The city hadn't slept in three nights.

Ash drifted along the avenues like snow, carried from the burning warehouses by the Hudson.

The skyline flickered between shadow and flame. Gunfire came and went in the distance, a thunder that never faded.

Captain James Mallory adjusted his helmet strap.

Broadway was barricaded with overturned cars and sandbags.

The posters on the walls still screamed Buy War Bonds. Keep America Free. Someone had painted over the last word in black: Obedient.

"Second platoon, move up," he ordered. "Safeties on until contact."

The men advanced in silence.

Their boots left no sound on the wet pavement. Even the city seemed to hold its breath.

A radio hissed on Mallory's shoulder.

"Command to all units in Manhattan South: Loyalist barricade at the Stock Exchange cleared. Proceed to Objective Two… City Hall. Detain all unauthorized personnel. No distinction between civilian and combatant if resistance is met. The President's authority supersedes all jurisdiction."

The voice was calm, bureaucratic, almost tender. That frightened him more than the orders.

Private Reese murmured behind his mask, "Sir… you think we're the good guys?"

Mallory didn't answer. "Eyes up, Private."

---

City Hall looked like a fortress.

Machine guns crowned the rooftops, the white pillars scarred by smoke.

Prisoners knelt on the steps, men in suits, badges still pinned to their coats.

One was the mayor. Another, a senator.

A Bureau colonel met them at the gate, immaculate in gloves and boots.

"Captain Mallory, your unit secures Grand Central. Rail lines must stay under federal control."

Mallory nodded. "What about the detainees, sir?"

"They'll be questioned," the colonel said. "After that, not our concern."

He turned away as a photographer snapped pictures, the government's version of history already in production.

From somewhere behind the barricades, loudspeakers crackled.

Roosevelt's voice rolled across the square, hoarse, resolute, amplified by the machines of state.

"My fellow Americans, the Union will endure. The agents of chaos have been defeated. The Army and the people stand united once more under lawful authority…"

Mallory listened. The words had once inspired him. Now they sounded like iron, forged and hammered into obedience.

---

Grand Central was a war camp. Cots, ammo crates, and field hospitals filled the concourse.

The constellations on the ceiling shone weakly beneath generator light, like a sky already dying.

MPs processed civilians, loyalty oaths, fingerprinting, interrogation.

Those who refused were led behind the ticket counters and not seen again.

A young lieutenant approached. "Sir, rail workers won't clear the tunnels. Say they're union, not rebels."

"How many?"

"Thirty. One's shouting that we're traitors."

Mallory felt the weight in his throat. "Separate them. Ask once. If they still refuse, mark them as hostile."

The lieutenant hesitated. "Sir, they're unarmed."

Mallory's jaw tightened. "Then they'll live longer if they stay quiet."

The words came easier than they should have. Too easy.

Outside, the thunder of artillery echoed from the Bronx, mutinous National Guard units crushed before dawn.

The Republic was being remade mile by mile.

---

By sunrise, Manhattan was quiet. Tanks stood at intersections like monuments to obedience.

Newspapers hit the streets with new headlines:

UNION RESTORED — PRESIDENT CALLS FOR NATIONAL REBIRTH.

Mallory walked beneath the celestial ceiling, watching sunlight pierce the smoke.

The air smelled of oil and disinfectant. A small radio played nearby.

"…martial law extended to all urban zones. Governors of Texas and Michigan detained. The President assures the nation that peace will return…"

He switched it off. The silence afterward felt heavier than the gunfire.

He caught his reflection in a shattered timetable window, eyes rimmed with ash, face older by years.

He'd joined the army to fight tyranny overseas; now he was the instrument of order at home.

A nurse in a torn coat passed, carrying a bundle of papers. Two MPs escorted her toward the trains.

"Where are they taking you?" Mallory asked.

"To relocation," she said. "Suspicion of sedition."

"Are you?"

Her smile was faint. "Everyone is. They just haven't all been told yet."

He almost reached for her arm, but the MPs pushed her along. The sound of the train door closing was too final.

---

Outside, soldiers marched through Times Square under banners bearing the new eagle-and-gear emblem of the Emergency Command Authority.

The billboards still flashed half-melted advertisements between bursts of static: perfume, automobiles, freedom. Looted storefronts burned behind them.

The air smelled of cordite and rain.

Reese fell into step beside him. "You ever think maybe this is what he wanted all along?"

Mallory didn't look at him. "Who?"

"The President. The Kaiser in Berlin. Hell, maybe the whole damned century. Everyone chasing order until there's nothing left to control."

Mallory said nothing. There was no right answer anymore, only orders.

A teenage courier approached, a crate of water in his hands.

"Sir, is it true?" he asked. "They say the President's arresting Congress."

Mallory looked at him, then at the soldiers nearby. "You shouldn't listen to rumors, son."

The boy didn't move. "My father said one day a man would take it all back."

"And what did he say after that?"

"Maybe that's what we needed."

Mallory almost smiled, almost. "Go home," he said, though he knew there was nowhere left to go.

The convoy started forward, boots splashing through puddles.

The city felt unfamiliar, neither conquered nor free, only… altered, as though the soul had been cauterized.

---

By nightfall, the sky over New York glowed red.

Fires had died, but the light remained, a furnace burning in the heart of the Republic.

Mallory stood on the bridge, watching trucks ferry prisoners toward holding camps on the far shore.

The soldiers beside him were silent, faces hidden behind soot and fatigue.

Some hummed softly, old parade songs turned elegies. The tune drifted into the smoke, swallowed by wind.

He lit a cigarette. The radio came alive once more.

"This is not the end," Roosevelt's voice declared. "This is our beginning. America stands indivisible again."

Mallory exhaled smoke into the wind. "Indivisible," he murmured. "Sure."

He looked down at the river below, black water carrying the glow of burning cities eastward toward the sea.

Somewhere across that ocean, the man in Tyrol would be listening, smiling faintly at what his prophecy had wrought.

Engines roared.

The convoy rolled across the bridge, headlights cutting narrow scars of light across the dark water, the last reflections of a nation that had chosen order over freedom.

And for the first time, Captain James Mallory wondered which side he was really on.

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