Interviewer: Agent Ryan Christchurch.

Interviewee: PoI-54112 (Paul Hagenson)

Date: Liberary 45th, 2010.

Christchurch: Okay, let's begin. You've actively resisted our attempts at making contact in the past, Mr. Hagenson-

PoI-54112: Paul, please.

Christchurch: -so why talk to us now?

PoI-54112: Can you blame me? Everyone knows how you operate. People locked away, weird shit in secret black-sites all over the world. I don't have much interest spending my time trapped in a cage. But, I've grown tired of spending time I should be enjoying looking over my shoulder, and I've recently become aware of something that affords me a little… leverage.

Christchurch: And what's that?

PoI-54112: First, let me ask you; what do you know about me?

Christchurch: You founded the Children of Liber during Liberary 1983 and have led them since. You've become known in certain circles for your somewhat extravagant parties, even considering the normal things that go on during Liberary. You've been tied to various anomalous goings-on almost every Liberary for the last 30 years.

PoI-54112: Anything else?

A brief silence.

Christchurch: No. You don't seem to exist outside of the event.

PoI-54112: I used to. Be out there, I mean.

Christchurch: How did you leave baseline time? Did you create the temporal anomaly?

PoI-54112: No, no I didn't create it. I'm just a man. I used to be a rich and powerful man. Owned a giant, faceless corporation in the seventies.

Christchurch: What changed?

PoI-54112: Cancer. It was treatable, of course. As I said, I was rich. But you know how these things work. You're never really cured of cancer. You're just on a clock, waiting down the days until it rears its ugly head again. And I was already 58. It's become a bit of a cliché, I know, but the whole affair made me aware of my own mortality. So I decided to do something about it.

Christchurch: About mortality.

PoI-54112: Why not? You must have seen some unusual things working for your Foundation. You must know the kinds of shit you can find out there if you look hard enough.

Christchurch: So what did you do?

PoI-54112: The same thing every rich asshole would do in my situation. I visited every hack, wack-job and voodoo magic man I could find who might have what I was looking for. Hey, it was the seventies. None of them did, of course. But I did catch wind of something. Do you believe in anything, Mr. Foundation? A God?

Christchurch: No. No, not really.

PoI-54112: Ah, but you've seen things, haven't you? I can see it in your eyes. Things that claim to be gods, or as close enough to them as humans are ever likely to care about.

Christchurch: Are you saying you found a god?

PoI-54112: Or something that was close enough. He was old. Dying, I think, if gods even can die. The great Liber, Roman god of wine, fertility and freedom.

PoI-54112 gestures dramatically.

PoI-54112: I don't know if he actually was what he claimed to be, but he certainly believed it. He was bitter, too. Angry about being forgotten. He ranted on about how his fellow gods were all immortalised by the calendar or how they had become pop-culture darlings. But not poor old Liber.

Christchurch: You made a deal with a dying god.

PoI-54112: Bingo. Ironically, I'd gone looking for something to try and solve the issue of my own mortality, only to find a dying god who couldn't solve his own. He couldn't make me immortal, but he could give me time. Endless time. A strange distinction, but there it is.

Christchurch: This being created the extra time?

PoI-54112: Oh no, no. I don't think so. No, I think the repeating time was already there. A natural phenomenon maybe. Of course, no one remembered it. It could have been happening for centuries. Millennia even, for all I know. No, he gave people memories. Turned me into an anchor of sorts, I guess. Put a little bit of whatever was left of him inside of me. As long as I exist, he exists, and people will remember what happened last Liberary. And since I'm now linked to it, I can't not exist. I had to give up my original life, obviously. Was all but forgotten by the world. But it was worth the price.

Christchurch: And what did this Liber person get out of it?

PoI-54112: To be remembered, of course. To live on a little. All any being of great power ultimately wants. So I made sure the extra time would be named after him. Founded the Children. For 47 days out of the year, Liber is the biggest game in town.

Christchurch: And you get to spend your time hosting orgies and eating enough food to feed a small country.

PoI-54112 laughs.

PoI-54112: Understand, from my perspective it's only been a few years since this all started. Whatever you consider normal time doesn't exist for me. But I'll admit, that aspect of it all has started to wear a little thin. That's not what we're here to talk about, though, is it.

Christchurch: You mentioned something about leverage. I assume you're going to attempt to blackmail us now.

PoI-54112: Please, understand that I don't do this maliciously. It's actually out of my control. But as I said, I'm tired of having to look over my shoulder constantly in case some faceless Foundation goon grabs me and locks me in a box. So I'm hoping we can come to some sort of arrangement.

Christchurch: I'm listening.

PoI-54112: Liberary is my entire existence. My impact on your world is limited, but it's not non-existent. You lose nothing by leaving me be. The world already knows about the Foundation and all the weird shit you deal with during Liberary. None of the "anomalous" stuff in my circle is harmful. Most of it is just side-effects from having part of Liber inside me, I think. The remnants of an old god amusing itself.

Christchurch: We lose nothing by leaving you alone. What do we gain, then?

PoI-54112: As I said before, I'm something of an anchor now. While I'm here, I keep whatever this all is-

PoI-54112 gestures vaguely around the room.

PoI-54112: -pinned down. Solid. Whole. When I'm not here - for example when Foundation soldiers burst into one of my parties and shoot me dead. Well, things become a little less solid.

Christchurch: What are you implying?

PoI-54112: I'll spell it out for you. Every time I've died, something bad has happened. Something big. I don't know why, maybe it's the result of that last piece of a god living inside of me actually dying. But they've started to bleed over into your time. The last time I died, that storm in Australia leaked over and caused all sorts of trouble. How many people died? Nine, ten thousand? That was the worst so far, but it wasn't the first.

Christchurch: So you're holding the world hostage?

PoI-54112: Oh don't be so dramatic. Like I said, this isn't intentional. I felt terrible when I realised the connection. I've taken a lot less risks since then, just in case. But like I said, I also have little interest being hunted. So here's the deal. You leave me be, to go about my business at no cost to your self or your precious "normality" or whatever you call it. And in return, I won't kill myself every time I think you're even getting a little close.

Christchurch: We could just keep you sedated. Put you under every time Liberary starts again.

PoI-54112: That would work once. Next Liberary I'd wake up somewhere else. Certainly not in your little jail cells. And then you'd have to track me down all over again, and risk my getting killed. Why take the chance?