"Stay in your place, you dirty animal!" the order was followed by a push that sent me crashing into one of the alley walls.
Looking away from my attacker, I observed my surroundings: I was in one of the many alleys of Randgriz, the capital of the Principality of Gallia, which I had taken as a shortcut to my next destination; scattered along it were a few piles of wooden crates resting near the back doors of various shops along with bags of garbage from the same, the alley had the normal subtle stench of alcohol, piss and various garbage that permeated all alleys despite the efforts of the street cleaners.
"Hey, stinky! Don't look away when I'm talking to you." A strong hand gripped my chin and forced me to look forward. I met my attacker's gaze with a fearful face, trying to conform to their expectations and de-escalate, while on the inside I was furious and trying to understand the situation I was in.
The person who had grabbed me wasn't the one who was speaking, rather the strong hand that was gripping my chin belonged to a giant of a man with green eyes and a bald head, about six feet tall and built like a closet with muscles barely contained by his white shirt with black suspenders running through it. The speaker instead had a brush of blond hair and blue eyes, he wasn't as big as his giant sidekick but he still had a decently muscular build and a scar over his left eye that gave him a dangerous look. The third person in the group couldn't have been more different from his two cronies: he was short, at about five feet of height, skinny as a stick insect with brown eyes hidden behind round glasses and black hair that didn't have the blue tint that would get him in trouble with people like his friends.
I suppressed the complex cocktail of laughter and tears that the dark humor of this situation was causing: the three aspiring Nazis in front of me perfectly embodied the stereotypes of skinhead,
Jugend member and hierarch, and I would have laughed, from a safe distance, at the living meme they were if it were not for the fact that they were currently threatening me.
"How dare you meet my gaze, you scum!" the blond guy shouted before slapping me hard in the face, making me take a step back. This made me finally recognize the emotion on my attackers' faces: it wasn't anger, but a mix of disgust and dark anticipation.
'
They're just looking for an excuse to beat the shit out of me!' I realized grimly, and slowly moved my left hand behind my back, reaching for the dagger I kept under my shirt in a back holster, while my right clutched my satchel to me.
"Give me that." rang out and the satchel was snatched from my hand: the bespectacled guy saw the possessiveness with which I clutched the satchel and with a cry had reached for it, easily snatching it from my hand aided by the surprise of his action.
Once he had my satchel, he turned it over a couple of times in his hand, flaunting in front of me what he had stolen, before throwing it to the blond boy who with a theatrical gesture undid the buckle and moved to open it: "Let's see what we have here…"
"Enough!" I exclaimed, lunging toward the bespectacled man, having reached for and pulled out my knife, and taking him hostage before anyone could react. He immediately tried to wriggle free, but I kept a tight grip and brought the knife to his neck.
"Theo!" shouted the giant skinhead, moving to reach his friend, but was immediately stopped by the blond guy who was observing the situation with calculating eyes.
"Give it back to me right now." I ordered, tightening my grip on 'Theo' and bringing my dagger even closer to his throat. I was desperate, I couldn't let them open the satchel: it contained months, even years, of work; and they would destroy it just to spite me.
"Okay, sure." the blond guy said with affable calm, moving to put my satchel on the ground. But instead of completing the movement there, putting it down, he continued it quickly upward, tossing the satchel into the air.
I couldn't help but look up at it, anxiously following its trajectory, with predictable results: 'Theo' reached with his hands for the wrist of the hand with which I was holding the knife and, with surprising strength for his size, he pushed the knife away from his throat and wriggled away, taking advantage of his diminutive size to slip under my armpit, before violently pressing a pressure point on my wrist that made the dagger fall from my hand.
I recovered from my shock just in time to see the giant skinhead's fist slam into my stomach. I was bent in two by the punch, coughing and falling to the ground. I barely had time to mutter "Shit." and shield my head with my arms before the first of many kicks landed on my back.
At that point, I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and braced myself for the beating that was coming. For the next few minutes, I was beaten constantly, the brief moments of pause between one flurry of kicks and the next allowing me to dissect the beating: the skinhead was hammering me somewhat haphazardly, with the power and frequency of his blows making up in inflicting pain for his poor aim; the blond guy was more methodical in his violence and targeted my joints intending to inflict the most pain and damage as possible; finally there was the bespectacled guy, 'Theo', who was seeking revenge for the fact that I had taken him hostage and used him to threaten his friends by rampaging in savage fury against the arms protecting my head in an effort to reach my face.
'
Why?' I asked myself between kicks: '
Why do I have to suffer this?'
The answer came when I saw my reflection in a cracked mirror leaning against one of the piles of crates that lined the alley: I was a rather slim young man, although with a decent build due to the compulsory military training classes that characterized the Gallian school system, I had a clean-shaven oval face with a pair of pencil mustaches shadows and blue eyes hidden behind a pair of sturdy rectangular glasses with blue frames, all topped by black hair with a particular shade of blue.
"This is what everyone like you deserves, darkie!" the blond's rant cemented what I had already realized, and all I could do was complain in my head: '
Why did I have to be reborn in an alternate world as the local equivalent of a Jew in a Europe that has the same attitude towards my ethnicity as Nazi Germany before the Nuremberg Laws.'
I was a Darcsen in the world of Valkyria Chronicles, and my light beige poncho with its distinctive red border, made of elongated hexagonal diamonds surrounded by a two-line braid pattern and flanked by two parallel lines, confirmed what my hair color implied: I was part of an ethnic group that was said to have ruled Europa with an iron fist before the Valkyrur arrived and freed all the peoples of the continent from the oppression of the Darcsen.
Nowadays, for the many crimes my ancestors are supposed to have committed, we are seen as pariahs and subhumans: never mind that even most non-Darcsen historians try to show that the greatest crimes attributed to us are myths with no basis in fact, ghettos and segregated public services are a common sight throughout Europa, not to mention what happens in the Empire, and even in a tolerant country like Gallia we are viewed with suspicion and harassed in equal measure.
I experienced first-hand what a Jew of 1930 would have experienced in my old world: at
Kleuterschool, kindergarten, I had only a couple of playmates, with most of the children staying away, and the caretakers pretending I didn't exist; at
Basisschool, primary school, the teachers constantly scolded me, classmates started making fun of me and I barely managed to make any friends; when I moved on to
Secundair Onderwijs, the secondary education, the teasing turned to physical violence and the teachers took a sadistic pleasure in punishing me by hitting my hands and making me kneel on raw chickpeas; the only good thing about the period was that the friends I had made didn't abandon me and the fact that our instructor for the compulsory military training classes was absolutely impartial; finally there was the period of
Hoger Onderwijs, the higher education, for which I managed to enroll at the University of Anthold thanks to my family connections, but the discrimination continued in a more subtle way with rumours and gossip in the corridors and with failure to communicate timetables and assignments, furthermore I had to work twice as hard because the professors looked for any excuse to fail me.
This discrimination also existed outside the school system: people avoided us on the sidewalks, some stores refused to serve us, businesses owned by Darcsen were vandalized annually, and the police often refused to investigate crimes against us.
This was probably why my three attackers felt so confident: Randgriz was under the control of Marquis Maurits von Borg, a known Darcsen hater who was also the current prime minister and regent of Princess Cordelia, and this was reflected in the attitude of the population.
"Do you like my loving touch, darkie?" The kicks stopped to allow the blond guy to grab my hair and bring his mouth close to my ear, murmuring in a tone full of cruel satisfaction: "When we're done with you, even your mother won't recognize…"
*CLICK-CHICK*
The threats were interrupted by the sound of a camera shutter, followed by a pleased female voice: "Well, well. What have we got here…"
We turned left in the direction of the voice: just at the entrance to the alley was a young woman about five feet tall with gray-blue eyes hidden behind black-framed half-moon glasses and a heart-shaped face framed by blonde hair styled in a rolled bun; she was dressed as a reporter with a white shirt that had a blue and white neck scarf and was tucked into baggy beige pants that reached the waist and were tucked into knee-high leather boots, the whole thing topped with an open blue greatcoat and a blue trilby hat with a white band. She had a leather bag slung across her shoulders and in one hand she was excitedly waving the camera she had just taken the picture with: "...an assault in broad daylight! Oh, this is sure to make the news!"
"Hey!" the blond guy exclaimed, letting go of my hair to face the new arrival: "What do you think you're doing?"
"Who? Me?" the woman asked, pointing to herself and playing dumb.
"Yes, you!" said the giant skinhead, moving next to the blond.
"I'm taking pictures: I'm a reporter, that's what I do, of course!" she replied in a carefree tone and started to take another one.
"Stop it!" said 'Theo', positioning himself next to the blond boy.
"Huh? Why would I?" asked the reporter.
"Because we tell you so." the skinhead replied menacingly.
"Otherwise?" she asked.
In response, the blond guy advanced menacingly toward her, cracking his hands, flanked by his companions: "Otherwise I fear we will have to disfigure your pretty face. Now give us the camera or we will take it by force: we promise we will not be gentle."
*CLICK*
The three thugs stopped immediately: with a quick movement, the woman had pulled a revolver from under her overcoat and pointed it at them, cocking the hammer. In an instant, the situation had reversed: the thugs were no longer in control.
"I don't think so." she said in a flat voice, the cheerfulness she had displayed a few seconds earlier gone and replaced by a cold expression.
"You don't have the courage." the blond guy said hesitantly.
"Try me." she replied with a confident smile, deliberately pointing the gun at him.
"You can't shoot us: no one will defend you for protecting a dark-hair and you will go to jail." 'Theo' tried to reason.
The reporter's face broadened, taking on a decidedly foxy appearance: "I'll tear off my clothes: what will the gendarmes believe? That a woman shot a group of men for no reason? Or that they, after beating an innocent passerby, were about to molest her and she defended herself lethally in her panic?"
The three of them didn't answer, knowing very well the answer, and she continued: "Now I'm going to count to five, and at five I want your ugly asses out of the alley. Otherwise I'll give you a dose of lead-based medicine. One..."
The three of them exchanged a look and took off: running in the opposite direction, passing my huddled form without sparing me a glance, and speeding out of the alley before she had reached four.
"...five." The reporter finished counting and, seeing that they were gone and didn't seem to be coming back, she relaxed and lowered her revolver. Then she remembered me and, after putting the revolver away, she rushed to my aid, inspecting me for bruises: "How are you? Where does it hurt?"
*WHEEZE* "I'm fine." *WHEEZE* I said, inhaling deeply. I had spent most of the shouting match trying to regain the breath that had been knocked out of me by the kicks. I had regained enough to notice the reporter's rescue and was now trying to get up.
"Are you sure?" she asked, helping me up.
*WHEEZE* "Sure…" *WHEEZE* As soon as I stood up I was about to answer but was doubled over by a sharp pain in my stomach: it seemed like I could never get enough air in, no matter how much I tried to inhale.
The reporter immediately moved to support me, taking my arm around her shoulders and supporting my waist with her other arm, and helped me walk to a stack of crates upon which she gently helped me sit.
After a few seconds, I felt like I had recovered enough breath and looked up to meet the young woman's concerned gaze: "As I was saying, I'm fine: my clothes are…" *WHEEZE* I was again out of breath but this time I managed to continue: "...padded, it's just that the big one gave me a…" *WHEEZE* "...particularly hard blow to the stomach and it took my breath away." *WHEEZE*
"So you are saying you are okay?" she asked with a worried expression.
"Yes." *WHEEZE* I said, pulling up my poncho and shirt sleeve between inhalations to show that, aside from the few minor bruises that were forming, I was mostly unharmed. "As you can see," *WHEEZE* "I'm fine: I just need to…" *WHEEZE* "…catch my breath." *WHEEZE*
"Thank goodness." She sat down next to me, leaning her head back against the wall, and breathed a sigh of relief: *PHEW* "Wasn't that an experience."
For a few seconds the alley was silent, broken only by the sounds of the neighboring streets and my gasping for air, until I felt I had recovered enough breath to let out a pair of half-stifled words: "Thank you."
"Mmh, what?" asked the young woman, raising her head.
"Thank you:" I said again, this time a little louder thanks to my almost complete recovery of the breath, "You saved my skin."
"Don't think about it!" she replied with a smile: "It was nothing special!"
"Yes, it was!" I replied indignantly: "With the current environment in the capital, it would be rare to find someone who would deign to acknowledge that a crime was being committed against a darcsen! Let alone intervene weapon in had to stop it!"
"Oh, this thing?" she asked, pulling the revolver from a shoulder holster under her overcoat and showing it to me. "It's a family heirloom that belonged to my father. It hasn't worked in years and I can't open the inspection plate to see what's wrong: I'm keeping it more for nostalgia than function."
I marveled at her ability to bluff: it took some serious grit to threaten someone with a nonfunctional gun.
"Give me the revolver, please." I asked, holding out a hand. I had decided: even if it was a small thing, I would repair the family heirloom of the person who had saved me. It was the least I could do.
"Uhh, OK?" she handed it to me, confused, "What are you going to do with it?"
"Fix it." I replied, picking it up and starting to inspect it. "What's wrong with it other than not being able to take it apart?"
"Umm…" she thought for a moment, still confused by my abruptness, bringing her index finger in front of her mouth: "…the cylinder release button doesn't move, and it looks like the hammer can't reach the cartridge primer."
I looked at the revolver and tried to operate the cylinder release, which indeed did not move, but I avoided testing the hammer: I did not want to risk that this was the right time for a shot to go off. Turning the revolver on its side on the inspection plate, I noticed from the number of screws, two instead of four, that it was not a Smith & Wesson
Military & Constabulary, the equivalent of the Smith & Wesson M&P in this world, but a
Pistool Model 1910.
I realized that her father was probably a veteran of the First Europan War, the local equivalent of the First World War that lasted from 1909 to 1915, as indeed was most of the adult population over thirty-one: the
M.10 revolver was a very simplified copy of the
M&C built in the Kingdom of Iberica on Gallian commission to cope with the pace at which the EW1, the first fully industrialized war of this world, was eating up various pieces of equipment; in this it was the alternative equivalent of the French Mle.92 Espagnols revolver.
Deciding it was time to delve into the lockwork, I reached to my side for my satchel and, finding nothing but air, remembered that the thugs had stolen it and thrown it. Noticing it half open on the ground a dozen meters away, I moved to get up to go recover it but, as I put weight on my right leg, a stab of pain sent me back to my seat: "Unhh!"
"Are you okay?!" the reporter was immediately at my side, worried.
"Yes." I replied, "Just a twinge in my shin: one of the thugs was particularly aggressive toward them."
"Sigh-ahh." she sighed in relief, then jumped up and pointed her finger at me, scolding me: "What do you think you're doing?! You just got beaten up and you're already trying to force yourself?!" She crossed her arms: "Umpf! Idiot!"
"Sorry, sorry." I apologized, embarrassed by the care she was showing for a complete stranger and a little bewildered: her energetic attitude and her glasses were familiar to me.
"I just wanted to get to my satchel," I explained, pointing to it. "My tools are in there."
"Sigh." she sighed again, "Stay here." and walked towards the satchel.
A couple of seconds passed, during which I massaged my shin, before she came back with the satchel in her hand and handed it to me: "Here it is."
"Thanks." I replied, taking it and opening the front pocket to pull out my tool kit and retrieve a screwdriver.
"I also found this, I think it's yours." she said, and I raised my head to find her handing me a knife from the pommel: it was indeed the one I used to take the bespectacled thug hostage, it was a dirk I made as an engineering project the first year at the university, it was 40 centimeters long with a 30 centimeters long and 2 centimeters wide double-edged blade without a fuller, a simple S-shaped crossguard, and a 10 centimeters long beige ashwood hilt engraved with a red-painted Darcsen pattern instead of a Celtic one.
With a "Thanks again." I took the dagger and sheathed it in its back holster, before returning to focus on the revolver.
As I was trying to open the inspection panel of the revolver, the reporter sat down next to me again and, after remaining silent for a few seconds, spoke: "Soo… I couldn't help but notice the contents of that bag of yours…" she began, referring to the fact that the bag, due to the tampering of the thugs, was half open with the contents protruding: "…that was a lot of blueprints, huh?! You look like an expert gunsmith by the way you're handling my revolver, but you're pretty young to be such a prolific engineer."
"Thank you for the compliment, but anyone with my opportunities and injunctions could have done the same thing." I waved off his compliments: thanks to my past life memories, I had managed to skip several grades and, by 1928 E.C., managed to earn a master's degree in engineering at the age of eighteen. The impetus had come from the fact that the faster I passed a grade, the less time the educators would have to sabotage me for being a Darcsen. Moreover, I knew, thanks to my past-life memories, that in 1935 the empire would invade: so the sooner I graduated, the sooner I could start stacking the deck in favor of Gallia.
"The number of blueprints isn't a great indicator of an engineer's success, though. If no one…" I trailed off as the screwdriver slipped out of the screw slot for the third time: the screw seemed to be stuck, and no matter how hard I tried to turn it, it wouldn't budge. I frowned, a hypothesis forming in my head, and held the revolver up to my nose, sniffing it.
Immediately a faint but pungent odor attacked my nose, reinforcing my hypothesis. I turned to the reporter: "Have you ever used ragnitoline on this weapon?" Ragnitoline was this world's equivalent of cosmoline, using ragnite derivatives instead of hydrocarbons.
"Uhh…" she thought for a moment, then replied: "…I think so: a few years ago the hammer spring broke and I had to deliver it to a gunsmith; the repair was quick, but a series of commitments and coincidences prevented me from recovering it for months and, when I finally went to collect it, the gunsmith had used ragnitoline to preserve it."
"Just as I thought…" I said and grabbed the satchel.
"What do you mean? Does the ragnitoline have something to do with why the revolver doesn't work?" she asked.
"You probably used the method you were taught in the military classes when you removed the ragnitoline, right?" When she nodded, I continued as I began rummaging through the satchel, "I thought so. The problem is that the method only works for high-purity military-grade ragnitoline. Commercial-grade ragnitoline tends to have some impurities that make it harder to remove. When you tried to remove it from the revolver, a thin film of ragnitoline was probably still in the gun, and it gradually turned into a highly viscous substance that is interfering with the operation of various components like the hammer, as well as welding the screws and cylinder release button into place."
"Can this be solved?" she asked me.
"Normally not easily, but luckily…" I said as I dug my hand deeper into the satchel, grabbing a cylindrical object and pulling it out to reveal a small, unadorned bottle containing a clear yellowish liquid: "…I have a small bottle of high penetration oil here!"
The reporter watched curiously as I removed the cap and carefully applied the fluid to the stuck screws: "A nice dose of oil to you… and to you."
"What now?" she asked.
"Now let's wait a couple of minutes," I said, placing the gun and bottle on the crates we were sitting on.
We settled into an awkward silence that, after about half a minute, was broken by her: "What you were talking about the success of an engineer?"
I looked at her for a couple of seconds, internally debating whether or not to elaborate, before deciding that the lengths she had gone to in order to help me deserved some trust: "I was saying that it doesn't matter how many inventions an engineer invents: if no one is willing to produce them, he might as well not have invented them."
"What do you mean?" she looked at me questioningly.
"Take this oil for example," I replied, grabbing the bottle and showing it to her. "It's not exactly mineral oil, but a chemical mix specifically designed as a lubricant, cleaner, and preservative for firearms, but it works equally well on all materials and has equal or superior capabilities to other products on the market. What's more, it's based on petroleum, not ragnite, so it uses an abundant and underutilized resource, making it cheaper. It's also completely non-toxic; if any amount gets into a person's body, it won't hurt them, although it will still cause discomfort, and will be naturally expelled after a short time."
She took the bottle in her hand, examining it in wonder: "It is a fantastic product, and it would certainly be useful for my bicycle, where can I buy it? And what does it have to do with what you were talking about?" she said, handing it back.
"It's called Ballistol and it's relevant because I invented it two months ago and I still haven't been able to find a company that wants to mass produce it despite its excellent qualities," I said, placing the bottle down next to me as I mentally corrected myself, 'Well, technically I invented it in this world, but all I did was copy the formula of the original Ballistol from my old world.'
"What?! Why wouldn't they?" she asked incredulously, but she quickly understood why when I pointed to my hair followed by my Darcsen-patterned poncho: "Oh."
"Yes, Oh." I replied bitterly as I picked up the revolver and screwdriver again and tried to unscrew the screws again: as a Darcsen, it was practically impossible to find a job that was not in the mining sector, engineering or, for the most desperate, organized crime; and, in any case, without the possibility of vertical mobility above the position of foreman or supervisor. Let alone starting a business above the small one.
"I've been going around the country for two years looking for a company to produce my products," I complained as the screw finally started to turn, the ragnitoline that had been blocking it dissolved by the action of the Ballistol. "No matter how good my ideas are, or the fact that I earned my master's degree in engineering at eighteen with honors, they keep rejecting me. At best, they simply reject me out of hand because they think 'Darcsens are stupid and don't have the intelligence to invent anything useful'. At worst, they acknowledge their worth and try to get me to sign away the production rights for a pittance by saying 'A Darcsen should be proud that we would even consider producing his invention'. The only good thing is that my patents are rock solid so they can't do anything without my permission."
"That sounds like a bad situation," she pitied me after listening to my outburst.
"You have no idea…" I muttered as the screws were finally undone allowing me to remove the inspection plate and access the revolver's lockwork: as I had expected, a few clear blue clumps of ragnitoline were scattered throughout the action welding the cylinder release button transfer lever in place and a couple had formed in front of the hammer preventing the firing pin from reaching the cartridge primers.
As I got to work applying Ballistol to loosen the parts for disassembly and opening up a tarp to lay the disassembled parts on, I began to vent again: I had been under a lot of stress lately and she seemed willing to keep an ear open to permit me to blow off some steam.
"Recently…" I said as I carefully removed the cylinder and its yoke and began to disassemble them, taking care to remove the ammunitions from the cylinder first, "…recently I have given up hope of finding a company that will give me a fair deal and have decided to try opening my own."
"I came here to Randgriz because every bank in the country has at least one branch here," I explained as I used a pair of pliers to compress the mainspring, pull it out, and set it aside on the tarp.
"I've been touring the capital for three days and no bank seems willing to give me a big enough loan despite having demonstrated the quality of my products," I complained as the Ballistol finally loosened enough of the spiderweb blocking the cylinder release transfer plate to allow me to retract it to make enough room to extract the hammer and trigger group.
"I even tried asking some loan sharks today," I explained as I began to unscrew the cylinder release button, "but I refused them because they asked me to use my patents as collateral: I don't trust them not to hire criminals to ensure that whatever business I open fails so they can get hold of my inventions."
"This seems like a hopeless situation," I muttered as the button finally loosened and I was able to extract the transfer bar. "The industrialists despise me, the banks ignore me, and the loan sharks are greedy bastards."
"Ugh, it looks like it can only get worse," I concluded, sighing and slumping my shoulders after putting down the frame of the revolver I had finished to dismantle: discrimination in the work world was severe and we darcsens were stuck at the bottom of the totem pole.
We stood there in silence for a few seconds, me exhausted from venting and her in thought, unsure of what to say. Then I huffed and grabbed a cloth from my tool kit, dipping it in Ballistol, and began to carefully clean the pieces of the revolver one by one.
After a few seconds, she broke the silence: "Can I take a look at those blueprints of yours?"
"Huh? Sure?" I looked up in surprise at such a direct question, but decided to give her permission: she had saved me from a beating and I had a strange but positive feeling about her; plus, unless she stole them from me, there wasn't much she could do with my blueprints.
"Are you sure?" she asked hesitantly, and when I nodded, she opened the satchel, delicately took out the blueprints and began examining them: "Interesting, interesting. Hey, what is this?" she said, showing me the paper she was holding.
I was distracted from cleaning the hammer to glance at the paper before answering him: "I call them
reddingsverband: they are cheap medical dressings that can be used in place of a bandage for smaller wounds where it would be wasted," I told her, explaining the intention behind the band-aid. I was surprised when I found out that no one had invented something so simple and ubiquitous in the 21st century, but I was still happy about the coincidence: it was one more thing I could capitalize on.
"I see. It's definitely a product that would sell." she deduced, then moved on to the next project: "And what is this? It looks like something like the
reddingsverband but for small lacerations…"
Hearing this description, I didn't even bother to raise my head, there was only one invention among those I had brought that suited it: the butterfly stitches. "Those are the
vlinder steken, they have a similar philosophy to the
reddingsverband: they are used to temporarily close small lacerations before a doctor can examine them; this way you don't have to waste a ragnaid on a small wound." Ragnaids were all-purpose first-aid devices capable of sterilizing and closing a wound by simply activating one and bringing it closer to it, they were relatively expensive since they used ragnite and were mainly used for military applications.
"I see, I see." She nodded at the reasoning: "This is also a product that would have its uses… let's see the next one!" she exclaimed, moving on to the next blueprint: "This is a strange pen…"
"That would be a ballpoint pen: it uses a small metal ball to regulate the flow of and deposit ink onto paper, it should be much easier to use than a fountain pen." I explained as I began cleaning the barrel.
"I have heard of this type of pen: existing models always have models with ink management and tend to overflow, have you found a solution?" she asked, examining the blueprint.
"Mm-hmm." I nodded and then explained, mentally thanking and apologizing to László Bíró for having copied his invention: "Coincidentally, the solution comes from your profession, journalism: I discovered that newspaper ink dries quickly and, if its viscosity is slightly increased, is perfect for use in ballpoint pens."
"Of course!" she exclaimed, banging her fist. "It's obvious in hindsight!"
We continued like this for a few minutes, me cleaning the parts of the revolver and her curiously examining my blueprints and asking me about them. There were all sorts of things: various stationery items like staplers and post-it notes, utility tools like the interchangeable-head screwdriver and the ratchet wrench, and even more complicated things like a gasoline engine and industrial tools.
"...what is this instead? It looks like a cylindrical metal container with a button on top…" she asked for the umpteenth time.
I hesitated for a moment, noticing that I had finished cleaning all the parts of the revolver thoroughly, before looking up and taking again a look at the paper she was showing me. Then I lowered my eyes to concentrate on starting to reassemble the revolver while I began to explain the function of another of my 'inventions', the aerosol spray can: "That would be the
spuit can, I designed it for products like my Ballistol: it uses pressurized liquid gas to expel a liquid through a head that atomizes it, this facilitates the application of a film of product easily, quickly and more or less precisely."
"Interesting… It's certainly an interesting solution…" she murmured, examining the blueprint, then she moved on to the next one and frowned: "What is this supposed to be? The blueprint is strange, it's not complete and I can't figure out what the object depicted is supposed to be: it looks like a wooden frame with parts covered in canvas, but what are the propellers for?"
Again, I didn't have to look up from reassembling the revolver to understand what she was talking about: "That's not a complete blueprint, in fact: it's my sketch for a heavier-than-air flying machine."
She turned her head in my direction with a surprised gasp: "A flying machine heavier than air?! Weren't they declared impossible after Reinz Frachelt fell from the Guffel Tower in 1912 while testing his flying suit?!"
I sighed, putting the gun down after reinserting the trigger assembly, and, after wiping the oil off my hands with a cloth, took a sheet of paper from my satchel and began folding it. "The reason heavier-than-air flying machines have failed so far is because their designers have taken inspiration from the work of Vincilardo da Leopoli, and tried to copy the flight of birds with flapping-wing machines, without understanding the principles behind flight itself." I explained as I folded the paper along the center line. Vincilardo da Leopoli was the Leonardo da Vinci of this world, and the engineers and scientists of this world tended to defer greatly to this ancient figure, treating him, even though he had been dead for several centuries, with the same deference that the scientists of my old world had for Albert Einstein.
"By observing birds well and correctly we can understand that, with a few exceptions such as the hummingbird, the flapping of the wings serves only to provide horizontal thrust and what we should be examining is the gliding part of flight. By understanding this…" I said as I finished folding the paper, "…we can discover the secret behind heavier-than-air flight." And with that I tossed the paper airplane I had created down the alley.
The reporter watched the paper airplane with rapt attention as it flew into the alley, bobbing and weaving in the air. There was a reason why she was gazing so in wonder at a toy that in my old world had been invented in the second half of the 19th century: simply put, in this world, it was not invented until 1915 when I unknowingly created the first of this world at the age of fifteen as a toy for my little brother; although paper airplanes quickly became popular in the Darcsen neighborhood of Fouzen, they remained confined there thanks to the sedentary lifestyle of the Darcsen and the racism towards them.
As I went back to work on the revolver, reassembling the hammer and starting to screw the grip plates and inspection plate back on, a hypothesis began to form in my head: could it be that the failure to invent the 'paper dart' had contributed to the failure to invent heavier-than-air flight in this world: after all, how many aeronautical pioneers in my old world became fascinated with flying by seeing a paper airplane glide across fields or streets?
"I have solved the theoretical problems for the flying machine, but there are a couple of practical ones left: that of controlling the direction of flight I think I have solved, but that of providing the propulsion for sustained flight remains a problem given the weight of the ragnoline engines." I said as I finished screwing the last screw on the inspection plate. I was about to pass the cleaned, oiled and reassembled revolver to the reporter, but she, as if hypnotized, ignored me and got up to retrieve the paper airplane that had in the meantime landed about twenty meters away.
She reached for it and picked it up, turning it over in her hands and watching it silently. After a few seconds, she copied the motion she had seen me make to throw it and threw it in my direction: the paper airplane glided gently, if awkwardly, and landed at my feet. I picked it up and held it out in his direction, gesturing with my other hand to come and get it.
She approached, still silent, taking the flying toy from my hands and, sitting down next to me again, began to examine it curiously. I took the opportunity to pass her the refurbished revolver and the unfired ammunitions that I had removed during the dismantling. "The paper airplane is an interesting concept, too bad the full-size version will not see the light of day for a long time," I said sadly, thinking, '
After all, IZARA will not begin construction until 1935 and will not be completed until 1936, I do not see how it can beat that date without funding.'
The reporter took the revolver and ammunition from me, examining it silently while she pondered. Absentmindedly, she pulled back the hammer and pulled the trigger, dry-firing the revolver and noticing that the firing pin finally completed its travel. Then, still absorbed in her thoughts, she pressed the cylinder release button, which swung out smoothly, and silently began loading the cartridges.
After she finished loading the cartridges, she muttered something: "I'll finance you."
"What?" I asked, sure I had misheard.
"I'll finance you," she repeated louder, swinging the closed cylinder with a flick of her wrist and putting the revolver back in its shoulder holster after setting the hammer to half-cock.
"Are you serious?!" I asked incredulously, standing up and facing her.
She nodded in response, but I was still unsure: "Are you sure? Starting a company is an expensive undertaking: especially without a loan from a bank."
She brushed off my question: "That won't be a problem: I recently came into possession of a large amount of capital."
At this, I frowned: "Nothing illegal, I hope."
She waved her hand. "Nothing of the sort. It's all perfectly legal."
I stared at her, unsure. "But why finance me, a complete stranger?! What would you gain from it? We barely spoke for half an hour!"
She stood up, her back to me. "I have a good feeling about you. My journalistic instincts tell me that, although you don't tell the whole story, you're an honest person." She replied. "Plus, for what I get out of it, I want 25 percent of the stock in the company you'll start with my money," she said, looking over her shoulder and holding up two fingers. "Your inventions look solid and I think they'll sell well."
"Besides, the reason I decided to fund you is this," she continued, turning completely and entering my personal space to wave the paper airplane under my nose: "heavier-than-air flight: I believe you have the potential to make it happen and I want the exclusive rights to report your success! No, actually," she said, growing more excited: "I want to be the pilot of the aircraft on its first flight! So what do you say?"
"Okay, okay, you've convinced me." I chuckled, infected by his enthusiasm, then I wiped away a tear of emotion and relief, happy to finally be able to put my plans into motion after two years of roadblocks, before holding out a hand: "I realized that up until now I've been calling you 'she' or 'the reporter' in my head and that I haven't introduced myself: I'm Arthur, what's your name?"
Her response suddenly made me realize where I had seen her face before and why her demeanor was familiar: "My name is Irene Ellet, apprentice reporter extraordinaire." said the iconic Valkyria Chronicles reporter, "Pleased to meet you, Arthur."
On the 23rd day of the fourth month of the year 1928 after the Valkyrur Conquest, an unlikely encounter happened, and the history of the world changed. From this encounter what will become the Koller-Gunther Industries industrial giant was born. Though it was a small step in a long journey to success, what followed was how a handful of men and women could lay the basis for the falling of a giant. The following chapters will tell the story of a colossal effort overshadowed by the stars on the battlefield. A story of intellect and human ingenuity, of backbreaking work and unrewarded accomplishments. And of chains finally broken after centuries of unjust bondage. What follows is a record of this conflict fought in the backlines. And those who designed, built, and paved the road to victory.
"Irene Koller, On The Gallian Homefront And Beyond."
