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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

So far as I knew, the President was dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But they made four mistakes. 

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

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

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

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

They left the President alive.

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3/12/12 - Disco - Pt. 5 - Randolph Scott - Choose Your Self Like Your Enemy

San Francisco Chronicle
2/17/12
A-1 (below the fold)

SPYGOD Linked Journalist Disappears from Hospital

Randolph Scott of Alternet, and known associate of accused Presidential assassin SPYGOD, vanished from his hospital bed at San Francisco General Hospital sometime between 5 and 5:30 pm, last night, according to hospital authorities.

Mr. Scott had been receiving treatment for a fractured skull, suffered on the 25th of January. He was in a medically-induced coma and should not have been able to move, according to Dr. Lloyd Ledbetter.

"If someone knows where he is, please see that he is returned to medical care," Dr. Ledbetter begged the media at a sparsely-attended press conference, last night: "He is a very sick man."

Dr. Ledbetter could neither confirm nor deny that Agents from The COMPANY had attended to Mr. Scott's injuries in any way, prior to the President's assassination.

Randolph Scott was handpicked by SPYGOD to be his "chronicler of things" after last year's invasion of the super-nazis' Ice Palace in Antarctica. He stayed with SPYGOD while The COMPANY cleaned the installation up, and then left once the United Nations was brought in to oversee the operation.

After that, he began work on an award-winning series of stories in which he took the cloned, genetically-modified teenagers of the Ice Palace around the globe in order to break their programming. The series, "Welcome to the Real World," ran periodically on Alternet, up until his accident. It was briefly interrupted by "Black Angels and Amazons," in which Scott revealed the true extent of ABWEHR involvement in Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, and The COMPANY's involvement in its downfall.

Alternet's Managing Editor, Brian Snailthorpe, chose not to comment on the abduction, or rumors that Scott and he had argued over the news organization's decision to run the ailing superhero Gold Standard's story about SPYGOD having shot and killed President William McKinley.

Also unknown at this time are the whereabouts of the children of the Ice Palace. Following the abduction, they have refused any comment.

* * *

Dear America:

If you're reading this, then it means that I was right. By extension, it also means that SPYGOD was both right and wrong, though not necessarily about what you might believe as of this moment. 

It also means, to be blunt, that we're really !@#$ed. 

And I hate to say this, but as of this moment in time, typing these words out to you, I can't say for sure which way the !@#$ing is coming from. I don't know who's !@#$ing us, either, though I have some nasty suspicions as to whose face is hovering over the !@#$, grinning at their girth and wondering where to put the money shot.

(Sorry about all that. I've been on the run too long and haven't gotten a moment to deal with certain pent-up frustrations in a responsible, adult manner. I'll try to keep that out of it from here on out, but no promises.)

You see, I've got a big story to tell you. Maybe the biggest story I've ever told in my life. It's got heroes and villains, triumph and tragedy, and one !@#$ of a punchline lurking behind the scenes. 

How does it end? That I don't know yet. The beauty of this is that, writing on the run, I'm finding out the truth one step at a time, and sometimes it means I have to go back a few steps in order to go forward one. 

It's really !@#$ing crazy at times -- kind of like playing hopscotch while you're drunk and someone's shooting at your feet. 

But it's the first time I've been free to do this kind of thing, ever. To just write the !@#$ing story the way I'm living the !@#$ing story, which is to say very fast and fresh, without a lot of time to sleep between interviews and shoot-outs, some of which blur right into one another like something from an Evelyn Waugh novel. 

I don't know where this is leading, America, except somewhere. 

But where it started? Let me tell you what I know about that. 

Let me tell you about a dead President, and the man who has, hands-down, the most !@#$ing thankless job in the whole world after something like that happens. 

Let me tell you how he died. 

* * * 

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

2/16/12

3:06 PM

"I'm very glad you gentlemen could come on down here," the chief pathologist says, nervously snapping his rubber gloves as they walk through into the heavily-guarded room where the President is undergoing autopsy. It's just the President, the pathologist, and the two men in suitcoats in here. Everyone else has been sent away in a hurry.

"Of course, sir," one of them says, standing a respectable distance from the dead body -- its skull a horrible, wet red bloom under the bright lights.

"We're happy to answer any questions you might have," the other says: "Or at least suggest better questions."

"Well, okay," the pathologist says, trying to shake off the sense that there's something... off about these two: "They said you were handling the weird stuff. This definitely qualifies."

"It's okay," one says: "Relax."

"Take a deep breath and tell us what you found," sound the other.

"Well, just to be sure... this is the President of the United States lying in front of me, right?"

"Of course," one says: "He came here directly from the Rose Garden, didn't he?"

"The chain of evidence was unbroken, wasn't it?" the other says.

"Well, that's just it," the pathologist says, walking over to a pile of readouts and showing the men: "I did the usual full battery of tests. Bloodwork, fluids, all that stuff. Not that it's needed in a case where the cause of death is this obvious, but under the circumstances, I want to be thorough. You do understand that?"

"Of course," one says.

"No one could fault you for that," the other says: "So what did you find?"

"Okay. From a biochemical perspective, this is the President. His DNA samples match perfectly. His bloodwork matches perfectly. Everything comes back a positive, 100% match."

"Alright, then. What's the issue?" one asks, clasping his hands behind his back. The other performs the exact same motion in the exact same way at the exact same time, as if they'd practiced. 

"Well, if this is the President, then what's this?" the pathologist asks, pulling the sheet down so they can see his lower abdominal region. There's an old and ragged scar, there, over on the lower right side, between waist and hip. 

"It looks like an appendectomy scar," one says. 

"It is an appendectomy scar," the pathologist says: "I haven't gone in to check, yet, but I've seen enough of them. But this isn't right, gentlemen. The President never underwent that procedure. But this scar... it's old. I'd say it was done when he was in his teens, and not very well, either."

"A mystery!" the other exclaims, leaning over to look.

"That is quite peculiar," one intones, pulling a small cellular phone out.

"No phones in here, please," the pathologist scolds.

"Oh, it's not a phone," one says, smiling: "Please continue."

"Okay. Well, we have the scar, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, here. He has other, smaller scars where there should be none, and no scars where there should be. And look at this, on the left thigh. That's a bullet wound, gentlemen. This man was shot, maybe five years ago."

"And the President wasn't ever shot in his life," the other says, strategically putting himself between the pathologist and one, who's moving towards the door with his cellphone in hand.

"And he's pretty unhealthy looking, too," the pathologist says: "Kind of skinny. Poor nutrition, bad exercise habits, but not sedentary, either. I'd say a hard life living rough might produce a body like this."

"So what are you saying, exactly?" the other asks.

"I'm saying... and this is going to sound crazy, gentlemen, so you might want to hold on to your hats. But while this is the President of the United States, I don't think this is the President of the United States."

There's a moment of silence, and both men smile. The pathologist doesn't like the look of those smiles.

"Who have you told?" the other asks as one turns around, doing something with the cell phone that the pathologist can't see.

"No one," he says, now realizing that something is definitely wrong, here, but not sure what he can do about it: "As soon as I realized that something was wrong, I... I sent everyone out, and called you."

"So no one knows yet," the other says.

The pathologist nods, feeling a trifle condemned right now.

"That's good!" the one says, walking back towards the table. The cell phone is stuck to the door, and for some weird reason the pathologist can't quite hear anything outside those swinging doors, anymore.

"It's a good thing you came to us, first," the other says, making a strange gesture with his hands: "You are a good man. You have done good things for your country."

"We will be very happy to have you working for us," one says, repeating the gesture, and smiles.

The light in the room goes weird, and then something happens. The Pathologist doesn't quite realize what he's seeing until it's too late, and then all he can do is scream and try to run. But he doesn't get far, and the screaming isn't heard by the guards outside the room.

The funeral happens a few days later, followed by the service at the church the day after. The Pathologist is seen around the edges of both, and casts a solemn but comforting figure. 

It's just that he smiles strangely, ever so often, and hums a certain, old tune at weird moments.

* * *

Now, I bet you're a little confused, there, America. I said the man died. But here he is, alive? I can hear you asking 'What is this !@#$, Schrödinger's Pathologist?'

Bear with me a while, America. Let me go on. You might not like the answer, but you will get one.

The Chief Pathologist was the first to be visited by these two men. They wouldn't be the last. Most of them were lucky enough to not have a need to scream, but there were exceptions.

Take the Secret Service Agent in charge of the White House's security arrangements, that day. Her name was Helen Linden. She was 47 years old, divorced with adult kids, and a dedicated Agent.

After what happened that day she'd been grilled left, right, and sideways about everything. She'd tried to remember every piece of information she could, even if it seemed minor or inconsequential, and insisted that all Agents there on the day do the same. 

She told them, via email, that it was the best way to honor their commitment to the President they'd lost, and the one they were now in the business of guarding.


Then, one day, maybe a week after the funeral, she called a meeting and told them all that she'd changed her mind. She told her Agents that they could relax a bit. The investigation was over, the manhunt was on, and the new President deserved all their attention.


It would be a good thing if they could go forward, like the President would have wanted, she told them, smiling all the while. 


At first, there was some grumbling, and some of it very vocal. But, one by one, other senior Agents came to agree with her -- often overnight. And they were certain to tell their subordinates and newer hands that, in spite of what they'd said before, it was time to put all that in the past. The investigation was over, the manhunt was on, and the new President deserved all their attention.


And they said -- with the exact same smile as their boss -- that the best way for everyone to make sure they went forward, like the President would have wanted, was to be happy to help out.


Especially in this way.


Not everyone was so happy to help, of course. There was a new Secret Service Agent on duty that day -- one lucky enough to have been some distance from SPYGOD's rampage, and therefore missed being SPYGOD VISIONed into near-catatonia or death. But he did see someone strange walking towards the Oval Office at some point: a man in an unfamiliar uniform that didn't match any of the Strategic Talent descriptions he'd been given.


After the assassination, that Agent tried to bring the issue up with his superiors, but after their sudden change of heart, no one wanted to listen about his theories of a possible accomplice. He was warned, then reprimanded, and then put on enforced early vacation with the understanding that, when he returned, his "unhelpful attitude" needed to stay in Jersey Beach, or wherever.


He just wasn't helping things. 


Two days into his vacation, the Agent was found dead in a horrendous, one-car smashup on Eastbound 301. Alcohol was in the car, and his stomach. A note back at his house indicated stress and anger, though not necessarily suicidal intent. Just another bad decision in a life that took a wrong turn, they said.


Another, smaller tragedy, blooming sick off of the tree of the nation's greater loss. 


His was far from the only such flower; there would be other strange, sad, and lonely deaths in the days ahead. They were all small people -- the folks you don't miss unless you know them -- who saw too much, or heard too much, or experienced the wrong thing at the wrong time, and then made the mistake of saying something to someone else.


And not long after making that mistake, they died. 

They died in their sleep, or on the roads. They died their own hand, or maybe someone else's. They suffered broken car brakes on the freeway at rush hour. They took vodka and sleeping pill overdoses, usually without notes. They were involved in carjackings gone horribly awry in bad, Maryland neighborhoods.


And none of them merited anything in the papers, past the initial story and their subsequent obituary.

But what of the Strategic Talents? What of the supermen and wonder women? Surely they don't count as little people. Surely one of them would stand up and cry "bull!@#$!" at some point?

Surely. 

* * *

Taos, New Mexico

3/10/12

5:45 PM

Wayfinder's home is hard to find unless you know what you're looking for. You have to go well out of town, up into the mountains to the East, and then get nearly lost over a maze of roads that aren't technically roads. And only after being turned around so many times you're sure you've gone in a total circle, you'll come out and see his modest, L-ranch house.

You might say that's just not very neighborly of him, but he'd just say "!@#$ you." His family and friends know how to find the place, and the only other people who'd bother are either superheroes or the government.

When he's not on the government's time, he'll be !@#$ed if he lets just anyone intrude on it.

Which is why the Sheriff's so puzzled about what's just happened, up there. He received a call, early this morning, from one of Wayfinder's few neighbors: something about a black car going up that road, followed by a bunch of really bad noises that spooked his livestock, which isn't so strange, knowing how Wayfinder deals with people who try and disturb him.

But then the same black car came back down the road, and the neighbor went up to the man's house to investigate, which led to a confused and somewhat panicked phone call to the Sheriff's office. So now here he is, wondering what to do next; wondering so hard, in fact, that he doesn't notice another car's pulled onto the property until its engine gets turned off. 

"So what exactly are we looking at, here?" the tall, rail-thin COMPANY liaison asks as he gets out of his car and walks over to the older man.

"Who the heck are you?" the Sheriff asks, spitting out the gum he's been chewing on and not extending a hand.

"Agent Oldman," he says, putting his hand down and getting out a badge with the other: "COMPANY. I handle Wayfinder's activities with us."

"Who called you in?" the Sheriff asks, looking closely at the badge like he's never seen such a thing before.

"We don't get called. We just arrive."

"Must be nice."

"Not really. So, like I asked?"

"Well, I can't rightly say," the Sheriff says, adjusting his hat and turning to look at the hole in the ground where the old man's L-ranch used to be. It's a neat hole: the kind you might find at a construction site as they prepare to put the concrete and bricks in to make the basement. Severed water pipes are soaking the bottom where they neatly end, as if sliced through.

"Is housenapping a crime in New Mexico?" the liaison asks, walking to the edge and looking down.

"That'd be funny if I had a better idea of what happened. Neighbor called when he heard weird noises. We get here and find this."

The liaison pulls out a small box with a number of antennae on it, and, after pressing a few buttons, waves it in the air in front of him. It beeps and bloops and makes weird noises, and then he looks at the readout and sighs.

"Time distortion effects," the man says, putting the box away: "Looks like someone took the house out of our time."

"And what the heck does that mean?" the Sheriff asks.

"It means that the house, and whoever was in it, just moved either forward, backward, or sideways in time. It also means that there's no way to find them unless we can get someone who's got an appropriate skill set. Or maybe a temporal ray or something. Time viewer, maybe."

"I didn't think the old man could do things like that."

"I don't think that was one of his things," the liaison says: "Maybe one of his family members?"

"Maybe," the Sheriff says, and then hands over a small, leather-bound book he's had in the front of his pants this entire time: "Well, if you're his handler, you should see this."

"What is it?" the liaison asks, taking the book.

"I can't say for certain. But I found this in his hidey hole. It might explain things."

"Hidey hole?" the liaison asks, opening the book.

"He always told me that if something bad was going to happen to him, he'd know about it ahead of time. And if he did, he'd leave me word someplace I could find it. That rock by your car's got a hollow spot under it. If he needed to leave me word, that's where he'd put it. And that's what he left in it."

The Agent looks at the book, and flips through it, puzzled. It looks like some kind of logbook, marking dates, times, and whereabouts of something or someone called "Mystery2." It looks fairly straightforward, though there are a lot of gaps and "?"s. That and some curious double entries, all circled in red.

"Well, thank you for this," he says to the Sheriff: "I'll call the Heptagon, have them get someone out here who does time. Maybe fix this, or at least make sure it doesn't get any worse."

"You do that," the man says, popping a stick of gum so he has something to chew. He doesn't offer the other guy any, and that's the liaison's cue to pack up and go.

The liaison stays at a Motel 6 just outside of Taos, that night. He has dinner at the McDonalds next door at 7 (Big Mac Meal, apple pie), a few drinks at a bar up the road at 10:30 (Tony's TV, 3 buds and a shot of jager, went home alone).

That night, somewhere around 1 in the morning, he frantically begins scanning pages of the book to his superior officer in the COMPANY. He does not explain exactly why, but the scans are all headed LOOK AT THE !@#$ING DATES!

Agent Oldman only gets six pages in, ending at around 1:15 AM. It covers about six months, from July of last year to January of this year. It's clear there's more in the book, but no more are sent.

Agent Oldman is never seen again. He does not check out. His effects are gone, his car is missing, and the book retrieved from Wayfinder's house is not found.

The night attendant at the Motel remembers seeing a black car pull into the parking lot, maybe a quarter after 1. He also remembers it leaving at 1:30. He thinks there were two men in it, but can't remember more than that.

The COMPANY still has no idea what happened at Wayfinder's place, only that the house is temporally dislocated, possibly with him and his family inside. Whether they did this, or someone did it to them, is unknown.

* * *

"Unknown." Has a pretty !@#$ing nasty ring to it, doesn't it?

 

Whereabouts unknown. Whereabouts deniable. You just !@#$ing vanish, like a rabbit in a hat, and all the authorities can do is chew gum and wonder what the !@#$ just happened.

Even if you're a !@#$ing superhero, you just vanish. 

Now, we're told that can't happen, here in America. We have due process of law. We have safeguards against Federal tyranny and watchdog organizations. We have a First Amendment and whistleblower protections and police that are on our side, not the state's.


We have inalienable rights, for !@#$s sake.


But that doesn't explain why there are so many people who've just died or gone missing after the President's assassination, now does it?

 

See, in other countries, when little people get in the way of something that's too big to be stopped by the likes of them, the big people make them go away in broad daylight. Dissidents are rounded up in mass arrests and shipped off to prison, never to be seen again. Sometimes the authorities don't bother with prison, and just ship them out of town, there to be shot and dumped into a deep, waiting ditch. 

And sometimes they don't even bother with the trip or the ditch, and just shoot them in their own homes, like rabid dogs found in an alley.

Things like that are not supposed to happen here. There would be an outcry. The media would !@#$ itself. There would be marches and demonstrations. Jesse !@#$ing Jackson and every left coast liberal actor worth their movie contract would get up and make PSAs. Riots in the streets. T-shirts for sale.

The inevitable Bob Dylan protest single, played over and over while LA burns yet again.

So what happens instead? People just sort of vanish. Dead in an accident. Missing in action. Gone down the memory hole in such a way that no one really thinks "killed" or "murdered" or "silenced."

And "conspiracy!" No one wants to think about that word. Conspiracies are for things like the Moon landing being a hoax, and the government causing Computer Hell themselves. No one wants to think about the c-word.

 But you want to know a secret? Remember when they tried to kill President Kennedy, all those years ago, and SPYGOD stopped them? Turns out there was a huge plot, and as they were taking that plot apart they found that a lot of the people they wanted to talk to kept dying just before they could get to them, or dying not long after they came around to ask what they knew. 

Finally, they unravel most of the !@#$ing thing, and they find out that all the dead people were on a list. Someone actually figured out who might have been able to connect the !@#$ing dots back to the people who wanted Kennedy dead, and arranged to have them thrown under the bus before they could finger someone who could rat on someone who could make a plea bargain and hand the whole pyramid to the Feds on a silver platter.

None dare call it "conspiracy." But if that isn't what that was, then I can't think of what else you call it. 

And if that isn't what this is...?

So tell me, America: how safe do you feel, right now? How secure? 

How certain are you that you don't know too much, or didn't see something that someone doesn't want you to have seen? Are you sure you didn't talk to someone too long about something a little too touchy for certain people? Did you make the wrong joke with the wrong person at the wrong time?

How long before you learn to smile like a dead man, or just become one?

I don't know how long you have. I don't know a god!@#$ thing, right now, except that I've got the mother of all stories wiggling like a fish on the hook, and I might not live long enough to get that !@#$er scaled, battered, and in the pan. 

But if I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with the pole* in my hand. And that's a promise, America.

(*Urg, sorry. I do need to get laid.)

* * *

Arlington, Virginia

3/12/12

9 PM

The worst thing about having to pack up his apartment, Jess has found, is trying to get used to doing it with one hand.

If he still had his job, he probably could have been fitted with a decent prosthetic, instead of making do with a bandaged, healing stump. Of course, if he still had his job, he wouldn't be having to move out of the apartment in the first place. And if he hadn't lost his job by being the Secret Service Agent who pretty much blew his primary duty -- protecting the President from harm -- he'd still have some friends to help him out with it.

But as it is, he's got nothing left for him here, in this lousy apartment complex where his neighbors either don't like him or argue too loudly -- sometimes both. His friends have evaporated. His job prospects suck. His parents would only let him move back home if he gave up his cat, and he wouldn't do that, so he's off to crash with his crazy uncle the lobster surgeon in Baltimore.

(And is his cat even remotely grateful? !@#$ no. Little !@#$er is doing his best to get in the way, even now -- demanding attention and affection as his little, one-bedroom world comes down around his furry ears.)

"You are just not being helpful, Rusty," Jess says, skritching the kitty behind the ears. The cat seems to like it for a moment, but then stiffens, growls, and quickly leaves the room, casting a nasty look at the door as he goes.

A door that knocks just a second later.

Something in Jess' gut tells him to get out -- to run for the sorry excuse for a porch and try to monkey-swing his way down to the ground floor. But that would be silly and stupid, wouldn't it? Who would really be trying to mess with him?

He sighs, gets up, and goes to the door. Just as he's almost halfway there the lock does something he's never seen it do before -- unlock from the other side while he's inside.

The door opens up rather swiftly, revealing two smiling men in suitcoats. It's the same guys who saw him in the hospital while he was healing, and wanted to know about certain things.

"Hello, Mr. Friend," one says, walking into the apartment and standing to one side of the door.

"I hope you don't mind us walking in on you like this," the other says, closing the door behind them and putting something that looks like a cell phone on it.

"Um, what do you want?" Jess asks, wishing to !@#$ he still had a gun permit, and suddenly realizing he can't hear the neighbors arguing about the President's speech, anymore: "I don't think you're actually allowed to just barge in-"

"Details, details," one says, waving a hand.

"We just needed to ask about that day, one more time," the other adds, waving another hand.

"Just to be sure."

"Crossing the 't's, dotting the 'i's."

"I'm sure you understand."

"Surely."

"Yeah..." Jess says, wondering if he can somehow turn on his cell phone and call his parents without them noticing: "So what did you need to know?"

"You said there were three people in the Oval Office..." one says.

"... but then there were only two?" the other finishes.

"Yeah, that's right," Jess says: "The guy in the weird uniform just disappeared. I have no idea where he went. It was just the President and SPYGOD and, well, you know how that went."

He waves his stump up and tries to smile. Something about the way the two men smile back is very !@#$ing unnerving.

"Was that before or after you felt something weird coming from the Oval Office?" the one asks.

"Something... just not quite right," the other adds.

"Well," Jess starts to say, but then falls silent. He did feel something distinctly strange coming from the Oval Office, just before SPYGOD showed up and all !@#$ broke loose. But he didn't tell them that, and had told no one that.

And he had distinctly decided to not tell these two that when they came in to his hospital room, back in February, because something had told him not to.

"Well, I didn't really," Jess stammers: "I mean... the guy was weird. The guy in the weird uniform? So maybe I felt a little weird because his uniform was so weird. But, feeling weird weird? No. Not really."

They smile a little stranger, and he knows he's !@#$ed.

"It's okay, Jess," one says, making a strange gesture with his hands.

"We know the truth,' the other adds, making the same strange gesture.

"We don't blame you for not wanting to share it, but we have our ways."

"Our little, strange ways."

The light in the apartment goes strange, for a second, as though all the illumination was being sucked out of where it belonged and moved to the space between the two men. 

"You're a good man, Jess," one says, as the light begins to take on a shape: "You tried so very hard to do your job."

"And you've suffered because of it, and quite unfairly," the other adds, as the shape becomes humanoid, and gains depth and substance: "It's time you were rewarded."

"What... who are you?" Jess screams, stepping back and trying to find something -- anything -- to defend himself with: "What the !@#$ do you want?"

"We want you, Jess," both men say simultaneously. As they do, their faces crackle and hiss like televisions do when they lose signal, and Jess can see that their skin is transparent.

And underneath the skin are skulls with baleful, silver eyes.

Between them appears a nude male, his face also a transparent-skinned, skullfaced mockery. It takes Jess a moment to realize that the man's an exact replica of him, right down to the mangled hand and gall bladder surgery scars.

"The new world will need you, Jess," the newcomer says in a strange, flat voice: "Please join us. Join with me."

Jess doesn't scream. He realizes that he's !@#$ed. And he knows he has two choices: surrender or suicide.

He doesn't like either, but he'll be !@#$ed if he lets some skullfaced mother!@#$er take his identity.

So he turns to run to the porch, figuring he can probably crash through the door and leap for the ground. Maybe he can at least get as far as the next apartment down, like he should have done the moment these !@#$ers came around-

But then there's hands on his shoulders, and he's flying into the wall. The impact breaks his nose and chips a tooth, and he falls down around his ankles, gasping at how !@#$ painful that was.

"Join with me," the naked monster says, towering over Jess and reaching down for his smashed face.

"!@#$ you," Jess mumbles, lashing out with his feet at the thing's naked !@#$s. A solid hit doesn't even deter it, but it at least propels Jess out of its reach and towards the porch. For a moment he thinks he's home free, but then it grabs hold of his leg and, wrenching it out of joint, yanks his head right back into arms' reach.

"You will join us," one says as the monster takes hold of Jess's face with his hands, and puts his thumbs over his eyes.

"All you need is love," the other says as Jess realizes what's about to happen, and finally allows himself to scream.

The screaming is rudely interrupted by a gunshot, and shattered glass. The thumbs are interrupted in mid-push, and the now-headless monster flops back onto the floor, jerking like a dying fish.

One and the other shudder as if they felt the monster's death -- and maybe they did -- but as their faces turn human again, and they head for the door, they're not quite shot to pieces by a volley of high-explosive bullets coming through the porch door. Nasty, gory bits of the two are splattered all over Jess' wall, and for a moment, as he watches their hipless legs flop and flutter on their way to the ground, he wonders how the !@#$ he's going to get his security deposit now.

The porch door is completely shot out, but the person who comes through it is kind enough to open it up properly before stepping through. Jess looks up at the fellow, and thinks he knows him from somewhere. Is it SPYGOD, come to rescue him? Or is he here to kill him, instead?

But no. It's not SPYGOD. The eyepatch the young fellow's wearing sort of makes him  look like the assassin, and the black leather getup doesn't hurt, but it's not him. He's a lot younger, for one thing, and has a lot less hair.

(Bad scarring all over the back of his head, too. Almost borglike, in a way.)

As the fellow strides over and looks down, a few other people come in from the porch. They're also young, and wearing similar black leather get-ups. They're also beautiful and blonde, and armed to the teeth -- speaking German as they prod and kick the twitching remnants of the three things they just executed.

"Um, thanks...?" Jess says, and the bald, eyepatched fellow squats down on his knees to regard him: "Do I know you?"

"Randolph Scott," the man says, extending a hand: "Outlaw journalist. Sorry about the mess."

"Don't mention it," Jess says, gladly accepting a hand up: "What... I mean... er..."

"I would like the favor of an interview with you, Mr. Friend," Scott says: "In return, I can offer some protection, or at least a drop off someplace safe. If you stay here I can't guarantee your safety, though. You know too much, and they won't stop coming after you until you're dead. Or sort of dead."

"Well, if you put it like that?" Friend says: "Can we, um.... my cat?"

Scott smiles: "We got room on board. Grab cash and any ID that doesn't have a magnetic strip on it, anything else personal you want that has no computer gear. Discs and flash drives are okay. Me and the kids need to poke around the mess a bit and then we're !@#$ing out of here."

"Okay..." Jess says, heading for his room to try and extricate Rusty from under the bed: "But where are we going?"

"After the story of a lifetime, Mr. Friend," Scott replies, pressing a button. Suddenly, out by the porch, a COMPANY Platform appears, hovering in space. A gangplank ties it to the concrete platform, outside.

"And what's that story going to be?"

"!@#$ed if I know, just yet," Scott shrugs, grinning as he pulls out a really large gun, cocks it, and shoots what's left of One's head: "Hopefully we'll all live long enough to see it in print."

"Okay, then" Jess says, not entirely certain this is at all wise, but having the feeling that, whatever happens next, his best next move is to get in the invisible hovercraft and vanish with the crazy man, his kids, and his guns. 

God knows, he's done worse.

(SPYGOD is listening to Positive Role Model (Pet Shop Boys) and having a State Pen Porter)

2/29/12 - The Big !@#$ Story So Far - Presidential Assassination Version

SPYGOD.

Immortal. Superpowered. Drunk.

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

Assassin of the President of the United States of America?  Well, it sure as !@#$ looks that way.

After a quarter century or so of eating out on having killed Hitler with his bare hands, rescuing the world too many times to count, and saving the lives of three Presidents (and having to shoot one), it would seem that SPYGOD has turned his back on his oath, and his country, and done the unthinkable.

For the President is dead -- shot down on live television. And SPYGOD's hand was on the gun.

How ironic that the former Director of The COMPANY, tasked with handling America's Strategic Talents, is now being hunted down by the organization he once ran! Especially since he was the one who had to kill rogue Supers when they went off the ranch.

What could have happened to him that would have made him sink so low? Was it losing a major battle to GORGON? Being fired by the President?

Something else entirely?

(Well, maybe we're !@#$ getting a little ahead of ourselves, here. Let's back up a bit.)

Since The War, SPYGOD had been a major player in the international spy game. He was the go-to man for America's part in the zero-sum dance that kept the world from being conquered, annihilated, invaded, eaten, or just plan vanished by way of Science Terrorists, Supervillains, aliens, or threats too weird to classify. Sometimes this involved the use of Supers, sometimes conventional forces, and sometimes just a single bullet in the right head. 

(And boy is that really !@#$ painful to consider, right now)

Until May of last year, the dance involved a detente tango with hideous partners like ABWEHR, HONEYCOMB, GORGON, and The Legion. In a sane and rational world, those boogie people would have been harshly dealt with some time ago. But they were dug into the world and its governments like fat bloated ticks, and had a marked tendency to create and use doomsday devices when attacked too massively, or thwarted too harshly.

So, under the circumstances, it was agreed that it was better to lose a few hundred civilians every year than risk billions.

However, last May, SPYGOD -- for reasons never fully explained -- decided he'd !@#$ had enough. The Outland that year was a real bang, much to the consternation of the International Spy Community, and all the evil people of the world were on notice.

The era of complacency was over. Complacency Kills. From now on, all their asses were belong to him.

The first dance was easy -- maybe a little too easy. The COMPANY came to call on the Ice Palace in Antarctica, and, faced with a massive attack not seen in decades, ABWEHR flopped over like a greenhorn nellie in a black leather dungeon. The Super Nazis' attempts to engineer a new Reich by way of repurposed alien technology -- some of it truly !@#$ terrifying -- could not withstand the assault, and their reserve guard turned out to be sadly pitiful. 

Buoyed by swift victory, SPYGOD extended himself a little too far, and went after GORGON's stronghold in West Papua with a skeleton crew. Saying the "plan" was the big !@#$ mother of all fiascos is extremely generous; If it hadn't been for new allies he didn't know he had, SPYGOD would likely have died there. 

However, his recklessness did have a price. The President -- already less than pleased with him for certain, highly embarrassing breaches of protocol -- decided The COMPANY's presence was no longer required at the South Pole. From now on the United Nations, along with America's favorite son (and SPYGOD's personal nemesis) Mr. USA would be looking after things, there. 

They would not be getting their hands on The Chamber, though. He'd already seen to that, by way of America's fourth-smartest man, and his brilliant wife, who would also be looking after Mr. USA.

(America's premier Superhero is up to something, you see. SPYGOD's just not sure what, yet.)

Unfortunately, round two with GORGON would have to wait. They'd quietly and messily vacated their island paradise, and SPYGOD suffered a bad case of "animation sickness," requiring exile to a cartoon colony "for his own good." Not one to suffer big government, take-a-hammer-to-a-hangnail solutions gladly, he was deniably plausible when the other patients finally took matters into their own hands.

Was that what did it to him, then? Being Tooned for so long? Or was it the wave of assassination attempts, all involving his secret weakness, making him more paranoid than usual?  The President was one of the few people who knew what it was, after all.

Or maybe it was dealing with that truly monstrous assassin -- Moloch. After he challenged the monster a fight, Moloch pulled a really !@#$ dirty trick and killed SPYGOD. Sort of.

That SPYGOD kept dying and coming back from the dead over and over again was courtesy of a cloning trick, by way of some of the stranger equipment in The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G. But the side effects were highly unexpected, and the fallout was truly disturbing.

And that, on top of having to interrupt his operations against HONEYCOMB -- a truly evil organization -- may have had a hand in future events.

The Science Terrorists' attempt to attack Neo York City during one of its citywide conversion processes led to a gruesome discovery in South Korea. That he expressed his displeasure at the revelation in his own unique way, and then capped one of the Legion's retirees to cover for his internationally embarrassing actions, could be seen as business as usual, or perhaps a warning of things to come.

For a while, it looked like things were going forward, though not without question or cost. After having previously tweaking the dictator's nose, SPYGOD and a small army of international Supers went back into Libya for an operation just prior to Colonel Khaddafy's inglorious end. Oddly enough, he not only allowed his reporter "protege," Alternet reporter Randolph Scott, to attend the proceedings, but also gave him free reign to publicize what took place, there.

SPYGOD's actions making the press made a few people up top less than pleased, as one might expect. But whether he did this to anger them or reward Scott has yet to be determined.

Following that successful action, SPYGOD shifted gears and fought a terrible war against the supervillain collective known as The Legion -- a battle that also pitted him against certain, highly-placed elements at the CIA. In fact, one of the other Company's pet monsters did a terrible thing in order to get closer to SPYGOD -- a thing that didn't become apparent until after SPYGOD had smashed the organization, and taunted its leader into sending out its best and deadliest weapon for a no-holds-barred fight with The Flier.

(A fight won only because of Deep Ten, and its mysterious and mercurial Director -- a man SPYGOD later became romantically entangled with, for too short a time.)

After that, there was just mourning and a mop-up. The Flier was all but destroyed, and many of his Agents dead, but yet another dark dance was finished -- maybe.

However -- did the self-sacrifice of that promising Agent send him towards the edge? And did the Legion's leader -- the Big Man -- manage to put an alien idea into his mind?

Was he really as immune to mind control as he claimed to be?

Yet another ill-timed detour put that issue on hold. Randolph Scott took the Ice Palace kids he'd been looking after since NAZISMASH to the wrong place, with tragic consequences. This set off an epic journey across two continents as SPYGOD took their kids from bolthole to bolthole, trying to evade assassins he initially thought were Israeli, but turned out to be BUSH -- seeking revenge over a terrible thing SPYGOD once did, decades ago. SPYGOD's revenge for the loss of his ward, and endangerment of the others, was somewhat delayed due to testicular difficulties, but was swift and all-engulfing when it finally came.

Meanwhile, back at the Heptagon, plans continued on without him. The reformed supervillain known as Underman -- Myron, if you please -- was given leave to assemble a tiger team from pieces of what remained of The Legion, and put to them work on the plan SPYGOD sort of had cribbed down for his return. The end result was that, by the time SPYGOD returned from his Big !@#$ Road Trip, OPERATION BUGSMASH was over and done with, and HONEYCOMB's central hive in Costa Rica was defeated.

Of course, as with the Ice Palace, the ruins of what had been left behind had to be taken charge of, cataloged, and defused. Some dark discoveries awaited -- maybe more than The COMPANY really should have tried to take on. But between the satisfaction of having an enemy stomped in his absence, and seeing that he'd been right to trust Myron -- however much work he still needed -- SPYGOD got back into his "came, saw, conquered, !@#$ up the !@#$" routine once more.

But you remember what we said about how complacency kills.

A looming threat was made plain to him by an agency he dared not ignore. It was in keeping with something he'd been told earlier, by someone else he could trust, along with other bits and pieces he'd picked up along the way.

The message was clear: something bad was going to happen, and soon. And whatever it was, he already knew its face.

Was it panic that set in, then? Making him behave somewhat recklessly and mysteriously? If so, it may have been justified. A Republican Presidential Candidate was assassinated, and certain fingers of suspicion pointed to his involvement. And while he might have been overseeing the rebirth of The Flier at the time, in his line of work that was no guarantee that he didn't have a hand in it.

Disasters piled up. First a moment's carelessness led to the escape of Zalea Zathros -- one of the most deadly supervillains on the planet, and the only person The Big Man ever feared. Then the head of BUSH was "rescued" from a cell in Africa, only to be found dead, most likely courtesy of a truly nasty GORGON operative, which meant all he knew is now known to them, too.

Then total disaster: a tripped deadman's switch caused a volcano to explode, destroying a large portion of Northeast Costa Rica. SPYGOD offered to massage the results to save America's face, but the President, tired of his seeming incompetence, came clean to the international media, and began to take steps to remove SPYGOD from his position.

No sooner did SPYGOD hear about that then he found out Randolph was in a medical coma in San Francisco -- a victim of a hit and run that might leave him severely brain damaged. Someone tried to kill his Second in Command, too, on board The Flier, but somehow SPYGOD was more worried and upset by Scott's dilemma. (Go figure.)

But this critical juncture is about where the story gets more than a little befuddled.

SPYGOD effectively vanished from detection for a couple days, which isn't outside of his power set, of course, but highly unlikely during a crisis. What happened to him was something he didn't want to discuss, but it clearly bothered him a great deal. It may also have lasting repercussions, either now or in the future, depending on what he does or does not do.

Then, when he got back to The Flier -- only to find it wracked with cascading malfunctions -- his Indian ally, Dosha Josh, was there, along with his age-old enemy/ally/love interest, The Dragon. He'd been found in Paris, apparently, and Dosha had handed him over rather than leave him to the French to deal with. Saying SPYGOD was happy to see him was a massive understatement, and before long the two were !@#$ inseparable (and inseparable !@#$).

Apparently taking this as a good omen, SPYGOD activated long-stalled-out OPERATION DECAPITATION, intending to deal with GORGON. He told the President off while promising him victory, and then called up every operative and spare Agent, press-ganged every useful supervillain, and turned in every favor he had on the gamble of a lifetime.

It failed. Badly. But even in the wake of that colossal failure, SPYGOD tried to rally the troops for one more push. He might have succeeded, too, if he'd been allowed. But the President of the United States of America had other ideas.

He fired SPYGOD, then and there, bringing about the end of an era in super crime-fighting.

True, SPYGOD was initially infuriated, homicidal, suicidal, and despondent, but after a truly dark night of the soul he seemed resolved to his fate. Maybe the President was right. Maybe he had gone too far, too fast, after too long of hanging back and doing nothing at all. Maybe his instincts had failed him, and he, in turn, had failed America.

Maybe it was time for a long !@#$ vacation, someplace where he didn't have to worry about saving the world.

(Plus, he could get the !@#$ away from The Dragon, who'd gotten more than a little weird on him.)

But one trip to The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G later, a harmless musing while packing up led SPYGOD to a whirlwind of discovery, which led, in turn, to a number of very distressing concerns. This is, of course, a nice way of saying that everything he knew was either wrong, very wrong, or !@#$ wrong.

And the next time anyone saw him, he was in the White House Rose Garden, shooting the President on live televison.

What happened in the penthouse atop The B.U.I.L.D.I.N.G? No one can say. METALMAID is missing in action, and SPYGOD's rather peculiar -- and outright dangerous -- cat, BeeBee, was last seen kneecapping several elite commandos with that gun she's always dragging around behind her.

But it's fair to say that, right now, outside of maybe the robot and the cat, SPYGOD doesn't have a friend in the world. They've disbanded the SPYGOD SCOUTS, and the story about what he had to do to President McKinley is no longer a secret. Right and left alike hate him with renewed venom, and the Republican Candidates for America's upcoming elections are taking turns explaining just how badly they want him dead.

They'll have to get in line, though: all Armed Forces branches are on alert, all law enforcement agencies are engaged in the hunt, and The COMPANY -- now under new management -- has been tasked to find him, and to shoot to kill when they do. All NATO countries and many of America's spying partners have also sworn to find the man and deal with him, which means his old network of allies, friends, and people he could pressure doesn't mean !@#$, anymore.

He doesn't have a flying car to get away in (someone blew it up) or a massive armory to pull weapons out of. He doesn't have an army of Agents willing to kill and die for him, or the backing of any Supers who want to maintain good relations with the organization he used to run. Except for his powers, and whatever he had on his person when he did that terrible thing, doesn't have !@#$.

He is disgraced and disavowed. Hunted and harried. Cursed and condemned.


But all that probably means is that he's never felt more alive.

SPYGOD. A massive !@#$hole, yes. But hopefully he's still our !@#$hole.

Hopefully there's some reasonable explanation as to what happened that day in February.

Hopefully he'll live long enough to tell us, and save us from the !@#$ that's coming.

Sometimes hope is all we have in the face of the bad times to come.

(SPYGOD is listening to Warriors of the Wasteland (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) and watching the Sunset with new appreciation. 

2/22-29/12 - Countdown Epilogue pt. 2

"... continuing coverage of the aftermath of the last Republican debate, three days ago, in which former House Speaker Newt Gingrich brought the house to its feet in applause by calling out the White House for not having apprehended SPYGOD, yet. As of tonight, it appears those comments have given him a major bump in the polls, which can only be welcome news just ahead of the Primaries in Arizona and Michigan, to say nothing of Super Tuesday..."

* * *

HANNITY: Well, look. I mean, I respect you all very highly. I do. I know that you were all fighting the good fight, and keeping America safe from our enemies. But I have to ask this. I have to. How did you not know the kind of person SPYGOD actually was? Dr. Power, you claim to be the greatest magician on the face of the Earth. How could you have missed this?

DR. POWER: I do not merely claim to be, young sir. I am. But I have to be frank. There are a lot of things about my colleague -- my former colleague, excuse me, that have baffled even my superior abilities. His use of the Chandra Eye makes him difficult to read at the best of times, especially if he does not wish to be read. So he could have been this monster we saw all the other day, all along, and we simply may not have known.

MRS. LIBERTY: Well, with all respect to the good doctor, Sean, in our profession you have to understand that sometimes people can change. And sometimes people are changed without their knowledge or consent, too. I remain unconvinced that he wasn't mind controlled or something. 

HANNITY: Oh come on. Please-

MRS. LIBERTY: And until such time as we learn otherwise, I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt.

HANNITY: Please, ma'am. Please. I mean, I know you-

MRS. LIBERTY: No, Sean. No. Either we believe that everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, or we just throw away the basic principles that make this country great. 

HANNITY: He was seen doing this on television, ma'am. The whole nation saw him.

MRS. LIBERTY: And maybe we did, and maybe we didn't. I've seen a lot of strange things in my time, and I am not going to throw him to the lions until I hear it from his own mouth. 

HANNITY: Well, let me get another opinion in on this. We're at Bethesda with a former colleague of yours. Gold Standard, who I understand has been fighting cancer for the last few years. Sir, can you hear us?

GOLD STANDARD: Yes I can, Sean. I apologize if you'll... have to turn your microphone up to hear me. They say my lungs... are mostly gone by now. Kind of gooey...

HANNITY: Well, I think I join all of America when I say how sorry I am to hear of your plight, sir. 

GOLD STANDARD: That's very kind of you, Sean. But... that's what happens when you wear a mostly-untested battle suit... for more than sixty years. I think the miracle here is... that I didn't get cancer before I was fifty, rather than.... than after I was in my eighties. I have no regrets, though. 

HANNITY: Well, sir, the reason why I called you onto this show with your former colleagues, I understand that you are at long last releasing your memoirs?

MRS. LIBERTY: Oh no. Please no.

GOLD STANDARD: Yes indeed, sir. I figured... 'why not?' It's not like there's anything in there that would compromise... anyone, though I think a few people might... be shocked about some of what we got into, back in... back in the day. But there is one thing in there that is relevant to this, yes.

HANNITY: I understand you released an early portion of it to a left-leaning outfit, some time ago, and they've been siting on it all this time?

GOLD STANDARD: Well, I didn't release any of... the manuscript to them. There was an affidavit made concerning certain actions that I took... quite some time ago, in the mid-70's--

DR. POWER: Edward, please. No. I would remind you--

HANNITY: Sir, Doctor? Doctor, please let him speak. He's a dying man--

MRS. LIBERTY: We swore an oath not to talk about this. An important oath, as people and as Strategic Talents. There is no need to reopen this, Edward--

HANNITY: Excuse me, ma'am, but I think there is. This goes to the heart of the issue, here. Gold Standard, sir? I think you wanted to talk about another time that SPYGOD killed a President.

GOLD STANDARD: Yes. William McKinley. He shot William McKinley. He... pretended to be the man's actual assassin and killed him in his place.

HANNITY: Is that not true, Mrs. Liberty?

MRS. LIBERTY: ... but...

HANNITY: Ma'am, please. Part of the basic principles of this country is that the truth is greater than lies. Don't the American people deserve the truth?

DR. POWER: I am gone. 

HANNITY: Well, your colleague's vanished into thin air. Are you going to follow him?

MRS. LIBERTY: Look, yes, it's true. Yes. He killed President McKinley. But there are... there are...

HANNITY: You mean that SPYGOD killed an American President, more than forty years ago, and you've been sitting on this truth the entire time?

MRS. LIBERTY: Look, just ask Edward. Ask Gold Standard. There is more to this story. It wasn't like he wanted to do it. We had to. History was at stake.

HANNITY: History was at stake? 

MRS. LIBERTY: Yes. I don't even think we should be talking about this. Ask Edward.

HANNITY: Well, it looks like we've lost our connection with Bethesda. I'm getting word that Gold Standard is... well, they say he's indisposed. They did say he might be in and out under medication. So I'll just ask you, straight up. Did SPYGOD shoot and kill an American President?

MRS. LIBERTY: He had to. Yes. But--

HANNITY: Okay then. We'll take a break here--

MRS. LIBERTY:  There's more to this story than *crackle*

HANNITY: When we come back, we'll be talking with other people who knew SPYGOD for what he actually was.

* * *

 "... minor panic broke out in Grand Central Station, today, as Neo York City transit police thought they saw SPYGOD entering a train. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt in the resulting stampede caused by a junior officer shouting his name and firing at the doors. That incident marks the fourth erroneous SPYGOD sighting in the city since the assassination -- a situation exacerbated by the so-called Army of SPYGOD, who are claiming to be arranging these sightings as a socio-political statement..."

* * *

Half the world away, Zalea Zathros finishes making herself come -- twice over, this time -- and then closes her eyes, content to rest up against herselves and enjoy the echoing sensation.

Unfortunately, she also picks that time to come into the bedroom from the workshop, smiling ear to ear, to give some news of interest: "SPYGOD's being crucified in absentia."

All three Zaleas on the bed -- naked and sweating with rapture, however interrupted -- turn their heads and rise in unison. 

"How badly?" Asks one.

"How often?" Asks another.

"How can we turn this to our advantage?" Asks the third.

"Very badly, quite often," the one who was out in the workshop -- along with three others -- says, putting down the tool she was using and cracking her fingers, one at a time. It's a habit her father tried to break her of, in her youth. She still does it when she's trying to think of a plan, and the others quickly echo the motion. 

(It reminds her of how good it felt when the plan she concocted to kill her father -- when she was but ten years old -- succeeded so well.)

"As for advantages," the third says, lying across herselves, cracking and popping one finger at a time: "We have spent years cataloging all sort of useful and condemnatory information about The COMPANY." 

"All we would have to do is see that it was given to the right people," another on the bed offers.

"And then he would look all the worse for those little... eccentricities," the one by the door finishes.

"But we will be providing the final stroke ourselves," one on the bed says, draping herself against her other self: "When the kariolis dies, it will be by our hand, not theirs."

"Agreed," all of her, all over the hideout, say in unison. 

The one by the door smiles and walks towards the bed, unbuttoning her work shirt. One of the ones in the bed gets up and disrobes her, one item at a time, and puts the clothes on herself. Then she takes the tool left by the door and leaves the other three to their fun.

Time to work, now; the world won't conquer itself.  

* * *

"... well, you may remember the Birthers, who claimed that the President had not been born in America, and was therefore not eligible to hold the position. Since the assassination, most of them have gotten extremely quiet for obvious reasons. However, there's a new group of them out there, making waves on the internet. These so-called Deathers are insisting that the President was not actually assassinated, but faked his death in order to escape being found out as a fraud by Birther investigations. As we speak, a lawsuit against the Federal Government has been filed, demanding to see the body and ensure that it is, indeed, that of the President...."

* * *

"I really don't know what you want me to say here," former Secret Service Agent Jess Friend tells the two men in his hospital room. His right arm is elevated to help with the healing, but the gnarled and broken mess at the stump still makes him feel sick and want to cry. 

(Realizing he's going to have to pay for the hospitalization out of pocket doesn't make him feel any better.)

"It's just a matter of consistency, Mr. Friend," the one fellow asks him, looming over him on the left side of the bed.

"Crossing the 't's, dotting the 'i's,"  the other says, standing by the closed door with his foot up against it, so no one can enter: "I'm sure you understand."

"The other folks all wanted to know about what that !@#$ did to me in the hallway," Jess says: "This is the first anyone's asked about what I saw in the Oval Office."

"Just to be certain," the one by the door says, pulling a piece of paper out of his suitcoat: "You said there were two people in the room, the President and SPYGOD?"

"Yes."

"But you also said someone entered the Oval Office just before SPYGOD appeared, and killed Agent Young," the one on the left says, leaning a little closer: "Where did he go, Jess?"

"That's just it. I don't know," Jess sighs, closing his eyes as he does: "When I got into the room, I thought I saw three people. But then there were only two. I don't know where the third guy went."

"And you said he was wearing a uniform you didn't recognize?" the one by the door asks.

"Yeah. There were a lot of uniforms that day, though. Mostly Supers. And he did get waved through, so..."

"Was there anything else odd?" the one on the Left asks, leaning in just that much more.

For a moment, Jess thinks about telling him about the weird sensation he got before SPYGOD showed up; the sense that something had changed inside the Oval Office, behind the door he was guarding, and had done so just after the man in the weird uniform had gone in.

But before he can, he gets another weird sensation. This one tells him not to say anything more about that, and he decides to obey it.

"I think that was it, really," he says, sighing: "Like I said, I've told everything I can remember."

The one on his left hangs over him for what feels like an eternity, and for a moment Jess fears he's going to say he doesn't believe him. But he leans back up again, smiles, and nods as he heads for the door.

"Thank you for your time, Jess. We'll be in touch, again."

"And if you remember anything else, just call us," the one at the door says.

And then they're off, with one of them whistling some old tune by the Beatles. Something about it sends hackles up his spine -- much like the time he almost stepped out to cross the street but didn't, and thereby avoided being mowed down by an out of control, speeding, and brakeless semi when he was ten years old.

He gets the distinct feeling he just dodged another bullet. But how long he can keep ducking and weaving is a !@#$ good question.

* * *

"... And, on the lighter side, we have reports that some of our city's stray animals may have something of an attitude. John Schlotz, a former animal control officer, went public today with what sounds like an incredible story. He says that he responded to a call that a stray cat was making a real ruckus in Central Park, but that when he found the cat it was drinking vodka and shooting at ducks with a machine gun. Undaunted, he tried to trap it, but was chased for at least half a mile by the unamused kitty, and when he brought back more officers the ill-tempered feline was gone. The Department of Animal Control declined to comment directly to his statement, or our questions, but said that Schlotz was recently suspended for reasons they chose not to disclose. Back to you, Tom."

* * *

It was another lazy afternoon at The Conch Shack, off of Duval St. in sunny, scenic Key West. Marie, who's mom ran the place, was waiting tables as usual. And, as usual, there weren't that many customers at this time of the afternoon. Just the old guy who hugged the corner table all day, nursing one tall beer an hour, and a tourist couple who'd come in for -- what else -- Conch chowder.

The shack specialized in cheap beer and conch meat, along with some token hamburger and hot dog recipes that her older brother came up with, back when her mom and dad put the restaurant together. Since then, her brother had gone on to med school, and dad had run away with her mother's brother, leaving just Marie and her mom to look after the business. But the succession of cooks they'd gotten to work there since then had been more than willing to continue the tradition of the Key West slop burger and Florida slaw dog, if only because they didn't have anything better to contribute.

One day, they'd sell the place and get out of Key West. Marie knew this, or at least hoped it. Everyone who comes to Key West wishes they could live there, but anyone who's actually born there wants to get the !@#$ out as soon as they can. Unless they're insane, that is. Or queer. 

Musing on her upcoming escape, she doesn't even see the new customer come in. First there is a table, then there's someone at the table, then there is.

"I'll have a Key West Sunset Ale," he says: "And a bowl of the Conch Chowder."

"We don't have any Sunset Ale," she says, going to get a bowl of the chowder.

"Well, how about a pale ale?" he says: "Key West does a nice one."

"We don't have any of that, either. We got Bud, Bud light, Miller lite-"

"You have to be !@#$ kidding me," the customer snarls: "No !@#$ local beer? The sign over your door said 'Key West,' lady. That's false !@#$ advertising."

"That sign's for Key West, the place, sir," she says, putting the bowl of conch chowder down in front of him: "Not the beer. We've only ever sold big label beer. And if you're going to be rude about it, you can take your order to go."

There's a scary moment when she thinks the fellow is going to do or say something really rude to her. When she feels it, she also gets the feeling that she should know him from somewhere, but for some weird reason her brain just can't quite remember how, or from where.

Then the moment's gone, and he smiles: "You know, you're absolutely right, miss. I shouldn't be rude to you -- you work for a living. Please forgive an old man who forgets how to treat a lady when he needs a beer."

"I'll think about it," she says: "You don't behave I'll have the cook teach you some manners."

"I bet," he says, looking back at the kitchen. The cook in question is smoking and listening to Spanish radio.

"But, they do sell local beers at the bar next door, and I know they let you walk out with a six pack. So you could always go there, get a drink, and come back here. I have no problems with that."

"Well alright, then," the man says, spooning up some of the chowder: "I'll keep that in mind for next time. You got Coke or Pepsi?"

"RC Cola," she says, turning around to get one. As she does he spits up what he just tried to swallow.

"You okay?" she asks as he coughs. He holds up a hand, indicating he's alright. Then he points to what he spat up: white stuff, conch meat, and a cigarette butt.

"Oh my god... Fernando!" she hisses, heading for the kitchen to give the worthless so-and-so a piece of her mind. One swift Spanglish argument later, she's no better or worse off than she was before. But by the time she comes back to apologize to the customer, he's already gone, leaving only a twenty dollar bill under the bowl -- payment, tip, and apology, apparently -- to mark his passing.

The speed in which he left, just like how he entered, distinctly unnerves her. She gets the distinct feeling that the man was extremely dangerous, and could have done something really terrible if he'd chosen to. That, coupled with the feeling that she should know him, somehow, makes her distinctly uneasy for the rest of the day.

And, the next day, when she learns from her mother that they'll be needing a new cook for a while, as Fernando was discovered in a public restroom with his head down the toilet, and three entire cartons' worth of cigarettes shoved up his !@#$hole, Marie has no doubt whatsoever who did it.

Just another weird day in Key West, maybe. But after you live here long enough, you get a distinct feeling when bad weather's on its way. 

Something tells her the devil just rode into town, and hell may soon follow after.

(SPYGOD is listening to Send Me an Angel (Real Life) and having a Key West Sunset Ale)