The Chaos Loop

by Peter Lerangis

  Corey and Leila leaned into the last two sheets. One displayed a cross section of the pillar. It was hollow on the inside, with a rectangular area measured and removed. The other sheet showed a complicated electrical circuit connected to some kind of machine. “So wait,” Corey said. “You’re, like, hollowing out the pillar. And putting in this electrical thingie?”

  Georg cocked his head. “Singie?”

  “Georg Elser is a man of many talents,” Clara said softly, “and he has been working for months. Sometimes, as you see, over a drafting table. Sometimes in the forest, where no one can hear things that ought not to be heard. Sometimes in a woodworking shop not far from here. There he is creating a container for his miraculous invention. He shall put it all to use right here in the Bürgerbräukeller, in the greatest triumph of his life.”

  “Which is what?” Corey said.

  “Some kind of bug? Wiretap? Listening device?” Leila asked.

  Georg shot Clara and Maria an uncertain look, but they both held his glance. “Go on, answer them, Herr Elser,” Clara said. “It is the same word in English as it is in German.”

  Georg spoke so quietly they could barely hear him. But the word could not have been more clear.

  “Bombe.”

  Corey gulped. “I’m thinking that means bomb.”

  “That’s what this is all about?” Leila asked. “A plot to kill Hitler?”

  “A plot that doesn’t work, apparently,” Clara said.

  Georg looked on the verge of tears. “Es wird ein Versager sein.”

  “He’s saying it will be a failure,” Leila translated.

  “No,” Corey said, smiling confidently. “This is a job for a Throwback.”

  14

  Brög sounded like the name of a video game character. And he looked it, too.

  At the break of dawn, as Corey and Leila entered the woodworking shop at the edge of town, a flannel-shirted man with an ax over his shoulder grunted a greeting. He stood about seven feet tall with shoulders nearly as wide, his frame silhouetted in orange by the flames of an oven behind him. He stared at them through ice-blue eyes from under a mass of unruly black hair, his eyebrows thick like raven’s wings.

  “Morgen, Brög,” said Georg.

  “Willkommen! Willkommen!” the man bellowed, his beard jittering like a giant agitated possum. “Die Schöne und das Biest. HAAWWW! HAW! HAW! HAW!”

  “He is calling us beauties and the beast,” Georg said. “Like children’s story. It is joke. Brög enjoys the joking.”

  “We got that,” Corey said dryly.

  Brög brought his ax down hard. It instantly shattered a wood stump, the pieces of which he tossed into the oven like they were scraps of paper.

  “Maybe,” Leila murmured, “we should politely laugh.”

  “Kommt, kommt,” Brög said.

  Georg went into the shop first. The walls were lined with shelves, and several counters and tables were crammed with hammers, pliers, wrenches, vises, and some frightening-looking tools that looked like dental implements for a giant.

  “Cool,” Corey said.

  Leila exhaled. “We shouldn’t be here.”

  “We need to be involved, Leila. We have a chance to help him.”

  “Help him kill someone, Corey,” Leila said.

  “You’re having second thoughts?” Corey asked.

  “Shouldn’t I?” Leila shot back. “What part of ‘Thou shalt not kill’ don’t you get?”

  “I totally get it,” Corey said. “I can’t stop thinking about it. My stomach is in a knot. I threw up in the bathroom twice, before we came here.”

  “The bathroom we’re sharing?” Leila shouted.

  “I cleaned up, your highness,” Corey said. “But that’s how crazy nervous I am, okay? I know about good and evil. But we can’t forget. Hitler was one of the worst mass murderers in history. By not helping Georg, we’re allowing people to die. And that’s more wrong. Right?”

  “Well, yeah. But why can’t he do it himself?” Leila asked. “Without us?”

  “Because this bombing did not work,” Corey said. “If it did, Hitler would have died. We also know it destroyed that chandelier. Which means the explosion went off. What happened? Did the timer fail? Did he escape?”

  “Kinder! Kommt!” Brög called from deep inside the shop, gesturing for Corey and Leila to join him and Georg. They were standing at a set of shelves, where Georg was examining a wooden box.

  Georg smiled as he ran his hands over the box’s surface. “It is simple. Beautiful. I work on this for many weeks. Brög helps me. Inside goes the Bombe. But it makes tick-tick-tick . . . people hear.”

  “The timer,” Corey said. “You’re saying that you’re worried about the ticking of the timer.”

  “Ja,” Georg replied. “Now look.” On one side of the box was a small door with a tiny handle, and Georg pulled it open. Inside, it was packed with a thick, black, rubbery substance.

  “Ha HA!” Brög blurted out. “Ganz still!”

  “‘Completely quiet,’” Leila translated.

  “Insulation,” Corey said.

  “Yes. This is last thing I need for plan.” Georg shut the door of the contraption and slipped Brög a thick wad of bills. “Danke, mein Freund.”

  “Leila, did you see that?” Corey remarked under his breath. “That looks like a fortune.”

  “Maybe not,” Leila said. “German money wasn’t worth too much before the war.”

  The two men huddled near the fireplace, talking in muted German. Brög cast quick glances toward Corey and Leila.

  “What’s he saying?” Corey asked.

  “I can’t tell,” Leila replied. “Something about a train trip.”

  Now Georg was heading for them, walking quickly. “We go now. Brög cannot stay here. I cannot stay here. After die Bombe, Nazis will look for us. I give Brög enough for train trip to Stuttgart and hotel.”

  As they headed outside, the sidewalk was empty. The streetlamps cast small pools of amber light. “So now you have the last thing you needed,” Corey said. “What’s your plan?”

  Georg put his finger to his mouth, eyeing the buildings around them. His pace was brisk. He didn’t say a word as they trudged back through the empty streets. Approaching the Bürgerbräukeller, Corey could see that his entire body was shaking. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he said.

  Georg spun around, as if he’d forgotten Corey was there. The bag with the contraption slipped from his hands. He let out a gasp and flailed to grab it back.

  Leila lurched forward, snatching the bag before it hit the pavement. “Whoa. Easy, Mr. Elser,” she said. “You don’t want to blow us up.”

  Georg rested his arm against the side of the Bürgerbräukeller archway. He took deep breaths. “Entschuldigung. I am sorry. It is a long time I am planning. Much dangerous. I hold much secrets.”

  “You can tell us any secrets,” Leila whispered. “I mean, you don’t have to. But we’re here to help you, remember?”

  The man eyed the surroundings nervously. Then he swallowed and spoke in a whisper. “I work for months. I find material. I test die Bombe in the woods, where nobody hears. I fix pillar. I work in Bürgerbräukeller until morning. Day for day, week for week. Every day I worry someone sees me, someone tells Nazis. They will shoot me. It makes me feel . . . I don’t know how to say . . .”

  “Nervous,” Leila said. “Nervös.”

  “Ja, nervös,” Georg repeated.

  “It’ll all be over soon,” Corey said.

  In the damp air, Georg’s head seemed shrouded in mist. “I was not afraid before today. Now you bring me part of chandelier. You tell me Hitler does not die.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be that way,” Corey said. “That’s why I’m here. You have to trust me. I can change history. I’ve done it before. If Hitler dies, you will be a hero for all time.”

  Georg let out a deep sigh. Under the streetlamp, in the damp air, his head seemed shrouded in mist. He look
ed confused, torn between hope and skepticism. “I do not see how you will know what to change. You tell me you do not know what went wrong.”

  Leila looked at Corey. He tried to give her and Georg a brave, confident smile.

  But Corey didn’t feel brave at that moment. And he didn’t feel confident. The words stung. Georg was right. This was not like trying to thwart a robbery. It wasn’t like saving a pet from being run over. The stakes here were crazy.

  And maybe he and Leila were crazy, too. Trying to kill a monster was one thing. Doing it in a crowded restaurant full of Nazis—without a plan—was another.

  There were limits to superpowers.

  “So . . .” Leila said. “Tell us everything, Georg. All the details about Wednesday night. Mittwoch Abend.”

  “Hitler’s speech begins at eight thirty,” Georg said. “He will talk two hours. But Hitler . . . he sometimes talks all night.”

  “So he’ll finish ten thirty at the earliest?” Leila said.

  “Ja,” Georg replied. “There will be many people. They all want to say hello, Heil Hitler. . . . I do not think he starts on time. Maybe eight forty-five, maybe nine.”

  “How many people?” Corey asked.

  “Vielleicht drei tausend,” Georg said.

  “Three thousand people in a closed room with a bomb?” Leila said. “This sounds insane.”

  “Nein,” Georg said. “I test die Bombe. Many times. In four meters around, is dangerous. That is where Hitler will be. And the other Nazis. The customers? Closest will be ten meters.”

  “How can you be sure?” Leila said.

  “Maria will have tables more than ten meters away,” Georg said. “With rope. She tells Nazi soldiers to protect the Führer. They will be like . . . Schilde?”

  “‘Shields,’” Leila said.

  “Bombe must not go off early. So we set timer for nine twenty.” Georg turned and looked through the archway toward the restaurant. “Maria will let us in now. Then she must lock up. You go to your rooms. I hide. It is early. The night guard has left. I will install die Bombe.”

  “We,” Corey said.

  “We?” Leila said.

  “We’re a team,” Corey replied.

  Georg stood and turned toward the Bürgerbräukeller. A tear ran down his cheek. “I am sorry. Germans do not cry. But I have many Gefühle. Emotions. In zwei Tagen stirbt der Affe.”

  Corey cocked his head. “And that means . . . ?”

  “In two days,” Leila translated, “the monkey dies.”

  As Georg turned to walk through the gate, Leila followed. She gave Corey a glance over her shoulder.

  He tried to give her a confident smile. But he realized he was clenching and unclenching his hands. He looked down and stretched them out. They were the way they’d always been. None of the signs of transspeciation he’d been warned about.

  As he followed the other two into the building, a thought began forming in his head. Failure wasn’t really an option here. Knowledge was power. And knowledge about what happened Wednesday night was a quick time hop away.

  Maybe Leila’s suggestion was right.

  A Throwback had to do what a Throwback had to do.

  15

  Corey tried not to make noise, but it felt like his lungs were having a boxing match in his chest. He lay still on a carpeted floor, grimacing. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. If he moved even a muscle, he knew he’d groan. And if he groaned, someone would hear him.

  So he lay still.

  The shock to the system seemed to get worse with each time hop, not better. When did this get easier? Shouldn’t it get easier?

  After a few minutes, he slowly sat up in the living room of his Upper West Side home. Light filtered in from the street, and he could see an outline of the old clock, just now striking 1:00 a.m.

  Just as he expected, it didn’t make a sound.

  Being home, taking a break from Nazi Germany, should have felt great. But Corey wanted to get in and get out, fast and quiet. He just needed information, that’s all. It wouldn’t take much to find out what happened on November 8, 1939, at that beer hall in Munich, Germany.

  He removed the phone from his pocket and powered it on. Immediately it lit up with notifications, a chorus of ping! ping! ping! that might wake up his whole family. He quickly shut off the sound. His charger was still where he’d left it, so he plugged in his phone and navigated straight to the photos he’s taken before he’d time-traveled back to the present.

  They were still there, every one. Every photo he had sneaked after following Leila and Georg back into the Bürgerbräukeller. The entire sprawling, empty restaurant. A close-up of the inside of the hollowed-out pillar. The wiring. The clock timer. The almost invisible rectangular seam when the whole thing was sealed up.

  Wi-Fi and cell service may have been decades away in 1939 Germany, but since Corey’s phone still powered on, he could take photos and save them to the phone’s drive.

  Right now, they served as a record of a perfect crime that failed. Something in the wiring, the placement, the technology—something had to give a hint what went wrong.

  His fingers navigated to search.

  GEORG ELSER BOMBING

  Corey scrolled through all the entries, reading as many as he could, soaking up the history. Elser was the oldest of six, great at drawing and math, but his father drank and his parents divorced. As a young adult he worked in furniture, woodworking, clocks, carpentry, armaments. He made housings for wall and table clocks. He got a job in a shipping company where he had access to fuses and detonators.

  It all made total sense. Elser’s personal life seemed like a mixed bag, but his professional life was like . . . clockwork.

  Corey skipped lightly over all that stuff. Sure enough, every online biography of Elser included information about November 8, 1939. Plenty of it, in great detail. What went right and what went wrong. Corey pored over every word.

  The bomb had worked. The problem had to do with timing.

  On that day, Hitler was deep into his plans for war with France. He wanted to cancel the speech at the Bürgerbräukeller completely. It came very close to not happening at all. But the tradition was long and Hitler loved a big, adoring crowd. So at the last minute he changed his mind. After he decided yes, he would do it, his staff told him the weather wouldn’t be suitable for flying back to Berlin the next day. So if he really wanted to give the speech, he would have to take the train that night. And the train would have to leave at 9:30 p.m.

  Which meant Hitler would not start at 8:30 as planned. He’d start a half hour early, at 8:00 p.m. sharp. And he’d speak for only an hour.

  That night, unlike his usual rambling self, he pretty much stuck to schedule. He started around 8:00 and ended at 9:07.

  Which was thirteen minutes before Georg Elser had set the timer to detonate the bomb, at 9:20.

  Corey felt the blood draining from his head. That was how Hitler escaped.

  He’d have to show this research to Leila, Georg, Maria, and Clara. He saved the articles to his Files folder, hoping they would be there when he went to 1939. The photos would help, too, so he included what he could find. Like images of the bomb mechanism and the restaurant before and after the explosion. A photo of the destruction gave him goose bumps. This was real. And dangerous.

  He was concentrating so hard he didn’t notice someone entering the room.

  “Want some olives?”

  At the sound of Zenobia’s voice, Corey nearly dropped his phone. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, picking with her fingers from with a plastic container of brown olives from the Mani Market. “You scared me,” he said. “What are you doing awake at 1 a.m. eating olives?”

  Zenobia shrugged. “I had a craving. Why are you wearing those clothes?” With a sly grin, she sat on the arm of the couch. “Are you guys doing Newsies? Or is this the way you dress when you use a dating app for toddlers?”

  Corey quickly swiped up to make the photos disa
ppear. “I thought you said you weren’t going to make fun of me anymore. After I saved you.”

  “Just joking. Jeez, you are so serious.” She cocked her head curiously. “Hey, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “That’s because I’m looking at you eating olives with your fingers.”

  “Ha ha. There are plenty more.” She held out the open container. “They taste even better marinated in finger sweat.”

  “Sounds delicious, but I have to go.”

  Zenobia let out a laugh. “Go where? It’s one in the morning.”

  From farther inside the apartment, Corey heard a groan and a thump. Zenobia glanced back over her shoulder. “Mom?”

  Corey heard a yawn, and it wasn’t his mom’s. A familiar voice called out, “Will you please stop making so much noi—”

  Zenobia leaped up from the sofa, sending olives all over the living room.

  Corey held tight to his phone. But the blood was rushing from his head.

  Standing the doorway, staring at him like some twisted 3D-mirroring app, was Corey Fletcher.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Corey murmured.

  “I know,” said the other Corey.

  “How did I mess this one up? Every time I time hop back to where I started, I just exchange places with myself. There’s always one Corey. This never happened before.”

  The other Corey shrugged. “Time travel can be sloppy, I guess. Maybe your powers are evolving.” He laughed. “My powers.”

  “Our powers.”

  Corey had been curious about what it would be like to talk to himself. It felt terrible. It felt like some small creature had crawled inside him and was twanging all his nerves, head to toe, like a guitar.

  They both glanced toward Zenobia, who was now on the floor, unconscious. “I didn’t know people actually fainted in real life,” the other Corey remarked.

  “Would you take care of her?” Corey asked. “I—I have to go.”

  The other Corey nodded. He picked up the backpack from the floor and handed it over. “I know.”

  Corey quickly unplugged his phone and pocketed it. Then he reached inside for the chandelier shard, which was practically too hot to touch. But he forced his hand around it, allowing the heat to soothe his nerves while it singed his skin.