It was an early morning when I came up to the door, lacking the pinkish – red “X” on its post. The door belonged to a three-story apartment, painted in an array of yellow, red, and green in contrast to the ash colored ghetto. None of the windows had been covered with blackout tape, as per regulation. This was unusual, since the police patrolled the ghetto regularly. In response to this enigma I pinched my nose and kicked in the door, no nonsense style. The thing damn near jumped out of its hinges, but the noise was probably enough to scare off any beggars or junkies, if there was anyone in there.

I walked in on the cluttered place, a dozen papers crumpling under my feet. It was even more garish inside than out. A hundred paintings from different cultures hung, covering the walls, while the floor was decorated with the winding pattern of a snake, its gaping maw pointed at the door. Whoever lived here (if they still were here) had been a good decorator, but they had no regard for the rules. The color was strong enough to be seen even at night, so it was a wonder that it hadn’t been bombed after a hundred or so air raids.

From what I saw, nothing lived on this floor of the apartment, so I walked up the stairway, which was uncomfortably narrow. After nearly suffocating and breaking my necks simultaneously due to those damned slippery steps, I was at a loss when I saw the upstairs hallway. It was a tight fit, to say the least. The ceiling was well above my head, but the walls gave me no room to stretch my arms out. After a few steps, I couldn’t proceed. It was as if the place had been conceived to thwart police entry.

“Anyone home!” I shouted. “’Case you haven’t heard, the city’s gonna be Cog food!”

With no response, I lifted my baton and smashed a part of the plaster trying to call the bastard who lived here. To my surprise, he did.

When he gazed at the plaster sprinkling off my arm, he paled and ordered me to go down. At least, I think he did. He mostly slapped my arm and almost pushed me down the stairs.
At this point, I was tired of the whole thing, so I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him downstairs with me. I disregarded the interrogation protocol, content to drag him to the street and to the port need be.

I stopped, though, as I crossed the sunlit threshold. Out of the dark, a familiar face peered at me.

“A-Arty,” it said. “Is that you, boy?”

I turned, strong memories filling my head. “Mr. Ritelli?”

The Tsarian winemaker leapt up, and hugged me.

“Arty, please, take a seat! Ah, don’t worry about the wall. In fact, let me get you some wine! I’ve got a fine vintage in the works here.”

Ten minutes later, the winemaker came down dressed in his still familiar, still ridiculous getup, a loose, colorful waistcoat and pinstriped pants. A black wine bottle was clasped between his pale, shuddering hands. They always did that, when he gave me packets of wine as payment for delivering him things.

I shuffled nervously in my seat and put my hands on the table.

“Mr. Ritelli,” I started. “When did you move to this…”

“Pisspot? Hellhole? Oh, ten years ago. The interior decorating is my own design of course. Sorry if it gave you any trouble.”

“Uh… no worries. Listen, I’d really like to have a little chat, but I don’t think we got time for – “

“Time, time, what a fussy thing!” he said, fidgeting and looking side to side. “Honestly, don’t people have time for an honest conversation? Here, take this.”

He produced a glass cup and placed it onto a wooden table. Then, he swung back to uncork the wine bottle. I peered at the long head tails hanging from the back of his head, and sure enough, I saw it. Hundreds of prayer bead necklaces, swinging and clacking in a rhythm I’d heard fifteen years ago. Hard to believe that I remembered it. The winemaker turned back, and handed me the bottle.

“They say people don’t change, Arty, and I hope in these fifteen years you haven’t. So, could you pour this, twenty centiliters like before, right? I’d do it, but my shivers have gotten worse.”
His words zoomed out of his mouth in a shaky, sporadic manner. Like his hands, his speech was just as shaky, each word quiet and fragile. I took the bottle, and poured out the wine.

He took a large sip out of his cup, and sat down.

“Ah, not a drop spilled”, he said. “You still got it, Arty! Now, what was it you came to talk about? You back in the delivery business?”

“Wha – No, Mr. Ritelli,” I stuttered. “Haven’t you heard the news?”
He laughed.

“No, not really. Why would I? Threw out the radio five years ago, and I can’t believe how much work I’ve done without that thing chattering at me!”

I was somewhat stunned. A radio was a lifeline nowadays, with satellite communication being as much use as spoiled food.

“Mr. Ritelli, you shouldn’t have done that. It’s the law.”

“Anyway,” he continued, ignoring me. “You’re probably going to college, eh Arty? Did Tremlett finally accept you?”

“Well, I… I had to quit, Mr. Ritelli, and I’m part of the police,” I said. “Mum was disappointed and all… But that doesn’t matter now.”

“Of course. But I’m not leaving, if that’s what you want.”

I stopped drinking. I was still sore from barging into his house like that, but this was something else. You’re neighborhood kids might call him a crazy and say he’s an Axie spy, but the winemaker wasn’t all bad. He was the kind of man who you could talk with when your dad’s stone drunk after working and kicking up a ruckus. The kind of guy who let you sample the liquor after every delivery, ‘cause he thought young people ought to be raised “European”, whatever that meant. He was probably the only person I ever talked to.

“Mr. Ritelli, I get you don’t give a damn about regulations. But you can’t just stay here! The Cogs – “

“Arty,” he said. “So assuming, like your father. Even the Cogs know the value of cities, especially one with a heritage like Antioch. The Savior Regime isn’t going to try to put up a fight. They’ll just let the Cogs take the city, and then regain it in some other bloody struggle. This city is an abode of life, human and otherwise, and it will continue to be one.”

He stood up, leaving the glass on the table.

“Come, I want to show you something.” He walked over to the stairwell, and climbed upward. “If you plan on leaving, you’ll have no chance of bringing me with you,” he said, when I remained downstairs.

So I followed, though with some difficulty. The third floor of the apartment was much more spacious, consisting of a single, large room. The winemaker stood in front of me as I entered, and he gestured to an object in the corner.

It was a table with an awkward object, an apparatus of some sort. Beside it was a clear, glass box, overflowing with grape vines. The grapes were gone. Barrels stood in the corner, smelling damp and fragrant.

  “This may seem trivial, but you haven’t seen my life, Arty. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a taste for alcohol, that fruit of Dionysus,” he said, spouting more confusing gabber. He ran a hand through the prayer beads tied onto his head tails. Suddenly, he gripped one and threw it to the floor.

“Oh for gods’ sake! Why waste time waxing on like this in this mad, mad world!”

I moved back as the winemaker attacked the prayer beads with his shoe, smashing the brown wood to pieces. Bits of shrapnel from this harmless grenade flew. They made a popping sound as they scattered. He calmed down, and gestured to his lab again.

“Apologies Arty,” he said, an embarrassed grin on his face. “My temper’s been flaring up lately. But do you see the dilemma I’ve faced? Physically, I’ve been stretched. Regulations, segregations. Economics nearly denied me access to my work!” He pointed at his apparatus. “Each piece cost me hundreds, thousands of credits, and it took thirty years to put the pieces together.”

“Mr. Ritelli, you can’t go on making more wine if you’re dead.”

“Yet when I make more, who appreciates the art behind it?! The subtle tingle behind your tongue, that’s me. The blurriness of your mind, that’s me too! It’s not just the war that’s tearing me apart. It’s this whole godsdamned universe!” He made to throw another prayer necklace on the floor, but he stopped.

Instead, he started crying, and I felt embarrassed to be there. I really needed to leave, but I still had to get him out.

“Mr. Ritelli, don’t be so down like that. It’ll work out, you just gotta keep living.” I tried to sound upbeat, but it’s hard when a guy twenty years your senior is crying like a child. The winemaker just fell to the ground, and rubbed his eyes.

He looked up weakly at me. With a sigh, he heaved himself up and wiped his eyes.

“Arty, I’m not going,” he said.

“Mr. Ritelli –“

“I can’t go.”

“Now, Mr. Ritelli –“

“Arty, are you listening to me –“

“Yes!” I shouted, tired of this. “Yes, I f***ing hear you! You want to throw yourself away because of some stupid f***ing baggage!”

I let it out, my emotions. I guess it was a last bid attempt to get him out, to hurt him and show how much I wanted him to be safe. Mr. Ritelli was my surrogate pop, the guy who got me out of the gutters and towards college. I couldn’t leave him without doing everything I could.

He was silent for a moment, and then he spoke. This time, his words were layered, as if they’d been coated with steel.

“There’s a few words I’ve tried to live my life by, Arty,” he said. “As the Warrior-Philosopher Keller once said, ‘When Gods and Men give you orders, listen to your spirit.’

“From time, to time, and time again, I’ve tried to do that. When my grandfather was shot by a Cog soldier, I tried. When my mother was taken away by the Luftrian authorities, I tried. When I starved, and slept, and made wine in this godsforsaken city by myself, I tried.

He paused.

“Arty, there’s something I learned from this. It’s that even the best philosophies can be twisted and tortured by this cold, cold universe. As it turns out, it is only here that I can try, and succeed. You understand.”

The winemaker was firm. His voice was smooth, with no cracks I could exploit, no emotional weakness I could pull at to get him to move. He turned around, and made no sound.

I screamed. I pleaded. I threatened him with my baton. But nothing got him to move. It’s as if he died standing up, and if I’d stayed there a few more minutes, I would have been buried there, with the wine, the marked doors, and the colorful masonry.  Instead, I walked out. I squeezed my way down the staircase, and stopped at the threshold. I looked back, maybe for a last look at the house before my left, but my gaze shifted onto the bottle of wine left on the table. Without hesitation, I grabbed it, and ran out of the house. My escape was accompanied by two sounds: the clink of the bottle against my uniform, and the growing crescendo of motors, winging overhead.

The Cogs were here.