Operation Paperclip - Chapter 3
A Hero In Peril!
Table of Contents if you need to catch up before reading this chapter.
CHAPTER 3
Alan Armstrong floated in the tank, weightless, blinking away the sting of the fluid that still stuck to his eyelashes. This trap might not be intended to kill him, but if he had to keep up his efforts to stay afloat much longer, it would do just that. Even with his iron strength, his arms felt like he had a Buick strapped to each and he could hardly force his legs to move at all. A soft chuckle echoed around the room, malice and mockery filling his ears and then the tank walls hissed. With a tiny pop, the walls split apart, disappearing into the darkness with a soft *shhhkt,* allowing the strange fluid to drain as they parted. He dropped gracelessly to the floor, managing to keep himself propped on one knee. His chest heaved as he sucked in breaths not stolen by the effort of keeping himself afloat.
After a few deep, ragged breaths he was able to lift his head and assess what he could see of his surroundings. The room was long and with a low ceiling, lights hanging uncomfortably close to his head once he got himself to his feet. Some sort of laboratory, he gathered, unsurprised. Equipment he vaguely recognized was scattered all about, something decidedly organized in its chaos.
Dr. Satan strode into the chamber, back lit by pale green tubes and the low hum of machines not found in any legitimate laboratory. He wore a lab coat as crisp as his accent, silver-rimmed glasses catching the sterile light. His slicked back hair was held in place with something stiff and shiny, more for convenience than style.
“Relax, Mr. Armstrong,” he said, voice smooth as lacquer. “If I wanted you dead, your plane would have landed in a crater. Or better yet, never found the airstrip at all. I’ve been watching you for quite some time.”
“So why all this?” Alan asked, gesturing at the tank and the equipment. “You already have the advantage.”
“Because you deserve to hear it. Or at least, the part you’ll understand, “ answered Dr. Satan. “And because it amuses me to watch my enemies see the light.” His tone was surprisingly conversational despite what Armstrong knew to be a deep hatred for himself personally and Allied personnel in general. It was not the reception Armstrong expected, but any delay was an opportunity, so he played along.
Dr. Satan stepped closer, motioning to the glass tank now rising into the ceiling as if it had never existed. “The war. The Nazis. They’re like this tank. Now that they are no longer necessary, we put them away and move on, “ he said. “You seem to be unwilling to do so.”
“The war may be over but the things that were done, the things you did, need to be exposed. Justice needs to be served,” hissed Alan. His fury at the memory of the atrocities he had witnessed momentarily overwhelmed him, breaking his careful control.
“What I did?” scoffed Dr. Satan. “One day, they will raise statues to my genius.”
“You cannot be that deluded,” answered Armstrong. “You tortured, exploited, murdered innocents. We’ll drag you into a courtroom, then in front of a firing squad and into an unmarked grave.” He paused for a moment, then finished, with a chuckle. “Maybe they’ll put a statue of FDR on top of it.”
“And yet,” observed Dr. Satan, “here I stand, not rotting in a cell, but thriving. Because your noble homeland decided that some monsters are too useful to waste.”
“Operation Paperclip,” noted Armstrong, flatly.
Dr. Satan smiled like a knife unsheathing.
“Yes. Apparently I am particularly valuable to your country’s future. You see, I wasn’t content to build missiles or machines. Machines are mere simplicity. What I am creating is elegance. I wanted obedience. Efficiency. Humanity, rewritten for perfect loyalty. Hitler wanted that as well, but he was too easily distracted by bombs and magical nonsense to see that my work would not only win the war but give the Reich the means to rule the world they would conquer. With a little more time and a good deal more money, we would have been living under the glorious Third Reich for the next thousand years!”
There was no denying the mad glint in Dr. Satan’s eye, but knowing what the man was capable of made him even more terrifying than the Fuhrer himself. He was not ranting, he was explaining and Armstrong could only think to let him continue while he desperately tried to come up with a way to escape.
“Your government invited me to continue my work. Unlike Hitler, they see that I am crafting the way to end every war, everywhere, forever. They know I can do it so they are funding it, Mr. Armstrong. They let me continue. As long as I share.”
“You’re controlling minds. Turning men into machines,” Alan observed. His suspicions were confirmed. He silently gave thanks that he hadn’t simply executed the surviving attackers at the airfield. The men who had died in the firefight were unavoidable, but it was likely that none of the gunmen were willing participants.
“Correct,” continued Dr. Satan, “Though not quite machines. I call them Obedience Engines. And the secret is...well, let’s just call it ‘The Element.’” He gestured to flask that held a grey powder that gave off a glow that was just discernible in the low light. It pulsed with a dark red shimmer that was uncomfortable to focus on for long.
“This mineral,” Dr. Satan continued in an admiring, almost wistful tone, “is radioactive and rare, to be sure, but it’s somehow alive as well. It amplifies the signal I use for mind control and something about it allows the subject to retain all of their personality while fully under my control. The men you encountered were taken from the local prison, unruly and undisciplined. Yet they obediently put themselves into the line of fire at my command.”
“They weren’t much, Doc,” mocked Armstrong. “Hop and I handled them, no problem.”
“As intended,” replied Dr. Satan, archly. “I wanted you here so I needed to get your attention and give you a trail to follow.”
“Didn’t want me sniffing around Silk City, I’m guessing,” suggested Armstrong.
“Partly,” answered Dr. Satan. “I also wanted a subject for my next experiment, someone with indomitable will. A true test of the process.”
“I’m betting that the Operation Paperclip ninnies don’t know you’re this far along, do they?” demanded Armstrong.
Dr. Satan’s smile grew just that much wider, menace in every line and crease on his rictus grin. “Of course not. Once I am certain that the process works, my benefactors will be the first of my new minions, opening the floodgates of funding to allow me to produce enough of the compounds required to indoctrinate the next wave. And so on.”
“Double cross,” spat Alan. “You Nazis never did bother to keep your word.”
“Nazi?” laughed the scientist. “I was never a Nazi. They were a means to an end. We used them, now they’re gone. So we use someone new.”
“We?” asked Alan, truly startled that Dr. Satan was working with someone else. That fact was more concerning than the Doctor’s plans. If he had a partner or someone was pulling his strings, taking down Satan might not stop the plot.
“All you need to know is that we are the clenched fist of evolution. Our enterprise is the future of humanity and no price is too high for our success. Nazis, Americans, Jews, Catholics,” he half shouted, his fervour once again bubbling up, “will all be distinctions that no longer matter. We will eliminate war, poverty, rampant over-population and replace them with control and obedience.”
“Let me guess: with you in charge?”
“Humanity needs visionary leadership to take it into the future,” was his enigmatic answer. In that moment, Dr. Satan’s eyes lost focus as if he were seeing his glorious, obscene future laid out before him. That inattention was exactly what Armstrong had been angling for and he acted instantly.
Alan took a step forward.. Before his lifted foot could even complete his first step, servos whined loudly as a pair of robotic arms descended lightning fast from the ceiling, humming with restrained violence. They wrapped him in an unyielding embrace, the coiled strength promising to snap his spine like a twig should he struggle.
“Still, it’s funny,” Dr. Satan mused, as if nothing at all had happened. “There’s a government bounty on you, you know. ‘The rogue agent.’ ‘Traitor to the cause.’ ‘Enemy of democracy.’ I could collect a tidy sum for dragging you back to Washington in chains.”
“Try it. See what’s left of your lab when I’m done. I’ll take you and every other monster Paperclip recruited and put you on trial for the entire world to witness. You are a war criminal and I took an oath to bring every last one of you to justice.”
“Bravado. I’ve missed that. But you misunderstand. I won’t hand you over. I’ll use you as a test case. Let’s see how long “Spy Smasher” can resist... obedience.” Dr. Satan motioned to the ceiling where the tank had ascended and explained, “The liquid you were immersed in was the first part of the process. Your skin needed time to absorb enough of the chemicals in it to facilitate the next stage.” He casually looked at his watch and continued, “I think your time is just about up, Spy Smasher.”
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