Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave XIX - "The Soviet Connection"

Royce Café was a quiet, little coffee shop tucked away in a corner a few blocks from Matsuzaki Station, the main station on the eastern side of Elizabeth Pond. Matsuzaki, which let passengers off right in front of the Cabot Shopping Center, was the wealthiest area in the entirety of the Pond, which was already one of the wealthiest areas in all of Narragansett, if you ignored those out-of-sight areas in the corners of the district. The Shopping Center was a large steel complex that housed dozens of department stores, filled with the latest fashion trends out of London and Hong Kong, every shop and the mall itself festively decorated with jack-o-lanterns for the Halloween season. Behind the complex were a number of crisscrossing side streets, walkways, and alleyways that could form quite a picturesque scene at night, all lit up by gas lamps.

Unfortunately, it was day, so no scenic gas lamps for the moment. Not that Oksana minded. Hours after leaving Audrey and Esther at the church, she walked past the mall, she paid no attention to the shoppers at the complex, many of them arriving from the neighboring district of Russet to the east, maybe even from Carson Beach along Narragansett Bay. Truth be told, while the cozy maze behind the shopping center was picturesque, Kendall Bridge simply did it better - more malls with even more department stores, the latest fashion trends out of Berlin and Shanghai (the actual fashion capitals of the world), and theaters that could play movies in color.

Not that Elizabeth Pond was far behind. While it did suffer some from requiring all incoming visitors to bring identification documents at the border crossing (and pay an admission fee), that border crossing gave Elizabeth Pond some sort of exotic appeal. Many people went to the Pond simply to say they went; Oksana saw several Cambridge High students dressing themselves in shirts that said "I Visited the Pond and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt".

Oksana shook her head. Elizabeth Pond was not exotic, though perhaps to these students, it really was. Many people in New England still lived their whole lives in a single township, forever seeing the same streets and buildings. Oksana supposed that actually sounded pretty nice. She knew about exoticness more than she would've liked to; she lived in a her single village just until the age of six, when her people were shipped off to the gulag.

Oksana rubbed her head as she passed by several Vocational school students waiting at a bus stop. Her memories from life in Russia in the aftermath of the European Exchange were relatively hazy, though she supposed all her memories were like that. She recalled blurry moments of a gulag-wide uprising, a long retreat through the Caucasus, the atomic ruins of Hashtarkhan, losing many people, making a friend, then at last arriving in safety in Istanbul. Did she escape the Caucasus alone? Oksana couldn't remember who came with her on that boat ride, if anyone did at all.

She kept walking, her head swimming as usual, entering the maze of little pathways and walkways behind the shopping center. Things quieted down a little there, providing some relief to her pounding headache.

Wait, when did my head start hurting?

Oksana rubbed her eyes. That was the thing about headaches - one minute, your head just hurts, no warning or otherwise. Very much like life, Oksana supposed. One moment, her sister was getting shot through the head, tumbling into a mass grave - the next moment, Oksana was here, passing by giggling visitors who wore maroon jackets with PENNACOOK HIGH stitched in yellow across the back.

That exotic appeal. Elizabeth Pond closing itself off could be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it gave it an otherworldly allure, a little hermit kingdom in New England's largest city.

And on the other hand, perhaps closing itself off could give others in New England the idea that the Pond was hoarding all this wealth just for itself. At least Kendall Bridge shared its wealth in the form of open borders and community investments (which, as the destruction of several Neponset neighborhoods to build a Squanto Bank Entertainment Plaza demonstrated, was not always a good thing, but on the surface it looked good. And even Oksana knew that looking good was the name of the game in mass politics). Businessmen in Kendall Bridge bankrolled several entertainment expositions held in industrial mill cities such as Salem Slot in New Hampshire; in comparison, what had hermit kingdom Elizabeth Pond done for the good of New England?

Oksana sat in a small booth, a cup of coffee resting idly on the table.

Wait, what?

Oksana rubbed her eyes, then looked around. She was in some sort of small, rustic building within the maze of side streets. She remembered now.

Royce Café. 4 PM.

Oksana always wandered, but she also always managed to get to the target location on time. Perhaps she couldn't remember getting there, or even sitting down at the booth, or even ordering a coffee, but she got there on time, and that was the most important part.

Oksana looked out the window, searching for something. She couldn’t find it, but she knew it was out there nonetheless. Yawning, she glanced around the café. The café owner, a middle-aged man with a big belly, leaned on his counter, watching a television play a newsreel on the state-owned Channel 9. Oksana couldn’t see it from where she sat, but she could hear the strong voice of news anchor Chuck Banner.

“France and the Triple Kingdoms of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have announced their full support of Iberia in the growing crisis around the Cape Verde Islands. The Nigerian Foreign Ministry released a statement claiming its naval task force performed its normal patrol route around the islands, part of Nigerian policy to protect the sovereignty of the strategically-located island chain. This sovereignty, of course, is questionable, as Nigeria controls Cape Verde’s financial institutions and banking systems. And, in this news anchor's opinion, a 'normal patrol' consisting of three carriers - including the flagship Walkiya - and over thirty destroyers is rather questionable as well."

Oksana took a sip from her coffee, then realized she was actually holding nothing in her hand.

Chuck Banner continued his story. "Nigeria has been the center of several global crises in the past several months, including disputes with the East African Federation over uranium resources in the Congo, which has brought that pariah state an unexpected boon in the form of diplomatic relationships with Iberia. As for New England's response, our tireless Secretary of State, Gabriel Easton, released a statement today backed by the Presidential Administration. While acknowledging the legitimacy of Iberia’s interests in the area, he has also called for peaceful negotiations to discuss the matter. Considering its role as the axis upon which the Unified Pact rotates, Berlin's offer to mediate the dispute, no doubt in Nigeria's favor, has set off diplomatic firestorms in several capitals, including Edinburgh and Moscow...”

Oksana turned her attention away from the news report and looked around at the other patrons at the café. There were only a few people inside; Oksana, the owner, and a young couple at a booth of their own. Oksana felt most interested in the couple; only half of which was actually young.

The man was getting up there in his years, wrinkles in his face and his hair almost entirely gray, though perhaps the stress of his profession in a dictatorship aged him rapidly. Professor Yasuhiro Beskov of Wampanoag University, known dissident, sat in the booth, talking in a low voice. Across from him sat a young student, a girl named Esra. Oksana never met her directly, only ever seeing her face through her Rddhi snakes; she was tan with hazel-colored hair, her face looking rather antsy.

If she was in Esra's shoes, Oksana would feel antsy too, considering what was about to happen.

“Beautiful little runaway couple, aren’t they?”

Oksana didn’t hear the man come in, nor she did hear the bell ring at the door; she rubbed her eyes, not sure, like always, if he had even come in at all. The man sat down on the other side of her booth, dressed in a black jacket and gray scally cap. His voice – if that was him actually talking – was marked by a thick Russian accent.

Nikolai Bukharin. Old Bolshevik. Oksana knew he couldn’t be real – he died in 1938, almost three hundred years ago – but he looked so real, sitting across from her, as real as the day they met outside of Hashtarkhan. Oksana rubbed her eyes again.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Bukharin said, relaxing in his seat.

Real. He has to be real.

His voice, his appearance, they looked and felt so lifelike, that the Bukharin before her had to be the real one. Oksana knew it couldn’t be, but...it very well could be.

She leaned over, resting her chin on her hand so she spoke into her palm, muffling her voice. In the off-chance he wasn’t real, Oksana didn’t want to draw any attention to a girl talking to herself.

But Oksana wasn’t talking to herself. She was talking to Bukharin, the friend she made in the Caucasus.

“Haven’t felt like seeing you in a while,” Oksana quietly answered. She looked into his eyes – they definitely looked back at hers – so she darted hers away, looking out the window onto the quiet street.

“That’s good,” Bukharin said jovially. “I know that you know that I only visit in times of great stress. We used to talk every day on our sojourn through the Caucasus and when we first got settled in Neponset. Good times. But you got friends now, right? That girl you go to church with?”

“She’s not my friend,” came the muffled response.

“Ah, Oksana, always wanting to be alone. Reminds me of poor Trotsky. Try not to end up like him as well.” Bukharin took a sip from Oksana’s coffee. “Pardon my intrusion, then. But if I’m here, that must mean something is making you feel rather stressed.”

Oksana put the cup of coffee down and glanced over at Professor Beskov and Esra.

“Of course,” Bukharin realized. “You bothered by the fact they’re merely pawns now, their remaining time on this earth limited to a few more minutes?”

Oksana shook her head.

“Then what’s the matter?” Bukharin asked.

Oksana sighed. “What bothers me is the fact that it doesn’t.”

Bukhrain let out a low chuckle. “Always an enigma, young Oksana. Tell me, since I’m a man out of time and out of space – what's their deal?”

Oksana took another glance over at the couple. They spoke in low voices.

“Beskov is a Professor at Wampanoag University,” Oksana whispered. “Teaching political science. But the Presidential Administration kept limiting what he could teach. And then there were several impromptu sit-downs by the Presidential Collegiate League at his lectures. He had enough of it.”

Bukharin nodded, fixing his scally cap. “So he published that pamphlet after? The one detailing all of the issues with the Presidential Administration? I listened to that smooth-talker, Coyote Pete, give a reading of the pamphlet over the radio alongside you. Remember?”

Oksana didn’t remember. But maybe she did. Reality could get messy and blurry sometimes.

“So Beskov had to flee,” Bukharin continued, taking the words right out of Oksana’s mouth. “And he took along that gal with him.”

“Esra,” Oksana whispered. “His closest teaching assistant. She helped him with the revisions on his political economy textbook.”

Oksana and Bukharin glanced over at the girl. They could only see the outline of her young face, smooth contours mixed with rough edges that suggested all was not well between her and Beskov.

“And they ended up here,” Bukharin said. He raised his arm and absent-mindedly snapped his fingers a few times. The man behind the counter looked over at Oksana’s booth, but soon gave his full attention back to the news story on the television.

Bukharin smiled. “And they became pawns in a great game.”

Oksana nodded, lowering her arm. “Elizabeth Pond is isolated. It can manufacture goods, it can supply Rddhi-derived products, but until the Dunn Electric Factory is finished, it can’t supply its own power.”

“And the Presidential Administration reduced the power it’s supplying to Elizabeth Pond just as winter’s almost here,” Bukhrain said with a grin. “And I heard that within the Administration, the State Police was behind the move. Chief Amien wants to let New England know that even the Rddhi users aren’t beyond his grasp.”

“Stockham’s harboring Beskov and Esra as bargaining chips,” Oksana concluded. “But I don’t think the State Police will increase the power supply in exchange for two fugitives.”

Bukharin smiled even wider, the wryness in his face making him almost look demonic. “Because the Rddhi users truly aren’t beyond Amien’s grasp, are they?”

Oksana quietly nodded.

Bukharin pointed toward the sleeve of his jacket; Oksana looked inside and saw a loaded pistol just waiting to be grabbed.

“Kill them yourself,” Bukharin offered. “Tear out their throats.”

Oksana looked inside the sleeve of her own jacket; a small snake coiled itself around her thin arm, black, beady eyes gazing up at her.

“I can’t kill them,” Oksana whispered. “It’s not part of the plan.”

“Why not?” Bukharin said. “You've essentially killed them already, right? Stockham had the Professor and Esra hiding out in a hotel. Esra was young, feeling overwhelmed and in over her head. So you sent that snake in through their window, offering Esra that deal."

The message the snake carried was simple. Get Beskov out his room, bring him to the cafe around 4 PM, and a full pardon - as well as several thousand dollars sent over wire - will be yours. Play your cards right, do what we say, and perhaps you can even take over Beskov's position at the university.

Oksana swallowed.

Did I really kill her? I just gave her the offer. It was up to her to accept it.

I mean, I was also the one to eliminate the guards in their path out of the hotel. Snakes through a vent, nobody ever expects snakes through a vent. I didn't kill those guards, at least I don't think I did. I don't remember.

But Esra was the one who convinced Beskov to leave the room and take that open path.

"Give a man a gun, and that man fires it, who's responsible for the aftermath?" Bukharin asked, concluding Oksana's thoughts for her.

"That's not my concern," Oksana said firmly. "I was ordered not to kill them. Using snakes in the hotel was a big enough security risk to my cover as it is."

Bukharin's smile reminded Oksana of a shark about to engulf its prey. "But it would make Oswald happy, wouldn’t it? And wouldn’t that make you happy?”

Oksana thought about a man she hadn’t seen in some time now, smiling in his subterranean facility below Carson Beach. He used to read her bedtime stories, long ago. Then he read to her about his work, and soon she got involved as well.

Helping him with his work was one of the reasons why Oksana sat there in that particular booth on that particular day.

“It wouldn’t make me happy,” Oksana finally said. “There’s only one man I want to kill. Everyone else is just to make Oswald happy, not me.”

“But making Oswald happy...doesn’t that make you happy as well?”

It very well does.

Oksana felt the snake’s coil around her arm tighten in response to her stress, keeping her from spilling out and unraveling.

“Enough,” Oksana whispered harshly. “Thank you for your help, but I know what I’m doing. I’m following the plan. So either tell me a story or leave.”

Bukharin chuckled and looked at his pocket watch. “I should be leaving anyway. It’s almost showtime.”

He stood up and adjusted his jacket. “Good luck with it, Oksana. And remember – I'll always be there for you. Always have, always will.”

Bukharin tipped his scally cap and departed. Oksana kept her eyes fixated on her coffee cup as he disappeared from her view. She didn’t hear the bell at the door ring as he left the store either, but when she glanced around, Bukharin was nowhere in sight.

She sighed, then let the snake go. It uncoiled itself and slithered out of her sleeve silently. The small snake made its way down the booth seat, onto the floor, through some nearby heating ducts, Oksana seeing through its eyes, guiding it, as it navigated the ducts and found a crack in the wall through which it could escape. The snake slithered out onto the street, entered another alleyway, then stopped at the feet of a waiting man dressed in a black suit with black fedora. With contact confirmed, Oksana released her control of the snake, which disappeared into a cloud of Rddhi – it was never a real snake in the first place.

The snake’s appearance would confirm to the agent that Beskov and Esra were in the Royce coffee shop as planned.

Oksana looked at her pocket watch. The snake made contact, the time looked right, she played her part. Mutely, she stood and went to the bathroom at the back of the café. As the door closed behind her, she let out a long sigh. Oksana turned the water in the sink on high, and as she bent over to splash her face, she caught a glimpse of the caramel-colored tiled floor beneath her. Its crimson flowery designs, even the small lines of mortar beneath each tile, swayed and flowed, and for a brief moment, Oksana realized she had dreamt up this entire thing.

She rubbed her eyes, and when she opened them, she was still at the church, the two Adzinoki sisters kneeling next to her.

“Oksana, if you don’t mind me asking...” Esther said. “Um, I know Audrey goes to the church because she believes in it. So, um, why do you go to church?”

From where she knelt, Oksana gazed upward at the large golden cross above the altar up front.

"Because if I don't believe in something, I'll unravel."

Oksana heard the bell to the café door ring. Showtime.

If only this really could be a dream.

Oksana turned the water on high and splashed her face, otherwise her center could not hold.

The noise from the sink wasn't enough to drown the noise from the rest of the café. She heard Beskov stand in confusion, knocking over his cup of coffee, then-

Two gunshots. A body crumpling.

“Wait, wait, this wasn’t part of the deal-”

Two more gunshots. Oksana could now hear Esra drop to the floor, joining her professor.

Someone in a gruff voice told the café owner, “Sorry about the mess.”

The bell above the door rang and the State Police officer left.

Wiping her face down one more time, Oksana left the bathroom. The café looked odd now; most of it looked the same, a few booths, most of them polished and looking clean and quaint. Then there was that one booth with two dead people in it, their blood trailing from bullet holes in their bodies, pooling on the floor below them.

Oksana looked at the café owner. He was speechless, shivering.

“You should stay in today,” she said. “It looks like it’s going to rain.”