2765 - pt. 2

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gods help us both. Gods help us all.

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just the two of them?" He asks.

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make the horror go away.

Make the memories vanish.

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

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

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

Just !@#$ it all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then on to the goal.

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Sephiroth - Abyssanctum. Still nothing to drink)

2765 - pt. 1

So it's me and Mr. USA, walking through wet, cold, and foreign city in our civies, hoping we can !@#$ing do what we need to without getting made, or doing the obvious thing.

We're about halfway through the city, and within a few blocks of our goal, when we encounter a large public park. The grass is grimy and sloppy with mud, and the trees are cracked and dying, and studded with razor wire to keep people from climbing them. It feels like people died there, and were just left to rot instead of being taken away; for all we know, that may have already happened -- several !@#$ing times.

But it's the only place where we've seen any color at all, so far today. By chance we both spy a single, dying, yellow dandelion by a spartan park bench, nearby. And, after everything we have seen, today, Mr. USA, kind and gentle soul that he is, decides he needs to sit the !@#$ down and regard it.

I let him do that, deciding to walk on my own a little. I cross to the other side of the park, looking at the children there as they play relatively quiet games in the shadow of a dilapidated and labyrinthine jungle gym. I see that all of them wear some shade of dark gray, with heavy pants and shirts for boys and long dresses for girls. They also all wear black armbands on their left arms, each with a large, white O.

They move singly or in pairs about the rusty, dark wreck, not caring to stop for too long. It's as if they're afraid of something in there, and I wonder if maybe the dead bums were found in there, rather than out in the field.

As the children play what might be a strange analogue of hopscotch, or jump in place without a rope, I see there's only one person not in motion. It's a young girl, maybe ten or so, who stands at the top of the slide. I'm not sure if she's just unwilling to go down into the puddle waiting below, or is claiming the slide entirely for herself.

(I also notice that she, alone, is not wearing an armband.)

A man with an umbrella smokes a cigarette over yonder, maybe fifteen feet from the slide. He's wearing a dark gray, somber, double-breasted suit with no collar, and silver buttons. We both nod to one another and I decide to strike up a conversation.

"Nice day for it?" I ask, smiling. He gives me a guarded smile in return and nods, looking at the girl on the slide.

"My daughter," he says, shouldering his umbrella and pulling out a white pack of black cigarettes, along with a silver lighter.

"Cute kid," I tell the man, accepting his kind offer of a cigarette, and a light. They smell like European diesel, and taste worse, but there's something oddly comforting about them.

(Also something strange, just underneath the taste.)

"She is, yeah," he replies, lighting up one for himself and looking over at her, as she stands atop the slide: "So much like her mother."

"Got her eyes, huh?"

"And her ass," the man says, saying it like he was !@#$ing saying anything else, and taking a long, lung-bruising drag off his smoke: "Not that I can really remember, anymore. I shot the cunt five years back when she started forgetting who was boss. You know how that goes."

"Yeah," I reply, praying to !@#$ing God that (REDACTED) is not hearing this, over on his park bench, yonder.

"She's available, if you want to fuck her," the proud father informs me: "My daughter, I mean. Unless you want my wife, too."

"Not really my thing," I say, fighting the urge to punch him so hard his brains shoot out his ears.

"Well, okay. You can never tell. And not right now, of course. That jungle gym's no fit place for you. But I can set up a date-"

"Well, like I said, not really my thing," I say, tapping the cigarette, and finally realizing what I was tasting: minute traces of heroin.

"Your loss," he sniffs, all bonhomie suddenly gone. He flicks the cigarette out from between my fingers, gives me what he thinks is a threatening look, and walks off to the slide to talk to her. When she turns around to regard him, I see that she has the eyes of someone ten times her age.

I could kill him. I really should just !@#$ing kill him. Two quick steps and a punch to the back of the skull and he'd be done with. I'm sure he deserves ten times worse.

But there would be no point. She'd just !@#$ on his dead, shattered face for money, and then see if her aunt or uncle would be her pimp, now.

"I !@#$ing hate Alter-Earth," I mutter under my breath, and head for the park bench where I left Mr. USA. We need to get the !@#$ out of here and do what we came to do.  

Now. 

* * *

Yes, son. We're here, in Alter-Earth, in what passes for Neo York City on this side of the parallel universe line. Year 2765, AU, and !@#$ knows what month or day.

Simon was kind enough to deposit us just inside the city limits, so we wouldn't have to undergo what I understand is a fairly grueling (and quite invasive) battery of checks to be sure we actually are who we say we are, administered before letting anyone in. Unfortunately, he dropped us at the wrong side of the city, so we're having to take more time than we'd like getting to our objective.

Now, the poor kid's done a marvelous job of getting with the program, all things considered, so I'm not gonna !@#$ too much. But, seeing as we have no ID, and no money, and no desire to steal either for fear of being spotted and blowing our cover, bringing who knows what kind of !@#$ing heat down on our heads, that means we're having to hoof it.

It's not all bad, of course. It has been extremely educational, and, for me at least, fills in a lot of blanks left in what little answers we've gotten from captured Alter-Earth citizens before they've reverted back to home.

But I think I could have really gone through life without knowing the answer to some of these questions. Especially when the sane thing to do, upon having the question answered, involves severe bodily damage to the person who provided the answer.

Like the man I just talked to in the park, for example.

* * *

The first thing you notice, inside their version of Neo York City, is that there aren't any !@#$ing colors to be found.

Everything man-made's either black or some shade of gray, usually dark. Every once in a while you'll see something white, but it's usually things like police uniforms, emergency vehicles, soldiers, and any building that's associated with big, face-stomping authority.

Same with the clothes, and it seems that the lighter your colors, the better off you are. So most folks are wearing dark to medium grey, with some light grey here and there. I haven't seen anyone wearing white except for the cops, but when vehicles pull by with tinted windows, and everyone getting the !@#$ out of their way, I figure there's someone in white looking out at us.

This monochromatic thing has the effect of making what color there is extremely beautiful. The grimy, weed-infested patches of wilderness, just outside the city, seem like gardens of paradise by comparison. Also the nasty city park we just sat in, and are now leaving with all due haste before the umbrella guy wonders why I didn't want to !@#$-rape his lovely, broken daughter, and places a phone call to the boys in white.

The next thing you notice is how incredibly !@#$ silent things are, at least in public. People don't talk too loud outside, in the street. Cars whisper by, and I haven't heard any music, horns, or shouting. No friendly greetings or blared announcements. Just the constant, oddly-in-time stomping of people's feet as they walk down the street.

Above the streets, with their drab-colored but nicely-styled cars, the architecture is !@#$ing wrong. There are skyscrapers, but they're made of dark gray or black stone, supported by black, grimy iron or off-color brass. Rows of tall, usually empty arches break up the walls, instead of windows, and what few windows there are tend to be small and high up in the arch. One gets the feeling they're there for light and ventilation only, rather than a view.

(Might also be there to keep people from jumping out, or escaping.)

The shorter buildings are based on the same, dark color scheme, only the first floors are lined with black marble columns, and the doors are all made of glass. Most of these glass doors are guarded by a large, light gray-suited fellow who opens them only upon being shown identification. They also have a secondary function of watching the slaves left outside, chained up like dogs to a large, metal ring to the right of the doorway and made to kneel on the pavement.

Oh yes -- slaves. Naked, rain or shine, save for their bright silver chains. They're every color the Gods thought to put on this Earth, including White. They've had every inch of their bodies depilated, and so many of them have had their facial features mangled, sliced off, melted smooth, or destroyed as punishment for various infractions that it's hard to tell.

People go walking in public with their slaves chained to their belts, carrying their groceries or just walking along, eyes permanently trained on the ground. People ask if they can fondle other people's slaves as though they were asking to pet a dog. People also offer to let you fondle their slaves, which has led Mr. USA and I to some rather uncomfortable moments that we are not going to ever talk about, to anyone, when we get home. 

(We have to allay suspicion that we don't belong here, after all.)

Another point of interest is the lack of writing. While all the buildings have street numbers, none of the stores or buildings have words in their signs. They all have silver on black logos, instead: bundles of groceries denote a shop, what might be a burger advertises a restaurant, and a broken arm is a medical facility. Businesses and apartment towers have imperial-looking icons that are most likely unique. I guess everyone just has to be told what they mean, unless they're all seeing something we're not.

I was hoping to find a newspaper and read it, but I don't see any evidence of there being any. Maybe alter Neo York City doesn't permit newspapers. Or maybe they're just supposed to be inside things, like radios.

Yes, they do have radio, here, and I am not !@#$ing liking it. It's mostly what would be called talk radio, except no one's calling, except to denounce their neighbors for not doing what the announcers are exhorting people to do. There's also "real stories," where people who were caught doing something they shouldn't are forced to act out their transgressions, and apologize to the audience, before being executed live on the air through some very !@#$ing painful methods.

No music. No laughter. No criticism of the leadership of the city, the state, or the nation. Just propaganda, the occasional nugget of news, terror and pain served up as justice and punishment, and hardcore audio sex plays throughout the day.

No television, either, or at least I'm not getting any signals on this half the planet. But that would explain why the Alter-Earthers we catch are almost universally fascinated with the boob tube.

* * *

Police? Oh yes, we've seen a few. It was !@#$ing hideous.

As I mentioned, earlier, they wear white, here: stark, blinding white suits and caps with white, wraparound, opaque plates in the shape of sunglasses that act as communicators. They carry white stun sticks that are quite obviously stained with blood, and not washed all that often.

(No guns, oddly enough, unless they're concealing them.)

The first pair we saw were at the head of an alleyway across the street, ordering male passersby to come into it. We thought it might be an ID check, but then we heard muffled screaming, and saw a long line of men terminating at a battered, bloody, and naked woman. The men were being ordered by the police to gang rape her for some infraction, and we didn't know what was worse: that they were doing it, that the men who were press-ganged into the line seemed annoyed to have been grabbed, or that everyone else who wasn't accosted just kept walking, as though nothing were happening.

"What do you think she did?" I asked Mr. USA, once we were a block away.

"Doubleparked," someone nearby said, shrugging his shoulders: "Not her first time, either. I think the stupid bitch likes it."

A block later, we got to see him accosted by another pair of policemen for some infraction of the rules. He protested his innocence, but they apparently were not impressed, and started to beat him with their batons. Every time the sticks made contact, there was a crackle of electricity and an audible crack. 

By the time we were a block away, they'd caved in his skull. His brains and blood added a rare splash of color to the otherwise-drab road they killed him on.

"And what do you suppose he did?" Mr. USA asked me, as I was listening in to police chatter.

"Turned that one lady in for doubleparking when she actually hadn't been," I answered: "And, no, that doesn't mean they're stopping what's happening to her."

"Dear God," he muttered: "Can we walk any faster?"

"Read my !@#$ing mind, (REDACTED)" I said.

And we did.

* * *

We see more things, between there and where we're going. Strange things. Bizarre and unsettling things.

!@#$ing  horrible things.

And as we swallow our bile and try to look like this is nothing new or terrible to us, and that we're just in too much of a hurry to really enjoy watching the occasional street spectacle, I remember everything that every Alter we've caught alive has ever said to us.

I remember how they seemed puzzled at our manners, and our small considerations. I remember how they sneered at the fact that we were willing to feed them in captivity without necessarily demanding anything from them, as if this made us weak and soft.

I remember how they kept expecting us to do something truly rotten and evil to them at any moment, and kept wondering what the game was when we didn't.

As you might expect, I was the only one who got anywhere with these !@#$s, given that I would just smack them upside the !@#$ing head with little or no preamble, or fake them out with the blindfold, meatball, and "gouged eyes" trick. Everyone else got played with, but my willingness to talk to them on their sadistic level meant they'd at least respond in kind.

Case in point: when the alternate Verve was in COMPANY custody, after that nasty old-lady rampage he pulled, he seemed unnerved by the fact that we were keeping him alive. He kept making these weird, black jokes about prison rape, like he not only expected us to do it to him, but was hoping we would, because it meant we weren't about to kill him. And when we left his cell without hurting him it was like a light went off in his skull, or something, because he couldn't even conceive of a world where people didn't do things like that out of hand.

Sitting in that cell, being treated with some degree of decency and human rights, was literally freaking him out. God only knows if he underwent treatment when he got back, but by the time he and our Verve changed places, again, his brain had the consistency of a bowl of half-eaten Jell-O.

See, near as I can figure out, this world is based on selfishness peppered with sadism, whereas ours works on self interest tempered with kindness.

Take "A Christmas Carol," for example. When we read it, we see Scrooge as a greedy but tragic figure who eventually comes around, and consider it an uplifting tale about the power of redemption. But they read it as a horror story, in which a successful man is haunted by three vengeful ghosts, and eventually driven bat!@#$ insane -- so insane, in fact, that he not only gives his hard-won earnings to those beneath him, but gleefully celebrates a holiday based around forgiveness, giving, and love.

There is no forgiveness, here, on Alter Earth. Forgiveness is weak. And weakness gets you hurt or killed.

There is no giving, here, either. You don't get given anything. You have to earn everything. Even your birth and raising by your parents is a debt you need to pay off, one way or another. 

(Witness the man in the park, and other things we've seen in this walk)

And there is no love, here. Love is an illusion. There's affection and bonhomie, sure, but they'll vanish along with the party favors when loyalties shift, or a betrayal seems more profitable than an alliance.

This place is truly horrible, son. It is the antithesis of everything we believe, cherish, and hold dear. Even the terrorist worms who threaten our security love their children. Even the human monsters who put on spandex and threaten entire countries know what it means when someone looks at you that way, and tells you that they love you.

Even Hitler could have been redeemed, given time.

And and as bad as all this is, it's nothing compared to what's waiting ahead of us, just up the block, at our destination.

Stark white marble, its outside walls writhing with white, grotesque statues all !@#$ing and killing each other, the Prosperpinium beckons.

And God help us, for the safety and security of our own world, we go in.

(Sephiroth - Heliopolis. Nothing to drink, today)