A History of What Comes Next

by Sylvain Neuvel

  —We are not heidens. We are traders from Amsterdam. We work with the VOC.

  It was true. Upon her arrival in Amsterdam, the Eighty-Seven had purchased a fair number of shares in the Dutch East India Company and were selling goods from the colonies to the wealthy. True or not, it did not matter to the villagers, who were now screaming for more blood.

  —Hang the witch!

  Sura heard the words and kneeled without thinking. Visions of the past rushed into her mind. The wind blowing louder than her cries, driving sand in her eyes. Her small arms wrestling those of a man, trying to rip the next stone from his hand. Her mother’s lifeless face warped and distorted like wax on a burning stove.

  Sura pleaded for her daughter, she begged as she had done for her mother. She knew full well the villagers wouldn’t listen. She had seen what fear could do to people. A woman grabbed Ariani by the arm. Two men ran to her aid and tied the screaming child’s hands behind her back. A rope went up and around a high branch. The two men pulled, and pulled, until Sura’s daughter was hanging in midair. Her small body twisted like a worm while the bald man stood in front of her watching.

  Run, save her child, or kill them all. Sura did the math before her fever got too strong. The weight of the child would spread evenly through the surface of the rope around her neck. The thicker the rope, the smaller the pressure. Seventy-eight pounds of child spread over twelve square inches of rope meant that either the rope was too thick, or the child was too light. Either way, Ariani did not need saving, and Sura was done running.

  She picked up two broken branches and hid them in her palms. With an uneven end, a hundred pounds of force should suffice to break skin. Sura let the fever take over.

  She walked behind the man nearest her, stabbed him three times through the kidneys. Quick blows, arms close to the body. The man groaned and felt his back with his hand. His wife got stabbed in the carotid artery. She didn’t scream. Everyone kept staring at Ariani. Sura’s steps were brisk, her blows precise and controlled. One. Two. Three. The wooden sticks went in and out of bodies faster than anyone could see. Four, five, six. Most just stood in shock, unsure of what had happened. They were all dead, they just didn’t know. Nine were hit before the first one fell to the ground. Five more before someone pointed at Sura. Eighteen were done for before anyone did anything about it.

  The first to come at Sura was a skinny man in a green suit holding a pitchfork. Sura grabbed a teenage boy paralyzed with fear and impaled him on the incoming tines. The man in the suit tried to hold on and fell forward. Sura ignored him and removed the weapon from the boy. She threw it at a woman who was running away. If everyone had run, the woman might have been safe, but they didn’t. She fell face-first into the mud, a long wooden handle sticking out of her neck.

  The bald man was still staring at Ariani when the child swung forward and grabbed his head between her legs. She pushed herself up to relieve the pressure around her neck.

  At the front of the remaining crowd, a man stood still holding an ax. Sura walked up to him at a steady pace, tore the ax from his hands, and split his head in half in one swoop. She let her anger loose. The twenty people left standing thought they could find safety in numbers and huddled together. The Eighty-Seven cut through them like a ship through fog. None of them were whole after thirty seconds, their parts mixed together like a jigsaw puzzle someone had dropped on the floor.

  It would take another hour for the first eighteen to bleed out and stop moaning, but Sura didn’t hear them anymore. She took a knife off one of the dead and cut her daughter’s hands free. Ariani passed the noose over her head, her legs still wrapped around the bald man’s head. She took the knife her mother handed her and cut the man’s throat from shoulder to shoulder. She jumped off him and pushed him in the river.

  —You see, mister? I told you you would float!

  Without a word, Sura examined her daughter from head to toe. She turned her around to make sure there were no wounds.

  —Mother, look! She’s alive! The lady’s alive!

  They pulled the young woman out of the water. Ariani rolled her on her side to set her hands and legs free, but her mother stopped her.

  —What, Mother? Why?

  Sura did not speak. She did not need to. Ariani looked around and she knew. Remember the rules. The Eighty-Seven had just slaughtered a village. What were the odds this young lady could keep that a secret?

  Ariani’s eyes filled with tears but she stopped herself from crying. She handed her mother the knife and gently stroked the woman’s hair. What seemed so abstract an hour ago was now painfully concrete. Do not draw attention to yourself.

  ACT  II

  9

  Death Valley Blues

  I can’t get the smell out of my nose. Outside, the war smells like piss and wet cement, but in here it reeks of burned flesh and pus. Human beings broken down into their ingredients. A million odors competing with one another. The putrid smell of rotting meat. The sweetness of caramelized fat. Charred leather, singed hair, and the metallic smell of blood. The worst part is these people are still alive. This; this is what Dante wrote about. The stench is so thick I can taste it. I can feel it crawling all over my skin.

  I woke up in a hospital near Berlin. One of the Peenemünde engineers found us on the side of the road. Pure luck. We could have died alone in a ditch. Von Braun’s left shoulder is wrecked. His arm is fractured in two places. He’ll live, no thanks to me. I’m okay, except for a nasty cut above the eye.

  There was an air raid not far from here. Allied forces dropped incendiaries by the thousand near a tire factory. The firestorm spread ten blocks in every direction. Thousands died in the inferno. The ones in here only wish they did. Most are civilians, some military. We can’t tell which is which because their clothes fused with their skin when the air around them reached four thousand degrees.

  They wanted to keep von Braun for surgery, but we can’t wait. There are three thousand people making their way to Bleicherode, and von Braun is the man in charge. He knows it. He insisted they set his arm in a cast and let us leave. He is loyal to his people, maybe even a little brave. It bothers me, somehow. The world is easier to grasp in black-and-white. This war … it’s nothing but gray.

  The other person in my room is a ten-year-old girl. I know that only because I heard the doctor say it. She has no skin left, none. She’s just a dark red shape, scabs in the form of a human being. I can’t bear to look at her, but she has to, because her fucking eyelids are gone. I wish her a quick death. Her, and the people who dropped those bombs on her, and the Nazis, and the German police. Maybe the whole world should burn. We don’t deserve to live if we’re capable of this.

  I want to go home, but for now I’ll have to be content with leaving this hospital. We’d better do it soon. A nurse came in five minutes ago to draw my blood. Mother said they can’t look at our blood. No one can. I told her to stop. I did. I told her twice, then I snapped her wrist in half.

  10

  This Land Is Your Land

  Dear Sarah,

  I can only imagine your disquietude for I do not have children of my own, but I know all too well the iciness of an empty house. May your daughter return to you safely and expeditiously.

  Thank you for inquiring about my situation. I am still teaching at Caltech but my research for the American government now takes up the bulk of my time. Sentiment towards the Chinese being what it is, my continued involvement in this project never ceases to surprise me. Nevertheless, this morning I received news that our program had been fully funded. I must admit to some trepidation but I am also filled with excitement. There is a small celebration scheduled for tonight and I promised to attend. As you know, social events are not my forte but I have been told these things only come with practice. We shall see. It is a momentous event for our group and despite my intermittent misgivings, I feel mostly at home in the company of these men.

  Outside our lab, I remain very much a stranger. My colleague
s are encouraging me to seek citizenship now that the Chinese Exclusion Act has been repealed. I am touched by their support, but a piece of paper will not put a stop to the stares and whispers. Citizen or not, they will not let me own a business, or marry whom I please. Perhaps it is simply our nature to mistrust what we do not know. Please forgive my grousing. I know you have endured your own share of prejudice.

  I find your research on carbon dioxide both fascinating and daunting. I am baffled by the amount of measurements you have managed to collect in so little time. I have given your theory some thought and it shames me to say I do not have a proper answer. I would tell you that this is not my area of expertise, but it seems like a poor excuse knowing it is not yours either. You truly are a Renaissance woman.

  Your data unambiguously suggests CO2 concentrations are on the rise, but a correlate in global temperature seems much more difficult to establish over a short period. As for mankind’s contribution to the phenomenon, it is worth considering the possibility that CO2 concentration has always been on the rise since our planet developed an atmosphere. From my limited perspective, the only way to properly answer these questions would be to extend your study over millennia instead of decades. I know how impractical that may seem since you do not have CO2 measurements from a thousand years ago. I also realize air from another era might prove difficult to obtain. With that said, I am fully confident in your ability to resolve the issue.

  With your permission, I would like to share some data of my own. I am wrestling with the limits of fin stabilization and I would welcome your perspective on the matter if you are so inclined.

  Yours faithfully,

  Hsue-Shen Tsien

  11

  Y’a Pas de Printemps

  All three thousand of us arrived in Bleicherode. We didn’t leave anyone behind. No one died. We kept families together and we made it. The Russians took Peenemünde. We just found out. The Americans, well, they’re so close, we can hear artillery fire from here. They’ll take Mittelwerk soon. Too bad we won’t be around when they do.

  Kammler found out we followed his orders. I’m sure he was ecstatic. But with Germany losing ground, he has “concerns” about von Braun being captured by the Americans. No kidding. Now we’re surrounded by soldiers all day. There’s a whole lot of them, too. Major General Walter Robert Dornberger arrived this morning to meet us. He and von Braun hugged like long-lost brothers. Clearly these two like each other. Dornberger did pretty much the same thing we did and moved his men here to get away from the Allies. He’s in charge now. We’re not a group of scientists anymore. We’re the German army.

  At first, I didn’t understand why Kammler wanted to keep us here. I thought he was just being stubborn. Give up, already! You’ve lost the war! I’m such an idiot. He knows he’s lost. I’m sure he’s known for a while now. He’s not thinking of Germany, or Hitler, or anything else. He’s doing all this for himself, holding the scientists hostage as a bargaining chip. I should have known. These people are evil and if there’s one thing the devil is good at, it’s saving its own skin. He’ll have to move us soon, but his first order of business is to increase von Braun’s value. Kammler ordered all the classified documents we were carrying destroyed. Boom. All the science, all the research, the notes, the microfilms, he wants it all burned. Von Braun will be worth a whole lot more if everything exists only in his head.

  Von Braun had his own men load everything into trucks. He’s maniacally methodical. I’m sure he’d insist on loading it all up himself if his arm weren’t in a cast. There must be thirty tons of documents in these trucks. Decades of passion and dedication, all sorted inside neatly labeled boxes. It must be strange, watching your whole life being hauled away to the incinerator. The last box is being loaded now.

  This will set us back … years, maybe decades. Years of watching hundreds of the most brilliant minds wasting their time doing things they’ve already done. The knowledge in these boxes is what I came for, why I’m risking my life and the lives of everyone else. I killed someone for it. Now it will burn and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I only get to watch.

  Time to go. The SS are getting into their cars. General Dornberger will escort the cargo himself. I’m in one of the trucks, with an engineer from Peenemünde and our SS driver. The uniform makes me sick to my stomach, but I’m glad I’m not behind the wheel. Off we go. It’s out of my hands, now. I can’t hijack a convoy by myself.

  This is a nightmare—a gorgeous, heartbreaking nightmare. This whole place would be like a postcard without the barbed wire and the five thousand soldiers. We’re in the Harz mountains and spring is in full swing. Melting snow is making its way down, painting the rock face with miniature waterfalls. I see flocks of black storks returning home from their African winter. Everything is coming alive after a long, cold death. I can hear it, smell it. I feel … light, in the most horrible way. All the weight on my shoulders, all the pressure, gone. I’m like a twig in a river, just floating along and taking in the view. In some ways, it reminds me of home. Not the mountains, but the inevitability of it all. That’s what being around Mother feels like. That’s why I follow her. If she sets her mind to something, just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride. Mother always has a plan. She’s the river. I just go with the flow. Only she’s not here right now and this river leads to a deadly fall. I’ve failed. I did it all for nothing.

  You have to admire Kammler in some ways. He’s a rare breed. No honor, no love for his country. He doesn’t care for a moment about his place in history, how the world will remember him. He just wants to save his own neck and he’ll kill everyone in Germany in the process if he has to. A perfect little machine built for one purpose only: survival. He’s a rat. I almost envy him. I don’t mean the evilness, just the simplicity of it. Never having to consider anything but yourself. It must be very …

  I suppose we all have something we care about more than anything else, that one thing we’d kill for, die for. I know I do, but watching von Braun pack up his notes, I realized how much it all meant to him. I’m not comparing him to Kammler, but it was obvious that science is higher up on his list of things that matter than, say, people. I shouldn’t be surprised. Mother said so before I left. He only cares about the work, not who he does it for.

  I miss her. I miss small things about her. Breakfast. Mother makes the best eggs. I miss my room, my clothes. I miss music. Our trucks don’t have a radio. I wish I could play my own records. Someone should invent that, a portable record player. Hamburgers. Forget breakfast, I wish for a hamburger. A real hamburger, not a stupid Hamburg steak. I want a bun, and fries, and a milkshake.

  Our driver is smiling. He looks genuinely happy. I wonder what he’s thinking. He’s probably just enjoying the ride. I see the uniform and I forget these people are even human. Most of them would probably be decent people under normal circumstances. Not great people, not particularly brave, or nice, or smart. Just … okay. Like an extra on a movie set. I can tell this one doesn’t care what we’re hauling, or that he’s been asked to burn more knowledge than he can fathom. He wouldn’t understand if I explained it to him. He’s been on the wrong side of a war for too long, following orders that make no sense to him most of the time. Today, his orders are to drive a truck on a beautiful road in the Harz mountains. He doesn’t have to walk in the rain or lie facedown in the mud. He doesn’t have to kill anyone. I’d be smiling, too.

  We’re slowing down. This must be the last village before our destination. The SS car has stopped and we’re pulling over beside them. Our driver is straightening his collar. It seems Major General Dornberger wants to talk to us.

  —Du solltest alleine gehen. Eine SS-Eskorte würde auffallen.

  You should go alone. An SS escort will attract attention. I wish I could say it the way he does. He has a great voice. It’s not particularly deep, not very loud either. But there’s something … leathery about it. Soothing and commanding at the same time. It makes you feel like everything will be fi
ne if you do what he says.

  Our driver is getting out. I don’t understand. Dornberger just dismissed our entire escort. Are they going to kill us? All the SS are getting into Dornberger’s fancy black car. But not him. He’s walking towards us. Towards me it would seem. There was a pen in between the seats a minute ago. There it is. I’ll hide it up my sleeve.

  There’s a piece of paper in Dornberger’s hand. I think he wants to give it to me but he wants to say something first. He wants me to bring my head closer. I let the pen slide into my palm.

  —Your mother sends her best. She wants to know where you are.

  Mother. I should have known. It makes sense. Dornberger is an engineer. This whole project was his before Kammler kicked him out. The V-2’s his baby as much as it is von Braun’s. He wouldn’t want our cargo to burn any more than I do.

  That’s it. He’s gone now. There’s no one watching us anymore. It’s just me, and the two engineers von Braun trusts the most. Let’s see what’s on that piece of paper.

  There’s a map with some coordinates. We’re not driving to the incinerator. We’re heading to an abandoned mine about three miles from here. I think I know what the plan is. We’ll hide the documents inside the mine, seal it closed with dynamite if we can. When this is all over, the Americans can dig it out and von Braun will get all of his precious research back, all sorted and in neatly labeled boxes.

  I guess I haven’t failed yet. I can get von Braun out of Germany. I needed help and Mother sent me a major general in the German army, all wrapped up in a neat little bow. Mother always has a plan. She—Wait. The map is pretty clear, but these coordinates makes no sense. 21–3–15 26–5–19 23–3–10. They aren’t coordinates at all. This is a message from Mother.