The staff car rolled to a stop beneath the arch of the Chancellery's east portico, its tires crunching softly on the red granite paving stones imported years ago from quarries in the conquered Caucasus. As the SS guards stepped crisply to attention, Imel Dietrich emerged into the courtyard, his polished jackboots gleaming. The Reich Chancellery loomed before him—gray, cold, and vast, like the spine of some ancient fossilized beast. It exhaled silence and menace in equal measure.
The giant brass doors parted, and he entered.
Inside, the corridors echoed with the precise rhythm of leather on stone and the distant murmur of power being wielded behind closed doors. Oil portraits of Himmler, Bormann, and the long-dead Führer hung between alabaster columns, their gazes eternal, their presence oppressive.
Imel adjusted his collar.
He passed under the Reichsadler—the Imperial Eagle—and into the main hall. His mind still trembled from the dream. The images of his wife, his children, consumed by Soviet brutality, clawed at him with more urgency than usual. Perhaps it was the meeting. Or perhaps it was the lingering unease that something about this world—his world—had begun to fray.
Inside the Marble Chamber, the inner circle had already gathered.
SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Krüger nodded stiffly as Imel entered. A hardliner with a penchant for cruelty cloaked in civility, Krüger had led the pacification of South America. His reputation was gilded with blood and efficiency.
Opposite him sat Wilhelm Drexler, the Wehrmacht liaison to the Eastern American Reich—bald, humorless, with a thick folder in front of him and a permanent frown etched into his angular features.
The rest were a blur of uniforms, medals, and suspicion.
Imel took his place at the head of the table, beneath the mosaic dome that depicted Germania as a goddess trampling the globe beneath her boots. The symbolism was unsubtle, but appropriate.
"Gentlemen," he began, voice measured, "on behalf of the Reichsführer, I welcome you. We are at a moment of convergence. The Pacific States are flexing. The Rockies are burning. And in the East, our own settlers whisper disloyalty."
Krüger leaned forward. "The American resistance is being aided from across the Neutral Zone. We believe elements within the Japanese administration are providing sanctuary to rebels."
Drexler snorted. "Of course they are. The Japs haven't honored a treaty since the war ended. We should have taken the whole damn continent."
"They let us take Washington," Krüger replied coldly. "You let them take San Francisco."
Imel raised a hand, silencing them both.
"This bickering is beneath us," he said. "The reality is this: the Rocky Mountain Neutral Zone is no longer neutral. Intelligence reports growing collaboration between ex-American military cells, former OSS operatives, and even dissident Reich citizens."
He paused.
"There's also this."
He opened a folder and slid a photograph to the center of the table.
A man stood in the image—mid-40s, tall, dark-haired, in civilian clothes. He was giving a speech from a makeshift podium in what looked like a church basement. Behind him hung a battered American flag—the old kind, with 48 stars—and a crude banner that read Free America Now.
"Who is he?" Krüger asked.
"Name unknown," Imel replied. "We're calling him The Voice. Radio broadcasts out of Denver have been gaining traction. He speaks in perfect English. Educated, charismatic. He claims to be the last living heir to the United States government."
Drexler's face hardened. "A ghost."
"A dangerous one," Imel corrected.
There was silence. The weight of the threat sank in.
Krüger spoke again, lower this time. "What is the Reichsführer's recommendation?"
Imel leaned forward.
"The Reichsführer is ill. He trusts me to act on his behalf. I am assembling a task force—Gestapo, SS, even Wehrmacht specialists. We will infiltrate the Neutral Zone. Root out the insurgency. And if necessary, cross the Japanese border to cut off support at the source."
Drexler arched a brow. "Invading the Pacific States?"
"Not invading," Imel said. "Removing an infection. Quietly."
Krüger gave a thin smile. "I will prepare my men."
As the meeting continued, a tall, wiry man in civilian clothing stood silently in a basement in Denver, Colorado, his hands wrapped tightly around a battered microphone. Around him, a small band of Americans—black, white, Hispanic, veterans, teachers, farmers—huddled in silence.
"…this is not just a call to resist," he said into the mic, voice steady. "It's a call to remember. To believe. We are still a nation, even if the maps say otherwise. We are still Americans."
Behind him, an old flag hung torn but proud.
Back in Berlin, Imel left the chamber as the cathedral bells tolled noon. The air was hot, sticky with summer. He stood at the top of the Chancellery steps, overlooking the plaza. More children played with toy tanks. More soldiers patrolled in silence.
The Reich looked unshakable.
And yet, deep in his gut, he knew: something had cracked.
The dream, The Voice, the whispers in the mountains.
History, no matter how tightly rewritten, had a way of returning.
And this time, it was armed.