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: Iocus

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

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

Yoshida: 15

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

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

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

Cynthia: Incursus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Josh: The Orchard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I was Wolverine."

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

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

Yoshida: 14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cyntha: Insania

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

Two instances in your post on the most recent encounter with Mr. Hollis struck me as being relevant to some unnerving shifts in my memory. Firstly, the song he was whistling, and secondly his virtually incomprehensible screed on slavery, where he proclaimed:

"Why be beholden to the history of the industry when history could not have less meaning?"

This struck a chord with me, as I have been having tremendous difficulty of late with two separate dates in world events. Understand, throughout my entire classical education, the study of history was stressed most highly, and specifically on the timeline of world events. More modern teaching methods deemphasizing the committing of dates to memory have been put in play in recent years in the field of history, but in my formative years the stress was placed on memorization rather than the recounting of anecdotes. As Joshua can attest, my retention of information on this subject has been beyond reproach, at least until now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mary: Pop Quiz

I awoke early this morning mercifully unable to remember my dreams, the steady rain of the night before replaced by a cold, gray drizzle. After putting on one of my brand-new business suits, I began creeping downstairs before seeing a light from underneath Mrs. Howland's door and hearing voices from within. I knocked and entered, nearly tripping over a hard-bound volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Books were strewn all over the bedroom, most of them open. Jeff was sitting next to Mrs. Howland, holding a book open for her to view. They both looked absolutely exhausted.

If I had felt that my education was inadequate after previous meetings with Mrs. Howland and Jeff before, this morning's events were so emotionally grueling that I wanted to sue the University of Wisconsin for my money back. Mrs. Howland bade me sit down and immediately proceeded to essentially give me a pop-quiz on events in world history. After years out of college, it's amazing how much general knowledge slips through your fingers. As we went along, Mrs. Howland's mood became darker, her questions more terse. Knowing that I was letting her down (whatever the reason) was agonizing, and after fifteen minutes I was sweating and on the verge of tears. After what seemed like a lifetime, Jeff returned with a fresh pot of coffee and our usual breakfast of homemade waffles, and the test was finally done.

I never challenged why I was being made to answer questions that had nothing to do with the case I was working. I didn't ask myself why I felt so terrible at my lack of retention of dates and events that never interested me. The fact is, no matter the reason, there are simply some people you meet in life that you feel you cannot disappoint. If you have spent any time with Mrs. Howland (and I don't see how it's possible that you haven't, if you're reading this at all), then I'm sure you understand.

My hand shook as I reached out for my coffee cup. I picked it up, immediately spilled some and put it back down on the china saucer without taking a drink. "Mrs. Howland, I'm just so sorry I let you down. I wish I knew more-"

Mrs. Howland's severe expression shifted, the scowl softening to a look of concern I hadn't seen before. "Oh, my dear. No, you performed admirably. This... I believe I am struggling with my medication. Jeffrey has called the doctor, and he will be along presently. Please go about your business of the day and forget that this ever occurred."

Jeff walked me out and escorted me to the kitchen, where he poured some of the fresh coffee into a thermos. Handing it to me he said softly, "In cases such as these, where a loved one is suddenly killed and you are permanently, seriously disabled, there are consequences beyond the physical. Mrs. Howland would like to believe that she is beyond such things, but..." he trailed off, giving a wan smile. "She needs time. That's all. Don't be overly concerned." As we walked together to the front door, he added with a chuckle, "And don't worry about not knowing the precise year Genghis Khan began his conquest of Asia. I doubt very much it will come up in today's investigation." (The Khan, at right)

It was meant to soothe me, but it just made me more exasperated with myself. "But she knows it. For God's sake, you know it, and you're-"

"-I clean adult diapers for a living," he finished, and my cheeks flushed. That wasn't what I meant to say, but I'm ashamed to say that it was probably what I meant, whether I knew it or not. Thankfully, he didn't take it personally, his smile never wavering. He put a gentle hand on my shoulder and said, "She went through a dozen interviews or more before she found me. She chose me because she wanted something more than just a surrogate of her own body, she needed someone who could be a companion for her mind." Jeff helped me on with my coat and added, "What you went through this morning probably wasn't fair. It isn't what you were hired for." He laughed, "It would be like asking me to dust for a print." He wished me good luck, and I shuffled out into the mist, clutching my thermos, emotionally drained before my day had even really begun.

I slipped into my luxurious rental car and ran some errands, mainly killing time before I went back into the St. Francis police department to see Detective Ward. I was hoping the coroner would have more information, but so little time had passed that I knew it wasn't likely. While shopping for sundries I called Detective Ward twice before he assured me that he would call me as soon as he knew anything else. By 4:00PM I got the call, and rushed to St. Francis.

The front desk officer was getting to know me and waved me past toward Detective Ward's cubicle with a grunt. Ward remained seated, ran a hand through his gray hair and said, "Just got some blood work back. Not sure if it's important, but it is unusual."

"Did they find drugs in her system? Was something wrong with her?"

He shook his head. "Not her. The rabbit." He opened one of the ubiquitous Manila file folders and handed me a sheet. It was filled with medical jargon and utterly incomprehensible to me, but Ward gave me the highlights. "They found evidence of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus, or RHDV. It's a virus that's deadly to rabbits, and though there have been a few minor outbreaks in the U.S., it's since been totally eradicated."

It was more than a little odd to be essentially doing an autopsy on a bunny, but every piece of information might help, so I went with it. "So the rabbit isn't native? Where is it from?"

Ward shrugged. "I talked with a zoology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee this afternoon, and he didn't exactly pinpoint it. Apparently this virus began in China back in 1984. It spread pretty fast to Europe. He said Australia had a massive outbreak of the virus in the mid-nineties and it wiped out something like 95% of their rabbit population." He shook his head and chuckled, "So we've narrowed it down to more than half the world. Wish I had more for you."

I thanked him and rose to go, then remembered Josh's questions about the blood on the floor and the order of events. Ward told me that based on the blood spatter, the rabbit's foot was cut off first, then the killer went to work on Mrs. Walentowicz. He also said that the rabbit's foot was pushed into her brain before the incision was made in her abdomen.

Also remembering Mrs. Howland's wishes to potentially include him in our little cabal, I asked if he would be open to coming by the house for a visit. He agreed and said he would be by before 11:00 tomorrow morning.