keep all our guns, and in we go.

Of course, the President knows why we're there. He's got word the Federal Judge is going to tell the Lakota that the pipeline isn't going to stop. He just doesn't know what will happen next, what with all those Gods there in the camp.

Can SPYGOD do to them what he did to those Voodoo gods, last week? That's what he wants to know.

And that's when SPYGOD just chuckles, that way he does. He takes a step back and lets me have the floor. Calls me the expert in these things.

And I am, so I talk to the Interim President. I tell him exactly what he's facing, there. I tell him it would be a very, very bad !@#$ing thing if the gods that take their power from the people of this land, and from that land, were angered.

SPYGOD? He tells them there's nothing the Olympians can do in this case. The Voodoo people were coming here. The Spirits? They're already here.

(And that's a lie, too. I think he's playing a larger game, same as !@#$ing always. But it's what I want so I go along with it.)

What to do, then? Well, the Interim President doesn't want to call that judge and interfere. But lucky for us all I remember the Army Corps of Engineers didn't really get what you'd call timely permits from those pipeline people.

So the Interim President makes a call. By the time he's done, the Corps and a few other Federal things are ready to issue a joint statement telling the pipeline people to stop !@#$ing working for a while, until it all gets sorted out.

Of course, this means it won't get sorted anytime soon. The Feds are nothing if not wrapped in bureaucratic bull!@#$ when they want to be.

Which means we haven't won or lost, right now. It just means we're in a damn holding pattern.

But we can at least call it progress.

On the way out of the White House, SPYGOD leans in and delivers the !@#$ing punchline. He tells me to tell the Great Spirit that he just came through for him.

"Now it's his !@#$ing turn," he explains. And he tells me exactly what he wants in exchange.

I can't argue. It seems pretty !@#$ing sensible. But I do tell him that, from now on? If he wants to me to be a go-between, he's got to tell me the whole plan, well in advance.

He doesn't !@#$ing like that. I don't expect him to. But he agrees, however reluctantly.

And for once, when he opens his damn mouth? I don't smell a lie.

I'm calling that progress, too.

Saturday: 9/10/16

"Hey love, this is your fiancee, just checking in with you from Mars. If the picture gets a little weird, it's because we're having to veer around a lot, just to avoid getting hit by giant frozen balls of acid poop crab spit.

"I don't know if I mentioned this the last time, but the giant bastards have learned how to shoot their crap into orbit, now. There's giant frozen balls of acidic goop floating around up here, which means the pilots have to be careful not to fly too close, or the flakes around the balls unfreeze and start to eat the ships.

"So we parked in a higher orbit, just to make sure we have room to maneuver. We're also trying out various ways to nudge the balls out of orbit without unfreezing them, but so far that's been too dangerous.

"Since the crabs broke through our bottleneck, down below the surface, they've developed a definite pattern. They come up to the surface in groups of three to five, and start trying to hammer us. Then we send down lightships to strafe them, just to cover the Aesir's approach. And then, while they're shooting at Naglfar and the lightships, the gods smash their legs and deal with what's left.

"It's a good strategy, at least for now. So far they haven't caught on. I worry what will happen when they do, but I'm hoping our ground forces get here and break through before that becomes an issue.

"Anyway, what I really wanted to talk to you about was my communication with the Martians. Thank you very much for facilitating it for me. From what they said you had to yell down the phone for a while, so I hope you didn't have to burn too many bridges to make that happen.

"I spoke to their eldest, and he confirmed what I suspected. That area under the Lunar Planum has been known to be a temporally unstable location for quite some time. They say that, in ancient times, the elders would go there to talk to their ancestors, and receive visions of the past and future.

"And when they depicted it? They made it look like a ring.

"So I think we've found our culprit. There's a hole in time, down there, and it appears to be stable. Which means, to me at least, that it was artificially created.

"The real question is what's on the other end of that hole, and how strong of a grip the remnant of the Decreator's got on that side of things. That'll be one of the things the ground forces are going to find out. But when the moment comes? I'm going to be down there, with them, finding out.

"I know you're not going to talk me out of this, love. This is what I do. I'm the one who goes into the crashed spaceship, shakes the alien hand, and shoots it if needed. I'm also the one who pokes his hand into the anomaly to find out what's going on.

"And I can afford to lose a hand, as you know.

"So let's have none of you asking me if this is a good !@#$ing idea? Because you know all I can say is 'no,' followed by 'I'm doing it, anyway.' And you know why.

"And hopefully you love me for it. Because I love you for having to be the one to grab your gun, strap yourself to something fast and explosive, and fly it right down the throat of whatever giant threat to America's on the horizon, today.

"As for me, I was worried about you after our last communication. I know you can handle that backwards Earth asshole. But what you told me about the kids... well, that's got to be hard. Even if we knew it was coming, that's not something I think anyone can really be ready to face.

"I love you. I'm here for you. Hopefully we'll be able to do something about this. Hopefully I'll be home soon, and we can face this together, as we should.

"In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed that the ground forces do a fast job down below, and I manage to make it back to our time zone in a timely manner. Now that we actually have a wedding date booked in, and the deposit paid, I'd hate to have to miss it because of some weird Doctor Who bull!@#$, right?

"I love you. Be strong. Be amazing. Be you.

"And when you catch that other you? If you happen to blow his balls off? You step on one of them, just for me, and tell him I said hello.

"See? I made you smile, in spite of it all. That's love. And I love you.

"Bye bye from Mars, for now."

Sunday: 9/11/16

... punching punching kicking flailing end over end over head over barrel over and over and over again the two combatants struggle up and down the time stream over and under the water here and there then and now everywhere and everything the moment of birth the second of death and all points between...

* * *

"... the giant balls of what look like frozen sewage," Straffer says over the com system: "If you hit one, well, Raitha might be able to soak the damage. But I'd hate you to suffer an explosive decompression this close to the goal."

"I hear you there," Myron says, nodding to the Olympian in question -- spread-eagled on the prow of the massive lightship she's been maintaining since they left Earth -- who must have heard it, because she veers well clear of the crud in question.

"It'd be best if you just rendezvoused with Naglfar," Straffer says: "I'm sure you all want to get your boots on the ground, but-"

"I think getting out of here is all they really want, right about now," the former Underman says: "The ship, the planet, hell I think they'd take a long spacewalk right about now."

"Is everything alright?" the Director of the Space Service asks.

"Long story short? No," Myron admits, looking back along the length of the ship -- at one person in particular: "I'll tell you more when we meet. Quietly. In private..."

* * *

 ... moments and public encounters facts on record and unknown secret things the whole of a life the whole of two lives laid bare for each of them to attack and defend as they fall and rise trying to get purchase to gain advantage to feint to strike to dodge to cripple to end one another before they can even begin...

* * *

"...?" she asks, sitting next to the Outlaw Reporter, just outside the light of the largest fire, here.

"What do you mean?" Randolph Scott asks Yanabah, who's looking rather at home here, in spite of having no guns on her person.

"Last time I saw you, I was !@#$faced drunk and mean, and you told me off," she says, smirking at him over her dark glasses -- worn even at night, like something out of an 80's music video: "So here I am, and here you are..."

"I'm not drunk," the Outlaw Reporter says: "I wish I was, but you all didn't want any of that here."

"Yeah," she nods: "Looks like you could use some."

"I've had enough," he insists: "Enough wasted time, enough stupid !@#$. I need to do something worthwhile, here."

"Need to find the story, huh?" she says, looking over her glasses at him. Something about the hunger in those alien eyes gives him pause.

"Always," he says, steeling his resolve.

"Okay, then," she says, getting up and extending a hand: "Come with me, paleface. Let native guide show you the real !@#$."

He looks up at her, somewhat puzzled, but does as she says...

* * *

.. many things to his opponent and none of them are good they are hateful slithering things obscenities and threats and promises of ruin and degradation and decay the leering broken grin of the other Earth the eyes of death and pain he speaks of the rape of fathers the death of children the ruin of lovers and husbands and wives all done in the last seconds of his life as he lays broken and hopeless on the hard floor of time itself...

* * *

"... has been altered, in there," the UNSS scientist says to SPYGOD -- his face pale as he wipes sweat from his brow: "I don't understand what happened, sir. All we did was start disassembling her flying saucer, and as soon as we took the engine apart..."

"Everything went !@#$ing forwards, backwards, and blooey?" the superspy says, lighting up another one of the black cigarettes he doesn't even like as he sits behind his desk, and considers this.

"That's one way to say it. I was lucky to get out before the field enveloped the area. Anyone who goes in there gets torn apart by temporal forces. It's horrific-"

"Then stop !@#$ing sending people in there, moron," SPYGOD barks at him: "Seal the area off. Let no one go in."

"What do we do, then?" the scientist asks, too traumatized by what's happened to react to being yelled at by his Director's overbearing fiancee.

"Let me !@#$ing worry about that," the superspy says: "You got your orders, son. Do them. Yesterday."

He hangs up at that, sighs, and realizes he knows what this is, and what it means. 

He's known since he got his new eyes. Since he walked into that lake and found the time ship sitting there. 

Since he saw the weathered face of his mentor's old love, and had to cry with those new eyes...

He gets the White Phone out of his desk. He doesn't even have to dial it before the right person picks it up.

"It's time," he says to the God on the other end...

* * *

...over end over head over barrel over and over and over again the two combatants struggle up and down the time stream over and under the water here and there then and now everywhere and everything the moment of birth the second of death and all points between trying to get the advantage however slight in order to kill the other and while the Wandering Shadow won't hesitate the Time Agent wonders if there's some way this can be avoided some way to stop the inevitable some way to pull back from killing a man he's learned to respect while fighting now that he's seen his life and walked in his shoes and seen all he's done and learned even if he has become a powerful and mad dog on two legs and that's all the hesitation that dog needs to rear back and...

* * *

"... fuck..." the SPYGOD of Alter Earth says, sitting straight up in the bed he's stolen for the evening, looking at the wall with the sweat of a man who's just seen his own death.

"What is it?" the person he forced -- at least at first -- to have sex with him asks, not daring to open her eyes until he tells her he can look, again. 

He can't say, just yet. He closes and opens his eyes. Shakes his head to drive the vision out. 

But he can't unsee what he just saw. He can't remove the stray thread of what may have been dream or god-sent prophecy from his brain.

And for the first time in a long time, (DETCADER) feels something he does his best to engender in everyone he meets, friend or foe. 

Fear.

(SPYGOD is listening to The Untold (Front 242) and having a Devil Dancer)

Apotheoclypse Now: 8/29/16 - 9/4/16

"And disorder must come / and disorder must reign"
(The SPYGOD of Alter-Earth)

(Art by the Lemonade Project)

* * *

9

* * *

The storm is coming, and the Riders are ready. 

They stand on the shore, astride their horses, watching as the clouds approach.

The roaring of wind threatens to knock them over, but they stand tall. They've weathered far worse for far too long.

The trees bend and wave. The water rises and crashes. Still they stand, proudly.

The Baron. The Mother. The Old Man.

And there, standing where the sea meets the sand, Guede Loraj -- arms raised to the storm.

The moment comes. Their horses lift -- the poor and the wild of the small town the Guede have taken for their own, their eyes wild with the fire of Les Invisibles.

And whole, as horse and rider, they float out to meet the storm that's come to take them away from these islands.

Away, and off to someplace the dead can have their due...

 

Monday: 8/29/16

At first, Randolph Scott's not sure what he's seeing. Faces are hazy and indistinct, features blurred and uncertain. 

That isn't the only sense that's betrayed him, either. Smell is a broken thing, taste hopelessly garbled. And touch cycles in and out of usefulness, changing from ecstasy to pain every so often. 

But hearing? Oh, he's got that down. He can hear everything with crystal clarity. 

That's how he knows he's in a hospital. He can hear the beeping of the monitors, the drip of an IV, and the sounds of people going up and down a hallway -- the echoing clip-clop of feet on tile.

He can also tell who's in the room with him. The taciturn grunting. The hitched breathing. 

And finally, that voice -- the one he hasn't heard in person in forever. 

SPYGOD himself, leaning in close and telling him: "Son, you gotta !@#$ing tell us what happened."

And so he does...

* * *

"You..." Randolph Scott says, his eyes widening as he realizes just who has plopped himself down at his table at the Carnivore. 

"I'd certainly fucking hope so," the SPYGOD of Alter-Earth says, flourishing his hands and arranging the cutlery at his place: "I've spent a long time playing the part."

"You bastard," the Outlaw Reporter hisses, about to get to his feet. But then there's a weird pricking in the back of his neck -- a gun, placed just where his skull meets his neck.

"I do know who my father was, thank you," the man grins, pointing his finger down at the table: "And you will fucking sit down and not move. Otherwise I will have my friend blow your brains out of your skull and all over me. Understood?"

Scott nods, and puts his hands up, and then down flat on the table. 

"That's better," the Doppelganger says, clapping his hands together twice -- at which point every patron in the large dining room stops what they were doing, before, and surges into new and sinister motion...

* * *

 "... they were all his people," he tells SPYGOD, wondering why his eyesight is so poor: "I should have known from how they looked at me. That look in their eyes wasn't interest or suspicion. It was... !@#$, it was hunger."

"Hunger, huh?" the superspy says, his breath heavy with nicotine.

(He can smell properly, now, apparently. Thank the Gods for small favors.)

"Yeah. Like lions on the prowl looking at wildebeests, or something."

"Glad to know our taxpayers' waste of funding on PBS is expanding your !@#$ing horizons," SPYGOD snorts: "So what did his people do, then?"

"They took the place over in seconds," the outlaw reporter says: "It was swift and planned. They all pulled our weapons. Mostly long and evil looking knives, but some had guns. "

"What kind of guns?"

"Beretta M-12s. Does it !@#$ing matter?"

"Everything matters, son. What did they do with those guns?"

"They split into teams, with some rounding up the wait staff and shoving them to the center of the room. And some went to the exits and entrances and barred them. Shut it all up and down..."

* * *

 "Now," the man says, putting his hands back on the table, secure in his belief that he controls this place: "This is how it fucking goes, Randy. You and I are going to have a conversation. Call it an interview, if you want to. I bet you've wanted to ask me some things, especially after I killed your faggot friend?"

"You !@#$ng-" the Outlaw Reporter starts to say, but falls quiet as one of the man's followers jams a knife into one of the restaurant worker's throats -- almost decapitating him from the force of the blow

"Any more abuse or interruptions, and someone else fucking dies," the SPYGOD of Alter Earth promises, tapping the table with a long finger as the server gurgles his last, and the others scream and yell: "I know you don't care about yourself, Randy. But have some goddamn consideration for these poor people, here? I'm told the management doesn't pay them very well, and they don't make shit from the tips."

He laughs, then -- black and long -- and all his servants laugh along with him.

(Except for the ones who are at the giant roasting pit, by the kitchen. He can't see what they're doing from here, but it apparently involves a lot of grunting...)

* * *

"How did he look?" SPYGOD asks. 

"Like... I don't know," Randolph says, glad he can finally feel something clear and sensible coming from his toes, even if it's tingling: "What do you want me to say?"

"The truth, son. I thought that !@#$ was all you were interested in?"

"Do you mean good or bad?" the outlaw reporter asks, noticing how fast his words are coming to him -- almost manic: "Happy or sad? Relaxed or upright?"

"Confident or not?" SPYGOD asks.

"Oh, confident," Randolph replies, maybe quicker than he should: "Like a cat playing with a broken mouse. Assured as anything. The guy with all the good cards in his hand and a !@#$ing loaded gun under the table, too. 

"He had me, good and hard, and didn't want me to think otherwise..." 

* * * 

"So what's the catch?" Randolph asks, not sure where this is going: "Why am I having this conversation with you?"

"Well, that's fucking complicated," the alter-earth doppelganger says, grinning as he sips the bloody mary one of his people brought him: "But let's just say that I need you to take a message back to (REDACTED), and I need it to come from someone he can fucking trust."

"You're a little behind the !@#$ing times," the outlaw reporter smirks: "He and I haven't seen eye to eye in a while, now-"

"But he trusts you," the man says, pointing a finger: "Otherwise he wouldn't let you keep an eye on those fucking kids you rescued from those Nazis at the South Pole, now would he?"

Randolph grimaces at that, not liking how this man knows so much.

"Oh, I know alllllll about that, Randy," the man grins -- his smile a deep red, as though he were drinking blood: "I know about the Toon you've been fucking. I know how you two pretended to be superheroes. I know how you left her hanging so you could come here and make a deal with the fucking Wandering Shadow, himself, to have him fucking kill that waddling, orange-skinned piece of shit who's most likely going to be the next President of the USA.

"I even know where your top secret studio is..." he teases: "And one word from me? The whole place goes fucking boom"

"You couldn't know..." the outlaw reporter gasps.

"Prague," he says: "In Mala Strana, off Chelna Street. You picked it because of the Franz Kafka Museum. Your woman thought it was corny. You went with it, anyway. "

The SPYGOD of Alter Earth smiles deeper, and chuckles as his guest gets pale...

* * *

"... it's that Eye of Horus thing he showed off, the last time he was on tape," Randolph goes on: "He told me that it doesn't just let him turn people into.... into !@#$ing monsters. He says he can use it to spy on us, too."

"How?" SPYGOD asks, leaning in closer: "Did he say?"

"He didn't, no," the reporter goes on, now able to feel his knees: "Just that it's one peek at a time. But I guess a peek is all he needs." 

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. Those Bloody Marys he was drinking?"

"Yes?"

"Real blood," Randolph says, shuddering at the memory: "The guy behind the bar was bleeding himself out, one glass at a time..." 

* * * 

"... so here's the deal, Randy," the last inhabitant of Alter-Earth says, accepting another expertly-chilled glass of vodka and blood from one of his people: "All that shit I said, the last time I talked with you people?"

"You mean about not coming after you, or you'd shoot someone with that wondergun, or cause a rage outbreak in DC?"

"Yes," the man says, nodding: "Well, I think we need to renegotiate our understanding a bit."

"So you're making your move," Randolph says: "I was wondering when you'd crawl out from under your rock."

"Not really, no," his host replies, shaking his head: "The fact is... well, since the last time we talked? The playing board has changed. Drastically."

"How so?"

SPYGOD's doppelganger raises an eyebrow: "Are you that fucking stupid? Really?"

"Pretend I am. Tell me what you mean."

"The..." the man can barely say the word, but eventually pushes it out: "The gods are coming back, you goddamned moron. I know you know this. You were fucking there in Moscow, weren't you?"

"I've been a lot of places, but yeah," Randolph says, nodding: "So what's that to you?"

"Everything," his host insists: "They will fucking ruin everything if they get more of a foothold. We won't have any control over our destinies, anymore. We won't actually run the damn world. We'll be at the beck and call of a million fucking deities, all swarming around the world and telling us what to do."

"You think so, huh?"

"I know so, idiot," the Alter Earth SPYGOD hisses: "And once they've been here long enough to get a power base? They'll want more. They always do.

"And what do you think will happen once they start to encroach on one another's followers...?"

"What?"

"A God War, asshole. That's what."

"A God War."

"We had one on our world," the man insists: "It took two days to start, two fucking years to end, and wiped out hundreds of thousands. There's areas on the world that are... that were still uninhabitable because of it."

Randolph raises an eyebrow of his own at that. But he has to admit that, as much as he loathes this person, he was thinking the same thing, himself -- especially after the Olympians and the Aesir almost tore Moscow apart, and rendered a large area of Russia and Eastern Europe a toxic mess.

(He also wonders what that weird smell is, over by the kitchen. What are they roasting, over there...?)

* * *

"What were they roasting?" SPYGOD asks: "Do I even want to !@#$ing know?"

And Randolph looks at him -- feeling all the way up to his waist, now, and seeing a lot better -- and ruefully laughs as he ignores the question and goes on...

* * * 

"What are you offering?" Randolph asks: "You said I needed to sell SPYGOD on something. What is it?"

"I'm offering him a way to kill gods," the SPYGOD of Alter Earth says.

"Are you !@#$ing serious?"

"Oh, I am," the man nods, smiling as one of his people bring him a plate, a fork, and a very sharp knife -- whatever they're doing over by the kitchen must be almost done. 

(The smell is getting more pungent. And why are they grunting and groaning...?)

"What would you know about gods?" Randolph asks: "I thought you all had some weird Christ on your planet?"

"Oh, we had a lot of fucking gods," the man insists: "Ours and theirs, theirs being the lands we invaded and took for ourselves. And when their gods got fucking uppity? We killed them."

"How...?" Randolph asks: "I mean, the Warbots-"

"Those fucking things can only beat them back for a time" the man insists: "Especially because they're not at full strength, yet. They haven't fucking figured out how to do it, yet."

"Do what?"

"Anchor themselves to the world," he says, acting as though he were explaining something simple to an ignorant child: "You see, a god's only as strong as the belief that surrounds them. But if they wrap themselves in a human body, they can work themselves into the damn world. And some of them figured that shit out, didn't they?"

Randolph nods: "The Aesir have, yes."

"Well, there's one more step they can take," the doppelganger explains: "One more thing they can do to solidify their hold on the world. And as soon as they figure that shit out, you're all fucked..."

* * *

"Did he say what that was?" SPYGOD asks, thinking he already knows the answer to that question, somehow.

"Of course not," Randolph sighs: "He's not !@#$ing stupid-"

"The hell he isn't," the superspy shouts: "Dumb !@#$er played his hand. He knows we're onto him. That's why he's coming out and trying to get ahead of us. That's why he was so..."

He almost says 'nice.' But then he looks at Randolph, and stops talking.

And Randolph tries to close his eyes and laugh...

* * * 

"So say we're actually !@#$ing interested in what you're selling," Randolph Scott goes on, shrugging: "What's the selling price?"

"Africa," the Alter-Earth SPYGOD says, without missing a beat.

"Africa?"

"Is there an echo in here, Randy?" the man says, cupping his hand behind his ear: "Africa."

"Africa."

"Yes, Africa. The whole continent, from Cape Town to Cairo. I take Africa. I run it. I own it. You don't set foot here, and in return I won't fuck with you."

"Why?"

"Because it's fucking delightful," he says, smiling wide: "I spent all that time trying to corrupt people in Southeast Asia, but here? I hardly have to fucking try. It's corrupt, run down, teetering between chaos and order. One warlord wakes up in shitty mood and then there's another genocide in the papers.

"And the best part of it is...?" he grins even wider: "No one fucking cares! No one. I can do whatever I want, whenever, to whoever, and it'll just be another story in your papers. Not even a segment on your television."

Randolph looks at him with disdain, but has to admit he's right.

Still...

 The Outlaw Reporter smiles: "Good luck taking it, pal. It's protected."

"That's right," the man grins: "It is, isn't it? That shadow man with the time control powers. The same one you were going to meet with, here, right?"

Randolph's heart sinks at that, and the man grins even wider, somehow. 

"What did you do to him?" Randolph asks.

"Not much," the man says, winking over his drink: "I just showed him a thing or two he didn't already know. And once he was a little more in line with my way of thinking..."

"You..." Randolph Scott says: "You did the same thing to him you did to Jess, didn't you?"

"Gold star for the Outlaw Reporter!" his host says, putting the drink down and waving to the man behind the bar: "Get this man a fucking drink."

"I'm not having anything you're giving me, you sick !@#$-"

But then there's another gurgle from the knot of captured waiters, and the outlaw reporter sits back down...

* * *

"Why the hell would he give the gun to the Wandering Shadow?" SPYGOD asks, clearly agog: "That !@#$er's the most dangerous man on the damn planet, son. He makes me look like a baby shaking a !@#$ing rattle at the TV."

"Perfect person to have it, he said," Randolph explains, as best he can: "Unstoppable assassin. Time powers. Most dangerous gun in the world. There's no way to go wrong with that."

"Until he !@#$ing turns on him," SPYGOD shakes his head.

"He said he wouldn't."

"I say bull!@#$, son-"

"He says he only half-reprogrammed him," Randolph interrupts: "He said he'd start slipping back, every so often. Remembering how he was. And then he felt so damn sorry for himself that he'd do !@#$ing anything not to feel that way..."

SPYGOD looks at Randolph. Then away. Then he mouths a word or two, and shakes his head.

"I know," Randolph says: "He !@#$ing turned the most dangerous man in the world into a damn junkie. And after that, he didn't have to beat him or threaten him. 

"He just had to be a little late giving him another dose..."

* * *

"... alright, then," Randolph sighs, shaking his head: "It's a deal."

"It is?" the SPYGOD of Alter-Earth asks, raising an eyebrow over his eyepatch.

"Yes."

"Then tell me what the fucking deal is, Randy," the man says, putting his empty glass down and arranging his plate, as if he's expecting dinner any moment now.

(There is the sound of movement, over by the roasting pit. Someone's coming over here. The smell is getting more pungent by the second...)

"I'll tell him..." Randolph begins to say, and then decides he's had enough of this !@#$: "I'll tell him you want to !@#$ing exchange some secret he'll just !@#$ing figure out, anyway, in exchange for the continent. And then he'll !@#$ing find you and wring your neck so hard your head pops off your !@#$ing shoulders."

"I see," the man says, nodding: "So I take it you're not fucking convinced at the seriousness of the situation."

"Oh, this is pretty damn serious-"

"I offer you damn choice. You either arm yourself with my knowledge, or we all fucking die. Simple as that."

"According to you, anyway-"


"Do you think I'm just making shit up?"

"No, but..." he starts to say, but then trails off when he sees what's been brought out for the man to eat.

It's one of his people, stripped naked to the waist and sweating heavily. He's holding his right arm with his left hand, right at the elbow.

And everything below the right elbow has been roasted clear down to the bone, as if it were held over a naked flame for quite some time.

And it clearly was...

"Oh my God," Randolph says, watching as the man drops the useless arm on the plate, and then -- without so much as flinching -- pulls out one of the large, carving knives the staff uses here, and expertly slices his own lower arm off, just a half inch above where the roasting stops and relatively undamaged flesh begins.

"I like to have some pink meat in with the well-done parts," the SPYGOD of Alter-Earth explains, waiting patiently as the man carefully excises bone from flesh and muscle, and pulls back -- his arm bones raw and wet things, no longer attached to the rest of him.

He takes a fork to the steaming, twitching mess, and puts a warm mouthful between his lips. Chews, looks this way and that.

And then sighs: "Amare? This is a little underdone."

The man nods, sadly. And the person who's been standing behind Randolph this whole time takes the gun out from behind the Outlaw Reporter's head, blows the man's brains out, and then puts the warm, smoking gun right at Randoph's neck again...

* * *

".. ate it, anyway," Randolph says, twitching: "Right down to the bones. Smacked his lips and licked his fork and knife."

"And then what happened?" SPYGOD asks.

"And then another one of his people came...." the outlaw reporter says, trying to close his eyes again: "And another... and another... over and over until he got the perfect meal.

"And then...." Randolph gasps, suddenly really remembering...

* * *

"NO!" Randolph screams as he's placed on his back on the table -- rendered immobile below the neck by a well-placed blow to the back of his head. 

"See, you're being fucking silly, here," the SPYGOD of Alter Earth says, leaning over him with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other: "I've just ate half my weight in nigger arms. And now... I want dessert."

"You bastard," the outlaw reporter hisses: "I told you I'd cooperate-"

"I know, and I bet you will," the man goes on: "But you have to fucking understand, Randy, there's a certain music to this sort of thing. A dance, if you will. And part of the dance is that I can't just let you walk out of here unharmed and whole, because then he wouldn't believe you actually met me. 

"Or, worse," the man goes on: "He might not fucking take me seriously. And given how important it is that he takes me seriously? Well..."

The man shrugs, and then takes a look at Randolph's face -- moving the knife from feature to feature.

"You can't..." Randolph says, realizing what's about to happen.

"I will," the man says, holding up a cell phone with the other hand: "And you'll fucking let me do it without so much as a scream, or I'll make a phone call to Prague, and your whole clan of Nazi love clones and Toon pussy will be blown to Hell. Got that?"

One look from the man's eye and he knows he's not lying. He's capable of doing it. He will !@#$ing do it.

So Randolph nods, and closes his mouth as best he can. 

"Cut off your nose to spite your face?" the doppelganger muses, moving the knife this way and that: "Or shall we go cheek to cheek? Or perhaps these lips, the better to not kiss your Toon fuckpuppet...."

He opens Randolph's mouth: "Oh, what's a reporter without a tongue to speak? Or maybe that weird dangly thing at the back of your throat... oh, wait, it'll fall down before I can get it out, and you'll just fucking puke all over this suit. And do you know how many people I had to fucking skin alive to get enough material to make it?"

He shakes his head, and considers each ear. But then he narrows his eyes, and looks at Randolph's one good one.

"How obvious," he chuckles, sticking the knife under the lid, slowly moving the sharp tip between muscle and bone...

* * *

Randolph's gone into hysterics, now. The nurses have come to give him a sedative, and hold him down.

Keep him from clawing at the bandage over what was his one, good eye. 

There's just his prosthetic, now. The third-hand, Army surplus piece of !@#$ he'd had installed sometime after the Reclamation War. SPYGOD could have gotten him a much better one, if he'd just asked. 

But he hadn't asked. And sometimes the superspy even understands why...

So he stands outside the room of the crowded, Nairobi hospital -- next to his COMPANY guards, ready to blow away anyone who even looks at them funny -- and crosses his arms. Scowls. 

"Africa, huh?" he says to his invisible enemy, who for all he knows is looking at him, right now, through that chunk of his world's Decreator: "You must be !@#$ing nuts if you think I'm trading you so much as !@#$ing Zanzibar for what I can learn on my own."

He has more thoughts than that -- a lot more. But he keeps them to himself, for now. 

He'll stand here with the guards until Randolph calms down, and maybe goes to sleep. He'll sit in that room, all night long, making sure no one hurts this young man any further. 

He'll call Karl up tomorrow, and let him know what's happened. Hopefully the kid will know how to break the news to Velma and the others. 

(Hopefully he won't make this any more damned awkward than it has to be)

And then he'll dig under every nasty rock, into every black hole, and across the length and width of this world until he finds that piece of !@#$ that shares his face and make him pay for what he's done to Randolph.

For what he's done to the  former President. His wife, and his daughter. 

For what happened to Jess, and to Gayle. For Wayfinder and Dr. Krwi. 

For everyone that sick !@#$ has harmed, maimed, mutilated, and killed, or made wish they got off that damn easy. 

And he will laugh, long and hard, to see that bastard breathe his last. 

Tuesday: 8/30/16

"So," the head of the Republican National Committee says, shaking the Candidate's hand as they meet at the fancy restaurant the front runner insisted on going to: "Tomorrow's the big day, huh?"

"You could say that," the beefy, big-haired man says, waiting for one of the harried, well-dressed waiters to pull out his chair so he can sit down. The waiter doesn't do the same for his guest, though.

Clearly they know where the power resides, in this conversation.

"Have you decided how you're going to work this?" his guest says, doing his best to not let his face reflect the snub: "Mexico's been one of your talking points, after all."

"And rightly so," the Candidate says, giving the menu a cursory look before deciding to just get the house special -- some weird meat and grain thing that costs over a hundred dollars a slice: "Illegal immigration. Drugs. Rape. Gang violence. And that White City, now, too."

"Well, it would probably be best if we left that talking point off the table," the RNC head says, trying to smile: "After all, they did help us save the world, over a month ago-"

"No sir," the Candidate says, shaking his head and tapping the table: "No they did not. They did not."

"Now look-"

"You were never in business for yourself, were you?"

"Well, I was a lawyer-"

"That's not really business," the man dismisses him: "You were a clerk who made the right friends, tried to get elected, and failed. And then you realized, smart move by the way, that you'd do better getting other people elected. Very smart move."

"Well, thank you-"

"Smart move for you, because you don't understand how business works," the Candidate goes on: "And politics is all about business. All about it."

"You think I don't know that?" the RNC head says, shaking his head: "I am the head of the-"

"Yes, and you're doing a bad job of it," the Candidate says: "Which is why, after this election? You're going to step down, and you're going to give it to one of my people."

His guest blinks, then gasps: "What?"

"You heard me," the beefy man says, adjusting the sigil he wears on his collar, right next to the obligatory American flag pin: "You can go through the motions, and support me. You can badmouth me, in public or private. I don't care what you do, because I don't need you."

"I think you do," the man says, flabbergasted: "I think you need to listen to what people like me are saying, especially in this race."

"No. I don't."

"Well, of course you don't," he says, taking his napkin from his lap and tossing it onto the table between them: "You never listen to anyone. And anyone you do listen to is just telling you what you want to hear.

"But let me tell you something, and I hope this sticks," he goes on, tapping the table with his finger for emphasis: "This is a four way race, now. And it might become a five way if the Christians leave the party to back Ted Cruz. Right now he is more popular than Jesus with them."

"I'm very popular too," the Candidate says, nodding and pointing at himself: "You read the polls for a living. You should know this."

"I do, yes. I can tell you that while be getting and keeping the Joe and Jane Six Pack people, the dog whistle people, and the outright racists and haters we really wish the Democrats would take back? The Bible thumpers aren't buying it. And the fiscal conservatives are about ready to jump ship and leave with them.

"Now, maybe they vote Libertarian. Maybe they don't vote at all. But they're not going to vote for you, in November.

"But if Ted Cruz does run? And they think they can put their vote behind a real candidate, with a real chance...?"

He lets the point hang for a moment, and then looks the Candidate square in the eyes: "So here's the deal, sir. You listen to what I've been saying. You pivot like the Devil was right behind you. You go down to Mexico, shake hands with their President, stop talking nonsense about making them pay for your wall, and leave the White City entirely off the table.

"You do all that, and maybe you'll have a chance of winning. And if I have to step down after that, so you can give one of your solid gold sycophants a job? Well, fine. I'd rather have you in power than Sanders or Stein or any of those other left wing nitwits who think they can win. At least I think I can work with you. At least I think America will be better off with you.

"But you go down there and make a damned fool of yourself, like I think you will?" he says, getting up from the table and preparing to leave: "The RNC will drop you. We will put all our resources into maintaining a hold on the Senate and the House, Governors and Legislatures. Hell, even dog catchers if that's what it comes down to. But you will be left to twist in the wind with no support, no ground work, no nothing."

"Is that your final offer?" the Candidate asks, putting his hands on the table.

"Yes," the head of the RNC says, not happy to continue the business metaphor: "That is my final offer, sir. You play by the rules and let us help you, or you play by your own rules and we step aside. Your race, your choice."

"Alright, then," the beefy man says, nodding and looking down at the menu again: "Too bad. You would have loved this meal."

And there's nothing his now-former guest can say to that, other than to leave as quickly as he can, make a few phone calls, and pray sense strikes the fat !@#$ in the next 24 hours.

Wednesday: 8/31/16

"You !@#$ing sure about this, Myron?" SPYGOD asks the former Underman as they walk through the Flier, which is rather damn busy this day.

"Totally," the hero says: "If you're saying Mars is having problems underground? Then I want in on it."

"It'll be damned dangerous, son," the superspy says, leading them off to his office: "If what George is saying is correct, well, those giant !@#$ing crab things are going to be tumbling out of the damn hole a dime a damn dozen."

"I know that," Myron says, wondering if there's anywhere for him to sit in this large, darkened office of his, or if he's just supposed to stand: "But I also know that if you're going to to be doing any warfare underground, I'm the best person for the job."

"I could get the Martians to do it, you know," SPYGOD says, easing himself back behind the massive desk, and then spreading out across his chair: "It's their damn world, after all. About !@#$ing time they got involved in taking it back."

"Well, I wasn't planning on !@#$ing going it alone," the Lithonaut chuckles: "So if they want me out front? Great. They just want me along for the ride? Great. Either way, I want in."

SPYGOD looks at him, somewhat intently -- over the top of his round, black sunglasses -- and then smiles: "You just want to !@#$ing explore Mars, don't you?"

"Um... guilty as charged?"

"About !@#$ing time you fessed up, son," the superspy laughs, and then lights up another of his long, black cigarettes: "Consider it done."

"Well... wow," Myron says, saluting in shock: "Thank you. I'll do that. Yes. Thank you."

"Don't have a !@#$ing heart attack or anything," his boss says, taking a long drag off the black stick: "It's not like this is a thank you for !@#$ing Moscow, or anything. You're the best man for the job. The fact that you want this like a blowjob on Christmas morning just makes it a hell of a lot easier to hand it off to you."

"Do I get a team?" he asks.

"You do," the Superspy says, looking down at some of his readouts and screens: "I get final approval, though. And keep in mind that I'm gonna !@#$ing need some folks to stick the hell around for national defense, as well as dealing with that damn storm that's gonna hit Florida later this week."

"Should I recruit from the Heptagon basement?" Myron asks.

SPYGOD looks up at him for as moment: "Myron, the last time I let you play Suicide Squad it didn't turn out too !@#$ing well."

"No, but I think I've learned since then...?"

SPYGOD looks at him. Considers. Nods.

"Alright, then," he says: "But be really !@#$ing careful. Some of those folks got more damn issues than National Geographic."

"Sounds like a walk in the park after Moscow," Underman says: "I'll get the band together, and get you a list."

"You do that," SPYGOD says, waving him away from the desk.

After Myron's gone, he remote-closes the door to the office, and looks at a particular file he's had waiting for him for a day or so. It's big and black and is stamped ABWEHR, and he hesitates about ten times before finally picking it up and reading it.

At which point he remembers why he really didn't want to...

* * *

"A nation of dumb rapist junkies," Karl says, looking at the news coming over the feed: "Really."

"Oh, it gets worse," Helga says, leaning back in her chair -- not liking how creaky her spine feels, today: "Before all that, he said he'd use the American military to enforce them financing the building of the wall."

"And he said they were in cahoots with the Olympians," Jana snorts: "Went wild on that point, really."

"And all the while?" Helmut laughs, pointing at the photos coming in: "The poor man's just standing there, at his podium, listening to what that fat piece of schiesse is saying about his country, and him, and.."

He looks away from the photos for a second, and then shakes his head: "I'm sorry. What were we talking about?"

"The Mexican President," Karl says, his heart skipping a beat, scared to see this happen.

"Sorry," his clone brother says: "It's just, well, with what's happened to father, and having to come down here to Nairobi to work, and..."

"And," Helga sighs, nodding as she looks from one to the other.

"Yes," Jana says, taking her hand: "We know."

We all know, don't we? Karl says to them all, over the mental link they share with one another. 

And they do. 

And there, in the privacy of their minds, they decide what they're going to do about it. 

Thursday: 9/1/16

"In my youth, at the foot of my father, Bor, I learned many ways to trap an enemy," Odin says, his spear at the ready: "But I must say I never liked to use other warriors as bait."

"You didn't like the risk of losing them?" Director Straffer asks, his lightship powered down so low its illumination is a mere glimmering in the darkened cavern.

"I did not like the sight of them rushing away, as though they were frightened children," the Lord of the Aesir chuckles: "But here we are, asking my mighty and noble Aesir to scream and cry like cowards fleeing the Fenris Wolf."

"Hey, if it works, it works," the blonde cyborg chuckles: "Besides, we do a lot better dealing with these crab things if we trap them like this."

"I miss the true battle," Odin sighs, looking to the other Aesir that stands beside him -- waiting for their fastest and most nimble brothers and sisters to come rushing around the corner: "An honorable clashing of armies in the night!"

"I know," Straffer says, looking to the other lightships with him: "But until we get reinforcements from Earth, this is the best way to deal with what we've got left." 

"Do we know who shall be sent to our side?" Ve asks, pulling his/her sword out as she starts to hear the others approaching -- their hue and cry shrill, and what follows behind them booming and horrible: "The strongest of warriors? The most cunning? The most dangerous?"

"Knowing my fiancee?" Straffer says, getting ready to light up and fire at what's approaching: "Some really damn good combination of those, plus a ringer or two..."

* * *

"Um, why am I here?" Senator Cruz asks, still not entirely sure where 'here' is, other than a darkened, metal room, possibly underground.

"Long story short?" Myron says, looking down at the man in the chair -- the one the Roaring Boys just brought in and un-blindfolded: "Your country needs you, sir."

"What?"

"Oh, sorry," Myron chuckles, sitting down in a chair across from the Senator and putting his hands on the table between them: "I've always wanted to say something like that."

"I see."

"Did it come across too...?"

"Silly," Ted Cruz says: "It sounded silly."

"Okay, then," Myron nods, leaning back in the chair: "Note to self. Self? Don't say that again."

"Why am I here, sir?"

"Because..." the hero says, and then sighs: "Crap. I can't use that line!"

"No, you can't," the Senator says, shaking his head: "And I am really starting to get upset with you, Mr...?"

"Myron," he says, extending his hand to shake: "I'm in the Freedom Force-"

"Oh, that's right," Cruz says, shaking his hand somewhat carefully: "I've seen you before. You're Underman, right?"

"Yes, but I try to not use that name. Myron's just fine."

"Any reason why?"

"A lot of reasons. I'd rather not get into them."

"Sir, I was sitting at home, drinking coffee, when someone knocked on my door," the Senator goes on: "I went to answer it, and the second I got up from the chair someone I couldn't even see tapped me on the back of the head with something. Then I woke up here, in a blindfold, and now I'm in this room."

"That sounds like the Roaring Boys," Myron says.

"So if you'd be good enough to answer a question or two? I think that would be really swell."

"I don't like using the name because I bought it from the previous owner," Myron admits, after a second: "He was a supervillain who wanted to retire. I was a stupid kid who wanted his drill tank and maps to inner Earth. So I made a deal with the Legion to buy it, and was in the middle of my first, very inept bank heist when the COMPANY caught me. They made me an offer I literally could not refuse, and I've spent that last few years being a superhero, a consultant, and a few other things I'd have to kill you after I told you about-"

"That might be a little difficult," the Senator says, somewhat drolly. 

"True, which is part of why you're here. And then, to top it all off, I had the old man I bought the name from trying to !@#$ing kill me for it-"

"Can we please watch the language?"

"Sorry. Flipping kill me for it-"

"Sir!" Senator Cruz says, holding up his hands: "I think I get the gist. Now please, tell me why I am here?"

"Well, you know we retook Mars from the Decreator," Myron explains: "Bottled the thing up, got it somewhere safe, and then mopped up what was left?"

"I did get a national security briefing as part of my maybe running for the Presidency, yes."

"Well, that briefing is a little out of date," the hero says, patting his hands together: "It turns out some weird time and space thing is sh.... er, excreting giant poop crabs, which are making the retaking of Mars something of an uphill battle for the folks who are there. They aren't well suited for a ground campaign, especially one that requires them to go under the ground."

"So you want me along?" the Senator asks, clearly dumbfounded.

"Yes. We're about to do something really damn dangerous and insane on Mars. And given your powers, and what you were able to do during the Not The Apocalypse? I think you're perfect for the team."

"Sir, your timing is very poor," Cruz says, shaking his head: "Not many people know this, but I was going to call a press conference on Sunday, after church, and announce that I am throwing in my hat for a third party run for the Presidency."

"Alright," Myron says, putting his hands back together and leaning forward: "We blast off on Sunday."

"So you see it won't work-"

"You could make the announcement, and then take off with us."

"Why on Earth would I do that?" the Senator says, almost laughing. 

"Three reasons," Myron says, holding up a hand to count them down on his fingers: "One, your country needs you to use your powers to save Mars. Two, if you save Mars? You save the Earth. The two planets are linked, now.

"And three?" Myron goes on, grinning: "You'll be the first President to campaign while actively fighting in a war, as a superhero. And as you can't be killed, and will most likely be caught on camera several times smacking these poop crabs into orbit? 

"I'd say you'll have a very good chance of actually being elected."

He looks at the Senator, who looks back at him. At first he's incredulous, but then his gaze softens, and he thinks about it. 

He takes his time thinking about it, of course. But after the first minute Myron's certain he made up his mind to say 'yes' almost right away. 

He just doesn't want to seem too eager at this moment in time.

Friday: 9/2/16

"Sir, we've got problems," Hanami radios back to the Flier from the center of Hermine, just east of Tallahassee.

"What kind of !@#$ing problems you got?" SPYGOD snorts, watching the satellite footage of the tropical storm from the Flier's control deck as his people shove every report under the sun into his face for him to read, date, and sign.

"I'm under attack!" the Japanese android shouts, dodging the blows of the several people who are in the storm with her: "Multiple entities. Humanoid, and very powerful. I'm-"

She gets hit square across the face by one of them -- the blow is like being struck by a mountain.

"Taire, petit fille," the Baron says, watching her fly away into the winds and the storm: "Ceci est notre nouvelle maison. Il ist temps pour vous de quitter."

The Guede laugh at that, and then go back to urging the storm further inland -- bringing the souls of their dead with them.

Hanami comes back online a second later, her neck rotors somewhat out of kilter for having weathered that blow.

"Sir, they might be too powerful for me to take out," she admits: "Even the Mega-Laser didn't so much as singe them."

"Alright, then," SPYGOD says, realizing what's going on here is no less than a damn incursion: "Get back with the others on land. Contribute to life saving and damage control. I'll handle these !@#$ers."

He turns to the nearest AGENT: "Get me the white phone."

"Aren't we supposed to save that for the ultimate emergency, sir?" the AGENT asks, and gets his feet shot at in response.

"The goddamn white phone, son!" the superspy shouts, putting his gun away as the AGENT he's shouting at runs to do as he's been told: "And a bottle of Jack Daniels! It's going to be one of those !@#$ing days!"

* * *

 "Oh, those poor people," Martha Clutch says, watching the television from the cavernous but warm family room, not far from Thomas' area.

He's been wheeled out here, with her. He's still not responsive, even a week later. Every so often he looks like he's going to say something, but then doesn't. 

"I think we should pray for them, don't you think?" she asks, taking his hand in hers: "I know it's what we'd normally do. Do you think you can pray with me?"

There's no response to that, either. He just sits there, in his chair, looking at the television -- the storm, the winds, the flooding. 

But she prays, anyway. And in that prayer she throws in another word for Thomas, and the hopes that he recovers. 

And behind his eyes -- lurking in the dark coils of his brain -- something chuckles and wonders how long it can hide here, both from her and that god she insists on petitioning...

* * *

Mssr Andek looks over the note, one more time, and then prepares to put it into an envelope, and then send it to his superiors in FAUST.

He could just email them, of course. But some things should be handled with class and dignity.

(Plus, if he emailed them, they'd have enough time to stop him. And he hasn't figured out how to delay delivery on those infernal things, yet...)

It's quite a moment for him, really. Ponderous, even. The weight of his upcoming actions is almost crushing, but yet at the same time so incredibly freeing.

He knows what he's about to do is right. He knows this.

And yet, deep down, in the smallest pit of his heart where he's buried all doubts, all considerations, and all fear, he can't help but hear that one last piece of reason crying out of the wilderness, begging to be heard.

It says that, no matter what he thinks, the patient will not be better off if he takes her out of where she is now, and places her in more private and secure surroundings.

It also says that his chateau in Languedoc is not secure, especially given her talents and tendencies.

And it insists -- screams, even -- that the only reason he's doing this is because he thinks he loves her, and has fixated an unhealthy interest upon this attractive, young woman.

Think of his career! His future! His otherwise-spotless legal record!

(Not to mention the fact that he'll be releasing one of the most dangerous people in the world back out into it again...)

But Mssr Andek -- a firm believer in the power of visualization -- closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and makes those doubts and fears fall even deeper into the pit he's tossed them into. He can see them falling down, down, down, past all the childhood taunts and traumas, all the broken bones and skinned knees, all the times his uncle showed him his special room and his mother told him to tell no one...

All those old and sad things, now joined by his last piece of sanity -- begging him to not make the worst mistake of his life.

And so he does not hear them. Not when he posts the letter, knowing it won't get there until at least Wednesday of the next week. Not when he makes the flight arrangements through a private courier FAUST sometimes uses to transport people to black sites.

And not when he travels to the Habitrail, on a day he knows Mister Freedom will not be there, to retrieve the patient FAUST has allowed him to supervise the treatment of.

The former President's lovely, if deadly, daughter...

 

Saturday: 9/3/16

"So how are you !@#$ing doing, son?" SPYGOD asks, standing at the foot of Randolph Scott's hospital bed.

"Just great," the outlaw reporter says, patting his hands on his chest: "Really."

The superspy nods, knowing the lie for what it is.

They've got him in stepdown, as he's well out of the damn woods. The socket is healing nicely, and they've got it covered up with a standard, one-size-fits-all eyepatch.

(He looks diminished in a hospital gown, though. Ridiculous, even.)

"The doctors say the nerve's !@#$ed," SPYGOD says, looking around for a chair, and wondering if he should stand or not: "They might be able to regenerate it, though."

"A parting gift from our friend," Randolph says, nodding: "He just couldn't resist one last mean trick."

"No," SPYGOD says, shaking his head: "I'm !@#$ing sorry, son. He's goddamn evil. But then I figure you know that."

"I thought I did, after everything that happened with Gayle, and Jess," Randolph admits: "But I didn't really understand it until I was sitting there, across from him, with my family's lives in his hands, and him..."

He screws up his face, not wanting to talk about it, anymore.

"I see they've all been in to see you," SPYGOD says, trying to change the subject: "That go well?"

"It sure did," Randolph nods: "Funny damn thing, though."

"What?"

"Well, I figured Velma was going to hug me and then slap my !@#$ing face off, after how we left things?"

"Looks like that ugly mug's still there, though," the superspy smiles: "Wonder what !@#$ing happened."

"Well, craziest damn thing," Randolph says, sitting up a little: "She tells me that you told her that I wasn't quite myself."

"Yeah," SPYGOD nods: "Medusa Oblongada got a good, long look at you one day. Must have put the idea into your head to go talk the !@#$ing Wandering Shadow himself into assassinating the Republican Candidate."

"Now why the hell would she do that?" the outlaw reporter asks, more than a little incredulous.

"Well, I guess she knew all the !@#$ that !@#$er did to you, back when he wasn't quite himself," the superspy shrugs: "And figured she could push you into doing it. She was always into that sort of !@#$. Just one little push and a saint becomes a sinner, or a crook a catspaw."

"Yeah," Randolph says, sitting up all the way, and fixing his one, good eye on SPYGOD: "Except that Medula's been dead since the 90's. You put a damn bullet in both her eyes when she tried to get Clarence Thomas to shove a coke bottle up his ass."

The superspy blinks: "Do I even want to know how you !@#$ing know that, son?"

"Gosheven's just full of amusing stories," Randolph says: "And I guess you like to !@#$ing brag about !@#$ like that when the quiet's too loud for your liking."

"Guess I do," SPYGOD nods: "Okay, then. I lied to her. She thinks you were mind controlled when you went and did that stupid goddamn !@#$ing thing that almost got you abandoned and killed."

"Why?" the outlaw reporter asks, shaking his head: "Why the hell would you do that...?"

"This is also what a man does, it seems," the superspy says, looking over his glasses at the outlaw reporter as he quotes a certain news article he read, once: "Cover for a friend."

For a moment, Randolph doesn't know what to say. He looks at one edge of the room, and then the other.

"I didn't think you read that," he finally says: "After everything that happened after, I wasn't sure you even had time."

"SPYGOD knows all, son," his visitor says, sitting down in the chair across from the bed: "Sees all, hears all, and reads all. Even if it is on some !@#$ty left wing internet site that was too stupid to keep you on."

"I !@#$ing rage-quit," Randolph insists: "And I did it for you."

"I know."

"I did a lot of !@#$ing things for you."

"I know that, too," SPYGOD says, wondering if he should light up in here. Also wondering if he should offer him one.

"And in return, you lie to protect me."

"I did, yeah," the superspy admits: "You got a !@#$ing problem with that, son?"

"Oh you bet I do," Randolph says: "How dare you? How !@#$ing dare you lie to her about this? To them? How dare you not let me make my own damn decisions and live with the consequences of them?"

"What, you want them to !@#$ing leave you?" SPYGOD asks, somewhat incredulous: "You want them to wash their damn hands of you? Really?"

"I want my life back," the outlaw reporter says: "I want to be free of you pulling my !@#$ing strings!"

"Is that what you think all this is?"

"Isn't it?" Randolph insists, gesturing wildly: "I mean, Jesus !@#$ing Christ! Every time I turn around someone's !@#$ing interfering in my life! First it's your roaring boys !@#$ing kidnapping me, every so often."

"If you're talking about Libya, you !@#$ing needed to see that, son-"

"And that whole mess in Africa-"

"Which could have been avoided if you'd kept our kids out of Israel like I !@#$ing told you to-"

"And then I get hit by a damn bike and your people put me back together-"

"You're welcome, by the way."

"And ever since then, I can't be sure what the hell I'm doing is actually my doing or not!" Randolph almost screams: "I don't know if my choices are my own, or if you're manipulating me, somehow!

"And then when I finally meet someone I care about? Someone I think I can spend the rest of my !@#$ing life with? Someone good and decent and smart and caring...?"

He screws up his face. He can't cry from his empty socket or the cybernetic eye, and that hurts worse than he could ever have imagined. 

"Look, son," SPYGOD says: "I'm sorry that happened. She was a good asset. A good woman-"

"Asset," Randolph snorts: "See? You can't even stop thinking of people as things. So how am I supposed to-"

He shuts up the second the bullet hits the back of the wall over his bed.

"Now, if you're !@#$ing ready to listen to me?" SPYGOD asks, putting the small, trick gun back into his coat sleeve, where he's whipped it out of: "I never, ever pulled your damn strings, son. All you've ever done? All you ever will do? That's all you, son. All of it.

"Now, all I ever did? All I have ever !@#$ing done? That's try and keep you alive, son. Try and keep you from crashing and !@#$ing burning like everyone else I've ever brought into this !@#$.

"And the truth son?" he admits, deciding he's going to light up here after all -- !@#$ it, he just shot the wall: "I think I !@#$ing failed. I think in trying to keep you from turning into another Ben Graines I just... !@#$..."

"Ben Graines," Randolph says, nodding: "The guy who was assigned to you in Vietnam, right?"

"You heard of him?"

"Who !@#$ing hasn't?" the outlaw reporter says: "He's still taught as a lesson in Journalism school. Him and Hunter S. Thompson and a couple other people, held up as prime examples of why you can't let yourself become the damn story."

"Yeah," SPYGOD says, pulling out the pack and his lighter: "Except that he didn't start out that way. I !@#$ing broke him, son. I had him assigned to me so I could drag his pro-commie ass through the jungle and watch him lose pieces of himself."

"Why?" Randolph asks, clearly interested.

"Because he !@#$ing !@#$ed me off," the spy admits, lighting up and taking a long drag: "Because he called me a goddamn war pig. Because I saw the fire in his eyes and wanted to drop my pants, pull out my !@#$, and !@#$ all over them until his brains stopped burning and his mouth stopped working.

"And then, one day, I realized that I hadn't !@#$ing made him shut the hell up. I'd just turned him into me."

Randolph looks at him, then. Then he looks at the room's mirror, across from the bed -- low enough for him to look at his own face. The magnificent, cybernetic ruin at the back of his skull.

His missing eye, covered with a standard, black eyepatch.

"So, I'm you," Randolph says: "Is that what you're trying to !@#$ing say?"

"Aren't you?" SPYGOD asks, inhaling and exhaling -- speaking through a cloud of black, thick smoke: "Aren't you a goddamn master manipulator, now? Aren't you the man who won't !@#$ing stop for anything to get at the damn truth and use it? The man who can turn one of my agents and make him go rogue? Or can make a couple phone calls and make his own !@#$ing superteam?

"The man willing to !@#$ing kill anyone, anytime, to protect what's yours...?"

The outlaw reporter looks at him, his cybernetic eye clicking and whirring in its socket, and then nods: "Okay. Maybe I am. Maybe you !@#$ed me up and turned me into you-"

"No damn maybe about it, son. But it's not because I !@#$ing manipulated you. It's because I didn't."

They look at one another for a while. One of them blinks and looks away first, but neither is sure who.

"So what do we !@#$ing do, then?" Randolph asks: "Where do we go from here?"

"Well, I go back to DC and un!@#$ the !@#$ this new situation's left me with," the superspy says, standing up and blowing another cloud: "As well as deal with a few other !@#$ing lit fuses I gotta !@#$ on to put out. You know how things are."

"And me?"

"You?" SPYGOD says, pointing a finger: "You go back to that woman who loves you, and our kids, and you !@#$ing tell the truth for as long as you're able, loud as you can, and stay with them as long as you're lucky enough to have them in your damn life."

"We're gonna have to leave Prague," the outlaw reporter sighs: "The bastard knows where we are."

"Then you leave,"  SPYGOD says, tossing the spent cigarette in the nearest trash receptacle: "Stay !@#$ing mobile. Don't stay anywhere long enough for him to plant a damn bomb. Switch back and double track. You know the damn drill."

"Any other words of advice?" Randolph Scott asks.

"Yeah," the superspy says, turning in the doorway and holding up a finger: "Don't ever pull a !@#$ty stunt like this again. You might not understand this, but I have to safeguard the President's life with my own. Regardless of what I !@#$ing think of him. Even if they're !@#$ing terrible people.

"And if I have to choose between you putting a bullet into him, or me putting one into you...?"

He lets the point hang, and then turns to leave.

And he's well down the hallway -- arguing with hospital administrators about the gunfire -- before Randolph can think of a sufficiently-worthy comeback. 

Sunday: 9/4/16

The Loa finally step onto shore at New Jersey, of all places -- brown feet smoking as they touched down, white eyes blazing with ancient power as they surveyed their new world. 

Around them, the ghosts of their dead hurl through the air, screaming and laughing. They can smell new and healthy flesh, not too far away from the whirling edge of the storm. All they have to do is go out there and take it. 

But no sooner do they head in that direction, at the black urging of the Baron and his wife, than they stop in their tracks and speed back the way they came. 

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" the old man says, adjusting the old, 19th century eyeglasses he wears and looking at the storms beyond.

"Better run run run run, run run run awayyyyy..." SPYGOD announces, marching out of the storms towards them, and carrying a very large handgun.

One that has a black, upside-down crucifix dangling from the butt.

"Qui es-tu, petit homme?" the Baron's wife asks.

"This is America, lady," the superspy chuckles, hefting the gun up at her: "Speak English or die."

The mother laughs, but stops laughing the moment a cursed bullet flies out of the gun and strikes her between the eyes -- not quite turning her head inside out, and dropping her horse to the ground. 

"I take it I got your !@#$ing attention?" SPYGOD says, watching as the other Loa step back from the body, and her spirit goes to join the other ghosts, flying around the storm: "Here's the deal. You want to come to America? You get in !@#$ing line and go through immigration. Cases like yours? You go through me.

"And believe me, the line is long, boring, and full of !@#$ing paperwork. So I hope you're prepared to wait."

"You do not scare us," the Old Man sneers: "You can only kill the flesh. The spirit is eternal. The Mysteries all powerful."

"Yeah, well, about that..." SPYGOD says, stepping to the side to let someone else come out and talk to them.

All the Loa gasp and step back, then, suddenly realizing what really sent their ghost storm into retreat. 

"Ah, such a banquet you have brought before me," Skull-faced Satanoth chuckles, raising his powerful and mighty hands to the wind-filled sky: "Such a thoughtful gift, my cousins! I do accept this meal in the name of better relations from here on out..."

And then, with one mighty breath, he both inhales and eats every single ghost that came riding on the storm -- including the Mother, who is as helpless as they are against his eternal hunger. 

"So," SPYGOD says, raising the gun once more and aiming it right at the Baron's forehead: "What's it going to be, mother!@#$er? Hell and damnation, or immigration?" 

The answer surprises no one, and as SPYGOD chuckles...

* * *

... Senator Cruz, looking strange in a space combat suit, addresses the cameras of the entire world at the foot of the Space Elevator -- gambling his entire political career on this stunt...

... as Myron watches, nearby, and hopes the less upstanding contingent of their away mission doesn't do or say anything stupid to ruin the man's moment...

... which the Candidate watches with some concern, and wonders if what that no-necked nobody from the RNC had to say was right, or just another empty threat...

... which King Whip takes into consideration, as he pulls into the worst parts of Detroit, in search of his old ally in dark magic -- who he hasn't heard from in far, far too long...

... while Martha calls into Chicago, making sure everything's okay with Green Fury and the Talon, as they've had to police the city all by themselves since she started looking after Thomas...

... who is standing up in his room, now -- unheard and unseen -- and chuckling at how easy it is to fool these mortals, and perform many crucial and complex actions between the blinks of their eyes...

... which the SPYGOD of Alter-Earth is ripping from his people's sockets in angry, shrieking rage -- unable to enter the Wandering Shadow's lair, for some reason, and knowing it means their understanding has somehow come to an end...

... which would amuse Randolph Scott to no end, except that he's trying to summon up the courage to tell Velma the truth, only to have that moment interrupted by their kids telling them something a lot harder to hear...

... like what Mister Freedom is having to tell the people at FAUST, after what he found in the President's Daughter's cell this morning -- that she's wearing her therapist, and might now be anywhere in the world...

* * *

... and SPYGOD grins again, thinking that he's got a handle on this !@#$ after all. 

He doesn't need anything from his doppelganger to deal with gods and their stupid bull!@#$. He's got friends and allies, tools and techniques. He's got people he can ask to help and people he can order around the chess board like pawns. 

He'll see this through. He'll make this work. One way or another, there will be no God War on his watch. 

He thinks that, anyway. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Hymn (Front 242) and having a Hairy Eyeball )