9/19/12 - A Monument to the Ruined Age - Pt. 1

It's a humid, rainy night in Beijing, and I'm half-in, half-out of the window of the room I've been dossing down in, trying to un!@#$ my brain.

Normally, getting outside in this kind of weather clears my head up faster than a bullet through the noggin. But not this time. This time, my brain is being a stubborn little !@#$hole, and hanging tooth and nail onto the nasty drunk I've foisted on myself.

(And I would be right out of tjbang sticks, now wouldn't I? God !@#$ing !@#$ it...)

Now, you're probably !@#$ing wondering why my !@#$ neural matter is being so mean about this? Well, there's two reasons, son. The first is that, after drinking about ten pots of the !@#$, I am righteously !@#$ing toasted on baijiu, which is some really nasty stuff, and best left to the locals, foolish tourists, and diesel engines. And the second...

...

The second is that, after burning down a !@#$ing building to get to the truth, last night, I have just discovered that the truth is way more than I can wrap my head around, right now.

Way !@#$ing more, son.

You see, all this time I've been treating GORGON as just another !@#$ing group of science terrorists. And while I always believed that they were the most !@#$ dangerous and messed up of all of their peers, it turns out I had no !@#$ing idea just how bad they actually were. 

!@#$, son, if the Nazis had fallen in with the Spider People, recruited a few nasty, best-forgotten gods to their cause, and set up shop on that one certain sunken city just south of Easter !@#$ing Island, they wouldn't be a tenth as !@#$ing dangerous as GORGON has been all along.

Turns out we've been living on borrowed time. It's only now that they've !@#$ing taken over that I finally get to see the !@#$ing clock.

And I am so very, very !@#$ing sorry to have to say that I have clearly been dropping the mother of all big !@#$ balls for the last five decades or so...

But yeah, let's back this caravan up to the county line, son. I went into a somewhat-unassuming repository for dodgy data that the People's Republic of China would really rather not admit to having, took quite a bit of it under my arm, and then lit the place on fire behind me so they wouldn't !@#$ing know what I took. 

It went up like a charm, and then down like a Thai Ladyboy on my magic alien lovesnake. And by the time the !@#$ Harbin fire department made it around, the place was a glowing pile of cinders, and I was halfway back to !@#$ing Beijing with the goods.

Since then, I've been alternating between reading what I got, cross-referencing what what I knew, and drinking myself blind on this nasty, pungent !@#$. And while I'm happy to say that my hunch was right, and there was a definite connection between Unit 731's activities, Japan's Super Soldiers, and what would eventually become GORGON (and now !@#$ing Imago), that hasn't detracted at all from the harsh as nails understanding that I !@#$ed up.  

Bad.

How bad is bad? Well, son, let's review some ancient history, and stop me when get to something you already !@#$ing know.

At some point after we decide to !@#$ing open them up like can of sardines, the Japanese go on a war footing and start doing a Pacman on their neighbors. Now, there's a lot of reasons behind it, and while there's some things I could say about the truth behind those reasons, a lot of it's !@#$ you're either not cleared for or !@#$ I don't feel like getting into.

Why? Because I'm !@#$ing drunk and testy, son. And armed.

So let's skip to the !@#$ing obvious. The Japanese go into China and decide to stay. They set up a puppet government, move troops further into the interior, and plan to march across Asia, one little bit at a time.

While they're here, in China, they set up what they call the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwangtung Army, otherwise known as Unit 731. And it's a classic case of !@#$ing army doublespeak, because what they're really doing is looking into causing epidemics. It's a giant skunkworks for making !@#$ing plague bombs and researching how to spread diseases amongst the enemy in wartime, and they're using human prisoners as test subjects.

And that wasn't all they were !@#$ing doing, there. In addition to finding new and cruel ways to give people typhus, the black plague, and the !@#$ing clap, they were also performing weird and cruel medical experiments. They'd yank your stomach out and sew your neck-tube straight to your !@#$ing intestines. They'd freeze you and thaw you to watch you melt like an ice cream bar. They'd cut your !@#$ arms off and sew them back on backwards, just to see how they worked.

And then they'd !@#$ing vivisect your !@#$, without anesthesia, just to see the effects on living tissue.

You knew all that already, right? It's something you don't get taught in !@#$ing high school, 'cause Pearl Harbor was bad enough, apparently. But there are reasons why a lot of South Asian countries still !@#$ing hate Japan, almost a century later, and they never really appreciate the fact that we somehow don't know why.

Lucky for you, son, you got SPYGOD to tell you what's !@#$ing what. So you know the score. Or, at least we thought you did. 

I told you that the Japanese had their own strategic talents, before and during the War. I told you they were some nasty !@#$ers, put to work in a nasty war against soldiers and civilians. And I'm sure you remember that three of the nastiest, most sadistic ones vanished towards the end of the war, somewhere in New Guinea.

And I know you remember when happened when I found the three of them, June of last year, when I made the really bad !@#$ing mistake of trying to go after GORGON with a handful of Agents and a single, poorly-used Super.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the worst of the three, son. Let's talk about Dark Star -- the nasty !@#$ing !@#$ that eats your memories right out of your head like a woodpecker knocking on a tree.

I knew that the Japanese found her in a brothel for really !@#$ weird clients, and that she was turning tricks for men who wanted her to suck the bad memories right out of them, right along with their joy juice. And I knew they took her in, brought her up to speed, gave her a !@#$ing uniform, and sicced her on whatever nation they were invading at that time as a combination interrogator and fear weapon.

What I didn't know? When she wasn't traipsing through the jungle, looking for villagers to terrorize and partisans to brain-!@#$, she was hanging out at Unit 731, "observing."

One of the things I got out of that lockup are fragments of the diary of one General Shiro Iishi. He's the mother!@#$er who put Unit 731 together, designed the set-up, and oversaw its operations, right up until the war came crashing the !@#$ down around his head, and he and his cronies all ran like !@#$ before the Soviets caught up to them.

After the War, we got hold of him, and essentially let him off the !@#$ing hook in exchange for his information on biowarfare. It wasn't one of our country's best !@#$ing moments, but it was nothing I was involved in. In fact, by the time I found out about it the deal was decades old, and all I could do was keep the !@#$ing secret.

But looking over those files, and reading about his debriefings, I always got the sense that he was holding something back. There was something missing in his otherwise-frank recollections of what they'd been !@#$ing doing, there, with all those prisoners.

And when someone'll !@#$ing calmly tell you about how they put some poor Chinese guy in a pressure chamber, just to watch his guts fly out his !@#$, you really have to wonder how bad what he wasn't talking about actually was.

Well, here's the big secret, son. You want to know the reason why they were doing those nasty-!@#$ medical experiments that didn't have anything to do with spreading disease?

He was doing them for her.

Apparently, not long after he got the Pingfang facility up and running, he received orders that this weird-!@#$ girl was coming over to observe the goings-on, and that he should indulge her curiosity. Of course, they never !@#$ing told him why, and he didn't ask, but over time she told him enough that he not only understood, but supported it enthusiastically.

According to Dark Star, she wasn't just some !@#$ weird kid they'd found in a seaside whorehouse. She was a member of an advanced race of beings, whose ship was crashed underwater, halfway across the !@#$ing Pacific. She'd managed to come ashore, years ago, but the experience had messed up her mind to the point that she was lucky she should walk and chew gum at the same !@#$ time.

So of course, when she accidentally puts the whammy on some fishermen who find her, the underground gets their hands on her, she winds up at the freak whorehouse in Tairausuiso. But with the push on to find people with usable powers, the Army comes in and collects her. And it just so turns out that her handler's a friend of Shiro Iishi, who's also quite fond of paying for !@#$, as it turns out.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Dark Star tells the Army that there's a ship down there with massive amounts of weapons, wealth, technology -- everything they !@#$ing need to win the war. And they believe it, but obviously they don't have the technology to go down there and get it. So she agrees to help them look into finding ways to help humans survive down there.

And that's why they've got soldiers testing frostbite conditions and pressure situations on Chinese and Russian prisoners, and why they're messing with the human body and seeing what kind of stress it can take and still survive. She wants to find out how much work they have to do in order to get men down as far as her ship is, and rescue her people.

At least, that's what she !@#$ing says.

There's more son. Lots more. But if you'll excuse me for a moment, I think I felt the atmosphere shift, and that means I might just be able to get my ears to pop, and get myself on the road to un!@#$ing my skull.

Help yourself to some Baijiu while you wait. Don't have more than a few sips, though. That !@#$ will !@#$ you up.

Doesn't it always, though.

(SPYGOD is listening to Cold (The Cure) and having some really strong, Chinese alcohol you should !@#$ing avoid)

9/18/12 - An Echo And a Stranger's Hand

Ah, Harbin. Lovely !@#$ city, especially at night. From up on this rooftop, looking down and out at all the lit up streets and buildings, it looks something like a city a kid would make from all the pieces of all his different toy sets, doesn't it?

No? Well, maybe your childhood was different. I know mine sure as !@#$ was. We didn't even have proper toys, back then, so we made our own out of what was left of the Irish kids up the block...

Oh !@#$ - Duck!

Ah, that was !@#$ing close. You can't be too !@#$ careful when you're across from a high-tech, very !@#$ secure building made to safehouse things you really don't want to !@#$ing talk about, now can you?

That's right, son. That's where the !@#$ing trail leads. End of the gods!@#$ yellow brick road, right in that old, repurposed, classical monstrosity. And all the information the Chinese got on Unit 731 is stuffed right up the Wicked Witch's !@#$, and guarded by enough flying monkeys to make a couple of pro football teams.

My job, tonight, is to sneak in there, get what I need to see, and then get the !@#$ out. And I need to do it in such a way that they can't !@#$ing connect it to me, the COMPANY, or anyone I'm currently working with. And I also need to see to it that they never !@#$ing realize that I took what I'm going to take, just so the Imago can't figure that someone's looking into their dirty little secrets.

And that means, son, that tonight we infiltrate.

Oh, yeah. I !@#$ing bet you were wondering about that. When's the last time you saw SPYGOD put on a fake beard, walk into a Soviet embassy, and walk out again with a microfilm canister shoved up my !@#$? All that crazy-!@#$ superspy stuff you see in the movies where Lestat, Hawkeye, and Shaun of the !@#$ing Dead put a million crazy gadgets to good !@#$ing use?

Well, son, most of the time that's just bull!@#$.

Yes, son. BULL!@#$. Flashing font, red color, capital letters. Why would we risk our !@#$es when we have perfectly good dupes and traitors to do it for us? Especially when they can do it in such a way that people have no !@#$ing idea that anything was stolen, much less copied or photographed?

But tonight, I don't have a Harold who can get in there, get out, and get me what I need. I have to actually go in and retrieve a few things, and they will notice they are missing within 24 hours. And that would bring the Imago parade down on my !@#$ing head, as well as this area of the world, which I'm not keen to have happen for reasons I'm trying to drink myself into !@#$ing forgetting.

So, just this once, no bull!@#$. I'm going in there, and coming out with the goods.

Now, there's a couple different ways you can play this infiltration game, son, and I've !@#$ing done them all.  Which one you choose generally depends on how much !@#$ time you have, what your ops budget is, and how badly you do or don't want them knowing it was you that squeezed their !@#$ing charmin.

The first way is all sneaky, with all the "Mission Impossible" gadgets you can carry on your person, and a few crammed right up your !@#$ butt for good measure. You walk slow, have two keys for every lock, holograms and glue guns and duct tape for the rest, and something nice and quiet for every !@#$ing guard you run into.

Good news is that you can be as !@#$ quiet as you can be, and no one will ever know anything's missing or wrong. Bad news is that, sooner or later, one or more of those gadgets are just not going to !@#$ing work. And then you're !@#$ed, son.

Hard.

The second way's also sneaky, but not as reliant on those !@#$ crazy toys. You worm your way into the place by using information you either stole from the !@#$ers, or got one of your Harolds to make for you. That and a few gadgets, or maybe just your !@#$ hands, and a convincing disguise, and you can walk in like you !@#$ing belong there, and walk back out again before anyone realizes you've stolen their !@#$ing flag.

Sounds great, but takes more time than just gadgeting your way through. And there's always the chance that some overzealous guard might notice you just don't "fit," or see right through that cheap-!@#$ ID badge you xeroxed and x-actoed together last night at the Kabul Kinkos. And there's always the chance that Harold might have grown some !@#$ balls and decided to turn you over to his masters, or a third party that's got better !@#$ payouts than the two of you combined.

And then, you guessed it, you're !@#$ed. Again. Hard.

The third way? That's where you just say "!@#$ it in the !@#$ with a god!@#$ chartreuse flamethrower" and muscle your !@#$ way in. Kill the power, nuke the computer security, and shoot the place up before anyone can do a !@#$ thing to stop you. Then you just get what you came for, step over the bodies you made on your way in, and pray you don't have ten divisions of the Iraqi National Guard out the front.

Or, worse, Strategic Talents. Because nothing makes a good plan go bad in 60 seconds or less like the untimely arrival of some !@#$er in long underwear who wants to foil a perfectly legitimate bout of espionage, or actually got ordered to go stop your !@#$ theft.

Oh, and then there's the problem with the fact that you just killed a whole !@#$ of a lot of people to get what you needed. Good guys aren't supposed to do !@#$ like that, apparently. And while I've never really been what you might call a straight-shooting good guy -- especially not that "straight" bit -- I always preferred to do my shooting of faceless guards when I'm up against science terrorists, bad guys, rogue nations, and merciless Soviet client states.

And China, for all its many problems and tyrannies, isn't so much !@#$ing evil as it is misguided. Or so they !@#$ing tell me, anyway.

(That and we owe them way too much !@#$ money to be picking a fight -- even now.)

So, you guess which door I'm picking tonight, son. It ain't gadgets and a silent entry, because I don't have them. And it ain't sneaking in with a fake ID because they'd !@#$ing spot me in a minute. And I sure as !@#$ ain't gonna shoot my way in there after I've spent all this !@#$ time -- and killed way too !@#$ many people -- making the Imago look somewhere !@#$ing else.

Oh, right. That's all three of my options gone right there. How about that?

Well, I guess you !@#$ing know what that means. And that means, son, that SPYGOD's just gonna get !@#$ing creative.

You see, this is an old building. It has a lot of high tech security !@#$, and its guards are carrying all the latest toys and bells and whistles, but the building itself is a sorry piece of !@#$ that probably should have been torn down a dozen years ago. !@#$, it's a wonder it hasn't fallen down, itself.

But they can't, because of what's in there.  They don't dare risk moving it, much less admitting it's there to be moved in the first !@#$ place. So much needed renovations and fixes have not really taken place to the outside structure in a long !@#$ time.

Which is why I snuck up on top of the building, earlier, dressed like a worker, and had some fun with their ventilation systems.

Oh no. Not like that. There's no !@#$ing way I am even going to try squeezing into one of those !@#$ air vents. Life doesn't always work like "Doctor Who," son. They're too !@#$ing small, and I'm too !@#$ing big. And they're probably boobytrapped, anyway, just for good !@#$ing measure.

But they sure didn't seem to !@#$ing mind when I slowly lowered some !@#$ing radio-controlled smoke generators down into them, now did they?

No, son. They did not.

So in about ten seconds or so, here, I am going to light the building up. The information I need is on the top floor, and the apparent fire's going to start on the bottom. Which gives me quite some time to be sure it's all good and !@#$ing evacuated before I slip on in during the confusion, run up the stairs, get what I want, and then slip on out via the roof.

Sounds !@#$ing crazy? Son, these are very special smoke canisters, courtesy of our now-deceased friend down on Xiosanmen island. They put out enough haze to cover up a !@#$ing tank battalion, generate enough heat to fool thermal sensors, and smell exactly like what you'd expect to smell if your building was on fire.

The alarms will sound, the people will panic, and I'll just take advantage of both. Once I'm up there, I'll drop a few incendiary devices behind me, and that'll start a nasty, white-hot fire that'll burn right through the !@#$ing floor to the god!@#$ basement, and turn the whole !@#$ building into ash before the fire department can even get its !@#$ out of the station.

And if I'm really !@#$ good, and really !@#$ing lucky, I can be in and out without having to !@#$ing kill anyone, tonight.

Getting soft? Me? No !@#$ way, son. I just don't need to hurt anyone to do what I need to do, tonight. Especially since dead people will bring those metal-suited !@#$s around faster than flies to a fresh piece of dog!@#$.

And as long as they don't come up here, and no one has to ask our latest Harold any uncomfortable questions, we can take the time to find out what we need to know. Which would be really !@#$ nice for a change.

So, ten seconds, son. Watch the !@#$ birdie. This is gonna be fun.

"Hot in the city... hot in the city tonight..."

Yeah, son. I sing Billy !@#$ing Idol before I do infiltration gigs. You got a !@#$ problem with that?

Okay then. And off... we...

Go.

(SPYGOD is listening to A Short Term Effect (The Cure) and having a Fire Island Lighthouse Ale)

9/17/12 - So Perfect As We All Fall Down

It's one in the morning, B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P 4 time, and Myron's lying in his room, looking at the ceiling, and trying to feel bad about what he and Winifred have just done.

It's not the first time this has happened. It's been three times, now, and each time he's told himself that it was a mistake, and they shouldn't have done this, and what was he thinking.

But then, once the day's done, and their work's completed, they're back here. They always say they're just going to watch some BSG and have some popcorn, but they don't even get through one fraking episode before they're tearing out of their clothes and tumbling into bed. 

He shouldn't be doing this, something in his mind tells him. He's more than twice her age. She's a !@#$ing teenager, for Christ's sake.

(And, yes, in her home state of Kentucky, she's legal at 16, but still...)

So he looks at the ceiling, maybe searching for the hand of a God he doesn't believe in, anymore, and tries to feel terrible for this. But try as he might, when he looks back down at her -- cuddled up against his side and snoring gently -- he can't feel that he's done anything wrong at all.

Does that make him a pervert, then? Some kind of pedophile? Is he going to the special hell for this?

He doesn't know. All he knows is that he really likes her, and she's special, and she's crazy in the sack (the best !@#$ of his life, to be honest) and while he knows that this probably won't last, it's good for now.

That and, for all he knows, the world might !@#$ing cave in on them, tomorrow, and who would be left to judge them for this?

Still.

"Send me a sign?" he whispers at the ceiling, wondering if the man with the long beard and stern countenance will be kind enough to send a clear, easy-to-understand memo as to whether he should keep letting this brilliant kid with great taste in TV shows -- and an awful secret she doesn't want to confide, yet -- ride him like a pony, late at night.

And something tells him that God isn't going to be that nice about complying.

* * *

The President sits at a desk in the apartment he's currently inhabiting, and cries quietly, watching his wife and children at their new home. 

The surveillance pad was supposed to make him feel better about things, and what he's had to do, recently. He knows that's how SPYGOD meant it, and he's grateful for the gesture. Really, truly grateful.

But as he watches his wife walk through the home she's been forced to live in, by the Imago, he can see that look in her eye: the one he's been dreading seeing. It's a certain, sagging tiredness that betrays how broken she is, inside -- both by his apparent assassination, all those months ago, and the fact that she's being kept on a leash by the things that now rule the world.

The children are sad, too, but they're clearly moving past it a lot faster than she is. They've just lost their father, and aren't really old enough to understand what's just happened to their world. 

Her? She's lost her lover. Her partner. Her best friend in the whole wide world. The father of her children, and the man she was going to spend her future with.

All gone with two shots of an impossible gun.

He wants to go to her, right !@#$ing now. He wants to fly there, to the armed camp for high-level prisoners they've turned Washington D.C. into, and get them all out of there. He wants to swoop in with guns he now knows exactly how to use, blast his way in there, and blow them all back out again.

He wants his wife back at his side, in his arms, in his bed. He wants his children to look him in the face and call him "daddy" again. 

He wants his !@#$ing life back.

But he can't have it. Not yet. Not now.

And he knows he has to wait, and he knows why it's the right thing. But !@#$ if it doesn't hurt worse than crawling naked over broken glass.

He should really just stop looking at this. He should turn it off. Better yet, he should throw it across the room and step on it a few times, just to be sure.

But he keeps watching and crying. He can't not. And !@#$ him for that.

And !@#$ SPYGOD for his kindness.

* * *

"Oh, that was just exquisite, my dear Scarlet Factotum," Doctor Kyklops says, wrapping a green silk robe around his grey but lithe frame with a magnificent flourish: "Perfectly exquisite. I have not had such pleasure from a business partner in quite some time."

METALMAID lies on the bed, staring up at his bedroom's massive, painted ceiling to avoid looking at him, and deciding what to say next. She decides the best thing to do is to be as dishonest as possible, given that she still needs this old, rich pervert for her plans.

"I am confused," she stammers, wondering how many times he needed to have himself painted on his !@#$ing ceiling: "I have never felt this way before, and I am unsure of what it means. Could it be that I am falling in love?"

"Oh, it's just possible," the old fellow says, farting as he goes over to a nearby, gold table and pours himself a drink from a crystal decanter: "I am told I have that effect on women."

"Well, they told you correctly," she says, rolling over and crossing her legs as seductively as she can, focusing on how nice it will be to feed him his own intestines while he's still alive enough to chew and swallow.

(She also debates whether to keep this exquisitely gaudy, Sardinian castle of his for her own purposes, or tear it apart, brick by brick, and fling it down into the Mediterranean Sea as a final revenge on this well-moneyed fool.)

"So, your company was most kind to send you along to, as they say, 'seal the deal,'" he says, turning to regard her as he brings over his drink (and not, she notes, offering her one): "Did they think I would pay faster?"

"They think you are a good customer in the making, and are exciting to be working with you on this venture."

"Ah, that is good to know," Kyklops lounges on the other side of the bed, regarding her: "I think I will be putting my plan into motion, soon. The recent events in Indonesia have revealed our conquerors to have feet of clay, and I do not wish for them to recover and rebuild."

"A wise maneuver."

"Of course it is, my dear," he winks: "I am an old hand at this game you know. Yes, I think I shall strike while they are still repairing their space elevator. And then..."

"And then?"

"And then," he knocks back his drink, tosses the doubtlessly-priceless crystal glass to shatter on the floor, and crawls back onto her, reinvigorated in all senses of the word: "The world shall be mine, your company shall have the privilege of arming its master.

"And you, my dear, shall be fortunate enough to serve my other, more baser needs..."

And as he sticks himself into her, yet again -- pulling her hair and grabbing her breasts so hard it's a wonder they don't snap off -- she closes her eyes and thinks of the money, and her own plan.

And she wonders where the Violet Demon is, and what he's doing tonight.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the lair she doesn't really have control over, anymore, Zalea Zathros is !@#$ing herself.

More correctly, five of her are !@#$ing each other. Another five are working on making more Slaughterbots for METALMAID. And the remaining five are watching television, eating junk food, and having a nap.

Such is the connection between the fifteen of them that they're all more or less aware of what's going on with one another at any given moment. The ones working smile as they receive pleasure, and occasionally chuckle or gasp along with the insipid Greek soap opera that's playing upstairs, on the landing. Those loving themselves gently discuss plot points and design details as they nibble and lick one another into a frenzy. And those before the television languidly close their eyes every so often, and shudder with shared orgasms, or make a mental list of things they'll have to do when it's their turn at the lathe and soldering iron.

This is Zalea Zathros' signature achievement: a fully functioning hivemind, spread across a potentially infinite number of clones. A clone might die or be injured, but the overmind continues to function without cease. And should all but one be destroyed, that one would assume all knowledge and experience, and then be able to generate more clones from itself.

It is her dream made flesh, this life without limits. She would have made a gift of this blessed state of being to the entire world, if she'd only been allowed. But those with limited views and phobias of true scientific achievement were always out to stop her, for whatever reason.

And SPYGOD? That !@#$er locked one of her up, and then hunted down and exterminated every other clone she had remaining. He even found and burned her original body -- withered and sere, by that point, but still gloriously full of her meticulously altered DNA -- and informed her of this by dumping its ashes into her cell in the Heptagon basement.

Revenge, then, was her key goal once she escaped from his clutches. But that goal has been put aside by her former houseguest, now jailor and slavemaster. And try as she might, there's nothing she can do to get out of her bondage.

She keeps thinking there's something she could to do stop this. There's something she's doing, or not doing, that's keeping her like this. She has no idea what it could be, though, and so far every attempt she's made to narrow it down's been sidetracked, somehow.

(It's like something's aware of her investigations and is carefully moving the results of her quiet, slow experiments, so as to stop her from reaching definite conclusions.)

So she !@#$s herself. She works as ordered. She laughs and cries at the television and eats snack cakes and gets fatter than she'd like.

And as she comes and welds and passes the remote, she's all too aware that she's !@#$ed herself in more ways than one.

* * *

It's late at night in New Delhi. Dosha Josh is sleeping in the room of the safehouse he's "appropriated." Anil is standing nearby, watching him sleep.

He watches his chest rise and fall, ever so slowly, grateful for each new breath. He studies his face as he reacts to dreams, and as he lies peaceably, with no expression whatsoever.

When he's asleep he's the most beautiful man, this Dosha Josh. His scars are merely character. His eyes are kind and understanding. His lips full and luscious.

It's taken Anil some time to muster up the courage to stand there and watch, rather than to sit in the other room and keep an ear open for the two of them, like he's supposed to. Dosha only meant it jokingly, but he didn't know -- and still does not know -- that Anil does not need to sleep.

(Some strange trick of biology? No other teleporter Anil's ever met or heard of has such an issue. And while he's happy to not be enslaved to the cycle of wakefulness, he wonders what it must be like to truly lose himself to dreams, for a time. Perhaps only death will teach him this.)

But he daydreams. He fantasizes. He imagines.

And as he stands there, looking at Dosha's body under the thin sheet, imagining its hard surfaces and warm hollows, he dreams of a day when he might crawl into that bed and lay with him.

This is another thing that Dosha does not know about Anil, and probably never will. Anil has known what he was since he was old enough to know how men and women fit together, in the larger scheme of things. And while Dosha has never had time for love, sex, or any other "grotesque entanglements," as he puts it, he's quite clear about the fact that, if he ever desired to be so entangled, he'd look no further than some lovely, young Indian woman -- a vision of brown curves and fragrant hollows, with eyes that sparkle and hair that never ends.

(And a body that falls to ruin either right after the first baby, or sometime in one's 40's, Anil can't help but notice...)

Anil is none of those things, and would not care to be. He is a man, and he loves as a man does: a careful balance between firm directness and gentle suggestion. To make either to Dosha would be fatal to their working relationship, and shatter any hopes of a friendship beyond that.

So he watches Dosha sleep. He listens to him breathe. He promises to all Gods he knows that he will protect this man from all things, in all ways, and in this way show him his love.

It's not enough -- it could never be anywhere near enough -- but given that fate has decided to play this hand for them, in this lifetime, Anil will take the cards and hold them with silent gratitude.

And love.

* * *

Elsewhere in B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, Mark Clutch sits at the console, counting the seconds until Martha comes on to talk to him. Her and Kaitlyn have been up to a lot -- most of it quiet errands for their mysterious backer -- and there's a lot to talk about. Plans, errands, concerns, things like that.

Tonight could be the night he lets it slip that he's been thinking about her a lot.

It could actually happen, tonight. It's been a good day, and nothing feels like there's a disaster looming. He could just slip it into the conversation, as they get ready to sign off, and see what she says.

He could. Really.

But how does he say a thing like that? Really?

And how is she supposed to take it? Really?

Because he knows how this sounds: pathetic and base. It sounds like he's lonely, and missing his wife, and horny, and looking for a new mother for Kaitlyn, and a million other things that just scream "woah, back up, buddy."

And it's true, that sometimes when Martha laughs or cries -- or kicks people's !@#$ -- she reminds him of her so much. So !@#$ much...

But there's other things, besides. The way she talks, the way she thinks, the way she trusts to God always, and in all ways. The way she looks after his daughter, and will not give up on her son.

The way she's become the head of the family, now, and has learned to trust her own judgment and see what the Lord provides.

He has fallen in love, again. He has seen things in her he never saw before, and probably just as well given that he was married to her cousin. But fate has cleared the way between them, and, with the world hanging in the balance, can they not try to be happy as they save it?

But how can he say those things? How can he think those things? Rachel hasn't even been dead a year, and he's already trying to see her cousin. Surely there's something about that in the Bible. Somewhere.

(Though, the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks there's something about someone in the family having to marry the in-law who's lost her husband? Does that count for him? Does that even count at all?)

But all the reason and morality and propriety in the world can't cast aside his feelings. It's more than just loneliness, or wanting to make love to a smart, capable, and very lovely woman. It's a small spark that was lit when they met, all those years ago, and has blossomed into a full and beautiful flame now that the fire of his lost wife has dwindled away.

And if he doesn't do something about this blaze, it will burn him down.

Maybe tonight will be the night he says something they'll both regret hearing. Maybe tonight he'll just leave it lay for a better time.

Maybe.

* * *

In a shadowed apartment in Washington DC, a Beautiful Stranger frantically surfs the internet, looking for signs of a disaster. 

He knows the net's been censored, courtesy of the new masters of this planet, but he figures that news of earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes are probably let straight through. And after what he and Aaron did in the bedroom, earlier tonight, surely there has to be some sign of displeasure from on High, or Below. Some sort of cosmic comeuppance must have been levied against this trembling, moral world.

Surely the Earth must have moved.

As he searches, terrified of what he may have done, Aaron lies back in the bed they just broke, remembering the moments leading to here, at this moment. The lead-up to them was slow, sweet, and exquisitely tortured -- often a two steps forward, one step back sort of affair.

And, now that that's done, everything from here is likely to be fast, sour, and harsh. 

He does not cry. He does not smile. What's happened has happened, as he knew it would the moment he looked at that entity. 

And as for what happens now? Well, he'll probably find that out tomorrow, or maybe the day after. 

People think he knows everything that's going to happen, but that's not true. He only ever gets small glimpses of most of what's coming down the pipe -- small flares sent up from the font of Creation which are gone before they're really understood. It's only the big things that light up his mind, and make him ever so aware that everything he's doing has been planned since his creation, countless aeons ago.

This? Well, it was nice while it lasted, and might last longer than tonight. But in the grand scheme of things, it's was just a !@#$.

(A very nice !@#$, though -- one billions of years in the making.)

The stranger's weeping at the keyboard. Something about Vanuatu, or the coast of Japan. Aaron smiles and wills himself back to the closest he can approach sleep, knowing he'll just have to deal with it tomorrow. Maybe with more of the same.

* * *

In a small, Bridgetown shack, on the Southwest corner of Barbados, a cat is snoozing, curled up around a bottle of vodka and an AK-47. Three very tired hookers are conked out in a pile around him. Every so often he wakes up, halfway, mutters something in Russian, and then goes back to sleep, knowing that tomorrow he's going to be really !@#$ing busy.

He'd better get his relaxation when and where he can.

* * *

In a safehouse in the Bronx, two war vets alternate between !@#$ing and fighting. He's old, with the scars to prove it, and wearing nothing but a black mask with an ace of spades on it. She's young, but has almost as many scars as he does, and is wearing a blindfold, just to make this interesting. They'll do this until they're too weak to do anything but sleep, and maybe in the morning they'll do some business, but for now it's been too long since they've thrown down.

And they both need this -- badly.

* * *

And in China, not too far from where the President is crying, and the man he got the information from is sleeping, SPYGOD sleeps with his guns crossed over his chest, clearing his mind and making himself ready for what he's going to do, tomorrow. But every so often, he can't help but remember the Dragon, and relive that lovely bit of ghost sex they had, there in that fire, as the barriers between worlds and futures was shattering around them. 

He tries not to cry for that lost moment, wanting to have a blank mind for the job. He tries to resist the sickness of regret, which can both paralyze and kill an Agent -- even someone like him.

But here -- in this place and time -- he can't help but let the sorrow wash over him, so he gives in, and loses himself in that rush of dark emotions. He puts his guns down, grabs his mutated, lovecraftian !@#$ and masturbates weakly, trying to let the wave of light and airy endorphins this brings counteract the sour mash of loss and horror.

In his mind, one man becomes many men. The Dragon of then becomes The Dragon of now becomes Director Straffer becomes a mindless, soft parade of Thai ladyboys, MI-6 agents, and fighting men from every war he's ever been in One set of buttocks melds into another, all !@#$s become one !@#$, all torsos and shoulders and hips and calves and necks and jawlines and lips and eyes are pieced together from the honeyed trap of his memory, becoming a frankensteinian patchwork doll, there for him to !@#$ from all angles, in all ways, in all times.

One man in one moment, shining and resplendent, taking him in his arms and calling him home. 

He's come three times before he knows it -- sperm bullets shattering portions of the drywall and ceiling. The resulting rush of bliss washes over him, knocking the sorrow out of his skull, at least for now. And then he lies back, watching with some fascination as his twisted manhood slithers and slurps itself back into his pants.

"I love you," he says to the piece of the Dragon left behind in his mind's eye, just before it becomes Straffer and then vanishes with the wink of a winsome katooey's eye: "I loved you all."

And then he gently takes his guns up, crosses them over his chest, and goes about clearing his mind for his mission -- the only real and true love he has left, now.

And the only one that can really love him back forever.

(SPYGOD is listening to Pornography (The Cure) and having something you never want to taste)

9/16/12 - (Unit 731) - I Would Have Left the World All Bleeding

COMPANY files

RE: Unit 731

Cross-reference: Anthrax Outbreak; Biowarfare; China; Human Experiments; Harbin; Imperial Japan; Manchukuo; Pingfang; Shiro Iishi; Soviet Union; Sverlovsk Closed City; War Atrocities; World War II   

"I heard about preparations for bacteriological warfare in Japanese Army for the first time after assuming my post on December in 1939 as a member of the Quarantine Unit of the Kwantung Army... namely the Ishii Unit, by the War Ministry, and assumed my post... On the basis of the facts and the work carried on in the corps under the leadership of ... Ishii, with which I was well acquainted, I hereby certify on my responsibility that experiments were conducted in the Ishii Corps in which living human bodies were sacrificed in testing." 

- Major Karasawa Tomio, September 1946 

Unit 731 was the proper name of the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwangtung Army. It operated in China, in Japanese-conquered Manchukuo, from 1937-45, when the end of World War II put a halt to their experiments. Its commander was General Shiro Iishi -- a highly brilliant researcher with a taste for baser pleasures, and no compunction against committing atrocity in the name of science.

Ostensibly created to research the prevention of plagues, and develop cures for epidemic-causing diseases, Unit 731 truthfully acted as a means for the Japanese Army to spread those maladies amongst the enemy. They experimented with transmitting cholera, anthrax, typhoid, tuberculosis, and the bubonic plague, as well as venereal diseases, and other incapacitating diseases, during wartime.  

"No matter what was done, anything was permissible so long as it was 'for the country' or for the 'good of society.' ... In everyday society, there is no such distinction on reasons for killing. In the field of science, however, killing can result in new findings or a revolutionary breakthrough which would benefit all of mankind."

- Tsuneishi and Asano, 'Suicide of Two Physicians' 

To test their numerous theories, they needed massive amounts of human subjects. Somewhere between 3000 and 12000 people -- mostly Chinese citizens -- were slaughtered by the Unit's scientists at the central camp at Pinfang, in Harbin. How many victims died at other, more far-flung experimental camps at the edges of Japan's zone of conquest is still not known.

They were not called prisoners, or even subjects; they were called "maruta" -- "logs."  

Later, they passed through tunnels to an underground laboratory. "Instantly, an unbearably strong odor choked me. I remember that we passed through a hallway with at least 10 doors on either side. Each doorway was covered with black and red curtains." Suddenly, "a door opened. Three men pushed a surgical bed that contained at least 3 corpses into the hallway. They were covered with a white sheet"

- Harris, "Factories of Death” 

Such "logs" were infected with various strains of diseases, introduced to them through many different vectors. They ate infected food, drank poisoned water, or were "inoculated" with the disease. They were also subjected to explosives designed to spread the diseases, and then watched as they died from wounds and sickness. If a subject survived too many experiments, he was considered "ruined," and put down with an injection of potassium cyanide.

The Unit's victims were also experimented on in various different ways, in order to satisfy the researchers' medical curiosity. They were subjected to frostbite to test new cures, taken apart and sewn back together, and injected with horse urine. They were placed in special pressure chambers, and observed as their eyes popped from their skulls, and organs from their anuses. Some were spun to death in centrifuges, others left hanging upside down for hours to see how long it took for them to die.  

They were exposed to phosgene gas to discover the effect on their lungs, or given electrical charges which slowly roasted them. Prisoners were decapitated in order for Japanese soldiers to test the sharpness of their swords.

Others had limbs amputated to study blood loss -- limbs that were sometimes stitched back on the opposite sides of their body. Other victims had various parts of their brains, lungs, or liver removed, or their stomach removed and their oesophagus reattached to their intestines. 

- Hudson, "Doctors of Depravity."

For many "logs," their time at the Unit ended in extreme pain and horror, as they were wheeled to an operating room and vivisected. The doctors wanted to see how their diseases had worked on living, pulsing tissue, and not the cold, dead remains of a man or woman put down by more humane means.  

That this operation is not better known throughout the Western world is no accident. After the Japanese surrender that ended World War II, the Americans declined to put the Japanese officers of Unit 731 on trial, as they had with German war criminals. Instead, they appropriated their researches for their own use, and quietly allowed even the most heinous researchers to re-enter Japanese society without so much as a slap on the wrist. 

General Shiro, in particular, opened a free clinic after the war, and died quietly of throat cancer in 1959. Some sources claim he was actually in America the entire time, advising on bioweaponry. 

Some sources make darker suggestions. 

If Ishii or one of his co-workers needed to do research on the human brain, then they would order the guards to find them a useful sample. A prisoner would be taken from his cell. Guards would hold him while another guard would smash the victim's head open with an ax. His brain would be extracted and rushed immediately to the laboratory. The body would then be whisked off to the pathologist, and then to the crematorium for the usual disposal. 

- Harris, "Factories of Death" 

The Soviets, however, took a much less generous view of the ill treatment of their Chinese allies. Any members of Unit 731 they got their hands on were put on trial, excoriated for their misdeeds, and sent to do hard labor in Siberia. 

America discounted the trials as "communist propaganda," and refused to comment on what the Soviets may have done with the information, researches, and materials it confiscated from its prisoners.

Their tour concluded with a visit to still another exhibition room. Before entering, the veterinarian cautioned them that "Nothing in here is pleasant. All the specimens you will see came from dead bodies of different infected disease carriers. You can look through the open door." The veterinarian opened the door to the frightened youngsters. They observed a "room full of glass jars containing human heads, arms, thighs, hearts, spleens and sexual organs. All the specimens were soaked in formaldehyde."

 - Harris, "Factories of Death"  

In 1979, at the "closed" military city of Sverdlovsk, a horrific outbreak of Anthrax spores took place from its clandestine biowarfare lab. The accident was typically Soviet: caused by bureaucratic bungling, its true reason was covered up, and true effects were grotesquely downplayed. 

According to the Soviets, only 100 people died from eating tainted meat. However, after the end of the Cold War, subsequent international investigations turned up the fact that Sverdlovsk had bred one of the deadliest anthrax strains in the world using research taken from its Unit 731 prisoners; it had been those spores that had caused the deaths, and not food poisoning.

But, thanks to non-bungling state suppression of the truth, the real death toll might never be known.  

The remaining grounds of Unit 731's main facility, in Pingfang, is a people's museum that purports to tell the whole story of what the Japanese did there. The retreating army supposedly took all their notes and samples with them, but there has always been suspicion that some of what they made or used was hidden away, somewhere that neither the Americans nor the Soviets ever found. Whether the Chinese found these things or not remains a point of speculation.

Another point of speculation is what the Soviets did with their bioweapons laboratory in Sverdlovsk after the accident in 1979.  

Their guide had still one more treat in store for his visitors before they were permitted to return to their school. Once outside, he ordered a soldier to bring him a horse. He then fed it some wheat that had been contaminated with a pathogen. "A few minutes later, the horse lay dead."  

While waiting, they observed that "the great chimney was sending out dark yellow smoke that discharged a terrible odor. We thought that the veterinarian gave an order to burn the horse he had just poisoned." 

- Harris, "Factories of Death"

(Notes on possible GORGON involvement with Unit 731 are classified at Triple Black, Directors' Eyes Only. Do not even !@#$ing ask, Agent.) 

Last amended: 12/28/11 

(SPYGOD is listening to The Drowning Man (The Cure) and having a Harbin Lager )

9/15/12 - Another Blind Game

Addis Ababa
21:34 Hours

 "The Object," Khalil says to the late night visitor to his apartment: "You would ask me about that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," the mysterious man says from where he sits, in the shadows. A very nasty looking gun rests on his thigh -- glinting menacingly in the half dark.

"Why do you want to know about it?"

"Because it's in play," the other man says: "And I have a really uncomfortable idea who's got it, and why."

"I thought you would have known all about it?"

"Pretend I don't," he says, tapping his hands on the gun: "Indulge me."

Khalil sighs and sits down on his bed, across from the man, and lets his suit jacket slump from his shoulder. He'd just come home from another grueling, late-night meeting with what little was left of NGUVU's leadership, post-3/15, and found that he wasn't alone in his apartment.

And while the identity of his houseguest was not entirely a surprise, the fact that he'd ask about that was something of a shock.

"Alright, then," Khalil says: "I'll indulge you. And I should remind you that if you're deciding to finish what you started, back in January, that you'll be dealing with far more than an angry, pan-African intelligence group-"

"Threats are meaningless, now," the man says: "There is no cavalry to save you. There is no hope that you can persuade me to do anything other than what I came here to do. The best you can do is cooperate and tell me the truth, and maybe I'll just leave when we're done."

"And if not?"

"Then I'll just finish the job, won't I?"

Khalil sighs, and stands up: "I'm getting myself a drink."

"I found the gun you keep over there, already."

"I knew you would. I just really need a drink. Can I offer you one?"

"No thank you," the man says: "But make yourself a double and have some for me, okay?"

"Very generous of you."

"I try."

* * *

"So, The Object," Khalil says, after having both drinks at the urging of his 'guest': "It's always been something of a matter of pride that we managed to keep it secret and safe, here, far from you Europeans."

"You mean us White folk."

"Well, safe from outsiders, then," Khalil says: "Even in olden times, before we had our continent carved up into geographically convenient divisions, and there were only empires won through blood and struggle, and areas no one wanted, its secret was kept."

"It fell from the sky, didn't it?" the visitor asks: "It came from the stars."

"That is how the story goes. It fell to the Earth, deep within the heart of the continent. It struck the Earth hard enough for the sound to be heard for hundreds of miles, and yet when the locals came looking, there was no massive crater, or area of destruction. It was just sitting there, in the center of what had once been a jungle, like it had been there all along."

"So maybe it didn't actually fall," the other man says: "That could have been the sound of one reality giving way to another. Like what happens when lightning strikes, and the air is displaced. Pressure differentials."

"Well, perhaps," Khalil says, shrugging: "I was not there, as you might understand. This was thousands of years ago, and while what they saw and what they found was written down, that language has not been spoken or written since the time of Christ. Perhaps we have made mistakes in translation."

"But the gist of what it says is that the wise men who found it recognized it for the dangerous thing it was?" 

"What would be correct," Khalil says: "The jungle that had once been alive and lush was twisted and gnarled, and the beasts that lived there were dead or dying, with all the life gone from them. As they approached it, their minds were filled with terrible visions of a great kingdom, built on butchery, and filled with shining demons that smiled like panthers sighting prey. It was not a good thing to behold, and they sought to stop others from falling victim to it."

"So their solution was to take it and bury it as deep as they could," the visitor says: "And it worked, mostly. But the visions leaked, didn't they?"

"Oh, they did," Khalil says: "But in a strange way. If you do not look at it, the visions do not enter into your waking mind, but slip into your sleeping brain. And they go far afield to do this. It's as though it knew that no one around here would be tempted by its power, so it went to other lands, to tempt other peoples."

"And so Europeans looked to the Dark Continent, and searched for massive, rich empires."

"Yes. The legend of Prester John, the idea that Great Zimbabwe was some relic of a white man's kingdom, ideas of our great hordes of gold and jewels... all implanted by that !@#$ object."

"Well, I guess if they didn't get those dreams, there would have been another excuse," the visitor says, tapping his fingers on the grip of the gun, again: "I seem to remember the Muslims swept into Northern Africa to make an empire. Did they have the same dreams, or different ones?"

"I do not know. Maybe you should ask them."

"You're not Muslim?"

"Not anymore," Khalil admits, swirling his drink: "My mother raised me in the faith, but they won't let you into NGUVU if your faith is stronger than your conviction to their mission. But I was dead to it by the time I went to college, anyway. I really never could believe... and why am I telling you this?"

"I just have that kind of face," the visitor says, smiling there in the dark: "So, they buried it. The White Men came and looked for it. And they never found it?"

"No," Khalil says: "It was too well-hidden. But then came the War, and your Hitler decided that all the great, powerful objects of the world had to be his. So he sent some of his men down here to look for the fabled city, and the great object of power that sat at its center. His people might have been able to find it, given time, so..."

"So it was moved," the visitor says.

"No. Not just yet. It was guarded, and those who guarded it would be the ones who became BUSH, back in the 1960's. But over time, BUSH became something of a sad joke, as I'm sure you well know. And the NGUVU was made to replace it, after a fashion."

"In 2002," the visitor says: "And that's when it was moved."

"Yes. To a more secure location. And the memories of those who knew where it was were locked away using a very specific medical procedure-"

"The Seyoum Treatment. Deep hypnosis used in tandem with certain neural chemicals to lock down information. Great for storing secrets, not so great for getting them back when you need them. What's the casualty rate up to, now?"

"We've gotten survival up to 75 percent," Khalil sighs, not really wanting a lecture on safety from this man: "And the whole idea was to give them information that would only be needed if the stakes were high enough to justify that risk."

"Like needing access to the one thing the Object could really lead you to," the visitor says: "The great city with its shining demons with terrible smiles. Hidden away, somewhere."

"And Allah only knows why GORGON wanted it."

"Oh, I think that, if you think about it, you might come to realize what they've used it for," the visitor says, getting to his feet and taking his gun in hand: "And that makes that foolish little game you tried to play on the former head of BUSH all the more sad. If you'd been smart and killed him, rather than letting his contact walk into your prison and take him out of it, just to see where they went, this could have all been avoided."

"I guess so," Khalil says, looking at his drink: "So what are you going to do with this information, then? Are you going to go after them? Will you bring the Object back to us?"

"No, I don't think so," the man says, walking over to where Khalil sits, and raising the gun: "I think I'm to have a good think to myself about what I can do with this information, and then I'll see if I can turn it around to my benefit. Same as always."

"I thought better of you," Khalil replies after a moment, crossing his hands over his chest and holding onto his shoulders, as if cold: "I guess you fooled us all."

"I wish I could take my time with this, with you," the man says: "It's been a while since I've had the time to really let loose, and here you are, all helpless."

"What?" Khalil asks, his eyes getting wide: "What are you !@#$ing saying, man?"

"I'm saying that this gun's a weak weapon. It's made to kill you without even leaving a visible wound. One shot to your head and your brain's turned to jelly in your skull, but that's just too easy. Especially when I could have you all night long, any way I want, and then just leave you to bleed out on what's left of your bed."

"What..."

"Oh, don't be coy. You do strategic talents for NGUVU, right? So you've seen what happens when ordinary people get worked over by people who can throw cars and topple mountains, right? People with their guts half in, half out of their backsides, their jaws broken in three or more places by the stress and strain of having a steel hammer going in and out of their mouth, women bleeding out through what's left of their cunts..."

The man shudders, changing the angle of his aim: "I so love that word, don't you? It just sounds different, here. More direct, somehow."

"I have no idea what-" Khalil starts to say, but then the gun goes off with a sound like bees humming at a hive, and he's flopped backwards over the bed, shivering and shaking, his eyes starting from their sockets.

"And you never will, will you?" the man says, putting his gun away and leaving the way he came in. He walks down the hallway, gets into the elevator, and heads for the ground floor, confident that no one will see him leave, either.

When he gets to the ground floor he looks up at Khalil's still-lit window and smiles, wishing he'd had more time, but knowing that he can have all the atrocity he can handle once he's at least a few miles away from this building, and safe.

"Cunts," the SPYGOD from another, darker Earth mutters under his breath, savoring the taste of it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Faith (The Cure) and having a Castel Beer)

9/14 - Take a Stand to Change my Life

It's midnight in Beijing, and the Chinese General Secretary is sneaking through a public park like a common criminal, hoping no one sees him.

Wen Boxiong is in his forties: balding, plump, and plain. His thick, black eyeglasses are the most remarkable thing about him, so he's wearing them down his nose in a pathetic attempt at disguise.

He's also wearing a hooded windbreaker against the chill, with his hands stuffed in the pockets. Between that and how often he stops and looks around it's a wonder no one's mistaken him for a drug dealer, or a male prostitute.

Wouldn't that just be a great thing? "General Secretary Arrested on Suspicion of Importuning!" would scream the foreign papers, if the foreign papers cared to report actual news, anymore.

If the Imago would actually let them. 

Eventually, he gets to the secluded, hardly-visited place where his contact offered to meet him. There's a aged metal statue, here, in a copse of trees that hasn't been trimmed or cleaned up in decades. And while it's not exactly a secret that it's there, no one likes to go there, anymore, as what's behind the wood has fallen into disfavor.

That statue's a large group of smiling, larger than life soldiers and peasants, who brandish weapons and tools, and urge their fellow citizens to fight against the fascists for the People and the Dream. Pretty innocuous, really -- it's just that it was made back when the Soviet Union and China were allies, and the plaque that was originally on it was exhorting those passing by to join their Russian allies in the struggle.

So when relations fell apart, the plaque came down. But putting another motto on there would be tantamount to admitting the failure of the ideal behind the statue. And while the statue was stirring without the plaque, the loss of that plaque marred the whole experience for those who knew what it once had been.

But taking the statue itself down? Unthinkable. That was something the Soviets did, not the Chinese.

So instead, they compromised; they transplanted trees around it, to hide it from immediate view, and as the trees grew, the statue was obscured. After a generation or so, no one knew what the statue had been for, or meant. It was just another visually-stirring but conceptually bland piece of state art that had been left to rot -- a hidden treasure no one knew about, unless you knew where to look, and why.

Beijing was full of such places, so when his new ally suggested they meet there, Wen had to ask which hidden statue he was talking about. And, in a way, he was glad it was this one; he'd discovered it, himself, as a young man, when he'd first come to this city to be part of its government, and over time it had figured into his dreams, and his personal mythology.

As he approaches, he whistles low, three times. Three high whistles greet him, and he enters the copse of trees. There, his contact leans against the statue, and walks forward to clasp his hand as Wen approaches.

"You ditched your guard?" the tall, skinny, and curious-looking Chinese man says, looking past Wen's shoulders.

"I did. I evoked my high party infallibility. Who could argue with such a thing?"

"Who could? I have to say I'm jealous. I could never shake my security details. They were stuck like glue."

"Well, I suppose you live in a more dangerous country than I?" Wen offers, smiling: "All those guns! And the freedom to stalk your target."

"Not so much, anymore," the man says, sadly: "But that's what we're here to talk about, right?"

"Yes, but... you are prepared to prove what you said?" Wen asks, taking a step back: "Because I have to say, the last place I expected to meet you again was as my new personal assistant. And while I only ever met you once, I do not remember you looking so... handsome?"

The other man smiles and nods. He pulls out something that looks like a small but technically complex flashlight.

"Now you don't see me?" he asks, turning the light on and holding it up to one side of his face. Then he slowly draws it across the bottom of his jaw, right to left.

As the light plays over his features, they change into something completely different. The Asian face melts into a different racial group, the ears move forward and shrink, and the hair gets short, tight, and curly.

By the time the light's at his left ear, Wen is convinced that he is talking to the former President of the United States of America.

"Now you do," the President says, in English, as he tries to smile. 

"Does it hurt?" is all Wen can think to ask.

"Not as much as it should," the President admits as he rubs his cheeks: "I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a little, though."

"What is it?"

"It's called a Fleshlight," he says: "Please don't laugh. They made them back in the 60's."

"Why would I laugh?" Wen asks.

"Oh, thank God," the President says, relieved. "Well, anyway, I'm not sure how this thing works, but if I don't change back soon, my real face will reject the false one, and if I try to use it I'll look like melted candle wax for the rest of my life."

"That sounds terrible."

"Yeah, that's why they stopped using them. So if you'll excuse me?"

The President turns the light back on, and moves it from left to right. As the light moves, it changes him back, so that he looks like the young, Chinese man that Wen Boxiong met three days ago.

"Remarkable," the General Secretary says: "So... what you said about our situation? This is also true?"

"Very true," the President says: "I have an ally, and he's very good at getting certain things accomplished. If we can get him some useful information, he might be able to use it against the Imago. And once we've got all our people up to speed on what we know, we can strike them as one fist, all at once, and they won't know what hit them."

"Not like the space elevator, I hope," Wen shudders: "They paid me a very pointed visit, today. They showed me exactly what happened to Southern Thailand."

"What?" the President seems confused: "What happened?"

"Oh, terrible things," Wen says: "Apparently, the group that took credit for the attack is a Muslim terrorist outfit from that part of the country. And since a lot of the people down there are Muslim, and might know who these people are, they went into their work camps to interrogate the young men and religious leaders."

"Interrogate," the President repeats, looking the man in the eyes.

"Yes, it's just as bad as it sounds. And any work camp they went into had to be silenced, afterwards. Something about conserving resources, whatever that means...?"

The President shudders, and turns around so Wen can't see his face.

"Are you alright?" Wen asks: "You're not... thinking of backing out, are you?"

"Of course not," the President says, not turning around yet: "I'm just... I didn't know they would be that brutal."

"Oh, they are," Wen sighs: "I've seen it firsthand. They are not nearly as kind and caring as they pretend to be. I think they are the most evil things I have ever met, and I have met and seen some very evil things."

"I'm sure you have," the President says, turning around and hoping that the General Secretary can't tell how wet his eyes just were: "That's part of what we were hoping to talk to you about."

"Oh?" Wen asks, looking around and wondering if they've been here too long: "What do you mean?"

"Part of what we need from you is information about some things that went on during the War," the President says: "I know that, in your previous position, you oversaw the curators of some of those things. So you might be able to tell us where to find what we're looking for without actually doing a search, which might raise flags somewhere."

"Well, I do have a good memory..." Wen offers: "I do not mean to boast, but I once remembered a thirty-two digit entrance code after only memorizing it for a minute or so. That was when I was younger, of course. But still, I think I could remember most of what I knew?"

"Good. What can you tell me about Pingfang, during the War?"

"Unit 731?" Wen gasps, and takes a step back. He puts his hand to his mouth and shudders.

"I know it can't be easy," the President says, stepping forward: "I know it was a dark time for your country, and a lot of bad things happened there. But-"

"What in the name of..." Wen asks, holding up a hand: "When you... what you're asking. Do you really want to open that door, Mr. President?"

"What will we find on the other side of it?"

"Horror," Wen Boxiong says, looking the President in the eyes: "True, bloody horror. The most terrible things were done there, at that place, by the Japanese, before and during that war. Inhumane, savage butchery. And then your government went and snatched them all up, just like they did with the Germans."

The President sighs and nods: "I know. I agree that was a bad call. Those men should have faced justice. In fact, I know the Soviets tried the ones they got their hands on, right?"

"Yes. And then they took all the horrible things they learned from them and put them right to work for themselves."

"I hear they paid for that mistake."

"Not dearly enough," Wen sighs: "It could never be enough."

The President nods: "I'm sorry to have to ask it of you. But we think that some of what happened there has a bearing on what's happening now."

"How so?"

"I can't say," the President replies: "And that's both because I don't know and because if I told you..."

"... and I was caught, the entire thing would be in the toilet," Wen finishes the thought: "That I do understand."

"Then we can get your help?"

"Yes," Wen says: "Ask me questions, I will answer. But I'm telling you this, Mr. President. What the Japanese did to us, they also did to themselves. If you're looking for an answer there, you may not like the shape of that answer."

"I haven't liked anything I've had to learn, lately."

"Perhaps not. But this time? Your digging may unearth something that will kill you with your own shovel."

The President nods. So does Wen Boxiong. They shake hands and make arrangements. And then they leave, first the President, and then Wen.

As he's waiting for a good moment to leave, he looks at the smiling soldier in the statue behind him. Even after all this rain and snow and elemental decay, his eyes still seem bright and his smile still seems genuine.

"What do you know of fear?" he asks the metal man, and then leaves, all too aware of his own.

(SPYGOD is listening to Doubt (The Cure) and having a glass of Great Wall Wine)

9/13/12 - Revenge of the Inferior Man

"So," a voice says, rousting an old man from his unconsciousness: "You ever get the feeling that you trusted the wrong !@#$ing person?"

The man blinks his eyes, and tries to move. He's an old, Chinese man, skinny as !@#$. He has wispy, white hair that goes down past his navel, and an unkempt mustache that comes down to his nipples. His eyes are bright green, his chest is covered in swirling, colorful tattoos.

And his fingers are gnarled stumps -- seemingly chewed off at the knuckles.

His head pounds, and he remembers that he was working on something important. Then someone struck him on the back of the head, and everything went red and then black.

And then he realizes that the reason he can't move is because he's been tied to a chair. 

The bound man groans and twists against the miles of duct tape that have bound him to his chair, here in the middle of a darkened room filled with glorious, sparkling, high-tech treasures. He cries out but his voice is muffled by a heavy duct tape gag.

"Calling for those soldiers?" the voice asks: "Don't !@#$ing bother. I dealt with them first. And I'm sure you got something here that'll bring 'em back to life, but you ain't getting to it."

The man howls and hurls abuse, along with a few questions as to his captor's identity. There's a light shining down on his chair, making it very hard to see anything beyond it but the faintest suggestion of shapes.

"So let me guess, you got !@#$ing sloppy over time, huh?" the voice goes on, the shape it belongs to moving around the edge of vision: "Those guards out there, keeping your old !@#$ safe? Security is an illusion, old man. I think you told a friend of mine that, once, before you did something really !@#$ rude with his girlfriend and a ball of fire..."

The old man's eyes go wide at that. He knows what this is.

He knows.

"So, anyway," his captor goes on, walking around him in a circle, just outside the light: "Here we are. I'm supposed to be handing you the other half of the money I owe you for that excellent !@#$ing work you did on those bombs. And then we can not shake hands, because we know how well that works...."

(More mumbling and and cursing under duct tape, especially when his captor goes over to a certain pair of golden, ornate gauntlets and looks at them, in the process of grabbing a pack of the man's special, black heroin cigarettes.)

"... and then we could go our separate ways. And maybe I could give you more !@#$ing money for another job in the future? That's the plan, right?"

More mumbling.

"Well, !@#$ you and your assumptions," he says, lighting one of the cigarettes up: "I worked through a third party, just so you wouldn't !@#$ing sniff me out with one of your wickity-muckity alien hoodoo things, here. But that was me doing the buying and selling, in reality.

"And the using, too. And your work's as good as always, I gotta say."

Yet more mumbling, rather accusing this time.

"Oh come off it, Long Baoshan," the man who's tied him up says, taking much too long to smoke one of his "host's" special cigarettes: "You used to work for the Chinese government, back in the day, before and after your little transformational incident. You know how this game's played. You know how it goes when someone tells you one !@#$ing thing, but they really mean another. Right?"

More mumbling.

"Well, I'm sure you do. !@#$, some people like to say you guys actually invented that !@#$, but I think we both know that's just racist !@#$. Yellow peril and all that. You shifty little yellow bastards, you."

The man tries to say something else, but he can't bring himself to. He knows that this is it, now. He's dead, and there's nothing he can do about it.

He looks around his workshop, stocked from floor to ceiling with pulsing, alien equipment, strange weapons, and things that no one but he -- except maybe that Dr. Yesterday guielo -- would ever be able to identify in ten lifetimes. It's everything he would need to free himself, turn the tables, and turn this person from a threat to a smoking pile of cinders. But it won't do him any good, right now.

No good at all.

"Yeah, what you'd give for a soldering iron in your hands, huh? Or maybe one of those !@#$ing disintegration bombs you used? You always were way ahead of your time, Long... however much you had to cheat to get there."

Louder mumbling. Arguing, even.

"Oh, come off it, you bad-bearded !@#$. You stole this !@#$. You had custody of the People's Republic of China's Extra-Terrestrial Technology lockup, and you got ideas. Next thing they know, you're gone, and so's half their !@#$ stash.

"And then, next thing we know, you're dressing up like a dragon Emperor and threatening cities for ransom."

No mumbling now. Instead he narrows his green eyes to slits and gives his captor an angry stare.

"Of course, it's the 60's. Things are just starting to get really weird, so you just fit right in, don't you? All your crazy-!@#$ alien tech that you claimed was magic, and all your escape hatches and duck blinds to hide behind. That whole thing with the Triads, your own !@#$ army. Man, you were one busy little supervillain.

"But then you had to go and do it, didn't you? You had to go and decide you were gonna pick a !@#$ fight with an American superhero, and make him your big rival.

"You had to go be someone's arch-enemy...."

His captor drags long and deep off the cigarette, taking it almost all the way down to the tip. When he exhales, it's a series of concentric rings, which he blows into the light.

"You see, maybe you don't remember, anymore, but before then, we really didn't have them. In fact, I think one of the Legion's rules was that you couldn't concentrate on just one strategic talent, for fear of them finally getting sick of your !@#$, and going after you with all guns blazing.

"Cause if you took one down, then others would have to jump in and avenge the death. And then it'd be an all out war, all for the want of some pride and a hurt !@#$hole.

"But you? You just had to be !@#$ing different. You decided you were going to rain on someone's parade, just to be a little !@#$ and get some cred with people on our side of the !@#$ing Pacific.

"And for reasons that, I'm sorry to say, even I don't even know, you decided to pick on poor Gold Standard."

More glaring. Another puff. More circles, followed by a careful flick of a spent cigarette tip that bounces right off the old man's nose, making him mumble some more.

"I mean, why the !@#$? Why him? Did he do something to you, back in Korea? Were you in the Chinese Army, then? Was your first taste of yankee might and power given to you by some !@#$er in a gold suit of armor that talked like an Army recruiter?"

The eyes glare more, and the interrogator shrugs: "Well, okay. You don't want to say, that's fine. It's not like it really !@#$ing matters, anyway. It's ancient history, now.

"Except that you changed things, you old !@#$. You made it okay to hate on one person in particular, and go out of your !@#$ way to make their lives a living !@#$.

"And that's exactly what you did, wasn't it? You made a total hash of that poor guy's life. You stole his money, crashed his car, burned his house. You !@#$ing killed every woman he was ever involved with, saw off his parents, arranged for him to meet the child he didn't know he had and then !@#$ing tore his head off, right in front of him..."

The old man smiles behind the duct tape. His captor knows this because of the way his eyes glint in the half-light.

"Yeah, you just choke on it, you !@#$" his captor hisses at the man as his eyes shine with pride: "You !@#$ed up his life just because you thought it needed !@#$ing. So you could leave stupid analects all over the crime scenes, boasting about inferior men and superior men.

"Did that really make you feel like you were the superior man, Long? Really?

"Because let me tell you something, you wrinkled !@#$. All that Gold Standard ever wanted to do was serve his !@#$ing country. He thought if he used his skills to protect it, he'd be doing right by the place of his birth.

"He didn't want fame or fortune or anything else. He just wanted to be able to say, at the end of a long !@#$ing day, that he made the world just that much safer. That much more just, and sane.

"And for that, you thought he was inferior."

The old man stops smiling into his gag. His eyes are closed, but not from contemplation or guilt. He's just wondering when it's going to happen.

When he's going to die.

"So yeah. You ruined his life. You made it a thing for super villains to fixate their bull!@#$ on one person and make their lives miserable. I got a binder full of !@#$ing arch-criminals, now, and it's all your !@#$ fault.

"So you can imagine I was really !@#$ glad when the word came through that the Chinese had enough of your !@#$, and busted you down. I guess it was that one time when you almost blew up the whole !@#$ing planet, just to get one over on Gold Standard. I guess they didn't appreciate the fact that you forgot they happened to be on the !@#$ing planet at the time?

"Hence your fingers?"

A finger comes into the light, and points to the chewed up hands, which earns him a slivered, angry look.

"Dogs, right? They smeared them with duck sauce, put you in stocks, and let the dogs loose? That was what I saw on that film they sent me as a professional courtesy, right?"

Another, even more angry look is his only reply.

"Yeah, that's what I !@#$ing thought. Of course, you can still use your gauntlets, once you earned them back from your new paymasters. But they ripped out all the !@#$ing good stuff and gave them to other, more controllable agents and talents.

"All you can do with those things, now, is have !@#$ing hands. Clawed hands, maybe, but it's enough for you to do your !@#$ job, and make some scratch on the side. Just keep making weapons for the Commies up in Beijing, and everyone's !@#$ing happy.

"But I bet you miss being on the mainland, instead of being stuck on this !@#$hole little island. I bet you miss doing what you want instead of being a prisoner, and having soldiers check in on you every !@#$ing five minutes. I bet you miss being able to spend your money in big cities, like the !@#$ing playboy you used to be.

"And I bet you really miss being able to !@#$ing wipe your !@#$, you superior man, you."

More mumbling, angrier than ever. Of course, this just makes his captor more amused.

"So yeah, Gold Standard is dead," he goes on, lighting up another cigarette: "Radiation poisoning from his own armor. After all the horrible, !@#$ed-up things you did to try and ruin his life, you didn't get to be the one who did him in. He wound up killing himself.

"Accidentally, of course. That's what happens when you invent your own !@#$ power source and don't test it before you strap it on and go fight crime. Hazard of the profession.

"But you know what I think? I think that after you killed his son a little light went out of his eyes. That little, fragile piece of humanity that makes all the difference between caring whether you live and die, and not giving a !@#$? I think it broke, that day.

"And I never saw it get fixed.

"But then I'm sure you heard all about that. In fact, I saw your collection of newspaper clippings and internet printouts, back in the bathroom, right on top of the western girlie mags. All those stories about his retirement, and his medical condition, and how he spent his last few days on Earth...

"Did you read them while you took a !@#$? Did you !@#$ing jerk off to them? Huh?"


No answer.

His captor screams and hurls the cigarette in such a way that the business end smacks the man right between his eyebrows. The old man screams in shock and pain, terrified that he almost lost an eye.

There's footsteps from the edge of the circle of light, heading away -- maybe to the door. There's metal sounds.

Slooshing. 

"You really are a sorry !@#$ piece of work, Long Baoshan," the voice says, coming closer with a clunky, metal, slooshing object: "I'm glad we had this little conversation, though. I'm glad we could finally clear the air, after all these years. Just so you know that I could have come here, anytime, and !@#$ing killed you for all that !@#$ you pulled on a good man.

"But instead, I used you."

More mumbling.

"Yes, that's right, Long. I used you like a two-dollar whore. All these years, I was one of your best !@#$ing customers. I had you build me things that I turned around and used on your !@#$ing friends. I had you examine technology and break it down for me, and then handed that over to other people to replicate and rejigger.

"I even defeated a doomsday device with your help, once. You had no idea the thing you were making was the thing we needed to break. So I just watched how you put it together, and then we !@#$ing took it apart the same way.

"And you never had any !@#$ing idea. That was the best part."

More angry mumbling.

"And you've been very !@#$ helpful since the Imago took over. And you're especially welcome for living this long, too. A couple years back I fixed it so that the part of the Chinese government that knew you were here lost all !@#$ing contact with the rest of the Chinese government. You've been a secret wrapped in a package stuffed in a big !@#$ black box for the last decade or so, Long.

"So when the invasion happened... no one knew to come looking for you. Neat trick, huh?"

No mumbling. Shock, even.

"And that's been a !@#$ good thing on my part, too, because without your genius, however stolen, I would never have been able to make the bombs that I used on that !@#$ing space elevator. Ordinary ordinance would have bounced the !@#$ off, and they'd just put it back together, anyway. You know how those !@#$ers are.

"But seeing as how you're one of the few experts on nanotech scramblers, well, good luck putting humpty dumpty's fat !@#$ back together again. Nice work, Long. A+

"But..."

The man comes closer, bringing the slooshing something with him, almost up to the light.

"... since you are one of the few experts on nanotech scramblers, and you've done work for other people, it's only a matter of time before they actually do track you back here. And then we could all be in the !@#$. Especially if they find you and connect you to me. And double if they find all your cool !@#$ here, and put it to work.

"So."

He lifts up the metal object, and holds it into the light so the old man can see it.

It's a gas can -- clearly full.

The old man starts screaming through the gag

"Now, see, normally I'd shoot your !@#$ eyes out, and then burn your body," SPYGOD says, stepping forward into the light: "But this time, I think I'm going to do it in reverse. Just for laughs.

"That and I think Gold Standard might appreciate the proxy revenge."

The old man screams. Gas coats him from head to toe. Spygod lights up a cigarette, puffs it gently --savoring the fat taste, and the near-lethal tang of heroin.

When he taps it out, he does so in such a way that a trail of dying embers floats over onto the supervillain's body. There's a whoosh as it ignites, followed by the terrible noise as the duct tape catches fire and collapses, allowing what's left of the old man to truly scream.

And SPYGOD watches, smokes deadly cigarettes, and smiles.

* * *

A short, well-dressed Chinese man stands some distance away from the nondescript structure on the highest peak of Xiaosanmen island. He watches as the building burns, wondering if the man who went in there will come out before it completely collapses.

Eventually, he does. In fact, he seems to have timed it perfectly -- waiting until the very last second, almost, and then strutting through the front door just as the central support finally crumbles, sending up a wave of fire and sparks.

"Is that an end to it, then?" he asks SPYGOD, who's walking towards him with a large, black suitcase in one hand: "The August Verdant Imperator no longer takes breath?"

"That'd be !@#$ right, Lee," he says: "Long Baoshan is !@#$ing dead. Thanks for sticking around."

"So what next?' the man asks: "If you like, I can introduce you to many other experts in similar technologies. I even have a man in Lantau who can-"

He never finishes the sentence. SPYGOD shoots him twice -- once in each eye socket -- and blows his brains out the back of his skull.

"Next, we leave you for the !@#$ing buzzards to find," he says, kneeling down and taking his money out of the man's pockets: "And then, in your next life, you find a better !@#$ing profession than weapons trafficking."

That done, he stands up, and looks out at the sea surrounding the otherwise-deserted island. He sees that a certain space elevator is not yet put back into place, and smiles.

"Inferior men," he chuckles, wondering if he should keep these nasty, black cigarettes or throw them away.

And then, after he makes his decision, he's gone.

(SPYGOD is listening to Zenstation (Depeche Mode) and having a cigarette you really shouldn't think about smoking)