Free Jigsaw World by JD Lovil Page B

there, but
for whatever reason, a pinhole escape hatch from that place opened
up to this place.
    Once they escaped, they discovered that they
could not force their way into a living person, but they could
enter a dead body. They also found that they had the ability to
repair those bodies, even the rotted ones, and walk around inside
of them. Once in those bodies, they could find and kill the
townspeople, and then one of their un-bodied compatriots could take
up residence in the newly dead body.
    The Deaders had some pretty significant Chi
powers, some ability to throw things around telekinetically, and
the Walk-Ins like Markus had no such powers. For all intents and
purposes, Markus was a regular person, just in someone else’s body,
and remembering a different world. Why both of these types of
transfers took place at the same time, no one really
knew.
    The Deaders had become aware of the Walk-Ins
just before the RV had hit town, and they were intent on
eliminating the competition. They could not take over a living
body, but the Walk-Ins were just as mortal as anybody, and so the
Deaders could fix the situation by killing the Walk-Ins, then
inhabiting the corpse.
    As for Markus, he had Mike’s memories to
examine, and to compare to his own memories, and for the most part,
all of the history that Mike knew seemed to be the same as the one
Markus knew, up until the mid 1990s. The hinge point seemed to be
the Third Reich.
    In Markus’s world, a couple of whistleblowers
had turned into a flood of whistleblowers, starting in the year
1994. A young intern in one of the world’s biggest corporations
came across a set of secret emails that dealt with an advertising,
lobbying and payoff program of activities that were clearly aiming
at accomplishing ‘The plans of the Reichsmarschall’.
    Investigations by the fractured congress led
to first a few, then hundreds of pieces of evidence that the Third
Reich did not die when it was ‘defeated’ at the end of WWII.
Instead, by bits and drabs, with the most advertised bit being
‘Operation Paper-clip’, they simply integrated the Reich’s
machinations with the governments and significant businesses of the
times. All of the significant organizations became
part of the new, clandestine Reich.
    By the end of the 1990s, a major witch hunt
for Nazi Ideology was underway. It was discovered that both Nazi
influences and overt Nazi organization were far more universal than
was ever believed. By the end of the first decade of the 2000s,
most of the Nazi structures had been destroyed, including the
oddball off-shoot in the Middle East called the Muslim Brotherhood,
and the toppling of the Argentine Republic.
    With the comparative history, the briefing by
Markus began to run dry. Most of his experiences in Mildew involved
trying to stay alive, which in most cases is incompatible with
trying to conduct a comprehensive analysis of said threat. Tom
decided to close out the discussion with the most relevant
remaining question.
    “ Would you like to come with us,
or do you want to disembark somewhere along the line?” Tom asked
Markus. “We can probably use your help, and George over there gets
lonely. You guys can argue it out, but I believe that George is
probably a Bottom.”
    Tom ducked the badly thrown beer can that
George threw, and then he added, “See, he even throws like a girl.”
Seeing that he was about to be subjected to another inept attempt
to even the score by George, Tom forced a laugh to diffuse the
situation. He had observed that a properly placed laugh can
effectively stop most attempts to exact revenge.
    “ I think that I would like to come
with you.” Markus said. “That is, if you don’t continue trying to
pair me off to George. No offense meant.”
    George emitted an embarrassed laugh in
response to that remark. “No offense taken, although you should be
worried that Tom’s remarks are some form of Projection. I would
sleep on my back around him if I were