7 September 1939

Alec dug his hand into one of the deep pockets of his rubbery black oilskin and fished out a lighter. He found the brass device fortunately dry and tapped it against his palm for good measure. Inside the wheelhouse he was safe from the cold spray of the ocean and the pissing rain which had been plaguing them since the afternoon. Dark clouds, high winds, and rolling seas were nothing new for a seasoned fisherman like him, but that didn't mean-a point which was often lost on landlubbers-he enjoyed it. He thought: At least the boat's mine. When I get sick of the spray I can take the wheel and have a smoke, and no one can say a damn thing.

Just as he thought these words, one of his boys entered the wheelhouse and crept up on him. The kid had just turned 16 and had an excited look on his face which spelled doom for Alec's desire to be left alone to enjoy his cigarette. The captain sighed and ran his hand over his closely cropped black beard.

"What is it, Tugs?" Alec said. That wasn't his name, but it might as well have been since they'd caught him in the grip of sin. The boy was sickly pale and his greasy black hair was parted in the middle. He was dressed similarly to Alec in a dark oilskin coat-the kind that would quickly make him invisible if he were to fall overboard at the wrong time. Alec looked out the window at the darkening sky and troubled seas and noted that it happened to be such a time, right then.

"I'll take the wheel. You've gotta get a load of this!"

Alec took a long drag on his cigarette.

"You all think you saw a 'Neroid' again? Tea leaves have a better record than you lot." Alec said. He'd been getting sick of hearing about reports of sea-monster Neuroi. Not only did he not believe them, even if he did-what was he supposed to do, give up his livelihood? "Look on the bright side: the more risks we take, the bigger our payoff."

"No, honest, you have to see this. Come on." Tugs said. Alec gestured for him to elaborate. "The boys wanted to see the look on your face. I'll say this much: we caught something that's no fish."

The captain rubbed the tip of what remained of his cigarette into a clay ashtray near the wheel. He shoved his hands into his pockets and felt a shock of cold spray hit his face as soon as he left the wheelhouse. There must be something really interesting astern, because all six men were standing there gawking instead of doing any work. At least, there had better be something interesting, or he was liable to do some shouting.

He wasn't disappointed.

Sprawled out in a bed of flopping codfish was a pale and lithe girl of about twelve, strangely pretty in death. He'd be tempted to say she was still alive, if it weren't for her stillness and lack of breathing. Her body was completely bared to them and if the circumstances were any different he would've felt very awkward. In life she'd been on the cusp of becoming a woman, a journey that had been cut unfortunately short. Her straight, shoulder-length red hair clung wetly to her freckled skin.

"A damn shame. This is what Tugs was up in arms about? Must be one of the unfortunate souls from the Athenia." Alec said, striding in front of the others. He was disappointed in the boy to be so buoyant at the sight of death, even as peaceful and pretty as it was here. The SS Athenia had sunk several days ago, and the sea stories held that the responsible party was a new breed of underwater Neuroi. He wasn't ready to believe that, but the liner did sink and many were lost. By all appearances the girl had hung on for much longer than any castaway on the North Atlantic had a right to. He took off his Sou'wester out of respect for the departed.

"Cap'n. She's alive." he heard one of his men say. He looked closer at the girl and saw her chest rise and then fall. The fishermen stood agog when she opened her green eyes, pressed her palm against the cold deck, and shakily pushed herself to her feet. So great was their shock that they said nothing even as she realized where she was and did what she could to cover herself.

"Take a picture!" she cried out, blushing at her exposure. The sound of her voice stirred them out of their torpor.

"Dammit, stop gawking and get the poor girl a blanket." Alec yelled to his crew, which sent the lot of them bumbling about on the same task, running into each other in a rush to escape his wrath, "If I caught one of you lazy bums I'd throw you back!"

They soon had her warm, dry, and into some of Tugs' clothes. Even though they were a little too big for her, the girl had a tomboyish personality and wore them as if they were her own. She had been fairly pensive and mysterious about the nature of her miraculous survival, and about everything else, but Alec had high hopes she would be more talkative after she was finished with the vegetable stew she was wolfing down. She ate like an animal, dispensing with all manners, and he didn't blame her. She upended the rest of the bowl into her mouth and made a sigh of satisfaction. He could tell she wanted more, so he went over to their little stove, ladled her another bowl, and slapped it down in front of her. She got rid of that one just as fast. He gave her another and she eagerly picked it up.

"You'll get a tummy-ache, eating like that."

Though he wasn't sure why, something about his statement caused the girl to sadden. She looked down and put the rest of the soup on the table, and he at least understood it wasn't because of his warning. He decided to give it another shot.

"What's your name?"

"Jean." she said. She seemed unsure of what to say next, and Alec was surprised at what she settled on: "We need to go back."

"And why's that?"

"The Neuroi. They attacked the Athenia from underwater. It's not safe out here." He gathered already from her accent that she was from Liberion, not Britannia or anywhere in Europe.

"So the story goes." Alec said. If they cut and run now, he wouldn't even break even.

"It's not a story, Mr. Powles. I was there."

Alec shook his head with regret.

"I know you've probably been through a lot, but there's no way you're from Athenia. No one could've survived that long. Maybe you're dazed. Your ship probably sank in the gale." Alec said. The gale wasn't too bad, but when the time came for some ships, it came. There were always rogue waves which could capsize the unwary. Whatever it was, there was no way she was from Athenia.

"Believe what you want." Jean said, and turned her head to the side.

"You're from Liberion?" Alec said, trying to get her talking again.

No response.

"Don't worry," Alec said, "we'll get you back safe. But if you just sit and stew it'll seem like forever, so if I were you, I'd pitch in around the boat."

Over the next two days, the girl took Alec's advice to heart. She worked as if she were being whipped by demons, and turned out to be curiously strong given her twin disadvantages of age and gender. She cleaned dishes, swabbed the deck, dusted and polished everything that was in need of it. She cooked (poorly, though they didn't have the heart to tell her), steered the boat, pulled in line, tied knots, and hauled buckets of fish around as if they were feathers. She stopped when she had to eat or sleep.

The one thing she didn't do was open up to any of them. Alec had initially suggested that she go to work as a half-jest, figuring she would do some symbolic things and call it a day. Now, however, he was waking up to the fact that she probably should be paid. On the eve of the third day since her rescue the boat was looking better than it did when they'd left for open water. That was opposite from the normal progression of events.

Alec stood on the planks of the stern and watched Jean clean the grime off of hard-to-reach corners on the harpoon cannon with a hand brush and a bucket of water. He looked over to Tugs, who was having a cigarette and practicing throwing his knife into a target on the cabin. They boy had aspirations of joining the Royal Navy, so he did a lot of things that he figured they did. Tough things.

"Jean, you're hired. Tugs, you're fired. Start swimming." Alec said.

"No way. I'm gonna marry her." Tugs said.

"I'm twelve. Don't you Brits have laws?" Jean called over her shoulder. Alec had noticed she'd said more in the past two hours than she had in the 70 before it. He even saw a smile flash across her face. Their little moment was interrupted by a frantic clanging of a bell from the wheelhouse. The three of them rushed up to the bow and saw a strange sight. There was a saw-edged piece of metal jutting out of the water, cutting towards them. It was inclined backwards and attached to some greater black shape that was moving straight for the boat. On the front end of this odd thing was a pair of glowing red eyes each the size of a bear.

"It's them!" Jean said. When she put one leg up on the bowsprit, Alec noticed that her red hair had changed color. Part of it was now marred by a swathe of gold. Her pale skin had also changed and had become tanned on only her dorsal side. The black-and-red creature breached the surface of the water with a shriek and let loose a pair of searing beams from its red eye-like plates. Alec imagined it was the end of him, but when those beams reached the boat they struck some white barrier that had formed in front of Jean. He pulled out his pistol, a Browning Hi-Power which he hadn't put a round through in months, and prepared to make a cursory gesture of defiance towards the monster. He'd only gotten one shot off before it was seized by Tugs.

"Alec, she's a Witch! Give it to her." Tugs yelled at him, and handed the gun to Jean. Alec didn't see that it made any difference who held it, but things were moving too quickly to argue. The girl had obviously handled a weapon before-Liberions!-and emptied the remainder of the 13-round magazine into the creature. The bobbing seas made things difficult, but her last shot shattered one of the red eyes and dissuaded the otherworldly animal from its ramming course. Jean tore her baggy clothing off and ran for the stern, grabbing Tugs' knife from the target and diving off the tail without a word. She tried to intercept the creature, but there was no way she would reach it. She simply wasn't fast enough.

"The harpoon. Get the harpoon ready!" Alec said. He and Tugs flew to the stern of the ship and swiveled the harpoon cannon around. A boom echoed across the ocean when Alec pulled the trigger and the directed explosion sent the harpoon flying off. His aim wasn't true and they sagged with disappointment when the spear flew over the sawtooth ram attached to the front.

"Dammit to hell!" Alec said. Then, in one of those fortunate miracles, when the beast drove over the rope it pulled the harpoon against the metal protrusion of the saw and hooked it on there. Jean, who had already had control of the rope, was dragged along like a water-skier who had lost her skis. She held the dagger between her teeth. Then the beast ran to the deep and dragged both harpoon and rope and the girl holding onto it under the surface. Tugs managed to find a machete in time to sever the line before the beast tore the fantail off the boat.

For the next ten minutes the entire crew of the small fishing boat stood vigil at the stern, their mood becoming ever darker and more funereal. No one said a word. Three of their number shook their heads and walked away sorrowfully.

The remainder then went into a cheer when Jean's head broke the surface of the water. She took several deep breaths, as if she'd just gone down to retrieve a coin at the bottom of a bathing pool. She still had Tugs' knife between her teeth, and the cheers became even louder when she flashed them a triumphant V-for-victory sign.

A few days later and a few thousand miles distant in an unfinished room in an unfinished building soon to be known as the Pentagon, a workman was painting in black lettering on the smoked-glass portal of a door. The outlines read: NEREID INITIATIVE. The worker stepped out of the way when a clean-cut man wearing dress blues with the double-bars of an Lieutenant opened the door. He had tucked both his cover and a file folder under one arm. On the inside there were a couple of men in white button down shirts working on an unusual Striker. Each of them looked up at the man in dress blues, who held up the file folder in triumph.

"We found another one."