Carlos stared at the documents on his desk in the mayor's office, but his attention was divided. Before him, three figures marked the evolution of the young Republic: Specter, the Army Commander, wore the new field uniform with a certain stiffness—a practical olive-green outfit he still seemed to find uncomfortable, adjusting the collar from time to time. Beside him, Fernanda, the Minister of Labor, in her long black dress that accentuated her austere and professional posture. And completing the trio, Quixotina, the Minister of Education, whose impeccable white shirt and red skirt seemed to reflect the fire contained in her scarlet eyes. The air in the room was thick, heavy with the scent of official paper and a faint trace of road sweat that still clung to Specter's boots.

  It was Specter who broke the silence, his deep and direct voice echoing in the simply furnished room.

  "Chief, the initial attacks on the sugar mills in the region were successful. We liberated eleven estates. In total, over eight hundred people were freed from slavery."

  Carlos felt a genuine smile form on his lips. It was good news, a concrete relief amidst the whirlwind of responsibilities.

  "Excellent. More free citizens means more hands for the Republic. With the new repeating arms and ammunition factory about to open, and the steam engines arriving for the paper, flour, chocolate, sugar factories... work won't be lacking. We need to build quickly."

  Fernanda intervened before the optimism could spread, her voice a meticulous and necessary counterpoint.

  "Just a reminder, Chief. Of these 872 freed individuals, our surveys indicate only 27 have any specific skills—a blacksmith, two midwives, some carpenters. And none know how to read or write. After the last accident at the chemical factory, selection and training need to be extremely strict. We cannot put uneducated people near dangerous machines."

  Carlos sighed internally. Can't I even have a minute of joy without a bucket of cold water?

  "I know, Fernanda. We're already getting some of the first ones who passed the basic grade-level exams."

  "And half of those who passed were directed to teaching," added Fernanda, crossing her arms.

  Quixotina leaned forward, her fingers lightly drumming on the table.

  "And they are sorely needed, Fernanda. The current teachers are overloaded. They teach day and night, to classes of forty students or more, with chalk and blackboards we can barely replace. We are at our limit."

  Carlos observed the exchange. In that aspect, we're not so different from the Brazil of my world... Except here, the teachers have decent salaries. And perhaps that's why so many graduates are choosing to work as teachers, so they don't risk their lives in the factories. After that factory accident, the fear of working with machines is greater than the fear of teaching.

  "The issue of supplies will be resolved soon," he said, addressing Quixotina. "The steam engines for paper manufacturing are being installed. In a few months, the shortage of books and notebooks will be history." He then turned back to Specter, his smile returning. "So, can we consider the attacks a complete operational success?"

  "Yes, Chief," affirmed Specter, a glint of raw satisfaction in his eyes. "The new tactic worked better than expected. The nitrocellulose grenades cause immense psychological damage. And Silvestre's help was decisive."

  "Hey, don't forget my part!" chimed in Quixotina, making a fake pout at the Commander.

  Specter gave her a brief nod. "Of course not, Minister. Your precision with grenade throwing was also vital."

  Carlos took advantage of the slight easing of tension to make a transition. He looked directly at Fernanda.

  "Fernanda, thank you for the detailed report. Please begin drafting a labor integration plan for these new citizens, with a focus on safety. You are dismissed."

  The tone, though polite, was final. Everyone in the room noticed the shift. Fernanda, professional as always, merely nodded, gathered her papers with a soft rustle, and left the room, the sound of her shoes on the wooden hallway echoing until it faded.

  When the door closed, the atmosphere in the room grew heavier. Carlos picked up one of Specter's reports, flipping to a specific page. His face lost its light expression.

  "Commander, here in the report of the attack on the Paraíso Plantation, you mention the death of the plantation owner and also his wife, who was in the main house."

  Specter remained erect, his face a model of military composure.

  "Correct, Chief."

  "Slavery is a heinous crime, Specter. I have no doubts about that. But is the criminal's wife necessarily an accomplice? Couldn't she have been brought here? The accounts of the freed people themselves could have exonerated or condemned her. Justice, not the bullet, should decide."

  Specter took a deep breath, staying calm. When he spoke, his voice was firm but laden with a dark conviction.

  "We remained in an observation position the entire morning and afternoon, Chief. The men's morale was beginning to drop with the heat, and every minute increased the risk of detection. There was... a detail I omitted from the report as it seemed irrelevant to the tactical outcome." He paused, and Carlos saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. "In the sugarcane field, under a scorching sun, a pregnant woman, at least eight months along, collapsed from exhaustion and pain. The overseer... did not just force her to get up. He whipped her. On the belly, on the back. As she screamed. And the main house, with its open windows, remained silent. No one intervened. Not the master, not the mistress. Any human being who allows, who tolerates that under their roof, Chief... has forfeited the right to a trial, in my opinion. They deserved the same fate as the executioner."

  Carlos closed his eyes for a moment. The image was vivid, painful. Truly, someone like that might deserve death. But life is never black and white...

  "I understand your anger, Specter. I share it. But we have to be careful with assumptions. At the plantation I came from, the master's wife was also beaten by her drunk husband. Their son was beaten. She was a shadow, terrified. The first time I heard her use her voice was to beg for Tassi to receive food again—and she only did it because Father Ant?nio, who is now with us, pressured her and the plantation owner. Was she a slave owner? Yes. But she was also a hostage. A woman in that situation might not have had a voice to stop a whipping, even if she wanted to. Perhaps the situation at the Paraíso mill was similar."

  Specter opened his mouth to retort, but Carlos raised his hand, a pacifying yet firm gesture.

  "With all due respect, Commander, I heard you. And I'm not saying you acted wrongly. Under the conditions you described, with such brutality happening in plain sight of the house, swift action was probably correct. What I'm saying is we cannot become universal judges and executioners. Our republic is built on laws, even if we are still writing them. And details like this—" he tapped his finger on the report "—are not irrelevant. They are fundamental. They are the 'why' of our 'how.' This needs to be recorded. Always."

  Specter held his gaze for a second, then lowered his head in a solemn nod. The uniform seemed to weigh heavier on his shoulders.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Understood, Chief. This will not happen again. I thought the mission's success was enough... but I understand the need for the complete context."

  Despite still not fully grasping the need for so much bureaucracy and paperwork, Specter had reached a point where he trusted Carlos. The proof was in the weapons the Chief provided: the muskets that had revolutionized combat, and now these new nitrocellulose grenades, so much more powerful and reliable than the old black powder ones. If Carlos demanded detailed reports, there was a reason.

  Carlos perceived the genuine submission behind the formality. Specter was learning to deal with more than just military tactics.

  "Good. And speaking of reports and absences..." Carlos's voice changed tone, becoming drier, and his gaze turned to Quixotina.

  She, who had been observing the debate with interest, seemed to shrink slightly in her chair, her fingers playing with the edge of the table.

  "...in the middle of the elementary school exam period, our Minister of Education disappears. Leaves a letter on the desk and vanishes to join attacks on plantations."

  Quixotina looked down at her own hands before murmuring a reply.

  "I... didn't know I had to file a report for every single thing I do outside of here..."

  "You didn't know?" Carlos's question came laden with gentle irony. "From a freed person who never had access to a pencil, I would understand. But you, Lady Quixotina, were a noble. You know how to read, write, understand the workings of a kingdom better than I, certainly. You are intelligent. Very intelligent. You knew perfectly well I wouldn't let you go, so you opted for the letter instead of asking me directly."

  Quixotina lifted her face, her scarlet eyes meeting Carlos's with a mix of surprise and defiance. The compliment embedded in the reprimand had caught her off guard.

  "Am I that predictable to you?"

  Carlos couldn't help a small smile, breaking some of the severity.

  "We are friends, Quixotina. I haven't known you for decades, but I've already learned to read some of your signals. I know you have the heart of a knight, that you don't want to be locked between four walls, even though you love what you do. And I need that energy of yours. But I need it here too. Hold on a little longer. Train the new teachers, delegate. When we have a more solid structure, you'll have more freedom. Right now, each minister is vital at their post. I myself had to cover some of your absences, while still designing schematics for the new factory machines. A steam engine doesn't make paper by itself; it needs adaptations, adjustments... and I'm the only one who truly knows how they work at that level of detail."

  He then looked at Specter, including him in the conclusion.

  "And you, Commander. Next time a sitting minister feels the call of the battlefield, you check with me before turning them into an adventure captain. Is that clear?"

  "Perfectly clear, Chief!" said Specter, clicking his heels.

  "Yes, Carlos," replied Quixotina, her voice softer, genuinely contrite.

  "Then you are both dismissed."

  Specter turned with military precision and left the room. Quixotina, however, remained standing, hesitant. Carlos watched her, one eyebrow slightly raised.

  "Carlos," she began, her fingers tracing an invisible pattern on the wooden table. "I really am sorry. It wasn't out of irresponsibility or just to... have fun. I wanted to help. And besides fighting, I helped Silvestre with the aerial mappings. I think I can be useful in that too."

  She stepped forward and placed on the desk a roll of parchment thicker than the reports. Carlos unrolled it carefully. It was a map. The precision of the lines, the clarity of the annotations in elegant handwriting, the details of the terrain and waterways... it was a masterpiece of cartography.

  Wow, thought Carlos, impressed. She really draws well. Is there anything this woman can't do?

  "Thank you, Quixotina. This is invaluable. Little by little, we're building a reliable cartography of the region..." His eyes fixed on the map, and then a memory struck him. "Speaking of which..."

  He leaned over, opened a heavy drawer in his desk, and pulled out several other maps, unfolding them on the already cluttered desk. The smell of aged paper and faded ink filled the space between them.

  "I bought these from traveling merchants in recent weeks. I was so bogged down with projects I didn't even have time to study them properly."

  Quixotina moved closer, her curiosity evident. Her gaze swept over the drawings with the same avidity as Carlos's, analyzing coasts, rivers, hand-drawn borders. Carlos, for his part, focused on one map in particular, one that claimed to show the Captaincy of Pernambuco and its surroundings. His face, initially interested, twisted into an expression of deep confusion.

  "Wait a minute..." he murmured, running his finger over the coastal outline. "This... this isn't right. This doesn't look anything like the shape of Pernambuco. I know the captaincies were large, but the coastline... the coastline is completely different."

  Realizing his own ignorance about the exact geography of this era, he began to sift through the other maps, those that showed the whole "Brazil," or what the cartographers called Brazil. One after another, they all presented the same strange continent, a landmass with a vague resemblance to the one he knew but with distorted proportions, a more pronounced eastern "horn," bays in the wrong places... and islands. Islands too large, marked near the coast.

  "Did all these merchants sell us fake maps?" Carlos asked, more to himself, a touch of disbelief in his voice.

  Quixotina shook her head slowly, her eyes now also filled with doubt as she compared the map she had made with the purchased ones.

  "No... I don't think so. My uncle used to show me maps of the new world, old maps full of mythical creatures and lost golden cities. In all of them, Brazil had... this shape."

  A sudden, intense chill ran down Carlos's spine. It was as if the solid cement floor beneath his feet had turned to quicksand. The final piece of a puzzle he had feared assembling since his first day in this world clicked into place with an almost audible snap.

  With movements that seemed mechanical, he sifted through the disordered pile. His fingers, slightly trembling, found what he was looking for: a smaller map, wrapped in protective cloth, the most expensive and supposedly most accurate in his small collection—a map of Europe.

  He unfolded it with a mixture of dread and absolute necessity. The cloth fell to the floor, ignored. His eyes scanned the paper, searching for landmarks, familiar shapes. What he saw froze the blood in his veins. The air seemed to leave the room.

  It was not Europe. It was not the Iberian Peninsula with its recognizable shape, nor the characteristic "boot" of the Italian Peninsula, nor the British Isles in their known position. There was a Mediterranean Sea, yes, a blue mass snaking between lands. But the continents around it were misshapen, grotesquely unrecognizable. The region that should have been the Italian Peninsula was an amorphous, distorted protrusion, looking more like a crooked hammer than a boot. "France" looked melted. The "Iberian Peninsula" was swollen, disproportionate.

  This was not an alternate land where history had taken a different turn. It wasn't an "what if." The physical geography, the very shape of the continents, was different. It was a different world. A distinct planet.

  But then..., his thoughts whirled in a silent, terrifying vortex. Why are there Portugal, Brazil, Spain? Why do we speak Portuguese? Why do the names, the institutions, even to some extent the history... seem so familiar? What happened here?

  "Carlos?" Quixotina's voice sounded as if from far away, muffled by the roar of despair in his ears. He barely registered it. His world had narrowed to that piece of paper that contradicted everything. "What's wrong? You've gone pale."

  Carlos didn't answer. His eyes, glassy, jumped from the impossible map of "Europe" to Quixotina's face, full of genuine concern, and back to the map. His hand, now visibly trembling, rose and pointed to the blob of land that should have been the Italian Peninsula.

  "Quixotina..." his voice came out hoarse, a dry whisper that barely filled the space between them. "This region... this peninsula here. What is it called? What do the maps say?"

  She looked at him, then at the map, confused by the question but seeing the urgency in him. With a slight frown, her index finger, clean and delicate, touched the exact point on the deformed peninsula. Her eyes scanned the nearby legend before answering.

  "Here. It says... 'Italy.' It refers to the peninsula as a whole. It's quite clear."

  "Italy." The name was the same. But the shape... the shape was a geographical nightmare. Carlos followed the line of her finger to the paper, then fixed his gaze again on her eyes, searching for any sign of doubt. He found only sincerity and growing alarm. The reality—the new, vast, and terrifying reality—settled on his shoulders with the crushing weight of an unknown world.

  His lips moved, forming words that barely had sound, laden with a primordial disorientation.

  "But what...?" he whispered, the world around him blurring. The office, the maps, Quixotina... everything seemed to recede. The final question, the one he had always fully avoided asking, echoed in his mind and almost spilled over into the empty room: "Where... where AM I?"