A world drenched in the scent of oil, gunpowder, and gas. A mechanical wasteland where the rain never seemed to wash anything clean.
Julius walked down a narrow pathway with water and grime. His coat fluttered against rusted rails as neon lights stuttered above him. He had just received a report. A man from Heidelberg had filed a tip with the Federal Ministry, claiming his neighbor was a potential activist.
Further surveillance confirmed it. The man in question was indeed affiliated with the Revolutionary Army, a communist cell that had resurfaced in the industrial districts.
Julius flipped through the digital file projected across his retina. Lines of encrypted text scrolled by, names redacted, addresses marked with red sigils.
[Location: East Heidelberg. Suspect: Alleged bombing of the Central Plaza District.]
He closed the file and looked up. The alleys ahead stretched like a maze. Drones hovered in the distance.
Julius sighed. "Another patriot with bad timing."
He knew he was on the wrong side. But turning back was no longer an option. The system was too deep, and he was already part of it. To him, the only thing left was to see it through, watch how it would all end, and decide for himself which side was truly right.
Still, as an officer of the Secret State Police, he had a duty. To suppress potential activists, to silence dissent, and to eliminate Glasshearts before they could become a threat.
His boots splashed through the puddles as he entered the narrow street. The smell of rust and burning oil wafted in the air.
"...."
Julius stopped. Standing before him was a child who seemed no older than twelve. His arms were trembling as he pointed a pistol straight at Julius.
Julius’s eyes narrowed. Slowly, he reached up and adjusted the brim of his hat, lowering it over his gaze.
"Do you even know how to use that?"
"...."
The boy didn’t answer. His teeth clenched as his finger hovered over the trigger. His eyes, however, gave everything away. Fear, confusion, and a desperate attempt to look brave colored his expression.
Julius sighed, taking a slow step forward. "Let me guess. They told you I was the enemy, didn’t they?"
"S-Stop right there!" the boy shouted.
But Julius didn’t stop. "You think you’re fighting for freedom. But all you’re doing is dying for someone else’s cause."
"Shut up!"
Bang——
The boy pulled the trigger, and a pulse of blue light burst from his weapon. It was a neural-linked E-67 Electropistol. The kind that could fry a man’s nervous system from ten meters away.
Julius raised his baton and swiped. The pulse scattered into static mid-air, dissolving into a cloud of blue sparks.
Before the boy could react, Julius closed the distance. He twisted the sidearm from the child’s grip and drove a kick into his stomach, knocking him flat onto the soaked pavement.
Julius looked down at him. "That’s military issue. Where did you get it?"
"You people killed my father!" the boy spat.
"Yeah?" Julius said. "Then I suppose you’ll have to live long enough to kill me yourself."
He kicked the weapon free, stepped on it to disable the firing mechanism, then slid it into his coat. The boy glared for a moment and fled into the maze of wet alleys.
Julius watched him go until the silhouette vanished between neon signs and fog. The sound of the boy’s footsteps faded.
For a moment, Julius only felt the rain on his face. Children with guns. Activists turned into weapons. It was the ugly arithmetic of this city.
"This is why I hate rain."
He closed the file displayed on his retina and moved on. The report would read routine. A disrupted patrol. An apprehended civilian. But Julius knew what the raw numbers could not show.
He knew how desperation looked when it reached for a trigger. He knew how causes recruited grief and turned it into fuel.
Julius adjusted the collar of his coat as the rain hissed against the street’s neon reflection.
He walked deeper into the alleyways, past the shutters and stalls. The drones above had already gone silent. It was a sign that communications in the area had been jammed.
He was operating alone.
"Emil Henry Bauer," Julius said. "By order of the Federal Ministry of Internal Security, Directorate for State Preservation, you are under arrest for orchestrating the bombing of the Central Plaza last week."
However, what Julius witness completely blew his expectations. It wasn’t the confident face of a radical, but that of a trembling man crouched on the floor, his hands over his head like a beaten dog.
"Y-Yes... t-take me, officer," Emil stammered, eyes wide. "Please... take me somewhere safe. Prison, yes, prison’s better than outside..."
Julius frowned. This wasn’t fear of capture. This was terror of something else.
He moved closer, snapping a pair of magnetic cuffs around the man’s wrists. "You admit to it, then?"
"Yes, yes! I—I did it," Emil cried, nodding rapidly.
"Why?"
Julius tightened his grip on the cuffs.
"Why the fuck did you do it?" Julius’s voice hardened. "Because of a useless piece of shit like you, my niece—" He stopped mid-sentence. It was hypocritical, but he didn’t care.
He yanked the man upright, the metal restraints biting deep into flesh until lines of blood began to form around his wrists.
"I—I had no choice!" Emil gasped. "He—he said he’d kill Maria if I didn’t—"
"Who?"
"I don’t know! I swear!"
Julius’s expression darkened. "You don’t know the man who ordered you to bomb a civilian plaza?"
"I swear I don’t! He—he never showed his face! Only his voice, through a scrambled call... said if I didn’t plant it, he’d—"
"Kill her."
Emil nodded frantically. "He knew everything, officer. My name, my work, even where Maria studied. I thought he was one of us... part of the Revolution... but..."
Julius’s gaze hardened. "But he wasn’t."
"I don’t think so. But the others... they spoke about him like a prophet. They... they worshipped him."
Julius frowned. "Worshipped?"
"T-They called him Nameless," Emil stammered. "Said he’s the man who’ll lead Germany into a new age... The reincarnation of the painter. Someone beyond politics, beyond bloodlines, beyond death itself—"
Julius exhaled through his nose upon hearing such nonsense, unimpressed.
"What a joke."
* * *
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"...!"
Julius’s eyes snapped open. For a moment, the world was white. The sound of machinery, the hiss of oxygen, the rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor beside him. His vision slowly adjusted.
"Ah..."
He turned his head. Tubes were connected to his arm, and traces of burn marks spread across his skin.
So it had been a dream. No, a memory.
The scent of antiseptic filled his nose as he slowly sat up. His mind was clouded with thoughts of his life before regression. The gunfire, the communists, Emil, Nameless.
The last moment before the explosion. His hand twitched at the memory of fire.
Slowly, he turned his head, and froze.
Sitting by the bedside was a man he recognized instantly. Straight-backed. Impeccably dressed. Eyes sharp enough to silence a room without saying a word.
"...Father."
It was his father, Johannes Sievernich Schneider.