by A. D. Winch
The heart monitor beeped monotonously, and Professor Schwarzkopf found himself stepping towards Eric’s bed in time with the beeps. He positioned himself, so he had his back to both the window and the camera above the door.
“Eric,” he said gently. “Eric Meyer.”
Eric opened his eyes unwillingly and looked at the old man in front of him.
“Who are you?” he asked feebly, fighting back sleep. “I’ve seen you before.”
Professor Schwarzkopf held the A4 pad to his chest and let the first sheet of paper curve down. On the sheet below was written, a friend.
“My name is Professor Johan Schwarzkopf. I am going to ask you a few questions.”
He let go of the sheet to reveal another. It read, answer the written question on the sheet first, and then correct yourself if you need to, and answer the question I ask you. Blink if you understand.
“I would like to ask you questions about the pods.” About how you feel.
Professor Schwarzkopf paced slowly in front of the window and camera. He glanced at the window; his face was serious and determined.
“Do you remember travelling in a silver pod when you were a baby?” Will you escape with me?
Eric fought back his desire to sleep.
“Yes,” he replied, “No, not really, I’m not sure.”
“Can you remember how you felt at that time?” How are you?
“Not good, my back hurt, I felt sick. I felt faint,” Eric replied, “Well actually, I don’t know how I felt.”
“Did anything help with this?” What do you need?
“Rest. Healthy, sun-rich foods. Vitamins. Vitamin D in particular. At least, I think those helped.”
“Erm, interesting.”
“Do you remember how you got into the pod?” Can you walk or run?
“No, I walked and possibly ran but I was weak. Well, maybe I did, I can’t remember.”
“Thank you for talking to me. Your memory is not very reliable, but it was interesting.” I will come for you within a week. Do not give up hope.
Eric blinked and fell asleep.
Professor Schwarzkopf closed the notebook, and the guard let him out of the room. Jean Kurtz met him at the door.
“What did you find out, Professor Schwarzkopf?” Kurtz smirked. She had heard every word of the conversation. “Anything of use to us? Sounded to me like it had no idea and was simply trying to curry favour. No one can remember from when they are a baby.”
Professor Schwarzkopf looked suddenly angry, “Humans can’t remember from when they are babies, but you can keep telling me IT ISN’T HUMAN! Perhaps this was a waste of time. The boy hasn’t got a clue who he is or where he is. You could hear that. Do you want me to pat your ego and tell you that you were right Kurtz, and that I should have listened to you? I would hate to say it, and I won’t do it.”
He walked off, trying desperately to hide a smile as he coughed.
Behind him, Kurtz shouted, “There’s a reason I lead the team, Professor. It’s because I am better than you!”
Schwarzkopf stopped dead in his tracks and walked back towards Kurtz. He stood so close to her that their noses were almost touching. This time it was Jean Kurtz who was smiling.
“Something the matter, Professor?” she asked.
“You’re right. There is nothing I could learn from the boy. Just look at him,” he pointed through the window. “He is weak. He is on the verge of death, and he is nothing more than a lab rat. He can’t tell us anything. If I were the leader of this team and had as much authority as you, I would put him out his misery right now. Give him an injection or put a bullet through his head and put him to sleep forever. We don’t need him.”
Jean Kurtz’s smile disappeared from her face.
“If I were team leader, the last thing I would want, would be for him to recover full health,” he stepped back and bumped into the guard purposefully while coughing. “Imagine how stupid you’d look if you put him in a pod and he could control it or even help us! Kill him now and save yourself the embarrassment!”
Professor Schwarzkopf pushed Jean Kurtz out of the way and moved quickly towards the door. In one hand, he held the key. In the other, the guard’s revolver which he brandished above his head.
“I’ll do it myself!”
The guard looked between his empty holster and the crazy old man who was opening the door to the prisoner. He stepped towards the scientist, but Professor Schwarzkopf pointed the gun at him as he entered the room backwards.
The guard stared at him in disbelief. Jean Kurtz gawped with contrasting emotions. In her mind, she could see this was the perfect opportunity to rid herself of the old man but if White King were killed that would certainly damage the OSS’s chances of creating IHBs. As she had told Agent Angel once, “We need at least one of those two children. They are the key.”
“Don’t just stand there, do something!” she yelled at the guard.
Professor Schwarzkopf knew he had to act quickly. As soon as the guard could enter the room, he would be tackled. He made sure he was standing right in front of the camera and pointed the gun at Eric Meyer’s head. Fortunately, the boy was asleep and oblivious to the events unfolding in front of him. The heart monitor continued to beat near his shaking hand and his index finger hovered above the trigger, but that was as close as it would come to the cold metal. A strong hand grabbed his arm, yanked it behind his back and pulled him back towards the ground. The gun fell to the floor with a crack and skidded across the tiled surface.
“What the hell are you doing?” shouted the guard, lifting Professor Schwarzkopf to his feet and slamming him against a wall.
“Controlling the vermin,” spat Professor Schwarzkopf.
The guard continued to hold onto him. In spite of the commotion, Eric had not stirred. His eyes were shut, and he was breathing deeply. However, his forehead was etched, and he looked pained. Professor Schwarzkopf silently counted. It was not easy to do accurately with the constant beeping from the heart monitor. By the time he reached thirty-three seconds, two soldiers had arrived. As he was escorted out the room, he thought that half a minute is not much time to make an escape, once the alarm sounds.
“Agent Angel wants to see you,” said one of the soldiers, and he was marched down the corridor faster than he would normally walk.
Jean Kurtz walked behind them with a big grin plastered across her face. She had waited for so long to see Professor Schwarzkopf suffer that she was not going to miss it now. The moment had come, and she was going to exploit it as best as she could. Before they arrived at Agent Angel’s office, she skipped around the soldiers escorting Professor Schwarzkopf and reached the metal door first. She banged impatiently and entered before being invited in.
“Wait here,” she instructed.
Five minutes later, the door opened and she walked out again with her head held unnaturally high. She said nothing but smiled falsely as she stepped briskly away.
The soldiers led Professor Schwarzkopf into the room. They gripped his arms so hard that they could feel his bones underneath his sagging biceps.
“Dismissed,” Agent Angel told them, standing up from behind his desk. When they had gone he said calmly, “Sit down, John.”
Professor Schwarzkopf ignored the chair in front of the desk. Instead, he slumped into one of the two armchairs and sat there looking defeated. Agent Angel casually walked around the desk and opened up a drink’s cabinet built into the book shelves. He pulled out two glasses and a bottle of old Bourbon, before sitting in the armchair opposite Professor Schwarzkopf.
Nothing was said as he poured two large drinks.
“Cheers,” he said and lifted his glass.
Professor Schwarzkopf did the same, and both men downed the Bourbon in one. Agent Angel refilled their glasses while Professor Schwarzkopf recovered from a coughing fit. This time they sipped at the liquor.
“Cigar,” Agent Angel asked, removing a small wooden box from under the table.
“You know I don’t smoke Buddy,” replied Professor Schwarzkopf, shaking his head.
Agent Angel lit the cigar. Spirals of smoke wafted upwards, and the smell of tobacco slowly filled the room.
“That was quite a performance you put in earlier, John,” said Agent Angel.
Professor Schwarzkopf gulped his Bourbon down nervously.
“I’ve never seen you so fired up. I should put you on the front line. You could teach my rookies a thing or two,” he laughed. “Jean Kurtz thinks you’ve gone loco and wants you off the base.”
“Is that why she was smiling?”
“I told her that you were crazy, and I would consider her proposal. This is me considering.”
“I am happy for you to send me off the base, Buddy. We both know that I would prefer to enjoy my retirement at home.”
“And shooting my number one lab rat in the head may well have seen that happen. I couldn’t have a liability on the base. Everyone would wonder what you were going to do next, and I would be compelled to move you on,” he smirked and shook his head. “You’re a clever man, John, and you knew what you were doing. I’ll say it again. That was quite a performance! But that was what it was, wasn’t it? Just a performance?”
“You’ve known me long enough, Buddy,” replied Professor Schwarzkopf ambiguously.
“Baam! Just as I thought!” Agent Angel whooped. “Agent Hoover patched the footage of your little show right through to my desk. The moment you entered the room, I knew nothing was going to happen. I can see when someone will pull the trigger. Your eyes just didn’t have the killer instinct. I watched you turn away from the camera and point the revolver towards its head, but unlike Kurtz I knew it was show. The way you strode in front of the camera as if you were on stage and then waited for the guard to bring you down. You had no intention to kill White King. That’s what I told Kurtz, though she wasn’t pleased to hear it,” he paused and enjoyed his cigar.
“After I had said that, she tried to argue, but I wouldn’t budge, so she changed the subject. She said that she wants us to revise our thinking with regards to White King. She said that your actions today made her realise its importance and that we should get it back to full health. What do you think?”
Professor Schwarzkopf looked at the ceiling dismissively.
“You know that I don’t like to agree with Jean Kurtz.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Honestly, it doesn’t matter what you think. Kurtz has already convinced me, and I have to admit that letting it die would probably be a mistake in the long term. We don’t want to kill our prized specimen before we have fully exploited it!”
“Anything else, Buddy?”
“No. Your work over the last few weeks is to be applauded. Despite your moaning, you’re an OSS man. You’re my man, and my men don’t shoot prisoners, unless they have orders. You are too important, and even Kurtz grudgingly knows that you are invaluable to the team. That’s one of the reasons she hates you so much. I would like you to keep up your good work without any more theatrics. You can do that for me, can’t you, John?”
Professor Schwarzkopf finished off his drink before answering. He had successfully found out how long guards took to react when an alarm was triggered, and he had reversed the fortunes of Eric Meyer. He was in a good mood.
He joked, “If my punishment for almost shooting someone in the head is your best Bourbon then I cannot promise you that.”
Agent Angel laughed and poured them both another drink.
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***
Chapter 18 – Troubling Events
After Eric’s last operation, the level of care he had been receiving improved dramatically. Doctors regularly checked on him throughout the day and asked questions about his health. Eric felt like a patient for once, rather than a piece of meat. They prescribed different medicines for the pain he was suffering from, vitamin supplements for his health and made sure he had a nutritious diet.
Unfortunately, Eric could not shake the feeling that he was being treated like a calf before being slaughtered. The idea did not occur to him until a plain-looking woman visited him. Like the other doctors, she had asked him questions, and he had told her how he felt better.
Her response caused him the most concern, “Good. We need our prize specimen in full health.” Nothing else was said. She turned the corners of her mouth up into a patronizing smile and then left him.
A week later, Eric was feeling well enough to get out of bed. On that day, he pulled back the cover and gingerly swung his feet onto the floor. He moved around his room freely, appreciating every step that he took, after so long being bed-ridden. An hour later, he had been ‘bagged’ and taken back to the pitch-black cell.
The cell had not been changed, as far as he could tell. The moment they took the bag off his head, he realised where he was. He had tried to fight with his captors, but they were prepared. One punch to his stomach and he was left gasping for air on the hard bed.
Unlike his last stay in this cell, the food was much better. He had to rush to the letter box before the rat but felt compassionate towards the small creature, as he sat on the floor eating. When it got within distance, Eric would shoot out a hand and hold it on his knee. The rat squeaked and shook itself, trying desperately to escape from Eric’s grasp. Only food made it struggle less. After a few days, the rat came to accept the routine but Eric could not accept his. Once the food was finished, the rodent could scuttle away. He did not have that luxury.
Eric knew the rat was using him, and the conversation was one-sided, but Eric appreciated his dinner-time companion. If this rat could survive down here in the dark and leave when it pleased, then so would he.
Eric had just finished a meal and was sitting on the floor focusing on Ursula, when the door opened. The light was blinding, but he chose not to move. Two silhouettes approached him, placed a bag roughly over his head and lifted him off his feet. Eric did not even consider fighting back. He had had enough of being beaten every time he lashed out and knew that some battles he could not win.
A few months earlier, the mere thought that he could not win at something would have made him even more determined to succeed. However, this was no longer the case and, begrudgingly, he had come to accept it.
The guards dropped him onto a wheelchair. His hands were tied to the armrests so tightly that Eric could feel the binding digging into his skin.
One of the guards slapped Eric on the shoulders and said in a patronising manner, “Good boy! Haven’t we learnt a lot since being here.”
The wheelchair was pushed down the corridor and once again Eric used all his remaining senses to follow the journey. It was no different to the last time, and he knew that they were following the same route.
They travelled away from the infirmary, through or past some kind of engineering workshop, over different floors until they eventually stopped in a small space. The temperature was warmer here, and he could sense again that the two accompanying guards were not at ease.
A door opened, and one person came out with heavy steps.
“Wait here,” ordered Agent Angel. “I’ll take it inside.”
Eric was wheeled into the warm room. He was aware of images as light broke through the bag on his head, but he could not make them out. The wheelchair moved away from the light, towards darkness, and he could soon see nothing but black. From the furthest corner of the room, Eric could hear the same rasping, breathing noise as last time. He braced himself as the wheelchair approached it, slowed and then stopped. He was right in front of a being which was making a sound that he had never heard anywhere except in this room. Eric prepared himself. If he could, he wanted to avoid the same experience when he had last been here.
The time, Eric knew what was going to happen and prepared himself. He filled his head with happy memories, hoping they would help him keep control of his mind. Time passed, and Eric entered a trance-like state. On a continual loop, he repeated the same memory of sledging in
Champex over and over again. Nothing interrupted the pattern but gradually he found himself becoming tired. The level of concentration required for the continual repetition of only one memory was immense. In front of him, the being had not moved but had continued to breathe in its slow, rasping manner.
Agent Angel suddenly whistled the Star Bangled Banner right into Eric’s ear. For a fraction of a second, Eric was distracted from his memory and then, like before, he was losing his mind. Memories that he had no control over, and ones that he had tried to forget, flashed through his head like a strobe light. They were working forward in time from his earliest memory like someone flicking through pages in a book about his life. Once again, he felt dizzy, nauseous, and he could not escape the sensation that he was falling.
The rasping being was targeting his brain. Eric knew that it was searching through his memories, and he fought back. Rather than think of happy events, he focused on the mind of his attacker. Countless parts of Eric’s life were flashing through his head but gradually they slowed until they stopped completely. A dull image of his cell rat froze behind his eyes and then suddenly it all began again. Memories gained in speed but this time they worked backwards through his life towards his earliest recollections.
In less than a few seconds, they stopped. It was as if someone had pressed pause on his head, and one static image remained – a frame from the news broadcast announcing that his parents had been killed. The memory filled Eric with rage, and the emotion drove him into a long dark tunnel. Behind him were his memories, getting smaller and smaller as he sped away from them. At last they were gone, but he had reached a barrier. The anger inside him pushed hard against it. He realised as he pushed again and again that he was literally going out of his mind.
The barrier pushed back. Eric used his anger to push harder, and he felt it give. The rasping noise in front of him stopped and was replaced with a high-pitched inward breath that sounded as if it would never end.
Eric screwed up his face and concentrated as he had never done so before. He could feel pressure building up behind his eyes, and his head began to ache. Just as he thought his eyes would pop out of their sockets, the barrier gave way.