Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “That’s not always true,” her father said. “There have been men who’ve defended battered wives...”

  “But the wives don’t get to defend themselves,” Gudrun said. Something would have to be done, she was sure. Women’s rights were just another issue for the next leaflets, once they readied themselves to distribute a second set. “They may not be lucky enough to have defenders.”

  “You’ll have me,” her father said. “And your brothers. They won’t hesitate to come to your defence.”

  “Siegfried might,” Gudrun muttered. Her little brother blamed her for the thrashing he’d received from their father, five days ago. “He hates me.”

  “He’ll get over it,” her father assured her. “I thought I hated my sisters too, once upon a time.”

  He cleared his throat. “I understand that you are in mourning,” he said, “and I will give you as much time as I can, but you do need a husband.”

  Gudrun shook her head, mutely.

  “I’m not going to let you run free without a man,” her father said, firmly. “You are young, beautiful and intelligent. You’ll have no trouble finding another boyfriend.”

  “Widows get at least a year before they’re expected to remarry,” Gudrun muttered.

  “You’re not a widow,” her father pointed out. “And you’re not pregnant.”

  Gudrun rolled her eyes, even though she knew it would annoy him. The whole system was strange, at least when she applied logic and reason. She knew she wasn't supposed to have sex before marriage, but her father wouldn't have objected if she became pregnant out of wedlock, provided she married her boyfriend before she started to show. No one would be particularly surprised when a bride proved able to produce a child quicker than a properly-wedded wife.

  But then, producing the next generation of Germans is an important goal, she thought, recalling the BDM’s lectures. It was their duty, as maidens, to marry, have children and raise them to become good little servants of the Reich. A handful of girls becoming pregnant before marriage, as long as there was a marriage, was hardly a problem. They just want us to have babies and raise them.

  Her father gave her a brief hug. “I know this is hard for you,” he said. Gudrun rather doubted that he did understand. “But your time is running out.”

  And if I don’t find someone, Gudrun thought nastily, you’ll find someone for me.

  Her father rose and headed out the door, leaving her behind. Gudrun shook her head tiredly, then rose herself. There were chores to do, after all, and they would keep her from thinking about her prison. Find a man, any man... or accept her father’s choice. Who knew what sort of young man he’d consider suitable? A policeman? Or a soldier? Gudrun wasn't sure she could bear the thought of being married to a soldier, not after what had happened to Konrad. What was the point of building a life together if it could be snatched away in the blink of an eye?

  Maybe I should ask Horst, she thought, as she headed downstairs. He was smart, after all, and unlikely to be sent into danger. The Reich didn't have enough computer experts to risk losing one on the front lines. At least he’d understand why I had to keep spreading leaflets around...

  “Gudrun,” her mother called. “Can you go clean Grandpa Frank’s room?”

  You should go do it yourself, Gudrun thought, rebelliously. Perhaps she’d refuse to take her parents in, once they were no longer capable of taking care of themselves. But she knew her mother wouldn't allow her to escape the job. You don’t want to handle your father yourself.

  Gritting her teeth, she hurried back up the stairs and knocked at Grandpa Frank’s door, then opened it to peer inside. The old man was sitting in the armchair, reading the newspaper; he looked surprisingly active, for someone who drank several bottles of beer a day. And yet, when she started to scoop up the bottles, she discovered they were full. Her grandfather hadn't drunk any of his ration of alcohol.

  “Pour them down the sink,” Grandpa Frank ordered. He sounded sober, too. “Or just stick them back in the fridge.”

  Gudrun eyed him. “You’re sober.”

  Grandpa Frank gave her a sarcastic look. “Would you rather I was drunk?”

  “No,” Gudrun said, after a moment. Grandpa Frank knew. If he got drunk, if he blurted it out in front of her parents, she was dead. Her father would drag her out of university, marry her off to some knuckle-dragging moron and deny he’d ever had a daughter. “But I thought you needed the drink...”

  “I find that confession unburdens the mind,” Grandpa Frank said. He put the newspaper down on the table and smiled at Gudrun, rather unpleasantly. “Not that I ever set foot in a church after I returned from the war. I had the impression I’d be violently rejected after everything I’d done.”

  Gudrun nodded, although she didn't really understand. The Reich didn't encourage church attendance; indeed, families who did attend church regularly could expect to be asked some pretty harsh questions. She knew very little about organised religion, save for what she’d been taught in school - and much of what she’d been taught, she suspected, was outright lies. Had the great Christian, Jesus Christ, really been killed by the evil Jews? Or was there something more to the story? And just what had really happened on Christmas Day?

  She finished cleaning the room - thankfully, a sober grandfather meant less mess - and piled the rubbish into a small bag. Her mother didn't seem to have noticed that her father was sober, although that proved nothing. Gudrun hadn't been paying attention to much of anything over the last few days. She gave her grandfather a sidelong look, then took a breath and leaned forward. If he was sober, maybe he could answer a question or two.

  “Father wants me to marry soon,” she said. “Is there any way I can dissuade him?”

  Grandpa Frank shrugged. “You’re a healthy young woman,” he said, after a moment. “It is natural for you to have a husband. Your father won’t be there to look after you for the rest of your life.”

  “I don’t want to get married,” Gudrun said. “Not... not like this. I want to finish my education and get a proper job.”

  “You could always have four children very quickly,” Grandpa Frank suggested. “You’d be able to apply for a maid once you won the Mutterkreuz. And then you could go back to your studies.”

  “I don’t think I’d be allowed to let the maids raise the children,” Gudrun said. Only very wealthy families could afford to hire German maids. “And my husband might start eying the maids.”

  “Standards have slipped,” Grandpa Frank agreed, dryly. “Make sure you get the maids fixed before you allow them to sleep in your house.”

  Gudrun shuddered. She didn't want to think about her future husband, assuming she ever had one, sleeping with the maids.

  “But you have other problems,” Grandpa Frank added. “Have you done anything else?”

  “Not yet,” Gudrun said. The university was buzzing with talk, but most of it was nothing more than talk. “I don’t know how to proceed.”

  “You need to make alliances outside the university,” Grandpa Frank told her, curtly. “If there’s just a handful of you, the SS will find it easy to isolate and crush your little band.”

  “I see,” Gudrun said. She shook her head. “But every time we try to make contact with someone else, we run the risk of being uncovered.”

  “Then make the invitation public,” Grandpa Frank said. “You need to concentrate on leaderless resistance, not establishing a strict hierarchy. That’s what did in the French Resistance.”

  Gudrun nodded, slowly. “Thank you, Grandpa.”

  Grandpa Frank shrugged. “Bring me some coffee,” he said. He waved his hand dismissively. “And see if you can fill a couple of bottles with water for me.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Gudrun said. Coffee was growing more expensive, according to her mother. “At least water is still free.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Albert Speer University, Berlin

  7 August 1985

  If Horst had been
genuinely interested in rooting out dissidents, he would have filed a whole series of complaints about the ‘transfer students’ he was forced to supervise. They were laughably underprepared for their roles; indeed, they fitted in so badly that he couldn’t help wondering if his superiors had deliberately intended to make their watching eyes so noticeable that even a rank amateur would have spotted them before they opened their mouths. Maybe their real goal was to divert attention away from Horst and his fellow agents, the men and women who actually blended into the university’s population... it was, he felt, the only explanation that suggested his superiors weren't terrifyingly incompetent.

  And no one pays any attention to us, he thought, while the goons make their way through the university.

  It was clear, astonishingly clear, that none of the new students had any real experience with academic life, let alone passed the exams necessary to attend the university as new students. No one could possibly mistake them for real students - and, if that wasn't bad enough, they were crashing through the classrooms, asking so many dumb questions that Horst was tempted to report them as potential dissidents. He couldn’t help wondering if some of the other spies, the ones who weren’t charged with supervising the assholes, had already reported them. It wouldn't be the first time that an intelligence operation had been ruined by two different people working at cross-purposes.

  At least they know not to bother me on campus, he thought, as he left the lecture hall and headed up to the meeting room. That would have blown their cover as well as my own.

  He caught sight of one of the spies, looming over a young girl and sighed inwardly. Of all the people they had to send, did they really have to send someone so... so entitled that he thought he could press his attentions on a student? Horst had met his kind before, the men who thought that being in the SS gave them licence to harass any woman they liked; he had no doubt that the idiot would blow his cover sooner rather than later. After all, the poor girl would probably report him to the university authorities, who wouldn't be able to expel him because of his connections...

  Idiot, he thought. He briefly considered reporting that to his handlers, then dismissed the thought. A corps of visible spies was more useful than a handful of agents who genuinely blended into their surroundings. Unless, of course, the visible spies were meant to distract attention from the invisible spies. And if the game was that easy, anyone could play.

  He pushed the thought out of his mind as he walked up the stairs and stepped into the meeting room. Half of the group - it struck him, suddenly, that they still didn't have a proper name - was missing, unable to get away from classes or practical work to attend. Horst understood; there were just too many outsiders tramping through the university for them to risk doing anything out of the ordinary, even though the meetings were important. Sven sat at one end of the table, next to Hilde; Gudrun sat at the other end, looking tired and wan. Horst couldn't help feeling a flicker of concern. Unlike him, she hadn't been trained for long periods of stress, with the risk of capture permanently looming over her shoulder.

  “We should be safe now,” he said, once he’d closed the door and turned the jukebox on, deafening the bug with American music. He had no idea if someone - anyone - was actually listening through the bug, but better safe than sorry. “There are at least nine new spies within the student body.”

  “I noticed,” Gudrun said. She sounded vaguely amused. “That Rudolf has never touched a computer in his life. He sat next to me in the lab and stared at it before the professor showed him how to turn it on.”

  Horst smiled. “That isn't uncommon in the east,” he said. “Computers? What can you do with a computer that you can't do with a gun, farming tools and a great deal of grit, spunk and determination?”

  “Play computer games,” Sven said, wryly. “Send messages across the entire continent in the blink of an eye. Access files everywhere and change them, if necessary.”

  “True,” Horst agreed. German bureaucracy was famed across the entire world for sheer bloody-minded thoroughness. There were copies of SS files right across the Reich; he knew, if he walked into an office in Germany South, the officers on duty would be able to access a copy of his file and confirm his identity with ease. “But they rarely see anything more advanced than a tank or a CAS aircraft.”

  He shrugged as he sat down. “There have been other developments,” he added. “Have you heard about the unions?”

  Sven smiled. “My father’s a member at the plant,” he said. “He’s been bitching for months about having to work longer hours for less pay; now, he’s banding together with most of his fellows to demand higher pay and shorter work hours.”

  “I’m not sure he’ll get anywhere if he demands more money for less work,” Hilde said, quietly. “My mother has been organising protests through her network of female organisations. She’s even been gathering information from the Sisters of Mercy. The crisis is far worse than we assumed.”

  “Things are moving faster,” Gudrun said. She didn't sound as enthusiastic as Horst would have expected. “How do we make them slow down?”

  “We don’t,” Horst said. “The government isn't going to slow its response to suit us.”

  Hilde leaned forward. “Are we doing the right thing?”

  “Yes,” Gudrun snapped.

  “My father said that we were weakening the Reich,” Hilde said, after a moment. “That we were fools who were threatening order and stability...”

  “That’s an interesting argument,” Horst said. He’d actually expected the government to use a similar line to dismiss the leaflets, even though it would have been a de facto confession that the leaflets actually existed. “But tell me... will anything change if we do nothing?”

  He took a breath. “The government got us into a war that seems to be unwinnable, the government is lying to us and the government has no reason to change,” he added, after a moment. “We have to force them to change before the whole edifice breaks apart and shatters.”

  “So what do we do,” Hilde asked, “if we win?”

  “We worry about it when we win,” Horst said, dryly. The leaflets might have upset the government, but they hadn't really threatened its grip on power. “You do realise the odds of us ending up hanging from meat hooks are alarmingly high?”

  “True,” Gudrun said. She sounded more cheerful, although it was apparent that something was bothering her. “So... what do we do about the unions?”

  “I can use the computer network to spread the word,” Sven offered. “The corporations are quite dependent on computers, these days, and their security is terrible. Blinking messages through the network shouldn’t be that hard.”

  “Then do it,” Gudrun said.

  “Do more than that,” Horst said. He smiled, rather coldly. “Put out rumours as well, rumours that will be believed. The corporations are about to cut wages, again; the demand for production is about to skyrocket... rumours that will be believed by the people at risk.”

  “Perhaps even add a suggestion that hundreds of workers are going to be fired,” Gudrun offered. “Maybe even replaced with Untermenschen.”

  Sven looked doubtful. “They wouldn’t believe that, would they?”

  Horst snorted. “What makes you think the corporations wouldn't replace their labour force with Untermenschen if they thought they could get away with it?”

  “Write out a list of rumours and start spreading them,” Gudrun said.

  “We need more than that,” Horst said. “People will only move if they believe that they will not move alone, Gudrun. We need to create a legend. We need something people will believe in, an organisation that unites all the disparate interest groups against the government.”

  “A brotherhood,” Sven said.

  “A super-union,” Horst agreed. “We need a name for ourselves and a figurehead.”

  Gudrun frowned. “The Reich Reform Commission?”

  “I’d have thought something more striking,” Horst said. “The Va
lkyries, perhaps. And their leader, Sigrún.”

  “That might work,” Gudrun said, thoughtfully.

  “You’d be Sigrún,” Horst told her. There were few Germans alive who wouldn't be aware of the name’s origins. They’d all been forced to study the Norse myths in school. “We’d issue proclamations in your name, using them to create an impression of vast numbers - and, in doing so, make them true.”

  “That would tell the government that our leader was a girl,” Sven objected.

  “They’d be unlikely to believe it,” Horst assured him. “Why would they believe it? They don’t think much of women.”