He flicked a match against the side of the packet and gently brought it towards the 
tip of his cigarette.
   Pale rain fell against the sidewalk, not enough to wash the sin away but enough to 
soak him through to his bones.
   The waterfront was as quiet as the grave, silence ebbing its way across the entire 
city with no one to pay testament to it but New York's finest and the sons of bitches 
that only ever come out at night.
   Christ, what a life, he reflected. 
   The waterfront had slowly gained a bad reputation over the past few years, what with 
every cheap punk in the city finding it an adequate place to dump bodies and drive 
cars over and especially since that business with Johnny Chinese a couple of months 
back. 
   He racked his brain in an attempt to recall the man's name.
   What was it again?
   Fu Manchu or something?
   The name escaped him for now but he was sure it was something like that.
   Without warning he felt a presence behind him, like a cold shadow falling over him. 
He turned; suppressing a gasp, the same as he always did when he had these meetings... 
but this time wasn't the same.
   A young woman, her skin as pale as snow and her hair cut in a bob as had been the 
fashion in Paris during the early twenties. Around her neck was a gleaming silver 
ankh and beneath her eyes was the most curious makeup he had ever seen. Still, he 
was not someone to argue with powerful families.
   She smiled at him, warm and gentle like, a nice contradiction to the deathly pallor of 
her complexion.
   "Hallo, Mister Marlowe." She said, her voice as quiet and smooth as the grave.
   Marlowe doffed his hat nervously.
   "Hello, Miss... I... erm... what I mean to say is, I..." 
   For possibly the first time in his life, Philip Marlowe found himself blushing and 
embarrassed.
   "Didi." She introduced herself. "That's rather less disturbing than my real name. I 
believe you were waiting for my brother." 
   She was a good looking dame and under any other circumstances Marlowe might 
have tried on a little of that charm of his but not this time and especially not after 
having met her brother and knowing full well who she was.
   "I'm afraid my brother is away at the moment." Didi explained. "But I should be 
able to accommodate your needs."
   She smiled broadly again.
   Marlowe let his cigarette fall to the rain soaked pavement and ground it beneath his 
unpolished shoe. He thrust his hands, now free of anything else to do, deep into the 
pockets of his trenchcoat.
   They began walking along the waterfront, a slow waltz of vague questions and 
vaguer answers. Marlowe kept his eyes on his feet, not looking up or daring to meet 
his companion's deep innocent gaze.
   "Something big is about to happen, isn't it?" Marlowe interjected, finally breaking 
the silence of the cold night air.
   Didi nodded, solemnly.
   "Are you a religious man, Mister Marlowe?" She asked, stopping in her tracks and 
looking towards him with those dark, endless eyes of hers.
   Marlowe reached into his trenchcoat and drew forth his cigarettes once again.
   "Not especially." He explained. "I've always took my cue from what I see, not what 
I'm supposed to see."
   Didi nodded.
   "That's understandable." She shrugged.
   "Of course, meeting your brother changed a lot of that." He said, tapping a cigarette 
from its packet and flipping it into his mouth.
   Didi beamed proudly.
   "Yes, he does seem to have that effect on people." Her eyes glazed over with a 
sorrow that Marlowe could not quite pinpoint, something poignant that he knew he 
was supposed to recognise but didn't.
   She turned to look at him once again, her eyes piercing the clouds of cigarette 
smoke and resting upon what seemed to be his very heart.
   "Marlowe, will you do something for me?" She asked, the innocent girl once again.
   Marlowe shrugged smoothly.
   "Sure." He replied.
   "Be careful." She said, her voice little more than a hushed whisper. "And if you 
should ever meet anyone with the last name of Constantine, don't trust them an inch."
   He beamed proudly.
   "I pride myself on not trusting most folks." He stated, honestly.
   "Within the next few days, you will see things that will challenge your atheism, 
Mister Marlowe. Be careful."
   He turned away, facing the dark alleys that converged upon the waterfront and had, 
through no choice of his own, led him here this very night.
   "Sure thing." He replied. "I'm always careful. You have to be in this business."
   He turned back to face her but the girl, Didi -- Death, a part of his mind reminded 
him, the part that he usually kept shut away with the other nagging suspicions he had 
gathered in his years as a private detective -- had vanished, as if she were never there.
   All that was left was the lingering of a melancholy smile.


Noir: YesterYear
"Drown Soda"
A YesterYear One Shot
Written by Jacob Milnestein
Edited by Tommy Hancock
   
   
   William Jones had guarded the book for eighteen years, patiently waiting out the 
days and the months and the decades until the prophecy predicted in said book would 
finally come true.
   Five years ago he had moved from Cambridge, the fair and intellectual capital 
(despite what those ruffians at Oxford said) of Britain to the dilapidated and 
intellectually challenged alleys of New York City, the place where it was all supposed 
to happen, sometime before the end of the century.
   He would be an old man by then, dead, if he were lucky.   
   Despite five years warning, he was still little more than a stranger within the vast 
American city.
   Suddenly he came to a stop, his face freezing over with absolute terror.
   Space fairing monkeys and she-males were one thing (over the past eighteen years 
he had, in fact, become accustomed to them) but this... this was pure evil.
   Leering out at him from the shadows was a face so hideous that it defied 
description - a terror born in the bosom of great Hades itself.
   "Yonder he comes," smiled the hideous face. "Quickly, noble Faustus, before the 
poor wretch comes unto his senses and awakens the night watchmen with shrieks of 
righteous terror and outrage at the face of such damnation as I, grim Mephostophilis, 
infernal tormentor of Lucifer's biding."  
   A tall gentleman in scholarly robes stepped forth, his pointed beard gleaming like 
the edge of a new razor blade and his eyes darting suspiciously from left to right and 
back again.
   "Oh, how I tire of these games, thou accursed spirit. If damnation had but a heart 
then surely such a maiden would reach out and pluck mine own from mine still warm chest 
whilst this damnable game of thy master's is played out beneath the eyes of Holy God 
in Heaven."
   Mephostophilis cringed.
   "I beseech thee, good Faustus, do not mention such a pure and accursed name 
beneath these veils of shadows for fear that my master shall return and take thee to thy 
grave before thy heart's desire is truly fulfilled. Remember that thou hath made a pact, 
sworn in blood to the angel of the Morning Star and the gentle ears of Hell take not 
kindly to the names of godliness."
   The other gentleman pulled his face in scorn.
   "Aye, I have truly made a pact. Signed my soul away to the Prince of Lies for a few 
trinkets and the pleasures of the flesh." He lamented. "Oh, foolish Faustus, cure the 
stars which brought on such an unholy union and melancholy thinking."
   "Let us hear no more of your melancholy, friend Faustus, for the night is longer than 
the feeble day upon this, the most damnable of Solstices. Say your former Lord's 
name but only in jest and curses and let hear not anymore of these idle laments for as 
Hell is far below us, thy pact may never be broken."
   "Yet what is to become of me?" Faustus asked, stepping forwards closer and 
looking into the trembling man's face. "Are we but such a foolish child-race that we 
are so eager to sign away our most precious souls for the delights of a city so foreign 
that we know not its name? A curse upon man and all his folly."
   Mephostophilis leering face broadened in delight.
   "Aye, for that is man's fate. Remember that which is above upon the soil of Earth is 
merely but shadows of that which awaits us below." It smirked.
   Faustus reached out towards the shaking man, snaring his lapels with his ancient 
and withered hands.
   "And what of you? Little man walking so far from home? What is thy fate? Dost 
thou know or even care? Aye, I tell you, proud little man. All is folly, as is wrote 
within the Good Book."
   The daemon cringed again.
   "Friend Faustus, no more of this speech. Come, let us away. For the night is still 
young and there are many impurities for us to savour."
   Faustus rubbed his hand into his weary eyes.
   "Aye, foul Mephostophilis. There is still much to see."
   The beast smiled hideously.
   "Then let us walk abroad this night, for there are things that we must accomplish 
before this night is done. Away, say I, away!"
   William Jones looked up, his legs shaking and his eyes full of fear as slowly, a 
painful mist engulfed the two travellers and they vanished from view.

   The shadows steepled their fingers into a pyramid and smiled to himself. 
   A huge screen concealed him from the glare of his employees, presenting little more 
than a silhouette of his figure and the silhouette of the technology he chose to 
surround himself with.
   A group of men waited on the other side of the screen, their view of him blinded by 
the immense white light that hung in the air behind him. He, however, had trained 
himself to recognise each and every one of them, despite the light.
   It gave him some small comfort knowing that he was aware of their faces and they 
knew him only by his silhouette. Even the voice he broadcast over the speakers that 
hung in the corners of the room they waited in had been highly distorted and warped.
   "You have received your orders, gentlemen, I trust you understand the gravity of my 
dilemma." The shadows boomed, the speakers coming to life and startling the shortest 
of the thugs who had taken up residence in one of the room's corners.
   The tallest of the three Neanderthals nodded, pounding his right fist into the palm of 
his free hand.
   "Sure, we understand you, Doc. You want this one done nice and easy, right?" The 
thug questioned.
   If it weren't for the brute's necessity, the shadows would have had him killed for 
speaking with such an insolent tongue.
   "Yes, my friend." He replied. "Nice and easy but make sure you do not attract 
attention. The last thing I need is that fool, Miracleman, stumbling upon our plan."
   "Understood, boss." The Neanderthal again.
   From behind his screen, the shadows smiled wistfully.
   "Then be about your business." He ordered, leaning back in his chair.
   Soon the world would know his name, and when it did, the peoples of every nation 
would surely know the true meaning of fear.

   The deep throb of music surrounded them, shaking the wooden floorboards and 
filling the air with melody and life.
   Mephostophilis smiled sickly.
   "Aye, such a beautiful place, would not that all of Christendom were so susceptible 
to such vices then truly Hell would be a fuller place." It cried.
   Faustus nodded wearily.
   "Feel the sickness inherent here, good Faustus, feel the beauty of such unrestrained 
wantonness. Oh, would I but had mortal eyes, then truly I would weep with joy."   
   Faustus presented no emotion as he strolled through the crowds, wandering from 
table to table, looking down upon the strange men in their black suits and white shirts 
and the deplorable women in their glimmering dresses.
   Slowly, he made his way to the far corner of the room, facing the strange group that 
were currently engaged in some musical ditty, the like of which he had not heard before.
   He turned, facing the entire crowd and threw his arms wide in despair.
   "Oh, fickle humanity, does thou not hear the lowly beating of the Angel of Death as 
he marches onwards to take thee to thy grave? Canst thou not hear the fragile tear of 
the Seventh Seal, for as surely I have signed my soul away to the devil, so hast thee."
   Mephostophilis clambered up onto the shoulders of one of the many gentlewomen 
and beamed sickly at Faustus.
   "Do not deceive thyself, good Faustus, for are we not invisible to their eyes? Can 
they no more pull back the veil of great Lucifer's dark magic than can I turn water 
into wine or stop the Heavens from falling? No, Faustus, they are deaf to your pleas."
   Faustus hung his head in shame.
   "Then this night shall each of us sleep close to damnation's breast." He looked up 
again. "Come, foul Mephostophilis, I grow weary of this."
   The daemon hopped from one shoulder to the next until he came upon a battered 
wooden door concealed from the rest of the establishment by dark forces.
   "Harken," The beast cried. "Are these mortals not splendid? Look, how they seek to 
make such a foul creature as I, feel at home. Such a noble child-race."
   Faustus made his way to where the creature was crouched down, looking into the 
colloquial domain that lay past the false back wall of the establishment.
   The room was sparse within but inhabited and, though they still remained upon the 
opposing side of the wall, they could see clearly what was happening.
   The woman had been tied to a chair, bound at the wrists and ankles with wire, faint 
lines of blood running down across her hands and feet like the stigmata of some 
unwashed messiah.
   Her mouth was gagged with a bloody rag and her body was smeared with excrement 
and blood - someone else's by the look of it.
   Faustus looked on, his eyes wide and his mouth open.
   "What evil practice be this? By damnation's flame, what unspeakable horrors dost 
this world hold?"
   Mephostophilis' sick grin grew as it passed through the wooden door and arrived in 
the room, still unnoticed. It stretched out a three-digit hand and beckoned Faustus to 
follow, which tentatively, he did.
   Another door opened, this one not directly linked to the main room through which 
Faustus and his daemon had come. 
   He turned to face the new company and shrieked out in terror, a high pitched and 
fearful cry akin to a young child's.
   Standing before them, as clear as daylight, stood a huge beast. It took him a moment 
to see beyond the mutilated cattle flesh that hung beneath the creature's dark cowl for 
Faustus to realise that the thing that lurked beneath the scarred cow skin was in fact 
human.
   Mephostophilis cocked its head, its features contorted in sudden interest.
   The beast (for what other man could have dressed in the flesh of an animal?) stepped 
forwards, closing the door behind him.
   Had the woman not been gagged she would have screamed out just as Faustus had 
moments earlier.
   The beast did not look down at her; he just towered above her, blood dripping from 
the uncured flesh that hung to his body. Slowly he reached into his robes and from 
inside what appeared to be his own body, he drew forth a large butcher's knife.
   The woman's deep green eyes filled with tears, silent rivers running down her 
cheeks.
   Faustus looked on, appalled yet speechless. 
   The beast brought the knife up into the air, holding it up there for a moment as the 
woman's tears glinted in the blade's reflection.
   Faustus cried out once more but it was too late, the beast brought his knife down, 
plunging it through the major arteries of the woman's neck and splattering his dark 
robes with sickly crimson blood.
   The woman's eyes rolled back in her head as her blood leaked out, falling to the 
cracked stone ground. A dull, humming noise filled the air and suddenly arcs of light 
splintered up through the floor engulfing the beast, entwining around his body. 
   Faustus stretched out a hand in a futile attempt to stop the creature but his hand was 
pulled back by his daemon companion.
   The creature smiled knowingly and then the room exploded with dazzling light and 
then there was nothing.

   Sim was a good cop. He had been working the same beat for the past five years and 
had little to show for it. 
   The wind was bitter cold, which wasn't that unusual this time of year. He pulled his 
collar up in an attempt to keep the cold out.
   Tonight would be the same as every other night he worked this beat, at least that's 
what he hoped.
   Suddenly a shrill cry filled his ears. He turned and saw a group of people running 
from one of the many buildings that lined the streets of his beat.
   So, maybe tonight wasn't going to be the same, after all.

   He waited, his pale blond hair blown by the shadowy nights that engulfed him. He 
couldn't let himself be dragged down in this but he could feel his exits closing around 
him.
   There was little he could do now to preserve the status quo now, it was time to take 
arms.
   He rose from his throne and looked out across this great nation that was his to 
protect.
   "Farewell, England," He whispered to the winds. "I shall return shortly but for 
now... now I am required upon Mars."  

   Marlowe perched himself on the edge of the desk, and looked down at the wafer 
thin folder that he had been passed, the cigarette in his right hand slowly burning 
down and spilling ash across the otherwise immaculate floor.
   The photograph within the file stared back at him with cold, monochrome eyes.
   "Nope, never seen the guy." Marlowe finally announced. "I take it he wasn't 
money?"
   Bernie Ohls looked up from the report that lay sprawled across his desk, the corners 
of which Marlowe was currently sitting upon.
   "Nah." He responded. "Name's Eddie Campbell, we thought he was just some two-
bit street punk until he pulled off that stunt last night."
   Marlowe arched his eyebrows and filled a match against its box. 'Match Love'. 
Marlowe sure had great taste in matches.
   "You feel there's something you ought to be telling me, Bernie?" Marlowe asked, 
his voice soft as usual but with that worrying tones of darkness that Ohls had 
become accustomed to over the years they had known each other.
   Ohls put down the papers he had been working on and folded his arms.
   "We picked him up last night. He'd been pick-pocketing the gents down at Roarin' 
Rick's. Apparently he saw something he shouldn't have, we found him sobbing like a 
baby in the back room." He was silent for a moment. "We also found a dead broad."
   Marlowe nodded, slowly taking it all in. 
   The atmosphere of the room curdled with stale cigarette smoke and the strong 
stench of coffee.
   "Mind if I take a look?" Marlowe finally asked.
   Ohls returned to his paperwork.
   "Be my guest." He replied, his voice solemn and quiet.

   Akira Komatsubara had been working in the factory since he was a young child. 
Eternally toiling in his labour so as to keep his loved ones above the poverty that often 
threatened to engulf them whole at times.
   It had been a hard year for his family and the factory and, sometimes he felt, the 
whole of Japan.
   After the upheavals that Tokyo had gone through this year, surely things could not 
get worse.
   He reflected upon these matters as, briefcase under arm, he made his way back 
towards the relative sanctuary of his small home. It was a crowded place but at least 
when at home he felt a sense of community, of 'oneness' -- which is more than he could 
say of the faceless economics of the factory. 
   Suddenly he felt the earth beneath shudder a little, the ground sighing and moving 
just a fraction.
   It couldn't be an earthquake, Akira thought, not this time of year.
   And yet the ground was most definitely moving.
   He reached out a hand and gripped the pale iron of a nearby street-sign.
   If it were an earthquake, if it really was an earthquake, then he would know within 
the next few minutes from the vibrations of the ground. Perhaps he'd have enough 
time to run for cover, he mused; though there was always that terrible doubt at the 
back of his mind.
   The ground shuddered again, more violently this time. 
   "Oh God." He whispered. 
   He closed his eyes, praying that if the earth were to swallow him up it would hurry 
up and do so.
   Then a shrill piercing cry filled the air and Akira Komatsubara realised that the 
terror was not below him but above him.
   He opened his eyes again and looked up. What he saw caused his legs to buckle and 
his bladder to give way.
   "Aiiiieeeee!" He screamed as loud as he possibly could but still could not hear 
himself above the shrill cry of the thing that hung over his head.
   There was a brief moment in which he prayed for deliverance and then the shadows 
fell over him and he heard nothing.
   
   Faustus looked up towards the pale red sky; his eyes still blurred from the blinding 
light that had concealed the end result of the beast's murder ritual. 
   This place was alien to him; even more foreign the streets that his daemonic guide 
had previously delivered him into. At least there was life in that dark and vile 
labyrinthine; here there was nothing more than red dust and shadows.
   He turned, looking around for his vulgar companion but there was nothing.no 
atmosphere, no substance just miles and miles of red desert. 
   If Faustus had understood what had happened to him and where he was, he would 
have thanked the dark forces that now laid claim to his soul. For with this knowledge 
would come the realisation that if he walked this surface in his own flesh and blood 
and not the ghostly after-image that Mephostophilis had granted him, then surely he 
would perish.
   Dust passed through him, drifting across his ethereal features and causing him to 
scowl somewhat.
   A sudden gleaming of light caught his eyes and he turned his head to get a better 
view of the source of the illumination. 
   There was a dark cave ahead of him, hanging on the horizon of the red desert and 
awaiting Faustus' attention. From deep within it, he could just make out the faintest 
glimmer of a light.
   He reached into his scholarly robes and drew out an ethereal shilling. After careful 
inspection, he flipped the ghost coin up into the air. It came down into the palm of his 
hand and looked up at him from the wrong side of the gamble.
   He shrugged, returning the coin to his robes and began the slow walk towards the 
solitary light. 

   Marlowe forced the door open, a symphony of creaking wood and broken glass.
   The bar had been sealed off, although the police weren't sure what the crime was, 
only that there was blood on the floor and that wasn't a good thing in anyone's book.
   The charred remnants of a chair resided in the centre of the room, alone and forlorn, 
circled by the blood that the official police report had proclaimed to be there. 
   He knelt down, looking closely at the small patches of crimson spillage and trying 
to imagine what in God's name had happened here.
   The building was clouded beneath an aura of bad emotions, a dark tunnel to the 
outside world, which disturbed Marlowe on a primeval level. There was something 
really wrong about this place, something so disturbing that his mind refused to unlock 
its secrets. 
   He reached down, his hand hesitating above the nearest stain as if it had suddenly 
developed a mind of its own.  God knew why he was even here, it wasn't as if he was 
getting paid for this.
   Curiosity overcame his trepidation though and, with a sharp intake of breath, he 
dabbed his fingers into the cold and congealed liquid.
   The room around him seemed to come alive with static electricity, exploding off the 
walls and floor. He pulled his hand back in shock, his eyes darting from side to side in 
expectation of an assailant that never showed its face.
   Quickly he rose; stepping back step by step away from the charred and battered 
chair as a single point of light began to flower from underneath it, a bud that 
expanded with the most brilliant illumination he had ever encountered.
   He raised his hand to shield himself from the light, his eyelids already closing 
instinctively, fighting to prevent his retinas detaching themselves.
   There was a moment of sickness and vertigo and then the light vanished. 
   Marlowe remained standing still for a moment and then slowly, he dared himself to 
open his eyes once again.
   The light had gone, that was the first thing he noticed. The second thing of note was 
that the room was no longer there, replaced instead by a large red desert stretching out 
as far as the eye could see.
   Suddenly, a sickness filled him as he felt the oxygen being crushed from his lungs. 
His veins bulged, threatening to burst through the veils of his skin and his eyes rolled 
up, nearly exploding from his sockets. 
   He screamed out but there was no oxygen in the air to carry his cries. There was 
a moment of understanding and then his eyelids folded down once again and he lost 
consciousness.

   Faustus had been walking for what seemed like an eternity, dust rising up beneath 
his ghost feet and leaving pale marks in the red sand beneath him.
   The strange, shimmering light was but a few steps from him now and he could see 
that this flickering eye was a beacon of sorts -- a guide to the world-weary wanderers 
of this barren, red world.
   Tentatively, he took the final steps forwards and entered the cave. The light 
continued to flicker for a brief moment and then turned itself off.
   Faustus looked around. Each wall was of a strange metal, the like of which he had 
not seen before, and, whilst the cave's main 'eye' had been deactivated, there were 
many composite ones covering the walls like spider's nests. 
   Very interesting.
   "Greetings, Doctor Faustus," A cold, metallic voice rang from the cavernous metal 
walls around him. "I have been expecting you."

   He held the broken man in his arms, his deep blue and yellow costume a violent 
contrast to the red soil that surrounded him.
   From miles away in the gulf of space he had seen the broken man, flailing like a fish 
out of water in the oceans of red dust, and had instantly willed himself closer to the 
red planet. All human life was sacred, at least where politics were not involved.
   Besides, he found himself curious. Curious as to how a solitary human in a 
trenchcoat found his way to the surface of this vast, dead planet and the one thing he 
couldn't stand was not having the answers to his curiosity.
   From all those miles way he had extended his thoughts, encasing the man in a pure 
bubble of his thoughts and engineering an artificial oxygen to fill his lungs, giving 
him just enough time to make it to the red planet's surface.
   It was a miracle that the stranger was still alive but then again, they didn't call 
him Miracleman for nothing.

   "What foul and beguiling sorcery be this?" Faustus cried, his eyes examining each 
wall for the source of the strange voice. "If thou art but a brother of the damned, then 
show thyself, for great Faustus commands thee!"
   There was a moment of silence, the eyes on the walls flickering one by one and 
adjusting to examine him.
   "I am no brother of the damned, Doctor." The voice finally announced. "I am the 
place in which you stand. I am a sentinel, designed to keep watch over the turbulent 
events of the planet Earth."
   Faustus leant in closer to the nearest wall and stared eye to 'eye' with the thing.
   "Aye, and dost thou have a name, foul spirit? Who is thy master?" He asked.
   The cave was silent once again but for the whirring and clicking of the cold 
machinery that lined the walls.
   "I am Noir," The walls stated, as they partially folded back to reveal a vast web 
of caverns and passage ways leading done unto to the planet's core. "And my master 
will arrive shortly."

   A vast, artificial dome covered Tharsis Rim, stretching out for miles upon miles and 
overshadowing the view of the pale green and blue planet than hung in the distance 
behind it.
   The beast made his way across the surface, a dark cylindrical device attached to the 
masque that he wore so as to assist him in breathing, as Mephostophilis watched from 
its vantagepoint.
   Something strange was afoot, something that not even this foul servant of Hades 
could have predicted. 
   The beast stood before the great dome's main entrance, his fingers activating a 
certain magical code upon the sleek metal while looking deep into the security system's 
eyeboard.
   The sound of stale air filled the alien atmosphere and he stepped inside the cradle of 
the airlock.
   Mephostophilis watched for a moment, uncertain and ill at ease. Then, with a sense 
of almost heroic curiosity, the daemon leapt down from the vantagepoint and slid in 
through the smooth metal walls.

   Faustus turned. A tragic man with strong features stood in the doorway of the cave, 
holding a sleeping comrade in his strong arms as the eyes of the room turned to face 
him and acknowledge his presence.
   "Greetings, Noir." The tragic man whispered, his voice echoing around the 
cavernous walls. "I trust you have made the good Doctor at home."
   Faustus looked at him, his expression aghast.
   "The 'good' Doctor has been proved most curious." The machine's deep, female 
voice responded. "Are you sure it is wise to bring such a man into your confidence?" 
   The tragic man placed the sleeping stranger down upon the ground and made his 
way to the computer's main console. 
   "Of course, I am, Noir," he stated, his fingers gliding like ballerinas across a dark 
metal dance floor. "He is here as a guest of the twentieth century and, if the twentieth 
century can accommodate him, then surely we can too."
   A series of screens flowered from the right hand wall, revealing a gallery of faces, 
the like that Faustus had never seen before. Beneath each face was a single line, a 
name he assumed.

   The Sandman.
   The Saint.
   Rocketman.
   Bernie Ohls.
   The Spirit.

   More pictures coloured the screen, each one with a distinctive disguise and even 
more ludicrous name.
   "And what of our situation in Tokyo?" Miracleman asked, as he equated a location 
with each of the faces.
   "I'm afraid that the situation in Tokyo will take more than a little delicacy. Our 
friend doesn't seem to be responding to any of my messages, in any language." Noir 
replied.
   "Then we must take the matter in hand and rectify this misunderstanding ourselves." 
The tragic man reflected.
   "What devilry is this?" Faustus finally cried, regaining his outrage. "Men with 
theatrical masques and the names of angels, wingless travellers to other realms, voices 
deprived of bodies! Where is Mephostophilis? Even that foul beast would be ashamed 
of the devilry that you men commit here today." 
   Miracleman turned to face.
   "This, my good Doctor, is the Mystery Society." He simply replied.

   The shadows smiled once again. The first piece of the board had been moved and 
already the White King was threatened.
   This would be a game to remember, the shadows speculated.
   Soon the world would lay at his feet and not even the most valiant of the White 
King's Knights would be able to free themselves.
   This was the future... an eternal checkmate.
   The stranger adjusted his hat and stepped out from behind his screen and into the 
transmat capsule that awaited him.
   Soon the world would know his name.
   
   And high above them all, a pale singularity danced in the heavens, silent and 
unnoticed.