1/17/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 6.5

"Lo! Death Has Reared Himself a Throne."
Tempete Bleu (Aka Armilus)
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

We should not be here, now, woman, the Other tells Ciel Rouge as she flits her way across Washington DC, never staying in one spot for longer than a few minutes. 

"I know," she says, looking up at the skies for any sign of the person she's come here to find: "This is ill-considered, dangerous, and not a good idea."

But you're going to do it anyway.

"Yes," the red-shrouded woman insists, teleporting not far from the Jefferson Memorial -- strangely deserted on this afternoon: "This conspiracy must be exposed, and now! This obscenity... the innocents imprisoned, the plan they have!"

A plan you could stop all by yourself, now that you know what you do.

"Yes. I've gotten all the information I needed. That part was easy. But now I need to go public with it, and now. And to do that I'll need more than simply my word."

You'll need the help of that lightning-throwing fellow who, up until a week or so ago, you didn't trust either. 

"I know," she sighs, looking up and around for any sign of him: "The truth makes for strange bedfellows." 

It also makes for uncomfortable revelations. 

"What do you mean?" 

I mean that, if you meet him? I cannot help you. 

Ciel Rouge blinks, and then shakes her head: "Why?" 

I cannot tell you. All I can say is that, if you choose to confide in him, instead of simply going it alone, you must walk alone for a time. 

"Of all the sullen, stupid, spiteful things..." the red woman mutters.

This is not about spite, woman. This is about your soul. This is about the mission you were placed on. 

"What do you think I'm doing?"

Hiding behind a man, apparently. 

"I need his help. Surely you can see that?"

Then you don't need ours.

"Wait," she says, but it's too late. Her Other has left her.

"Well fine," she declares: "If you want to pull this merde on me again, so be it. I am tired of your ridiculous attempts to teach me something without explanation. You just walk away! See if I need you."

It's a childish tirade, she knows. She feels incredibly stupid and small for having said it. But given how fickle her Other can be -- how smug and yet childish -- she doesn't feel the least bit sorry. It'll come back to her at some point, either when it thinks it's made its point, or else when it gets lonely again. 

Until then, she'll just have to handle this on her own. 

Ah, there. She sees Tempete Bleu, up ahead. He's floating over the White House for some reason. And the look on his face...

For a moment, she thinks maybe she shouldn't do this after all. Whenever she looks at him, there's always been that weird, visceral reaction in her gut -- the one that makes her wonder who's side he's really on.

But no. She'll need help in this. She'll need the word of France's greatest hero if she's to take on the knight of Paris, to say nothing of an entire agency of the Terre Unifee, and who knows how many National Facilitators.

He sees her. She knows this, as she can feel the uneasy reaction to his gaze. She can also tell that he's smiling, though she's not sure why. 

And as she teleports over to meet him, hopefully halfway, she can only hope it's as a friend, rather than anything else. 

* * *

"So what do I say?" New Man muses as he walks through the wintery streets of Old Deerfield, looking for an impossible building: "Just passing through? Mind if I come in? !@#$, anyone home?"

He has no idea. All he knows for sure is that he has a job to do -- one he's not sure he can do, now or ever.

But one he has to try, if only to save his son.

This sleepy, Massachusetts town is a living museum: an 18th century community, lovingly restored, and presented as a page out of the past. It's prosaic and calming, especially now that it's ankle-deep in fresh snow. And as he walks, he can almost imagine the years flipping back upon themselves, leaving him blissfully alone in another place, another time.

No wonder Doctor Power liked it so much -- he always seemed a man out of his era.

A long time ago, when he first appeared on the scene, the Doctor claimed he'd found a doorway to nowhere, here in this town. He'd gone in and done battle with the terrible things he'd found there, and then used his will to carve a sanctum out of the resulting void. And there, in the strange intersection of realms and forces, he'd used the occult secrets he'd learned at the feet of the Great Masters to perform wonders and miracles -- using his sorcery for the cause of right and justice.

Sadly, most of that had turned out to be bull!@#$.

As they learned later, Doctor Power had made deals with a number of devils and demons to get his powers. He'd been reckless and feckless, and left the bodies and friends and allies strewn behind him as he'd danced forward, ever-seeking a new patron who'd erase the sorcerous debts he owed so many others.

He was, in the words of one of those many broken friends, a gambling addict using the world as collateral while playing dice with the Gods. 

In the end, Doctor Power's bill finally caught up with him in a big way, and cost a truly innocent life. SPYGOD had taken matters into his own hands, and the magician never been seen since. Some say the devils had come to collect on their marker, others claimed he'd hidden himself away so deep even they couldn't find them.

And then there were those who insisted -- in spite of all sense -- that he was just biding his time before coming back, smug as always and better than ever.

New Man didn't know what to think. He'd known the man since the Liberty Patrol, and while he wasn't always the nicest guy, or the easiest to understand, he'd always seemed to be decent, under it all. The sort of person you could trust your life to with no compunctions or regrets.

Or maybe that was just his being naive. Maybe he'd been fooled like the others. Maybe even worse than the others.

Maybe he'd just narrowly missed being one of those many victims, left behind in the man's mad dash for occult power.

But no matter how Doctor Power had come across it, the door to nowhere was real. So was the sanctum behind it. And, if what Mr. USA had told him was correct, that was also the location of the COMPANY's secret Third Base.

It made perfect sense in a way. SPYGOD made his home in a decommissioned supervillain weapon, and floated above the clouds in a mobile base of operations with enough firepower to crack open the Earth. He'd had a seven-sided stronghold built in DC just to thumb his nose at the Pentagon, and took his Scouts vacationing in a pocket universe, alternate Earth full of dinosaurs.

So if he was going to have a secret, third base for the COMPANY, why wouldn't he have it be through a mystic portal?

And that's what New Man was here to find, apparently. According to Mr. USA, there was untold amounts of aid and information, waiting right within it. AGENTS no one else knew about, hiding in there, doing who knows what. Tools and toys and weapons galore, all ready to be used to break SPYGOD out of jail -- for good, this time -- end this French farce, and make all concerns about his son's safety something of a moot point.

All he had to do was figure out how to get in.

A tall order, perhaps, but something Mr. USA thought he might have a special angle on. Given that his powers seemed to come from tapping into something, rather than being an accident of biology, or converting one kind of energy into another, it was just conceivable he might be able to transmute himself through the barrier, there. And if he could do that, well, maybe he could be the one to get in and out, and bring whatever was waiting in there back out into the world again.

As he strides towards his destination, New Man considers -- for something like the three-hundredth time -- that this could all be a trap. Maybe Mr. USA wasn't on the side of the angels after all. Maybe the TU is watching him, even now. Maybe that electric !@#$ from Le Compagnie is lurking nearby, just about to give the signal and have him turned into lunch meat.

Maybe.

He sighs, shrugs, and keeps walking. Even if this was a trap, it was far too late to turn back, now. He had to go forward and just hope he could do what he was supposed to do.

He had done a lot of good in his life. He'd also done some bad, here and there. And one of the worst things he'd ever done was to turn his back on his son when he was growing up, and not be there for him. His child had grown up bitter and broken without him, and while part of that was because of the poison his mother had dripped into his ears, a large measure of it had to lay at his feet for having not been there to show him any different.

Maybe this couldn't erase all that neglect, or fix how cluelessly he was doing this "dad's back in your life" thing, now, it could go some distance to make up for it.

Maybe.

That thought makes him smile, just a little. It's enough that he barely notices how everything goes too silent, just before a far-off crack splits the air.

And then there's a bullet inside his chest, right through his heart.

He gasps and tips forward, but before he can cry out he feels a weird sensation -- like he was being shut down from the inside out by something intent on chaining him with his own energy.

"Oh !@#$, not again," he mutters, and then flickers like a broken television, just before being sucked right into the bullet that felled him. Only, unlike the last time someone disrupted his energies so grossly, he's able to see what's going on around him -- albeit from the warped cylinder of the projectile.

A large figure appears in his field of vision. Then it becomes two people, both of whom he thinks he knows.

A hand reaches down to pick him up, and he realizes he does know this person, but something has changed.

He also knows that weapon slung over her shoulder, from his brief time as Director of the COMPANY.

But he doesn't even have time to say its name -- much less hers -- before the two figures become one, again, and he's somewhere else entirely.

* * *

Fangataufa, Gunther has finally realized, is a really !@#$ty place to get killed.

It's just a picturesque atoll, on the southernmost part of so-called French Polynesia. A vaguely squarish, broken, and thin line of sand some nine and a half kilometers to a side. About 45 square kilometers of water on the inside, deep and blue due to a crater in its center.

A crater formed by the atoll's one real claim to fame -- having been the site of over 200 nuclear weapons tests by France.

Browbeaten by world opinion, the French stopped their testing in the 90's. However, the damage was already done: the area's ecosystem had been wrecked by radiation and nuclear waste, and fallout had caused birth defects on numerous other islands throughout the archipelago. This made what would otherwise be a beautiful and secluded area a massive no-go zone, even for the most foolhardly of visitors and tour companies.

It also made it the best place to hide something.

Finding that something had been Gunther's part of the mission. He'd looked into Champlain Entreprises, following its many trails of cash and materiel -- a significant amount of which ended in French Polynesia. After that, it was a simple thing to follow supplies to a seemingly-abandoned nuclear testing post on nearby Tureia, and then observe what went on at night, when a fleet of submersibles left the post, heading due south.

And, after that, a simpler -- but ultimately foolhardy -- thing to smuggle himself onto one of those submersibles, and then infiltrate the base they'd built within that crater.

And then see what secret that crater contained...

Gunther had to give them credit. In spite of all they'd found, and what they realized might be going on -- based on who was at the center of it -- the moment of realization was rather overwhelming. He found himself regretting that his otherwise-impeccable piece of reportage had been marred by his saying "Scheiße" on camera as he panned over the length of what he'd seen.

He also regretted saying that for the simple fact that it had completely blown his cover, leading to a number of well-armed and very unamused guards firing at him.

He'd given as good as he'd gotten, of course. He'd even taken a few of them out as he'd run back the way he'd come, narrating his findings all the way. Sadly, he'd zigged when he should have zagged going down one of the long, steel cylinders leading from the central pen, and took some bullets for his pains.

As Gunther crawls backwards towards a corner wall, using one hand to cradle his guts and his other to drag himself on -- and somehow hold his almost-empty rifle -- he knows this is probably it. The bullets they hit him with are the special, frangible kind that shatter against hard surfaces, making them ideal for pressurized environments. They also tend to shatter inside the human body, creating all kinds of trauma as they go.

And as he struggles towards the corner, the splinters grind against each other deep within his guts, making each inch he makes a special kind of agony.

He can feel his brothers and sisters calling out to him, knowing that something is wrong, but he's doing his best to block them. He doesn't want them to feel this pain, for fear of tripping them up. He doesn't want them to suffer the same kind of trauma they experienced just over two years ago, when Geri and Johan died.

He doesn't want their last memories of him to be how badly he's !@#$ed up, in search of the story.

"I love you all," he says, hoping they can somehow feel him without hearing, and then presses upload, sending all the information he's gotten straight on to them.

A hail of gunfire reaches him seconds later. The bullets turn him into ragged, bloody meat. 

But they can never stop the truth.

* * *

His name was Orange Streak. He was a space hero. And now he is dead.

He floats about 100 miles up, his body a mess of burned flesh inside what's left of his spacesuit. Perfect, flash-frozen spheres of his blood float around him, glittering like rubies in the sunlight. His last enigmatic gesture -- an outstretched arm, as if to stop his killer -- makes a heroic pose against the black.

He is dead, now. He is far from the only one.

Hundreds of miles beyond that floats another hero. His name was Krasnoye Koltso, named for the mysterious red ring he wore. An artifact of deranged Soviet science, it allowed him to create anything he could imagine, and survive in almost any environment, provided he fed it with his own body.

Like the brave cosmonauts before him who'd wielded the ring, he'd started out a large, tall man, and slowly shrunk down as the ring took more out of him that heavy eating and ridiculous weight training could replace. A small, spinning top of a corpse, he tumbles end over end, falling away from the ship-shaped star that killed him.

He'll reach the Earth, eventually, there to burn on the way down to the ground. They may find the ring, to give it to yet another idealistic young man.

On the other hand, they may not.

Past that, the line of dead heroes continues. The enigmatic Ether Phantom floats far beyond, invisible even in death. Stellar Sandy's amazing space horse lies broken and still, having long since bucked its rider towards the Lagrange Point she used to patrol. Some distance beyond that, a dysfunctional family of cyborgs crackles and twitches in their death throes, knowing too well that there will be no last minute rescue.

No one will be coming to save them from their bravado, this time.

They were proud, these guardians of Earth's upper atmosphere and near-orbit. With the demise of Deep-Ten, they were our first and last line of defense against cosmic menace, space-based malfeasance, or asteroids that came too close for safety. And when they got word that something hostile was headed for the Sled, it went without saying they raced into action, confident they could overcome it.

Confidence that was sadly misplaced.

They were young, most of them, and had no idea what they were up against. And even those who'd seen the Fire Flier in action might not have known just how dangerous an adversary it was. They may not have even seen all its weapons systems in action -- products of the best technology a paranoid, high-tech nation could produce, or else steal from the strange things that tried to attack it.

They never even had a chance, and the line of the dead pays bitter testament to this fact.

The procession of floating corpses goes on and on, slowly becoming more sparse the further it gets from Earth. And as the ship approaches its destination,  Mister 10 laughs and cries in equal measure, screaming bright blue abuse at the man who's taken everything from him.

He's given up on demands, though. He realized, somewhere between liftoff and the first kill, that there will be no going back from this. He will not be given Hanami at the end of this trail of death. He will only get death, itself.

But he will take Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir with him, and that will be enough.

(He wonders, is this what insanity feels like? He considers whether the machine has begun to warp his mind, just as it warped Dr. Toriyumi, and all those young fools he got to fly her. Or maybe he's always been this crazy, and it's just now coming into focus, at the end of his life.)

The Sled is close, now. He can almost make out fine details. If he's going to turn this ship into fire, and plunge on in to his death, now is the time.

He's a simple gesture away from turning on the transmutation matrix when he looks ahead, and sees that she's standing there, in space.

Hanami. His Hanami. His beautiful little girl, floating in the vacuum in her schoolgirl outfit, serene and smiling.

For a moment he thinks he might actually be able to win this. Maybe she's come for him. Maybe he's going to fly on over to meet him, and come inside his ship.

Maybe, now that she's seen how far he's willing to go for his love for her, she will love him at last...?

He smiles, hopeful. She smiles as well. But it isn't until she raises a languid hand and cocks her head just so that he realizes she's not here to join him.

She's here to end him.

He screams. It's a pitiful, sad sort of thing -- hardly worthy of him, or the image he tried to project all those years. The deadly, dangerous man no one dared cross. The scourge of Prime Ministers, the man who held the keys to all the hazardous things that fell from the sky or rose from the waves.

Mister Ten, the taciturn keeper of sea monsters, space machines, and miracles -- undone by one of his own possessions, but yet something he could never truly possess.

Love.

There's a bright flash of light, followed by an even brighter one. A second star flares in the sky, not far from the ship being crafted in orbit.

And then there's just darkness, once again.

Darkness, and the dead.

* * *

A long time ago, when he was a young boy, Tempete Bleu dreamed of bug zappers.

His father had one. It was large and black and hung from a high branch in their backyard -- just high enough for the kids to not be able to reach it, but not so tall that an adult couldn't reach up, unscrew its base, and shake the dead insects out. They would eat a late dinner on the patio, in spring and summer, and the sound of the occasional insect going zapppp never failed to raise a chuckle.

He would sometimes stare at it, as he sat on that porch -- hearing its low hum, watching it waver in the heat. Sometimes he thought it was talking to him, and maybe it was. And at night, he would dream he was a human bug zapper, and that he could reach out and shock people with a touch of his fingers: bullies at school, the teachers who annoyed him, his parents who punished him.

Zap zap zap. 

As he got older, and his needs changed, he would dream of a different kind of zapping. He would slip himself into the women he wanted, and the noises they made as he did were a source of much satisfaction. The moaning in pleasure. The screams of pain.

The burning.

Zap zap zap.

Was that his power trying to express itself at an early age? He wondered, sometimes. He wondered a lot of things, now that he knew even more about himself than he'd ever dreamed, or dared.

And now that he knows exactly who he is, and his part in things, he's amazed he didn't think of daring to do that particular thing before now.

Ciel Rouge was the ideal candidate for it, really. Any ordinary woman would have died too soon, but something about how she was put together made her last a lot longer. And the fact that her mind was mostly gone even before he started kept her from going into shock.

(Showing her the truth about himself was too much for even her to bear, oddly enough.)

In truth, he'd been planning to do this to her for some time. Something about how she clearly revolted him caused him no end of excitement. He hated her for hating him, and yet wanted her because of that hate.

And when she came before him, trying to get him to be on her side against Foudre Blanc? Oh, that was just the most perfect excuse to make this happen.

So he let her speak to him, hidden around a corner of that monument-strewn town like a pair of spies conferring. He let her accusations wash over him, and pretended to be interested, and to care. He even looked a little sad when she shed a tear, clearly upset by the plan she'd uncovered, and the white knight of Paris' role in it all.

So when he put his hands on her shoulders, ever so gently, and looked into her eyes, she was unaware of what was happening until he opened his true eyes, and showed her Hell.

He expected more of a fight, truly. He thought that "Other" she spoke of might manifest itself, in that moment, and give him something resembling a real fight. But if it was there, it chose not to intervene, and she could only scream and flail as her mind shattered to pieces.

After that, he brought her up here, to his broken throne above the world. He tore her red shroud from her, and all other things besides. And then he took her in as slow and intimate a way as possible, in as many ways as he could conceive -- some of which should have been impossible, even for him, but were somehow accomplished.

And now that he is sated, draped nude across his throne, he ponders what to do with what's left of her.

He can sense her Other, lurking nearby. It might be trying to hide from him, but he's neither fooled nor threatened. It's clearly powerless without a living body to possess, and he's left very little of hers worth retaking.

All it can do is curse him, though it maintains a hard, stoic silence he can't quite decipher.

He can also hear his mentors speaking to him, from beyond. They ask if this was really a worthy act for one such as he, almost at the cusp of taking his power. Surely he could find more worthy targets, and more worthy ways to dispatch them...?

He pretends to not hear them. They have taught him all they can, and brought him this far. Now he must do what needs doing, and in his own way.

To that end he gets up, grabs her near-lifeless body, and -- with three quick spins -- hurls it straight towards the Sun, some distance away.

"A revoir," he salutes her, his mouth a crazy nest of fangs nestled within lips of barbed wire: "Salope."

And then she's gone from his sight, leaving him to consider his next move, now that Les Trois Grandes are down to only two. Is the end of this era an auspicious thing, or merely part and parcel of how this world ends?

He's not sure, yet. But by the time he figures out what to do next, and why, his broken victim has hurtled past the Moon, heading for a star.

And what may be a final change.

* * *

In the hidden room beneath the White House, where a holy sword once blazed, there is now nothing but the most ephemeral of glows.

A heap of corrupted slag bubbles and boils in the center of the darkened room -- its sorry state testament to the power of Hell's emissary. It does its best to reassemble itself, and stand tall once again, but each attempt only weakens it all the more. Before long, it's clear that it has no option but surrender.

And as it finally gives up, and the last, trembling vestige of Heaven's power and grace leaves it like a long-overdue death rattle, the room goes completely dark.

In that eerie silence that follows, there's a sound not unlike a long, well-forged chain falling from a mighty, invisible gate, and then the sound of that gate slowly opening.

The world shifts, just then.

And the moment it does, a strange, bone-white man with black skulls for eyes stands up from his throne, in his superslam cell in the Ivory Coast, and opens his mouth in a massive O. The ghosts that attend him howl and swirl in his wake, suddenly afraid for their unlives as a large measure of power flows from the world right into his body.

And he gasps, and shudders, and then stands perfectly still -- almost serene.

For the first time in ages, Prisoner 52 knows who he is.

More importantly, he knows what he is.

And he knows why he's been down here so long, unable to fully recollect his name.

"Satanoth," he says, walking out of his cell and out to the balcony before it, putting his hands on the railing and looking down at the sorry kingdom of living dead men he's ruled for so long.

"Satanoth" he repeats, both amused and angered by his predicament.

"Satanoth!" he screams, his hands bending the rails as his voice shatters the boundaries between the land of the living and the many realms of the dead, allowing a sudden, brutal traffic between them all.

And as bedlam rules, and he laughs to feel the power once again, his mind reaches out to those like him -- lost all those years ago -- to find his brothers and sisters in power.

All those sleeping Supergods, about to wake up and taste freedom.

And Gods only know what they'll do with it.

* * *

My Nerves Are All Jangled

But I'm Pulling Through

I Hope I Can Handle

What I Have To Do

* * * 

(SPYGOD is listening to Only The Wind (Pet Shop Boys, live) and having a Thanatos) 

1/15/13 - Seven Days of the Con Job - Pt. 4.5

Les Trois Grandes
Foudre Blanc, Tempete Bleu, Ciel Rouge
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

Far off the beaten path, in the mountains of India, there's a particular peak that does not appear on any map. 

It's a terrifying thing -- tall and scraggly, utterly bereft of plant life. The animals all give it a wide berth, and people who look at it don't care to stare for too terribly long.

It's just not a healthy thing to consider, for some odd reason -- especially not on a night like this.

Before that unholy mountain is a windswept plain. In that plain, well within the mountain's moon-shadow, is a cairn of black and tan rocks. It's maybe two feet tall and four feet wide, and with no writing to explain why it's there. 

Suddenly, there's a wavering motion in the air, and someone appears directly in front of it.

It's a man, dressed in what might be some kind of sterile suit. It's got a clear facemask and an oxygen tank. It's also got blood spattered all over it. 

The man reaches down into a pouch, on the suit's belt, and pulls up a small, plastic communicator. He says something into it, and then tosses it off into the dirt, where it sparks, smokes and warps itself into uselessness within seconds.

By the time it's broken itself down into nothing but unhappy molecules, the man has vanished again. This time it's by an entirely different mechanism, and for a much different purpose. But the disappearance is so seamless and smooth that, if anyone had been out here to watch, they might think they just saw a magic trick. 

And they might just have applauded, in spite of themselves. 

* * *

“Quite the speech, my friend,” Foudre Blanc says to a well-dressed man, shaking his hand as he does: “Very convincing.”

“Thank you,” the fellow says, clasping the hero’s hand with both of his own and smiling: “I certainly hope so. They say you can lead a horse to water…”

“But you can’t get him into the boat?”

“Exactly!” the man laughs, his voice echoing across the large, tightly-packed hall he was just addressing.

The room is filled to bursting, tonight. Hundreds of Front Nationale representatives are there, along with delegates of other likeminded groups from throughout Europe. They all press flesh and chortle, so high on the fumes of what they just heard that their normal antipathy for one another is mostly absent.

“So, do we have a timetable?” the white-clad hero asks, wondering how long it’ll be before the Lega Nord people start a fight with the Golden Dawn, just because.

“Soon,” the man says, nodding at that mousy woman from the Danish People's Party as she touches his sleeve and thanks him.

"Just soon?" Foudre Blanc replies, a little dumbfounded: "My understanding is that that... thing is getting even closer. Surely we have to be ready to move soon?"

"And we will," the man assures him, patting him on the back: "It's just a delicate thing, you understand. All these people, all these technical setbacks. And then the matter of getting us up and away in the first place..."

He pauses for a moment to nod at that weird-haired fellow from Party for Freedom, who's entertaining a gaggle of starstruck NF people with his own tales of making things difficult for Negros.

"If there are still difficulties, you can count on my help," Foudre Blanc says: "My company has gladly given time, money, and resources towards this goal. And will gladly continue to do so."

"And it's greatly appreciated, Bruno," the man says, nodding to others still as they pass (Jobbik, Finns, those ones from Spain who change their name every other year): "Indeed, if it hadn't been for Industries Roquer, I doubt we'd have gotten this far this fast."

"Even with the backing of the Terre Unifee?" the white-clad hero chuckles.

"Well, it's one thing to have the reins, and another to be able to gallop the horse out of the stable at any time," the man winks: "I'm sure you understand, having your own group of secrets to tend to."

"I do indeed," Foudre Blanc says, quietly wincing as Julien starts heading their way, the better to schmooze on the man of the hour, too.

"Have no fear, my friend," he says, smiling at the hero: "We will take to the skies, as I have promised. We will leave this sorry mess of a world behind. And we will set up a new, more pure one elsewhere."

"A noble goal," the hero says, taking a step back as the Old Man's number one comes up to fawn.

The after-speech festivities go on for some time. And with each passing moment, Foudre Blanc becomes more uncertain of things. More ambivalent.

It's not that he's against the plan -- indeed, he's one of the principal bankrollers. But rather that, when he started his campaign, he imagined that he would be cleaning up Paris of the human filth that had infested it, so that future generations could once again live in a clean and beautiful city. 

But this way? They'll be leaving it in the dust to be destroyed whenever that massive space disaster gets here. One of the greatest cities in the history of the world, rendered unto dust by some horrible thing beyond human imagining. 

Does that mean his mission is a failure, then? Or is he simply trading what would otherwise be a lifetime of work for a sharp and final lateral move? 

He's not sure. He resigned himself to a lifetime's crusade, back when he began it. Indeed, he knew he might die with that mission unfulfilled.

But now -- as he stands on the brink of seeing it done by default -- all he knows is that he will be disappointed that the final piece of negro filth that dies in his city will not perish by his hand, but instead by some abomination that he'd never dare to look upon, himself.

Disappointed, and more than a little cheated to see his promise to Sabine fulfilled by default. 

Eventually, the evening comes to a close. People leave in small knots and whorls, and then in one final trickling. On the steps, at the end, Julien shakes the man's hand, and then walks away quickly before Foudre Blanc comes up to pay his own respects. And then he's gone too -- zapped off into the electrical wires -- leaving only the man of the hour, who must now catch a cab, as though he were simply another businessman out at night. 

Unbeknownst to him, as he hails a taxi, he is being watched.

One of his spies is a woman wrapped in a red shroud, who lurks in the shadows of a nearby building and glares at him. If looks could kill, he would have died a thousand deaths by now. Indeed, it’s rather difficult for her to avoid going over there, right now, and giving the dead their due.

Especially after everything she just heard inside that hall…

But Ciel Rouge is not stupid. She knows she cannot touch him, here and now. Not with the power he holds. Not by herself.

No. She must wait for the right moment to expose him, and his followers. She must gather more facts and gain more allies. She must be ready to bring the house down in such a way that it wouldn’t collapse on her, instead.

And she thinks she knows just what to say, when she finally gets the chance. 

She vanishes, leaving him no wiser. And as he finally gets a cab to stop and pick him up, he's observed by yet another person -- a black-clad, young blonde woman who kneels on a rooftop, miles away. 

If anyone came onto that rooftop, just then, they might think she’s making ready to take his head off with the rifle she’s wrapped around. But the rifle has a long-range microphone where the barrel should be, and a large telescope attached to what should be a sight. 

Helga smirks, watching as Guillaume Brilliand, Director of the Space Service, gets off the street at last. 

I've got him, she tells the others. 

And suddenly, something becomes very clear to them all.

* * *

“So, you want to tell me what’s really going on, here?” Mark Clutch asks SPYGOD, walking into the otherwise-deserted room the man is sitting in. It might have been a library, once, except that all the shelves are empty, save for dust and cobwebs.

“Well, I’m having a !@#$ing drink,” SPYGOD says, raising a glass from the side of his ratty chair: “Straffer’s taking a !@#$ shower. Martha’s making sure the car’s good to go-“

“And you’re going to answer some !@#$ questions for a change,” Mark insists, leaning over him.

“You sure you want to take that tone with me, son?”

“!@#$ straight I am,” Mark says, too angry to be properly scared.

“Okay…” SPYGOD says, having a sizable gulp of his drink: “Let’s have it.”

“What are we doing?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I did, Mark. That’s just kind of !@#$ing broad.”

“What are we doing here?”

“Well, that’s kind of !@#$ing existential-“

“Shut up!” Mark shouts, knocking SPYGOD’s drink out of his hand and putting his fist in the man’s face: “I swear to God if you get smart one more time I’ll-“

He doesn’t even see SPYGOD move. One moment he’s standing in front of a sitting man. The next he’s sitting in the chair, and SPYGOD’s standing over him.

“What?” he says, his brain still reeling from the sudden movement.

“Now it’s my turn,” SPYGOD says, pointing to the glass where it lies on the ground, empty: “And before I !@#$ing say anything, you better understand something son. I love Martha with all my !@#$ heart, but you ever knock anything out of my !@#$ing hand again, you’re going to be making yourself a new one with your other one broken and shoved right up your !@#$. You !@#$ing got that, son?”

“Well, at least now we’re being honest,” Mark snorts.

“What the !@#$ do you mean?”

“I mean you’re finally showing us how it is.”

“You mean you didn’t !@#$ing know, already?” SPYGOD asks, raising an eyebrow: “I shoot people for less backtalk, Mark. You know that.”

“Yeah, and that’s one of the few things I do know.”

“Look, son, I !@#$ing told you,” SPYGOD sighs, putting his hands to the sky in exasperation: “I’m not telling you a !@#$ thing more than you need to know because it’s not !@#$ing safe. Not for the plan, not for me, not for you.”

“Maybe I should decide that?”

“Because I am sick and tired of not knowing anything,” the man says: “I am sick and tired of being led around by the nose from place to place. I am sick and tired of following mysterious leaders who don’t tell me who they are and ask me to put my !@#$ life on the line, and then-“

“You realize you just !@#$ing described being someone’s sidekick to a t, right?”

Mark blinks a few times, and then, sighing, just looks down at his hands: “It’s just… I love Martha, (REDACTED). I’d follow her around the world. I’d trust her with my life. And the reason for that is that she does not play this secret agent man game with me.”

“It’s not a !@#$ game, son.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Pretend I !@#$ing don’t. Explain it to me, Mark. Small words, long sentences.”

“Alright then,” Mark says, looking him in the eye: “I spent a long time hiding in a treehouse on another planet, following the orders of a guy in a mask who claimed to be working for you, but really wasn’t. And then almost dying because one of the people we thought you vouched for turned out to be… what the !@#$ WAS that thing?”

“Moloch?” SPYGOD says, shrugging: “Damn if I know. Dangerous, that was for !@#$ sure.”

“Yeah. And come to find out it’s Mr. USA-“

“That was not Mr. USA.”

“No, I mean the leader of the resistance, who was Mr. USA, who’d been living a parallel life to the Mr. USA we all knew, and acting in secret all this time, and not stopping !@#$ from happening, and-“

“Stop it,” SPYGOD  commands, waving a hand in front of the man’s face, as if to wake him up: “We just got over this !@#$. Let’s not !@#$ing start it again, okay?”

“Well, that’s just it. Maybe I’m not over it. Maybe I still have a problem being led a mysterious leader who not only doesn’t want to tell me what’s going on, but just admitted even he doesn’t know what’s going on. Maybe I’m sick and tired of being in the dark.”

There’s silence for a time, then. Mark sits there, unsure if he’s going to get smacked, shot, or yelled at some more. But whatever anger he felt when he strode in here seems to have dissipated, somehow.

Better out than in, maybe.

“Look,” SPYGOD sighs, trying to be a little more gentle: “Do you know what a !@#$ N-Machine is, Mark?”

“I think they might have told me, once or twice.”

“Then imagine this, son. Imagine you !@#$ing know something, and you know you !@#$ing know something. Okay?”

“That’d be a first.”

“Now, imagine you get !@#$ing captured by someone who wants to know that something. And imagine they have people who are !@#$ing good, I mean really !@#$ing good, at figuring out that you know something they !@#$ing want to know. And imagine they’re in a !@#$ing hurry and don’t care to try to talk or torture it out of you. Especially if they’re !@#$ing smart enough to know that torture doesn’t !@#$ing work?”

“Then they’d use the machine on me,” Mark says, sighing.

“Exactly, son. They’d use the !@#$ machine on you. They’d drain your whole !@#$ing life out of your !@#$ eyes, just to find out that something. They’d inflict that horrible agony on your !@#$, just to know what you know. And then you’d be !@#$ing dead, and we’d be down a !@#$ good person at a time when we can’t afford to !@#$ing lose anyone.

“And Martha would be !@#$ing heartbroken,” SPYGOD continues, leaning in a little more: “She lost her whole !@#$ family that night. You and her son are all she’s got left, and he’s kind of !@#$ing stuck in the Big Apple. And she loves you back.

“So don’t !@#$ing ruin it,” he finishes, tapping a finger on the man’s forehead with each word.

Mark just nods, looking down and feeling really !@#$ stupid.

“Alright,” SPYGOD says, standing fully up and getting ready to go: “I’m glad we had this talk, Mark. I feel we really had a productive !@#$ing discussion, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, weakly.

“And just for future reference?” the man says, pointing to the glass on the floor: “That whiskey was !@#$ing older than both of us put together. If you can’t respect me, at least respect my hooch.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mark sighs, but the man’s already gone.

* * * 

"Tasukete..." the guard on the floor keeps repeating, weakly holding his guts in as his life trickles between his fingers. 

His words might have some weight with his killer, except that the man's not paying any attention to him. Indeed, he's not paying attention to anything in the room. Not the other Space Service guards, here in the room, who had the courtesy to die quickly, or at least more quietly. Not the alarms that are ringing helplessly, as there's no one else alive in this part of the Rebun Island facility to come answer them. 

And not the guards in the rest of the facility, as they have their own problems, now...

The beefy, Japanese man in a floral shirt sits in a chair at the central terminal in the room, which is filled with other, smaller terminals. Under normal circumstances, it would be filled with communications personnel, all eager to talk with the various missions going on right now. 

But they're not here, right now. They're all on the other side of things, fighting for their lives against some horrible monster that, up until now, they thought was a story for children, or at least people who refused to grow up. 

And as they aren't able to stop the man, he's used his recently-reinstated access codes to link up with the Sled, and look at their executive security logs. 

What he's watching is making him cry.

It's hard to be certain what's going on, in the knot of bodies that's floating in zero-G. There's men and women in there, all sliding over and around one another. People are !@#$ing and being !@#$ed, in various ways and combinations. Lots of moaning and groaning, cries and laughter. 

And in the center of that flesh frenzy is an adorable, young woman who seems lost in wonder, and yet all too eager to take part in it. 

"Hanami..." Ju-San -- aka Mister 10 -- says between sobs, pressing his hand to the screen and closing his eyes as she finally decides where to start. 

And when he opens her eyes -- just as she really starts to enjoy herself -- he sees the face of Faraj al-Ǧazāʼir above her, doing things to her that he so desperately wanted to be doing himself. 

He knows, in that moment, that everything he had feared has come true. Everything that outlaw reporter intimated to him was correct. 

He's lost her. They've taken her away from him. 

And the only way to get her back is to go up there and take her back.

"(I will kill you,)" he promises the spaceman, his sadness being replaced by a white-hot anger he can barely control: "(I will kill you with my own hands, you !@#$ing outsider worm!)"

And then he's gone to make good on that threat, leaving only the dead and the dying he used to command in his wake. 

* * *

 "So..." The Scarlet Factotum says, retracting all of her blades and guns back into herself, and holding up the Pusher's severed head for inspection: "Does anyone else have any {quote}complaints{endquote} about how I run things?"

No one does. Her personal army of supervillains and technicians all hold up their hands, doing their best to distance themselves from the steaming human meat on the ground. 

"Good," the freakishly-ugly robo-woman in the extremely revealing -- and now incredibly-torn -- red dress says, tossing the head onto a nearby table: "Because if there's one thing I cannot !@#$ing stand, it's disloyalty. Especially now that we've actually gotten to our goal!"

She waves her bloody hands at the board, where, just sixty seconds ago, they got the last piece of their plan into place. They now have either replaced or recruited all the human machinery that the Terre Unifee uses to run the world. All the super-powers they've put to civilian and military use are either under the thumb of their organization, or have been cunningly swapped out with one of their own number.

The world is hers now, all she has to do is give the order.

The world is hers now, all she has to do is give the order.

The world is hers now, all she has to do is give the order-

"Is that actually going to hold her?" The Emperor of Pain asks, looking at their now-deposed leader as she lies in a heap on the floor. 

"I think so," the Pusher says, adjusting his million-dollar tie and looking at the specialist he hired for the job: "How long can we have her like that?"

"Indefinitely," the grey-suited woman with television static for eyes says, handing over the remote box: "As long as her CPU is active, she'll loop that over and over again and have no idea anything's wrong."

"Well done," he says, nodding to her: "The money's in your account. Are you sure you won't join us?"

"I prefer being independent," she says, winking a flickering eye: "But remember me, when you come into your new kingdom."

"I will," he says, shaking her hand before she turns to go. 

"We're just letting her go?" Lord of Spiders asks once she's out of earshot.

"No one messes with Joy, or they answer to me," the Pusher insists, looking down at his twitching, former client: "We are clear on that?"

"Yes," the Emperor of Pain says, nodding a little too quickly for his own liking.

"If you really want to kill someone for real, go find that Violet Demon guy and air him out," the Pusher says: "He's a little too queer for her.  If he comes back and finds her gone, well, we might have a real problem on our hands."

"I'll do that," the Lord of Spiders says, as he never really liked the kid, anyway. 

"Chassis?" the Pusher says, gesturing at the woman made from a white car: "Take her down to the shop. Take her CPU out, hook it up to a battery, and bring it back to me. We're keeping her as a souvenir."

"I hear you," she says, grousing: "And then what?"

"And then..." the man says, sitting down in his now-deposed leader's big chair, looking at the big board: "We let the world know we're actually in charge."

* * *

To her credit, Martha feels it first. 

She's out working on the car in her civies, just to make sure it's going to be in good working order. And somewhere between checking the oil and putting the cap back on she suddenly gets the feeling that something is wrong. 

She can't say what it is for certain. Maybe a change in the breeze, or a sudden stillness. Maybe the loss of certain sounds, rather than the introduction of new ones.

But after having her own home invaded, last year, she's rather sensitive to that awful feeling that someone is looking at her with ill intent.

When she was young, and being the Talon to her father's Owl, he always told her to value her instincts. He said that perception and a clear head was one thing, but that one always had to be ready to go beyond them, and just trust that the sudden need to duck and back away, or stand up and rush in, were being guided by something. 

(They'd say God, of course. Others would say luck. Still others would say "synchronicity," but she always !@#$ing hated that word.)

So when she turns right around, swinging a crescent wrench in a long arc at what seems empty air, and connects -- hard -- with what was probably someone's jaw, judging by the crunch, she's not at all surprised. 

"We've got company!" she shrieks, bobbing and weaving her way back to the mansion as fast as she can from however many invisible people are right on her tail.

There's firing, right behind her. She can hear the distinctive sounds of darts as they thud into the dirt and trees around her. Martha's scared as !@#$ and all-too-aware that she could be hit at any moment, but right now she's too focused on getting into the house to worry about that.

It's simple math in her mind, really: house, suit, retribution. She might not even need the suit, given how badly these idiots are aiming. Just her fists, maybe-

Something hits her, right in the temple. A fist, not a dart. Excellent follow-through. Hurts like !@#$.

She crumples and goes down, but does her best to leap back up again. They call it Kip-Up. Her dad trained her for hours to get her to do it. And she trained Kaitlyn just as hard.

(My God. If they know she's here, they'll be after her next. And John.)

She leaps up and kicks blindly, somehow knowing where her opponent will be. Something cracks under her foot. A scream, then flailing strikes she can easily block in spite of their transparency. 

Martha ducks down once more, managing to narrowly miss being hit by another wave of darts. They slam into the back door of the mansion, less than six feet away, now. 

(People inside the room. Looks like fighting. Maybe Straffer, maybe Mark.)

She sweeps with her leg and takes her invisible enemy's out. There's a surprised cry and then a massive THUD in the dirt that brings up a comical cloud of dust. 

She leaps back up to continue running. "Company!" she shouts again, ducking and weaving as she runs for the door. 

The darts keep missing. Are they really that bad?

"My god," she says, getting into the kitchen and slamming the door behind her, eyes adjusting to the figures in the dark. Straffer by the door, Mark up against the wall. 

"Are you okay?" Straffer asks.

"Yeah, but they're in no-suits," she breathes: "And they've got tranq darts. Tell me we've got glasses or something."

"We do, yes," Straffer says, turning around suddenly. He's wearing a pair of black wraparounds. And he's got two things in his hands. 

One of them shoots a dart right into Martha's neck before she can even say anything. 

"What...?" she asks, feeling the drugs course through her body. She starts to fall before she can say anything more, suddenly realizing that Mark isn't just up against the wall. He's slumped there -- full of darts and barely conscious. 

"What the !@#$?" SPYGOD shouts, running into the room. He's got just a second to take it all in, and then, just before he can say or do anything, Straffer uses the thing he's got in his other hand.

Whatever it is, it makes SPYGOD jerk and dance like a puppet whose controller has just had a seizure. 

He drools and flails, unable to control himself. He falls to the floor herking and jerking. And when he tries to talk it sounds like a sped-up record.

"Don't bother, hon," Straffer says, standing close to him: "It's someplace you're not going to be able to get to, anytime soon. I slipped it in this morning while you were... compromised."

SPYGOD is trying to talk. It's not coming out well. It's shouts and tears and a question. Why?

"I'm sorry," his lover says, taking off the glasses as the door opens, and the invisible agents begin to come into the room: "I really am. I do love you, (REDACTED). I always will."

Again the question, sped up and nearly incoherent: "Thenwhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy y y y y"

"They promised me I could be in charge of the Space Service again," Straffer explains, having to raise his voice to be heard over the decloaking TU transports, outside: "All I had to do was turn you in and I'd be reinstated immediately. I'm sure they'll want to debrief me first, of course. That's how it works. But soon, I'll be back up where I belong."

More stammering. More crying. 

"Sorry, hon. I told you I valued my career. You'd have done the same."

Martha tries to fight the drugs, almost getting up to get forward and rip Straffer's smug, lying face off. Except that, before she can raise her arm off the floor, something steps down on it. A white boot, connected to a blue leg. 

A blue leg with a white lightning bolt arcing up it, towards a mocking, almost sinister face.

"Bonjour, Mdme Samuels," Tempete Bleu says, as his transparent men become translucent, and then fully visible. 

And just as she loses consciousness, she thinks she can see another face behind his own.

It makes her scream to look at it. 

* * *

 It's all about wonder

The power to be

Like thunder expressing

Electricity

* * *

(SPYGOD is listening to Axis (Pet Shop Boys) and having a WBC PsycHOPath)

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

A mission that could mean everything to a lucky few.

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

“Now, that’s-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You have…?”

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

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

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

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

“You may go now, yes?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice that will come, and soon. 

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

* * * 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not now, not ever. 

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

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

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

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

Something wonderful, waiting under a dusty, cobwebbed tarp.

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weeping in the dark, and slowly going insane. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

"What?"

"Eating dinner in a proper restaurant."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"(What is that challenge?)" 

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

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

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

"(You dare-)" 

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

"(The truth can kill, Outsider.)"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first was a single letter. S. 

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

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

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

* * *

It May Not Last

But Here Am I

Once a Caterpillar 

Now a Butterfly

* * *

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