The Metal Man: An Account of a WW2 Nazi Cyborg (15 page)

He drove on, passing overgrown fields and semi-derelict dwellings. More refugees at the sides of the road, their faces thin and hard. Tornik came into view – a church spire, more dilapidated buildings. Doors creaking in the winter wind. Cracked roofs partially covered with ice and snow.

Does anyone still live here?
wondered Schroder.

But this camp – he had to find this camp… Reinhardt had said his mother was in hell; the letters saying how happy and content she was had all been faked…

Schroder gave a snarl as he continued to drive along, his eyes scanning everywhere. He had his creation sat in the back of this lorry; he’d order it to tear this camp apart – and to destroy anyone who tried to stop him from finding his mother…

The road was long, straight. Ahead, on the left hand side, Schroder saw what looked like a cliff. There were rocks below.

A train track appeared, to run close beside the road on the opposite side. Parallel.

And then…

…it seemed almost to materialize out of the low grey horizon. Crude blocks of black transforming into buildings of brick and wood; a tall, thick chimney...

A vast, sprawling place, located behind two separate barbed-wire fences…

His mother was – here?

Schroder gave another snarl, this time mixed with a choked sob…

Was she even still –

He didn’t allow himself to complete this thought. He was coming to a halt a short distance away from the camp. Ragged figures stood watching his approach behind the barbed-wire fences; scarecrows in striped uniforms, not even appearing human… Their heads shaved…

And outside of the camp, saw Schroder now, was stood a curious group. Four men dressed in filthy camouflage uniforms, machineguns dangling from shoulder straps. With them a group of five men and women, wearing clogs and giving the appearance of being peasants. The four soldiers’ prisoners, no doubt.

German soldiers – the only ones Schroder could see. But were there more, somewhere further inside that camp?

It didn’t matter. A hundred such soldiers weren’t going to be able to stop the Metal Man. Who would do exactly as Schroder ordered. He turned off the lorry’s engine, opened the door and got out.

The soldiers were staring at him, clearly confused by his sudden appearance. A German military lorry, being driven a small man wearing glasses, an outsized bowtie and a cardigan.

But as yet, the soldiers weren’t making any move to come over.

While he still had the advantage of surprise, Schroder walked quickly to the back of the lorry and opened up the two large doors. The Metal Man was sat in its special reinforced steel chair at the back.

Schroder spoke to it –

‘Stand up and get out of the lorry! You will obey everything I say from now on.’

The Metal Man first inclined its head, then picked up its huge gun and stood up. The lorry shook slightly as it walked towards the open doors. It got out, walking down the three steel steps that led to the ground.

Schroder stood beside his creation, looking across at the soldiers and the five men and women. Then he looked at the entrance into the camp, which the rail track beside the road led into. (The road itself ended in a square-shaped block of cement just outside.)

There was a large courtyard inside, surrounded by a number of low buildings, many partially or almost completely destroyed.

Some of the scarecrows in their striped uniforms were shuffling slowly around, their eyes fixed on the snow- and ice-covered ground, as though searching for something… Seemingly oblivious to the soldiers and their captives stood just outside the camp, or the titanium-armored machine of destruction that had just emerged from the rear of an extremely large military lorry…

‘We are going inside – there,’ Schroder told the Metal Man hesitantly, pointing.

Again, the Metal Man inclined its head slightly, holding its huge gun.  

‘If those soldiers standing over there try to stop us – destroy them,’ said Schroder then.

The Metal Man looked over at the group stood on the outside of one barbed-wire fence.

The soldiers stared back, one of the men pointing.

‘Do you understand?’ demanded Schroder.

The Metal Man continued to stare.

‘Do you understand?
’ repeated Schroder, worry beginning to sound in his voice.

Another moment’s uncertainty – and then the Metal Man nodded.

Schroder was less than reassured by this; but there was no choice other than to proceed. To try and find his mother in what Schroder realized now really
was
– as Reinhardt had said – a hell.   

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

23

The sight of the buildings behind the barbed wire fences stirred a feeling within him. Similar to the one he experienced whenever he recalled the man he now knew was called Ackermann.

But why did he dislike – hate – this man so greatly?

Always there was a sensation of… something sudden and – sharp, when he remembered Ackermann.

Yes; that was the word.

Sharp.

And then blood and  -

Pain
?

Another new word. But he could not approximate any type of
feeling
to go with this word.

And why should he think of these words like pain and blood, when he was so different from other men? More akin to a machine, in fact. He’d heard himself being called this. A ‘Metal Man’: a man constructed from something other than flesh, bone and blood.

Machines did not bleed or feel this…

Pain. 

But there were more mental flashes, coming all the time now. Images; glimpses of… short scenes…

A burning building, a women screaming, a man who was – sick – lying in a bed…   

A voice in his ear – Ackermann’s voice…

The something
sharp
and
sudden
. And the
pain
…

And back in the present: these buildings – of wood and metal. Strange people stood against the barbed-wire fences. Gaunt and shaven-headed. Men and women. A few children. Too few children.

As he noticed them the feeling of revulsion disappeared, and instead he felt –

Sadness? Pity?
Compassion? (
Another new word.)

He recognized that they were – captives – of this place he instinctively hated on sight. A place vaguely similar to the other, where the woman had screamed and the baby had cried. The sounds that had stopped him from doing as he’d been ordered.

From doing what he somehow sensed was…

Wrong.

And then that feeling almost of satisfaction when he’d grabbed one man around the neck – the man who’d been trying to take the crying baby away from the woman – and had applied the slightest pressure…

And the order to desist from Ackermann; obeyed even though everything within him had pleaded for him…

For him to continue – to kill this beast…

And back in the present: four men dressed as that man had been, stood by the long fence which ran all around this – place. Next to them a group of five men and women.

But he took renewed notice of the soldiers. He recognized them; one in particular – a broad, open face, the man stocky in build…

That warm feeling again. A sense of familiarity and – something else. Something much more than familiarity. And again, this feeling stirring the flash of that woman who was now holding the baby.

A – photo. Yes, that was what he was picturing. But he couldn’t remember – names, or – anything else. About the smiling woman or the baby. And this was something that made him feel sadder that he thought possible, staring out at a world which now had that

+

exactly in its centre…

He was approaching those four soldiers, his maker by his side. The one whose commands he was to obey above anyone else’s. The soldiers had walked forwards slightly, leaving the five men and women stood behind them. By the barbed-wire fence. He saw now that those emaciated men and women who were stood
behind
this fence were shrinking back, as though they feared –

Him?

But they had nothing to fear – he felt only these strange feelings of sadness and compassion and pity for them…

But now there was talking. Between his maker and these soldiers. He picked up some of the words.

‘… do not try and stop me…’ his maker was saying.

‘… this camp… nothing to do with us…’ returned the flat-faced soldier, for whom he felt this curious warmth.

For this man – and the other three soldiers.

‘…I am going inside…’ declared his master –

But he’d stopped listening. Couldn’t stop staring at this flat-faced man with the sandy… blonde… hair and beard. This man…

His name…

Think.

It seemed suddenly to matter more than anything else that he remember this soldier’s name. So many of the images which were flashing up now seemed to relate to this man – and the three others.

He –

An ‘M’ – the name started with an ‘M’.

…

‘
Mayer
,’ said the Metal Man at once.

24

‘Wait…’ gasped Mayer. ‘Wait just one damn minute…’

‘You… you
can
talk…’ gasped Schroder, staring sideways at his creation.

Then he shook his head, remembering what he’d come here to do. He couldn’t allow for any distractions. None at all.

‘I am going into this camp to find my mother,’ he informed the soldiers. ‘Don’t try and stop me – the Metal Man is under my command, and I have ordered him to destroy you if you try and interfere!’

‘But this… thing – it just said my name!’ declared Mayer angrily. He stepped in front of Schroder, blocking his path.

At once the Metal Man aimed its gigantic weapon – more like a cannon than a gun – towards the soldier.

Mayer stared defiantly up at its black goggle eyes.

‘So you just said my name – and now what? You plan to shoot me?’ he demanded, the words escaping his mouth almost before he’d even thought of them.

The black goggle eyes stared down at Mayer, above the grill-like ‘mouth’.

‘
Weber
,’ said the Metal Man again. His voice was like that which you’d hear coming from a radio, late at night. Distant, dispassionate, the speaker wholly anonymous.

Then, suddenly –

‘
Move your ass
.’