Irregular Beginnings

A homeless man finds a strange object in stranger circumstances.

CLEVER ELEMER: TOWN ‘that guy’; valuables expert; close(st?) acquaintance to Bel-Gra; if it required money of him, didn’t know about it, didn’t want to know about it " or so he thought.
 
Day one-hundred and forty-four in the Great City.
 
It was thus far a usual one. He had awoken in his regular bed, usurped the previous night from a working resident who was apparently too ill to make it home. Of course, if asked about this, Elemer would state that it is impossible to usurp something that already belonged to you. Besides, there were at least a hundred other beds in this particular White Giant, and this one obviously had an owner, demonstrated by the magazines which were decidedly unTerracochian, if only those who were ailed, inebriated, or otherwise unable would bother to simply look under the pillow. Unless that bloody cleaner had removed them again. What was her name? He never could remember; he tended to forget the names of his enemies, of which he had a fair share. Mostly cleaners.
 
He checked.
 
They were gone.
 
Such was one of his many problems in life: inept cleaners not understanding his laid claim to some of the public furnishing. If he felt the need he could readily produce a long list of the problems he had to face every day, or simply recite them by heart, and had done so on numerous occasions. He would usually be interrupted before the end. They would say things like: ‘Why don’t you just go then? If you don’t like it here...’ or: ‘Those aren’t real problems,’ or: ‘F**k off! Don’t you know there are public showers just around the corner?’ or: ‘Who are you?’ after which they would, with a rather perplexed expression, usually add, ‘And where did you come from just now?’
 
But they didn’t understand. He did like it in Terracoche. How could anyone not? He considered himself merely... outspoken, not cynical. Just looking for something to do, really " not that he wanted something to do. Not like that. And of course he knew about the showers. He used them frequently. Sometimes three times a fortnight.
 
So it had been a usual day. Some milling about the city; arguments with local ants on serious matters; loud rants to the public from his balcony on serious matters. (A serious matter was the knowledge the ants possessed of whereabouts of hidden treasure; a serious matter was the fact the ants would not disclose that knowledge. “Treason” was the word he favoured to shout repeatedly.)
 
The balcony overlooked Terracoche’s central plaza from about twenty storeys up. It was from there that he saw it happen, the thing with which the usualness of the day ended. Something that neither he nor anyone else had ever seen in Terracoche before. In fact he had not so much as seen it from the balcony as heard it " seeing but a quick flash through some windows "  after which he would climb down to the place where more things would be seen, but the sound made pictures in his head.
 
It was not a sound made by any living thing. A sharp, brief sound that, if sought in a Terracochian mind, would be found only in the deepest, darkest recess, repressed there and forgotten like indigestible meat festering in an elderly man’s stomach, with only the subtle bubbling and gurgling to serve as any reminder of what horrors lie within. Many a Terracochian would not even properly register the sound if they heard it, which somehow none but Elemer and the two involved had, but Elemer did instantly.
 
It roused him from his sleep and pierced his soul like some kind of ethereal blade. He immediately stiffened, and became somehow paler, bypassing the laws of pigmentation to make him appear semi-transparent; had someone been there to see it they would have told stories of strange things wiggling throughout his veins. ‘I couldn’t tell if they were parasites,’ they would say, ‘or part of him.’
 
Contradictory to what some thought, Elemer could not simply scale the balcony railing and float down to the ground like a feather. Instead he, ape-like, would slide down a length of extremely durable " though by no means able to support the weight of even a small child " fishing-line attached to the railing. This was the first time he had descended it and not remarked to himself how incredible that it had not been found and removed by whichever cleaner was assigned to the area. Possibly the least qualified cleaner in the city.
 
Instead he was muttering, ‘It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.’
 
He touched the ground at a steady run across the deserted plaza, keeping low and quiet, toward the public bathroom from which the sound and flash had come from. By the time he reached the windows he was almost prone, his mad, darting eyes peering through so that they were exactly level with the bottom of the frame - a humorous sight from the basin-room on the other side had anyone been there to see it, but they were in the cubicle-room. He could see one of their shadows protruding from the doorway which connected the two sections of the lavatory, and in its hands he could make it out. Nothing else it could be.
 
That terrible shape.
 
He sidled along the wall to the opening of the alley where the bathroom entrance lay a few paces down, and waited, occasionally peeking around the corner and into the long darkness. Not likely that the man would pass by him, Elemer knew, but that he would escape via the secluded alleyways. He wouldn’t dare be seen in the open areas of the city, not with that rifle.
 
He shuddered at the word.
 
As the rushing blood in his ears quietened, Elemer could begin to make out the echoing voices.
 
‘... you... would happen... Can’t stop... Can’t stop what’s coming. Tell me...’
 
The second voice was barely a murmur, but Elemer heard it with more clarity than the first. ‘You can’t stop,’ it laughed weakly. ‘Truth. The Truth. The truth will come. The truth has come. It will wash it away. Wash it all away. It has... already begun.’
 
An outburst of rage. Another two terrible explosions. The quick beating of steps that made the blood rush again. He heard the assailant burst out into the alley, and then his footsteps bouncing off the walls as if there were a dozen running men as he made his escape; they talked in Elemer’s ears like eldritch whispers.
 
The man was moving fast, that much be could be ascertained, yet the whispering steps " they would not quieten. Wouldn’t stop screaming at him though the assailant was surely gone by now, moving at that speed. So much time had seemed to pass. Another peek was risked. The dark figure was barely twenty metres down the alley. What was worse of it he, as if alerted by some psychic sense, almost immediately turned to face Elemer.
 
He yelped and jerked his head back. Flat against the wall, his chest was heaving as he thought, Whatodowhatodowhatodo!?
 
How strange it was, that no one was there. He was certain that he had seen a face. It was there, if only barely. He swore he could almost see right through it but it was there. Not to mention that pathetic squeal. It had been awhile since he had killed. The mind could play tricks on one who lead such a life, he recalled. Perhaps he had to readjust.
 
‘No such thing as ghosts,’ he said, and sprinted down the alley again. ‘No such thing as ghosts. No such thing as ghosts.’
 
Ghosts, said the echo.
 
Ghosts...
 
Ghosts....
 
After he regained his wits Elemer climbed down from the tree, still unsure exactly how he had gotten up there. He took a deep breath and let it go, letting his shoulders sag. Thank God the assailant hadn’t looked up.
 
‘Ta, Bel. Not much of a professional,’ he added, and then shouted through cupped hands down the alley, ‘Scrub!’
 
Scrub!
 
Scrub!
 
Scrub!
 
And doubtless he was a supposed professional; that much was obvious. The mercenary may not have gotten a good look at Elemer, but Elemer had gotten a good look at the mercenary, and he was familiar with them. Nothing specific enough to describe, they just had that certain air " the air of a hired man. He reeked of it, if a little rusty. And also plain reeked, which was another trait common among mercenaries.
 
The bathroom was ominously silent. The kind of silence that is beyond silence, but has no word. That even if you dared to make a sound it would be sucked away before it reached your ears. The vacuum of deep space, where life is far away.
 
The alleyway entrance to the basin-room and the entrance to the cubicle-room were lined up so that the dead man could be seen as soon as one looked through, sitting slumped against the wall with his legs stretched out through the connecting doorway. His eyes, the only discernable feature left on his bloodied face, were looking straight ahead to give Elemer a nasty shock when met by his own. He yelped again, and then recomposed himself as much as one who never really had any composure to begin with.
 
‘You know,’ he said as he made his way along the line of sinks, ‘it’s rude to stare.’
 
On closer inspection: the man had been shot once through the stomach and twice through the face, mangling or otherwise removing it in such a way that staring was all he could do with it even if he were alive. A pair of eyeballs amidst a ruined portrait. Elemer knelt beside him.
 
‘No hope of positive ID,’ he mumbled.
 
Behold: The unkempt, only slightly deranged man crouched in the gloom, the corpse before him stirring unpleasant memories...
 
He stood abruptly, breaking the dreadful train of thought, and sighed. Breaking unwanted trains of thought was something he had become rather adept at over the long years, and did a lot of.
 
‘Makes me wonder why I even came here,’ he said to himself in the lowlight.
 
That was another thing he did a lot of " saying things to himself. It tends to become habitual when one is at lack of people to say things to " or, more specific in Elemer’s case, people willing to listen. Not only was he in that habit, but also of doing lots of speaking to objects most do not consider readily able for casual conversation or, as anything casual now usually lead to, heated debate.
 
Another uncalled memory presents itself: A time that seems so long ago when he could simply converse with a wall without it leading to an argument.
 
He really was getting old...
 
‘But I’ll never accept it,’ he said in defiant, insane tones, slinking over to the switch.
 
He flicked on the light. It was time for business " or as close to anything business-like in which he partook. As he did every month, Elemer had already exceeded the limit of clothing he could obtain from the vendors. He looked down again at the victim. Lovely silk shirt, funny pattern, nice colours; breezy, loose-fitting pants " his favourite kind; very comofortable looking shoes; he would change in a bit. Despite the holes and blood they were an upgrade to his own, which had once again somehow become no more than wildly torn rags. And in his time a travelled man like himself picked up a long-kept family secret or two about those hard-to-remove stains.
 
But first...
 
This was not the first or fiftieth time Elemer had stumbled across dead things in suspicious circumstances. It wasn’t unoften that something of value was lurking about in the general area. Not money, Elemer had no use for money (or so he thought), but something which leads to the murder of man. Sure, some may say people are killed over dollars, but it’s not the money the killer wants. Not if it was worthless. They want the things that come with the money. Where there are great amounts of money, they want the status, and the power that comes with the status. That’s what it was usually about, he decided years ago, power. An incredibly false power, if ever he knew one, usable only on the willing. Far less a form of power than it is elaborate trickery. But the simple fact was that Terracoche harboured no such nonsense.
 
So maybe " just maybe " something valuable lurking...
 
The narrow corridor in which the dead man sat opened out into a cubicle-room made large enough to apparently forever abolish the need of toilet lineups. It was less ominous in here; brightly lit, at least, and the accompanying hum of the globes gave it that pleasant office feel, almost as though there was not a man full of holes just out of view.
 
Elemer clapped his hands together and rubbed them conspiratorially, scanning the area. He looked hungry. A beast that had picked up a scent.
 
‘Right,’ he said.
 
The unlikely, obvious places were always first, just in case someone had really been in a hurry their final minutes " the cubicles (nothing), the toilet flush compartment (no), the trashcan (ants " treasure?). It was, even as far as cubicle-rooms go, unconcealed. Nothing of value, unless it was hidden above, on top of those ceiling tiles that simply slot into the framework as if beckoning for things to be stashed away up there. He almost slapped himself for not realising sooner.
 
In fact he was mid-slap when there was an awful shriek, followed by the clip-clop of fleeing heels. (The bathrooms in Terracoche were unisexual, the people being more mature about silly privacy matters.) The slowed pace of the heels, Elemer determined, might bless him with enough time to still get those clothes.
 
His bottom half was dangling from an opening in the ceiling now. A smashed title lay on the floor. With a hideous grunting and flailing legs, he hoisted himself up in what would’ve appeared to anyone in the bathroom as a wild, homeless dance.
 
Crouched like a bat in the pitch-black, his Sense, finely tuned over the decades, was blaring in his mind. There was definitely something up here.
 
He clicked his tongue and listened to the soundwaves navigate the surrounding area. Directly ahead they rebounded off something football-sized only a metre or so away. He reached out gingerly and picked it up. It felt strangely shaped, like nothing he had ever previously held. He ran his fingers along its bumps and niches and queer grooves. An urge to lay eyes upon it lit up his mind like a schoolboy.
 
Before he departed the roof he pondered briefly on how he would enjoy returning to it someday. He found it oddly serene. An image of him spreading leathery wings and flapping away into the night rolled through his mind.
 
Under the bright lights, Elemer, staring fixedly at the bizarre object he had just obtained, his face a mask of interested horror, said at length: ‘What the f**k...’
 
Evidently it was meant to be put over a human-shaped head, encasing all but perhaps the mouth; or, with a head like Elemer’s, completely encasing it. It was surprisingly light. There was no visor to see out of, no grating to hear through. The helmet was a brilliant, unblemished chrome, vividly reflecting his awe-stricken mug, and, as he had deduced in the roof, covered with all sorts of strangeness. The grooves, he could see now, were lined inside with very thin wires that ran to all the buttons and switches and dials.
 
He rotated it every way a few more times for closer inspection and then slid it carefully onto his head. A ‘loose fit’ would not have described it properly; it looked more along the lines of a baby wearing its father’s motorcycle-helmet.
 
‘So,’ he mused with a metallic muffle, ‘aliens have human-shaped heads.’
 
If nothing else, this thing would provide a clear win for what he always knew to be true in the next desultory homeless debate on extraterrestrials. The way his voice was amplified inside the helmet made the statement seem truer than ever.
 
By the time Elemer was crouched inconspicuously behind some crates in the alley, helmet underarm and wearing his brand-new outfit, the closest thing to policemen Terracoche employed were arriving at the scene, ushering along the bawling, incompetent woman.
 
Almost immediately after the group entered, one of the men stumbled headlong out of the lavatory, bent over ninety degrees and supported himself by one hand against the wall, and vomited.
 
There was no doubt that neither of them had seen a dead body before. No older than thirty, Elemer reckoned, and most likely born in the city. You could always tell who was native to Terracoche and who had come from worse places. And as far as going from being alive to being dead went in Terracoche, this person was certainly the first to be helped.
 
Elemer began, too late, to have second thoughts about the decision to leave his own mangled clothes with the dead man to restore what little dignity he had left " the dead man, that is; Elemer’s own dignity had been unrestorable for many years. Not that Terracoche had any of its citizens’ DNA on record, but it would have nonetheless not been a difficult task to track down the rags’ owner. After all, he was " Modesty, Elemer, always modesty " quite famous.

Or infamous. Depending on your sense of humour.
 
He had planned to stick around for the proceedings but shortly realised, with some disappointment, that it would be an all-night-long kind of thing, with more people soon to arrive, and also, likely, search the area. He was already suspicious enough without being found hidden behind boxes in a dark alley, wearing a dead man’s clothes and grasping an object of interest - one that he would stubbornly cling to like a squirrel in the wintertime to its acorn.

He waited for the vomiting man to finish up and reenter the bathroom, and bolted.