Ivzhesk’s winter means on the brightest day, there are only seven hours of sunlight. Therefore, eight to nine hours after sunset is the darkest time of night. As usual, this would be the best hour you could choose to be a thief.

I sneak through an unguarded corridor without any trouble, looking at the Eastern entrance. The formerly grand public space was reduced to yet another narrow and dark corridor as the building was reconstructed to prepare for the inevitable enemy penetration. Now soldiers have to travel en route to a makeshift grain depot outside of the main building. These places are supposed to be guarded, but many of the guards today are occupied by a certain charismatic figure.

“I was deadass poor when I was younger, fellas. You aren’t buying it, are ya, lads? Ah, just look at that young man over there. He must be thinking I’m the son of a provincial president! How can I be poor? Hah, I kid you not. I didn’t take a dime of what I was supposed to inherit. When they confiscated my properties, I was in Yuzhno fishing with the Japanese. When they auctioned off my father’s old bunker, I was in the Arctic. I emptied all my wallets, but still traveled the world. All thanks to this big mouth.”

The ever-so-pompous voice of Major Smolov echoes through the corridor as I pass by. He and his famous beard are the centers of laughter and entertainment around this fort. People come to Smolov when they are troubled because he knows how to cheer them up better than anyone.

“So how did you survive?” asks a soldier.

“Talent, kid.” His presence fills the hallway as he clears his throat. “Let me tell you this. Talent is always, always, more valuable than money. You can make sack loads of money, but it goes as easy as it comes. Talent? You don’t lose it. You know what’s gonna prove my point? A story! You lads love a story.”

Small cheers ripple through the crowd.

Smolov continues, “Years ago, I used to have dinner with a Viet commie in a very good hotel in Chita. What was his name again? RL-10836B. Quite a mouthful, huh? Like those Northeastern Republics, these guys assign serial numbers to their newer clones. Guess it’s just more practical that way. You can immediately tell people’s camp of origin and their functionality based on their names. Luckily, we didn’t ride on the fad here in Tatarstan. I love my name, and no way I’m gonna call myself 1234.”

He lets out a raucous laugh. “Then there was this guy from Leningrad sitting near my table. He was trying to order a sirniki, but he kept sending the plate back to the kitchen. He kept saying, ‘City sirnikis are better.’ After the second time he sent it back, the chef came out, and I heard him say, ‘I’m going to kill this guy!’ And I tell you, I know how Siberians are. If a Leningradian says he will kill you, you have nothing to worry about. The Leningradians are sweethearts, and a sweetheart is a coward. But when a Siberian says he will kill you, you run for your life. So I went to the guy’s table, bought him a bottle of wine, and talked to him about Leningrad. I knew all about the place because I used to conduct tank maneuvers there. After a few minutes of chatting, I told him: ‘If you order another sirniki, they will slice your intestines open with a shashka’. He took my advice and left. All the restaurant staff came out and started singing to me, balalaikas strapped to their chest. They brought out wine and treated us to a free meal. They said, ‘We don’t need your money here’. The Viet was so impressed, his jaw dropped on the floor like this! Understand me, kid? Talent.”

As soon as the major finishes speaking, waves of applause boom. I nod along. Indeed, the great mouth of the major—that alone is a talent. I would never be able to get anyone to sit still while I rambled on about nothing, let alone clap for me if they did.

Works for me. I’d rather be under the radar. And the more the major talks, the more bread I get to steal.

I don’t give a rat’s ass what the major has to say. What I care about is if his nightly chitter-chatter session has cleared all the patrols that were supposed to frequent the road to the Far East grain depots or not. The answer is yes.

I pass through two corridors undetected. If Dzyuba’s patrolling schedule doesn’t change, he and his men are going to pass by the depots today. He was not doing this before, but after the vast majority of high-profile officers were killed in battle and reports of deserters and food thieves skyrocketed, he said something along the lines of “I can’t trust you fools to do anything right around here,” and took the duty upon himself. He might have other motives; I don’t know, but it’s working out in my favor.

The grain depot is always locked, with two guards standing by the gate at all times. I have no way to hide along the hallway to that storehouse.

But who says anything about being on the ground?

There’s a ventilation hole at the back of the depot big enough to hide in. It hasn’t been working for a long time; the fan stopped working, and the cover had gone MIA. To reach it, I’ll have to climb up this T-shaped pipeline next to me—the one with the horizontal pipe section attached to the ceiling. This pipe isn’t the biggest—probably 12’’ diameter tube of old metal—but it’s enough for me to scale if I cling to it tightly enough.

I start climbing. I must look like a gecko crawling on the wall—but a gecko is good at what it does. My feet push the body outwards and upwards against the wall, while my hands pull inwards and upwards on the pipe. With my grip and pulling strength, it doesn’t take long for me to reach the horizontal pipe, where I turn climb leftward into the ventilation hole. I lean myself on the walls near the ceiling, burrowing in the darkness. From the hole, I have a wide view of the corridor entrance. The air inside the hole smells like rust and sewer, but I have to swallow my cough.

Staying in the hole makes me question my life decisions again. Why am I doing this? Am I trying to impress Alice or something? I’m not a foolish twenty-year-old hankering for Vasiliy Kovalenko’s approval.

Before long, I make out the figure of Commander Artem Dzyuba entering the hallway. He’s accompanied by two rookies, or so I guess from the general darker shade of their military badge. He’s wearing gloves. Good.

The plan is to wait until he’s passed, knock out the rookies, snatch that ring from his finger, and vanish. I only have to, uh, not make a sound, so I don’t alarm the guards on the other side of the junction. What a plan this is. The most meticulous and elaborate plan in the world.

Damn, if only I had more time to think of an actual plan.

Well, can’t pull out now.

Dzyuba’s steps are leisurely today. He turns his gaze upwards, with a slight smile on his face. It’s like he’s taking a midnight stroll instead of patrolling. He takes so long to cross through my ventilation hole that my hands start fidgeting. I just want to jump out at him to end the restlessness.

Then it hits me; something’s not right. Why is Maksim not with the commander? He’s always by the commander's side.

It hits me what Dzyuba’s unnatural angle of gazing might be.

He’s communicating with someone through subtle eye contact.

The commander turns around with a swoosh and walks the same path he just walked through as the other two follow suit. It doesn’t take long before he disappears from my sight.

Is my cover blown? How is that possible? I made sure nobody saw me as I was climbing, and I didn’t detect the presence of any other person besides those I’ve already observed.

I don’t have time for this! I have other things on my mind and not enough time! But I’m retrieving that ring, one way or another.

I snatch the pipe and climb outside. Squeezing the elbows on the iron, my legs continue to push as I crawl like a worm. It’s only a couple meters to go until I reach the intersection between the horizontal part and the vertical part. Then I can jump down mid-air and chase after him.

That’s when a screw pops out right in front of me.

The screw smacks straight onto my forehead before it leaps to the ground. Clanking sounds echo through the hall. Then, the tube below my chest splits and starts buckling downward.

“Fuck!” I gasp. I gotta move, gotta move, gotta move!

The tube in front of me shears apart.

In the blink of an eye, the tube I’m on completely disengages and folds down.

A chill sneaks up under my throat, followed by silent curses and heavy breathing. I’m a fucking genius, aren’t I? What made me think a pipeline that’s been around since the Romanov dynasty could support my weight?

And to make things worse, I hear footsteps. One, two, and then craploads of footsteps. The pipe chooses that exact moment to squeak like a chipmunk.

I hear the guards talking to each other.

“What’s that sound? Did you catch that?”

“Check to see what it is. Hurry!”

My heart beats faster. My breathing becomes painful and crooked, and I realize my concentration is wavering. My body must have automatically switched on panic mode. Gotta keep my nerve, gotta keep my nerve.

Reflexively, I cling to the horizontal pipe, digging my nails into it. Not a fucking chance I can keep this up. This pipe will fall down, and I will fall with it if I keep trying to hold onto it.

The footsteps are closer and closer. They haven’t come to this corridor, but they will very soon.

I have to jump. I have to roll a few rounds on the floor and get the hell out of here. I have no fulcrum; I can easily land on my head, break a few bones, or worse – get shot mid-air.

I have no choice.

They are only a few steps away.

I need to jump. Now.

With all my strength, I break out.

***

“Fuck. Where did he go?” I mutter to myself, scanning the outside of the central building through the side entrance.

I was able to jump forward, do a roll on the ground, come up running, dodging down corridors until I got to the entrance. All that effort just to lose track of the commander. I know that for some reason, Dzyuba headed outside of the main building. He might have gone through the central gate—which is a path that I absolutely couldn’t follow. The patrols would have stopped me to ask what business I had outside at two in the morning. Only the luckiest ones get sent back to their room without any punishment. And regardless of luck, my name will surely be on the blacklist after this.

One thing I can be sure of is that Dzyuba isn’t here outside of the vacant Eastern side entrance.

I look up at the fort walls a fair distance from where I stand. Snow blows down the watchtowers in a horizontal blur, falling obliquely against the blistered sky. The snowflakes turn every bit of life into a singular hue of frosted white. They land on the unanimated logs lying about, on the collapsed roofs of old warehouses, and on the mortar hats of the lanky guard shuddering out near the concrete rubble of what used to be the Eastern fort gate.

I can feel him. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I can feel his presence.

I walk along the reclusive road, leading to a complex of abandoned warehouses. Avoiding unnecessary attention, I slip into a narrow alleyway. At this hour, no one should have any business here.

I can still feel him. What is he doing here?

I pick up the pace, pull the pistol from my holster and equip the silencer I’ve brought with me on it. I’ve been itching to use my merc gears for a while, and finally there’s a reason.

The faster I walk, the faster he walks. I turn left after an intersection; he turns left at that intersection. I turn right; he turns right. It takes me another thirty seconds to make sure that the person following me isn’t Commander Artem Dzyuba.

I’m being followed by someone else.