<em>Two weeks ago, the world went mad.<br/><br/>The first sign, cruel and horrifying, was the news footage from Tokyo.  In the middle of an otherwise ordinary day, a portion of the city nearly two kilometers in radius centered on the Tokyo Tower turned to amethyst...people, animals, cars, everything.  Purple crystal as far as the eye could see, capturing the agony of the transformation in heart-rending detail until something gave way and the Tower collapsed, shattering as it fell.<br/><br/>It got worse from there.  Things, strange and terrible things, happened all over the place.  A Great Quake rattled the Pacific Coast from Alaska all the way to Panama.  Monsters sprang from the very earth in Central Park and rampaged through Manhattan.  Sudden forests sprang up here and there, overwhelming isolated towns.  Vast obsidian growths like thorny vines grew out of the desert to ring Las Vegas, cutting the city off from the lands around it.  The Midwest saw tornadoes, black blizzards, and sudden, bloody outbursts in previously quiet little towns as old grudges boiled over into murder and blood feud.<br/><br/>And more.  On and on.  No single event made a perfect catastrophe, but all of them together in concert proved more than even the most pessimistic and cautious emergency plans laid by mere mortals.  Dire enough to alarm one planner enough to set a desperate plan in motion.</em><br/><br/>* * * * *<br/><br/>The freckled, brown-haired young man slumps against the railing, glaring down into the magma-filled depths of the Grand Canyon with the angst of a thousand beat poets.  The wind rakes claws across the loose denim shirt he wears un-tucked and only partway buttoned, exposing a medicine bundle dangling around his neck now and again.  His mouth works as if he tastes, measures a dram of venom like a sip of fine wine while he decides whether to spit or swallow.<br/><br/>"You got a lot of nerve showin' up like this," he drawls, not looking away from the glow far below as if tempted to throw himself out into space as if he could glide on the thermals rising up from the canyon floor.  "We were quit of the whole business, you said.  I was done, you said."<br/><br/>Next to him, another man...old, still spry, dressed like a well-to-do gent from the Old West in waistcoat and frock coat, leans on his walking stick.<br/><br/>"I did.  You were.  This is...new business," the elder sounds as unhappy as the younger.  "You worked out your debt with diligence.  I have no further claim on you."<br/><br/>"Then why...?"<br/><br/>"Because this needs doing, and I can't handle it myself," the old man cuts off the younger, voice hard and sharp as the rocks of the canyon.  "You saw what happened in Tokyo.  You've heard the rest.  The safeguards have failed."  As the young man turns to regard him in full, eyes wide in surprise and growing horror, the elder's voice grinds on.  "The other plan is in motion.  Bring them together.  See if you can get them to help one another."  He gives his associate a brusque nod.  "I left you everything you need.  Better get going."<br/><br/>"Oh."  The younger man turns back to the canyon.  "So I'm back in."<br/><br/>"Looks that way."<br/><br/>"And you?"<br/><br/>"If we're lucky, I'll be back in time to help you explain to them what they've become and what to do.  If not, then I won't have time to worry."  He reaches out, his hand hanging in the air over the young man's shoulder for a moment as if the supportive gesture is one dare too many.  Lowers it.  Lets out a sigh.  "I leave it to you."<br/><br/>A moment later, another gust of wind tosses dust, and the young man is alone along the rail, the elder vanished.  Some time later, he straightens up and heads for a battered old pickup truck.<br/><br/>* * *<br/><br/><em>This is bad.  This is <span class="bbc_u">really</span> bad.  I don't know what that was the other day, but I could hear the defenses shattering all over the place, and some of the sounds coming from the Department of Works are even more worrying.  I have to get down there and see what I can salvage.<br/><br/>I should have taken the time to explain this to the kid, but he's still pissed off about things.  So instead I gave him the one thing that he can do better than I can right now.  By the time he figures out that he really does  have another reason to hate my guts, he'll have other things to do.  The others will need him.  That should ease the burden.<br/><br/>If I get out of this in one piece, I'll make it up to him.</em><br/><br/>--from Nyaruthotep's Notebook<br/>