The rain fell. It was a cold, persistent drizzle that washed the soot from the rooftops and turned the cobblestones black. The city smelled of wet wool, coal smoke, and the salt of the nearby sea. Sineus walked with his head down, his hands deep in the pockets of a coat that was too thin for the weather. The collar was turned up against the wind. He was just another shadow in a city full of them.
Weeks had passed since the collapse of Kavkaz-4. Weeks of moving through the cracks of the world. They had traveled by night, on foot, on fishing boats that stank of diesel and rot, and in the backs of rumbling supply trucks. They had traded the last of their valuables for forged papers that were barely worth the cheap ink they were printed with. They had survived. That was the only metric that mattered.
He stopped at the edge of the quay. The water in the harbor was the color of lead, choppy and cold. A few gulls cried overhead, their calls thin and sharp against the low groan of a distant ship horn. Beside him, Sokolov shivered, pulling his own worn coat tighter. The physicist looked smaller now, diminished by the world he had helped to break. His eyes were always moving, scanning the faces in the sparse crowds, flinching at any sudden noise.
Sineus looked down. An oily puddle had collected in a dip in the stone. A rainbow sheen swirled on its dark surface. He saw his own face staring back at him. It was a stranger’s face, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, framed by a rough, untrimmed beard. The eyes were the same, but they were older. They held the memory of the mountain, of the screaming vortex, of the cost.
The image in the water wavered. For a moment, it split, the way it had in the shard of glass at the rail depot, a lifetime ago. A fractured reflection. But this time, there was no second face, no screaming ghost of another man’s fear. There were only the two halves of his own. The nobleman and the commander. The traitor and the soldier. They were broken pieces, but they fit together. The face was his. He accepted it.
He felt the weight of the Sergeant's Locket in his pocket, a cold, hard circle of brass against his thigh. It was a constant reminder. Not of duty to a flag, but of a debt to a dead man. A debt to a child’s drawing of a house and a sun. That was the only country he had left.
— We need to find shelter before dark, — Sokolov said. His voice was a dry rasp. — And food.
Sineus nodded, not taking his eyes off the water.
— I know.
— Do you have a plan? — Sokolov pressed. The scientist needed plans. He needed equations and predictable outcomes. The world had taken those from him.
— The plan is to keep moving, — Sineus said. — To not be here tomorrow.
It was the only plan they had. They were men without a country, without a past they could claim. Their names were a liability. Their faces were a death sentence. They were ghosts, haunted by the future instead of the past. Every friendly face could be an informant. Every shared meal could be poisoned. This was the price of the choice he had made in the heart of that collapsing mountain. He had chosen the hard right, and the world would make him pay for it every day.
A flicker of movement. Fast and small. A boy, no more than ten years old, with bare feet and a dirty face. He darted out from behind a stack of wet crates, his eyes fixed on Sineus. The urchin ran toward them, his movements quick and certain. He did not beg. He did not speak.
He ran straight to Sineus, his small, grimy hand outstretched. He pressed something cold and hard into Sineus’s palm and was gone, vanishing back into the labyrinth of alleys before Sineus could even react. The entire exchange took less than three seconds.
Sokolov tensed.
— What was that? What did he give you?
Sineus looked down. He uncurled his fingers. Lying in the center of his palm was a single, small bead of dull, black iron. It seemed to absorb the weak light, a tiny sphere of perfect darkness. It was cold to the touch.
He had seen a bead just like it once before. In a dusty antique shop in Istanbul. He had watched it slide across the wooden frame of an abacus. The Broker’s Ledger.
Sokolov saw the recognition in his eyes.
— Kurtoglu?
Sineus closed his hand, the iron bead a cold weight against his skin. The debt. The favor he had promised the memory broker in exchange for his life. It had been called in. Their brief, hunted peace was over.
The rain washed the grime from the cobblestones. A distant ship horn echoed across the black water.
Now the real war began.
