Meierei Trittau (Dairy processing Trittau), North Germany, a couple of days later
Silke Petersen was bent over her microscope and bored. She was checking the milk that was collected and processed for germs and she was doing so for nearly 25 years now. The most exciting this job got was when the germ count went from 290000 to 310000 per deciliter and she had to tell her bosses about it-who promptly mixed the milk with less "active" one.
In all her boredom she did her job diligently-as boring as it was these days barely a hundred years ago bad milk had killed children in wholesale amounts. And even if she had been unable to conceive herself she loved children
So after keying her notes on the last batch into the computer she took the next Petri dish from the incubator. She knew right from the start that this was not a good batch-the spots that had started to appear were too big and numerous.
The view though the microscope stopped the boredom immediately-not only were the germs too many to count, they had shapes she had never seen in her life. What capped things off were that they were faintly emitting a green light.
Her company would have a hard time mixing this one up-a lot of milk was going to get spilled, quite literally. In fact the Meierei had to dispose of upwards of 15,000 liters. Silke Petersen had a lot of interesting discussions with officials from the Robert Koch institute in the coming weeks and one of the newly discovered bacteria was named after her. She would have preferred roses, but you take what you get.
And saving the lives of several hundred people at least also counted for something.
As the scientist at the Robert Koch institute wanted to make sure they redid all tests and published a few weeks later. The bacteria they had found were artificial, modified by warpstone magic. It had been tailored to kill pre-pubescent children.
If it would have been published a few weeks earlier it would have caused quite a stir-by the time it actually was hitting the media it did not make any difference at all.
Furaustrandir, Norsca, next day
Paul Müller watched the shoreline that was marred by construction. A bucket excavator was lifting loam out at a speed that a thousand workers could not have matched while closer to the water a pile driver was putting in huge poles. The vibrations from this ramming reached the soles of his feet. The shipyard was coming along nicely.
The treaty between Germany and the 5 Skraeling tribes had washed serious cash into the Norscan`s pockets as well as improved access to German technology. Paul had taken some advice from naval experts ad had then made a proposal to the Thing-the closest thing the Skraelings had to a parliament. They had been skeptical when he had shown the delegates the numbers and the business model which had been well calculated-such things were not for them yet.
Carrying cargo in bulk by sea was rapidly becoming a German specialty. A single container ship could carry more cargo than the Breton merchant marine in one year. The Germans were now building Barge Carriers so that the small harbors around the Warhammer world were less of a problem. Still this left the smaller cargos and the smaller powers as customers. Here somebody could make a decent living if he knew how to use a good ship. He then showed them the photos and told them of the voyages possible-that got them interested. In the end he arranged for a trip to Travemünde and showed them-that got them more than just interested-how they craved this project by all of their barbarian seafarer hearts.
The yard in front of the former Paratrooper was optimized for ships of composite construction. While this was not completely as original it allowed the Norscans to participate in construction right away, that was important. With raiding practically gone and other clans having a better connection to Germany because of their location something needed to be done soon to avoid unrest.
The Norscans would work together with German ship fitters to build ships that this world had never seen. This yard would make "Windjammer". Ships build to make trips around the world in a year on no fuel and with minimal crew. The Norscans could not wait to see them finished and in a year or so, if the prefabricated parts from Germany would arrive in time, they would sail the first one.
The former Paratrooper turned back had hiked to the office he kept close to the harbor. He needed to discuss the changes needed to the construction plans necessitated by the deck full of 12-pounders.
This is the ship Müller showed in Travemünde:
wiki/Passat_%28ship%29
50 kilometers from the Bay of Drusilla, Naggaroth, same time
Bruglier Henbane had brought his convoy back from the front lines and was exhausted but satisfied. The new wagons and tactics had reduced losses to a minimum. The Asur had been unable to find a counter so far. The best they had achieved was hitting two wagons with flasks of burning oil. As this was not exactly unforeseen the wood had been treated both by chemicals and by magic to fend that off. They had to repair one of the wagons extensively but shooting the flask carriers had killed lots of their comrades with less efforts and satisfying effects, so that was a wash.
And here was something new again. He had seen the construction of course but during his last trip things were coming together quickly. It seemed to silly and a waste of good iron. Two sets of wooden rails topped by a steel strip had been fixed to an unending row of sleepers. He had talked to some true Elves that were connected to this and had watched the crew of slaves, Chaos Dwarves and a few strangely clad humans lay it down. They claimed that on such a "railway" horses or cold ones could tow several times what they could on a normal road. Bruglier had of course been skeptical, even when said worthies claimed that they had seen this in Naggaroth, in what was supposedly a German enclave.
Now Bruglier saw a team of horses pull several carriages that were connected to each other with ease into the end point of the railway, called the station. Here he was supposed to get his new haul.
Looking upwards he saw a white line that slowly extended itself across the sky, something like a small arrow sped in front of it. What the fuck was that?
Bundeskanzleramt, Berlin, next day
The cabinet meeting was a busy one of course and so the daily Intelligence Report was partly ignored by some of the ministers who had portfolios where the report had few impact. Writing SMS on their smartphones or checking their e-mails they were ceasing to do so the longer the report went and the more they heard.
Peer Steinbrück, the finance minister started to listen in when the report came to an incident in the Sea of Claws.
"U40 detected and tracked a submarine of unknown origin which had a course for Bremerhaven. In accordance with their orders they tried to get this submarine to change course by using their active sonar. On the second try they were fired upon and sunk the submarine by torpedo. This caused a violent outbreak of raw magical energy, very likely from warpstone. This was so energetic that the sea boiled around the wreck in a remarkable volume for two days. Even now that the outbreak is over we have declared this area "off limits" and will check carefully before we allow ships into this again.
On top of that there seems to be an attempt of food poisoning in Trittau based on warpstone magic which again would indicate the Skaven."
"Oh Lord, not another war, not really." The finance minister was not even aware that he had spoken aloud but the looks of those around the table made it clear that he was not alone. It was Thomas de Maziere, the defense minister, who spoke up.
"Nobody wants another war, me least of all me. And yet the incident in the Sea of Claws makes me think. So much energy makes it likely it was caused by the fizzle of a warpstone bomb-it makes no sense to put so much power just for driving a small sub. If this is right then the Skaven tried to smuggle a weapon of Mass Destruction into one of our harbors. We can hardly overlook that."
"We do not know for sure it was the Skaven, we do not know for sure they tried to use a Warpstone Bomb, but we know we want to go to war-again? Have we forgotten that us humans probably caused the Battle for Altdorf with all the deaths?"
"And what do you suggest-wait till the bombs go of for real or a bad food poisoning starts killing people?"
"Didn`t you promise you could see the bombs coming? And how would another war keep them from trying acts of terror?"
"We will detect warpstone bombs-yes. But what would you do: wait for it?"
"Try to negotiate with them of course, see if something can be arranged."
Foreign minister Steinmeier had to go after this, even when Steinbrück was of his own party.
"I prefer negotiations of course-but how? Even the bleeding North Koreans had embassies where you could contact the Dear Serial Killer, but the Skaven do not."
"And if we try the same then for the Beastmen-drop wireless sets in Skavenblight and wait for a few days?"
"That sounds doable actually. Can you make it happen Thomas?"
"Yes, give it 3 days or so."
"Then do it. The chance to avoid another war can stand that much effort."
Angela Merkel usually waited till she knew where the wind was blowing before entering the fray, this was just her style.
Skavenblight, three days later
The Council of Thirteen had never been one for gravitas and logical serene debate, but the scene today was exceptional for its emotions. Voices that were already shrill and loud would not break glass if present, hands that twitched with violent impulses normally actually drew weapons half way out of sheaths before putting them back with trembling limbs.
There was just one thing that could make the 12 Lords of Decay behave like this, a force they knew very well from their own expert use-fear.
"How could you not see this, see this-do you want to kill us all Kritislik"
The Seerlord was about to speak words of power before reigning himself in.
"How could forsee this, this? Till yesterday we all thought that Skavenblight is safe, safe. And then the speaking boxes fall from the sky sky-nobody has ever seen magic like this this."
"No magic bumbler, no. Just engine-devious engine." Lord Morskittar, Lord of clan Skryre spoke from experience. "Similar to farsquealer this is, is. Does not use warpstone but other thinking, thinking."
"So how the Germans know about Skavenblight. It must be treason, treason"
"Who would do such a thing thing? Maybe they find us with their flying machines machines?"
"No matter, this is bad bad. What do we do do"
Lord Morskittar went at it. "No matter what we do or the German farsquealer say we do not use it here, here. Now they may suspect where we are, then they know. Use outside, use in swamp."
"Do we have anything to say to the Germans?"
"Yes, that we want peace of course."
The squealing that followed then made any thinking-let alone the exchange of thoughts-impossible.
"Why would you offer peace besides your yellow liver?" Lord Paskrit, leader of the warrior clans was the most disdainful.
"Can your Clanrats protect us from the fire falling from the sky? Can your Stormvermin stop the Iron Chariots. We need to learn more before we continue-otherwise we all die die."
The squealing, the insults and backstabbing continued but at the end of a day a delegation of lower ranking Skaven from all clans was send into the swamp to use the German talking boxes and ask for peace. At the same time far squealers and messengers were send out to reign in the saboteurs, assassins and Plague Monks that were into missions into Germany. They were successful in most cases and did not think the few they could not reach in time would pose any problem.
ICE 3 "Köln", close to Hannover, Lower Saxony, evening two days later
Ronald Bark tried to work on his Laptop and found it rather hard to do. The train he was in offered enough power sockets and a decent WLAN. Given that he had to write up a report for the meeting with a customer he just had the latter would not have been necessary, but it was nice for checking the mails later.
Also the seat was of decent size and the small table in front of him made the job doable. And yet the noise level in the train was such that he found it difficult to concentrate. And it was not the noise level of the train that was the problem. For the umpteen times he cursed his boss who did not want to spring the money for 1st class travel. He could understand that when air trips were concerned, the trips were too short to make the additional expense worth it. But these days everybody took the bleeding train-and that meant it was hard to get any work done.
Accepting that for the moment he would not accomplish anything the broker leaned back and gazed down the length of the aisle. The wagon had more than 60 seats, most taken and it was one of 11 similar ones. The display at the head of this wagon showed a steady 290 km/h for speed. The imperial steam railways might be nice-but this was the real thing. The passengers were a mixed bunch-some business travelers like him, some elderly who probably were visiting someone-and of course the school classes back from an excursion to somewhere and loud like a jet taking off.
Oh well…
Grizdwell was furious-he had traversed this Horned-Rat-forsaken country as fast as anybody could, maybe faster. He had found a good place to employ the device given to him by the Warlock engineer-the best-and then his blasted lighter failed to work.
Turning the wheel again and again green sparks were generated-but the wick refused to catch fire. Even when he went very close to the fuse the sparks were not enough. Grizdwell squealed in frustration and his attempts at making the lighter work became more and more frantic and less likely to work. Steadying himself he straightened and at the same time froze in terror.
Where seemingly seconds before nothing but emptiness was now 3 lights roared at him with terrible speed. He never felt the lighter drop from his paw, never saw it brake open on the rail and flare in greenish flame and the sparks given off by the fuse. The detonation collapsed the tunnel roof above him and buried him under a huge pile of concrete and overburden. He was just the first dead of many.
The train entered the tunnel at nearly 300 kilometers an hour-and then there was no more tunnel, just a mass of junk in the way. The railroad engineer was just the first human to die, immediately followed by hundreds of passengers. The first cars were subjugated to such forces that they compressed the passengers inside into something no longer recognizably human. Actually CSI and genetic analysis had to be employed just to find the number of dead in the first 3 wagons as nobody could be sure which of the parts that could be extracted from the mess belonged to whom. There were 124 dead in these carriages, a fact published 2 weeks after the attack.
In the cars behind the first ones, the cars that remained in a shape that allowed them to be identified as part of a train by a layperson, the passengers were propelled forward within the carriages with such force that they could have dropped from a hundred meters. And yet each wagon that was deformed out of shape and every human ground to paste absorbed energy. This slowed the last cars at a rate that was nearly survivable.
Dozens of phone calls from nearby Hemmingen alerted the authorities that a terrible disaster was afoot, the disaster management center did not even consult the District Administrator before they alarmed every ambulance, medic, Landwehr, fire brigade and engineer unit in a hundred kilometer circle. The first ones would arrive only minutes after the attack and could only gaze at the terrible scene in front of them. 4 hours later nearly 2000 helpers tried their very best to save what could be from the chaos in front of them.
Eric Schulze was alerted up by the siren before he could sit down for a solitary dinner. Wondering if some youngsters had incinerated a dumpster or a crashed car needed to be opened he hastened to the firehouse where he met most other members of the volunteer fire brigade. He changed clothing with the routine of having done it for more than 20 years. He did not seem to hurry, he was just ready in under a minute.
When he was done the Fire Boss called them and they aligned themselves into a long line abreast.
"Ok-we have a mission, a real one. Seems that the ICE had a bad crash on the rail at kilometer 15.5-we are going there to assist with rescuing the passengers. Get to the engines men."
The muttering among the volunteers never stopped. There was a precedent for this-a similar train had a nasty accident 12 years ago not so far from where they were and they had talked to the fire brigades which were there. From what they had heard it had been sheer undiluted hell. They could only hope that this crash was less serious-maybe the train had just rammed a flock of sheep, which had happened before too.
When their small convoy arrived there were already other helpers about and a mixture of policemen and Firemen directed them. Eric could see the boss talk to somebody from his window and then the engines were driving forward to the site itself. When the trucks cleared the earthen dam that surrounded the railway the volunteers got their first view of the accident.
Nobody spoke-they had heard of this hell before, now they saw it. It was every bit as bad as it had been described to them, but seeing was a differnt animal. The entrance into the tunnel was jammed by an unidentifiable mass of metal followed by totally deformed railroad cars that were ripped open like a tin box crushed by a truck. Only the last cars were closed, yet bend and twisted. The closer they came the better they could see the colorful bundles of cloth strewn on the ground close to the cars that were ripped open. When they were closed enough they ceased to be bundles of cloth and became something far worse.
Erik and the others from his troop were tasked with opening up the front end of the next-to-last carriage. Eric helped to carry the heavy motorized angle grinder to the railroad car. While he helped to set things up he realized that the last window was intact. The deformations to the car meant that nobody from that car could get out until he and his unit had cut a hole. When he got closer to the window a hand punched it from the inside. He was taken aback at first but quickly stepped closer. In the gloom he could only see the arm and the hand-the tiny bloody hand that punched at the window time after time.
"Meier-over here" His Platoon leader came over and watched the same thing than him. "Scheiße-we cannot get in here."
"Why"
"Window is super-hard, not enough space behind it. We punch the window enough to shatter it, we hit the passengers with fragments."
"What about emergency windows?"
"Not these two-and where the next one that would have been is too deformed to get anybody in or out. Can you watch here please."
"Yes, will do."
Schulze quickly realized that it was no us to try to shout to the passengers trapped in the compartment, the windows were too thick and the clamor raised by the power tools too loud. He could just watch the punches become less often and weaker. Putting his hand on the windowpane a palm was placed on the other side, but not for long.
He wanted to hurry his comrades again and again but quickly saw how useless it was. The designers of the ICE had placed a lot of the load-bearing on the stressed skin of the train, having made the walls from high-alloy steel of surprising thickness. Their angle grinder was designed to cut cars apart within minutes but this was a different task. Erik got his hopes up when the angle grinder ceased to work, yet when he looked he just saw the crew hastily changing the grinding wheel that they had burned out in their haste.
It took another eternity of 30 minutes until there was a hole of sufficient size. He had volunteered to go in first, anything to get him from that observation post. When he had wormed his way in he was greeted by a sight he could not identify, not at first. Things reached the nightmare stadium when his brain finally ceased to refuse reality. By the time he was out again to give something like a report the railroad team bearing the specialized tools for opening these trains finally arrived. He was too shocked to beat them to pulp like a small part of his brain insisted would be the right thing to do.
It was in the early hours of the morning that Angela Merkel was led through the disaster site. She was a politician so long that she herself could no longer say how much of that was real concern and how much public relations. By now she wished she had come later-a lot later. She had seen pictures and videos of such things before, of much worse disasters in fact. No picture could beat reality. The Fire Brigadier who showed her around had ceased to explain things to her some minutes ago when he realized that the German chancellor was not really listening.
Merkel was not really focusing on anything, there was just so much to take in at a time. What caught her attention was a fireman who wormed his way out of one carriage and carried a blue bundle of something in his arms. Walking down a row of cloth bundles he placed the small bundle besides a bigger one that had a matching blue color. It was then that she saw his face-red rimmed eyes that stared into the long distance. The skin was covered by grime and soot except for two channels where tears had cleaned the accumulated dirt. It was then that she realized what the man was doing-he matched the parts of corpses that were torn from the wreck. It was obvious that the fireman had given far more than there was in him and he did not stop doing it.
Her feet carried her over without conscious thought and she managed to read the nametag before addressing him. "Fireman Schulze-you have done all you can for sure-take a break. Nobody will think you a quitter if you do."
"Sorry, cannot do that Mam."
"Why the hell not?"
"I am afraid of having nothing to do"
Sadexo Plant, Potsdam, next night
Plazegnat was a Skaven Plague Monk, and by his own thinking and the opinion of his superiors and especially wretched one. He had been one of the Monks from Couronne that had been tasked with bringing Nurgle`s blessings to this Germany that dared to defy the will of the Horned Rat and Nurgle both.
At first he had been overwhelmed when he had seen the German cities: So many humans in one place, such opportunities to give the gifts. And then there had been the letdown. The Germans had no wells from which everybody got the water. They kept the foods in storage rooms frozen by magic or packed so intricately that he could not put his additions to them without being detected.
He had become quite desperate when the smell had drawn him in. The delicious small had come from a huge building at the outskirts and it was deserted of the many people working in there now. He managed to push his emaciated body through a window that was opened a bit and wandered through halls filled with the strange gleaming machines used by the humans and the smell of rotting meat.
Yet, he could find no foodstuff in the open so he started looking into adjunct rooms. The first ones were disappointments-more deep cold, more intricate packaging till he found a room which was only cold but not freezing. Several vats were filled with a yellow sweet substance which was probably meant to go into another food-perfect. One vial of Plazegnat`s best gifts went into each and he stirred the vats with a spoon that was there before cleaning things off again. He was very happy with himself and tried to distance himself as much as possible while the night lasted.
He went as far as the Highway 1 where his dark fur made it impossible for an early shift worker on the way to his job to see him in time. The car threw the Plague Monk nearly 10 meters through the air before dropping him lifelessly on the ground. The police was still securing the site when the vanilla sauce was portioned into smaller containers and sent to various schools and kindergartens around Brandenburg to be served with strawberries as part of a school lunch.
Charite`, Berlin, two days later
Every available room in the Charite` and man of the corridors were occupied by hospital beds with children inside. So many people made for a high noise level doctors and nurses were shouting orders to get heard, parents tried to find their children, tried to soothe them or asked for more help by the overworked medical personal. Conspicuously absent were the sounds that so many children would normally make when present-they were far too weak to make noise. They all had high fever, constipation, pains in their arms and legs, headache and a rash of red pustules on their chests. All of them had drip feeds in their arms, some already the slim tubes of additional oxygen in their noses.
Ralf Winkler pushed his way through such a corridor and tried not to be taken too much with it. He had work to do, and if he got too depressed to do it people would die-well more people than otherwise. He went by a bed that held a waxen-faced girl in the arms of a crying mother and tried to move even faster not to be taken in. He barely herd the "Make it stop mommy" before the double doors of the corridor closed behind him. He never saw the attendant who captured this on video with his mobile phone.
Five minutes later the erstwhile medic pushed himself into a meeting that was going full throttle. Currently the floor was held by Dr. Meier from the Robert Koch institute, a doctor he knew from Middenheim.
"What we face here is a variant of typhus fever, one we have never seen before. There is nearly no incubation time and the vector seems to be contaminated food which is also not standard. Currently we can treat it with tetracycline, but the necessary doses are so high that we get dangerous secondary effects. On top of that we are getting indications that the fever can be transmitted from one human to another. We need to get on top of this and soon-there is already a lot of stress on the medical system. That`s it from me for the moment, anybody else?"
Ralf made it a point not to speak up openly-the "witch doctors" were still not accepted by everyone-but headed off the doctor before he could leave the room.
"Hello Doctor Meier, how are you?"
"Who-ah Ralf Winkler, I remember you from Middenheim. What can I do for you?"
"Depends-I have a gift for you." The medic held up two well-sealed test tubes. "I`ve seen the small fragger work, we isolated some of them in here. And in this one we have taken the pains to kill him well. Could be the start of a vaccine."
"You don`t expect me to take you at face value, don`t you?"
"I would be disappointed if you do doctor-but you can spend a little effort checking it out on the quick. Have fun with it."
"Thanks-I think."
"Think of us when you publish-I think."
"Deal"
Zeppelin NZ close to Guben, same night
The airship was in many the ways rather close to the original NZ Zeppelin-in size, materials and numbers of engines. That the engines were 300 hp diesel instead of 200 hp Lycoming gas engines, that a "Rune of Flying" increased payload considerably-but apart from that things had stayed. What had changed was payload.
Multispectral cameras, MM-wave radar and magical sensors allowed the airship to detect nearly anything in its range while staying aloft more than 24 hours. Patrolling the border between Germany and the Empire the crew did not expect anything to go wrong too badly and actually a number of "green" crewmembers were gaining experience in an area where failures would count for less.
Currently the "new fish" were glued to their sensors while the more experienced members were enjoying some coffee and bread rolls and watch their understudies work themselves through the menus offered to them.
"Sergeant Bruns, I have a reading at 82 degree-some magic energy."
"What wind Bernhard?"
"None"
"Let me have a look. Hm-you are right. Captain, this is sensors, we have a strong magical signal at 82-now 81 degree, looks like 26 kilometer distance. I recommend a closer look."
"Sensors, Captain here-if you are sure we`ll risk a peak. Comms, raise the Empire, we go a bit into their sandbox to play. Pilot, course 81 degree, height 750 meters."
Originally the Thielert Diesel engines had been put on the airships as the Lycommings were no longer available, they used too much fuel and more power was better. An unforeseen advantage was that the engines were originally made to power Mercedes sedans and therefore much quieter. For the surveillance airships a special "quiet mode" had been included where the engine and props were optimized for sound, not efficiency. Under normal circumstances they were virtually soundless when in 500 meters height.
When the airship circled the datum of the magical emanations they found a wheeled carriage for something very heavy and a lot of furred creatures around it.
"Well, well, I do not think this is Avon calling. Comms, contact Reiksbund central, we need some help here and keep station till they answer."
Below the airship an enraged Warlock Engineer argued with the newcomer, a messenger who had just found the small group. "I bring this bomb all this way here, despite bad bad tunnel and nasty spiders in them. And now you tell me that I am to turn around and push that bomb back all the way. And you do not even bring news to me in tunnel-no you do this in the only open stretch in miles miles. Who do you think I am, am? A human slave just fit to be ordered to run in circles? Does this amuse you? Do you think I am funny, funny?"
"I can just relay the orders from the council council. You need to get back to tunnel and Skavenbight quick quick."
The two of them were still arguing when an extremely bright light shone in them from an attitude and a strange noise emerged from the source of this light. The Warlock engineer drew his warpstone pistol commendably quick and managed to place the shot within 2 meters of the Hind Helicopter.
The return salvo shredded him, the messenger and most of his entourage within seconds while the rest ran as quickly as their furry legs could carry them. Two of them were captured. Nobody needed to lean on them, when they were told that they would not be killed or send back they never ceased to talk about their treck to a city called Frankfurt.
Unter den Linden 50, Berlin same night
Snekatch had been hiding in the tree for two days now. He had watched the humans in the building next to the tree during this time, seen them enter the rooms and leave. He could not make any sense from what they were doing. Most of the time they were looking into glowing rectangles and did something with their hands before them. At other times they were talking and talking, but there was nobody in the room to listen, instead they held small boxes against their ears.
He had been told that this house held important leaders of Germany, but from the looks he was not sure of he did not watch a madhouse. He did not know that not too few Germans would agree with him as the house he watched contained many offices for the members of parliament.
The Skaven assassin had nevertheless identified at least one human who seemed important. While he was not the biggest or oldest many different humans seemed to defer to him and if he was not wrong he was often asked for advice. This evening he had stayed in his room far longer than his helpers and had watched the glowing rectangle for longer than usual. Instead of working in front of the glowing thing he did something below the table that Snekatch could not see.
When the human finally went up, picked up a coat and left the assassin knew his time had come. The human had always taken the same exit, had always walked to the same tunnel close by and took about 5 minutes from his office to the exit.
Gliding down the tree like a 3-dimensional shadow the Skaven managed to crawl under s series of cars to get closer to his target. And then disaster struck when Snekatch arrived at the last car. Is target had been faster than usual and was already crossing the street. Nearly issuing a frustrated squeal the assassin trusted the pools of shadow between the lights and sprinted forward. He barely heard the shouting behind him and saw his target turn towards him but that was too late. His dagger easily found the humans heart and he was already back to the shadows when he was hit by what had to be hammer blows and darkness descended about him.
He neither knew nor would have cared that he had just killed the up-and –coming member of the Social Democrats, Sebastian Edarthy.
Hemmingen, next evening
Erik Schulze had learned that he could not do a lot of things any more.
He could not talk to his coworkers, his ex-wife or his parents about what he had seen. They would look at him with no understanding at best and pity at worst. His Ex had expressly asked him not to talk to his children. He could talk to his comrades at the fire brigade but that made them even more morose.
He could no longer sleep. When he tried he woke up after 5 minutes with the picture of the bloody hand against the windowpane glued to the insides of his eyelids.
He could not really work-he had no concentration at all, his hands shook and several noises at the plant brought him back to the place he had been. His coworkers took up the slack without complaining but that just made it worse.
He could no longer watch children in the street without thinking of the small bodies he had puzzled back together at the accidents site.
He could no longer imagine a future for himself and was lost in a world without any bright spot.
Sitting in his lonely apartment at his empty kitchen table he did not move for more than an hour before the thought hit him. The thought of beautiful terrible clarity that showed him the way out.
Taking a sheet of paper he started to write, his hands finally free of the shakes.
