EoC Nessie Extract

[Eater of Clowns]

Five armored figures walk in a line down the sewer tunnels of Southampton, England.  Adorning each is a cheerful cartoon Lock Ness monster, complete with smile and kilt, of the sort found in the roadside rest areas leading to the attraction.  The first figure, the one in the lead, is the simplest.  The monster is green, its big watery eyes spared the marks of the large red X over the image.  The Hessian moves patiently, and with a nervousness that belies the deadly strike he's come to teach his followers.

Behind him the Loch Ness monster shares the same colorings, down to plaid of the kilt.  The exception is its eyes, which are scratched out in a scribbling angry hand.  Its bearer, a Hessian.  They are, all of them, The Hessian's students and they bear his name.  But they are a Hessian, and their leader is The Hessian.  In the rare times the other Templars question it, this is what they are told.  The eyeless monster moves like a panther.

Following, the third in the line, a deep red color for the drawing.  At times a thick coagulation and at others a flaking crust, the monster is made of blood.  Blood of Nessie or blood of man is unknown; blood is in no shortage here.  An air of nonchalance shows itself in the movement.

Second to last the Loch Ness monster is black on a painted white background.  It has no eyes or smile, its drawing is crude, and like the rest its X is bright red.  The look is almost that of a chess piece.  It gives little to the answer as to which side is winning the match.  The wearer walks as one with the man behind him, their movements practiced as they tread back to back in the narrow walkways, steady visors scanning their sides and rear.

Finally, a monster of what appears to be rust.  He is a mirror of the man before.  Back to back, eyes always scanning.  He feels the group halt without seeing it.  The first of The Hessian's students, the most apt to guard their secondary point of vulnerability.

They stop.  Each of them questions why, silently.  The move again.  Passing the spot they'll search for the reason behind their pause.  No reason will come from the scene, but it follows shortly with the song.  Nessie's song the sweet lullaby the concert the show the sorrowful and angry death bell of the sewers, the sultry voice behind smoke and golden liquor the mockery of beloved music for its, more than anything, foreignness.  And the Hessians know the pause was the fear.

Nessie came, fast violent shadows and death in four forms.

"They're attacking the center," said The Hessian, "take your targets."

The line broke, as always, while the fighters moved to their assailants.  They moved to wait for the blow that would kill them.  It did not come.  Another blow came instead.

"I'm down," the rusted one cried.

"Down," the eyeless monster.

"They're pushing us out, glancing us to get us out of the way!  Get back up, they're surrounding the others," The Hessian shouted.  He worked with the servos to haul the weighty metal from the slime and muck of the bottom, desperate to stand before the attacking creatures.  It made too much sense.

All four Nessies coiled at once.  The figure with the chess piece charged.  He threw himself with all the weight of the armor behind him at the nearest attacker.  While his weapon pierced its flesh, he bowled forward still, with the faintest hope his momentum might take him beyond the reach of the second set of limbs.

The figure of blood took his target.  His second Nessie struck home.

Three fallen Hessians joined the fight again, squaring off as they'd been trained.  The Burst came appropriately, this time, with surprise no longer against them.

Two of them tended to the wounded man, the one with the Loch Ness monster of black.  His suit was malfunctioning and he bled and he moved, weakly.

The Hessian stood above their fifth.  Behind the visor lay eyes no longer lit by the spark of curiosity that set this group, not above, but aside from their peers.  They were the eyes of a young man.  They were the eyes of two others before him that walked beside their leader in the sewers.  And before even them, they were the eyes of a young man whose foolishness was not to tread through the death wish tunnels, but merely to talk to the wrong friend.

[Eater of Clowns]

The Hessian surveyed his diminished crew.  Even the other two healthy remaining fighters seemed less than themselves.  They wore their lack of wounds just as their comrade wore his freshly healing wounds.  The one with the chesspiece monster was alive, and for that they were all grateful, but he would never again fight in their number.  The Hessian invited him to the session because, like the rest of them, his body was merely one way his weaponized mind let free.

Their most recent excursion, several days gone now, they were lucky, he'd told them.  Recognized and outmaneuvered by the Nessies it was purely good fortune that stopped them all from dying.  As they hurried through the sewers half-dragging their downed men, they were even so lucky as to not encounter another enemy.  The Hessian kept his helmet on until the moment he lay in his bunk; anger and hatred and disappointment working their way across his features.  Others probably thought him half crazed that day, yet he'd rather they think that than know the doubt that plagued him.

Worst of their troubles was the mythology they failed to kill.  It was not the Nessies their attacks struck, it was the stories that surrounded them, that made them holy adversaries of the most brainwashed Paynites.  With failure, though, such tales only cemented themselves in the drug crazed vision of the Templars.

Four sat in the room.  The Hessian stood before them.  Behind him, in the corner where he was wont to observe, was the chaplain.

"Again we adapt," he started slowly.  "We're going to get rid of these little paintings, first.  Darling as they may be, they're another way for the Nessies to identify us.  I want them off of your armor by the end of the day."  The words were methodical, almost robotic.  He meant them to sound determined but they warped and twisted in his throat and came across, more than anything, as disheartened.

"We're going to randomize our positions.  I doubt very much there was a coincidence in Nessie attacking our greenest members.  Keeping them in the center isn't protecting them."  There was a finality to the statement common at the end of The Hessian's longest sessions.  Following it, silence, briefly, in a world of noise from the moving waters of the sewers to the raucous echoes of its inhabitants and even the songs of the Nessies.

"So what do you have for me?"  It was the question that he continuously hoped would be met with brilliance, something that would lead to the next crucial upper hand against the onslaught.

Four men held their breath, their leader staring at each other three in turn as though they concealed some bit of wisdom.  They did not.  The disappointment in the air was palpable when a voice, uncharacteristically meek, came from behind The Hessian.

"Mirrors," it said.

"What do you mean," he asked.

"One of our teams found a journal.  It documented that the Nessies appear to be confused by mirrors.  We're looking into their practical application," the chaplain revealed.  He rose and turned to leave.

"Wait.  How are you looking into it?"

"Mirrored armor is one possibility.  Mirror shields another," came the almost casual reply.  This time, he did go.

They watched him leave for a moment as though the weight of his words left a mark on the spot where they were spoken.  Finally, The Hessian addressed them again, "You may all go.  Think on this, and dig around to see if anyone will tell us more.  I want one use for the mirror suggestion from each of you at our next session.  And don't allow that to come in the way of your reflection on our general tactics.  Not you, Miller, you stay here."

"Yes?" Miller inquired.

"You were the first one I trained.  You've had the most experience Hessian or Templar out of any of us.  You're going to start having a bigger role in our foolish little family, starting now.  Scout around for recruits, start training within the week.  Three of them."

The younger man nodded and departed.  Blessedly, he didn't ask why three were needed to replace two.  The Hessian sat and, with a head in duress, thought.

[Eater of Clowns]

"How do you like it here," the chaplain asked a former Hessian.  He was ambulatory again, a speedy enough recovery.  Jokingly he'd been calling himself Chesster.  The chaplain started calling him by his proper name after his injury.

"It's loud," Chas replied, "the helmet was so much quieter.  Or, I guess it just blocked the sound better.  Like when you're sitting around the flat and the refrigerator motor shuts off, you only notice how loud it was once its drone is gone.  Anyway it seems like a busy job."

"It is.  Operators keep this all running," The Hessian said simply.

He and the chaplain stood behind Chas' chair, all intent on the screen before them.  On it, five figures moved in a very familiar pattern.  Miller was quick in selecting his recruits, and quicker to show them the rudimentary skills.  Each of the five were armored identically now.

"Get in Miller's helmet," The Hessian said, "Tell him to get their movements less synchronized.  They don't need to be indistinguishable from each other, they need to be indistinguishable from the Templars."

Chas did this while the chaplain asked of the leader, "Are you asking too much?  This is their first foray and it isn't even a combat run."

"If I think they're conspicuous, Nessie will think they're conspicuous.  If Nessie thinks they're Hessians, they'll treat them as such.  I'd rather surprise the monsters than the other way around like..." he did not finish.

Like last time, all three men thought at once.  Like when their bloodied man fell and when Chas' remarkable instinct barely saved him from the same fate.  Like when they realized that their thinking man's outfit was only as good as its ability to stay a tremulous step ahead of the nightmares in the sewer.

"I'm curious, Hessian," the chaplain annunciated the title strangely, with a barest hint of an A in the beginning and pause before the end.  "You're referring to your outfit as 'them' instead of 'us' presently.  Does it have anything to do with our present environment?"

A glare shot its way to him.  After a moment, it was accompanied by, "When I'm with them, and note chaplain I'm saying 'when,' I'll refer to such an instance properly.  They will need to know how to function, though, should anything happen to me."

"Which is why you're training one more than our agreement allotted?"

"Our agreement allowed for a team of five.  As you can see, on that screen right there, a team of five is currently at work."

"What will become of the extra man when you're among them?"

"I imagine he'll be with the Templars.  I think you'll agree this lengthy period of inactivity is rather bad for us all.  If we keep reserves we'll be able to avoid it happening again.  So right now we train one reserve, and when he's finished we train another.  We train as many as are able to be trained in our way, actually, and we run more missions by rotating team members out to rest.  Chaplain."

"Did you intend to request the authorization to do this?"

"You'd prefer we not create more effective soldiers for you?"

"I'd prefer we didn't have a multitude of armed men whose loyalties are primarily to you and not to Payne, ready to answer whenever you see fit."

"You worry too much.  All I want is to kill Nessie, and the simple fact is that some people work better when they don't think thrusting a spear is some kind of religious ri – "

"Hessians have contact," Chas interrupted, "looks like, yes, it's one."

Its speed was, as always, disorienting.  Immediately it became clear which of the five were accustomed to Nessie without the emotional numbing of the Payne juice.  They froze.

"It's going to bowl past the veterans," Chas predicted.

"And with the others standing their shitting themselves it'll make quick work of them as well," The Hessian realized.

They watched as the creature flew straight down the sewer tunnel.  It would be upon the group in seconds now.  Miller's shouting at the recruits seemed to have little effect at first, the fear deafening them in the most important moment.  Then one figure in the rear regained its senses and adjusted itself to a fighting stance, ready at least for the inevitable.

The Nessie came upon an intersection right before the Hessians.  Without a pause, it bounded down the right tunnel, ignoring them completely.

"It'll be back," they could hear Miller say to his men.  "This time, do not stop to think.  When it's ready for the Burst it won't be wearing a sign and it won't be –"

A series of shouts stopped him.  Operations was flooded with the noise of men crying out and the softer, muffled sound of a Nessie's shriek.  The three observers stared with horror as Miller turned to see the commotion, putting his back to the intersection.  Even with his experience, he was too slow.  He faced a monster tensed to strike, and he without his weapon raised.

The whipcord limbs fell upon Miller.  And he stood.  As he watched the thing collapse, its strike now the limp falling of a lifeless monster, blood washed over a recruit in the rear.

In Operations they sighed as one.  Miller's voice came to them, congratulating and thanking the new Hessian, the one who'd been quickest to recover from the fear.  "We're moving back," it said, "I believe that'll be enough for today."

The Hessian nodded, still looking at the screen.

[Eater of Clowns]

"For many of you, this is your first actual excursion," The Hessian addressed the four of them, "and for the others it's the first in some time.  We're going to take our time.  You might all be old timers in the tunnels, but as a unit we're green.  First item:  mirrors.  What have we found out?"

One of the new Hessians spoke up first, "The Paynites have been using mirrors in combat to some effectiveness.  There are rumors about a bigger plan,"

"We've heard the rumors, we've seen the fighting.  Do the rumors have any credence, or at least any details?"

"A siege weapon, basically.  Made of mirrors, allowing access to the Nessie's, er...hive or what have you," another said uncertainly.

"You know what," The Hessian spat, "we proceed as normal.  There are enough uncertainties right now without us adding one that we aren't even sure about.  Best of luck to the Templars.  Miller."

"Yes?"

"What do the reserves look like?"

"Two trained and working with the Templars.  They'll be rotating with the main force and participating in the training exercises."

"That'll be fine.  All of you put on the skin.  I'll be waiting for you at the entrance."  The Hessian put on his helmet and strode off.

The remaining four looked at each other quizzically.  They'd always gone together, from the briefing room until their return.  It was hard to think of him as their leader.  Certainly he was in a position of authority, but such was a product of their surroundings more than of his demeanor.  He'd stated, even, that their independence was crucial, to allow for intellectual freedom encouraged in their group.

The Hessian entered a small room off the tunnel.  An armored figure waited for him there, holding a map.  He asked it, "Are you ready?"

It nodded.

"I'm using you to test them, and you, of course.  You'll be going ahead and waiting at this intersection here," he pointed at the figure's map.  "When I break off, it'll be you returning to the party.  Are you clear on that?"

It nodded again.

"Good.  It'll be safe up there.  Head out and wait for my arrival."

His replacement did as he was asked.  Such is the trust I've built in them, The Hessian reflected, his eyes downcast for a moment in that little room.  They'll be alright.  I'm not what keeps them together.  A few breaths calmed his nerves.  Those had been acting up since he made his decision, for the first time in a long while.  He never thought there would be much to leave, but now he imagined there was even less to return to.

Four armored Hessians made their way to his position.  "Miller," he called.

To his surprise, it was the third in the line which answered.  Good.  "Disregard.  Let's go."

Through tunnels more familiar now than their homes, the five Hessians moved.  Dread filled their leader's chest, a song more insidious than that of their enemy.  It wouldn't be long.

As he'd stated, their pace was excruciatingly slow.  It was deliberate, but whether it was proceeding with care or avoiding his next step, he could not tell.  When they arrived at the spot, he paused.  He signaled for them to wait, and he walked to the right.

Around another bend was the armored figure he'd met.  They faced one another.  Each of them nodded.  The figure swept past him to join the others.  The Hessian placed his hand on the figure's chest, stopping him.  For a while they were like this as The Hessian shook his head, looking in the other direction.  The recruit stepped back.

[Eater of Clowns]

When their fifth finally rejoined them, the Hessians continued along the path.  They would push forward, as always.  Sometimes they would notice that as hard as they fought, as dangerous as it became, their fight the next day would still be closer to home than it was the day before.  Today was one of those days.  Nessie's song began faintly, a lone singer, then another.

They tensed, almost as one, and began to move their backs to one another, ready for a rapid sweeping attack like the last time.  It was hard to tell with the echoes and the beating of their hearts how many Nessies were coming.  Or how close they were.  With all the nerves they mustered in their training, this part never became easier.

There were seven, when they finally charged around the corner.  Ready to strike at the first sign they might bowl past, the Hessians watched as monsters came.

"They're stopping the charge," Miller shouted, "ready for the strike, just like training."

A Nessie was before him.  It drew itself up.  Miller thrust his weapon forward at the precise right moment.  His attack was perfect.  Exactly how the Nessie was anticipating.  The strike did not land.

"They're feinti-" came a voice in their helmets amidst the rest of the noise.

Already a Hessian had fallen.  His target, wounded but not dead, joined the other two focusing on a single fighter.  Templar instincts kicked in as the remaining four realized their well controlled thrust would not work.  A Nessie went down as Miller threw himself about the chaos.

Another cry came out, blood lust or pain none could tell until a second Hessian was struck by the flailing, merciless limbs of the Nessies.  They could disguise their fake strike, but the real one still looked the same.  Each of the three standing managed to kill their attackers, evening their numbers.

The remaining three Nessies turned and fled, their exit as quick as their coming.  In the few seconds in peace, the team still living breathed and slumped.  They glanced at the two laying still, just briefly, before returning their eyes to the tunnels.

Nessie resumed her song.

*********

After a few turns through the sewers, he arrived at an alcove.  In it, a small pack.

He removed his helmet first.  Piece by piece the suit was dismantled like so many times before.  He piled it as neatly as possible.  They would be by soon enough to recover the equipment.  And by then, he thought, as he put on the last of the surface clothes that survived down in this world of filth.

He was swifter without the cumbersome servo-powered steel.  And more silent.  The walls were sweeping past at a speed their regular pace left him unaccustomed to.  There, ahead, lay another pack.  This one was beside a ladder, and beside the latter, a man.

"Chaplain," he said, unable to even pretend surprise.

"Hessian," said the chaplain.

"Not anymore," he told him, "there is none anymore.  There are The Hessians, but I suppose they'll have to call Miller something else.  Make sure they do.  I don't want myself confused with some punk like him.  Your armor is back a ways.  You shouldn't have trouble finding it.  Now if you'll excuse me."

"And if I don't?"

"You know, it never occurred to me."

"This isn't some little rule that you're bending this time," the chaplain told him.

"I've done all I can do.  The rest of them will keep it going.  You don't have any reason to keep me here."

"You're only a nuisance down here.  Up above I think you might be a real problem."

"Only a nuisance?  Now you're just insulting me," he grinned.

The chaplain stood there a moment, then held out his hand.  "Best of luck to you, Hayes."

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Sweet.  You have the makings of an Asimovs or Analog story, here.

[Eater of Clowns]

He sat on a little hill with his back against a poplar and tried to smell the ash on the breeze.  For once, in his many visits here, he hoped not to catch the scent.  Before he might have convinced himself that it was her, still on the wind and in a way with him.  This time, though, it would mean something else.  It would mean his country was burning.

So he sat on the grass in the patched sunlight and tried to think about what to think about.  There were the times he came here with her but he found them faded.  Gray, somehow, and not whole.  And he could not focus on a single memory.  All of them were tied together in the proper little image of his wife, zoning out his motor mouth and shrugging off his cynicism.  A bit of feeling came and he tried to seize it and let it wash over him but it escaped, so ethereal, taken by even the day's gentle wind like the fine ash years before.

The meager brightness proved too much through his sunglasses.  Adjustment to the overwhelming natural light of the world above was taking a long, painful time.  England, it seemed, was too sunny.  He closed his eyes to shield them and to force the memories to dance upon the lids.  He squeezed them tighter as though it would help and he slumped against the knobs and rough bark of the tree in frustration.

A memory, just one here, just a single day that wasn't presided over by the fragile, cold light of the hospital.  Even the bickering or the anger, the days when he swore it was over and hated himself for his inability to reconcile.  He'd feel that again if it meant he could feel anything.

Finally, one came.  He and his fiancé and a friend of theirs with whom he'd long since lost contact, strolling about and laughing about nothing in particular.  And there was even a song with it.  It was sung by a voice at once mocking and hateful and triumphant and sorrowful, conducted in the darkness of the Southampton sewers.

He rose, now, from his rest against the tree.  Walking away he did not take even a moment to look over the view from the hill or back at the spot itself.  Because he found what he was looking for, that memory, and even that had become tainted by the other woman.  His new love and reason for existence that consumes his past in his own mind just as it consumes his life in the present.

Her name is Nessie.

[Eater of Clowns]

Alec Hayes looked into the glass he held.  It was smudged with fingerprints and ringed with head, and at the bottom waited one last swallow.  This was the point where things became contemplative.  It was always at the end of that second pint where the mundane became complex and his usual unnatural focus widened considerably.  He upended the glass and drank with the lazy slowness of a man who just wants to pass the time.

The pub was emptier these days.  It changed hands a few times during his stay in the cozy Inn of the Screeching Servo.  Follow the money.  That's what he'd told Sams way back, follow the money and you'll find out what the Paynites have for an angle.

The Paynites aren't the problem anymore though, are they?  Exactly what he knew would come to pass had come to pass.  They were losing steadily.  They were losing, actually, precisely slowly enough to not know they were losing and that they needed help.  It wasn't a matter of being overwhelmed.  Being overwhelmed once would be enough to spur even the most stubborn of the chaplains into taking action.  It was the case of the novice chess player.  He couldn't grasp the grander strategy employed, and so when he eliminated the odd rook that bishop waiting in the back became a lot more real than it had previously been.

Worse than that, they couldn't be blamed.  In fact, they were even doing well.  The servoheads called the Nessies monsters, aliens, demons and mutants.  Whatever they were, their mind was too foreign to comprehend.  Humanity, in comparison, was predictable.

As he sighed deeply and set the glass down, a call came from somewhere else in the pub, "The volume!  Hit the volume!"

Accordingly the noise in the little place shifted.  Quiet chatter gave way to the excited and professional voice of the reporter.

"We are unaware at this time of the names of the young man and woman who brought us here -" her sentence was cut off by a series of ear splitting clangs.

This was his cue.  Hayes set down a few notes for the drinks and rose to leave.  He couldn't think in this kind of racket.  With his hand on the door handle, he froze at what came next.

His blood froze and beer nearly came back up.  He felt naked and vulnerable in the presence of that sound, a hundred Nessies wailing, without his team or the protection of the powered armor.  The other patrons were unblinking with mouths agape.  It was not the fear they felt, but the mind shattering realization beyond even modern skepticism that this was something new and terrible.

There was yelling and frantic movement.  The cameraman and reporter were running, panting, through corridors.  The screen was blurs and rushed footsteps, several dozen pairs of them, all seeming to be journalists.  It changed from concrete to tile, from tile to gravel, and from gravel to grass where it stopped.  The camera refocused, finally, and steadied following the frantic escape, to focus on a school, almost serene in the darkness.

The reporter was speechless for a while.  Her well tailored appearance all that of a crazy woman now, hair wild and eyes wilder.

In the pub there was silence.  Hayes still stood with one hand on the door, breathing with the deliberate pace of someone who might forget to do it if they don't focus.  Hands on glasses were stiff and white knuckled and claw like and shaking.

The ensuing few minutes were like hours, even to them in their safe little corner drinking hole.  The reporter tried, haltingly, to say a few words, to explain the scene before her but she failed and she gave up and she looked around uncertainly at her colleagues, some rivals, and she never turned her gaze far from the dark, still school.  It was nearly serene.  Like a bomb awaiting some silent inner mechanism before becoming fire and agony.

Suddenly, echoes mingled as they escaped from the empty hallways.  A lone figure ran forth from the building, the devil on its heels.  The camera followed him and zoomed.

The pub saw a young man who would likely die.  Hayes saw a young man who already had.

"Sams!" he shouted.  The first sound in the place since they started watching.  He opened the door and left.  Behind him, a horde of the creatures he'd come to know as Nessie swept outward from a decimated building and threw themselves in their elated fury at the gathered crowd, and the camera died.