The Library of Forbidden Books

Chapter 24

Under the faint green light stood Dr. Alfred Meiner, his black circular goggles snugly on his face. His apron was black and rubbery, as were his gloves. Grotesque and intimidating, he moved with a strange crab-walk limp across the mosaic white tiles of the slaughterhouse. He called it a slaughterhouse, only because of its similarities to the killing floor of an abattoir. Gumboots at the bottom of his white pants kept him from slipping on the wet tiling as he pushed aside the steel tables and gurneys. Clattering from the wheeled beds, his excess instruments came crashing onto the floor too quickly for his old reflexes to stop them.

He released a mess of mumbling curses as he sank to his knees to pick up all the scalpels, kidney dishes, forceps, and plungers. It was strange to hear him swear, thought Purdue, watching the old Nazi doctor from the entrance of the laboratory. As all those familiar with the scientist knew, the man hardly ever made a sound, so much so that most people mistook him for a mute. Purdue had come in his capacity as Renatus to see what Meiner had available for him to implement Final Solution 2 with.

With Meiner’s expertise in genetics and anthropometry among others, he was essential to the efficacy of the Longinus. What Purdue needed was to understand its workings to effectively rig it for mass release when the time came to cleanse the Earth of undesirable human strains. He was the technological genius who would design the catalyst by which Meiner’s terrible genetic witchery would eventually be executed.

I wonder how he will explain this mutative science to me if the man never utters a damn sound, Purdue smirked. He almost felt like his old giddy and self-conscious self now that his own plot was put into motion while he led the Order of the Black Sun. Agatha had furnished him with the location and details of the Longinus, so he was no longer in a compromising position with the council. It was safely in his possession now, courtesy of his sister who stole it from him in the first place. What she was going to do with it, she would not tell, but he had a fair idea that she would either sell it for an obscene amount of money or take the moral high ground and bury it in a desert or toss it in the deepest ocean.

That aside, Purdue now had the deadly little menace and he planned to put it to full use. Watching the old man feel about over the sharp objects elicited a wince from Purdue’s face, yet he did nothing to help. The goggles obviously deterred the doctor from seeing properly, but he did not take the dark glasses off, nor did he turn on the ceiling lights. Purdue flicked the switch to help the doctor see where his sharp instruments were.

Instantly Alfred Meiner began to scream. A deeply disturbing keening escaped his scrawny throat, reminding Purdue of a caterwauling cat with a tinge of mechanical siren in there. His skin crawled at the chilling screech and he quickly flicked the lights back off.

The old man gradually ceased his wailing, running out of breath until his throat closed around his voice like a vice grip, ending in a rattle of hoarseness so grisly that Purdue almost turned on his heel to leave. What manner of human being could produce such sounds? He frowned at the contorted stance of the doctor, sneering at the shocked visitor.

“Renatus,” Alfred Meiner whispered with a dip of his forehead in honor.

“Dr. Meiner,” Purdue replied, trying to look as sincere as his guile would allow. “My apologies. I had no idea.”

The doctor shook his head with a wave of his black rubber gloves, “You did not know, sir. It is my weakness, not your mistake.”

His odd whisper sounded painful every time he spoke, and Purdue could not help but stare at his Adam’s apple, wondering how it felt.

“It hurts like hot poker sodomy, sir.”

Purdue wanted to laugh, but not yet being familiar with Dr. Alfred Meiner’s disposition, elected to swallow his outburst and nodded contemplatively. He held one hand in front of his itching mouth, smothering the insistent smile that would not go away.

“Now tell me, doctor, how would you explain your work to me?”

“I could write it down for you, Renatus,” the old man whispered. “Or I can speak through the harpalphone, if you wish.”

“The what?” Purdue frowned.

“It is a device I have been using since 1986. Designed by my late colleague, Hagar Rasmussen. He was a sound engineer in Helsinki during the 1960s. The harpalphone amplifies the minute vibrations of my voice and enhances my vocal chords, so that I do not have to speak loudly,” Alfred Meiner explained patiently. He held out a ghastly green PVC contraption that looked like a gasmask. He removed his goggles to put it on, and Purdue had to stifle a cry of fright at the sight of the man’s eyes.

His irises are… broken? Purdue pondered as he discreetly examined the split coloring of Dr. Meiner’s eyes. Like cracks in asphalt his blue eyes were fractured in shards of different hues of the color, the whites so bloodshot that they appeared pink. His eyelashes were bleached and his skin powdery. It was only then that Purdue realized that Meiner was some sort of an albino.

With the peculiar device on his head and face, the doctor could speak to Purdue with a voice as normal as his own. It was a relief. Not only did he not have to listen to the ghastly sounds that possessed the whispers, but the mask covered those unsettling eyes. Purdue found it fascinating that someone with Alfred Meiner’s knowledge could not engineer something to heal his maladies.

“So, doctor, tell me how we will be mobilizing the Longinus,” he said in his most professional tone.

“Have you brought it?” Meiner asked.

“I have not. First, I need to know how you plan to execute the whole planet’s imbeciles,” Purdue replied. Inside him he felt sick. Never did he ever think he would have to say such things, let alone be responsible for such atrocity. “What is locked inside the Longinus?”

The doctor froze in his place and took a moment to stare into space before lending Purdue a look of true amazement. “You don’t know, Renatus? They have not told you what you stole from the fortress in Mönkh Saridag?” He chuckled dryly, “There was a good reason why they kept it from us.”