“John,” Mildred called Elder Stow as he clambered back up to where the people crowded together.

“The tunnel did not collapse altogether,” he said.  “At least we still have air, stuffy as it is.”

“Yes, but the exit is blocked.  We have injured and elderly people who cannot walk all the way to the next station.  They need treatment right away.”  Mildred smiled for him and did not ask him how he did what he did.  The others gave him some room and he got all sorts of odd looks, but Mildred did not doubt.  He was an American, and the Americans were clever.

“Let’s look at the blockage around the stairs,” he said.  They did, and then he moved everyone back, away from the bottom of the stairs.  They heard a vague siren in the distance.

“The all clear,” Mildred said, while Elder Stow nodded and worked on his screen device.  When he set the device the way he wanted, and moved two men back further from one end, he told everyone to hold their ears.  He let loose his sonic device aimed at the rubble in the stairwell.  It shook like the blockage got struck with a mini earthquake.  Rocks and boulders of concrete tumbled to the bottom of the stairs, contained by Elder Stow’s screens so they could not go far.  The result was a narrow opening to the top.

While Elder Stow set his screens to hold back the rubble in the area still blocked, he spoke to Mildred.  “Get the people out while you can. I can hold back the collapse from here, but not forever.”

“Right,” one of the men said, and shouted to get out carefully.  Several men stepped up and helped the families get to the surface.  Two had made a makeshift stretcher to carry a friend with a crushed leg.  The wounded leaned on the healthy.  Some cried.  A few had died in the initial collapse, including a couple in the stairwell.  People, even the children stiffened their lips and climbed the stairs.  Mildred went last, as Elder Stow set the focal point of his screen device to move with him and not deactivate until he got out.

When the screens deactivated, the rubble moved to fill in the stairwell once again.  Mildred saw Firemen and police arriving.  Someone got in an ambulance.  Most of the people hardly moved from the street by the underground entrance.  They were weeping from fear and loss and comforting one another as well as they could.

“Who is in charge?” Elder Stow asked Mildred.

“Captain Hamilton,” Mildred called and waved.  She knew the officials in her neighborhood.  Captain Hamilton also knew her and came where he was headed in any case.  Elder Stow spoke fast.

“I am sorry I cannot help you clear the stairwell.  There may be bodies down there.  There may be someone too injured to be moved.  The tunnel is not blocked, so there is air, and you can reach them from the next station.”  He looked at Mildred and she named the station.  “This is important,” Elder Stow said to regain the man’s full attention.  “This was sabotage.  Men put dynamite in the ceiling to collapse the ceiling and kill the people, or at least trap them underground and cut off their air.  They blew the back half of the station to be sure their plan would work.  They blew the stairs.  I got them before they could get down the tunnel and blow the front half.    You will find unexploded dynamite in the ceiling of the front half of the station, so proceed with caution.”

“John?” Mildred finally wanted to ask a question, but Elder Stow faced her and interrupted.

“It was lovely to meet you,” Elder Stow said. “But I have to go now.  This travesty needs to stop.”

Captain Hamilton looked like he had a few questions as well, but when Elder Stow lifted a few feet up into the air to float with no visible means of support, he swallowed everything that was on his lips.  When Elder Stow turned invisible, Captain Hamilton nearly fainted.  Mildred just smiled.

Elder Stow flew a short distance to where he landed between the bank and the luncheon shop.  He decided looking for Doctor Mishka would not be a good idea.  He imagined it would just put her life in danger.  She was born in Russia.  She was presently in England.  He imagined there were reasons she had not been born in Germany.  At the very least, the temptation to kill Hitler and change the whole future might have been too great.

Elder stow found a secluded spot and became visible again.  He could not think of any way the German conquest of the continent went according to the Gott-Druk plan.  It seemed designed to create a subservient population, one that might soon cry out for the Masters to come and save them.  It finally seemed obvious the leaders of his expedition that were supposedly influencing and guiding the Germans in order to depopulate and retake Europe for the Gott-Druk had become servants of the Masters.  Perhaps they were all along.  He shook his head and let out a slight moan.

“Are you all right?   Mister?”  A man who stood on the sidewalk noticed him.  The man stood in a small crowd that watched the collapse of the luncheon place across the street.  It took a bomb.  “Mister Stow, isn’t it?  You’re American?”

Elder Stow looked up.  It was a man from the bank.  Elder Stow nodded and sighed as he spoke.  “I have just realized what a fool I have been my whole life.  I believed my leaders and followed orders without question.  I believed I was just doing my duty.”  And he thought, how like the Germans in this age.  “I hope everyone got out all right,” he added and turned the man’s attention back to the luncheon place, even as he touched the button on his communication device that would send an identifiable distress signal to his people.

Elder Stow found a different tea shop where he could sit and wait.  He thought the tea was not as good as the other place, but the scone was excellent.  While he waited, he wiped certain information and changes, including improvements he made to the equipment during his journey.  He imagined he would remember most of it, and how to replicate the adjustments he made to the equipment, but these were not things he wanted to share with the Masters.  It did not take long to do the work, but he did not have to wait long.

A small, six-man shuttle came in over the street, invisible of course.  Elder Stow’s scanner beeped, and he adjusted his personal screen so he could see into the invisible spectrum.  Surely, they scanned and identified him down to his genetic signature.  He knew his outward appearance mattered little.  He stood, handed a pound note to the waitress for a tip and said, “Thank you for your good service.”  She had been nice.  She tried to give it back, but he would not take it.  He stepped outside the door and removed his glamour of humanity.  He stood a Neanderthal in the sunlight before he touched his belt and turned invisible.

Two Gott-Druk, a younger officer and a private floated down from where the shuttle hovered over the street.  They had their guns drawn, but Elder Stow had no intention of giving them an argument.  He handed over his equipment but for his personal screen, invisibility, and flotation devices.  He asked their names because the younger officer looked familiar.

“Kern,” the younger said.  The child did not offer his name.  He simply looked at his officer with questions on his face.  “I was not in your group, chief engineer.”

“Yes,” Elder Stow responded with a smile.  “You are security family group.”  The younger nodded.  “Shall we go?” Elder Stow smiled.  “I am sure after nine long years our Mother and Father have many questions.”  Elder Stow handed the last of his things to the child security guard, who looked at him with even more questions.  No telling what the security guard thought, but he likely came prepared for a struggle.

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Don’t forget, tomorrow, on Thursday the post will finish this episode.

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