Solve the World Part Three

The World According to Jennifer Dash

Jenn is dead. Jenn is alive.

Jenn continues her hunt to solve the world.

This is why the chapters of this book begin at 50.

She has learned many things.

There appear to be two sides: that of the Pied Piper and that of a mysterious Shining One.

An ancient book calledThe Croatoancontains many secrets.

Lillith Babbit apparently used theCroatoanto ascend into space.

There is a hole in the ground that may be endless. The wisps exist down there.

Leviathan remains at large.

Gravitons can be used to pull matter into alternate dimensions.

It feels bad to have your head shaved against your will.

The world is killing itself by bomb and disease.

Take every opportunity.

Act fast. The world does. You need to too.

This book is not the beginning.

This book is not the end.

Chapter 51: Meet Pied Piper

It's been a thousand years, so you better believe he doesn't just play his little whistle or flute or kazoo or whatever anymore. He's evolved.

Once upon a time in the beginning, there was creation.

Then there was more creation.

And more creation.

And more and more. That's when my life got complicated. If there was just creation, there'd be no problem. We wouldn't all be in this mess.

Good story, huh...?

I was never much of a storyteller.

You should have seen this one guy. I'd tell you his name, but it wouldn't mean anything to you. It's best to think of him as just one of the guys. This guy, let me tell you, he was the best storyteller there ever was. Died a few thousand years ago. Before the first big play. How many plays are we up to now? Three? Four? Hard to say. There's no one really to debate with. I could ask one of the Old Ones—I think they're better at the history stuff than I am—but we're not really on speaking terms. Old hags.

Wanna hear a joke? I like jokes.

A man goes to his doctor, or... let's say the emergency room. Yeah, that'll work. This man goes to the emergency room. Let's call him Harry. Harry is a funny name. Our guy, Harry, he's in all this pain, you see, that's why he goes to the emergency room. He goes there, and a Doctor comes to check up on our guy of woe, Harry.

Harry tells the Doc, he says, that is, Harry says, Hey Doc, I'm in so much pain, I can't stand up. Harry's sitting, of course. Harry continues, I can't lie down. Harry's in a bad way, you see. I can't even stay seated, it's so bad.

So bad, indeed, the doc answers Harry. What should we call the Doctor? How about Lloyd?

Doctor Lloyd tells Harry, Hey Harry, I guess the only thing left to do is hang yourself.

Funny, right? Did you get it? It's pretty good. Been holding onto that one for a while.

I, by the way, am your loyal servant. I've gone by many names. You may continue to call me Pied Piper if you like. I've got so many name-tags, what does it matter anymore? Call me Harry if you prefer, Lloyd if you really want to. The truth is, I've been called Akhenaten, Nostradamus, Rasputin. I was Ge Hong in China, which, granted, saying in English might be funnier than Harry and Lloyd. I also called myself the reincarnation of Siddhartha at one point. Yup. They called me the Buddha.

See, here's the thing. When they find out how old you are, how really old Grandpa is, they think you must be omniscient, or... or something very near it. There's these movies, about Vampires, which, by the by, why is it that in Western culture the only being that can be immortal without any say-so is the vampire? What's your guys' deal with vampires? You've got an addiction there. But see, even that, that proves my point right there and then, doesn't it? All the vampires in the movies and stuff are super-duper suave and refined, and and and essentially, have mastered all aspects of society and the high life.

That's just the thing. Living indefinitely doesn't make you a genius. Far from it. At best, I've improved at recognizing genius in others.

But it hasn't found me yet.

You may find that weird, but uh, think it through. You've got the same sized brain as mine. Well, roughly. It's funny. Not funny like Harry and Lloyd and Ge Hong, but funny nonetheless. There are whole language families I've forgotten. Languages I used to be fluent in. I used to think in them. Mandarin. Even Ancient Chinese. I was Ge Hong, speaking a language that didn't make that name sound funny. Everyday. I spoke Chinese, I thought in Chinese. Now, okay, I can remember a good portion of it since Mandarin is still around, so it still comes in handy from time to time. But Sanskrit. I don't even think I can count to ten in Sanskrit anymore. What a shame!

Here's a truth nugget for you: you're only as old as your memory.

And boy, I remember.

I remember some moments so vividly. A mid-morning's day 2,500 years ago in Greece. I remember the dew on the leaves that morning. The sound of the ocean battling the Peloponnesian coastline. And yet, yesterday, what did I do? Not sure. What did I eat? No clue. What did I imbibe? A little of this, a little of that.

Gosh, it's depressing, no? A day is like a thousand years. That part's fine. But a thousand years is like a day. Yeesh! Gadzooks, guys! Just gadzooks....

Uh... how about another joke? Gotta get our minds on jollier trails.

Did you hear the one about the luckless eunuch? No? He got himself a hernia! Bah!!!

Sooooo, the Pied Piper trick.... That's what you want to hear about, right? Because Jenny ran into crazy drug-addled Dolores Burden. Man, guys, the deal with her, she's, they're.... ugh... there's so many copycats out there. I've always loved that word. Copycat. We all intuitively understand what it means, but, let me ask you this: you ever seen a cat copy you? Not so much. Honestly, I know I'm no Johannes Kepler. I enjoy staring at a Caravaggio as much as the next guy. I'm pretty much center-john. A dude in the middle, if you will.

Nothing special. Anymore, at least.

But all that's to say: come on! I'm not going to try the same trick twice. Especially when it didn't work the first time. And double especially, why would I use a name, an idea, that is already associated with terror and tricks? Hmm... maybe the other way around. Tricks and Terror. Not quite Trick 'r Treat, but it's pretty good. Tricks and Terror, now a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!

Why does Adam only reach half-interestedly at God on the Sistine Chapel? Because he's pulled God's finger before!

Ha!

It's a fart joke. I have it on good authority that God gave us farts so that we'd have a universal joke. The one joke understood by every tribe, tongue, culture and time period.

The eponymous fart. One joke to rule them all.

Dolores Burden has nothing to do with me. I didn't send her. I didn't send the green flame. Not me. But I'm not above using her. She thinks she's serving me? Well okay then, that's something that can be worked with... can be manipulated... re-formed and reformed. See what I did there? Re-formed and reformed—pretty neat, no?

I've looked at this world so many times. A world full of copycats. And still, a world full of wonder. If you allow it. My nemesis and his ilk, everywhere they go, every place they set up, be it a center for higher learning, a church, a cult, a self-help asylum, a secret society, an underground society, a league of proper gentlemen, sometimes a whole dictatorship—in every sense, every place, they always do this thing with empathy.

I understand the logic; break down someone's sense of guilt, someone's compassion, and they're much more likely to do your horrible bidding. Get rid of the hindrances, and evil is free to excel.

It's a stupid game, a futile game.

Take your girl, Jenny Dash. You can't deprogram her ability to empathize. No. Not possible. You might get close. You might get her to not-feel 98% of the time. But there're so many dern variables in life. That 2% is going to find a way to keep on pop, pop, popping up. It'll always rear its beautiful, grotesque face.

How's this for a real answer to the empathy conundrum: put yourself through it.

See a child crying; remember being a child crying. Feel that whipping someone with cattails is unnecessary; be whipped by cattails.

All these years.

All these things.

These words.

Memories.

Pains. Mostly pains. There is nothing I haven't felt. It is my glory, my honor, and my continual despair. But, it makes every pain I inflict on others, my children, all BEARABLE. Do you understand that? How could you?

Take the now. Seventy or so years of investment is just now, in a sudden splash, paying untold dividends. Will it be enough? It never seems to be... but maybe... maybe.

Makes you wonder if God's got my back after all. I never seem to succeed, but each failure bears some sort of through-line. Look, if I try to explain the history of all things, I'll lose you. But start here, the 20th century. The Great War.

Technology made it possible to pit the whole world against itself. More bloodshed than ever before, than ever fathomable. Add to the lines of young boys dying like sheep jumping over the moon, poison gas! I thought I had it licked. As a backup plan, the Spanish flu. You'd think that dynamic duo would do it, force the end of the story. But no. The war ended, and... and can you believe it? The whole thing, the dern godforsaken war, was for nothing. Just a bunch of treaties, fixed alliances. The war ended, 20 million dead. Double that from the Spanish flu. Still, what did I accomplish in that whole shebang? 9% of the world. I only managed to off 9% of the world. Anyway you looked at it, it was a failure. And a horrifically costly one at that.

I don't like war. Of course I don't—I'm the good guy. That's language you understand, right? I'm the good guy. I'll repeat: I'm the good guy. I hated that war, and hated that it didn't work. But out of its ashes, another try in the forties. This one's got genocide! But the poison gases are missing from the battle lines. Thankfully, air raids come. Every month's bigger than the last, but there's no plague this time round, and the Little Boy and Fat Man atomic bombs don't incite the Soviets like I'd hoped. At least not yet. But the thread lines extended from there. Kings and potentates didn't forget about America's power weapon. It took forever, but now it's happening.

You see, I've learned you can't win with one punch. You need simultaneous activity. I needed a new plague... one that would feed on fear as much as human flesh. Not just fear, mind you. I tried that 700 years ago. I rummaged together a special combination: mix compassion with fear. You wouldn't think they'd be bosom-buddies, but somehow, it works.

The Lonely Plague will get 40% of the world's population by my estimation. Yes, way better, way more successful than anything I've dabbled with in the last 400 years. But it doesn't matter. 5% could do it, if in the right place. The problem with both plagues and general arm-to-arm war is that neither decimates whole populations. There are always those stragglers left behind, left alive somehow.

These bombs though, as long as they keep coming, strong and hard, will work—will cover the globe with radiation.

Doesn't matter what problem children like little Jenny Dash do. The radiation will end every man, woman, child, infant. And I'll be able to breathe again. The story will be over. My nemesis, our collective enemy—the bad guy—will suffer, and come groveling back, an utter failure.

I am not your enemy. Thou I slay you, I am not your enemy. The one I hate is the one you should. The Shining Man on a hill. I was with him long ago, before you were born, and I curse the day of his birth. He is your enemy, as he is mine. The world must perish so that he is unarmed.

This is why I play my songs. This is why the children follow my fiddle and fife.

Blah-blah-blah. I get so bored with these clichés....

How's this one: an old lady farts a lot. She knows this because she lives alone and she intermittently smells something putrid sweep up into her nostrils. She runs to the doctor and says, Doctor, doctor, I've been having the most awful episodes of personal gas that I've ever smelt. The doctor asks what the farts sound like. The old wart replies, Oh, they're all silent. That's how they get me.

Can you push one out for me now? the doctor asks. The cranky widow flushes her cheeks and gives it her best shot. She says, I think I did. It usually takes a few seconds before I smell anything. Nodding his head, the doctor writes down a prescription and tells the old bag of bones to take her meds and come back to him in a week.

A week later the old hag's back in a bigger fuss than ever. Doctor, doctor! It's gotten worse! Now my farts sound like atomic bombs going off in my room. 20 times a day! I can't bear it!

The doctor nods kindly and smiles. Good, we're making progress. The old wench is completely flabbergasted—what a great word, flabbergasted.

She shouts back at the doctor, How on Earth are we making progress? You've turned my poisoned gas into stink bombs!

We've cured your swimmer's ear. Now we can turn our attention to the farts.

Why didn't you pay attention to the farts first?

I wanted you to know how bad they sound. Honestly, woman, get a grip!

Another fart joke. Not the best, maybe. But there it is.

Flabbergasted Fart. The frog flipped for a feminine flabbergasted fart. Frozen freaks flail for flabbergasted farts. From far few friends fume... no... let's try... Flabbergasted farts form futile foregrounds for friends from far-flung formulations.

What was I talking about? Spanish flu. The wars. The new war. The Lonely Plague. Ah! Mr. Clovis.

Charles Clovis—C.C. to his friends. You know him by another name, though. That's how you know you've made it, right? By the number of names people call you. It's true of good guys and bad guys alike. For example, George Herman Ruth Jr. aka Babe Ruth. Aka the Big Bam, the Sultan of Swat, the Great Bambino, or just, The Babe. The list goes on. Icons go by many names. C.C., one of my better strokes of genius, is most assuredly an icon. You may know him as Pishtaco. Or the Numbered Man. Or 666, of which, frankly, I'm not a fan. The whole Bible reference thing isn't really my cup of tea. Leave that insanity to my enemy. Our enemy.

C.C.—he's a good kid. I worked him over for a while. Without my help, he'd never have become the historic menace that he'll be in time. In time. Man alive, I put some many hours into this kid! It's crazy. Not since Genghis Khan have I labored so long for the heart and mind of one man. Not soul, mind you. I don't work for souls. Well, that's not entirely accurate. But I work for souls in the opposite way that my nemesis works for them. You get it.

Think about a fart. My adversary, he tries to get you to fart. He pushes on your stomach, your bladder. He does all sorts of voodoo to cause you to squeeze one out. What I do, what I do... it's much different. I feed you the right sort of foods, so that when you do eventually fart, by his will or by some other means, your fart, due in large part to my backbreaking work, sniffs of daisies and daffodils. I make your farts pretty. I make them lovely.

In a nutshell, that's my work. Except instead of working in the natural gas business, I deal with spirits. Souls. Eternal identities. Spooky, sure, if you don't know what you're talking about. But once you get it, once you understand, the work is about as mundane and inert as painting a wall burgundy.

Though there is urgency. There is! That wall needs to be painted burgundy. That fart MUST come out pretty. I'm running out of time.

You're running out of time.

The clock ticks away.

If I can wake Leviathan in time, everything will be okay. If I can't, more than just hell will be paid.

Like I said, C.C's a good kid. The chemical baths messed him up a bit face-wise, but he's a rocker, and he knows it. His plague, it's a beautiful thing. It twists in the wind. Spins like a feather in an updraft.

How much longer must I work? How much longer must I toil? TOIL. Fun word. Toil. Toiltoiltoil. Toil tricks and toil terror. Tricks n' terror n' toil.

Ah, to keep the mind fresh. It gets harder with time, you know. Senility is always a breath away. You have to keep your mind filled, captivated at all hours. That's the secret. I know a lot of secrets.

Have you heard the Prayer of Senility before? I didn't come up with it. I haven't come up with much. I let all of you do that these days. All of you, the Numbered Men and the Genghis Khans and the Presidents with their thumbs on the trigger.

The Prayer of Senility goes like this:

God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked,

the good fortune to run into those I do,

and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Did I tell you you're only as old as your memory?

It's true, you know. It's all true. I should know. I was there.

Jenny will be okay, in the long run. She'll die, but she'll be okay. As long as we wake Leviathan in time.

Chapter 52: The Troglodyte

Days after Jennifer Dash went through the Ka'aba, the United States reciprocated the Russians' failed bombing attempt with a nuclear strike on a small military compound in the Ural Mountains. The thought by national leaders was that this location promised low casualties. By bombing the Russians, but doing so in an obscure site, the world would understand that the States meant business. The attack would be understandable, even from the big brass at the Kremlin.

They were wrong.

Six days later, the US became convinced that the real Cuban Missile Crisis was set in the 21st century. And since JFK was not president, the action spiraled toward a darker resolution. Not willing to face the real possibility of a nuclear strike on American soil, the United States bombed Havana to hell.

Minutes after, Special Ops forces attempted to assassinate nine heads-of-state in Moscow. They were unsuccessful. Moscow pushed the red button, sending three nuclear missiles straight for Washington D.C. All three were shot out of the sky, but the damage was done. Calling in favors, the US had secret bunkers in Poland launch nuclear strikes on Moscow, St. Petersburg, and with intelligence saying that Belarus (specifically its capital) was effectively Russia's back-up center of operations, Minsk was H-bombed as well.

Later that day, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Las Vegas were bombed. Due to the frenetic nature of that day, US intelligence was unsure of where those strikes came from.

The next day, taking advantage of the craziness, Pakistan pulled off a covert bombing in New Delhi. Iran invaded Saudi Arabia, and Britain and Australia trolled the South China Seas, expecting Russia to make a play for China as an urgent safeguard and/or war ally.

A week later, bombs went off in Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, and surprisingly Mexico City. Drones fought back by delivering Hyperion nukes to seven of Russia's ten largest cities as well as Kiev.

For three weeks there was something of a lull. Then, world shattering chaos. Evidence surfaced that the bombings on America's Western seaboard came from China. Twenty Chinese cities were bombed in an American blitzkrieg. Responses came not just from the Chinese, but bewilderingly, from Europe. Russian leaders still breathing convinced the EU that only with the termination of the bombing blockage of the United States of America would this rapid WW3 end. Missiles launched from outside of Paris, Brussels, Rome, and Berlin flattened the American northeast. The effects were not as they had intended, however, since the President was safe and sound at a newly moved Camp David. Given his cowboyesque demeanor, and the essential evisceration of the two branches of the government, the President, acting as the dictator-in-arms, approved mass bombings over continental Europe. There would be no relenting, no quieting of tears, no forgiveness, and no one left to offer remorse.

Somehow, the world kept turning. The end hadn't come. Not yet. Not now.

When the doors opened, Miles was as surprised as anyone to see Sir Isaac dead in a pool of his own blood. What was even more surprising was what he didn't see—the two people that accompanied the scientist in the Ka'aba.

Miles Faa couldn't do much in the immediate aftermath. There were just too many. He couldn't talk his way out of being arrested. He and Bashreena both were caravanned to a seedy Saudi underground detention silo. This was an annoyance.

Between interrogations, Miles easily had enough time on his hands to put the story together. Marshall and, frankly, maybe even Jenn herself had figured that the graviton machine somehow needed blood spilled to make its magic work. So Marshall sacrificed Isaac for the cause. Whether Jenn was involved in the deviousness or not was beside the point.

The point was, despite the blood, the thing worked. The graviton machine was taking people out of this world. And just in the nick of time.

The problem was, Isaac was the only connection to the actual builder of the machine. The machine that imploded upon every use. A machine that all of humanity desperately needed duplicated. And expanded.

Two days after Jenn and Marshall disappeared, Mecca was in an uproar. Apparently, a nosy captain of the guard had recorded an interrogation he did with Bashreena. The video had gone viral. It was all part of the Lillith Babbit conspiracy over which the internet had swiftly begun to obsess. Bashreena used the name Jenn Darzi, a common Arabic sir name, but the internet folks saw through that veil sure enough. Intriguingly, the whole Jenn Dash disappearance act had caused not just an uproar about the Ka'aba, but a mass pilgrimage to Mecca as well as to Islam itself. More Korans were sold in the week after Jenn's disappearance than in any other week previously recorded in history.

Reports also spewed out of every corner of the globe that Jenn was amongst the people. A phone-video on a train in Tokyo alleged to have caught Jenn on camera. Another video saw her apparently swimming with dolphins in the Amazon basin. Another video Power Pointed through the Pope's schedule at the Vatican, making a convincing argument that he was visiting with Jenn once a day from 4:07-4:15 every afternoon in a terrace just outside the Pope's abode. The Pope most certainly was visiting with someone, but there was no good reason to believe that he was carving out eight minutes of every day to meet with Jenn herself. It could've been anyone in the world.

Upon escape from the Saudi authorities, Miles had little use for any Jennifer Calling conspiracy. He wanted to believe that she was nowhere on Earth. He wanted to believe she had successfully escaped all of this. He wanted, at the very bottom of his being, to believe that Jennifer Dash was truly free.

Miles had a mission now. Get to the engineer. Remake the graviton box. Multiply its strength. Start saving people. Miles would be Virgil to the world's Dante Alighieri. He'd free the billions of earthbound slaves. He'd save the world, and then go through it himself. Then he'd earn the right to be with her. To be with his Jenn.

But where was the engineer?

Sir Isaac had spent months in Nairobi, Kenya before meeting up with Miles. That seemed a good place to start.

By plane, train and automobile Miles found himself in Nairobi. It took some work, but he eventually got word that Isaac had stayed at the Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge, which rested at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, surrounded by blooming acacia trees and a surprisingly haunting natural stream. This was a five-star get-up. Miles convinced the hotel staff to let him peruse the lodge's files where he managed to pull up Isaac's room. He knocked on the doors on either side of Isaac's room.

The first to open a door was clearly a local. He had no knowledge of any soft-spoken white guy scientist, let alone any knowledge of whom the white-guy scientist liked to hang out with.

But the next door—didn't open. It took a crowbar to pry it. Inside: an African man huddled behind the bed, the mattress pulled off and erected horizontally like a wall. In his hands the man pointed a revolver at Faa's face.

Who are you?

Miles Faa. I want to replicate your work. You're the engineer, aren't you? I was with Sir Isaac when he... when he passed away.

You know him? The man asked, hands quivering horribly.

Yes.

And you know his people?

I am his people, Miles said.

There is a note in my pocket. Take it.

The man turned the gun on himself. And shot. On a plane headed back to America, Miles opened the note. It read:

"The portal only works with virgin sacrifice.

The Mad Arab tells me so.

I am damned.

I am damned.

I'm responsible.

I don't want to be. I pray God forgives me.

There will never be another."

Doctor Merkyl was not a natural fugitive. He didn't play the part well. He wasn't much for running around and hiding. That wasn't his style, not the image he was made to be. But Merkyl did have money, and as he sought to seek employment from his new campaign, he paid hard cash to get his face mashed up and painted right. In this world after the bombs, only cash and services rendered retained their value. Merkyl had both. He paid surgeons to change his appearance. And he paid well.

After the bombs dropped, there were four ways in which the people of Earth sought out preservation. The most common was perhaps as it should be. Men and women bowed their heads to the ground. They stopped reading newspapers. They let their cell phones run out of juice. They took out their plows and tilled the ground below their feet. Food and water were problems now. Once again, as it was generations ago, merely living was hard work.

The second way of preservation was to seek out religion. The Druidry Center at New Grange, Ireland saw a rabid influx of devotees. The Controllers struggled to keep up with huddled masses hoping for a ray of sunshine amidst ever-churning seas of despair. For the Center, losing Lourna von Schloss, Miles Faa, Marshall Winston, and Ne Ime was like losing a drop of water from a bathtub. Their absences were not missed. There was no shortage of replacements. They came. From every creed, every color, every race, every personality.

The third avenue of seeking preservation came from outer space. Or rather, a hope centered on the cosmos beyond the reach of our best telescopic instruments. Long debunked programs like SETI suddenly jolted again to life. We humans had screwed ourselves. Maybe a savior from the stars would pity our misery and become our Messiah.

Fourth and finally, preservation was sought through the sacredness of a new generation. Older folks had destroyed the planet, in body and soul. Maybe the one thing we could do was save our children, teach them the folly of our ways. This manner of comprehension was the sort that brought the ONMO Center into existence. Operation No More Orphans. The POTUS had rounded up the resources for the center weeks before the outbreak of nuclear holocaust. He would die one day, the President, content that he at least did that. No one could take that away from him. He did that much, at least. He saved some children. Just some. But in this hellscape, that was something, wasn't it?

Scout Further was one of the first to make it to the camp. Upon arriving at the undisclosed location, by both train and plane, most of the children were shell-shocked and quiet. But the quiet didn't last long. The idea behind the camp was to give the children as much autonomy as possible, which sounded good—giving the children space to learn their own lessons and challenge each other in education—but in reality, it made the whole place feel like a prison. For security purposes, no child was allowed outdoors. In fact, much of the camp was built underground. There were very few rooms with windows. The creators of ONMO weren't entirely inept at understanding the human spirit, however, so they did fashion a greenhouse the size of a football stadium, as well as an auditorium with windows canvassing the entire ceiling, so the children did have opportunities to receive some vitamin D. The pressure points, of course, were the absolute security of the camp.

The place was built so that it would be virtually impossible to find. This had to include satellite photography. If the center was found, well then, it was game over. For this reason, the ONMO camp was fashioned to look like a giant chemical plant out in the middle of nowhere. And, to a large extent, this was true. Scout Further's job, every morning, was to pull levers managing the mixing of a gaseous chemical on a grand scale. Scout was one of the cogs in the ONMO device.

The children of ONMO all ate Malindrinian, a synthetic biscuit. Malindrinian came in a variety of flavors, each imbued with different necessary vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbs, etc. The children would not be malnourished. And they would not enjoy eating.

The adults at ONMO, save for the Foreman herself, who refused to be called anything but Mother Foreman, were not allowed to form relationships with the children. The adults gave instructions, such as how to combine certain chemicals, but they were not to express affection, love, comedy, anything. They might as well have been robots.

Fights were common. It took only a few weeks for gangs to form. These were not gangs in the traditional form. It started simply enough. One boy got in a fight with another. Fistfights were broken up pretty quickly by the adults, referred to by the inmates of ONMO as simply Dults. Dults wouldn't let you beat Johnny to death, but they didn't seemed to notice if you stole some of Johnny boy's food. Or stole food from his best friend. Or that girl that his best friend kinda liked. In this way cliques formed. Support groups congregated. Johnny boy asked Tadeus, the two hundred pound Hawaiian kid to protect his group. In exchange, Johnny boy got someone to finish Tadeus' miles on his stationary bike. Much of the camp's energy came from the children's stationary biking—each child was assigned a certain number of miles to ride each week.

Scout learned quickly that she was prized rather highly by several gangs. This was not good. She wished she wasn't noticed, but she was cute. Boys just wanted to be around her. Girls wanted to be her best friend. She would have to be cunning not to end up as some pawn in a gangs-wide parlay or negotiation.

It was only October, and it was already cold. Winter had come early.

Marshall Winston was in Kathmandu, Nepal.

He asked around. It didn't take him long to find Bloody Eddie, after all, there weren't many folks in Kathmandu that fit the description of one-eyed Scottish redhead. Bloody Eddie lived in a certifiable mansion that half-overlooked the slummier side of Kathmandu. From time-to-time the Druidry Center needed certain things. There needed to be a system in place for acquiring stuff from the outside world. Bloody Eddie was one of the oldest and most trustworthy traders with the Center. Marshall had worked with him when it was necessary to get a couple of Chinese passports made a few years back. Bloody Eddie was the type of guy that had connections. He had his finger on the pulse of the black market. More specifically, he was the point man for most of Asia. He knew where things were. In this instance, Marshall Winston wasn't looking for a thing, but a person. He had good reason to believe that the man he was hell-bent to find lived somewhere in the Himalayas. Somewhere close. If anyone knew of his whereabouts, Bloody Eddie would know.

It's one thing to be a Scot. It's another to be a classically long-haired, Braveheart-inspired redhead. It's yet another to have one of your eyeballs blown out by a firecracker in a deal gone wrong ages ago. It's yet still quite another thing entirely to be all those things, be a millionaire, and be living in the foothills of the largest mountain range on Earth. Bloody Ol' Eddie.

The Scot had an answer. He swore he knew where the man of Marshall's yearning dwelled. But it would cost Marshall. Specifically, it would cost Marshall 500,000 dollars. Marshall was a ward of the Druid state. He didn't have any sort of loot on him. There was just no way he could come up with that sort of loot. Not now. Not in ten years. At least, not aside from the Druidry's eyes. If his mission was Center approved, the money would be there, no problem. But that would undermine Marshall's whole plan. He was going rogue now. At least, until he figured everything out. Until he got his head on straight.

Bloody Eddie was a reasonable man. If Marshall didn't have the funds to pay the bill, there were always other ways to pay a debt. Turns out, said Bloody Eddie, that he was in need of a particular item—an item that Bloody Eddie happened to be absolutely sure Marshall had. He needed a white, preferably European, finger. Specifically, Blood Ed said, he needed a No-Na-Me, left hand finger. It took a little while to figure exactly what No-Na-Me meant, but they talked it through. The cost of finding Marshall's man was to be his left ring finger. Bloody Eddie would travel all the way to the man's home with Marshall. Then, upon arrival, he'd exact his payment with a flick of a very sharp knife.

Marshall agreed... with two caveats.

When they got there, Bloody Eddie would wait outside, while Marshall talked to the