War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 80

Chapter 25

A

nna and Peter emerged from the bedroom to scour her kitchen for food. While Anna fixed them something to eat, Peter set the table and asked about her day at work.

“Exhausting,” she answered, not keen on delving deeper into the topic.

“Professor Scherer seemed concerned about you today. What happened?” Of course Peter had noticed she was trying to evade the topic.

“You remember what I told you about the medical experiments?” Anna said, unable to face Peter.

“I do,” he said with a low voice.

Anna stirred the soup with increased violence, saying, “He has put me in charge. I am supposed to devise the new experiments that will be carried out using not only the children, but also prisoners at nearby camps.” She stopped stirring and turned around, shooting daggers at him as if he were the evil person in the situation. “He doesn’t care how much these people suffer or how many die in the process!”

“But you do?” Peter said.

“How can I not? The children may be retarded, but they are still human and feel pain…how can I be the instrument of their torture and death?”

“You discussed your concerns with Professor Scherer?” Peter stood and closed the distance between them.

Anna nodded and then changed it to a shrug saying, “Kind of. I told him I wasn’t comfortable using the vaccines until we had more evidence that they work. He said only a woman could be so weak. And then he threatened my job and the recommendation for my sis…friend if I didn’t obey his orders.”

“What did you do?” Peter wrapped his arms around her.

“I agreed. What else was I to do? But I don’t know if I can go through with it,” she said, leaning into him and taking the pot from the stove. “Our soup is ready.”

“Anna, one thing I’ve learned throughout this war…there is always a third option. It might not be visible right now, but it’s there. You have to look for it.”

“Do you really believe this?” Anna asked, a glimmer of hope breaking through the darkness that enveloped her life.

“I know for sure. Look for it…it’s there. And now let’s eat. I’m starving.”

“Who isn’t these days?” she answered and poured the majority of the soup into his bowl.

“I love you, sweetheart. No more secrets,” he said, wolfing down the meal. Anna blushed and focused on her spoon. But trust went both ways, right?

“There’s something else I have to tell you,” she said and put down her spoon with a clinking sound

“More bad news?” He glanced at her with worry.

“No, just more secrets.” Anna gathered her courage and told him about her

dead

sister Lotte, who was well, alive, and lived now under the name of Alexandra, needing the professor’s recommendation for her radio assistant training and her plan to work as a spy.

Peter laughed. “Looks like your sister and I will soon be colleagues. I would love to meet her one day.”

Once they finished their meal, Anna asked him to stay overnight and soon she slept in the secure embrace of his arms.

The next morning after kissing Peter goodbye, she loped to the laboratories. Anna could sense something was amiss, but she didn’t recognize it on first sight.

But as she entered the lecture hall she saw workers systematically disassembling the secretarial offices. Metal desks, chairs, and even office equipment encased in metal were being removed and loaded into trucks.

She hurried to the laboratory, where she found a colleague standing in the doorway, watching with a long face, and she asked him, “What’s going on?”

“The order came in this morning that all things made of metal have to be turned over to the war effort. There’s not enough metal to continue making tanks and weapons.”

“They’re taking everything metal, even from hospitals?” Anna asked, incredulous.

“No, hospitals are exempt. But this building is only clerical, so it has to comply.” The colleague left to try and salvage at least the metals they needed for their research work.

Anna looked after him, thinking about how everyone would have to find materials to substitute for the metal they were turning over.

Substitutes!

There’s always a third option.

Thank you, Peter.

She yelped with joy and rushed off to set her plan in motion. After taking a walk down to the storeroom to grab several IV bags of saline solution, she diligently prepared the syringes for today’s experiments.

When Professor Scherer dropped by to discuss the progress, she showed him her notes and her plans on how to complement the lab experiments with tests on humans, and handed him the syringes with a smile. She had no idea how long she could get away with giving the test patients nothing but saline water injections before she was found out, but it would buy her time to find another solution.