I was missing my election party to stand in a Russian winter and if I haven't made it clear before, I absolutely hate Russia's weather. It was thirty two degrees and my overly sensitive sense of temperature did not enjoy it at all. "This is troubling," I said, standing on the street next to President Konstantin Dubinin.

"I apologize," Konstantin said, "I wish it were cleaner."

There was still blood in the slush of Moscow's street, even as we and an honor guard of Hydra guards walked with us. The earlier riots had been messy, disorganized, and we'd sent in agents to mess it up. They'd picked a fight with the Moscow police, who were in turn able to drive them out. "Can't you raise wages more?"

"The problem is deeper than one employer's cheapness," Konstantin said, sighing as he marched along in his Russian coat. "The research boom has crested, now people who get the treatment get paid like college graduates and college graduates get paid like high school and so forth. It is all pure economic logic."

Pure economic logic was no excuse for failure to handle their domestic affairs. If I had to deal with this forever, we were never going to conquer the world. "We don't have this sort of problem in Pakistan or Brazil, Konstantin, and they just overthrew their own governments. It is not as if the Russian people are legendarily rebellious. Just make the numbers go up, do what it takes."

"They are angry because other people don't think they're worth enough, but they are not worth enough. No one will pay them more, not for yet another Osiris graduate."

Konstantin's excuses were pathetic. "You have free energy, excellent educations, and a miracle cure for ninety percent of human ailments, and you couldn't stop them from rioting in the streets for better wages." I kept my hands tucked in my pockets against the cold, the only thing keeping me from pointing my finger in the face of the President of Russia.

"They are angry that I couped Putin, angry that I haven't held elections, angry that their wages are declining in relative value, angry at friends they've lost to Osiris. But somebody still must sweep the streets and clean the toilets, another PhD in plumbing will not solve the problem."

I smelled the blood copper on the air and wondered if the problem was in fact being solved. "Should I take the Attilan royal family out of Siberia? Are you going to lose control there too?"

"No," Konstantin grumbled, his burly shoulders sulking at my tone. Being in charge was nice. "They're quite safe. The sleeping beauties are sleeping quite fine, even if they wake up, they are quite isolated and there is only a two way communicator with the capital, so they could call and talk to you if they did."

A limo pulled up and a member of our guard rushed to open the door for us.

"Alright, good. Tell me good news. How's suppression going?" I said, stepping into a limo. The warmth was a huge relief to me, creeping into my skin and body.

Konstantin managed a smirk as he stepped inside, "Your false flag rallies were a wise move. Our security forces were able to sweep up thousands through Facebook groups and such."

"Good," I said.

"And we kept the cameras clear from the area, downed their phones signals just like you said. A few made it home, uploaded from there, but we caught it before it got too much spread. The movements are losing momentum, less people are joining them beneath the suffocating blanket."

I leaned back in the seat and pried my hands out of my pockets, taking off the thick gloves that were gracing them. "So we're getting to being in the clear," I said, feeling the relief unspool the wire in my stomach. If Russia failed as an experiment, we were going to have real problems. I didn't honestly have a back up plan to the model of improvement we were doing there – Education, energy, health, and a truly massive amount of subsidized entertainment were basically the only way forward for us. It was unfortunate that this wave had sprung up, but if we could practice our counter-propaganda and information disassembly, we could continue to put down movements like this and do so in better, smoother ways each time. There was still plenty of time to master the strategies we would need and, with the benefits of the all-seeing eyes of SWORD, we could keep a track on things.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Things are looking up, though we could use more funds to ease the economic situation."

"We are reaching the limit of my clout in the U.S.," I said, "And Europe isn't interested in bailing you out. We have money going to emmulate the farming techniques of Attilan, which should make food here and elsewhere cheaper."

Konstantin scowled, "They are not starving. They still receive a wage."

"Well, it isn't as if we can subsidize the whole country's wages from debt," in fact, as a coup government, Konstantin had a bit more trouble receiving it. "You could expropriate some of your oligarchs. You could simply mandate a wage increase."

Konstantin shook his head, "The ones who opposed us, we already did that. The wages are as high as I can push them without a backlash from them."

"You need to manage to hold onto this for two more years," I said, rubbing my hands red to warm up from the call. "Until Hydra gets control of the first world's excess production, we're not going to be able to subsidize whole countries, especially not ones as large as Russia. Once that happens, we'll be clear sailing."

"It is difficult."

Why did I have subordinates who thought ruling the world would be easy? One of the problems with ruling through people like Konstantin is that while he was an expert in palace intrigue and not actually that great at public politics. I suppose you could say the same about me, but at least I had enough brain in my skull to know to raise wages. "I understand that, Konstantin. Even Tsar Nicholas the Second managed to beat the revolution of 1905, Konstantin. He ruled for twelve more years – You only need to make it two. Ensure that the FSB is sufficiently funded, run infiltrators, keep me updated, but do not expect to float on Hydra's ticket. You must manage to appear to be doing what the people want, at the very least, and preferably to actually do it. Do not be afraid to burn a few assets in the service of this goal. After all, if you fail, you will have nothing. Hydra will have nothing. We are counting on you."

I looked at my phone and saw the number rolling in from the midterms. For some god-forsaken reason the Republicans had managed to take back the house - At least Ellis had managed to contribute to navigating the uplift in America. The House Republicans hadn't had any power for six years. I sighed and looked out over the wintry, slushy Russian streets. No matter how much better people's lives were because of you, they couldn't learn to be thankful.

In the next weeks, the riots in Russia would calm down and Konstantin would find his feet as a sympathetic public figure, so I was spared having to completely restructure my plan. But we were more careful in our roll out of Osiris thereafter, and the experiment in government subsidies came to an end even in Russia. Sometimes, you had to check your ambitions to achieve your ambitions.