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

What was this project to which Nicolaus referred? Am I building a rocket or a U-boat? He honestly could not remember.

Krupp steel tubes, Zerrissen irreverently thought to himself, they look like two giant dildoes.

When Zerrissen saw Nicolaus again, Nicolaus emerged from the shadows, as was his habit, but this time in more casual clothes that flew off the pages of a fashion magazine from the West. Shortly after him, Halina appeared in the same clothes as the last time. Her black eye was healing. Standing next to the sartorial Nicolaus, this woman-creature looked like an unmade bed.

And then there was the large white bird perched on his left shoulder, pirate style. Large feathers on its head opened like flower petals or an umbrella, revealing pastel pinks layer, like shingles on a roof. It bobbed and weaved its head to take in this new environment.

“There’s something new about, you, Nicolaus. Can’t quite place it. Hm. Maybe it’s the bird.”

“This is Buttercup” Nicolaus said as if that would explain everything. Buttercup focused silently, even suspiciously, on Zerrissen, the black bead of an eye on each side of its head dilating larger and smaller to bring his face into focus, committing it to memory.

Nicolaus walked over to the workbench and fashioned a horizontal perch out of a tie rod and two empty oil cans. The bird stepped off his shoulder and on to Nicolaus’ right hand to be placed onto it where it seemed quite comfortable. Then it started speaking.

“What are you doing? Tickle tickle? My name is Buttercup.”

Nicolaus guessed at the perplexed, even vexed look on Zerrissen’s face. “Don’t worry. Buttercup will live in your old shop. It chatters away to create the impression you’re still there while we work in peace here.”

“Create the impression for whom?”

“The agents who check in listen on the microphones in your workshop from time to time.”

“I won’t ask how you know that.”

“Exactly.”

Comfortable on its ad hoc perch, the bird spoke with a grainy, but perfectly understandable proper German,

“I’m a pretty bird. What are you doing?”

Halina clapped her hands, did a little hop, and smiled.

Zerrissen stared, not sure if the bird expected an answer, but the bird appeared to prefer monologue. Halina stroked the bird’s head, which it evidently enjoyed, leaning into her palm. Then, Nicolaus offering it something in his hand. It was a cigarette butt that the bird carefully reached out for with one claw, while shifting its weight to its other leg. Zerrissen had never really studied or noticed before how oddly shaped parrot claws were. They looked like a combination spanner and long nose pliers.

Just as Buttercup was about to take possession of the cigarette butt, Nicolaus pulled it away. Its headdress of feathers shot up, bobbing its head in exaggerated loops, and from its throat spewed the sort of street expressions one would ordinarily expect to hear only in a Stasi gulag.

“I will fuck your mother in her ass! I will fuck your sister and then fuck your father.”

Zerrissen reached over instinctively to cover the creature’s mouth, but Nicolaus reached out to stop him.

Buttercup stepped back with its beak wide open. “Get away from me you faggot. Help! Child molester!”

And then, creating an image for the enjoyment of the Stasi eavesdroppers, it screamed, “Take your dick out of that boy’s mouth. Squawk! Squawk!”

You could not offer, and then deny, a talking bird its favorite treat, unless your goal was to entertain the Stasi stooges on the other end of the microphone, as they recorded every word verbatim.

With his hands over his ears, Zerrissen yelled over the din, “How do you turn it off, for Christ’s sake?”

Nicolaus took the lit cigarette from Zerrissen’s ashtray, presented it to Buttercup, who then gingerly took hold of the unlit end with its claw, and expertly inserted it into its beak. The feathers came down. Buttercup paced back and forth on the perch, puffing in blessed silence, occasionally standing on one leg to grab hold of the cigarette and rotate it. Sometimes it held it out to examine the lit end, tapping it against the perch to shake off ashes if need be. In addition to a bad sense of social propriety, Buttercup had a very bad nicotine habit.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” asked Zerrissen, gesturing towards the obscene bird.

“You know, I really don’t have any idea. I know nothing about birds.”

Buttercup whistled the universal ‘wolf whistle’ known the world over for its salaciousness. Loudly.

“Avoid Buttercup’s beak. It has a bite force of over twenty-five kilograms per square centimeter, it can easily bite to the bone like bolt cutters. You will need stitches.”

The short cigarette fell from its beak and Buttercup flew into a rage. This time the topic revolved around asses. So many asses.

His ears overwhelmed by profanities, Zerrissen looked away to Nicolaus. Nicolaus produced a small bottle from his pocket, like those they hand out on airplanes, twisted off the cap and put it in front of Buttercup. The bird went silent, leaned down, and picked up the open bottle with its beak, tilted his head up slightly to let a small bit of the contents onto its tongue.

Zerrissen dared not touch the bottle but leaned in to read the label. It was bourbon. American bourbon. Buttercup was also a lush.

With the bird sated, and perhaps on its way to inebriation, Zerrissen returned to the more urgent subject.

“Just so we’re clear. You want a three-person sewer pipe submarine?”

Nicolaus confirmed. “Yes. A three-person submarine.”

“In four months?”

“Or less.”

“Question”

“I’m sure you have many. So do I. What is your question?”

“Where do you want the torpedoes?”

Water Witch and Divining Rod

“If your ducts are still there,” Zerrissen observed with his usual dim view of things, “I promise you they’re all silted in and impassable.”

“Only one way to find out. I need to know what my options are.”

Zerrissen sighed in resignation.

The floor area was not large, but to keep empty-hole-digging to a minimum, Zerrissen fashioned a transit from a muffler pipe and