"Want?" the young man asked. "We want nothing of you, friend Michael. What we want is to give you something."
Princippi licked his lips. "Can't you give it to me here?" he asked. He eyed the closed van door. "Stop the car and we'll have a little presentation ceremony right now."
"The gift we give you cannot be given by us," the man said. "I am Roseflower, by the way. If by knowing my name you will become more at ease."
"Roseflower, huh?" Princippi scoffed. "Is that the name your parents gave you or is it your Loonie name?"
The former governor seemed to have found the one thing that erased the smiles from the faces of the men around him. As one, the mindless grins receded into pale faces, replaced by expressions of pinched disapproval.
"That is not an acceptable term," Roseflower said
"What isn't?" Princippi asked. He racked his brain, trying to remember what he had just said. The gathered men did not seem to want to help him in any way. All at once, the light dawned. "Loonie!" he announced.
The expressions grew more dour. Seeing this, Princippi frowned, as well.
"We do not appreciate that appellation," Roseflower said stiffly.
"I thought that's what you were," Princippi said, his voice betraying uncertainty.
"The proper name is Sunnie," Roseflower insisted. "That other is a derisive designation created by the enemies of our leader."
"Okay, so you're Sunnies," Princippi conceded with a shrug of his slight shoulders. "Can I see a little more of the name reflected in your dispositions?"
The rest seemed to follow Roseflower's lead. His smile returned, thinner now than before. Bland grins appeared on the faces of the others.
"Are we friends again?" Princippi asked hopefully.
"Of course," Roseflower said. His idiotic smile widened. The others followed suit.
"Friends would do anything for one another, wouldn't they?" Princippi asked hopefully.
"I'm not going to let you go, Michael."
Dejected, Princippi's shoulders sunk even farther into his slight frame.
"Some friend you turned out to be," he grumbled.
He spent the rest of the long trip in gloomy depression.
THE VAN DID NOT STOP for several more hours. When it finally did, Princippi hoped it was at a gas station. The minute he heard the words "Fill it up," he planned to scream for all he was worth.
Hope gave way to despair when the rear doors of the van were at last pulled open.
Cool air and bland artificial light poured into the fetid interior. Princippi noted that the air smelled vaguely of gasoline and car exhaust.
His legs ached from alternately kneeling and sitting on the hard floor of the van. Helpful hands brought him to his feet and guided him down onto a cold, flat concrete floor.
It was a parking garage. Underground by the looks of it. Black oil stains filled the spaces between angled parallel white lines. A large red number 2 was painted on the wall near a set of closed elevator doors, and 2nd Basement Level was stenciled in cheery green letters beneath it.
His Loonie escort guided Princippi to the elevator. The doors opened as if by magic. He was whisked upward.
The elevator carried them from the subbasement parking garage up to the seventh floor. When the doors opened once more, they revealed a sterile corridor of eggshell white. Princippi was trundled out onto a rugged blue wall-to-wall carpet.
As he was hustled along the hallway, the former governor noted several large signs spaced along the walls that read Editorials, Features, Advertising and the like. Arrows below the names indicated the direction in which one might find each department.
He began to get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach far deeper than the one he had felt all day. If this was what he thought...
Doors parted at the end of the corridor, and he was escorted into what was obviously the city room of a large newspaper. Unlike most papers this size, however, there was not a hint of staff on duty.
A row of huge sheets of opaque glass fined the entire far wall of the large room. The pink-robed men led him past rows of vacant desks with their attendant idle computer terminals to the single door that nestled amid the glass.
The name on the door gave Michael Princippi a chill: 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.