We vaulted over the barricade like thieves escaping a vault.
Musket balls chipped the stone inches from my boots.
I hit the mud hard. My heavy oxygen tank slammed into my spine.
"Move!" Charles yelled. He grabbed my arm and hauled me up.
We scrambled behind the wall of sandbags.
Fifty French soldiers stared at us.
They saw a monster in a black rubber mask and a twelve-year-old boy in a bloodstained royal coat.
"Arrest them!" a General shouted. He was fat, sweating, and terrifyingly incompetent. "That is the enemy commander! The Pretender!"
Soldiers raised their muskets. They looked confused. Who were they supposed to shoot? The boy? The monster?
I stood up. I adjusted my valve. KHH-HHUUUU.
I stepped toward the General. I was running on pure oxygen and adrenaline. I felt like I could punch through a brick wall.
I grabbed the General by his gold-braided collar. I lifted him off his feet.
"This is not the Pretender," my voice boomed through the mask. "This is your King."
I threw the General into the mud.
"And you are relieved of command for incompetence."
The soldiers gasped.
Charles stepped forward. He didn't hide behind me. He stood in the open, ignoring the bullets whizzing overhead.
He looked at the dirty, exhausted faces of the French National Guard.
"The British are on that beach," Charles shouted. His voice was high but steady. "They have rockets. They have numbers. They think you are assets to be liquidated."
He walked down the line, looking each man in the eye.
"They think France is bankrupt. They think you are cheap labor."
He pointed to the burning British camp across the river.
"I say you are the creditors! I say they owe you blood! And it is time to collect!"
The silence stretched. Then, a sergeant raised his fist.
"Vive le Roi!"
The cheer rippled through the line. "Vive le Roi! Vive l'Administrateur!"
Charles looked at me. He gave a small, grim nod.
"Morale stabilized," he whispered. "Now, the logistics."
We ducked into the command tent. It was chaos. Maps scattered. Officers shouting.
I slammed my fist on the table. "Quiet!"
The tent fell silent.
"Situation report," I rasped.
"We are pinned," Fouché said, pointing to the map. "British sharpshooters control the bridge. Their main force is massing for a bayonet charge. We have 5,000 men. They have 20,000."
"We can't outshoot them," I said. "And we can't hold this line against a charge."
"We need a force multiplier," Charles said. He was studying the map like a chessboard.
I looked at the window. Outside, the telegraph lines ran parallel to the beach road. Thick copper cables strung on wooden poles.
My engineer's brain clicked.
"The batteries," I said. "The telegraph station has a bank of Leyden Jars. High voltage capacitors."
Charles looked at the lines. He smiled. It was a terrifying smile.
"The ammo dump," Charles said. "I created a fuel leak. A puddle of naphtha connecting the rockets."
"If we can drag a live wire into that puddle..." I started.
"And overcharge the line..." Charles finished.
"We create a spark," I said. "We detonate the beach."
Fouché looked horrified. "You want to electrocute the ocean?"
"Just the British part of it," Charles said.
"We need a runner," I said. "Someone has to drag the wire across No Man's Land and drop it into the fuel."
Silence.
No Man's Land was a killing zone. Snipers. Mud. Chemical fire.
"It's suicide," Fouché said.
Charles grabbed a spool of heavy copper wire from the corner.
"I'll do it," he said. "I know the layout. I know where the fuel is."
He moved toward the door.
A metal hand clamped onto his shoulder.
I stopped him.
"No," I said.
Charles looked up at my mask. "I am the smaller target. I calculate a 40% survival rate. You have a 10% rate."
"You are the King," I said. "Management doesn't dig the ditches. Management takes the risk."
I took the spool from his hands.
"You stay here. You calculate the voltage. You manage the switch."
"Father," Charles whispered. "You can't breathe without the machine. The tank will snag on the wire."
"Then I'll crawl," I rasped.
I looked at him. For the first time, I didn't see an asset. I saw my son.
"I didn't save you from the guillotine to let you die in the mud," I said.
I turned to Fouché. "Cover me."
I walked out into the night.
The air was cold. The smoke provided some cover, but the moon was bright.
I tied the copper wire around my waist.
I dropped to my stomach.
The mud was freezing. It seeped into my coat.
I crawled.
Clank. Squish. Clank.
The tank on my back felt like a coffin. I dragged myself forward, inch by inch. The heavy spool uncoiled behind me.
I reached the bridge.
"Halt!"
A British sentry. Standing in the shadows of the toll booth.
He raised his musket.
I froze. I was a sitting duck. A slow, noisy turtle.
CRACK.
The sentry's head snapped back. He dropped silently into the river.
I looked back at the barricade, three hundred yards away.
A small figure stood on the wall, holding a long rifle.
My radio clicked. Click-click.
"Path clear, Administrator," Charles's voice crackled over the earpiece.
He had made the shot. Again.
I crawled faster.
I reached the beach. The smell of naphtha was overpowering.
The puddle was right there. A black, shimmering lake of death.
I unhooked the wire from my waist. I stripped the insulation with my teeth. The copper gleamed.
I threw the wire into the sludge.
"Contact!" I hissed into the radio.
"Get back!" Charles shouted. "Charging capacitors!"
I scrambled backward. I rolled into a crater left by a mortar shell.
"Execute," I whispered.
Across the river, inside the French command post, Charles threw the iron switch.
ZAP.
A blue arc of electricity snapped in the night. It raced down the wire. It crossed the river. It hit the beach.
FLASH.
It was brighter than the sun.
The fuel ignited instantly. The fire raced back to the rocket crates.
BOOM.
The world turned white.
The shockwave lifted me off the ground.
I slammed back into the mud. Debris rained down—wood, iron, burning cloth.
I looked up.
The British beach was gone. Replaced by a wall of fire a hundred feet high.
The invasion fleet, anchored too close to shore, caught the blast. Sails ignited. Hulls shattered.
It wasn't a battle. It was a deletion.
I lay in the crater, wheezing. My mask was cracked. My tank was dented.
But I was alive.
And the British army was burning.
"Transaction complete," I rasped.
I keyed the radio.
"Charles? Did you get the receipt?"
Static.
Then, a voice. Shaky, but triumphant.
"Receipt confirmed, Administrator. Now... let's liquidate the rest."