Disclaimer: I do not own the LINK series. They are written by Lyda Morehouse.
Anastastiya, the Albino
Aleksei Danchenko is a very busy man, but it is nice when he can take time out of his full schedule to have a rest and a chat with the only progeny he will ever have, his goddaughter. That, of course, is me.
I pour the vodka in the long, slender shot glass and slide it across the circular mahogany table between the two chairs in the den. Aleksei flops down into the overstuffed high-backed armchair, sighing. He looks over the mantle of the roaring fireplace, where a nineteenth-century clock ticks away. It is a beautiful thing, but somehow, real-time clocks always disturb me, with their noise and their twitchy movement. Clocks are the epitome of nervousness, and that is one thing I hate to be. I keep my time pieces strictly virtual.
“Ah, vodka,” Aleksei sighs, reaching over to the shot glass. He drains it in one gulp. I would not be surprised if he could drink a hundred of them; he seems like he was nursed on the stuff. I look at the bottle, though, and I cringe: it is Cristall Posolskaya, called the secret of Russia; it is 112 proof. I pick up my wine glass, daintily sipping the rich Merlót.
Aleksei is not a small man by any means--any way one looks at him, he is enormous. He stands nearly two meters tall, and he must be at least eighty-five kilograms. He is still in good shape--most of that mass is his pure muscle. Although Aleksei is guarded all the time, he could probably take on any assassin by himself. He is nearly as well equipped as an Inquisitor with all of the enhancements he had done, and they were nearly as expensive as well; but then, Aleksei can afford things such as expensive, invasive surgery. All together he is a very imposing figure.
“So, what has my little Anya been up to recently, hmm?” Aleksei asks, leaning back in his chair. He sets his shot glass down on the table with a small, sharp thunk!
“Bartering for illegal parts off of the Constantinople black market for Cecily,” I reply candidly, taking another sip of my wine.
“Really?” Aleksei says, reaching for the Posolskaya bottle. “I was wondering when you would follow in my footsteps there.”
I look at him quizzically. “Follow in your footsteps?”
“Ah, yes. The Danchenko Corporation started out as a caterer to black market dealings, really. Then, of course, we expanded to the heavy industries, and...well, and then I got involved with political matters.” Aleksei grunts his small version of a laugh as he pours himself another shot.
“Yes, and that’s what lead us...here,” I reply, looking out the window.
Aleksei had this place refurbished recently; until a few years ago, we lived in Moscow, which was then the official capital city. Aleksei thought that it was more fitting to move back to the city his favorite Czar, Peter the Great, had constructed. He had this place, the Winter palace, refurbished in ‘69, and we have lived here ever since. I like it well enough, although it can be a little...overwhelming. It is three stories, with 1057 halls and rooms. What’s more, I feel sort of bad living somewhere that, until the Silent Curtain fell, was a place everyone could enjoy, as it had been made into the Hermitage Museum, Russia’s most illustrious and beautiful house of art and history. We redistributed the art around the country, and now is just Aleksei’s and my residency. I suppose, however, that it is a fitting seat for the Gegemoniya.
Aleksei had climbed the political ladder tooth and nail to get where he was. He had established himself as a link between the Party leadership and the administrative levels below them, and had then used this position to appoint loyal supporters of his into powerful positions. He had adversaries, to be certain, but his quiet history in crime afforded him the opportunities to take them out one by one, and then to ruthlessly and silently remove his allies. He was voted into the Presidency because he was a “man of the people”, having come from the slums of Stalingrad, and the mass of the poor identified with him, although by that time he was worth over three-hundred million. He was a hero during the War, and for that he won the loyalty of his army. Having an entire crime franchise to be his modern version of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti* did nothing but help him establish himself as Hegemon of Russia.
But he was not a disliked ruler, nor was he cruel. His methods were in some ways Machiavellian, and in others very, very selfish. For the most part, however, he seemed to care about Russia and Russians. The people like him, and since the War a genuine disdain for the rest of the world has developed, which suits Aleksei’s needs perfectly. He is a very firm atheist, which does have its disadvantages--for one, mouse.net sucks.
I sigh.
“Yes, little Anya, that is what got us here. Are you bitter about it any?”
I turn back to face him. His eyes are full of kindness and concern. I am glad that there is an Aleksei who is not just Hegemon, but an Usyhovitel, an adoptive father, as well. “Net, not much,” I reply. “If you had not done what you have, then we would still be in the mafia, and that was not a good way to live. At least now we are secure.”
Very secure.
I remember the nights when I could barely sleep for fear that our then biggest rivals, the Kyzentsovs, would come and claim our lives in the night. I remember being a very little girl, before the War, back when my father and mother were still alive, and always being scared of other families, of walking the streets by myself, of everything. I was nervous all the time. Nervous is one thing I hate to be.
“Anastastiya, what would you think of being Hegemon?”
I look at him over the rim of my wine glass, my eyes wide. He is studying my reaction carefully; I can only assume that he is measuring my heart beat and my pupil dilation. I set down the glass on the table. “Me?”
“Da,” he replies. He throws back another shot. “I was thinking about the future today, and about where Russia will be in ten years. As always, I cannot guarantee that I will be there. My cabinet is made up of good men, but they do not understand me, not really, nor my ideals. They do not see the greater purpose at work here; for them, Russia is merely a sum of her parts, and it is their job to keep those parts in working order.”
“What is all this talk of purpose, Aleksei?” I ask, a note of playful disdain in my voice. “You always told me that you never believed in purpose, only in function.” Aleksei is the staunchest Atheist I know; he does not believe in fate, nor predestination, any of it. He told me many times that nothing has a purpose; we all have no reason for being here, only a function, a continuous and underlying drive. Our function is survival.
Aleksei sighs. “Natsya, you are twenty-two, and I am almost sixty-six; the differences in our ideals will be based in experience. At twenty-five, hell, at fifty-five, I believed that ‘purpose’ was foolish, that anything beyond my grasp was simply nonexistent. I now believe...otherwise.”
“Are you saying you are no longer an Atheist?” I ask, scrutinizing him carefully. This is odd talk for Aleksei. What is he trying to express?
“No, that is not it. I believe in God no more now than I did forty years ago. But...somehow, I believe that there is a drive, a drive greater, maybe, than just survival, than just our function.”
I sit back, the hand with my wine glass in it draped over the arm of the chair, listening intently, trying to understand.
“I had, I have, so little faith in humanity, it seems. I thought that we were nothing really, just another organism crawling about on the planet, another thing that eats and breathes and shits, just somehow had been lucky in the draw for more functioning grey matter. That humans were too arrogant and too cowardly, believing that there was a God, a God who was so interested in their pathetic lives to listen to their prayers, a God that they could use as a scapegoat when things go wrong. But...maybe it is my old age, age that makes craziness seep into the brain.” Aleksei sighs. “Every now and again, I think that maybe there is some reason, some purpose, if you will, for us to be here, more than just for our function.” He looks over at me, his hand folded in front of his face so that I can only see his blue eyes and the bridge of his nose. “You, my child, you have always been an Agnostic--oh, do not look so surprised, you cannot keep something like that from someone who is around you so often-- and I think you can better grasp this thing, this purpose, than I can, and certainly better than those sheep in my cabinet. You already believe in some sort of higher power, already still have faith in purpose and people. This, this is why I want you to succeed me as Hegemon.”
I hardly know what to say. I cross one leg over the other, stretching my foot out towards the fire. I look at the delicate little tattoos that wind their way over the top of my feet, the intricate, curving vines that overlap, intertwine, and run alongside one another. “I would hardly know what to do with a whole country, Aleksei.”
“Ah, but one day, you will. It’s your purpose.”