Tenno Heika Komei: The Unbalancing Of The Universe And The Invasion Of Most-Sacred Nippon

From the very instant of my birth in the city of Kyoto on the twenty second day of the seventh month of the Western year eighteen thirty-one A.D., I knew that the world was very, very wrong. While I still felt safe, warm and maintained by the aura of Nippon (or Japan), it was as if I was still in the womb, in a fashion- with a small pocket of comfort and, for lack of a better term, rightness- but just outside of this zone, just beyond a thin membrane was a tide of toxicity just waiting to crash down upon us and poison our very souls.

You may doubt that I could sense the wrongness of the universe in my first instant in the world, but I knew. Nippon told me.

From the day the divine sun goddess Amaterasu had blessed Nippon by making her great-grandson Jimmu the first Emperor, the land was good, the samurai did battle and honor reigned supreme. The land of the rising sun was complete and perfect under heaven. Then came the gaijin.

The word "gaijin" is often misinterpreted as meaning, "foreigner" or "barbarian". It is thought in most circles to be an insult, which it is, though some who have embraced the West foolishly believe it to be complementary. Gaijin means: "outside person", and never has there been a more perfect definition.

The invasion came on the twenty-first day of the seventh month of the Western year eighteen thirty-one A.D. Before this day there was only Nippon. Look back through history before this date and see how few real interactions there were with the rest of the world. How many tsunamis and earthquakes and natural disasters occurred that prevented the gaijin from having a significant impact on Nippon.

This is because before the year eighteen thirty-one A.D., there was no outside world.

There was only Nippon and her people and her divine Emperor, Shogun at his side. Then something changed, and the rest of the world suddenly, magically appeared.

The West (the term is used for familiarity's sake. For our purposes it is defined as, "that which is not Nippon") suddenly was vomited forth upon us, and we have been mystified, horrified and repulsed ever since.

A day after the invasion, Nippon gave birth to me to champion her in response. Nippon lavished blessings upon me, granting me long life, vitality and resources, and to my eternal shame it has not been nearly enough.

I attempted to warn my subjects time and again against the menace of the gaijin, but always the weakest of them have been seduced by the promise of an easier life that their clever contraptions could provide.

"But Emperor," My worthless Generals would whine. "Their guns would make our warriors so much better. It would allow them to defeat our enemies at range so much easier than with bows." Easier. Has any warrior ever been made better by walking an easy road? Nippon is Nippon because of its hardships. Our Samurai were supreme because while their choices were often the most simple, their paths they walked were hard.

At every turn we were seduced by the West, given promises and assurances that with every new adoption and integration into our lives that life would be easier. As easy as drowning. As easy as surrender.

In the Western year eighteen sixty-three A.D. I issued the Joi Chokumei, or the "Order To Expel Barbarians", but by that point even my Shogun had been enthralled by the outlanders, and while he paid lip service to the decree, by and large he chose not to enforce it. It was at this point that I meditated upon my failure as Emperor and came to the conclusion that I would be more effective operating from a position of secrecy.

The merchants were replacing the samurai as the dominant force in Japan, therefore I would attempt to improvise and influence the world economically as the power behind the throne. I steadily and covertly began hiding assets and informing my most trusted clans, the Yoshidas and the Tanakas that I would soon fake my own death, which I did in the Western year eighteen sixty-seven A.D., obfuscating the details of my demise with such vigor that to this day historians still argue whether I died of smallpox or poison.

After I assumed the identity of Lord Yamamoto, I remained in hiding, created the Bengosha Company (Defender, in English) and set about preserving Nippon from the invaders at all costs. Despite my abhorrence of the outside world, I realized early on that I required more information about the West. We needed to know our enemy, but in every instance I was rebuffed.

We Japanese have always been terrified of the sea. We take to the water only as a last resort, and even then cling to shore as a child to its mother's leg. I would send out one spy ship after another to all the corners of the newly-deformed world, but always my loyal Samurai would fail to ever reach their intended destinations. It was only years later that I discovered the reason why: the kujira. The whales.

They surrounded my ships and sang their song, and my men would simply be gone. Over and over the kujira turned my spy navy into a ghost fleet. Finally I resorted to employing a gaijin spy so as to attempt to fool the kujira, but they even attacked his vessel in the Western year eighteen seventy-two A.D., banishing him forever from the Earth and leaving his ship the Mary Celeste adrift, a mystery to all in the world but myself.

Attempting to take the battle to them, I turned my resources toward their destruction, building a line of ships and encouraging whaling at every turn to attempt to at the very least thin their numbers, but again the gaijin exerted pressure, condemning us on "moral" grounds until the feeblest of us whined and begged and brought the defense of our shores to a halt.

It was then that I began to suspect that the invasion of Nippon was not some random occurrence or a mere quirk of a perverted and savage universe, but was instead being instigated by an insidious, ruthless intelligence.

Over the next half-century, I attempted to defend Nippon from the gaijin, but at every juncture I failed. Always the promise of an easier life beguiled my people and made them weak; the lure of greed and luxury overcoming the harsh realities of duty and honor. During this time I fought a war of attrition and slowly lost.

Finally I decided that the Samurai were never meant to fight a war of attrition, much less win one. The Samurai excelled in wars of blood and steel and winner-take-all, so from behind the scenes I created and nurtured an imperialist movement, a hearkening back to the days of yore where honor ruled Nippon. I guided the hand of my adopted great-grandson, Admiral Yamamoto as he planned his attack on the West and I cheered as their boats sank to the bottom of the Hawaiian reefs.

It was war, and amid the blood and the carnage and the sacrifice and the glory, my people had rediscovered who they were. While the odds were steep and victory over the gaijin was far from assured, we had reclaimed our souls.

Then came the fire.

If it had been but one of our cities, we would have surrendered- if they had given us the time- but they had constructed two bombs, so that is what they used. With one of our beloved cities murdered, we would have, to our shame, given up, but we would still have eyed our enemy with the sullen glare of one who would rise once more from the ashes. But two? Two broke us. Nagasaki did more than end the war, it ended who we were. It shattered our national soul, and from then we have been a terminal patient steadily bleeding out.

The West did what it almost always does after it destroys a people: it helped. MacArthur came and rebuilt our cities; they provided us with new facilities and new technology and new ideas and they replaced our bow with a healthy handshake. They made our lives so very much easier.

They killed us with kindness.

It was only after the war, after the lines of communication opened with the gaijin that I received enough information to put a name to my enemy, to the one who had somehow caused the invasion of my world and sought to conquer us absolutely: the Magician.

We fought our unwinnable war as best we could in the intervening years, and then in the Western year nineteen hundred and ninety A.D., my vassal Shigekazu Yoshida informed me of his new plan to create a deadly virus that would, at best, defeat our enemy, and at worst allow us to end the conquest, destroy our enemy and allow Nippon an honorable death. His plan was to work to formulate this virus and release it simultaneously on every continent, annihilating all human life outside of Japan. The island nature of our Empire would make it a simple matter to shut down our borders and forbid any travel even before we had released the virus, keeping the populace safe from harm, though should Yoshida's new "Calicivirus" somehow find its way onto our shores, at least we would die on our terms, not the Magician's.

It was then that I made a decision that haunts me to this day: I said no. Despite all that had been done to us, despite all that was at stake, I saw the human cost and deemed it too brutal and horrible a plan to carry out. Was I wrong? Should I have had the fortitude and will to annihilate all human life in the world? That is for history to decide, for whatever history is worth.

I do know that before the year of my birth, history means nothing. The Magician can shift the dates of events at will, changing important "facts" on a whim. And why? Because they never happened. For all intents and purposes, before the Western year eighteen thirty-one, there was only Nippon, the rest of what we now call "the world" simply did not exist.

Shigekazu Yoshida and his friend and assistant Tanaka disobeyed me. Yoshida, seeking first to understand the dispersal and infection pattern of the virus, turned to the Australian government to fund the Wardang Island project, a scientific endeavor they imagined would control their exploding rabbit population. Then, once he had collected his data Yoshida moved on to America, where he exploited the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for their archives of viruses, attempting to tailor his "Human Calicivirus" until it was perfected.

It was at this point where Yoshida simply ran out of money, as I had long-since refused to aid him, and it was here were one of the Magician's own servants, King Leopold I of Belgium discovered his work and betrayed his own master to assist him. Hoping that if he were to funnel the funds to Yoshida through his own descendant his treason would remain undiscovered by his master, Leopold provided millions and the virus was completed.

Of course, at the very instant of victory, the Magician bore down on Yoshida and murdered him, the virus later destroyed by my now-fellow archivists.

Now, at last, the Magician is coming. I can feel it in my very soul. He rides the waves accompanied by his vile minions, escorted by his fleet of kujira. He is coming here: to my childhood home, to my castle where no gaijin has ever set foot, and here will take place the final battle to preserve Nippon. He will attempt to gain entry to our most sacred shrine deep in the heart of the castle and perform his magic, his trick, ending our world.

We will stop him. We will destroy him once and for all.

So swears Tenno Heika Komei, one hundred and twenty-first Emperor of Nippon.

Cynthia: Singulus

Leopold remarked in his post:

"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..."

Now that we possess the items, I am uneasy keeping them together against Leopold's advice, yet I am apprehensive to have them shipped elsewhere individually. Is there another option?


On another matter, I had a notion to contact the agents from Homeland Security that are holding Jeffrey and inform them as to your general whereabouts, Joshua and Miss Stroud. It is possible that they have not received the information from the Australian authorities as of yet, and they may believe that I am being genuinely cooperative and release Jeffrey in turn. It seems to me that we would lose nothing since they will be apprised soon enough as to your location at any rate, if they have not been already.

I leave it in your hands, however. Do contact me with your decision as swiftly as possible.

Yoshida: 19

I found something. In Leopold's post he gave us the names of those who made deals with the Magician. One of those names, Crayton, had not come up again, but seemed to me as though it might have an Australian origin.

The odds of actually finding anything on public record seemed slim, but there it was: Edmund Crayton, with an address listed four miles north of the town of Balgowan, which is just north of Port Victoria. I'll e-mail you the specifics.

You're welcome.

If you do investigate that address personally, make certain you update your posts regularly so we have a clear understanding of what information you learned in case he kills you.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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: Opes

Today I interviewed two Private Investigators from Madison. Both seem competent, and instead of choosing between them I am considering hiring them both. I shall make my decision over lunch.

Last night Joshua recommended that I discuss my financial situation, not in great detail but only to give an estimate of the depths of my resources. I do not normally care to share such things, but for anyone accessing this archive it is information that you should possess.

My family was originally from Worcester, England. Worcester was a major British center for glove manufacture, and my ancestors were heavily involved in that industry, making their fortune in the early nineteenth century.

My husband Scott was also independently wealthy when we wed. His family is Belgian in origin, and were primary investors in the Banque Nat de Belgique, or National Bank of Belgium when it was founded in 1850. I have been told that he was a direct descendant of Leopold I, the first King of the Belgians, but we never went through the trouble of ascertaining the claims validity.

To make a long story short, our families had divested themselves of these interests before either Scott or I were born and invested them wisely in the interim. The "bottom line", as they say, is that collectively we were worth over one hundred million American dollars. I suppose I should also factor in Scott's life insurance policy, but frankly I haven't had the heart to look closely at the figures since his passing.

The only thing you really need know is that I have the means to fund this endeavor for as long as necessary. I am not wealthy enough to purchase Learjets and tropical islands on a whim, but I certainly should have the wherewithal to see some rogue truck-driver brought to justice.