The Armorer

Honestly, knowing I had a secret Nazi lab in my backyard freaked me out. There wasn't any reason to hurry to deal with it, so I took my time. I I acquired some German dictionaries, a modern one, one published in 1950, one published in 1932, an English/German German/English dictionary. And there were things about living in the world again that I hadn't counted on. Unlike the jungle, people wanted to know about you and why you came here. I didn't want to be a weirdo American, I wanted to fit in. I needed to socialize some, and I needed work, because I sure as hell wasn't going to explain the accident to a bunch of strangers.

I found the blacksmithing course by accident. I'd seen it on a tour I took of the area. A mastercraftsman had a workshop where he sold wrought iron items and took custom orders. There was good money in it, and I would prefer to earn my living expenses rather than relying on the settlement. He offered periodic classes, and I signed up for the summer session, prompted in part by Thor's dismissive label. I found that I really liked it and I had a talent for it. It was a whole lot more work than I was used to, though, but it didn't take long to build upper body strength. It was a secret comfort that I wouldn't have to worry about burns, but I kept that to myself and was scrupulously careful in class. It also gave me an excuse to create my own forge at home. I put it in the back yard, on the way to Secret Nazi Lair (SNL, as I was calling it). One reason that I was interested in creating wrought iron for the home was an incident I'd had shortly after discovering SNL.

I'd emerged from the garage with a spade; it was my intention to create some flower gardens. I'd just pushed the blade into the earth when up the driveway came two men. They weren't particularly memorable, but something about them put me on edge. Maybe it was the way they didn't look around at the property but came toward me like they knew the grounds well. I pulled the spade out of the ground and called to them in German that this was private property and they'd have to go.

In English, one of them said they just wanted to see the place now that it had been fixed up. I repeated that it was private property and not open for tours. The other man scanned the area and I'd swear he looked at the direction to the SNL slightly longer.

"My mistake," he said, and without rushing, they turned around and left the same way that they'd arrived, focused and determined.

I'd met my neighbors; there were a few other houses in the area although they were mostly used for vacations in the summer and winter; there was a ski area not far away. I'd gotten excellent tips about who to hire to keep my driveway plowed in the winter and other important local information. At a cocktail party a week later, I mentioned the men casually, but nobody seemed to know them. One of the women, a retired judge, advised me to have a security system installed, even though it would take time for the police to get here in the case of an emergency. I had that done, and I worked with my teacher as well to make bars for the windows. Sure, they were attractive and suited the house, but they were there for security. The front and back doors were wood two inches thick, with sturdy hinges and really substantial locks, so I felt pretty secure there. I had outside security cameras and a video screen by the door installed, though. If someone is determined enough, they're going to get in, but I hoped that my security measures would delay them enough until help arrived. I felt an unease in my seclusion for the first time. I had my neighbors over for drinks to reciprocate their hospitality later in the summer and there was a lot of interest in my work. Within ten days, I had commissions to create similar window security for three neighbors.

It was good to have social interaction, I had to admit. I get weird when I'm by myself for too long. And recognizing this, I made more of an effort to leave my house and do things. I went into Salzburg to do the tourist thing in more depth and spent time in antique stores looking for items with Jungendstil details for my home. My German must be crap, because every time I spoke in German, the other person courteously replied in English. I took a trip to Vienna and explored their desserts as well as the culture. I went to Berlin for a week. I had a ball, visiting the Brandenburg Gate, the remains of the Berlin Wall, and other icons, but where I really went to town was in the museums. I went to the Alte Nationalgalerie, showing art from the Neoclassical to early Modernism, the Altes Museum that featured antiquities, the Neues Museum, where the incomparable bust of Nefertiti is on display, the Pergamon Museum, where the Ishtar Gate and the Pergamon altar are kept, the Berlin Energy Museum, the Brohan Museum that held art and design in the Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Functionalism styles, the Charlottenberg Palace because it was pretty, the German Museum of Technology--science and technology, the Memorial to the German Resistance, and Topography of Terror, devoted to the Secret State Police, the SS, and the Reich Security.

There was nothing in the Energy Museum or the science and technology museum remotely like the mystery generator in the SNL. However, Topography of Terror had a WWII display that mentioned one Johann Schmidt, a former bellhop who was personally trained by Hitler to head his terrorist activities and given a unique uniform. He was recruited by HYDRA to lead their deep-science division, and after consenting to medical experimentation that left him deformed, probably completely whacko, and banished by Hitler because he was decidedly non-Aryan looking, he left the Nazi party and established HYDRA as its own force. And he was defeated somehow by Captain America.

Before I went home, I went to the German Federal Archives. There was precisely one mention of Abraham Erskine, in connection with a serum designed to enhance a human subject. Being Jewish, he was forced to flee his university position, and the record notes a gap where nobody knows where he was for a period of five years. The formerly classified document says that he surfaced in New York after that period, working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve and a British woman named Peggy Carter before being assassinated by a HYDRA agent.

I needed to talk to Cap. Unfortunately, there's no cellphone reception in Asgard.