A History of What Comes Next

1 Sentimental Journey

What’s a little girl like you doing so close to the front lines? That’s what he said, in German, of course. It’s a very good question, though “little girl” is a bit of a stretch. I’m nineteen years old, not five. We did always look younger than our age. Anyway, I think a better question is why I walked up to the SS instead of sneaking in. It seemed like a good idea not five minutes ago. Relax, Mia. This is going to work.

Needless to say, I didn’t want to come. It’s 1945 and it’s fucking World War II. Pardon the language. I’ve been hanging out with American GIs for a month. Still, I was seven years old when I left Germany. I never dreamed I’d see it again. I don’t remember much, but I thought… I hoped being here would feel—I don’t know—special. Childhood memories, familiar smells, anything.

They flew me into France with US soldiers from the XXI Corps. A bunch of rude loudmouths, swearing and spitting everywhere. I liked them the minute I saw them. They snuck me into Germany through an unmanned gap in the Siegfried Line. I walked a dozen miles through farmland before I found a German farmer willing to drive me to the nearest town deserving of a train station. From there I spent—I don’t know exactly—what felt like a decade on a near-empty train making my way northeast.

I slept through Bremen and Hamburg. The Allies pummeled Hamburg to dust. I didn’t want to see it. Not the crumbled buildings, not the shattered lives. Certainly not the dead. I’ve seen the war in black-and-white. Fifty thousand civilians burned alive is not something I need in living color. I stayed awake for barley. And beets. Beets and barley and the endless sound of train tracks. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.

I watched people come in and out. Little vignettes of human resilience. Children in soldier’s uniforms hovering between tears and laughter. Haggard nurses leaving one hell for another. A man and his boy fleeing the night raids. Like most, they don’t speak, except for the occasional “Put your head down, son” when gray-green greatcoats and jackboots plod the aisle. Ordinary people in extraordinary times. We all stare at the yellow fields, pretending none of this is real. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.

We crossed a small bridge near Rostock. There was a body floating in the river below. A woman. She was drifting facedown, her red polka-dot dress bulging with air. She could have been anyone. Sixteen or sixty. All I know is she was dead and no one seemed to notice her but me. I kept waiting for someone to see her. They didn’t. I stared for as long as I could. I twisted my neck backwards, hugging the window until she vanished behind us. I had to see her. I don’t know why. I couldn’t let her… not matter like that.

The man and his boy got off at the last station. An hour later I was here, Peenemünde Army Research Center, where Wernher von Braun is building the V-2 rocket. It’s a city, was a city. Airport, power plant, miles and miles of train tracks. Twelve thousand people lived here, I think, before the Brits bombed the shit out of it. The factories are gone now; so are the slave workers. All that’s left are the scientists. A few thousand brains in a town too big for them.

This place gave up a long time ago. The main building sits alone, as if they forgot to build the world around it. It’s ugly, functional, as nondescript as it gets. The walls don’t bother to hide their scars anymore. Burnt bricks. Boarded windows. Empty streets and run-down structures. Whoever kept things up around here is either dead or gone. Even the grass knows it lost the war. Everything smells… I don’t know what it smells like. Musty. Sad, mostly. I shouldn’t be here. I miss my home, my bed. I miss… I miss Mother.

She said I had to come. “It has to be done, Mia.” I understand. It was her work that enabled them all, including Wernher von Braun, the man I’m here for. A hundred lifetimes had led us to Berlin. Our work, our legacy was here, spread around in the minds of thousands. Willingly or not, they were all working for the devil now, using the knowledge we gave them. Soon, Germany would lose and all that knowledge could be gone. We can’t have that. Preserve the knowledge. That’s the rule. Mother said that’s all she cares about, but I know she can’t stand Hitler using us that way. I just wish she’d come herself.

Hitler should have had von Braun executed six months ago. They’ve already lost. They just don’t know it yet. Everyone else is playing another game, fighting for the spoils. To the victors, they say. Well, the victors will pillage this country. They’ll pick it clean like vultures. The only question now is who gets the meatier parts. The Americans really want von Braun, but the one thing they want even more is to make sure no one else gets him. That’s why they sent me. I’m nineteen and I’m supposed to shoot a German rocket scientist if they can’t get their hands on him before the Russians do. I say shoot. I’m sure they’d be fine with strangle, drown, tickle to death, but men sent me, so I know they had a gun in mind. These are the same folks who think a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Either there, or in a German compound. Go figure.

Mother set it all up. She works as a mathematician for the OSS. The Office of Strategic Services. There’s nothing particularly strategic about them. Mother had the right résumé, she made sure of that, but these people will recruit just about anyone. They hired a player from the Red Sox—the Boston fucking Red Sox—to pose as a Swiss physics student and—I love this part—kill Germany’s top nuclear scientist if it looked like they were close to building an atomic weapon. They hired Julia Child. The chef! They’ll also send someone’s daughter behind enemy lines without thinking twice, apparently. They call it Operation Paperclip. I don’t know why they call it that. I didn’t ask. Mother said I had to come, so I did.

Here I am, five months later, making puppy eyes at the SS. That’s, literally, what the OSS asked me to do. They used those words. Look pretty and make puppy eyes if you get in trouble.

I think I am. I messed up. I told them I was Wernher von Braun’s niece, Lili. That’s what I said. I said niece. I was supposed to say cousin, but I’m so scared I should be glad I managed to say anything. Niece is bad, though. A cousin is vague enough. Everyone has cousins they’ve never met. Niece… He’ll say: “What niece? I don’t have a niece named Lili.” Even if he’s curious enough to play along, the SS will know something’s up just by the look on his face. Stop thinking, Mia. What’s done is done. Puppy eyes.

It almost sounded easy the way Mother put it. “Von Braun will understand. He’s a smart man, and he’s a scientist. He only cares about the work, Mia, not who he does it for.” I hope so. Our plan, the one where I come out of this alive, sort of hinges on that man’s survival instinct. I just wish…

I know why I came, I can see it from here. The steel tower. The high-sloped sand wall. That’s Test Stand VII. Von Braun’s V-2 launched from there and became the first man-made object to make it to space. Right over there, October 3, 1942. I am standing here, legs shaking, in the cradle of spaceflight. This is a place of science, home to one of mankind’s greatest achievements. Wernher von Braun perfected that rocket on the top floor of the building behind me. That’s what Mother wants me to see. She wants me to see the top floor, not the empty concentration camp in the basement.

There’s a concrete footway going from this building to the next. Whoever designed it made it turn at a right angle. Aesthetics, I guess. People, of course, took the direct route. The dirt path they made is three feet wide, and a good eight inches deep. It would take… megatons of cumulated pressure to do that. Droves of starved people in striped uniforms walking to a slow death over and over again. This whole town was built by slave workers; so were the rockets. This is a place of science, and a place of oppression, and a place of suffering.

Countless died—That’s not true. I’m sure the Germans counted them. They all died and not a single person here ever did anything to stop it. Not the young SS staring at me in his one-size-too-big uniform. Not the engineers, not the accountants. Certainly not Wernher von Braun. His rockets rained on London by the thousands—death falling from the heavens—but they killed more people making that weapon than they did using it. I doubt he could have stopped any of it, but we’ll never know because he didn’t try. His commitment never wavered, even after the Gestapo arrested him for treason. Von Braun is a man of science. He’s also an SS officer. How many good men own an SS uniform?

I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The US would want him if he hunted kittens for sport, and I won’t come out of here alive without his help. If von Braun is a true believer, he’ll turn me in to the SS. If he’s a bad actor, he’ll turn me in to the SS. If he wants to surrender to the Soviets, he’ll turn me in to the SS. All he has to do is stay here if that’s what he wants. Russian troops are less than a hundred miles away.

I’ve been waiting for a good thirty minutes now. Something’s wrong, I know it. I’m not sure I can make it out if things go south. Maybe. Grab the kid’s rifle with my right hand, raise it under his chin. Force his trigger finger with my left. I can take him, but there’s lots of open space once I get out of here. I need to be rea—Oh shit, that’s him. That’s von Braun.

Dear God. The groomed hair, the tan. He looks more like a Hollywood actor than a physicist. Mother might be right. I see vanity here, not conviction. This is a man who does research in a fancy suit. He doesn’t have to be a good man. He just has to be smart enough to realize the Germans have lost. Selfishness will do just fine. I just hope his ego wants to hear what I have to say. He’s coming this way. Be ready.

—Lili!

A smile. I’ll be damned. This might just work.

2 The Honeydripper

—Sit down, Lili. I’ll be back in a minute.

He doesn’t speak a lick of English, but all I hear is Cary Grant. He’s all smiles and graces. I don’t think he ever turns the charm off. This is a man who likes to be liked. I wouldn’t be surprised if he slept with half the secretarial staff here. His office is meant to impress. Mahogany desk, fancy carpet, wall-to-wall bookshelves. The room belongs at Oxford, not in a concrete building littered with metal scraps. I suppose most of this would feel normal if it weren’t for the war outside, but right now it reeks of denial. This is wall-to-wall pretend, like a movie set. He’s made himself the star of his little world. All I need now is to convince him I deserve a role in it. Only I don’t know how. I sure don’t feel like Katharine Hepburn.

I feel like a child. I certainly look like one. I cut my hair. I don’t know why I did it. I was leaving for Germany the next day. There were a million things to do but I went out and got my hair cut. There is this fancy salon not far from our house. I walk by it almost every day. I see rich people coming out of there and they look so… happy, confident. I wanted that. I never wanted it before but I did then. Going on a secret mission for the government. It was scary, but exciting. I wanted to feel… special. Ha!

Shoulder length, and bangs. As soon as I looked in the mirror, I knew I’d been lying to myself all along. It was stupid, really. I told myself I wanted to feel special, but I wanted to feel different. It’s the first time I’ve done anything by myself. Me. Just me. I didn’t want to look like my mother. Now I look like my mother when she was a teenager. I’m sure I inspire about as much confidence as I have in myself. I don’t think I’d follow me if I were in von Braun’s fancy shoes.

Not like my mother… Funny. Who else is there? I don’t even know who I am without her. I don’t know why I can force a door open without breaking a sweat, why I find people more cryptic than differential equations. Mother is the only person I relate to. I am exactly like her. I look like her, think like her. There is nothing but my mother. I spend my life following the rules she taught me, pursuing the one goal she told me to pursue.

Take them to the stars, before Evil comes and kills them all. My mother’s words. Her mother’s words, and her mother’s, and her mother’s. Our lives boil down to a single sentence, a handful of symbols on an ancient piece of jewelry. I thought it was a gift when Mother said I could wear it. Now that necklace hangs heavy like a manacle.

The world is doomed, and we must get people off of it. That’s what’s important. Not this war, not the first one or the next one. Not the woman in the river. Our fight is against gravity, and von Braun can help us win it. Mother said all that, of course. She’s the one who believes. I only know we’re the same, so I follow. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work.

3 Begin the Beguine

—Do you know who I am? Look around you. I created all this. I made the V-2! If the Americans were serious about this, they would not have sent a little girl.

He’s smiling. What a creep! Yes, mister. You’re a big wheel. We’re all impressed. The good news is he didn’t make a pass at me. That and they all agreed they should surrender to the US three weeks ago. The bad news is he won’t listen to anything I say. I don’t know if it’s my gender, my skin, or the fact that I look like a fourteen-year-old nerd. Probably all three, not that it makes a difference. What does he think? That I want to be here? I want to go home and drink a milkshake, listen to Big Boy Crudup while a B-17 carpet-bombs this place. But I can’t. I have to be here, with him. Him and a townful of Nazis. Time for some Olympic-level pride-swallowing.

—I’m nineteen, sir. And I understand. I do. You’re a very important man, and a brilliant one. I know that, and the United States knows that. They will stop at nothing to make sure you get out safe. You see, they didn’t send a little girl. They sent Patton’s Third Army. All of it. I’m only here to make sure you’re still alive when they reach us.

—Flattery will get you nowhere, young lady…. How long until they get here?

He knows I’m fawning over him, but he can’t help himself. Now for the hard part.

—Soon, sir. Soon. Unfortunately, not before Soviet troops reach Peenemünde.

—…

—What I mean is we can’t stay here, sir. If we stay, you’ll be dead in a week. Either dead or learning Russian. I need you to come with me.

—Come with you where?

That is a very good question. One that the OSS answered only with “away from the Soviets and towards US troops.” It kind of made sense when they showed me on the map with their small toys. They like pushing toy figures on maps, with a stick. It’s a small map, they could reach with their hands, but they think the stick makes it look serious somehow. Red Soviet figures, blue American figures. Get away from the red toys and head towards the blue toys. Simple enough. What was missing on their little map was about a million little German figures filling all the space in between. One step at a time, I guess. We need to get away from tiny red people.

—Anywhere but here, sir, and preferably without being fired at. The Germans must know they’ll lose Peenemünde. Do you have orders to go anywhere?

—I do indeed.

… Really? That’s it? Maybe it’s a European thing. A friend of Mother’s went to Paris before the war. She said she asked a lady if there was a post office nearby and the lady answered: “Yes.”

—Where, sir? Where did they ask you to go?

—How do you Americans put it? Oh yes. Take your pick.

Wow. I knew German command was a mess, but this… Right there on his desk, ten, maybe a dozen written orders, all from different people. Here’s an army chief who wants him to pick up arms and join the fight on the eastern front. I don’t think we’ll follow that one. Another one asking him to stay put. The wording on these is fascinating. Failure to comply. Blah blah blah. Summarily executed. Blah blah blah. Firing squad. Here it is again. Orders to stay, orders to go. This one is from Kammler himself.

Technically, Kammler is von Braun’s boss. Official title: Beauftragter zur besonderen Verwendung Heer, Army Commissioner for Special Tasks, something like that. Less technically, Kammler is about as close as you can get to the devil himself. Before dealing in advanced weaponry, Hans Kammler was chief of Office C, the same Office C that built all the concentration camps. Now this asshole is ordering von Braun and his men to Bleicherode in central Germany, near the Mittelwerk weapons factory where they build the V-2.

—I think Kammler is our best bet, sir. We should head southwest to Bleicherode.

—No! You said we had to wait for the Americans. Now you want to take us away from them.

It does sound counterintuitive. We’d like to get out of Germany, not deeper into it. But we’ll never get near the border without getting caught. What I told him was kind of true. The Americans really have no plan to get us out other than to plow their way through the German army until they reach us. The best we can do for now is to bide our time.

—I know, sir. But we can’t stay here, that means going somewhere else. We also need to stay alive. We’re going to need help doing that, and since we’re in Germany, I think the Germans are in a better position to help us than anyone else. You can’t hide from your own army for weeks, sir. Follow orders, any orders. All we need is time.

Silence. I think he knows I’m right. Either he doesn’t like what that means for him, or he really doesn’t want to listen to me.

—Then tell me, Lili—is that even your real name?—I’m the chief scientist in the V-2 program. I have nearly five thousand men under my command. Why would I listen to you?

—Mr. von Braun, I—

—You can go back to where you came from, Lili. I will handle this myself.

I should tell him I have orders to kill him if he doesn’t play along. Maybe I should just kill him and get it over with.

—Forgive me, sir, but I don’t think you have much of a choice.

—Who the hell do you think you are?

I have absolutely no idea, so let’s not go there. I get it, though. Creep or not, he doesn’t know me from Adam. I might not listen to me either, but we’re running out of time.

—I don’t mean any disrespect, sir. I only mean that your options are very limited at the moment. Unless you want to put your fate in the hands of a Russian general, you have to leave. You can run, but you and I both know it won’t work. You need to understand, you…

—What? What do I need to understand?

Here it comes. Kid gloves, Mia. Kid gloves.

—… You’re a brilliant man, sir. I said that already. The work you’ve done here is impressive, very impressive. But you’re not… irreplaceable.

—I built the V-2!

Good Lord! I almost feel bad for what I’m about to do to him, but someone has to shrink him down to size. I need to speak a language he understands.

—You did. And it’s great, but it’s not perfect. I think a lot of it isn’t your fault. Working conditions haven’t been ideal, but that engine… I suspect you just couldn’t build one that size that fast, without it going BOOM, so you tied together eighteen smaller ones, fed their exhaust into one large mixing chamber, and hoped for the best.

—How dare you? What do you know about building rockets?

—Enough to know there are limits to what the Americans will do for two hundred and three seconds of specific impulse…. I don’t mean this as an insult, sir. I understand. You scaled up your design and the rocket started shaking like a leaf.

—Nonsense! Are you saying the Americans will kill me?

I need to make him trust me. Me, not the plan. He has to see me as an ally, a kindred spirit or something. I need…

—I’m saying… I’m saying you couldn’t find the right geometry to get rid of those transverse gas vibrations. I’m saying maybe you should try adding baffles around the injector face.

—…

He’s still smiling, smug as a cat, but I think he understands.

—And we should follow Kammler’s orders and head southwest.

—… Baffles, you say? Anything else?

—No, sir, just the orders.

Progress. Not much, but progress. At least he’s willing to hear what I have to say.

—It will not work. There will be checkpoints along the way. There will be checkpoints everywhere. The SS will stop us.

—We have Kammler’s orders.

—We have many orders, from people just as important as Kammler. Someone will find out we disobeyed theirs.

—Who?

—It does not matter. Any of them. The SS will call the wrong person, and they will arrest us, or they will round us up and shoot us all. We will never make it all the way to Bleicherode with these orders.

I’m tempted to disagree on principle, but the man does have a point. He also works for the SS. He might know a bit more about them than I do. Problem is I don’t have another plan, so I sort of need this one to work. How do we make sure the SS will let us through? We have good orders, ones we want to follow. We just need to make sure these orders supersede every other set of orders on that table. Problem solved…. I have absolutely no idea how we’re supposed to do that…. Maybe he does.

—Sir? Is there anyone the SS wouldn’t stop, anything they wouldn’t check on?

—… It would have to be something above their clearance, some top-secret project they are not allowed to know about.

So what we need is some sort of school note, from Hitler. Sure. Why not?

—Could we… forge some documents?

Von Braun is soooo not going to like this.

—There is the letterhead…

What letterhead? Oh, I forgot about their weird manners. I’m probably supposed to ask.

—What letterhead?

—We received these from the printer last month. I was about to destroy them.

He’s fetching a cardboard box from behind his desk. Looks like… paper. One big pile of Nazi paper, eagle, swastika, and all, and the initials “VzBV” across the top. I don’t know what it means. BzBV, with a B, is the department Kammler runs, what von Braun actually works for. This… I’ve never heard of it.

—What’s VzBV?

—It’s nothing. It’s a typo.

—It doesn’t exist?

—No. Just a misprint.

Let me get this straight. We need to forge some documents from a secret project and he just happens to have a boxful of letterhead from a place that’s not real, in his office, right now. This all seems a little too convenient, but I’ll take it.

—Well… There’s your project. VzBV.

—What does it stand for?

—I don’t know. It’s your project.

—Vorhaben zur besonderen Verwendung?

Project for Special Disposition. I like it.

—I think it’s perfect. It sounds important but it’s vague enough it could mean anything. How long do you need to get your people ready?

—A few days.

Days! How long does it take to throw some clothes into a bag?

—That seems like a long time, sir. The Russians will be here in a few days.

—All my research. The Americans will want it.

—I understand, sir. You have some boxes to pack. That should take a few hours, not a few days.

—There are nearly five thousand of us. It will take time.

I don’t know what he’s talking about. We can’t all leave. There are—He just said it. There are nearly five thousand of them!

—What? No, sir. I’m supposed to get you out, you and your top scientists. You are… how can I put this?… (Off your rocker. Nutty as a fruitcake. Cuckoo bananas.)… underestimating the risks involved. Those fake papers might be enough for them to let a car through, not a town. A few people, sir. That’s the mission.

—Then you need to rethink the mission, Lili. The Russians will exterminate anyone we leave behind if the German army does not do it for them. There are families here. We have to take them with us. Those that want to come, at least. I will not leave without them.

He is insane. Even if half of his staff stays behind, there’s no way we can move thousands of people without being stopped everywhere. He also sounded genuinely sincere right then. He even dropped the radio-host voice for it. I realize I have no idea who that man is. Thousands of people died here building his rockets, and he let it happen. Mother says he only cares about science. I thought that made him a coward, but he’ll apparently risk his life in the thick of war to save the people he works with.

What does that make him? Did he believe them when they told him who was human and who wasn’t? Or did he just… wish all the horrors away, pretend they didn’t exist? Did he sleep through the rubble and watch yellow fields through the window? Like most things, it’s probably more complicated than this or that. I wanted to save a good man, or kill an evil one. Von Braun might be neither. The world is flooding with egotistical men concerned only with their needs and wants. Another place and time, he might just be… unremarkable in his own self-serving way. Von Braun is no hero, that’s a fact, but this is the first remotely selfless thing to come out of his mouth. If I’m going to do this, I need to believe there is something inside that man worth saving, something other than knowledge.

I must be as crazy as he is. We’ll need boxes, lots of boxes. We can’t fit all these people in cars or trucks. We’ll have to put them on trains. This won’t be subtle. We’re moving a town. I’ll start making stencils while they pack. I want those four letters painted bright on everything. Red and white, something you can’t miss. I want the boxes painted. I want jackets painted, armbands. I want the toilet paper to say VzBV. I want them to see it, everywhere. That department didn’t exist yesterday. By tomorrow, it will have trains and a few thousand employees. This can work, right?

What the hell am I thinking? We have zero chance. We’re all going to die and we’re going to do it the stupid way.

4 I Wonder

I sent my daughter to Germany. I wish I knew what kind of mother that makes me.

It all began about six months ago. German major general Walter Dornberger contacted someone at the General Electric Company through their embassy in Portugal. The note was short. “I wish to come to some arrangement,” German for “I know we are losing the war and I am willing to help you if you can guarantee my safety.” The US government liked Dornberger because of his rank and what he might know about Hitler’s strategy. I liked him because he built rockets. He recruited Wernher von Braun in 1932—the two of them went to school together—before he was given military command of Peenemünde. When the V-2 first launched successfully, Dornberger said: “This is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel.” I wanted him. After the assassination attempt on Hitler, the SS were put in charge of everything. Kammler took over Peenemünde and Dornberger was pushed aside, sent away to command training batteries. The OSS arranged for him to meet the Ninth Army in the north.

Dornberger can help us reach the stars, but he cannot do it alone. Wernher von Braun is the brains behind the V-2. Unfortunately for him, and me, von Braun does not have the rank to escape on his own. I convinced the OSS they had to send someone. It took some effort. Those men did not have the required intellect. They did not realize it was the Soviets they were racing against, not the Germans, that the prize was more than a piece of land in Europe. A friend at Caltech had performed an analysis of German rocket capabilities for the army, but they missed the point in its entirety. I showed them what could have been, had the Germans been given enough time. Bombs dropping from space with absolute precision. Wars waged halfway across the globe without ever leaving home. Acquiring the V-2 became a top priority, but they wanted the hardware, not the brains that created it. They would improve upon it themselves. Only they could not, and they would waste a decade figuring that out. The Germans were better at this. We had made them that way, Mother and I. I did not dare attack their unshakable belief in American exceptionalism, but I hinted at what Russia could do if they captured Germany’s best and brightest. I did it over dimly lit dinners, so men could claim the idea for themselves the next day. It worked with painful predictability. They can live with failure, so long as no one else succeeds. Operation Paperclip was born within days.

Part of me wanted to go. I wanted to see Germany again, but we are more fearless when we are Mia’s age. We also see the moment, the uniqueness in people. We can find value in one life. As we grow older, we realize the scale of it all, and the insignificance of everything and everyone. I would kill von Braun and those around him at the first sign of trouble. I would not hesitate. We gave them the knowledge, we can give it again. We are the Ninety-Nine but we will be the One Hundred, and the Hundred and One. Mia… Mia will not spend her life retracing my footsteps if she can make her own. She is at that age when we see ourselves as special, unique. She still believes she is not us and she will not give that up easily. She will take risks. She will be scared, but our instincts will take over. I hope.

Preserve the knowledge. That is why I sent Mia. I followed one rule, only to break another: survive at all costs. I risked everything, all that we have worked and died for. I put us in harm’s way. Was it wrong of me? Perhaps the question is meaningless. If there is such a thing as right and wrong, I doubt it was meant for us. We are the Kibsu. We are the path.

I cannot tell if these are rational thoughts, or the weakness of a mother fearing for her child. I question everything, every choice. I question the life I have made for ourselves, moving to Washington to join the OSS. Every time we step into the light, we make it easier for the Tracker to find us. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Another rule I broke or bent. I told myself it was worth the risk, that we were saving lives. I hope it does not mean the end of ours.

Part of me wishes I were there with Mia. Part of me wishes I were Mia. We arrived in America the same year Buck Rogers hit the airwaves. For years, those fifteen minutes I spent with my ear glued to the radio were the highlight of my day. I did not want to be the Kibsu. I certainly did not want to be my mother. I wanted to be Buck Rogers and go on a myriad of adventures.

I met my next hero when I joined the OSS. The Gestapo called Virginia Hall the most dangerous of Allied spies. I called her… I called her Virginia, but I… I envied her. I wanted to be her. She was in Paris when the war started. She joined the ambulance service there before France fell and ended up in Nazi-controlled territory. She got out, went to London, and volunteered to work for the British SOE. She went back to Vichy and, for over a year, helped coordinate the French underground while posing as a reporter.

When the Nazis seized all of France, Virginia escaped to Spain, by herself, over the Pyrenees mountains. She did that on foot, singular. Virginia was missing a leg. She used a prosthetic she nicknamed Cuthbert. If I ever remarry, I shall name my husband Cuthbert.

In hindsight, I did not particularly like Virginia, not as a person. We trained together only briefly. She was not very close to me, or anyone else for that matter. I liked… the idea of her.

Now my daughter is on a secret mission in Germany. As much as I fear for our safety, part of me is glad we are on this adventure. We are Buck Rogers now. We are Virginia Hall.

5 Crawlin’ King Snake

We saw the river first. A refreshing punctuation after five hours of spruce trees. It’s been one of those soupy days where the rain refuses to rain and everything is its own shade of gray. We were still on the bridge when their silhouettes appeared through the mist. I see them clearly now. All of them.

—Zeig mir deine Papiere.

Skull and bones on the hat. Four pips on the collar. He took his raincoat off before coming over to make sure we noticed. This one is a Sturmbannführer, a major, maybe. Someone important for about two hundred feet, like the store manager at the local Woolworth’s. Blotchy eyes and a day-old beard. They must have painted the night in the village across. That’s where the trains will meet up with us. If we make it. These guys are Waffen-SS, and they are all over us.

—ZEIG MIR DEINE PAPIERE!

Von Braun is out there handing him our orders. I just realized these two hold the same rank. Easy to forget I’m bowling along with a ranking SS officer. Von Braun asked for the major’s name but I couldn’t hear over the dog’s barks. It sounded like Asshat. Whatever his name is, he’s not too impressed with our letterhead. Everyone is louder now. Asshat wants to confirm our orders. You can’t, Asshat. We’re the VzBV! That’s more or less what’s coming out of von Braun’s mouth.

I’ll roll down the window. It’s getting hot in here. The dog is barking up a storm, tugging at his leash and—oh shit!—Asshat’s pistol is out of its holster. It’s pointing at the ground but the two behind him just pulled the bolts on their submachine guns. They’re not scared, they’re itching for it. It’s not about rules or orders. This is all territory, pissing on lampposts. VzBV may be above Asshat’s head, but if you reduce the world to a small enough size, this road or this bridge, Asshat is king. He won’t bow to anyone, least of all Wernher von Braun in his fancy suit. Why is it so hot in this car?

I shouldn’t be here. I don’t have the moxie for this. There’s no way out if this escalates. I’m stuck in the car on the passenger side. I don’t have a gun because I’m Lili the fucking niece.

SOMEONE SHUT THIS STUPID DOG UP!

I’m burning hot. It’s not the car, it’s me. I must be coming down with something. Everything feels… slower. Crisper. I can see…

I can see everything. Thirty, forty men in front. Three are messing with von Braun. The rest are sitting by the road, making crude jokes and rolling cigarettes. They’ll shoot us all if it gets to that, but for now we barely register. Fucking with people is what these guys do. This is their normal. The light truck to my right is empty, but the one Asshat came in on has a Flak 38 on top. One man at the wheel, one in the back, smoking. Elevated position. That’s where I need to go.

What on earth is happening to me? I can see it go down. Clear as day. Everyone dead in thirty seconds flat.

I get out of the car. The SS holding the dog leash turns and yells at me: “Get back in the car.” I smile and keep walking. Five seconds. I lean inside the truck window and snap the driver’s neck while he checks the inside of my blouse. I reach down and take his sidearm. Ten seconds. Now I’m a girl with a weapon.

I saunter to the back of the truck. The man up there smiles. I wink. He throws his cigarette on the ground before stepping down. It’s still burning when I raise the gun to his chin. Bam. Fifteen.

This fever. I must be losing my mind. I can’t end a platoon of Waffen-SS on my own.

But I can. The gunshot gets everyone’s attention. A handful of SS start aiming everywhere. Most just lie on the ground when they hear gunfire. I climb up the back of the truck—twenty seconds—and mow through the crowd with the Flak 38. No one shoots back through the pandemonium. I can’t hear them if they do. The only sound is the roar of the gun. I throb and pulsate two hundred times a minute while two-centimeter projectiles dig into the ground, halving people along the way. The world turns red when the incendiary heads ignite. The heat wave hits me like a brick and I let go of the gun. I cover my seared skin with my hands while pentaerythritol tetranitrate consumes what’s left of everyone.

Thirty seconds.

…

Breathe.

…

Breathe. None of it is real.

…

It soon will be. Asshat poked von Braun in the chest with his pistol. The men around him are raising their weapons. That’s it. I can’t save von Braun anymore but I can save myself.

I’m getting out of the car.

—Fräulein, geh zurück ins Auto!

“Miss, get back in the car.” Right on cue. Focus, Mia. Breathe. Just smile your way to the truck.

…

Holy cow! Von Braun grabbed Asshat’s gun and pressed the barrel against his own head. He’s screaming now.

—Call Himmler! Call Himmler or shoot me in the head, and then call Himmler. Either way, you’ll be facing a firing squad by morning….

Asshat hasn’t pulled the trigger yet.

All right. I’ll give you three seconds, then I’m doing this my way.

One…

—Geh zurück ins Auto!

Two…

Pistol down. He’s holstering it.

Everyone’s heartbeat is slowing down. I feel a cool breeze coming in.

I guess calling the head of the SS wasn’t on Asshat’s to-do list for the day. It’s a good thing he didn’t. Von Braun spent two weeks in a Gestapo cell because of Himmler. I don’t think there’s a lot of love between those two. Von Braun is back inside the car. Somehow he seems in his element in all this. Fake smiles to everyone. I feel a Heil Hitler coming. Here it is.

The SS are leaving, just like that. Moving on to God knows where to mess with someone else. I don’t think Asshat liked having to back down. I pity whoever crosses their path next.

I was going to blow them all to smithereens. If it weren’t for von Braun… I would have killed them all. I knew how. This was a close call, but the Waffen-SS aren’t the ones I’m scared of right now.

I need to go home, but a drink will have to do. We’ll spend the night in the next village. The trains will be there in the morning.

6 Lili Marlene

This place is loud. Must be the only bar here. Sticky floors. It stinks of old beer and… I can’t quite put my finger on it. Something. The girl at the bar is younger than I am. Sixteen. Seventeen. I should relate but I can’t read her at all. She’s phlegmatic, neither happy nor sad, isolated from the world by a ten-foot oak slab.

—Einen halben Liter Weißbier, bitte.

I can still hear my heartbeat. Thump thump. Thump thump. We got lucky, but it was a mistake to send me. I’m going to get us all killed. Me and von Braun deserve whatever we get, but there are three thousand people I’ve never met on those trains. Three thousand flavors of guilt and innocence. Janitors, secretaries. Wives and children. I shouldn’t be the one to—

—Sara Balian?

Silence. My heart stopped. I’m trying to swallow the beer in my mouth as if nothing happened, as if I didn’t hear anything. But I did hear. That’s my mother’s name, was my mother’s name before we moved out of Germany.

—Sara Balian, du bist es!

Keep calm. Just ignore him. What are the odds he’ll just go away? Nil, he just tapped me on the shoulder.

—Sara!

I need to get rid of him while there’s no one else within earshot.

—I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know who that is.

—Sara! You’re Sara. How—

He’s probably fifty, scruffy beard. The eyes. He’s drunk as a skunk. He seems… broken, but I can tell he was a good-looking man before all this. This is someone who was happy once.

—My name is Lili, sir. You have me confused with someone else. I don’t know anyone named…

—Sara.

—Like I said. I don’t know who that is.

—You haven’t changed one bit. Not one bit. How is that possible? It’s me, Sara! Dieter!

He knew my mother when she was my age. He remembers her that way. I knew her, too, or course. But I remember her through the eyes of a kid. To him it must look like I traveled through time.

—I just told you. My name’s Lili. I’ve never seen you before in my life, sir. I’ve never been here before.

—No. I know who you are. Your clothes… they’re different. Your hair. But you’re still the same. How can you be the same?

I’m not the same. I’m not my mother.

—I think you need to go, sir. Now.

—I have to tell Bernhard. He’ll be so happy to see you. BERNHARD! Over here!

That name. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Dieter, but Bernhard, I know. He came to our house many times when I was young. I see him now, a couple of tables back… in a fucking SS uniform. Dang! He’s older, but that’s him. That’s the man I knew. Now he’s just another soldier. I keep forgetting they’re people, but this is Nazi Germany. The Nazis are your neighbors, your parents, your childhood friends. Five more gray-green shirts around him. Beer spilling everywhere. They’re just as drunk as Dieter; that should give me a few seconds. I need to leave before Bernhard sees me.

—I have to go. Goodbye, sir. I hope you find that friend of yours.

—Don’t go, Sara! You have to see Bernh— Wait! Wait!

Don’t follow me. Please don’t follow me out.

Ding. The door hits the bell as it closes behind me….

Ding. It rings again.

—SARA!

Don’t draw attention to yourself. I’m sure Dieter means well, but he’s going to get me killed.

—…

—SARA!

—SHHHHHHHH!

I can’t let him do this. I don’t look German. One of them says “Gypsy” and they’ll tear me to pieces. All I have are fake papers. Lili papers. I’m not having a sit-down with the SS trying to explain why I’m not who Dieter and Bernhard say I am. There. There’s an alley behind the flower shop.

—Over here, Dieter. Come with me.

—Oh, Sara. I never thought I’d see you again. I didn’t think you’d come back, not after what happened in Bad Saarow.

Bad Saarow. Why does that ring a bell?

—I’m not Sara. I keep telling you.

—Don’t do that. Don’t lie to me. I was there when it happened, Sara. I—

—Sara’s my mother.

—Mi’a?

He knows me. I thought… I was hoping this was all a mistake.

—Mi’a… I can’t believe it’s you. You look so much like her, it’s… You don’t remember me, do you? Dieter? Uncle Dieter?

That voice. I sort of remember now. He… He played with me. NNNEEAOOWWW! I was in his arms. I was an airplane. He carried me around while I pretended to fly. It’s more a feeling than a memory, but I think I liked him. Dieter… Didi? I remember Didi. Mother trusted him, she… She left me alone with him. Mother never left me alone with anyone.

—Are you Didi?

—Yes! It’s me, Didi! You were this high the last time I saw you. I knew you when you were a baby, Mi’a. I held you in my arms for… You peed on me!

Mother and he were close, but she never talks about him. It seems like they were on good terms, but he said… He said he never thought she’d come back, not after…

—What did you mean, about my mother? Why would she not come back here?

—… I meant it’s been a long time. I thought, after so many years, you know.

That’s not what he said.

—You said you were there, Dieter. There for what?

—Is your mother here? Is she…

He doesn’t want to lie to me. Why?

—What happened, Dieter?

—Nothing. I—

—What happened in Bad Saarow?

We had to leave Germany because the Tracker was getting too close. That’s what Mother always said.

—You should ask your mo—

—My mother’s dead.

Why did I lie?

—I’m sorry. She was… She was special.

What does he mean, special? Special to him? Special how? It doesn’t make a difference now that he knows who I am. This is a nightmare. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t be here.

—Are you okay, Mi’a? Is anything wrong? I’ll go get Bernhard. Just stay here, I’ll be right back with Bernhard. He’s an important man now. In this town, he—

—Don’t. Not now.

—What’s the matter, Mi’a? You remember Bernhard, don’t you?

That face, the way he smiles without smiling. I see… pain, sorrow. Did my mother do that to him? Did she break his heart in Bad Saarow? There’s still kindness in his eyes, though. Like that’s the one thing life couldn’t take from him. He cares about people, despite everything. He still cares, about my mother, about me. I don’t think I can do this.

—Why are you crying, Mi’a?

—I’m fine.

I’m not fine. Whom could he tell? He doesn’t know anyone… I wish that were true. He knows Bernhard. He knows the fucking SS. I can’t explain any of this. Our house burned down thirteen years ago and we haven’t been seen since. Don’t leave a trace. I learned that rule while I was here. I learned it while Didi and I were flying across the house. I… Please stop looking at me that way. I’m not even sure who he’s looking at. Me or my mother? What do his eyes say? Are those the eyes of a friend? A lover?… A father? Don’t think, Mia. Just get closer.

—I’m here, Mi’a. I’m here.

He’s hugging me. He must be twice my size. I feel… safe wrapped inside his arms. He has strong hands. He’s a worker now, not a thinker. This is a good man. It’s men like him we’re supposed to save. Only, not him. Not this man. This one’s guilty of knowing me, knowing us. Mother tried to prepare me for this. Here, let me hold your face, Didi. Let me be my mother for a minute. See her one last time. Feel her fingers running through your beard. Let her hold your head with both hands.

You won’t feel a thing, Didi. I promise.

7 God Bless the Child

I have been combing through intercepts of German radio traffic. There is no mention of von Braun, or my daughter. I did, however, stumble upon disturbing news from Berlin. There was an incident in Kreuzberg—war is a seedbed for euphemisms—at the tavern across from the house I grew up in. Nine people were killed, mutilated. Jews, or Roma, I assumed; German jingoism rearing its head with wonted cruelty. This was different. Half the victims were Brownshirts. One girl belonged to the SS-Helferinnen. Nine model Aryan citizens slaughtered. This was not the work of the SS or the Gestapo. The police have no suspect, but I do, and it makes my blood run cold.

For three thousand years, the Tracker has hunted us. Like us, he is one and many. Like us, he has survived the passage of time. Our ancestors called him the Rādi Kibsi. My mother called him Spürhund. Whatever his name, these murders could very well mean he is getting close. Thirteen years behind us is a heartbeat away.

It seems unlikely. We did not leave a trace. But we did not leave a trace in India, Morocco, or the Philippines. We followed the rules for three thousand years, yet the Ninety-Two lost her mother. We followed the rules, and the Tracker might be in Berlin at this very moment, just as Mia travels through Germany. I have never been one to believe in coincidences. I need to bring my daughter back. We need to disappear.

I have no way to contact Mia. She and von Braun are heading to Bleicherode and I cannot send a telegram to a German rocket factory. I did the one thing I could, played the last card left for me to play. It will cost me my job, but our time here is ending anyway. I only hope it works.

All I can do now is wait. That is something I am usually good at. Progress is inconspicuous, the world often perceptually still. Ours is a slow march towards something we will not see for ourselves. We plant the seeds; our daughters reap the fruit. Thus is the life of the Kibsu. My mother told me so many times, but now Mia is missing and every minute of every day feels like watching a pot that refuses to boil.

I thought I could keep my mind occupied with my mother’s research. I have been collecting samples, logging data from a dozen locations. It is tedious enough not to require my undivided attention—that is something I cannot give at the moment. The data we collected shows a rise in carbon dioxide, but I have no way to know if this is an exceptional phenomenon, nor can I isolate man’s contribution to this increase from that of the planet’s natural mechanisms. I find myself at an impasse in all matters.

I am restless. Mia has gone astray and there is no one to turn to. Without her, I am completely alone. I realize how deft I have become at avoiding relationships. The only one I keep is with a man I have met only once. I know our correspondence is not paramount to him—though he still makes it a point to write every month—but Hsue-Shen Tsien is the only person I would label as friend.

He came from China in 1935 on a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. We met at MIT during a lecture on fluid dynamics. He was a brilliant student, but struggled mightily adapting to his new culture. Both of us stood out like sore thumbs. It was only fitting that we would share a table for lunch. I introduced myself as Sarah Moussa from Cairo. It is somewhat ironic that my truest connection began with a lie.

Through time, and a fair amount of serendipity, we ended up sharing a lot more than lunch. After his master’s, he moved to California to study with Theodore von Kármán. It was there that he struck up a friendship with a handful of bright budding rocket scientists. Von Kármán and this tight-knit group of students founded what they call the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They attach rockets to planes to accelerate their takeoff.

After graduating, Hsue-Shen Tsien chose to stay. He found himself directing research on a small ballistic missile for the army. His rockets are light-years behind von Braun’s, but few people understand mathematics the way Hsue-Shen does. We have been bouncing ideas off each other for almost a decade, and I just wrote to him about my CO₂ conundrum. I told myself he could shed new light on the problem, but what I really need is someone to share with, someone intelligent enough to comprehend. There are so many things I cannot tell him, but I can at least be candid about the science.

As for the rest, I confide to him in half-truths, overtones. “My dear Hsue-Shen, Please forgive my belated reply. My daughter is traveling abroad and the void she left behind gets louder every day.” Hsue-Shen is just as fluent in the unsaid. In the end I think he and I understand each other perfectly.

8 Hot Time in the Town of Berlin

—Eyes on the road!

Whoa. Maybe I shouldn’t be driving. I haven’t slept in two days. I can’t. We’re traveling at night now, trying to cover as much ground as we can while it’s dark. We’ve had some close calls. Allied planes are bombing everything that resembles the German army. Our VzBV convoy sure looks the part; we’ve gone out of our way to make it look important. I’m driving in the dark with the lights off. Von Braun and I are alone in the truck, and I’m helping him with his homework. The idiots at German command want to ramp up production of the V-2 rockets by September. The war will be over long before that, but they want the V-2 to be more accurate, and to stop blowing up in midair. Those aren’t entirely unreasonable demands, if we weren’t relocating a whole town while doing it.

—I’m sorry. You know, sir, I was thinking…

—About something other than the road, obviously.

—I… Yes. I know a good quarter of your V-2s blow up at launch, or you just throw them out because they’re unusable.

He won’t like that. He’ll say it’s not his fault.

—It’s not my fault if—

—No, I know. I know. But I was thinking, and… Why not build them in sections?

—Here we go again. And tell me, Lili, why would I do that?

—Well, you could assemble them at the last minute on the launch site. Transport would be a lot easier, for one thing, and that way you’d throw away one-third of a missile instead of the whole thing if it doesn’t pass QA.

—Someday, Lili, you and I will need to have a serious talk about who you are and what you do.

—I’m sorry, I just… You could also make the warhead detachable while you’re at it. You need that big rocket to go up, you don’t need it going down. There’s no point in keeping it along for the ride.

—Just watch the road, will you?

I will, I am. But helping him keeps my mind busy. Not busy enough, though. I keep thinking of Didi. The look on his face, his brown eyes disappearing into squints when he smiled. I now have this crystal-clear image of him in my mind. He’s holding me in midair. One hand on my chest, one on my back. I’m laughing, screaming, flying to the sound of lip trills. I can’t be more than two or three years old, so I know these memories aren’t real. But I see it. And I ask myself who that man was. Mother and I rarely talk about Berlin. If ever one of us brings up the past, the other reminds her of the rules. Don’t leave a trace. The Ninety-Eight is dead. We say it often and we believe it, even, but that doesn’t make it true. I knew that man. Mother knew him for over a decade. Who was he to her, to me, before I put him in a dumpster?

I’ve never met my father….

Mother always said she didn’t want a man around. She told me my father was a sailor, that he’d done his part and went on with his life. I never questioned that. Men aren’t exactly our strong suit. What if she lied to protect me? What if he was there all along? A friend. There were many of those. Dieter, Bernhard. Maybe one of them was a really good friend, a special friend. Just one time, and we’ll never talk about it again. Maybe she lied to him and he didn’t know. Maybe… Maybe my father was a sailor, had done his part and went on with his life. I suppose I’ll never know what happened in Bad Saarow. I do know I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come.

There’s this dream I keep having. I’m wearing a pink dress, and a boy is picking me up for prom. My father walks me to the door. The boy looks nice in his tuxedo. He pins a corsage to my dress and we walk away, my arm under his. We walk into the dance and all my friends smile at me because he’s so handsome. We dance, and my heart jumps when he kisses me on the lips. It’s a fantasy. Prom was two years ago and I went alone. I don’t have any real friends, and all the boys I’ve met wouldn’t be content with a kiss on the lips. I’m nineteen years old and I dream of being seventeen. I would trade places with a child right now if it meant I could be normal. I can’t be with anyone. I can’t get close. I’m alone.

Maybe I could live in that fantasy. Forget the rules, forget everything. I didn’t choose this life. Someone chose it for me, even if that someone was me…. Maybe I’m losing my mind.

I think I was twelve when Mother and I had the talk for the first time: “When the time comes, Mia, you’ll know what to do. We cannot let a single life get in the way.” I didn’t want it to be true. I still don’t. All I want is to close my eyes and wake up in my bed, eat some eggs and tell Mother about the crazy dream I just had. I want to close my eyes so bad, but I’m afraid of the things I see. A woman in a red dress, floating into forgottenness. A man I knew facedown in the garbage.

I felt my muscles tense, first in my hands, then my forearms. I heard his collarbone snap. His head became heavier and heavier, until I let his face slip through my hands and watched his limp body collapse on itself as if someone had cut the strings off him. I could see it happening, and I try to convince myself I thought it through, but I didn’t. It was all instinct. I didn’t think. I just… happened.

Mother said I would understand when I grew older. I don’t want to. I don’t want to be like her. I do what she tells me to do. It usually means learning new things, and I’m happy to do it. This. I don’t have what it takes for this. We’re supposed to protect people.

Dieter wanted to help. “Why are you crying, Mi’a?” I could have told him the truth, that I’m—

—LILI, WATCH OUT!

—OH SHIT!

I’ve lost control. We’re gonna crash.

—AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

…

I can’t… feel my…

ENTR’ACTE Rule #4: Don’t Draw Attention to Yourself

The front axle on their carriage broke as they hit a hole. The rain and hail had left the road to Amsterdam in the worst shape they had seen it. There would be no one to fix it in the nearby villages, and as much as Sura dreaded the long walk home, she hoped it would help her shake the feeling of disappointment.

The sawmill they had just seen was a remarkable feat of engineering. Powered by the wind, it was the first of its kind, and she knew others like it would soon fill the landscape. It was fast enough to make the men toiling in sawpits look like they were standing still. It would allow the Dutch to build ships faster and cheaper than anyone else, to control shipping routes and claim more colonies. Sura knew this was more than a piece of technology: that machine would change the map of the world.

And yet, she felt let down by the experience. Perhaps it was because she had spent too much time building it up in her head. The ride there was long and uneventful, and her daughter Ariani slept for most of it. Sura let her imagination run wild. Magnificent castles stretching their long arms into the sky to catch the breath of the gods. Timber conveyed from the hills by endless loops of moving link chain.

What she saw was clunky and noisy, completely devoid of aesthetic consideration. The sails, she thought, were poorly angled and the cap couldn’t be turned in to the wind like that of the tower mills she had seen in England. She tried to find awe in seeing the contraption move on its own, powered by an invisible force. For a moment she considered building one herself. She quickly gave up on the idea but left open the possibility of an afternoon spent putting what she imagined to paper.

—Mother, look! A traveling show!

Street artists were a staple of Amsterdam life, especially in the fall. Surrounded by a perimeter canal, the city couldn’t grow with the population. It was bursting at the seams with factory workers, traders, and migrants arriving every day from the four corners of the world. What Amsterdam lacked in space, it more than made up for in entertainment. Despite her mother’s warnings, Ariani, who was now a very precocious ten, often ran outside to chase the sound of crowds gathering for jugglers or fire breathers.

There were, indeed, people up ahead—thirty or forty, probably the entire village. All were facing the river, arms raised, cheering and screaming. As they drew closer, Sura made out the words. The hair on her arms stood on end and she squeezed her daughter’s hand harder and harder as her heartbeat quickened. This, alas, was no traveling show.

—Ariani, put your hood up and don’t say a word.

Sura took off her necklace and hid it inside her boot. She had seen mobs like this one before. She had seen women hanged or burned alive. No one knew why, but the temperature had cooled in recent years. Weather patterns were chaotic, thunderstorms appearing out of nowhere and laying waste to fields and farmland. Entire crops were lost. People were hungry, angry. Unable to explain the phenomenon with the knowledge at hand, they found their answers in superstition.

—Mother! There’s someone in the water.

—Ariani! Not a word. Keep your head down.

In the river, a young woman was screaming for help, struggling to keep her head above water. Her hands and feet were bound together, and a rope was tied around her waist so she could be brought to shore.

—She needs help, Mother!

Ariani had a good heart, always had. In the city, she fed birds and dogs and starving men, brought soup and blankets to the homeless. Her mother disapproved—the streets were not safe for a child her age—but she could not bring herself to forbid it. This was different.

—There is nothing we can do for her, Ariani. Remember the rules. Do not draw attention to yourself.

Ariani was not a rebellious child—far from it—but it was difficult for someone so young to weigh something concrete, like the screams of a young woman drowning, against something as abstract as a rule. She let go of her mother’s hand.

—Ariani!

The child ran through the crowd, to the bald man holding the end of the rope.

—Bring her back, mister! She’s drowning!

—We’ll bring her back if she sinks, but she won’t. She’s a witch! Have you ever seen a witch, little girl?

This was a “swimming.” If the accused was innocent, she would sink and hopefully be brought back before dying. A devil worshiper, on the other hand, would float. Having renounced her baptism, she would be rejected by water.

—She doesn’t float because she’s a witch, mister. She floats because she has little muscle and she’s a little fat. Fat has a lower density than water.

—Density?

—Yes, mister. Density is how much matter is in an object divided by how much space it occupies.

Ariani said it with a smile. She had repeated that formula many times but had never found a practical use for it until now.

—That is utter nonsense!

—No, it is not. You would most certainly float if they threw you in, mister.

The man did not take kindly to the accusation, but Ariani ignored the screaming and cursing. She was still proud of her scientific explanation. She had turned vague knowledge into something tangible. She remembered that air is also not as dense and turned to the woman in the river.

—Exhale, madam! Exhale! Get the air out of your lungs and you will sink!

The woman did as instructed and, as Ariani predicted, her body disappeared underwater.

—The heiden speaks the devil’s tongue. She spoke of density and put a spell on the witch!

Heidens, often called Egyptians by the locals, were societal pariahs throughout Europe. The skin tone of the Eighty-Seven was a common enough sight in Amsterdam, but there were few immigrants in rural areas and heidens were persecuted for their mere presence. Fearing for her child, Sura did what she could to defuse the situation.

—We are not heidens. We are traders from Amsterdam. We work with the VOC.

It was true. Upon her arrival in Amsterdam, the Eighty-Seven had purchased a fair number of shares in the Dutch East India Company and were selling goods from the colonies to the wealthy. True or not, it did not matter to the villagers, who were now screaming for more blood.

—Hang the witch!

Sura heard the words and kneeled without thinking. Visions of the past rushed into her mind. The wind blowing louder than her cries, driving sand in her eyes. Her small arms wrestling those of a man, trying to rip the next stone from his hand. Her mother’s lifeless face warped and distorted like wax on a burning stove.

Sura pleaded for her daughter, she begged as she had done for her mother. She knew full well the villagers wouldn’t listen. She had seen what fear could do to people. A woman grabbed Ariani by the arm. Two men ran to her aid and tied the screaming child’s hands behind her back. A rope went up and around a high branch. The two men pulled, and pulled, until Sura’s daughter was hanging in midair. Her small body twisted like a worm while the bald man stood in front of her watching.

Run, save her child, or kill them all. Sura did the math before her fever got too strong. The weight of the child would spread evenly through the surface of the rope around her neck. The thicker the rope, the smaller the pressure. Seventy-eight pounds of child spread over twelve square inches of rope meant that either the rope was too thick, or the child was too light. Either way, Ariani did not need saving, and Sura was done running.

She picked up two broken branches and hid them in her palms. With an uneven end, a hundred pounds of force should suffice to break skin. Sura let the fever take over.

She walked behind the man nearest her, stabbed him three times through the kidneys. Quick blows, arms close to the body. The man groaned and felt his back with his hand. His wife got stabbed in the carotid artery. She didn’t scream. Everyone kept staring at Ariani. Sura’s steps were brisk, her blows precise and controlled. One. Two. Three. The wooden sticks went in and out of bodies faster than anyone could see. Four, five, six. Most just stood in shock, unsure of what had happened. They were all dead, they just didn’t know. Nine were hit before the first one fell to the ground. Five more before someone pointed at Sura. Eighteen were done for before anyone did anything about it.

The first to come at Sura was a skinny man in a green suit holding a pitchfork. Sura grabbed a teenage boy paralyzed with fear and impaled him on the incoming tines. The man in the suit tried to hold on and fell forward. Sura ignored him and removed the weapon from the boy. She threw it at a woman who was running away. If everyone had run, the woman might have been safe, but they didn’t. She fell face-first into the mud, a long wooden handle sticking out of her neck.

The bald man was still staring at Ariani when the child swung forward and grabbed his head between her legs. She pushed herself up to relieve the pressure around her neck.

At the front of the remaining crowd, a man stood still holding an ax. Sura walked up to him at a steady pace, tore the ax from his hands, and split his head in half in one swoop. She let her anger loose. The twenty people left standing thought they could find safety in numbers and huddled together. The Eighty-Seven cut through them like a ship through fog. None of them were whole after thirty seconds, their parts mixed together like a jigsaw puzzle someone had dropped on the floor.

It would take another hour for the first eighteen to bleed out and stop moaning, but Sura didn’t hear them anymore. She took a knife off one of the dead and cut her daughter’s hands free. Ariani passed the noose over her head, her legs still wrapped around the bald man’s head. She took the knife her mother handed her and cut the man’s throat from shoulder to shoulder. She jumped off him and pushed him in the river.

—You see, mister? I told you you would float!

Without a word, Sura examined her daughter from head to toe. She turned her around to make sure there were no wounds.

—Mother, look! She’s alive! The lady’s alive!

They pulled the young woman out of the water. Ariani rolled her on her side to set her hands and legs free, but her mother stopped her.

—What, Mother? Why?

Sura did not speak. She did not need to. Ariani looked around and she knew. Remember the rules. The Eighty-Seven had just slaughtered a village. What were the odds this young lady could keep that a secret?

Ariani’s eyes filled with tears but she stopped herself from crying. She handed her mother the knife and gently stroked the woman’s hair. What seemed so abstract an hour ago was now painfully concrete. Do not draw attention to yourself.