1.13 The lion’s den
You came to this parallel to do business, or at least you hoped to do business. Surely the Ahnenerbe officer, can understand how beneficial all the technology you can provide the Reich with is. Obviously you do not mention anything about the titans, especially about the wreck, it is your trump card after all.
“Well Herr smuggler,” he replies to your monologue, “I might have believed that tale if not for one minor detail.” He stands up and reaches out towards the contents of one of your utility vest’s larger pockets. “This is a rather fascinating device,” he tells you, as he brandishes the neural probe he just pulled out, right in front of your face. “I have my doubts as to why a mere smuggler, would be able to acquire what is most likely a fine example of Lemurian engineering.”
“Now Reiniger may be an imbecile, after all he did scan you and all he noticed was the concealed gun. While he was busy shouting questions in your face, I did a bit of scanning of my own. Gestapo facilities in the occupied territories, are woefully unshielded against even the most simple of structural scanners. And what I saw was not just a RGM in your vest, which the Kriminaldirektor missed, but also the Lemurian object in question. What was your mission pioneer, and what do you know about the Lemurians?“ Naturally you insist that you are a smuggler, and outside of the “device” you retrieved after killing one of them during your unplanned run-in, you know absolutely nothing about them.
“You see”, he tells you, with some degree of irritation noticeable in his voice, ”I found interrogating the last two elite Atlantean pioneers we caught rather exhausting. They didn’t say anything, until some of the best interrogators in the Ahnenerbe took care of them. Therefore I will just stop wasting my time with you and send you to them. You better bring a warm coat with yourself, I heard it is rather chilly in New Swabia this time of the year.” He once again puts the earmuffs and goggles on your head. It appears that you are being led outside of the building. The journey is in fact long, very long…
Years or months later…
How long has it been? Well you have no idea really. The small dark room, you have been inhabiting since you arrived here, has no windows. It is very cold here, it is a miracle you did not lose any fingers or toes yet, it could be from the pills they are giving you. The torture and interrogations you are being subjected to at random intervals certainly do not help. You resisted during the first two dozen or so torture sessions.
But eventually you cracked, little by little with every torture session, you told them more. Now they know everything. From the details of your childhood, through your student days at the Galathean Academy of Engineering and your first “business” trip with Doctor Styx, to how they caught you. During your last interrogation, you even told them of the Lemurian wreck and the automaton intelligence guiding it. Maybe it convinced them to stop torturing you, or your mind is playing tricks on you and in reality, not a whole lot of time has passed and another torture session will start soon.
You hear footsteps, guards are walking down the corridor. They stopped right in front of your cell’s steel door. The door opens, a bright beam of light nearly blinds you, your eyes are no longer used to such luminosity. Before you, in the beam of light coming from the outside, stands a soldier. He is holding a lasrifle in his hands and wearing an advanced black combat armor with “SS” markings on it.
“You will come with us Atlantean, it appears you have a Patron. Now come, you need to clean and dress yourself properly first.” – the soldier tells you in German. Has the day finally come? Are they going to lead to you a gas-chamber under the pretext of taking you to take a shower? Will this nightmare end? Or maybe he is telling the truth. Still, death at this point, would be welcome.
It appears the soldier was in fact honest, they gave you new clothes. Water not Zyklon B, was pouring out of the shower nozzle. You still have handcuffs on your arms but they are not bothering with the goggles or the earmuffs this time. Finally the soldiers escorting you lead you outside of the prison, you see a landing pad, along with kilometers of ice and snow stretching all the way until the horizon itself. A small VTOL craft is standing on the landing pad, its doors are open. You enter the craft along with the soldiers and sit down near the pilot. “All systems check, suborbital trajectory calculated. Estimated time of arrival in Neu Port is 14:27.” – the pilot says in German as he finishes pre-flight check.
Eventually you can see New Port itself from the aircraft’s window. It looks different, much different. You can’t see the Goliath tower which was turned into the Governor general’s office for one, not to mention the other landmarks. Instead you see lots of unfamiliar and “futuristic”, compared to most savage architecture, buildings in its skyline. Has it really been years? It appears the craft has slowed down, it is heading towards the tallest building in the city. A large “Thule AG” sign marks the building. After the craft lands on its top, you exit it and walk down the stairs.
You enter a somewhat luxurious-looking corridor, the soldiers lead you towards one of the door in it. A “Hauptgeschäftsführer Büro” sign is on it. The door opens, you see a man, roughly in his early thirties, sitting behind an elegant desk. He is wearing an expensive suit that matches the refined interior design of the office. “Take his handcuffs off and leave.” – he orders the soldiers in German. “Jawohl mein Herr!” – the soldiers respond and carry out the order.
“Please take a seat, you are no doubt wondering why I had them bring you here.” – he tells you in Atlantean, although he seems to be somewhat struggling while speaking it. “But first allow me to introduce myself, I am Maximilian Ajax – CEO and founder of Thule AG.” Maximilian Ajax? That is impossible, Ajax would be over a century old now. Clearly he is an identically named son or grandson, assuming he is telling the truth. “Your disbelief is hardly surprising Heracles. You see, in the past eight decades I have spent in this parallel, I had the opportunity to continue some of my research. The research teams and equipment I brought with me helped immensely. Now I can claim that I did in fact conquer the nemesis of medical science, the process of aging, and human mortality itself.”
So the “gene-repair” research was not a dead end? “It took the use of some of the tools, disapproved by the luddites in the Great Council, to make it work. Atlantis would never achieve such a feat with its taboo on advanced adaptive machine intelligence. As long as one knows how to use it, banned technologies can turn men into godsmen. The Lemurians you encountered are proof of this, even despite their hatred for non-biological machines.”
“I have an offer for you Heracles Kyriazis. While you did in fact, get caught by the Gestapo in Occupied Parallel 1, the knowledge and skills you posses along with your career as a smuggler, mean you would make a fine agent of the Ahnenerbe. Experienced riftwalkers are in short supply, especially those with Atlantean full citizenship. I will even give you the choice of how you want to serve the Reich. Your loyalty will be rewarded, I will eventually make you immortal and eternally young, just like I did with the Führer and his inner circle decades ago. You will have power and wealth, but only if you will be unquestionably loyal.”
Immortality? It sounds intriguing to say the least. “I can assure you it is worth it. Also do not forget that if I didn’t pull you out of New Swabia, you would be no doubt a frozen corpse in another month or two. Few people were kept their as long as 4 months like you were, most are deemed useless and disposed of far sooner than that. Even with my considerable influence on the Führer and my position within the Ahnerbe, it was not until they found signs of the Lemurian Vimana you told us about, that they decided to heed my request of freeing and employing you. You owe me your life if you like it or not.” – he explains.
“It is a pity you did not tell us about the Vimana sooner though. The Lemurians recovered it at most three weeks before we got there it seems. At any rate these are your options. They all require the high levels of security clearance, so you will be briefed about the details and trained once you arrive. Obviously I will give you your RGM back once you pick.” – he adds.
You will work for Ajax and the Reich by…
1)…looking for evidence of Lemurian, or other, presence in nearby parallels and gathering intelligence. You will become an Ahnenerbe special agent.
2)…helping with an important secret project Ajax himself seems very interested in. You will become part of the Ahnenerbe engineer corps.
3)…by sabotaging Atlantean operations in Atlantean parallels. You will become an Ahnenerbe infiltrator and saboteur.
At the very first chance to leave this parallel you will…
A)…do wherever Ajax wants you to go. He saved your life and offers you immortality, you guess you can forgive the Reich all that torture and the “free vacation” in New Swabia.
B)…get as far away from the Reich as possible. Eternal life be damned.
Vote now.
B) means you will obviously lie to Ajax about wanting to work for him and the Reich. Whether you get the opportunity to leave, before the briefing, depends on your career choice.
Yes Ajax was extremely vague about what exactly you will do in either of the 3 “career paths”. Don’t worry, neither of them is an instant death choice. Also sorry for the long update, it would have been shorter if you didn’t vote for not telling Hartmann about the neural probe. Don’t worry, one of the other options would in fact result in a long slow death. So that wasn’t the worst choice, but you did lose the Vimana wreck.
