Mask of Humanity

Nicolai encountered no issues in the night. He awoke rested to the light of the torch. He was filled with a nervous energy, like a child on Christmas day, eager for what was to come.

After taking Kleos from it’s jar, force of habit drew him through his morning routine, calming his mind and readying his body as he exercised then went through forms with the rapier.

As he did so, he observed the movements of those outside, and detected someone trying to open the main door. He could all too easily imagine them coming to him and saying “we need to be able to get out” and asking him to give them the key, so he decided he would make his first step every day that of unlocking the door, preventing that from becoming an issue.

Leaving his room, he saw one of them, a young man who he hadn’t interacted with or spoken to, who looked nervous when he saw Nicolai. He was stood by the door and had just rattled its handle, tried to open it.

‘Here,’ Nicolai said, brushing past to unlock the door.

‘Oh.’ The young man flinched in surprise.

Job done, Nicolai turned away to head back to his room and complete his routine.

‘Is it safe to walk around, down there?’

‘The big room full of bones is safe. If you go down the stairs towards the crypt, there is a tunnel into darkness. I recommend avoiding that,’ Nicolai told him, flashing the friendly smile.

With his tendrils he observed the man moving down the stairs until he left Nicolai’s range, and he checked him over as the man went. He was carrying a radio, under his clothes. Why was he going down there? To be alone? To escape the confines of the rooms and the others? Most likely.

But why the radio? Why the nerves? Was it just because he felt unease around Nicolai, or something else? Frowning, Nicolai irritably interrupted the stretches he had just begun, again. There was something off, and it was impossible for him to ignore that fact. His paranoia would not permit it. He equipped himself with his shimmer poncho, glove, rapier, and knives. He left his room and locked the door behind him. None of the rest were out to see him go, just as they’d missed the young man going.

He headed down the stairs, flipping the hood of his shimmer poncho up, letting its leg flaps drop, and activated it as his Soul Sense tendrils wormed out before him.

There was no one in the banquet hall. Nicolai headed towards the crypt, his tendrils sliding forwards down the stairs to hunt around, and one of them caught at a human figure, the young man, sitting against the wall, the radio in his hands.

Nicolai’s movements slowed until he was silent as he approached, creeping down the stairs and listening.

‘…place, big undead. Yeah. I don’t know. Ok, ok, I’ll try.’ There was a lengthy pause, Nicolai unable to make out the faint whispers of the radio as whoever the man was speaking to went on. ‘And what about mine?’ asked the man. ‘You promise?’ The radio whispered assurances.

Nicolai drew closer and closer, his steps silent, the poncho cloaking him. The young man was sitting hunched against the wall, the radio close to his face, nervous eyes peering back down the corridor towards the stairs out. The person on the other side of the radio said something then the radio clicked. The young man lowered it with a sigh, and rubbed at his chin.

He’d just finished rising when Nicolai reached out and grabbed him. The man let out a terrified yelp that transformed into a grunt as Nicolai slammed him into the wall, pulled his arm behind his back, put a foot into the back of his knee to bend his leg, then Nicolai took him to the ground.

‘Hey! What are you doing! Who is that!’ the man spluttered into the floor, flailing, trying to get Nicolai off, but Nicolai had gotten the man’s arm behind his back and put his knee on top of it, the weight of his body holding the young man there.

‘You’ve been bad,’ said Nicolai, and chuckled. ‘That wasn’t one of your group on the radio. Who was it? The Chosen? What’d they promise you?’

‘Is that you, Raw? Get off me!’ snarled the man, struggling harder.

Nicolai held out a knife in front of his face until the young man’s eyes caught it, then poked him in the side of the neck. The man yelped as the point drew blood. ‘Stop moving and answer my questions.’

‘I’m recording this,’ said the young man, ‘I’ll show it to all the others.’

‘Yeah? How are you going to do that?’

‘We’re all connected over Local, Raw, something you’d know nothing about.’

‘I know that it won’t reach from up there to down here. Right now, it’s just you and me. It sounded to me like you were telling someone about this place. My place. I find that deeply distressing. When I’m distressed, I hurt people.’

‘If you hurt me, you’ll die, they’ll kill you,’ hissed the young man.

They’ll try. ‘They don’t need to know. You went wandering in the tunnels. And you simply… didn’t come back. Lots of nasty things if you keep going into the dark.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ said the young man.

Nicolai laughed. Kill him. He held the knife up high, a grin winding over his features. One less problem in his life. The beautiful moment of a life ended… no. That wasn’t smart. Nor was it even a fun challenge. Just a momentary sating of the endless demented urges within him.

Nicolai expelled air in a slow sigh through his nostrils, considering things, struggling to keep the urges down and the knife up as the young man continued to protest his innocence. If this guy disappeared then Nicolai returned, well, it was fair to say there’d be some suspicion. But if he brought the young man back, it would give the man an opportunity to edit his recording of all this, make something nicely convincing featuring snippets like “I hurt people,” and, “Right now, it’s just you and me.”

None of that would go across well. This individual was definitely planning something, probably he was the worm that had allowed the Chosen to find the group the first time. Why the Chosen had allowed this group to stay in the hole they’d ended up in and then left them there, he wasn’t sure. Maybe to wait for them to meet others and be led to more safe places, in which case he’d fallen right into that trap.

If he killed the man, he couldn’t see any way to guarantee the body wouldn’t be found. He could drag the corpse all the way to the prison, but who knew what would be waiting there? Perhaps the Wardens would have resealed the hole, and he’d just have to dump the body at a dead end, or perhaps he would walk into a trap.

The others would certainly search for the dead man and they would investigate the tunnel and the crypt first. Alternatively, if he killed the man then dragged him up, into the banquet hall, and out the door, he ran the risk of any of them coming down the stairs while he was doing so, spotting him in the act. Not a good look.

He’d rather deal with the problem immediately and not rely on the judgement and opinions and unpredictable decision making of others. But, so long as he could get them to take his band off, he’d be happy, even if they were stupid enough to let the man go free and leave him to enact whatever mischief was planned.

Worst came to worst, Nicolai could just leave as soon as his band was removed. It was a risk, but he felt sure he could find somewhere to hide out. He had explored much of the castle, and had found a number of places that could be turned into temporary hideouts. He even had an idea for how to find a more permanent safe place. He wasn’t particularly bothered by the fact that this man had revealed this place to the Chosen; he held no particular attachment to it, it was merely the first place he had found.

‘Let me go, let me go!’ the young man was growling, struggling uselessly.

Nicolai leaned forwards, turned the knife over, and bludgeoned the man on the side of his head with relative restraint. The man yelled and flailed instead of falling unconscious so Nicolai hit him again, with significantly less restraint, and he went still. Then he started dragging the possibly-brain-damaged man back up the tunnel.

He intended to just tell the truth, deal with the man’s lies, and see how it went. If it all went to shit… well, at least when he stood over the dead, he would be able to salve his simulated consciousness with the knowledge that he’d tried.

Just as Nicolai was dragging the unconscious man up the stairs, he saw John and two others, Cait and Karl, emerging from the entrance to his safe place. They immediately saw him and came over, looking greatly concerned and suspicious.

‘What are you doing, Raw?’ called out Cait, who accompanied John alongside Karl. They were all tugging free weapons and spreading wide to encircle him.

‘Taking care of a problem,’ said Nicolai, dragging the unconscious man out the stairs and dumping him, stepping away to wait. ‘He’s alive,’ he told them as they came. After a wary moment, Cait stepped forwards and knelt by the man, checking his pulse.

John was scowling at him. ‘What…’ The man put a hand to his head, appearing frustrated. ‘Why have you done this?’

‘This man is a traitor. This morning, when I opened the main door, he told me he wanted to go for a walk. He was carrying nothing, apart from this radio.’ Nicolai held the radio in question out. ‘I felt it suspicious, so I followed him. I found him in that tunnel, and he was speaking to someone on the radio. Talking about this place. About promises, locations. You ask my opinion, he was speaking to the Chosen.’

Their expressions underwent an interesting shift. Shock, doubt, uncertainty, confusion, wariness.

‘That’s a big accusation,’ said Cait.

‘He wouldn’t do that,’ said Karl, and the others looked at him, ‘he wouldn’t,’ he said.

‘Friend of yours?’ asked Nicolai, studying Karl. In his experience, rats often came in pairs.

‘He’s a good man, Raw,’ snarled Karl.

‘Uh huh,’ said Nicolai, watching the man carefully. ‘What’s his name?’ Nicolai looked to the unconscious man.

‘Leon,’ said John.

‘Tell me, was Leon the type to often go on walks, often want to be away, alone, from the rest of you?’ Nicolai asked.

John was wearing a big old frown, now.

‘He did go on walks by himself. Quite often. Most mornings,’ said Cait.

‘Always bringing that radio with him?’

She frowned. ‘That’s right.’

‘And he’s been with you since before that first time the Chosen came and made a move on you?’

‘He has.’ Her expression was growing darker and darker with each sentence he spoke.

‘Cait!’ Karl was giving her a horrified look.

‘We all thought it was strange, didn’t we?’ she snapped at him. ‘How they just turned up like that right on our doorstep, that they knew exactly how many of us there were. They even knew about old Ben, and Katie, remember? They said they knew it was just us few able to fight, that the others were teenagers and kids and an old man.’

‘Yeah, because they must have been observing us for days beforehand!’

‘So we thought,’ she muttered. ‘I always thought it weird I’d never spotted one of them watching, not once, not anything.’ The gaze she turned towards the unconscious Leon was devoid of her previous concern.

Nicolai kept his face carefully blank. This was going better than he’d expected. Being honest had been the right move. His foot tapped impatiently. Whatever. He didn’t truly care. He had something far more important in his mind.

‘Well,’ he clapped his hands to get their attention. ‘It’s clear there’s a big debate ahead of you. All I’ll say is this: when he wakes, he’s gonna spew a pack of lies about me. Just keep in mind, I didn’t kill him, and I could’ve. Instead, I brought him to you.’ He spread his arms and gave a winning smile before continuing.

‘On top of that, we have a problem. I don’t think he knew exactly where this place is, but I heard him tell the Chosen about the big skeleton out front. It’s pretty recognisable, I assume at least some of them have seen it since they often patrol out there. So, this hide is pretty much fucked already. I don’t know what you lot have been doing all this time, but for me, I think we’ve no choice but to start fighting back against them. They’re already too well armed and numerous as it is. I’ve got some plans in that regard, but first we need to start looking for a new place before they start pushing in. Again, I have some ideas on that front.’

Nicolai fixed his gaze on John, and he finally spoke the words that were truly important to him. ‘And I need one of you to remove this from me.’ He tugged at his band. ‘If we’re to fight the Chosen, we need every bit of strength we can get, and this thing is holding me back.’

John stared silently back at him, taking his time, thinking, as Nicolai was learning was typical with him.

This was a big moment, in Nicolai’s opinion. In his little speech he’d done his best to bridge the metaphorical chasm between him, the lone untrustworthy Raw and them, the motley tribe of modern humans. Reminding people of larger, external threats was always a good way to build internal bonds, plus his continual collective language suggesting he truly saw himself as part of their group and desired only to help them. If John helped him get his band off, it was all good.

If not, he’d have to take a far less friendly route. He’d let these people in, and they’d said they would take his band off and then John had refused and now one of them had told the Chosen about his hide. Not their fault, it was the guy on the grounds fault, sure, he’d betrayed them as much as he’d betrayed Nicolai. But he could fear the slow winding pulse of the darkness within him, looking for any excuse to come out. He needed to make some progress and quick to put it to bed. Whether that progress came beside these people, or through them, was now up to John.

‘Tell me why you need it removed,’ said John. ‘What is it?’

To lie, or tell the truth? Nicolai simply didn’t have the energy to do the maths and carve up some story. The need to get his band off had become something pressing, something almost alive, something that, at this point, was increasingly outside of his control.

Oh well, so far honesty has worked out pretty well. ‘It prevents me integrating my Seed. It holds me back. With it removed, I will be more capable, have an easier time dealing with the Chosen.’

He immediately saw the wariness reborn in John’s eyes, saw the denial forming, the man’s lips beginning to shape the words. A pulse of cold rage crawled through him.

‘Think hard on this, John,’ Nicolai hissed before John could speak, and all friendliness was gone from his tone. ‘I’ve done my best to work with you people.’ His voice rose into a snarl. ‘And look how it’s turned out. Your problems are at my door. I only asked one thing of you, in return for letting you in here. Something you agreed to. Remember that? Remove this band from my neck.’

John was stumbling backwards, eyes wide, hands raising defensively. Nicolai realised he’d lurched forward at some point while speaking and was pursuing the man, bearing down on him. He found his hands close to his weapons beneath his shimmer poncho. He stopped and his eyes flicked between the three before him, judging the distances, judging where to strike first. John was closest. Karl looked ready. His hands touched on steel. The moment is at hand.

John’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, uneasy, glancing reflexively at the other two for support.

To Nicolai’s surprise, John didn’t find it.

‘Take it off him, John.’ Cait sighed. ‘If he’s telling the truth, and I think he is, we’ll need all the help we can get. They’re coming.’

John frowned and scratched at the back of his head, chewing his lip. ‘Fine,’ said the man. ‘Fine. It’s…’ He looked away from Nicolai. ‘I might’ve been a little too untrusting,’ he said at last, which Nicolai realised was a kind of apology. John nodded to Nicolai, and let out a hefty exhale through his nose, formed an attempt at a smile. ‘I’ll take it off.’

Nicolai gazed at him, feeling oddly off balance. Like he’d been preparing to kick a door open, only for the door the to unlock and swing wide just as he began to move. His mind, full of the methods in which he would kill the three, took a moment to re-orient and his blank face and tightly wound body froze for an indeterminate moment.

Fortunately only Cait seemed to notice. John was avoiding his eyes and Karl was eyeing John, seeming not at all pleased by this decision. Cait gave Nicolai a puzzled frown as he stood there like a statue.

Nicolai’s mind finished re-calibrating and it fully sunk into him that his band was at last going to be off. His face twitched as he wrestled with the urge to grin. Tense muscles loosened, his stance relaxed. Beneath his poncho knives slithered back into sheaths.

‘A wise decision,’ he said to John, the friendly smile back on his face. ‘Likely one of the best decisions you’ve ever made,’ he added, which he felt was quite an understatement. It was without a doubt the best decision John had ever made.