The sorting facility at Lefortovo Prison smelled of unwashed bodies and industrial disinfectant.
Thousands of prisoners stood in lines that stretched out into the snowy courtyard. They were shivering, their breath rising in a collective cloud of misery.
Turing walked down the line. He wore a heavy wool coat and held a mechanical counter in his hand.
Click.
"Left," Turing said.
A guard grabbed an old man and shoved him toward the trucks destined for the coal mines.
Click.
"Right," Turing said.
A young woman, a physics student arrested for owning banned books, was pulled toward the heated barracks.
She looked relieved. She thought she was being saved. She didn't know she was being harvested.
Turing stopped in front of a man with long, frozen fingers. He was staring at the ground, humming a faint melody.
"Name?" Turing asked.
"Dimitri. First violinist. Bolshoi Theater."
"Show me your hands," Turing ordered.
Dimitri held them out. They were blue with cold, but steady. The hands of a surgeon or a virtuoso.
"Can you play Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto?" Turing asked.
"From memory," Dimitri whispered. "Every note."
Turing smiled. It was a terrifying, efficient smile.
"Excellent processing speed," Turing muttered. "High retention. Fine motor coordination."
He marked a red X on Dimitri's jacket with a piece of chalk.
"Right line," Turing said.
"Thank you, Comrade," Dimitri wept. "Thank you."
Turing didn't answer. He was already looking at the next candidate.
He didn't see people. He saw CPUs. He saw guidance chips that could play a symphony of destruction at Mach 4.
"We need five hundred today," Turing told the warden. "Don't stop until the quota is filled."
Nevada. Groom Lake.
The desert sun was blinding. It was a stark contrast to the eternal grey of Russia.
Wernher von Braun stood under a canvas awning. He held a bottle of Coca-Cola, the condensation dripping onto his hand. It felt alien.
In front of him, American engineers were examining the V-2 blueprints he had smuggled out.
"It's a big engine," Colonel Groves said. "But the guidance... you say it's biological?"
"The Soviets are desperate," Von Braun said. "They use... wetware."
"Wetware?"
"Brains," Von Braun said softly. "Dogs. Chimps. Men."
Groves spat into the dust.
"Barbarians."
"They are ahead of us," Von Braun warned. "The Indianapolis proved it. Their missile tracked a moving ship. We can't do that with vacuum tubes yet. We are five years behind."
Groves looked at the horizon.
"We have the Manhattan Project," Groves said. "We have the Bomb."
"A Bomb you have to drop from a slow plane," Von Braun countered. "Stalin can deliver his death by express mail. If he puts an atomic warhead on a biological missile... Washington is gone."
A black sedan pulled up. Dust billowed.
J. Edgar Hoover stepped out. He looked out of place in the desert, wearing a suit and fedora.
"Dr. Von Braun," Hoover said. "Washington is impatient."
"Science takes time," Von Braun said.
"We don't have time," Hoover snapped. "Our spies report that the Russians are emptying their prisons. They are building a swarm."
Hoover leaned in. His eyes were hard.
"We need a counter," Hoover said. "You said the biological units are unstable? That they rely on drugs?"
"Yes."
"Then we don't out-fly them," Hoover said. "We fry them."
He handed Von Braun a file. Project EMP.
"High-altitude bursts," Hoover explained. "Microwaves. If we can't shoot the missile down, maybe we can cook the brain inside it."
Von Braun looked at the file. It was theoretical. Dangerous.
"It would blind our own radar," Von Braun said.
"Better blind than dead," Hoover said. "Build it."
The Kremlin. The Nursery.
The room was painted a cheerful yellow. It was the only warm place in the entire castle.
Yuri sat on the floor, building a tower with wooden blocks.
Jake stood in the doorway. He hadn't washed his hair in days. He smelled of vodka and smoke.
"Papa!" Yuri cheered. He knocked the tower over.
Jake flinched at the sound of the crash.
"Hello, little man," Jake rasped.
He walked over and sat on the floor. His knees popped. He felt ancient.
"Where is Mama?" Yuri asked. He picked up a block. "She said she was coming back."
Jake froze.
He saw the snowdrift. The blue smudge on the thermal camera.
"Mama is... traveling," Jake said. The lie tasted like ash.
"Is she in America?"
"Farther," Jake said. "She went to the stars."
Yuri looked at the ceiling.
"Like the rockets?"
"Yes," Jake said. "Like the rockets."
He reached into his pocket. He pulled out a toy.
It was a model of the V-2, carved from wood. But painted black.
"I brought you a gift," Jake said.
Yuri took it. He flew it through the air, making whoosh noises.
"Does it have a pilot?" Yuri asked innocently.
Jake felt the room spin.
Does it have a pilot?
"Yes," Jake whispered. "It has a very brave pilot."
He couldn't stay. The innocence was burning him.
He stood up.
"Play with your rocket, Yuri," Jake said. "Papa has to go make the real ones fly."
He walked out. He told the guards to double the watch.
He was locking his son in a tower of lies.
Berlin. The Reich Chancellery.
Adolf Hitler stared at the aerial reconnaissance photos.
"They are massing tanks in Ukraine," Goering said. "But they are old tanks. T-26s. Obsolete junk."
"And the rockets?" Hitler asked.
"Launch sites detected in Crimea. And the Urals. They are pointing everywhere."
Hitler paced the room.
"Stalin is wounded," Hitler mused. "The famine. The sabotage. The riots. He is flailing."
He stopped at the map.
"The non-aggression pact was a convenience," Hitler said. "But a wounded bear is dangerous. We need to know if his claws are sharp or if he is just roaring."
He turned to his generals.
"Send the probes," Hitler ordered. "Into Poland. Just a few divisions. 'Navigational errors.' Let's see if he shoots."
"And if he does?"
"Then we know he has ammunition left," Hitler smiled. "And if he doesn't... we take Warsaw."
The Secret City. The Assembly Line.
It wasn't a factory anymore. It was a cathedral of horrors.
Rows of metal spheres sat on workbenches. Inside each one, a human brain—or parts of one—floated in a nutrient bath.
Turing walked the line. He tapped each sphere with a tuning fork.
Ping.
The sphere vibrated. Inside, the neural tissue reacted.
"Unit 404 is sluggish," Turing noted. "Increase the stimulant dosage."
"Sir, the subject's heart rate is critical," a technician said.
"The subject doesn't have a heart anymore," Turing snapped. "It has a fuel pump. Increase the dosage."
He reached the end of the line.
Fifty finished units.
Fifty people. Musicians. Mathematicians. Chess players.
Now they were just guidance systems.
"Load them," Turing ordered. "The Boss wants a demonstration."
"Target?"
Turing looked at the coordinates Jake had sent.
It wasn't a city. It wasn't a ship.
It was a grid coordinate in the uninhabited steppes of Kazakhstan.
"We are going to make a pattern," Turing said. "A show of force."
The Viewing Platform. Kazakhstan.
Jake stood on the balcony of the observation bunker. Menzhinsky stood beside him.
The sky was purple. Twilight.
"Ten missiles," Menzhinsky said. "Launch site is 500 kilometers away."
"Do they work?" Jake asked.
"Turing says they are... synchronized."
Jake looked at his watch.
"Launch."
Five hundred kilometers away, ten engines ignited.
Minutes passed. The sky remained empty.
Then, a sound. A low, tearing noise.
Ten white trails appeared in the high atmosphere.
They weren't falling randomly. They were flying in formation. A perfect V-shape.
Like a flock of geese.
"My God," Menzhinsky whispered.
The missiles descended. They didn't strike the ground immediately. They pulled up at the last second, leveling out at 1,000 feet.
They roared over the bunker, breaking the sound barrier in unison.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM...
The shockwave shattered the windows of the bunker. Jake didn't flinch.
The missiles climbed again. They looped.
And then, one by one, they dove into the target circle.
Ten explosions. All within a fifty-meter radius.
It wasn't artillery. It was a sniper rifle fired from space.
The dust cloud rose, turning the purple sky black.
Jake turned to Menzhinsky.
"Send the footage to Berlin," Jake said. "And Washington."
"The message?"
"Tell them the bear isn't sleeping," Jake said. "Tell them the bear has learned to fly."
He walked back into the bunker.
He felt dead inside. He had just turned ten human souls into fireworks to scare a German corporal.
But it worked. He could feel the fear radiating from the crater.
"Next," Jake said. "We build the shield."
"The shield?"
"They will try to nuke us," Jake said. "Hoover is building the Bomb. We need to stop it in the air."
He looked at the empty sky where the missiles had been.
"I want a dome," Jake said. "A dome of eyes over Russia. If anything flies that isn't ours... the Swarm eats it."
Menzhinsky nodded.
"We will need more... volunteers."
"Take them," Jake said. "Take them all."