“Job’s done. As we were told, some Romans were mucking with Gates. Trying to trigger closures, so they could raise more Professionals with Adjustment.” Ahati-waqrat said as her guests were settling in her home at Panomekon.

The Gides, a handful of other Professionals, and both Johann Haussger and Piérin de Bellièvre from the team were there. The call of the Labyrinth would come again, but everyone liked to relax, listen to the half-assed amateur musician efforts of some of them, and try to find a drink powerful enough to affect durably a Professional. The Gide would be the most vulnerable to that, which is why some of the guests brought all kind of stuff to try to trip them.

“It’s a tempting proposition,” Nicolas acknowledged.

“And a dangerous one. Mucking with the core infrastructure of the Labyrinth… I disagree sometimes with the powers that be, but no one wants to court that risk. That’s why I work with Guthrumsson. I’m no true believer in the Labyrinth’s glorious framework like he his, but this, I can agree with.”

Anne laughed nervously.

“No one is still sure what Adjustment is adjusting us for,” she said.

“I. Am. Not. Going to go into that discussion,” the German suddenly said.

“Neither are we,” Nicolas reassured the tier fifteen Professional.

“Yea. I leave that to the Chinese,” he replied, vaguely gesturing toward the prominent spire in the distance that marked Panomekon’s most influential force. Although all Chinese-based Divergences liked to argue with each other, they also offered a massively united front to anyone else, making them the overall strongest alliance within the High Tiers. Nearly all of the Divergences had one Gate open in the Zhōngguó, the Central State.

“So, you’re good?” Anne asked, redirecting the conversation away from politics.

“For a while. Until the next emergency, that is.”

After a silence, the German added. “I hate the Romans.”

The two Gides looked at each other before snorting.

“What? Romans always go for the worst stuff,” Hausseger countered.

“I remember the First Consul. He was enamoured by the Roman Empire. Alexander as well. He was visiting the gardens and talking about how nobody knew how to make proper Victory monuments,” Nicolas said.

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“First Consul? Oh. Napoleon. Right,” Hausseger said.

“It is weird to think that for some, he’s been dead for almost a century. Beaten by the English. He should still be alive in Earth-113, I presume.”

“Well, the English and the French beat us back…” the German’s voice trailed, ending there.

Anne seized the interruption to shift the discussion. She was curious about the various Divergences, after all.

“You truly are from the latest divergence known, Johann?”

“There are rumours of weirder ones from other major sheaves not connected to Panomekon. But otherwise, yes. 1918 was when it opened. We had just been defeated in what was the largest war ever seen in history. I was in Berlin, and the Kaiser had just announced he would abdicate from this debacle when molten metal started pouring out of nowhere in front of the Brandenburg Gate. A bunch of us got curious, and four got stranded with Adjustment, pretty much as you did. The eternal story of the adapted ones.”

“You found your divergence opening, though, Johann?”

“Thirteen years after we got stranded yes. And we ran away later when we saw what had become of my world.”

His face became grave, as memories from centuries ago flooded.

“The allies that had defeated us moved in to seize that Gate. The German said no, of course, but they had armies and we were exhausted, and the war had already resumed in late 1918. By then, the interim government had figured it out, and was moving as many Germans they could through it, to get Professionals before armies could end Germany’s access.”

“Did the Professionals help?”

“Once the allies seized Berlin, the German Professionals kept watching at the Plaza. Anyone who popped got immediately killed on the spot.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“There were nearly six thousand Germans packed in the starting zone, with only a handful already pushing in tier twos. They instituted a strict regimen. They spread Professionals across tier ones using the two as bridges. And everyone relentlessly levelled, farming every single lair as soon as it regenerated, enabling people, while the rest of my Divergence was starting to figure out what to do. China went crazy and got into a massive civil war, then another, then another about who would control their Gate. Brasil stumbled across until the USA moved in five years later. It was a massive adjustment for everyone and one they failed.”

“So what did you find thirteen years later?”

“A second world war. They called themselves the True Reich, they were crazy, and they took upon the world. It didn’t work that well – even with lots of tier fives and a thousand of fours, they couldn’t really hope to win a war against the entire world and hold it. So Drexler used gas – to which any professional be immune – and Aether-pumped bombs, as a massive scorched Earth policy. Anything for which Professionals would survive, but mundane wouldn't.”

“That sounds insane.”

“There’s been lots of Divergences where Labyrinth power made people behave insanely. That’s one with technologies advanced enough that the result was horrible. I want back to that sheaf fifty years later. There were less than a dozen million people on that Earth, a hundred pitiful city-states in remote corners of the world with the rest pretty much unliveable by anyone except a team of Professionals with healers. After the world was wrecked, they slaughtered each other in the Labyrinth. Most adapted made it away - we had enough tiers to avoid the fight - but for the rest...”

Hausseger gulped down his drink, while everyone remained silent.

“Sometimes, I wish there was something strong enough to make you forget. Because too much Intellect is a curse.”