Jakob entered the same small room as before, again watching the reporter from behind. Hands and wrists bound, Meier stared ahead in a daze. He was coming awake as the drug wore off.
“Just my fucking luck. Boy, am I lucky I got my hands on you, you little motherfucker-” He said, walking around the chair. Meier brought his head up to look at Jakob, then it flopped back down again weakly. “You know what I’m going to do to you? Huh? Do you?” He asked, kicking the wounded leg. Meier clenched back a scream and panted through his nose. When he could manage, he spoke calmly.
“Diligent, my Kaiser. Diligent. We’ll all be diligent around here. That’s our job.”
Hitler stood back, bringing his boot down.
“Why did you double-cross me? Did you think you could get away with telling the press?”
“I told them just the same. Now they know. Now the whole world knows.”
“It’s not going to help you, kid. You’re trying to tear down a gigantic empire here, and it’s going to take more than a few headlines.”
“It is more than a few headlines. Imagine the audience’s reaction. You haven’t seen them, have you? I have. My wife.”
“Your wife is dead.”
Hitler was calm about it. He looked Meier directly in the eyes and remained quiet, almost as if out of respect for the dead.
“Marie.”
“My men waited for you to pull the three million out of the account. You shouldn’t have told her. They were looking for anyone who tried to get the money, and she was the one.
Meier sat stonily. He showed no reaction to the news, only twisted his hand in the rope naturally, almost as if he were scratching it.
“So, I guess that’s that.”
“No, that is not that.”
“Oh, and your kids are safe, by the way. They were with the mother, and my men decided to spare them. Be thankful my men were disobedient.”
Meier closed his eyes slowly.
“Now comes the hard part. We’re going to have to do a little magic.” He reached over, snapped, and a guard entered with a small device. It was handed over and the guard made to leave when Jakob held him back by the shoulder.
“You see this, Horst? This is an electric unit. When completed, electricity passes through whatever is in the way. As long as it connects.” The small box hummed slightly. “Let me demonstrate.” He swiftly held the two electrodes up to one of the guard’s biceps and the hum turned into a sputtering zap as 300 volts were passed through the muscle. The man cringed in pain, working his jaw, and straightened again. Jakob raised the voltage to 500 volts. “When you discovered the underground weaponry storage, when you were taken hostage and I questioned you, when you returned and printed a lie to all of Germany and when you went into hiding, did you ever, at any time, question my Empire?”
“Yes.”
Slowly and deliberately, Jakob leaned forward and stabbed Meier with the two electrodes. He cried out in reflex and twisted his wrists against the ropes. Two teardrops formed at his eyelids and slipped. Jakob waited in silence while fondling the instrument.
“Tomorrow we’re going to have to do a little magic. You’re going to suddenly change and love me for everything that I’ve done for you. Then you’re going to address the Union. What will you say?”
“Deutschland, Amerika, Italien, abspaltet euch von der Vereinigung!” [“Germany, America, Italy, secede from the Union!”]
Again Jakob pressed the electrodes into Meier’s neck and he passed out. A guard stood by at attention, sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his face back to the front when Jakob turned from his victim.
“I want you to continue working on him. Notify me when he breaks. When he passes out like this, revive him and torture him some more.”
“Ja, Herr Kaiser.”

Two in the morning, Jakob was called down to the small white room. Meier leaned out of the chair and would have fallen forward onto his head if he weren’t bound to the chair. His head drooped, dripping blood out of the symmetric holes on either side of his scalp. Several torture devices had been used and discarded in corners of the room. Meier wept silently at the floor. Tears and blood ran together. Jakob flicked a hand and the guard left the two men alone. He observed blood over the floor and splashed on the walls. The reporter’s body was wasted. Tomorrow for the speech he’d have to be strung up like a puppet.
Just like a puppet.
“Herr Meier, have you decided to join us now?”
“Ja, Herr Kaiser. Ich liebe Sie.” [“Yes, my Kaiser. I love you.”]
“Wieder.” [“Again.”]
“Ich liebe Sie.” [“I love you.”]
“Wieder!” [“Again!”]
“Ich l-” He fainted from the effort.

Several eagles flapped on their perches, at times dislodging and soaring like bombers over the crowd. Thousands of people had come. Cameras, gammaphones, and, most importantly, reporters, all had come to see the blasphemer repent. Directly on time, Jakob appeared at the podium and waved at the cheering masses. Meier stood at another podium. From the front they couldn’t have possibly seen. From the back however, the politicians and guards remained silent while watching the metal framework supporting the body. Straps and clasps tied Meier’s legs, waste and torso to a small metal skeleton. To keep his head up straight, his pony-tail was clasped tightly. The framework was so well hidden that it was barely visible even from the side. His clothing covered the majority of the thin bloody pipes. The blood was cleared from the front and the stitches were either cleverly camouflaged or covered by hair. His eyes roamed the crowd and followed the eagles. The graceful and majestic symbols were actually circling about to look for food, to Meier’s amusement. Their sphincters were tied so that they wouldn’t defecate on the audience while being admired.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
“My people,” Jakob began, “there has arisen a man in my eye who is honorable. Although he lives to spite our world, and though he is a liar, he has had a wise change of heart. My men laid a path before him and he has chosen to follow. He has come before you today to make a statement about his actions as a reporter.”
Jakob turned to Meier, a hopeful glint in his eye.
“Horst, will you join us?”
Meier was silent for a total of ten seconds but to Jakob it was ten years. Meier noticed that the audience had died for those three seconds as well. After his torture it was difficult to move his jaw and it seemed less important to speak. However, as he was being heard, he so he would speak.
“Deutschland, Amerika, Italien, abspaltet euch von der Vereinigung!” He suddenly shrieked into the gammaphone. Feedback rose out of the speakers but was drowned in yelling of outrage from the crowd. Hitler froze, staring at Meier. Billions of people straightened up in front of their televisions in either revulsion or laughter. The three countries’ populations were silent and thinking.

In a numb, cold, dark place, deep within the most powerful and corrupt of forces, Horst Meier and his children were put to death.

After 35 years of technological advancement, the newspaper never died away. Its widespread use across the world was more of a continuing tradition than anything else, but still an efficient way of spreading the news. Thousands of factories throughout the world all issued similar versions of the story. In one week the whole world knew about it. Some didn’t acknowledge it. Many defended it.
Three countries drew the line. Germany, America and Italy formed the Triple Alliance against the rest of the world and officially seceded from the World Union.
“If the Union can arm itself against its own people, then its people can arm themselves against the Union, and if we are forbidden this right, then we are no longer people of the Union,” was the three countries’ reasoning. In the summer of 2037, the Emperor made a statement over the gamma-ray television.
“I am not addressing my Union, my peaceful world, or my eagle. I am addressing three unions within a union, three rebels who insist on relying on weaponry instead of peace to survive. I am addressing three countries that are stuck in the past. I am pleading and praying for those three countries to accept the future, to accept the fact that the rest of the world is moving on.”
President Sinclair sat at the edge of his couch, his forearms on his knees and a glass in his hands. His wife was near him, watching nervously as he rotated the glass between his giant palms. An agent crossed to the television and clicked it off. The family sat around in silence.
“He’s good. Boy, he’s really good.”
“Honey, it’s just PR-”
“No, it’s not just PR. The World Union is now going to take us on. And we’re going to take on the whole world.” He stared ahead at the blank television, rocking slowly from side to side as his wife caressed one shoulder.
“Come on, be serious. We’re not going to go to war against the entire world-”
“Yes, that’s where we’re going. That’s where we’ve been going for the past seventeen years.”

Germany, Italy and America immediately rebuilt their national defense in the army, navy and airforce. All three added together, there was a tremendous effort which resulted in staggering numbers. As it turned out, none of the three countries (and many more outside of the Triple Alliance) had never completely disarmed themselves out of doubt in the World Union’s power. The Word Union itself never disarmed as well, and its supply was a huge collection of other countries’ weaponry. The ICBMs (Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles) and nuclear warheads were not destroyed in space, and were never monitored so were added to the underground collection in Vietnam. The majority of the destruction of weaponry had been assumed through false news coverage. All this was made clear by the Triple Alliance’s news coverage, this time with proof. Photos and filming revealed the immense storage under the four cities.
The hostilities began when the World Union took 57 reporters and marines hostage. America and Germany responded with threats. The Union responded with 57 publicized deaths. The Triple Alliance bombed Hanoi, and the Union bombed Stuttgart.
World War Three had begun.

-Samantha Hardeskey