Read "Before Tomorrowland" by Jeff Jensen online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
WERNER ROTWANG walked the ocean floor, silently cursing the men who dared to call themselves sharks. They were the best of the best of the Germany Navy, members of an elite unit known as Haifisch, but at the moment, as they trudged the deep in glowing metal suits, they reminded Rotwang of slugs. He didn't know if they moved slow out of fear or incompetence, or if the apocalypse jumpers he had built for them were really that difficult to operate. The men dragged their feet instead of lifting them, kicking up clouds of silt that obscured their vision and further slowed their advance. The engineer could hear hints of panic in their sighs and complaints over the intercom. He shook his head. If Rotwang, a fifty-year-old whelp with a crooked spine could pilot these machines, why not the supermen of the Nazi war machine?
"Gentlemen, please. Stop," said Rotwang.