The Atlantropa Articles

by Cody Franklin

  “Look at all of the artifacts in here,” Ulric says giddily. “This is an incredible find. Imagine what sunk it.”

  “No idea, and frankly I don’t really care,” I state, motioning for him to leave.

  “You’re not even interested in what history this could hold?”

  “I have priorities,” I spat, taking another bite out of my packed food. “We have a ship to get help for. You took your break. Let’s go.” If I could stay here any longer I would. I need the rest. After sitting down for just a few minutes my body now has had time to recognize the incredible pain in my knee. It’s a slow-burning pain creeping down my leg.

  Ulric puts down his food and looks around, his flashlight revealing every crack in the walls and the scattered remains of whoever went down with this ship. Skeletons lay curled up on the floor, some of them together. I wonder what their final moments were like as the ship sank into the sea.

  “My entire life I have been fascinated by the Reclamation, and now, I’m in probably one of the last remnants of it. I don’t want to waste it.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” I say angrily, “that’s all I’ll give you to look around, fifteen minutes.”

  Ulric’s face contorts into a pleasant smile, and he begins searching around the hull, opening crates and rummaging through whatever is inside. I just sit, continuing to eat, dreading the moment I need to put pressure on my knee once again.

  “Just think about it,” he says. “These people lived during the time of Adolf Hitler. Imagine the world that they were a part of. The stories they must have told.”

  I look at a slumped-over skeleton directly opposite me. Its head is resting on a crate, a fine black coat tattered and sunken on his bones, his head slumped over his open jaw. It was quite a small thing. Guess the people were generally shorter back then before gene manipulation arose. Poor bastards.

  The sound of falling papers and cluttering books fills the ship as Ulric explores every inch, like a child looking for sweets. This must be his candy shop. If this was any other situation, it would be mine as well.

  “The Knights Historical Society would love this,” Ulric gleefully says. “The flags look so different than our own. It’s blood red. Strange. I never heard anything in the records about the flag changing. Do you think anybody knows? I wonder why they changed it. I think it looks alright. Maybe it was just one of the flags they had.”

  “Maybe.”

  More rummaging. More clanking.

  “It seems like a lot of this is…personal objects. There are a lot of pictures. All the photos are in black and white.” Ulric concludes.

  His voice begins to fade away as my body gives out on me. I let my eyes rest for just a bit. The environment becomes a tad darker when I shut my lids.

  “It doesn’t seem like much of this was even really affected…” Ulric speaks to nobody in particular. “No sand. No water. It’s like a time capsule.” I think he says a few more words before everything goes silent.

  I awake with a jolt and instantly panic. How much time has passed? What has happened? Where’s Ulric? I call out to him, and after a few seconds, he responds.

  “You might want to see this,” he mutters through the radio. I check the time, only two minutes have passed. I must have just blacked out.

  “I really don’t,” I say, not wishing to leave this crate.

  “No I mean, you really need to. I found…something.” Ulric insists.

  Do I really want to play along with this? I could just not say anything and get my rest. Why do I tolerate Ulric doing this? I should just drag him out of this place. Then again, I really don’t feel like dealing with an Ulric who is continuously talking about how we could have searched this ship more.

  With a heave and an annoyed, deep breath, I lift myself off the crate and onto my knee, which wails out in protest. Maybe I really do need medicine. We packed some for the trip, and yet I couldn’t find it when we fled the Camel.

  As I lumber down the dark hallway, my light shines on a silver Ulric, who is leaning against a table, his hands flipping through documents.

  “What is it?”

  “I was looking through this skeleton’s clothes, and it had these documents in his coat.”

  “What do they say?”

  “Take a look, it’s an older German but, it’s still very readable.”

  My eyes scan the brown paper, the ink is a bit blotchy. I figure it’s from water damage, however it’s still somewhat legible.

  Dearest Emma,

  The ship is going down. We do not know why. I think we were attacked. If I do not make it, I assure you my final thoughts were of you. Please do not mourn me. Keep up strong appearances for Moritz and Johanna’s sake. You will be taken care of. I do not regret a moment of our life together.

  Love,

  Anton

  “Why is this important?” I ask Ulric.

  Ulric takes the letter from me and looks over it.

  “His coat had the same insignia as mine. Two S’s…” Ulric says, “he was S.S.”

  “Wonder what brought the ship down. Was it a mine? An enemy ship?” My mind races with questions.

  “I don’t know. It’s eerie. I’m going to continue looking.” Ulric announces as he turns away into the darkness. His light shines upon a door, which he opens happily.

  “Five minutes,” I bark, followed by more “yeahs.” Ulric disappears into the other room. I look over the letter again, while strolling around the crate-covered room. At my feet is the sprawled-out skeleton of a man in a brown shirt, much like the one on the poster. Across his boney arm is a loose black band that says S.S.—the same symbol on Ulric’s armor. What was he doing on a ship that led him to die?

  My curiosity now gets the best of me, and I go around examining the other skeletons. None of them have the same clothing as him. Some are small, petite…like children. Some are simply dressed in coats and hats. Civilians?

  What is Ulric doing? I go through a small door and enter an even smaller corridor. More skeletons decorate the floor. Some brown shirts, other black shirts, many with civilian clothing. A gun lays next to one body. A rifle? I’m not sure, it looks tiny.

  “Ulric?” I call, and my voice travels up the hallway, up the rickety stairs at the end of it.

  “I’m up here,” he says, “there are so many bodies. I think they were transporting…”

  “Civilians. I know.”

  “No,” he says, “I found another document. You should see it.”

  My metal boots take me up the unstable stairs, and I enter a small room. Sand covers the entire front of it, cascading and overflowing the small windows. This looks familiar. It’s a Bridge…

  “I went through one of the bodies. It had a large coat. This was in one of the pockets,” Ulric says, handing the wrinkled note over to me:

  For the safety of the European community, all persons of Jewish/Semitic origin have been advised to relocate to the island of Madagascar with cooperation by our French allies. All new governments express that it is in the best interest of the continent that both peoples separate. You will be paid and accommodated for your troubles. A Reich officer will be at your premises to escort you for further transport on the second Monday of March.

  “Are these bodies…Scavengers?” Ulric says, looking around that the confusing display. Skeletons lie about at the front of the deck, guns at their side. A mass of more bodies lie next to them, facing forward. Ulric hands me a locket.

  “This was with the note.”

  I open it. The colored photo shows a small family. A mother, a father, and a daughter. All with pale skin, some noticeably foreign features, some not. Each has a yellow star on their jackets.

  “Jews?” I say, confused.

  “It says so,” Ulric wonders. “But…Jews have dark brown skin. These notes were on many of them. And that yellow star thing i
s on all of the bodies as well.”

  “Odd,” I say.

  Ulric’s attention turns away from me, and to the corner of the room. I look as well. There is a chest. A large wooden box emblazoned with a golden eagle, its wings outstretched. The two S symbols hang up above it. My brother slowly stalks toward it.

  “We need to get going,” I say, “exploring is over.”

  “Just, let me see this,” Ulric asks quietly.

  His hands run over the warped wood finish of dark oak. The gold, however, has maintained its elegant coat, even if it was just a bit dusty. With two flips of the hatches on either side, Ulric lifts the top of the chest.

  “What about the Howling Dark?” I say sternly, whirling around. “We have to go.”

  Ulric says nothing. His head peers down into the box, arms still holding the top of the chest. After a slight pause, one of his hands reaches down inside. When it comes back out, it is grasping something—a large hardcover book.

  “What is that?” I ask him.

  “It’s…My Struggle…” Ulric mutters in a trance, “it says it’s by Adolf Hitler…”

  “Well you got another copy to your collection, let’s go…”

  Ulric says nothing again. He simply hunches over, looking down at the book, his back turned to me.

  “But…” he softly peeps, “that is not…Adolf Hitler…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He turns around and holds the cover of the book in my direction. My mind draws a blank, confronted with what I am seeing. There is no blond man there to greet me. Instead there’s a sickly-looking man with dark hair.

  “That’s certainly not Adolf Hitler,” I chuckle at the image plastered.

  “It’s not,” Ulric mutters, lost in thought, flipping through the pages, “but it says it is.”

  Flame of Reason

  Ulric and I stand there for a few seconds. His blonde head is curved down, poring over the cover of the book.

  “You sure that says My Struggle?” I ask.

  “Well it does take up a fair amount of the cover,” Ulric quietly replies.

  I turn around and make my way to the small door. With one hand I motion for him to follow, yet he seems to be lost in his own world, transfixed on the book.

  “The Howling Dark still needs our help, Ulric,” I say to him in a calm voice. “We have to get moving.”

  “Yeah…” Ulric says, not in a sarcastic tone like the other two times, but with a weight of agreement. He starts walking with me, holding the book in hand.

  “You can’t bring the book,” I tell him.

  “I’m not going to bring it to Europe, just…”

  “Just nothing, I need your help and if you’re going to be distracted by that thing…”

  “I won’t,” he insists, snapping out of his soft-spoken demeanor. With one motion, he puts the book in a sack placed at his side. “Let’s get going.”

  We navigate our way back past the skeletons, down the stairs, through the narrow hall, and into the open cargo room. The light from the sun shines directly through the hatch-door at the end of the dark tunnel.

  “You alright?” I ask him.

  “Yeah,” he says with an unconvincing smile.

  “My knee has been killing me since we left the Camel, what I suggest is you just forget about this place until we get our jobs done.”

  “Alright.”

  I place my helmet on my head, cold air rushes in, and I grasp the ladder. With each passing rung I can feel the temperature rising, even through the armor. The Kiln welcomes us back with a fiery embrace. My head pops out of the hatch-door, looking around to make sure nobody is staring down at us. I doubt there would be, but I’m paranoid.

  As I get out of the ship, Ulric follows behind me. I lend a hand and help lift him out. We both stand level on top of the small space not covered in sand, left in a valley between two large dunes. The sun hasn’t progressed much in the sky; it is still morning.

  “Alright,” I say, “let’s go.”

  We crawl our way up and down the dunes. For about an hour we say nothing. Surely he doesn’t actually think that man was Hitler. We all know what the Eternal Führer looked like. Of course, as with anything during the Reclamation, there aren’t actual photos of him; however, it’s just common knowledge. His Aryan face is even engraved on the towers that we continue to walk toward. If anybody, an S.S. Knight surely could tell the difference. Just ridiculous to think otherwise.

  I wonder how the Howling Dark is holding up. Volker knows what he is doing. I’m sure he’s keeping the entire ship in check. All they have to do is keep the engines running, and we’ll simply refuel at the Eagle Nest. This will be a small setback. An experience that Ulric and I will share. A very stressful bonding time.

  Eventually, we reach the end of the dunes. The land opens up into flat terrain, easy to navigate and simple to walk. It’s a relief for my feet and my body. Without the dunes to block the sand, however, the wind tries to force us back. I clutch my duffle bag tightly and attempt to barrel on through. It howls across my helmet. Wind and my own breathing—that is all I hear.

  One step. Two step. Breath. The towers seem to get closer. Repeating for hours. The sun continues to rise. It’s directly over us. More wind. Another step. Breath. Sharp pain across my leg. Wince. Look back to Ulric. Wind. Breath. Step. Swallow. Breath. Ignore the calluses. Ignore the sweating. Look to Ulric. Step. Sun. Wind. Look to Ulric. I see him, his face down, the book in hand, and I stop.

  “What are you doing?” I say to him, the wind screaming around us. My desert cloths are fluttering around, wrapping themselves around my tired body.

  “I need answers,” he mutters, not even looking up at me, not looking where he is going.

  “Why?” I exclaim, “is that face still bothering you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Ulric says, “I want to just read through this. I don’t know what is going on.”

  “You’re a Knight, if anybody should be certain about who the Eternal Führer was, it’s you.”

  “Exactly!” he yells, emotion finally escaping through. He stops in his tracks and closes the book, looking deep into the face that stares back. His entire posture is slumped, defeated almost.

  “I…I should…be certain…” he says. “It just doesn’t make any sense. This book cover. This man. Who is he? Why does it show his picture?” He flips through the pages. “Three times, in three different angles. I saw some of his pictures in the ship too, that isn’t coincidence.”

  “You’re overthinking it,” I brush him off.

  “I’m really not. You’re not even going to question—”

  “No,” I say sternly, cutting him off. “It isn’t my place to question this. You need to throw that book away.”

  “I can’t…I need answers…” he stutters.

  “Okay here’s an answer. That is not Hitler. You’re welcome,” I conclude, before turning around and continuing on my way.

  “Then who is it?” Ulric calls after me.

  “Not Hitler.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Ulric says, his voice panicking. “You know those Scavengers didn’t look like the Scavengers of today…what if that old man was actually telling the truth? What if he isn’t a Jew?”

  I laugh at the idea.

  “That flag has changed…something changed in the Reich…something is off about all of this,” Ulric says in a heavy voice.

  “It’s been two thousand years since the Reclamation. Of course things have changed.”

  “That’s my point. Things aren’t supposed to change. That face, that face of the blond Führer we all know, that was the man that made the Reich.” He points toward the Eternal Führer’s face engraved onto the towers of the Eagle Nest. “What if that face changed…just like the flag?”

  “Th
e desert is making you delusional,” I say, attempting to ignore him.

  “Ansel, you have not spent years of your life studying this. I have read over My Struggle countless times. Memorized passage after passage about what he has said. His viewpoints. Who he was. He was an Aryan, one of the few Aryans, and he created a Europe for people like him. That was the core of my understanding for this world.” He babbles on, flipping through the pages before pausing, breathing heavily, and then saying, “And yet when I read this, the words are different. Everything is different. The mindset. The tone of voice. It’s like an entirely different person wrote this.”

  “Read more of it, and calm down.”

  “I have sacrificed everything for this. To study his philosophy. All scholars study his ideals. The Eternal Führer I knew called for peace among Europeans. Reconciliation after the war, even after Germany was punished. Among the ruins he planned to bring everyone together with Atlantropa. Yet…”

  “Yet what?”

  “Yet I don’t see Atlantropa anywhere. No mention of it. There is living space…no…mention of living space on the sea, just east. That’s all he says, east…” Ulric’s voice gives up. “After seeing that Aryans can be savage, after seeing the flag, the posters, it makes…this book…seem fitting…fitting for something that we forgot about…or intentionally forgot…or changed…this isn’t anything like the copy of My Struggle that I’ve studied.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I insist, turning around to block Ulric’s path. I put a firm hand on his shoulder, “I have been walking this desert, I can’t feel my feet and am not in the mood for you to break down on me.”

  Ulric stands still; he says nothing.

  “I told you, keep this inside. That meant, keep the book, in that bag and don’t worry about it until we get to fucking safety. I’m asking you, as my brother, to stop. Right now. Stop.”

  “Ansel…I…” he stutters.

  “I brought you along because I was scared you would find some way to fuck up on the ship,” I spit at Ulric. His mask stares back at me. He says nothing, so I continue on. “Maybe defend the Scavenger, say something stupid. And if you did, I wouldn’t be there to save you.”