Kroenen looked at the dirt floor of the barn, in the corner where he had neatly stacked the bodies once he had finished with them.
I might have some explaining to do if anyone ever wonders in. Of course I could always use more company.
Such was his madness that he didn't even seem to realize the slight error in this view of the situation. That and the fact that 'guests' didn't stay that way for any amount of time.
The pseudo-doctor sighed; he seemed to be doing that more of late. So far he had not been doing much with his work. Perhaps he was going through what they called 'writer's block' in a way. He knew he knew the answers, but seemed unable to call them forth.
I'm just distracted, he decided, I need a change of scenery…and more thread. He was making progress with his self alterations, but it was going slow. He just couldn't decide where he was at fault. He knew he was less than perfect, but how?
He shed his apron, now permanently brown red in color, and headed out of the barn that had become his kingdom.
Every establishment needed a name and this one was no different. The company went by Outlier Management Inc. It was a fitting name. OMI had been started in the sixties, its true origins a contract written up and signed on a boat out in international waters.
It was rumored that the original owners had intermarried for security and power reasons, it kept the company stable. No one seemed to know who those men and women were who pulled the strings that kept the enterprise going though. Lessens the likelihood for assassination attempts you see.
Since its origins weren't 'officially' accepted by any country they weren't limited in their clientele. Their expertises were up for the highest bidder. Very profitable.
Often they were called in to aid or inform governmental agencies, such as the BPRD and its brethren. Because they were in effect a mercenary enterprise, they were not bound by the admittedly loose codes that governmentally funded organizations followed.
OMI had no loyalties, other than good business. Some countries they allied themselves with more than others, generally for prompt payment and reliable information.
Neutrality was the name of the game and the ability to look around previously accepted practices. Now that sounded pretty on paper. They were never want for business.
Kroenen had finally relocated. It had been somewhat difficult but there were always ways around obstacles.
He had come to loath metal detectors.
When pondering his move he had decided that it was time to go home. Germany seemed to be whispering his name in the wind.
Finally he reached Berlin; the cities mass population cloaked his existence there. He found his homeland changed. Through his and Ilsa's exile they had avoided German, perhaps not ready to reopen the old wound.
He didn't know why he was surprised, after all Germany had to have developed along with its neighbors, but for some reason he was sick to see his country as it was now. A mongrel mass of human cattle, with no order or ideal to strive for. A broken system from the one he had left.
He kept to the shadows mostly, with Ilsa no longer there acting as the front for the two, he had no way to interact with the general populous. He found an abandoned factory with an intact bomb shelter beneath.
It would do, with a few modifications on his part. He went to work, with all the efficiency of a machine but with a drive that was distinctly human. Less than a week after he entered the crumbling building an ignorant visitor would have thought that the place was a quaint hospital from years past. Or a mental health facility.
That same visitor would have been pounced upon and sacrificed to science soon after.
Kroenen was pleased and the world would have done well to recoil.
The BPRD didn't have a 'night shift'. It went through twelve hour long watches similar to a hospital. And if you went into a hospital and asked the staff at what time that emergencies happen they will tell you at night and especially on the full moon. The BPRD didn't escape this tendency, but for entirely different reasons. So the building was always lighted and always awake.
One of the agents, an in descript fellow, sat in a hallway, waiting for his shift to end. It was three o'clock in the morning and on a waning moon. Beasties almost never attacked at this time. Too close to dawn and the moon too ordinary.
All agent Calloway wanted was to end his shift, take off his suit, and tell his fiancé a jacked up story about 'work'. Luckily she was a trusting creature and simply took his stories on face value.
Today he wasn't going to get to lie to his girlfriend.
A shadow seemed to lengthen around the hall. The agent didn't notice. It slide farther down the floor. The agent checked his watch. A soft hissing sound was masked by the air conditioner kicking on.
A man slumped on the floor, a pool of blood spreading silently.
Kroenen wiped his baton blade on the agent's suit and slid it into its scabbard. This was too easy. He walked on, his footfalls not making a sound on the linoleum floor. A camera watched his progress.
Two hours later.
The BPRD was in chaos. Agents were running around, emergency lights were flashing, the alarms were blaring. Cameras had detected an intruder but no one seemed able to locate him.
Several top agents were staring at the recorded images, sweat dripping into their eyes. Hearts hammering they spoke in hushed whispers. Wasn't it odd that only a few cameras had viewed the assassin in the facility and that they could not find where he had entered?
This survey room was only one of many in the facility, but it was one of the few with all of the camera's images. It also had no security devices within it.
Out of the dim cast by the view screens a slender form slipped. Their eyes trained on the screens the agents detected Kroenen too late.
Within moments Kroenen seated himself comfortably on one of the padded swivel chairs, watching the screens with no little amusement. Some of the agents' bodies twitched, with either reflexes or the last desperate attempts of life. He didn't worry; even if any of them survived he had disarmed their ability to harm him. Tendons were such fragile things after all.
He sat back and relaxed. They wouldn't find him any time soon in the small security room. And he could watch all of their moves, like rats in a maze.
The OMI and the BPRD had a love hate relationship. As in the BPRD saw the OMI as a necessary evil and the OMI loved the government's business. So when the BPRD's security was breached and dozens of agents slaughtered they called the OMI to investigate.
Through the information grape vine of the OMI Ashton learned that it had probably been her target that had done the deed. This basically gave her free access to the BPRD crisis.
She watched the security tapes, finally coming to the last one. It was of one of the perimeter cameras. It showed a slender human figure walking out of the gate, pause, turn about to face the camera, and wave jauntily before striding away.
No wonder the BPRD was terrified. Well, besides the deaths of, what was it, 63 agents in four days time, its security had been reduced to child's play.
But that had been a week ago. Now the question was where was he now?
"Found you" whispered Ashton to the screen, a nervous whine in her voice. She swallowed in fear even as she stared in wonder. If a creature like that could be persuaded to join the OMI…
"Ms. Stahl," said the agent next to her, "Ms. Stahl we have more to show you. You said you wanted to see the bodies." Ashton nodded and followed him from the room.
The morgue was a level under the one they had left. It was covered with steel, a very futuristic and sterile environment. The only things that were organic in the room were thirteen cloth covered tables. Under the sheets were a few select victims of Kroenen's massacre.
Ashton pulled back the sheets and began to examine the bodies dispassionately.
"Beautiful" she whispered at the dark work. Every cut was made with surgical precision, the placement perfect. No waste, simple efficiency. The agent who had escorted her winced.
"How can you say that", he challenged emotionally.
Ashton cocked her head at him for his reaction and glanced back at the corpses. They resembled wax figures more than anything human. There was nothing left.
"Dead is dead sir, they aren't people anymore, just carcasses. Everyone dies and while I do feel remorse for the family left behind, I don't feel sorry for these men. Who knows what will happen to them now, but they aren't here anymore." The agent blinked at her speech and looked away.
Ashton continued. "And while what he did was 'wrong' how he did it was remarkable. Have you ever seen such skill, such power over a person's environment? I don't agree with what he did but I respect how he did it." She turned from the agent and walked over to a rack on the wall which held lab coats, surgical masks, and goggles.
For the next few hours she searched and examined the bodies, looking for some clue. At last she realized that she was getting nowhere and quit the room. All that she had found was already on file. He was an amazing and frightening monster, a doctor and killed turned into one.
She walked with the agent back up a level and was given a quiet room on her request. Taking her bag from her shoulder she slipped out her laptop and began to type her report.
It started with the most basic information. Name Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. Born in 1897, some past history. Presumed to be in an unidentified undead state. Some other odd facts, mental disorders and such like.
"You were one messed up person." Muttered Ashton as she typed her report on the wounds found on the agents. The body charts she would have to copy from the BPRD's records.
She finished her report by adding her ideas on where he might be hiding, saved the document, and turned off her computer. She exited the room to see her fellow OMI employee leaning on the opposite wall, waiting for her.
Alex Chen was a Chinese American via India. He smiled at her roguishly, clashing with the entire complex with his messy black hair and goatee.
"So how is your 'divorce' going Ash" he said with a devilish grin and Ashton only shook her head in reply, used to the man's antics.
So the two operatives caught up to one another, usually by trading good natured insults and threats. The agent with Ashton looked a bit off balanced by the whole affair.
Life stories condensed down to a five minute conversation they parted to do their individual jobs. Ashton left the compound and drove to the tiny apartment paid for by the OMI. It was a run-down place with peeling wallpaper and some of the boldest cockroaches she had ever met. That and she was pretty sure there was a prostitute using the room next to hers. This was backed up by the dramatic screaming she had heard last night, in thirty minute intervals, and the woman's costume. Lovely.
But hey, it was free and they did wash the sheets here. She had slept in worse places after all.
Ashton locked the door, slipped a pistol under her pillow, and curled up to sleep.