I wake in a bed that almost feels like home.

The ceiling is concrete, as in my apartment, and not the shabby wooden planks that make the ceiling in the prisoner barracks. This concrete will keep out the wet. It will not collapse under drifts of snow.

I sit. My first sight is a trio of pictures: Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, paintings in the Soviet Realist style. They are faithfully reprinted in stunning color, and they are nearly three feet tall so that they can be seen easily from the bed.

Marx is studying and writing in the book that would eventually become Das Kapital.

Lenin is leading the Red Revolution, a crowd of the proletariat at his back, engaging the Tsarists in early Mecha combat. The armor is still partly chain mail (for lightness), and the engines are huge compared to their power output. The machine gun attached to his right arm cannot be aimed well, and the flamethrower on his left arm has only two minutes of fuel. This is the most popular image of Lenin, although the one where he executes a half dozen bankers of questionable descent is also very common.

Finally, in the middle and slightly larger than the other two, is Stalin. Stalin, level 99 in all skills, glorious in his Mecha suit. The lightest and strongest metals plate his body. At his sides are two copies of the most powerful engine that Soviet engineering can come up with. His right arm not only has a machine gun far more powerful and accurate than the one on Lenin, but it also has a rifle that can be used at long ranges. On his left arm, the flamethrower has been joined by a grenade launcher. On his chest is a device which can cause the eyes and ears of his enemies to betray them, which allows Mecha Stalin to show great kindness and mercy to the confused capitalists that he must reeducate. Mercy is Mecha Stalin’s greatest virtue.

You have received the status Soviet Pride.

+10 on wisdom checks against enemies of the state

-10 on wisdom checks against friends of the state

I wait, staring at the pictures for quite some time. There is nothing better to do, and I am used to waiting.

You have received 800 EXP in Patience, Wisdom .

Eventually one of the guards enters. I inspect his stats out of instinct. It's what teachers do.

Name: Sacha Astakhov

Age: 40

Level: 25

Occupation: Correctional Labor Facility Compliance Officer

Ideological Alignments: Communist, Stalinist

Stats

Strength: 33

Constitution: 48

Dexterity: 18

Intelligence: 25

Wisdom: 26

Charisma: 31

Top Skills

Intimidation: 59

Punching: 58

Pistols: 51

Persuasion: 44

Resist Cold: 41

I used to be able to trust myself when I saw these stat sheets. Inspect had occasionally given me blank values, for recalcitrant students who didn't want to be Inspected, but it had never given me wrong answers before... at least until the night of my arrest.

I will know later, when I receive the EXP for Inspect. If it's 10 EXP then it means that they were not trying to hide anything from me. If it's more, then that means they were trying to hide something. The delay in EXP gain for Wisdom skills is annoying, but it makes sense. If you gain a bunch of EXP in Discernment, that means that someone tried to tell you a lie. If you gain all that EXP immediately, like you do after throwing a punch, then you would know exactly what statements were false.

I often wonder why the underlying systems of the world are so much more balanced than the systems that are created by men, but I do not wonder out loud. Things are infinitely more balanced than before the party, when the Tsars, those bourgeois scum, ruled Russia with an iron fist of oppression. The party has made things more balanced in society, although they haven't quite reached the beauty of the natural.

All of this I try not to think on too hard. If I do this, I may start thinking of a Designer, and if I do that then I will deserve to be in the camp. As it is, it is simply a mistake that will soon be corrected.

"Why am I here?" I ask.

"You were in a fight," says Sacha, "and you lost. Quite badly. However, since you were defending the name of Mecha Stalin, we decided to rescue you from the criminal rabble out there."

"I mean, in this camp. There must be a mistake somewhere. I'm a loyal Communist. I love Mecha Stalin."

Sacha looks confused. "You signed a paper specifying the crimes that you committed."

"I did it to help! They said that I was holding up the processing of real criminals, and that if I signed then Stalin would be pleased, and that it would all get fixed. I wanted to help my comrades..." It sounds pathetic as I say it. Who would sign to a list of crimes they barely read? Someone who is very patriotic, I tell myself. Someone who truly loves Mecha Stalin.

"There's no paper saying that," says Sacha, "but there is one listing your crimes. You signed it! Would you like me to read it to you?"

I nod. He walks out of the room and returns a few minutes later with a sheet of paper.

"You must understand," he says, "this is a great privilege. Most do not get this kind of treatment. It is only because I can see that despite whatever you have done to deserve correctional labor, you do deeply love Mecha Stalin."

"Please read it to me," I say, trying to keep the pain from my voice. I must not question the wisdom of Mecha Stalin. It was, however, possible that a mistake was made by a bureaucrat, a lowly party official who did not have enough love for country, party, Mecha Stalin.

Sacha reads from the paper. "Vladimir Federov is sentenced to ten years hard labor for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda. There is further documentation, a quote from two anonymous sources. It says that during the course of a lecture you casually expressed admiration for an American mathematician. A capitalist mathematician."

I have no defense. I didn't think it was a crime, but I see now that it was. To promote a work that had been created by an exploitative system, to praise someone who was involved in perpetuating that system without even the slightest regard towards class struggle... it hits me in the heart. I stare open-mouthed. Tears come to my eyes, and soon I am weeping openly as I understand the depths of my crimes. I thought I loved Stalin, but it was mere words! In my actions it was as if I had shut down Mecha Stalin's engines myself, then stabbed him through the heart.

"I see you understand the depth of your crimes," says Sacha.

I nod, still sobbing uncontrollably.

"There are ways to make up for your betrayal." Sacha is like a comforting father. "Ways that will make the day of your release come quicker and, more importantly, bring Mecha Stalin's grand plan closer to fruition. Do you wish to help?"

"I do. I want to make it up. Anything I can do to bring about Utopia, I will do." I truly mean it.

Sacha lays out what he wants me to do. It's a method of reporting on the other prisoners, should they do any act that is against the people or the party. I've heard the zeks talk of this: I'm going to be a "stool pigeon".

I agree. The zeks will hate me, but they will already do that, seeing as I have spent a night in the guard's cabin. This way I have the Sacha's trust and protection and I will be able to exit the camp sooner.

I am utterly confident that this is the right thing to do.

As Sacha leaves I am hit by a flurry of EXP notifications. My Wisdom attribute increases to 47. I know, intellectually, that I’ve been manipulated, but I just can’t bring myself to care.