Origins of the Prime

by Christopher Vale

  “What thing?” she asked in return.

  “That thing where you sent Kristel flying backward without even touching her.”

  Dawn shrugged. “How do you shoot lightning?”

  Axel shrugged. “What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever moved?” he asked

  “She was,” Dawn replied. “I’ve never done that before. Not like that anyway.”

  “Emotions. Fear and stress. Those can be a good motivation for your abilities. That was the point of my exercise with you and the others all those years ago,” Arnulf said.

  Axel took a deep breath. “Rolf, if Colonel a-hole says another word without us asking him to, throw him out of the plane.”

  “Okay, Axel,” Rolf said without a single trace of humor.

  Axel turned back to Dawn as she put the final bandage on him. He looked her in the eyes. “I’m sorry I doubted your abilities.”

  “That’s alright. To be honest I kinda doubted yours too.”

  “Really?”

  “C’mon,” she replied. “A guy that shoots lightning?” She paused and then looked away. “But I didn’t see the trap until it was too late.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. And it doesn’t matter because we made it out of there in one piece.” Axel’s mouth tightened. “Of course, now we have to have a little chat with our source. Find out whose side he’s really on.”

  Chapter 12

  Washington, D.C.

  Sava bolted upright in bed as the door to his room burst open and two men in black ski masks rushed toward him. “W-what’s going on?” Sava stammered as he was dragged from bed. The men did not say a word but threw a sack over his head. Sava felt a shock of electricity surge through his body before everything went black.

  When Sava awoke he was sitting up in a wooden chair, his hands duct-taped behind him and his ankles taped to the chair legs. He was bare chested and wore nothing but his underwear. He was groggy and his head was spinning. All of his muscles ached. Sava lifted his head to see Axel sitting in a chair just a few feet in front of him.

  “Good morning, Sava,” Axel said with a tilt of his head and a pleasant smile. “Did you sleep well?”

  Sava coughed. “What is going on, Axel?” he asked in a raw voice.

  “You tell me, Sava,” Axel replied as he leaned back in his chair and spread his arms out wide.

  “Tell you what, Axel?”

  “Well let’s start with you telling me whose side you are on,” Axel said as he straightened in his chair, the smile gone from his face.

  “I’m on your side, Axel,” Sava said.

  “Really?” Axel asked as he stood. His breathing was heavy and his eyes piercing. Axel took a step forward, leaned over and placed his hands on Sava’s knees. “You sent us into a trap, Sava. The Russians were waiting for us,” he said in a soft but firm voice, his face just inches from Sava’s.

  “Axel, I…” Sava began, but Axel cut him off.

  “They captured my brother!” he screamed into Sava’s face, causing the older man to turn away. It was a lie of course, but Axel knew that Sava would not doubt his resolve if he believed the younger man was motivated by saving his brother’s life.

  “Axel, I promise you,” Sava began, but Axel cut him off again as he straightened.

  “Promise?” he snarled as he stared down at Sava incredulously. “Unfortunately, at this point I don’t feel I can trust your promises. I mean, I risked my life to come and get you out of Cuba. They were shooting at me, Sava. They were shooting at me with real bullets. I probably killed some of those Cuban police officers. And for what? So that I could let the fox into the hen house?”

  Just then, the door opened and Dawn entered the room. “Ah, yes,” Axel smiled. “Sava please allow me to introduce you to my associate…” he paused. “Well, let’s keep her real name a secret and simply call her Psion, because that is what she is. Do you know what a psion is Sava?”

  Sava nodded. “It’s a psychic.”

  “That’s right, it’s a psychic. I didn’t believe it at first myself, but she’s the real deal—I can assure you.” Axel removed the black leather gloves from his hands and flexed his fingers. “Sava, you have seen what I can do, haven’t you?”

  Sava nodded.

  “I’m going to ask you a series of questions and whenever Psion tells me you are lying, well…” he did not continue speaking, but instead electricity crackled forth from his fingertips. “You get the idea.”

  Sava swallowed hard.

  Axel stepped forward and placed his hands on Sava’s knees again. “Are you still feeding the Russians information?”

  “N-no, I swear,” Sava stammered.

  Axel glanced over his shoulder at Dawn who shook her head. Axel turned back to Sava. “Sorry, wrong answer.” Sava jerked as electricity surged through his body.

  “Please Axel,” he said softly through heavy breaths.

  “Did you intentionally send us into a trap?” Axel demanded.

  “No,” Sava whispered.

  Axel turned to glance at Dawn again. She shook her head once more. “You’re lying again, Sava.”

  “No please, I swear I am not lying!”

  Before Axel could give the Russian another shock there was a knock at the door. Dawn stepped over to it and slowly opened it just a crack to see who it was. When she realized it was Tom, she swung the door open wide.

  Tom stepped into the room and glanced down at Sava.

  “Tom, you have to help me,” Sava begged. “I’m not working for the Soviet Union,” he said. “Please.”

  “Shut-up!” Tom told him, disgust etched on his face. He turned to Axel and Dawn. “We’ve worked out a deal,” Tom informed them.

  “What deal?” Axel asked.

  “They apparently want their agent back pretty bad,” Tom said as he nodded toward Sava. “They’ve agreed to swap Rolf for him.”

  Axel turned to Sava. “You lucky bastard.”

  “No,” Sava said. “You can’t.”

  “They’ve confirmed that he works for them,” Tom said.

  “No!” Sava shouted. “It’s a lie! They’re lying!”

  “Save it, Sava,” Axel said. “This proves that you’ve been working for them the entire time.”

  “No please!” Sava begged. “They’ll kill me.” He had tears streaming down his cheeks. “Please! They’ll kill me! I didn’t betray you—I swear! They want me back so I can’t tell you anything else. They’ll kill me!”

  Tom glanced at Axel and Dawn. “Come on,” he said as he turned and left the room with Axel and Dawn following. Once in the hall, Tom closed the door. He looked at Dawn and lowered his voice. “Was he lying?” Tom asked.

  “How should I know? My powers don’t work like that,” she said.

  Tom smiled at her, then turned to Axel and raised his eyebrows “What do you think?”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Axel said.

  “I agree,” Tom nodded.

  “How can you be sure?” Dawn asked.

  “He is clearly terrified to go back to the Russians,” Axel said. “He knows he will be killed if he does. He’d rather stay here and be tortured by us.”

  Dawn nodded. “Yet you electrocuted him,” she said to Axel.

  “Please,” Axel said as he waved it off. “I didn’t shock him nearly as much as I did you in Siberia. You survived alright. I just scared him more than anything.”

  Tom looked back and forth at them. “Well, I’ll go call Ian,” he said. “Then we can take him back to his apartment and go get some rest.”

  ***

  Dawn sat at the conference table between Tom and Axel as they waited for Ian to arrive for their debriefing of the Siberia mission. They decided to leave Rolf out of this meeting after what happened in the last one. Axel and Tom would fill him in on anything he needed to know.

  The room was silent except for Tom’s occasional sips of coffee and Axel’s drumming of his fingers on the table. The silence was irritating and Dawn felt she had to br
eak it.

  “Psion, huh?” she asked, turning to look at Axel.

  Axel stopped drumming his fingers and straightened in his chair as he smiled at her. “Well, everyone needs a codename, right? I’m Blitz; Rolf’s Krieg.”

  “I don’t have a codename,” Tom said in a voice that hinted at his disappointment for being excluded from the superhero club. “She’s been with the team a week, I’ve been here twenty years.”

  “What could we call Tom?” Dawn asked as she swiveled her chair to look at him.

  “How about double-oh-zero,” Axel joked.

  Tom scrunched his eyebrows as he stared at Axel. “That was rude.”

  “I’m sorry, Tom,” Axel said without even the faintest hint of sincerity. “What would you like your codename to be?”

  Tom pulled out a pack of cigarettes and removed one, slipping it between his lips. “In the OSS they called me Falcon,” he said before lighting the cigarette and sitting back in his chair.

  “Why Falcon?” Dawn asked.

  Tom blew out a stream of smoke. “Because I was a bird of prey.”

  Before Dawn could ask any follow-up questions, the door to the conference room swung open and Ian entered followed by Martha. The others stood.

  “Welcome back,” Ian said with a broad smile. He reached across the table and shook each of their hands. Then everyone sat.

  “Hey Ian, you knew Tom during the war, right?” Axel asked.

  “Yes,” Ian replied.

  “Did they really call him Falcon?”

  Ian looked at Tom as an amused smile spread across his face. “Falcon?” Ian asked as the smile turned into a laugh. Axel and Dawn looked at Tom as he hung his head and hid his face. “No, they did not call him Falcon,” Ian said as he wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. “They called him Canary.”

  “Canary?” Dawn asked with surprise as she stared at a blushing Tom.

  “Well, yes, because he was young, dumb, and full of…” Ian stopped himself, remembering that two ladies were present. “Anyway, if danger was suspected they’d send Tom in first, like a canary in a coal mine. If he survived, the rest would follow.”

  Axel leaned forward and turned to smile at Tom. “Canary,” he said. “I like it.”

  Tom shook his head. “Thanks, Ian,” he said. “You know after all we went through, you could have just backed me up.”

  “Well, what would have been the fun in that?” Ian asked. He cleared his throat and quickly changed topics. “Speaking of code names,” he said with an amused smile, “according to Sava, they call your Russian friends Hammer and Sickle.”

  “Hammer and Sickle?” Axel asked. “Those sound like villains from a bad comic book.

  “Says the titular member of team Blitzkrieg,” Dawn smiled.

  Axel turned to her. “You think I came up with that? You think I wanted to be named after the type of warfare that destroyed my people?”

  “Yeah,” Tom said as he took a drag off of his cigarette, “I may or may not have had something to do with the name.”

  Dawn turned to look at him. “Oh Canary,” she said with faux disappointment in her voice.

  Tom stamped out his cigarette and then shot a glance across the table to Ian. “Thanks, buddy,” he said.

  Ian ignored the remark and turned back to Axel. “Anyway, Sava confirmed what you already knew—that Hammer and Sickle are your old friends Kristel and Gerd. They go by Alena and Alexi now.”

  “How is Sava doing?” Axel asked.

  Ian looked over his glasses at the young man across from him. “You mean after you accused him of being a double-agent and tortured him?” Ian asked.

  “Yeah,” Axel replied flatly.

  Ian chuckled. “Actually, he is fine with it. Sava has been in this business longer than any of us. He knows the deal. He understands why you did what you did. That you had to be sure. To be honest, I think he’s glad, because now there should be no doubts about his loyalty.”

  “And what about Arnulf?” Tom asked. “Is he proving to be as valuable as we had hoped?”

  Ian smiled. “The reports are good so far, but we haven’t talked to him too much. He’s been in the hospital. He was a bit malnourished and had to have his leg patched up. We’ll let you know more when we know more. For now, go get some rest. We’ll talk later.” With that he stood, then smiled at the three of them. “Excellent job, once again,” he said.

  Chapter 13

  Axel stepped into the indoor gymnasium and saw Rolf playing basketball with some of the other kids from the Home. Rolf was clearly the largest and strongest of them, but he never used his size or strength against them during the game. In fact he was so careful not to, he was often pushed around like he was the smallest kid on the court.

  “Shoot it, Rolf!” Axel heard a voice shout and he turned to see Professor Julian Hayes seated in the bleachers watching the game and encouraging the boys. He looked a mess, as usual, with his uncombed hair, loose tie and tweed jacket. Axel smiled to himself and made his way over to the professor.

  “May I join you?” Axel asked.

  Professor Hayes glanced up at Axel and smiled broadly. “Yes, of course, my boy.” He extended his hand and Axel shook it as he sat down.

  “How’s he doing?” Axel asked.

  Hayes shrugged. “About like normal.”

  “Losing, huh?” he said.

  Hayes turned to look at Axel. “How are you doing Axel?”

  “I’m alright,” Axel replied. “How’s life at the university treating you?”

  Hayes smiled. “It’s a whole lot safer than your job,” he said with a chuckle.

  Axel narrowed his eyes, perplexed at what the professor meant. He stared at the professor for a long moment, realizing something was on Hayes’ mind.

  “I spoke with Thoms,” Hayes said. “He told me what was going on. That y’all risked your necks to rescue the devil himself.”

  Axel smiled. “I should talk to Tom about the whole loose lips thing.”

  Hayes laughed and slapped Axel on the back. “My boy, I have a higher security clearance than either of you.” He leaned in close. “Besides he’s worried about you.” He nodded at Rolf who was laughing excitedly as he ran with the ball. “Both of you.”

  “We’re fine,” Axel assured him. “The mission was a success and nothing more than a few cuts to worry about.”

  “I’m not talking about the mission, I’m talking about you,” Hayes sighed. “When we found the two of you in that lab in Germany, you were terrified. Y’all had clearly been through hell. To rescue Arnulf, the cause of so many of your nightmares over the years…well, it’s had to have evoked some strong feelings.”

  Axel nodded. “It has, but there is nothing to be done. That was a long time ago. I’m not the only one to have had a hard time with the Nazis.”

  “Oh, certainly not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not alright to be upset about it.” Axel looked away. “I never had children Axel. My wife passed long ago. You and Rolf are the closest thing I have to a family. I just worry about you.”

  “I know, Professor.”

  “You’re sure you’re alright?” Hayes looked him in the eyes. “I mean if Colonel Arnulf had suddenly reentered my life I’d…” but Axel cut him off.

  “It’s not Arnulf that bothers me. I don’t care about him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Did Tom tell you about Hammer and Sickle?”

  “The Russian super humans?” Hayes asked and Axel nodded. “Yes.”

  “It was Kristel and Gerd,” Axel said.

  “That’s what Thomas told me.”

  “But they are going by different names now. Alena and Alexi.”

  “Those are Slavic names,” Hayes said.

  “I didn’t know what had happened to them. If they were alive or dead…” Axel’s voice trailed off. “I have thought about her every day for the last twenty years. Hoping to find her one day. Wishing I could have saved her back then.”

  “I know, Axel.�
�

  “We left them, Professor. We left them with those monsters.” Axel placed his face in his hands. “I left her with Colonel Arnulf.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Axel. You had not even reached your fifth birthday yet. You were not responsible for Kristel and Gerd, or whatever they are calling themselves. That doctor…er…what’s his name…”

  “Dr. Holger.”

  “Yes, thank you. Dr. Holger was responsible for them—for all of you. He did not have to take you to Berlin. He could have piled all of you into the car and driven west. He’d have run slap into the Allies.”

  “He went back out to get them. At least, that’s where he said he was going. But I don’t know what happened to him either.” Axel shook his head. “I don’t care about Dr. Holger, but I do care about Kristel and Gerd. To finally know for sure after all these years that they are alive…” He swallowed hard. “And that we are enemies…” He let the sentence fall away.

  “I remember when we were bringing you back to America with us. You kept begging us to go find her. To rescue her. To rescue them both, but your emphasis was clearly on her.” Hayes patted his leg. “We tried, you must believe me. We wanted them as badly as you did, but clearly the Russians had found them first, as I suspected.”

  “I suppose we should have always known that’s what happened to them. I mean what else could have?”

  Hayes shrugged. “Any number of things, I suppose. They could have been killed in the bombings. They could have escaped the Nazis, been adopted by some German family.” He cleared his throat. “There were rumors, Axel.”

  Axel stared at him. “What kind of rumors?”

  “That many of the Nazi secrets were saved. That they are protected in hidden Nazi bases.”

  “Where are these bases?” Axel asked.

  “If we knew that we’d root them out,” Hayes said with a smile. “But there is some evidence that they were at least attempting to build a secret base in Antarctica.”

  “Antarctica?” Axel asked skeptically. “Why would anyone want to go to Antarctica.”

  “Well, who would look for them there?” Hayes asked. “From these secret bases, they could continue their work. Eventually, they would emerge to conquer the world and finish what they started. If those rumors are true, there is every reason to believe they would have taken as many of their genetically enhanced humans as possible.”