The briefing room was seldom so quiet and sparsely populated, hinting at the gravity of their next assignment. Meduza had little inclinations as to what their task would be, worrying her to no end. The passing of Baran had more of an effect on her than she’d like to admit, the trauma roosting deep as a pit in her stomach she couldn’t be rid of. She had four lives to protect, such a finite number - and with each death she was closer to losing the others. The training and care required to groom a soldier into Spetsgruppa-level readiness took upwards of two years to manifest. There was no reserve or transfer that could be made in a timely manner - not that she wanted a replacement anyways. The cohesion Black Bheka had fostered over a decade of fighting would only be dampened by a new addition.

Black Bheka stood at attention to her rear before Instructor Usoro and the Director. It was rare to see the Director in the flesh nowadays, he spent most of his time organizing under the Premier in shadowed, smoke-fogged rooms. His appearance only sharpened her edge. Bheka had dressed down from their ceremony digs to more formal wear - the midnight uniforms and crimson detailing starkly pressed to perfection. They saluted in recognition of their superiors and were put at ease then asked to gather with a hand. Normally the Spetsgruppa would be arrayed in a series of chairs facing towards a projector, but the lack of bodies had them standing before a wooden desk with a row of folders and pamphlets neatly organized for their taking.

Wordlessly the Director gestured towards them. Meduza noticed her rank and callsign on one large folder, as well as a similarly thick folder for each of her squad members. A hand hesitantly fell to take it in her grasp, bringing it close and flipping it open. The first thing that met her was a picture of herself on some sort of identification card. The text surrounding it was english, highlighting things like a date of birth, eye color and hair color. Immediately behind it came a passport with a log of trips she never took to places she’d never desired to vacation. An equally confused look was echoed on her comrades’ faces.

“The Premier herself has found you fit for an assignment to America. We’ve managed to negotiate a deal with the President of the United States, your new objective is to do whatever you can to get him reelected.” Usoro lit a cigarette, brightening the ugly, over-scarred half of his visage in an unnerving way. “The American you retrieved from the Sinai is undergoing intense rebirthing, his knowledge will help you to complete your mission. As you can see we’ve already forged identities for you, over the next six months you will learn to step out of yourselves and become these personas wholly. All the details of your mission are in your folders, are there any questions?”

“With all due respect, instructor,” Drel began, “Are you sure this is a job for us? We’ve been trained in espionage, but not to this extent.”

The Director replied instead, taking a step closer to stare Drel in both eyes for a moment as he now lit a cigar in the Instructor’s wake. “This isn’t espionage, Captain. Or, at least it shouldn’t be. You’re expert enforcers, doing as the President bids until he’s reelected. He has spies for the more delicate surveillance and tracking - the Spetsgruppa are elite…” He inhaled and puffed on his cigar, turning away. “But more importantly, versatile.”

“Yes… Sir.” Drel said with a modicum of doubt.

“You’re dismissed.”

And they turned to depart with folders and documents in hand. A tense silence surrounded them on their way out of the briefing room and into the somber hallways. Their rigid stride was finally broken as they left earshot of their superiors, postures relaxing as shoulders slumped from worried sighs. No one dared confess their reservations, at least no yet, not here. Meduza led them quietly to their quarters, their top-secret papers stashed in bins or filing cabinets collectively. There was no doubt where they were going afterwards, it was the same place every time.

The irony of five trained killers convening at a dilapidated playground was not lost on them. Ever since Krovo and Byk were discovered spending their off-duty days here it morphed from a quiet place for them to be free of their obligations to a quiet place for the whole squad to escape to. The autumn trees that encircled it made the serenity twice as calm and twice as gorgeous. The wind sorting through the dying trees was enough to bleed the tension from their bodies completely. The playground used to be a part of the trails that circulated through the river island of Serebryany Bor - but due to a lack of care it fell into disrepair and then disuse. A few years ago Meduza remembered a group of younger Yordles who frequented the place. She caught a pair having sex under the slide, scaring them half to death when she discovered them. Her presence was enough to send them meandering away after a while of awkward silence.

The playground was small, but densely populated - with natural features meant to mimic the natural environment surrounding it. The use of logs, sticks and shaped wood contributed almost wholly to its construction. A large geometric climber's dome formed of branches bent into a cupola-esque shape created the center of the playground. Surrounding it was a swing set, a trio of seesaws and a play-castle complete with towers, slides, a rope bridge, net climb and monkey bars. The play-castle had an almost tribal aura to its construction, disguising metal support beams with false tree trunks, providing pillars for the play-structure to stand around and against. A random assortment of stepping-logs, thin branch bridges meant for balancing, planks and ropes strung between posts provided a dynamic, if not warped space for children to get active.

It was a shame it didn’t attract more people, but on the other hand it was their safe space, now - so was that really that bad? Like always the party gathered around the dome, clambering onto it or slipping into its empty center. Krovo was the first one in, kneeling to get a handful of cold sand. Memories of sparring with Baran in the confines of the cupola resurfaced. It was just like their fighting cage back at the Rebirth Center - but without the bloody implications.

“Well… Let me hear it.” Meduza grunted as she hung upside down from one of the lateral strips of wood - her braided hair cascading towards the sand.

“I think it’s stupid, but my opinion is irrelevant.” Byk stated plainly - crowning the dome at the very top whilst occupying her eyes with the falling autumn leaves.

“I don’t hate the idea. I mean, we were complaining about getting off the frontlines not too long ago.” Myslitel reasoned, leaning up against the side of the dome as she used her fingers to place quotations around the word “Frontlines”.

“I don't think this is what anyone had in mind when we said that, though. I wanted to do Special Forces tasking because, y’know, we’re Special Forces? I don’t want to be fucking cannon fodder but I also don’t want to be a double-agent, either.” Drel challenged, clambering about midway up before she, too, hung upside down.

“There’s no way I can overturn the decision, it came straight from Comrade Molotok. I’m just--,” Meduza sighed, “Why us?”

“Because we’re one of the most effective squads in the entire Spetsgruppa, that’s why,” Krovo droned as if it were obvious.

“At least we are favored by the Premier. This could spell good things for our future.” Byk flipped to the bright-side of things.

In the winter time the Moskva and Bezdonnoye Lake froze over thick enough for them to skate on. The snow would eventually pile high and the leaves would vanish from the trees. The landscape surrounding the Rebirth Center was attractive despite its depressing interior. Krovo had a passion for ice skating, the love of it having persisted since she was a child. It was hard to remember things about her childhood. She both knew and didn’t know why that was. One half of her brain challenged the loss of memory but the other remained passive, too complacent to care. She wondered what would happen if one day she could shock herself out of her complacency and commit herself to remembering. What would she find?

The cold sand fell from between her fingers as she discarded a great pile of it. Being inside this wooden dome reminded her of the cage she’d fought Byk in. The feeling made her ears rise and then fall flat against her shoulders. Suddenly the need to escape this prison infected her, urging Krovo to slip between the branches and out the other side with a sense of urgency that drew eyes from the rest of the squad. She retreated further away towards the play-castle, clambering up the side of its wooden facade as if she were scaling the exterior of a real building. She reached the top and slipped inside one of the windows. The walkways that led ever higher towards a Rapunzel-esque tower to one flank of the play-castle snaked before her, her half of it connected to the other by a purposefully precarious rope bridge.

She exhaled, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from her chest in the same vein as a workout bar being pushed off her abdomen. She glanced back over the edge to see the sparring cage surrounded by Spetsgruppa organized in rows. A lonely light shone on two figures in the cage scraping over a pistol. Krovo’s eyes went wide at the sudden realization. Her nerves tingled, her brain trying to dispel the illusion. All at once the head of her Spetsgruppa comrades turned, revealing themselves to be anything but. Korean faces looked back at her, mouths moving in unison as if reciting from a script - though no words or sound was produced.

Krovo turned away from the nightmare and towards a figure standing next to her. The Yordle wore the uniform of Instructor Usoro, and even had half a burnt visage just like him, but the other intact half resembled a familiar Korean Yordle. The more she racked her brain trying to decipher where she remembered him from the harder it became. In her rumination the Yordle upholstered an American Colt, leaving her looking down its darkened barrel. Then the Yordle spoke in a voice not his own.

“Krovo… You good?” The voice of her Major stained his lips.

A flash of light and the bark of the gun shocked her back to reality. She slumped over the edge of the play-castle, staring towards her squad still lounging about the branch-dome. Meduza looked up at her with a tinge of worry, having righted herself so she could better study Krovo.

“I-... I’m fine.” Krovo nodded, eyes averted.

Byk lurched from her perch atop the dome, clambering down it and towards Krovo, still elevated in the wooden play-castle. Krovo squinted at her. “I said I’m fine, Byk.”

Byk inexorably continued, first ahead and then up, scaling the side of the play-castle with her eyes fixed towards the Yordle. “You say a lot of things. Come here.”

“Byk, I’m serious,” Krovo retreated from the edge overlooking the rest of the playground, back pedaling towards the rope bridge with a half amused, half annoyed countenance. She could never hold an edge towards Byk, faltering at the slightest pressure applied from her beloved.

Byk reached the top and spread her arms to either side of herself, herding Krovo ever backwards and across the bridge. The mountainous Yordle was an obstacle in her own right. The moment Krovo finally turned and made to escape Byk was after her, chasing her partner across the bridge and down the play-castle, bouncing from level to level and then into the slide that brought them to the ground. The rest of their squad watched on with unsettled eyes - unconsciously thinking the same thing. How long had it been since they’d experienced something so child-like as playing tag on a playground? Their job descriptions never permitted thoughts like that to even occur. Drel, Meduza and Myslitel shared glances, confirming they were of the same mind.

Myslitel smiled, standing to intercept Byk as she pursued Krovo, shoving her hard enough to break her stride. The two paused like predator and prey happening across each other in the forest. Byk broke the trance with a lunge that Myslitel shrank from, climbing up the branch dome and down the other side. Byk chased her halfway up before slipping between the branches and into its hollow center, reaching an arm through just before Myslitel could push off the dome - tagging her. The Techie turned, focused on Drel who had yet to move. The moment they locked eyes the Captain was off, using the maze of wooden logs, stepping stones and hanging ropes to navigate her way towards the seesaws.

Myslitel followed, watching her go up one side and onto the other. She leapt on to counterbalance the weight, evening the beam before jumping down on her end to try and tilt the beam and bring Drel closer. Drel instead used the upward momentum to leap off it entirely and make for the play-castle. Myslitel, with an ear to ear smile, continued the chase only to cleverly double back on herself and tag her unsuspecting Major.

Meduza sighed, almost beyond the childish fun they were having. But to everyone’s surprise she tied her hair back and sprung off the dome, her chase beginning with Krovo who had yet to be tagged. The evening progressed like this for longer than any of them imagined it would.

Click! Exasperated, ragged exhales of relief bloated his cheeks. Three chambers left and any one of them could house the bullet that would push his brain matter through his face like a child mashing a fruit against the floor simply because they liked the way it felt in their hand. The question came again and he was none the wiser than he had been the other three times it was asked. But at this point Gordon was desperate, willing to say anything to make this nightmare end.

“Who are you?” The warped voice inquired for the fourth time.

“I-... I don’t know, please!”

Where he expected the weapon to action as it did before there was instead an eerie silence. His eyes, shut hard to brace for the bullet, opened slowly - his half restrained head trying its damndest to see what had silenced the revolver. In the end his eyes fell to the screen, revealing nothing out of the ordinary. Was the metal arm broken? Was there actually no ammo in it at all? Did the cylinder jam? It hadn’t even occurred to him in the slightest that his answer was actually correct.

The speakers on either side of his skull sent the reply of the devilish voice through. “Very good,” It said, “Very good. Let’s try again. Who are you?”

Gordon paused, his teary eyes blinking about as fast as his thoughts were moving. “I-... I don’t know?” His statement was more of an unsettled question than anything else. Which only proved to displease his captor, apparently - as he heard the winding of the hammer. “I don’t know! I don’t know!” He repeated frantically into the void.

The hammer’s actioning ceased, producing another tired sigh of relief. “Who do you want to be?”

This question scared the Yordle, his ears wilting like dying flowers at the open endedness of it all. He gulped hard on his own spit, wishing he could bring one of his subdued hands to his brow and wipe away the nervous sweat that populated it. “I uhh--... I don’t know, anyone, anything… It doesn’t matter, I’ll do anything!”

“Anything?” The voice asked to him softly.

“Anything!”

“Even… Betray your country?”

His perturbed features were struck with a hint of realization. They didn’t care for his insider knowledge on the Bureau, nor for what he could offer with regards to the President. They wanted him to be a double agent, to work against America as a communist spy. That’s why they were breaking him. The scariest part was, they were already making a considerable degree of progress. Despite Gordon’s hardened background in the Korean War and then as a top agent in the FBI, his rather lax life as a member of Nickelson’s security team had made him soft. It was easy being the President’s bodyguard, even in such tumultuous times the threats to his life were minimal. And the luxuries the position afforded were numerous. It was partly why he found himself sitting where he was. Maybe five or six years ago he’d bite the bullet for his country, but now? He wasn’t so sure he could. It all really depended on what he was propositioned with.

The silence was broken by the empty voice calling his name. “Gordon?”

He looked up into the darkness and then towards the television, finding it no longer streamed a live feed of him in his chair, but a simple numeric pattern that came across in foreboding crimson, each number flashing for five seconds before fading into the next and then the next. Two, three, two, three, eight, eight, two. Two, three, two, three, eight, eight, two. The ominous string of numbers was oddly well put together. He couldn’t explain what about the number combination made it seem that way. They flowed seamlessly, easy to look at and easy to speak maybe? Despite this he was none the wiser to why they were flashing on the screen before him.

“I don’t know,” He said again, finally coming back around to the question posed a minute ago.

“Can you recite the numbers on the screen as they appear, Gordon?”

“Uhm… Two, three, two, three, eight, eight, two,” He complied.

The voice didn’t reply, suggesting he should continue. And so he did, repeating the same seven digit string until he was asked to stop. And he wasn’t asked to stop, at least, not for a while. Any pauses were met with silence still, so rather than incur the wrath of his captors he continued to repeat and repeat and repeat. “Two, three, two, three, eight, eight, two… Two, three, two, three, eight, eight, two…”

Two, three, two, three, eight, eight, two.

It was a once in a lifetime experience to visit your greatest enemy’s home and break bread there. A few weeks ago Nickelson had put through a communique to the public about another attempt at mending the bonds between American and Russian culture, quoting a popular African-American rights activist who was assassinated only a year before his election to presidency; “We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.” Of course Nickelson didn’t believe any of that hogwash, at least not in the context it was used for. But he knew America was on the verge of change, and so to side against what most politicians were coming to see as the inevitable was simply to doom one’s political career.

Mak was quite amused at how the inner politics of the capitalist kingdom played out. Across Affra race wasn’t distinguished by the color of a Yordle’s skin or fur, nor the length of their ears, but simply by the aura of their being. It was an intrinsic thing in every Yordle, like a wolf could smell and sense the scent of a sibling and differentiate them from that of a rival pack, so too could Yordles discern the race of one another, sensing those who were alike and those who weren’t. Just as the Nazis persecuted the Jewish, the Americans laid low the once-slaves they’d brought to their country. Mak didn’t dare point out the hypocrisy, but she didn’t need to. Nickelson was well aware.

Now she sat across from the Yordle, finding his graying orange-white fur, stout, canine-esque ears and dark eyes about as amusing as the concept of racism. The half-smile on her face in turn made Nickelson smile, but he hadn’t the faintest clue why she was smiling. It all compounded on itself to nearly drive her into open laughter. She had come dressed in her finest uniform, the tan and crimson fitting to her with a perfection only attained by the finest tailors in all the Union. Nickelson’s less than charming family had been called away from the table, leaving only the Premier and the President in the dining room. Mak had no family of her own, or at least, no family worth mentioning - much less bringing across the planet to have dinner with the leader of the free world.

“Leader of the Free World,” what a self aggrandizing title. To think America could claim itself the “Free World” and at the same time reduce a minority of their population to second class citizens. The Soviet Union didn’t pretend to be a beacon of hope and civility, there were no illusions about what the Motherland was. Surely it could be better, and in time she would make it so, but she would never allow such a false image to be spun about her nation - not by others nor herself. But for now she shelved her distasteful thoughts.

“I have operatives in training to carry out whatever underhanded schemes you plan to execute this coming election period. They should be active and at your disposal no less than eight months from now.”

Nickelson rested his fork to one side of his platter, swallowing. “Underhanded? That’s rich coming from you, Premier. Would it not be fair to say this whole bout of blackmail is quite underhanded?”

“I never intended to release the information on Gordon Liddy, nor the money transferred to his account from your campaign fund. This was a move to get my foot in the door, nothing less and nothing more.” Believe it or not Mak was telling the truth. For as damning as this information was, it would likely get swept under the rug by Nickelson’s public relations council with ease. There was no point leaking it.

“Is that so? Well, your boot is firmly through the door. And I can’t say I don’t entirely need your assistance. These agents, how good are they?”

“The finest soldiers in the entirety of the Soviet Union, trained in every manner of warfare and espionage imaginable. I suggest using them less as a fine instrument and more as a tool, though. Save the more intricate and delicate tasking for your other operatives.”

Nickelson gave a slow nod. “And what if they’re compromised?”

“We have contingencies in place, but if worse comes to worst you can completely dissociate yourself with them and no one will be the wiser.” Mak assured him, her smile persisting. “So long as you ensure their safety afterwards. They are valuable assets, and I would like them returned in either case.”

Nickelson gave yet another nod, his eyes falling short of Molotok’s to his still warm food. He thought about taking another bite, but didn’t. Instead he figured a change of subject was in order. “Your English, it’s very good. Where did you learn?”

“Shortly after I became Premier I had a secretary teach me every pertinent language.”

“Interesting,” Nickelson hummed, “It’s not often a leader would care about such things. Despite the circumstances of our meeting I am truly humbled sitting before you, madam Molotok. Not long ago our countries called each other allies. You led the Soviet Union through the challenge of Nazism with supreme calm.”

“Our ideologies differ greatly, President Nickelson - but there is a degree of mutual respect between us,” Mak said with a sip of her wine.

“And what is it you seek to gain by granting me this favor?”

“Exactly the same thing you’re trying to gain. Humanity as we know it has struggled with itself for generations. Conflicting ideologies, cultures, beliefs - they all produce a lack of unity. The only way to move forward as a species is to unite. Fiction dictates that only a common enemy can truly unite us. As a child in all the stories I was told that the common enemy was an alien army of unparalleled military might with technology far more advanced than our own. But I believe humanity can achieve unity without something so silly as monstrosities from the void.” A hand rose to brush her blonde bangs from her eyes.

“And what might that be?” Nickelson leaned in, clearly intrigued. He was nothing if not a sucker for world peace. War was stressful, time consuming and in his opinion, ultimately pointless. He was a peace loving capitalist with eyes only for the money that could be gained and none of the blood shed to achieve it.

“Together America and Russians make up a significant percentage of the world's population, and we have both respectively raised the most formidable armies this world has ever seen. Now imagine if America and Russia were as one conglomerate, working together to bring the entire world under one regime. Our regime.” Mak’s palm tightened into a clutching fist as if she were holding the Earth between her curled fingers.

“You’re proposing an alliance?” Nickelson said with a raised brow of disbelief.

“In time, yes. And this gesture, this favor- Is an olive branch I’m extending to you. No doubt this decision will cause ripples not just in America but throughout the world. So, if we’re to make this move, we’ll have to place our pawns properly…” Eventually Mak digressed. “I’m sure this is all a bit much to think about all at once, regardless of your decision my assets are still at your disposal. I’ll give you some time to think.”