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Magistrale over the Tundra, had been all
about foresight and growth and trade.
    Yet,
something had gone wrong.
    After the
fall of the Union, some Western analysts and ‘think tanks’ had even suggested
to split up Russia into three or four ‘manageable chunks’. Obviously Muscovy
would become a basecamp of sorts, to ravage the wild east, while the rest of
Russia disintegrated to become the apocalyptic New Africa.
    But despite
the self-denials and an army of Soviet apologists, something had gone wrong.
Something had terribly, terribly gone wrong with Russia. Anna Petrova tossed
and turned in her bed.
     
     
     
    At half
past one, the President heard a muffled noise… a grating. She sprang up and sat
on the massive Catherine the Great’s bed. She wasn’t sure if she had imagined the
noise.
    Eleven
seconds later she heard the noise again. But the grating didn’t come from the main
door. It seemed to come from the fireplace. The Federal Protective Service,
tasked with her security had assured her that the fireplace was decorative. The
chimney had been sealed and the fireplace hadn’t been used since the days of Khrushchev.
    Anna
Petrova, the first ever female President of Russia contemplated the situation nervously.
She didn’t want to alert her guards just yet. Being a member of the female form,
the guards had assumed her to be soft and often treated her with kid gloves.
For some reason they were also under the impression that she was afraid of the
dark. Sure, she had had a couple of nightmares involving Iron Felix and Yezhov,
but who could blame her… some real dark shit had gone down in the Kremlin’s
five hundred year existence.
    Plus a
good majority of the Kremlin’s previous tenants hadn’t vacated by choice. Even
when they did, they had ended up on the Kremlin’s Wall Necropolis.
    President
Petrova tried to breathe deeply. Six deep breaths usually did it. One. Two.
Three. She forgot about the breathing.
    Plus there
had been zero nightmares or ‘incidents’ since the departure of her cats.
    Crrrank . Fuck there it was again. Anna Petrova contemplated
making a dash for the main door. The door was almost 30 feet away. The ambient
Moscow lights, and the lamps from the Kremlin grounds presented reasonable visibility.
Or maybe she could just pick up the phone…
    “Good
evening Ms. President.”
    “Who’s
that?”
    A light
came on near the fireplace. A short rotund, man in a long white coat climbed
out of the fireplace.
    “Good
evening Ms. President. Sorry to disturb you at this hour.”
    He looked
old but well kept. Non-threatening.
    The unsure
President asked, “Are you part of my security detail?”
    “Madam, my
name is Otto Fuchs and… I am the Messenger. ”
     
     
     
    Anna
Petrova woke up with a start. What a freaky dream. Even the fine Afghani kush on
during her ‘aid’ trips to Ashgabat had never made her hallucinate about old men
crawling out of fireplaces. Even that Iron Felix-Yezhov nightmare had depicted
them as young sexy revolutionaries. This psycho Santa was a first.
    She opened
her eyes and found herself in a Lazyboy facing the fireplace. On a nearby Lazyboy
sat the rotund dude of her dreams. Seemed like he was sampling her beer collection.
    “Oh God! I’m
still in that dream… oh no. Who the hell are you? The guards never appear in
the dreams…” Anna whimpered softly.
    Ms.
President, or shall I say Anna… you are back. You fainted and fell. I moved you
to these fine chairs. Here have a Corona. Corona, almost as good as Bavarian.”
    “What?”
    “Just have
a beer Madam. Trust me I am not the enemy. I am just a Messenger.”
    “A
Messenger? Ok whats the message?”
    “The
Weapon is ready.”
     
     
     
    “The
Weapon is ready? What weapon?”
    “Sorry.
That’s all I can say.”
    “Wait …
are you that scientist from Izhevsk that defected to France? Didn’t you…?”
    “Oh. No. Like
I said I’m just the Messenger .”
    “Wait a
minute…. you said your name was