Best thing to do would be to say nothing, let everyone else assume, and drive them nuts because you're obviously so good at spying that nobody ever catches you, because in reality you're not spying, but nobody believes it.
Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Best thing to do would be to say nothing, let everyone else assume, and drive them nuts because you're obviously so good at spying that nobody ever catches you, because in reality you're not spying, but nobody believes it.
Part 76, Chapter 1137
Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Seven
22nd June 1955
Berlin
The week after Anne’s twenty-sixth birthday had been both wonderful and exhausting. Her novel, Daughter of the Stone Forest, had been approved for publication and was going to print. The story was odd, a fantasy that had been inspired by a museum exhibit about Neolithic Europe she had seen and while under the influence of hashish. Judita had hashish proscribed to her by Doctor Brandt as a means to help her control her epilepsy but she had been reluctant to try it on her own. Anne and Asia had tried the drug with her, for moral support. They had spent the rest of the afternoon listening to records, and that was when Anne had started telling Asia and Judita about the story that was just rattling around in her head.
Later Anne had started typing up the outline of what would become the manuscript. Trying to get as much of it down as she could as she before she forgot it. It was totally unlike anything else that Anne had written before. Normally, she had tried to write realistic stories, even going for semi-autobiographical. Instead, she had written nearly a hundred thousand words about what she imagined the life of a woman living in what would one day be Pomerania would have been like. A woman whose life gets upended when a brain injury causes her to have visions of an impossible future. It had included details like magical realism and what was perceived as the actions of powers beyond mere mortals. While Anne had found it all a bit out there, the publisher had loved it.
Today, she had opened a package and saw an advanced copy of her novel. It was everything that she had ever wanted.
Peenemünde
“Try it again Kapitänleutnant” Albrecht heard the Director say through his headphones as he wondered for what must have been the thousandth time what the point of all this was. “See if you can best your previous time.”
He was working on a simple puzzle, or at least it would have been simple under other circumstances. Flipping three-way switches to get the right sequence of lights between red, green and amber. The bottom row had to match the top. The difficulty was that he was doing it while sitting in a contraption that was spinning around on more than one axis, and any time he shifted his weight it caused the spinning change in a random manner. He had also felt in his ears that the room had been depressurized, so that the air he was breathing was very thin. The first time that Albrecht had tried this he had been violently ill, so had everyone else who had tried it. Unlike a couple of the others, Albrecht had been able to adapt.
According the Program Director, Project Atgeir was on schedule. Increasingly, Albrecht saw it almost as a nuisance. It had taken him away from the pursuit of that British bomber that no one had been able to successfully intercept yet. He had been informed that he was the second alternate in the first launch. Meaning that it if the first pilot got scratched followed by the second, it would be Albrecht’s turn. He didn’t need to be told that the odds of that happening were next to nil. Still, he had needed to proceed as if he was first pilot. That included training lot what he was doing now and a lot of tests, both medical and psychological. Speaking of which…
“Kapitänleutnant von Richthofen” Albrecht heard the voice of one of the Psychologists say through the headphones. “You remember how word association works?”
“How could I forget?” Albrecht asked in reply only to get a long pause. “Proceed” He said with a bit of annoyance.
“Red” Came over the headphone.
“Amber” Albrecht replied. Let them chew on that one, he thought to himself. He was supposed to answer the questions with no thought, just to answer as quickly as possible.
“Dog?”
“Hydrant”
“Sky?”
“Rocket”
“Dragon?”
“Pops”
“Love?”
“Ilse” As soon as Albrecht said that he knew he’d made a mistake. He could hear the scribbling of the pen on paper over the intercom. His love life, or lack thereof, was none of their business.
“That will be all for now Kapitänleutnant” The Psychologist said, “Continue with the exercise.”
With that the pattern of lights abruptly changed and Albrecht started flipping the switches as rapidly as he could. It took a minute, but he got the pattern right and the spinning stopped.
“The exercise is over Kapitänleutnant” The Director said.
Albrecht sat there for a minute, his inner ears taking a minute to catch up with the lack of motion. He knew that this wasn’t a case of pass/fail. It wasn’t even a test. The idea was to create a trying situation where he had a task to complete with emotional and physical distractions. Knowing what the purpose was didn’t make it any less aggravating.
“You had better not have puked in there” Albrecht heard a voice say as the door to the airlock swung open.
Hauptmann Dunst, the golden boy of the Luftwaffe and slated to be the first man in space.
“You’re just mad because I always hog the biggest bits” Albrecht replied.
Dunst flipped Albrecht an obscene gesture as he climbed into the simulator. With nothing else to do, Albrecht closed the door and waited for the pressure to equalize with the outside world.
22nd June 1955
Berlin
The week after Anne’s twenty-sixth birthday had been both wonderful and exhausting. Her novel, Daughter of the Stone Forest, had been approved for publication and was going to print. The story was odd, a fantasy that had been inspired by a museum exhibit about Neolithic Europe she had seen and while under the influence of hashish. Judita had hashish proscribed to her by Doctor Brandt as a means to help her control her epilepsy but she had been reluctant to try it on her own. Anne and Asia had tried the drug with her, for moral support. They had spent the rest of the afternoon listening to records, and that was when Anne had started telling Asia and Judita about the story that was just rattling around in her head.
Later Anne had started typing up the outline of what would become the manuscript. Trying to get as much of it down as she could as she before she forgot it. It was totally unlike anything else that Anne had written before. Normally, she had tried to write realistic stories, even going for semi-autobiographical. Instead, she had written nearly a hundred thousand words about what she imagined the life of a woman living in what would one day be Pomerania would have been like. A woman whose life gets upended when a brain injury causes her to have visions of an impossible future. It had included details like magical realism and what was perceived as the actions of powers beyond mere mortals. While Anne had found it all a bit out there, the publisher had loved it.
Today, she had opened a package and saw an advanced copy of her novel. It was everything that she had ever wanted.
Peenemünde
“Try it again Kapitänleutnant” Albrecht heard the Director say through his headphones as he wondered for what must have been the thousandth time what the point of all this was. “See if you can best your previous time.”
He was working on a simple puzzle, or at least it would have been simple under other circumstances. Flipping three-way switches to get the right sequence of lights between red, green and amber. The bottom row had to match the top. The difficulty was that he was doing it while sitting in a contraption that was spinning around on more than one axis, and any time he shifted his weight it caused the spinning change in a random manner. He had also felt in his ears that the room had been depressurized, so that the air he was breathing was very thin. The first time that Albrecht had tried this he had been violently ill, so had everyone else who had tried it. Unlike a couple of the others, Albrecht had been able to adapt.
According the Program Director, Project Atgeir was on schedule. Increasingly, Albrecht saw it almost as a nuisance. It had taken him away from the pursuit of that British bomber that no one had been able to successfully intercept yet. He had been informed that he was the second alternate in the first launch. Meaning that it if the first pilot got scratched followed by the second, it would be Albrecht’s turn. He didn’t need to be told that the odds of that happening were next to nil. Still, he had needed to proceed as if he was first pilot. That included training lot what he was doing now and a lot of tests, both medical and psychological. Speaking of which…
“Kapitänleutnant von Richthofen” Albrecht heard the voice of one of the Psychologists say through the headphones. “You remember how word association works?”
“How could I forget?” Albrecht asked in reply only to get a long pause. “Proceed” He said with a bit of annoyance.
“Red” Came over the headphone.
“Amber” Albrecht replied. Let them chew on that one, he thought to himself. He was supposed to answer the questions with no thought, just to answer as quickly as possible.
“Dog?”
“Hydrant”
“Sky?”
“Rocket”
“Dragon?”
“Pops”
“Love?”
“Ilse” As soon as Albrecht said that he knew he’d made a mistake. He could hear the scribbling of the pen on paper over the intercom. His love life, or lack thereof, was none of their business.
“That will be all for now Kapitänleutnant” The Psychologist said, “Continue with the exercise.”
With that the pattern of lights abruptly changed and Albrecht started flipping the switches as rapidly as he could. It took a minute, but he got the pattern right and the spinning stopped.
“The exercise is over Kapitänleutnant” The Director said.
Albrecht sat there for a minute, his inner ears taking a minute to catch up with the lack of motion. He knew that this wasn’t a case of pass/fail. It wasn’t even a test. The idea was to create a trying situation where he had a task to complete with emotional and physical distractions. Knowing what the purpose was didn’t make it any less aggravating.
“You had better not have puked in there” Albrecht heard a voice say as the door to the airlock swung open.
Hauptmann Dunst, the golden boy of the Luftwaffe and slated to be the first man in space.
“You’re just mad because I always hog the biggest bits” Albrecht replied.
Dunst flipped Albrecht an obscene gesture as he climbed into the simulator. With nothing else to do, Albrecht closed the door and waited for the pressure to equalize with the outside world.
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Or end up as a Human Candle because the Golden Boy was too prideful and arrogant to stop the launch due to an anomalous smell in the cockpit, one that Albrecht would have pulled off immediately when detecting it......
Or simply be the "Golden Boy" because he notices those kind of details. He might be competent even if he's not a von Richthofen...
Part 76, Chapter 1138
Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Eight
4th July 1955
Berlin
“If only my Doctor looked like Doctor Brauer there” Frau Nagler said as the credits rolled at the end of the show, “A very handsome young man.”
“Young?” Kiki asked, “He’s what, forty?”
“That’s young to me dear” Frau Nagler replied.
They were watching a medical drama set in the Casualty Department and Wards of the very hospital that they were sitting in. The fictional Doctor Brauer was an Emergency Surgeon who gave everything to his career. It was noticeable to Kiki that the character was a complete wreck in every respect that didn’t involve being a Surgeon. Frau Nagler didn’t care about that though. The dramatic music, the feeling of excitement and certainty that only a writer could come up with and an actor portray were all she cared about. From what Kiki had seen from around the hospital in the short time she had been volunteering, Doctors frequently had to make educated guesses and run tests to figure out what was going on without doing further harm to the patient. It was a process that often took hours or even days and would have made for terrible television.
“That is what you want to be Kiki?” Frau Nagler asked, “A Surgeon?”
“Eventually” Kiki replied, “I just want to find a way to help.”
“That is really wonderful” Frau Nagler said, “When I was your age, we simply were not given so many options. You truly are blessed.”
With that, the Evening News came on and the lead story was about the peace talks that Kiki’s father was trying to arrange. There Louis Ferdinand was with Freddy at his right hand as they greeted the Turkish President as he got off an airplane.
“Speaking of handsome young men” Frau Nagler said, “Prince Friedrich is closer to your age.”
Kiki almost voiced her disgust at that. The brother with a fat head who called her Whippet all the time was Princess Kristina’s problem, here she was just Kiki von Fischer.
“He’s not my type” Kiki replied and left it at that. If Kiki was being entirely honest, she didn’t have the first clue if she even had a type. She just knew that every boy she met her own age were either bores or they talked endlessly about things that she had no interest in. It got even worse if they knew who she was. That was when the inane questions started.
“His father though is an odd duck, good Emperor though. For all our sakes I hope he lives to a ripe old age” Frau Nagler said, “I remember what happened to Friedrich, his great grandfather, the poor man. He died after only a few months and his son was never quite right for the job. The world would be a very different place today if he had lived.”
Kiki found it a bit amusing that Frau Nagler called her father an odd duck. It was as good a way to describe him as any. A newspaper editorial cartoon had once depicted him as a heron, but that didn’t seem to fit quite right. Kiki had to take Frau Nagler’s word about her family history. She knew that she could look it up easily, but Kiki also knew that the history books were not always the most reliable sources of information. Kiki’s mother remembered Wilhelm the 2nd as a sad old man defeated by time, the history books had said something else entirely.
The next story came on the news, this one detailing how the massive construction site in Tempelhof was snarling regional traffic.
“If you could change the channel please” Frau Nagler said, “There must be something better on.”
Kiki wasn’t inclined to disagree.
----------------------------------------------------------------
When Nancy arrived home, she found that a note had been dropped in the mailbox of the house. It clearly had not come through the mail, instead it was a plain white envelop with her name written on it. Nancy recognized the handwriting as belonging to someone who had been a friend at the Vienna Embassy when she had still worked with the State Department. It warned Nancy that she should be advised that entering any properties of the United States Government including Embassies and Consulates would be unwise. While no one knew what was going to happen if Nancy did that, the powers that be in State were not people she should trust to act in good faith. While she had not actually broken any laws someone very high up was angry with her, someone who no one dared to cross. Kat had said that when she learned what Nancy was doing, she had feared that something like this might happen.
Looking out her bedroom window. She saw the street out front, the leaves on the trees and a woman walking a dog. It could have been a side street in any city that Nancy had ever lived in, but there was something unique about it. She liked the place that she had ended up. At the same time the thought kept rolling through her head was an observation that Asia had made, the relationship that she had with the country of her birth was like an emotionally abusive spouse after a nasty breakup. They had done everything they could to force Nancy out. Now that she was gone, they were still making things difficult because of hard feelings.
4th July 1955
Berlin
“If only my Doctor looked like Doctor Brauer there” Frau Nagler said as the credits rolled at the end of the show, “A very handsome young man.”
“Young?” Kiki asked, “He’s what, forty?”
“That’s young to me dear” Frau Nagler replied.
They were watching a medical drama set in the Casualty Department and Wards of the very hospital that they were sitting in. The fictional Doctor Brauer was an Emergency Surgeon who gave everything to his career. It was noticeable to Kiki that the character was a complete wreck in every respect that didn’t involve being a Surgeon. Frau Nagler didn’t care about that though. The dramatic music, the feeling of excitement and certainty that only a writer could come up with and an actor portray were all she cared about. From what Kiki had seen from around the hospital in the short time she had been volunteering, Doctors frequently had to make educated guesses and run tests to figure out what was going on without doing further harm to the patient. It was a process that often took hours or even days and would have made for terrible television.
“That is what you want to be Kiki?” Frau Nagler asked, “A Surgeon?”
“Eventually” Kiki replied, “I just want to find a way to help.”
“That is really wonderful” Frau Nagler said, “When I was your age, we simply were not given so many options. You truly are blessed.”
With that, the Evening News came on and the lead story was about the peace talks that Kiki’s father was trying to arrange. There Louis Ferdinand was with Freddy at his right hand as they greeted the Turkish President as he got off an airplane.
“Speaking of handsome young men” Frau Nagler said, “Prince Friedrich is closer to your age.”
Kiki almost voiced her disgust at that. The brother with a fat head who called her Whippet all the time was Princess Kristina’s problem, here she was just Kiki von Fischer.
“He’s not my type” Kiki replied and left it at that. If Kiki was being entirely honest, she didn’t have the first clue if she even had a type. She just knew that every boy she met her own age were either bores or they talked endlessly about things that she had no interest in. It got even worse if they knew who she was. That was when the inane questions started.
“His father though is an odd duck, good Emperor though. For all our sakes I hope he lives to a ripe old age” Frau Nagler said, “I remember what happened to Friedrich, his great grandfather, the poor man. He died after only a few months and his son was never quite right for the job. The world would be a very different place today if he had lived.”
Kiki found it a bit amusing that Frau Nagler called her father an odd duck. It was as good a way to describe him as any. A newspaper editorial cartoon had once depicted him as a heron, but that didn’t seem to fit quite right. Kiki had to take Frau Nagler’s word about her family history. She knew that she could look it up easily, but Kiki also knew that the history books were not always the most reliable sources of information. Kiki’s mother remembered Wilhelm the 2nd as a sad old man defeated by time, the history books had said something else entirely.
The next story came on the news, this one detailing how the massive construction site in Tempelhof was snarling regional traffic.
“If you could change the channel please” Frau Nagler said, “There must be something better on.”
Kiki wasn’t inclined to disagree.
----------------------------------------------------------------
When Nancy arrived home, she found that a note had been dropped in the mailbox of the house. It clearly had not come through the mail, instead it was a plain white envelop with her name written on it. Nancy recognized the handwriting as belonging to someone who had been a friend at the Vienna Embassy when she had still worked with the State Department. It warned Nancy that she should be advised that entering any properties of the United States Government including Embassies and Consulates would be unwise. While no one knew what was going to happen if Nancy did that, the powers that be in State were not people she should trust to act in good faith. While she had not actually broken any laws someone very high up was angry with her, someone who no one dared to cross. Kat had said that when she learned what Nancy was doing, she had feared that something like this might happen.
Looking out her bedroom window. She saw the street out front, the leaves on the trees and a woman walking a dog. It could have been a side street in any city that Nancy had ever lived in, but there was something unique about it. She liked the place that she had ended up. At the same time the thought kept rolling through her head was an observation that Asia had made, the relationship that she had with the country of her birth was like an emotionally abusive spouse after a nasty breakup. They had done everything they could to force Nancy out. Now that she was gone, they were still making things difficult because of hard feelings.
And six years before Ben Casey!
Next hit medical show will, of course, feature a doktor Haus...
They are discouraged from doing so. That doesn't mean they always listen.
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Ohhh Boy... Someone needs to talk the Americans off this ledge, this is what is going to push Nancy in fully renouncing her US citizenship.
While I don't have exact knowledge in the process of Americans renouncing their citizenship, I believe that the person has to go to the American Embassy and swear out an affidavit in front of an American Consular or Embassy official and then get consoled in what the effects of that action and then the person has to turn in their passport.
I also believe if an American citizen accepts a title of Nobility from a Foreign power they automictically lose their citizenship.
While I don't have exact knowledge in the process of Americans renouncing their citizenship, I believe that the person has to go to the American Embassy and swear out an affidavit in front of an American Consular or Embassy official and then get consoled in what the effects of that action and then the person has to turn in their passport.
I also believe if an American citizen accepts a title of Nobility from a Foreign power they automictically lose their citizenship.
FBKampfer
Banned
Losing Nancy would be regrettable, but so long as they don't invade Germany to force her extradition, they're perfectly within their rights to do this.
Hell, they're allowed to gun her down without warning if she steps in an embassy.
And Germany would be in the wrong to do anything to prevent this.
Its called sovereignty folks. Just because the US trampled all over it IOTL wouldn't justify Germany doing it ITTL.
Hell, they're allowed to gun her down without warning if she steps in an embassy.
And Germany would be in the wrong to do anything to prevent this.
Its called sovereignty folks. Just because the US trampled all over it IOTL wouldn't justify Germany doing it ITTL.
The US (or any nation for that matter) are not allowed to just gun down people if they enter an embassy or consulate. That is simply not true and was never true. Otherwise the world would be a very amusing (amusing like a very dark comedy) place.
And Germany (and any other nation) has every right in the world to prevent such a crime from occurring. Not only has a nation a responsibility for its citizens but also for its alien residents. Any nation that allows a murder just to happen is losing it’s credibility and especially no great power will ever allow such a thing.
Sovereignty ends at the border. And embassies and consulates are not sovereign territory of the guest nation. The laws of the host nation always apply. Inviolability only means that the host nation can’t enter the diplomatic premise without consent of the guest nation.
Also iirc „inviolability“ was only codified in OTLs 1961 Vienna Convention. I don’t know what’s the state of diplomatic relations / treaties regarding diplomatic relations ITTL.