Industrious: Engineering Marvels - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

“So, I heard you got a visit from a Senator before we left,” Steve stated as he sat down next to me. A campfire crackled nearby, carefully screened from view by a series of lean-to structures while the blaze itself bore no smoke thanks to a few woodland tricks by our resident Canadian barbarians. Thankfully, we weren't anywhere close to our target and could afford the luxury of a campfire for the next few nights, because it was brutally cold this time of year in Germany.

Even with my advantages, I could enjoy the solace that came from a cloudless night sky, a warm crackling fire, and the hot meal that naturally followed.

I snorted. “I bet they're all atwitter about that, aren't they? Bunch of gossiping schoolgirls, I swear.”

Steve chuckled, stretching as he leaned back against the tree he was resting against. “Can you blame them? Truman didn't even stop in to see me personally, and I'm, well...”

I raised an eyebrow as the super soldier suddenly flushed from more than the cold. “Was that a rare moment of hubris from our dear Captain America?”

Steve snorted and waved me off. “You know what I mean. The guys were pretty chuffed to get a visit from a politician that high up, though, and I know enough about this whole 'politics' thing to guess you probably asked him to drop in.”

I grunted, the noise thoughtful and almost meditative. “He's gonna' be president.”

Steve turned to me, incomprehension on his face before outright concern and alarm set in. “Truman? What about... is something going to happen to FDR, Ray?”

“No one lives forever, Steve,” I replied, then sighed as he looked at me more intently. “I warned him, when we were in DC. Told him to take it easy. Talked with his doctor, gave him an acupuncture treatment or two, gave him a dietary plan that should help. He wants to at least last until Germany is defeated in '45 and he has good odds of doing so. Truman's going to be his running mate for the November elections, but he'll step down by April or May if things go according to plan.”

Steve took a deep breath and nodded, rubbing at his chin. “It's a lot to take in. FDR's been... He was the only president I've ever voted for, you know?”

I blinked, turning to look at him, then nodded. “Right, voting age is still twenty-one.”

The other man cocked his head, obviously seizing on the change in topic. “They really do drop it? I'd heard things, but...”

“It takes a while, but there are a bunch of protests during the sixties and seventies. 'Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.' I probably don't have to tell you how popular an idea like that is. Truman even said he might make it part of his first term, get it done early while there's still political will,” I explained.

Steve narrowed his eyes, his expression sharp. “There another war during the sixties and seventies? That's the only reason I can think they'd pass something like that.”

“There's always another war, Steve. Always.” I sighed, feeling suddenly tired as memories-

No, those never happened. They're not worth lingering on. Stop it.

Steve sighed and I felt like I'd kicked a puppy given his expression. “I just... kind of thought we'd have learned our lesson, with all of this.” He made a vague motion towards our fellow soldiers. “Then again, I guess that's what people thought after the Great War, too.”

“I wish I could say something to help, I really do,” I empathized. “There isn't supposed to be another 'big one' up through to my time, if that makes it better. Lots of little small things, but nothing like either of the World Wars.”

Steve cocked his head, looking as though he'd been struck by something as he frowned at me. “Do you ever miss it? Your time, I mean?”

I hummed, frowning. “There are things I miss, we've talked about them before.”

Steve shook his head, either tacitly acknowledging the dodge or thinking he hadn't been clear enough. “No, I don't mean things like microwave ovens or whatever. Family, friends, coworkers...?”

“I've lived two lives full of both, Steve,” I replied, pushing away the faux-memories of the third one. “I try not to think about them, for the most part. People, places, an entire life I'll never see again... it doesn't do much good to dwell on things like that.”

“I'd still want to remember them, though.” The other man frowned as he paused, obviously picking his words more carefully. “I just... I can't imagine it, even with what you've told me would have happened. Waking up in the future, not knowing anyone. I can't believe it's any easier if it's the past.”

I sighed.

It probably wouldn't help if I explained that I could manually rebalance my neurochemical makeup and save myself the agony of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Knowing Steve, that would only make him more concerned, liable to make him follow me around like a lost dog until I gave in and opened up.

Looking the supersoldier directly in the eye, I asked, “Look, if I tell you some stories about my childhood in Louisiana, my original childhood, will you accept that I don't secretly cry myself to sleep every night?”

Steve blushed and grinned. “I was that transparent, huh?”

I simply kept my eyes locked on him and he chuckled awkwardly as he looked away. “Sorry, it's just the guys get curious, you know? They're always talking about girlfriends or parents or whatever and you're off to the side writing in a notebook or taking care of your gear.”

Groaning, I rolled my eyes. “That's what this is about? For fuck's sake.”

Steve chuckled awkwardly. “It's just... well, a lot of the team figured out your story's bullshit, not that they're going to make an issue of it, but you kind of freak them out with how you don't make a sound unless you want to. They think you're some government super-spy that got attached to the group. So, it would help me out a lot if you were more personable and just... talked to people? A little?”

Sighing again, I rose from my seat and took a step towards the fire. “Fine, childhood stories it is, but given I can't talk about future-stuff with them I'm going to have to throw in a bunch of ninja-stuff from my second life.”

“That's fine!” Steve hurried to assure me, “Whatever you think is best!”

I turned back to walk towards the fire and the rest of the team, only to sense Steve abruptly stop a few feet behind me just as he began to follow me.

“Wait,” he paused, gathering his thoughts as I turned my head to look at him over my shoulder. “I never thought about it, but if you've already lived two different lives... how old are you?”

I blinked, then chuckled. “Ah... it depends on how you count it? I guess if you just add it all straight together... call it forty-eight or so?”

There was the instinct to push it higher, but those memories were fleeting, half-formed things that were easily pushed away. If only they were a bit less persistent...

Steve's jaw dropped, and I laughed.

…

The Hydra base was a castle.

Because of course it fucking was.

I swear, I need to be playing cliché bingo.

I mean, it's still a cliché, right? Even in the forties, sinister castles with evil mad science or occult experiments were overdone and trite. Dracula had an evil castle even in the original Stoker novel, right?

“Watcha' think, kid?” Dougan asked, chewing on a cigar as we stared down the enemy fortress.

“I think the foundation has been reinforced using modern materials. Check the south corner, you can see modern concrete.” I jerked my chin forward from where we were crouched behind a fallen tree.

Dougan grunted and scanned where I had directed. “...yeah, I see it. Looks like a cargo entrance. That means they probably underpinned whatever foundation the place had and expanded it into extra space.”

“Underpin?” I asked, intuiting the word from context, but surprised to hear a semi-technical term like that from a man as... well, thuggish as Dougan could portray himself as.

“My da' worked with a crew digging out space underneath a bunch o' snobs' houses ta' give 'em extra storage space for all their shit,” Dougan replied casually. “If we can get in there, I might be able to pick out a few week spots if it's the usual fucking kraut incompetence.”

“Any advice on how to blow up more nazis more efficiently will be greatly appreciated,” I remarked with a chuckle.

Dougan gave me a side-eye. “When you say shit like that it reminds me of those old-money pricks my da' used ta'' work fer. Where'd you learn to talk like that, country boy?”

“You remember me telling you last week about that girl who had a crush on me, growing up? Sadie?” I asked rhetorically, getting another nonverbal reply in response. “Her parents were old money. They tolerated me well enough, probably thought I was a phase for their girl, but I had to keep a silver tongue in my mouth while I was hanging around their little princess.”

Satsuki's parents hadn't been all that bad, really. Even the stuffiest shinobi clan leaders tended to be less strict than the nobility of that world, but they still had certain standards they liked to set.

“Huh, wouldn't have imagined that kind would have liked seeing their girl run around with a half-jap,” Dougan paused, then frowned. “No offense, they probably wouldn't want someone like me sniffing around her, either.”

“It is what it is,” I replied, taking the words on the chin. Just another reminder that I was far from the time I'd grown up in.

“So, you see a way in with that ninja bullshit you have?” Dougan asked, clearly changing the topic. Tough guy that he was, I couldn't imagine even that level of miniscule vulnerability had been easy to admit to.

Still, it meant he was trying, even if it was almost certainly at the behest of our resident boy scout. But, then, I couldn't exactly say I was any different on that note.

“I can see ways I could get in,” I replied. “How good are you at climbing a rope?”

“Not awful. Ain't my best work, but I ain't awful,” Dougan grumbled.

“Plan B, then,” I noted, giving the building another look over. “Let's see... we could hijack a prisoner transport going in, but only I speak German, and it's shitty German, so that's out. We could sneak onto a prisoner transport, but I'd either have to do some ninja magic or we'd have to leave our packs-”

“Ninja magic?” Dougan interjected.

I nodded, rolling the idea over in my head. General Phillips had apparently weaseled out some encoded messages from MI6 once I'd casually dropped they'd broken the Enigma Cipher. Which, in my defense, I had forgotten was a classified military secret. But I'd gotten to meet Alan Turing briefly, so I counted it as a win anyway. Especially since I'd gotten to drop him a warning about not getting caught out of the closet, so to speak.

That'd been neat.

More to the point, though, we thankfully had the resupply schedule for most of the Hydra bases as a result, and one was coming up. Considering Dougan's question, I reached down at my hip where the watertight case containing my sealing tags was attached to my belt.

“Basically, I'd slap a piece of paper on you with some weird squiggles and you'd... it's not quite invisibility, but close. Anyone looking at you would see a kind of wavy bit of space, like really hot air on the horizon making a mirage, just up close.” My explanation brought a look of disbelief from the other soldier.

“I thought you couldn't do any a' that shit cause you were injured?” He asked, looking me over.

“A demon took a bit out of my soul, it's not a wound you can see,” I replied dryly, making Dougan blink in stunned silence for a moment. “To answer your question, though, I'm cheating. But I can only cheat so much before it starts to catch up with me. Kind of like how a guy gets shot and they can take a walk while the wound's healing, but don't ask them to run a marathon.”

“Huh.” Dougan muttered, rubbing at his weird mutton-chop mustache thing. “How long can you do it for? Make us invisible, I mean.”

I tapped the box at my waist again thoughtfully. “Say... twenty minutes per go? Maybe five times for each of us, but then I'm almost totally dry.”

“Little over an hour and a half, then,” Dougan muttered, considering, then shook his head. “Best ta' save it fer when we need it. Fuck, I hate climbing rope.”

I chuckled. “Oh, you're going to hate it a lot more when I explain where we're climbing too.”

A few minutes later, I'd been proven correct and Dougan was cursing under his breath at me, the castle, and the entire situation. It only made me laugh harder.

“Oh, fuck you too, Snake Eyes,” Dougan spat, then winced.

I blinked, turning to the man and raising an eyebrow. “Snake Eyes?”

Dougan grimaced as he shouldered his pack and, for what it was worth, looked vaguely apologetic. “Fuck, sorry. Just... you got that whole-” He made a motion with his hand around his face. “-mask and hood thing goin' on when we're out in the field. Thought of it when you jumped up inta' that tree last mission when I was giving you shit. Looked like one of them Indian snakes, a cobra or whatever, with its hood up and eyes all glinty.. Didn't mean anything by it.”

“Snake Eyes. Heh,” I grinned, thankful I wasn't wearing the balaclava at the moment so Dougan could see my honest expression in the pale moonlight. “I kinda' like it, actually. Thanks, Dum-Dum.”

Dougan snorted in surprise, giving me an odd look but seeming relieved as he took a big puff on his cigar. “Dun' mention it, promised Cap I'd play nice. Don't need him riding my ass for getting' loose with my mouth.”

On the one hand, the casual racism was irritating and offensive. On the other hand, I probably needed a bit of exposure to it given the time period, lest I overreact in civilian life after the war and put someone in the ground that didn't deserve it. And, most importantly, on the third tentacle Dougan was part of the squad. Blowing up at him or whining to Steve or Bucky over something that he obviously knew was a shitty thing to say without me telling him wouldn't make me any friends.

“It's fine. Like I said, I think I like it. Might even keep it,” I shrugged it off. “Just watch your mouth from now on and we won't have any problems. Hell, I'll even try to keep my knives to myself from now on.”

Dum-Dum grinned, huffing a laugh as he slugged me in the shoulder. “Thanks. I owe ya' one, kid. Well, two. One fer the slip up and a second for that liquor you, Cap, and the Lt. brought back from DC. That was some good shit.”

“Thanks, I thought you and the guys would appreciate it,” I replied, having long internalized the fact that there was more than one way into someone's good favor. Or, at least, to force them to tolerate you. “Now, you wanna' hoof it back to camp and explain to Cap how we've gotta climb up a medieval toilet on the side of a nazi castle?”

Dum-Dum seemed torn between a laugh and a groan. “Don't fuckin' remind me, kid. Fer fuck's sake.”

~~~

As promised, the next chapter of Engineering Marvels. This one is mostly lead-in for the next mission with a week's time skip or so simply due to the fact that there's only so much being on a boat and/or walking through a forest I can make interesting.

Regardless, I think it turned out well! Next chapter? Ray gets to fight a Nazi Vampire and he is not happy that his life is becoming a comic book.

Other than that? I've started working on the next chapter of Winning Peace and will have it out over the weekend. Thanks again for all the support!