5/5/61 - The Things We've Done Together While Our Hearts Were Young - pt. 2

The People's Protectors, circa 1958 - the caption translates to "We Fight for The Motherland!"
Krasnaya Zvezha (Red Star), Matryoshka, Zhenshchina Pauk (Spider Woman),
Chernaya Ten (Black Shadow), Krasnoye Koltso (Red Ring: foreground), Sovetskiy Skorost (Soviet Speed)
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * *

"Of course, Mr. President," Dr. Yesterday says, wondering if he should be standing at attention while he's on the phone or not: "We've got everyone down there, now, but no one's radioed in to say they've found out exactly what's going on."

"Well, that's just a crazy thing," the President says, his accent reminiscent of northeast clambakes and summer regattas: "I'm seeing Mr. USA flying around the rocket, now. I think he's looking for sabotage, but can't find any."

"What's the news saying?"

"Not a thing, Doctor. We had an agreement that we wouldn't broadcast anything unless it was a threat to life and limb. Martians could land and try to steal it and we'd just say we had to scrub the launch due to a malfunctioning computer. You know how that goes."

"And this launch has been scrubbed enough already, sir."

"Well, yes. Yes it has. But under the circumstances?"

"Well, then, sir, can I make a suggestion?"

"Of course, Doctor. You have my complete attention."

"Delay it for an hour or so, and just blame it on the weather," Dr. Yesterday says: "We used to do the same thing all the time during the War, when we were being harried by saboteurs and super-Nazis. You don't lose face, which is their consolation prize if they fail. And you get the time to find out what's really going on."

"That's an excellent suggestion, Dr. Yesterday. I'll call the Space Center up now and have that relayed."

"Sir, do you mind if I ask? Did you call the Premier yet?"

"The Soviet Embassy's assured me that Khrushchev will call me as soon as he can. They also denied everything, but I'd expect no less."

"Of course, sir," the man says: "By the way, you might also want to tell the authorities along the eastern seaboard to stay quiet if they see Foxtrot Actual in flight. We wouldn't want to overshadow the launch or fail to surprise someone."

"I see," the President nods, wondering what the man's talking about: "I'll let the Defense boys know about it. Talk to you later, Doc."

With that the President hangs up, looks at the image on the television screen -- America's greatest hero, looping around a rocket and looking for danger -- sighs, and then places a call to Goddard, not too far away.

"Martians," he muses as he waits to get through: "That would actually be a !@#$ improvement."

* * *

"The countdown's been halted?" Mrs. Liberty asks Mr. USA as he comes in for a landing, not far from the rocket.

"It has," he says: "Just got word from the President, himself. We've got an hour."

"That's good news," she says: "Anything else?"

"Swiftfoot's out watching the perimeter. You think I should have him come in? It might make things easier."

"Would he know what to look for?

"Oh, good point," he sighs, feeling a little out of his depth, here: "Of course, they'll be sending some technicians right over to make sure everything's in order, which will make our job a little easier."

"Provided the technicians aren't in on it, too," she says, watching as a bunch of them pour out of nearby pillboxes, tool kits in hand: "How do you recommend proceeding on that?"

"Well, we'll just have to rely on intuition, I figure."

Mrs. Liberty's about to say something to that when they're approached by those technicians. One of them is an older, well-dressed gentleman carrying a checklist instead of a toolkit.

"Ah, Mr. and Mrs. USA," he says, his accent rather thick: "I hear I am to discuss the layout with you, so that we may find these possible works of sabotage sooner, rather than later. There is a great deal of ground to cover, so the sooner we look this over-"

"Just a second," Mrs. Liberty says, squinting her eyes at the man: "Don't I know you?"

"Well, madame," he begins to say, but then closes his mouth, gasps, and drops the checklist he'd brought.

"Aha!" the woman says, running forward to take hold of the fellow before he can run away: "I've got our saboteur!"

"What?" Mr. USA asks, but he's too late to stop her from hauling the older man up by his lapels, tossing him into the sky, and then grabbing his legs to throw him back down into the ground with a sickening crunch. 

"Mein Gott!" the old man howls: "My legs!"

"You just button it up, you Nazi weasel!" Mrs. Liberty threatens him, shaking a fist into his face: "Is this an ABWEHR operation, then? Are you trying to pin the blame on the Soviets? What the !@#$ is going on here, pal?"

"Please, help me," the old man blubbers: "You are mistaken-"

"Oh no, I'm not," she shouts: "You're a !@#$ing Nazi!"

"My name is Doctor Joseph Smelt! I am born in Cleveland, Ohio-"

"No! You're Johan F. Krupt, otherwise known as Eisenengel! That's what they called you at Peenemunde, anyway. You were the one getting those Valkyries up in the air, you little !@#$-"

"(REDACTED), calm down," Mr. USA says, taking her hand in his before she can use it: "This man isn't the enemy. Not anymore."

"What?" Mrs. Liberty shouts: "I got the reports on this scumbag, (REDACTED). So did you. You know what he did, what they did."

"Yes, but that was then, dear," he explains, trying to get her away: "He's on our side, now."

"What?" she says, disbelieving.

"Look, it's a long story," Mr. USA sighs, watching as the technicians all run to care for their friend and mentor as he gets the woman who maimed him clear of the scene: "But I can tell you with all honesty that, whatever this man did back during the war, he's made up for it now. Him and von Braun and all the others. They're the reason we even have a space program, now."

"What are you talking about...?" she starts to say, but then remembers that thing about the paperclip...

"I think we'd better get back to looking for the Russian saboteur, hon," he says, trying to put even more distance between them all: "And next time, ask questions first and hit later, okay? I think we just lost our checklist privileges for the day."

"So much for intuition," she mutters as he flies off. She risks one last look back, and sees that the old man she once could have put a bullet into, just over fifteen years ago, is now being carried off the field like a wounded star player.

She thinks of the Valkyrie raids on London. She thinks of the child she saw in the street, sobbing for her mother, buried under the ruins of their house. She thinks of the smoke and the fire and the deaths, and how the Iron Angels laughed as they dropped bombs on civilians -- their dark chortling roiling above the smoke clouds as they turned to head home after a raid.

And she decides that some things are just too black and horrible to forgive -- ever.  

* * *

"I just don't know why he's always riding me," New Man grumbles as he and American Lightning high-tail it down yet another corridor, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

(The loudspeakers are announcing the launch has been delayed, but nothing about the costumed heroes charging through the building.)

"Maybe it's because you're getting more women than he is," the man says, really not wanting to get into the real reasons right now.

"Oh, but is the women, right?" the other guy sighs: "Always about the women."

"Well, yes..." Lightning admits, realizing he walked them right into that one: "Look, man, there's been some talk."

"Is it my fault I look younger than I am?"

"No, but you don't have to encourage the jailbait, either."

"Like anyone else doesn't-"

"I don't, Charles," Lightning says, taking a firm, flat step in New Man's direction, so as to put them face to face: "So don't make that argument with me."

"Look, I'm just sick and tired of being held up to a higher standard," New Man says: "I mean, !@#$, you volunteered for this, Rob. I just got hit with something. It was an accident. Next thing I know, I'm like this."

"So?" Lightning asks, turning away to get back up to speed, and nodding to an older, black janitor as they pass him on the way: "We came from Camp Rogers. You came from Okinawa. That doesn't mean you get to blow off your responsibilities."

"I didn't ask for this. One minute I'm shooting Japs on the beach, the next I'm getting hit with some purple ray, and... well..."

"Is that what happened?" Robert asks, genuinely interested now: "You never told me that before."

"I don't like to talk about it," New Man grumbles as they hold up to look around a corner: "It's humiliating."

"Well, okay. That's your choice, Charles. But you wouldn't be the first hero to just get powers out of nowhere."

"No, but it doesn't mean I have to be Captain America, either, does it? Can't I just fight bad guys and then go home and be myself?"

"Of course," Lightning says, now certain they can move on down the deserted hallway: "There are lots of folks who do that. There's folks who did that before the war, during it, and even now.

"But they're not part of the Freedom Force, Charles. We're not just any group of heroes. We're the group. I thought you'd have understood that by now."

"I can't be Superman."

"Then don't," Lightning says, turning around and tapping New Man on the chest: "Be a man, Charles. Stand up for something bigger than what you want or need. Do the right thing. Otherwise, what's the point?"

"An excellent question," someone announces, stepping from the shadows down the hallway. He wears a black, form-fitting suit that ripples as he walks, his smile is winsome and toothy, and his accent is pure Moscow -- deep and musical. 

"Black Shadow," New Man says as they walk out, ready to fight: "I've read about him. Don't let him touch you. He'll send you someplace really unpleasant."

"Good thing we don't have to touch him, then?" Lightning asks, his fists crackling with his namesake as New Man begins to glow purple: "Watch the birdie, Commie."

"Watch behind you, American," someone else says, just above them -- the one place neither of them thought to look.

And then they have exactly a second before eight-eyed Zhenshchina Pauk falls off the ceiling to attack them -- her long, prehensile hair full of energy-draining webs, her mouth filled with thin, poisoned fangs... 

* * *

At about fifteen past 7 SPYGOD's car phone starts ringing. By this time he's drained his flask, and is about to toddle off to the nearest gas station to fill it back up again, so he considers this to be excellent timing.

"This better be some !@#$ good intel, !@#$face," he shouts down the phone.

"Sir?" someone else's voice squeaks out the other end.

"Sir what? Who the !@#$ is this?"

"Is this Director SPYGOD?"

"Yes it is," SPYGOD says, still chaffing at the use of the d-word: "Why aren't you using my god!@#$ secret codename over a secured !@#$ing channel?"

"I... um, I didn't know we had to, sir. I thought it was secured."

"Well, that would make !@#$ing sense, now wouldn't it?" SPYGOD asks, sort of amused.

"I guess so, sir-"

"No, really, who the !@#$ is this?"

"Agent Jerome Jones, sir. I'm in charge of Eastern Operations."

"Oh, the Chop Suey desk. Yeah," SPYGOD chuckles: "Well, that explains how you're out of the !@#$ loop about how we're running things, now. How's !@#$ing LA?"

"I'm not there, sir. I caught the red-eye and I'm at the port, now."

"Oh? Why the !@#$ did you fly all the way out here?"

"Because I got something for you, sir, and I think it's really important-"

"Wait," SPYGOD says, remembering: "I know you. Don't they call you Jolly?"

"Yes, sir. I can't imagine why. I'm told I kill all the parties."

"Oh, right," SPYGOD chuckles, remembering why the fellow kills them: "Well, maybe you can bring mine back to life, Agent Jolly. I !@#$ing need some info, here, and Fredericks isn't busting his !@#$ to bring it to me. Please tell me you have it."

"I just might, sir. But bear with me. This is a long and weird story."

"I can use weird, Jolly. Long I ain't got !@#$ing time for. Spill it quick."

"Quick. Okay. Less than two days ago, one of our Harolds in Hong Kong retrieved a letter from a Central Investigation Department dead-drop. They weren't sure what to make of it because it was addressed to someone called Ju Shen, which doesn't make any sense, except that it's a really bad way to translate 'Spy God.'"

"Who's it from?" SPYGOD asks.

"That's the other thing, sir. The sender was just named Long."

SPYGOD's heart skips a beat, and he exhales very slowly: "The Dragon."

"Exactly, sir. I know you two have a history. It's something of a legend out here-"

"So what happened?"

"Well, our Harold realized it was probably something really important, given how weirdly obvious it was. Kind of like they wanted someone to take it from their office and hand it off to us? So I had him get it into my hands, which took a day. When I opened it this morning, I found out that it just has a name."

"Which is?"

"Gregor Pavelvich Minkovski. Now, that's not someone my desk deals with. But I ran it by the Borscht Desk, and they told me he's one of SQUASH's goons. Malinovyy Ubiysta? I think I'm pronouncing that right..."

"The Crimson Assassin," SPYGOD says, not without some reverence: "Yeah, I know him. Creepy !@#$er. They say Bulgakov uses him to !@#$ing do away with Supreme Soviet types who get overheard backtalking SQUASH off the floor. Not a nice guy by any means."

"The Russian you, they say, sir."

"Well, they can kiss my !@#$ing !@#$, Jolly. I'm the only god!@#$ me around these parts. You !@#$ing got that?"

"Um, yes sir."

"Besides, they say he can blow your !@#$ brains out from up to fifty miles away. And while I've done a lot of crazy !@#$ stuff over the years..."

SPYGOD blinks a few times, and then looks north, towards the Cape.

"Sir?" Jolly asks.

"Yeah, I think I just realized something really !@#$ing important, Jolly," SPYGOD says: "The bad news is that we've got an even bigger !@#$ing problem. The good news is we also have a !@#$ing solution. But I need you to do something for me."

"What's that, sir?"

"I need you to spell that name for me. Exactly how it is in the !@#$ letter. Okay?"

"Yes sir."

"Okay, hang on," he says, getting out his Freedom Force communicator: "Hey, Doc? You there?"

"Yes I am, SPYGOD. What's the situation down there?"

"I need you to get Wayfinder on the horn. Now."

"Um. I'll call his place. He's on retreat-"

"Tell him this is !@#$ important. Wait, !@#$ that. Tell him I'm saying it's !@#$ important. That'll get him to the !@#$ phone. Okay?"

"Okay," Dr. Yesterday says, and then puts SPYGOD on hold to do as he's told.

"Still there, Jolly?" SPYGOD asks.

"Yes sir. What are we doing?"

"Talking to a man who can !@#$ing find anyone, anywhere, as long as he's got their correct name," SPYGOD answers: "You're giving it to me, I'm giving it to him, and then I'm going to !@#$ing find this Crimson Assassin and shoot him with his own !@#$ gun. That sound like a plan to you?"

"Well, yes. It does, sir. Yes."

"And when Foxtrot Actual actually !@#$ing gets down here? I'm buying you a big !@#$ing beer, Jolly. You may have just saved the day."

"I don't drink, sir."

"Well, I'm !@#$ing buying you something-"

"Sir, if you want to get me something, please stop using profanity with me. I find it immoral and unnerving."

SPYGOD coughs, and then cracks a smile: "You've got yourself a goshdarn deal, Jolly. Now, the flipping name, if you please?"

Jolly sighs at that, and SPYGOD decides he's going to make it his mission to get this man drunk, laid, and cursing like a sailor before he's finished with him.  

* * *

"You commies just have no shame!" Corporal Flag cries out as he smacks down yet another Matryoshka, only to watch in horror as a slighty-smaller version of the short, squat, and powerful Russian woman appears next to her, ready to pick up fighting where the last one left off.

"Less talking, more punching, kid," Dr. Chaos says, using some strange, faster-than-the-eye-can-see martial art to knock aside every red, glowing weapon that Krasnoye Koltso can fling at him. It might be a low-level manifestation of his powers, given that his blue hair is glowing under his tophat right now, or it might be some weird Karate thing. Who can say?

They'd been doing fine, at least up until now -- going this way and that throughout the control center, encountering nothing but technicians, workers, and the occasional elderly, Negro janitor. And then they turned a corner on the far edge of the building, and found themselves hemmed in by a small army of short, well-built, and ugly women on one side, and a bristling wall of floating, red hand weapons on the other.

(With a very short Russian man hiding behind them, cackling at what he was about to unleash.)

To their credit, in spite of the clear animosity between the two men, they'd immediately sprung into action -- each one knowing which commie combatant to square up against, given each others' powers, and their enemies' abilities. But this was taking longer than it should, and they had yet to radio back in in to the others...

Then it happens, just as Corporal Flag was afraid it would.

One of the red weapons -- a hammer, of all things -- strikes Dr. Chaos right in the face. There's a sickening crack as something breaks, a moment of calm before the storm. And then, just as the blue-haired hero's tophat falls to the floor, he starts laughing.

It's not a good laugh.

"over commie Playtime is," Dr. Chaos says, his hair standing up on end as the world crackles and wavers around his hands: "control up red see you Let's !@#$ if  it's ring can that your when shoved..."

"Chaos!" Flag shouts as the man with the glowing, red ring finds himself kissing the floor so hard it cracks under his outline: "Control yourself, man! If you lose it here we're all dead!"

"Just you, American pig!" one of the Matryoshka clones announces as she punches Flag square in the face -- dislodging at least one tooth and bloodying his nose for good measure.

At which point, Flag joins Chaos in the small, picturesque town of Losing It, Florida.

"My... mother... told... me... not... to... hit... ladies," Flag says, punctuating each knock-out punch with a word, only to find another, unscathed target a second later: "But... you're... no... lady!"

"And you are being no man!" ten clones shout in unison, all bringing their fists down on Corporal Flag's head before he can put up a good defense.

A second later he realizes she was just toying with him.

A second after that he's falling to the ground, and being kicked by at least fifteen women. Maybe twenty.

As he closes his eyes he sees the building starting to collapse from all sides at the other end of the hallway as Dr. Chaos does something obscene to a ring-slinging super commie. Or maybe it's all distortions and he's just imagining things -- the human body wasn't meant to look like that, surely?

Much like he's clearly imagining that elderly Negro janitor they must have passed a half dozen times leaping from the doorway -- wielding his mop like a quarterstaff -- and saving his !@#$ from Matryoshka....

* * *

They called her the Grey Ghost, once, and she was beloved.

The Enterprise was a Yorktown class aircraft carrier: over 800 feet long and just over 110 wide. Home to over 2000 men, who worked, fought, and bled to keep her upright and shipshape.

She'd seen action throughout the Pacific, back in the war. Midway, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, Leyte Gulf. After the war she brought soldiers home from Europe, and was honored by the British Admiralty on one of her last cruises -- the only American ship to have that honor.

And then, after the war -- creaking and outmoded -- the Enterprise was docked, decommissioned, and eventually made ready to be scrapped.

They called her all kinds of names, before and after the War. The Big E. The Lucky E. The Galloping Ghost. But somehow the Grey Ghost resonated the most -- especially with those pilots who'd see her rising out of the fog as they made their way back to her deck to land.

Now, after having been quietly bought from the scrapyard, prior to her scheduled breakdown, and moved to a secluded "proving yard" the Navy uses to build, test, and launch its more secret ships -- not far from Herrington on the Bay -- the Enterprise is going to have an entirely new name.

The Flier.

There's a groan as the completely-refurbished ship leaves its berth, making its way into the deeper areas. Its once-tall command tower has been sliced away, leaving only a few smaller work areas on either side of the flight deck. A forward command has taken its place, just under that deck, with glassed-in areas looking down at the water instead of up at the skies. Amazing, modern weapons line the sides, their barrels turning this way and that as they prepare for the shakedown cruise.

As the ship gets into deeper waters, large areas on the sides of the flight deck slide over and out. Massive helicopter blades -- each one almost as long as the ship, itself -- rise up and telescope out from the center. The stern of the ship pops open to let a solid steel tail with an equally-mighty rotor come out to join them.

And then, with a sound like a million helicopters starting in unison, the ship's blades twirl and whirl in perfect synchronization -- creating enough lift to somehow raise this wet, steel leviathan from the oceans it was made to patrol, and into the air it used to fear.

Only now, it can master it, too. 

A hundred feet, it effortlessly rises. Two hundred. Three. Five. Seven. A thousand, and holding strong.

The Flier is airborne, rising higher and higher, and turning south to make the Cape.

* * *

"Alright, then, thanks," SPYGOD says, getting ready to get off the phone with Wayfinder: "You are the best, my friend. Never let anyone tell you otherwise."

"I try not to let people tell me anything," Wayfinder says: "Now, I'm going back to my retreat. And next time I see someone show up in my sacred space with a portable phone I'm going to tell him something he doesn't want to hear. Is that clear, (REDACTED)?"

"It is, yes," SPYGOD says, being as deferential as possible: "I'm sorry. It was an emergency-"

"If I say I'm on retreat, I am dealing with powers that make your rockets and Soviets look like children and toys. You won't know what an emergency is until one of them gets angry."

"You got it, Wayfinder. Never again."

"That's what you said the last time, (REDACTED)," the man on the other end says, hanging up.

"Well, that was frosty," Dr. Yesterday says: "Should I have them rendezvous with you at that location?"

"NO," SPYGOD insists, checking a map and realizing where he needs to go: "I do this alone. Keep everyone else focused on the Cape and the launch. Do not tell anyone where the !@#$ I went, or that I even talked to Wayfinder. Understood?"

"Um... alright-"

"Well, if it's the President? That's !@#$ing okay. Everyone else? Tell them to go !@#$ing fish. We clear?"

"Yes-"

"Good. If you want to be useful, check in with your brothers and see how they're doing. Or check in with Mr. USA and see how he's doing. !@#$ it, check in with your wife and she what she's doing. Just don't call me until I !@#$ing call you, alright?"

He hangs up before the bewildered super scientist can ask him another question, guns the motor, and high-tails it due West -- heading for a place no one would think to watch on a day like this, which is exactly why he needs to go there.

And on the way he makes one more phone call, hoping his obscene luck can hold out just a little longer...

(SPYGOD is listening to Runaway (Del Shanon) and having even more Blatz)

5/5/61 - The Things We've Done Together While Our Hearts Were Young - pt. 1

Freedom Force, May 5th, 1961
At Cape Canaveral for Alan Shepard's historic spaceflight
Back: Mrs. Liberty, Swiftfoot, Gold Standard, Dr. Chaos, Mr. USA
Front: Liberty Belle, Corporal Flag, American Lightning, New Man
(Art by Dean Stahl)

* * * * * * * * * * 
 
"Remember, it's not enough to make history - 

you've got to arrange for someone to record it for you."

The Wind From Nowhere, J.G. Ballard (1961)

 

 * * * * * * * * * *

The wind blows across Bird Island, again, bringing with it the crisp, earthy smells of a Florida afternoon. It makes the trees sway and creak. Wild grass ebbs and flattens to mark its course. 

And, at its center, SPYGOD and the Crimson Assassin face one another from twenty feet away -- each ready to kill the other.

The tall Russian adjusts his grip on his wondrous weapon, making certain his foe's eyes are square in his crosshairs. SPYGOD looks at the guns he'd dropped by his feet, wondering if he can get to them in time.

The wind blows once more, and the Russian starts to count, ever so slowly.

Three... 

Two... 

One... 

And then-

* * *

"Oh, you have got to be !@#$ing kidding me," SPYGOD spits into his Freedom Force communicator as he gently disentangles his left foot from what's left of a man's backside.

Normally, he wouldn't be so gentle about it -- especially considering what this dark-red-wetsuited Russian Superspy had been saying, here in this gas station restroom, before he kicked the man's tailbone up into his sternum.

But the shoes are handmade Roger Viviers,!@#$ it, and he's not losing them to a Soviet !@#$hole if he can help it.  

"I wish I was, (REDACTED)," Dr. Yesterday sighs over the communicator: "We've got confirmed sightings up and down the coastline. SQUASH operatives are coming in from the shore, south of the Cape, and setting up weapons. And I'm sure you can guess what they're after."

"Half the !@#$ing free world knows by now," SPYGOD replies, pulling his foot free with one final, wet squick. The costumed fellow screams at the pain, but quickly shuts up once SPYGOD kicks him at the base of skull with his other foot -- propelling him right through the toilet stall wall, shattering him against the tile wall, and dropping him down into the commode.

"What was that screaming?" Dr. Yesterday asks.

"Had to flush the !@#$ toilet. Found a commie in the bowl."

"What?"

"Oh, never !@#$ing mind," SPYGOD shouts, running out of the Union 76 station's men's room, grabbing the pocket scope he always keeps on his person, and looking up the Florida coastline, seeing exactly what his ally was telling him.

There's a high-tech, collapsible pontoon boat, just up at Satellite beach. It's just like the one he saw land here -- at Pelican Beach park -- as he was making his way north, this morning. And when he went to investigate, and realized that the two men who'd come ashore weren't here for a full tank, he'd decided to pull off within range of his pocket scope, and see what they were up to.

One hastily-assembled, super-sophisticated soviet missile launcher later -- aimed due north, no less -- he realized the time for watching was over. So he'd driven up, weapons blazing, and eliminated the threat. Then it was just down to trying to get answers out of the one guy who'd had the sense to run into the station's outside washroom to flee his fate.

One ultra-brutal !@#$-kicking -- along with a rather rough poison-tooth removal -- later, what SPYGOD had learned had made him rather upset, to put it mildly. Not only because of what he had learned, but also because of what this !@#$ simply did not know. 

And as any spy could tell you, that's what sinks the fleet.

"Did you call the !@#$ troops in, yet?" he shouts, putting his scope away and getting ready to act.

"Mr. USA and Mrs. Liberty were already at the Cape. Gold Standard's airborne from Atlanta. Swiftfoot's bringing the others from DC, but it'll take a while to get them assembled-"

"We don't !@#$ing have a while, Bob. We got commies trying to stop the launch. And if they're out here, attacking in the !@#$ing open...?"

"Then there's someone inside, doing the real work," Dr. Yesterday realizes.

"!@#$ right," SPYGOD says, heading for his car, which is parked right next to what's left of the other operative, and their weapon: "And we only got a half an hour to stop this !@#$."

"Oh dear."

"You got that right! Tell our people at the Cape to lock it the !@#$ down."

"Already on it, (REDACTED)."

"Get in touch with Patrick and get their defenses up-"

"Who's Patrick?"

"Patrick Air Force Base, you !@#$ing twit. It's on the !@#$ way, and they'll get to them before I do."

"Alright-"

"And call the !@#$ President and tell him to call Nicki and tell that bald rat bastard !@#$ to call the whole !@#$ thing off if he knows what's !@#$ing good for him-"

"What am I, your secretary?" Dr. Yesterday sighs: "Don't you have someone at the Heptagon to make those calls?"

"Oh, I got that new guy they !@#$ing saddled me with, Fredericks or whatever. He's !@#$ing useless. You call the President."

"Well, okay-"

"And while you're at it? Tell your brothers to get it ready to go."

There's a moment of silence, then: "Are you sure? It hasn't been tested, yet. Anything could happen-"

"Yes. And it's called 'Freedom Force Fails in Flaming Fiasco,' right across the front page of the Daily Trumpet. Do you want to !@#$ing read that tomorrow while you're having your coffee, Bob?"

"No, (REDACTED), I don't."

"Then get Frank and Hector out to the port and tell them to fire it the !@#$ up," SPYGOD commands, taking care to step over the burned, still-crackling body of the other Soviet operative as he leaps into his shiny, matte black Aston Martin Spider: "I think it's time to show those Soviet clowns what American science can !@#$ing do."

He guns the motor, reverses over the lump of charcoal that used to be a man, flips the radio back on, and drives North for Cape Canaveral at top speed, ready to execute every last !@#$ing commie saboteur he sees along the way.

"Rawhide" by Link Wray plays on his radio. Afterburners kick his maximum speed from 90 to 150 MPH. His license plate reads BTFU01.

And it's 6:51 in the AM, just 29 minutes from launch...

* * *

SPYGOD really hadn't expected to have this kind of morning, but then he never does.

He'd been down in Key West, earlier that morning. That was after spending most of Thursday scouting launch locations for a special, one-man operation; the sort of thing he wasn't going to !@#$ing tell anyone else about, if he could at all help it. You don't just kill a foreign dictator for revenge and leave a paper trail, after all.

(Especially now they've got some brown-nosing schmuck watching over his every move, just to make sure he "sticks with the new program." !@#$ that.)

His cover consisted of making advanced arrangements for a certain double-agent, to make sure he'd have a smooth transition from the mainland to Havana after his upcoming "suicide." This involved getting a safe house updated and ready for Old Man (aka Ernest Hemingway), as well as preparing for his arrival. However, it also meant keeping an eye on the Cuban vampires, and making note of the nasty places they gathered when they came ashore to carouse, gambol, and drink yankee blood in the place they still refer to by its old, Spanish name: Cayo Hueso -- the Island of Bones. 

After a night of having to watch nightmarish things he'd just as soon light on fire, along with their subhuman, blood-addicted toadies, he was happy to move on to his own, personal errands the following day. After a few checks on locations he'd spied while traveling, he relaxed with drinks and some exquisite al fresco sex with a well-built Asian man-boy who waited tables at an oyster bar in Old Town. A few hours of that had left him spent and sober, yet unable to sleep, so he crept out of the fellow's house once he succumbed to slumber, climbed into his car, and drove back up the Overland, planning to make it up the coast in time to watch the launch.

He wasn't worried about the event, initially. Yes, the first American in space was going to be a big !@#$ deal. And, yes, it would be the sort of thing that might bring any number of jack!@#$es with a cause out to stop or sabotage it. But there were already going to be some members of the Freedom Force there, doing both PR and security, and if they couldn't handle it, well, he'd eat his hat.

(That and Mr. USA had made it clear he'd rather SPYGOD didn't cut in on his show, this time.)

But now he's !@#$ glad he didn't see if that round-bottomed peach of a man-boy wanted to go for another round, after all. He'd have felt really !@#$ stupid if he'd learned of a successful SQUASH operation while he was !@#$-deep in some oyster boy's !@#$hole. And he'd have felt even worse if it was against something this high profile.

And that was the old SPYGOD luck at play again -- the same obscene fortune that'd gotten him this far, and continued to surprise him. If he hadn't been alternating between speeding and slowing down? If that erratic trajectory hadn't brought him to this stretch of road, just now? If he hadn't noticed that pontoon?

(If he didn't already have a backup plan for something exactly like this in place...?)

No. No sense examining it. No sense second-guessing it. Clearly he was meant to be right here, right now, doing one of the things that only he can do.

If there's one consolation -- other than not having Jack get on his case about something -- it's that he was meant to be killing the idiots SQUASH had sent. So he takes extra care to annihilate every last one of the mother!@#$ers his car comes across as he races to the Cape, hoping every other order he'd put into play is also being followed.

Some days it's good to be a superspy. If his luck holds out, this will be yet another one of them.

And if not, then maybe today's when he learns that luck isn't everything...

* * *

"The Soviets?" Mr. USA sighs as he runs after Mrs. Liberty, heading for the control center's nearest exit: "Really?"

"That's what they're saying, (REDACTED)," she shouts back over the alarms, taking a little pride in running ahead of him, at least until he can take to the air: "Frogmen with rocket launchers, down the coast. SPYGOD's taking care of them, now, but he thinks that they're just distractions."

"He would," the hero grouses, knowing his old rival is probably right about this: "Same plan as always?"

"Same as always," she says as the door comes into sight: "You go high..."

"And you go low," he finishes, allowing himself the luxury of skipping just ahead of her, opening the door for the lady, and then whooshing up to the skies to see what the holy heck is going on, here.

As he scans the horizon, he can see a couple fires, further south from here. Narrowing his eyes, he quickly discerns the cause: a speeding, black sports car, firing incendiary rounds at every two-man squad of would-be saboteurs.

SPYGOD seems to be enjoying this, if the look on his face is any indication as he mows down yet another group of them. But he's not moving fast enough, and there's more up the way.

"Mr. USA, I presume?" he hears someone day, over his communicator. He smiles, knowing who it is.

"Gold Standard! I'm really glad to hear your voice."

"I'm about five miles out. Be there in ten seconds. What do you need me to do?"

"I've got the skies over here. You go south, and help SPYGOD knock out enemy emplacements along the coastal road. Look for pontoon boats. Two man squads-"

The whoosh of his gold-armored friend takes the voice away from him, just for a second. The man-machine flies by with all the power of a jet engine, giving him a thumbs-up as he does to indicate he understood. And then he dives down, preparing to attack from the north as SPYGOD sweeps up from the south. 

"All well and good," Mr. USA says, looking at the rocket as it stands by the construction gantry, waiting for the order to go: "But where's the real threat?"

"You see anything up there?" Mrs. Liberty asks, already standing by the rocket and looking around: "I've got bumpkiss down here."

"Not sure," he says, making a circle around the rocket and looking down, wondering what he's not seeing...

* * *

"Of course, Doctor Power would be away today, wouldn't he?" American Lightning says as the Swiftcar pulls up in front of the control area.

"Eben's got a life too, Robert," New Man says, jumping out of the open seat behind the conveyor belt Swiftfoot runs on to power the weird, smoking contraption (something like ten seats connected to a free-rolling, steerable track): "And other responsibilities."

"Like you'd know about responsibilities, Charles," Dr. Chaos snorts, brushing his blue hair out of his face and putting his tophat on: "Give it a rest-" 

"Codenames, folks," Corporal Flag chides his fellows: "We're on the job, now."

"Yes, we are," Freedom Belle says, taking charge before someone else can: "Swiftfoot, reconnoiter the area's edges. Look for anyone set up for mischief, and then get back here to me."

"YouGotItHon," Swiftfoot stammers, and then speeds off to do what his girlfriend has instructed. 

"The rest of you are going to pair up, go inside, and see if we can locate any saboteurs," the short, severe-looking woman says: "New Man, you're with Lightning. Corporal, you and Chaos go left. We'll go right."

"Why?" Corporal Flag asks, clearly not wanting to be in with the man dressed like a stage magician.

"Because it's your turn to make sure I don't atomize the structure while dealing with the bad guys," Chaos chuckles: "Jerry."

"Hey, now," the Corporal sighs, but quickly realizes he's a step behind the others, and not likely to catch up if he doesn't hustle.

The others don't like him much -- he knows this. Part of it's because, out of all the others, he's the only one that got to keep his wartime name as he actually was a Corporal; everyone else got the "Lieutenant," "Captain," and "Sergeant" taken away from them after Korea. And part of it was the fact that he came in during Korea, as a replacement for American Flag, who bought it during the push back from Pusan.

But the real reason is because, no matter how hard he tries, he just can't get a hang of how to take control of a mission. Everyone else seems to have it down pat, but whenever he opens his mouth to lead, everyone else just sort of brushes him off, leaving someone like Mr. USA, Mrs. Liberty, or Liberty Belle to step up and get things done.

(That and American Lightning, which is twice as galling. Who was that Negro to tell him anything?)

One of these days he'll get it right. He knows this. But until then, he's just going to have to eat !@#$ and wait for his chance. 

Maybe today it'll come at last. 

* * *

"Well, about !@#$ time," SPYGOD chuckles, watching as balls of fire explode up ahead of him, in the distance.

It's like a line of bombs hitting their targets, back in Europe. A golden streak flies just ahead of the blasts -- a huge, !@#$-eating grin shining behind its faceshield, its gilded hands giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up as it rockets towards his ally's car.

"Thanks for the assist, Ed," SPYGOD hails him over the communicator, just as he spins the car out to bring it to a halt in front of some bewildered beachcomber's summer house: "I think I !@#$ing got them all down here. Can you see any more?"

"Not now, but I'll go further down just to see if you missed any."

"Fair enough. And when you're done with that? Go right the !@#$ up and see if you can see anything past the coastal shelf"

"What should I be looking for?" the gold-suited inventor asks, just as he rushes over SPYGOD's position.

"Well, these !@#$holes didn't paddle all the way from !@#$ing Albania, did they? I bet there's a sub, parked just off the drop-off-"

"A bet, eh? Well, I'll wager dinner at Delmonicos that they just island-hopped up here from Cuba."

"Sure, but you're picking up the !@#$ drinks tab either way."

"You've got yourself a gentleman's agreement, good sir," Gold Standard chuckles, arcing up to see if he's won or lost this one: "Over and out."

"Too !@#$ing easy," SPYGOD says, leaping out of his car and looking back where he came from: "We saw them because we were !@#$ing meant to see them. And I bet they don't even !@#$ing care if we blow up their transport..."

He goes back into his car, reaching under the passengers' side of the dashboard to find the phone. A special, otherwise-hidden aerial goes up, and he places a call to the Heptagon.

"Home Seven here," his new subordinate says in his dreary, tired voice.

"This is Superguy One, calling in," SPYGOD says, using the ludicrous callsign the brown-nosing, DoD-appointee desk-monkey insisted he employ in the field: "I need some !@#$ing field advisement, and I don't have all god!@#$ day-"

"Sir! I've been trying to get hold of you since yesterday-"

"Never !@#$ing mind that, now, !@#$face."

"Sir, I don't think I got that last bit-"

"That's my new callsign for you. Like it?"

"Um, well-"

"Thought not. What's !@#$ing going on up there in Foggy Bottom? Did my messages get relayed?"

"Oh, you mean the ones you didn't trust me to relay for you, sir?" Fredericks says, not trying to disguise his bitterness: "Well, as far as I know, the answer is yes. The White House put me on hold forever, which means the President's making that call. And there's word of that ridiculous waste of taxpayers' dollars being put into a countdown at the port, so there's that-"

"And what do you have for me?" SPYGOD interrupts, watching as squad cars from Patrick AFB come zooming down the road at long last: "Did we receive any !@#$ing intel whatsoever that this was going to happen?"

"No sir, not an inkling-"

"I find that really !@#$ing hard to believe, !@#$face."

"Well, it happens to be true-"

"So what did you want to tell me?"

"Sir?"

"You said you were trying to get hold of me all day yesterday. Why?"

"Well, it's nothing I feel secure talking on an open channel about, sir."

"Anything related to this?"

"No, sir."

"So, what, you just found it !@#$ing annoying that I went off the radar for a day?" SPYGOD seethes: "Are the people you're reporting to really that concerned about where I !@#$ing go and what I !@#$ing do that you'd rather play babysitter than keep an eye out for the sort of !@#$ you're supposed to be looking out for? Like, oh, I don't know, !@#$ like this?"

There's nothing but silence on the other line, and SPYGOD realizes what that means. 

"Then this is how it !@#$ing goes, !@#$face," SPYGOD seethes: "The next call I get on this phone had better be some really !@#$ed good intel on what's really !@#$ing going on, here. Because I refuse to believe that SQUASH would try and pull something this !@#$ing amateurish off. Bulgakov's too !@#$ smart for that. Agreed?"

"Well, yes-"

"So either this is all a big !@#$ distraction for the real operation, or something's seriously wrong in Moscow. Agreed?"

"Yes, sir," Fredericks says, knowing how this is going to go.

"So I want that intel, !@#$face. I want it yesterday afternoon. Or I want your !@#$ reassigned somewhere I can't !@#$ing find you. Got that?"

With that he hangs up, disgusted. Then he parks his !@#$ on the extremely-warm hood of his car, pulls out a long !@#$ cigarette, and has a significant drag off it as he watches a troop carrier pull up to deal with the mess he just made, a quarter of a mile back.

"What are you !@#$ing up to, you commie creep?" he asks his far-away, wheelchair-bound nemesis, wondering if this crazy caper really has his stamp on it.

It's just after 7, now. Only 19 minutes to go...

(SPYGOD is listening to My True Story (Jive Five) and having a !@#$ton of Blatz.)

12/26/12 - Randolph Scott - No Words But the Truth - pt. 1

Personal Notes of Randolph Scott -- Outlaw Journalist:

Woke up early, after that crazy !@#$ party SPYGOD threw by remote. I may have had too !@#$ much to drink, and may have said some things I really shouldn't have said. But I figured they needed saying, and I needed the drink, and if I really did get my !@#$ thrown out, like I think I did, then maybe I needed that too.

So of course, I wake up with a head full of broken pottery for brains. My kids were good enough to leave me some water, some painkiller, and a thing of yogurt by my bed. Thankfully I didn't need the bucket, but they thought to leave that, too.

I guess that's what happens when you grow up serving Supernazis. They expected you to expect !@#$ing everything. One wrong move and you lost parts. Too many wrong moves and they made you suffer before they killed you as an example to others.

So now they're free, and we're together, and sometimes when I go off the !@#$ rails they get this blank look in their eyes and go right into "take care of the crazy man who might kill us at any moment" mode. And I wonder if I've really taught them a !@#$ing thing.

I don't think I'll know I helped them until they leave me for good. And that's the sad truth.

Speaking of servants, it's Boxing Day, today. It's so named because, once upon a time, when the British had legions of servants in their large houses, they'd give them the day after Christmas off. The servants would thoughtfully leave their employers a boxed meal to enjoy while they went out, shopped and ate, danced, drank, and acted like normal people. And in return, their employers gave them a box of money and presents to take with them.

I've always wondered what it must have been like to only have that one day a year to go see your family and be yourself. To be trapped behind a black, Edwardian suit and social role until that one !@#$ day, right after the craziest day of the whole year.

Just 24 hours to let loose, go crazy, blow off steam. Cry and laugh with the people you grew up with.

How must it have felt at the end of that day, when you went back to the manor and realized that you had another 364 days of dawn-to-dusk servitude awaiting? How could that building have been anything but a black pit of despair and loathing?

I remember, when I was a kid, and the final hours of summer vacation were ticking down, knowing that I'd soon be walking into school, again. That horrible feeling of knowing that freedom was over.

Your life was over, it felt like sometimes.

Now they say there should be year-round schooling. They say it'll help get you ready for work, and life. I say kids should be able to go have fun for a few months. No one should be in any hurry to grow up.

Growing up !@#$ing sucks, sometimes.

...

Boxing Day's a holiday in just about every English speaking country. Except for America, of course. I guess we didn't have enough servants to consider giving them a day off. All equals and all that !@#$.

But then, some people are more equal than others. And that's also the American way.

Someone's got to do the jobs no one wants, and all you can say is that you hope they get paid well.

* * *

10/21/12

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

His name is Charlie Phelps. He's 24 years old. Seven months ago, he was a Marine, until the Imago came and told him he wasn't needed anymore.

And then, a week ago, he got to return the favor.

"It was crazy," he tells me, resting on the bulldozer he's been running for the past seven days: "When the fighting started, and we all got our minds back, I kept thinking maybe I ought to go back to the base, get back in uniform. Do something, you know? But then I remembered they dismantled the base and turned it into a recycling center, or something like that. So I just hunkered down in our house and told my kids to play zombie attack, so they'd hide under the bed and keep quiet.

"And then the fighting was over, and all these Imago were falling right out of the sky like dead birds by a power plant. We couldn't believe it. We all came out and watched them sit there, smashed out on the ground. They could look at us, and maybe they tried to talk, but that was all they could do."

No one's sure who had the idea to start pushing them into a pile for pickup. But when they needed to know who could drive a bulldozer, Charlie was happy to volunteer, seeing as how it was his Military Occupational Specialty in the Corps.

"I think that got more stares than the Imago on the ground. Whoever heard of a Marine construction expert? Well, that's me."

So Charlie spent the last seven days driving all over Baton Rouge in a truck that hadn't been converted yet, offloading his bulldozer, and picking up fallen Imago for the Strategic Talents to collect. It was challenging, considering he had to find gasoline anywhere he could to fuel both the truck and the bulldozer, but somehow he got by.

"By the end, we had a pile of those metal ------s reaching up ten feet tall, and fifty feet wide. All of them just staring at us like fish out of water. And everyone was coming by and throwing trash at them. I think some kid tagged a few, and some others were going to do the same. 

"But then the government showed up and took them away, and that was kind of the end of the party."

Charlie isn't sure what's next. The Imago put him to work doing community cleanup, and over time he came to like it. But he says that, should his country need him back in uniform, he's ready to serve.

"Over the last seven months, I've been living a lie," he says: "Now the truth's come back, again. And it's set me free."

* * *

Her name was Helen, and we met through the Free. 

She was crazy and impulsive, warm and passionate, daring and uncompromising. She'd been a hacker back in the time of the phone phreaks, and had kept up with the times. Most of her friends from back in the day were either dead, busted, or working for "the man," as she put it. She alone endured, maybe because she knew when the storm was coming.

So when the Imago had come, she'd gone underground before they could even catch her. She'd killed her internet before they could turn her into an idiot, and then set up shop down below Neo York City. Every so often she sent up a pulse of unfiltered news, going out over the television satellites whenever she could chance it.

We met, and it was like this weird void that I didn't know I had was filled. She finished my sentences, shared my thoughts, and made me feel like I was a part of something, and not just an outrider. 

She didn't care that I looked like I went ten rounds with a sewing machine. She loved the "menagerie" I had with me to pieces. She was willing to risk everything to help others, and me.

She lived for the truth, and said she'd die for the story, too. I just didn't realize how soon that would happen.

It happened during the battle for Neo York City. She stepped between me and an Imago that I didn't even see. It was almost as if she'd know it was going to shoot me, just at that second, and had been waiting for it to happen so she could stop it from killing me.

It just killed her, instead. 

That was over two months ago, now. I'm still !@#$ed up, disbelieving. I still think all of this is a !@#$ing dream, somehow, and keep hoping I'll wake up and find her sitting there, at a computer, finding common ground between underground stories and making them jibe with one another, somehow.

But I wake up and there's no one there. Just my heart, beating a lonely tattoo in the dawn's early light.

Just me, alone again.

 * * *

10/27/12

Arlington National Cemetery

All the way at the East end of the Cemetery Grounds, in the center of the McPherson Drive Teardrop, there's a statue that's visited almost as much as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.

It's called the Torchbearer, as most schoolchildren could tell you. They could also tell you that it's meant to serve as a memorial to every Strategic Talent who's fallen in the service of America -- either during wartime, or as part of the COMPANY.

And they could also tell you that each of those heroes is afforded a spot, there in that teardrop, if they so desire it.

Major Force is buried there, along with Captain Liberty, Lt. Lightning, Captain Chaos, and numerous others who fell during the war they helped win, and the subsequent conflict that they prolonged to grotesque lengths. 

Stone after stone, row after row, all within the sight of the eternal flame of liberty that they died defending.

It always seems like there's been a funeral party here, once or twice a month. An old hero dies from advanced age, a young hero is taken too soon. Sometimes their colleagues make jokes about how long it'll take before they come back, and sometimes they know there's no return from this one.

And today, on an incongruously bright and sunny day, just about every member of the Freedom Force has been laid to rest in this place.

The Red Alchemist. The Visionary. Freedom Belle. American Shield. Mrs. Liberty. All gone, now, lost in the fighting against the Imago, along with so many others. The new heroes who came out of nowhere, as well as the older ones who were hiding in the wings, and the heroes from all over the world who stood side by side that day.

One planet, united, that would not be defeated.

The President speaks first, commending them for their service and their sacrifice. Then up steps the Vice President -- Mr. USA -- who fought alongside them for so long, speaks to their families and friends, as one who loved them, too. Then there's Doctor Power, who barely gets through his speech without breaking up and crying.

And finally, the last speaker strides up to the podium, clearly drunk but not willing to let his state of mind get the better of him. The man who ordered them into battle, this time. The one who told them to stand and fight, and ultimately die.

SPYGOD himself, the architect of the world's freedom, having to commemorate the men and women he told to give their all that humanity might yet survive. 

He looks up at the sky, and then down at the ground. His one eye lands on Mrs Liberty's grave, and he clearly starts to cry, but then he gets hold of himself, takes a deep breath. 

"If I hear one more long-winded pile of !@#$, I'm going to be !@#$ing sick," he says. There's some chuckling, a few gasps. But they should have known, and, knowing that they should have known this, he gathers his strength.

"Mrs. Liberty, she kicked my !@#$ all the time," he says: "She wasn't the only woman who came out of Camp Rogers, but she was the only one who could take me on. She knew right where to punch, you see. It's a skill a lot of people don't get. They get the power and just think it's enough, but they don't put it together.

"She had it down from day one, though. No messing with that !@#$ broad. I saw her take Nazis on and go toe-to-toe with them all the way across France and Germany. No stopping her. No surrender. No retreat.

"But what I'm going to remember the most about her? She knew me. I mean she knew me. When most of you thought I killed the President, and she got sent after me, she was at least willing to give me a chance. She was willing to listen. 

"And when I let her know I wasn't coming quietly, which was as much of my plan as I wanted to tell her, she trusted me enough to let me knock her out cold. And she covered for me the rest of the time, in spite of it all.

"You can't buy loyalty like that. You can't command it, either. It has to be forged, in here," he says, thumping his chest: "It has to be hammered out, day after day. Tempered with understanding. Watered with will. And then shined up with the conviction that you can trust these people you've stood side-by-side with to do the right thing, even if it appears otherwise."

He stops, then looks like he's going to say something else. Then he shakes his head, smiles a little, and pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"We had a bet running," he says, holding it aloft: "If I died first, she had to read a poem for me. And if she died first, well, I read hers. I guess I won the bet, so... here we go. 

"Bit long, but that's Tennyson for you:

 There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

With that, he looks around the crowd. He nods. And then he walks away. 

No "God Bless America." No "Amen." Just the weight of that poem, still reverberating. The 21 gun salute seems perfunctory after that. The missing man formation overhead a distraction. 

The words have been given, to burn in the mind forever. If only our heroes could last as long.

If only our saviors were not so disposable.

* * *

"Fly and be free," I imagine her saying to me as I cradled her body: "Be happy for this."

I heard her say it. I know I did. I !@#$ing know.

But when  I dropped the camera to run to her, one of my kids picked it up and caught the whole thing on tape. Me holding her, her dying, me screaming.

At no point does she say anything. How could she draw breath to speak with her chest in pieces? How could she make words in a mouth full of blood?

I heard it in my mind. I felt it in my heart. But reality says otherwise, and aren't I supposed to be going with facts?

Isn't that what a !@#$ing journalist does?

I don't know, anymore. I sit here and watch the snow fall and wonder if I should take the aspirin and water or just get drunk again.

I'll decide soon, I think. But for now I want to watch the snow, like a kid home from school.

Just that, for a while.

(SPYGOD is listening to Woman on a Train (The FIXX) and having a Gales Prize Old Ale) 

10/15/12 - The Reclamation War - Pt. 16

When the Imago began to hatch their plan to take over the Earth, through GORGON, they realized that they would have to neutralize SPYGOD as soon as possible.

It wasn't necessarily because of his position, his connections, or his long history. Nor was it his skills, or his abilities, or even his power set.

(It wasn't even his somewhat skewed sense of fashion, though the less serious amongst them joked that removing his utterly flamboyant optical pollution from the world could only be a good thing.)

It was simply because they knew that, when the time came, he would fight them tooth and nail in such a way that they could not ignore, much less sweep under the rug.

They thought they had him taken care of, thanks to their gruesome deception involving the American President, and the arrangement they'd made with the two beings from Alter-Earth. They figured that, accused of such a terrible crime, SPYGOD would crawl underground and bide his time, giving them just enough of it to take over the world before he could launch a plan. And even if he did show his face again, he'd have a very hard time convincing his people of the truth while they were hunting him down -- especially with False Faces in important positions.

And if he followed the trail the truth ultimately led to -- all the way to Alter-Earth -- he would surely not return.

When they learned he'd gone there, after all, they were worried at first. But then came the news that the city they'd taken the real President to was gone -- completely obliterated -- and they figured that he was, at long last, dead. And so they went forward, secure in the belief that no one and no thing could stand against them now.

And for a time, things were truly glorious. 

But then things started happening, like the high-tech bombing of their space elevator. And after they chased down the obvious culprits -- killing far too many humans in the process -- and then discovered that, while they'd been searching for them, someone had stolen key information from a lock-up in China, they realized that they had been played.

And they were quite confident that they knew who was sitting across the card table from them, sleeves stuffed full of Aces.

So they began to hunt him down, as he was, in turn, hunting them. They swatted aside annoyances with increasing levels of firepower and civilian casualties, hoping to rouse him to anger and sudden action, but he did not oblige. They laid traps along the way, hoping to snare him, but even when they did they never held onto him for long.

And then there was that strange attempt by that old, had-been supervillain to take over the world using an army of the sort of robot SPYGOD used to use for domestic help. At first, they figured it was a separate matter, but when it was all over, they wondered if it wasn't yet another costly diversion from SPYGOD, after all.

And now, not long thereafter -- seven months to the day since they took over the world -- they were in dire danger of actually losing it, again.

And here is SPYGOD, leading the charge against their own center of power.

He is surrounded by a horde of Imago -- false and true -- and being bombarded by eyebeams that should be deadly to any living being with a set of eyes. Except that he has no eyes, save for a glass copy of one and the Chandra Eye under an eyepatch. And while their beams can do massive damage to nonliving things as well, he is not letting that stop in him the least.

He has no armor, no weapons, no means of transportation. He is naked and unashamed, battered and bruised and bloody. And yet he continues to fight on -- leaping from Imago to Imago, killing each one in turn with a vicious bite to the forehead, or powerful smack upside the skull with his hands, feet, or penis, and then jumping onto the next and nearest victim.

And all the while, as the Imago are tied up dealing with him, the massive, white robot he brought out to fight flies ever closer to the Lost City, and the Flier, not even feeling the sting of the Flier's weaponry yet.

The Dragon -- perhaps the only member of the Imago's leadership with the tactical skills to know what to do next -- realizes that it's only a matter of time before the Dignitary is at their gates, and using its own strength and weapons to rain mega-powered ruin down upon them. He has no desire to see this, and so has decided to hold back on the true strength of their weapons, the better to lull them into a false sense of security, and get them close enough to feel the full bite of their power.

But as he prepares to fire these as-yet silent weapons -- sliding forward massive dark matter cannons, sending protonic missile pods out from their shafts, and aiming the mighty displacer beams -- The Dragon realizes that even this is a terrible gamble.

They may yet lose. The enemy may yet win.

And if the enemy does win, that victory can only ever be laid at the feet of the man who they tried so hard to put out of the picture, and obviously failed to do so.

SPYGOD will have won this day.

And, given their history, The Dragon will not have any standing for surrender in the aftermath.

So he waits for the crucial, critical moment, when either SPYGOD or the earth-shattering mecha he has awakened gets just close enough, and then he can make that one last roll of the-

* * *

dice, lady," Mrs. Liberty says, kicking the Imago trying to kill her right in the uterus, and smiling rather widely when she sees an entire, boot-shaped section of her metal-plated anatomy go flying out the back.

And then it's all she can do to shoot the !@#$ in the face -- the better to withdraw her foot from the sticky, bloody mess -- and then go on to the next one. 

Her partner and friend, Liberty Belle, is dead, lying in sorry pieces at her feet. She doesn't have the time to mourn her now, and that just makes her !@#$ angry.

(And the strange presence that either was or was not with them, helping them fight, hasn't been around for quite some time, so she's imagining he's dead too -- whoever he was. But imagines she'll feel sad for him, too, when the time comes.)

She also realizes she'll have a lot to mourn, in the days to come, if she survives this -- which is a big maybe, right now. The special eyeglasses she's wearing to keep the Imago from killing her with their eyebeams is probably one more direct hit from frying, and then she'll either fight blind or not at all.The guns she's been looting from dead enemies are getting fewer and harder to find.

And the sky keeps opening up and vomiting out Imago, or Specials, or whatever those weird hybrid things are...

All around the world, it's the same thing. Groups of heroes huddle together, dealing with the last, frantic gasps of an enemy whose true power was never truly known until now. The weird armies redouble their efforts and try to protect civilians as best they can, but find themselves unable to both kill the enemy and save others from being killed by them. 

And if not them, the seemingly-endless supply of those that come after them. Over and over again.

As the numbers of the good decrease, and the numbers of the bad increase, more than one hero raises his or her head to exclaim that they could win this day, if only someone would find a way to-

* * *

!@#$ it!" Myron shouts over his communicator, as he heads into the dark bowels of the Ice Palace with only a map and a headlamp to guide him (and Yanabah to guard him): "You deal with... that, and let me deal with this, okay?"

"Alright son," Mr. USA replies from where he is, his voice weak and quavering: "Just hurry. We've already been too late, today..."

Myron grimaces. He really did not need to be reminded of that, just now.

"Hold up," the Native American woman says, capping off a pair of shots into the gloom ahead of them. There's a scream and a gurgle, and then a dwarf tumbles from a support beam, his rifle clattering to the ground just after him.

"Good shooting," he says: "Can you see in the dark?"

"I can smell things really well," she explains, kicking the rifle away from the thing as they pass it, just to be sure: "There's no more in this passage. Might be some in the room we're heading to, though."

"Alright then," Myron says: "You take point, I'll come after."

"No guns?" she asks, looking at his uniform.

"I didn't get into this business to kill people."

"Time to learn, Underman," she snorts, and runs ahead to the swinging double doors looming ahead of them. She kicks them in, and does a cartwheel with her forward momentum. There's six quick shots, and then some more screaming, and then nothing.

"Nasty !@#$," he mutters, remembering when SPYGOD told him the same thing about learning to kill, and how well that went.

In the room, there's a half-dozen dead dwarves strewn about the ground, some still twitching. All of them appear to have been shot between the eyes. Yanabah is looking at the large bank of controls on the other side, most of which appear to have been added onto whatever ABWEHR was doing, here.

The noise in here is almost deafening: electrical hums and clicking, along with the strange, water in the wind noise that massive teleportation platforms give off when they activate in series. 

"Okay, this is the energy output station for the upper level," Myron says, tossing the map aside as he goes: "So it's the logical place for them to be sending their teleport waves through. Might also be a good place to see if we can disrupt their energy supply, somehow."

"Don't talk," she says: "Do. I'll watch the door for more. I can smell them coming."

"You really are one nasty and unpleasant person," he says, sighing: "I could really use some good vibes right now."

"Ain't got none to spare," she says, walking to the door. And it isn't until five minutes of feverish and fruitless work go by -- along with a lot of shooting outside the doors -- that Myron realizes she was crying when she said that.

But he doesn't dare ask her-

* * *

why this way, paleface?" Gosheven asks his older ally, who's so angry it's a wonder he doesn't turn red and melt.

"Because it's all coming back to me now," the original New Man says, purple flecks of energy coming from his mouth as he talks: "While I was being used by them, all those months, it was like my mind was all over the ship. They were using me, but I was spying on them. I just couldn't do anything."

"And now you can," the shapeshifter says, taking a quick look down the maintenance corridor they're about to turn down, and hearing more strange groans from the superstructure: "Any idea what all that !@#$ noise is?"

"They're gearing up to use the big guns."

"You mean they haven't already?"

"Oh no, friend. Not in the slightest. All they've been using so far is the stuff that was on board the Flier when they took it over. These weapons they're calling up are the things they used the last time they took over a world, and maybe the time before that, too."

"Oh boy," Gosheven says: "So what sort of !@#$ are you intending to have us !@#$ up, then? The weapons?"

"How about the kind of !@#$ they can't afford to lose in a firefight of that scale, my friend?" the older man says, patting his ally on the back: "Their central power conductors. And I know just where they are, and how to knock them out."

"Then let's do it."

"There is a chance the damage might be so great that you won't survive," New Man warns him: "I can become energy, but I'm not sure if-"

The Native American looks at the man he rescued and just smiles: "I survived a shot to the head and turned myself intangible to fool you people. You think an explosion's going to hurt me?"

"Fair point. Just duck when I tell you."

"Oh, no worries-"

* * *

there. The robot is just within range, and SPYGOD is not far behind. 

It is time, The Dragon announces to the Leader. I will destroy him.

I cannot speak with The Motion, the Leader says: He has gone blank in my mind.

Perhaps something has happened, The Dragon says, knowing full well what has probably just occurred: Do not worry. Safeguards are in motion to protect what he was doing. They will not be overcome by the likes of what little they have to throw against us.

You do not care for him, the Leader says: Just as you did not care for The Fist, or The Sight. You care only for yourself.

I care for you, my leader, the Dragon says. And maybe, in his heart, he does not feel that it is a lie. 

(And maybe he does, but simply does not care to deal with the contradictions at this glorious, supreme moment. There will be time enough for reflection -- and further, necessary deception -- when the day is done, and the battle won.)

He flexes his muscles and aims his fingers. The dark matter shells are loaded into the cannons. The exotic explosives are armed and ready to fire. The displacement cannons are aimed and primed.

He focuses on the massive, circular iris in the robot's chest -- the place that its primary armaments will come from, when the moment comes -- and then makes ready to fire....

And then, something strange happens. 

The entire city lurches to the east, as something incredibly large and dense crawls out of the ocean and begins to attack it.

From all over the Lost City, and from cameras all over the Flier, The Dragon can see that they have been attacked by some strange, undersea creature -- the genius of all pirates' tales of otherworldly monsters from the deep. A tremendous, sanity-blasting mix of Leviathan, Behemoth, and Kraken, roiling and ripping and smashing as it goes.

A War Spawn.

And it is not alone. A half-dozen more burst to the surface and begin to attack. Then another dozen. 

Then at least a score more...

We are attacked! the Leader screams, panicking: Destroy it! Destroy them! Now!

The Dragon can only concur, and quickly shifts the Flier's weapons to aim at both the monsters and the robot.

And it's only after he begins firing at both that he realizes the massive mistake he's just-

* * *

made this decision lightly, Emperor Thurl says, knowing that SPYGOD can hear him: I tell you truly that the one you called my father feared you, but also respected you. I say to you, also truly, that I give you this gift in his name, as agreed with the one who led your troops in your absence. I hope we both understand what this means, going forward.

"Emperor, you just made a lot of dead sailors lost in the War very !@#$ing unimportant," SPYGOD says, watching the mighty guns of the Dignitary come out for the first time this battle and begin firing at -- and down -- the exotic weapons of the Flier: "And when I say something like that, it !@#$ing means something." 

Then the Overobligation is done?

"Done and dusted," SPYGOD says, tearing the head off the Imago he's riding, throwing it right through another one, and then leaping to the next: "Next time we talk, let's !@#$ing talk normalization, okay? I'm just a little !@#$ing busy, now..."

Truly I understand, the Emperor says, staring up at the darkness above his palace: Go well into battle, my ally. All our hopes are truly with you at this time. 

"Halle-!@#$ing-lulah," SPYGOD says, reaching his hands down into the bloody mess of the Imago he's riding and trying to get it to keep flying: "I could sure !@#$ing use some, Emperor. The world's gone !@#$-down in a sea of !@#$ here and now..."

He thinks to try and explain what he's seeing for a moment, but how could he really? How can he tell someone of the harsh and beautiful glory of what his eye reveals, as the weapons of the Imago attempt to rip open reality, itself?

Shells armed with exotic matter detonate not only matter, but spacetime, itself, in small, controlled bursts. Missiles that can create miniaturized atomic blasts streak towards the target. And beam weapons that put their target zones both a million miles away, and yet exactly where they are, try to create critical instabilities in the enemy's molecular structure, causing terrible implosions as they go.

Against a lesser enemy, the battle would have been over seconds ago, and the foe all but wiped from the face of the world.

But yet the Dignitary strides forward, answering the strange weapons of its enemy with stranger weapons of its own -- unleashed from behind the great iris in its chest. Birds of light and fire that intercept shells and missiles. Spirals of crystal flowers that erase beam weapons, turning them to soothing music. And green waves of power that take the damage done to the surrounding areas and clean them up, as though no battle had ever taken place here.

It is beautiful to see such terrible weapons overcome by such wonderful ones. Indeed, SPYGOD could sit on this dying Imago and watch it all day.

He just doesn't have the time, now.

"Gonna have to let you go, Emperor," he says, getting back to work in the knotty, red innards of his foe: "Hopefully I can !@#$ing make this-

* * *

work!" Myron shouts, banging his fists on the controls: "They've been locked down, !@#$ it!"

"Then unlock them!" Mr. USA replies, not sounding too good.

"I can't. Not without the code. And I bet it's !@#$ing DNA...."

"And there's not enough of him left to get any," Mr. USA sighs: "And Doctor Power doesn't have the power to deal with that, right now."

"And, not to rush you or anything?" Yanabah shouts from the door, where she's been firing non-stop for the last few minutes: "But I'm running out of ammo, over here. And not running out of targets."

"What was that, son?" Mr. USA asks.

"My two-handed firing partner says we're about to get overrun by the nazi sex dwarf brigade."

"So what are our other options?" the old hero asks, something approaching weary defeat in his voice (which scares Myron more than he's willing to admit).

"Not a lot. Not without going down there and tearing half this base apart. And..."

"Then you're going to have to just go do it, Myron," Doctor Power says, his voice hoarse from effort and weeping: "I'm dealing with things up here. Mr. USA doesn't know a circuit board from a checkerboard, and Skyspear's... well, she's not leaving the survivors."

Myron shakes his head, not wanting to think about that. And as he does, he glances over from where he's been working.

And that's when he sees it. 

"Did you hear us, son?" Mr. USA asks after a few seconds of silence.

"Yeah, I did," Myron says, taking his broken sunglasses off, and looking at the electrical components he'd built into them, long ago: "I think I might have an idea, provided that's not locked off, too."

"What son?"

"No time to talk. Mr. USA? Get your !@#$ing mega-geriatric !@#$ down here and help guard the door. Maybe Skyspear can teleport you if she can let the two of them go for a second. Let Doctor Power do what he has to with her, okay?"

The answer he gets isn't nice or polite, but he doesn't care. He rushes over to the portion of the controls he just saw, hoping that it's what he thought it was. And he's not only delighted to see that it is, but that they didn't lock it down -- probably because they didn't think it was important.

"Can it just be that simple?" he asks himself, looking at the eyeglasses and the exposed -- and, in the Imago's case, highly redundant -- communications circuits: "Really?"

* * *

"Not really, no," New Man says, looking out at the massive field of large, glowing glass balls -- all of which seem to have something inside of them, spinning and spiraling too fast to be really seen.

DEROS, of course. 

"What do you mean?" Gosheven asks, using his powers to break and smash through the Specials that were guarding this large and cavernous room -- formerly the engine room, from the looks of things -- and keep his ally from being hit by their weapons.

"I mean I didn't think there were actually so many of them!"

"So what does that really !@#$ing mean?"

"It means that the moment I blow them up, we're both dead!"

"Even you, paleface?"

"Even me, Tonto."

Gosheven looks at him and smiles: "I was wondering when you were finally going to get one in on me."

"Not much as last words go, huh?"

"I'll take 'em," the man says, forming a large, metal wing to deflect the storm of flechettes heading their way, courtesy of the Specials' guns: "How about we both yell 'Geronimo' for good measure? Then we can be totally politically incorrect."

"Okay, that makes it official. We get out of this, you're my new best friend for life."

"Only if you buy the drinks."

"We'll take turns."

"!@#$ straight we will," Gosheven says, and gets ready.

New Man inhales and grits his teeth. Then he releases all the energy he's been storing for the last seven months in a massive, rippling wave of purple light. 

The wave goes forward, into the DEROS as they spin and purl, unaware of their fate. Each one only has a split second to realize what's happened before it's consumed by the violet fire and explodes.

And as each explodes, the energy carries on to the next, and the next, and the next, like massive alien firecrackers the size of large boulders. 

Gosheven cradles his spent ally-turned-friend in his arms and changes as rapidly as he can, hoping he can ride them both out of here. It's a slim chance, but he's been through tinier holes in his life.

Maybe the Great Spirit will let him keep his life to go with the victory, today, after-

* * *

all the weapons of the Flier are silenced, suddenly, as a great burst of fire and flame erupts from its center. 

The mighty craft begins to expand, then, as though it were a trick balloon rather than a thing made from otherworldly metal. Tendrils of light shoot out from where it buckles and bends, and debris begins to rain down from its undersides.

For just a quick second, it looks as though the battle is won.

But this is an advanced craft, by anyone's standards. It does not merely take damage lying down. It repairs, and rebuilds.

It reforms.

The light ends. The fires are extinguished. The falling parts are reclaimed and remade.

And, perhaps three seconds after it should have been destroyed, the nanites' work is done, and the Flier begins to open fire once more.

But it does so unconvincingly. Haltingly. It is nowhere near as massive or rapid as it was, just seconds before, and it gets no better.

Indeed, the craft appears to be crippled. It does not hover above the Lost City, but rather perches above its highest points -- forming grappling arms to take its weight as it settles down, unable to fire and fly at the same time. 

And that's all the invitation its opponents need. 

Before The Dragon can fully comprehend what has just happened -- and how badly things are going to go for them, now -- the Lost City is all but overrun by the remaining War Spawn, and the Dignitary now stands right beside its ultimate target.

"Enemy of this world, I call upon you to surrender!" the massive robot commands, its many, positive weapons jutting from the circular hatch in its chest and its arms raised to strike: "You have no option!"

Never! The Dragon shrieks, and begins to fire everything he has-

* * *

left to fight," Mr. USA wheezes, barely able to pull himself back through the doors, beyond which is an endless, running horde of dwarfs: "I'm sorry, Myron..."

"And I am out of ammo, now," Yanabah says, pulling out a long knife and making ready to use it on whatever comes through the door next: "So if you're going to !@#$ing do something, Underman, now would be a !@#$ good time..."

"It's done," Myron says, looking at the weird cobble-together he's just made from his glasses, the communications station, and a few odds and ends he was able to break off of other things while they were keeping him safe.

"Are you sure, son?" Mr. USA says, looking up at him: "I don't hear any difference...."

"You wouldn't," Myron sighs, sitting down and looking at the doors: "I didn't stop anything from happening. I just added a few things, that's all."

"Like what?" Yanabah demands, quickly slashing the head off the first dwarf to come through the doors: "Underman? What did you do?"

"I'm sending the signal we were going to broadcast through those satellites," he says, wondering if he should get up and fight or not: "Right now, every Imago in communication with this place is shutting down."

"Does that mean..." Mr. USA asks, but then he cocks an ear as a series of thumps come from the hallway, outside.

Yanabah looks at Myron, and then at the doors. Then she carefully walks over, knife still at the ready, and kicks one of them open.

Beyond the light of the room, just outside the swing of that door, all the dwarfs of Dr. Yesterday lie still on the floor, twitching and groaning.

"Good thing he upgraded them, then," Myron says, getting up and grabbing something two-handed and heavy: "I was afraid we were still going to have to fight through them."

"Are they dead?"

"Just stunned," he says, walking past her: "So let's take advantage of it, huh?"

"Well done," she says, smiling at him.

"Thank you," Myron says: "And please? Underman is dead. Just call me Myron."

And then he starts to bring the bar up and-

* * *

down to Earth, at long last -- one and all.

Every Special drops down, useless and still. Every False Face seizes up and keels over. Every Imago goes cross-eyed and clanks to its knees, or on its face, and every strange, hybrid monstrosity stops moving and falls to the ground, smashing open like ripe fruit when they hit.

And every new group that gets beamed in does the same -- tumbling through the hole in the air like garbage through a chute, only to land in a heap on the ground.

At first, there is disbelief. Then shock. Then joy.

And then, when that's exhausted, and cooler heads prevail, joy turns to concern that they might get back up again. 

And then anger, and the desire for revenge, take over in full measure -- giving even the meekest and weakest of survivors a chance to kill one of their would-be assassins this day.

The streets run red with stolen blood. The cities burn with fire, with anger, and with hard-won freedom.

The Imago have lost.

* * *

The Flier stops shooting. 

The Dragon curses, wondering what has happened, but then realizes that not only can he not fire, but he cannot move, either. He cannot fly the machine away, or change its shape. He can barely even think.

All he can do is hear as the Leader screams and screams, terrified like a child. 

He tries to disengage himself from the machine he is bonded to, but the thing will not obey him. He tries to howl in complaint, but he cannot be heard.

Outside, the massive white robot reaches its hands out to take hold of the Flier. He can feel as its mighty hands clutch at it, and pull it up off the Lost City. He can sense it coming to pieces under that grip.

And then he feels the strange parabola of forces as the Dignitary picks it up, holds it over its head, and brings it right down upon the city, itself.

As he goes down, just before being smashed into the ancient stone, the Dragon looks through frozen eyes, and sees SPYGOD watching him fall. The man is riding athwart a headless Imago turned into a jetpack of sorts. 

And as the Flier is driven into the city -- again, and again, and again, until the nanites cannot cope with the damage and cease working -- he is aware that SPYGOD can actually see him, somehow.

And that he is flipping him both birds.

"... and you were !@#$ing lousy in bed!" he shouts at some point, but The Dragon can no longer quite comprehend what that might mean. The damage to the Flier takes away his mind, piece by piece, until he is little more than a simpering moron.

And then there is just darkness, and the fear that comes with it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Strangelove (Depeche Mode) and having a Victory Lager)