Tomorrow's Heroes
an excerpt

"Tomorrow's Heroes"

Chapter One: Belly of the Beast

This is the worst assignment of my career. The Führer’s hand at the small of Linda Vance’s back made her want to cringe, shiver, vomit, kill him outright – but she did none of those things. She merely looked at him lovingly and kept her cover perfectly.

In the months it had taken to get to this point she’d had these sensations and urges many times, but kept them in check to remain undercover. Call girl to a madman who threatened the world – not the way Linda wanted to go down in history. But her mission superceded any future glamour.

This night was the hopefully final stop on this terror ride with the Führer. Tonight she, they, she along with successfully wooed Adolph, would meet the man she had been sent to kill. Perhaps she would take dear Adolph along with him. But Zorn comes first.

Professor Viktor Zorn was the man whose private meeting tonight promised to reveal what exactly the Nazis knew about America’s secret weapons, the so-called mystery men, tomorrow’s heroes. Zorn was reputed to have found a way to stop them, among other things.

The Führer, along with his entourage of bodyguards, his confidants, his doctor and of course his new lady friend descended the stairs of the old town church at the foot of Mount Verbotten. Linda knew that the Castle Zorn towered some thousands of feet above them and assumed this downward passageway led there. Down into the belly of the beast.

A storm raged outside giving the whole situation a Hollywood horror movie feel. However the monsters in this movie were real, and a kind of evil those people in LA could never comprehend with their make-believe world of facades and prefabrication. Linda smiled to herself, not unlike me.

Their party of ten finally arrived at an iron gate. Linda estimated that they were perhaps five stories below the church at this point. Was the entire mountain hollowed out? Probably yes, it was. Castle Zorn was rumored to be an SS stronghold as well as its master’s home and laboratories. Passwords were exchanged with two guards, SS of course, on the other side of the gate and the Führer’s group entered a great hall, not unlike a large conference room.

As the lights came up and illuminated the room Linda now counted eighteen men -she knew at least thirteen of them had firearms- besides her, and the man at the front of the auditorium whom she immediately recognized from her briefings. Viktor Zorn.

He stood at one end of a large oval table with a large projection screen behind him. The man himself was quite small, maybe five feet at most, topped by a wild tuft of white hair that flowed down onto his shoulders. Linda supposed the hair added at least an inch or two to his height. Zorn wore a gray uniform but no decorations except a sidearm, just the plain grays and he fondled a walking stick in both busy hands. Parkinson’s? His most striking feature was the wide pinkish-red scar that wound wildly from the left side of his forehead to just under his right ear. My, someone took a liking to you, didn’t they?

Grey eyes to match his uniform stared out from that scar and they darted about the room, settling on her more than once. She took note that the hands weren’t so much shaking as just fidgety and wrestled the stick subtly. Is that merely a distraction to keep from noticing he was looking at me? He reminded Linda of a well-groomed but frequently cornered rat.

Linda was conscious of the razor-sharp blades, one each, secreted in her boots. Zorn looked her way again and quickly away. Somehow she knew was nearing the end of her mission.

Greetings were made all around. She was introduced as the Führer’s ‘companion,’ Inga, a girl ‘of good German stock.’ She supposed that was acceptable, just as she had for several weeks now. No one in the large conference room questioned where the notorious Eva Braun was. As dear Adolph himself had told at the beginning of their affair, “We shall not speak of Eva as long as we are together.” Linda merely assumed Eva was happy to have a break from the sexually inadequate son of a bitch. I know I would.

Could it be called an affair when the bastard could rarely perform? “Stress,” dear Adolph would say, “it is the stress of guiding Germany to its destiny.” Linda studied the room and the men who filled in the chairs around the table. What I wouldn’t give for a grenade right now… to rid the world of everyone in this room I would gladly die as well.

The Führer sat at the head of the table by Zorn and his projection screen. He didn’t pull out the empty chair next to him nor help her in any way, he simply gestured to the seat. Gracefully and with a smile for the man she took it.

His voice was soft during the greetings and introductions, but when the lights went down and the projection screen was lit with white light, Zorn’s voice was commanding, “Gentlemen, my Führer,” he gave Linda his grey rat-like eyes again, “and lady, we have a problem. The Americans call them ‘mystery-men’ or ‘superheroes,’ these men of tomorrow. Just their existence has bolstered American morale. It is only a matter of time before the Allies decide to use these ‘tomorrow’s heroes’ against us directly. But I believe I have found a way to exterminate these vermin, these false supermen.”

Zorn waved his cane. A projector that Linda couldn’t see fluttered into activity showing what was obvious newsreel footage from home on the screen. It showed a muscular man running alongside a locomotive train and keeping up. Linda smiled to herself. The cameramen filming this stunt obviously could not keep up with the train or the man as they slowly fell behind.

“This freak of nature,” Zorn continued, “is American scientist Doctor Kent Savage, whom the Jew press have affectionately named ‘Doc Science.’” The scene changed to a view of the train coming toward the camera with the man now overcoming the engine. He stopped in his tracks then, and as the locomotive passed he leaped over the moving train. There were gasps around the table. Once the train was gone, the smiling man walked back across the tracks to the camera. He waved, not even having broken a sweat.

“Our sources say he is also quite strong,” the next scene showed the same smiling man, a close-up this time so that Linda could see the sole white lock of his hair that hung over his forehead from his black waves. That, the muscles, and his boyish good looks drove her and most of the women in the States bonkers. Sinatra who?

He was effortlessly lifting a loaded dumbbell repeatedly, before dismantling it and then juggling the individual weights. “And as you can see, he is also quite arrogant. I have unconfirmed reports that his skin can withstand gunfire. Unfortunately he is merely the first of this new breed.” The footage continued behind Zorn continued with the man signing autographs and posing with men, women and children waiting to have their photos taken with him.

“Savage gained these strange powers by breathing in the fumes of a chemical substance of his own creation he called ‘delibrium.’ Based on our intelligence, we believe that that is also how this individual was empowered.” The scene changed to a fuzzy still photo of a creature of some sort jumping either into the air or down at the camera. Linda recognized what and who it was right away. “He calls himself ‘the Grim Terror.’” More gasps from the room, but she noted her escort was strangely quiet.

“Despite the horrific appearance, it is a man, I assure you. He is dressed from head to toe in black with a skull and crossbones on the chest,” Zorn pointed to the screen with his cane, “The ‘bat-wings’ are actually an articulated cape that doubles as a glider mechanism. The skull-face is merely a mask and make-up. He is only a man, but as I said, while he does go to great lengths to scare opponents he does actually possess the same abilities as Savage.”

An SS man near the Führer muttered under his breath, “Science only breeds monsters. To Hell with them all.” Zorn was quick, quicker than Linda would have guessed, and next to the officer in a second.

He was one of the men that traveled with the Führer and her most of the time. His name was Gerhardt, but she knew nothing else about him. Now, despite the SS on his uniform and the stink of evil she felt from all Nazis, now she kind of liked him.

Zorn leaned on his stick in front of Gerhardt and looked him in the eye, “Would you call me a monster?” The hands trembled and the eyes twitched, “For I have partaken of the delibrium fumes, and I have become…” he got close enough to the soldier’s face to bite his nose off, “something more.” Zorn breathed slowly and heavily. “And with my new intellect, I will destroy these monsters before they destroy us!” Stern looks from around the room made Gerhardt lower his head. Walking normally but using the stick, the Professor returned to his position near the projection screen.

How did the Nazis get hold of delibrium?? Linda found herself wishing for that hand grenade again. Zorn was dangerous months ago when she was given this assignment, but now – did he really have Doc’s powers? If it was true, they were all in serious trouble.

The screen changed images to that of a boy, perhaps thirteen years old or so, shot and bloody lying on the pavement. No one else registered a reaction to the new photo so Linda kept her cool. Not ladylike but not conspicuous either. They killed a boy? And he talks of monsters!

“This Grim Terror, believe it or not, was accompanied on occasion by a teenaged sidekick. Our ‘ghost troopers’ took care of the boy on a mission to America a month or so back. Note the similarity in the boy’s uniform to his master’s.” The screen went back to the original Terror photo. Indeed he was wearing black with the skull and crossbones, but a simple cape, and a domino mask only on his face. Linda never knew of the Terror having a partner, but she had heard of the ‘ghost troopers.’ They could appear anywhere – supposedly anywhere in the world. Intelligence said Zorn created them.

Zorn caught the attention of Gerhardt with a wide swing of his cane, “You will appreciate the next target, soldier. This is not a man. This one is a monster.” The screen faded the fuzzy photo of the bat-creature and refocused on an equally fuzzy photo of an image in the clouds, an image of a caped man with a skull for a face. Linda was surprised, and reacted appropriately to match her cover, but she was not surprised for the reason everyone else might have thought. How did they photograph him?

“The Americans call this monster the Sepulchre. I believe it is a creature from beyond the grave that possesses powers of a truly supernatural origin. From all reports it is unstoppable, and allies itself with our enemies.” Zorn turned again to the soldier, “It is with science that we shall vanquish this monster. Science!”

Professor Zorn smoldered for a moment then regained his composure. There were a few men at the table that looked to each other uneasily but said nothing. The photo of the Sepulchre faded and was replaced by more newsreel footage. This time it was of a slim woman running briskly along the side of a building. She wore man’s boots, a stylish but functional slit skirt outfit, and her hair and face were wrapped in a scarf, a scarf that Linda knew to be red even though the grainy film was black and white.

The woman also held a German Lugar pistol in her right hand. She took aim and fired off frame. The pistol smoked as the camera dived in for a close-up. The scarf covered all of her face save her eyes, cold blue eyes, Linda knew.

“The Americans let their women do their dirty work. This specimen is known as Lady Scarlet, a mistress of disguise if you will. And while she has no known superhuman powers, she is perhaps the most dangerous of these tomorrow heroes,” Zorn looked at her, unwavering this time.

Linda swallowed, and held breath.

“Because she’s right there!” Zorn swung his walking stick around and pointed directly at her.

Linda moved without thinking. By the time all in the room were standing and every gun pointed at her, she had the blade out of her boot, her arm around the Führer, and the cold steel tight against his throat. “If I die, he dies!” she hissed at Zorn.

Dear Adolph shook in her grip, his panic turned to sweat and shudders, but she held tightly, the blade hard enough to make blood begin to dribble onto his collar.

Professor Viktor Zorn laughed, “That is a copy, a living automaton. He is not the real man.” He glanced at the soldiers who looked unsure, Gerhardt was one of them, and the rest of the men in the room nodded agreement, “Kill him. It matters not. You have never met the Führer. We, I, have known about your mission since you arrived here, Miss Vance.”

Now she was startled.

“Your supermen gained strength from the delibrium fumes, but I got intellect, a superior intellect. You are all ants when mentally compared to me!”

A bluish-white chain of lightning bolted from the end of Zorn’s walking stick and struck the pseudo- Führer. On reflex she slashed the throat of the man, or thing she believed to be a man and shared a bed with, just in case before Linda felt herself being electrocuted – and then everything went black.