"...Are we actually staying in the same room, sir?"
"I’ll take the couch," Klaus replied, ignoring the question. He didn’t dare admit that a boy raised in privilege likely had never slept anywhere else.
"Sir? Doesn’t the Directorate get enough budget? Why can’t we get a separate room? Where did the taxes go?"
Julius stared at the single bed, then at the battered couch Klaus had already claimed. The room was barely large enough for the two of them. A small window faced the river as the city lights reflected off the water.
"It was a request from the Commissioner," Klaus said.
"My sister-in-law?!"
"Says you need to be whipped into shape. And frankly, I agree. We might have control here, Mister Schneider, but in the future you’ll be handling more discreet espionage work. You’ll have to live in places like these to blend in. Get used to it."
"That’s not the problem... it’s..."
There was no graceful way to explain that he could not sleep in the same room as another person. In the past, Julius had been stabbed and nearly killed by a junior he was supervising, a Glassheart who had somehow gotten inside the Directorate.
Since then, the trauma had never left him, preventing him from falling asleep if someone else was present. Not even Gabriel had been an exception.
"Never mind..."
Klaus only tilted his head, then let the matter drop. He settled onto the couch, draping an arm over his eyes with a tired sigh.
"Wake me up around six."
"Ah? Yeah."
Within seconds, Klaus was already snoring. He must have been exhausted. Julius knew almost nothing about Klaus outside Directorate work, and frankly, he didn’t care enough to wonder.
Julius sat on the bed, propped his back against the wall, and unlocked his phone. He opened the stock market out of habit and scanned the charts without much expression.
"It’s still going down."
Dream Industries’ stock price continued its relentless fall. Because of the incident a week ago, their shares had been plummeting day after day. The numbers were ugly.
Julius scrolled through the headlines, watching as article after article painted the same grim picture. Investors were restless. Analysts were calling this the company’s most severe crisis since its founding. The Schulz conglomerate had begun distancing itself publicly, and smaller partners were already considering pulling out.
"This won’t be enough, though."
In his previous life, all of this had already happened. Yet despite the turmoil, Dream Industries eventually recovered. They did more than recover. They rose to heights no one had predicted.
He intended to prevent that.
He had already sabotaged their greatest contingency, the creation of SIBYL, by hoarding the system’s architecture for himself. But SIBYL wasn’t the only marvel that had propelled Dream into dominance.
The company was full of geniuses. Their technological momentum did not depend on just one invention. Even without SIBYL, they had countless breakthroughs waiting to surface.
Julius closed the stock market app and switched to his messaging client. Without overthinking it, he typed a single line.
[I need your help.]
The reply came almost immediately.
[Whos this?]
"...."
It was Gabriel, pretending he didn’t even know him.
[Fuck off. This is serious.]
[That’s what the last scammer said. I’m blocking you, bye.]
[You motherfucker!]
[Oh, it’s the Young Master. How can I help you, mother fucker?]
"...."
Julius stared at the screen in silence, resisting the urge to throw his phone across the room. He took a slow breath, forced his irritation down, and typed back.
[Come to Speicherstadt.]
[In Hamburg? What are you doing there?]
[I’ll fill you in once you get here. Bring those knights you brought last time, too.]
A reply popped up after a short pause.
[...]
The typing indicator blinked, disappeared, then returned.
Julius leaned back against the headboard. Klaus snored on, oblivious to everything.
[Do you have any idea how far that is?]
[If I thought it wasn’t necessary, I wouldn’t be asking.]
[What did you do this time? Blow something up? Kill someone important? Sleep with someone important?]
[Just get here.]
[You definitely slept with someone important.]
"...."
Julius sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he typed out his response.
[If you keep talking, I’ll personally make sure you never see another paycheck.]
[So you are paying us?]
[No.]
[Then how’s that a threat?]
Julius groaned and tossed his phone onto the bed. Even from Berlin, Gabriel still found a way to give him a headache. It was a miracle the man had survived this long.
* * *
Within a few hours, Gabriel arrived and met Julius discreetly. Gabriel’s hotel room was far nicer than the cramped box Julius had been forced to share with Klaus. Julius looked around the space, then slowly turned back to Gabriel, who waited with a raised brow.
"Should I hit you, just this once?" Julius asked. "Why are you staying in a better place than me? What happened to the hierarchy between us?"
"...The hell are you on about?" Gabriel replied.
"Nevermind."
Julius let the irritation go and began explaining everything. Gabriel listened without interrupting, arms crossed and expression darkening the further Julius went.
When Julius finished, Gabriel leaned back and said, "If it’s a mission, why are you involving us? You know the Revenant Knights and the Directorate don’t work well together."
It was true. There had always been an unspoken animosity between the Revenant Knights and the Directorate. The two groups shared the same nation but not the same heart.
Knights fought with honor, while the Directorate fought with whatever cheap tricks they needed to win.
Their goals often intersected, but their philosophies clashed, and neither side ever forgot that fact. Put the two together in one room, and it was like mixing water with oil.
They simply would not blend.
"I don’t have proof... But Lukas Meinhardt... is a Glassheart."
Gabriel tilted his head. Julius had said stranger things before and proved them. In the past, Gabriel would have doubted him. But now, he knew better.
"You’re part of the Directorate," Gabriel said. "You can just arrest him without a warrant. What’s the problem?"
"The problem is he’ll kill us."
"...?"
"I’m not confident the Directorate can deal with Lukas Meinhardt cleanly."