Chapter 442: Athena
In a quiet, small courtyard, an old man with an afro sat on a sofa, his eyes downcast and silent. His hands were clasped over his stomach, and he sat with perfect posture. The room was extremely quiet, and the ticking of the wall clock could be heard.
Of course, he was not alone in the room. Opposite him sat a woman as beautiful as a goddess. If Mercedes’s looks could be rated a 98, then the woman with curly black hair sitting before him was at least a 95. She wore a black, form-fitting long dress that made her smooth cheeks look even fairer, reminiscent of solidified lard, translucent and crystalline.
“You are ‘Athena’?” Einstein asked. He was wearing a white lab coat; he despised the German SS uniform. Although the SS had issued the German scientist a major general’s uniform, he had never worn it—not in public, and not even in private.
“Yes, I am that Athena,” the woman said with a nod and a smile. “A British spy, under orders to make contact with you.”
“I am a German. Aren’t you afraid I will report you? You know the SS has been rounding up British spies. It’s not often one walks right into our hands like this… Judging by your status, you must be a commander, at least?” Einstein said calmly.
“Pfft…” The beautiful woman burst into laughter, blooming like a radiant flower. She was so captivating that one couldn’t bear to harm her in the slightest. “You truly are a great scientist who is solely devoted to science… In our line of work, we call it a handler, not a commander.”
“Why did you risk coming to find me?” Einstein asked, clearly uninterested in the terminology of espionage, his voice still calm.
“Because I want to help you escape this cage,” the woman called Athena said with a smile.
“I am very free. This is no cage. I’m afraid you will be disappointed,” Einstein replied.
“Oh? For you personally, this is indeed no cage. One could even say it is a paradise where you can do as you please,” Athena said, looking around. “It’s very free here, isn’t it? But this place cannot satisfy your yearning for science, nor can it satisfy your desire for human progress!”
“This is the most advanced scientific laboratory in the world! The theories here are the most advanced in the world! You could say this is the future of human science and technology! Why should I leave here and go with you?” Einstein said, pointing to the German temple of technology outside.
“But what is being developed here is not the technology you aspire to… This place only produces weapons of war that will lead humanity to its doom! These are the things you detest, are they not?” Athena challenged.
Einstein’s voice dropped, defeated. “I am a German. Where else can I go but here?”
“You belong to the world! Not just to Germany! We know that your position as the Director of German Science and Technology Development is not an easy one. The Führer, Akado, is already dissatisfied with your passive work attitude, and the SS is investigating your friends and relatives. If you continue to work here, you will be killed by them sooner or later!” Athena said, frowning as she tried to persuade him.
“In fact, if you hadn’t contacted me ten days ago, I was already prepared to burn all my research data at the end of March and wait for him to come for me,” Einstein said with a sigh and a small smile. “In the end, it is I who have let him down. It was he who funded me and helped me through difficult times. It was he who gave me much advice and helped me perfect my theories. And yet, at a time like this, I must stab this young man in the back.”
At this, he gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Heh, is he still young? Not so young anymore. I am already a 59-year-old man, and you must be approaching 40, right? I really miss the days when you and I would discuss atomic theory on the lounge chairs…”
Athena stood up. “In that case, Mr. Einstein, I will go and prepare our escape route. You will be taken directly by ship to Canada, where many scientists will be waiting to welcome you.”
“Alright. I will wait for your news,” Einstein said with a nod. “But I have already made my intentions clear to you. Just as I am unwilling to create more weapons of killing for Germany, I will not help the British either. I will only be responsible for research on civilian projects, and I will not leak a single scientific or technical parameter that I have learned in Germany.”
“Rest assured… Mr. Einstein. We are fighting for world peace, not like that warmonger Akado!” Athena replied with a smile.
Once we get you to Canada, it’ll be a different story! Even if we have to use a crowbar, we have ways to pry open your mouth! If you didn’t know so many of the Germans’ secrets, we really wouldn’t want to remove you from this position. Who would have thought that your stubbornness would slow down the progress of Germany’s high-end science and technology, buying us so much time? Just you wait for your reward, hmph.
While Einstein was meeting with Athena, Akado was inspecting his “Dragon’s Lair” on the other side of the Berlin suburbs. In fact, as early as 1935, Akado had grown dissatisfied with Einstein’s passive-aggressive compliance and had secretly established another German military science academy, which he personally named the Dragon’s Lair.
This was the true home of Germany’s latest scientific and military technology. Unlike the research base run by Einstein, here, almost all research projects prioritized the needs of the German military. Some of Germany’s most advanced scientific research, such as atomic energy research, was conducted here. In fact, Germany was far ahead of what Einstein knew in fields like radio radar waves and even jet engines. At the very least, Germany’s first experimental aircraft equipped with radar had already been born here.
However, Akado was still more focused on the mainstream projects of future technological progress, such as rocket projects, jet engine projects, infrared development projects, and composite materials projects. Once the results of these experiments could be popularized within the German army, the model of future warfare would change again, and Germany could maintain its military-technological advantage and win key wars in the future.
“Maintain secrecy! This is a secret base that not even Brauchitsch knows about. In all of Germany, only August, Krupp, and a few others besides myself know of your existence,” Akado said to one of the heads of the facility.
“Yes, my Führer. Most of the base is built underground, utilizing parts of Berlin’s air-raid shelters. Every entrance and exit requires passing through five security checkpoints. The core areas can only be entered with your direct order. It is, you could say, foolproof.”
Akado waved his hand, cutting off his subordinate. “Nothing is foolproof! What we must do is to continuously improve the defensive measures here and absolutely not allow anyone to infiltrate this place!”
“Yes, my Führer,” the man in charge replied, standing at attention.
“Our opponents are also constantly making progress. After being caught off guard by us, they are already showing signs of catching up in some areas. The SS found an unfinished radar station in Britain. These radar stations were nearing completion, which means the British have this technology, have already completed the theoretical research, and are rushing to deploy their radar system.”
“So quickly?” the man in charge asked with a frown, surprised, as if he couldn’t believe the British already had a mature radar system ready for deployment.
“And they’re even faster in other areas! They are even ahead of us in computer development! This is not a good sign. In some mathematical fields, especially in breaking our codes, they are sparing no effort,” Akado said as he walked forward.
“With all due respect, my Führer, our military code ‘Mystery’ is impossible to break. It is a perfect encryption system. Our own code-breaking team once tried to break this code and was forced to give up,” the man in charge said, clearly very confident in the German military’s code system.
Akado stopped and turned to stare at him. “Confidence is sometimes a good quality, and sometimes it’s the act of an idiot! If you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes, would you believe that a rocket could be fired from Berlin to London? If you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes, would you believe that the error of our radar-guided fire control system for anti-aircraft guns is now less than 15 meters?”
As he spoke, he pointed to a very slender aircraft that was being assembled not far away. “If not for the continuous exploration and efforts of our scientists, would you believe that a fighter jet could fly at a speed of 700 kilometers per hour?”
“I apologize, my Führer! I was blindly confident,” the man in charge said, bowing his head to admit his mistake. “I will go to the mathematics department at once and have them speed up the development of a new code.”
“Developing multiple codes is just a stopgap measure. Once a device like a ‘computer’ is invented, no matter how many codes you have, they will be nothing more than decorations,” Akado said, clasping his hands behind his back as he looked at the new experimental fighter being assembled. “We must be at the forefront of the world, because if we are ever caught up, then everything here will be nothing more than a castle in the air.”
He murmured softly, and no one around him could hear what he was saying. But he himself knew that he was indeed speaking, speaking words that should have been said to a certain person: “You don’t know how much I truly admire you, how much I want to advance human technology together with you. But if you stand against me, then I will have no choice but to kill you. Because you have betrayed your own people. To Germany, you are not as good as Seeckt, not as good as Karl Benz, not even as good as Hitler…”
Published: 2025-08-25T04:10:01.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-11-11T13:57:13.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c442-athena-137276114
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