<div class="floatleft">(https://46.media.tumblr.com/84400782eb9cadbbb1a45de7e5d4a923/tumblr_mx2kuiRV9E1sr1ki0o1_500.gif)</div><hr/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>EDMUND BROCKMAN, MD | 34 | DOCTOR OF MEDICINE (PSYCHIATRY) </strong></span><hr/><br/><hr/><br/>Over tea -- the drink that was somehow both a beverage and a meal to these tradition-bound cretins -- Doctor Brockman took the opportunity to peruse the neglected telegram.<em>Death is coming for you</em>, he thought, recalling a bit of his atrophied Greek. Well, that's hardly news. It'd be surprising if the bony fellow ever stopped. Still, someone had gone to some trouble to send the ominous message. Western Union -- or whatever the equivalent over here was -- probably charged a pretty shilling to use the good paper and scary red ink. He folded the note and put it into his pocket. It might be fun to slip it into someone else's bags later just to stir up trouble.<br/><br/>There was one obvious choice for such shenanigans, of course. Edmund had never been a fan of military men. They blindly sacrificed their free will and their intellect in exchange for a collection of shiny medals and the false love that they called patriotism. Sometimes they sacrificed even more, like those wretched quasimodos at the ship port. The dour Lieutenant wasn't quite as bad off as those wastes of good oxygen, but he was on that slippery slope. An eye here, a testicle there, and before you knew it you were just the semblance of a man shambling through a world inhabited by your betters.<br/><br/>Dr. Brockman smiled to himself. With a half-man and a priest as his only competition, it should be child's play to sample the buffet of delicacies that Professor Smith seemed to have assembled. He had gotten off to a good start with Ms. Demalure, and of course he had had months to install buttons into the lovely Nurse Marta, just begging to be pushed. The Arab woman, too, intrigued him. Beauties all. If the procession of rescued cultists that Professor had been forwarding to him like broken clocks being sent back to the factory was any indication, the gentleman, whom Dr. Brockman had never met in person, must be quite the randy old goat. Edmund wondered briefly what happened to the ugly cultists. Were they ever even rescued, or was it that once they were seen under clear light they were filtered out and dumped on the streets, or in the Thames?<br/><br/>The cramped quarters of the Vauxhall -- a wonderful vehicle in most respects -- made for intriguing and unavoidable rubbing of limbs together but scant opportunity for civilized conversation. It was only once they reached the hotel in London that they had a chance to engage again as humans, and by that time the rigors of the road demanded a stiff drink and a nap before dinner. Edmund entered the lavish hotel suite in the company of Father Prescott and, somewhat to his surprise, the Lieutenant. No mere errand boy, then, but a full participant in whatever the Professor had summoned them for. Hmm.<br/><br/>"Brandy, my fellows?" the doctor offered, helping himself to the small but decently stocked bar in their common room and setting out two additional glasses. "You drove well, Mr. Walker. I wouldn't mind a turn behind the wheel of that beast some day. But the roads fought you at every turn." If there was one thing military men hated in Dr. Brockman's experience, it was having their rank overlooked.<br/><br/><br/>