Chapter 4: Shadows on the Map
Dust swirled in golden shafts of morning light as Victor leaned over the map-strewn table. The drawing room, once a place of polite conversation and pianoforte evenings, had transformed into a war room. Lines crisscrossed the African continent, especially the vast expanse of the Congo—rivers like arteries, railway plans like bones.
He hadn't slept. Not truly. His body obeyed fatigue, but his mind had broken free. The microscope's vision had not faded. It had crystallized. Precision lenses, cold white labs, conversations about bacteria and isotopes—the future of science laid bare. All of it impossible here. Not yet. But not forever.
He was beginning to understand the rules. The ability had limits, but those limits offered structure. One object. One vision. Roughly twenty years into the future of this timeline. Not his 2026—but the future of 1920. And now, after two activations, he sensed the pattern: one glimpse per month. Unused ones accumulated.
He still had one more.
The files spread before him revealed what the Delcroix family had truly controlled. Copper mines in Katanga. Rubber plantations along the Kasai River. Logging rights in the Equateur province. Dozens of acres, thousands of laborers, and contracts that stretched from Antwerp to Marseille. It was wealth—but crude, inefficient, and built on systems that Victor now saw for what they were: brutal, wasteful, and deeply unstable.
A soft knock interrupted him.
"Come in," Victor called, his voice low.
Gérard entered, trailed by a young woman in a smart navy-blue dress. Her posture was straight, her hair pinned with exacting care. Intelligence flashed behind sharp hazel eyes.
"May I present Mademoiselle Elise Delange," Gérard said. "Daughter of Armand Delange, your father's former business partner."
"I've read your letters," Victor said, standing. "You're the one who kept the board from selling the Léopoldville depot to the French."
"And you're the boy who came back from the dead," she replied. "Forgive my bluntness, monsieur. But I don't believe in ghosts, or in heirs who read ledgers overnight."
Victor met her gaze. "Good. Then we won't waste time pretending."
For a moment, silence. Then the ghost of a smirk.
"I'm here because I care what happens to the company," she said. "Your father wasn't perfect, but he believed in doing more than bleeding the land dry. That's why he kept me on."
Victor nodded slowly. "Then you'll help me rebuild it."
Her eyes narrowed. "Rebuild it into what?"
He didn't answer. Not yet.
The theodolite sat untouched in a leather case, tucked inside a cabinet marked with his father's initials. Brass and glass, aged but intact. Victor's fingers hovered for a moment before he touched it.
The flash came instantly.
Jungle. Trees hundreds of feet high. And above them, drones—sleek, silent, scanning with laser precision. Survey teams below followed digital maps that updated in real time. Rivers rerouted on command. Settlements planned with mathematical efficiency.
He gasped.
Then it shifted.
A vast model of the Congo—projected, alive. Topographic overlays. Mineral heatmaps. Streams of data feeding into a central hub. And at the center: a prototype fusion generator. Its heart pulsed with plasma.
Then—flames. Soldiers. Flags bearing a black sun. The map in ruins.
Victor staggered back, breath shallow.
The vision had gone further.
Not twenty years. Possibly more. Something about this device—its history, its symbolism—had pushed the timeline forward. Or perhaps the visions grew stronger with use.
He didn't know.
But he knew this:
The Congo was not a backwater. It was the future. Untamed, brutal, beautiful. And if he could master it, he could build a world immune to Europe's slow collapse.
That evening, he wrote a letter. Not to the board. Not yet. But to the managing director in Léopoldville:
I intend to visit in person before the summer. I expect full transparency. Audits. Inventories. The truth, unpolished. We will speak as men responsible for a future far greater than rubber and copper.
He signed it without flourish. Folded it. Sealed it.
Gérard watched from the doorway.
"Shall I have it sent by courier?"
"Immediately. And arrange for a translator in Lingala. I want to speak with the Congolese staff myself when I arrive."
Gérard blinked. "Very good, monsieur."
Victor turned to the window once more. The city was quiet beneath a blanket of fog. Somewhere beyond that gray veil lay a continent, a company, and a future only he could see.
"Let the old world decay," he whispered.
"I have a new one to build."
Chapter 5: The Mold and the Miracle
Rain tapped softly against the leaded glass as Victor stood in the cold cellar beneath the house. The air was thick with mildew and the scent of long-dead coal fires. His lantern threw long shadows across rows of dusty shelves, jars, and crates. This was where the house hid its secrets—and, perhaps, where Victor would uncover the next piece of his destiny.
He paused before a workbench cluttered with jars. Old preserves. Samples. Bottles of chemical reagents, long forgotten.
His eyes settled on a small ceramic dish, sealed with wax. The label, barely legible, read: Penicillium notatum – 1917 – Cambridge.
Victor's heart quickened. He had seen the name in medical history texts—a species of mold discovered to have antimicrobial properties. But in 1920, it remained a curiosity, not yet the miracle it would become.
He reached out. His fingers brushed the rim.
The world vanished.
White walls. Stainless steel. The sterile hum of a modern laboratory. Huge glass fermenters bubbled with golden broth. Lines of technicians monitored dials and valves. A centrifuge spun at dizzying speed. Filtration systems hissed with precision. Victor understood it all instantly:
The careful control of temperature and pH.
The secret of corn steep liquor to supercharge mold growth.
The centrifuge cycle that separated the mold from its miracle compound.
The precise solvent that crystallized penicillin from a muddy brew into a stable powder.
He saw its applications: staving off gangrene, curing pneumonia, halting the horrors of syphilis. He saw black-market vials. Military shipments. Hospital wards cheering as the dying rose from their beds.
Then darkness. The cellar returned.
Victor staggered back, breath caught in his chest.
He had it. The knowledge to make penicillin—decades ahead of time.
By noon, he was in the study with Gérard.
"I need a building. Quiet. With steam, water, and isolation."
The old man arched a brow. "You intend to make explosives, monsieur?"
"No. Something far more powerful."
Victor outlined his plan in simple terms: a lab focused on fermentation, growing molds for medical testing. Nothing illegal, he assured. Just secret. Gérard, unflinching, promised to secure a suitable site near Leuven.
Then came letters. Discreet inquiries to chemistry professors. Offers of quiet employment. All disguised as agricultural research into mold resistance. And with it, the first wave of expenses.
Victor unlocked part of his inheritance—100,000 francs—and moved it under a new business name: Delcroix Biologique.
Two weeks later, in a brick warehouse on the outskirts of town, the work began. Flask by flask, culture by culture, Victor guided the process. He drew what he had seen. Designed what he remembered. Directed his small team with uncanny precision.
The first test? A rabbit, wounded and infected. Without the compound, it would have died.
With it, the wound closed in days.
Elise Delange stood in the doorway, staring at the animal.
"That shouldn't be possible."
Victor didn't look up. "But it is. And we haven't even optimized the yield yet."
She stepped closer, voice hushed. "Do you have any idea what this means?"
"Yes."
"People will kill for this."
He finally looked at her. "Then we'll stay hidden until they need us more than they fear us."
But penicillin was only one piece of the puzzle.
Victor spent his nights plotting further. The Congo awaited, and it was no longer just a colonial investment—it was a blank slate, a future nation-in-waiting. He mapped out a route from Antwerp to Boma, then up the Congo River to Léopoldville. He would need resources, equipment, engineers, linguists, and local allies. And most of all, he needed capital that could outpace the inflation and uncertainty still roiling postwar Europe.
He summoned Gérard again.
"I want you to travel to Zürich and then to New York. Quietly. There are brokers who handle discreet foreign investments."
"Monsieur?"
"We will invest in the future. American companies—General Motors, RCA, IBM, Coca-Cola. Blue chips. I want positions in all of them. And I want leverage. Use the estate's assets as collateral where possible. Our risk tolerance is not modest."
"You believe the American market will rise?"
Victor looked him dead in the eye. "It will roar."
Gérard nodded gravely. "And when should I begin?"
"Tomorrow. The sooner we act, the greater our gains."
Victor handed him a sealed envelope containing detailed instructions and a list of target stocks, complete with allocation ratios that would have stunned any 1920s financier.
Each thread he pulled was part of a larger tapestry.
In the Congo, he would bring engineering and medicine. In Europe, he would cultivate wealth and legitimacy. And behind all of it, he wielded a power no one else had—the ability to see twenty years ahead.
Victor stood once more at the window of the drawing room, watching the rain wash the streets below.
Let others play at rebuilding a broken world.
He would build a new one.
Chapter 6: Into the Heart
The harbor at Antwerp steamed under a heavy spring sky. Cranes groaned above the loading docks, while gulls circled the tall masts and black smokestacks of ocean-going steamers. Victor Delcroix stood on the gangway of the SS Albertville, coat buttoned high against the wind, a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. Beside him, Gérard stood composed as ever, overseeing the careful loading of four trunks labeled "Scientific Equipment" and "Missionary Supplies."
Neither label told the truth.
Inside were microscopes, pressure gauges, sterile containers, and notebooks filled with diagrams from a future that did not yet exist. Penicillin samples. Engineering blueprints. Maps. And one sealed case containing correspondence to be hand-delivered to the managing director of the Société Coloniale in Léopoldville.
Victor's gloved hand tightened on the railing. The Congo awaited.
The voyage took nearly three weeks. Down the Atlantic coast, past Lisbon and Dakar, and finally eastward toward the equator. Victor spent the journey reviewing every document Gérard had assembled—reports on productivity, maps of mineral deposits, internal memos riddled with euphemisms for corruption. The company had grown lazy, bloated on cheap labor and rubber profits. But the future demanded more.
Each night, Victor read from a coded journal—a masterplan of reforms, technologies, and staged disruptions. Sanitation projects. Modular rail systems. Crop rotation schemes. Incentives for local labor, paid in coin and not lashes. These were not dreams. They were blueprints.
And he would enforce them with ruthless precision.
Léopoldville struck him first by sound: the constant thrum of insects and the sudden sharp laughter of children. The port bustled with activity—river barges unloading crates of copper ore, missionaries handing out gospel tracts, colonial officers fanning themselves in white uniforms. Heat pressed down like a living thing.
Victor stepped ashore flanked by Gérard and Elise Delange, who had insisted on accompanying him. Her reasons were layered: business oversight, moral curiosity, and perhaps a need to see the empire's engine with her own eyes.
They were met by a sweating man in a linen suit.
"Monsieur Delcroix? I am Henri Vos, managing director. Welcome to Léopoldville."
Victor shook his hand firmly. "Let's not waste time. I'd like to see the books."
Vos blinked, caught off guard. "The books, monsieur?"
"All of them. Today. Then tomorrow we begin site visits. Mines, plantations, rail yards. Everything."
Elise smirked behind her parasol.
The offices of the Société Coloniale were a relic of empire: dark teak furniture, framed photographs of past directors, maps marked with colored pins. Victor stood before the senior staff three days later, after back-to-back inspections and endless interviews.
"I've seen enough," he said.
The room hushed.
"You run your operations like it's 1850. Bribery, waste, and rot at every level. That ends today. Starting now, wages will be paid in silver francs. Housing will be upgraded. Sanitation is no longer optional. We're founding three new schools for local children. And all floggings end immediately. Anyone disobeys—he's on the next steamer back to Belgium."
Vos sputtered. "But sir, discipline—"
"Discipline is earned, not beaten," Victor snapped. "We need a workforce. Not a revolt."
He let the silence hang.
Then, calmly: "You will also prepare to integrate three new divisions: Biomedical Production, Engineering Services, and Local Trade Partnerships. The first lab is already under construction in Belgium. The second will be built here. The third begins when I find the right Congolese partners."
A stunned pause.
Elise spoke softly. "I suggest you all take notes."
That evening, Victor stood on a balcony overlooking the Congo River. The jungle stretched beyond, dense and unknowable. But he no longer feared it. He respected it.
Behind him, lights flickered in the administrative offices as staff worked late. Gérard brought a glass of water and placed it silently beside him.
"Progress?"
Victor nodded. "Reform. And soon, construction. Then exports. Then science."
He held up a small vial—the first penicillin dose produced in Belgium.
"One day," he said, "this little thing will save more lives than the colony ever took."
Gérard nodded. "Then let us begin."
Chapter 7: The Fever Road
The jungle breathed with heat and shadow. Victor Delcroix stepped carefully along the wooden platform that led through the construction camp, swatting at clouds of mosquitoes that danced in the humid air. Around him, the Congo moved—men shouted over the grind of gears and the thud of timber, carts rumbled with gravel, and steam hissed from generators imported from Europe. Foundations were being laid, both literal and ideological.
But not all was progress.
Behind the rows of tents, coughing could be heard. Fevered moans. Too many were falling ill.
Malaria.
It struck without warning—laborers, engineers, even a visiting surveyor from Brussels. Within days of arrival, some were bedridden. Some didn't rise again.
Victor stood beside a cot where a boy no older than fifteen lay shivering. His skin burned with fever, his breathing shallow.
"He arrived just three days ago," the nurse whispered. "It spreads like wind through canvas."
Victor said nothing. He looked down at the child, jaw set, fists clenched.
That evening, alone in his quarters, he unlocked the travel trunk he had kept under guard since leaving Belgium. From it, he retrieved a small wooden box wrapped in oilcloth. Inside was a single brass instrument—a crude hypodermic prototype from a 19th-century expedition kit.
He placed his fingers against the worn metal.
The flash came swiftly.
Laboratories with controlled temperature systems. Blood samples under scanning microscopes. Antimalarial compounds labeled with names he only vaguely recognized: chloroquine, artemisinin, tafenoquine. He saw the synthesis processes. Cold storage protocols. Experimental vaccine trials. Genetic manipulation of Anopheles mosquitoes. The map of a decades-long war against disease.
And behind it, a single truth:
This would not be solved in a month.
Victor sat back, trembling. The vision had shown him many tools—but no single answer. Not yet. Progress would be layered. Each breakthrough a stepping stone. But for now, he had a formula—chloroquine. And he understood it well enough to replicate.
Work on the lab intensified. A new wing was added to the Léopoldville facility, dedicated to pharmaceutical production. Victor's chemists, handpicked from Belgium's best universities, were given new assignments. Confidential. Urgent.
Within a month, the first batch of synthetic antimalarials rolled off the line.
He kept it quiet. Distributed only to his own staff and trusted local workers. And the effect was immediate. Where fever once decimated work crews, now there was recovery. Survivors.
Rumors spread quickly.
A white powder that shielded against the jungle's wrath. A new "protective spirit." Some called it a miracle. Others, a trick.
Victor called it Phase One.
As the dry season waned, Elise joined him on a riverside walk, the sounds of the worksite behind them like the echo of a rising empire.
"You haven't stopped," she said.
"I can't. Not while the death carts still roll through camp."
"You've done more in three months than most do in a lifetime. You've saved lives."
"Not enough."
He looked out at the water.
"I saw what's possible. We'll need vaccines. We'll need years of data, generations of resistance. But one day, malaria will be remembered like smallpox. A word in books. Not a sentence on a grave."
Elise was silent for a moment. Then: "You don't just want to build a company."
"No," he said softly. "I want to free a continent."
In the months that followed, Victor devoted a portion of every resource to medical advancement. He ordered refrigeration units installed in every outpost. Began groundwork on a research hospital in Léopoldville. Initiated long-term studies. And he knew—this path would take years.
But he had time.
He had vision.
And he had already seen what the world could become, if only someone dared to fight for it.
Chapter 8: The Laboratory of Gold
Léopoldville shimmered with heat, but inside the stone walls of the new Delcroix Biomedical Facility, the air was cool, clean, and electric with purpose. For weeks, Victor had pushed the construction forward with relentless urgency. Steel beams, reinforced walls, imported generators, and a gravity-fed water cooling system—the best that colonial logistics could build in the span of months.
And now, the lab was finished.
Victor stood at the center of it, watching as glass beakers hissed and centrifuges whirred. A team of twelve chemists and technicians, both Belgian and Congolese, moved between workstations in quiet concentration. On the far table, six vials of golden powder were neatly arranged. Each one held the first stable batches of penicillin produced entirely on Congolese soil.
"Run the assay again," Victor said.
Elise, in a white coat and gloves, looked up. "Already done. Purity's stable. We're ready."
Victor allowed himself a breath.
"Then we begin."
The first shipments went to discreet doctors in Léopoldville, Brazzaville, and Matadi. Cases of sepsis. Infected wounds. Childbirth complications. The results were beyond miraculous—they were transformative. One by one, patients on death's edge recovered in days.
Word spread like wildfire.
By the third week, a Catholic mission wrote to request bulk orders. By the fourth, a military hospital in Angola sent a courier with a chest of silver.
The local press caught wind of it. "La Poudre de Vie," they called it. The Powder of Life.
Victor allowed a single article to be printed in Brussels, anonymously citing a new private research venture in Central Africa. He included carefully chosen testimonials. The response was instantaneous: inquiries from medical institutions, industrialists, colonial offices, and two representatives from Paris who offered to buy out the company outright.
He declined them all.
By mid-month, Victor stood before a gathering of his inner staff. Behind him, a chalkboard covered in numbers.
"This facility is producing 30 vials a day. In three months, that becomes 150. Once we establish a second lab in Katanga, we double output again."
He tapped the board.
"Each vial costs us 8 francs to produce. We're selling them for 90. By summer, this operation alone will out-earn every mine we own."
Elise whistled softly. "You turned mold into gold."
Victor smiled. "Now we turn it into power."
Victor traveled to Belgium within the month.
In Brussels, the polished corridors of the Banque de Bruxelles echoed under his measured footsteps. The banker who greeted him was cool, skeptical.
"We don't often grant loans to ventures so... geographically distant."
Victor slid a packet across the desk. Production logs. Patient testimonies. Gross revenue. A letter of endorsement from the Governor-General of the Congo.
"This company is not a risk. It's the future of medicine."
The banker opened a letter from a Parisian hospital. Then one from the Vatican.
He frowned. Then smiled.
"And what do you offer as collateral, monsieur?"
"The company itself. Delcroix Biologique. Valued conservatively at three million francs and growing."
They signed the papers that afternoon.
Victor left with the largest private credit line the bank had ever extended to a colonial enterprise.
Back in Léopoldville, the wheels of industry turned faster. Construction resumed on the dam and the rail project. Orders were placed for a second biomedical plant in Katanga. And Delcroix Biologique became a beacon of science in a continent too long exploited and too rarely invested in.
But Victor knew it was only the beginning.
Because penicillin was just the first miracle.
And now, he had the means to unleash many more.