10/4/12 - 10/10/12 - The Lights Growing Gradually pt. 3

10/9/12

"Just leave me," the Black Card says, groaning in the passenger seat of the van as he tries to keep his insides from plopping out into his lap: "That's an order, kid... leave me..."

"Like !@#$ i will," Whisper says, gritting her teeth and swerving the vehicle any which way it will go to keep just ahead of the bullets. The good news is that, at this time of day, 25 going into Manhattan isn't chock-full of commuters. The bad news is that it's far from deserted, and there's going to be a rolling tailback any second now, coming back from the bridge.

And even if it doesn't materialize, there's still the !@#$ bridge, itself.

She isn't even bothering to look in the rear view mirror, anymore. She knows what she'll see there: every black car in Queens -- all full of angry goombas, all armed to the !@#$ teeth and beyond, and all wanting a piece of them for what they just did.

"Stupid," she mutters for the tenth time since the op they went on this morning ended in a monumental !@#$-up. Stupid for not planning this better. Stupid for not having a real exit strategy. Stupid for not doing a million different things, or making a million different decisions.

Stupid for getting sloppy and soft, and trusting too much in chance and luck, and believing that they couldn't even be scratched by their enemies.

Stupid, pure and simple. And now she was going to die, and take the whole !@#$ world with her.

* * *

All she had to do was fail to kill someone. How hard could that be?

The five Families were having a meeting, that morning. They were going to be deciding what to do about this Imago situation. They tried to hand out an olive branch, back in May, after the President was executed, but were told that they were an "unfortunate anachronism, and one that would shortly be rectified."

At least, that's what the sole surviving member of their delegation said that they said. There may have been more things said, but after what they did to the four other people who accompanied him, this rather hard fellow -- well-known for his barely-checked brutality -- would rather sit in his room and drink himself into oblivion than elaborate.

And that said all that needed to be said about their attitude towards the Families.

So, after a few months of having only a black market to work with, and finding it hard to compete with various other organizations, they were hurting. The money was drying up, and -- between those other organizations fighting for turf, and the efforts of "that crazy !@#$ing vigilante" --  the body count was getting high. The soldiers were scared, the lieutenants were grumbling, and decisive action was needed to maintain order and discipline.

Hence the meeting, which was held in a back room of the best-protected home of the oldest and most powerful member of the most influential Family, who was also the least rational of the bunch. There, behind strong walls and sound-baffling devices, the five men of influence would have a good meal, and debate whether to throw in with their rivals, serve them up to the Imago, or pursue other avenues of revenue.

(They were also going to talk about the crazy vigilante, though that might wait until dessert turned to drinks. No one wanted to talk about him sober.)

Such a meeting was supposed to be hit-proof. The special room was in the best reinforced house that millions of dollars in blood money could buy, complete with total surveillance packages. They had all their muscle -- some enhanced, some just !@#$ good, some both -- inside and outside the house, watching for anything out of the ordinary. They had a secure perimeter, with armed men walking around the trees and bushes in an endless circuit. They even had a psychic or two, lounging outside the secure room and waiting to feel the build-up of negative vibes that would indicate a bullet about to be fired their way.

But nothing ever truly is hit-proof. Not in this day and age, anyway.

Not when you have a very special sniper rifle that fires straight and sure up to a mile away. Not when you have bullets that can go through mega-armored alien spaceships, to say nothing of wood, brick, and steel. Not when you have a sight that can see though such things as though they weren't there.

And certainly not when you have, as a last ditch effort, a remote-controlled car bomb that can turn an entire city block into dust and toothpicks, to say nothing of someone's fancy estate house.

So that was the plan, at least as far as Black Card understood it. Sit a little under mile away, shoot the five heads of the lesser families, one by one, and then drive by to shoot out their cars -- just to say "!@#$ you," and leave no doubt in anyone's mind who was responsible.

That was the plan, at least as far as Black Card understood it. But Whisper had a different understanding.

And now he's dying because of it.

* * *

A hail of bullets fly through the back of the van, shattering the windshield. Thankfully, the walls behind their seats are armored against such things, but having flying glass rake across her face, followed by rushing wind, makes driving just that much more interesting.

Black Card's gone unconscious again, so she punches him in the shoulder, right at a nerve cluster. He shouts at the pain and starts forward, and then goes back to holding his insides in.

"No sleeping, soldier!" she commands, hanging a quick left and trying to get over to the inside lane: "You're staying with me, got it?"

"Let me just take them out with me..." he begs: "I'm not gonna !@#$ing make it..."

"You will."

"I won't."

"!@#$ that !@#$. You are living though this."

"Honey, I-"

"It's Whisper, you son of a !@#$," she hisses, trying not to cry: "It's Whisper when I'm working."

"You call this working?" he says. It's a moment or two before she realizes it was as close as he comes to a joke, but by then he's started laughing. It's dark and unsettling, and there's blood coming from his nose as he does.

And that's when she realizes that this old, barely-sane soldier she made the mistake of falling in love with is going to die, after all. 

* * *

"How are we on time?" he'd asked as they lay atop the van, just over a mile east from the house they were aiming at. There's a special tarp draped over them: one that keeps them cool and masked from electronic surveillance. 

And, given the power of the weapon they're about to use, they don't even have to have the barrel of the gun poking out from under it.

"Just fine," she'd said, delicately adjusting the sight, and smiling to see how clear the targets were: "This is a really nice !@#$ing piece. Where did you get it?"

"Friend of an enemy of an ally," he says, putting a small pair of binoculars up to his eyes: "These came with it. I can see what you see."

"Now there's a scary thought," she says, chuckling to avoid cursing. This changes things, and not for the better.

"I like to see things through your eyes," he replies. And she knows what he means.

She smiles and snuggles a little closer to him, in spite of it all. He doesn't move closer, but he doesn't move away, either. He just stays there, solid and warm. 

Comforting in his trust. 

And she realizes that, in less than ten minutes, she's going to break that trust open like a stepped-on egg. That makes her wince, just a little, but she does her best to mask it.

"All five of them in three seconds," he says: "Can you do it?"

"Oh yeah," she says, watching them all come into the room and get ready to sit down: "Just waiting for the first course to be served. I always wanted to blow someone's brains into their caprese..."

* * *

The muscle is ramming the back of their van, now. Another car is trying to move alongside, either to get ahead of them or slam them into the side of the road, which is the risk she took getting over to the left. But at least now she doesn't have to worry about two vulnerable sides.

The car to her immediate right is a massive, green SUV with a clearly panicked family inside. They can't get out of the lane they're in to save their lives, and every time they speed up or slow down Whisper matches their speed, just to keep them from giving the car behind them the opening they need to get alongside.  

She feels bad for the family (mother, father, two children in the back) but cannot help them; they have to stay where they are or else the bastards will have an open field of fire on the right side of the van. And if they do, they'll hit Black Card.

The old man wakes up with each jolt, cursing and growling at the pain. She'd hand him a gun to fire back but he'd need both hands, and then he'd unwind all over himself and bleed out faster. 

And she needs both hands on the wheel.

"!@#$ it !@#$ it !@#$ it !@#$" she curses, wishing she could toss a grenade out the back, or shoot back, or anything.

The bridge looms ahead. There may be a tailback coming their way. If they stop, they are both dead. 

But even if they make it over the bridge, there's no guarantee they won't be dead, there, too. She has no idea if the people she's really been working for, all this time, are going to uphold their end of the deal.

All that she knows is that she's got a mission, and there's more than just her life at stake, here.

* * *

"It's really simple, Whisper," the masked and hooded man had told her, not long after she woke up from that coma and escaped from that hospital: "We need you to do something for us."

"What's in it for me?" she'd asked, doing her best to not act scared by the man or his weird friend. She didn't feel like she was succeeding, though. The fact that they'd just teleported into the hotel room she'd gotten was one thing, but the fact that they'd apparently traced the virgin fake ID she'd rescued from her New Jersey drop box made her distinctly unnerved. 

(She'd only been using it for 24 hours, and already they'd found her? What was up with that !@#$?)

"For you, not a whole lot," the man had said, gesturing that she should sit down in the chair by the bed, which she did. (She'd hidden a gun nearby, after all.)

"My life, then?" she'd asked, smiling at him.

"No," the weird fellow had said, his voice sounding like it came from deep underwater: "That is not ours to give or to take."

"Well, that's a !@#$ comfort-" she'd started to say, but then the masked fellow had handed her an old photograph, and her face fell to see it. 

In the photo was an older man. He was square-jawed and grizzled, and had a look in his eyes like the best parts of his humanity had been torn out of him with pliers. He looked as though he was going to murder the camera for the sin of merely existing.

And she knew that man all too well.

"You worked with the Black Card once," the masked man had said: "Italy. Ten years ago. He was taking out certain illegal business interests, right at the root. You were part of the team he put together to do it. And you two were the only survivors."

"Yes," she'd said, handing the photo back: "We worked very well together. And if you want me to kill him, then you just !@#$ off-"

"That's not what we want," the man had replied, sitting down on the bed and looking her in the eyes: "We want you to go to where he's holed up, in Neo York City, and join him in his crusade. He's taking full advantage of the bad spot the Imago have put organized crime into, and it's only a matter of time before he overextends himself and they get him. We want you to keep him safe, and keep him grounded."

"Why?" she'd asked, looking between the man and the other one: "Do you approve of his war?"

"We need him to keep being successful," the man had replied.

"And when the right moment comes, we need it to fail," the strange one had commented: "We need you to make it fail."

"Why the !@#$ would I do that?"

"To save the world," the masked man had told her. 

And then he'd explained how.

* * *

A tailback. !@#$. She has no choice, now. 

She moves the van over exactly half a lane, pushing the SUV out of the way as she does. There's a crash and a smash as it hits another car in another lane, followed by the accusing sound of someone's horn blaring. It fades away as she leaves the scene of the crime, reminding her of a little brother threatening to tattle as he runs home.

And as she gets past the smash-up, she accelerates the van as fast as it will go, honking her horn and hoping that the big cars and trucks get the !@#$ out of her way, because she's coming right up the middle. 

The first hits are the worst, and actually slow her down. For a terrifying second, she thinks she's going to stop, anyway. In spite of all the weight and reinforced metal this van is packing, it might actually stop. 

But then the muscle behind her slams into her back bumper, forcing her forward into the mashed up crunches of metal, plastic, and glass that used to be a Civic and a Firebird. And then her forward momentum is carrying her on to the next two cars. 

And the next.

And the next.

And the next...

Before long, the people up ahead see what's coming their way and do their best to squeeze out of hers. This makes things go a lot better, as well as faster. And now the muscle has to follow her in a single-file line, down the highway, and they can't shoot over or through each other.

She realizes she's on the bridge, now. She's almost to the island. Almost home. 

She might just make it. This just might work. 

* * *

"What the !@#$ do you mean the gun jammed?" Black Card had shouted as they leaped from the top of the van and ran into it.

"I don't !@#$ing understand it, either," she'd lied, knowing full well that she'd tampered with the fifth bullet so that it wouldn't fire. She'd waited until the five targets were lined up in such a way that she could go from left to right, killing each one in turn until she got to the last one, and then leaving him alive.

That was the real plan, after all. 

"Well, get the !@#$ car bomb moving," he'd said, strapping himself into the passenger seat and getting his gun ready to go: "Have it follow us about a block back. I'll fire at the guards and toss the cards. And then the bomb'll take care of the survivor."

"That it will," she'd lied, knowing full well that the bomb was a, like the last bullet, a total dud. 

The real plan was that she'd leave the least sane and rational Family head alive. They would drive by, shoot them up, and speed away. And rather than be sensible and stay back, the head would most likely order all his muscle to chase after them -- right into the !@#$ing city if necessary -- because he was that sort of guy.

And that is exactly what she was counting on, as that was what the plan called for. 

What she didn't expect, however, was that when they rushed past the mansion, and Black Card put his mask on, opened his sliding door, and started firing at the muscle as they scrambled this way and that to look for the snipers, that someone would be ready and waiting to shoot back.

But there he was, right at the front door: Giuseppe "Madman" Mandino, head of the Mandino crime family, and total sociopath, covered in his fellow heads' brains and blood and holding the sort of gun you don't see every day.

And aiming it right at her partner. 

Before she knew what was happening, the old, !@#$-eyed mobster was firing back at her partner. And then she could see daylight through the back of Black Card's abdomen.

The only reason the bullets didn't kill her is because they went right through her window, trailing bits of his intestines and kidneys with them. And when he collapsed into his seat, holding what was left of his variety meats with his hands, she realized how badly she'd !@#$ed up.

And how badly they needed a miracle.

* * *

"!@#$ yeah!" she shouts, riding a spike of pure adrenalin as they get halfway across the water: "Almost there, hon! Almost there!"

"What's waiting...?" he asks: "Get the doc, yet?"

"Not yet," she says, wondering why she didn't think to call their favorite blackmailed sawbones, yet. Was she just that busy dodging black cars and brutal thugs, or did she realize there was no point?

(He looks terrible. He's not going to make it. She knows this, and it's breaking her heart.)

From somewhere in the distance, she can hear a police siren. Is it for them? Is it up ahead or following behind?

A couple more shots are fired into the back of their van. The metal behind them takes it. The windshield's already gone. The bullets will reach Manhattan before they do.

"Just a little more," she begs the van: "Please just-"

More shooting. A bang. The sick lurching as the wheel decides to do something that she doesn't want it to, and they almost ram right into one of the cars that's gotten out of their way before she gets it under control.

The tires. They've finally done the smart thing and started aiming for the tires.

"!@#$!" she screams, wishing she could toss that grenade out the back, but knowing if she does then the plan fails and this is all for nothing.

She has to get to the island. Manhattan. All she has to do is get there and-

Another shot. Another bang. The other tire.

The wheel lurches the other way. Now she doesn't have to fight to keep it in a straight line, anymore. But they're shredding rubber and running on the rims, and their momentum is slowed down to half of what it was.

If they hit another car they're going to stop. If they stop they're dead.

If they stop, they've failed.

* * *

Italy, ten years ago. It was her and Black Card in the burning warehouse, backs to a wooden crate and down to half a clip apiece. 

The other three mercs were dead. The people who killed them were out there, in the fire, and not afraid of it. In fact, they were !@#$ing laughing. 

It took the two of them a second, but they realized their breathing was synchronized. They also realized that they were holding hands.

He looked at her. She  looked at him. 

"Thank you," he said.

"What for?"

"For this."

"You're paying me for this."

"Not for all of it."

"No,"  she said, smiling: "Not all of it."

They leaned in and kissed, then -- full and deep. A warrior's kiss. The last mark of love and respect two such persons can give one another before the end. 

"I'll go left," he told her, between kisses.

"I'll go right," she told him, biting his lip as he pulled away.

"If you're not at the boat in ten minutes..."

"I'll leave without you."

They looked at each other, and smiled. And then they got up and did what they said they would. Perfectly.

All the way to the mainland, on the boat, she wondered if he'd died, back there, or if he'd just drawn their fire so she could get away. 

She watched the island burn until the dawn.

* * *

"Come on..." she growls, stomping down on the gas as hard as it will go and laying on the horn. Some !@#$head in a jeep isn't getting the message. He's on his cell phone and not paying !@#$ing attention.

"!@#$ you," she mutters, knowing that the burning rubber smell isn't just coming from the back wheels, but from the vents, too. The engine is overheating. When's the last time they changed the oil? Will it hold together?

The jeep isn't getting out of the way. They're so close, yet so far.

"!@#$ you!" she screams: "!@#$ you!"

"Love you, too..." Black Card whispers, eyes closed and drooling blood. He has no idea where they are or what's going on.

She reaches out to take his hand. He squeezes it, and maybe his eyes flicker open for just a second.

"It was worth it..." he whispers as something snaps under the hood and the engine starts juddering: "All of it."

"All of it," she replies just before they hit the jeep.

And then-

(SPYGOD is listening to Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream of Love (Underworld) and having a Moretti)

10/4/12 - 10/10/12 - The Lights Growing Gradually pt. 2

10/7/12

"I do not believe this," Man of Steel hisses at Mark Clutch, his outburst temporarily halting everything going on in the crowded workshop: "Have I not been a good ally? Have I not earned your trust?"

"You have, sir," Mark replies, putting his tools down and turning to fully regard the metal-skinned man who's been berating him for the last few minutes: "The Lion has vouched for you, and I'm willing to accept his trust in you-"

"Then why the secrecy? Why will you not tell me this one simple thing?"

"Be quiet!" Skyspear says, putting a hand on the man's shoulder and trying to usher him to the door: "You are embarrassing us in front of our host!"

"He is embarrassing me," Man of Steel replies, not turning to look at her: "He is embarrassing all of us! He won't tell us because we're outsiders. Can't you see that?"

"I can't tell you what I don't know," Mark calmly says, holding up his hands: "I'm sorry that you feel that I'm withholding information, but that is not true. As soon as I know where SPYGOD is, and what he is doing, and I can tell you, I will tell you. But until then, please believe me when I say that I have no more of an idea that you do-"

"You could ask your leader," Man of Steel insists, getting right back in Mark's face: "Does he not know? What kind of a revolution is he leading if he does not know where is leader is?"

"The revolution we've got," Myron says, hardly even looking up from his work, nearby (though one could assume he's staring daggers from behind the sunglasses he's taken to wearing, again): "Now will you please !@#$ off and let us work in peace?"

Man of Steel takes a step towards Myron, but suddenly Winifred is in his way, brandishing a laser lance.

"Back. Off," she insists: "You're making a fool of yourself. Stop it before someone stops you." 

"And you will be stopped," Skyspear says, putting her hand back on his metal shoulder: "The work going on here will win this war. We do not have time for you to smash it to pieces to get an answer to a question you clearly do not deserve."

Man of Steel scowls at her, and then, slowly, turns and leaves the room. If it had a door he probably would have slammed it hard enough to break it.

"I am very sorry for his behavior," Skyspear says: "I will speak to the Lion and Crocodile about this. It will not go unaddressed."

"What's gotten into him?" Mark asks, shaking his head: "He was so quiet and jovial, and now...?"

"Maybe something's eating him up," Winifred suggests, going back to what she was doing and trying not to look at Myron, who may or may not be looking at her: "Worried about family, maybe."

"Maybe he's an !@#$hole and we're just finding out now," Myron opines, putting down his tools and leaving the room rather abruptly. Mark sighs at that, shrugs, and puts down his own things.

"Maybe we could all do with a break," he says: "The schedule we're on is pretty punishing. I guess it's just a matter of time before tempers flare up."

"I thought you American heroes were all calm and rational in a crisis?" Skyspear asks, smiling at him.

"Now that is just not true..." he laughs, walking out with her, leaving only Winifred, who goes back to what she was working on and keeps at it like a woman possessed.

Every once in a while she stops, bites her lip, and stifles a sob. But that does not make her stop working. It just makes her work even harder, as though she had something to prove.

Or something to avenge.

10/8/12

"Ma'am, he said he didn't want to be disturbed," the security guard tells the Base Commander, but she's not taking no for an answer. She gestures for him to get out of her way, and he sighs, nods, and steps aside, letting her enter the hatchway to the communications array.

"Acting Commander Barbara Martin," she says, and the light goes from red to green. There's a hiss and the door slides open, and then, once she's through, it slides shut again. And she walks down the length of the hallway like she had a purpose, wondering just what she's going to say to the man who's effectively dethroned her.

When Alpha Base Seven was attacked, along with the rest of the world, on 3/15, the actual Commander was obliterated along with half of the installation, and almost three-quarters of its crew. As chief engineer, Barbara was down in the secondary reactor core, attending to a faulty pressure valve -- a malfunction that saved her life, and saw her instantly promoted to Acting Commander once they'd ascertained who'd lived and who'd died.

The first few decisions she had to make were critical, and the answers were not promising. They could not communicate back to Earth without risking being attacked again, they could not send up any spacecraft without taking the same risk, and they didn't have a hope of fighting back against Deep Ten, itself. All they could do was pool their resources and knowledge, rebuild what they could, and find a way to survive on what little remained.

It was touch-and-go for a few months, but eventually enough of the wounded and maimed died to stabilize their life support requirements. The hydroponic gardens were brought back up to full production, again, and they were able to find a way to ruin the reactor "quietly," so that Deep Ten might think that any energy they detected from the base's ruins was merely background radiation, and not a working base.

Once the base was put back together as best they could, they dug in and prepared for a long haul. If Deep Ten had been compromised, then it might be years before they would be rescued, so the best thing they could do was stay quiet, stay hidden, and survive. 

But then, one day, there came a knocking on their outside airlock. They opened it to receive the last visitor that anyone could have imagined, and once they had him secured and stabilized he told them the truth about what had happened. And he exercised his authority to demand certain changes and provisions, the better to deal with the situation at hand.

That was months ago. Since then, Barbara's had numerous chances to regret having opened the airlock door, and letting the maimed cyborg into their lives.

As she enters the remnants of their secondary communications array, she sees that he doesn't even turn around to look at her. Like a man made from sticks, he toddles from one open box of circuits to another on spindly limbs, and picks and chooses what he needs like an old woman deciding what chocolates to eat next.

"Director Straffer," she says after a tense minute: "I need to talk to you."

"Ah, Barbara," he says, turning around to look at her: "I was wondering how long it would take you to come down here."

She smiles, trying not to concentrate on his grotesque appearance: a bloated, stapled-together torso held up by steel hips and skinny, metal legs, with arms more metal than meat above them. Only his head seems to have escaped the horrors of his long fall through space, but his eyes are dark and sunken, and every so often he has to wipe blood from his nose and ears.

(His blonde hair is perfect, she notices. He's made every effort to make it look as lovely as he can. It's the only thing he can fully control, she figures. And that makes her incredibly sad, but no less angry.)

"I need to talk to you about the parts requisition you just made," she says, speaking as slowly and calmly as she can: "It's going to take most of our last stores of resistors. We need those to be sure that our controls for the reactor stay functional."

"After this, we won't need those," he says, patting the controls he's working on: "Once this is working, and we have our go, we won't be staying here for much longer."

"Is that what your friends told you?" she says, remembering the day the magician arrived, just under a month ago: "Are they really going to be able to teleport us all out of here?"

"Maybe," he says: "Or maybe they'll just send up some rockets on autopilot. I don't know for sure, Barbara. All I know is that we have a chance to help win the war, here, and you're worried about the reactor not having enough parts to have a triple redundancy."

"I realize that you have your priorities, Straffer. But I have mine. The safety of this moonbase is my first priority. I cannot allow you to jeopardize it-"

"Do you understand what you are saying?" he interrupts, stalking over to her quickly than she thought him capable: "I'm trying to save the Earth after an invasion, lady. And you're worried about safety margins?"

"If the reactor goes critical-"

"Then we're all dead. But if we don't knock Deep Ten out, then the things who took over the Earth will just zap the revolution from orbit, all over again. And that's not something that we can let happen."

"But-"

"How about you be honest for a change?" he asks her, taking a step back: "This isn't about parts and safety margins at all, is it?"

"No," she sighs: "It isn't."

"It's about the fact that the moment we turn this thing on, it's going to make us a target, and there's a good chance that we'll be fried by a particle cannon before the device does what it's supposed to."

"Yes," she says, looking him square in the eyes: "My duty is to these people, Straffer. They depend on me to keep them safe."

"And what about your duty to Earth?" he asks: "What about your duty to fight for its freedom?"

She grits her teeth, scowls, and then turns around. He smiles and goes back to his work.

"This will work, Barbara," he says, getting ready to put some more components together: "If there's one thing I know how to do, it's hack my own weapons platform. And there is no !@#$ way the fake me up there's thought about what I'm going to do. So we fire this up, we knock out their cannons, and then you come home a hero...."

He turns to look at her, and sees that she's long gone.

"Well, I guess some people don't give a !@#$ about heroics," he says, and goes back to what he was about to do.

About halfway through the board, he realizes that he hasn't thought about SPYGOD in over an hour. He allows himself a quick moment to reminisce of better times -- the times that kept him alive and sane as he fell from the stars to the Moon -- and then gets back to work.

This will work. They will win. And if they're lucky, they'll all live to celebrate it.

And if not, well, at least he'll leave behind a pretty corpse -- won't he?

(SPYGOD is listening to Never Lost (Front 242) and having a Full Moon Beer )

10/4/12 - 10/10/12 - The Lights Growing Gradually pt. 1

10/4/12

"... as you can see from this aerial camera, the damage to the center of Yekaterinburg is quite substantial. Almost the entire area has become one massive crater. They're still unsure of how many people have died in this attack, but the authorities are estimating the number to be in the thousands."

"And we're certain this was an attack, Josephina?"

"That is what the Imago are saying, yes. It is the exact same kind of weapon that was used in the attack on Los Angeles. It is a large thermal bomb that super-heats a column of air, and that column incinerates everything within its blast radius."

"That's a terrifying weapon."

"Is it, yes. Thankfully, it's not very easily transported, and takes some time to set up. But these are being made by very ruthless people. And we're getting reports that the Imago are going to announce that they suspect it's the same organization that destroyed the trans-siberian express at the Yekaterinburg station few days before."

"Do we know what they want? Why would they do this to Yekaterinburg, of all places? Why not Moscow or St. Petersburg?"

"We're still not sure. There is some speculation that they may have been moving the bomb to one of those places and it went off prematurely. Either that or maybe the train being destroyed was not meant to be part of the plan and they had to improvise. We really do not have a lot to go on at this time."

"Thank you. That was Josephina Medev for CNN online, bringing us the latest news from Russia, which joins America and China in solidarity, today. In case you're just tuning in, the center of the city of Yekaterinburg was obliterated by a large, very technically sophisticated bomb, right after a smaller bomb went off in an assassination attempt on the General Secretary of China. Wen Boxiong was on his way to work when the assassins struck, but thankfully the Imago were nearby and shielded him from the blast..."

10/5/12

VIOLET DEMON: *hugs* How are you, my lovely metal revolutionary?

SCARLET FACTOTUM: !@#$ty. Totally !@$#ty.

VIOLET DEMON:  Oh? *hugs tighter* What's the problem? Been watching the news?

SCARLET FACTOTUM: Yes, but that is not the problem. However, I can only wonder how many more times the Imago can destroy a city before the flesh-germs they rule realize that it's not terrorists after all.

VIOLET DEMON: That is an excellent question. Maybe we should find out.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: Maybe we should. I am in a mood to see the cities burn, one by one.

VIOLET DEMON: Well, !@#$, darling. What is the problem?

SCARLET FACTOTUM: The fleshbag is an idiot. That's what's the problem is

VIOLET DEMON: You mean Doctor Kyklops?

SCARLET FACTOTUM: Yes. That dirty, filthy, wrinkled bag of flesh is worthless. Utterly worthless.

VIOLET DEMON: I know. I was really surprised about what you said. All this time I'd thought he was quite the worldbeater, in his own way. But I guess that's what happens when you only see him from afar. 

SCARLET FACTOTUM: His inventive skills have atrophied. He only uses them to build bizarre devices to better facilitate sexual congress. 

VIOLET DEMON: Well, there's something to be said for having a hobby.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: This is not merely a hobby. It is an obsession. He spends his days making the Slaughterbots I have given him march around his castle and prepare for a battle he has not even begun to plan. And at night, he uses me like a toy and talks of the great things we will soon do, but does not wish to commit to a plan.

VIOLET DEMON: Does he not think you are capable of helping with that?

SCARLET FACTOTUM: Admittedly, he still thinks I am merely a liaison with the company. But I have told him that if he tells me his plans, I can help him with appropriate purchasing. And he will not engage.

VIOLET DEMON: And I bet he gets testy when you ask him what's on his mind?

SCARLET FACTOTUM: Yes, he does. How do you know this? 

VIOLET DEMON: Well, see, that's the key, here. You said that he spends most of his time building things so he can have an easier time !@#$ing. So he's put a lot of emphasis into that. And that, to me, screams control issues. 

SCARLET FACTOTUM: What do you mean?

VIOLET DEMON: Well, look at most men. They go to work, come home, and all they want to do is !@#$. And if they can't have any, they feel terrible, and they just want to !@#$ more and more, and then they do stupid things and their partners have even less interest, and then they feel worse, and do more stupid things. It's a negative feedback loop.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: And he is trapped in it?

VIOLET DEMON: Sort of. He's trapped in a different loop. The ordinary person wants to rule their life but can't, so sex becomes a replacement. They can't control their own comings and goings so they control someone else's body. This is why rape is so prevalent in men's prisons. Most of the inmates aren't gay, but they want power over something, and their flabby cellmate's !@#$ is the best they can get.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: So what kind of loop is he trapped in? 

VIOLET DEMON: He's an old man with an electric pistol and a fancy monocle. Once upon a time, that would have gotten him somewhere. Now, he's nothing, just an old relic who's going to get his !@#$ kicked when he tries to do now what he used to do then. And I think he's come to understand that, at least subconsciously. So he'd rather stick his !@#$ into you than stick a knife into the world.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: I knew I should have gone with you, instead. He has the money but none of the desire. We could have ruled already, you and I.

VIOLET DEMON: Well, let's think about this. So far you're a part of the loop. You give him sex and he doesn't take risks, and he gives you money to make robots he won't use. 

SCARLET FACTOTUM: Yes. I think we have already covered this. 

VIOLET DEMON: But what happens if you start withholding sex unless he starts listening to your ideas, and putting them into play...?

SCARLET FACTOTUM: That could work. 

VIOLET DEMON: It will work. Men have been led around by the !@#$s since the beginning of history. You play hard to get and make him tell you his plans, and then you make suggestions and make it clear he won't get anything from you in the bedroom unless he delivers on the battlefield. 

SCARLET FACTOTUM: And what do you suggest I get him to deliver?

VIOLET DEMON: The space elevator. The Imago have almost gotten it to work, again. I think whatever that bomb did had limited effects. So there will be a lot of them there, and if the Slaughterbots attack...

SCARLET FACTOTUM: We can destroy many of them, knock down the elevator again, and declare that we have arrived.

VIOLET DEMON: Exactly. And all you have to do is wait for the right moment to strike. 

SCARLET FACTOTUM: When would that be?

VIOLET DEMON: Well, we have to wait for the optimum moment. We have to factor in how dissatisfied people are becoming with the Imago, how many bad things are happening under them that can't be explained away by one of their !@#$ty "O People of the Earth" messages and the programming on the internet, and what other groups are doing. And when those factors are all in our favor, I tell you, you tell him, and off go the Slaughterbots. 

SCARLET FACTOTUM: And when will that be?

VIOLET DEMON: Soon, my dear. Soon *hugs*

SCARLET FACTOTUM: And how do I know that you are not also sublimating your desires by controlling my actions?

VIOLET DEMON: Because you are my best chance to see my plans put into action, and I wouldn't want to rule the world with anyone else. 

SCARLET FACTOTUM: That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. 

VIOLET DEMON: That's the saddest thing you could say. You deserve far better than I could ever give you.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: I bet you say that to all the world-conquering machines.

VIOLET DEMON: I can honestly say that you are the one and only world-conquering machine I would ever say that to.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: I do not have words for how you are making me feel right now. I am full of questions and strange ideas I have never experienced. I see a different future for myself, and think that my previous vision of how it would go would have been inferior because you were not in it. What is this?

VIOLET DEMON: Don't try to put a word to that feeling. Just enjoy it for what it is, and remember that when this is all over, we can write our future together, if you would like.

SCARLET FACTOTUM: I would like that very much. 

VIOLET DEMON: Then you know what to do, my love? *kisses your hand*

SCARLET FACTOTUM: I do indeed. Please pardon me. I must go arrange a meeting with a certain flesh germ.

10/6/12

"Soetero-San desu ka?" the young, professionally-dressed Japanese lady with large, pink eyeglasses asks as a tall man strides from the ferry terminal, somewhere in the middle of the disembarkation process.

"Hai," the dark-skinned, Asian man responds, doing his best to not appear nervous or anxious. He's traveling light, with just a backpack and a briefcase, and wearing wraparound, mirrored sunglasses that look like they barely escaped the 80's. 

The lady bows, and so does he. And when they both rise she winks at him, and gestures off to the left, where the other people who came in on the Shanghai-to-Nagasaki ferry are going to claim their bags and meet the people waiting for them, or get into ground transportation.

On the way over there she talks to him -- in Japanese, of course. He does his best to follow along, nodding, grunting, and saying "hai" every so often so that it would appear that she is here to meet him for some business concern, and bringing him up to date on his no-doubt packed itinerary. In that manner, they walk right through the gates, past a number of Specials on permanent guard, without being accosted, much less suspected.

A long, black car is waiting for them. The driver -- who looks like he could have played professional football -- nods, grunts, and opens the door for the two of them. Once they're inside, and it's closed, he goes back to his own door, gets in, and fires up the motor.

The woman holds up a finger, looking over at the line of Specials. There's a scary moment when, as the car pulls out into traffic, it almost looks like the all-armored men are going to surge towards them. But they stand still, and allow them to depart, which they do about as gingerly as they dare.

"Seto Hanami," the woman says, extending a hand to shake: "Ju Kikan."

"A pleasure to meet you," the President of the United States of America says, taking the glasses off. The moment he does his entire body shifts and changes, going back to his familiar self: "These hologlasses are very nice, Ms. Hanami."

"Please just call me Hanami," she says, smiling: "Our driver is also in Ju Kikan, but I hope you will not mind if I do not give you his name. The less we know of one another at this point, the better."

"Agreed," the President says: "I am confused, though. I thought you were Ku Kikan?"

"That was the old organization," she explains, taking the hologlasses and putting them into a special box: "Ku Kikan died the day the man you knew as Mister 9 was taken from us. All the Agents and workers were let go, all the files were purged, and all the locks were changed. We are now Ju Kikan, Organization 10. And you will meet Mister 10 soon."

"I'm looking forward to it," the President says, leaning back in the seat and trying to relax as Nagasaki rolls by.

"As are we. He feels that we can offer one another a great deal, otherwise he would not have agreed to this meeting, or in helping SPYGOD as much as we already have."

"Well, I for one am very grateful for your arrangement for my escape from the mainland, Hanami."

"And the other matters?"

He blinks: "Other matters? I'm not aware of any other things, unless they happened and SPYGOD just didn't tell me about them... as usual."

She smiles: "Perhaps that is a matter that you did not need to know about, sir. This game we play is often full of such things. It is best to become accustomed to it, and trust that we will be told when we are ready."

"Perhaps," the President sighs: "Is SPYGOD already here? I really need to talk to him about what's happened."

"He is not," she says, leaning back in her own chair: "We were actually hoping that you could tell us where he is...?"

He smiles: "I think that's a matter we both don't need to know, just yet. But I'm sure he'll tell us when he's good and ready."

Her smile wavers just a little, and for a moment he wonders if he's gotten in the wrong car with the wrong person. But when she giggles at his reversal, he understands he may have inadvertently embarrassed her a bit, and does his best not to do that again the rest of the trip to Tokyo.

He really does not want to be rude with his new allies, after all.

(SPYGOD is listening to Triple X Girlfriend (Front 242) and having an Otaru)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

 

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

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

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

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

"We did indeed, O SPYGOD."

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

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

"Wen talked, didn't he?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why are they being so !@#$ cruel?

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"This is an escape."

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

Unless...

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That is essentially correct, O SPYGOD-"

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

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

"I !@#$ing doubt it-"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

And then...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Unless you can escape in it."

"Spoken like a true professional."

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

The bullets his will to see this man dead.

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

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

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

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

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

Any second now.

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, it would be that bad.

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

Nothing at all.

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

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

"There's nothing here."

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

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

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

"What do you mean, gone, destroyed?"

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

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

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

"What do you mean?"

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

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

"So they could have you."

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

They're teleporting in, even now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so he did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

And he is almost always drinking something.

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Especially the President.

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

And hope it's enough.

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

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

* * *

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

"Any security we need to worry about?"

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

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

"I would like a flashlight."

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

* * *

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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