0200h. 7th JUN. 1944 - London
Ben, Magda and Viola arrive in London, which is dark and overcast. They are unceremoniously brought to a hotel that was at one time whole and luxurious, but has since buckled against the advance of war. There, they meet with Sergeant Foley, man in charge, who tells them that they have been assigned to investigate Hitler's Ghost Machine. Their first assignment is to investigate something they've dubbed "wolfman." Shooting at them is like "sneezing" at them, and they reportedly attack with the ferocity of a bear.
In the words of our esteemed storyteller, "Welcome to London!"
The plane landed on a rather dark air strip near London, and a man and two women were standing about waiting for their transportation elsewhere. It was dark out, looked like rain, and the air was more than a bit chilly. A few soldiers were running about, prepping the plane yet again, though it appeared the pilot has been switched over as
she was standing around close by. A few jeeps rumbled past with armed soldiers. It seemed everyone was on fairly high alert.
Magda lit up a cigarette.
Viola looked at Magda with an unlit one in her fingers, "Do you mind?" This is said politely, as Magda looks like someone you should be polite with.
Magda lit the pilot's cigarette. She pocketed the lighter, and continued to smoke in silence.
After a few minutes of standing around, it began to drizzle.
Viola nodded her thank you, and went back to observing the hustle on the tarmac.
Ben stepped off the plane and onto the landing strip. The air was chilly, so he pulled his trenchcoat closed and flipped up the collar. He extracted a cigarette, looked at it with longing (it's been a long flight), and then lit up. "London," he said simply and breathed in the air. "Haven't been here in months."
"Lucky," Viola murmured quietly.
"What's that?" Ben asked. He thought he heard Viola say something.
Viola looked back at Ben and gestured at the gloom. "I said, you are lucky. London's not a very cheery place in the best of times," she said a bit louder this time, her words only marginally eaten by the roar of aircraft.
"And yet," Ben said. He remained silent, observing the dearth of city lights in the far distance. "There's something about it. The stiff upper lip, maybe. The brothels. There's something wonderful."
A romantic, Viola thought.
"Sounds like a real party town," Magda dryly noted. She angled her fedora hat to keep the rain off her face as best as possible.
Ben took one last drag on his cigarette and then tossed it into a puddle of water by his feet.
As they waited, a truck with its lights on approached the plane, its engine rather loud, even over the plane's engine. It stopped a short distance away, and a soldier got out of the cab. The soldier quickly approached someone near the plane, holding his hat down with a hand. The two exchanged words, and he glanced in the group's general direction. As he ran over to them, it began to rain fully, as if the clouds opened specifically to herald this man's arrival. "Horowitz," he shouts. "Rapp? Sie--" he paused. "Something with an S and a K?"
"Sienko," Viola offered.
The soldier came to a stop close by and tried to read his papers with a GI flashlight. "Whatever," he said, still looking them over. He looked up and flashed the light in each of their faces, one by one. "Welcome to London," he shouted over the noise. "I'm here to take you to your accommodations."
"How about we get inside and hear some answers?" Ben asked, clearly a bit irritable. The plane flight, plus the rain, plus the lack of answers - he felt wet like a dog and just wanted to shake it off.
The newcomers were impressed with the distinct feeling that the soldier didn't much enjoy this task, or that something was bothering him. "Answers to what?" he asked Ben, and waved them to follow as he turned and headed back to the truck. "I don't know shit."
"Fucking hell," Rapp said and then, "Pardon my French," to the women. He followed after the man to the truck. "Like why we're in London when the war is, according to the papers yesterday at least, all over France?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Viola followed the man, grateful for the prospect of being dry. She tossed her half-finished and barely enjoyed cigarette aside and adjusted her pack on her shoulder. Hefting her duffel over her shoulder, Magda followed. The sky lit up with a bolt of lightning and one could see briefly in the darkness just how thick the cloud cover was, as it practically blotted out the sky. The moon, if it was out there, wasn't visible at all.
The others may have tossed their smokes away, but there was a war on, and waste of any form was bad. Magda kept smoking, although keeping the cigarette from getting wet was a challenge.
The soldier looked back, taking them in over a shoulder before moving to the back of the truck. "Get in," he said, pulling the canvas flap aside.
Ben rubbed his hands together, trying to keep them warm against the bitter cold and the rain. "I'm asking why we're not on the front." He pulled himself up into the back of the truck. "You don't know, do you?"
"Don't think he knows," Viola said to Ben.
"Don't know shit." the soldier echoed, waving a hand for you all to get in the truck faster.
Viola took her seat in the truck opposite Ben. "Rapp, right?" she offered, by way of introduction.
"Come on ladies," the private said, his accent clearly from the north east. "Ain't got all friggen' day."
Magda hopped in the back of the truck, irritated at the useless questions. They were obviously here for a reason, which would reveal itself in time. The sort of people they were dealing with didn't give away information until they were good and ready, and forcing the issue never helped.
Rapp took Viola's hand and shook it. "That's right. Call me Ben. You've got a first name, Miss Sienko?"
"Viola."
The flap fell closed, leaving them all in relative darkness, the only real light coming from the cherry on Magda's cigarette. Outside, the rain beat down on the canvas covering the back of the truck. The private's boots beat on the wet concrete. A door opened, and then slammed.
"Viola. Like the instrument?" Ben asked.
"Like the play, I'm guessing," Magda interjected.
The truck lurched into movement, took a rather sharp turn, albeit at a low speed, and then rumbled off to places unknown. It didn't promise to be a smooth ride; there were pot holes, lots of sharp swerves as if avoiding something, and plenty of bumps.
Viola nodded at Magda, "Like the play."
"Afraid I'm not familiar," Ben admitted.
Magda threw a smile at Ben. "And you call yourself a writer, Rapp."
Viola braced herself against the lurch, "And you are Miss Horowitz?"
"Mrs. Horowitz."
Viola nodded at Magda, a pang fluttering in her own chest. She swallowed it, and turned to Ben. "Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. I think it might have been my mother poking fun at my father for saying he always wanted a son."
"A journalist, Mrs. Horowitz. The writing is just a byproduct of the reporting," Ben flashed a smile back at Magda.
"Journalism is just literature in a hurry. I would have thought you knew that." She took another drag on her cigarette.
Outside, there were men shouting, and for the first time that night, it was British. It quickly got left behind as the truck took another turn.
"In a series of twelve," Ben quipped. "What do you do, Viola?"
"I fly."
"For the military?"
Viola gave him an ironic smile, "They just don't like to admit it."
"Shit," Ben said, and removed his hat to shake the rain off it. "Seems I'm the only civilian in this outfit."
"I promise not to hold it against you," Magda said.
Viola grinned in spite of herself. "So, what do you write for?"
"The Siren. Maybe you've heard of it. We print out of the Bronx," Rapp said and ran his fingers through his wet, black hair. He shook his fingers out and drizzles of water splashed against the floor of the truck. He replaced his hat back on his head.
"Haven't heard of it, but I never really spent much time in the East."
"Don't worry about it. I'm done with that for now. No more filing stories, least not for the time being," Rapp said.
The truck came to a stop rather abruptly, with the gears audibly shifting. The three at the back heard the brake being pulled, and a door opening.
"Doesn't stop you from writing them, does it?" Viola asked, as she threw out an arm to prevent herself from being hurled.
"Stops me from filing them. Only person gets to read them now is myself," Ben said.
The flap was thrown back and the private was there to greet them with a firm, "Get out."
"Hello to you too," Magda muttered, and hopped out. Her boots made an impressive splash on the pavement. Viola, who stepped out after Magda, looked at the private pointedly and said, "Thank you."
The private groaned at Viola, and shook his head. "Pleasure." he said, rather flatly. Viola ignored his tone, and busied herself with straightening herself out, adjusting her uniform, her cap and her pack.
Ben hopped out of the truck after the two ladies.
"Where are we?" Ben asked.
"London." was the response from the private, along with a tip of his hat. He then walked back to the front of the truck, got into the cab, and drove off. They stood in the middle of a street, though it's rather difficult to tell what's around as every single window is blacked out.
"The raids are still going on?" Ben asked, noticing the blackout.
The building that was closest to them was a rather large hotel with more than a few military postings on the front designating it the property of the British army, and a US installation.
Viola took a step towards the hotel. "Looks vaguely like accomodations," she said to the other two.
"Good enough for me." Magda headed towards the hotel.
The double doors out front were mostly glass, but judging by the shards that have been brushed away into the corners of the entryway, they no longer are. Beneath the flyers, the windows have been boarded up.
Viola tried the doors that used to be glass.
"And I here I thought we'd be sleeping in tents," Ben said. "God bless America." He entered the hotel. As he entered, he bumped into two American GIs on their way out. They both grinned politely and tipped their hats to Viola and Magda before walking off down the street holding a rather large box of cigarettes and a typewriter.
Magda looked longingly after the boxes of cigarettes. Ben looked longingly after the typewriter. Meanwhile, Viola looked around the lobby, trying to find someone who could point them to the person in charge.
Inside the hotel it was significantly warmer than outside, and far less damp. The lights were on, and the whole place had the appearance of a war-time office, even at this hour. A GI was behind the counter, sorting mail, and off to the right was a salon with a fire, as well as a few men in various chairs and on the floors catching some shuteye.
Viola headed towards the mailman. "Evening, officer."
The guy sorting the mail looked up and nodded, not stopping in his task. "Who are you looking for?"
Polite. "Whoever's in charge."
He furrowed his brow a second, as if to ask, "Officer?" He checked his shoulder to make sure he's still a private. He shrugged. "In charge of what," he asked, amused. He looked up at you all, trying to answer his own question. "Got papers? anything?"
Ben took the opportunity to remove his jacket and shake it out. He then folded it over his arm.
The GI sniffed loudly, obviously effected by the rain with some kind of cold, and waited patiently. "What unit are you with?"
Magda spoke up. "The 55th."
The soldier looked at Magda for a moment and then raised his chin slightly, peering from Magda to Ben and Viola. "Ah." He wiped his nose and pulled a rotary phone out from beneath the desk. He quickly checked a page of the current log and dialed a four digit number.
Viola gave Magda a sidelong glance which said "Thank you," and "Are you sure?" at the same time.
If Magda was worried, or unsure of her answer, she didn't show it.
"Delivery," the GI said into the phone. "Yeah.. No, it's two birds and some skinny looking guy who's too pretty for bullets." He covered the phone and nodded to Ben, "Who does your hair?" He then went back to his phone call, not bothering to wait for an answer.
Ben touched his unshaven face with his hand and grimaced at the description. "Having a barber is a crime?" he wondered out loud.
"We only have the one room extra, and the scientist is already there. Him and your buddy you came in with," the soldier said into the receiver. "Look, Sarge, You gotta' deal with this one. I really can't do anything unless I get it from the Captain." Pause. "Fine. Yeah, sorry to drag you down." He sighs into the phone. "Yes, I know what time it is." He quickly hangs up and puts the phone away, looking at the bedraggled group all over. "Got any food?" His brow raised as a hopeful look crossed his face.
"Only if you can eat paper," Ben replied.
"Depends. It taste better than K-Rations?"
"Nah. It tastes like paper."
"Vetz," a voice came from the stairs behind the counter, followed by slow, but deliberate footsteps.
"Sarge." replied the Private, standing up straight.
"Shut.. the fuck.. up." the man said as he came into view, his shoulder designating him as 'The Sarge' from the phone.
"Yes, sir." Vetz said, and went back to work, grinning like an imp who had managed his bit of mischief.
The man came down the stairs, limping slightly, favoring his right leg. He looked at the newcomers all over with tired eyes and nodded politely. "Sergeant Foley." he introduced himself. "You must be the replacements."
Viola inclined her head, "Sergeant," she said, standing up a little straighter.
"That sounds about right," Ben said and extended his hand to Foley to shake. "I'm Rapp. This is Siedko and Horowitz," indicating the two women. "We landed a bit ago."
"Sienko," he said, correcting Ben as he took the mans hand.
A quick grin flashed across the woman's face.
"A pleasure to meet you all. Sorry to have it all come together like this. Today is a shitty day," Foley continued.
"Yesterday wasn't much better," Viola murmured.
Foley waved at them to follow, much like the private had done, and limped the opposite direction from the salon, heading into what would be a large-ish dining hall on the other side of the building. "Tell me about it.." he said, briefly touching his buttocks.
Rapp followed, pausing only to shoot an apologetic look at Viola for butchering her name last. Viola shrugged her forgiveness.
The hall was very large, and the tables are all rather messy. Chairs were clustered around other tables, and there was a general acceptance of the disarray; this was likely the locale's makeshift mess hall.
Magda followed along. Her eyes passed over everything in the room, as if trying to commit every private, pencil, and wad of paper to memory.
"Have a seat." Foley said, and limped over to the kitchen, poking his head through the swinging doors.
Magda let her duffel slip to the floor, and she grabbed the nearest chair, never once taking her eyes off the sergeant.
Ben rested his jacket across the back of the chair and then sat down, leaning back just a bit - the front two legs of the chair lift off the ground slightly.The floor is a bit dirty from foot traffic, and the windows are all boarded up, but despite this, the room is very grand. This hotel likely fetched a small fortune for a night, and that more than a few famous people have likely enjoyed this particular room.
Viola looked closely at the sergeant as she took her seat. Recently injured, it seemed. Hardy. Sincere, but with that air of keeping things to himself that shrouded all men of rank and leadership.
The fire in the fireplace was burning down slowly and you can easily make out the leg of a table along with some of the other burnt pieces of wood. With a few words, Foley came back to the table with a few plates and a rather large can.
Viola settled her pack carefully on the floor, in perhaps the only patch that was relatively free of the mess that men seemed to inevitably make.
Foley sat down at the table, adjusting his leg and grimacing slightly. "Sorry, only have a little bit of stew left from dinner. One of the guys will bring it out soon as it's hot again."
"So, Foley," Rapp said. "Can you tell us what we're doing here?"
Foley set about opening the can with an ammo can cutter, the white label reading 'Peaches' though barely anymore.
Foley looked at Rapp and chuckled quietly, his deep voice sounding slightly condescending.
"Yes and no." came the answer, and Foley set the can down in the center of the table, reaching back to grab a few forks from a cart not far off. He handed one to everyone. "I don't know the scientific reason, or the mumbo jumbo they tried to feed me." He took his fork and casually spears two big peach quarters.
Viola carefully folded her cap and placed it inside her bag, before proceeding to wipe her hands with her handkerchief, lingering over some spots.
"Scientific reasons?" Ben asked.
"I just know that I got put in charge of some group thats s'posed to watch your asses while you stop Hitler's ghost machine, or whatever crazy word he calls it. I don't speak German."
"Ghost machine?" Ben sputtered. "What the hell is going on?"
Foley shrugged and ate one of the peaches off the fork, obviously enjoying it by the look on his face. "You wouldn't believe the chow in this place.."
Magda took a fork and a speared one of the peach quarters. She plugged it into her mouth and chewed with an expression close to bliss.
Viola left the fork offered to her on the table, and took out her own, wrapped in another cloth, from her pack, before settling down to eat her share of peach.
Ben left his peaches momentarily untouched. "Foley, that's a euphemism, right?"
Foley watched Viola quietly, noting the use of her own cutlery before going back to Ben's questions. Foley was obviously a man unconcerned with time, or at least at this moment, rather relaxed.
"Rapp, something you need to know about me right off the bat for the sake of this all going smoothly." A beat. "I don't joke."
Magda laughed. Then, she went back to enjoying her peach.
Foley took another peach quarter from the big can, smirking at himself, and obviously glad that someone found him amusing. "And no, it's not."
"Clearly, as I'm the only person who finds the term 'Ghost Machine' surprising, I'm assuming this is something military insider. So who wants to fill me in?"
"No sense of humor, but you do smile. I can work with that," Viola remarked.
"Geistmaschine." Foley continued. "And something called Projektverwalter. The formation of the 55th was specific to stopping this, and any other threats from Hitler's paranormal devision. It also--" he stopped as someone came into the room from the kitchen, carrying a large silver pot.
"Project Curator?" Magda asked
Foley shot Magda a soft look as if to silently tell her to shut up. Magda shut the hell up.
The GI placed the pot down on the table. "Get you bowls in a sec, Sarge." He then ran off back into the kitchen, reached for something while in the doorway, and came back with a few spoons and bowls.
He put them down on the table and then stood by Foley. "Permission to turn it in, Sarge."
Foley nodded to the man. "Yeah. Get some sleep. We've got work to do before dawn."
"Yes, sir." Said the private, and then walked back into the other room, stopping briefly to talk to Vetz.
Magda helped herself, and started shoveling food down her throat at an alarming rate.
"Project Curator." Foley said, looking at the door for a long minute before turning to Magda. "I didn't know what it meant. Only read it on a report issued to me on my way here."
"Paranormal." Viola said it with the air of someone trying to taste something. And if one will forgive the pun, it did not taste peachy.
Foley took the supplied ladle and stirred the stew. He paused and offered it to Viola before taking for himself. Viola gestured, letting him go first.
"Paranormal," repeated Foley. Foley shoved the spoon in his mouth. "I suggest you do eat, Miss Sienko." Foley said around his food. "Hot chow isn't something we come by frequently."
"You mean like that Bela Lugosi guy?" Ben asked. "That's fiction."
"We're an investigative branch as well, hence the civilians with us; though, Rapp.." Foley looked across the table at Ben. "I don't know why in gods name you're here."
"Search me. I wasn't told why I was wanted. Only that I was," Ben said.
Foley scooped some of the too-thick stew from the pot and filled his bowl almost to the brim before fishing out a piece of meat and a carrot. "I was told you all but volunteered."
"Forgive me, but don't journalists have some skill at investigating?" Viola said, while still trying to digest "paranormal."
"Maybe. I guess thats why they call it an 'Investigative journalist.'"
"Not sure what that means. It took some encouraging for me to sign on. The military had to make some promises first." Ben considered the stew and took in a mouthful. After swallowing, he said, "I wasn't looking to join this operation on my own."
Foley reached back and looked over the cart once more, pulling something out of a wooden box. He flopped the paper bag on the table and tore it open, revealing a half loaf of sliced white bread. He quickly took two slices of this and began dipping them into his stew, chowing down hungrily.
"Actually, Foley, I was hoping you'd know a bit more than I did about why I'm here. Seems you don't, though."
Magda quickly reached over for a couple slices of the bread, and tore into them.
Viola took her own spoon out of the cloth, and dipped into her stew.
Foley watched Magda eat as he spoke around a mouth full of stew-flavored bread. "They had me sign in exchange for medical treatment." He swallowed and dipped his bread again.
Ben tore off a piece of bread and chewed on it. He seemed tense.
Taking up his spoon, he ate some of the floating bits while his bread soaked up as much of the thick brown liquid as it could carry. "Though if you ask, I volunteered as well."
Viola chewed thoughtfully, "Going back to the paranormal bit. Care to expound?"
"I was told to convey two things to everyone in the unit, though." If he heard Sienko over the sound of his own chewing, he didn't acknowledge her. "You no longer exist."
Magda stopped chewing.
"As in, you make no phone calls, you write no letters, you forward all inquiries of who you are to your C.O. As far as paperwork is considered, you no longer exist. Most of you are already showing up on MIA lists."
Ben dipped some bread into her stew and took a bite. "How'd I die?" he asked.
"Your flight never made it here." He said calmly, as if it was no big deal. "MIA, though, not KIA." He ate a few more hasty spoon fulls of stew.
"Goddamn. I knew those Caravans couldn't be trusted."
Viola's spoon paused in mid-air for a few seconds, as her mind ran through a list of what she would have liked to have accomplished before the curtain fell. She then mentally shrugged them off as unimportant.
"Well," Foley said. "Those big American designations on the wings look an awful lot like targets to me."
Magda pushed her half-eaten bowl of food away form herself.
Viola's spoon resumed its downward journey.
Foley reached over to Magda's bowl as soon as it was abandoned and dumped it's contents into his own. "It's not so bad." he told Magda. His voice was anything but consoling. In fact, it was notably vacant.
"Is there anything else?" Magda asked.
Foley raised his head. "I think we have some coffee in the back." He gestured with his spoon.
Ben finished his stew and placed his bowl aside. "So, why are we in London? If I'm not wrong, the invasion started yesterday in France."
"France is still being invaded." Foley said, spooning food into his mouth between words. "And we're here because we're needed alive. France is a nightmare right now."
"Is Dracula in London?"
"Don't be stupid," Magda said. "That's Transylvania."
"If I were a blood sucking monster," Foley said, sipping the last of his soup from the bowl. "I'd be on that beach right now."
Ben chuckled. "But seriously. What exactly are we investigating?"
Foley looked Ben dead in the face. "Do you really want to know?"
"Of course I do. I wouldn't ask if I didn't."
"As do I," Viola said.
Magda looked to Foley intently, but in silence.
"There was a sighting of some kind of creature in the ruins this week. Big thing, moves fast. The boys said it was just a big stray dog gone ferral. Now we have men missing. One survivor, came back with a story of some kind of wolf man. Sounds like malarkey, except he looks like he got mauled by a bear."
Viola sat still, listening, her stew forgotten.
"You ran him through some psychological testing of course."
"We spotted a German scout plane before the sightings began." he says, ignoring Ben's comment. "Too high to drop troops, but it was here."
"So either there's some new breed of bear-dog out there, or we have some kind of monster running around London." And with that, he stood up and filled the bowl once more. He grabbed four pieces of bread and nodded. "Ask Vetz for the room key. Get some sleep. Tomorrow night, we have work to do."
"Wait a second, Foley," Ben said, leaning forward on the table on his elbows. "We don't really believe there's a wolfman out there, right?"
Foley began to limp off toward the entry way. "Believe it or not, we're going to go find it and blow it's fucking brains out."
"Is it going to be just us, or are we working with people who have more experience with this ghost machine?"
Foley shrugged. "You know what I know." He rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
Ben frowned. "Magda, what kind of jargon is that anyway? What's a Ghost Machine? Some type of tank?"
Magda shrugs.
"Wonderful."
Viola, lost in thought, took her spoon from the bowl of stew and set it next to the fork in the peach bowl.
"Did he mention what the rooming accommodations are?" Ben asked.
Other than the crackle of the fire, the only real audible sounds are Foley walking up the stairs, and Vetz hungrily devouring the stew. The city around the hotel is utterly quiet.
"No, he didn't." She paused in the midst of her thoughts and glanced at Ben. "Try not to worry too much."
Ben shrugged. "I'm just trying to figure out what we're doing here. Wolfmen?"
"Like normal men, only hairier." She attempted a wry grin.
"Unless I'm much mistaken," Magda said, "we're here to either prove it's a drunk guy in a fur coat, or find out if it's a wolfman... and kill it. Seems straightforward to me."
Vetz entered the room, making his presence known before walking toward the group.
"Except for the part where he might be a wolfman," Ben retorted.
Viola shot him a look. Ben noticed Vetz walking towards the table and stopped talking.
Vetz nodded, filling his bowl with the very last of the stew. "It ain't no guy in a fur coat." he offered quietly, looking a bit more serious.
"That a fact?"
Viola raised an eyebrow.
Vetz nodded. "Thing took five rounds like it was nothin'. Like I sneezed at it." He reached into his pocket and placed a key in between Magda and Viola, and tossed one to Ben. "Whole damn clip outta' my M1. Nothin'. Big dog, my ass." As he turned to walk away, they noticed the badge on his arm: a blue pentagon with yellow trim and a second yellow pentagon inside it.
"I guess that takes care of my hairy man theory, too." Viola looked grim.
"We're going to need bigger guns," said Magda.
"Or something."
