by Ewing, Al
PERSONNEL FILE: LEV ‘BLACKBEARD’ COHEN - CAPTAIN (US NAVY) - SKILLS: NAVAL STRATEGY, BLADE COMBAT, DEMOLITION VIA EXPLOSIVE DEVICES - PREFERRED WEAPON: CUTLASS, EXPLOSIVE DEVICES - WEAKNESSES: BELIEVES HIMSELF TO BE HISTORICAL PIRATE BLACKBEARD, RESULTANT AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR INCLUDES CONSTANTLY LIGHTING FUSES IN BEARD, HAIR, EXPLOSIVE DEVICES
“Aaarr.”
“HOW’S IT COMING, mein herr?”
Herr Doktor Diederich looked around Castle Abendsen’s massive dining room, squinting through his monocle at the maze of copper piping and clockwork. In the centre of it, Professor Hawthorne fiddled nervously with one of the Babbage arrays, occasionally winding it with a key and running slips of paper through a slot in the base, then examining the figures that emerged. “It’d be coming a little easier if you didn’t have me under such damned pressure.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be doing this at all. It’s insanely dangerous – for God’s sake, think what happened to Alexander, and he was only attempting transportation through space! For that matter, think what happened to your own man, Dashwood!” He shuddered. “I personally have no desire to end up a skinless monstrosity, thank you. If it was up to me, I’d stop everything here and now and tell your Führer to... to get knotted!”
“You’d do no such thing, Hawthorne. You’re too much of a coward. If you were even in the same room as our glorious Führer, you would... what is the English expression?” Diederich considered for a moment. “Es lag mir auf der Zunge... ah yes. You would shit yourself.” He chuckled to himself. “Anyway, it is not up to you. You have no choice in the matter, ja? You work for us now, Herr Professor. Get used to it.”
Hawthorne bristled for a moment, then sighed and bowed his head. “Of course, of course. I work for you. All I’m saying is that you need to be aware of the danger, that’s all.”
“That is your opinion as a scientist?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I am a scientist as well, mein herr, and I have my own ideas. Keep working.”
Hawthorne stared daggers at Diederich, then finished his tinkering and ran another set of numbers through the array. Having finally come to a result he found pleasing – or at least not displeasing – he slotted the clockwork in amongst a group of its brothers, then stepped back and ran his eyes over the whole contraption.
An immense host of Babbage arrays, logic engines and analytical mechanics had overtaken the room, a maze of connections fed by a gigantic furnace built into the stone wall and constantly supplied with fresh coal by two muscular Aryans. The clattering noise as the machine thought was like a thousand chirping crickets – but it was only standing by, waiting for the key to turn that would set it to its real task. In the very centre of the room was a cylindrical column, three feet tall and six in diameter, made of several dozen wafer-thin discs – copper and zinc, interlaced with discs of purest cavorite. Steel clamps secured the column to the stone floor below, to stop the whole thing rising up to the ceiling and yanking the vital connections with it.
“It is an impressive beast, Herr Professor.” It was. Diederich could not entirely conceal his awe at the scale of it. “The question is, will it do what you have claimed?”
“I never claimed anything,” Hawthorne muttered, bitterly. “I posited that it might work. It still depends on the absence of human error. In fact, for your own safety, you should stay out of the room when –”
“Don’t be foolish, mein herr. I must remain to make sure the experiment is a success.” He snapped his fingers, and two of Standartenführer Ackermann’s burly stormtroopers marched over and gripped Hawthorne by the arms. “You, on the other hand, are too valuable to risk. Your brain will perform many great works for the Fatherland, Professor Hawthorne. Who knows? Perhaps we will give it a nice new home.”
“Now, wait a second! Let go of me at once!” Hawthorne struggled helplessly, beard quivering with indignation at the rough treatment. “You need me here! If the machine goes wrong, you’ll be smeared through time like ink on blotting-paper!”
Diederich narrowed his eyes for a moment. “I see. Perhaps I will make a few last-minute checks of your work, ja? And make sure I have the sequence fully memorised. In the meantime, you can return to your quarters... in the dungeons.” The SS men frogmarched him away, still protesting.
Diederich watched him go. There was something about Hawthorne he didn’t like. He seemed so hunched and cowardly, such a miserable and unkempt little Englander... but then again, there was something sinister in his manner, as if he knew more than he was letting on. Best not to have such a man close by during the final stages of such an important experiment, even if he was the driving force behind it; Diederich doubted he could count on Hawthorne’s loyalty to the Führer.
He shook his head, then looked over the maze of copper and iron around him, wondering if he dared to set it in motion. He’d hidden his own fears from Hawthorne, but the Englishman’s nervousness was rubbing off. He thought of nearby Castle Frankenstein, destroyed decades ago; when they woke this monster from its noisy slumber, what would it do to them?
In the end, it didn’t matter. Yes, he would wait, check for himself, make absolutely sure... but there was never any question that he would eventually throw the switch. He was afraid of bringing the machine to life, but more afraid by far of not doing so.
After all, the Führer was waiting.
He turned around, smiling to the groups of SS men hovering on the edge of the room, watching him intently... and the two Zinnsoldats, the immense steam-powered robots, standing to attention and gazing on him with their terrible red eyes.
Yes, it would not do to keep the Führer waiting much longer...
PRIVATE METZGER LOOKED at the minute hand on his wristwatch, willing it to turn faster. He and Vogt had spent eight hours on this miserable detail, guarding the top of the east turret – a double shift, as punishment for pilfering a bottle of landwein from the castle cellars. It wasn’t even good wine, and Vogt had argued, convincingly, that it wouldn’t be missed, and didn’t they deserve a little luxury, being stationed in such a boring, stifling hole, so far away from the front?
Vogt’s convincing argument had bought them both double shifts on guard duty, from now until that pompous oaf, Unterfeldwebel Trommler, decided they’d learned their lesson. It could have been worse – Trommler had taken pains to point out that had those thugs in the SS caught them, they would likely have been shot, and he was probably right. Those bastards didn’t care about the ordinary soldier – they’d shoot a hundred Metzgers if they thought it would win them a kindly look from their precious undying Führer.
All in all, it hadn’t been Vogt’s finest hour, and Metzger was quite justified in refusing to speak to the light-fingered little rodent. But that decision did make the eight-hour shifts pass so terribly slowly.
Twenty minutes left. An eternity. Well, at least Metzger had a good view.
From his place up on the flat roof of the east turret, he could see for miles, giving him a spectacular vista of the various troops moving to take up their positions. The ground units far below seemed to be constantly buzzing to and fro, like ants, or hornets, endlessly setting up new defensive positions to counter attacks that never came, from American soldiers that were twenty miles away, being pounded down by armoured units and the Luftwaffe. Perhaps they were as bored as he was.
“Speak of the devil,” Metzger muttered, as he noted the Luftwaffe squadron on the horizon. Every so often, a pair of wingmen would buzz the castle, waving to him or to whoever was stationed on the west turret, but occasionally a full squadron would fly past on the way to the next point on their regular patrol. It was hardly an uncommon occurrence.
But there was something different about this squadron – about the way they flew, like amateurs, wobbling through the sky. Not just those in the middle of the formation, either – the ones who might have conceivably been on their first flight – but all of them, even the Squadron Leader. As if they hadn’t been doing this every day for years...<
br />
Metzger squinted at the winged specks as they closed in, and pursed his lips in a disapproving frown. One of them even seemed to be asleep, although of course that couldn’t be possible.
Metzger opened his mouth, but some lingering trace of resentment prevented him speaking to Vogt – just yet, anyway. The last thing he wanted to do was look like a fool in front of that idiot. It was probably nothing, anyway – after all, what did he know about flying? It wasn’t as if he’d ever strapped on a wing-pack himself.
Still, something about these fliers, as they came closer and closer... he felt a sudden wave of panic and found himself scrabbling for his binoculars, even as the wingmen came close enough to confirm something was terribly wrong. The uniforms didn’t fit. Now he could see – mein gott, was their Squadron Leader a schwartzer? A chill ran through him as the awful truth struck him.
Americans!
Now he had to talk to Vogt, to warn him, and yet somehow he still could not speak. To admit to Vogt, the idiot, that he had been a greater idiot, and now it was almost too late, and what if he was wrong? Desperately, he raised the binoculars to his eyes, to make sure of what he thought he’d seen –
– and a Magnum bullet ploughed through the right lens, his eye and his brain, bursting out through the back of his skull in a red fountain, and that was that.
Another magnum bullet hit the back of Vogt’s head an instant later. Vogt had had no idea of Metzger’s anger and resentment. He’d assumed the two of them were still fast friends.
He had been busy thinking of recipes for stuffed carp. He died happy, absorbed in idle musings upon the topic of whether carp was a freshwater or a saltwater fish.
Another instant later, Jack Scorpio fired off another two shots, expertly dispatching the sentries on the western turret before they could raise the alarm. “Lang! Blackbeard! Wolf! Grab Moses and land there! Everyone else, eastside! Go! Go! Go!”
The two groups of four crashed down onto the hard flagstones, releasing the secure clips on the wing-packs immediately and letting them float slowly up into the air, unguided. Scorpio’s team ran for the steps into the Castle immediately, while Marlene gently manhandled Moses’ clips; once the wing-pack was off, she opened a small glass bottle under his nose, then took a few quick steps backwards, out of his reach.
It was a worthwhile precaution. Moses came awake with a sudden start, and his massive hand immediately snapped closed around Cohen’s neck.
“How’d I get up here?” He roared. “Huh? How’d I get up here, you son of a bitch?”
Cohen drew his cutlass in a flash, pressing it to Moses’ throat. “Avast, ye dog! Unhand me or I swear I’ll slit ye from stem to stern –”
“You put me in the damn wings, fool! You took me up there and I wasn’t even awake! I oughtta tear your head off and play dodgeball with it!”
“I be not afraid of ye, ye swab! I’ll grind ye up for sharkbait and save yer bloodless head for a cannonball!”
Marlene drew one of her .45s and fired into the air.
“That. Will. Do.”
Moses and Cohen looked at her, nonplussed, Moses’ hand still clamped about Cohen’s neck. Behind her, Johnny Wolf couldn’t help but smile.
“Michael, much as we’d all love to see you pull Cohen’s head off and use it as some sort of improvised bomb, I seem to remember you don’t actually kill people, so you might as well stop making empty promises. As for you, Cohen –”
“Arrr!”
Marlene sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Captain Teach... you know perfectly well how testy Michael can get if we don’t indulge his little phobia. Next time, stand further back.”
Moses scowled. “Hey –” he began, and then Marlene flashed him an icy look, and he found himself opening his hand to let Cohen fall. Marlene had a habit of getting what she wanted.
“You know, if God had meant man to fly, he’d be a sadist, right?”
“He may not be, Mister Moses, but I most certainly am.” Marlene smiled coldly. “Now, why don’t we go and complete our half of the mission before Professor Hawthorne dies of old age?”
Moses and Cohen exchanged an angry look, then stalked towards the stairwell leading down into the belly of the castle. Johnny Wolf turned to Marlene, and the corner of his mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly.
Marlene sighed. “I know, darling.” She grinned, offering her arm. “Isn’t it all too, too fabulous for words?”
JACK SCORPIO TOOK a moment to double-check the three chambers of his S.T.E.A.M.-issue multi-ammo Magnum. He’d selected his three ammunition packs carefully: dum-dums to pack a hard punch, tranq-darts for stealth – and the third category, the one he knew for sure he’d need before the day was over. The experimental round.
The four of them were inching along the cold stone corridors of Castle Abendsen, taking out troops as they found them; so far, the alarm hadn’t been raised. Scorpio wanted to keep it that way. The deeper they could penetrate into the building without raising the alarm, the easier it’d be to smash whatever insane scheme was being built here once and for all.
He turned to the other three men and raised a finger to his lips – silent running. Then he flipped open one of the pockets of his flak jacket and took out a shaving mirror, angling it so he could get a look around the corner at the next corridor. Two stormtroopers were walking towards them – SS men, not the usual guards. These two weren’t bored and feckless after weeks cooped up in here; they were fresh, rested and itching to find four American spies, and in another half a minute they’d turn the corner and do just that. And then they’d suddenly find a use for those Sturmgewehr 88 machine-guns they were carrying, which would probably mean raising the alarm if nothing else. Sturmgewehr 88s made a hell of a racket.
Scorpio took another look at the Magnum, and winced. Out of tranquilisers again; how come the non-lethal ordinance was always the first to go?
Hell, no time to beat himself up over it now. He looked at his men; Reed was just about useless for this kind of situation – it just wasn’t in his skill set. El Sombra would deal with the soldiers effectively, but Scorpio couldn’t be certain if he’d do it without a burst being fired. He probably could, but ‘probably’ just wasn’t good enough right now. Scorpio needed a sure thing.
He needed Savate.
And Savate knew it, the arrogant son of a bitch.
PERSONNEL FILE: JEAN-PIERRE “SAVATE” BEGNOCHE - MERCENARY (ON RETAINER TO US GOV’T) - SKILLS: UNARMED COMBAT (ULTIMATE CLASS), SAVATE, PARKOUR - PREFERRED WEAPON: FEET - WEAKNESSES: SERVICES FOR SALE TO HIGHEST BIDDER, HIGH LEVEL OF ARROGANCE
Scorpio held up two fingers, then three, then an ‘O’ with his thumb and forefinger. Two of them. Thirty seconds.
Savate nodded, and assumed a ready stance.
Scorpio noticed El Sombra’s hand twitching next to the hilt of his sword, and he shook his head once. No.
By now, they could hear the approaching soldiers talking to each other in brisk, clipped German. Savate closed his eyes, judging the moment.
Then he jumped.
Five feet, straight up. He didn’t even seem to tense his legs first.
Scorpio had lost count of how many superiors had read the reports and proclaimed them a gross exaggeration of the facts – a string of acrobatic feats surely impossible for a human being to achieve. They’d never seen the Frenchman do the impossible in front of them, on command.
With a cocksure grin, Savate folded his legs up, pushing off one stone wall, then the other. He seemed to become a human pinball, ricocheting effortlessly from wall to wall high above the heads of the approaching men. Despite the steel-grey uniform he wore, and the jackboots that surely constricted his ankles, he was almost completely silent; by the time the two Germans became aware of the creak of leather that signalled him sailing over their heads, or the flash of grey at the upper edges of their peripheral vision, he was already somersaulting down behind them.
On the way down, he lashed out with the tips of those creaki
ng leather boots, each foot striking twice in a single second at the point where the spine meets the skull. Neither of them felt a thing; it was like a candle being blown out.
Another impossible feat; although this time Scorpio didn’t get to see it happen. He heard the muffled crack of their necks breaking at the same instant, and then Savate strolled back around the corner, grinning like a cat, and gestured dramatically to the bodies. “Observe,” he murmured, keeping his voice low. “The trick, she eez done, n’est-ce-pas? Notheeng up my sleeves, mes amis – or my trouser-cuffs.”
He took a stage bow, to Reed’s silent, pantomimed applause. El Sombra rolled his eyes, trying not to look bitter and failing miserably. “You’re a show-off, amigo.”
“Oh? Or could it be zat perhaps I am simply... ’ow do you say... better zan you are, mon cher ami. Oui? Maybe zat is why I was picked to –”
“That’s enough.” Scorpio hissed sharply, before leading the three men further down the corridor, creeping past the bodies as he went. “We’re not here to compete. Come on – the closer we get to wherever this experiment’s happening, the easier it’ll be to find. Something like this is going to need a lot of computing power, and that means they’ll need a lot of room and they’ll make a lot of noise. You boys ever been in the room with a top-of-the-line analytical engine?”
Savate and El Sombra shook their heads. Reed smiled. “It’s like fifty typewriters all clattering at once, or a roomful of crickets. An endless clicking, even when it’s just standing by. If they start performing any serious calculations, it’ll only get louder. We’ll know it when we hear it.”
El Sombra nodded. “Okay.” He cocked his head for a moment, listening. “So, when you say a clicking noise... would it sound anything like what’s at the end of the corridor, amigo?”
The four men stared at each other for a moment, then started moving forward, in the direction of the sound.
