The rain had ceased.
However, the moisture sprayed throughout the night lingered upon the stone pavement, catching the rhythmic, overlapping echoes of pursuit.
The man gasped for breath.
In his hand, he clutched a thin leather briefcase.
Within it lay documents shielded with utmost secrecy: a handful of firearm blueprints stolen from a Union research facility, technical schematics that none truly understood save for the sanctimonious clerics of Laterano or the Union's own weapons smiths.
Should he succeed in smuggling these back to the Empire, not only would he be draped in wealth and glory, but the Empire would possess the means to crush those cunning, ignorant, and filthy Eastern powers once and for all.
But the heavy thud of the Militsiya's boots was drawing closer.
"Over there!" a shout bellowed, funneling through the narrow alleyway.
Crouching low, the man dove into the murky shadows of a backstreet.
He squeezed his frame between toppled wooden crates and rusted iron plates in a place that had once served as a coal depot, forcing himself through the industrial decay.
'Just a little further. I only need to reach the station.'
His eyes fixated on the distant glow beyond the streetlights.
Yet, as the light neared, the ground beneath him only grew darker.
The path ended abruptly.
A wall.
A towering, cold brick wall loomed before him, cutting off his escape.
"...Damn it."
Heaving with exertion, he set the briefcase down and unsheathed his sword.
His hands trembled, but the tactile sensation of the hilt was a familiar comfort. He glared into the gloom.
He steeled his resolve. A few weaklings of the Union Militsiya, who relied entirely on their firearms, would surely be trampled by his superior swordsmanship. Since the path was blocked, he would carve a way through the front.
"You certainly lasted quite a long time."
A strange voice drifted through the air.
The man leveled his blade instinctively.
It was already too late.
A woman stepped slowly from the darkness.
Her black hair was precisely styled, and her uniform was impeccably sharp; not a single button was out of place. The lines of her attire, from shoulder to waist, were tailored with lethal precision, and even her fingertips carried an air of effortless composure.
"You... surely you're...?"
"Yes, I am exactly who you think I am."
Feliksa Dzerzhinskaya.
The Militsiya and the citizens of the Union called her the 'Idol of the Counter-Intelligence Bureau.' Some of his own associates, however, sneered at her as 'The Secretary General's Whore.'
He had been among those who snickered when his comrades looked at her photograph in the newspaper, joking that she had only obtained her rank by selling her lithe body. He found no humor in the situation now.
In her eyes, the man saw only a chilling, absolute certainty.
"Put the bag down. When your breath is that ragged, you cannot wield a sword properly."
Her voice was soft, yet it brooked no argument.
The man gnashed his teeth. Raising his sword, he lunged at her, shouting:
"You filthy harlot, unworthy of devotion to His Imperial Majesty—"
Before the insult could leave his lips, Feliksa moved.
With lightning speed, her fingertips snapped his wrist. The blade clattered onto the cobblestones before it could pierce anything. The man shrieked, but the sound was cut short as her elbow collided with his throat, slamming his scream back into his lungs.
Instantly pinned to the ground, his face was ground into the wet stone. He couldn't breathe.
Feliksa's breathing remained perfectly steady.
"An Emperor, is it...?"
She let out a low, mirthless chuckle.
"His Majesty of Corsica truly entrusts the fate of his nation to such incompetent fools. I shall ensure that is noted in the records."
The Militsiya rounded the corner, gasping for air as they leveled their rifles. The situation, however, was already over.
Feliksa didn't even turn her head.
"Take him away. Interrogate him; much will come to light. Perhaps some of you might even earn a promotion."
Two officers rushed forward and hauled the man up. He struggled until the very end.
"We will return! This Union will not last! The Emperor himself will—!"
His ravings were drowned out by the cold metallic click of handcuffs.
Feliksa picked up the briefcase. The cover was stamped with the insignia of Class 1 Secrecy.
She brushed the dust off it lightly before handing it to the Militsiya commander.
"Transfer this evidence according to the standard protocols. This single bag nearly compromised the Revolution."
Her gaze remained unwavering. As the officers shouted their acknowledgments, Feliksa stood straight and looked up at the moonlight.
"Another job finished. But really... how much longer must I rot in this Bureau Chief position? It feels no different from my wartime rank, despite the struggle of the Revolutionary War...."
She closed her eyes for a moment. Then, she clasped her hands as if in prayer.
"If there is a heaven, please... give me a promotion. Please...."
Did the heavens hear her plea?
The names he yielded, the rendezvous points he visited, and the source of the documents he carried were all subsequently unearthed.
Barely a week later, dozens of Gaulish spies were apprehended across the Union in a simultaneous sweep.
The front pages of the newspapers blared:
[Massive Gaulish Spy Network Uncovered within the Union. Supreme Soviet Initiates Discussions on Establishing Unified Counter-Intelligence Organ.]
[216 Spies in Birmingham! Is the Supreme Soviet Safe?]
["I have here a list of spies!" Representative Johnson of the Communist Party Centrists Causes Stir.]
A great storm began to brew.
*************************************
"The session will now begin."
The gavel struck once.
But the assembly hall quickly devolved into a den of chaos.
"This is not a simple matter of public order!"
A seasoned deputy from the Centrist faction stood up, his voice booming.
"Hundreds of spies were lurking throughout the Union. We cannot allow individual departments to act in isolation. The only answer is a unified counter-intelligence agency!"
A representative from the Social Revolutionary Workers' League immediately slammed their hand onto the desk.
"And who will control this agency? The bureaucrats? The soldiers? Power removed from the hands of the People becomes a monster. The Workers' Soviet must exert direct control. Otherwise, the old regime you so loathe will simply return under a different name."
Voices erupted from the Liberty League as well.
"This is regression, not progress! When we should be expanding our liberties, you propose surveillance? Ultimately, a unified counter-intelligence organ is nothing but a leash. You claim to protect the People, yet you build an apparatus to bind them?!"
A member of the Liberal Party stood, pounding the table.
"What happens when you use the excuse of an 'investigation' to ransack businesses? And what if this entity is corrupted to dominate other factions? This law could utterly trample upon political freedom and the right to pursue individual interests!"
In an instant, the chamber was a wall of noise.
"Liberty? That can only be maintained if the sovereignty of the Union is preserved!"
"Spare me the talk of sovereignty! How many wives do you have now? I heard they're all from noble stock! You have quite the exquisite taste. A filthy wretch like you dares to speak of the Revolution?"
"What was that, you bastard?!"
"Spoken like a Sarkaz whore with a hollow skull! Have some sense of reality!"
"You son of a— are you insulting all Sarkaz now? You Feline rent-boy!"
A cacophony of insults intersected.
Aides rushed in to pull shouting deputies apart as pamphlets and documents fluttered to the floor like snow. It felt as if a brawl was about to spill into the corridors at any moment.
Sitting in the Chairman's seat, I felt a throbbing ache in my temples.
My mind felt brittle, like dried ink on ancient parchment.
"Heh..."
A chuckle escaped me, but it was purely self-mocking.
My fingers trembled slightly as they gripped the gavel.
I tightened my grip and struck the gavel several times.
"Silence. This meeting is descending into irrationality."
My voice sounded cold, even to my own ears.
"I am putting it to a vote."
The shouting didn't stop immediately, but at the second ring of the gavel, the deputies grudgingly returned to their seats.
"This will be a vote by show of hands. Those in favor, raise your hands first."
The result was definitive.
Was it because of the spy incident? More than half of the votes were in favor.
I voted to abstain.
Even so... is this the right path?
If this new organization morphs into something like the Cheka or the NKVD of the old Soviet Union... does that not betray my primal ideals?
Such thoughts swirled in my head.
Perhaps... without even realizing it, I am becoming a 'pragmatist' myself.
I shook my head, clearing those unsettling thoughts.
If that ever truly happened, I could just quit.
I continued.
"Out of 1,978 members present, 1,255 in favor, 622 against, 101 abstentions. Therefore, I declare the proposal for the establishment of a unified counter-intelligence agency—the OGPU—passed."
I struck the gavel.
*****************************************************
The home of Feliksa Dzerzhinskaya.
The window was half-open, and the soft whistle of a boiling kettle provided the only warmth in the room.
Dressed in a loose shirt and thin sweatpants, her hair tied haphazardly, she rested her legs over the back of the sofa as she scanned the newspaper.
Bold letters on the front page announced the news.
[Law Establishing the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) Passed.]
Feliksa hummed to herself.
"They actually did it."
A cheap scented candle on the table burned low. Beside it sat a wine glass, still half-full.
It was a moment of hard-won peace, the kind one finds on a holiday afternoon.
Then—
—Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
Her brow furrowed slightly.
At this hour? It was nearly midnight.
Suspicion flared. She reached into a nearby cabinet and pulled out a familiar object: an officer's pistol.
Though it was essentially a showpiece that required reloading after a single shot—superior only in aesthetics to a police model—it was better suited for a rapid response than her favored sword.
Gripping the pistol, she approached the door cautiously.
One step.
And another.
Keeping her guard up, she opened the door.
Standing there were a young man in a Militsiya uniform and a man in a formal suit.
"Bureau Chief Dzerzhinskaya. Are you on night duty?"
"Today is my day off. What is the meaning of this?"
She did not lower her guard yet.
It was entirely possible that some undetected spies, enraged by the recent arrests she had orchestrated, had come to kill her for revenge.
She swallowed hard, her finger hovering near the trigger.
However, Feliksa soon realized her suspicion was misplaced.
The man in the suit held out a leather envelope. It was sealed with red wax bearing the stamp of the Central People's Committee.
"A written notice. Since it is for the recipient's eyes only, we will take our leave."
"Hm... I see. You may go."
Feliksa nodded. A signature. A verification. The door closed.
Returning to the living room, she held the envelope briefly over a heater. The sealing wax softened almost instantly.
—Snap.
The seal broke.
Enjoying that satisfying sound, as she always did, she unfolded the letter.
— APPOINTMENT NOTICE —
TO: Feliksa A. Dzerzhinskaya
POSITION: Founding Director of the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU)
AUTHORITY GRANTED: Unified Counter-Intelligence Investigations, Inter-agency Coordination, Emergency Communication Authorization.
CONDITIONS: Acceptance of a permanent Auditor's Team within headquarters, full responsibility for secrecy maintenance, prohibition of interrogations without a warrant.
FROM: Vladimir Park, Chairman of the Central People's Committee and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet; Nikolai Wrangel, Vice Chairman of the Central People's Committee.
Her eyebrows rose slowly.
"...Seriously?"
She read the second line again.
And the third.
The fourth line, she read three times.
Feliksa picked up the paper, sprayed a bit of lemon juice on it, and held it near a flame to check for hidden ink. There was nothing.
So... it was real?
"Director."
The word rolled around her tongue. Those few syllables felt light as a joke one second, then sank with a sudden, immense weight the next.
She spun toward the sofa.
She covered the newspaper, hugged a cushion, and then tossed it aside. Finally, a laugh erupted—exaggerated and loud, the kind of laughter from someone who had held their breath far too long.
"Pffft... Hahaha... I prayed for a promotion, I begged for one... and I actually got it. I suppose there is a heaven after all."
She laughed again, covering her mouth with her hand. She felt as though she could fly.
Once the initial joy passed, work immediately flooded her mind.
"Right. Let's establish what must not be forgotten."
She pulled a notebook from the table and pressed her pen to the page.
— Prohibition of torture (Mostly; if necessary, do not get caught).
— Maintain maximum distance from politics.
— Secure warrants from the judges on time.
— Bury the Auditor's Team somewhere they can't see anything.
— Maintain the best possible public image.
— Avoid saying anything during public briefings that could be misconstrued.
Feliksa twirled her pen.
"And— personnel."
Faces flashed through her mind. She calculated who to recruit and who to exclude. Which organizations to court and which were safe to keep at arm's length.
"We shouldn't forget our partners in the Design Bureaus. Those lab types are sensitive. I don't know why they whine so much just because a single document goes missing during an investigation."
Closing the notebook, she unfolded the appointment notice again. The signatures of the senders were written in a bold hand.
She stared at the name for a long moment.
"...Comrade Chairman."
A brief silence followed.
She took a sip of wine. The tartness on the tip of her tongue sharpened her focus.
—Rinnng! Rinnng!—
The telephone rang suddenly.
"Ugh... it always rings at times like this. No time to even savor the moment."
She picked up the receiver. A familiar voice flowed through the line.
"Feliksa."
A low, tired voice. It was Wrangel.
"Did you read it?"
"Just now. The moment I broke the seal."
"Congratulations. I suppose I'll be seeing the face of the counter-intelligence hero from the newspapers in our meetings now."
"Thank you. Do I need to report to work immediately?"
"Rest today. The People's Commissars are all getting old; if they come out now, they won't be able to wake up tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, 06:00, at the provisional headquarters. Start with an organizational chart. We'll attach a few competent administrative personnel to you, but the rest is at your discretion."
"Understood. I will set the standards myself. Stricter than anyone."
"As you should."
A short chuckle came through.
"We entrusted this to you because of who you are. Do not betray that trust."
The line went dead.
Feliksa looked at the wall clock. As the second hand completed a rotation, she paced across the living room twice. Her steps were light.
Whenever her mood lifted, her toes were the first to move—an old habit of hers. "Director..." she murmured again. But this time, she didn't laugh.
She spoke the word with gravity, as if chewing on a vow.
Opening her wardrobe, she pulled out a gray uniform. She smoothed the creases with her fingertips and counted the buttons. Standing before the mirror, she committed to memory the way the jacket and trousers aligned.
She reached into the bedside drawer and pulled out a small religious icon, clutching it in her hand. She put on the blue NKVD peaked cap she had used during the war, then took it off again. Memories of her time as a Political Commissar flickered by.
"Let's live up to the name."
She closed the window and blew out the candle. The living room grew dim, but her heart was bright. Placing the appointment notice back in its envelope, she tucked it deep within a drawer. Then, she tapped the back of the sofa once.
Still in her comfortable loungewear, she stood by the entrance and slipped on her shoes. She gripped the doorknob, but paused.
She checked the clock again. It was still night. Reporting time was six in the morning.
"Right. Let's get a good night's sleep."
She turned off the lights and lay in bed. She closed her eyes, only to snap them open again.
Complicated thoughts wouldn't let her be. Tables of organization, arrows, procedures, and tasks danced behind her eyelids. She sat back up and flipped open her notebook once more.
"Where along the Columbian border would the Gauls likely try to enter...?"
As she flipped through her notes, she found what she was looking for and smirked.
"This will do better than some clichéd first-day speech. It'll be impressive. Perhaps even the Chairman will take a liking to it...?"
With a wide yawn, she stretched her arms out. She closed the notebook and, this time, actually lay down.
The night air drifting through the window gap cooled her forehead. Feliksa closed her eyes and offered a brief prayer.
"Let me not be a source of shame."
Her breathing slowed. In her mind's eye, she saw a picture in a future textbook: her, smiling beside the Chairman.