Blitzkrieg: Origins of the Prime: A Superhero Spy Thriller (20 page)

Dawn opened her eyes, but could not see the room where she and Rolf stood, only what was in her mind. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. Rolf noticed the almost panicked expression on her face. He walked over to her. “Psion, are you alright?” he asked, but she did not respond. She could not hear him. She could not hear anything in the physical world. Then, suddenly, she could hear everything.

“Psion. Dawn!” Rolf shouted, now scared of what was happening.

Suddenly, Dawn began to levitate up into the air.

“Agent Williams?” Rolf said. He was getting very scared. He tried hard not to cry. He didn’t know how to help her. He wished Tom and Axel were with him. “Axel!” he shouted. “Tom!” But no one responded.

Suddenly, Dawn’s body went limp and she fell. Rolf reached out and caught her just before she hit the floor. “Dawn,” he whispered as tears welled up in his eyes, but she did not respond.

Chapter 20

Arnulf rushed quickly along the corridor. He had taken what could best be described as an elevator down deep into the ground, into the bowels of the “alien base.” It had been decades since he had been here, but he had walked these corridors in his mind every day since then. He wanted to make sure that he did not forget.

It was common knowledge that the Fuhrer was obsessed with the occult. Hitler hoped to use magic and magical relics to conquer all of the world. Thus, he was willing to listen to any rumor or myth of some lost city or relic or the supernatural. Arnulf did not believe in the supernatural—he was a scientist at heart—but he did believe in extraterrestrial life. After all, only a short-sighted fool would believe mankind was alone in the infinite vastness of the universe.

French archaeologists had discovered the temple just before the war, but they did not know what they had found. When Arnulf read the reports of a temple in Indochina containing writings of ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, and Mesoamerican, he was intrigued. How could that be?

Following the French surrender to Germany in 1940, all of France’s colonial possessions in Asia were ceded to Germany’s ally, Japan. After all, Germany had neither the desire nor the ability to administer those territories while fighting a war in Europe. However, Arnulf and his superiors had convinced the Fuhrer to require the Japanese agree that the temple and the surrounding land would belong to Germany. Japan was more than happy to do so. They were too consumed with their own conquests of Asia and the Pacific to worry about what relics some ancient temple in the jungles of Indochina might contain.

In 1941, Arnulf received permission to lead an expedition to the temple. Guided there by the French archaeologists that originally discovered it, the Nazis found it easily. Over the next few years, German and French scientists worked diligently to unlock the secrets held within. Arnulf visited at least once a year to check their progress until his final visit in 1944.

The alien base contained many secrets that the Nazis found useful. They deciphered what appeared to be a map showing the locations of other bases throughout the world. They unlocked the secrets to creating anti-gravity devices. They discovered zero point energy—which was the source of the base’s power—just a small amount of which could power the whole of the earth. Zero point energy could also be used to create a bomb that could destroy it. The Nazis even figured out how to create a worm hole—a tear in the fabric of time and space—though that met with disastrous results when attempted.

Arnulf was pleased with all of those accomplishments. Unfortunately for him and his countrymen, though fortunate for the rest of humanity, the development of most of those technologies came too late to prevent the fall of the Third Reich. The technology Arnulf was most interested in, however, was the biotech that the aliens had seemingly developed. The computer systems, the controls, everything was a combination of organic and synthetic materials. Arnulf seemed to be the only one with enough vision to understand what this really meant. Not only could this revolutionize human technology, but the more immediate revelation was that the base was really a large, living being. All that was lacking was willpower, that part of the brain that gives creatures their desire to take certain actions. Thus, the alien base—creature, whatever it was—just waited until it was activated and given a command or direction.

Over the years, Arnulf developed theories on how that could be accomplished. Essentially, an alien, and theoretically a human, could have its mind melded to the base itself. There were several points throughout the base where Arnulf believed one could communicate directly with the base itself. One of those was up above his current location, the room from which he had fled team Blitzkrieg.

Far below the main floor, there was a central area that had always boggled the minds of the scientists, but Arnulf thought he understood its purpose—central control. From there someone could “plug” themselves in and control the entire base. He just had to get there before those idiot Slavs or Jews stopped him.

***

Axel followed Alena, sprinting as fast as he could to keep up. He turned a corner behind her and then watched as she disappeared in a flash. “Hey wait!” Axel shouted as he chased after her.

Axel finally caught up with her in a circular room that was surrounded by large tubes. Alena stood in the center, staring up at them. “What is this?” Axel asked, stepping beside her and looking around the room.

“A dead end,” Alena frowned.

“No,” Axel shook his head. “These tubes lead somewhere.”

“I’m sure they do,” Alena said. “But it’s a long way down.” Axel tilted his head to look at her quizzically. “See for yourself,” she said motioning toward a tube with her hand.

Axel stepped past Alena and poked his head into the opening of one of the tubes and looked straight down. There was no floor. The tube went down, down, down. The bottom was lost in the darkness. “Whoa,” Axel said and stepped backward.

“See what I mean?” Alena asked. “We must have missed something, another hatch that he closed maybe. They seem to blend in perfectly with the walls, like the wall itself opens, making them almost impossible to see.” She shook her head, frustrated with herself. “I ran by too fast, I’ve got to slow down and pay attention,” she complained more to herself than to him. “Lets go back and…” she began, but Axel placed a hand on her arm stopping her.

“How did you find us?” Axel asked.

“What do you mean?” Alena said with a perplexed look.

Axel turned his eyes away from the tube to focus on Alena. “You know what I mean. Arnulf led us to the temple, but how did you and Gerd…I mean…Alexi find it?”

Alena glanced down at her feet. “We already knew where the temple was.”

“Arnulf told you?” Axel asked.

Alena shook her head. “No. Apparently the Nazis had used local Vietnamese as slaves working out here. The Vietnamese figured it had to be important if the Germans were this interested in it. They told our government and…” she let it trail off. “Well anyway, we’ve known about this place a long time.”

Axel stood staring at her. “So, what do you need Arnulf for?”

“Unfortunately, the Vietnamese executed all of the Nazi scientists before we could interrogate them and learn how to access it.” She shook her head. “After decades, our scientists still could not get anywhere. Basically, we need Arnulf to unlock it.”

“Then why keep him in Siberia, why not bring him to Vietnam?”

Alena laughed. “Arnulf hates us,” she said. “He is a Nazi. He hates communists, he hates Slavs, he hates Russia, he hates the Soviet Union. He would never help us unlock this place. But the Americans…”

“What about the Americans?” Axel asked defensively. He did not like what she was implying.

“Well, while we would certainly offer him a chance to live if he would serve the Motherland, the Americans would offer him freedom, money, power.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Axel said and turned away.

“Is it?” Alena asked.

“So, that thing in Siberia,” he said, “that was just a setup. You planned for us to escape all along.”

“We had several contingencies. But yes, your escaping was one of them.” Then she too turned away. “Come on, we’re wasting time talking.”

“No,” Axel said. “You said you needed Arnulf to unlock this place. He knew how to unlock it, because his people had figured it out.”

“Presumably,” Alena replied.

“Have you ever heard of the small flying disks allied pilots reported seeing over Berlin in the final days of the War?”

“Yes.”

“Our office would very much like to figure out how the Germans did that. One theory is they were space aliens observing the war.” Axel chuckled. “Until recently, I thought that was absurd.” He shook his head and continued. “Another theory is that the Germans had somehow figured out anti-gravity.” Axel turned back to smile at her. “Imagine that. Anti-gravity.” He turned back to the tubes and unsnapped the radio from his belt, tossing it into the tube closest to him. Instead of falling as one would expect, it floated in the tube as if by magic. Axel turned to smile at Alena. “I’m going to guess that both may be accurate.”

Alena’s eyes went wide. She rushed over to the tube and stuck her hand inside. It felt no different. “But how…?”

Axel shrugged. “There is some kind of electro field, I know that much. I’m highly sensitive when it comes to electricity and I could feel it when I stuck my head inside. Clearly they have technology much more advanced than our own.”

Alena nodded at the understatement as she peered back into the tube. “So what do we do?” she asked.

Axel walked past her and stood in front of the opening of the tube. He turned around, turning his back to the tube and smiled at Alena. She stared back at him. He gave her a little wink and then stepped backward into the tube. Her mouth fell open as he appeared to just float there. He retrieved his radio and clipped it to his belt again. He held out his hand to her. She hesitated, but then stepped forward and took his fingers, allowing him to pull her inside. They were close, floating face-to-face.

Alena swallowed and glanced away from Axel, not wanting to meet his eyes. She looked down into the darkness below their feet, but quickly looked back up. He smiled at her. “So now what do we do?” she asked in an almost whisper.

“I don’t see a down button,” he smiled causing Alena to laugh.

“Can we just ask it to take us to the floor that the other guy went to?” Alena laughed.

“I sure wish it were that ea…” Axel began but his voice was caught in his throat as he and Alena fell at free fall speed. Her eyes were filled with the terror he felt. They flung their arms around each other holding on tightly as they fell. Then they began to slow and came to a stop at another opening in the tube. Alena scrambled to get out and Axel was right behind her. Once outside of the tube, Axel bent over and placed his hands on his knees. “Oh my God,” he said.

Once she had recovered, Alena glanced at Axel, who was straightening again. “Did that work? Are we on the correct floor?” she asked.

“Only one way to find out,” he said. He jogged past her and she followed. After a few moments they saw Arnulf in a room at the end of the long corridor. “There he is,” Axel said.

“I’ve got him,” Alena replied and dashed away in a red blur.

Arnulf stood before a large cone atop a raised platform. Alena stopped a few feet behind him. “Stop Colonel,” she said. He slowly turned to face her.

“Stop what, my dear?” Arnulf asked. Axel arrived and stood beside Alena. “Ah, I see you two are working together now. I’m sure your governments will love that.” He smiled through the sarcasm.

“What are you doing?” Axel demanded.

“Me?” Arnulf asked as if truly shocked that they would even care. “I am unlocking the base. Isn’t that what you both wanted?” Axel glanced at Alena, but she kept her eyes firmly on Arnulf. “Isn’t that why I was brought along, Axel?”

Suddenly, the wall of a giant upside down metal cone behind Arnulf parted as the cone itself more-or-less twisted open. Arnulf kept his eyes on the two of them as he stepped backward, up the steps toward the opening.

Alena pulled a small sword from a sheath on her back. “Stop right there, Colonel,” she commanded. “If you do not, I swear I’ll kill you.”

Arnulf’s eyes flicked to Axel’s. “Are you on her side?” he asked. “Are you going to let her kill me?”

Axel turned to Alena. He had strict orders not to kill Arnulf. “Alena, what are you doing?”

“What I should have done a long time ago,” she said, but before she could move Axel grabbed her arm.

“Alena, we need him. Both of us.” Alena turned to face Axel rage burning in her eyes. As she did so, Arnulf turned and scrambled up the steps and darted inside the cone. Alena jerked away from Axel and dashed after Arnulf, but she wasn’t fast enough. The cone twisted closed, sealing Arnulf inside.

“Dammit Axel!” Alena shouted as she turned back toward her old friend. “I had him! Stop getting in my way!” she shouted angrily through narrow eyes.

Axel stared at the wall behind which Arnulf had disappeared. They had him trapped inside the cone. Where did Alena think he was going to go?

***

Arnulf watched as the walls slid closed by twisting together, sealing him inside the cone as if there were no wall at all. He inhaled deeply, both nervous and excited. His heart pounded in his chest. He was not positive this would work. He was not positive he would survive even if it did work, but it was worth the risk. If he was correct and if he did survive, he would become the most powerful being on earth.

Arnulf turned and laid his hands upon the walls of the cone. He felt the walls move, like skin and muscle churning beneath his fingertips. He felt the organic material creep up over his fingers and hands and then up his arms. The sensation was strange, but none of this was unexpected. The organic matter crept over his entire body, closing in over him. Soon all he could see was darkness. He felt closed in. He felt like he was going to suffocate. He suddenly regretted this. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.