Fear And Loathing At The Fisherman's Ball by Agent David Swanger I was walking down College Street in Auburn, Alabama last Thursday when it started. I had just finished eating lunch at the Auburn Grill (Pork Chops, black-eyed peas, fried okra, cornbread and sweet tea - God Bless America) when a total stranger walked up and handed me a plain, manila envelope. I was confused and tried to ask him a question, but he turned and walked away without saying a word. I was intrigued and opened the envelope there on the sidewalk. Inside was a single sheet of paper containing a message that shook my nerves, to say the least: Agent Swanger Tallahassee. May 21. 3:00 p.m. EST. Quincy's, North Monroe. Code-name "Fisherman's Ball". Nyarlathotep will attend. Be there. Tony D I stared at the message and sweat began to pop on my forehead. Tony D (aka andex, Tony Dematio) and Nyarlathotep (aka The Crawling Chaos, John Midtgard), together in the same place. During all my years with "The Company", I'd heard of each of these men, but had never worked with either them. Hell, I at least knew where Tony D's office was located (down in middle Florida, but I don't have a high enough security clearance to just pop in off the street) but nobody I worked with had ever even seen Midtgard. There were plenty of rumors, he'd allegedly been seen in Somalia, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Opelika...any place with the smell of death in the air, but nobody I knew had any hard details. As I stood there glaring at the message, the sheet of paper suddenly caught fire and crumbled into ashes before my eyes. Reactive to sunlight. No evidence. I turned and walked toward my office. I wasn't sure if my nerves could handle this meeting. My stomach was churning as I climbed the stairs to my pitiful little cubicle. I turned the key in the lock, walked inside and sat down in front of my Sun Workstation. I pressed the Return key to log in, when suddenly a message appeared on the screen: DON'T BE LATE. Tony After about a second, the message disappeared. Furiously, I logged into the SUN and checked the system log. There was no record of anyone breaking in. These guys were good. I knew then I couldn't back out. I had to attend "The Fisherman's Ball". My alarm rang at daybreak Saturday morning and I leapt out of bed. I dressed out in camouflage combat fatigues and began packing my bag with necessities: tear-gas cannisters, brass knuckles, switchblade, and my custom-built .357 Smith and Wesson revolver (that I affectionately refer to as "The Widowmaker"). About this time, Noelle began to stir. Still half-asleep, she said "What are you doing? Are you going somewhere?" She was still wiping the sleep from her eyes." "Ahh, it's nothing, go back to sleep, babe." That did it, she knows when I'm lying, I can hide *nothing* from this woman. She jumped up, grabbed me by the lapels and said "Don't lie to me, Crash-Boy, where are you going!?!?" "Well, uh, well, I, uh, got this message from Tony D, see and I'm taking a drive down to Tallahassee for a little meeting with him and Nyarlathotep..." She cut in, saying "I'm going" and instantly started getting dressed in her jeans and t-shirt. "But honey, this might be dangerous..." I tried to say. "Then you'll need someone to protect you!" she said firmly. She packed her 9mm Russian pistol into her purse. I knew then, it was hopeless. She was going to go with me. In a few minutes, we sat down and started planning our trip. A few hours later, we had the Cadillac packed, the route planned and we were running on pure adrenaline. It was time to leave. The sun was shining, the air was damp and sweet. I put the top down on the Caddy, pulled out of the driveway and drove toward Tallahassee. Neither of us said much as we drove south. I noticed there weren't many cars on the highway that day. I drove on. We passed Seale, Eufaula and Abbeville without incident. We slowed at a traffic light in Dothan when I saw him. Phil Harbison was working on a road gang. He was disguised as an "asphalt engineer", but he definitely wasn't part of the slack-jawed crew (although, many of them were wearing "Roll Tide" and "Bear Lives" t-shirts - they were a pathetic looking bunch). Noelle saw Phil too and instinctively reached for her 9mm pistol. If he made a wrong move, his family was going to be wearing black. Phil didn't move and pretended not to see us. As we drove off, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Phil take out a cellular phone and start to dial. I was stunned. Was he part of this operation? I drove on. Soon, we were driving into Bainbridge, Georgia and were less than an hour from Tallahassee. As we left Bainbridge, I happened to look up to the top of a water tower and saw two men holding long range assault rifles. They didn't fire. My only guess was that they worked for Tony D. I stepped on the gas and sped away. Finally, I drove into Florida's Capitol, Tallahassee. It was a crowded, wretched place. There was garbage strewn in the street, homeless people were everywhere, I saw cars overturned and burning, businesses were boarded up. It reminded me of Saigon, just before the fall. I shuddered at the sight. Soon, we found Quincy's. It was open for business, though there weren't many cars in the parking lot. One of the cars there had a bumper sticker that read, "Free The Footlocker Four". I parked the Caddy, put the top up, jammed the Widowmaker in a jacket pocket and got out. Noelle got out and we walked to the front door of Quincy's. As we entered Quincy's, I noticed something strange. It was nearly empty. There were no employees, except for the doorman. There were no customers. Then I saw them in a far dark corner of the room. There were five men sitting around a table. The doorman locked the front door behind us and turned the "OPEN" sign around to "CLOSED". Then I recognized him. He was the dude that had handed me the invitation in Auburn. He sat down in a chair by the door and didn't say a word. We turned a walked over to Tony D's table. Tony DeMatio. I recognized him on sight. Although we had never met, his picture has been a mainstay of several magazines recently, such as "Soldier Of Fortune" and "Self-Defense Quarterly". We shook hands. I turned to face one of the most dangerous looking men I've ever seen. He had to be the Crawling Chaos, John Midtgard. He stood at least six foot, nine inches tall. He had muscles that a NFL defensive lineman would kill for. He moved with the assured self-confidence of a prize fighter or a trained assassin. He smiled and extended a hand in greeting. Nervously, I shook hands. Christ, his hands were huge! He could palm a basketball with one hand. Just think what he could do with a human skull! We exchanged polite greetings. Then I checked out the rest of the gang. Stricher, Campbell, Brater. All pros, all good. I'd worked with all three of these men at one time or another, but we'd never spoken much. They did their jobs and I did mine. Finally, Tony D spoke up and said, "Let's get down to business." We all sat down and listened. "I hate to bother all of you men on short notice like this, but we have a problem that needs to be addressed. It's the Canes. They're going to try to come back this fall." Steve Campbell rolled his eyes and said "Is that all? We creamed those girly-men last year and we'll do it again this year." He turned to Noelle and said, "No offense meant on the girly-man thing." She didn't smile and said "None taken." Her fingers were inches from her purse. Brater smiled and said, "Come on Tony, it's just the Canes, it's not like it's anything serious, we can..." Tony stood up and slammed the table with his open hand. "I DON'T THINK YOU MEN UNDERSTAND! THE CANES ARE GOING TO TRY TO COME BACK THIS YEAR!! I have reports from Miami that prove the Canes are willing to do anything to retain their former glory." "Anything?" I asked, "You don't mean..." "Yes," Tony cut in, "They're actually breaking NCAA rules down there." The room went silent as we all collapsed in shock. "No way," said James, "Not even the Canes would stoop that low." His Jackie Sherrill for President T-shirt was tight around his neck. "Yeah, I can't believe any school would break NCAA rules, not in this day and time", Brater said as he re-tied the laces on his Foot Locker running shoes. John rubbed his palms together, "It's just like my old buddy Charlie Pell used to say, if you can't play fair, you shouldn't play." As I sat there taking this all in, I couldn't help but wish I'd brought my tape-recorder to secretly record all of this. Finally, Tony D cleared his throat to quiet to room. "Look men, this is serious and it's time to act, so here is my plan. James, you're the meteorologist. That hurricane you whipped up last year was very effective. See if can work up another, just like it. Steve, you're the geologist. I'd like you work up a little earthquake in the Miami area." Steve looked pensive and said, "There aren't any fault lines in Florida, Tony D. To fake an earthquake in Miami, I'd need to detonate a low energy Cobalt bomb about 100 feet in the ground below the Miami campus." "Make it so", Tony D said without hesitation, "Tell my secretary to take the money out of petty cash. Now Brater, you're the economist, I want you break into the Cane bank account and divert all of their money into the SEC trust fund." Tony D then slowly turned to John Midtgard and said, "John, we've got this problem with Jason. This nonsense has gone on long enough. He's got to go down, John." Nyarlathotep smiled, reached in his right boot and pulled out a Bowie knife the length of my forearm. "Don't worry about Jason," he said with a grin, "I've been looking forward to this for years." The way he held the knife and smiled unnerved us all, even Tony D. Then Tony D looked at me and said, "Now Dave, I've got a special job for you." He looked over at Noelle, then said "I don't know if your wife should go along with you on this mission, here's what I want you to do...' [The camera fades back to an overhead view of the attendants of "The Fisherman's Ball. Just as the scene fades to black, Jim Morrison and the Doors start performing their eerie, minor-key blues, "The Crawling Chaos"] "I'm The Crawling Chaos, in the gator den. Yes, I'm the Crawling Chaos, in the gator den. My coach might be a nimrod, but he knows how to win. Gonna go down to the swamp, and eat some bulldawg stew. Gonna go down to the swamp, and eat some cajun tiger too. Me and Mr. Two Bits, gonna drink a lot of brew." . . . [fade to black] -- -- David Swanger University Computing Auburn University, AL swangdb@mail.auburn.edu