The bread line in Moscow stretched for three blocks.
It was silent. No one complained. No one shouted. They just stood in the snow, clutching their ration cards like tickets to heaven.
Jake watched from the back of his limousine. The tinted windows hid him from the people he claimed to save.
"They are thin," Taranov murmured from the front seat.
"But they are alive," Jake said. "The American wheat arrived yesterday."
He looked at a woman near the front of the line. She was wrapped in a shawl, holding a child. Her face was grey, but she was smiling as she received a loaf of white bread.
International Solidarity Wheat. The lie that kept the city from burning.
"Drive," Jake ordered. "To the Metropol Hotel."
The Metropol Hotel.
The suite was opulent. Crystal chandeliers, velvet curtains, champagne on ice.
Walter Duranty, the correspondent for the New York Times, sat on the sofa. He looked comfortable. Too comfortable.
Jake walked in. He didn't offer a hand.
"Mr. Stalin," Duranty said, standing up a little too slowly. "To what do I owe the honor? An exclusive interview?"
"A clarification," Jake said.
He threw a newspaper onto the table. It was a British paper. The Times of London.
The headline read: FAMINE IN THE UKRAINE? RUMORS OF STARVATION DESPITE SOVIET DENIALS.
"The British press is lying," Jake said. "They are trying to stop the Americans from selling us grain."
Duranty picked up the paper. He smirked.
"The British are always dramatic," Duranty said. "I have traveled to the Ukraine myself. I saw fields of wheat. I saw tractors."
"You saw what I showed you," Jake said.
He poured himself a glass of water.
"I need you to write a rebuttal, Walter. I need the American public to believe that the Soviet Union is thriving. That we are a good customer."
"And why should I do that?" Duranty asked, swirling his champagne. "Truth is a stubborn thing."
"Truth is expensive," Jake corrected.
He signaled Taranov.
The giant placed a briefcase on the table. He opened it. It was filled with gold bars. Not Tsar's gold this time. Freshly minted Soviet bullion.
Duranty's eyes widened.
"This is... a very persuasive argument," the journalist whispered.
"There is no famine," Jake said, staring into Duranty's eyes. "There are only... logistical challenges. Growing pains of a new society."
"Of course," Duranty said, reaching for the briefcase. "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
Jake felt a surge of disgust. He wanted to punch the man. This was the man who would win a Pulitzer Prize for lying about the starvation of millions.
But Jake needed the lie. He needed the American credit lines open.
"Write the story, Walter," Jake said. "Tell them everyone is happy. Tell them Stalin is a genius."
He walked out.
He felt dirty. He felt like he had just sold his soul again, but for a discount price.
The Kremlin Apartment.
Nadya wasn't home.
A note was on the table.
Gone to the theater with Svetlana's mother. Don't wait up.
Jake crumpled the note.
Svetlana's mother. The woman whose daughter was currently living in a lead bunker in the Urals, typing secrets for a German physicist.
"She is digging," Jake whispered. "She is asking questions."
He sat in his armchair. He looked at the empty room.
The loneliness was a physical weight. He had surrounded himself with sycophants and killers. He had no one to talk to. No one who knew the truth about the future.
He opened his notebook. The one he kept locked in a safe.
1924, he wrote. Lenin dead. Economy stabilized (barely). Atom project: 15% complete.
He looked at the next entry.
1929: The Crash. The Depression. The Rise of Fascism.
He had five years. Five years to turn a peasant nation into a superpower.
The phone rang.
"Comrade Stalin," Menzhinsky said. "We have arrested a saboteur at the Gorky Automobile Plant."
"Who?"
"An engineer. He was sabotaging the assembly line. Slowing down the trucks."
"Shoot him," Jake said automatically.
"He claims... he claims he knows you," Menzhinsky hesitated. "He says he is from the future."
Jake froze. The pencil snapped in his hand.
"What?"
"He is raving," Menzhinsky said. "He talks about microchips. About the Internet. He says he woke up here yesterday."
Jake's heart hammered against his ribs.
Another one? Was it possible?
"Do not shoot him," Jake ordered. His voice was shaking. "Bring him to me. Now. In the closet."
The Closet.
The prisoner was young. Maybe thirty. He wore a modern-looking suit that was torn and dirty. His hands were bound.
Taranov threw him onto the chair.
"Leave us," Jake ordered.
"Comrade, he is dangerous," Taranov warned.
"Leave us!"
Taranov left, closing the door.
Jake looked at the man. The man looked back, eyes wide with terror and recognition.
"You're him," the man whispered in English. "You're the History Teacher. From the forum."
Jake sat down slowly.
"Who are you?" Jake asked in English.
"Mike," the man gasped. "Mike from Chicago. I was arguing with you on the thread. About the T-34 armor slope."
Jake remembered. The internet forum. The night before he woke up in the gulag. He had been debating tank design with a user named TankGeek88.
"How did you get here?" Jake asked.
"I don't know!" Mike sobbed. "I went to sleep in 2025. I woke up in a dormitory in Gorky. They said I was an engineer. They said I had to fix the conveyor belt."
He looked at his hands.
"I'm a barista, man! I don't know how to fix a Soviet truck factory! I tried to tell them, and they beat me!"
Jake rubbed his temples.
The universe was leaking. It wasn't just him anymore.
"What did you tell them?" Jake asked.
"I told them about the future!" Mike cried. "I told them the Soviet Union collapses in 1991! I told them Stalin was a monster!"
Jake pulled his pistol. He placed it on the desk.
"You told them the Soviet Union collapses?" Jake asked softly.
"Yes! I thought... I thought if I warned them, they would let me go!"
Jake looked at Mike. This man was a loose end. A massive, catastrophic loose end. If Menzhinsky heard that the USSR was doomed... if the Party heard... the faith would shatter.
"Did anyone believe you?" Jake asked.
"They laughed," Mike said. "They called me a lunatic. Except the interrogator. He wrote it all down."
Jake closed his eyes.
Menzhinsky had the notes. The head of the Cheka knew the prophecy.
"Mike," Jake said gently. "You shouldn't have said that."
"I just want to go home," Mike wept. "Please. You're from 2025. You're a good guy, right? You're not really Stalin."
Jake looked at the weeping barista.
He remembered being Jake Vance. He remembered believing in human rights. In justice.
But Jake Vance didn't have to hold a country together with duct tape and terror.
"I was a good guy," Jake said. "A long time ago."
He picked up the pistol.
"But here... good guys finish in a mass grave."
"Wait," Mike stammered. "Wait, we can work together! I know about... I know about computers! I can help you build the Internet!"
"In 1924?" Jake asked sadly. "We don't have electricity in half the country, Mike. We don't have plastic. We don't have transistors."
He stood up.
"You are a glitch," Jake said. "A bug in the system."
He walked around the desk.
"I'm sorry, Mike."
"No!" Mike screamed. "Please! Don't—"
Bang.
The shot was deafening in the small room.
Mike slumped forward. The barista from Chicago was dead.
Jake holstered the gun. His hand was trembling violently.
He had just killed a man from his own time. A man who was innocent. A man who was just confused and scared.
Because he couldn't risk the truth getting out. He couldn't risk anyone knowing the Soviet experiment was destined to fail.
"Taranov!" Jake shouted.
The giant entered. He looked at the body. He didn't blink.
"Burn the body," Jake ordered. "And bring me the interrogation notes. All of them."
"And the interrogator?" Taranov asked.
"Him too," Jake said. "Shoot him. He heard things he shouldn't have."
Taranov dragged the body out.
Jake sat in the blood-spattered closet.
He poured a vodka. His hands shook so much he spilled half of it.
He wasn't saving the world. He was protecting his own lie.
He drank the vodka. It burned, but it didn't numb the pain.
"I am alone," Jake whispered. "Truly alone."
The Interrogation Room.
Menzhinsky sat in his office. He was reading the notes from the Gorky interrogation.
Subject claims USSR dissolves in 1991.
Subject claims Stalin kills millions.
Subject claims future is ruled by 'Computers'.
Menzhinsky frowned. It read like the ravings of a madman.
But there was something... specific about the details. The dates. The names.
The door opened.
Taranov walked in. He held a pistol.
"The General Secretary requires the file," Taranov said.
Menzhinsky looked at the gun. He looked at the file.
He realized then. It wasn't madness. It was a secret. A secret so dangerous Koba was killing for it.
Menzhinsky handed over the file.
"Of course," Menzhinsky said smoothly. "Just ravings."
Taranov took the file. He didn't shoot.
"He says the interrogator is to be liquidated," Taranov said. "For listening to counter-revolutionary propaganda."
Menzhinsky nodded slowly. "I will handle it."
Taranov left.
Menzhinsky waited until the footsteps faded.
Then he opened his desk drawer. He pulled out a piece of carbon paper.
He had made a copy.
He looked at the smudged blue text.
Stalin is not who he says he is.
Menzhinsky folded the paper and put it in his inside pocket, next to his heart.
He didn't know what it meant yet. But in a world of lies, a piece of truth was the deadliest weapon of all.
And Menzhinsky was a man who collected weapons.
The Secret City.
Heisenberg watched the new centrifuge spin.
"It is stable," he said to the Finn. "The yield is increasing."
"Good," the Finn said. "Koba will be pleased."
Ipatieff wheeled himself over. He held a Geiger counter.
"The radiation levels are rising in the lower tunnels," Ipatieff warned. "The workers... they are getting sick."
"Replace them," the Finn said coldly. "We have plenty of prisoners."
Heisenberg looked at them. He was a scientist, not a murderer. But he had seen the gold. He had seen the ambition in Stalin's eyes.
"We are building a monster," Heisenberg whispered in German.
"No," Ipatieff replied in perfect German. "We are building a god. And gods require sacrifice."
The machine whined. Louder. Higher.
It sounded like a scream. Or a prayer.