Out of everything that reminded Stephanie that she had finally come home it was the smell drifting in through the window that truly did it. Not the sights or the sounds of London but the particular smell of the imperial metropolis. After years of breathing in the chemical fumes of the labs and the far worse stench of the research camps the smoke of London might as well have been the freshest spring air. Shaking her head Stephanie tried to focus her thoughts. Here she was, about to have meeting that would be the culmination of all her efforts, and her mind was wandering off onto the smell of London. The events of the last few days were a greater strain on her than she cared to admit.
Her personal motto could be summed up in a single word and that word was control. Discipline had been what had gotten Stephanie this far in life. It had allowed her to achieve her success in chemistry and then in espionage. Freya Bergen had been less of a persona that she had adopted and more of an expression of her baser instincts, allowed out on a very tight leash. Getting into a position of trust in Sankt's program had required intelligence, guile and a willingness to completely abandon conventional morality. No one need ever know that she had enjoyed it, some of the time. The lack of constraint from above, the ability to do whatever was needed for the research. Still she had gone too far at times as the nightmares that visited her every few nights could attest. So long as Britain achieved victory it would all be worth it.
This was no time to let her guard down. There could be no more self-indulgent outbursts like the ones she had levelled at Lupin and the Americans. Too much was at stake.
"Ma'am, they're ready for you now." A well-groomed secretary said as he approached. With a tight grip on the pouch of documents that she had brought along Stephanie followed after him into the room next door.
Waiting inside the office were two men, both of whom Stephanie was familiar with even though she had never met them before. She doubted that there was anyone in the world who would not recognize the stout figure of Winston Churchill. The other man would be a mystery to most. Stewart Menzies was in charge of Britain's military intelligence and was theoretically who Stephanie ultimately reported to. From the hasty debriefing she had endured before this meeting she gathered that he was more than a little upset with her actions in the field. That he had a low opinion of special operatives like herself to begin with hardly helped matters.
"Our returning hero!" At least Churchill was smiling as he rose from his desk to greet her. So long as she could keep him happy then Menzies could think of her whatever he wanted.
"Mr Prime Minister, General." Stephanie bowed her head to each in turn as she approached.
"Winston will do just fine," Churchill said as he moved over to the sideboard. "Might I interest you in anything? Brandy, or would you rather I had some schnapps brought up?"
"Brandy sounds delightful right now," It really did. Pulling out her cigarette case she eyed Churchill. "May I?"
As soon as he nodded in affirmation she lit a cigarette, shortly after accepting the glass of brandy that he passed over to her. Taking a good swallow Stephanie thanked God for proper liquor. She had only been able to barter a quarter bottle of whisky off of the Americans for the flight over. There had been a distinct lack of readily drinkable alcohol at the camp. While the industrial stuff could always be made safe the taste was never quite right. Soon enough Churchill was puffing away on a cigar himself as Menzies sipped at his brandy. The latter had a large leather portfolio propped open on his lap that Stephanie could not see inside. No doubt it was all the information that she had passed on so far.
"Stewart just finished telling me the latest that the Americans sent over about that German fellow that you brought out, Lupin. Seems that they have taken quite a liking to him. I would have liked to have seen his abilities in person but he was the price we had to pay to get you back here," Churchill took a long sip from his glass, regarding it as he swirled the brandy around his mouth. Returning his gaze to Stephanie she felt that she was getting the same appraisal. "We got off easy there, I think. From what I understand what is inside of your head is priceless. Since time is of the essence why don't you tell us just what we are up against."
Stephanie had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how to break the news to them. In the end she had decided that being blunt would be for the best.
"Some time ago I was assigned to infiltrate German military research. Taking on the guise of a Nazi sympathizer I was able to get an entry level position with-"
"You can skip to after you stopped reporting in." Menzies interrupted. From the look of him it was almost as if he had taken this personally.
"Very well. At some point before the war General Sankt found a partially translated text that alluded to the improvement of humans into something greater. This Codex is the basis of everything that his program created. I've never seen anything other than partial copies of particular sections and neither has anyone outside of Sankt's inner circle for that matter. Most of the early text lays out the mathematical and scientific notation required for understanding the rest. Then it goes onto to how to identify candidates, which we only have a rudimentary understanding of, followed by how to prepare various types of catalyst. Which, so far, only one kind has ever been successfully completed. In short we are working from a source that I have never seen to create something that we have no idea as to how or why it works. Just that it does."
"So it is to be the blind leading the blind then?" Churchill quipped.
"Quite."
"While all of this Codex and Catalyst business is fascinating I was rather hopeful that you could explain why they were allowed to get this far? Seeing as you managed to get quite deep into the project it seems that a great many lives could have been saved had action been taken sooner." That was Menzies again, questions sharp as a knife. Stephanie had known that this would come up and still did not have a great answer for them.
"I passed along all that I could in the early days but at that point it was all conjecture. I could see that there was something there but it was nothing concrete," That was the truth. Even with what little information she had been given at the beginning the sheer strangeness of what they were working with was readily apparent. The more Stephanie had learned about the Catalyst the less it had made sense. "Sankt only had success after the project had been greatly downsized. By that point he was so paranoid about someone else taking over that he restricted all communications with the outside world."
"Reasonable enough but that doesn't answer the meat of his question my dear. Why did Sankt not meet a little 'accident' after his success was apparent?" Churchill was leaning forward now, his gaze fixed on her.
"Without access to the Codex itself even killing him would not have been enough to put the program to rest. In fact a suspicious death might have drawn more attention to what he was doing. There was no way that I could ensure that everyone with knowledge of the research was neutralized so I did the next best thing, sabotage production as best as I could while securing information and Catalyst for our own use." It would have to do. For a painfully silent few moments she sat there as they looked on.
"Well, not like we can change the past. You did the best that you could given the circumstances and I am certain that you will continue to do so," Churchill leaned back, tapping his hand against the arm of his chair. His signet ring made a distinct clack every time it hit the wood. "You left enough of this Catalyst with the Americans to make fifty of these panzermensch and brought us enough for roughly twenty. Versus some eighty German tanky fellows and these three Battleships. How long before we can match their numbers?"
"The Germans have considerable stores of Catalyst to draw upon that I could not access. I would expect around four hundred at the low end and perhaps twice that for the high end. Production of more Catalyst and activation of more panzermensch will both be hindered by the utter mess that Germany is in right now. So long as we can take advantage of this early period where they don't know that we can make it ourselves, then we should be able to start outproducing them in around six months," Now was the time to break the worst news. "The real problem is not the panzermensch. Its the Battleships."
"If the Germans found three with such a small pool of candidates we should outnumber them rather quickly." Even as Menzies spoke Stephanie could see that he already suspected what she was about to say.
"Unfortunately Sankt had the devil's own luck. I have seen the segment of the Codex that lays out how many ubermensch candidates one should expect to find. Panzermensch occur at a rate of one in five thousand people and battleships at roughly the same rate among panzermensch candidates," Stephanie could see them working out the math in their minds. One man in twenty-five million, one hundred or so in the entire population of the world and far fewer potentially useful to them. "So while it is unlikely that the Germans will find another Battleship, it will certainly be a while until we find one of our own. And much, much longer before they are ready to face them."
"Why is that now?"
"There is a maturation period before any ubermensch reaches their full potential. For panzermensch it is about a month, for Battleships considerably longer. At the moment from the information we have to go on it looks like the German Battleships are around the halfway point and they were activated three to four months ago."
"What are our chances of taking one of them down without a Battleship of our own?" Churchill asked, his words coming out slowly.
"So far as conventional weapons go almost everything is useless. Naval cannons might be able to slow them down but I doubt they would leave a lasting injury. Nerve agents and poison gas might have some effect but are too slow acting. Theoretically they could be overwhelmed by a sufficient number of panzermensch utilizing their halo abilities but there is no way to know just how many would be necessary."
"So we are facing an enemy that we can't kill at the moment and that will only get stronger as time goes by. You've certainly brightened my day," Churchill downed what little was left in his glass. "No sense in us dawdling along here. Your request to oversee the set up of our own ubermensch program is granted. Given what you've told us so far today we will play this as close to the chest as we can. We'll have to find some better names for when we finally go public. Can't be going around spouting a bunch of German gibberish."
"Thank you Winston. General Menzies." Stephanie rose and was walked over to the door by Churchill.
"The man outside knows where you'll be going. We will be in touch of course," Churchill patted Stephanie on the shoulder as she went out the door. Closing it he waited a good minute or so for them to be far down the hallway before heading back to his desk. "She was much more pleasant than your files said."
"From what we've dug up about her past she is good at passing for normal. There are holes in what she's admitted to doing in her time undercover. Big, bloody holes." Menzies replied. Even if he did not want to say it outright Churchill knew what he was alluding to.
"Keep a close eye on her for now. She's all that we've got after all. I'd best get to work on Mr Roosevelt, he'll want to bring Stalin into this straight away. With any luck I can convince him that this should information stay in the civilized world." Churchill brought the brandy bottle over to the desk this time, filling up their glasses once more.
"I've just the man in mind. At the very least we'll know the moment that the Germans figure out that they've been had. Hopefully by that point we'll have a big enough shield to weather the storm."
Churchill only raised his glass to that, with Menzies meeting him in a toast. Both men drained their cups. It was an uncertain world that they faced once more, but if they had survived this long then certainly Britain could face whatever else was in store for it.
"This chart shows our progress in translating the Catalyst variants. Column A contains variants where the process have not been fully translated. Column B is for problems with the chemistry, such as the necessary elements and chemicals being theoretically possible but having never been observed or synthesized. Column C contains the sections where both of those are true and Column D is for the variants that we should have the capacity to create."
The blank looks from the officers gathered for this presentation showed Anita that they were about as interested in the science behind the ubermensch as she was. Most were far more interested in the battle capabilities of the panzermensch and Battleships than anything else. There was a group of logistics officers towards the back with their heads together, no doubt still going over how to feed any large number of enhanced soldiers. Barely enough glucose paste could be made for the existing forces with the current facilities. All in all these presentations felt like they had been a waste of time for everyone involved.
After all Anita could hardly tell them the full truth. There were things that the High Command was determined to keep quiet such as the low chance of finding another Battleship. Then there were things that she was not supposed to know, such as that of the potential variants that they had the knowledge to create one was already successful. Hopefully Werner had managed to talk with Luther. Once the existence of the face-changing geltmensch was revealed it would be one less thing that she had to keep silent about.
"This brings me to the current work of our researchers. Code name 'Lightning' holds the potential to alleviate out anti-aircraft and anti-ship needs. Currently we believe that it will take another month or so to begin trials of that Catalyst preparation and that the first Lightning units should be completed in around a month after that," If only they would be so lucky. Considering how well the panzermensch trials had gone they might not see production for far longer than that. "That brings us to the end of this presentation."
There was a brief round of applause before the officers began to talk among themselves. Anita had done some teaching before the war and considered this to at least have not been a total failure on her part. Even if the ubermensch themselves were endlessly fascinating it took a certain kind of person to find this arcane science interesting. The men began to get up to mill around, handing in the sensitive notes they had been given to look through. Sorting through her own papers Anita could see one man approaching her. Strange, she did not remember seeing him enter the room.
"Everything will be dealt with by tonight." The man whispered to her in a familiar voice. Luther, wearing another man's face.
"Thank you, it was my pleasure to provide you with this information. Should you have any questions do let me know." Anita did her best to react as though he had just paid her a compliment. Without any further acknowledgement Luther turned and lost himself in the men around the tables. That was one loose thread trimmed then. If only there were not dozens more that threatened to strangle her if she made a wrong move.
"Well at least someone appreciated all the work that you put into this." Hagen said as he came over to stand beside her. It would have been more comforting to Anita had she not known that he had been comparing everything to his own notes as a test of her loyalty. Not that she had anything to worry about there. Even if she could kill every man in this room and try to make a run for it there was no way out now. Anita had every intention of living for as long as she could and if that meant sucking up to the military and the party, so be it.
"All the work that we put into this. Your assistance was invaluable." More so that he had allowed her access to things that Sankt had kept secret. A few of which had made Anita's feelings towards the former general turn from ambivalent to malevolent.
Having been allowed access to the source Codex for the first time Anita could not help but notice that there had been a glaring omission on every copy that Sankt had made. At the beginning of every page was the same phrase, one that translated roughly to 'know all or know none.' As desperate as the war had made things seeing that had filled Anita with a sense of dread. They might have already stumbled headlong into a trap and completely missed it. Too late to go back now, all that was left was to keep charging forward blindly.
"How much headway have you made on the tactical side of things?" Anita asked to clear her mind.
Hagen took a moment to reply, choosing his words carefully. "There is a good reason that Sankt never held a field command. I will leave it at that for now."
"If you want to know which plans he thought were truly bad ideas just find the ones that he marked 'Use Klaudia.'" While that got a chuckle from Hagen he did not realize just how low of an opinion Sankt had of Klaudia, even before everything had spiralled out of control. Not that Anita had much love to spare for the overly dour Battleship. So far as she was concerned neither of the pair was long for this world and all the better for everyone else.
That was when Guderian entered the room. His face could have reasonably passed for a thundercloud as he made his way through the group of saluting men. It was Anita that he addressed once he reached the front of the room.
"I hope you are ready to give this speech again. Gather all your materials. You are heading over to the SS headquarters."
"The SS?" Anita asked. This was certainly not something that she had expected. From her own observations and what little Sankt had told her the Army and the SS tended to zealously guard their respective domains from one another.
"The Leader has decided that as Reichsfuhrer Himmler is in command of Army Group Vistula he will take command of the majority of the ubermensch forces until the Soviets have been pushed back a safe distance. So you will be dealing with him for the time being." Guderian's tone made it clear that he was not pleased with this decision.
Anita did not give further comment but began to pack up her notes as quickly as she could. Getting caught up in a power struggle between the army and the SS was not something that she wanted. Beside her Hagen was muttering some truly creative curses about Himmler under his breath. He would have to accompany her of course, to provide information that Anita was not qualified to give. Things were just shaping up wonderfully, Anita thought to herself. What else could the world throw at her?
Observing his surroundings while the guards looked over his documents Luther resolved to bath thoroughly when this was done. Just standing in this building made him feel terribly unclean. Not that his outer face showed it. Maintaining a different expression from his own had been tricky to learn at first but now felt almost natural. Same with the altogether blank identity documents that the guard was pouring over. To any external observer they looked every bit as real and complete as the should. It would have come as a complete shock to everyone in the room that his accomplice was not actually a square jawed soldier but a rather attractive young woman.
Luther had been cautious about bringing his fellows into this but in the end it could not be helped. Else was beside him acting as a bodyguard while Herman waited out with the car. Sankt had christened the three of them as geltmensch. He had chosen to only directly involve Luther in his schemes but the others were not stupid. It did not take much to figure out why they were being held back while everything went to hell around them. Unlike the regular ubermensch it was next to impossible to keep the geltmensch contained. They had been much better informed about Germany's situation than the rest of Sankt's experiments.
Giving the man a polite nod after he received his papers back Luther marvelled at just how lucky he was to have been chosen for this. At first he had been jealous of the superior strength and durability of the panzermensch. He had since discovered that his powers were even more useful than those of Werner and the other Battleships, if not so flashy. There was a certain invincibility to being able to become anyone after all. So long as he kept his halo active Luther could make people see and hear almost anything that he wanted to. Faked faces, faked documents, faked phone conversations. So many opportunities all without anyone being able to guess what was going on in the slightest. He would not have traded this for all of Werner's vaunted strength.
Walking down the poorly lit hallway Luther approached one of the cell doors. He had been able to convince the guards to let him in here unsupervised. Amazing what borrowing the right rank let one get away with. Even through the solid door the smell coming from the room was terrible. Else took up a position beside the door to make sure that he would not be disturbed.
Inside was Sankt, huddled up in one of the corners. His shirt was torn and bloodied, his face not much better. From what Luther could see Sankt was chained to the corner. Firmly closing the door behind him Luther watched Sankt's head jerk up in alarm. Putting one finger up to his lips he dropped his disguise.
"Finally!" Sankt croaked in a pained whisper. "You've no idea what these mongrels have been putting me through! Quickly, get me loose. What is the plan?"
"That is what I have come to talk about." Luther did not bother to add a 'sir' to that. Sankt was not even a general anymore from what he had heard. Taking careful steps across the disgusting floor he carefully squatted on his heels in front of Sankt.
"Spit it out! Where is Werner, has he already taken care of things out there?"
"I am afraid that Werner and Anita have both chosen to leave you to your fate. As have I." Luther watched the emotions going across Sankt's face. As his expression twisted with rage Luther sprang forward, clamping his hand over the other man's mouth to prevent him from raising a fuss. With his own hands bound there was nothing that Sankt could do save for glower and let out muffled noises. It did not take long for him to quiet down once more.
"Miserable bastards, after everything that I gave you, traitorous whores..." Sankt managed to sputter once Luther removed his hands.
"You gambled and you lost. Don't make this any harder than it has to be," Luther said as he reached inside of his jacket. Pulling out a small glass capsule he held it up in front on Sankt's face. He recognized what it was, most anyone sufficiently high up in Germany would. "Now are you going to do it on your own or shall I have to?"
Sankt simply stared at the cyanide capsule for a few silent moments before meeting Luther's eyes again.
"I could have saved Germany. You just remember that when your time comes." With that Sankt opened his mouth wide and spoke no more.
Placing the capsule on Sankt's tongue Luther made sure to wait for the sound of it cracking between the other man's teeth. When the convulsions began he looked away. Unlike many at the project Luther was not enamoured of death. Once Sankt had gone silent Luther reached down and closed the man's eyes. At the very least he had earned that much.
Putting his face back on Luther left the cell. Else took one look inside to confirm Sankt's fate then followed along. One more man to kill tonight and then the Gestapo would be left with a cold trail in trying to figure out just what had happened.
If only they could all just fade away after that. Werner and Anita could hardly admit that they knew of the geltmensch's existence without incriminating themselves. The three of them had discussed it at length and in the end patriotic sentiment had won out. Besides, Luther mused to himself, what was the point of being the world's most capable actor and not putting your abilities to use? Everything would work itself out. He could secure victory for Germany and a fortune for himself at the same time where he planned on heading. He just needed to keep his head above the water for the time being.