Audio of last smart phone call of Jon Marlowe: 9/14/2016

Audio of last smart phone call of Jon Marlowe: 9/14/16

“…….I am walking to the Archives Vault where the British Embassy keeps its oldest records. The sun is out. That is rare here. London is no longer ‘foggy London’ but The Havens will always be foggy, damp, dank, blurry, nebulous, and maddeningly obscure. No wonder people say The Havens is one of the most ghostly cities in the world. The fogs turn people into ghosts. But momentarily the sun is out and the city is sparkling with all of its ancient and exotic charisma. Now that the riots are over and everyone is planning the lavish coronation the city has once against become a tourist Mecca. And the Embassy is in the rich center of the city and the Embassy Archives are also in the rich center of the city. So it will be a chance to explore.

I need to track down moldering Embassy files of a sometime agent Sidney Fox who worked for Military Intelligence between the first and second world wars. His reports on Wellus House International as well as other players in The Havens Zendula hint that all is not what it seems. Despite the fact Zendula is one of Britain’s oldest allies in this part of the Pacific they are not what they appear. Zendulians I mean. We really do not know the nature of this place. Zendula I mean. Perhaps it is the near constant fog. Perhaps it is the illusive, deceptive, ever changeable quality behind its ancient facade. I suppose tourists make similar accusations once the initial awe and delight wears off and London shows its hidden face behind its famous facade. I don’t know. But suddenly I find this initial amusing and then bloody and now deceptively touristy place to be somehow disturbing.

When I signed up to work here at the Embassy I was casually told that ‘Just watch out. The Havens is one of the most haunted cities in the world. It is exotic, playful, charming, quant, obscure, enigmatic, disturbing, abnormal, sinister, and deadly. It is very easy to find yourself lost here. Over your head. One moment enjoying the place. The next moment terrified out of your skull’. Yet when I asked why every Embassy veteran would just shrug and scurry away busily. Yet during the Zendula riots I did not see anything particularly bizarre. Violent. Yes. But not otherworldly or bizarre. Surviving the riots gave me a swaggering confidence I had a handle on the city and its people —- at least initially. But now. I don’t know. I am finding the place unnerving. That is why I decided to walk to the Archives in the Embassy Vault. To clear my brain of emotional cobwebs.

Yesterday I found a misfiled file by an old bloke named Sidney Fox who more than hinted about the unspoken peculiarities of this city and its people. In this moldering old file the spy gossiped casually about the often hinted but never openly spoken nature of this ‘most curiously haunted city’. And this moldering titbit of gossip from a now long dead queer might actually give me a vital clue. In fact it might break the Christopher Kitsume Murder Case for me! Being openly Gay Sidney Fox enjoyed his posting here between the wars because homosexuality has never been against the law here. In fact that is what got the spy killed in WW II. Despite his age he refused to leave a city where he did not fear arrest or ruination for his sexual orientation.

Sidney Fox died during the Japanese surprise attack on the capital city of Zendula which killed over two thousand Haven’s citizenry. Men. Women. Children. Foreigners. And even ironically Japanese. Both transplanted and second generation Japanese – Zendulians and Japanese citizens. Fox encouraged the Zendulian government to allow the Japanese to stay in this ‘neutral’ country as events turned edgy. It had nothing to do with benevolence or gullibility. In fact it was both to run agents in and out of Tokyo and also to run agents in The Havens to monitor Japanese agents and the Japanese Embassy as well as to exploit the Japanese doing business here. Both to ‘turn’ them and to blackmail them and to use them as defacto hostages. No one thought even Tokyo would be so ruthless as to bomb The Havens when over three hundred Japanese businessmen, geisha, traders, and shippers were here. But only an ass assumes to use a Yank expression.

Few remember now but Japan launched surprise attacks on not only Pearl Harbor but China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, The Philippines, Australia, and Zendula. Their conquest was ruthless. Their atrocities were unspeakable. They bombed everyone including their own people. That is why I find Regressive Left apologists nauseating. Regressive Left Indians don’t even remember that Gandhi and the Indian Congress advocated embracing Japanese rule to throw us British out of India —- at least until the Rape of Nanking. The Regressive Left demands that America should apologize for dropping nukes yet totally forget the millions who perished under the Imperial Japanese jackboot. In fact the Japanese still don’t admit they massacred and raped and tortured and exploited slave labor while experimenting on prisoners of war to perfect germ warfare while also researching nukes themselves. The apologists so pathologically hate themselves they embrace enemies while conveniently forgetting that the Japanese were so brainwashed they were committing suicide missions and were girding their loins to fight the invasion of their country down to the every last fanatic man, woman, and child. Imperial self imposed genocide after committing genocide on people they perceived as their racial inferiors. The conquest of Imperial Japan would have cost three million lives. And that is an conservative estimate! Sidney Fox perished during the surprise attack on The Havens. Zendula’s own bloody version of Pearl Harbor.

One third of Zendula’s massive Navy is always berthed at The Naval Shipyards. And the Royal Navy has always enjoyed the courtesy of berthing there as well. Up to WWII it was considered one of the most massively defendable naval bastions in the Pacific. The Naval Shipyards is a gigantic circular harbor carved out of towering cliffs which surround it on almost all sides. The one watery entry is guarded by towering cliffs on both sides containing submerged fortresses designed to fend off submarines as well as heavy artillery batteries carved into solid rock. Now garnished by radar and other top secret technologies of course. Naval facilities are further carved into the towering cliffs which encircle the Naval Shipyards. Moon Fortress guards the outer entry of the commercial harbor which naval ships pass through to sail into the Naval Shipyards. The Moon Fortress bristles with massive artillery and now radar embedded in the towering cliffs. In fact the towering cliffs are honeycombed with tunnels and fortifications. The massive, ancient Urban Defense Wall is likewise a complex honeycomb maze of tunnels and subterranean bastions as well as deep vaults where freeze dried foods, disaster relief, and medical stockpiles are kept. Durham’s Bones form another series of vaults deep under the city where civilians can likewise store their most precious valuables in anticipation of something bad going down. It is also where The Master stores some of the most ancient talismans which he apparently controls. Whatever they are. It is as if The Havens has instinctively from time immemorial been preparing for the thermonuclear end of the world.

The city you see is oddly placed between the steep, rocky Heights to the North and the fairly flat commercial area to the south. The Southern Dales, ancient plague mass graves, form the southern green belt below the city’s walls. The river wraps itself around the southern part of the city before meandering east along the river valley which leads to the Heartlands and then the mountainous Pale. The Urban Defense Wall follows the river. Today most of the ancient, massive wall cannot be seen inside the city because the southern part of the city was raised up along the ‘Downtown’ (literally the down or lower part of the town) to the top of the Urban Defense Wall in order to ‘flatten’ the often steeply inclined city which even today destroys automobiles with its steep streets requiring both trolleys and a deep Underground transportation system.

Some streets on the Lower Heights all but soar straight up. And the Upper Heights can only be approached by circular or zigzag roads. The Northern Heights looms up over the city at a precipitous incline which rivals San Francisco in its nose bleeding extremity. Today that precipitous looming is further accented with towering skyscrapers. The Heights is becoming a new city. The modern city, dwarfing the older city at its stony feet. Because the older city was already so massively built, all new expansion during the Nineteenth Century was along the River Valley. That is now the Nineteenth Century Havens. And during the Twentieth Century expansion moved up to the Heights. Originally being so high, horses could not approach it with comfort so it was open space. Only with modern transportation did it become a viable place to build upon. And the stony foundation of the Heights is both expensive yet perfect for modern construction. Once embedded, a skyscraper will stay standing forever on the Heights. Naturally, despite the solid rock, the Zendulians are carving out a massive expansion of the Underground up into the Heights to augment the surface trolley as well as subterranean lower levels as if a subterranean city under a surface city. The Heights is becoming a stony iceberg as deep underground as it is towering above ground. I don’t know where the Zendulians get this mentality from. But they sure can burrow! Especially in solid stone!

The Naval Shipyard’s piers radiate out of the outer hub of the massive circular naval bastion carved into the steep cliffs of the Northern Heights. The center island is now all high tech radar. Tunnels with rail facilities run underground in every direction in the towering cliffs. The Water Gate Fortress and Naval Piers Fortress built along the steeply inclined Urban Waterfront is called the Lower Heights Twin Defenses. The twin fortresses guard the entry into the Naval Shipyards as well as the Master’s Pier and Royal Pier. The massive fortresses of ancient pedigree have been continuously modernized with cunningly hidden subterranean military installations which are off limits to everyone except Ambassadors who by protocol must enter or exit the city via the Water Gate Fortress up the zigzag Royal Promenade to the petit Old Palace. The Royal Promenade being another bizarre defensive fortress designed to kill or capture all enemies tricked into entering it. A charming way to literally attack diplomats! Clearly the Zendulians are a charming but suspicious people obsessed with defensive war. Every single British Ambassador has his own tale about walking that sinister zigzag death trap! And we are suppose to be Zendula’s allies!

The Upper Heights overlooking the Naval Ship Yards as well as the city is guarded by security 24/7 along Anchor St which since 1939 has been seized by imminent domain. In fact it is hard to believe that once Anchor Street used to be a such a commercial street automobile races used to be held there. Today the few 1920’s Anchor Street cliff mansions not razed house Naval officers and quangos and top secret government think tanks and research facilities. We are not talking about the Hermit Cherry Tree nation here or Opium befogged China. In fact up to the 1950s even the Fields of the Moon were temporarily put off limits because the park on the cliffs also overlooked the entry into the Naval Shipyards. Howbeit traitors were still executed at the traditional gallows throughout the war. So you can see why The Havens had to be bombed by the Japanese. Unless the Royal Shipyards and the Zendulian and Royal Navies berthed there were destroyed the conquest of Zendula could never be successful. Even if the Southern Shipyards in Rondusburg could be destroyed, the Northern Shipyards would have prevented, and indeed did prevent Zendula from being conquered and occupied. For a while the only free Brits during WW II outside of bombed Australia and New Zealand were in Zendula.

Zendula has always had a fetish for cutting edge technology, massive construction, a mania for infrastructure, especially tunneling and subterranean construction, and remarkably scientific achievements of an obscure, arcane nature. Much is always kept under wraps for security reasons frosted with a certain national penchant for secrecy some interpret as paranoia. For instance when the Japanese Navy approached Zendula to launch more air strikes to finish off the city, the first attacks ending in a bloody draw, the Japanese pride and joy, its massive aircraft carrier, exploded. It exploded so ferociously it acted like a ‘fire ship’ and set fire to half of the invasion fleet. Never explained. But every description said it was some sort of death ray. You might say it was the Zendulian equivalent of a thermonuclear warhead. They only used it once. But they only had to use it once. And post war it was confirmed the Japanese wanted the Zendulian research into exoteric weapons of war and also Robota. In fact that ironically caused Wellus House International to actually stay loyal to Zendula and capitulate to a hostile takeover by Japan. Nothing inspires fear in a greedy capitalist so much as threats of nationalization or other sort of confiscation of commercial assets.

Zendulians tend to pretend to be quant to conceal what Embassy minions have described as an ‘unexpected technical prowess concealed behind a facade of eccentricity’ as well as ‘dangerous deviancy’ and ‘disturbing abnormalities’ —- whatever that means. But until I found the Sidney Fox file I never got an actual detailed description of exactly how deviant and abnormal Zendulians actually are — or at least some of them. The so-called ‘Pedigrees’. The ‘Hidden Pedigree’. The ‘Secret Pedigree’. The only Pedigree which is visible of course is the Amberling Pedigree. Most of the military and Navy, a huge chunk of the civil service, and the Master of The Havens are all Amberling. The Amberlings are a very obviously different ethnicity to the Mundane Zendulians as the majority are referred too. The Amberlings are of primarily Indian extraction. Most Mundane Zendulians are ruddy and blond haired and blue eyed or else pale and dark haired and grey eyed. As the Zendulians quip: they came with the island as it drifted with the Continental Drift half way around the world. Perhaps that explains their penchant for not casually inviting people to stay. Visit. Sure. Stay. No. They don’t share their homeland with anyone.

In fact the Zendulians are pariahs at the UN for not only refusing to take refugees or migrants but even shooting them for trying to ‘invade’ in their flimsy rafts. Any migrants who land are either hurled back in defective rubber boats designed to sink just off the coast of Headhunter Java or else get ‘eaten’ —- whatever that means. When the UN demanded they set up a refugee center the Zendulians placed it at Old Terra Nova Island which historically houses their leprosy colony. Needless to say the migrants decide to invade Europe instead. I wish the UK would adopt Zendula’s refugee policy. Or Japan’s policy. Zero migrants. Zilch Muslims. The nation first and foremost. The indigenous people first and foremost. All with a very clear definition of sedition and treason. I am not saying Zendula does not have a robust democracy. They do! Absolutely! But it is also a privilege reserved for the indigenous citizenry. 5th columns need not apply because they will not be invited into the True Blue club.

If you can’t be loyal then bugger off! Leave the country! That is the Zendulian attitude. Every native born Zendulian actually must take an oath of loyalty at the age of eighteen. If they can’t swear their oath of loyalty or else refuse to take the oath or else lie under the ‘True Blue Oath’ they are ordered to bugger off or else face arrest and execution as a traitor. That or else Nithing Exile. A stripping of Zendulian citizenship. The label of pariah allowing shooting on sight. That or being ‘eaten’. Whatever that means. But certainly, much like Japan, Zendula has historically displayed a zeal for trade but no zeal for integrating or assimilating strangers into their homeland. They all but make national identity a religion.

I just wish the UK had a national identity. A recent poll proved that most Brits have absolutely no concept of national identity because of fifty years of Regressive Left education garnished with suicidal self loathing. And the poll also said the racial and religious minorities, especially Muslims, believed that the UK has no national identity or values or ideas or heritage at all. Or else that it was Jahiliyyah Alien Barbaric Pollution of Najis filthy Kafirs. The best they could come up with was a British love of tea and the Queen —- which they did not share. Our Pakistani Muslim Mayor Khan, he of the ‘Jihad John is a beautiful soul’, is touring America and openly saying Muslims, good Muslims, not ‘Oreos’ or ‘Uncle Toms’, ‘good’ Muslims absolutely must never ever assimilate into any hated Dar ul Kafir anything. No wonder London (outside of its tourist core) has ceased to be English, or even British, but rather Muslimstan.

Loyalty or love of country is not a religious obligation in Islam if the country in question is Dar ul Harb Abode of War or else Dar ul Kafir Abode of the Najis filthy, vilest of animals, sub human, people of no morality or intelligence, apes, pigs, monkeys, and dogs ie the unspeakably loathsome Kufr Unbelievers, Infidels, scion of Crusaders, Westerners, Europeans, and specifically us Britishers! Grandfather says there will be blood in the streets if Brexit fails. Civil war. Perhaps even WW III. Events are not looking good. And it is scarey that Merkel’s favorite bed side reading is ‘Visions of 2050′ which portrays Germany cleansed of Germans and inhabited only by Muslims.

The Dali Lama says ‘Germany should stay Germany’ but he is now damned as a xenophobic racist for saying the Indigenous people have a right to continue to exist and not be displaced or replaced. Soros is using the weak knee Pope to bless open borders and unlimited migration of the entire Southern Hemisphere Third World into the Northern Hemisphere Advanced World. In five years Italians will be a minority in Italy. In ten years Swedes will be a minority in Sweden. In twenty years there will be no Germans in Germany. In twenty five years there will be no English in England. Grandfather says the Brussels Junta is rearranging the chairs on the EU Titanic as Europe is about to careen right into the Clash of Civilizations iceberg. And Grandfather says it is exactly what the Brussels Junta and Merkel wants. The total destruction of Europe. Britain. The Northern Hemisphere Advanced World. Why? Ask Soros the ex-Jew who sided with the Nazi in WWII.

Multiculturalism and Diversity are fighting words here. As in use them and the Zendulians will punch in the face! And there is no point trying to play the guilt game. Like the Japanese, Zendulians never allow themselves to be emotionally bullied the way the Regressive Left is emotionally bullying us into adopting polices which amount to our self suicide or else Merkel and her emotional bullying about German guilt to force the Germans to open their borders to millions of Muslims who hate their guts and can’t wait to displace, replace, and erase them. Self genocide. I think it comes down to long memories. We don’t have long memories. The Zendulians do.

After the Nineteenth Century Foreigner Riots in the Late Astel Age the Master again used his authority to ban all Muslims —- a second time. The first time was when some long ago Master got into a fight with the first Muslim Ambassador to sail into the Pacific. The Arab naturally acted exactly as he would have acted in Mecca which was exactly how Mohammad acted in Medina. He ordered the Master to order Zendulians to either convert to Islam, surrender to Islam, or else prepare to fight and die. Oh yes! And dig that Medina Trench so the Zedulians can be shoved into their mass grave first to save time! Zendula was Dar ul Harb. Abode of War. And Zendulians were Najis filthy Kafirs. The vilest of beasts. Sub humans. Insert every Islamic hate word here! Well! The Master took that personally. That and some poodle being kicked and also apparently a sexual assault by Muslim sailors on naked meat asking to be raped. You know! Like what the Welsh Muslim Council recently said was halal to be sexually enslaved by the Best of Peoples. Zendulians have always indulged in Nudity as a lifestyle. Cover their hair? Hell! They won’t even cover their limbs at the Public Baths! That cultural misunderstanding combined with xenophobia on the part of both the Arab and the Master resulted in long memories. And Zendulians never forget and they never forgive.

In fact the sitting Master, a descendant of the Anglo Indian Skinners, can’t even have his Muslim kin visit him. His Sikh and Hindu and Christian kin. Sure! But no Muslims are allowed to cross the threshold of Cleardan House. Nor will the Royal Palace issue Ambassador Credentials. Zendulians have long memories. They don’t forget and they don’t forgive. And screaming Regressive Left insults or name calling won’t budge them! Perhaps it is because the minority who rule here live abnormally long lives. So they have abnormally long memories. The Embassy here actually has a long ‘Dos & Don’ts list just to handle long memories. I mean! An xenophobic Arab in the 1400s kicked a Najis filthy poodle in Cleardan House and to this day no Muslim can cross the threshold! Zendulians have really, really, really long memories!

Does that amount to xenophobia? Or healthy survival instincts? Hell! I don’t know! As Zendulians explain: Dwarves and Elves never believed in sharing their homeland with outsiders and neither do we. Zendula is our home. A home might have guests but guests are expected to leave.’ And it is a tribute to Zendulians that they had managed to never be successfully conquered by anyone. They take defensive war to new levels! Of course that also means the Zendulian genetics are isolated. Not commingled. So Pedigree has been recorded over thousands of years. And Pedigree rules here in Zendula.

While the Amberling Petigree is visible, the other ‘Pedigrees’ are concealed except for the Probate Court Pedigree Registers. And they are off limits to public viewing. Even the Upper House of the Steering Committee acts coy how they got there. Pedigree to be sure. But what Pedigree? But the unspoken explanation how they got there and what constitutes ‘Pedigree’ and how three tiny minorities can still dominate and rule a nation despite the majority being ethnically different, ‘Mundane’ , is the question I have suddenly become interested in. The ‘Pedigrees’ are not just a different ethnicity. Their difference is more than just ethnicity. Or at least that is the rumor.

And the urban myths which circulate at the British and other Embassies more than imply difference of ethnicity. Like the running joke about being ‘eaten’. As if being ‘eaten’ is a casual fate as common as what happens on Headhunter Java. So the Zendulians are as subterranean as their massive penchant for carving fortresses out of solid rock and tunneling everywhere which made their capital city like an iceberg. Two thirds underground. Even their genetics are two thirds underground. As in recessive genetics. For instance I saw a movie at an arts festival recently. It starred a famous old Zendulian movie star: Daffy Gilbert – Blackheart. And it was obvious his genetics was peculiar to say the least. His deformed ears and the whole set up of his face. Even his eyes. It was striking. It was also abnormal. To be blunt: deformed. Except he was a movie star. So he was admired precisely because of his looks. Those distinctive, abnormal looks. His acting too. His writing of scripts. His songs. But also his looks. His hyphenated name. His pedigree. His abnormal eyes with their distinctive larger than normal blackness. And his deformed ears. His ears were deformed. Mildly but nevertheless deformed. Like something out of Star Trek. Spock.

Anyway. Sidney Fox was an old man at the start of WW II. He was running agents out of Zendula to spy on the Japanese buildup. Zendula was ‘neutral’ —- not that anyone believed that. Zendula was joined at the hip with Britain no less than Singapore and Hong Kong or Burma or India or Australia. It was obvious that once Japan attacked Pearl Harbor they would have to attack us Brits and our allies. Just as it was obvious once Japan attacked us Brits they would have to attack America and its dangling territory The Philippines. Sidney Fox was running agents in Tokyo to monitor when Japan would make its move while keeping Japanese here as defacto human shields. After his agents were arrested and executed, the most tragic being some ex-movie star called Tiger Davies who specialized in playing ‘dumb blonds’ who was tortured and raped before she was executed, Fox’s monitoring station in Tokyo went silent. That left only the precarious Japanese human shields to serve an advanced warning. The file I found was Fox’s final debriefing with a sinister warning: ‘Prepare for blood to run in the streets. For now on I will carry my pocket watch in anticipation of a violent death.’

Sidney Fox perished when the blood ran in the streets after the Japanese launched a surprise attack and bombed the Naval Ship Yards and Commercial Piers of the capital city of Zendula. However, Fox’s last act was a sort of vindictive insurance policy. He ran his own string of agents outside of the Embassy or Military Intelligence. And after his death those agents marched straight to the Japanese Embassy even as parts of the city burned. And those agents set the Japanese Embassy on fire — while shooting any Japanese who tried to escape the incineration. I guess it was tit for tat for the Japanese incinerating part of the prime real estate of The Havens. Cold blooded murder for cold blooded murder. Sidney Fox used to be an assassin. That was his last post death assassination. Post war no one complained because the Japanese had no moral high ground to complain and because apparently other Japanese Embassy workers in other cities were —- well —- eaten.
Sidney Fox’s misfiled file was deceptively chatty as well as forewarning. If one did not know the full story one would assume Fox was just a charming Gay or pathetic queer. I mean! He even carried a teddy bear! Howbeit a teddy bear designed to be a high tech weapon called a Robota. A petit mechanical killer as well as a two way radio and eavesdropping recorder and remote control bomb. And apparently Fox routinely killed people well into his sixties just for the fun of it. Why delegate the most enjoyable perk of the job? And importantly, this charmingly deceptive psychopathic killer was chatty about Wellus House International and its role in international arms sales. In WW II that was a vital piece of intel! In fact much of this last misplaced file was about his wooing of Wellus House. Both for what the merchant of death could provide in terms of weapons of war to the beleaguered Allies apparently on the ropes and facing annihilation. But also for what the merchant of death could deny Japan.

It was Fox who was stressing the fact Japan planned a hostile takeover. Nationalization and confiscation. How much was actually true? How much was it a scare tactic? It was hard to say. But Fox apparently successfully scared Wellus House into not betraying Zendula or Great Britain by packaging the one thing which could scare one of the world’s biggest and nastiest merchants of death: the threat of nationalization and confiscation by Japan. Fox persuaded Wellus House that Japan would definitely screw Wellus House. Fox packaged it as if a Jewish munitions cartel facing a hostile takeover by Nazi Germany. As if a case of Ubermensch verus Untermensch. The superior human specimen versus the sub human specimen. The Best of Peoples versus the vilest of Najis filthy animals. The Japanese would be compelled to attack Wellus House because of its —– inferior genetics.

Of course up to WW II this sort of thing was extremely common. Boasting of so-called Aryan or Superman or Ubermensch genetics. Once Born Untouchables. The Ummah versus the Hell bound deviant, Najis filthy, Kufr besmirched Kafirs. Accusing others of being sub human. Defective. Inferior. Apes. Pigs. Monkeys. Dogs. Filthy animals. Not human. It was a common gambit. Today only Dixie Neo-Nazi and European Skinheads and Muslims indulge in it. But apparently Fox was unexpectedly persuasive using that gambit against Wellus House. Which begs the question: why?

But the tiny detail I found particularly interesting was Fox’s gossipy reference to the notorious Late Astel Age sex scandal known as the Teddy Pendergrass/Durham Sexton Affair. Or to be more exact the Love Triangle between Teddy Pendergrass’ wife and Durham Sexton the CEO of Wellus House Havens. The resulting murder suicide shocked the Nineteenth Century city. Teddy Pendergrass barricaded himself in his expensive but sinister (and reputed to be haunted house) known as Peryton House. Durham Sexton, shot by Teddy who was actually aiming at his wife in Durham Sexton’s bed, dragged himself out of the hospital and eluded police to murder the man who told the cuckold about the affair. A cabbie. Mrs. Pendergrass’ devoted cabbie (because of course she could hardly use the chauffeur to go to love rendevous). Then Durham Sexton shot himself. On the Fields of the Moon no less. That is where criminals traditionally hanged. That made this gory love triangle a thing a gossipy queer psychopathic killer would remember and savor and recall with joy even decades later.

And Sidney Fox’s love of gory gossip of violent death wrapped around the one thing he never experienced, heterosexual passion, let drop a pregnant hint. Besides the gaggle of bastards Mrs. Pendergrass birthed for Teddy to assume were his was the detail that Teddy Pendergrass was not only a cuckold but a damn fool. Or more exactly a blind fool. Half of the children were decidedly peculiar genetically speaking. Translation: Durham Sexton, the CEO of Wellus House Havens, was genetically peculiar. Or to be more exact, peculiar as well as genetically odd. He was apparently the only member of the ultra secret consortium of cartels and corporations known as the Old Citadel Syndicate who enjoyed mixing with The Mundanes as ordinary people are called here. Or as the edgy internet calls anyone who can’t understand what the Pepe Meme really means, the hated ‘Normals’.

Durham Sexton’s peculiarity was not just his distinctive genetics but the fact he violated Old Citadel protocols by falling in love with a Mundane: Mrs. Pendergrass. The byproducts of the notorious affair lingered in poverty until the 1920s when the last perished under sinister circumstances. Apparently long after Teddy Pendergrass died inside Peryton House Ltd, Peryton House Ltd waged a relentless feud against the disinherited bastards of Durham Sexton who persisted in using the Pendergrass name when they did not have the Pendergrass genes. That and the obscure fact that Peryton House apparently ‘eats’ children. Or at least that children die under mysterious circumstances inside Peryton House. Or at least if the children are Mundane. Not exceptional. Not appropriately deviant.

The important thing was these bastards were in and out of law courts and law suits and tabloids as they waged Probate war against Peryton House Ltd. Something about their claims to some or all of Peryton House assets which originally were Pendergrass assets. Peryton House defined ‘assets’ according to ‘Dwarvish’ business standards: amass assets but never disburse assets. And whatever you do, never, never share assets. And tragically, both Teddy Pendergrass and Durham Sexton repudiated the poor tykes so they were in financial limbo. A sort of Probate Nithing. Nemo. No Man. Nobody. They were technically Nobody. No Pedigree. No registered bloodline. And in Zendula everything is tied to registered bloodline.

Fox said Durham Sexton’s repudiation was a desperate ploy to make Teddy feel guilty and not disinherit the poor tykes. Well! Clearly that did not work! They just ended up totally screwed! Notoriously totally screwed! So the unwanted tykes were heavily photographed. And therefore their very peculiar genetics were well documented. It was the first time a member or child of a member of the Old Citadel Syndicate was photographed. Before this the only member to be documented was the founder: Mr. Wellus. But only drawings. Even Durham Sexton only appeared in the newspapers as illustrated drawings. Newspaper photography only appeared after 1900. But if the drawings of Durham Sexton and the mysterious Wellus were placed side by side photographs of the poor bastards you could see that Durham Sexton was not an one off. A abnormality. He was typical of the —- pedigree. Or should I say —species? His only abnormality was his embrace of Mundanes and his atypical love affair with a Mundane. A normal person. Durham Sexton’s bastards proved he was a different species from Mundanes. Or what internet hipsters would call ‘Normals’.

The spawn of the Old Citadel are a different species than us the same way Daffy Gilbert – Blackheart was a different species of movie star from Mundane movie stars. To be exact they are two different species registered at Probate Court in those secret registers as The Hidden Pedigree. Or to put it another way: the Hidden Pedigree are the recessive genes of the elite of Garden District Havens and remote Arcadia who still dominate and rule Zendula despite being a tiny minority. And the Hidden Pedigree is also what is normally is kept hidden inside the Old Citadel or else the depths of the secretive branches of Wellus House International. As for the Secret Pedigree. I have no idea. Perhaps that is the connection to people being ‘eaten’. I don’t know. And I really don’t want to know!

You could see it clearly in some of the drawings and blurry photographs of the aging and tragic children renounced by both paters. Some were deceptively Mundane. Clones of the fabulously beautiful Mrs. Pendergrass. Titian red blond hair and all. Not a Teddy gene in the bunch but spectacularly striking. The trophy wife definitely had great genes. Mundane but handsome! But some of the tykes were —- well —- grotesque. Durham Sexton’s shocking affair meant his genes and his Hidden Pedigree were put on full display for the world to ogle. No wonder the Old Citadel was so pissed off that Durham Sexton faced fatal reprisals from Wellus House International and the Old Citadel. It was not just a case of immorality. His passion exposed the Hidden Pedigree for the world to see!

It makes one wonder why Mrs. Pendergrass clung to her ugly lover despite his unpleasant genetics. I mean a dozen years and six kids! That is one hell of a doomed love affair! Teddy Pendergrass by every report was not only a highly successful railroad tycoon but a nice man. Older. Sure. Self made. Sure. But kindly —- until he was driven to murder. Even his face in the photographs is kindly. So kindly people were not shocked that he desperately tried to pretend the kids were really his as long as he could. So kindly people were shocked when he barricaded himself inside Peryton House and abandoned them after committing murder.

And Sidney Fox gossiped that Durham Sexton kept trying to break it off and even pleaded and begged Teddy Pendergrass to take his trophy wife and bastards back. Or at least the three who apparently passed for Mundane and displayed the trophy wife’s genes. It was destroying Teddy Pendergrass, a very decent and kindly man. And it was also destroying Durham Sexton who apparently was a conflicted and troubled man. It could only destroy the poor tykes. And it could only end by destroying Mrs. Pendergrass. It was a tragedy no one seemed able to stop from happening. It broke every Wellus House protocol as well as every social protocol. It was all but a sort of death sentence. And it was Mrs. Pendergrass who refused to stop the affair which destroyed everyone. Wife. Husband. Lover. And bastards.

And make no mistake! Durham Sexton and any spawn he procreated faced a defacto death sentence from Wellus House and the powers inside the Old Citadel. Apparently you don’t retire with a golden handshake or a golden parachute. You just exit from the towering roof of Wellus House International! Splat! His bastards would have been killed if he had acknowledge them. In fact three were definitely killed under highly suspicious circumstances. Mysterious arson. Hit and run. ‘Suicide’. The three who displayed Durham’s Sexton’s peculiar genes. The other three displaying Mrs. Pendergrass’s genetics were destroyed by Peryton House law suits, poverty, and despair.

I dug up old newspapers for photographs of the poor bastards. My smart phone makes research so much easier now. It is a walking talking archive! The three who displayed the genetics of Durham Sexton. Except every newspaper I located in the archives boasted holes where someone cut out the post 1900 newspaper photographs of them! The three who flaunted Durham Sexton’s genetics! I decided Sidney Fox’s penchant for gossip would mean other files and dossiers with his signature might give me yet more intel. Especially his 1890s reports about the original affair. Being a gossip he definitely would have reported the sensational tragedy real time. I wanted a photograph of Durham Sexton or else his tragic offspring. I wanted a really good look at them! Not just steel etched drawings! Photographs!

You see, I have searched the Internet and have come up zero with Google images of any member of Wellus House International or the Old Citadel Syndicate! Zero! Not one photograph! But there were newspaper illustrations of the notorious affair and everyone involved. Teddy Pendergrass. The trophy wife. Durham Sexton. The children. It was sensationally covered. Except every newspaper I located in the archives has holes where someone cut out every photograph and damn near every steel etched illustration! Of Durham Sexton! Of the three children who displayed his genetics! And there should have been hospital records! Durham Sexton crawled out of his hospital bed to kill that cabbie before shooting himself on the Fields of the Moon after executing the cabbie who blabbed. Hospital records and morgue photographs! Except there aren’t any! Hospital records I mean! And when I tracked down morgue records I found that the Durham Sexton file was empty! Well! I bet Sidney Fox kept copies! For a psychopathic killer he was an old gossipy queer! He definitely would have kept extra copies!

So here I am walking down Cornucopia Street toward the heavily secured Embassy Archives in an old Dwarve Business Vault as the strange buildings built under and into the hollows of the massive Durham Viaduct are called. ‘Dwarve’ means ultra business or else ultra rich or else ultra secure or else ultra paranoid. I am on Cornucopia Street right now. This rich street, two blocks from the harbor and the commercial piers, is lined with stores. It is one of The Haven’s richest high streets. Mostly it is rebuilt of course having been heavily bombed during WW II the way London’s East End was destroyed. Commercial piers and industries require targeting and therefore anyone near to them become collateral damage. Lower Chinna Street and Cornucopia Street along with part of Pickaplenty Street became very expensive high street collateral damage.

Fortunately the Zendulians did not embrace the post war ‘brutal architecture’ which Londoners embraced to rebuild. They rebuilt with Neo-Deco which is called Dagmar Deco here. So it is a gorgeous area to walk through on a sunny day. The fog is just hovering along the commercial piers. It is inching into the city as if a ghost’s shadow. But the sun is still dancing off the chrome and gilt of the Dagmar Deco buildings. The steel and bronze and glass smooth and curved and elegant. And the trees are glossy and green. So it is a lovely day to walk.

If I have to walk to the Embassy Archive in one of the Lower Moon Street Viaduct ‘Dwarve Vaults’ I might as well window shop! Off the Lower Cornucopia and Pickaplenty High Streets the area gets cramp and dark. The spidery streets become narrow cobblestone. Straight yet deviating. Starting one place but ending up in the wrong place. Lower Petticoat Lane and Lower Moon Street were never converted from gaslight or cobblestone. I suppose it is considered chic and quant and the district is as well heeled as the Arcadian Garden District or Downtown or The Heights. But when the fog rolls in then the five to seven story tall stone houses with their attached warehouses seem somehow curiously sinister and brooding.

‘Dwarve’ style architecture is smooth, angular, oddly modern, lacking the sinuous lines of the ‘Arcadian’ style of the government buildings, massive, and overly secured as if the old buildings are somehow suspicious. Even paranoid. ‘Dwarve’ indeed in construction and aura. As the fog rolls in they seem very paranoid indeed. And the fog is starting to roll in now. Dank. Damp. Dark. The gaslight street lamps are flickering on the far side of the street where the older ‘Dwarve’ architecture is. That which was not bombed by the Japanese. The shadows are growing. Oddly. The shadows are growing there. My side of the Neo Deco street is still sunny and gleaming and bright. Originally the whole area was like this. Old Town. Dwarve’s Town. But now it is the only part of the city which is still like this. Modern yet not modern. Lavish yet austere. Dour. Dogged. Unyielding. Contrarious. Stubborn. Unyielding. Suspicious. And paranoid. So I will follow Lower Cornucopia Street before turning at Pepper Street to head toward the Lower Moon Street Viaduct in the heart of Dwarve’s Town where the Embassy ‘Dwarve Vault’ building is located.

The day is lovely. The stores on my side of the street are luxurious. The shoppers are well heeled. Tourists are returning now that the riots are a thing of the immediate past. Coronation themes bedeck every rich store window. The coming coronation making it a perfect time for everyone to conspicuously overspend. The Embassy is planning no end of events to celebrate it. As an entry level diplomat I won’t get the Court events of course. Every Courtier is hauling out their required Court couture in all of its cumbersome if extravagant glory for the formal events. Everyone is buying new togs for the informal events. Zendulian fashion features lavish linings of rich Merry Fords textile weaving garnished by embroidery. Everyone who is anyone must buy the Merry Fords Coronation Themes. Blue, grey, and black external textile facades of boring respectability conceal the lavish inner linings. But on unspoken cue the loose, reversible, straight cut jackets are ‘flashed’ or ‘turned’ inside out to flaunt the rich colors as if one is instantly whisked away to Japan on Cherry Blossom Day. The only thing which comes close to London is flashing gaudy braces or else waistcoats. But that pales to Merry Fords.

I pause by this window to snap a pic of my reflection merged into a Merry Fords tuxedo. A reflective selfie. But I simply daren’t even try to carry off such a lavish ‘flashing’ even if the tux jacket is otherwise cut to the ‘British Style’ which means the sleeves are fairly narrow and straight instead of boxy and flowing. The tux jacket has a shawl collar. Open in front. A single jewel button. The side seams are basted closed. Such an odd tradition! The black outer silk of the display is deceptively conventional but an all but invisible fishing line pulls the inside partly outside to ‘flash’ the Merry Fords extravagance concealed within the deceptively conventional facade. It is so Zendulian! Concealing the fantastical inside the mundane! All held together by only basting stitches! As if chance might pull the basting thread apart to reveal the concealed! Perhaps I could buy one for my Mom. A Christmas present? But it is pricy. I will resolutely resist the temptation and stroll on! I will settle for a Merry Fords waistcoat! That will be quite pricy enough for my junior diplomat wages!

I am approaching Pepper Street now. It cuts across Lower Chinna, Cornucopia, and Pickaplenty Steets as well as Lower Petticoat Lane to end at Lower Moon Street Viaduct. I can hear the Durham Viaduct from here. Distant rumbling noise. It is so massive and towering it is both a broad gauge railroad and an expressway to and from the South regions of the country. Despite being very old, what part of this city is not old, it was so massively overbuilt at the time of its construction it is still able to be retrofitted to still be fit for use in the 21st Century. ‘Dwarvish’ also means built to last forever. Anticipating expansion. Overly engineered to anticipate every emergency or crisis. Prepared for the worst but ready to snatch every opportunity to profit.

I have now reached Pepper Street. Far ahead I can see the Durham Viaduct. Pepper Street ends at the viaduct which forms a defacto urban wall bisecting Old Town from Downtown. Odd. The Arcadian Garden District has a similar towering viaduct wall which cuts off the rich Arcadian Garden District from Downtown. Just like this. But somehow no one remembers it as so brutally hacking off one part of town from another part of down. The Arcadian Garden District viaduct wall is covered by the ‘Hanging Gardens’. A suspended public gardens of such great beauty it is a tourist site. So the viaduct wall somehow does not register. Not like the Durham Viaduct. Even from here its distant looming presence somehow casts a pale over me! The Viaduct is towering overhead, massive, yet somehow cold and damp and dank. Even from here it projects its curiously menacing presence. As the fog continues to roll in I will, I fear, find myself approaching the Embassy Dwarve Vault as the damp fog wraps its dank and clammy fingers around the towering and brooding Durham Viaduct. Clamminess and brooding darkness merging into a faintly sinister aura I for one do not care for.

Some of the Embassy swear by this area of town. Old Town. Dwarve Town. It is undisputably rich. The blocks of massive five to seven story tall homes are rich indeed. Each townhouse boasts two wings: the original mansion, and the original warehouse, encasing an inner courtyard with mews in back. The mews of course are all converted to garages now. The old warehouse wings have mostly been converted into businesses or else fused into the mansion wing to become luxurious mega homes. Each towering townhouse also features some two or three basements concealed from view. Often with tunnels. Unlike the Arcadian Garden District there are no public or private gardens. Whatever is inside the enclosed courtyards are deliberately concealed from prying eyes by high security gates.

The only greenery are a few trees lining the minimal sidewalks. It is as if the original inhabitants were too misery to waste precious urban space on fripperies. And the homes along the Lower Moon Street Viaduct also encloses the Vaults. In London the rich are building ‘Iceberg’ homes. Plunging deep underground. Here the homes are already ‘Iceberg’. Deep. Secretively large. Fortified. Not sharing. Not even really flaunting. Concealing. Rich granite or marble. Beautiful details but frugal too. Rich materials but conservative. Shutters protecting windows. Or else lavishly ornate security bars. Already secretively large and able to be expanded even more secretively. But I prefer the elegant Garden District with its smaller but more elegant ‘Arcadia style’ mansions, private gardens, and elegantly sinuous lines.

I am heading down Pepper Street to Lower Pickaplenty Street now. The 1950s Neo Deco reconstruction after the Japanese bombing is all but gone. Pickaplenty escaped most of the devastation so its Old Town’s ‘Dwarvish’ persona is dominating. The streets are becoming narrow, cobblestone, and flickering as the fog rolls in and the gaslight struggles to illuminate the fog. I regret walking to the Vault now. The fog is rolling in really fast. Clammy, dank, and oddly creepy. Everyone are turning into ghosts momentarily appearing before disappearing in the waves of fog as the fog rolls across the city now. Havens fogs are so notorious they inspire comparisons to Dickens novels.

The Pickaplenty stores are more quant. But the windows are smaller. Many are parts of mansion complexes. The stores built into the mansion wings with the warehouses still functioning as originally intended. The inclosed courtyards still in place. Extravagant signs and business facades are inviting but smaller. More exotic. Intimate. Enticing. Instead of mega department stores the stores come across as if intimate private clubs inviting the elite to come inside. But if you have to ask the price you can’t afford any of it! I am approaching Lower Petticoat Lane now. The ‘Dwarvish’ quality is becoming ever more intense. The Durham Viaduct is louder. It towers over Old Town like a dark giant thing. A brooding presence which apparently the original inhabitants valued but which I find oppressive indeed.
I am walking directing toward the Lower Moon Street Durham Viaduct now. Pepper Street ends there. The vaults were created accidentally when the Durham Viaduct was constructed. The towering roadway was built on massive, looming arches on a commercially acceptable gradient to move traffic from the Northern Lower Heights toward the lower South Dales. Hence the towering construction to moderate the precipitous incline. So the vaults are inside the massive arches on which the towering viaduct was built.

But the Durham Viaduct also conjures up sinister history. You see the massive viaduct which leads out of the city levels off the Northern Upper and Lower Heights from the lower ‘Down’ part of town. Hence the name: Downtown. It is the part of the city which originally dipped very low as it merged into the much lower Southern Dales. Downtown was originally the slums of the old city. The River Viaduct and Durham Viaduct also funneled traffic around the originally noxious Downtown slum. So the viaducts became visible demarcations of urban geography. The two rich parts of the city, Dwarve’s Town and the Arcadian Garden District, marked their turf from the noxious slums of the Down part of town by way of the two viaducts which brutally carved their way through the city. Down being a metaphor for both the drop from the physical heights and also the drop in class and the drop into poverty.

Mundanes needless to say inhabited this area. Mundanes without Pedigree in Probate Court Registers. And at some point the massive arches holding up the towering viaducts were bricked up to form bisecting urban walls to cage the slums. Cage the Mundanes who were seen as inferior in every way from the Elite except for one characteristic: their ability to breed like rabbits. Pepper Street and the other bisecting streets of Old Down deliberately become dead ends terminating at the wall of the viaduct. The inhabitants deliberately walling themselves off from people they saw as inferior. Of course the Arcadian Garden District did it too but somehow not as nakedly as here. Ironically, today Downtown has been transformed into a Nuevo rich part of town. In fact it was the first example of a massive urban redevelopment. And of course like all urban redevelopments the poor were shoved out to make way for the Nuevo rich. But the only way in and out of Downtown is through a massive gate- like monument wedged between Dwarve’s Town and the Arcadian Garden District. Even today there are no through streets through Downtown. Like I said. Zendulians have long memories. If your name is in the sealed Probate Court Registers you don’t live in Downtown. If you are a social climbing Nuevo rich Mundane or else Foreigner you do.

The genteel Arcadian Garden District inhabitants just bricked up their side of the massive arches of their viaduct. Then they built the ‘Hanging Gardens’ as if a lush curtain to conceal the function of the rude wall. It reveals their nature despite their Hidden Pedigree. Dwarve’s Town which is and was and will always be both a rich residential area and also the commercial shipping and shopping district saw the potential of their viaduct. That revealed their nature despite their Hidden Pedigree. Besides walling off the slums, the inhabitants of ‘Dwarve’s Town’ choose to brick up the far side of the massive viaduct’s arches. Thus they created accidental ‘caves’. Enclosed spaces inside the arches. Then they built towering townhouse/warehouse complexes right on the side of the towering viaduct as if pinning butterflies to cardboard. They even used the massive stone wall of the viaduct to support seven story tall townhouses. And these new townhouses not only boasted enclosed courtyards but the ‘caves’ behind them. ‘Treasure caves’. The ‘ treasure caves’ became the ‘Vaults’. Massive stone enclosures. If you are a businessman who would not want such a massively secure and defensible vault? It is like accidentally discovering a way to turn an empty space into your own personal bank vault!

I am approaching Lower Moon Street Viaduct now. Then I will hang a right at Peryton House and walk three blocks to the British Embassy Archives & Vault which is one of these cunning townhouses converted to a new use which is the same use I suppose. New owners. Not businessmen but an ex- business empire. Ahead of me is Peryton House where Teddy Pendergrass barricaded himself over a century ago after murdering his wife while trying to murder Durham Sexton. Today Peryton House is part of the Adrian Reid Media Empire. Who actually owns it now? I don’t know. The Adrian Reid offspring ended up horribly dead. So the business empire still uses the last famous owner’s name. Every New Year’s Eve there are TV shows radiating out of there. I don’t know how they do the computer special effects to apparently feature the famous dead movie star dancing with his celebrated wife Helena who was rumored to be a Robota. TV. Radio. Publications. The Adrian Reid Media Empire has it all. There is also a famous recording studio which makes ‘any voice sound better than anywhere else on earth. Unique acoustics apparently.

Now the media empire includes internet businesses. Streaming of TV shows and every sort of music. Sampling too. New shows all over Youtube to capture the young generation. In fact Peryton House has companies set up to serve each ‘generation’ from Baby Boomer to Generation X to the Millennials to Generation Z. Peryton House has created alternatives to Twitter or Facebook or Google. They are boasting it is censorship free and beyond the reach of digital Big Brother. That is drawing a lot of ex-users of the above who don’t want Silicon Valley Big Brother breathing down their necks. A lot of young Chinese and Indians used this too to elude their governmental Big Brother. Milo recently signed on there after being banned by Twitter. The way the ‘Dolores’ Hillary wants to exterminate Pepe the Meme the berserk frog will probably flee here too. George Orwell never thought his nightmare of Big Brother would come true courtesy of the Regressive Left. Who would have thought!

This year Peryton House launched a new digital security business. Hackers for hire to protect your domains. Guardian apps based on old House Spirits to protect your smart phones. Digital paladins to protect you from the old/ new foes. White knights in cyber armor to fight off enemies of humanity be they Anarchist Hackers. Big Brother. Dictators. The Regressive Left Police State. Hillary the Hildabeast with her pathological terror of Pepe Memes. Absolute digital privacy guaranteed. Helena Reid’s latest pet project supposedly. But unless she really was a Robota the person leading the high tech division of Peryton House is her clone or else someone simply using her very well established business name while the media unit uses Adrian Reid’s very well established entertainment name. But hey! This is Zendula! Whatever works! And apparently this works very well! The Zendulians love ghosts and spirits! It is a multi-media empire apparently run by ghosts and a guardian spirit!

I am now standing before Peryton House. It is all black granite with touches of gold and silver which does not tarnish. What is the word? Mithril. A strange sort of totem guardian spirit of a winged deer is suspended over the lavish entryway. It is crafted of gold and silver and mithril with gemstone eyes. Its wings are so delicate they appear to flutter. The building is like many here, both a mansion wing and a warehouse business wing with an enclosed courtyard . Shutters at every window. The vault is behind, concealed. The entry way is three steps down. The building is that old. When originally built the entry way was one or two steps above the surface road. It is weird. The Peryton business logo appears to cast two shadows on the sidewalk. It is a very bizarre special effect. I don’t know how they do it. I…. wait….. wait…

A cab has driven up. An old cab. One of those tourist cabs. A Williams Steam Engine Automobile. A Zendulian invention which despite its century plus patent is still popular with the retro crowd. It is parking besides the trademark Adrian Reid Racing Automobile which is always parked in front of Peryton House. The Media Empire still keeps a racing car business as a nod to Adrian Reid who was some silent movie star cum race driver. It is a terribly expensive old racing car. I am sure they keep all sorts of auto sensors on it. Anyway. As the cabbie watches with a strange face six kids of various ages from four to twelve climb out. It must be for a TV show. They are all dressed in Nineteenth Century Zendulian couture. Gee! Three of the kids have brilliant reddish blond hair. Now they are going up to the entry way with its elaborate door emblazoned with a Peryton winged deer creature. They are knocking to be buzzed in. Except they are crying and pounding on the expensive door. Where are the TV cameras? They must be filming the infamous Teddy Pendergrass sex and murder scandal! Where are the TV cameras? Look! The automated security gate is lowering! As if the Peryton totem spirit guardian is closing its wings to ban entry. The kids are screaming. Crying. Calling out for ‘Daddy’. Gee! They are good child actors. They are crying on cue! As if they really are the tragic tykes! Emotional collateral damage! It is a great performance! Where are the cameras?

Wait. Look! The third story! A window is opening. A man is crying and gesturing! ‘Go away! Go away! I disavow you! Why did you bring them? First you betrayed her and then you bring her children here?’ Who is he talking to? The cabbie?

The cabbie is looking gosh artful. He is crying! Gee! Is this part of the show? Where is the camera? ‘I did not betray Mrs. Pendergrass! Your private detective tricked me into revealing Milady’s secret! Why am I being blamed for the tragedy? I adored her! Milady!’

‘Why are you doing this to me? To make me bleed even more?’ the man in the upper window cries.

‘Why are you doing this to us?’ the children cry. ‘Daddy! Daddy! Let us in! Let us in! Why don’t you love us anymore! You are the only father we ever knew! The Durham Sexton Orphanage is horrible! We want to come home! Why are you abandoning us like this? You loved us —- once! Why don’t you love us now?’

The children are crying. They are very good child actors but where is the camera? Why would Peryton House do a film on this scandal? It does not reflect well on Teddy Pendergrass. The actor in the third story window is crying. He is a very good actor. He has been made up to look just like Teddy Pendergrass. And the kids are made up too. Oh wait! How good are they made up? Three have that distinctive red blond hair! Where are the three spawn from Durham Sexton? Let’s see how makeup portrayed them!

Of course everyone is dressed according to Nineteenth Century protocols. Hats. Gloves. Full regalia. But the black gloves have stuffing to mimic fingers which have one extra finger bone joint! That is interesting! Spidery – like fingers! Someone sure did their research! Distinctive white blond hair. Yea. That is part of the description in every newspaper. Stunted. Spindly. Almost anorexic. The two older kids are wearing those funny deep blue spectacles which Nineteenth Century sufferers of eye problems or migraines used to wear. Like knockoffs of the Hildabeast fainting on 9/11 in medical blue spectacles. What does the small child look like? Strange blue eyes flinching in the fog. Funny. It is getting very foggy now so the light is obscure but the small child is flinching from the light. There must something wrong with its eyes. But how can a four year old child actor act so well? As if the child really does have eye problems. How did they get makeup lenses so small to capture such intense pale blue eyes? And the three suspect kids have makeup to mimic skin problems. As if their skins sunburns easily and are fragile. Allergic to sunlight or something. That fits the description. The small child is screaming terrifically well. How are they doing that? The oldest girl with reddish blond hair is struggling to pick up the screaming child to console it. It really seems to be suffering from allergies or something. From the salt air. From the single tree on the sidewalk. From the damp fog. As if something perfectly normal is causing it intense pain. The oldest daughter is crying as she struggles to hold the poor kid.

‘Why don’t you love us anymore Daddy?’ she cries. She is giving an Oscar performance! Where is the camera? It is as if she is genuinely gutted by the pain of the abandonment. The actor in the third story window is crying too. The shutters are slowly closing as if automated. As if Peryton House is deliberately sealing itself off from the crying children. The metal shutters are closing every window. The massive security is sealing the entryway. It is a nifty special effect. As if the house is possessed and cruelly sealing itself and its inhabitants off from the human tragedy occurring on the entry step. The actor playing Teddy Pendergrass is pounding the window as the automated shutters seals it.

Then one of the children looks up at the strange Peryton winged deer creature. He points. Wait! He is screaming! Screaming that the creature opened its eyes and cursed him them. They are screaming with fear! The children are screaming with fear! The Peryton winged deer creature is making the most strange shrieking sound! As if a warning siren! And one of the children pounding the automated security devices sealing off the entry doors is bleeding as if something has cut her tiny hands. The special effects is amazing! Where is the camera? She really appears to be bleeding! As if the automated security devices sealing off the door deliberately cut her tiny hands! The children are retreating now! Across the clammy foggy street! Toward me! Where are the cameras? Why isn’t anyone shoeing me away? The children are running past me now! Running past me into the deepening fog! They look so real! Where are the cameras? One collided with me! She gasps and cries! Her eyes are overflowing with tears. Now she is running after her brothers and sisters as they run down the foggy street! I feel something wet! It is a smear of blood from her little hand! The makeup is so real it smells like blood! I taste it! It is ….. blood!

Where are the cameras? Why are there no cameras? No one else is on the curiously empty street except me and the cabbie! He is starting his Williams Automobile. I run up. He is crying. ‘Get in Sir. I will take you anywhere as long as it is away from here! The bombs are about to start!’

By instinct I open the door of the luxury recreation! I don’t know why? The British Embassy Vault is only three blocks away. It is a waste to take the cab! So why am I fumbling with the door? Someone is shouting across the street! The Teddy Pendergrass actor! He has opened the third story window and is shouting at me! ‘Don’t take that cab! It is a dead man driving it! It is the man Durham Sexton murdered on the Fields of the Moon! I look down. My hand is touching only fog! Creepy, clammy, fog! There is no cab! I look around! There is no Teddy Pendergrass shouting at me from a sealed third story window! Peryton House is sealed up tight! As if preparing for attack!

I hear sirens! From the harbor! Sirens! I run toward the British Embassy Vault! But the fog is closing in on me! One block! Two blocks! Three blocks! Four blocks! Five blocks! Six blocks! I can’t find the Embassy Vault! It is as if the foggy street is elongating! I can’t recognize anything! And the fog is so thick now I can’t see three feet before my hand! The gaslight street lamps are struggling to flicker as the damp fog rolls in thick as pea soup! As thick and damp as a shroud! And I keep hearing muffled sounds and sirens! But there is no one on Lower Moon Street Viaduct! No one! No one! So I hang a left to run back toward Cornucopia Street with its modern street lights! Except the fog is so thick I can’t find the street! It is as if the streets are becoming a maze! A labyrinth! I can’t see where I am! So I run down more streets but it is as if I am a rat in a maze! Where are the people I passed earlier? The automobiles? The crowds of tourists? I can’t find my way out of the fog! I must have run toward Moon Park! Way off course! But where are the people? And I keep hearing muffled sounds like deep booms and sirens! But muffled by the fog so I can’t tell the direction! Then I run into someone! a shadow writhed in fog. I shout ‘Where am I?’

‘The wrong place at the wrong time dear boy! The bombs are starting! And blood is flowing in the streets!’ he replies in English. British English! But when I try to grab him all I feel is fog! Clammy fog! ‘Why isn’t my smart phone working?’ I shout! ‘I can’t get any map directions! Reception! What is wrong with my smart phone? It is on but it is not working! Except recording my voice!’ But then I hear shouts! Cries! So I run toward the shouts and cries! And I stumble back to Cornucopia Street! Except is not Cornucopia Street! It is another street I don’t recognize! All Dwarvish buildings and no post 1950s Neo Deco! But I smell sea salt blowing in from the harbor! Then I stumble and fall into the gutter —- and it is running with blood!

And I stagger to my feet as the screaming crowd collide with me! Everyone screaming as bombs crash into the buildings of the high street! Explosions everywhere! Everyone screaming all around me! Everyone running everywhere! A blind panic engulfing me! As explosions hurl flesh and blood everywhere! Flesh and blood exploding everywhere! And fires exploding everywhere! As if the whole city was on fire! And someone screams ‘It is Captain Sakuragi and his flying submarine the Denko Tei!’

‘No! No!’ someone else screams. ‘It is the Japanese Imperial War Machine!’

And human beings are being blown up! And women are on fire! And the bodies of little children are scattered as if rag dolls missing limbs! And craters are opening up under me! And the stench of flesh and blood and explosives are everywhere! And I stumble and fall! And I realize I am kneeling by the screaming Japanese Ambassador! He is fallen into the gutter and he is screaming! Screaming that he is the Japanese Ambasador! He has diplomatic immunity! But he is clutching bloody wounds! Someone, something is stabbing him! He is kneeing as a blade appears and disappears in the fog-like smoke and fire! The blade continuously plunging itself into his flesh! And someone or something is laughing a manic mechanical laugh! And there is a man standing over us! And he is holding a gun! And he is firing that gun! And he is shooting at us! Me! Him! Someone!

And the Japanese Ambassador explodes into blood before me! His body falling backwards as if a rag doll missing its entire face! His entire face blown to pieces by a hail of bullets! And I look up to see an aging spy with a smoking revolver in hand! And he is laughing manically as he slams another ammo magazine clip into the gun. And then a small Teddy Bear totters up to me! A god damn stuffed Teddy Bear! Except it is a mechanical monstrosity! Half of its fur burned off revealing its inner mechanics! But it is giggling as manically as its owner! ‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’ the grotesque thing cackles as it waves its bloody blade before my face!

‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’ Sidney Fox laughs as the bombs rain down! People and buildings exploding all around us!

‘I know you!’ I scream. I hold up my busted smart phone. ‘I collected all of the selfies of the ….’

‘….Usual suspects?’ Sidney Fox laughs manically.

‘God! Don’t kill me! I am a British agent working for MI 6!’ I scream!

‘Then London is recruiting young now!’ the psychopath laughs as he waves his gun at me!

‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’ his demented half burned monstrosity of a Robota crackles. ‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug! Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’ Then it gestures to plunge its bloody blade into my face! So I grab the monstrosity and hurl it at Sidney Fox who ducks as he roars with laughter.

‘Not impressed with Poo Poo Bear?” Sidney Fox laughs sardonically.

‘Why isn’t my smart phone working?’ I scream as I stagger to my feet as the world explodes into blood and carnage all around me!

‘I have absolutely no idea what that little contraption is in your hand! But I gather it is amazing technology. But what I have can trump whatever amazing technology you have dear boy!’ the psychopath laughs.

‘We have to get away! We are going to die!’ I scream!

‘Obviously dear boy! Here it is! My amazing technology!’

‘It is just a stupid old pocket watch!’ I scream as I wave my busted smart phone at the manic. ‘This is a miniature computer! So why is it busted?’

‘Like a Babbagetus? It still can’t compare with my pocket watch!’ Sidney Fox laughs.

‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’ the burned Robota teddy bear repeats grotesquely as it struggles to crawl to its foot. Then it picks up its bloody blade and starts to stagger toward me to kill me!

‘Poo Poo Bear does not like you dear boy!’ Sidney Fox laughs manically. ‘Should I let Poo Poo Bear kill you? Or should I do the job more cleanly?’

‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’ the partly burned technological monstrosity keeps chanting as it staggers toward me with that bloody blade. ‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’

‘This is not happening!’ I scream at the maniac! ‘I was at Peryton House! Except Peryton House …..’

‘Oh! Dear boy? Don’t you get it? The time shift! It starts there! Across the street from Peryton House dear boy! My pocket watch has a novel stop watch function!’

‘Why isn’t my smart phone working?’ I scream as I use it to fend off the blows of that bloody blade.

‘Poo Poo Bear wants a hug!’ the partly burned monstrosity chants dementedly as it keeps trying to kill me.

‘Don’t you get it dear boy? It stops — time! Or to be more exact it loops time! It replays time! Over and over and over! See!’ Then Sidney Fox presses the stop watch function and ….’”

“….And the audio of the smart phone of Jon Marlowe stops as you can see! I mean hear.” The policeman held up the partly damaged smart phone to Jack Phillips.

“Only audio on the phone?” Jack Phillips asked mystified.

“Only audio! He was recording this as your friend ….well… vanished off the face of the earth as it were” the policeman explained as he gave Jack Phillips the smart phone.

“The Embassy has authorized me to send it to Jon’s grandfather” Jack Phillips explained. The policeman nodded. Jack Phillips took the smart phone and walked out of the police station. Then he remembered something and walked back inside. “Can I see the report of the mysterious arson of the British Embassy Dwarve Vault?”
“Sure but it does not say much.”

“How can a massive Dwarve Vault burn?” Jack Phillips asked.

“That is why it is arson. Someone was very determined to burn something in your archives obviously!”

“What is a time slip?” Jack Phillips asked the policeman.

The policeman shrugged as he picked something out of his somewhat pronounced teeth with a toothpick. “A time slip is when the springs of time coils together too closely and time slips or loops and replays one moment over and over and over.”
Another policeman came up to the counter. “Where is the corpse I am looking for?”

“In the cafeteria” the policeman at the counter replied as he used his toothpick to pick at something lodged in his somewhat pronounced teeth. The other policeman casually strolled off. “Nithing. Convert. Tried to be a suicide bomber. Failed” the policeman explained to Jack Phillips as if that was an explanation.

“Was the corpse of Sidney Fox ever recovered after the Jap surprise attack? Can I check the morgue records?” Jack Phillips asked.

“Others at your Embassy have asked for that” the policeman replied as he welded his toothpick. “The body of Sidney Fox was never recovered. Lots of corpses burned to ash and cinder during that terrible surprise attack. Not every body was found. A lot of people were never found. Missing. Dead of course! But never found.”
Jack Phillips walked outside and watched as tourists snapped selfies. He picked up the damaged smart phone and pressed every function. Everything worked perfectly except for the audio of the last message Jon Marlowe ever recorded. That just kept replaying over and over and over. Jack Phillips sighed. “Another clue incinerated. Wellus House is covering its trail. But not even Wellus House can be blamed for this. So who do I blame? And how to I explain this to his poor Grandfather?”

“So this tourist map says The Havens is one of the world’s most haunted cities” one tourist told her compatriot as they walked past Jack Phillips.

“I wonder what sort of gown the New Queen will wear?” the other tourist replied.

“……..I am walking to the old Archives warehouse where the British Embassy keeps its oldest records. The sun is out. That is rare here. London is no longer ‘foggy London’ but The Havens will always be foggy, damp, dank, blurry, nebulous, and maddeningly obscure. No wonder people say The Havens is one of the most ghostly cities in the world. The fogs turn people into ghosts. But momentarily the sun is out and the city is sparkling in all of its ancient and exotic charisma. Now that the riots are over and everyone is planning the lavish coronation the city has once against become a tourist Mecca. And the Embassy is in the rich center of the city and the Embassy Archives are also in the rich center of the city. So it will be a chance to explore.

I need to track down moldering Embassy files of a sometime agent Sidney Fox who worked for Military Intelligence between the first and second world wars. His reports on Wellus House International as well as other players in The Havens Zendula hint that all is not what it seems. Despite the fact Zendula is one of Britain’s oldest allies in this part of the Pacific they are not what they appear. Zendulians I mean. We really do not know the nature of this place. Zendula I mean. Perhaps it is the near constant fog. Perhaps it is the illusive, deceptive, ever changeable quality behind its ancient facade. I suppose tourists make similar accusations once the initial awe and delight wears off and London shows its usual hidden face behind its famous facade. I don’t know. But suddenly I find this initial amusing and then bloody and now deceptively touristy place to be somehow disturbing.