A bright light was brought to bear upon the prisoner’s face from a nearby desk lamp. They grimaced; with the lamp in their face, they could not make out any features of his interrogators, or even of the dark walls of the compound in which he was held. However, the prisoner’s features were highlighted-- his now full set of grey hair was revealed under direct light to be a farce, obscuring an expanding bald spot on his forward cranium; his face showed the chips and cracks of dry skin up high on his cheekbones, and his dress was formal despite the full seriousness of the situation but managed to redeem itself and its place in the room by being ruffled and askew.
“Comrade Kazakov,” One of his interrogators said slowly, “It’s most certainly been a while. How’s life been treating you?”
“Piss off,” He spat.
“I see,” The voice commented, adjusting the lamp so to better envelop the prisoner’s face. “Tell me Nikita-- do you know where Afonasei is basing himself?”
“I don’t know.”
The interrogator tsked, walking away from Kazakov. “Just the Nikita I remember. Completely oblivious to everything that happens to him.” Nikita jerked up with a yell,
“Вбирайся!” However his hands, bound by silvery handcuffs ran through a loop in the table, were kept in place. Realizing this, he sighed angrily and sat back down.
“Well, if you don’t know that, maybe you can tell us what your cousin is doing. You know what happened earlier in the city, do you not?”
“Who, Wassily?”
“Yes-- in case you didn’t know, after being locked up here; some WURCo.-owned properties seem to be acting up.”
Kazakov laughed incredulously. “Acting up how, Lysiak? You can’t manage a few buildings?”
“Acting up as in it took a fully armed fire team to extricate former--so we believe--employees from the premises.” Lysiak said.
Kazakov leaned back. “I know nothing about it. My cousin likes to play things close to his chest-- but he would never attempt to take on the government. That’s how he’s made it by all these years. He’s not foolhardy.”
“Perhaps. But if he were, what would you think his motives would be?”
“Don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Up yours--” Kazakov’s rebuttal was cut short as his interrogator’s hands shot across the table, yanking Kazakov up by his collar until his handcuffs pulled taut.
“Déjà vu,” Kazakov remarked.
“I said-- take a guess.”
“Probably money. That’s usually a motive. That he would go for, I mea--“ Lysiak dropped him back to his chair.
“You’re certain he doesn’t have any ambitions beyond that? National ambition, perhaps?”
Adjusting his tie and straightening out his shirt, he swallowed. “Ni. I’d probably see my cousin in a grave before he took on a government job.”
“I see.” The interrogator stepped back from the table. “Thank you for your help, old friend.”
“Shove it.”
Stepping into the fluorescent light of the hallway, squinting as her eyes adjusted, Sara Lysiak literally and figuratively wiped her hands of the matter. Kazakov wasn’t important now that he had been captured; the Chairman of the Department of Foreign Relations may prove to be useful in the future as a propaganda device, but currently was just a wagon full of childish insults completely devoid of relevant information.
They had captured him after CFOB soldiers swept through the civil shelters after the capture of New Krasnoyarsk, searching for entrenched Federal soldiers and instead finding a far more valuable prize. Kazakov was being held in a commandeered police station not far outside New Krasnoyarsk in one of the numerous microtowns that orbited the capitol dozens of kilometers away. The other Chairmen were either not far from Afonasei himself or scattered into the wind; but she didn’t expect them to ever be a threat. The last vestiges of Afonasei’s government were reduced to the military backing and Afonasei himself-- a point of pride for Lysiak, but nowhere near to her complete satisfaction.
Lysiak’s watch beeped. Though the action of her silencing was done with robotic precision, that precision was hard-fought because she felt sapped of her energy-- indeed, the dark shadows under her eyes and slight frizz of her usually straight black hair were subtle indicators of the pressure she was subject to.
It’s time. She thought, leaving Kazakov in his prison as she moved on down the hallway. Her reunion with her former coworker out of the way, Lysiak had to rendezvous with Anzelm Silarz and Vadimir Bezukhov within New Krasnoyarsk for a political show-- now that the original Principle Chairman, and rightfully only Principle Chairman, had returned to the capital after driving out the usurper, it would certainly not hurt their legitimacy as a movement to say just that.
Her transportation arrived in a humble convoy of two APCs and cars painted sleety greys and whites. A familiar face came to greet her at the door of the station; despite her obvious exhaustion, Lysiak’s expression brightened at their arrival.
“As I live and breathe-- Orysya Zhuravel!” Lysiak called, outstretching her arms to embrace her comrade.
Orysya was a stocky figure whose head only came up to Lysiak’s shoulder; as if to offset this, Orysya had a similarly stocky helmet strapped around her sharp jawline. If Lysiak did not recognize her face immediately she would just as easily mistaken her for the other heavily-armed soldiers that came with her escort.
“How’s politics been?” Orysya said coyly as she clutched Lysiak’s back in the embrace. However, as if both had fallen to the Earth from their reveries of days gone past, their expressions were less sunny.
“It’s been a while, Orysunya.” Lysiak said, using her affectionate name in a now somber tone of voice.
Zhuravel glanced up and down the street at the abandoned buildings and scoffed. “Not exactly like it was in twenty-eleven, is it?”
“No,” Lysiak said.
The two stood in silence for an eternal instant, chewing the cud of reawakened memories and milling over the warm glowiness of the past. Before long, one of them spoke.
“I’ve got to take you on in. You’re going to need this.” Zhuravel said, pulling a gas mask from a pouch on the side of her rucksack and offering to Lysiak.
The personnel carrier they were in was illuminated by a sole LED light, tinted and dimmed with wear. Lysiak and Orysya sat across from each other; there were also two other soldiers present beside the rear hatch of the vehicle, examining their weapons for malfunction. The interior of the APC had patches of rust, worn fabrics in its seats and restrainers, but never showed weakness or fault in ability; the “Nevsky” APC was a workhorse if nothing else. Avoiding eye contact with Orysya, Lysiak fleetingly recalled the series of modernizations to their APCs that she commissioned before the South Seas War, and how it never came to fruition. Like a fuze, that distraction burnt out quick and she was left with nothing else. So, she confronted Orysya.
“How’s your father doing?” Lysiak murmured in a low voice. Orysya looked up at Lysiak from her hands before returning to the tracing of the creases in her combat gloves.
“He was doing a lot better with that loophole you showed me-- finally got his gout looked at.”
“Was…?”
“Don’t worry-- his going had nothing to do with all this. It was months ago, I was still in Fort Baranov at the time; he passed away in the Sladkoye Municipal Medical Center. It was only a matter of time with the tumors he had developed.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Don’t be.”
Lysiak scoured Orysya’s face. Features that were once that of a friend were now inhabited by someone else, someone who had put out the warmth of Orysya’s eyes with ice.
They had both been conscripts in the same unit way back when-- and quite close friends. The inclusion of women in the armed forces under the new Federal Republic in 1990 led to them both being conscripted when they were of age in 1994; being the only women in their squad, they quickly bonded. They both served well beyond their required tours of duty; from insurgent-held Pavylov to policing annexations in the South. Eventually, they split-- Sara Lysiak had been offered an opportunity in a military academy while Orysya stuck with her service. Their last correspondence-- and since then much had transpired-- was warm, but sickly-sweet.
“Have you kept in touch with the others in our unit, ma’am?” Orysya said, her voice distant. Before Lysiak had a chance to respond, Orysya abruptly asked in a different tone, “What are we going to do about all this, Sara?” By now she lifted her head up and looked at Lysiak.
“What?”
Orysya returned to her hands, pulling the gloves tight around her fingers. “Look at the mess we’re in. It’s always death and death-- I’ve never had a peaceful, pure day in my life.” Orysya said hoarsely, her voice choked by tears. “First the Commonwealth is gone, now the Federal Republic is gone but it’s all the same story-- but you’re in a position to do something, Sara.”
“Orysya…” Lysiak started.
“Please, just tell me-- tell me you’re going to do something. Tell me you’ll try to fix all this. Don’t let all the violence we’ve been raised with go on.”
Lysiak shook her head, exasperated. She had never seen Zhuravel like this before; in her mind Orysya, unlike the rash and belligerent Sara Lysiak, was supposed to be stoic, strong, and developed in a spiritual form Lysiak admired but was not herself. Now, the stoniness and certainty of Orysya’s face in Lysiak’s mind came crashing down, and this fiery, tumultuous actor in her friend’s place rose.
“Orysya-- you don’t understand. I can’t…” Lysiak, struggling to keep her own emotions under control from the shock, started again. “I’m not in a position that you think I am-- I still have an obligation to Bezukhov, regardless of what you or I think.”
Orysya scoffed, the action letting the first tears roll down her face. “Bezukhov! To hell with him! The self-centered loon!”
“Orysya! Quiet!” Lysiak hissed, casting a glance at the other two passengers, who were seemingly minding their own business but were more than aware of their conversation. It wasn’t likely they would pass along any information unless they had more than good cause.
“You’re Sara Lysiak; you’re one of us, not those elites born with the political pacifier-- why are you bowing to that man? What’s he ever done for us? For the people?”
“He gave me a shot at success, and I’m--”
“Every new economic plan he put out just ground more and more people to dust in the factories, working multiple jobs! Every civil strategy understandably angers millions! Every military action we take only cuts the stems of the weeds, and never pulls them out! Lysiak, it’s gotten to the point that I can sympathize with the innies we fought!”
“Orysya, stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying!”
“Don’t know, do I? I joined this movement because you were leading it, because I thought we could change the world! Aren’t those the words the recruiters fed me for months under Smirnov?”
“Yes-- but not like that! You can’t just take Bezukhov out of the equation, it won’t make people happy!”
“Like who?” Orysya spat. Lysiak wavered, unsure how to answer. “Who would it anger? Because it for certain wouldn’t make me unhappy. It wouldn’t make millions of industrial and agricultural workers unhappy. Who would it anger, Sara?”
Lysiak snapped back. “I don’t know! The people, the military, God, the dead! All I know is that I don’t know who could possibly take Bezukhov’s place! Because if I were to remove Bezukhov, who’s to say someone won’t just remove me? Bezukhov has got something I don’t-- legitimacy. All I’ve got to show is a discommendation from Chairmanship and a semi-successful coup. That is, if we even win.”
Orysya sat back and her expression hardened into a quiet, general frustration. As moments passed, she looked back to her hands. Lysiak felt a heat in her face and across her body-- seeing her friend’s reaction, she forced herself to open her lungs and take a deep breath before shooting it quickly out, as if to expel the hot sensations she felt.
“Orysya--” Lysiak started quickly, before resetting and putting more calmly and diplomatically, “Orysya, we’ve known each other for a long time. I understand how you feel, but I can’t just do what you ask; it’s impossible-- implausible. But, I promise I’ll do everything in my power, when I can, to make things better.”
Her friend continued staring at her gloves. “We’ve been fed a lot of promises before, Sara. From politicians, generals,” Orysya said in a hushed tone. “doctors, too.”
Chills went up Lysiak’s spine at the recall of Zhuravel’s father. Lysiak bit her tongue and resolved to not continue with the conversation. More than a dozen minutes later, New Krasnoyarsk was in sight.
The wind was blowing south-- which although not unheard of was uncommon at the very least-- and the chilled air at the various ridges of the Zaporozhian Cordillera swept across the steppes leading up to the capital. If the wind had not blown that direction, or they had traveled from a direction other than with the wind, they would hardly have seen any traces of the city.
“Dear God...” Whispered the driver of their APC, his prayer hardly audible. Lysiak unbuckled and pushed herself into the driver’s compartment; through the viewports in the vehicle, above the lead vehicle of their escorts, she saw the alabaster metropolis that she was familiar with in ruins-- towers turned to rubble, the streets with an otherworldy appearance with craters and pockmarks, and the air filled with fire, smoke, and yellowish gas.
“There’s hardly anything left,” Lysiak murmured.
“Masks on!” Called Orysya from the passenger compartment, who covered their red face with the soulless contraption of plastic and glass. Lysiak returned to her seat and donned her gas mask as they entered the city; along the way, they could hear shells whistling overhead and thundering booms, but could not tell whether it was being sent or delivered.
Eventually, passing many CFOB checkpoints the convoy made it safely to the Capitol Complex, or rather, a shadow of it. The wide structure had been effectively lowered by intense bombardment; its five stories were now only two heavily-perforated flights. Stepping out of the vehicle and immediately swarmed by gas mask-clad soldiers for her own protection, Lysiak was taken into the building for decontamination while Zhuravel remained.
"What the hell happened?” Asked Lysiak furiously, casting her mask aside.
She took a seat; around her was the People’s Federal Dining Hall, which altogether was not in that poor of shape; its position in the center of the building with only a small courtyard had rendered it safer than most other positions on the first floor, though some signs of destruction still showed; a layer of concrete dust carpeted the floors and surfaces, the windows along the eastern wall (those that survived) were taped up and boarded over, while those that were broken were covered in plastic covering kept in place with tape to keep the chemicals from getting in. The paintings had either been tilted or fallen from their elaborate frames while the main emblem of the FRCP on the curtains at the forefront of the room upon the stage were askew. Present was Hetman Pasha Rostov (who because of the lack of formal ranks, was merely called ‘general’/hetman); Anzelm Silarz, who was still clutching a mask to be applied at a moment’s notice; Polkovnyk Tkach, who served under Rostov in managing manuevers far outside of the New Krasnoyarsk sphere of control in the Southern half of the country; Captain Markov, of whom Lysiak was yet to be introduced to; and a suite of photographers and film people that had managed to be scrounged up for the occasion.
Rostov answered, but his voice was very thin and hardly more of a voice as it was a rasp. “Gas. Afonasei, the rat bastard, has the strategic arsenal. Chertovsʹkyy shchuryachyy svoloch.” Rostov did not look well. His eyes were watery, his nose runny, and in his hand he clutched a bottle of what looked to be medicine.
“Inhaled a non-lethal dose. Medics administered what little atropine we had in store, ma’am.” Tkach interjected, explaining his superior’s appearance to Lysiak.
“Some of our boys weren’t so lucky,” said the one Lysiak didn’t know the name of, “we’ve counted 74 deaths, thousands of injuries. Unknown civilian loss of life. We just weren’t prepared for them to go so low, ma’am.”
“Let’s never forget we’re dealing with Smirnov here,” Lysiak seethed. “Now, what is the status on the front? Where else has he used this?”
“We’ve formed a salient around the capitol, giving us just about six kilometers from the nearest Federal army group. They can still reach us with artillery-- we’re doing our best to quell them with counter-battery fire, but it’s slow. We’ve got aircraft doing sorties overhead at extremely reduced rates-- it seems we’ve both gotten a bit tired or they’re holding back. We’ve received word Pashchenko’s plastun has engaged in Sevyich but is bogged down, and we’re still contested at Korf; they’ve fallen back from the town proper, but are fortifying nearby Richkova Zevrich, denying us advance. As for the chemical weapons, they’ve kept it to just New Krasnoyarsk and the neighboring front.” Tkach said.
“Bastard,” Lysiak cursed, to the silent approval of Rostov. “We need to work on stomping out and pushing back Smirnov so they can’t bombard the city anymore-- Hetman, consider throwing together a few teams to locate or destroy their artillery batteries.”
The doors of the room were flung open and everyone seated stood to attention, including the camera crew; for in came Vadimir Bezukhov.
The man had aged very rapidly over the last few weeks; his eyes were the same as Lysiak’s-- bloodshot with dark circles, flicking from person to person with contempt. His cheeks had a darker tinge to them, and the back of his hands had numerous veins that stuck out prodigiously.
“What the чорт have you done to my city?”
Aigania sits in the top 51 % for Black Market activity. Amusingly despite for instance the constant surveillance of the transactions through the use of all digital currency and good Civil Rights. 
