Reincarnated: Vive La France

Moreau sat alone in the last carriage, boots resting on a satchel of dossiers, fingers crossed eyes fixed on nothing.

He will soon reach Paris which will be the last phase of his plan.

The senior commander of French Army as well as young officers.

Ahead of him were questions.

Behind him revolution.

But the story wasn't with him now.

It belonged to the others.

They had fanned out like wolves into the dark.

Colonel Alexandre Delacroix stood beneath a crumbling stone archway in Toulouse, the rain pouring down the long coat stretched over his frame.

A man approached slowly lean, older, his uniform gone but not his bearing.

"Alex," the man said with a frown. "Thought you were in exile."

"I am," Delacroix answered. "So are you, Jean."

Jean laughed bitterly. "Retirement's just a fancier prison."

"I'm not here for memory," Delacroix cut in. "I need bodies. Veterans. The kind that remember what betrayal tastes like."

Jean tilted his head. "You with Moreau?"

Delacroix didn't blink. "Yes."

Jean's face tightened. "How many?"

"As many as you can trust."

Jean gave a slow nod. "Then we'll need guns."

In Metz, Antoine Bellec stood in the back room of his scrapyard, surrounded by rusted turrets and shredded APC hulls.

Across from him, three grizzled men stood in grease-stained overalls, weapons half-hidden beneath the benches.

"You're serious," one of them muttered, jaw tight.

Bellec tossed a worn envelope onto the table.

"Moreau sent this," he said. "And I never knew him to joke."

Another man leaned in, eyes flicking across the ink. "He's alive?"

"Very."

"And pissed?"

Bellec cracked his knuckles. "You could say that."

The third man grinned. "Good. I've still got the mines we buried in '36. Nobody ever found 'em."

"Then dig them up. We're not waiting for elections."

Grenoble.

A bar with no name and a back door that never opened unless someone had history.

Captain Louis "Singe" Mercier leaned in the doorway, his coat collar up, boots wet with mud.

Inside, five men sat, each with a bottle in hand, smoke curling to the ceiling.

One of them looked up.

"You smell like war."

Mercier stepped in, unholstering his sidearm and placing it gently on the table. "You remember Operation Vautour?"

The room fell silent.

"That was suicide," another muttered.

"We did it," Mercier said. "Because someone had to."

He poured himself a drink. "This? This is worse. But it's ours. And we decide the ending."

A younger man raised his glass. "To bastards who refuse to die."

"To brothers," Mercier said.

Étienne Vautrin moved like smoke through Le Havre's alleys.

He tapped three times on a rusted door.

It opened to a kitchen full of mechanics, dice games, oil drums and arguments.

"Vautrin," someone said flatly. "Thought you were done."

"I am," Vautrin replied. "With waiting."

A mechanic tossed his cards. "The docks are swarming with eyes, you know."

"I'm not asking for open revolt," he said. "I want ships. Routes. Smugglers. Radios."

A bald man raised an eyebrow. "What for?"

"France," Vautrin said. "Or what's left of it."

Someone laughed. "Still dramatic."

"Still right," another said.

The table went quiet.

"We're listening."

Marseille's underbelly stank of fish, urine.

Jacques Duret stood in a basement room lit by a single gas lamp.

Chalk maps on the wall.

Rifles against the pipework.

A young man with ink-stained fingers stared across from him.

"Moreau's call," Duret said. "Time to rattle the old bones."

The youth frowned. "The army?"

"No. The soul of the army," Duret corrected. "The ones who bled and got thrown away. We'll need sabotage cells, press contacts, blackmail chains."

"Is it time?"

Duret smiled like a knife. "Not yet. First we salt the earth. Then we burn."

Sergeant-Major Montagne stood at a cafe overlooking the sea, a fishing rod leaning beside his chair.

The man across from him was fat, scarred, and spoke in code.

"Wind's changing," he said.

Montagne nodded. "Tide's been high all week."

The man leaned in. "We still have the armory in Brest. Half-buried. Forgotten."

"Not forgotten," Montagne said. "Just waiting."

"You have orders?"

Montagne sipped his coffee. "I have belief."

The man paused. "And if it fails?"

Montagne smiled. "Then I drown doing something worth dying for."

Lyon.

Tenement rooftop.

René Coulombe tossed a crate of liquor bottles into the alley below and watched them shatter.

Behind him, two uniformed men watched.

"You're not in uniform," one said.

"I'm not drunk either," Coulombe replied.

They stepped closer. "We were told you're recruiting."

"I'm not recruiting," Coulombe growled. "I'm preparing."

The taller one stepped forward. "Preparing what?"

Coulombe turned.

"Revenge."

Captain Gaudin sat in a dim-lit basement, drawing lines across a map with a trembling hand.

Across from him, a priest in a soldier's coat.

"Moreau sent you?" the priest asked.

"He sent everyone," Gaudin answered.

The priest leaned forward. "The Vatican won't like this."

Gaudin didn't laugh. "We're not fighting with prayers."

He folded the map.

"We'll use freight lines, refugee routes. I want weapons hidden in grain trucks and church vans."

"And if they're caught?"

"Then they die quiet."

The priest stared.

Gaudin said, "This isn't diplomacy. It's chess with blood."

Sergeant Lucien Rousse, cane in hand, stood before a crowd of artists in a Montmartre studio.

"Some of you are cowards," he said. "Some are fools. All of you are French."

The laughter died quickly.

"I don't need painters. I need signals. Posters. Underground newspapers. Poetry that calls for war."

Someone chuckled. "You want poets to start a revolution?"

Rousse's eyes narrowed. "I want the Republic to hear us scream before they see us rise."

Another man stood. "Where do we start?"

Rousse handed him a worn flyer.

"Print five thousand."

In a printing press lost to the countryside, Alain Courbet assembled rifles on a table.

A man in a postal uniform watched.

"The list is ready?" Courbet asked.

The man nodded. "Eight hundred names. Retired, rogue, exiled."

Courbet handed over envelopes, each bearing only a red wax seal.

"I want them moving within two weeks. Silence until fire."

"And Moreau?"

Courbet looked up. "He's the spark. We're the blaze."

Back near the border, Renaud stood in front of a long wooden table under a canvas roof.

Dozens of soldiers sat in silence.

Behind them, more worked silently, cleaning weapons, patching boots, wrapping wounds.

"You're angry," Renaud said. "I know. You lost friends. Brothers. For nothing."

No one interrupted.

"But listen well," he continued. "You weren't forgotten. You were watched. And when the time comes soon we'll rise."

A young private stood. "Do we wait again?"

Renaud's voice dropped.

"No. We prepare. Fix your gear. Sleep in your boots. Keep your rifles clean. When the storm hits Paris, we'll be the second wave."

The room stayed silent.

But something shifted.

Belief.

Inside the carriage.

Moreau's hand moved across names.

Dates.

Units.

Commands.

They were all moving now.

All quiet.

All invisible.