The common room of the Salted Mast pulsed with the energy of a whispering crowd. Every dockworker, every sailor, a murmur aimed towards Robert.

  As he descended the stairs of the resting floor, the room turned thick with the scents of ale, wood, and tobacco. Robert approached the bar, well-groomed and dressed to face the journey ahead. The innkeeper wiped his hands on his apron, his gaze lingering over, not a single detail left unseen.

  "Morning," Robert said in the local language. "I'd like to settle my room. Leaving today."

  "Your marquees is excellent Mon’Sir." The innkeeper's eyebrows motioned to the entrance. "Your escort is ready. Mandatory to all foreigners, I'm afraid. Even Herj’gents."

  Robert's body had been designed to look like the average Herjard man. Pale, tall and blonde. A necessary deceit to travel north with little trouble. So with the convenience of having been taken for one of them, Robert did not correct him.

  Side of the exit doorway. A man rested his back on the side of the portal, smoking and pretending not to be in any sort of rush.

  "Name's Elmsarie." The innkeeper said. "Good fellow. Trustable and quiet when needed. But don't be afraid to ask him anything, he is talkative when needed as well."

  As the keeper turned to serve another patron, Robert noticed conversations stuttering in his wake. Eyes flicked at him, then darted away. "What is the gossip about? I feel I'm part of it."

  The innkeepers leaned in the bar, calmed and confident. "Oh, Mon’Sir. It has nothing to do with you. We never disrespect Herjard gent. What makes the boys nervous today is... well, a ship aground north of here few nights back. In Savoy beach. Empty. No crew. A lad told a lad there was only one figure on the deck, as pale as the moon. a ghost perhaps… Each time there are superstitions from the sea, the lads fear the newcomers. Not to fear or worry, Mon’Sir, we are just illiterate and fearful villagers."

  A grizzled sailor with a patch over one eye leaned in, his voice rough as salt-rubbed rope. "A figure. Pale as death, hair like spun gold. Swore it was a spectre! That's not no sense, Anjoure!"

  Anjoure tossed the cleaning rag over his shoulder and slapped the bar with a bare palm. "Shut up, Didu. You heard from who? Perrot? A drunk, who heard from who? Silas! Another drunk!"

  Robert chuckled, dry and humourless. "So it is about me after all… I see. I assure you, I'm no ghost."

  Didu returned to his drinking and Anjoure to his cleaning. "Don't pay attention to them, sir, they're just scared mice. I can assure you Herjard gents are safe here. Our little town even has some of them. Compatriots of yours, I mean. Mon’Sir Himmer. He is in charge of the town’s safety. Two of his best men are Herj too! The rest are locals but truly loyal to the Empire, I can assure you. And none of this folk will ever raise a voice of discontent or a finger of sedition. They are just plain stupid."

  Robert left, giving an analyzing thought on what should be more concerning: the faked complacency of the innkeeper or the straight defiance from all the others.

  ‘They are scared,’ Claudia said. Robert agreed with a hum he used to greet his escort. The man raised a finger on his bonnet and adjusted the strap of his fusil. A gesture to show he was ready for anything.

  Morning light painted a grey town with bits of colour here and there. Chipped blue shutters, laundry strung between bullet-pocked balconies and geraniums clinging to life in rusted tins. A ghost town fearful of spirits. A place killed by the decimation which had been raised as an undead from its ashes. Weak, emptied, soulless.

  Few were the dwellers who had returned. Most lingered around in survival tasks, while others just lingered without purpose. The luckiest had a chance to work in the drydocks. A once prosperous ship building hub now barely alive by small metal work factories. As they got closer, the air carried a scent of melted metal, mixed with an also metallic underone of different nature.

  ‘Radiation,’ Claudia said. ‘Faint, but still present.’

  A bent-backed woman arranged withered lemons on a stall, her hands trembling. Robert registered the tremors. Early stages of neurological decay.‘Shorter lives here,’ he said. ‘What about Northislay and beyond? Anything still walking there?’

  ‘That's to be seen.’ Claudia answered. ‘My guess is Northislay may still hold some population. Apart from outcasts and outlaws. There are no official records of any Herjard activity there. Neither attempts of repopulation yet. North from there we will see more movement for sure. Although not human.’

  They passed a café where three old men hunched over a chessboard to play alone. He coughed into a handkerchief speckled with pink. Near a collapsed basilica, Robert’s radiation counter ticked upward.

  ‘Will our systems hold in the north?’

  ‘Unless we hit a hot zone, we don't need to worry.’ A pause followed. ‘Are you worried?’

  ‘Pretending to be. You are indulging me.’

  Claudia chuckled with a crackle of static. ‘I am. Does it bother you?’

  ‘That you joke on my attempts to be more human? Yes. But it's also a pretence.’

  The harbormaster’s office loomed ahead, its door propped open with a sandbag. An armed guard eyed Robert’s too-clean boots before letting him pass. Elmsarie remained outside.

  Few clerks laboured beneath sagging lights and the sun beams spearing through dust-stained windows. The one Robert faced, dismissed his busy whereabouts to give him a disdainful glance he didn't effort to hide. Robert reached for his side bag and carefully, without showing much of its interior, he took an envelope in which he had all the papers needed. The man, with the same coldness, opened it and read each one with little interest.

  In the clerk's chest, sewn to his jacket, there was a round badge of blue cotton. Simple, with a letter M sewed inside. An easy way to tell who was local, and who wasn't. The others though, did not wear it, but as Robert scouted the office with exhaustive attention, two of them rushed to put on their own badged jackets on and one more raised it, shamelessly pointing at the blue circle.

  Silence stretched taut while clerks pretended to busy around. The clerk adjusted his specks and returned the papers, without taking time or effort to fold them back inside the envelope. "Doesn't matter if you are Herj, Sir. You will still have to report to the Southern Checkpoint as you reach the island. Your countrymen are very wary of who wanders the north."

  "Understood."

  "Many that go there do not report. Those are criminals. And there are plenty. Do not land anywhere, except the checkpoints. Do you have a map?"

  "I do."

  "Good. Then…" The clerk took a moment to stamp a new document, a paper he took his time to punish. "All is settled. Before departure, you will have to pass a boat inspection. And talking about inspection, put your bag there. Where is the rest of your luggage?"

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  "This is all I need."

  "What? And the research? You don't bring any material?"

  "I’m doing sample recollection and analysis. Requested by Professor Giardi of the University of Mestra. Coastal viability reassessment for the reopening of fishing areas. Orders from the Herjard Marine Department."

  "I know all that jiver, sir. I read the papers!" the Clerk snapped. His fingers beckoned, and one of his colleagues reached a side table while another stepped behind Robert.

  "I just need to collect samples of water and analyse them. Then take notes. That’s it." Robert walked to the table and left his bag on with care, then he raised his arms. The man behind him began patting him down while the other began placing his belongings on the table.

  "You have a hole in your vest." the frisker whispered before raising his voice, "No weapons!"

  "I don't get paid very well," Robert replied. "Be careful with that, it's my sample-analyzing machine."

  The man at the table raised an eyebrow and continued emptying the bag. "Machine for research, a long cable, documents, stationeries, toiletries, some undergarments…that’s all."

  "Have a safe trip, sir. And be extremely careful."

  Robert acknowledged the warning with a curt nod. Then he meticulously put his belongings back in the bag and headed for the exit.

  'I should reconnect the cable,' he said to Claudia.

  ‘I recommend waiting. being seen by the escort could be more troublesome than someone else seeing you without it.'

  A thin plume of smoke from the nearby factories mimicked a perpetual fog as they crossed a narrow street. Passing through the industrial veil, they stepped into the port, a labyrinth of weathered stone docks and skeletal cranes groaning under rusted metal limbs.

  At the designated dock, Robert found his new vessel. A peculiar craft exactly as the seller described it. Compact hull barely large enough to accommodate a handful of men, rigged with a modest triangular sail and by a little funnel at the stern. The vessel seemed to huddle against the pilings, as if ashamed of its insignificant size.

  "Sir, if I may?" the escort said, his voice warm. "Although this ship can be sailed by one, I strongly recommend you go accompanied. Two of my childhood best mates are excellent sailors looking for some coins. Good fellas, I swear. Born in the Linee’s hardships and raised by the correct thinking of Herjard."

  "Thanks, but I will go alone," Robert replied curtly. "I will not risk anyone else's safety."

  "So kind of you, sir," Elmsarie's eyes flickered to the figures emerging from the belly of the vessel. As they arrived, The intruders strode around the deck, meticulously checking the supplies arranged in piles. Not that Robert needed any water or food but, buying and filling the boat for the journey was, as many other things, a necessary lie to avoid suspicion.

  A man standing below the boarding platform grinned up. A practised, superfluous lie. "Good morning," he said smoothly, raising a hand in greeting. "My name is Himmer. Don’t mind my guys checking for contraband, right?"

  "Not at all sir," Robert answered.

  "Then," Himmer continued, casually gesturing towards Robert’s bag. "How about you let me see that?"

  Elmsarie spoke up quickly. "Personal belongings had been inspected, sir."

  Himmer snapped shut his grin and raised an admonishing finger. "Shut up!" The finger waved aside, pointing to the two men on board. "And you too continue what you are doing! What I do or talk about is none of your concern!"

  He turned back to face Robert, now returning to his charade of friendliness. "Now, what were we saying? Yes... I heard you are carrying such a nice machine… Strange one. One to collect what? Water? You can do that with empty bottles, can't you?"

  ‘He wants to rob us,’ Claudia said.

  "Sir, I work for the department of-"

  Himmer's hand moved with practised ease, shifting the jacket to reveal a pistol holstered at his side. "I know, I know. But this machinery always seems to get lost... or breaks. Say, how about we sell it to a friend of mine? We could split the profits, you’d get thirty per cent. Not bad, uh? Good money for a little white lie about losing it."

  Robert met Himmer's gaze. "I’m afraid I need it to collect my samples, but perhaps we could discuss your offer when I return."

  Himmer nodded curtly, his agreement fading as quickly as it had come. "Sounds good," But… well… No matter." He shrugged before continuing in a voice tinged with bitterness: "I'm getting out of this pestilent town soon anyway; you might return too late, so, I will take the machine and leave your share with my guys. They can be trusted.”

  With Robert's indifference, the Herjard officer continued. "You see, my payment is terrible. Herjard doesn’t care about us. All this administration, all this government of theirs? Smoke and mirrors. Leaving us, who should be truly ruling, with nothing. You are a fellow compatriot. You must have felt the same way."

  "Interesting arguments," Robert said. "But I have no time for this."

  Himmel whistled, and one of the men descended from the rigging. He stepped forward, a pistol glinting in his hand as he drew it from behind his jacket. "He was armed, sir!"

  "You are under arrest then," Himmel said.

  Robert pushed Elmsarie aside in a quick motion. As the man stumbled, the strap of his fusil slipped from his shoulders, already grabbed by the robot's fingers. Robert's other hand raised towards the man on deck, finger mimicking a barrel. Fingertip busted open and with the loud shoot, the man tumbled backwards into the murky harbour waters. Before the other could react, the fusil aimed and killed him as fast as Robert's hidden gun did the other.

  Himmel's gun was still in its holster when Robert pointed the weapon at him. He squeezed the trigger towards a face of disbelief but, when trigger pulled back, a hollow click rang instead of a loud shot.

  ‘They don't give the locals more than a round’, Claudia said.

  Before Robert could reply, popping impacts erupted across their chest and side. Five shots. Chest two, side one, arm one, head one. Crimson blooms spread, liquids he used for various reasons. One of them to pretend to bleed.

  His busted finger reached for the scratch on his forehead. 'Damage report.'

  'Protective plates have stopped the bullets in the chest and head. Data storage and energy supply are intact. Inner pressure failing. We need to stop haemorrhages to prevent pseudo-flesh decay. The arm is a priority.'

  Met by astonishment etched on Himmel's face he advanced with a stoic demeanor. The Herard man crumbled before collapsing backwards.

  Robert raised the fusil like an ironwood club and brought it down upon Himmel’s skull with crushing force. One strike was all it took.

  He scanned those cast aside and around. A few heads started to pop through the windows, others showing in corners. Then he settled upon Elmsarie who had managed to pull himself into kneeling. Eyes wide, hands clasped "Please," he breathed. "I-I won't…I…"

  'Don't make me do it,' Robert said. But Claudia didn't answer. Instead, she took over his voice.

  “Were you from Linee as well?”

  "Y-yes, sir. I was.' the escort mumbled. "Born during the plague years,s-sir."

  Robert turned and grabbed the mooring rope. "I'm going to Herjard. To destroy the Empire. If you speak out too early, I'll fail. If you remain silent for a while, I might have a chance.”

  “A man? against… an Empire?”

  "Report what happened here for your own sake," Robert said, low and dreary. "But allow me a few days' grace. If my endeavour fails, your delay holds no consequence. However, if I succeed, freedom will come to your people."

  Drops dripped down, creating a puddle beneath Robert's feet. "What are you?" Elmsarie said.

  "A ghost that bleeds, I suppose."

  Escaping the gaze of a crowd that was beginning to form, Robert boarded his ship and started the fuel engine. As the power lever moved forward, the boat took off full throttle through the dark waters of the port. His interest fixed over his shoulder instead of caring to find a proper route out.

  A crowd had gathered around the escort, but no one seemed to be preparing for pursuit.

  'Perhaps they will delay the report.' Claudia said.

  'Perhaps. But we should still land as soon as we reach and head north on foot.'