A History of What Comes Next

9 Death Valley Blues

I can’t get the smell out of my nose. Outside, the war smells like piss and wet cement, but in here it reeks of burned flesh and pus. Human beings broken down into their ingredients. A million odors competing with one another. The putrid smell of rotting meat. The sweetness of caramelized fat. Charred leather, singed hair, and the metallic smell of blood. The worst part is these people are still alive. This; this is what Dante wrote about. The stench is so thick I can taste it. I can feel it crawling all over my skin.

I woke up in a hospital near Berlin. One of the Peenemünde engineers found us on the side of the road. Pure luck. We could have died alone in a ditch. Von Braun’s left shoulder is wrecked. His arm is fractured in two places. He’ll live, no thanks to me. I’m okay, except for a nasty cut above the eye.

There was an air raid not far from here. Allied forces dropped incendiaries by the thousand near a tire factory. The firestorm spread ten blocks in every direction. Thousands died in the inferno. The ones in here only wish they did. Most are civilians, some military. We can’t tell which is which because their clothes fused with their skin when the air around them reached four thousand degrees.

They wanted to keep von Braun for surgery, but we can’t wait. There are three thousand people making their way to Bleicherode, and von Braun is the man in charge. He knows it. He insisted they set his arm in a cast and let us leave. He is loyal to his people, maybe even a little brave. It bothers me, somehow. The world is easier to grasp in black-and-white. This war… it’s nothing but gray.

The other person in my room is a ten-year-old girl. I know that only because I heard the doctor say it. She has no skin left, none. She’s just a dark red shape, scabs in the form of a human being. I can’t bear to look at her, but she has to, because her fucking eyelids are gone. I wish her a quick death. Her, and the people who dropped those bombs on her, and the Nazis, and the German police. Maybe the whole world should burn. We don’t deserve to live if we’re capable of this.

I want to go home, but for now I’ll have to be content with leaving this hospital. We’d better do it soon. A nurse came in five minutes ago to draw my blood. Mother said they can’t look at our blood. No one can. I told her to stop. I did. I told her twice, then I snapped her wrist in half.

10 This Land Is Your Land

11 Y’a Pas de Printemps

All three thousand of us arrived in Bleicherode. We didn’t leave anyone behind. No one died. We kept families together and we made it. The Russians took Peenemünde. We just found out. The Americans, well, they’re so close, we can hear artillery fire from here. They’ll take Mittelwerk soon. Too bad we won’t be around when they do.

Kammler found out we followed his orders. I’m sure he was ecstatic. But with Germany losing ground, he has “concerns” about von Braun being captured by the Americans. No kidding. Now we’re surrounded by soldiers all day. There’s a whole lot of them, too. Major General Walter Robert Dornberger arrived this morning to meet us. He and von Braun hugged like long-lost brothers. Clearly these two like each other. Dornberger did pretty much the same thing we did and moved his men here to get away from the Allies. He’s in charge now. We’re not a group of scientists anymore. We’re the German army.

At first, I didn’t understand why Kammler wanted to keep us here. I thought he was just being stubborn. Give up, already! You’ve lost the war! I’m such an idiot. He knows he’s lost. I’m sure he’s known for a while now. He’s not thinking of Germany, or Hitler, or anything else. He’s doing all this for himself, holding the scientists hostage as a bargaining chip. I should have known. These people are evil and if there’s one thing the devil is good at, it’s saving its own skin. He’ll have to move us soon, but his first order of business is to increase von Braun’s value. Kammler ordered all the classified documents we were carrying destroyed. Boom. All the science, all the research, the notes, the microfilms, he wants it all burned. Von Braun will be worth a whole lot more if everything exists only in his head.

Von Braun had his own men load everything into trucks. He’s maniacally methodical. I’m sure he’d insist on loading it all up himself if his arm weren’t in a cast. There must be thirty tons of documents in these trucks. Decades of passion and dedication, all sorted inside neatly labeled boxes. It must be strange, watching your whole life being hauled away to the incinerator. The last box is being loaded now.

This will set us back… years, maybe decades. Years of watching hundreds of the most brilliant minds wasting their time doing things they’ve already done. The knowledge in these boxes is what I came for, why I’m risking my life and the lives of everyone else. I killed someone for it. Now it will burn and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I only get to watch.

Time to go. The SS are getting into their cars. General Dornberger will escort the cargo himself. I’m in one of the trucks, with an engineer from Peenemünde and our SS driver. The uniform makes me sick to my stomach, but I’m glad I’m not behind the wheel. Off we go. It’s out of my hands, now. I can’t hijack a convoy by myself.

This is a nightmare—a gorgeous, heartbreaking nightmare. This whole place would be like a postcard without the barbed wire and the five thousand soldiers. We’re in the Harz mountains and spring is in full swing. Melting snow is making its way down, painting the rock face with miniature waterfalls. I see flocks of black storks returning home from their African winter. Everything is coming alive after a long, cold death. I can hear it, smell it. I feel… light, in the most horrible way. All the weight on my shoulders, all the pressure, gone. I’m like a twig in a river, just floating along and taking in the view. In some ways, it reminds me of home. Not the mountains, but the inevitability of it all. That’s what being around Mother feels like. That’s why I follow her. If she sets her mind to something, just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride. Mother always has a plan. She’s the river. I just go with the flow. Only she’s not here right now and this river leads to a deadly fall. I’ve failed. I did it all for nothing.

You have to admire Kammler in some ways. He’s a rare breed. No honor, no love for his country. He doesn’t care for a moment about his place in history, how the world will remember him. He just wants to save his own neck and he’ll kill everyone in Germany in the process if he has to. A perfect little machine built for one purpose only: survival. He’s a rat. I almost envy him. I don’t mean the evilness, just the simplicity of it. Never having to consider anything but yourself. It must be very…

I suppose we all have something we care about more than anything else, that one thing we’d kill for, die for. I know I do, but watching von Braun pack up his notes, I realized how much it all meant to him. I’m not comparing him to Kammler, but it was obvious that science is higher up on his list of things that matter than, say, people. I shouldn’t be surprised. Mother said so before I left. He only cares about the work, not who he does it for.

I miss her. I miss small things about her. Breakfast. Mother makes the best eggs. I miss my room, my clothes. I miss music. Our trucks don’t have a radio. I wish I could play my own records. Someone should invent that, a portable record player. Hamburgers. Forget breakfast, I wish for a hamburger. A real hamburger, not a stupid Hamburg steak. I want a bun, and fries, and a milkshake.

Our driver is smiling. He looks genuinely happy. I wonder what he’s thinking. He’s probably just enjoying the ride. I see the uniform and I forget these people are even human. Most of them would probably be decent people under normal circumstances. Not great people, not particularly brave, or nice, or smart. Just… okay. Like an extra on a movie set. I can tell this one doesn’t care what we’re hauling, or that he’s been asked to burn more knowledge than he can fathom. He wouldn’t understand if I explained it to him. He’s been on the wrong side of a war for too long, following orders that make no sense to him most of the time. Today, his orders are to drive a truck on a beautiful road in the Harz mountains. He doesn’t have to walk in the rain or lie facedown in the mud. He doesn’t have to kill anyone. I’d be smiling, too.

We’re slowing down. This must be the last village before our destination. The SS car has stopped and we’re pulling over beside them. Our driver is straightening his collar. It seems Major General Dornberger wants to talk to us.

—Du solltest alleine gehen. Eine SS-Eskorte würde auffallen.

You should go alone. An SS escort will attract attention. I wish I could say it the way he does. He has a great voice. It’s not particularly deep, not very loud either. But there’s something… leathery about it. Soothing and commanding at the same time. It makes you feel like everything will be fine if you do what he says.

Our driver is getting out. I don’t understand. Dornberger just dismissed our entire escort. Are they going to kill us? All the SS are getting into Dornberger’s fancy black car. But not him. He’s walking towards us. Towards me it would seem. There was a pen in between the seats a minute ago. There it is. I’ll hide it up my sleeve.

There’s a piece of paper in Dornberger’s hand. I think he wants to give it to me but he wants to say something first. He wants me to bring my head closer. I let the pen slide into my palm.

—Your mother sends her best. She wants to know where you are.

Mother. I should have known. It makes sense. Dornberger is an engineer. This whole project was his before Kammler kicked him out. The V-2’s his baby as much as it is von Braun’s. He wouldn’t want our cargo to burn any more than I do.

That’s it. He’s gone now. There’s no one watching us anymore. It’s just me, and the two engineers von Braun trusts the most. Let’s see what’s on that piece of paper.

There’s a map with some coordinates. We’re not driving to the incinerator. We’re heading to an abandoned mine about three miles from here. I think I know what the plan is. We’ll hide the documents inside the mine, seal it closed with dynamite if we can. When this is all over, the Americans can dig it out and von Braun will get all of his precious research back, all sorted and in neatly labeled boxes.

I guess I haven’t failed yet. I can get von Braun out of Germany. I needed help and Mother sent me a major general in the German army, all wrapped up in a neat little bow. Mother always has a plan. She—Wait. The map is pretty clear, but these coordinates makes no sense. 21–3–15 26–5–19 23–3–10. They aren’t coordinates at all. This is a message from Mother.

Letters to numbers, I suppose, but she’d have used a cipher. For a short message like this, she’d probably go with a one-time pad no one can break. Now I just need the pad. There’s no point in trying to guess, so I must already have it. Mother would have given it to me. Think, Mia. Think.

“Your mother sends her best. She wants to know where you are.” Mother knows exactly where I am, or she couldn’t have sent Dornberger to meet us. Bleicherode. That must be it. Bleicherode is the pad. I need a pen.

Twenty-one. That’s a “t”… Three… Fifteen…

…

Let’s see what we got.

Does that mean anything? Tracker… close. Tracker close. Leave.

Fuck me.

12 Stormy Weather

I have not heard from Mia since she arrived in Bleicherode, and there are few intelligence reports coming out of the area.

I know General Dornberger rendezvoused with them as I asked. I know he delivered my message. I did not want to risk burning him, but I had no choice. I told Dornberger his escape route in the north was compromised, that he had to join von Braun and head south. He could not do it on his own without arousing suspicion, so he took all of his troops with him. He will help as much as he can. He is an intelligent man, enough to know he is more valuable with von Braun than on his own. Dornberger could betray us. He offered to help only to save himself, and there is no reason to believe his priorities will change if the Germans find out. There is also no point in thinking about it. He is on our side for now, and there is very little I can do if he chooses to not uphold his end of the bargain. In fact, there is very little I can do, period.

I am out of focus, distracted by the smallest thing. I am grateful to Hsue-Shen for his insight but muddled by his suggestion. I cannot go back in time, nor can I walk to the general store and order air by its vintage year. Perhaps some form of container, sealed shut and conserved for centuries… I am nowhere near a solution, and my train of thought keeps veering in a more existential direction.

I became interested in climate change because my mother did. She became involved for the same reason. My grandmother is the one who started it all, but why? Why would she choose to go down that path? I realize how important the outcome is for the future, ours and everyone else’s, but we are the Kibsu. Our path is to the stars. More puzzling is the fact that my mother stumbled upon her mother’s notes by accident. My grandmother abandoned her life’s work to pursue this inquiry, and she did not tell a soul. Take them to the stars. That is what we do. Preserve the knowledge. That is how we do it. Why did my grandmother break the rules? And if it was that important to her, why did she not want her daughter to know about it?

More questions and not a single answer. Mia is missing. The Tracker might be closing in on us.

I will pour myself a bath and read from the Enūma Anu Enlil. That should calm me down. I do not know why I like reading from it; it is nothing but the ramblings of ancient Akkadian fortune-tellers. Perhaps it reminds me of who I am. No one knows how we came to lose the knowledge that was once ours, but we did. At some point, one of us had to start from scratch, learn everything from nothing. I cannot imagine what it must have felt like for the Eleven, knowing there was so much beyond the sky but having no way to see it. Dreaming of civilizations a galaxy away, machines that can cross the heavens in an instant, yet stuck in the middle of the Iron Age. We were living in huts. Science was the domain of soothsayers. Somehow, we got our hands on these. The Enūma Anu Enlil was a series of tablets containing omens, some type of briefings for the king, warning him of things to come. Most of it is utter nonsense, but many of these omens were based on celestial phenomena: the way the moon behaves, the position of the sun, some stars and planets.

The tablet I am reading from is particularly grim. Whoever wrote it was not in a good place.

“If on the first day of Nisannu the sunrise is sprinkled with blood: grain will vanish in the country, there will be hardship and human flesh will be eaten.”

Human flesh will be eaten. It would take a severe drought, or perhaps a long siege, to reach that level of desperation. Even then, I doubt cannibalism as a means of sustenance was really a thing. What is more interesting is the idea that a red sky in the morning is a bad omen. There is some truth to it. In high-pressure areas where good weather is found, there is more dirt and dust in the lowest layers of the sky. That dust scatters colors with a shorter wavelength and lets the red shine through. Where most people live, the weather moves from west to east, and if we see the sun rise through good weather that has already passed, that good weather likely made way for some bad. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning.”

In these tablets, the red sky brings with it much more than bad weather. “If on the first day of Nisannu the sunrise looks sprinkled with blood and the light is cool: the king will die and there will be mourning in the country. If it becomes visible on the second day and the light is cool: the king’s high official will die and mourning will not stop in the country.”

Those first two days of the month of Nisannu must have been quite stressful. For the king, obviously, but also for the scholar who wrote it. If the sunrise did look bloody and no one died, there would be some explaining to do. Things get better for everyone on the third day.

“If the sunrise is sprinkled with blood on the third day: an eclipse will take place.”

It goes on and on. Some parts are more interesting than others. One of the tablets is a crude mathematical scheme to predict what the moon will look like on a given day. It all seems childish now, but this was information worthy of a king back then. For us, it was a place to start.

To reach for the stars must have seemed an unsurmountable task, like finding air from a thousand years ago, but here we are, closer than ever. We are the Kibsu. We will prevail.

13 Trouble So Hard

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

It won’t be long now.

Tick.

Tock.

They should have let me leave.

“I just want to go for a walk,” I said.

“No, ma’am. We have orders to keep you safe.”

Orders to keep me safe. What he meant is I’m a prisoner. We all are. Thousands of German engineers, wives, children, and nieces held prisoner by the Germans. The Third Reich is falling apart, and the Nazis are scrambling to keep it together any way they can. That includes holding their own people captive. Trust has never been one of Hitler’s strong suits. It won’t last, the Allies are nearby. It’s just a question of time before they get to Bleicherode. I suppose that’s good news, though the SS have orders to shoot us all when that happens. Sore losers. They’ll do it, I’m sure. The real prize isn’t here anymore.

Kammler sent them farther south, to Oberammergau, a small internment camp in the Bavarian Alps. Them. He sent them there. Von Braun and five hundred of his top people. No workers, no wives. No nieces. He had General Dornberger make the list. I guess he still doesn’t trust von Braun. I find the irony slightly amusing, but it doesn’t make up for the mess they’ve left behind. All those families we worked so hard to keep together, they broke them apart faster than they could say goodbye. I don’t know if I was more heartbroken by the crying children or pissed we did all of that for nothing. The SS shoved everyone of value into trucks and they drove away. Dornberger went with them. It’s so absurd, I don’t know why I’m doing this anymore.

Guarding your own people isn’t that hard. There are only a handful of soldiers left here to keep us company, and shoot us all if the Americans get too close. The rest of Dornberger’s men are busy dying in the mud somewhere. I’ve been lying in my bunk for… almost three hours now. I don’t know where everyone is. I have the whole room for myself. The light in here is something else. I opened all the windows to let the cool breeze in. The wind is picking up now. I can hear it whistle along the window frames. Inside there’s paper flying everywhere, posters flapping on the concrete walls. I don’t care. I’m burning hot.

Bombs are dropping all over Europe. Thirty, forty, fifty million dead—million—and I’m here trying to save a handful, or one. I’ve already killed someone doing it. All so I can hand them over to the Americans for them to make even bigger bombs. The craziest part is the Germans are doing the same thing. Kammler is trying to save the exact same people! And he’s doing it so he can hand them over to the Americans as well! You think this would be easy, right? Hell, they could make a deal with Kammler right now and be done with it. Maybe they will. I hope they don’t. I really do. I want to see that evil prick burn. I want to light the match myself.

Maybe it’s the absurdity of it all. Maybe it’s the notion that the Tracker could show up any minute. Maybe I’m still shaken by what happened with Dieter, or that nurse, but I can’t stop thinking about the people here. Ordinary people, expendable people. There are kids everywhere. There’s a boy, maybe seven years old. His name is Frank. He traveled with his parents from Peenemünde. Days cooped up inside a shitty transport truck on a bumpy road with a bunch of people in brown suits. He didn’t say a word, never complained. He played with a toy motorcycle—probably the one personal item his parents let him take along—a piece of twine, and some paper clips I stole from von Braun’s office. Now he’s here. He’s found a couple of kids close to his age. They play marbles all day in the yard. His parents weren’t on Dornberger’s list. They aren’t on anyone’s list. Dad is an accountant. I’m not sure about Mom. They don’t matter, to anyone. Kammler will have them rounded up and shot if the Allies make it all the way here. God forbid the enemy get their hands on another accountant. It might not happen. The SS might take to their heels when they see the Americans. These people aren’t worth dying for. Not Frank, anyway. Not his parents. Kammler wants them killed anyway. He has no idea who these people are, but there are too many folks here to sort through. Mom and Dad just aren’t important enough to justify the effort, and no one gives a shit about Frank.

I’m not supposed to care either. I’m supposed to find a quiet way out of here and head home. Dornberger will take it from here. I know that’s what Mother wants. She wants me to escape and leave all those families here to be killed when the good guys get too close. Fear the Tracker. Always run, never fight. Mother made me repeat the rules every day as a child. She still does sometimes. I’ll admit, that one always struck a chord. Eight-year-old me dreamed of giant monsters, fire-spitting dragons burning down cities. Mother said the Tracker was just a man, but it didn’t matter. How can the devil just be a man? I know better now, but thinking about him still makes me nervous. Run from the Tracker. Always run.

I’ve never seen him, of course. Mother’s never seen him. We haven’t met the Tracker in… seven generations. Not since the Ninety-Two found her mother’s bones boiled clean in a wooden box. He had left a note: “I’ll see you soon.” I wonder if that’s true. I know the Ninety-Two was as real as I am—I’ve read her journals—and I have no reason to doubt her mother was killed by an evil man. But I wonder if the stories we’re told weren’t embellished, even a little, for our benefit. A bit of flair for dramatic effect. For all I know the Tracker is just a name we give evil when it crosses our path. Something for naughty children to fear. Our boogeyman.

Fear the Tracker. I suppose I do. I should run. That’s what they expect of me, von Braun, the OSS, my mother.

Well, fuck von Braun and fuck the OSS. It’s been three hours, that should be enough. I bought rat poison when we left Peenemünde. It was just a precaution, a way to kill myself, or von Braun if things went south. I made my way into the kitchen this morning and poured all of it in the stew. Not ours, the good stuff they serve the SS. The meat they have isn’t that fresh. They put enough vinegar and spices in there to mask the stench, and the taste of the strychnine. Mother said they still use it as medicine in some places. Put enough of it inside someone and it will do a number on their central nervous system. The muscle spasms should have started before they got to dessert. Thirty minutes later they would have been on the ground, convulsing. They probably broke some bones, bit their tongues off or split their heads open. If they were lucky, their lungs seized and they died gasping for air. If they weren’t, well, it took a bit longer. However long it takes to exhaust yourself to death jackknifing on the concrete floor. I don’t care either way. It’s over by now. I’ll stop by the officers’ mess on my way out and take care of those who weren’t hungry.

These people are safe now, as safe as anyone can be. They can go wherever they please. I can go and finish what I started. This is my mission. I killed a man to get this far. I’ll be damned if I give up now because of some mythic creature I’ve never seen. I’m scared, yes, but I’m not leaving Germany without von Braun. Kammler did me a favor. Five hundred men is a lot easier to move than three thousand. There’s a train leaving in an hour. I can make it. I’ll be in Oberammergau by morning.

14 Dream

There’s no one on this train; it’s quiet. I should be asleep by now, it’s… shit, 3:00 A.M. I’m exhausted but my mind won’t rest.

Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven men lying dead on the ground. I did that. I did it to save thousands, but if I’m honest I didn’t care. I was angry. I didn’t feel remorse when I saw them lying there. I didn’t feel anything. They were Nazis. They were going to kill everyone and I killed them first.

Dieter. That little girl without skin. The SS I killed, the ones I thought about killing on that bridge. They’re all blurring into one another, slowly fading in the background. It’s all part of the scenery. A woman in a red dress floating in the river.

I’m good at this, somehow. I don’t want to be. “We kill to survive, like every other living thing.” That’s what Mother said. I didn’t believe it. Not me.

…

I didn’t want to be like them. I never wanted to be like them.

Look at me now. I’d never hurt anyone before. I’ve been here a few weeks and I’ve killed twice already. It’s getting easier. Dieter was hard. I couldn’t care less about the SS lying on the kitchen floor.

I’m not like that. It’s this war, this place. The Nazis keep redefining insanity. They’ve turned their country into a satanic ritual. It’s in the air we breathe, the water we drink. I’m swimming in it and it’s changing me. I’m losing my fucking mind, one chunk at a time. I need to get away from the war before there’s nothing left of me to find.

15 L’Âme au Diable

I almost missed them. By the time I got to the Oberammergau camp where von Braun and his men had been moved, General Dornberger had already convinced the superior officer there that it was a bad idea to have all of Germany’s top scientists in one place. One lucky bomb and boom. No more scientists, and a firing squad for the man in charge. The officer agreed to let everyone stay in the villages around the camp, even gave them some civilian clothes so they could blend in. Dornberger delivered in spades. Everyone is free, more or less.

I found von Braun and Dornberger in this café an hour ago. They’ve arranged for some vehicles from Bleicherode to come get us, but they apparently don’t have enough gas to take us anywhere. I don’t know who they talked to in Bleicherode, or if they found out about the guards. They didn’t mention it if they did. I don’t think either of them would care.

This is crazy. I thought I’d have to break them out of an internment camp. I imagined a firefight, bombs going off, blood everywhere. Instead I find two dandies drinking espresso in an upscale café. Their idea of “roughing it.” You can’t get coffee anywhere nowadays, no sugar, no tea. The owner of this place must have friends in high places. Von Braun saw me when I came in. He nodded at me, got me a chair, and went on with his conversation as if nothing happened. I had to interrupt for them to fill me in. In a nutshell, we need to find gas and enough food for five hundred people while we wait for the Americans. I don’t know how long that will be. Still, this all seems petty compared to what I had in mind. It could be as easy as—

—Forgive me for interrupting again, gentlemen, but do we have any VzBV letterhead left?

They’re smiling. I guess they hadn’t thought of that. Dornberger doesn’t seem all that convinced, but von Braun is getting up. Oh, they’re both leaving now. Thank you for ignoring me. You’re welcome! All they need is a typewriter and the project-for-whatever-we-said-it-was will requisition all the fuel and supplies we need. The only thing left to do now is to wait for the Americans to come to us and drink some coffee. I need one. I haven’t slept a wink.

This café is like Neverland. Outside it smells of death and dampness. In here it’s fresh coffee and chocolate pastries. Where on earth did they get chocolate? It’s like the war never made it past the front door. White china, white linen, white chairs. Come in! The world’s gone to hell, but we’ve got Franzbrötchen!

Here comes the Kellnerin.

—Einen Kaffee, bitte.

I— Shit.

The war’s back. Waffen-SS just walked in. Wow, there must be a dozen of them. I can see their reflection in the window. They’re moving on either side of the door. One of them is just behind me, I can hear him breathe. They must be making way for someone. I wonder—Here he is. Oh, great! Two oak leaves on his collar patch. He’s an Oberführer. That’s a… I don’t know what that is, an über-colonel or something. A very important asshole. You can tell how full of themselves they are by how slow they walk. This one is slooooow. I hope he wants his coffee to go. I also wish he’d come in five minutes ago, when I had a major general sitting beside me.

Happy thoughts. A week from now, I could be back in Washington eating pancakes. Oh, here’s my coffee.

—Danke.

Über-colonel is staring at me. It’s making me nervous. I’m sure he knows. Could he be…? Nah. I’m being paranoid. Then again, if the devil is walking the earth, I can see him wearing this uniform. There’s enough evil to pass around in these parts.

—I’m sorry. Do you mind?

Shit. He’s talking to me. My blood pressure shot through the roof. He didn’t wait for me to answer. He just sat down across from me. Now I’m really being paranoid.

—I—no. Please.

—Kellnerin! Coffee!

No knives on the table. I can’t run. I’ll have to go through a dozen men if he decides to stop me, and I won’t kill them all with a spoon.

How would I know if he’s the Tracker? Our ancestors described them as ghostly and ashen. That’s what Mother said. I’m not entirely sure what that means. We lived in Asia back then, so my bet is they’d never seen a white guy before. There weren’t that many around those parts a thousand years ago. This man—I don’t know. He’s not the whitest fellow I’ve seen. He won’t win Aryan of the Year but he could use some time in the sun. I’m freaking out now. He might be—Really? He’s staring down my shirt.

—Sir?

—What a beautiful necklace.

My necklace. My heart’s throbbing. That medallion is the one thing that survived us all, the only tangible proof of who we are, short of looking in a mirror. That necklace belonged to the One. I didn’t even want to touch it when Mother gave it to me. We’ve held on to that thing for three thousand years. I didn’t want to be the idiot who drops it in a lake.

—Thank you, sir. It’s a family heirloom.

—That stone. Is it a sapphire? I’ve never seen one this orange.

—It’s just a garnet, I’m afraid.

—May I?

He wants to touch it. I don’t think he means to harm me. In fact, he’s not paying attention to me at all.

—Here. Let me take if off.

He’s holding it to the outside light. That stone is so close to his eye now… What is he—

—You’re right. Not a sapphire.

—How can you tell?

—Believe it or not I was a jeweler before all this. Seems like a million years ago. The refraction’s not right for a sapphire.

—I told you it—

—It’s not a garnet either.

—Then what is it?

—I don’t know…. It seems I’m a little rusty. Here, you can have it back. Thank you for the company.

He’s leaving. He’s no Tracker, that’s for sure. This isn’t the depraved rabid animal Mother described. I look at this man and I see… dispassion, indifference. That wasn’t wrath or furious anger sitting in front of me. That was apathy.

What would the Tracker have done? Slash my throat right here at the table? We left this country because of him. Mother said he, they, were getting close.

How did she know? How does she know now?

I suppose it’s as good an excuse as any if you have to convince a child to leave everything behind. Then again, maybe she did know. A stranger asking too many questions. Old friends turning up dead. We’ve never met any of them, but we have hundreds of people working for us. Maybe they knew. It’s kind of funny when I think about it. I’m a carbon copy of my mother, but there’s still so much I don’t know about her. What would she have done in my place? Would she have killed Dieter? Would she be angry that I did?

I’d still look exactly like Mother no matter who she slept with, but maybe I’m what he was there for. Maybe they fucked in Bad Saarow. “I didn’t think you’d come back, not after what happened.” Maybe she broke up with him there. Maybe… Maybe I need to get some sleep.

16 Down, Down, Down

Hitler is dead. We heard it on the radio.

Berlin has fallen, Hitler is dead, and we’re still here. We’ve “set up camp” in a small town near the Austrian border. That’s what they said, Dornberger and von Braun. “We’ll set up camp here.” There’s no camp. We’re in a resort hotel, for crying out loud. Haus Ingeburg, that’s what it’s called. There’s an indoor pool with a view of the Alps. There’s a sauna. Von Braun is in the fucking sauna.

We wait. We wait and listen to the radio. The Americans can’t be more than a couple of miles away, but so are the Germans, and no one wants to risk getting caught. Not when we’re so close. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Mother must be going mad. I know I am. I haven’t slept in three days. I need Mother. I need to ask—I don’t even know what I want to ask. Dieter, the Tracker, Bad Saarow. I have a thousand questions stampeding in my head. I can’t formulate a single one. It doesn’t matter. She’ll make sense of all this. I just need to get home.

I cut myself. I didn’t even notice. I was playing with a switchblade I stole—confiscated—from a kid in Bleicherode, scratching my name on a wooden table. It’s a nice table. I don’t know why I was doing it. Von Braun walked by. He looked at me and screamed my name. I thought he was angry about the table, or looking at my leg jumping like a jackhammer, but he grabbed my arm, hard. I… I cut myself. Long cuts—not too deep but deep enough—across my forearm. Lots of them. Maybe a dozen. I must have been at it for a while. I was as shocked as he was when I saw the blood. I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. No matter how convoluted a story I could come up with, there was no way to sell this as anything but what it was. I tried, though. I really tried.

Von Braun didn’t say anything. He didn’t scold me. He let me pretend. I thought that was nice of him. I suppose normal isn’t what it once was. That or he didn’t care. Here he is now. Oh, no. That’s Magnus, the other von Braun. He’s younger than his brother. An engineer. Everyone likes Magnus. I do, too. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that he speaks English.

—Hi Lili! What are you doing?

—Just reading a book. You?

That’s not true. I haven’t opened it.

—Getting some fresh air.

He’s smiling. Magnus is always happy. Always. I don’t know how he does it. Then again, I don’t know how he builds rockets for Nazis.

—Why did you do it, Magnus?

—Oh, that was easy. We despised the French, we were mortally afraid of the Soviets, we didn’t believe the British could afford us, that left the Americans.

—I didn’t mean that. I meant… Never mind.

I shouldn’t have asked. I want them to be good people. I want all of this to be worth something, the dead, all that we did. If that’s not true, if they’re like Himmler…

—What?

—Building weapons, working for Hitler. Why did you do it?

—Says the girl who wants us to do the same thing for the United States.

I am a hypocrite.

—You’re right. I don’t want to know.

—They didn’t leave us much choice.

He feels the need to justify himself. That’s not the way to go. Getting up every morning is a choice. Not putting a P38 to your temple and blowing your brains out is a choice.

—You didn’t have to do it. You certainly didn’t have to be good at it.

—Do you know why Himmler had my brother arrested?

—What?

—You heard me. A year ago, why did they have him arrested?

—They said it was on suspicion of treason.

I just heard myself saying it, and I realized it doesn’t make any sense. You don’t suspect someone of treason then have him lead your biggest weapons project three months later, no matter how indispensable he may be. Von Braun wouldn’t be alive if they thought he could betray them. They trusted him.

—That’s funny. Suspicion of treason. Have you met Helmut Gröttrup?

—He was at Peenemünde, wasn’t he?

—He was a manager, yes. Smart man. He and my brother didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but they respected each other. Anyway, Helmut, Wernher, and—who else was there? Oh yes—Klaus Riedel, another scientist. It doesn’t matter. They were all having dinner one night. A casual event, friends, engineers from the research center. They were all having drinks. Gröttrup, at some point, said he’d heard the war wasn’t going well for the Germans, to which my brother replied that they should all be building spaceships anyway, not missiles. Rockets want to go up, he said, not down. It was innocent enough. But there was a young woman at dinner, a dentist, who turned out to be spying for the SS. Just Germany being Germany. She reported all of them to Kammler, who told Himmler. You know the rest.

—Spaceships?

—He meant it, you know. That’s all he can think about. He wants to go to space himself. Only no one wants to fund that, so he does the next best thing. He builds rockets, the biggest ones he can.

—And you?

—Oh, I’m not as smart as he is. It doesn’t really matter what I believe. I just like working with my brother.

I didn’t know von Braun wanted the same thing we do. Listening to Magnus talk about his brother, there’s something profoundly endearing about family. Unconditional love. That’s worth saving. That’s worth dying for.

—Is he still mad at me?

I snapped at von Braun this morning. No reason, just me being… The way he broke the shell on his boiled egg, the way he held his spoon. There was a spit bubble on the corner of his mouth. I… It was like time slowed down, almost to a halt. Everything was loud, screechy. I could hear my heartbeat, his chewing. Constant. Chewing…

—Oh, I’d be surprised if he rememb—Lili! what are you doing!

I have no idea. All I know is I’ll lose my mind if I stay here another second. I need to do something. I can’t drive to the border, there’ll be checkpoints, soldiers. I’ll take that bicycle and cut through the woods. With any luck, it’ll be Americans at the bottom of the hill.

—I’m getting us out of here!

That is one ugly bicycle. It’s heavy as hell with those milk churns in the back. Perfect for going downhill, and it’s all downhill. I know I’m being stupid. We could wait it out. All we have to do is wait, but I can’t sit still anymore. Even if I get caught, I did my job. They’ll make it if I don’t.

—Stop! Wait for me!

Magnus is following me. Now he’s being stupid. There’s no point in the both of us getting caught. Whatever. His call, not mine. Damn, this hill is steep. I hope I don’t break my neck. I hope Magnus doesn’t break his neck. I don’t think von Braun will like me very much if I get his brother killed.

We’re going too fast! We’re like two rockets speeding through space. Except gravity is working for us, not against us. More weight, more speed. It’s the milk churns. If I get rid of them, it’ll slow me down. Ditch some weight…

I’m getting tunnel vision. The trees are flying by faster than my eyes can focus. We’ll never be able to stop. If there’s anything blocking that path, we’ll drive right into it, or into a tree. It doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s solid, we’re doomed. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? You split your skull open, that’s what happens.

I need both hands on the handlebar to keep the bicycle straight. This. Is. Not. Goooood.

I see someone down there. Forget the someone. I see a ditch. There’s a fucking ditch!

—MAGNUS! WATCH OUT!

This is gonna hurt. OOOOOOOHHH NOOOOOOOO!

That pop. I dislocated my shoulder. Damn it hur—

—ON YOUR KNEES! NOW!

—No! Don’t shoot! PLEASE DON’T SHOOT!

I can’t tell if it’s a German muzzle I feel on my neck or an American one. I’m sure the bullets feel the same. I can’t feel it anymore. Whoever it is, he’s coming around.

—Do you speak English, miss?

—I… Yes, I do. What’s your name?

—PFC Frederick Schneikert. I need to see your hands, miss. Raise your hands.

Schneikert? But he speaks English. This is confusing.

—Who are you with, PFC Schneikert?

—324th Infantry Regiment, 44th Infantry Division.

Americans. We made it.

17 Going Home

My daughter has returned to me. She led von Braun and the best of his people into the hands of the Americans. She accomplished her mission, but all that matters to me is that she is safe and sound. I can tell it was not easy for her. She has been distant ever since she came home.

—Say what’s on your mind, Mia.

If there is one thing we do not do well, it is hide things from one another. She saw things, or did things, that she was not prepared for.

—It’s okay, Mother. I don’t want to talk about it.

Of course she does. She does not know how.

—What happened in Germany, Mia? Did anyone hurt you?

—No, Mother. No one hurt me. I’m fine.

—Obviously, you are not. Why did you not come back when I asked you to? I know you received my message.

—I couldn’t.

—What do you mean you cou—

—Mother, stop! Have you…

—Yes?

—Have you ever done bad things because you thought you had to?

She’s killed.

—What did you do, Mia? You can tell me.

—…

I did not want to talk about it either. I was thirteen. The war had not ended yet. A German police officer stopped me on the street and asked for my papers; I did not have them. He said… He said it was people like me that ruined his country. He said he thought about “my kind” every time he had to eat turnip. The Jews, the immigrants were eating what little food there was, taking it away from the “real Germans.” He was going to take me in, said I would go back to where I came from. He offered to give me a chance, one chance because he was a nice guy. That chance meant I had to go with him behind the post office. I did. I was scared beyond words. I thought he would send me away and I would never see my mother again. I grabbed a steel bar from a pile of rubble while he undid his belt. I remember being surprised at how hard it was to break through skin with a blunt object. He was strong, and struggling for his life. I gave up trying to impale him after a few tries. I shoved the iron bar inside his mouth and pushed through his palate. I was still shaking when I got home. I could not tell my mother. I was afraid we would have to move again because of me. Mother knew right away. She came into my room, stroked my hair, and asked: “Was he a bad man?” I nodded. She said: “Survive at all costs, Sara. You’re alive. That means you did good.”

—Mia?

—What can you tell me about my father?

—Where is this coming from?

—Do you remember a man by the name of Dieter?

I do. I was still a teenager when I met Didi. He studied music history. He could talk about opera until morning if you let him.

—You saw him?

—He thought I was you.

I was about Mia’s age the last time we saw each other. The resemblance would have been confusing. He would ask questions, too many questions.

—Mia. Dieter was not your father. Even if he were, it does not matter.

—It matters to me.

—It matters to you that you have a father. It does not matter who it is. You would be the very same person no matter who it was.

—No, Mother. Call me crazy but it kind of matters to me whether I killed my dad or not.

—You did not kill your father. You did what you had to do, Mia. I would have done the same thing. We kill to survive, like every other living thing.

—What happened in Bad Saarow?

—What?

—You heard me, Mother.

I did, but I was not ready for it.

—What did Dieter tell you?

—Nothing. He said I should ask you, so I’m asking you.

—There is nothing to tell, Mia. What happened in Bad Saarow is between me and him. It does not concern you.

She knows I am lying but it does not matter. She does not need to remember. Not now.

—Why did we leave Germany?

—I told you, Mia. The Tracker was closing in on us, as he is now.

More lies. I have started something and I cannot stop it.

—How do you know?

Doubt is hard to get rid of once it sets its roots. Dieter planted the seed and I am feeding it with lies. Ragweed.

—Because my mother said so…. I know you are upset, Mia. You have every right to be. I wish there were something I could say to make you feel better but there is not. All I can tell you is that you did the right thing. It will take time, but you will learn to make peace with what you did.

—…

—You will, Mia. I promise you.

—It’s not so much what I did that bothers me. That’s not true, it’s eating me alive, but what bothers me most is that I knew how, Mother. I didn’t hesitate. Fuck, I—

—Watch your tongue, Mia.

—I’m sorry, but I did. I stood in front of a whole platoon and I knew exactly how I could kill them all. What’s wrong with me?

—Nothing, Mia. We are… percipient. We have always been. You knew what to do for the same reason you can do physics in your sleep.

—What does that make me?

—I’m not sure what you mean.

—What are we, Mother?

—We are the Kibsu.

—Don’t do that. We’re not the same thing as everyone else, are we?

—Our blood is somewhat different when you look at it under a microscope, but it is blood. Beyond that, you know as much as I do. We lost the knowledge a long time ago.

—When?

—What does it matter, Mia? Around twenty-eight hundred years ago. The Eleven is the first of us we have any knowledge of. Her mother died before she could tell her everything.

—So you don’t know why I’m like you? Why I can tell exactly what my daughter will look like?

—You are upset.

—I’m not upset!

—Fine. And no, Mia. I do not. Do you think I would keep it from you if I did? We do not know why any children are the way they are. Most of what we know comes from work on pea plants almost a century ago.

—I’m sorry, pea plants?

—Pea plants. A monk named Mendel—he was a botanist—bred lots of pea plants and looked at different traits, like the pod shape or color, the height of the plant. He found that traits do not mix, that one always wins out over the other.

—What does that mean?

—It means tall plants and short plants do not make medium plants, only tall plants. Mendel described the ways in which pea plants inherit these “traits”—he called them factors—from their parents. He published his findings in 1866. No one cared at the time but most of what we know is straight out of Mendel’s work. People talk about genes now but we have no idea what they are. Some researchers think they are proteins. There was a paper last year that showed a nucleic acid was involved in how bacteria inherit certain traits. We simply do not know.

—What does that have to do with us?

—Everything. Whatever these genes are, our children seem to inherit all of them from us, and none from their father.

—We could find out. We could help with the research.

—No, Mia. We will not waste time indulging personal curiosity. That is not our path.

—…

—Tell me what the path is.

—Mother!

—I mean it.

—Take them to the stars, before Evil comes and kills them all. That is the path.

—You should find comfort in that. Most people do not have a clear purpose.

—But what if… Never mind.

—Mia…

—What if we’re wrong? We’ve lost the knowledge. You said yourself we don’t know why we do what we do. Why do we keep doing it? Take them to the stars. It’s just words on a necklace, Mother. Why do we follow them like scripture?

—Because they are your words. You see the person who wrote them every time you look in the mirror. You see her sitting across from you now. I do not know why we set ourselves that task but we did. We made a choice and you would make it again if it were yours to make.

—I don’t—

—You do know. I’ve seen you tear through our journals as if you’d read them before. The events are unfamiliar, but the choices feel obvious. You know what these women will do before you read it, and you know why they did it even if it is not on the page. You convince yourself otherwise because you crave what everyone else has, but you know who you are. Deep down, you have always known. It scares you, the same way it scared all of us, until…

—Until what?

—Until you see your own daughter and realize she is you. Then you will know. You will know you are me, and my mother, and the Eighty-Seven, and the Ten. And you will know that those words are real.

—All right, that’s enough. I’ll be okay, Mother. I’m okay. Let’s talk about something else.

—We do not need to talk about anything. You have some personal items to pack.

—Do we really need to move now?

—Tomorrow. He is too close for us to stay.

—How do you know?

—I told you. There was a murder across the street from—

—People get murdered every day, Mother. It doesn’t mean it’s the Tracker.

—It was not a murder. It was a bloodbath.

—There are deranged people ev—

—It happened across from our house! I will not take that chance, Mia. Tomorrow we move to Moscow. Pack what you can. We will burn the house in the morning.

—I just…

—You just what, Mia?

—I just don’t think he’s real.

—Then let us make certain we never have to find out.

ENTR’ACTE Rule #5: Don’t Leave a Trace

The war was coming to an end when the Tracker made it to Berlin. As always, the brothers were late—thirteen years behind the traitors. The store the women ran had burned down. Friends had moved away or had died in the trenches. For George, the eldest, this was the end, a final attempt at capturing the traitors before retiring to have children. His brothers would continue without him until his boys were old enough to hunt on their own.

Years of failure had taken their toll on George. He would honor his father’s wishes and spawn a new generation, but he had long stopped believing in their cause. All he had hoped for was to kill his prey and put an end to this pointless chase. Now, staring at the ashes of an old spice shop, he had to come to terms with the idea of watching small versions of himself grow up to live the life he had so resented. That, he decided, would be better achieved with large amounts of whiskey. He sat at the bar in the tavern across the street and asked for the bottle. The barkeep obliged, turned to wash some dirty glasses, and started talking to the wall.

—Shame what happened to Ahmet’s place.

George grimaced as he downed a full glass. The barkeep kept talking.

—Rough day?

George’s throat was still burning. He looked at the patron next to him, facedown on the bar, slowly adding width to a small puddle of drool. He took a deep breath, let the smell of stale beer and cheap cigars fill his lungs, before he acknowledged the barkeep looking at him in the bar mirror.

—Are you talking to me?

—Yeah! I said you look like you’re having a rough day.

—What were you saying before that?

—I saw you looking at the rubble. It’s a shame what happened to Ahmet’s shop.

Two words: Ahmet’s shop. George’s breathing got shallow. He felt a tingle in his stomach. It wasn’t the booze, that hadn’t kicked in yet. This was something he had felt every now and again. Something that always came and went.

—I thought the shop owner was a woman. Sara.

—Sara was the daughter. The shop belonged to her mother, and Ahmet, her husband. Good man.

—You wouldn’t happen to know where they went, now would you?

—Sorry. They just… disappeared.

George exhaled what little hope had sprung inside him and poured himself another glass of whiskey.

—Zum Wohl!

That one didn’t burn as much going down. It wasn’t the first time George tried to drink himself into oblivion. He knew what was coming: despair, followed by rage. A headache, bloody hands. George didn’t care. He always enjoyed that first hour or so, when self-pity was stronger than self-loathing.

—His sister might know.

—…

—Ahmet’s sister. Fata. She’d be over fifty by now but she might still be around.

—Fata. Do you know where she lives?

—Nah. Haven’t seen her in years. Schöneberg, maybe. Fata Hassan is her name. Sorr—

The barkeep grabbed his throat and fell to the floor. It took a few seconds for George to realize he was holding a knife. His knife. George looked at himself in the bar mirror and got angry at the man staring back. He wanted to know more. He had questions his mouth was too numb to ask, and the man gargling on the ground wasn’t answering them. He turned around to see who would, but the room spun the other way. He spotted half a dozen young people sitting in the corner. The floor tilted when he got up to approach them and sent him crashing against the wall. The people laughed at him as if it were his fault, as if he were impotent. George’s knife hand started acting on its own. Blackout.

George was sitting at the youths’ table. Their heads were missing. They all sat there, headless, taunting him. George grabbed each body, one by one, hoping to shake some sense into them. Blackout.

Guilt was for the weak, but George felt ashamed of what he had done. He tried to fix it, put these people’s heads back where they belonged. He matched each one to a body as best he could, but the heads kept falling. George found some cocktail shakers to hold them in place. The whole process was tiring, and when he was done, George sat himself back at the bar for some rest. When he woke, the room had stopped spinning. He saw the scene he had created and decided it was probably best to leave.

The man sitting next to him was still facedown on the bar, but the puddle of drool had grown bigger and redder. George wiped his blade on the man’s shirt and grabbed the whiskey bottle before stumbling out of the tavern. He cursed the blinding sun and headed to Schöneberg on foot, hoping the walk would sober him up faster than he was drinking.

The police stopped him midway. George’s heartbeat went up a notch. He had spent his whole life chasing the traitors. There was nothing else. That was his life. It was his brothers’ life, his father’s. Every day felt exactly like the last, and for as long as George remembered, he had seen the world as pale and bleak. Fighting was the only thing that really got his heart pumping, the one thing that reminded him he was still alive. When four police officers stood in front of him on Goebenstraße, he thought the ensuing battle would be the highlight of his day. He went for one last sip of whiskey, but the bottle was empty, and in a brief moment of lucidity, he remembered two words the dead barman had uttered: “Fata Hassan.”

George got on his knees and thanked the police for stopping him.

—Oh thank God! I’m so glad to finally see someone. Can you help me find my way home? I’ve had way too much to drink and I’m afraid I’m completely lost.

The officers asked where home was, to which George replied that he hadn’t found a place yet. He had just moved to Berlin and had been living with a friend for two days.

—Can you please take me to her place? I don’t know where it is—Schöneberg, somewhere—but her name is Fata Hassan. Please help me.

The Tracker could be very charming, and after a brief stint at the police station, two Berlin police officers drove him to an apartment building on Freisinger Straße. George thanked the officers and entered the building. He found Fata Hassan’s apartment and kicked her door in.

When Fata returned home from work that night, she found a man sleeping in her bed. She did not scream. Instead, she went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. She returned to the bedroom to wake the stranger.

George woke not knowing where he was. He gathered he was in Germany when he heard Fata speak but remembered nothing of what had transpired earlier. It was only when she told him her last name that George realized who he was speaking with. He introduced himself as Sara’s cousin, which brought a smile to Fata’s face. Eager to meet a new member of the family, she made dinner for the both of them. George listened to Fata reminisce about her brother and his wife for hours. It was almost midnight when he finally asked where he could find Sara.

—America! They went to America. I don’t know where. Ahmet said he couldn’t tell me and I haven’t heard from him since. But that’s where you’ll find your cousin.

George’s head was still pounding, but he enjoyed the feeling of normalcy that came with a home-cooked meal. He was polite, did not strangle or stab his host. He thanked Fata for dinner and said he hoped they would meet again. He was almost out of the building when Fata ran after him.

—Wait! I have something to show you! I found this in the family album. You can have it if you want.

In her hand was a picture of a man, two women, and a child. On the back of it, a handwritten note said: “With my beloved wife, our daughter Sara and little Mi’a. 1931.”