Before we get started here, the lawyers need to have their fun:
As usual, I don't own jack scratch. When it comes to money, I'm flat busted, so don't even bother trying to sue me. The characters belong to Disney, the software belongs to Bill Gates, my kidneys belong to my bookie, and all your base belong to us!
Chapter Seven
"Sometimes, irony can be a wonderful thing…"
Those were the words running through Kim Possible's head as she drifted off to sleep. In the past, Ron had always been fond of reminding her that he had her back. In this case, however, the meaning was somewhat more literal than normal.
Ron was lying spooned up against her, his arm draped around her waist, their fingers intertwined. She could feel the beat of his heart from behind her, and it couldn't have been more perfect.
It had been close to midnight before they had finally reached their destination. Ron had found an open field on the outskirts of town where he had been able to set their small plane down. (Boy, was that farmer ever going to be surprised, come morning.) From there, it hadn't been too far a walk to the hostel where Wade had made arrangements for them to stay. The room was small, (Ron had joked that when he stuck their key in the lock, it had gone out the window), but Kim couldn't have been happier if it had been the Palace of Versailles.
She was enjoying the best sleep she had experienced in weeks. It wasn't unusual for her sleep patterns to become sporadic when there was a sitch brewing. The uncertainty of everything had a way of finding her no matter where she was. It was something that would have surprised most people, as they only knew her public persona. To them, she was cool, confident and always in control. They never stopped to think that, at the end of the day, she was just as human as they were, and that she was subject to the very same emotions. Fear, uncertainty and self-doubt were nearly constant companions for her, no matter how masterful she was at concealing them from the world.
None of that mattered, however, when she was with Ron. Falling asleep in his arms, she could let it all go. All the maniacal villains, the exploding lairs, the insanely-complicated schemes and the weird ray-thingies would simply fade away into a misty background, leaving only her and her man. This was her place, a magical spot where she knew nothing could ever hurt her, and she wouldn't trade it for anything.
This was perhaps the greatest irony of all, for who in their right mind would have ever imagined that Kim Possible, the great teen hero, had a hero of her own.
Although she wasn't aware of it, Ron had laid awake, watching her drift off to sleep. The look of utter contentment on her face brought him more joy than perhaps she would ever know. This was why he did it, after all. This was the reason why he jumped from airplanes, trudged through swamps, scaled mountains and memorized all eighty-six different varieties of cuddle-buddy. He would do anything to make her happy. That was his one and only wish in life.
There was another reason for his lack of sleep, however: Something that gnawed at him, welling-up from the depths of his soul to haunt his conscious thoughts. He tried to shake it, willing himself to sleep, but there was no escape. Its hold was just too great.
It had started innocently enough with just a quick glance at Wade's digital map: A simple task of checking their position while on final approach. He hadn't expected it, but for half-an-instant, the name of their destination had flashed across the screen.
During their flight they had crossed over the border into Poland, and were now about fifty miles northeast of Warsaw, as near as he could tell. The town seemed average enough, differing little in appearance from any of the other dozen or so villages in the region. Most people wouldn't even give this place a second thought, but for Ron, it plagued him, its sinister name echoing over and over in his mind…
Treblinka.The personal war now raging within him was quickly proving futile. As much as his soul burned at the cursed name, he could not help but be drawn to it. There was a distant siren which he could not comprehend, calling him to a place which he could not stand, and yet, could not avoid.
Silently, gingerly, being ever so careful not to wake the sleeping redhead beside him, he got up and moved to the chair in the corner. Slipping into his boots, he took one last, loving look at Kim before exiting. He hated to leave her here, but this was something he had to do on his own. He would never expect her to understand the reasons for this. Only a person of his background could truly comprehend the significance of what he was about to do.
Gliding quietly down the stairs and through the main parlor, he soon found himself standing in the narrow, cobblestone street. Streetlamps cast their dim light about, throwing shadows and mystery into crevices and alleyways. It wouldn't be light out for a few more hours yet, and the brisk, pre-dawn air sent a chill down his spine. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and listening to a tiny voice inside his head. The voice was unfamiliar to him, but it spoke forcefully, compelling him to do its bidding. The voice's instructions were clear…
"Go that way!"And so Ron Stoppable started walking down the darkened street, not knowing for certain where he was headed, or even why for that matter. All he knew was that there was something out there in the darkness, waiting for him, calling to him, and he felt compelled to oblige.
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Kim Possible awoke with a start, her previously sound sleep having been interrupted by a nightmare. In her dream, Ron had been drifting away from her, carried off into the darkness by some unseen force. She had reached out for him desperately, but he had been just beyond her grasp, and she was unable to save him.
At that moment she had shot up in bed, drenched in sweat and screaming his name, only to discover that in some sense, the dream had been all-too real.
She was alone, and that realization disturbed her to no end. Was she really that emotionally dependent upon him? Did even his momentary absence cause her subconscious mind to panic like some skittish, little schoolgirl?
A better question for the moment, perhaps, was the question of where the heck was he, anyway?
"He could be in the bathroom." She thought to herself. The hostel they were staying in was an older building with several second-floor rooms sharing a common washroom at the end of the hall. She quickly dismissed this idea, however, when she leaned over to discover that his side of the bed was cold, indicating that it had been unoccupied for some time.
A new wave of panic suddenly washed over her, and her heart began to race. Something ferociously serious must have happened for Ron to just up-and-leave without telling her. In the blink of an eye, she had grabbed the Kimmunicator from the top of the dresser, and was repeatedly pushing the call button.
"Whoa… easy there, Miss Anxious." Wade said as his familiar image flashed onto the screen. "What's cooking over there?"
"I need a trace and I need it yesterday." Kim replied flatly, her "mission-mode" tone quickly taking over.
"Okay… Care to be more specific?" Wade replied.
"It's Ron. You do still have him chipped, right?"
"Kim… We've been over this a dozen times already." Wade explained. "Tagging someone without their consent raises a laundry list of ethical issues. There's privacy rights, health risks, figuring out how to change the batteries…"
"Yeah, yeah!" Kim snapped back. "Just answer the question, already!"
"Affirmative." Wade shrugged dejectedly.
"Good! Then run the trace and save the speech!"
Wade worked with his characteristic efficiency, and within moments he had a lock on Ron's location.
"Got it! He's a little over a mile away from your current position." Wade replied when the trace was complete. "Sending coordinates now."
"Totally spankin', Wade! I owe you one."
With that, Kim closed the connection and shoved the Kimmunicator into the hip pocket of her olive-green cargo pants. Moving quickly, she laced up her boots and shouldered her backpack. She didn't know why Ron was out and about at this ungodly hour, but she was going to find out.
Then, situation depending, she'd kick his biscuit.
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The first hints of dawn were beginning to illuminate the eastern sky as Kim jogged to a stop along a desolate stretch of road on the outskirts of town. She had made good time to this point, although she desperately needed to catch her breath.
According to Wade's trace, Ron should be somewhere nearby.
After pausing a few moments to recuperate from the run she had just made, she scanned the immediate area, taking stock of her surroundings. A low-hanging fog shrouded the countryside, creating an effect that resembled something out of a grade-B horror flick. The landscape was most definitely rural here, consisting of rolling fields and the occasional farmhouse. Immediately ahead of her, just past a bend in the road, lay an open meadow.
The pastoral scene was downright serene, evoking images of an impressionist painting. The thought crossed her mind that this would be a nice place for a picnic later in the day, once the fog burned off of course. Then, through the wisps of morning mist, she caught sight of something else. It was a familiar-looking silhouette: A silhouette with a cowlick and goofy, big ears.
Ron was standing along the side of the road, staring blankly at the meadow before him. He wasn't moving, standing like a statue, seemingly rooted in the gravel that lined the roadside. Although Kim could not see anything of particular interest from her position, something about this field had definitely captured Ron's undivided attention.
Kim started moving toward him, but for reasons unknown to her, suddenly stopped. Something about this sitch was off the map, and she felt the impressive need to call Wade once again.
"Hey Kim. You find him yet?" Wade asked upon answering Kim's call.
"Yep, that's affirmative." Kim replied. "But I think our boy got up on the weird side of the bed this morning."
"What seems to be the problem?" came Wade's concerned reply.
"I don't know." Kim responded. "He's just standing there, staring at… nothing."
"Hmmmmm…" Wade said, obviously just as confused by Ron's behavior as Kim was. "Let me check something real quick."
There was a brief pause while Wade briskly ran his fingers across the maze of keyboards that sat in front of him.
"Whoa!" he exclaimed suddenly. "You're not gonna believe this, Kim."
"Try me."
"Well, I re-calculated Ron's position to get a more definite fix, then I cross-referenced that against topographical and political maps of the area."
"Yeah… Point?"
"Kim, you're in a town called Treblinka."
"Uh-huh… So what about it?" Kim asked impatiently.
"Kim, Treblinka was the location for one of the camps." Wade replied with a knowingly-raised eyebrow.
"Huh? What do you mean cam…" was all she was able to get out before she was floored by a lightning bolt of realization and her jaw hung slack.
"So… this… field… is…" she was finally able to stammer after several moments of silence.
Wade just silently nodded his head in confirmation.
Suddenly, Kim felt very dizzy, and the fog which shrouded the landscape seemed to swirl and coalesce around her. Just moments before, she had been thinking this was a good spot for a picnic. Now, the mere sight of this real estate made her nauseous. This was a truly wicked place. The ground itself seemed to ooze evil.
Ron still stood transfixed by the roadside. He was gazing at not just a piece of land, but at time itself. Looking back through the decades, he could see what once was; the guard towers, the barbed wire fences, the gashouse with the Star of David adorning the apex of its roof in a half-hearted effort to conceal the true nature of the facilities here.
He knelt down, running his fingers through the grass, which grew just beyond the gravel shoulder of the road. A light breeze arose, rustling the grass and ever-so-slightly flicking his blond bangs. It beckoned him forward, subduing any fear or trepidation that he may have felt.
Rising to his feet once again, he bowed his head and closed his eyes, saying a silent prayer in Hebrew. Then, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the yarmulke, which he had worn to temple every Saturday morning since his childhood. He had stuffed it into his pocket before leaving Middleton the previous day, almost as an afterthought, and not knowing exactly why he was doing so at the time. It was as if some deeply-rooted instinct had been telling him that he would find use for it on this mission, and now that instinct was becoming just a bit more clear.
Lightly kissing the clean, white linen, he placed it neatly atop his head. Then, taking a deep breath, he stretched his arms out from his sides, and took a step forward.
The light breeze blew once again as he gradually made his way forward. Moving slowly, deliberately, he edged farther and farther from the road, toward a low hill at the far edge of the field.
Kim could only watch in stunned silence. From her vantage point, it was as if Ron was walking amongst the souls of his people. It was a moment of spiritual bonding that only a person with such a direct link to this place could fully appreciate.
She walked forward, but stopped in the gravel short of the field. It was not her place to set foot on this ground, she reasoned. It was not her ancestors who had suffered and died here. For Ron, this was a sacred place, and she had no claim to it.
Ron needed this moment alone, she thought to herself, and she would let him have that. After all that he had ever done for her, this was the least she could do for him.
As the eerie spectacle played out before her, Kim's mind flashed to the images she had seen in the cursed book just a few nights before. This was where it had happened, after all. Here, and at dozens of similar locations across the continent: A massive network of transportation systems, staging areas, bureaucratic regulations and death, of which this place was just a small part. It wasn't just what the holocaust represented, after all, but the sheer scale of the undertaking that made it so terrifying. With the level of resources that the Nazis had poured into their efforts, it was amazing that they hadn't succeeded.
That thought brought about a jolt in Kim that nearly knocked her to the ground. Her head swam with a single, overriding question.
One of the perks of growing-up in a household with a rocket-scientist father and super-genius brothers was a near constant exposure to all-things technological, and Kim was aware of the "wonder weapons" which the Nazis had produced.
There were jets and rocket planes, advanced radar and guidance systems. There were the world's first cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, and even first-generation stealth technology. There was a functional nuclear weapons program nearly two years before America's "Manhattan Project." There were even blueprints for an orbital "space bomber;" something that her father assured her was a good twenty years ahead of even current technology.
And so the question wrenched her mind and her gut alike, demanding an answer that she was either unable, or unwilling, to fathom.
"What if Hitler had won?"The answer was excruciating to even consider. It drew up images of a world consumed by darkness: a world without freedom, without joy, without hope. A world without… Ron.
It seemed strange to her that of all these images, this was the one that disturbed her the most. It reached down into her and struck a chord within the deepest recesses of her soul, resonating its way throughout her entire being. While the thought of losing him was unbearably painful, the prospect of never having known him at all was beyond comprehension. To have never found him… to have never known his beautiful soul… to have never experienced his joyful sense of child-like wonder: This was a world and a fate worse than any other which she dared conceive of. For Ron to have never even existed: that was the ultimate evil.
By now, Ron was nearing the top of the hill, each step bringing with it a fresh wave of emotions. The awe-inspiring sense of loss was almost palpable, and it threatened to overwhelm him. There were feelings of sadness, anger, resentment, frustration, and a strange thirst for some sort of vengeance.
There was also another emotion, however, welling up from the depths, slowly at first, then building until it overcame all other feelings he may have harbored. It buoyed his spirit, and without realizing it, he quickened the pace of his walk.
It was a sense of triumph. A realization that in spite of everything that had happened here, they had not succumbed. His people had been victorious, and his very presence here served as ample proof of that fact.
As he finally crested the hill, the sun rose above the horizon for the first time that day, quickly burning off the fog which had surrounded him. He felt the warming glow upon his face, and he involuntarily lifted his arms above his head in a sign of victory. He was a living conduit for the souls of six million people, and in some small way, they would always live on through him.
The sun was fully up by the time he returned to the roadside, and Kim could tell by the stains on his cheeks that he had been crying. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find her waiting for him. Kim always seemed to have an uncanny ability to track him down. He occasionally wondered to himself if Wade didn't have him "bugged" in some way.
He stepped off the grass and into Kim's waiting embrace. Neither of them said anything at first. No words were needed. Then, after several seconds, Kim broke the silence.
"You okay, sweetie?" was her simple inquiry.
"Yeah… tip-top." Ron replied, reassuringly. "Sorry 'bout ditching you back at the room, there."
"No big." Kim said in a reassuring tone of her own. "I understand."
She knew this was a lie. Not being Jewish, she could never hope to fully understand the significance of this place, or at least not in the same way that Ron did. There was a deep, personal connection at work here that she was simply not privileged to.
"You're sure you're all right?" she inquired again.
"Trust me, I'm fine." he said, lowering his gaze thoughtfully for a moment. He seemed to ponder something else, then turned to face the cursed field once more.
"You know, it's kind of funny when you think about it." he thought aloud. "With all the evil that took place here, it ultimately represents victory."
Kim glanced at Ron with a quizzical look, not certain as to what he was getting at. He responded with a sideways glance and a tender, knowing smile.
"I'm standing here, aren't I?" he said, raising an eyebrow, and noticing the look of comprehension that quickly shot across Kim's face.
With that remark, he threw back his shoulders and stood at full attention, facing this most wicked of places straight on. Brashly, he threw a clenched fist into the air.
"Do you hear that, you jerks?" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Ich bin ein Jude!"
And with that parting remark, Ron simply turned up the road and started walking back toward town with Kim following close behind.
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They were almost to the city limits when Kim finally broke the silence.
"You're absolutely sure you're okay with all this?" she inquired again.
"Yes, KP. I'm totally sure that I'm okay!" he said with an exasperated tone. "This was just something that I needed to do, alright."
"Okay, okay… I'm just making sure is all." Kim said defensively, now trying to shift the conversation to a lighter topic.
"So, when we get back to our room…"
"You mean our closet?" Ron interjected.
"C'mon Ron, it's not that small."
"Kim… there isn't even room for a complaint in there."
"Alright, fine! So it's small!" Kim finally conceded. "I was going to ask if you wanted to grab some breakfast once we got back."
At the mention of food, Ron's oversized ears perked up.
"Badical idea, KP!" came his enthusiastic reply. "I can totally see why you're the leader of this team." He pointed both his index fingers at her in a "gunfighter" salute.
"Spankin'!" Kim smiled back. "Then let's not be slowpokes about it. We've also still got a ride to catch, after all."
And with that the two teens quickened their pace, walking hand-in-hand toward the now waking village, the smell of fresh-baked strudel growing ever stronger in their noses.
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Author's Notes:
Originally, I wasn't expecting to get this chapter out until the end of the week, but a sudden bout of stomach flu sidelined me at home for the last three days with nothing else to do, so here it is. (…Always a silver lining, eh?)
I chose the town of Treblinka as a setting for some very specific reasons. By all accounts, the camp here was one of the most prolific of the entire Nazi network. With an estimated body count ranging from 800,000 to 1.4 million, it's second only to the mega-complex at Auschwitz-Birkenau. To spite this impressive record, however, little to nothing remains of the camp, which was destroyed by forces of the German Waffen-Schutzstaffel in the late autumn of 1943, as advance elements of the Soviet Red Army approached from the east.
This pastoral openness was something that I found very useful here, as I wanted Ron's experience to be more spiritual in its nature, and not be distracted from by complex surroundings such as buildings or infrastructure. Purists will no doubt point out that there is, in fact, a small-scale memorial at the site. However, for the sake of the story, I chose to place our heroes a short distance away from this point. This is still within the boundaries of the camp, mind you, but away from any visual distractions.
German "wonder weapons" are a well-documented reality. On August 27, 1939, Luftwaffe pilot Erich Warsitz became the first person to ever fly a jet aircraft when he took to the air in the Heinkel He-178. In August of 1944 the Messerschmitt Me-262 "Schwalbe" became the first jet aircraft to enter combat service. The honor of the world's first jet bomber also belongs to the Luftwaffe in the form of the Arado Ar-234 "Blitz."
First-generation stealth technology was invented with the Horton Ho-229, a twin-jet flying wing design that first flew in December of 1944. Following the war, an intact Ho-229 was captured by American forces and shipped back to the United States for study. Decades later, engineers from the Northrop-Grumman Corporation would use information gathered from these studies as a design basis for the B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber.
German rocket planes included the high-speed Messerschmitt Me-163 "Komet" and the Bachem Ba-349 "Natter," although the latter of these was really little more than a piloted surface-to-air missile.
The V-1 "Fieseler" was used against British cities between June of 1944 and March of 1945, and represents the world's first cruise missile. The more-advanced V-2 "Aggregat" is the world's first ballistic missile, having been first deployed on September 8, 1944. The "V" prefix in both cases stands for "Vergeltungswaffe," meaning "Vengeance Weapon."
The early German lead in atomic weapons is also well-documented. German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann became the first persons to ever split an atom on December 17, 1938. By 1942, the Nazis had a bona-fide atomic weapons program established at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute under the direction of Werner Heisenberg. Although it is doubtful that German industrial capacity could have ever produced the amount of enriched uranium needed for a working weapon, the prospect presented by this information is none-the-less sobering.
The Antipodal Space Bomber was a ground-launched orbital spacecraft designed by German aerospace engineer Eugene Sanger. Although it never progressed past early wind tunnel tests, elements of its design were later incorporated by American engineers into the Space Shuttle.
Ron's parting shot of "Ich bin ein Jude" translates to "I am a Jew." It seemed to pretty much sum-up the whole sitch into a neat, one-sentence package.
We're coming into the home stretch here, people. Only one more chapter to go, hopefully tying up a few loose ends and bringing some closure to our favorite duo. Looking back, I can't believe what this story has turned into, nor the response I have received. I thank everyone for their wonderful comments. Never in a million years would I have ever expected such a reaction.
As always, comments are welcome, and we thank you for your support!
Catch ya'll on the flipside,
Nutzkie…
