The end of 1909 was approaching fast.
It was late November in Potsdam—the season when the air turned thin and sharp, when morning breath became visible and everyone began watching the sky for the first true snow.
That night, the palace received visitors.
Not through the grand front steps.
Not beneath chandeliers.
A fleet of cars rolled in with disciplined quiet, their tires whispering over stone. Black Muscle Motor sedans, a few armored variants, staff cars bearing discreet insignia—engines ticking as they cooled in the cold air. Chauffeurs stood by open doors like sentries, collars turned up, hands gloved, faces expressionless.
Guards moved among them with practiced efficiency.
Names checked.
Seals inspected.
Faces studied twice, then again.
Aboveground, all seemed normal. The palace glowed, windows warm, servants moving as they always did. If anyone looked from afar, they would see only routine.
Belowground was another world.
Deep beneath the royal palace—below stone older than the Hohenzollerns themselves—the air changed. The corridors grew warmer, drier. The light became steadier. Footsteps sounded different here, absorbed by thick walls and reinforced doors.
The guests descended in small groups.
Some chose the stairs—wide, polished, lined with lamps.
Others stepped into one of two large elevators—newer additions hidden behind panels and curtains, the kind of modern convenience the palace pretended it did not possess.
Either way, everyone arrived at the same place.
A corridor that led to a set of vast wooden double doors.
And above those doors, a simple brass plate:
THE OSKAR INDUSTRIAL GROUP
MEETING HALL — RESTRICTED
Tonight was the Twenty-Sixth Meeting.
By now, it was almost routine.
Which was the most frightening part.
Because what gathered here was not merely wealth.
It was direction.
Germany's richest men. Europe's most ambitious industrialists. The human engines of an empire that had begun to run on schedules, steel, and Oskar's will.
They pushed the doors open.
And entered a room that had no right to exist beneath a palace.
It was vast—larger than the halls above it, larger than any rational architect would have permitted if rationality still ruled here. The ceiling arched high and was painted with heaven: angels and clouds and light that seemed to glow if you stared too long.
But it was not a church painting.
It was a message.
Along the walls ran maps of the world—trade routes, resources, oceans, borders drawn with the quiet arrogance of people who believed everything could be measured and moved. Between the maps were murals of everyday workers: miners in blackened helmets, steelworkers at furnaces, women packing goods, clerks at desks, engineers bending over drawings.
A whole nation painted as labor.
And at the far end of the room—above and around a set of immense vault doors—rose a painted tower, climbing upward like Babel reaching for heaven. Men and machines and factories stacked upon one another in layers of progress, all leading to the same final image:
At the top stood Oskar, arms spread, smiling as if blessing the entire room.
The symbolism was not subtle.
It did not need to be.
At the center stood the table.
Triangular. Long. Heavy.
Marble, veined like frozen smoke.
The wide end faced the vault. The narrow end pointed back toward the doors—an arrow made of furniture, a funnel of geometry guiding every eye toward one conclusion.
Even the chairs followed the same logic.
Broad, imposing seats near the head.
Narrower, plainer ones farther down.
Hierarchy carved into wood and stone.
And at the widest point of the table—closest to the vault doors—stood a chair that was not truly a chair at all.
It was a throne.
Built oversized, reinforced, high-backed—made to fit a giant.
Made for Oskar.
On either side of the vault doors, Eternal Guards stood at ease, hands clasped, faces unreadable. They did not watch the guests like servants.
They watched them like men guarding a weapon.
Beyond the vault, behind steel thick enough to resist both explosives and fire, slept a portion of Oskar's personal reserves—gold, silver, platinum—stacked and cataloged and guarded.
Not the whole empire's wealth.
Just the part he hadn't managed to pour into ships, roads, factories, armies, or the future.
A reminder.
A warning.
A foundation of metal beneath a foundation of stone.
Aboveground, Potsdam carried on, warm and ordinary.
Belowground, history gathered at a table and prepared to speak.
The seats soon began filling steadily.
As they always did.
Karl arrived early—he always did—and claimed the chair closest to the head of the table. He climbed into it with practiced ease, a ledger already open before him. He drank milk, not wine, from a plain white cup. The habit was immovable.
The chair was enormous—more throne than seat. His boots didn't come close to the floor, and from a distance it almost looked as if the furniture had been built for someone else entirely.
That, in a way, was accurate.
Tanya arrived soon after and took the opposing seat at the far end of the triangle. Her posture was relaxed, but her eyes were sharp, alert. She wore simple jewelry—nothing excessive—chosen to draw attention to her figure rather than distract from it. A fitted dress did the rest.
In her hands were sketches and folders: new AngelWorks product concepts, children's toys designed by Princess Louise, health and beauty lines, sales numbers, growth charts. While her legs also failed to reach the floor—much to her annoyance—she ignored it with practiced dignity.
This was her domain.
Hans Albrecht came next, broader now than the man he had once been, hands clean, coat tailored, posture steady. He nodded to Karl, then to Tanya, before taking a seat beside Karl. His feet reached the ground. He carried himself like someone who had been lifted by fortune and never forgotten what it felt like to stand below.
Brutus followed—overseer of German Works Shipyard, commercial fleets, and most importantly, the steel backbone of Oskar's navy. He looked uncomfortable in formal wear, but had made the effort: tuxedo, polished shoes, and even a top hat that looked like it was daring someone to comment on it.
He took the next seat without ceremony.
Then Bertha entered.
She made no attempt at subtlety.
Her dress was bold, elegant, unapologetic—cut to emphasize her figure, to announce her presence before she spoke a word. In her arms she carried a newborn child, held openly and proudly.
The girl slept peacefully, wrapped in white, breath soft and steady. Grey-green eyes beneath closed lids, fine blond hair, delicate features—unconcerned with the weight of the room around her.
Tanya's face lit up instantly.
"Oh—she's beautiful," she said, leaning forward. "What's her name?"
Bertha smiled, satisfied.
"Margarethe Krupp," she said. "Gustav's and mine. Our first."
The emphasis was deliberate.
Everyone in the room understood what was not being said: the two boys before her had not been Gustav's.
Bertha did not hide the child.
She angled her just enough, a quiet declaration: this one is mine, and this time, she is his.
She took her seat beside Tanya with the ease of someone used to being watched.
After her came representatives from across the Oskar Industrial Group—energy, rail, housing, aviation, weapons. Engineers and researchers took places farther down the table, men with ink-stained fingers and tired eyes. Anna's father arrived for Greenway, grave and dignified, carrying the weight of fields and seasons with him.
Then, at last—
Oskar entered.
At twenty-one, he was young by the calendar.
By presence, he was not.
He crossed the chamber without hurry, coat hanging open, shoulders broad enough that the light seemed to bend around him. In one hand he carried a folded newspaper.
Bertha's eyes flicked to him—unbidden, wanting. She adjusted the child in her arms slightly, not hiding the motion. Oskar noticed.
He stopped beside her chair, placed a hand on her head—brief, gentle—and offered his congratulations. Bertha flushed despite herself, leaning into the touch before she could stop.
Oskar moved on.
He kissed Tanya once in greeting—familiar, grounding—then continued to the head of the table without sitting.
He stopped.
And slammed the newspaper down.
The sound cracked through the room.
On the front page: a fragile aircraft over grey water. Headlines praised the crossing of the Channel. Applause, frozen in ink.
Oskar smiled faintly.
"My brothers," he said. Then glanced around. "My sisters. Figuratively speaking."
A ripple of restrained amusement passed through the room.
"This is the twenty-sixth meeting of the Oskar Industrial Group," he continued. "I remember the first, in 1904. Few seats. Few names. Very little money between us."
He looked around the chamber—at the murals, the vault doors, the men and women who had turned ideas into infrastructure.
"Today," he said calmly, "we are accused of standing at the top of the world."
He paused.
"Quietly."
The room stilled.
History, once again, was about to be discussed in a voice meant only for those seated at the table.
Oskar tapped the newspaper once with two fingers.
The front-page photo stared up at them: a fragile aircraft over grey water, headlines praising the Channel crossing as if mankind had just discovered the sky.
Oskar's mouth curved.
"They celebrate one flight," he said, voice mild, almost amused. "Across a strip of water."
He lifted his eyes to the table.
"Meanwhile, we have squadrons training over German skies—north to south, in all weather our pilots dare, distances and heights others would call impossible."
A soft ripple ran through the room. Pride. Hunger.
"And the world remains ignorant," Oskar continued. "For now. Our people suspect, our workers whisper, but we don't announce."
He let the pause hang for a heartbeat.
"Good."
His gaze moved from face to face—Karl with his ledger, Tanya with her designs, Hans with his quiet solidity, Brutus built like a shipyard beam, Bertha calm with a sleeping child.
"This is aviation," Oskar said simply. "One more field where we are ahead. One more future we have dragged into the present."
He spread his hands.
"So I'll say it plainly: thank you. You have taken my visions and made them real. You have raised Germany into heights it has never seen."
His voice sharpened just slightly.
"And while other nations clap for crumbs—let them. In time, we will step into the light and make the world understand what true power looks like."
The room erupted—cheers, claps, even a few sharp laughs of disbelief. The sound rolled off marble and painted walls like thunder.
In Bertha's arms, the newborn Margarethe stirred.
She didn't cry.
She simply opened her eyes and stared at the giant man at the head of the table as if trying to decide whether he was real.
Oskar sat.
The great chair accepted him like it had been built for no other purpose. On anyone else it would have looked ridiculous. On him it looked inevitable.
He lifted one hand.
Silence returned in waves—first the nearest, then the far end, until only breath and the faint hum of hidden systems remained.
"Before we begin the usual reports," Oskar said, voice quieter now, "you need to remember why this place exists at all."
He tapped the table once, the sound small but final.
"Self-sufficiency."
Another pause.
"Survival."
He gestured toward a side door.
Two Eternal Guards stepped forward and opened it.
Beyond lay Oskar's private laboratory.
Not the polished kind universities showed visitors, but something closer to an engine room of ideas: steel frames holding pressure vessels, pipes running along the walls like veins, gauges glowing softly, valves whispering under controlled heat.
And at the center—bolted down, insulated, thick-walled—stood a machine that looked like it belonged in a power station rather than under a palace.
Oskar spoke almost casually.
"The air," he said, "is not empty."
A few scientists smiled despite themselves.
"Nitrogen," Oskar continued. "Hydrogen. Pressure. Heat. Catalysts."
He looked along the table, letting comprehension spread.
"We have taken ammonia… from air."
It hit some immediately. Others needed a second, then their eyes widened.
"No more dependence on imported nitrates," Oskar said. "No chokehold at sea if war comes. Fertilizer for fields. Nitric acid for industry."
His voice lowered.
"And explosives—if war insists on them."
He let that settle.
"Bread and powder," Oskar said, "from the same process."
The room sat stunned.
Not because the idea was mystical.
Because it meant Germany could feed itself and arm itself even under blockade.
Oskar smiled—small, satisfied.
"This," he said, "is what the underground is for."
And then, as if he couldn't resist showing them the edge of the blade, the light in the lab caught something else—shapes half-hidden behind screens and worktables.
Bulky frames of metal.
Armor plates with scorch marks.
Vests and helmets dented and punctured where rounds had struck and failed.
And in the shadows, the outline of something larger—an enclosed suit form, advanced, heavy, standing like a silent threat.
The door closed again.
The lab vanished behind wood and steel.
But the knowledge did not.
Oskar turned back to the table, fingers folding together.
"Now," he said, calm as a man discussing rail schedules, "let's begin."
And the twenty-sixth meeting continued.
Oskar exhaled once, then nodded toward Karl.
"Karl," he said quietly. "If you would."
Karl cleared his throat, rose carefully—more climbing out of the oversized chair than standing—and adjusted his jacket. He looked around the table, then down at his papers.
"I am pleased to report," he began, dry as ever, "that this year has exceeded expectations."
A pause.
"Our market value—OIG's total value—has crossed ten billion marks."
That landed.
No gasps. These people were too disciplined for that. But spines straightened. Fingers tightened around porcelain cups. Even Brutus stopped fidgeting with his top hat for a heartbeat.
"Unofficially," Karl added. "We will not be announcing this to the public."
He flipped a page.
"We are not the German state," he continued, "but Germany's estimated national output has climbed toward sixty billion marks annually now—thanks in no small part to…" His eyes flicked to Oskar for a fraction of a second. "…us."
He turned another page.
"For comparison, the largest company in the United States—Standard Oil—is estimated at roughly three billion marks in value."
He let that sit.
"As a collective," Karl said evenly, "we are larger. And our growth potential is greater."
He looked up, expression unchanged.
"We are also debt-free."
A few small nods moved through the room.
"And Germany is also following us," Karl added. "The state carried roughly a little over four billion marks of debt not long ago. It is now less than one billion, quickly falling to zero."
His tone made it clear he wasn't proud as a patriot.
He was proud as an accountant who had conquered a problem.
"Expenditures remain vast," Karl continued. "But revenues remain larger."
He turned another page, this one marked with red ink.
"Oskar speculated earlier that Africa might require loans."
Karl's mouth twitched, almost amused.
"According to my calculations, no loans are required at this time. No emergency credit. No outside dependence." He lifted his eyes. "If necessary, we can delay secondary expansion without meaningful harm."
He closed the folder with a soft, final sound.
"In short," he said, "we are green. Entirely. Annual income after expenses sits in the billions."
Karl sat.
Took a sip of milk, unbothered by the fact that he had just described a machine that could bend continents.
Oskar nodded once—satisfied.
"Then," Oskar said, "I would hear from the rest of you."
And so they spoke.
Energy reported new projects and capacity expansion. Rail spoke of reduced transit times and tighter scheduling. Greenway reported yields rising—fertilizer output climbing, tractors spreading, food security becoming infrastructure rather than hope.
Weapons reported stability—volume and quality both increasing. Aviation spoke of engines and airframes the world had not yet learned how to fear.
Throughout it all, Oskar listened.
Behind him, the vault doors did not move.
They didn't need to.
The weight of what lay beyond them was felt anyway—gold and metal and reserves sleeping in darkness, waiting to be turned into ships, factories, and war plans.
As the meeting rolled on—numbers, timelines, risks—Oskar sat with a calm that came not from arrogance, but from alignment.
The pieces were in motion.
The machine was fed.
And to Oskar's relief, the world felt… manageable.
Somewhere above, Potsdam slept.
Below, history was being budgeted.
And Oskar von Hohenzollern—the Iron Prince of Germany—allowed himself a rare quiet thought:
This year is green.
The future looked bright beyond belief.
And best of all—most of their true strength remained sealed behind secrecy, hidden from foreign eyes, growing in silence like a tide that had not yet revealed its height.