//||  //^^\\  ||   ||   .|.   COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS
   // ||  \\      ||   ||  --X---------------------------------------------
  //====TIME=CAPSULES====== '|`      ASH UNIVERSE: TIME CAPSULES #4
 //   ||      \\  ||   ||          "The Darker Angels of Our Nature"
//    ||  \\__//  ||   ||    Copyright 1999 by Matt Rossi III and Dvandom
___________________________________________________________________________

     [cover shows Warden on a trapeze, letting go and reaching for 
      the next one.  But the other trapeze has a lit fuse....]

     "Kaoru, I think it's time to give you a somewhat meatier project,"
Professor M'Cormack declared.
     Her graduate student suppressed a groan.  On the one hand, working with
M'Cormack was definitely helping his professional development.  On the other
hand, she felt it her duty to broaden his deliberately narrow focus.  Which
meant she often threw him projects that almost required him to pick up a new
undergraduate degree to complete.  "Yes?" he tried not to sigh.
     "While you were working on the matter of the radioactive statuette, a
new capsule was unearthed.  Here's one of the items inside," she handed him a
small plastic packet filled with orange objects.
     "Circus peanuts?" Kaoru looked at the confections with some disbelief.
"Why would anyone put a bag of circus peanuts into a time capsule?  Wait, was
this from...um...2050?"
     M'Cormack shook her head and grinned.  "A good supposition.  It *was*
around that time that we finally found out who was buying all the circus
peanuts.  The Pranir discovered back in the 1970s that the humble marshmallow
circus peanut matched the texture and taste of an extinct delicacy of their
homeworld.  Some sort of ambulatory fungus."
     Kaoru turned vaguely green.  "Too much information."
     "But this capsule covers the events of the 2020s and 2030s.  And I'll
give you another clue...it wasn't a humorous attempt to see if the candy
would remain edible a century later.  Part of archaeology is the ability to
extrapolate from the available information.  Try to figure out why a bag of
circus peanuts would be important enough to place in a time capsule, without
knowing anything else about the capsule."
     Kaoru looked at the shriveled orange things and scowled.  Circus.
Carnival.  Wait...he remembered something about a Carnival in the 2020s.
Without another word, Kaoru headed for the research terminal and started
digging.

============================================================================

[May 28, 2024 - Tokyo, Japan]

     Warden found the katana in the Ueno Zoo, stuck through a cherry blossom
tree.  Despite having weathered a large explosion that brought the Keisatsu
out in force, the blade and handle were in near-pristine condition, except of
course for a veneer of blood.  Warden could smell it; it was how he'd found
the sword in the first place.  The sword had been through much that day.
Taken from its master, the Otakuza warrior Iron Mask...then used to skewer a
madman with delusions of godhood who was *apparently* killed when his own
building, the Token Hakubutsukan, exploded.  Finally it ended up in a cherry
tree.
     It did not seem to have been blasted into the tree, however.
     Rebus had most likely escaped.  The brief memories of the man Warden had
stolen from Kwan's hypergolic mind were almost useless, despite what he'd
told the man, but he knew that Archangeli had been in custody around the time
the CSV had made the first moves that had led to the gang war which had so
destablized Manhattan.
     And he'd escaped.
     Groaning to himself, Warden sheathed the katana and thought about how he
was going to get home.  He didn't have a clue.  Maybe he could stow away on a
ship heading for the Combine and hope for the best...that would take weeks
just to get him onto the North American Continent, of course, but he didn't
exactly have any better ideas.
     Exhausted and battered but alive and, for now, victorious, he slipped
away to find a place to spend the rest of the night.

               *              *              *              *

     He was 'seeing' entirely too much of Shinjuku.
     He actually spent the night using Suryen's jacket to as a makeshift
blanket, laying on top of the Tokyo City Hall.  He assumed it would be safe;
the building itself was less a government center now that the refugees
dominated the area as it was an informal 'Japanese Consulate' in the heart of
their own city.  Certainly an unlikely place for a white fugitive from
justice to spend the night...assuming the Keisatsu were still looking for
him, which seemed entirely likely.  A bit of Biblical verse he'd picked up
somewhere came back to him...Cain in the land of Nod...wandering, with every
man's hand against him and the mark of God on his brow.  A rather sadistic
God, at that.
     Still, even with the clash of cultures in the area...or perhaps because
of them...Shinjuku was where he felt the most comfortable in Tokyo.  The
mini-skyline of the area put him in mind of home, with the striking outlines
of the Shinjuku Park Tower just down the Juni-Go Gairo from his little nest,
the larger NS Building and the imposing Monolith Building both within the
range of his perception.  He enjoyed the 'feel' of wind rubbling lightly
across the nearby buildings of Nishi-Shinjuku.
     He got little sleep, instead trying to come to know the unknowable.
Even if he learned Shinjuku the way he knew Manhattan, it wasn't home; he'd
be even more of an outsider there than he was in New York.  And it was clear
to him from the way the police had reacted that they'd never come to terms
with him the way the NYPD had...there was just something lacking in the
Japanese heart that didn't allow for his brand of intervention.  It was
too...overt.  The Otakuza and Onyx Eye had their dramatic moments, but they
kept their battles out of the public eye, whereas what Warden did tended to
attract attention.
     And massive property damage. 
     The people of Tokyo would be glad when he was gone.  Not to mention that
while Rebus had played his little game, there was no telling how bad things
had gotten back home.  By now, Umbrae could be openly setting up Organlegger
booths in Times Square, next to the Pranir Drug Dispensary.
     Thomas smiled faintly to himself just before dropping off to sleep,
grateful that the late spring weather wasn't turning cold at night anymore...
at least not in Tokyo.

               *              *              *              *

     Hagashi-Shinjuku, also known as the East of Shinjuku, was the kind of
place that had weathered decades of change to remain, more or less, a hotspot
of vice, abuse and crime.  It really was the kind of place Thomas was used
to.  Paradoxically, because of that, it was the worst place in the world for
him to remain once the day got rolling...because the largest Keisatsu
substation in Tokyo existed within the shadow of the Shinjuku Eki, and Warden
had already had enough run-ins with the police.
     Before the day really began, he found himself rooting around in the
alleyway surrounding Studio Alta, pulling out a somewhat ragged but
serviceable t-shirt that didn't have a little fire-breathing rodent on the
front.  Then he wandered about, hoping that by judicious use of slouching and
avoiding the appearance of eye contact he could keep out of trouble.  It
seemed to work, for the most part.  But the pain in his stomach told him that
he'd need to eat fairly soon, and he didn't know what he was going to do
about that, either.  It was a problem. He supposed he could track down some
low-level criminals...but the idea of stealing, even from thieves, bothered
him a lot. And he didn't think he'd be much in demand as a martial arts
teacher in *Tokyo*, where there were already quite a few, he assumed.
     Still, Hagashi-Shinjuku was bustling, to say the least, and it was
fairly easy for him to slip into the crowd and not be noticed.  He wandered
around for a few hours, until he walked into the midst of a crowd outside the
Koma Gekijo theatre...a place that scattered sound like shattering stone,
making his head hurt.  A racous crowd had already built up in the afternoon,
which Thomas gathered wasn't especially unusual.  The street snakes were
already at work telling people of the delights to be had, but Thomas avoided
them.
     What interested him was the calliope music.
     Once, when he'd still been living with Jimmy Willot, he'd spent an
afternoon hanging around Staten Island with him.  They'd originally gone out
there just to pick up some new mats for the dojo, but then Jimmy insisted
that they go to the Zoo.
     Thomas only found out why when they got there.  The rival circus troupes
Circus Amok and the Big Apple Circus were working together for a children's
charity of some kind...he hadn't bothered to try and figure out which kind,
however, because he'd been entranced by the smells and sounds and the stolen
sights he'd pilfered from Jimmy's eyes.  The two troups had set up in
opposing fields; the Big Apple was a more traditional show, with the tents
and clowns and high-wire acts, whereas Circus Amok lived up to its name with
street-level acrobats, teleporting clowns and the like.  Thomas, who at that
point had never even *heard* of a circus, spent most of his day fast-learning
the gymnastic and acrobatic skills of the performers.
     Well, that and gorging himself on cotton candy.
     And the big marshmallow peanuts.  He really liked those.
     His stomach snarled at him again, and he frowned slightly.  Following
the music, he headed down the the Kabuki-cho until he reached the source.
     It was a midget on stilts riding some sort of unicycle.  Around his neck
hung a MIDI player reading a disk and putting out the antic music, and he
clapped in time with it while three women in costumes involving feathers and
not much else bounced around with exquisite grace and litheness.  Thomas
stopped dead to 'watch' this.
     "My friends," the midget spoke, with japanese better than Thomas's...and
then Thomas became equally proficient, reaching out to learn the words from
the crowd even as the performer spoke.  "We bring the dionysian power of the
inner life out for you to experience.  Tonight, here at the _Cirque du
Marche-Dieu!_  All are welcome!"
     Then he began juggling burning spheres that he'd seemingly produced from
nowhere.  The crowd didn't respond exactly as Thomas had expected; they
merely watched politely, murmured appreciatively and then moved on to allow
others to do the same.  If this discomfited the midget, he gave no sign of
it.
     Thomas was ten steps away, still trying to figure out a way home, when
it occurred to him that he had talents to exploit after all.
     Smiling slightly, he turned on his heel and walked over to the man on
stilts riding a scaled-up unicycle.

               *              *              *              *

     "So, my strange and grubby friend, I am told you wish to become part of
our little show.  You feel the draw of the lights, yes?"  Thomas opened his
mouth to say something, but the man sitting on the side of the cannon
continued speaking around a rather thick cigar that smelled hideous.  "But
many feel this way.  What makes *you* suitable to become a member of our
family?"
     Khadamite genetic surgery had grafted a set of thick rams horns to his
forehead, and his body was covered in shaggy fur that smelled of chemicals.
Thomas risked looking at him through one of the roughie's eyes and saw that
he had various patterns painted into his pelt, like a maori tribal marking
over his face or a celtic spiral on his left arm.  He considered the
question.
     "It's hard to describe.  I could demonstrate it, if you'd like, sir."
     "I believe I would.  And please, call me Chimere."  They walked into the
theatre.  It was a modest 2000 seat arena, but by closing down many of the
antiquated old bars, the owners had made extra seating and an extended
backstage area for the Circus, as well as a bit pit style theatre with room
for a complicated high-wire and three trapeeze towers.  There was a cage to
the left for the exotic animal show, complete with mutated lions from the
Khadamite wastes, a recombined Komodo dragon with three heads and a
thirty-five foot wingspan, and a flock of mindbirds, parrots with shared
reasoning.
     Thomas could feel Iblis, the woman who handled the animal acts, watch in
interest as he and Chimere strode onto the floor.  He wasn't sure if she was
looking at him or the goat-man.  Since no one was looking at her but the
Komodo recombination, he used its sense of sight to see what she looked
like...three images of a somewhat cruel woman, wearing a costume made out of
a strange leather he didn't recognize.  He shook his head at the triple
image.
     "So, what exactly are you to show me, my friend?"
     Thomas removed his sunglasses for the first time, allowing Chimere,
Iblis and the roughies to see his face.  To their credit, no one gasped or
reacted with shock, although Iblis smiled as if finally understanding
something that had been puzzling her.  Thomas handed Chimere his glasses,
brushed his hands, and then bounded into the air.
     Sixty-five feet above him, the high-wire was made of steel cable wrapped
in insulating rubber that stuck slightly to his hands.  It was quite easy to
grasp it, and he swung himself up and over it in a triple somersault, landing
neatly on one foot so that he could roll into a cartwheel.  He tumbled the
length of the wire, and then flung himself out into space, grasping one of
the trapeze bars and using his momentum to swing as far as he could while
switching to gripping the bar with his knees, dangling over the floor.
     The net wasn't up yet, of course...no one was supposed to be up there.
Not that it mattered...if he fell, which he wouldn't, he'd figure something
out.  You don't jump off of as many buildings as he did without developing a
certain affection for heights.  He waited for the bar to swing as far as it
could in the other direction, and then he straightened his legs and slid off
into a backwards somerault.
     From that, he bounced once off of the high-wire again, and caught the
other trapeze one-handed.  Satisfied that his showing off would at least
prove he was minimally qualified to be there, he let go and flipped over to
the edge of the trapeze tower, clambering down the ladder to where Chimere
waited for him.
     "No eyes.  That's a new angle for an acrobat."
     "I can throw knives, too, if you'd want."
     "That's not neccessary, my friend."  The goat-man handed Thomas back his
glasses.  "You don't have to wear those here, you know."
     "I tend to disturb people..."
     "You are talking to a man with a full set of horns and a lovely coat of
fur.  Lysenko will find you a space to sleep, and we'll work on your act
later."  Chimere gestured to the man who'd been walking on stilts in the
street, and departed.  The dwarf walked over.
     "Come on, stranger.  You can stay with me."
     The dwarf, who insisted that his name really *was* Lysenko, although he
claimed no relation to Stalin's "dark midget" scientist of that name, let
Thomas to a small trailer outside the Koma.  Inside, the left side was all
scaled to Lysenko's dimensions, from the sink to the cot he slept in.  The
right side was empty except for a small mat, which Thomas took to be where
he'd be sleeping.
     "We have three shows a day starting tomorrow...I'm sure the ladies won't
mind missing out on high-wire work, it was never their favorite thing...and
if you do well enough and fit in well, there are other ways to make money."
Lysenko looked him up and down.  "You look like you could use some."
     "I'm hoping to make enough to get home."  Thomas sat down on the mat.
It would be comfortable enough.  He rubbed his face, feeling the stubble that
was becoming a beard in surprise.  How long had it been since he'd shaved?
"Is it alright if I get some sleep?"
     "A few hours.  Then you'll be expected to help set up the displays."
Lysenko was almost out the door when he turned back.  "I was about to tell
you how deceptive appearances here could be.  But I suppose it would be
wasted on you."

               *              *              *              *

     Two weeks passed, and the carnival prepared to move on.
     Thomas was working out, as he often did, on the high wire.  Chimere, who
doubled as a kind of ringmaster, had taught him a great deal about
showmanship, at least as the carnival practiced it.  For starters, he was now
aware than almost none of the others, from the jugglers to the street
performers to Helene, the unfortunate woman with the glandular condition who
was saddled with the stage name "Le Monde" had any abilities like his.  Even
Chimere, the human goat himself, was a surgical freak only.  No one was sure
about Iblis, who seemed capable of a kind of inhuman influence over things
that buzzed, growled and crawled.
     So Thomas had toned down his act considerably; for starters, he now
climbed up the trapeze poles like any other high-wire artist, wearing a
simple white shirt that reminded him of the one Jimmy wore when he'd gone out
as a pirate last Halloween, and black pants that were a bit tighter than he
enjoyed.  Then he donned a blindfold and made a production out of everything,
pretending to be hampered and slightly hesitant, throwing in the occasional
near-miss.  It was enough for the crowd and it amused the other performers no
end; Lysenko called it a "reverse-Barnum" and regaled Thomas with stories
about visiting the egress and stone colossi found in the earth.
     He backflipped off of the wire and slid down the platform pole to the
sound of applause beneath him. Helene and Iblis were down there, and as
always Helene had stayed to watch him.  Iblis's reasons were her own, and
Thomas didn't concern himself with them.  He let go of the platform and
dropped the last twenty feet to the ground, landing in a crouch in front of
them.
     "Thomas, you amaze me."  Helene clucked her tongue at him the way she
always did, her voice thin, squally and throaty.  "You really can't see at
all?"
     "Not conventionally."  He half-smiled as he cocked his head in the
correct angle for non-existent eye contact.  "But I do all right without it.
So we're heading out this weekend?"
     "Yes."  Iblis spoke, her words clipped and rapid, her voice deep.  "Next
stop Rome, where the pickings will be slimmer..." she trailed off at a sharp
look from Helene, and then changed her tack.  "You're coming along?  You told
Lysenko you just wanted to go home."
     "I still do."  He meant that.  Really.  He wasn't the least bit
conflicted because he'd found himself enjoying circus life, where nobody
tried to kill him and everyone accepted him without question or pity.
Honestly.  It was still his goal to get back home.  However, in the weeks
since he'd left, he'd heard nothing from New York; no major paranormal news,
everything supposedly still golden since the end of the Gang War.  Thomas had
managed to convince himself that there was no hurry; he'd cut himself off
from all his loved ones months earlier, so they wouldn't be waiting for him
either.
     So it was still true that he wanted to go home. 
     This is what he told himself.
     "Interesting possibilities there, Thomas...."  Again Helene shot Iblis a
look; this time, she more or less ignored it, stepping a bit closer to him
and continuing.  "We should talk about them sometime.  After the breakdown
tonight.  In my trailer...unless Lysenko's consented to you moving furniture
into his?"
     "I haven't asked."  Her smell was very interesting; it was changing as
she spoke to him, becoming multi-layered and thick and...he shut his sense of
smell off, rendering his world-view stagnant and boring, but it had to be
done.  Iblis's scent had been overwhelming, primitive, and he'd almost lost
control of himself to it.
     "So mine, then.  See you."  She walked away, her heartrate noticably
higher than it had been seconds earlier; she was also warmer.  Helene patted
Thomas on the shoulder briefly, her immense hand hinting at real physical
strength, and then stalked off after Iblis.  Each step made the floor under
his feet shake slightly.
     He extended his hearing.
     "...Girl, what are you playing at?"
     "I'm not playing at all.  Don't tell me you haven't thought of it
yourself.  He'd be useful.  In all sorts of ways.  We have to go to Roppongi
at least one more time, anyway."
     "Chimere would never approve..."
     "Come *on*, Helene.  Whose idea do you think it is?  Who do you think
told me to wear the pherotamer today?  Chimere thinks it's time to break him
in, and he hasn't been responding to Lysenko's approach...so now it's up to
me."
     "He's just a boy!"
     Iblis's response was a rather cynical laugh.  They didn't speak any
further after that, just walked together towards Chimere's trailer.  This
left Thomas with his mouth rather dry, standing there, unsure as what he
should do.
     He wondered if everyone he met felt the need to try and manipulate him.
It seemed to be the standard, and it was beginning to truly anger him.
     In fact, it angered him so much that he didn't notice the slight
vibration among the iron cables of the trapeze platforms.

               *              *              *              *

     A few blocks away, in an expensive suite at the Shinjuku Palace Hotel, a
young Japanese woman opened her eyes and stood up.  Another woman, this one
obviously of Western European extraction, was sitting in a chair outlooking
the balcony, watching the sun bathe the city in amber light as it began to
slide behind the horizon.
     "Well?" the woman on the balcony spoke in lilting French.
     "No sign of Rebus," the Japanese woman replied in equally fluent French,
"although I think you were right about the clue in that warehouse office.
However, it's definitely them in the Koma Gekijo.  They've either expanded or
there were just more of them than you and Teller actually ran into."  She
shook all over once, a gesture between a shudder and a shiver.  "I can never
get used to stepping back into this after being that," she looked at the
solid flesh of her body.
     "More of them would explain how they avoided the Porto Genetico
Policia."  She stood up and stretched, "We know it must have been they who
stole Sony's new Optical Encryption Program, and probably the prototype too,
deny it though Sony might.  We need to stop them before they can move.
Tonight?"
     "I suppose.  I haven't ever been to a circus before, Claire."
     "You have missed very little.  Get some rest, Saori.  I'll call Yevgeny
and let him know our situation.  Erik will be here in a few hours to pick us
up."

               *              *              *              *

     From the high-wire, it was possible to ignore the rot at the heart of
the circus.  That's what Thomas told himself, anyway.
     It was a lie.  After all, wasn't he the Warden?
     The little voice in Thomas' head that told him the difference between
right and wrong had already made too many compromises to his situation, and
would not make another.  He really liked several of the people in _Le Cirque
du Marche-Dieu,_ and would not enjoy doing anything to hurt them.  Helene was
one of those people.
     He bounced twice on the wire and flipped, in his indecision forgetting
to sham hesitation so that it was a perfect backflip, and landed on one hand.
_Iblis tried to control me._  Thomas had never been one to repress his anger,
merely to channel it in ways he viewed appropriate.  He was just unsure of
which way to channel it this time, that was all.  He fell forward, bringing
his feet back into contact with the wire, and crouched for a second, letting
the crowd wonder what he was doing next.
     Then he hurled himself to the side, into the abyss.

               *              *              *              *

     In the seats of the Gekijo, the crowd gasped.  Even Claire Auger and
Erik Qvenhild, who were there for other reasons than to watch this suicidally
beautiful acrobat.  They were there as Arc and Ymir, and they had a job to
do.
     As he cleared the thirty feet to the trapeze, Eric turned to Claire.
     "That's not normal, is it?"
     "Not even close.  He just made a thirty foot lateral jump from a crouch,
blindfolded.  No human can do that, not without help."  Claire frowned, the
expression looking almost forced.  "I don't remember anyone like him from
before."
     "Maybe they went recruiting."  Erik looked down at his watch.  "So, how
long before Saori moves?"
     "Another few minutes."  Claire looked over at the seat next to her,
where the young woman seemed to be sleeping.

               *              *              *              *

     The magnetic ghost stalked the Koma Gekijo, making a beeline for the
trailer where she'd seen the ringmaster...a self-made freak, a goat-man
obviously built out of illegal surgeries that made little sense to her...
making encrypted transmissions to someone.  It *did* make sense to her that
he'd hide the stolen goods there.
     The trailer had elaborate security, but it wasn't designed for her.  She
walked through the wall and "stepped" into the room.
     Apparently the goat-ringmaster didn't care much for tidyness.  She bent
to her task, passing through the locked drawers of the desk as she searched
for the disk and the prototype.  Once she knew where they were, she'd head
back to her body and tell the others, and then get to cover and rejoin them
as they retrieved it.
     She didn't see the shadow at the doorway.

               *              *              *              *
	
     Thomas was distracted as he did his final move, a sextuple-somersault
that he didn't quite pay attention to.  If he had, he'd know he was shouting
his abilities to the world; normal human beings simply couldn't do one of
those yet.  There was something wrong, something familiar that was bothering
him.
     He extended his sense of smell as he landed on the wire.  The thick,
animal smell of Iblis's cages...the sweat of the roughies preparing for the
breakdown and load-out...Helene's peppers and jasmine saschet over her
unfortunate rougher odors, which were outside her control...the thick,
goatish scent of Chimere...why were they all gathered in one place out in the
audience...and another scent he recognized, over in the trailer section. Why
did it bother him so much?  It was a fairly normal smell, a masculine one....
     Then he remembered where he'd smelled that last scent before.
     It had been in the Token Hakubutsukan.
     "Oh, shit."

               *              *              *              *

     Saori bolted awake.  Her eyes were wide.
     "Claire, there's an Anchor back at the trailer!  I couldn't..."
     "*Rebus*," Ymir growled.  "Claire, *stop him*.  Oni and I..."
     "Won't be doing anything."  A feminine voice from behind them, and then
a growl.  "Bring me the blond one's scalp, baby."
     They turned.  The audience seemed dazed, almost as if drugged or
hypnotized, and in a section of seating stood more or less the entire
contingent of the circus; the midget clown on stilts holding a Tommy Gun, the
three dancing acrobat girls, the enormously fat woman whose unitard bore a
picture of the Earth, the woman in the sharkskin leathers, the sword
swallower (who was holding the sword, not swallowing it) and the ringmaster
himself, the goat-man, smiling a wicked smile and holding a very elaborate-
looking device, a silver tube with studs up and down the side.
     The goat man grinned at them.
     "This what you're looking for?"  He nodded to Iblis.  "Show them our
friends."
     And a mutated lion-beast from the Khadamite wastes leapt directly for
Ymir.

               *              *              *              *

     Thomas was preparing to leap over the backdrop and follow his nose when
he heard the screaming from the audience.  It grabbed hold of his divided
attention, helping him to focus his attention down onto the crowd, which he'd
grown accustomed to in the past weeks.
     Weird things were happening.
     A woman with inhuman speed was fighting with Iblis's lion, while a man
who seemed to be radiating cold...Thomas could feel it from the high-wire...
was throwing up barriers of ice to block bullets from a machine gun that
Lysenko was firing indiscriminately, nearly hitting the crowd as much as the
three people he seemed to be *trying* to kill.  If not for the ice
walls...and the odd way that chairs and lengths of pipe kept flying into the
path of bullets, and the obvious strain on Lysenko's face as he held grimly
onto the gun...people would already have died.
     Helene was charging the woman fighting the lion, and the girls were
right behind her, while the sword-swallower (a bastard named Falchion who
never gave Thomas so much as a hello) had managed to evade the cold man's
notice and was about to stab him.
     In the back.
     Thomas made his choice.

               *              *              *              *

     Ymir was so busy, between trying to stop the enraged flock of mindbirds
from slicing up Oni's body (she'd had to project herself in order to use her
powers, forcing him to stand and defend her) and keeping the little Kabuki-
Harlequin madman with the machine gun from killing everyone in the crowd,
that he didn't notice the sword-swallower till he screamed and drove the
sword in towards his back.
     And then the acrobat landed (from the high-wire, no less) and dropped
him with one kick, sending him spinning end over end and tearing the sword
from his nerveless hands as he fell.  The blade was a narrow, sabre-like
blade, and the acrobat spun it once in his hand to get the feel for it,
nodding to Ymir in passing.
     Then he somersaulted over the wall of ice and landed next to the dwarf,
who was suddenly unable to aim very well.
     Ymir sidestepped another knife thrown by one of the three identical,
practically naked women...their aim had also degraded nicely...and trapped
the entire flock of mindbirds in a cube of ice.
     The tommy gun was wrenched out of the little madman's hands by nothing
at all.  It hovered in place as the drum was wrenched off and the barrel bent
backwards, rendering it useless.  Ymir watched in satisfaction as Arc lifted
the lion bodily over her head, having managed to convert the kinetic energy
of his initial charge into superstrength, and hurled it directly at the
enormous woman in the unfortunate world costume.
     They went down in a tumble of fur and images of primary hues
representing Madagascar and the Gulf of Oman.
     That was when the flying three-headed Komodo dragon dropped down from
the rafters it had been nesting in.

               *              *              *              *

     Warden regarded the scene for an instant as he turned his speed all the
way up.
     Iblis was standing there, watching it all with a detached grin on her
face.  Lysenko and Chimere were both retreating, while Helene was badly hurt
(he wished he had time to do something for her...she'd always been kind for
him), the triplets were being wrapped up in loose wire from the lighting rig,
and Falchion was out cold.  And the dragon was attacking.
     He leapt up into the air, driving Falchion's sword in front of him like
a spear.  He wished he'd thought to bring the katana from his trailer, but he
hadn't expected a big battle to break out in the audience.  The blade sliced
a shallow path in the creature's armored gullet before snapping against its
massive breastbone, but Warden managed to increase the pain-signal to
distracting heights while twisting out of reach of its massive, hideously
septic mouths, landing on its back as it descended.
     "Don't let it bite you!  You'll get sepsis!" he shouted to no one in
particular as he rolled off of its back, keeping its attention; it wriggled
in the air, trying to clout him with its tail or bite him with one of its
three heads.
     Ymir gathered himself for a few seconds, and then lashed out with as
much cold as he could summon, sealing most of its body in ice and causing it
to crash hard into the seats.  As it thrashed weakly, he poured on the cold,
causing it to grow sluggish and weak and torpid, unable to lift its bulk from
the mound of ice he was encasing it in.  He was so engaged in this, he lost
track of the woman in leather until she leapt onto his back, screeching and
clawing at his face with long green nails.
     Then she quivered and went flying off of him, slamming into the body of
her stunned lion as it prepared to try and stand up.
     Ymir blasted both of them, freezing them to the ground where they
were.  Then he looked down at Oni.
     "Nice trick.  How'd you do that?  Iron in blood?"
     "Hemoglobin's non-magnetic, but water can be repelled by a strong enough
magnetic field."  She blinked her eyes as she stood up.  "Wouldn't want to
have to do that again, though.  Where's Arc?"

               *              *              *              *

     Chimere had run out the front door of the Gekijo and was congratulating
himself on his escape when he saw the woman waiting for him.
     "I had a nice run.  I don't suppose you'd just surrender now?"
     He turned and ran the other way.
     She leapt, converting the stored energy of the chase into strength, and
kicked him in the middle of his shoulder blades, knocking the wind from him.
As he crashed forwards, driving his horns into the pavement, she took the
stolen device out of his hand.
     "That was nice."
     Looking up, she saw the high-wire walker...the one who'd helped Ymir...
standing on top of the sign holding the unconscious body of the machine-
gunner dwarf by his Kabuki costume.  For the first time, she noticed that he
was still wearing his blindfold.
     "Here.  This one's yours too.  I have to get after Rebus before he gets
away."
     He dropped the midget, forcing her to use up some of her stored energy
to catch him before he hit the ground, and flipped back inside the front
doors using the marquee as a parallel bar.
     Arc lifted the goat man and converted the rest of her kinetic energy to
speed, hoping to overtake the aerialist, but she didn't even see him in the
theatre itself; he'd probably taken a short cut through to the alleyway.  She
dropped the two bodies at Ymir's feet.
     "Ice them down, and let's get going."
     He did, and they did.
     As they charged across the stage and through the drop curtain, Ymir
looked at Arc.
     "What happened to the high-wire man?"
     "He said something about stopping Rebus before he escaped and vanished.
Who do you think he is?"
     "No idea.  Oni went ahead in astral form, so...."  Arc had stored up
enough kinetic energy at that point; she converted it to super-speed and
bolted ahead of Ymir, trying to get to the trailer before Rebus got away.
     She slid to a stop in front of the burning wreckage that was all that
remained of it.  Several of the other trailers in the courtyard were also
burning, the flames spreading and filling the air with acrid smoke.  She
waved a hand in front of her face and cursed.
     "He got away," the acrobat said from disturbingly close to Arc.  "He
laced the explosives with some sort of allergen...I took one sniff for his
scent and almost sneezed my damn head off.  Then I tried a circuit of the
place, to sort his heartbeat from the crowd, but I think he can control it.
So I made a few stops and came back here to wait for you."
     The aerialist dropped off of one of the light-poles and "looked"
impassively at the flames.  He turned to her with infinite weariness cut into
the lines of his face...at least the parts of it that weren't covered by the
blindfold.  She regarded him warily.
     "Who are you, and what's your part in all this?"
     "It's a long story," he shook his head gently.  "But I suppose I have
nothing but time now, anyway."
     He began to tell her.

               *              *              *              *

     Several hours later, Arc finished writing the report she was preparing
to send to Rasputin and looked over to Ymir and Oni.
     "Well, Erik, you're the leader.  Did we do the right thing?"
     "Acting leader.  And who's to say?"  Looking tired, he sat down on the
edge of the desk next to her.  "He didn't ask to be involved in all this.
Sure, we could have brought him in, but it seemed somewhat ungrateful to me.
I think letting him go was the right thing to do, this time.  He just wants
to go home."
     "So you believed his story?" Arc frowned.  In his letters, Teller hadn't
told her much about New York...he wasn't especially happy talking about it.
She wished she'd had time to get in touch with him and ask him about this
"Warden."
     "That *was* Tetsukamen's sword," Oni spoke up from the pad she was
scratching on.  "And a lot of what he told us made some sick kind of sense...
the games Rebus put him through, the gauntlet of Onyx Eye and Otakuza..."
     "It matches Rebus, yes.  But it could have all been a lie."  Arc sighed.
"Still, as Erik says, he did intervene on our side, helped us save lives and
recover the prototype.  It still galls me that Rebus gained the disk."
     "What good will it even do him?" Erik looked uncomfortable.  "It's a
program for encrypting optical computer data.  Seems like a long way to go to
make his files safer."
     Arc hit the send button, transmitting the file back to EUROPA
headquarters.
     "I suppose we'll find out soon enough.  What do you suppose this
'Warden' person will do now?"

               *              *              *              *

     A man in a long grey Russian Naval Officer's coat stood on the docks
outside Shimbashi, facing the Port of Tokyo.  His face was covered by dark
aviator's sunglasses, and a recent beard he hadn't been able to shave off
yet.  He hadn't decided if he would.  It made him look older, he hoped, or at
least different.
     He had the katana concealed in the lining of his coat, safe from casual
inspection, and a few changes of clothes bought in the Ginza in a bag slung
over his shoulder.  He was glad he'd cooperated with the three of them,
whatever alphabet soup organization they worked for; it was nice to not have
every single paranormal he met hating his guts, and after all, Tokyo wasn't
his city.
     It wasn't even a nice place to visit, as far as he was concerned.
     He hefted the bag, feeling the weight of the money he'd found in the
trailer when he'd gone back for the sword.  Even after buying some clothes
for himself, leaving half of it outside Suryen and Eliza's apartment and a
tidy sum at a local Shinto shrine that worked to maintain the Tsukji
Marketplace Square, he still had enough left over to book passage to America
on a bulk freighter.  It was slower, but at least they wouldn't ask him too
many questions.
     He slung the bag over his shoulder, took one last look at the skyline of
the city from the eyes of the harbormaster (it was a beautiful day...the sky
was just beginning to open up as the sun rose, and red-gold sunshine was
burnishing the water of the bay and gilding the angles of the International
Trade Center, standing like a pillar just across the port from him) and
walked towards the waiting ship.
     He reached into his pocket and tossed a bag of circus peanuts, now
empty, into a trash can.
     He was done with them.

===========================================================================

     "So, the so-called 'Carnival of Crime' was involved in the theft of the
prototype for the optical encryption system that was the ancestor to today's
'Net systems," Kaoru explained.  "That seems to be the most significant event
in the 2020s that could be linked to circus peanuts.  Of course, since you
didn't give me any other context, I can't really say whether this is the
reason for the bag's inclusion in the capsule," he added, tossing the plastic
bag on the desk.
     "Very good," Professor M'Cormack clapped.  "You seem to be developing a
good feel for this sort of thing.  In fact, that does seem to be at least
part of the reason for their inclusion."
     "What's the rest?"
     "This capsule," she pointed to a medium-sized aluminum tube of the kind
sold commercially by a number of companies in the 2020s and 2030s, "is
devoted to the paranormal known as Warden."  She shook it, and a few other
items fell out.  Some odd coins, a black bandana and a strange studded glove
with some sort of winch and grapnel attached to it.  "Whoever put this
together either knew of his involvement with the Carnival of Crime, or..."
     "Or what?"
     "Or they just thought Warden liked circus peanuts."

===========================================================================

Author's Notes:

     Hello, I'm Matt.  I wrote some of what you just wrote (well, I don't
think Dave will mind if I say that I wrote most of it [well, only about 90%
of it - Dave]) and I just wanted to say a few things about it.

     1) I really, *really* enjoy the Carnival of Crime.

     2) No dwarves were harmed in the making of this story.

     3) Any performers harmed in the writing of this story were bad, bad
people and undoubtedly deserved it.

     So, here it is.  The story that pits natural enemies against one
another; grim, urban vigilantes and carnival geeks.  Enjoy.