Jorge Joestar

Chapter 14: Desolation Row

The journey from Mars complete, all we had left to do was calculatethe trajectory and land in the water, and I’d figured since we were landingsmack in the middle of The Ocean we’d be totally fine but Morioh was waitingfor us and we slammed straight into the Arrow Cross House, so whoops, too bad,we’re all dead. Or so I thought but when I woke up I was there, alive, andNarancia and Pucci were waking up too looking surprised they’d both survivedand I could tell the stuff around us wasn’t the space ship but Cars turned intoa sphere. Like a small version of the Eyed Balloon. Cars made a tear in theround walls, and we stepped out and it was either dusk or dawn cause it waschilly and dimly lit and there were stars and the moon in the sky. About halfthe sky was bright and half was dark. I looked for the North star. I foundCassiopeia and the Big Dipper, and then the North Star. The bright half of thesky was West, so this must be evening. Under the starry sky was an unfamiliarcountryside, hilly, but no mountains, like Morioh but not the same. Wheatfields, not rice paddies. The houses I could see in the distance weren’tJapanese style but brick and stone, like old European landscapes. Then a gustof wind blew by and I caught of whiff of something sweet and turned around.Remnants of the spaceship were stuck to the outside of the Cars sphere, andCars’ flesh was melting, smoke rising off it, making a bubbling noise. And thesmell wasn’t that of animal flesh burning, but weirdly sweet, like fruit.

“Cars, you OK there?”

I asked, and Cars slowly returned to humanoid form, but hadclearly taken quite a bit of damage. He wasn’t steady on his feet.

“The extra mes covering the ship burned up just above thesurface,”

he said, hoarsely.

“Seems we were one me short.”

But he couldn’t exactly have just waited one more loop and obtainedanother extra Cars. And in this thirty-seventh universe, I met an astronaut

named Funnier Valentine, Cars had said. So even as theuniverse looped itself there were things that happened every time and thingsthat didn’t.

“No, 36 should have been enough,”

Enrico Pucci unilaterally declared. Don’t think the number36 will just work everywhere forever, I thought, but Pucci was lost in thoughtand didn’t even glance my way. Then I realized; Pucci was hung up on the ideaof 36 souls. I could hear him muttering to himself.

“It wouldn’t have worked without 36. 36 is 12 x 3. 12 and 3are both holy numbers in Christianity.”

The code in the Way to Heaven had clearly possessed Pucci.

Have the courage to cast aside your Stand, and as your Standwithers, it will gather 36 souls, and give birth to something new. It willbefriend he who says the fourteen words. The place is 28.24 degrees North,80.36 degrees West.

As far as the first phrase went, the only part of that thathad happened was the number 36. Thirty-six Cars were assembled, but that wasn’tbecause anyone had thrown away a Stand. The ultimate thing had simply survivedthe death of the universe 36 times. And nothing ‘new’ had been born. As far asthe Fourteen Words, these did seem to be lining up.

“Spiral staircase”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Desolation Row”

“Fig tart”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Via Dolorosa”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Singularity”

“Giotto”

“Angel”

“Hydrangea”

“Rhinoceros beetle”

“Singularity”

“Secret Emperor”

From this list, Pucci had clearly chosen to interpret Moriohand Nero Nero Island moving as ‘rhinoceros beetles’, and that made sense to me.They seemed to have pretty burly legs, and though they’d split open, they’dstarted out with those barriers on their back, armored. But if the phrase‘rhinoceros beetle’ showed up four times, were there two other moving islandsout there? I was also on board with calling our falling on the Arrow CrossHouse

“Via Dolorosa”. And because we’d fallen there, we werestill alive, I guess? Giotto was clearly the probes Cars had made his ship outof. Otherwise…? I went back through events, and understood why Pucci hadreacted to what Cars said. Cars had described the Earth as a a water vessel,which was the etymology of the word ‘hydrangea’.

28.24 degrees North, 80.36 degrees West was the location onMars where we’d found Cars. So considering all these symbols,

it made sense that the Way to Heaven involved making friendswith Cars, but did it really? The Ultimate Thing viewed us as food, so could webe friends? I couldn’t imagine it, and the scale of his every action waspetrifying, but he had protected us from burning up on reentry. The idea wasonly just starting to settle in, since I hadn’t expected him to do anythinglike that, but saving us had come at no small sacrifice. He was standing boltupright, his legs slightly apart, and the burns covering his body were visiblyhealing. A pus was squirting out of the wounds with an oozing, popping noise,and when it hit the ground it sizzled and evaporated.

“Yikes, that looks painful. Anything we can do?”

I asked, but he ignored me. Clearly, there was nothing Icould do. But I said,

“Thanks for saving us,”

anyway.

“Oh, yeah!”

Narancia said.

“You saved our asses! Thanks, dude! But why did you save us?”

Focused on healing himself, Cars did not deign to respond.

“Yo,”

Narancia said, turning to me.

“Maybe we should run for it right now. Seems like he ain’tmoving.”

“? Run? Where to?”

“Where Buccellati is.”

“Narancia, look around you. This isn’t Morioh or Nero NeroIsland.”

“Hunh?”

He spun around, flustered.

“Uh…hunh? Seriously? Where the fuck are we?”

“I dunno.”

“But we fell right on top of Morioh and Nero Nero Island! Isaw them!”

“Yeah, so did I.”

Specifically, we’d fallen right on top of the Arrow CrossHouse. So what had happened? Where had we ended up this time? Narancia droppeda few hundred tiny Das Boots on the grass, and sent them out in all directionsto scout. Which reminded

me that I was still borrowing a Das Boot from Cars, so I didthe same thing.

“Unlike Mars, there’s trees and grass! So nice! I  ♡Earth!”

Narancia crowed. He had a point. The sky above us was thesame sunset I’d seen all my life; the moon was bright, the stars weretwinkling, and the countryside around us might be unfamiliar, but wascomfortingly real. We could breathe without spacesuits, and the gravity didn’tmake our movements heavy or light. This was Earth. So what about it was buggingme so much?

“I’m going in the houses, but there’s nobody there,”

Narancia said, peering into his headset periscope.

“Every house is empty. What the…? Oh, a town sign. Mm? Isthis English? Wa…was…wast…”

“Lemme see,”

I said, and kinda snatched the periscope off Narancia. Therewas a dirt road that crossed a grassy creek via a stone bridge, and right infront of it was a wooden sign, painted green, that read

“Wastewood.”

“Wastewood? Well, that does sound like English. Is thisAmerica somewhere?”

But American countryside didn’t look like this. Americawould have paved roads so the cars could drive easier. The rivers would haveflood control. The bridges would be concrete or at least have guardrails. But Isaw no signs of any government work like that. Were we just that deep in thecountry? But did anywhere still look like this, these days? There were wheatfields and homes. If people used the roads, they’d have to pave them so carscould use them…but as I looked through the periscope, I figured out thereason. One Das Boot found a large manor, and entered the grounds. There wasindeed a car sitting in the driveway, but it was a classic car. Like in aSherlock Holmes movie. Like they’d taken the horses off a rich man’s carriage,and added four small tires. It matched the styling on the old manor, but itlooked well-used for something a hobbyist kept. Like someone had just dumped itthere. I got close, and this went beyond poorly

maintained; it looked to have been straight up abandonedthere, at the mercy of the elements. The entire body was covered in a thicklayer of dust; I couldn’t even see in through the square windows. But it didn’tlook like it had been left there a century ago, either.

“Can’t find anybody,”

Narancia said, looking at the periscope over my shoulder.

“Yeah. But it doesn’t see like the place was abandoned ahundred years or anything.”

“A hundred years?”

“Look, see?”

I showed him a view from a different Das Boot, one that waslooking into a small shop. It was a general store, and the packaging oneverything was antique. And there were newspapers on sale by the door. The DasBoot was parked next to them, close in on the title and date. The Daily Mirror.November 11th, 1920.

That was 92 years ago. Were these really for sale? But thepaper looked real, and so did everything else in the shop. There was a realityto the details.

“Woah,”

Narancia said.

“1920? How many years ago is that? Um…it’s 2012,so…20-12=8 and 20-19=1 so 18 years ago!? Before I was born!”

One should not become a gangster so young, I thought.

“92 years ago.”

“Fuck how!?”

Narancia flew into a rage, but I was used to it by now. Iignored him and began checking other Das Boots. There were Das Boots ridingfish and birds, and I saw a lot of animals besides humans. They all seemed tobe doing just fine. Only the humans had gone missing. One riding…I guess abutterfly? I could see big white wings flapping on the sides of the screen, andit was bobbing up and

down in the air as it flew. Anyway, it went in through thewindow of a home. Old art deco style furniture, and dishes on the table. Likethey’d been eating a moment ago. Breakfast? They’d been eating a simple meal ofbread and soup and coffee, but the people eating here had left more than a fewminutes ago. These dishes had to have been there at least a month. The bread inthe basket was almost all eaten by bugs, soup had dried in the bowls, thehalfboiled vegetables rotting. The inside of the coffee cops was stained pitchblack. What could have happened that caused the people living here to leavetheir dishes on the table, and never come back? The butterfly the Das Boot wasriding fluttered further into the house when Narancia said,

“Hey, Jorge, your name’s Jorge Joestar, right?”

“…? Yes. Why?”

“Congratulations.”

“What for?”

“Look.”

I peered over at Narancia’s screen, and saw a huge gardenoutside a large manor, with rows of tables and chairs, white ribbons andcrosses hung everywhere. Also quite a lot of what had once been flowers. Therewere glasses and bottles on the tables. Like they’d been left there, not afterthe party, but, based on how little of the wine had been drunk, since before theparty began. Beyond the tables was a white carpet running down the center, withrows of chairs lined up on either side, and an alter at the front. This wasobviously a wedding venue, a wedding that had never taken place. In the dimevening light the abandoned party setup looked deeply forlorn. Near the gardenentrance was some sort of welcome board, and as the bird Das Boot was ridingpassed by it, I had just enough time to read it. It read:

Welcome to the Wedding Reception for Jorge Joestar and

Elizabeth Straits.

“Eh heh heh. See? Something to look forward to, eh?”

While Narancia yucked it up, I remembered something. In myworld, there is another Jorge Joestar. That Jorge spelled his name the same wayI preferred, so I figured right away that this was the Jorge JoestarTsukumojuku had talked about. Tsukumojuku had come from 1904, from a world witha weirdo map. So was this La Palma? No, the Canary Islands were Spanish, so Idoubt there was anywhere named Wastewood there, and the English only welcome boardmade little sense either. Since this other Jorge Joestar was a pure-bredEnglishman, perhaps this was England? As I thought, the bird Das Boot wasriding flew away from the house out of the front gate, and I saw a post boxoutside. There was a name written it; Joestar. This must be Jorge Joestar’sfamily home, and he’d been planning to get married in the garden. So perhapsthere were more things belonging to this other Jorge inside the house. I wasn’tsure what checking those out would tell us, but I was curious.

“Narancia, I’d like to head to this Jorge Joestar’shouse.”

“Hunh? Fuck yeah! Let’s do this! Ain’t accomplishing shitjust standing around here!”

I turned towards Cars. Behind him Pucci seemed to have justbecome aware of his surroundings.

“Where…is this? What happened?”

“We aren’t sure yet,”

I said.

“But it’s possible we’ve gone back in time. Speed is a bigfactor in time travel, so maybe the ship’s falling speed was a little too fast.”

As I said it, I remembered that the speeds required would beclose to light speed, and the air resistance on reentry would be so great thatwe’d never get

anywhere close to that. Our speed was slow enough we’d havelanded safely if we’d touched down in the ocean. So what had happened? Iwondered if Cars had used some power, but guessing out loud wasn’t going to getus anywhere.

“Anyway, if we’ve time traveled, it’s 1920, and…we appearto be in England. In a town called Wastewood.”

I waited to see if he reacted at all to this; after all,England was a myth, and was not supposed to actually exist. But Pucci justnodded.

“I see. Then we should head for the capital, London.”

“? Why?”

“Something waits for us in ‘Desolation Row’,”

Pucci said, with great but unsubstantiated conviction.London? I still wasn’t sure the place actually existed, but we definitelyneeded to start moving, either way. We’d definitely fallen on Morioh, butinstead we found ourselves wherever this Wastewood was. There was an entrancein Morioh, and the exit lay here. If we found that exit, maybe we could getback.

Narancia interrupted this chain of thought.

“Mm? Hunh? Found someone.”

He was staring at my screen, so I took a look, and thebutterfly from earlier had fluttered into a storehouse or closet or basement orI dunno, a dark room of some sorts, and in the center of it stood three people.They were all men, and looked pretty beat up. There were rips in theirold-fashioned shirts and pants, and one’s entire ass was exposed. The three ofthem were standing stock still in the center of the room, their faces veryclose together. Were they discussing something secret? But as the butterfly gotcloser, I could tell – it wasn’t three men, but three men and a little girl,about five years old, and the three strong men all had their teeth sunk in herneck, leaving the rest of her dangling in the air, hiding her until we wereright up close.

“What in the

name of fuck!?”

Narancia yelped. I was pretty shocked myself. All three menhad their eyes closed, but the man on the right swallowed, and the other two mentwitched, and tried to pull the girl towards them. The man who’d swallowedwasn’t about to give her up, and pulled back. Since all three men were fightingto sink their teeth in her neck I got a good look at them; their mouths werefilled with fangs, sunk deep into the body of the little girl. Three men werefighting to eat this kid. Another one swallowed, so it seemed safe to assumethey were drinking her blood. But they weren’t just gulping away, so perhapsthe three of them were taking their time, not wanting to waste her? After all,there was nobody else in town.

“Shit! Load up!”

Narancia yelled.

“Fire! Shoot them!”

Psst psst psst, three cruise missiles shot out of the DasBoot, leveled out, and hit each of the men in the head, thwack thwack thwack.Their heads split open but no blood or brains came out. The girl fell to theground in the middle, and looked for all the world like she was already dead,but… It’s like a zombie movie. The dead bite people, and those bit or whocome in contact with their saliva turn and attack other humans, Shiobana hadsaid. No way, I thought, and a moment later the girl stood up, her eyes showingonly whites. Her little mouth opened wide enough her cheeks split, showing anawful lot of fangs.

“…what the…that’s not human!”

Narancia shrieked.

“It’s a zombie,”

I said.

“A zombie!?”

“Narancia. Shoot the kid.”

“Ehh? I can’t do that!”

“Then Narancia, bring your Das Boots back here.”

“Uhh…”

“Quick.”

I’d just cottoned on to our surroundings. There

were figures standing in the wheat fields around us. All Icould make out was their silhouettes in the darkness, but they were shaped likepeople. But they didn’t feel like people. Things that looked human but weren’twere staring at us. We were already surrounded.

“Hurry!”

I hissed, but I guess they heard me, because the shadowsaround us all started closing in, and we could soon see the drool running downtheir chins, the nasty bared fangs.

“The dead are walking…”

Pucci said.

“The end of the world draws nigh.”

Brushing off his dire words, I called back my Das Boots, andlet out a hail of missiles, roaring into the explosions. Zombie after zombieexploded. Narancia’s Das Boots joined us, and we took out nearly all thezombies, but two made it through the fields and were right on top of us.

“Augh…argghhhhh…aghhhh!”

Horrible groans and horrible fangs and our missiles weren’tgonna be in time but just before they got us Pucci’s White Snake punched eachone in the head so hard it split open.

“The end of the world is but the prelude to the arrival ofHeaven,”

Pucci said. That was ominous.

More zombies were gathering. Narancia gathered his Das Bootsand formed a big one, and we climbed in. Cars was still looming in place,emitting smoke, and when I suggested we get him on board Narancia lookedreluctant, but Pucci insisted,

“We need all elements gathered so far. We can’t afford toleave anything behind.”

This astronaut was sounding more and more like a prophet.But apparently saying things with no discernible basis but oodles of confidencewas the trick to overruling Narancia, like he assumed

there must be some reason beyond his comprehension or no onewould act like that, and just went along with it. The boy had no faith in hisown ability to think through things or work things out, and thus was easilydragged into the flow of forceful personalities. So I put my own oar in, too.

“For the same reason, we’ll need to check out this Joestarmanor.”

At this, not just Pucci, but Cars, who’d been so busyhealing he hadn’t even adjusted his gaze all this while, turned and looked atme.

“Joestar manor?”

Hunh? Uh-oh, I thought, but I soon switched to ‘oh well’instead. I was feeling much the same way as Pucci was. Everything has meaning.

Narancia’s Das Boot took us through a meadow and some woodsbefore we reached the Joestar manor. I hopped out of the sub and checked themailbox. This was definitely the Joestar home. Then we sailed into the garden,knocking tables and chairs aside, did a circuit of the main building, parkedoutside the entrance, and I hopped out again, went up on the porch, and peeredinside through the window nearest the front door. I was super careful whilepeeping, worried that there were a bunch of vampiric zombies clustered inside.The lofty entrance was empty, but I thought I saw someone moving down the backhallway. I reached my hand out to the door, and knocked. But there was noresponse.

“Hello?”

I called, softly, but aloud. No reply. I sensed someonebehind me – Narancia, I figured – and turned around to receive quite a shock.The figure behind me had its face painted white, green

stars around its eyes, larger lips painted over its actuallips, and brightly colored clothes. It was a clown.

“Who are youuuuu!?”

the clown shrieked, in high-pitched English. As it did,there was a huge racket as the front porch came apart like a tornado struck it,but instead of falling the bits combined in mid-air forming a wall leading tothe porch roof. Beyond the porch wreckage wall, I could hear Naranciascreaming,

“Jooooorge! What are you doing!? Ruuuun!”

I was too surprised by the clown to react in time, and thewalls were already closed around me. Locked in here, in the dark, face to facewith a clown. Uh… Narancia started trying to break down the walls imprisoningme, and I gave it a kick or two and tried ripping bits of wood off with myhands, but I didn’t get anywhere. In fact, I could no longer reach the walls.Before I knew it a rope made of the same wood bits as the walls had droppeddown from the ceiling, wrapped itself around my neck, pulled tight, and waspulling at me, trying to drag me off the floor and strangle me. The clownlaughed.

“If you’re not Penelope’s friend, you’ll have to hangyourself!”

Penelope? A girl’s name?

A clown. A locked room. The noose on my neck pulled me highenough off the ground my feet couldn’t reach the floor, and was getting verytight around my throat, but those two keywords jobbed my memory.

“Stop! I’m not the Locked Room Maestro!”

I yelled. The clown took a close look at my face. Thoughtso.

“Unh…Ja…Javier Cortez…is… Javier Cortez is

dead!”

The Spanish police on La Palma beat him to death with theirnightsticks, and sank his body in the sea at night.

It was like the soul left the clown’s body. His whole bodywent stiff, then began to spin faster and faster until it exploded, and thewalls around me and the rope on my neck went with it. The floor of the porchcollapsed. As I sat their coughing, I heard footsteps come running. The frontdoor was flung open, and a Latin beauty came out.

“Jorge!?”

she said, looking around, and without thinking, I said,

“Here!”

But when her gaze found me she looked very perplexed.

“Nice to meet you,”

I said.

“My name’s Jorge Joestar.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

she said, fixing me with a furious glare. She was clearlylooking for the other Jorge, Tsukumojuku’s friend.

“I’m not, I swear! Penelope, right?”

She’d been the one controlling that clown, then. I took mywallet out of my back pocked, pulled out a business card, and handed it to her.My name was written on it, and not using the spelling on my passport or otherofficial documents.

Jorge Joestar Detective

“? What do you mean, detective? Are you a cop?”

“I’m a private detective,”

I said.

“The kind that inevitably ends up solving the mystery.”

“? What are you talking about?”

“Have you not read Sherlock Holmes?”

Was this the real England? Had Conan Doyle not made theplace up, after all?

“Oh…but why…you’re a Chinaman, aren’t you?”

“…Japanese, but I’m an English citizen.”

“Japan…oh…are you friends with Tsukumojuku, then?”

At the mention of his name every cell in my body shivered. Iknew it. There was the world Tsukumojuku had come from. And after Tsukumojukuhad left, something very strange had happened on this island.

“I am,”

I said.

“By the way, what in the hell is happening here? I mean, areyou OK? Are you the only one here? Alive, I mean.”

As I was asking, Narancia yelled over me,

“Hey, Jorge! Who is she?”

in Italian, and Penelope’s attitude changed dramatically.

“I am the only one here. I have no idea what is happening.You need not concern yourself with me. Please leave.”

And with that, she tried to shut the door. Clearly she didnot want to invite strangers in, but from behind her came a gentle voice.

“Penelope.”

A woman stepped into view, and the moment I saw her it feltas if the air around me had grown thin, and yet a strange warmth swept over meat the same time. Physics suggested if the air pressure dropped, so would thetemperature, and yet…wait, that was irrelevant. Anyway, this woman was aboutforty years old, beautiful, and possessed of the sort of sincerity that ensuredyou’d feel horribly guilty if you ever betrayed or tricked her, a sort ofsolemnity that instantly stressed me out, but at the same time made you feelthat if she was handling things, everything would work out just fine in the end.

“Erina…”

Penelope said.

“Let me greet our guests, at least,”

Erina replied.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Erina Joestar. You’reJorge Joestar?”

She was just standing in front of me, but her class andelegance had me breathless. I took far too long to answer.

“Um, yes.”

“You seem awfully young. If you don’t mind me asking, howold are you?”

“Er, sixteen.”

“Would you perhaps be Japanese?”

“Um, yes. Sorry, I keep stammering, I’m not usually thisnervous meeting people.”

“Ha ha ha, that’s quite all right. Please, be at ease.”

No, even your gentle chuckles are bowling me over here, noway I can relax. Behind me, Narancia was growing irritated.

“Dude, stop fucking around! You learn anything from themyet?”

God, he was rude. I went bright red.

“Heh, your companion is certainly a lively one.”

Erina said, glancing over my shoulder.

“Who the fuck is this granny? It’s fuck dangerous aroundhere! You bringing her with us or not? Make up your fucking mind!”

“God damn it, Narancia! Shut up!”

I yelled, wheeling around…and there were three zombiesrunning up behind him that he hadn’t noticed.

“Look…”

out, I began, but before I got the words out snap snap snapthree phone booth sized boxes popped up and swallowed the zombies. These boxeswere made from the dirt and grass in the yard. Just like the locked room thathad swallowed me was made from the front porch. I caught Penelope’s eye, andshe just sniffed huffily. Scary, but a little bit cute.

“These grounds are completely safe. But those things do keeptrying.”

By those things, she must mean the zombies, but just whatwas happening inside those boxes? Was a clown appearing inside each of them tohang the zombies? I glanced around and there

were several other booths dotted around the garden, somefully intact, others crumbling, with holes in them, or only the bottom of thewalls remaining. Through the holes I could see what lay inside, and there was azombie hanging from a noose, but there was nothing below the zombie’s neck.Penelope saw me looking and said,

“They struggle after being hung, so they rip their own headsoff.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than three splatscame from the new booths.

“Yikes!”

Narancia yelped.

“”See? But I’d prefer Erina not see that sort of thing.Would you please go now? Hmph, such weird clothes.”

I looked back at Erina.

“Excuse me. How did you know I was Japanese?”

“I’ve been running a trading company for some time now. I’vedone business with Japanese people in the past. Based on the inflections inyour English, and…perhaps your facial features? You have a soft smile that’svery particular to Japanese culture.”

“I do? I mean, I guess people do say I look like an idiot.”

She chuckled.

“And I knew a boy about your age. I believe he calledhimself a detective as well.”

“Yeah…I assume you mean Tsukumojuku?”

“Yes. He was friends with my son. Perhaps his only friend,at the time. So they were always together in middle school. We lived in theCanary Islands then, but that boy had to return to Japan quite suddenly, and myson was already quite upset by that when we learned that his ship had capsized.We kept the news from him for a while, but…if you know Tsukumojuku, then didhe not die after all?”

Well, not in the ship crash.

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

How should I answer that? From Morioh? From Mars? Um.

“Tsukumojuku had family in Japanese Fukui Prefecture, in asmall town called Nishi Akatsuki. I live there, too. It’s quite far away. But I

met Tsukumojuku there, and quite a lot happened, and now I’mhere.”

Really a lot had happened.

“Quite a lot?”

Erina echoed. Perhaps she picked up on the scale of things,though I doubted she could have known their full measure.

“Yeah.”

“But you did not arrive here by any ordinary means.”

“…no, we didn’t. Um, sorry, I forgot to ask but…how isit that the dead come to walk around attacking the living?”

“We still don’t know the reason. But I supposed that is forme and you and your friends to figure out.”

“……….”

“Jorge Joestar, do you believe in destiny?”

Erina asked, looking me right in the eye.

“Yes,”

I said, unable to suppress a smile at what I was about tosay.

“I not only believe in destiny, I make a living from doingso.”

Anyone calling themselves a detective did. Erina gave methat lovely laugh of hers again.

“Well said. Jorge Joestar from very far away, I am glad thatwe met.”

“Um, yeah. Oh, sorry, I’m…aaaugh.”

“Ha ha ha.”

“Um, excuse me?”

Penelope said.

“Yes?”

I asked.

“Where are you going and what are you going to do there?’

“Hunh? Well…apparently this is England, so we were talkingabout going to London.”

“What for?”

“I’m not really sure, but we’re looking for Desolation Row.Kinda seems like anyone still living will have fled London, too.”

“Desolation Row?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you looking for that?”

Why were we? I wasn’t sure, maybe just the narrative flowlead us to it? I laughed at the idea. We were finding Pucci’s metaphors oneafter another, and using them to guide us. I couldn’t offer any otherexplanation for our situation, and I couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“We’re looking for the Way to Heaven. Ha ha ha.”

“The Way to Heaven!?”

Erina said. I was surprised by her surprise. I wondered ifthis mess, with all the zombies, made that line sound like suicide.

“No, I’m sure it’s nothing all that serious…”

I said, trying to cover.

“Well…I know this is coming out of the blue,”

Penelope said.

“But can I come with you? You came from far away, right? Ican protect you, I’m sure. Erina, I’m sorry. Do you mind if I go? My clownswill still protect the manor even if I’m gone, and I’ll come back as fast as Ican.”

Hunh? But zombies weren’t that big a threat. We didn’treally need a girl to come protect us, I thought, but then rethought it;perhaps this was another important narrative being introduced. But Erina lookeddubious.

“You’re a girl, after all.”

“But…”

“Mmm…”

“…But Lisa Lisa…Elizabeth is already…”

Penelope suddenly sounded like she was about to cry.

“I…I do hate to put it like this, Erina, but if I staywhere it’s safe just because I’m a girl and it’s scary and dangerous then Ifeel like I’ll just wind up left behind by all the boys. Elizabeth puts herselfin danger, and nearly dies, but in the end she got to be with Jorge when itreally mattered! She was happy, I know it!”

This seemed to strike a nerve with Erina, and she thoughthard on it. Penelope turned to me.

“I know it’s a sudden request, but take me with you. Ipromise I won’t get in the way.”

Hmm.

“It’s dangerous? You probably shouldn’t?”

“I know it’s dangerous.”

“But…”

“Please. And this whole mess is, in a large part, my fault.So I’d like to see if there’s anything I can do about it.”

Her fault…?

“You made the zombies?”

“I wouldn’t do that! But I did turn the entire island ofGreat Britain into a locked room.”

“Hunh….!?”

The sheer scale of that statement left me at a loss forwords. But at the same time, then she was definitely the cause of this state ofaffairs, I thought.

“Then I guess you have a right to be involved.”

But holy hell, how big was this locked room?

“Even so, I’d really advise against it…”

I added.

“I’m traveling with some pretty weird people.”

“But you’re with them, too? Don’t worry, I can look aftermyself.”

The Ultimate Thing ignored basically everything that passedfor common sense with humans, though…

“I just can’t agree, Penelope,”

Erina said.

“It’s too risky.”

Penelope wasn’t having it.

“I’m going. Erina, thank you for everything. I was veryhappy. But I can’t take it any more. With Jorge gone, there’s something darkand hot and heavy churning around inside my chest and stomach and down below,chewing away at me from the inside. If I don’t hang every last zombie inEngland that churn is gonna eat me alive.”

“…Penelope…”

“So please. I won’t demand your approval, but at the least,don’t stop me.”

“……..!”

“Ha ha. But I promise I’m coming back! Coming back alive! Atthe very least I’ll bring Elizabeth back with me. I’m not about to be the onlyone sitting around biding my time! Ah ha ha!”

Even her laugh was choked with tears. Erina put her armsaround Penelope, and drew her close.

“Then go, Penelope. Just be sure you come back. I can’t loseany more family!”

“Mm! I’ll come back safe and sound. Sorry, this means you’llhave to look after Joseph all by yourself, I know.”

“Joseph will be fine. Straits and the others come to checkon us from time to time.”

And like that, we’d gained a new companion, but…Joseph?.

“Joseph Joestar?”

Both women turned and stared at me as one.

I had them show me baby Joseph Joestar. There was a babycarriage in the room just off the entrance hall, and he was sleeping inside.His father was Jorge, and his mother Lisa Lisa/Elizabeth Joestar. So he mightbe a Joseph Joestar, but not the same one who was my adopted great-grandfather.That Joseph Joestar’s father was Jodoh, and his mother was Maria Urias Zeppeli.But I felt like there was some resemblance. Something inherently rascaly tohim. Even as a baby. But most likely, this baby would become the man who wentup against the Ultimate Cars this time, and sent him to the ends of space. Hewas a newborn, and already a bad ass. I grinned at the thought, but I had otherfish to fry.

“Hmm, so this is Joseph as a baby. You can already see it inhis face,”

Cars said, leaning in beside me. His wounds were totallyhealed. I froze to the spot, my mind utterly blank. Erina and Penelope boththrew themselves between the half-naked man and the baby, protectively.

“Bwa ha ha ha ha! Fear not! I do not make a habit of killingchildren! And because this man sent me to me every time I am here before you!Besides, if I harmed him who knows how history

would be altered! Come, let us return to the place and timefrom whence we came, Jorge Joestar!”

Cars said, and walked away. I was so relieved. My knees wererattling.

“What was that!? What is he!?”

Penelop said, tears in her eyes.

“I never saw him come in!”

“That’s…one of my traveling companions,”

I said.

“You sure you’re up for traveling with a half-naked mysteryman?”

I definitely thought she shouldn’t, but Penelope swallowedonce, loudly, and said,

“I’ll be fine.”

She paused, then added,

“But he’s very scary.”

“Don’t worry,”

I said.

“I’m scared of him, too.”

Then I took Penelope de la Roza back to Das Boot. Naranciawas hanging out inside, looking bored, and when he saw us he yelled,

“Yo, what the fuck, you picked up a girl? Here? Now!? Areyou completely stupid!? Are you fucked in the head?”

He cackled wildly but I ignored him. Cars and Pucci werewaiting inside, too, so I introduced Penelope to them, and explained that shewas joining us on our trip to London, but neither of them seemed particularlyinterested. Pucci simply glanced at her face once, and went back to whatever hewas thinking about it, so I let it be.

“OK, motherfuckers! Let’s go!”

Narancia yelled, but I was the only one who yelled,

“Yeah! Let’s go!”

back.

“So, aren’t you ‘companions’? Why’s the mood so tense?”

Penelope asked. Right, I’d better fill her in.

“Penelope, you met him a moment ago, but this is Cars. He’sthe Ultimate Living Being. And the gentleman in the space suit is theastronaut, Enrico Pucci.”

“Nice to meet you,”

Penelope said, but neither reacted.

“This is a little uncomfortable,”

she whispered, but there was not much I could do to changethat.

But when Penelope explained what was happening here inEngland, Pucci’s expression changed dramatically. Penelope told us of JorgeJoestar’s life, of the fifteen locked room mysteries created by the Locked RoomMaestro, Javier Cortez. She told us about her power to turn any material into alocked room, manifest a clown within to hang anyone trapped inside and make itlook like a suicide.

“Jorge Joestar called powers like this Wounds. They areabilities born of pain inflicted over and over again.”

I remembered what Cars had said about the bow and arrow he’dmade. In theory…to protect their own lives from the fatal wound, theirtalents would blossom, the energy would heal the wounds, and they woulddiscover special abilities previously hidden within them. A wound – beingdamaged – could give you powers beyond what others had. What did it mean torecover, to heal? As a body attempted to heal itself, it must want to avoidsuffering the same injury again, and provide a tool to protect itself. In thatsense, both Stands and Wounds were a manifestation of inner emotions. Emotionsgiven form. Thinking about this and listening to Penelope, she got to the masssuicide in the church on La Palma. The pictures of the mothman drawn while onfire.

“It took ten years for Jorge to find out,”

Penelope said,

“But when humans are imagining something out of anxiety orfear, what they imagine remains behind, collects, haunts, and can even take onconcrete form. That’s how there can be a spider with gorilla legs lurking inthe darkness underground, how people can die painting pictures of the mothmanon land, and why gremlins appear in the air.”

Gremlins? Like Mogwai and them? The Joe Dante movieSpielberg produced? Come to think of it, there was a scene where

a character is grumbling about having to send foreign madegoods off to be repaired all the time because gremlins live inside and causetrouble.

“Airplanes are very new, and changing rapidly, so there’s alot of trial and error, and people get anxious, which gave rise to thegremlins,”

Penelope explained. I was nodding as she spoke, but myunderstanding was quickly turned on its head. The zombie that had plagued JorgeJoestar as a child, Antonio Torres.

“Antonio had a Wound that allowed him to shed his entireskin once a year. He’d followed Jorge to England, and was attacking airplanepilots – this was the start of the stories about gremlins.”

And at last her story took us to recent events, events froma month before.

“A commander in the air force, where Jorge served, wasactually possessed by Antonio Torres. When Jorge found out, he was killed…”

Penelope was silent for a moment before continuing.

“I went to the commander’s house with Elizabeth. It washere, in Wastewood. I saw Elizabeth kill that commander. Antonio Torres wasinside his body, and Elizabeth…she was beyond furious. I could tell it wasall she could do to keep herself from going mad. She’s normally so calm, andquick witted, but she said only one thing. ‘I’m going to kill every last one ofyou.’ But I don’t think there’s any way she can do that. Before she killedAntonio Torres, he said,

“Just go ahead and try! There’s 920,000 of me!”

And that same day, 920,000 Antonios surrounded GreatBritain, and I accidentally made a giant locked room out of his bodies.”

Penelope trailed off, dejected. Cars had been listening witha massive grin on his face.

“The attempted invasion of England in 1915,”

he began.

“A few dozen units to attack the Hamon warriors, a fewhundred to bombard London, but of those few hundred, the pilots themselves werezombies, and the sun wasn’t out, so there was no need for Antonio Torres’power. In which case we can

assume no more than a thousand Antonios, at most, were usedup in the war. If Antonio Torres became a zombie in 1900, and each Antonio sheda skin once a year, that’s 14 sheds by 1915, or two to the power of fourteen,so there should have been exactly 16,384 Antonios. Assuming a thousandperished, that leaves us 15,384. Then five more years passed until 1920, andeach of the previous fifteen years of Antonios increased by two to the power ofsix, leaving us with 984,576. In twenty years, Antonio increased himself tonearly a million. But according to Penelope de la Roza, her wall was made from920,000. So what happened to the 60,000 Antonios that did not die in the war orget turned into a wall?”

Penelope had no answer. Cars chuckled.

“What? Never thought to count the zombies before? If therewas 60,000 zombies out there, they can turn ten times that many humans intozombies. I don’t mean one can take on ten men – one can take on two. But if onehas to go after ten men, then if it manages to turn the first two, that’s threeagainst seven, and a moment later all ten are zombies. Even if humans manage towin with their ten to one odds, seven versus seventy leads to all out panic,and if they have seventy zombies, a town of a thousand humans is wiped out.Ignoring the existence of 60,000 zombies is rather foolish.”

Right. From what I’d heard, the zombies here were nothinglike the living dead created by George A Romero. They could think, and theyretained skills and knowledge they’d had in life. A former pilot could stillfly a plane, and they could even learn to fly one after becoming a zombie. Evena trained fighting force would be thrown into a panic if zombies appearedamongst them. At least 60,000? Trying to picture that nightmare in any concreteterms made me dizzy. Antonio Torres was just a flat skin, so if we folded himup and put him away maybe he wouldn’t spread out that much…but that was justmy imagination running

away from it. This was a zombie that could fly under his ownpower, and knew how to fly a plane, too. If he tried doing anything tohumanity, he’d be a fearsome enemy. This reminded me of the news Shiobana hadgiven me as we fell to Earth in the collection of Giottos. There are actualreports of patients in Sardinia and the Touhoku region of Japan going berserkand attacking people. Their symptoms are contagious, and the number of victimsis rising. It’s like a zombie movie. I’d remembered far too late in all thecommotion, but it sure sounded like zombies had shown up in modern Japan andItaly as well. But that was 2012, not here, and in modern times, a few dozentimes through the birth and death of the universe. What connection could therebe between the zombie outbreak here and the news of zombies in our own time?Was a massive zombie outbreak just something that happened at least once inevery history? It wasn’t out of the question. Our universe had produced Cars,the Ultimate Thing, every time, blown him out into space, and gathered him onthe dark side of Mars. I’d gone my whole life without knowing the food chainhad Cars and the other pillar men at the top, vampires below them, and zombiesbelow that. They’d always been there. Of course, there were not many zombieswho could fly. Zombies were humans to begin with, and there were almost nohumans who could fly. Shiobana had also said, I suppose the key difference fromthe movies is that there are rumors of flying zombies. If flying zombiesexisted, then did that mean our time also had an Antonio Torres?

Had something caused Antonio Torres to time travel? I soon

realized the obvious way that might have occurred.Tsukumojuku had left La Palma, and fallen through time in the Bermuda Triangle.He’d arrived in Nishi Akatsuki, in 2012. I remembered what Tsukumojuku had saidin the hospital. Come to think of it, I had Antonio Torres, 1900 – his skin –in my luggage…did it arrive here with me? I was gathering my belongings rightbefore I passed out, and I’m certain I had the tube it was in slung over myshoulder.

Tsukumojuku had disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in 1904.If a zombie Antonio Torres (zombified in 1900) had traded places with the skinsample, Antonio Torres, 1900, and traveled through time with Tsukumojuku,then…he’d been a zombie four years, so two to the power of four was sixteen,and that number was then reduced to fifteen. That number then doubled yearlyand eleven years later, 1915, during the attempted invasion of England thosefifteen would be two to the power of ten, and 15,360. Assuming a thousand haddied that day, 14,360 would increase over the five years until 1920, andincluding the peeling day from ’15, that was two to the power of six, giving usabout 919,040 Antonios. Since the assumption that a thousand had been lost in1915 was a high estimate, the final figure of 919,040 was fairly close to howmany there actually were. So Antonio Torres wasn’t hiding another 60,000 ofhimself somewhere, the two to the power of twenty math simply hadn’t reflectedall actual events. One Antonio Torres had left 1904 and was making zombies in2012, in Nishi Akatsuki. How long had it been since Tsukumojuku arrived inNishi Akatsuki? It was less than a day, I was sure. But if their movements werealready visible, that spoke volumes about how fast and strong they were at propagating.No, in 2012 there were already zombies, I just hadn’t known about them. Hadthey

made contact with Antonio Torres and started the outbreak?In both Japan and Italy? Seemed a bit too far apart, but maybe it had somethingto do with Morioh and Nero Nero Island turning into rhinoceros beetles? Ofcourse it did. There’s no way that was just coincidence. Here in England, theisland of Great Britain, Penelope had said she’d made a wall out of thezombies, but if that was the armor and it were to grow legs and this massiveisland turned into a really huge rhinoceros beetle…this thought made me jumpto my feet. I went out of the room, up to the bridge, up a ladder, opened thehatch, and looked up at the orange Western sky from the highest place on Das Bootas it sailed through the forests and meadows on its way to London. The sky wasstill fairly bright. There was no substantial difference between the sky nowand the sky when we’d first arrived. The west was bright and the east dark,stars and moon visible in only half the sky. We’d been here over two hours, butthe sun still looked to have just vanished over the horizon, and stuck there.Or in this world, had time itself stopped? Or, I thought, was this islandracing after the sun across the surface of the ocean? Onwards to the west.Towards the center of the Atlantic Ocean, the ocean that didn’t exist in myworld. But if we were keeping up with the sun, we must be going really fast.Was it the armor that kept us feeling the G-forces and wind? When Moriohstarted moving, we hadn’t noticed until Arrow Cross House moved, and we lookeddown at the sea from the top of the hill. Same thing. No joke. Great Britainwas the third rhinoceros beetle. We were riding the back of it again. Someoneelse came up on the bridge behind me, asking what was up, and of course it wasEnrico Pucci, and I figured his religious fervor had sniffed it out. But therewas no way to stop this flow now, and it would likely take us to whateverresolution lay in

store.

I filled Pucci in, and before I was even halfway he’dfigured it out, and got that gleam in his eyes again.

“We only need one more rhinoceros beetle, a spiralstaircase, two singularities, and the secret emperor!”

“Hmm? What about the fig tart?”

Pucci turned and looked at me.

“Didn’t you notice?”

“…notice what?”

“When we fell to Earth, Cars’ body began to burn. With asweet scent. That was the smell of a fig tart.”

Uh…I was a bit disgusted, actually. I’d noticed it was afruity scene, but the reason I hadn’t compared it to smells in my memorybecause it was the smell of burning flesh – perhaps not human flesh, but ofsomething humanoid that spoke like a man. Perhaps experiences akin to religiousmiracles overcame basic human impulses like that, or perhaps he just never caredfor such things in the first place.

“Also,”

Pucci said, heedless of the look on my face.

“In many countries, figs are believed to be the fruit ofimmortality, and in the old testament, 2 Kings 20-7, they are described thusly.The prophet Isiah came to a sick man, Hezekiah, and knew at once there was nosaving him. ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die. You cannot livelonger’. As Hezekiah wept, and prayed to God, Isiah turned to leave…and Godspoke to him. Isiah returned to Hezekiah and said, ‘Take some figs, and putthem on that swelling, and you will be cured.’ Well? Seems appropriate thatCars’ body smelled of figs now, doesn’t it?”

He fixed his eyes on me, waiting as I desperately tried to

come up with any sort of response when from down below I wassurprised to hear the pebble phone go plu pon pin para para pon. Wow. I knowthey ignored the laws of physics but to this degree? Narancia called up to me.

“Hey! Jorge? Where are you!?”

“Up here!”

I said, going back inside the ship. Narancia gave me thephone, muttering,

“Not like I’d understand any of it.”

“Hello?”

“Buccellati here. Where are you? Wasn’t that you falling onMorioh earlier?”

“I think it was. But we’ve wound up somewhere far away. In away, even farther than Mars.”

“…? What do you mean? Stop beating around the bush andspeak clearly.”

“We’re in England. The island of Great Britain.”

“…what? No such country or island exists.”

“We’re in a universe and time when they did. A world beforethe universe died and was reborn. Although I’m not sure saying that clears upmuch of anything.”

“It certainly doesn’t. Be that as it may, are you able toget back here?”

“We’re attempting to begin looking for a way to dothat.”

“Right…”

“How are things over there? Did anything happen to ArrowCross House? I think our spaceship hit it.”

“It did. You crashed through the ceiling and made a dent inthe floor, but it’s fixed now. The building itself is basically a Stand,apparently. The Stand girl controlling it is fine, too.”

“Oh, good. That’s a relief.”

“The main casualty is the manga artist’s desk. He was quiteirate.”

“Ah ha ha. What about the American army?”

“Thanks to you and Narancia, only minor injuries on either

side. No one dead or seriously injured. The navy units thatlanded are already starting to surrender. Apparently they’re unable to contactHQ at all. And nobody can get in or out. After you crashed, Morioh’s barriercame back up. The sky’s gone pitch black, no moon or stars. Since there’s nextto no functioning electricity, the entire town is shrouded in darkness. OnlyArrow Cross House still has lights, water, and gas. Thankfully.”

“No moon or stars? We could see the sky just fine earlier inthe day, so the barrier wasn’t opaque or anything.”

“Right. But we can’t see anything now. We saw Nero NeroIsland rear up from the shock of your impact, but it’s vanished now. I think itwas knocked away outside of Morioh, but since the barrier came back up we can’tbe sure. Diavolo’s minions remain, so we’d like to draw them out while wecan.”

“That’s right, you said you found this boss? Diavolo?”

“His body, yes.”

“Who killed him?”

“Who indeed? I’ve no idea.”

Was this a mafiaesque lie or evasion?

“…can you tell me what you do know?”

“Certainly,”

he said, and I must have sounded surprised, because he added,

“Well, we have the other detectives here. Even without youthere’s a lot we can have inspected. They’ve proven quite useful. I’m learninghow to handle detectives myself; seems like it’ll come in handy.”

The mafia’s pet detective? I could see that happening.

“So?”

“We found them both in the central room of the Arrow CrossHouse. The one Kishibe Rohan calls his study.”

“……..hunh? So?”

“? That’s we were found them. Both lying on the floor.”

“On the study carpet?”

“I suppose.”

“Hunh? But that room was totally empty, nothing else in itbut the desk!”

“Yes. You’ve been in and out of it all day. But that’s wherethe two bodies were. And judging by the progression of rigor mortis and theamount of blood in the carpet, and how dry that blood was, they were killedright there, and had been lying there for at least twelve hours.”

“Twelve hours!?”

“Since eight this morning.”

“Eh…? But that’s right after Tsukumojuku’s body was found,and tons of cops were going in and out. And yet two people were murdered thereand nobody noticed the bodies?”

“That’s the long and short of it. It is a mystery, butJoestar, is there really any need to solve it? The dead are a mafia boss and aserial killer. I’m not exactly an honest citizen myself, but we’re better offwith both of them dead.”

“……….! But you’ve verified both bodies’identities?”

“Yes. Want to see?”

“Eh? Uh, if there’s a way to, sure.”

“Then I’ll send them to you. Don’t tell anyone, but this isAbbacchio’s Stand, Videodrome.”

I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I swear. So a display screenappeared on the surface of the pebble, showing two files. First one. First shotwas of two male corpses on the floor. I’d never seen either face before. Onewas Japanese, in a suit, thin, with hair that was well combed except for a fewstray hairs clearly deliberately let loose to suggest ‘fun’ in a way that justmade him seem all the more fastidious. He was reasonably handsome, but therewas something plain and unmemorable about his face, a quality that I knew wasreally common with serial killers. This type

made it a daily effort to not stand out, and not drawattention. The other had an obviously sinister set to his face. He had longhair, with a bizarre speckled pattern. His eyes were open, but not only werethey not rounded, they were twisted, frayed, as if the evil dwelling within hadcaused an unnatural transformation. He was so obviously weird I didn’t see howhe could ever live in normal society. The reason he’d hidden himself sothoroughly was clearly because, looking like this, it would be nigh impossibleto find a double if his life was in danger, and it would be very difficult toblend into the crowd or avoid being noticed when out in public. Both theirthroats had been slit. As deep as Tsukumojuku’s wound, from ear to ear. Theymust have died instantly. This was filmed by someone crouching next to thebloodstained bodies. The crouching man was named Leone Abbacchio. One ofBuccellati’s men. He first moved to the Japanese man, removed the suit, peeledoff the shirt, and once the man’s scrawny torso was revealed, plunged his handinto his stomach. His hand went deep into the body, ten centimeters past thewrist, and felt around for something. When he pulled his hand out, there was avideo tape in it. There was a title written on the spine, in Japanese.

“Kira Yoshikage, July 24th, 2012.”

There were control buttons directly on the corner of thetape, and when he pressed the triangular play button the tape unfolded until itwas shaped like a man – the dead Japanese man. Kira Yoshikage, the serialkiller who made people explode. He was in a state of absolute panic, covered insweat, the last thing a man as fastidious and unassuming as this killer wouldwant to be. Numbers appeared in the air, like a countdown in an old movie. 3.2. 1.

“Ahh!”

the man screamed, and offered no real resistance as histhroat split open, blood sprayed out, and he fell to the floor, dead. Tah dah!The words,

“The End”

appears in the air.

Hunh? Was that it? Kinda anti-climactic, I thought. Kira’sform began to writhe, then folded itself back up into the video tape it hadstarted as. Next, Abbacchio reached toward the corpse of the white man with theultra weird hair and eyes, peeled off his shirt to expose his belly, and reachedinside, rummaging around until he found a video tape. The title was written inItalian.

“AKA Diavolo, July 24th, 2012.”

The white man stood up, but he was as beside himself asKira, his face crumpled in despair. There was a Stand behind him, humanoid butwith a face like an insect, and another face on its forehead. The countdownbegan. 3. 2. 1.

“Ahh!”His throat split up, sprayed blood, and hecollapsed. Hunh!? The same thing here!? As I watched the tape fold itself backup, Buccellati said,

“That’s it. Shortly after that your ship fell. It was all wecould do to grab the bodies and get out.”

“……….”

“…OK, listen close, Joestar. Videodrome records everythingthat happens to someone for twenty-four hours after midnight, but cuts off atthe moment of their death. …you realize what that means?”

“? What?”

“There is no record of them from midnight until eight AM,the estimated time of their death. Normally Videodrome should be able to replayeverything they did in that time. But no such thing exists for them. Untileight AM, these men were somewhere else, somewhere not of this world. Theyappeared out of nowhere in the Arrow Cross House just in time to die, lived forapproximately one second, were killed, died, and then until quite recently, aspiles of cops went in and out, and the home’s residents went about theirbusiness, nobody noticed their bodies lying in the middle of

the floor.”

“But…that’s impossible!”

“But it is the truth. Videodrome replays only truth. Andyet, Jorge Joestar, this is a mafia boss, and a serial killer. I may be a coldhearted son of a bitch, but both of them were evil incarnate. This… KiraYoshikage was calling himself Kawajiri Kosaku. He worked in manufacturing, didhis job like anyone else. His wife’s an election official, his kid is on thesoccer team at his elementary school. They seem like an ordinary suburbanfamily, but as the investigation grew close he brutally murdered both his wifeand child. Someone on my team has a unique power that allows them toinvestigate these things, but he found trophies from over a hundred differentwomen in that house. And Diavolo killed far more than a hundred. And not all ofthose victims were from enemy crime syndicates. If someone was a problem forhim, or if he merely stood to gain an advantage, he would kill civilians,politicians, law enforcement, even his own men, without hesitation. He forcedthe desperate poor to work for him and then abandoned them, sold women andchildren, licked the marrow from the bones of the rich, and forced the worldaround him and everyone he came in contact with to rot. These two men deservedto die. The world is better off with them dead. So don’t worry about it.”

“……!?”

“Get it? I’ll put this plainly. Don’t bother trying tofigure out the truth behind their deaths. Don’t do anything. If you want towrite their killer a thank you note, that’s one thing, but if you even considertrying to arrest them…in my opinion you’ll be barking up the wrong tree. Themdying is a good thing. Whoever killed them did us all a service. A service toall mankind.”

My head was going in circles, so I clutched it tight,asking,

“Do we know their Stand powers?”

“…yes. Between Abbacchio’s Videodrome and the owner of theArrow Cross House’s Stand, we figured it out. This manga artist might be aneccentric, but he has the ideal Stand for uncovering people’s secrets. Ofcourse, he’ll do nothing he doesn’t want to, even if you threaten him withforce, but if you just convince him it’s the right thing to do, he’ll jump atit.”

That got a laugh out of me. Wish I could have seen KishibeRohan face down the Mafia.

“Kira Yoshikage’s Stand was named Killer Queen,”

Buccellati continued.

“It could make someone explode directly, or turn them into abomb. Two types of bombs – bombs Killer Queen had to trigger with a switch, andbombs that would explode on contact if someone touched them. It could evenremove its left hand and turn it into a tank-like Stand called Sheer HeartAttack that would operate automatically, tracking people via their heatsignatures. And Killer Queen had one more power. Bites the Dust. It remains abit of an enigma, but it could turn someone into a bomb that would go off ifanyone asked about Kira, or the bomb said his name. The moment it killedwhoever was searching for him, it would somehow turn back time an hour. Onlythe person he’d turned into a bomb would remember the previous version of thatday, but the fate of those he blew up would not change, and they would againexplode even if the bomb avoided contact with them. With no apparent cause atall.”

Kira Yoshikage’s Bites the Dust had turned Kishibe Rohaninto a bomb. And it could turn back time? Man, he really had the perfect powerfor what he was after.

“And the boss of our Passione Family, who called himself thedevil, Diavolo…his Stand was named King Crimson. He had a face type stand onhis forehead called Epitaph, and this could accurately predict the future,albeit for only ten seconds. He could

then erase that part of the future, leaving only the experienceof it behind, with no other impact on what happened next. Say you atesomething, and felt full. He could use King Crimson to remove the part whereyou ate, leaving you with no idea why you felt full. He could predict thefuture, and delete time! No wonder he survived so many assassination attempts.”

Buccellati explained a few mysterious events experiencedduring syndicate betrayals and conflicts, but I wasn’t really listening – I wasthinking. Kira Yoshikage and Diavolo both had Stands that could, in somefashion, manipulate time. That was tugging at my mind. Time. Arrow Cross House.Tsukumojuku had died in the Arrow Cross House, but he had traveled throughtime, too. He’d come from England, 1904, to Nishi Akatsuki, and died in Moriohin the Arrow Cross House, but appeared out of nowhere in the middle ofeverything and taken me to Mars. Tsukumojuku had been the first to time travel,and he’d talked about Beyond, Hey! I am your instrument. Someone needs you.I’ll take you to him. The way he’d smiled made me just accept what he wassaying, but the first time slip was entirely the fault of the Bermuda Triangle,or at least whatever it was that had created an area that, according to thelegends, caused people and ships to vanish. I couldn’t explain it, and thelogistics of it remained unclear, but if felt like reason enough. But thesecond? When he’d taken me to Mars? What led to that? I couldn’t see it. Butobviously, time slip or whatever, if something happened there was a reason forit. I just didn’t know what it was, but when Tsukumojuku had smiled he’d had areason for it, knew why he was acting, and could have explained it. Otherwisenobody who called themselves a detective could ever be so carefree. He’d had notime

for exposition, but Tsukumojuku had known everything. Thatwas why all the confusion he’d displayed when he arrived in Nishi Akatsuki haddisappeared. Yeah. Because Tsukumojuku had solved all the mysteries, he’d cometo me, and died. And the reason he’d spoken in riddles wasn’t just because he didn’thave time explain properly, but because I was a detective too, and he washaving a little fun at my expense. Like, you still don’t get it, do you? He wasribbing me because I was struggling with something I should have worked out bynow. Tsukumojuku knew that I would figure it out. That meant I should be ableto solve this. Being flung out to Mars and winding up in England in the distantpast may seem completely batshit, but it all had meaning. I knew that. Therewas no reason to think otherwise. The rules of this world hadn’t changed atall. I just had to think it through. Time and the Arrow Cross House. We’dtraveled through time one more time. Cars’ ship had definitely crashed directlyon top of the Arrow Cross House. But we didn’t die in the wreck; instead wewere thrown to England in 1920. Thrown? That’s right. We didn’t come here.Arrow Cross House had sent us here. That was the purpose of the Arrow CrossHouse. It could send someone through time and space of its own free will.

How? To pass through time, you needed a hole in the spacetime continuum, or a wormhole that linked to a different time and place, or youneeded to somehow bend space time and take a shortcut. Wormholes were more orless fixed to specific points in space time, so the Bermuda Triangle wasprobably one of those. But the Arrow Cross House was different. We’d beenthrown super

far back, to England in 1920 in a different history of theuniverse, and it had used poor dead Tsukumojuku to take Narancia and me fromBudogaoka Academy campus to a spaceship orbiting Mars. Thinking about it, howmuch free will had Tsukumojuku had? When he appeared before me, he’d seemed toknow I was there. Hey! I am your instrument. Someone needs you. I’ll take youto him. And after he took me to the H. G. Wells, he’d known there would be aspaceship, and wasn’t surprised by it at all. Whoops. Brought an anomaly along,but…it all means something, I’m sure. Bye! If he’d been just a victim, caughtup in a time slip and flung here and there, he’d have been confused by it all.He’d never have noticed that Narancia came along. He’d been quite lost thenight before, when he’d arrived in Nishi Akatsuki. Perdón. ¿Qué pasó? ¿Dóndeestoy? That night, Tsukumojuku was not only super confused, he was even a bitfrightened. But after he’d died, when he was taking us to Mars, he’d understoodeverything, was totally comfortable in his role, and even had time to give methe kind of smirk I could only take as a challenge. By then, he wasn’t justaware of what was going on, Tsukumojuku was controlling the time traveling ofhis own free will. If Arrow Cross House was a device to bypass space time, thenTsukumojuku had learned to use it. Arrow Cross House could bend space time, andcreate short cuts. It could choose a place and time, and send us there. Itcould even act like a delivery service, picking someone up and putting themwhere they needed to go. But how? How was it bending space time? There were twoways that modern science was aware of.

Speed and gravity. Giant celestial bodies like suns andblack holes could bend the fabric of space time; light didn’t proceed in astraight line past them. But in Morioh? Nothing with that powerful agravitational field existed or could exist inside Arrow Cross House. After all,to increase gravitational pull, you had to increase mass. Morioh and the ArrowCross House were two small to contain something that large. To compress thevolume of that mass required even more power, and if they succeeded they’d justend up with a black hole. Could Tsukumojuku control something like that? Hewasn’t even a Stand Master. If Arrow Cross House’s Stand power was having ablack hole, there’d be more to what it did than just time travel. Things woulddisappear, be crushed, and it would absorb all light and sound. I’d been inArrow Cross House, and sensed nothing so chaotic. It was quiet, calm, elegant,and relaxed, like you’d expect the home of a working author to be. Nothing I’dseen suggested there could be a black hole hidden somewhere. Absorbing…? No,that wasn’t right, I realized. It couldn’t just absorb. Tsukumojuku hadn’t justtraveled through time, he’d gone back to Arrow Cross House afterward, and died.If he’d just been absorbed, he could never have gone back. Maybe there was away to reverse the gravitational pull, but before considering that I had toreconsider my initial premise. If Arrow Cross House was a device, could Idetermine the function from the construction and design? Arrow Cross House wasa functional compass, but the core of it was still the Cube House. TheTesseract. The house was made of eight square rooms that allowed you to moveindefinitely in any direction. The key quality lay in that infinite nature, notin any gravitational compression. OK then…I was about to start going over theidea of using

speed, when I realized something. Damn it, I thought. I’dalready peered directly into the heart of the Cube House’s device. When we’dgone to Kishibe Rohan’s study with Grand Blue, we’d opened the door in thefloor and realized if we went four rooms down we’d end up where we started.Later on, when they were about to open the door again, Sugimoto Reimi said,Wait! Make sure you don’t fall straight down. We’d all instantly pictured whatwould happen. The room below the room below the room below this one was thestudy, so if I broke through all three, I’d fall forever. What would happenthen? If gravity increased my fall speed here, I’d fall until I hit terminalvelocity. That was as far as I’d thought through it then, but perhaps thatvelocity wouldn’t be terminal, but instead bend space time. It already had.When we fell out of the sky, and landed on the Arrow Cross House. The maincasualty is the manga artist’s desk. He was quite irate. We’d gone through theceiling of the Cube House, smashed Kishibe Rohan’s desk to bits, burst throughthe door underneath it, and the floor below and the floor below, and gottenlost in the infinite loop. Normally air resistance would have been slowing usdown, but inside the Cube House, we’d sped up, until we were going fast enoughthat time and space bent around us. And then what? Which direction had it bent?Without knowing it was a time travel device, we’d simply fallen. No consciouswill was at work. We didn’t consciously want or try to go anywhere. If thedevice was activated, but received no orders, and we just kept going faster andfaster, how would the device handle that? If the device could be controlled atwill, and there was no will present within the device, then it must take inputfrom outside

sources. The device would then connect us to the will ofsomeone far away. That was it. The infinite vertical shaft at the heart of theArrow Cross House was a device to bend space time. If the people fallingthrough it wanted to go somewhere, it would send them there. But if the peoplefalling expressed no such desire, then it could pick up on the desire ofsomeone outside. Tsukumojuku knew this, which explained why he’d said Hey! I amyour instrument. Someone needs you. I’ll take you to him. I had caught up withTsukumojuku.

All of this took about thirty seconds. Buccellati was stillgoing on about what a piece of shit Diavolo had been, and did not seem to havenoticed that I’d gone quiet. What he was saying made a certain amount of sense.But he was a gangster, and didn’t understand.

“Buccellati,”

I said.

“I can’t move forward if I don’t solve the mystery. That’sthe nature of a detective.”

“…oh,”

he said. And then said what anyone with a deep understandingof human work and duty would say.

“In that case, go ahead.”

“Yo, we can see London!”

Narancia said, so I hung up the phone and went up to thebridge, and saw a huge city covered in rubble from the fierce battles foughtthere.

“This must be Desolation Row!”

the priest said, collecting yet another of his symbols.

“We’ve been waiting for you! Our very own angel! Enrico

Pucci,”

came a voice.

We turned, and two men stood on the deck of Das Boot as itmoved through the forest. I recognized one of them; a welldressed man withdistinctive swirls of hair.

“I am the President of the United States, Funny Valentine,”

he said. This was not Funny from 2012, but the Funny fromthis world. He was young, but looked exactly like the Funny and Funnier and TheFunniest I’d seen on TV. Funny ignored us, speaking only to Pucci, who appearedto be at a loss.

“Ha ha ha! You look surprised, Father. As a man of faith,you did not think to be called an angel yourself? Be that as it may, all thatremains is one rhinoceros beetle, two singularities, and a spiral staircase.For the last rhinoceros beetle, if you follow the bank of the Thames to thesouth, you’ll soon see it. Or perhaps since I am here, you already understand?We’ve come to meet you. To take you to the island that will become the centerof the world.”

“………!?”

“It is, of course, in our United States.”

“……….”

“Now, and when you were there.”

“….and there is a church.”

“Ha ha ha! Exactly! There is a also a church, named for thatwhich we serve.”

“Trinity Church.”

“Indeed! There are three churches of that name in America,but only one on the island.”

“New York. Manhattan Island.”

“Precisely! I’ve just been to see it. The fourth RhinocerosBeetle is Manhattan!”

Great Britain was headed west, the mouth of the Thames atits fore. It had crossed the Atlantic, and clambered up onto the United States.The giant insect’s countless legs straddled the Hudson, half in Connecticut,and half in New York. It headed north into New York harbor, the tips of theskyscrapers at eye level. But Great Britain showed no signs of slowing down.

“But Manhattan is not a real rhinoceros beetle, I’m afraid,”

Funny said. Great Britain’s southern extremity stepped upinto Manhattan, tackling the skyscrapers and flattening the island.

“As President, I find this situation regrettable, but to buildgreater prosperity for America, it is time to cut the country loose. This is,well, a sort of ritual. An initiation.”

Thanks to the wall surrounding Great Britain, we couldn’thear the sounds of it, or feel the vibrations, but we knew it must be a livinghell down below. Narancia and Penelope were as shaken as I was. All three of usmust have looked ready to faint.

“We must move forward, Father Pucci,”

Funny said.

“Have you found the singularity yet?”

“……….!?”

“Think! What is a singularity but a point? A point is butpart of a line. A line is a connection. And what is a connection?”

Pucci stepped forward to stand beside me.

“Time,”

he said.

“Time’s relation to man.”

“Ha ha ha!”

Funny cried.

“Well put. Two are enough. And what are the two times?”

“Time I have lived through, and the time I am living.”

“Yes! That’s it! And the two that connect them?”

“Myself and God…is what I would have said, but judgingfrom your arrival, that may not be the case.”

“Ha ha!”

“In which case…me. And myself.”

“You have it! You are connected to yourself, Father Pucci!

As am I to me!”

“………..!”

“You know me well, but not this me. Correct?”

“Correct…”

“But we are linked. How so?”

“………!”

“I am me but at the same time I am not. How can this betrue? I believe you know the answer, Father Pucci.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Please share!”

“Because I can make a connection. Because I can’t make theconnection.”

“………..!”

“Because what I create is the Spiral Staircase.”

“Very good! Just one last thing. Allow me to introduce theSecret Emperor!”

Funny gestured to the man beside him, a tall, muscular manbrimming with power. I’d seen him before. In the photo Cars projected. Thesinister man floating in the air above Cape Canaveral. The adopted son of theJoestar family, the one who’d botched a train robbery. Dio Brando.

“You may love me, Enrico Pucci,”

Dio said. There was a crown of thorns around his head. Holesin the hands he held out. And his bare feet. When he saw this stigmata, Pucciwept.

“My lord…!”

And Pucci began to cast aside his Stand. Arrows appeared

all over White Snake’s body, and Pucci began to levitate. Inthat instant, I could no longer stand normally on the desk of Das Boot. UnlessI focused my mind on Pucci as he floated, I didn’t feel like I was standing upright,didn’t feel balanced. Everyone else was staggering, their gaze focused onPucci’s head, like a shot from the music video for Michael Jackson’s SmoothCriminal. I could see Funny Valentine’s coat flapping, though there was nowind. Pucci had become absolute up, the center of all things, and everythingradiating out from around him was now down. Dio and Cars alone stood normally,as straight as they ever had, but not because this force wasn’t acting on them,just they both possessed the physical strength needed to ignore the change ingravity. Cars’ long hair and Dio’s cape were pulled towards Pucci, just as wewere. The higher Pucci rose, the closer we came to what had originally beenbolt upright. Pucci was the center of gravity, and looking up at him, onethought ran through my mind. Gravity. If you could control it at will, youcould bend space and time. And that was why Pucci was killing his own Stand.With the arrows covering every inch of it, cracks were beginning to run acrossthe surface of White Snake, and as it shattered, a clock man on a two leggedhorse emerged.

“So this is Made in Heaven!”

Pucci said, enthralled. Cars stood behind us, paying Puccino heed. His eyes were on Dio, who met his gaze, his smile as brazen as before.

“Now, let us go to Heaven!”

Pucci cried, and the moment before he activated Made inHeaven, Dio held up his hand, and the wall of air that covered Great Britainformed the upside-down upper half of a giant boy, which rose up and looked downat us. It’s eyes were open, but it had no eyes. This was a combined version ofall the Antonio Torres that Penelope had made the wall from. Hangingupside-down from the sky wall, it reached out it’s massive

hand, and snatched Pucci out of the air. Dio looked up atPucci, and said,

“Don’t be in such a rush, gutter trash. Your job is to sweepand clear the outside.”

“How mean!”

Penelope yelped, and clapped her hands over her mouth. Buttrapped in the giant’s hand, Pucci’s expression was as rapturous as ever. FusedAntonio Torres swallowed him whole, sending him outside the armor. Normalgravity returned, and above us, Pucci activated Made in Heaven. Outside therhinoceros beetle called England, time sped up. The sun and moon whipped roundus, but the zombies were hiding in shadow, and would not die. In the blink ofan eye, the universe ended, and began again. Trembling, Penelope reached outand took hold of my sleeve, as I started counting universes. Outside England,in Antonio Torres’s belly, the universe looped thirty-six times, bringing theisland of Great Britain to the 2012 we had come from. We landed just in time toflip Morioh over. We were back.

Had our six month journey back from Mars taken only fourhours because of Pucci’s Stand, too? I asked Cars.

“Yes, but not quite,”

Cars said.

“That man was in a small box, with a much more complicatedtime flow compressed within. At the same time as he was on the spaceship withus.”

“A small box?”

“Somewhere beyond the ends of the world.”

“…..?”

I didn’t get this at all.

“What was Pucci doing there?”

“Killing a man.”

That cleared up nothing, but when I looked up out of therhinoceros beetle, Pucci was no longer floating above us.