The Girl From Brussels, by Daniel Mullen

“You want to see who?” asked the dirty barkeep behind the counter, his back turned to the equally grubby woman.

Audrey spoke louder, but her voice remained barely audible, somewhere between a whisper and complete silence.  “I said, I’m looking for the Shade.”

“Never heard of him.”

The bartender heard a sigh, a thud, and a click, the unmistakable click the hammer of a handgun makes as it’s being brought back into place. He turned to discover an alien-converted, semi-automatic pistol resting on the sticky wooden counter, pointed directly at his chest.

“Believe me, this gun is the least of your worries if you refuse to help me.”

“Ok, ok, so maybe I’ve heard of him,” he chuckled.  “Calm down.  No need to get crazy.  Why don’t you put that down before you hurt yourself?”  The bartender relaxed as the stranger slouched towards him and returned the hammer to its original resting place, but kept the pistol on the table and pointed at him.  She looked around at the other patrons of the dingy hole in the wall.  None of them paid her any attention.  This sort of thing must happen frequently, she thought.  Perhaps she had come to the right place.

“Where is he?”

“Why would you want to get a hold of that guy?  The normal psychos lurking around here not frightening enough for you?” he asked.

“I thought this was Erie City, where no one asks, especially if there’s the potential of profit.”

She was right.  If you could guarantee a cut of the profits with a minimal amount of risk, 95% of the citizens in Erie City would help someone smuggle, recover or eliminate just about anything…or anyone.  “So, you’re telling me I’m getting a cut if I tell you where he’s at?”

“Maybe…” she answered, “If the info proves to be worth half a shit.”

“Found your voice, huh?”  The bartender winked at her.  “I know just about everything in this town.  Information gets passed around faster than a $10 whore at a bachelor party…er…sorry about that,” the bartender’s small sense of propriety squeaked out in a half-hearted apology for his vulgarity.

“Swear all you want.  I don’t care.  I’m a big girl.”

“Alright,” he continued.  “There are a few groups who have had contracts with Von Ostheim’s merc squad, MAUL, so let’s start with them.”

“Who’s Von Ostheim and what’s MAUL?” she asked.

“You’re kidding me.  Anyone who knows the Shade knows he works for Ostheim.  MAUL is the brainchild of Ostheim and another scientist named McHenry, but no one’s seen him in forever.  I can’t believe you haven’t heard of them.  Mutation and Alien Utilization Labs?  Nothing?”

Getting impatient, Audrey tapped the gun on the counter and said, “All I know is that I have a drop to make.  A very close friend of mine died because of this piece of junk in my bag and I intend to see this delivery through.  The deal was set to go down here in Erie City this Friday, but our gang got busted.”

“Alright.  Well, let me catch you up to speed.  Before you find this guy, you should see what you’re getting yourself into.  The best way to understand the Shade is to use a Viewer.  I just so happen to have one, so for 10%, I’ll give you a peek.”  The bartender let a crooked smile spread across his face despite the deadly weapon pointed at his chest.

“Five and we have a deal,” countered the scrappy teen.

“Good choice.  Stay put,” he said.  “I’ll go get it.”

Within five minutes, the bartender returned with a metallic object no bigger than a basketball.  It glowed from within with a soft green light and was lighter than it appeared.

“Damned aliens. Only thing they’re good for is their tech.”

“I’ll take it to the corner table.”

“Fine.  Just put your face into the opening there,” the owner of the small pub said.  “You’ll see the entire scene, it’ll only take a few seconds.  By the way, what is it you’re trying to sell to him?”

“None of your damned business.”

Audrey took the device to a booth with one naked bulb several feet above the table in the corner of the small establishment and put her face into the machine.  When she opened her eyes, she aware of being in another body, yet being unable to control it, as if she were watching life through the eyes of someone else; this someone else was a burly soldier with a slight German accent.  She could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins.  The only other person near the soldier was a man cloaked in dark robes.  Robes so dark he appeared to be the shadow of a shadow.

“I don’t trust you,” said the soldier.  Audrey was a girl raised in street gangs, so she caught on quickly.  In Brussels, you either adapt or die.  She figuratively sat back and let the soldier do all the moving and talking while she observed.

“Well, you’ll have to eventually, Frank,” came a voice from beneath the hood of the man in black.  “If this cockamamie team is ever going to work, you’ll have to.”

“No I won’t, and stop calling me Frank.  I hate when you call me Frank.”

“No problem…partner,” assured the other man.  “Frank” heard a wink and a smile tucked into that last word…partner…and it unsettled him.

Static popped in over their radios and a rough voice crackled through.  “Hey, boys.  Quit arguing.  Let’s get this thing done.”  It was the brains behind the whole operation, Dr. McHenry.  Colonel McHenry to be exact, but he was more scientist than warrior.  “Listen, it’s taken six months to get the artillery and air support to fall on this facility.  The Nazis will be quick to transport their experiments to another complex, so tonight’s our only opportunity.  Eliminate any guards you find and retrieve the experiment in Room 17.”

“Roger,” said the soldier.  “Jenkins out.”

Turning to the Shade, Major Jenkins ran through the plan once more.  “At sundown, shift changes, and we head down this hill by way of that drainage ditch, make our way past the fence one way or another, then into the complex until we find room 17.”

“Sounds about right,” said the mysterious man.

As the sun set, the teammates set out down the hill, crouching to eliminate as much of a silhouette as possible.  It wouldn’t do any good to get shot before even reaching their target.

“Two goose-steppers headed this way,” said Jenkins to his partner.  “I’ll take the one on the left; you can have the short one.”

Laughing, the Shade shot back, “It’s the little ones that pack the biggest punch, Frank.”

Shaking his head, Jenkins waited behind a moss-covered boulder until the two guards were upon them.  “Now!”

The two MAUL mercenaries leapt from behind their cover and knocked the two Nazi soldiers to the ground.  Jenkins began pounding the German’s face with his fists and elbows, bloodying them quite thoroughly.  He glanced over at the Shade who had his prey on the ground, his hood hovering a few inches over the poor soldier’s face.

“Jesus, it freaks me out every time you do that,” said the Major.

“Be thankful no one cares enough about you to hire my services against you,” chuckled the dark man.  The soldier on the ground began whimpering, then convulsing and throwing up.  His cries of fear and anguish spluttered through the vomit spilling from his mouth.  The Shade stood up and let his latest victim wallow in despair by himself.  The effects of the Shade’s hypnosis were only temporary; though he did enough damage in that short amount of time to mess up someone’s mind for years.

The two slipped past the barbed wire and made their way to the research complex, using the rocky landscape to their tactical advantage.  “What did you do to him?” asked Jenkins.

“He was afraid of heights.  It was written all over his face, so I showed him the world from the viewpoint of a bird.  He freaked out so much I thought he was going to shit himself.”

“Why didn’t you just make him forget who he was?  Why torture him like that?”

“You do your job your way and I’ll do mine my way,” retorted the Shade.

“That’s exactly why I don’t trust you.  There’s no accountability.  How do I know you’ve never erased my memory?”

“That’s where the trust comes in…comrade.”  If Jenkins could have seen the Shade’s face, he would have seen secrecy shrouded in doubt.  No one who’s seen the Shade’s face has survived, however.  It’s said to instill the gazer with such fear that the person’s heart simply stops out of fright.

Jenkins and his partner snuck around a corner and saw four German soldiers guarding a bombed-out section of the lab.  This was the Major’s specialty.  He withdrew his sniper rifle and took up position behind a large chunk of concrete.  With four quick shots, Jenkins had eliminated all four guards, but had broken the veil of silence they had until then enjoyed.  The two looked at each other and nodded, then turned toward the research facility.

They clambered into the building and hurried down the long, dark corridor.  As Jenkins observed the room numbers getting higher and higher, he also heard the stampeding of several German soldiers.  “Room 15…room 16…here it is.  Room 17.”

Jenkins kicked the door in and rushed headlong into a large, open room with a giant monstrosity chained to the wall.  In fact, he was chained to two different walls.  The beast had several extra appendages and metal grafted onto his body.  “Say hi to your grandpa, Frank,” commented the Shade.

“Eat me,” said the Major.  Just then, six Nazi soldiers burst into the room and the genetically mutated, alien-influenced man-creature roared in rage.  “I think we may have a friend here.”

The Shade pulled from his cloak a rifle, modified with Tesla coils and alien ammunition.  He aimed the weapon at the chains holding back the brute and fired.  The chains disintegrated wherever the charge from the weapon hit.  The two mercenaries dove behind desks as the creature ripped the remaining restraints from the wall.

“Mein Gott,” whispered one German soldier before the creature’s bio-mechanical arm spat a slimy substance at him.  He screamed in agony as the acid-like gel ate away at the soldier’s flesh, large chunks slipping off his bones and splattering onto the floor.

“Holy shit, did you see that?” asked Jenkins.  During his moment of awe, the Major lost situational awareness and remained standing, taking several rounds in his left shoulder from a German k98 rifle.  Jenkins whirled toward his assailant and pumped a dozen rounds into the confused Nazi.  Jenkins had been shot, but the wounds weren’t bleeding.  Within a matter of minutes, the creature had torn apart every German soldier in the room.  The Shade snuck up behind the man-like monster and timed his jump perfectly, landing on his back.  He jerked the thing’s head back and positioned his hood directly over it.  The beast went limp.  After a few seconds, the Shade slid off his new pet and walked casually to Major Jenkins.

“I’m going to call him Spot,” remarked the hypno-master.

“What did you do to that thing?” asked the amazed soldier.

“I convinced him he was our pet, and that he should destroy any more German soldiers we find on our way out.”

“That’s really creepy,” his partner said.

“How’s your shoulder?” asked the cloaked man.  “How long in the tank will that take to heal?”

Briefly contemplating his answer, Jenkins responded, “It’s fine.  Should be about 6 hours in the tank tonight.  He got me pretty good.  Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t make any plans.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

The threesome bounded their way out of the lab and toward the safety of the forest, where they would rendezvous with transport out of Germany.  A civilian scavenger tucked a bundle under his arm and scampered away.  The locals were held under such tight control that none of them dared touch anything military in nature for fear of being held for treason.  Those who did take their chances selling some stolen weapon or piece of equipment had good reasons that defied the threat of death.  That, or they were discovered and never heard from again.  Some believed the looters were killed.  Others believed the Nazis did much more gruesome things with those caught stealing.  The three ignored him and continued toward their rally point.

Audrey Philips removed her face from the Viewer and blinked her eyes a few times to adjust to her surroundings.  The bartender and everyone else in the bar were in almost the exact positions they had been when she had placed her forehead against the thin leather strap of the device only a few seconds earlier.

The bartender waved and walked toward the young girl.  Sitting down, he explained, that was MAUL, well, the beginning of it anyway.

“Why didn’t time pass the same?” asked Audrey.  “And the soldier, Jenkins?  What’s his story?  What tank were they talking about?”

“I’m not sure,” he explained.  “The alien tech really messes with your senses.  I guess it messes with your sense of time, too.  Some people think Jenkins, The Major, died long ago, but the government brought him back.  Others think that he never had blood to begin with.  Whatever the case, I wouldn’t want to mess with him.  I hear he has a special tank that regenerates his organs and all that.  That pretty much sums up my knowledge of The Major.  So, about that 10%.”

“5%, jerk-off.”  She squinted her eyes at him.

“Ok, sorry, 5%.”

“What’s your name anyway?” asked the curious teen.

“No questions asked, remember?”

“Fair enough.”

The bartender extended his hand to shake the girl’s, but she only looked at it, then her own hand.  “Better not,” she said without elaborating.

“Ok.  You’d better come back here after you finish the deal.  A girl like you wouldn’t be hard to find, especially since I know all the right people.”

Audrey looked at the man as she slid from behind the table and walked toward the door.  Audrey would indeed seek out the bartender after her transaction was concluded, though you don’t really have to pay a dead man, do you?