Chapter 10: The Raven's Watchful Eye
The cars rolled down the road, giving Spy a good view of the world as it was. It looked like a typical American town, with the exception of a lot more cops with a lot nicer uniforms. There were clearly far less cars, and the only vehicles he had seen were horse drawn carts despite the age of technology. The only cars were being used by the cops, and by some other uniformed men.
The real change; immediately outside the town was a huge facility, a large cube surrounded by a wall lined with towers. At the approach of the facility, the gate swung open, and the cars rolled on through. Spy sucked in a breath, and followed them in.
It had to have been a prison, but it looked more like a cubed warehouse, covered in guard rails, metal lattices that were occasionally being patrolled by guards, and patrolled by pairs of policemen with dogs. The longer Spy observed them, the more he realized that their uniforms weren't pressed or straightened; they had jumped up quickly to make this show of force.
The paddy wagons stopped in front of a large sliding door, and opened up their back doors as the sliding doors of the prison were rolled open. Spy watched one by one as the members of his team, and Boudica, were herded into the prison unit. The sliding doors began to close, as Spy realized that Heavy, Medic and Pyro still hadn't been brought in.
Spy, unfortunately, couldn't get a good look into the prison, but he was certain that it would take a siege and then some to break the Team out. Even if the guards were the laziest bunch the world had ever seen, getting out with that many unarmed and injured people would be difficult at best and impossible at worst. Thank God he still had Demo and Sniper.
A knock on his window drew him from his reverie. He had been going over in his head what he would say to keep the two men out of the prison, but he wasn't certain he would have the right words ready when the time came. His free hand had a death grip on the handle of his revolver as he rolled the window down.
"You gonna bring those two in", the officer outside his window asked.
"I'm gonna follow those unloaded wagons", Spy told him calmly.
The officer craned his neck to get a better look at the two in the back.
"What's up with them", the officer asked.
"Well", Spy said, the cogs in his brain turning at overtime, "one of them is a black supremacist with ties to a larger movement."
The officer glanced over at Demo, asking, "That true?"
Spy prayed to God that Demo would say something to make Malcom X proud, and God seemingly heard his prayers.
"Piss off, whitey", Demo sneered. "We blacks are the real Jews, y'all are just posers!"
"Yeah, Black River will love him. What about the other guy, though?"
"He's... Australian?"
Spy's grip on the revolver was so tight, he was surprised the wood hadn't cracked. Fortunately, before he could even start praying, God answered that prayer too. Sniper began banging his cuffed hands on the mesh, calling the officer a "bloody bogan", and screeching about how he was going to carve him up and feed him to the dingos.
"I don't know", the officer said hesitantly, looking to be mulling it over. "He'd probably be better off here at Raven's Perch."
Sniper snorted, hocked, and spat a loogie directly at the back of Spy's head. It dribbled down the back of his neck, as Spy maintained direct eye contact with the officer. The officer cringed.
"Well, we did recently get a batch of troublemakers", the officer reasoned, "and he is quite unruly. Sure, why not. Send his ass down the river."
Spy nodded, and rolled up his window, just as the other paddy wagons began rolling out.
"Sniper-"
"I've got a mental map to the place set in my mind", Sniper reassured Spy. "Let's see where they're taking our boys, and why."
Spy sighed, hit the ignition, and rolled in behind the wagons.
...
Dell had been in both jail and prison on numerous occasions in Texas. It was half the reason why his PHD's took as long to get as they did. Most of the charges, officially, were either a load of bullshit or trumped up. Even when he had been convicted of owning an unregistered firearm, and of turning that firearm into an autonomous attack mechanism, the evidence was shaky at best, and with an Undergrad in Law that he had managed to collect in his free time, he was easily able to get the case reexamined, and eventually thrown out all together.
All of this to say he had never seen a prison like this before.
While there was a "top floor" to the prison, it was barely above ground level. Most of the structure was underground, with regards to at least five stories shooting straight down into the earth, with the interior structure shaped more like a pentagram than a box. While they walked along a catwalk, Engineer took stock of the structure: ten folded sides, with a citadel in the interior. The citadel, looking like a lighthouse with a tumor on top, could, in theory, watch every cell at once. And there were plenty of cells to watch, with the walls being covered in barred cells with catwalks in front of them. Five catwalks made their way to the citadel, and then repeated the structure every story.
For a structure this big with so much to watch, Dell was confused why there were so few guards. In total, there were five, all perched in the citadel top floor, appearing to watch some monitors with some very high definition picture, which Dell would just have to get his hands on eventually. He could guess that it was built underground to sustain overpressure, allowing the captors to quite literally blow up the entire structure with enough interior explosives, but were the guards really so expendable that they would just be left alone with so many cells to look after?
His answer came when a flash of chrome caught his eye. Out of an alcove on the first floor, a robotic panther, fifteen feet tall, with a tail like a Morningstar, which swished as if it were a real tail on a cat, watched the new arrivees with a prone posture, as if it were ready to pounce at a moment's notice. Lubricant dripped from its sharp metal teeth as if in anticipation of the hunt.
Dell guessed that it was supposed to strike fear into the hearts of the new detainees. For Dell, it had the opposite effect. He simply HAD to learn more about this incredible new invention. Did it have a robobrain that was mapped off of an actual cat, or did it have an actual animal brain, complete with electrodes shoved into every region? He had to know, and he had to know how he could apply it to his own invention schemes.
The group were led to a series of scanners, and one by one, they were pushed through. With the exception of Boudica, every person in this group had extensive modification, such as Soldier's reinforced legs, Scout's gravity warpers to help him run faster and jump higher, and Engineer's... well, everything really, but especially his hand. When the metal detectors went off, and then they were shoved through x-ray scanners, the officers stared at their screens in confusion.
Well, since there was no point in hiding it, Dell pulled off his rubber glove. He actuated his fingers, flexing them back and forth at the most extreme angles he could manage. The officers looked at him in awe, and then conversed with one another. After a moment, two officers approached Dell, and grabbed him by the shoulders, separating him from the rest of the group.
They took him deeper into the walls of the prison, until they came to a clearly soundproofed set of rooms divided by a two-way mirror. They pushed him into the room with the metal table, and closed the door behind him. Seeing nothing better to do, he took a seat at the far end of the table from the door.
Dell took a moment to collect himself. He thought hard about everything that had happened since the door opened into this new world, and he was now certain that this was a new world. He tried to remember patterns, patches, small interactions.
He thought of the patches on their uniforms, the American flag, but slightly different, and tried to piece together what was different about it. The first thing he noted was that instead of thirteen red and white stripes, there were nine. The second thing he noticed were that the stars had been replaced by a single swastika. He wasn't entirely certain what it all meant, but the conclusion of who meant it was obvious.
The second thing he took note of was how he had been instantly treated differently because of his arm. The Gunslinger was a nifty little invention of his which connected electrodes directly to his nervous system, giving his hand the same reaction time it would have had as his old flesh and blood one, and had "prick pads" on the fingertips, inner fingers and palm, essentially a nervous connection that would allow him to feel like he was touching whatever happened to be in that hand, minus the painful elements. Technically, he had the pressure to crush a human skull by squeezing with that hand, and he had done it before. The touch pads helped him mentally regulate how hard he was squeezing something to avoid making every handshake a catastrophe.
What did the Nazi's care about his hand? And why would they separate just him when he showed it off?
The answer came to him in a manner that was a little convoluted, but made sense if he let go of his inhibitions. The Nazis had won the war. Even if the strategic might of Germany hadn't been abused and overextended in his own world, there was no way they would have won by traditional means, as they had neither the manpower nor the resources. But if they had invented something new…
The best theory he could think up was that they believed he was a veteran of some kind who was working undercover for them. His own life story would come in gracefully in this regard, as Texas had been settled in large part by Germans, and little ol' Beecave had been a German town, steeped so much in the culture that he had learned German even before he could fully comprehend English… and before his mother died.
If it was true that the Nazis were augmenting themselves in such a way, however, it could serve to be something of a crisis of faith for Dell, though he guessed that they didn't believe in the blessings of the Machine Spirit like he and his father did. If they were just replacing parts lost in the war, instead of willingly replacing what already technically worked for something that worked better. If that were the case, then there was no crisis to be had.
Dell was certain that if he revealed to the Team just how deeply religious he actually was, he imagined they would be shocked, seeing as how he never went to church and often railed against organized religion. They thought he did it because he was an atheist, but in reality, he just had a different religion. It was the only thing that truly gave his life purpose after his mother died.
He mulled over how his very German mother would have felt about the Nazis winning the war. She was a gentle soul, who had even swept spiders outside instead of killing them. She had spent the currency of her life on kindness, and when a cartel had temporarily taken over his little town, she had decided that it would be better to die than to rat out her husband or give up her son. That death had been slow and awful, but she had endured it with no tears and no complaining. Dell could personally attest, as he, a nine year old, had watched it all happen from under the floorboards.
What he had learned from that incident was that humanity had no value. Despite how well his mother had lived, she had died horribly. He had looked down at his own flesh, and wondered why flesh like his could do the things it did to such a wonderful person. The conclusion was obvious; the flesh was weak, and that weakness disgusted him.
The purity of the machine, a mechanism that had a job and did it without complaint and without destroying its fellow machine, was something that he had aspired to initially in his spiritual journey. Over time, he had come to loath the flesh so much that he had come to a spiritual epiphany; there was no point to the flesh. If a flesh being had value to him, it lived, and in relative comfort with free upgrades. If it didn't, then Dell would feel little reciprocation in that regard.
His dad had demonstrated this when he had finally come home, and had dispatched the cholos one by one. Most, Dell included, barely even registered that it was happening, until it devolved into a gunfight between the cholos, and metallic spiders covered in machineguns. When his dad had discovered that Dell was still alive, he didn't rejoice loudly, instead he gave him a choice; he could stay here, and raise himself, or he could go live with a friend of his.
That had led to a long life of crime between him and "Uncle". Hundreds of bank robberies, NASA shenanigans, and assassinations finally culminated in a standoff between him and Uncle and the feds. Technically, the feds didn't have any evidence against either man, but they gave him a choice too. Either the feds could trump up some bullshit charges that they would have no hope of overcoming in court since the feds would stack the jury with statesmen, or Dell could rat on Uncle and come work at the DoD. Dell had had two conditions; they pay for his college, and they give Uncle a nice cell and a short sentence. They only agreed to one condition.
Eleven PhD's and five years later, Dell had assassinated so many people for the government that he was surprised his hands weren't stained crimson. Then the Administrator had reached out, and the rest was history.
Dell knew a good amount of Spanish, a decent amount of German, nine hundred ways to kill a man and make it look like an accident and counting, and most important here, that when a government man has an assumption about you, you either leaned the hell into it, or you killed him... or both.
The door opened again. He took note of the fact that he heard another door close as soon as this one opened. Then he took stock of everyone coming in.
There were four of them, all of them in uniforms that were more crisp and stylized than the basic officers, with more flashy bits of ribbon on their shoulders, and even a red and white strap across their chest. Their pants were a deep blue rather than gray like the previous officers, and they seemed rather casual despite the situation.
Though, looks were deceiving. Dell could already see one of them caressing the grip of his pistol. He would be very little threat indeed.
Now, focusing on the pistol, it seemed to be in the style of a Walther PPK, and as a matter of fact, that might have been the beginning and end of it. Dell scratched the side of his head, subtly touching the side of his goggles, activating two different lenses; one over his left eye, that could identify enemy silhouettes, and one over his right, that would analyze the pistol in the holster, judge how it would shoot based on its design, and then give him 74.6% accurate targeting data based on its position in his hand if he managed to grab one for himself.
His goggles, like most of his equipment, stored data on tiny cellophilament, like in a cassette tape. It wasn't just that it was the most common information storage technology that he had available, but that it was resistant to all kinds of nasty radiation, which he worked heavily with, which made him choose this particular method. Dell had figured out pretty quickly how to maximize data storage on these tapes, and could now get terabytes of information onto a full cassette. Unfortunately, with how small he had to make it for his goggles, he had to limit the data storage on them. The targeting data on his mech, by comparison, was 99.4% accurate, and could remember 7 billion different silhouettes. He thanked the Machine Spirit that these boys seemed to use similar uniforms for everything.
There were two great things about his silhouette pattern recognition device; it was set to automatically find silhouettes even through otherwise unobservable objects, like, for instance, a two-way mirror. The second was that it would automatically feed that data to the targeting window. He had the targeting sensor wired to put a small crosshair in the middle of his screen view, which would light up red when it had a target in line with a gun in his hand, and would add a dot to the center when he was aiming at what the silhouette detector believed to be the target's head.
Of course, like with all forms of worship to the Machine Spirit, he would have to put in the work to make its blessings worthwhile.
"Name", one of the men said, with little wiggle room to call it a question.
"Dell Conagher", Dell answered, keeping his voice even and low.
"Rank", he asked again, in the same tone.
"Obermaat", Dell replied, and tried not to look like he had regretted his choice.
Implying that he was a Sergeant in the Kriegsmarine was an absolutely ballsy move, and depending on how they reacted, might have been an overreach. If that wasn't the branch they pulled their spies from, or worse, his rank was too high, or even worse, too low, they might just pull and pop him right there and then.
The one asking the questions nodded, and took a seat across from Dell. Dell did his absolute best not to wear his emotions on his sleeve. He didn't mind being uncomfortable for a purpose, but if someone was putting him in that position, it would only fuel his anger. The man reached into his pocket, and pulled out a pack of smokes, offering one to Dell. Dell was careful to hold his cigarette like how he had seen the German old timers in Beecave hold theirs, between a pinched index and thumb.
The person across the table from him subtly nodded, and held out a lit lighter for him. Dell leaned in, and pulled on the cigarette, inhaling the smoke. Dell didn't smoke often, and hardly ever cigarettes, so he gave a light cough as the smoke exited his lungs.
"I missed this", he said nostalgically.
"Favorite brand", the man in front of him asked.
"Anything not American", Dell said with a shake of his head. "They put too much tar and not enough tobacco."
"Yep", the guard agreed with a nod. He raised an eyebrow, asking, "Texan?"
"Fredericksburg", Dell lied, although he had done a few hits and a big bank robbery there and knew the place well enough.
"When did you join", the man questioned.
"39", Dell told him. "Forged papers and stowed away on cargo ships."
"Why?"
"Had family in Germany."
"Had?"
"Bombing raid."
"Ah."
The man nodded his head, deep in thought.
"What's with the hat", the man landed on.
"Oh, you know how subhumans are", Dell said.
The man nodded. Dell noticed that the man who had had his hand on his pistol was now relaxed. Perfect.
"Ready to dress down", the man asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well", Dell mused after a drag on his cigarette, "I'm supposed to report directly to my Kapitanleutnant, but get me a few beers and a big smoked sausage, and I'll tell you a few of my funnier... and not classified stories."
"Ha", the man said, slapping his leg.
He offered his hand across the table, and Dell grinned, taking it in his metallic hand. Maintaining that grin, Dell made the Gunslinger's hand twist 360 degrees, and before the man could scream, yanked him up onto the table. He let go of his arm to lean over his body, pull his gun out of his holster with his left hand, and crush his head with the Gunslinger.
The closest guard immediately reacted, reaching for his sidearm. Dell put two rounds into his chest, and he immediately fell like the wind left his sails. The second one almost got his gun up before a round punched through his neck. Blood gushed out of his wound in a jet of red, coating the wall next to him as he clutched at it, sliding down the wall behind him. Seeing the third guy freeze, Dell used his target locater on the two-way mirror, and as soon as it went red, he pulled the trigger. The round shattered the mirror, revealing a highly decorated man with a hole in his raised hand, which was now clutched in his other hand as he yelped in pain. Dell moved his gun until a dot appeared on his target reticle, and pulled the trigger, sending a round through the officer's head.
He turned the gun back onto the last officer, who was still frozen in place. The man raised his hands, and backed up straight into the wall. He tried to speak, and failed, and tried again.
"W-wait", the man said. "I-I'm like you, I'm from Louisiana, I'm from the South, partner!"
"I don't think you quite comprehend the gravity of your situation", Dell told him in an even tone. He cocked his head, adding, "Partner."
The gun boomed, and a splotch of blood squirted out onto the white wall behind him. The man crumpled to the ground in an undignified position. Dell put a round into the heads of the two other men, despite the fact that the first one wasn't moving at all and the second one was losing blood at a constant spray, and could only blankly hold his neck wound.
The first thing he did was take a second to truly examine the pistol in his hand. Uncle had been more of the gun nut between the two of them, hence why his own arsenal had been limited. Uncle had invented the SP1, a version of which Dell had in his mech right now, and had used that weapon pattern to bargain his way out of the federal torture chambers. Of course, Springfield armory was up in arms about it, and had done everything in their power to screw Uncle over, but hey, what could you do when it came to oligarchs, other than killing them of course.
That being said, Dell could certainly work with this, and when he gathered up the rest of their guns, and pulled off the pieces of their uniforms that hadn't been covered in blood, he believed he could work with all of it. He was no Spy, but he knew how to play a part and blend in, so he would. He would do what he could to get the Team out of this place… and learn as much as he could along the way.
...
Heavy dreamed.
He dreamed of his father, how he had betrayed him. How his father had bestowed the title of man of the family onto him before he had been executed. How the prisoners in the gulag, recognizing him to be young and strong, gave them all of their food. How he had turned to religion and science in equal measure when he had no one else to cry to. How men had come, and he had buried them, and then they moved on.
His father… oh, his father. He was a complicated man. When Lenin took over Russia, and then rigged the elections, his father had decided to move him and his family to the outskirts of the uninhabitable plains. When Lenin ran a genocide on the orthodox church, however, that was when his father had fully embraced the counter revolutionary ideals. His friends and family had all been connected to the church, and Lenin had made the whole thing personal. Heavy had just been born.
It was when the Nazis invaded, and his father had made a deal with them, that Heavy decided his father had gone too far. The deal wasn't extensive, and in hindsight it might have been a deal Heavy himself would have made. In exchange for housing and tending to some wounded pilots, the Nazis would trade some guns to them.
A young Mikhail, deeply patriotic at the time, had seen this as a bridge too far. He had found a local commissar when he went into town for supplies, and told him everything, thinking that it was the right thing to do. Because of this one action, his family would never be safe again.
He had failed them. He had failed all of them. His punishment was that he would have to protect them, all of them, until the end of his days, forsaking his own life and happiness. He had spent every waking moment teaching them how to defend themselves and forcing them to work out.
When the Administrator reached out to him, he was hesitant at first. It was a lot of money, enough to keep his family truly hidden, but he would be so far away from them. He only took the job at his family's urging. Now he was Heavy, and he fought a pointless war over nothing for enough cash to keep his family safe.
Of course, usually when he dreamed, he was interrupted, and today was no exception. This time, however, it wasn't some blaring alarm, or distant explosion that awoke him. This time, it was a blinding headache.
Given his heritage, most in the team would be surprised to know that Heavy didn't drink often. Part of that was because he tried to go down the same religious path as his father, and the other was because every time he did drink, he woke up with a splitting headache. This headache blew even his worst hangover out of the water so hard that it was the difference between a pipe bomb and a nuke. He moved to clutch his forehead, only to find his wrists bound.
The pain was so intense that he let out an audible groan. His groan was very quickly met by Medic's voice behind him, greeting him and asking if he was alright. He grunted a response, and then the realization that he was bound and Medic was behind him shot him into fully alert mode.
"Best not to struggle", Medic said, which only worsened his panic. "I think these guys mean business."
Now his confusion was deepened.
"What guys?"
"We're in a different parallel universe this time. The Nazis won."
"Pizdec."
"Keep your talking to a minimum for now", Medic advised. "I know how these simple minded low lives think. The last thing we want to get into is a philosophical debate with them."
"Might makes right, the strongest survive, and eat my toenail clippings."
"Exactly. Now hush."
"What is plan?"
Medic paused for a moment. He took a deep, steadying breath, and let it out slowly. Then he paused for a moment more.
"I never worked for these guys, you know."
"It wouldn't be funny if you had."
"Vas? No matter. I never worked for them, but that didn't stop them from seeking me out… I'm a little older than I look, you know…"
"…I know."
"I have made my name in many places. But I've gone by many names. Right now, the Devil thinks I'm Ludwig, and so does Mr. Hitler. And Mr. Hitler asked me to do something for him, oh so long ago…"
"…"
"…I refused. It was a small-minded endeavor, or at least, I thought so at the time. But I have this horrible, sinking suspicion…"
"…So what is plan?"
"One last Hail Mary", Ludwig told him. Heavy couldn't see it, but Ludwig tried to make a sign of a cross over his body as he said it, and continued, "One last impossible maneuver. If I'm wrong, we're out of moves and we die here. If I'm right…"
"I'll keep the muscles warmed up."
"You'll need them. Now hush."
The knob on the door jiggled, and then the door swung open with a loud creaking sound. Heavy kept his eyes pointed down at his feet, but by the sounds the steps made, it was a small woman in boots, though slightly off, like there was more weight to her steps than necessary.
Heavy assumed the first thing he would hear would be questions. That was logical and reasonable, and if you were held accountable, you could honestly say that you did everything in your power correctly to get good information out of a subject. Naturally, Heavy had only had good examples of women in his life; his mother had been a strong woman who had worked hard to keep their family safe, and he had raised his sisters to think hard and well about everything they encountered, as well as using tactical analysis to win any battles they encountered.
Which was why he was surprised when the first thing he heard was the sound of a fist hitting a face and a nose breaking.
...
Blood dribbled down Ludwig's face as he looked in shock at his interrogator. The blond haired, green eyed woman wearing a scowl, with a jagged scar across her cheek being a deviant path on an otherwise beautiful map, curled her lip up into a sneer. Her crisp, black uniform with medals plastering her chest was now marred by his crimson blood staining her black leather glove.
Medic, naturally, was more shocked by the action than by the pain. He shot his tongue out to lick up some of the blood on his upper lip, making sure it still tasted normal and wasn't throwing out any weird tastes. Confirming the coppery aftertones, Medic turned an annoyed gaze towards the petulant child.
"Vas", Medic asked simply.
"And now you act like one of us", she shrieked in a shrill German accent. "First you steal his face, now his mannerisms?! Truly, you are despicable!"
She looked over his shoulder at Heavy, who was blankly staring at the wall.
"Not even to mention you have stolen one of his experiments as well!"
"I stole nothing", Ludwig said defensively. "Lied, cheated, killed, and sold my soul to the devil, sure, but stealing? It's not in my character."
The fist cracked down into his face again, and this time, Medic took a moment to analyze the feel of the punch. There was no give to it at all, and no shock transfer. It was like he was being hit by a wall. A steel wall.
Ludwig licked the blood off his lips yet again.
"If I had to judge by your methods", Ludwig said with a smile creeping up his face, "you're not one of the Goebbels kids. That woman was shrewd, but she was practical."
The woman's eyes blazed with seething rage.
"You DARE to assume who my mother was", she spat like a cobra, "subhuman filth!"
Ludwig just barely dodged the next punch, and sunk his teeth into her arm. As he suspected, her skin had a rubbery taste and composition. He let go before she could yank her arm back.
"You call me subhuman", Ludwig shot with a wicked grin, "but you clearly weren't very comfortable in your own skin!"
Ludwig didn't even bother to dodge the next punch, though he probably should have, since the world went black.
...
Heavy could hear the particularly loud crack, and had to suppress a cringe. He stared blankly at his feet as the lady gave a hissing sigh. Another set of boots approached the scene.
"Orders, ma'am", a male voice with a midwestern accent asked.
"Call the Doctor", she told him.
"...which one?"
"Both of them", she snapped.
"Yes ma'am", the male voice responded quickly. "What about him?"
"Bah, reintegrate him", she said dismissively. "No need to waste such a valuable, expensive asset."
"Yes ma'am", the male voice responded.
Someone undid the straps around Heavy's arms and legs. Heavy, aware that he did not know nearly enough information about where he was, chose to continue playing dumb. He was in too tight of a spot, and either way, he was likely to be tortured, so he might as well hold on to the one card he still had.
"Ok, big guy", the American sounding man said to the oversized Russian man, "don't hurt me, and I won't bleed all over you."
Seemed like a fair trade.
Heavy tried hard to take in his surroundings, but the more he saw, the more his mind hurt. Surgery rooms where Frankenstein's monster men were made, horrible, animal, pale creatures that were stuffed full of odd-looking organs and pushed into weird pods to be... grown. When one of these... things died, it was hacked apart, the organs removed, and the remains were put into a massive blender, for what purpose Heavy couldn't tell and probably didn't want to know.
Then the worst happened. Heavy saw sunlight. And then he was shoved into a car. A car that started driving.
