The Library of Forbidden Books

Chapter 25

In the laboratory under the abandoned twelfth-century black cathedral near Piazza San Marco, Dave Purdue was taking a crash course in molecular genocide from a professional. Yet, he had no idea what the Longinus was really for, even though he had stolen it from the Brigade Apostate on the border of Mongolia and Russia a few months before.

“No, my sister and I only procured it as a bargaining chip against the highest bidder,” Purdue shrugged innocently. It was well-known that he was once one of the best thieves in the world, prestigious and sought after by the more elite of criminal operators.

“As if Renata was not enough?” the doctor mentioned inadvertently. Immediately he realized his insolence and started apologizing profusely. “Oh, gott, mein herr, I am such a fool. I don’t know what came over me… ”

“Enough,” Purdue replied slightly impatiently. “Just tell me what it does. And Dr. Meiner, I am a man of technology and archeology. Please don’t bombard me with endless long biological terms and scientific reactions. My attention span cannot tolerate such gibberish.”

“Very well, sir,” Meiner agreed. He drew a diagram on a piece of white paper so adeptly and seemingly without thinking that Purdue had to admit to feeling quite a measure of admiration for the doctor, even if he was a twisted old bastard who used medicine and science to murder the innocent and resurrect the wicked. Purdue leaned on the table, shifting his glasses on the bridge of his nose to see better in the low light of the laboratory.

“In short, and omitting quite a bit of information for your comfort, the compounds we need to assemble will set in action the active particle within the Longinus, the XT8 virus. I just call it a virus, using the term loosely, of course,” he told Purdue. Still it was all too vague, but Purdue nodded in earnest. He did not want to press the doctor too much just yet.

“What it does, when we give it the missing information we need from the library you will supposedly be garnering for us…?” he looked quizzically at Purdue, who nodded in response, “when we add that code to that of the Longinus’ contents, this new strain will release an airborne agent into the Earth’s atmosphere, mimicking oxygen — and, like oxygen, it would latch onto the iron in the blood of every human being that breathes it in.”

“So it is a chemical agent that will wipe out the human race,” Purdue concluded matter-of-factly. But Dr. Meiner merely gave him a long, patriarchal look of cheerful negation. He could not help but smile at Renatus and his naïve aims for the New World Order. Seeing that Purdue looked confounded at his misunderstanding, Dr. Meiner continued.

“It does not, in fact, Renatus. On a cellular level it infects DNA strands that do not contain the chromosomes that produce Aryan properties,” he presented with no small amount of enthusiasm. The doctor was clearly impressed with his unprecedented achievement and waited for a response from Purdue.

“That is genius. So, will you be eliminating non-Aryan genetics entirely, leaving only Germanic bloodlines to populate the earth?” Purdue asked. Only halfway through his question did he realize that this sick genius he was almost impressed by was in fact unequivocally abhorrent. “Jesus Christ, Dr. Meiner, how long did it take you to engineer this… this… ultimate solution?” Purdue gasped, to the doctor’s elation.

“All my life, Renatus. Do you know how many specimens I had to go through before I finally observed indubitable success? Hundreds of thousands, I assure you,” Meiner marveled. Purdue knew that, even at the doctor’s ripe age he could not have been a scientist during the Holocaust. He had to ask.

“Where did you manage to get test subjects, Dr. Meiner? This is amazing research,” he flattered. But what Meiner told him next punched Purdue in the gut.

“Africa and Romania, mostly. Croats and gypsies, African orphans whose aimless existence in famine and hopelessness was of no use to the world, so I gave them a purpose. They were not supposed to be born anyway. They were begotten in nothing more than lust and tribal tradition without a thought for their function in the future. What is the use, Renatus, of a creature with innate regressed intellect doing no more for humankind than to soil it with pointless subsistence?” Dr. Meiner asked genuinely.

He spoke of selective racial slaughter as if he were delivering a sermon on the grace of forgiveness, complete with papal gestures and modesty as he explained his depravity. Purdue felt his soul wither in the presence of unadulterated evil, but he had to maintain his ruse, not only for himself but also to get as much information on the weapon as he could. In this instance, knowledge really was power.

“Unfortunately, I had to sacrifice many children I thought were of Aryan descent too. Lovely young, intelligent creatures with the bluest eyes, fairest skin, lightest hair… ” he lamented, “of which many proved to be Jewish and Slavic, and unfortunately died as a result of the present compound of XT8 in its infancy stage.”

Purdue could not imagine that someone as intelligent as Meiner could not add up the very irony in his last sentence. If these so-called, mock-Aryan children could fool someone like him, did that not prove that racial genetics did not dictate the intellect of an individual? Or his function in civilization? But he was not about to start a debate about it now that he was so close.

“On that subject, doctor, what is it I am supposed to find in the Library of Forbidden Books for you to employ? How can you still improve on XT8 if it is already killing undesirables?” Purdue fished some more, taking down all the information on his palm tablet to help him remember. In truth he was making more than notes.

“I need a handwritten book of Mein Kampf, Renatus. Within it is the first code of three sequences for the assembly of the relative compounds I need for the second stage. Regrettably, I do not know which books hold the other two codes, but I venture to guess the first one should point us there.”

“What is the second stage?” Purdue inquired.

“Once the chromosomes are under attack, the compound exterminates the subject within eight seconds,” Meiner revealed. “That is what XT8 stands for — exterminated in eight seconds.”

“Good God!” Purdue gawked. “And how does it do that?”

“I am busy with trials on engineering it so that it would dissolve all iron in the subject’s blood instantly. This will naturally deplete the body of oxygen, in short, leaving the subject oxygen deprived. The rest is common sense,” Meiner explained. He started to look suspicious at all the detail Purdue needed for only research purposes to retrieve the relative literature. But Purdue had a keen sense of behavioral exhibition and picked up that he had just about overstayed his welcome. In fact, he reckoned that had he not been Renatus, he might well have been lying on that very gurney right now.

“Well,” he concluded, typing furiously into his tablet, “now I have all the information to get the Longinus cooking.” The doctor nodded in agreement, but just before he removed his mask, Purdue turned at the door with a perplexed expression, “Dr. Meiner, why did you call it the Longinus?”

The doctor removed the mask and placed it neatly next to the other instruments and smirked like a satisfied cannibal, while his hoarse hiss replied, “Oh, because the Longinus was the spear that killed the King of the Jews. Of course.”