The Bone Yard and Other Stories Read online

  I did not know this man at all.

  He was a monster.

  Keeping my disgust to myself, I followed him towards an office. I vowed I would behave like an SS officer. I was here to help the war effort. If a few subhumans had to suffer … well, that was a sacrifice to be made …

  Thousands of eyes watched me.

  Thousands of pleading eyes.

  *

  Frankenstein studied me with his two dissimilar eyes. They were both transplants – one blue, one brown. His face was the same as I’d seen in my textbooks, handsome with a touch of arrogance to the lips and eyebrows. As I shook his hand, I noticed the tiny scars around his hairline, signs he’d had his face grafted onto a different skull. His hand was delicate, like a woman’s. The skin was as smooth as silk with no life lines – it was regenerated tissue. “So this is our new recruit, Stefan?” (Bauer nodded.) “Welcome, welcome! Do you like what you see?” He waved at the tanks seen through the window of his office.

  “It’s … different, sir.”

  “Different! I’ll say! Quite a few newcomers lose their lunch on seeing the experiments. Personally, I think there is nothing more beautiful than the human body in all its forms. The experiments you’ve seen out there are fairly rudimentary survival tests compared with the cutting edge science in D Section. We’re trying to see how far the human body can be reduced before it can’t be resurrected. Basic stuff, but necessary. In D Section we really let rip with the latest developments. That’s where you will be working in six months, after your internship. Believe me, all the things you learned in medical school are a mere prelude to what you will learn here.”

  “May I ask what you do in D Section?”

  “You may ask,” Frankenstein said, laughing. “But you don’t yet have the clearance level to receive an answer. You should know that.”

  It was a rebuke. I felt sweat trickled down my neck. Bauer came to my defence.

  “I told you he was inquisitive, Victor,” Bauer said. “Christian is particularly interested in memory recovery techniques.”

  It had long been a problem that a dead person’s brain decayed through cell death even in the short time it took to get it to a resurrection chamber. On the battlefield it was a particular problem. Cell death was reversible using Frankenstein’s bio-animation therapy, but, inevitably, memories were lost. Death was not a barrier, but a hurdle. Sometimes you hit that hurdle and tripped over. When that happened, the patient often lost years of memory. It happened in thirty percent of revivals. For a man like Frankenstein it was acutely embarrassing. Having relatives and friends who’d lost years of memories, I wanted to do anything in my powers to solve the problem. I had some theories about retrieving memories from their associated memories, which was like constructing a copy of a damaged building using the architect’s plans. The result wouldn’t be identical to the original, but it would be as near as possible. Frankenstein probed my theories for ten minutes, then, satisfied I knew what I was talking about, he left me alone with Bauer.

  The internship began.

  *

  “Dad?” I said. He was awake, I was sure. His chest had a different rhythm when he was awake. He was in an airy room in the Mengler VA Hospital, lying in a bed with blue cotton sheets and a rubber mattress. His eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. Someone had brought some roses into the room to give it a better smell. I sat down. I gently propped my father’s head up so he could see me – if he was awake. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Ten years ago, a Soviet headseeker had burrowed through his skull into his cerebral cortex. It had not exploded, as it was supposed to do, but it had left him in this persistent vegetative state. If he had not been a Party member, his body would have been taken for recycling. I would not let that happen.

  “Dad, what should I do?”

  He did not answer.

  “Should I work for them? Tell me! Tell me!”

  His breathing was as regular as a heartbeat. I wiped away some crusted dribble with a handkerchief. I stayed for an hour. Then the nurse came and asked me to leave. At the doorway, I looked back at my father.

  His eyes … were they pleading?

  *

  I cut a deep incision into the man’s chest. He was drugged, but he was watching. He could feel no pain, but his eyes widened. Bauer, standing behind my shoulder, said, “Go on, finish it. It’s only a Negro.” I opened the chest with a steel clamp, spreading the ribs so I could get access to the internal organs. Blood oozed over my fingers. The man’s eyes fluttered and the ECG readings blinked in warning. Fast. Fast. Fast. I removed the liver with a laser scalpel. Then I stitched up the man and put him in a tank.

  I checked on him each day, watching his progress.

  He died eight days later.

  The experiment was a success.

  I spent time in other labs. There was the radiation lab, where people were treated with various levels of alpha, beta and gamma radiation to test the body’s tolerance. There was the cross-species lab, where people were integrated with monkeys, dogs, bears, pigs, horses. The hybrids created didn’t live long. Luckily. There was the mutant lab, which contained ten thousand embryos in gestation tanks. The scientists were trying to make superhumans with extra arms, eyes, muscles ... Next door was the cloning lab, but that was shut down after a biohazard accident killed sixteen technicians. The accident never appeared in the newspapers. I was forbidden from discussing anything I saw or did inside the institute. I would have sounded like a lunatic if I had. Besides which, all employees were given random loyalty tests under sodium penthonal.

  “That Jew Spielberg’s made another movie that’s been banned. Honestly, I don’t think anyone would notice his rotten movies if they didn’t get banned. That Jew Spielberg!” Anita said “Jew” like it was his first name.

  I looked up from my breakfast cereal. “What’s it about?”

  “What’s it about? What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Anita sighed. “It’s about us. He claims there are hundreds of ‘death camps’ all over the world where we kill Jews and use their bodies to replace ones lost in battle. What nonsense is that? Everyone knows the Jews have their own country paid for by German citizens like you and me. We keep the Jews! We let those animals live in good homes! And yet he – that Jew Spielberg – that lousy Jew – he has the nerve – the bloody nerve – to suggest we’re lying. American propaganda doesn’t even stick with the facts! Spielberg claims millions of Jews have been killed. It’s ridiculous. Where’s the proof? I’ve seen the resettlement camps on the television. The Fuhrer has been to visit to ensure they are treated well. That Jew Spielberg! Bah!”

  Her tirade frightened me. I had never seen her so upset. Her spittle hit the table. Her face was all twisted and ugly.

  “You don’t think the death camps are real?”

  “No. Of course not. Do you?”

  “Well –”

  “What?”

  I’d seen the television pictures, too. There had always seemed something odd about them. They always showed Orthodox Jews in black clothes with long black beards. You never saw any ordinary Jews. Only the ones in black. Once or twice I’d thought they looked like Germans dressed up.

  I thought of the institute. Bauer told me the people they - we - used had fatal diseases. They were volunteers. They would die anyway, he said. We were just keeping them alive a little longer.

  But what if they were perfectly healthy until we experimented on them?

  Was everything I knew about history a lie?

  “Christian, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. “I’m just thinking about work. Today I finish my internship.”

  “Congratulations,” she said. She leant over the table and kissed me. That Jew Spielberg. I pulled away. I ate my cereal in silence, looking at the woman I’d once loved, seeing a stranger.

  *

  SECTION D: AUTHORISED PERSONAL LEVEL 001 ONLY

  Bauer patted my shoulder as we approac
hed the steel doors and the ominous-looking guards. “Don’t look so grumpy, Christian. You made it. The grunt-work is over. You’ve truly impressed me these last six months. I’ve had many students during my career, but none have your talent. I have a feeling your name will be written in history alongside Hippocrates and Galen. Welcome to the future.”

  With bravado, he slid his card over the door’s lock. It blinked from red to green. The door opened and we passed through before it closed. We were inside a room as large as an aircraft hangar. What looked like prison cells covered one wall up to the ceiling. There were some fairly large buildings within the room. Technicians and scientists in white lab coats were crowded around monitors and computers. Frankenstein was talking with a group of SS officers. He looked angry. He dismissed them and beckoned for us to approach. “Bureaucrats! Always wanting more paperwork.” He shook his head. “I see you’ve brought your progeny, Stefan? How did he do with the grunt-work?”

  “He passed with flying colours.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Frankenstein swivelled around and walked off. I assumed I had to go after him. Bauer didn’t follow.

  “This,” Frankenstein said, sweeping his arms in the general direction of the cells, “is the tool that will defeat our enemies. I’ll show you what my genius has created.”

  I had an uneasy feeling as I went into a small building. It looked like a hospital ward, except the patients were wearing helmets hooked up to a mainframe computer. There was a machine that looked like a diving bell. A man with his head shaved was sitting inside.

  “What is it?”

  “Everything you see here merely monitors the thoughts of the subjects. The machine you see is a cerebral analyser – it translates thoughts in computer images we can see on these screens.” I watched the man’s thoughts displayed. He could see us looking at him – and we could ‘see’ what he saw. The things he heard – our voices – came out a text messages. Another screen displayed the man’s inner voice, his stream of conscious. It was mostly gibberish.

  “The man is ignorant,” Frankenstein said. “The machine only picks up the quality of thoughts transmitted.”

  I didn’t believe him. I thought his machine was malfunctioning, but he was too proud to admit it. He quickly moved on, walking up to a bed with a Negro in it. The man was comatose. There was a small table next to the bed covered with syringes filled with a brown liquid and a large monitor currently displaying PET scans of the man’s brain. Each syringe was marked with a number: 2.3. Frankenstein picked up a syringe and held it up to the light. “This liquid contains a virus. A special virus that affects the brain. It’s RNA specific.” He injected it into the man’s arm. Frankenstein’s attention went to the monitors. “You can see the virus enter the brain as a slight increase in temperature. See? It quickly spreads. In two minutes the virus will alter certain brain structures.”

  “It’s rewriting memories,” I uttered.

  “Not only that, but it does it according to a software program encoded within the virus. I can change the software and have a new batch of the virus prepared in just a few hours. Like it or not, we’ve got the face the fact that the Americans have the upper hand when it comes to weapons technology. We can’t win on brute strength. Our best hope is to subvert them from within. We can create slaves. We can programme assassins. We can take over their government and military with this virus.”

  “When will this happen?”

  “Soon. The virus is still in the prototype. It is no easy task writing software that does what we want. One day I’ll be able to programme anyone to believe anything. The ultimate brain-washing. For the moment we need a reliable software program. That is where you come in. You’ll be my assistant. Use you knowledge of memory storage to come up with a voice-instructed command system.”

  “I don’t understand, sir. What about recovering lost memories? This doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

  He shrugged. “What’s gone is gone. That’s not my concern – or yours.”

  He showed me the “progress” of the virus. In several cells there were comatose patients. In the next dozen the patients were awake but blank, like my father. Each level of cells held patients on a different version of the virus. By version 1.16, I could have a “conversation” with the prisoners, but it was creepy because none of them knew their names. Identification codes were tattooed on their arms. On the top level, version 2.3 had been tested on six men and six women, all naked. Talking to them, I thought they seemed completely rational, if a little slow. They had been in forced labour camps until recently, when they’d been brought here. They seemed happier to be here because they got regular food and water. Frankenstein was smiling. “They almost pass for human, don’t they? But watch this. Number 4, I want you to kill yourself by stabbing out your own eyes with your thumbs.”

  Number four – a tall Negro with skin so dark it was nearly blue – responded immediately by raising his thumbs.

  “Don’t,” I said to the man and to Frankenstein.

  The man stopped. Frankenstein looked annoyed. “Continue, Number 4. Only respond to my voice.”

  The man screamed when his thumbs burst his corneas, aqueous humour squirting out like jelly, but he kept pushing and pushing until blood poured down his chest and his thumbs were deep into his eye sockets. I turned away. I heard him fall. He was dead when I looked back. Frankenstein lit up a cigarette and spoke into a microphone on his collar. “Cell 804 needs cleaning up. Subject deceased. One Negro ready for spares.” Frankenstein looked at me with his blue and brown eyes. “You! Never countermand my orders. I am your superior. I do not care if you are a hotshot. Challenge me again and I will report you to the SS High Command. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  *

  “Ah. Herr Kessler. You are visiting your father?”

  “Yes,” I said to the nurse blocking the door. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I should warn you there’s been a change.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “Is he …?”

  “He’s not going to die, no. But … but the army came here and required replacements due to the shortage and –”

  I pushed past her and into the room. My father was in the bed with the sheets drawn up to his neck. He looked normal, but …

  I pulled away the sheets.

  He had no arms. He had no legs.

  The monsters. The filthy monsters.

  Behind me, I heard the nurse sobbing.

  I slumped into the chair beside the bed. I closed my eyes and thought of the times my father had played with me in the park when I was small. He had loved spending time with me away from the stresses of the war. Those few, brief times were the only times I could recall my father smiling and laughing. And now … My father was an honourable man. Yes - he was a soldier. Yes - he killed men. But he’d never killed civilians. What did that make me?

  Was I a monster too?

  *

  Frankenstein didn’t spend much time on the experiments himself. He left the software engineering to his assistants. There were six of us. Three worked during the day. Three worked at night. The work never stopped. We created new viruses, tested them and reported the conclusions like drones. I soon came to the conclusion that I was the only assistant with any ideas about how to accomplish the task. The others were good technicians, but they didn’t have imagination. For them, it was a matter of logistics. They sincerely believed that by testing every possible genetic combination they’d eventually hit upon the right answer, just like Salvarsan 606 was discovered. But I didn’t believe that. Salvarsan 606 was a fluke. That was working blind. It would take years – thousands of test subjects – to do it with that method. You needed imagination to solve the problem. There were short cuts. I wrote algorithms for the virus to use to hone itself to RNA by a process of iterations. The results improved.

  Then I made a batch of version 2.91. I tested it on a 43-year-old Muslim. The virus left him normal in every wa
y but one – I could instruct him to believe anything. It was beyond hypnosis – it was complete mind-control. And yet to anyone who didn’t know he’d been programmed, they would never know. He could live in society with my instructions burned into his head more forcefully than the words of the Koran.

  It was so disturbing I didn’t write an honest report.

  I wrote it was a failure and instructed the man to behave as though the virus had failed. I then moved onto version 2.92, but I kept the batch of 2.91 and labelled it as 1.13. Nobody was using 1.13, so it would stay untouched until I figured out what to do. I went to work on 2.92 just as if nothing had happened. I knew I would be executed if anyone found out my deceit. I tried not to think about the risk of having a trust test.

  *

  That night, after a poor performance in bed with my wife, I slipped out of bed when she was asleep. I looked through a gap in the curtains at New Berlin. The city had been built on the old Berlin after it was destroyed. Every building was huge and imposing in the night.

  It was like living in a giant graveyard. Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, was building more every day. The city was expanding like a cancer. Speer used forced labour. People had died so I could live in this luxurious apartment. God knows what Hitler would do with programmable slaves.

  At street level I could see soldiers on the street corners, keeping order. A Mercedes-Benz Dreadnought flashed by with a Nazi flag on its roof, on its way to the Nazi Party Headquarters. No private vehicles were allowed out after the nine o’clock curfew unless the driver had a pass. Tonight, there were none. Everyone was living in a permanent state of fear. Fear of our own government.