NOTE: I signed a content-sharing agreement with this site, nurules.com, which has come and gone from the net at least twice, where I'd supply them with content and they'd pay me (suckers). Of course they went out of business -- I'm like Dwayne McDuffie, driving whole enterprises to financial ruin with just the mention of my name. Anyway, I wrote this as an attempt to set things up. Shouldn't have bothered, really.

The operative stared out of his window at the gray cloudscape hanging over Los Angeles like a pending indictment. He was overall pleased with how things turned out, but somehow felt things were still undone. He opened the file on recent operative activities and reviewed the recent events ...

While observing routine surveillance activities on Halle Berry under the guise of covering the new X-Men movie, the operative bumped into the executor (who went by the mild mannered pseudonym Joe Bauer), one of the agents for a new collective from the East. They managed to avoid a very noisy gunfight by displaying the contemporary symbol of shared interest -- a Jackson. After trading bills, they hunkered down and set their infrared scopes to their greatest magnification, hoping Mr. Benet wouldn't be home soon, as Halle was in the tub.

The operative was soon contacted directly by the executor's superior, The Director. The operative hadn't dealt with anyone who went by capital letters in a while, and was wary. However, The Director was saying all the right things, talking about working together, making big money, killing important people. Only call waiting interrupted The Director's powerful pitch.

On the other line was the wanderer, one of the members of the Soul Review Board. He'd heard about the character assassination of Commissioner Gordon and the subsequent ronin status of the operative and his cohorts (the godfather, the second shooter, and B-Boy Kingdom). He likewise was tossing out a syndicated rope, but it seemed to have more slack.

The operative was forced into a postition he loathes -- negotiation. He always took the position of Colonel Brekhov of the Oktober Guard. "Re-education through superior firepower." Likewise, he heard rumblings that the original Hall of Justice at Rap Pages was being resurrected with retired commissioner Dane Webb at the helm, backed by a cabal of African nationals. However, those were merely rumors, and with two parties actively working to get Damage Control services on their teams, both working for similar goals, it made no sense to wait on the bird in the bush when two in the hand will do nicely.

The operative put on his Jimmy James Negotiation Hat and ended up with a quite handsome agreement that would make him Fox Mulder, and assigned Assistant Director John Meils to coordinate the day to day duties that the NuRules agency would be handing down. Brought in from the cold, the operatives were able to use their swords in service to an honorable empire once again.

Could those swords serve two masters? The Director and the wanderer sat down behind closed doors like Walter Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man, silently working together and influencing the fate of the operatives. Would their alliance be one that would serve hip hop, or were their motives suspect of personal agendas?

The operative was not unaware of this possible dichotomy, and set about keeping as close an eye on the new administrative machinery behind him as he did on the world at large. In the old days, things were easy -- us versus them. In today's marketplace, everybody could be your best friend of the last face you see before they pull the trigger. He'd just finished compiling the report on his desk when thunder rolled in the Hollywood hills, so far north of his 'hood-held headquarters.

"Nu games require nu rules," he muttered to himself. "... and to quote Common, 'I'm never no player, I'm more like a coach or an owner' ..."

NuRules.com, a vertical destination for urban lifestyles, approached Damage Control about syndicating the content at about the same time as Inpu Ka Mut's OneNetNow was. NuRules moved faster, and will get Damage Control content first, probaly within a month, hence some of the delays in posting you've seen. The deal with OneNetNow is still pending. Look for Damage Control on NuRules as well as stay tuned for news from other options.

Oh, and we couldn't figger any pix to run with this. Who knew?