ruBracks, Nazis, the Death of the Universe & Everything (The Parallel-Multiverse Book 1)

by Ward Wagher

  “But, I thought you talked to Him directly,” Sally said.

  “I do. As do you. We must all speak to Him about this. He is honored by our trust. Now, I must return to the search.”

  With another pop sound, Tasker left the laboratory. It was quiet in the room for perhaps thirty seconds and then the Woogie spoke.

  “The Tasker is compassionate.”

  “What do you mean, Shuurely?” Sally asked.

  “The Tasker cares very much for you and for Quintan. She is grieved by what happened.”

  With that, Sally broke into a full-throated sobbing. She turned and rested her head on her arms as she leaned into the workstation. Edgar and Shuurely stared at her uncomfortably. Then the Woogie slipped over next to her and put a tentacle on her shoulder.

  “We will all do best we can to Quintan rescue. We all worry.”

  Sally sucked in a shuddering breath. “Thank you, Shuurely. I do not know what I would do if I lost Quintan. He means everything to me.”

  “To understand. Very bad to lose nest mate. The Woogie has a theoretical.”

  “What?” Edgar and Sally both asked at the same time.

  “Just little thought,” Shuurely continued. “Must find Quintan.”

  INTERLUDE 5

  April 12, 1955; 10AM

  Reich Council Chamber

  Reichschancellery

  Berlin, Germany

  The German Government Council Chamber now had light colored curtains and wall hangings. The furniture looked like it was made from maple, and it had a definite Scandinavian style to it. He was once again looking through the eyes of another Schloss. It was a shock to see Himmler alive, as well as Goebbels. At the head of the table, Hitler glared at the room. Hess sat to Hitler’s left and was focused on taking notes.

  Once again, Schloss felt as though he was riding along with this other Schloss in this other reality. This other Hitler was dressed in a suit, rather than a uniform. And instead of a swastika, golden Christian cross was affixed to Hitler’s lapel. The historian in Schloss was rather fascinated by the differences he was seeing in this glimpse of yet another Germany.

  The menace in the room was palpable and Schloss sensed the fear and dread coursing through the body of this other Schloss, whose body he now shared. And there was anticipation, but not in the good sense.

  “It appears you have overreached yourself, Herr Parteileiter,” Himmler said in his oily voice.

  “Why, because I wished to see to my own security?” this Schloss replied.

  “Oh, I think it is a bit more than that,” Himmler said.

  Schloss glanced down the table at Hitler, who seemed content to watch things play out. Hess still looked down at his notebook. Goebbels watched in hungry anticipation, while Goering looked frightened.

  “Perhaps you can confirm my count, Herr Himmler,” Schloss said. “You have made four attempts on my life. Is that correct?”

  “There is nothing wrong with your arithmetic,” Himmler said. “I have grown impatient with you, Schloss.”

  “Why? Is it because I more effectively serve the Fuhrer than you? Your people are incompetent. They cannot even catch common criminals, let alone those who pose a serious threat to the state. And if anyone tries to question you about it, they mysteriously die of lead poisoning. You have been unable to quell the civil unrest, yet you blame it upon everyone else in this room.”

  “And you have no understanding of what it takes to maintain the state,” Himmler shouted. “I do not have the cooperation of the party. I do not have the cooperation of the armed forces. I am tasked with an impossible job.”

  Schloss tilted his head. “It seems every job, for you, is an impossible job.”

  “Not quite, Herr Partieleiter. You are the problem! You manage to forestall every initiative I start. You have not even pulled the Jews to heel. Then you blame me for it. Well, it stops right here, right now.” He looked at the double doors into the room. “Guards!”

  The doors opened and ten SS guards marched into the room.

  “I did not give you permission to bring armed retainers into the room, Himmler,” Hitler snapped. “That is unacceptable.”

  “Mein Fuhrer,” Himmler said, pointing to Schloss. “This man has fooled you ever since he murdered Bormann. He has had all of us dancing to his tune all these years.”

  “He engineered our victory over the Russians,” Hitler said. “He pulled the English under our control.”

  “No,” Himmler shouted. “He dumped these restive territories into my lap, and gave me no support.”

  The guards stopped behind Himmler. He looked over at Schloss.

  “We are done, Herr Schloss. You have managed to fool everyone else. You have not fooled me.” He pointed to Schloss again. “Shoot that man.”

  The lead guard pulled out his pistol. He placed it at the back of Himmler’s head and pulled the trigger. The report of the pistol was almost muffled. Himmler slumped over the table in a pool of blood and brain matter. The guard calmly placed the pistol back into his holster.

  “We serve the state,” the guard said.

  “Thank you, Herr Rainer,” Hitler said. “For the moment, I am placing the SS under Herr Schloss. He and I will decide on the ultimate replacement. Now get this mess cleaned up.”

  Hitler stood up, as did everyone else around the table, except Himmler. Hitler walked quickly from the room while everyone else stared at each other. Schloss looked over at Karl Rainer and nodded.

  § § §

  April 16, 1942; 3AM

  The Bavarian Alps, south of Munich

  Germany

  Heinrich Schloss opened his eyes in the dim light of the bedroom he shared with his wife in this cabin in the woods. He did not feel the panic he had when he had visited what became a nuclear wasteland in a Germany of 1960. There was satisfaction in the elimination of evil in a strange variant of reality. But what was reality, indeed? He slipped out from under the covers and slipped into his robe and slippers. He listened to Gisela’s deep breathing. He was glad he had not disturbed her. But he was disturbed. These dreams that were not dreams. He was seeing other realities. What was happening?

  He stepped into the living room of the cabin and nodded to the guard, who seemed very alert for the hour. After visiting the toilet he moved to the kitchen area. The coffee pot was cold. He emptied, rinsed and refilled the pot and set it on the stove. He set the upper piece of the percolator on to the lower, and measured coffee into the bowl. He struck a match and lit the gas flame. The cabin had central heating and was comfortable, but the blue flame under the coffee pot gave him a warm, cheery feeling.

  He poked around in the kitchen and found some fresh cheese Danish. He slid a couple pieces on to a plate and set it on the table. The pastries were probably for breakfast. The Wehrmacht cook would be displeased that part of his menu had disappeared during the night. Schloss shrugged. He needed to organize his thoughts about these dreams he experienced. During the daylight hours, he was consumed with managing the nation and government. He thought it a blessing that he stayed so busy he did not have time to worry about alternate realities, Frau Marsden, and whoever she had stashed in the basement of the Party Headquarters.

  He glanced out the window. Rainer had arranged the installation of lights around the property to enhance security at night. It was snowing again and looked peaceful outside. He liked this place. He felt much more at home than in that mausoleum that was the Reichschancellery. He wished he was willing to spend the money to build an executive residence like the American White House, or even the English Number 10 Downing Street. He felt like he needed that separation from the rest of government.

  The boiling water had pushed itself into the upper part of the coffee maker and mixed with the ground coffee bean. He turned the gas off and then with a whoosh, the brewed coffee drained back into the lower part of the pot. He used a couple of pot holders to remove the upper part of the apparatus and then poured himself a cup. He sat down at the table and br
oke off a piece of the Danish. It was very good.

  He felt the floor of the cabin shiver as someone walked across the living room and into the kitchen. Frau Marsden stepped over to the stove and poured herself a cup of the coffee. She then sat down at the table.

  “I have developed a taste for coffee and Danish, Herr Schloss,” she said. “And you had another dream.”

  “Who is watching the children?”

  She studied him for a few moments, and then seemed to come to a decision.

  “When I return it will be only seconds since I left them.”

  He stared at his coffee cup, then took another drink. Sometimes I am tempted to have Rainer haul her in for interrogation. But, I also know I do not need to make an enemy out of Frau Marsden.

  Frau Marsden sipped her coffee. She reached for the Danish and Schloss slid the plate across to her. She nibbled on a piece of the pastry before she spoke. Schloss had learned to school his patience to await her answers.

  “What is the meaning of all this?” he asked. “I saw another place and yet another Schloss. Hitler was alive and had a cross on his lapel.”

  “There is another… group of realities where the Nazis adopted a primitive Christianity as their guiding star. They were not intrinsically evil, but they were very different.”

  “Hitler said something about us managing to subdue Russia and the English.”

  She nodded. “They used the terminology of the crusades. In their words, they conquered the godless communists and the depraved English. They also destroyed Islam in the Middle East.”

  “As I watched it through that other Schloss’s eyes, I thought that I would really like to have studied that culture.”

  “That will not be possible, Herr Schloss.”

  He tilted his head to acknowledge her statement. “Still, I have been given a taste of these alternate realities. I wish to learn more.”

  “It was not intended for mankind to know about the parallel universes. Unfortunately, that scientist in the future let the genie out of the bottle, to use the human term. We struggle to correct what he has unleashed. There is real risk that all these universes will unravel.”

  “What do you need from me? For better or worse, I seem to be a player in this drama.”

  “The man who was at the Party Headquarters with Frau Wallace is a scientist. Our hopes are with his ability to understand what has happened and make the necessary corrections.”

  “And what is your role in this drama, Frau Marsden?” he asked.

  “It is to serve you and your family, Herr Schloss. As I have told you before, you have an important role in this world. I will give you advice and help to provide you a refuge with your family. Success or failure, however, it totally up to you.”

  “That is not very reassuring.”

  Gisela shuffled into the kitchen, wearing her robe and slippers. “I wondered if we might have had a visitor again.”

  “Have a cup of coffee, Schatzi,” Schloss said. “We seem to be making a regular practice of these early morning conversations.”

  “Another dream?” she asked as she poured coffee into a cup.

  “Not an unpleasant one, this time, I think,” he said. “Interesting and disquieting at the same time.”

  She eased into a chair. “How are things proceeding, Frau Marsden?”

  “Things are going well, here. Not so well elsewhere.”

  “What should we watch for?” Gisela asked.

  These are questions I should be asking, Schloss thought. Gisela is once again more perceptive than I.

  “There is one thing that concerns me,” Frau Marsden said. “While you have eased restrictions on the practice of religion, there are those at lower levels who have not acquiesced to those changes.”

  “Rainer has commented to me about the Confessing Church,” Schloss said. “The ministers have become politicized and noisy. It seems they do not know their place in the country.”

  “And if you attempt to suppress them, you will have things blow up in your face, Herr Schloss,” Frau Marsden said. “Remember Luther’s impact upon Germany. You are good at taking the long view. Please consider your ultimate goals and the best methods of achieving them.”

  “But Luther really was the seed that modern Germany sprouted from,” Schloss said.

  “I would not argue with that,” Frau Marsden said. “Only think about the actions of those who tried to stop him.”

  Schloss leaned back in his chair and cradled his coffee cup in his hands as he thought. The old lady seemed to have a better grasp of historical forces than him. He was only now beginning to develop ideas for what he wanted Germany to look like over the next hundred years, and further into the future. It needs to be more than just a nation that is unassailable in Europe, he thought. What should that nation look like? And what business of mine is it to develop that vision?

  He sat his cup down and slid it away from him. “As always, Frau Marsden, you are an intriguing conversationalist. And I suppose we must be back to bed.”

  Gisela took another sip of coffee and sat her cup down. She stood up. “Frau Marsden, what did the guards say when you walked in?”

  The look Frau Marsden gave Gisela was one that Schloss once again thought of as enigmatic.

  “Why, they didn’t see me,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Quintan had turned the suitcase on its end and was sitting on it as he watched Mrs. Wallace bustle around the meadow where they had landed. While there was no immediate terror – the place was peaceful, but that cold knowledge of impending doom gnawed at him. It was warm in the sunny afternoon, although the brightly colored leaves told him it was Indian summer. They would need to find shelter for the night in case the temperature dropped. There was a wooded copse nearby and he thought that looked promising. He hoped Mrs. Wallace knew how to start a fire since he had not the faintest idea how to do so.

  They would soon be afflicted by thirst and then by hunger. He wondered how they would deal with that. In her own way, Mrs. Wallace was capable. He just didn’t know if she knew how to survive in this wilderness. He knew he didn’t. He gazed around at the countryside again. There were no buildings in sight and he had not seen any people or even large animals. He felt comfortable here. The landscape was nearly as flat as Urbana. He swung his head around and studied the short hill behind the meadow and the surrounding land again.

  “Mrs. Wallace!” he shouted.

  She bustled over to where he sat. “Yes, Mr. Rogers?”

  “I recognize this place. This is where the lab would be standing.”

  She gave him a very old-fashioned look. “Well, of course it is. Where else would we be?”

  “But I thought you said we were lost.”

  “Mr. Rogers, we materialized in the exact location of the lab. What I have not been able to ascertain is what specific universe we currently inhabit.”

  “Is there a way to call for help?” he asked.

  “That is what I am doing,” she replied.

  Quintan began to get nervous because it seemed he had somehow annoyed the ruBrack. He had noticed that Mrs. Wallace sometimes became impatient, and this was one of those times.

  “I’m sorry to be asking stupid questions,” he said.

  She snorted. “You are asking intelligent questions, Mr. Rogers. I am delighted you are still thinking, despite the circumstances. I am merely frustrated because we are presented with a problem for which I see no immediate solution.”

  He smiled at her. “You must think you are trying to manage a group of children.”

  “Oh, no. We are no smarter than humans. Our capabilities are different. While we have the native talent to travel across time, you humans have bent the physical universe to your will.”

  “Well, not entirely,” Quintan said.

  “You have a point, there, Mr. Rogers.”

  “Since I have interrupted you, might I make another point?”

  Mrs. Wallace was suddenly much friendlier. �
�Of course, you may.” He felt like he was being spoiled by his grandmother.

  “Since we are in the same location as the lab, and likely the same time, it will probably grow chilly tonight. I am not sure about ruBrack requirements, but I will soon need water, shelter, and food, in that order. Not to be pushy or anything.”

  “Do you have any survival skills, Mr. Rogers?”

  “The only useful tool I have right now is my brain, and that is questionable.”

  “Very well. I am inexperienced at survival on a barren world as well. Please allow me a few minutes to finish setting up the beacons and then we must consult with one another concerning our survival.”

  He nodded in agreement. She moved off again, and seemed to stop at various points in the meadow. He could not ascertain what she was doing. In fact, she appeared to be doing nothing. Finally, she made her way back to Quintan.

  “Would you like to sit down?” he stood up.

  “No thank you. I am fine, given the circumstances. I have completed setting the beacons. Any ruBracks within a hundred universes of this branch will see us. Now for our next task.”

  “And what would that be?”

  She smiled at him tolerantly. “Why you stated it yourself. Food, water, shelter. Tell me, Mr. Rogers, are you aware of any water sources near Urbana?”

  “It seems that to the west of the laboratory there were a couple of creeks and several small ponds,” he said. “Perhaps we should walk that way.”

  “Can you carry the suitcase?” she asked.

  “I suppose I have no choice. We dare not risk losing it.”

  “That is very true. However, I know it is heavy. If you cannot carry it, I shall.”

  “I cannot make an old lady carry something like that,” Quintan protested.

  She chuckled softly. “Who is here to see us?”

  “Yes, well, I cannot make you do that.”

  “Mr. Rogers, I am ruBrack. I am not an old lady. Now stand up.”

  She snatched the suitcase away from him as he stood up, and swung it around beside her. “Now, shall we be off?”