by Al Ewing
"Relax. It won't hurt you. It's just looking for food."
"Food?"
"It's not quite as efficient as an English robot. That furnace in its chest needs feeding, and often. Luckily, it's designed to find anything that can be burned in any environment and use it to fuel itself." He nodded to the machine. "Demonstrate."
It moved like lightning, the joints hissing as it whirled around. Two massive paws came down hard against the wood of the General's desk and smashed it into fragments. It was only the heavy reinforcement of the floor that prevented the iron fists from pounding the shattered remains through into the room below - as it was, the floorboards beneath the carpet were cracked and broken. Eisenberg smiled softly as the machine opened the huge mouth-furnace doors, the ingenious construction ensuring the flaming matter within did not spill out even as the robot shovelled broken, splintered shards of wood into it. The entire operation took perhaps fifteen seconds. When the robot was done, it turned back to face Master Plus, the slits in the furnace doors glowing with infernal light.
Eisenberg spoke softly. "That desk was solid mahogany. I wonder if El Sombra will prove quite as flammable when he is crushed by those paws."
Master Plus stuttered, fighting the wave of terror that crept through him. "I... It... it seems a shame, Herr Generaloberst, to lose such a fine desk..." He flushed crimson even as he spoke, hearing his own stupid banality loud in his ears.
Eisenberg nodded, unsmiling. "It was a present from my late wife." The fat man's eyes widened. "Do not look so shocked, Mein Herr. We must be prepared to sacrifice the things we love for the glory of the Ultimate Reich. Is that not so?"
Master Plus swallowed hard. "I... I don't see..."
"It is very simple. There is nothing you own that is so precious that it cannot be taken from you in service to the Führer. Love is a weakness, and weakness must be eliminated." Eisenberg reached forward, placing a huge hand on the other man's shoulder. "After the wedding, Master Plus, you will come to understand."
Master Plus lowered his head and hoped that the tears in his eyes would not condemn him, as the General reached into his pocket and removed a small roll of paper, studded with tiny bumps, like Braille, and various little punched holes in a complex pattern. He held it up for Master Plus' examination, although all his attention was concentrated on his mechanical creature.
"This represents all the information we have on the masked dissident. Recent sightings, movements, a full description, those he's been seen with, even things he's said. Der Zinnsoldat has already been fully programmed with information regarding Aldea, its history, and our mission here. Now watch closely..." He unfurled the roll of paper and began to carefully feed it into a small slot sitting next to the dome that protected the creature's thinking-machinery. "Our friend feeds on information as well. Hear that clicking? That's how it thinks. All those tiny little cogs and wheels and gears clicking together, falling into precise place..." The machine suddenly swung its arms around, following and smashed through the doorway of the office, bringing down the heavy wood door in its rush to be about its murderous work.
Master Plus cried out, and the General laughed, a mocking glee in his eyes. "There it goes! It won't stop now until the masked man is dead. Come on, Mein Herr. We must be quick if we're to keep up with our little pet."
Carina looked out of her window, as she often did, down at the fruit-seller on the corner. His name was Miguel - her father had told her - and his life was idyllic in its simplicity. He was always on the corner, leaning against the wall, with a basket piled high with oranges and a smile playing around his lips. She remembered seeing people buying fruit from him... well, she couldn't remember precisely when, but she must have, surely. He had a wife, two children - the youngest was just starting lessons at the schoolhouse, apparently. It must be nice, she thought, to mingle with other children. But that wasn't possible, of course.
Until the age of nine, she had been allowed out. She remembered splashing in the mud and climbing trees. There had been a boy named Hector - something had happened to him, she remembered - had he been injured somehow? She remembered a fire... but it seemed so distant, as though it had happened in a dream.
That was just before she was shown her rooms for the first time. Her father had explained how things had always been in Pasito. There came a time when women were locked away, for their own good, in palatial quarters such as hers, so that they could mature without distractions. She remembered being appalled at that. Even at the age of nine, and just back from the hospital - what had she been in hospital for? - even then, she'd felt that something about that was just... wrong. At first, she'd rebelled, running around, breaking things, crying for her playmates. But before long, she settled, as she had no other choice. Her father, who could be bought with a smile, was obdurate in this one matter. So she stayed, locked in her tower, taking her lessons, reading the books her father brought her, often sitting at one of her windows, looking out at the peace and quiet of the town - the peace and quiet that never ended.
Carina had never seen anyone arguing in Pasito. Occasionally she heard shouting, sometimes even gunfire, and there was always a strange clanking, hissing sound that she could never identify, like great iron wings beating far away. But when she went to the window, there was no sign of anything but peace and harmony. Sometimes that peace and harmony made her feel uneasy. Sometimes she'd sit, looking down the street, watching, biting her lower lip as she waited and waited for someone to leave one of the buildings, or cross the street. Scanning the scene, looking for something, but never certain quite what. Occasionally she would comment on the seeming strangeness of Pasito to her father, and he would laugh and dismiss her idle thoughts, making her feel stupid and silly and foolish for questioning the evidence of her eyes.
Somewhere under the earth, a few hours after such a conversation, an old man in thick glasses would listen to Master Plus' report and make a note in a leather-bound journal. And smile at the continuing success of the experiment. But of course, Carina never knew of that.
On a sudden impulse, she stretched out, leaning as far out from the window as she could, reaching forwards, fingertips stretching. She felt only the air. It was something she did more and more often lately, without knowing quite why. Or perhaps she did know why, deep down below the floor of her conscious mind. Perhaps the truth was simply too horrific to face without being forced to.
Perhaps, in the back of her mind, she did know that her outstretched fingertip had been less than an inch from the canvas, but probably not. It was, after all, canvas that had been decorated with the second most cunning optical illusion in the world. She would make the distinction herself at the age of sixty, when she saw the first in its museum in Marseilles and was heard to comment 'even if someone walked through that one, I'd still believe it'. And then the grey-haired woman would sigh and look to the ground, as though remembering a man she had lost in blood, a long time before.
But that was the future.
Carina turned to pour herself a glass of water from the carafe standing on the table by the couch, and that was when the shadow fell across the room.
Carina turned and what met her eyes was terrifyingly, vertiginously impossible. The shadow was hanging in the sky. The shadow of a man was in the sky. She felt a stab of splitting pain in the back of her skull, and felt a feeling of pure horror wash over her. Horror and something else, something indefinable. Why should this be making her feel so angry?
There was the sound of tearing canvas, and a man fell through the sky and clutched at her windowsill. He was half-naked, wearing a tattered, bloody mask and carrying a sword, and he had serious grooming and hygiene issues. None of which mattered.
All Carina cared about was seeing the sky for the first time.
The real one.
"Make that hole bigger." She heard herself speaking, but felt hardly conscious. The edges of her vision were greying, and something was rushing through her blood, through her brain - a pure, white-hot rage
with her father's name.
The masked man kicked at the canvas as he clambered over the sill into the room, slumping on the polished-wood floor. Carina walked around him without a glance in his direction and stared out of the window, as she had done so many times before.
She finally knew what it was she was looking for. She'd found it.
It was impossible to describe - like a hole in space, onto a different world. A world that was darker, and crueller. The buildings were old and worn, neglected. Smoke hung lazily in the air, and occasionally a strange bird-man would wheel past in the long distance and a tiny little creaking, clanking sound would reach her ears. Something about the bird-man made her feel sick. The last time she saw one of those... she'd blocked it out, but it still made her sick. But only a little sick.
What really made her want to vomit up a tide of black bile was the thing in the very centre of the scene, that rose over the town, coated in scaffold, with human beings crawling like ants over it, working blindly and hopelessly and forever. The statue of the man with the nasty little moustache and the ugly hair and the arm raised in eternal salute. And the eyes, sculpted perfectly, as to the life. Eyes that seemed dead, all human emotion vanished from them. Eyes that had held no understanding of common humanity, windows to a soul soured and twisted beyond recognition. All those who bought the threepenny broadsheets with their alluring red banners and nodded their heads sagely at the carefully-tailored ignorance within, all those who were first to stand up and moan shrilly about the wave of 'social correctness' that was sweeping Europe, coveted and lusted for a pair of eyes like that. They were the idol and the template for all those who secretly believe that the world would be better if such silly concepts as 'human rights' were hurled into the incinerator. Along with a few dozen humans to really drive the point home. They were evil personified, cast in stone to gaze forever at the town which they had enslaved. Carina cast her eyes away, unable to stand the sight of them.
It was her first sight of Adolf Hitler.
She didn't feel the tears trickling down her cheeks, but she felt her teeth clench, and heard the terrible hiss of her exhaled breath as it burst from her.
It was El Sombra who broke the silence. He was staring out of one of the other windows, looking at a scene of perfect, pastoral calm.
"What the hell happened to the town? I've only been in here a minute!"
Carina turned and stared at him, then - despite herself - she began to laugh.
Father Jesus Santiago sat in his front room, enjoying the sunlight streaming through the window. He'd pulled the wooden boards down to allow the light in and was sitting at his desk, collating a list of the disappeared - one of the many tasks he set for himself every week. Someone had to keep track of these things.
He'd been afraid that the addition of sunlight would show up the old, broken furniture and layers of dust, but to his surprise the room still had a rustic charm, despite its abandoned quality. In the back of his mind, he knew he was taking another risk, but there hadn't been a soldier within a mile of the house in years. It was time for him to start enjoying life again - the small things that most took for granted, morning sunlight, fresh air. There was no sense in denying himself the most basic joys life had to offer because of misguided paranoia -
- there was the sound of clanking metal in the distance.
Jesus' eyes narrowed, and he turned to the sound, listening intently. The clanking and creaking of metal was nothing new in these parts, but there was something different about this. The sound was heavier, somehow. Louder, more insistent. As though made by something very, very big...
The adrenaline hit. Jesus leapt out of his chair, grabbing the paper he was working on and hurling himself at the trapdoor. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, feel the blood rushing, his chest tightening as he burrowed under the rug. Working quickly, he levered up the catch with slippery fingers, lifting the heavy wood of the trapdoor enough for him to squeeze through, then letting it drop and hoping the rug stayed enough in place to fool the intruders. He couldn't breathe - he had to consciously work his lungs, trying to keep from panting, to keep as silent as possible. The sweat dripped down his neck and back and the scraping of the wooden door against the barely-healed scars had set them screaming once again. They seemed to burn as he lay with his spine pressing on the stairs just under the trapdoor, unable to move a muscle in case his shifting weight made them creak. Over his head, there were thudding footsteps and the sound of German being spoken.
Like a fool, he had dropped his guard - and they had come for him.
The floorboards overhead were creaking. Not just the floorboards, but the supporting beams in the cellar, as though they were being forced to bear some unimaginable weight. The noise was deafening. Not just the creaking and clanking, but a terrible clicking like a thousand insects trapped in a metal jar - all sandwiched between terrible claps of thunder, hard metal impacting on dusty wood. Occasionally he heard the crack of one of his floorboards breaking under the strain. There was a very real possibility that whatever thing was up there would simply crash through the floor under its own awful weight. If that happened, he would be discovered or, worse, crushed to death by the monstrosity above.
The thunderous footsteps shook the wood an inch from his head, making the trapdoor rattle under the rug - and stopped.
The seconds ticked by. Except for the ticking and clicking of the thing above him, there was no sound.
Jesus held his breath.
A drop of sweat slowly trickled from his hairline, running over his brow, down the side of his nose. His lungs began to burn with the effort of controlling his breathing, of staying so very still.
The clicking above him stopped.
Silence.
Very slowly, and with infinite care, Jesus allowed himself to breathe out, and then slowly breathe in.
The clicking began again, loud and fast, and then there was the sound of heavy metal cracking onto wood as the beams around him screamed in protest. The monster was taking a step. And another. And another.
Away from him.
Jesus breathed out again, silently, and allowed his body to relax.
Beneath him, one of the steps creaked.
A massive industrial grabber smashed down through wood to close on his left ankle, then jerked hard, dragging him through the splintered hole. The smashed, ragged edges of the wooden boards tore at his back and shoulder, raking down the flesh, tearing the half-healed wounds open as his body whirled up through the air like a rag doll, to be brought down hard against the floor with enough force to crack the wood beneath him. He felt two ribs snap like twigs and then something popped in his ankle as the monster tightened its grip on it. Then it swung him up again. This time it slammed him into the wall, his bandaged shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, and swung him around like a hammer to crash down into the centre of the great oak table he'd been working at. Another three ribs shattered and something in his spine seemed to tear as two of the table legs snapped off with the force of the impact. The priest rolled onto the floor, retching up what looked like half a pint of blood and black matter. The pain was indescribable and he could no longer feel his legs. He turned his head slowly.
Something from a nightmare was towering above him. An immense metal creature, hunched like an ape to fit into the room, the chimney on its back belching smoke as it scraped against the ceiling, mechanical paws already reaching out to grip him again. The terrible buzzing of a thousand trapped hornets was coming from a shell on its back' and, as he watched, it took hold of one of the legs of the shattered table and broke it up into pieces to stuff into the raging furnace located in the centre of its chest. But perhaps the worst thing about the monster was its eyes - or the burning holes that passed for its eyes. There was something horrific in that unchanging, fiery gaze, the unmoving carved slits constantly fixed in a look of cold concentration - in the way that the creature would crush him, tear him to shreds, without the slightest show of outward emotion.<
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"Wonderful, isn't it? We've spent years wondering where your bolthole is, and the machine works it out in seconds. Where is the one called El Sombra?"
The voice was deep, gravely, with a very strong German accent. Jesus had heard it before, but could not remember where. He coughed up more blood in reply.
The metal creature yanked his dislocated ankle again, and this time he screamed as his body arced through the air, the thing letting go and sending him crashing through the thin wooden panelling of a wall. He landed hard on the dusty floor of what had once been the kitchen, sharp splinters of wood sticking into his back, arm twisted beneath him, the shattered end of the ulna bone poking through torn flesh. He screamed again, the scream becoming a choking sound as he retched up more of his own blood.
The General looked down at him, face filled with contempt.
"Again. Where is the one called El Sombra?"
Jesus coughed hard, spraying a red mist over the floorboards. The General patiently waited until he found his voice, looking at the shattered man with his ice-grey eyes.
"I have... no idea what... you're talking about, Herr Generalob..."
The sentence ended in a scream as the mechanical horror took a step forward, the heavy metal foot coming down hard on the priest's wounded shoulder. The clavicle snapped, making a sound like dry kindling.
"We know he's been here, Priest. Der Zinnsoldat is never wrong. Where is the one called El Sombra?"
Jesus' vision was greying at the edges. The pain came in waves now, like knives tearing his flesh. He choked as more blood spewed from the back of his throat, blood mixed with bile. How much more was in him? He tried to speak through the agony, every syllable punctuated with little flecks of red on his lips.