He was old. Just how old was a fact known by few. Many were the rumors about him, each more fantastic than the last.
For more years than most realized, he had instigated plots and schemes to achieve his goals. Goals few, if any, ever truly comprehended.
By the time the West first heard his dread name, the centers of Asian power had long been infiltrated.
His ambitious plans of earlier in the century had been thwarted, largely due to the efforts of one Englishman and his colleagues. Stymied, but not yet beaten, he had retreated to his base of power in Asia to plot anew.
Many saw only his disappearance from world affairs and mistakenly concluded that he was no more. They failed to appreciate his genius. His influence in world affairs was still significant, and ever increasing. His more obvious ploys had been stopped, but he always had more. Plans so subtle that none of his enemies ever linked them to him. True, they were long term plans, slow to bear fruit; that was why he had attempted swifter means. However, the swifter methods had proved fruitless; and since successfully completing his Elixir Vitae, time was something he now had in abundance.
As he reconstituted his forces in preparation for his next project, he kept a close eye on those in the West who had opposed him before, and also on those who seemed capable of interfering in his future plans.
It was in these reports that he first noticed something odd. Actions so subtle and so far removed from each other that at first he doubted his conclusions. Yet further investigation only confirmed his initial supposition.
The bloodlines of a number of the most capable champions of the West were being manipulated.
It was hard to believe. The time span involved argued for a plan of such long range that it outstripped even his efforts. The actions influencing these bloodlines were often minor, nearly undetectable. He doubted that any mind less capable than his own would have noticed, even with the evidence in front of them. He felt a flicker of admiration for whoever had conceived and instigated such an ambitious program.
And yet, they were starting to get sloppy. Undoubtedly, the followers now working to complete the program lacked the genius of its originator. Or, perhaps, the increased quality displayed by the recent heirs of the bloodlines had made it increasingly difficult to influence them. Regardless of the reason, the odd circumstances surrounding the latest matches were clear to one of his genius once he knew what to look for.
By the 1970’s he had identified four main bloodlines in which he could detect signs of tampering. All had produced individuals that stood far above their peers.
As he contemplated this, he found himself facing an overwhelming temptation. A temptation of a very personal nature.
He was not childless, but one thing he still desired was a child capable of matching his own prodigious intellect. One who could fully understand his varied experiments and be able to continue them in case he himself should meet an untimely end. In these bloodlines there rested the potential of producing that child.
Now, given the track record of those bred into them, it was quite possible that a child of these bloodlines would refuse to inherit his more criminal enterprises. No matter. He already had inheritors for those activities. No, what he needed was someone who could understand and continue his more esoteric experiments. Someone whose dedication to science would not allow such potential for knowledge to die. These bloodlines promised such a child.
A careful examination of the possibilities produced one prime candidate. In the aftermath of World War II, one of the bloodlines had mixed with a Japanese family of notable ability. Now a daughter of that line was of marriageable age. Her lineage was impeccable, and she herself showed promise of great intelligence. Her chosen field of medicine was not easy, yet she completed the requirements as if they were nothing. All indications were of a woman worthy to bear his offspring.
Yet it would be no easy matter to accomplish. The unseen manipulator(s?) undoubtedly had already chosen a husband for the girl. Indeed, it took very little research to pinpoint the young man most likely chosen. While he had no doubt he could derail this planned marriage, the challenge would be doing it in such a way that his own involvement went undetected. Most difficult when he himself was to be the replacement groom.
It was a challenge he took great delight in meeting.
Establishing a new identity for himself was child’s play for one with his resources. The means he chose for disguise, the simplest of all. Youth.
He had long used his Elixir Vitae to reverse the infirmity brought on by advanced age, but he had resisted fully restoring his youth. He had always found the instinctive deference and respect accorded to age to be of far more use than any benefit that could be derived from reverting to an apparently callow youth. This, he would turn to his advantage. People expected him to be well aged; none still alive had ever seen him as a young man.
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And so it occurred that one day there arrived in Japan a young man from China. An itinerant artist whose wanderings had brought him to that wondrous city.
Shortly after arriving, he met a young medical student and they began to date. Her friends were surprised by her sudden love interest, never had she been so quick to show such interest in anyone. And yet, it was an interest they could understand. The young man had the most compelling personality and eyes that seemed to drag you in and never let go.
Oddly, their dating was soon marred by the most astonishing degree of misfortune. Cars that wouldn’t start. Messages that were misplaced. Bikes whose tires went flat at the worst of times. At one point, upset by an event that later proved to be a misunderstanding, the young medical student nearly broke off her affair with the young artist.
And then disaster struck. One of her friends at the medical school (a handsome and capable young man who always seemed to turn up at just the right moment) died in an automobile accident. The victim of a drunk driver who unfortunately took an innocent pedestrian with him in the fiery crash that brought about his own death.
She was heartbroken. She and the young man had occasionally dated prior to her involvement with the young artist, and she grieved at his passing. Hearing of the tragedy, the young artist swiftly came to her side and comforted her in her grief.
Much to her surprise, it seemed as if the kami took pity on her loss. In the weeks and months that followed, they were never again troubled by the strange misfortune that marred their earlier relationship. Her feelings for the young artist grew. Soon, he approached her family to ask for her hand in marriage.
Her family was torn. The object of their child’s affection gave every appearance of being a fine and upstanding young man. Still… there was something about him that disturbed her grandfather. Nothing he could put his finger on, but something didn’t seem quite right about him. Yet a quiet investigation turned up nothing, and he eventually attributed his disquiet to his disapproval of the young man’s choice of occupation. An artist indeed!
Her parents listened to grandfather’s fears, but without something more substantial to back it up they were unwilling to stand in the way of their daughter’s happiness. They gave their blessing for the marriage.
And so the young medical student married the artist and soon after discovered she was with child.
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He was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn the child was a girl. It was a known fact that the world’s greatest minds sired daughters far more often than sons. No doubt she would be quite beautiful.
The separation and divorce came not long after the child was born. The years he had spent in Japan had not been wasted, but he had far more important matters to attend to than raising a child. Her mother was competent enough to see to that on her own. Worse, he could detect signs that said mother was beginning to suspect he was not what he seemed. At the moment her suspicions were nebulous and unformed, but he knew that if he remained, she would eventually discover something she should not.
Yes, it was time to leave.
Not that he wouldn’t keep an eye on the girl. He already had agents in place. As soon as she was old enough, he would see that the girl was tested. Should she prove to have inherited even a fraction of his intellect, he would see to it that teachers were put in place to oversee her education. The basics could easily be taught by underlings working in the Japanese school system while she was still a child. Intermediate instruction could be handled by a carefully created juku in her teen years. Her progress in those lessons would show whether she was worthy to be acknowledged as his daughter.
His minions would also keep an eye out for evidence of the unseen manipulator. All signs pointed to a confluence here in Japan some time in the next few decades. His unknown opponent had arranged births in all three of the other manipulated bloodlines. All girls, and all born within a year of each other. Surely this was no coincidence. Judging from his past experiences and accumulated knowledge of similar situations, he estimated that the crisis to occur when the girls were in their late teens or early twenties.
He smiled in anticipation. Let it come. Already he had strengthened the organization of agents he controlled in Tokyo. Over the next few years he would expand it even more. Whatever was going to occur, he would be ready to turn it to his own ends.
The world would again feel the power of Fu Manchu.
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(Posted Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:03)
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