Chapter Text
The Gardens and Sanctuaries of mankind were now banished to mythology. Since the end of the Third World War, the remaining great cities had shed former glories and now competed only to be the most populous remnant hive.
Berezovich Kryuger stepped from his State car into Leningrad’s Palace Square. Even here, trapped by high architecture, guarded by walls, he sensed the squalor and ruin of the rest of the city. He straightened his burgundy greatcoat and fixed his beret. Both clung tightly around his muscles.
His uniform distinguished him from the State. He was a Private Military Contractor, a Marque and Writ bearer of the Siberian Highways. Kryuger had adjusted to the scorn this earned him. Even the doorman scowled at him. Kryuger returned the stare quietly until his stature alone enforced respect.
Only then did he turn back to the car and offer his hand.
His companion, Helianthus, was still learning to carry society’s judgments. She placed her hand in his and rose from the sedan. Brunette hair fell past her shoulders. They wore the same uniform and beret, but her belt cut an hourglass figure that represented soviet women well. She bindered her paperwork and pocketed her monocle.
“Thank you, Barry. Do we have an update from Ange?”
“She’s meeting us here.”
As the duo approached the doors of the General Staff Building, Angelia came out to meet them.
She’d thrown her Soviet State Security jacket on over her battle dress kit, but was still bleeding into bandages. Thin build, hair ashen from stress. Pale complexion from the long cold. She lit a cigarette and the fire put red on her cheeks. It did nothing for her expression.
She noted Helian’s existence with a glance, but stopped within Kryuger’s personal space and only acknowledged him. “Crocus just died in the hospital. Everyone else is stable. That’s eight fatalities.”
Kryuger nodded. “We will make this count, Ange.”
Ange was unimpressed. “What was that motto? ‘A Beacon of Hope in a Brave New World?’ A life-saving humanitarian operation?” She flicked his lapel, a corporate logo where he’d once worn a Soviet rank. “Eight men. For Mr. Kryuger’s new business.”
Helian stepped between them. “I believe in him!” she asserted. “And I believe in our mission. We’ll prove this to you.”
Ange looked through her.
Helian insisted, “This century will be a bad dream that humanity wakes from.”
Ange couldn’t resurrect her teammates nor turn back time. The only way forward was forward. Still looking at Helian, she put her arms in her jacket. “I delivered what I promised, Kryuger. They’re inside. They slept on the helicopter, and they ate. Now they’re yours.”
She looked at him. “You’ll see me again.” And she left.
Kryuger stayed a while to collect his thoughts. Helian watched him patiently.
Inside, they found the state room reserved for their meeting.
Havier Witkin, their weapons provider, was first from the table, despite his cane and advanced age. Kryuger hadn’t expected him. He felt a surreal thrill at the handshake. As an innovator, nothing was above Havier; as a businessman, nothing was beneath him. Like a trickster spirit of the woods, he was a clown to friend and foe alike.
Havier beamed, “Berezovich! And the lovely Helianthus! But where is Mr. Griffin Lyons?”
“London,” Kryuger grunted.
Havier grinned naughtily. “Reaching through the gates of Balmoral and rattling a tin can, no doubt,” he quipped.
Kryuger pursed his lips. It was true. The company was young and broke like the world’s orphans. “What brings you here, Havier?”
“You’re my client, Barry. Your business is mine.”
Kryuger clarified, “How did you get permission to enter the General Staff Building?”
With unassailable sincerity, Havier reminded him, “You invited me, Barry.” He gestured to another man at the table, a joyless infantry Captain in the deep forest green of the KCCO.
Kryuger nodded hello. “Yegor, you didn’t fall for that did you?”
Captain Yegor nodded, tense and annoyed. He leaned over the table to shake Kryuger’s hand. “I see this Wily Old Man has tricked me again,” he conceded. “Should I kick Witkin?” He thumbed at Havier.
Kryuger patted their handshake with his offhand. “He can stay. I’ll sign off on it if you need- save everyone paperwork.”
Yegor nodded his thanks, cast a sidelong glance at Havier, then turned to the table’s far end. There was silence while everyone looked at the two NATO defectors.
The male was named Lycoris. If he lifted weights, he would be called handsome. If not for his height, Kryuger could have imagined him in a boy band. His skin hadn’t tasted sunlight in years.
The woman, Persicaria, had pink hair and feline ears atop her head. Kryuger’s attention made her swallow nervously, and then she waved a cat ear at him.
Kryuger looked at Yegor again. They had served together in the great war, and Yegor understood his meaning. He answered, “Defectors are always freaks.”
Helian asked, “Do they talk?”
Yegor frowned at the complication. He switched to English and introduced, “Persicaria, Lycoris, I am Captain Yegor. You are now Lawful Residents of New United Soviet Socialist Republic.” He flipped open a binder on the table and handed them passports.
They remained bewildered and silent.
Yegor hesitated, unsure if he really knew their language or was just making a fool of himself. He asked, “Do you understand?”
Lycoris accepted his passport and nodded. Persica looked at her friend, then back to Captain Yegor and loudly asked, “Can you speak up?”
Kryuger couldn’t resist a glance at her cat ears. He checked Yegor’s face and saw the Captain flatly staring at them.
Persica pointed to herself. “My ears are still ringing. There was shooting. I think someone died.”
Mr. Kryuger’s English was more confident. He grunted, “Eight people.”
Persica’s face fell at the news.
Yegor gestured an introduction. “He is Berezovich Kryuger. Co-founder and Director of Griffin and Kryuger. Private Military Contractor. He is your sponsor.”
The westerners nodded.
Yegor continued his introductions. “Commander Helianthus. Of Griffin. You will obey her orders as the law. You are under military discipline.”
Yegor turned next to Havier, who held up a hand. “May I, Captain?”
While the room’s attention had been directed away, Havier had placed a cheap plastic parody of a Fabergé egg before himself on the table. Kryuger saw this and cringed. He felt a weight in his gut, that the old man was planning something unserious.
The old man’s English was an impeccable television standard. Neutral, north-Californian pronunciation but projected from the tongue in the European style. “Lycoris, Persica, you may not remember, but we have actually met before. At an Artificial Intelligence Consortium in Tokyo. 2044.”
“Doll-Con,” Lycoris remembered. He inclined his head suspiciously. “Were you the sex bot guy?”
Havier dismissed that with a hurried wave. “Each consumer market has its own peculiarities. Domestically, we produce Tactical Dolls.”
“You’re the murder bot guy,” Persica realized.
“My family,” Havier corrected, “has a long legacy in artisanal Doll-craft.” Havier emphasized doll with a thump of his cane. “Today, we are the world’s leading corps of roboticists, held back only for want of the world’s leading Artificial Intelligence experts. Which brings us back to you two. Persicaria and Lycoris. Together, you two were half of the notorious think tank 90Wish, whose anonymous white papers have upended all concepts of computation, warfare, archaeology, pre-history, and ethics. I had the good fortune to remember seeing your booth when you were a mere highschool club. And to this coincidence you owe your next sunrise.”
Lycoris swallowed. Tentatively, he said, “I don’t know how we can ever repay you for the lives that were lost saving ours. I’m anticipating that you’ll tell us.”
“Yes. I will. In fact-“
Yegor asked, “Archeology?” and as they hesitated to answer, he realized, “You didn’t invent any of this. You reverse engineer Collapse Relics.”
Yegor, Kryuger, and Helian turned to Havier.
“Is there a reason,” Yegor asked in Russian, “That you kept this from us, Havier?”
“It didn’t bear mentioning.”
Lycoris understood the tension in the room. He put out both hands to calm everyone. “90Wish split up because of a disagreement about research into Collapse Relics. Persica and I had ethical objections, and that’s the reason we had to flee and defect.”
Captain Yegor turned back to Lycoris. “It is illegal now, you know. We sign treaty. Do not do that.”
“But that’s no concern of ours,” Havier asserted, “Because everyone in this room is here to talk about Intelligent Automata. Not Collapse Relics.” A sudden change of tone, more relaxed. He asked, “I have a meal coming. Did anyone else want something?”
Kryuger felt annoyance creeping on him. He shook his head, as did Yegor. Helian answered, “I don’t eat while I’m working.”
Havier glanced down her form. “It serves you well,” he complimented. “But I would starve to death. Ah.”
The door opened and a servant pushed in a food trolley. Havier waved her over, but with a glance to Lycoris prompted, “Would you please take the floor and tell Mr. Kryuger about the future of Tactical Dolls?”
Lycoris jutted his chin as a question. “The future?”
“You’re a technologist from America. Spin us a story about things that don’t exist yet.”
And with that, Havier began whispering to the maid about the food he wanted.
Lycoris swallowed and straightened his pants against his thighs. “Um… The future.” He looked at Persica. She wiggled her cat ears, squinted one eye, and asked, “I guess we should start with ternary computing?”
Kryuger gave a long, tired blink, then murmured over his shoulder, “Coffee, Black.”
“Two,” Helian amended.
Yegor checked his watch, blew air through a tight expression, and gestured for a third.
They drank sparingly, experienced in the art of long technical briefings. Lycoris taught them the history of OGAS, Ternary, Q-trit computation, and the Laplace Demon Cryptography underpinning next gen Command-And-Control. Persica crash-coursed Baudrillard, Poincare, and Lorentz as a setup to Neural Cloud Topology. Kryuger asked questions about OGAS. Yegor asked what all of this meant for Asimov Protocols. Helian took interest in Neural Clouds.
Havier flirted with the maid.
When the maid’s giggle broke Lycoris’ concentration, Havier pre-empted the scientist and asked “Can you tell us more about bio-mimetics? I’ve heard precision drone avionics have fallen entirely into that domain. So much of engineering, of course, was long ago solved by nature. But in the quest for a doll soldier, is it true they’re meant to be more human? Indistinguishable, even?”
“Well…” Lyco strained. He rubbed a fatigued eye. “Yeah. Persica?”
Persica finished yawning. “I’m not… A military person. But they say nothing can replace infantry, right? Tactical Dolls supplement infantry well, but the force with more humans still has a demonstrated advantage. Maybe I’m too romantic, but victory is usually ascribed to the ingenuity…”
She realized he wasn’t listening. Havier had gone back to flirting with the maid, and was now playing with his fake Fabergé egg. It deformed under his handling, and Persica had a look of recognition. “I- I think that’s one of those three dimensional puzzles that falls apart if you-“
It did. A hundred tiny pieces fell across the table. Yegor scooted his chair back and pursed his lips. Helian turned around to look at Havier incredulously. Kryuger pinched his nose and sighed.
“Alright, old man,” he rumbled. “What the hell are you pulling here?”
Havier feigned embarrassment at the distraction he’d caused. “Well, let’s make the most of this, shall we? To be honest, I think we all need a break. And a fun little activity like putting this egg together would help us regain our focus.”
Lyco smirked, then laughed. “That’s, um… You’ve done your homework. 90Wish’s first white paper was a heuristic for solving that puzzle with reasonable resources. Fixing that egg isn’t a quick break.”
“I had no idea it was so difficult,” Havier insisted. A little disappointed, he gestured to everyone, “Well, just push all the parts back into a pile, then.”
Everyone shuffled the pieces back to his end of the table. Havier asked the maid, “Would you be a dear?”
She began picking out the pieces and assembling the egg while everyone returned their attention to Persica. Everyone but Helian. It took a moment for Kryuger to realize that she wasn’t in the conversation. He glanced to look at her. She was staring at the maid, shoulders rigid, hairs standing on end. Under the table, she reached for his thigh and patted twice.
DANGER.
Kryuger looked past her. Havier was staring at him. He had both hands rested on his cane, and was trying to hide his smile behind them. Helian tapped Kryuger again, harder.
DANGER!
The maid finished assembling the egg and scolded, “Please do not drop it again, Mr. Witkin.”
In Kryuger’s peripheries, it had passed for a woman. Head on, it looked nothing like a human female. It looked the way men wanted women to look. Captain Yegor looked at Kryuger, looked at the maid, and jumped from his seat in anger.
“Witkin, you dumb son of a bitch! We’ll have to hang you twice before we even charge you with Asimov Crimes!”
Havier’s smile widened. “Dear Yegor. Upon investigation, you will discover no evidence that I have committed any crime, Asimov or otherwise. To the contrary, this doll was manufactured by my competitors. Go on. Introduce yourself.”
It curtsied. “Sangvis Ferri Model SP47, ‘Agent,’ at your service.”
Yegor scowled. “Turing Off,” he ordered.
The machine stopped pretending to breathe, centered its weight, and adopted a shelf-appropriate pose. Everyone breathed heavily for a moment.
Yegor asked, “How did you get that machine get through security, Havier?”
“Yegor, if you must believe I brought it here, then please think of it as a gift.”
“We’ll obviously be returning it to its rightful owners,” he corrected.
Havier shook his head. “No you won’t. It’s evidence. Besides, they don’t know it’s missing. Take the initiative.”
Helian sighed her adrenaline away and more calmly said, “This is a bad prank, Havier. Why did you bring it here?”
Mr. Witkin licked his lips. He was done having fun, so he took a moment for his composure and finally said the truth.
“It is reverse engineered from Collapse Relics. Q-Ternary computing, OGAS API keys, a generational leap in Bio-Mimetics, and, yes, this Doll has a Neural Cloud. She’s more sentient than some people, I dare say. It seems the future arrived while we were talking about it.”
Yegor scowled, “That thing is an electronic recording device and you smuggled it in here. You can’t expect to be found blameless in this, Havier.”
“I expect you to do your due diligence first, Yegor. But this will fall on Sangvis Ferri’s legal department. Back to the topic at hand. I know we all want relic technology and the questions it raises to stay buried. Unfortunately… The genie is out of the bottle. The third great war has only just ended, and when this détente between powers expires, we will find ourselves in another war.”
Havier stood onto his cane with a grunt. “A war that will be decided in its first hour, when one side computationally eclipses the other. A war in which profit and loss will be decided the same way. And now I must leave you all with a question: Have we decided to win?”