Big Apple Bound

Before I update you on new events, let me address a couple of issues from my last post and the comments I received from that one.

Thanks to Ravyn and the Professor, I have an answer to that riddle, it does appear that Rasputin is who that asshole was using for the answer to that clue. So I Google’d Rasputin and came up with enough information that I am prepared to try a couple of dates for the password to the next clue.

Second, it appears that surprises go both ways. It caught me off-guard that Drake would bother to read this blog, which of course means that I will have to pay careful attention to what is said here, particularly when I have the chance to take up the trail after him. There was also something the bastard said that I did leave out of my last post, which of course the prick used against me to try to show me as being less than honest. To clear that record, I will now provide the part that I left out of the last post, it was said after the riddle was given. I left it out because it appeared to be a purely personal message that I wsn’t sure I could trust in the first place, but also because it seemed out of place given what has so recently taken place. Anyway, here is that last part of the message:

“Finally, dear Rusty I want to offer you my assurances that our conflict, our contest if you will, will no longer involve your family members unless you or they bring themselves into it. I had specific reasons for involving your children and your ex-wife in our last encounter, which I may choose to reveal to you at a later date, but the need to involve them in our little game has now passed.

“I look forward to seeing if you are up to the challenges ahead. So many others before you have failed to rise to the occasion, but I have a feeling that you my boy, may just be the One I have searched so long to find. How ironic is it that I had to create my own best foe?” His cackling laughter ended the recording.

So there it is. I have one message to my dear ‘creator’: Fuck off. This my damn blog, you want to talk to me, you’ve got my number and I’ve got your damn PDA Puzzles.

OK, back to the business at hand. By the time I did my research on this Rasputin fellow to get the dates I needed, I had to put that issue aside for the moment. Over the secure fax machine in my vehicle, I received a very short message, essentially it was instructions to report to the Manhattan Field Office of the Bureau for a mission briefing on Monday. Apparently the Bureau has decided to put my dead ass back to work. So much for the vacation!

So Saturday I spent the day driving up to the Big Apple, trying to manuever this big honkin’ bus through the narrow streets of that overly congested city before giving up and taking the thing over the bridge and onto Long Island. I was able to find a nice RV park about 30 minutes outside of the city.

Earlier today, I spent the day riding my Ninja around the seashore and then back into the city to get an idea of where I would be going tomorrow. There is quite a lot to see in that city, I had never been there before. As I drove in though, I felt a strange pulling sensation deep inside, it was pulling me towards Ground Zero.

I didn’t try to resist that Call very long. Soon I found myself pulling up near the fenced off perimeter of that yawning maw into otherwise towering landscape of manmade mountains. The Power of that place was overwhelming. I parked the bike and began walking the perimeter. There were hundreds of others who were similrarly drawn to this place, but we were all lost in our own thoughts and feelings at what had happened at this place.

I still felt the strange pulling sensation, so I knew I was being called to do more than just see the place. I found an empty bench across the street from the barricaded area and parked myself there.

Once seated, I openned my Inner Eye to the energies of this place and was immediately taken aback. The image of the Two Towers burned brightly in that world still. Smoke seemed to burn my eye. The current sounds of the busy New York streets were replaced with tinny, almost muted sounds of sirens and screams that I remembered from watching images of this scene on television almost 4 years ago now. The ghostly images of thousands of people fleeing the building while hundreds of other brave souls, the police officers and firefighters who responded to the terrible scene, rushed in to help those still trapped inside.

As I sat there stunned by the raw emotions and the wrenching images of that disaster, I felt so small and insignificant in the face of such enormous loss. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stop watching, I was transfixed as the scene played out, until I noticed one ghostly figure walking towards me.

He was a firefighter, his turnout coat was grimy with dirt and smoot, his helmet shattered by some fallen object. He had obviously been killed by something that had fallen from the building, but his spirit was standing directly in front of me before I realized it. He looked into my eyes, with his one remaining eye and spoke to me.
“Did you call me here?” I asked him.

He nodded.

“Why?’

He stood silently for a moment, then said, “There is something you must see.”

“But why? This was hard enough to watch on television. I was not ready for this!”

“It is never easy, but it is necessary. You must witness soemthing. Wait, it will happen in a few minutes.” With that, the figure came and sat next to me on the bench.

“Can you give me a hint at what I am watching for?”

“You will know it when you see it. Be patient. Not much longer now.”

I waited, watching the scene play out as it had that long day years ago. It was getting close to the point where the first tower came down. The emotional power of the scene began to build as I watched people fall from the highest floors of the burning towers. More people were escaping the buildings, some being helped by rescuers, others moving in small groups, clutching at each other for support.

Within a minute, the first tower began to collapse in a cloud of smoke. The plume of dust and debris quickly enveloped us as we sat there. I flinched, expecting to be hit by the force of the implosion and the debris as it hurtled towards us. The firefighter sat there motionless.

When the cloud enveloped us, our vision was obscured. I was just about to ask the man how I was I going to see anything in this, when in the sudden stillness and strange silence of the moment, a bizarre form came forth from the dust cloud.

It was a hunched form, slightly shorter than an average sized man as it walked. It was naked, revealing that its skin was more like scales, although with all of the dust covering the thing, it was hard to be sure. The feet of the creature appeared to avian like, while its arms reached almost to the ground as they swung. The hands were huge, claw-like appendages that looked very dangerous. It’s head was clearly reptillian in nature, its open mouth protruding from its skull revealing very large, sharp teeth and flicking split tongue like a snake. It had a pair of small black horns that angled back. A series of small horn like fins seemed to trail down its back towards its short, stubby tail. It appeared for all intents and purposes to be the spitting image of a...demon of sorts.

The creature walked in slinking motion past us, oblivious to us, before it found a spot of pavement just past one ghostly firetruck that showed a man-hole of some sort. It reached down with one massive claw into a hole in the large metal cover and pulled up the heavy cover withg little effort. It cast the cover aside and slunk down into the hole, disappearing from sight.

I looked to the firefighter and asked, “What the Hell was that thing?”

“None of us knows. It came from above in the collapsing tower. It killed every living person who even glimpsed it. We have been Calling for someone to come and find this creature ever since that fateful day.”

“Has anyone else come?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to them?”

“Everyone who has tried to find it has gone and never returned. So far, you are the fifth to respond to the Call.”