Hi everyone!

Sorry this "midweek" update came a little late but GCSE technology came in the way and I needed to make up for two terms of procrastination and general idleness. : (
Reflecting my mood, this update is more than a little depressing and weird. Still, hope you enjoy it! Expect Eddie Malone goodness over the weekend.

And finally: A VERY BIG thanks to my proof reader and general sage: ByStarlight999 who helped me with the more surreal parts.

"Today, the Kaiser signed Executive Order 6024, indefinitely extending the National State of Emergency declared when war was declared against Russia in the summer. This means the conscript divisions will not be disbanded as was previously thought and the rationing of foodstuffs and kerosene will continue. The Minister of the Exterior had this to say:
'Germany has proved itself to be the greatest of the European powers but with that power comes responsibility. The previously Darwinist nations look to us for inspiration in their search for mekanical enlightenment. The Military is at the heart of this enlightenment. The Kaiser has said that anyone claiming differently is at best a fool and at worst a traitor...'"
The Minister of the Interior switched off the radio set with shaking hands. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a little bottle of black pills. He attempted to unscrew them but felt a hand on his wrist. It was Ilse.
"You promised Liesl."
He gave a disgusted sigh and threw the pills against his office's wood panelling. The thick glass bottle broke and the tiny black tablets scattered across the hard wood floor.
He could not bear it. Not after he had failed them so badly.
He tried to look up but the concern in her eyes shamed him. He had been so sure. So sure that he could persuade the Kaiser to adopt the Society's plans. So sure that it was all going to work out. So sure that Liesl would one day have a reason to be proud of her father. Now he had dragged them all into a deadly duel against the military, one he knew he could not win. A low whisper left his lips.
"Please, Ilse..."
The whisper faltered and then died. The man stared at the floorboards, his grey eyes clouded over. Then he spoke again, with some of his old strength returning.
"I need you to leave Germany."
Isle stood her ground.
"I am not leaving you."
The man finally looked at her, his normally unreadable grey eyes red and filled with pain.
"Please, Ilse, it isn't safe."
She met his gaze with her own dark blue, concern etching deep lines along her brow. The woman moved to embrace him but he recoiled from her touch as if struck.
"Please, Ilse. They will hurt you. You and Liesl."
Her mouth opened slightly but she closed it firmly and a touch of cold steel entered her eyes.
"The military doesn't scare me."
"Well it bloody well should!"
Ilse eyes widened and she began to shake her head.
"Don't shake your head! Von Heste and the rest of those bastards are going to come after me."
Ilse mouthed something but her husband was worked into a fury.
"You heard what the Kaiser said! I am a traitor and once they find out my connection with the Solon Society, I am going to hang, Ilse. And you know what happens to the families of traitors. Do you think Liesl can have her pretty dolls and dresses when you're both in the poorhouse? How are you...?"
He stopped. In the silence, he could hear sobbing. He looked behind him and saw Liesl standing in the door, her little arms wrapped around a Steiff Bear. Her eyes were brimming with tears.
"Daddy..."
Heavy sobs wracked her tiny form and fat tears rolled down her cheeks and onto her nightie.
"They aren't going to hang you are they?"
He ran to her and she grasped at him almost desperately.
"Daddy, I don't want them to hurt you."
The man was almost in tears himself. He held Liesl to him and fought to prevent her from feeling his own sobs.
"Don't worry Liesl. No-one is going to hurt me."
"But you said! You said they were going to hang you and put mummy and me in the poorhouse."
"I didn't mean it, Liesl. It's going to be... It going to be all right."
They held each other for a long time. At last, she hiccupped a little and stopped shaking. He let go and she stepped back slightly into the warm light of the hallway. Her eyes were wide and rimmed with puffy red. The man was reminded of times when she had bad dreams and he would go to her room and hold her until she fell back asleep. But that terror was only imaginary. She would not wake up from this one.
"It's all going to be... all right?"
She repeated his phrase with a waiver. He responded heavily.
"Yes. Everything is going to be all right, Liesl."
The girl held the Steiff Bear tightly as if compensating for the loss of her father's embrace.
"All right."
She agreed quietly, nodding slowly. The man stood, patting her blonde head.
"Would you like me to read to you?"
A faint smile flitted across her face.
"I would like that, Daddy."
He took her hand and led her from the study.
Ilse watched them go and almost let a bitter laugh escape her. But instead she knelt down and began to pick up the tiny black pills lying on the floor and dump them in the incineration chute built into the study's oak desk.

Hauptmann Hans Israel turned away from his men, worried they would see his hesitation. They needed guidance goddamn it! And where were they going to get it if their commander was moping around like an utter Dummkopf? He was about to avenge dozens, if not hundreds of German lives and finally get promoted off of the front lines. So why was he being so damn sentimental about it? He was definitely not the only one with misgivings about the mission. He knew for a fact that Sergeant Fabier had a daughter about the girl's age. Yet he was still able to give clear headed orders, sealing the manholes with plaster and setting up the canisters.
It might have been easier if they were just killing her. That could be done impersonal: a hand grenade around a corner, a gunshot to the back. But Command wanted her alive. And that meant using Albtraumgas.

Albtraumgas is the most famous German weapon in the relatively new field of psychological warfare. It has been used as a chemical weapon against certain war beasts, a non lethal way of incapacitating important individuals, an interrogation tool and even a training exercise. Simply put, it is a potent hallucinogen and brain stimulant. As the brain is stimulated, it starts producing hallucinations. The mind has a natural inclination to promote bad thoughts above good ones and the stimulant prevents the conscience part of the brain over ruling the subconscious. As the mind creates unpleasant hallucinations, the subconscious begins exploring other memories and such that are associated with it. The hallucinations get worse and worse, occasionally ending in a psychotic break. Before the war, all military recruits were subjected to two twenty minute exposures of the drug as psychological training.
One recruit described it as:
"Twenty minutes, trapped in a tiny room with your own worst nightmares. It was hell. Worse than the perpetual exhaustion of the physical training or the blood tinged confusion of actual battle. When I first entered the room, padded we wouldn't hurt ourselves, I was confident he could survive whatever they could throw at me. But it wasn't them. It was me. My own mind attempting to drive itself insane, plumbing itself to find every horror, every personal or instinctual disgust or revulsion to use as ammunition against its own sanity. But it did not stop there. Every bad memory would be relived in vivid detail. Every good one would be warped and twisted until I screamed at them to stop. The ghosts of my failures would rise to mock me and the empty shells of my successes would watch on in horrible silence."

It was horrible stuff and he was about to subject a sixteen year old girl to it? Sergeant Fabier gave him an odd look.
"Are you all right sir?"
The Captain pulled him aside and replied in a low whisper.
"No, since your asking."
The Sergeant looked sympathetic but said:
"We have to do it."
"Don't you have a daughter her age?"
The Sergeant's expression became suddenly cold.
"And?"
"Don't you see..."
"No, sir, I do not. There is no similarity whatsoever between my Greta and that...." he struggled to find a word for her. Most men called her "der Dämon Armenischen".
"I didn't say they were similar but..."
"Listen, sir. When I left Dresden, Greta came to me and asked why I was leaving. I told her I was leaving to make the world a better place. I promised her that I would do whatever I had to do for the sake of that better place. And if someone stands in my way, I will destroy them. It is really that simple."
Israel looked into his Sergeant's eyes. He had never asked why the man had gone to war or for whom he fought. Now he knew, he felt his own motivations were small and selfish. He had joined the military academy for the money and fame it promised. Sure, his father had got all teary about proving their allegiance to the fatherland but that was only because he got some abuse at work for being a Hebrew. Hans had joined out of personal reasons, not religious ones. He sighed. Perhaps he was not the most inspiring leader but he got the job done. Today would be no exception.
"All right, Sergeant." The Captain pulled on his gasmask. He played with a dial on the side and it clicked. Satisfied, he spoke and his voice came out tinny through the speakers.
"We'll start releasing the gas in ten. Prep the men. We have a mission to complete."

What was that?

The girl looked up. There was something there, hiding in the outskirts of her vision. She could sense it. Careful not to tear her wound, she crawled forward. There! It moved, dashing across her vision; Too quickly to render clearly, but she had an idea of where it was. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out an electric torch. Pointing it in the direction of the thing, she counted to five and turned it on.
It was a spider.
Only a spider. The girl almost laughed. She didn't mind spiders. Not one bit. She spent weeks with the creature's mechanical counterpart, printing anti-German propaganda. She knew some people who hated spiders though- a Greek boy with whom she had shared a short-lived romance had been terrified of the things. Called it a "phobia". Lilit didn't have one. Unless you counted maggots.
Maggots... Maggots...
Was that buzzing? She looked around. Suddenly, she could hear a buzzing, faint now but it was growing stronger. She turned the electric torch back on. A few feet away, bobbing on the sewers stream, was a hunk of meat. A cloud of fat flies followed it. The thing was being dragged closer and she realized that the white specks were not fat. They were maggots. The ugly little worms crawled over each other, their horrible black heads groping blindly as they squirmed and wiggled in a revolting pile of pallid flesh.
She muffled a scream. The maggots turned to her, their black heads twisting in unison. Then they began to crawl towards her, plopping one by one into the black water. On the ledge overlooking the flow, a black head pulled itself over. Lilit stared at it in horror. Suddenly the entire edge was covered in the little monsters, squirming towards her, their white bodies crawling over each other in their eagerness.
The first reached her toes and began to move up her boots. She kicked and the thing burst with a sick pop, greenish slime oozing from its split skin. More came, more than she could handle. She twisted and turned, trying to brush them off but there were thousands of the things. They crawled up towards her face and she screamed. She felt the worms on her lips and she tired to close her mouth but they were already inside, their thick, fleshy forms invading her mouth, her throat.
Her body was covered with them, her limbs disappearing beneath a layer of the squirming worms. A black head appeared over her left eye, its head cocked as if pondering what to do next. Then it plunged into her eyeball, its tiny jaws opened wide...

"Lilit!"
She awoke suddenly, a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. Her father stood over her, concern in his brown eyes.
"Are you all right?"
" Yes," she realised her voice was quavering and steadied it. "I'm fine."
She was lying on a picnic blanket in the olive grove they used to go to. It had wonderful views of the city and the Aegean. She smiled.
"Just a bad dream."
"Well, I am glad you're all right, Lilit." her mother said. She poured a cup of tea and handed it to her.
"You shouldn't worry so much about me, Mother. It was just a bad dream."
"When did you fall asleep?"
She suddenly realized her head was in someone's lap.
"Dylan?"
The boy smiled.
"You gave me a bit of a start back there. Thrashing around and all that."
"I'm sorry."
"That's quite all right."
Their lips touched.
"Lilit. Find someplace more private," Nene croaked from her wheelchair.
"Yes, let's."
Dylan pulled her to her feet.
"There's this little cove over here."
He pulled her through the olive trees until they reached a secluded spot atop some cliffs overlooking the sea. He turned to her, his sandy blonde hair catching the breeze.
"Lilit, I've been thinking. I have an airship leaving tomorrow. We can fly, free and together forever and ever. I want you, Lilit."
He moved forward, pressing his body against her. She felt the warmth of his body, the intimacy of his embrace. She moved to kiss him.
A distant explosion grabbed her attention. She looked up and saw flames over Istanbul. Huge shapes floated over the domes and spires, raining high explosives on the hapless city. The Iron Cross glinted from their tail fins.
"Dylan! The Germans have..."
But the boy was gone. The cove was empty. Lilit tore up the slope towards the grove. Trees and brambles tore at her clothes and gouged her skin. Blood pounded in her ears, the rumble of the explosions shaking her to the bone. At last, she broke free and stumbled into the clearing.
"Lilit."
It was her mother. Hanging from a crude wooden gallows. Her hands were tied but her feet kicked desperately. Her face was blue but still she manages to whisper.
"Please help me, Lilit."
She ran to the gallows but a line of impassive soldiers in German uniforms blocked her path. She beat at their armour with her ten-year-old's fists but they looked on in silence as her mother's kicking legs fell still.
"Lilit."
Nene was on her clockwork bed, foaming at the mouth. Her empty cyanide capsule lay in her hand.
"Run." she said, the poison slurring her words. Lilit grabbed her hand.
"I can't leave you, Nene!"
There were gunshots downstairs, the last of the Committee's engineers fighting a desperate last stand against the Germans. Nene gave her a final meaningful stare.
"The Committee needs you." Lilit gave her grandmother a desperate hug and then leaped off the balcony onto the roof of the warehouse, just as the door was forced open.
Except she landed on a picnic blanket in the middle of an olive grove. She could see Zaven sipping tea, his back turned.
"Father?"
He turned and Lilit stepped back. His face was red and raw, burnt by the countless volts that had coursed through his walker. His eyes were blank and horribly white against the red, ruined flesh around them.
"Why do you step back, daughter? You helped me do it, after all."
Lilit ran. Away down the hill. She stumbled and when she looked up, she saw Dylan. But he wasn't the same. He wore a gaudy dress and had a thick layer of makeup on his face, like one of the prostitutes in the seedier ghettos. He looked at her and spoke, his voice obscenely high.
"Hello Lilit."
Alek appeared and coiled his arm around the boy. He turned and kissed Alek. Lilit stared in horror. Alek laughed and spoke in a tone of mock sincerity.
"Come on now Lilit. I'm sure you realized you can't compete with a prince. You're just a tool for me to win the war. And I see you can't even do that right."
He pushed her and she fell backwards. Except she didn't stop. She just kept on falling...
A face looked over her. It wore a heavy gas mask but she could tell it was Zaven. Not the burnt, accusing thing from the olive grove but her real father who would take her in her arms and whisper in her ear, telling her everything was going to be all right. She embraced him, tears coming unbidden. He seemed surprised and tried to push her off but she wouldn't let go. She would never let go of him again. She felt someone slide something over her nose. It smelt sweet and she breathed deeply. The world began to fade but she clung onto her father. And he held her too. No matter what happened, she had him.

I did warn you it was weird...

Hope you enjoyed it though.

Also, sorry for any dodgy German phrases. I do my best but I only study French and Italian so there are probably numerous syntax and grammar errors. If anyone cares to correct me, I'll change it.

REVIEW! and remember to thank ByStarlight999 too.