Глава 13

It takes all my strength just to go from day to day.

Don't think too much about it.

A report from the scouts, Guard.

We heard sounds from the woods on the left side up ahead.

The Originium zone sensor went off when we got closed, so we couldn't be sure exactly what it was.

Send word to the rest of the team. We'll go around.

Roger.

Percival.

I'll come along with a few guys. Don't want you to trip again.

There's an unsettling smell in the air.

The instruments show a high level of Active Originium. Not a good sign.

Remember your protective measures. Keep your masks on.

Was that a man under the tree?

No, it's a Victorian uniform, ripped almost beyond recognition, but somehow familiar. A sergeant's badge lies on the ground next to it.

A tiny music box sits a short distance away, covered in Originium dust, but still barely playing.

...Infected confirmed dead. We should leave.

Percival walks slowly, humming along with the scattered music.

Do you know this song, Guard?

No, but I've heard it before.

...The sun on the meadow is summery warm♪♫Filling our home with euphoria♬♪

We gather together to greet the storm♪♫Tomorrow belongs to Victoria♬♪

The Victorian national anthem.

Our teacher made us sing it over and over until we had it memorized when I was little—before I got sick.

It's been a long time since I last heard it.

I was born in Victoria. By all accounts, I should be Victorian. But what about now?

That sergeant believed he belonged to Victoria to the very end.

He was lucky. He didn't get to go through... everything he would have gone through.

The reason I called myself Reunion—

I was tired of being punched, being thrown out of factories before I got paid, being kept out of even the cheapest hostel rooms, no matter how much money I had on me.

The Reunion Movement showed me another path, besides suffering and dying in silence. That was all I needed.

Even if the price was abandoning my family, my country, and everything else I had.

In fact, I had lost all of it the moment the first crystal popped through my skin. But it took me a long time to get it.

All of us, Ursine, Columbian, Victorian, Sarkaz, Feline, Liberi...

We are all Reunion.

If we have to cross every battlefront, every war zone, every corpse-laden ruin, in order for our deaths to be seen and heard...

Then we'll cross them.