Fox Wilde - Variant Exchange - A Punk Rock Spy Fiction Novel

Yet Hans seemed… different… somehow. Something about him seemed alien to her—like he was a different person. The Hans she knew was confident, funny, and inviting. The Hans that stood before her now looked skittish, paranoid, and almost cowering; and he had this ‘scent’ about him that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. As she thought about it for a second, she realized precisely what it was. Fear . Hans was genuinely afraid of something. “ Oh god…” she thought, “ It can’t be … he’s not…” Now Mr. Müller had finally gotten to her. She wanted to hate him for it.

“Hans?” Lena said cautiously as she approached him.

“Lena!” Hans said with a hushed bite to his tone, “Come here!”

Immediately, Lena went on the defensive. She should have trusted Hans more. Yet now, Lena was absolutely sure that something bad was going on and that Hans knew what it was, if he wasn’t part of it himself.

“H-hans? Wh-what is g-going on?” she stuttered.

“Shut up, Lena!” Hans said in a hushed, forceful tone that she had never heard before, “Take my hand and follow me. It’s not safe for us here!”

“What are you talking about?!” Lena whisper-yelled.

“There’s no time Lena… they are coming!”

“Who’s coming, Hans?!”

“The Stasi, Lena! The Stasi are going to raid the church tonight, maybe even right now! We have to get out of here, or they will take the both of us!”

“They… how do you know that?”

“Never mind how I know that, Lena. We must get out!”

“But… I have to know how you know that, Hans.”

“I… Lena, you just have to trust me, ok? Please just trust me.”

“You work for them, don’t you?” Lena accused.

“I… I…” was all that Hans could manage.

Betrayal . What a terrible word it was. And yet, there she had it—all the proof she would ever need. Hans was indeed spying on her. Perhaps he had been spying on her all along… who knew? This must have been why he had taken such an interest in her band, and why he had taken such an interest in her. “ Oh god ”, she thought, “ Mr. Müller was right … what a stupid girl I am! Just a stupid, stupid girl!” And now what? Was she supposed to just follow him now that she couldn’t possibly know who he really was?

“The Stasi?! You work for the Stasi??” Lena accused.

“Well…” Hans spoke quickly, “Look, there’s time for that later! I promise… once you are safe I’ll tell you everything. I promise. But right now, we have to get away!”

“How do I know you’re taking me someplace safe, and not just taking me to them !”

“Please!” Hans responded, gesturing for her to lower her voice, “Please keep your voice down. If they hear you, I’m a dead man.”

“If who hears you, Hans? Who’s going to kill you?”

“The Stasi will kill me if they find out! God, you have to believe me—I’m trying to save you!”

“But how would…” Lena thought as she tried to work it all out, “how would the Stasi hear us if… if they aren’t already here?”

“They aren’t here, Lena! They are on their way!”

“But how do… I’m…”

“Lena, half your band is informing for the Stasi. Your old drummer and guitarist… your bassist… the drummer you borrowed from Gefühle, and the lead singer of his band? They are all informants.”

“That…” Lena said, not believing a word of it, “That’s insane. You’re insane!”

“I know it’s hard to believe, Lena, but half your band has been spying on you as well as each other. Hell, half the crowd is probably spying on the bands they came to see. It’s called zersetzung; they drag everyone into it to create rampant mistrust and decay. The Stasi informants are absolutely everywhere. The ones that were told about the raid got out while they could, but the one’s that haven’t, well… tonight, everyone is going to get thrown in the black cells. Please, God, Lena… you don’t want to go there. You can’t … you won’t survive a week.”

“But…” Lena whimpered as her eyes watered with the sting newfound reality.

Her head was spinning with impossible betrayal. It wasn’t just a friend or fan—it was her first real serious love. That was something that should surpass such lies, right? Somehow that made the possibility of it all much harder to believe and much harder to accept. It was all just too unreal. Her band? The other bands? Even her fans… and her beloved Hans… all spying on her and each other? Why, it was just utter madness, pure and simple. For what purpose would this serve? To just create terror and dissent?

Yet as the implications dawned on her, wiping away her love and trust, so too were several other former thoughts wiped irreplaceably away. Everything was different now—a priceless collection of china shattered on the concrete. Her friends, her classmates, her… hell, even Lena’s satirical caricatures of the Politburo as short, stumpy dwarves, sporting overly-large spectacles and pants pulled high over their rotund guts didn’t seem so real. In an instant, everything had changed.

“Lena.” Hans interrupted her thoughts, “I know you must hate me… you have every right to. But if we don’t leave right now they will catch you and drag you to prison. And then you will end up an informant!”

“I’ll never become one of you!” Lena spat at him.

“That’s what they all said. They all refused, Lena. And then they were threatened with six years in the black cells. They had no choice! None of them could face that! God, Lena, they were tortured! What were they to do?!”

“Them?” Lena said acridly, “What about you?”

It was too much to bear. Only a minute into this and her view of not only the GDR had changed, but her beloved scene as well. Gone were her faithful punkers, to be replaced with vile Judases. Gone was her sense of solidarity, to be replaced with a desolate stare from hollow eyes. They were all supposed to be on the same team. They had all bled and cried together, after all. They had fought, cheered, and took solemn oaths as a community. They would never betray each other—certainly not the way that Hans was betraying her now.

“But… but…” Lena argued as the tears gathered fuller and faster, “The lyrics… we all sang them together… we were all hardcore together… did that mean nothing to them… to you?!”

“You can’t beat the system, Lena! You can only fight it. And trust me, if you fight too hard they’ll put a stop to you!”

“Then why even fight it if you are just going to lose?!” Lena screamed, “If you are just going to roll over and give up?!”

“I’m trying to fight right now, Lena! I’m trying to save you! Come with me, please! I’m begging you!”

Suddenly there was a bright flash that darkened the world around her momentarily, along with a cracking ‘boom!’ louder than any sound she had ever heard. Her ears immediately began ringing, which was bad enough, but then the gas hit her and the ringing in her ears became the least of her worries.

The air changed colors. What had previously been a beautifully clear night now became a sort of infected grayish miasma, putrefied with a killing fog. Her eyes fused together as if welded roughly with a glowing torch of fire. They began watering profusely, yet the tears only made the gas sting and burn worse—worse than anything she had ever felt, and it multiplied a thousand-fold every time she opened her eyes. Desperately she tried to wipe away the tears, but then the soaking burn would spike its way further under her eyelids like jagged metal crystals burrowing inside of her parboiled flesh. But this was nothing compared to her throat.