Before Kaiser Fate had formed an empire; before he had unified the German states, Europe, the world under one flag; Igor Mikhail Koslov had been a respected man.
Born into a family of six brothers and three sisters, Igor had been lost somewhere in the middle and largely disregarded by his parents. Unperterbed, he had simply retreated into books.
By the age of eighteen, Igor had graduated with a degree of Advanced Mechanics from Lomonosov Moscow State University, and over the next two years his thesis on Humanoid Robotic Movement had won him the title of "Doctor". Igor used it sparingly, for once upon a time he had been a humble creature and thought it a pretentious title.
Unsatisfied with the facilities that Russia had to offer, Igor chose to move to Prussia, the richest state in Europe, at the age of twenty five.
Kaiser Hector Fé Tournier, the English-born king of Prussia and the German states, had been so impressed by Igor's work that he sponsored him several times over the course of the next decade.
With the Kaiser's grants, Igor had set up Koslov Laboratories, the most successful Robotics industry in Eurasia, in the year 1980.
Three years later, Victor Fé Tournier was born, and jubilation reigned throughout Prussia. The new Prince Regent had his father's eyes, and the country expected only greatness from him.
Igor, in particular, would soon be entangled deeply in the Prince Regent's destiny.

***

Victor was eleven when he first began visiting Igor in 1994. In 1991, Koslov Laboratories had been bought by an American tycoon by the name of Christian Martins and was now known as Koslov Industries - a mere subsidiary of Martins Incorporated.
Igor had only been too happy to sign the contract. The money he received for the control of the facility and its employees was vast, and Igor was now able to focus purely on his own personal studies in a specially designed laboratory.
The 'Koslov Lab', as the Prussian villagers had dubbed it, was only a short walk away from the Prussian Imperial Mansion where Victor lived.
At first Igor had assumed that Victor had come to see him for an interest in his research, but rather, all Victor wanted was an escape.
The truth of the Fé Tournier family - one of violence, abuse and alcoholism - was known to precious few, and Igor had become one of that group.
Igor's words of comfort to Victor fell on deaf ears - the poor boy seemed to have been robbed of the ability to connect with others - though this was lost on Igor. Often would the balding, beak-nosed Russian recount his own family history as an attempt at consolation, though even he knew what he had experienced of his parents' ignorance was nothing compared to the hell that young Victor endured every single day.
It became routine. At nine in the morning, Victor would let himself into Igor's mansion with his own key, head directly to the Robotics laboratory and begin work. By the time Igor had washed, dressed and had his breakfast, Victor would have completed the work his so-called 'mentor' had failed to finish the night before, and had already moved on to his own experiments.
Igor came to regard Victor with a deep admiration, and the boy reminded him very much of himself - if far less social - when he was that age.
Kaiser Hector was only too happy to entrust Igor as the boy's mentor. The Kaiser trusted Igor, though there were two reasons he condoned the ritual.
Publicly, he wanted his son to be educated by a world-renowned legend of science and become a genius.
Privately, he wanted Victor out of his sight.
Igor had known Victor - more personally, perhaps, than his own family - for fifteen years, and in that time, he had never seen the Kaiser shed a tear.
Though he had come to consider himself as a father figure to Victor (a delusion that was totally unrequited), Igor eventually found himself questioning in recent years whether Victor - Kaiser Fate, as he was now known - had indeed ever felt emotion.
The day Hatticus vanished, he got his answer.

***

Hatticus' chamber was the most brightly coloured room in the Kaiserian Headquarters. Adorned with lavish purple curtains, a red carpet, marble pillars and an unnaturally high cieling, it was the architectural equivalent of Hatticus itself: an etherial slice of myth that did not belong in this world.
Igor chose never to venture within the room, whether Hatticus was present within its halls or not. It scared him to his very core, for it was the resting place of the one force on Earth that proudly violated every scientific fact in the known universe.
This may put into context how powerful a feat it was, spiritually and mentally, for Igor to launch himself running down the hall of Hatticus' chamber to the Kaiser's aid.
That morning, Igor had planned to meet with the Kaiser with other high-ranking members of the Scientists' Guild to debrief him on exactly what had happened at Sierrienna Institute.
Otherwise he would not have been close enough to hear the Kaiser scream in pain.
By the time Igor had reached Kaiser Fate, Prussia's 'man of steel' was hunched over, crying, cradling that dreaded top-hat in his arms like a mother defiantly holding a stillborn foetus.
Once the Kaiser's moan of devastation had died, he slowly and deliberately turned to Igor, still clutching the hat to his chest.
"Igor..." The Kaiser's voice was unnaturally low and hoarse, like a swarm of wasps locked in an iron chest. "Igor, Hatticus... it... it is not..."
Igor loathed Hatticus, this was no secret. It was the cause of much resentment from the Kaiser. He knew what Hatticus had been doing to Victor as a child. The only reason he had never told anyone was because back then, people would have thought he was mad.
Igor waited for the magic word. It is not alive? It is not with us? He secretly longed for the thing to be dead.
"It is not speaking to me..."
The fact that Kaiser Fate's eyes had been replaced with cameras was irrelevant. For the first time in his life, Victor Fé Tournier looked Igor directly in the eyes.