1/13-15/12 - My Mind Goes Sleepwalking While I'm Putting the World to Right

1/13/12
11:23 AM
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN



"So, do you want to tell us why we're here, Mr. SPYGOD?" one of the Congressmen says, obviously feeling a little uncomfortable. Maybe it's the height, and maybe it's the way the COMPANY transport rocks back and forth in the strong winds, trying to maintain position over the sorry sight of what's left of The Flier, but he's looking just a little green. He's not the only one, either.


SPYGOD smirks: "Do I want to tell you? No, sir. I don't. I would much rather be flying that !@#$ thing down there down to Central !@#$ America right now, so I can mop up our operations in Costa !@#$ Rica just that much faster. Unfortunately, I can't. And you might well be wondering why."


"Look, if this is about the appropriations process-"


"No, it is not about the !@#$ appropriations process, you tax-fattened heap of !@#$," SPYGOD snarls, striding over to Congressman Green and staring down at him (easy to do when he's in high heels): "It's about protection. It's about security. It's about the fact that, if we don't have that machine in good condition, ready to respond to a threat at a moment's notice, all sorts of bad !@#$ could happen."


"I refuse to sit here and be berated about this," one of the other Congresspeople sniffs: "This is ridiculous."

"Well, you can swim home if you like, honey," SPYGOD shouts down at her: "This is what we call an object lesson."

"I don't believe this! I was called out of a meeting and practically kidnapped so I could be browbeaten for not moving fast enough-"

"Here's some tissues, honey," SPYGOD offers: "Dry your little eyes. Santa doesn't like tears. And I don't like !@#$ waiting for you all to get your !@#$ !@#$ moving so I can get the wherewithal to fix a crucial part of my !@#$ operations!"

"There are procedures, sir," another one insists: "It might be the black budget, but it's still a budget, and you and The COMPANY are still subject to our decision regarding that budget."


"Yes, and if you !@#$holes weren't so busy trying to get the President unelected, and intentionally stalling the budget so as to make him look bad-"


"How dare you, sir!" Someone says, and then gets sat back down with extreme prejudice as SPYGOD towers over him.


"... if you were actually being, dare I !@#$ say it, patriotic about the matter, not to mention pragmatic, we wouldn't be having this !@#$ conversation."


"Where is this conversation going, anyway?" The sniffler asks, wondering where the tissue he gave her has been, and deciding she doesn't want to know.


"About two hundred miles an hour in about a minute and a half, if I've got my timing right," SPYGOD says, looking at a very complicated set of dials on his wrist that seems the genius of all overblown superspy timepieces: "I've got good news and bad news for all of you."


"Oh dear god..." Congressman Green says, looking around in vain for a motion discomfort bag, or three.


"The good news is that the object lesson is about to commence. The bad news is, it's involving a high-speed takedown of a supply ship full of really nasty bio-warfare WMD things, guarded by some former Soviet Strategic Talents who've sold out to whatever nasty outfit is intent on selling them to homegrown terrorists in the heart of the US of A."


"Why are you telling us this?" The insister asks.


"Because, Congressman, since we don't have The Flier to go after these kinds of !@#$ things, anymore, I've had to make do with what I do have. And this platform is the only ship I have in the area that's capable of pursuing, immobilizing, and detaining the threat."

"You mean to say we're going on... on a mission with you?" The sniffler asks, clearly afraid now.

"Yes indeed, Madam. But the bad news doesn't stop there! Unfortunately, we're a little short handed. You know, that thing down in Costa !@#$ Rica? So, I am hereby drafting all of you into the SPYGOD SCOUTS for the day."

He tosses each of them a little, black leather beret, along with a big !@#$ gun, neither of which they catch with any degree of skill or grace.

"Your mission, provided you want to fly home instead of !@#$ swim, is to lean out those shield windows over there, and, when instructed, blow the living !@#$ out of anything that comes from whatever ship they have towards us. We'll take care of the offensive part of the program, including their supers. You guys deal with any missiles, mines, laser turrets, or whateverthe!@#$ they've got for countermeasures. Okay?"

He doesn't need SPYGOD Vision to know who just !@#$ in their pants.

A crackle from the front: "Sir! We have the ship on the scope! It's heading for Neo York City, about 150 MPH. Big !@#$, too. Hydrofoil."

"Oh goodie. I haven't trashed a hydrofoil since 1985 or so. Great !@#$ story. I'll tell you all later, provided we live that !@#$ long."

The platform churns and groans, speeding up to match the course and speed of its target. SPYGOD grabs a jetpack from a waiting Agent, and looks at his draftees.

"Remember, the shields won't let you fall, and the guns don't need reloading as long as they're plugged in. Just lean out into them and shoot like a mother!@#$. Pretend they're your constituents. I know I do."

"The President's going to hear about this!" The Sniffler screams, but SPYGOD's already jumped out the door, lit up his pack, and started racing towards the ship. As he gets closer, and sees the robots milling about, waiting for their cue, he remembers he'll have to do a really good job of thanking Dir. Straffer for setting up this little demonstration of how badly they need The Flier.

Is it love? Is it lust mixed with admiration? Or is it just the good feeling to know someone likes him for who he is, and isn't afraid to tell him when he's full of !@#$, mixed with really !@#$ good sex? He doesn't know, and right now he doesn't care.

But the next time he sees the man, he's going to give him the best rocket ride he ever got. To Jupiter this time. There and back and there again.

1/14/12
6:00 PM
HOTEL RIU GUANACASTE

"Yes, hello. I need to speak to the President, please. Yes, I know he's busy. Tell him to stop laughing at the debate and come pick up the !@#$ phone. The silly people my party are running against him will be there when he gets back. Yes. Thank you.

"Jesus !@#$. At least his predecessor know when to answer the hotline.

"Ah, sir! Hello. SPYGOD here. Yes. Sorry to interrupt the game.

"Oh, that? Well, you'll be happy to know the Congresspeople all got back to the Capitol safe and sound. They earned their Marksman Badges with distinction, too. And we're safe from those people... whoever the !@#$ they were. Good thing the self-destruct trashed whatever they were carrying, too, so as long as we don't get any Simpson Fish washing up on the East Coast I'll call that enough of a win to sleep easy.

"They're not happy. No, I don't think they are. But the good news is that you're going to get the Black Budget on your desk in a day or so. And if you'd be so kind as to sign it, we'll see about getting The Flier rebuilt, and I'll get back to protecting our fine country like everyone says I'm supposed to.

"Oh, the evac? Yes. Well, we've hit a bit of a snag. So it looks like we might be spending some more time here in scenic Guanacaste.

"Yeah, I know. I wasn't happy about that either. It turns out that HONEYCOMB was up to something with a nearby volcano. They've got copies of the petroglyphs from the one in the national park, east of here. That and a lot of high math flibberty-goo and weird science things. Since we've got it all turned the !@#$ off we can't really tell what it is or what it does. But, you know me, I like to be thorough.

"Yes, sir. Yes. I know. We didn't want to stay any longer. I realize the President of Costa Rica is tired of hearing complaints, and I know you're tired of hearing his complaints. But I don't want to leave any hanging bombs out here, sir. These people were !@#$ dangerous. The less we keep out here the better.

"Yes, sir. I will try to have it wrapped up within a week. No guarantees, though. I make the decision. Agreed?

"...

"Yeah, well, with all due respect, sir, you really should ask Mr. Presidente those questions about HONEYCOMB and his backyard. Especially the nasty stuff we've been excavating since we got down here.

"Okay, yeah, I know he doesn't want to talk about it. !@#$ him. You're the President of the United States of America. How many !@#$ science terrorist incidents did we suffer because of them? How many dead citizens? How many dead soldiers, supers, and Agents?

"Exactly. Too many to list. !@#$ tell him that, and then tell him to be !@#$ grateful I don't march down to his estate and tattoo their names on his fat !@#$.

"Yes, sir. No, I am not diplomat material. I'm the one you send in before you need to talk to the diplomats, and I'm the one you send in after talking to them's left you no better off than before. This isn't a matter for diplomacy. This is a matter for the big black boot. And I'm wearing the biggest, blackest mother!@#$ of them all.

"...

"Well, I'll try. I'm amazed they haven't name-dropped me, yet. I got fifty bucks riding on Paul being the first to make hay out of my fine gay !@#$.

"That's because he was the one who did it last time. History repeating itself and all that !@#$. Look, I need to get back to that petroglyph thing so we can get the !@#$ out of dodge.

"Yes, I got the hotel manager his head-rug back. I washed it and everything. He appeared grateful, but that may have been shock, too.

"Thank you, sir. Goodbye, sir."

*click*

"Jesus mother!@#$ !@#$ on a bicycle with a bottle of whiskey up his !@#$. Some people are just not !@#$ satisfied."

1/15/12

Dear (REDACTED)

I wanted to let you know that the matter we discussed, earlier this month, is well in hand. We have made the necessary modifications and are testing the prototype on the streets of Chicago as we speak. So far it seems to be handling beautifully, but we want to make sure the product is stress-tested to the maximum we can provide before handing it over. 

You didn't answer one important question, though: interiors. Please tell us what you want, keeping in mind that any animal skin is out of the question. (I apologize, but my son's a bit funny on animal rights.)

Yours in Christ
(OvO)

***

Dear (REDACTED)

Black suede seats, black dash, simulated cherry-wood paneling. Lights should be bright green for visibility. And if you could throw in that extender in the back seat, that would be awesome.

Thank you again. I owe you a !@#$ big one. 

SPYGOD 


(SPYGOD is listening to Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello) and having a Hitachino Nest beer)

1/12/12 - The Dark Spaces Between

1/12/12
9:45 AM
NEO YORK CITY
THE B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G.
SPYGOD'S BEDROOM

Dir. Straffer: (REDACTED)? Where did you go?

SPYGOD: That's !@#$ classified.

Dir. Straffer: It sounds like you're in another room.

SPYGOD: Sounds can be deceiving.

Dir. Straffer: And something smells wonderful.

SPYGOD: Well, that could be !@#$ faked, too. But I think it smells wonderful, too. So maybe that's a !@#$ draw.

Dir. Straffer: Are you actually cooking me breakfast?

SPYGOD: No, I'm cooking us breakfast. I don't know about you, but I'm !@#$ starving.

Dir. Straffer: Oh, that makes two of us. Those rocket trips to and from the Moon did me in.

SPYGOD: You and me both. Ah, here we go...

Dir. Straffer: Is that quiche?

SPYGOD: No !@#$ laughing. I will kick your !@#$ out of bed.

Dir. Straffer: You made quiche. And bacon. And are those grilled tomatoes?

SPYGOD: And I've got champagne in the cooler. The flutes are by the bedside.

Dir. Straffer: Is that what those were there for?

SPYGOD: I always keep them there, just in case.

Dir. Straffer: Oh, so I'm not the only person who gets the full bed and breakfast treatment the next morning, eh?

SPYGOD: You kidding me? Most people are already out the !@#$ back elevator. You, on the other hand, get proper treatment.

Dir. Straffer: And why is that?

SPYGOD: Shut up and pour the champagne.

Dir. Straffer: Oooo. Yes, sir.

SPYGOD: Now I hope I didn't put too much spinach in this. It's a fine line between flavor and mulch.

Dir. Straffer: MMM. Well, I think you got it about perfect, there.

SPYGOD: You're not just saying that because of the rocket ride?

Dir. Straffer: If it sucked, I would tell you. I might feel the need to duck, afterwards, but I'd tell you.

SPYGOD: And that, my dear Director, is why you get proper treatment.

Dir. Straffer: I'll drink to that. *clink*

SPYGOD: Likewise. Now, how about you tell me why you told me you don't drink?

Dir. Straffer: Same reason I told you didn't put out on the first date.

SPYGOD: Which was?

Dir. Straffer: My little secret.

SPYGOD: You are bad.

Dir. Straffer: I am, yes. And you look like you have something you want to say.

SPYGOD: Don't worry, I'm not going to ruin things by getting soppy or crying into my bacon.

Dir. Straffer: Heh. You know what gay men do on the second date?

SPYGOD: Ask me the next time I bribe you with dinner.

Dir. Straffer: *laughs* I'll drink to that, too. But okay. What's on your mind?

SPYGOD: It's work related.

Dir. Straffer: What, you need me to vaporize something for you, again?

SPYGOD: Oh !@#$ no. Nothing like that.

Dir. Straffer: Need a hand doing an end run on Congress?

SPYGOD: Well, I might. But that's not it.

Dir. Straffer: Then what?


SPYGOD: It's a matter of intel sharing.

Dir. Straffer: Ah. That calls for more champagne. 

SPYGOD: Pour away. And please, for the love of !@#$, don't laugh.

Dir. Straffer: I make no promises. 

SPYGOD: Okay. What do we know about (Unintelligible Concept)?

Dir. Straffer: That's... an interesting question, (REDACTED). What brings that up?

SPYGOD: Recently, I learned that, if I'm somewhere really remote, where there isn't a lot to listen to, I can hear things out in space. I can hear the stars !@#$ singing to each other, if you can believe that.

Dir. Straffer: I can.

SPYGOD: Believe it?

Dir. Straffer: Yes to both questions. But it takes me a really sensitive electromagnetic monitor, and then I only get every other note. It sounds like half-heard techno, heavy on the classical samples.

SPYGOD: I hear a chorus singing. It's heartbreakingly beautiful. I don't have... I don't !@#$ have words to describe it. It's like that one time when I busted in on the wrong room in the West Wing when a certain former colleague of mine was reporting to his superiors. I almost cried.

Dir. Straffer: Okay, now. Don't get soppy on me. You didn't ask me about you-know-what if you wanted to get all maudlin.

SPYGOD: Fair point. I've also learned, just recently, that if I'm in a situation where I can't hear anything else around me, and I'm in the right brainframe for it, I can hear really far out into space. So much so that I actually can see things, in a way. Maybe it's echolocation, or maybe it's just that some things are so !@#$ massive and tremendous that I can't not hear them.

Dir. Straffer: And what did you hear out there that has so you spooked?

SPYGOD: It wasn't what I heard. It was what I dreamed I heard when I was in that situation where I couldn't hear anything else. I imagined a presence out there. Massive !@#$ thing, but so dark that I could only tell the vague outline of its shape by what I couldn't see, behind it. Then it went by a gas cloud, and it was so !@#$ big the matter was drawn off and started to reveal what it actually looked like...

Dir. Straffer: A ship?

SPYGOD: No. A being. Something so large that it made my brain want to crawl out of my skull and move to !@#$ Guam just to get away from it.

Dir. Straffer: One of the Preternaturals, maybe?

SPYGOD: What are those?
Dir. Straffer: Well, as near as we can figure, when the last Universe ended, not everything that was in that Universe ended along with it. Some things survived the last big crunch, and made it through the big bang. They're incredibly huge, incredibly alien, and so far over our heads we can't even begin to contemplate them.

SPYGOD: So they're some kind of Cthulhu deal, basically?

Dir. Straffer: That's one way to look at it, yes. Now thankfully they tend to stay far outside of our stomping grounds. Most of them are still riding the creation wave. Some of them make really weird, long orbits that take up to a billion years to complete, and mostly stay between systems. But when they come close to civilizations, really bad things tend to happen.

SPYGOD: Like what?
Dir. Straffer: Extinction events on a galactic scale. Especially when they wake up and realize there's something nearby they can feed on.

SPYGOD: And I'm !@#$ betting that if they're big enough and powerful enough to have survived the end of the last universe and the birth of ours, they've got one !@#$ of an appetite.

Dir. Straffer: The ruins of an entire galaxy is attributed to one of them barreling through it, stopping at the center, and starting to feed. They think it's still there, somewhere, in the Preternatural equivalent of a food coma. But no one wants to go and look.

SPYGOD: I don't !@#$ blame them. How many of these !@#$ things are out there?
Dir. Straffer: The Catorese say there's twenty that they've seen.

SPYGOD: !@#$ twenty?

Dir. Straffer: Maybe. The Catorese also have ten digits on each hand, and two hands, so twenty could be a convenient guess on their part. I'm willing to bet good money there's more.

SPYGOD: Have you ever seen one of these !@#$ things?

Dir. Straffer: No. I don't think anyone could without going mad. They have that effect, I'm told.

SPYGOD: So we are dealing with some kind of Cthulhu deal.

Dir. Straffer: Well, for all we know...

SPYGOD: Thank !@$#$ for the Eye, huh?

Dir. Straffer: You can say that again. So you think you saw one of these things in a dream?

SPYGOD: I don't know. These things are massive, but how intelligent are they?

Dir. Straffer: Impossible to say. When they come around and start shoveling whole solar systems down their throat it's not really feasible to fire off the first few prime numbers and see if they start replying.

SPYGOD: Okay then.

Dir. Straffer: Is that relief I see across your face?

SPYGOD: Maybe. What do you know about The Chamber?

Dir. Straffer: I know we shouldn't be talking about it unless we're really secure, here.

SPYGOD: We are.

Dir. Straffer: Then I'd say I know enough to know it's a very good thing that thing's been locked down since you left the Ice Palace.

SPYGOD: The ceiling's a mile high. And there's some evidence to suggest that the things that built it were at least that tall.

Dir. Straffer: And you think you saw one of them?

SPYGOD: I don't know. It was a lot taller than a !@#$ mile.

Dir. Straffer: Maybe it's the father of the thing that made the Chamber.

SPYGOD: Maybe it's the thing that made the Chamber, but all !@#$ grown up, now?

Dir. Straffer: Neither thought is comforting. And are you saying you think it might be (Unintelligible Concept)?

SPYGOD: I'm wondering. How much do we !@#$ know about (Unintelligible Concept)?

Dir. Straffer: Not a heck of a lot. Most of the races we know of have that word in their syllabary, somewhere. It's pronounced almost exactly the same way amongst the ones who communicate like we do. And it means almost exactly the same thing: an absence of meaning. An anti-thing.

SPYGOD: The Decreator?


Dir. Straffer: In some languages, yes. I didn't know you had an interest in pan-galactic mythology.

SPYGOD: I don't. I just kept having that word pop into my head when I think about what I saw.


Dir. Straffer: Cosmic consciousness?

SPYGOD: Now that sounds like you've had enough champagne.


Dir. Straffer: Line from Repo Man, actually.

SPYGOD: That movie with Giles from Buffy ripping people open and taking the organs they couldn't pay for?


Dir. Straffer: No, the one with Emilio Estevez? The aliens in the back of the car?

SPYGOD: Oh yeah. That one.


Dir. Straffer: It's a must see on Deep Ten. We make new employees guess which race the trunk aliens are.

SPYGOD: And what are they?

Dir. Straffer: None of them. Stuffed condoms, we think.

SPYGOD: Yours is a cruel wit, my friend.

Dir. Straffer: Well, we gotta do something for fun up there.

SPYGOD: Yeah. Speaking of which, when do you have to go back up?

Dir. Straffer: Not until later today. Much later. 

SPYGOD: Time for another rocket ride?

Dir. Straffer: Several. 

SPYGOD: All that talk about mouths the size of stars didn't freak you the !@#$ out?

Dir. Straffer: It does. But this is the world we live in, (REDACTED). You deal with the scary !@#$ on the ground. I deal with it when it's up in space. My backyard might be larger and a little stranger than yours-

SPYGOD: A lot !@#$ stranger, you ask me.

Dir. Straffer:  Well, yes. But it's the same deal. In the end, we have two choices. We can either deal with that strangeness, or we can run and hide from it. But there's no where to run or hide, really. It doesn't matter if it's science terrorists in Costa Rica or a war fleet from three stars away. If the darkness is going to rise up and try to get us, well, it's going to. But me? I'm going to make it wish it'd !@#$ stayed home before it gets too close. And that goes for anything out there, no matter how large.

SPYGOD: Shut up and !@#$ kiss me.

Dir. Straffer:  Yes, sir.


(SPYGOD is listening to Lux Aeterna (Gyorgy Ligeti) and drinking... well, figure it out)

1/11/12 - The Tasting Menu

1/11/12
12:34 PM
NEO YORK CITY
PER SE

Matre'd: Right this way, gentlemen. As per your request we have gotten you the best table in the house.

Dir. Straffer: The most secure table in the house, I trust.

Matre'd: Yes, of course. No one will be disturbing you, here. I trust your accompanying guards will be comfortable?

SPYGOD: Yeah. Get them anything they want.

Matre'd: Anything... um... yes.

SPYGOD: Most of them'll be happy with takeout from across the street, but if anyone wants to gets fancy, let 'em have it. They earned it. 

Dir. Straffer: But nothing for the robots. They don't require any sustenance, and they'd just be confused by the question. And I'd advise your employees to give them a wide berth. They tend to start punching first and ask questions... well, they don't ask questions. That's my job.

Matre'd: Of course, gentlemen. I'll leave you to yourselves.

Dir. Straffer: Ah, alone at last.

SPYGOD: I thought that meddlesome little !@#$ was never going to leave.

Dir Straffer: Oh, but they left us a bottle. How thoughtful of them.

SPYGOD: They didn't. I did.

Dir. Straffer: Oh? You picked us out some wine? I thought you were more of a beer drinker.

SPYGOD: Normally, yes. But I'm pretty proud of this one.

Dir Straffer: Chateau d'Solomon 1961? My favorite. How did you...?

SPYGOD: SPYGOD knows all.

Dir Straffer: I'll say. I didn't think there were any bottles left after that sad little accident in '98. Can you believe someone blew the place up? A tragedy.

SPYGOD: Well, you can thank Ben for that.

Dir. Straffer: The explosion?

SPYGOD: No, the bottle. Dirty !@#$ has a wine cellar that defies the laws of time and space.

Dir Straffer: As do so many things in our respective professions. A toast?

SPYGOD: To a much closer working relationship?

Dir. Straffer: I think we already have that. How about to comrades in arms, and friends in need?

SPYGOD: And !@#$ expensive restaurants to pillage at the battle's end?

Dir Straffer: Amen to that.

Waiter: Ah, gentlemen. Good evening. Here are the menus for the evening-

Dir Straffer: We'll take the Chef's Tasting Menu. With the supplements. Take your time.

Waiter: Ah, yes. Excellent choice. I'll see to it.

SPYGOD: !@#$ me. You're the man with the plan.

Dir. Straffer: Not on the first date, (REDACTED) *wink*

SPYGOD: ...

Dir. Straffer: Will you be alright with the wine or should we try and whistle up some beer? There's a decent place around the corner. We could send one of your boys out with a list?

SPYGOD: You know, I think I'm going to enjoy sitting on the other side of the fence, tonight.

Dir. Straffer: I'll drink to that.

"OYSTERS AND PEARLS"
"Sabayon" of Pearl Tapioca with Beau Soleil Oysters
and Sterling White Sturgeon Caviar

SPYGOD: One little thimbleful of food. This reminds me of that !@#$ Wendy's commercial.

Dir. Straffer: Yes, my dear (REDACTED). The whole idea is that you have one scrumptious bite, which you enjoy to the utmost. And then, just as you've finally gotten your head wrapped around the magnificent taste... it's gone.

SPYGOD: ... It still reminds of that !@#$ Wendy's commercial.

Dir. Straffer: Should we send one of your boys out for burgers and fries?

SPYGOD: !@#$ no. I owe you this, after what you did for me.

Dir. Straffer: But...?

SPYGOD: Next time, we go someplace else. I know this one place where they serve steaks that drape over the edge of the table.

Dir. Straffer: Really? Do you get your photo taken if you eat the whole thing?

SPYGOD: No, but they give you mini-chainsaws, torch it next to your table, and let you eat it while it's still twitching.

Dir. Straffer: Where in god's name is this restaurant?

SPYGOD: Osaka. They call it the Beefhouse. It's a little wild.

Dir. Straffer: I can't take you anywhere. Eat your pearls.

SPYGOD: Well now, no rushing. I want to take the time and savor this little morsel. It'll probably be half an hour before they bring the next course out-

Dir. Straffer: Eat. 

SPYGOD: Yes, sir.

TSAR IMPERIAL OSETRA CAVIAR
Smoked Sturgeon "Bavarois," Compressed English Cucumbers
and Pumpernickel "Pain Perdu"

SPYGOD: Well that was interesting. Reminded me of auntsandwiches.

Dir. Straffer: Auntsandwiches?

SPYGOD: Yeah. Little cut sandwiches you serve with tea. Mostly cucumbers and mayo, sometimes ham salad. It's something of a New England kind of thing. 

Dir. Straffer: Your kind of thing?

SPYGOD: No, but you get invited to enough swishy dos at enough lawmakers' homes, up and down the coast, you get plied with just about every substance known to man. 

Dir. Straffer: Ah. Well, I don't get invited to anything, really. I stay upstairs in my control room and look down. I think they prefer that.

SPYGOD: You miss it, much?

Dir. Straffer: Sometimes. It's lonely up there, even with my people around. After a while you get tired of seeing the same old faces and hearing the same old stories. It's something of a relief when someone finally cracks up and has to be sent downside. It means we'll finally get someone new in.

SPYGOD: And you guys' entrance requirements are basically 'are you crazy enough to live in space for years at a time'?

Dir. Straffer: 'Dedicated.' The word is 'dedicated.' 

SPYGOD: 'Crazy.' Same kind of crazy you need in the submarine corps. 

Dir. Straffer: Toe-MAY-Toe, Toe-MAH-Toe.

SPYGOD: "Let's call the whole thing off..."

Dir. Straffer: You know that one?

SPYGOD: Um, hello? Gay as !@#$? If you don't know showtunes, they revoke your card. 

Dir. Straffer: Ha! I'd like to see them try and take mine. 

SPYGOD: I'll drink that that. 

CAULIFLOWER "POTAGE"
Nasturtium Capers, Petite Parsley,
Brioche and Brown Butter

Dir. Straffer: Okay, that I could have done without. I do not like cauliflower.

SPYGOD: I don't know. It had a certain... je ne sans quoi.

Dir. Straffer: You pronounced it "genie sasquatch"

SPYGOD: Ah, never any !@#$ good at French. 

Dir. Straffer: After all the opportunities you had to learn it while you were there?

SPYGOD: Didn't really !@#$ have much of a chance. I was too busy dodging bullets and breaking people. 

Dir. Straffer: Well, it's a lovely language. I prefer German, myself. 

SPYGOD: Your parents?

Dir. Straffer: My father. West Berliner. Met my mother when she was doing attache work at the American embassy. Flowers bloomed, rockets flared. I was born in New York City not long thereafter. 

SPYGOD: Really? So traveling's kind of in your blood, then?

Dir. Straffer: Are you kidding me? I hate it. I get airsick all the time. I inherited that from mom, apparently.

SPYGOD: So how did you wind up in !@#$ outer space?

Dir. Straffer: Well, there's a story...

"TERRINE" OF HUDSON VALLEY MOULARD DUCK FOIE GRAS
Celery Root Cream, Grapefruit Marmalade,
Castelfranco Lettuce and Black Winter Truffle

SPYGOD: ... wow, that is some story.

Dir. Straffer: Yeah. Who would have thought? Put me in a plane, I need ten bags. Put me on a rocket, I'm fine. 

SPYGOD: That does kind of explain why you stay up there.

Dir. Straffer: More to do with the responsibility. Every time I'm away for too long, I suspect something's going seriously wrong up there. And when I get back, I'm always right. Someone forgot to push the right button at the right time, and suddenly there's a war fleet parked outside Jupiter's orbit, and we have to persuade them to leave the Solar System a little later than I'd like.

SPYGOD: That sounds pretty hairy. 

Dir. Straffer: Yeah, well, I have this new Second up there. New girl. Fresh out of the training program. So far she has not let me down, so this is something of a baptism of fire for her. I come back and anything's wrong, and she's going to be jogging from platform to platform for the next month.

SPYGOD: Ha! I just make them clean the underside of The Carrier. 

Dir. Straffer: Right. How's that coming along?

SPYGOD: ...

Dir. Straffer: Oh. Sorry. Forget I asked?

SPYGOD: Naah, it's okay. It's just !@#$ frustrating. I should have gotten the repairs approved and the reconstruction underway by now. It's all stalled in red tape and budget cuts. We'll be lucky to get a butt!@#$ out of it when Washington's done.

Dir. Straffer: Sounds like you already got one.

SPYGOD: Yes, exactly-

SAUTÉED FILLET OF ATLANTIC STRIPED BASS
Crispy Spätzle, Ruby Beets and Whole Grain Mustard

SPYGOD: How do you keep them convinced they shouldn't cut your funding? 

Dir. Straffer: Well... it's something of a trade secret. But in the spirit of increased cooperation? 

SPYGOD: I'm all ears.

Dir. Straffer: Show them how many crises you averted. Constantly. With photos. For example, that war fleet outside of Jupiter? The appropriations committee got stacks of information, including scale drawings of their gun ports, and firsthand descriptions of the last planet they attacked. You do that often enough, no one will say no to you. 

SPYGOD: Hmmm. That's not a bad idea.

Dir. Straffer: It's a great idea. I mean, HONEYCOMB. Does Congress really understand how bad these people actually were?  

SPYGOD: I thought they did. I keep trying to make the point, but-

Dir. Straffer: See, you're a victim of your own success. 

SPYGOD: Really?

Dir. Straffer: Totally. A lot of the tech terrorist groups' rhetoric is so overblown at times that I think they forget just what they're capable of, except as a thought exercise or a news story they glossed over a few months back. You have to keep selling them on the idea that our enemies are active and dangerous, and you're the one keeping them from getting worse. 

SPYGOD: So what do you suggest?

Dir. Straffer: Well...

NOVA SCOTIA LOBSTER "POÊLÉE"
Applewood Smoked Bacon, Pearson Farm’s Pecans,
Sweet Potato Mousse, Watercress and "Vin Jaune"

SPYGOD: That's all?

Dir. Straffer: Well, you have to admit, it's pretty foolproof. And they'll never know it wasn't a complete setup as long as you keep the conspiracy small and tight.

SPYGOD: You're including yourself in this, I trust?

Dir. Straffer: Well, I just gave you the idea. If you run with it, I can't be blamed.

SPYGOD: Come on, now. In for a penny, in for a !@#$.

Dir. Straffer: You drive a hard bargain, sir.

SPYGOD: That's what they tell me. 

FOUR STORY HILL FARM’S POULARDE
Crispy Sunchokes, Compressed Arrowleaf Spinach,
Medjool Dates and Foie Gras-Madeira Emulsion

Dir. Straffer: That's a sunchoke?

SPYGOD: Not quite what I was expecting, either.

Dir. Straffer: Well, no. It's just after that one episode of Venture Brothers I was expecting something a little more... weird.

SPYGOD: What, the one where The Monarch gets an allergic reaction? I was !@#$ my pants laughing to that one!

Dir. Straffer: Isn't that the greatest show ever? It's like they looked at us and cranked up the parody factor by about ten.

SPYGOD: Sealab 2021?

Dir. Straffer: Until the leader died. Then it was terrible. Space: 1999?

SPYGOD: Until they brought on that !@#$ metamorph and got rid of half the interesting cast members. Then it !@#$ sucked. UFO?

Dir. Straffer: Please. They based that show on us. 

SPYGOD: No way. Wonderwall isn't that old?

Dir. Straffer: Time travel is a weird thing, my friend. You remember how crazy the 70's were.

SPYGOD: ... Oh. 

Dir. Straffer: Oh. 

SPYGOD: That was you?

Dir. Straffer: That was me, yes. 

SPYGOD: You son of a!@#$. You owe me a new car!

Dir. Straffer: I'll make up for it. Promise.

SPYGOD: Oh, do tell. 

SNAKE RIVER FARMS ’ "CALOTTE DE BOEUF"
Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Broccolini, Pearl Onions,
Pea Tendrils and "Beurre Colbert"

SPYGOD: Snake river, huh?

Dir. Straffer: Beurre Colbert?

SPYGOD: Does it pretend to be something it's not but is so funny you don't !@#$ care?

Dir. Straffer: I don't care. It was delicious.

SPYGOD: Mission accomplished, then.

Dir. Straffer: Ask you a question?

SPYGOD: You just did. Pour me some more?

Dir. Straffer: Better be careful, the bottle's almost empty.

SPYGOD: Aha! I brought two.

Dir. Straffer: Oh, excellent. 

SPYGOD: Your question?

Dir. Straffer: Being out. 

SPYGOD: Yes?

Dir. Straffer: What's it like?

SPYGOD: You mean you aren't...?

Dir. Straffer: No. I had to keep certain things quiet in my branch. I never busted anyone for it as long as they didn't break any rules on top of it, but it's been something of an annoyance all this time. But now I can do something about it, thanks to our current President.

SPYGOD: Well, it's weird. A lot of people will pretend they're okay with it when they really aren't, kind of like trying to ignore an ugly wart on the end of your nose, or the fact that your breath smells like someone's !@#$hole. And a lot of people are so okay with it that you wonder if they're hiding something, themselves, or are trying to make up for having been a !@#$ about it in the past.

Dir. Straffer: And what about the phobes?

SPYGOD: Oh, !@#$ them. You are one of the most powerful persons on the planet. You give an order and something gets vaporized from !@#$ orbit. If they don't like what you do with your !@#$, what do they !@#$ matter?

Dir. Straffer: Is that what made you come out? A lack of fear?

SPYGOD: Well, it's a long story. Bottom line is that I owed it to all the people who were drummed out before my time, after it, to be as visible as possible. I essentially told them "I'm here, I'm queer, and I killed Hitler so you aren't getting rid of me. Suck it."

Dir. Straffer: Who did you tell it to?

SPYGOD: Nixon. He didn't !@#$ like it, but he couldn't do !@#$.

Dir. Straffer: And then he was gone.

SPYGOD: Funny how that happened...

"SEVEN SISTERS"
"Pipérade," Fennel Bulb, Marcona Almond Tuile and Arugula

Dir. Straffer: I love rocket.

SPYGOD: You take one to work everyday.

Dir. Straffer: No, rocket. Arugula. 

SPYGOD: Arugula?

Dir. Straffer: That's what rocket is.

SPYGOD: Your rocket is made out of arugula?

Dir. Straffer: No, it's made out of... oh, !@#$ you. *laughs*

SPYGOD: All ten inches?

Dir. Straffer: *laughs*

SPYGOD: Does it get you to work and back?

Dir. Straffer: It takes me a lot of places. 

SPYGOD: I bet.

Dir. Straffer: Is this where you get crude and ask for a ride?

SPYGOD: This is where I offer you a trip to the Moon and back on mine.

Dir. Straffer: What if I'm more of a driver than a rider?

SPYGOD:... We could take turns?

Dir. Straffer: Is there another bottle? 

SPYGOD: Back at The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G.

Dir. Straffer: You talked me into it.

SPYGOD: Um... dessert?

Dir. Straffer: That's us. Your boys can fight over it. 

SPYGOD: !@#$-A. 

COCONUT SORBET
Marinated Pineapple, Young Coconut Water
and Pineapple Chips

SALTED CHOCOLATE PEANUTS
Candied Spanish Peanuts, Smoked Chocolate Pudding,
Peanut Butter Marshmallow and Graham Cracker Ice Cream

"CHAMPAGNE APPLES"
Poached Golden Apples, "Sablé Breton," Champagne "Parfait"
and Bay Leaf-Juniper Ice Cream

"MIGNARDISES"

(Bite-sized desserts, usually served at the end of a meal)

Matre'D: I hope everything was alright with the meal?

Agent 1: Yeah, I think the boss and the director just wanted to go somewhere and... um, digest a bit.

Agent 2: Yep: Digest.

Agent 1: That's what the kids are calling it these days, anyway.

Robot: Please. Bring. Me. More. Petit. Fours. Human.

(SPYGOD is listening to Positive Role Model (Pet Shop Boys) and having some Chateau d'Salomon 1961)

12/3/11 - Blood in the Big Orange

Jesus H Christ I !@#$ hate Tel Aviv. Mostly because, every time I come here, it's to kill someone. And it's never over anything good and simple.

Tonight's no different. I just did it, in fact. Which means I have about ten seconds to make sure the !@#$ is dead, ten more seconds to sanitize my presence, here, and then less than an hour to get the !@#$ out of the country before someone starts asking questions.

And I owe the pleasure of this little homicidal excursion to one Randolph Scott, boy reporter, who was !@#$ unable to do what I told him. More specifically, what I !@#$ told him not to do.

Namely: do not take our kids to Israel.

Anywhere else would have been fine. South Africa, to see how a formerly segregated society is coming together again and dealing with its problems? Fine. Germany, where their !@#$ up fathers tried to engineer a 1000 year Reich based on forced eugenics, slave labor, and genocide, and no one wants to remember it happening? !@#$ groovy.

Take 'em to North Korea, Myanmar, or Yemen. Have them be rude as !@#$ in Canada, or sell Bibles in Saudi.

!@#$, drop them off in !@#$ Singapore with handfuls of chewing gum for all I care. But not Israel. Anywhere but Israel.

But he didn't listen to me. And now two of our kids are dead because of it.

Why didn't he !@#$ listen? Why?

I mean, you think he'd be smarter than that. You'd think he would know that I occasionally know what the !@#$ I'm talking about. Did he stick metal forks into electrical sockets as a kid, too?

(Come to think of it, that could explain why he's such a bleeding heart. I find that early childhood brain damage accounts for most liberals, anyway. That and too much TV. Or too little.)

So did he think that embarrassing little slip in Libya made us buddies, now? Did he forget that, if he's riding in my car, I'm the one who says when we pull over for a !@#$ break?

There are no words to describe how angry I am, right now. I feel like a parent coming home from a night out and expecting the babysitter to have the kids in bed and be doing her homework, and instead finding the kids in the liquor cabinet, and the sitter upstairs turning tricks in my bed for crack. Except that that would actually be kind of funny, in a "honey, you put the kids in their rooms and call the cops, I'm getting the gun" kind of way.

This? No so much. Not even !@#$ remotely.

You know, when I took Randolph under my wing, back in Antarctica, I really wanted to do right by him. I didn't want him to wind up like the last guy, and be turned some cracked-up version of myself, stumbling through war zones ripped on snake whiskey and wondering if he can get into the press pool with a necklace of human tongues instead of a tie.

But after a while, I realized that's exactly what I was doing. and I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Someone had to look after that last batch of conveyor-belt children that ABWEHR was cranking out for the Fourth Reich. Someone with the kindness, time, and sympathy to help them learn about our world, and how beautiful it is, and how they didn't need to follow through on what the !@#$ up freaks that made them wanted.

And that someone was not !@#$ going to be me. I'd either fold them into The COMPANY, somewhere, or they'd be back at my apartment, ripped on Martian speed, watching Adult Swim, and hallucinating Advanced Supersonic Nazi Hell Reindeer from Below the Hollow Earth. Or trying to sell their stories to get a reality TV show, which could be a million !@#$ times worse.

So I tapped Randolph for the job.

"Show them the world, kid," I said. "Show them the good parts and the bad parts. Show them what we live for, die for, and kill for. Show them !@#$ everything. And I bet your pants-wetting liberal !@#$ editors back at Retardnet will eat it up if you call it an ongoing series."

So he did, and they did, and all was well. Until today.

Today, I'm in the middle of getting reservations for the most !@#$ expensive restaurant on the Eastern seaboard as payback for a certain Director of DAMOCLES for helping us out during the fight with The Skull. And no sooner to do I finally get the person on the line than my phone gets another call, and it's Randolph, and he's crying and scared !@#$less.

"It's Geri and Johan," he says: "They're dead. Someone shot them both at the hotel. They weren't feeling well so we left them and went for dinner, and when we came back...."

"Where are you?" I ask, getting ready to call the Flier, and then remembering it's in the drink halfway between New York and !@#$ Gibraltar.

"Tel Aviv," he says, and starts giving me the name of the nearest street, and the hotel name, and the alleyway he just threw up in, but I stop him.

"Randolph, I'm sorry. I must be hearing things. Did you just say Tel Aviv?"

"Yes, I did," he says.

"And that would be in Israel, right? Not Tel Aviv, Morocco? Brazil? !@#$ Moldavia?"

"Yes..."

At that moment I could have said a lot of things. Really nasty and mean things that would have made his brains blow out of his ears. Literally.

But two of our kids were dead, and he was most likely being hunted, and there was no !@#$ time for any of that !@#$ right then and there. Like a parent who gets a call from a drunk teen at a party they shouldn't have been at, the important thing is that they were at least smart enough to !@#$ call for a ride instead of driving home drunk and wrapping your corvette around a McDonald's.

Death by screaming can take place tomorrow. Save them now.

So I gave him the address of the nearest bolt hole in the Tel Aviv. I could have given him the bigger one, of course, but it was halfway across town, rather than, lucky him, just a few blocks away. I told him the combination for the door, and told him to run there as quick as he could with the kids and lock the !@#$ thing behind him. No exiting, no visitors, no more phone calls to anyone. I'd open it myself when it was safe to come out.

No, no worries. He was safe. I would take care of it. We'll talk about things later.

And then I strapped on by last Man Missile, screaming abuse at every thing in my path (sorry, kitty; sorry, METALMAID) and took off for Tel Aviv as fast as that !@#$ thing would take me. Which probably wasn't fast enough, but thankfully the !@#$ who killed those two were !@#$ stupid.

The whole !@#$ thing is stupid, really. But that's why I told him not to bring those kids to Israel.

Why, you may ask? Other than the obvious fact that someone wanted to kill them all while they were there? Well, let's see if I can explain this and not make you feel as stupid as I'm going to make Randolph feel when I go back on the safehouse door in about ten minutes, maybe about fifty minutes before we all GTFO.

This is Israel. This is the country whose chief intelligence agency, Mossad, is absolutely excellent at hunting down Nazi war criminals and bringing them to justice. This is the country whose Strategic Talents organization, Molchanie, has been working on picking the likes of ABWEHR off, one splattered head at a time, since the state was created.

ABWEHR didn't hole up at Antarctica because they liked making beer out of !@#$ penguins. They hid down there because they knew that, whatever kind of weird, "attack us and we blow up the Earth" detente they had with everyone else, the Israelis were not !@#$ worried about it.

So the last thing in the world that anyone should have done was taken a bunch of kids who were grown in vats by Super Nazis to Israel. At best they'd be arrested, disappeared, and turned inside out on a table, somewhere, to find out how they ticked.

At worst... well, we've seen halfway to worst.

The good news was that the assassin was clean and professional. He slipped into the room, just put two in each of their heads. No torture, no mindgames, just bullets in the brains.

Then he sat there was waited for the others. Luckily, when they came and saw what happened, they started making noise and running away. He didn't want to try and hit them in the street, so he started calling his buddies for backup. Maybe an accident, somewhere?

That was about when Randolph called me, and I told him where to do. They lost sight of Randolph and the others before they ducked into the safe house, thankfully. So all the assassins could do was run around that part of town and try to find them. After all, how far could those kids get?

Wrong !@#$ question. The right one was "How far could I get?" And since I was able to steer the !@#$ thing for once, the right answer was "right up your !@#$ back door after I heard your com chatter, you dumb !@#$."

Yeah, that's why there was that bit on the news about an explosion in Tel Aviv earlier today. I guess some van went boom. They're blaming terrorists, but a little light on the specifics. Gee I !@#$ wonder why.

They're also not saying much of anything about claims that some guy was seen actually !@#$ surfing what might have been a rocket, right into that van. I mean, that's just impossible, right?

And all that nonsense about said person leaping off the !@#$ thing, somersaulting over the fireball, and running away? Call the Weekly World News, amigo. Batboy needs a !@#$ date.

There was, of course, no mention of that person who didn't exist running down some other people who didn't exist, either, and plugging them one by one. Nor was there any hint of anything about a rather vicious showdown between him and the !@#$ who shot those kids, mostly involving the guns in question and his holes at either end.

Not too subtle a message, I figure. But neither Mossad not Molchanie do subtle very well, and they sure don't !@#$ understand it, either. This'll make them understand they crossed a !@#$ line.

As for whether they'll learn anything, well... this is another land that's sadly well-known for generational hatred. "I killed your uncle because he killed my father because he killed your mother because your friends burned down my house because my friends tore down your olive tree because ad !@#$ infinitum," going back several lifetimes and going !@#$ nowhere fast.

So of course they'd kill some kids whose only crime was being born of supposedly-corrupt genetic stock, and whose fathers and mothers killed their kinsmen for something approaching the same reason.

No reason, no rhyme. Just hate, blinding and white like the snows at the !@#$-end of the world that these kids came from.

I told Randolph not to cushion them. I said no sugarcoating reality or history.  Show them the best, show them the worst, and hopefully they'll learn to put one over the other, or learn the difference between the two.

And here he did the one thing I told him not to do, and wound up teaching them the harshest, ugliest lesson of all. Some people don't give a !@#$ about what you have to offer, or what you could become, or escaped to get here.

Some people just want you dead because they figure you got bad genes.

Right now I want to just go have a drink, or maybe ten, and steady myself before calling a friend to handle the cleanup, and getting Randolph and the kids the !@#$ out of town. Lebanon sounds nice, right now, and I know a hundred ways to get over the border without being seen. And I'll worry about turning the air blue tomorrow, or maybe the day after that.

I hope they're happy, whoever okayed this hit. I hope they are really !@#$ happy. Because tonight is going to feel like an accidental !@#$slip up the !@#$hole when I'm done with them.

They call this city The Big Orange for some !@#$ reason or another. I'm gonna give it one !@#$ of a squeeze before I go.

(SPYGOD is listening to Israel (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Razormaid remix) and having a Bazelet Double Bock)

11/21-24/11 - Going Deeper Underground - pt. 2

Yes, this has been a long, strange trip to get here, fellow Agents. Consider that payback for messing with my slides.


The bottom line, if you'll excuse the phrase, is that we are now in the most interesting place, in terms of our discussion. We can't have a Hollow Earth to play in because physics and geology, darn them to heck, take our fantasies and turn them into smooshed dinosaurs.


But now we're in the Lithosphere. This is where we can play. And this is where things get really weird.


Now we are at the crust. That's between five and twenty-five miles of rock and soil that, while you still have to be concerned about heat, pressure, and the occasional pocket of lava bubbling up, are the chief playgrounds for people like myself. Give me a well-tuned tunneling device, a good map, and a watch, and I can take you places you'd never think could possibly exist.


My predecessor, the original Underman, made a number of maps of his explorations of the Crust before he retired. I should point out that these maps were, in turn, based on the life's work of numerous other Lithonauts, going all the way back to the 19th century. Only they had to rely on finding large cave systems, and digging their way down with as much machinery or manpower as they could throw at the problem.


Underman, and those like him, had technology on their side. The kind of technology that can create a nuclear-powered tank with an extremely large diamond-tipped drill, capable of slowly boring a permanent tunnel, or quickly passing on through and throwing the debris back behind the vehicle so as to not create geological instability.


...


Okay, sorry. Nostalgia. You know how that is. 


Though I gotta admit, it'll kill you if you're not careful.

* * *

11/21/11
3:26 AM
THE HEPTAGON

They called him Teleman.

Note the "they." He preferred to be called something a lot less descriptive, or at least darkly humorous. But "they" were the ones who wrote his paychecks, so he put up with the decidedly 80's name, and tried not to think of New Wave, parachute jackets, and MTV.

Luckily for him, "they" kept him so busy that he didn't have much time to contemplate his unfortunate, Agency-handed handle. The ability to teleport yourself anywhere in the world, so long as you knew exactly where you were going, made you an extremely valuable entity.

(The only drawback being that he couldn't take anything with him, or take anything back, unless it was completely inside him when he did it. But a nude man can still do a lot of damage, even without the knife in his mouth, or the datastick/camera in a surgically-created pouch in his navel. Some of the martial arts they'd trained him in were so secret they didn't even have names.)

And while "they" might have had him squarely by the !@#$ (youthful indiscretions -- you know how that goes) his check-writers made !@#$ sure he got to handle some of the value his services provided to them. It was their way of ensuring he stayed their valuable asset, and didn't go moonlighting, or changing sides.

So when "they" offered him a cool million for what was, on the surface, a pretty easy-sounding job, Teleman wondered what the catch was. Teleport into a specific cell, kill a prisoner before anyone realized he was there, and then teleport back out again? He'd done that dozens of times, using the Dim Mak (or its modern day, Krav Maga equivalent) to ensure that even the best pathologists would believe that the target had just died from a heart attack.

Then they told him he'd be teleporting into the Heptagon, and killing a target right under SPYGOD's nose.

To his credit, Teleman did not decline the job. But he took an extra half-second to "think it over," which consisted of him thinking the word "!@#$" several times, and wish his youthful indiscretions weren't so !@#$ indiscreet.

They got him everything he needed. A layout of the place, complete with coordinates so he could focus on where he needed to go. A printout of a camera image of the cell, itself, so he could fully materialize himself within it. All physical data on the target, so he could strike him with precision and kill him instantly, rather than having to inspect his body for the right spots to hit him.

(That's the problem with the Dim Mak; there's no "one size fits all" death touch. You have to study your opponent's chi in order to disrupt it that savagely, or else all you're doing is making an energy hiccup in the body. And all those do is trigger the "fight" side of the fight or flight reflex, which makes for an even messier conflict.)

At 3:21 AM, on Monday, November 21st, Teleman declared himself ready. He ran through the plan one more time in his mind, closed his eyes, and then began to concentrate.

At 3:23 his employers noticed that he was starting to turn translucent, then transparent. That was a good sign. he was almost there.

At 3:26 he vanished. There was a sound like a marker on glass, and then he was gone. The clock was running, and they expected him back in thirty seconds or less.

(It never took him more than a few seconds' concentration to come back. Getting there was the hard part, but coming back was a literal snap.)

At ten seconds in, they started to worry. At twenty someone actually asked out loud if something had gone wrong. At thirty, they all did.

Forty. Fifty. A full minute went by.

Then two. Then three.

At 3:31 AM, the Agent in charge of the operation called his superior and told him it was a wash. He recommended using the bomb that Teleman didn't know was wrapped around his C3 (put in at the same time as his navel pouch). His superior agreed

The operatives all left Teleman's apartment and locked the door behind them, knowing they'd never come back.

* * *

Anyway, the plates. I'm sure you've heard of Plate Tectonics. That is not a progressive rock band... 

Um, sorry. Had to try.


Let's try that again. Plate Tectonics has to do with why we have earthquakes and volcanoes in the first place. It's why continents shift over time, and why it looks like South America and Africa could fit into each other like puzzle pieces.


That's because, once upon a time, they did.


The Crust lies atop the Mantle, like we said, and that's the Lithosphere. What I didn't say, yet, because I got all weepy-eyed for days long past, is that the Lithosphere is not a solid object. It's broken up into several different plates, which move, ever so slowly, like conveyor belts or rotating gears. In some places the plates slide past each other, in others they go up and push away from each other, and in others one gets pulled under the other, and new parts get pulled up from the other side of the plate.


It's what happens inside these plates that is so amazingly cool. It's like of like Earth having 15 true continents, all below the surface. And each one having its own unique biosphere and history, depending on whether it's mostly underwater or above it.


Oh yes, that's got your attention, now.

11/22/11
4:00 PM
(LOCATION UNKNOWN)

The Big Man is not in a good mood, today. Not at all.

First, he has it confirmed by an unwitting source inside the Secret Service. They did, indeed, find the Agent he had programmed. They didn't turn her, like SPYGOD claimed. They just tackled her, wrapped her up so she couldn't harm herself, and took her away in a COMPANY car.

No one knew where she was, now, but chances were good SPYGOD was using the N-Machine on her. If he did, he'd find out where Biggs encountered her, and how he contacted her, and how often.

None of these things are good.

Second, he finds out that a number of his retired operatives have vanished off the grid over the last 12 hours. They're disappearing from their homes in the middle of the night, like Soviet dissidents in a bad propaganda movie. Some have actually been snatched off the street like little kids baited by lollipop-wielding strangers.

Then he is told, in no uncertain terms, that the Director of the CIA does not care to answer his calls, anymore. At first he thought the man might just be really busy, what with all the problems he's having right now. But the last time he called, and tried to mention -- however obliquely -- that the Director might really want to communicate with him, the man's secretary actually told him to lose the number.

"Lose the number." Like he was a jilted lover who wasn't getting the point.

And now this: a graphic picture sent to one of his many mail drops. It's of a naked man who's been fused half-in, half-out of a prisoner's restraint chair. His head is gone -- exploded from the neck up, from the looks of things -- and there's a sign around his neck.

The sign reads:

Thought I'd Redecorate the Cell. 

Your Move, !@#$face.

- SPYGOD -

And while The Big Man had no idea that the Agency was going to use Teleman to take care of their mutual problem, the fact that SPYGOD apparently thinks it was Biggs who sent him, rather than the CIA, does not make the loss of this valuable operative any less painful.

Hargreaves is keeping well away from him, today. It's probably for the best. Right now Biggs is so angry he'd probably tell the man to stud his hand with razors, reach around, and fist!@#$ himself to death on the front veranda, just so he could finally think over the white hot anger coursing through his mind.

This is war, then. It's time to stop pretending.

He calls his son in Corsica. Ever the good boy, Xerxes answers on the second ring.

"It's time, my boy," Biggs says: "Get the team together, and activate The Skull. We're going to destroy The Flier with SPYGOD on board."

Xerxes giggles. It's just his way of saying "yes" to his beloved father. Then he hangs up and goes back to whatever fresh new depravity he was exploring today.

"King takes Queen," The Big Man muses, feeling the anger subside. For now.

* * *

Let's talk about what's right under our feet... well, under the Flier, anyway. The North American Plate. It's North America, all the way down to Central America, over to Greenland, and the Easternmost part of Russia and the Northernmost islands of Japan, along with the North Pole.


It is home to the race of small but powerful beings we call the Subterraneans. These stooped, hairy people live in underground cities lit by luminescent fungi, connected to one another by well-built tunnels that are much older than they are.


They have no real knowledge as to who or what built those tunnels. But given how large the blocks they're made of are, they must have either been human sized, or else had access to powerful machinery. Maybe both.


The cities are definitely theirs, though. They're concentric streets of simple buildings that look like igloos made of rocks, with the bricks stuck together with that weakly-glowing fungi. They can build larger structures, but prefer not to, mostly because they don't have the time or energy. They're always out looking for food, which is mostly nasty cave spiders and other squirmy things.


Oddly enough, they won't eat the fungi, even if they're starving. It's sacred to them.


Subterraneans are mammalian, but are not descended from the common ancestor that gave rise to humans and apes. We're not sure what they may have come up from. They remind me of what happens when an inbred farmer boy gets in bed with a badger, but that's not what their myth cycles tell us.

Not that we've had a lot of luck getting the information out of them. These guys are about as vicious as badgers in a trap, and don't play well with others. You'll note I didn't use the term "Empire" to talk about their massive complex of cities? That's because the cities are all technically at war with one another, and if it wasn't for the fact that the tunnels run for hundreds of miles between the cities, and food sources are scarce between them, I think they would have wiped each other out ages ago.


Not that you should go buy a gun and point it at your gopher holes out of fear of what might come up them. They stay well underground. On those rare occasions when they get too close to the surface they rarely stray far from the caverns they come up in, and then they only come out at night. They can't handle any light source more powerful than a candle without being blinded, either temporarily or permanently, and they're scared to death of us.


We smell terrible, apparently.

* * *

11/23/11
6:02 AM
SOMEWHERE IN LANGLEY, VA

It's shower time for Agent Armatrading.

In this case, "shower" means two of her minders put restraints on her hands and feet, and then pull her up and out of her chair so another one can give her a sponge bath. They're careful not to rip out the IV picks, or disturb the tubes and sensors, but other than that they're not very gentle about it -- especially when they get down lower and have to deal with her on a more intimate level.

(Her period started two days ago, and they didn't think to get tampons when they abducted her. The fact this makes some of them uncomfortable gives her a little twinge of joy when she mentally comes up for air.)

Of course, not all of them are weirded out by the fact that a naked woman strapped to a chair is going to get messy. One of them is just enraptured by her otherwise-embarrassing biology.

It's one of the men. She notes his fresh face and glittering eyes as he holds her up and down. She recognizes that look: it's like he thinks she's a bug, and he wants to put a pin through her stomach and mount her for framing.

Oh yes. He's the one. He's the weak link, here.

And while he doesn't know it, yet, he's going to get her out of this situation...

But she turns that thought off, very quickly. She can feel Agent S rooting around in her brains, again, looking for information that's going to help him plan the next step in trying to take SPYGOD down.

(It's bad enough he used her skills to frame that poor Agent, and then make him think SPYGOD was going to kill him for using his COMPANY card inappropriately. He might have, of course, but not like that.)

As he's in her, she's in him. She can feel the endgame coming. If he can't find anything actionable or nasty that he can use against SPYGOD, he'll probably have to find some way to kill him, and make it look like she did it.

That way he gets rid of him and her in one move.

The thought almost makes her react to the point where she loses control, and gives away some of her thoughts on getting out of this mess. But at the last moment she gets control, again, and finds a way to wrap herself into a pleasant memory loop --

Beatrice kisses her, there by the wharf. Someone laughs at the dykes. They don't care. Beatrice kisses her, there by the wharf. Someone laughs at the dykes. They don't care. Beatrice kisses her, there by the wharf. Someone laughs at the dykes. They don't care. 

-- and the monster who's stolen her body just passes on through, apparently uncaring that she's remembering her last girlfriend's last sweet gesture before things went all so !@#$ wrong between them.

Had it really been that bad? Did Sue really have to have said those things? Did they really need to have broken up, talked behind each others' backs, and x-ed off so many friends for taking no side, or the wrong one?

She doesn't know. If none of this had happened, she'd have said yes, and continued to badmouth the dumb !@#$ that did her wrong.

But here and now, looking at what might be the last days of her life, she wishes there was some way she could reach out, across the distance, take Beatrice's hand in hers, and tell her she's sorry.

And thank her for that one day, there by the wharf.

* * *

The discovery of the Subterraneans can be credited to one Herbert P. Bloomdale, back in 1927. He's the guy that started digging for gold up in Saskatchewan, and found a series of caverns that spiraled all the way down to just next to one of these massive tunnels. He came back up to the surface missing a leg, and scared to death for obvious reasons, but stories of his find got out.


It's only because the Canadians are capable of keeping certain things very well contained that most of you have never even heard of these folks before. But there was a man named Iben Colson, back in the 30's, who cobbled together a means to get down to the tunnels. He figured he could go down there and wow them with some technology, and get himself his very own empire below the Earth.


It worked, for a while, and most of what we know about the Subterraneans' disjointed history, myth cycles, and way of life is courtesy of Mr. Colson. My predecessor met him on a few occasions, back in the day, when Colson was a stammering wreck of a man who'd been underground so long his eyes had become totally useless, and he was finding his way around by smell.


Where did they come from? Who built the tunnels? What happened to their society? Why did their writing style look almost exactly like cuneiform? He had no idea. 

But he did say one thing: "The answers lie below." Apparently that's one of their many pithy sayings.


Another one is "outsiders are food," which is why my predecessor didn't go back for more information after the last time he came into town. It turned out that Colson had since died, and the Subterraneans didn't care to have another "uplander" coming down and telling them stories in exchange for their lives, food, and the occasional sexual experiment, which was all his "empire" really amounted to.


You like that story? I got more. A lot more.


The mysteries below Ayers Rock, and the nasty, black things that live down there. The Lost Kingdoms of India and Arabia. The ancient horror under the Nazca Plate. The crystal palaces of South America...


But, before we go anywhere with those, we have to talk about the Pacific Plate, and what GORGON's disappearance into the Subduction Zone means to us.

* * *

11/24/11
5:31 PM
THE B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G.

"... And you're absolutely sure of this?" Director Straffer is asking, his telepresence walking through a table like it isn't there.

"Well, the !@#$ at the Agency were sure of it," SPYGOD says, downing another beer in two gulps: "They traded it for something of vital importance, at the time. Now, of course, it could be a fake. But..."

"But it looks like the real thing," the ghost of a man says, looking at the schematics on the table: "And it makes a lot of sense. I've often wondered about how they could have gotten the capabilities to pull off some of the things they've done with that, over the years."

"And suddenly it makes a lot of sense. They meet up at Outland with a few would-be alien conquerors, make a really good deal, and suddenly they have their very own, genuine, mother!@#$ Ybari dreadnought... minus the bias drive."

"They wouldn't need it if they're just going to drive around the planet with it. But the drive doesn't just handle the motive units. It also handles the power supply."

"Which means that they can't have all systems running at once, which is probably how we beat that !@#$ thing back so many times in the past."

Straffer considers this, and looks at the schematics again.

"So if we took out the nuclear engines, and some of the more terrestrial weaponry and propulsion, I'd say this is more than 75% alien technology."

"What's the cut-off for DAMOCLES?"

"Well below that," the Director says: "Alright, we've got a deal. But I want you to know this isn't going to be a regular thing. The less we have to do things like this, the better. I get enough flak from the budget people as it is."

"I think we won't need something like this again. But thank you. I appreciate it."

"Is that an actual thank you I just heard? My telepresence must be malfunctioning."

SPYGOD smiles: "The real thank you comes next time you're downside. The beer's on me."

"Well, I don't drink," he says, smiling: "But you can get me a table at Per Se."

 "What? That place that charges out the !@#$ for little bites of super-gourmet rocket food?"

"That's the one. I've been dying to get in there."

"Okay, then. Table for one?"

"I was hoping you'd join me, actually."

SPYGOD grumbles: "Well, okay. But just for you. And I am not !@#$ dressing up."

"I wouldn't dream of insisting. Speaking of which, it's Thanksgiving. Shouldn't you be breaking bread with the troops?"

"Yeah, well. Business first. But yes, I do have about two dozen turkeys deep-frying on board The Flier that I should probably get back to. Hopefully no one's caught anything on fire, yet."

"Paris is burning, my friend," Straffer tips him a wink and vanishes, and for a weird moment SPYGOD has no idea if he was just hit on, or not.

But yes. It's Thanksgiving, and today he can be thankful for a number of things, and people. It's been a weird year since last May, and as much tragedy and bad times as he's brought down on himself, there's also a lot of wonderful things going on.

And as he straps on his rocket pack, and makes ready to head back up to The Flier, he's grateful for so much. He almost cracks a big smile in spite of it all, and decides he's going to do something really nice for his overworked, overthreatened personal assistants come Christmastime.

Especially Sue. !@#$ is she turning out to be a crack Agent.

* * *

 
You see, the North American plate isn't the only one that has those old tunnels running through them. The African Plate does as well. And so does the Pacific Plate. It's just that, since the crust there is mostly underwater, so are the tunnels, since they run fairly close to the surface in places.


And that's very bad news. When GORGON vanished off our radar, all those months ago, they most likely went into one of those tunnels. That would indicate that they know about them. That would also mean that they may have been exploiting them for quite some time, now, and may have all kinds of bases and facilities built into the tunnels, themselves.


Suddenly we have a much smaller area to look through. But at the same time, we have a more dangerous brief. There's things in those tunnels that have been festering and breeding down there in seclusion for millions of years.


Yes, millions. That's how old those tunnels actually are.


Did I mention that, earlier? No? Oh, sorry. Yeah, something made a network of tunnels in the crust of the Earth millions of years ago, and whatever it was, it was not us. And we have no idea who or what it was.


Except that there may be a story that explains it, sort of.


Has anyone ever heard of Richard Sharpe Shaver? Oh, okay, one of you had excellent taste in reading while growing up. Okay, two of you? Anyone else?


Well, Shaver was a nutcase. He claimed that he was receiving mental transmissions from an underground civilization that was based on rape and torture. High science, low regard for life, you know the type. Once the editor of Amazing Stories got hold of his rambling letters and fictionalized them, they made for great sci-fi tales, at least until the readers decided they'd had enough and made the editor stop carrying them.


But one of the things he spoke about has a certain weight to it. 

Some of you may have heard of Deros. The term's a conjunction of "Detrimental Robots." Something like the rape machines from that one early Gary Numan record. They were biological creatures that had become so degenerate that they killed, maimed, and tortured with all the unfeeling efficiency of a robot, hence the name.


Well, the name "Deros" was attached to something else, later on. Some of the older hands here may have heard of the Advanced Supersonic Nazi Hell Creatures from Below the Hollow Earth? No, that's not a progressive rock band, either, and it sure as heck wasn't a Syfy movie, either.


That was the name given to certain foo fighters, back during World War II. There's no real good pictures of them, due to the fact that they moved so freaking fast, and didn't leave a lot of witnesses, but we have a few descriptions. I think the most evocative one was "flying, fire-breathing, dragon train."


These things attacked our planes and ships in the South Pacific. They appeared from nowhere and then vanished just as fast. And whenever they left the scene of an ambush, they were seen to dive into the Ocean, and sometimes even crash-land on islands. But no wreckage was ever found.


The suspicion was that the Japanese had gotten their hands on some sort of advanced technology, and were using it against us. The fact that we didn't have those things being thrown in our faces every day led Military Intelligence to believe that they didn't invent them, themselves, but rather found them, or bought their services, somehow.


But then the war was over, and during the Occupation we found out that the Japanese had absolutely nothing to do with it. They were as astounded by these things as we were, except that they didn't attack them, for some weird reason. So they assumed the Nazis must have been trying out a secret weapon and not telling them about it, much in the same way the Japanese didn't always tell them about theirs.

A little more digging, and it turns out that, amongst some of the islands in the Micronesian chain, Dero is a known entity. It's what the islanders call a long, swift demon of the sea that launches out of the water, attacks anything that trespasses into its domain, and then disappears. They don't show up all that often, but when they do it's never a good thing. 

This leads a few Nazi UFO conspiracy theorists to make a loose connection, and before you know it the two stories are conflated. Suddenly we've got Nazis riding these monsters they found below the hollow earth while turning Antarctica into a submarine base. Not completely off base, in some respects, but there's nothing below Antarctica that synchs up with the Dero.


But you can't help but wonder. All those tunnels suggest a home for something long and swift. And 
the fact that we haven't come across any giant, metal skeletons on the Ocean floor might suggest that they don't come from our ocean, but maybe something lower down.


Is that what the tunnels were made for? If so, who made them? The Deros, or whatever they served, or served them?


And if they're down there, along with GORGON, we could be looking at quite a wild op.


That's all I've got for you, now. The next time we meet we'll be talking about how we're going to go about dealing with the situation. We've got some ideas, of course, but it's going to be a tough one.

But you know, one thing I've learned in my relatively short time, here at The COMPANY? Tough isn't just part of the job description. It's when we're at our best. I think this toughness is going to make us even tougher, and...


...


Um, okay. Yes sir. I'm shutting up now. 


Thank you all for listening. Good night.

(SPYGOD is listening to Fascination Street (The Cure) and having an Oskar Blues G'Knight)