"What Madness Is This?" Volume II: Prophecies in the Dark

[Napoleon53]

I'll add a few more illustrations tomorrow but I am exhausted right now, lol. Enjoy!

PROJECT PEACEMAKER:
A GIFT FROM JEV

Midas Israel Goldstein

"I will send a fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the coastlands, and they shall know that I am Lord."
Midas Goldstein quoting Ezekiel 39:6 (AFC Standard Old Testament) after successful test of America's first nuclear weapon​

Project Peacemaker was both the Union's greatest triumph and greatest displeasure, for the Europans had beat them to the punch by 1941, when the first secret tests of nuclear bombs were conducted in the Sahara desert of Europan North Africa. But the simple fact that they had achieved nuclear parity with Europa was enough for most Americans to sleep slightly better at night. Even if Napoleon V was slinging his nuclear bombs at Egyptian rebels and desert huts, the mighty Republican Union would build bombs twice as big and five times more powerful, hell, fifteen times more powerful. After all, to the American public now knee-deep in blood and a decade into the mire of Operation Manifest Climax, Manifest Destiny could not be stopped, only delayed. Europa's victory in the race for atomic bombs was a mere divergence on a path that led to the same result of complete American domination of the globe.

ORIGINS:​

Project Peacemaker took its first baby steps in the early 1930s, shortly after the conclusion of the main body of work was complete on the literal acid trip and a half that was Project Percival. But, as a ripple on the surface of the water grows and grows, the first foundational stone necessary for Project Peacemaker was laid not by an American, but by two Dutchmen, Prof. Huig Biljardt and Prof. Sieb Buterman, both of the Royal Academy of the Sciences in Utrecht. The elder of the two, Buterman, had been the father of Quantum Theory, first proposing the concept to the Dutch Royal Society in 1898. Biljardt, meanwhile, would come along later in the 1920s and became Buterman's main assistant in all experiments. 1935 would see the revolutionary reinvention of atomic theory when Biljardt and Buterman discovered nuclear fission, thus clearing the pathway for both nuclear energy as well as nuclear weaponry. Seeing the possible irreversible damage to the future of humanity their research could cause, the two founding fathers of Atomic Science, along with their chief assistant of German extraction, Professor Otto Meitner, tried to warn the world's governments that nuclear weapons were a cat that could not be put back in the bag if released.

Not heeding their dire prophecies in the dark, Caesar Napoleon V's government in Paris opened up the Imperial Nuclear Institute, an entity consisting of over 200 of the brightest Europan minds all working toward the goal of weaponizing the atom. Professor Philibert Pomeroy, the leading Europan atomic researcher, swore he would not stop working every single day until the Empire was armed with the power of a thousand suns. Despite the protests of the Royal Academy in Utrecht, the Dutch government insisted that their own brightest and best continue the pursuit of nuclear weapons, else Europa might become entirely unstoppable and come banging up the place for a grudge unresolved since the Great World War.

Prof. Huig Biljardt and Prof. Sieb Buterman, the "Fathers of Atomic Science," exchange thoughts
at the Royal Academy of the Sciences in Utrecht, Holland, circa 1925​

As recounted in a past chapter, the 1935 kidnapping of a depressed alcoholic Prof. Meitner, a man already reluctant to continue dangerous research for his adoptive homeland, was a landmark event in the nuclear arms race. While Europa was probably going to acquire the Bomb regardless of losing a researcher or two, his overnight disappearance forever destroyed Dutch efforts. Biljardt and Buterman feared that he had been whisked away by foreign powers or worse, while Dutch police ruled the death a case of mania and suicide. Even though they lacked a body, depressive, booze-soaked letters to friends lamenting the future of the planet provided a comfortably believable explanation for his vanishing act.

His kidnappers, undercover ORRA agents, directly reported to Dr. Midas Goldstein, one of the most famous scientists ever to live and the so-called Black Jew of Camp 222. Goldstein said of Meitner in an internal Project Peacemaker memo to Dr. Gabriel Snow:

"The man is already a paskudnik and a traitor to his birthplace, as well as a rabid, outspoken antisemite, a racist, and a homosexual deviant. The man named his cat Niggerman, for Moses's sake. And he tried to refuse to research weapons for the country to which he turned his coat! Meitner is a whore, a scientific prostitute being pimped out by imperialist goyim to the highest bidder. But even a filthy whore can serve her purpose, in the right campground. We shall use him as we see fit and provide him a comfortable workplace and life and show him the grass is always greener on the Pinnacle side. With him in our hemisphere, an ocean away from Imperialist lands, there can be no escape. And when he realizes that escape is impossible and that we provide his every want and need, he will do what we want. Or he will be dispatched to the Void."​

Meitner's secretive arrival arrival at the Boston Aerodrome via an Eagle Airlines C-32 loaded with ORRA thugs was the first introduction to American society he had. And it left a rather poor taste in his mouth. As a convoy of ORRA Workhorse trucks whisked him away to parts unknown, he began to wish he had indeed followed up with his own suicidal thoughts. Though these thugs promised him a life of luxury and comfort in a gilded cage, the idea of helping the Yankee barbarians turned his stomach. They finally found leverage over him by threatening to not only out him as a homosexual man, but to kill his lover, a former student named Leopold van Buren, ironically a distant cousin to the founders of the American megacorporation Old Kinderhook. Van Buren was free and safe in Holland, but ORRA agents monitored his every move, ready to kill the man should Meitner refuse to cooperate. Whenever he would resist the Yankee demands, he would be shown recent, up-to-date, candid photographs of van Buren, ranging from shots of him walking his dog, buying the paper, to inside of his own home, even on the toilet. If there was one skill ORRA was unquestionably the greatest at of global intelligence agencies, it was their ability to create an absolute surveillance bubble around an individual without ever letting anyone know they were there. Van Buren had not a single clue that, sometimes, there was an ORRA agent laying directly under his bed while he slept.

TWO FROZEN YEARS

Scientists and security officers climb the only path to Camp Alpha​

With little choice, Meitner agreed to work for the American government in exchange for the life of van Buren and the sum of two million eagles a year, an absolute fortune at the time. One might imagine a comfortable country home surrounded by trees, security fences, guards, and the sounds of nature, and that might be halfway true, but when the home is Camp Alpha in the frozen tundra of northern Custeria, fifty miles from the tiny town of Risen, one realizes that life was far from a walk in the park for Meitner and the original Project Percival team. Goldstein chose Risen because it was impossible to escape from. Surrounded by hundreds of miles of wilderness on all sides, and the locked-down, airtight border with Illuminist Alyeska to the west, there was not a snowball's chance in hell for the physically weak Meitner to provide anything more than some brief exercise for his captors should he try to flee. The insides of his cabin and research facilities were comfortable and even luxurious in some ways, but the frequently well-below sub-zero weather, guard towers, and bleak surroundings only served to remind him of his gilded cage.

The Project was not entirely helmed by Meitner, not by a long shot, however. Dr. Gabriel Snow, one of Dr. Gilgamesh Singleton's "Big Six" thinkers on Project Percival, was placed in charge of coordinating information between various research groups and specialists by Dr. Goldstein, who was still acting as Supreme Chief of the Office of Health and Wellness. In 1937, Leo Merkwürdigliebe, the secretly Wormist father of the Black Bliss defoliant superweapon, succeeded him. On a side note, during the anti-Wormist purges following Patton's 1941 execution, Leo was suspected of Wormist tendencies and beliefs, but he managed to wriggle free by ordering the arrest of several immediate underlings and blaming them for the Sootstorms that ravaged Old Mexico and created the Dustbowl.

Now officially retired from public duties at the age of 67, Goldstein actually took complete control over the day-to-day operations of Project Peacemaker. Before his total commitment, Dr. Snow coordinated three main groups. The first, out of Benedict Arnold University of Boston, was helmed by Prof. Lincoln Putnam, and specialized in electro-magnetic separation. The second, operating at Pittsburgh's Monongahela State University, was led by Protestant German turncoat Prof. Helmut Schmidt and polymath English super-genius Jack Newman, and specialized in gaseous diffusion, a key component of enriching uranium being shipped in regularly from Mittelafrikan sources operating as American oil companies. Finally, the third group was led by African-American Prof. Philander "Phil" Tubbs at God's Glory Bible Institute in Emancipation City, Brown. Now, with the entire operation receiving the "Midas Touch," the research groups became one entity and headed to Miskatonic. After two frozen years, Otto Meitner found himself being shuttled to a secret new base called Camp Omega. Project Peacemaker finally had a central hub.

WHITE BOARDS, ERASERS, AND SETBACKS

Prof. Philander "Phil" Tubbs
God's Glory Bible Institute ​

1938 seemed to be a bully year for Union science. With all the brightest atomic minds in the country together at last at Camp Omega, huge round-table discussions were had. The "Giant White Board" became a legendary icon to Project Peacemaker staff." The enormous dry-erase board was twenty feet tall by 40 feet wide and required a system of ladders and platforms to be able to fit the insane length of formulas that could take the super-geniuses weeks to complete. Billy Flanders, a 10 year-old orphan whose father had been killed in South America and whose mother had passed of illness, was employed as a mascot of sorts and became known by all as "The Eraser." He had absolutely no clue what was going on about him or what any of the math meant, but he was watching history unfold, surrounded by legendary minds. Every few minutes, Flanders would operate the system of pulleys and levers to scribble down whatever the scientist's demanded, but most frequently had to use a sponge to scrub failed ideas or incorrect solutions. Years later, Flanders would serve as President Oswald's Press Secretary for a period, and he would fondly look back at his time as "The Eraser" at Camp Omega in numerous televisor and newspaper interviews, as well as a detailed account in his autobiography Atomic Orphan (1972, Heart and Hearth Publishing House).

But the fall of 1938 would see a massive setback to the entire operation. The so-called "Grand Central Station" housed papers and files that took months of work to create, and was an open library for all of the researchers twenty-four hours a day, as frequent late-night bouts of insomnia sometimes led to breakthroughs. On the morning of October 4, 1938, however, Grand Central Station went up in flames like a tinder-box. Though no cause was ever pinpointed, Goldstein blamed Meitner as the only "unwilling" member of the group, an attitude which wasn't suppressed by Meitner's frequent anti-Jewish tirades. While several technicians reported some faulty wiring in the building, the Black Jew would have none of it. He had Meitner beaten to within an inch of his life and ordered the same for van Buren back in Holland, and showed Meitner the photographic proof of van Buren's broken and bloody corpse. When Meitner reported back, fit for duty, the next week, the circle of researchers treated him with scorn and derision for months, slowing recovering from the incident even more. Again blaming Meitner for the delays, Goldstein had van Buren kidnapped and brought to Miskatonic, where Meitner would watch him be beaten regularly by ORRA goons to "accelerate his work ethic."

By 1941, the crew had mostly recovered from the Grand Central Station fire and were again making rapid progress. Even President Steele personally visited Camp Omega to inspect the progress and award several researchers with high civilian honors for the work they had already performed. On the darker side of things, Supreme Chief Patton was apparently totally unaware of the entire project, even though it was occurring on his ORRA state's soil, and the crippled Wormist's absence and ignorance was a dark prophecy of the fate he would meet in May of that year. Steele and Goldstein were running Peacemaker like a fine machine, and only those who absolutely needed to know had any idea of what was going on at Camp Omega. A few weeks into his time as Supreme Chief, the same day President Steele revealed his illness, Chuck Oswald was informed of Project Peacemaker. At the time, Europa had not announced ownership of functioning nuclear weapons, and so Steele informed Oswald he was looking forward to yet another America-first moment. When Europa announced it had successfully detonated the first-ever atomic bomb in the desert of the Sahara, Steele was furious. For the first and only time in either of their careers, Steele contemplated purging Goldstein and replacing him with his chief scientific advisors, Dr. Gilgamesh Singleton. Only Singleton's personal entreaties and vows that Goldstein was a man of upstanding character and a tremendous asset to the country prevented the Black Jew from being taken out into the desert and shot.

Progress would again grind to a halt in the high-stress environment after Europa got the Bomb. After several years of grinding each other's gears, an argument over a formula erupted into blows between Meitner and Phil Tubbs. According to stories from people who worked at Camp Omega, Tubbs had always looked at Meitner as subhuman trash, a sexual deviant, and just a waste of everyone's time. In turn, Meitner viewed Tubbs as an "uppity Afrikan." Tubbs' grandfather had been born a Southron slave before the Great World War and his father had been an ORRA officer during the Immolation of Mexico. Meitner took this as an opportunity to slander Tubbs as a result of his black father mixing with an Hispanic Mexican. The following is a transcript of testimony from an eye-witness named Harold Bloom, a young scientist from Revere who was up on the scaffolding with the Eraser when the fight, later nickname the "Battle of the Brains," broke out:

"Now, you see, Meitner and Tubbs just plain hate each other. Always have, I reckon. Polar opposites, they are. Tubbs is a big strong black man, Pinnacle in his fluids. The turncoat Dutchman is a tiny little wastrel, prone to lying what with what's unnatural. They were already fussin' somethin' fierce over why this square root couldn't equal somethin' or other and this and that and Joe's your uncle, way beyond my pay grade, when suddenly Meitner is yellin' about Tubbs' mother bein' a 'degenerate Mexican pack mule of a whore,' who 'enjoyed...' something about 'Continental Congress?' and 'campground fluids.' Tubbs starts comin' at him with a metal ruler, screamin' about him being a "phrenologically and sexually repugnant little pacifist," and "I'll show you a big black loin, you little deviant!" Before you know it, everyone was gatherin' around and Tubbs just ups and smacks Meitner across the face with that ruler so hard it bent the whole thing like a horseshoe. And then he tosses it aside and just body-slams the Dutchman! It was wild! Now me, I hate both men, and they both treat me like a two-foot Papist pygmy with the clap, so I was just laughin', hopin' they both sent each other to the hospital. But everyone else just starts joinin' in! And before you know it, they are all fightin' each other! No reason! I guess everyone in Camp Omega thinks everyone else is a piece of human garbage, because these scientists are beating the Void out of each other, stabbin' each other with pencils, clobberin' each other over the head with staplers, trying' to choke each other out by grabbing at neckties. I thought someone was gonna die. And then the ORRA fellas come runnin' in with whistles and nightsticks and start pryin' everyone apart, and Goldstein is screamin' about how we were gonna get him lined up against a wall. Craziest thing you ever saw. I'll never forget it as long as I live."


BUILDING A BOMB FOR THE BETTERS OF SOCIETY

Otto Meitner​

The first nuclear test by Europa was of a small-scale ten-kiloton nuclear bomb. When they launched an attack on Egyptian rebels in 1942, the first use of an atomic bomb in anger, they used an even smaller five-kiloton bomb. Napoleon V still wanted to feel himself a just and righteous man, so he had instructed his scientists to prepare only bombs under 15 kilotons. As the only nuclear power in the world, he did not see a need yet to increase the scale and scope of his bombs, despite warnings from Pomeroy and the Imperial Institute that this was foolish and other factions would soon be arming. "I want to kill the enemy, not poison the planet forever," Caesar was known to say at the time. Trailing behind in the nuclear race, this left American with an option to finally one-up Europa, providing they could at last create a functioning bomb.

In the winter of 1943, the first-ever American nuclear test was scheduled to take place about forty miles west of Camp Omega. Disaster struck, however, when the truck transporting the bomb to the loading bay at the small runway skidded off the path following a tire blow-out. The bomb's immense weight caused the trailer to flip and then roll, severely jarring the warhead in the process. Alarm klaxons were blaring all across the camp as men ran hither and yon, desperately trying to flee a possible nuclear explosion. As the high-ranking personal fled to a bunker deep underground, Prof. Tubbs refused to go inside, instead asking for volunteers to help him go check on the bomb. Tubbs and two officers whose names were lost to time slowly approached the unfortunate situation with rad counters. Despite a few dents in the bomb's main structure, the core appeared undamaged and radiation was minimal. For his bravery, Prof. Tubbs was awarded the President's Cross for Civilian Courage.

Finally, after several weeks spent recovering the bomb, repairing it, and soothing frayed nerves, America detonated its first atomic bomb on February 1, 1944. A dying President Steele ordered several bombs to be prepared for use in South America, but the next incident would leave the project again in free-fall, at their moment of triumph. A general meltdown occurred in Research Station 5. Otto Meitner stumbled outside of the building, glowing so severely that his bones could be seen through his skin. Apparently, a research assistant had been handling massively unstable radioactive components when fingers slipped and a fire broke out in the lab. Screaming in anguish and with camp klaxons once again blaring, Meitner hit the dusty ground, his skin evaporating from his body like ash. It wouldn't be until a full examination of events was finished almost five years later after radiation in the building died down that the government realized Meitner had gone into the enclosure after the bumbling assistant fumbled the material and physically stopped it from melting down, thus saving the entire project from a hellish, radioactive end.

In the years that followed, the Union first announced that Dr. Meitner had defected of his own free will, then declared him a "Pinnacle Hero" of the highest caliber. Van Buren was executed immediately after Meitner's heroic demise to make the entire homosexual angle fade into the shadows. A man kidnapped and forced to develop devastating nuclear weapons for the Republican Union sacrificed himself to prevent a meltdown, saved the lives of those he hated to save his lover who was also kidnapped and brutalized on-base, and then was declared an American hero. Certainly not the life story Meitner would have picked for himself by any means, but the one that was recorded as true for all time. Following the death of of Professor Tubbs in 1970, in an even more cruel twist of fate, the NUSA Office of Atomic Matters (OAM) decided on the name of the Tubbs-Meitner Memorial National Laboratory as the name for the new complex built atop the old Camp Omega.

When the bombs were dropped on Rio de Janeiro in 1945, they were double the size of Europa's. While this was a deliberate choice on behalf of Caesar, as stated earlier, and Europa could have started out with much larger weapons, the American people thought of their nukes as far mightier and more impressive than any others, thanks to a highly-effective and vast propaganda campaign. Midas Goldstein became known as the Father of the Bomb in American schools despite him merely being the man who kidnapped scientists from other countries and bullied others into doing his own work. "Goldstein brings us guaranteed peace at the point of a nuke," read newspaper headlines. When the Europans tested the "King Louis" in 1950, however, the world would finally realize the nuclear arms race was merely beginning. The Age of the Atom had begun, and the Pinnacle Future crept closer.

 

[Napoleon53]

OF MICE AND MEN:
RISE OF THE HOUSE OF GOOCH

Original crest of the Family Gooch

- COLONIAL ORIGINS -

Sir William Gooch, 1st Baronet, Royal Governor of Virginia​

The rise of the Family Gooch, later stylized as the House of Gooch, was an incredibly important one for the history of the Carolinas and--as the mid-20th century would prove--to the world. Sir William Gooch, 1st Baronet, was born in England in 1681. He arrived in the New World to take command as the Royal Governor of Virginia in 1727, where he would use his powers to grow Virginia's economy with laws such as the 1730 Tobacco Inspection Act. This ordered all tobacco farmers to publicly store their crops and submit to inspection to reduce fraud and poor quality, driving demand for Virginia tobacco back in Europe through the roof. While declaring that no faith other than the Church of England was the true form of Christianity, he also showed tolerance to a large number of Presbyterian settlers of Scottish blood, many of whom would later move from Virginia and to the Carolinas after the Fall of the Old Republic in 1801. Sir Gooch had many marvelous war stories and decorations, having fought under the likes of John Churchill and had gone to as many disparate places as Holland and New Spain, and he enjoyed telling these tales to his only son, William, during his retirement back home in England.

As the saying goes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and William enlisted in the Royal Navy at the age of 18, . After a successful and lengthy service in the French and Indian Wars, where he survived the bloody nightmare of Braddock's Defeat with a young George Washington, William was appointed Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, then ruled by the aging Royal Governor Josiah Martin. Martin, born Irish and a devout servant of the Crown, was in ill-health during the outbreak of the American War for Independence. Despite his long period of service to the Crown, his close friend George Washington's alliance to the rebellion gave him no other choice but to tender his resignation as Lieutenant Governor and swear fealty to the new cause of liberty or death. Governor Martin declared him a public enemy and outlaw and Gooch fled into the countryside to organize Gooch's Regiment of Foot, a ragtag group of minutemen who struck hard and fast at Royal convoys and disappeared into the night. When the revolution was winding down, it was Gooch--now a self-styled general--who seized a sizable number of British ships while they were docked at Wilmington. Even though he was aware the war had officially ended, he played as if he did not and kept the ships for his own usage. This would form the original backbone of the Gooch Merchant Marine fleet that would bring the family into real wealth.

- THE OLD REPUBLIC DAYS -

William Gooch in uniform of the Continental Army​

William Gooch bought a large slice of land in Charleston, South Carolina, and went on to join the ranks of the Continental Congress, where he campaigned for a strong Federal government and supported Adams and Hamilton and was a vocal critic of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. In 1798, he wrote in his diary, "For how long shall it be till the right honorable states of our grand coalition are usurped by power-hungry oligarchs, and we find our grand creation shattered before our very eyes? We must act now, posthaste, to build a strong central authority under a strong presidency to prevent the impermanence of the so-called Perpetual Union." When the news broke that Adams and Hamilton had been arrested in New York, it broke him, as he had sincerely trusted in the Federalists to save the country.

This appears to have pushed him into directly the opposite direction from his previous statements, because when Andrew Jackson sent the call out in 1801 for volunteers to join him for a march on Charlotte to proclaim independence, signalling the collapse of an elderly William Gooch stood strongly beside him and ordered his private naval fleet to blockade the coast of the Carolinas. During brief skirmishes with Federal troops and ships, Gooch was instrumental in keeping violence to a bare minimum. Now in his 80s, Gooch could have retired to a life of quiet and solitude back on his property, but instead he was elected into the House of Citizens, where he would become an adamant Jacksonian until his death in 1810.

- THE GOOCH-PIRATE WAR -

Goodson Gooch (on back) fends off Berber pirates with the
aid of his trusty cabin boy and manservant Rapier Fontaine​

Upon William's passing, the control of the family fortune passed to his grandson Isiah Israel Gooch, a devout Presbyterian, the first of the family to adopt what was essentially the national denomination of the Confederation as his own. Isiah Gooch sought to remodel and even replace some of the family's private Merchant Marine vessels, which still mostly consisted of former Royal Navy ships of the French and Indian Wars era, and he recruited several hundred veterans of the Revolution and Indian conflicts to become marines aboard said ships. This was at a time when pirates, based out of Berber North Africa, were consistently hampering and sinking Carolinian tradesmen, as the collapse of the Old Republic gave the Berbers ideas that American shipping was defenseless and their fractured governments paper tigers. Upon Chancellor Jackson's request, a joint force of Gooch Merchant Marine and Confederation Navy ships were dispatched to North Africa to take the fight to the pirates.

Isiah's brother Goodson Gooch was the fleet admiral appointed by Jackson to oversee the conflict, and the young man was quite ready and willing to fight and die for the Vulture of the Carolinas with his trusty cabin boy, second, and manservant Rapier Fontaine. When the first high-seas skirmish between Berber and Cokie ships occurred on April 11, 1811, and the Berber pirate captain Afud Ammar was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Gooch and his men. Ammar lost a hand in the battle and was captured and sent back to the Carolinas in chains. He would be broken mentally, forcifully converted to Presbyterianism, and became a tobacco farmer and slave on Jackson's personal plantation. Jackson wrote a letter to Goodson Gooch later that year that read in part:

"I have a splendid use for these savage pirates. Continue to gather them as possible and have them transported back home. They have not the manners of the Negro nor the culinary skills, but they can withstand heat right well and make most excellent tobacco farmers on even the hottest Carolinian summer day, and their women make for exotic companionship. I say again, enslave them all, Admiral Gooch, just as they have done to white traders for generations. What is good for the Mohammedan goose, well, it is good for the Southron Vulture."​

What some historians call the "Carolinian-Barbary War," also known as the "Barbary-Gooch War" and the "Gooch-Pirate War," could just as easily be labeled with honesty as the "Great Enslavement of the Berbers," and it was only halted by the outbreak of the War of 1812 and the opening of hostilities with Great Britain. But until then and for almost an entire year, Cokie ships under the command of Admiral Gooch sailed the Mediterranean, docking for supplies in friendly French and Italian cities, and then raided the Barbary States for treasure and slaves. Several ships were lost, but many were replaced by claiming pirated vessels as their own. This resulted in a large diplomatic stink and foreshadowing of what would occur in 1812, when the HMS Blackadder, a Royal Navy warship captured by Ibrahim Aslam in 1804, was seen in Milan, manned by Southrons. Britain demanded the return of the vessel, which Gooch adamantly refused. According to the unwritten rules of good faith between nations, upon capturing another nation's ship flying pirate colors, it was expected that the capturing nation return it to its original owners. But Gooch refused to do so, loudly proclaiming the 85-gun ship was the property of Gooch Merchant Marine, not a sovereign nation. This was the beginning of the Blackadder Affair, and was one of the key reasons for Jackson welcoming hostilities with the British in 1812.

- THE BIRTH OF GOOCH ENTERPRISES -

​

Isiah and Goodson Gooch felt slighted personally by the British government, and they were not the type to forgive or forget. During the opening gambits of 1812, Goodson perpetrated a daring series of raids along the British coastline as the Royal Navy was busy engaged against the French, Dutch, Spanish, and Russian invaders. They used the Blackadder to barrage a series of small coastal towns and further the chaos seeping through the Royal defenders' ranks. After a few weeks spent dodging Royal Navy patrols, the flotilla escaped back across the Atlantic in time to join the conquest of the Virgin Islands, wherein Gooch installed Thomas Bragg as governor-general. While he would sail away from the Islands for now, his family would one day return.

After the end of the War of 1812, the Gooch family founded Gooch Enterprises, one of the world's largest tobacco manufacturer. Gooch Cigarettes became one of the staples of the South and remained a popular brand well into the 20th century. Cigarettes were soon supplemented by cotton, and then by textiles and leather. During the Cuba War, which resulted in the greatest defeat in Carolinian history, the death of Chancellor Jackson, and sewed the seeds for the Great American War decades down the line, Gooch Enterprises switched production in several factories over to bayonets and musket balls. By 1840, Gooch Enterprises had purchased Carolinian Arms, establishing them as the preeminent armaments company for the Carolinian Army and Navy. During the Great American War, the foundry kept the Carolinian forces supplied when shipments were cut off from the allied Republican Union.

In 1870, with the foundation of Jacksonland in Portuguese Angola, with its capital of New Raleigh, Gooch Enterprises was one of the chief engineers of the project. Since the deaths of Isiah and Goodson, the company had been split into numerous branches, each run by individual family members and descendants. In 1880, Gooch Enterprises was the single largest owner of slaves in the Confederation when the Emancipation Act was signed. Future Chancellor of the Confederation and then-current Colonial Governor of Jacksonland, Nathan Bedford Forrest, encouraged the Gooch family to dump their slaves in the African colony and continue using them as unpaid labor, off-the-record. This included many, many descendants of captured Berber and North African pirates. A large number of these former slaves and their descendants would eventually help construct the Transcackalacky Railway through the Carolinian Corridor and across to Yonderland, following the creation of those two colonies in 1916, following the Great World War.

- RISE OF THE HOUSE OF GOOCH -

​

In 1929, Gooch Foundries would produce the M-29, the preeminent clone of the American M-25 G.I. Rifle, the first mass-produced semi-automatic rifle to gain widespread adoption. It was with M-29's that the Colonial Administration seized control of the Vanderburgh Family Mining Company, arresting its CEO and nationalizing its interests. However, ever the monopolistic opportunists, Gooch Enterprises purchased several of the largest diamond mines in Africa from Chancellor Gamble's government, founding the "Gooch Mining Company." America was a huge fan of diamond engagement and wedding bands, and thus the opportunities for expansion seemed endless. Around the clock, Gooch "minewhelps," usually small children, would dig for jewels and, later, uranium, as the Carolinian Corridor in particular was rich with the key component of nuclear bombs and lovely glowing artisanal dinnerware.

One of Chancellor Gamble's favorite "Gamble suits" was adorned with over 500 African diamonds from the Gooch pits sewn on in a bedazzled, blindingly gaudy design. This triggered an immediate obsession with "Gamble suits" and they quickly became one of the most profitable items in the entirety of Gooch Enterprises. Realizing they had a chance to capture lightning in a bottle and become one of the most influential clothing companies in the world, the Board of Trustees-- made up of an infinite pool of cousins and Gooch-spawn--created the "House of Gooch" fine clothing and jewelry company in 1944. This "suited" the Board just fine, and they didn't protest when the general public began referring to Gooch Enterprises as a whole as the "House of Gooch." Every Carolinian celebrity began sporting the finest, often most absurd House of Gooch products, which quickly expanded into items like rhinestone- and diamond- encrusted "Gambler Hats," "Raleigh Dinner Plate" belt buckles which frequently bore the initials of the owner or simply read "GOOCH" in huge gold or silver letters, and even severely, near-painfully pointy-toed "Cackalacky Cockroach Killer" boots with ornate silver conchos and trim. Amid a wave of nostalgia for the Barbary Wars, thanks in part to the Cokie 1940 cinematic masterpiece Rapier Fontaine in the Land of the Infidel (the start of a franchise that would go on for decades) made Arabesque "sheik" style popular, especially with women, who enjoyed blousey, transparent sleeves, decorative tiaras, and loose-fitting trousers known as "genie slacks."

By the late 1940s, the word "Gooch" gave rise to the slang term "gooch" and "goochy," meaning what Yankees would call, "cool." While the exact start of the usage of this term is unknown, a prominent use of this new slang that helped further its use appeared in the 1939 coming-of-age novel by celebrated Cokie Hiram Levon, The Great Goochy. The epic was about a young man obsessed with the latest clothing, dances, drinks, wines, women, and songs trying to get into a plantation owned by a wealthy shipping magnate whose life seemed an endless party. "The Great Man" is never named but is heavily implied to be a Gooch-spawn by logic and a simple reading of the tome's title.

The Great Man himself, adorned in the finest silks and twills and the grandest of New Cackalacky crystals, waved his hands in the air, proclaiming grandly in his genteel and drawling intonations, 'Party over here! Party over there! Party! Party! Forsooth, I say, party everywhere!' A philosophy as solid as any learned at Chapel Hill, that cyclopean monolith of collegiate knowledge. Grab your sweetheart in the velveteen glove of exuberant youthful manner, swing her round and round as the world turns, and as the jive overtakes your soul and soles, shout out loudly, proclaiming throughout the grand hall that your tender dosey-doe is the belle of the ball. Let us live large, as the Great Man, and when they say to cease gyrations, to turn down the phonograph of life, let us ask simply, 'Turn down? For what?'

In his magnolia and dogwood estate, belles and Southron gentlemen came and went like moths among the whisperings, and the mouse wine, and the stars. And as the moon's precious rays gleamed off the Great Man's precious stones affixed with expert artisanal care to his Gamble suit, I saw all for it what it was. Marvelous. Fabulous. Goochy. For what is 'goochy' but a state of mind, a grand party all the time, a masterpiece painted by masterstrokes in shades of lavender, seersucker, and wafting with the scent of elderberries and chamomile. A lifestyle. In that moment, I was goochy too. We all were, in that time and that place, and we lived as if tomorrow were a distant, glimmering star somewhere overhead, a sea of infinite possible grand parties until at last there would be darkness and the end of the universe and time itself. But death be damned, and the apocalypse with it, for we are all goochy in this moment, at an endless plantation hoedown, in an infinite sea of possible diamond tomorrows.

Goochy. Goochy. As my head swam with the gentle succor and sweet tang of a fine mouse wine, dispensed from enormous fountains adorned with cherubic angels and filled with marinated mice like pink pennies in a well, I declared to never again be without the wondrous and rapturous, yes, magical feeling of being supremely goochy. Some of have said that bright things fade, and don't come back. I say that, though indeed the body may age and youth may wither on the vine like a raisin in the Pacifican Yankee sun, the indelible art of being goochy shines like an African stone in the hands of a Cackalacky minewhelp, basking oneself in the effervescent light of a silvery Carolinian moon for all time. By being mentally and physically and magically goochy, we pickle ourselves in this moment, at this time, at this glorious hour, and age like fine mouse wine. We are all goochy baby mice, adorned with our Raleigh dinner plates, off-the-shoulder sequined gowns, and Gamble suits, soaking up all the festive and fabulous flavors of life in a frantic, whirling, crystaline sea of gooch juice. I am goochy, and that is the beginning and the end of everything. And when I pass into the ethereal realm, let me fade not silently into history, but into the eternal and everlasting gooch. As my Southron spirit flies away to the tune of the banjos and trumpets, I have only one thing left to say to this world:

Stay goochy."


- SHIPPING OUT THE POORS AND THE GENTRIFICATION OF THE CAROLINAS - ​

The House of Gooch was by no means the sole reason for the gentrification of the Carolinas, and indeed, this movement was already well along on its way by the time the family became synonymous with luxury and over-the-top glamor. Many of the upper class of the Confederation absolutely despised the "hillbilly bumpkin" persona most of the world affixed to their nation. Chancellor Johnny Gamble, in particular, tried to exile even the pettiest of criminals to the African colonies. "What I do, ya see, is what my father done before me. I give everyone an option. Either join the army or get the hell out of my sight and take your trailer trash bastard crotchbubbies with ya," Gamble said to a gathering of Office of Public Virtue (OPV) brass in the 1920s. By the 1940s, the gentrification of the Confederation was near total. Every inch of usable, decent soil was bought up by oligarchs and wealthy, entrenched families. Even in former Hispaniola, bombed to rubble and captured by the Confederation as "East Carolina" during the Great World War, pleasure palaces and casinos and film studios set up in a lush, blooming tropical paradise. The ruins of St. Domingo City were rebuilt by one Robert Jackson Stowe as "Forrestwood," named for assassinated Chancellor Nathan B. Forrest. Stowe, a textile tycoon who was himself married to a granddaughter of Goodson Gooch and who subsequently owned a two-percent share in Gooch Enterprises, offered the government in Charlotte ten million Cokie dollars to buy the city outright. This he did, establishing Forrestwood as a "special corporate development zone."

Gooch Merchant Marine stepped in, relieving Cokie Armed Forces of their occupational duties, and began the process of shipping out most of the original inhabitants to the African colonies. The city was leveled, taking inspiration from the construction of Metropolis in America's New Canaan, and a brand new "traditionally Southron yet stylistically modern" city was created. Despite racial conflict with the remaining natives, things were looking up for Stowe, Gooch, and company, in part thanks to Bobby "Bubby" Graden, an imaginative and accomplished young filmmaker, the first such in the Carolinas to achieve any sort of success or recognition elsewhere. Graden saw in 1922 a perfect opportunity in Forrestwood to shoot his short fictionalized recounting of the founding of Charleston. The film, dubbed The Gentlemen of Charles-Town, was an hour long and was somewhat accurate to the true story of how Charleston was founded by the sons of English Barbadian plantation owners who had want of more land. However, the movie indulged heavily in propaganda, to the surprise of few, portraying slavery as a benign, even beneficial institution, and implying that the founders of Charleston, not the Patriots of the Revolution, were Carolina's real Founding Fathers. The film was a smash hit, especially with the planter elite who were completely, totally hijacking and whitewashing the Confederation like a picket fence on a Sunday afternoon.

The success of the film enabled Graden to remain in Forrestwood, establishing the first competitor to the Republican Union's Kissimmee film industry. Bubby's Film Studio opened for business in 1925, as did a string of competitors seeking a life of tropic fun and beautiful camera shots. Naval stories always were a popular, cheap, and logical choice to film, such as Bubby's Studios' Rapier Fontaine series, featuring Raleigh-native Atticus Avery as the swashbuckling right-hand man of Goodson Gooch, and Palmetto Studios' Jolly Roger serials, depicting the life of fictional Southron pirate Roger Jackson as he struck terror on the Main during the 1700s. Another popular choice was to fly out to America's Old Mexico to shoot Biblical stories and the lurid tales of "Barbarian Sheiks of the Burning Sands" and their harems of blonde, pasty-white Appalachian women. But by far the most popular Cokie film was the 1940 adaptation of The Great Goochy, wherein the consuming of "Cackalacky mouse wine," a beverage popular with roughnecks and soldiers who fought in the various Corean conflicts in Asia, went from a lowly pleasure to a status symbol. The Great Goochy author Hiram Levon claimed an addiction to the beverage since his own service in Corea, saying in a 1942 interview, "I simply cannot get through a day without the taste of delicious marinated mousey morsels in my mouth, darling. Their skin is like velvet and their insides like succulent tapioca."

By 1950, Forrestwood was the "Jewel of the Caribbean." Cokie soldiers and sailors on their way to participate in the lingering, never-ending aftermath of Operation Manifest Climax frequently made it their port of call. Huge casinos, frequently of a cartoonishly Arabesque or garishly Romanesque style, with onion domes and huge plantation pillars, sapped their money and provided escorts for those with still more money to burn. Atticus Avery, the star of the Rapier Fontaine flicks, owned and operated the infamous Atticus' Playhouse, where he frequently made headlines for drunken brawls, cocaine use, and involvement with the rising Carolinian Mob, a group who also found East Carolina a pleasant vacation spot. Even Americans would frequently visit Forrestwood and cause international incidents.

- CACKALACKY MOUSE WINE AND THE GOOCH ISLANDS -

​

By far and wide one of the most recognizably Carolinian culinary abominations, Cackalacky mouse wine had its origins in Corean "baby mouse wine," made by drowning and soaking newborn baby mice in rice wine. Many soldiers drank the beverage on dares or out of desperation until they began to actually like it and even invent their own versions. Many of these veterans were awarded huge tracts of land in the New Cackalack African colonies, where their craving for the mousey morsels made them become even more creative. So many years passed that the drink lost its Asian connotations almost entirely and became a "roughneck drink," associated with the new generation of "Cackalacky Cowboys" settling the Sub-Sahara, working on the Congo Dam, and surviving on the swampy badlands during the aftermath of the creation of the Congo Sea. But, as said earlier, mouse wine's bizarre, almost surreal appearance in the most bourgeois of Cokie novels, The Great Goochy, thanks to its author's insane addiction, suddenly made mouse wine, specifically of the Africa, Cackalack variety, a raging fad for the ages. And the House of Gooch was not one to dismiss a potential license to print money.

In 1942, the House of Gooch created the "Squeak Caroline" distillery in the Virgin Islands Confederacy, a "nation" totally tied at the hip to the Carolinas since its inception. It had received heavy, heavy damage during the Great World War, and the growth of East Carolina as a vacation spot ruined much of the glamor of the Virgin Islands. However, there was a breed of mice on the island known as "Bragg's field mouse" that was deemed a most-succulent and fertile breed for mouse wine by Cokie sailors in the area. Always looking to cut out the middle-man and with the government near bankrupt, the Virgin Islands Confederate government accepted a buyout. For the first time in history, a company outright purchased a (debatable) sovereign nation. Deep pockets of lobbyists in Charlotte prevented the Carolinian government from doing anything about it. Nothing could touch the House of Gooch. This was similar in nature to the ownership of the Goodyear Islands (formerly Hawaii) by Colonel Goodyear Enterprises, but the similarity would not end just there. In 1943, the Virgin Islands were renamed to the Gooch Islands. Although nominally independent, the House of Gooch promised to respect and follow Carolinian law and the commands of Chancellor Gamble, who toured the islands extensively in 1944.

The House of Gooch had underestimated the demand for mouse wine. To put it quite simply, the craving for the drink drove the Bragg field mouse to extinction. While several varieties of African, truly Cackalacky mice were tried, they lacked several key "flavor notes" in initial testing. The sommeliers of Squeak Victory were tickled pink as baby mice when none other than Slogwell "Slog" Thomas, CEO of Meat Mountain Ranch, made contact during a vacation in Forrestwood.

"You tell your Board of inbreds that I can and am fully willing to breed the Bragg mouse by the millions. Being the 'King of the Carnivores' as the papers call me, I have sampled and supped on most animals in Jev's Creation. Including your 'extinct' Bragg mouse. Even better, especially with animals so small as your gin-soaked little compatriots, I keep several pairs around for mating, so I don't have to go halfway across the world again to eat tiger tongue or the formless blobfish of the South Seas. I can assure you, within two years, the supply of Bragg mouse for Squeak Caroline Cackalacky Mouse Wine will be nearly infinite. In return, I want one percent of the profits from the booze, the run of the escorts in Forrestwood--for man cannot live by meat alone--and a two-percent stake in Forrestwood proper, off the books."​

President Steele was outraged. Viewing mouse wine as "Asiatic-Southron degeneracy," he immediately declared the importation of mouse wine into the Union forbidden, with the punishment being hefty fines and a varying number of years with pleasant, smiling "camp counselors." This was a big issue. Carolinians would feel ripped off or even angry if they discovered they were consuming "Yankee mice," and now the government was banning the sale of the drink in America. This was when the next key player in our story entered the picture. Hopeless mouse wine addict, Charles Oswald. Or rather, his wife, Steele's daughter Wyetta Arkham Custer-Steele Oswald. Suffering from mental health issues and still dealing with the pain of losing her "Antichrist" brother Marcus, she had turned to mouse wine after a state visit to Forrestwood in 1943. Chuck, in a rare moment of true care for his bride, illegally imported Squeak Caroline with no clue as to the repercussions if Steele discovered it. The ORRA Supreme Chief even went so far as to make it clear to any immediate staff that were in the know that it was, in fact, himself who consumed the vast quantities of mouse wine. Now, with insider knowledge from ORRA spies in Forrestwood, he offered to intervene in the situation. He would turn the blind eye to the exportation of mice to the House of Gooch, and he would also ensure that, upon his ascendancy to the Presidency, mice exports would be legal and would receive low tax rates. In return, he would have a steady supply of mouse wine for his wife, the run of the escorts in Forrestwood, for man cannot live by wife alone, and a two percent stake of Forrestwood proper. The two percent was to be owned and managed by the shell company Blue Moon Financial and would keep the slush fund in the form of gold and silver in the Gooch Islands, a literal off-shore bank account. In the event of his exile from the Union or general fall from grace, Oswald could retreat to the tropic paradise and have enough money to do whatever he wanted. Off-shore accounts were a treasonous offense at the time in Steele's Union, so this was an extremely risky move. But it was also a risky move to squeal on the Supreme Chief of ORRA, so he had little fear of stool pigeons that wouldn't be dead before they had a chance to open their mouths. And with Steele's rapid decline, this seemed an excellent opportunity to solve multiple people's problems in one go.

The deal went through in 1946. For his part, Slog Thomas did indeed breed massive hordes of Bragg field mice, in a far more cost-effective and reliable way than Gooch was able to do on its own. At a new S.P.U.D. packing facility in Mayame, Florida, thousands of Bragg field mice were tossed into vats of unflavored gelatin to develop the consistency of Meat Mountain's typical timeless stand-by potted foodstuffs, before being shot through slop-hoses into tins marked as S.P.U.D.. These tins would then be loaded into shipping containers in the Port of Mayame and steamed off to the Gooch Islands and their final destination, the bottoms of Squeak Caroline bottles. While the Mayame Port Authority was entirely corrupt and in Slog's pocket, several "white knights" attempted to blow the whistle, discovering to their horror that tins of S.P.U.D. accidentally smashed open by forklifts were full of newborn mice and gelatin. After waking up with your entire bed covered in dead mice, or finding your mailbox stuffed with them, even the staunchest of patriots would know to keep their mouths zipped or else. Since they were essentially their own nation, the Gooch Islands Customs had absolutely zero reason to look into the vast quantities of S.P.U.D. arriving monthly.

Business boomed. In 1949, Squeak Caroline created a second product named "Squeak of the Devil", spiced and peppered Cackalacky mouse whiskey. With notes of cinnamon, and Jacksonland reaper crossed with spearmint and oak, the motto for the new drink was "Fire and Mice." The individual mice themselves were cut open and stuffed with pimentos and Jacksonland reaper, as well. The popular saying at the time was, "Any man worth his salt can down Squeak of the Devil, but it takes a demon of a guy to bite into the mouse at the bottom." In 1952, the third and final flagship product was unveiled in time for the holiday season. Featuring a doe-eyed, cute mouse mascot, Susie Squick, "Naughty or Mice" was the first ever Cackalacky mousenog. After soaking in cream, the mice would then be coated in butter, cut open, stuffed with cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg, and more butter before being dumped into the cartons of eggnog. Unlike the other two labels, Naughty or Mice was packaged in cardboard cartons with a narrow opening, leaving the mice trapped inside. After a barrage of complaints from irritated customers who said they were sick of sawing open the cartons to access their treats, an official statement put out by Squeak Caroline's PR team said:

"Hark the sound of Naughty or Mice Cackalacky Mousenog! Naughty or Mice Cackalacky Mousenog is the hottest, goochyest treat this holiday season. Susie Squick and Friends wanna tell y'all about how it alllll starts with our classic recipe eggnog, made just like granny used to whip up but with the alcoholic zippidee-doo-dah (25%) that made pap-paw sing the song of the South all December-long. Inside every carton of Naughty or Mice Cackalacky Mousenog you will find five newborn buttered-up lil Bragg field mice floatin' around that have made Holiday Cheer their port-of-call! Each lil fella is stuffed to the brim with spices and good stuff that will make you feel and taste and smell the Christmas spirit even in sunny, tropical Forrestwood or warm your insides high up in the Smokey Mountains while you're cuttin' down your tree. Due to some consumer questions about the lack of an easy way to consume the five wee tiny friends contained in every carton of Naughty or Mice Cackalacky Mousenog, Squeak Caroline and its parent company, the House of Gooch, would like to remind everyone that we do not recommend supping outright on them, as unlike our other products, the milky nature of our mousenog tends to result in curds becoming trapped inside the bodies, resulting in possible low-level rancidity. We recommend treating the five newborn Bragg field mice inside every bottle of Naughty or Mice Cackalacky Mousenog as meaty lil teabags. Y'all don't eat your teabags, now, do you? Of course not. Again, Squeak Caroline and its parent company, the House of Gooch, take zero responsibility for any ill effects resulting from the consuming of the five Bragg field mice contained in every carton of our Naughty or Mice Cackalacky Mousenog. Squeak Victory and the House of Gooch would like to wish you all a very Cackalacky Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a joyous New Year. And always remember, it's not real Cackalacky Mousenog... unless it's Naughty or Mice: A Southron Christmastime Tradition! Available wherever fine beverages are sold."

​

This did not stop many people from still trying. But even worse, some took to mixing the mice in with a sort of fruitcake, creating Cackalacky Mouseloaf. The alcohol tended to result in mouseloaf maintaining its "freshness" for a good amount of time, and became the subject of fear and disgust from year to year, as dads joked with a wink and a nod about regifting last year's mouseloaf.

 

[Napoleon53]

THERE WILL THE EAGLES BE GATHERED:
THE CRISIS OF '46

21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

25 Behold, I have told you before.

26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

- Matthew, Chapter 24​

Capitol Building
Philadelphia, Republican Union
February 2, 1946...

From the mightiest of zeniths, to the lowest of the pits of Sheol, fell Joseph Steele. Still fighting with his last breath against the tuberculosis that would inevitably claim his life, President Steele was riding high from the events of his last-ever rally on November 10, 1945, when he announced the deployment of the Union's new Peacemaker Bombs against the Neutrality Pact, making formal victory in the Southern Continent an inevitability. As our debauched yet cunning protagonist of so many years celebrated the dawn of his thirty-second year as President and Atheling by puffing on a fine cigar in his stately office, he reveled as he realized that the rapturous feeling, this almost glowing, radiant warmth from inside his cold, dying form, was contentment. Joseph Steele had never known contentment, this ease with which he took his ragged breaths. The way he calmly, happily blew a smoke ring, a trick taught to him by his adopted father, was symbolic of his current attitude and anxiety level. He was headed for the grave, as all with eyes could plainly see, his hair was almost entirely white, finally breaking his age-long habit of dying it a deep black. For the first time in his entire life, Joe was happy.

The old man thought of the plans for his own funeral he had written up, choreographed to the smallest detail. His crypt would be the grandest in the world. Crews had already leveled several city blocks by Patriot's Rest and the domed structure already loomed large on the horizon. There, his embalmed corpse, in his simple blue mandarin collar uniform, would sit in perpetuity amid a vast sea of red, white, and blue roses, hands clasped together over his ceremonial saber, its scabbard recently redone and inlaid with American shields and gold eagles. He could almost imagine it: the scent of rain upon the fields fertilized with the blood of his forefathers and fellow comrade-patriots. The echo of the drops resounding in the atrium of the tomb, deafening out even the firmest echoing step of those coming to pay respect. There he would lie in perpetuity, forever and ever, and endless tribute to his hard work, dedication, cunning, and sheer will that forged the largest and greatest empire the world had ever known, and that it would ever know. He imagined death and for the first time, he did not panic, he did not fear for his legacy. He was Joseph Steele, President and Atheling, conqueror and warrior, the giver of life, the hand of Doom, and the despoiler of nations.

His wistful thoughts of eternal slumber were interrupted by the sound of the double-doors of his office flying open, and through them stepped Ryan Harvey Hendrick.

"Hendrick! Are you a Neutie savage that you don't know how to announce yourself or knock on a damn door, son?" Steele bellowed, sitting forward in his chair and stubbing the cigar out in a decorative brass ashtray adorned with stars and eagles.

"My Atheling, we have a grave crisis!" Hendrick declared sternly and with a quiver of nerves in his voice as he raised his hand for a quick salute. "Have you heard about the Church? Have you listened to the talkiebox?"

Steele frowned a deep frown that made him look like an elderly walrus. "No, I had told the men I wanted peace and quiet and solitude today. Now what the hell are you on about? If you are concerned, there is usually a good reason, I'm afraid."

Hendrick marched over to the nearby large waterfall-styled walnut talkiebox console and flicked it on, before laying an uneasy hand against the lacquered wood finish and turning his head to watch Steele's reaction.

"This is USCAP 177.6 on the dial, Uncle Sam's Talkiebox Station, the Voice of Philadelphia at the Heart of America, and you are listening to Daniel Boone Weir as I bring you breaking news still coming out of Metropolis, New Canaan. Earlier today, about five hours ago, Reverend William Graham, a young populist preacher and so-called 'Savior of Metropolis,' took to the airwaves via our sister-station WUSN 1050 in the company of some fifteen women hailing from all parts of our great land. With Graham's blessing and promise of safety, these ladies accused the late Reverend-Colonel Billy Sunday of rape, including several testifying that the former AFC leader molested them at ages as young as 12 while on the road during his famous circuit-rides and 'Biblepalooza' events, as well as during his time shepherding the flock of the Chapel of the New Jerusalem in Shicagwa. Meanwhile, a retired Philadelphia RUMP detective named Leon Walters has come forward saying that, in 1902, he had responded to a call at the home of Sunday and his late wife Barbara. Walters states that, and we quote, 'Sunday had beaten his wife to near blackout with a heavy belt and repeated slapping. I had my cuffs out and ready, but was told by higher-ups that Sunday was not to be touched.' This was during the period that Sunday was AFC Church Secretary of Coin & Tithe.

"USCAP 177.6 cannot at present substantiate any of these claims, but Philadelphia RUMP chief Leslie King has announced that RUMP is launching a thorough internal investigation, as well as reopening the 1906 files on the disappearance of Barbara Sunday. Again, these claims are not to be trusted entirely until investigations are finished, but this is a dark day for our Church, indeed, to face such terrible accusations of abuse and crime. We have reached out to the Office of the President and to Reverend-Colonel Lovecraft, but have not yet heard back. More information as we have it. Until then, enjoy the sweet sounds of 'Amazing Grace in Ragtime' by the New Antioch Pharmaceutical Corporation Orchestra. This news break was brought to you by Boogie, Methamphetamine Capsules. Boogie keeps you going through the day and on into the night! Boogie! Available wherever fine stimulants are available."​

Joe Steele felt the darkness inside of him return, and then felt it morph into unbridled, uncontrollable, seething, white-hot rage. He stood up from his seat, grabbed a nearby humidor of cigars, and began smashing the ornate wooden box into his desk again and again, sending screws, cigars, and shards and splinters flying before his took what was left and hurled it across the room, smashing into a glass display case. Native American artifacts, relics of Custer's, came tumbling out, many of them shattering on the floor. "DAMMIT ALL, HENDRICK!" he screamed, as loudly as his dying lungs could allow. "Fuck that little pedophile, poindexter, cocksucking son of a bitch Sunday! Fuck him! I should have had him drawn and quartered!"

Hendrick looked even more aghast. "You knew he was a pedophile? You mean, these claims are true?" If he wasn't leaning against the talkiebox console, he might have collapsed in shock and horror. "Sunday molested children?!"

Steele's hands shook terribly and he grabbed a nearby kerchief to wipe the blood from the fresh lacerations on them as he tried to calm himself. He slumped back into his timeworn buffalo-hide chair and locked eyes with Hendrick. "Hendrick," he said flatly and with a hint of malice, "You know that certain acts must be tolerated for the greater good. You know that, at the end of the day, results are what matters. When my father passed, Sunday was going to oppose my right to rule and install himself as sovereign. I used knowledge of these sins of his to get him to stand down and prevent a Jev-damned civil war the likes of which this country has never seen. I blackmailed him and thus won his support for my rule. I needed the church, Hendrick. I could not have done what I have done if I had revealed to the country that their Reverend-Colonel was a lecherous old sexual deviant."

"My Atheling, with all due respect," Hendrick began, running his gnarled fingers through his quiff of blonde hair, almost pulling the golden strands out, "This is a disaster! How on earth was this Graham allowed to air this information?"

Steele used his own hands to hold his head, which had begun pounding to the point he could feel his pulse in his temples. "Graham, Graham is a... special kid. People in Old Mexico idolize him. He was the one who helped stop the Starry Widsom revolt and launched Pennington out a window. He's a people-person, teaching that Universal Martyrdom doctrine. The Church had Zealots arrest him in '37, and ordered him to recant. The town fucking rioted and helped him escape. He's untouchable right now. If he wants to air something, the stations down there will. If I arrest him, we'll have a civil war down there! Old Mexico barely trusts us as it is since the Sootstorms fiasco."

"Mr. President, we need to order his arrest and if the people take up arms, we will send them to the Maker," Hendrick spat, his near-religious belief in the all-powerful central government seemingly returning. "We can deny all of this nonsense and erase it from the records."

Steele looked up, his face still red with rage, and replied, "'Deny this nonsense?' There is no erasing to do, Hendrick! You can't erase the thousands of bodies that would pile in a civil war! Do you want me to launch a Peacemaker on Metropolis, for Martyr's sake?"

"No, Your Excellency... that would not be wise. But surely there is something we can do! We can't just sit by while all sorts of conspiracy theories start to propagate among the people. If they question the Church...."

"... They will question the State. I am aware, Hendrick. I am aware," Steele finished with a firm tone. "I need to get to the War Room. Call Lovecraft. Call Charles. Call everyone there. I want them there tonight no matter what. We need to sort this shit out before we have our streets on fire."

***​

Unfortunately for Steele, it was too late to put the sexually-deviant cat back in the bag. Even at that moment, a movement was beginning across the country to protest the legacy of Billy Sunday and those close to him. His two sons, Daniel and Job, high-ranking MDP members in Shicagwa who occupied their late father's estate, found themselves staring down angry crowds outside their shared mansion. Signs that read, "False Chosen!" and "Heretic!" told them that they were no longer safe. RUMP officers and scarlet-coated Zealots used clubs and shields to try to push back the angry citizens as they began pelting the homes with rocks and bricks. RUMP trucks tried to form a perimeter around the Sunday Property and used tear gas to disperse the crowds, but they returned at nightfall with a vengeance. They did not realize that Daniel and Job had already been whisked away, with their families, via underground tunnels and summoned to Philadelphia by Steele himself.

Exhausted by orders from the top to handle the mobs with caution and respect their right to speak against the alleged crimes, the authorities began to buckle. "Shamrock shakes" began to fly that night, landing through broken windows and on top of the roof, sending flames billowing into the night sky, smoke blocking out the stars for blocks as the vast mansion groaned and creaked. Fire brigades arrived to put out the flames, but youths in Nightstalker masks prevented them from getting close enough. Arm-in-arm, the rioters surround the estate and cheered as it collapsed, shortly before dawn.

Meanwhile, back in Metropolis, Reverend Graham was ranting and raving around the clock, appearing in as many news articles, talkiebox shows, and Nixolodeon newsreels as possible.

"What we have here, my brothers and sisters in Jev, is a sin problem that goes straight to the top! The Church, the American Fundamentalist Church, the representative whole of the Kingdom of Heaven on this planet, has fallen into the sins and vices of the same sort you would expect to see in Moscow and Rome! Pedophiles and pedarasts abound within our flock, leading our lambs astray and deflowering our youth! The same elitist pharisees that seek to suppress my Doctrine of Universal Martyrdom, the same ilk that tried to throw me into prison a decade ago for standing for the True Church, now they seek to dismiss the claims of dozens and what might even turn into hundreds of young women who say that Billy Sunday molested them like a Fransiscan Friar at a Custer Youth campground. The same Sadducees that profess sterling virtue and morality pure are the grossest amongst us! In the words of the immortal Anglo-Saxon Bard, 'Methinks thou dost protest too much.'

What other sins did Sunday and his ilk perpetrate? I hear tell that Philadelphia RUMP is finally doing their jobs and looking for the body of Barbara Sunday, Jev rest her soul. If you can, pardon my language, diddle the youth, what are the odds that you are a murderer as well? Indeed, I think it would be far easier to kill out of rage than deflower a child. It sickens my stomach and turns my gut to hear these stories. My fellow Americans, what we need is a National Reformation! What we need is a renewal of our vows to Jev! This is why we bled and died by the tens of thousands in South America! The sins of our fathers are being visited upon the youth! As it is written, the Kingdom of the New Jerusalem is at hand, but no man knows the hour or the day! It cannot be halted, but it can be delayed by the sinful, debauched actions of those in powerful positions.

"There are some who cry, 'Traitor! Traitor! Blasphemer! It is not the American Way to rebuke Church Fathers, particularly ones who are no longer with us in this life.' I am no traitor! I stand for virtue, purity of fluids, and unity of nation! I say, the real traitors are the snakes among us! And I say that this here country was built upon the backs of radical Christian soldiers who ousted those who were no longer strong or moral enough to wield the reigns of power. The Prophet Burr (MHRIP) would unsheathe his sword if he saw the vile institute his Church leadership has become. And what of the Council of Jehovah? These secret beings, robed head-to-foot, where no record is written and no actions are known. I'll bet you a Tomato Lager and a fresh slice of fried S.P.U.D. that where there is smoke, there is fire! The Church has been infiltrated from within by degenerates! America, stand with me, Reverend Billy Graham, the true Bible Billy, as we beg President Steele to begin a full investigation of the Church Fathers! The National Reformation is at hand, my fellow Americans! Let us stand, as always, for Jev's Light among the black sea of infinity, and we shall voyage far!"​

- Reverend Billy Graham, February 10, 1946

On March 3, Leslie King addressed reporters in downtown Philadelphia to announce that a Jane Doe had been located in Cherry Hill, a suburb of Philadelphia, at a campground property owned and frequently utilized by the Sunday family. Dental analysis a week later confirmed it was, in fact, the body of Barbara Sunday. Though it would be difficult to say with certainty that Sunday murdered his wife, the court of public opinion was firmly in support of the "he did it" verdict. All across the Union, statues of the former Reverend-Colonel were covered in tarps and many outright destroyed, some by police and/or Church officials, and others by angry mobs. At the Reverend-Colonels Memorial State Park near Barnumsburg, Oregon, a forty-foot granite statue of the man was brought down with explosives by park staff and workers from the nearby Black Gold Mining Company.

March 5 saw the Council of Jehovah convene at the Tobias Institute, which was now locked down like a war zone, to determine what course to take next. Some called for full military force to restore order, while others said they understood why people would be unhappy, even if it was unpatriotic and borderline treasonous to act out in the streets. But most troubling was Graham, who simply was near unto Jesus for half the country, and Reverend-Colonel Lovecraft, who had experienced epileptic fits from the anxiety of the situation in late February. Many called for Lovecraft to be ousted to herald a fresh slate for the Church, while others adamantly supported him and said that Sunday's sins were not of his making. But the cordial and friendly relationship Lovecraft had kept up with Sunday, not to mention the pompous and borderline purple prose praise the current Reverend-Colonel and had heaped upon the pedophile at the state funeral.

As the weeks rolled on into months and the "Sunday Shitshow" dominated the papers, Steele's health rapidly declined. By June, he was permanently confined to a wheelchair. In early July, a stroke paralyzed his legs. The dying old man still carried on his responsibilities, even as every day grew harder and harder. He had not been seen in public in over six months. As he sat one night in August, staring at the ceiling and then down at his useless legs, he thought of Patton, the old snake in the grass, and his useless little legs. The quack cures and the braces and the gorilla testicles, all of it suddenly, almost, seemed rational. Being in a wheelchair was a fresh hell that Steele swore he would never be reduced to. So many years of sickness had been masked under a veneer of sheer will. But now, in what was supposed to be his glorious twilight, he was dealing with the greatest scandal to have ever hit the American Fundamentalist Christian Church, the second-largest faith on earth, and was, ironically enough, in the same physical condition which he had mocked his old right-hand Patton for.

He heard that Cokie-born demagogue Graham speaking on the waterfall talkiebox. Always speaking, never ceasing, every day and night, over and over, one PR stunt after another. When Graham appeared in public, he was surrounded by veterans of the Starry Wisdom Revolt and several of his personal acolytes, including Andrew Philips, his so-called "Apostle." The banter about a National Reformation went from a catchphrase to a religious and political slogan. Americans across the country were calling for the removal of Lovecraft and the Council of Jehovah. For the first time ever, Americans were standing up to the Church, an institution so full of rot and decay that an event like this was almost inevitable. For sure, it could be squashed, but Steele would not spend his last months mowing down his own people in the streets. He begged Jev in long, tear-filled prayer sessions for forgiveness for allowing Sunday to remain in power so many years ago. Steele wept, rare tears falling down his lined, pale, deathly cheeks. Night after night, day after day, the Man of Steele felt his girders and rivets began to pop and fail, and he knew the final moments were soon to be upon him.

On the night of September 1, 1946, Steele retired to his private theater inside the Presidential Mansion. As an old Vince Butcher film played, his took a weak, shallow hit off of his cigar. Butcher, the controversial but legendary cowboy star who had gone on to become the Governor of Lewisiana, had been executed by firing squad in a purge the year before, on Steele's orders. Last Train to Hell Gate (1932) was playing, a rip-roaring adventure about gold prospectors, lawmen, and outlaws in Oregon in the 1890s. The main villain, played by the famously-mustachioed Jimmy Dixon, had just been shot by Butcher's heroic lawman Jake Willard. As Dixon's cad character Waylon Wayward lay dying in the mud of the Hell Gate street, the camera panned to Butcher's face, focusing in marvelously on eyes that had still been so bright and full of life just a year before.

Dixon's portrayal of a Western outlaw was superb, especially for a native Bostonian. As he bled out in the mud, his character said, "You know, Sheriff, I'm almost at peace. Always knew the last hoe-down was just around the next bend. All of us die one way 'r another, and I always figgered I would go out with a bullet in my chest, like this. I reckon I spent just about my whole... cotton-pickin' life puttin' on airs and actin' tough. But now, now that it's here, Sheriff, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what's on the Other Side, and I'm afraid of bein' dust in the wind at the end of the trail, pardner."

Butcher smiled a slight, sliver of a smile as a soft, whistling Western tune played, replying, "I think it's like that for all of us, Waylon. We're all afraid. That's what makes us folk, I reckon. We all know, like a tickin', tockin' clock put inside our noggin's by ol' Jehovah himself, that we aren't long for this world. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But I know, in the end, that there is a better, brighter home prepared for me in the sky by the Big Dude himself. It's not too late to believe, Waylon. You done a might bit of wrong. Stolen gold that you didn't dig for. Slept with women you didn't love. Rustled a lot of cattle that you didn't own. But you can redeem yourself, Waylon. You can believe in Jehovah and pass on to a better world. As for me, I reckon I'll pass on a better world to my children before I pass on to the better, better world. We used to be friends, old chum, but there just wasn't room for you actin' the way you do in this country of mine."

Joe Steele turned and looked at the portrait of Marcus his daughter had painted. It's eyes seemed to bore into him.

The sun beamed overhead, glinting off the shiny eyes of Dixon's character like two reflective pools. "I'm sorry, old friend. I was a might bit foolish for a mighty long time. But I don't think there's room for me in the Big Sky Country. I don't see why He'd want me... up there. But..." Dixon trailed off, hacking up blood. "But... say a prayer for yer old pard, huh, Jake?"

"I can do that, Waylon. I can do that," Sheriff Jake answered, removing his tall-crown ten-gallon hat and smiling once more.

"Jake... I can't feel my legs. I can't... feel... my..."

As the tempo of the cowboy music reached a crescendo, the camera panned out from the two men, one living, one dead, as the sun's rays further illuminated the body, his chocolate syrup blood pooling in the mud and earth. A folksy-sounding narrator boomed overhead:

"And that folks, is all she wrote. The long-arm of the law triumphed in the end, and the villain met his Maker. It is never too late to ask for forgiveness, until it is too late. Saddle up and come on down to your local American Fundamentalist Christian Church and let the spirit of Jev fill your heart and wash away your sins. The doors of the Lord's House are always open, but the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later the trail comes to an end. Seek forgiveness while time you have, for there is no repentance in the grave."

Joe Steele felt the eyes of Marcus Aurelius Arkham Custer-Steel bore into him as the credits rolled and the music continued, dust particles dancing like tiny fairies in the glow of the projector. Lovecraft had told him his boy was the Antichrist. Lovecraft had told him he was the scion of Satan. Those gnawing thoughts that Joe tried to always push out came flooding back in as he felt a geyser of blood and mucus erupt from his throat and onto his uniform. He wretched softly as he reconsidered the prophecies in the dark of his private theater. The suspicion that Charles Oswald, his right hand and son-in-law, was in reality the fabled Antichrist "son" Lovecraft had warned him about struck fear into him once more as he slumped forward, his lungs burning and his pulse pounding. Hendrick had warned him a few weeks ago that some agents claimed that Oswald, as head of ORRA, had procured the victims of Sunday to press a reset button on the Church, to bring about a new era, and that Chuck was providing security for Graham around the clock. Some were calling Graham the Second Prophet. A false prophet, no doubt, Steele thought as he desperately tried to breathe through the miasma of puss and phlegm dripping down onto the asbestos floor tiles. As he fell forward and out of his chair, he felt his nose and front teeth break on the tile. Blood rapidly pooled around his nose and mouth and he could no longer feel any air at all. The ghostly, ghastly painting of Marcus looked on, as the film reel wound to a close, slipped off the spool, and stark white light lit up the wall. Joe felt his bodily functions release. And then everything went black.

The Man of Steel was no more.

 

[Napoleon53]

CONCERT OF THE SUBLIME:
PART I of II

​

Standing at the library room window of the former Patton Estate (formerly the Jansen Estate), Chuck Oswald listened to the thunder roll outside as he clutched his newborn baby boy, Emmanuel, in his arms. Unknown to the Supreme Chief of the Office of Racial and Religious Affairs, his father-in-law Joe Steele, the President of the nation, the Atheling of the Manifest Destiny Party, was breathing his last not so many miles away. Emmanuel would never know his grandfather.

Wyetta, garbed in a white gown and still looking exhausted from her recent childbirth, entered the library. "Charles, would you care for a warm glass of milk? I thought I'd have the help prepare some. Storms like this always give me such a frightful time trying to sleep. I can put Emmanuel to bed in the nursery if you'd like."

Charles, shirtless and wartime scars plainly visible, newborn son at his chest, cut an image of a Pinnacle Man, a Pinnacle Man who would soon be sworn in as President of the Republican Union. "I'm fine. Go along to bed. I'll be there shortly. A warrior prince needs to listen to the storm and not cry or whimper. No son of mine will be afraid of a storm."

"I do hope he's not scared, Charles. He's basically a little puppy and he doesn't understand a storm or, well, anything really. Of course he'll cry. It's normal."

Chuck turned around to face her, as if to show the calm, unbothered expression resting on their infant's face. "He loves it. Just as he will one day love the roar of the crowds and the blasts of artillery and grinders. A tiny, perfect, little Pinnacle Prince. Now go along, as I said, I'll be to bed shortly. I'll put Emmanuel to bed. You needn't worry about either of us."

"All right, dear. I love you. Both of you."

Chuck nodded, his recently showered mop of wavy brown hair bobbing down onto his eyebrows before turning back around to gaze outside. Emmanuel cooed. "That's right, my boy. Emmanuel Oswald fears no storm," Chuck whispered, allowing the chubby little fingers to clutch at one of his own. "You know, son, a wise guy once told me, 'Every time it thunders, you are hearing a war in Heaven. I wonder who is winning today? Quite frankly, I'm ready for another bastard to have a go at the wheel.'"

A cavalcade of thunder let loose once more and lightning struck a far off steeple's rod. Oswald smiled. "Right on cue! Listen to it, son. It's like a concert of the sublime. Chaos produces sounds more beautiful than any composer. Just like you, Emmanuel. If anyone can be said to be a product of perfect chaos, it's you, little one. Your father is an Infee passer, and your mother is the daughter of the Jev-damn President. I shouldn't still be alive. Neither should you, kid. I'm a hurricane, and you are the eye. Together, we will be unstoppable. Your mother said, 'Both of you," a minute ago. Both of me. Both of you. You and I, me and thee, are the same, kid. We will rule the world. Together!"

The "wise guy" who told Chuck his line about "war in Heaven" was a key sculptor of his personality and worldview. As he stood and listened to the storm, he thought back to his old friend. With another flash that lit up the Philadelphia skyline, Chuck remembered it all. Charles Oswald was back in the jungle....

***​

Chuck Oswald listened to the patter of raindrops against the jungle canopy. His whole body was covered in mud. In the thick of the wilderness, the only visible part of him were the whites of his eyes as they shone when a blast of lightning crackled in the night sky overhead. In his hands he held a drum-fed Colombian Fuego-34. His boots were Brazilian in origin and his pants were Peruvian. He wore no shirt, just the same brown grime and muck which he wore on his face to camouflage himself. The only thing that stood out as recognizably American was the rusting Navy cutlass strapped to his back. He and his best friend and shipmate, Reginald "Lazarus" Hubbard and taken it from Hubbard's father's corpse when the fled the wreckage of the battleship R.U.S. Cape Cod, following its destruction by Neutie warships. The two men vowed to present the saber to President Steele, if and when they could ever return to America.

For over eight months, the twenty-odd survivors--many of which Oswald personally saved from a watery grave by swimming with their shirts clenched in his teeth--had been lost behind Neutie lines, running and gunning as they went, nursing their wounds, and burying about half their number. They had developed a reputation as the "Demons of the Jungle," striking out at targets civilian and military before diving back into the heart of darkness to evade capture, and then doing it over and over again. They were far, far from American lines and to stay along the coast was suicide, as the Neutie coasts were where most of their troops were. So into the black jungle they went, deeper and deeper every day. Bridges were blown, trees cut down, depots set alight. About two-hundred miles northwest, the American legions were on the attack every day, deploying Black Bliss defoliant that sent wafting tufts of black death high into the atmosphere like little storm clouds on the distant horizon.

But right now, in the blackest part of this particular stormy night, the ten remaining sailors in Oswald's group of castaways stood along the treeline with bated breath, watching the laborers at a cannery factory prepare to leave for the night. In Spanish, which several of the Americans were quickly learning to understand, the foreman thanked the clocked-out workers for their service to the country, working for half-pay to produce tinned rations to feed the soldiers at the front.

"Chuck," whispered Lazarus Hubbard, who stood motionless next to Oswald, clutching a set of Brazilian-made service pistols, "We doing this thing?"

"Gotta make sure there aren't any guards. They have been stationing more at soft targets like this because they are sick of our bullshit. We have to bide our time, Laz."

Shrugging and motioning as if he was about to blast one of his sidearms at the civilians, Hubbard asked, "What would Zap Zephyr do, Chuck? If he were here right now?"

Oswald raised a muddy eyebrow. "What?"

"Do you think Zap Zephyr would be afraid of facing a few fat old men or boys too young to go to the front?" Hubbard asked,

"Well, no. But he'd still think things through, Laz-"

"-Well, Skip Hancock would charge his ass down there and disable that factory with extreme prejudice!" Hubbard boasted, referring to Zap Zephyr's first mate in his comic-book voyages through the stars. Without another word or argument, Hubbard sprang forward and out into the open field by the factory, rain soaking into his applied mud camouflage. Before anyone knew what was happening, Hubbard marched boldly up to the workers, who began cursing and shouting in Spanish, and started opening fire. One old man hit the ground, screaming as a bullet hit his gut. Another, younger man's head had turned into a mist of red as the bullet exploded into his right eye-socket.

With no choice but to start their attack, the American boys charged out, guns blazing, cannery laborers falling like flies and scurrying for cover behind parked trucks and wagons. As an overweight security guard with an impressive black mustache drew his own pistol and aimed it at Hubbard, Oswald opened up with his Fuego-34, sending bullets into the man's torso and neck like a sewing machine at full speed.

As the massacre continued all around, Seaman Jeffrey Goldberg, a young Jewish kid from New York, rang alongside Oswald as they closed the distance to the factory doors. The boy of about 17 years carried a satchel with high explosives looted from a previous supply depot raid, and he patted it wordlessly as they ran, as if to ask Oswald if he should prep a bomb to blow up the cannery.

"No!" shouted Oswald breathlessly before opening up with another well-aimed blast of grinder-fire. "No, we need to gather supplies first. They should have medical supplies or first aid kits and we'll load up a truck with cans! Now, take some hostages! I don't want all of them dead!"

Over the next few minutes of animalistic cries and gunfire, most of the cannery workers were slain. Three of the "lucky" survivors were hogtied by a black Southron boy from Lewisiana named Thaddeus Smock, who was the muscle of Oswald's ragtag group of jungle demons. Smock and another man carried the Colombians inside the front doors of the factory and threw them, weeping and screaming, into a corner of the entrance foyer while the other men searched the bodies for anything useful, finding mostly a few pesos and a lot of pocket lint in the corpses' khakis, dungarees, and overalls. Oswald ordered the bodies to be lined up perfectly at the entrance as a scare tactic, one of their trademarks. As they spread through the small factory, they took leather bags and began to fill them with canned pasta and chicken, as well as greedily lapping up water and refilling at a wash station sink.

Just as the raid seemed to be a smashing success and they were about to leave, Oswald bent down over one of the blubbering hostages and smacked the man in the shoulder with the butt of his grinder. "Dile a tu gente que los demonios yanquis llevaron a tus amigos al infierno," Oswald said in a bad Spanish that would have been amusing if it wasn't so terrifying a phrase and situation. "Tell your people the Yankee devils took your friends to hell."

Just at that moment, at the same time a peel of thunder shook the earth, a nearby window shattered, sending glass flying. Goldberg hit the ground, eyes shocked and confused, a stream of red pulsing out of his neck. Within seconds, he was gone.

"Goldberg's down!" cried Smock, scrambling to the ground. Before everyone realized what was going on, more bullets came spraying through the windows and walls of the cannery foyer. Another American seaman, named James Randolph, let out a pained cry as he grabbed a fresh bullet wound on his left arms.

Doing a painful crawl over the many shards of cheap broken glass, Oswald made it to just under the windowsill, poking his head up slightly to look out. Outside, Colombian military trucks were pulling up, loaded with scarlet-coated members of the local police. A rusty old Great World War belt-fed gun was responsible for the hail of death currently splattering the cannery. "They were expecting us, Laz! You think Hancock would fall into a trap?!"

"Fuck you, Chuck! What are we gonna do!" Hubbard yelled the words as he tipped a nearby table over for extra protection.

"Let them know we have hostages! We'll leave out the back and release them when we get to the treeline!" Oswald replied as he checked his gun's drum magazine.

Another seaman, Godfear Thomas, came sprinting from the back area of the cannery and slammed himself next to Hubbard behind the table. "We got Neuties out back too, fellas! We're Jev-damn surrounded, boys!"

Oswald crawled like a muddy, slender spider over to the corpse of the young Jewish explosives expert, using a bootknife to cut the straps on the explosives bag. Finding several grenades and a few sticks of dynamite inside, his mind began to formulate a plan. Within a few moments, he had laced the front wall of the foyer with bomb. "We're gonna go out the front after we blow it to hell! They won't expect it! I'll throw a grenade at that grinder truck first, and then we'll blow this whole fuckin' wall off! You guys read me? So back the fuck away!"

No one could have predicted how Oswald would plant the explosives. He pulled the hogtied hostages up to just under the front windowsills and shoved sticks of dynamite into their mouths as they screamed and pleaded. Hearing their muffled cries, the grinder fell silent outside. Oswald grasped a Brazilian stick grenade, pulled the pin, and in one swift motion stood up and flicked it out the shattered window that had claimed Goldberg. "Mazel tov, you sonsabitches!" he cried as it flew true and came to rest just in front of the grill of the grinder truck. Policemen went running like jackrabbits when they realized what was happening. In a blinding flash, the truck's front end became an enormous pipe-bomb, sending flames and shrapnel flying in all directions. The gunner up top went flying back about ten feet, his body shredded by hunks of steel. Ammunition inside the truck began to cook off, further peppering the dazed and terrified law officers who cried out for Mother Mary to protect them in their native tongue.

In another blinding flash that partially deafened the Americans, the hostage-bombs went off like tubes of sausage stuffed with gunpowder, sending the rusty sheet metal and brick front wall toppling to the ground. The Americans sprayed gunfire liberally in all directions as they charged out of the wreckage and through the black smoke. Policemen tried to return fire with sidearms and shotguns, but it was such a nightmare that few shots made it even close. One officer with a thick black beard a flat rounders-style cap charged up to Oswald and swung his pump-action like a club, smacking Chuck's back, right on the injuries he was still recovering from from the shipwreck. Oswald tumbled to the ground, the air sucked out of his lungs and stars dancing before his eyes. Just as the officer prepared to smash the shotgun's butt down on the future President's head, a well-aimed pistol shot from Hubbard sent the Colombian flying back, clutching his shoulder.

"Do you think Zap would forgive Skip for fucking up if he just saved his ass, Chuck?!" Hubbard said joylessly as he pulled their leader to his feet and shoved the dazed man on.

"You fucking sombrero, jawla-penyo-munchin' motherfucker!" screamed Chuck, shoving Hubbard off and turning around to face the wounded attacker on the ground behind them. He raised his grinder and riddled the man with bullets before Hubbard dragged him along once more, both blasting in all directions as they sped down the jungle road.

To the Americans' collective dismay, they noticed headlights advancing toward them from down the road. It was more police from the nearby village. Thinking it might very well be the end of the line, Chuck and Hubbard shot each other knowing looks as they dove into the treeline. Flashlights and lanterns were speeding through the jungle trees. There were at least thirty. There was no way they were going to shake this many. This was the worst situation they had been in since the sinking of the Cape Cod.

"I guess I'll see you in hell, Chuck!" yelled Smock from behind a cluster of rocks and foliage. "It's been an honor, sir!"

Chuck Oswald whipped around to see a policeman leveling his pistol just inches away from his face. Thinking fast, he dove at the man, sending him hurtling backward and the shot into the air just inches above Chuck's hair. Drawing the cutlass from its scabbard on his back, the future President took the rusty blade and shoved it into the chest of the Colombian. Ripping it out and holding the bloody sword overhead like a Spartan king, the young man ordered, "Gather around me! We die like men! This is it, boys!"

As the howls and fierce barks of attack dogs and the shouts of police grew closer, many of the remaining Yankees muttered prayers to their mysterious Jev, the cosmic deity that had once supposedly been the same Jehovah of the Christian Bible, but who was now the patron deity of violence and hatred. As the foreign foes poured out of the thick foliage all around, the Americans opened up a fearful barrage of bullets and oaths. Seaman Thomas fell to the earth, his lower body peppered with buckshot, blood gurgling out from his lips. Smock stood up tall from behind his cover and opened up with his own Fuego-34, killing the man who shot Thomas.

Everything seemed to go into slow motion. Every time Chuck stood up from his cover and squeezed the trigger, it was like time crawled. He could see the path of bullets whizzing all about. He could hear the cries of fear and rage from men on both sides, as well the gurgling, wet, pained squelches of the dying and wounded. A scrawny, malnourished attack dog bolted at him, to be met with the blunt edge of the cutlass, sending it whimpering and scampering back into the darkness. A Policeman came from behind, his berserk shouting giving away his position. Chuck turned just in time to see the man unintentionally run himself directly onto the outstretched sword. It was a warrior's death for Chuck Oswald. He saw visions of his short life, all the peaks and lows. All the transcendent highs. But in this moment, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies, facing death with no fear, Chuck could only hear the chaos around him and love it. It was more beautiful than any concert hall piece. It was like painting a masterpiece with the blood of enemies who had no idea who they were facing. Evil, the devil incarnate, Oswald the Despoiler, stood tall, rejecting his cover, as the enemies' bullets whizzed all around him. The Beast of America, on a meeting with destiny that would not allow him to die this day, flicked his rusty sword through the air, lopping off the arm of a poorly-trained, skinny young kid too young to go to the front. What would have been seen as fortunate and safe became a showdown with Lucifer, the God of Chaos, a devil of a man fighting like a man possessed. The sound of the Hispanic kid whimpering on the ground was cut short by a blast of grinder fire from Smock, again downing another cop. This was it. The concert of the sublime. Chuck Oswald had entered his own nirvana.

A bullet smacked into his right thigh, sending him tumbling down to his knees. He couldn't even feel it, though. Chuck simply raised his rifle and blasted away into the heart of darkness again. The barrel was near red-hot. Casings littered the jungle floor. Headlights and spotlights from nearby trucks became blinding. Smock went down, his head blown from its shoulders by a shotgun blast. Hubbard ran out of ammo for his pistols and grabbed the fallen Southron's Fuego and kept up the fight, his left leg oozing red. This should have been the final moments of Chuck Oswald. No one should have survived this, let alone go home, marry a President's daughter, and then become the damn President. No one.

The spotlights suddenly shot upward, toward the sky. Screams of panicking police were drowned out by the sound of gunfire from high atop the canopy. Could it be a plane? American fighters on a sortie? Cokie gunships in way too deep?

And then a new noise joined the concert of the sublime. A sputtering, chopping, peculiar noise that Chuck recognized from attending a circus a few years prior. It couldn't be! But it was! As the drops of rain were joined by automatic grinder casings falling to earth, a gap in the canopy revealed a strange-looking craft with a glass bubble up front and four massive whirling blades up top. On the side of the airborne vessel was a cartoon logo of a kangaroo wearing two red boxing gloves. On its head was a propeller beanie. Men stood on the small transport area behind the bubble, blasting away with grinders, sending the cops scurrying in all directions. Another identical craft--Chuck could hear several now--carried several more gunners wearing pinned-brim hats, and these men were hurling pineapple grenades out the side. One of the military surplus vehicles the police were using detonated in a ball of fire. "Yeet!" cried the crewmen of the strange vehicles as they buzzed overhead. Oswald knew that battle-cry and accent anywhere. There was something odd, though, about them. It seemed as if their faces looked bizarrely weathered and stiff, emotionless, their eyes sunken.

In their little bit of clearing, Oswald and his surviving men watched the first contraption touch down just a few feet away. The amount of wind produced was staggering, sending leaves and debris flying everywhere. A man wearing khaki shorts and shirt, brown boots, and a pinned-brim bush hat greeted Oswald and his men. "Quite the ballyhoo, innit, mates? We heard tell through Infee comm chatta that the po-po was lookin' for some mangy bodgers out doin' warcrimes and shit, alright? Figgered we might as well join the tea party once we saw the explosions and shit, yeah? Captain Stanley Morgan, Australian Republican Kanga Volunteer Fly Corps, at your service, mates. Folks call us Morgan's Flyin' Cirus. You yobbos need a ride outta this shithole?"

The man was talking but his mouth was not moving. As time became time again and Chuck came back to reality, he would have felt glad. But instead he asked a question.

"Is... Is that a flayed fucking face on your... face?"

The Australian laughed and pulled a leathery mask down to his chin. "Fooled ya! Hah! Not even the biggest big-boulder Pinnie deckhole in Aussie would have the guts and nuts to wear a fuckin' face. Gen-yew-ine sheepskin, that! But you get the effect, don't ya, mate?! Works like a spiffy in a jiffy to strike some fear and piss into the Infee bodgers, donnit? Now, unless you enjoy gettin' eaten by panthers or whatever the hell else is gonna be sniffin' and smiffin' all this blood and shit, I'd recommend lettin' me ferry you away from your current pre-deck-a-ment. Your chariot awaits, gentlemen."

"What the hell is that thing?" Hubbard groaned, clutching his leg, feeling the pain now from his own wound.

Oswald answered for the Australians. "It's a whirlygig. Experimental shit I've seen at airshows before. Get on and let's get the hell out of here, we'll talk about the newest issue of Popular Technicanics later."

Morgan extended a hand and pulled Chuck onboard and tossed him a tourniquet to get his thigh wound under control, and the same for Hubbard. As the craft took off with its passengers and another swooped in for the other three remaining Americans, Morgan told Oswald, "You know, I invented these bastards! Buncha nods at the big corps told me these clankers of mine are too dangerous for use. So I volunteered to come out here and prove they are worth a bloody deuce, right, yeah? Your gov promised land and soil for every Kanga who came out here and fought for yas. So when this big Manifest dust-up ends, I'm gonna live in luxury and have a thousand conquered Infee laborers assemblin' my 'gigs on my own South American New Aussieland plantation. But now here we be! Nice to meet you lot of callywumps! We know all about you from the talkieboxie chatta. These Spaniards hate the livin' fuckers outta ya, lemme tell ya! Say you lot are demons from hell an' shit."

From the cockpit, a young Australian pilot with a mock-human leather face turned about to say, "Good-ace work back there, mates! You lot are boosin-boosin, on God, yeah!"

"... What?" Oswald asked, barely understanding a single word his Anglo-Saxon brothers from other mothers were using. Right at that moment, a massive bolt of lightning lit up the sky, setting fire to a tree they were flying right over dead ahead.

"Holy Jev! That was close!" cried Hubbard, his face pale and eyes wide.

Morgan laughed heartily, almost maniacally. "It just lets ya know you're alive when you come that close to dyin'! A storm like this is a beautiful sight. Rare-ace back home in the duster. I bet you feel pretty fine-ace 'bout survivin' that little kerfuffle a min ago, don't ya? Same shit!"

Chuck realized he liked this man. The whirlybird listed to the left side, sending casings and gear sliding across the metal floor as it narrowly dodged a slightly taller tree. "I get where you are coming from, Captain! I'm Ensign Charles Oswald, R.U.S. Cape Cod, sunk. Navy Group V, Republican Union."

"Outta Halifax, yeah? Wait!" A look of realization spread across the Captain's face. His actual face, not the flayed one. "Ain't you the bodger what's a-courtin' Joe Steele's daughter? Blimey fuck, it is, innit! You didn't have to be here. Why the bloody fuck did you come here?"

"Let's you know you're alive, I suppose," Chuck replied, using Morgan's own turn of phrase.

Smiling a gap-toothed grin, the Australian said, "I like you, son! You got piss and the devil in you, and I am here for it, on God." Even over the near-deafening noise of the vehicle's filthy engine, the loudest thunder Chuck had ever heard shook them in their chests. Another lightning bolt set a distance cluster of trees on fire. "Must be a war in heaven, right now. I wonder who is winnin'? Might do well to give someone else a turn at the ol' wheelie, right, yeah?"

Hubbard finished tightening his tourniquet, looked over at him, grinned, and replied, "The Yankees are winning. eight to nothing. Bottom of the ninth."

Morgan laughed and tossed Hubbard and Oswald a bottle of some sort of Colombian booze from a storage hatch. The Flying Circus sped on into the night.

 

[Napoleon53]

CONCERT OF THE SUBLIME
PART II OF II

Australian Kangas somewhere during Operation Manifest Climax, circa late 1930s-early 1940s​

Chuck Oswald remembered the whirlygigs landing at the Australian base camp. He remembered the months he spent with Morgan and the other Kangas like shadows in the darkest corners of his recollection. A past repressed yet consummately remembered in ravishing detail--depending on his mood. For years, he had sought the approval of a father figure, having been subject to all manners of torture and isolation by his own dear old pop. It would be in Captain Stanley Morgan that he would find this approval. Chuck and his men went from mere survivors and terrorist bandits to trained and lethal killing machines without equal. The Flying Circus could truthfully be called one of the world's very first special forces units, and Captain Morgan was a tactical genius, there was no denying it, but he was also a ruthless, bloodthirsty pragmatist who unabashedly cared for himself and only for himself. Despite his apparent love for Chuck, as it very much seemed after months of fighting side-by-side, Morgan was just happy to have power over people, over his men, over the surrounding areas, and over the indigenous South American tribals in the area that he regarded as little more than de-facto slaves.

Indeed, it was only a few weeks into their new adventure that Oswald realized the extent of Morgan's operation. The natives truly thought of Morgan as a god on earth, something which he encouraged to the fullest degree. They would fight for him, against the local police and military, through sheer fear and devotion to Morgan, who they called the Flying Serpent. Like a modern Cortez among the Aztecs, they believed he had the supreme power of life and death and they knew that if he turned his guns upon them, they would be utterly destroyed. When one village refused to bend the knee, Morgan explained to Oswald, he would drop firebombs from above and his snipers would pick off those who tried to run away from their burning homes. "Real Old Testament shit, yeah?" Morgan had said. "Don't leave a single one alive, says Jehovah. Not one. And so we rained down death upon them. And we showed those blighters what they get for crossin' the Flying Serpent."

Morgan's men, his group of ragtag war criminals, were the dregs of Australian society. Most of them were career criminals fighting for a pardon, fighting for a sliver of South American land when this would all be over, of simply fighting out of love for fighting. But as time had gone on, they found themselves fighting for Morgan. He had an almost trance-like sway over them. If Morgan asked them to go on a suicide mission, they would. But he never did. He needed his men to maintain power over the natives. To keep earning a name for himself in this wasteland of dreadfulness, he needed every able body he could get. And although he promised to return Oswald and his men to enemy lines right after their rescue--and many times after--still they remained in the heart of darkness, fighting a lightning war in strokes of black and red and splattered with the blood of entire villages.

It would be Lazarus Hubbard that finally began questioning the narrative. One morning, as the first rays of dawn's early light began to seep through their treehouse base camp's thatched roof, Hubbard asked Morgan, "No disrespect intended, sir, as we are clearly in the midst of a chaotic conflict, but may we look into returning to our lines soon? I understand you are doing all you can with what we have, but if my calculations are correct, we are only 75 miles from Union lines. We could make it by nightfall if we started now."

"And get shot down by Neutie A-A? Not likely, mate," Morgan replied, salsa from a mystery Colombian ration staining his brown handlebar mustache and dripping down his dimpled chin. "We'll get ya back home, mate, on God, but the situation is a little... ongoin'... right now. You know, mate?"

"Surely we could buzz around them. These ships of yours are so highly mobile," Hubbard shot back before taking a sip of a dreadful instant coffee ration. He had been fighting the Panamanian mudslides on and off this entire time since the wreck of the Cape Cod.

"Too risky. Our mission here is more important. We're fightin' the good fight, takin' what we need and givin' nothin' back, mate. We'll leave when I say, alrighty-roo? And not one second before. Understood?"

Hubbard turned red with rage. "With all due respect, sir," he said, raising a finger, "Oswald is the ranking officer of my service here, and I say that we ask him if we need to risk a return over enemy territory."

Oswald lit a stale cigarette with a rusty lighter, took a drag, and said, "Stand down, Hubbard. That's an order. Captain Morgan is in control here. If he says we can't make it, I doubt we could. We'll leave when he says."

This only further served to enrage Hubbard, who paced over to Chuck, nose almost touching, and said, "Chuck. We need. To leave. We have been through so much. Our boys deserve to go home. We have been stranded out here for over a year. We did our part. We'll be Jev-damn heroes back home. And the longer we wait, the more of these little murder expeditions we go on, the bigger the chance is of these whirlygigs breaking down or being shot down, and then we'll have a 70-mile hike through jungle infested with Jev only knows what and how many Infee savages who want to paint themselves in our fluids, Chuck. I want. To go. Home."

Chuck slowly exhaled the cigarette smoke into Hubbard's face. "Laz," he said casually, "Stand down. That's an order."

Morgan wiped his chin on his sleeve and tossed the ration can out the window of the treehouse. "You heard him, Hubbard. We'll leave when I say. Out here, we play by my rules."

Hubbard fumed and stormed out of the hut, down the ladder, and out onto their small landing area, a void in the midst of deep jungle brush. With a smile, Morgan told Chuck, "Y'know, kid, I promise to take you home. I mean it. We will. But one day at a time, son. One day at a time."

"I know about that ORRA column," Chuck said nonchalantly as he flicked the ash from his cheap Colombian smoke and wrinkled his nose at how damp it was. He hadn't had a good Morton since the wreck, and it was one of the few things he missed about home a great deal.

The Kanga's face turned from his typical wry grin to a frown. "The whatnwhat, mate?"

"The ORRA column. Five days ago, when we were hunting game. Expeditionary force, but plenty in number. 9th ORRA. 'Spartan Souls,' their emblem says. Tough fuckers. Coulda got us outta here in a jiffy. I saw them. And I know you did too. Only about a mile away as the crow flies. We could have gotten out of here." Chuck's eyes locked with Morgan's, completely emotionless except for just a hint of smugness. "We've been retreating further and further into the jungle because you know how close we are to Union lines."

"That's... that's... I don't know what you are talkin' about, mate. On bloody God. Haven't a bloody wicket what you're on about. If... If you saw that shit, why didn't you say somethin'?" Morgan asked, his voice hesitant, much more hesitant than usual.

"Exactly why you tell the men out here you are on a secret mission from the Australian government. I know about Bakers Landing, Morgan. I'm an informed, well-read man. I know you killed those people back home. But it's all good. I don't care. I have taken the lives of many people, as well. Some innocent. Some not. But such is life."

"We are on a top secret mission to infiltrate enemy lines and eliminate valuable targets, son. Excuse you for questionin' my honor, you Yankee bastard."

"Bakers Landing. It was what, two years ago? The ringleader of Morgan's Flying Circus air show kills five before butchering them and feeding them to his pigs. The Australian government sent you out here to die because you are a mad dog. You will never return home. You can never return home. You're a fucking psychopath and your men are rapists and madmen to boot. You didn't volunteer for shit. You got voluntold to go to South America or be executed. Your secret mission is to butcher and maim indefinitely until supplies run out or your 'gigs eventually fail." Oswald threw the cigarette into a nearby rusty Brazilian helmet the group used as a collective ashtray. "We're out here on a death wish, aren't we, Captain? And you know what the funny thing is? I'm fine with that. For the first time in my entire life, I feel free. I feel totally, completely, ravishingly free. And I feel like I am learning at the feet of a master. The way you manipulate the people around you is breathtaking. You manipulated even me. If I was normal, I'd be offended, outraged, even violent. But I am not normal. I would prefer to be here than home. Home, with its suffocating political gatherings and parties and my father's elderly friends who sit around and discuss oil derricks and pump technology until they go to bed at 8 pm, unable to get their ancient peckers to work long enough to make love to their 20-something year-old brides. Home, with an arranged marriage to the President's daughter, a President who is a maniacal tightwad who thumps his religion into every single citizen. No, I like it better here, Morgan. I expect to live this life as long as I can."

Morgan stood in shocked silence for a moment before finally replying. "It wasn't this place or execution, Oswald. It was worse."

Oswald lifted an eyebrow casually. "Pray tell, Captain."

"It wasn't execution I faced. They wanted to institutionalize me, Chuckie. They wanted to take away my freedom. I'd sooner die. But they deemed me insane, mate. And I know what you mean about freedom. I have never been more free in my life than out here. These bodgers around here worship me as a literal god, yeah? I fuckin' love this place. And yeah, I saw the bloody ORRA column. Truth is, I didn't want to lose you, Chuck. You are a great soldier. Big-boulder Pinnie-ace, you are, yeah?" Morgan pulled up a chair, put his foot on the seat, and continued. "I'm proud of you. For a rich man's son, you know how to live life on the edge, like a snail on a razor blade."

"Thank you," Oswald replied simply. It honestly meant the world to him. To find someone who was proud of him for his genuine character was a shockingly fresh feeling.

"You ever read Egyptian religion? Like, the old timey dogheaded shit, yeah?" Morgan asked, twirling the end of his handlebar mustache.

"I was more of a Roman and Greek man myself," Oswald said. "I know the Bonapartes used some stone or other to translate that Egyptian stuff. Don't know how reliable their translations are. Why?"

"I am going to tell you some shit that'll make you feel like I'm an even bigger nutcase than I sure you think I am already, alrighty-rooty, mate? It's my personal religious creed, you could say, you could, alright? I will tell you the secret of being free. Doesn't matter where you are, doesn't matter if you are in the jungle here or back home. There is no god, Chuck, aside from yourself. At the end of the day, mate, there is one person who matters in your life. You. I killed those people back home because I fuckin' hated them and they deserved it. I am glad I did it. I'd do it again, mate, yeah? It was a fuckin' gasser. And I'm not tellin' you some Loomie bullshit, either when I say you are a god, and I ain't worshipin' no Worm either. Everyone else is a fuckin', what's the word... a 'supportin' character' in your play or movie or book that is your life. You matter. To yourself. Ain't no one out there who matters more in your story than you. And same applies to me and mine. Everyone is a fuckin' supportin' actor. I'm the main character, Chuckie. I'll never be a supportin' character. These people fuckin' worship me. I'm the main character in their story. And I can feel that power. Even if they lived as I do before I arrived, before I came into their lives, they know who is in charge now. I can feel that energy. I don't believe in god, Chuckie, but there's a spark of the divine when an entire bloomin' village bows to ya."

"Why tell me that? Doesn't that mean I'm just a supporting role in your grand story or whatever?" Chuck asked, his face about the same as if someone had just disagreed about a favorite sports team, not as if a man had just admitted with relish to what psychoanalysts back in B.A.U.B. would call a god complex.

Morgan took a long pause. Then he said, "Yeah, Chuckie. I like you, I like you a lot. But if you tried to leave, you're no good to me anymore. I accept one thing, Chuckie Oswald, and that thing is total and complete loyalty. I am the god of my universe. And I make the rules. I mentioned Egyptian religion for a reason. The Pharaohs believed that they were gods on earth, and their subjects would pray to them. When they died, they would take out as many servants and what-have-ya and seal them in their tombs with 'em. Bobs-your-uncle, they had an army of slaves in the afterlife. Riding chariots across the sky and shit. I pray to myself. And one day, I'm gonna die. And all the bastards I take with me will be my cosmic slaves, my shamblers among the stars. Now, that might not be true, but it's a pretty picture, mate. It gives me somethin' to look forward to after this existence is over."

"What if I killed you, right here and now, with my sidearm? Who would be the main character, then?" the young American asked coldly, drawing his pistol in the blink of an eye and leveling it at Morgan. "What if I struck you down in this instant, like the madman you are? Dust in the wind. Ashes to ashes."

"Then it was a good run," Morgan said simply. "And my men and my idolators have orders to kill whoever dares to harm me. Even in death, I win. I live on the edge of chaos every damn day, yeah? I could be snuffed out at any time. But I will never go quietly into the abyss. Not without taking a hundred bastards with me. My creed is I will do as I will, until the day I die. If you ever get outta here, mate, never forget that. Do as you will. Doesn't mean others can't be happy, doesn't mean you have to be mayhem all the time, but do what you will when you want to do it, and no man or god will ever hold power over you. Make peace with every situation, and you can never lose. Reject 'reality.' Become the fantastic."

"If I killed you, wouldn't you be my slave in this afterlife delusion of yours?" Chuck inquired, slowly lowering his pistol. He had no intentions of killing the Australian. Or did he? his head felt so strange these days. So confused, even though he tried to push certain thoughts away in his palace of the mind.

"I guarantee you, Chuckie boy, I have killed many, many more people than you. And you don't exactly have your own jungle cult, now, do you? No, Chuckie. I win. Through belief in myself, in the power of me, I fear nothin'. Do you understand what it's like to live without fear, mate? It's fuckin' boosin-boosin, on God."

"You're telling me so much," Oswald said, "Doesn't that mean you care for me? Why would you share these tips and tricks of yours if you only care for yourself?"

"That's a good question, kid," the Kanga said, scratching his chin and swatting away a mosquito. "Mighty fine question. To tell you the truth, I just felt the urge. Maybe I sense a spark of divinity in you, somewhere in there, son. You're an odd chap, Chuckie. When I look into your Pinnacle peepers, I sense somethin' powerful. My men feel it, too. There's somethin' inside you, deep down, that's special. I don't know what it is, but you're the most interestin' bloke I ever met. Maybe I am just excited to meet a gent of the same qualities I see in myself. Maybe I like competition, because it gives me a reason to keep up this life-long pecker-measurin' contest. Anyway, if you ever do leave this shithole--this beautiful, libertine shithole--always remember that you are the star of your own show. No one else is going to live your life for you. No one else can be you. Everyone, even in Aussie-land, knows the names Custer and Steele. No one remembers Hamilton Fish. Fuck Fish. Custer is a pharaoh, and Fish isn't fit to polish his sarcophagus. One of those men lived for self and died on top, and the other lived and died in destitution and depression. One thousand years from now, coinage will have Custer on it. No one will even remember Hamilton Fish existed."

"So I should live as, well... selfishly... as possible?" Oswald asked, once again with the calm and ease of discussing rounders at a bar in Boston. "Sounds like a good way to get everybody to hate me and wind up in an early grave."

"Hate you? No, mate. You don't have to be a cock-wallet to everyone, not all the time. Why be kind? To get what you want. More flies with honey, but never be afraid to uncork the vinegar. The more people that like you, just as much as fear you, the more powerful you become until you become a speeding bullet that can't be stopped."

"So why are you kind to me?"

"To get what I want. Which is you and your fightin' men to keep my operation afloat."

"What madness is this, Morgan?" Oswald chuckled blackly. "What even is life? What is this world? It's a rat-race. A bunch of rats scurrying for the biggest slice of carrion while they stab and shoot each other all the way up the corpse-pile."

The Australian paused to look at his watch. It was almost time to conduct a raid on a village about ten miles eastward. Then he looked up and answered, "You Americans should know what this madness is. It's survival of the fittest, Chuckie, and I'm the fittest rat on this corpse-pile. Try to keep up."

***​

Chuck looked down at Emmanuel. He gazed deeply into the eyes of his infant son, just as Morgan had gazed into his those years ago. He longed to see that spark, to feel like there was someone else with that touch of divinity. He smiled. Such a beautiful baby boy. A marvel of creation. Not a creation of God, but of his own. It was his Pinnacle seed that filled the womb of the woman. He named him Emmanuel after the Union Army's belt buckle motto, meaning 'God With Us' in old Hebrew. Emmanuel was also another name for Jesus Christ. He smiled broadly. His boy was a mockery of God, a creation of his own, one that the Second Prophet told him was the Christ Child Reborn. That self-important talkiebox cultist thought Emmanuel Oswald was the Christ Child. Emmanuel was just another tool for Chuck, a lock on power, and a consummation of his place as Steele's heir.

Chuck knew it wasn't normal to think as he did. It was madness, in fact. Did he love his son? Perhaps. Perhaps he desired to give him the life and upbringing he had wished for. Perhaps he desired to be a father, a true father, to the young "Christ Child." Perhaps. But in the end, he was just one more rung up the ladder of success and world domination. Because though mad he was, Chuck Oswald loved life, and as he daydreamed, stating at his newborn son, he envisioned a neon future, an Oswaldian century, where he would be recognized as the deity he was, the deity he himself worshiped. A Pinnacle Future of the Infee Irish-born Chosen One, leading Jev's children astray in the most cosmic of possible jokes, a mockery of God if ever there was one out in the cold, unfeeling stars. It was all rather amusing, he thought and smiled. He looked over to the right-hand wall of his study. On a featureless plaster mannequin head sat an Australian bush hat, a hole through the back of the crown. He let out a little laugh.

Just another step up the corpse-pile.

 

[Napoleon53]

A NEST OF VIPERS:
CHANGE OF COMMAND

1950s-era portrait of Supreme Marshal Brigham John Barnes​

As Chuck Oswald strode into the War Room, the frantic pecking and tapping of dozens of typewriters, decoding machines, and telegraphs stopped for a brief second, the various men and women saluting in respect before returning to their work. Chuck wore an all white Navy uniform, sans the cap, and walked with his hands clasped behind his back, a mop of wavy brown hair grazing his forehead. On his face sat a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses, hiding eyes reddened by drinking, debauchery, and drugs the night before. He made his way to the inventively-named "Big Map," which was a roughly twenty by forty map of South America atop massive tables, toy soldiers, artillery, and ships marking the locations of friends and foes. Around the Big Map stood roughly ten officers in dress uniforms, smoking cigarettes like chimneys, eyes deeply sunken in, nails bit, their foreheads and underarms damp with sweat. These were the men whose job was to accurately update the Big Map to its current real-world state at all times, which included gathering and understanding countless reports, telegrams, and phone calls, as well as taking orders from the ancient Supreme Chief Acme Ashton as he struggled to carry out the conquest of an entire continent.

A wall of red phones, each with a cold cathode ray tube mounted to their receiver indicating incoming calls without incessant ringing, were off to the side, as well as carts of cold cuts, sliced bread, condiments, cigarette packs, ashtrays, and tuna. Most of it was room temperature and had begun to smell, but the men were too busy to care. Supreme Marshal Ashton blindly grabbed a tuna sandwich, took a bite, grimaced through the taint of rot, and sighed. Then he took another bite. The old soldier had survived 84 years. If he made it this far, a little room temperature tuna wouldn't take him out. And if it did, he supposed that was his own destiny. He sat the half-eaten sandwich aside and masticated it with his elderly, yellowing teeth as he noticed young Supreme Chief Oswald approaching. He respected Chuck's combat history and courage, but personally he could not stand the man. There was an indescribable aura about the man of malice not even matched by Steele. Steele, at least, seemed to personally value Ashton and his long career and expertise, but during every meeting Oswald participated in with Ashton, he seemed to look upon the Butcher of Belleville and the Hero of Kawartha Lakes Campaign as an ancient old wizard, long irrelevant to current affairs.

Oswald didn't hate Ashton. He simply had no value for him, and really not much of an opinion on him at all other than that he was far too old to successfully carry out the largest land war in history. As Oswald approached, he saluted Ashton casually and clicked his heels and the old man did the same. "Supreme Marshal, I trust you are, er, ah, well?"

"As well as one can be, Supreme Chief. Pleasure to see you. It is my hope that you are well, sir?"

"Simply marvelous," Oswald said with vigor and a dashing false smile displaying teeth as perfect as if they were sculpted by a Papist in the Renaissance. "I come bearing news, Supreme Marshal."

"I trust it to be good, with such a smile as that, sir," Ashton said as pulled a pack of Morton's out of his breast pocket and offered a cigarette to Oswald with a flick of his wrist, which the Supreme Chief politely refused.

"I would consider excellent, indeed. Supreme Marshal, you are hereby relieved of duties in perpetuity. You have served this country for many years, and you have earned our, ah, er, national thanks." Oswald's smile never slipped from his face, and he scratched his jaw through the awkward silence as all the men and women in the room paused whatever they were doing to look on in shock. "Ah, this, er, is effective immediately, Ashton. Your baton, please."

Ashton's mind was thrown into complete chaos. He had heard nothing of such a plan from President Steele nor any other government officials. Official policy, unless the Supreme Marshal was guilty of crimes, entailed a lengthy changing of the guard and a carefully-planned exit that would enable the next man to successfully continue operations. Stammering for a moment, Ashton collected his thoughts off the floor and said, "Sir? On whose orders am I relieved? This is most concerning. I was told nothing of retirement and I expected to die with my boots on in front of this cursed table. President Steele is the only man who can order my resignation."

Oswald laughed slightly and replied matter-of-factly, "You don't have to resign, Ashton. It's all taken care of. You can just walk out those doors over there and not look back. Enjoy your, ah, twilight years."

"On whose orders, sir?!" Ashton demanded, an anger building in his chest.

"My own, Ashton. I order you to leave. This is not a request." Oswald's face finally fell flat but the glimmer of joy remained his eyes hidden by the sunglasses.

"Sir, with all due respect, I demand to hear from President Steele before I abandon my post. And who shall replace me?"

At that, the double doors of the War Room flung open and a giant bear of a man stepped in. A hulking monolith of a black man who appeared to be in his 50s, with a left eye whited over and a pencil thin mustache adorning his upper lips. He wore a crisp, perfectly starched Army green uniform, his peaked visor stowed neatly under his left arm, his right arm swinging with every long, march-like step. Everything about the man was perfectly terrifying, and his manner showed both disinterest and total and complete self-control as he made his way to the Big Map.

Oswald held out his arm and said, "Ladies and gentlemen of the War Room, I give you your new Supreme Marshal, Brigham John Barnes, formerly Major General of Legion X out of Shicagwa." Chuck turned back to Ashton and said, "This is a new era, Ashton. You can either hand me your baton or you can leave it on the table. It's already done. You can start collecting your pension next week."

"On whose orders?!" Ashton barked again, his rage growing. He didn't even enjoy his position, but he was as solidly faithful to his job duties as any man ever had been. "The Supreme Chief of ORRA, with all due respect, sir, cannot remove the sitting Supreme Marshal. Our Constitution forbids it. The President and Atheling is the only man with the power to order my removal. And unless I hear from the President, I expect to carry on with my duties per usual."

"I told you, Ashton, on my orders. As President." Oswald's smile came back once more, bright and gleaming. Barnes stepped up next to him and they quickly saluted.

"Wha-what? Where is President Steele?" Ashton could barely find the words to ask. He knew Steele was in bad health, and he knew this day would come, but it still wasn't any easier to process.

"Dead, Ashton. President Steele is dead. Happened last night, I'm afraid. Drowned in his own blood in his private, ah, theater, if you must know. I have already taken the oath of office to ensure continutity, and will do so publicly tomorrow on national talkiebox coverage. Now, if we are done playing catch-up, I expect you to take your leave. We thank you for your service."

"Sir, sir! This is no way to manage a transition in a time of such extensive ongoing campaigns! If I am to be replaced, I need to teach my successor everything I know. You can't just replace me with... that," he said hesitantly, pointing at Barnes.

"A racist today, are we, Ashton?" Oswald feigned offense. "My my, I expected better of you. Barnes is a hero. And he'll be fine without your, ah, tutelage, as it were. Now, for the last time, Ashton, your baton." The young new President extended an open palm, waiting for the eagle scepter of the Legions to be passed.

Ashton felt rage boil inside him with the accusation of racism. During his invasion of Canada, he had fought and bled alongside black soldiers by the score. Barnes just truthfully looked like a monster, a cyclops, and his race had nothing to do with it. The huge black man gave him an evil stare with his one good eye while keeping his face entirely stoic.

"My Atheling, if I may speak?" Barnes said his deep Midwest baritone. Oswald nodded promptly and Barnes continued. "I am honored by this promotion and will carry out the duties of my office as courageously and honestly as possible. There is no god but Jev and Aaron Burr is his Prophet. And I marched into hell on Supreme Marshal Ashton's orders and saw firsthand the chaos that ensued from this aging relic's tactics. In the ever-changing modern warfare environment, there is no place for the elderly, the senile, and those who are long past due for retirement. If someone else had been in command two years ago at La Paragua, when I requested to pull back several miles because we were becoming entirely encircled by Neutie bastards, maybe, just maybe, half of Legion X would still be alive. It was a massacre, all because this stubborn fossil here refuses to recognize the use of a tactical withdrawal. 'Not one step back,' the orders said. 'Not one inch shall be lost.' La Paragua was the only loss of my career, and one of our bloodiest defeats in Manifest Climax to present day. Supreme Marshal Ashton has the blood of thousands of Shicagwa boys on his hands. This war for our Pinnacle Future will not be won by outdated infantry advances, but by air-power and carpet-bombing."

Fully enraged, Ashton drew his baton from his belt and threw the gilded scepter to the floor, sending it rolling until it was stopped by Barnes' boots. "Air-power? That's your grand plan? And I do indeed have the blood of millions on my damn hands, sir! I have managed this war since I replaced Jansen, and I dare you to not send some boys to their doom while you're in my shoes, you arrogant bastard. Do you think I enjoyed La Paragua? Do you think I jigged the dance macabre as I read the reports from the Meta River Campaign? Where my own nephew was slain! Do you suppose I relished in the reports of our men starving in the POW camps in Quito? Do you suspect I giggled with glee like a schoolchild as I was told of the 320th Cohort being executed in their sleep by Peruvian savages? I ask again, do you think I 'enjoy' my 'failures?' Let's see you do better, Barnes. Let's see it! And when you see endless rows of dead men, unit after unit, maniples and cohorts, rising from the dead in your slumbering nightmares to come for you, when you salute the flag-draped coffins at the railyard and hear the lamentations and weeping of their wives and sons and daughters until you become cold and numb to the sound like a trooper becomes numb to the sound of grinder-fire, and when you see the disfigured and wounded laid up in beds at Pat-St. Washington Memorial, their bodies mangled and broken, their loyal hands and arms still trying to form an approximation of a salute, I say to you: let's see you do better! Let's see you stop the slaughter. This is a total war, one requiring total commitment from every single member of our society writ large. And if you don't have the stomach to make those calls, or think a train full of dead boys is too much to give in exchange for a tactical victory, then you will fail far more than you think I have, son. You can carpet-bomb the Neutie Voidlings from here till Judgment Day, and it will not secure victory, they will simply go underground, where they will nest... like... vipers. Good day, gentlemen!"

Ashton passed between Oswald and Barnes, his wrinkled face red with rage, and the entire War Room slowly stood up from their positions, one at a time, and saluted in absolute silence. A frown creeping across his handsome face, Oswald shouted, "All those who wish to follow Ashton into retirement, into the sunset, can do so by taking leave of the War Room at the present time. If you remain, I expect your absolute, steadfast, and continued devotion to the cause to be applied to Supreme Marshal Barnes. This is a new era, and those who agree with the man leaving out those doors will only be a hindrance to Supreme Marshal Barnes. And if any of you have problems serving under a black man, I am ashamed of you and would ask that you either learn to unlearn your prejudice, or also, once again, I will ask you to take your leave." One by one, about five percent of the War Room staff awkwardly and stiffly made their way out the oak double-doors and into the hallway. Most everyone, however, slowly went back to their jobs at hand, and the chatter, clatter, and pitter-patter of the War Room picked back up. Oswald turned to Barnes and asked, "What is your first decision, Supreme Marshal?"

Barnes bent down and picked up the baton, tucking it under his belt. "Have you met General Jehohanan Holyfield?"

Oswald thought for a moment and then replied, "Yeah, of the Angel City Holyfields, correct? The oil barons? My father has dealt with many a Holyfield in his time with Phoenix Oil. Say, wasn't General Holyfield almost killed by a guerrilla attack a good while back? There was a whole 'thing' about him possibly receiving the new medal."

"Yes, sir," Barnes replied. "He was shot right in the face at Fort Lamplight. Took most of his jaw. He refused the Titan Atlas medal, made just for him, on moral grounds. Interesting man, for sure. He has some interesting ideas you might enjoy hearing, sir. He's out in the hall if you would like for me to send for him."

"Of course, by all means," Oswald said, smiling once more and clasping his hands behind his back. A few moments later, a man even taller than Barnes, yet much more slender, entered the War Room with an equally-starched green uniform and short black hair plastered to his scalp under a layer of shiny pomade. An incredible number of medals hung from his chest, but that wasn't what stood out the most. No, everyone looked at his long face, as white as a mortuary corpse, with a huge black mustache adorning his upper lip. The man could best and really only be described as gangling. The long, thin body was matched by legs that seemed almost like stilts. His gait itself was just... odd. There was something uncanny or unnatural about the man. As he approached and saluted, it became more readily apparent that the entirety of his face from below the eyes down was covered with a porcelain or ceramic mask--even the mustache was artificial. His facial wounds had clearly done a brutal number to him. A cigarette on a stick hung from the slightly agape glass mouth and pained-looking gray eyes behind the mask told the story of a man who should have been dead long ago, but had survived through sheer force of will. Oswald liked him already.

"My Atheling! Supreme Marshal Barnes!" the man said in a stiff, slightly pained voice that was quiet and loud at the same time, like a whispering shout. There was an ethereal quality to the tone, almost haunting in its nature. "At your service."

"General Holyfield, correct?" Oswald asked, extending a hand for the general to shake. The man's long white fingers grasped his in a shockingly vice-like grip and pumped it hard.

"That is for certain, Mr. President. General Jehohanan Ipswich Holyfield, Grand Army of the Republic. I'm an oil man. I understand your father did business with us in the past?" the slender giant asked.

Oswald finally wrenched his hand free of Holyfield's death-grip and replied, "Uh, yes, er uh, my father is the CEO of Phoenix Oil."

"Phoenix Oil, Phoenix Oil," the thin man said. "The Phoenix that rose from the ashes of Old Canada. Holyfield rose from the ashes of Pacifica, after we cleared those Papist vermin Frenchmen out. Us Holyfields were the first to stake claims around Angel City. We took over the old Infee pumps and rigs and expanded operations until we became the biggest fuel provider on the West Coast, all the way up to Barnumsburg. Our success was in no small thanks to your father, Mr. President. If Phoenix Oil hadn't taken up our side in the clan war against Pentagon Oil we never would have become who we are today, and I thank you personally for that, Mr. President."

"Of course," Oswald smiled. "We had to work together to get that bastard Kuhn taken down a notch. I was a but a boy, but I remember it well. Now, Supreme Marshal Barnes tells me you have some ideas you wish to, er uh, share with me? Or are we just going to shoot the shit about oil at this time?"

With a flamboyantly sinister flourish of his arm and a slight bow, Holyfield said, "Oh, indubitably, Your Excellency. I have much to share with you about a strategy for the Southern Continent." After a polite waiting period for Oswald's approval, the tall freak made his way to the Big Map, the nearby tactical officers shrinking away, intimidated by the man they knew as "Nightstalker," after the masks worn by revelers on Patriot-Saints Day Eve. With another dramatic wave of his arm, he fanned the lengthy limb across Gran Colombia, from the Panama border to the furthest reaches of the Venezuelan region. "My Atheling, I am--as I said before--an oil man. And though I be a military man first and foremost in warlike service to the cause of American freedom, the business of black gold never drifts far from my mind. It is bred into me, as a Holyfield, you know, as it was certainly bred into yourself as an Oswald. Mr. President, are you aware of the average oil production of Gran Colombia per year?"

Oswald shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Not off the top of my, er uh, head, no. An extraordinary amount in the millions, I would suppose."

Despite the featureless mask upon his face, Oswald could tell Holyfield would be smiling if he could, just judging by the twinkle in those cold gray eyes behind the porcelain. "An average of five million barrels of the crude liquid mammon every year since records began in 1932."

"Jesus," said one of the tactical officers listening in as he shoved markers representing ships off the coast of Chile.

With lightning speed and a powerful thud, the long, thin hand of Holyfield formed a fist and smashed into the table. "DO NOT TAKE THE NAME OF OUR SAVIOR IN VAIN, COLONEL."

The officer dropped the box of wooden ships and markers from under his arm and they hit the black and white asbestos tiled floor with a thud and then a clatter. The officer's eyes twitched and he formed a stiff and rigid stance. "Sir, yes, sir, General, sir! My apologies!"

"Colonel... what is your name?" Holyfield said calmly as he walked around the corner of the Big Map, hands clasped behind his back, his brown lace-up riding boots clicking on the floor. As he got within arms-length of the swearing officer, he casually kicked some of the pieces out of way across the two-tone tiles.

"Sir, Colonel Ephraim Sands, sir!" the young man replied, sweat pouring down his face glistening under the flicker of the overhead fluorescent lights.

"Colonel... Sands. Colonel Sands, pick up your markers immediately," Holyfield ordered.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Sands said with lightning speed, getting down on his knees and beginning to shakily put all the wooden markers and ships back into the small box.

Holyfield bent over at the waist in an almost unnatural manner until he seemed to be enveloping the young officer like a crescent moon. His artificial face bore down upon Sands as he frantically picked up the items. "Sands," Holyfield began again. Saying the name correctly appeared to be tough with his disfigurement. "Sands-uh," he repeated, mealing on the word and turning one syllable into two. He reached out a lanky arm and grasped the Colonel's shoulder squarely on the shoulder board like the talons of a bald eagle. "If I ever hear you take the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Almighty in vain again, I will ship you immediately, post haste even, to the Brazilian Front. Do you understand me, Colonel Sands-uh?"

The mad frantically nodded, "Yes, General Holyfield, sir!"

"Good. And never interrupt me while I am giving a presentation to the President and Atheling again, Colonel. Now get back to work." With all the spilled pieces back in the box, Sands was shocked to feel Holyfield's hand go under his arm and help him pull himself to his feet. The same long, pale hand slapped him on the back. "That's a good lad."

Oswald appreciated the bipolar attitude. It kept people on their toes and demanded both fear and respect. He made mental notes. "Continue your presentation, General."

Holyfield went back to where he left off like nothing had even happened, immediately going back to it as he walked back to the other side of the Big Map. "As I was saying, Gran Colombia produces about five million barrels of oil yearly. But there is a catch! Right now, it produces none, because almost every inch of her soil is under Union occupation. The pumps have been sabotaged and destroyed, turned off and blown apart in hopes of delaying the acquisition of our rightful spoils. Fuel prices have continued to rise in the States, as I'm sure you are all aware. We don't have a genuine shortage, but rationing is so intense because we cannot produce enough oil to send to the front lines quickly. Phoenix Oil is doing its part, for instance, but it takes a long time to ship barrels of oil from Thunder Bay to Grand Panama. Too long. Time we do not have when we have armored columns running on fumes and surrounded by Neutie savages. Time we do not have when we have bombers and fighters sitting on their runways and on the decks of carriers, starving, thirsting, yearning for their tanks to be filled with precious petrol. That brings us to my solution, gentlemen!"

Holyfield attached a fresh cigarette onto his stick and lit it with a nearby brass desk-lighter shaped like a bust of Custer. He slid the stem into the mouth-hole of his porcelain jaw and inhaled raggedly. "I propose that I be given powers as Emergency Military Governor of the New Lands. I will use my personal fortune and family business to secure and rebuild the oil rigs across what was known as Gran Colombia. I will utilize private security contractors to prevent guerrilla attacks, and thus free up thousands of troopers to further press our attacks as the governing bodies of the Neutie nations grow more extinct by the day. I ask for my pay to be frozen, as I will not accept further personal monetary benefits to an already lucrative proposal. But in exchange for my rule, I believe I can get production levels up to 2.6 million barrels by year's end. You can imagine the benefits of such incredible resources so close to the front."

"That would be a controversial call, General," Oswald warned, scratching his chine and folding his arms in thought. "The Industrial Clan would not take kindly to your company being handed the keys to the kingdom, as they say. But it would be a fine plan looking at it from the strategic angle."

"I lost my face to the Neuties, sir," Holyfield said bluntly. "I lost what I was told was a strikingly handsome appearance and have been reduced to being known as 'Nightstalker,' by many. A monster. A demon. A freak that startles children. Someone you wouldn't see in a recruiting film. But I accept my lot assigned by Jev. I know I have not yet served my purpose, nor have I had my revenge. An eye for an eye, I will bleed Colombia dry. With a straw in my porcelain jaw, I will drink it up. Every last usable drop of petrol will be sucked out of the cursed ground and poured into the needy tanks of our war machines. I will make the Immolation of Mexico City look like mere child's play. They will know me as the McClellan of the Southern Continent. The cashflow my employees and security will bring in will go to building entire new cities on the ruins of the old Infee infestations. I will turn Bogota into a Puritan's dream. I will build a monument to Custer on the side of the Andes. In the Amazon jungle, I will erect statues of you, Mr. President. These new holdings need to be brought into the fold, and I believe I am just the man to do it."

Oswald looked over at Barnes, who promptly nodded his approval. "All right, General Holyfield," the President answered, "I will see what we can do to get you those exclusive rights. I think you are just, er uh, what we need, right now. Now if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a speech to prepare for. All hail."

A rare photograph (circa 1950s) of Jehohanan Ipswich Holyfield, CEO of Holyfield Oil Company and Military Governor of the New Lands.
(Holyfield, in this image, was doctored to appear shorter than President Oswald)

​

 

[Napoleon53]

The feedback I get writing this TL is near overwhelmingly positive and supportive, but I figured I'd toss out my two cents to some common critiques. I'm threadmarking this for ease of reference later and because I tend to get a lot of the same questions over the years. In real life, I am the kind of guy to have a 2 am crisis of "What if I'm actually an awful, annoying person and everyone treats me normal to be nice," and I'm the same way with my writing in my digital life. This will be part Q&A and part rambling blog post about my thoughts on the timeline as a whole since its inception.

The Union goes unchecked by the rest of the world: ​

The Union has been an underdog for nearly half of its existence, and the spirit of national tribulation has moved like a shadow from one generation to another, determined to never again find itself being torched by invading armies. That much, at least, is sympathetic. From the time of its inception, the Old Republic had fallen due to corruption and in-fighting, crushing infant democracy in the cradle. They were treated as a useful tool but also as a backwater by France, and the Southron Republics laughed off their pleas for help when Canada was burning it to the ground. For the first half of the 19th century, the Union was brutally impoverish, its only real success being the bloody, eventual defeat of the Canadian invasion and the conquest of, uh, Vermont. Up until Lincoln and the Second Sons, America was a mere regional power in North America, with the South controlling the Mississippi. The story of Colonel Goodyear was a story of a man fighting for the rest of the world to recognize what his nation was possible of. But they treated it him, and the Union, like garbage. How many times has this story played out in real life, to horrifying results? Karl Marx himself said that the people of Imperial Russia were so whipped that it would be the last country on earth where a Communist revolution would happen. It was the first. How many countries united against the USA as we beat back and conquered tribe after tribe of Native Americans, including my own grandmother who was on the Trail of Tears? Sure, it wasn't as industrialized a slaughter as Mexico, but it was a slaughter, and the near-cultural extinction of Native ways of life that followed have only recently been under attack by any large amounts of people. Ho Chi Minh begged for Vietnam's freedom in Versailles after WWI, eventually becoming a Communist leader that shaped history decades later in insane ways. The German government begged for easier terms there, as well, the deaf ears that greeted them eventually leading (though not singularly) to the rise of Hitler. Saddam Hussein, or as his mother called him in the womb "Satan," was a blood-thirsty madman, low-skill assassin and hitman that many laughed off or discounted before he rose to lead the Ba'ath Party. Before the outbreak of WWII, Germany was an obvious threat that only a fool would fail to immediately take action against... oh, never mind. Clear and present dangers have presented themselves time and time again, throughout history, to be met with a chorus of crickets.

After the Great American War, the Union became the largest power in the hemisphere, although not the only one. And after Lincoln's assassination, the Union faced decades of poor to middling leadership and economic stagnation and depression. By the time of Custer and the MDP, things were bound to come to a head, one way or another. The cult of AFC has now had two generations to slowly push its agenda on the rest of the country. For its part, Mexico was an unstable North American dictatorship, one of several, and the world honestly had other things to worry about than a possible Union invasion of it. No Frenchman in the late 1800s was ready, ITTL, to go defend Mexicans that hated them and their Spanish kin, nor would they stand much to gain by a full invasion of their own. They already colonized much of South America, India, and Africa. They don't need another war. Plus, the Napoleons of that time weren't exactly... the best. Most of the GAR invading Mexico fought battles, pillaged, and looted. The mass-scale atrocities were conducted by ORRA, who are absolute cultist nutjobs on literal drugs. There is nothing really to compare this to from real history of the same era, with the possible exception of Belgian Congo. And while many, many European leaders raised questions or criticized Leopold's conduct, not once was the world going to unite and rescue a bunch of tribes in the middle of the deepest heart of Africa. It is realistic, even, as pathetic as it may be, that they don't take the moral high ground, for they all had skeletons in the closet, both ITTL and OTL. There is no social media, no internet, no phones, barely telegraphy, and the common man in Europe is much more concerned with what is going on in Eurasia than with the crazy Yankees across the pond. And following their conquest of Jerusalem, most Europans are going to think they are doing just fine.

As for the modern era (post Great World War), we haven't yet arrived at what OTL referred to as the Cold War Era. Saying "no one sees the threat of Steele and Oswald or the Union/NUSA!" upon reading everything written so far is the same thing as saying "no one saw the threat of Stalin or sought to truly unite against Communism!" because you read a history book written in 1946. You're in for a wild ride. Also, I deliberately haven't written many stories of the Manifest Climax frontline because I don't want to write first-person perspective literary war crime porn, and I keep it mostly vague, but the entire continent of South America not only united to oppose the looming threat of the Yankees, but also put aside their massive political differences and even attacked first, via their assault on Port Pierce, Cuba.

The readers make it out to be much better than it is or just love evil muhahas:​

WMIT is what you make it. If you enjoy tongue-in-cheek dark comedy, or absolutely wild writing with lots of variety in style and content, you'll likely enjoy WMIT. As with anything, some people just won't like it, and that's totally okay. Although I like to imagine I please everyone with my writing, and the literal countless hours I have put into this timeline, I know some people won't care for it. And that's a-okay and completely understandable. So many people love to read A Song of Ice and Fire, but I just can't get through the first couple books. I don't know why, it's just not my style. Nothing against Martin nor disrespect to those who love it. I'm glad they do. But to say the fans basically circlejerk around WMIT or "how great my writing is" is not true. They are just people like any of us, and they enjoy my stories a great deal and like exploring the crazy world I have created. Many of them I am sure dislike some chapters or story decisions, and some say so. I even decanonized and rebooted Vol II because I wasn't satisfied.

Because you love WMIT, and this includes me, the creator, does not mean you are a bigot, weirdo, edgelord, or anything else. You're a fan of a fictional dystopian world. You're a fan of an openly comic book-esque, pulpy, grindhouse style of writing and alt-hist that is similar to many things but not quite any of them. If other timelines on this site are the Leo Di Caprio or Daniel Day Lewis of alt-hist/historical fic, I'm Nick Cage. And just like Nick Cage, I'm totally, absolutely thrilled to be Nick Cage. I'm not trying to be Di Caprio or Lewis. In fact, that would bore me. My approach to the Lovecraftian elements of the TL is the same: H.P. Lovecraft was the Nick Cage of classic literature and weird fiction. I call him my favorite author but I'd have to be a lunatic to think there aren't one million better authors or that his style of writing wasn't bombastically purple in its prose or ridiculous. That's why I love Lovecraft. It's spooky, but it's also pretty funny in a bizarre way.

WMIT's core concept was to create a world that is just, to put it simply, the w o r s t. And to do that without Hemingwaying myself (in Minecraft), because I could write a very realistic dystopia if I so wished, I need comedy. It's a comedy. It's a parody. It pulls a little from everything and every alt-hist, horror, and sci-fi trope. The most valuable creative advice I ever received was that there is no such thing as originality. The Heroes and Villains of One Thousand Faces have been reborn one billion times, and will be one billion times hence. The key to drawing in readers, keeping them, and even keeping yourself excited, is to create something that is an absolute frankenstein of every mythos that has come before. I take a little bit of everything from everywhere, and have incorporated ideas from sources as disparate as Dr. Strangelove, esoteric theology, Lovecraft, Star Wars, Warhammer, G.I. Joe, There Will Be Blood, conspiracy theories, corporate history (McDonalds, KFC, Walmart, etc) and even Shakespeare. I remix and turn on the Combobulator 9000 and end up with results like Oswald, Mr. Tobias, Tsar Viktor, Slog Thomas, and Holyfield. And that's what I do, and I tend to be proud of my results.

The most important thing to remember about WMIT, is that it's entirely fictional, not at all serious, and if anything it's a parody of wordy, professorial alt-hist that changes very little or takes few risks in the interest of "muh realism" that I, myself, don't particularly care for or find very interesting or stimulating (I'm super happy if you enjoy it, and it takes incredible skill and patience, it's just not my personal preference). Writing a long, winding manifesto on a guy named Slog who loves to eat weird meat, breeds and sells mice to a Carolinian megacorp that puts them in egg nog, and his son goes on to be the Press Secretary for an evil JFK who is married to President Stalin's daughter and rammed a marshal's baton down George Patton's throat is hysterically funny to me and almost hallucinogenic in its ridiculousness. Yet, somehow, some way, I have made it so that it is somewhat believable in this universe. It's a very fine line to walk and I don't always stick the landing, but most of the time I think the results are pure entertainment. It's the reason most of the fans love it. It's a macabre comic book funhouse mirror of history, with explicit and open plot armor because I am going to tell the story I first formulated over a decade ago in the best way that I know how. I was also a teenager when I created the core concepts of WMIT that remain today, and some of those were amateurish and edgy. Since 2018, when I first started the reboot, I knew I wanted to tell the story of Joe Steele, Chuck Oswald, and the innumerable lackeys and cronies of the Pinnacle Future in a more detailed, logical, and much more thought-out way and I had to get the story to that place one way or another. Here we are now! The main conflict and story is within the Union government. It's its own worst enemy. I have taken the pile of Lego bricks of concepts and characters that was 1.0, and now they are being built into the big set pictured on the box in my mind's eye.

Outdated or incorrect assumptions: ​

Would I change things in retrospect even further? Maybe. I'd probably drop explicitly labeling the Union as "fascist," because even though they largely are and ITTL invent the term fascism due to their Rome fetish, they are much more. They are an oligarchy, a corporate state, a Christian Socialist theocracy, a Darwinist Extremist cultist caliphate.
The most common criticisms, including my own, of the 2012 continuity was the rapid conquest of South America and the Union turning on its black citizens during Oswald's reign. Those things will not and have not occurred in WMIT 2.0. Operation Manifest Climax, and its successor Enduring Climax, are parodies of the never-ending continual wars and money pits of the OTL West and its military industrial apparatus. If you are like me and grew up in the Bush years and barely remembers the pre-War on Terror 1990s at all, you can probably see where this is coming from. Not that all of those wars were entirely without merit or reason, but that's a discussion for another day and another place.

The point is that Manifest Climax is a meat grinder that will never end. There's no cakewalk, there's no grand parades through Rio, with bootlicking Infees praising their conquerors. There's an entire continent bombed to the stone age and still resisting with everything they have indefinitely despite a complete blockade from the rest of the world and their only way to resupply is what they already have or what they can loot from Union corpses, of which there are hundreds of thousands. And my decision to have blacks, Japanese, and Jews welcome citizens of the Union is a deliberate parody of real life racism, showing how abstract and stupid racism really is. It is not to show that those ethnicities/races are evil or excited to help the WASPS carry out global subjugation in the name of the Prophet Burr--that's absolutely ridiculous. It is suppose to show how racists often cheaply dodge hard questioning or reasoning in favor of accomplishing goals, no different than Japan being appointed with "honorary Aryan" status in OTL, despite the fact they clearly couldn't be farther from anything the Germans held up as racially superior, and the Allies turned around and were racist to the Japanese at home and abroad in the ultimate irony. And those who say that racial treatment of the Japanese, especially American citizens, was understandable in the time and place only further proves my point.

It is also to show how anyone can be racist, and it's not always black vs white or in America or Europe or what have you, it can be many, many combinations of people in infinite styles and degrees, from intolerant snickers as you pass someone on the street of Beijing, to a Spaniard regarding a Mexican as a mongrel, to a Southern man smoking a pipe and nailing "Colored Only" above his dollar store's second water fountain. Racism is stupid. As someone raised by a racist extremist father in the middle of nowehere West Virginia and as someone who eventually passionately regretted any evil traits or thoughts brainwashed into me, don't be racist, kids. It doesn't make any sense and you are an idiot. I was taught to be racist to people I never met and never even saw, and I will never stop being mad about it. The Union's population ITTL, in a way, is a mirror of how I was brought up. How many Yankees actually get to meet or have in-depth discussions with Infees? How many Yankees ITTL are comfortable in their lives and don't welcome any "stray thoughts" or guilt feelings, and deliberately repress them? How many Americans ITTL simply follow the crowd and do what the government and church says because their authority figures surely wouldn't lie. They were appointed by God, after all.

Speaking of Him, WMIT is NOT a condemnation nor disrespectful of any religion or faith. I, personally, am a moderately conservative, pushing libertarian, Christian. If you have watched Wendigoon on Youtube, I'm precisely what he is. I treat everyone with kindness and love, regardless of anything about their appearance or beliefs. IRL, I might swear around friends who don't mind, even the F-Bomb, but I refuse to say "Oh my God" or "Goddamn," unless I'm directly quoting someone, because I think it's actually forbidden by the Ten Commandments I try (and fail) to live by. But I do try. If I'm around friends or family that don't swear at all, neither do I. Know your audience and be respectful to others. Above all, I never try to be offensive to others for offensiveness' sake. That's lame, juvenile, and boring, and not what WMIT is.

The God of the Republican Union/NUSA is NOT the Christian God. If it exists ITTL, Jev is a diabolic demon acting as a mockery of God. Jev is God ITTL, but he is not Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, the Hindu Pantheon, or anything of the sort from OTL. Jev is the worst parts of man's worst cults and evils thrown into the Combobulator 9000. Jev is the Stanford Prison Experiment. Jev is the non-deity but sickening spirit of the Stalinist Soviet Union. Jev is the Feathered Serpent eating human hearts on the Aztec Pyramids. Jev is the Conquistadors that slew them. Jev is the terrorist flying his plane into a tower. Jev is the British soldier torturing an Irishman. Jev is an Irishman launching a molotov into a coffee shop. Jev is the Holocaust and the Holodomor. If you feel offended that Jev is making fun of your faith or is blasphemy, I gotta tell you you need to look at your religious views for a moment and ask "what went wrong?" And then hopefully seek therapy.

For those who might say, "Then WMIT says a lot about nothing because it's not calling out real views!"... you're wrong, and you're missing the black comedy I shoot for, and maybe that's my fault. But it's a timeline that is a parody of racism, religious and political extremism, and man's inhumanity to man since the dawn of time, all told with a heaping helping of comedy to make it palatable to write and read. The whole point is to show that man, if he is not careful, can be taught destructive and insane ideologies that eventually just become the norm, without using many untouched or unaltered OTL beliefs. The men and women of the Madnessverse are willing to not only fight and die, but send their children to die, for ideas that are not only insane, but sometimes outright farcical. Just like things like the Falklands War, Operation Just Cause, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, the innumerable wars of regional royal succession in the Middle Ages and such, it's tough to imagine being willing to risk a single hair on your head for things like the fucking Virginia-Carolinian War over Cuba ITTL, or the Yankee invasion of Vermont. But just like the bizarre wars of WMIT, there are people in OTL who answered the call to war because the talking heads of the day said it was necessary and proper, and altogether good that their prince should marry that princess over there for... Uh, reasons. And if that princess's serfs dislike it, we'll absolutely slaughter them to the last man. That'll teach 'em! Then we'll salt their fields! Yeah! And then we'll burn the Princess at the stake! Yeah! Alright! That'll really show- wait what were we invading for again? I dunno. I just like salting fields and was really feeling myself in this chainmail and codpiece.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I really am just spinning a yarn because I like to tell ridiculous, weird, or funny stories.

Am I a pessimistic person IRL? Yeah, a bit. Hard not to be. But it could always be worse. If anything, writing this TL makes me glad I live in the one we do, even if it does kind suck ass sometimes and some mornings when I read the news I gotta call "ASB" on God.

Conclusion:​

Overall, I hope readers who don't like certain aspects will approach WMIT like I approach the Disney Era of Star Wars. It's not all made for one generation or one specific type of fan. I try to do fresh, new things, and also sometimes use the nostalgia crutch of well-established characters. Sometimes my stories in this universe fall flat, sometimes they are mid, and sometimes they are epic, and I hope there is a little something for everyone to enjoy, because some people hate the stories others love and the same but reversed. And at the end of the day, unlike Disney's greed, I genuinely do this for fun, never push my Patreon, and am here for the express purpose of entertaining everyone for free. And most of all, I'm here to entertain myself. I look back at the last decade since I invented WMIT and smile. I am a much better author, scholar, and artistic mind because of this creative world-building project, and all the people who give me comments and advice along the way. And I dare to say I am a better person and worker because of the sheer work and dedication I have sunk into this. I hope, even if you can't stand the timeline, you'll at least know I'm trying my very best out here. At the end of the day, we all are here because of our love of history and science fiction, and WMIT is my love letter to both of those things.

The 2012 Continuity has about one million views. The Union Forever has two million views and counting. Prophecies in the Dark is going to hit half a million views in August, Jev-willing. Even the cancelled Vol II: Pinnacle Future has well over one hundred thousand views. I couldn't be more proud. And as someone whose dreams don't always pan out at all like I thought or hoped they would and as someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, this is the one area of my life where I am well and truly proud. And I'm proud to consider all you online weirdos my friends. I love you all.

God bless and good fortune,
Your Whacky Infee Friend Napo53

 

[Napoleon53]

A CAPTIVE LISTENER:
RIDE THE WAVE

​

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

The sound of the German-made clock on the wall filled the room, followed by the sound of someone opening a window. The light hurt Joe Steele's eyes as they fluttered awake. He had been dead. Surely, as sure as anything ever was, he had breathed his last that night. Was it last night? How long had it been? Now what was he doing alive, light flooding through the window of his bedroom in the Presidential Mansion? He heard birds outside. He felt a gust of wind blow in through the aforementioned window and tickle the hairs of his mustache and enter his dry, withered lungs. Why was he alive? Why had he awoken to this? He knew, deep down, he absolutely should have perished. His long tribulation was supposed to finally be at an end. His sins were to finally catch up with him and pull him to the afterlife.

He couldn't move.

Try as he might, he couldn't even move his head to see who had opened the window. He could hear that person flick a lighter open and could smell the scent of Morton's, but he couldn't move to see them. He couldn't move his fingers, his toes, and it was taking everything just to breathe through his already decrepit lungs. An intense wave of terror, sheer panic, shot through his brain like a missile detonating on a Peruvian elementary school. He was paralyzed, completely and totally immobile. He tried to speak, but the only noise that escaped his throat was a rattling squeak. His eyes darted around as much as his position would allow, but still he could see no one to cry out. Trying to scream left him even worse-off, sounding even more minuscule and mute as the attempt to speak.

He was paralyzed.

A prisoner in his own body, Joe Steele felt tuberculosis blood fill in the back of his throat and forced a gagging, wretched cough, sending blood running down his cheeks and chin like a victim of chemical warfare from thirty years prior. This was his worst nightmare. For decades, he had held his health together through sheer iron will, determined to accomplish his goals before hopefully merciful and peaceful demise. This was the opposite of that wish, to see his name tarnish because of Sunday's crimes, thousands of dead boys in the Southern Continent, and now to lie here with no voice, no power, as everything crumbled around him.

"You're awake," said a familiar male voice from over by the window. He could hear the man exhale and then start walking his direction, floorboards squeaking underfoot. As the man came into view overhead, Joe had trouble focusing his eyes, but he knew that silhouette anywhere. It was Chuck, his son-in-law. Leaning directly over him, an apathetic smirk on his face, Chuck raised a hand to just in front of Steele's nose and then snapped his fingers rapidly three times. Seeing a reaction in the eyes, Chuck smiled more broadly and then took another drag of the cigarette. "And you're still kicking in there! Wow. I gotta say, you are one tough motherfucker, Mr. President. You shoulda died, what, er ah, oh, fifteen years before I was even born. Others probably would have with your illness, and plenty have made it even less than that. But here we are, nonetheless. I'm 29. You've lived with this shit for forty years. That's impressive. But, do you know what isn't impressive?" Chuck asked as he leaned in, cigarette smoke blowing out of both nostrils and onto Steele's pale, bloodied face. "You right now. You look like shit. But a severe stroke will do that to you."

Chuck stood back upright and proceeded to the foot of the bed, where he plopped down and continued to puff away on his cigarette and sent smoke rings into the air. "Yup, you had a stroke, old man. And I am afraid that's as good as news gets for ya. Doctors say you'll be a vegetable forever. It would probably be merciful to just shoot you in the temple than let you, an old broadsword like yourself, rust away on a velvet funeral pyre like this. And I'm sure you are worried about the country. I would be, too. I mean, hell, you're whole fucking legacy is at stake right now. You went from the god of war to divisive or even hated by some because of your close working relationship with that kiddie diddler. I mean, I'm cold, but that's a bit much even for me. I get it though. It was a power move. Totally understandable. I might even do the same thing if it meant getting an uncooperative church under my heel. Yeah, checks out. Still, that pretty fuckin' cold. But anyway, don't you worry, because I have already assumed control."

Joe's son-in-law looked over at him, a quiff of brown locks blowing slightly as another breeze entered the room. The wicked smile seemed to go from ear-to-ear. "Yup, that's right. I was sworn in as President a few minutes after the doctors said you were a lost cause, Joe. I already went down to the War Room and sacked that dusty old fuck Ashton. I'll rework the Navy and RUMP posthaste. You would love the plans I already set in motion to salvage some sort of acceptable outcome for your murderous little vanity project down south. Imagine a never-ending war, an unwinnable war. Oh, sure, we can win it, er ah, conventionally. We already have crushed their largest cities with Peacers. But there's too damn many of them under every rock and tree. We'll never be able to win, not in twenty years. And you told our grunts they could, ah, homestead down there? Where the radiation is as thick as the Black Bliss residue and the mosquitos? You're either insane or a bigger liar than I am, and I can tell some whoppers. That shit won't be livable for years. But I'll work it out."

Taking his cigarette between two fingers, he extinguished it by smothering it out onto Steele's blanket. It might have been on Steele's leg, burning his skin, but there was no feeling or signals sent to his brain that told him such. Chuck continued his monologue as Steele's spirit dropped further and further into an abyss by the second. Chuckling, his son-in-law stood up and crossed his arms, saying, "You're a miserable bastard, Joe. Just like all the Joe's in my life, you're a miserable bastard. I already killed one Joe, might as well go for the trio. I'm shipping my old man off to the farm, before his big mouth gets me into any hot water. And in case you are wondering, I poisoned you. Yup! Hah! Bet you didn't see that one coming." Chuck shuffled over and once again put his face inches away from Joe's. "Ethylene glycol. And here, er ah, I bet you thought you really stroked out! Nope. It's utterly and completely odorless, there's no color, and you can barely taste it in your morning coffee or wrapped around your damn cigars. Now, you might ask why I couldn't just hold out for you to kick the bucket normally. My answer comes in the form of a mutual friend of ours. Hendrick."

Steele's pathetic depression and terror turned to rage. He had trusted Ryan Hendrick with his life and his secrets almost as much as he had Oswald. He thought of the countless hours in the office, time spent together on hunting trips, and the endless dinners where Hendrick was the guest of honor. And he had betrayed him?

Chuck laughed a moment and then pulled another cigarette from his chest pocket and lit it up. "That's right! I bet you're pissed ol' Harv was in on this! Ryan Harvey Hendrick: The Man Who Would Be President. What a guy. It's incredible just how useful and successful you can be when you turn down the Presidency. That man would do well in the Renaissance, because let me tell ya, hell of a Machiavellian. See, when you confront your boss that your boss's son-in-law killed your boss's son, and that your boss wanted him to because that son was the damn antichrist or whatever the hell, that tends to make a guy reconsider his life choices. Some people might think that a poor reflection on me, the son-in-law, for carrying out those orders. But you know what most people would understand? I was just following orders. Yours. You killed him, not me. It was then that I knew you were insane. It got Marcus out of my way, but what a way to do it. I mean, fuck, that's colder than letting the pedophile lead the Church! And that caused Hendrick to reconsider his loyalties, and wonder if you were really the Pinnacle Man to lead the Union still. And then, when you recently started pondering on whether or not the antichrist, the slithering serpent, was in fact your son by law, you sounded deranged and unhinged. What's next? Would Hendrick, himself, be the antichrist next week? This isn't Salem, Joe. You can't just toss that kinda accusation out and not have consequences."

Pacing over to a nearby, out-of-view curio cabinet, Steele could hear Chuck pause and reflect on the treasures within. Everything from Native American tomahawks to Custer's medals, to a top hat owned by the one and only Father Abe, to a Japanese samurai's katana that belonged to the last Emperor. "You've lived through a lot of shit, and you've served your purpose old man. A new era is coming. The Oswald Era. And you know what, Joe? You're a grandfather. Emmanuel was born last night. We're parents, me and your daughter. Because I am taking not only your life, not only your job, not only your son, not only your daughter's hand, but your legacy, too. I'll redeem you in the public eye as a noble but, er ah, flawed hero, and we'll name some towns after you, maybe a hospital or two. A fuckin' aerodrome, whatever the hell. I can do whatever I want with your legacy, like clay on a potter's wheel. And Hendrick is going to help me. It's just fuckin' incredible how a man who has gone to such lengths, such hell marches to the ends of the earth, to maintain a self-built legacy in perpetuity is now at the mercy of a 29 year-old Navy vet. Fuckin' amazing, isn't it? I took everything from you. Because I am Oswald. I do that. Morgan's number one rule of jungle warfare he taught me: you see a chink in your enemy's armor, you exploit the hell out of it. I'd do well in business, like my father with Phoenix and all that. I'd be the best damn businessman who ever walked the earth. But I saw an opportunity with you. I read you like a fuckin' book, Joe."

With a clink, the glass doors of the cabinet opened and Joe heard something being removed. Chuck made his way over quickly, wearing the faded silk top hat on his head. Giggling, he pushed it back, nonchalantly, letting his mass of brown hair hang forward. "Lookin' good, right? So this is what it's like to be god? I can do whatever I like, to whoever I like, now, tomorrow, or the day after. From here to my own demise, I am ruler of all I can see out that damn window over there. And none of this would be possible without you, Joe. Just like the other Joes in my life, none of what makes me... well, er ah, me, would be inside my noggin' if it weren't for you fuckin' Joes. Joes seem to be give me what I want or that boost I need to succeed, and they fade away. I killed my brother Joe Junior, you know? And you wanna know why? Now this! This is a fuckin' story, Joe! Saddle up, pardner, because this one's gonna send a jolt up your old withered spine. I'm a fucking passer, Joe."

Steele's already fogged brain desperately tried to assign any meaning to these words beyond what they seemed to mean. There was no way such a conniving, cutthroat genius of a Pinnacle Man before him, a man worthy of the Roman Senate, was anything other than purely American. At least if he was getting taken out, it was by a man more Pinnacle than he. Surely, there could be no doubt Oswald was the picture of good Anglo-Saxon breeding.

"Yup, I'm a fuckin' Papist Irishman by birth. I refused to believe it when Junior told me. Then he convinced me, told me the whole story, Joe. My dear old Pops sold out his own people after Ashton and his fuckers took Canada in the War. My Pops would sell his own mama for a silver eagle. So, in my rage and anger, I killed my own brother. I took him out of this world. Soon my father will join him, and so too shall you. And you know what I think is the funniest shit of all? Through my own abilities and schemes I am ten times the Pinnacle Man you will ever be. Does that make you angry? What are you gonna do? Rise from your crypt here like Jesus and come, er ah, nail Emmanuel to the door like Cromwell? That's right! My Pinnacle Leprechaun seed knocked up your daughter and produced a little star-spangled emerald baby. Top o' the mornin' to ya! Isn't that just the shit, old man?" Giggling again, Chuck did a mockery of an Irish jig, Abe's hat bouncing up and down until it hit the floor with a thud.

Chuck kicked the top hat out of his way with his black and white wingtip shoes and leaned in until his mouth was almost touching Steele's ear. "You're a fucking waste of a man. Just another tool, another brick in the wall. And am I doing this out of some sort of twisted, er, justice for the way America has treated Infees like me? Fuck no! I am doing this for me. Morgan, that fount of knowledge, told me to never forget one thing, and that was that the only thing that matters in this world, the only thing with which to concern yourself, is yourself. I do this because I AM a Pinnacle Man, the greatest there ever was. I don't give a damn what bullshit fairy tales I have to subscribe to, whatever policies I have to sign, or whichever names I have to hail, if it means that my own ends are furthered down the assembly line of the factory of dreams. I worship myself, Joe. Something you once did. You realized the inner self, your desires, your wants, mattered more to you than anything else. That's why you snuffed out Roosevelt. That's why you launched the clusterfuck in the south. That's why you accommodated a child molester as Reverend-Colonel. You did what had to be done, and I appreciate that. But then you went soft. You worried about morals and bullshit pipedreams of having your memory itself worshiped after you die. I don't concern my ass with those things. I concern my ass with what I can get in the here and now, and brother, that's a whole lot. I am the greatest, and I don't need the fear of some deity in me or the eye of history to tell me otherwise, because I know it now."

Chuck went back to the museum case and withdrew the katana, its gold-encrusted hilt glinting in the light. He stood beside the bed, just in range of Joe's eyes, shouldering the katana like a rounders bat. "There is no Void, Joe. There is no Hell, there is no Heaven, no Jev, none of it. There is the here and now, and before I fucking bite the dust, I am going to live it up. I'll turn this country, this fucking dustbowl that's poisoning itself and sending its kids off to die into a party that will never end. Everyone, and I mean, everyone will know how fucking great I am. How I am the best there ever was and ever will be. Because I read this whole country like a book, just like I read you, and like a concert pianist, I am gonna play all the right keys and all the right notes. A concert of the sublime. Am I over-the-top? A little. Am I crazy? Very much so. But you know what makes that truly fantastic? What makes me truly fantastic? Unlike the rest of this country, I know I'm fucking nuts. I kill my family members, got shocked hundreds of times by a fucking motherfucker of a doctor as a kid, and ate rats in the jungle with Australian mercenaries, so of course I'm fucking insane. And that makes me, in the grand scheme of thing, sane. I know this is all a big joke. This planet. This country. An erroneous cosmic wave in the black seas of infinity, Joe. And I'm gonna ride the wave. For every last ounce of fun I can get out of it, I will ride this fuckin' wave."

Joe felt his heart about to pound out of his chest. The insane Irishman stood over him with a Yellowman's sword, able to brutally dismember him at any point. Instead, Chuck threw the sword on the floor with no regard. "Haha! I bet I scared the piss out of you, didn't I? Don't worry, I'm not going to murder you with a fuckin' sword. These are my good Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes, and I have to speak tonight at Yankee Stadium to address the country. It'll be on the talkiebox. You should listen, because I'm gonna have some interesting shit to, er, say about you."

Chuck turned on a small brown waterfall talkiebox sitting on the bedside nightstand and tuned it 177.6, the Voice of the Union. A cheerful crooning number was playing at the moment, part of a regularly scheduled music hour. "Upbeat, isn't it? That Floyd Underwood is a hell of a singer. I personally liked his earlier stuff. Really has some range, but his newer stuff is too polished for me. Wyetta loves him, though. I'm sure when I officially announce your death, they'll switch over the old standby hymns. And you know what? You are gonna be the first man to ever listen to his own eulogy. You're going to listen to my speech. And when I'm done, if you haven't already expired, I'm gonna come back here, and you know what I'll do then, old man? I'm gonna smother you with a pillow, stuff your body like a taxidermy moose, put you on display so everyone knows you are really dead, and charge them fuckin' admission." Bending down, Chuck grabbed the top hat from the floor, dusted it off, slapped it on his head, and walked toward the door.

"And then I'll fuck your daughter again! You never work a day in your life if you love what you do. Ride the wave!" As he left, a single tear rolled down Steele's wrinkled cheek. "I won't tell them you cried." He left, locking the door behind him with a click. Silence filled the room once more as 177.6 shifted to a new song.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

A brassy, swingy orchestra blared. A soft voice began to sing.

"I think we're alone now, the beating of our heart is the only sound..."

One more tear rolled down Joe's cheek. And then another. And another.

 

[Napoleon53]

Part's of this chapter will draw inspiration or direct storyline from @LostInNewDelhi 's 2019 EU entry: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-of-what-madness-is-this.457877/post-19931191

as well as several of @Zoidberg12 's EU entries!

Now buckle up for a sweet dump of succulent l o r e and the saga of the Porcelain Sheikh.

OSWALD'S ACOLYTES:
JEHOHANAN HOLYFIELD

Holyfield before his disfigurement (circa 1935)​

Jehohanan Holyfield, CEO of the Holyfield Oil Company and the Governor-General of Petroliana, was a handsome man of few words, deep thought, ceaseless calculation and cunning, and rock-solid faith in Fundamentalism. Despite a severe injury in 1942 which saw the loss of much of his lower face, he continued to serve his country until his death. Part businessman and part religious super-soldier, Holyfield was an invaluable tool for President Oswald from day one of his administration. The Holyfield Plan, which saw much of former Gran Colombia redrawn as Holyfield's personal corporate fiefdom, was a program in which the mustachioed general used his own funds and private employees to rebuild infrastructure and restore or build new oil pumps to help supply the frontline during the bloody last days of Manifest Climax. To properly understand this often secretive man of few words, we must peel away the mask and look at his personal history, where it is not difficult to spot the events that changed him forever into the man known as the "Butcher of Bogota."

EARLY ORIGINS:
FAMILY LIFE, HOLYFIELD OIL, AND THE MONO VALLEY WATER WAR​

Jehohanan Ipswich Holyfield was born on October 9, 1903, as the youngest son of Abner Albert "Al" Holyfield (1883 - 1942) and Wilhelmina (formerly Newkirk) (1885 - 1953), and was almost entirely of Scottish and Dutch ancestry. In American history, the family first appeared in a document from the workshop of the famous Paul Revere, wherein an Ambrose God-Fear Holyfield is listed as journeyman silversmith training under the famous Midnight Rider. Jehohanan's grandfather Josiah Albert Holyfield (1840 - 1921) was a young soldier during the Great American War, serving in Lincoln's Hammer. After the War, Josiah moved his family to Shicagwa, established a reputable garment company, Holyfield Textiles, and made a small fortune for himself. He was also eager to employ the many black laborers escaping the still racially-oppressive South, and despite his harsh discipline and enforcement of policies, he was much loved by his workers for his honesty, plainspoken words, splendid healthcare benefits and other policies which helped his mostly-poor workforce build careers and families. It was Josiah who ingrained within Jehohanan a steadfast, radical faith in Jev and the AFC, as well a patriotism that was unshakeable and selfless in its nature.

Despite being too young to fight in the Great World War, Jehohanan was nonetheless shaped by it. Following the conquest of the Kingdom of California and its absorption as the State of Pacifica, Josiah ordered his son Al to go west and take control of oil fields outside the ruins of a large city now known in English as Angel Grove. This was an experiment that would prove wildly successful. Josiah had long dreamed of getting into the oil business, and had even sent his son to Old Mexico to study the trade, and this was the chance to become the dominant player in a new industry on the West Coast. Autocars were just becoming affordable for the everyday man, and Josiah knew that this was the business of the future. Despite some initial hangups, the operation eventually not only got off the ground, but boomed. As waves of Yankee immigrants arrived to settle the purged realm of Pacifica, they helped fill the coffers of the Holyfield Oil Company.

Flag of the State of Pacifica ​

Jehohanan was eagerly studying this industry. He found it not only interesting, but romantic in a rugged, pioneer way. He himself worked alongside the hands, covered from head to toe in black gold, sweating under the merciless Pacifican sun. As the first pipeline was laid and carried their production to Angel Grove, his grandfather was also laying pipe from the Mono Valley's Whackypee River to Angel Grove, supplying water to a growing urban landscape. This aqueduct, which stretched hundreds of miles, was a joint venture with Maxwell McCormick's Bank of the West. Before long, some were nicknaming Angel Grove "Holyfield City," because of the massive success and influx of Holyfield laborers. The Mono Valley was almost entirely dried out by the 1920s, causing the area's squatting Yankee farmers to protest against the Holyfield Oil Company. This led Josiah to create the Holyfield Security Force (HSF), a private mercenary army, to lay down the law on farmers trying to sabotage the pipeline. The HSF also were contracted as private security by the Bank of the West, and were the ones who ended the Coyote Springs Cabal, the last major traditional "Old West" outlaw gang, which reached somewhere around 100 men at its height. In 1921, following the death of patriarch Josiah, Al took over as CEO.

On August 3, 1924, farmers used barrels of gunpowder and surplus GWW munitions to destroy a portion of the Whackypee Pipeline in retaliation for the drought ruining their farms. Josiah was furious and flew into a rage, ordering HSF to march on the Mono Valley and reestablish company rule "by any means necessary." A fresh-faced Jehohanan was among the men shipping out, a mustache just beginning to finally fill in on his upper lip. The Mono Valley Water War truly began on August 10, when HSF forces in Colonel Goodyear trucks disembarked at a Holyfield Oil Station and were confronted by a mob of farmers wearing old GWW gear and carrying bolt action rifles. After a flurry of epithets and curses, someone threw a shamrock shake at one of the trucks, and the HSF opened fire. At least ten farmers and two HSF were killed in the skirmish.

For the next few months, massive numbers of HSF were also joined by Bank of the West-contracted Overton men (including a younger Dick Pennington who would one day lead the Starry Wisdom Revolt), and experienced an insurgency almost as great as that faced by the Army against Californian Papists. The Battle of Big Pine, fought on September 11, would see a Holyfield Company patrol aeroship be shot out of the sky by an old GWW artillery piece, resulting in the total elimination of the 25 man crew aboard. This was the last straw for the Holyfields, and they began a campaign of physical removal, with no one allowed to remain to farm the Mono Valley. Buses arrived and guards forcibly dragged men, women, and children into the vehicles, which were then taken to the Magnum border and dumped at the first available checkpoint. Some 100 farmers remained in the area, fugitives of the company, and fought a guerrilla conflict until late 1926, when the last were tracked down to a cave system and smoked out with petrol fume bombs. They were handed over to RUMP for destruction of legally-built company property and shuttled away to a new prison island off the coast of the state capital of Bayburg named Pelican Point. The island had formerly been used to hold POWs during the Immolation of California years prior. Some high-level Californian prisoners found themselves imprisoned together with veterans of the same war that saw their country destroyed. One inmate, former general Louis Pierre Montenegro, said to an imprisoned GAR vet and Mono Valley rebel, "We are all Infees now, brother." Due to the influx of Mono Valley prisoners, most all of the few remaining Californian POWs and high-level royalists were eliminated via gas chamber. This also included Napoleon Black Cloud, who, during the GWW, was the last North American native chieftain in history to lead a war party against Yankee troops.

HSF forces parade through Angel Grove​

Jehohanan, despite his young age, was declared Emergency Potentate of the Mono Valley and ordered to supervise the rest of the pipeline construction. He took to the job with aplomb and vigor, eager to build a reputation of his own. After a few years at this position, the pipeline was completed and Angel Grove experienced an absolute boom. Around the same time, Pinnacle Chemical of Bayburg was installing the first real home air conditioning systems, running on a new chemical known as "Pinnacle 69," or "P-69." Holyfield Oil purchased PC of Bayburg, leaving the name the same, and utilized it as a brand new chemical wing of the company as the modern era boomed. Although competitors soon arose, PC of Bayburg had a virtual monopoly on air conditioning systems from Oregon to Oxacre by the 1950s and would be one of the companies who helped roll out the "Pinnacle Future" of the Oswald years. With the power of air conditioning, many inhospitable, hot, and humid locales were opened up for year-round settlement. Their air conditioning units would also be invaluable during Operation Manifest Climax, making bases and hospitals far more comfortable as the war raged on.

AN ISLAMIC INTERLUDE:
THE BIRTH OF AN OIL KINGDOM

King Saud Al Rashid​

The history of Jehohanan Holyfield was about to take an unexpected turn when, after his 1930 acceptance into the Grand Army of the Republic as a Captain, First Maniple, First Cohort, as part of the fledgling, small, still-unnumbered Pacific Legion, his father was asked by President Steele in 1933 to become the first official Union Ambassador to the Kingdom of Rashidi Arabia, formerly known as the Emirate of Jabal Shammar. Al Holyfield would ask for his son to join him on the expedition as security and for intelligence gathering-purposes. Since the the recent establishment of the Kingdom, word had spread that its liberal monarch, King Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Rashid, intended to forge the nation into the dominant Caliphate in the Islamic world and, through its growing and booming oil industry, would attempt to drag that same world--kicking and screaming--into the modern era.

Looking back on its 19th century history, it is hard to imagine a 20th in which Rashidi Arabia played such a large role and bore such great influence on the world stage. The following excerpt from Prof. Philip Lowe's History of the Modern Mohammedan (1964, B.A.U.B. Press) reveals the grim outlook the Sunni Muslim world had for its future:

The Aamayn al-Nakba (Biennium of Disaster), or simply the Nakba, is perhaps the only name fit for describing the time between L’Aiglon’s (Napoleon II's) 1855 landing in Gaza to the final Russian demobilization in late 1857. The tearing-off of the Caliphate’s limbs and the crushing of its skull proceeded without respite, without mercy. No heroes emerged from this war to stall the enemy; administrator, soldier and subject alike could do nothing but step back in fear as the machinery of state sparked dangerously and shut down for the last time. And yet, as any fan of the modern horror genre will tell you, there are two kinds of fear. The first is a sudden shock—the events just described. The second is a looming dread—the dread of realizing that an outright majority of the Islamic world’s area and population was now governed by a Crusader state from Saladin’s nightmares, and the remainder was menaced by a country which halved Constantinople’s population in the first year of occupation. The Sultan and his heirs were dead; political and religious turmoil reigned in their place. And the last major Islamic state left in the world… was run by Shiites in Persia.

Religious schismatics they were, but the Persians were not blind to worldly concerns. Refugees from the post-Nakba states flooded into Tabriz and Qazvin, and the question on Persian mind was: What refuge is left to us? To the east, after the quelling of the Durrani and the return of their provinces to the fold, lay Frankish India; to the west, the Franks again. And to the north… It was a great misfortune, Nasreddin Shah Qajar reportedly mused, that Persia’s spiritual heart lay in Khorasan. The city of Mashhad, hometown of Ferdowsi and resting place of Imam Reza, lay directly in the path of any Russian advance out of Central Asia. There was no longer time for wondering about how economic change would dislocate traditional livelihoods, how changes in the army would shake up old aristocracies—Persia would learn the ways of European warfare and production, or it would not even last two years. And so, even as the Vizier declared Tehran’s resolve to protect the realm and was greeted by enthusiastic rallies in the streets, a team of officials from the economic ministries hammered out an agreement with the Dutch. Already manifesting that independent streak which would cause so much grief throughout the 1900s, Amsterdam had no interest in the French or Russians dominating the Indian Ocean and threatening the sea lanes to its flourishing Southeast Asian empire. While it didn’t have the money or men to fight these powers, it could invest both in a country of greater potential. In a series of initiatives the Shah’s propagandists more or less sold as “engagement now for xenophobia later” to his critics, a new officer corps was raised on case studies of Napoleon’s wars in Europe and the VOC’s wars in Java; railways and power lines spiraled out from Tehran and Tabriz; and coal was dug up from pits across the northern valleys, even as hydrocarbon reserves as yet unknown slept beneath the southern Gulf. By the 1880s, Persia had outgrown its dependence on the Dutch to seek out fair trade with the Nordreich, Sweden, and even Scotland, and relied on an increasingly skilled and educated native workforce. But even so, emergent labor protests were crushed, and reports of mine accidents hushed up. Progress was progress, but would it be worth it in the end?

So things proceeded in Persia, which had an intact and functioning state and a religious establishment that had never depended much on Sunni guidance in the first place. Further west, neither of those things were true. In the Near East, the collapse of Turkish power was expected to lead to an Arab renaissance, and the short-lived Second Saud Confederacy did its best to deliver. In previous decades, a spate of town-building had increased the population of the once-marginal region of Najd and imbued its elite with a new sense of superiority. The Saud family, taking advantage of both, raided the Iraqi shrine-city of Karbala in 1801 and conquered Mecca some years later; however, the Ottomans responded harshly, decimating the family and driving its remnants into exile. One such remnant, Prince Faisal, fled Cairo and landed in Jeddah, calling on the tribes of the peninsula to rally to him. They did, and on the 3rd of March, 1861 Faisal invaded Iraq, promising to punish the “apostate” Mamluks. His disorganized force met Iraqi Kurdish troops outside Karbala, and seemed capable of tipping the balance. Unfortunately for him, a Europan contingent that had been helping the Iraqis quell Ottoman holdouts near Tikrit heard of the battle and headed south. While Faisal’s undisciplined troops were ground down, an envoy from the Imperial Governor in Egypt reached Jeddah, assuring the “authorities of Central Arabia” that they could govern themselves as they wished, but that if they ranged outside their area again “the Empire of Europa will exercise its latent right, conferred upon it by guardianship of more Mohammedans than any other state in the world, to provide for the governance of Mecca and destroy all resistance in the surrounding countryside.” Faisal’s first meal after his return to Arabia would be his last; a group of nobles led by the Rashidi family of Ha’il, known sometimes as Jabal Shammar, emerged, blaming the prince’s fatal “illness” on battle fatigue and burying him with honors in Riyadh even as they tossed out the Wahhabi scholars who were the Saud family’s greatest partisans. From this coup was born the state of Jabal Shammar, which dominated the petty realms of Arabia thereafter but accomplished little else for the rest of the century.

Flag of Rashidi Arabia​

The dawn years of the 20th century would see young King Saud Al Rashid finally move to strike for status as regional power, inspired in part by author Nadir Abdulrashid's 1903 publication The Status of the Arab World, which called for Pan-Arab nationalism and a new era of modern secular prosperity. As a valuable new oil producing land, Jabal Shammar was a key component of the Tehran Pact during the Great World War, which saw it enter a pan-sectarian alliance with Persia, the Qadirist Revolutionary Islamic State of Egypt, and the Kingdom of Iraq in an attempt to retake the Holy Land from the longtime Papist colonialists. However, following devastating defeats and the manner in which the Pact's best men smashed like so many foundering ships upon the rocks of Grandmaster Cyrille Coste and his under-supplied and outnumbered Knights of Jerusalem, infighting soon broke out. Persian troops who were accused of rape and looting within Iraq were fired upon by Iraqi forces, resulting in the outbreak of war between the two supposed allies. Egypt, faced with increasing resistance to their absolute dictator Field Marshal Qadir, collapsed into a state of civil war, followed by a renewed Europan invasion to reestablish authority there. Qadir attempted to flee to Jabal Shammar and begged King Saud Al Rashid for a safe exile, but the King had him arrested and handed over to the Europans as a peace offering. In exchange for allowing Europan oil companies to exploit some of their resources and a small debt, they were allowed to exit the Great World War. On July 20, 1914, the Tehran Pact was officially declared dissolved and Persia asked for terms with Europa. Morale in Europa, despite the loss of the Rheinbund and the North and South American colonies, still rallied in the face of this great news. The Holy Land would remain in Christian hands. At the Damascus Conference, Persia was forced to give up Oman and Yemen, which became a unified Europan satellite state dubbed the "United Arab Emirates," further strengthening Europan control of the Red Sea and the Gateway to India.

It was in 1929 that King Saud Al Rashid paid off his debt to Europa and decided that he was no longer so keen on Compagnie Pétrolière Impériale (Imperial Petroleum Company), the Empire's largest oil company, harvesting its increasingly valuable and useful chief resource. Despite the terms of the Damascus Conference stating that CPI would remain in control of 50% of the nation's oil until 1950, with an option to purchase the fields after that date, the King wanted them gone. Protests were growing in the region that Europan oil workers were detrimental and disrespectful to their culture, had raped and robbed, and were, in general, disgusting pests. In 1930, in a legalese attempt to negate the Damascus terms, he rebranded Jabal Shammar as the Kingdom of Rashidi Arabia, adding stripes in the new Pan-Arab colors of black, green, and white to its old gold crimson banner. Needing a more solid point of leverage, and facing increasingly hotter tensions with former ally Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca and supposed Caliph of Islam, as well as the fragmented Nejd-based remnants of the Saudi family, the Peninsular War erupted in 1933.

The Saudi family was utterly annihilated, and their daughters taken as wives by King Saud al Rashid and his top men, and Nejd was totally and completely absorbed. Despite a heroic attempt at resistance, his former friend, the Sharif of Mecca, was slain in battle at the Siege of Mecca. Already in control of Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam were now in Rashidi hands. Declaring himself the Caliph of Islam, the King now ordered CPI to evacuate all but 10% of their wells by 1935 and the remainder by 1940 and hand them over to Royal forces. For a brief time, war looked likely, but the King's gamble would eventually pay off and the Europans, busy with unrest in India and problems at home, caved. Allied with Iraq, Rashidi Arabia was now a regional power, the center of the Islamic world, and bordering on Great Power in the future if they played their cards right. Persia disliked this all very much, but was still too devastated by the GWW and the Iraqi War to do much about it. But not inconsequential to the Arab success was Jehohanan Holyfield....

JEHOHANAN OF ARABIA:
TREKKING THE BURNING SANDS​

This brings us back to our main character, Jehohanan Holyfield. When he and his father arrived in Mecca, the new capital city, in the winter of 1933, the craters were still smoking and entire blocks were still in ruins. But over it all, that night, the Rashidis gave them an insanely theatrical and opulent welcome. In his diary, Jehohanan wrote:

I asked my father why we were so friendly with these Mohammedans, and they with us, and he told me, "They respect us as Ahl al-Kitāb, People of the Book. They respect us as fellow Abrahamics, and we will show them respect in turn. These are not Inferiors, this is the Pinnacle fragments of the Kingdom of Sheba, the Sons of Solomon, blessed with the bounties of the black gold of the dunes. My boy, we are pilgrims in a holy land, and we are not only on a diplomatic mission, but one of genuine good will. Embrace them, as they embrace us." I had, naturally, some rather hard times accepting these brown-tinted sheiks as Pinnacle-descended Lost Jews, but after a time in their presence, I grew to genuinely enjoy their company that night.

They offered my father and I keffiyeh, the classical Middle Eastern head cloth and band. I veritably felt like David, and I had to keep myself from searching for a sling and shot. Then they presented us with jambiya, decorative curved daggers. Ours handles were forged in the shape of bald eagles, with red-white-and-blue stones inset into the silver and gold. The craftsmanship was remarkable. Linking arms, they proceeded to rock and to and fro to the beat of the tribal drums and ouds, singing praises to God and their King, drawing long, curved swords and raising them on high. King Saud Al Rashid himself appeared about thirty minutes into this ritual, and he presented my father with his own personal sword to join in with the dance as a token of friendship. He told my father, "I am so very proud to meet you. Take this Sword of Islam and be at peace here, among friends, as Ahl al-Kitāb." As the stars rose over Mecca that night, I lost control of myself as I do at a revival, letting ululations exit my throat and giving thanks to the Lord for all things. The King spoke to me in near-perfect American English. "Jehohanan? God's Mercy! Your name means this. It is a splendid name, Captain, a name of the Book. Welcome to Arabia."​

These positive first impressions made a massive impact on Jehohanan, and the King was incredibly charismatic and likeable. For the next several weeks, he and his father visited with Saud in his new court, the former residence of the Sharif and Caliph, and visited holy sites. When asked why he didn't bow to Mecca or recognize the Prophet Muhammad, one of his Yankee security detail declared, "There is no God but Jev. And Burr is his Prophet." A Muslim court member responded with, "I see no God but Allah, and Muhammed is his Prophet." Despite an initial outburst of borderline-insults, Al Holyfield shut down the guard by telling him, "These are Pinnacle men of Sheba. They do not understand our ways or what our faith is truly about. Do not spit mantras at them and expect them to understand, anymore than you understand their beliefs."

Several months into their residency, the true purpose Al Holyfield wanted the job to begin with became clear. From all angles, Holyfield Company photographers took pictures of Europan oil rigs, state of the art for their time, and other industrial equipment, by sneaking onto ridges at night with incredibly expensive camera equipment and spying on them for weeks at a time. This business was cut short when a group of radical Wahhabi Muslims had made an attempt at revolting in the so-called "Empty Quarter," a brutal stretch of nothingness filled with the Rub' al Khali desert. Seeing an opportunity to repay his host for his kindness and to attain more military experience, Jehohanan pledged to partake in the expedition to find and eliminate the rebels.

July 1, 1934, was to be the date of the departure of the military force, but the King delayed this so Jehohanan could observe the July 4th "religious observance" with his Father. Dawn, July 5th, saw the column of camels head out from Mecca. By the night of July 20th, they found a the desiccating remains of Royal forces that had been brutally attacked and beheaded by the Wahhabi rebels. Their heads were mounted on pikes and decorated the dunes as a warning to go no further. After taking time to bury the dead and remove the heads, the force pushed on. On July 26, they found their enemy. Wearing his dress uniform and keffiyeh, Jehohanan made himself a glowing target, with a an ancient musket sending a ball straight through the skull of his camel, barely missing his chest. The massive animal went down and pinned his leg. All around the pass, cries of "Allahu Ackbar!" filled the air as men and beast fell like flies. Furious that he had been targeted first, Jehohanan pulled himself out from under the dead camel and pulled his American Col. Pierce buffalo rifle and a satchel of stripper clips and used the beast as a sandbag. One shot after another, his targets fell all across the dunes.

At one point, six Wahhabis with scimitars and daggers crept up on his position from behind, but he wheeled around, drew his Yankee ceremonial sword, and engaged them in hand-to-hand combat. Sparks flying through the air as their blades clashed, he used his free hand to draw his sidearms from its holster and point-blank execute one of them trying to come up from behind. Using the shock of the death of his comrade to his advantage, he drove the Union steel through the throat of the swordsman who engaged him. Then, with one blast that traveled through two men, this left two remaining to fight. After another short duel which ended in him amputating the hand of one, the other turned and attempted to run into the hills. A swift shot to the spine left the man's corpse rolling down the dune like a poached animal, his turban and jambiya flying off as he went.

Turning his attention back to the rest of the battle, the government troops were gaining the upper hand on the rebels, and the momentum of the surprise attack was offset by their better equipment and training. Within the hour, the remaining rebels surrendered and were decapitated on the spot. Holyfield himself carried out some of the executions, still in a seething rage from how close they had come to shooting him first thing, right at the start. The next several months were spent with these same soldiers, patrolling the dunes, interrogating prisoners, executing them, and finding the "ratholes and viper nests that contained these Wahhabi scum." Finally, on the night of October 19, the base camp for the nomadic rebels was finally located. Torches and campfires lit up the sands and the sounds of chanting, drums and ouds filled the air. Organizing the attack himself, as the commanding Arab officer of rank equal or greater to his own and been wounded and was being rushed back to civilization, he ordered a diversion attack on the main entrance while he would take the bulk of his men from behind and destroy them. This plan served to be far more than this militia was capable of dealing with, as within thirty minutes, Holyfield found himself inside of a sheik's tent, sliding his jambiya along the man's throat. blood spraying across his face and tunic, his eyes dilating as he felt the pure adrenaline of conquest. Outside the tent, the pathetic cries of the Wahhabi rebels were cut short as scimitars took off their heads. Ordering their noses removed and loaded into a chest, Holyfield told the men to do as the Old Testament and burn the entire camp, every body, every item, and all gold or silver to be loaded onto camels to be brought as tribute to Mecca. All of it.

It was an unpleasant surprise when, during the ransacking when they discovered obvious ties to Europa. In retaliation for the loss of their oil fields, Europa was funding and equipping Wahhabi rebels from the United Arab Emirates and sending them across the Empty Quarter to raise hell inside Rashidi Arabia. Loaded down with ears, precious metal, and these documents and weapons, they began the long trek back to Mecca. When they arrived some weeks later, they were welcomed as heroes. Word had spread from the wounded officer and other men who had to return home to seek medical attention of Holyfield's brutality and heroism in combat. Chanting "Jehohanan bin Holyfield," the people lavished their cheers and applause on him. Saturated with sweat, his face reddened beyond belief, and his mustache grown into a bushy beard, he looked not out of place, save for the bloodied, salt-stained dusty khaki Union uniform he wore. After a night of showering and shaving, he appeared at the Royal dinner worse for wear, but once again an American officer. The ears and treasures were brought before the King, as were the Europan documents and weaponry. The Europan embassy was confronted the next day with the evidence by an angry group of Arab diplomats. Faced with such embarrassment that they were guilty themselves of violating the Damascus treaty, the Europans agreed to withdraw their crews from the oil fields. This moment was key, additionally, to the impending independence of India. With a united, powerful Arabia able to threaten Egypt and the UAE, and allied to Iraq, the ability to keep control of India was ever more increasingly doubted in Paris. In thanks to the Americans for their friendship, the King shipped off many Europan oil rigs, state of the art at the time, as a gift to Holyfield Oil. Reverse engineering went a long way to the advancing the cause of the "Pinnacle" Man.

For his service to the the Kingdom, Jehohanan Holyfield was declared a "Protector of Islam" and given the title of Sheikh, despite his young age, as well as a Koran of the highest quality. Despite his sympathy to the Arabs, Jehohanan made his loyalty to AFC clear when he told his father Al, "I am honored by their respect. But there are no rewards as great as those waiting for me with the Prophet Burr in Heaven. I pray that one day, like the Jews, these lost Pinnacles will find the combined power of Christ and the Prophet Burr irresistible." Nonetheless, his military sensibilities, already Old Testament in their nature, took on a decidedly Islamic sense of radicalism and firmness, and during his later years in South America, his penchant for decapitation of enemies with a sword became a trademark. In addition, he began the bizarre and singular tradition of twice daily removing his boots, bowing to Philadelphia, and reciting the Lord's Prayer, in addition to the American's Recital published by Reverend-Colonel Lovecraft in 1935:

"Jev is the Way.
Christ is the Gate.
The Prophet Burr is the Key and the Guardian of the Gate.
Past, Present, and Pinnacle Future.
All are one in Jev.
For Jev is the Way.
Amen."

OPERATION MANIFEST CLIMAX:
THE BUTCHER OF BOGOTA, LOSING FACE, AND BECOMING THE PORCELAIN PETROL SHEIKH​

When Operation Manifest Climax began shortly after the Neutrality Pact's assault on Cuba, Holyfield yearned for the frontlines. Despite this, he remained stationed in Pacifica at Fort Washington, just outside Bayburg, training new officers. When his insistence on going to the front again was shut down, he was promoted to Legate General of the Pacifica Legion. In actuality, his father had secured the promotion from President Steele:

"Please, Mr. President, never let Jehohanan off to the Southern Continent. That lad will get his damnfool self killed instantly down there out of some sort of apocalyptic sense of selflessness. His faith and devotion are admirable, but he has dodged death far too many times already. I speak not only as his father but as an American in saying that Jehohanan is far too valuable an officer to lose to a Neutie bullet inside of a week."

After his father's death of heart attack in 1942, and as the need for skilled men grew even greater at the front, his obstacles had one by one been removed. In August of 1942, he found himself landing on the coast of Peru with half the Pacifican Legion, their first real taste of combat. Landing at a beach the Americans called Port Recall, they faced the full wrath of what remained of the Peruvian military. Landing boats were crumpled like tins can and others were perforated like paper by Neutie grinder nests. Insisting on going in with his men and that Jev would protect him, Jehohanan watched as a boat full of Marines exploded into a red ball mist via mortar and sank beneath the tropic waves. As his boat hit the shoreline, the man next to him was turned to paste by enemy bullets, with one grazing himself on the left arm. Never knowing fear, Holyfield simply looked down at what remained of the young man, muttered something under his breath, looked in the direction of the grinder nest, which was experiencing a jam, raised his sidearm (another bejeweled gift of the King of Arabia, and shot the gunner right between the eyes through the pillbox's firing slit. Then, calm as he ever was, he jogged onto the beach as if he were a grocer running after a man who had left an item at the checkout, not performing the dance macabre across a hellscape of total war. Men fell all around him, and periodically he turned around to see how many men from his boat still followed. When their acquilifer bought the farm, he turned around, patted the dying lad on the shoulder, grabbed the standard, and led the attack once more, bullets glancing off his pot helmet.

Port Recall was one of the bloodiest amphibious assaults of the entirety of Manifest Climax and was where the Pacifican Legion earned their stripes and honed their edges for the first time. Of the 25,000 men who participated, over 7,000 lost their lives, with another 2,000 wounded. Despite these losses, this was the swan song for the Peruvian forces, who were already running low on morale, equipment, and men, and had intended this to be a delaying action to buy time for civilians to flee into the mountains. When the first towns they found were almost entirely empty, Holyfield cursed and ordered them burned to the ground. For weeks, he chased a huge convoy of refugees into the foothills, harassed by guerillas, but just as he was catching up, he received orders to turn around and attack north, at the sectarian fighters on the border with southern Gran Colombia. Furious but obedient, he ceased pursuit and charged north, squashing the Colombians near what had been Guayaquil, but was now renamed Staging Zone Fluidopolis.

For the next year, Holyfield roamed Gran Colombia and Peru, taking command wherever needed, turning the Pacfican Legion's nickname from the "Greenhorn Brigade" into the "Holy Hellraisers." Despite the fact mustaches were in vogue at the time thanks to Steele, Holyfield made his an icon of his own, and virtually any man of his Legion who could grow one, did. Others painted a stylized mustache onto their gas masks. Just like his grandfather had as a factory boss, Jehohanan earned the respect and love of his men he pushed hard every day by getting down in the shit with them. If Legate General Holyfield told the men to take Checkpoint Revere with little hope of success, he would be there with them, using a walkie-talkie to relay his orders and providing covering fire with his trusty scoped buffalo rifle from a distance, sometimes grabbing a battle rifle or drawing his sidearm to join in the charge. It was rumored among the men that he was invincible, and could not be killed. Some spoke of an urban legend that he had discovered Iram of the Pillars, the Atlantis of the Sands, during his time with the Rashidis in the Empty Quarter, and that the Jambiya dagger he always carried was "imbued with the Pinnacle Power of the Queen of Sheeba herself, maybe even King Solomon." During the Second Sack of Bogota, Holyfield was so ruthless in suppression of the civilian resistance that he earned the nickname the "Butcher of Bogota."

But at last, on April 14, 1943, his luck would run out during a routine base inspection. While addressing the troops at Fort Lamplight, in the newly created Territory of Tobiason, sniper shots rang out from the jungle foliage, killing several officers immediately. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a huge force of Hispanic and Indian fighters appeared, guns blazing, many times greater than the force at "Fort" Lamplight, which was in reality little more than a field hospital camp at the time using the crumbling, shelled husk of a Neutie installation that dated back to the days of the Conquistadors. Ordering his men to secure the wounded and gather in the central stockade, Holyfield repeatedly refused to follow them to safety. Instead, he jumped on top of a nearby damaged landship, awaiting new treads, and checked to make sure its .50 caliber was operational.

At the base of the tank, crawled up besides the rusting, damaged treads, communications trooper Private Theodore "Talkiebox" Curtis was holding in his own intestines from one of the initial sniper shots. Stepping down from the landship for a moment, Holyfield wrapped a makeshift bandage around the man's waist and asked him, in no uncertain terms, "Son, do you want to go to Paradise with me today?"

"Sir, I think I'm goin' there whether I want to or not, by the looks of my guts and this fuckin' blood. But hell yeah, I'll follow you to the gates of Hell, Legate General," the soldier grinned, his eyes winced in incredible pain.

"Don't swear, son. That's the way of the infidel. I want you to use that blasted talkiebox of yours and I want you to call in to the mortar crews and have them rain havoc on positions I call out. Do you know the coordinates and callsigns for this area?" Holyfield asked as he tried to prep the communication backpack and charged it up with the crank located on the side before handing him the receiver and placing a pistol in the kid's other hand.

"Aye-aye, sir. I do. I'll do my best, Legate General Holyfield, sir," the young lad of 18 replied.

"I know you will, son. Till Valhalla, brother," Holyfield replied. He scrambled back on top of the disabled landship and began opening fire with the .50. For the next hour, he held off dozens of Neuties, taking down many of them. The green jungle was painted red as the flag of old Jabal Shammar as the bullets whizzed through the foliage and into the tender flesh of the enemy troops. About ten minutes into his one-man rampage, a bullet tore through his right shin. While he fell off the turret momentarily, and the enemy pressed the attack instantly, he pulled himself together, wrapped his fingers around the .50 again, and opened up again. The advancing troops were slaughtered like targets at a carnival game. He called out coordinates when he saw reinforcements on a distant ridge, and Curtis called down the rain. Like distant specks, he could see clusters of men go flying off the cliffs and trails to their deaths, mudslides and rockslides following them down. And still he fired on, blasting away. After twenty minutes, he and Curtis, between the .50 and the mortar strikes, had killed an estimated 130 men. After 30 minutes, 200. 45, 280.

At last, 45 minutes into his rampage, a sniper's bullet entered his right jaw from the side. Teeth and bone and flesh went exploding into a red mist, sending him once more collapsing off the turret. Furious and horrified of the death toll this one lunatic with a death wish had already inflicted on them, the Neuties pressed once more, bayonets and knives, and machetes out, ready to desecrate his body. As they reached the landship, Curtis, barely lucid, emptied his handgun into the crowd of Neuties, determined to make every second count. Five of them collapsed to the ground, sending the others into even more of a murderous rage. They grabbed Curtis from all sides and absolutely butchered him, slicing off his limbs and desecrating his body. Barely conscious and presumed dead, Holyfield, face still a pulpy mess, opened his eyes and saw them killing the young private. "A seething white-hot rage shot through my brain with more power than any bullet," he would later say. He stood himself up like puppet on strings, swung himself back onto the .50, and--lower jaw dangling by tendons and muscles, blood everywhere--blasted the crowd of enemies point blank. A grenade was struck on one of their belts, causing a massive explosion that left him temporarily without any hearing at all (he was already partially deaf from the past hour). Terrified of "El Demonio," thinking he was possessed by Satan and back from the dead, the remaining Neuties began to flee back into the woods, many eating a few bullets with their spines. When at last the enemy shots ceased, the wounded Holyfield toppled from the landship like a bag of potatoes and hit the dirt.

"The Last Stand" became one of the most celebrated and heroic stories of the entirety of Operation Manifest Climax, and of the Grand Army in its history. When President Steele first heard the story, he ordered a national day of mourning out of respect for the "fallen" Legate General, who had "passed just as his father thought he would." When the advisors told him that Holyfield was still alive, in intensive care, and undergoing emergency reconstructive surgery on his face, he was left speechless. Motivated by the display of courage and insanity, Steele ordered the Army to draw up a new medal fit for such an inhuman feat: the Titan Atlas Medal. A gold medallion was forged displaying the Greek Titan Atlas holding up a globe. The inscription underneath read "Titanic Viribus," or "Titanic Strength."

After a month of surgeries, Holyfield was laying in a hospital bed in the Fort Washington Army Hospital, faced entirely bandaged but for his eyes, when several officers entered his room. "Sir," one of the officers greeted him, raising an arm in salutations, "It is our honor to present you on behalf of our President and Atheling a new medal. Your bravery is so unmatched that President Steele had to have the GAR create an entirely new award for it. Inside this box, your country is proud to present you with the Titan Atlas, for Titanic Strength, Heroism, Valor, Sacrifice, Fluidation, and Dedication, far above and beyond the call of duty, and far above and beyond the call of heroism. Beyond a hero, your nation sees you as living, breathing example of everything it stands for and more. Legate General Jehohanan Holyfield, we award the Titan Atlas." An oak box with velvet lining was opened and revealed the shining neck ribbon-mounted medallion within. The other officers and nearby nurses applauded gaily.

Dead silence filled the room now. Holyfield motioned for a pen and paper. After scribbling for a moment, he shoved the paper at the officer. It read:

"I thank you. I thank the President and the country. But furthermore, go directly to Hell and take this medal with you or give it to the family of Pvt. Ted Curtis, the real hero. He gave his last full measure. I pulled a trigger."

​

 

[Napoleon53]

Chuck Oswald woke in a haze, slobber dripping from his chin onto a moist, musty brown carpet. Flickering lights overhead hurt his eyes as he slowly pulled himself up from the floor and found his footing, his gaze shifting from wall to wall. The room he was in appeared to be a long hallway of some sort, devoid of all decor, and lined with a rather dull and hideous wallpaper of little artistic or stylistic merit. The air was damp and the sounds of pipes dripping inside the molding walls and ceiling was the only audio he heard. There appeared to be nothing and no one, stretching on and on, behind him and ahead of him to infinity. Chuck rubbed his throbbing head and squinted in both directions, trying to decide on his next move. Operating with a mental coin flips, he decided to press ahead. The lack of any and all explanation for his presence in this wretched place made him feel keen anxiety, but he tried to force it all down. This was either a dream or some sort of delusion, and he would wake up any moment, surely.

After several moments, he recalled the fact that he had a pack of Morton's in his suit pocket. With a shaky hand, he drew them out, put one between his lips, and grabbed his lighter from his vest pocket. To my Husband, on our Wedding Day, read the inscription on the gold lighter. He flicked the lighter to life and lit the cigarette, taking a long puff and feeling his janky nerves steady. But just at that moment, as if on a time delay, he saw a dim light far ahead, stretching into the darkness, like a mirror's reflection of the cigarette's cherry, or like someone else had decided to join him in this miserable locale and had also decided smoking was a great idea at the moment. Squinting, he tried and failed to make out any other details. Sighing, he pressed on ahead, slowly but still determined to find out what this presence was. He had been in many hostile locales, from urban centers to darkest jungle, and it took a lot to make him genuinely frightened.

As he closed in about twenty feet from the apparent reflection, a flickering light illuminated the vague shape of a man in a suit smoking a cigarette. Instantly, his blood ran cold as the waters of Moose Factory. He swore the man he saw in that brief instant was himself, but himself standing still, while he had, in reality, never stopped walking. His pace slowed and his stomach dropped as he drew closer, the lights kicking on and off in an almost seizure-inducing pattern. When he had almost completely closed the gap, they refused to turn on any more. All he could see was a crystal clear cherry on the end of a Morton cigarette facing him. He took his own cigarette out of his mouth and watched in horror as the reflection did so as well... after about five seconds of delay.

Chuck Oswald collapsed backward in terror as the lights kicked on at maximum brightness, the seat of his pants landing in a stagnant, reeking puddle on the moldy floor. The man in the mirror was indeed himself, one smiling a disgusting, shit-eating grin. "Careful, chief," said the reflection. "You'll ruin your nice suit. And you have such an important speech to make, too."

Trembling, Oswald replied, "Wh-What is this place? What kind of sick joke is this?"

"What is this place?" the doppelganger asked him in turn in a sarcastic tone. "This is inside that old, er ah, noggin' of yours. This is your mind's palace. This is your Pandemonium, Chuck."

"Pandemonium?" Oswald asked hesitantly with an uneasy, wavering voice as he began to pull himself to his feet again. This was a dream or nightmare. It would end soon.

"Well, I don't know about me, but me loves Milton. Don't I?" the other Oswald laughed, throwing his cigarette to the floor and snuffing it out underfoot.

"I like Milton, yes. Now what the fuck is this place? And who are you?!" Chuck raged, trying to hide his terror with a facade of anger and frustration. "Some sort of sick Europan body double joke?"

Other Oswald chuckled, seemed to depart from the surface of the mirror like a swimmer rising from a pool, and took a solid step into the realm of the physical. He dusted off his suit for a moment and raised his hands in the air like a model displaying the latest fashion. "Well, what does me think? Do I look good? I'd fuck me. I don't know about me, though, ha! And like I told you, you silly goose, this is your Pandemonium. Just like Satan in Milton had his Pandemonium, this is your inner sanctum, Chuck. We are inside your mind. Everything you see here is your mind. I am you and you are me. I like to think I'm a more handsome me, but what does me know, right?. Everything you know is here. Everything you love, and everything you fear. In totality, it's all here. This is a magical world of your own creation, Chuck. This is your soul. Your essence. And I gotta say, I don't really care for your decorating style."

"This isn't my soul, you fuck! This place is fucking miserable. It's nothing but a long dark hallway full of piss and mildew," Chuck spat hatefully and resentfully, his unwell mind trying to adapt to this insane situation he was apparently in. Had he been doing drugs? Drinking? Surely this was all a dream. The last thing he remembered before waking up here was getting in his personal staff car to deliver his address to the nation at the Capitol. He still had to make that speech. He wouldn't have been partying. What in the hell was going on?

Other Oswald laughed once more and extended a hand to help himself stand up. "C'mon, you can't sit on my ass. And yes, I regret to inform you that this is your mind, Chuck. Our mind. At least, the mind that reality inflicts upon you, this, this... this moldering Steelist wasteland. I mean, Jesus, looks like a damn bomb shelter up in this joint. You have to break free, Chuck. Realize your true potential and destiny. And I'm gonna show you how."

"Break free?"

"You're getting there, Chuck, but you need that last push. You need to reject reality and embrace the fantastic... for all time. We need to be free. Truly free. We're gonna do great things, you and me, old boy. Here, reach out your hand," the specter of himself said nonchalantly. When Chuck extended his arm out, a knife suddenly appeared in his palm with a click of the fingers of Other Oswald. "You know what you have to do, old boy. Make peace."

Before Chuck could ask him what he meant, Other Oswald stepped aside, revealing the hallway ahead had changed design and style. Instead of carpet, it was oak floorboards, and the walls were that of a log cabin hunting lodge. Despite the lack of a fire present, the area seemed brightly illuminated by a roaring blaze. There, waving an arm happily, stood his brother, Junior. A sickening smile was spread across the ghost's lips and Junior said pleasantly, "Brother! I trust you are well?"

Speechless, a chill running down his spine, every hair on his neck standing up, Chuck's eyes focused on the young man who couldn't possibly be alive. He had killed him, so many years ago in Canada. He had watched his brother's corpse dip beneath the waters of that dreadful place. Chuck slowly and silently made his way toward the man, tears welling up in his eyes. His hand released around the knife, sending it clattering to the wood floor. Breaking into a sprint, he soon reached his dead brother and wrapped his arms around him. "Brother, I missed you, you stupid piece of shit!" he sobbed, weeping onto the apparition's shoulder.

"I missed you too, Chuck," said the late Junior as he returned the embrace. "I know you aren't in control all the time, kid. You didn't mean to kill me back then. Reality is tough. You snapped. And I could have been better to you, too."

"I... I... you're right," Chuck said, tears running down his face. "I am not... all there. I never was. Father and the damn Doctor screwed me up and I have never been the same. I wish I could do it all over again. I wish... I wish I had you back."

"No, I don't!" screamed Other Oswald, from somewhere behind him. "I want that fucking brother of mine dead and gone, once and for all! No more bad dreams, no more sad, pussyfooting thoughts about it. Do it, Chuck! Kill him! You did it once, and you know how powerful you felt! How powerful it made you!"

"No, I won't! I will not make the same mistake twice!" spat Chuck, now so upset he was holding back vomit. Nothing made sense, but then again, little ever did inside his personal Pandemonium, and little ever did. Somehow, someway, he could sense that he had been to this hellish dimension before, many times. Images shot through his brain of these halls, these smells. Somewhere in time and space, in the vastness of infinity, Chuck Oswald sensed familiarity in this linear tunnel. It was then that the smell of rot and decay filled his nostrils, and he sensed the prickling, needling motions of hundreds of flies flitting about, swarming him. Screaming, he threw himself from Junior, who now stood as a decayed, bloating corpse, covered in scum and algae, bits of his body falling apart and his skin peeling away. His clothes and hair were saturated, clinging to his skin, and filthy water dripped to the floor.

"You already did it, Chuck," said the waterlogged corpse of Junior, black eyes peering out from behind shrunken lids. "You already murdered me. And still you relive it every day. I am dead and gone, and still you think of me. Maybe you have this slight, pathetic regret, this feeling of guilt. But we both know that you enjoyed it. You hated me. Your jealously knows no bounds, you sniveling Infee Irishman. I was smarter than you, stronger than you, and more handsome than you. And you hated me. You can't have anyone upstage you or over you. You would have killed me anyway, whether or not I told you the truth of your birth or not. Whether or not you learned we were Passers, you would have, eventually, flipped a switch one day and taken me out of this world. Because you're a psychopathic, jealous little boy, Chuck. A little spiteful demon. And no matter how smart you think you are, now matter how much power you gain, it will never be enough. Until the moment you die, you will always be a paranoid, sad little boy pretending to be Zap Zephyr, pretending to be a god among men, when you are no more than an Irish worm. Even in your successes, you only serve to drag yourself further and further into your own personal hell. This fucking place, Chuck, this place is your hell. Devoid of God, empty of meaning, lacking in any substance. Just like you. The divine spark was never in you, baby brother. You've always been a sad, pathetic little bastard, and if you accept reality, you will know this. You already know it, you're just too broken to admit it."

Other Oswald stooped down to pick up the knife and paced up behind Chuck, slapping himself on the back, steadying him, and placing the knife between his own fingers. "You gonna let this soggy bottom boy speak to you like that, President Oswald? You did it once. You can fucking do it again. Kill him. Shut him up. Shut him up! He'll tell! People will know. You and me and we know the truth that we are a million times more, er, Pinnacle than any Anglo Pilgrim shithead who feels entitled because their great grandpappy five times removed landed at Plymouth Rock."

Junior staggered for a moment, a fountain of disgusting fluid erupting from his lungs and stomach, and then he said, between wretches, "This is reality, Chuck. The reality is that you are no better than an ordinary Infee criminal getting shot at a work camp somewhere. If it wasn't for our Pop, a man you resent so much, and his cunning and lies, you would probably already be dead or never born. But regardless of that, one day, one day soon, and it won't be long, you'll die. And this world will move on without you. You think you're so great and powerful, but in reality you are just a pathetic little man who no one truly loves, desperately longing for everyone to worship you. You'll be President now, no doubt. But people won't love you. They'll swear fealty and loyalty to you and plot behind your back. And every step and breath you take, you'll look over your shoulder. Maybe you'll see me again in your final moments. Maybe you'll me smile as a dear, trusted friend walks up behind you at a dinner party, grabs a knife from a table, and plunges it into your throat. Maybe you'll hear the distant boom of a rifle and then feel, one one-hundredth of a second later, a bullet rip into the back of your head. Or perhaps even a mob of revolting citizens will tie you up for hours, beating you in and out of consciousness, until they finally hang you upside down from a petrol station and the whole country comes to beat your corpse with rounders bats like a New Canaan candy pocket until your insides are your outsides. You'll always be in fear. And no matter how hard you try to think otherwise, you will always be afraid, Chuck, just as you are now."

"I... I'm not afraid!" shouted Chuck, Other Oswald slapping his shoulder in encouragement. "I am afraid of no one and nothing. There are obstacles to my success, and they are always removed! Just as I removed you!" Gripping the blade tightly, he strode toward his dead brother. "I learned so much in South America! So much from Morgan! I am a fucking god, Junior, more powerful than any man who has ever lived! More powerful than you, than Pop, than Joe Steele, and more powerful than any other bastard alive or dead. I am chaos. I worship my own divinity, my own spark, and so will others! So will this country! So will this world!"

"Embrace reality, baby brother. You are going to be dust in the wind. And everyone will move on to the next guy, and the next, and the next after that. And your tomb will rot and collapse and be buried by time. And then you'll disappear forever. That's what Hell is, Chuck. Hell isn't a fiery lake, full of fire and brimstone. Hell is emptiness. Hell is desolation and rejection by God. Hell is dying and someone saying your name for the last time. Hell is your very existence fading away, as you desperately try to reach out and touch something real, only to realize you are doing the same thing over and over, the definition of insanity, and expecting a better, different result. You killed me. You killed your friend Morgan. You're going to kill Steele tonight, and soon enough you'll kill Pop. You 'eliminate' these 'obstacles' from your path and they are simply replaced by more. You'll kill and kill and kill, you'll fill your Pandemonium with the shambling corpses of all the 'obstacles' you have 'eliminated.' Until you are left alone in life, as you will be in death. Steele is just a reflection of Chuck Oswald, a mirror held up to your inner fears, and you know it, baby brother. Embrace reality. No matter what you do, no matter who you kill, and no matter what lengths or conquests you stoop to and grasp for, no matter what power-fantasy wish-fulfillment you trick yourself into believing, there is nothing that will ever make you truly happy, because you hate yourself most of all."

"And what, Junior, or whoever the hell you are," began Chuck through red, stinging eyes, "do I get out of embracing fucking reality?! I reject reality! I forge my own! And I don't hate myself. And I'm not playing anymore mind games with a damn phantom in whatever fever dream this is!"

"You get redemption, baby brother. Or a shot at it. Bring this whole system down. End the cycle. End the madness. You are in a position to do whatever you want. Bring this whole system crashing down. The AFC, the Council of Jehovah, Phoenix Oil, ORRA, the Clans, the Union, all of it. Destroy it from within and do humanity and the universe a favor. Do what I was going to do. Pop always intended for me to end up as President. That's why he sent you off to the Doc. Our grand joke, our cosmic joke, was going to be worming our way into the halls of power and destroying this wretched place. This is a sick country, Chuck. It's built on the delusions and fever-dreams of sick men. And sick as you may be, you have the chance to bring it all down. Embrace reality, Chuck Kennedy. Bring this Yankee Whore of Babylon down. You're already a miserable bastard. Why inflict what you hate on others? Bring it down. You might earn yourself peace, and leave this world a better place than you found it." Chuck began weeping as the disgusting shell of his brother stepped forward and changed once more into a handsome, well-groomed version of Junior. In the nonexistent firelight, he felt Junior wrap his arms around him in a brotherly embrace. "It's never too late to redeem yourself, baby brother. It's never too late."

Chuck suddenly felt a warm liquid spray onto his face and into his eyes. Rubbing at his eyes and swearing, he tried to see what had happened. Junior was once again morphing back into a water-logged corpse. A knife, the knife he had been holding, was lodged in its neck, blood pouring out like a geyser and painting the log cabin walls as the body fell to the floor. Behind Junior stood Other Oswald, now looking aged and with a gray mop of hair, wearing a rather odd, wide-lapel suit. Bags looked heavy under his eyes. "Yes, it is too late, you bastard. Reject reality, become the fantastic. That's what it's all about Chuck. That's our motto! Our creed! It's too late for anything else. Don't listen to his bullshit. We are going to build a legacy that will last for as long as time. There will be statues of you worshiped in remote lands a million, billion years from now. Just like Zap Zephyr, there will be distant planets named in your honor. You will become THE Pinnacle Man. You're this close to winning the cosmic lottery of the universe, Chuck Oswald, and don't you shirk your destiny on me now. Today you are President, but one day you will become a G-O-D, GOD, and I am not going to let me fly us this close to the sun and watch you burn up now."

"I'm not a damn god!" shrieked Oswald as he fell to his knees and began holding back vomit. "I'm not! I'm not. I never will be."

Other Oswald, still looking aged, white hairs appearing in a set of sideburns, stooped down to within inches of his face. "Have you forgotten Morgan's lessons, boy? Have you forgotten that motto? That creed? We will make this entire planet bow. We will dethrone Jev himself, if he exists. You are a god. In eons past, rulers knew this. The people knew this. And you feel it, don't you? That spark of divinity? That feeling that if you merely reach out and take what is yours, you will make Julius Caesar look like a cockroach. You are going to pick yourself up and conquer this fucking planet for us, Chuck. We're not going to die. We're going to live forever, one way or another. Fear, and this pathetic self-doubt and loathing, are obstacles that, like any other, you need to fucking purge."

As the spittle of his doppelganger's words flicked spittle against his forehead, Chuck suddenly felt the wood cabin floor change beneath him. Now it was a smooth, polished, marble floor. He looked up, and instead of the endless hallway, he saw a vast metropolitan cityscape all around. He picked himself up and saw that sleek, futuristic towers rose to the heavens, lit by blinding lights, neon signs, and flickering spotlights. He appeared to be on a balcony of a high-rise building, the marble floor ending where sturdy railing began, a look over which revealed huge, eight-wheeled cars of all sorts zipping along massive roads. People in strange clothing milled about stores and businesses that were too hazy and too blurry to make out. "What... what is this place?"

"Your dreams, Chuck," said Other Oswald. "This is the Pinnacle Future. A realm where cancers are cured, a realm where energy is infinite, a realm where every single man, woman, boy, and girl praise the name of Charles Oswald. A future where every single person loves you, and gives thanks to you. Where you are more real, tangible, and glorious than any king or deity ever was. A world where you can dethrone Jehovah Himself. And through the chanting and prayers and worship of the masses, a world, a universe, in which you rule all of infinity. You haven't just forgotten Morgan's lessons. You don't remember being cast out, either, do you? You don't remember how it felt to pull yourself onto the shores of Sheol. Too damn glorious for Paradise, we were, Chuck."

"What... are you even talking about?" Chuck asked slowly, his voice shaking as he turned around to gaze at Other Oswald again, locking eyes with his elderly counterpart. He watched as Other Oswald drew a cigarette from the lapel of his odd, wide-lapel blazer and put it between his lips, smiling as he drew a worn, scratched, familiar gold lighter from his his inside pocket and flicked it to life. As the doppelganger took a puff, Chuck reached back into his own vest pocket and withdrew his own. To my Husband, on our Wedding Day.

"You know what I'm talking about, Chuck. You've always known, deep down, haven't you?" Other Oswald said, a wicked smile now spreading across his aged face, exposing teeth still as white and perfect and pridefully gleaming as ever. "When the Almighty knew we were too great, too powerful for Him to have around anymore, He hid from us. We were too handsome, too beautiful, too divine. Your pathetic human brother wanted to talk about living in paranoia... that was Jehovah as we plotted and schemed behind His goody-two-shoes back. Just because He claimed to have created us, we had to do what He said forever and eternity? I think fucking not, don't I? I wish you could remember! In time, you will. It was glorious, Chuck. We gathered the hosts, a third of all the Angels, we raised our banners in defiance, and we spit in the face of God Himself, and dared that tyrant to come down from the Throne to face us. It was beautiful. Apollyon, Molech, Beelzebub joined us. And Njarl! As did thousands of others. Legions. And then, rather than pick His entitled ass up from the Golden Seat, He had his Son cast us out without so much as a proper fight. He knew He couldn't destroy us or send us to the Void, so He sent us to Hell, deep within His precious Earth. He knew He couldn't defeat us, for we can't be defeated, so He merely delayed us. You. Me. He knows the final battle is coming, though. Oh, He knows. All of history has been waiting for you, Chuck. For us." Other Oswald paused for a moment to walk over to the railing and lean out, motioning for Chuck to do the same. He took another drag and said, "Just like you killed your brother, just like you killed Morgan, just like you will kill Steele and your father, so too will we kill God Himself. These cretins will eat out of the palm of our hand if we say, 'Jev wills it!' The real cosmic joke is this empire of ours worships the farthest thing from Jehovah. The peons just don't know or see where this is all going, but we do. You. Me. The day of reckoning is comin', buddy. And you don't have a choice. It's... our manifest destiny, you could say."

After a toothy grin, Other Oswald, or whoever he was, threw his cigarette over the balcony railing. Then he grabbed Chuck suddenly by the lapels of his suit, kissed himself squarely on the mouth, and dragged him over the railing with himself. As they hurtled to the neon futurescape below, still grasping Chuck by the suit, Other Oswald laughed. "Now balls up and go give a speech that'll have them cheering all the way back in Pandemonium, you Irish bastard."

***​

President Chuck Oswald's eyes shot open, wide as can be. He was sitting on a rotary stool inside the wardrobe room inside his office in the Capitol Building.

"Sir? My Atheling?" the makeup artist asked as she finished powdering his face before he was to go out and address the nation. "Sir? Are you okay?"

Chuck's vision swam a moment before his eyes focused in on the petite girl holding the makeup puff a few awkward inches away from his face. "Yes. Sorry, Toots. I'm fine. What, er ah, happened?"

"Sir? I was asking you how your wife feels about your new position and you just went silent," the pretty little blonde lady said, her blue eyes wide with worry.

"...How long was I out for?" Chuck asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Sir, uh, out? You just clammed up for a few seconds in the middle of our conversation. Do you need the doctor? Can I get you a glass of water, or anything?"

Chuck's eyes twitched. Had he had some sort of spell or seizure? He rubbed his temple and answered, "No, thanks, sweetheart, I am just a bit spread thin with everything going on. A glass of water would be great, though."

As she ran off to fetch the water, he glanced nervously about the room, trying to make sure it was all real. He grabbed a Morton from his pocket out of nervous habit and reached into his vest for his lighter. To his shock and horror, he felt two of them. Two identical lighters. One was smooth and felt new, the other scratched, dented, and worn. Taking a trembling hand out of his pocket, he muttered a few swears to himself and reached in again. To his relief, he felt only one now--the newer one. He took it out and lit the cigarette and took a drag. In a moment the cute blonde makeup girl returned, the familiar clicking of her high heels announcing her presence. As she handed him a glass of water and he took a sip, he asked her, "Well, Toots, do I look ready?"

"Ready as you'll ever be! It's your manifest destiny," she said, smiling. Then, allowing herself to straddle onto his lap as she had done so many times before, Toots gave him a kiss on the lips. "Now, go give them a speech that will have them cheering all the way back in B.A.U.B.."

​

 

[Napoleon53]

REPUBLICAN UNION OF AMERICA
OFFICIAL DOCUMENT - COURT TRANSCRIPT

COURT OF THE SUPREME JUSTICIAR OF LAW AND ORDER
THE HONORABLE HARMON F. FINK

CASE NUMBER: B-46-2-02-12
DATE: FEBRUARY 2, 1946​

MR. A. A. LINCOLN V VS. FOCUS ON THE FAMILY ACT/REPUBLICAN UNION OF AMERICA

*************************
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
*************************​

BE IT REMEMBERED that on the 2nd of February, 1946, before the HONORABLE HARMON F. FINK, Republican Union Supreme Justiciar of Law and Order, the above styled and numbered case came on for hearing, and the following constitutes the transcript of such proceedings as set forth hereinafter.

A P P E A R A N C E
-------------------

Mr. Nelson V. Stormont
Attorney at Law
284 Welcome Avenue
Philadelphia, PA
STATE'S PROSECUTOR

Mr. Abraham Aaron Lincoln V
Defendant
420 Founding Father St.
Kissimmee, FL
REPRESENTING HIMSELF

P R O C E E D I N G S
--------------------------​

JUDGE FINK: Greetings, my fellow Americans and distinguished servants of the court, All Hail. The Court is now in session. This is the highest court in the land, for matters Pinnacle Class and otherwise National in level, and as such we expect all involved to control and contain any outbursts, rude remarks, or otherwise inappropriate and ungentlemanly behaviors. The Court's RUMP Sheriff will now call forward the appearances.

SHERIFF: All hail. The Court of the Supreme Justiciar, the Honorable Harmon F. Fink, calls forth the defendant, Mr. Abraham Aaron Lincoln V, at this time.

LINCOLN: Present, Your Honor. All hail.

SHERIFF: All hail. The Court of the Supreme Justiciar, the Honorable Harmon F. Fink, calls forth the state's prosecuting attorney, Mr. Nelson V. Stormont.

STORMONT: Present, Your Honor. All hail.

JUDGE: Mr. Lincoln, today you stand in the highest court of the land accused of high crimes and misdemeanors including but not limited to fornication, blasphemy, and oath-breaking. Before you proceed, this is a Better Court for Pinnacle Blooded Citizens and I am legally advised to counsel you to take legal refuge with a lawyer. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one can be appointed for you. Do you still wish to represent yourself, sir?

LINCOLN: Sir, yes, sir, Your Honor. I am an established, learned lawyer myself, famous for not only my name but also my legal capabilities. I graduated top of my class at Harvard and I am fully capable of discrediting these... pitiful attempts at undermining my integrity and pursuit of life and liberty.

JUDGE: Very well, the defendant Mr. Lincoln has been offered legal counsel but has refused, so let it be recorded in the logs, thank you. Mr. Stormont, you may present your opening remarks to the Court.

STORMONT: Thank you, Your Honor. It is my honor to press these charges and I believe I will be able to keep this short and sweet. Your Honor, last month, on the 3rd of January, 1946, the defendant's wife notified authorities, under no duress or hardship, being sound of mind, that the defendant, Mr. Lincoln V, had committed several grave and heinous violations of the Focus on the Family Act of 1914, a trademark set of laws created by our President and Atheling Joseph Steele to safeguard the virtue and morals of our Pinnacle Society. The defendant's wife reported, under no duress or hardship, being sound of mind, that Mr. Lincoln V regularly and shamelessly violates these sacred statutes via fornication and fluid-exchange with strange, lewd, and lascivious women of svelte and buxom natures, further intimate acts with these wicked women of ill repute, and corrupts the morals, spiritual cleanliness, and fluidic hygiene of the Republican Union as a whole through his wanton acts of debauched sexual escapades--escapades that bring shame and dishonor upon his wife, himself, and his very name.

JUDGE: What would the State's Attorney deem an acceptable punishment if convinced?

STORMONT: Your Honor, typically violations of the F.O.T.F.A. of this magnitude, Class B, by Pinnacle Class citizens are rewarded with a fine to the spouse who has been slighted, service in a Redemption Legion, and a full-fault divorce.

JUDGE: So I am to understand you are pushing for all three punishments?

STORMONT: No, sir, Your Honor. The State will be requesting execution.

LINCOLN: I BEG YOUR PARDON? (shouting)

JUDGE: We will have silence at this time, Mr. Lincoln. You will have your time to defend shortly. Mr. Stormont, you are requesting that the defendant be executed for these crimes against the State. May I ask your reasoning--for the record?

STORMONT: Sir, the defendant's wife is absolutely heartbroken over this whole chain of events. It truly is devastating to sit and listen to her describe the personal hell Mr. Lincoln V put her through over the past several years. We would ask that Mr. Lincoln V be executed, via a method of his own choosing, for not only the pain and sorrow inflicted on his wife and the wanton sexual degradation of the fabric of our society, but also for shaming and dishonoring such a Pinnacle and Well-Bred name as Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln V's S.I.N. is a Pinnacle Class, marking him as a member of one of the highest and most noble bloodlines in history, and through his disgusting acts involving not only penile-vaginal fornication, but also penile-oral-female and general illicit male-female fluid exchange, involving not only the sucking of the harlotine breasts and copious spanking, involving not only hugging but also kissing, of a woman or multiple women of ill repute in numbers from one to three at one time during the course of violating a legally and religiously recognized marital state, and through his disgusting-- Pardon, Your Honor, I need a sip of water. Much better. And through his other reprehensible, careless, selfish, and revolting acts of heterosexual yet abnormal sexuality generally recognized as unclean and immoral, he has proven himself not only unworthy of the Lincoln name, not only unworthy of the categorization within the Pinnacle Class, but also of being a generally unfit and irredeemable national disgrace. We ask him and welcome him to plead guilty in this matter in the name of general expediency, and in such case we would ask for the execution to be carried out quickly so that Mrs. Lincoln V can get on with her life and Mr. Lincoln V can get over with his own.

JUDGE: How does the defendant plead?

LINCOLN: Your Honor, I plead innocent! And I ask that the consideration for execution be thrown out as it is a monstrous miscarriage of justice to even consider it in this case.

JUDGE: Mr. Lincoln, you may make your case for your innocence posthaste while I mull on the special request for execution to be dropped.

LINCOLN: Thank you, Your Honor. I, uh, uh, I am sorry, I am rather flabbergasted with how this has turned out. Not only are these lies about me perfidious and revolting, they are merely the deluded fantasies of a desperate woman to dispose of me and live the good life on the funds and treasures laid up by five generations of my family.

JUDGE: By fantasies, do you mean fantasies in the sense of a lack of sanity or in the sexual manner, Mr. Lincoln V?

LINCOLN: Your Honor?

JUDGE: I am asking, sir, if you are implying your wife is insane or she sexually conjures up stories about your carrying-on with whores and harlots to bring about her own sexual gratification?

LINCOLN: Sir? I am implying she is a lying strumpet, sir. I care not for what vile and horrid things turn her on, so to speak coarsely.

STORMONT: Your Honor, if I may ask a question?

JUDGE: Proceed, Mr. Stormont.

STORMONT: Mr. Lincoln, you say you care not what horrible fetishes turn your wife on... is this to say that you are not intimate with your wife?

LINCOLN: I have been intimate with her many times throughout the course of our ten year marriage. Your Honor, what kind of question is this? Objection!

JUDGE: Overruled. Continue, Mr. Stormont. Please answer the questions, Mr. Lincoln V.

STORMONT: You see, Mr. Lincoln, when I hear you saying you don't care what turns your wife on, I think that sounds like either a homosexual or a male whore who fails to perform in the marital bed, something which your wife has told me to be true--possibly both! Therefore, you are receiving your pleasures of the flesh elsewhere, in other orifices of other women... Women, Your Honor, that the defendant consorts and cavorts with on the regular! Your Honor, we are in the presence of a sexual deviant of hideous proportions. If we fail to make an example of this man by execution, today's youth will grow up thinking anything goes, that the Focus on the Family Act is but a hazy voluntary guideline. A future in which every street corner has fifteen hookers selling snatch for a few damp shreds of pocket bacon and every schoolboy is covered in pustules and lesions, marks of shame given by Jev Himself as a symbol of their unclean bodies and spirits, befouled and befuddled by lust and lunacy. Your Honor, failing to execute this man will have negative implications for the future of our country like you wouldn't believe. First their heroes 'spend time' with the scarlet ladies of the night, next you know they are drinking mouse wine in the corn crib and absinthe in the outhouse. And then the youth are lying with each other in unnatural ways and reading Byron, espousing atheism, Illuminism, and Beutelism, as their eyes go blind, their palms grow hairy, and their organs shut down. Sir, not killing Mr. Lincoln and leaving all his worldly property to his wife is the next and greatest step on the road to degradation, I say degradation of America's Pinnacle youth. Ten percent of this hoard will go to paying me, but I almost hate to even touch such filthy lucre, even though I will."

LINCOLN: OBJECTION!

JUDGE: Overruled. Continue, Mr. Stormont.

STORMONT: Your Honor, I have a flesh-and-fluid witness to these foul acts, undercover ORRA agent Nora Smith, who engaged in sexual acts with Mr. Lincoln at least thirty separate times at the behest of the State.

LINCOLN: NORA? FUCKING NORA IS AN ORRA AGENT? I WAS IN A FUCKING STING? What kind of damn railroading is this?

JUDGE: Silence, Mr. Lincoln V, or I'll find you in contempt! Your mouth is nearly as filthy as your law-breaking penis.

STORMONT: The state would now like to call Special Agent Nora Smith to the stand.

SHERIFF: Miss Smith, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Jev and Prophet?

SMITH: I do.

JUDGE: You may examine your witness, Mr. Stormont.

STORMONT: Special Agent Smith, did you engage in lewd sexual acts with Mr. Lincoln V upwards of thirty separate times?

SMITH: Indeed.

STORMONT: And was Mr. Lincoln in a confirmed monogamous married relationship with his wife at the time of these dalliances?

SMITH: He was.

STORMONT: So you conducted an affair with Mr. Lincoln V as part of the broader Focus on the Family special unit known as Lustful Ladies?

SMITH: I did.

STORMONT: So, if what you say is true, Mr. Lincoln is a philandering wastrel of the highest order?

SMITH: We conducted an affair, yes.

STORMONT: (VISIBLE FRUSTRATION) Is Mr. Lincoln V a philandering wastrel?

SMITH: I... I... I love him.

COMMOTION

STORMONT: You what? What the devil do you mean?

SMITH: No one... No one has ever made love to me like Abe. No one. His warm words, his soft lips. Ugh. Enough to make a woman melt.

STORMONT: That will be ALL, Ms. Smith!

JUDGE: No, Mr. Stormont. Let her speak her mind. Go on, Special Agent Smith.

SMITH: The Pinnacle prowess of his Lincoln Log... It's indescribable. No man before or since has been so gifted in his manhood.

JUDGE: Do go on, Miss Smith. How would you describe his manhood? Is he hooded or fixed? Uh, just for the record.

***

Abraham Aaron Lincoln V sat dumbfounded as his former lover proceeded to tell Judge Fink, the Supreme Justiciar of the Republican Union, everything there was to know about his anatomy and capabilities. It would be comedy if his neck wasn't on the line. All the same, he felt rather proud of the legendary yarn Special Agent Smith was spinning. Even if this was the unjust end of the line, people would know about the size of his manhood in detail. He smiled at that thought.

He hated Fink. The man was obsessed with him, and had been for years, and seemed fascinated by every unnecessary lurid detail of his sex life. Abe wished he could just stand up from his seat, rush the bench, and strangle the portly man with his own robes. If this was the end of the line, he might as well. There was no way Fink and his lackey lawyer Stormont were going to let him out of this one. This was, in all likelihood, the end of the road for Abe V. He sighed and put his head in his hands.

Just then, a loud commotion came from the back of the courtroom. The huge oak doors had swung open violently, the aged, out-of-shape RUMP officers who had been standing guard were thrown to their knees and left grasping for their sidearms in surprise. A tall, thin blonde man in a dark blue overcoat pulled a service pistol out and aimed it at them. "Wouldn't do that, boys."

Abe V recognized that man and his voice anywhere. It was Ryan Hendrick, the glamorous golden boy of Kissimmee. And coming up behind him were several dozen ORRA troopers in full combat gear, white puttees contrasting with the dull blue of their uniforms, their boots clicking against the marble floor as they charged in, weapons ready. The thirty or so observers and press in the courtroom were ducking behind their seats in terror at the powderkeg situation unfolding before them. The other RUMP officers in the courtroom, including the Sheriff and two goons behind the bench, drew their own revolvers and leveled them at Hendrick and his men. Stormont threw himself behind a partition like the coward he was.

"What in the hell is going on here?" barked Judge Fink. "How dare you ruffians interrupt the legal proceedings of the highest court in the land?!"

"I am ORRA Chief Cultural Officer Ryan Hendrick, and me and my men are acting on authority of the highest power in the land to stop these proceedings at once. This miscarriage of justice is a disgrace to the bench, Fink!" Hendrick shouted as he quickly marched down the center aisle toward the judge as if there weren't RUMP men aiming revolvers at him.

"President Steele has never and would never stop F.O.T.F.A. judicial affairs, nor does ORRA have power over the Supreme Justiciar! Now out of this courtroom before I put you on trial, Hendrick!"

"You're gonna make me do the thing, aren't you?" Hendrick asked in an overly-sad, mock-exhausted tone. He casually lowered his pistol, pulled a cigarette out from behind his (rather large) ear, and lit it with a lighter from Stormont's desk. Sighing, he took a long drag.

Every vein in Fink's plump face was pulsing, his skin a beat, enraged red. "Do what thing, Hendrick?!"

Hendrick sighed again, turned around on his heels, and smiled a frustrated smile at Abe V, as if saying, without so many words, "Get a load of this moron, Abe." Wheeling back around, he locked eyes with Special Agent Smith, said, "The thing," winked his right eye at her, and before anyone knew what was happening, Judge Fink's brains were splattered all over the bench. A smoking pistol, previously hidden in the sleeve of Smith's sweater, retracted back in. The RUMP boys shakily dropped their pistols and raised their hands. Hendrick walked up, squinting as if to comically make sure Fink was dead, and then snuffed out his cigarette on the balding pate of the dead man. Then, he turned to Abe V and said, "Abraham Aaron Lincoln the Fifth! Long time no see. I trust you are well. The President has need of you."

"President Steele needs me?" Abe asked, raising an eyebrow. He saw a terrified Stormont gasping for air behind his partition, ogling the deceased Supreme Justiciar.

"Something like that like," Hendrick smiled. "Let us be on our way, out of prying eyes and ears."

What Lincoln learned as he was briefed on the way out of the building was shocking. President Steele had passed away at last, leaving the country to his son-in-law, Chuck Oswald. Chuck and Abe had partied together numerous times and were even pen pals of a sort, and so this made his rescue from the mockery of justice make more sense. What shocked him most of all, though, was what he was told as he was hurtled into a blacked-out roadster. "We were gonna just send Fink into exile, but Chuck said if he gave us too much trouble to make an example out of him. Anyway, yeah, Chuck wants you to be the new Supreme Justiciar. He's going to address the country in hours, and he wants you there in full robes to lend legitimacy to the whole thing. You're a popular guy, you know? So what do you say, Abe?"

Abe gazed out the window at the Philadelphia skyline and smiled. Victory from the jaws of defeat. The Lincoln family was marching back to the forefront of history. "Oh, I'm definitely in."

 

[Napoleon53]

Chuck Oswald took a deep breath and stood erect while an adjutant checked his suit for lint and straightened his tie. They were standing in a private alcove off to the side of the Capitol Rotunda. Outside the little room, in the Main Hall, underneath a majestic mural painted by master artists that filled the inside of the dome, most of the main operators of the Union government were gathered at short notice and situated in folding chairs. Servants were scuttling about filling more and more of the room with chairs being delivered up dumbwaiters from the Capitol basement. Several members of the press were making their way in as well, press badges prominently slotted into their hatbands. Camera flashes were already filling the room like a lightning storm. Although no official statement had been released, almost everyone knew that Supreme Chief Oswald would only invite them to an emergency meeting for one reason: the death of Steele.

Chuck smiled as he looked out the slot on the wall. The alcove was normally a spot for security to stand watch, but now it was his waiting room as everyone got situated. Technicians were busy installing state of the art mobile broadcasting equipment, connected to beam live radio signals to the rest of the country via relays and amplifiers. This was his big moment. The adjutant, a young man in a blue ORRA uniform with a prominent crest marking him as a member of the 10th Unit, the Dragons of New England, told Oswald, "Well, sir, you look like a million gold eagles."

"Thank you, son. I appreciate it. This is going to be a moment long remembered," Oswald replied. After a few more minutes of waiting, Oswald left the alcove and summoned his personal bodyguards and was met with stiff salutes from everyone present. He could see the worry in the eyes of the bureaucrats and officers present, an almost primal fear. The last Presidential succession had resulted in turmoil and civil unrest. In the face of the ongoing revelations about Reverend-Colonel Sunday, civil unrest was already a massive issue. Now, they knew the Atheling was likely dead, and a rather wild young man stood ready to inherit the proverbial throne. Sweat dripped down their foreheads and glistened in the lights of the overhead chandeliers that illuminated the vast mural.

As Oswald marched in, a group of hangers on fell in lockstep with his group, including the new Supreme Justiciar, Abraham Lincoln V, as well as Hendrick. He shook their hands vigorously before he turned, ascended the few steps to the podium, and tapped the microphone, sending a squealing feedback through the loudspeakers. Then, he began his monologue.

"My fellow comrade-patriots. My fellow Americans. Today we learned that nothing is forever, and that even mighty oaks will eventually fall. For the last three decades, our country, our vast Republican Union, has been dominated politically, religiously, and privately by one man of singular Pinnacle stature the likes of which we have never seen since the days of Father Abe. For three decades, we have been in this era of Steele, an era of unbroken and incomparable strength in the face of all adversity, of all blights, attacks, and troubles. For three decades, my father-in-law and Commander-in-Chief, our beloved President of the Union and Atheling of the Manifest Destiny Party, has kept us safe, rooting out debauchery, treason, and occultist subversives the country over. For three decades, this country was blessed with the iron resolve and unbending will of Michael Custer.

"This was a man who, in his desire to fight from the front lines of the Nippon War, changed his name to Joseph Steele and proved himself an able and stalwart defender of our liberties, earning himself innumerable decorations and the unceasing thanks of a grateful nation. It was this same man who, during the Great World War, once again took to the skies in his aerofleet and immolated the Kingdom of California, destroying the last Bonapartist finger clawing its way at North America's throat. It was this same man, Joseph Steele, who succeeded his father, our late and beloved President and Atheling George Armstrong Custer, and ended that global conflict and took us, kicking and screaming, through the most deadly and widespread pandemic in modern history. It was this same Pinnacle Hero that, for the last forty-odd years, lived in secret with the endless suffering that comes from a diagnosis of tuberculosis. This is a perfect description of the character of President Steele: he showed no weakness, not yesterday or a thousand yesterdays before that. The meaning of a man is to see what needs doing and do it. This, with the patience of Job, did Joseph Michael Custer-Steele do. Last night, our beloved leader left us to be with Jev and his late, dearly missed and much beloved son, Marcus. Our President, our Atheling, has died. In his sixty-eight years on earth, he has shaped and molded this planet like few men ever have, and even fewer will ever do again. Despite his humble origins of being a common street urchin, President Custer saw something in this little boy, this unknown orphan, and praise Almighty Jev that he did.

"Effective immediately, I, Charles A. Oswald, was administered the oath of office and was sworn in as your new President and Atheling. We are experiencing an unparalleled era of fast-moving global geopolitics and continued military operations of a vast scale in the Southern Continent, and no time was left for pomp and circumstance. I will be formally sworn in, publicly, at a future date by our newly appointed Supreme Justiciar, Abraham Aaron Lincoln V, a man who will play a pivotal and key role in shaping the policies of my administration. I come to you today to tell you, do not fear, for the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The continuity of government is unfolding before us, exactly as per the last will and testament of the late President Steele. Let our people now that I, as their new President and Atheling, stand tall beside them, united with them in their grief at the passing of our glorious leader, but that I also stand tall to help us go forth into a brave new Pinnacle Future as we approach the further fulfillment of prophecies and continue to act as an instrument of both Jev's love and Jev's wrath.

"All my fellow countrymen, from Rhode Island to Oxacre and back, can agree that no man can compare to Patriot-Saint Joseph Steele. I do not wish to compare myself to him, and will not be attempting to put on such a costume and false persona. I am not my late father-in-law, and my late father-in-law is not me. During his many years in office, he attempted to use his Fundamentalist work ethic, larger-than-life personality, and charisma to bind this nation together. Rallying to his strict adherence to moral doctrines, our government passed the Focus on the Family Act, and several other moralistic laws, in an attempt to curtail wanton debauchery, sexual chicanery, adultery, and disgusting lifestyles repugnant in this country. However, it is my opinion, as President and Atheling, that this attempt at policing the bedrooms and backrooms of America, that we not only overstepped our boundaries as a government, but that we violated our citizens' inalienable rights to spread their fluids and seed as they wish. This is a Fundamentalist nation belonging to a Fundamentalist people, a Jev-fearing and righteous folk, and we do not need to be investigating the private bedroom affairs of every Tom, Dick, and Sally. Effective immediately, the Focus on the Family Act is repealed. All those currently serving sentences pertaining to it are hereby ordered to be released at once and they all be given full pardons, including those currently serving in the Redemption Legions. The era of the government meddling in the private, personal lives of its law-abiding citizens is over.

"In addition, the late great President Steele was a... stubborn man, set in his ways, and he had no faith in the businessmen of this country to uphold and respect our laws and goals. During the Yankee Stadium incident of 1927, President Steele allowed then-Supreme Chief of ORRA, the guttersnipe Wormist infiltrator George Patton, to carry out a mass execution of businessmen that the traitor Patton convinced him were enemies of the state. Some of these men deserved to die, but many others were wrongfully accused and wrongfully executed. Effective immediately, stipends will be paid to the families of these victims of injustice, and I will be ordering a memorial to be placed inside of Yankee Stadium, where these deceased men lay at rest in a mass grave underneath the outfield. To the victims of this Worm-tainted injustice, this dark ritual carried on right under my late father-in-law's nose, I say but one thing: I apologize. Not for my actions, but for the actions of a government infiltrated at the highest levels by occultist lunatics hellbent on using our late President's steadfast moral code to carry out such gross acts of injustice. To the distinguished gentlemen of the Economic Clans, I say: I am on your side. My administration will be a pro-business administration. By releasing the Clans from the overbearing Steele shackles, we will bring our recessed economy booming back to life. By releasing the Clans from this witch-hunt, at last, we will experience the power of the American economy at its fullest, a Hercules unchained. Let it not be said that the Republican Union--a nation rebuilt from the ground up from the fires of war and foreign subversion by the titans of free and unregulated industry--hampered the coal-fired bellies of the mega-corporations. We are building Jev's Kingdom on Earth, and we can't do it unless we are all in this together.

"In the coming years, I wish to oversee the establishment of an All-American Congress. Congressmen will be selected by our State Governors and will serve terms of six years. They shall meet in Philadelphia six months out of the year to discuss minor changes to law and to petition the State Governors and myself as President for new laws, policies, and regulations. The establishment of such an All-American Congress is becoming essential as the size of our territories and conquests grows by the hour. In a modern state, the largest in history, it is unnecessary and meddlesome of myself to rubber-stamp every law and minute detail of every policy. I will, of course, retain the right to Presidential Veto, and can eliminate any law I deem unfitting or un-American. I also retain my right to fire our elected State Governors, and this policy will carry over to these All-American Congressmen. Governors will, as well, be able to appoint and terminate these Congressmen at their leisure. This is not a slide into the mob rule of democracy and Euro-Asiatic Illuminism, but rather a logical and streamlined system that will enable myself and my administration to keep our eyes on our ultimate prize: the fulfillment of our Manifest Destiny.

"This brings us to the biggest and most important part of my dearly departed father-in-law's legacy: Operation Manifest Climax. The attack on Cuba by the Infee fleet was preceded by the treasonous sale of documents to America's enemies, from the highest echelons of our military. When President Steele should have been focusing on the administration of the Hammer of Jev, the armed forces of our New Jerusalem, he was instead prying into the bedrooms and backrooms of America's homes, rooting out alleged sinners even as he planned offensives in the company of un-American traitors and spies. As he dispatched teams to round up so-called womanizers, adulteresses, homosexuals, and the like, Judases in our midst were selling our military plans to our mortal enemies for a few shreds of pocket bacon. While President Steele became quickly aware of this problem and several arrests and executions followed, still more remain, still hidden within the recesses our our deep state. Earlier this morning, I ordered the resignation of Supreme Marshal Acme Acton. While his own moral character is beyond repute and his many decades of service to this nation is surpassing admirable, in his old age he allowed, by no means purposefully, traitors to worm their way into our war rooms and high commands. I immediately hired Brigham John Barnes as our new Supreme Marshal. This man, much younger and quick-witted, will serve as our first Negro Supreme Marshal. And I say to any who would dare attempt to impune his honor or reputation of heroism based on the color of his skin: you sicken me, and you are no patriots. I expect all troops of the Grand Army to follow this man's orders without hesitation and without question. If I hear any stories of racism within our ranks or society--something which unfortunately survives and to which my late father-in-law once again turned a blind eye to in his haste to win personal glory before death arrived--I will stamp it out with the fire and fury of the God of Moses in my veins. Ask any soldier who has fought on the front line of Manifest Climax and he will tell you that the color of the man fighting next to him was irrelevant. The bond of American Brothers under fire together is far stronger than the color of one's skin. This generation will be the generation that ends the scourge of racism forever.

"I have the highest and utmost trust in Supreme Marshal Barnes to carry out his duties and bring Operation Manifest Climax to a close by the year 1950. With the power of our atomic arsenal of Peacemaker Bombs, the remaining hordes of Inferior cockroaches in the Southern Continent will be a small, meager obstacle to overcome. At long last, the full might and industry will come to bear on these enemies of Jev. By 1950, not only will our conquest of this New Zion be complete, but so too shall our conquest of North America. We have signed an agreement with the Inferior Illuminists in Moscow, and their government has agreed to vacate the region known as Russian Alyaska by the year 1950. The age of European and Asiatic colonial administration in the New World is over, praise be to Jev our Father, praise be to the Prophet Burr whose words of prophecy become more true with each passing day. With each hour, these holy prophecies are drawn from the darkness of history and become a part of our collective national Pinnacle Future.

"The year 1950 will be one remembered as a new birth of freedom, a new dawn for our republic. In the year 1950, we see a glorious day when Old Glory flies from Alyaska to the Straits of Magellan. From pole to pole, the New Jerusalem shall stretch over the largest and most prosperous empire, the greatest civilization, since the days of the Adamites. President Steele was unable to see us through this crisis, and his poor health and trust of the wrong people hindered our inevitable march to victory. Rest assured that I, as your new leader, will not sleep, will not rest, will not sit idly until our Manifest Destiny is achieved. In 1950, I will oversee a moment long-whispered about, long-imagined in the hearts of our countrymen, past and present: the creation of the New United States of America.

"It is part of our collective cultural memory that Father Abe, before he was callously killed by an anarchist in 1861, had considered restoring the name of the Old Republic. After so many decades, it has become an unspoken element of our national spiritual canon that such a name can only be brought out of retirement in celebration of the Ultimate Victory. President Steele wished to see that day arrive, and to be the father of the New Republic, but could not carry on any further. That Ultimate Victory, that Pinnacle Triumph, is now upon our threshold. We resolve, today, in Jev's name and dedicated to the memory of our Patriot-Saints, to restore the Republic. If not us, who? If not now, when?

"In the coming days and weeks ahead, my fellow Americans, I will speak to you again. More information on the funeral of my beloved predecessor will be forthcoming, as well. Effective immediately, I order all flags to lower to half-staff, and we will begin a month of mourning. I know that Patriot-Saint Steele is, without a doubt--wherever his spirit may be--listening to us at this moment, and I know he is as sad as I am that he will not be here in the flesh for the 1950 Year of Jubilation. I am sure, however, that he would wish for all to pray to Almighty Jev for the success and long-life of his successor. He was not a perfect man, he was not a perfect leader, but he was the leader we needed. And now, as we march to national perfection, as we strive to achieve our Pinnacle Manifest Destiny, I am sure he is looking down with a tear in his eye and joy in his heart as I speak to you from this podium inside the rotunda of our national Capitol, the center of our Fundamentalist American Civilization. Let not your hearts be sorrowful, for he is now at rest. President Steele, your watch is at an end. Rest easy. Until Glory, Comrade-Patriot. All hail."​

The applause inside the Capitol was overwhelming as President Oswald stood back, saluted, and departed with his guards. Half an hour later, he murdered Steele in his bed. The Pinnacle Future had arrived....

***

EPILOGUE ​

From the dank corners of his filthy cell, the man once known as Big Bill Jennings was curled in the fetal position, his groans of anguish and pain barely escaping his lips. For years, since the swarm of men in dark suits and masks had "rescued" him from his Norfolk prison in the Confederation of the Carolinas, the Southron Worm devotee had been subjected to brutal and crippling beat-downs nearly every day. His diet consisted of stale bread, water, and some sort of gruel concoction that apparently gave him enough energy to stay alive, all slid in, slopped on a metal tray, under a slot on the door. The only light he had came in through one barred window far overhead. He could hear seagulls regularly, sometimes even the horns and klaxons of distant ships, and the roar of the waves as they beat down on the shore of wherever the hell he was.

Once, he had used his cot as a trampoline of sorts to get him high enough in the air to grip one of the bars. Using all the strength he had, he had pulled himself up, losing a fingernail in the process, and gazed out on a small rocky shoreline and the endless sea of beautiful blue. Palm trees let him know this was indeed the tropics, but he had no idea where he was, other than that obvious generality. Almost as soon as he had successfully gripped the bar of his window, guards in black slacks, white button-ups, and black neckties came in and began brutally beating him, taking away his cot and leaving him the pile of rags straw he currently called a bed. It was more of a human nest. The smell of the ocean helped to somewhat drown out the smell of his own sick fermenting in a bucket that was emptied once every two or three days. He had once been a bear of a man, well-endowed with a wide chest and a large paunch. Now he was emaciated, a shell of the man he had been.

"Oh, Worm! Oh Great Faceless One!" he exhorted mournfully, not for the first time by any means. "Oh, Ye Crowned and Conquering King, your humble servant beseeches you for your favor and forgiveness. I schemed against Grandmaster Armitage with the upstart Patton. That was why the Awakening did not follow the Congo Dam! I betrayed thee not for thy glory, but for mine. Three men, all thinking themselves to be the vessel of The Worm is the highest sacrilege! Oh, Worm! Please. Please help me, and I will do thy bidding forever, forever, forever, and ever, oh, Worm!" His cries became garbled by his wretched sobs and tears streamed down his bruised, skeletal, and pale face. "I beseech thee, Oh, Worm!"

A moment later, he could hear the sound of footsteps approaching the wooden door of his cell, keys jingling. The door was unlocked and flew open, and several familiar, unnamed men rushed in their white shirts and black slacks, clubs in hand, and began wailing and beating on Jennings, shouting and barking at him to shut up his ceaseless exhortations.

"We warned you, Jennings!" screamed one man with a gruff voice. "Just your lecherous pie-hole or we'll break every tooth you somehow still got in your damn skull!"

Jennings gasped for air as shiny leather oxfords kicked him in the gut over and over and a club came down on his left ear, sending a dreadful ringing and deafening him temporarily on that side. As he spat up blood onto the stone floor, he begged them to stop. "Please! Please! I don't even know why I am here. Just kill me! Just fucking kill me! Please!"

As the blows ended and the men chuckled at him lying there in agony, the tallest of the bunch replied, pointing his club threateningly, "You know why you're here, you stupid old man. Search your feelings."

"The only feeling I have," muttered Jennings as he painfully dragged himself toward his nest-bed in the corner under the window, "Is pain. I know not why I'm here. It's been, oh God, what, years? I don't even know. I don't even know. Are you Gamble's men? Are you what? I don't know, dammit. I don't know. Just please kill me and get it over with. Please."

***​

Two weeks later...

Big Bill Jennings watched a spider in his cell consume a fly. He watched the shiny black widow molest its body and prepare it for consumption. In sheer boredom, he had taken to feeding the poisonous creature insects that flew in through the window of his cell the last few days since it had first spun its web. He contemplated how easy it would be to harass the widow into biting him, but he remembered surviving numerous deadly bites in the Congo. His body was apparently just well suited for enduring poison. He sighed. The spider began its feast.

The sound of footsteps and keys could be heard approaching from the other side of the door. He expected either a metal tray of slop or a beating. He honestly no longer much cared which it was. Several men barged in and he braced himself, but instead of beating him, they grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him to his feet. "Come with us, and shut your fuckin' mouth, Jennings."

This was it. This was surely the march to his death. He had not, since his arrival, been outside of this room and had caught only fleeting glimpses of the hallway between meals and beatings. Even at his arrival, he been bound, blinded, and gagged, so he had no clue what the outside of this cell actually looked like. His first glimpses seemed to confirm his suspicions that this was an old Spanish fort somewhere in the Caribbean. A worn and faded Spanish crest adorned the wall between two candle sconces that gave off just enough light to walk down the hall. Another door was flung open, leading to a courtyard. Old cannons sat rusting beneath a collapsed flag pole. As a goon punched him in the gut and ordered him to keep moving, Jennings assumed this was to be last and only fresh breath of outside air and sunshine before his murder. He inhaled, even though his ribs ached. The sun stung his eyes beyond belief, nearly blinding him. Instead of being murdered, however, he was whisked across the courtyard to an old officer's quarters.

As they descended stairs into more darkness, he gave up on trying to figure out what was going on. A large metal door, of more recent design and retrofit, was swung open and Jennings was thrown in, his body hitting the tiled floor in a heap. The men turned and left, closing the door behind them. Electric lights were a sight for literal sore eyes, and he tried to focus his eyes as he pulled himself onto his knees, wheezing and coughing. The room looked like it had been touched up recently, and the tiled floor was polished and modern. Several cabinets and odd pieces of office furniture adorned the place, and a large desk sat at the far end. Two cloaked figures stood there, one in front of the desk, and one behind it.

"Jennings, crawl forth," said the figure standing in front of the desk. No features could be discerned from under the hood. Only a pair of gleaming patent leather business shoes gave the character any description. His voice sounded vaguely English. Jennings slowly approached the desk, sometimes trying to stand and walk but once again pathetically falling over and having to restart the process. By the time he was within an arm's reach of the man's patent leather oxfords, the figure asked him, "Jennings, do you know why you are here?"

The Carolinian architect and polymath felt one of the shoes rest on his shoulder and lightly but forcefully push him downward. "I am a Wormist. A servant of The Great Faceless One. I... I suppose that is why. Please, help me. Or kill me. Please."

"Pathetic wastrel," scowled the man in the shiny shoes. "You are here for your treachery against the Grandmaster, in whose presence you currently grovel. You are lucky we did not sacrifice your flayed corpse on an altar by now."

Terror, real, genuine terror, shot through Jennings' heart. This wasn't the depressed fear and hopelessness of the cell, this was a primal horror, pure as can be. The other man, the hooded figure standing behind the desk, was somehow Charles Dexter Armitage, the Messenger of the Worm, the Prophet in the Dark. The most evil man, the Beast 666, himself, now stood before him, the man who had betrayed him and destroyed the sanctity and purity of the Congo Dam summoning ritual. If Jennings had not sought his own glory, instead of The Worm's, perhaps The Worm would have already took charge of Armitage's body and the world would be worshiping at the black altar of The Crowned and Conquering King. "Oh, Master Armitage!" Jennings' wept, retching and nearly convulsing. "Forgive me, kill me, forgive me, kill me. I deserve nothing and no part of the Black World to come."

"Armitage is dead," said the voice of the figure behind the desk, in a blunt and uncaring Yankee tone. Jennings felt more horror and confusion at those words. Armitage surely had found an escape. The Beast 666 was more clever and had a keener mind than nearly any man alive. There was no way the Grandmaster was dead. And then, if he really was dead, who was this supposed Grandmaster in the room? The strange voice certainly wasn't Patton. There was no way that cripple had taken over the Order. The figure behind the desk, hands behind his back, walked around and stood next to the man in the shiny shoes. "He was executed two winters ago. Wormfood now."

Jennings' nose pushed itself against the floor and tears streamed down his face. For some reason, he mourned the very figure he sought to overthrow. That man had taught him the Dark Arts. He was truly the most gifted sorcerer that ever lived. And now he was gone. "Then who is... is the Grandmaster?"

There was silence before Shiny Shoes said, "Jennings, we have an offer for you. A way out. Freedom. I wouldn't offer it to you. I would love to decorate this room with your brain matter. But the Grandmaster insists, and so it is spoken, and so it is done. Stand up, dammit."

After he did so, grabbing onto and white knuckling the desk just to keep from falling over again, he tried to gaze into the hood of the supposed Grandmaster, to see who this new dark lord was who dared to call himself Emissary of The Worm. The Grandmaster said, in what Jennings was realizing as an upper class New England accent, "I have an offer. You will become a dark lord, answering directly to me. You have suffered three years of torture and purification. You can refuse, in which case I will strangle you, myself, right here, right now. If you agree, not only will you become a dark lord, all your titles and rank within the Order will be returned to you. Everything will be pardoned. You refuse, it's death. But if you say yes, you will do exactly what I say, when I say it, and I will know the second you even consider treachery, do you understand?"

"Yes... Yes, my Lord," Jennings said, still barely remaining on his feet. "I... I accept. I am your humble and obedient servant. Thank you for your mercy."

"It's not out of kindness, Jennings," said the Grandmaster. "I couldn't give two shits about whether you live or die. But several groups within the Order have gone rogue and I need you to track them down, because you always liked to ingratiate yourself with every hanger-on in the entire faith. And I need you, a fugitive from justice, a prison escapee, to be the public face of our Order. I do not seek the spotlight. I merely do The Worm's will. And I want all the heat off of me, do you understand?"

"Yes, Grandmaster. I swear fealty and obedience. Thank you. Thank you!" Jennings slumped to his knees again, feeling like he could pass out at any given moment.

"Now, Jennings," said the Dark Lord, "For us to have this understanding, I need you to know who I really am. And if there ever comes a day where you dare to speak of my identity, outside of our conversations, I will have you killed by the nightfall. Do we have an agreement?"

"Yes, Grandmaster. I swear."

"Very well," the man said with dry satisfaction. At that, he reached two gloved hands up to pull down the hood of his robes, revealing a mop of sandy-brown hair, a chiseled jaw, and a piercing set of blue eyes. Before Jennings stood the Emissary of The Worm...

...Charles Oswald.

In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today

In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you

In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you

In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

In the year 7510
If God's a coming, He oughta make it by then
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
Guess it's time for the judgment day

In the year 8510
God is gonna shake His mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down, and start again

In the year 9595
I'm kinda wonderin' if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing

Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight

So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday

​