“One moment,” Drossen said, and he twitched his jaw, then continued speaking in a voice that was louder and clearer but slightly monotonous, and which he used without moving his mouth. “It has been ten years since I engaged this speech synthesizer. No doubt it could stand some improving, but it is less tiresome than forcing air through my neck.”
“You mentioned ‘how he felt’,” Rhyme said.
“What’s going on?” Webmistress said over the intercom. “Did you succeed or not?”
“Quiet,” Rhyme said to her. “You aren’t the third most interesting person in this complex anymore.” She pulled a plug out of the wall, where she’d run the splice for her intercom hack, disabling the connection for the room. “Dr. Drossen, were you referring to Adolf Hitler?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Is he still alive, then?”
“Who knows?” the cyberneticist said. “I’ve had no contact with him since the late forties. He was my backer, and then when he fell out of power, he was my proof-of-concept, nothing more.”
“Interesting.”
The way she pronounced the word was very distinctive, and Drossen felt a chill running down where his spine should have been.
“I know that voice,” he said. “Who am I addressing?”
“I fought you once.”
“Reason’s daughter,” Drossen said. “The half-breed Amazon.” He laughed. “You know, Hitler’s plan was to use America as a base for the ‘liberation’ of the Valley of Mists. In his mind, the Atlanteans must have been Aryans and the Amazons were not their proper heirs at all but thieves unworthy of the great legacy.”
“You knew about the valley?” Rhyme asked, coming around into view of him.
“Oh, yes… Hitler’s racial theories were cobbled together from whatever flattered him most or struck his fancy, or sometimes what was politically expedient, but he researched them with the fervor of a fanatic,” Drossen said. “Sometimes, though very rarely, there are small advantages to be gleaned from ignoring all standing evidence and scientific consensus. Of course, it was not until decades later, when your mother made her debut, that I realized he had been right all along, about that one thing at least.”
“We don’t talk about her,” Rhyme said.
“My apologies.”
“That’s fine. I guess it’s safe to say you don’t feel too sentimental about your old boss,” she said conversationally
“Hitler was nothing,” Drossen said. “An accident of history. People speak of his charisma, but it was more that he had a forceful personality at a time and place when people were receptive to that. He was not the lever, nor the force applied to it, but the fulcrum around which things turned. If it had not been him, it would have been another. Things would not have turned out exactly the same if it hadn’t been him… somebody less distracted by his peculiar notions might not have committed the same atrocities. Somebody else may have been a more effective world-conqueror, for the same reason. If we could look at two universes side-by-side, who could say which would be better and which worse? But listen to an old man ramble…”
“I like listening to it,” Rhyme said. “Most people bore me to tears… theirs, usually… but you’re the disembodied head of a Nazi scientist. It’s like talking to someone who landed at Omaha Beach, only I have fewer urges to induce traumatic flashbacks.”
“I do not think of myself as a Nazi,” Drossen said. “I was a member of the party, yes…”
“But you were only there for the buffet,” Rhyme said. “You know, considering that this is the first time you’ve ever woken up as a disembodied head, you’ve adjusted remarkably quickly.”
“If I seem detached from myself, it’s only because I am. When you consider how much of my body I removed myself… I have felt like a disembodied head for decades now. The platform my skull is resting upon is less useful than the one I am accustomed to.”
“You’re also strangely sanguine about being helpless in front of a former enemy and known crazy person,” Rhyme said.
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