We were never supposed to stray that far from the front, but we had no choice. German mortar bombs hit us hard, cut us off from the rest of the squad. It was just me, Jonas, Nickerson, and what little was left of Ricks. He took the worst of it. By the time we fished him out of the river, his arm was little more than paste, and his gut was busted wide open. I tried stitching him up as best I could, but I’d barely passed my STAMS by the time I got drafted. We needed a real Doctor, and there weren’t many of those out in rural France. Like that was going to stop us.
Not sure how long we traveled for. Felt like weeks. Maybe it was. But in all that time, we didn’t see a hint of German troops. Apparently, all that shelling had been for nothing. Rotten bastards just wanted to give us something to remember them by before they hightailed it back to Berlin. Not that our boys had figured that out yet. On more than one occasion, we thought about turning back and trying to regroup with the main force. Nickerson pushed the idea, and Jonas would’ve agreed eventually, but I knew better.
I could see it then as clearly as I do now. We would walk for weeks through mine-infested farmlands, counting every hour and hoping the next would spell the end of our journey. Not that it ever would, though. At least not through Rick. I’m not sure what would have done it. The perforated lung, crudely clamped veins, maybe there was some brain hemorrhaging I didn’t know about. In the end, the specifics wouldn’t matter. He would die and with my hands in his guts. That’s the thing they never taught me in med school. It’s always your fault at the end of the day. Because you missed something or didn’t do your job well enough. I had the knowledge. I had the skill. And I would be the one to kill Rick. I couldn’t have that. Not anymore.
The French farmland didn’t last forever. Eventually, it gave way to truly treacherous terrain. Mountains rose around us like waves frozen just before the crash, ready to swallow us whole. The landscape was either jagged like knives thrust up from the earth or choked on enough foliage to make John Muir blush. I’m still amazed we managed to keep Rick alive as long as we. We can’t take credit, though. That man was a fighter if ever there was one. You blow his arm off, and he’d fight off the Reaper with the stump. But gusto wasn’t gonna last him forever. Not that it had to.
Eventually, the terrain got too difficult to cross on foot, and we had to resort to drastic measures. There were plenty of roads snaking through the mountainsides, and we were just desperate enough to start taking them. Jonas had to take the lead and poke at the ground with a stick looking for landmines. Poor bastard stained his pants with seven colors of shit. In the meantime, Nickerson and I had to keep our eyes on the treeline. If those Germans were smart, and they often were, they wouldn’t have left a valuable stretch of roadway unguarded. Gotta tell you, that did a number on my nerves. Every shaking branch and snapping twig was a sign of an enemy ambush. It was like the whole world had turned against us. But we marched on. For Rick? For any of us? Always.
It wasn’t until we came to a fork in the road that our heading changed. Not a literal fork, though. Just off the path was a dirt road leading off towards the mountains. A well-worn one too. Fresh tire tracks were still stamped into the soil, and the smell of gasoline was fresh.
“You think that’ll be a problem?” Jonas asked from upfront.
“Not if we don’t make it one.” I replied as I took another sniff of air. “Gas is old. We must have just missed them.”
“Oh, great. Just fucking great. What now?” Nickerson stammered out.
“Calm down.”
“Calm down? Did you seriously just tell me to calm fucking down. There could be god knows what waiting up the road. Either of them!”
“It’s probably a mine then,” I said. “And a mine probably means there’s an onsite medical facility.”
“So we heading up?” Jonas asked.
“No! We’re not heading up to a maybe mine that would definitely be full of Nazis ready to blow out what little brain cells you can have left!”
“The Germans are in full retreat, Nickerson. If there really was a base waiting up there, then we would have run into a checkpoint. Someone to warn them of a coming attack.”
“That doesn’t sound like a fucking guarantee!”
“No, but it tips the odds in our favor. Let me put it this way. If we go down the main road, we could be walking for god knows how many more days before reaching civilization. If we go down that one,” I gestured to the dirt path. “There’s a much better chance that we can find something to help Rick.”
Nickerson didn’t say another word after that. I thought he wouldn’t. We picked up Rick’s stretcher and started hiking into the forest. Poor Jonas had to keep searching for mines for a good forty more minutes before he finally arrived at the foot of the mountain. I hoped to find a shed or maybe a discarded medkit. Never could I have imagined waiting for us.
There weren’t just tents and rickety cabins, no. They had an entire warehouse built out there. From the outside, it was hard to tell what it was for. If I were to guess, I’d have figured it was a storage facility of some kind. Regardless, it was abandoned from the looks of it. No guards, trucks, not much of anything, actually.
“The fuck you think’s in there?” Jonas asked as we approached. My heart almost jumped into my throat.
“Jonas, don’t fucking move!” I hollered, eyes glued to the ground in front of him. He followed orders to a tee, freezing his foot inches above the ground. Lying just under the sole of his boot was a wire running from the warehouse to a detonator box resting at the forest edge. One whose lever was pressed down.
“Jesus Christ! Don’t fucking scare me like that. Though it was a landmine.” Jonas hollered as me and Nickerson set Rick down.
“Just move the fuck back and don’t say a word.” It was an old detonator. The kind they made us take apart and put back together in boot camp. The only reason it hadn’t blown anything sky-high was purely accidental. A twisted fire or a faulty connection. Something so simple to fuck up and just as easily corrected. Every shift in the gravel felt like it’d be the big one. The wires would line back up, and then, nothing. Wouldn’t even hear the blast. It was sheer good luck that got me close to the wire, a downright miracle when I managed to cut it.
“All clear,” I called back as I kicked the detonator away from the wire.
“The hell did they wire the place up to blow for?” Jonas asked.
“There must be something valuable in that warehouse. Something they really didn’t want us getting our hands-on.”
“Like gold?!” He sounded just a little too excited.
“Like medicine.”
“Oh…right. Was gonna say that next.”
“Just get the door open.”
While Jonas busied himself with that, I returned to the stretcher. Seeing Rick again, I stopped. Had he always been that pale?
“He’s bleeding out,” Nickerson said, reading my mind. “The fuck you expect him to look like?”
“Just get him inside.”
There was a lock on the front doors, but it didn’t take long for Jonas to work through them. The streets of Brooklyn had apparently “taught him a few things.” Stepping inside was like crossing into a whole other world. It was easily thirty degrees colder, and my breathing started fogging up in the air. There was little to no light at first, and even when Jonas managed to find a switch, we could barely see a thing. Couldn’t find any windows, and the lights we did have were sputtering out their last breaths. The air also didn’t sit right in my lungs. It felt heavy, as if I’d swallowed some of the shadows hanging in it. The smell was funny, too. Not that it was too dirtied. Hell, it wasn’t dirty enough. Every place you go has a little bit of a smell. Let’s you know it’s real. But this place, all the grime that sneaks in from the wild, had been sanitized and scrubbed out. And that was all before you’d take a look around the damn place.
The only normal things sat right in front of the doors. There was a small clutch of wooden tables, some of which were overturned, and atop of them were these scattered papers, all arranged in no discernable order. A few notes lay scattered around the ground, sprinkled amongst a chaotic array of footprints. Streaming off either side of the tables were rows upon rows of empty cots running parallel to the front wall. Even in the dark, I could see the bloodstains on their sheets.
The rest of the facility seemed to be full of the same thing: these big metal containers looking like something out of Flash Gordon. All sorts of tubes and wires ran in and out of the things, and they each gave off this low hum. There had been hundreds of the damn things lined up in isles that ran all the way to the back of the facility.
“Jonas, you know German, right?” I asked as I set Rick down in the middle of the tables.
“Yeah. What of it?”
“I want you to start translating this mess. Tell me what the hell’s going on here. Nickerson, with me.”
“What for?” Nickerson asked.
“You see any medical supplies around here?”
He didn’t answer and, shortly after, followed me deeper into the facility. We went slow at first. Every second, we kept expecting some German stay-behind to jump out from between whatever those iron crates were. Not that one ever did.
My attention turned to the crates before long. As we passed through dozens of the contraptions, I started making out a lot more of their features. There were doors on their fronts, big ones like the kind you’d see on battleships. Small circular windows had been placed at shoulder height, but we couldn’t see a damn thing through the shadows cast inside the containers.
“Any ideas?” Nickerson asked right as we started running out of containers to inspect. We needed a new approach. I swung my rifle over my arm and grabbed one of the containers by the handle. The metal was so cold it burned and left my palms feeling numb by the time I wrenched the door open.
“The fuck?! Are you in-“ Nickerson stopped the second the door opened. Either that or I wasn’t listening. I wouldn’t be surprised either way. Not with what lay in that fucking thing.
Thick blankets of smoke pale as snow drifted out as the door opened. We were taken aback by the stench of formaldehyde but got a damn good view of what was inside. The body was as fresh as I’d ever seen. Frost clung to its skin, and tubes burrowed into its arms. Not a scrap of clothing covered it, giving us an unobstructed view of its mutilated form. A patchwork of stitches crisscrossed it, and great, dark bruises stretched out from the marks. Pieces of it were missing too. It had a stump for a left arm that oozed a mix of puss and dead blood. Patches of skin had been lifted, leaving its blackened insides completely exposed. Judging by that and the smell, it must have been dead for a while. At least I pray it was.
“Jack, please tell me you’re also seeing that,” Nickerson said as we stared at the body in horror. I couldn’t answer him, not with my heart lodged in my throat like it was. Couldn’t just stand there either, staring at the corpse-like some frightened child. I rushed to another container and wrenched the door open. Like before, an icy gust blasted my face right before I saw yet another corpse. This one was marked with a different array of stitches and had both legs missing. The one after that had all its limbs, but the stomach was concave as if sinking into the gaping hole where its guts no longer were. It didn’t get much better from there.
They all had one. Every single container. Jesus, there must have been hundreds. And all of them were missing something. Arms, eyes, patches of skin, and entire organs, all harvested at random. I ran down the entire fucking row, and it was all the fucking same. It wasn’t a warehouse we’d stumbled on. It was a fucking crypt. That was getting obvious, but I kept going. There had to be one still alive. One I could save. Not that I ever found one. What I did stumble onto was far worse.
I ran down the row until arriving at the back of the facility. Was gonna dismiss it at first, but then I noticed there was no back wall. The warehouses used the sheer cliff face it was pressed up against instead. However, the weird part was that it wasn’t all made of rock.
In the dead center of the wall, nestled close to the floor, the rock had been chipped away to reveal a strange mound of flesh nestled just underneath. It looked like a wall of skin that disappeared behind the shell of stone that was the mountain. In the dead center and taking up the most space was a giant, fleshy slit. The sort that loosely resembled what every man hoped to come home to.
Seeing that, more than anything else, killed something in me. Emotion swelled up inside me, horror, confusion, and fear, past the point of a freakout and short-circuited me. I didn’t scream or run or even offer a “what the fuck.” All I could think to do was stare at the orifice. I wasn’t alone either. Nickerson walked up behind me and slowed as he took in the fleshy mound embedded in the wall. I didn’t see him or hear a word, but his silence told me everything. We stared at that wall for what felt like an eternity, silently asking ourselves the same questions.
It wasn’t until Jonas came marching back that we snapped out of our stupor. I didn’t hear him approach, only when he said, “Huh. That explains a few things.” Second I heard him, I spun around and grabbed him by the collar.
“The documents. The papers. What did you find?!” I didn’t mean to sound so angry. There was just nothing I could do to stop myself. Not after what I’d seen. Despite that, Jonas stood slacked-jawed and forced me to shake him like a bag of puppies.
“Jonas, what did you find!!!?”
“I-I don’t know! Most of it’s gibberish.” He looked over the flesh wall again. “Okay, most of it was gibberish.”
“What does that mean!?”
“I don’t fucking know! Here!!” He shoved some papers in my hands. “I wrote some of it down. Read it your-fucking-self.”
And read it I did. I can’t remember most of the details, but this is what those documents said:
Project Theseus Log #134
Date: ???
Today, we have confirmed that the Theseus orifice does indeed contain a rudimentary vaginal cavity complete with a cervix, uterus, and what we believe are fallopian tubes.
However, we have also noted it deviates from human anatomy in several key manners. The orifice and the surrounding flesh do not contain blood but rather a mix of [???] and heightened levels of growth hormones. It also seems to not contain egg cells, but a cell, unlike anything we have ever seen. Testing has proved difficult for any cell removed from the orifice will begin rapidly breaking down.
Project Theseus Log #154
Date: July 3rd, 1941
We have successfully introduced rabbit DNA into the orifice today. We extracted 30 gills of blood from Oswald, one of our test rabbits, and managed to introduce it into Theseus via syringe. Upon introduction, the Theseus orifice began convulsing for approximately two minutes. Once convulsions ceased, an adult male rabbit of the same species as Oswald emerged from the orifice. Upon testing, it was discovered the rabbit is perfectly healthy and contains no features that deviate from what one expects to occur in the species.
It should also be noted the rabbit bears a striking similarity to Oswald. Further testing required.
Project Theseus Log ???
???
We have successfully transplanted the legs from Replica O-34 onto its base counterpart, Base O. As predicted, the cells in Replica O-34 reacted when contact was made with cells bearing the same DNA and with a process similar to the Keloid formation, fused itself to the body of Base O. Base O has been observed moving the grafted limb with no significant deviation from its original limb.
Project Theseus Log #326
Date: December 21st, 1941
We received new orders from Central Command this morning. We are to cease any and all medicinal trials relating to Project Theseus and focus our efforts on, in the General’s own words, the mass production of Replica soldiers to be deployed to the front lines immediately.
Several members of Theseus staff have been escorted away for voicing criticism of this request. I do not expect to be hearing back from them.
Project Theseus Log #477
Date: ???
More news from the front lines. Another Replica soldier attempted to desert. When asked about his reasoning for this action, he had much to say.
A common complaint I have found amongst Replica soldiers is thus: They are perfect clones. They do not possess the mere physical traits of their Bases but their psychological framework and, most essentially, their memories. But only their Bases are permitted to go home. The Replicas appear to view this as “unfair,” and I do not blame them.
Project Theseus ???
Date: November 8th, 1943
As of today, there are no more Replica soldiers fighting in the Wehrmacht. We have been ordered to resume medicinal trials but for military purposes. We are to receive 300 models of the Reich’s latest cryogenic chambers. I believe they were created to preserve bodies for space flight, but I can not be certain. Once they arrive, we are to begin replicating a select number of elite German soldiers whom the Fuhrer has deemed “irreplaceable.”
The process will be simple. I’ve managed that, at least. Once the clones emerge, we’ll sever the spinal column before harvesting. It’ll be quick and painless.
I hope it’s enough to forgive me.
“See what I mean?” asked Jonas. My horror must have been written on my face.
“Are you sure you translated this correctly?”
“Translated what?” Nickerson soon snatched the papers out of my hands after asking.
“Jonas,” I started repeating. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure. And there’s more back at the table. I don’t know what those kraut bastards were doing here, but it couldn’t have been good.”
“Good?” Nickerson looked up from the papers, eyes swollen in shock. “Good?! This is…Jesus fuck, this shouldn’t be possible.”
“I don’t know, man.” Jonas gestured to the flesh wall. “That looks pretty possible.”
“Well, it’s not! It’s just some trick or-or…mirrors.”
“Mirrors?”
“Yeah! Like smoke and mirrors. Or maybe there’s something in the air.”
“There is nothing in the air.” I interrupted them. “Nor are there any mirrors.”
“Really now!” Nickerson pointed back at the flesh. “Maybe you’d care to explain the wall-gina, then.”
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t worth it with Nickerson. Besides, it wasn’t like I could answer. I had no idea what that thing was or how the hell the Germans managed to get a hold of it. But I knew what I had to do. We came there to help our friend, and I wasn’t leaving until I had.
There’d been a lot of close calls on our trek. Guess who was the one who had to fix them? I was wearing more of Rick’s blood than clothes at that point. Before anyone, even myself could stop me, I ripped off a stained stripe of my uniform and marched towards the orifice. I plunged my arms between the pink folds of flesh and buried the clothes deep inside. The flesh felt wrong. It was soft, almost like it wasn’t quite there. But there was this horrible heat to it. A pulse of warmth that came and went in rhythmic fashion. A suctioning sensation came when I plunged far enough inside and ripped the fabric out of my hand.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Nickerson pulled me back, ripping my arm from the fold, but it was too late.
The flesh began to quiver just as the notes had said, but there was more than that. The rockface groaned, sprinkles of stone falling from it, and the fold itself began to rapidly open and close like a chewing maw. Its movements sped up every second, and the wall shook just a little more. We all backed away, afraid the whole thing was gonna come down on top of us and not a moment too soon. The flesh began to swell until the folds broke open one last time, letting a body come spilling out from its depths.
Even with everything I had seen, I still didn’t believe my eyes. The flesh mound retreated back into the wall, leaving a full-grown man lying on the floor in a pile of amniotic fluid. He was naked as the day he was born and completely hairless, but even then, I could tell who it was. I thought he was dead until he gave a violent cough and vomited more of that fluid all over the floor. He then slowly pushed himself onto his feet and looked up at the three of us with new eyes.
“H-hey there, fella’s,” Rick said, dripping with amniotic fluid and shivering like a newborn lamb. “Wh…the heck’s goin’ on here?”
No one spoke for a while, even me. It really was Rick standing there in front of us. You never forget the face of a patient. Not out there. The only difference was that this Rick still had his arm. Noticing that made all the difference to me. I swung my gun up and aimed it right at this new Rick. It should have been easy. All I had to do was shoot. But then I saw him cringe and jump away from me as I aimed down my sights. Then I heard him begin Rick’s voice.
“Wow, wow, wow, wow! Don’t shoot! It’s me, guys! Really! Please, don’t shoot!!”
How could I have? What few people I’ve told this to, whether they believe me or not, all have the same thing: didn’t you know it wasn’t Rick? Truth be told, I’m not sure. Looking like him, that’s one thing. Being him was another.
Nickerson didn’t share my doubts. I saw the look in his eye as he readied his weapon. He wasn’t gonna hesitate, and I couldn’t object. What could I have even said? That this thing wasn’t actually Rick. Rick was bleeding out on a bedsheet strung between some twigs. Jonas, however, seemed to think otherwise.
Before Nickerson could fire, Jonas lept in front of the shivering Replica. “Calm down, guys! Put the guns down! We can’t just kill him.”
“Yes, we can. Now get out of the way!” Nickerson spat back, jabbing his gun forward for emphasis.
“Wait, what’s going on? Where am I?” Rick looked around. “When did we get here? And where are my clothes?”
“See?! It’s just some… some thing! It ain’t the real Rick!”
“What are you talkin’ ‘bout, Nickerson? I’m real! Look, ask me something only we’d know.”
“Don’t you get smart with me, you freak!”
“But he has a point,” Jonas interjected. “Ask him something.”
“Fuck you! You know that won’t work. It knows everything Rick does.”
“Ain’t that the point? There he has that Rick doesn’t.”
“An arm.” My words cut through the sizzling air. “He has an arm.”
The Replica swung his eyes all over the room in its panic. “Okay, seriously, guys. What is going on? The last thing I remember is an artillery run hittin’ us bad. Can someone fill me in from there? Why do y’all think I’m a fake. Do I look like some German to you?”
“See?!” Jonas cut in. “Rick, first day of boot camp. What’d we do to make the drill sergeant mad.”
“What the heck does that have to-“
“Just answer the question, Rick!”
“Okay, fine. And there was no we to that. Nickerson swiped the sergeant’s liquor supply and hid it in our bunks. And then we all ended up running laps around the camp the rest of the day.”
“The fuck does that have to do with anything,” Nickerson demanded, and Jonas was quick to reply.
“He remembers everything, Nick! In boot camp, on the front lines, even all those shitty nights we spent sleeping in dirt and eating worms!”
“That was Rick there with us! He fought with us! He almost died for us! And no copy freak can just take that away!”
“But it feels real to him! He cares about us in every way Rick does. We can’t just kill him!”
“But it was real for Rick! And this thing doesn’t get to just coast off of that! Now stand the fuck aside!”
“Seriously, will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on!” The Replica was on the brink of tears, and it was probably in the best shape. Nickerson was ready to shoot, and Jonas was ready to get shot. Me? Fuck, I could barely watch. Thinking about the clone was one thing, but seeing it, hearing its voice, and watching it cry and beg just like Rick was another thing. It wasn’t fake, either. I knew too much to think otherwise. It didn’t want to die here. It wasn’t to go home every bit as Rick did. And if a firefight ever broke out, I’m sure it would have fought with me all the same. It was Rick, and I swore I wouldn’t be the one to kill him.
But only one of them could go back home, and I could only forgive myself for killing one. Besides, it was just a Replica. You could always make another one.
His heart was in the right place, but Jonas wasn’t gonna stop me. He’d been careless in shouting at Nickerson, turning himself ever so slightly to face old Nick. From my angle, the shot was perfect. Before Jonas could think to stop me, I steadied my gun once again and aimed it right at that thing’s head. There was no reason for it to suffer.
It noticed in me, though, right at the end, and raised its hands up as it cried out, “Jack, please-“ I didn’t wait for it to finish. Couldn’t have fired if he had. Squeeze the trigger. Simple as that. Then it’s the bullets job. I hate to admit it, but I was relieved in the end. No longer did I have to worry about the decision. No use in that anymore. The deed was done. Now I had to live with it. Like a good soldier.
He died instantly. One bullet, clean through the head, and he just dropped. But the life didn’t leave his features. Not that it ever does. They say you can tell when a man passes. I say that nothing changes when they die. Their eyes still look out at you. Their face is just as full as ever. Makes it all go down easier in my experience. Not that I can say the same for others.
Jonas dove for the body as it hit the ground. Foolishly, though. He couldn’t have done much even if it was still alive. That’s what I was for, after all. I thought he’d scream, though. Seen a lot of soldiers do that at a loss. It’s just something you gotta do to get it all out of you. Not Jonas, though. He stared into those warm eyes, waiting. But nothing ever came.
“See?” Nickerson asked, not letting the silence settle. “It wasn’t Rick.”
Jonas didn’t even look up.
I lowered my gun and followed up, “Don’t worry, Jonas. You’d be crying if it really was him.” Not sure he believed me. Not sure it mattered. But a man was bleeding to death out there, and we had a job to do.
Jonas offered no protest as Nickerson, and I pulled the body out from under him. Didn’t help much either. He just stared down at the blood gathering on the floor. Nickerson wanted to scold him, I could see it, but I reeled him in before he did something he regretted. Surgery wasn’t so much of a hassle. Krauts had left enough equipment to make cutting up the body easy. Only reason it took so long was on me. Every time I cut into it, I could see Rick staring up at me from those all too alive eyes. Wish he came back just to say something. I didn’t care if he hated me either. What I couldn’t handle was the quiet and the wondering that came with it. What would he have said? I’ll never know.
Attaching the arm was just like the notes had described. I had to saw off a few bits of Rick to get the proportions right, but the new arm took like fish to water. The edges seemed to bleed together almost with all these sticky arms of flesh zig-zagged between the stumbles until a thick ring of scar tissue fused them together. Gotta hand it to those Germans. It really was a medical miracle. But not one I ever want to use again.
We buried the rest of the Replica somewhere out in the forest. Didn’t leave no marker or anything for it, though. No one wanted people to find out what happened. Not even Jonas. After that, we rolled Rick back onto the stretcher and made our way back onto the road. With Rick better, we started backtracking towards the main convoy. It may have taken fucking weeks, but we now had time to spare. He never woke up, though. Not until after we returned to the main convoy.
They had questions for us, naturally, but they didn’t get any answers. Most we told them was we’d been washed down river and got lost trying to find out way back to the main force. Rick was moved out to some hospital and honorably discharged a few days later. The rest of us, well, we were fucking heroes. At least according to everyone else. All they knew was that the three of us had walked halfway across Europe just to save our friends. With that in mind, I don’t blame them. Still can’t help but be a little angry, though. They relocated us to some coy outposts far from the fighting after that. After all, they can’t have their “heroes” shipped back to the slaughterhouse. And then, one year later, Berlin fell, and the war was over.
We’re all doing fine now. Don’t see a lot of each other anymore. Me and Nickerson sometimes meet up for a drink now and then, but neither of us has heard from Jonas in years. Rick reaches out from time to time, but we always find some excuse to not visit him. I tried to in the beginning. I really fucking tried. But every time I looked at him, I saw a different pair of eyes staring back at me.
Don’t know if they ever found the body. Damn sure what they did find. With everything that happened after the war, someone had to have stumbled across that facility. I like to think they blew that fucking place to hell. It helps me get through the day. But I’m dumb enough to actually believe it.
Lately, I’ve started thinking about that place and what we found in the walls. Did the Germans put it there, or had it always been hiding in the mountains? Are there more things like it? And that skin it stuck out of. Did it belong to something? I don’t think I’ll ever know those answers. But I can’t keep quiet about it any longer.
I was thinking one of you out there might know something about what we found. That’s what I tell myself, at least. Really, I think I just want to hear someone tell me the Germans were wrong. That those Replicas were just piles of meat trying to trick us. I think I could live with that. So if any of y’all know something, reach out. Please. Just tell me I was right.