Blitzkrieg: Origins of the Prime: A Superhero Spy Thriller (3 page)

“Thank you, Herr Colonel.”

“You know we originally attempted these procedures with good, strong German women. Aryan women. They all died. Almost a score of them. All given twins just like you. Only one carried to term and gave birth. She had a beautiful set of perfect blond haired, blue eyed Aryan babies. Freyr and Freyja—we named them after the Norse gods. That was nearly five years ago. Then it was decided that we could not keep wasting the best and brightest of our German women. We needed to perfect the process. There were plenty of Jews, Slavs, communists and other undesirables to test. Hundreds have died. Only one other carried to term. Just yesterday actually. A boy and a girl. The boy was even larger than Rolf at twenty-three pounds. Unfortunately, the mother was not as strong as you and died.” His face turned somber and he gave her hand a little squeeze before releasing it. “A Slav named Chessa, I think.”

Brygida gasped at the news of her friend’s death. Emotions shot to the surface. Chessa was dead? She wanted to scream, cry, something, but she quickly erased the fear, sadness, and disgust that she knew etched her face. It would do no good to reveal her true feelings to the Colonel. She was determined to survive. She had to survive for her sons. She and her boys would escape one day.

“But not my Brygida,” he continued. “I am so excited, because I picked you personally.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Thank you, my dear.” He turned and began to walk away.

“Herr Colonel?”

“Yes?” he asked as he stopped by the door.

“When can I see my babies?”

Arnulf smiled pleasantly. “Oh, my dear, you have too much important work to do. We need you to get busy birthing the Fuhrer more super soldiers. But don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your children.” With that he turned and left the room allowing the door to swing closed behind him.

“No,” she whispered as the revelation slammed into her like a ton of bricks. “No!” she shouted now. “No, please! Colonel! Please Colonel! Colonel!” she screamed, but it did no good. He ignored her. Brygida placed her hands in her palms and wept.

Chapter 2

Germany

1945

“Axel!” the voice snapped.

“Yes, Herr Doctor?” the young boy replied as he turned to face the doctor. Axel looked like a typical little boy, his shirt partially untucked, the laces of his right shoe undone, and his hair a mess.

Dr. Herbert Holger sighed as he looked down at Axel. He was a kindly looking, gray haired man with round spectacles and unkempt mustache. He knelt down in front of the boy and placed a hand on each of Axel’s shoulders. “Pay attention,” he said softly.

“Yes, Herr Doctor,” Axel replied.

As he stood, Dr. Holger’s eyes leapt from Axel to the other three children in the room. “As I was saying, this is Dr. Ernst Volker, from Berlin,” Dr. Holger said as he motioned to the other man in the room, also sporting a white lab coat. “Dr. Volker is in charge of our little project here and would like to see a demonstration of your abilities.”

Axel’s eyes leapt up to his brother, Rolf. Rolf was at least twice his height, huge for a boy not quite five, but Axel did not realize it was unusual. After all, an equally large boy named Gerd stood on the other side of Rolf.

Rolf was clearly scared of this new man in a lab coat, this Dr. Volker. Axel did not understand why. He seemed as harmless as Dr. Holger. He was a bit younger, his thick, dark hair not yet grayed over completely, but nothing about him made him stand out from any of the other scientists and technicians they saw on a daily basis. Rolf turned to look down at Axel and Axel could see he was about to cry. He reached out and took his brother’s hand in his. This comforted the larger boy somewhat and Rolf smiled weakly at Axel. Axel looked past Rolf to Gerd and Gerd’s twin sister, Kristel. Like Axel, Kristel was holding her brother’s hand in an effort to comfort him.

Dr. Volker smiled warmly at the four children before turning to Dr. Holger. “And all four are the same age?” he asked.

“Yes, Herr Doctor,” Dr. Holger replied. “In fact Gerd and Kristel are only a few hours older than Axel and Rolf,” he said.

“Yet the two boys in the middle are physically very advanced,” Dr. Volker noted. “Fascinating.”

“Yes,” Dr. Holger replied with a smile and then leaned toward Dr. Volker, speaking softly to him, but Axel heard what was said. “However, mentally, they are both far behind their siblings. Perhaps a side-effect of the testosterone.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Volker replied. “Well, let us see what they can do.”

“Yes, Herr Doctor,” Dr. Holger replied. He started to speak to Kristel, but thought better of it and turned back to Dr. Volker. “Do you have a pocket watch?” he asked the other scientist.

“I do,” Dr. Volker replied.

“Perhaps you could time Kristel to see how fast she moves.”

“Of course,” Dr. Volker replied as his hand went into his pocket.

Dr. Holger turned to Kristel smiling gently at the young girl. She stood rocking back and forth on her heels, her hands clasped behind her back and the dimples in her her cheeks clearly evident due to her toothy smile. “My dear, I seem to have forgotten my pen in my office, would you mind fetching it for me?”

“Of course not, Herr Doctor,” she said and in a flash she was gone, dashing past both scientists and causing their white lab coats to flutter from the wind. Barely a breath had been taken before she once again stood before Dr. Holger presenting his pen to him as various office papers fluttered about the lab from where they had been disrupted by her wake.

Dr. Holger could not suppress a chuckle. “Thank you, Kristel,” he said as he accepted the pen. He turned to Dr. Volker his eyes dropping to the hand still inside Dr. Volker’s pocket, having not even removed the watch yet. Dr. Holger caught Dr. Volker’s eyes, forcing them from staring wide at Kristel. “Whenever you are ready, Dr. Volker,” Dr. Holger said.

Dr. Volker finally blinked and he removed his watch from his pocket before looking back up at Dr. Holger and then at the little girl. He turned and glanced behind him at the doorway she had run out of and returned back through. Then he looked at the girl again. He smiled broadly and then his smile turned into a boisterous laugh as his eyes met Dr. Holger’s again.

“Well played, Herbert,” he said as he shook his finger back and forth at the other scientist with a smile. “That was certainly impressive, my dear,” he said to Kristel.

“Thank you, Herr Doctor,” Kristel said, her cheeks blushing a bit.

Dr. Volker turned toward Axel. “What can this one do?” he asked as he pointed at the boy.

Dr. Holger chuckled. “Axel fancies himself a magician,” Dr. Holger said. “Don’t you Axel?”

“Yes, Herr Doctor,” Axel replied with a confident smile.

“A magician?” Dr. Volker asked, clearly confused.

Dr. Holger smiled. “It seems Dr. Volker requires some convincing, Axel. Kindly show him a magic trick.”

“Yes, sir,” Axel said excitedly. He slipped his hand into his pocket and produced a pack of cards and was about to remove them from their box when Dr. Holger interrupted him. “I do not believe Dr. Volker is interested in slight of hand, Axel. Why not show him the trick with the bulbs?”

Axel frowned and his shoulders slumped a bit. He had been practicing a new card trick for weeks and was excited to demonstrate it to someone new. Disappointed, he returned the cards to his pocket and walked over to the table where several bulbs had been set out. He reached down and picked one up and placed it into his mouth. Then he picked up two more, one in each hand. He returned to the doctors.

“Well?” asked Dr. Volker. Suddenly all three bulbs lit up burning brightly. The doctor smiled. Then the lights began to perform a sort of dance as they would blink in and out, one at a time, in different patterns. Rolf and Gerd began to laugh excitedly while clapping their hands. They loved all of Axel’s “tricks,” but the light bulb trick was their favorite. “Well done, young man,” Doctor Volker smiled at him. He then turned to Dr. Holger. “Are there military applications?” he asked.

“Right now we are working on controlling his power. Sometimes he loses control, especially when he gets upset, and things get messy. So yes, there will be some military applications as he gets older and learns to focus.”

A smile spread across Dr. Volker’s face. “Excellent.” Dr. Volker’s eyes then cut to Rolf and Gerd. “Now what about the big ones?” he asked.

Dr. Holger hesitated a bit. “They are a bit shy, Herr Doctor,” he said as Rolf and Gerd withdrew within themselves. Dr. Holger stepped over to them and knelt down in front of them. He smiled and placed a fatherly arm on each of their shoulders. “Could you please show Dr. Volker how strong you are?” he asked. The boys glanced quickly at Dr. Volker before their eyes dropped back to Dr. Holger. “Please,” he said again. They looked at each other for reassurance before nodding. Dr. Holger smiled brightly. “Thank you.”

The doctor stood and took each boy by the hand leading them both over to a set of barbells situated at the far side of the room. Each boy took turns lifting the one marked “200 lbs” over his head. Dr. Volker’s eyes went wide at seeing five year old boys with such strength. He rushed over to the barbell and tried to lift it himself, half believing it must be some sort of trick, but found that he could not.

Dr. Holger smiled at him. “It is not a trick, Herr Doctor,” he said. “Their strength is…staggering.”

Dr. Volker slapped Dr. Holger on the shoulder. “Well done, Herbert. Your, err, pupils are quite impressive,” he said. “I think it is time we showed this off. Let everyone know the success of our program. You will bring them to Berlin for a demonstration.”

“Berlin?” Dr. Holger asked. “And who will be there?”

“Colonel Arnulf is anxious to see your work himself.”

“Of course, Herr Doctor,” Dr. Holger said trying to hide the fear in his voice.

“Freyr and Freyja shall be there as well,” Volker said smiling at his greatest achievement to date. “It will be quite the spectacle.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Holger mumbled.

Dr. Volker was excited when he left. He was certain that he would be rewarded for his department’s success. Like many Nazis, he ignored the inconvenient fact that it was too late. The Allies were moving in on all sides and there was nothing that could stop them now. Certainly not a handful of young children, even if they did possess incredible superhuman powers and abilities.

Dr. Holger smiled down at his “pupils” as Dr. Volker had called them. Dr. Holger thought of them more as his children than his pupils. He and his staff had raised them from infancy, and he was the closest thing to a father any of them had. Furthermore, Holger had never married and had no children of his own. They were as much family to him as anyone he knew.

“Well done, children,” he smiled proudly at them and they smiled back. Then he knelt down and held his arms wide. The four children rushed to him excitedly, wrapping their arms around him. He tried to enjoy the moment, knowing that it would not last for long. He did not want to go to Berlin. He wanted to stay right there where the Americans or British would certainly soon reach his laboratory and would free these children.

Unlike Dr. Volker, who had been a card carrying Nazi for years, Dr. Holger was not a Nazi idealist. Sure, he was a member of the party, just as everyone who wanted to eat and stay out of the camps were, but he did not believe in the Nazi ideas of racial purity. He did however, believe that mankind had the capability to scientifically improve itself physically. None of these children were of pure Aryan blood. Axel and Rolf’s mother was a Polish Jew and Kristel and Gerd’s mother was Slavic. Yet look at the amazing things science had accomplished with them. Dr. Holger was quite proud of these achievements, even while conveniently forgetting about the hundreds of women who had to die to make it a reality, and the role he played in that.

“We will be going to Berlin,” he told the children. They each glanced at the others. “Berlin is different. There will be people there that are not scientists. They will each have their own agenda and it may be different from ours. Do you understand?”

Axel and Kristel nodded. Gerd and Rolf were perplexed, but they smiled at the doctor anyway.

***

Axel laid in his bed, staring at the ceiling of the small room he shared with Rolf while his brother snored gently from his own bed. Axel didn’t know why, but he was nervous about the demonstration in Berlin. He heard a tap on the door and sat up. He watched as the door slowly opened and Kristel stuck her head inside. He smiled at her and she waved for him to follow her.

Axel tossed the blankets off and swung his feet down to the cold floor. He glanced back, checking one more time to make sure Rolf was still asleep and then crossed the room and stepped through the door. Kristel smiled and took Axel by the hand leading him through Dr. Holger’s lab, past the bedroom the on-duty technician used, and up the stairs. They went all the way up to the top and Kristel unlocked the door, opened it, and stepped out onto the roof.

The night air was cool as Kristel and Axel strolled across the roof, she in a gown and he in pajamas. It was not their first time to sneak up to the roof. In fact, they did so about once a week. The two children had a lot in common. Besides the obvious, that they lived in the same lab, had been genetically engineered by German scientists and were the same age, they also both had twin brothers with amazing size and strength, but underdeveloped mental capacity. Because of the latter, Axel and Kristel could not really share their thoughts and fears with Rolf and Gerd. Thus, they became each other’s confidant.

The two children sat at the edge of the roof, feet dangling over the edge as they held each other’s hand and stared out into the night sky. After a while, Kristel turned to Axel. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.