The Man of the Zeroth Reich (1)
“….”
After sealing the remaining four passages, I sat down in front of the generator.
Ordinarily it would have been enough to leave the mouse resting before the machine and right-click to call up the status window — but the longer I stayed here, the harder it became to tell whether this place was reality or a game.
— Click. Clank. Clunk.
My brain surely held not a scrap of knowledge about machinery like this, yet I was opening panels, handling one part after another, and smearing my hands with grease all the same.
— Thunk.
In the end, I got the generator’s power back on.
That meant there was nothing wrong with it.
At Mr. James’s cough, I turned around.
“Mind if I ask what you’ll do if Hans turns out not to be a Nazi?”
“Then we’ll have to accept him, won’t we.”
“Hmm….”
Handing me a scrap of cloth, Mr. James let out a sigh.
“It’s only been three days since Hans joined us, but checking every place he’s been through one by one like this every time —”
“I won’t do this every day.”
I rapped the generator once and stood. Joints popped and cracked through my body.
“I’m human too, and with this much work on my plate, spending time on places like this is a waste. But… this is for the safety of all of us — me, you, Mr. Curtis, and Sarah.”
“I understand, but….”
“When I injected Sarah with the antidote, your reaction alone was —”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way when I said you were being too suspicious!”
He scratched his head, stroked his beard a couple of times, then planted his hands on his hips.
“I know you’re being careful. I know you’re working for everyone. What I’m saying is… I’m worried about you, Hyunwoo.”
“I’m fine.”
“You still haven’t even finished dealing with the mites, and you’re staying up all night making ammunition? Using the night watch as an excuse only works so many times. If you keep this up —”
“I can still manage for now.”
Rest could come later.
Right now I had to survive.
I had no desire to die early because the spiders suddenly multiplied, or because the Land Bats pushed through, or because the church fanatics hit us with a surprise attack.
Bad luck alone could see our home crushed in a war between scavenger factions, or the food supply cut until we starved. Both were more than possible.
That was what a bunker was.
Spread too wide and you got hit from every direction. Clump too tight and you were isolated until you starved.
My role was to build a fortress solid enough to weather attacks from every side — and a society self-sufficient enough to endure even a total blockade.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“The people watching you would disagree… haah.”
In the end Mr. James seemed to accept it, and nodded.
“All right, for now. We’ll keep an eye on things a little longer. But — finding German weapons on American soil, even World War II weapons, isn’t that strange. If my father had had more money, he would have collected all sorts of that junk himself.”
But this was Concrete Under.
The people who primarily used German weapons here weren’t ordinary refugees — they were members of the Zeroth Reich.
“And honestly… calling someone a Nazi is a pretty sensitive subject in the West. I heard about it from Sarah, of course. The Zeroth Reich… haah. Ever since the world went to hell, everything we run into is one absurd thing after another.”
Would I have been less suspicious if Hans Anderson hadn’t had black hair and blue eyes?
Or was I really doing all of this over a single pistol?
Suspicion was always exhausting work — and yet….
“Oh, and one more thing. Hans mentioned it. When he was attacked by those Land Bats, he wasn’t alone.”
“He wasn’t alone?”
“He said he had companions, and he admitted he was worried about whether they were alive or dead.”
I figured as much. There was no way he had been traveling solo.
…Corridor reconnaissance.
Not enough people.
Maybe, just maybe, a good method had presented itself.
“So I just need to take this much?”
“I’m not planning on walking that far.”
Sarah took a pistol; I took a shotgun.
In my inner pockets, improvised parts I had made just in case.
And around my neck, strung like a necklace, more components already modified so they could serve as materials.
If they tried to take me alive, I wanted at least a chance to strike back. Wrapped in those contingencies, I meant to take Hans Anderson with us.
On a reconnaissance mission.
“Do we really have to go this far?”
“Mr. Curtis, Mr. James… everyone seems uncomfortable with how constantly suspicious I am.”
“No, no — it’s not the suspicion that bothers us. It’s that you work yourself to the bone and then pile suspicion on top of it. Your face looks awful.”
“….”
“Those dark circles are pretty new, you know.”
She brushed a thumb lightly under my eye, and even Sarah sighed.
If my condition really was that bad, I would need a rest period later. For now….
“The plan is simple. We go to the site of the attack.”
He had said they scattered, but surviving a Land Bat hunt meant either overwhelming firepower or being eaten alive.
Or running into the territory of something even bigger.
Outside of winning outright, there wasn’t much hope — but whether by chance or design, Hans claimed he had run toward the sound of our gunfire.
He said he didn’t remember where he parted from his companions. Only that the area had been wide.
“If his companions turn out to be ‘normal’ people, my job ends there. We collect the remains and come home.”
“And if they’re Nazis, you kill them?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“People are too precious right now. If the Zeroth Reich figured out they were hit by Land Bats, they would have sent rescue teams for the sake of internal cohesion if nothing else. Heavily armed rescue teams.”
“…Then wouldn’t it be better not to go looking at all?”
“If a rescue team is out there, Hans will react first.”
Somewhere in his body would be a ‘Reich citizen’ chip.
Invisible to the eye, obtainable only after killing the wearer and performing a ‘dismantling’ procedure — a peculiar piece of gear.
I seemed to recall it let the wearer sense nearby fellow citizens.
“If his attitude changes, we leave Hans there and run.”
“What about fighting them?”
“Too dangerous. I don’t want you or me getting hurt.”
I slipped the last of the improvised tools from the field kit into various pockets on my clothes, then stood.
If someone had to be captured, it had to be me.
The moment Sarah was taken, Mr. James and Mr. Curtis would lose their heads. That much was obvious.
And escapes — I had done those dozens of times in the game.
“I’ll mark the path as we go. Keep it secret from Hans….”
“That’s the right call. Yeah.”
Chalk disappeared into Sarah’s pocket.
Paper-cased shells slid into the shotgun.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Let’s go.”
We rose, opened the door, and headed for the barricade.
Hans was already waiting with a pack of simple rations and a flashlight, his face neat and composed, smiling at us.
Or perhaps only at Sarah.
“Mr. James, Mr. Curtis — we’ll be back.”
“Go carefully.”
“Sarah, I always say this, but —”
“Yes, yes. Careful, careful.”
We crossed the barricade in the direction Hans had originally come from and began walking in earnest.
For a short while no one spoke —
“May I ask a question?”
“Who’s that for?”
“I believe they call you Hyunwoo.”
“Go ahead.”
Hans Anderson was the first to open his mouth.
“I watched you set up the barricades. What kind of work did you do on the surface…?”
“This and that.”
“An engineer, perhaps?”
“Closer to hard labor.”
“Ah. Still, your skill is impressive. Communities with showers are not common.”
“Without Hyunwoo we would have forgotten the concept of a shower entirely.”
“Water, generators, firearms…. Remarkable.”
“You’re too kind.”
Praise, was it.
People from the Zeroth Reich, no matter how capable you were, usually looked down on you if your race was different.
“You needn’t belittle yourself so much. Ability is a good thing. Especially in an apocalypse like this.”
“True enough.”
“I believe ability itself — what a person is capable of — is what determines their worth. You mentioned Hitler last time, didn’t you? Called him a son of a bitch.”
“I did.”
“Hitler was incompetent. Yes. A son of a bitch. He may have been tolerable as a human being, but as for war… there are stories he was not particularly gifted. Ordering the invasion of the Soviet Union, micromanaging frontline commanders, turning the entire course of the war into a mess — that was the work of incompetent men who never left their chairs in Berlin.”
Had I misjudged him?
…Or was it the fact that he seemed to know Hitler so well that kept needling me?
No — if I started doubting every little thing, there would be no end to it.
“You’re Asian, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Given that, I understand you may carry a certain fear without even realizing it. America is a multiethnic nation, of course… and precisely because of that, it was also a country riddled with racial discrimination. The Ku Klux Klan — the KKK, was it? Their activities were less than two hundred years ago.”
“You know a lot about history, Hans.”
“History matters. Experience drawn from history is how one avoids repeating the same mistakes. That is why I enjoy it.”
Sarah, too, seemed to relax, and began walking more easily.
…Honestly, hearing all of this took the wind out of me.
I almost would have preferred he just call me a yellow monkey, an inferior, an orangutan — at least then I would have felt better inside.
“Which way from here?”
A fork appeared. Right, left, center. A crossroads.
“They say if you keep your right hand on the wall in a maze, you won’t get lost?”
“Personally I prefer the right as well. Perhaps because it is my dominant hand.”
No objection from me.
Instead I nodded to Sarah.
While Hans and I moved ahead, Sarah left a small mark on the passage wall.
“I hesitate to ask, but… do you also know how to make bullets?”
“Why do you ask….”
“The color of the casings caught my eye. Store-bought ones are usually red with a brass tip, or something like that, are they not?”
“That’s right.”
I deliberately kept some distance from Sarah, who was catching up behind us.
She, in turn, was walking carefully, glancing light back a few times as if checking our rear.
“Bullets, generators, plumbing — all of it alone. Impressive. Competence is a fine thing.”
“You can praise me all you like.”
“No, no. Mastering one craft to perfection is admirable, of course — but you are capable in so many fields. Exactly the sort of person needed in times like these. Rather like….”
Those blue eyes turned toward the rear.
At that same moment, Sarah also looked our way.
“Like the beautiful lady standing there.”
My grip on the shotgun tightened a fraction.
“I’m curious what you mean by that.”
“Outward appearance can, in its own way, be proof of ability. Muscle. Scars. They are important devices that explain the life one has lived. People say not to judge everything by the surface, but the surface is still a part of the whole, is it not?”
“And?”
“Well-proportioned muscle. An outstanding face with blue eyes. Black hair kept short as if prepared for this very catastrophe. Truly —”
I moved to shove him away.
Some ominous premonition was about to prove correct.
I should have noticed from the way he spoke — calmer, more fluent than any ordinary person.
“— an excellent embodiment of the Aryan ideal, wouldn’t you say?”
But Hans struck first.
The hand that seized my wrist felt mechanical — inhumanly strong.
“Ghk!?”
It happened in an instant.
An arm locked around my throat from behind.
“Let him go. Let him go or I shoot.”
Sarah had her pistol up and aimed in a heartbeat.
“You catch on quickly. I truly like people like you. People of ability are exactly what the Reich needs — not those glossy little cockroaches who are all surface and nothing more. Likewise.”
As if to spoil Sarah’s aim, he twisted my resisting arm completely behind my back.
My straightened spine became a perfect human shield for him.
“The schöne Fräulein before us is also a fitting vessel to bear the future talent of the Reich. But you dared to test me — such presumptuous, dangerous behavior, did you not?”
Fluent German.
Movements without the slightest hesitation.
And, in the darkness, the presence of others.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly, Fräulein Sarah. I am Hans Schulz, an officer of the Zeroth Reich.”
My blood ran cold.
The footsteps approaching were by no means few.
So I shouted.
“Run, Sarah — ghh —”
As my throat was crushed tighter, a soft voice whispered at my ear.
“Do not worry. Simply lose consciousness for a little while. You, Miss Sarah, her father and her grandfather — all of you will come to take joy in serving the great people. To waste talent like yours on nothing but scrap metal… would that not be a pity? You seemed to need my guidance. Yes — offering that kind of help is something I never mind.”
A gunshot rang out, but my vision was already darkening.
The sharp tramp of jackboots racing after Sarah’s frantic footsteps grew fainter and fainter.
Damn it.
I was right.