9/17/12 - So Perfect As We All Fall Down

It's one in the morning, B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P 4 time, and Myron's lying in his room, looking at the ceiling, and trying to feel bad about what he and Winifred have just done.

It's not the first time this has happened. It's been three times, now, and each time he's told himself that it was a mistake, and they shouldn't have done this, and what was he thinking.

But then, once the day's done, and their work's completed, they're back here. They always say they're just going to watch some BSG and have some popcorn, but they don't even get through one fraking episode before they're tearing out of their clothes and tumbling into bed. 

He shouldn't be doing this, something in his mind tells him. He's more than twice her age. She's a !@#$ing teenager, for Christ's sake.

(And, yes, in her home state of Kentucky, she's legal at 16, but still...)

So he looks at the ceiling, maybe searching for the hand of a God he doesn't believe in, anymore, and tries to feel terrible for this. But try as he might, when he looks back down at her -- cuddled up against his side and snoring gently -- he can't feel that he's done anything wrong at all.

Does that make him a pervert, then? Some kind of pedophile? Is he going to the special hell for this?

He doesn't know. All he knows is that he really likes her, and she's special, and she's crazy in the sack (the best !@#$ of his life, to be honest) and while he knows that this probably won't last, it's good for now.

That and, for all he knows, the world might !@#$ing cave in on them, tomorrow, and who would be left to judge them for this?

Still.

"Send me a sign?" he whispers at the ceiling, wondering if the man with the long beard and stern countenance will be kind enough to send a clear, easy-to-understand memo as to whether he should keep letting this brilliant kid with great taste in TV shows -- and an awful secret she doesn't want to confide, yet -- ride him like a pony, late at night.

And something tells him that God isn't going to be that nice about complying.

* * *

The President sits at a desk in the apartment he's currently inhabiting, and cries quietly, watching his wife and children at their new home. 

The surveillance pad was supposed to make him feel better about things, and what he's had to do, recently. He knows that's how SPYGOD meant it, and he's grateful for the gesture. Really, truly grateful.

But as he watches his wife walk through the home she's been forced to live in, by the Imago, he can see that look in her eye: the one he's been dreading seeing. It's a certain, sagging tiredness that betrays how broken she is, inside -- both by his apparent assassination, all those months ago, and the fact that she's being kept on a leash by the things that now rule the world.

The children are sad, too, but they're clearly moving past it a lot faster than she is. They've just lost their father, and aren't really old enough to understand what's just happened to their world. 

Her? She's lost her lover. Her partner. Her best friend in the whole wide world. The father of her children, and the man she was going to spend her future with.

All gone with two shots of an impossible gun.

He wants to go to her, right !@#$ing now. He wants to fly there, to the armed camp for high-level prisoners they've turned Washington D.C. into, and get them all out of there. He wants to swoop in with guns he now knows exactly how to use, blast his way in there, and blow them all back out again.

He wants his wife back at his side, in his arms, in his bed. He wants his children to look him in the face and call him "daddy" again. 

He wants his !@#$ing life back.

But he can't have it. Not yet. Not now.

And he knows he has to wait, and he knows why it's the right thing. But !@#$ if it doesn't hurt worse than crawling naked over broken glass.

He should really just stop looking at this. He should turn it off. Better yet, he should throw it across the room and step on it a few times, just to be sure.

But he keeps watching and crying. He can't not. And !@#$ him for that.

And !@#$ SPYGOD for his kindness.

* * *

"Oh, that was just exquisite, my dear Scarlet Factotum," Doctor Kyklops says, wrapping a green silk robe around his grey but lithe frame with a magnificent flourish: "Perfectly exquisite. I have not had such pleasure from a business partner in quite some time."

METALMAID lies on the bed, staring up at his bedroom's massive, painted ceiling to avoid looking at him, and deciding what to say next. She decides the best thing to do is to be as dishonest as possible, given that she still needs this old, rich pervert for her plans.

"I am confused," she stammers, wondering how many times he needed to have himself painted on his !@#$ing ceiling: "I have never felt this way before, and I am unsure of what it means. Could it be that I am falling in love?"

"Oh, it's just possible," the old fellow says, farting as he goes over to a nearby, gold table and pours himself a drink from a crystal decanter: "I am told I have that effect on women."

"Well, they told you correctly," she says, rolling over and crossing her legs as seductively as she can, focusing on how nice it will be to feed him his own intestines while he's still alive enough to chew and swallow.

(She also debates whether to keep this exquisitely gaudy, Sardinian castle of his for her own purposes, or tear it apart, brick by brick, and fling it down into the Mediterranean Sea as a final revenge on this well-moneyed fool.)

"So, your company was most kind to send you along to, as they say, 'seal the deal,'" he says, turning to regard her as he brings over his drink (and not, she notes, offering her one): "Did they think I would pay faster?"

"They think you are a good customer in the making, and are exciting to be working with you on this venture."

"Ah, that is good to know," Kyklops lounges on the other side of the bed, regarding her: "I think I will be putting my plan into motion, soon. The recent events in Indonesia have revealed our conquerors to have feet of clay, and I do not wish for them to recover and rebuild."

"A wise maneuver."

"Of course it is, my dear," he winks: "I am an old hand at this game you know. Yes, I think I shall strike while they are still repairing their space elevator. And then..."

"And then?"

"And then," he knocks back his drink, tosses the doubtlessly-priceless crystal glass to shatter on the floor, and crawls back onto her, reinvigorated in all senses of the word: "The world shall be mine, your company shall have the privilege of arming its master.

"And you, my dear, shall be fortunate enough to serve my other, more baser needs..."

And as he sticks himself into her, yet again -- pulling her hair and grabbing her breasts so hard it's a wonder they don't snap off -- she closes her eyes and thinks of the money, and her own plan.

And she wonders where the Violet Demon is, and what he's doing tonight.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the lair she doesn't really have control over, anymore, Zalea Zathros is !@#$ing herself.

More correctly, five of her are !@#$ing each other. Another five are working on making more Slaughterbots for METALMAID. And the remaining five are watching television, eating junk food, and having a nap.

Such is the connection between the fifteen of them that they're all more or less aware of what's going on with one another at any given moment. The ones working smile as they receive pleasure, and occasionally chuckle or gasp along with the insipid Greek soap opera that's playing upstairs, on the landing. Those loving themselves gently discuss plot points and design details as they nibble and lick one another into a frenzy. And those before the television languidly close their eyes every so often, and shudder with shared orgasms, or make a mental list of things they'll have to do when it's their turn at the lathe and soldering iron.

This is Zalea Zathros' signature achievement: a fully functioning hivemind, spread across a potentially infinite number of clones. A clone might die or be injured, but the overmind continues to function without cease. And should all but one be destroyed, that one would assume all knowledge and experience, and then be able to generate more clones from itself.

It is her dream made flesh, this life without limits. She would have made a gift of this blessed state of being to the entire world, if she'd only been allowed. But those with limited views and phobias of true scientific achievement were always out to stop her, for whatever reason.

And SPYGOD? That !@#$er locked one of her up, and then hunted down and exterminated every other clone she had remaining. He even found and burned her original body -- withered and sere, by that point, but still gloriously full of her meticulously altered DNA -- and informed her of this by dumping its ashes into her cell in the Heptagon basement.

Revenge, then, was her key goal once she escaped from his clutches. But that goal has been put aside by her former houseguest, now jailor and slavemaster. And try as she might, there's nothing she can do to get out of her bondage.

She keeps thinking there's something she could to do stop this. There's something she's doing, or not doing, that's keeping her like this. She has no idea what it could be, though, and so far every attempt she's made to narrow it down's been sidetracked, somehow.

(It's like something's aware of her investigations and is carefully moving the results of her quiet, slow experiments, so as to stop her from reaching definite conclusions.)

So she !@#$s herself. She works as ordered. She laughs and cries at the television and eats snack cakes and gets fatter than she'd like.

And as she comes and welds and passes the remote, she's all too aware that she's !@#$ed herself in more ways than one.

* * *

It's late at night in New Delhi. Dosha Josh is sleeping in the room of the safehouse he's "appropriated." Anil is standing nearby, watching him sleep.

He watches his chest rise and fall, ever so slowly, grateful for each new breath. He studies his face as he reacts to dreams, and as he lies peaceably, with no expression whatsoever.

When he's asleep he's the most beautiful man, this Dosha Josh. His scars are merely character. His eyes are kind and understanding. His lips full and luscious.

It's taken Anil some time to muster up the courage to stand there and watch, rather than to sit in the other room and keep an ear open for the two of them, like he's supposed to. Dosha only meant it jokingly, but he didn't know -- and still does not know -- that Anil does not need to sleep.

(Some strange trick of biology? No other teleporter Anil's ever met or heard of has such an issue. And while he's happy to not be enslaved to the cycle of wakefulness, he wonders what it must be like to truly lose himself to dreams, for a time. Perhaps only death will teach him this.)

But he daydreams. He fantasizes. He imagines.

And as he stands there, looking at Dosha's body under the thin sheet, imagining its hard surfaces and warm hollows, he dreams of a day when he might crawl into that bed and lay with him.

This is another thing that Dosha does not know about Anil, and probably never will. Anil has known what he was since he was old enough to know how men and women fit together, in the larger scheme of things. And while Dosha has never had time for love, sex, or any other "grotesque entanglements," as he puts it, he's quite clear about the fact that, if he ever desired to be so entangled, he'd look no further than some lovely, young Indian woman -- a vision of brown curves and fragrant hollows, with eyes that sparkle and hair that never ends.

(And a body that falls to ruin either right after the first baby, or sometime in one's 40's, Anil can't help but notice...)

Anil is none of those things, and would not care to be. He is a man, and he loves as a man does: a careful balance between firm directness and gentle suggestion. To make either to Dosha would be fatal to their working relationship, and shatter any hopes of a friendship beyond that.

So he watches Dosha sleep. He listens to him breathe. He promises to all Gods he knows that he will protect this man from all things, in all ways, and in this way show him his love.

It's not enough -- it could never be anywhere near enough -- but given that fate has decided to play this hand for them, in this lifetime, Anil will take the cards and hold them with silent gratitude.

And love.

* * *

Elsewhere in B.A.S.E.C.A.M.P. 4, Mark Clutch sits at the console, counting the seconds until Martha comes on to talk to him. Her and Kaitlyn have been up to a lot -- most of it quiet errands for their mysterious backer -- and there's a lot to talk about. Plans, errands, concerns, things like that.

Tonight could be the night he lets it slip that he's been thinking about her a lot.

It could actually happen, tonight. It's been a good day, and nothing feels like there's a disaster looming. He could just slip it into the conversation, as they get ready to sign off, and see what she says.

He could. Really.

But how does he say a thing like that? Really?

And how is she supposed to take it? Really?

Because he knows how this sounds: pathetic and base. It sounds like he's lonely, and missing his wife, and horny, and looking for a new mother for Kaitlyn, and a million other things that just scream "woah, back up, buddy."

And it's true, that sometimes when Martha laughs or cries -- or kicks people's !@#$ -- she reminds him of her so much. So !@#$ much...

But there's other things, besides. The way she talks, the way she thinks, the way she trusts to God always, and in all ways. The way she looks after his daughter, and will not give up on her son.

The way she's become the head of the family, now, and has learned to trust her own judgment and see what the Lord provides.

He has fallen in love, again. He has seen things in her he never saw before, and probably just as well given that he was married to her cousin. But fate has cleared the way between them, and, with the world hanging in the balance, can they not try to be happy as they save it?

But how can he say those things? How can he think those things? Rachel hasn't even been dead a year, and he's already trying to see her cousin. Surely there's something about that in the Bible. Somewhere.

(Though, the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks there's something about someone in the family having to marry the in-law who's lost her husband? Does that count for him? Does that even count at all?)

But all the reason and morality and propriety in the world can't cast aside his feelings. It's more than just loneliness, or wanting to make love to a smart, capable, and very lovely woman. It's a small spark that was lit when they met, all those years ago, and has blossomed into a full and beautiful flame now that the fire of his lost wife has dwindled away.

And if he doesn't do something about this blaze, it will burn him down.

Maybe tonight will be the night he says something they'll both regret hearing. Maybe tonight he'll just leave it lay for a better time.

Maybe.

* * *

In a shadowed apartment in Washington DC, a Beautiful Stranger frantically surfs the internet, looking for signs of a disaster. 

He knows the net's been censored, courtesy of the new masters of this planet, but he figures that news of earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes are probably let straight through. And after what he and Aaron did in the bedroom, earlier tonight, surely there has to be some sign of displeasure from on High, or Below. Some sort of cosmic comeuppance must have been levied against this trembling, moral world.

Surely the Earth must have moved.

As he searches, terrified of what he may have done, Aaron lies back in the bed they just broke, remembering the moments leading to here, at this moment. The lead-up to them was slow, sweet, and exquisitely tortured -- often a two steps forward, one step back sort of affair.

And, now that that's done, everything from here is likely to be fast, sour, and harsh. 

He does not cry. He does not smile. What's happened has happened, as he knew it would the moment he looked at that entity. 

And as for what happens now? Well, he'll probably find that out tomorrow, or maybe the day after. 

People think he knows everything that's going to happen, but that's not true. He only ever gets small glimpses of most of what's coming down the pipe -- small flares sent up from the font of Creation which are gone before they're really understood. It's only the big things that light up his mind, and make him ever so aware that everything he's doing has been planned since his creation, countless aeons ago.

This? Well, it was nice while it lasted, and might last longer than tonight. But in the grand scheme of things, it's was just a !@#$.

(A very nice !@#$, though -- one billions of years in the making.)

The stranger's weeping at the keyboard. Something about Vanuatu, or the coast of Japan. Aaron smiles and wills himself back to the closest he can approach sleep, knowing he'll just have to deal with it tomorrow. Maybe with more of the same.

* * *

In a small, Bridgetown shack, on the Southwest corner of Barbados, a cat is snoozing, curled up around a bottle of vodka and an AK-47. Three very tired hookers are conked out in a pile around him. Every so often he wakes up, halfway, mutters something in Russian, and then goes back to sleep, knowing that tomorrow he's going to be really !@#$ing busy.

He'd better get his relaxation when and where he can.

* * *

In a safehouse in the Bronx, two war vets alternate between !@#$ing and fighting. He's old, with the scars to prove it, and wearing nothing but a black mask with an ace of spades on it. She's young, but has almost as many scars as he does, and is wearing a blindfold, just to make this interesting. They'll do this until they're too weak to do anything but sleep, and maybe in the morning they'll do some business, but for now it's been too long since they've thrown down.

And they both need this -- badly.

* * *

And in China, not too far from where the President is crying, and the man he got the information from is sleeping, SPYGOD sleeps with his guns crossed over his chest, clearing his mind and making himself ready for what he's going to do, tomorrow. But every so often, he can't help but remember the Dragon, and relive that lovely bit of ghost sex they had, there in that fire, as the barriers between worlds and futures was shattering around them. 

He tries not to cry for that lost moment, wanting to have a blank mind for the job. He tries to resist the sickness of regret, which can both paralyze and kill an Agent -- even someone like him.

But here -- in this place and time -- he can't help but let the sorrow wash over him, so he gives in, and loses himself in that rush of dark emotions. He puts his guns down, grabs his mutated, lovecraftian !@#$ and masturbates weakly, trying to let the wave of light and airy endorphins this brings counteract the sour mash of loss and horror.

In his mind, one man becomes many men. The Dragon of then becomes The Dragon of now becomes Director Straffer becomes a mindless, soft parade of Thai ladyboys, MI-6 agents, and fighting men from every war he's ever been in One set of buttocks melds into another, all !@#$s become one !@#$, all torsos and shoulders and hips and calves and necks and jawlines and lips and eyes are pieced together from the honeyed trap of his memory, becoming a frankensteinian patchwork doll, there for him to !@#$ from all angles, in all ways, in all times.

One man in one moment, shining and resplendent, taking him in his arms and calling him home. 

He's come three times before he knows it -- sperm bullets shattering portions of the drywall and ceiling. The resulting rush of bliss washes over him, knocking the sorrow out of his skull, at least for now. And then he lies back, watching with some fascination as his twisted manhood slithers and slurps itself back into his pants.

"I love you," he says to the piece of the Dragon left behind in his mind's eye, just before it becomes Straffer and then vanishes with the wink of a winsome katooey's eye: "I loved you all."

And then he gently takes his guns up, crosses them over his chest, and goes about clearing his mind for his mission -- the only real and true love he has left, now.

And the only one that can really love him back forever.

(SPYGOD is listening to Pornography (The Cure) and having something you never want to taste)

3/15/12 - The Day of The Gorgon - pt. 4

The route that Second and The Dragon take through the Flier -- post counter-coup -- leads them in increasingly-tighter circles, slowly taking them to the massive engineering deck, and their ultimate goal.

The path is designed to try and confuse people into thinking they're just taking a leisurely but unusual inspection tour -- not entirely unknown in these post-SPYGOD days. But it's also been designed to keep the Specials from seeing what they're up to, which would not only render their daring preemptive strike on New Man  useless, but also get them killed, most likely.

And no one wants that.

Second would rather go faster, of course, but he's following The Dragon's lead on this one. He may not trust him further than he could spit him, but if there's one thing the man knows how to be, it's sneaky. So he's deferring to his judgment on this one -- even if he's still highly uncertain of his true motives.

(The barrage of zen bull!@#$ he tried to ply him with, back in the Director's office, did nothing to convince him.)

"How much longer?" Second asks as they pass up yet another chance to walk into a side entrance of engineering, electing to go up another floor, instead.

"A young monk once asked his master how long enlightenment took," The Dragon answers, not bothering to look back and regard his questioner: "His master said 'as long as it takes.' The student pressed on, wanting to know 'how long does it take?" And the master smiled and said 'when you stop asking that question, you will know.'"

"In other words, shut up and keep walking?" Second cuts to the chase.

"In other words, once we're inside, you'll see why we've stayed outside for as long as we have."

Second scowls, but looks back the way they came. As he does, a pair of Specials walk from the entrance they might have just gone through, and take up position guarding it.

"I think I see," Second replies, looking forward again: "Do you think they know something's up?"

"I think they are on high alert, given that this is the day," Dragon replies, holding up a hand and pausing their journey: "I also think they are only a few movements away from taking over this entire installation, and the closer they get to the moment, the less secrecy becomes an issue. So if they see us, they may decide to bring certain eventualities forward, and then our stealthy attempt to stop their plan becomes a very loud and violent fight."

"True, but what if they throw the switch and we're still sneaking around out here?"

"Then we will know that we no longer need to sneak around, as you put it," the Dragon says with a condescending smile: "But look, my young monk. I think enlightenment may be close at hand..."

He gestures to a bulkhead that has been partially slid open, revealing access to the maintenance platform that runs the whole of engineering's roof, allowing engineers to get up and change lightbulbs.

"Ah, the top-down," Second says: "I guess this isn't a great time to mention I'm not !@#$ing crazy about heights."

"No," Dragon says: "But the good news is that we need only be so high for so long before going down."

"That's the other half of the problem."

Once on the platform, they can see that the situation is worse than they may have thought. The entire ground floor of engineering is literally crawling with Specials, with only a few Agents still at their posts. It almost looks like they're being replaced, one by one, by the new guards in the all-covering, high-tech suits and frightening-looking gauss guns.

The Dragon points to another platform, up against the far wall, just over the massive reactor core. Second knows what it is: an access point to one of the most secure places on the entire Flier, and one they'll need to get into in order to do what they need to do.

So they walk along the platform very, very slowly -- barely daring to look down as Agents are roughly wrested from their duties and made to leave the room. Any of them who ask the Specials for proper authorization are quickly marched from the room and tossed out; any who resist are overpowered and dragged away.

Second would dearly love to jump down there and kick some !@#$, but he knows that they have bigger fish to fry. Timing is critical, here, in the last moments before the enemy's plan kicks into full swing.

And, as Second knows too well, lost seconds don't grow on trees.

 * * *

It takes what seems like forever for the assistance to come to Myron's aid, in the interrogation cell. Then another forever beyond that for that assistance to get over the fact that they're going to be handling the SPYGOD, of all prisoners. But eventually, they get him up and ready to go -- thankfully not noticing that he's manacled in trick cuffs -- and then frog-march him down the hall and to an elevator.

Myron follows, holding the buzzer, and hoping that the Agents thronging the halls to watch their former Director be taken to a more secure holding facility don't give in to the urge to get physical. As it is, they seem content to jeer, boo, and hawk spit at him.

"Murderer!" they scream: "!@#$ing murderer!" "Traitor!"

Myron thinks of that terrible Christian snuff movie his Bible-thumping aunt made him watch, once, and can't help but find some strange parallels. But that would make SPYGOD Jesus, and if there's one thing he isn't, it's a martyr.

(Even now, somewhat in charge of the proceedings, Myron's just following his orders -- however temporally-scrambled they are, and however surreally they were given.)

The two guards take way too much time getting down the hall, mugging for the crowd and posing for photographs along the way. Thankfully they don't actually stop, but every so ofter the clicker goes off in Myron's pocket, and he's positive that his allies are wondering what the !@#$ is going on.

But at last they're in the elevator. And then they're going down to a level that, if all's gone well, should be absolutely deserted.

When the door opens, and Myron hears nothing, he's pretty sure that part of the plan, at least, as worked out. And SPYGOD picks that moment -- being dragged out of the elevator -- to finally wake up and start to talk.

"Look, I'm telling you, Myron, I don't know what the !@#$ happened," SPYGOD says: "You can hit me with that !@#$ing joybuzzer all day long if you want, but it ain't gonna change a thing."

"Yeah, tell it to the judge, !@#$er," one of the Agents says, shaking him a little.

"Don't talk to the prisoner, Agent," Myron says, wondering when Dosha and Anil are going to show up: "Just carry him to the cell."

"Oh, I get another cell, huh?"  SPYGOD replies, looking around him: "This one come with HBO?"

"It comes with enough slush-gas to turn you into compost," the other Agent lets him know: "Please, give us an excuse."

"I will hit the button again, (REDACTED)" Myron says, hoping that he hasn't missed his opportunity.

But then the clicker goes off twice in quick succession, and he hears the strange, marker-on-the-whiteboard noise that heralds a teleporter using his power. And even though he knows what's coming next, he can't help but be startled by how swiftly it goes down.

First Anil's in front of him, taking the buzzer. Then he's behind him, taking his pants and guns. Then those pants are tied around his ankles, and he's falling to the ground, barely able to get his hands up in time.

As he hits the ground, he's dimly aware that both of the other two Agents are being cold-!@#$ed in the noggin by a swift, fat fist. As they fall down their pants do the same disappear-reappear act as his own did -- just tied a little tighter.

And then SPYGOD's just standing there, still manacled and looking somewhat stupid, and not quite sure what's just happened.

"Do not turn around," Myron says to him, just a little above a whisper: "Listen to me, sir. When you get back to when you came from, you find me and tell me three things. One is to remember that there will be a day when you'll claim not to have done something, and I should believe you. Two is to make friends with the Indians. And three is to always carry a pair of trick shackles with me."

SPYGOD nods, and rattles his shackles. They fall off and clatter to the floor, useless and cheap.

He doesn't waste time looking back and saying goodbye. For a moment Myron's kind of hurt, but he realizes that it's a complement in a way -- SPYGOD's way of saying that he can take care of himself.

Sure enough, by the time SPYGOD's made the stairwell -- and that strange noise comes and goes and takes him with it -- Myron's already up, re-pantsed, and heading away from the cluster!@#$ he helped engineer.

And on to the next one.

* * *

From his spacious and starry lookout on the world, far up and away on Deep Ten, Director Straffer watches as 24 different clocks tick and tock their way towards the next hour in their respective timezones. Canberra, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Singapore, Bangkok... from right to left, following the Sun.

It won't be too long, now. 

Of all the persons involved in the plan, today, he has the most important job of all. Dr. Yesterday might be seeing to the Chamber, and its security, and the Director of the CIA might be responsible for what happens next. And what their leader's going to be doing on board The Flier, once things really get going down there, is going to be another very important piece of the plan.

But it's what he and Deep Ten are locked into doing next that will either guarantee that the plan is going to go off, or not at all. 

Of course, without his support in things, the plan will still happen -- they've come too far, worked too long, and put too many resources and chess pieces into play for it to not work. But certain things would be no longer as controllable, and certain aspects of the "shock and awe" strategy they've decided to employ would no longer be as shocking, or nearly as awesome. 

It's not enough to take control of the world, today; they have to make certain it stays under control. And to do that, they need Deep Ten floating above it all, watching and merciless. 

"The nail needs a hammer," as their leader would say.

In some ways, the takeover of Deep Ten has been the toughest part of the plan to engineer. While GORGON had been running its communications network from the massive space platform for years, that was thanks to a few suborned, questionably-sane individuals that the real Director Straffer had been all too happy to fling from an airlock when their perfidy was finally discovered. And then he and SPYGOD had to go from rivals to friends to lovers in the space of only a few months, making further activities up here all the more difficult to engineer. 

Fortunately, Straffer was out quite often, giving GORGON enough time to sneak more personnel on board, including his trusted Second in command. Once that was done, they were able to alter the programming on some of Deep Ten's robotic servitors, and build remote deactivation routines into the rest. 

So when the time came for them to replace him, all the pieces were in place. Unfortunately, something went badly wrong, and the plan has suffered for it ever since.

Namely, Straffer chose suicide over surrender, or a fight to the death. And he chose to die by crashing out one of the windows in the area they ambushed him in, consigning his frail, human body to the cold and vacuum of space. 

As a result, they were not able to get a decent N-scan of his brain. This lack of his firsthand knowledge has made performing the rest of the operation very difficult and time-consuming, as -- much like his lover, SPYGOD -- there are numerous things that the Director alone knew, and did not care to share with anyone. 

But, at long last, the final pieces of the puzzle came together. They were able to bypass certain safety measures that had been placed within the weapons platform, and get it to do things that normally took a massive amount of override codes, palmprints, retinal scans, and DNA swabs to perform. 

And now, they are able to call Deep Ten theirs. 

Smiling with well-deserved satisfaction, the False Face wearing Director Straffer's face -- but, sadly, not possessing his mind -- watches the clock tick down on Sydney, and the last few minutes of the flawed freedom that Earth has "enjoyed" up to this point.

Soon a new hour will dawn, and with it a new order. 

And all he has to do is speak to bring it down.

(SPYGOD is listening to Interzone (Joy Division) and having a Desert Lime)

3/15/12 - The Day of The Gorgon - pt. 3

It is the day.

In Russia, outside the White House, several cells of the Fervent Sons of October cradle their guns and await the signal to strike. They have been told that guards sympathetic to their cause are standing by to give them both a distraction and an appropriate number of holes in security. Then all they have to do is overcome those guards who are not on their side, and seize the Parliament from inside.

It would be a difficult thing to hold off the Russian army, immediately thereafter, but their backers have promised to have that issue well in hand. Still, such a thing has required a massive leap of faith on the part of the Sons; they'd always hoped to avoid an armed counter-revolution, and hoped instead that people would tire of crony capitalism and crime-run democracy, and eventually desire a return to the noble, if economically humbling, Soviet state.

But when someone that powerful is willing to offer a golden ticket -- handing weapons, equipment, logistics, and the ability to quash the otherwise-inevitable military response -- one would be highly foolish not to take it.

So they sit and they wait. And as they do, they smile, which seems quite against the usual Russian stoicism, but they've been shown a new way to believe by their new friends.

"All you need is love" -- that's what their backers said. Love, faith, and superior firepower.

Though they don't know it, they're far from the only ones to put those three things into play, today. All around the world, large groups of would-be revolutionaries, religious zealots, agents of intolerance, and violent cranks are getting into position for a chance to take matters into their own hands.

In Beijing, the Righteous Fists of Tiananmen Square lurk in small knots and clusters throughout the Great Hall of the People. Their weapons have been distributed to them, and they pretend to be at their tasks, all the while waiting for a chance to use these finely constructed weapons to free their country from one-party tyranny and create a true Chinese Democracy.

(Their leader has a dream of the band Guns & Roses playing the revolutionary gala, once the shooting's stopped and the inevitable wave of  trials has not yet given way to an equally-inevitable wave of executions.)

In Brussels, a group of mohawked, modern primitive anarchists have already come into Belgium's Parliament Building, masquerading as a troupe of artists, and collecting their guns on the way. They do this completely unaware of the fact that, across the city, another, even larger -- and much more internally fractious -- group is infiltrating the European Parliament, in the Espace Leopold. This conglomeration of radically nationalist, anti-unification zealots can barely stand to be in the room with one another, much less take on a mission of this size, but their friends told them it was the only way it could be done.

And so far their friends have been right about everything.

In Saudi Arabia, the Divine Wrath of the Children of God stand by in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Mecca, planning a three-pronged attack to paralyze the Kingdom. In Brazil, the National Congress in Brasilia has a strange influx of anti-deforestation ecowarriors targeting it from one side, and pro-exploitation corporate mercenaries on the other. Mexico City is crawling with armed Aztecs, Panamanian rebels seek to retake the country, and then the Canal, and Nairobi's authorities are unaware that violent aspects of their expatriate European population have a mind to take over the show.

Even Canada is under threat from homegrown dangers. A surprisingly non-noncommittal faction of xenophobic Francophones plans to take over the country for Quebec. Once in power they plan to kick out anyone who can't hold an entire conversation in proper French -- especially those noisy, self-righteous, "First Nations" layabouts. They will then put out a shingle for intelligent and industrious folks who are willing to make Neucanada the premier French-speaking country in the world.

(Once they've purged their ranks of anyone who doesn't also dream entirely in French, of course.)

All across the world, the pots are close to boiling over. And all the people whose jobs it were to make certain they didn't get too hot too quickly are incommunicado, missing in action, dead in the streets, or being well-paid to either look the other way, or aid in the revolution to come.

The water bubbles, hot and portentous. Sweaty hands grip new, ready-to-use hardware. Nervous smiles, anxious to get this over with, are met with stern eyebrows, furrowed in deadly concentration.

The sign comes closer still.

It is the day.

And soon, it will be the moment.

* * *

It takes SPYGOD a couple minutes to come up from the last jolt. When he does, the scene he's presented with is exactly what Myron intended: the lights are down in his side of the interrogation suite, and the lights are up in Myron's, so that SPYGOD doesn't need his signal-blocked SPYGOD VISION to see him standing there, next to Agent Ratface.

As Myron looks at SPYGOD, he sees the confusion there. It's taking him a moment to realize it's actually him. Better play off the disbelief, then.

"Well I'll be !@#$ed," Myron says: "He really did come back. Do we know why?"

"I tell you when I figure it out, Myron," SPYGOD says, and Ratface hits the button without getting an order. He grins to watch the COMPANY's former director jerk and twitch like a fish on a line, but once his finger is off the button, Myron gently takes it away from him.

"I think that'll be all, Agent Norvegicus," he says: "I'll handle him from here."

"You know, sir, the good cop, bad cop thing only works if the bad cop's in the room," the Agent says, quite visibly unhappy to have had his toy taken away.

"What's your grade here, Agent?" Myron barks, looming over him.

Ratface jumps to attention: "Junior Agent, sir-"

"And did you actually get to that rank by going through our full recruitment program, including Hell Month?"

"No, sir. I was transferred in from ATF-"

"Explosives, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, huh? So I take it you did not take enhanced interrogations classes from Dr. Pain?"

"No, sir. I did not. Who's Dr. Pain?"

Myron looks at him and sighs: "Leave this room, go find a senior Agent, and tell him to direct you to Dr. Pain. Tell him you transferred in laterally and need some catchup work. He'll help you."

"Yes, sir," Ratface says, walking out a little too slowly for Myron's liking. And something about the look he gives him as he leaves the suite leaves him wondering if he hasn't already decided to ask someone else if the prison warden's really the right person to be handling this job.

"Good going, you dumb !@#$," Myron says to himself as he goes to lock the door: "Just had to give yourself another !@#$ing complication, didn't you? All we needed was another deadline."

He fishes around for a small disc in his pocket, and, looking at SPYGOD, presses it. It's a blind communicator: he clicks it once to send a signal, and when the people on the other side are ready to go, they'll click him back. Then it's just a matter of making sure everyone's where they're supposed to be, when they're supposed to be. But until that moment comes, he has to stall for time.

He looks at SPYGOD again, and then looks at the buzzer. He thinks about how they first met, what seems another lifetime ago.

He smiles.

* * *

At the very bottom of the world, in the Ice Palace, Dr. Yesterday sits in his office with his feet up, watching video feeds and sipping coffee from a large mug that declares IT'S NOT MAGIC, IT'S SCIENCE! It's been a very busy morning, but now that he's done with most of what he needed to do, today, he can relax -- if only for a moment or two.

Out of his other three cohorts, his has been the easiest job thus far. All he's had to do is maintain the illusion that The Chamber is locked and dormant, as well as plan for this day. But now that it's here, he had a lot of catching up to do.

The first thing was to isolate the entire base from the outside world, so that no one north of here would know there was anything wrong at all. This required a cunning computer program to manage communications between here and various bases that had reason to be talking to them. It also necessitated using some of ABWEHR's old cloaking and defensive arrays, which, antiquated as they were, would still suit for at least a day or so.

All the time they needed, really.

The second thing was to make sure that no one interfered with what had to happen next. That required a little more physicality, but, fortunately, Dr. Yesterday had a number of ready helpers for that part of things.

He's watching them now as he sips at his coffee. His dwarves are moving throughout the Ice Palace, quietly killing every Blue Helmet they can get their tiny hands on in increasingly creative and nasty ways. So far, no one has any idea that a silent holocaust is going on, and he thinks he understands why SPYGOD really didn't like those UN fools poking their noses into his business.

But then, what did he know? 

He had no idea that the real Dr. Yesterday was trying to warn him about strange goings-on here, at the South Pole. He had no idea what was going on with Mr. USA, and his mysterious phone calls.

And as for Geri...

That reminds him. He toggles over a switch on the board and places a call to Washington D.C. There's a few rings, and then an answering machine kicks in.

"Good day," the voice says: "If you're hearing this, then the answer is yes. And, yes, it was quick. I appreciate a man who appreciates efficiency over sadism. I will expect the money to be transferred soon, as per our agreement. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Goodbye."

Dr. Yesterday smiles and terminates the phone call. That's Fritz and Helmut done, then. 

He sips the coffee and watches one of his dwarves hack a soldier's head off with a large piece of sheet metal. The blood sprays across the camera and renders it useless. 

He laughs at the sight, happy and content in his little corner of the revolution.

* * *

SPYGOD rises at long last, and looks at the window. All he sees is Myron standing there, buzzer in hand.

"You know, I got to hand it to Dr. Yesterday," Myron says: "I was a little dubious when he said he had something that would !@#$ you up. But I guess this little baby works after all. That and the dampeners. How does it feel to be normal folks, (REDACTED)?

Is that anger on his face? Or just confusion? "You don't get to use that name, Myron."

"(REDACTED)," Myron says, acting like a bratty child who's been told not to say !@#$ in front of grandma, and zapping him again for good measure: "(REDACTED), (REDACTED), (REDACTED)."

SPYGOD wakes up a little quicker this time, obviously annoyed, but not caring to try getting back onto his feet: "What are you, two years old?"

"What are you, stupid?" Myron asks, looking down at him like a bug he found on his shoe: "Or did you think we were? Why did you come back here, anyway? You took everything of value when you ran for it, afterwards. Is there another cache of !@#$, somewhere down there?"

"I got caches all over this !@#$ place, son," he says, deciding to get to his feet, moving like the old man he actually is: "I got ways and means. If I needed to get in here and get something, you wouldn't have seen me come or go. You should know that by now."

Just then, the clicker goes off in Myron's pocket. That gives him about five minutes. He does the math in his head and decides to pull this a little longer.

"Why are you here, SPYGOD?" he demands: "And no bull!@#$. You lie to me, I press this thing and it stays pressed. I don't care if it kills you. At this point, it'd be a kindness you don't deserve."

"I'll answer, but let me ask you something, first?"

"Don't !@#$ push your luck, (REDACTED)-"

"What year is this?"

Myron's about to speak, but the pocket clicker goes off again. That means he doesn't have nearly as much time as he thought. What the !@#$ is going on?

"Well? What year is this?" SPYGOD demands: "Cause something obviously went !@#$ wrong in the future, and I need to know how long I have until it happens-"

Myron zaps him for a full thirty seconds. As he does, he calls for assistance removing the prisoner to the maximum security level. This is going to be closer than he'd like, but he can work with it.

As for what happens then, well... he'll just have to take it as it comes, won't he?

(SPYGOD is listening to New Dawn Fades (Joy Division) and having a Baltika)

3/15/12 - The Day of The Gorgon - pt. 2

By the time Myron gets into the interrogation room, there's already quite a crowd -- both inside and outside the doors. He has to pull rank to get them to shoo, but even then there's a real reluctance to do what he wants.

(These lateral personnel transfers the COMPANY's gotten from other Agencies, after the President's assassination, aren't exactly the most obedient types. He's complained, before, but it's gotten him nowhere.)

Once it's just him, a rat-faced guard he doesn't particularly like, and a few other necessary Agents in the room, he's able to get down to business.

The first thing he does is look into the room. It looks like SPYGOD, alright. He's wearing the uniform that he had taken to wearing during OPERATION BUGSMASH, once they were cleaning up the Central HIVE. Her's been shot once in the leg, and he's barfed and !@#$ed himself into near-oblivion. 

"So what's the story?" he asks, trying to act surprised as he turns away from the window: "Is it actually him?"

"If it isn't, then I don't know who it is, sir," the guard who took helped bring him into the room says: "But I gotta tell you, sir, it's spooky the way he just went down like that."

"The field  Dr. Yesterday put up must be really good."

"Either that or he's really off his !@#$ing game," the other guard says, handing over a bag full of the prisoner's effects: "He was acting like he was disoriented. He actually walked up to us, and asked us... what did he ask?"

"Where he was, exactly," the first guard says: "And then when we opened fire up on him he tried to laugh it off at first."

"And he didn't have any guns?" Myron makes sure, looking at the contents of the bag. All that's in there is Costa Rican money, a beer tab, and a key to a room in a hotel he knows all too !@#$ well.

"He reached for one when he realized we weren't !@#$ing around, but he had none, no," the other guard says: "Like I said, sir. Disoriented."

Then there's a voice from the other side of the room, behind the one-way glass: "Oh, let's not start that !@#$ again."

His voice. 

"He's up," rat-face says, hovering his hands over the button: "Should I?"

"Not just yet," Myron says, coming over to watch the man stagger around the room: "Let's see what he does."

He throws up, first. Then he pokes around his wound with an astonishing lack of gentleness, maybe judging how fast it's healed. And then, obviously disgusted with his state of affairs, and not finding a table or chair to steady himself with, asks "Can I get a !@#$ drink? Wash the taste out of my !@#$ mouth."

"You can choke on it, !@#$," ratface says into his microphone: "You're lucky you're even breathing, you traitor."

"You're lucky you got me on a bad day, son," he says, staring at them through the one-way mirror but not quite seeing, somehow (which is highly unusual): "I don't know what you GORGON !@#$ers have going on, here, but when I get out-"

Ratface looks at Myron, and Myron nods at him. The Agent presses the button, and SPYGOD goes into a seizure, falls down to his knees, and sprawls out on the floor, messing himself yet again.

"You know what?" Myron asks the two guards: "I think the two of us have this. Could you go outside and keep the curious out and away?"

"Yes sir," one of them says, saluting as they head that way.

"And good work, gentlemen!" he calls after them, feeling grateful to have them out of the room at last. Now he just has to figure a way to get rid of ratface and they're super groovy.

"You like that, huh?" ratface says into the microphone as Myron gets the door closed and locked: "Bit different from shooting a man in cold blood, huh? Not so high and mighty now, are we?"

There's no answer, but ratface keeps going: "And I can keep that up all day, you cycloptic, has-been, traitor !@#$. Maybe you should just keep quiet for once."

"Maybe you should suck my !@#$ing !@#$," SPYGOD says, and ratface chuckles as he hits the zap button again -- keeping it down for an entire minute this time.

"Okay, different tactic," Myron says after the man lets go: "Turn down his lights, turn ours up, and I'm going to pretend like I just got here."

"What are you hoping to get out of him," ratface snorts: "A confession?"

"Cooperation," he answers.

And time.

* * *

The Flier hovers just off the coasts of Havana, far from the masses of people who still want to take pot-shots at it after they were rudely made free by its advanced weaponry, just six days ago.

As liberations went, it wasn't exactly the most well-planned or conscientious. The COMPANY was more or less punked into it by its former Director, who clearly had a personal score or two to settle. Worse still, it now seems the entire thing was just an elaborate distraction, so as to get something -- someone, rather -- extremely dangerous out of Guantanamo Bay.

And between a newly-minted Director who didn't seem to know what he was doing, a headstrong Colonel who was clearly overly-eager to bag public enemy number one, a foreign national of questionable allegiances, and the former Director's ostensibly loyal, but never entirely-unquestionable, second in command, The COMPANY just walked right into the mother of all boobytraps.

The President, who wasn't happy to be woken up and informed that Cuba was now free on his watch, by his unwitting hand, has to make nice on the television, but is taking a massive drubbing from all sides for this one. Both Republicans and Democrats aren't happy with him, and the independents are going spastic. And the international community -- especially Fidel Castro's old club of America haters -- is rather unamused.

In fact, the United Nations is so displeased that they've all but flooded Cuba with a reverse flotilla of pro-democracy monitors. These earnest, young men and women are all traipsing up and down the countrysides, ensuring that no one's civil rights are being violated by The COMPANY, or any other American Agency that might be currently working there.

(Where were they before the liberation, one has to wonder?)

But, in spite of all international criticism and condemnation, the Flier remains not far away, making sure that no one comes in to take undue advantage of the situation. Numerous pro-democracy organizations within Cuba are currently working on a new government, and it would be a terrible tragedy if their careful, impassioned work was to fall victim to one of America's enemies, or some group of science terrorists eager to make a beachhead in the nation.

Another thankless job for The COMPANY, in other words, but nothing they're not used to.

Second keeps that in mind as he strides towards the Director's office, carrying a clipboard filled with the latest reports in triplicate for New Man to sign off on. Mostly maintenance schedules and section reports, thankfully, though there's a few in here that will doubtlessly make him really !@#$ing angry.

Provided he reads them at all.

He knocks on the door, and hears nothing on the other side. Ten seconds go by, then twenty, then a full minute. He's about to ask one of the two Specials standing guard outside the door to see if the Director stepped out for an early lunch, but then the door finally opens. 

"I was about to see if you'd flown the coop, sir..." he starts to say, but then stops when he sees that the Director is sitting in the middle of a massive paperwork apocalypse. He's surrounded by report after report, memo after memo, and printout after printout. And, as Second watches, his email dings once, twice, three times to let him know he's got that many new no-doubt urgent messages in his box.

"Can I?" New Man all but begs: "Just fly away? Is there someplace I could hide for a few months?"

"I hear Maui's nice this year, sir," he says, walking closer with the clipboard: "I just need a few quick John Hancocks on the bottom of each, and then I'll let you get back to... this."

 

"How in the heck did SPYGOD deal with all of this?" New Man asks, grabbing the clipboard and signing everything without even looking at it.

 

"He didn't, sir," Second says: "He was too busy running an intelligence organization to bother with all of this."

 

"What..." the Director says, shaking his head as though he couldn't believe a word of what he'd just heard.

 

"He said that when it came to the day to day running of the COMPANY, the Flier, the Heptagon, or anything else, unless it was earth-shattering news, don't tell him. If it was bad, fix it if you could, and only tell him if you couldn't. And if it was good, leave it for the status report or end of mission briefing. Assessments, dangers, defeats and victories were all he wanted across his desk immediately. Everything else... well..."

Second gestures to the pile of memos.

 

"Well, I think the President wants someone to take a firmer hand at the till, Second," New Man sighs: "I may just have to bite the bullet on all this."

 

"Well, if you'd care for my advice-"

 

"Is it going to get me fired, and you promoted?"

 

Second looks at New Man, who doesn't look back at him. 

 

"Sir, everything I do I do for the good of the United States of America, through the engine of this organization," Second says, putting the clipboard down: "I do not have any ambitions beyond getting her through another day, and getting us from mission to mission in as few pieces as possible."

 

"Really?" New Man asks, finally turning to regard the man.

 

"Well, that and maybe another pay raise, sir. It's hard to have Remy Martin tastes on a Pabst Blue Ribbon salary."

"I'm being serious, Agent."

"So am I, sir. And you need to understand that, while I do a lot of the things a Director should be doing, I do not, and have never wanted, to be the Director. I would be lousy at it. I'm a much better second in command. I'd tell you to ask SPYGOD about that, but..."

New Man nods, and hands the clipboard back.

"You know, every day I'm here, I can't help but wonder how long it's going to take me to crack," New Man says: "It was simple during the War. I told you about Tarawa, didn't I?"

"A few times, sir," Second smiles, hoping the man doesn't launch into that one again.

"And that was before I got my powers, too. Just me and my buddies in an Alligator, waiting for the next salvo to knock us over and turn us all inside out. But somehow, it was clear. We knew what we were doing. There was a logic to it. A reason.

 

"This..." he waves his hand at the wall, where he's painstakingly mapped out the entire state of play of the world's known intelligence operations, strategic talents, and known enemy operatives. Pushpins hold notes in place, and different colored lengths of string connect pin to pin in a worldwide web of malfeasance and terror.

Second blinks, walking towards it in awe: "Sir, when did you...?"

"I finished last night," the man says, wearily: "That's when I started trying to catch up on this. I don't think I'm doing a great job of both."

"Good lord, sir. When do you sleep?"

"I don't," New Man admits: "That's one of the reasons I think they gave me this job. Ever since the accident, I've been-"

His explanation is cut off by the door opening. The Dragon is there. 

And in less than a second he's covered the length of the room, and jabbed a very large, impressive-looking dagger right through New Man's heart.

New Man looks surprised, as though someone told him a surrealistic joke. And then he tries to speak, fails, and closes his eyes. A moment later his body begins to flicker and fade, like it was the screen of a dying television. The dagger glows and sparkles in time with the flickering.

"It's time, then?" Second asks, watching the door carefully.

"It is," Dragon says: "The enemy is on the move. SPYGOD needs our help now more than ever."

 

"Who can we trust?" 

 

"The new guards are all compromised. As for the newer Agents, I think perhaps one in five is a saboteur."

"Then it's you and me against the world, huh?" Second says, putting the clipboard down on the nearest pile of memos on the desk: "Funny how it all works out, huh?"

"I do believe there is a saying about the last person you would ever suspect being the last person you should ever fully trust," The Dragon intones, languidly gesturing towards New Man.

 

"So what does that make you?" Second asks: "I know you have your own angle, here. How long before there's a knife in my back?"

 

"One can never be certain of such things. But I know there is a saying regarding the enemies of one's enemies?"

 

"'I against my brother. My brother and I against my cousin. My cousin and I against the stranger.'"

"That's not quite the one I was thinking of..." Dragon says, looking quite askance.

"I do think you're right," Second agrees, looking at New Man: "But I have to hand it to the stranger, today. This man was one of the secret heads of GORGON all along? Who would have ever thought?"

"Double bluffs are their specialty. Shall we go?"

Second nods, and lets Dragon lead the way. On the way out he looks back at the Director -- stuck in a flux state and unable to leave it -- and smiles, ever so slightly. And if the Specials outside the door have reason to suspect a quiet counter-coup has just occurred, right under their noses, they make no sign of it as the two men walk down the hall, heading for the underbelly of the Flier.

Meanwhile, back in the office, New Man's email keeps piling up in is mailbox. They're all marked URGENT, of course, but one from someone calling himself HOTBILE, titled "Queer Happenings in India/Pakistan, possibly also worldwide, READ NOW" is the only one that seems to be worthy of the red exclamation point.

And it sits... and sits... 

(SPYGOD is listening to Shadowplay (Joy Division) and having a Last Lion Ale)

3/15/12 - The Day of The Gorgon - pt. 1

The caterpillar must bury itself alive and sleep before the butterfly can come out and soar.

* * *

SOOTHSAYER
Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
What man is that?

BRUTUS
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS
Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR
What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER
Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

Julius Caesar - Act 1. Scene II

* * *

It's Thursday, March 15th, and even at 10 in the AM, it's already clear that it's going to be another scorcher. 

The unusually warm D.C. weather continues to confound almanacs and send its citizens out of doors, once they get home from their jobs. Substandard air conditioners overheat and threaten brownouts. Fans are taxed to their maximum. Some rain would be nice, but then it's just make the area even more humid, and no one wants that.

But, safe behind thick, temperature-controlled walls in the Heptagon, Myron -- aka Underman -- is feeling an entirely different kind of heat, this morning. Part of that heat comes from knowing that, someday soon, a temporally-displaced, slightly younger version of his disgraced former Director is going to come here, be captured, and then spirited away due to a carefully-laid plan that Myron's finally got up and running. But the other part of that heat comes from the fact that, as he just learned just a few days ago, the entire Heptagon is crawling with the enemy in disguise.

The "Specials" -- high-tech guards that have appeared at all COMPANY installations since New Man took over -- are all GORGON's False Faces in disguise. They're armored like crazy, carrying some frightening ordinance in their hands, and operating under instructions he doesn't have the paygrade to even get a glimpse of.

So far, it seems that only Myron knows this, but he doesn't dare tell anyone. He has no idea if Second, The Dragon, New Man, or Colonel Richter are pulling the strings on this one, or have been suborned into accepting it. He doesn't even know if this is all some crazy, double or triple bluff, especially since it turns out that Dr. Yesterday's been turned into one of them, too.

But he knows that any single one of those five men could come running down here at a moment's notice, and not only find some excuse to divest him of his new job, but slam him back into a cell, too. And if Myron isn't here, in charge, to play his part when younger SPYGOD shows up, the plan instantly goes to !@#$.

And there are no !@#$ing words for just how bad that is. 

He's kept himself busy, though. After a few drinks to steady his nerves after his new, "They Live," anti-GORGON sunglasses showed him more than he ever wanted to know, he got another idea along those same lines. Since then, when he hasn't had to do official prison warden things, he's been huddled over his desk, working on a little something just in case he needs it. 

Thankfully, that little something is almost done. It just needs a test drive, which could always be arranged, of course. He'd just have to engineer some kind of situation to explain why however many Specials had a peculiar problem, right out of nowhere...

An alarm brings him back to reality. He pushes some of his bits and tools away and flips his computer back up to see what's going on.

"Report?" he asks.

"Intruder down on sublevel twenty, sir," an Agent tells him: "Must have teleported in."

"Well, get on top of it," Myron says: "We've got a few cells down there. I don't feel like having a jailbreak today-"

"Sir, it's him!"

Myron's heart thumps to a dead stop in his chest: "Him who, Agent?"

"It's SPYGOD, sir! He doesn't appear to be armed... they're shooting-"

"Shoot to disable, Agent!" Myron shouts: "Tell them to shoot to disable only! We need him able to talk-"

"Sir, he's... okay, I think the field got him. He's down."

"Are you sure it's him?"

"Yes... I think so, sir. We're taking a look now..."

The screen goes away from the Agent's face and over to the figure, lying prone on the ground, drooling like a drunk and twitching every so often. He's wearing and off-duty uniform, like the kind he'd have worn at that !@#$ty hotel in Costa Rica, and not armed, which is highly unusual, to say the least. But it's SPYGOD, alright. 

"Interrogation room 12," Myron orders: "I'll be right there."

He turns the computer down, and then puts a datastick into it. As soon as he does, a call gets made, and Anil picks up after a dozen, nervewracking rings.

"Hi there," he says: "Do you know what time it is, here?"

"I don't care. It's time, here."

Anil doesn't seem to understand for a moment, and then he does. He nods: "I'll wake Dosha. Anything change on your end?"

"No. But be ready for the plan to change at a moment's notice. I didn't know half of what I know, now, when we arranged things. !@#$ might get !@#$ing bad really !@#$ing quick."

"That's extremely comforting... oh, wait, Dosha's up. Hang on."

Dosha's scarred face looms into the screen and he smiles: "It's that time, then?"

"It is. And I really have to go-"

"You picked a very auspicious moment for this plan to come to fruition, my friend," he says: "My contacts are telling me that something big is going down in India and Pakistan, right now. Known separatist group members are on the move in both countries."

Myron blinks: "Eerie coincidence. The same group?"

"Couldn't be more different," Dosha says: "The Indian one's a radical Islamist outfit that wants to turn the country into a Muslim theocracy. The other's a pro-democracy front that wants to force secularization on Pakistan. Different backers, no crossover members. But they started moving at the same time."

"That's distinctly unsettling," he says: "Do me a favor? Send an untraceable to New Man with that info in it. Whatever happens next, he might need to know about this."

"After this, he'll be your enemy, my friend."

Myron makes a sour face: "I've still got a job to do. You gonna do yours?"

Dosha just smiles, and turns the call off. Myron sighs, takes the datastick out, and puts it back in its hiding place. He takes the finished but untested little something he's been working on for the past few days, and sticks it in his pocket. And then he knocks back a shot of hooch from the bottle he keeps hidden in his desk.

"'Into the abyss I fall,'" he quotes, making sure he's got nothing but trick cuffs on him as he leaves his office for what might be the final time, ever.

* * *

All around the world -- quiet and unseen, save to those who are well-paid to watch -- things are moving into place.

Radical armies get up and go, armed with weapons and technology they have no business handling. The security teams of Presidents and Prime Ministers and the bodyguards of despots have unexpected personnel changes, some of which come at the business end of very large, strange-looking guns. Foresworn spies and excellently-paid saboteurs rise and take well-choreographed positions, awaiting a signal that's soon to come.

"One as bright as the future we're bringing," they were told. 

Everyone thinks they know what's going on, here. Each group has been promised everything they could ever want. Freedom or dictatorship. Free markets or complete control. Religion or its absence. The emancipation of jailed leaders or the incarceration of hated politicians.

Everything or nothing.

The message has varied, but the messengers have stayed somewhat the same. Mysterious benefactors who were able to find their secret lairs and meeting spots, teleport into them, and make an offer they would have been fools to refuse. They offered tools and technology, money and advanced weapons.

And they promised that, on the day it all happened, the lowly would be made high, so long as they believed in their dreams.

"All you need is love," they told them, and while love might not have been high up in their personal vocabulary, they were willing to listen to their excellent proposals.

Their movements don't go unnoticed, of course. But those who are doing the watching are having massive problems getting back to their superiors, right about now. Phones aren't being picked up, email is suspiciously offline, and their messages go unanswered.

All alarms may as well be silent.

So all they can do is break protocol and talk to one another. But even then, the word doesn't exactly go where it needs to. Panicked communiques get scrambled and company computers are ruthlessly attacked by hungry hidden viruses, eager to devour the hard drive of those who type certain key words.

Like "gauss rifle," "impersonation," or "teleporter."

Or "GORGON."

(SPYGOD is listening to Day of the Lords (Joy Division) and having a Dominion Lager )

3/12/12 - Disco - pt 3: Myron - Seventy, Eighty, Ninety, Party

It's 8:35 PM in Washington DC. This means it's 8:35 AM in Hong Kong. And this is highly relevant to Myron -- better known as Underman -- because he's spent the last few hours locked up in his office, trying to save someone's !@#$ from all the way around the world.

"Okay, then," Myron says into his secured headset, looking at satellite info on his computer -- sharp enough to see the mercenaries moving across the Chungking Mansions' rooftops -- and determining the best course of action: "Can you fight your way to the roof?"

"The roof?" Dosha Josh asks on the other end.

"Team one's on the move, Dosha. That means you've got twenty seconds before they're up on your landing. If you can get to the roof, there will be someone there, waiting for you."

"I hope he brought some transportation, Myron. This is going to be a short trip, otherwise."

"He is transportation, Dosha," Myron says, preparing to call in the person in question: "Now hang the !@#$ up and run."

He doesn't -- hang up, that is -- but Myron does, and immediately puts through a call to the transportation.

"Yeah, Anil? You get the photo?"

"Yes, I did," the young man on the other end says, somewhat petulantly: "The resolution is total !@#$. I'll be lucky if I don't teleport into the !@#$ing dock ferry."

"That would be kind of bad, yes."

"Okay, so I get this guy, and keep him safe, and then do that thing for you...?"

"And then we're clear, yes," Myron says, rolling his eyes: "He's on the move. Give him about ten seconds... um, wait, they're firing at him. Make that twenty. When you get to the roof, hit the people rappelling down."

"I'm not going to sing them a song. Anything else?"

Myron's about to ask something, but there's a loud and insistent knock on the door. This time he doesn't think it's going away, either.

"No, I think that'll be all, sir," he says for the benefit of anyone listening in: "I'll get that report to you as soon as possible."

"Um, okay," Anil says, and disconnects. Myron quickly disconnects the flash drive from the computer he was using, and prays it all works out the way it's supposed to.

It has to, for all their sakes.

Myron sighs, smiles, and puts the drive someplace very secret and secure on his person. Then he puts on his sunglasses, and takes a brief second to get into character: Myron Volar - Prison Director at the Heptagon - day 6 on the job.

When he opens the door, he's still smiling, but not as much. "Yes?" he asks the Agent who's been knocking away for the last five minutes.

"Sir, were you okay in there?" The breathless lout asks, looking rather nervous: "I didn't hear anything-"

"Private conversation, Agent," he says, closing the door behind them: "Very private. What did you need?"

"It's Dr. Yesterday, sir. He's almost finished with the device."

"Oh, good," Myron says, pulling his belt back a cinch and letting the Agent lead him: "That'll be a good thing to have, now won't it?"

* * *

It's been an interesting six days since Myron clawed, kicked, and bit -- literally - his way into this job. 

Six days of applying his technical know-how to make the cells and prison procedures as secure as they were when he was a prisoner here, himself, barely six months ago. Six days to impress New Man to the point where he doesn't feel the need to check up on him every few hours, just to be sure he's not going to freak out and stand up for SPYGOD, again. Six days to make him seem above reproach, and his Road to Damascus moment completely genuine.

Also six days to make sure he built enough backdoors and tricks into the system that he can do whatever the !@#$ he wants, and no one but him will know. Six days to figure out who's still loyal to SPYGOD, underneath it all, who's a now-satisfied malcontent, and who's been brought in to replace the more overt loyalists and thinks this is just a good job with the unique perks of being able to smack around supervillains.

(And six days to work on his special sunglasses, which are just about ready for a field test.)

On the way down to where Dr. Yesterday is working, Myron notes at least five separate, two-man teams of Specials: guards in weird, insectile armor with opaque, blue facemasks and sizable, underslung gauss rifles.

The Specials operate at the behest of the Director of The COMPANY, supposedly, but every time Myron tries to talk around the subject with New Man, the fellow doesn't seem to be able to articulate just how much control he actually has over them. It's like they just appeared, not long after the !@#$ went down with SPYGOD, and no one really knows what's up with them. 

(Myron's theory is that they answer to Colonel Richter; he seems the type to command a faceless legion of well-armed thugs, anyway.)

They go down the main elevator to the central computer hub, far under the Heptagon, which is where Dr. Yesterday has been working all this time. When they get there, Myron's pleased to see that the scene of the last few days -- entire banks of computers pried apart, and their wiry, live guts strewn all over the floor -- has been mostly reversed, and everything's mostly back together, again.

"Ah, Underman," the Doctor says, smiling and extending a hand to shake. He's quite tall, rail-thin, and dressed in corduroy pants and a questionable sweater, and sporting a jet black, pencil-thin mustache that does not go with his balding, grey pate and wrinkled face.

"Myron, please," Myron gently corrects him, taking his hand in both of his and smiling: "I like to think I've moved up a bit in the world."

"Ah, yes. Of course," Yesterday laughs, with a *wink*. Then he smiles, rather self-consciously, and waves a hand over the banks of computers: "It is accomplished, my friend!"

"The Anti-SPYGOD device?"

"Yes!" Yesterday confirms, and hands Myron a small, white box with a clicker button: "This will activate it from anywhere in the Heptagon. There are also going to be alarm buttons all over the place, at critical junctures, in the security rooms, and so on. You can have your people install them, actually. They're just battery-operated boxes, independent of the power grid."

"I'm surprised you didn't have your helpers along to do that for you?" Myron asks, smiling. For a moment it looks like the smile on Yesterday's face is about to drop off, but he quickly recovers.

"They're all engaged in research at the South Pole. You know how that is." *wink wink*

"So how does this work, exactly?"

"Well, it's a bit complicated," Yesterday replies with jazz-hands and another *wink*:

"Try me?"

"Basically, it creates a counter-signal, jamming the flow of information that he gets from that Chandra Eye of his. Should cause nausea, disorientation, confusion, sense deprivation... a really nasty package, all in all. Kind of like being tasered in the corpus callosum."

Myron nods, knowing how wonderful that would probably feel: "And how long can we safely leave it on?"

"I recommend short, one second bursts. Unless your really don't want him to be able to answer any questions, and in that case just leave it on for a full minute or two. It should turn him into a big, gay rutabega."

The doctor laughs, and Myron smiles, hoping he doesn't see how fake it is. He adjusts his glasses while pretending to examine the clicker, pressing a hidden button as he does. And then looks back at the doctor.

What he sees almost makes him drop the box, grab his gun, and do the obvious thing. That he does not is testament to the sense of self control that going through COMPANY training gave him.

But that he's seeing what he's seeing confirms something he's been wondering for some time. It means quite a few things -- terrible things. And it means that, tonight, when no one's looking, he's probably going to cry himself to sleep.

He really liked Dr. Yesterday.

"Well, I think that's all I need to know, then?" he says, hoping to cut this short.

"Yes indeed," the doctor says, putting a hand on Myron's shoulder and *winking* again: "You just leave everything to me, young Myron. We've got this whole town wired up, with multiple transmitters. He so much as shows his eyepatched face here, we'll get him."

"Good to know," Myron says, wishing he could unsee what he just saw, and being extremely grateful when the Doctor takes his hand off his shoulder and he can leave.

Going back up the elevator, with the Agent, he tries to be calm and center himself. He knew this was a possibility. He knew. It's why he made the glasses in the first place.

But now that he knows... well, he knows he has one less avenue to turn to when the !@#$ hits the fan. And he knows it's going to.

Still...

He grabs his communicator and calls the Doctor, who picks up right away: "Yes, Myron?"

"I'm sorry. Where are my manners? I totally forgot to ask about your wife. How is she doing?"

Another weird pause: "Well, she's busy down at the South Pole, too. You understand."

"Yes, I do. Be sure to give her my best. It's been forever since I've seen her."

"Yes, I will," he says, and disconnects.

So what does that mean, then? Is she dead, too? Replaced? Or is she alive, still, and just unaware of what's happened?

"You okay, sir?" the Agent asks.

"Yes, Agent," Myron lies: "Never better."

And then the elevator doors open, they step out, and he realizes just how !@#$y a lie that is.

* * *

Later, in his office, Myron has a very large, very stiff drink in order to calm his nerves. And then he mentally smacks himself for not having seen this coming.

His glasses don't just negate GORGON's stealth technology, allowing him to see their False Face agents for what they actually are. They also allow him to see the tech in operation.

And that's how he knows that every single !@#$ing Special Guard in the Heptagon is a !@#$ing GORGON agent.

There's maybe 70, 80, 90... a !@#$ing hundred of those well-armed and armored creeps out there, either on duty or just an alarm away from being on duty. And they're all GORGON. 

Every. Single. !@#$ing. One.

And if they're all GORGON, chances are !@#$ good that the Specials on board The Flier, guarding New Man and various, sensitive areas are also False Faces. Which means that it's going to be even harder to get word to the right people about what he's doing, and why.

"Buck up, Underman," he mutters under his breath, trying to regain his composure. He's got everything in place, doesn't he?

He's made friends with the Indians, and they know what to do. While he was out, hunting for enemy agents, Anil left a message that they were safe and sound and hiding out in Lahore, so there's that.

He's got trick cuffs on him at all times. Several pairs, in fact.

And he knows what to look for when SPYGOD shows back up again, as he said he would, back then.

So all he has to do is wait. For how long, he can't be certain, but the pieces are in place. He just has to hold it together until then, and hope no one sees what he's doing...

Wait.

He thinks for a moment. Considers something.

He chuckles.  Snorts.

Actually !@#$ing laughs.

He looks at his special, "They Live" sunglasses. Could it really be that simple?

"Oh yes," he says, downing most of his drink and getting up: "It could really be that !@#$ing simple."

He goes over to his tinkering corner of the office, gets some electronics from his bash box, and sends word that he's super mega-!@#$ing busy and can't be disturbed until, oh, next month.

"'Be seeing you,'" he quotes to himself, ready to engineer some massive payback.

(SPYGOD is listening to Time on My Hands (Pet Shop Boys) and having a Hairy Eyeball)