I just wanted to thank you for the research assistance you provided our team. Domo Arogato, Mr. Squidato!

Nobufumi Kawai
Jichi Medical School
Tochigi

(Editorialist's Note: For those uninformed, please to review the popular literature.— GS)

Ah, Kawai-san:

I am so pleased that my small assistance has been of help to you. Truth to be told, my happenstance upon these techniques was entirely incidental, so their greater utility and scientific interest was a surprise pleasant to me, and their final fetching price indeed a boon.

They were dark times, aboard the good ship Ushpek Veerumasunani, imprisoned below decks, with nary the most minimal crew-contact via which I might dispense the live-giving advice. Left to my own devices I soon became bored, as even the vermin of the salvage ship Veerumasunani were besought with a generally harmony and altruism which, frankly, I at this time am much tempted to attribute to a Dark and all-encompassing Force, the nature of which I only begin to contemplate.

In these darkest hours, I did indeed consider long and hard the throwing off of my advice-maker's mantle and, upon my landfall, returning to the quiet and private life of the citizen squid.

To pass the hours while aboard, I turned my attentions towards restoring the natural tensions of the rat population, and sought to bring to them the gift of War, which as its handmaids bears Famine, Want, Pestilence, Greed and Cruelty— the full cavalcade of human experience, brought forth to the Rats of Veerumasunani. Upon reflection, it was indeed a suitably grand scheme, and I now know surprise at the extreme alacrity— but a fortnight!— with which I brought my vision to bare.

Even after only one week of time, the Rat War was fuming away with great energy, with the raping and the hurting and the wholesale slaughtering and, frankly, it was indeed grand. But, though grand she be, war is little to occupy the full focus of one such as myself, and I quickly fell back to an old hobby: the tinkering of genetics, humours and such, and the general constitution, reconstitution and deconstitution of living and/or functional forms from the sparing parts of the dead or dysfunctional.

Although many— nigh, most— of my ingenuities met with little success, even great failure, I did succeed in a small matter of amplifying, and then re-amplifying much in the mode of a feedback loop with an electricked guitar, the general intelligence of some of my rattly cohort, and barring some of them up into a humanesque range of sentience, their fon-herbal tinctured-ness for lilting verse, simple four-and-four rhythms and notwithstanding. As a side effect, many of these rats were much faced in excess of the norm. I counted as many as 4 faces on a single rodent, although I was later informed that there was a single female of nine faces, generally held to have certain prognosticatory powers, and believed to be the very linchpin of the ultimate success of these evolved gentle rats over the unwashed inferiors.

When I debarked, my uber-rattsen had gotten so far as the invention of the rocket propelled grenade, but no further, and I had begun to despair at their ever gaining atomic capabilities.

As I was hurried forth from the cargo bay which held me, I had no chance to wish General Whiskers good fortune as he made his way in the world, beating back the hordes inferior, nor to suggest that a flanking maneuvor might draw his arch-nemesis into a fatal two-front war— so I take this moment to do so:

General Whiskers: Should you read this, then please know I wish you godspeed and flanking maneuvors. Do not simply keep the faith, but also spread it!

In any event, it was only several weeks after my return that I found myself contacted by certain gentlemen of the Jichi Medical School, expressing enthusiastic interests in my "experimental findings" (which, by-the-wayside, I had thought of affectionately as "my tinkerings" and nought more), and certain exchanges of information and account balances was arranged forthwith.

For the pecuniarily curious, this new wherewithal is being turned toward a general fund, currently dedicated to bringing to straights certain certain economic irregularities brought to light week past.

Although, I have yet to hear again from General Whiskers, and fear that all has not proceeded well in his offensive. Be that the case, then again I wash that noble nibbler godspeed, may Heavens be thy rest, amen.

All Bestward,
Your Giant Squid

Post-Scriptorum: Noting the dainty manner to which my assistant Rob has taken to walking and sitting, I believe the mice crania grafted to his stringy hindquarter may have become infected. Should these simply be disinfected, or would it be best to lance them altogether? Please advise at your earliest convenience.