Author's Note

Before Reading This Chapter

If you don't handle phrases like heil hitler please just skip the part where it will appear, I will put a warning to the part where the phrase is going to appear.

Looking for an editor, if interested, just pm me.

Chapter VIII: Das Geheimnis hinter dem Geheimnis

Das Geheimnis hinter dem Geheimnis
Kaiserliche Nachrichtendienst Building, Berlin, German Empire

The German Empire, in turmoil. The accident has been covered everywhere, we found life on another planet, hostile apparently, that has also caused the apparent death of a valiant astronaut. Two days ago, the League of Nations held an extraordinary meeting about that planet, in which almost every nation of the world has a different perception of what to do about it. It has become a problem, the United States NASA has diverted completely of its efforts in the colonization of mars towards this new planet, as they are already building their own version of our German rocket. Colombia and the Brazilian Empire initiated something similar in a joint program between those two nations. Russia and China are doing the same thing, a new space era has begun for everyone, this planet changes everything, and everyone is waiting for someone to pull the trigger.

POV HANZ MÜLLER

Two days ago, my superiors gave me orders to take a plane to Berlin, the exact reason for why wasn't specified. Arriving at the principal meeting room, my head is just boiling out of questions. The two large wooden doors open, revealing two men and one woman.

"Mr Müller, it is a pleasure to meet you, please take a seat," the woman says with a serious frown on her face.

I hesitate, but proceeded to silently obey while watching the serious stares coming from them.

"Your profile's certainly very interesting," a white man with blue eyes dressed in an Imperial military uniform begins with a similar frown on his face while reading a document, "you've done exceptionally well on the assessment tests, says here you've got a near-photographic memory, ummm medium combat training, part of the Delta Project, huh, just...... too exceptional."

"Hardly, but even though, thank you, sir," I answer with a smile on my face.

"Your pulse's never gone above 80 during any combat situation, even on this on this most recent attack? is that true?" he says while putting the paper apart, looking directly at my eyes with a killing gaze.

"It's what we're trained for, sir, I can't take any personal credit for that," I respond nervously.

"You know Müller, generally we are looking for people like you, people who won't let emotions or fears get in the way of a task," the man continues, "people who might be called 'on the spectrum,' if you will, I do say that with respect...so you must not be surprised that we've reached out to you".

"No, sir...I expected a debriefing on account of the accident, I am surprised that the Deutsches Heer is handling it, but it's certainly not a problem of any kind," I respond with a frown, even though, fear is slowly crippling all the way towards my head, as several alarms are set off indicating that something is going to happen.

"Well, we've travelled a long way to see you here today, and it is not a coincidence," I turn to see the woman again, her frown changed to a look of curiosity as she leans on the back of her chair.

Suddenly, the full-wall video screen behind me begins to play, the German eagle of the intelligence office appears on the white screen. The man who remained silent during the talk consults a PDA device, as the other man is just silently staring at me with a serious face, something that keeps ringing bells in my mind, his gaze is challenging and curious at the same time.

"General, we're ready," the woman announces.

¿What does he mean with we are ready? I begin to debate internally with my thoughts as the two men simply nod, the screen changing to a different image.

"Listen, this is not about your accident, or at least, not directly", after a short pause she continues, "we have...something of a highly classified nature to show you".

The image changes, and a video starts. It looks like it was recorded during the 1930s, for the black and white quality of the video and the background music.

Several German troops appear to be leaned on tanks or walking across muddy paths, and at that, a big title appears in the screen reading, 'German Northern Expedition to China'

"You see Mr. Müller," the woman begins with a sly smirk, looking at the projection, "in 1928 we intervened in China, we reestablished Qing, and at the same time we found something."

I scratch my chin, "found something?..l-like what?"

The video starts to show a mountain, where several men both from the German Empire and Qing appear to be looking at a cave at the foot of the mountain. Several troops enter the cave, many of them with heavy artillery, looking for something in the depths of that place. The video changes, showing the troops fighting something, as some words in cursive, appear in the middle of the screen reading Monarch Project.

"We found something very interesting in China," the woman leans on her chair, "have you ever read about what a Chinese dragon is?"

"A what-" I am interrupted by the sudden black and white image on the screen, a giant snake that spits fire is attacking the soldiers, and in sudden movements it flies directly at the camera, making it static for some seconds before it changes to another video showcasing the sea. My eyes widen, and my curiosity overcomes everything.

"W-what is that?" I ask shakily, looking at the woman who has a grin on her face.

"You see, Monarch was created thanks to this," a US naval destroyer appears sailing on the seas, "the Prime Minister and the Kaiser Wilhelm II secretly created an organization with other nations that would help to search for these anomalies, that were becoming so strange in so many countries that even the French Commune and the Union of Britain also signed a pact in which they could locate these things with Germany."

"Anomalies?" I ask while raising an eyebrow, "so it is real, the video-"

"You see Mr. Müller," the woman interrupts me, "we are showing you all of this for one reason if we are being specific."

The camera zooms, showing a name written to the side of the destroyer, 'USS Eldridge.'

"In 1943, just one month before the Americans decided to enter the Second Weltkrieg, a secret experiment was carried out using an old destroyer from the Second Civil War, in which an experimental cloaking device was used," the woman begins, walking around the room with her arms on her back, "but instead of working, it made something else, they teleported to another dimension, and when the ship came back, it travelled in time."

I shifted uncomfortably, looking with suspicion at the woman, "t-that is impossible in any way of saying it, how could that even happen?"

The woman stops, looking at me with a smile, "that is why Monarch exists, the ship travelled 10 minutes to the past, one month later, the Colombians and the Americans joined the war, and at the same time they joined Monarch," the screen changes, several US navy officials appear to be meeting with the Entente ones, "Monarch began Project Recall, which aimed to recreate this time and interdimensional travel that happened, the first years were..... complicated, especially for the leading scientist."

The screen shows a group of scientists in white coats, posing next to the American flag, every one of them with a grin, "Doctor James Harrison," she points at a man on the screen, "he worked in a secret American laboratory, the Hawkins National Laboratory, where the project was being developed."

"And what happened," I ask with a raised eyebrow, "something happened right?"

The woman nods, as the screen suddenly shows a destroyed complex and several men in black walking through the ruins of what was once a scientifical laboratory, "something happened, half of the laboratory disappeared, and the project was buried, at least until recently."

"Recently?" I ask with scepticism.

"During 2010 to 2015, several disappearances occurred, people just disappeared, when suddenly, in 2019 a large group of people appeared in the middle of South Africa," she stops, pressing a button on a control, "they were found by the South African police, but the curious thing is that every single one of them was claiming that they were teleported another planet, in which they describe some very strange creature, the police didn't believe them, but us, we immediately went to ask questions, in which we found out very interesting things, like this video."

WARNING SENSITIVE CONTENT

The screen changes, showing a man standing on a car. He is wearing an apparent military uniform and is saluting hundreds of people that are waiting for him with what looks to be the syndicalist salute. The car arrives at a massive rally, and the man gets off the car, walking at a cheering crowd. The flags around the area have a symbol on them, I think that it is an Asian religious symbol, but I don't recall the name of it. The man climbs some stairs and arrives at a large area, the crowds are chanting something.

"Heil Hitler!!" "Heil Hitler!!!" "Heil Hitler!!!"

The man begins to talk in clear German, everyone is looking at him with attention, and at that moment, I recognized the place, it is a touristic attraction in Nuremberg.

"What is this," I ask, my head tilting slightly, I don't recall a historical event of this magnitude, people cheering and chanting, "this is in Germany, then why does it look like a syndicalist rally as if Sebastien Faure would be the one who is talking?"

"That's right," the woman answers, "the video was found in one of the mobile devices of these persons, in which hey claimed something very interesting," the woman leans on the table, "supposedly, they said that we lost the First World War, and the guy who is talking right now," she points at the screen, "is Adolf Hitler...."

I tilt my head, my face is changed to the one of suspicion, that guy is maybe the most famous German soldier of all time, he fought in the Weltkrieg, but was killed in action. He wrote some diaries about his thoughts and experiences during the war called Mein Kampf, where.... some ideas were rather extremist if I may add.

END OF SENSITIVE CONTENT

"This is.... what?"

"Another dimension, Mr. Müller," she says with a smile, "it is another dimension were we lost the First World War, where these people came from, and through another inter dimension, they arrived at ours."

"But... you are still studying it right'"

She sighs, as the screen turns off, "in 2020, two reporters were killed in the Middle East, which only caused more questions to our organization, something happened, things are happening, a connection was made when that destroyer disappeared, and this whole thing is initiating again."

The wall-screen changes again, and another image appears. It looks like outer space through a telescope, no stars or anything visible...

Until, tiny on the screen, a blue dot. But not the pale blue dot of Earth, when suddenly it cut to a closer shot, and there I saw it, that this is the magical, mysterious blue of Uranus.

"That is the planet Uranus you're looking at, obviously, images from the Shun-Barcelli Telescope, two days ago", the woman begins once again, leaving her chair and walking towards the screen.

The distant planet is almost all a light blue, with none of the organic browns and green of Earth.

It's like a shiny marble jewel, it's sheen a uniform hypnotic marine, except for a few darker streaks and a few white smudges of elongated clouds, unearthly, that's for sure, then, our vantage point moves, and we cut a little farther from this planet, and also with longer focal length.

The view of Uranus is obscured momentarily by a faint, partial ring of dust and ice, an arc of white, and a..... thing of what looks like a circle comes to a view.

It looks like a fish-eye giant lens, distorted ripples of stars in a pond.

"A disturbance of spacetime out near Uranus", the white man speaks again while putting his pickelhaube on the wooden table

Wait a minute...

"A wormhole?" I ask with a face of pure curiosity.

"It appeared thirty-eight years ago."

"Where does it lead?" I ask while raising an eyebrow, my eyes narrowing slightly as my fists clench.

"Another universe", the woman announces with pride on her voice, "and it looks like it has a connection with Earth, and even a similarity with it."

"A wormhole isn't a naturally occurring phenomenon," I quickly retort, but not in a harsh way, but in a curious one, thanks to the fault of rational logic in her arguments as well.

"That's the question that even us haven't answered, it's actually a very mysterious phenomenon, but this just makes wormholes a real thing, as that thing lets us travel to other stars, it came along right as we needed it," the man stops briefly as he scratches his chin, "it looks like it is not the first time that it opens near-Earth..... Monarch is the one that has been investigating this strange event if we could call it that way."

"Monarch?" I look at the man with a frown, "so.... they.... still exist, you haven't been talking to me about this whole thing, exists....."

The man remains silent for some second before nodding, "there are, what we could say a potentially habitable world within our reach, twelve, in fact from our initial probes," the woman announces.

"You sent probes into it?" I say as my eyes widened, if we know what is on the other side, we could really land humans in other universes.

"Indeed," the woman responds, "we are partially secure at this point that we have the capability of sending...humans to the other side, and it's not from some vague reports of some probes, we have been making different tests near and around this wormhole to give us this class of security for initiating Columbus."

"Columbus, Sir?"

After a short moment of silence, the woman begins to speak again.

"You see, I suppose that you heard the news from the Freiheit accident."

I nodded at her statement, at that she continues with a frown, "that planet is not habitable, but it has life, but not only that...... we don't know, but we believe that in that planet and ours there is a warping point, as we believe that it is connected back in Neptune, and into the other universe, just like a triangle."

The images changes, a dark figure appears to be surrounded by a marker, it looks Equine, but with one fact, it seems like a horn also accompanies this creature, while I cannot tell the colour of the fur or any detail whatsoever because it just looks like a dark creature.

It changes again, the other figure is also dark, but it looks human, with a faint colour on its skin, but still not recognizable.

"What is that thing...." I say as my eyes narrow at the image.

"That thing," the woman begins, "is the reason for the existence of Monarch, this new 'planet' and universe, you could say, appears to release a class of energy, something that has confused our scientists since the end of the Second Weltkrieg."

"Mythology is real," the man says, making me look at him curiously, "at least there."

I was going to retort, but my tongue only left some vane words to be heard, "but...where do I enter in this project."

"You are going to help us find that warp point," the woman begins with a smile on her face, "you are going to lead the teams sent by Monarch, under the cover of the League of Nations, of course, the Colombians have agreed to send a military mission to that area, even though, looks like someone is working with the CIA back in the RRK and even in our connections, that interesting discovery left us shocked as a whole don't you think so?"

I tilt my head slightly, ignoring her last question "someone working with the CIA?"

The woman nods, "the Americans have been infiltrating the connections routed between the resisters and other political groups within the Empire, just like if we are still in the Cold War."

I remain silent for some seconds, my head spinning as my hands begin to shake, my life work can be resumed to this section.

"The question Mr Müller is that if you're willing to accept, even though, I suppose you know the dangers that this mission will bring within its nature, the Russians are also interested in this..... coincidences, they probably have spies infiltrated within our Imperial army."

Curiosity, a force that has driven humanity since the beginning of our kind, it has made us invent and explore, break the barriers of what we use to call "impossible".

Did we want to cross the vast oceans and seas? then we didn't wait for we could suddenly breathe above the water, we created ships that helped us to cross this vast oceans and seas and even find new worlds.

Did we want to fly? I'm sure that we didn't expect for some wings to suddenly appear on our back, we created aircraft.

Did we want to leave our planet and land on the moon? then we created rockets to let us accomplish that dream that today is something casual, but I bet that 500 years ago or even less than dream was considered impossible, and now this organization is allowing me to make a new change on this dying world, it is the big token or price that is required to make history.

I think that I have an answer.

"Ma'am, I accept this mission," my words were said with proud and fear at the same time, something that causes grins on every being inside the room, including the guy who was just remained silent.

"Well then sir," the woman says while shaking hand with me, "you will depart to Jerusalem in twenty-four hours."

Suddenly, the silent man slips to my hands a black folder with the logo of the Monarch Project.

"All non-relevant information has been redacted, please familiarize yourself with its contents..."

A hand touches my left shoulder, that belongs to the silent man, his age is evident, I can tell he is passing through his sixties.

"Hanz Müller, welcome to the Monarch Organization."

Gran Colombian Gold mine, Phillipines

The main entrance to the complex looks abandoned, but it's one of the most secured areas of the planet. Philippine soldiers guard the walls, that surround an old mine designed to extract carbon from that zone of Southern Philippines. The entrance of the mine is full of people working, giant machines ar helping to drill deeper on the cave, and many people with yellow hazmat suits are entering the cave. A giant cave surrounds the mining sectors, everyone working day and night.

Near them, a helicopter with the Monarch logo on its sides is flying towards the complex. The guns are aimed towards the approaching helicopter but not a single bullet is fired, all waiting for the persons that are going to come out from it.

The helicopter lands on the ground, and immediately afterwards, its doors open, revealing a man and a woman, and behind them, a man is with their equipment wearing sunglasses. Exiting the helicopter, an American man is waiting for them at the end of the strip, a frown on his face as his beard is covered with snowflakes.

"Dr. Tanaka and Dr. Jane Sander my name is James Rochester, and gotta tell you, this place is a mess, the whole construction is a mess the man begins, looking worried at the two scientists.

They begin to walk behind the man, looking at their surroundings. They are inside a giant hole, the drill is huge, and many machines are just thrown on the floor.

"They picked up a radiation pocket out here last month," the American man begins, pointing at the other far extreme of the hole, "they got excited thinking they have a uranium deposit and started stacking the heavy machinery and then, well the- valley floor collapsed, into a cavern below, just dropped away, just-"

Dr. Tanaka looks at the giant abysm at the end of the path, it is a hole that seems to go directly at the centre of the earth, it is immersive. The machinery is thrown out of the place.

"60 miners went down with it"

There are several men and women inside the cave, all wearing the hazmat suits. Between them, Dr. Tanank, Dr. Jane, and James Rochester are all inside the cave. The radiation levels are almost astonishing, and the cave looks more like a giant tunnel leading to a subterranean lake. Everyone is with flashlights, thanks to that at their surroundings giant bones and other radioactive rocks are surrounding them.

"When they first discovered this block the radiation levels were only half strong," James begins, pointing at different sectors of the cave, "it's almost like if contact with the outside Earth is hiding something."

A camera snap is heard, several of the men following them are soldiers, and others are reporters from Monarch. The breathing is intense, they stop while looking at a giant rock at the front of them.

"Some kind of radioactive rock," the Dr. Tanak mumbles under his breath. Suddenly, lights flash on, revealing their position, they are in the ribcage of a deceased monster.....

"It is impossible," Dr. Jane says out load, looking at the walls that have several drawings on them.

"No.... maybe it is just, fantasy," Dr. Tanak responds, a frown on his face, glancing at every surrounding.

People are shouting in Filipino. The tunnel seems to go to the infinite.

A man takes a photo of the tunnel, walking forward. The group turns to look at a small hill of rocks, where a faint light is illuminating a spear at the top of it.

"What is that," Tanak asks, pointing at the spear.

James chuckles, but then begins to walk towards it, "absolutely no one knows, but it is too dangerous to get close to it, radiation is just too high even with these suits. He then points at a cadaver in a hazmat suit, his skull is visible, and the yellow plastic is melted.

"I believe they weren't the only ones," Jane says while looking at the abysm surrounding the hill, where cadavers are just scrambled, WW2 military helmets are thrown on the floor, and the Japanese rising sun flag is seen on the corner.

"We weren' the first ones," Tanak mumbles under his breath, looking at the flag of his nation before it was defeated by the Entente.