The reel of film stopped spinning. The projector light clicked off, plunging the room into darkness.
Adolf Hitler sat in silence. The afterimage of the ten missiles hitting the target circle burned in his retinas.
"Ten meters," Goering whispered. "A circular error probability of ten meters. From 500 kilometers away."
Hitler stood up. He walked to the window of the Berghof. The Alps were majestic, peaceful.
"It is a trick," Hitler said. "Stunt flying. Edited footage."
"Our radar stations in Poland tracked the launch," Himmler said quietly. "The telemetry confirms it. They flew in formation. Like a hive."
Hitler poured a glass of water. His hand trembled slightly. He hid it by gripping the carafe tighter.
"They have guidance," Hitler admitted. "Better than ours."
"If they can hit a circle in Kazakhstan," Goering said, "they can hit this room. Through the window."
Hitler turned. His eyes were blue ice.
"Then we must ensure they never launch," Hitler said.
He looked at the map.
"The launch sites are in the Crimea and the Urals. Too far for bombers. But not too far for sabotage."
"The Abwehr has no assets that deep," Himmler said. "The NKVD has purged everyone."
"Then we don't use spies," Hitler said. "We use fear."
He slammed the glass down.
"Move the Panzers to the border. Not a probe. A threat. Make him think we are invading tomorrow. Force him to move his missiles to the front line."
"And then?"
"Then we capture them," Hitler smiled. "We take his toys. And we see what makes them tick."
The Kremlin. The War Room.
Jake stared at the red markers moving on the map.
"German armor massing in Brest-Litovsk," Zhukov reported. "Estimated strength: forty divisions. They aren't hiding it."
"He's reacting to the video," Jake said. "He's scared."
"He's aggressive," Zhukov corrected. "A scared dog bites. We need to move the rocket batteries to the border. To deter him."
"No," Jake said.
The Generals looked at him.
"If we move the rockets forward, he can capture them," Jake said. "Or bomb them. They stay in the interior. In the deep silos."
"Then how do we stop the tanks?" Timoshenko asked. "Our T-26s are tin cans against Panzers."
"We don't stop them with tanks," Jake said. "We stop them with the Swarm."
He turned to Menzhinsky.
"How many units are operational?"
"Two hundred," Menzhinsky said. "Turing has been... busy."
Two hundred. Two hundred human brains floating in jars.
"Deploy them," Jake ordered. "Not as artillery. As a minefield."
"Sir?"
"Bury the silos," Jake said. "Camouflaged. Along the main roads. If a German tank crosses the line... the ground wakes up."
It was a terrifying concept. Sentient landmines.
"And the pilots?" Zhukov asked. "They will be underground. In the dark. For weeks."
"They don't need light," Jake said. "They only need heat."
He felt the nausea rising again. He swallowed it.
"Do it. Turn the border into a graveyard."
The Secret City. The Recruitment Center.
The line of prisoners never seemed to end.
Turing sat at his desk. He looked different. His hair was wild. He wore a lab coat stained with chemicals.
He was humming a tune. The Flight of the Bumblebee.
"Next," Turing sang.
A young man stepped forward. He was trembling.
"Name?"
"Pasha. Student. Biology."
"Ah, a man of science," Turing smiled. "Tell me, Pasha. What happens to the brain when you remove the body?"
Pasha blinked. "It... it dies. Oxygen starvation."
"Not if you feed it," Turing said. He held up a jar of pink fluid. "Not if you give it a purpose."
He marked the file.
"You have good hands, Pasha. We need good hands for the soldering."
"I am not a mechanic!" Pasha pleaded.
"You are today," Turing said. "Take him to Assembly B."
The guards dragged him away.
Turing checked his list. He needed fifty more for the "Border Guard" project.
He looked at the next prisoner. A woman. She was pregnant.
Turing paused.
He tapped his pen.
"Two processors," Turing whispered. "Interesting."
"Please," the woman begged. "My baby."
Turing looked at her. For a second, a flicker of humanity crossed his face.
Then he remembered the math. The probability curves. The German tanks.
"Medical ward," Turing said. "Keep her healthy. We might need the spare parts."
He looked away before he could see her eyes.
He was building a god out of meat. And gods demanded sacrifice.
Washington D.C. The Pentagon.
Hoover walked through the corridors of the newly built fortress.
"The EMP project?" Hoover asked.
"Ready for testing," General Groves said. "We have a device. A high-yield microwave burst generator. If we detonate it at 30,000 feet, it fries everything electronic for fifty miles."
"Does it work on biologicals?"
"It cooks them," Groves said grimly. "Like a potato in an oven. The neural pathways boil."
Hoover nodded. It was brutal. But necessary.
"And the atomic bomb?"
"We have the plutonium," Groves said. "But the delivery system... the B-29s are vulnerable to their rockets. If we fly over Russia, they will shoot us down before we drop the payload."
"We need a distraction," Hoover said.
He stopped at a window.
"We need someone else to start the fight."
He looked at the map on the wall. At Finland.
"The Finns are still angry about the land grab," Hoover mused. "Give them weapons. Give them intelligence. Tell them to poke the bear in the North."
"A proxy war?"
"A diversion," Hoover said. "While Stalin looks North, we prepare the hammer in the South."
Leningrad. The Ruins.
The city was starving. The siege hadn't officially started, but the blockade was real.
In a bombed-out basement, a group of partisans gathered around a radio.
"The Voice of America says help is coming," a young boy said.
"Lies," an old man spat. "No one is coming. Stalin has sold us for rockets."
Suddenly, the door burst open.
NKVD officers stormed in.
"Hands up!"
The partisans raised their hands. They had no weapons. Only hope.
The lead officer walked down the line. He looked at their faces.
"You," he pointed to the boy. "And you." He pointed to a girl with sharp eyes.
"Arrest them?" the subordinate asked.
"No," the officer said. "Recruit them."
"For what?"
"Special project," the officer said. "The Motherland needs eyes."
The boy looked confused.
"I have glasses," the boy said. "My eyes are bad."
The officer smiled. It was the smile of a wolf.
"We will give you new ones," the officer said. "Better ones."
They dragged the children out into the snow.
The harvest continued.
The Kremlin. Night.
Jake sat in the nursery. It was empty. Yuri was asleep.
Jake held the wooden rocket.
He felt the weight of the silence.
Nadya was gone. The moral compass was broken.
He picked up the phone.
"Turing."
"Yes, Boss?" Turing sounded cheerful. Too cheerful.
"The border defenses," Jake said. "Are they active?"
"The sleepers are buried," Turing said. "Two hundred units. Waiting for the vibration of a tread."
"Good."
"Boss," Turing said. "I had an idea. For the next phase."
"What?"
"Why stop at missiles?" Turing asked. "We have tanks. We have planes. Why do we need soldiers at all?"
Jake felt a chill.
"Go on."
"We can automate the entire army," Turing said. "A tank that doesn't fear death. A plane that pulls 15 Gs because there is no pilot to black out. We can build a legion of the dead."
Jake looked at the photo of Yuri.
A world without soldiers. A world where wars were fought by machines made of men.
It was efficient. It was horrifying.
"Do it," Jake whispered.
"Excellent," Turing said. "I will need more... material."
"Take the politicals," Jake said. "Take the traitors. If they won't serve the state with their loyalty, they will serve it with their nervous systems."
He hung up.
He walked to the window.
He looked at the Red Stars.
He had become the thing he hated. He was the Pharaoh building a pyramid of skulls.
But he was safe. And Yuri was safe.
"Sleep well, son," Jake whispered. "Papa is making sure no one ever hurts you again."
The Border. Brest-Litovsk.
Hans, a German Panzer commander, peered through his periscope.
The field ahead was empty. Just snow and frozen mud.
"No mines," the pioneer reported. "No bunkers. The road is open."
"It's a trap," Hans muttered.
"Orders are to advance," the radio crackled. "Secure the bridgehead."
Hans sighed. "Driver, forward."
The Panzer IV rolled forward. The tracks crunched the snow.
Fifty meters. One hundred meters.
Nothing happened.
"Maybe they ran away," the gunner laughed.
Suddenly, the snow to their left exploded.
It wasn't a mine.
A cylinder shot out of the ground. It hovered for a split second, stabilizing on jets of gas.
Then it turned.
Hans saw it through the optics. A glass eye on a metal stalk. It looked right at him.
"Scheisse!" Hans screamed.
The missile slammed into the turret ring.
The tank didn't just explode. It was gutted.
Behind them, another cylinder rose. And another.
The field came alive.
The Swarm had woken up.
And it was hungry.