86—EIGHTY-SIX, Vol. 11: Dies Passionis

IN THE REPUBLIC CAPITAL OF LIBERTÉ ET ÉGALITÉ

Lena punched in the launch codes for the surrounding interception cannons, which fired a fierce barrage that cleared the minefields. She then input the code to open the Gran Mur’s gate.

This was information a mere Handler like Lena had no business having. And so having completed these trivial procedures, she looked down from the army’s headquarters into the quiet, dark First Sector as the silence of night hung over it.

It was the night of the Revolution Festival. Many people were exhausted from the celebrations and settled into drunken slumber, but even so, looking over the plazas and streets, she could see some people and vehicles fleeing. Emergency news of the Gran Mur’s collapse and the Legion’s invasion—of the end of the Republic’s peace and prosperity—wasn’t even out yet.

The first to fall was the Seventy-Fourth Sector, which was adjacent to the northern outer walls. Its production plant and the industrial sectors built there were hit hard. There were very few residents living in that area, so even if anyone escaped, their slow human legs could at best carry them to the next sector, if they’d even get that far.

But the army had been told of the fall of the final defensive line, which meant the government must have known about it, too. So why
hadn’t they made the announcement yet? Why hadn’t they ordered an evacuation?

She bit her pale lips. The answer was clear… It was so the high officials could evacuate to safety before the roads became congested with refugee traffic. The civilians fleeing right now had been given the warning ahead of everyone else, since they were people with connections in the army or the government. In all likelihood, the other sectors wouldn’t be informed of anything until the First Sector and its Celena, former noble population, had finished evacuating.

Leaving noncombatants on the battlefield would complicate any operation. Even for the Eighty-Six. Lena flipped through her mental directory of names, trying to figure out who she could turn to in order to evacuate the citizens as quickly as possible, but without causing needless confusion.

But then she saw something pass the large window by—a blur of colors that ill-fitted a military headquarters but, ironically enough, was perfectly logical for this former palace.

“Mother…?!”

There was no mistaking it. The luxurious car pulled over, and the one emerging from it pinched up the hems of her skirt as she hurried across the garden with its bilateral geometric design. She jogged up the marble staircase in an anachronistic dress—it was none other than Lena’s mother.

Lena sped down the stairs and made her way to the entrance hall. She burst into the hall, its floor like a polished mirror, where she ran into her mother.

“Lena, we have to run!”

She looked desperate. She wore a dress, but it was an article to be worn at home, too lax to be appropriate for appearing in public. It was clear she’d run over without doing her hair or makeup. Lena wasn’t used to seeing her mother like this.

“I just got a call from Jérôme. The Legion—those terrible machines, they broke through the Gran Mur!”

For a moment, Lena felt tears well up in her eyes. Karlstahl—her
former “uncle,” who idly looked by as the Eighty-Six were discriminated, who had given up hope on the Republic and wallowed in despair.

And yet he tried to save her mother. He didn’t just buy Lena the time she needed; he did this, too.

Shaking off those tears of sentimentality, Lena replied, “Yes, I know. Mother, you need to run. Take our employees and leave. Go as far south as you can. I’ll catch up to you later, if I can.”

“Lena, what are you—?”

“I managed to get the Eighty-Six to cooperate with me. I will lead them, and we’ll intercept the Legion. As their Handler, I’ll command them—”

“You can’t!” her mother cut her off with a high-pitched scream.

Lena became speechless from shock. Her mother grabbed Lena’s shoulders with her weak, feeble hands and vehemently implored her, her expression desperate and severe. Like she had just seen her child teetering on the edge of a cliff and grabbed onto her with both hands, trying to pull her back to safety.

“You can’t, Lena! You mustn’t fight. If you go to the battlefield, you’ll just die. If you try to be a soldier, you’ll just get yourself killed. You’ll end up like Václav—if you go to the battlefield, you’ll die like your father!”

Lena peered into her mother’s eyes, stunned.
Quit the army already.
Her mother kept telling her that, over and over again, ad nauseam. And Lena always thought, deep down, that her mother was turning a blind eye to reality. But now for the first time, the truth behind those words dawned on her.

Her mother had been grounded in reality all along. And it was Lena who had been blind—to the reality of her father’s death—all along.

“Lena, please. I told you not to be a soldier. You have more important things to do; you need to be happy. You can’t die like Václav did. Please find happiness; you have to find happiness…!”

“…!”

Lena gritted her teeth tightly. Even still, she would turn her back on this. On her mother’s emotions, on this deep, genuine concern. She
gestured with her eyes to her mother’s chauffeur, who had peered outside the car, to come closer. And then she pushed her mother’s shoulders away and entrusted her in his hands.

“Thank you, Mother. But before I can do that, I need to survive—I have to fight. If I don’t, I won’t survive this. This is the situation we’re in now.”

She turned on her heels and, with all the force her will could muster, shook off her mother’s hands, which extended out to her.

The chauffeur resolutely kept her in his arms, keeping her from going after her daughter. Her voice clung to Lena’s back like a scream as Lena gritted her teeth and fought back tears.

“Lena! You can’t; please come back! Lena…!”

And those were the last words Lena ever exchanged with her mother.

Later on, the sole maid who survived the fighting told Lena that the missus died, crushed by a Löwe, as she tried to protect a child who was on the verge of being stomped out.