Three days after the rejection.

  Time in San Marcos flowed like contaminated machine oil—slow, thick, and reeking of rust.

  Each hour was measured not by a clock's hand, but by the dwindling coins in Mother’s purse, the deepening grey shadows under Isabella’s eyes, and Eleanor’s growing silence, which echoed the roaring turmoil inside my own skull.

  I sat in a dark corner of the tannery warehouse, my grimy fingers tracing a mental map I’d redrawn on the dirt floor with a piece of charcoal.

  This map no longer charted escape routes or foreign consulates. It was a diagram of the nervous system belonging to the colonial powers that ran this port city.

  The Brittonia Empire and the American Democratic Federation had rejected us as political allies. Fine. That was valid data. Now, I would approach them not as a beggar pleading for sanctuary.

  But as a merchant offering a rare commodity. Or rather, as a blackmailer about to find the pressure points in their soft underbellies.

  The plan was simple in concept, intricate in execution, and perfectly in tune with the ethos of this age.

  It all started with observation.

  For the past two days, while Mother and Isabella kept watch over Eleanor in the damp warehouse, I walked San Marcos. Not as Mateo Guerrero, but as Alejandro, a blind street urchin.

  Harbor grime and mud caked my face. The ragged clothes I’d gotten from a ragpicker. A hunched walk, guided by a wooden stick.

  My eyes were covered by a filthy blindfold, but my ears were wide open.

  I sat in front of the old Sun Shrine, a tin bowl at my feet, listening to the chatter of sailors, dockworkers, and night women.

  I listened to complaints about extortion by corrupt customs officials, whispers about steamships carrying contraband, and most crucially—gossip about the foreigners.

  Brittonia had a small trade office in the commercial district. The ADF, besides its consulate, had a "Store" rumored to be a front for intelligence activity. Both employed locals—coachmen, servants, cleaners.

  My first target was a cart driver named Hector. He worked for the Brittonian trade office, hauling goods and—according to the whispers in the coffee stall—sometimes "special crates" that bypassed official channels.

  From what I gathered, Hector was a widower with three children. He had a taste for dice. And he was in debt to a local Chinese moneylender.

  That was the crack.

  ***

  The second night after my reconnaissance, I approached him not as blind Mateo, but as someone else entirely.

  I waited outside his modest shack in the shantytown, hidden by the stench of a trash cart.

  When Hector returned, his steps heavy, shoulders slumped with the smell of sweat and horses, I stepped out from the shadows of the flickering gaslight.

  "Se?or Hector," my voice was flat, my Spanish deliberately coarse with a local accent.

  He turned, his face weary and suspicious in the moonlight. "Who are you? What do you want?"

  I didn't smile. My expression was as blank as weathered plank. "I have a business proposition. One that could settle your debt to Mr. Li."

  His eyes widened. Fear and greed warred on his rough face. "I don't know what you're talking about—"

  "A thousand Bolívar. Thirty percent interest per week. You're ten days overdue." I recited the exact figures, information I'd bought from a night woman who also spied for the moneylender.

  Hector paled under the moon's glow. "You're from Mr. Li?"

  "No. But I know your debt. And I know Mr. Li doesn't like waiting."

  I didn't give him time to think. My instinct screamed that cornered people act on survival instinct, not morality.

  "What do you want?" his voice trembled.

  "Information. I want to know about the 'special crates' you sometimes haul for your Brittonian boss. From who, for who, the schedule, the route. And occasional access to your cart."

  "You're insane! That's—"

  "Or tomorrow, Mr. Li sends his men. They won't kill you. They'll break your hands. You can't hold reins. Then what about your children?"

  My words were sharp, cold, clipped without emotion. Not a fiery threat, but a statement of fact as cold as a surgeon's scalpel.

  Hector looked like he might vomit. He stared at me, searching for pity in my face. There was none. Just the unnerving calm of someone far too young to be so detached.

  "How do I know you can clear my debt?"

  I pulled a wad of Money from my pocket. Our last funds. Most of it from Mother's few saved trinkets, sold on the black market. "Three hundred Bolívar. A show of good faith. The rest after I get the first piece of information. And your will be returned."

  I watched the struggle in his eyes. A laborer's honor versus a father's fear. Need versus loyalty to a foreign employer who paid him a subsistence wage.

  The choice was clear from the start.

  He nodded, his hand shaking as he took the money. "What do you want first?"

  "This week's hauling schedule. And a chance to look at one of those crates."

  "Impossible! Those crates are locked—"

  "Not to open. Just to look at closely. I'll be your nephew helping with a delivery. Just once."

  Hector swallowed hard, then gave a slow nod. "Tomorrow morning. There's a haul to the warehouse at pier four. I'm usually alone."

  "Good." I took a scrap of paper and pencil from my pocket. "Write the details. Time, contact point, descriptions."

  He did so with a trembling hand, his writing poor and rushed.

  When he finished, I took the paper, folded it neatly, and slid it into my jacket pocket.

  "If you report to your boss or the police," I said in that same flat tone, "I'll make sure Mr. Li knows you had money to pay part of your debt but chose not to. You know how he deals with cheats."

  Hector shuddered. "I understand."

  "I'll contact you for the next meeting."

  I turned and melted into a dark alley, leaving him standing before his shack, clutching money as toxic as opium.

  ***

  Back in the warehouse, Isabella stared as I entered, her face pale in the dim kerosene lamplight.

  "Where have you been?" she asked, her voice thick with restrained anxiety.

  "Reconnaissance," I answered curtly. I walked to the corner, picked up the clay water jug, and drank straight from its lip. My hands were steady. No tremor.

  But inside, something churned like a steam engine under too much pressure.

  When I closed my eyes, I didn't see Hector's frightened face. I saw Eleanor's face on the smuggler's boat, vomiting from the waves but trying to smile so as not to be a burden.

  I'm doing this for you, I thought, teeth clenched. To make a world safe enough for you to smile again.

  But another voice in my head, softer and sharper like a needle, whispered: Are you, though? Or are you just discovering your natural talent? Finding a sick pleasure in the manipulation, in being the puppetmaster moving these pieces?

  I opened my eyes quickly, staring at the shadows dancing on the damp wooden walls.

  No. This is necessity. It's the only path in an age where only the strong survive.

  Mother approached, sitting beside me on the pile of raw hides. "Mateo," she whispered, her voice hoarse from the tannery chemicals. "What are you planning?"

  She was too perceptive. Perhaps because the same blood flowed in our veins. Perhaps because she felt the same darkness crystallizing within her, like salt from evaporating seawater.

  "I'll tell you when the time is right," I replied. "Trust me, Mother."

  She studied me for a long moment, her weary eyes scanning my face as if searching for remnants of the boy I once was. Then she placed her work-roughened hand over mine. "I trust you. But remember, the path we walk determines the destination we reach."

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I'm already lost, I thought. Ever since that truck hit me in my last life.

  ***

  The next morning, I became Carlos, Hector's mute, deaf nephew.

  Simple dockworker clothes, a straw hat shading part of my face, perfect subservience.

  I sat beside Hector on the Brittonia trade office cart. He sweated despite the cool morning air, the sharp scent of fear mixing with horse and leather.

  "Don't speak. Don't look directly. Do exactly as I say," he whispered nervously, hands gripping the reins too tightly.

  I nodded, eyes staring straight ahead as if truly deaf.

  The haul was routine—several crates of documents and one small crate locked with a heavy padlock to a warehouse owned by a local import-export company.

  I helped unload, my not-yet-fully-developed boy's muscles quivering under the weight, but I showed no strain.

  My eyes noted the padlock on the small crate. Not an official customs lock. It was a proprietary one—the emblem of a Brittonia railway company I recognized from Father's documents.

  Brittonia was sending sensitive documents through unofficial channels, bypassing customs and ADF spies. Interesting.

  During the unloading, I discreetly studied the crate's markings. Not for its contents—but for proof of its existence and its unofficial route. I memorized serial numbers, faint stamps, the specific scent of its wood.

  It wasn't hard. I'd done this before, in another time...

  On the ride back, Hector nearly crashed into a vegetable cart, his hands shaking.

  "Calm down," I whispered without moving my lips. "You're fine."

  "Was that enough? Will my debt be cleared?"

  "The next piece of information. Who receives the crate? Name, position, contact."

  Hector sighed, the smell of cheap rum on his breath. "He's the warehouse foreman. But... there's something. He's not just a foreman. Sometimes a man from the ADF consulate comes to see him. I've seen them exchange something, quietly."

  My eyes narrowed. Brittonia and the ADF were playing their own games in San Marcos.

  Perhaps competing for influence in mineral-rich Venez. Perhaps collaborating secretly against Prussi or Frances interests. Or perhaps just spying on each other as usual.

  That was even better than I'd hoped.

  "Describe the ADF man," I ordered.

  He did. Middle-aged, always in a white shirt and suit coat, had a small scar on his chin—maybe from a knife fight.

  When we returned to the trade office, I slipped off the cart before reaching the gate. "I'll contact you in three days. Stay calm. Do your job as usual."

  I walked away, feet sinking into the muddy harbor earth, feeling a quickened heartbeat for the first time since starting this operation.

  Not from fear. But from a dark thrill.

  It was working. I could still do this in an age without advanced tech.

  Manipulating, gathering intel, piecing puzzles together with more primitive but equally effective tools.

  ***

  That night in the warehouse, after Eleanor finally fell asleep following a fit of weak coughs (the damp air and chemicals were affecting her small lungs), I sat with my newly drawn map in the dirt.

  Two targets. Two cracks.

  Hector was my inroad to the Brittonian network. But I needed an inroad to the ADF as well.

  For that, I needed a different approach. Brittonia played with colonial secrecy and efficiency. The ADF played with democratic rhetoric and cultural influence.

  The ADF Store often held events—moving picture shows, lectures on progress, free English classes.

  A place where they recruited educated locals, built networks of influence, and perhaps, scouted for promising local leadership material.

  I needed to get inside. Not as a beggar or a threat, but as a potential asset.

  A new identity. A new story.

  I looked at Isabella, who was washing her face with murky well water.

  "Isabella," I called softly.

  She turned, her usually neat hair now tangled and tied simply.

  "Do you remember your English lessons from our tutor? And the piano?"

  She nodded, confused. "Well enough. Why?"

  "Tomorrow, we're going to the ADF Friendship Center. You will be Isabella not as a princess, but as Maria, an educated Creole girl whose family fell into poverty. You can read, write, do sums. I'll be your quiet younger brother."

  "Mateo, what are you—"

  "It's another way in," I cut her off. "If we can't be their political allies, perhaps we can be their intelligence assets. Or better, a source they rely on without knowing who we truly are."

  Isabella looked hesitant, her hands clenched in her lap. "It's dangerous. They might recognize us."

  "We've changed. Layers of fugitive life have altered us more than any disguise. And they're looking for local talent, not political fugitives."

  Mother, listening from a corner while knitting something from spare yarn, asked without looking up, "What's the final goal of all this, Mateo? Gathering information? And then what?"

  I met her gaze, and for the first time, I laid out the big picture honestly. "Leverage, Mother. We'll collect trade secrets, economic plans, sensitive information on Brittonia and ADF activities in San Marcos."

  "Then, we'll sell it to the highest bidder—maybe to the Prussi network that also has interests here, maybe to local merchants who want to outmaneuver them. Or we'll use it to blackmail one side into giving us protection and exit papers."

  "Through extortion?" Mother's voice was flat as cold iron.

  "Through information trading," I corrected, though we both knew it was the same. "They've shown us the rules of the game in this age of new imperialism. We're just playing by the same rules."

  Silence hung in the tannery-thick air. Eleanor stirred in her sleep, mumbling something about a Ghost.

  "Alright," Mother finally said, her eyes locking with mine. "But we do it together. No one acts alone. And we don't kill."

  That last word hung like a threat of its own.

  I nodded, though in my heart I knew some steps had to be taken solo. Some stains—metaphorical or literal—had to stick to one pair of hands alone.

  ***

  The ADF Store proved easier to penetrate than I'd anticipated, exactly as I'd expected from the American pride in "openness."

  Isabella—now Maria—with her natural beauty tempered by simple but neat attire, caught the attention of a local staffer who eagerly gave a tour.

  I, as her quiet, somewhat withdrawn younger brother, observed.

  The place was less a shop and more a spacious, clean hall filled with artwork and subtle propaganda.

  Posters about "progress" and "equal opportunity." Books on the ADF Constitution. Typewriters visitors could use.

  The staffer, a middle-aged woman named Se?ora Alba, quickly began recruiting. "You're so well-educated, Maria. With better English, you could be a secretary or a teacher! Maybe even work at the consulate!"

  Isabella blushed perfectly, dipping her head in a way our palace etiquette tutor had taught. "I just want to help my younger brother get a proper education."

  "Of course, dear. That's so noble." Alba's eyes gleamed. A pretty, educated, needy local girl—the perfect target to recruit as an informant or even as an influence agent to spread American values.

  I let Isabella play her part. Meanwhile, my eyes noted other things: security. No cameras, of course—this was 1911—but there were uniformed guards at the door. A guest book to sign. A back door for staff only.

  And most interesting: the staff room in the back, which looked more luxurious than the public area.

  Through a slightly ajar door, I occasionally caught glimpses of American men in serious conversation with well-dressed Venezians—likely their informants or prospective local leaders.

  We stayed for an hour. Isabella signed up for free English classes starting in four days. She was given a form to fill out—personal data, family background, special skills.

  That form was a screening tool. They would check her background.

  But "Maria" had no records. She was a ghost, just like all of us who'd left our old identities in the smoldering palace.

  When we left, Alba shook Isabella's hand warmly. "See you next week! And bring your brother again, he might want to learn to read too."

  Outside, on the dirt road bustling with carts and pedestrians, Isabella let out a breath. "I feel like a traitor."

  "We have no country left to betray," I replied, my eyes tracking a passing policeman. "Our country is held by Mendez. This is just survival."

  "Playing with foreign powers that want to colonize us in different ways."

  "Better to be used than to be erased."

  We walked in silence back to the warehouse via a circuitous route.

  My mind spun fast, connecting dots on the mental map: Hector and the Brittonian network. Isabella and the ADF inroad. Information from one side could be a valuable commodity to the other.

  But a part of me screamed from within.

  This is too easy for me. Or rather, I am too easily adapting to the ruthlessness of this age. Manipulation, deceit, exploitation—as if my two lives had primed me for this.

  As if the frontline corporate experience of my first life and the political education of my second were just training to be a shadow operator in an age where information was currency and life was cheap.

  As we passed the fish market, seeing the dead fish with their glassy eyes staring blankly at the sky, I suddenly pictured Hector. His frightened face. His children who knew nothing of their father's gamble.

  They're no different from us, a voice whispered in my head. Just little people caught in the great game of empires.

  I shoved the thought away violently. Sentiment was a luxury we couldn't afford in this age of iron and steam.

  Everyone was a tool, every weakness a crack, every morality an obstacle to be shattered like an old fortress facing modern artillery.

  But when we reached the warehouse and saw Eleanor awake, sitting with a coarse wool blanket wrapped around her shivering frame, her hollow eyes searching for something familiar in the gloom—I felt a fracture.

  A tiny crack in the fortress of my cold calculations.

  She saw me, and her pale face tried to form something resembling a smile. "Mateo?"

  Her voice was weak, like a breeze barely heard through wood slats.

  I walked over, crouched before her, ignoring the mud on my knees. "Yes, El?"

  "Cold," she whispered, teeth chattering.

  I took off my jacket—the old dockworker's coat I'd bought from the rag market—and draped it over her blanket.

  My hands, so steady earlier while holding the bribe money for Hector, now trembled slightly as I adjusted the jacket over her small shoulders.

  "Better?" I asked, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. Too soft.

  She nodded, then her eyes held mine, and in the dim lamplight, I saw my own reflection in her pupils—the face of a boy grown too old for his years, with eyes that had lost their childish light.

  "You look tired," she said, her tiny hand reaching for mine.

  "I'm not tired," I replied quickly. Too quickly, defensive.

  She didn't argue. Just kept staring, and in her eyes, still innocent despite all the hardship she'd endured, I saw something terrible: understanding. As if she knew. As if she saw all the grime beginning to coat her brother's soul, like soot on these warehouse walls.

  I stood up quickly, turning away. "I need to check the water supply."

  "Brother?"

  "Yes?"

  "Thank you," she whispered. "For the jacket. And for everything."

  Those simple words cut like a dagger. I walked out of the warehouse, into the dark, narrow side alley, and pressed my back against the cold brick wall.

  My breathing, for the first time in weeks, hitched like a steam engine seizing up.

  Here, in the solitary darkness, the fracture deepened.

  I closed my eyes, and what I saw wasn't mental maps or plans. I saw Hector's frightened face. Alba's manipulative smile. The faces of the people I was making into tools in this filthy game.

  And my own face, reflected in the iron-shop window I'd passed earlier—a cold face, just like in my past life. A face I never wanted to see again.

  'I'm doing this to survive,' I told myself, teeth gritted. 'For them.'

  My hands clenched. My dirty fingernails dug into my palms until they bled.

  No. No doubts. Doubt was weakness. Weakness meant death in an age where the law of the jungle still ruled, even when wrapped in suits and ties.

  Deep breath in, inhale the harbor rot. Breathe out.

  Calm. Return to calculation.

  Hector would deliver the next piece of information in two days. Isabella would start English class next week.

  I needed to compile Hector's information into something tradable—maybe evidence of illegal arms shipments to sell to the Prussi consulate, or intel on Brittonian port expansion plans to sell to Venezian merchants.

  Step by step. Like a game of chess played in the middle of a war.

  But when I opened my eyes, the fracture remained. A faint tremor at the core of my calm. A terrible awareness that perhaps, in the process of saving my family from Mendez and a cruel world, I was destroying something within myself more precious than life.

  And even more terrible: that part of me enjoyed that destruction. Enjoyed the feeling of controlling others' fates. Enjoyed the sharpness of a mind used not to analyze poetry or political strategy, but to design blackmail and deceit in a lawless age.

  I pushed myself off the wall, straightened my shoulders.

  It doesn't matter. What happens to me doesn't matter. What matters is Eleanor, Mother, Isabella. If I have to become a monster to protect them in this vicious world, then so be it.

  I walked back into the warehouse with the measured steps of a soldier. My face was once again blank, controlled, an impenetrable iron mask.

  But inside, the fracture remained. And I knew, like all fractures in a steam boiler, it would widen with time and pressure. And one day, when the pressure grew too great, something would explode.

  For now, I ignored it. There were still plans to weave, moves to make, games to play on the chessboard of imperialism.

  The world didn't stop for one boy's existential crisis, lived twice over. The world kept spinning, cruel and indifferent, driven by human hunger and ambition.

  And in San Marcos, stinking of rotting fish and old-world tanning methods, a new game had begun—a game of information and cunning in an age just before a great war would change everything.

  I only hoped, when the end finally came, the price of victory—if there even was such a thing in an age like this—wouldn't include the last remnants of the humanity I still possessed.

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