The original version of this short story is written for mostly Russian audiences for it mentions a lot of events from Russian history. In order to let people understand it, I've decided to add some expository text. Hopefully, it won't damage the pacing too much. I'm also not that familiar with how dialogue is formatted in English, so I'm trying as much as I can. Additionally, this is my very first complete story written in English, and it's totally unedited, pending reviews at some point in the future. For now, I can't afford to spend time reviewing.
Dedicated to Moscow, my hometown. May I return at some point, but not before evil is burned out of it.
'Alina Kuchkova. 30 years old. Born in the city of Vladimir. Temporary residency in the Academic district of Moscow. Not married, no children. A software developer at "Benilux Tech". All right, girl, where are your testimonial papers?', the Police captain says.
'Here', a young dark haired girl says, her hands trembling while holding a piece of paper.
This game was at least ten years old. The Police have this "stick system" - a quota of people each station should process during the protest. Each arrest and processing equals a "stick". The more evidence against the detainee, the stronger the stick is. Police in Russia always liked to impress the higher-ups. There's this old Soviet saying, paraphrasing, "the plan is successful if more than 100% completion is achieved". That's why policemen started yelling at the detainees five years ago, started threatening them three years ago and finally started beating them up just enough for it to be painful but not leave any long-lasting marks on the body.
And the protesters, well, they've learned that anything they say definitely works against them. They know they're up against people trained to see an apple and say that it's an orange, if their superiors wish it so. That's why the detainees invoke article 51 of the Constitution - a right not to testify against oneself. That's what Alina did. Now she was waiting if the policeman decides to proceed with "advanced interrogation techniques”. Two days from now there will be the International Women's Day, and to celebrate it, the Police started beating up girls as fervently as they did guys.
Alina could've made it a scandal. She could have succumbed to her emotions and started yelling at the captain, and could have landed a couple of pretty decent punches, too. But there's a whole station of them and only a bunch of other detainees, sitting there on the banks, scared to their bones. Alina valued her life, and she understood that there are only about 10% of activists even here. When there are so few, nobody would notice your martyrdom.
The police captain was old, he looked like he was about to retire in a couple of years. Alina had the chance to glance at his papers and saw his name: Z. I. Adashev. The captain, in turn, looked closely at her “testimony” and frowned.
‘You swore to me you’ll write down the whole story! You begged us to let you out of the cell full of sobering drunkards, you wept and cried there. And what do I get now? Is that a joke or something? Weren’t I absolutely clear?’ He asked
‘Sir, that’s all I could say. I hope you won’t beat me up like they did in the Brateevo district?’ She asked. Brateevo police station became infamous after a detainee recorded her entire interrogation on her phone and published it via the only independent media left in the country - “Novaya Gazeta”, “The New Newspaper”. Now, Alina feared the same could happen to her.
The policeman glanced at the document again. “I refuse to testify against myself”, he read. He growled very softly, but with enough threat to make Alina shiver.
‘We won’t. I’ll just put you back with the dangerous ones. F-ing Ahmaklar (“Idiots” in Tatar), all of you.’
‘You wouldn’t have believed me in any case, you stitch-brain’, she whispered softly. But the captain turned as if he heard her. Which couldn’t have been the case. Alina never spoke loudly in her life. People who were born in big families where yelling at each other to convey a point is a way of life, always asked her to repeat what she had said. “Softly” in Alina’s case means saying something using lips only, no sound, almost no air involved. But still, the policeman must’ve heard her. He looked at her with a penetrating stare, and she couldn’t help but start shivering.
‘All right, sit down. Sit. We should talk’, he said calmly. She hasn’t seen him this calm yet.
‘I invoke Article Fift…’
‘How long are you familiar with the Fringe Society?’
Alina wanted to say something, but stopped herself. She looked closer at her opponent. His face was rough, as if he was a poster guy for a munitions magazine. But it looked like his face wasn’t asymmetric enough. Or, better yet, it was quite believable, but with slight abnormalities. The brain usually ignores them at glance, but if one looks at this face close enough, thinks about it long enough, the feeling of Uncanny Valley crept up on them. His face couldn’t face diligent scrutiny, pardon the pun. And he could hear her whispering. What could he…
The captain decided that Alina was thinking too much and said: ‘“Stitch-brain? That only works with normal people. Not with us.”’
“Inhuman”, she thought, “They’re the only ones with abilities like that.”
The Inhuman species used to dominate Earth at some point. People now would’ve called them “fantasy creatures” if they knew about their existence. And they were here, all around us - the Elfs, the Orcs, the Dragons - but they all started to go away with magic. Those who remembered the Fey, for example, became the minority by the XIX century. They were marginalized, or they’ve started mixing their beliefs with scams like spiritualist movements, born not of reality, but out of greed and an elitist feeling. Only a few have managed to retain the information about the real state of the world and its history by the Modern era. They call themselves The Fringe Society. For all the others, the Inhumans and magic became the stuff of folk tales, novels, movies, video games.
‘I haven’t got all day, you know’, the captain said.
‘I have been in it since childhood. My parents believed in some scammy crap, and joined a cult. I refused to believe and ran off. Ended up with a bunch of Fringe do-gooders, they knew about the cult and monitored it. And you? Why are you with these thugs?’
Captain’s face changed again, it reflected a certain shade of grimness now. He stood up, approached the door and opened it slightly. ‘Holikov! I’m busy, nobody goes in. You can handle those four by yourself.’ Then, the door closed again.
Alina kept looking at the captain. He locked the door and started changing rapidly. His skin became gray, he grew higher and wider in some areas. One breath was the breath of an old man with a cheap beer belly. The next one sounded like slouching, and the belly “straightened” itself up, replacing a lazy sphere with a good quality wooden board. The uniform changed into plain clothes, which means it also was a part of the illusion. If he was wearing a real police uniform, the buttons would have already acted like bullets, cause it wouldn’t have fit a creature this big.
“An orc,” Alina thought, “Can’t say I’m surprised”
But out loud she said: ‘Ah.’
‘All right, let’s handle it how we do it. Tell me why you were there tonight. Tell me what happened, step by step. In a calm manner. I promise I won’t threaten you.’ He stopped to think for a moment. ‘Anymore, that is.’
‘So this is what nepotism looks like. If I were born somewhere in Tyldyn village near Kazan, I would expect something similar, I reckon’
‘Salmachy. And it is already Kazan. Stop with the sarcasm, it’s not how we do it.’
Alina sighed. All things considered, she knew that “those who knew” would always help each other, be it Humans or Inhumans. Excluding, of course, the extremists. On other hand, the Police thought of anybody who happened to be in the center during the protests as “extremist elements”. It’s just that among the equally extremist detainees there were some who were “more equal”. It was sick even thinking about considering the captain’s offer, it was like colluding with the enemy. But then again, one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
‘All right, I’ll tell you why we were there and I’ll tell you exactly what happened. There were four of us: me, two of my friends Alexey and Dmitry, their brothers. And their younger sister Olga’
‘All Fringe?’
‘Yes, I’ve inducted them myself. Well, we were yelling and protesting the war. But it’s hard yelling in the cold, so we calmed down a bit and started just discussing things.’
‘Ukrainian fakes?’
Alina looked at him, surprised. ‘Do you really believe what you’re told on TV?’
Orc didn’t answer. They stared at each other in silence, then Alina kept going.
‘We heard yelling from somewhere in the head of our column and we understood that people clashed with the Police. Well, “clashed”. You know how it happens. The protesters try standing their ground while they’re being tased. We decided to screw that and ran off to Lubyanka street.’
‘Why Lubyanka?’
Alina sighed. She knew it would happen. Right now the orc considers her a part of “his tribe”, whatever that means. But in nine cases out of ten, even the critically thinking, erudite and smart members of the Fringe Society become quickly enraged if one specific topic comes up. If she told him that, she’d be back in the cell in no time. Or she’d be beaten.
‘There’s an old house there. XVI century. Used to belong to a noble family, the Golitzyns’, she answered carefully.
‘So what? Suddenly you decided to hide in a museum?’
“All or nothing”, Alina thought.
‘Have you heard of the Time Wanderers?’
The orc fell silent. His gaze averted towards the ceiling. Then, after what looked like a careful consideration, he turned back to Alina.
‘Keep going’
She didn’t expect that. In the Fringe Society, people usually mock and ridicule those who speak of time travel. Their attitude resembles the one most rational people have towards the flat-earthers. Or the one scientists have towards the Fringe Society itself.
But mocking itself is okay. The real problem is aggression. They either start pressuring you with questions like “Why can’t you go to a time where you’ve existed?” Or “Why can you travel only via these special Sending Stones?” Others start getting angry: for many in the Fringe Society there were a lot of situations they would’ve wanted to change. If they’re presented with time travel, they get excited at first: finally a way to rewrite some of your mistakes!
But then they learn about the rules of time travel, and the defensive mechanisms kick in. It’s a normal reaction when you give people hope and then take it away again. It hits the Inhumans especially hard, since they’ve lost everything - their people, their culture, their traditions - a long time ago, and were forced to merge into Human societies, almost never revealing their true nature.
The defensive mechanisms are usually similar. They start believing that time travelers are faking it, and many become outright furious, thinking the Wanderers are mocking them.
Time travel is real, Alina knew that. She did that, actually, not long ago - and a bunch of times. Almost wore herself off while doing so. She knew she couldn’t really change many things given there was a force - they call it The Dreadful Time. But like many Wanderers, she used her abilities to explore and to earn money: there are always people who want a copy of a lost document that proves their heritage, or who just want to admire a photo of a long lost family artifact.
‘I won’t give you any surnames, okay?’, the orc nodded, ‘Alexey couldn’t stop thinking about one thing. A lot of people compare these events to 1937. You know, the reprisals, the GULAGs, men and women being named “enemies of the people” for a joke or an opinion. And Putin’s Z-ombies support that wholeheartedly. So Alexey asked if we could go to 1937 and ask the first person we meet if they consider their life to be good. Dmitry, on the other hand, had suggested visiting various time periods and comparing them to our modern history, so to say. “History is a cycle”, he said, so we’ll be able to find something similar in any century.’
The captain frowned, Alina chuckled.
‘They’re young, you know. Not like me or you. We know where we stand, and we stand firm’, Alina added, ‘and they still try to understand what’s going on, they try to find reason in all of this. They have their convictions, but those need to be either constantly affirmed, or constantly challenged’
‘Everyone we caught today… Children, all of them. 20-25 old, mostly’
‘That’s it. Even people my age packed up and left for an indefinite vacation somewhere in Georgia or Armenia, hoping they’ve got enough savings.’
‘Why did you stay, then?’
‘Can’t afford it. They don’t pay well for Time Travel these days in Russia, in Moscow even. Been like that for seven years. Besides, I can’t leave. I protect the Sending Stone’
‘So that Golitzyn house is the stone?’
‘Basically. And it’s a palace. It’s on Krivokolenny alley’
‘I have no idea where it is’
“Seriously?” Alina thought. “A local police officer doesn’t know anything about the historical center of Moscow? How long is he here, anyway?”
‘Guys were bored, considering the protest kinda failed. Not many people weren’t afraid of going. They would’ve gone home, but their little sister Olya called them and complained about their grandfather. He drank a little, became very angry and started “teaching her to love the Motherland” by beating her up.
The orc didn’t react this time. Alina kept going:
‘We’ve argued a lot about where we should start. Life was pretty good before 2008, though maybe because I was just a teenager and they were just kids at that point. We tried to think about a time period in Russian history similar to that, but later decided against it, given life before 2008 was great for us, but not for others: journalists and businessmen were arrested and went to prison, the Kremlin's opposition slowly but surely started dying out in mysterious circumstances… You should remember them. A defector poisoned by a radioactive substance in London, a journalist shot four times while entering her own apartment. So no, we’ve decided we should take a crack at the next junction of our modern history. The year 2008 and its imperial counterpart - the year 1823. I can’t say I can Travel with pin-point accuracy, but…’
‘Wait. Why 1823?’, the orc asked. The Fringe Society kept talking about what history really looked like with magic and Inhuman species running around, but that didn’t mean that everybody really knew history well. The policeman might’ve skipped a class or two. Or ten.
‘The Caucassian war. A conflict that spanned half a century in order to subjugate local tribes to Russian Imperial rule. In 1823 one of the generals, Yermolov, went on to terrorize Circassians’
‘Ah, you compare it to the Georgian war! I thought you went about the Financial crisis. Both my brothers lost their jobs.’
‘Well, I was 17 and boys just went to school for the first time, so we had to read a bit about that war since we didn’t remember all that much. So, there we are, in 1823. It was getting dark already, but at least the air smelled like spring. We just missed rain, but the aromas of petrichor and flowers were still in the air. And it was clean! It was way easier to breathe then, mere 200 years ago!’
‘Well, found anyone there to ask?’
‘Yeah. A guard. Not like a policeman, there wasn’t a police force yet. He was a security guard in Artisan’s quarters. These people don’t really do anything, just sit there and wait for their shift to end. They’ve got a lot of time on their hands, to think, to talk… Just like modern taxi drivers, they have an opinion about anything. So we asked him if he heard about general Yermolov and the war on the Caucasus.’
‘So?’
‘“I ain’t heard jack”, he said. People in Moscow rarely discussed that war. Russian troops fought the tribes of Caucasus for 50 more years, but people didn’t really care.’
‘That’s not exactly Georgia. It was just five days.’
‘Yeah, Alexey thought the same. His father told him that people laughed at their president and his tie. Well, those who watched the news back then. I remember turning on the TV only to watch a comedy show or an old 80s Hollywood action movie. War in Georgia was mostly for politicians and journalists. And I’m sure there were people in Moscow back in 1823 who did discuss General Yermolov, but they all converged in Moscow’s Governor General’s house. The so-called “elite”.’
‘I still can’t see much resemblance’
‘I’ve got more. So, we went through a war and a crisis in 2008. For three years people were totally okay with everything. The new “president”, Medvedev, Putin’s favorite figurehead, used to promote iPhones. They’ve built this massive scientific district called “Skolkovo”. Remember?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was finally great. People got their piece of the pie. In my city, Vladimir, there was now enough money in the poorest families to buy enough food not to starve. I went to Moscow and thought everything would be way better there. It was the same, actually, and only later I realized that a lot of people came to Moscow with me, and we’ve brought all the money our regions had. Everything started converging in Moscow: people, income, taxes… It reminded me of the 1905 revolution.’
‘Like, the last of the Imperial reforms?’, the orc said. Well, at least he remembered something.
‘Exactly. The industrial revolution began, and many peasants who became free 50 years prior and had nothing to do and earned nothing for a living became the working class. Well, their children, mostly. Then, the reformers were Stolypin and Vitte. And now it was Medveded and the minister of finance Kudrin. They reformed the hell out of the country, but ultimately failed at that.’
Alina decided to take a sip of water out of the cup the orc put near her, when he felt she started struggling to talk. While she drank, the policeman took initiative.
‘Yeah, Medvedev was a true lord of time. Compared to you with your Sending Stones, he was a true professional. With just one order he stopped daylight savings.’
Alina politely smiled, but there was no true joy behind that smile. Looked like the Orkish idiot didn’t listen to her. Or at least didn’t take her seriously. Suddenly, her whole confession felt meaningless. Nevertheless, she continued. They say there is this defining trait in many Russians: to act based only on a smidgen of unfounded hope. It’s called “Russian Avos’ “
‘Well, we went back to 1909. Found a fabric trader. She told us that her fabrics are better than in Muir and Mirrilees, the biggest shop in all of Russia at that point!’
The orc shrugged. Alina sighed.
Орк поморгал. Алина вздохнула.
‘Well, have you ever seen the Central Universal Department Store?’
‘Yeah’
‘Well, before the communists it was actually built by two western entrepreneurs - Muir and Mirrilees, both from Scotland originally. Well, back to the lady. We asked her what she thought of Stolypin. And she was furious as f… As furious as one can be. Yelled at us! Told us all the young people came here to work at a factory, and all the fabric became cheaper than bread! Earlier she could use her daily income to buy herself something nice and go with her friends to the countryside for the weekend. Now? She could barely buy two pounds of meat!’
‘So she didn’t like the reformers?’
‘No, she didn't. But not because the reforms weren’t good, but because she was inconvenienced by them. She complained that young men and women used to live in the villages and had these grand marriage ceremonies and celebrations. Now everyone went to the cities, married almost in secret and didn’t invite their families.’
‘So, what’s your verdict, then?’
‘All the same. The reformers pissed the people off back in 1909, and they did the same in 2010. By the way, I used to read this article on “Izvestia”, and they used to compare Medvedev to Stolypin. I found it and showed the guys, they were shocked because of the similarities.’
‘It kinda sounds like you were just bored’, noticed the orc. Alina chuckled. That was a great improvement: he started to listen, soon he’ll start thinking as well.’
‘Well, then let’s go to the next one. We chose 1826 as the next target. Early 1826. It should’ve been December 1825, but back then Russia used a different calendar… Anyway, we found another security guard in a different place in Moscow. This one was literate! At least, he read a book.’
‘So you asked him about the Decembrists?’
‘Exactly’, Alina replied. The Decembrists were a group of educated nobles, cultural figures and ex-officers who used to fight Napoleon. They wanted to turn Russia into a more western-oriented and less autocratic country. They wanted a more liberal emperor instead of a warmonger. They wanted a Constitution, but they were too few, and many people who they’ve persuaded to join didn’t really understand what they were protesting for. The demonstration was fired upon by the Tzar’s troops.
Alina kept going:
‘The educated guard told us exactly what we used to read in history books. The Decembrists were the officers who entered Paris in 1814, were indoctrinated into their “alien parisian culture”, and 11 years later, when the new Tzar wasn’t crowned yet, they decided to rebel. They were shot, and those who survived - either executed, or exiled to Siberia.’
‘So, what’s that supposed to be in Modern Russia?’
‘The Bolotnaya Square’, Alina replied. It was the place right near the Kremlin where all kinds of opposition gathered in 2011 to protest against the faked election results and Putin’s upcoming third term in power. This time, the Police just started beating people up at some point, and by 2013, after a series of other protests, many opposition leaders were caught, prosecuted and jailed. Unfortunately, one of the Bolotnaya’s failures was lack of cohesion and a united front between different factions: the leftists, the nationalists, the democrats, and the others. Which the orc remembered and decided to use as his strawman argument.
‘Bullshit. Your people fought each other every step of the way, and nobody ever opened fire at them!’
“Your people”, Alina noticed. “And he probably really believes that we’re not his compatriots, but foreign agents and enemies of the people.” Still, she decided to go on.
‘They don’t fire at civilians in the modern world. Yet. But there was enough “Siberia” to go around! Ever heard of the “Bolotnaya cases”? All the leaders, all the politicians who united against Putin - jailed. Some of them were fired due to pressure from the Kremlin. Some of them - like Boris Nemtsov - were shot and killed a couple of years later. All of that reminds me of the fate of the Decembrist leaders. Some were executed or sent to the Caucassian War, some like Kuhelbekher were jailed, some like Obolensky - exiled to Siberia.’
The blank expression on the orc’s face told Alina that she went too deep into the details.
‘Am I boring you now?’ She asked.
‘Why do you know all that? Have you memorized a manifesto or something?
‘I’ve got a history degree. I can speak of the XVI century as if I lived there. I just became a software developer since it’s easier to find a job with a good salary this way.’
The orc spat on the floor. He was growing restless.
‘All right, let’s keep it short. What happened after Bolotnaya? Two-three years after it, to be exact’
‘2014? Ah…’, the policeman nodded.
‘Back in 1784, Taurica was finally conquered by Russia. Well, it actually was conquered some time ago, but by 1784 it was official. Taurica is Crimea’
‘Yeah’
‘Well, we checked it out. People were praising the empress, and her closest advisor at the time, Potyomkin. They were saying: “Now we finish Poland, and then we’ll liberate Tzargrad!” Meaning Constantinople. Istanbul. The Ottoman capital at the time. Does it remind you of anything?’
Alina remembered an old woman yelling “Putin is the president of the world!” at one of the pro-Kremlin rallies back in 2014. What the orc was thinking about, Alina couldn’t say.
‘Then, the 1970s. That you might actually remember. The world became distant towards the Soviet Union. The stagnation. The Afghan war. People weren’t starving, yes, but they didn’t live better than their parents. All this crap about “the bright future” - people stopped believing in that. We went there, to 1979, we asked around. Nobody would comment. Nobody would say anything. And I’m surprised nobody caught us, actually.’
‘I lived back then. Well, I was born back then. Wasn’t too bad.’
‘Not for you, but most certainly for your parents. I’d say I felt the same, that endless stagnation and darkness surrounding me, ever since the Annexation of Crimea. The country stopped developing and started devolving into a moral hellscape. Well, at least they didn’t arrest people for jokes anymore.’
Alina waited for the orc’s reaction. In his eyes, she saw a direct hit. He did arrest people for jokes. For reposting in Russian social media. Sometimes, for a like under an opposition politician’s post, someone like Navalny.
‘There were good days. The World Cup in 2018?”, the orc tried to get out of the pit of self-reflection.
‘Does it remind you about the Olympic Games in 1980 in Moscow? They’ve “temporarily deported” those who the Kremlin couldn’t trust and those who wouldn’t look well on camera. And a lot of countries boycotted those game as well - just like many boycotted the games in 2014 or some - the World Cup’
‘At least tell me you haven’t found the pandemic’
‘We weren’t looking for it. We found another set of 1937-1940s though. Not just mass political repressions like in the USSR at that point, we’re not there yet. But a certain ice pick comes to mind…’
She couldn’t not mention Skripal’s and Navalny’s poisonings. One ex-spy who defected to the West and spilled a lot of Russian Intelligence’s secrets. The other is the politician whose name Putin doesn’t even want to pronounce because he hates him so much. Both were poisoned by nerve agents, such is the revenge of a hysterical tyrant. The orc must’ve made the connection and looked furious now: Alina said something directly aimed at his “Commander in Chief”. And even though the Police isn’t the army, most of them hold a lot of respect for him.
‘Well, now we’ve arrived to the modern day’
‘And what about it? What does it resemble’ the orc asked with irritation in his voice.
‘We haven’t reached a consensus. I think it’s like the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. A war that started as “a small victorious endeavor” and became the first time an Asian power defeated a European. A conflict so riddled with incompetence, it was a great national embarassement.’
‘And what about the other co-conspirators?’
‘Alexey said it’s like the Crimean War. The one in the 1850s, where France and Britain helped the Ottomans to defend against Russia and defeated it, another big disgrace. Dmitry, who didn’t comment on anything along the way, remembered Czechoslovakia 1968, when Soviet troops entered the country to stop an anti-communist coup.
‘And the girl?’
‘She said that our Defense Minister reminded her of Potyomkin, we saw one of his portraits back in the 1780s. I don’t really know what she meant by that, definitely not his appearance.’
‘No result, then?’
‘None. We haven’t had the time. Your punishers came from nowhere and we ran. I’m here. They’re not, and they won’t.’
The orc sighed. His fast-moving eyes told Alina that he tried to find some kind of a point, as if he sincerely wanted to change her mind about things. Why? Usually people like him don’t care, they think they’re always right. Their boss told them so, it’s that easy. “For us, it’s difficult”, she thought, “we can’t even convince our grandparents that this war is a disaster from the beginning, a crime against all things ethical and moral. We compete with the television that pours venom in their ears and alcohol that makes them even more aggressive.” While Alina considered that, the orc found his next point.
‘I heard your people saying that history is a cycle, and you believe that, apparently. But you went forwards and backwards without any order. Looks like you were choosing whatever fitted your narrative, ignoring the rest of history. It’s deceitful. Fake!’
‘If we had time and zero pressure, we’d find chronological analogies as well. But we, the Time Travelers, have a legend: one can meet another out of chronological order. I’ve never experienced that but I heard about that in Zamandar. Something changes, but most things stay the same. History isn’t a cycle or a circle. It’s a complex curved spiral. Or a series of snow banks along the road! Very nasty historical snow banks that lay there because of the people creating history: they’re arbitrary, selfish and cruel. And you know the state of our roads.’
The room fell silent for a couple of minutes.
‘All right. Go. I won’t log you. I’m too tired, and I think the quota should be filled by now.’ He got up, changed his look back to a human one, opened the door, yawned and said: ‘Holikov, you can let them go now. It’s 1 AM, and we’re yet to get everything ready for the next shift.
A sigh followed from the other side. Was it relief or disappointment? Alina couldn’t tell. Ten more minutes - and the station is empty. Alina and the orc stood near the entrance and smoked. A stray sedan slowed down before a bump on the road, let its forward wheels go over it, and then the driver stepped on it again.
‘Sometimes I think that you’re the wrong ones to bear the name Inhumans. Or, better yet, there are two meanings of that word - the wrong descriptive one for non-human races, and the totally on-point one for those who follow unlawful orders.
The orc didn’t say anything.
‘I’ll be off’, Alina said and put the cigarette out. But the orc didn’t let her go just yet.
‘What do you think will be next?’ He asked.
‘Nobody knows. I’d like to go to 1612, when Moscow was under Polish occupation and they were driven out by Russian militias. I always wanted to learn how it feels when something unnaturally foreign gets ejected from a country.
‘Well, hopefully not 1812’, the orc chuckled at his own joke. He probably meant The Great Fires of Moscow. He definitely didn’t think that they were lit by Russians themselves to implement a scorched earth policy against the French.
‘You can go to jail for 15 years for that’, she said. Her opponent basically admitted that with this senseless war, Russia is on the way to destroy itself.
‘I didn’t mean that!’ The orc said quickly. ‘I mean, hopefully, no fires here, in Moscow.’
‘Can’t you see, Zelimkhan Ibragimovich? It’s already ablaze. People run from it, some try to fight it. But the fire is stronger. Maybe all these lights we have here cluttered your vision with light pollution. It happens in Moscow. First we couldn’t see the stars anymore, and now - the new great fire.’
It began snowing a little. Alina turned around and went home. The orc came back to his precinct. He opened a drawer and pulled a white sheet with “LETTER OF …” pre-printed on it. He added the word “resignation” and started filling the form out. He was an Inhuman, yes, but he didn’t really want both meanings to apply to him.
