The Novatech "Smith" TARDIS

For Second Life Doctor Who enthusiasts, there are a number of TARDIS time capsule purveyors across the Grid.  Three of the major players are Hands of Omega, Novatech, and New London Systems.  This year, with the arrival of a new series--and a new TARDIS interior--all three outfits have been working on their own versions of the Matt Smith console room.   New London got theirs out first, and erected a much higher prim "demo" version.  Hands of Omega is said to come out with theirs in the spring.  And just in time for Christmas, Novatech released theirs with a genuine demo model at their space station headquarters.  At a price tag of $2400 Lindens, I didn't even blink before snatching it up.

I have been eager to see what people make of the Matt Smith TARDIS, one of the most stunning and ambitious sets the BBC has ever produced for the long-running drama.  One of the key challenges, of course, was prims.  For non-residents, a "prim" is the basic building block of any object in the digital world of Second Life.  Made up of polygons, prims can be modeled into just about anything using the object editor.  As a general rule of thumb, the more ornate and detailed an object, the more prims it must be built of.  Low-prim objects tend to look lumpy and cartoonish.  With the massive complexity of the Smith TARDIS (see below), it was clear that any Second Life version was going to be a prim-heavy monster.  This matters because when people rent land in Second Life, they have a prim limit, a maximum number of objects they can "rez" or open on their property.  To reach the greatest number of customers, designers need to strike a balance between less prims and detail.

The Matt Smith 2010 TARDIS Interior

The Much Simpler 1985 "Classic" Interior

Weighing in at 736 prims, the Novatech Smith Console is not exactly "small," but it does a very good job of capturing the detail and size of the Series 5 set without being impossible to rez.  My parcel of land has a limit of 937 prims, but it is the unique quality of Novatech's "rezzing" system that makes it easy for me to own.

The Smith Console Room From An Angle Similar To The Shot Above

Basically, it works like this:  Hand of Omega console rooms are essentially "skyboxes," permanent structures that you rez in the skies over your parcel.  The doorway of each is a portal system.  Inside your skybox, you set the coordinates on your console, the TARDIS "travels" awhile, and then you exit through the portal.  It teleports you whatever location in the Grid you programmed, and a TARDIS exterior materializes around you.  Thus the illusion is created that the TARDIS is A) bigger on the inside, and B) has travelled in Time and Space.

The Novatech console traditionally works along the opposite lines.  The TARDIS exterior--be it a Police Box or whatever--is itself a vehicle.  You can climb in and pilot it, flying around.  You can also teleport around the grid.  Inside the vehicle you can store various console rooms, corridors, and additional chambers.  By parking the TARDIS, you simply touch the craft and receive a menu from which you select what room you want to rez.  In other words, the Hands of Omega versions are skyboxes that rez capsules, while the Novatech models are capsules that rez skyboxes.

I mention all of this because the Smith Console does both.  Like any Novatech TARDIS, the capsule is a small vehicle that flies and teleports around the Grid, rezzing console rooms and additional chambers around it when needed.  But it also includes a portal doorway, activated at the console. This doorway is part of a vast network compatible with all Novatech portal systems.  To my mind, this is the greatest advantage of Novatech Time Capsules.  While both Hands of Omega and New London Systems just do TARDISes and Doctor Who related products, Novatech has a vast line of products that are all compatible with each other.  They have Star Trek rooms, teleport systems reminiscent of Stargate, the Star Trek transporters, and even the Harry Potter flue powder network.  Because of this, a wider number of people use Novatech goods and you can access any of them with the Smith portal, giving you hundreds of locations programmed right into your TARDIS console to teleport to and explore.

A Closer-Look At the Incredibly Detailed Console

If this wasn't enough, the Smith TARDIS console also produces and provides its owner with sonic screwdriver sets (including old and new versions, as well as the Master's "laser" screwdriver).  These devices can't actually open all locks in the Grid, but the do allow you to pass through the wall or doorway in front of you, creating the same effect.

The Portal System Door (on the left) Lets You Travel All Over the Grid, While the Monitor (the Large Circle to the Right) Allows You to View Pictures or Watch Streaming Media 

As both an emDash (a personal teleporter device that does about fifty amazing things, including rezzing scenes and objects around you) and Horizons (a "holodeck system," or rezzer that allows you to build and store complex buildings, objects, and scene and rez them when desired), Novatech's Time Capsules are for me ideal.  All the technology is compatible, which between my TARDIS, emDash, and Horizons system allows me to have a massive TARDIS with a dozen console rooms, libraries, swimming pools, bedrooms, corridors, etc all on just 937 prims of space.  The Smith Console is, to my mind, one of Novatech's finest achievements, really creating the illusion of being a Timelord with all Time and Space at your disposal.





     

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Happy Holidays from Damien Draegonne

Seen Around the Metaverse...

CIA Data Extract: Psi-Theta 7111-23somue
Subject: Daemiiandraegonneandroluvar
Aliases:  Damien Draegonne, Lord Draegonne, Deimiyanu-sensei
Re: Metaverse Sightings, Time Band 10 December to 22 December 2010 Local Time


Begin Image Display:

Subject Active In New Babbage City, Perhaps Engaged In Study of Local Defence Grid

TT Capsule Detected In Vicinity of World Trade Center, Terra, New York, Prior To Their September 11 2001 Destruction.  Image A

Image B

Image C

TT Capsule Detected in Deshima Nebula On Approach To Deshima Station

Arriving Deshima Station

Recovered From Primitive Digital Imaging Device, Elfhame Islands; Notice TT Capsule In Background

Terran Moon Base, Circa 2021 AD

THE BLACK HEART, PART TWO

Professor River Song says "SPOLIERS."  Though I will refrain from saying how to solve the puzzles, I will be talking a bit about the tale they reveal.  Please PLAY the game first.  I warned you.

On the Case in New Babbage

I spent the evening (New Babbage time) back aboard The Fallen Hour, turning the document over and over again in my mind.  I determined that it must be some sort of code, and not knowing enough of the local alchemical lingo, realized I would have to go back out into the city to get it.  After combing the streets of New Babbage, I found what I needed and set to work on translating the papers.

It was a curious tale.  The author claims to have discovered that ultimate alchemical secret, the creation of life.  Apparently he was successful in breeding a "homonuculus," a creature that went wrong and may have been responsible for several grisly murders.  He mentions a box containing more of his secrets (I too know what it is like to be a man with a box of secrets), but the box I found beside the scroll was empty.  Has someone else seized them to continue his work?

A homonuculus.  Honestly, you would think the humans would learn to leave meddling in the secrets of the universe to their betters!  Is it possible that this creature was inside the statue?  Can they live indefinitely?  And will it kill again...

Anarchists in New Babbage

The stakes may just have been raised.  

THE BLACK HEART, PART ONE

"The Black Heart" is a role-play set in the city of New Babbage.  See the trailer here.  

The port city of New Babbage lies on the Vernian Sea, in a world in the grip of its industrial revolution.  I find that I have an affinity for such eras on various worlds, and frequently return to New Babbage to visit a tailor there.  It was on just such a trip, shortly after my second encounter with Arabella Miran, that I heard the ghastly tale.  The entire city was abuzz with it.

The Port at New Babbage

Apparently an archaeologist of minor fame discovered, in the city's Clockhaven district, an ancient statue buried beneath the flagstones.  A curious and disturbing piece of work, it looked ill-formed and inauspicious.  But stranger still, from within it came the slow and steady sound of a beating heart.  Apparently, while the archaeologist rather unwisely spent the night alone with this relic, something horrible occurred.  The next morning the statue was found...open, like a cocoon, and quite empty.  The archaeologist was missing.

At first, I ignored the tale.  I had come for a new suit after all.  But it began to eat at me.  Perhaps the favor I did Uchida Kenji had softened me, prompting me to intervene in the life of Arabella Miran and now, inexplicably, this.  Whatever the excuse, I understood that a Time Lord might be able to see what others could not.  Cursing myself for behaving like the bloody Doctor, I decided to intervene once more.

First I went to the scene of the crime, and then managed to lay hands on the archaeologist's papers.  Scouring them, I found references to an earlier dig site, one that led him to this one and the statue.  I knew I had to seek it out.

The Crime Scene

After wretched hours scouring the city sewers, I uncovered the previous dig site.  Here was a runic inscription that not even my Time Capsule's psychic translation circuits could make plain.  Puzzling indeed!  But I did recover behind the stone an ancient scroll, laden with Alchemical symbols.  I have no idea if this will lead me to the archaeologist, or whatever was released from that stone prison, but the hunt is on...

The Sewers of New Babbage

The Runic Stone and the Alchemist's Scroll

.

THE FALLEN HOUR

The Fallen Hour is an old Novatech Type 40 Time Travel Capsule, not unlike the one used by the Doctor.  The line was replaced by the vastly superior Type 70s prior to the Last Great Time War, but as a testament to their endurance and stamina many Type 40s continued to see service throughout the conflict.

My TT Capsule was named for the tragic accident that took the life of Omega, the creator of the Eye of Harmony that Rassilon would later use to solidify Time Lord dominion over time and space.  Thus the name The Fallen Hour suggests sacrifice for the greater good.  I have little doubt that her previous master was one of those Time Lords who held the Doctor in high esteem, for when I acquired her she was bound in the form of a Terran "Police Box" just as his was.  Over the years I have modified her chameleon circuits to broaden the range of forms she may take.

The interior of The Fallen Hour is immense, and can be made to increase or decrease in size, creating and discarding chambers as needed.  The following are the locations aboard I most visit.

The Main Control Room

When I first took possession of The Fallen Hour, the main control room was immense, not unlike that favored by the Doctor's late seventh and eighth incarnations.  I modified this considerably to its present state.  There are several other console rooms aboard, but this is the primary base of operations.  One of the secondary control centers, the Rotor Chamber, is seen here;

The Cloisters

This towering, two-story chamber is the heart of The Fallen Hour, holding both the Eye of Harmony that stabilizes her dimensions and the consciousness of the Capsule itself.  I frequently come here to listen to the unearthly song she sings.

The Infinity Room

If the Control Room is the nerve center, and the Cloisters the heart, then the eyes and ears of The Fallen Hour are here.  In the Infinity Room, I may survey the whole of time and space, obtaining coordinates and preparing for my journeys.

Living Quarters

The Fallen Hour is not merely a transport.  She is my home.  As such, she has all the comforts one might expect.  Here are just a few;

 The Library

The Dining Room

The Green Room (at Christmas Time)

My Bedroom

THE GHOST OF LORDSWOOD

THE GHOST OF LORDSWOOD

The following are excerpts from Arabella Miran’s “Phantasmagoria: Tales of a Professional Ghost Hunter,” Paragon Publishers, 1992

In the district if Phoebus one mainly finds elegant estates and quiet country homes. There are exceptions to this rule. The largest and most obvious is a shopping and entertainment center, with art galleries, fashion boutiques, and a club. The other, lying quietly between this center and the river, is an abandoned patch of woods.

The locals refer to the place as “Lordswood,” though the origin of the name is obscure. In all likelihood, it is somehow connected to the small ruin at the very heart of the woods; a few crumbling pillars, a mossy bench, and what appears to be a small mausoleum. I say “appears” because this structure is empty. Peering in through the locked iron gates that stand at its doorway, the vault contains nothing other than a few wind-blown leaves. If it is a tomb—as local legend insists—it is a curious one indeed, for its dimensions are such that the deceased would have to be interred standing up. There is simply no room to lay down. Thus it resembles nothing more than a strange and elegant stone booth.

Despite being a tranquil, quiet place, the locals tend to avoid the Lordswood, for eerie stories are connected to it. For nearly two centuries there have been scattered reports of a lone, solitary man glimpsed amongst the trees, dressed in elegant finery. This is, presumably, the “Lord” referred to in the name of the woods. At times, strange groaning noises emanate from the woods, echoing through the trees, and sudden gusts of wind have been reported. Most remarkably, locals insist that the Mausoleum has been known to completely vanish for lengths of time, only later to reappear. There is even a wild account from the 1920s in which local children claim to have seen the Mausoleum lift off the ground and shoot straight up into the sky. Because of all this, the Lordswood is generally acknowledged to be haunted, and it is for that reason, in the summer of 1963 I found myself there.

My research had turned up nothing. Land records indicated that the woods belonged to the Draegonne family, but there seemed to be no other trace of them. No “Lord Draegonne” had ever been known in the vicinity, and though I did find one resident in a neighboring district with that surname, he knew nothing about the woods. So after a few weeks of digging, and skulking around the woods by daylight looking for traces of an other structures, I decided to spend the night. Spreading warm blankets on the stone bench beside the Mausoleum, I settled myself down to see if I could witness any of Lordswood’s reputed phenomena.

I must have dozed off, for around midnight I was awoken by a stranger. My candle had gone out, and all I could make out was his silhouette. He stood beside the Mausoleum, watching me, but perhaps out of respect kept a non-threatening distance away. I was startled, and at first wondered if I was seeing a ghost.

“Whatever are you doing there?” He asked. His voice was soft and cultured, his tone slightly amused.

“I...” Groggy, I rubbed my eyes and fished for an answer. I decided to go with honesty. “Looking for ghosts.”

“Ghosts? You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” I replied. “My name is Arabella Miran, and you are...?”

“Damien.”

“Damien who?”

“Just Damien.”

“I see,” I replied, feeling suddenly nervous. “Would you mind if I put on my light?”

“Not at all.”

I must admit, despite years of experience with hauntings, I was terribly startled by what my light suddenly revealed. Standing before me was a young man, handsome, dressed in elegant clothing a century and a half out of style. I thought surely this must be the ghost of Lordswood.

Steeling my resolve, I looked him up and down and said; “It seems I am looking for you.”

He laughed pleasantly. “Am I a ghost then? I think not.” He stepped forward and extended his hand. “Go ahead. Grab it.”

Reluctantly, I did. It was solid enough, and warm to the touch. If this was a materialization it was the densest I had ever experienced. Just then, the Mausoleum behind him seemed to murmur, or sigh. I felt the vibrations of the sound in the ground beneath my feet. I dropped his hand and jumped.

“Relax,” he said soothingly. “She does that. I think she might actually be a touch jealous.”

“She?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. May I sit down?”

I nodded, and he took a seat on the large stone bench opposite my own. “Is that what people say about me? About this place? That I am a ghost? Is that how they explain it?”

“Aren’t you?” I asked. “I mean...unless I am very wrong, you are the very figure people have seen around here for the last century and a half. You look exactly as described.”

“Then why aren’t you more afraid?”

I took a deep breath and tried to look confident. “I have years of experience with hauntings.”

“Well actually they are more ripples, wrinkles in time.” He scratched the back of his neck. “One point event gets overlapped with others in the time-space continuum, causing weird glimpses of past events. Other cases are usually low-grade psychics who pick up emotional residue left behind from traumatic events. But ghosts? Ghoulies? Things that go bump in the night? No.”

“Who are you?” I asked again, completely mystified by him.

“I am...I suppose you could say I am a Lord, or I was back home. I was a student at the Academy, an Arcalian, when the War broke out. I was drafted, I fought, and I ran. Now I am here, and that is really all there is to say.”

I shook my head. “I can’t understand a word you are saying.”

He nodded, smiling. “I get that a lot.” Then suddenly, he stood. “Go home, Arabella Miran. There are no ghosts here.” And with a slight bow, he went around the side of the Mausoleum, and I heard the sound of a metal gate opening. I sprang up immediately after him, but when I reached the entrance just a few seconds later, the gates were locked and the vault again appeared to be empty.

Not a ghost. Ha! Indeed.

I spent twenty-five years returning to Lordswood, and at least fifty cold nights by the Mausoleum waiting to see him again. I sat there shivering in fog, rain, and sometimes even snow, wondering if this remarkable apparition would ever show himself. Though I must have solved two dozen other cases in the meantime, the mystery of Lordswood continued to frustrate me, never letting go. It nagged at me in a way no haunting ever did, almost as if I had touched something so immense, so incredible, that evening that solving it would be the pinnacle of my career. After awhile, however, I believed I would never see Damien again.

Then, in the winter of 1990, now in my fifties and no longer the young slip of a girl I had once been, I returned to my home in London. It was mid-February, and cold. I was in the midst of preparing for a new investigation, a particularly violent apparition believed to be strangling homeless people in the vicinity of an abandoned church. Unlocking my front door, I stepped into the foyer, and very nearly had a heart attack right then and there.

Impossibly, the Mausoleum from Lordswood was standing in the middle of my room. It even seemed to purr when I entered, as if it recognized me.

“Hello, Arabella Miran.”

He was sitting in the dark in the corner of the room, wearing a suit different than I remembered, but from the same era. Trembling, I flicked on the lights. He stood and smiled, and I realized with a start he had not aged a day.

“My God...” I whispered. “How...”

“Listen to me, Arabella Miran, for this is the last time we will ever meet. The creature you are about to investigate is no spectre. It is a Vyrolak, an alien creature that feeds on the bioelectrical energies released from the death throes of sentient beings. Now, the thing about the Vyrolak is that it can disguise itself as its last meal. In four days, at 9:23 in the evening local time, you are going to come across a bag lady who isn’t. She is the creature, and this can end two ways. You will either die, which will be a pity because I have read your next book and it would be a shame if you never get to write it, or you will take this blue liquid and splash it in her face, destroying the creature.” At this he handed me a vial of slightly luminous blue goo.

I held it in my trembling hand, and stared up at him. “What are you?”

“Does it matter?” He asked. “Just do as I said Arabella Miran, and you will die peacefully in bed many years from now.”

Then with that same bow, he unlocked the gates of the Mausoleum and stepped inside. There was—and my neighbors will attest to to this—a loud groaning sound so powerful it set off car alarms up and down the street. A light seemed to flare on top of the tomb, and a violent gust of wind blasted the chamber. And then, as if I had dreamed it all, both the Mausoleum and its occupant were gone.

It happened exactly as he said it would. A few days later, the woman he had described attacked me (as releated in Chapter 7), and I dispatched her as he told me too. I may never know why the Ghost of Lordswood chose to save me, or what he really was. But I have decided to let this one go. There are some mysteries I suppose we are not meant to unravel, and forces bigger than the rest of us. I cannot say what this Damien Draegonne was, but he saved my life, and for that I am grateful.

THE TALE OF THE GAIJIN STRANGER

THE TALE OF THE GAIJIN STRANGER

I have always taught my children and my grandchildren to be kind, and to offer their help to strangers whenever they can. I do this not only because it is humane and right. Sometimes, you never know what you will gain in return.

I was but a boy of eleven or twelve years in my native Nagasaki when I met the gaikokujin stranger. It was in the reign of the glorious Emperor Meiji and we had opened ourselves again to the West in our struggle to become a modern power. Nagasaki had always been Nippon’s door to the world, and with the new way of things it was prosperous and bustling with outlanders. Now, my fellows and I were playing in the street that day—some game or another—when the foreigner stumbled out of a doorway. At first we all laughed, for we had much experience of gaijin in those days and they were almost always yopporai, or “drunken.” But I noticed when his hand came away from clutching his side that it was covered with blood.

My friends started to run away, but my heart was moved to pity. I approached him and Akira-sempai called out behind me, “Kenji-kun! Stay away!” But I was a willful boy in those days and did not listen. The stranger collapsed to his knees in front of me and looked very pale. As I neared he stared up at me.

“Help me, please.” His voice was very weak but his accent and Japanese were flawless. I had met other foreigners in my father’s tailor shop and believed then that none were capable of speaking our tongue, only aping it in unlovely voices.

“Shall I send for a doctor?”

He shook his head. “No. Please. I have a box. Help me to the box.”

I wondered then if perhaps he was mad, or delirious. But I agreed, and he put his arm around my shoulders. I helped him to stand, mindful of the blood on my clothing. My friends stared, and then ran off. I was not certain if they were seeking help or merely abandoning me.

“What is your name?” He asked. I was helping him limp through the streets, and every now and again he seemed to weaken, putting more weight upon me.

“Uchida Kenji,” I told him.

“I am Deimien. Deimien Doraegonu.”

“Hajimemashita, Doraegonu-san.”

“Nice...to meet...you too.” He replied. Then he staggered and fell, slipping out of consciousness there in the street. I kneeled beside him, not certain what to do, and waited for what seemed like forever, sweating from heat and fear. My heart was pounding in my chest as I debated. Should I run away? Go seek help? If I did this, anything might happen to him in the street. And if I did not, he might expire and die. I felt paralyzed and unable to decide.

Slowly, he awoke again. “You are still...here?” He seemed surprised.

“Of course,” I told him. “I am not an animal. I cannot abandon you to die.”

What happened next I would never speak of, to anyone, for many many years. Doing so would have inspired my father to punish me for telling lies, or later in life made men think I was mad. Who could have believed such nonsense? I helped the stranger through the streets until at last we came to an alleyway, and just as he said, a great stone box was there. It looked completely out of place, but the most curious thing is that I never would have noticed it myself had he not brought me directly to it. It was almost as if I did not want to see it.

“I must get inside. Please.” He handed me a key in his blood-soaked hand, and I took it, utterly baffled. This was a little stone box, no bigger than two tatami in size. Through the iron gate I could see it was empty. “Please.”

But I fumbled with the key in the lock, and with a grating sound, the gate swung inwards...

...and I was looking into the largest room I had ever seen. It was immense, bigger than a warehouse, with some sort of ornate table or pedestal off in the center that seemed to vibrate and hum. Please understand, I knew this to be quite impossible. The alley stood beside a tea house and a brothel, neither of which would contain such a wonder. I often think it was only because I was still a child, and capable of believing childish things, that I immediately understood this room was inside the little box.

“Help me...inside...”

I should have been terrified, but curiousity got the better of me. I helped him stagger across the wide floor, past the strange pedestal table which seemed to be moaning, whispering, and humming directly to us. I felt as if the entire room was watching me. “It’s alright girl,” he said, “the boy is a friend.”

He directed me towards another great door in the distance, so far off I despaired being able to carry him there. “The Zero Room,” he whispered. “Please.”

Beyond that door there were other halls, chambers, doors. I felt I was inside some great and magical palace. He directed me towards a strange white room, a place more peaceful than anywhere my young mind had ever encounterd. “Leave me...here. Go back the way you came. Touch...touch nothing. She will let you leave.”

“You wish me to leave you here, bleeding on the floor?”

He nodded, and smiled. “Yes, Uchida Kenji. Thank you. You saved my life...or at least spared me a regeneration.”

I nodded, doubtful I should leave him, but his reassuring smile and look of peace in his eyes told me it was all right to go. I bowed, and ran back through the halls, feeling ever that presence watching me. As I raced across the vast pedestal room, the great doors opened for me all on their own, and closed behind me once I left. I went looking for the strange, magical box the next week, but it was gone. No trace of it was left behind.

The years ran by, rapidly passing like a swift stream. The boy grew into manhood and married. He took over his father’s business, had three children of his own, and quietly grew old. I passed the business on to my eldest boy, Hirotaka. Then the great War came, and the Americans. The ambitions of Nippon to be a modern empire like the British brought us only long, slow ruin. We suffered greatly at that time. There was little food or fuel, and my grandchildren’s faces were often filled with need and despair. I feared for them, for the future of nihonjin. Surely this was the end of our land.

I awoke that morning, in my 73^rd year, to the sounds of screaming. It was my middle son’s wife, Hiroko. Outside the door of my room my grandson Kenta called for me. “Grandfather! Grandfather! Please come quickly. An American has come and wishes to speak with you!”

It was absurd, of course. We were still at war, and the only Americans in Japan were the ones taking back our Pacific islands. But I lifted my sorry old body out of bed and went into the living room, where my family stood huddled. My sons were surrounding a stranger, and they were armed with knives.

“Ohayo gozaimasu, Uchida Kenji-sama.”

I could not believe my senses. It was him. The gaijin stranger with the magic box, looking the same as he had more than half a century before. I raised my voice to my sons. “Let him free. He is...a friend.”

“Father! He is the enemy!” Hirotaka protested.

“Do as I say!”

My sons backed away, and the stranger straightened his jacket. He was still dressed in that style of clothes from so long ago. His face very grave, he came forward and put his hand on my shoulder like an old friend. “How can this be?” I whispered.

“Never mind that, Uchida Kenji. Is all your family here?”

Dazed, I glanced around. My sons and their wives were all present, and the grandchildren. I counted to make sure and then nodded to him. “Yes. They are all here.”

“Good,” he said. “Do you remember my box, Uchida Kenji?”

I shivered, and nodded. I had almost convinced myself that it was a dream.

“You must tell your family, all of them, to come inside the box, Uchida Kenji. You must make them do it now.”

I could only stare, thinking perhaps I was still asleep in my futon and dreaming. For how could the box I imagined in my boyhood truly be real? How could this strange man look the same, when he should be at least twenty years older than I? I had spent my life as a simple tailor, and none of this made any possible sense to me. “I do not understand.”

Now he grabbed my shoulders with both hands, staring hard at me. “They are coming.” He said, slowly and evenly. “Today is the 9^th of August, 1945. It is now 10:40 in the morning, and they are coming. In twenty-two minutes they will drop a bomb, a terrible weapon, on this city and 60,000 people will die. I am going to take you and your family away from here.”

My family muttered amongst themselves, panicked. “How...” I whispered. Then, “We must warn others.”

“There is no time, Uchida Kenji. I am here to save you. You and yours. That is all I can do.”

I shook my head back and forth. “But why...why do you do this for me?”

He smiled sadly. “I am not an animal. I cannot leave you to die.”

Thus I did as he ordered, commanding them all into his strange and terrible box. The pedestal room was as I remembered, and the stranger pressed buttons and turned dials, making it light up with the most terrible groan and a sound of distant drums. One of the wives fainted, and my sons looked very white. They huddled together, unable to understand the riddle of how so much could fit into so small a space.

I approached the stranger, who had stopped and now rested his hands on the pedastal as if carrying a great weight. “Is this the end of us?” I asked him. “The end of my people?”

The stranger looked up at me, his face stern. He seemed to think a moment, and then shook his head. “Chigau Uchida Kenji. It is not the end. The Americans are not the monsters you suppose them to be, or the monsters war has made them. Believe me when I say the best years of your nation lie ahead of you, and not behind. Your great-grandchildren will live in a Japan that is safe and at peace.”

I believe I wept there, beside the strange man. I wept for those who were dying in Nagasaki, I wept in relief. For I believed him without question, without knowing what or who he was.

“A sixty-one year old debt has been repaid now, Uchida Kenji. I will take you someplace safe where you can wait out the war.”