[Time Warp] Thule House Rock (Myrmidon)

[Dr Archeville]

Somewhere in Germany,

October 17th, 1944

The muffled sound of an explosion shook loose dust from the ceiling as John laid on the floor, his upper body propped up against the shot up remnants of a console. He laughed to himself as he tried to get to his feet by using the console as a crutch, but didn't get very far. The exertion caused him to let loose a ragged cough, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. Heh. Never thought I’d be bleeding out in 1944 wearing a SS Major's uniform in the middle of a secret Thule Society base. He slumped against the console, the energy ebbing from his body. The sparks and smoke from the damaged consoles intermingled with the dust from the ceiling as more distant explosions rumbled in the background as John thought back how he got into this whole snafu.

It had all started a week ago. He was in his room at Claremont, reading an introductory book to understanding Russian given to him by Miss Victoria, when the portal had opened behind him. John remembered the feeling of falling backwards through the portal, but little else of the trip through the portal and the landing other than the fact that he was knocked out when the back of his head met a hard surface on presumably the other side of the portal. He marveled silently at the coincidence of it all many times over the last week. Waking up in 1944 in the middle of a Nazi Stronghold, with them convinced he was Wilhelm Kantor, who hadn't been heard from since he left on an 'expedition' three days before. Radio contact had been lost, and they had sent search parties but found noting. Now he was here by some twisted whim of fate, just in time to 'oversee' final stages of the project.

It had been all to easy to get information. All the people here either admired or feared his genetic precursor, so they gave him anything he asked for. Finding out what they were doing at this facility and there layout thereof was trivial. The identity and scope of the project was rather horrendous. They were experimenting on enchanting V2 rockets and modifying their payloads into a bio-weapon capable of reanimating necrotized tissue. Projections estimated total zombification of the British Isles inside of 3 months once these were in full scale production. The sorcerers assured him that the zombies would be under control due to the spell ritual, and once the kinks in the system were worked out they could use them as an nigh unstoppable shock force against the Americans or the Russians.

John looked around the wrecked command room. It had overlooked the indoor launch site, itself now a mass of burning wreckage and destruction. Bodies lay sprawled about, and a calm voice over the intercom announcing that the perimeter had been breached, and intruders were in the base. John smiled at that. Some intruders. He had just had his duplicates arm the base's scuttling charges and set the timers for just before the launch. It insured the maximum amount of people inside the base. The charges were meant for the event of a true attack, but re-purposing had a been a bit of irony that John thought was poetic. The rest was supposed to have been easy. Liberating StG 44's from the armory and mowing down the unsuspecting control room technicians and sorcerers before they completed their ritual. He hadn’t expected the Thule Society sending a pair of Elite Guards and a fire team of Sturmkommados. In the end, it had wound up with all of his duplicates dead and him lying here bleeding with two bullets in his abdomen from the running gunfight inside the base.

One of the numerous small fires caused by the explosions must have reached the rocket fuel as the V-2 rockets started detonating outside, the force of the explosion blowing out the glass in the room as the launch area started to crumble. Well, this is it. John thought, as the next timed charge was directly underneath the control room. Well, It was good while it lasted...he mused as the blood loss caused him to waver in and out of consciousness. A sudden sense of vertigo ripped at him and pulled him sprawling to the floor.

He cracked open an eye. Huh. No explosions, no overpowering smell of cordite and blood. The room was unmistakeably familiar. It was his room back in Claremont. John tried to move, grimacing at the pain and the ever-spreading crimson stain on the uniform as he noted dryly that he was still however shot. There was a knock on the door frame, and Morgan poked his head in. John looked up at him in clear relief. “Ah, Mr. Morgan. I'd greatly appreciate a medic right about now."

The last thing John heard as he succumbed to blissful unconsciousness was a muttered "...cac.”