The Man From Taured

by Bryan W. Alaspa

  "I appreciate that my reputation precedes me," Whitten said, with as much humility as he could muster. He even gave a slight bow of his head. "I brought some of my work with me."

  Whitten extended his arm to indicate the blanket-covered mirror. The Fuhrer cocked his head to the side and a look of confusion crossed his face. Then that odd smile returned.

  "Is this a joke, Dr. Whitten?" Hitler asked. "Surely that is just a mirror."

  Whitten laughed. "Well, it may seem that way, but my recent work has shown me that there are many things in this world, in this universe, that are not as they appear. Far from it. Let me show you."

  Whitten and the Void had worked this out in advance. The Void would listen in and present the Fuhrer with what it felt was the thing that would get the man's attention. Whitten had no idea what that was or what it meant, but he had long ago learned to trust the Void.

  The man who had wanted to be a painter, whose father had died when he was young, who had been raised by a domineering woman, stared at the mirror. That lock of hair fell down over his eye, but this time he did not push it back. His face softened in a strange way. It was if he became younger before Whitten's eyes. Hitler's eyes locked on the mirror and he tilted his head first to one side and then the other. A large smile crossed his face and he even laughed. Then his brow grew furrowed and worried.

  "What is this?" the Fuhrer whispered.

  Whitten felt the pull himself. The Void had that ability to capture anyone or anything in its orbit. The portal within the mirror had grown more solid, more certain over the years. He had come to think of the oblong thing as a kind of sideways eye, or perhaps a cat's eye. It peered constantly, sometimes weeping black tears, but often just staring.

  The Fuhrer crept around the desk, his hands folded strangely and awkwardly in front of him. Whitten felt that this was the Hitler his mother had seen when he was a child. This was the chastened young man that his mother had yelled at, kept locked away, protected from the world.

  "This is amazing," Hitler said, his voice hushed.

  He was now in front of the mirror, just a few small inches separating them. Whitten looked into the reflection. He saw nothing but the room and Hitler himself, reaching for the reflection. However, he knew that Hitler was seeing something much more.

  Hitler was still smiling, hypnotized. He reached his hand out to the reflection, unsure, unsteady, and then his fingertips vanished beyond the surface of the mirror. He gasped and then he laughed again.

  Then the blackness came.

  It rushed out fast. With the dimensional wall breached, the Void rushed forward, quickly, up Hitler's arm and into his ear. Hitler's eyes went wide, his mouth dropped open, and he looked like a man who had received a nasty electrical shock.

  There was a moment when the Fuhrer appeared to be completely gone, his stare was so blank. His hand was still past the surface of the mirror, perhaps touching the air of the Void itself.

  Then Hitler shook his head as if clearing out cobwebs. His eyes cleared and refocused. He removed his hand, unconsciously cradling the hand that had been in the mirror with the other. He turned and stared at Whitten.

  "Yes," Hitler said. "Yes, you have my full support. We need more of this. We must have this for the Reich. It must be ours. You have as much funding as you need and whatever facilities you need, I will make sure it is provided."

  Whitten nodded and bowed again. "Thank you, Mein Fuhrer. Thank you so much!"

  Hitler nodded and returned to behind his desk. He kept sneaking furtive and unsure glances back at the mirror. His lips twitched, as if fighting the urge to start laughing uncontrollably. He nodded at Whitten again and then saluted in that strange way of his. Whitten returned it.

  "Heil Hitler," Whitten said, this time with less conviction, almost mocking.

  He covered the mirror with the blanket. Hitler almost looked disappointed. Whitten saluted again and then grabbed the mirror and walked briskly out of the office.

  What had the Void shown Hitler? He had no way of knowing. Perhaps it had filled the Fuhrer's mind with the idea of using the Void as some kind of weapon. Perhaps Hitler's mind had been infused with the idea of a vast portal opening and swallowing entire enemy armies whole. Perhaps he envisioned some kind of gun that would fire beams of black Void substance at the enemy.

  Whatever it was, it had been a lie.

  The Void lied. It always lied.

  It didn't matter. Whitten now had the funding and would soon have a lab that would allow him to continue his experiments. It mattered not whose side he was on because the Void would consume Axis and Allies.

  There was this troubling idea of the Void desiring an offspring, though. That would have to come first. He would need to find out if such a thing was possible and what would happen if it were possible. What would these children become?

  He would need test subjects. Yes, he would need to expose people directly to the Void to see what happened.

  Fortunately, he was in a place that currently had a virtually limitless supply of test subjects.

  Whitten moved fast. He was almost giddy by the time he left the building. All around him life went on. Overhead the sky had brightened and was becoming a brilliant blue.

  Life was good, even during war time. Soon, the world would tremble, but not from bombs. Not from soldiers and bullets. It would tremble from the Void and then the walls would fall.

  ***

  Years later Whitten stood in his lab. He had been working here for over a year. The place was a camp, a concentration camp, although he often found it hard to concentrate here. However, he had a lot of potential test subjects, so he had learned to live with it. Lots of experiments were done here on live test subjects. Just across the camp was a madman by the name of Mengele, who was obsessed with things like conjoined twins and such.

  Whitten had not seen Ezekiel or anyone from IDEA in some time. He guessed it was the war. He was buried so far behind enemy lines that even IDEA couldn't find him. The list of bodies he was leaving behind was rather impressive even by Nazi standards.

  Hitler had never been quite the same after the incident with the mirror. He had made many strange decisions that others in the country questioned. Not to the man's face, of course, but there were now doubts. Hitler had invaded Russia, expanding the war to two fronts and violating a treaty he had helped put together. The country was in a dire financial situation to fight a war on two fronts. There had also been an attempt on Hitler's life and many said he was never going to fully recover.

  Whitten had not heard from the man again after the day in his office. However, he had been given nearly unlimited funds and plenty of space and no one in Nazi high command had bothered him. It was as if the Void had planted something in their brains that made him almost invisible.

  Whitten stood in his lab with a black apron across his torso. He wore goggles over his glasses and rubber gloves over his hands. Beneath that was his white shirt and dapper clothes. A new test subject was due soon. He had little interest about who the subject was or from where. They all came in fearful and then they screamed and then they usually died.

  The woman came along, dressed in her shabby camp clothing, guarded on two sides by German guards. She moved slowly, looking from left to right, up and down, unsure of anything and everything and utterly terrified. Whitten always put a smile on his face, and he did so now.

  "Hello," Whitten said and bowed.

  The woman just looked terrified. The two guards were staring at the equipment, the stirrups on the table and the instruments laid out. Both guards were nearly as terrified as the prisoner looked.

  "You can go," Whitten told the guards.

  Both of the guards nodded and turned and walked briskly out of the room. The rumors about what happened in this room were spreading fast. That was always the case in these camps. Whitten didn't care because it allowed him to continue working alone.

  "Now, my dear, what is your name?" Whitten asked, speaking in his perfect German
.

  "Margaret," she said, quietly. "Margaret Hoeffner."

  "Margaret, what a lovely name," Whitten replied. "How old are you, Margaret?"

  "Twenty-nine," she replied. She looked three times that age. Whitten never quite got used to the way this place aged people.

  "Have you had children?"

  She shook her head.

  Good, Whitten thought. Perhaps that was what was needed. They had tried to impregnate several women who had already had children, under the assumption that those who had already had them would have a womb prepared to birth a child sired by the Void. All of the women had died. Now it was thought that maybe the Void required a new place, untouched and never used.

  "I need you to disrobe and lay down on the table," Whitten said.

  The prisoner, having been broken, utterly terrified, began doing what she was told. To Whitten there was nothing sexual about this. He had never found any woman particularly attractive in that way. He had no need for it and this was all just part of an experiment. He had heard rumors of the guards raping the young women around here, but how anyone could find the skinny, wasted and destroyed young women at this camp attractive for such activities were beyond him.

  Margaret climbed onto the table and lay back. Whitten turned and put her legs up in the stirrups.

  "This may hurt, but it will mostly be pressure," Whitten said. It was a lie, of course. So far every single woman who had undergone this procedure ended up screaming in pain before crumbling to pieces. "Please try to relax."

  Whitten set to work. He was soon lost in the process. He grabbed his instruments by instinct. Margaret made noises of surprise and discomfort, but they blended into the background. When things were ready, he brought the mirror out. Margaret lay on the table, tears on her face, eyes closed and didn't see him remove the blanket.

  The surface of the mirror shimmered like the surface of a pond. Whitten saw the reflection of the room and the black doppelganger of himself inside of it. The black version of himself looked at the test subject eagerly and extended a hand. A moment later a large tentacle of black substance emerged from the surface of the mirror. In seconds it was between Margaret's legs and inside of her.

  Margaret gasped. Her eyes flew open and she gripped the sides of the table. Her body thrashed against the straps that Whitten had affixed to her torso. Then her mouth opened and she began that screaming. Her head rocked side to side in increasingly rapid motions. She bit down hard and blood spurted from her mouth as she bit down on her tongue.

  "No!" She screamed. "Nonononononononono!"

  It didn't take very long. A moment later the black tentacle removed itself from her. There was a trickle of black substance and this was followed by blood. The tentacle retreated back into the mirror and Whitten quickly covered the mirror and put it away. Then he sat down between Margaret's legs and conducted an examination.

  Margaret had stopped screaming. She just lay there staring up into the ceiling. As Whitten worked between her legs, cursing, finding that the womb had been destroyed, the walls of it crumbling at his touch, and then he looked up to see Margaret's eyes turn black. Her head turned slowly and she stared accusingly at him.

  Her body shook again, but this time it was entirely involuntary. Her chest heaved and one of the straps snapped. Her body quivered, spasmed, and it became more and more violent. Something inside of her, some bone, snapped loudly. Her mouth opened and black substance exploded from her mouth, shooting up to the ceiling and spattering there.

  Then it happened.

  First her feet turned gray, and then up her legs. Then they turned black. Her entire body heaved once more and the rest of her turned into that black substance and spattered to the floor. A few seconds after that the black substance was gone too.

  Whitten sighed and pounded his fist on the table.

  "Again," Whitten said. "It happened again."

  "I can see," the Void replied. "I need you to bring me a child."

  Whitten screwed up his face in confusion. The idea of doing something like this to a child made even him sick.

  "Not for this," the Void said, once again reading his mind. "I have another idea. I think that maybe I need an avatar in your world. I cannot just enter the world as I am and touch a human. Your minds and bodies cannot handle it. Perhaps I can construct a human of my own, something that I can control, and then perhaps I can impregnate a woman."

  Whitten sighed. Now it was children.

  "I can do that," Whitten said. "I can bring you pretty much anything you want. I can get you a child."

  "Good," the Void replied. "Bring it to me today."

  Whitten nodded, but did not reply. Moments later he was on the phone with the commandant of the camp. The man had looked into the mirror not long after he had arrived. He agreed and there would be a child in his lab within the hour.

  Whitten stood back in the middle of the room and waited.

  Like a spider.

  ***

  The child arrived an hour later. As if he posed some kind of threat or had a chance of escaping, he was flanked by guards. Children this young were rare in the camp. Most of them were unable to work, or were sick, and ended up taken directly to the gas chambers. Somehow this one had slipped through, or perhaps a new train had arrived. Whitten didn't care. If things worked the way the Void thought, perhaps he would require more children. That would mean speaking to the camp commander and making some changes around here.

  The child had dark hair and wide blue eyes. He was scared, obviously, but somehow not as scared-looking as the adults that had been brought to him. The child, a young boy, wearing rags, was looking around at the walls and ceiling and up at the guards in their crisp uniforms.

  "Hello there, young man," Whitten said. He was nervous. This was something new and it excited him. "Please come in."

  The guards put their hands on the child's shoulders and pushed him forward. They stepped back and waited to be dismissed.

  "Please, go," Whitten replied, waving his hands in an annoyed manner.

  They turned and left, hurriedly. Whitten waited until their footfalls faded, then he folded his hands in front of himself and smiled at the young man. The child recoiled and Whitten quickly removed the smile.

  "Hello, young man," Whitten repeated. "What is your name?"

  "Eli," he said.

  "Well, Eli, my name is Augustus," Whitten replied. "I am a doctor. I am here to examine you. Have you been to a doctor before?"

  Eli nodded slowly. His eyes were even wider than they had been when he entered the room. His breathing was ragged.

  "I promise that you will not have to get a shot," Whitten said and smiled. Then he reached into his pocket and removed a bar of chocolate. "Do you like chocolate?"

  Eli actually let a hint of a smile cross his face. He nodded enthusiastically.

  "Before we get started you may have this bar of chocolate," Whitten said. "We got it off an American soldier. I believe it is from the Hershey's chocolate people. Do you like Hershey's chocolate?"

  Another nod and this time Eli held out his hands. Whitten put the chocolate bar into the young man's hand. He looked back up at him, tilting his head as if questioning whether or not it was real.

  "Go ahead," Whitten said.

  Eli could contain himself no longer. He ripped the wrapper off of the bar and began devouring the chocolate. He broke off pieces of the bar and shoved them into his mouth as fast as he could make his fingers work. Whitten had seen this from time to time. They were all so hungry, so desperate. One thing he knew for sure was that once the Void had taken over this sphere, this kind of thing would be stopped. It would never happen again if everyone was part of it.

  The child began making delighted noises, gasping as he shoved the pieces of candy into his mouth. The chocolate was all over his face and fingers. He licked the wrapper when he was done with the bar and then licked his fingertips. His mouth was still full of the last remnants of the chocolate when he looked back up and Whi
tten with a smile all over his face.

  "Bring him to me."

  At first Whitten thought that the Void had spoken out loud. Then he realized he had heard the voice in his head.

  "Are you ready now?" Whitten asked.

  The boy was still smiling. He shrugged. Whitten smiled and patted him on the head.

  "Come over here," he indicated a spot in the middle of the room.

  Eli, his mouth still filled with chocolate, walked to where he pointed. His smile had faded and he dropped the candy bar wrapper on the floor. The boy looked on curiously as Whitten walked to the back of the room and pulled the mirror out of its spot.

  "Now, stay right here and look into the mirror," Whitten said.

  Eli licked more chocolate off of his face and stared at the blanket covering the mirror. Whitten whipped the blanket away and turned his head so he caught none of whatever was in there. He did not want to see his doppelganger at the moment.

  Eli let out a gasp of delight. Whitten turned his head to watch the child. Eli's smile was three times bigger than when he had been eating the Hershey bar. He actually giggled.

  "Come here."

  Once again Whitten heard this from the Void inside his head. However, he realized that it was directed not at him, but the child. Whitten had become so connected to the Void that he heard its thoughts all the time now. The thought disturbed and delighted him.

  Eli held out both hands and approached the mirror. There was little to no hesitation like Whitten had found with adults who stared at the reflective surface. The child rushed forward, his fingers grasping at things that only he could see. Soon his tiny fingers reached the surface of the mirror and they vanished from within it. Eli laughed harder.