The City of "Soci"

The airspace of Russland, near the city of Sochi

PAVEL DIDN'T KNOW what to do with himself. The old Junkers airliner on a LuftStern flight from Hong Kong to Moskau was packed solid and shuddered in the air like a streetcar. The threadbare economy class seats; the stomach-wrenching stench of microwaved meals; the air hostesses with martyr's smiles on their faces, their unyielding legs swollen from long hours of flight... he'd seen it all on his business trips.

He leafed through a magazine, then listened to the music in his earphones. Doing nothing for ten hours on end could be really exhausting. He couldn't sleep: the seat was too hard and uncomfortable.

Come to think of it, this time he was really unlucky with his seat.

He'd got to sit in the middle. The window seat (to his left) and the one by the aisle (to his right) were taken by two elderly Japanese. An old man and an equally old lady. Both wore floral-pattern shirts, matching pants and those panama hats so beloved by Japanese tourists worldwide.

For some reason, the couple reminded him of two lapdogs, useless and goofy. Plus the cameras, of course. They had even managed to take a picture of themselves in the plane's bathroom.

The old boy absent-mindedly opened a colorful leaflet and peered at its title through his glasses,

Visit Lake Baikal, gem of the Reich!

Tourism operations to Moskau had shrunk 50% over the last couple of years, and so had the reichsmark in comparison to the yen. Japanese tourists were the only hope the Kommissariat had left. Where else was it supposed to get the money from? Industry was on its last legs. St. Petersburg (or should we call it Peterstadt now?) was flooded every summer with groups from the Nippon koku, complete with their panama hats. Tourist guides were run off their feet taking them from Salvador Dali's statue of the Führer all the way to Peterhof and street markets offering swastika-decorated Easter eggs. No one really cared that Operation Barbarossa of July 22 1940 had initially intended to raze St. Petersburg to the ground. There had even been some sort of blueprint detailing the whole procedure. Never mind St. Petersburg! The same Operation Barbarossa had planned to flood Moscow and turn it into a water reserve. They'd had some sick imagination, really. No one would admit this but in fact it felt like half the Führer's entourage had been high on LSD.

The Japanese guy turned the page to the next picture. Palm trees and seaside. A girl in a swimsuit stood on a sandy beach, cocktail in hand.

He turned to Pavel."Gomen kudasai," he grinned, baring a mouthful of teeth. "Excuse me. Do you speak Russisch?"

At any other time Pavel might have pretended not to understand the question. Still, the flight to Moskau was going to be a long one. What difference would it make anyway, if you were stuck in a confined space at thirty thousand feet with two old farts for company? Even they were a Godsend to while away the time.

He smiled. "Konnichiwa, Sensei. How can I help you?"

The old boy pointed at the girl on the picture, burying his fingernail in her ample chest. "Excuse me," he said, butchering the language. "My wife and I will be staying two days in Moscow. And after that we'd like to go to the seaside. I can't decide on a destination. Is the city of Sochi (he pronounced it as Soci) good?"

The plane hit a turbulent patch. The passengers clenched their armrests. Soci! Pavel chuckled to himself. This guy knows what he wants. Very well, then...

He pressed an armrest button. His seat slid backwards.

"If the truth were known, Sochi isn't a place I'd recommend," he said with a deadpan face, glancing at the old man. "It's part of the Reichskommissariat Caucasus. That area suffered a lot during the Twenty-Year War. Service is rubbish. Hotels are refurbished barracks. The sea is still full of drifting mines. Kidnappings of tourists are not uncommon. The local tribesmen often leave their mountains to ambush tourist buses and blow up funiculars. And food is too expensive for what it is. Even corn ears sold by beach vendors — former members of SS Turkic legions — might cost you a good hundred reichsmarks apiece."

The old man nodded. Apparently, he hadn't understood half of it. Still, Pavel wasn't going to switch to German. From his experience, few of the Nippon koku's denizens knew any Hochdeutsch.

He cast a sideways glance at the booklet. The blue sea, the palm trees, the cocktail glasses and the girl, laughing out loud, in her Peenemünde swimsuit. This was a paste-up if ever he'd seen one.

...ONCE AGAIN, THE STENCH of burning flesh filled his nostrils. Pavel saw the dead cities; the black skeletons of the buildings. The smoke drifted low over rivers overflowing with dead bodies. Oh, yes. He still remembered it all.

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By the summer 1984, when the Reich's flags were finally flying over the Urals' defenses as well as both African and South American jungles, the ruling elite of Greater Germany had split. Nobody wanted to acquiesce. The SS wanted to have control over the oil wells, the Wehrmacht wanted to lay its hands on the diamond fields while the Gestapo claimed the U-mines. That would have made any history scholar laugh. Money and luxury: this was every empire's undoing. The hordes of Genghis Khan had crossed the continent from the Chinese steppes to the spires of Polish churches, but the Mongols' imperium had crumbled to nothing. When a warrior is loaded with gold like a donkey, why would he go into battle? All he can dream of is wine and female affections. Similarly, the Reich's military elite had mutated, becoming a financial oligarchy. All of them had joined in the carving up of world resources, even the Navy's Chief Karl Dönitz in his wheelchair, shaking with old age. It was a miracle that the Twenty-Year War hadn't ended in nuclear attacks: the Reich had tested its first A-bomb already in 1944 on the island of Peenemünde. Unfortunately, the air raids had seriously damaged the nuclear power stations. The air there was still buzzing with radiation and Geiger counters were just as commonplace as aircons.

THE OLD GUY JUST WOULDN'T give it a rest. "I wonder if fishing is good in Soci?"

Pavel didn't hear him. The roaring of the plane's turbines had nothing to do with it. He was far away, reminiscing.

The Twenty-Year War had flattened each and every one of the Reichskommissariats: East, Ukraine, Caucasus and Turkestan. Some cities had been luckier than others, emerging relatively unscathed. But Moskau, Kiev and Minsk had turned into battlegrounds. The Reich was devouring itself from the inside while the Nippon koku was getting richer, offering loans to both sides.

And what was the result? The empire's economy was on its last legs. Moskau alone was still braving it out while in the Caucasus, from what he'd heard, local highlanders were swapping lynx pelts for butter. Japan, however, had ballooned like bread dough, its skyscrapers bayoneting the sky, their walls covered in neon signs. Not just in Tokyo but also in Shanghai, Manila and Sydney. The post-war accord had granted Japan half the world. They'd received China and Australia, clipped off Alaska, Seattle and Nevada, and invaded Russland's Far East and Siberia.

Oil, gold and gas — the Japs had jumped at their chance then and they had it all now. In 1970s, the Emperor Hirohito had issued a decree gifting Lake Baikal to the Reich. Moskau girls had wrapped themselves in kimonos; TV screens were absolutely flooded with manga and anime.

This was the real enslavement of the planet, creepy and inconspicuous — no need for tanks or airplanes, only fashion statements. Now the Nippon koku was brimming with money while the only thing the Reich still produced was weapons.

But who were they supposed to sell them to if the world was already conquered?

"Fishing?" Pavel resurfaced from his musings. "Plenty of fish there, Sensei. The sea's seething with them. Take my advice: forget the fishing rod. A machine gun is the thing. Did you watch TV last week? About that mutant shark that attacked a speedboat near Adler, just next to Sochi? Lots of victims that day. And the killer crabs... too much radiation, you see."

The two tourists' panama hats rustled as they exchanged anxious whispers. The fact that they had to lean over him to do so didn't seem to bother them. They hadn't even thought of asking him to swap places. He watched their wrinkled faces: they looked like two Shar-Pei dogs sniffing each other.

Oh, well. They were the master race. As simple as that.

"Arigato gozaimasu," the old man finally managed. "Thank you very much for your help, Sir."

His wife nodded enthusiastically. It didn't look as if she'd understood what the conversation had been about. She sneezed and reached into her handbag — apparently, to get a handkerchief. She rummaged through it, rattling its contents, but never produced anything. Her husband exploded in a bout of dry coughing and pressed a hand to his mouth.

Old age ailments! Now they would start taking pills by the handful. Time to bid his Auf Wiedersehen.

"You're very welcome," he sighed. "Excuse me, may I squeeze past?"

He walked down the aisle. It felt like being stuck inside a giant bee: a buzzing in your head, a stuffed feeling in your ears. The economy class bathroom was as comfortable as a coffin. He'd have liked to know how porn actors ever managed to make out in places like these. It was too small for two guinea pigs to fornicate.

The tap produced a weak trickle of hot water. Pavel splashed some onto his face puffy from lack of sleep. He glanced into the mirror and cringed. Not the best version of him. On the other hand, how are you supposed to look like when you live, eat and sleep your job while the top office is too stingy to afford a business class seat for their expert?

Sunken cheeks, receding temples, a hooked hawk nose and eyes transparent like jelly. Pavel still remembered what he used to look like while a little kid. He'd never been beauty pageant material, and as for his height... never mind. The Führer had made short men popular. All things considered, not too bad.

Pavel reached into his pocket for a disposable razor and gave himself a good shave.

When he returned to his place, the plane was descending. A viscous lump of nausea blocked his throat. The Japanese's seats were empty. They were off on some business of their own.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts," the metallic voice of the air hostess resounded throughout the cabin. "Our flight will land in half an hour. The weather is fine. The air temperature is 95 degrees. According to the local weather report, radiation levels are within safe limits. No need to wear face masks on leaving the airport."

Pavel didn't look in the window. He was fed up with cookie-cutter views.

Two men awaited him on the ground. Despite the heat, they were wearing gray raincoats.

"Welcome to Moskau, Sturmbannführer," the first of them clicked his heels.

The other one reached out to take Pavel's suitcase. Pavel didn't mind.

"Once again, our apologies for having to summon you all the way from Hong Kong," the first one continued. "It must have been a long flight. You need to get some sleep. We'll take you to the hotel."

Pavel shook his head. "Oh, no. Plenty of time at night to do that. Let's go directly to the Gestapo."

A MIDDLE-AGED AIR HOSTESS — a peroxide blonde with the LuftStern logo on her beret — sprang to attention, watching the three men climb into an executive-class Opel Admiral. She struggled to suppress the desire to shoot her arm out in the party salute. The Sieg Heil! had been abolished as the result of the Twenty-Year War. Together with the party, that is.