Hey guys I’m back to HaM! It’s been a very long while since I actually posted HaM so just as a refresher it’s just after the war ended and nearly all the living machines have been sent into France to be rounded up and kept together-except for Marion and her crew.
Enjoy.
Ch 49
Time seemed to blend together after the war. The German army was under control of Allied leadership and mixed units were patrolling and sorting out the various Wehrmacht heer groups and getting them home or redeploying them to other areas. This included Hansel and Marion. They were used at a checkpoint to check IDs, direct traffic, and make sure there were no problems. Then they were tasked with assisting in demilitarizing areas where there had been military buildup and fortification. Afterwards they had been put more towards Berlin along the line that separated the Soviet army and the American army. Tensions were high at this point; American and Soviet generals had been talking about warring with the other for total control; the Soviets wanted to spread their ideals and so did the Americans. With their experiences, many of the Russian deserters chose America over their motherland because of the welcome embrace they received and the much freer lifestyle. While they were not free the machines did at least have some roaming privileges and social time. They also were told what intent America had for them. They were test subjects and specimens of study and further study was to be conducted within the American shores, where it would be much more difficult for Russia to learn of the breathers. It took six months for the negotiations to be fully completed and then another year for everything to be set up and readied for the departure.
The machines negotiated their human spouses to accompany them and to be treated as a married couple, together wherever, but Marion, being an instrument of the American tank core and not a subject of the science department, did not have these negotiating privileges. At the end of the war Marion’s crew only consisted of herself, Hansel, and Meats. After the war, they stayed together until the following November, where Meats was let go from active service and he was given passport home in Frankfurt. It was a long and seldom goodbye between the three of them. After that it was just Hansel and Marion sitting in their hull down foxhole. They were prepared for a Russian assault along with about two-hundred and fifty other soldiers and ten tanks and bunches of AT guns and mortars. The machine folk were all heartbroken when General Patton died, and especially his old third army. It was an American tragedy that he died; a hero to his country, much like his esteemed German counterpart Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. While Hansel and Marion were still together and grateful that they survived the war they were undecided on the outcome. They were happy the war was over and that their friends were alive but at the same time they lost, their country was in shambles, and the genocide that their leaders started had blackened the image of their proud home.
Hansel couldn’t see himself living in a divided country, where one half wanted to invade the other to ‘liberate and unify’ the other. He loved his home and his family, loved his country, but couldn’t stand to see what a divided future would lead his beloved country to. Hansel grew more narcissistic by the month and this made Marion upset, she couldn’t stand to see him so negative and bleak about the future. She took matters into her own hands and wrote to the command requesting a different deployment in some other country. Perhaps a station in France to help rebuild or a convoy escort in Belgium, she didn’t care. Repeatedly she was denied by the command until one of the commanders griped to her old American Major.
He arranged her and Hansel to get some “R ‘n’ R” in northern France, just south of Juno beach. This helped Hansel’s state and he started to be more lively and optimistic. He had always shown compassion and relief towards Marion but not to others or in a general mood until France. He would frequently think back to the things he did during the war, things he was not too proud of. He took the lives of his enemies with a certain grain of salt when it happened but he didn’t allow it to change him; as he knew they wouldn’t hesitate to end his life. But their lives still seemed to plague him, and only Marion seemed to assuage these demons completely. She forbade him from drinking, and he had long decreed to never smoke, so Marion was his only relief. And he was her only relief.
They spent another whole year in France and again and again they’d wake the other in a fit of nightmares, or cry to the other, or suddenly start spilling their guts about regret and death. Hansel’s father had told him stories of “Shell Shock” and rumors of what causes it, Hansel denied having it for he was physically perfect. But every now and then his mind would linger and he’d swear he had gotten it, he was unlucky and damned enough to have Shell Shock. Marion thought the two of them had guilty conscious and that they only needed to let it out and help each other. They were both correct, they suffered from PTSD but only mildly, their lives were not dictated or wrecked by the war, but it followed them. They quickly found ways to help the other cope, and they stood by each other when the other needed help. Sometime in May, 1947, they applied for passports to America with help from Major Cahrmicheal and obtained them with Hansel’s connection to Joshua. Major Cahrmicheal set them up with a place in central Florida, somewhat near where the other machines had been sent.
The breathers agreed they didn’t want to deal with the ‘winter wrath’ where rapid temperature drop weakened their bodies. But with the desert not being a great place for big engines and complex mechanics, the second option of marsh was picked. While the land of south east America varied, it was sustainable for tracked vehicles. The vehicles were concentrated around a central hub area where tests could be conducted and the lab could be set up. All around it were plots of land with huge garages, the plots varied from 5 acres to 18 acres based on the vehicle’s size and abnormality from most road vehicles. They generally had about a two or three-mile drive to the hub, but Marion’s drive would be about twenty. There was an Army Air Core facility twenty-two miles from the hub that had fenced off twenty plus acres of land with a hard-packed concrete runway and a heavily reinforced hanger floor with sturdy and reenforced walls and ceilings for the hanger. It almost looked more like an armored warehouse. Adjacent and attached to the hanger was a two-story house that the members used. It was properly furnished, plumbed, and accommodated, but it was very bland. Once they had learned of their new home Hansel and Marion gathered addresses from their friends still in Germany and France, and spent some time with them before moving to the port that Peiper was targeting in the Ardennes offensive, the one where Marion changed sides. They were excited, very excited! New people, new life, new opportunities, America! The land of dreams! Because they were not a part of the science department Hansel and Marion had complete freedom, they were moving to America as veterans and as German civilians. Hansel packed Marion full of clothes, tools, knickknacks, memorabilia, books, some house utensils, and anything else they could fit and wanted. Hansel also was given permission to bring his car over, he was absolutely amazed at how pristine and perfect his car was when his old home wasn’t. It had only been in an alley a house down in a backlot the whole war, and now he had the chance to drive it more than across the neighborhood. It was a first model Adler 6 standard with the engine and transmission of the 1934 Adler 6 standard with four gears, he sold the old engine and transmission to a guy that wanted to make his own car and used that money as well as money from selling other useless trinkets to get the engine. He named his car Ava and kept it clean, shiny, and running. The body was a dark oak brown with a yellow-gold trim and white highlights. The interior was a lavish green with leather seats and balsa wood interior painted to look like Cherrywood. The gearshift knob was a bright red with a white band that connected to the long black shaft. As he drove his car back to Marion, it filled with his possessions, he looked back to when he was fixing up the car. He had dreams of taking all the pretty girls to the fields he crop dusted and showing them the land, or taking his lovely honey down to the river in the moonlight to spend the night. He dreamed of driving far off and seeing the world in this car.
And then war broke out.
Hansel eventually got back to Marion and showed her the car he built. A few days later their ship arrived, a merchant ship that made hundreds of voyages to Britain and America during the war, still painted in its blue, grey, and black stripes in a “dazzle” pattern. This is when Marion discovered her greatest fear; a fear more crippling than airplanes, more crippling than artillery: heights. She was lifted using four of her towing eyes and the whole time she was groaning, trembling, shivering, and nearly shrieking in fear. What’s worse is Hansel had to watch it all and could do nothing but try to yell over the machinery to calm her down. No matter how he yelled it was not soothing. One of the merchants said that it was normal for heavy machines that spend their lives latched onto the ground to have a fear of not being latched to the ground. He said every tank that he shipped did it. Marion’s eyes were clenched shut and she was trying to think of happier things, like the fun they had with Cindy, Whacker’s wise cracks, Hansel, a peaceful home. And before she knew it she felt pressure under her treads, she had been lowered into the ship’s belly. She took deep breaths and calmed down as sailors unhitched the cables from her eyes. Next, they loaded on the car and that’s when Hansel boarded the ship. He spent time with Marion and when the ship was towed and sent out to sea he stood on the deck and watched Europe disappear. He wondered if he’d ever see Europe again, if he’d ever have its soil beneath his feet, if he’d ever get to bring Marion with him if he could, it was very emotional for him. He watched the shoreline fade away, the cliffs and tall lighthouses fade away into the fog, shrink into the horizon, and soon all around was nothing but the choppy North Atlantic.
He thought of Rudolph then, he remembered going to Rudolph’s family back in Munich while getting his car. Rudolph was not picked up by the British. Rudolph was M.I.A./K.I.A. with his ship, the Bismarck. Hansel plucked a yellow flower that day from Rudolph’s garden and the family wrote prayers to him on a streamer tied around the stem. Hansel had that flower and tossed it into the waves, watching it slosh around and slowly disappear to the waves to be swallowed and welcomed by the Atlantic; just as his friend was. He started to cry then as he backed away from the rail and slumped against the wall sobbing, he remembered their last day together and just let it repeat in front of him again and again. Then he wondered what Rudolph’s last glimpse of Europe was, if it was as miserable and foggy as his own, or cheery, bright, and prideful. Hansel talked to himself as if he was talking to Rudolph again, he began spitting stories of basic training, then how it was training with the tanks. He spurred on about Russia and being wounded, then officer school and eventually how machines were alive. He talked about Marion, and Cindy, and Anton and Faust, about how his family was and how Munich was, he said the bar was still standing and recommended they go catch up more there. That was when he looked up from his lap out into the grey-blue world wholly believing that Rudolph was right there in front of him. It was a very harsh reality check. He completely let go and bawled his eyes out, cradling his legs against his chest. A senior sailor was passing by when he noticed Hansel’s distress.
“Was wrong, lad? Was got ye so teary?” It took Hansel some time to figure out what the heavy accent asked.
“Loss.” Hansel eventually spit out after much effort.
“Loss o yer home?”
“My friend.” The sailor bent over and sat next to Hansel, gripping Hansel’s shoulder with a rough leathery hand.
“How’d he die, son?”
“His ship,” e spat, “sank, not picked up.”
“Now hear me here, I been on six ships in this war alone, an tree in the last, all sank, ye hear? They all sank but I’m here ain’t I? Lady Luck has a weird way of working her magic, yer friend may be alive out there. He might be on a raft fishin’ right now o’ees tryna get home. What I learn’d is to trust yer gut, so son whatchyer gut say?” Hansel hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
“Keep yer head up son, till they give ye a body he ain’t dead.” That gave Hansel enough strength to pick his head up and say thank you, get back down to Marion, and vent the rest to her.
The voyage was uninteresting, nearly a week long of Hansel staying with Marion, sleeping on her, or in his car, getting chow and sharing some morsels with Marion, daydream about their future lives, and try their best to not get sick. Once their voyage had passed and Marion struggled through another crane lifting her up and on to a train they were good to go. Hansel had to drive his car shadowing the train from a port in Georgia down south to the middle of bumfuck nowhere across the way from the quiet little town of mapless journey. Hansel found out that the train station they arrived at was founded nearly a hundred year ago-and it still looked like absolutely fuck-all lived here. Still, this is where they were going to live and so Hansel led Marion down a dirt road, then another, and another, and another, until the tall barbed wire fence with a sign painted, in German, “Welcome breather!” was in front of them. Waiting for them was a man from the science lab twenty miles away to let them in, show them around, and the next day take them to the lab as requested by both Marion and the test subjects. They had just unpacked Marion when they were led up to the lab, they were very excited to reunite with all their old friends. Marion did see some trouble moving through the marsh but her low foot pressure made sure she didn’t sink deep into the marsh. She eventually pushed her way through the marshes and made the long journey to the lab. The gates were tall and the fences were barbed, with many reasons to keep people out and away from the fact that metal lived, but once they were inside the daunting facade was just that and the complex was very friendly.
Staff members were very friendly and had taken to the machines as people, but just like people they had stereotypes. None of the staff would dare say what they say around the machines or their human spouses in fear but they’d gossip to each other. Of course, the human spouses knew that there’d be a new form of racism, technically specism, but they did not let their loved ones know or let it get to them. The staff would judge the machines for their spouses, stereotype that they breed like rabbits, their only use is sex and murder, they are stupid and gullible. Easily used. Of course, most of it was not true, they were conceived and produced to be superb killing machines of war but they were smart, loved one another like family, and were finding new uses in a world without war. But the staff didn’t know that, or care for that, they did as people do and stereotype. Some of the soldiers that worked and served by them were appointed to the lab as guards and once they got wind of the talk they were furious. They had learned to love the machines, saw them as life savers and heroes, saw them as friends-brothers and sisters more like it, and despised the staff. The guards were the first to tell Hansel about the staff’s stereotypes. That didn’t matter to Hansel as he and Marion saw an unknown Tiger that looked like Swiss cheese.
Fin Ch 49
Feel free to ask any questions in the comments, also many parts of this chapter are purposefully rushed and sort of empty to convey just how blurred and meaningless the time was for the pair.