Clocksworth Academy

by Penny BroJacquie

  “Of all that has happened today that is what made the biggest impression on you?”

  “Where are they now?” asked Egon.

  “They must already be at Beelitz-Heilstätten, the 60-building military hospital in Nazi Berlin. Even Hitler himself was hospitalized there. And if all the information he gathered is correct, then they should have already gone back to 1945.”

  “But how? They don’t have the Orologion with them?” Egon asked baffled.

  “They’ve managed to create a sort of time machine themselves. That’s all we know.”

  “All this time you never questioned Eric’s commitment?” asked Egon.

  “I tried not to.”

  “And you didn’t ask me to carry out this mission. Why?”

  “Because I was sure you weren’t the snitch and I knew you’re not a good detective...”

  Egon’s face got shadowy. Having weighed his thoughts for a few seconds, he demanded, “Send me back to 1945!”

  “What?” The elder man raised his eyebrows and looked at him with surprise.

  “Send me to 1945’s Berlin. Let me do what I know best.”

  Moving his hands frantically, Vittor intervened. “Don’t even think about doing this. You’re going nowhere until you get the antidote. You're dangerous to yourself and to the others.”

  Nodding at him to stop, Egon turned again to their leader.

  “You know that Eric and I make the best team ever. Don’t split up this team. Maybe it’ll be the last time we work together.”

  The Master stayed silent for a few minutes. When he spoke again, the tone of his voice was affectionate.

  “If I agree, I’ll be sending you to certain death. Your life is already in danger. If you stay here, you'll be the first on whom the vaccine is tested once it’s ready. If you leave, you will be like a living time bomb ready to explode anytime.”

  “That’s why I have to go,” Egon said softly. “I can’t stay here, waiting for Vittor to work his magic. In Berlin, I’ll know what to do. I have a plan.”

  He grabbed the Master’s hand respectfully.

  “Send me to Berlin. I might not have the opportunity to ask anything of you again.”

  The Master let out a deep sigh and looked at the floor as if focused on an invisible stain.

  “I would feel better if you traveled with someone. But it is the middle of the night and—”

  “We’ll talk about this later. I’m going to get my gear and I’m back in a minute,” said Egon and ran out of the room.

  “I'll go with him.”

  Floriana felt the Master’s bulging eyes looking at her.

  “I’ll go. If it weren’t for my family, he wouldn’t be fighting for his life.”

  “I can’t let you go,” the Master replied.

  “I beg you to let me go,” Floriana insisted as Egon got back in the room, holding four leather backpacks.

  “Since you insist, let’s not spend more time,” Egon said puffed.

  “I hope I won’t regret this.” The Master sighed. “Floriana, place the stone of your ring on the Orologion. Egon, place yours too.”

  Rays of bright blue light appeared when the two black stones came attached to the Orologion and a light blue ball was created around their hands; a ball that grew bigger and bigger until it finally exploded, and a white vortex devoured them.

  WATCHING THE DAWN, Floriana was trying to digest that it was a dawn that had happened, more or less, eighty years before.

  The time vortex had sucked them down and then had spat them out a few miles away from the Berlin Tegel airport. Nothing around reminded of the 21st century. There were fewer buildings, there was no traffic on the roads, the air was clearer, and the area was rural.

  They would have walked to Beelitz-Heilstätten, carrying what Egon needed to put his plan into action: four bags full of dynamite. And they would have walked all the way to the sanatorium if they hadn’t stopped a random car that was passing by and asked politely, almost begged, for a free ride.

  And now, Floriana was in a 1937’s Volkswagen Beetle, with two men who had been born half a dozen decades before her, a soon-to-be-zombie guy, and four backpacks full of bombs.

  “Awesome!”

  She glared at Egon, who was sitting beside her.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “There is a question I’m dying to ask you,” she whispered.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about the Master. What is his name? You all introduced yourselves to me with your full name. On the contrary, the Master didn’t reveal what his full name is.”

  “Only the members of the Order are allowed to know that,” Egon replied keeping his tone low. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “There are a million things I’d like to know. I guess I’ll have to wait until this is over.” She looked again at the pink morning sky through the car window.

  They passed Potsdam and followed the southwest road through a forest with tall trees.

  “Quite an idyllic place for a Nazi sanatorium.”

  The car reduced its speed while passing through the residential area. Having crossed a railway line, the driver pulled over to a strange artifact that seemed to consist of three chimneys.

  Carefully holding the four backpacks with the bombs, Egon thanked the two men and beckoned for Floriana to get out of the car.

  “Let's go for a picnic,” he said and gave her the two of the backpacks.

  CHAPTER 10

  *

  Valerie lay on one of the leather sofas, wrapped with a light blanket, and jumped when she saw Maite and Eric speeding past. Bleary-eyed as she was, she tried to talk to them, but got no answer.

  They ran through the corridor that connected the Master’s office to the reading room. The large, arched door creaked under the weight of the old wood when they pushed through on their way to the internal courtyard. They passed like the wind into the corridor with black and white tiles then they arrived at the main entrance. Carson was there standing guard. He looked at them, surprised, but didn’t prevent their departure, although he noticed the guns in their hands, the backpacks on their backs, and their attitude.

  They exited to the dead-end street through the teal doors that they had come in through, and they kept running until they reached the main road. Eric felt the cold night breeze cooling his cheeks. Spring moisture had covered the doors of nearby buildings; water drops were dripping from the leaves of green plants that adorned their entrances.

  “Here!” Maite cried and led him into an opening to their left. Once they turned, she abruptly stopped running. They were at the top of a long, medieval staircase leading downward. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into a dark corner below some ivy. Her breath was heavy, and her breast was moving rhythmically up and down. Still holding his hand, she looked him in his eyes and pulled him closer to her body.

  “Thank you! I didn’t know if you would be with me to the end,” she said, gently touching the back of his neck. He placed his arm around her waist and felt her body touching his. The cold metal of his gun chilled her skin. With a sudden movement, he flipped her body and brought it to rest against the wall. He started kissing her shoulder, then her neck and cheek until he reached her mouth. They let their lips touch gently for a few seconds before they sank into a deep, passionate kiss. With his free hand, he caressed her leg, which was wrapped around his. He put his hand on her back while gently biting her lips.

  “Anything for you,” he said, still kissing her. A jingling sound brought them back to reality.

  “What was that?” Maite asked, releasing him from her vise.

  Still in the embrace, Eric spotted something shimmering on the ground. He crouched to pick it up, dragging her body slightly with his own.

  “It was your mobile phone.” He smiled playfully. “It probably fell when you were wrapped around me like a snake.”

  She took her cell phone and threw it away. “I’m not going to need thi
s anymore. Not where we’re going.” She looked him in the eye. “What I said earlier, I meant it. Thank you for following me. I know how hard it was for you to leave those you consider your family.”

  She embraced him again, this time, however, in a way that was more sentimental than sensual.

  “Thank you for believing in our cause. Thank you for being with me.”

  She kissed him again deeply.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  They descended the medieval staircase and got into a parked SUV with a couple inside. The blonde woman, who was sitting in the passenger seat, required he gave her his mobile phone and his backpack. “To prevent any snitching,” she said. She also asked him to hand over his gun, but Maite managed to convince her that it wasn’t necessary. “He has already proven how trustworthy he is,” she said.

  In less than an hour, they had left Weengarts behind, reached the closest private airport, boarded a private jet, and took off. Tired from the stressful day, Maite relaxed in Eric’s arms and sunk into a deep sleep.

  Eric waited for the moment he could exploit the information he had gained when he was kissing her passionately in the alley in Birgu. He had skillfully removed her cell phone from the back pocket of her black trousers and had read the last received message. He might have won her confidence, perhaps her love too, but he knew deep down that Maite remained a soldier and wouldn’t betray the secrets of the cult she was involved, at least not before he had become an active member, too. He knew that the last message on her mobile included information on their next move. Combined with what he had heard on their ride to the airport and during the flight, he knew exactly what he had to do.

  With Maite still in his arms, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into a beneficial sleep. When he woke up, the plane had landed and was taxiing across a semi-lit runway of a seemingly secret airport who-knows-where in the world.

  Once they got off the private jet, Olga led them quietly into a dimly lit hardened aircraft shelter. An oval-shaped metal machine was flashing and shaking. It was the size of a food truck and was shaped like a donut but without the hole. Despite his initial surprise to the unexpected discovery, Eric followed her toward the odd object; Maite by his side. As he extended his arm to place his hand on the object’s surface, a door suddenly opened, and a short-haired young man in brown uniform appeared from inside the craft and welcomed them in.

  “I’m Heinz, your pilot,” he introduced himself.

  They jumped in the machine, which was now moving erratically, sending green rays to the roof. “This thing has a hiccup,” he whispered while looking around at all the switches and twinkling buttons. An illuminated sign that spelled “TIR” above a multiscreen caught his attention, but not as much as the numbers on the touchscreen: 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E.

  “These are coordinates,” Eric said without trying to hide his surprise.

  “Indeed,” Maite said keeping her voice low.

  “What is this thing?”

  “This, my love, is a time machine. That means we can go back in time and put history on the right track.”

  Olga was sitting in the co-pilot’s chair and pressed her finger on the virtual button on the touchscreen. The engine started.

  “You never told me that they had managed to build a time machine,” Eric whispered to Maite.

  “That doesn’t matter anymore since you’re here, right?” she replied.

  As he took his place behind the pilot’s and co-pilot’s chairs, Eric was impressed by how minimal the panel looked like. It wasn’t loaded with dazzling lights, oversized buttons, high-tech joysticks, and huge multiple monitors as he had imagined a time machine would look like. No flight display, no navigation display, only a large touchscreen surrounded by a few switches and twinkling buttons; that was all the cockpit panel of the time machine consisted of.

  “Fasten your seatbelts, we’re good to go”, Olga ordered as she touched a twinkling green button on her right. The cabin started shaking like a washing machine, throwing around beams of white and green lights.

  Eric turned to Maite, who was now sitting in a chair beside him, and saw her image flickering like an old analog television transmitting static. Then, the cabin started spinning, and spinning, and spinning, until it suddenly stopped. Eric felt as if he had been inside a working washing machine.

  “Let’s fix history,” Olga said as she stood up and followed the pilot to the hatch door. The man turned the handwheel on the hatch door counterclockwise until the door cracked open and sunrays entered the dimmed cabin. Olga looked through the half-opened door and scanned the area outside the machine. When she felt confident that everything was alright, she ordered them to jump out.

  This is how in a blink of an eye their present suddenly became their future.

  “Welcome to 1945,” Olga said with a beaming smile on her face and led them to a car parked outside the facility they had landed.

  It was dark when they reached the Beelitz-Heilstätten sanatorium. Eric looked around him at the rusty iron beds, peeling walls, and medical equipment, all shiny and clean, inside the building with the impressive facade and ornate railings.

  In this sterile environment, the Z-Team, as they called themselves, had set up their laboratories full of sophisticated medical equipment. Two doctors were studying the antidote notes Maite provided them, while three others were filling rows of injections with saline containing the deadly Amoeba-Z. Grumbles and inarticulate cries could be heard from the adjacent rooms.

  “Our soldiers,” said Maite proudly.

  Homeless people, drug addicts, prostitutes, child beggars, and ethnic minorities had been abducted and forcibly vaccinated with Dr. Rogers’s bacterium.

  Suddenly, everybody stood up and gave the Nazi salute to one middle-aged man who walked into the room escorted by two brown clad soldiers. The man inspected the vaccine injections and then took hold of the antidote notes. In a theatrical manner, he lit a lighter and set the papers on fire, eliciting the applause of those around him.

  Maite approached him and, after a brief conversation, she pointed to Eric. The middle-aged man beckoned Eric to approach.

  “Let me introduce you to General Müller,” she announced with solemnity.

  Eric greeted him with a nod of his head.

  “Maite informed me about your services. We are fortunate to have a member like you,” said General Müller.

  “The honor is mine,” replied Eric. “I expect to be assigned my next mission.”

  “I’ll inform Dr. Foulk—” Müller began to say when a loud crash was heard on the other side of the long building.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “It came from the wing with the soldiers,” one of the doctors said.

  “The soldiers are those who have been vaccinated with Amoeba-Z, and their conversion has been completed. They are the ones who are ready to be used for our attack. Their loss would be a tragic event,” said Maite.

  The smell of burnt flesh reached their nostrils. The doctors rushed out of the room in panic. The sound of a second explosion, louder and in greater intensity, came from a closer range. Maite, Heinz, and Müller’s bodyguards pulled their guns out. Olga came running into the room, holding a gun.

  “We are under attack. How did they find us? I’m sure you are the ones to blame,” she cried, looking at Eric and Maite.

  “¡Mentira!” the Spaniard said.

  “I knew it from the beginning,” Olga insisted. From the moment we met. You didn’t talk; you only observed,” she said, pointing her gun at Eric.

  Steadily, Eric raised his hands up in a surrendering pose.

  A third loud clatter was heard, this time only a few meters away.

  “Olga, drop your weapon or I shoot,” Maite warned the blonde woman, who continued threatening Eric.

  Black smoke filled the room, and flames began to lick at the walls around them.

  “Let's get out of here,” Müller’s bodygu
ards agreed. They grabbed the general by his upper arms and left the room running. Only Eric, Maite, Olga, and Heinz – the pilot - had been left behind.

  “Olga, if I wanted to harm you, I would have already done it. Trust me,” Eric yelled, trying to be heard through the noise caused by the fire and those who were burning. He still had his hands up but was weighing his next move.

  The blonde woman started shouting, enraged, “I knew it was wrong to bring you here, it was wrong—”

  With a shot between the eyes, Maite ended Olga’s delirium. Seeing his partner fall dead, Heinz moved to pull his gun up. A bullet from Eric's gun pierced his skull from the left and came out the right side.

  “Indeed, you shouldn’t have trusted me,” Eric shouted and pointed his weapon at Maite.

  She looked at him, shocked, without dropping her weapon.

  “It was a lie, then?” she asked, eyes red from the smoke and tears.

  Moving sideways, she got close to the door. The smoke was choking them, and their eyes were burning.

  “Tell me, was it all a lie?” she cried again, breathing heavily.

  “Let’s say it wasn’t all true,” Eric replied, scanning the room to find a way out.

  “You’ll stay here! You’ll be burned to a crisp!” she screamed before she felt someone catching her hand and twisting it behind her back. She screamed in pain and released her gun.

  “Honey, you will stay here with me,” Egon smirked as he threw her down on the ground. He put his knee on her back to ensure she wouldn’t be able to move and pulled her black ring from her finger.

  “Egon!” Eric cried out. Flames started to encircle them. “What did you do?”

  “You mean, what we did,” he answered and motioned toward Floriana, who appeared behind him, face black from the smoke.

  “Take the girl and leave,” Egon commanded his friend.

  “I’m not going to leave you behind,” Eric protested, choked by the smoke.

  “Egon, I’m not leaving you!” Floriana yelled.

  “Forget me. My time is up. I won’t even make it back to Weengarts. Eric, take her and leave. Get her back to her family. She’s more valuable than she knows.”