Two days had passed since the pact with Wrangel was struck.
During those forty-eight hours, we moved like shadows through the village, sowing the seeds of our cause among the people.
"Yes... Alya is a good girl. I cannot simply stand by and watch such a child be slaughtered merely because she is Infected. I am with you."
"Communism, you call it? I have spent my life staring at the dirt, an illiterate fool who understands little of such grand words. But hearing you speak, Comrade... it sets a fire in my chest. Count me in."
"Of course we'll help! There isn't a soul kinder than Alya in Beryozovka. Even if you hadn't spoken up, we would have done something!"
The youth were already ours; their blood was hot and prone to the pull of my rhetoric. It was only the elders and the youngest boys who required the final push.
Despite the gravity of the situation—an endeavor where a single slip meant the gallows—they looked upon the bedridden Alya and gave their consent with a grim, unwavering resolve.
With the village unified, I made my way to the town hall.
"Is anyone there?" I called out, knocking firmly on the wood.
The heavy thuds must have echoed through the hollow interior of the building.
The door creaked open, revealing an old man. Dark circles were etched deep beneath his hollow eyes, his frame looking as fragile as a winter-thinned branch.
"...Who goes there?"
It was Pyotr, the village head.
"Elder, you can stop your worrying," I said softly.
"About what?"
"About Alexandra. About Alya."
At the mention of his daughter's name, his eyes flickered with a sudden, sharp light.
I continued, stepping closer. "Everyone is in agreement. We only require your consent now."
"Agreement? Agreement for what?" His lips trembled as he spoke.
I placed my hands firmly on his shoulders, grounding him. I met his gaze with an expression of iron-clad certainty.
"The plan is set," I told him. "We will deceive the Imperial Inspector, conceal Alexandra's condition, and once the threat has passed, we will all evacuate to Victoria together. Every soul in this village has consented. To remain in this empire is to wait for nothing but the deaths of stray dogs."
The vacancy in his eyes vanished, replaced by a desperate, shimmering hope.
His posture straightened, and he gripped my arms with surprising strength.
"Is it true? Then Alya... can Alya truly live?"
Looking at him, seeing that pathetic, beautiful glimmer of hope, a faint smile touched my lips.
"Of course. It is certain. Trust in me, Pyotr. No—trust in your neighbors. Trust in your people."
He choked back a sob. His hands slid down from my shoulders to grasp mine, squeezing them with the strength of a drowning man. He squeezed his eyes shut, his voice thick with tears.
"Thank you... Thank you truly... I cannot thank you enough..."
I stood there in silence, offering him the only comfort I could by pulling him into a firm embrace. He broke then, sobbing into my coat. I held him until the storm passed. My shoulder was soaked through with his tears, but I felt no resentment—only the cold weight of the responsibility I had claimed.
***
"Over there! Move it quickly! We must hide every scrap of documentation!"
The village was a hive of frantic, quiet activity. The subversive literature and manuscripts that had been kept in Maxim's clinic and my quarters were being hauled out into the frost.
"Mr. Wrangel—no, Comrade Wrangel. Where should we bury these books?"
"In my backyard," Wrangel grunted. "I have a vegetable patch there. The soil has been turned recently; they won't notice the disturbance. If that fails, stashing them in the back of my warehouse is an option."
"Are you sure? What if they're discovered?"
"That burden belongs to me, not to you, Comrade," Wrangel replied with a stiff jaw. "Focus on the task at hand."
Wrangel and the other villagers were laboring side by side. The wheels were in motion.
Even considering our severe lack of time, it was clear we would at least be able to conceal the bulk of our ideological materials.
I mentally reviewed the strategies we had formulated.
We had two contingency plans for dealing with the Imperial Inspector.
The first was the moderate path.
The objective: Deceive the inspector, wait for his departure, and then execute a full-scale exodus to Victoria. Wrangel, who had long served as the village head's proxy and guide for visiting officials, was confident he could steer them away from anything suspicious. This was the preferred route. It carried the least risk of immediate reprisal and allowed us to salvage more of our meager assets for our new lives abroad.
The second was the hardline path.
This was the strategy for if Wrangel's deception failed—if the inspector discovered Alexandra or found even one leaf of our 'subversive' manifestos.
In that case, the inspector would be liquidated.
There would be no prisoners. Such an apparatchik of the regime was beyond the reach of revolutionary reform. Any plea for mercy would merely be a ploy to buy time for his comrades to arrive.
Execution was the only option.
Following that, we would seize only the essentials and flee for the Victorian border immediately.
A boy in his late teens, a recent recruit to our International Communist Party, checked the calendar and looked up at me.
"Judging by the date... the Inspector will likely arrive in about six hours."
"The window is tight. Far too tight."
I rubbed my chin, the stubble grating against my palm. If only we had more time, we could have built a truly invisible screen. The issue remained: where to put Alexandra?
An Inspector trained to sniff out Oripathy would be meticulous. They would look under the floorboards, up in the rafters, and inside every cupboard.
Some might suggest the warehouse Wrangel mentioned. But his warehouse was already brimming with our manuscripts and books. In a village this impoverished, his barn served as the de facto communal storage; there were no hidden corners left that wouldn't be searched.
Every building here was a single-story log hut. There wasn't a basement or a cellar in sight.
"Ugh... what a mess." I gripped my head, wracking my brain for a solution.
Just then, a brown-haired boy—Laman, if I recalled—came sprinting toward me from the distance.
"Comrade Vladimir! I've found it! A place to hide! In the northern woods!"
I exhaled. If a systematic solution eluded us, I would have to rely on this kind of improvisation.
"Very well. Lead the way."
The boy led me to a small, jagged rock crevice. It was tiny, barely enough for a young girl to squeeze inside, but that was its strength. It was perfectly sized to hide her for a day or two. Furthermore, the northern forest led away from the village outskirts—a direction an inspector was unlikely to prioritize during a standard sweep.
I reached out and ruffled the boy's hair.
"Well done, lad. Clever boy. I'll see that you get a candy for this later."
"Wait, are you just going to steal one of Dr. Maxim's candies again?"
The little brat.
Hitting me right where it hurts.
I playfully yanked on a tuft of his hair.
"Ow! Ow! That hurts!"
"That's what you get for being so brutally honest with your betters!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Next time I'll just take the candy and keep my mouth shut!"
"See that you do."
With the hiding spot secured, Maxim and I carefully carried the shallow-breathing Alya to the forest. We laid her on a bed of thick blankets wedged deep into the stone crevice.
Now, the only task left was to send the Imperial lackey on his way.
I took a long, steadying breath and looked toward the distant ridge.
The Imperial Inspectors were coming.