Chapter 8 ~ Fishbowl
A Tale of Two Times: Volume 4, Reign of the War Queen
~ 1 ~ Early morning sunlight was flowing nearly horizontally across the open woodland of the grounds over which Ottilie was striding toward the Steinmetz’s security turret. Deep beneath her feet, the vast subterranean floors of the Steinmetz Research Institute were hidden from the people of Berlin—the city which was now, through Germany’s conquests, the center of power in continental Europe.
She arrived at the turret, the handle of a leather case in each hand, as the city’s sounds were beginning to blend with the woodland’s birdsong into a single background murmur.
"Fraulein Krüger, may I assist you with your cases?” Guard Klein, standing at the elevator door, was new, and full of his recent security training. The nearby older guard, who was his mentor, had warned, “Klein, do not question that young woman who is approaching, and do not be overbearing. Let not her appearance deceive you, for she is, in fact, Fraulein Krüger, who is second in command here, and they say that she is a friend of Hitler.
Fraulein Krüger surprised the older guard by replying to Klein, "Yes, please do.” She set down her cases. She stepped into the large, open supply elevator while Klein picked up the cases and followed her. Klein’s mentor stared after them. Fraulein Krüger‘s unvarying routine had been to use the stairs, carrying her own gear.
During the smooth descent, Ottilie’s manner was pleasantly friendly as she asked the young guard his name and questioned him about his family, his eduction and his training. Fraulein Krüger was a young woman of Klein’s older sister's age, yet he sensed in her the woman whom his mentor had described: a person of power, position and ability.
Carrying the two cases, he followed her along the corridor between the Vault’s 'Fishbowl' to their left and its large machinery-cluttered work floor to their right. He watched Fraulein Krüger running the fingers of her left hand along the perfectly uniform wall of glass as she strode along its length. She stopped at the table beneath the spiral staircase. "Please set down the cases on this table.”
After looking around the vault and seeing it empty, Ottilie said, "Thank you, Herr Klein. Please see that Captain Schmidt is informed that there are no technical staff on duty here. He may know this, but, if he does not, the fact may be of interest to him.”
As Captain Schmidt was Head of Security for the Institute, Guard Klein smiled on his way back to the Turret, in the satisfaction of having been entrusted with his first important task—to carry a message from one important person to another. Arriving in the Turret, he at once relayed the message to his mentor, who used the internal telephone system to contact Schmidt.
In answer to Schmidt’s question, “Who brought the information from Fraulein Krüger?” the older guard informed him that it was Guard Klein.
Replacing the telephone’s receiver, he clapped the young man’s shoulder. “It is a good morning for you, Klein!"
~ 2 ~ Ottilie had watched the young guard purposefully marching off, carrying her message. She had wondered if he would survive the war, which would surely demolish Berlin. She had shaken her head sadly and had returned to her present concern: Why were no technicians at work?
Ottilie had expected to see the place buzzing with activity. She was sure that Ellie, at least, was somewhere in the building, because her glass laboratory door was open and a notebook lay on her workbench atop of a pile of readout sheets from the Separator’s support instrumentation. Ottilie found herself alone, looking into the Fishbowl, without access to Aretta’s counsel. It was Emily who was receiving Aretta’s counsel now, in Moscow, where the War Thing needed her aid in countering the Circle’s coup attempt.
The Foe, only, remains for me to face. Ottilie sensed the Heart Shield’s presence. She felt it often now, and from him she drew her only comfort.
Ellie Herder had been elated, satisfied that the Separator was now perfectly functional. Then her father had requested a vial of Dwight’s poison, and she had been shaken. Returning to her apartment after the evening with her mother and her uncle, she had thought about the vial of the Friend’s Elixir given to her by Gabrielle.
In the Elixir, she had seen a new world awaiting her, whatever the outcome of events might be. She had dismissed her housekeeper. Alone in her apartment, she had swallowed her first measure of the Elixir—in complete disregard of Gabrielle’s instructions to her. Gabrielle had said, “Only after I tell you that you may begin, may you take your first dose. It must be at a time when things are going well for you, and you must drink it with a pledge of service to our Friend. Follow it with a monthly dose at the same phase of the moon as that of your first dose.”
Leaning back in her comfortable new reclining chair, Ellie had gazed out at the lights of Berlin glowing in the night—and she had entered seamlessly into the pleasures and the unspoken counsels given to a person who has begun to serve the Foe. His Powers had received her, and the Foe had become aware of her entrance into his Province. He had begun to seek her, with the sharpened sense which had been gained for him by Kane’s brief interview with her.
Early the next morning Ellie had awakened, still in her new chair, feeling very fresh and alert. She had enjoyed her morning bath, hearing the arrival of Frau Kant, her housekeeper, who prepared her breakfast. Frau Kant had said nothing to Ellie about her bed’s un-slept-in appearance; she had simply changed the sheets as usual.
Ellie had worked late that day. Yet, after eating dinner at a restaurant, she had returned to the laboratory feeling no need for rest. Filled with a desire to be alone with her Fire Baby, she had dismissed the night shift and had sat for an hour contemplating the Separator. Then she had taken out her diary and had written in it a long account of her secret new experience of entering into the “New World” opened to her by the Elixir.
Having completed the new entry in her diary, Ellie had turned back to its earlier entries, entertaining herself by reading descriptions of some of her numerous erotic adventures. Coming upon her account of an evening with Dwight, she had laughed. That fool never made his way into my bed! That account had given her more pleasure than she would have received from an account of his success.
Thoughts of Dwight had led her to recall “Dwight’s dog”. It was the first apparatus made by her which had proved the feasibility of creating the whole Separator. Dwight’s dog duplicated exactly, Dwight Hemming’s bench process for making the chemical precursor of his poison. The apparatus was one which Dwight's assistant Norman had felt would be impossible to make within the next hundred years.
Ellie had been shocked to discover that time had passed quickly, and she had not yet made the vial of poison which she had promised to her father! Early that evening, when she had arrived, she had been confident of being able to produce a vial of the poison before the day crew arrived, as she had then the whole night ahead of her in which to work. Abruptly, she had stood up. Leaving her diary open and her laboratory door ajar, she had quickly ascended the spiral staircase and had found Dwight’s dog sitting in the upper laboratory space where Georg had been tinkering with it.
Ottilie opened one of the two cases on the table, displaying the set of Goth battle swords which she had promised Ellie. She hesitated for a moment, and then she hung her jacket on a peg and her purse on another, with her Teutonic necklace over it, in order to be unencumbered in the case of Ellie at once requesting a sword lesson. Deep in thought, she absently lifted the shield sword from its open case and set it on the table. Then she picked up the smaller killing sword. Unaware of what her hands were doing, she tapped the flat of its blade against the palm of her hand while wandering toward the door to Ellie’s laboratory. Her habit of tapping the blade in this manner had been acquired in her days of teaching Goth sword skills at the Abbey Estate. She would circle around the students on the Battleground, tapping her contest sword which she used for demonstrating moves to them.
In Ellie's glass-walled office, Ottilie briefly studied the Separator’s output sheets. Noticing then that she had carried the killing sword with her, she set it down before her on the bench and then turned her attention to the notebook. After discovering that the notebook was actually Ellie’s diary, written in Polish, Ottilie succumbed to temptation: She read a few lines from the last entry.
Fraulein Ellie was beginning to descend the spiral staircase, clutching the sealed vial of poison which she had succeeded in synthesizing. She wondered: Was it truly a lethal poison, this organic compound of plutonium within the vial? According to Dwight, who had tested it on rats, the poison remained lethal for only a few minutes after being removed from the vial and exposed to the oxygen in the air. Ellie had no rats available, but her cat and her housekeeper might have served as well, both recently having become highly annoying to her.
She stopped abruptly. Ottilie was there, standing in Ellie’s own laboratory space, reading her diary! What is that bitch doing? Ellie was outraged! Ottilie was committing a violation of her very person, by this spying on her private, deeply secret, erotic affairs.
Hatred of Ottilie fully consumed her! Its new flame blazed furiously upon that old animosity spawned by Ellie’s public defeat by Ottilie. Well, she no longer needed Ottilie’s help with her Fire Baby.
