The Library of Forbidden Books

Chapter 41

Nina and Gretchen awoke from the ice-cold water on their faces. Greeting them was the nightmarish face of the emaciated Dr. Alfred Meiner. Just to his left towered the calm face of the traitorous Dr. Philips. The women were unable to speak, even breathe properly, their mouths and throats clipped down on the silver steel slabs with titanium straps. They were naked, save for their underwear and their bodies shivered madly from the cold water and steel under them in the greenish lighting of the laboratory.

“May I introduce Dr. Nina Gould and Professor Gretchen Mueller,” Richard introduced them. “Ladies, this is the brilliant Dr. Alfred Meiner.”

On his desk, the data records and attic books lay scattered as the two men had finally accumulated the code markers and assembled the deadly strain XT8 according to the instructions of various texts and formulas.

Nina wanted to see her friend, but she could only hear her whimpering. Other than that, she could only listen to the men discussing two things — testing XT8, the strain that would eradicate most of the planet’s population, and the fate of Renatus and the investigative journalist who had been trudging over the Black Sun’s plans for far too long.

“They will never escape the hidden library. Now we can rest assured there is no-one to counter our efforts anymore. Jaap Roodt had disappeared. Probably went underground. I suppose it is time for a new Renatus,” Richard Philips said.

“And who better than the descendant of the father of our beliefs? I am firmly behind you, Dr. Philips. Your father could not sway the scepter, but you will!” the creepy deformed sadist huffed through his weird mask. The women could do absolutely nothing against their restraints. A tear grew from the corner of Nina’s eye as she listened, learning that Sam and Purdue were forever caught in the sunken library, while she was about to die a gruesome Nazi death. How poetic was this!

From her peripheral she could see Meiner approach Gretchen, syringe in hand.

“We just need one trial. This one might have the right genes, but even if she doesn’t, we have more to work on after these two esteemed antagonists have been disposed of,” Dr. Meiner hissed through his mask.

“Get to it, then. ARK will be ready to lock up in less than a day,” Richard said.

Nina heard nothing after that. It was quiet for what felt like an eternity. Then, the sound she wished she would never hear. Next to her, out of her scope of vision, Gretchen groaned.

“There, fifty milligrams administered,” Meiner reported and Philips took note on a yellow paper pad. “How long it will take remains to be seen, because this is the liquid, not the airborne agent.”

Gretchen started to scream. Her eyes and gums dried out within a minute and her eyelids caved in over the collapse. “Peculiar,” Richard Philips noted. Her body started to convulse under muscle spasms so violent that her bones snapped. Nina sobbed, furious and terrified for her friend, helpless to end her suffering.

“That is not what it is supposed to do, Philips. You imbecile! What did you bring me? A rapid-acting dehydration compound? Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Meiner screamed like a squealing pig. He jabbed at Philips with the needle, but Philips pulled his mask off and flicked on the lights, leaving the monstrous Nazi doctor shrieking on the floor. Gretchen’s bones snapped, her jaw dislocated, and her wailing escalated. Nina was going to lose her mind. It was the most abhorrent thing she had ever had to play witness to. Her eyes welled with tears and no matter how she jerked her limbs, the restraints were too strong.

Suddenly a deafening gunshot rang in the laboratory and Gretchen was instantly silent, free of her agony. Through distorted vision and tears, Nina saw Sam’s dark eyes peek over her. It couldn’t be, could it? He unlatched the mouthpiece and throat restraint that was holding her, but he sped to help Purdue before undoing all her bonds.

“Hurry! Get them! Sam, come help me!” Nina heard Purdue shouting from the doorway. “After what they did to Nina’s friend, the bastards deserve so much worse.”

Nina tried to turn her head to see what her two friends were up to. Unfortunately she laid eyes on Gretchen’s sunken, mutilated body, still expelling water, blood, and bodily fluids onto the floor. It was too much. She fell to the other side with her head and shoulders and vomited profusely. Her belly ached as much as her heart to see Gretchen like that, and all because she came to visit Nina. It made her sick to know that she was the cause of her friend’s brutal demise, but she could still not move.

Through the awful sounds of the putrefying corpse, Nina could hear Purdue and Sam argue about how to position the evil men to get them into the still open wormhole. She turned her head, taking care not to look at Gretch. On the other side of the laboratory, she saw Sam and Purdue secure (to a laboratory desk that was bolted to the floor) a leg and an arm of the unconscious Philips and Meiner.

Meiner woke just before Philips, but by the time they realized what was going on, it was too late. Purdue shoved the men into the entrance of the wormhole, and it began to teleport parts of their bodies inside the portal, leaving the rest behind.

“Just like that. Now, let’s get Nina!” Sam urged Purdue.

They undid her holds and pulled her up. Her legs were too weak to carry her, and she was shaking from the shock of what happened to Gretchen, so Sam swooped her up and carried her, ignoring his bullet-weakened leg.

“You want to see what happened?” Purdue asked her. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Sam chimed in, “It’s always encouraging to see evil men suffer, and no, I don’t care if that makes me evil.”

“I just want to get away from here,” Nina croaked weakly against Sam’s chest.

“You heard the lady,” Purdue said. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

They exited the subterranean laboratory as briskly as they could, serenaded by the awful wailing of the two half-alive scientists caught in their own macabre contraptions. Behind them the high tide came in.

“Looks like the island is about to be flooded,” Sam said, as he got on a boat docked there by one of ARK’s unfortunate occupants.

“Pity I am terrible at reading blueprints, you know,” Purdue complained as he started the boat with his tablet’s laser manipulator.

“Why? I thought you were a master mason,” Sam said. “Look, the galley has coffee!”

“I’d love some, please, Sam,” Nina said softly.

The three of them cruised over the Adriatic Sea in the posh yacht belonging to one of the members of the Black Sun; one of those wicked, wealthy, and hateful Nazis hiding in ARK and waiting for the outside world population to die. But there was no genocidal happy ending for Italy’s order members. In fact, the biblical flood had a second serving of evil to flush out.

“What do you mean you are bad at reading blueprints?” Nina asked timidly, as her hands hugged her coffee cup.

“When I oversaw the construction of ARK, I might have neglected to close the bottom sluices after lockdown,” Purdue said with a shrug.

“Oh, my,” Nina replied. “That could be problematic.”

“Right about now, in fact,” Sam said, looking at his watch. “I hope they can hold their breath for the duration of aqua alta.”

“In Venice?” Nina asked.

“No, in ARK,” Sam chuckled.

“I’m so sorry about Gretchen,” Sam said. Purdue joined them on the deck as they entered the rising swells of the deep sea.

“I’m sorry about Agatha,” she told Purdue. He sighed, a slight catch in his throat as his eyes looked over Sam and Nina’s heads and scanned the cool blue horizon, “Some knowledge is just too powerful for human fallacy. Lust for power will always make of wisdom a dangerous weapon.” He thought of his bland, sarcastic sister and the Nazi version of her he had left behind.

“Some wonderful things are simply better buried forever.”