Made Men (11 page)

“I
know all of their names.”

Saturday, April 7
^th
, 1962. Morning
Mass …

T
he diminutive genetic
marvels sat, stood, and knelt appropriately (which was often) until people
began to shuffle out. Some stayed behind, and the twins moved with winnowing
crowd then slipped into a pew behind a woman on her knees. Safest to mimic,
they knelt too, still, but for their ears. The remaining people, it seemed,
intended to tattle on
themselves
in a booth.

Father
König ambled into the confessional. Father Mueller, who gave the service, had
referred to Father König by name, so the mostly-human Germans knew it was
him
. If Father Mueller had stayed behind to receive the
Sacrament of Penance, Ryker and Rickard would have shuffled out with the rest,
but Father König was one of the predators on their list.

The boy had named so many.

A
man entered the booth. Minutes later, he emerged looking relieved. Next, a
woman went in, popping out quickly, bearing an amused expression. Another woman
was next, who exited with a smile.
Then a third.
When
she came out, she appeared exactly as she had upon entering the little
space—just three minutes older.

It appeared as though either more women
sinned than men, or they felt more obligated to discuss it.

T
he crowd had thinned.
Someone entered.

Father
König slid open the window and glanced at the screen set into the partition
that bore a decorative wooden pattern. The visitor sat quietly, as did he. The
chancel sounded empty, otherwise. The priest did not imagine a boy-shaped devil
across the partition holding a bottle of grain alcohol, though there was.
Another stood just outside his cubby, holding a candle he’d snatched from the
altar.

Slight
yet solid, Ryker struck a match and held it to the wick. Father König shifted
and sniffed. The silence was unsettling.

He was starting to hear things.

Clearing
his throat to remind the person in the confessional to speak, the priest tried
to remember what to say when this occurred. It hadn’t happened to him in years.
Customarily, the confessor started the exchange. Then he remembered, nodding
deeply as he spoke the words: “In seeking absolution, although God knows your
heart, he appreciates your voice.”

Was that it? If not, close enough.

Gravelly,
the visitor mumbled something. It sounded almost like … hissing? He tipped
sideways, turning his head to peer through the screen, but the person opposite
held something up, and he couldn’t make out a face. A tearing sound startled
him. Then his head and shoulders were wet … the lap of his vestment too. It
smelled like hard alcohol.

Trickery!

“What
is the MEANING of this?”

As
he burst from the booth, he faced an eerie small boy with a candle. Another,
who appeared identical, strode with confidence from the booth and made his way
to an ancient wooden wheelchair. “Sit, Father König. God has sent for you. We
will deliver you. Time has come to confess your sins.”

The
candle-bearer had a piercing stare. A membrane slid across his eyes as the
priest watched. The boy with the wheelchair had queer eyes too. They changed;
an opaque plate glided from the corner of each to close it off, though their
eyes remained open. König blinked then rubbed his own eyes. When that didn’t
work, he felt his bowels work hot and loose.

He needed a toilet.

“If
you allow us to deliver you, you may live to do good works.”

Had the day come?

“Live
to warn your contemporaries not to repeat your sins. If you struggle—or
argue—your time in Hell will begin now. Ease your burden here, Father
König. He has sent for you.”

Was this the justice he’d dreaded?
Awaited
, though unable to help himself?

“Do
not mistake us—his messengers—as feeble: for He sent us in the
image of those against whom you have sinned. Here is Raphael, who would rather
not deliver you at all, but treat you as filth and destroy you in your own
form. If he had his way, you would be but a child in his hands.”

Raphael!

König
fought the cramping in his abdomen, felt his knees start to give, and pushed
his breath out through pursed lips, trying to slow his heart to no avail.

The
boy continued. “You know my name, though if you speak it, you will burn. I
merely accompany Raphael to keep you from the wrath he has want to flex, and
you, Father, are no dragon.”

Michael!

So
he sat, terrified and convinced, quaking, paralyzed by fear and realization in
the old chair.

It was almost a relief. They were real!
He’d always had doubts, but not now.

The
archangels, boy-like yet stronger, bound his arms with leather straps, then his
legs, then pulled a blanket to his neck, covering his vestment entirely.

Ryker
held a cloth to his face. Father König inhaled the chloroform. Then the small
but capable angels leaned into the chair, pushing their heavy ward out of the
door, down the street, toward the tunnel.

April 7, 1962 4
PM
.

P
eering from a nearby
aisle, they saw Fräulein Gitte over the tops of
rarely-used
,
thick, blue reference books. At the circulation desk, their tired but
serene-looking not-mother spoke with a man as she scribbled.

She shouldn’t notice if they went now.

They
made for the panel.
Crammed full, the
tunnel required careful excavation methods to reach the ugly metal door of the
dungeon they knew too well. If The One Who Was Different used a system to stack
the thousands of volumes, it wasn’t obvious. After several minutes, heaving
stacks twenty to sixty volumes high, they reached his green concrete pen.

Although
the twins had begun to fill out, The One Who Was Different remained thin. His
hollow cheeks and eyes hinted he’d not been eating all that they brought him.
Since it hurt him to turn on the light, they worked in the dark.

The
boy moaned as Rickard sat on the edge of the wasting boy’s cot.

“We
have something to show you—a place. There are items there that will
help.”

 
“A—” He coughed, anguished.

By the rasp of his voice, he’d neglected
water also.

“A
dissection?”

“Come
with us. You will see.”

“I
can’t.” He was severely malnourished. “I am too weak.”

“We
will take you.”

Ryker
lifted the stick-boy as easily as a dry, dead branch and carted him to the
sink. He drank, purged,
then
drank more. The remaining
food they had stacked along the back of the sink had turned.

They could eat it, but he certainly
couldn’t.

Cluttered
and rancid, the whole room felt toxic. Mold grew from fruit, cheese, and
bread—blindly reaching out star-like tendrils for their desiccated boy.

“When
we leave here, we won’t come back. Is there anything you want from this place?”

“Nothing.
I have read everything.”

“There
are things for you. You will see.”

T
hey carried him
through the maze of books that clogged the tunnel. With their increased body mass,
the twins retained heat better, but in the cold tunnel The One Who Was
Different shivered violently.
Half-open
, the boy’s
eyes were dull, like blue beach glass.

He was as light as a
voglescheuche—a scarecrow
.

They
slid their brilliant voglescheuche out first, his clothes comically loose,
then
carried him down the aisle, through the door, outside.
He shrunk from the sunlight, but was too weak to complain.

Then
they sat him in a wooden wheelchair like a curled, frozen bird—a springtime
yard-find. A tiny
winter-killed
creature revealed by a
biting morning wind. Pulling his legs to his chest, he closed his eyes,
parchment-paper hands on his ears. The weight of a stack of sun-warmed blankets
pushed him back in the chair, and again he began to shiver.

In
pain, their bone-framed patient suffered an unknown variety of synesthesia: an
interesting condition for those with mild cases leading to durable memory
tricks and color associations. Some synesthetes even smelled or tasted sights
or memories. Nearly any association, it seemed, could manifest itself in their
brother’s senses. The paltry biped’s inherited knowledge—piled upon his
superior genes—was additionally clear. The recall of several generations
of exceptionally brilliant humans had been tempered beneath the weight of tens
of thousands of books.

He’d read to verify … not to know.

He
knew
, already, what his many fathers
had misunderstood or misremembered, he’d ironed flat and true on hot anvil of
his mind.

T
hey reached the tunnel
beneath the wall. Food, water, warmth, even succor from the bombardment of his
pains awaited the waning child, but he was quite
far gone
.
Unlike a normal human, they must offer the biggest gift before the empyreal
child could care for himself in other basic, biological human ways.

So
they pushed open the first door. The light from the tunnel proved sufficient.
Doped and bound, Father König listed crudely within. Their featherweight ward’s
face blushed; propped against the doorjamb, a flash of color graced his cheeks.
His posture improved.
A fern welcoming rain.
He
appeared to grow three inches at once.

“Why
is he here?”

“He
molests children.”

“How
do you know?”

“We
found some.” Ryker approached the priest to verify that life still clung to
him. “A boy and a girl.
Siblings who had escaped and told us.
We retrieved him from the church … from a confessional booth. He believed we
were archangels come to deliver him from his own sins.”

“Why
did he believe that?”

“We
told him so.”

“He
came willingly?”

“We
were prepared to burn him. He chose not to engage us in battle, though what
reasoning he used, I cannot glean.” Ryker, the skin of his face burnished and
shiny in the low light, sunk a claw into the flank of their captive, who
stirred little. “He believes in Hell. Enough, at least, not to risk his soul,
and we had found liquid items that helped us manipulate him further.”

“Where
are the children?”

“In
Wolfgang’s apartment, upstairs. We’ve tasked them to clean it.”

“Did
he own the apartment?”

“A
lease. We found money and deposited much of it into his account, answered
letters in his handwriting, paid his bills. The domicile is functional.”

Taller
still, he nodded, his face more pink. Surely he hurt, but had become
animated—possibilities, it seemed, stuck to his bones more readily than
food.

It was going to work. They could help
him. Once more, they would save their human brother.

“Why
did you bring him here?”

“For
you.” Rickard said. “Look inside his brain. If a flaw resides there that
explains his poor behaviors, remove it.”

“A
woman—” Slow to adjust to the light, the eyes of their skeletal companion
had just registered the remains of the corpse forced to share her quay with the
pedophile. She appeared a smudge below the man. His shadow, a disgraceful
overlay.

“She
must have starved—” Ryker postulated. “It appears that Wolfgang had her
tethered to that device and never returned. There is a box of pictures …” Ryker
made to gather the small box-full of Wolfgang’s trophy snapshots.

“I
know why he kept her.”

Ryker
stopped, nodding. The nameless boy studied the framework cluttered with ropes
and pulleys that suspended the priest.

He didn’t need to see the pictures. He
knew. However, he didn’t seem at all affected by the content.

More
so, the boy seemed—nourished.

By the brain perhaps?

This
living, drooling cadaver … the priest’s brain was accessible in moments, if he
wanted it. Smooth, for once, his forehead appeared untroubled, his eyes clear.
Each channel of worry washed flat by the monsoon of promise.

Relief.

“Liquid
items. Where?”

Rickard
pointed. “In there. Some ordinary, but also ether and chloroform.”

“The
bottles are labeled?”

“Yes.”

“You
used chloroform on him.”

Not a question.

Lights
danced at the corners of their scarecrow’s eyes.

“We
did. He hasn’t been the same since. He can speak, but not well, and requires
pain to do so.”

“Too
old.” The boy stepped nearer the man. “The chloroform, I mean.” Folding his
arms across his chest, it appeared as though—if he chose to—he
could link his hands together at his spine. “It has begun to convert to
phosgene. What are the ordinary items?”

“Bleach.
Acetone.”

“Large
volumes?”

“Gallons.”

“We’ll
make more.” His neck had begun to move. Making eye contact now, he looked each
twin in the face politely, though his words seemed more commands than
suggestions. “Chloroform,” he added. “We’ll need ice. Is there food?”

He
was able to follow them to the third door without help. Then ate and drank and
warmed himself near the red coil of the heater.

“There
are two other doors?” His voice sounded better after several liters of water.
Rickard was reminded of their superior vision.

“Yes.”
Rickard offered more corn to the boy, who had started to resemble a post-prandial
snake: his stomach stretched tight with canned food and fluids. “And at the end
of the tunnel, a ladder leads to a trapdoor. The ground becomes clay beneath
East Berlin.”

“What
is in the other rooms?” He’d transitioned to pork, which he wiped from his chin
with a stick-like arm.

“The
key won’t turn in one door, and the last has different and additional locks,”
Ryker answered, offering more water. “We haven’t been inside either room.”

Stretching,
he stood, stumbling for balance as he held his hands to his swollen abdomen.
“Give me the keys.”
With a pencil from
the writing desk, the sated child wobbled on exhausted legs into the tunnel. At
the door that was stuck, he found the smudges of paint that matched then rubbed
the graphite tip of the pencil on the teeth of the key and slid the key into
the lock. He repeated the process and after a few deliveries of the dust, the
lock turned easily. Ryker found the lights.

It
was a library of sorts … comprised of jars. Each was numbered. Shelves floor to
ceiling. The familiar acidic tang of formaldehyde hung unpleasantly in the
room. Contents inside many of the jars looked fragile. All were
human—parts of them.

Their
locksmith weaved, drunk on food, down each aisle. Wringing his hands, perhaps
trying to slow his mind, studying each jar. A shelf on an end wall held books.
Cheeks puffed, overfull, the boy glanced over the bindings, then tapped the
spine of each, pulled one down, and handed it to Rickard.

It was hollow inside.

A
suede purse sat in the cored-out spot. Ryker plucked it out and opened it.

Keys.

They
left the lights on and the door ajar. The boy trailed as their feet galloped
over stones then clay. Strange locks rumbled open, and they entered a hallway
that curved out of sight. Each surface—floor, walls, the
ceiling—was covered in square white tiles. Their footsteps echoed.

Judging by the echoes, they approached a
large space
.

Reaching
a sterile-looking, stainless steel door, they paused for the boy to catch up.
Hooks seemed arranged to hang coats and hats.

“What
is it?” The scholar had sped.

Ryker
swung open the doors. Lights burst on, relays echoing in jarring bursts.

A surgical
amphitheater.

Rows
of benches arranged in circles cascaded to the gleaming white floor. An
operating table sat in the middle. The One Who Was Different pulled open
cabinets and drawers containing bone saws and retractors and forceps and
hemostats and adjustable lights, instruments to perform cautery and deliver
electricity to hearts and brains. There were sponges and buckets and soap and
devices to suction and contain and sop up any part of a human being that
required sopping up. There were jars and fixatives and dyes and scales and
blank labels for jars.

The
boy who knew brains took a cathartic breath identified the tools he would use
to cut through bones.

“How
many pedophiles do you suppose are in the Catholic Church?”

“We
know of eight more, less than a kilometer away.”

Whip
thin, the synesthete, keeper of knowledge, nodded.

Already his plans exceeded
their
own
.

He
understood humans in ways they never would. After all, he was human. Deep and
wide, despite all of his potential, he had human problems too.

“That
is a start.”