[Click on the link for a brief explanation of the premise and the mythic / science fictional backdrop of the story. The situation in this excerpt is that Christ and Hitler are battling each other like superheroes ~ or Überheroes ~ in the Castle of the Norns.]
… Clearly the issue must be decided by the personal struggle of the Führer against the Christ, and every eye in the great chamber was riveted upon them. Despite his earlier bravado, Hitler felt that he must soon succumb to the tireless onslaught of his formidable opponent. He looked desperately about him for some lever of advantage, some way to alter this implacable fate. And inevitably, his eye fell upon the Gyre.
If only there were some way that he could insert his will into the strands, and effect a grand culmination beyond any of the manifold probabilities they now contained! But even if he knew how to do that, such a complex series of actions could not be performed in the heat of battle. It would require a single, simple masterstroke, an instantaneous change in one key element that could utterly reverse the total pattern of events.
When he had lived through those events, after the tide of war had decisively turned against him, he had wracked his brain a million times seeking some overlooked factor, or some new device or strategem, that could undo the doom that rolled remorselessly upon the Reich. And there had been nothing.
If only. . . if only! How many times had he said, “if only. . . !” when considering the many things that had gone awry and the countless twists of fate that had undone him. But now he was here in the control room of fate itself. Now he could untwist those things which had been beyond his control in life.
As he fought to hold Christ at bay, he desperately searched back mentally through all the long list of “if only’s”, to find one, just one, that was practicable of change in the midst of his struggle, and that would effectively work the miracle. And in a nonce, he had it — he knew instantly that this was it. If only Enrico Fermi had not defected!
Fermi was the Italian scientific genius who despised fascism, escaped to the West, and whom all conceded was the most brilliant mind in the brain trust that built the atomic bomb. It could not have happened without him, they said, at least not for many long years.
Hitler spotted the warp on the Gyre through which he had lived in his current stream of awareness, the one which embodies our own familiar world with its past and future. He knew by some deep intuition exactly what he had to do, but it looked like it might be too late. Jesus had worn him down to his last gram of strength, and was now conjuring a cone of white light, which was swiftly enveloping the prostrate Führer and beginning to siphon his soul into the sickly-sweet ensorcelment of surrender.
Hitler curled himself into a ball, shamming acquiescence and lassitude, but meanwhile marshalling the dregs of his power. Jesus stepped forward to lay his hand upon him in a final, fatal benediction; but the instant that the contact was made, Hitler channeled into him a bolt of such potent black hatred and outrage and will to resist, that Christ was flung back all the way against the far wall of the chamber. Now in these fleeting, precious seconds, Hitler turned to the Gyre. He found the exact moment at the precise location he desired, and inserted his hand into the warp.
Enrico Fermi was a fetus in the womb, at a very early stage of gestation. The huge spirit-form intruding upon his reality from the Crux of Time was like the finger of God reaching down and quickening the baby, so that it became a living soul. And after the baby was born, and grew into a man, and heard the first rumors of Adolf Hitler, he knew at once in his heart of hearts that this was his Leader. When later he heard the voice of the great one on the radio, and ultimately met him in person, the Führer truly became his God, and Fermi put himself totally at Hitler’s disposal.
Thus there grew from that point on the Gyre a new warp of fate, and the events contained in it played out like a movie in plain view of all the spirits in the Norn Castle. They watched as Fermi’s team of Axis scientists successfully completed work on the world’s first atomic bomb in 1944. They watched as a stockpile of over a hundred bombs was quickly built in the ensuing months, and the rockets and bombers were readied to deploy them to best effect. All that remained was for Hitler to give the Führer-order to launch the weapons. The living spirit-form of Hitler in the castle raised his hand in synch with his image from the warp, savoring this act that would reverse the current of history and fulfill his visionary ambition to conquer the world. Now it was his enemy Jesus who stood helplessly before him, and the Führer could not resist a moment of gloating. And then he tensed himself to perform the fateful act.
To find out what happens, you’ll have to read
Or even better, begin at the beginning.
The Kin of Aries 