by Nancy Holder
Then, after a time, he shifted his position very slightly. “Okay. Where I come from, I am not considered average,” he said. Another pause. “You know, uh, being a spy, you need to show a certain amount of vigor.” He raised his fists up slightly in a gesture of strength. She was content to listen. “You never met a man before.” It sounded as if he were having trouble understanding that. “What about your father?”
“I had no father. My mother sculpted me from clay. I was brought to life by Zeus.”
“Well, that’s… neat.”
He still sounded a bit uncertain about her. Well, she was not certain of him, either. She stretched to get more comfortable, touching him accidentally. He jumped.
“Sorry,” she said, and he nodded. They both continued to study the stars. The constellations had not altered in the minutes the two had kept watch over them.
“Where I come from, babies are made differently,” he ventured.
“You refer to reproductive biology,” she said simply.
“Yes.”
“I know. I know all about that,” she said.
“I refer to that and… other things.” They were starting to overlap their sentences again—like lapping waves of words rising and falling into each other.
“Ah,” Diana said. “The pleasures of the flesh.”
Steve shifted. “You know about that?”
“Of course,” Diana replied. “I’ve read all twelve volumes of Clio’s Treatises on Bodily Pleasure.”
He smiled faintly. “All twelve, huh? You bring any of them with you?”
She raised a brow. “You would not enjoy them.” “I don’t know. Maybe. Why not?”
“They came to the conclusion that men are essential for procreation, but when it comes to pleasure… unnecessary.”
“No. No.” His voice trailed off.
More silence. Aware that they were floundering again, Diana said, “Good night,” and turned away from him to find some peace
“Good night,” he replied politely.
The boat sailed on into the dark.
German airfield
Belgium
General Ludendorff marched across the airfield, which was dotted with aircraft, toward the hanger that was the site of Dr. Maru’s new factory. He was followed by a captain and a handful of uniformed guards. His hopes for this visit were high, his expectations enormous. Dr. Maru was his most capable scientist, the Fatherland’s secret weapon. She must not disappoint him today. A man in the desert could not be more thirsty for the life-saving water of victory. The world in turmoil had hardened and strengthened many courageous souls, raising and ennobling them to heights they had not dreamed of—and those men must acknowledge that he, Ludendorff, deserved the credit. He had pushed for this war, this noble cause that made demands of men unmatched by any other endeavor; this quest that had opened doors to scientific advances so astonishing they bordered on myth. War was glorious. Rise up, warriors. Take your stand! So wrote Sparta’s great poet, Tyrtaeus, back in the dawn of mankind, armies chorusing his songs praising valor and courage in battle.
Only through the extreme pressure of danger could men progress; the white-hot flames of peril tempered their spines to steel. The bigger the contest, the greater the growth—the weak weeded out, the cowardly dispatched. Rising from the chaff: better men.
He would thresh the fields of battle. And Dr. Maru, with all her lethal poisons and liberating discoveries, would ensure that only the finest survived—the elite of mankind, freed from the sucking pit filled with the lesser men than they.
This was his quest; he needed weapons to match his ambitions. Dr. Maru must make them for him. She must.
The converted hangar was a cold, draughty building filled with machinery and workers who picked up their pace the moment they saw him striding in. That was both disturbing and pleasing—he would have preferred that they were already working at their full capacity before his presence triggered an increase in effort. However, it was good to be feared.
“How long until we are operational?” he asked the captain.
With an air of cautious pride, the captain replied, “Two days, sir.”
“You have until tonight, Captain.”
The man blanched. “Sir, the men have had no food. No sleep.”
Ludendorff glared at him. “Do you think I’ve had food or rest, Captain? Do you hear me making excuses? Your men are weak. Complacent. You’ve let them forget that an attack can come at any time, from any quarter. So let’s you and I remind them, shall we?”
Ludendorff drew his Luger and, without another word, shot the captain in the head. All eyes turned as the lifeless man’s body hit the ground with a thud. Shock coursed through the onlookers like an electric jolt.
Satisfied that he had made his point, Ludendorff strode into the hangar. It was large, dirty, busy. Caustic chemicals singed his nostrils. His blood sang.
He headed for Dr. Maru’s new laboratory. Barrels of chemical agents and equipment lined the walls. Dr. Maru was bent over a table, writing furiously in a new notebook. Wadded-up papers were strewn over her workstation. She seemed panicky, frustrated. Not a good sign.
“General,” she said, looking up, almost fearfully.
“Doctor, progress?” he said.
The look on her face told him she was struggling. He masked his frustration and waited for her answer.
“Not enough,” she reluctantly confessed, and then gave up all semblance of adequacy. “It’s over, General. Germany is giving up. Von Hindenburg has recommended the Kaiser sign the Armistice. We have run out of time.”
Von Hindenburg. That gutless waste of space. Outwardly calm, inwardly fuming, he shrugged in disagreement. “As soon as the Kaiser sees the newest weapon, he will not sign the Armistice.”
Maru’s dark eyes flashed with concern. “But without my book—”
“We will get your book.” He caressed her face, from fingertips to her skin to the flesh-colored plates covering the damage. So brilliant, and yet, quite fragile in her way. A woman with her feelings that must be attended to if he was to get what he wanted. It was a trifling matter to cajole and encourage her, and the results were well worth it. When it came to creating revolutionary weapons, she was a true genius. He had not seen her equal in all his long life.
“It’s you I believe in,” he said softly. “Not it. I know that you can and will succeed.”
She blushed under his gaze, and he pressed his advantage. “Great victories require great sacrifices,” he said. “And you’ve sacrificed so much.” Her face had been badly scarred in a laboratory explosion, and men who had seen worse injuries in battle turned away at the sight of her bare face. He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “I believe in you.”
She pulled back from him. The look in her eyes changed—brighter, more confident. He had inspired her to great heights before, and her mercurial change in attitude reassured him. Her battlefield was science, and she was a true warrior for the cause.
“It was what you were put on this earth to do,” he added, one final push to keep her focused on success.
She nodded, said eagerly, “Something did come to me last night. A different kind of gas.” She turned away, then plucked up and handed him a blue capsule. “To restore your strength.”
These capsules were a stunning achievement. In eager anticipation, Ludendorff held the capsule under his nose and cracked it open between his thumbs. He inhaled the sharp vapor. A shiver of stinging pain shot through his body like an explosion. He staggered, reaching out for the edge of the table for support. The veins in his face and neck pulsated, his heart to roar. His lips drew back from his teeth in a feral snarl and he was flooded to bursting with energy, raw power. Stamina, vitality—forces he knew well, and loved. Shaking, he took out his pistol. In front of the doctor, he crushed it with his bare hand as if it were made of paper. The barrel made a most satisfying crunch as he flattened it.
If she could do this, she could do anything.
He smiled and nod
ded to Dr. Maru, who had stood by, observing. She was enthralled by the success of the vapor. Then a light came on and she gazed at her crumpled up papers; grabbing one of them, she unfolded it, studied it, and blinked.
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” she said. Her face glowed with exultation. “And if it’s what I think, it’s going to be terrible.”
* * *
Dreams of a race through the marketplace. Mnemosyne calling, “Diana, come back here!”
Aboard the Amazonian vessel, Diana awoke. The sky above the river Thames floated gray and viscous, choked with haze from a hundred-hundred smokestacks. London was one gigantic industrial complex of munitions factories, salvage shops, and repair facilities.
She sat up. The river was crowded with strange, noisy vessels belching black smoke into the dreary, overcast sky. The water smelled like rotting garbage.
On either side of the boat, the riverbanks were clogged with enormous buildings of stone, towers and chimneys spewing coal smoke—a stench so thick it coated her throat and made her eyes water. Bridges spanned the foul currents, the filth spilling into the sea. Horses, conveyances, and people crossed the bridges and crammed the docksides. They were everywhere.
“Good morning,” Steve said. “We got lucky, caught a ride. Made good time.”
Caught a ride? Towed them, then?
“Welcome to jolly ol’ London,” he said.
She took in the city’s skyline, the bridges, the quays, remembering the beauty of Themyscira with a pang— and fresh determination. War had done this to this city. Once Ares was dead, it would become habitable again.
“It’s hideous,” she said bluntly.
Mildly amused, appreciative of her frankness, Steve took in Whitehall—the Houses of Parliament—and St. Paul’s Cathedral. It would be difficult for her to comprehend the sense of relief this skyline engendered in him. She had lived in an untouched Eden. But for him, this had pretty much become home—if a spy in the middle of a war actually had a home. A home base, then. Same for her, since she couldn’t return to Themyscira. She must be going through six hundred kinds of culture shock. She had stepped into this world of her own volition, but it had to be hard for her to deal with. He felt for her.
“Eh, it’s not for everyone,” he deadpanned.
* * *
They disembarked, leaving Diana’s vessel in the care of a bemused riverman. As they walked the London streets to Piccadilly Circus, Diana stared with disbelieving eyes at the bedlam. Trash snapping at the curbs, thin little boys hawking newspapers, two women knocking broad hats festooned with feathers and ribbons as they chatted, attempting to hear each over the din. Mingling with the haze, an overlay of rushing colorlessness— everyone hurrying—some of that caused by the stress of war, Diana was sure, but as for the rest, this was the sizzling world of modern humanity. This was not the easy country landscape of her mother’s history of the Amazons, but something that weighted down the land and water through the hands of mankind. The intrusion of centuries of civilization that the Amazons had not witnessed. She was the only one of her people to see it.
An amazing number of heavily dressed people clogged the walking paths. Horse-drawn carts vied with motorized vehicles; shop placards clamored for attention and signs on buildings exhorted people to buy war bonds. On every corner, newspaper headlines shouted about war and votes for women.
This was the world Ares had handed these people.
And yet there were wonders to behold. The scent of fresh bread, the aerial dance of a hundred pigeons, a street performer making a show of escaping a complicated rig of chains and locks as pedestrians halted their progress to watch. Despite the direness of their situation, people smiled at one another.
A carriage without a horse honked at her and Diana was about to move out of its way when Steve protectively pulled her aside. She turned to watch it drive off, a faint grin on her face. A group of men in uniforms grouped around a truck stirred as she passed; a few of them hooted, called out to her.
“Gentlemen, eyes to yourself,” Steve chided them. “Thank you so much.” Diana had moved ahead and he called out, “Diana!”
She slowed; they came abreast. Ahead of them a man and a woman walked hand in hand.
“Why are they holding hands?” she asked Steve.
He gestured to the couple with his head. “Well, because they’re… together.”
Diana reached out and took his hand. He gently eased himself free, not wishing to cause offense.
“No,” he said, “we’re not together… I mean, in this way.” He gestured. “Look, we need to go this way.”
She faced him. Enough exploration. She had a mission and it was time to get down to business. “Because this is the way to the war?”
“Technically, that’s the way to the war,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction.
Her brows shot up. “Then where are we going?”
He patted his messenger bag. “I have to get this notebook to my superiors.”
She narrowed her eyes. “No, no, no, no, no. I let you go, you take me to Ares. We made a deal, Steve Trevor. A deal is a promise. A promise is unbreakable.” She looked him in the eyes, hard, and held onto the collar of his jacket.
“Yeah, oh, boy,” he said, with a quick grimace. She was as driven as he was; intractable, one might say. “Okay… come with me to deliver this first, then we’ll get you a ticket to the war.”
Faced with no other choice, she walked on with him.
* * *
It was easy to blend into the street traffic.
The man with the mustache kept his long coat wrapped around his body and shadowed Steve Trevor, the American who was working for the British.
The American who had stolen the Fatherland’s secrets.
The man was charged with retrieving what Trevor had taken by any means necessary—including murder. Assassination, more politely put, in the shadow game of spies and their masters. He didn’t know who the dark-haired, strangely attired woman was, but no matter; she was expendable.
As he walked, a nursemaid pushing a perambulator jostled him. He wasn’t alone on the streets of London.
Oh, no. He was far from alone.
* * *
Steve glanced at the looks thrown Diana’s way. Her woolen cloak fell open on occasion, revealing her skimpy Amazonian armor and greaves. Aiming for tact, he said, “I need to change. “And you…” He pulled the edges of her cloak together, manfully resisting the opportunity to peek at her long, lithe body.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Let’s go buy you some clothes.”
“Why?”
“Because you aren’t wearing any.”
She looked down at her armor, then at the women on the street.
“What do these women wear into battle?” she asked.
Where to even begin? “Well, women don’t exactly…”
Diana turned her attention to a young mother holding an infant. “A baby!” she exclaimed, swooping toward them. Steve grabbed her arm.
“No babies, no babies,” Steve half-pleaded. “And that one is not made of clay,” Steve said, taking her gently by the arm and leading her down the crowded sidewalk. “Diana, please.”
* * *
About thirty paces behind them, a short, round man in a derby hat, suit and woolen overcoat followed unobtrusively. There was nothing notable about him, nothing that drew attention. He looked perfectly British. He could have been a clerk from a haberdashery or a bookkeeper or a thread salesman. Bland as bland could be, right down to his neatly trimmed, pale ginger beard. One had to look closely to see the hard glint in his small, wide-set eyes. Hurrying to keep up with his quarry, he felt the comforting weight of the loaded revolver in his coat pocket.
* * *
Selfridges, the magnificent department store where all manner of expensive goods could be bought, had been open for nearly a decade when Steve and Diana went in through its Art Nouveau entrance. The difference between it an
d the marketplace of Themyscira could not have been more pronounced and though he was in a hurry, Steve appreciated Diana’s impulse to gawk. Everything from Tiffany lamps to opera glasses could be purchased at Selfridges.
As planned, Etta Candy was waiting for them in the women’s fashions department. A gray hat decorated with organdy rosettes sat atop her ginger hair and she was wearing an empire-waisted checked jacket over a long straight skirt and boots. In Steve’s opinion, it was a perfect ensemble for Diana to pass as a regular woman.
Etta brightened when she saw the two of them. “Thank God!” she cried. “You’re not dead.”
Diana looked at Steve.
“I did think you were dead this time, I really did, then I got your call…” She turned to Diana and said, “He was gone for weeks! Not a single word. Very unlike him.” She extended her hand toward Diana. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Etta Candy, Captain Trevor’s secretary.”
Diana stopped short and looked at her.
“What’s a secretary?” Diana asked.
Etta shrugged. “Well, I do everything. I go where he tells me to go and I do what he tells me to do.”
Diana cocked a brow. “Where I’m from,” she said, “that’s called slavery.”
Etta blinked. “Ooh, I really like her,” she breathed. “I do. I like her.”
“Ladies,” Steve said.
The secretary eyed Diana’s clothing. “We’ve got our work cut out for us,” she said brightly as they moved forward.
Diana was struck by a dizzying chorus of sweet scents. All around her were reflective surfaces, glass cases, chandeliers, polished marble floors and pillars. With towering ceilings, it looked like a palace, but unlike her family’s royal residence, it was full of things. Clothing. Jewelry. Linens. Accessories. Food stuffs. The sheer number of objects on display and their artful presentation were overwhelming.
Diana decided to focus on one thing at a time. She stopped in front of a mannequin of a woman dressed in a tight-fitting, fabric corset from bosom to mid-thigh.
“Is this what passes for armor in your country?” she asked Etta.
“Of a sort,” Etta said. “It’s fashion. Keeps our tummies in.”