Tenno Heika Komei: The Battle Of Hitoshirezu-jo, Part II

At noon, the enemy arrived. Sunshine still ruled the day, though darker clouds had edged ever closer, the afternoon comfortably cool. It stood to reason that the weather would be perfect for battle, as the bingo charms granted the Magician (as I understood it) some degree of prognostication.

The enemy forces crested the forested hill directly in front of the castle, a small valley standing between their grassy hill and my forces outside Hitoshirezu-jo. While a right-thinking tactician would at this juncture politely mention that my small army would have the greater advantage utilizing the castle's walls as a defensive position, the very point of our defense was to keep the Magician out of the structure entirely. I would use the castle as a fallback position only, for late last year I had received a letter that read thusly:

To the great and powerful Emperor Komei of Japan,

Forgive the brevity of this note, but I have not much time. I am preparing to write a letter to my descendant, and I have not much doubt that once I do so my old master will sense my betrayal and take vengeance upon me from afar.

This I know, and mark me well: should the Magician set a single foot inside Hitoshirezu-jo, you will be powerless to stop him from performing his trick, thus bringing the world as you know it to an end. You must keep him outside of the castle walls at all costs.

He does have one hurdle, however, and that is that he must somehow place a portion of his blood inside the castle for him to be able to enter. Be aware as well that his body no longer contains blood of its own, so he cannot merely open a vein on your doorstep. He might have an old vial, or use other means to smuggle it inside, such as (and this is my own devious mind at work) painting blood onto Hollis' centipedes and having them run up the walls and into the windows. Or perhaps he will tempt one of your men into hiding a vial on his person. Search all of your people. There will always be a traitor, as I well know to my ultimate shame.

Best of luck to you. End it, once and for all, I beg you.

Your fellow sovereign,

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

With this missive in mind, I had the walls of the castle covered in grease so that none of the foul insects could scurry up its sides, and though I was disgusted by the ordering of the mistrustful act, I had had all of my troops' clothing and armor inspected for blood, discovering none.

My foe and his men gathered over the next hour, his grinning, elderly, yet superhumanly strong forces arranging themselves in a line on the ridge. We would do battle on the small plain in front of the castle, and as both he and I knew that there was no element of surprise to be had, we assembled and positioned our fighters at our leisure.

His lieutenants were the last to appear, and from King Leopold's earlier writings I recognized a good many of the personages. First to appear was the American, Hollis, a man I despised almost as much as the Magician himself, as he had bestowed the secret of nuclear fire to our enemies and brought Nippon to its knees. He was dressed in a white, three-piece suit and casually held a Confederate cavalry saber at his side.

Next could be seen a tall man, black as coal, dressed in only a loincloth and lion's mane headdress. He carried a pair of spears and a shield, and roaming about his feet were four mangy, giggling, snarling hyenas. The man gazed upon my assembled army with an arrogant sneer. From my readings, I concluded that this was Nhlakanipho Mabuza.

Following him was an old woman of middle-eastern descent. She was wrapped in gray cloth, her face thinly veiled, though even from my far position, through my telescope I could see that once she had been a specimen of incomparable beauty. She peered over her nose at the battlefield with what seemed an odd combination of boredom and disdain. I guessed that this might be who Leopold referred to as the Red Lady of Babil, but I could not be certain.

The last of the Magician's Lieutanants limped up the hill, peering up at the castle with gray, melancholy eyes as a rangy, tired-looking wolf slumped up next to him and gazed disinterestedly at the army assembled in front of it. In the man's hand was a Russian shashka (a hilt-less saber) held so loosely and carelessly that it actually dragged at the ground at his feet. His gray hair was long and ragged and the Soviet longcoat he wore identified him to me as Taras the Mutineer.

Finally the Magician himself appeared, strolling up the hill in a full tuxedo, his dark eyes staring up at the castle, the hint of a smile dancing at the edge of his lips. By his side was a woman dressed all in a funereal, black, burqa-like garment. I wondered if perhaps this was the Red Lady instead, but could afford no time to dwell upon the matter further.

From his far vantage point, the Magician picked my person out from the crowd, and gave a theatrical bow in my direction which I did not see fit to return. Then, with a gesture, he commanded his troops to advance.

At my side, sadistic Sato snarled uncontrollably, almost mad with the exertion of restraining himself on the brink of battle. Further toward the line I could see my archers, with Hara serenely stringing his bow and testing its pull as calmly as if it were another day on the practice range.

At the front and center of the line stood Ota, his block-like form stoically poised for battle. Fukimitsu sat atop his horse with the other cavalry on our right flank, his usual whimsical smile replaced with a more proper look of determination and focus.

In the rear stood the reserves and the gaijin, with him gripping the Magician's knife, his knuckles white around the handle, hovering over the opened chest of bingo charms and her holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in another. As I watched they turned and simply stared at one another for a long moment. Before I turned away, in their eyes I saw a reflection of the purest romantic love, and I was reminded that while the outlanders did not belong in our world, they were not all to blame for what had gone wrong in the universe. In that split second, I almost regretted not fulfilling their request and marrying them, even on our most-sacred site.

I pushed these thoughts from my mind, as regret has no place in a leader's mind on a battlefield. The "Smilers" as Howland and Stroud referred to them advanced down the hill to our position, with the African Nhlakanipho Mabuza loping down with them. Hollis sauntered down at a leisurely pace behind, while the Magician, Taras and the two ladies remained in the rear.

Calling out to Hara, I said, "Target the lieutenants. It will take many arrows to bring them down, so aim true for once, Hara-san!" He bowed back to me as my men chuckled politely at my small jest. From my position I could see Hara take a deep breath and close his eyes, then he pulled a long, barbed arrow from the ground and fitted it to the string. With perfect form, he raised his bow high and pulled back the arrow just as Nhlakanipho Mabuza reared back and heaved one of his spears with savage force, the shaft whooshing through the air with a sound I could hear even in the rear, and before Hara could loose even a single bolt, the spear punched straight through the center of his head, dropping him to the ground with an awkward thud, killing him instantly.

My army gasped, and the gaijin Howland summed up our collective thoughts with a stunned English curse that even I recognized: "Motherf*cker!"

I had been harshly reminded of that old tenet of war: no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

And then the battle was joined as the front row of Smilers waded into my troops with their Hawaiian shirts and straw hats, a few of them even randomly clicking away with their cameras as my infantry hacked into them, their katanas flashing in the sun.

My front line held, Ota's gigantic frame providing a constant reference point throughout the engagement. With my telescope I could see one of my soldiers beheading a young, blond-haired cruise director in one place, while refocusing on another area would reveal one of my samurai's arms being torn off by a grinning elderly woman and being beaten to death with it. All along the front was chaos, and in another moment I could see my men staggering back almost as one as they writhed about in what appeared to be an odd dance. Deducing what was happening, I shouted and pointed at Howland, who nodded, stabbing down with the knife into the chest of charms.

With a bright flash, The centipedes which now covered my infantry dropped off, killed instantly, as were Nhlakanipho Mabuza's blood-gorged hyenas and Taras' wolf, who laid down and died almost gratefully. In addition, all of the Magician's Lieutenants staggered back holding their heads, reeling and confused.

My men cheered, redoubling their efforts as I flagged Fukimitsu to commence his cavalry charge. He and his men put the spurs to their steeds with a yell, and the thunder of hoof beats bore down on the enemy, smashing into their flank ferociously and carving a deep hole into their ranks.

We took every advantage of the moment until eventually the Lieutenants recovered, Nhlakanipho Mabuza and Hollis once again attacking my front lines and conjuring more centipedes and hyenas.

And so that is how the day was spent, with the Magician's forces pushing us back to the castle gates until Howland destroyed another charm, when the first few ranks of Smilers and every animal in sight would fall over dead, and the more powerful henchmen of the Magician would be left stunned and staggering, and then we would rally until they recovered and back again. By late afternoon the dark clouds were almost upon us, and while we had slaughtered thousands of them, the Magician still had all of his most powerful servants while I possessed only a few hundred samurai.

Just after five o'clock in the evening, Nhlakanipho Mabuza- drenched in samurai blood and howling for more- was running rampant through my lines. It was then that I finally released my reserves, led by Sato, who at this stage was virtually foaming at the mouth.

Sato charged straight for the African, waving his katana and shouting various profanities. Both the Smilers and the other samurai parted as the two madmen clashed, Sato's katana deflected by Mabuza's shield, a quick side-step saving Sato from impalement on Mabuza's spear in return. Round and round the two circled, all the while furiously attacking and barely bothering to defend.

Eventually, Sato stepped in too close, and Nhlakanipho Mabuza's spear stabbed him through the left shoulder, the point jutting out of his armor on the other side. The Magician's servant smiled with bone-white teeth at the hit before realizing that Sato had offered up the sacrifice of his bad arm so that he could get a clear shot with his good one. Before Mabuza could react, Sato's katana arced sideways underneath his shield, disemboweling him.

Nhlakanipho Mabuza stared down at the intestines and gore spilling out of his belly and cursed, looking peevish. Without hesitation, he yanked the spear from Sato's shoulder with one hand while with the other he lifted up his intestines and threw them over his shoulder like a scarf, getting them out from underfoot. With his internal organs draped over his back like a cape, Mabuza renewed his attack to Sato's great surprise, beating him down to the ground with the butt of his spear. Another hit, and Sato's katana went flying, but as he raised his spear for the killing blow, Fukimitsu roared past on his horse, his sword flashed in the final rays of the day's sun, and Nhlakanipho Mabuza's head fell to the gore-soaked ground, a shocked expression permanently etched on the dead man's face.

A great cheer went up from my men, but only a moment later Hollis stepped from the pack, his pristine, white suit now almost totally soaked in red, and chopped low, hacking off Fukimitsu's horse's forelegs as it galloped. His steed tumbling and screaming, Fukimitsu went flying, hurtling high over the field and down in a clattering heap, dazed and momentarily helpless while Hollis grinned a yellow smile and sauntered over to his prone form twirling his saber in anticipation for the killing blow.

While it is up to a leader of men to treat every one of his men with a certain equanimity, some simply have more value than others. Fukimitsu was my interpreter and my chief Lieutenant, and his loss would have been a heavy burden on my command. Can I claim in all truth that I would have personally leapt to his rescue if he were not my descendant? Perhaps not, but therein lies another rule of leadership: rank hath its privileges.

Drawing my blade, I charged down through the fray, pushing aside friend and foe alike until I bore down on Hollis, calling his name to try and turn him away from Fukimitsu. Finally I was almost upon him, but Hollis stood directly over him, placed his foot on my great-great-great-great grandson's neck, held his sword pointed directly downward at his face and turned his head to smile at me cunningly out of the corner of his eye.

I knew that if I took one more step Hollis would kill him, so I halted in my tracks and considered what I could possibly say to make him stop. I could think of nothing that would not impugn either my or Fukimitsu's honor, so I said nothing and merely stared.

After a long moment, Hollis bowed to me in his Southern American style and said in heavily accented Japanese, "I had the pleasure of entertaining your man Tanaka for a year or so, your majesty. While I taught him English, I did the best I could to learn his language in turn for just such an occasion. Ironically, however, after all my struggles to learn your three alphabets and dizzying patterns of speech, with all due respect, here you turn out to be not much of a conversationalist." He laughed then with good humor, or as good as a soul so utterly twisted could manage.

Slowly circling him to try and draw his attention toward me and away from Fukimitsu, I said, "Tell me, there are so many countries and culture that were brought to this world, so why are there so few of the traitors who serve the Magician here today? Should there not be fifty or a hundred of you or more?"

I kept my eyes on his, but still his sword point hung only inches from Fukimitsu's head. Hollis nodded, more than happy to carry on a conversation amidst a full-on war. "Some regret their decision and do not come when called. My master does not punish those who do not participate, only those who turn on him. Also by this point, many have died- some by accident, some by murder and the rest by their own hand." He shrugged. "Immortality isn't for everyone."

He grinned then, his sword whipping up and away from Fukimitsu's face. "Care for a sword-fight, your majesty? That's all I wanted when I cut your boy's horse out from under him in the first place." He raised his saber in salute and I granted him a nod in response before we charged, our blades smashing into each other in a shower of sparks. Again and again we attacked, and I could not help but smile. For all of these years the tremendous physical gifts that Nippon had bestowed upon me had gone all but unused, but now finally I could reveal the speed, strength and agility that made me the Magician's equal, at least of the flesh.

I was concentrating so completely on Hollis that I was surprised when a stray Smiler lunged at me from the side, her wrinkled and liver-spotted hands reaching out for my neck, and I was even more taken aback when her advance was stopped by Hollis himself, who brought his saber down on her skull, splitting her head in two and dropping her to the ground. He muttered, "Pardon, ma'am. Private party," before saluting me once more and rejoining the combat.

I do not know how long we fought there on the field- for the most part unmolested by the surrounding troops- but finally I was able to convince him in the false sincerity of a downward feint and thus take his left arm off with a rapid upward slash. His face betrayed not a hint of pain, but he shook his head at the wound and gave a soft curse. "I tell you, sir, on our last campaign I duelled the King of the Belgians, and he did not land a single blow."

My head held high, I said, "The Emperor of Japan is superior in swordplay to the King of the Belgians. This surprises you?" He shook his head, chuckling, but before he could speak I continued, "And Leopold, he was one of the King's men?"

"A minister."

"And he betrayed his King? Joined the Magician, gained immortality and was himself made King after the Magician brought his world to invade Nippon?"

Hollis paused to kick his severed arm out from underfoot. "Yes, your majesty. A decision he came to regret, apparently."

"But you do not."

He shook his head. "Why am I the way I am? Is that your question, sir?" For the first time I felt I was nearing the heart of the man. "An abusive father? A neglectful mother? Broken home? Crippling poverty? A true love lost to another man? All of it? All and more?" Hollis sighed. "Does it matter now? If anyone can accept a monster for what he is, surely it is you and your people. The only reason that matters is that I do it because I can. Looking beyond that has rapidly diminishing returns, I assure you."

My blade sang out then, slashing across his midsection, but the tip of my katana only just caught his belly, dealing a mere flesh wound. In another moment Hollis was retreating, darting back up the hill toward the Magician, weaving his way through the army of Smilers who now were free to turn their attentions on me. I spit on the ground after the retreating American, then made my way back to my position behind the lines, beheading whatever Smilers I happened to run across on my path.

Once I had returned to my vantage point nearer the castle, I trained my telescope on the opposite hill to find that a small unit of samurai had fought their way up the left flank all the way to the Magician, Taras and the two veiled women. They reached Taras first, and he raised his sword and parried without enthusiasm, blocking blow after blow until finally stepping forward, reaching out a hand and pushing his attacker down the hill as a child would in a game of king of the mountain.

Another of my men stepped closer to the beautiful, veiled woman in gray standing on the right hand of the Magician, and though she had no weapon he raised his katana to cut her down. Just before he could bring the blade down upon her, she raised her hand, and suddenly his face was covered with snakes, their fangs sunk deep in his cheeks and eyes. As he writhed on the ground before her in anguish, though I could not see her expression behind her veil, her eyes danced with cruel glee.

Over the screams of the dead and dying I could hear the rumble of thunder now as the dark clouds massed closer. Dusk was approaching, and with every lost moment of daylight we lost our advantage. The Smilers showed no sign of fatigue, while my men (with the exception of Ota) were almost completely exhausted. We had killed at least seven of them to every one of us, but still they kept coming, pouring over the hill in a seemingly endless stream.

Noticing that there was a limited range on the damage that the bingo charms could do when they were destroyed, Howland had moved up closer to the front, smashing the knife down and dropping hundreds of the enemy with a single blow, but as night fell only a few charms remained. The woman, Stroud, fired her bow when necessary to kill a stray foe that happened to straggle toward them, and I was forced to concede that her past months' training had been effective, and her courage in the face of the enemy was impressive.

Finally, the last light of day was swallowed up by the dark clouds, and we were fighting virtually blind. Taking heavy losses, I reluctantly gave the order to retreat to the castle walls, and here is where our woes truly began.

The samurai is never as ferocious and unbeatable as when he is on the all-out attack, and conversely, is always at his weakest when forced to withdraw. Contrary to the belief of gaijin and their preposterous portrayals of Japanese warriors in their stories, the samurai has no maneuver that you could reasonably label a "parry". If two katanas strike one another, it simply means that they were both attacking the same place, not that one was employing a defense. Because of this fighting style, retreating can be next to impossible. Our only two saving graces were that the enemy's footsoldiers used no weapons, and every time they were on the brink of completely overwhelming us on our stumbling run back to the castle, Howland would destroy another charm, buying us much needed time.

Yet, by the time my men had made it back to the castle doors, less than thirty remained, with most heavily wounded. Sato's left arm had been rendered entirely ineffective by the spear-wound at the hands of Nhlakanipho Mabuza and would certainly have to be amputated. Fukimitsu had a savage gash over his left eye from the fall from his horse during Hollis' attack, the wound stubbornly leaking blood down his face through the crude stitches. Ota was seemingly one, giant, open wound, bleeding from a thousand cuts and scratches, but never once did he say a single word of complaint, or a word of any kind. He simply continued to fight, performing precisely as I expected he would on the day he was born for.

Even young Kisho Yoshida, blinking behind his thick glasses, had been wounded. He limped around on a smashed foot, hurt as he was delivering arrows to the archers and bandages and painkillers to the medics. Early in the fight his archery skills had been deemed just as deadly to us as the enemy, so he had been demoted to packhorse, hauling supplies where needed. Despite his clear lack of aptitude at fighting, he had carried out his new tasks admirably enough.

As for his uncles, the brothers Yoshida, I would only discover later that the two had been slain most brutally by Hollis when they charged him in the field, howling for vengeance for their murdered brother.

The last ones to the door were Howland and Stroud, with her firing one arrow after the next at the advancing horde, and him smashing the knife down into the box, felling wave after wave until finally he tossed the chest aside, all the charms destroyed. The two of them turned around and moved to step inside only to find Ota blocking their path into the castle.

Speaking softly, I said, "I swore long ago that no gaijin would ever set foot in this sacred place. Tell them... tell them I wish it were otherwise."

Fukimitsu stared at me pleadingly. "My lord, your majesty... grandfather... they have fought with us! They have bled with us... if not for them... I ask you, please reconsider. Do not leave them outside the castle to their doom." We could now see a few shambling forms lurching ever closer, coming up behind the gaijin, the two of them speaking to me imploringly from outside the threshold.

Young Kisho bowed to me as well. "Your majesty, no one has fought for you harder then they, though they were unaware of whom they were assisting. I beg you, do not let them die like this... abandoned and betrayed. Though they are gaijin, they are... they have shown me that-" I cut him off with a gesture, and he bowed again, falling to his knees.

Gritting my teeth, I turned to Fukimitsu. "This is not a pleasant decision. Understand... every instinct I possess screams at me not to let them inside this place. Every molecule of my royal person, blessed by the spirit of Nippon, tells me that their presence must not defile Hitoshirezu-jo." Now the leering grins of the Smilers could be seen hovering forward into the ring of torchlight, their arms reaching out for the back of the gaijin's necks. Howland and Stroud stopped talking- seeing as no one was listening- and simply stared at me, their eyes conveying a mixture of exhaustion and betrayal.

Torn, knowing from reading this archive just how completely they had suffered in their quest to destroy my sworn enemy, I finally let out a curse and broke my lifetime oath. "Search them, quickly! Make absolutely certain they have no vials of blood on them. Hurry!" My men let out a quick cheer, relieved by my decision, and two of my samurai leapt forward and pawed at the gaijin even as the grinning, one-armed figure of Hollis stepped through the ranks of the Smilers, sword in hand. While my men frantically worked their way down the Americans' bodies, Hollis stepped within a few yards and lifted his saber, preparing to cut sideways through both of them with a single blow. As he reared back to deliver the killing strike, my men had worked their way down to their socks, hurriedly turning around to me to proclaim them clean.

"Ota-san!" I yelled. "Now!" Ota reached forward with a speed that belied his enormous frame, grabbed both Howland and Stroud by their shirt fronts and yanked them inside just as Hollis' saber whistled behind them, cutting only air.

I suddenly felt nauseous and fought the urge to vomit, feeling as though a barrel of black, foul oil had been poured into a basin of the holiest water, my very soul crying out at the presence of the gaijin in our most sacred place.

Now we all huddled in the torchlight of the castle's entryway, Ota standing in the doorway waiting for a charge that did not come. The enemy massed just feet away outside the castle, but they made no move to enter. After a few moments, Hollis stepped aside, and the Magician strolled up in front of the door, just feet from Ota. Even after the day's fighting, his tuxedo was pristine, and he had not a scratch on him.

"Ota-san, be sure to stay on this side of the doorway. He cannot enter." Ota backed up two paces, leaving the entryway open. For a long time, all was quiet, save for the panting of my exhausted soldiers and the muted groans of the wounded. The enemy army was massed on the other side of the archway, but they made neither movement nor sound.

After a few long moments, the Magician- standing mere inches from the threshold- raised his hands and pulled back his cuffs, showing us that there was nothing up his sleeves. Then he ever so slowly began to raise his right foot and step forward, closer and closer, until he brought his polished, black leather shoe down on the cobblestone floor inside the castle. When his foot hit the ground, the very earth shook, and behind him was the deafening crack of a thunderclap.

"Oh, sh*t," Fukimitsu gasped as the Smilers poured around the Magician, flooding inside the entryway and throwing themselves upon us in wave after wave of wrinkled, supernaturally strong flesh, their sheer mass pressing us down and pinning us in the confined quarters.

In an instant, with a single footstep, the Magician had won the Battle of Hitoshirezu-jo. Disarmed and defeated, we could do naught but await our fates and the grand trick that would end our world.

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.

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.

Josh: You Can't Tell The Players Without A Scorecard, So I'm Making A Scorecard

Okay, time out. I feel like events are absolutely spinning out of control here and I need to get a handle on them. To recap and provide a time line (and correct me if any of this is out of whack, I may not be entirely accurate as I was just blown up last night):

-Over a decade ago, Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida and his assistant Tanaka begin experimenting with the Rabbit Calicivirus on Wardang Island, Australia, secretly releasing the infected test-subjects onto the continent and wiping out ninety-five percent of the rabbit population. He does this as a dry run to see how the virus would work if adapted for humans.

-Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida moves to Atlanta, Georgia and gains access to the Centers For Disease Control, or CDC (at right. Put up a boring, official government seal, eh, Mary? Well, two can play at that game!) This allows him to work to perfect the human Calicivirus strain with financial aid from (and I still find this just about impossible to believe) my father, Scott Howland.

-As Shigekazu and Tanaka are about to fly back to Japan with the formula that will essentially kill all human life on Earth, their car is hit by a semi truck. Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida is killed instantly while Tanaka is dragged off into the backwoods of a small town called Hollis Crossroads by The Old Man (I'm just going to go ahead and capitalize it. I thought of calling him "The Southern Gentleman" or "Colonel Sanders" or something, but frankly having dealt with him first-hand I'm way too terrified of him to get cute with a nickname). The Old Man rams a chisel into Tanaka's spine to paralyze him from the neck down, then spends the next year (!) teaching him to speak English.

-Meanwhile, six months or so later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a semi truck broadsides my parent's car, killing my father Scott and paralyzing my mother Cynthia from the neck down. This is the one that I cannot wrap my head around. The deliberate act six months before was to paralyze Tanaka... the random act six months later paralyzes my mother in precisely the same way.

-The aftermath of the attack is witnessed by Mrs. Justina Walentowicz, who just happens to be one of, if not the luckiest Bingo player in the state (B.I.N.G.O., B.I.N.G.O., B.I.N.G.O. and B.I.N.G.O. was his name-O. Good, hopefully now it's stuck in your head, too).

-My mom and I start investigating the crash, hiring Mary Stroud, a P.I. from Madison, Wisconsin. Mrs. Walentowicz gets interviewed a couple of times, then she's horrifically murdered, her head pulled down into her abdomen and up through a hole cut in her stomach. In her smiling mouth is a photograph of the semi truck she thought she saw drive away from the crash. Pushed up and into her brain is a freshly amputated rabbit's foot infected with the Calicivirus.

-In researching the rabbit's foot and trying to narrow down where it came from, we contact Wardang island and acquire the number for Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida's son, Kisho. In addition to having a charming, bubbly personality, Kisho is set to identify the virus of that particular rabbit's foot and determine which continent it came from (and by the way, I'm ready to just call that one over and say it came from Wardang Island. Test away, but I have no doubt). In conversation with Kisho, we find out about his father and the semi truck attack.

-I fly down to Atlanta to get Shigekazu's notes on what we think are the rabbit Calicivirus and also to poke around a bit and get more information on his murder. Mary stays in Milwaukee to keep in touch with Detective Ward, the officer in charge of the Walentowicz case, and also secretly to investigate my family, her own employers (sneaky monkey).

-While recovering Shigekazu's research, a man with an Australian accent leaves me a note giving an address in a small town called Hollis Crossroads and a reference to Tanaka. Meanwhile, Mary discovers that my father wrote Shigekazu a check for three million dollars.

-Sh*t gets weird in Hollis Crossroads to say the very least. What up until this point I considered to be a murder investigation turned into an absolute horror show. So much happened out at that damn house I think I'm going to spend years unraveling it and undoubtedly trying to suppress it. The Old Man killed my bodyguard and essentially framed me for it, Tanaka was unknowingly covered with centipedes (and was there special meaning behind that? I mean, it was beyond creepy and gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it, but did they have some significance beyond that?) and The Old Man's assistants killed Tanaka and themselves all while wearing the same smile Mrs. Walentowicz had (I believe I called it one part amused, one part amazed and one part batsh*t crazy. I'm standing by that description). Finally, we learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that I way-overuse parentheses (true).

-Finally, The Old Man was humming the bingo song (was his name-O) which, along with the matching smiles reminded us of poor Mrs. Walentowicz. Mary called her daughter, found out just how awesome a bingo player she really was and learned that she had been given a special offer to join a retirement community for great bingo players only: a rest home that just happened to be located in Hollis Crossroads. Mary and I are going to go and check it out tonight under the pretense of a married couple considering putting her mother in the home.


The thing I can't stop thinking about is the fact that the murderer driving the semi (Let's just call him The Driver from now on, k?) who killed both my and Kisho's father probably saved the world by doing so. Whoever he is, he and The Old Man are cold-blooded murderers and utter monsters... but are they really the good guys here? I'm going to do my best to bring them to justice, but is that even really the right thing to do?

Also, things happened at that house that I cannot begin to explain. Was most of it a trick somehow? A carefully crafted illusion? Or was it something more? If it was... if it was really what I think it was, then what chance do we have?

Okay, I feel more up to speed. Not better, particularly, but more up to speed. Time in.

Josh: The Old Man

This post has my name in the title, but Mary is playing secretary and taking dictation for me as my injuries tend to make typing difficult. We made it to Atlanta and have checked in to a different hotel (The Ritz-Carlton) under Mary's name, as mine might draw the wrong kind of attention. It's almost midnight and I'm beyond exhausted, but I have to get this down before the details escape me.

It's been the longest twenty-four hours of my life, so strap in, this is going to take a while to tell. If you don't believe it, I absolutely understand, because I was there, I saw it happen and even I'm skeptical.

A note on format: there's quite a bit of "dialog" in here, and both Mary and I have been struggling with how to write that out in these posts. We've sort of been putting it in "book form", where we just write down what people said as if you were reading it in a story. It's certainly weird to do when it's your own life, but I think both of us feel that it puts you (the reader) more in our position, and lets you know what events were actually like. Obviously, these are our impressions and recollections of what was said- it's not like we're remembering conversations verbatim, so don't take every word as Gospel. It's a work in progress, so if anyone has a suggestion for a better way to do it, let me know. I might mess around with a screenplay format and see if that works, I don't know-

(How long will you be stalling before you get to what happened, Josh?- Mary)

Mary wrote that. Cruel woman, taking advantage of the non-typing infirm. Fine, here we go.

Last night after I finished posting I drove my rental car over to the offices of Executive V.I.P. Security in downtown Atlanta, filled out seemingly a dozen forms and underwent a credit check. They were (rightfully) concerned about the fact that I needed a bodyguard on such short notice, and that my description of my situation was both menacing and vague. Finally, upon receiving a sizable "hazard pay" bonus but still with obvious reservations they assigned me a bodyguard and sent us on our way.

My bodyguard was black, bald, squat and without anything resembling a neck. He was only about six feet in height, but seemed equally wide, and I was thankful I'd decided to rent a luxury sedan instead of a compact. His name was Adalius, and any thoughts I had about him being all brawn and no brain were dispelled on the walk to the car.


ADALIUS: So, what... you a rich white boy like to dress down in flannel and jeans and all that sh*t so you don't look rich and seem like just another dude, huh? Probably got all that liberal white guilt about black folk, am I right? Sh*t, I know I'm right, baby.

ME: That's not bad.

ADALIUS: You need me to drive?

ME: I guess not.

ADALIUS: Fire it up, then. See, I knew if I said, "You need me to drive", you'd be all like, "Uh... I better say I don't because otherwise it'll seem like a racial thing", even though you really did want me to drive, probably 'cause I know Atlanta and you don't.

Me: Actually, why don't you drive-

ADALIUS: It's too late for that sh*t, motherf*cker, you driving. (Laughs) I'll work the radio, you don't know these stations, know what I mean? You probably want to smoke some reefer, too, all that flannel. You got any weed?

Me: (Starting the car) Uh, no... not on me-

ADALIUS: I know where we can hook you up. Drive, baby, I got your back. You with Adalius now, you ain't got sh*it to worry about.


We drove for a good hour and a half in the darkness, rolling out of Atlanta and southwest toward Alabama. The expressway gave way to a two-lane highway, which then became a simple asphalt road, the streetlights becoming more and more sparse. Adalius spent his time punching buttons on the radio, trying to find the R&B stations that had the furthest range and regaling me with stories of the time he did security for rapper Jay-Z and witnessed first hand the greatest sight he had ever been blessed to see.


ADALIUS: Beyonce's booty is more than just a physical manifestation of perfection, baby- that sh*t is supernatural! That ass got its own aura, know what I mean? Goddamn, did this road just turn into dirt? It's a good thing I'm packing, know what I mean? These rednecks ain't particularly fond of black folks, especially not one as pretty as me. Tell me again how this ain't a drug deal.

ME: This is not a drug deal.

ADALIUS: F*ck you, it ain't. If this is a drug deal, I'm joining their side, you know what I mean? Don't f*ck me on this, Josh.

ME: I swear to God this is not a drug deal. Honestly, I don't really know what it is. I'm just here to get some answers, that's all.

ADALIUS: This shit is dangerous, I can feel it.

ME: Maybe. If I didn't think it could get weird, I wouldn't have hired you, right?


He nodded uneasily, leaning forward in his seat to squint out into the darkness. One bend in the road later, we drove up to the address, a once-majestic three-story home with peeling paint and moss creeping up past the first floor windows. All the shades were drawn, though we could see faint light from inside around the edges. We got out of the car silently, keeping the headlights on and pointed toward the front door. The only sound was the muffled chittering of bugs and our own, nervous breathing. I started walking slowly toward the house, Adalius falling in behind me.

The porch was slanted and half-rotted, a rusty hatchet inexplicably stuck into the hand-rail. I put a hesitant foot down on the first step, listened as it creaked ominously and stepped back quickly. Then I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted, "Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?"

There was a pause, then from inside the house came a frantic, terrified yell. "Help! Help me, I beg you! Help! Help!" The words came with a thick Japanese accent and just kept coming, the cries for help continuing on and becoming more frightened.

I looked back at Adalius to see him shaking his head. "F*ck that. Cop time." he said, and pulled out his cellphone. He grit his teeth, muttering, "No signal. You?" I checked the Blackberry and couldn't dredge up a hint of a connection.


ADALIUS: I ain't no S.W.A.T. team. This ain't my thing.

ME: You can hear him. That guy's not faking. Come on, we'll go in together. I don't like it either, but... (motions toward the direction of the voice)

ADALIUS: (Pauses as we listen to the cries for help) F*ck it, then. Alright. Take that hatchet.

ME: What?

ADALIUS: Take the blade. I can't watch your back and do this at the same time. Back me up or I'm sitting my ass in the car.


He pulled his gun, a small, black automatic pistol while I wrenched the hatchet out of the porch's soft wood. The hatchet may have been rusty and old, but a quick, painful run of my thumb across its edge told me it was razor sharp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw either a small rodent or a large insect scurry off the edge of the porch as Adalius gingerly walked up the steps. I yelled, "We're coming! Hold on!"

Immediately we heard, "Thank you! Thank you! I am here! Be careful, he's-" the voice stopped, muffled, and Adalius and I exchanged looks. He grit his teeth, took the safety off his pistol and warily proceeded over the threshold, pushing the front door aside with his free hand. The foyer was dark and smelled of mold, funneling down into a long, straight hallway lined with darkened doorways. The layout of the house was unusual, the three-story quasi-mansion at some point long ago seemingly having been converted into a now mostly-vacant boardinghouse. At the end of the corridor we saw light coming from under doors on the left and right. All was quiet except for the groaning of the floorboards underneath our feet. We glanced on either side of us through the open doorways into the first rooms, but both were pitch dark.

As Adalius passed the first set of darkened doors, I saw a figure dart out of the room on the right, and before I could react he grabbed me from behind, one arm crossed over my chest, the other locked down onto my right hand, clenching over my fingers and keeping my grip tight on the hatchet. I let out a stunned gasp and Adalius turned around, his look annoyed. "What-" I was tossed around like a doll-like one of those stuffed dance partners used to teach the tango. Whoever was behind me pulled back my hand and with sudden, startling ferocity swung the hatchet into Adalius' skull, the blade smashing down and burying itself up to the hilt in his brain.

He fell with heavy thud and clatter, and whoever held me released me suddenly, pushing me into the doorway on the left with surprising gentleness. I stood in the darkness, stunned, reeling and cradling my right wrist. It was either sprained or broken, but before I could determine which I saw my attacker bend down and drag Adalius' body effortlessly out of the front door and down the porch steps. Staggering back into the hallway shell shocked and petrified with fear, I felt my foot kick something heavy and small, and knew immediately what it was. I reached down with my left hand, picked up Adalius' pistol and weaved my way back outside.

Adalius' killer had pulled his body down to the ground, where it lay in an awkward heap, illuminated by the rental car's headlights. The killer stood over him, silhouetted by the beams, but even by his shadow I could tell that his hand was darting into his jacket. "Don't!" I yelled, the gun firing mostly by accident. I shot wide-right, a puff of dirt jetting up from the ground behind him. Gunsmoke hung in the air between us, and I could see him slowly pull out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. When I shot at him he hadn't flinched at all.

His voice came out in a thick Southern drawl, all deep honey and molasses. "I see you found the hatchet." He lit a match and took a long drag off the cigarette, the flame illuminating his face in the darkness. I was astonished to see that he was old, at least sixty, his face deeply lined and his hair pure white. He wore a rumpled suit and tie, the fresh blood spattering his cuff seeming to glow in the glare of the headlights. "I thought you might. I do want you to know that it was never my intention to injure your wrist. My apologies, son. We are not perfect, much as we wish we were." His smile was somehow mocking and sincere at the same time, and as I tend to relate every real-life experience back to movies and TV, it felt for all intents and purposes like I was being f*cked with by Matlock.

"Why..." I stammered, my voice thick. "Who are you, and why-"

"Mr. Tanaka is waiting for you, Mr. Howland. He has waited quite a while. Would you care to adjourn inside?" He waved toward the house with his cigarette, the gesture both languid and theatrical.

I thought a moment, then nodded, motioning for him to go first. He did, sauntering across the dirt in front of the porch and up the stairs past me. I kept the gun pointed at his back the entire time, careful to keep my finger off the trigger to avoid a repeat of my accidental firing earlier. We walked down the hallway and he turned to the last door on the left, opening it. The light from the room hit him, and I was astounded to see that he was only about five and a half feet tall with a slight build. He strode inside with me right behind him, and I openly gaped when what I saw reminded me of home.

A Japanese man I assumed was Tanaka laid in a bed covered by a brown, stained, thick, paisley-patterned comforter. The walls were covered in ancient, striped wallpaper and there was a cheap, country-craft fair-quality painting of whales spewing water through blow holes opposite the bed. Sitting next to the bed in a wooden chair was a young black woman with wild, frizzy hair wearing a worn, frayed, dark blue dress. On a chair at the foot of the bed sat a young black man wearing a dark blue shirt and jeans. Even at a glance it was obvious they were siblings. Both wore the same smile: equal parts amused, amazed and batsh*t crazy. The Japanese man was as terrified as anyone I had ever seen, the black woman's hand clamped over his mouth. As I entered the room, she removed it and he began sobbing and babbling, so terrified he forgot himself and spoke nothing but Japanese. I kept the gun on the old man who stepped next to the black woman, but my eyes were drawn to the beeping machines that surrounded the bed and were attached by various tubes and wires to Mr. Tanaka: they were the same medical equipment required to keep my mother alive.

The old man spoke, raising his voice to be heard. "English, Mr. Tanaka. Remember, sir? English, if you please. That's a good man." Tanaka's eyes locked on to the old man, his crazed yells dying in his throat. The old man motioned for the black woman to rise from her chair, which she did. "Do be a lamb and sit in the corner with your brother, away from Mr. Howland and Mr. Tanaka so they may be allowed to concentrate on their conversation, if you would." The woman and her brother both did as they were told, walking to the far, dusty corner of the bedroom and sitting patiently on the floor, their smiles never wavering. Their eyes stayed on the old man. He sat in the chair at the foot of the bed and leaned back, puffing on his cigarette and inviting me with a cheery wave to sit down next to Tanaka.

Warily, I made my way across the room and sat down at Tanaka's bedside, keeping my gun on the old man. "Make a move and I shoot. Understand?"

He nodded, grinning slyly. "Having experienced your marksmanship once tonight, I live in fear for the plaster on the wall behind me." Giving a wink, he added, "But your meaning is heard and understood. You have nothing to fear from me, I assure you. I have not spent all this time providing instruction to Mr. Tanaka in the English language merely to deny him the opportunity to speak it."

I turned to Tanaka, dumbfounded. "He taught you English? Here?" Tanaka nodded.


TANAKA: I have been held prisoner here for... I do not know how long. A year? Two? Please to keep pointing gun at him.

ME: Last I heard you quit working for Doctor Yoshida. What happened?

TANAKA: Crash. Yoshida-san and I drove, and big truck hit car. Doctor died right away, I have some cuts, blemishes?

OLD MAN: Bruises.

TANAKA: I am pulled from car by... them. They were not the truck driver, he drive away. They bring me back to this place, feed me, bandages. He says, "Need surgery". They bring me to kitchen, put me on table, face down. I tell them no, I am fine, but they take off clothes, hold me down. He... he takes knife, knife but flat on end...

OLD MAN: Chisel.

TANAKA: He puts it on my back, I feel how sharp. I beg him, whatever he is going to do, please no, please do not. Those two in corner and a third hold me down, I struggle, but cannot get loose. He does not use hammer. He pushes only with hand, I scream and scream and he pushes it into my flesh, into my back, deeper and deeper. I feel blood pouring down my sides, blood flowing over my neck and up my chin and he pushes. Then I feel nothing. Nothing ever again below neck. Oh, God, nothing, nothing.

ME: It's alright, I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to get you to a hospital.

OLD MAN: Tell him about your work.

ME: Shut the f*ck up.

OLD MAN: Tell him, Mr. Tanaka.

TANAKA: I... I work for Doctor Yoshida, help on Wardang Island with rabbits. Infected. Doctor Yoshida knows, I only assistant.

OLD MAN: You are too modest, sir. Tell him about your work.

TANAKA: It is... is work with rabbits. With the virus.

ME: What was it? You can tell me.

TANAKA: The rabbits were... they were test, dry run. He let rabbits loose on mainland.

ME: Yoshida let the rabbits loose on purpose? He did it? Infected all of Australia with the Calicivirus?

TANAKA: Hai. Yes. He and I. Then to America, to Atlanta for further research at CDC, the headquarters. Mutation of virus, strengthening and... what is word, clothes...

OLD MAN: Tailoring. Heh, clothes, tailoring. Pray, continue.

ME: CDC, that's, what-the Center for Disease Control? That's in Atlanta?

TANAKA: Yes. We worked... we were almost finished. We were to leave back for Japan when there was the crash.

ME: Finished with what? Tailoring what?

TANAKA: You said you would take me. To hospital. To help.

ME: I will. What were you doing?

TANAKA: Adapting Calicivirus for humans. Please do not leave me here. Please, I beg of you-

ME: People? On people? Do you know what that virus does? Are you f*cking crazy? That damn thing has a ninety-five percent death rate in rabbits!

OLD MAN: Ninety-nine plus in people, with the modifications the gentlemen made. A remarkable improvement. Pardon the interruption.

ME: What the hell? What in the hell? You and Yoshida were going to kill almost everyone on the planet? Why in God's name... what were you thinking?


Just then, an absolutely enormous, glistening centipede skittered over the other side of Tanaka's pillow and right over his face. It was as long as a flashlight. He and I screamed at the same time. Before I could even react, it ran down Tanaka's neck and under the covers. Tanaka screeched for me to kill it, his head shaking and gyrating in a useless, panicked attempt to somehow move his paralysed body. Still trying to keep the gun on the old man, I reached down with my sprained right hand and slowly lifted up the blanket in the middle of the bed. He was naked, his flesh pale where he still had skin. The bed underneath the thick comforter was writhing with centipedes, at least fifty of them scuttling over each other. Seeing my face, he asked me if I saw the centipede-begged me to please find it and kill it as he couldn't bear to think of such a thing crawling over him in the night.

At this point the old man rose and moved so swiftly that he was out of the room almost before I knew he was gone. I yelled and ran after him, charging down the hallway a few footsteps behind as Tanaka's bellows echoed off the walls. In moments I was leaping off the front porch, aiming my gun at the old man and screaming for him to stop before noticing that he already had. He stood where he had before, casting his shadow over Adalius's corpse.

I was almost out of breath from sprinting from the house, but his voice was as smooth and easy as ever. "Once I had a dream. There were these old slave women down by an old, mammoth, dead tree. As I approached, one of the women held up a little baby, not more than three months old. It slept as she lifted it gently up, and I noticed that hanging down from the branch above was a noose. She placed the baby's head into the noose, tightened it and let it go. The baby's face grew red, then purple-"

"Shut up! Shut up, I am going to shoot you!"

He continued, ignoring me, "-And when I asked her what she was doing, she turned to me and said as matter-of-factly as you please, 'We're hanging the babies'. I looked around and hanging from every branch was a tiny dead body." He lit another cigarette as my pistol shook in his face. "Mr. Tanaka's kind will come around, Mr. Howland. Have no fear. Their kind will be far easier to tolerate in the next world."

I laughed. "An Evangalist and a racist. The old magical combination. Get back inside the house-I'm taking Tanaka to a hospital and I'm not letting you out of my sight, you sick bastard." The old man looked at me and shook his head slowly, smiling. He started humming a tune-some children's song-and from his right sleeve a smaller centipede about two inches in length poked its head out, waved its antennae around testing the air and darted back in. I stared for a long moment, then refocused. "I said march." Again, he shook his head. I pointed the gun at his kneecap and gave him a questioning look. He kept smiling. I fired.

Saying that I shot out his kneecap and he went down would be wrong-it was more that I shot out his kneecap and he just decided to sit down, with all due grace. I started to turn to go back inside, but stopped and asked, "Why tell me that story about the babies and the tree?"

Shrugging, he said, "Only to delay you." From inside, Tanaka's yells had turned to full-on shrieks. I cursed and sprinted up the stairs back inside, tearing down the long hallway and left into Tanaka's room. The room stunk of something, and the black woman was now laying next to a red-faced Tanaka in the bed. Her brother was gone. It took a moment to realize that Tanaka and the girl were soaking wet, and the second she struck the match I recognized the smell: gasoline.

In a split second the bed was engulfed in flames, the whoosh of the fire drowning out Tanaka's agonized wails. Driven from the room by the heat and smoke, I blundered back down the hall and fell down the front steps. Jumping up as fast as I could to keep from being overpowered by the old man in case he had crawled back toward the direction of the house, I was disappointed to find no sign of him at all.

Coughing, my wrist hurting and my mind reeling, I shuffled over to the car, sparing only a quick glance at Adelius, his eyes frozen open in the headlights. Fumbling for the car keys, I had my hand on the door handle before I realized there was someone sitting in the driver's seat with the window rolled up. It was the black girl's brother, his hands on the wheel at ten and two, staring up at me with the same smile as before; the same smile-I realize now-that was on Mrs. Walentowicz's cold, dead face when we found her. As I stared at him, dumbstruck, I jumped when the car's cigarette lighter popped from it's holder in the ashtray next to him. I remember thinking, they still make cars with those? when he pulled it out and held the glowing, red, concentric circles up to his face. "No..." I mumbled. "No, I can't take any more. Don't..." Slowly, deliberately, he pushed the car's molten-hot cigarette lighter into his open left eye, the cornea sizzling with a sound I could hear even through the glass. I felt the bile rise in my throat and began to gag when I noticed that he also was soaking wet, a large, round, red, metal can set on the passenger seat beside him.

Turning to run, my ears were deafened by a thunderous sound and I was blasted away from the car and into the woods, careening off a tree and coming to a charred, smoky rest in the brush. I crawled mindlessly, tearing my clothes and shredding my hands on the thorny undergrowth in my desperate, relentless drive to get away, anywhere, as far as possible and as fast as I could. Finally, after I don't know how long, I finally passed out, curled up into the fetal position and shivering, my teeth chattering. I was almost positive I had suffered a concussion in the explosion, and I remember reading that the one thing you couldn't do with a concussion is fall unconscious, but at that point I really could not have cared less.

I must have been out of it for almost the entire day, because when I woke up I thought it was dawn but when I checked my watch I saw it was already dusk. I scrambled through the undergrowth of the forest until I finally saw an old house with a pickup truck parked in the dirt driveway. I got in, found the keys were in the ignition and took off, heading back to Hollis Crossroads.


I can't expect any of you to believe what I've told you. Now, sitting here in this plush hotel room it all seems nightmarish, hazy and unreal, but I know what happened. I know what I saw. You might believe me, but the police never will. The security company was already suspicious of me when they assigned Adalius to the job, and my fingerprints are all over that hatchet-the old man never touched it. That's why I stole the pickup truck and ran. When they figure out that I wasn't the corpse in the rental car I'm going to be hunted down by every cop in the state.

I wish I had some conclusions or insight... some final thought to tie it all up. I don't. The only things I know is that Mary has way more of a temper and potty mouth than I thought, Yoshida won't be asked to give my eulogy when I actually do croak someday, and the second I finish this sentence I'm going to lay back on the bed, close my eyes and sleep for a month.

Yoshida: 2

Tanaka speaks no English.

Josh: I Need A Kevin Costner-Type From "The Bodyguard". Actually, Considering How His Career Is Going, I Could Probably Just Hire Kevin Costner

I woke up and yelled a word that would have been partially censored had I posted it when I saw that the time was 4:00 in the damn afternoon. I was so tired this morning that I fell asleep without setting an alarm. Mary, it's too late for you to fly down here in time for it to still be "today". I mapquested Hollis Crossroads, and it'll take me at least an hour and a half to drive there.

I've made up my mind to go to the meet, obviously. I took your advice about not going alone, though, and contacted a security firm I looked up here in Atlanta. It's obviously about as rush a job as you can get, and I shudder to imagine the bill that my Mom's going to get, but there is no way I'm going to some random spot in the middle of nowhere alone. I'll be picking up the bodyguard on my way out of town. (Below: the cat is the evil foe, the dog is my bodyguard and I'm the tiny, terrified, pampered, pathetic mouse in the baby carriage. Wait, this isn't helping me...)

Mary, your comment about the mystery man's accent possibly being Japanese made me finally recognize what the accent actually was. It wasn't Japanese- in fact, that suggestion worked for me because the accent sounded essentially like the exact opposite of Japanese. It was Australian. Guess that rules out it being the lab assistant Tanaka, unless he learned to speak English while working with your father on Wardang Island, Kisho. Did he?

I'm out of time. Just in case, I'm storing the entire file box in the hotel safe. I don't want to take a chance on taking it with me and losing it. I'll give you an update on the Blackberry when I get to this place, assuming I get any reception there. It looks pretty rural and remote. Wish me luck.

Mary: Not Solo

October 27th, 2008

Tanaka was my father's assistant. He left his employ shortly before the crash. I have not heard from him since.

Doctor Yoshida, that is the sort of information we could have used before this. Is there anything else you can think of that might be relevant?

Josh, firstly, do not go to that address, at least not alone. I can make reservations and hopefully be on a plane by tonight if you intend on going.

I don't know who it was that left that note on your car, but I would think that they somehow managed a way to be alerted when Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida's security code was entered. It would seem to me that the only people still living who might know that code are Doctor Kisho Yoshida and Tanaka. Assuming that, it's possible that your encounter at the storage unit was with Tanaka himself, Josh. You said he had an accent, but that it wasn't Southern. Was it Japanese?

Also, aside from anything obviously of interest in the Doctor's files, is there a ledger of some kind in the box? Some general financial record in addition to the scientific data?

Yoshida: 1

Tanaka was my father's assistant. He left his employ shortly before the crash. I have not heard from him since.

Josh: The ATL

Typing on the Blackberry while waiting an eternity for my rental car at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport...

Did flying always suck? I mean, you see those posters from back in the halcyon days of the 50's and 60's of people actually smiling on airplanes, and there's a sexy stewardess handing them trays full of edible food, and it doesn't appear, looking out the tiny window that they've been taxiing around a runway for five hours. Was it actually like that, or was that just highly effective propaganda? Is the past just a lie? I see the same type of advertisements like that now for airlines, with grinning passengers and sunshine beaming through the windows, and let's just say that's not an entirely accurate picture of reality. At this point, a more timely, comfortable and customer service-conscious mode of transportation would be hitchhiking.

Speaking of propaganda and preconceptions, I'm not all that wild about traveling to the South. It's my first time here, and as a Northerner who bases his entire worldview on the movies I've seen, the South gives me the creeps. Southern people think (generalizing? mmmaybe) that Yankees like me are so jealous of their quaint, gentrified, countrified way of life. That we pine for the lovely southern belles like Scarlett O'Hara (played by Vivian Leigh, a Brit, by the way) and yearn to stroll down by the old crick under the weeping willows while our slaves mournfully belt out some classic Blues as we sip gimlets and chain-smoke tobacceee cigarettes we grew and rolled ourselves.

Northerners do not think the South is or ever was like this. That's not the Hollywood myth we bought into. For the most part, we think the South is crawling with toothless, shirtless, illiterate, Waffle House-patronizing, hopelessly-inbred rapists. Sorry to burst your bubble, any Southerners who happen to have someone to help you translate what these little squiggles on the computer screen mean.

I know this preconception probably won't last long and I certainly hope it won't. Actually, so far Atlanta (okay, the airport) looks just like any other American city, with the exception that the security guards are wearing possum-fur hats.

No, really, so far it's been-

Car is here. Finally. Damn it, I didn't order a pickup truck with a drooling bloodhound riding shotgun and a wooden rocking chair for a back seat!

More as I go...


...At the stoplight... McDonald's... Starbucks... same buildings you'd see anywhere else...

A Waffle House! Aha!


...Now at the hotel, totally exhausted. I'm glad I waited to send this post. Please forgive all the previous jackassery and Confederacy-bashing and understand that I'm running on absolutely no sleep. Despite this, I'm dying to see what's in the storage locker. I'm going to grab my tenth cup of coffee and drive over to it. It's only a few blocks away anyway.


...And I'm back once more at the hotel after my trip to the storage area. To recap:

I was amazed at how bright all the lights of Atlanta were even late into the night, and was considering heading downtown to check out all the action before realizing that all the light was actually dawn. Crap. Overall, Atlanta looks like everywhere else in America. Everyone has been friendly, helpful and sporting an acceptable number of teeth. I'm not sure why I'm disappointed.

You had to enter a security code to get in the gate, a nice setup that must have set back the Doctors Yoshida a fair amount of Yen. Once inside the gate, I drove the rental car up to the storage garage, parked, and used the same code to get into the individual storage area, which was about the size of a walk-in closet.

Once inside, I found a grand total of one box containing file folders. Again, disappointed. I admit I was kind've hoping for racks of beakers containing weird liquids, cages filled with bunny skeletons, and/or the Ark of the Covenant. A box of file folders. Whoop-de damn doo.

As I began to rifle through the box, I heard a car engine outside. Peeking out, I saw a black sedan driving up to the security gate out in front, a spotlight attached to the driver's side window sweeping over the storage area. I had every right to be where I was, but for whatever reason I started freaking out a little. Then the front gate began to slide open and the car crept forward, the spotlight darting back and forth over the asphalt in front of it. Maybe it was because I was so short on sleep and in a "foreign land", so to speak, or perhaps it was something about the car, the way it rolled up so very slowly, but acting on instinct I lowered the garage-style door to Doctor Yoshida's storage area and knelt down inside, my ear to the metal door.

I could hear the rubber on the tires squeak as the car pulled up in front of my door and stoped, the transmission shifting into Park. I held my breath as it idled for a long moment, then the car door opened. My breathing was rapid and shallow as I heard footsteps coming closer and closer until whoever it was was standing right outside the metal door on the other side of me.

I heard a voice. I was surprised to hear that it didn't sound Southern, but instead had a completely different accent I couldn't place. His speech had a professional, even military cadence. I pressed my ear harder to the door and could barely make out what he said: "Red raw to blower. Bongo, advise." A pause, then, "Acknowledged. Knock at the door need to know only. There's-" I couldn't make out anything else as he started walking away, back to his car. The car door shut, and I could hear it slowly drive off. Just in case, I waited in silence inside the storage area until I thought I could distantly hear the front security gate open and close.

It occurred to me at this point that my rental car was parked right where he was just standing, and I hoped that he hadn't slashed the tires or something. I gently opened the storage door, sighing with relief that I actually could open it from inside, something I hadn't considered when I panicked and shut myself in.

Giving my car the once-over and deciding that everything looked normal, I tossed the file box in the backseat and threw it into drive before noticing a slip of paper stuck underneath the windshield. Without getting out, I rolled down the window, reached out and grabbed it. I turned on the dome light and read it. It was an address in someplace called "Hollis Crossroads", followed by the words, "Tanaka. Today."

Now back at the hotel, the adrenaline rush has given way to utter exhaustion. Before I pass out, Doctor Yoshida, does the name Tanaka mean anything to you? My eyes are closing even as I'm sitting here. Too tired to process what happened. Please advise.