fritzwillie2

“Did I tell you this was crazy?” Captain Rannal Soren said as she studied the video feed of an excavator grinding its way through solid concrete.

“Not in the last five minutes you haven’t.” Commander FritzWillie responded without looking up from his wood carving.

“Oh, then let me remind you that this is fucking crazy.”

“Do you want me to order you to go?”

“It's too late. Even if I shot you to stop you now, the court martial would be just a formality.”

“True, I’d be the lucky one, they’d make you a class-D.”

“Sir, we’re 15 meters from the Last Known Position.” an MTF’s soldier's voice came over comms.

“Good, keep going. Let me know when the excavator is within 3 meters.” The commander muttered into his collar comm-set.

“Well, if we’re gonna talk about the end, will you at least tell me about the codename?” Her voice became more solemn and personal.

“FritzWillie?”

“Yeah, well, I think all the men question it a bit. Is it anything to do with your birth name, it sounds like the kinda thing you’d ask an escort to do. How much for a FritzWillie?” She was obviously trying to lighten the mood.

“Ha, no. Nothing like that at all.” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes in remembrance.

“Let’s see, I was still in college. And FritzWillie’s was this little bar in this tiny Texas town that had no business being on a map. It was in that little bar that I had my first ‘Encounter,’ infact I actually helped in the acquisition without meaning to.’”

“No way, really? You were just a civi?”

“Yeah, it was this euclid. Damn thing nearly did the geographers a favor and almost took the town right off the map. My life was never the same afterwards.”

“So it was the name of the bar?”

“FritzWillie’s was the last place anyone I ever knew or loved had seen me. I was wiped from their memories after I became an Agent. That place and time was the fulcrum on which my life pivoted” He let the word hang in the air a moment while he rethought his whole life. “Wait, actually, He was, because He was there, and He’s the reason I’m here today.”

“Well, he’s buried here, what are you going to do other than just rebury him elsewhere?”

“He didn’t deserve this. No one has done more for mankind. He needs to be brought back.”

“The council is going to HATE this. HATE YOU, you know.” Her words were accusing, as if Fritz had scorned her.

“What can I do? I can do what’s right or I can do what keeps people happy.”

“Sir, we’ve busted into some kinda chamber. You better have a look at this.” The comm interrupted Captain Soren before she had a chance to speak.

“Roger, we’re on our way,” he stuffed his carving into his pocket.

The Administrator had buried himself long before his demise. Deep underground, where he had neither been seen or heard from for years before the Ecce Perago incident. The previous O5-4 and used not acid, not gas, not fire, but hydrographic cement. As if he knew he was foing to be doing them a favor.

Rannal Soren and her Commander hurried down through the tunnel the excavators had created down to The Administrator’s concrete tomb.

“So you feel bad for the guy, that’s nice of you, but you’re throwing your life away for the remains of someone over five years dead. That’s a long time to grieve, and you risk ruffling the feathers of some very big birds, are you sure this is worth it?” As the last word came out of her mouth, he stopped and turned very serious on her.

“Tell me Soren, have you ever seen me shed a tear for that man?”
She reflexively bit her lower lip, unsure of what to say.

“C’mon Ran, they call me Weeping Willie.”

“That’s because you care, you’re the protect in SCP.”
He stared at her until she relinquished.

“Ok, so you’re also the most emotional person I know.”

“Have I ever shed a tear for that man?” he repeated.

“No, no I’ve never seen you shed a tear for The Administrator.”

“That’s because I never had to.”

They continued down the tunnel.

“He took me in, not because I had the mettle to secure or the resilience to contain. It’s because I do nothing but protect others. If I had my way, I’d recruit every soldier that throws himself on a grenade and every firefighter that runs into burning building that they know is going to collapse. Unfortunately, most of those who pass those tests of will don’t survive.”

As they approached the excavator, water pooled in the center of the tunnel.

“Sir,” the excavator operator snapped to attention. “At about 9 meter from L.K.P. we struck a wall of water, hit me so hard that it knocked me out of this thing and flooded the motor. Left us a good size hole, we didn’t enter the chamber, but I think you can see what’s inside.”

FritzWillie and Capt. Soren climbed over the machinery and peered into the concrete room ahead. The lights of the excavator reflected brightly off a large oval mass at the center of the room. It was an egg, mirroring so much light it was like staring at the sun.

“Sergeant, give me your helmet. Take the men and move everyone back 400 meters or to the opening of this tunnel, which ever is further. The captain and I are going in to investigate.”

The sergeant gave him a knowing look, “And the contingency, sir?”

“The men set the explosives at regular intervals?

“Sir!” the sergeant nodded.

“One hour. Evacuate the area and bring it down no matter what. Scatter the men, you were never here.”

After the MTF had moved away, the Commander used the helmet the sergeant had given him to cover the light of the excavator that most directly shone on the object in the center of the room. The water was a little more than ankle deep in the chamber, and it was eerily warm. The egg stilled glowed with reflection as they approached, but at least it wasn’t blinding like before. It was brilliantly white, but not very smooth, not nearly as much as a chicken egg. more like a reptilian egg.

“Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this.” said Captain Soren.

“What’s the matter Ran? After seeing all you have in the Foundation, this surprises you?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that I was surprised.”

“Well,” he removed a telescoping baton from his belt, “we got about an hour to knock your socks off.” He extended it with a flick of his wrist and raised it above his head.

“Wait! Don’t you wanna let it hatch on it’s own?”

“We have an hour, this thing is big enough to fit both of us in it, do you really wanna carry it out?” He still had his arm raised when the whole egg began to shake. Reflexively, he whacked the thing as if it was going to attack him. He brought the baton down in an arc that caught the top of the egg horizontally, nearly taking the top off. Where the shell cracked, red drops of blood streaked down the sides and into the water.

Inside was a the same solid white yoke of a hard boiled egg. Fritz dove his hands in and started pulling it apart frantically, throwing clumps away as he dug. At the center of it was, a woman, young, but adult. Fair skinned, but not pale. Beautiful, but strong. Her hair, the color of smoke, her eyes a deeper ash.

He hoisted her up and placed his ear on her bare chest and gave a disapproving look to Rannal.

“Take her,” he said and shifted the woman into the Captain’s arms so that he could place his hands on the woman’s back.

“Brace,” he told her with hardly enough warning before he slapped the woman’s back with enough force to nearly knock Rannal off her feet. The egg woman sputtered and coughed clear liquid over the Captain before she took a few deep breaths.

“Eww, yuck!” Soren gave the woman back to Fritz, “Congratulations, it’s a girl.”
He took off his jacket and put it around the woman.

“Hey, wait.” Soren continued, “I thought we were here for The Administrator. Who is she?”
He stared at her, tight lipped.

“Nah uh, no, I can’t do it,” she threw her arms up in the air like she had just given up. “So the Administrator’s a woman now, that’s where we’re going with this? Seriously?”

“I told you that you’d be surprised.”

“I’m not surprised,” she waved a finger at him. "I… I just refuse to accept it."

"Ran, last week you watched an animated girl climb into a priceless Van Gogh, pick an apple off a tree and eat it."

"You better believe it, before your brain starts melting out of your ears," said the young woman in Fritz's arms.

"My brains?"

"It's one of the effects of the Kopfkanone."

"Huh? The Head cannon?" Rannal was looked down at the woman in the Commander’s arms.

"Sorry, Hitler gave it that name. He didn't know what it was but he used it to convince good people to do bad things," The woman admitted..

"A lot of people thought you were a thirteen year old boy when you disappeared. Some even thought you were in old man.” Fritz pointed out. "There are pictures of you in your file. They cropped out your face, but somehow people believed these fallacies.”

"Is the ‘Head Cannon’ some sorta skip or something?" Soren asked her.

"An anomalous relic. It has a limited range, but Hitler used it to influence the influential, and through others his ideas spread, because it was what people wanted to hear. It fueled Hitler's interest in the occult and was the basis of the conflict between the Nazis and the Foundation. We became the hunted, because he desired more relics of power."

"Why is it called the ’Head Cannon’?" Rannal asked.

"Speaking through the Kopfkanone creates a powerful idea, which molds people's thoughts. The more people agree with the idea, the more it spreads from person to person, like a virus. However, the more a person disagrees with the idea from the Kopfkanone, the more likely that the struggle within the person’s mind will cause the brain to overheat and physiologically break down. Hitler thought he was literally blowing people's minds."

"And you think Ran here is infected with it? Fritz asked her.

"Either her brain begins seeping out every hole in her head, or she's just bullheaded stubborn."
He looked at Rannal with a smirk, "Captain, I think you're going to be just fine."

"So you've always been a woman?" Ran asked.

"No, my last metamorphoses was over 200 years ago. I needed a new identity, I didn't know how the Kopfkanone worked, so it got a little out of hand. In the end, I just had to wait for the right time to change, to become become something no one would expect. Though, I've never been able to pull off women very well."

"Well," Rannal put her hands on her hips, "I think you nailed it this time. To think, the whole Foundation has been run by a non-human, what are you? Extra-terrestrial?"

"Watch what you say Ran. The Administrator is more human than any of us. We are all just pale shadows of what he is,” Fritz cautioned.

"Humans don't pop out of eggs and swap genders without a lot of surgery sir! She's humanoid at best!"

"You don't know of what you speak Captain Soren."

"It's alright Commander," said the woman as she rose to her feet, "Captain Soren, right? Well, before me there were Homo Sapiens, after I took a wife there was Mankind."

"He is our last common ancestor, Ran. We are all descended from him. He is Y-chromosome Adam."

"THE Adam?"

"Not the Biblical Adam, captain. It's just the title the researchers use." The Administrator continued, "Physically, nothing changed. But the mind did. Animals are products of their environment, they have no free will. Men are in control of their destinies."

"How, how are you able to do all this?" Rannal waved her hands over the remains, the concrete chamber and The Administer herself as damning evidence.

"A child learns quickly how to control their breathing. After a lifetime of meditation, a monk can make their heart beat on command. It took me over a thousand years to learn how to grow my body so I could be as tall as I wanted. Another 500 years and I could regrow the teeth I had lost 1200 years before. Another hundred years I could regrow fingers and toes. When I was 50,000 years old I had six arms and a third eye. Men worshipped me as their god. After a quarter million years, I have fought many other gods and demons to lead my people to dominate this world. Now the threat is that men will destroy each other. I have seen all this; I can do all this, because I do not age. Not because I'm not human."

"He is The Foundation, Ran. The literal foundation, the base that all mankind has been built upon since the beginning. "

"Umm, but how are you a girl?" The captain asked with childlike curiosity. Fritz reflexively face-palmed.

"All women suppress one of their X-chromosomes into a bar-body, they only need one to become a woman. I just had to release the right hormone to suppress the Y-chromosome during metamorphoses."

"But why comeback as a woman?"

"Because of the Kopfkanone."

"What?"

"It was my last Acquisition. The last time I got to be myself. For hundreds of thousands of years, I've protected mankind with my bare hands. This overseer position, it's important, but it's not what I’d want anymore than a lion would want to run a zoo."

"But you weren't caged up. You were in charge."

"Young lady, I lived in a vault, so far underground I can hear the devil snore in his sleep. I want to be on the front line again, I was just waiting for someone to come and take The Administration away from me. To leave that behind, no one can suspect I'm still alive. No one need believe that The Administrator is back, and as a woman."

"Wait, I would know,” Captain Soren’s mind started racing, “why am I here?"

"Good news Administrator, jus’ so happens that there's a field position open on Captain Soren's Mobile Task Force."

"Ah, Dammit!" Rannal slumped in defeat.