8/10/12 - The Big !@#$ Story So Far - Saving the Big !@#$ World 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 Presidents (but had to shoot one).

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


And NOT the assassin of the President of the United States of America, though that's the least of his !@#$ing problems, right now.

(Or the big !@#$ing problem that's coming after that...)

The problem now is that, after more than half a century of trying, the science terrorist outfit known as GORGON has succeeded where all would-be world conquerors, megalomaniac super villains, invading aliens, and evil gods have failed. In their new, much friendlier guise of Imago, they have conquered planet Earth while claiming to have saved it. And they are now in the process of transforming it into what they might call paradise, but could only be the most horrible of hells to anyone who cherishes human rights, economic freedom, and self-determination.

Someone like SPYGOD, in other words.

Unfortunately, while he knew something really !@#$ bad was coming, he was not on this Earth to prevent it. And, by the time he finally got back, with the not-dead President, it was all over. All resistance had been either gently brushed away or ruthlessly crushed. The future is being shaped, the past is being rewritten, and the present is under complete control. 

Or so they think...

But let's back the train up a bit. You know what's happened up until now, but how did we get from the President being shot dead on live television to his being alive, and at SPYGOD's side as he plans the liberation of the planet?

As with most things having to do with SPYGOD, the answer is a !@#$ing doozy.

The simple answer is that the President who was shot was not the !@#$ing President, even if he was. He was actually the same person, only from Alter Earth: the terminally !@#$ed-up prime parallel to our world.

The false President was swapped for the real one, who was snatched and grabbed, and taken to Alter Earth's perverse version of Neo York City. Then he was "installed" at the bottom of a temple dedicated to the sacred mysteries of never-ending atrocity, so he could sit, watch helplessly, and go !@#$ing mad.

Because they could. Because they thought it was !@#$ing funny. 

Meanwhile, his hapless doppelganger was shot and killed by a man that not even SPYGOD knew existed: The SPYGOD of Alter Earth, who has apparently been operating in secret on our world for quite some time (mostly !@#$ing with poor Mr. USA, which explains a good deal of that man's antipathy for SPYGOD) and was so good at staying out of sight that not even SPYGOD knew he existed.

To his credit, SPYGOD realized that something !@#$ bad was going to go down that day. Unfortunately, he went the wrong direction in search of his antagonists, and by the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. All he could do was pilot his stolen Nazi UFO out to Nevada, and hide out with the Free Toon Nation for a time, seeing as how they sort of owed him one.

Meanwhile, things went straight down the !@#$ing toilet for his allies -- especially Dosha Josh, who lost his beloved teleporter, Daksha, in a retaliatory attack. A mysterious Colonel was assigned to bring SPYGOD down, only to encounter the horrid, Russian fury of his strange, gun-totting cat, BeeBee.

In the wake of New Man being appointed the interim director of The COMPANY, and The Dragon being tasked to aid in bringing SPYGOD down, Myron -- that is Underman -- chose to say "!@#$ no." However, this was all part of a plan that had been set in motion some time ago, and gave him an opportunity to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right level of authority to be useful.

(More on that later)

SPYGOD stayed with the Toons until he either drank himself sober, or they got tired of his drunken self pity and smacked him back into motion (depending on which version of the truth you believe). During, before, or after that, he did some thinking and planning, in anticipation of some great disaster to strike on March 15th, and got back in the saddle in a big way.

He decamped to scenic, sunny Key West, assembling a team of Strategic Talents, assassins, sell-swords, and highly !@#$ing dangerous beings along the way. And then he kidnapped the vampire formerly known as Ernest !@#$ing Hemingway, and held him in his safehouse on the Key.

Yes, son, you read that right. Ernest Hemingway is a vampire, courtesy of the long-established vampire bloodline of Cuba. And SPYGOD needed him to help them get into the dreaded House of Blood, all as part of a plan designed to extinguish that nasty group of bloodsuckers, end the existence of one of the more terrifying (in)human monsters he had ever had to deal with, before, and use The COMPANY's Flier to free Cuba from Communist tyranny for once and for all.

(That and finally pay that bastard !@#$ Castro back for a multitude of offenses and impositions, not least of which was being indirectly responsible for the death of his beloved brother, Ignacio, all those years ago.)

But as epic and shattering as all that !@#$ was, it was just a feint done to distract The COMPANY from his true objective: rescuing a young man with incredible -- and incredibly dangerous -- powers from Detention Camp Z, in Guantanamo Bay. He would need his dimensional-shifting abilities to get to Alter Earth and rescue the President, and, after making a few more stops along the way -- and reclaiming an ally in Mr. USA , after a very overdue heart-to-heart -- he did exactly that.

What kinds of !@#$ they stepped in over there is best left unsaid. Suffice to say that, at the end of that "adventure," both he and Mr. USA had faced an evil so pure and true that it almost broke both of them. And then, after succeeding against great and unexpected odds, they were undone by the mental instability of the troubled young man SPYGOD relied on to get them all home.

The good news? SPYGOD and the President were returned to Earth. The bad news? Mr. USA is lost, perhaps dead (or worse).

And the worst news of all? They returned months after the event SPYGOD had been warned about had come to pass. The Ides of March had come and gone, and with it the world's freedom -- taken by a deadly old enemy masquerading as a mysterious new friend.

GORGON had this well planned, alright. They slowly substituted key people with their own Falsefaces, taking control of the Ice Palace through Dr. Yesterday, the Central Intelligence Agency through its Director, Deep-Ten through Colonel Straffer, and then, in the last moments of preparation, the Flier, itself. They stocked the COMPANY, the Heptagon, and the Flier with their own Falsefaces, masquerading as faceless, armored troops called Specials. And they went after any and all Strategic Talents that might oppose them, along with any witnesses to what they had actually done to the President, or those who figured out that something was amiss.

When the date came, ignorant armies armed with amazing new weapons attacked the governments of the world, supposedly under the orders of the United States of America. The military installations, missile sites and submarines, and large civilian airstrips were blasted into atoms by the mighty particle cannons of Deep-Ten. The world held its breath, wondering what was going to happen next.

But then came the brightly-colored, metal-armored "saviors," teleporting in and floating down to stop the guerrilla armies -- suddenly no longer able to use their weapons -- from assassinating the world's captured leaders. These Imago claimed to have been the amazing supergods of old, banished so long ago, but now back, both to save humanity from America's dire plot, and from some strange, looming threat from outer space.

SPYGOD's allies -- and enemies -- tried to fight this off. After fulfilling his long-anticipated part in SPYGOD'S early warning from months ago, Myron found a way to temporarily disable GORGON technology, and used it to escape the Heptagon. But when he got to the White House to warn the President, he discovered that GORGON had not only beaten him there, but had been there all along. 

Meanwhile, after being supposedly killed by The Dragon -- who showed his true colors, and shape, at last -- Second and New Man tried to retake the Flier, only to be witness to its stunning transformation, and the raising of some strange city from the Pacific Ocean. Second bravely sacrificed himself to try and deny both himself and the Flier to the enemy, but only succeeded in suicide.

But no one would know of this horrible battle. The eyes and ears of the world went silent, only to be reopened some time later by Imago, once they had complete control of the Internet. And with all information running through them, they began to reshape people's opinions, hopes, and dreams, and then entire nations, to suit their needs.

Some resisted. Some investigated.

Some ran and hid. Some waited for the end.

Some were spared. Far too many were not so lucky. 

And in America, those who had supposedly shepherded the nonexistent plot to take over the world were put on trial, made to testify against one another, and then executed by being send on a one-way ride to the top of a space elevator. The last person to die in this fashion was the former Vice President, who went to his end with a grace not seen by many, and a great and terrible secret burning on his tongue.

(Though not for long, one hopes)

All this was waiting for SPYGOD, when he and the President returned to Earth. They landed close to Choibalsan, Mongolia: an area that had some history with him, and a questionable ally, who was more than willing to inform them as to what had happened.

Saying they took it badly is something of an understatement. SPYGOD's solution to the problem was to wander out into the desert and try to drink himself back into shape. But, after a very strange interlude involving Mongolian Shamans, talkative (and loving) ghosts, a visit to a parallel Earth's strange future, and fighting alongside its version of Jim Morrison, he returned, renewed and ready to tackle the world.

And that is exactly what he will have to do, this time. All the governments, everywhere, have been taken over. There are eyes and ears everywhere, and the televisions are watching us back.

That's not his only obstacle, either. Apparently still unbeknownst to him, METALMAID is still out there, ready to try and kill him, with or without her questionable allies. Old villains await, old rivals are hiding, and who knows what the !@#$ Aaron and the Beautiful Stranger are up to.

And beyond them all is Moloch, still waiting for a rematch...

Does he have a plan? No, probably not.

Does he have allies? Yes, but he'll have to find them, again, or make them.

Does he have a hope in !@#$? Maybe. But he doesn't have the time to !@#$ around on this one.

SPYGOD. Still a massive !@#$hole. Still our !@#$hole. And ready and willing to save the whole !@#$ world.

If he can get away with it.

(SPYGOD is listening to Rage Hard (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) and making his plans in secret.)

7/3-7/12 - The Gate is Straight, Deep, and Wide - pt. 5

You know, son, when I realized that I was actually !@#$ing immortal, and not just long-lived, anymore, I had a few nights when I lay awake, staring at the !@#$ing ceiling, and wondering what life might be like in the far, far future.

It was the 60's, and I was between missions, and I couldn't get that one !@#$ing  'in the year 2525' song out of my !@#$ head. And I wondered, if I lived long enough to see the year 9595, what would it look like? Would any of my friends be there with me? Would I actually have a !@#$ing purpose, or would I be some weird-!@#$ creature in a zoo for Martians, or something?

Would I really want to be there?

Well, son, it's the year three billion and change, and this parallel future Earth's interpretation of Jim Morrison and I are fighting like madmen to save what's left of this !@#$ed-up ball of dust from angry, walking cities carrying a techno-virus, localized entropy gone bad and rotten, and a decidedly non-Christian form of Jesus Christ.

All at !@#$ing once, no less.

The good news is that, even in this world, Jim's still got his sword and his his combat magic, and a keen focus that he didn't used to have, back in our world. The better news is that he was able to magic me up some big !@#$ing guns that don't seem to run out of ammo, much less miss.

(Even better news? He found me the world's last stash of tjbang sticks, and boy do I feel !@#$ing good right now to be chewing on a handful.)

But, as you might guess, there is bad news.

For one thing, the Moon's about to crash into the Earth, right over our !@#$ing heads, courtesy of a really !@#$ing weird thing. For another, an army of killer angels is flying here to destroy us for you-know-who, courtesy of His having returned at the worst possible !@#$ing moment, ever.

And, last but not least, and most !@#$ing pressing, we're running out of room to fight the !@#$ bio-automatons the anti-city we've just landed in is sending out to capture and convert us.

"You know," Jim says as he throws a wave of white-hot fire from the flat of his sword, boiling several cyborg brains in the process: "I really don't like this scene, man."

"Yeah?" I reply, firing away and relishing the utter lack of recoil on these things: "What's !@#$ing wrong with it, other than the obvious?"

"Expiring these people, man. They're just victims in all this. It's not really their fault this city got hijacked and decided to eat them all up."

"You got that !@#$ right," I tell him, nailing another wave of battle-borgs right in the groin, and watching with no little satisfaction as the blasts make their legs violently separate from their hips, dropping them to the ground like maimed cartoon characters: "But I think they'll !@#$ing thank you for it, later."

"They'll probably be the only ones left," he laughs, pulling off some complicated sword- and spell-craft to try and clear us a path so we can be done with this !@#$ faster. But we've got miles to go before then, waves upon waves of frenzied borgs to fight through, and I can see the !@#$ing waves of killer angels from here...

He sees the angels, too, and then something in him changes. The worry and concern are gone, suddenly, as though someone turned those feelings off from inside his skull. He half sings, half speaks a poem that I know all too !@#$ing well:

Bird of prey

Bird of prey

Flying high

Am I going to die...?

And then leaps behind me, watching my back with his sword and sorceries so I can blast our way through the waves with these lovely, big !@#$ing guns his magic has provided for me. With that change in tactics (which, to be honest, I should have !@#$ing thought of first) our way just got a little !@#$ing easier.

Will it be enough to succeed? !@#$ed if I know. But as the moon comes down so low it almost looks like we can reach up and write "!@#$ YOU" in its surface dust, I remember that Jim is never more !@#$ing magnificent than when the odds are stacked against him, the stakes are all-or-nothing, and the end is well and !@#$ing nigh.

So there's really no way we can lose this one, is there?

* * *

Did I mention this was turning out to be the craziest skull!@#$ing I ever embarked on? 

I don't know if it was the radioactive mares milk I was slugging, the Mongolian Shamans, the dead they whistled up, or that spectacular session of ghost-!@#$ing that I and my best ever frenemy had, back at the campfire. But I came to in this strange future on an alternate Earth, and here's Jim Morrison (More, as he's called here) to ply me with strange wine and listen to my numerous troubles. 

Of course, there's a trip involved. Ours takes us over a nearby Anti-City, slowly stalking its way to Yul4n-B4tt4r, and a close scan of its layout and defenses. Jim tells me it's part of the !@#$ing plan, too, but he's still figuring out what that plan is.

Not that he has a lot of time, by that point, given the Moon and the Angels and Jesus !@#$ing Christ, back and wanting to reign in blood. But there's a certain ritual about these kinds of things, as I've found out time and again with him, and he's not eager to disrupt the magic just to adhere to my sense of urgency in the face of the Moon coming in to crack this Earth open like a !@#$ing egg.

"You just got to be, man, you dig?" he tells me, pouring me more of that weird, bubbling, black wine as we rocket past the last line of the Anti-City's defenses and hurtle back into the deserts, well clear of its ability to harm us: "We're engaging in sweet subterfuge of the rules of the world, here. Every step we take from here on out is predestined for greatness, but only if we remain aware that the dance is half choice, half chance. You go too far one way or the other, and it's all over, man."

"You know I never get tired of hearing you tell me to calm down and follow your lead," I tell him, clinking my glass against his.

"'Gotta love your man,'" he sings, and I laugh black bubbles, unable to control myself. 

"Was I like this, then, too?" he asks, once I've stopped almost choking on dinosaur poop grape wine: "Back in your time, I mean."

"You were !@#$ing amazing," I say, having a heady swig: "Or he was, anyway. How do we talk about you?"

"He is me, he was me, he will be me," Jim intones, gesturing to the controls of the hover platform so as to make it slow down, change course, and take us towards his desert stronghold: "Many mortal lives, one immortal day. Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown. Ever and ever, amen."

"So how do you know who's who?"

He laughs: "When the sun's at the horizon, do you know if it's morning or night if you don't know which way you're facing?"

"Good point."

"Yeah," he says, easing us down into the dunes: "Except I think this is night, here, man. The Moon's got something to say about that."

* * *

So what's this Jim like, then?

Well, son, he's Jim, after a fashion. His hair is lighter and straighter, worn down just past his skinny hips. He's got darker skin, maybe from somewhere on the Indian Subcontinent, and he's a head taller and quite thinner than he used to be. Wider nose, maybe. Thinner lips.

But it's the eyes, son. The eyes are exactly the !@#$ing same. Heavy and portentous, with a depth you could get !@#$ing lost in forever, and smoldering hot enough to catch even the coldest of hearts on fire.

He's wearing some weird, light robe that goes just past his ankles, high-tech sandals that seem to be synched up with all the electronics I've seen so far, and a green tabard that's part armor, part Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Every so often the brocade re-arranges itself, either to let him move easier or because it's adjusting to the differences in temperature, humidity, and exertion. 

He's also got enough metal in his ears to weld a !@#$ing Heathkit television together. Gold, silver, copper, brass, and a few other alloys and elements I'm having a hard !@#$ time identifying, all looped and stamped and dangling from every available millimeter of skin.

Oh, and he sounds almost exactly the same, too. His accent's a little off (Minneapolis by way of New Delhi, I'm thinking) and some of his slang's made up of weird Indian colloquialisms and concepts I don't have a reference for, yet. But the basic cadence and rhythm is almost exactly what I remember: slow and halting but yet strangely sure at times, and quick and winking at others. 

And he still sings like a !@#$ing angel, which is nice, seeing as how we might wind up having a fight a whole !@#$load of them, this day.

* * *

The change in tactics works like a charm, and before long my guns have cleared us a path right down the gullet of the anti-city, and straight towards its tall, beetling control center.

Of course, getting in there is going to be one big !@#$ing party. Between the fact that it's !@#$ing out battle-borgs like it's got angry metal diarrhea, and the way it's growing iron tentacles to try and grab us for a conversion job, this really is a case of going headfirst into the mouth of the !@#$ing lion to try and eat its heart out.

"We need to shift, man," he says, preparing some sort of more complicated spell as we go forward: "I'll tell you when to jump. You still remember how, right?"

"Yeah, I think I'm not gonna !@#$ing forget that one time in Reno with your band anytime soon."

"Ha," he says: "I'd almost forgotten about that. Those were some times, man. They still okay?"

I don't have the heart to tell him the truth, now that we're up to our !@#$ing clavicles in post-humans with bad attitudes, long silver talons, and brain-filled Cuisinarts for skulls.

"They're alright, man," I lie: "But the last reunion tour sucked !@#$."

"So did our last album," he says, unleashing a bright, pulsing light from his hands: "Jump!"

And we do.

* * *

Jim's stronghold can best be described as a massive, high-ceilinged, neo-retro-absurdist-Italianate mansion that someone had the good taste to completely bury under the dirt and sand.

The ground !@#$ing opens up as we approach to let us in, like invisible hands were digging us a massive grave, and then filling it in just behind us as we glide down into the front foyer of his place. And I can almost feel the oppressive weight of the earth above, leaning down on the roof and walls, and actually cracking through in places as little falls of dust and rock tumble down, their rustling echoing off the white and gold walls.

The place is filled with classical, white marble statues in varying degrees of togetherness. It reminds me of a scene from that stupid, weird-!@#$ movie where James Bond was running around in a red diaper and shooting psychic hippies, only without the strange need to choke the living !@#$ out of my guide.

"I've been working on saving as much of the really good old stuff as I can," Jim explains, walking us up the massive stairwell to a large hallway, which is also jam-packed with as many !@#$ing statues as could be in there, plus about ten more.

"What did you do with the bad old stuff?" I ask.

Perhaps in response he smiles, pulls out his magical sword (which is always right in front of him, even if you can't see it), and promptly decapitates what I hope to God isn't the Venus de Milo.

"Don't worry," he says, smiling, and putting the sword back where he keeps it: "It'll grow back, eventually."

As we walk away, I see that it does. The !@#$ing head on the floor turns to a cloud of steam, and then vanishes. Then a cloud of steam appears where it had been on the statue's neck and begins to reform there, where it had been.

Nanotech, maybe? Son of nanotech? Who can say? But this age has already impressed me with its almost casual miraculousness.

And scared me !@#$less, too.

* * *

Case in !@#$ing point? The tower we just teleported into is a meat machine, and we're dodging the blades as we go.

Leave it to whatever crazy-!@#$ electronaut decided to recreate this city in his or her own, insane image to put the city's central processing unit right under its control center. Does he stride around the parapet up there, watching people get conveyor belted into machines on his !@#$ing coffee breaks? Jesus !@#$.

Lucky for us, our sudden appearance gives us about five !@#$ing seconds to orient ourselves and come up with a new !@#$ attack plan before the machines over the conveyor belts turn right around and started try to fling us into the giant pen of victims at the other end. Unfortunately, there are a !@#$ton of machines, and only the two of us, not to mention all the poor victims of this city's hijacking that need a !@#$ing rescue, right about now.

So what do we do? Look at each other and laugh, and then start fighting again, we two killers on the road.

Fight our way past the borgs that are running off the other end of the reassembly line, all oiled and shiny and ready to kick !@#$ for their master. Fight the steel tentacles and iron waldoes that are trying to trip us up or hold us down. Fight through the lines of slicing blades, cutting beams, circuit printers, and other implements of reconstruction that should be remaking the anti-city's victims, but are trying to take us down, instead.

Fight off the floor and up the parapet, launched up by hover discs and magic spells, slashing up and shooting down and then changing the game around when we experience different obstacles, or weirder adversaries.

This is how we do this, son. This is how we win.

* * *

Of course, when he tells me the plan we're going to win with, in the first place, I have to not !@#$ing laugh, because it's quite literally the craziest !@#$ing thing I've ever heard. 

(And, considering some of the crazy-!@#$ schemes yours truly has come up with over the years, son, that is !@#$ing saying something.)

So what does Jim do? Lean back in the deep, cushy chair he plopped into when we got into his "office," which is just a large room full of teetering, vertical stacks of old books, outcroppings of comfortable chairs, and what seems like a fire in the center but is really the holographic interface for his mansion's AI, and smile at me.

"Look, Jim," I say, having more of that weird, black froth he's been plying me with: "It's not that I !@#$ing doubt your sanity, but are you !@#$ing crazy? That plan's got more holes than a wheel of baby swiss."

"I miss cheese," he replies: "All the mammals are gone, now, and the stuff they make and call cheese just isn't the same. So I want you to promise me something."

"What?"

"Have a really big piece for me when you get back," he says, closing his eyes: "On my way, I'm going to imagine you biting into it, and taking your time to savor that everyday miracle. I'll take that thought with me, gladly."

"And that's another problem. Do you really think that'll get me back? I still don't know how the !@#$ I got here?"

"I do," he winks: "And when the time comes, you'll remember."

"Really?"

"You see, you're too hung up on the specifics, (REDACTED)" he says, leaning forward and talking with his hands: "Sometimes you just have to club the basics of the plan together, and let it evolve on the go."

"That usually leads to sloppiness, and being sloppy gets people !@#$ing killed."

He smiles: "And there you are, man. Why are you so afraid of that?"

"Of not getting people killed?"

"Of getting yourself killed."

I cough: "Jim, maybe you're forgetting? I can't !@#$ing die."

"I know. And I can't stop being reborn, maybe. But you do have limits, (REDACTED). I've seen them happen. And you are afraid of them."

What can I say? He's got me !@#$ing cold. "Okay, yeah. !@#$ it, I am afraid. But I wouldn't be human if I wasn't."

He shakes his head: "They had Samurai in your world, right?"

"Yeah."

"Those men were fearless of death, man. And that's because they were already dead. The moment they took up their swords to fight, it was as if they stopped breathing, and were nothing more than the will of their leaders. They sought out death, then, because it would mean that the spiritual reality they had accepted would finally meet the physical, and they could rest in peace. But until then...?"

"Yes?"

He smiles, and pours himself more of that weird, black wine: "Until then, they dared do anything, because death was no longer a barrier. They had transcended it, dig? They had walked through that door. And they weren't the only ones who learned that trick."

"So how does that save the world, today?"

"We remember the first rule of assassination," he says, getting up to pour me some more of that froth: "You can kill anyone, anywhere, at any time, so long as you do it without fear, and without worrying about your own life. As soon as you realize that your life was made forfeit the moment you made a plan to end someone else's, anything becomes possible."

"Who told you that crazy !@#$?" I ask him, scowling.

And he smiles, pats me on the shoulder, and points a finger in my face. 

And he's right. I did. A long time ago, in a dusty, dark bar, early in his career. And he sat there, looking at me like I was !@#$ing crazy, but somehow understanding on a level that was just below the surface, working in secret behind those amazing, dark eyes of his.

So now the student's become the master, and he's schooling me like a Trainee during Hell Month. Not a great feeling, let me tell you, son. But it's Jim, and he knows what he's talking about, and always has (even when it seemed like he didn't) so I'm happy to follow him into his madness, again.

I just have to hope I don't have to dig that second grave, today.

* * *

"You won't... you can't..." the Electronaut is insisting, getting weaker by the word.

He's in ten pieces on the floor, smeared and sliced and burned by all the power that Jim and I could direct his way. We didn't even give his sorry, metal and flesh !@#$ a second to gloat and monologue before all but tearing him to !@#$ing flinders. 

And yet his misshapen, too-many-brains-for-one-!@#$ing-skull head is still looking at us, and still talking. The weird, 80's progressive rock album cover metal suit he's wearing is trying to staple his body back together, but Jim's got his pieces warded from one another, so !@#$ that.

"We can, we will," I tell him, firing my guns down into the floor below, making sure the machines following us don't get any !@#$ing ideas. A few more shots free the prisoners in their pen, for which they're grateful, but they sure as !@#$ better get moving, because this !@#$ train's about to start moving.

"I think I've got it together, over here," Jim says to me, over by the central control nodule the Electronaut jumped out of when we got up here. He's ripped it apart and reassembled it in a new, strange configuration, and most of the lights and screens floating around it are lighting on and off in time with Jim's computerized sandals. 

"Will it work?" I ask, shooting a few more times at the Electronaut's sorry head as I stride over. It goes skidding across the floor, losing teeth and circuits as it goes.

"Well, if it doesn't, this is going to be a really weird trip," he laughs: "You ready for your bit?"

"As I'll ever be."

"You have it, right?"

I smile and pat my pants pocket: "I got it."

"Good. Now remember, as soon as I leave, I can't concentrate on the guns, anymore. You'll have to go it alone."

"No great problem," I lie, and clap him on the shoulder: "I wish we had more time."

He just smiles: "Time's all we'll have, soon, man. You get back and do your thing. You'll see me soon enough, after that."

"I'll... I'll look forward to that," I say, and head for the parapet. I don't want to look back because if I do, I'll probably get all !@#$ing misty-eyed or some such, and I really need to have my !@#$ing butch on, right now. 

"Hey, (REDACTED)?" he shouts after me.

"What?" I ask, looking down and seeing the masses of angry borgs trying to climb up to get at me.

"Just remember, the way out is the way in."

I look back at him, but by that point he's turned around and is convincing the anti-city to do the thing he wants it to do. I can't tell if he's !@#$ing me, or dropping one final pearl of wisdom. It's always hard to tell with him.

Of course, he's singing:

Take him by the hand

Make him understand

The world on you depends

This life will never end

Gotta love your man... 

And it's so beautiful and perfect that it makes me want to cry. But if I cry, I'm going to run over and hug him. And if I do that, I'm going to fall down and thank him for giving me the gift of this day, and these battles, and his simple wisdom that's finally kicked me in the !@#$ing !@#$ enough to be able to go home reborn, and take up my plans and my guns and go save the !@#$ing world again...

But there just isn't time. There never !@#$ing is. 

So I leap over the !@#$ing parapet, down into the teeming masses of borgs, and hope the magic guns hold themselves together just long enough to get me the !@#$ out of this !@#$ anti-city before it converts for space travel, and launches itself towards the !@#$ Moon. 

Cause that's the plan, son. And if you think that sounds !@#$ing crazy, just wait until you see the rest of it go down. 

(SPYGOD's listening to Riders on the Storm (The Doors) and having more of that weird !@#$)

7/3-7/12 - The Gate is Straight, Deep, and Wide - pt. 4

Years ago, back when he was walking the Earth as a sword-slinging warrior-poet magician, Jim Morrison and I shot Santa Claus in the !@#$ing brains.

Yes, son. You read that right. In the !@#$ing brains, several !@#$ing times, with very big !@#$ing guns.

Of course, we had to shoot him in the brains with very big !@#$ing guns because the clone that SQUASH had made of him was something like 500 feet tall, macrocephalic, and really !@#$ing bad tempered. And we didn't really have time to try and reason with it, and appeal to what little remained of its better nature, because Ben Franklin, who'd accompanied us for "science" (to get !@#$ing laid in Vegas at Christmastime) had decided to shoot it in the junk with that giant electric rifle he used to tote around "just in case," once it became clear that it was stomping down the Strip to smash casinos for Communism.

Yeah, that was one !@#$ of a weekend. I'm not even going to get into what we did with those robot Playboy Bunnies Hefner talked us into talking along for the ride. But the good news is that, after a few shots in the right place, and a few really quick actions to minimize fallout, we not only saved most of Las Vegas, but Christmas as well. And everyone had a !@#$ing good time.

Some more than others.

"Live hard until you die, die well and then you fly," Morrison sang to me the next day, after I came into his penthouse suite and simply marveled at the levels of !@#$ing excess he and Ben Franklin had cobbled together in the day since we'd all parted company.

I thought I could get into some !@#$ing !@#$, son, but those two had me beaten pants down.

And looking at Jim, sitting there and smiling at what he'd wrought, just for !@#$ing laughs, and my somewhat horrified reaction to it, a little piece of me knew that someday soon I was going to be standing over his gravesite, pouring a bottle of good wine down into the freshly-dug Earth and wishing him well on his journey.

He never could stick around long, apparently. And while I didn't always want to believe it, given how well we worked together, at times like that I just !@#$ing knew. 

So now, here on some alternate Earth we haven't even !@#$ing cataloged yet, in what might be their year Three !@#$ing Billion and a half or some such, he's serving me flute after flute of what he claims is wine fermented from grapes digested and !@#$ out by !@#$ing dinosaurs, and we're flying up above some fantastic but highly !@#$ing dangerous anti-city on a hover platform that looks an awful lot like something from some crazy-!@#$, 80's science fiction magazine cover, and trying not to spill our !@#$ing drinks as the anti-city's defenses try and shoot us the !@#$ down.

"Dance on the fire, (REDACTED)," he says, not even worried by all the flame and hot metal that's trying to bring us down: "It's not even trying, today. It knows, man. It knows."

And yeah, I guess it !@#$ing does. The Sun's been stuck in the same place in the sky for the last six hours, the cracked and crumbling moon's gotten closer since I got here, and the "adellites" are falling down to Earth, their sorry and sad sales pitches for things I've never !@#$ing heard of turning to multicolored sparks on the way down.

The music's just about over, here, son. This old and crazy world is about to die.

And the Lizard King's the one who gets to turn out the lights.

* * *

Okay, son -- you !@#$ing got all of that?

No? Well, back the !@#$ hover platform up a bit. This one's a !@#$ing doozy.

A day or so ago, I went into the deserts North of Choibalsan to get good and mind-!@#$ingly drunk, after receiving the worst news I could have ever gotten. But instead of being able to have that skull!@#$ing go according to plan, It gets !@#$ing crashed by Mongolian Shamans intent on letting my recent ghosts give me a !@#$ing pep-talk. And once I've dealt with a few of the usual suspects, the free-floating ghost of the Dragon comes along, and tells me some things that even I had no !@#$ing idea about.

And, one amazing !@#$ing bout of long-overdue ghost-sex later, I wake up here, at the !@#$-end of time on some parallel world I've never !@#$ing heard of, and here's my old buddy, Jim Morrison, just waiting for me.

Well, back that up a bit, though. It's not actually Jim Morrison, son. It's the idea of Jim Morrison, or what he stands for, or what he's always here to do.

He's walked a thousand different worlds, in a thousand different times, being a hero, or a villain, or whatever that reality needs to get itself back to !@#$ing normal, again. And then, when his job's done, he shuffles off that mortal coil, the better to take another face from the ancient gallery, and walk on down the hall.

The last time I knew him, as Jim Morrison, he was... well, we covered that already. And he died in a !@#$ing bathtub in Paris, his body essentially falling apart from all the !@#$ing, godlike abuses he'd heaped on it in his short but highly eventful time as a two-fisted, spell-slinging, psychic band-aid for the 60's.

And in that bathtub, as he lay dying of a stupid !@#$ing overdose (of all the stupid !@#$ing ways for someone as great and powerful as him to die) Jim looked across the worlds, and saw some small boy with eyes like fire looking back at him, wondering what the !@#$ he was seeing, and why someone would ever let themselves get that run-down.

So Jim smiled, breathed his last, and let go and became God. And so he became that boy, who  is this man, here, who's come to meet me and take me on the mother of all mystery rides.

His real name's a string of DNA sequence codes and some honorifics, but he prefers to be called by the title his people have given him. Here, in this time and place, Jim Morrison's become the man they call More, on account of his being able to see, do, and ultimately be more than what's commonly expected, much less !@#$ing allowed, of people in this time.

And today, More's ability to work beyond those barriers is going to enable him to directly affect this world's future as it teeters on the edge of apocalypse.

As for why, or how, he hasn't quite explained that yet. He hasn't even made his mind up whether he's going to save it or destroy it, yet, and the way he laughs about it I think he kind of digs that.

Oddly enough, after a few flutes of this dinosaur poop wine, I'm !@#$ing digging it, too.

* * *

So the story is this, more or less.

They know it's the year three billion and something, but they don't !@#$ing know what happened before about five thousand years ago, apart from weird-!@#$, contradictory histories from religious texts that read like really !@#$py science fiction novels. However, in spite of all the contradictions and crazy bull!@#$, they understand that the Singularity is what always winds up !@#$ing killing them. 

What's the Singularity? Jesus, son, don't you !@#$ing read anything but funny books? 

The Singularity is the point where we seamlessly mesh with our machines, to the point where no one can really !@#$ing say where we end and they begin. It's the age of self-generating Artificial Intelligences with souls, and backup copies of your mind. It's when we can turn ourselves into streams of data and beam ourselves out into space, or back or forth in !@#$ing time. Total cybernetics, effortless telepresence, and nanotech that's lightyears ahead of where we are now.

In other words, it's when the whole of Humanity finally becomes !@#$ing immortal. And apparently we just can't handle that !@#$ without going ape!@#$, blowing ourselves up, and destroying civilization as we know it.

So, in this time and place, humanity has been harshly limited. Amazing levels of technology provide an easy, carefree life for all people, anywhere, and they're kept endlessly amused with an endless !@#$ing sea of intelligent distractions. But no one's allowed to invent anything new, or come up with any new concepts, or even make up new !@#$ing words or turns or phrase, because that might lead back to the day when humanity reaches too !@#$ far and dooms itself with the wrong invention. 

Now, I think I hear you getting it, son, but just to be sure? More is the one man who's dared to stand against the Multitude, which enforces the Code of Stability. He sneaks into people's lives and gives them little ideas, and then teaches them how to make it seem as though they haven't actually had the idea, or else it's been there all along. Either that or he plays with reality while the Change Police aren't looking, and then skips away before they can do anything, other than answer for the fact that the world took another step closer to One O'clock on the Doomsday Machine. 

And best of all? His work is done almost entirely on the spiritual plane, through magic, which transcends the need for computers and cybernetics altogether. He's taught entire cities to leave their bodies and play in the astrals, and the fact that some cities do better than others is sometimes attributable to the fact that he taught them to make their own !@#$ luck.

Unfortunately, things have occurred that he either didn't see coming, or didn't move fast enough to avoid.

The first problem is the sprouting of the Anti-Cities. Remember when I said that humanity was beaming itself out into space? Well, some of those Electronauts finally made the return trip back, and returned to a world that didn't match what they'd left. Faced with the wrath of the Change Police, they elected to take over the high-tech facilities of the cities they returned to, and turned them into massive processing plants, keen to take all their inhabitants and transform them into the sort of people the Electronauts left behind. 

Thankfully, the Change Police pulled out some of their forbidden technology, allowing the cities to throw up EM shields to keep Electronauts out. But now you've got giant, carnivorous Anti-Cities marching across the landscape, seeking to dock with other cities and spread their antiquated and illegal way of life. 

And no, son, the fact that most people, in spite of the crushing grey philosophy of the Multitude, are actually happy with what Stability brings them, means abso!@#$inglutely nothing to the Anti-Cities. They're wanting to make Earth the way it was when they left it, and too bad if the cattle doesn't want to become hamburgers. 

I looked down at the one we flew over, not long ago. It looked like paradise for people who think 80's sci fi role playing games were the best thing ever, but I really didn't like the screaming of the soon-to-be-converted. 

(Call me !@#$ing old fashioned, but I figure techno-immortality should be a matter of personal choice.)

The second problem? Well, you remember how I said that the Sun had stopped moving, and the Moon was getting closer? Well, funny !@#$ story, apparently. For some reason known only to Null, the great grey and motionless god of the Multitude, Earth has stopped spinning and the Moon is about to crash into it. 

The good news is that the cities are advanced enough to keep their populations alive indefinitely, even if the world becomes a !@#$ed-up ecological mess. The bad news is that the Moon's impact will effectively crack the planet in half, and will wipe out all life, even the cities. 

Worse news? Unlike the Anti-Cities, which have their own, intriguing and forbidden forms of energy collection, the cities cannot move. They are literally rooted to the ground, as they're tapping heat from the core. So they can't go !@#$ing anywhere but sideways, and then to pieces, when the moon hits. 

And as for the third, well... you know how they always said Jesus would return just when we needed him most? Well, word from where Israel used to be has it that a certain presence has re-appeared, there, and is calling out to his sheep to return to the fold. 

Oh, and apparently this isn't the nice hippie Jesus we all read about in Sunday School. While the religious texts aren't quite so clear about this world's Christ, word has it that he took that flaming sword talk pretty !@#$ literally. 

Put it this way, son. He didn't run the moneychangers out of the Temple. He whipped the people up into a mob and had them rip them limb from limb. Then he put their still-living heads at the bottom of the temple's staircase, and made them beg forgiveness to all they'd wronged for three days and nights. 

Yeah. 

So saying that More's got a lot on his !@#$ing plate, right now, is putting it !@#$ing mildly. But here he is, ferrying me back to his desert hideaway, and preparing to help me with my !@#$ing problems for some weird-!@#$ reason.

And isn't that just like him? I swear he'd pause in a !@#$ fight just to find beauty in a cloud, or discover some poem buried in the back of his head. Such is the way of warrior poet magicians, I guess.

And hopefully he's got some more of this fine !@#$ing wine, because I think I'm going to need a truckload to get through this !@#$.

(SPYGOD is listening to When The Music's Over (The Doors) and having some... er, what was that !@#$, again?)

7/3-7/12 - The Gate is Straight, Deep, and Wide - pt. 3

They say things come in threes, and this skull!@#$ing was no !@#$ing exception.

Surprise number one was having three !@#$ Mongolian Shamans show up to share my fire, steal my !@#$ing hooch, and bring the dead with them. And surprise number two was being greeted by The Dragon, himself, as he was, so far as I knew, very much among the living, and !@#$ing working for GORGON.

Of course, being all drunk and maudlin, I started to blub a little bit, as soon as I realized what that !@#$ing meant. But, thankfully, he smacked me back into sense with a loving hand across the face.

And when you've had a cold, misty, and strong breeze slam across your face, it wakes you right the !@#$ up.

You were saying, lover? he says, looking into my eyes as the Shamans watch him in something approaching religious awe. For all their work with the dead, I don't think any of them have actually seen a !@#$ing ghost, before.

(They tend to raise them up internally, as they're easier to control, that way. More dangerous, also, but that's why it's a !@#$ scary job.)

"I didn't think... I mean..." I stammer, shaking off the effects of the kumis and the etheric slap: "Something was off. You weren't quite yourself."

You were right to be suspicious, he says: I wasn't myself for quite some time.


"How long?" 

A few years ago, they came for me, he explains, looking at the fire: You must understand things. I was not doing well at the time, and there was no exit left for me. So when they offered me a way out...

"I would have..." I try to say, but he quickly puts a cold finger to my lips.

I lied to you, lover: he says, looking back at me and smiling in his own way: I was not under house arrest. I was dying. We stole the formula for what they gave you in Camp Rogers, before the World War, but key elements were missing. We had fewer successes, and of those successes only a few did not develop problems, later.

I was one of the luckier ones. My problems did not manifest until much later. But when your entire body decides that you have lived long enough, and need to shut down...

He stops smiling, puts his ghostly hand down on top of mine, and looks to the fire.

The last time I actually answered one of your letters I was little more than a sack of papery skin barely holding meat and bone together, my love. I was on life support. I could not move, I could not eat. But no matter how much of my body dissolved from the inside, every day, my brain was unaffected.

And they wanted my brain, my love. They promised me a new body, a new life. All they asked was that I trust them, and they would bring me back to life. 

"So you went with GORGON."


I went with them, and they told me a part of their plan, and... and I agreed to it, he admits: They did not tell me that when they remade me, I would not survive.

"What do you mean?"


I mean, my beloved enemy, he says, leaning close to me: That the thing you had in your bed, and your confidence, and then hot on your tail for all the wrong reasons, was not me. It was their copy of me. Everyone who is Embraced dies during the procedure. Only a copy remains, and a bad one at that.

"Which is why I realized something was off," I say: "I just thought you were hiding a little more than usual."

Well, you were right, he smiles, running a finger down my chest: It was hiding a lot. Plans and plots, and a blueprint for this terrible time that you've returned to.

"So what happened then?" I ask, trying to put an arm around him and failing: "Heaven didn't want you and Hell was afraid you'd take over?"

Why do you think there's only two options? You should know better than that, lover. There are worlds of choice, out there. Heaven and Hell don't own the whole of the spirit world. They just have better advertising. 

"Isn't that the !@#$ing truth?" I say, opening another bottle of kumis and taking a swig: "I'd been having some problems with their telemarketers, recently."

Yes, I saw. A very elegant solution, lover. It will soon bear good fruit.

"Or just produce another !@#$ing cluster!@#$ with my name on it. Hard to tell, right now."

There is that possibility as well.

"And I bet you can't tell me which it is, can you?"

He just smiles, and I take that as a 'yes.'

"So what did you do?"

I was confused and scared, after it had happened, he says, looking at the shamans: The Embrace was something new, you see. Something much more radical. The body they built around and within me was filled with very... intriguing structures.  Strange things I'd never seen or encountered, before. Things that not even the Chandra Eye could see.  

So I wandered their installation in West Papua, slowly regaining my memories and my self as I haunted them. I was there when you sent poor Goldenfist in to infiltrate them, but I didn't know why this was so significant. And I watched as you and your Agents tried to follow after, and witnessed the battle that happened, but I didn't know why I was so attracted to your soul. 

But when the Black Star was trying to devour you, I finally realized who I was, and who you were, and that I had spent years hating you, and plotting against you, and trying to kill you, only to eventually learn that I loved you more than anything. And wasn't that just the strangest discovery?

In that moment I would have obliterated myself ten times over to save your life, my lover. So I stepped between the two of you and...

He pauses, maybe not really sure how to explain what happened next.

"You overloaded her?" I finally ask.

I do not think I could adequately explain what took place, next, he says, looking back at me: Or how it may have affected things. But I do know that, instead of your energy flowing directly into her, some of it flowed into me before it flowed into her. 

And I know that I was able to maintain some kind of a hold on what went through, into her, as though I were holding onto a long rope made of your soul. So when the blast from that plowshare struck, and she let go of you, I was able to pull it back just before her hideous mouth snapped shut on it, and you.

And that is why you were still yourself, lover. And that is how I can be here, now, to haunt you.

"Why didn't you find me earlier?"

Oh, that, he sighs: Well, unfortunately, being a little more together than most ghosts did not enable me to simply appear by your side. I still have to take the bus, as it were. And thanks to your Indian friends, you were gone rather quickly. 

And while I could generally know where you were, I did not know exactly where. And by the time I'd gotten close enough, well, off you went again. Another adventure. Another disaster. 

So it has taken me just over a year to finally be where you are, here and now. And even then I had to hitch a ride with these other shades in order to finally be here, just in time.

"I'm sorry," I say: "I guess I didn't make this easy for you."

You never have. It's in your nature. Just as this sorry display of self pity and self destruction is in your nature. You really don't learn anything, do you?

"It's been said," I reply, and have another swig: "So are you going to haunt me for the rest of my life, then? Ride my monster !@#$ when I'm asleep like some kinky Chinese vampire ghost? Whisper sweet nothings and state secrets in my ear while I'm trying to save the !@#$ing world?"

Oh, you should be so lucky, you sorry gweilo dog, he says, standing up and looking down on me: No, lover. This is agony for me. To have you so close and yet so far away is worse than lying in that safe house, knowing that you'd come and rescue me even if I was nothing more than a brain in a tank, and still tell me you loved me. 

It's pathetic, and sad, and so far beneath my sense of dignity...

He stops talking, then, hitches a breath, turns around and shakes his shoulders. It takes me a minute to realize that he's doing something I never thought he was even humanly capable of.

The Dragon is !@#$ing crying in front of me. 

I have come to tell you these things, lover, because you need to know them, he says, not turning around: And I have come to tell you, to your face, that I loved you. And I still do. But this is not something we can have, anymore. This is a cruel and cosmic joke, worthy of the most sadistic of torturers. 

I couldn't be more agonized in Feng Tu, lover. This is Hell in every sense of the word-

"Will you just shut the !@#$ up for a minute?" I ask him.

What? 

"What, did you forget how to speak English while you were talking pure Pity Me? Shut the !@#$ up for a minute, (REDACTED). I can't hear myself think over all that whining."

He turns around like he was going to try and kill me, his eyes literally blazing red with anger. You dare?

"Yeah, well, it's !@#$ing going around, Dragon. Everyone I've talked to tonight has been telling me to quit moping and crying and get my !@#$ together. Everyone's told me that there's an army for me to command and a world to save and shoes to shine and blah blah !@#$ing blah. I can't even have a minute to weep, apparently.

"So if I don't get to drink myself sober, cry myself back to usefulness, and walk out of this desert with all my doubt and self-pity properly exorcized, the way this whole thing is !@#$ing supposed to work, then you don't get to burden me with all your regrets and can't-haves.

"So no, Dragon, I don't want to hear about how you're so close and yet so far away. And I sure as !@#$ don't to hear about how you can't !@#$ing quit me, either. This isn't some stupid doomed gay romance. This is me putting myself back together so I can go save the !@#$ing world, again. By my !@#$ing self if I have to.

"And while I do appreciate that you saved my life, back in West Papua, and that you came after to find me for a whole !@#$ year, this is not the time or the place to drop your !@#$ on me. I got enough drama of my own, right now."

For a second, I think he's going to try and kill me. But he doesn't. He stands there, swaying like a tree that's just been chopped down but hasn't fallen, yet, and then slowly nods.

I understand. Please forgive me. It's just been... so hard. So long.

"I know," I say: "But you know what? We're here, now. And we're together. And maybe we can do something about it that doesn't involve a bunch of bittersweet bull!@#$ that's going to make me want to listen to The !@#$ing Cure all night long."

What do you mean?

"I mean, you're connected to me, and I'm connected to you," I say, putting the bottle of nasty, radioactive !@#$ down: "And you followed me around the world for love. And I've got something in my skull that lets me do crazy-!@#$ things and get away with them. Don't you think we can make something happen, here?"

He just looks at me, and I smile and stand up without leaving my seat.

I never knew I could do it before, but I guess it should have been !@#$ing obvious. After all, how much of what I can hear and see is something I'm actually seeing, and just something that my brain's reaching out to take hold of?

And if I can do that, then why can't I reach out so far that I can walk outside myself?

We could say a million things about that, or anything else, but we don't bother. I take his head in my hands and kiss him. He wraps his arms around me and kisses me. Time goes sideways for a second there, and before I'm aware we're both naked as the day we were born, strong and hard and unashamed, and standing in the fire I made to light my way back to who I am, again. 

And then I'm in him, and he's in me, and there is no him or me -- only us. We two ghosts, making love in a fire in the desert while my body sleeps and dreams and heals.

Breaking cracks in the spirit world as we !@#$ for the first time, ever, with all the power that two supermen can bring to bear on each other.

And love. Finally, at long last, love.

* * *

I'm pretty sure I sleep the whole day, after that. When I come to I'm back in my body, by the remnants of the fire. But something is wrong.

For one thing, the fire's been dead a lot longer than a day. For another, the three shamen are also dead, and have been there for so long they've mummified: parchment skin stretched across their skulls, red-stained teeth making surreal death-smiles in contrast to their moldering, yellow hats.

The kumis bottles are dry and broken glass that smell of dust and uranium. The moon is cracked like an egg. And the sky is filled with strange lights that promise love, happiness, and consumer products I've never !@#$ing heard of. 

"Dragon?" I ask, but it's useless. He's not there, anymore. I can't feel him, and for a second I almost panic, wondering if I've been gone, again, and for how !@#$ long this time. 

"Dragon?" a voice asks, strangely familiar: "No one's ever called me that, before. I kind of like it."

I turn and reach for a gun I don't have, but before I can draw what isn't there, and get caught up in that weird brain!@#$ moment between one big realization and another, I see who's talking to me, and then I remember what day it is. 

Jim Morrison died, today, 41 years ago. Every year, when I eventually remember, I try to honor him, in my own way. And, as usual, I !@#$ing forgot all about it, this year.

Looks like he didn't, though.

"Well, I was wondering when you were going to show up," the Lizard King says to me, walking close to the fossilized remnants of my fire and offering me what looks like a yellow-tinted champagne flute full of bubbling, dark froth.

"Jim?" I ask, taking a glass and wondering what the !@#$'s happened to my clothes, and what the !@#$ he's wearing.

(And what the !@#$ he just handed me.)

"Sometimes, yes," he says, tinging his glass against mine: "Drink up, my friend. We have some things to do, today, and they're best done with your mind not quite on straight."

"Like what?"

"The music's almost over, man," he winks: "Time to turn out the lights."

And that, son, was surprise number !@#$ing three. 

 (SPYGOD is listening to Indian Summer (The Doors) and having hot love and strange dust)

7/3-7/12 - The Gate Is Straight, Deep, and Wide - pt. 2

Ghosts, son? You're asking me if SPYGOD actually believes in ghosts?

Well of course I !@#$ing believe in ghosts, son. What kind of a dumb!@#$ question is that? Don't you remember when I was running with Chinmoku? They don't call him the only living master of Hungry Ghost Path of Kung Fu for nothing.

(The others failed, and became -- you guessed it -- ghosts.)

Now, yes, we can be objective about this. It's true that, sitting at that fire, I'm not really in my right !@#$ing mind. I'm fighting a black hole of depression, suicidal urges, and god knows what other long-repressed mental problems. I'm crying like I won an Oscar, thinking I could just die right about then and no one would give a !@#$, and !@#$sing myself just after I realized I really needed to go water the beer garden.

That and the radioactive !@#$ I'm drinking could probably kill a !@#$ing atom-powered cyborg tyrannosaurus rex if you shoved it down the wrong !@#$ hole.

So, yes, given that by the time those yellow-hatted mystics show up, I'm so !@#$ing drunk that I've lost all sense of time, distance, proportion, and dignity, it's just possible that I imagine everything that comes next. But I don't believe that, son.

Not for a !@#$ing minute.

How does it go? Well, talking with the dead ain't like Charles !@#$ing Dickens, son. You don't get a herald, you don't get told how the ride's going to go, and you sure don't get away !@#$ing clean. Sometimes you don't even !@#$ing get away at all.

There's reasons that Shamen are both revered and feared for what they do, son. Any sensible person would run away from a job like that, but some people just have to be the ones to peek behind the veil and see what's there.

And you know what curiosity got that poor, dead cat.

So when they inform me that there's people who want to talk to me, and I realize what they !@#$ing mean, I realize that I am in for a world of !@#$. Of course, I'm so !@#$ing drunk I can't even stand, much less crawl away, so they got me where they want me, these yellow-hatted, grinning freaks.

And so do the dead.

I see that one of the Shamans isn't there, anymore, and Second is there instead, smiling at me with that special, little smile of his. The kind that always said that he knew, deep down, what a goofy, drunk !@#$-up I could be, but that he admired me, anyway, and wouldn't have wanted to work for anyone else.

And there's a second when I just chalk it up to the !@#$ I've been pounding, and wishful thinking, and regrets? But then he starts !@#$ing talking, and I know it's him. 

I'm sorry to report I kind of !@#$ed up, sir, he says: I did my best while you were gone, but they had us beaten at every turn. Dragon played us all against each other, they snuck in a bunch of GORGON troopers, and... well, they had it well in hand, sir. I can only apologize.

"You shouldn't have to apologize," I tell him (well, blubber out, really): "I was your C.O, (REDACTED). I should have been the one giving the good orders, not you. And if I hadn't made those dumb !@#$ing mistakes... if I hadn't gone South instead of to DC... if I hadn't..."

If you had, you'd be dead, too, sir, he tells me: They had us cold, sir. Dead !@#$ing bang to rights. They had a plan for everything, including you.


"Well, it should have !@#$ing been me, not you," I blubber: "It should have been me..." 

No sir, he says: It was always supposed to be me. You said it, yourself. Soldiers are there to die. The fact that you get another day is a blessing, and I had a lot of them. All of them good... well, most of them. 

I have no regrets, sir. I had a good run, and I died fighting. I went down hard and I tried to take as many of them down with me as I could. !@#$, I even pulled the wool over the Dragon's eyes for a little bit, and that's not something you can say all that often.

"That's... that's good..." I say, not knowing what else to say. If I wasn't so !@#$ing drunk I'd have actually given him a real complement for that one. 

Well, I learned form the best. And that's why you need to get back on your feet, sir. I did my best to save as many strategic talents from what was coming as I could, and they're going to need a leader. 

And that's you, sir. And you know that.

Of course, I can't say anything to that but to make excuses, wallow in self-pity, and continue blubbing. I can't even !@#$ing look at him, son. He's looking at me like a proud parent, and all I want to do is crawl under a rock and die.

So it's a while before I look up, and when I do he's gone, and the Shaman he was inhabiting is looking at me with a nasty, red-toothed grin.

I never thought I'd see the day when SPYGOD got all maudlin and self-pitying, says another one of them. I turn and look, and it's Joe Samuels, who was the Owl, up until just recently. And seeing him there, dead, kicks me even harder.

"What... what the !@#$ happened?"

Well, I'm dead, he says, matter of fact as always: GORGON hit the Owl's Nest hard. They teleported in in droves and shot us to pieces. Your man, Second, tried to warn us, but we missed the message until it was too late. I had to atomize the Owls Nest in the end, just to deny it to the enemy. 

"Oh gods... I'm sorry..."

He smiles: I took them all out with me, (REDACTED). You should have seen it. I showed them what it meant to try and take us on our own turf. 

And next time they tangle with my family, they'll be in real trouble.

"What about Martha? Thomas? Kaitlyn?"

Martha's fine, and she's with your friends, getting a resistance together. Thomas was hurt very badly, but he'll be alright. We're seeing to that. 

And Kaitlyn... he smiles: She's going to be the best Owl that ever was, my friend, but she'll need your help do to it, just like you helped Martha and Thomas. Can I count on you?

Of course, this leads to me trying to blub some more, but he's not having it: Oh, stop it, (REDACTED). We don't have time for tears. Too many people have died, and too many people are going to die, for you to sit around a fire crying your magic eye out. 

"Easy for you to say... you're dead. You don't have to face this failure-"

I didn't say it, my friend, he says, smiling and pointing at me: You said it. You said it to me. And if you think really hard, you might just remember when, and why. 

And I never told you this, because I was so embarrassed, later? But thank you for that. 

So, this is me returning the favor. Tears later, soldier. Action now. You fall apart you're no use to anyone.


"I'm already broken..." I try to say, but it comes across as a tangle of words. By the time I get my tongue unglued, Joe's gone, and in his place is that tall, black Colonel that'd been hounding my !@#$ since the assassination. Colonel Richter.

And he's not looking so !@#$ing good, either. His bald head's a misshapen mess, and one of his yellowed eyes has bugged out of its socket. It almost looks like someone smashed his brains in.

Well well, he says, smiling: Here we finally are. You know how long I've been looking for your sorry !@#$?

"I know... I'm sorry..."

Oh, don't you dare !@#$ing apologize, SPYGOD. Don't you !@#$ing dare! You don't have the right! !@#$, you don't even have the right to speak to me right now, you sloppy !@#$hole.

Now, for some !@#$ dumb reason, this takes me aback. Everyone else so far's been trying to shove complements up my !@#$, in spite of my getting them killed. But he's actually !@#$ing angry.

And, for some reason, that actually brings me up from the slippery, dark hole I've drunk myself down, just a little bit.

"What the !@#$ are you talking about?" I ask, rearing up a bit: "I didn't kill you-"

Oh, but you did, he says, sitting straight up and leaning towards me: That crazy-!@#$ vendetta of yours? Well, while you were !@#$ing liberating Cuba, you sent us off in ten directions at once, trying to catch your !@#$. You had the COMPANY so !@#$ busy chasing its tail that GORGON was able to walk in and !@#$ us without us even noticing. 

If you'd just done the right thing and given yourself up, we could have been united. We could have stopped them. All those people would still be alive. 

I'd still be alive-

"!@#$ you, Richter." I spit at him: "I didn't !@#$ up the COMPANY. You did."

What... he says, the anger bleeding away as confusion sets in: What the !@#$ do you mean?

"Why... why do you think they put you onto me?" I ask him, still too groggy to talk too fast: "What were you doing... before the President was assassinated?"

He tries to open his mouth, and then he closes it.

I... I don't remember...

"No. Of course you don't. Not your last birthday. Not your first kiss. And why do you suppose that is?"

I knew... I used to know...

"Yeah, when you were !@#$ing breathing. But now you aren't, anymore, and when you died all those memories just went away, didn't they?"

I... what are you-

"Because you weren't doing anything, Richter. They activated you. And then, when they didn't need you anymore..."

I point to my head, right about where his has been clearly bashed in, and then roughly pat it a few times.

He opens and closes his mouth a few more times. Then he screws his eyes shut and screams so loud my eardrums almost blow out of my !@#$ing head.

And then he's gone, leaving a hoarse shaman who's trying to hog the kumis bottle he and his two friends are passing back and forth.

How long did you know about him? asks a mellifluous voice I know all too well.

"About as long as... well, about as long as I suspected about you," I say, turning to look to my left. The Dragon is sitting there, smiling that slight, inscrutable smile of his.

And he doesn't even need a shaman to talk to me.

(SPYGOD is listening to Soul Kitchen (The Doors) and drinking... well, yeah. Don't ask.)