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

Without bothering to check whether the elevator had been repaired, its door propped open by a shopping cart, Zerrissen shuffled past the open door of Comrade Superintendent, which he kept ajar to help him monitor foot traffic. Through the gap, Zerrissen could see his TV, a gift from the State as a reward for his services reporting on his tenants.

Zerrissen had no television, but the programming was mostly propaganda anyway. They signed off every evening in time for good workers to be in bed, as the State-owned media reasoned, but not before broadcasting worn film loops, including scenes of Communist worker glory, vast fields of wheat, hydroelectric dams, and cosmonauts. So many cosmonauts.

He pondered the white pressure suits of the cosmonauts, looking at their enormous helmets with the red hammer and sickle, positioned right in the center above the cosmonaut’s eyebrows like a bhindi.

Once again, he managed to find the correct door of his own cubical despite their all being identical, steadied himself on the doorknob with the other, but the door eased open, the universal sign that the Stasi, KGB, or both have already helped themselves in, as they were fond of doing, just to keep its citizens on their toes.

Zerrissen walked cautiously in the shard of light from the hallway partially illuminated the jumble of contents within, consisting of a broken chair, a three-legged table propped up by books of physics and electronics he had acquired over the years for amusement. The concern was what might be lurking in the shadows.

His hand found and twisted the rotary switch on the single lamp that served the whole studio, consisting of the kitchen, the table, a toilet behind a curtain, and his pallet style bed. The light sent roaches fleeing to the corners and framed the one bit of color in the room: a young man in a tailored suit of blue gabardine, jacket unbuttoned, loose collar, no tie. The top three buttons undone, exposing hairless, toned pectorals. It was Nicolaus, making himself at home, enjoying a glass of something red from a bottle he had obviously brought for the occasion, uncorked. He held his finger to his lips, and turned on the radio, which, in a few seconds, began broadcasting a football match.

“You don’t have a television.” Nicolaus sat in a such a manner to avoid touching anything, almost levitating, stating the obvious.

Zerrissen glanced around and shrugged. “I don’t do a lot of entertaining. You may want to bring one next time you break in, which, by the way, you’re always welcome to do if you bring your own liquor.”

“Oh. This is wine.” Nicolaus held up the bottle and examined its label. “French. Very drinkable. Would you like some?”

Zerrissen fished for a glass in the dish-filled sink, wiped it out, and stuck it out to Nicolaus. After a little wine culture ceremony, Nicolaus eased back into the issue that he had left with Zerrissen.

“So, have you given any thought to how you might get all three of us across the border?”

“Three? I thought it was just Halina.”

“Developments. Things have changed.”

“You mean the Wall?”

“The reason for the Wall, yes.”

“Oh? Did you steam open someone’s mail or peep a bathroom window?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“I’m listening.” Zerrissen said with a frown.

“The Soviets found Die Kuppel. They are… trying to make sense of it.”

“I didn’t know they had lost it. I could have told them where to look.” The attempt at humor did not land the way Zerrissen intended.

“You might just get that chance. A name you will recognize surfaced in their search for answers. Are you ready?”

“Still listening.”

“Todtenhausen. He escaped to South America using the identity papers of Helmut Gorgass.”

Zerrissen furrowed his eyebrows at this news, disappointing, but not surprising.

“How do you know these things?”

“It’s better for you if you don’t know. The KGB will bring anyone connected with Die Kuppel to Moscow for, you know, a conversation.”

“I don’t want to go to Moscow to have a conversation with anyone.”

“Nor do I.”

Nicolaus sipped the wine as he visualized the KGB accommodations, somewhat better for him, perhaps, than for Zerrissen. Or maybe not.

“Can you at least tell me how much time we have?”

Nicolaus scratched his chin with one hand, and refilled Zerrissen’s glass with the other before answering.

“You’re safe for two months. I can probably buy you another two months with various pranks and tricks.”

“So, four months. And yourself? Are you at risk?”

“Same answer. Anyone with the word Die Kuppel in their file is at risk.”

“So, Halina also?”

“Yes.”

Zerrissen emptied his glass with a gulp and held it out for refill. “What now? How do you intend to spend your four months?”

Nicolaus rationed out a bit more into Zerrissen’s glass. “All things considered; this changes nothing. Halina and I are leaving one way or another. You will join us if you want to avoid some unpleasantness.”

Zerrissen drained the glass, savoring the last few drops. It went down much easier than vodka.

“Forget your ducts. Take the simplest path. Cross into Czechoslovakia, and from there, into West Germany.”

“And the land mines?”

“Pick your way across using a mine detector. I can make you a nice one.”

“Mine detector” Nicolaus echoed flatly.

“Yep. I can make you one in, say, two days.”

“And the electric fence?”

“Don’t touch it.”

“Aha. Ok. And the armed guards with dogs on patrol?”

“Do you want the detectors or not?”

“I have to say, Raynor, I’m a little disappointed. You’re literally a rocket scientist. And this is your best idea? What terrible ideas did you reject?”

“Rockets. And dirigibles. What I was left with was mine detector.”

Nicolaus was thoughtful for a moment before responding. “Rockets? The border guards will not be expecting that…”

“Oh. Hell. No. Even you cannot acquire the materials - sugar, ceramics, magnesium, the gyroscopes, not to mention the cryogenics and metallurgy… And rockets explode the first few times. You saw that with your own eyes. No. Even though I know how, I’m not going to build you a machine to blow you up and burn down half of Berlin.”

Nicolaus was not exactly