Part IV: The Austrian's Shadow

"What the hell happened to her?" The surgeon asked as his newest patient lay in recovery. There was no time to ask such detailed questions before the surgery, they might have lost her.

The woman who had brought her in was fidgeting, well, trembling in rage. "We were attacked. She was walking me home after a few drinks, and a drunk shot her."

The surgeon looked again at the unconscious woman on the bed, a quarter of her face destroyed, even after the first surgery. The bullet basically disintegrated her lower jaw, along with her teeth and gums on that side. The trajectory of the bullet also deformed her nose. Luckily, she only lost the very tip of her tongue.

"What did she do to provoke such a response?" The surgeon muttered to himself, but the foreign woman heard him.

"'What did she do?'" The woman fumed, "It doesn't matter, you swine. He fucking shot her in the face and you have the fucking nerve to ask why it was her fault?!" The surgeon fled the deadly ire of this woman, for he was a coward.

The woman, Liesel, sat down and took Isabel's unconscious hand once they were alone.

Liesel didn't say anything, but her best friend was dead to the world anyhow. She watched Isabel's ragged breathing for a while, and before she too fell asleep, she began to cry.

Some Time Later

Isabel had long since stopped smiling. It didn't hurt anymore, she just thought it looked hideous. Besides, thanks to her injury, 'It's like I'm always smiling'. She let out a cold chuckle as she made her way down the rainy street. The light in her eyes since having achieved her Doctorate was gone. Within a couple weeks of the incident the authorities had stopped looking for the man responsible for disfiguring the unlikely pride of Germany's science community.

Her best friend Liesel was absolutely livid. Isabel had to convince her to not barge into the precinct herself. In a rare showing of unity her colleagues in the academic world stood behind her, and even helped with the cost of the multiple surgeries that left her able to function at all. She was able to eat normally again after a couple years of ground up food, and mush. And it's not like her intellect deteriorated any. At least, that's what everyone kept reminding her.

She knew they were right. She also knew what they would think of her if they learned the truth about what happened to the man who shot her. As it turned out, cold and direct murder was something that weighed on her conscience after all. It only took a few modifications to a fertilizer formula she had consulted for Dr. Haber on.

The police had found the man who had shot her. An Austrian. One of her colleagues had commented about it in passing, the soldier had mentioned his issues with racial diversity in the Hapsburg's army. So naturally, because her name was Maru, and probably because she was a woman, he sought her out.

There were things that he said, things that she kept from Liesel, who only saw the shot, but was in the pub in Berlin for the heated exchange before the shot. He had researched her, had hunted her for a while. And he knew of her family, and where they were from. It wasn't exactly a secret, but she'd found in general that her pale skin hid her from much of the hatred afforded to her peoples.

She found him after the first week. She followed him home one day from his work at an art studio. She held the vial in her hand, and she had only to toss it a few meters in front of her. He'd walk into it, and gargle to death on the remnants of his lungs. She stopped. He continued walking, oblivious, until he re-joined the crowd, and out of sight. This moment of mercy would haunt her nightmares in the decades to come. Never had so many paid a price for such a kindness.

The clouds of war were over the horizon, approaching as surely as the summer rains.

She had been referred to an American sculptor living in Paris who had done her the immense service of crafting her a porcelain mask to cover her deformity. Walking around in public drew stares, more so than when it was just her beauty attracting lustful eyes, but she was so glad that she could walk down any street with her head held high.

The man who referred her to the sculptor was a general in the German army with a fetish for Dr. Haber's work. A fetish for gas based weaponry, or at least the prospect of such a thing. It didn't really bother the doctor, after all, so did she. Or at least she was beginning to. Besides, after the Hapsburg heir was murdered, along with his pregnant wife, there was a tension in the air.

Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire wanted to punish Serbia. After all, if the brutal eradication of the lineage of royalty wasn't a cause for war, what was?

The General, a tall man named Ludendorff, offered her a position a chief chemist. Dr. Maru was surprised, after all, Fritz Haber was the one with seniority, but the general seemed to have faith in her work.

As the war began, there wasn't much for Isabel to do but work in her lab. Ludendorff would ensure she had the means to achieve her goals. She remembered when her one time mentor, Fritz Haber had told her that, "During peace, scientists belong to the world, but in war, they belong to their country." And while her country of birth and whose accent she carried was Spain, the place that gave her the opportunity to pursue her dreams was the city of Munich. And so it was for herself, and for Germany she fought.

Author's note:This chapter includes references to a few people who actually lived during the time. Fritz Haber is one to look up in particular. Fun fact, Elena Anaya (Dr. Maru's actress) based some of her performance off of the information we have of this man. I toy with history a lot here, because I can.