Editing City Series:Volume6c Chapter1 (section)

===Part 1===

The sky was clear. The blue expanse spread wide without a cloud to be found.

The sun was bright. Its direct light created countless dark shadows on the red cracked ground to decorate the flat and parched wasteland. The colors blue, red, and black covered everything as far as the eye could see.

Those colors were joined by the wind and some sound.

The wind was audibly torn through as an aircraft flew by.

Below that windy sound were two colors not found anywhere else: gray and white.

The gray belonged to three large runways lined up on the red wasteland and the blast-resistant buildings of a largescale base.

The white belonged to the white paint coloring the walls of the wooden barracks lined up alongside the base.

The aircraft was a fighter belonging to the base. It flew through low over the runway, performed a single roll, and soared back up into the sky. The shimmering heat of its jets slammed into the runway which had words written in more white paint: USIF Arizona Area 001.

This was the Arizona headquarters of the USIF, the US branch of the AIF.

The rumbling of the aircraft faded and the wind blew across the runways. The wind and the barking of a guard dog were the only sounds left. The large dog kept barking in the space between the barracks and the mess hall.

The cries of a dog with newfound prey reverberated through the heated air. The racket was best heard inside the mess hall since its windows were open.

The large wooden building was made to hold 2000 and it looked like a bungalow but bigger. It was bright enough outside that the lights inside were left off.

Rectangular tables for 8 were lined up in rows and countless cheap folding chairs were scattered haphazardly about.

The place was about 1/3 occupied by people in gray uniforms.

A lot of them were Heidengeists. The ones with wings or with nonhuman skeletal structures had the appropriate modifications made to their uniforms. Many of the human soldiers eating alongside them had prosthetics or carried large weapons. There was also a scattering of women. And they all wore smiles.

That may have been why they were chatting pleasantly and moving casually around.

There were two colors that did not match the gray worn by the majority.

The first was the green US Army Air Corps flight jacket worn by a middle-aged woman.

The other was the black everything worn by a black-haired young man.

The woman was lining up small cards on the large table and the young man held an ice pack to his right cheek across the table from her.

The young man pushed his sunglasses up his nose with his other hand and asked the woman a question.

“Hey, Corelle, what do you make of this? …Ow.”

He grimaced as he pressed the ice pack against his cheek, brushed up his long bangs, and fell silent.

The woman called Corelle placed a card on the table with her thick fingers.

She did not look up at the young man as she pulled out a new card.

“M. Schrier summoned you here for a job, but you showed up to find your orders waiting for you but not the man himself. And then you happen across Oscar Mirildorf who just so happened to be here.”

“Yeah, it was pretty exciting to learn ''the'' Oscar was finally paying the AIF a visit, but then…”

Corelle continued for him.

“He thanked you for helping his daughter escape Germany, but he also punched you? And hard enough to knock out one of your back teeth at that. But it’s pretty sad you let that knock you out, Berger.”

“Hey, he caught me by surprise.”

Corelle snorted with laughter, but she also decided to move on.

“Well, enough about that. What’s your new job?”

“You already know. I’m being placed on your special forces team as an expendable. They’re using me as cannon fodder.”

He removed the ice pack from his face, opened it with one hand, pulled out an ice cube, and popped it in his mouth.

“Ahhorhing ho hy hold huhherhasshan…”

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying, idiot.”

A few seconds passed.

“According to my old upperclassman’s orders, I’m using your RB-21 transport ship to sneak into Germany on the 30th. First, I travel to the Borderson village and then I help Pale escape after some important meeting with the staff there.”

“After that, you travel to Cologne, which the RAF really wants to bomb, and fire a range sensor onto the Gard-class. That’s the entrance to the German mainland and full of military factories, so this mission is crucial if the Allies are going to bomb it. The Gard-class has prevented any of the UK’s bombers from reaching Cologne.”

“It was a report from one of your people that confirmed the Gard-class’s existence…but now they’ve started showing it off, even making it an official part of the German Air Force.”

Corelle listened to Berger as she finished laying out all the cards and crossed her arms.

“When I sent Coolers to the Moonlight Resistant Aerial Division, I never imagined he would be the lone survivor. I have nothing but thanks for the captain and the rest who died.”

“I hear he abandoned his escape boat and jumped into the ocean before the Kaiser and the others could catch up.”

“One of the UK’s water dragons picked him up and he’s with one of their ground units now. Because the infantry can at least die alone.”

Berger chewed on another piece of ice before replying.

“Well, this ''would'' be the time to sink that Gard-class. Take it out here and the Allies have a way in.”

“Are you sure?”

“Take a look at the world, Corelle. The Allies are trying to see how they can get at the German mainland. That means they’re looking at attacking Germany and winning this war once and for all. The German mainland, the Gard-class, and the Cologne factories – strike those three and everyone will know Germany is within reach and this war is winnable.”

“…”

“But that’s not all. Just like the US military doesn’t like the AIF for hitching a ride with them, the Geheimnis Agency still isn’t well liked by the civilians and some of the older nobles. When the head of Borderson was lost, most of the Strikers in the Borderson territory left the Agency. Cologne is part of that territory, so I bet the Gard-class is there to help regain their trust. Take out that ship and the Geheimnis Agency crumbles.” Berger frowned and paused before continuing. “Which is why the UK is readying a thousand bombers to bomb Cologne in what they call Operation Millennium.”

Corelle flipped over the card closest to her.

It was a tower. The image depicted a tower being struck by a lightning bolt from heaven. She sighed.

“Babel, #7 of the Harmony Cards. The collapse of control. …In this context, it must mean the Babel Cannon.”

“Yeah, the UK has built a Babel Gun they plan to fire from the North Sea to shoot down the Gard-class long distance. That’ll probably be history’s largest bombardment. That pair of uninspired missions is gonna be something to see.” He smiled bitterly. “The spies in Cologne have already gotten data on the ship, but they still need real-time range finding. The spies can provide the surface range, but this thing’s in the air. That’s where I come in. I’ll be using the new and improved Schwarz Löwe. I’ve already done some training in it, so I should manage.”

“You need to do more than ‘manage’. And don’t forget about Pale.”

“He’s in Borderson, right? I just meet him there and take him with me. From there, you drop the Schwarz Löwe from the sky, I fire the range sensor onto the Gard-class, and you pick me and Pale up. Simple.” He suddenly leaned back in his seat to look up at the ceiling. “But there are a number of problems. First, where has my old upperclassman gotten off to? I’ve barely seen him for the past three years. Where is he? There’s so much I want to ask him.”

“You sure it isn’t just that he doesn’t like you? I see him plenty. …He’s still got that rich kid’s faulty idea of how the world works though. ‘I’ve just got to write and sell ten books and we can buy another transport ship?’ Ridiculous.”

Berger sighed.

“I want to ask him about what I saw three years ago. …I told you about that, didn’t I? The Sylphide being carried out of that dig site. What was up with that?”

“I asked him and he said you must have dreamed it, so I doubt he would tell you if you did ask. Besides, we’re about to leave for Germany, so why not look into it there?”

“I did everything I could to look into it for the past three years. And with nothing to show for it. It’s like the damn thing vanished into thin air.”

Corelle thought about that for a moment and nodded.

A dog barked in the distance once more.

“Oh, shut up,” grumbled Berger while looking to Corelle’s hand.

She had moved the hand to her chin and her mouth was shut and silent.

“What kinda fortune are you checking?” he asked, leaning curiously forward. “Whether I’ll deliver my baby safely?”

“Shut it. You heard about the History Live Research Team’s report, didn’t you?” She was whispering now. “All the best Fast Readers around the world can’t read the History Lives past August of ’43. And at the same time, that Nightmare Syndrome has started up.”

Berger straightened up in his seat, took a quick glance around, and shrugged.

“That happened in the past too, but it does seem a lot more common now.” He pulled over a newspaper from the corner of the table and opened to the social page. “See, here’s another one. There was a mass suicide in Norfolk, England, two weeks ago and they’re blaming it on the syndrome.”

“The UK is terrified from the German air raids, after all. Anxiety covers the country and the Lives respond. All the anxiety Lives are accelerating this war and making it darker.”

“Can you not read past ’43 either?”

Corelle flipped over the card furthest from her.

It was entirely black, with no image.

“Nuclear, #3 of the Unspoken Word Cards. A perfect nothingness. The History Live Research Team says this war will allow anxiety to rule the world, causing the collapse of the Lives forming the very nucleus of our world.”

“Bullshit. You expect me to believe some crazy talk about the entire world being destroyed?”

“But this world’s Concept Lives do not go past this point and we have no idea what that means. Maybe they’re too weak for us to read and maybe something is preventing us from seeing them, but maybe…maybe the world really was destroyed in ’43 during the era preceding even the Obstacle Era.”

“Would that mean the Messiah is the one to travel past that point and create a new world?” muttered Berger. Then he looked up. “The war started in Germany is causing this anxiety…and the Messiah also comes from Germany.”

“?”

He did not answer Corelle’s unspoken question. He instead tilted his head.

“But that doesn’t make sense. If Germany did start this war just to produce the Messiah, the Concept Lives would go past ’43, showing the history of a world saved by the Messiah.”

“Think too hard and you’ll overheat your brain. Leave the thinking to the thinkers.”

“Oh, shut up,” he said, getting up.

“Where are you going?”

“To gather my luggage. Weird leaving the same day I was given a room, but whatever.”

“Most people at least take a nap first. You probably passed out because you’re so tired after flying in from Europe. …Also, are you sure you don’t want to go see Hazel?”

“We’re not anywhere near LA. That’s not a day trip.”

Berger grinned and walked toward the mess hall’s exit with ice pack in hand.

Just then, someone appeared in the exit.

The young man in a blue uniform was a postman.

He looked around the mess hall holding a printed map of the base.

“Excuse me, is this where I can find Dog Berger?”