12/16/12 - The Big !@#$ Story So Far - !@#$ing House Arrest Edition

SPYGOD.

Immortal. Superpowered. Drunk.

Highly conservative. Queer as !@#$. Out as Hell.

The man who killed Hitler with his bare hands, rescued the world too many times to count, and saved the lives of three... no, wait, make that four Presidents, mother!@#$er. FOUR.

(But, yes, had to shoot one.)

Director of The COMPANY, tasked with handling (and occasionally killing) America's Strategic Talents.


The man who just masterminded the saving of the entire !@#$ing world from an old enemy no one knew was that dangerous and deadly. 

And now... is under !@#$ing House Arrest? Seriously? 

...

Okay, obviously we need to back the !@#$ up a bit, here. Maybe all the way to !@#$ing Mongolia, or something.

But you know what happened before, right? How GORGON framed SPYGOD for the assassination of the President of the United States of America? How they then framed the United States of America for their own super-secret (and way too successful) plan to conquer the world, and then pretend to be its saviors? How they masqueraded as the friendly, technologically-advanced Imago to put the world at ease, and told them to just deal with the inconveniences (some more inconveniencing than others) because some terrible world-destroying threat was coming right for Earth?

And then, you know all the crazy-!@#$, !@#$ed-up !@#$ that happened right after... right?
 
Well, okay then.

So SPYGOD comes back from his weird, parallel-future experience with Jim Morrison's parallel-future self, in which he saves the parallel-future world, kills an evil parallel-future Jesus, and gets !@#$ing killed, himself, and then has something else happen that he really does not want to !@#$ing talk about, yet. And he's full of !@#$ and vinegar, now, and gets it into his head that he and the President of the United States of America are going to team up and save the !@#$% world, together, because he's the only rock-steady ally he's got.

(Or at least the only one he can !@#$ing boss around, now.)

Needless to say, this means SPYGOD's got to turn the President into a lean, mean, killing machine. Lucky for him, he's got a captive audience and special, somewhat-dangerous Soviet drugs. So for a few days, the poor guy gets the Matrix kung fu treatment at scenic Camp !@#$ You Up, Mongolia, only for real, and by the end of it he's actually good enough to hand SPYGOD his !@#$, for real.

Now, while that's going on, a few other things are happening, and these are all pretty !@#$ important.

One big thing is that METALMAID, who's suckered no less than Zalea Zathros (brainwashed into stupid complacency by the Imago's e-television signals) into becoming her personal !@#$ arms manufacturer, has hit upon the great !@#$ing idea of going to OUTLAND and hooking up with some super villain sugardaddy. This way she can take over the whole !@#$ world from the Imago, so she can get on with trying to !@#$ing kill SPYGOD, which she's been failing to do for a long !@#$ time now.

The plan doesn't go too !@#$ing well, unfortunately, but she does meet a cool, fellow, would-be world-conqueror calling himself the Violet Demon, and actually almost does a !@#$ deal with him. Except that, of course, that's when this creepy old !@#$ named Doctor Kyklops (who used to run with METALMAID's creator, Doctor Morbo, back in the day) decides to buy her services.

What's a cuckolded super villain to do? In the Violet Demon's case, he takes it pretty !@#$ well, and covers for their rather explosive product demonstration, so she and the Doctor can go make a deal on his big !@#$ Jacques Cousteau sea-saucer just before the Imago show up and crash the party. And she !@#$ing goes back to Africa, there to crank out more !@#$ Slaughterbots for her questionably-sane (but super-!@#$-rich) partner.

(Who, incidentally, really wants to get in her !@#$ing pants.)

While that's going on, a whole bunch of remaining heroes, strategic talents, and hangers-on are converging on B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4. It's a mini-parallel Earth just like B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 3, where the SPYGOD SCOUTS used to have their yearly Saturnalia jamboree things. But that one got "compromised" then the Imago took over, so now, they're all in the spare backup version, with people like Mark Clutch, and Myron and Winifred (who are seeing each other, now). And they've joined forces with the Toon Nation, all acting under the commands of some blonde !@#$hole in a loud ascot named Fred.

(Oh, and everyone's taking orders from some weird, masked guy who's supposed to be the leader of the resistance. Except that no one knows who the !@#$ he is, but he's supposedly acting under SPYGOD's orders... whatever they are.)

So they're joined by a bunch of Supers from the Middle East and Northern Africa. Some of whom we've met before (The Fist, The Lion, The Wall) and some of whom are totally !@#$ing new, and might only be notable because they've !@#$ing lived in spite of the Imago hunting them the !@#$ down.

Oh, yeah, and the Green Man's there, too. The last we saw him he was stumbling around in a daze after Chinmoku did something to him in Key West, and now he's back to normal, but more !@#$ing !@#$ed-off than ever before. Which is really !@#$ scary, under the circumstances, and given what he can actually do.

And he's there to look after Thomas Samuels, who was badly maimed the night the Owl Nest was destroyed, just before 3/15. It turns out Thomas is actually his son, by way of Martha Samuels, who's the Owl, now. And given that the Green Man killed her brother, earlier in his career as a revolving-door supervillain, is really !@#$ strange.

(Hopefully someone will !@#$ing explain that !@#$ to me, at some point?)

Anyway. There's also the international super-spies, like Dosha Josh and Mikhail and everyone else, who aren't too numerous anymore. They meet up at this special Bar in the ladyboy sector of Bangkok to compare notes, mostly to talk about what happened to Israel, which wasn't !@#$ing pretty.

Only the meeting gets crashed by the Thai secret police, who are in league with the Imago for !@#$ only knows what reason. Oh yeah, and one of those crazy-!@#$ flying vampire women who have their guts hanging out of their neck when they go out hunting blood tries to take them out, and actually splashes the guy from MI-whatever. Long complicated story, especially since Dosha and Anil kind of set them all up, sort of. Luckily, Dr. Krwi the Polish, bad!@#$ vampire hunter showed up and saved their !@#$ing bacon, but now they're all on the same page, again. Maybe. 

Okay, so you got all that? I sure hope so, because here's where it starts to get !@#$ing complicated. And nasty, too.

First off, SPYGOD does a really !@#$ bad thing to the Imago's fancy space elevator, using a group of crazy terrorists and a high-tech bomb. That stunt gets a few people killed then, and then a whole bunch more slaughtered by the Imago when they go looking for answers. Of course, SPYGOD's not too !@#$ing happy about that, but it's not like he didn't know that might happen, or take precautions.

And the real !@#$ of it was that all that was just a !@#$ing distraction. The real action was going on up in China, where the President made "friends" with the Chinese Premier, who was something of a massive !@#$ing wuss. Thanks to their "understanding," which you can bet was one-sided as !@#$, SPYGOD was able to find out where some files on WWII Japanese intelligence he needed were stored, and broke in and took them.

What was in those files? !@#$ing everything. A really nasty story about Unit 731, which the Japanese set up in occupied Manchuria to supposedly study how to create and use plague weapons, but was actually a horror show butcher shop for the education of this sick !@#$ named Dark Star.

(You might remember her scary !@#$ from his bad-idea-jeans attempt to take out GORGON with a single squad and an unlucky strategic talent, last year? Old and nasty !@#$ with the power to suck your life and memories out?)

Anyway, it turns out, young and cute (but still !@#$ing deadly) Dark Star told the Imperial Japanese government a crazy!@#$ story about being an alien who could give them the kind of technology that would make them masters of the world. But they can't get down to her ship, on the bottom of the Pacific, without better tech than they have, so she offers to help them with that. Only she up and !@#$ing creates GORGON right under their !@#$ noses, which proves to be really !@#$ embarrassing to her handlers, especially when they realize their so-called space alien's actually a girl who was drowned, presumed dead, some years before...

Or was she? That's the thing, here. As !@#$ing crazy as all this !@#$ SPYGOD reads is, it makes perfect sense. It not only falls in line with everything that GORGON's been doing, all along, but it really falls in line with what they've been doing since SPYGOD decided to rid the world of its science terrorist organizations, the other year.

(And it explains why they wanted to get their hands on The Object, and why a certain city's poking up from the Pacific Ocean, right now...)

So now that he's got that information under his belt, he goes off to talk to Doctor Krwi, who just ended the vampire head woman that attacked the super-spies in Bangkok. Turns out SPYGOD did a deal with her, after the attack, and got her out of her bad, very one-sided relationship with her Thai handlers in exchange for a little favor. But you know how SPYGOD handles his favors, so the poor !@#$ is messed-up and crazy from her ordeal.

See, he had her infiltrate one of the Imago's massive, white cities to see what was going on in there. It was one of the "schools" they had all the kids in the region super-learning in, or so they said. In reality, it was a massive vampire of a building, with all the kids either having their life and memories sucked the !@#$ out of their bodies, or else hauling around the less fortunate because, having been drained themselves, that was all they were !@#$ing good for, anymore.

Yeah...

So you can imagine how bad this was for the poor vampire. Once she was in she couldn't get right back out again, and the Imago showed up to beat her down. And then, when she got tired of hiding and too !@#$ing hungry to think straight, she finally gave up following orders and tried to eat one of the kids. But the building fed on her, instead, though the kid, which is why she was insane and dying when Krwi found her, and why he put her out of her misery.

Of course, SPYGOD doesn't give a !@#$, because now he's got his intel. Only Dr. Krwi has had it with his !@#$, and actually makes him give her last human victim a decent burial.

(Yeah, yeah. Super-drama. It happens in this business.)

Of course, by then SPYGOD's got another piece of the puzzle, but he's still working on the whole plan. So he goes to Russia, and abducts the former Russian President, who's been in hiding since 3/15, and "persuades" him to take him to where they warehoused the files they took from Unit 731 at the end of the War. SPYGOD figures that if he's going to find a weakness in GORGON, or the Imago, he'll find it there.

So they take the train over to Yekaterinburg, which used to be Sverdlovsk, which was a big-time closed city back during the Cold War, to go find those things, because that's where the Ruskies put them for whatever reason. Somehow, the Imago find out and blow the !@#$ out of the train, when it gets into the station, but SPYGOD knows what's going on, down the tracks, and gets them off it just before it happens. And he figures that the Chinese Premier's finked on them, which would be no real surprise.
 
(That and the Chinese Premier's got really big !@#$ing problems of his own, but more on that a little later. Promise.)

So SPYGOD and the Russian President get to an empty room, and the Imago show up, right on cue. It turns out the fink was the Russian President, all along. He confesses that he did it all so he could escape Earth's fate when that big dark something showed up to eat the planet. And the Imago cops to the fact that their "invasion" was really an escape.

Oh yeah, while all this was going on we learned, courtesy of Winifred's memories finally coming back to her, that the Imago are apparently energy-beings in metal spheres who have been taking over human bodies all this time. Mostly all those missing mentally retarded people the Imago took away "to help" early on. Poor Winifred found this out the hard way by breaking into the special death-Olympics' slaughterhouse, and she'd blocked it out, not that you can blame her.

(Of course, this means her relationship with Myron is !@#$ing borked, but what can you do?)

And while all this is going on up in Russia, the American President is trying to shoot the Chinese Premier, down in Beijing, just to make sure he doesn't get nabbed and made to squeal on them. Only he !@#$ing hesitates for one second too many, and the Imago !@#$ing show up to make sure the Premier's okay.

And get this -- that stool pigeon is so !@$#ing sure they know he sold them out to SPYGOD (because he's sure his really big !@#$ing problem told them) that he actually spills the beans on himself, Tell-Tale Heart-style. And it's all the President can do to try and shoot the poor guy, but the Imago are floating in his way, and...

Well, that's when things get weird.

You see, we don't actually know how SPYGOD got out of that empty room, and out from under yet another orbital strike from Deep-Ten, once again blamed on terrorists in league with the big space nasty.

(The Imago said the same thing a little earlier when they torched a lot of LA, trying to get The Owl and The Talon. Luckily, they missed them, but it was a near !@#$ thing, and yet another sign that the people in control of the world are not even remotely !@#$ing reasonable. At all.)

But the next thing we know, SPYGOD's in Japan, meeting with the superspies in some crazy bar where everyone dresses up like !@#$ing SPYGOD, or COMPANY AGENTS, or folks like that. He's got things he needs them to do, and whatever he tells them is !@#$ scary, even to them. And it's all part of his big !@#$ plan, which he's still assembling on the fly out of a dozen or so smaller !@#$ plans, all rat-mazed into one another in a big !@#$ing flow chart that only he gets to look at. 

After that, he hooks back up with the American President, who got to Japan earlier to deal with Mister 10, from Organization 10. Whatever SPYGOD's big !@#$ plan is, it apparently requires getting his hands on some really big !@#$, crazy-!@#$, re-purposed (or just plain stolen) E.T. weaponry, which is what Organization 10 and all its !@#$ing predecessors (Organization 9, Organization 8, and so on) have been looking after since !@#$ only knows when.

Unfortunately, Mister 10 is this crazy, Yakuza mother!@#$er with a perky young assistant, no sense of humor, and no time to waste on outside persons, especially under the current circumstances. But they somehow manage to get him to hand over use of something really !@#$ powerful and scary, mostly because the President actually knows how to !@#$ing negotiate.

(Yeah, who would have !@#$ing thought, huh?)

Oh, and while all that's going on? That creepy, old, robot-bothering super villain !@#$ Doctor Kyklops decides to declare war on the Imago with the Slaughterbots that METALMAID, got for him. Apparently, if it'd been up to him, he'd have just built his stores up to Wagnerian heights and banged his metal love toy, but The Violet Demon talked her into telling him it was time to !@#$ or get off the !@#$ pot, and !@#$ he did. Unfortunately for him, he really just !@#$ the bed, and the so-called Kyklops War was all over within 48 !@#$ing hours.

But still, that's depleted the Imago's resources, just a bit. And this is just after they got caught killing civilians on live TV after something really bad went down just outside Neo York City with the Black Card and Whisper (remember her?).

And that was all courtesy of the Masked Leader of the Resistance, who's apparently been flying through !@#$ing time and space with some weird guy. And he's been setting a number of things into motion, in places in Africa, and the Kingdom, and Neo York City, and God only knows where the !@#$ else. And none of these things they do are anything that SPYGOD actually knows about, but all of them are things that lead up to his big !@#$ rat-maze of a plan. 

(Which is really !@#$ funny if you think about it, just don't expect SPYGOD to want to !@#$ing laugh)

Okay, so you got all that? Good. Because this is where it all comes together and tries to sing a song for a  charity record.

The day comes to take back the planet, and SPYGOD's got just about every last !@#$ thing he could pull out of the bag pulled out. He's got all the strategic talents we knew about, and a bunch only he ever knew about waiting in the wings (including the Violet Demon, who turns out to have been New Man's son, all along). He's got the weird armies of the world all ready to go. He's dressed to the 9s and has his playlist all cued up, and weapons you've never even heard of before jammed into his dress every which way but sideways.

And as soon as he kills the entire !@#$ internet (which is what had all the super spies spooked) he gets ready to roll out his stolen supernazi UFO, and pull the curtain back on this massively !@#$ing powerful giant robot that Organization 10's been hiding in plain sight since whenever-the-!@#$ A.D. and march it all the !@#$ way to the Lost City, there to smash the Flier to pieces.

Of course, with any luck, it won't be much of a fight. And that's because the primary plan is for the Toons to get six satellites from the folks at B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, and then launch them into orbit just after Deep-Ten's been turned off. The satellites are going to broadcast a signal that's a more powerful version of the one that Myron used to stun anything using GORGON technology on 3/15, and with luck that should !@#$ing knock out the Imago, the Specials, and anything else they've got on hand. With more luck, they'll stay !@#$ing knocked out.

Oh, and the person who's responsible for knocking Deep-Ten out? None other than Director Straffer, himself! Turns out he didn't die when the Imago took over his weapons platform. He just jumped out an airlock and aimed himself at the !@#$ Moon, which he can do since it turns out he's as cybernetic as he is queer (which is to say, "as !@#$.") He's been hiding at what's left of Alpha Base Seven since then, and coordinating with Freedom Force on what to do next, with the stipulation that no one tell SPYGOD it's him, or that he's alive, because he wants it to be a big surprise.

(Isn't that just !@#$ing romantic?)

Which would be a great plan, if only it had actually !@#$ing worked. You see, there's some big !@#$ problems, and they're all because of other people and their big !@#$ problems. And while the Masked Leader and his weird friend might have seen them coming, apparently it was all !@#$ that had to play out, one way or another, though they could do a little bit to help out, here and there.

(If that makes any !@#$ing sense...?)

Case in point? It turns out that one of the new Arabic Supers that was teleported over to B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4 was none other than Moloch in disguise. He figured he'd get there, gum up the works at a critical moment, and then demand SPYGOD come there and die in exchange for his precious satellites. Fortunately, the Green Man had an idea that he was going to be fighting to save his son, and was prepared, so this big, back-and-forth battle rages across the treehouse as the good guys try to get the satellites away and Moloch keeps attacking, getting fought back, and creating new !@#$ bodies out of whatever metal's available.

Lucky for us, they finally get the satellites away. But no sooner do they launch them than things go !@#$ed up at the moon base. It turned out that the commander of the base wasn't so keen about having Straffer show up, boss her and her people around, and make them part of a plan that, if it went wrong, might get them all !@#$ing killed. So one of her people sneaks a bomb into the place where he's working, and it goes boom, and while Straffer lives through it, his device does not. 

(Neither does Alpha Base Seven, thanks to Deep-Ten seeing the explosion. Way to go, !@#$holes. Sometimes it really does make sense to just shut up and do what you're !@#$ing told, huh?)

So Deep-Ten is still live, and it not only shoots down the satellites, and Alpha Base Seven, but also starts shooting at the white boxes the Strategic Talents and weird armies are attacking. Before you can even blink, a lot of SPYGOD's plan is in the !@#$ing toilet.

Of course, that's when he decides to go forward, anyway, because there's nothing else he can do, so he tells the supers to converge on the white cities he was hoping they wouldn't have to touch, and tells Mister 10 to get the giant robot up and running.  And while Deep-Ten's trying to zap Tokyo, that perky young assistant turns out to be this massively powerful android from the future in disguise. And she's using her shields to keep Tokyo and the giant robot safe, but she can't keep that up for too !@#$ long.

Still, that's enough of a ego boost to the various weird armies, out there, to make them get off their !@#$es and stop hiding under rocks and go kick some !@#$. Which starts to really annoy the Imago, as you might expect, especially since they're losing a lot of their white cities. So they come up with a really nasty plan to deal with it, which involves snagging the First Family to use as hostages, and then telling the American President to end the war, or else.

(Yeah, I forgot to mention, he got on the TV once the internet went down and told everyone they had their brains back, and the revolution was happening. Not a bad !@#$ speech, either.)

Meanwhile, back at B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, the masked leader comes through to help them out, and turns out to have been Mr. USA all along! Which is really !@#$ weird, because the last we saw him he was on Alter-Earth, and being !@#$ing disappeared by this really powerful kid with dimensional powers and really serious anger management problems. But he's here, and he's !@#$ing old, but he's still got his powers, and uses them to kick Moloch's metal !@#$ all over the treehouse.

And, up in orbit, past the Moon, Director Straffer manages to get close enough to Deep-Ten to actually blow it the !@#$ up, which is not what he wanted to do, because it leaves the planet defenseless from outside threats. But under the circumstances, there was nothing else he could do, and that really should have killed him because he was linked to it, but he found a way to get out of it. Maybe.

Of course, that really horks the Imago off, so they decide it's time to stop being so nice. They send out every last Imago they can find, including ones that are what they really !@#$ing look like (which is not !@#$ing nice to look at) and start trying to genocide the whole !@#$ planet. And that's when SPYGOD gets all these kids that got powers in spite of the suppression drugs in the water to come out and kick their !@#$es, because it's literally now or never.

(He also calls this Native American shapeshifter named Gosheven, who we haven't !@#$ing seen in forever. Turns out he's been hiding on the Flier this entire time as a big cloud of sleeping, gay molecules or something, and now he's up and running, and he finds the original New Man, who we also haven't seen in forever. And they go off hand in hand to go !@#$ up some !@#$ for SPYGOD.)

SPYGOD also gets what few heroes he can get together in the central building in NYC to go get the First Family back, without letting the President know what's happened. (And after what happened in China, can you blame him?) Lucky for those few heroes, the B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4 survivors show up in the exact same place, having barely escaped that reality from the third or fourth coming of Moloch. Green Man's dead, but his son's alive, and while some of the heroes break off to get to the Ice Palace, the rest go try to find something to save the kid, who's failing fast.

After that, it just comes down to blind !@#$ing luck. Poor Thomas gets put into a medical machine, but it "uploads" him instead of curing him. Lady Gilda gets shot out of the sky but SPYGOD's able to keep fighting. White Robot's able to handle the Flier's weapons, but the Flier's about to really crank up the firing solution. But then a bunch of War Spawn from the Kingdom finally !@#$ing get there and start destroying the city and drawing the Flier's weapons off the robot. And then New Man trashes the Flier's engine room, which just takes the !@#$ fight out of it.

And, in spite of something going really !@#$ wrong at the South Pole, because they just didn't get there fast enough, Myron's able to shut off the Imago, because they were !@#$ing stupid to guard their communications circuits. He just uploaded the signal he was going to put into those satellites into their radio feed, and boom, they all fell down.

And, except for a really tender reunion between SPYGOD and the thing that had killed and become The Dragon (He !@#$ed in his face until his skull melted) that was the end of the Reclamation War.

(...*whew!*)

So, by all rights, SPYGOD should be the man of the hour, here. He should be getting showered with medals, booze, and ladyboys. He should be leading The COMPANY, again, and being hailed as the man who saved the world, and ended the pall of terror it's been living under since World War II, when the science terrorist groups that came up out of that conflict started threatening the planet's safety and security every !@#$ time you turned around.

(And he really should be getting ready to deal with that oooga-booga threat from beyond space and time that's coming here, too. Not to mention the Alter-Earth SPYGOD, who's still out there, and no longer working with his former partner, masquerading as Geri Tomorrow {see, I told you we'd get back to her, sooner or later}. And who knows what Aaron and the Beautiful Stranger are up to...?)

And instead, he's under !@#$ing house arrest with his boyfriend and his cat, and not nearly enough beer to deal with this !@#$?

Something obviously went wrong, here. Maybe he didn't do enough? Maybe he didn't do the right things at the right time? Maybe something from his past came to light, at long last, and now he's got to pay?

Or maybe the world's changed too much for someone like him to be free in it...?

I guess we're going to !@#$ing find out, aren't we?

SPYGOD. He's an !@#$hole, but he's still our !@#$hole. And when the time came, that !@#$hole was ready and willing to save the whole !@#$ world.

Hopefully, someone can now save him from it. 

(SPYGOD is listening to Welcome To The Pleasure Dome (Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the full 40 minute version) and wondering where they stashed the !@#$ booze)

10/04/12 - I Will Never Be Clean Again - pt. 3

The President of the United States now realizes the enormity of his mistake.

He should not have hesitated. He should not have assumed he had the time to take a second and think about what he was doing. He should have taken the shot and killed Wen Boxiong.

But now he has no recourse. The Imago are here, floating around him. He will simply have to wait for one of them to get out of the way for him to fire.

And he realizes that, the moment he fires, the Imago will sense his presence, and come for him. He may just have enough time to press the button and destroy his apartment, and press another button and destroy the gun. But he won't have any time to get away after that.

The moment he pulls the trigger he is most likely going to kill both the General Secretary and himself.

(Thus proving a whole, probably-now-deceased gaggle of Washington Neo-Cons right, he grimly notes.)

But that is of no matter. The man must die. The President must be the one who kills him, even if it kills him, too.

He tries to vector the shot differently, wondering if he would have a better angle if he stood, or moved to another window. But by the time he left, anything could have happened. It would be far better to watch and wait for the right moment. 

As he watches the encounter go on, he realizes that Wen is becoming agitated -- quite animatedly so. He cannot hear what he is saying, but he seems to be screaming it at them.

"What are you doing?" he asks, wondering why the man he was about to kill seems ready to commit suicide by alien invader. 

* * *

 

"Greetings to you, O SPYGOD," a booming, self-satisfied voice announces, just a second before its owner teleports into the empty room, there to join the fifty or so Specials who arrived just five seconds before. 

The ex-President of Russia and SPYGOD are in the center of a circular firing squad, staring down a lethal ring of gauss rifles. The Imago appears in the doorway they came through, his Orange and Gold arms outstretched as if in welcome, or if he were gracefully landing. His smile seems as wide as his face.

And his eyes are afire with malice thinly disguised as kindness.

"Well howdy-do to you, too, !@#$face,' SPYGOD snorts: "I guess you found me."

"We did indeed, O SPYGOD."

"You didn't seriously think that !@#$ty plan of yours was going to work, did you?" he asks, weighing his options: "You really should have just !@#$ing killed the President, !@#$hole. I eat nasty-!@#$ alternate realities for !@#$ing breakfast. Ask anyone."

"You are indeed an unusually resilient man, O SPYGOD. But-"

"Wen talked, didn't he?"

"Wen?" the Imago asks, seemingly perplexed: "Which Wen would that be?"

"You know who, you tin-plated !@#$-"

"No," the ex-President says, holding up a hand while fishing around in his mouth for another, broken tooth: "I just told you, SPYGOD. I told them where we were, after a fashion."

"Explain, Valentina," SPYGOD says, taking a step back from his captive but still pointing his gun at his head.

"I was charged to make a report every night. If I did not, then it could only mean that I had been compromised, and that could only be by you, or one of your people. So they would begin tracking me, and follow where it led. Though I think the ending point was never in doubt."

"You...?" SPYGOD says, blinking and taking another step back: "Not Wen? You?"

"Yes, SPYGOD," the ex-President says, smiling through a mouth of broken teeth: "Me."

* * *

"Just do it, already!" Wen Boxiong shouts at the Imago surrounding him, jumping up and down like some kind of idiot: "I know that you know! I know what she told you!"

"Who is this person you speak of, O Wen Boxiong?" One of the Imago asks.

"You know who she is! Stop toying with me!"

"What are we supposed to know, O Wen Boxiong?" Another asks.

"You know what I've done! She told you! Stop it!"

"Perhaps you should calm down, O Wen Boxiong," yet another suggests: "We do not know what you are talking about-"

"Stop it stop it stop it!" the man shrieks, balling up his fists and shaking: "I hate you! You and your smirking faces and metal brains! This is torture!"

"Why do you accuse us of torture, O Wen Boxiong?" One asks.

"Why are you so certain we know something worth harming you over, O Wen Boxiong?" Another asks.

"What are you trying to say, O Wen Boxiong?" Yet another asks.

The man howls and screams, his face turning as red as blood and his eyes screwed shut. Even like that he can see their smiling faces and friendly eyes, and feel the contempt they hold him in. Why won't they just tell him what they know and then kill him?

Why are they being so !@#$ cruel?

* * *

"Bull!@#$," SPYGOD snorts, looking at the Imago and then his captive: "Then why did they blow up that train just after I found out my contact in Beijing might have been made?"

"A necessary deception," the Imago announces: "We did not want you to suspect you were being set up for a trap. We calculated that throwing an attempt on your life in your path would make you feel as though you were, as you say, jumping through the correct number of hoops."

"Well it's a !@#$ funny coincidence-"

"It was just that, SPYGOD," the ex-President says, finally getting his hands on that pesky, busted tooth and pulling it out for inspection, and disposal: "A coincidence. But at the same time, a coincidence you can believe in."

"The proper poetry of things," SPYGOD glowers: "And if I hadn't seen it was coming, what then?"

"You would have survived, and made certain that he did as well," the Imago says: "The ammunition we used on that train was not anywhere as harmful to you as what these guns are loaded with."

"And even if you did not save me, I would see to it that you were given the means to get here," the ex-President says, fishing in his pocket and holding out a small, black cube: "This key also opens the door."

"You !@#$ing idiot," SPYGOD says, looking at the man he's been bullying, beating, and carting around Russia for the last few days: "Why? What on Earth could have !@#$ing gotten you to go in with these things? Don't you know what they are? Don't you know what they do?"

"They came to me after I disappeared," the ex-President explains, his eyes suddenly wet and reverent: "I thought I could evade them, but they showed me the lie in that. And they told me of the Day, and the plan, and I realized that this was the moment my entire life was building towards."

"Really? What the !@#$ are you getting out of this? A lifetime supply of Vodka?"

"I will be leaving with them," he says, smiling: "When the Day comes, and this world is forfeited, I will be riding their ship with them. Together we will go into the darkness, hand in hand. I will know eternity, my friend. And you will help me."

"When the day comes?" SPYGOD asks, looking at the Imago.

"Oh yes, O SPYGOD," the Imago says: "We are surprised you had not pieced it together already. This is not an invasion.

"This is an escape."

* * *

As the President watches the encounter go on, he realizes he cannot make the shot. Not cleanly, anyway.

It will only be a matter of time before one of them reaches out, takes hold of Wen's face, and begins to drain his memories. At that point the entire game will be up, and everything they have worked for will be over. 

He decides on a course of action. It will not be clean, quick, or pretty, and it will leave no chance for escape at all, but he will have to do it.

He adjusts his aim. One shot to the knee will bring the man down so that his head is on the ground. And one more shot after that will turn that head to useless, red mush.

But two shots will delay him a few critical seconds, which will be all the time they will need to find him. And then all he'll be able to do is die in such a way that they learn nothing. 

He thinks of his wife as he does this. He wishes he could find a way to say goodbye, and that he loves, her, just one more time.

His finger is on the trigger, and he makes ready to pull it.

* * *

"O Wen Boxoing, I fear you are trying to tell us something," the Imago who's done most of the talking says: "What is it? What should we know? What are you so afraid of us knowing?"

The General Secretary unscrews his eyes and looks up at the floating, metal man. And in those eyes he realizes, for the first time, that he has misjudged this encounter. 

They were not here to kill him for his sins. They were not here to question his loyalties, or confirm their suspicions. 

They really did just want to know if he was alright, given that he went off the grid the last few days.

"I..." he stammers, realizing that he has condemned himself. There is no way out of this. They are going to kill him.

Unless...

* * *

"Getting out ahead of the big nasty thing you've been warning us about, huh?" SPYGOD asks, wishing he had a cigarette to pull on, right about now: "Yeah, I didn't really !@#$ing think you were going to save us."

"Exactly, O SPYGOD," the Imago says, gesturing to the room they are in: "The spacecraft is not meant to defend against (UNINTELLIGIBLE CONCEPT). If we wished to fight it, we would simply use Deep Ten, but even its mighty armaments will mean nothing to the creature when it arrives."

"It's meant to get them and their trusted servants off the planet in time," the ex-President says, the look of starry-eyed reverence still making his eyes glow as he turns to look at the Imago: "Everything that has been done... the orbital elevator, the harvesting of energy, the freeing of the Imago from their prison... all has been done to further this goal."

"Trusted servants," SPYGOD says, looking at his captive: "Your escape is built on the backs of the dead, Valentina."

"Isn't everyones?" the ex-President asks, smiling at his savior.

SPYGOD raises his gun and shoots the man in the skull, right in one temple and out the other, pulping his eyes in his sockets at the same time.

"A foolish gesture, O SPYGOD," the Imago says as their loving servant falls to the ground, dead as a stone: "Do you not imagine we already know everything that he does?"

"That wasn't protection for me, !@#$face," SPYGOD says, dropping his gun on the floor and raising his hands: "That was mercy for him. I'm sure whatever you had !@#$ing planned for him would have been !@#$ing awful."

"We merely would have used his energy to further our goals. Not a painless fate, but not awful either-"

"You took a walking weasel of a man who believed in nothing but what he could gather for himself, and made him believe in a cause higher than himself for the first time in his life. You filled his head with bliss and his heart with joy. And then you were going to !@#$ing pull the rug out from under him right when he thought his reward was due?"

"That is essentially correct, O SPYGOD-"

"Well, maybe they don't have the word 'cruel' where you come from, you metal !@#$-stain, but that's about as cruel as it gets."

"Oh, we understand cruelty, O SPYGOD. Perhaps better than you do."

"I !@#$ing doubt it-"

"You do not understand our story, O SPYGOD. You know only the edges of it. You know nothing of who we were, or how we came to be here, or why. You see our actions as evil, perhaps monstrous, but you of all people should know that a people will do anything to survive."

"And you should !@#$ing understand that we might have helped you, if you'd just !@#$ing asked," SPYGOD says: "All you ever had to !@#$ing do was ask for help."

"That is not in our nature, O SPYGOD." 

"Well, neither is rolling over and dying, O !@#$face. We will also do anything to survive. And if there's one thing I can do, it's do anything." 

"You can, indeed. We have clearly underestimated you, O SPYGOD. It will not happen again."

SPYGOD smiles as the Specials re-aim their guns right at him.

"Just so you know," SPYGOD says, looking right at the Imago: "Everything that !@#$ing happens from here on out? That's on you. All of you."

"It is indeed," the Imago says, and gives the order to fire.

* * *

The President of the United States of America pulls back on the trigger, making ready to shoot Wen Boxiong in the knee.

Wen Boxiong pulls out a small box and presses a button, expecting to get help from the man who's about to shoot him.

SPYGOD outstretches his arms, as if he is ready to embrace death at last. 

And then...

(SPYGOD is listening to Strobe: Fragments (Front 242) and having a Baltika no 6)

10/04/12 - I Will Never Be Clean Again - pt. 2

Of course, walking for "some time" turns out to be a long time. Several miles, in fact -- all done along a very old, very unsafe length of underground tunnel that seems ready to all come down at a moment's notice.

The walls writhe and pulse with generations of strangely-colored spiders the size of a young boy's hand, none of which care to skitter out of the way of the flashlight beam the way such things should. The ceiling and walls have collapsed in some areas, especially around the center of the city above, necessitating close squeezes and careful crawls around the falls.

And this means getting up close and personal with the legions of arachnids, leading to bites that they only hope aren't poisonous, or worse.

Along the way there are revelations -- broken doors and collapsed walls revealing treasures from a bygone age. Old soviet powersuits rust in the damp, awaiting a war that will never come, now. Rack upon rack of fully-grown clone soldiers rot in their jars, the preservatives having long since ceased to be worth the name. Harvested psychic brains still kept alive after all these years feebly whisper of missile launches yet to come, unaware that no one has listened to them for almost a quarter of a century.

"Ah, Sverdlovsk," SPYGOD says as he regards the ruins of a captured alien spacecraft more jellyfish than saucer: "You guys really had some weird !@#$ going on here, back in the day."

"You should know," the ex-President of Russia says, itching a very bad spiderbite at his neck: "You penetrated the defenses enough times, you and your men. Did you not stop to look? Or were we chasing you too swiftly?"

"Mission specific maneuvers, Valentina" he says, casting his flashlight back on the path ahead: "If you come for the crown jewels you don't have !@#$ing time to grab the Rolls Royce, too."

"Unless you can escape in it."

"Spoken like a true professional."

"And you would know, wouldn't you?"

"Says the man I caught !@#$ing napping in his safehouse," SPYGOD snorts: "How much were you paying that poor metal !@$ to be your human shield? You should get your money back."

"Perhaps I will," the ex-President says. And something about how he says it -- and how he reacts to SPYGOD's silence at the end of that reply -- tells SPYGOD that he knows what's coming next.

Which makes him just a little more dangerous, now. But it's not like he can get away from down here, now is it? All SPYGOD needs to do is step on the flashlight, and he's !@#$ing dead.

And the more he thinks of it, the more he thinks he might just do that.

* * *

The President of the United States of America breathes slowly, trying to enter the slow, grey space he needs to be in to make this shot work. He imagines the rifle as an extension of his own body: his eye the scope, his finger the barrel and the trigger.

The bullets his will to see this man dead.

He blanks his mind of any thoughts of that man. They did not work together, or talk together. He did not teach the man how to blend in better, and shake his security detail. They did not share confidences as one leader to another. They did not laugh at jokes or have that one meal, at a corner noodle place that the man liked to visit incognito.

He is not betraying him now, even though he is. 

But it is one betrayal for the freedom of the world. One death to save billions of lives.

"I'm sorry," the President says, wondering how true that really is. But it's now or never, never or now.

And then he takes a deep breath, compensates for the wind, and makes ready to pull the trigger back as soon as the target -- no longer deserving of a name -- comes into view.

Any second now.

* * *

"This is it," SPYGOD's captive says, gesturing to a sealed door to his left. It's a big, green, metal thing, with a keypad attached to it, and what looks like a rifle sight attached to that.

"The room containing all the !@#$ files on Unit 731," SPYGOD says: "That and all the equipment you had up there, trying to replicate their results. All grabbed and shoved down the memory hole after that little accident with the !@#$ing anthrax. Just like this city's old name, huh?"

"That would be correct," the man says: "But as always, the memory hole is not always final. We keep some things alive, just in case."

"And boy is that !@#$ing good for you," SPYGOD sneers: "Open it up. Let's see what's been keeping your sorry !@#$ alive for the last few days."

"But let me ask you this," the ex-President turns to look SPYGOD in the eye: "Do you really think you will have the time to find what you need to? There is a lot of information in there. Files upon files, in Japanese, Chinese, Russian... you would need an army to sift through it, and another to decode its many secrets."

"So you're saying it's too tough, and I should just !@#$ing quit?" 

"I'm not saying you should quit, but I am saying-"

A crack across the face with the butt end of a gun ends his sensible talk, and he holds his hand to his cheek, wondering if it's broken.

"You need to hear what I am saying, Valentina," SPYGOD says, getting right in his face and putting a finger right between his eyes: "Right now, you are looking at a desperate man. I have a planet to save, and so far the only way I've found to do it is to do something that is so !@#$ing terrible, that even I couldn't !@#$ing live with myself if I had to do it. And if anyone ever finds out that I did it, I'd be !@#$ing tossed in a cell and thrown into the !@#$ Sun to roast like a human marshmallow. 

"Now, do I look like I want to be turned into a !@#$ing human marshmallow, Valentina? Because something tells me you know the answer to that is 'no.' And that means that if the only way to find a solution to this problem is to go in there, get on my hands and knees, and root around like a pig to find out if there's something about GORGON that wasn't in the files in Beijing, then by God I will !@#$ing get on my hands and knees and root around like a !@#$ pig. I'll even !@#$ing squeal and roll around in mud if it'll help.

"Now are you going to help me save the world, or am I going to jam your !@#$ing skull into that retinal reader and guess at combinations until I get the right one?"

The ex-President looks at him, and then at the reader, and then goes to the door. He puts his eye up to the sight and types in a six-digit code. A light shines from inside the sight, and he steps back, squinting at its brightness.

And then, with a foul, metal-and-oil smell and a satanic hiss, the green metal door slides out, then in, and then to the left, revealing a dark hole beyond.

"On the third wrong try you would have triggered a bomb," he says, rubbing his zapped eye: "One that I think would have even killed you."

"Well, guess we'll never know, now," SPYGOD says, hoisting up his gun and looking inside.

* * *

At last, the target steps into view, and he's all alone. 

Wen Boxiong walks into the kill zone, looking like a condemned man on the way to the gallows. He's going slowly, as if he was in no hurry to get to work. And maybe he isn't.

The President adjusts his aim. All he needs is one good, clear shot, right through the medula oblongada, and this can all be over. The explosive ammunition will turn the man's head into a red cloud of smoke, wiping away all chance of the enemy finding out what he knows.

Wiping away all traces of there ever having been a conspiracy against their evil order. 

He hesitates for just a second, trying to rationalize this. Wondering if there really isn't any other way to do this. Couldn't they just talk? Can't they disappear together? Would that be so bad?

(SPYGOD screaming in his face. Hitting him repeatedly. Telling him he !@#$ed up everything. Never seeing his wife and daughters again. The world ending. God telling him he !@#$ed up the whole planet. Hell waiting just for him.)

Yes, it would be that bad.

He takes another deep breath, compensates once more for the wind, and again makes ready to pull the trigger back. The man, the tool, and the weapon, all united in purpose to do one swift and terrible thing, here and now. 

But just before he can, there's a weird light, all around Wen. He stops in his tracks and looks up, and suddenly he is surrounded by four Imago, who float around him like metal angels.

And one of them is blocking the President's shot.

* * *

SPYGOD roughly pushes his unwilling companion into the dark room ahead of him. Then he stalks in after, gun up and ready to fire, scanning it from left to right as he slowly puts one foot in front of the other.

The room is large and circular. It is lit with passive lighting systems that come on as they enter, creating a dull aura of visibility that's just enough to see by, but not much more than that.

But he doesn't need it, or his eye, to tell that there's nothing in this room.

Nothing at all.

"What the !@#$ing !@#$..." he says, turning in a circle, astounded by this.

"It is empty, my friend," the ex-President says, shrugging: "Even you can see that?"

"There's nothing here."

"That is what they mean by empty-" the man starts to say, but is quickly silenced by a rough blow to the face, sending him sprawling across the floor, teeth falling from his mouth as he goes.

"Where is it?" SPYGOD screams: "Where the !@#$ is the information, !@#$hole? Where are the files? Where is the !@#$ you got from the Japanese?"

"Gone," the ex-President says, struggling to get to his feet: "Destroyed."

"What do you mean, gone, destroyed?"

"I mean gone, and destroyed," he says, slowly rising and fixing SPYGOD with a look: "I saw to its removal and burning not that long ago, actually. A little over six months ago, in fact."

"Why?" SPYGOD hisses, stomping over and shoving his gun under the man's chin: "Why the !@#$ did you get rid of it?"

"In case this happened," he says, still giving SPYGOD the look: "And look, it has. I guess we deduced your moves correctly, my friend."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you think that it was too convenient that you actually found me?" the ex-President says, smiling with more than a little contempt in spite of the gun in his face: "You should have known me better than that, SPYGOD. I've been playing this game long enough to stay hidden, should I want to."

"So you wanted me to find you, and bring you here, to an empty !@#$ing room," SPYGOD says, getting ready to punch him again: "Why?"

"So they could have you."

"They who?" SPYGOD demands, but he already knows the answer to that question.

They're teleporting in, even now.

(SPYGOD is listening to Collision (Front 242) and having a Stary Melnik) 

10/04/12 - I Will Never Be Clean Again - pt. 1

Wen Boxiong does not get out of bed to turn his alarm off. He never does.

The piercing noise wakes him up, yes, but he does not leave his bed to be done with its annoyance. Instead he lies in his bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to catch the last vestiges of his dreams before they leave him. To let the final, fleeting strands of them play out as they will, before they are gone forever.

As a young boy he was saddened that his dreams were so quickly forgotten, shortly after waking. He did not want to leave the warm cocoon they had spun around his mind at night., but he could not catch them like this, then. He had to go to school, or to work, or to attend his mother's endless needs, and she was not one to let him lie about dreaming in his bed.

After one memorable occasion, in which the sweetest dream imaginable was shattered by her screaming in his face to wake up, he swore that when he was older, and no longer under her roof, he would not let a single dream go unresolved. He would watch them leave as gently as they came, and only then -- when their edges had blurred and plots had fallen to pieces, and there was no more joy to be had from them -- would he rise to meet the day.

And so he did.

This extended arrangement with his dreams has not always been easy. He has had to rise from slumber earlier than he would like in order to have the time to let the visions leave of their own accord without being late for his responsibilities. He has never had anyone stay the entire night with him, as their presence there would complicate his sleeping and waking. And this lack of total togetherness has all but ensured that his liaisons have been short and one-sided.

(Except for the time with her, but that was strenuous and strange, and left him erotically inspired and politically elevated, but broken inside.)

But he is happy with this. His dreams are his own, now and forever. No one can take them from him. And they come and go at his choosing.

Which is why, when his alarm goes off today, he lets it ring and ring for a full hour, until it shuts off by itself. He watches the dreams until they are shambling parodies of what they were when he first opened his eyes. And he cries to see them leave at last.

Because he knows this is the last day. The last morning. The last dream.

Today he will look in the mirror and see a man condemned.

* * *

SPYGOD doesn't so much wake up as crack himself back into motion, as though someone flipped a switch in his skull. He stands straight up, tenses and relaxes his muscles, cracks every joint in his body in one loud wave, and grunts. He blinks one eye, does a 360 scan with the other, and farts loud enough to wake the dead.

He's spent all night sitting in the corner of the underground bolthole he's sharing with the ex-President of Russia, hovering over the ridiculously-opulent vodka he appropriated for the revolution, yesterday. Why it costs three million dollars a bottle he'll never know; he's had a lot better for far cheaper. He figures it must be all the gold and gems on the outside of the glass, rather than what's sloshing around inside of it.

(Which probably explains everything anyone ever needed to know about life, quite frankly.)

SPYGOD has to be very !@#$ careful when looking at himself in the mirror. If he looks at himself straight on, the Chandra Eye creates an infinite and baffling series of reflections. Its much like being between two mirrors in a fancy hotel elevator, only without the eventual curve into grainy dissolution; he can literally see into the far, deep pit of the eternity inside him, one slightly-more-warped reflection at a time.

The first time it happened, not long after he put the eye in his skull, he stared at himself for days on end, and had to be roughly pushed out of the way to break the spell. Since then, it's only happened a few times, and he's usually been able to pull himself out of it after an hour or two. So he closes his eye to shave, doesn't bother with rear view mirrors when driving, and if he has to argue with himself, he does it while looking into whatever he's drinking at the time.

And he is almost always drinking something.

* * *

The President of the United States of America drinks water as he stands before the bathroom mirror. Two glasses a day, every day, right after he gets up and before he takes his shower. It re-hydrates, gets the digestive system working, and makes sure his vitamins get absorbed correctly.

And, recently, he's been using it to center himself, and hold onto his true identity in spite of everything that's happened. 

He looks at himself in the mirror as he does this, observing the false Asian face he's been wearing since he got to China. He does not like it. He looks like a weird amalgam of his own features and something else. Maybe someone he could have met in his childhood, in Malaysia.

Sometimes, he imagines that he's not the one doing these things, here. All the questionable things he's done since he teamed up with SPYGOD to save America -- to save the world, for that matter -- have been done by this strange character he sees in the mirror. It's been his hands shaking hands with the most powerful man in China. His lips making poisoned promises.

His fingers to be around the trigger of the gun that kills him, today.

He doesn't like having to do this. He knew it was a possibility -- possibly even an eventuality -- but he'd allowed himself to hope that, when it was all over, they could all just go their separate ways and say nothing of it. What would it matter if the leaders of two nations worked together to save the world from an invasion? What did they really do that was so terrible that it might later turn into blackmail or extortion?

But no. I would appear that the Imago have found out what he knows, somehow. They know that he told them about the lockup of information gleaned from Unit 731. They know why that's relevant, and why SPYGOD is in Russia, right now. They have even tried to kill SPYGOD, there, to stop him.

And if they choose to press their hand, Wen might tell them that the President of the United States is in the country, working alongside him. And that would be very bad for everyone involved.

Especially the President.

So today, when the man walks from his apartments to their house of government, as the President knows he will, he will be waiting for him, with a very powerful gun. He will assassinate him from a few football fields away, and then get as far away from Beijing as he can.

And hope it's enough.

He looks at this strange man in the mirror. He remembers the time that, when he wore his own face, he ordered young men and women to go and kill in the name of their country. He wonders if they, too, had some kind of similar ritual, or if they took full personal responsibility for the terrible but necessary things they did for their country.

The man in the mirror doesn't have an answer. Just an alien expression that's going to haunt his wearer for the rest of his life.

* * *

The Ex-President of Russia does not look at himself in the mirror. Not once. Not ever.

* * *

"Alright, President !@#$face," SPYGOD says at some point, pretending to look at his watch: "It's time."

"I suppose it is," his guest says, getting to his feet. He looks terrible, frankly: puffy and red-eyed, with some nasty bruises around his face. Too many transpistol shots over too many days have turned his muscles brittle, and liable to snap and bleed. 

But that part of the journey is done, now. No more reverse gender assaults on his person. He needs to be who and what he is for this next bit to work. 

"Do you remember how to get there?" SPYGOD asks as they step out into the corridor of the unlit tunnel, apparently not worried about all the large, nasty-looking spiders that crawl over the damp and crumbling walls. 

"I do," the ex-President of Russia says: "We go left at the next junction, then right, and then left. And then we walk for some time."

"Any security we need to worry about?"

"No. Not down this deep. The only things you could find down here without someone like myself along would be supply closets and empty rooms."

"Well, good thing I've got you, huh?" SPYGOD smiles, gesturing with his flashlight: "You first."

"I would like a flashlight."

"I would like a billion rubles, ten ladyboys, and a steak the size of a card table. Start !@#$ing walking or I'll drag your sorry !@#$ behind me."

 

"Very well. But if I slip and fall-"

 

"Listen !@#$-o," SPYGOD hisses, grabbing the man by the lapel and yanking him uncomfortably close: "All I need to get into this room is directions and one of your eyes. I got the one, and the other doesn't need to be in your !@#$ head, now does it?"

 

There's a moment of silence as the two men look at each other, and then the ex-President nods, and, as soon as SPYGOD lets go of him, walks forward into the darkness, doing his best to stay in the splash of light his captor's flashlight provides.

 

There is nothing to do but walk, now. And if he knows he's going to his death, he's doing it rather bravely. 

 

But that will not deter his killer -- not one !@#$ bit. 

 

* * *

 

In Beijing, not too far from the houses of government, there's a building. In that building is a room with a window that, if you strained your eyes just so, you could almost see a decent amount of a certain walkway from. 

 

And if you had a high-powered rifle scope, you could see that walkway perfectly, and have quite a decent amount of visible space to set up a good killshot.

The President of the United States of America sits there, in that building, in that window, with the rifle in his hands and his eyes in that scope. 

Thanks to the emergency call box they gave Wen Boxiong, all that time ago, he knows that the man is on the move. He knows he and his small security detail will be in sight in a minute or so. And he knows that, with this gun, and the ammunition in it, he only needs one good shot to destroy the man from the neck-up, robbing the Imago of the ability to use his dead brain for any information.

He knows these things, but he does not like them. He also does not like that he planted a bomb back at his apartment that will not only destroy his rooms, but might also cause a fire that will bring the whole building down. He likes that he only needs to press a button to set it off remotely, but he knows that when the moment comes, he'll probably hesitate a few seconds, wondering if he should call in a threat first so that the building is evacuated.

 

He does not like knowing that, in spite of that hesitation, he will press it, anyway. His training is too strong for moral objections, now. What they have to do is too important to waste time or sentiment over. 

There is nothing to do but kill, now. And as he waits for the General Secretary of China to step into his field of fire, he feels like a !@#$ coward.

But that will not deter him. Not in the slightest. 

(SPYGOD is listening to The Figurehead (The Cure) and having a Толстяк)

9/30/12 - Bodies In Motion - Pt. 3 - Toys as Tall as Men

The room is dark -- lit only in patches -- and full of strange things, all promising pleasure and pain.

A naked, pudgy man hangs from the ceiling, suspended by straps and chains. An older woman stands in front of him, wearing a one-piece suit so white it almost has a light of its own. 

"Listen to me," the woman is whispering into the man's ear, while holding his !@#$ so hard that it's a wonder it doesn't explode in her hand like a ripe, pulpy tomato: "What we do is secret. What we do is safe. I will show you things you can never believe, but must never reveal. And in return, you will do what I want, whenever I want, so long as you may live."

She squeezes his manhood just that much harder, and blood begins to dribble from it: "Do you understand?" she hisses.

"Yes..." a much younger Wen Boxiong says, lost in the ecstasy of this one moment-

* * *

It's morning in Beijing, and an older, much larger Wen Boxiong wakes to find a hauntingly familiar scent in the air.

He blinks and rises, wondering if it's just something from a dream. But then he inhales deeply, and realizes that the smell isn't something he's imagined. It is all too real.

It is her.

He looks over at the table by his bed, where he keeps his glasses and teeth. A small, delicately-folded note sits there, tucked right under his glasses.

He puts them on and opens it up without hesitation, and with all due haste. As he reads the words he gasps, and holds his hand to his mouth. His eyes close tightly, and he knows fear and arousal in near-equal measure.

The Botanical Garden, the note instructs: Noon. Alone. 


She doesn't need to sign it. He knows her handwriting and style of delivery all too well. And if that wasn't enough, the scent of her perfume is unique in the world.

The Lady of Pain has come back to see him, and tonight he will either know love or death.

* * *

On a day like today, there is no time to be hesitant.

He changes his entire schedule, including his after-dinner meeting with the American President in disguise. He tells his security detail that they will accompany him on a tour of the city, but that they are to leave him after a certain point, and yet continue to radio in that he is with them. He will rejoin them at his residence, later, and they are to tell no one of this.

He picks out a suitable disguise, like the American President taught him to. A reversible coat, a ballcap, and bad shoes will make him look like an entirely different man, and the special contact lenses he pockets will confuse any optical scanners. 

(He mulls bringing the small, boxlike emergency communicator his new allies have given him, but decides to leave it back here; if she finds it on him, it's unlikely he will survive the encounter.)

He makes certain that various things are seen to, around his official apartment. There are some secrets that may come to light after his disappearance, or death, and he cannot control them. But there are other secrets that he can control, and these are hidden in such a way that his new allies will find them. Hopefully they will know what to do with these things, but if they don't, then it will no longer be any of his concern.

All that done, he takes his leave of the place -- possibly for the last time -- gets into a waiting car with his security detail, and prepares himself to do something he thought he'd never have to do again.

Not since she spurned him, anyway. 

* * *

The hasty plan goes better than he had hoped. 

He ditches his security team on cue, in a place where he knows the security cameras are broken and the advertisements old and useless, and they do not so much as blink an eye. He slips into a public restroom that isn't used that much, locks himself into a toilet stall, and changes his clothing. He puts the contacts in, hating the sting of them, but consoling himself that having red eyes will make him just that much less recognizable to others.

The change done, he goes out into public a different man, unworthy of special attention. He strides meekly and humbly through the crowded streets of the city, pretending to marvel at the new devices being installed on streetcorners and tall buildings, and be reverent to the Imago who float nearby, watching.

It's an educational journey. He almost gets pickpocketed waiting for a light. Older women make eyes at him and younger men sneer in his direction. When he gets onto the bus for the gardens, he only sits for two stops before he's impolitely urged to rise and remain standing so that some other, high party people he knows only by reputation can sit down.

(He amuses himself with how funny it would be to reveal his identity to them. It doesn't quite make up for how rude their minder is, but that can be dealt with another time. Hopefully.)

After all that, the actual ride to the gardens is quick and tidy -- almost anticlimactic. He gets there, pays to be let in just like any other person, and walks through the new, large security gate they placed there. No one calls or shouts after him as he walks through it, so it would appear the contacts work exactly as advertised.

But somehow that does not make him feel very secure.

* * *

The Lady did not tell him where they would meet, but he has a good idea where to find her. 

The tomb of Liang Qichao and his wife is in the northeast part of the garden. It's as much of a tourist attraction as any, but people tend to go there in small knots and clusters, if at all. It makes it a good place for two people to meet and have a quiet conversation while pretending to be admiring the scenery.

As he approaches, for a moment he finds himself hoping that she will not be there. Part of him hopes that this has all been a mistake -- maybe some kind of weird joke on his other ally's part -- and that he will get there, and be surprised to find that man instead, perhaps dressed as a woman. Or maybe this is some practical test on the American President's part, both to see how Wen would react to such a thing, and to ask him about that one, black secret in his new contact's somewhat-checkered past...

But no. He doesn't need to get more than halfway to the pavilion before he sees her there, resting up against a structure and looking right at him. She's dressed in a white coat with a long, round hat, and smoking a black cigarette on a long, white stem.

And she is as beautiful and terrible as ever.

He smiles. She does not smile back. He drops the smile and walks towards her, hoping this will be over quickly.

"You are late," the woman says as soon as he gets within earshot, her accent betraying a German heritage.

"The bus took longer-"

"No excuses, Wen Boxiong. I expect promptness, or have you forgotten?"

"I have not forgotten," he says: "But you told me never to expect to see you again."

"That is still no excuse for being late," she says, tapping her cigarette out. The smell of it excites his senses -- sweet, earthy tobacco with just the slightest hint of something else.

"No, it is not. I am sorry."

She smiles, puts her cigarette holder away, and pats his cheek: "I accept your apology. I am sure you were just confused, after all these years. You clearly have forgotten a few things."

"And some things I have not forgotten," he says, holding his hand to where she touched him: "And never will."

"I am glad to hear that," she says, taking his other hand in hers: "I am sure you were hurt by how I ended things."

"Yes," he admits.

"And I am sure that, being hurt, you were angry."

"I could not be-"

"Do not lie to me, Wen," she says, squeezing the hand in all the right spots to create an intense flare of pain: "You never could then and you cannot now."

"Yes," he admits, yanking his hand away and holding it: "I was angry. I still am."

"But you came, anyway."

"If I did not come, then the next time I saw you there would be no chance to talk."

"No," she says, smiling: "I suppose not. Do you still fear me?"

"Yes."

"Do you still want to fuck me?"

That word. The way she says "!@#$," like it had just been invented and unveiled for the first time. A million sense-memories exploding in his mind, like fireworks. Pain and pleasure, completion and rejection, love and hate. 

Having it all and then watching it leave him.

"Yes," he breathes, closing his eyes and letting her scent overtake him.

"Well then," she says, turning and indicating that he should follow: "That's a start, at least."

* * *

They walk in silence, for a time, until they are all alone on a path.

She lets him kiss her, then -- hard on the mouth. She places his hands under her coat, revealing that she's not wearing anything under it. She lets him explore her, there, under her coat, his hands and heart building to an amazing crescendo of desire.

And then, just as he might be wanting to pull out his !@#$ and put it inside her, she jabs a very long, very thin, glass needle right under his breastbone, and into his heart.

He gasps in surprise, but not pain. Oddly enough there is no pain, any more than there is blood.

But the look in her eyes is terrifying. There is no love or warmth there, anymore. Merely hate.

"You betrayed me," she states, simply: "You took the thing that I gave you and gave it to another."

"Yes," he says, knowing that it would not be a good idea to lie, right now.

"You told an outsider about what was locked down in those files I gave you dominion over."

"Yes... I did-"

"I want you to tell me why you did this."

He hesitates for a moment, and she nudges the glass needle ever so slightly. The pain it produces is explosive, and for a second he almost screams. But she clamps her other hand over his mouth before he can, somehow holding him up and in place with just one arm.

"No lies," she says: "Nothing held back. It is not yet too late for you to live through this. But I want you to tell me everything, even if I do not ask for it. Do you understand?"

He nods. Oh yes, does he ever understand.

And as soon as she takes her hand from his mouth, he tells her everything she wants to know.

* * *

Later, when Wen Boxiong gets back to his apartment, he only gets as far as his living room before he falls to his knees and vomits. He does this for what seems like hours, wracked by horrible chest pain as he does. And when he has thrown up everything in his gullet he cries and sobs for what seems hours more.

He told her everything. He told her about the American President. He told her about SPYGOD. He told her about their interest in Unit 731. 

!@#$ him to !@#$, he even told her why they wanted to know.

And when it was all done, and there was no more left to tell, she just looked at him, pulled the needle out of his heart as swiftly as she'd pushed it in, and left him to writhe in pain on the path.

"You will never see me again," she said, licking the blood from the needle: "I won't bother to kill you. You have done a good enough job of that already."

"Please..." he whimpered, holding out a hand: "I love you..."

"You do not even know what that word means," she hissed, stamping her foot onto his chest. He screamed and collapsed into a ball, mewling in pain. And when he finally came to, she was long gone.

No, he will never see her again. He knows this. And it would have been kinder if she'd just killed him.

But she might tell the Imago of what she now knows. She might want to do a deal with them. She may want to bring the entire arrangement crashing down around Wen Boxiong's head.

Can he tell the President? Should he? Does he dare risk SPYGOD's anger?

He doesn't know what to do, now, except to cry.

And so he does.

* * *

On the outskirts of Beijing, late that night, a woman in a white coat looks up at the sky, focusing on the stars.

Inside the city, you can't see a !@#$ thing, up above all the reflected light. Even out here it's hard to make it all out, with the clouds and smog. But at least it's a better view than in there, and even that's a better view than she'd have ever gotten back home.

Home. It seems a million lifetimes ago, now. She thinks of everything about it that she's missed, and tried to replicate here, and finds herself tearing up a little.

So she closes her eyes on her tears, and opens her mind up.

Are you there, my love? she asks her partner, who, though he may be halfway around the world from her, is always just one directed thought away: (REDACTED), are you there?

I am, Geri Yesterday, comes the languorous reply: I am a little busy, though. The three toys I brought back to my room are proving to be most distracting.

I'm sure, she says, luxuriating in the sensual backwash she's getting from the edges of his mind: But please, lover, don't call me that, anymore. That role is done, now. 

As mine should be-

Not quite, she thinks, feeling his pleasure as he watches the life slip slowly from one of his "toys": I have just learned some disturbing things from one of my old tools. 

Let me guess, lover, he replies: my damn twin is still in play, after all?

Yes, she says, somehow not surprised that he knew this, or kept this knowledge from her: And he's learned about the connection between the people we bargained with and the information that was hidden here, in China. 

I think he's learned about the Object, too, he says, sensing her curiosity at his motives, and doing his best to block them from her: He may have an idea on how they all fit together.

That could be a problem.

I don't fucking think so. So what if he destroys these metal-clad aliens? We'll still get what we need-

I'm not convinced. They may not have told us everything we need to know to make the device work. And if he manages to destroy them...

... then we won't know for certain until we activate it at home, he finishes her thought: That is a concern.

Especially since, once they're gone from this world, we won't have anywhere else to go if the device doesn't work.

You know, you really do know how to ruin a perfectly good artfuck, love, he sighs, killing the other two without much panache or pleasure: Where is (REDACTED)?

I do not know where your twin is. 

Find out for me?

I think you can find that out on your own, lover, she says, smiling: Consider it due payment for not telling me what you knew, before.

A fair price, he chuckles: Are you going to tell those metal fucks what you've learned, then? 

The line goes dead in his mind, and the SPYGOD from Alter-Earth shrugs, knowing that the !@#$ he's been sharing a mission -- and occasionally a bed -- with for almost an entire century will do whatever the !@#$ she's going to do.

As for him, he'll get on the trail of his unknowing enemy in the morning. But for now, there's art to make of these three, dead toys.

And he's not going to stop until he's convinced the most horror-hardened member of Capetown's police force will cry for hours after seeing what he's done with them.

(SPYGOD is listening to Splintered In Her Head (The Cure) and having a Naale Stoutbeer)