The snow falling on Red Square was grey. Not white. Grey with the ash of the burnt grain silos and the chemical residue of the defensive rockets.
Jake stood on the mausoleum balcony. He was alone. No generals. No Politburo.
Below him, the square was empty. No parade. No cheering crowds. Just the wind howling through the spires of St. Basil's.
"We won," Jake whispered.
The Germans had halted. The Americans had pulled back their bombers. The Cobalt bomb was disarmed.
But the silence was louder than the sirens.
Menzhinsky stepped out of the shadows behind him. He looked like a ghost, thin and pale.
"The reports are in," the spy chief said.
"Casualties?"
"The gas attack on the border... forty thousand dead on our side. The Germans lost sixty thousand."
"And the civilians?"
"The famine is total," Menzhinsky said flatly. "There are reports of... eating the dead in Ukraine. And now in the suburbs of Moscow."
Jake gripped the stone railing. The cold bit into his palms.
"We stopped the Holocaust," Jake said. "We stopped Generalplan Ost."
"We replaced it with our own," Menzhinsky said.
Jake turned on him.
"We survived! Is that not enough?"
"Survival is breathing," Menzhinsky said. "Living is something else. We are breathing, Comrade Stalin. But are we alive?"
Jake looked back at the empty square.
He remembered his history books from 2025. Stalin was a monster, yes. But he built an empire. He defeated Hitler.
Jake had defeated Hitler five years early. But the cost...
"What about Turing?" Jake asked.
"He is in the Lubyanka. He is drawing equations on the walls with his own excrement. He asks for the Machine every hour."
"And the Swarm?"
"The biological units are dying. Without the maintenance signals from the central server, the brains are... rotting. We have to liquidate them."
"Do it," Jake said. "Clean it up. Bury the evidence."
He walked past Menzhinsky.
"I'm going to the Dacha," Jake said. "I need to sleep."
"The Dacha is burnt, sir. The West Wing."
"I don't care," Jake said. "It's still home."
The drive to Kuntsevo was a journey through hell.
The road was lined with frozen vehicles. People walked on the side of the highway, wrapped in rags, pulling sleds with shapeless bundles.
They didn't look at the limousine. They were too tired to hate.
Taranov drove in silence. His shoulder was still bandaged from the bullet wound weeks ago.
"Boss," Taranov said. "The fuel gauge. We're low."
"We have reserves at the house."
"The reserves were looted," Taranov said. "By the guards. Before they deserted."
Jake looked at him.
"Deserted?"
"Half the regiment is gone, Boss. They took the trucks. They went back to their villages to find food."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were busy saving the world from space," Taranov said. "I didn't want to distract you with the fact that your army is dissolving."
The car sputtered. The engine coughed and died.
They rolled to a stop a mile from the Dacha gates.
"Out of gas," Taranov said.
Jake opened the door. The cold air hit him.
"We walk," Jake said.
"Boss, it's unsafe. There are partisans in the woods. Deserters."
"I am the General Secretary," Jake said. "I walk where I please."
He started walking. Taranov sighed, pulled his submachine gun, and followed.
The Dacha was a ruin.
The fire Nadya had started had gutted the West Wing. The roof had collapsed. Black beams stuck out like broken ribs against the sky.
But the main house was intact.
Jake walked up the steps. The front door was unlocked.
Inside, it was freezing. The heating system was offline.
"I'll find wood," Taranov said. "Start a fire in the study."
Jake wandered through the dark halls.
He went to the nursery. It was empty. Yuri was still in the Kremlin bunker. Safe. Or as safe as a boy could be in a tomb.
He went to the bedroom.
The windows were still boarded up. The air smelled of smoke and lavender.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
"Nadya," he whispered.
He waited for the scratching. For the message in the wall.
Nothing. Just the wind whistling through the cracks.
She was truly gone. The ghost had left him.
He lay back on the mattress. He felt something hard under the pillow.
He reached under.
A book. Anna Karenina.
He opened it.
On the title page, in Nadya's handwriting:
For the man who thinks he can stop the train. Remember, Koba, the train always wins.
Jake closed the book.
He laughed. A dry, hacking sound.
She had left him a warning. A suicide note for his soul.
Taranov entered with an armful of broken furniture.
"Fire's ready, Boss."
Jake stood up. He took the book.
"Burn this too," Jake said.
"A book?"
"It's fiction," Jake said. "We don't have time for fiction."
He threw the book into the fireplace in the study. He watched the pages curl and blacken. Anna Karenina burned. The train burned.
"What now?" Taranov asked, warming his hands.
"Now we rebuild," Jake said. "We start the Five Year Plan again. From zero."
"The people won't work," Taranov said. "They are broken."
"Then we replace them," Jake said. "Turing's idea. Automation. Robots. If the biologicals failed, we use steel."
"We don't have the tech, Boss. The laptop is dead."
"We have the German," Jake said. "Von Braun left his notes. We have the rockets."
"But no guidance."
"We don't need precision anymore," Jake said. "We just need volume. If we can't hit the target, we hit the whole grid square."
He looked at the map on the wall. It was charred at the edges.
"America is still there," Jake said. "Hoover is still there. As long as he breathes, the war isn't over."
Washington D.C. The Hospital.
J. Edgar Hoover lay in a hospital bed. His arm was in a sling. His face was pale.
General Groves stood by the window.
"The Russians have gone dark," Groves said. "No signals. No radar activity. The Swarm is down."
"He's licking his wounds," Hoover rasped.
"Intelligence says his government is collapsing. Famine. Riots. The Army is eating itself."
"Don't believe it," Hoover said. "Stalin thrives on chaos. He's a cockroach. He'll survive the radiation."
Hoover sat up. He winced.
"The Trinity project?"
"We are moving the bomb cores to England," Groves said. "Operation Thunderclap. We will have ten atomic weapons ready by spring."
"Good."
"But Mr. Director... if we use them... the fallout..."
"Let it blow East," Hoover said. "Let it snow ash on Moscow."
He pointed to his bandaged arm.
"He sent a zombie to kill me in my own office. There are no rules anymore, General. We burn him out."
The Secret City. The Cells.
Turing sat in the corner of his padded cell. He was wearing a straitjacket.
He was rocking back and forth.
"Data... data... save the data..."
The door opened.
A new man entered. He wore a lab coat, but he looked like a butcher. Dr. Lysenko.
"Hello, Alan," Lysenko said.
Turing looked up. "Who are you? Where is the Machine?"
"The Machine is gone," Lysenko said. "I am the new Director of Science."
"You?" Turing laughed. "You grow corn in the snow! You don't know physics!"
"I know biology," Lysenko said. "And Comrade Stalin has authorized a new direction."
He snapped his fingers. Two guards entered carrying a stretcher.
"What is this?" Turing asked.
"You failed with the silicon," Lysenko said. "And the dead brains were unstable."
He leaned closer.
"But a living brain... a genius brain... integrated fully into the mainframe..."
Turing's eyes went wide.
"No," Turing whispered. "I am the programmer! Not the component!"
"You are the best component we have," Lysenko smiled.
The guards grabbed him.
"Don't worry," Lysenko said. "We won't lobotomize you. We need your creativity. We're just going to... prune the distractions. Like conscience. And fear."
Turing screamed as they dragged him out.
The architect of the nightmare was about to become its heart.
The Kremlin. One Week Later.
Jake sat at his desk. The room was cold.
Menzhinsky entered.
"It is done," Menzhinsky said. "Turing is... integrated."
"Does the system work?"
"The new central computer is online. It is processing logistics. Food distribution. Troop movements. It is... remarkably efficient."
"Good," Jake said. "Let the machine run the state. I'm tired of making decisions."
"There is one more thing," Menzhinsky said.
He placed a file on the desk.
"A transmission from the Japanese."
Jake opened it.
Emperor Hirohito offers unconditional surrender.
Jake blinked.
"Why? We haven't attacked them in months."
"They are terrified," Menzhinsky said. "They saw what we did to the Indianapolis. They saw the Swarm. They think we have the power of gods."
"Surrender accepted," Jake said. "Tell them to withdraw from China. And give us the Kuril Islands."
"And the Americans? They will be furious. They wanted Japan."
"Let them be furious," Jake said. "We just expanded the buffer zone."
He stood up.
He had won the East without firing a shot. Fear was a better weapon than plutonium.
"Prepare a speech," Jake said. "For the radio."
"What will you say?"
"I will tell them the war is over," Jake said. "I will tell them we are safe."
"Is that true?"
"It doesn't matter," Jake said. "They need to hear it."
He walked to the window.
He looked at the grey snow.
He had built a fortress. He had filled the moat with blood. He had put a madman in the computer and a dead woman in the walls.
But he was still standing.
"I woke up as Stalin," Jake whispered to his reflection in the glass. "And now... there is no Jake left."
He touched the glass. His reflection didn't smile back.
It just stared. Cold. Hard. And ready for the next winter.
The phone rang.
Jake picked it up.
"Speak."
"Sir," the operator said. "We have a signal. From the Moon."
Jake froze.
"The Moon?"
"Yes, sir. It's... it's a reflection. Radar bounce. But not ours."
"Whose?"
"It's a German signal, sir. From a base in Antarctica. They are pinging the lunar surface."
Jake looked up at the sky.
Hitler wasn't just building tanks. He was looking up too.
"The Space Race," Jake whispered.
He smiled. A real smile this time.
"Game on."