The escalator descended into the earth like a stairway to heaven.
Jake stood on the moving steps. The air grew warmer as he went down. The biting wind of the Moscow winter faded, replaced by the smell of ozone and hot stone.
He stepped onto the platform of the Mayakovskaya station.
It was impossible.
In the real timeline, this station wouldn't open until 1938. But Jake had thrown infinite labor and concrete at the project.
It was a cathedral underground.
Stainless steel arches gleamed under bright electric lights. The floor was polished red marble. There was no trash. No begging.
"It works," Kaganovich said, standing beside him. "The nuclear plant is holding the load."
Jake looked up at the ceiling. The mosaics depicted a future of rockets and airplanes.
"The people need to see this," Jake said.
"They are seeing it, Comrade Stalin. Look."
A train pulled in. It wasn't the clunky, wooden carriages of the 1920s. It was sleek, modeled on a 1950s design Jake had sketched from memory.
The doors hissed open.
Children poured out. They were laughing. They wore thick wool coats, but their faces were clean.
They didn't look like the starving peasants in Ukraine. They looked like the future.
One little girl ran up to a marble pillar. She took off her mitten and pressed her hand against the stone.
"It's warm!" she squealed.
Her mother smiled. "Yes, Katya. It is always summer down here."
Jake felt a lump in his throat.
Above ground, the Cheka was arresting dissidents. In the countryside, villages were empty.
But here, fifty meters underground, there was light. There was heat. There was civilization.
This was the trade. He had sold his soul to buy them this warmth.
"Keep the lights on," Jake whispered. "No matter what happens up there, the lights down here never go out."
"We are at 98% capacity," Kaganovich warned. "If the grid fails—"
"It won't," Jake said. "Because if it does, I will shoot everyone in the energy commissariat."
He wasn't joking.
He watched the little girl board the train. For a second, the crushing weight of his sins felt lighter.
He had built a sanctuary.
"Let's go," Jake said, turning away. "I've seen enough."
He had to go back to the darkness so they could stay in the light.
The drive to the secret laboratory was silent.
Taranov drove the Packard fast. The tires crunched over the frozen slush.
Jake sat in the back, his eyes closed. He was trying to remember the dates for the German elections.
1930? 1932?
The numbers were getting fuzzy. It had been five years since he woke up in this body. The memories of his old life were fading, like a dream after breakfast.
He needed the Laptop. The Oracle.
The car screeched to a halt outside the heavily guarded warehouse.
Alan Turing was waiting at the door. He wasn't wearing a coat. He was shivering violently, but not from the cold.
"It stopped," Turing stammered. "It just... stopped."
Jake felt his blood turn to ice.
He pushed past the boy genius and ran inside.
The room was filled with the hum of cooling fans and the smell of solder.
On the central table sat the 2024 laptop.
It was connected to a car battery array and a jury-rigged transformer. Wires snaked out of its USB ports like life support tubes.
The screen was black.
"Did you check the power?" Jake barked.
"Power is stable," Turing said. His voice was high, hysterical. "I was running the simulation for the 1933 economic forecast. The fan spun up, there was a popping sound, and then... nothing."
Jake stared at the black rectangle.
It was a piece of plastic and glass. But it contained the history of the world. The designs for the jet engine. The dates of every major battle.
"Fix it," Jake said.
"I can't," Turing said. "I opened the casing. The motherboard... there is a burn mark near the processor. A capacitor blew."
"Replace it."
"With what?" Turing screamed. "It is a micro-component! Smaller than a grain of sand! We don't have the tools to make the tools to make this!"
Jake grabbed the laptop. He shook it.
"Wake up," he hissed. "Don't you do this to me."
He pressed the power button. He held it.
Nothing. No logo. No light.
The Oracle was dead.
Jake slumped against the table. The silence in the room was deafening.
He was blind.
He didn't know when Hitler would attack. He didn't know if the stock market crash would bottom out or recover. He didn't know the winning lottery numbers or the secret treaties.
He was just a man in 1929. A man who had pissed off every superpower on Earth.
"What do we do?" Turing asked. "The encryption keys for the atomic project... they were on the drive."
"You have a brain," Jake said, his voice hollow. "Use it."
"But the data—"
"The data is gone!" Jake roared. He smashed his fist onto the table. "It's gone, Alan! We are on our own!"
Turing shrank back.
Jake stared at the dead machine. The reflection in the black screen showed a man who looked terrified.
"Burn it," Jake said softly.
"What?"
"Melt it down," Jake ordered. "Acid. Fire. Nothing remains. If the Americans or Germans find this technology, they'll jump fifty years in a day."
"But—"
"Destroy it now!"
Jake turned and walked out. He couldn't look at it.
He stepped into the snow. The cold air burned his lungs.
He felt naked. The script was over. Now, the improvisation began.
Leningrad. The Kirov Plant Hospital.
Nadya wore a nurse's uniform. It was stained with iodine and blood.
She wasn't hiding in the apartment anymore. The boredom had nearly killed her. She needed to be useful.
"Bed 4 needs morphine," a doctor shouted.
Nadya grabbed a vial. She hurried to the corner bed.
The soldier lying there was young. Maybe twenty. But his face looked fifty. His skin was grey and papery. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated to black saucers.
He wasn't wounded. He was vibrating.
"Cold," the soldier chattered. "So cold."
Nadya injected the morphine. It didn't help. His heart was hammering against his ribs. She could see it beating through his skin.
She checked his chart. It was stamped with a red triangle.
Experimental Unit 731-B.
She frowned. She leaned closer.
The soldier smelled strange. Not like sweat. Like chemicals. Like burnt rubber and vinegar.
"What did they give you?" Nadya whispered.
The soldier grabbed her wrist. His grip was shockingly strong. It bruised her skin instantly.
"The Red Pill," he rasped. "Don't take it, sister. It makes the fire... inside."
"Who gave it to you?"
"The men in the white coats," he said. "They said it would make us heroes. It just... ate us."
He convulsed once. Then he went still.
His eyes were still open, staring at nothing.
Nadya checked for a pulse. There was none.
She looked around. The ward was busy. No one was watching.
She slipped the soldier's chart under her apron. Then she saw the small bottle on the bedside table. Unmarked. Half-empty.
She grabbed that too.
Her hands were shaking.
This wasn't medicine. This was poison. Jake was feeding his own soldiers poison to make them fight harder.
She walked to the bathroom and locked the door.
She pulled out the chart.
Subject: Ivanovich. Cause of Death: Cardiac explosion due to stimulant overdose. Agent: Amphetamine-Derivative X.
She looked at the bottle.
This wasn't the work of a statesman. This was the work of a butcher.
Nadya didn't cry. She had no tears left.
She put the bottle in her pocket.
She wasn't going to run to America. Not yet.
She needed to find others. There had to be others who saw the madness.
"I will stop you, Koba," she whispered to the mirror. "Someone has to."
She unlocked the door and walked back into the ward. She didn't look like a scared wife anymore. She looked like a soldier behind enemy lines.
The Kremlin Office. Midnight.
Jake was drinking. Not vodka. Water. He needed a clear head, but his hands wouldn't stop trembling.
The door opened.
Menzhinsky didn't knock. He walked in with the silence of a ghost.
"Get out," Jake said. "I'm busy."
"You are not busy," Menzhinsky said. "You are panicking."
The head of the Cheka sat down. He placed a thick black notebook on the desk.
Jake recognized it. The Scorecard.
"I heard about the laboratory," Menzhinsky said. "Turing is crying in the corner. He says the 'God Machine' is dead."
Jake stared at him. "Accidents happen."
"It was no accident," Menzhinsky said. "It was time catching up with you."
He opened the notebook.
"For five years, you have been a prophet," Menzhinsky said. "You predicted the crash. The drought. The rise of Hitler. You gave us rockets before we had cars."
He tapped the page.
"But a prophet who cannot see the future... is just a madman with a gun."
Jake's hand drifted toward the drawer where he kept his revolver.
"Don't," Menzhinsky said softly. "Taranov is outside. But he answers to the State first. And I am the State's memory."
Jake stopped.
"What do you want, Vyacheslav?"
"Stability," Menzhinsky said.
"I gave you an empire."
"You gave us chaos," Menzhinsky countered. "Bioweapons that kill our own men. Economic policies that starve millions to build rockets. It was acceptable when you had the magic eye. When you knew we would win."
Menzhinsky leaned forward. His eyes were reptilian. Cold and unblinking.
"But now you are blind. And a blind man cannot drive the car at full speed."
"We are at war," Jake said.
"Exactly. So we stop the experiments," Menzhinsky said. "No more Red Pills. No more forcing nature. We fight with steel and blood. Not magic."
"Is that a threat?"
"It is a bargain," Menzhinsky said. "I keep your secret. I do not tell the Politburo that their Great Leader is a fraud from the future whose crystal ball just shattered."
He pushed the notebook toward Jake.
"And in return, you listen to me. We stabilize the country. We stop treating the people like fuel."
Jake looked at the notebook. It contained every lie he had ever told.
He looked at Menzhinsky. For the first time, he realized the spy wasn't a servant. He was a partner. A dangerous, lethal partner.
Jake let go of the drawer handle.
"Fine," Jake said. "No more biology. We focus on industry."
"Good," Menzhinsky said. He stood up.
He didn't take the notebook. He left it on the desk.
A reminder.
"Get some sleep, Comrade Stalin," Menzhinsky said at the door. "Tomorrow, you have to rule the old-fashioned way. By guessing."
The door closed.
Jake looked at the notebook.
He was the most powerful man on Earth. And he had never been more trapped.
He walked to the window. Snow was falling on Red Square.
Somewhere out there, Hitler was planning. Hoover was building. Nadya was hating him.
And he was alone in the dark.
"Alright," Jake whispered. "Let's play the game on hard mode."