2765 Interlude - The Big !@#$ Alter Earth Plan

So, maybe we should slow the bus down, here, while Mr. USA and I are killing all kinds of uppity scum who dare to think themselves human beings, and answer a few questions. Because if I were you, son, my head would be !@#$ing spinning around like that little girl in The Exorcist, only spewing beer instead of pea soup.

Yes, we are in Alter Earth, brought here by poor Simon Pure, who has a talent for playing with dimensions, but lacked the crucial focus necessary to avoid subconsciously altering reality, or destroying large chunks of it when he lost control of himself. Now he has a means of control, and, as soon as we hook back up with him, again, I look forward to utilizing his talents to help us take control of the situation, again.  

But I bet you're wondering something else: how did I know the President was alive?

Well, son, at first, I didn't. I just kind of hoped. It gave me something to do while I fell into a massive depression and drank myself blind for a week or so, there.

And as I hoped, and looked over what I knew, and what I didn't know for certain, but could make some educated guesses about, I came to realize that it would have been a real waste of perfectly good sadism to just kill the man, then and there.

Especially since the person who would have been making that decision was someone I was intimately familiar with, after a fashion.

Confused, son? Well, I don't blame you. But let's walk the cat back to its litterbox, okay?

* * *

It's the little things, you see. It's always the small, little details that give away the big plot.

You can plan and plan and anticipate and doublecheck and triplecheck and have dozens of people all on top of every eventuality. But sooner or later someone makes one little mistake, or does something that seems perfectly harmless, and someone notices.

And then the plan's lying face-down in a ditch, dead on arrival.

In this case, it was the exploding car. If only someone hadn't tried to kill me in my own !@#$ing flying car, I might never have realized what was going on, here.

I might not have thought about how it was possible for someone to get into my own !@#$ing house, past METALMAID and Bee-Bee, and put a bomb in my car. 

I might have eventually realized that there was a massive plot going on to take people in key positions and replace them, one by one, so as to have very important services and safeguards out of the way on a certain day.

But if they hadn't have done things that only I could have done, then I would never have realized that I had already been !@#$ing duplicated.

And not in the usual manner, either. Because while a certain organization has gotten really !@#$ing good at duplicating people, that process almost always either involves or requires the death of the person being replaced.

So this clearly was not a case of them wiping one of their followers' minds down until there was nothing left but plots, plans, loyalty, and love, and then using an onboard version of the N-machine to absorb the memory and mind of the target into themselves, effectively becoming that person in all ways that count, but with some very nasty additions in place.

(Which is what that certain organization has been doing for the last few months, apparently. While I've been chasing their tail, their hands have been elsewhere, doing nasty, dark things in secret.)

Given that I'm alive, and I'm still me? Obviously not.

No, son. This was a case of finding a whole other me, out there, to do certain things in order to pave the way for the big day.

This other me was put into place to make me look like a !@#$ing monster to certain people I'd need to have on my side. And Mr. USA confirmed, when we talked yesterday, that this has been going on for !@#$ing decades, apparently.

(And, to my shame, I had no !@#$ing idea.)

This other me was also put into place to give confusing directions to people, so as to erode confidence in me. I'm not entirely sure how well he succeeded, but I have been having problems with memory blackouts and weird "naps" I don't quite remember taking, so that may have been part of it.

(Again, to my shame, I had no !@#$ing idea.)

And then, when the time was right, this other me would do something so incredibly terrible that I wouldn't have a friend left in the whole world.

Something that would make me go underground, scrabbling in the bugs and dirt and hidden skeletons of my past, and afraid to stick my head up in case it got shot off.

Something that would reduce me to a gibbering wreck, busted down and drunk in whatever spiderhole I could find to contain me.

Something that would take me off the chessboard, hopefully forever, but at least long enough for them to do what they had planned.

Namely, killing the President, and making it look like I did it.

* * *

Now, you may remember that I realized something was amiss, right at the last moment.

And I tried to stop what was coming, but I didn't see the full picture. So I gambled on the wrong thing. I went to !@#$ing Antarctica, when I should have gone to DC, instead. And, by the time I realized what was really happening, I was too late to do anything.

So far as I knew, the President was dead.

That hit me like a thunderclap from on high, and I did indeed fall for a time, there. But not too far, thankfully. And not without certain friends who were kind enough to catch me on the way down, and then smack me upside the head when I'd mourned and moped around long enough to get annoying and pathetic.

Once I regained some sense of clarity, and equilibrium, I dried the !@#$ up, sat the !@#$ down, and considered what I knew, and what I didn't know.

Once I had that in hand, I was able to make some deductive leaps, as well as do a little digging around, which revealed even more information than you might think.

And when I was done digging, and had a better idea of what I was up against, I came up with a plan that, while it's had a number of snags and detours, has more or less gotten me here, now, at this very moment.

Here, on Alter Earth, and about to save the President's life. 

Because in spite of what pathological reports, DNA scans, and Psychic telemetry would have indicated, the President of the United States was not shot and killed on February 15th of this year. He was actually replaced by his Alter-Earth duplicate, who was then shot and killed by my Alter-Earth duplicate on live television. 

And then whoever did the transdimensional snatch and grab took the President here, to be consigned to a fate worse than death. To sit here, unable to do anything as the most horrible and gruesome injustices were performed around him, and unable to end his own life or make the horror stop.

A living death for someone whose sense of compassion often gets him into big !@#$ing trouble. 

It was their special, secret, extra little "!@#$ you," I'm guessing. Just one more thing to chuckle over while they put the last stages of their plan into motion.

And, I suppose, some kind of left-handed "thank you" on his part, as a poisoned gift to me, to have the man that I truly despised (who just !@#$ing fired me, for !@#$s sake) be mentally tortured for as long as he lasts before he goes insane, or dies of old age.

But they made four mistakes. 

One was the car bomb, as I've already mentioned. (Just couldn't resist, could you, you dumb !@#$?)

The other was leaving me alive after the assassination, instead of finding a way to kill me before it went down.

The third was mistaking sentiment for duty. I may or may not like a President, but I would never allow one to come to harm. It's the post, not the person, as they say. And I would gladly tumble into Hell in a gasoline-soaked frock than let any harm come to any President of the United States of America. 

So what's the fourth mistake, then? That's easy, son.

They left the President alive.

Because all I have to do, now, is get him back to our world alive and sane, and he can get on the airwaves, protected by every strategic talent I know is still on our side, and blow the lid off the whole !@#$ing thing. 

That is, of course, provided we can get him out of here alive, and that he's still sane after just under a month of watching this endless parade of sick filth. 

Also provided we don't have any more unforeseen variables thrown in our !@#$ing way by this !@#$ed up world and its nasty ideals.

* * *

How did I realize it was my Alter Earth double? !@#$ good question, son, and the answer to that is "the car bomb and the beer cooler." I figure you can figure from there.

But you would be correct in remembering that, so far as we could tell, I didn't have a duplicate on Alter Earth. So far as we could tell, there was no other me running around, being a bad guy or worse guy on the other world. It wouldn't be the only time that someone that pivotal (If I do say so, myself) was missing in action, but it did seem a curious omission.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what this other me would be like. 

Would be be a follower of the law? Not !@#$ing likely. 

Would he be bound and beholden to any supervisory authority? Most likely not.

And if he had no law, and no oversight, then did he really need something like The COMPANY to hide behind? Or would he just be out there, kicking !@#$ for his own purposes, and doing it in such a way that no one knew it was him?

And if that was the case, then did anyone really need to know that he existed at all? 

In fact, wouldn't one of the first things he would have done is to make himself !@#$ing vanish, so no one could find him?

Because I have to tell you, son, there's been days when I wished I could have just disappeared after Korea. It would have been so much simpler if I could have just gone around in secret, kicking commie !@#$ and then vanishing into a wall, or something like that. 

No permissions needed, no explanations to give, no budget to justify. Just a man and his gun against the world.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he'd probably done just that, and so it's no wonder we couldn't locate me over there. The !@#$er was probably so far underground he'd dug his way halfway to China, and set up shop in one of those zones that Underman is always going on about.

And when we went looking for him, he probably came looking for us. 

More on that another time, I think.  Just so long as you understand that, yes, there is another me, out there. He at least possesses the same skill set that I do, and most likely the same powers. And, from all indications, he's an even bigger monster than I am.

And that, son, is really !@#$ing saying something.

* * *

But I can hear you asking an obvious question. How did I know that the President was here, in their version of Neo York City, and being held in this sick !@#$hole?

Well, that's a bit of a funny story, son. You remember when we were excavating HONEYCOMB's central hive, down in Costa Rica, and found that whole wing that was dedicated to Alter Earth? And do you remember that they still had an "Alternaut" over there, reporting in ever so often?

Well, we may have lost the special weird science doo-dad that sent him over there, and whole room of artifacts they'd been collecting in early stages of the procedure, courtesy of that !@#$ing volcano. But I managed to yank the Our Earth/Their Earth communicator out of the wall and put it in a pile of stuff to be taken off and studied. And it's been sitting in a warehouse, outside Arlington, for quite some time, waiting for a taskforce to pry it all apart and figure out how it works.

So once I figured out what was going on, I snuck in and borrowed it. I figured The COMPANY wasn't going to need it, anytime soon. And if they did, well, !@#$ them.

I made contact with their Alternaut, a somewhat rattled fellow named Juan, who's maybe one or two more forced gang-rapes away from being !@#$ing useless. In true HONEYCOMB style I berated him for not making more frequent reports, and then gave him new instructions. These instructions included using the vast net of contacts he'd made over there to see if a certain member of our world had been spotted anywhere.

And wouldn't you know that, yes, he had? In fact, poor Juan had made the mistake of checking out The Prosperoinum in their NYC, and made it all the way to the bottom floor on the very day that the President was being "installed."

(I got to hear a rather affected, blow-by-blow account of the unveiling ceremony. I think the chunks I blew blew their own chunks in a day long, recursive barfing jag.)

In between harrowing descriptions of forced, underage sodomy as a civic virtue, I also learned a good deal more about what to expect. I still made a point of swiping NIID's files to fill in some blanks and do some double-checking, but as far as I've seen so far, Juan's been pretty straight with me.

I might even be nice and shoot him on our way out of town.

Speaking of shooting, I think I'm just about out of targets. So I'm going to wind this little bit of exposition down, right about now.

But son, I want to say thank you. I want to thank you for still believing in me.

I know you were probably wondering what the !@#$ happened, back there. And you'd have been well within your rights to believe that I was the one who shot the President, after all the "proof." Gods know a whole lot of other people did.

But you stuck by me, and believed in me. And that means more to me than I could ever say.

Yeah, yeah. Soppy bull!@#$. But you're worth my tears, son. Every single !@#$ing one.

Now let's get that President the !@#$ out of the chair and get him the !@#$ home before things really go pear-shaped and sink into a sea of !@#$.

(SPYGOD is listening to Another World (Chemical Brothers) and still unable to enjoy a drink at this time. Maybe later.)

2765 - pt. 2

This may come as something of a shock to you, son, but in my younger days, I really liked having sex.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Is this the same SPYGOD who used to bring home Thai ladyboys by the handful for rough, sweaty nights back at The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G?" And, yes, that was me. Is me, still, really.

But you should have seen me, maybe 40 years ago, after I first got the Chandra Eye and my appetites swelled me up like a !@#$ing balloon. I was a gods!@#$ed sex machine, making it with any guy I could get my hands on, anywhere we could do it, anytime we could get away with it, and sometimes when we couldn't.

Now, I had standards, of course, but I wasn't always too picky. So long as you had two butt-cheeks and a !@#$, and weren't so young that I felt like a !@#$ing chickenhawk, we'd be slamming skin.

One at a time gave way to two at a time. Then three. Then four. Before I knew it I was entertaining entire diplomatic cotillions and taskforces. Then whole superteams. And then...

...

There was a night I broke the boundaries of all that was holy and good, maybe back in the early 70's. I must have had 50 people, that night, in and around a Swiss chalet we'd taken over for an "intense cooperative intelligence briefing." This was back when MI-6 was still fun, sometimes, before all the old public school boys turned out to be commie traitors (or worse) and got replaced with straight-laced types who thought sex was for making children and baiting traps.

And while I was lying there, wondering when the !@#$ I was going to stop still feeling horny, and the owner of every hole I could !@#$ was having to beg off before they needed to go the hospital, and I was seriously thinking of taking them by force and calling it alien possession or mind control or something, I realized that there was no physical limit to what I could do, but there had to be a moral one.

So I went into one of the bathrooms, took a really !@#$ing long, ice cold shower, jacked off until I clogged the drain so I could finally walk and think straight again, and then went about ordering breakfast for fifty-odd odd fellows with sore !@#$holes.

Ever after, I kept the revels frequent, but the numbers down, and the hard-on-impairing alcohol and drugs flowing to try and limit how much damage I could do. I realized the monster was only one or two thrusts away, and did my best to keep him from making decisions for me. It didn't always work, of course, but after I discovered that two or three unabashed Ladyboys are worth a entire platoon of secret sodomites, things have gotten a !@#$ of a lot easier for yours truly.

So whenever I run across someone who hasn't had that road to Damascus moment in their life, or has had it and just breezed on past, and is in a sliding, slimy rush to find the bottom step of the seemingly endless staircase we call "sex," and I have to clean up their nasty, decadent, disgusting, and blood-soaked mess, I have to remind myself that if Percival Reginald Shelly VI (RIP) hadn't whimpered just so when I'd put my hand on his butt and said "round ten?" I'd probably have been locked up in The Z as a !@#$ing super-rapist, or something.

You might be wondering why I felt the need to bring all that up, one level into the Proserpinium?

Well, Mr. USA and I are walking past a well-lit alcove in which ten naked men are standing around a rubber-sheeted bed, jerking each other's meat and waiting their turn to take a loop of a woman's warm, squirming intestines in their hand, and !@#$ it like it was her rack, or something.

The woman's dosed on something and is clearly not feeling anything. Her arms, legs, and neck are wrapped in white rubber sleeves, leaving her chest, stomach, and face exposed. (Not her groin, oddly enough).

They've got her set up with what could only be described as a padlocked, surgical zipper on her stomach, so her innards can be exposed when needed. And by some miracle of modern science, they've got it fixed so that the whole, pressurized mess doesn't come spurting out when you open her up.

The look on her face, as she slides in and out of consciousness, maybe in time with her users sliding in and out of her guts, is terrifyingly beatific. It's like she's seeing her Gods reflected in their sweaty, staring, and twisted faces.

And maybe she is. I can hear her heart giving out, even now. If she lasts through this guy it'll be a miracle, but I wouldn't put good money down on her lasting the rest of the hour, much less the day.

Not to worry, though. I can see behind the alcove, past her handler, who is standing by her head and watching her die with all the interest of a bored  parent watching their kid at a park. And past him, behind a heavy curtain, and two security guards, there's a small ready room with about five more such ladies, all dosed up and ready to go.

And the girls are all. !@#$ing. Smiling.

...

Now, son, I've done things on battlefield that would curdle your soul, turn your hair white, and make you throw up things you ate before you were even !@#$ing born. !@#$, ever since my genitalia became something of a love shoggoth, I've done things in the bedroom that would do the same thing.

You know about some of it. Pay you never see the half of it.

But I have to hand it to her handlers -- this is something that I have not only never seen, but nothing I would have ever thought of in a million years.

And as we go deeper into this temple of licensed, state-approved obscenity, I get the sick feeling that this is just the tip of the !@#$ing iceberg

* * *

Yes, son, we're in the Prosperpinium. We've already seen things here no one has any business seeing, or even !@#$ing thinking about.

And Gods help us, the gut!@#$ing was only the second level.

The name comes from Prosperpina, a lady you probably know as Persephone. That would be the daughter of the Goddess of Nature, who got kidnapped (raped, as they used to say) by Pluto, god of the Underworld.

In protest, Mother Nature shut the !@#$ down, and she didn't start back up again until the other Gods cut a deal with Pluto. The agreement was that he'd give her back for a good portion of the year, but then take her back into the Underworld after a certain time, so he could have some hot love in the cold dark of his home. 

And when she was away, being banged by her husband, Mother Nature turned into a frigid, icy !@#$. 

So there's your fancy explanation for the seasons, son. And, yes, you're welcome. Gotta do what I can now that public schools would rather teach you "world literature" and half-baked, commie nonsense than anything approaching a decent, classical education.

But what does that have to do with gut-!@#$ing, forced orgies, and some of the sickest !@#$ I've seen outside the back alleys of Tijuana, Bangkok, and Cairo combined?

Well, it seems that Alter-Earth never quite threw off the Roman Empire. Instead of Rome crumbling and being replaced by the Catholic Church, like it did on our world (more or less) Rome continued on. A certain Carpenter's Son from Nazareth gained a large cult following, and when he got powerful enough he killed the reigning Emperor without even touching him, and declared himself a God made flesh, and the rightful ruler of the known world.

He reigned for 500 !@#$ing years, apparently. I've never gotten a good explanation for why he left the throne, or if he's actually dead or not, but Rome was the great power, and the only reason they speak English over here is...

Well, !@#$. I don't know. The files I stole from NIID didn't have any clear info on that, any more than they could explain why Rome was destroyed, maybe 600 years ago.

But that's why they give the current year as AU. It was originally AUC, for "Ab Urbe Condita," "from the founding of the city." The city was Rome, and when Rome was destroyed, however that happened, they dropped the C, and now it's just "from the city."

Again, why, I have no !@#$ing idea.

But the important thing, here, is that certain mystery rites involving the rape and return of Prosperpina have carried through into this day and age. It's a dark reflection of what happened on our world, long ago, and Gods only know if this is what it would have turned into, given time. But the population of Alter-Earth considers this nasty place to be church, stress relief, and social equalization all in one, handy package.

You go in, and for some reason no one checks ID, here. You enter a giant, white marble hall filled with giant, white marble statues like the ones outside, all showing very clever and graphic depictions of what Pluto and Proserpina got up to with the souls of the dead, and each other. Then there's some co-ed shower facilities, where the people who just came back can wash off the butcher-shop nastiness they brought up with them.

Then it's into a darkened hallway that's angled downwards at a gentle slope, allowing you to go down to the end of one level, turn a corner, go down another, and keep going like that until you staircase your way to the very bottom.

Where, I am informed, the thing that we are looking for can be found, on proud display. 

Anyone can come in here, even slaves on the occasional day off. Anyone can watch anything, no matter how high or low they are in the pecking order. And anyone can go all the way to the bottom, jerk themselves blind, and then come back up to the top, approaching ecstasy as they finally reach the light outside.

(The fact that many of the people coming back are soaked in red filth, but their clothes seem immaculate, disturbs me to no end.)

But the catch is that, while you can watch the !@#$ing, you can only participate in it as far as your status (indicated by your clothing) will let you. And the further down you go, the "better" the entertainment gets.

"Better" being shorthand for "sicker, nastier, and bloodier," of course.

Like I said, the gut!@#$ing I would have never thought of in a million years was only level two. If I'm interpreting what I'm seeing, correctly, there's five or six levels in total.

Gods help us both. Gods help us all.

* * *

After we get past the third level, and a tableau that has forever convinced me that fathers should never be allowed in the theater to watch their children be born, Mr. USA is so green he could be mistaken for a shrubbery. Maybe it's what we just saw, and maybe it's a nasty smell coming from up ahead, but I take him to one side around the corner, not far from a large group of people who are watching something even more disgusting, and look him in the eyes.

"(REDACTED)," I say: "You have to hold it together."

"This..." he's trying not to cry or whimper, for which I now love him more than I ever have in my entire life: "This is..."

"This is as bad as it gets. Yes."

"Auschwitz. When we liberated Auschwitz, I thought..."

"Yeah," I say: "This is Auschwitz plus Stalin's famine times !@#$ing Cambodia. But we have to told it together, okay?"

"Yeah," he says, hitching a breath: "It's just... I never thought... I always believed we were decent, you know? No matter where, no matter how. I always thought there was a line."

"Yeah, well, wrong world, different line," I say, and I'm about to say something else when I realize someone's trying to get our attention.

"I'm sorry, but could you two be fucking quiet?" a lady asks, holding onto her half-undressed fellow, who looks like he's under a bit of strain: "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but we're trying to get into our headspace and you're fucking ruining it for us."

"Sorry about that," I say, thinking about doing something very rude with my fist and her skull.

"I mean, I don't mean to be rude," she reiterates as her man sighs, gasps, and !@#$s down his leg and onto the floor: "It's just that this is special and sacred, you know?"

"It's his first time here in a while," I explain, watching her scoop up his hot, steaming !@#$ in her hands: "He's a bit overcome. It happens."

"Yeah, well fucking have it happen somewhere else," the guy says: "Not in our headspace. Okay?"

"Not to be rude or anything," she says, licking the !@#$. 

Then they're off to the tableau, where a young boy's just-severed head is being passed around the crowd so people can fill its mouth with their !@#$, the better for the rock-hard men on the stage to face@#$ it.

Something in Mr. USA's eyes goes cold and blank, just then. I've seen that look before. I know exactly what it means.

I whisper to him: "I'll make you a deal. We get all the way to the bottom, and do what we've come here for, and you can come back up here and !@#$ing kill the two of them."

"Just the two of them?" He asks.

I watch as the crowd pulls apart the rest of the kid's body, and shower one another with his blood, organs, and gooshy bits. 

"Kill the whole !@#$ing town if you want," I say, prodding him onward.

* * *

We spend the rest of the trip looking down at the ground before us. It helps a little, but in some ways it makes it worse. Our imaginations kick in where our eyes leave off, and after the !@#$ we've seen and done in our lives, and !@#$ we've seen thus far, it's not helping at all.

For one thing, there's the screaming. Men, women, children, babies. Screaming.

There's the sounds that come during and after the screaming, too. Slicing, cracking, squishing, chewing, !@#$ing.

Worse still, the cheering and sighing and laughing and grunting of the crowds, come to watch and take part in these things.

And the smells. Dear Gods, the smells. !@#$ and methane and the cloying, iron stink of blood. Vomit. Come.

It would appear the clothes here are made of really tough, stain repelling fabric. This is a good thing, because not long after we get to the fifth floor, the tableaux all but erupt from the walls. Industrial equipment takes the place of ordinary torture devices and tools, and blood and less identifiable fluids get splashed, splattered, sprayed, and pressure hosed all over us as we walk. 

But at that point, looking at the ground isn't even helping a bit, because it means we can see what we're walking on. People writhing on the floor, by themselves or with others. Things we both can and cannot identify. The bodies of trampled chidren, many of which bear rapturous smiles, some of which are being !@#$ed by those too lowly to get any action on the stages.

Some of which are begging us to trample them, too.

I've never been anywhere like this. I've never seen anything like this. I've never so much wanted to have a pocket nuke that could go off with the press of one button, just to make this end.

Make the horror go away.

Make the memories vanish.

Make everything go from black to white to nothing at all in one quick nanosecond.

Would that really be so terrible? Just to make it all go away?

Because everything I've ever done, and everything I would do, and the importance of my mission, and finally making peace with Mr. USA, and the reason why we !@#$ing came here in the first place? Right about now I'm about ready to say !@#$ it.

Just !@#$ it all.

But the next thing I know Mr. USA is looking into my eye, and he's saying "(REDACTED), you have to hold it together. We're almost there."

"We are...?" I stammer, still clutching the trigger on the pocket nuke I've made in my head.

"We are. The level's evening out. I hear different noises up ahead."

"Different?" I ask: "Different how?"

"Less... less grunting. More cheering. I think he's up there."

"He better be," I say, letting him prod me forward.

"Make you a deal," he says: "You get all the way to the bottom, and maybe I won't kill everyone in town."

"That... makes no !@#$ing sense," I say, but I smile a little at the absurdity of it all. Then I realize that's what he wanted, and, chuckling morbidly in the face of hell, we go downward and forward.

And then on to the goal.

* * *

The goal is the final floor. Six levels down. One for each month of the year that Proserpine's getting her divine muffin stuffed full of death god !@#$ down in the Underworld.

On this floor, the blood and nastier substances all run down into grates. Just past the grates is a raised platform on which people wearing all white clothing sit around on immaculate couches, drinking fine wines and watching as the lesser people come down, out of the darkened hallway of meat grinders and blood hoses, and beg for favors for their families.

The favors don't come cheap. The ones in white have very inventive ideas on how to dispense justice, or rewards, or mercy. Well-equipped slaves with very specific skills stand nearby, ready to flay, rend, sever, mutilate, and kill anyone who needs a few hundred days' wages for a sick mother, or to buy a family member out of slavery, prison, or an upcoming death sentence in the Colosseum. And well-proportioned men, women, and children also stand ready to perform various acts on the dead and dying, all for the amusement of the best of all possible people.

By now, we're inured to this !@#$. It's almost a boon to just see this, as opposed to something worse than the hell we just stumbled and slid through. But our eyes are not on them.

Our eyes are on a man, sitting in a high-backed chair, on the far end of the room. He can see the entire spectacle from where he sits, his eyes red from crying, his face screwed up from wanting to scream, and a silver muzzle clamped from his ears down to stop him from doing so.

He's being kept alive by IV, from the looks of things. He's also wearing the blackest suit I've seen thus far, maybe reserved for prisoners or the condemned. And he's chained to the chair so that he can't so much as move an inch while this final horror goes on around him.

It's the President of the United States of America, quite alive and trapped here by the people who faked his death, about a month ago.

And as of right now, the only thing that Mr. USA and I can do wrong is let him die for real.

I look at the President. He looks over at us, stops crying, and some vestige of the man I've known, liked, not liked, and wanted to punch in the nose for being such an idealistic moron returns, even here.

Then I look at Mr. USA, who looks at me. We don't need to nod or say anything.

Someone on the platform calls to us, asking (in degenerate Latin, no less) what our worthless petitions might be.

I pull my guns from nowhere. Mr USA leaps forward, fists first.

And we answer with blood and fire, and the fury of what little righteousness we can still claim.

(Sephiroth - Abyssanctum. Still nothing to drink)