It was already dark by the time the train rolled back into Berlin, but Oskar did not return to his lovely golden cage for long. He and Karl hurried back toward the palace, where Oskar stormed into his room, dragged out a suitcase, and began shoving things inside with the brutal concentration of a man packing for exile. His favorite pillow went in first, followed by a blanket, a stack of documents he considered important, two notebooks, and finally the most valuable and dangerous object he owned: his little red diary, swollen with cramped writing, childish drawings, impossible machines, and enough ideas from the future to make half the governments of Europe deeply uncomfortable if anyone ever understood what they were looking at.
Then he walked straight back out of the palace.
There was no farewell dinner, no emotional goodbye, and certainly no dramatic announcement explaining where Prince Oskar of Prussia intended to spend the night. He offered only a few hurried fragments of mangled pleasantry—"my man… nice day"—to the confused guards who attempted to ask where he was going. Thus, within a matter of minutes, the palace watched one sweaty prince in clothes he could barely remember taking off and one dwarf attendant carrying his own case disappear into the night with what remained of their future battleship money tucked safely between them like contraband.
Oskar knew that Birkenhagen's telegram from Kiel would either already be sitting on Wilhelm II's desk or would arrive there within hours. His father would soon receive the astonishing news that his fifth son had traveled to Kiel without permission, negotiated around his orders, and promised the Imperial Navy an entire battleship.
Oskar imagined the message in considerably simpler terms.
YOUR SON PROMISED ME A BATTLESHIP.
The Kaiser would probably react in one of two ways. Either he would laugh, or he would decide to kill him. Oskar considered both possibilities and concluded that remaining within immediate shouting distance of Wilhelm II was strategically unwise.
So he left quickly.
Karl followed without hesitation, carrying his small case with an expression that somehow managed to communicate I regret everything and I desperately want to know what happens next at the same time. Tanya stood on the palace steps watching them go, her hands twisting together so tightly that her knuckles had gone pale. She made one final attempt to intervene before they disappeared down the drive.
"Your Highness… do you need a bath? A change of clothes? Anything?"
Oskar stopped and turned back toward her. For a moment he stood in the night air with the solemn bearing of a man about to deliver some profound truth rather than a prince desperately avoiding his father.
"Worry not, little woman," he said. "This road is my journey, not my destination."
Tanya blinked. She had absolutely no idea what that meant. It did not, however, sound like yes, I would like a bath.
The palace gates eventually closed behind Oskar and Karl with a metallic clang that sounded suspiciously like no refunds, and neither of them looked back. They continued through Potsdam and onward toward Berlin, where Oskar intended to begin the next phase of his increasingly questionable plan.
Berlin was where the money lived. It was a city of smoke, art, banks, factories, newspapers, businessmen, politicians, and opportunity. If a man wanted to make tens of millions of marks in only a few years, Oskar reasoned, he probably would not accomplish it by remaining in Potsdam feeding ducks and doing pull-ups on his mother's trees.
Somewhere along the road, Karl finally voiced the calculation that had been chewing through his nerves since Kiel. "Your Highness," he said carefully, "I hope you understand that constructing even a single modern battleship will require something in the region of forty million marks. More, naturally, if you want the thing to actually float."
Oskar nodded as though Karl had just informed him of a perfectly reasonable household expense. "Yes. I like money."
Karl closed his eyes for a moment before continuing in the tone of a man reading aloud from his own death sentence. "And you understand that you currently possess approximately five million marks."
That was hardly poverty. Five million marks was an enormous private fortune, helped along considerably by the sympathetic gifts that had poured in after Oskar's near-fatal fall the previous year and by Karl's quiet management of the money ever since. While Oskar had spent much of that year learning German badly, swimming naked in palace lakes, and transforming himself into something resembling a mythological strongman, Karl had invested portions of his wealth wherever he thought the risk reasonable.
He had done well.
Unfortunately, well was not the same thing as battleship.
"Five million," Karl repeated flatly. "That is our starting capital. Which means, according to the number you have so casually promised the Imperial Navy, we are missing approximately thirty-five million marks."
Oskar grinned into the night. "Big money starts small, my man."
Karl gently struck his forehead against the nearest solid surface as though hoping reality might reset itself. "We are so doomed."
By the time they reached Berlin proper, the city had settled into its quieter nighttime rhythm. Gas lamps illuminated broad streets and parks while smoke hung faintly over the rooftops. Karl struggled to keep pace with Oskar's relentless stride, but Oskar hardly noticed. Everywhere he looked he imagined money moving invisibly through the city—banks lending it, factories consuming it, merchants multiplying it, investors gambling it, and governments taxing whatever remained.
Eventually they reached one of the finest hotels in the capital. Polished marble floors reflected chandelier light like still water, heavy carpets swallowed footsteps, and crystal decanters lined the bar in quantities sufficient to anesthetize Karl's growing financial anxiety. The staff moved with the trained elegance expected in establishments accustomed to aristocrats, industrialists, diplomats, and royalty.
The manager nearly folded himself in half when he realized that the sweat-soaked young man in the rumpled uniform was actually a Hohenzollern prince. He immediately produced one of the finest suites available and, with impressive professionalism, pretended not to notice that Oskar smelled faintly of train smoke, old sweat, and what may have been fried sausage grease.
Karl did notice the price.
Oskar dismissed his concern with one hand. "Hotel price will not shake our resolve. Remember, my little man—one must spend big to become big."
Karl looked like a man who deeply hated that philosophy but no longer possessed the emotional strength required to argue with it.
Once they were alone in the suite, Karl fortified himself with enough alcohol to take the sharpest edge off the possibility of financial collapse. He then turned around and discovered Oskar hanging from the canopy bed.
"Your Highness, please stop doing pull-ups on the furniture," Karl said wearily. "That bed is expensive, and I would prefer not to explain to the hotel why a Prince of Prussia tore it apart with his shoulders."
Oskar dropped lightly to the floor, wiped sweat from his handsome and increasingly greasy face—which had now gone roughly two days without encountering soap—and sat down at the cluttered table. Bottles clinked softly as he folded his hands together and looked across at Karl.
"Karl," he said, more seriously now, "have you truly decided to work with me? If we fail, you know what happens. Emperor angry. Navy angry. No more palace, no salary. I think Father will not let you walk away free of charge either. It will be streets for us." He hesitated before adding gravely, "And no Caucasian wives."
Karl did not hesitate.
"Of course, Your Highness. You are my friend, and frankly, you are also the only nobleman I have ever served who seems to forget that I am a dwarf until you need something from a high shelf." His expression softened slightly. "Respectable positions are not always easy for men like me to find. You treat me as a man rather than a curiosity, and I have not forgotten that. Besides…" A reluctant smile appeared. "I actually believe you might succeed."
That mattered more to Karl than rank. Among the many princes, nobles, and officers he had encountered, Oskar had always been strangely lacking in aristocratic arrogance. He shared food, told terrible jokes, asked Karl's opinion, and dragged him into increasingly insane plans without ever treating him as less than an equal participant. Karl appreciated that deeply, even if he occasionally skimmed a few coins from Oskar's pocket and privately classified the theft as a handling fee.
Oskar's eyes brightened. "Good. Then I will not fail you. Before long, we shock business world and all high society."
Somewhere in the distance, history groaned softly.
Karl's lips twitched despite himself. "Very well. Then for the love of sanity, what exactly is the plan?"
Oskar immediately reached into his suitcase and withdrew the little red diary.
The leather cover was worn now, and the pages inside had become swollen with paper scraps, annotations, calculations, and drawings created during a year of restless thought. Oskar placed it dramatically on the table between them.
"Behold," he said. "Our weapon."
Karl regarded the book cautiously before opening it.
He froze on the first page.
A German shepherd with comically oversized ears stood proudly in full Prussian military uniform, complete with a slightly crooked Pickelhaube. Beneath the drawing Oskar had written, in heavy lettering:
Stylish dogs, probably big money.
Karl blinked, then turned the page and his face immediately began to redden.
A striking maid had been carefully sketched reclining across an enormous bed, petite but unmistakably curvaceous, posed with far more confidence than Karl associated with any respectable palace servant. Her uniform looked vaguely familiar while also being unlike anything a maid in Berlin would actually wear: fitted more closely at the waist, slightly shorter at the skirt, with the neckline carefully balanced somewhere between fashionable and scandalous.
The legs had received particular attention.
Beside them, heavily underlined, Oskar had written: NYLON STOCKINGS — FUTURE MATERIAL. VERY SHINY. VERY PROFITABLE.
Arrows pointed toward the sheen Oskar imagined the material would possess, while notes crowded the margins.
Gloss = luxury.
Women buy to feel rich.
Men buy for women.
Mass production = massive margin.
A separate sketch focused almost entirely on the legs themselves and had been annotated with the seriousness of an engineering diagram.
Karl swallowed.
"That looks suspiciously like Tanya."
Oskar coughed lightly. "Art is inspired by reality, my man."
Karl turned the page again and entered madness.
The next pages were covered with detailed sketches of something labeled SUPERMARKET — BIG MONEY, showing long shelves and customers pushing wheeled carts. Rockets rose toward space. Aliens shook hands with suspiciously muscular Germans wearing mustaches and Pickelhauben. On another page, an Imperial German flag stood beside a distinctly non-German red flag on the surface of the Moon while a tiny illustrated Oskar saluted both in full uniform.
Then things became stranger.
Penguins carried rifles. A machine labeled TANK appeared with additional notes mentioning Panzer III. Karl had only ever known a tank as something that held water, but one glance at the tracks, armored hull, and rotating gun turret told him that Oskar had something entirely different in mind. Nearby were sleek aircraft with wings shaped like knives, followed by maps of some enormous future war somewhere in the east, covered in arrows, circles, front lines, and ominous question marks.
Other pages contained lists of stocks to buy, notes about the year something called the internet would begin, proposals for a German gym selling supplements and structured training programs, plans for a martial arts academy, game concepts, unusual architectural designs, and pages upon pages of pandas. Some wore hoodies and sweatpants while lifting weights. Others ate pickles. One ran furiously on a machine labeled treadmill.
Karl's confusion approached critical mass.
He had glimpsed the diary before, of course. He had assumed it consisted mostly of scattered nonsense mixed with a handful of grandiose ideas.
He had not realized there were hundreds—possibly thousands—of these visions.
His brain was beginning to hurt.
Oskar finally leaned across the table, reached past rockets, pandas, armored vehicles, and penguins with rifles, and flipped forward several pages with sudden precision.
Then he stopped.
"This," he said.
At the top of the page, written in heavy, confident lettering, were the words: Deutsche Wohlfahrtslotterie
German Welfare Lottery.
What followed looked completely different from the surrounding madness. Instead of cartoons and wild sketches, the pages contained charts, rules, payout tables, calculations, probability notes, and worked examples. The handwriting was still Oskar's chaotic mixture of languages, but the structure beneath it was surprisingly clean.
Karl leaned closer.
Thirty-three red numbers. Sixteen blue numbers. Choose six red and one blue. Match the complete combination and receive the jackpot.
Five million marks.
He blinked.
"Wait," Karl said carefully. "This is your master plan? A lottery?"
Lotteries themselves were hardly new. German states operated them, as did governments and private organizations across Europe. But most were comparatively dull affairs, limited in format and modest in presentation.
This was different. This had been engineered.
"Yes, my man," Oskar said, leaning back. "It is called 'Double Color Ball' in my—" He stopped himself. "In my imagination. Red balls, blue balls. Six red, one blue. Match all, life-changing money. But if you match less, you still win something."
He tapped one of the lower prize tiers.
"One blue ball? Small prize. People love small win. It is spark. Keeps hope alive. Keeps wallet open."
Karl studied the payout structure more carefully. There were multiple tiers, carefully spaced rewards, frequent minor prizes, and one enormous jackpot hanging above everything else like a beacon. Even someone who lost repeatedly could occasionally win enough to feel that success was close.
"People keep buying," Oskar continued. "They lose, but sometimes they win. They feel close. Almost there. Like hamster running in wheel. Very human." He leaned forward. "Big jackpot, many small prizes, enough winners every drawing to make everyone believe next time could be them."
Karl continued reading.
The design was ruthless in its simplicity. Tiny prizes appeared often enough to sustain enthusiasm, while the probability of claiming the largest reward remained extraordinarily low. The entire structure had been constructed to feel generous while ensuring that the organizer retained the advantage.
Oskar had seen machines like this before. In his previous life he had watched ordinary people queue week after week, clutching lottery tickets like folded prayers. He had seen hope become routine and routine become habit.
He knew how compelling it could be. He knew how profitable it could become. He simply had never expected to find himself standing on the house side of the table.
Karl read silently for several minutes, occasionally pausing whenever one of Oskar's pandas appeared in the margins wearing a spiked helmet and apparently guarding the probability tables. For all his irritation and sarcasm, Karl was no fool. He had been properly educated, had watched fortunes rise and collapse throughout Berlin society, and understood speculation, inheritance, greed, panic, and money.
He knew what profitable ideas looked like.
And this one smelled like money.
When he finally closed the diary, he did so carefully, almost as though he feared the pages might explode.
"Your Highness," he said, "I must admit that this is considerably more compelling than any lottery format I have seen before. The prize structure, the frequency of minor wins, the enormous jackpot…" He exhaled slowly. "It is dangerous."
Oskar looked delighted. "In good way?"
Karl permitted himself the smallest smile. "In an extremely good way. For us."
"So you believe it can succeed?"
"If we obtain legal approval," Karl said. "And that will not be simple. We would also need to present it correctly. Not as common vice, not merely as gambling, but as patriotic participation. A welfare instrument. A contribution to society. Hope with a respectable uniform around it." He tapped the cover of the diary. "If we manage that, then yes. I believe people would notice it very quickly."
Oskar leaned back in his chair, visibly pleased. "Germany has over sixty million people. Millions already buy lottery tickets. Our version more exciting, more layered, more…" He searched briefly for the right word. "Addictive."
He tapped the projections written in the margins.
"Even with taxes, even if state takes share, profit can be enormous. If one drawing makes one million marks net profit, three drawings each week…" His smile slowly widened. "One hundred fifty-six drawings per year. More than one hundred fifty million marks. Maybe two hundred."
He looked up triumphantly. "One battleship? Two? Three? No problem, my man."
Karl swallowed. "Although, strictly speaking, not all sixty million Germans are adults."
Oskar waved the detail aside with imperial optimism.
Karl looked back down at the diary.
For the first time, he could almost see what Oskar saw, not merely one ship, but potentially an entire industrial machine. Steel rising from paper. Cannons financed by hope. Then the other implications arrived.
"However," Karl said slowly, "if this performs even half as well as you seem to believe, then it will attract attention."
He lifted his eyes.
"The wrong kind."
Oskar may have been a prince, but he was hardly the Emperor's favorite. He possessed the name, the protection, and the privileges of the House of Hohenzollern, certainly, yet within that vast and complicated dynasty he remained only one strange branch—too unpredictable, too unconventional, and therefore potentially expendable if court politics ever demanded a convenient sacrifice.
If the German Welfare Lottery began producing millions of marks, powerful people would notice. And in business, being noticed did not always mean admiration. Sometimes it simply meant that someone had painted a target on your back.
"Other capitalists will not sit quietly while you make millions from the pockets of ordinary Germans," Karl said. "They will become jealous. Some will try to buy their way into the enterprise. Others will undercut us, influence officials, manipulate newspapers, challenge licenses, spread accusations of fraud or indecency, or simply demand that we share. If the sums become large enough, people will find reasons to involve themselves."
Oskar nodded as though Karl were describing predictable weather.
He knew the pattern.
In his first life he had watched players cheat without shame, businesses consume competitors, governments bend beneath money, and families destroy themselves over inheritance and pride. Technology changed. Clothing changed. Flags changed.
People generally did not.
"The blood of capital," Oskar said quietly, "is always sticky."
Karl looked at him, surprised by the almost profound observation.
Oskar considered it for another second before adding solemnly, "Like bubblegum."
Karl stared at him.
The moment passed.
Oskar looked back toward the diary, and when he spoke again his voice had lost some of its humor. "Many future plans depend on this. If Germans keep buying tickets, we get money for ships, industry, factories… everything. If someone takes this from us before it grows, then we are dead men."
Karl closed the diary carefully, as though it contained not paper but teeth. "Then the real question is not whether people will buy tickets. I believe they will. The question is how we protect the gold mine once we strike it."
Oskar nodded. "Yes. We need protection. Legal. Political." He leaned back slightly, his expression sharpening as his mind began moving several steps ahead. "Maybe partnership with state."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"Harder to steal from prince if government is also eating from his plate."
Karl considered the idea.
That, unfortunately, made a great deal of sense.
Oskar's eyes brightened with equal parts excitement and madness. "First we build mine. Then we build fortress around it."
Karl released a long, exhausted breath. He looked half drunk, half doomed, and entirely aware that he had just stepped onto a road with no obvious exit.
"Very well, Your Highness. Then our next step is simple."
He paused.
"We must convince the government of the German Empire to let you sell hope to sixty million people."
Oskar's grin returned immediately, as though someone had switched on a lamp inside his skull.
"Hope," he said, "is very good business, my man."
Far away in Kiel, meanwhile, an old admiral was still staring out across the gray water and wondering whether he had accidentally unleashed something dangerous upon the world.
Not a battleship, not a brilliant naval officer. Just a prince with terrible German and far too many ideas.