Origins: The Reich (9 page)

Mark raised his
finger the moment his hip started vibrating to stop Hastelloy before the man could get his story going again.  With his other hand, Mark retrieved the phone and observed the call was from Frank.  “In the interest of trust and sharing, we should all hear this.”

He then answered the call on speaker mode and placed the phone on the table between the set of facing seats.  “Frank, you’re on with both Hastelloy and I.  What is the situation over there?”

“The situation?” Frank repeated.  “We are completely boned.  That is the situation!”

“Care to elaborate on that in-depth assessment?” Mark responded in a no nonsense tone of voice.

“The Chinese are getting hammered,” Frank began.

“The civilians?” Hastelloy asked for clarity.

“No, the military.  The Chinese have thrown fifty caliber machine guns, grenades, tanks, and helicopter gunships at these things.  The clay warriors just keep on coming like it’s a pillow fight or something.  The things waltzed right into a fortified base and took it over in a matter of minutes.  They commandeered numerous vehicles, and worst of all, those walking pieces of pottery have gained access to the military central command’s data network.”

“My god,” Mark sighed.  “They’ll be able to find any weaponry they want in the third most militarized nation on earth.”

“Do you know what information they were after?” Hastelloy asked.

“I only got a quick look, but I saw them pulling up the locations of nuclear silos, China’s space agency launch sites, and satellite imagery of the Giza plateau.  All and all, I’d say it’s not lookin’ too healthy for that Nexus chamber of yours.”

“How do you know all of this?” Mark asked.

“I was inside the base command center when they took it over and tortured the access codes out of the base commander.”

Mark shook his head in disbelief.  “How could they possibly know where to strike, how to use our weapons and vehicles, or even be able to verbalize threats to get information, let alone understand the responses?”

“You forget that these relics could communicate with the ones on their Mars base for a few months every other year when their orbits brought the two planets close enough together,” Hastelloy instructed.  “Learning languages, how to operate weapons, and memorizing the locations of military assets would be child’s play for them.”

“Oh perfect,” Mark moaned before addressing Frank once more. “If you were inside the command center when it was taken over, how did you escape?”

“We didn’t.  Once the clay warriors had the information they needed, the things just let us go,” Frank answered.

Mark about fell out of his chair in surprise at the tactical mistake made by the Terracotta soldiers.  Imprisoning or killing anybody who knows anything is rule number one during military operations. “They did what?  Why would they let you go to report on what you saw?”

“They view humans as insignificant pests,” Hastelloy explained.  “To them you’re flies buzzing around their heads.  They may swat you for getting in their way; otherwise, they could care less what you do.  For now, they have one objective and one enemy.  Me.”

“And once they defeat you?” Mark asked.

“If their history is any indication of future behavior, they’ll press the indigenous life forms on this planet into forced labor.”

“Yes, yes.  Losing to these bastards will be bad for everyone all the way around,” Frank concluded.  “What can any of us do to stop them?”

“These creatures do go down, right?” Mark asked.

“Yeah they sorta do. I took one out and saw a few others go down when cutting or smashing weapons were used against them,” Frank confirmed.  “The problem is they just respawn through that flashing blue light of theirs.  Every couple of seconds there is a flash and another statue comes to life.  I only saw it stop for a few minutes when we were back at the museum an hour ago.”

For the first time in the conversation, Hastelloy’s eyes perked up.  “Wait, you said there was an interruption in their animation process not long ago?”

“Yes, about an hour ago,” Frank confirmed.

“Are you sure about that timing?”

“It was just before the things burst out of the museum and started clobbering the Chinese forces, so yeah, it’s kinda’ memorable for me.”

“Hold on,” Hastelloy said while he reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat blue disk the size of a silver dollar.  He placed it on the table and tapped the top, which produced a six-inch tall cone of light that housed the shrunken head of a man well into his sixties.

“Tonwen, you’re speaking with me along with two NSA agents, one of whom is in China facing the reanimated Alpha forces.  He says he noticed a pause in their animation process about an hour ago.  Tell me, has Gallono already come out of the Nexus?”

“Yes, sir.  It was almost exactly one hour ago.  Are you thinking our reanimation process somehow interfered with theirs?”

“It looks that way,” Hastelloy confirmed.  “I need you to work with Gallono to see if you can somehow permanently disrupt their ability to reanimate.”

Hastelloy looked away from Tonwen’s floating virtual head to speak into the conventional phone resting on the table.  “Frank, I need you to meet Commander Gallono at…”

He stopped talking upon hearing a blast of static on the other end.  Mark picked up the phone to confirm what they already suspected; the line was dead.  Most likely all communication into and out of China was now disrupted.  Rule number two in any military operation was to disrupt the enemy’s ability to communicate.

“Tonwen, make sure you’re still able to communicate with Gallono using our technology and stop the Alpha relics from regenerating,” Hastelloy ordered.  “Valnor can handle protecting the Nexus.  I need you focused on this, because if you can’t stop them, we’ll likely need to destroy the entire complex surrounding the Chinese pyramid.  That would probably provoke a war between the two preeminent nuclear powers on this planet.  I believe that might be construed as an unacceptable cultural interference in your eyes.”

“It would indeed.  Your orders will be followed,” Tonwen answered just before terminating the link.

Hastelloy put the small disk in his pocket, looked to the side at Dr. Holmes, and then across the table at Mark.  “This is turning out to be quite a day so far.  Can I please speak with your President now?”

“You haven’t even graduated to speaking with his janitor yet,” Mark countered.  “You were in the process of convincing me you are not the greatest war criminal in human history.  Please continue.”

Tomal made his
way down the streets of Munich, Germany with a soft, metallic clink accompanying every other step he took.  It was bad enough that his deformity produced a noticeable limp as he walked, but having that constant audible reminder of his inferiority was simply maddening.  How he longed for his return to the Nexus and subsequent regeneration into a new, healthy body.  Alas, he was only in his mid-twenties with plenty of years still left to clink about.

He was not alone in the unfortunate circumstance of his age.  Every member of the Lazarus crew found themselves in their late teens, an ineffectual age, as the Great War unfolded.  None of them were in any position to influence the behavior of nations in order to make the conflict productive.  That was a grave miscalculation on Hastelloy’s part, and the captain even admitted as much when they all met in Zurich.

Tomal knew without a sliver of doubt that he could have made the difference.  If he had led the German government, he would have poured all available resources into the development of advanced weapons, machinery, and tactics of war.  Then the troops sent to the front would not have just sat staring across no man’s land at the enemy.  They would have rolled right over them with armored vehicles and demolished their strongholds with heavy bombers.

Nothing would have stopped him from unifying all of Europe under his leadership.  Then they could have devoted every effort to destroying the Alpha base still recovering on Mars.  Instead, Tomal found himself mired in an economically devastated nation serving as a bottom rung intelligence agent tasked with investigating the activities of dissident movements within German borders.

At least Gallono had a chance to serve in the military during the Great War.  As a result, he now sat poised to make noise if the armed services of Germany ever managed to shed the shackles imposed upon it by the Treaty of Versailles.  That abomination may have brought the Great War to an end, but it effectively neutered Germany for all eternity by removing the nation’s ability to defend itself.

Tomal knew it was indeed for the greater good of their mission here on this planet that Gallono sat well positioned, but he could not fully suppress a certain amount of jealousy toward the commander.  He was active and useful at a high level right now, while Tomal found himself heading to yet another grubby, bug infested beer hall.  There he would listen to yet another windbag puff and blow for two hours, write a report about it, and then move on to the next pointless assignment.

He was so preoccupied with wallowing in his self-pity that Tomal nearly ran into a frail, old woman standing at the end of a bread line.  The queue must have included fifty people that extended out the shop’s front door and halfway around the block along the sidewalk.

Tomal managed to sidestep the old woman only to trip over a wheelbarrow full of paper money in front of her.  Half the contents spilled out across the sidewalk before Tomal managed to set it upright once more.

He was already running late to the meeting and gave a thought to ditching the situation, but his sense of decency won out.  If one German could not take the time to be cordial to another, then the nation truly was at a loss.  Tomal scooped up the paper Deutsche Marks by the armful until the spilled contents were back in the wheelbarrow. 

Five years earlier, that would have been an immense fortune.  Today it might buy the woman a couple loaves of bread.  Runaway inflation caused by the Treaty’s harsh war reparations had done its damage.  The government had no choice but to turn on the printers in the treasury building and let them run day and night without end.

Tomal bid the woman good day and continued along his path while shaking his head in disgust.  Even with a massive stack of cash on hand, the woman would, in all likelihood, walk away from that bakery empty handed.  The line was too long, and the resources too, scarce for her to expect there to be anything on the shelves when it came her turn to pay.  A proud people could not exist like this for long, let alone for decades with no end in sight.  Something had to change.

Many were now calling for a change and more were shouting that demand with every passing day.  It was what kept Tomal employed as he stepped through the front door of a dark, dank, yet full beer hall.  He was to listen in and determine if this group, the German Workers’ Party, posed a threat to the central government of Germany.

Tomal attempted to navigate through the crowd without brushing against others, but the task was impossible.  He ended up bouncing off every person he encountered on his way to the back of the room. Most were polite and let him by, others glared at him for the personal intrusion.  The last individual gave him a good, hard shove for his troubles that sent him careening toward the back wall.  With a good foot, he could have caught himself, but his shortened leg caused him to fall head first into a set of extended arms.

“Easy there friend, I’ve got you,” said the tall individual owning the pair of arms.

Tomal reset his footing and rose to his full height to find the kind man not so tall after all.  His thin, spindly frame gave the deception of height to an otherwise average sized individual.  One feature that still looked enormous on him was his Prussian style mustache.  It angled down from his nose like an upside down V that hung thick, black and full over the corners of his mouth.  Below that tuft of hair was a broad smile accentuated by a set of sparkling blue eyes.

“Thank you for your help,” Tomal managed to say offering a handshake of gratitude.

“No thanks are necessary.  It was either catch you or be tackled to the ground,” the man said before accepting the handshake.  “Tell me, what brings you to this fine establishment?”

Tomal glanced around the packed room for a moment before answering, “Hope.  Clearly I’m not alone in that pursuit.”

“Not at all,” the man replied and directed Tomal to turn around and face the lectern since the guest speaker had just taken to the tiny stage.  Their formal introduction would have to wait.

There, up on stage, he watched the man wearing a pair of spectacles with circular frames and sporting a handlebar mustache arrange his notes.  He carried an air of authority about him while standing there in his grey suit, but Tomal knew all too well the German Workers’ Party leader commanded fewer than fifty members.  He was insignificant in the grand scheme of things and so was Tomal for being assigned to monitor the insignificant man’s activities.  That fact irked him to no end as the room fell silent to hear Heir Drexler’s words.

“Gentlemen of Germany,” Drexler began.  “I had hoped to stand before you tonight and bolster your spirits, but I cannot.  How can I speak of brighter days ahead when the darkness of today is so apparent and all consuming?”

“On my way here tonight I passed no fewer than ten shops with customers lined out the door and into the streets.  These customers carried with them a mountain of currency to purchase the simplest of necessities.  Why must they pay so much for bread or shoes?  Capitalism!” the speaker boomed to mild applause from the audience.  “The people must have these things to survive.  They will pay any price and the greedy shop owners, these capitalists, know this and charge us all dear.  Their actions have brought about nothing but misfortune upon our great nation.”

“Who are these capitalists?” Drexler asked with a sudden change of tone from lamentation to genuine anger.  “Who among us has profited from our collapse?  The answer to that question is the Jew.  They own the banks.  They run the stock exchanges and these institutions are flourishing more than ever before.”

“Look around you.  The Jew has not grown poorer; he gradually gets bloated.  If you don’t believe me, I would ask you to go to one of our health resorts.  There you’ll find two sorts of visitors: the German who goes there to breathe a little fresh air and recover his health, and the Jew who goes there to lose his fat.”

A murmur of discomfort with the man’s bigotry rippled about the crowd, but Tomal found himself agreeing with every word.  The Jews, the people Hastelloy helped lead out of Egypt, were the captain’s disciples.  Hastelloy was ruthless in his use of people for his gain and so were his followers.

“These are not, you may be sure, our working classes,” Drexler went on.  “They neither work with the mind, nor with the body. They would not feel comfortable coming into this perfumed atmosphere in their brand new suits; not ones which date all the way back to before the Great War like the rest of us here. No, you can rest assured the Jew has suffered no privations these last ten years!”

“What should we men of lower Bavaria do to improve our impoverished situation you may ask?” Drexler attempted to continue, but was interrupted by a man in the crowd standing ten feet from Tomal.

“Separate!  Leave Germany and its Jews to join Austria and form a new South German nation.  A new nation unencumbered by the oppressive Treaty of Versailles,” the man shouted.

“Separate?  Abandon our brothers?” Drexler summarized, but then spoke no further.  He was thrown off his narrative and looked like a deer stuck in headlights as the silent room looked on for a counter argument that refused to come.

Tomal about jumped out of his skin when a booming voice originating right next to him bellowed an ardent reply.  “You would have us abandon our race to join Austria as what, second class citizens?  A working class of serfs?”

The bombastic voice belonged to the man who caught Tomal from falling earlier.  “There is no such thing as classes among Germans, there cannot be.  Class means caste and caste means race.  There are castes in India, and that is well and good because there it is possible.  In India, there were former Aryans and dark aborigines.  So it was in Egypt and in Rome.  But with us in Germany, where everyone who is a German and has the same blood, the same eyes, and speaks the same language, here there can be no class.  Here there can be only a single people and beyond that nothing else.”

The crowd between Tomal’s helper and Drexler’s dissenter parted to provide a clear line of sight between the two, as if a gun duel were about to ensue.  “Certainly we recognize, just as anyone must recognize, that there are different occupations and professions.  There are watchmakers, common laborers, painters or technicians, engineers, and officials.  Varied occupations there can be, but in the struggles which these professions have amongst themselves for the equalization of their economic conditions, the conflict and the division must never be so great as to sunder the ties of race.”

“We are Germans!  We must stand as one race and cast aside your notion of internationalism.  We recognize that the prosperity we seek can only be a consequence of power, power in unity; power as one people of Germany.”

“Herr Drexler and his German Workers’ Party have grasped that this power is only possible where there is strength, strength in unity, strength through community, and ultimately strength through action,” the animated speaker declared with mesmerizing gusto.  He accentuated his words by stalking toward the man who dared heckle Anton Drexler to dress him down in point-blank proximity.

“You know I speak the truth, but that truth is valueless so long as there is lacking the indomitable will to turn this realization into action.  Today the German people have been beaten by this quiet, outside world you wish to join while in its domestic life our Germany has lost all spirit; no longer has it any faith. How will you give the people firm ground beneath their feet once more?  Only by the passionate insistence on one great unity, not separation.”

“The simplicity of separating is preferable to the civil war you aspire to instigate,” the heckler countered, compounding his error by resorting to name calling.  “You, like Herr Drexler, are nothing more than an agitator riling the people up for revolution rather than presenting viable solutions.”

“For three years I have watched from the back row as this German Workers’ Party sought to realize this fundamental idea of unity. Herr Drexler was the first to declare that the peace treaty was a crime. Then folk like you accused him as an ‘agitator.’”

The one time heckler now slowly backed away from Tomal’s helper toward the exit door under the ferocity of the man’s argument, “The German Workers’ Party was the first to protest against the failure to present the treaty to the people before it was signed. They were all collectively called ‘agitators’. They were the first to summon men to resistance against being reduced to a continuing state of defenselessness. Once more, they were ‘agitators’. At that time they called on the masses of the people not to surrender their arms, for the surrender of one’s arms would be nothing less than the beginning of enslavement. Then they were called, no, they were cried down as, ‘agitators’.”

With that last booming word, the crowd ejected the heckler from the establishment and the victorious debater turned around to address the entire hall.  “And because you opposed the mad financial policy which today will lead to our collapse, what was it that you were called repeatedly once more?”

“Agitators!” the packed hall replied.

“And today?” the man continued shouting over the excited din of the crowd.  “If there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress which daily grows. For as a Christian, I also have a duty to my own people. And when I look upon my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week all they have to show for their wage is wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men and women standing in their queues and I look into their pinched faces.  I would be no Christian, but the very devil, if I felt no pity for them.”