Jeremy Robinson - SecondWorld

Vesely’s eyes widened. “Heliopause? What is this you speak of?”

“Huber told us about it,” Adler said. “It’s a place beyond our solar system. Something about the solar wind, and the galaxy’s ions. It’s where a vast cloud of refined iron particles was trapped until low sunspot activity and a specific alignment of the planets allowed the particles to enter the solar system.”

“Ahh,” Vesely said. “That is where the iron is coming from. I wondered how they could reproduce the tests done here on such a grand scale.”

“Miami, Tokyo, and Tel Aviv were tests,” Miller said. “The grand finale involves the whole planet.”

Vesely nodded and wandered away. He bent down, plucked a long, dry strand of grass, and put it in his mouth. “I should have known.”

“How could you?” Brodeur asked.

“Is my job to know. Or at least to surmise. But I did not think even they would commit global genocide. The first targets made sense. Miami is major U.S. city known for its… alternative lifestyles and has large Cuban population. Tokyo was targeted, I suspect, because the Nazis held a grudge against the Japanese. Had they not attacked Pearl Harbor, the Americans might not have entered the war and things would have most likely ended very differently. And Tel Aviv, well, that’s obvious. I thought more attacks would come. That they would follow pattern. Domination, not eradication.” Vesely removed the grass from his mouth. “But if they are dependent on the solar system to deliver iron particles, perhaps we can predict when they will strike next?”

“Huber already did,” Miller said. “We have four days.”

The news seemed to weaken Vesely. First he lowered his head, then knelt down on one knee. “We must move quickly,” he said. “There is much distance to cover. But first I must show you.”

Vesely tore away clumps of the tall grass, revealing a patch of topsoil. “The connection between the Bell and the attacks is here, in the earth.” He dug into the dirt, scooping out handfuls of dark brown soil. After digging down eight inches, he sat back and let them see his handiwork.

Miller noticed the oddity first. The top layer of soil was dark, composed of fresh decomposition. Beneath that was a band of drier, lighter brown soil, and beneath that a sandy layer full of small stones and chips of concrete. But it was the thin layer separating the soil from the sand that captured his full attention. He immediately recognized the horrible red hue. “Rust,” he said.

“For nearly half mile in every direction, radiating out from this site. I discovered it years ago, but never knew what it meant until I saw the pictures of Miami on TV. Red rust falling from the sky. It has only happened one other time that I know of, here at the henge—the test site of the Bell.”

“Son of a bitch,” Brodeur said, running a hand through his hair. “But how can something created during World War Two be doing this now?”

Vesely looked up from where he squatted next to the hole. “Because they have been working on it, perfecting it, for seventy years.”

“We would know about it,” Brodeur said.

“There are strong ties to Nazi Germany in all areas of United States government. Operation Paperclip infused thousands— thousands —of Nazi scientists into system. Financial sector was controlled by families who had supported the Nazis—the Harrimans, Rockefellers, and the Bushes—all of them financed Nazi war machine. The Bush family remained on the corporate boards of many Nazi front companies even after they were exposed. When war ended, America reached out over the game board like greedy child and pulled as many pieces into itself as possible. The result was Nazi infection that festered in the political, military, and social aspects of your country. If they wanted to stay hidden, they could.”

“He’s right,” Miller said. “We’ve been attacked by our own people several times. Even the president doesn’t know who to trust. The entire system is corrupt. Hell, the vice president is in on it.”

“ What! ” Brodeur said. He looked like he’d been slapped in the face. “You left out that detail.” He rubbed his head. “ Man alive .”

“So how does the Bell work?” Adler asked.

“Surely you know. You have seen calculations, no?”

“That doesn’t mean I understand them,” Adler said, her voice full of vitriol. “I only know what little Huber told us, and what my grandmother’s notes explained, and she said nothing about how a device strapped to a concrete henge could pull iron out of space, oxidize it, and destroy the world’s oxygen.”

Vesely twisted the grass between his lips and leaned against one of the concrete columns. “When Miami is explored again, we will not find Bells attached to sites such as this.”

“Then where are they?” Miller asked. “We need to find them. Destroy them.”

“They are out of reach,” Vesely said. He motioned to the ring of columns. “Tell me, what do you think this construction is for?”

Brodeur ventured a guess. “It held the Bell above the ground.”

Vesely took off his cowboy hat and looked at the structure. “Close. Device was tethered, but not to hold it aloft. It was to keep it from leaving the ground. To keep it from going—” Vesely pointed to the blue sky. “—up there.”

“They can fly?” Adler asked.

Vesely nodded. “I suspect there are hundreds of them in Earth’s orbit by now. Perhaps thousands.”

Miller wasn’t buying it. “We would have seen them.”

“Even if those in charge of the observation centers that had capability to locate and track secret satellites were not part of the plot, it is well documented that Nazis spent significant resources developing stealth technology. Where do you think Americans got it from? Hiding a satellite from radar and the naked eye would be a simple thing.”

“But we would see them being launched into space,” Adler said.

“Once again, I must remind you of the scope of what we face. The roots of many American corporations can be traced back to Nazi Germany. Siemens, Bayer, Volkswagen, IBM, Ford, GM—never mind families of super-rich I mentioned earlier. If they wanted satellite in orbit, it could be done without raising eyebrows. But, when satellite is capable of flight on its own, and cannot be seen, one does not need rocket to get it in Earth’s orbit. Once there I suspect magnetism attracts the iron to the devices. The Bell produced powerful fields and may be used to shelter the particles as they are forced into upper layers of our atmosphere at superhigh speeds. It’s when they strike lower troposphere that the fast-moving particles are exposed to friction, rapidly heat, and oxidize.”

“This is hogwash,” Brodeur said with a shake of his head. He looked at Miller. “Flying bells? The thing doesn’t have wings, never mind an engine.”

“Antigravity,” Vesely said.

“Antigravity. That’s great,” Brodeur said. “Next thing, Engineer Chekov here is going to tell us they have bilithium crystals.”

“Scotty was the engineer of the Enterprise, ” Vesely said with a grin. “But I can see how my accent has you confused. And for record it is dilithium or trilithium crystals. There is no such thing as bilithium crystals.”

Brodeur looked like a sarcastic mime when he thrust both hands toward Vesely in a motion that said, see!

Vesely got a crafty look in his eyes, the kind a man gets when he’s about to win a game of chess. “Tell me, Tex, what do you know about Roswell?”

“Roswell?” Brodeur said with a scoffing laugh. “Lots of people dressed up like freaks selling alien cookies, hats, T-shirts, and thongs that say ‘I got probed at Roswell.’ Hell, you’d fit right in.”