{"id":3735,"date":"2015-11-21T01:33:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-21T09:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harperkingsley.net\/blog\/?p=3735"},"modified":"2023-10-17T23:37:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T06:37:12","slug":"he-was-the-man-in-black-the-stolid-face-of-grinding-bureacracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/he-was-the-man-in-black-the-stolid-face-of-grinding-bureacracy\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;He was the man in black. The stolid face of grinding bureacracy&#8230;&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For A Little While sideshot: He was the man in black. The stolid face of grinding bureaucracy, telling the proletariats that they needed to live a certain way or a very stern &#8220;Or Else&#8221; was implied.<\/p>\n<p> Some incarnation of Phil had been walking around since the beginning of the organization, way back in the dark days of S.H.I.E.L.D., of S.W.O.R.D., of A.T.L.A.S., or of I.R.I.S. Every organization as far back as memory reached had had their own version of Phil. His genotype has existed since the beginning. And with the merging, there were hundreds of Phils filling the hives beneath the city.<\/p>\n<p> They were sent out to handle the troubles of the agencies, garnering Phil the reputation of being at every situation everywhere. He was a LEGEND! to the people out there. From what the message boards implied, he was in the same league as the Arthur&#8217;s, the Charlie&#8217;s, and the Tony&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p> It would have been a heady knowledge, if Phil92 had known that he was not the original Phil. If he&#8217;d had any inkling that nearly everything he believed about his childhood had been a lie.<\/p>\n<p> But he didn&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p> He was currently living and working as Agent P872-549, alias Landon James. He hadn&#8217;t been back to base in more than 15 years. He doubted there was anyone working there that even remembered his real name anymore.<\/p>\n<p> He&#8217;d been Landon for so long that he was probably going to die under the name. His family would mourn at an empty tomb and never know what had really happened to him.<\/p>\n<p> It should have made him sad. And in a way it kind of did. But mostly he was resigned to it.<\/p>\n<p> His job was important. He was saving lives. What was a bit of personal misery compared to that?<\/p>\n<p> Phil sighed and hauled himself out of bed to face another day as Landon, personal assistant for the Secretary of the Union.<\/p>\n<p>*<br \/> A. Phil clones, like the azi.<\/p>\n<p> B. Each of the Phils is a person that has been Conditioned to be that person. They were snatched up off the street, offered tons of money to have their faces changed, then spent the rest of their lives as a Phil, loaded with various skillsets.<\/p>\n<p> C. Phil died for a lot longer than he realizes. When he was brought back, it was deemed inadvisable to tell him what had happened. His memory was modified through surgery&#8211;a lasering away of the various memory strings&#8211;and he was assigned to a new team and a new life, believing that he&#8217;s Phil pretending to be Landon, while he&#8217;s really Landon thinking he&#8217;s Phil pretending to be Landon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For A Little While sideshot: He was the man in black. The stolid face of grinding bureaucracy, telling the proletariats that they needed to live a certain way or a very stern &#8220;Or Else&#8221; was implied. Some incarnation of Phil had been walking around since the beginning of the organization, way back in the dark&hellip;<\/p>\n <a href=\"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/he-was-the-man-in-black-the-stolid-face-of-grinding-bureacracy\/\" title=\"&#8220;He was the man in black. The stolid face of grinding bureacracy&#8230;&#8221;\" class=\"entry-more-link\"><span>Read More<\/span> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;He was the man in black. The stolid face of grinding bureacracy&#8230;&#8221;<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"Layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[87],"tags":[583],"class_list":["entry","author-harperkingsley0-0","post-3735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-writing-2","tag-prompt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2pPoL-Yf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3849,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/parody-agent-smith-and-family-give-wiggens-the-wiggins\/","url_meta":{"origin":3735,"position":0},"title":"PARODY: Agent Smith and family give Wiggens the wiggins","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"June 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"They know he has the alien living with him. They've seen the creature interacting with the Smith family on camera. Disgusting unkillable monster, that's what it was. It had Smith and his whole family in thrall. But as long as it was with them, it remained under State surveillance; State\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mailed&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mailed","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/kindled\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6956,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/hmph\/","url_meta":{"origin":3735,"position":1},"title":"Hmph","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"July 8, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I was all like \"Whoo, my electric composter machine is a rockstar!\" And like a day later, it's making worrying sounds. Not crunches or bangs or \"Oh shit, the machine is grinding metal. Turn it off!\" sounds. Just like a \"murrrrr\" of the blades not turning. And yeah, I just\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/hmph\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":96,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/what-am-i-doing-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":3735,"position":2},"title":"What am I doing now?","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"August 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"NOVELLAS: Well, I'm finishing up \"H&V: The Wedding,\" and I'm outlining \"Masquerade.\" I've tossed \"Token\" on the back burner for now, but it's still totally a priority. \"Modern Gothic\" decided to be a bitchy little story, so I've it standing in the corner in time out--just until it knows who's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Upcoming Projects&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Upcoming Projects","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/upcoming-projects\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6852,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-the-sound-of-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":3735,"position":3},"title":"12 Days of Xmas: The Sound of Love","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"January 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sound of Love \"What... What... What is that noise?!?\" Chara leapt out of bed and hurried out of her room, bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor. The loud grinding and whirring sound got louder to her ears as she approached the kitchen. When she got there, Darnell was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;12 Days of Xmas&quot;","block_context":{"text":"12 Days of Xmas","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/12-days-of-xmas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1459,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/the-mighty-titan\/","url_meta":{"origin":3735,"position":4},"title":"The Mighty Titan, by Joe Martino","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"August 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Title: The Mighty Titan Writer\/Creator: Joe Martino Penciler: Luca Cicchitti Penciler: Cory Smith Inker: Jeff Austin Colorist: Keith J. Betancourt Letterer: Johnny Lowe Cover art by: Jerry Ordway, Jamal Igle, John Byrne, Bob McLeod, and Phil Jimenez 5 Issue Miniseries that wraps Joe Martino's cancer in a superhero shell. 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He's saddened by what might\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All That Remains&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All That Remains","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/all-that-remains\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6152,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions\/6152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}