“If we succeed, we don’t know what will happen,” said Nimitz. “We have only the theories of a mad scientist to go on.”
“Mad alchemist,” said Eaker, humorlessly.
Nimitz scowled. “Whatever you call him, we have no proof that the man is capable of doing what he says he can do.”
“I’d say the Japanese would vouch for the man’s capabilities,” said Ma. The room grew silent. Even Nimitz could not argue that point. What had once been the miracle of everlasting life had been changed. It was now altering men into mindless killers, heedless of pain and injury. Powering silent flying machines that were faster than airplanes and capable of launching payloads of unquenchable fire and infectious madness. Some reports stated that the aircraft could fly backwards through time. If the US Army Air Corp lost a battle, they’d simply rewind and start again and then again, if necessary, until it turned out in their favor. There was no tangible proof of this, but a few spies had reported it to be true, and even Einstein confirmed it for them in his cryptic way. The man’s reports were maddeningly vague, but he’d smuggled out what knowledge would be necessary to their plan.
A few encoded transmissions, engineering plans received in stages, everything needed to build Bluebonnet Betty. It was an obscenely innocuous name for a bomb, but Sam took some small comfort in the fact that their bomb would be nothing like the one George had unleashed on Japan. Although they were created by the same man, Bluebonnet Betty was not technically even a bomb. If a description must be applied, Sam preferred to think of it as an agent of change.
“The device is finished?” Sam asked.
“Betty’s fully constructed,” Ma said. “Along with a backup shell, just in case we need it. All we lack now is the ignition element.”
“I just can’t see how this plan is in the best interest of the Republic,” said General Nimitz.
“The Ground and Air Corps is prepared to follow the orders of the President,” said Eaker. “Chester, are you sure you’re not just bucking on this plan because the Navy isn’t involved? We’ll get you in the history books somehow. Don’t worry.”
Nervous laughter filled the room. Sam knew they were old friends and that Eaker enjoyed pushing his colleague’s buttons even more than he loved tweaking King George. But it was a bad time for humor and the President cut off any potential retort with a pronounced cough.
“I have no doubt that Chester holds the fate of Texas above all other considerations, particularly personal gain,” said Sam. “His dissent is noted and welcomed. None of us are certain we’re following the right path, but our options are few. Washington is flush with pride right now, and he’s only going to get stronger. We can wait around for him to turn his eyes our way and figure it’s time to annex us, or just to blow us off the map and start fresh, or we can take a proactive stand. In light of the destructive power unleashed on the latest of George’s enemies, I think we know what the outcome would be if our nations ever came to blows. Even with all the Native Nations, The Republic of California and Mexico behind us, we couldn’t fight back against magic. We would die, and our country would die.”
“But if we had magic,” said Ma, “the shoe would be on the other foot.”
“But we don’t know for sure we’ll have magic,” huffed Nimitz. “That’s the whole point of my argument, Madame Vice President. You may be in charge of all these spies of ours, but can you really vouch for the motives of the man who enabled the United States to build the Atomic Bomb?”
“Tread carefully,” said Ma with a feral smile. “I might take issue with a man who questions my capabilities.”
Nimitz blanched. Ma was a formidable ally, but she was an even more capable enemy. Not even a man in Nimitz’s position could afford to rub her the wrong way.
“I’m not questioning your capabilities,” he said in a lowered tone. “I’m questioning this alchemist. He claims to serve our interests, but he ends up building the most horrible weapon the world has ever seen. You’ve said in the past that he must continue to advance the goal of the Unites States in small ways, in order to keep his position and appear loyal to their cause. This is necessary in order to advance our own goals, and I understand the need fully. But he’s created an unstoppable force. He’s forged the key to world domination and placed it right in George’s palm.”
“I do regret that,” said Ma. “But the man didn’t know how powerful that weapon would be. Even for skilled alchemists, magic is a tricky thing to manipulate.”
“Exactly!” said Nimitz, slapping the table. Those assembled around him jumped. “He didn’t have a full understanding of what would happen when that bomb exploded. How can we know that Betty will perform as he says she will?”
“We can’t,” said Sam, cutting off any further argument. He’d listened to the exhaustive opinions of every man and woman in the room on numerous occasions, and truthfully, he’d made his decision the second he’d finished his call to Washington. Once Einstein arrived with the last piece of the puzzle, Betty was going to fly.
Sam shared Nimitz’s doubts, but they had little choice. If Betty performed according to spec, she’d be dropped into the Immortality Pool by a shiny new Boeing B-29 and would create what Einstein described as magical fission. Whatever force was binding the magic to the water, to that place, would come apart, and it would flow into the world. Sam had spent time with some Cherokees in his younger days, who swore the magic in that pool had been trapped there by an ancient warlock, and it screamed for release. If that was the case, Sam intended to be its liberator.
What would happen when all of that magic returned to the universe was something no one could guess. Whatever the result, Sam had a strong suspicion it would be something preferable to being bullied and beaten by an increasingly mad, two hundred-year-old, petty tyrant.
“This is a matter of faith,” said Sam. “And I will take responsibility for the outcome.”
“Then Operation Floodgates is a go?” asked Eaker.
“On the President’s order, I’ll send word through the channels,” said Ma. “It’s time to retrieve the alchemist.”
The Alchemist
Defecting from the Unites States wasn’t the easiest of tasks, certainly not for a man as recognizable as Albert. He’d shaved his mustache and cut his wild hair into a short and messy patch with his pocketknife. He’d done so in a gas station restroom, somewhere west of Memphis, after being recognized by a poultry truck driver who’d given him a ride from Nashville. The man had let him off at the station with few questions and little trouble, so either he hadn’t been listening to the radio or had somehow missed the alerts airing constantly for Albert’s capture.
Albert trudged along the side of the road, cursing the damned Ford that he’d left smoking alongside the highway a few hundred miles behind. He finally receives the call to put the plan in motion, and the car picks that day to die. As far as signs went, it wasn’t the most promising.
He’d left the Pool Compound mid afternoon the previous day. Better to make it look like he was leaving for some quick errands than sneaking out in the middle of the night. By suppertime, the reports of his flight had already reached the press, and King George’s propaganda experts were earning their money. Albert had woken a national hero and by the time he’d slept, half the country thought he was a murderer. Killed two men and stole state secrets. Tried to pollute the Immortality Pool. It was nothing but lies, but that wouldn’t matter if he was caught.
Albert had expected this sort of thing, but not so quickly. Technically, he wasn’t even a citizen of the United States and could come and go as he pleased. But he had no more personal freedom than a prisoner. Albert knew far too much about the internal operations of the Compound, and about the Water itself, and he knew how the King would react if he simply disappeared. Better to cut his losses with his pet genius than let that sort of knowledge fall into foreign hands.
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The King had never trusted him; Albert doubted there was a man on earth he trusted.
Albert heard the gray pickup rattling before he saw it appear over the rise. He stuck out his thumb, and pulled his hat down a bit, hoping the lack of mustache would be enough to disguise his true identity. The locked, steel briefcase he was carrying wouldn’t make him any less conspicuous.
The truck stopped and the driver pushed the passenger door open. “Get on in.”
Albert climbed into the truck and put the briefcase between his feet in the floorboard. The cab smelled like liquor, and the driver looked as if he was quite familiar with the stuff. He was handsome, and had a better shave than Albert, but he was rail thin and wore only a stained undershirt and worn pants and boots. He had a crooked sort of smile that made Albert a little nervous, and his eyes seemed to be staring at some point just beyond the horizon. His hand jumped slightly when he offered it to shake, and Albert wondered if he might be affected by something more than just alcohol.
“Name’s Hiram,” he said. “Where are you headed?”
“Austin, Texas,” said Albert. “I have family there I plan to visit.”
“You don’t sound like a Texan. Don’t really sound like an American either. Where are you from?”
“Switzerland,” he said. He doubted the driver would know the difference in the accents and choosing Switzerland was a safer bet.
“What are you doing all the way over here? The Nazis didn’t run you out, did they?”
“No, the Nazis never marched on Switzerland, thank goodness. My family left before the war and have been living in Texas since. You can imagine, I’m eager to see them again.”
Hiram dug a flask out of his pants pocket and held it out to Albert. “You thirsty?”
Albert shook his head, pleased that the man hadn’t pressed him on his invented family, but leery of riding too far if he insisted on drinking more.
“I just need a nip,” said Hiram. “Hope you don’t mind. My back hurts like the devil. Does most days.”
“You’re a young man,” said Albert. “Have you injured yourself?”
“No, I was born with pain. Haven’t figured out how to chase it the hell away yet, but I’m working on it.” Hiram drank from the flask for several seconds then left it in the seat between them. “Tell you what, I’m heading to Texas too, though I’m going to Dallas. I’ve got a show there in a couple of days on the radio. I’ll drive you as far as I can.”
“Radio?” said Albert. “Are you an actor?”
“No, I’m a singer. I’ve sung on enough radio stations in the south that I’ve lost track of how many, but I ain’t never sung for foreigners before. This should be something, shouldn’t it? I figure them Texans are pretty much like southerners. I mean, they speak English and all. And they ain’t got no love for Washington. We’ll get along just fine.”
“You don’t agree with your president’s politics?” asked Albert. It was a subject far too close to the truth of things, and he was a fool for pressing the point, but he’d so rarely met someone who’d speak out against the government in front of strangers. He was fascinated.
“I don’t agree with a man who hoards power. And what else is that damn Pool he’s got but power? He makes all his buddies immortal and lets everyone else just go to Hell. You think, if I knocked on his door, he’d give me a sip of that Water? Hell, no. He’d run me off and then go make a speech about responsibility and how he’s single-handedly taking care of us all. Like he knows better than we do what’s good for us. No, sir. I do not care for that man. I’m sorry if you’re offended.”
“No apology necessary.”
“So what do you do for a living back there in Switzerland?”
“I’m a scientist.” It was the truth, for what little that was worth, though he’d let ambition twist it into something less noble. He’d gained worldwide fame for his theories of mass-energy equivalence and the particulate nature of light. He’d even won the Nobel Prize. Albert had a way of looking at the world from angles others hadn’t discovered, and when King George had offered him a chance to apply his mind to the mysteries of magic--the very antithesis of everything he’d ever known--he could not turn it down. He’d secretly come to believe he’d reached the limits of what he could achieve without violating the fundamental laws of the universe. But the Pool was without limits, a grand mystery that defied physics and called into question even the most ironclad beliefs of the scientific community.
Upon his arrival at the compound, Albert had been astonished at all the things Washington’s alchemists had managed to do with the Water: simple mind reading, pain relief, and brief moments of enhanced speed and agility, all from ingesting drops of the Water mixed with various compounds. Albert immediately set his heart to the task of finding new uses for what proved to be nothing more than a previously unknown element, bound in an unchangeable liquid shape, sizzling with electromagnetic force. Within weeks, he’d learned more about the Water than the Americans had in several hundred years, and within a few more years, he could do absolutely anything with the Water. Anything.
Not that he had free reign. All of his research had to benefit the American good, and he was thankful to King George for allowing him access to what was surely to be his life’s work. So much so that he even shared his suspicions that the Nazis were working on a nuclear fission weapon, a monstrous bomb capable of untold destruction. George had laughed and told him he’d better get to work on magical fission. And so, of course, he had.
By the time he realized what kind of fury he was set to unleash on the world, it was too late to reverse his research.
It was his own guilt that had driven him to spy for the Texans; even before the bomb was finished, he knew that he would have to seek redemption somehow. The Texans offered it to him, and he seized it. They had sought to stop the manufacture of the bomb, but by that time, it was out of Albert’s hands. So they settled for making a weapon of their own, and Albert gave them the intelligence they needed. The fools wanted to release the magic into the world so that everyone could gain access to it. Hadn’t they seen what that Water could do? It was madness, and when Albert had heard of their intentions, he’d almost laughed.
No, the Texans would have their weapon. They had great faith in him. But it would not function in exactly the way they expected.
“A scientist?” said Hiram. “You know, you look like a scientist.”
Albert laughed nervously. “I think I always have. Even as a child, I knew this would be my profession.”
“We’re alike in that,” said Hiram. “I’ve never been good at much but singing, but that suits me fine. Say, you think we’re close enough to pick up any Texas radio broadcasts? I’d like to know if they got any singers there can give me a run for my money.”
Hiram switched on the truck’s radio, and Albert suppressed a gasp. A preacher shouted through the tinny speakers, urging them off the lost highway to sin. When the news cut in with an announcement that the famous alchemist and Nobel Prize winning scientist, Albert Einstein, was still at large after magically murdering half the Immortality Compound and trying to destroy the world’s supply of Water. Albert reached instinctively for the handle of his briefcase and put his other hand on the passenger door knob.
Hiram grinned. “Settle down, doc. I’m not an idiot, and I read the papers. I knew who you were the second you jumped in the truck. I just didn’t want to run you off. I have a notion that you ain’t done none of that stuff they said you did. More of the King’s bullshit, I’ll wager. I’m just going to keep on driving, and you don’t have nothing to worry about from me. Okay?”
Albert nodded thankfully, still clutching his precious cargo. “You are a good man, Hiram.”
“No, I’m a sight worse than most. But if you took off, you probably got a good reason. And I can’t imagine it makes old splin
ter teeth too happy. Any man willing to spit in his eye is a friend of mine.”
Hiram stuck his hand out again; Albert released the grip on his case and shook it.
The Hell-Raiser
Hiram’s world was a dark blur of asphalt and pine trees awash in threatening yellow headlights. Fresh pain, born of hours on the road, lanced through his back, and he resisted the urge to sip some more whiskey. He was drunk enough as it was, and he didn’t intend to kill such an important man as Albert Einstein.
Besides, they didn’t have much farther to go. The Republic of Texas was coming up fast.
“I appreciate your help,” said Einstein. “But please, don’t feel compelled to risk you life for mine. You can stop and hand me over, and they’ll make you a hero.”
“The hell I will. We’re twenty miles from the border, and getting into Texas is easier than getting into Mexico. Those old boys behind us may be bold over here, but they won’t follow you into another sovereign country. Washington just finished up with one war. I reckon he ain’t looking to start another.”
Hiram hoped he sounded more confident than he was. The identical black Packards had caught up with them about an hour back, and they’d been pressed up nearly to his bumper ever since. They’d fired a few shots in the air, but it hadn’t taken a scientist to figure out they weren’t shooting at Hiram’s truck. If they had been, they’d have hit it. And besides, they wouldn’t want to kill the greatest alchemist the world had ever known. They needed that man.
“You have Water in that briefcase?” he asked, fear and adrenaline finally stripping away his manners. He’d been waiting for the man to volunteer the information, but he wasn’t much for conversation unless you prodded him a bit.
“Yes, but it won’t grant you immortality. It’s been converted into a Water Uranium suspension with a--“