The name on the door gave Michael Princippi a chilclass="underline" Man Hyung Sun, Publisher.
He barely had time to read the words before the door was opened for him. He was quickly ushered inside amid his phalanx of robed Loonies.
Princippi recognized Sun right away. The infamous millionaire rose from behind a huge gleaming desk, his face beaming.
The man was notorious. A cult leader from the 1970s who was thought to have been discredited, Sun had made a quiet, determined comeback in the past two decades, acquiring even more wealth and followers than he had controlled in the supposed heyday of his notorious cult. One of the baubles the Korean had purchased for his amusement was the foundering newspaper, the Washington Guardian. Princippi assumed that this was where he now was.
"Governor, I trust you are well?" Sun said as he stepped out from behind his desk. Unlike his followers, Sun wore a well-tailored conservative business suit. His face was bright and guileless. The cult leader was approaching eighty but looked a good fifteen years younger.
"Not really," Princippi said. "What do you want from me?" Though it disturbed him to do so, he took Sun's offered hand. The grip was firm.
"Right to the point," Sun said, pleased. "I like that. They called you a technocrat during the presidential race. As if it is an offense to be punctilious."
The man's cheery attitude was infectious. Princippi was beginning to forget he had been knocked unconscious and dragged unwillingly through five states by the cult leader's mindless followers.
"Yes," the former governor agreed, casting a glance at the line of men behind them. Bare arms crossed over pink-and-white-robed chests. They seemed quite harmless now. Princippi nodded amiably. "I agree. It's too bad there aren't more Chinese in America. You people understand precision." He smiled cheerily.
"I beg your pardon," Sun said, hooded eyes abruptly dead.
Princippi got the sudden sense that he had said something desperately wrong. He bit his cheek. "Aren't you Chinese?" he asked weakly.
As had happened with his followers in the van, Man Hyung Sun's smile evaporated. "Korean," he said flatly.
Princippi hunched further in on himself. He glanced at the Loonies behind him. They were no longer smiling, either. Pink had started to appear quite menacing once more.
The ex-governor resisted the urge to say "What's the difference?" Instead, he mumbled an embarrassed apology. This seemed to mollify Sun. The smile returned, cracking the wide moon face of the cult leader.
"We should not squabble," Sun said. "For this is a great moment. A truly momentous meeting. There has been a turning point in the great cosmic cycle." He closed his eyes. A change appeared to come over the Korean. The smile in his fat face grew wider and settled into lines of great contentment. "Do you not sense it?" Sun asked.
Princippi glanced over his shoulder at the line of Loonies. "Um, yeah," Princippi agreed uncertainly.
"I am glad," Sun replied. "For it has spoken to me, as well. It told me to seek you out." He inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly. "Your mere presence stirs it to greater life within me. My mind and heart thrill in you."
Princippi started to get an even worse feeling than any of the ones he had experienced so far today.
Being bashed on the head by his own Volkswagen hood was okay. Kidnapping? Not a problem. Getting hauled in before a notorious cult leader? Piece of cake. There were far worse things that could happen to a would-be presidential candidate. He hoped one was not about to.
Mike Princippi cleared his throat. He glanced at the line of smiling men behind him. Men being the operative word there. There was not a single female face beneath a shining chrome dome.
"Er, is this some sort of gay thing?" Princippi asked nervously. He quickly held up his hands. "Which is perfectly all right if it is, don't get me wrong. Some of my best friends ...you know? It's just that it's not my cup of herbal tea." He chuckled weakly.
Again, Sun's smile faded. This time, however, it was not a look of disapproval but one of mild confusion.
"You have felt it, have you not?" the cult leader asked.
"Only when I go to the bathroom," Princippi said. "And never around other guys." He shrugged to the Loonies: "Sorry," he added to the silent line of men.
"The presence," Sun guided. "In your mind?"
Princippi turned away from Roseflower and his friends. Something had begun to tingle in the back of his mind. Something dreadfully familiar. Something that he always tried to ignore.
"What are you talking about?" he said, trying to appear innocent. Inwardly he was alarmed.
"Do not lie to me," Sun said. "It is there now. I can feel it, as well."
Princippi tried to suppress the weird sensation in his brain. It was a gentle, persistent stinging. As if rogue synapses had begun to spark and fire like faulty wiring in a set of tangled Christmas-tree lights.
"This is getting a little too weird for me," Princippi said. "May I go now?" He smiled weakly.
Sun shook his head. "You have fought it for too long," he said. "It was wrong of you to do so. It has kept us apart. And without you, I cannot be whole."
The Korean stepped up to Princippi. The exgovernor, though not a tall man himself, was almost as tall as the cult leader.
Princippi realized that the strange stimulation in his brain grew stronger the closer he came to Sun. He tried to quell the fire, but knew from experience that it would not do much good. Not when it was this strong.
Sun raised his hands to the sides of Princippi's head. When the former governor balked, he felt strong arms grab him from behind. The Loonies had clamped hold of him.
The sparking in his brain exploded in a crescendo. It was like the dying moments of a fireworks display played out behind Michael Princippi's eyes. But the crescendo did not end. As Sun rubbed at the ex-governor's face, the pops of brilliant light continued to ignite steadily. For some reason, they were all lit in flaring shades of yellow.
"What is this supposed to be? Some kind of mind meld?" Princippi asked. He tried to make it sound like a joke, but the truth was he was deathly afraid. Sweat beaded on his pasty forehead, dripping in rivulets down his face and around Sun's pressing hands.
"He told you to come to me. To seek me out. Why did you not?" Sun asked. His eyes were closed.
Through the haze of yellow that danced across his retinas, Princippi looked over at Sun. The Korean seemed almost to be in a trance. "This is crazy," he said.
A hand withdrew from his face, only to return sharply. Mike Princippi felt the stinging force of the slap against one gray cheek. The yellow clouds of fire burned more brightly, reveling in the pain inflicted.
"Tell us!" Sun demanded. When he opened his eyes to peer accusingly at Princippi, the former governor recoiled.
Something had happened. It must have been a strange optical illusion. The result of the bursts of light before his own field of vision. That was the only logical explanation.
The Korean's irises appeared to have taken on a bright yellow hue. They were like twin beacons of glowing yellow fire, boring through to his very soul. And the words spilled out before Princippi even knew he was speaking them.
"I thought you'd think I was insane," he blurted, not knowing on what level he had even thought this. He only knew that somewhere in the darkest depths of his repressed mind, it was true.
"And so you kept me from him? Him from me?"
"I didn't know," Princippi begged. "I thought it was like a Son of Sam thing. You know, the dog telling me to go out and kill, or some crackpot junk like that. It all sounded too nuts."
"In spite of what you have already been through?" Sun demanded.
"Especially after that," Princippi said, knowing exactly what it was Sun was referring to.
All at once, Sun pulled his hands away from Princippi's head. The flashes of fire burst one last time and then collapsed inwardly, into a pit of great darkness. For the first time in a long time, the schizophrenic sensation of someone else sharing his mind was no longer with Michael Princippi. It gave him a feeling of great relief. And, oddly, an equal mixture of intense loneliness.