Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

It's a pity that Louis can't have them both locked in a small room equipped with CCTV, toss in a single, loaded pistol (one round; blank) & tell them the survivor gets to fight Kat in hand-to-hand combat. The resulting melee should be immensely entertaining.
LOVE the visual!
 
That would just lead to both of them sitting in separate corners sulking.

It must be the loser who will fight Kat. And they will be given blunt singlesticks.
 
Part 104, Chapter 1677
Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Seven



26th February 1965

Mitte, Berlin

As this continued, Jo was getting a picture of just how naïve Suse Rosa was. To her, going on pretend dates with Manny was an easy way to have a bit of fun and for perhaps the first time that she could recall, Suse didn’t have her mother on her back. They would go to the cinema or one of the dances that were being held throughout the city this time of year, perhaps get a bite to eat along the way.

What Suse wasn’t taking into consideration was that her being regularly seen with Manny in social and public settings. As in Freiherr Manfred von Mischner, the grandson of Graf Manfred von Richthofen and nephew of Fürstin Katherine von Mischner zu Berlin. It was something that everyone was taking note of. Suse was the granddaughter of Ritter von Wolvogle, legendary Knight of the Black Eagle. It took far less than that to get gossip’s tongues wagging. And it wasn’t just Suse’s mother, but the whole of Berlin society that would be looking to have her fitted with a wedding dress if they got the wrong idea.

There was also the personal aspect as well.

Suse had never been in a relationship of any kind before. Despite her protestations, they would have to see exactly how fake the relationship was when Manny was his usual oblivious self at some point in the future. He took the whole thing about the two of them just being friends for exactly that, which was the problem. A couple years earlier, Jo had found herself having a schoolgirl crush on Manny and because there were other girls around, she had found herself jealously attacking them. Mostly verbally but physically once as well. Jo was still embarrassed by the memory of her behavior and she hoped that she had outgrown it.

Still, she worried about Suse.

Simply put, Jo had not behaved like herself during that time because she had lacked understanding of what had been happening. Suse had not learned that understanding yet and she had always been more of a fighter than Jo ever was. So when, not if, that happened there would very likely be blood on the floor before Manny realized whether Suse actual had feelings for him.

This afternoon, they were sitting in a clubhouse that was provided for the youth wing of one of the political parties that Aunt Marcella was a prominent member of. Manny had grabbed bottles of orange Fanta from the refrigerator before he had started trying to teach Suse how to play pinball. There were few other boys their age around. However, as Jo had discovered over the previous couple years whenever she tried to talk to them, they would just nervously stare at their shoes and make excuses to be elsewhere. Aunt Marcella said that it was because she was an extremely beautiful young woman and even if that wasn’t intimidating enough, everyone knew that she was Kat’s ward.

So, Jo had nothing to distract her as she watched the interaction be Manny and Suse. They were very much complete opposites both physically and in temperament, but Jo realized that it had nothing to do with the notion that opposites attract. They were people not magnets. As Suse got frustrated over the game that she couldn’t seem to master, Jo realized what was really going on. While it was obvious that they were more attracted to each other than they were prepared to admit, it seemed to Jo that both were the perfect foil of the other. Jo had no idea how that would play itself out, but it would certainly be interesting to watch.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Mamma had insisted that she wear an itchy formal dress made from blue wool today and Marie was hating every minute of it. A detail of the incident months earlier was that she had bitten one of her kidnappers. For starters it was exactly the sort of thing that Momma insisted that she never, ever do and she had not talked about it in hopes that it would be forgotten. It had certainly seemed that way until this evening, but it had turned out Marie was wrong.

It had started when Marie had gotten home from school. Her mother had insisted that she needed to get cleaned up quickly and the dress had already been laid out for her. “Your Godfather asked to see you tonight” Was what Momma had said when asked. Marie understood that her Godfather was an important man, but in all the times that she had seen him in the past a formal dress was not ever required. Tonight, was different somehow and them Momma had explained that it was because Marie had bitten that man. When Marie asked if she was being punished, Poppa had laughed while Momma had just looked at her sadly. “There will be many times in your life when you are going to be asked to just accept things how they are” Momma had said, “This is one of those times.”

Then she had been loaded into Momma’s car and they had driven Downtown and like always Poppa insisted that she hold his hand once they got out of the car. Riding the elevator to the top floor of the building was almost distracting enough to make her forget the itchy dress. Entering the penthouse, Marie saw that Kiki, who was like a big sister to her, was already there as well as Lotte, her Godfather’s wife.

Once in a room where her Godfather was waiting for her, Marie noticed that there were other men around. She still insisted on hugging him in greeting. He just smiled, “I’m happy to see you too Marie Alexandra, but we need to avoid the appearance of favoritism” He said, which Marie didn’t understand. Then minutes later, before the photographers he pinned a gold medal on a white bow to the front of her dress.

“Lotte nominated you to receive this after the investigation concluded that you helped save my little my little girl” Marie’s Godfather said, “You see the two letters at the bottom, those are CH for Charlotte Hedwig”

Marie looked at the medal, it had the words “For Merit” engraved across the top of it and a gold cross set into the face. It was pretty. They said it was an award for Ladies. Momma always did insist that she act like one, but how did biting play into that?
 
The Tigress cub has shown she is willing to bite. When will her claws (karambit) come out to play?

As for Manny and Suse: that would be a powercouple all right.
 
Now that's a scary thought. Especially for anyone OUTSIDE of Germany.
Especially when you realise that the Knipsel gene pool is quite possibly the saner/ more sensible of the four.

Manny is doomed. If he ever gives Suse a kitten or puppy as a gift, he will have sealed his fate & everyone else, including Suse, will know it.
 
Last edited:
So Marie gets her first medal before she is a teen.
Manny and Suse are going to keep egging each other on to higher levels.
Told you they're more OTP than Emil/Maria in Thread I.
As I keep pointing out if they have children together, they would have the Knipsel, Mischner, Richthoffen, and Wolvogel DNA in them.
Just think of all of that in just one person...
The only possible outcome is offsprings that will join the Panzer Corps/Panzer Dragoons/Luftwaffe (or some combination thereof - whenever Germany's getting A-10 analogues, for example; or somehow the boffins come up with a flying tank in space).

Marc A
 
Told you they're more OTP than Emil/Maria in Thread I.

The only possible outcome is offsprings that will join the Panzer Corps/Panzer Dragoons/Luftwaffe (or some combination thereof - whenever Germany's getting A-10 analogues, for example; or somehow the boffins come up with a flying tank in space).

Marc A


A German flying tank in space? Some boffin will see the plans for the Ratte and say: "We can do better than that" and build a Bolo.
 
Part 104, Chapter 1678
Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Eight



3rd March 1965

Essen

Her parents had been completely surprised when they learned where she would be going this week. Out of all the things that Aurora could have as a career option, they had never considered industry, especially with her having gone to University. It seemed that Krupp was offering other possibilities even if Aurora hadn’t made her mind up just yet.

Aurora’s mother had said that she hoped that all of this wasn’t some sort of odd reaction to her perceived appearance or her lack of success in dating. In recent years Aurora had finally managed to lose the pudginess that was such a curse when she had been a teenager and yes, she’d had a string of rotten boyfriends. Still, she was interested in this because Krupp sold their products all over the world and she could be there representing them.

As Aurora followed Heinrich Vogt down the elevated steel walkway. Below them was a hive of activity as the foundry’s operations were continuous and the workers were preparing for the next round of operations. As she grew closer to getting her Diplom in International Relations, Aurora had found herself heavily recruited by both Government Ministries and Industrial interests. Krupp Steel had invited her to Essen for a three-day tour of their manufacturing and fabricating centers to entice her to come work for their public relations department.

It had been a lot to take in.

Divisions of Krupp made everything from precision instruments and cutlery all the way up to artillery pieces, the plates that would make up the hulls of ships and the thousands of kilometers of rail that linked the nations of the world. When she had walked into the hall of the Corporate Headquarters where the company’s varied products were displayed, the first thing she had seen was a StuG VIII Assault Gun that was waiting to be shipped to a unit in the Heer. Heinrich, her tour guide, said that if anything was made of a steel alloy then Krupp made it.

Heinrich Vogt was a bit of a surprise as well. He was a bit rough around the edges having started on the foundry floor and working his way up to his present position, Senior Operations Officer of Krupp’s heavy industry here in Essen. The first two days had been spent touring the tool & die works, one of the fabrication plants and a factory where they assembled marine diesel engines. The whole time Heinrich had been explaining to Aurora exactly what was going on. The entire time she had felt a nagging sense of familiarity towards him. Then it hit her, he reminded her of Fürstin Katherine somehow which was extremely strange.

When Aurora brought it up with him, Heinrich had just laughed. “Usually it’s people saying I remind them of Hans Mischner” He said, “Katy is my half-sister and I would prefer you didn’t spread that around.”

That was not what she had expected to hear. Sure, there were rumors that Katherine’s father had been some sort of mafioso and a complete rake, but to speak to someone who was that completely frank about it was different.

Now, hours later, Aurora followed Heinrich onto the observation platform. She was wearing heat reflecting coveralls and a steel hardhat, because plastic ones tended to melt according to Heinrich. They were going to see the foundry operation and one of the rolling mills today. This was the first part of that.

“That’s where the magic happens” Heinrich said as he pointed to the furnace. “The charging buckets are loading scrap steel into the crucible now. Before they turn on the juice, you’ll want to put on the earmuffs that I lent you.”

The earmuffs were different from what Aurora had seen before. They went around the back of the head and rested on the collar of the person wearing them. It wasn’t until she watched Heinrich putting them on that she realized that they were made to be worn with the hard hats. No sooner had she got them on than a klaxon sounded, and a large electrode descended into the crucible. The angle was wrong to see what was going on in the crucible itself beyond the flashes of blue-white light reflected off the corrugated steel roof of the foundry high above, but the sound was deafening. After a few minutes the crucible itself started to glow white hot and Aurora felt a wave of heat hit her though the furnace was at least hundred meters away.

Despite herself, Aurora was amazed as steel poured like a liquid through a ceramic pipe into water-cooled molds that were waiting below. The scale of this was larger than anything she had ever seen before.



Jena

The article had been submitted to English edition of the Mirror for local publication in Germany and supposedly it was to run in Time Magazine in the United States. Hunter had agreed that he wouldn’t embellish anything and would instead present Kiki as he saw her, warts and all.

Still, Kiki had gotten a call from Zella’s mother telling her that they wanted updated photographs of her for the story. Mercifully, Hunter had gone back to Paris and they were sending out Doug Blackwood because he had worked with her in the past. Even so, Kiki was wearing her least attractive clothes, an oversized brown sweater and a pair of baggy grey trousers.

Doug had not seemed to mind her look at all. He took several photographs of her in the back garden of the house she shared with Vicky, even a few with Rauchbier.
 
Glad to see that Aurora is not relying on family and friends and also the "Friends of the Family" networks to advance her career, I have always thought she would have been a natural fit in the Imperial Family Press Office with Nancy.

This along with Young Manfred and Suse Rosa going out together points out how The New Junker Class are basically following the same pattern that the old established Junker Class did in selecting future spouses and helping each other with their connections to advance their careers.
 
Part 104, Chapter 1679
Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Nine



15th March 1965

Tempelhof, Berlin

She was seated in her accustomed place at the table in the hospital cafeteria trying to think about anything other than the dangerous and complicated procedure that she had just concluded. Usually in her practice what Nora Berg witnessed most days was life affirming.

Today, she had everything go wrong and had been struggling to save two lives by performing an emergency cesarean. She had managed to save the mother, but it had been too late for the child. She then had the difficult task of informing the husband of what had happened, he had employed the sort of denial and bluster that men in that sort of situation always did. As if threatening Berg would change a damned thing. It was something that Berg dealt with more often than she liked to think about, and she knew that if she ever got used to it than she would need to find something else to do with her life. Like always she had told him that he would need to be strong for his wife in the coming days, perhaps that would be good enough. Berg didn’t know. It was all something that she was trying to push from her thoughts, but the messy ones with bad outcomes were the hardest to do that with. Berg always found herself second guessing what she had done, thinking that there was something that she might have done differently. The truth was that things had already been going wrong by the time she had been called in, the rational part of her understood that.

Now sitting in the cafeteria, Berg realized that she had no one to talk to. Kiki was in Jena attending the Medical Academy under the direction of Peter Holz. The other young woman who Berg enjoyed speaking with was Peter’s niece Zella who was being kept extremely busy as her time at University was nearing its conclusion. They all lived in small circles, didn’t they? And even with the difficulties that both had, or perhaps it was because of it, Berg had enjoyed listening to them talking about how they would go about their week.

“A package for you Doctor Berg” One of the Administration lackies said as he dropped a large manila envelope on the table next to her tray. He was gone before she could say anything. It had been too long since she had put the fear of God into the Admin Staff, it was something that she would need to rectify when she got a chance.

Opening the envelope, Berg saw that it was a copy of the Mirror, a weekly magazine that she didn’t even have a subscription to. This one was the edition that had come out just a couple days earlier. Finding a piece of paper used as a marker within it, Berg saw it had a note written on it. I figured that you would like to know what your protégée was up to, it read. It was unsigned, but Berg recognized the handwriting as belonging to Kiki’s father.

The article marked was an in-depth interview with Kiki where she spoke openly about her struggles with effects of traumatic stress and depression, her time in Korea, the Jacobins and violent incident that occurred the previous year, the long recovery that followed. In the past, Kiki had always been very guarded about these subjects and Berg wondered what had prompted her to be so open at this time.

There was also a series of photographs. Mostly of Kiki wearing drab clothes under grey winter skies which was perfectly in keeping with the title of the article, Princess in Winter. It was obvious to Berg that Kiki had gone out of her way to make herself look unattractive. Her hair hadn’t been brushed out, so it was a mop of brown curls and it partially obscured her face. She was also wearing her military issued glasses, which were atrocious. That sweater and those trousers were worse. They looked like the sort of thing a fisherman who had stopped caring about his appearance might wear.

The entire look was a complete rejection of all things that might be considered fashionable. The Photographer had done his best to get a variety of emotions from Kiki, she only looked happy in a couple of them when she had her dog in the picture with her. Most of all, Berg realized that Kiki might have outsmarted herself this time. She may have rejected other people’s expectations about what she should look like, but a woman in her position ought to know that she sets fashion as opposed to following it. When Berg considered the matter, she realized that Kiki probably knew but simply did not care. It seemed very much in keeping with what Berg knew about her.

It was also fascinating what Kiki had to say about the extent of her injuries and what she had been going through over the last year. Berg was a bit perturbed that Kiki had not mentioned very much of that to her the last time they have eaten lunch at this very table. She also understood that people did things in their own order. Kiki hadn’t wanted to talk about it at that time and then things must have changed. That didn’t mean that Burg wasn’t going to have a lot of questions the next time that she saw Kiki.
 
"It had been too long since she had put the fear of God into the Admin Staff, it was something that she would need to rectify when she got a chance."

Heads will roll...
 
"It had been too long since she had put the fear of God into the Admin Staff, it was something that she would need to rectify when she got a chance."

Heads will roll...
As the admin staff, she can bite me.

He didn't do anything wrong other than approaching a woman on a bad day. She can try to throw her weight around if she wants, but annoying the admin staff is a really easy way to ask for your life to be made miserable. Forms will need to be filed in triplicate, processing times will increase, post will be "lost" (nothing critical for the running of a hospital, but anything not-medical related) and in general, the gears will get all clogged up.

Must admit, an actual peak inside Berg's head has done more for me to dislike the character than any of her previous actions, and some of those actions are, at best, downright unethical.
 

ferdi254

Banned
There are always those people who claim that admin is a) slow b) incompetent c) not respectful enough to those who actually do stuff d) hopelessly overpaid and e) does not understand that their role is to humbly serve.

Companies with that attitude can be spectacularly going down!
 
Top