Apparatus 33 by Lawston Pettymore (bearly read books TXT) 📕

operating theater to bleed out remaining liters onto the corridor floor that led to an exit that would, by Todtenhausen’s estimate, be filled with Soviets in minutes. It was just enough time for him to replace Gorgass’ photograph with his own from his German passport; a passport that would have gotten him transported to a prison in Russia.

Only forty minutes remained.

With Kathe’s help, an unconscious Pyotr was transported by gurney to the launch chamber and hoisted into the warhead cavity. Kathe fitted the headset by which he would receive final assurances from Todtenhausen and inserted the catheter that would deliver a plasma drip to replace the bleeding incisions on Pyotr’s lower body. When Pyotr awakened from sedation, he would already be installed, legless, and for additional weight saving, castrated and bowels removed, in the familiar confines of the warhead on top of the Amerika Rakete stack.

Ten minutes remained.

The needles in the dials monitoring Pyotr’s vital signs quivered signs of life in his half-sized body. Todtenhausen powered up the sequencer to begin preparations for launch.

Todtenhausen heard a yelp and a mournful cry in his headset. Pyotr, installed as Apparatus 33 in the warhead fifty meters above, was regaining consciousness.

The first sensation penetrating through the fog of anesthesia was sound, dominated by a roar, like that of a freight train, rushing through the blood vessels of tympanic membranes, eventually subsiding, yielding to ambient noises of fans, pumps, relays, buzzers, humming transformers – the familiar sounds of the polio training chamber, and someone talking in his headset.

His eyelids cracked open and slowly focused on a familiar Iron Lung Trainer screen. Except for the tight confines, he concluded he was inside the advanced training module of the Iron Lung Lab, though he had no recollection of how he got there, nor of anything else that took place in the last several hours.

Pyotr’s nostrils widened to filter through the aromas of warm electronics—meters, vacuum tubes, and small incandescent bulbs—with a nuance of the usual oils and hydraulic fluids mixed with his own body odor.

But the heat was different this time. A large black sphere that he had never seen in the training module before, filled the space behind the instrument panel in front of him. The sphere did not glow, yet it radiated a form of warmth not unlike the Sun in the summer, had the Sun been somehow painted matte black, and covered with strips of copper, each with a pair of wires, one red and one black, and braided to one side. Pyotr felt a similar heat on his backside, but the muscles for twisting his body around to see were no longer responding. In fact, the only movement he could summon, strapped tightly as he was to the seat of the trainer, was in his hands and arms.

The voice came over his headset again, this time recognizable as Herr Doktor Todtenhausen’s, which would have been very intimidating for Pyotr under ordinary circumstances, as Todtenhausen possessed a complete contempt for children. But in his state of disorientation, a familiar voice, even Todtenhausen’s, was somewhat calming. The voice was monotone, not urgent, and the instructions were familiar. He concluded that he must have been placed in the training module and simply passed out from the violent jumps, jerks, tilts, swivels, all expected movements by the trainer in response to Pyotr’s inputs that would slap him against the bulkhead or control panel were he not firmly strapped to the seat.

Todtenhausen’s voice explained that this was the final session, after which, providing Pyotr did well, he and his brother could both go home and rejoin their family as cured victims of polio.

Pyotr thought that the mention of family was a bit out of character for Herr Doktor Todtenhausen, yet there was something about it that fired a still awakening neurons. Was something wrong with brother Nicolaus? He also recalled sounds of explosions, and adults panicking over an impending doom, the exact nature of which he could not yet recall. He listened for the explosions around him, but in the elevated decibel environment of his test module, he heard nothing, other than a shaking and vibration, rather more pronounced than usual. Only Herr Doktor’s voice rose above the din of the machines.

A counter on the instrument panel started flipping numbers backwards from ten. The session was starting. Fans blew hot air over his face, and he became vaguely aware of moisture on his chin. He lifted his hands to his face and confirmed that it was saliva drooling from his parted lips.

Over his headset, Pyotr heard Herr Doktor’s authoritative, and oddly soothing male voice, assuring him that all was well. He would soon be reunited with his brother. All Pyotr needed to do was perform his usual stellar work on the controls. The bumps would be bumpier this time, the bangs and metallic grinding would be louder, and he would feel pressures he had not felt before, but his responses had to be the same as they were in his training.

Pyotr was prepared to respond to the lines on the oscilloscope, take and adjust meter readings as necessary, and pull levers, close and open circuit breakers, twist knobs, and make all the correct responses to the lights and symbols on the green screen for which he was trained so well.

A familiar roar filled his capsule, presumably of steam modulated with a seething rhythm. It sounded like a clockwork dragon preparing for combat in flight.

A green circle appeared on the screen, and Pyotr used the stick to place a dot in the center of the circle and press a button for three seconds as per his training. This was the usual opening sequence. He could do this in his sleep. All the children in the nine-year-old’s’ cohort at Die Kuppel were familiar with Iron Lung trainers, and of managing the shapes of green on its CRT display. Some of the children thought of the thin green lines as bits of kite string, tying themselves into knots to be