WOLFENSTEIN
THE FINAL EMPEROR
By breaded hamster
"
We did it, finish line is far behind us, I'm still drunk with gratitude. Those final days you gave me were sweeter than any time in my life. When you left us, the pain was greater than anything I've endured. It's just me and our boys now, they're kind, smarter than I'll ever be. I want them to be like you, not like me, never like me. The kind of world that made men like me, I never want them to see it. The monster never dies, but I pray we'll be ready when it wakes up again.
I'll see you soon, Anya."
It was a ten minute drive from the Henderson farm until you reached the town. He was late, but he wouldn't speed, even though it was rare to see other cars on dusty roads like these. Half an orange sun peeked over the horizon, descending slowly, chased by a swarm of pink clouds.
He never tired of seeing a Texas sunset, even in his old age. He had fought in every continent, he had seen the dark side of the moon and the brightest side of Mercury, but the grassy, evening plains of Mesquite had a humble majesty that put him at ease.
His awe shattered with motion in the corner of his good eye. He slammed the brakes, causing the old truck to squeal to a halt on the dirt road.
"Damn." He whispered.
A jackrabbit dashed quickly into the brush, narrowly avoiding the wheels. He gave a sneer to the creature, grateful it was unharmed.
"Spring hare, young and dumb, like we all were."
He removed his foot from the brake, got a better grip on the steering wheel. It felt bigger than it used to, but he knows he has simply shrunk from age.
"Not young anymore, wonder if I'm still dumb?"
The other side of the road caught his attention, a traveler passed his truck when he stopped. He drove a bit more, then slowed to match the man's pace.
"Need a ride into town?" He asked.
The man wore a black overcoat, and his wide brimmed hat obscured his face in shadow. He waved his hand side to side, signaling a no.
"You sure? I'm heading there for a gathering."
Another no was waved.
He continued driving, leaving the traveler behind.
"
Strange man, must not mind the heat."
The sun was nearly gone when he arrived, bathing Mesquite in a warm gloom. Nestled on the edge of the town was a small diner, red letters formed a sign on top that said "Robs place". He pulled into the sandy field beside it, the unofficial parking lot. After getting out and stretching his old bones, a young man came out and greeted him.
"Mr Blazko!" He called out in a deep, post pubescent voice.
His name was Robert Franklin, but everyone just called him jr on account of his father, the owner of the diner who shared his name. He was tall and lanky, still round faced for all his height. He had wide ears and a smile nearly as big. Even though he was mixed race, black and possibly white or latino, he spoke with a texas drawl like his adoptive father.
He ran up to the flatbed of the old army truck, undid the hatch and hoisted a sack of vegetables under each arm. The old man circled around to meet him, laughed a little when he saw the haste and effort the youth had mustered for such a simple task.
"It ain't a race."
"I just really want that soup is all."
"Be sure to leave some for the rest of us, can't have you getting too big."
Robert looked downward, feeling a bit embarrassed at the notion of his big appetite. The old man slapped him on the back to reassure him.
"I'm just messing with ya."
Robert Jr quickly walked inside while the old man attempted to lift a sack himself. He could barely manage one.
"Damn, I really am old." He thought.
When he was halfway to the door, Robert was already back to relieve him.
"I got it Mr Blazko." He said.
"In a second, just let me have some fresh air."
He huffed and stretched his back while watching the young man work effortlessly.
"He's a good kid."
A line of ruined brick buildings was across the street. The roofs had collapsed, and the walls wouldn't last another decade without maintenance. Ten years ago, a great war machine died and fell on the structures, it rested there for another year before its dismantling. The spider-like robot walked on many armored legs, its central body had a laser cannon for disintegrating soft targets, and a bouquet of mortar barrels stuck out of the top.
"
I'm glad he didn't have to see it."
The old mans name was William Joseph Blazkowics, American soldier and freedom fighter, a savior to the downtrodden and a terror to the wicked. Few people knew that, however. Robert jr was too young to remember when terror Billy downed that great war machine like he had done with so many others. It was 1981, it had been ten years of peace followed by an equal time of war. They called it the black decade, the years when Blazkowicz and the resistance liberated the world on every front.
Williams hand started to tremble.
"
Calm down, old timer. Let's get inside."
Several hours later, old man Blazkowics found himself sitting in a small concrete room on the other side of town. His hands were cuffed together with magnetic shackles, still as death resting on the metal table.
"
Why?" He thought.
He wasn't trembling, and he wasn't scared. Doubts about his sanity sprung up, but he knew what he saw in that diner.
The steel door to the interrogation room groaned open, then walked in the leader of the town militia, Marvin Clyde. He was around thirty, bulky and bearded. His blue jeans and cattleman hat were the only casual clothes on him. Everything else was military gear, including an alloyed cuirass that peeked out of his jacket. He scowled at seeing the old man on the table, then punched in a code on his electronic wrist bracer.
The cuffs on Blazkowics clicked open, freeing his wrists. Marvin then spoke, his voice was lighter than one would imagine.
"Which one of my boys put shackles on you? I'll have their ass on my wall."
"It's fine, Marvin."
"No it ain't, I'm not having a war hero being treated like this on my watch."
Blazkowics rubbed his thin hands together, tried to warm them.
"Marvin, I killed a man."
"I know, you must have had a damn good reason."
"I hope I did."
Marvin sat down down the other side of the table, looked into the dry, blue eyes of the old man and tried to phrase his next question sensitively.
"Have uh… have you been taking those pills like the doctor said?"
Blazkowics did not change his face.
"I have."
Marvin tapped a button on his bracer, a little green light appeared next to the screen.
"It's recording, tell me what happened"
We were having a get together at robs place, he was making that soup of his, the really good stuff with all the fixings. It was me, Rob and his boy, that Jackson couple, Florez and his kids, Mitchell, and a few others. I think they were Mitchells friends? Miss Jackson brought some shine, she'll tell you I didn't have any.
I was about done with my meal when Florez's daughter said someone was at the door. Place was supposed to be closed, but you know Rob's always eager to feed folks. I was at the front counter, my back to the entrance. Soon as I heard that mans voice, oh boy, I can hardly explain it.
German accent, old, full of vigor. He sounded friendly, started shaking hands and asking the kids names, told them they were beautiful names. Kids weren't scared of him, they'd seen plenty of people who had burnt up faces. I was in a vice hearing all that noise, like I was back at the castle, face down on the dirty floors of that incinerator room, frankenstein monster holding me as… as…
When he came up to the counter, sat next to me, felt like I had a chunk of ice in my stomach. He took off that wide hat of his, flashed those white teeth.
"Guten Abend, Captain Blazkowicz." He said to me.
General Wilhelm Strasse, we called him Deathshead. He was sitting right there, same as he was before I gutted him and he blew us both up. You were just a boy when that happened.
My hand, it's like it grabbed that spoon of its own accord. Next thing I know, it was sticking out of his eye, I'd say about half of it was in his brain. Folks started screaming, then a couple of your boys came and took me here.
Marvin clicked his bracer off, ending the recording.
"So that's it?"
Blazkowics sighed, his expression stony.
"I know how it sounds, I probably am just crazy. But you haven't seen the things I've seen Marvin."
"I don't think you're crazy sir, we all know what the nazis did."
"No, no you haven't. Y'all saw robots, men. The nazi's had worse in their back pocket. Things they couldn't control if they ever got loose."
"Like what?"
"If I told you, I think you would call me crazy."
Marvin stood up, reached a hand for the door.
"I gotta talk to some folks, do you need anything?"
"I need two things, then I don't care what happens to me."
"Name them."
"I want to call my sons, then I want to see the body."
"Sir, I don't know if I can do that second one."
He stood quickly, far quicker than a man of his age should. Hands spread on the table, he spoke low and had a fierce precision to his words.
"I need to know if he's dead, if it's actually him."
Marvin meekly slipped out of the room.
"I'll… I'll see what I can do."
The door closed softer than it had opened. Blazkowics slumped back into the chair, his legs sore from that burst of energy.
"I've slain the dragons, my blade has rusted and grown heavy. Let them lie in their graves, let my steel be untempted in its rest."
More than a hundred miles to the south of mesquite was Waco, now considered the new, unofficial capital of texas. There was little resistance when the Nazis arrived in 1948. Its population had nearly tripled in the next 13 years, then was cut in half by the second American revolution in 1961. Ten years of war to end the third reich halved it once again, then ten years of peace let it double. Waco suffered the least out of all the major cities in Texas, much better than the moldering remains of Dallas, or the irradiated ruins of Houston.
The Paul-Quinn college was a major target by the nazi's for its education of black youth. A new college stood where it once did more than twenty years after its destruction. The campus was small, no more than a few long brick buildings and some smaller structures. A morning lecture, and a demonstration, was being given in the surgical amphitheater.
A wide linoleum floor was encircled by escalating benches packed with squemish students. They watched as an unconscious man on the table had the flesh of his stomach peeled back, the surgeon calmly giving explanations muffled by his face mask.
"Blood should never be feared in a medical context, it's simply the consequence of an action, a product of healing, not harm."
Suspended above was a pale blue light bathing them both in a ray of energy. It functioned as an energy based antiseptic, preventing infection alongside more traditional methods in open surgery.
"I did quite a lot of haphazard operations when I was in the camps, did you all know this? Can't tell you how many times I had to perform an amputation with the same tools we used for mining."
Across from him was a wheeled station of robotic arms. One of them emitted a tiny laser that cauterized blood vessels following his incisions, more handed him surgical tools in the order that was required.
"Even as I am wrist deep in Mr Caleb here, I am calm. How do I do this, you ask? A combination of sterile logic and gratitude. Mr Caleb is a healthy man in his thirties with no prior medical issues, and I'm an experienced surgeon. I'm also grateful, because this is quite relaxing compared to bloody rock saws and firing squads. Now I don't know if most of you youngsters can muster up the gratitude, but I expect you to at least be logical."
His gloved hand dropped a bloody hunk of discolored flesh in a medical tray, then the machine closed the patients body with an auto suture.
"All right, that is one pancreatic tumor off to the lab. Let's head back to the classroom everyone."
He pointed to one of the students.
"Except for you Blazkowicz, the administration wanted you to see them, said it's about your father."
Twenty year old Wesley Blazkowics left the amphitheater at a brisk pace, dodging crowds of students along the way. His mind raced with possibilities, rationalizations. His father was approaching 70, but in the past few years, he had aged quicker than usual, like he was a man 15 years older. The last time they spoke, he told his children that it was all just catching up to him, that he had delayed a normal life for too long.
Wesley arrived at the front door to the administrative building, there he found his identical twin, Richard. They were both broad shouldered, athletically built like their father, but not warriors as he was. They had their grandfathers brown eyes, dark hair like their mother. The only noticeable difference between them was their clothes, and the fact that Richards hair was slicked back whereas his brother had a buzz cut.
Before they opened the door, Richard invoked their secret language so no one would eavesdrop. They made it as children by combining their mothers Polish and the yiddish they learned from Set Roth, who was like a grandfather to the boys in their early years. Both languages were rarely spoken anymore.
"Did they tell you anything?"
"No."
"What do you think is wrong?"
"Why are you asking me?" Asked Wesley, irritated.
"You're the doctor here."
"Not yet, and we don't know what happened to dad."
"You said he looked bad last time."
"I wasn't diagnosing him."
Wesley opened the door.
"Let's just go." He said in English.
The secretary told them to wait, and they did so impatiently as they loitered around her desk. After a few minutes, a man in a green suit emerged from the deans office and approached the twins.
"Been looking for you boys." He said in a raspy British accent.
He was around fifty, slightly overweight. The handlebar mustache on his face was stained a dark yellow in the center from a lifetime of heavy smoking. He had thinning hair that was parted neatly, graying at the edges. That, alongside the bags under his eyes, were obvious signs of stress. But he sounded cheery regardless, and the Blazkowicz twins didn't know if it was genuine or not.
The man pulled out a badge, showed it to them.
"Agent Fairbanks, IDS."
International defense services, an organization formed by the new governments of a post-nazi world to ensure they never return. The boys went wide eyed, then squinted suspiciously.
"Thought we had an agreement with you people?" Richard said.
The agent calmly explained.
"Don't fret, I'm not interested in your old mans communist friends."
"Then why are you here?" Asked Wesely.
"Your father's in the hospital, alive."
The twins had different overlapping responses.
"What?"
"How?"
The agent gestured them to follow as he made for the door.
"I'll explain on the way there, we're taking my car."
Fairbanks felt a large hand on his shoulder, urging him to stop. He turned around to see Richard wearing a grimace.
"The fuck is your problem?" The agent asked with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.
Wesley cautioned his brother.
"Don't…"
Richard was unblinking.
"You can explain to us now."
Fairbanks scoffed.
"I'm trying to save you some time here, don't you want to go see him?"
"Aunt Grace told us to never trust you people."
Fairbanks swiped the young mans hand away.
"She's going to meet us there!"
He stormed out the door with the twins trailing him reluctantly.
280 miles north of Waco, an advanced aircraft flew high over the cratered ruins of Oklahoma city, heading south towards Mesquite. It had no wings, unnecessary for a flying saucer, a rare machine once studied and built in small numbers by the third reich. They were even more scarce nowadays, used only by major powers and built specially by the gatekeepers, an organization founded by Set Roth that safekeeps the many caches of Da'at Yichud technology.
One such craft was built for Grace Walker, one of the spearheads for the American resistance, and now leader for the internationale. She sat cross legged in the large central chamber of the saucer, a room encircled by twenty seats, most of which were empty. She had aged gracefully in the past twenty years, some wrinkles and a touch of gray on her afro were all she had to show for it. She tapped her earpiece, spoke into it.
"How's the sky looking?"
The pilot answered quickly.
"Looks clear, we should be there in about twenty minutes."
She closed the channel, returned her attention to the holographic table in the center of the dim room. The pale lights formed shapes floating above it, and a voice emitted from the base as a narration.
"Here's what we know so far ma'am."
A map of mesquite formed, one of the smallest buildings on the edge of town flashed red.
"Last night, at approximately 9:28 pm, Mr Blazkowics murdered a stranger during a social gathering, the motive is currently unknown. After he was taken into custody, at approximately 12:13 pm, he was escorted to the town's hospital for unknown reasons. At 12:25, an unknown incident occurred at the hospital that left 12 dead and three wounded, one of the wounded being Mr Blazkowics himself."
"Any updates on him?" She asked.
"Unresponsive, but stable."
"Any idea on what killed those folk?"
"None, but we can guess it wasn't Mr Blazkowics."
A dry laugh came from across the room, a bit to the left of Grace. The IDS agent sat cross legged, obscured in the shadows at the edge of the holotables light. He had a Bostonian accent.
"How do you know it wasn't him? Old fart is good at killing lots of people. Terror fucking Billy, didn't earn that name being gentle."
Grace corrected him sternly.
"He got that name killing nazis, not at random, so you better put some respect on it boy."
"Alright alright, geez."
She could tell he was smirking in the gloom, amused with himself. There had been tension between her people and the IDS for years, the whole purpose of the internationale was holding the new powers accountable, making sure they don't repeat the same regressive trends that brought the Nazis to power. Whereas the IDS worked on behalf of world governments, the internationale investigated the governments themselves.
The agent tried to amend.
"Look, I'm not saying I don't respect the guy. I was in grade school when he took out the garbage. So thanks to him, I didn't have to finish my German classes."
He lit a cigarette, a small dot of orange light which somewhat illuminated his pale, unshaven face.
"Fact of the matter is, we know he's taken more blows to the head than a boxer. He's also got a family history of dementia."
"He's been treated for that." Grace said.
"Oh yeah sure, egghead friends of yours sprinkled a bit of jew magic on his brain."
"It wasn't him. You wanna know why?"
"Lay it on me lady."
A laugh slipped out of her nose, she leaned forward a bit to tell him.
"Twelve bodies? That ain't even an appetizer for terror Billy. That's why y'all been keeping tabs on him. That spy you put there, what was that white boys name again? Leonard I believe, Leonard Hitchins."
The agent dropped his cigarette, swiping it off his chest before it burned him.
"What the fu- How do you know-"
"You think I'd be here if I wasn't good at my job? I'd be dead and you might be as well, or you'd have passed those German classes."
