The Berlin train station was a cathedral of noise and steam, a great iron-boned beast exhaling travelers. I moved through the midday crowd with Dr. Anja Petrova, two ghosts in a river of the living. I carried our only bag, light with what little we had left. She carried the heavy case containing the Aegis Conduit, its dense weight a constant reminder of the stakes. Our anonymity here was a temporary shield, bought with the faces of strangers and the sheer, overwhelming press of five people per square meter. The goal was simple: get out of Berlin.
— The twelve-thirty express to Leipzig is boarding on platform seven, — Petrova said, her voice a low murmur that was swallowed by the station's din. Her training as a KGB physicist had not prepared her for this kind of field work, but she adapted with a cold, analytical precision.
— Too many eyes on the main lines, — Sineus countered, his gaze sweeping the platforms, the clock, the transit police. — They'll expect a fast exit. We take an S-Bahn to the outskirts. Find a bus from there. It's slower, but the trail goes cold faster.
She gave a curt nod, accepting the logic. The price of caution was time, a currency they were spending with every breath. They changed direction, moving toward the signs for the local lines. The air was thick with the smells of coal smoke, bratwurst, and damp wool. A massive departures board dominated the main hall, its split-flap display clattering as it updated. For a bare second, one line of destinations dissolved into a hash of meaningless, flickering static before the correct letters slammed into place. A pre-tremor. A whisper of the noise that was eating the world at its edges.
They were a hundred meters from the S-Bahn platform when it happened. A well-dressed man in a dark, official-looking suit suddenly stopped. He was in his fifties, his face fleshy and pale. He made a small, gasping sound, his hand flying to his chest before he crumpled to the polished stone floor. A small circle of space opened around him as the river of people diverted. It was a mundane tragedy, a heart giving out in the middle of a Tuesday.
A few people rushed forward. A soldier knelt by the man's side. A woman began loosening his collar. It was a small, human drama, a moment of shared civic concern that drew the eye. Sineus watched, his hand instinctively going to the pistol under his coat. Any break in the pattern was a potential threat. Petrova clutched the handle of the Aegis Conduit case, her knuckles white.
Then the world went wrong.
It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure drop, a silent, gut-wrenching lurch like an elevator cable snapping. The ambient roar of the station died, replaced by a hum that vibrated in the bones, a frequency felt rather than heard. A taste like copper flooded Sineus's mouth. He saw Petrova flinch beside him, her free hand pressing against her temple as if to ward off a physical blow. The psychic wave washed over the platform, invisible and absolute. Kestrel was here, a ghost pulling levers from miles away.
Sineus’s gaze snapped back to the small crowd around the fallen man. Their faces, a moment ago etched with concern and alarm, went slack. For a half-second of impossible unity, fifty different people wore the same blank, empty expression. Then, as one, their faces shifted. The slackness hardened into shock, then twisted into a mask of outrage and horror.
Fifty pairs of eyes, all turning, all locking onto him.
He saw it in their pupils, a subtle but undeniable corruption. The light didn't reflect properly. The depth was gone, replaced by a faint, shimmering graininess, a visual hiss where a personality should have been. It was the look of a television tuned to a dead channel. It was the look of static given form. The memory had been subjugated.
A woman screamed. It was a raw, piercing sound that shattered the unnatural quiet. She scrambled back from the fallen man, her hand pointing, trembling, directly at Sineus.
— He shot him! My God, he just shot him!
The accusation was a stone dropped into the silent pool of the crowd's new reality. It was a lie. A complete fabrication. But for fifty people, it was now the truest thing in the world. The man on the floor was no longer a victim of a faulty heart. He was a murder victim. Sineus was the murderer. Kestrel hadn't needed a gun or a bullet. He had stolen Sineus's identity and replaced it with a monster's, and the price was the trust of every eye that saw him.
Police whistles shrilled from the far end of the hall. Sharp, insistent, and getting closer. Kestrel had timed it perfectly. The response was under seventy-five seconds. The trap wasn't just the lie; it was the efficiency of the truth that would follow.
— Move. Now, — Sineus said, his voice a low command. He grabbed Petrova's arm, pulling her back from the epicenter of the lie.
The crowd was no longer a shield. It was a wall of hostile witnesses, their faces a mixture of fear and fury. They were no longer anonymous travelers; they were a jury that had already delivered its verdict.
— What was that? — Petrova asked, her face pale, her scientific mind struggling to categorize the raw psychic violence she had just felt.
— A public overwrite, — Sineus said, shoving a man in a homburg hat out of their path. — He painted a target on our backs.
They were fugitives. The station, their planned escape route, had become a cage. They pushed through the thickening crowd, moving against the current of people who were either fleeing the "gunman" or trying to get a better look. The Aegis Conduit case was a dead weight in Petrova's hand, an anchor in a storm.
— The west exit! — Petrova shouted over the rising noise.
— Blocked, — Sineus grunted, seeing two blue-uniformed transit officers moving to seal the doors. — Follow me.
He veered away from the main exits, pulling her toward the U-Bahn entrances. The logic was simple: go down. Go deep. Kestrel owned the airwaves, but the earth beneath the city was still contested territory. They clattered down a set of concrete stairs, the shouts and whistles from the main hall growing fainter, replaced by the rumble of an approaching train and the damp, cool smell of the tunnels. They had escaped the immediate trap, but Kestrel's objective was complete. They were no longer just spies on the run. They were murderers in the eyes of the law, cut off, isolated, and forced deeper into the shadows.
The air in the tunnel was cool and still. The distant sounds of the city were a dull, muffled roar.
They had traded one kind of prison for another, and the hunt had just begun.
They had to go deeper underground to survive and reach Vienna.
