J'ACCUSE...AHHH!

On a well-upholstered chaise longue in a dark, wood-panelled room at The Authors' Club in Paris one day in 1898, famous novelist Emile Zola was holding forth to a couple of cronies:-

"Of course, that whole "two babies swapped at birth" plot is as dead as a doornail. Who, or perhaps I should say, qui, would still use that tired old cliché with a straight face? Of course, Dickens did...but, then, we all know about Monsieur Dickens and his improbable plots!"

On the chair opposite, J.K. Huysmans puffed at a large cigar. "I must agree with you, mon vieux! After all, we are supposed to be the cutting edge of la littérature francaise. Forget about "babies swapped at birth," who even needs any sort of plot these days? After all, I wrote a whole book about some rich shut-in dude rambling on about art and how rubbish the modern world is, and look what a best-seller that was!"

In the corner, Guy de Maupassant gave a Gallic shrug. In fairness, as a Frenchman, he really couldn't do any other kind. "Hélas, mes amis, I have nothing to contribute on this subject. Or any other actually, as I have been dead for five years and this hack fanfiction writer's only throwing me in for flavour."

Zola nodded sympathetically. "Ah, bien sûr, a little creative anachronism, I have surely used that trick myself. However, what I don't understand is..."

We will never know what Zola did not understand, however, for it was time for the plot to start (absolutely) and the franglais to stop (mostly). The heavy door to the lounge of The Author's Club suddenly burst open. Through it barged a tall, burly Far Eastern man sporting questionable facial hair, a huge bush of head hair and an even more questionable claret coloured suit. With him were two other Asians – one as tall and burly as the first, in a blue jacket, the other smaller and wearing a filthy looking grey parka. They were pushing a club servant in front of them, ignoring his protestations of "Messieurs, this is an old-timey gentlemens' club and we admit white men of letters only! No chicks either!"

"Aw, put a sock in it, Jeeves!" shouted the claret-suited man, before punching the servant in the face and sending his unconscious body bowling across the lounge until a wall brought it to an abrupt halt.

Zola got to his feet. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded angrily.

" Are you Emily Zola?" demanded the claret-suited man.

"I am Emile Zola!"

"Close enough. I think this is our man, guys!" He nodded to his accomplices, each of whom grabbed one of Zola's arms and began to drag him bodily out of the room.

"Help! Help! I'm being kidnapped!" shouted Zola, kicking and struggling.

"Yeah, I guess you are," said the man in the parka.

Huysmans sprang to his feet and grabbed his cane. "This is an outrage!" he cried, but before he could say or do anything else, the claret-suited man slugged him and he crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Then the man turned and followed his accomplices out of the room. By this time, the larger of the two had clamped a chloroform-soaked rag over Zola's mouth, silencing his protestations.

In his corner, de Maupassant shrugged again. He was sure that Zola could look after himself and, in any case, he had little choice but to believe that. The lounge was the place he haunted and he couldn't go anywhere else. He grabbed another brandy for himself, and also a decanter of water, which he began pouring over Huysmans' face.

When Zola regained consciousness, he was tied to a chair which sat in the centre of a small, bare room. It was lit only by the grey light admitted through a small window. He felt woozy, his head ached and, he realised with a pang of horror, his top hat was no longer on it. The three men who had snatched him stood in a ring around the chair.

"He's coming round, Kasuga-san," said the blue-jacketed man to his claret-suited friend.

"Thanks, Adachi-san," the latter replied. "How are you feeling, Monsieur Zola?"

"I've felt better. But it looks like I'm alive, so there's that."

"Good!" said the claret-suited man, with more earnestness than Zola expected. "I'm sorry we had to do things this way, but we were in a hurry and it was the easiest way of getting hold of me."

"You could have written a letter."

"We thought about that, but none of us speak English," said the man in the parka."

"That wouldn't have been a problem. I don't either," replied Zola.

"Dammit, guys, I told you we should have given it a shot!" snapped the claret-suited man.

Zola sighed with the tone of a man faced with the inescapable conclusion that, yes, he was surrounded by idiots.

"Eh bien," he said. "Am I going to get an explanation for this? I assume you want something from me. I believe it's traditional at this point to say, "If you want money, I haven't got any." Well, I have, so if you let me write a note for my wife she can arrange for the payment of whatever ransom you like, within reason."

The claret-suited man looked shocked. "No, no, no! This isn't a kidnapping for ransom!" He bowed to Zola. "Let me introduce myself – I am Ichiban Kasuga, and these are my friends Koichi Adachi and Yu Nanba." He gestured at the blue-jacketed man and the man in the parka respectively. "We're from Japan, and we fight crime."

"I mean, we kind of fight crime," interjected Nanba. "But we sort of defend it too. Also, we're a bit criminal ourselves."

"Hey, speak for yourself, pal!" said Adachi, indignantly.

"OK, maybe that's an exaggeration. But we certainly aren't, like, 100% legit."

"So if you're criminals, why don't you want a ransom?" asked Zola. "And if you're Japanese, why are you wearing those weird-looking clothes and not kimonos and top-knots? I know what Japanese people look like – I've seen Monsieur de Toulouse-Lautrec's posters."

Kasuga grinned like a dog that had just been thrown a treat. "Well, you see, we don't wear old-fashioned clothes because we're from the future – the twenty-first century! And we've come here on a mission to find you, Monsieur Zola!"

Zola groaned. He was now convinced he was surrounded not merely by idiots, but by complete lunatics.

"Mon dieu! Well, I'll humour you, since you have the upper hand. Why have you come from the future to find me in 1898?"

"Because we need you to write a book," said Adachi.

"Not a book, a newspaper article," corrected Nanba. "Or that was what Professor Okita told Kasuga-san, anyway."

" A newspaper article? What about?"

"About Captain Alfred Dreyfus," said Kasuga.

"Alfred Dreyfus? Why would I write an article about him? That despicable traitor got what he deserved! He can rot on Devil's Island as far as I'm concerned!"

"No, no, you don't understand," persisted Kasuga. "Dreyfus is innocent! He was framed for being a German spy! It's a huge miscarriage of justice, and if you don't do something to publicise it right now, the whole of world history is about to take a turn for the worse!"

Zola had just about had enough of this nonsense. However, before he could tell Kasuga to go to hell, as he fully intended to, they heard the noise of many feet clattering up wooden stairs. Then the door to the room burst open. Half a dozen fresh-faced young men in blazers and straw boaters pushed through the doorway and took up fighting stances in front of it. In response, Kasuga, Adachi and Nanba turned to face the men and also raised their fists, ready for a fight.

"Our spies told us you filthy Orientals would be hiding in an attic room at the Hotel du Paradis!" shouted a blond young man, who seemed to be the leader of the new arrivals. "But no-one can hide for long from the Camelots du Roi! Come quietly, or we'll beat you senseless!"

Kasuga shrugged. "Bring it!"

About ten minutes later, Kasuga, Zola and the others were running at full pelt thought the streets of Paris, away from the Hotel du Paradis and from the uproar that had begun once everyone else in the building realised that a fist fight had broken out on the top floor. Top-hatted men and women in long silk dresses strolling the boulevards stared at the quartet in amazement as they pounded past.

Zola was not the most athletic of men.

"Did you have to beat that fellow unconscious with a chair?" he gasped, as they ran.

"It's called an improvised weapon," replied Nanba.

"I know that, you imbecile! But you could have untied me from it first!"

"All the extra weight really upped the amount of damage it did, though."

"Monsieur Zola, I'm really sorry!" called out Kasuga. "But we had no choice but to fight those guys. And, well, we have untied you now!"

They ran into a residential square of imposing mansions, in the centre of which was a small garden surrounded by iron railings. It was really just a square of lawn with some neatly trimmed laurel bushes around it. The noise of the hue and cry following them had more or less faded away now.

"Can we please stop?" begged Zola. "I'm exhausted!"

They paused by the railings, against which Zola leant, eyes closed and panting heavily.

"Hey, you're only the same age as me," said Adachi, disapprovingly. "You need to work out a bit if running down the street exhausts you!"

Eventually, Zola opened his eyes again, straightened up and said:-

"Well, if nothing else, you've convinced me of one thing. If the Royalist movement is taking the trouble to send out its private goon squad to stop you, there just might be something in what you're saying. Firstly, I hate the fucking Royalists! And secondly, if there's no doubt that Dreyfus is guilty, why are they trying to physically suppress anyone who doesn't agree?"

Adachi glanced over towards Kasuga. "I think we're pretty safe here. Let's give him the papers."

The group went into the garden through an unlocked gate and sat down on a bench. Kasuga pulled a large brown manila envelope stuffed with various papers from his jacket pocket and handed it to Zola.

"I was asked to give you these to read," he said.

"Asked by who?" said Zola.

A few days earlier, Kasuga was sitting in an uncomfortable moulded plastic chair in the small office of Professor Okita. The office adjoined the Professor's laboratory, a much larger space filled with work benches which were themselves cluttered with equipment and with the parts of several inventions in various stages of development. Kasuga was shaking his head.

"It's just...it's a lot to take in, that's all," he told the older man. "The last time I saw you, you were testing a giant street-cleaning roomba and we both nearly got killed in the process. Now you're telling me you've got a fully-working time machine?"

"Yes, that's exactly it. I appreciate it's probably a little difficult to believe."

"No kidding!" said Kasuga. "I thought time travel was just something from science fiction! And if you really have invented something so important, how come I'm not finding out about it from wall-to-wall coverage on TV news?"

The Professor sighed. "Ichiban, a time machine is a device of unimaginable power. Really unimaginable power. I mean, you probably think a street-cleaning roomba was pretty mind-blowing, but that's just peanuts compared to time machines...Anyway, they aren't necessarily something you want the world to know about. If this ends up in the wrong hands, you could get all kinds of fanatics and crazies charging around history trying to change it to their advantage."

"So why do you have to tell me about it?"

"So you can charge around history and change it to our advantage. Well, not just to our advantage, but to everyone's advantage. You grew up in New Tokyo, didn't you? You must know all about Old Tokyo."

"I know it's an enormous irradiated ruin from when the Americans nuked it near the end of the Second World War. They had to completely rebuild the city some distance away."

"Yes. That was the Second World War. Well, you can trace what happened then back to the First World War. Germany, Austria-Hungary and France teamed up against Russia and won. Britain came in on Russia's side, but too late. It was the end of the Tsars in Russia, and of the British Empire too. And as a result, when Hitler came to power in Germany some years later, teamed up with Japan and started round two with the Russians, there was no-one in a position to stop him except the Americans and their nuclear weapons. That mass bombing caused untold devastation to Europe and Japan – what happened in Old Tokyo's only scratching the surface."

"OK, but what does that have to do with your time machine?"

"Ichiban," said the Professor. "The only reason that France took the side it did in the First World War was because the Royalists were in power. And the main reason for that was Captain Alfred Dreyfus."

"Captain who?" asked Kasuga.

"A Jewish staff officer who was charged with being a German spy in 1893. His conviction and imprisonment on Devil's Island made him a symbol of what happened when Jews were in positions of trust and helped rally support for nationalist and anti-Semitic parties like the Royalists."

"It's a pity they reacted like that...but if he was a spy, then it can't be helped."

"Well, that's the point. As a result of some experimental journeys in my time-machine, I have uncovered evidence that Dreyfus was not guilty at all. The whole case against him was fake, put together by other officers in the French Army to cover up for the real spy. He was framed, and I've got evidence of it!"

The Professor opened one of his desk drawers and produced from it an envelope stuffed with papers.

"Here's that evidence. I want you to go back to 1890s France and put it in the hands of a man who can generate maximum publicity for it. Ichiban, if you succeed, we can change history to avoid enormous devastation, millions of deaths and unbelievably heavy-handed messaging in the Metal Gear series of games. Can you think of a greater benefit to humanity?"

Kasuga held up his right hand to block the envelope passing to him. "But, Professor, I'm a yakuza, not a time-traveller! I don't do...subtle stuff! Give me a good fight no matter what the odds, and I know where I am. But tracking someone down in the past and persuading him to save this Dreyfus guy? I don't think that's my style. Why can't you do it?"

"Well, firstly," said the Professor, "I'm picking you exactly because whoever does this might run into to a fight. And, as for me, my tragic anime backstory is being physically uncoordinated."

"And secondly?"

The Professor's eyes shifted uneasily.

"I may have accidentally tipped off the Royalists about my plan during the initial trip and put them on the look-out for anyone following me. Sorry, but I stood out like a sore thumb in Paris."

Kasuga shook his head in disbelief. "So the enemy knows I'm coming? Oh, great – that's just a layer of crap icing on top of the shit gateau! For all I know, there might be dozens of armed men waiting to ambush me the minute I turn up!"

There was a short and awkward pause.

"But you will do it, won't you?" said the Professor, finally.

Kasuga grinned. "Hey, I'm Ichiban Kasuga, Professor! "Hero" is practically my middle name, which is an achievement in a country that doesn't even have middle names! When did I ever turn down a quest?"

He took the envelope from Okita's relieved hands. "I'll get the rest of the guys over here to discuss this."

"So that's what happened," said Kasuga to the other three.

"Jeez, that was a long story," muttered Adachi.

"Yeah, at one point I was wondering whether he'd launch into how he met his children's mother or something," added Nanba.

While Kasuga had been talking, Zola had been reading his way though the papers from the envelope.

"Nom d'un nom!" He dropped them into his lap. "Your friend is right, Monsieur Kasuga! These documents prove it! Another officer was the spy and Dreyfus is merely a scapegoat. We must act to bring this to the attention of the public! I will ask my friends at the newspaper L'Aurore to publish an article by me, in which I set out the truth!"

Kasuga grinned. "That's great, Monsieur Zola! Just what we came here to achieve!"

Zola looked up at him sheepishly. "Well...having said that, I might still need some help from you to get this done. You see, the offices of L'Aurore are on the other side of Paris. And I am now a hunted man..."

Nanba raised his hand. "Say no more, Monsieur Zola. We all know what's coming..."

"...An escort mission," chimed in Adachi.

"Perhaps we should take a hackney carriage, for safety's sake," said Zola.

The four of them left the garden and crossed the square to the wide boulevard adjoining it. It was lined on both sides with expensive-looking shops and elegantly-dressed couples, often preceded by dogs on leads or small children rolling hoops with sticks, strolled up and down both pavements. They quickly found a rank of cabs, waiting for passengers.

"Can I help you, messieurs?" asked the first driver in line. He was a large, bowler-hatted man with a black moustache, an eyepatch over one eye, a broken nose and a long, twisted red scar running across one side of his face. Tatoo ink spilled out from under his shirt cuffs on to the back of his hands and, when he smiled, he revealed a number of gaps in his mouth where teeth used to be.

"Kasuga-san...can we have a think about this?" asked Adachi. "I think this might be kind of a high-risk option."

"I'll take you anywhere in the city for only a franc," added the driver. "That's only half what any of the other drivers will charge."

"He's got a point, you know," said Kasuga. "How much French money have we got left.

The four men quickly went through their pockets.

"Four francs!" cried Kasuga. He turned to Zola. "I thought you said you had money?"

"Alors, I didn't say I carried all of it in my pockets at once! I had some change on me – it must have fallen out when your friend over there decided to use me as an improvised weapon!" He practically spat out the words.

Nanba rolled his eyes. "It ain't my fault you never bought a change purse, buddy."

Adachi sighed. "Well, looks like we've got no choice. We need to hold on to some money for other things."

They clambered into the back of the cab, the driver took the reins and yelled "Giddy up!" at his (bony, tired-looking) horse and it rolled out on to the wide boulevard. They passed by other cabs, carts stacked high with merchandise for the shops and the occasional carriage containing someone looking both prosperous and pleased to be noticed.

Enough descriptive prose, though; I think you know perfectly well in what direction this particular horse-drawn vehicle's heading. It wasn't long before the cab took a sharp turn down a side street, Zola exclaimed to the driver "Monsieur, this is not the right way to the offices of L'Aurore and the latter turned around in his seat and pointed a revolver at his passengers.

"Keep quiet and don't do anything stupid, Messieurs, or I'll use it!" he said.

"Unbelievable!" said Kasuga.

"What are you talking about, you idiot!" replied Adachi. "Not only is it totally believable, I more or less warned you it might happen!"

Kasuga decided the best reply would take the form of actions, not words. Fortunately, whoever had planned this kidnapping had left one man to try and control four others and a horse at the same time. Even with a gun, it just didn't work. As the cab came out of the side street and turned again, the driver had to holster his revolver and take the reins in both hands.

Once the driver had turned away to do this, Kasuga shot up from his seat and smashed a fist into the side of his face. With a yelp of pain, the driver dropped the reins. Then, Kasuga pushed him hard. He tumbled off the driver's seat to one side, falling right on top of a fruit stall by the side of the road. Piles of apples and oranges were sent rolling everywhere and panicked customers jumped back to dodge the stall as it collapsed.

The cab was now driverless and, unfortunately, whilst he had beaten up tigers and monkeys, Kasuga had never ridden a horse before.

"Er...woah! Woah! STOP!" he yelled at the horse, flapping the reins ineffectually. The horse realised that the driver was gone and did what horses usually do faced with something sudden and unexpected – it bolted.

The cab careered down the street behind the whinnying quadruped, lurching sickeningly from side to side as it did. It smashed into the lampposts lining the pavement and overturned other vehicles. Some overturned themselves as the horses pulling them panicked and bolted too. There was panic among the nearby pedestrians too, with shoppers fleeing in all directions. Their cries of surprise and fear mingled with the oaths of angry cart drivers trying to control their panicking beasts. In the cab, Adachi, Nanba and Zola grabbed hold of whatever they could, including each other, and clung on for dear life.

Meanwhile, Kasuga somehow managed to remain standing in the driver's place, yelling at the top of his voice "WHOA! WHOA GODDAMMIT!" How the cab would have come to a halt without crashing into an immovable object is anyone's guess, but not a guess that anyone has to make. A tall, bearded man in top hat and frock coat pushed his way through the fleeing crowd to a point roughly opposite the cab, produced a rifle from under his coat, raised it to his shoulder and fired a single deadly shot through the horse's head.

The horse stopped dead in its tracks and fell over to one side. The cab, however, kept moving. It had enough momentum to snap the wooden poles and most of the leather straps connecting it to the horse, but not to drag the horse's body far. Instead, it gave a final sideways lurch and toppled over in the opposite direction from the horse, with a crash of broken glass and splintered wood.

The bearded man strolled over towards the cab as its four passengers, bruised and battered, staggered to their feet and climbed out. He was accompanied by a group of younger, more muscular men in blazers and straw hats.

"Welcome to Paris, mes amis japonais! I am Maurice Pujo, lieutenant of Action Française and chief of the Camelots du Roi. Of course, I could have shot at least one of you just now, but I prefer more honourable methods. Shall we see whether European or Oriental methods of hand-to-hand combat are superior?"

"You bet!" snarled Kasuga, taking up a defensive stance.

Adachi was still feeling dizzy and seasick from the cab's last ride. "What did he say he was a lieutenant of?" he asked Nanba.

Nanba shrugged. "Eh, he's a senior bad guy and we have to beat him. No-one understands all those convoluted details of Yakuza organisation and ranking anyway. Even the Mafia's simpler."

Pujo slung his rifle across his back, unscrewed the top of his silver-topped cane and drew a long blade from it. The other men pulled out knives and cudgels. Seeing this, Zola ducked back into the wreckage of the cab. "The interpersonal violence is your business, mes amis," he whispered. "I am an artist, not a fighter!"

"Just what I was expecting," muttered Nanba.

Kasuga, Nanba and Adachi launched themselves into the group of Royalists. Fists flew, legs kicked out, cudgels were swung through the air. Kasuga went directly for Pujo with his katana. Steel clashed with steel and sparks flew from the blades, as the two men circled around each other, looking for an opening, striking and parrying. Pujo was a skilled duellist, but the blade of the katana was longer than his sword stick, allowing Kasuga to reach him when he could not reach Kasuga.

Frustrated with his lack of success, Pujo decided to take a risk and bring his gun to a swordfight. Throwing down his sword stick, he grabbed the rifle across his back. Not exactly a close-combat weapon, he thought, but it only needs to work once.

Kasuga seized the moment and kicked Pujo in the groin whilst his hands were otherwise engaged. With a yell of pain, Pujo fell to the ground. Kasuga then grabbed the rifle out of his hands and smashed him over the head with the butt.

"Looks like our methods of hand-to-hand combat win out!" he shouted at Pujo as the latter lapsed into unconsciousness.

Meanwhile, Adachi and Nanba, fighting back to back, had steadily disarmed the Camelots and brought each of them down with well-aimed punches and kicks to the head. Several were still up and fighting when Kasuga defeated Pujo, but that was enough for them, especially when Kasuga approached with his katana raised. The remaining Camelots turned and fled the scene.

"Is it safe to come out now?" called Zola, from his hiding place.

The street was in uproar. Everyone who hadn't fled from the runaway cab had been standing around cheering for one side or another in the fight, depending on whether they hated the Royalists or thought they were the best thing since crème brulée. Kasuga and the others could hear the distant sound of whistles being blown.

"Yeah," replied Adachi. "But it sounds like the cops are on the way. Let's not wait for them to arrive!"

The four of them turned and ran for it.

A few hours later, Kasuga, Nanba and Adachi sat around in an ante-room at the offices of L'Aurore. It was really more of a cloakroom in which three chairs had hastily been placed. Overcoats and top or bowler hats hung on the iron hooks fixed to the walls like giant bats clinging to the walls of a cave.

Kasuga glanced at his watch. "Monsieur Zola seems to be taking forever about this!"

"Well, literature takes time to create, Kasuga-san," said Nanba.

"It's only a goddamn newspaper article, though," grumbled Kasuga.

"Hey, it's one that might change history," said Adachi. "Give the man some time!"

The heavy wooden door to the main office swung open and Zola came out.

"How are things going?" asked Kasuga.

Zola looked apologetic. "Well, I've made a good start, but if I'm going to finish something for the first edition tomorrow, I'm probably going to have to stay here all night. Honestly, I think you gentlemen should head back where you came from and not spend any more of your time on this."

"But...won't you be in danger going home without us?" asked Kasuga. "The Royalists..."

"Oh, I know I'll be in danger going home – from my wife! This office has one of Monsieur Alexander Graham Bell's new telephones and she's already called here from our neighbours, sick with worry. Apparently, she's spent all afternoon calling or sending messages to everywhere I might be. But I don't know that the Camelots even noticed I was at the fight – if they've come round from unconsciousness yet. They seemed to be looking for Japanese men, not me."

"Are you sure, Monsieur Zola?" asked Kasuga.

"If it makes you any happier, my wife will be sending round our carriage for me once I've finished. Anyway, what's done is done – once the article's published, there's no point in them attacking me."

So they all shook hands with Zola and prepared to leave.

"You know, messieurs, I'm still not very happy you kidnapped me and assaulted my friend and that servant," said Zola. "But I have to admit, I'm in your debt. I might have just done one of the most important things in my life, all thanks to you."

"What's the headline going to be for your article?" asked Nanba.

"The editor wants to go with "J'Accuse!" because...well, it kind of accuses everyone who was in on the conspiracy."

"Sounds good," said Kasuga.

Zola turned to go back into the main office, then seemed to change his mind.

"By the way," he said, "I don't suppose there's any chance of me getting to see this time machine of yours? For a writer, it's just a novel waiting to be written. Every publisher's looking for the next H.G. Wells right now, you know."

Kasuga shook his head. "Ah, sorry – no can do. We made strict promises on that score to the inventor."

"Ah, well," shrugged Zola. "I suppose my time travelling novel will just have to wait."

As soon as they got back to Ijincho, Kasuga, Adachi and Nanba took steps to check that their mission had been successful. They thought of asking Professor Okita, but then got into a long and inconclusive argument about whether, if the timeline had altered, he would still remember history as it was before it had altered.

"Ugh, time travel logic is...complicated," groaned Kasuga. "But we should be able to look up recent history on the internet to confirm what happened." And, indeed, it didn't take much research to confirm that the First and Second World Wars, dire though they had been, hadn't taken the even worse course that they might have done.

However, they were brought up sharply when they read the Wikipedia article about Emile Zola. It said that he had died in 1902, in his own bedroom, of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a blocked chimney. Whether this was accidental or deliberate had never been fully determined.