“Nyarlathotep,” said Nolan. He'd intended for it to be a question but somehow it hadn't come out that way.
“Yes. Are you familiar with the name?”
Nolan’s brow furrowed as he picked at the edge of a faded memory. “Vaguely. I think I’ve heard it somewhere before.”
Mr. Sound gave Nolan a curiously knowing look. Nolan, too busy being awed by the colossal thing before him, failed to notice.
The creature hung against the wall, reaching to the top of the twenty foot high ceiling, held by a complex arrangement of heavy clamps and chains. It looked to be a confused conglomeration of various unrelated appendages attached to the body of a bulbous fish and its coloration reminded Nolan of an unfortunate gastrointestinal experience he’d had with a plate of spoiled broccoli covered in cheese. From the center of the mass of limbs a huge, unblinking, pale yellow eye stared at him with a black pupil that shifted like an endlessly cycling Rorschach ink blot. Around the large eye was a ring of smaller black blobs that pulsed and quivered. Nolan crossed the space before the creature and the great eye followed him. Other details about the room hovered at the edge of his perception as well. There were guards in black uniforms standing at regular intervals along the walls, each holding a smaller version of the weapon that had saved him in the forest. The wall opposite the creature was composed entirely of panes of thick glass set in steel frames. Behind the glass people hovered around large pieces of equipment, the functions of which he could hardly guess. But none of those things made any real impression on him. It was the thing on the wall that demanded his full attention. He hardly even noticed when Mr. Sound started speaking again.
“We’ve had him here for twenty years. Most of what we now about his kind, their biology in particular, we've learned from him. For example; we know they're capable of reproducing with virtually any complex life form. In fact, that creature you encountered in the forest is almost certainly one of their offspring .”
“Something like this made the thing that attacked me?”
“Not exactly, most likely it was one of the lesser ones. You wouldn’t want to encounter one their offspring,” said Mr. Sound gesturing at Nyarlathotep, “and you wouldn’t be standing here if you had.”
Painted on the floor some forty feet from where the monster hung was a thick, red line. Nolan stepped up to it without looking down.
“Mind the line,” said Mr. Sound casually.
Without warning a thin, suckered tentacle tipped with a cruel looking hook shot forward at Nolan and hung, quivering, in the air less than an inch from his face. It all happened so fast that Nolan had no time to react and he stood staring straight ahead as if he hadn't even noticed what had occurred. One of the guards leveled his weapon and fired a single blast at the tentacle. The offending limb whipped backward to its owner who let out a high pitched squeal that Nolan, in his shock, was only vaguely aware was not audible.
“Seems he likes you,” said Mr. Sound with a grin.
“What?” replied Nolan when he finally remembered to breath.
“I’m joking of course. To be honest we’ve no idea what goes in their minds, or if they even have minds, or if they even ‘think’ in the way we perceive thoughts. We have managed to establish a limited means of communication over the past few years but I’m afraid he isn’t very forthcoming on such matters.”
"You can talk to it?"
"He understands human speech and we’ve been able to translate some of the things he ‘says’. Personally I’m convinced that he could address us in our own tongue if he wanted to but chooses instead to play the enigmatic ‘Creature From Beyond’. Or maybe I’m just projecting.”
“And it’s name is Nyarlathotep.”
“Not really, that’s just what we call him. We don’t think they really have any use for names where they come form. He was 'assisted' in crossing over to our world by a cult calling themselves 'The Followers of Nyarlathotep', so it seemed as good a name as any. Names help us to keep track of the more unique specimens we encounter.”
This last statement managed to penetrate Nolan's enthralled mental paralysis and he looked away from the creature for the first time since entering the room. It wasn't easy.
“You have other things like this here?” Asked Nolan, looking concerned.
“Unfortunately no. He’s the only one we’ve managed to capture alive, or dead for that matter, but we do keep records of our encounters with other members of his species, though such encounters are rare.”
“Is it safe? The restraints look a little…”
“Medieval?” Mr. Sound finished.
“Yeah.”
“Our equipment here has to be somewhat ‘low tech’. These creatures, particularly the larger ones, project a localized electromagnetic field, which plays havoc with all manner of electronic equipment, especially delicate things like microprocessors and integrated circuits. Things tend to go haywire or just stop functioning all together.”
“But aren’t those electric?” Said Nolan pointing at one of the guard's weapons.
“Ah yes, the ‘Tesla Cannons', a very astute observation,” Mr Sound paused, “the truth is we don’t have the slightest idea why they work when everything else doesn't. I wish we did but our boys in the lab can’t seem to puzzle it out.”
Nolan nodded and turned back to Nyarlathotep. His gaze kept wandering back to the eye, the pupil in particular. Something about the ever changing shape seemed familiar to him and he found it harder and harder to look away. Mr. Sound placed a hand on Nolan’s shoulder and he started .
“Be careful of the eye,” Mr. Sound said seriously, “if you’re not it will draw you in and you really don’t want that. We nearly lost a very good agent of ours that way.”
Nolan shook his head and turned away from the creature. The effort he had to exert in resisting the urge to look back was alarming.
“Come on,” said Mr. Sound, clapping him on the back, “there’s someone else you need to meet.”
“Who’s that?”
“Your partner.”
Mr. Sound led Nolan through a door on the far side of the room. As they left every technician and guard in the room, all of whom had been deliberately not looking at them the whole time, turned to watch them go.
The hallway past the door was much more narrow and less brightly lit than the one they'd entered through, which gave Nolan a momentary twinge of claustrophobia as the door swung slowly shut behind them. The corridor was empty and quiet. Mr. Sound led him in silence and Nolan took the time to try and regain his mental balance. Mr. Sound had been right, he had thought he'd understood what he was in for, but seeing Nyarlathotep had thrown all that straight out the window. He realized what a mistake it had been, assuming he knew what to expect, and made a mental note to avoid that sort of misstep in the future. He had a feeling that following such a guideline might just be the key to surviving.
Mr. Sound stopped abruptly in front of a door along the hallway and pushed it open. The room inside was mostly dark except for a white light that shown brightly down from the center of the ceiling. Two men were standing in front of a metal table and looking down at something that Nolan couldn't see. One of the men wore a long, brown trench coat that looked about a hundred years old. Both men turned and looked up as Nolan and Mr. Sound entered the room. Nolan caught a small glimpse of something red and wet lying on the table behind them.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Sound, “good to see you've arrived. This is the new agent I informed you about, Nolan Savitch. Nolan, you may recognize the gentleman on the right from your previous encounter, one Bill Tin. The gentleman on the left is your new partner, Basil Dollory.”
Basil Dollory stood with a slight hunch, which made him seem shorter than he really was. His dark brown hair, looking in desperate need of both a strong comb and a sharp pair of scissors, hung lankly across his forehead and cast thin shadows on his face that distorted his feature. Basil looked at Mr. Sound for a moment and Nolan got the sense of some unspoken communication passing between them, then he turned to Nolan and aggressively locked eyes with him for an uncomfortable span. Nolan froze and could think of nothing to say. Basil's eyes were like thunderclouds, dark grey and full of barely restrained force, yet his expression was blank and Nolan could glean nothing from it, so he simply looked back, uncertain how to proceed. Finally Basil's eyes softened and a slight grin formed on his lips.
“So then,” said Basil, “new agent eh? Well there's worse things to be I suppose. I take it you've just been to see 'Ol' Squiddy'? Quite the piece of work isn't he? Now from that... to this, hell of a first day.” Nolan caught the hint of an accent in Basil's speech, something nasal and vaguely European, but it wasn't like any he'd ever heard before.
Basil turned back to the table while Bill stepped forward and held out a leather gloved hand to Nolan. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and Nolan noticed that the visible skin of his outstretched arm was hairless and mottled with scars. From beneath the cuff of his glove light winked off something that looked like a metal bracelet.
“We meet again Mr. Savitch,” said Bill and he gestured with a nod over his shoulder, “don't mind him one bit, he's not nearly the bastard he seems to be.”
Bill took Nolan's hand and shook it twice. Nolan noticed that his grip was inhumanly strong and solid.
“Now that the introductions are out of the way,” said Mr. Sound, “perhaps you two would like to give us a rundown on what we have so far in this particular investigation.”
Bill and Basil each took a step apart to give the newcomers a better view of the table. Nolan's stomach turned and he silently prayed that he would not throw up. Piled on the table like a mound of ground meat sat what Nolan could only assume, based on the few intact parts he could identify, were human remains.
“You might recognize this,” said Basil, “as the body you saw in the alleyway the other night, though I suppose 'body' is now a bit of stretch.”
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