The knife came from behind him and with a whisper. It all happened so quickly, but then...

Short short short long...

Peter Creedy didn't need an education in classical music to recognize Beethoven's fifth symphony. Nonetheless, the tune's opening melody quickly summoned forth his military background.

Short short short long...

Creedy recognized it instantly. Morse code. The letter V. If the devil himself hadn't already put a knife to his throat, Creedy would've commented sarcastically on the coincidence. But even so, coincidence was merely an illusion to cover up the workings of Fate. Einstein had once said that God doesn't play dice with the universe, but he would roll in his grave if he knew the devil didn't either.

"Sutler can no longer trust you, can he, Mr. Creedy?" came the whisper of V from behind him. "And we both know why."

Nothing ever surprised Peter Creedy.

"After I destroy Parliament," said V, moving in front of his victim, while keeping his knife at Creedy's throat. "His only chance will be to offer them someone else, some other piece of meat. And who will that be?"

Short short short long.

V put his victim's throat at knifepoint.

"You, Mr. Creedy," he said, walking Creedy backwards. "A man as smart as you has probably considered this. A man as smart as you probably has a plan. That plan is the reason Sutler no longer trusts you. It's the reason you are being watched right now, why there are eyes and ears in every room of this house and a tap on every phone."

"Bollocks," Creedy dared.

"Oh, a man as smart as you I think knows otherwise," retorted V.

V was correct. After all, he was the one who turned on the symphony in order to keep their whispered conversation clandestine. The men listening in were Sutler's, though, and Creedy didn't trust them nearly enough to call upon them now.

"What do you want?" he whispered instead.

"Sutler."

V released Creedy's throat.

"Come now, Mr. Creedy. You knew this was coming," he said as his dagger found Creedy's cheek. "You knew that one day it would be you or him. That's why Sutler's been kept underground for security purposes. That's why there are several of your men close to Sutler, men that can be counted on. All you have to do is say the word."

"What do I get out of this deal?" Creedy resisted.

"Me," the devil responded.

Creedy stared into the slits of the Guy Fawkes mask before him, half in disbelief and half in victory. Neither showed on his face. His military background had seen to that.

V raised a piece of chalk in his left hand.

"If you accept, put an X on your front door."

Creedy looked at the chalk and raised his right arm to accept it. But then he realized this was far too good a chance to be true. He snapped his gaze again to V.

"Why should I trust you?"

V's knife sealed Creedy's lips.

"Because it's the only way you are ever going to stop me."

Without any options, Creedy's hand sealed over the chalk, and the devil vanished into the night.

V knew at that precise moment that he would not be finished with Peter Creedy. The trap was set, but not yet baited. However, in due time, it would all come to pass. After all, it was merely the thirteenth of October. Weeks remained before the revolution, and everything was going according to plan. Evey was out of the picture, Eric Finch was waiting patiently for William Rookwood, Creedy was at least considering V's offer. Now, all V needed to do was concentrate on manipulating Sutler.

A few days later, Eric Finch had discovered that William Rookwood had been long since dead. This didn't bother V in the least since he was already quite finished with the detective. The detective was angered beyond all belief, especially since he could no longer rely on Rookwood's -- that is, V's -- story to be true, even though it likely was.

October the twenty-second was when the chaos started. V had spent the last month working on a special surprise for Sutler and his men. He had readied several hundred thousand of his masks and capes to send out among the citizens of London. It had been a hefty price to reproduce the masks and capes as well as to get them shipped, but it barely took a few paintings from the Shadow Gallery to cover the expenses he had incurred, and in the long run, he knew it would be worth it. He had researched it well and dealt with representatives of these companies who sympathized with what he had said on his broadcast almost a year prior.

Now that the masks and capes were scattered throughout all of London, Sutler and his men started to see V's face everywhere and were driven mad by their inability to stop it. That same day, Sutler ordered the arrest of anyone wearing a mask for any reason, but it was already too late. The masks gave ordinary citizens the means by which to become rebels. Some defaced Norsefire propoganda with the red encircled V. Others held up convenience stores and banks. The city was quickly turning to chaos, all within a single day. It was amazing what power one could gain simply by hiding his face within a mask.

As V's master plan was nearly finished, he placed the last final dominos in sequence. As he had foreseen, Sutler placed all of the blame for V's actions on Creedy, unknowingly pushing him to ally with V. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, V thought.

In the meantime, V had left both the pawns to their own devices. While Creedy gave in and marked his door with an X, Finch had done something not even V could have anticipated.

"The whole city has gone mad," Dominic said, reading all the reports that had come in.

"This is what exactly he wants," Finch replied. "Chaos."

He knew he was right. After the masks and capes were sent out, he had become well aware of what the London citizens were now capable of.

"The problem," Finch continued, "Is that he knows us better than we know ourselves. That's why I went to Larkhill last night."

"But that's outside quarantine!"

"I had to see it. There wasn't much left, but when I was there, it was strange. I suddenly had this feeling that everything was connected. It was like I could see the whole thing. One long chain of events that stretched all the way back to before Larkhill. I felt like I could see everything that had happened and everything that was going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern, laid out in front of me, and I realized that we were all part of it and all trapped by it."

Dominic had stayed there listening intently. Finch hadn't told him that it had been a drug-induced revelation.

"So do you know what is going to happen?" he asked.

"No," Finch said. "It was a feeling. But I can guess. With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid. And when they do, things will turn nasty. And then Sutler will be forced to do the only thing that he knows how to do, at which point, all V needs to do is keep his word..."

Creedy had used V's chalk to mark an X on his door, just like the supervisors at Larkhill had marked the doors of those who had died in their horrific experiments. In the same way, Creedy had decided unknowingly to die in V's horrific experiment, his vengeance, his vendetta.

That was the final domino in the sequence.

V knew that everything had been set up according to his will. There were no problems or flaws whatsoever. The arrangement of dominos before him was perfect. It was a perfect symbol of the feelings of rebellion and revolution that he held so dear, led to by a short line, like the fuse to a bomb. He needed only -- as Finch had said -- to keep his word, and... the fuse would be lit.

V knocked over the first domino with his finger. That domino was Guy Fawkes. The rest of the dominos fell accordingly. The war. Norsefire. Ruth. Valerie. Larkhill. Stanton. Lilliman. Prothero. Evey's parents. St. Mary's. Three Waters. Evey. The Old Bailey. Prothero's death. Lilliman's. Surridge's. Finch's discovery of the truth. Gordon's death. Evey's "kidnapping." Finch hearing V's story. William Rookwood. Creedey's baiting. The masks. Creedey's acceptance.

And at that point, the fuse ran out, and the bomb of dominoes exploded all over the floor of the Shadow Gallery. Dominos flew everywhere, many taking others down with it. Red and black ones fell alike: normal civilians and Norsefire cronies. Riots and protests would start it, and all the chaos that had been sown would be reaped a thousandfold.

Standing well above blaze of the symbolic disaster which would surely leave many dead and even more injured, V could see only one thing. As more dominoes fell and pushed further dominos down, they created a wonderful pattern on the gallery floor: that of a red encircled V, surrounding all of Norsefire's men and the army that would no doubt be called on to surpress his rebellion.

And then a loud click resounded through the room, echoing off the very walls. Something had occurred that V certainly had not counted on. At one point, two dominos had both struck the final one from opposite sides. He recalled quickly what he had said to Evey months before, right before she left him: "It is a basic principle of the universe that every action will create an equal and opposite reaction." However, when two things act equally on a third, from opposite sides, the reaction is nullified.

Like Finch visiting Larkhill, this was something that V could not possibly have predicted. In the bitter scourge that would happen in the name of revolution and vengeance, there was one red domino that refused to be knocked down, one that he certainly hadn't counted on. It was then that Evey's words came back to him: "And they created a monster."

Evey's words resounded through his head like nothing he had ever heard before. Was it merely a coincidence that this red domino stood in defiance of all that he stood for himself? His speech from almost an entire year ago returned to haunt him: "While the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and, for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth." Evey was right. Could he really do this?

He got up quickly and withdrew the lone domino from the wreckage, inspecting it, as if to be sure it was real, like all the rest. Was it really just a coincidence? Was there even such a thing?

No. There was no such thing as coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence. Then he remembered, Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. Was it really his choice to act or to remain silent?

No. V knew that this was destined to happen. He knew how it would end too, with his hands around Creedy's neck. He that dies pays all debts. With that, he withdrew back into the darkness, where the overanalyzation of these unforseen circumstances nearly drove him as crazy as he had driven Sutler.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Nearly as crazy.

November the fouth. It was one year since he had first met Evey Hammond. One year since she had become entangled in his conspiracy. One year since he had fallen in love with her.

He had decided. Whether it was coincidence or fate, he knew not, but the red domino had tought him something. In the real scheme of things, he would place that domino as the last one in the fuse that he would light tonight, starting with Suttler and Creedy. It would be that domino's decision whether it would remain standing, or whether it would allow itself to fall to V's will and allow Parliament to be destroyed and his vengeance to be completed.

He wasn't sure that his "domino" would return as she had said before the fifth, but if she did, it would be her decision instead. He loved her enough to grant her at least that. It was then that her words had come to him: "It made me feel sorry for Mercedes. Because he cared more about revenge than he did about her."

But he was not Edmond Dantes. He was V. Even though he knew he would be on his deathbed this very night, he knew that he cared far more for Evey Hammond than for his revenge.