The Game Called Revolution, - [ebook reader 8 inch .txt] 📗

Robespierre and his Montagnard group,” Jeanne said.

Pierre, however, shook his head. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, if what I’ve heard is true.”

“What do you mean?” Jeanne asked.

“Yesterday a Parisian man passed through this village. He brought news that those two were recently executed on Robespierre’s orders.”

Jeanne balled up a fist and squeezed it until her hand went numb. “That rogue! Is there no level of evil he won’t fall to?”

“It’s really not surprising,” Pierre said. “He is a sick, twisted man who nurses grudges and relentlessly pursues greater power. He would probably gouge out his own mother’s eyes to get what he wants.”

“And that is precisely why he must be punished, the more brutally the better,” Farahilde said.

“We will stop him,” Jeanne assured her.

“I prefer meine wording, fräulein.”

 

***

 

Later that night, Jeanne and Pierre took a walk through the village. He had invited her to walk with him alone because there were things he wanted to say to her away from prying ears. He especially didn’t want Farahilde to hear any of this.

As they passed between the simple houses, the full moon bathed Pierret in an incandescent light. The windows of the various homes were also lit by candles, providing further illumination.

“Do you still remember the first time we met?” he asked her.

“Of course. You had just been accepted into the Ordre, and you reported to my office. You had dark skin and you towered over me—I’d never seen anyone like you.”

“Do you remember the first thing I said to you?”

“I’ll never forget it. ‘This girl is our leader? Ridiculous!’”

He laughed. “I may have been a good soldier back then, but I still had a lot to learn, didn’t I?”

“And do you remember what I said to you?”

“‘If you don’t like it, get out.’ I couldn’t believe someone half my size had the nerve to say that to me.”

She said slyly, “This girl couldn’t afford to be nice. If she did, someone might have taken advantage of her.”

“You know,” he said, “I never told you this, but I vowed long ago to never let that happen.”

She smiled proudly at him. “You’ve always been someone I could trust to support me in any given situation.”

He looked away nervously, as if he was suddenly embarrassed to look her in the eye. “This…goes beyond mere duty.”

“What do you mean?”

“What that Thornwood man said back at Mt. Erfunden…well, he was right. I may have scoffed at you when I first began serving under you, but it didn’t take me long to develop real respect for you. And that respect eventually turned into admiration, which itself ended up turning into…something else.”

Jeanne stopped in her tracks and stared into his eyes. “You don’t mean…”

He explained, “Everything about you is wonderful, Jeanne.”

“You called me by my first name…”

“From your lustrous auburn hair to your unbelievable inner strength, there is nothing about you I don’t find perfect. I will dive into the heart of Hell before I allow an enemy to even graze your irodium armor. That is how much I care about you.”

So that was the real reason he wanted to go for a walk with her alone. Obviously, he was expecting a response, but…

“I don’t know what to say, Pierre. I mean, it goes without saying that I have the utmost respect for you, and it isn’t as though I don’t find you to be a strong, handsome man. But…I don’t think we can do this right now—not as long as you’re my subordinate and we are on what could turn out to be a suicide mission.”

Pierre looked disappointed, though not necessarily deterred. “So, if we take down Robespierre, we might have a chance to make something of this?”

Shrugging, she said, “I don’t know—maybe. I’ve never really given any thought to having children. If I can’t find a way to remove the curse of the God’s Eye, any daughter I have will end up inheriting it. There’s really no way to describe the suffering it brings. Having to live the majority of your life keeping your left eye covered—knowing that if you ever slip up, you could completely lose your mind—it’s like having the Sword of Damocles hanging above your head until the day you die. There is nothing in this world more terrifying than the constant threat of madness.”

Pierre was silent for a moment, trying to come up with the words to respond to the revelation of her heavy burden. “You’ve never spoken of the God’s Eye like this before. I had no idea it caused you such pain. You’ve always carried yourself in such a cool, collected manner that I didn’t think it was such a burden.”

“I couldn’t allow the full extent of the burden to be known. I need my subordinates to have the utmost faith in me; if they can’t trust me, I can’t trust them.”

Pierre, however, didn’t agree with her. “Pain doesn’t mean weakness, Jeanne. We’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, God’s Eye or not.”

She said, with a hint of melancholy, “Can you really speak for the others?”

He gave her a confident grin. “I have a feeling the rest of the Order will prove me right.”

Without warning, she suddenly hugged him. “Thank you, Pierre. I needed that.”

He enveloped her in his large arms, almost swallowing her with his massive frame. “Any time, Commander.”

4

 

 

 

 

The Tuileries, Paris, March 27, 1790 (Infini Calendar), 2:00 p.m.

Robespierre walked into the building which had been built over the Tuileries garden after the dissolution of the monarchy. Good riddance, thought Robespierre; it was just a large empty space in the middle of the Tuileries before he took over. Now it housed the key to France’s domination of the entire European continent.

Flanked by Napoléon and Madame Tussaud (wearing her harlequin mask and carrying her huge scythe as usual), he inspected the hundred-foot object in front of them. It shined a wondrous blue, and its low hum was a symphony to his ears.

“Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen,” he asked, to no one in particular.

Napoléon nodded in approval. “It is a masterwork of engineering.”

Tussaud remained characteristically silent.

“With this, no one will ever be able to challenge France again,” Robespierre declared emphatically.

“Our future would seem to be secured,” Napoléon agreed. “Or, rather, it would be if not for the piece of the puzzle that has gone missing.”

Robespierre grunted in annoyance. He knew exactly what his protégé was referring to. “You’re worrying about nothing. It doesn’t matter what the Marquis de Sade does now. How can he possibly stop us at this point?”

Napoléon said nothing further on the matter.

In truth, Robespierre had intended to have the Marquis de Sade executed immediately upon seizing power; the Marquis had, after all, outlived his usefulness and was a liability because he knew too much about how Robespierre had taken control of France. However, the crafty lunatic somehow got wind of Robespierre’s intentions and fled Paris. Now he could be anywhere, doing anything. In front of his lieutenants, Robespierre downplayed the danger de Sade posed. Privately, he wanted him caught and put to death as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, when Robespierre had de Sade freed from the Bastille, he fabricated documents that showed the Marquis had been transferred to another prison. If Robespierre ordered the manhunt of a supposedly incarcerated prisoner, that would raise uncomfortable questions. That meant that at the moment there was little he could do about the situation.

Robespierre called out to one of his scientists on a platform twenty feet up the glowing, pulsating object in front of them. “How long until it’s operational?”

The scientist, probably nervous about being put on the spot, awkwardly spun around to look down at his employer. “N-Not long now, m-my liege. P-Probably another week.”

Robespierre frowned in annoyance. “Do I detect uncertainty in your voice?”

“W-Well, sir, it’s just that…well, we’re working without the project leader. Ever since he was killed by this device in that accident,” the scientist pointed to the object. He was referring to the project lead’s unfortunate electrocution.

“He died to secure a glorious future for France,” Robespierre said, without any real sympathy. “Anyway, he taught you everything you need to know to finish it.”

The fearful scientist, however, was not satisfied by Robespierre’s hollow assurances. “I’m sorry, sir, but I would be derelict in my duties if I didn’t bring up the project lead’s concerns about the stability of the system. We’re dealing with new technology, and with the massive voltage we’re going to be running through the city, we don’t know what could go wrong.”

“Just get it done,” Robespierre ordered. “We’ve poured far too many resources into this project for it to fail. If it doesn’t work, Paris has no future anyway.”

“Once the Austrians find out what we’re up to here, they will surely attack us,” Napoléon added.

Tussaud nodded.

“Exactly. The Alset Project will lead to another war with Austria. Unless, of course, this thing works. Then neither Austria nor anyone else will be able to even touch us. So, get this thing working,” Robespierre said. “For France.”

 

***

 

Grenoble, France, April 1, 1790 (Infini Calendar), 2:05 p.m.

Grenoble was a town in southeastern France at the base of the French Alps where the rivers Drac and Isère intersected. The white peaks of the Alps towered above the town and contributed to its beauty.

Grenoble, having existed for some two millennia, had a rich and interesting history. The most recent event to have occurred in the town at this point in time happened on June 8, 1788 in an event known as the “Day of the Tiles.” Some say this is where the Revolution truly began.

Like the storming of the Bastille and the other riots that would occur on July 14, 1789, this event was precipitated by civil unrest due to economic troubles and special privileges shared by the First and Second Estates (namely, the nobility and the church). The government’s solution to France’s mounting debt was to implement new taxes, and the nobles and clergymen refused to take on their share of the burden. This caused the civil unrest in Grenoble to continually increase.

In response, the government sent in soldiers to put down what it perceived as an uprising. The townspeople got up on their roofs and threw down tiles at the troops, who promptly fled the city.

Although this incident was peaceful compared to latter events of the revolution, it can be argued that it laid the groundwork for everything that was to come.

There was one citizen of Grenoble, though, who at the moment could not possibly have cared less about the Day of the Tiles. After all, the Ordre hadn’t been involved in the incident. No, his mind was currently occupied by the boring task of sweeping the vestibule of the Church of Saint-Laurent. Even though this work wasn’t stimulating by any means, it kept him out of trouble. And trouble was exactly what he had come here to avoid. No one who knew him would have thought to look for him in a church.

This man was, of course, Victor Mont-Hume of the Ordre de la Tradition. When Pierre decided to implement the Splinter Protocol, Victor needed a place to hide out until the group could get back together. So, he thought to himself, where was the best place for him to hide? A church, naturally; nobody would expect him to hide out in a building full of people known to persecute his kind.

But which church, and where? Victor quickly decided on Grenoble, since he had never been there before and had no