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

childbirth was the critical answer even this miracle machine from American could not calculate. Either way, NIX would have to be launched in the next few days. Nicolaus encrypted a note and left at the usual dead drop he had set up for his counterpart at the Israeli Mossad. “Three to arrive May 1st Tiergarten boat ramp. Have obstetrician standing by.”

Over a cup of espresso at a café nearby, Nicolaus watched a woman, hunched over, wearing a babushka, sweeping the sidewalk as babushkas do, and stealthily pluck the note from under the dead-drop rock, pushing it into a pocket of her apron, and finish her sweeping. She was a Mossad agent, of course, and Nicolaus finished his expresso satisfied that the message had been received.

Weight Loss Program

The same day Zerrissen’s name dropped into the card sorting bin by the American computation machine, Zerrissen had passed out at the drafting table again after working until early hours on NIX and finalizing some computations of his own. He was awakened by a scraping sound, like a straight razor being sharpened against a leather strop, within centimeters of his face. He cracked his eyes open to see Buttercup staring back, drawing its beak slowly, menacingly, across a flange on the scrap steel straight edge of the drafting table. Zerrissen pulled his head back slowly, trying to remember the proper way not to provoke a bear, and not knowing whether the rule applied to psychotic birds.

The bird flew back to its perch when it saw Nicolaus entering from the back door and pretended to go to sleep, as if knowing that Nicolaus would not believe Zerrissen should he choose to complain about the animal.

Taking in the scene, Nicolaus was, for the first time since losing Pyotr at Die Kuppel, visibly mortified with what he saw on the floor surrounding NIX as she hung in the balancing mechanism Zerrissen had fashioned on the ceiling block and tackle system. Several pieces from the interior had been removed, including one of the passenger seats.

“Raynor, we’re committed. May 1st. Tomorrow. She’s got to be ready. The time to experiment is over.”

Zerrissen, still rubbing sleep from his eye, searched for the words to explain. “She was too heavy, and the available oxygen was too low. Three of us would never make it to Tiergarten with enough air should we need to execute the Return function. What’s more, she cannot displace enough water with a third person on board without increasing her velocity to stay at the 1-meter limit, and she doesn’t have the battery life for that. The solution is two passengers. She’s ready now.”

Nicolaus tried to imagine how so much planning could be thrown out now. “You just figured this out last night?”

“No. I’ve known for weeks. I didn’t see the point of telling you.”

“Can we try….”

“No. The math doesn’t lie. Trust me. I’ve tried everything.”

“Remove the interior items I put in there, that will save…”

“Mere grams that do nothing in reduce oxygen consumption. No. The fault isn’t your interior design, it’s my hydrodynamic design.”

“So, you pilot Halina to safety, pull the Return lever and come get me.”

“The Return is automatic. No pilot will be necessary. NIX can return on her own. I think. But it makes more sense for you to take the first journey with Halina. You’ve got Todtenhausen to hunt down. I’ve got all the vodka I want here.”

Nicolaus felt himself being persuaded but realized a rarely felt sensation amid his usual over confidence. Fear. “I don’t know how to pilot NIX.”

“I know. But that’s what the sequencer is for.”

He handed Nicolaus two microcassettes, one blue and labeled TIERGARTEN, the other red and labeled SCUTTLE.

“Put the blue on in the sequencer, push the START button, and NIX will do the rest.”

“And the red one?”

“Worst case scenario. We ditch NIX should we the wrong people walk through that door. SCUTTLE will send NIX all the way down the Spree to the mouth of the Elbe River, then to the North Sea where it will eventually sink.”

Zerrissen studied Nicolaus’ eyes to determine if he was buying the story, because he had not mentioned a critical detail. What he had not told Nicolaus was that the SCUTTLE sequence could carry a single passenger all the way to the North Sea where, instead of sinking, would in fact turn to port and beach itself on the Netherlands coast, where Zerrissen could emerge to relative safety and a warmer welcome than he would get from the Mossad agents at the Tiergarten who regard him as a War criminal.

Without Halina and Nicolaus to server as character witnesses and plea for his release, he would spend the rest of his life in an Israeli prison, trading one interrogation cell for another.

The time for decisions was over; the luxury of making choices was gone.

With the saddest look on his face Zerrissen had not seen since their escape for Die Kuppel, Nicolaus expressed out loud what was on his mind.

“Events are now driving our actions, Raynor, we’re no longer in charge of our decisions. That’s not good.”

True, Zerrissen thought, but something else was on Nicolaus’ mind.

“Oh? Is there something I should know?”

“Yes. Another card popped out of the American machine’s sorting algorithm this morning. Yours.”

“Nicolaus, I’ll be honest. We don’t care so much about each other, I don’t care so much about you, but I’ve become a bit fond of Halina. I can’t entomb her in that windowless torpedo tube for her and her child to die a slow death by claustrophobic panic and asphyxiation. I don’t want them drowning, screaming like kittens in a burlap bag thrown into the ocean. This is not what I agreed to do for you.”

“This is a hell of a time to back out.”

“I’m not backing out. I’m insisting on a test.”

“Decisions are being made for us, Raynor. That one, for example. There’s not time. We’re leaving before dawn tomorrow. We can flip a coin to see who accompanies Halina.”

“No. As you said, events make the decisions