Commander Artem Dzyuba’s office is located right in the center of Izhevsk complex, slightly to the east. I commend him on his choice of accommodations. The presence of military barracks right next to it makes catching Dzyuba alive such a pain in the neck for the opposition. Enemies have to wade through waves of armed defenders to get to the room. On top of that, the blockhouse rests its back on the foot of a hill conveniently lying on the far side of the fort from this office. Wide and sloping, that hill stands hundreds of meters above the ground, covered with a crapload of trees. If you want to escape, the enemy would need hundreds of thousands of soldiers to set up and encircle it. I know Pavlyuchenko’s men have been able to occupy parts of the hill despite heavy resistance, but even then, it’s a damn forest up there. If there’s any place where we can run straight at the enemy’s front like headless chickens and hope they’ll be blind enough to not whack the shit out of us, it’d be the forest.

Quite clever how he places his office. That’s one thing. Now how he’ll get through the fort walls and reach the forest without being shot, that’s another matter.

The familiar sandstone shade of light sneaks out under the door to his office. Midnight has already passed when I knock, but it seems midnight isn’t late enough for Dzyuba to drag his crumpled, ancient ass to sleep.

“Identify yourself.” The leader’s voice echoes out from within. His voice is thin and somewhat lighter than most commanders out there, which is a little strange. One of the five qualities of a great Russian leader is to have a commanding vocal presence, one that revitalizes his soldiers and injects fearless fighting spirits into their souls. There’s actually a section about these qualities in the code of conduct for a Tatarstan military leader showcased inside a glass cabinet in the State Library, and it is one thing asexual soldiers are taught during the first month they get out of their glass cages. The five qualities include: be a good patriot; work to live and work to die; be disciplined but decisive; scream the fear out of your troops; and be honest to your chief, ruthless to your foe.

Dzyuba, however, just sounds cheerless and sullen. That must be why Major Smolov has to do the work on the loudspeaker.

“Second Lieutenant Alexei Vronsky, presenting as requested,” I reply. I don’t know why Dzyuba chooses such an odd time to summon me, but nothing good ever happens after midnight. Dzyuba rarely calls grunts like me to his office. When he does, it’s usually because the grunts have fucked up, badly. I learned from Petrov yesterday that Dzyuba has taken note of food vanishing from the warehouse and is investigating it. I pray that if the commander is going to reprimand me, it’s going to be because I nicked a few loaves of bread and not because I was lurking around Alice’s vault.

“Come in.” The commander’s voice reverberates from inside.

I turn the doorknob. As I step in, Dzyuba is resting his arms on the table, pressing his elbows on a stack of thin paper. His cheeks are red as a rooster’s cockscomb. But his eyes are dull, face haggard, probably because of the near empty vodka bottles placed next to him. Four of them, all drained low, but he finished none. He must be depressed; no one in their right mind would chuck alcohol away like a woodpecker jabbing at a tree trunk.

Dust covers the stack of documents on his desk, while some of his wrinkled pajamas hanging on the wall untidily. Nothing much more than that in here. A wardrobe and a bed, and that’s it. No merits, no medals, not even one. Only the wine bottles in the corner of the room are a bit strange. There are dozens of empty bottles similar to each other, and they are perfectly arranged in two horizontal rows around the corner. The corner of the room holds a peculiar mossy color way darker than the rest of the room, probably due to termites or moisture.

I take a look at his hands; he’s wearing a pair of gloves. Dzyuba has never worn gloves before.

I bow at him in a respectful manner, to which he nods back. His eyes are bleary, his breath full of alcohol.

“Take a seat, Comrade Vronsky.”

After I sit down, he fumbles on the table before pulling out a document from under his elbow, then hands it to me.

“It isn’t for you, but you should keep it.”

I pick it up and glance at it. Soon enough, I realize it’s a handwritten death notice. The writing is somewhat scrawled, but the content is as clear as daylight.

Nikolai Pavlovsky.

I recognize the name. In fact, I used to work and fight alongside him for a long while.

“I know it has nothing to do with you, but you’re the only one in your squad to have survived until now, so you should keep it.” He continues before pushing the rest of the stack closer to me, “Along with these.”

Death notices. They’re all death notices. It doesn’t take a genius to realize they’re for the rest of my old squad.

Is he trying to threaten me?

“Commander. May I ask you one thing?” I ask.

He stares at me for a long while before nodding. Seems that vodka has slowed his reaction time down considerably.

“Why are you giving me these?” I continue.

“So you know you’re fortunate, Vronsky. Or perhaps, it wasn’t luck at all.” He shifts his body forward a bit.

“I sure hope it wasn’t.”

Commander Dzyuba glances at me and snorts, before pouring out his vodka into a shot glass and throwing it back in one go. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve before speaking up, “Smolov has been keeping an eye out for you. He told me about your marksmanship. I have to say, your reputation precedes you. Indeed, your kill rate is head and shoulders above other soldiers under the same trench. And you never let yourself get injured. If that doesn’t spell ‘talent’ to me, I don’t know what does. Even imbeciles would’ve recognized that. Smolov was surprised to see such proficiency and composure coming from a Second Lieutenant, and it’s not easy to surprise Smolov, son. What’s your secret?”

I keep my mouth shut. The invisible pressure is boiling up within the room; his gaze feels like he will pluck my eyes out with a shashka if he can.

“Unfortunately, we have nothing to reward your excellence, son.” He brings out another bottle of vodka. “How about a shot?”

“If you feel generous, Sir.”

He pours vodka out into a glass and struggles to push it towards me. “And, uh, Vronsky,” he mouths.

“Yes, Sir?”

“Do you have a spare minute or two? It’s nothing important. Let’s say I need a drinking buddy.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Oh, so this must be about the vault.

“Whatever you wish, Sir.”

The commander’s eyes absentmindedly roll around, his whole upper body rocks up and down. It looks like he’s below decks on a battleship in the middle of the ocean, being jolted by the waves. When he can finally fix his eyes on me, he continues.

“Strange, eh, don’t you think? We’ve been trapped here for three years. I can’t remember how many times we’ve sent urgent signals to the Central Government, pleading with them like fucking dogs licking assholes. I’ve tried everything. I’ve told them how many of us have died. I’vw told them how courageously we’ve fought. I’ve told them how much longer we can hold on. Everything. For three years, not a single reply. I thought I’d screamed into their faces already, but they still couldn’t hear us. Yet you boys came.”

He raises his voice, “Three years. Three. Damn. Years! And not a soldier was sent. You guys were the only platoon to have ever come. A squad of twelve damn men. What am I going to do with twelve gunslingers? I don’t understand why they even bothered to send you guys here on a suicide mission. Even imbeciles would’ve recognized that. If they wanted to make the most elaborate, complicated joke in the world, they succeeded! I’m hysterical!” He let out a laugh as dry as the Chara Sands. “What a clown our Supreme Leader is!”

He exhales and squeezes his temples. “He sent me on one such mission once, you see. It was the winter of 1967, snow fell so thick, it stuck inside the chainwheels. Tanks couldn’t move. Humans couldn’t move, not without snow boots. You know what, son? You sprayed hot water from a kettle, and it would be freezing mid-air. And he wanted us to advance to Vyazma in a month! Delusional old mutt, he was. We never did reach Vyazma, and both of my best friends died. He rewarded me for my loyal service. It was nice; I had a troop of my own. But I thought to myself . . . what if I had died in Vyazma back then? You get what I mean? Would he have just given the promotion to someone else? I pity anyone who’s ever been promoted these days; they don’t dare look at their medals. They only give medals to the dead.”

“I understand,” I replied.

There’s a long pause between us, a pause I don’t feel like interrupting. Something in Dzyuba’s hazy eyes tells me he wants to say something, something that has been in his mind for possibly far too long. Indeed, he does. It is then that the commander starts giving what is possibly the longest speech anyone has ever given without a single pause, barring occasional intoxicated hiccups.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about this, Vronsky. Perhaps you’re still too young for the thought to cross your mind, but a bright young man such as yourself will soon come to understand. I fancy calling it the curse of the wise. Have you ever thought about how one’s circumstance at birth affects every single one of his subsequent life choices, Vronsky? Mull it over.

“A farmer will know not to carry a machine gun, for his life does not necessitate it, nor his skills allow for it. Then this is a question, a very valid question pertaining to the current societal status, Vronsky. Am I to pick a purpose for myself, if my skill set has already been determined from the point of birth?

“I am from Camp A, the military cloning facility. I’m shaped to have a military-driven mind. The person from Camp B will become a worker at a textile factory, for he is expected to excel in such a field. There will be variables, there will always be variables, but doesn’t that mean our lives are pre-determined? If that’s the case, the government owns me. The Republic owned the people, and the vassal states continued to own their people. We have never had the freedom of thought. Even if we are given such freedom, are we really free?”

For the slightest moment, I catch a glimpse of the green veins creeping from Dzyuba’s collarbones, up to his neck. It might be a trick of the light, but I swear at that exact moment, opaque white lights shoot from the corner of his eyes.

“Is freedom a real thing?” His upper body shudders as he sags forward. “It is all but a social construct, I concur. A farmer exists because the act of farming is a concept. Then, is responsibility a concept as well? I am in charge of this facility, but does that mean my responsibility is bound to the facility? You see, if I didn’t exist, if I wasn’t here, working my butt off as a commander, there would naturally be another person with similar expertise, similar experience, and similar seniority, sitting here in this chair and giving you a meandering, inconsequential speech. One might think his experience is unique to himself, but have one ever thought of how someday, somewhere, another one would have had such experience, would have shared the exact goal, would have garnered an obligation he felt was exclusive to himself?”

I can only think to nod in reply.

“Then why am I here?” Dzyuba continues. “Why are you here, why are we here, if our existences are inessential? Ah, it must be because we are always living up to a certain expectation. A social construct injects into the mind that your consciousness is confined to the world you see. It cares not to make you realize you are actually not subject to a meaning of your life from the day you are born. Am I, a general, born a general or a blank canvas? Were you born a blank canvas, Vronsky? Tell me, were you born a blank canvas?”

“I suppose not—”

“Did we come to this life because one day, someone decided that we were to be born? For what purpose does one gain consciousness? What if I tell myself that I’m a blank canvas, and I want to paint my endeavors with a color board of my own? Ah, you see, they won’t allow it. They won’t allow us to run away like lab rats out of a cage. They think that we, in the roles we are born into, are not expendable, you and I, and it’s hugely detrimental if we don’t do as we are defaulted to do. We climb the life ladder because we pamper, we appeal to the illusion of our rulers, an illusion that the power they have serves a noble cause that they can contribute beyond their short-lived hundred-year life.

“But I now come to the realization that all is meaningless. The death of my friends was meaningless because even had they lived, they would have then died fifty years from now. But nothing is going to change in the grand scheme of things. Regardless of the universal truth, those imbeciles shall stop at no cost. Ones who strive for power always delude themselves that they are a part of something bigger, something that can stand the test of time.”

He hiccups, pours another glass of vodka, and gulps it down. His voice cracks. “That’s why we are here. We are talented people. We can coat ourselves with the façade that we are one of a kind, even though we are not. The system needs us, because they think we are invaluable. I relish the thought that we are invaluable, but we know full well we can’t keep kidding ourselves. Your leaders will grow wary of you breaking the system; that is why they will want you to fail. There’s always one who’s handicapped because of the success of another. You get what I mean. Under no external influence, I have the power, you have the power, we all have the power. The system will crave us, they will cast their influences on us, they will regulate the way we work, the way we live and breathe. But at the same time, they’re scared of us, they cater to us, they worship us in their unflappable way. It’s an inscrutable reciprocal relationship: two sides of a coin, light and darkness, hot and cold, whatever you like to call it. They never interject, but one cannot exist as a concept without the other.”

His eyes meet mine, “Do you think I’m crazy, Vronsky? Yes, yes, you must be thinking I’m crazy! But I’m not, you see. I’m just cursed.”

Dzyuba stops. He rubs the spot under his glove where the translucent light comes from. I wait for a whole minute for him to speak up again, but he says nothing. Mere seconds ago, Dzyuba was like a broken dam, discharging thirty years of his soul in one go. Now all that’s left is a hollow, barren heart.

These are silent minutes, and it’s a dreadful but much-needed silence. The downpour of new information I have just received gets my head spinning, and I’m usually pretty quick at this stuff.

When the commander speaks up again, it’s like the monolog never existed. There aren’t green veins up his neck nor are there beaming lights at his wrists. The smell of alcohol starts to taper off, and his eyes turn sharp and cleansed.

“So tell me, son,” he says. “What was it like out there before your squad came here?”

I shake my head. “Not faring much better, I’m afraid. Pavlyuchenko won’t spare anyone. I saw a guy named Pavel kissing their officer’s foot, begging for mercy. The officer bashed his skull open with a sledgehammer. Either we die or die trying.” I exhale. “The last line of defense I used to fight in was in Solnechny, and they ripped us to pieces with their new toys, those flamethrowers with white rocker arms. And it burned. It burned really badly. We’re lucky enough that they didn’t bring those monstrosities over here.”

“A pessimistic man, I see.”

I glance at the vodka bottles lying around in the corner, enough to form a battalion. And he tells me I’m pessimistic.

The corners of Dzyuba’s eyes beam as he points his index finger at me. “You,” he intones. “I need to confirm something, and you will answer me.”

As his hand travels close to my face, I catch a turquoise glow inside his glove. The light is too faint to be of something mechanical, but turquoise sure isn’t the most natural color in the world. There isn’t anything in this facility that emits such color, except for . . .

The ring.