That night after Karl had returned to his hotel, looking exactly like a defeated man.
He sat in his small rented room, and lay face-first on the creaky mattress. The springs protested. He didn't care, he merely thought of his next moves.
A long, miserable groan was swallowed by the pillow.
Sweet-talking had failed.
Flattery had failed.
Throwing money at the problem had failed.
The Wright brothers had smiled, shaken his hand, and politely said no.
Gunther, ever supportive, sat on the edge of the bed and patted his back with a hand roughly the size of Karl's entire skull.
"There-there, Herr Karl," he said. "At least those Americans did not shoot at you. I hear Americans shoot strangers they do not like."
Karl made a strangled choking noise.
"Small mercies…"
But he wasn't giving up.
He couldn't.
Not when Oskar had been so very, painfully clear before he left Germany. Karl knew he had to either get these guys to join him, or then sheds would burn.
At the time, Karl had laughed nervously and assumed he would never, ever have to do anything as drastic as arson or worse.
Now… he was no longer quite so sure.
He rolled over, slapped his own cheeks for courage, and dragged the heavy leather suitcase up onto the bed.
Time to look at the last card Oskar had given him.
Inside were:
neatly folded diagrams,
handwritten notes,
a large, dark cloth bundle,
and a single sheet laid on top.
Karl picked up the sheet and read:
> "Karl, my little man—
If they say no, show them THIS.
Then they will know Germany is the future.
Your friend, Oskar."
He swallowed.
Then he unfolded the cloth.
And froze.
It was a suit.
A black suit. With pointed ears.
And a cape.
A cape which, when spread, wasn't really a cape at all—
It was wings.
Underneath, in a smaller bundle, was something else: a carefully packed parachute made of a faintly shimmering fabric Karl instantly recognized.
Nylon.
He found more instructions in Oskar's familiar scrawl:
> Step 1: Put on suit.
Step 2: Climb something tall.
Step 3: Jump.
Step 4: Glide majestically like a bat.
Step 5: Deploy parachute when descending.
Step 6: Land. Impress everyone.
Step 7: Do NOT die.
Karl stared at the paper.
Then at the suit.
Then at the paper again.
"…He wants me to jump off a cliff."
Gunther, reading over his shoulder, slowly made the sign of the cross.
"It appears so, Herr Karl," he said solemnly. "But have no fear or doubt. Think—what would Jesus do?"
Karl clutched the suit to his chest.
He was not entirely sure what Jesus would do in a bat costume, but he had an idea of what he had to do.
"Well," he muttered, "if I die, I'm haunting that giant bastard for the rest of his very long, very smug life. And yes, fine, maybe like Jesus I must sacrifice myself… for the good of mankind and aviation."
Somewhere beneath the terror, something else stirred.
Hope.
Because if this worked—if he, Karl Bergmann, royal accountant, short king of Germany, flew through the sky like some mythical bat-creature in front of the Wright brothers—
They would have no choice but to believe.
Not just in Germany.
But in Oskar.
He stood up, straightened his fake moustache in the cracked mirror, and squared his shoulders as if he were about to face a firing squad.
"Gentlemen," he declared to the Eternal Guards, "tonight we sleep in this miserable box. Tomorrow, we take the carriage…"
He lifted the suit dramatically.
"…and I will show America how a dwarf flies."
Gunther blinked.
"Like… a bird?"
Karl sniffed. "Like an eagle," he said. Then paused, glanced at the pointed ears, and amended, "A very heroic bat-eagle combination."
The others exchanged a silent look that said:
We are absolutely going to die here.
But the decision was made.
The suit was ready.
The parachute was packed.
The prince's orders were clear.
And in the morning, Karl Bergmann would step off a cliff to save German aviation.
Or break both legs trying.
The next afternoon, Karl returned to the Wright brothers' workshop wearing a long, heavy coat buttoned all the way to the neck.
He was sweating under it.
"Good day, gentlemen!" he said brightly, limping only a little. "If you'd be so kind as to follow me, I have… one last thing to show you. Something that will change your lives forever."
Wilbur and Orville exchanged a look that clearly said:
> Oh God, what does this tiny German want now?
But curiosity was an occupational hazard for inventors.
They locked up the workshop and followed Karl out of town.
He led them—and his three very conspicuous "Businessmen"—to a high cliff overlooking a wide, open field and river valley.
The Wrights frowned.
The Eternal Guards, even in borrowed American suits, looked like they were guarding a battlefield more than supervising a demonstration.
"Sir…" Wilbur asked slowly, "why are we here?"
Karl took a deep breath.
Gunther leaned in and whispered, "Are you sure about this, Herr Karl?"
"No," Karl whispered back. "Not even slightly. But last night I thought about Jesus, my wife, and my unborn child, and I realised Oskar was right."
"About what?" Gunther asked.
"There is no 'try'," Karl said grimly. "Only do, or do not."
Then, before his courage could escape, he shrugged off the coat.
The Wright brothers' mouths fell open.
"…Is that a circus costume?" Orville asked.
"It's science," Karl snapped.
He pulled the hood over his head. Pointed ears. Black fabric. A cape that unfolded into wide, carefully cut nylon wings.
He had become a tiny, German Batman.
He tossed his umbrella-cane aside and extended the wings. The nylon stretched out, catching the wind.
He looked ridiculous.
Majestic, but ridiculous.
Clouds were thickening overhead. The wind picked up, gusty and playful.
"Now behold," Karl said, voice only shaking a little, "this is Germany's future. And perhaps the world's."
"Wait—" Wilbur began.
"Are you sure this is—" Orville tried.
Too late.
Karl ran—
—limped—
—stumbled—
—and leaped off the cliff.
"DO IT FOR JESUS!" Gunther yelled after him.
For one blessed heartbeat, there was silence.
Then—
FWOOOOSH.
The wind slammed into the wings.
Nylon snapped taut.
And Karl Bergmann, royal accountant, short king of the German Empire, flew.
He glided across the air like an oversized bat or a very determined flying squirrel—black against a sky of darkening clouds and pale winter light.
Down below, a few farmers stopped what they were doing and stared up, open-mouthed.
The Eternal Guards shrieked unintelligible German encouragements.
The Wright brothers stood frozen.
Gunther made the sign of the cross with impressive speed.
Because Karl weighed so little, every upward gust of wind carried him farther than any of Oskar's rough estimates. A stronger gust lifted him higher.
"Mein Gott…" Wilbur whispered. "The dwarf is ascending."
For a moment, he was only a small black shape against the sky.
Then he began to drop.
The little shape twisted—
—and suddenly a white flower bloomed in the air.
The parachute snapped open, caught the wind, and swung him around like a pendulum. The Eternal Guards grabbed their rented bicycles and pedaled madly across the field to keep eyes on him.
Karl, understandably, screamed the whole way.
He drifted down, swaying dangerously over the river.
He hit the water with a splash and vanished.
The Wright brothers gasped.
The Eternal Guards pedaled faster.
For a few horrible seconds there was only rushing water and flapping fabric.
Then a small, soaked figure burst out from under the parachute, coughing and swearing in German.
Two hours later they found him stomping through a cornfield, drenched, dragging the parachute like an offended ghost.
"I hate this job," he muttered.
"I love this job.
I hate this job.
I love this job…"
But he was alive.
Very alive.
And the Wright brothers were shaken.
Deeply shaken.
They brought him back to town.
They fed him.
They gave him whiskey.
They apologised for ever doubting he was willing to suffer for his work.
Then came the questions.
Endless questions.
About the fabric.
The seams.
The stitching.
The parachute.
The way the wings caught the wind.
Why it held his weight.
What on earth this "nylon" actually was.
Karl told them the truth.
He had no idea.
"The Prince designed it," he said again and again. "The Prince chose the material. The Prince made it work. I am only the accountant and the idiot who jumps off cliffs."
"So you can't tell us how the suit is made? How the material is produced?" Wilbur pressed.
"No," Karl answered patiently. "Sign the contract. Come to Germany. Then you can study it properly."
The brothers hesitated.
They wanted the suit.
They wanted the parachute.
They wanted everything.
But they were not yet ready to surrender their lives, their workshop, their country.
"We promise," Wilbur said at last, "to consider your offer. Seriously. We need time. We must discuss it with our family as well."
Karl, still high on adrenaline and whiskey, nodded.
"Take your time," he said grandly. "But not too much. The future doesn't wait."
He left that evening with a bruised body, a damp bat-suit stuffed under one arm, the parachute bundled over Gunther's shoulder, and the first truly hopeful stirring in his chest since landing in America.
He did not leave them a single scrap of cloth. After all nothing had yet been signed or agreed upon.
The Wright brothers watched from the edge of the field as Karl and his three "Businessmen" trudged away toward town—one tiny drowned bat and three very serious, very muddy escorts.
When they returned to their workshop, they didn't have a sample to study.
But they had their eyes.
And their hands.
And the long memory of people who lived by observation.
They sat at the bench, pulled out pads of paper, and began to sketch.
Wing planform.
Harness arrangement.
How the canopy opened.
How the dwarf's weight hung under it.
Angles, proportions, rough guesses at area and loading.
"They must have used silk," Orville said, tapping his pencil. "Or some kind of balloon cloth. Something woven very tightly."
"Maybe varnished, like our wing fabric," Wilbur mused. "To keep the air from seeping through. You saw how it snapped open and held."
"Too smooth to be plain canvas," Orville agreed. "But silk can be woven that way. Or a layered cotton—glazed, maybe. They haven't invented magic yet."
They were wrong, of course.
They had never held nylon.
They had no idea that the Germans were playing with artificial polymers already.
To them, the idea of a fully synthetic fiber strong and light enough to use as a parachute sounded closer to fantasy than engineering.
But they had seen what shape worked.
They had seen what a certain surface area could carry, how the air caught it, how the body dangled below.
And they were inventors.
"We can approximate it," Wilbur said at last, pencil scratching faster. "If they can cut it and stitch it, so can we."
"Even if we're off on the fabric," Orville said, "we can experiment. Silk, balloon cloth, doped linen. We'll find something that works."
They bent their heads over the sketches, the image of a screaming, flying dwarf burned permanently into their minds.
Whatever else happened with that strange German prince and his bat-suited accountant, one thing was certain:
They had just seen the future of controlled descent.
Meanwhile, Karl rode back into town perched regally on Gunther's broad back, the Eternal Guards pedaling their rented bicycles behind like a very odd parade—business suits, a soaked dwarf in a black bat costume, parachute dragging in their wake like a defeated jellyfish.
It wasn't dignified.
But it felt like victory and the sight of them did make a few people smile, even a single sandwich was dropped.