Rotterdam, European federation February 2035

Up next tonight at the Zeeman Club is Dirk Janssens. Calling it "prestigious" would be a stretch—the place feels more like an abandoned indoor fish market where someone decided to throw in a bar and set up an improvised DJ booth. With his set running from 3 AM to 6 AM, I was surprised he agreed to an interview. In the cramped performer’s backroom, we talk as he gets ready to take the stage.

"How were you not drafted?" I ask, watching him swirl a cocktail inside an old Oasis bottle, trying to guess what’s in it.

"My dad died in the opening week. Then my brother got killed fighting in Poland. I was halfway through training when I found out. They let me go." He pauses, taking a sip. "I ended up in Berlin by accident. My best friend and I were looking for his girlfriend—she’d completely vanished off the face of the earth."

"Is that where 'Paragraph 1' started?" I ask.

"More or less. We were waiting near Berlin Hauptbahnhof—me, my friend, and his girlfriend, who was coming down after a week of drugs. The city was a mess, mostly evacuated. But the train station…" He exhales. "That place was packed. Soldiers from all over Europe, rear-echelon guys forced into combat roles, conscripts, logistics staff—just waiting for their CSM to sort them out with transport and a place to sleep. But I shit you not, some had been stuck there for a week.

"Good thing the Crabs couldn’t bomb that far. One airstrike would’ve killed thousands. The station’s hallways and shops were packed—soldiers sleeping on camping mattresses, on their bags, right there on the floor. You couldn’t find a pack of cigarettes or a drop of booze for kilometers."

"Idiots that we were, we didn’t want to leave behind the Pioneer PA speaker my friend had found in Berlin. So we dragged it with us, convinced we could get it onto a train—if there was ever one actually leaving the city. We had our laptop, our speaker, mixing table and some ketamine. We thought, hey, why not?" He grins.

"A few soldiers dared us to set up, so we did—right there in an abandoned bakery on the upper floor of the station. And we went for it."

"Impromptu?" I ask.

"Dude, it was so bad. The soundproofing was nonexistent. The music resonated everywhere but didn’t sound good anywhere. And yet, they fucking loved it. The whole upper floor erupted into a rave. We played for an hour—just them, dancing like it was their last night on earth. And that’s how we got famous. Just me, my Belgian friend Joris, and a few hundred German, Dutch, and Belgian soldiers."

He laughs, shaking his head. "Before we knew it, someone recorded the whole thing. The video blew up online. And before we really knew what was happening, a handful of military police were dragging us out. Kicked us into the cold with all our gear while the soldiers were hissing and shouting for them to let us go. Honestly, it was a miracle it didn’t turn into a riot."

"And you learned your lesson?"

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He smirks. "Hell no. We just moved across the street and set up again. Found a spot in the basement of a mall—a truck loading dock. Within twenty minutes, word spread, and the place was packed with soldiers. This time, we took tips. Just enough to pay for a train or a bus home."

He leans back, shaking his head. "Instead, we made so much money that we bought a 4x4 off some dodgy Turk. And that’s when we knew—we had something. Also got the government to finally move their asses and house those troops properly after the rave video hit hundreds of millions of views."

"A week in Berlin. Every night, we went at it. Whatever beer was left in the city got drained dry in that loading dock. Then Hanover for the weekend—not as busy, but still wild. After that, we drove south to Frankfurt, and that’s where shit really got insane. I’d never seen a crowd like that. Even back when I was just mixing for twenty people, I never imagined I’d be doing it in front of thousands—soldiers and the last civilians left. But we absolutely killed it.

They were waiting for us. Most of them were stuck in limbo, awaiting orders, allowed to wander near their stations. But the military police and officers were out in force, combing through the crowd, looking for missing soldiers. If they found one, they dragged them out. Not that it worked. The moment an MP tried to grab someone, the other soldiers just ripped off their name badges, threw on a balaclava or a gas mask, and jumped them—ten against one. The cops didn’t stand a chance.

So they came for us instead. Tried to shut us down. Even threatened arrest once. But that only pissed off the grunts more than if they’d just left us alone. One time, they confiscated our mixing board—locked it up in a police truck. Twenty guys tipped the whole damn truck over just to get it back."

"How did you make an arrangement?" I ask.

"Some high-ranking English officer—one of the guys in charge of maintaining order behind the front—came by once. Cathrine, my friend’s girlfriend, just walked up to him and said, ‘Look, you’ve got guys sitting around for days with nothing to do. Some are coming back from the front, mauled and traumatized. Instead of letting them sit in limbo, let us entertain them. Won’t cost you a dime. No drinking, no drugs. And if you ever need to pass an important message, we’ll announce it between tracks.’"

"Did he buy it?"

"More or less. He knew we were lying about the booze and drugs. But we held up our end when it came to the announcements. We always had a sergeant or officer acting as a liaison, calling out orders when a platoon or company had to be somewhere. And the crazy part? The grunts actually listened. One time, they pulled an entire battalion out after eight hours of partying—guys just grabbed their gear and went where they were told, no questions asked. But Frankfurt was organized. Wait till I tell you about Vienna and Kyiv."

"How did you even get to Kyiv?"

"End of a set, this Ukrainian guy walks up to us. Says he’s flying out in four hours, has space for us, and will bring us back next week. We didn’t think twice. Couldn’t be sure if we could even make it to Vienna through Switzerland and Austria, so we just grabbed our gear and crammed into this old Soviet-era transport. The cargo hold was packed with munitions crates, and there we were in the back, going over a list of Ukrainian DJs who had volunteered to perform.

When we landed, we were five kilometers from the front line. Fewer people, but they partied twice as hard. One DJ showed up straight from a firefight—combat gear still on. He just dumped his plate carrier and helmet behind the booth and went at it, blood and mud still on his uniform. Guy had leave for a week and spent the first three days 24h there."

"That intense?" I ask.

"Yeah. The Crabs were focused on moving south through Bulagia, but holding Kyiv was still a meat grinder. People were fed up with the bombings and constant fighting. The Ukrainians? Best crowd we ever had. You’d see guys fresh off the battlefield—mud, blood, rifles still slung over their backs—dancing alongside kids who looked like they walked straight off a Berlin catwalk or out of a political science lecture. All of them going at it like there was no tomorrow.

For a lot of them, there wasn’t.

And that’s where we first saw the Crabs. Not in combat—just four guys in gas masks and CBRN suits, dragging a corpse out of a truck and into a house where people were already lined up outside, waiting their turn."

"Who came up with Crab Sauce?" I ask, trying to keep the conversation focused.

"Who knows? First reports came from guys who survived close-range encounters. Some felt euphoric, others just got an unbearable itch. Didn't take long for people to figure out that, if you got the dosage right—and if you were in the lucky three-quarters of the population that could handle it—you had the biggest breakthrough in drugs since people realized opium wasn’t just for depressed housewives."

"And it kept people going?"

"Kept them going, kept them fighting. They’d dry out the Crab shells—air fry them, roast them like beef—then grind them into a fine powder. And it was cheap. Crab bodies were everywhere. Quartermasters could be bribed to bring the corpses, and those guys got to work.

One body could fuel twenty men—for a week. Partying or fighting in the trenches, didn’t matter."