by Ian Andrew
“Do you know why we want to tell you of these things?” Heinrich asked.
“No, just that you were sent. Neither do I know your names or your number.”
“Sorry, um, I am Heinrich,” he said incredulous of what he was doing but yet enthralled.
“I’m Leigh and there are only the two of us.”
As they watched the Projection they saw him turn and take a seat next to the girl’s bed. He reached out and took the lifeless hand in his. “Upon which reason do you come in the Lord’s name?”
Leigh wiped more tears from her face and sat down in one of the console station seats. She nodded for Heinrich to keep talking.
“We come to seek your help, Yeshua.”
“And so does this young girl before me and I must make this right and restore her to her father. Perhaps that is what I am to do for you? To make it right and restore you? What is it that you ask?”
“We do speak from many lifetimes removed from you. We know what becomes of your ministry. You are heralded as the way and the light, the true Prophet of the Lord. You are recognised as the Messiah who shall bring forth the world to come.”
“You know this?” Yeshua sounded surprised which in turn surprised Leigh and Heinrich. They swapped a look and again Leigh nodded encouragement.
“Yes, but surely you are aware that this would happen?” asked Heinrich.
“Not at all. I am merely starting out on a long journey. There were never guarantees. But, now you say I am accepted?”
“Yes.”
“And is this not what we want?”
“It is,” it was Leigh who spoke, “it is what we want with all our hearts but it was a false dawn. The foretold world to come doesn’t last. You unite all the peoples of the earth but it goes wrong.” Her voice was laden with heavy emotion and she wiped more tears away.
“It is okay my child, do not despair nor weep. Be brave and tell me why the Lord has sent you to me.”
“We think we may know a way to change our world from its current misery but...” her voice was breaking on a sob and she stopped and looked to Heinrich.
He continued for them, “It will come at a terrible cost.”
“Be at peace and worry not. Tell me how you have come to this way of thinking.”
“A young woman who was mistreated and fell into bad, terrible ways had an epiphany of how we might make our world better,” Heinrich said.
“What is her name?”
“Mary.”
“And where is this Mary? Is she not here to speak for herself?”
“She’s in a prison cell awaiting her execution.”
There was silence and they watched as Yeshua put his head into his hands. He sat still for what seemed a long time but eventually he raised his head and spoke, “And what did your Mary say?”
Leigh was aware of a flashing alarm light to her left. She nodded insistently to Heinrich to continue as she got up to investigate.
“Yeshua, she knows your ministry brings Nirvana on earth for two thousand years. Then one man with evil intent overthrew the nations of the earth and cast us down. He founded a regime that is evil and all-powerful. We cannot defeat it by turning our cheek against the aggressor for the aggressor just continues to kill us in our millions.”
“Heinrich, you speak of millions? Are you saying millions have died in despair and terror?”
Heinrich’s emotions had caught up with him again and at the sound of his name on the Prophet’s lips he had begun to weep silent tears of joy. “Yes,” he managed to squeeze the word out.
“And what of Mary?”
Heinrich looked to see if Leigh would speak for him but she was bent over a console at the far end of the room. She seemed to be fully focused on it. So, he took a gulp of air and wiped the tears from his eyes. “She knows that in your time, in the time I can see you in now and before, back in the time of the scribes of the sons of Jacob, the different tribes with their different faiths fought and warred.”
“Aye and we are fully aware of that. That is why my ministry preaches peace and unity.”
“I know but, she, Mary, our Mary thinks that if we had stayed with some division and separate factions then all the nations of the world would have maintained their strength. With war and conflict practised within the world no one man could have had mastery over all others.”
“I would agree with her. But I do not understand how I prevent that from happening. Surely if what you said is true then I am heralded by the peoples of my faith. The divisions in the world will remain. I am not a beacon of light for the whole world?”
“You are Yeshua. You are.”
“How can this possibly be?” Yeshua frowned and the flickering light of the oil lamp cast his features in sharp relief.
“Because the Sanhedrin anoints you as Messiah and the Roman garrison of Jerusalem begins to be influenced by the society that surrounds them.”
“But even if that is so. Judea is not the world.”
“No Yeshua; but Rome is,” as Heinrich paused he watched Yeshua close his eyes and nod in realisation. “There are no more rebellions in or near Judea and that attracts the attention of the Emperor. As your church spreads so eventually you are heralded by Rome. A couple of decades from now you convert the Emperor Claudius and he ensures all the peoples of the Empire hear your good news. It takes generations but succeeding Roman Emperors change the schooling system. They educate the children in the ways of pacifism and turn them from violence”
“How clever. Blessed are the children for they will be the peacemakers,” Yeshua said. “Go on Heinrich, what else?”
“The tribes and regions on her borders turn to peaceful ways and when they are no longer needed, the very legions that once fought and dominated lay down their arms. In time, Rome reaches out to her neighbours both near and far. Eventually all the world unites in the spirit of your divine ministry.”
Yeshua clasped his hands together and rested his head on them. “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” For a moment he was still. He raised his head, looked at the dead girl next to him and continued, “But how? What convinces the people to believe in me so completely? How do they all come together? Why is there no dissent? For there is plenty now.” Yeshua stood and looked away from the girl on the bed to a door in the opposite wall. Heinrich could hear raised voices and shouts coming faintly through the Projection. “Heinrich, do not leave. We need to finish this but the crowd outside are growing restless and I need to get us more time to talk.” With that the Prophet walked out of the room and out of the Projection Window.
Heinrich looked down the length of the room to Leigh, “What’s wrong? You look frantic.”
“I am. The power supply’s tripping out breakers. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to keep the Projection running. I’m trying to shunt things away from the main load but I’m not an expert on how the power supplies work.” She was flicking more switches as she spoke and he could see a real concern on her face.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” he asked with genuine intent.
“Yes, talk to our Messiah and be brilliant and use all your knowledge to be the person I know you are and that my father knew you would be.” She looked at him and held his gaze.
“Okay. I’ll try and you try your best to keep the Window open,” he encouraged.
“I will.”
A few minutes passed and Heinrich still waited for the Prophet to reappear in the dead girl’s room. Leigh had worked her way round each console adjusting and monitoring as she went, but it was obvious from the increasingly erratic light levels in the room that she wasn’t winning.
“Leigh how bad is it?”
“I honestly don’t know. Power supplies really aren’t my area. It could hang on for hours or it could fail spectacularly and destroy the whole ring laser assembly in the next second. We need to shut i
t down.”
“We can’t until He returns.”
“I know.”
Another few minutes ticked by on the image display and then he re-entered the room. “Heinrich are you still there?” Yeshua spoke with a gentle yet commanding tone.
“Yes, I’m here but we have a problem. The way that I’m talking to you uses a...” he hesitated and wondered how to explain to the Messiah that a laser ring gyro went weird and caused a Time Observation Window to open up. He decided to skip it, “Well it doesn’t matter how I’m talking to you but it might fail.”
“Will you be able to repair it?”
“Well I won’t but Leigh will.” He didn’t add ‘I hope’.
“Then tell me quickly, what is the reason for my uniting the world?”
“Mary said that everyone believed what you taught. That they believed in you because you...”
Leigh yelled from the far end of the room, “Heinrich! I’m losing this. The power’s building in a surge, we’re going to lose it all if I don’t start shutting it down.” As if to emphasise the point three light bulbs above Heinrich’s head shattered in a spray of sparks and glass. He crouched and covered his head with his hands.
“Yeshua, we’re going to have to leave but to come back again I need to know where and when to find you. This was the only place I knew where to find you at a specific time. How do I find you again?” he asked in a rushed and slightly panicked voice as the lights in the room dimmed, fluttered and then surged to a new level of intensity.
“Come back here Heinrich. Come back to here and now. I will gather my closest advisors and...”
There was a crunching noise that sounded like a car hitting a wall and the room went pitch black.
Chapter 47
“Leigh?” he called out in the darkness.
“Heinrich?” she replied hesitantly, yet relieved.
“Yes. Are you okay, are you safe?”
“Yes, I’m safe. Don’t move, just wait.” She turned slowly in the darkness until she could see the faint green glow of the fluorescent sticker that marked the location of the emergency torch that hung on the wall. “Stay still until I get us some light,” she called and moved slowly with her arms held out in front of her and her legs sweeping slowly for open space to walk into. After only a couple of small bumps she retrieved the torch, clicked it on and shone it up into the ceiling so that enough light was scattered to faintly illuminate the room.
“I thought that was it,” Heinrich said as he moved slowly toward her.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I thought that I was dead, that we had changed the world and that it was over for us.”
“Me too.” She laughed a small, slightly sad laugh.
He moved toward the torchlight and took her in his arms. “I’m glad it wasn’t.”
“Are you? Isn’t that what all this is for?”
“Yes, but when the lights went off I realised that if this was the end I desperately wanted to be standing next to you, holding hands.”
She hugged him hard, reached up and kissed him slowly and gently. “Thank you. That may well be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she paused and kissed him again. As she drew apart from him and played the torch beam round the lab she said, “But I think all that happened is the power supply breakers have tripped and the surge protection circuits cut in. You’re not dead and we didn’t save the world. Well, I don’t think so. But, we need to get out of here.”
“No, we can’t. We need to repair this and go back.” He checked his watch and calculated how long the Window had been open for. “We need to go back at the same time the Window crashed shut.”
“Yes I know but I have no idea if I can fix it yet and meanwhile we may have a slightly bigger problem.”
“Bigger?”
“Well, different.” She turned and led him out of the Thule Room and back through the HPL. “We need to get the number for the power substation and ring them. That surge and then the complete drop of load will mean they’ll have had alarms tripped. They’ll be in the process of going through a procedure for what they’re meant to do. Part of it will be to start ringing people to find out what’s going on.”
“Who are they likely to try?”
“Wolfgang and if they can’t get hold of him they’ll ring the Head of Thule Security.”
“Me?” he said in surprise.
“Yep, you. So if we head them off then everything will be fine.” She swung open the security door and led him through the cleanroom back into Oscar.
“All the lights are on,” he sounded quite confused.
“I told you, the HPL and the Thule Room are on a separate circuit. It’s an annex to the main Oscar power supply.”
“So no one in the complex knows we tripped off all our power.”
“Nope, they shouldn’t. Only the external substation.” She had reached a circuit breaker box mounted on the wall and released the catch. Inside the front cover were a list of names, departments and phone numbers. “But you’re going to have to ring them. Tell them that you authorised a special maintenance check and that all is well.”
“Can’t you just talk to them on my behalf? You sound a lot more convincing than me with the technical stuff?”
“Not for this. There are strict controls over the power supplies ever since Toronto. Had they controlled it better we could have prevented the original big accident. So now we control it better. Of course we’re about to prove that any system can have its flaws. But you’ll be fine. After all, you are Standartenführer Steinmann of the Allgemeine-SS, Special Investigations and Security Directorate and as you said earlier, that has its advantages.” She read out the number and he punched it into his Fone.
As he told his made-up version of events to the duty officer at the Isle of Dogs Power Generation Substation 34A, she made her way back to her office. Logging on to her PC she called up the official news and information websites and opened each in a separate browser window. Scanning the lead pages of Völkischer Beobachter, Das Reich and Das Schwarze Korps she could see no discernible differences to their normal coverage. She opened Neues Volk and finally Signal; all seemed to confirm what she had surmised. Nothing in their world had changed. It was just as oppressed and devoid of freedom as it had ever been. She joined him back in the lab and found him sitting at the bench where they had had their coffee.
“All done with the substation?”
“Yes, no problem. They wanted, in fact demanded, to know what was going on. I introduced myself with my full rank and title and said that it was nothing for them to be concerned with. They agreed and thanked me for my trouble. Which is both handy for us and terribly sad for the fact that it shows me nothing has changed.”
“I know, I just checked the official news sites. All the same as usual.”
“Not so bad though.”
“What?” she looked at him like he was crazy.
“Not so bad. It means that we have to go back again. We get to spend more time with Him.”
Leigh giggled, then laughed and held out her arms. Heinrich stood, took hold of her and twirled her round and round. They laughed like kids in a playground, overwhelmed at the enormity of what they had done and what they had experienced.
“We talked with Jesus of Nazareth, the Prophet, the Messiah,” she said in a tone of wonder.
“I know and He called us by our names and spoke to us and we understood Him. I felt so alive when I heard him speak in German.”
“English.”
“What?”
“He was speaking in fluent English Heinrich. That’s why I was so stunned. You’d said this morning that you were confident you could manage in Hebrew but it’d be slow and deliberate and I knew I wouldn’t understand a word and then whoosh, we get granted the power of Tongues. I remember my parents telling me the stories of the Apostles when they went out to preach His ministry. How they were granted it and I always thought it would be a great thing to have and now we do. Me
and you.” She laughed again and again and he twirled her round more and more until they both collapsed back onto the stools at the bench.
When he had caught his breath he said, “I heard Him in German. All my responses to Him were in German.”
“Mine were in English and so were His.” She thought for a moment. “Say something in German now.”
“Bitte entschuldigen Sie mich”
“Oh, that is weird. I heard that in German.”
“I’m sure it’ll come back when we talk to Him again.”
“Me too.” And they both sat for a long moment contemplating what they had seen and experienced. The moment was broken by Leigh getting up and retrieving a tissue from a box on one of the cubicle desks. As she came back to sit down Heinrich saw her dabbing her eyes and asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I was just thinking how my mum and dad would have loved this.”
“Do you want to see if we can go back and talk to them?”
“No! No I really don’t. It would tear my heart from my chest. We just need to get the Window working again. Let’s get back in and see if I can fix things.”
“What would you like me to do?”
Leigh nodded her head in the direction of the coffee percolator.
Chapter 48
An hour later she sat at the Oscar Lab bench with wiring diagrams spread out in front of her whilst Heinrich made yet more fresh coffee. Resetting the breakers and restoring the power into the HPL and Thule Room had been easy. However, whilst the lights were on and functioning normally and the computer systems had gone through a system restore and were back up and running, there wasn’t a peep out of the Window. She couldn’t initiate the transmission of the laser beams let alone get it to stabilisation.
The reality of the situation had been manifestly obvious to her for the last twenty minutes but she had gone over and over the diagrams and ran as many remote diagnostics as she could. Despite all her efforts she knew that the answer wasn’t going to change. She sunk her head into her hands and said quietly, “I need to get into the Ringroom.”
