incarcerated? One poor man, a dentist, had an alcohol problem. Another prisoner was accused of embezzlement from his company. This was typical of the prison system in the Reich.
A seventh prisoner was added to the cellblock that night. The thick, steel entrance door was opened and Wayne was brought in by the Gestapo who had interrogated him. Captain Von Helldorf followed them in. Wayne, wearing only his underwear, was pushed into a vacant cell.
“You are to stand at attention with your eyes looking straight ahead, arms at your side,” Von Helldorf instructed the prisoner. “If you are found sitting, sleeping, or in any other position than what I just described, you will be shot like a dog. Let me assure you, that if you are foolish enough to try to leave, you will be cooked alive.”
The Captain took a remote control device out of his coat pocket. He aimed the remote control towards a sensor at the top of the jail cell and pressed a button on it. Lines of red laser beams appeared, running from ceiling to floor in front of the cell.
Wayne assumed the position of standing at attention.
Von Helldorf and his men left the cellblock, locking the door behind them.
To say that Wayne was a little in pain then would have been like saying the Grand Canyon was nothing more than a little hold in the ground. Wayne mustered the tiny amount of strength he had remaining to keep standing, a torture in its own way. He ached everywhere and wavered where he stood.
Later that evening, around midnight, SS Captain Von Helldorf was busy working in his office. His office was by no means extravagant, but was beautifully furnished with velvet furniture and ivory carved figures. Ivory, imported from Africa, was the latest craze among the SS elite.
Von Helldorf was sticking colored pins into a big wall map. The map was a representation of what was once called Manhattan Island, but the letters on the map indicated the area was NEW BERLIN CITY. There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Von Helldorf asked, slightly louder than in his normal talking voice. He waited for an answer, but did not hear one through the closed door of his office. The Captain left the map, went to the door, and opened it. Dr. Lisa Hoffmann was there to see him. “Yes?”
“I am here for the release of a prisoner,” Dr. Hoffmann stated.
“Who are you?”
“Doctor Lisa Hoffmann: identity number D3847835. I am a tenured professor at New Berlin University.” She showed a work identity card, required of all employees in the Reich, to Von Helldorf.
“Come in,” the Captain said.
Dr. Hoffmann walked into the SS Captain’s office. She had never seen so much beautiful ivory in one place. Personally, she was appalled that the great African elephants were coming dangerously close to extinction because of certain bureaucrats’ insatiable appetites for the ivory, but that was not a subject she dare bring up.
“Please, sit down,” Von Helldorf offered.
Dr. Hoffmann sat down in a comfortable chair across from the Captain’s moderately sized teak desk.
“This is strange. Are you not the same Dr. Lisa Hoffmann mentioned in my report who had turned in the prisoner in the first place?” Von Helldorf questioned. “That is, if we are speaking about the same prisoner who had been picked up at NBU.”
“Yes, sir. I am the one who called the authorities and with good reason.”
“What authorization do you have for your request?”
Dr. Hoffmann handed some official looking papers to the Captain.
Von Helldorf scrutinized the papers. “This is very odd,” he said. “You are telling me that the mentioned prisoner here is part of an experiment?”
“Correct. A very important research study in psychological stress that could have far reaching implications for the Reich.”
Captain Von Helldorf did not understand. “How can this be, that a subject would put himself in such a dangerous situation?”
Dr. Hoffmann replied, “An advanced form of hypnosis was used.” She explained, “After the subject had volunteered for the project, all of the subject’s memories had to be temporarily erased and a new identity installed, so to speak, in its place. In order for me to gauge psychological stress accurately, the subject had to actually believe that what was happening was a real situation.” Dr. Hoffmann had rehearsed her lines well.
“Why was I not informed?” Captain Von Helldorf wanted to know.
Dr. Hoffmann had a ready-made response. “So you would not show any leniency on the subject.”
“This was approved by the Reich Institute for Scientific Experiments as is required?”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Von Helldorf glanced down again at the papers that the professor had given him. Everything appeared to be in order, right down to the official seals. He picked up his phone receiver to notify the cellblock guards of a prisoner’s release.
Dr. Hoffmann waited in the Gestapo headquarters’ main area, near the entrance to the building. Wayne, who still was in pain, but at least had been permitted to put his clothes back on, was brought up to Dr. Hoffmann by a Gestapo man.
“Thank you,” Dr. Hoffmann said.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” Wayne said to Dr. Hoffmann.
“Keep your mouth shut,” she whispered back to him.
As Dr. Hoffmann and Wayne walked out of the Gestapo headquarters and into the dark night, SS Captain Von Helldorf watched the two of them with a trace of suspicion in his eye.
Without saying a word, Dr. Hoffmann led Wayne to her car, an aged, yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Dr. Hoffmann opened the door on the driver’s side and got in the car. Wayne stood there, not sure what he was supposed to do. Did this woman he thought he knew want him to get in the vehicle with her? Could he even trust her after the stunt she had pulled earlier with calling those goons on him? Wayne, wanting some answers, got into the car.
Dr. Hoffmann turned the ignition key, shifted the car into gear, and started driving. After she had driven half a mile from Gestapo headquarters, Dr. Hoffmann, without taking her eyes off the road, asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve just been put through a meat grinder, thanks to you,” Wayne said pissed off. “Why did you call those schmucks on me? What the hell is going on here, Doctor Hoffmann?”
“You indicated earlier to me that your name was a Wayne Goldberg, I recall.”
“It still is,” Wayne said. He was stunned. Could Dr. Hoffmann really not have known who he was now?
As they drove, Wayne viewed the landscape of the city streets. It did not seem like the old city of Manhattan that he had been so familiar with. Buildings appeared to have a strange hybrid of a neoclassical and modern architectural design, with a distinct European flavor. He did not recognize any of them. The biggest difference, Wayne noticed, was the fact that never before had he seen the city so quiet. It had never been so dead. It now had a barrenness that was unnatural. This wasn’t the same city that Wayne knew so well and it hadn’t been for over forty years.
“You will need a place to stay tonight,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “Since I am single, I have been assigned to live with a family. The house has an extra room that you can sleep in. I sometimes bring students over to the house to work on projects with me late into the night, so your being there should not arouse any suspicions.”
“You didn’t answer my question, what is going on here?” Wayne asked again. “You told me that nothing could go wrong. I mean, at first I thought all this was a joke — you pretending not to know me, your changed appearance, those Nazis arresting me. But then me getting whipped and tortured — nobody would take a prank that far. Explain to me what got so fucked up.”
Dr. Hoffmann rolled down her window to let fresh air in. A pleasant breeze swept through the small automobile. “I do not know who you are. I risked my life to get you released for one reason.”
“How nice of you,” Wayne sarcastically said. “And what do I owe this great honor to?”
“My curiosity was aroused when you mentioned the time machine and the letter my father had written me prior to my being sent to what was then the United States of America,” Dr. Hoffmann stated. “I have never mentioned nor discussed those two things to anybody. Ever. How did you have knowledge of the time machine and the letter?”
“You really don’t recognize me?”
