Monday, December 29, 2008

Yoshida: 17

Flying to Nagasaki was as dreadful as you would imagine. I'm certain you would find my complaints concerning air travel just as banal as I found Howland's account of his journey to the American South. Take it as read that my excursion made me hope that the Magician would somehow bring about the end of the world sooner rather than later.

If I was unimpressed by the airline's absolute absence of competence, I grew positively nostalgic for their mundane failures when faced with the troglodytes at the Nagasaki shipyard. I must have explained that I was seeking information on the missing ship Liberator a dozen times to various laborers, foremen and crane operators before one could finally direct me to the only man on the dock with at least a partial college education.

Goto-san was overworked, harried and annoyed by having to take a few moments of his precious time to answer questions from someone whom I'm certain he perceived to be a young, foolish dilettante. To his credit, he refused my offer of money and explained that there still was no word as to the ship's whereabouts. The disappearance of the vessel seemed to genuinely bother him as he was friends with the ship's first mate. At this late stage Goto-san was resigned to the probability that the crew of the Liberator would never be seen alive again, but he still retained a morbid curiosity as to how the ship was lost. I did not volunteer the information that the Magician's knife was on board or what that might mean.

In all, my journey to Nagasaki provided no information that we did not already possess. While I was hardly enamored with him personally, Agent Pierce's loss is keenly felt as far as his access to government information. Perhaps sensing my dejection as I left, Goto-san said to me, in English, "To do so truly you must know His Will." The absolute last thing I was interested in at that point was a pep talk from some religious fanatic, and my frustration boiled over onto the imbecile with a stream of expletives. He stood there looking more confused than anything as I exited the offices cursing him, his ancestors and his pathetic superstitions.

Needless to say, should you call the dockyards at some later point it would be best to avoid mentioning my name.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Josh: Don't You Just Love Puppies?

They're adorable!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a fantastic day!

Puppies and rainbows! Yay!

Josh: There's Crazy, There's Paula Abdul Crazy, And Then There's The Previous Post

Mom, just in case you're considering inviting someone else to join us here, you might want to wait a few posts. I just re-read my last post and it would be mathematically impossible for us to sound crazier. No more recaps from here on in, I think.

I think I'll put a fake post up top just to make us look better and soothe the nerves of any newcomers.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Josh: Time Out, Part Deux

Okay, I feel like we're heading for some new territory here, so before we lose track I want to do another recap. For my previous recap of events, click here (if Yoshida can self-reference himself with a link, you better believe I'm going to). If anyone wants to chime in and clarify or point out inaccuracies, please keep it to yourself because my post and I are perfect in every way like beautiful rainbows.

-Sometime in the past, a small group of people made bargains with someone known as the Magician. After they made their deals, they...hrm , I don't want to say they don't age, because they do, but they age very, very slowly. They also are granted specific boons like control over centipedes (Hollis) or wolves (Taras), along with who knows what else. When they die they are reborn somehow at a later point. If they displease the Magician they lose their abilities, and if they really piss him off he can drive them insane. I've read that post from my uncle/great-great-great-great grandfather Leopold six times now, and I swear he actually goes mad as he's writing it.

-The Magician is going to end the world somehow, and soon, or at least Taras seemed to think so.

-The Magician is going to restart the world somehow, but it will be mostly the same, like time is caught in a loop- again, according to what I can glean fromTaras.

Question: the Magician gives his little circle of fiends eternal life and various gifts, so what do they give him exactly?

-Oh, and another thing the Magician's pals get are the smiling zombie people (I'm naming them "Smilers", mostly because I'm not as creative as I look). People are turned into Smilers when they find out how the Magician does his tricks? I think.

-Gah! I just thought of something. In Mary's post about our visit to the Hollis Nursing Home she said that the centipedes were running between Hollis' legs in a figure eight. I don't think they were. She saw a figure eight, but I saw the symbol for infinity.

Remembering one of my ex-girlfriends fondness for tarot and crystals and all that jive (it took me months to scrub the patchouli-stink out of my carpets) this came to mind. Check out the symbol above his head:

Maybe it means something, probably it means nothing, but Mary wants us to share the weird stuff that comes to mind as we go along, and this to me = weird stuff.

-Going back and reading Leopold's post for the seventh time, he writes:

"...he will perform a trick. He will use the charms, his knife, a rabbit and his own blood, though his body contains no blood any longer, if it ever did. It is quite probably too late to stop the charms, but the knife and his blood may yet be within your grasp. Keep them separate..."


The "his body contains no blood" line might come in handy later. If we see someone we think is the Magician, I think we should cut them. Seriously. Even if it's a pinprick it might be enough to tell. If they bleed then we'll know they're not the Magician and we start apologizing like crazy. If he doesn't bleed, then... well, then we've got a whole new set of problems to worry about, but at least we'll know.

-Is it wrong that I wanted to invite Taras to join us even after he went medieval on Ricky Tate? That's wrong, right?

-First Mrs. Walentowicz, now Nhlakanipho Mabuza. Does there have to be a new name I can't spell or pronounce every time we learn anything?

-I guess that's it, though I would like to point out that I used far fewer parenthesis in this recap than the last one. I suppose Mary will take credit for it as her good influence on me, but I think we all know I just took the gibberish I normally would have put in parenthesis and gave them their own bullet points.

Time in.

Yoshida: 16

Agreed.

I am booking a flight to Nagasaki.

Cynthia: Placet

Agreed.

Josh: YOU Get A Car! And YOU Get A Car!

You go, girl! Wooooo!!!

Er, I mean, "agreed".

Nice pep talk. Though I wouldn't trade our time here by the orchard for anything in the world, no matter what you thought of it.


Good lord, I've got to stop staring at Oprah's eyes. It's like a bad fever dream.

Mary: Detective

November 5th, 2008: Mrs. Howland, I know you don't have the strength at the moment to give another pep talk, so let me do it for you.

I owe you an apology.

I didn't become a Private Investigator because I felt it was my calling. I wasn't driven to solve crimes or any of the other exciting things most people imagine P.I.'s do. I was a lowly process server, just making extra cash as I went through school, and mainly went for my P.I. license because it would allow me to get some extra work and make my life a little easier by granting me just a touch more credibility.

The license didn't much matter in the end, least of all to any police officers I ran across who looked down on me for "playing" detective.

This is a long and roundabout way of saying that when Agent Pierce (God rest his soul) turned up, I rolled over. I let him take over my investigation, content to relax in comfort at a bed and breakfast while he told me to sit and stay. When Pierce-when a "real" detective took interest, I felt like I should fade into the background.

I realized something about myself over the last couple of weeks, and I swear I will not forget it: I am a detective, and a damn good one. It doesn't matter what credentials I have, or what path led me to become what I am, I am a detective. I swear to you, Mrs. Howland, I will find the magician and I will learn who he is for you-for all of us. I will never just sit and stay again.

New rule:

-We no longer look at phenomena that we don't understand and think that it is impossible. We take everything in, no matter how insane, and grant it instant credibility. There is no room anymore for cynicism. We've seen too much. Think outside the box, and hold nothing back, no matter how foolish you think it might make you look. We're not going to catch the Magician (We are capitalizing it from now on, as long as we don't know his real name) by using outdated modes of thought.

We are in this together to the end, following this rule, or it's over. I want everyone to agree, and to put it in writing now, including and especially you, Yoshida. You're either in or you're out. If you're in, you're going to Nagasaki today and getting as much information as you can on the missing boat Liberator. All I need to see is the word "agreed". If I don't see it, I'm going to have Mrs. Howland cut you off, and if she doesn't I'm done. If I do see that word, then we get a fresh start and everything that's been done and said up until now is water under the bridge.

There are resources at our disposal. We are all remarkable in our own ways. We are capable and motivated. Look at us: a detective, a multimillionaire descendant of a King, the most educated woman I have ever known and one of the world's most brilliant geniuses. All I know is that if I were on the other side, I would not want the four of us coming after me.

Josh and I are checking out and chartering a flight to the west coast. This at least gets us closer to the North Pacific Ocean and the Liberator, hopefully.

Cynthia: Iocus

When I read that date, I literally thought it a joke on Taras' part. The correct date of U.S. Independence is, of course, 1784 A.D.

It occurs to me that all these altered dates mark the rise or fall of some of the world's greatest empires, though what that means as pertains to us, either theoretically or practically, I cannot fathom.

Yoshida: 15

I have found another anomaly, this time on my own. It was the recurring mention of the bicentennial year in Taras' post that piqued my interest, and even a cursory glance at the data proved the date to be preposterous.

There is no chance that the United States of America gained its Independence in 1776 A.D. The supplies were not in place, the forces hopelessly inadequate... every factor indicates that a winnable war against England could not possibly have succeeded until a few years later. I will not bore you with further details, as they are similar to those of my last post.

Mrs. Howland, does this date jump out at you as being wrong?

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Cynthia: Incursus

Under normal circumstances upon reading the previous post, I would recommend that our collective energy be focused on deciphering every clue and parcel of information contained within it, but tonight there was an incident at the house. Just before midnight as I was in the process of powering down my computer in preparation for a fitful night's slumber a terrible crash came from downstairs.

I yelled for Jeffrey and Agent Pierce, whom I thankfully had requested stay as my guest while he was in Milwaukee. True to their characters, Agent Pierce began to run toward the grand staircase to the lower level to face whatever danger approached while Jeffrey sprinted to my side to ascertain my condition. Within moments Agent Pierce was backing up into my room, pointing his gun at a dark figure proceeding toward us through the doorway. Agent Pierce identified himself as a federal officer, warned the assailant that he would open fire if he did not cease his advance, then when his words went unheeded he shot the man in the stomach.

Shockingly, the intruder seemed unaffected by the injury and lunged forward. Once in the light I could see that he was black, with untamed hair and a wide, white smile. He reached out with both hands, grasped the sides of Agent Pierce's head and turned it completely around with a sickening crack until his stunned face stared at me over his back, his neck broken, eyes wide open in instant death.

As Agent Pierce's corpse slumped to the carpet, I could see the murderer's dark eyes search the room and lock in on me. His smile never wavered as he slowly stepped up to the foot of my bed and placed a hand between my unfeeling feet, beginning to crawl up the mattress towards me. Jeffrey remained at my side until I said as calmly as I could, "Jeffrey, go now. It is alright. I refuse to die knowing that I have your death on my conscience as well." He hesitated, and again I insisted. "You are relieved, Jeffrey. Thank you." The dark, smiling man crawled up the bed over my body, his grinning face now crossing over my waist, his hand on my sternum.

Finally Jeffrey backed away from my bedside and made a wide circuit toward the bedroom door. "Tell Joshua everything. Tell him... just tell him-" I could say no more as the smiling man's hands slowly closed around my neck and squeezed, his legs straddling my paralyzed torso. I saw stars and the edges of my vision turned black, the sensation of pressure in my head pounding like a hammer. Finally the darkness around the edges of my sight closed in until I could only peer through what appeared to me to be a tiny pinhole, the last thing I imagined I would ever see being my murderer's nightmarish smile.

I heard a pop which I assumed was a blood vessel or some vital part of my anatomy snapping, but then the iron grip on my neck abated and I felt the agony of a fresh breath rattle through my damaged windpipe. The blood rushed back to my head and everything I saw was tinged with red, which I assumed was a side-effect of the near death experience until Jeffrey ran up and began pawing at my face with a towel. The smiling man lay upon me, a golf ball sized hole in his forehead and his blood and brains splattered on my face and the wall behind me.

Knowing Jeffrey's pacifist leanings I confess I half-expected him to come apart after committing such an act of violence, but to his credit he looked more annoyed than anything else as he rolled the body off the bed and wiped me clear of debris, finally dialing 911 only once he was satisfied that I was made sufficiently comfortable.

After firing he had dropped Agent Pierce's gun back down by his body, and for a moment I debated whether he should wipe it down, but in the final analysis all Jeffrey had really done was shoot an intruder who was attempting to murder me, hardly a punishable offense.

The police have come and gone now, taking with them the body of poor Agent Pierce. It is a sad thing that the rest of you never had the opportunity to meet him in the flesh, as he was an intelligent, capable and free-thinking man who-while he admittedly used questionable tactics-was legitimately devoted to seeking justice. Frankly and personally, he and I struck up an extremely warm friendship these past few days, and his sudden, shocking loss is deeply appalling to me on a number of levels.

We have lost two of our number in as many days (no matter what one thought of the demise of Mister Tate, he was ostensibly working on our behalf) and while in the past when we have been laid low by our enemy I have taken it upon myself to exercise my will to bolster our spirits, now I profess that I cannot find the strength. If I had not pressed my desire for justice-or perhaps vengeance-would all these people still be alive today? Would not my son be safe in his home, free of the calumny that now dogs him? In my quest for the truth, have I only visited more violence and evil upon the world?

As I ponder these horrid questions, the practical needs of the moment press down upon me. I had put off hiring security as I was loathe to bring anyone else into a position of danger and also because I doubted that our enemy would see a paralyzed old woman as worth taking the time and effort to kill, but it appears I must take action to protect myself. Jeffrey sweetly volunteered to have me moved to his personal apartment, but he also conceded that his pet beagle's constant barking and face-licking would not assist in easing my mind. First thing in the morning I will hire a professional whose sole function is to protect this house and those dwelling within.

Upon waking we can discuss the many items of interest brought to light in the previous post. I feel we have been granted an astonishing glimpse into the world of our enemy, and imagine we will be dissecting the information it contains for quite some time.

And before I forget, Taras' comments on the conquerors of Kiev spurred me to once again scrutinize the pages of history and find another discrepancy. The book reports that the Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D., and this is incorrect. It met its demise in 477 A.D. I imagine that there are insufficient records available for Doctor Tanaka to perform a thorough accounting of the date's veracity, but once again it is not a number I would ever fail to remember.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Tate: Taras

A fine snow slowly fell upon the city of Kiev, as powdery and gritty as flakes of ash from a crematorium's chimney. The snow only barely stuck, covering the concrete like a thin, slippery membrane that was easy to forget was there right up until your feet shot out from under you and you found yourself foolishly gazing up at the sky. When the snow came down in thick, white flakes it seemed to cleanse and refresh the dusty, ancient city, or at least disguise its multitude of sins, but this snow looked gray before it even hit the ground. Eskimos were said to have hundreds of different words for snow, and the old man was sure that if they had a name for this one, it would be a curse.

Spying his fare, the man opened the taxi cab's driver's side door and slowly extricated himself from the car, steadying himself using two mismatched, wooden canes. He hobbled over to the man just exiting the airport's baggage claim and gestured meekly toward his cab, urging him in. The man was pale and muscle-bound, with a shaved head and a barb-wire tattoo creeping up the side of his neck. He turned up his lip at the old man's enticements, growling in heavily accented Russian, "F*ck off. I need someone who knows how to find sh*t in this town."

The old man cleared his throat. It had been months since he'd last used his voice. "Booze, grass, coke, guns, girls, boys... also I have just purchased a car deodorizer. It is green, in the shape of a tree and grants the illusion of cleanliness." The young American shrugged and threw his suitcase into the backseat, lunging in after it. The old man shuffled back to the front of the cab, narrowly avoided slipping on the damnable snow and eased himself down into the driver's seat.

As he put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb, the old man heard the American say, "I'm not into guys, so forget that sh*t right now. I need a piece and some blow. And girls. Young."

The old man sighed and peered out the driver's side window as they drove out of the airport complex and into the city. Because he enjoyed the architecture and never passed up a chance to see it, he guided the car past the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves. Some monk long ago had wandered here and chosen a cave in which to start a monastery, and Prince Iziaslav I of Kiev went ahead and just gave him the whole mount. The monks did all the work building churches and bell towers and digging out catacombs, and the Prince was blessed and ushered into heaven for gifting them a giant rock he'd probably never even known existed before then.

On their right the Dnieper river wended its way around the city, a rusted barge chugging its way through its polluted, dark water. Since Chernobyl spewed its radioactive discharge into the Dnieper over twenty years ago, the old man always had the urge to walk near the water on cold winter days just for the illusion of warmth. In a few thousand years the river would finally purify itself, but of course it had nowhere near that kind of time.

"I want girls no younger than twelve, got it? Girls that won't be missed." The American lit a cigarette, and the smell wafted up front. The old man had given up smoking years ago because it reminded him of Hollis, but on snowy days the craving for tobacco still gripped him. He breathed in deeply, enjoying even the second hand smoke, and pondered asking the American if he could have one. He decided just to be patient and take the pack later if he still felt the urge.

"Nine. I can make a call and probably get a ten year old as well. It will cost."

The American spat on the rubber mat covering the floor in the back. "Nine? F*ck that. I never done a girl younger than twelve."

The old man swerved to avoid an old woman whose heel had broken in the middle of the crosswalk. "A man with standards, and in my cab. It's a Christmas miracle."

"This ain't your cab." The young man pointed to the photograph on the back of the driver's seat. "The picture is of a young guy."

"My son. We share it. You looking for anyone or anything in particular?"

He took a drag from his cigarette, the tip glowing red. To say that he pondered the question would be going too far. More accurately, he finally remembered the answer. "Yeah. Yeah, actually, why not? I'm looking for a guy named Taras. Taras the Mutineer. Heard of him?"

The old man smiled. "The name is redundant. 'Taras' means mutineer. It would be like naming a boy 'Michael, Like Unto God'." The look on the young man's face in the rear view mirror was blank. "Michael means 'like unto God'."

Snorting, he replied, "No sh*t. My bitch in my last stretch in the joint's name was Mike. That's hilarious. My name's Ricky. What's that mean?"

"That your parents were first cousins?"

It took a good ten seconds before Ricky processed what he'd heard, then he lunged up at the old man, putting a hand around his throat. "I'll f*ckin' cut you, you f*ck with me, *sshole. You know who I am?" The old man nodded slowly, struggling to keep the car on the road, then he pointed to a bottle in a slim, brown bag on the seat next to him.

"Apologies. It's yours. And the girl, I pay for, just please don't hurt me." Ricky snatched at the bottle and nodded, satisfied with the reparations.

The old man absently rubbed his neck as they passed a block of apartments that had been entirely leveled by Germans in World War II, then rebuilt. They had also been destroyed by fire and rebuilt again in the seventies. The old man imagined the same dwellings being put to the torch by Genghis Khan's Mongols when they had annihilated the city back in the twelve hundreds. Laying waste to Kiev was the conqueror's rite of manhood. Kiev stood like a resigned, grim-visaged bride just waiting at the alter for foreign lords to defile her. The only black mark on Rome's record was that they had not invented Kiev simply to crush it. Napoleon's greatest regret in life had to have been that he failed to advance past Moscow to Kiev to deflower her.

Meanwhile, Ricky sucked at the bottle in the backseat, griping about the way Russians peppered their vodka. Normal vodka wasn't good enough? They had to put pepper in it? The old man rolled his eyes and was patient, and in a few minutes the young man was unconscious.


It was said that if the Red Lady of Babil was the oldest of them, Theophanes wasn't far behind. While Taras had never met him personally, he knew all about the ancient Greek's habits. Every time Theophanes awoke to the dawn of a new world he rose from his bed, stretched and gazed out of his window at the island of Evia sprawling beneath him. Then he sat down and wrote four words in Greek on parchment, striking out two of them. Finally, he prepared and drank an entire bucketful of poison, his body twisted at the foot of his bed, frozen in his death throes and cold by noon.

Taras spent decades of time and millions of dollars tracking down that little slip of parchment, but he had finally done it in nineteen seventy six, the so-called bicentennial year that celebrated the United States' "freedom". He brought the parchment back to Kiev and hung it on the wall of his bar, framed for all to see, though no one did. Translated from the Greek, it read: SAME SH*T, DIFFERENT DAY. The words "DIFFERENT DAY" had a line through them.

One year to the day after acquiring the parchment, Taras took it for a walk after consuming far too much vodka and stumbled into one of Kiev's more disreputable alleys. There he was surprised to see the magician putting on a show for a pack of orphan children. He had not seen the magician since the day they had made their bargain and he had performed his trick.

He flipped his cape back and forth, showing one side crimson and the other black. Gesturing for a volunteer, a boy not more than thirteen stepped forward, his step unsteady. The magician smiled at him, his mouth full of straight, white teeth, but this only caused the boy to break out in a sweat. The orphans halfheartedly jeered him for his cowardice, but even they could sense that there was something not entirely benevolent about this performance. The magician held up a hand for silence and the alley became utterly still, with even mighty and ferocious Taras standing in the back row holding his breath. Then with a flick of his wrist he flipped the cape up in the air and caught it in front of the boy, holding it in such a way that it blocked him from view. The magician's eyes shut in concentration, and from somewhere far, far away they could hear and feel a deep humming, a vibration deep in their bones. The hum combined with a high-pitched whine that hurt their teeth and caused the empty liquor bottles in the alley's garbage cans to rattle. The hum and whine grew louder and louder until most of the orphans had tears staining their cheeks, and then abruptly it ceased as if it were never there.

With a flourish, the magician lifted up the cape to reveal that the orphan boy had disappeared, and he smiled once more as the childrens' applause echoed in the alley. Before it could die down, he reached out his hand and tossed a handful of shiny gold coins among the orphans who squealed with joy. All except one tiny girl not more than eight years old who strode up to the magician and looked up at him with enormous brown eyes, asking plaintively, "But where is he? Where is my brother?" The magician silently shook his head. He began to walk away but her tiny, dirty hand grasped at his cape. "How did you do it?" Grinning ever so slightly he bent down, put his mouth to her ear and cupped a hand over it so no one else could hear. When he was done whispering, she smiled the smile of all those who have seen something truly magical. It was amused, amazed and... something else. The little girl walked away smiling and never, ever stopped.

Taras stared at the magician and pulled the parchment from his pocket. He decided to be clever. "Can you autograph this? It seems only fitting."

The magician's dark eyes stared into his and Taras wobbled, his drunkenness evaporating in an instant. The eyes stared and stared, growing larger and larger, darker and darker until the rest of the world narrowed and it seemed that there was nothing in the universe but those eyes. Their darkness was consuming, voracious and infinite. The magician never spoke, but the message resonated with hideous clarity. I have signed it. I signed the parchment and the ink. I signed the writer and his desk and the island upon which they sat. I signed the lands and the seas and the skies and all they contain. I signed the heavens and the Earth, and I signed you, Taras the Mutineer. I signed your hair, your skin, your muscles, blood and bones. My name is written in darkness upon your soul.

The mighty and ferocious Taras fell to his knees then and wept. He wept through the day and into the night. He wept until no more tears would come and then he wept some more. For three days and nights he sobbed until they came and put him in an asylum. On the fourth day he finally slept, and when he awoke he broke out of the hospital, took the parchment back to the bar, set it on its place on the wall and burned the building down, the fire spreading to the apartment complexes above and beside. Eight people died, ten suffered severe third degree burns and the entire block was utterly destroyed as it had been in the days of the Great Patriotic War, the Mongol invasion and so many other occasions when Kiev had been raped by conquerors.

Above the bar was an apartment owned by a ring of black marketeers involved in counterfeiting American bicentennial commemorative metal cookie jars. When the roof collapsed one of the jars fell down into the bar, knocked the parchment off the wall and landed on top of it face down, covering it.

The parchment was the only thing to survive the blaze perfectly intact.

When the fireman handed it to Taras he folded it, put it carefully in his pocket and decided to never again try to be clever with the magician.


Ricky Tate awoke with a start. He was entirely naked, his wrists bound with a chain connected to a thick metal hook which hung from the ceiling. Ricky swung very slightly back and forth, the tips of his toes just scraping the round, metal drain set into the concrete floor beneath him. He tried to speak, but discovered that he had been gagged, his mouth forced open wide by a foul-smelling towel.

A door opened and a gray light shone in, revealing his surroundings as being that of a simple shed, the walls adorned with rusty tools and cans of paint that had long since separated. The old cab driver strode in (suddenly walking quite well without his canes) and went over to a dusty workbench that stood against the far wall. Ricky tried to speak, but through the gag it just came out as a meaningless groan. The old man opened a drawer in the bench and brought out a hunting knife with a brown, leather-bound hilt and serrated jags on one edge of the blade.

The American knew nothing and the old man knew it. He could go through the charade of questioning him, but he was tired of speaking. Remembering the quality of their previous conversations, on the off chance that Ricky decided to try and think of something to say he decided to leave the gag in.

One to torture, one to be tortured and nothing to come of it but blood down a drain. One cut, the other screamed, nothing learned, the status quo maintained. It was all very Russian.


Leopold had visited him just after the turn of the century, right before Einstein was going to formulate his theory of special relativity again. Taras got a little thrill every time the kindly German had his stroke of genius. The thrill didn't last, but he still awaited the event with anticipation every time. Leopold bubbled with excitement, describing all the ways they could use their abilities to help change the world. His enthusiasm was like a tonic, especially considering how much time Taras had spent in Kiev, a city whose main industries were vodka and despair. Taras nodded patiently to Leopold, kicked everyone out of the bar and kept pouring drinks. He had been like that the first time, too, and he loved Leopold for it.

He had been to see some of the others with discouraging results. Nhlakanipho Mabuza never stopped f*cking one of his wives during the entire visit and as such the conversation had suffered. The Red Lady just stared at him over her veil, but at least she had given him tea. He had received the most elaborate welcome from Hollis in America, but the two had a falling out over some perceived slight over dessert and Leopold had wound up running for his life to the sea.

It was only a matter of time before the Belgian would learn the limits of their powers, and time was not a commodity in short supply. They each had their special tricks, but should they try and use them in a fashion unapproved of by the magician they would quickly find that their efforts would come to naught or even backfire.

After Leopold left, the two men having embraced and sworn their friendship, a rabid wolf emerged from the woods surrounding Hollis Crossroads and bit the popular postman Jebediah Greely on the ankle, gnawing off his foot. He died three days later. The day after he expired, one of Kiev's most promising young ballerinas-a golden-haired angel of a girl named Galina-was bitten on her rosy cheek as she slept by a giant, poisonous centipede. Her left eye ballooned and popped by the next morning, and she was dead by noon.

The two men tired of their feud after this, but Taras quit smoking as cigarettes reminded him of Hollis, and the profit from them went to his part of the world.


A flick of the knife, and another piece of Ricky flopped down on the metal drain with a wet smack. He screamed into the towel gag, and the old man sighed, bored and thirsty. It was tedious work, but he wanted to be certain that they sent no one else to Kiev. He had received the order just that morning to kill whomever they sent and had hastily stolen a taxi, all the while terrified that they would send the boy, Leopold's descendant. His relief had been palpable when he saw this thick-necked, mean-eyed primate swagger from the airport gates. He could not-would not help them in their struggle against the magician, perhaps because it was not a struggle at all. Does the horizon struggle to keep the sun in the sky in the evening, attempting to forestall the coming darkness? They sought to battle him in chess but possessed only checkers.

"Theophanes," the old man whispered to himself. "You are truly wise, my friend, or at least you became so after you sealed your bargain." From behind him Ricky Tate moaned in response. The old man chuckled and shook his head. "My apologies, my good man. I am old, I am old. I have to admit, I had completely forgotten I had not killed you yet." The knife slashed his throat and blood poured over his chest like an overflowing toilet, gushing down and pooling by the drain in the floor.

The old man eyed the cigarette pack on the workbench, walked over to it and crushed it into a ball in his powerful fist. For Leopold, he could resist. The world had only a year or two left at most anyway, he could wait at least until the next world to revisit old habits.


The Dnieper river flowed slowly by, and the old man sat at its bank struggling mightily with the tiny keys of Ricky Tate's electronic device. He would take great pleasure in hurling the annoying gadget into the cold, radioactive water when he had finished his entry. The young man had helpfully left the code key active, and while it was impossible to read what had been previously written, anything could be typed in and transmitted. It didn't matter, the magician read everything and he didn't need codes or magic to do it. Checkers vs. chess. Horizon vs. night.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Pierce: Apologies

Sorry about Tate's posts. He's not here for his charm, remember. He does have some underworld connections in Russia (not in Kiev, unfortunately), though I admit that I'll be surprised if his trip generates anything of substance.

Still no word on the missing ship. I'm checking in constantly, but thus far there's no clue as to its whereabouts.

I spoke with Detective Ward, but his investigation has been taken over by the F.B.I., and their agent has been reluctant to parcel out information. I do get the impression that the Walentowicz case has stalled for the moment, however.

I have a feeling that when we get a break we'll have to move fast, so relax, recharge and be ready to move.

Tate: im here

plane landed im in kiev. always f*ckin clowdy in russia. gonna talk to there guys abuot taras

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Mary: Morning Check-In

November 4th, 2008: Yikes. I did not think he was going to write all of that down here. Let's just say Josh's and my recollections of last night were different and leave it at that.

We're going to hold here until you get further word on that ship, Agent Pierce. There's no point running off to Japan if that's not where it's headed.

Could you check in with Detective Ward back in Milwaukee and see if there have been any further developments on the Walentowicz murder case? Thank you.

Josh: The Orchard

Deep breaths, Yoshida. Deep breaths. I never thought I'd be able to say this, but you've done a good job. If I had said before I read your last post that I was entirely sure of my mom's mental state I would have been lying. Now... well it's a big relief, not only to me but I'm certain also to her. The fact that the two of you agree that somehow, someway two very important historical dates have been changed is a lot easier to live with than if it was just her. Oh, and even though us mere, pathetic, knuckle-dragging ape-creatures could never hope to comprehend your precious math, send it along privately anyway, I want to see it. God, even when you have me feeling sorry for you, you still manage to go out of your way to be a douchebag.

I wish I could say where Mary and I are, but if we did Agent Pierce would just rat us out again, so we'll have to go with "an undisclosed location". We decided that we'd had enough of motels and now that I'm rolling in dough we rented a couple of rooms at a bed & breakfast in a rural setting. After all the madness and violence of the past couple of weeks, I can't tell you how good it felt just to get out of bed this morning and wander through the apple orchard that abuts the b&b property.

Of course, with my attention span my little walk lasted all of five minutes before I felt the biological urge to play a video game, but it was pleasant all the same. While Mary slept in I dashed out to a nearby small town, miraculously found a Radio Shack and went on a spending spree picking up two laptops and every possible accessory for them. I then spent the rest of the day reading up on the Napoleonic wars, Belgium, Abba and whether or not Georgia has the death penalty (they do. Ouch).

That night Mary and I took a walk behind the bed & breakfast up to the top of the hill overlooking the orchard. A gentle breeze drifted through the trees below, wafting the sweet scent of rotting apples over us. From a tall oak tree at the top of the hill someone had suspended a bench swing from a low branch, and Mary and I sat and rocked, my side arcing out farther and tilting us a bit sideways before she'd had enough and pulled her feet up to rest on the wooden seat next to her, leaving the pushing to me. Occasionally I'd get a whiff of her hair. It smelled like hotel shampoo: a combination of cheap chemicals and adventure. With all we'd been through, it was a lovely, peaceful moment and I succeeded in not ruining it by talking, at least for a good thirty seconds or so.

"It was nice when we were in the car that time with your head on my shoulder."

Mary recoiled and stared at me with a combination of amazement and disgust. "When I was sobbing and covered in blood and centipede guts? That time?"

I shrugged. "We were in our underwear. As a guy you do whatever mental editing is necessary to make a moment like that a good memory. Never mind, forget I said anything." I tried to keep my gaze on the trees below in a vain attempt to recapture the quiet mood, but I could feel her disbelieving stare bore into the side of my head.

"We had just had the most horrifying night of our lives, we were bitten and terrified and running like hell, and that was 'nice'?" She looked at me like I was a failed science experiment.

I ran my hand through my hair, remembered that we had just cut almost all of it off as part of my disguise and let my hand drop to my lap. "No one ever leaned on my like that before. No one..." I sighed, for once unable to find the right word. "No one ever needed me like that before. Can we just forget it? I know it's weird." I turned away, just wanting to not be stared at like that. I planted my hands on the bench, getting ready to push up and go back to my room, but then I felt Mary rest her head gently on my shoulder. We swung there silently for a long time, just staring out into the night at the few tiny stars not obscured by the evening's clouds.

For the first time she spoke before I did, her voice just above a whisper. "What other 'mental editing' have you done from that night?"

"Well, there was no blood, of course. And we weren't on the side of a highway, we were at a drive-in movie, like the one they used to have in Hales Corners back in Wisconsin." I carefully moved my arm, draping it softly over her shoulder. She didn't lean into me, but she didn't pull away, either. "We sat and watched a romantic comedy, probably something with Hugh Grant, but made in Britain, not here. We had a big tub of popcorn with extra butter, Dove bars, large soda and we were in our underwear."

She sighed. "It's been forever since I had a Dove bar."

"Your bra and panties were pink instead of white."

"Oh, my. Go on. What else?"

"I was Wolverine."

She slapped her forehead dramatically. "You can stop talking now."

I leaned back and looked up through the dark branches of the oak tree at the cloudy night sky, rocking the swing back and forth. I chuckled. "Now who's dreaming?"

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Yoshida: 14

Everything about the date of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo is wrong.

There are massive archives complete with inventories of supplies, bills of lading, troop movements, munitions production, uniform manufacturing and so on, so it is not the same as examining whether the date of the beginning of Genghis Khan's conquests is accurate. I deemed such an investigation to be implausible with just a cursory inspection.

The Prussians were completely out of sorts in 1815, horribly positioned to support the British. Gebhard von Blucher's army was in chaos amid a tumultuous re-organization and could hardly be counted on to defeat anything or anyone, yet they were the deciding factor in the battle of Waterloo. If they had had a few more years to prepare I could see them mounting something formidable, but in 1815? Preposterous. (Below: Blucher)

The Duke of Wellington's forces were in similar straits. Even he, the leader of the army said of his own people that they were: "an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced Staff". Supply lines were fragile or nonexistent, morale was low, and I simply cannot see how it is possible that the coalition forces could respond so quickly to Napoleon's re-emergence after his brief exile.

According to the bills of lading, the rifles wouldn't be in the right hands at the right time. The gunpowder would still have been in Liverpool for the British and Prussia's entire supply of boots would have been in Berlin. What did Wellington's men shoot exactly? Did Blucher's infantry defeat Napoleon while barefoot?

Even the sociopolitical climate of the time gives every indication that this decisive of a battle could not have happened when it did and how it did. While these are far more subjective factors, the situation in Spain and Napoleon's relationship with Russia at this time both are indicative of something being drastically, dreadfully out of place.

It is wrong. Absolutely, totally wrong. I have never been confronted by an anomaly of this scope. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat. I tell people- even those few whose intellects I respect- about what I see, and they laugh at me. It is the sort of problem that if you are looking for it you cannot fail to see it, but if you are not asking the questions you could not hope to see the answers. How can this be? Does history mean nothing? I go over the numbers again and again, and they tell a consistent tale- one that has nothing to do with the final story in the history books. I have taken a leave of absence from my job. I cannot leave my apartment. It makes no sense. If they would only look at the numbers they could see that I'm right, but the date and the history of the event is so well established that no one will believe me. How could the Battle of Ligny have taken place then when the Prussians had no horse tack? Did their cavalry ride bareback? How could Napoleon not have registered the Prussians retreat from the battle when they were literally right in front of him? Even the personal journals of the men are nonsensical. There were no cannonballs prepared for the French artillery at that point as they had disarmed the year before, so what did Napoleon's men fire, cantaloupes? Nothing about it makes sense. Nothing about this makes sense. Nothing. If I had a hundred years to study it it would not be enough. When you know what to look for you cannot help but see it, but they will not look no matter how I beg them, deeming it absurd and beneath them. If one date is off the other must be. If only there was more raw data from the time of the Mongol expansion I could determine more, but it was too long ago and the difference in time was only one year, with the supposed date of conquest being 1206 while you believe it to be 1207. Being from a nomadic society, the Khan, while organized, still did not possess the same means or interest of recording information as in the Napoleonic years. If one is off then the other must be. Are there other dates that are wrong? Dates that have been accepted as being true for hundreds and possibly thousands of years? When is the earliest example? When is the latest example? Is there a date where history becomes firmer and more concrete? Have the dates changed only recently? To what possible purpose would this have been done, if it was done by someones will instead of as an act of nature? It is impossible. The date of the battle of Waterloo is wrong. I would send the raw mathematical data and the equations I used, but anyone capable of understanding them refuses to look at them. I am not insane. Why won't they even look at them? I know I am not insane.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Pierce: Hold That Flight

Hold off, I just got confirmation that the Liberator, the boat that is supposed to contain the murder weapon was last reported way, way, off course. Latest intel had it veering hard to the South while in the North Pacific Ocean, at which point the ship's GPS locator stopped sending a signal. I don't know what to make of it, but it's clearly not heading to Nagasaki at this point. Hold tight and as soon as I get new intel I'll pass it along.
Josh wrote:

Agent Pierce, I had a long rant all cued up about how you can't pressure someone to walk into a dangerous situation like this, but then I read Tate's post and accidentally hit the "DELETE" key. Darn.
I've warned him thoroughly that he's walking into an extremely dangerous situation and that "Taras" is a force to be reckoned with. I don't want to get Tate killed. On the other hand, I don't particularly want him alive, either, and I doubt you would if you'd seen his rap sheet. Regardless, better him than us.

Josh: Sue Your School System. Seriously.

Oh, that's right, he can't read this.

Agent Pierce, I had a long rant all cued up about how you can't pressure someone to walk into a dangerous situation like this, but then I read Tate's post and accidentally hit the "DELETE" key. Darn.

My God, where do I begin? All I know is that if I had ever, ever, ever written something like that and my mom saw it she would have glared at me until I caught fire.

Incidentally, "PORNOGRAPHIC IMAGE DELETED" would be a pretty good name for an album.

Mary and I are on our way to turn ourselves in to the authorities. We're heading straight back to Georgia via a connecting flight to Japan.

Tate: leaving

im leaving for russia. jet takes off later. ill get there and get a hotel.

pierce i find this guy and you get my brother out. dont f*ck me pierce. you think youre gonna tell me what to do but you better f*ckin be sure you get him out and drop the chrges on me for what happen in staten island which was bullsh*t and you know it.

hey suck on this!!!!!!!

Pierce: Setting It Straight

Mary wrote:

-You are an agent for Homeland Security but you're going under a false name here?
I am communicating with wanted individuals (again, officially, I urge you to turn yourselves in) and at this point am pretty much the definition of "off the reservation", so any legal buffers I can get I'm going to take.
-You tapped someones phone in Japan?
See point one about being "off the reservation". A "by the book" agent would never have found out about the Human Calicivirus to begin with, though my methods do make a conviction in a court of law problematic.
-You're prepared to believe all the crazy stuff that's in this archive, and will even go so far as to send someone to Russia on an offhand reference from a crazy person that killed themselves literally moments after they wrote it?
Over the past year I have seen crimes committed that I could not even hope to explain. As mad as these journals are, they answer questions that have long troubled me. When I get the pieces to a puzzle, I just put it together without worrying about what I'll be thought of for it. I see the pieces I've been looking for in here, and as insane as they are, they fit. Now I want more, and I see Kiev as a possibility. My willingness to "think outside the box" has not endeared me to my agency, but I'm usually effective enough that I get a relatively free hand.
Josh wrote:

-So he was lying about being a Doctor? Anything else we should know?
He wasn't lying. He has a Doctorate in Mathematics. Kisho Yoshida's registered I.Q. is in the world top 50.


I'm going to send a man to Kiev. Again, equating this "Taras" with Hollis means that the trip will be extremely hazardous, so I'm sending someone expendable. There's an ex-con named Ricky Tate who's done business with the Russian mob and has a grasp of the language, so I'll have him go and look into it for us. Cynthia, I'll need you to set up a separate account so he can post here, but can't read the archives. You don't want scum like Tate poking around in your private business, believe me.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Josh: When This Is Over, We'll Celebrate With A Beer- Ooo, Sorry, Yoshida. You'll Just Have To Squat Outside The Bar, Gnaw On Pocky And Wait For Us

Even more importantly, did you say our Yoshida was just 18 years old?? Really? It would seem to explain a lot, and it would be absolutely hilarious if it was really just some kid that drove Mary up the wall all this time.

Did I say hilarious? I meant tragic. I forgot she was in the same car as me.

So he was lying about being a Doctor? Anything else we should know?

Mary: Run That By Again?

Just so I understand:

-You are an agent for Homeland Security but you're going under a false name here?

-You tapped someones phone in Japan?

-You're prepared to believe all the crazy stuff that's in this archive, and will even go so far as to send someone to Russia on an offhand reference from a crazy person that killed themselves literally moments after they wrote it?

Not that I'm complaining about you joining up with us on this, but these things spring to mind.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Pierce: Shipment Received

I have the package. Thank you for doing the right thing. I never believed that you had any intention of actually creating the virus using the formula, but it was simply far too dangerous to go another moment with it out in the open as it could have fallen into the wrong hands.

I realize that we didn't have the most pleasant of introductions, so let's begin again. For the purposes of this archive you can call me Agent Pierce. Three years ago I became aware of Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida's "studies" in Atlanta, where he had insinuated himself into the workings of the Centers For Disease Control. I suspected that together with his assistant Mr. Tanaka, Yoshida was merely using the Centers' data for his own purposes, that of creating a new virus for use as a weapon. The information I possessed had been gained through means that were unsuitable for use in court, and my superiors were uninterested in pursuing the case as strongly as I was, mainly because they couldn't comprehend the science and because frankly if the alleged perpetrator isn't of Middle Eastern decent they tend to be indifferent these days.

Nevertheless I continued steadily attempting to build a case, and just when I thought I had him locked in he was killed in the hit and run crash. I did what I could to find whatever work he may have left behind, and after reading these archives I see that his son Kisho knew there was a hidden repository, though he obviously was in no hurry to recover them, not knowing what they were and having little interest in what he believed was his father's work. I believe it was simply Kisho's natural contrariness that led him to keep this information to himself, not a desire to do harm to others.

Since then the case remained dormant as there were no further leads. Still, I made sure that I kept my ears out should I have misjudged Kisho's involvement. Though he had only just turned eighteen, I made arrangements to be made aware should he say key words over the phone. That's when I was alerted to the call from Miss Stroud and from there your activities have been quite pronounced.

Mr. Howland, based on everything I've seen and read, I tend to believe in your innocence. That in mind, I'm not sure a judge and jury would see it the same way, especially down in Georgia. I'm officially recommending that you turn yourself in. Officially and for the record, I believe you should do that, and when I finish sending this post I will be notifying the authorities down in Texas as to your whereabouts (you did mention these time-stamps aren't working, didn't you?). With the new, falsified I.D.'s in your possession and your significant resources you might be able to escape. My only hope is that the two of you don't charter a small plane from an independent airfield and fly to another state as that would make the manhunt far more difficult. From there you could press on to one of the coasts and rent a Learjet, making your way to the Pacific where you could, with luck, locate the murder weapon. Officially, this would be tragic. Worst of luck to you.

As to all the absolute insanity that I've read in these pages, I can't imagine what's true and what isn't. It's abundantly clear that you believe it, and it ties together loosely with the facts I've gathered on my own, but I'm reserving judgment.

That being said, for the sake of finding this "Magician" and the man calling himself Hollis, I believe we should proceed as if it were true. While Josh and Mary focus on recovering the knife, I think we should be proactive. Leonard/Leopold mentioned a number of names (which I've run through databases and come up with nothing) but he also mentioned a place. He spoke of a man named "Taras" in Kiev. Kiev isn't that large a city, so I believe we should send someone in to see if we can find him. I have a man in mind, though he should only be given a code that will allow him to post, not read what has already been written here. This "Taras" was mentioned in the same breath as Hollis, so I'm going to assume that he is staggeringly dangerous. Regardless, this Magician and Hollis have always picked the time and place of our encounters, so I believe it's about time we turned the tables.

Opinions? Ideas?

Yoshida: 13

I said I'm busy.

I believe I remember you. You're the agent who failed so utterly to find my father's killer. I'm pleased you finally at least found some worthy adversaries: a crippled old woman and her nursemaid.

Don't bother me again.

Pierce: Stay put

I'll be at Cynthia's house waiting. If that package doesn't arrive by morning all Hell is going to come down on you two. Stay where you are.

Yoshida, I'm not using the same name in this, but I'm the agent you spoke to a year or so ago regarding the virus. I'm glad you seemed to have nothing to do with its creation as you said, but you are still culpable for not turning in Mr. Howland and Miss Stroud when you had the chance. You had better hope that box arrives in the morning as your government would not hesitate to extradite you.

Mary: Complying

October 31, 2008: We stopped off at an Office Depot just outside of Weatherford, Texas and bought a shredder, then checked into a Motel and spent the next hour or so destroying the Human Calicivirus formula.

We were going to do it anyway, we just hadn't had the opportunity as we were running for our freedom. Believe me, Josh and I were as anxious to destroy that formula as you were. We couldn't get it in under the wire for today's mail, so we'll send it first thing in the morning, Agent Pierce. Please don't take Mrs. Howland and Jeff into custody, we are complying fully.

Pierce: Cease And Desist

Joshua Howland and Mary Stroud, you have one chance and one chance only. Proceed immediately to an office supply store and purchase a large shredding machine. Shred every single page in Doctor Yoshida's file box and ship the destroyed remains to Cynthia's house care of Agent Pierce. There will be no negotiations or bargaining.

Cynthia may be under the impression that her life cannot get any worse, but as I think we all know, she's mistaken. Life in a mansion and life in a penitentiary serving time as an accessory could not be more different, even in her condition.

Do the right thing and do it now. You will be found and you will be caught, and in the meantime Cynthia and even Jeff will be put under arrest if I don't get those shredded files by tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Mary: Fugitives

October 31, 2008: We're on the road and so far everything is going fine. We've got temps in the high sixties and it's a clear, sunny, Dallas morning, which feels quite odd on Halloween being from Wisconsin. My every childhood memory of Trick or Treating is either being dressed as a ladybug (for the extra, fuzzy stuffing) or as a frostbitten Princess.

Seeing as how the entire past week has been one long Halloween nightmare, I'm hoping we catch a break on the actual day itself.

(below: pumpkin. Josh is driving, but he still found time to make me search for and include this photo. My "education" in classic movie bad guys continues despite my complete apathy.)

JOSH: This is the Death Star. You know Darth Vader?

ME: I work, I'm not a nun. I know who he is.

JOSH: Well, did you know that Star Wars was based on-

ME: Don't care.

JOSH: -A foreign film-

ME: Not interested.

JOSH: -Called "The Hidden Fortress"? It's-

ME: (Pretends to be asleep))

I'd like to post more on the specifics of our journey, but I'll wait until we get word on whether or not the agent from Homeland Security will play ball. I'm doubtful, but my skepticism is tempered by my faith in Mrs. Howland's judgment.

Cynthia: Lacesso

The agent from Homeland Security refuses to relent, rightly suspecting me of remaining in contact with Joshua. I have yet another interview with him early tomorrow morning. The questions he is asking and the direction his interrogation is probing leads me to believe that his focus is on the elder Doctor Yoshida's research on the human Calicivirus project. I am pondering allowing him access to this archive as it clearly places the blame for the creation of the virus on three dead men: Yoshida, Leonard and my husband. If the agent believes even part of this record, he might be a very valuable ally with the potential to clear our names. It would be a considerable gamble, but the upside is too significant to ignore. At worst he will simply arrest me on the spot, and this holds no great threat to me as I am already a prisoner of my own body.

Should the agent be inclined to disagree with our assertion of innocence, the two of you should do your best to remain hidden. First thing in the morning check out of the hotel and continue traveling westward. Do not post your location, merely continue your march without leaving a paper trail. Use the identification blanks to forge a new identity for Miss Stroud and purchase a new vehicle paying cash.

I do not know how much of Leonard's post was true and how much was a fabrication of his own mind, but having experienced a good deal of doubt concerning my own mental stability of late, I am of the inclination to take most of what he wrote as at least partially credible. He believed that it was important to recover the murder weapon- the Magician's knife- and it is my opinion that that should be our paramount priority. Whether he was correct or not in his assumptions, the acquisition of evidence in the murder of Mrs. Walentowicz is still a valid goal.

I find myself struggling with placing my innermost thoughts and feelings down in this journal, but as Joshua has reminded me in the past, I cannot ask you to do something I am unwilling to do myself. I shall endeavor to rise above my reticence and communicate what are, for me, subjects I would not under normal circumstances broach in any company.

To wit: if Leonard asked my husband Scott to fund Yoshida's Calicivirus project without informing him what it was he was becoming an accessory to, I will never forgive him for it. While it seems obvious that Leonard had been driven insane in the very last moments of his life, the project went on over the course of years, and he had every chance to amend his decision. He was wise to take the coward's way out, for I would have spent the rest of my own life making every effort to punish him for the loss of my husband. I truly believe that if Scott had not been enmeshed in this filthy business via Leonard/Leopold then he would still be alive today. For this, I will always despise him.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Josh: Home Is Where The _____ Is

After sleeping all day, Mary and I decided to go out and grab some grub. It's always difficult waking up at five in the evening and knowing what to order. Breakfast? Some lunch/dinner Frankensteinian amalgam? Grain alcohol? Puzzler.

On the way out we asked the desk clerk (same one as this morning. Working a double, apparently) where a decent place to get a bite to eat was. She directed us to a local steakhouse and on my way out something my uncle wrote popped into my head about other people's comments or thoughts. Just to test a theory I asked her, "So, you really like Die Hard, huh?"

The clerk stared at me quizzically, smiled the customer service smile and gave a little shrug. I pressed. "Die Hard, remember? I'm the guy who gave you ten bucks because you knew who Alan Rickman was?"

The woman squinted at me, cocked her head like a dog being punished with a whistle and asked, "Who?"

Mary and I exchanged looks, and I muttered, "I heart getting the hell out of here."

We ate heartily (at left) or at least I did. I was going to go with the steak and shrimp but then the shrimp's legs reminded me of centipedes and I changed my order. After dinner Mary and I just sat back, digested and talked about her ex-husband; or rather I asked questions and she smiled and daintily rearranged her napkin.

It wasn't until we got back to the hotel that my uncle's suicide really hit me. I was taking a shower (my third today. Between the centipedes crawling and the bites and the heebie-jeebies I was pretty much taking them every hour on the hour) and I remembered the first time I met him when I was nineteen. He smiled at me with such total affection and warmth, and he reminded me of my Dad: so quick to smile, laugh and dream. I didn't ask where he had been up until then. He lived in Belgium so it wasn't like he could have been expected to just pop in, and besides from the moment he came through the door until the time he finally left he would just lavish us with nonstop gifts and devotion to such a degree that I think we would have felt ungrateful and shallow asking too many questions.

That said, there always was a moodiness about him. I remember more than once during his visits that I would wake up in the middle of the night to find him stalking around in the dark talking to himself and swilling wine at an astounding rate. Whenever he would notice me peering over at him his entire demeanor would change and he'd light up, assure me that everything was fine and usher me back to bed, but once back in my room I'd hear his footsteps continue to march restlessly up and down the carpet until I fell asleep.

I've been trying to remember back from the first I met him to the last time I saw him back in January, attempting to determine if he had truly appeared to age in that span. The memory plays tricks. To me was always just old- elderly but spry and never at a loss for energy.

Was he insane? Was he somehow actually King Leopold the First of Belgium? Was he both? If he actually was who he thought he was, that would have made him well over two hundred years old, something that would be absolutely impossible, just like the two or three other impossible things I've experienced over the last week or so.

Whatever happened between him and my father, I have to forgive him, even if he couldn't forgive himself. He may have placed my Dad in danger, but I have to believe he did it out of utter desperation and probably madness, not out of any maliciousness. Whether he was my uncle or he really was my great, great, great, great grandfather doesn't matter in the end. I loved him and love him still, not because of who he was or what he did but because while the rest of his life may have been a lie I know that he truly loved me unconditionally. That's enough, I suppose.

Cynthia: Sterilis

One of my telephone calls was finally answered by Leonard's personal pilot. He informed me that just before touch down at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport he heard wild peals of laughter coming from the passenger cabin and just as he was sending the co-pilot back to check up on Leonard they heard a gunshot. After they landed they discovered that Leonard had shot himself in the temple. He was pronounced dead at the scene by the airport's medical staff.


Doctor Yoshida, make use of yourself or be cut off. Access to these archives is a privilege, not a right.

Yoshida: 12

Not now. Busy.

Josh: "If Any Man Says He Hates War More Than I Do, He Better Have A Knife, That's All I Have To Say"- Jack Handey

We knew we wanted to grab the murder weapon before, but with this new info I think it's more important than ever that we get our hands on it.

Yoshida, we know the boat with the knife on it is heading for Japan, so would you go to the port and see what you can do about getting a hold of it?

Cynthia: Hoienses

We had always known that Scott's line stretched back to Belgium's royal family and suspected that he was directly related to King Leopold I, but we had never bothered to obtain an official accounting of his heritage. This is a portrait of Leopold I:

I imagine that in his youth Leonard would have borne a striking resemblance to Leopold. As to anything else that was written in that post, I find myself as perplexed as yourself, Joshua, but no one gives away twenty-five million dollars in support of a practical joke. If it was Leonard who wrote that entry, he must have meant every word of it.

I have been unable to reach him by phone. I will have Jeffrey continue to dial him every few minutes.

Josh: Whoa *Makes Keanu Reeves Face*

Mom, was that Uncle Leonard? Did you give him the encryption code? Can you call him and check on him?

My first instinct was to laugh that post off somehow, but Mary just checked at the front desk and there was a suitcase there filled with fake passports and I.D's for me as well as blanks so we could forge extras. There's a Swiss bank book with twenty-five million listed in it. I don't think I've ever been as unhappy to receive gobs of money as I am right now.

Does that make the things he said true? I don't think I understood half of what he was talking about, but the half I did understand scared the sh*t out of me. Help?

Leopold: Valediction

My thoughts grow more scattered and I do not have long. If there is such a thing as a benevolent God or Gods, my single desperate prayer is that I am allowed to stay dead. To begin:

In attempting to explain the events that led her to contact me and ask for my help, Cynthia eventually decided to allow me access to this archive, and for this I am most grateful. I write this valediction while flying on my golden, gleaming, private jet, soaring through light blue skies over dark blue, glittering seas, and while most would consider the sight beautiful or even breathtaking, I for one care not a whit for it. The world is an ancient, used-up thing, running down to its final hours and I both cannot stand to see it grow another minute older and at the same time cannot bear to watch it die. I suppose I am a coward. It is why I became who I am and why I have not the stomach to fight an unwinnable battle now.

While I can, I shall inform you of what you face, or more properly what faces you. I trust you will find my knowledge of the matter to be as pathetically limited and useless as I have, and probably even moreso as my faculties desert me.

He is old... far older than myself or Hollis or Nhlakanipho Mabuza or Taras the Mutineer or Crayton or even the Red Lady of Babil, who is so old she no longer remembers her own name. He is older than all of his creations combined, and he changes his name with every new conquest. The human soul is not meant to be trapped inside a host for longer than a few hundred years. It gets pulled taut and stretched so thin that it feels as though you can see through it, the world tinted with a filthy gray haze.

Is he even human any more? Was he ever?

My mind is going... I know that now. He is withdrawing his favour, allowing me to unravel because he knows that I have broken my oath to him. There is so much I want and need to tell you, but it is all a swirling, glittering dust in my brain.

Before I can forget or before I am forced to forget, I tell you this despite knowing that any endeavor to stop him is almost certainly doomed: he will perform a trick. He will use the charms, his knife, a rabbit and his own blood, though his body contains no blood any longer, if it ever did. It is quite probably too late to stop the charms, but the knife and his blood may yet be within your grasp. Keep them separate and failing that, use Yoshida's formula.

There are twenty-five million American dollars in a Swiss bank account under the name "Joshua Frederick". Falsified driver's licenses and passports under that name are being delivered to your hotel now.

Some barriers are beginning to erode in anticipation of what is to come. You will hear things... comments coming from the mouths of those who speak them but do not think them. Expect this phenomenon to increase in the days ahead and try to pay it little mind as most of the bleed-through thoughts will be gibberish.


I willingly ceded him my homeland and was then granted dominion over it in the next world when it was renewed; I swore my oath because someone else would have anyway and I thought I could use the power to make things better, but whenever I tried of course it always went wrong. Women and children... I wanted to pass laws protecting them but was defeated. He has a particular hatred for women, though I know not why and neither did Taras when I asked him in Kiev.

I feel it now, his gaze upon me... there can be no question that he knows, that he is doing this to my mind from afar. I had such vast power, such wealth and endless grinning slaves, but it was I who was the slave, though I wore a crown.

Oh, God, Scott I didn't know... I hoped he could not, would not find out. I thought that if I kept you totally in the dark and asked you to do me the favor on faith that you might be safe. I had to end this, had to break the cycle, cut short the loop and pray that either time would play out as normal or simply end. I had hoped so foolishly that if you had supported Yoshida's efforts at a last-ditch failsafe plan he wouldn't notice. Sorry, so sorry, nothing but sorrow for you and for us all. You would think after so many generations it would be easier to accept the death of your own blood. Scott, please forgive me and forget that favor I asked you- Doctor Yoshida will find funding on his own somehow. Forget the favor. Scott, do me a favor and send me photographs of that newborn son of yours. Please do. Please do not send the check. Nevermind, please. Void, void, void, void please write void on the check if you would, my second cousin my great, great, great grandson, my blood, your blood, your blood if you wouldn't mind, mind, mind my mind is going goddamn you to hell you beast I will fight for this for one more minute I will be myself and sign my name and write my will and use my will and please God let me stay dead this time I'm so sorry I'm I am I am I remain for this cycle and next and forward through all eternity, eternally, eternally yours,

Eternally Yours,


Leopold George Christian Frederick, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, King of the Belgians

Cynthia: Patruus, Pergo

I have considered the matter further, and based on Leonard's immediate and enthusiastic response to my request for aid, I am extending him an invitation to join us. Since he and Scott first connected a decade ago he has treated my family with tremendous warmth and generosity, and I am certain that he will be an extremely valuable ally. I am sending him the encryption key now, so he should be fully versed in our situation by the time his flight touches down.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Cynthia: Patruus

Joshua, your Uncle Leonard is flying into Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on a private jet from Brussels. I contacted him, briefly explained the basics of the situation and found him glad to be of assistance. Call him when you awake and he will rent another motel room in which to meet.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Josh: The Difference Between A "Hotel" And A "Motel": My Will To Live

So, so, so tired. Words can't express. Mom, we took your advice, got our stuff from the hotel (including the file box containing the Human Calicivirus-you know, the formula for a virus that could potentially wipe out all human life on Earth? Seemed kinda important) and motored out of Atlanta. Mary and I took turns driving and we just checked in to a Motel 6 in Dallas. We thought we'd downgrade to keep a low profile. The Dallas Motel 6 is exactly like the Atlanta Ritz Carlton except instead of classic, gold-inlaid Venetian wallpaper over soundproofed walls it has whitewashed cinder blocks, and instead of being greeted by a beautiful, dark-haired Spanish maid when you open your hotel room door, you're faced instead with a three-foot cockroach holding a gun. I'm thinking of inviting Hollis here just so I can give him our room and depress him to death.

The one bright spot was when we checked in I sidled up to the blond, bored desk clerk and asked, "Hey, you know the actor who played the bad guy in Die Hard? Do you know who that is? I'll take the room either way, but nail this and you win an extra ten bucks."

She stared at me blankly and intoned, "I heart Alan Rickman."

Did I do an awkward, exhausted, white-man, fist-pump-riddled victory dance right there in the lobby? I think you know me well enough by now to know the embarrassing answer to that. Mary's punch on my arm was just hard enough to not be considered "playful".

We're going to pass out for hopefully the entire day, so just leave a message regarding whatever arrangements you're going to make for us moneywise.

And Mom, obviously these dates being wrong is beyond weird, but given everything I've seen and heard over the past week I'm just going to go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt. You've earned it, and my faith in what passes for reality has been shaken just enough to pretty much believe anything at this point. As long as you keep my birthday straight I'm on board. I'll post again when we wake up.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Mary: Apologies For The Unprofessionalism

Congratulations, Yoshida. There is now officially no one on Earth I want to punch in the face more than you, and amazingly that includes Hollis.

Yoshida: 11

I see a correlation between your suffering and Tanaka's. He was terrified of centipedes, so they plagued him. You are most afraid of losing your most prized possession: your mind. There is an infinitesimal chance that somehow this "shifting of dates" you perceive is an attempt by "The Magician" to torture you.

It is, however, far, far more likely you are going insane and should be committed to an institution.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Cyntha: Insania

I have been loathe to introduce a facet of my own existence to this journal of events as I was not only highly skeptical of its relevance but also was reluctant to expose what I perceived as psychological instability at best and utter madness at worst. Understand that while on these specific points obviously my opinion is open to scrutiny or even ridicule, but overall my psyche is intact, my mind is sound and my will endures. Based on the night's events and the undeniable fact that there are phenomena occurring beyond our capacity to comprehend, I can no longer justify withholding recent personal experiences despite the wound to pride or ego.

Two instances in your post on the most recent encounter with Mr. Hollis struck me as being relevant to some unnerving shifts in my memory. Firstly, the song he was whistling, and secondly his virtually incomprehensible screed on slavery, where he proclaimed:
"Why be beholden to the history of the industry when history could not have less meaning?"
This struck a chord with me, as I have been having tremendous difficulty of late with two separate dates in world events. Understand, throughout my entire classical education, the study of history was stressed most highly, and specifically on the timeline of world events. More modern teaching methods deemphasizing the committing of dates to memory have been put in play in recent years in the field of history, but in my formative years the stress was placed on memorization rather than the recounting of anecdotes. As Joshua can attest, my retention of information on this subject has been beyond reproach, at least until now.

If you remember back to the unfortunate interrogation of Miss Stroud, where I questioned her at some great length regarding history and world events, I was seeking to discover if a "layperson", if you will, would be confounded in a similar way with either the happenings I was concerned with or others I had not yet uncovered. She was not. Miss Stroud's thoughts were clear and her recollections accurate, at least as far as the reference material could verify.

The problem is- from my admittedly limited perspective- is that the reference material is wrong. Every online resource, every encyclopedia, every book on the subject says that Genghis Khan began his conquest of Asia in 1206 A.D. He did not. This is one of the most important dates in world history, and one that shaped the modern East as we know it. It is not I date I would ever forget. Temuchin took the title of Khan and begin his subjugation of the Eastern world in the year 1207 A.D.

Similarly, another date is incorrect, this one even more relevant to the modern world. The French Emperor Napoleon's domination of Europe rolled unabated until his eventual downfall at the hands of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. As any avid student of the past well knows, his defeat occurred in the year 1818 A.D., yet even cursory research into the matter reveals that every compendium of historical data nonsensically reveals the date of the Emperor's defeat to be 1815 A.D. Go now- if you doubt it- look it up and you will see the incorrect date on every web site; on every page of every tome regarded as the standards for historical fact.

I cannot comprehend how or why this was done, but cannot believe that Mr. Hollis' casual references were entirely coincidental to these events. I also am incapable of fathoming what possible use this information I've shared could have, but seeing as how even some of the most trivial matters have ballooned into larger developments, I felt I had to unburden myself. Also, though the thought is utterly terrifying to me, there is the distinct possibility that I am going mad. I have suffered the loss of both my husband and, essentially, myself. I understand that in such cases dementia can set in, and since my mind is all I have left obviously even the slightest chance that I may lose that as well is wholly agonizing.

I confided these thoughts to Jeffrey at the time I was having them, and he assures me that with the exception of the shifting dates he finds nothing else out of order as concerns my mental health. He has also assisted me in scouring the pages of history for other anomalies, and thus far we have found none. He assures me that should my thoughts or behaviour grow erratic that he will not hold back, communicating to me at once any issues.

Again, I cannot imagine what possible use this revelation could be to you, but as I began this endeavor and wish to see it continued to whatever end, I felt an obligation to report it.