by Al Ewing
It was hardly surprising, then, that he did not smile as his son entered the room. Such grave responsibility must preclude human feeling.
"Good afternoon, Father." Alexis displayed his very best smile, if only to provide a contrast. The red light that pervaded the room gave the easy grin an air of almost imperceptible menace.
Eisenberg's eyes narrowed, and the voice that echoed through the room was the sound of stone grinding upon stone.
"Within these walls, Oberstleutnant, I am the Generaloberst. Any biological relationship between the two of us is simply... coincidence. Nothing more. This constant lack of respect for my rank could soon become tiresome."
"My most profound apologies, Herr Generaloberst. Permission to stand at ease?"
The General leant back in his chair and sighed. "I should make you stand there all day and night. But I know it does no good whatsoever. My son and heir... I was informed of the mess you left this morning. Don't you worry that your proclivities might injure your chances at promotion?"
"The Führer shares my 'proclivities', Herr Generaloberst. I merely take a less efficient approach... more hands-on, as it were." Alexis grinned - that stage-star smile that charmed so many. The General only scowled in response and when he spoke, it was the low rumble of a glacier.
"I would not speak his name if I were you, boy." The huge man's eyes narrowed as his voice lowered to a whisper. "You are a deviant - and believe me, that is the kindest word for this fever that grips you. Without me to protect you, you would be bound for the camps. And I have no intention of protecting you at the cost of myself, Alexis. One day you will reach too far and I will be forced to choose between saving you or saving my career... and on that day..."
Alexis waved a hand through the air. "That day! That day has not come these past nine years, father! Nine years in a wasteland, driven to distraction by the boredom, the subhumans and the flies! I belong in Paris, or Milan, or on the Queen's Road, not cooped up with these animals! Is it any wonder I occasionally decide to amuse myself with their wretched bodies? It's either that or go mad!"
The General raised an eyebrow and gave the ghost of a smile.
"I could remark... no, no, I'd rather not start a fight at this hour. You're sane enough to be of use to me, put it that way. After all, if a wolf is in the woods, the sheep will more readily heed the bark of the sheepdog. Did you come for a particular reason, Alexis? Wedding plans, perhaps? I understand the lovely Carina is as taken with you as it is possible to be."
"Sarcasm ill becomes you, Herr Generaloberst."
"And your flippant attitude ill becomes an officer of the Ultimate Reich!" The General scowled as he rose from his seat and strode to the red-tinted window. "Do you understand the significance of what we do here, Alexis? Do you understand what Projekt Uhrwerk is? For decades Britain has loomed over the Reich like a vulture - allowing us to exist at her sufferance! And why? Because they have the technology to rule! A robot workforce to cater to their every need! While we - the superior race - must work with inferior robotics, clanking monsters of steel that can function only as terror machines! With an economy kept stunted by the cage Magna Britannia keeps us in! But no more! No more!"
Eisenberg's grey eyes flashed fire as he turned around. "Here is our laboratory, Alexis. Our testing ground. We have our robots now! Infinitely adaptable! Infinitely programmable! For they are crafted of human flesh! Our new robots will work tirelessly for the Führer - efficient, expendable and inexpensive. After all, we have been creating them since the apes came down from the trees. Imagine it, Herr Oberstleutnant! Berlin and Munich and Bonn running with the efficiency of Aldea! Cities ticking like well-made watches! A final solution to the tiresome individuality that leads to crime and perversion! An end to the twin burdens of free will and personal responsibility - the dirty and degrading chimera called morality! Can you see it, Alexis? Can you see the future?"
Alexis half-smiled. "This is a speech I've heard before, father. Besides, surely the experiment is a success by now? Time to go home, don't you think?"
Eisenberg sighed and turned back to the papers on his desk. "In six months, perhaps. A year at most. But there are still slight glitches in the machinery that must be set right... Come, if you're going to disrupt the peace and dignity of my office then you can put that twisted streak of yours to work. I'm deciding what to do with a special case." He beckoned, and Alexis walked around the desk. There, on top of the plush surface, lay a grainy sepia photograph of a man in his mid thirties, dressed in black with a shock of hair already shot through with grey. In his eyes was a look of weariness and infinite care, and at his throat was the small white square of a dog collar.
"It seems that for the past nine years, this man has been preaching the word of God to the citizens of Aldea. His name is Father Jesus Santiago."
Alexis shrugged. "Is that what a life of devout Christianity does to your looks?"
"Very droll. Very witty. But this sort of rabble-rousing is no laughing matter. When the good Father Santiago waves his God in the faces of good workers, it takes their mind away from their work and their Führer. Before very long, the people decide that perhaps his God would rather they did not obey. Perhaps his God would rather they rebel against us and martyr themselves to our bullets. We must not have that, Alexis. God cannot be tolerated."
"Master Minus will deal with Father Santiago, father."
"I think not. Oh, Master Minus is fine for destroying a man - or many men. But we are playing a different game today. It is not enough to finish Jesus Santiago, even if we string his guts between the houses like washing-lines and make the workers hang their clothes to dry on them. Our task is to finish God! We must kill him, grind his bones into dust, completely and utterly. We must rend the Almighty to shreds and hurl him from the rooftops like confetti! Even Master Minus admitted that this was a difficult task, although he's giving all his thought to the problem. But we felt your perspective might bring us some fresh insight."
The General looked up at his son, eyes narrowing. "Well, Alexis?"
Alexis smiled slowly.
The whip dug into Jesus Santiago's back as it roasted in the desert sun, leaving a red trail of bloody, ripped flesh. The crack was like a gunshot sounding over the crowd as the townspeople watched - and waited. Some of them were grinning, eyes glassy as they took in the show that had been laid on for them, while others looked at the ground, fearfully reaching into their clothes for hidden crosses. In the sky overhead, the Luftwaffe circled like vultures.
Santiago grimaced - but did not cry out. Not until the whip landed again, carving a bloody X into the flesh of his back. The priest was up on an improvised wooden stage, standing with his bare feet shoulder width apart, the tattered cuffs of his trousers held to his calves with rope - the rope that kept his ankles bound to the sturdy stage. He stood, stretched as through on a rack, his bare arms lashed together above his head with leather straps. A strong rope ran from his bound wrists through a pair of pulleys, and on the other side of that rope hung a wooden platform, the weight of which was enough to keep Santiago's body held up despite the blows of the whip staggering him.
Alexis held the whip.
"Where is God? Tell me, wretch. Where is God to be found here?" The whip whistled through the air again, marking the back twice, laying the flesh open. Santiago gritted his teeth, forcing his words out through the haze of red that shrouded his vision.
"In the hearts... of the people..."
"I see no people here, creature. I see subhuman scum! I see your executioners!" Alexis spat, and the whip landed another time, and another - cutting more slices out of the shaking flesh. Four shorter cuts now met the X at right angles.
Alexis had carved the swastika into Santiago's back.
He turned, addressing the crowd with a grin which would have befitted a wolf in the Black Forest. "Now, workers - you will show your obedience to the Führer! Each of you will take one stone - just one - and place it on the platform. Yes, the whole crowd o
f you will each take a stone... the penalty for doing otherwise will be death. By all means, think it over! But there is no shame in this act... How could anyone blame you? All you are doing is picking up a stone... a single stone..."
Santiago snarled. "Damn you!"
Alexis grinned. "Here is your God, Santiago. In these good men and women, each picking up their stone, because such a tiny act cannot possibly be unforgivable! Because everyone else is doing it - so why not they? Your God is dead! You see it now, and they see it too. Listen to the chink of the stones falling one upon another, Santiago - isn't it music? Sweeter than a hymn!"
The stones piled up, a small pyramid on the swaying platform, and the platform was weighed down by them, a little more, and then a little more... and with each stone, Jesus Santiago was stretched, bit by bit, as the agony built... until his joints and sinews screamed for mercy.
But no mercy came.
The men and women of the town shuffled forward, one by one, picking up a stone, dropping it on the platform, laying them reverently, gently. Then they wrung their hands, as though washing them clean. On and on it went. On and on, the silent procession of the shuffling damned, with only the sound of the clicking stones and the creaking pulleys echoing across -
Alexis snapped his head around.
"Who laughed?"
He scowled, raising his voice. The moment had been ruined.
"Who laughed? Tell me!"
It came again. The laughter. Rich and strong, echoing around the square, freezing the milling workers in their tracks. An awful laugh - a terrible laugh of hope and joy and strength! A sound that had not been heard in the clockwork-town for nine years!
In the Red Dome, Eisenberg heard the sound and blinked, unsure if he had imagined it.
In the House Without Windows, Carina looked up from her books with a gasp of shock, unable to stop herself from smiling wide. Such a laugh!
Deep in the belly of the Palace Of Beautiful Thoughts, no sound could penetrate, and yet a prisoner chuckled on the torture rack, as though amused by the great joke of life. Master Minus' scalpel clattered suddenly from numb fingers.
Such a laugh!
And suddenly, without warning, there appeared on a neighbouring rooftop a man, naked but for a pair of black trousers, ragged and stained with desert dust. His hair was long, filthy and unkempt, his beard was wild and home to insects, and over his eyes, there was tied a red sash, coated with old, dry blood, with holes cut to see by, the tail-ends flapping in the wind like pirate flags. His skin was baked and hard from the desert sun and the burning sand. To Alexis, who bathed so meticulously and treated his skin and hair with a thousand products, he seemed like some ugly, savage monster.
In one hand, the creature held a sword. Razor sharp - gleaming and glittering in the light - it pointed directly at Alexis. The smile on the creature's face was powerful and confident and utterly unafraid. To Alexis, it seemed like the smile the devil might have in the deepest pits of Hell.
The moment seemed to last a thousand years.
Far away, in Alexis' apartment, two enlisted men were beginning the grisly task of stripping Alexis' bed. They were preparing a large hessian sack for the corpse - it would then be taken to one of the pits on the outskirts of town reserved for the Aldean dead. The men did not speak as they worked...
...but as the sound of laughter echoed across the town, they shuddered and glanced at each other briefly, as though hearing the first sounds of an approaching storm.
The corpse lay under the sheets.
CHAPTER TWO
Beyond Thought
The moment ended as Alexis finally found his voice - cracked and broken though it was.
"Kill him! Kill..."
He got no further. The masked man's foot slammed into Alexis' angel face with a sound like a rifle shot. In the time it had taken the Oberstleutnant to give the order, the man in the mask had hurled himself from the roof, landed on the stage with the grace of a cat, flipped onto his hands and driven the ball of his bare foot into the side of Alexis' jaw with enough force to loosen teeth. For the crowd, it was like watching lightning in a bottle. Jaws hung open and eyes that had been half-closed with sullen anger or acceptance - or even a terrible ecstasy of punishment - snapped wide.
Alexis stumbled back, his whip falling at Santiago's feet, and he toppled off the narrow stage and hit the ground beneath like a sack of flour, the wind driven out of him in an instant. His head struck one of the wooden beams that held the whole construction of the punishment-stage up, and everything went dark.
The soldiers standing on the stage were still aiming their guns, hesitant to fire - mere seconds had passed, and besides, to pull the trigger would be to risk raking the Oberstleutnant with bullets. As Alexis disappeared from view over the edge of the wooden stage, one of them - the sharpest - seized his chance. His name was Udo Maurer and he was twenty-nine years old. He had grown up in a small village just north of Lowenthal. His grandmother smelled of cloves.
He had less than five seconds to live.
Udo Maurer squeezed the trigger on his MG-66, shooting a burst of lead directly towards the place where the masked man had stood an instant before. But by then he was no longer there. Udo's eyes lifted, and he watched the man turning a lazy somersault in the air - then his vision blacked out as the ball of the bare foot snapped down again, shattering his nose. He fell backwards, the gun still firing, muzzle veering to the left as it spat -
- Santiago flinched once as something stung his cheek and passed on its way -
- Anton Stroh, the other machine-gunner, felt nothing even as the bullet burst his head like a melon and lodged in the back of his helmet -
- and then Udo struck the ground, his gun clicking and clattering, out of ammo. His helmet had not been properly secured, and it bounced hard away from him. His eyes widened as he saw the masked man land like a cat on top of him, straddling him, his face a tight smile as his hand slammed down, the heel of the palm first, a hammer blow against Udo's exposed forehead that slammed his skull back into the stage with enough force to crack the wood.
All the lights went out in Udo. They weren't going to come on again. His heels drummed against the wood of the stage, but soon they would be still.
The masked man rolled and got to his feet, the sword still in his hand as he slashed, severing the rope that held up the heavy platform laden with its cargo of stones - the weight that was stretching the old priest like a bowstring. As the platform crashed to the stage, the stones clattering in a heap, Santiago fell forward with a gasp of released tension, slumping to the ground. The masked man swung his sword at the ropes binding his ankles, leaving only frayed ends.
"Move!"
Father Santiago knew that voice and did not know it. There was confidence there - an assurance that was unfamiliar, and yet... No. It couldn't be.
Heraclio was dead.
He rolled and ran, diving off the stage and then crawled beneath it.
Seconds had passed and the crowd were beginning to react. As was the Luftwaffe. The six wingmen above circled, moving into formation as their great metal wings clanked and whirred. It was often wondered how such unwieldy mechanisms could possibly keep the soldiers of the Luftwaffe in flight - as with so many things in Aldea, the truth was kept hidden, the better to promote a feeling of unease among the populace, as though the flying men had some terrible secret reserved only for diabolists. All magic tricks rely on a simple secret, and this one was achieved with a metal that could be bought in bulk from any industrial manufacturing firm in Germany - although at prohibitive expense: Cavorite, the 'nth metal' that powered Britain's economy, and to a lesser extent the Fatherland's. The clanking, hissing wings, driven to and fro by small jets of steam, were only for manoeuvrability - it was the cavorite that infused the metal of the wing-packs themselves, which allowed the Luftwaffe the freedom of birds.
Moritz Dresdner's voice carried above the clank and creak of his wings. "No machine-guns! If we fire on the crowd, w
e'll create more problems than we solve. Shoot him down with your Lugers! He's only one man!" Moritz Dresdner was the flight leader. He spoke from experience. Early in his career, he had fired an MG-62 into a small gathering of children - just as a warning, you understand - and that had indeed created a great many problems for him. He had been accused of wasting the resources of the Reich and given twenty days in the stockade.
He had also been fined thirty Marks, three for each dead child. So it was certainly no small matter.
The formation passed over the stage, firing directly down at the man in the mask, who tumbled forward, rolling like an acrobat, flipped nimbly onto his hands, then changed direction wildly as bullets raked the spot where he was - and where he would have been.
The eyes behind the red mask narrowed as he landed next to the fallen platform and its cargo of stones. Gripping one of them in his hand, he tested the weight. The flyers were wheeling back around in the sky for a second pass - playing it safe. He waited for his moment.
As the troops swooped towards him, he swung his arm around - his memory flashing back to countless hours, days, months in the heat of the desert, picking objects, testing, throwing, perfecting his aim into a skill, then a science. He had blocked so much from his mind, but it was all hidden inside him, waiting to be reclaimed at the proper time.
The stone left his hand.
Moritz Dresdner was not from Dresden, as his name suggested, but rather from the small village of Hegensdorf. In his twenty-five years, he had become used to a life of great and secure privilege - for Moritz Dresdner was a handsome man. In fact, to say he was handsome was to obscure the issue. Many men are handsome - it's a word that can mean a number of things. Moritz Dresdner had been the most handsome man in Hegensdorf from the age of thirteen onwards - and was loved for it, in that subconscious way that certain people are. It was far more than just phenomenal success with women - that old cliché clutched wistfully at by the monstrously ugly - no, this was a face which allowed its owner access to a world where anything could simply be had. Shopkeepers would smile at the handsome boy and laugh when he stole sweets from their counters. "Oh, that boy! He's a rascal. You can tell just to look at him!" Then they would turn around and give another child - who was not quite so handsome - a stiff clip around the ear for trying to sneak a look at the latest issue of The Pearl as it sat high up on the top shelf.