It was hard to imagine the scope, scale and beauty of a city like New York. But there it was before them in all its unthinkable magnificence. They had seen pictures, stories had been told, but all of it paled in comparison to being starstruck and tiny beneath the gleaming tinge of American skyscrapers. Moscow, the crown jewel of the Soviet Union, spread laterally - stretching its population more evenly. But New York spread vertically, its people densely packed into such a small locale. They first spotted the skyline around eight in the evening, the sun dying so every window of every office complex, five star hotel and high rise apartment building shone like gridwork beacons.

Despite its glamor the color was quite uniform, no one building stood out in architecture or palette from the others. Grays, browns, oranges and off-whites dominated the expanse, the occasional oxidized copper roof providing a welcome shift in the norm. The closer the Queen Elizabeth got the more the skyline stretched. Inspecting New York from afar didn’t invoke the same sense of scale as being amongst it. They began to make out the avenues between buildings, the busy cars and their bright headlights - neon signs that strobed with advertisement for the constructs they were attached to and overly large billboards selling stereotypical American merchandise like “Coca Cola” and “Suntory Royal Whisky”. It was nothing if not the throne of Capitalism.

Everything was trying to sell you something in New York, they had yet to enter the city proper and they were already well aware of that. From their perch on the top deck their attention shifted away from the gaudy glowing signs and towards a piece of artwork built nearly a century before their arrival. The Statue of Liberty stood solemnly overwatching the great American city, her torch held high and book spread open to a chosen page. Her face was rather grime, as if she could recognize something in New York others couldn’t. Or perhaps she was meant to be portrayed as a stone-faced sentry, unwavering in her duty to stand by Liberty and American values. Whatever the case, its craftsmanship was admirable. Millions hated this nation for what it was but none could deny their mascot was a thing of brilliance. Probably because it wasn’t their project to begin with.

Even something so iconic as the Statue of Liberty was transactional. History claims it was a gift from the French, but none of Bheka subscribe to that truth. It was a gifted token to improve relations. Relations that would foster trade benefits and further transactions in future. Nothing Capitalists have done or will do was purely from the heart. The Statue of Liberty was made as a welcome to foreigners seeking refuge, but America was only wanting foreigners so they could feed their industry with more labor. Everything was duplicitous, a reason behind the reason, a need behind the want. The Soviet Union educated them well on the untrusting and double crossing nature of Americans. Their mission was just that, a mission. They would do what was required of them and spare little of themselves indulging in what America had to offer.

The boat decks filled with passengers eager to leave the Queen Elizabeth and frolic in the Capitalist paradise, excited at the prospects America offered. Even the Steerage passengers were clamoring silently to thrust themselves into Immigrant offices so they could be processed and spat out the other side. A reluctance filled all of Bheka. This was the point of no return, their tasking began here and wouldn’t end until the Kremlin deemed it so. A sobering look from their leader stowed their distaste. Meduza was determined to see them through this, what was asked of them was simple for a group of Russia’s finest. They just had to swallow the bitter pill and get it done.

Anton and Alyuusha balled in the Customs office as they were filtered slowly through. It was a drab interior, purely business and with no thought towards providing an inclusive atmosphere for the newly arrived. Their upset children were among several other babies fussing in the crowded assortment of foreign bodies, all of which were packed into columns proceeding towards a width of kiosks that had officers screening immigrants through Metal Detectors whilst checking their luggage for anything suspicious. Their luggage held nothing but clothes, food stuffs and trinkets - non-important garbage that raised no eyebrows. Dayanna passed through first, the detector picking up nothing. Saysary went next with Anton hugged close to her chest, cleaner still.

Umsuura, holding baby Alyuusha swaddled in comfortable blankets - stepped into the scanner third. The moment she passed the detector chimed violently. She jumped at the alarm and was approached by several Customs officers cautiously holding tight to their holstered weapons. It was a matter of precaution, for all they knew anything could have tripped the detector. Umsuura clutched Alyuusha a little closer, eyes darting between the pair of officers. The loud screeching of alarms was silenced but their babies cried still.

“Hands raised, ma’am,” one Officer demanded, a curious looking, black plastic wand with yellow text held in his left hand.

She looked about herself in a panic, unsure of what to do with her beloved Alyuusha until Dayanna came back to take the baby from her. With her baby safe the Officer closed the distance and began waving over her with the wand. It whirred in the same vein as a minesweeper, coming to life when the officer combed over her hair band. Everything obviously made of metal had been removed and placed on a tray for inspection, but it appeared her hair band had a tiny metal clipping on one side of it. They pulled it free, leaving her braid unbound at its end. They had her step back through the Metal Detector. The machine remained quiet and the Officer let her pass. The rest of the Gypsy family followed shortly after and were permitted into the Immigrations office.

More diverse lines of people continued into cubicles where Immigrations representatives slaved away at paperwork that would allow them into the country. The wait was impossibly long, so long in fact Khatyyna and Maariya fell asleep for a time. Bureaucracy was an inevitable part of any country so large but damnit if it wasn’t mind-numbingly tedious. To occupy their minds they dealt cards and played Durak on the floor between themselves. It was a simple game to those who knew it, but to anyone else it might’ve appeared complex. It was a game of attack and defense. An attacker placed a card and the defender would have to counter that card with a grander one or concede their turn. The aim of the game was to get rid of one’s cards quickly. The last player with a card in hand was the loser, or the fool of Durak.

Khatyyna hated this game but played it anyway due to her immense boredom. She didn’t understand why a player had to defend at any point. Surely you could just place cards down to barrage the defender into submission, right? Dayanna and Umsuura argued that the point of the game would be defeated in that case, but she stubbornly disagreed. Their mundane argument drew a bit of attention as they went back and forth in Russian.

“You’re just being a baby about it.” Dayanna droned, eyes focused squarely on her hand.

“This game is stupid and you know it, we should play something else,” Khatyyna sighed.

“Like what?” Saysary scanned her hand in preparation to defend from Khatyyna’s attack. She had a Trump card ready to play but was unsure if now was the best time to play it. Khatyyna played an Ace of Spades and she had an Ace of her own to counter it, but when the time came for her to attack that card would be valuable.

“I don’t know… Anything but this. I can feel my brain fucking melting.”

Saysary placed her Trump down, her timid smile showing and sorry eyes gleaming. “Whatever you want, Khat.”

Khatyyna’s eyes fell to the Trump card placed over her own, lids low from a lack of good sleep. “Fuck you,” She said plainly, leaning back against her duffle bag to use it as a pillow. Her patience had been shattered, she was done. The game continued in her absence as she closed her eyes… Only to be pleasantly surprised when their family name was called.

“The… Osin family?”

The Yakuts gathered their things and hastily shuffled into the wooden cubicle, finding a middle-aged Yordle with spectacles awaiting them. She gave an uneasy and toothless smile, her pen hovering over a set of stapled documents. She looked about as tired as they were, heavy bags under her bright cerulean eyes. Her Fox-like features and tan skin was dressed in a layer of thin make-up. The family of Gypsies stood crowded before her was probably the most unique brand of Yordle that had passed through this office in quite some time, or at least that’s what her expression conveyed.

“Good evening… Sorry for the delay, as you can see there are quite a number of you…” She shuffled her papers about her desk. “I’m Avery, let’s begin with; What’s your English speaking capacity?”

“Fluent,” Maariya said, volunteering herself for the talking.

“And that’s all of you?”

“Yes. We taught ourselves,” Maariya nodded.

“So, as I understand it from the forms you filled out, you're refugees from eastern Russia? What is your purpose of entering the United States?” Avery inquired, her eyes low as she scratched with hurried but still relatively gorgeous handwriting across a cluttered page.

“We’re escaping a violent regime, just looking for a safe place to raise our children.”

“I mean no disrespect, I’m sure you’ve been through a lot, but I have to ask - how is it you managed to make your way here?” Avery looked up now, trying to remain respectful in the face of her curious suspicions.

“We left the country from the south, made our way through the middle east - took a boat from Turkey to Spain and from Spain to England. We sold our bodies for money and picked up work where we could.” Maariya’s face was wracked with the pain of recalling their terrible journey. Similarly her Family seemed plagued by reflections of the past.

“Do you have any documents from these countries? Any proof of travel?”

Umsuura produced a wallet, unfolding it. From her beaten leather keeping came several photos of their family in the parched lands of Turkey, on the coast of Gibraltar and in the ugly streets of Bristol.

Avery looked over the photos, spreading them apart with her fingers. “As you probably already know, the United States is more open to accepting refugees from countries affected by Communist regimes. You’re looking to acquire a United States Refugee Visa, correct?”

“Yes.” Umsuura nodded.

“To confirm, the United States Refugee Visa doesn’t guarantee permanent citizenship to the--”

Khatyyna leaned in very slowly past the chairs Maariya and Umsuura sat in, whispering a quiet; “We’re well aware. You don’t want us here for any longer than we have to be, that’s fine. Please stamp the documents.”

The Immigrations office inhaled sharply through the nose, checking off a few boxes and writing a few paragraphs. One by one she slammed the inked seal down on the papers, sliding them across the desk in bulk. In addition Avery bundled their documents together with a stapler, waving an officer to escort them further into the facility where photos were taken and their Visas were drafted.

“Welcome to America.”

For as beautiful as New York was there was nothing so attractive as to distract them from their heading. By the time they dragged themselves through the Immigrations offices it was half past midnight. The awe inspiring Financial district seemed so far away despite their position on its northern periphery. Instead they were presented with empty avenues devoid of life, save the occasional street walker down on her luck or junkie half-present in reality. In fact, there was an uncanny number of whores promiscuously tempting passersby or homeless denizens for a good time. Behind its gleaming exterior was a rotten interior degrading from the inside out. Even on the outskirts of the financial district things were quite grim.

The Gypsy family stayed close together, crossing the street when necessary to avoid the seedier figures. In hindsight Instructor Usoro had briefed them little on what to expect of daily life in America, no less New York. The urban jungle sprawl seemed perilous, on more than one occasion they were witness to blatant theft, stabbings and even rape upon passing one ugly alleyway. Flickering street lights made the atmosphere more ominous than it ought to be, highlighting the sleeping vagrants that clung to the sidewalks - some without blankets.

“Uh- I don’t mean to be a bitch or anything, but where the fuck are we going?” Krovo whispered. Her near excited inflection caused several heads to turn. Was she… Enjoying this?

“How should I know? They didn’t give us a fuckin’ map.” Meduza spat back.

“Well… Let’s find one.” Byk added.

“And where do you suggest we do that?” Meduza’s tone was smug to the nth degree, shaking her head at such an outrageous suggestion.

Byk’s pointing finger reached over Meduza’s shoulder, highlighting the Subway entrance on the corner of the Y-intersection proceeding them. She scoffed and rolled her eyes - changing direction towards it. The rest of her Gypsy flock followed shortly behind, a wary eye always focused towards their rear at all times. Anton and Alyuusha were being surprisingly quiet, which was probably a good thing in the current situation.

The all-business Art-deco style of elaborately built, blocky skyscrapers that towered overhead vanished as they entered a smoke-filled hole with a flight of cracked stone stairs leading down into a dimly lit, man-made cavern. Graffiti of all kinds marked the tiled walls, looking more like a child’s sketch book than a facade in a major city’s subway. What was all of this anyway? What did it all mean? So many letters and numbers drawn in both simplistic and overly complex shapes. If one didn’t know any better they could mistake this writing for some sort of ritually significant script. And it was everywhere, every wall that was capable of holding paint held it. Moscow had its fair share of graffiti but not to this extreme. Their authoritarian grip on the populous wouldn’t allow it.

Even more homeless crowded the seams between the floor and walls, stuffing themselves into corners with cardboard sleeping mats and tattered blankets. With their suitcases still in hand they were fish out of water - an easy lick for anyone interested. A group of hoodlums in big jackets eyed them from across the platform while they crowded around a map of the city - metal girders creaking precariously above their heads.

Drel’s finger pointed to the “You’re Here” star, tracing her digit along the multi-colored routes of the subway. They were right below Fulton street, looking to head south. But to head south they’d need to first travel west beneath the Hudson River and across into New Jersey.

“So, we need to go south, but it’s really late. Maybe we should find a place to stay and move in the morning? This place sucks for moving at night.” Drel suggested.

“We’re not going anywhere fast until we get some sort of transportation,” Meduza glanced over one shoulder to the group of thugs rolling dice on the platform a short thirty feet away, “And this Subway isn’t gonna’ cut it.”

“We don’t have the money for transportation or a place to stay, everything costs double what it normally does in New York.” Myslitel reasoned, keeping an ever vigilant eye towards their stalkers.

Byk folded her arms across her considerable chest and shrugged. “Let’s just steal a car.”

“Yeah, steal a car in the middle of New York?” Meduza shot her a glance.

“I’m open for better suggestions.” Byk shrugged again.

“Fine…” Meduza combed through her hair with her half-shaken fingers. “We take the Subway south, get off, take the ferry across and camp out on Governors island right here till morning,” Her finger touched to the southern tip of lower Manhattan where an island larger than the other two rested, ”It looks like a tourist attraction, so we should be safer there. In the morning we get back on the Subway, ride west into New Jersey, find some place to steal a car and drive south as far as it’ll take us. Understood?”

“Understood.” Bheka replied in near unison, letting their military pedigree slip for a single second.

The Gypsy family kept a generous distance from the still prowling thugs until the train arrived. It was a wonder they didn’t press the poor girls. The silver behemoth came screeching in, its metal exterior about as tarnished with graffiti paint as everything else was in this underground shithole. They took their seats in an empty car, stacking their suitcases beside themselves. Alyuusha was the first of their two toddlers to wake, though he didn’t fuss. His little hand reached towards his Mother’s face paired with curious eyes. Meduza couldn’t help but smile, occupying his curiosity with a binky and rattle.

“You look like you’re having fun…” She sighed, her tired eyes returning baby Alyuusha’s affixing gaze. “I wish I could say the same.”

The sliding door to the car stole her attention away from her adopted child. The seven thugs from the platform weren’t as passive as they originally appeared, they were just waiting for an opportunity and no chance of escape. Clever, Meduza thought. She could hardly call these bastards gangsters, but they were calculating to some base degree. She sat Alyuusha down on the seat beside her suitcase and Myslitel did the same with Anton, covering their heads with blankets. The five Gypsies crowded the aisle facing the thugs.

“Couple foreign bitches lookin’ for a spot in New York, huh?” A fully dark-furred Yordle with foreboding crimson eyes headed his little posse of street-kids, his hair greased back just like the boys on his left and right.

They wore an assortment of denim and leather jackets, some a size too big for them. Some looked to be no older than highschoolers while others stretched into their early mid-lives. They were amused, amused at the group of oddly dressed and obviously alien gals stood before them. Their hands kept close to their pockets, suggesting they were armed with something. Probably pocket knives.

“What was that trash you was speakin’ earlier? Ruski? You from the Motherland or somethin’?” He laughed, and his gang laughed with him.

The Gypsies’ silence made his eyes narrow, head turning as if trying to listen more clearly. “Hellooo?? You came to America and didn’t figure you’d need to learn English?” His voice took a sudden turn for the sinister. “Or are you whores just playin’ dumb?”

Something sharp rose from his leather jacket pocket, fluttering several times over until the pointy end was obviously visible. It was a Butterfly knife. “Well, lemme’ show you somethin’ you will understand.” He lifted the blade, pointing it in their direction while his other hand gripped squarely on his crotch. “I’m horny as fuck, so either you all’s get down on ya’ knees and start sucking - or we turn this train car into a whore house - free of charge.”

His goons laughed but none of Bheka found it overly amusing, their unified silence broken by ragged breathing from the back of their ranks. Byk glanced to see Krovo stewing in her own restrained fury, hand clutching the handle on her suitcase with white knuckles. She reached a hand towards Krovo’s shoulder but it was shrugged easily away.

“Oh, what… You gonna’ cry, sweetheart? I’ll give you somethin’ to cry about.” The thug got overzealous, stepping forward with his butterfly held tightly in his fist.

It only activated Bheka. Krovo made the first move, clearing their ranks aside so she could meet the Greaser up close. Time felt as if it had slowed in her addled head, the egotistical thug swiping towards her face an inch every second. She could hear her own breaths flowing shakily through her nose and then out the mouth. A single blink and the New York gangster was a Korean fighter with a bayonet rushing her in a trench. The cut came and she slipped it, turning her head to the side where it narrowly grazed her cheek. She countered right, coming across with the suitcase to crunch the short end against his face - sending him into the left wall of the trench with a bloody nose.

“What the FUCK?! You fucking slut?!! Who the hell do you think you are!!?” The gangster gripped his bleeding nose, sneezing crimson across his leather jacket.

The second of the seven produced his own cutter, springing for a stab. Drel intercepted his wrist, came across with her free arm and wrenched the weapon out of his hand, breaking his left arm at the elbow before sweeping his feet to put him on his back. Byk engaged the third and the fourth, ducking a cut and side-stepping a punch. Her hand came to the back of another Greaser’s skull, hand oiled with his product. She got a fistful of hair and drove his face into the window of the train car, cracking the glass. The fourth bastard came in for seconds, cutting her across the shoulder. She ate the slice without a grunt nor cry of pain, counter-attacking with two rights to the chin and a left across the cheek that grounded him.

The fifth Greaser came running to avenge his leadership but Krovo was immensely focused on the initial attacker, slipping the overhead strike whilst continuing his momentum further along in the train car with a shoving hand to his back. He ran head first into Myslitel who killed his forward momentum with a knee to the ribs, stretching the seams of her dress to land it. Her hand found the back of his head as he doubled over, slamming it into the metal seat a foot away once, twice, three times. The sixth and seventh greaser moved to contest Drel and save their broken ally who was writhing at her feet. She retreated two steps, avoiding a cut by placing a subway pole between herself and her attacker’s arm.

“Drel!” Myslitel shouted.

Without so much as a need to fully turn her head a hand reached out and secured the bat thrown her way. She swung for the fences, cracking the overextended Greaser across the forehead to dent his skull. The man seized and flopped to the ground, dead or at least on the verge of it. The second one backed off at seeing his friend go down so violently. Fear fell across his features and his hand dipped into his jacket pocket for something other than a blade.

Before he could draw Meduza was already reaching past the blankets swaddled around Alyuusha. Her superior training got her AutoMag online faster. She started at the knee, blowing a chunk from his cap before progressing to his stomach, bloody mist painting the exit door to the train car. Then finally to his head, the round breaking through his face to push his brains out the back of his skull - staining the slit window on the car door crimson with chunky viscera.

Heavy breathing followed the clattering of Drel’s bat to the train car floor. Their eyes turned collectively towards Krovo and the moaning leader. He mumbled for salvation as his chest was consistently gouged at with his own butterfly knife. He had maybe thirty stab wounds and Krovo wouldn’t stop until he had three hundred more. His red palm gripped weakly at her forearm, pinned between the blood-mad Gypsy and one window of the train car. Red poured from his mouth as he sputtered up his own life essence like vomit.

Each stab was followed by a grunting of applied force. Drel and Byk moved to pull her off the Yordle around the fiftieth in and out. Krovo growled, fighting against their combined might to continue punishing her attacker - but they were too much. What resulted was a blood curdling screech as Krovo went kicking and screaming away from the scene of battle.

“St-st-stop! Let me go, le-leemme’ go! Ihhll kill them-- Let me… Let meeeuughh gouuugh!!!” Tears traced down her face as she hopelessly clawed toward the still dying Greaser. Her screams were muffled by the closing of the car door on the opposite end.

Meduza watched her crazed subordinate go until she could see no more of the trio, turning back to the slaughter before them. Myslitel, chest still heaving, looked to her for guidance. She almost didn’t have an answer. “Find the shells, I’ll find the bullets - kill them all and take their weapons.” Meduza mumbled, barely heard over their crying boys.

“Uh- O-Okay…” Myslitel nodded.

“Put a rag over your hand, too. No prints.” Meduza added.

She stepped to the shot Yordle, using one of Alyuusha’s clean rags to dig her finger into the bullet wounds and push the lodged rounds out the other side. The sickening squelch would’ve made any normal person regurgitate their lunch - but she was used to terrible shit like this. She collected the bullets one by one, having trouble finding the third one. Eventually she stumbled upon it in a seam around the door. It had gone straight through and cracked the glass before falling. She retrieved the gangster’s pistol from his dead grip. A snub-nose revolver with a scratched serial.

Myslitel found all the shells and Meduza gathered all the bullets, stuffing them into a handkerchief before tying it off. All the weapons used were collected and wiped down and each still living Greaser received a stab wound to the neck or chest. She wanted it to look something like a gang fight, some sort of rivalry. Of course no street gang would be smart enough to clear the evidence of their crime this thoroughly, so she figured the police would probably assume whoever produced this scene was a bit more professional. Mafia, maybe? Whatever the case they were the least likely suspects. There were no cameras in the trains or the subways, just as Meduza assumed. That kind of technology was far from being widespread. And unbeknownst to her the New York subway was the best place to commit a crime, apparently.

When Bheka surfaced on the other side of Lower Manhattan they got off the train a few cars away from the bloody crime scene, wandering the streets with half-tarnished dresses. They searched firstly for the nearest homeless barrel fire they could find, stuffing the bat into it as kindling. The next one they discovered was for their clothes. They changed out of their garments and into something fresh, stoking the flames with their blood-dampened fabrics.

When they finally arrived at the all-night ferry they found it just as lifeless as the rest of the midnight city. A few souls lingered, business folk and an odd presence of uniformed Yordles. A hat with the letters “USCG” was tucked into one civilian’s back pocket. Along the ride to Governors Island they discreetly dropped the blades of their victims into the water - liberally sprinkling the weaponry along the route so the evidence wasn’t all in one place and thus easy to gather. The snub-nose, bullets and shell casings went in last, all of it had been cleansed of DNA via the barrel fires they’d discarded their clothes in.

Upon crossing the Bay to Governors Island they stepped off the ferry and onto the northernmost pier, finding it immersed in a welcoming quiet. Even past midnight New York wasn’t entirely asleep. Manhattan was still filled with barking dogs, the occasional beeping horn and all the other white noise a metropolis like this would create. On Governors Island it was green, though, verdant even. The trees had grown fully as winter turned to spring and the grass was lush before them. The hour left what they assumed to be the Coast Guard sentry asleep on his job. Judging by the signage, flags and symbols the Coast Guard called this place home.

The striking shape of a Civil War era Fort was immediately visible, its red-brick exterior lit by a crown of postlights. They gathered towards the open stretch of green nearest to a grand Oak tree on the periphery of the fort. Passersby didn’t care to bother them at such an hour, perhaps figuring they ought to be there if no one had already removed them. So close to Manhattan the city’s tallest buildings were still very much within their periphery - but much like Moscow the light pollution prevented the stars from showing. A crying shame. It had been a while since they’d experienced a full night sky. The Sinai had some beautiful vistas, but the glowing megastructures weren’t bad either.

They spread about their blankets and made sure Alyuusha and Anton were well fed before they committed to sleep.

“So…” Myslitel whispered. “What do we think about our first day in America?” A hint of sarcasm played on her voice.

Meduza gently shifted in her sleeping arrangements, reaching for something. Myslitel’s brow raised in the silence. Meduza turned at once and flung something plastic her way. From her position lying on her side she had no choice but to eat whatever it was straight to the face. Her eyes opened to find a half full baby bottle meant for Anton lying before her.

“Go to bed.”

“Yeah… Yeah… I guess I deserved that.”

It had been a while since Mak felt the leather of her operations chair. She hadn’t needed to follow any military developments closely, and to be quite honest she still didn’t. But her curiosity got the best of her ever since a report was laid on her desk concerning Black Bheka and their official arrival to America - Manhattan to be exact. The Empire State. More pretentious titles. She had agents throughout the area reporting back infrequently with encrypted satellite phone-calls. The Queen Elizabeth II made port around twenty-hundred hours and Bheka was seen offloading twenty minutes later. They traveled through the city towards the Immigrations Office via bus provided by non-citizens and remained there for the better part of the evening. That’s where her agents lost their trail.

She trusted Bheka to do what they were ordered to do, at least to a degree. No one could be trusted entirely with Capitalist temptations. It was easy to get lost in all the amenities and luxuries that quote un-quote “Freedom” provided, but those very same “Freedoms” led to a country of greed and gluttony. A life with too little hardships spawned weakness in its people. Adversity created strength. Not until the world was unified could they begin considering the possibility of trivializing the average Yordle’s lifestyle. For now, at least in the Soviet Union, they would work and build towards something greater - a single cause. No one was guaranteed an easy existence. Not even Mak. The stress of running such a vast state was draining on its own, and her subordinates fared little better. But this was the price they paid for eventual greatness.

There was another reason she occupied her chair, though. The Coup that had happened in Afghanistan spearheaded by their puppet sympathizers. She had agents there, too - making sure everything was proceeding as planned. No longer was Mak interested in a mutually beneficial alliance with Afghanistan, she was interested in owning the territory. The country was rich with oil, oil that Russia was importing at the very moment she was monitoring her wall of maps and screens. It was a vital resource that she didn’t want to pay for anymore. Afghanistan was so close, within the Soviet Union’s grasp - but rather than bring war to their country a simple coup would do the job just as well and save their soured relationship from souring any further.

But her puppet still had interests of his own. He needed to be monitored, kept on a short leash. Straying too far from the path laid would result in his swift replacement. His changes were already in the drafting stages amongst the newly throned Communist Party. The seeds were being sown. Eventually once Afghanistan came under her control she could use it as a stepping stone into the surrounding Middle East, seizing the territory surrounding it when the Cold War eventually went hot. The land claims would allow her to easily backdoor allied territories like Israel, and with the help of the Egyptian military she could push a two-front war that would only end in their assured destruction before America could effectively intervene - if they intervened.

Should her plan in America go accordingly the United States would eventually wave a crimson banner as well. Nickelson would have his peace at her side and their combined military might would thrust the world into a new age of collective progress. But the final hurdle after America was the stubborn Nazi regime that still clung to life in central Europe like a bloodsucking parasite half dead. Its nuclear assets meant it couldn’t be trampled over like proxy countries. It was a superpower barely but one that required a considerable amount of attention to be rid of. Then there was still the question of the document Bheka dug up in the underground facility. MM-335. She’d had Scientists and Nuclear Physicists working around the clock to try and decipher its purpose, but they only produced more questions and speculation - nothing conclusive. So many steps to achieve her dream of a Red Affra.

Her mental calculation was interrupted when her secretary presented her with a hot mug of coffee, leaving it there on her terminal with only a slight nod of acknowledgement and not a word. That Boris was a good man to her. A very good man.