“They’re completely isolated. They’ll run out of food.” The district had been hemmed in by Titans on both its interior and exterior sides. The terror its residents had to be facing was unfathomable.
“They have stockpiles.”
“They’ll run out, eventually.”
“I’m not saying that I intend to do nothing. Our guests are here to discuss potential measures.” Jörg motioned his eyes toward his assembled colleagues. The large writing desk did have sheets of paper strewn roughly across its surface. Mathias didn’t doubt that they had been in the middle of a heated debate when he’d come running in.
“What kind of measures?” he asked.
Jörg remained utterly impassive. “It’s of no concern to you.”
“Why not? You always bring me in for your meetings, whatever they are about. You tell me to watch closely and to pay attention. You say experience is everything.”
“We lack the time to be dealing with amateurs. As I just told you, these are not normal circumstances.”
“But─”
“You’ve lost your composure. People who fail to remain calm are a liability. Even as I speak you impede the progress of our talks.”
Jörg’s colleagues neither agreed nor disagreed. They simply exchanged a few uncomfortable glances. Mathias knew he couldn’t challenge his father’s words, but he was far from satisfied.
“Mathias, I will do my best. You must understand.”
Jörg, who was aware how close his son was to Rita, how they’d been friends since childhood, stared straight into Mathias’ eyes. It went without saying that the senior Kramer recognized Mathias’ worries and his desire to confirm as quickly as possible that Rita was safe. That was exactly why he was asking that Mathias “understand.”
There was nothing Mathias could say to alter his father’s stance. He realized that much at least.
“Of course… Gentlemen, please forgive me barging in.”
He bowed his head to the assembled dignitaries then turned on his heels.
Mathias fled the townhouse. He feared he might go mad if he sat idle.
He roamed the streets with no clear purpose in mind. The ground was cobbled stone, with white stuccoed buildings rising to either side.
The appearance of the town was unchanged since his previous visit. The atmosphere, however, was notably different. The air was charged and tense. Passersby wore tight expressions and nobody smiled. Until now, Fuerth had been located wholly within the interior. Great walls and vast tracts of land had locked it away from the Titans’ domain. But the status quo had undergone a dramatic shift.
It was exactly as Jörg had said. The monsters were converging towards the district’s own wall. For the residents of Fuerth, the events in Shiganshina were very much their business.
“The wall…”
Before Mathias knew, he had arrived at it─on the side facing Wall Maria, which surely now had to be labeled the exterior.
Fifty meters tall, mankind’s lifeline.
Right now the setting sun cast it in dark shadow. Below, where it met with the ground, were rows of basic lodgings that had been thrown up by the refugees.
“But we’ve only been here half a day…”
The majority of the structures consisted of nothing but cloth strung over supports scavenged from disassembled wagons. They were little more than tents. At the same time, a few buildings were made from wood and other more substantial materials. Huddled between them, refugees were busy beginning preparations for their evening meals, lighting stoves and setting pots and pans. The smell of the cooking wafted over, faintly mixed with the odor of sweat and human waste. Mathias was forced to realize that not everyone had townhouses to sleep in like he did.
“What am I doing?”
Members of the privileged classes were duty-bound to serve the masses, obligated to help. And yet Mathias was, at present, unable to do a thing. The majority of evacuees were being forced to live in discomfort, and Rita…hadn’t even managed to escape. There was even the possibility that she’d given her life in an attempt to protect everyone else.
No. Wrong.
She was in Quinta, and she was alive. Waiting even now for assistance.
“Yes. She has to be…”
Mathias noticed something: a line of people in the periphery of his vision. Perhaps they were rationing food provisions. For some reason, the majority of those lining up were young men.
He began to walk towards the front of the line. The men threw him suspicious looks. He felt a little tense; the laboring classes were known for being short-tempered. And he’d heard that many nurtured an ill-founded dislike of the privileged classes─that they held the privileged responsible for everything lacking in their own lives. Even though, Mathias knew, the truth was the other way around. The privileged classes’ able efforts supported the people, who would have no choice but to live like animals if not for the elites’ intellect and knowledge.
But no, the people couldn’t see it. Fixated on mere outward differences in lifestyle, they seized on every chance they could to voice condemnation.
Mathias wasn’t dressed in a way that made him stand out. Just a cotton shirt with woolen trousers and a jacket, a common and unassuming outfit. Yet even now he remained conspicuous among the other young men who stood in line. There was the cleanliness of his skin and hair, the quality of fabric he wore. He didn’t doubt that he offered a striking contrast.
Looking around he couldn’t see anyone from social strata comparable to his own. He became acutely aware of the innumerable eyes trained on him. Redoubling his efforts to pay no attention, he focused instead on reaching the front of the line. He came to an unexpected halt when he saw the building up ahead.
“The barracks?”
The stone edifice towered upwards in line with the wall. The grounds stretching out behind it seemed to be of considerable size. The crest of the Garrison Regiment─twin roses over a shield─hung beside the main entrance.
The line came to an end just in front of the building. A desk had been set up in the middle of the street. Uniformed troops sat interviewing the refugees at the front of the line, scribbled notes, then handed separate slips of paper to the young men before sending them on their way.
“Don’t even think about cutting in.”
Startled by the harsh voice, Mathias spun around. “You mean me?”
“Who else?”
The voice belonged to a hawk-eyed youth with noticeably bulging arms. The archetypal image of the laboring classes. The type of person it was best not to needlessly aggravate. Mathias was unhappy to note that his own hands were trembling slightly. Why was he letting himself get so intimidated by people like these?
Making sure to appear polite but firm, Mathias countered, “I’m not about to cut in. And I won’t, but what are you all queued up for? I assume this isn’t for food provisions?”
The youth exchanged glances with the men lined up around him. “Yeah right, we should be so lucky.”
“They’re recruiting volunteer soldiers. Don’t bother if you ain’t got the backbone,” a squat man with broad shoulders added from behind. He looked a little older.
“Volunteer soldiers?”
“We’re gonna take Shiganshina back,” the hawk-eyed youth explained. “If we jam the hole, that’ll stop any more Titans getting in. After that we only need to take down the ones between Wall Rose and Wall Maria, and all’s back to normal.”
It was true that success was far more likely if they were mopping up a limited number of Titans rather than battling a never-ending flow.
“The plan is to send in a vanguard and see.”
“Only just been announced. Not surprising you hadn’t heard yet.”
“Wait, you said the plan is to take back Shiganshina? What about Quinta?”
How could they be planning to leave Quinta alone when Rita and so many other people were stranded inside? Although the young man in front of him had done nothing wrong, Mathias had ended up sounding accusatory.
The hawk-eyed youth shrugged. “Quinta’s safe. Well, maybe not safe. But the Titans haven’t got in at least.”
“I’m worried too. My wife and kids are back there,” the middle-aged man with the broad shoulders added. “But the government’s telling us our first priority is to take care of the Titans. Who are we to say otherwise?”
“I’m sure we’ll check it out at least,” cut in a plump man, who looked anywhere between twenty and forty. “Whole load of villages between Wall Rose and Wall Maria. Might be there’s people there who didn’t make it all the way.”
“Meaning, we do what we can, but our main goal is to take back Shiganshina,” the hawk-eyed youth said in conclusion.
Inasmuch as the plan placed Quinta on the back burner, the thinking matched Jörg’s…or rather, it was probable that Mathias’ father had played an important part in drafting the plan.
Of course. How could he not be involved? It seemed very likely that the operation was exactly what they’d been discussing in the study. If nothing else, they would have debated which supplies would be provided by which associations and to which theater. And yet his father had chosen to keep Mathias in the dark.
“Unbelievable…” He was being treated like a child, taken out of the loop on key matters.
“You one of the refugees?” the man with the broad shoulders asked.
“Yes. Sort of.”
“Like I said, don’t bother if you ain’t got the backbone.”
“Dressed like that, I don’t imagine you need it,” the hawk-eyed youth said, sneering a little. It was safe to assume he wasn’t particularly well disposed to the privileged classes.
“Need it?”
“Money. Compensation.”
“I see. If you volunteer, you receive compensation…”
It was obvious now that he considered it. Part of the money would be donated from the fortune of the Kramer Merchant Association. Mathias cast a fresh look down the line. The back seemed to stretch even farther.