The Winter Palace

The Lie at the End of the World

So where're we at in our story?

Carmen, the freedom-fighting protagonist of our story, has kidnapped The Red Duke, the leader of the un-free world, from the front in Siberia. She what's left of her team have escaped the battlefront in a rescue gyrocopter—but they need to get out of enemy territory.

The Lie at the End of the World

Carmen got into character.

She stared at the ground, ran her hand over the Walther PPK pistol at her hip, thought about the war and all the reasons she had to hate the Red Duke. Below them, the ground rushed by—snow-capped pine trees, a blur of white and black.

Buzzcut turned on a fire-heater, causing a rush of warm air. He removed his mask; the others followed. The ride was loud and windy; it was a terrible environment to communicate. For several minutes, no one tried. All eyes were on the Red Duke: He was seat-belted in, unconscious, cuffed at the hands and ankles, his black hair flapping in the wind.

The red-headed woman—intense, pale, green-eyed—nodded to Arthur, the young man. Arthur stuffed his camera in an open knapsack, then removed a plastic bag filled with pharmaceutical bottles. He stood, groped along the perimeter of the canoe, then fell awkwardly into Carmen's lap. She nudged him up with a kneecap to his sternum. He made his way over to the Duke, then collapsed at his knees.

"Careful!" the redhead shouted.

Arthur stuck a needle into the Duke's arm, missed the vein, and tried again.

This is the Duke's day for stabbings, Carmen thought.

On his second try, Arthur drew blood, then squirted a few drops onto a white strip. He studied it, looked at the redhead, and nodded.

"It's him!" he shouted.

Redhead nodded back, gritted her teeth, pointed at Arthur's knapsack. Get the camera back out.

A scream from outside the aircraft: it came from a half-dozen F-86 Sabre jet fighters, probably the same ones that had struck the airbase.

Escorts, Carmen thought.

The jets couldn't fly as slowly as the gyrocopter, so they circled around the A-14 instead.

Redhead waved at Carmen. "Hey! How long will that knockout gas last?"

Carmen held up two fingers.

The other woman looked at the Duke, laughed to herself giddily, then shouted something at Carmen.

"What?"

Redhead leaned forward.

"I said, I'm Playwright!"

Carmen didn't even try to hide her surprise. A woman? How? A few years ago, during the second Great War, women had built aircraft in the factories, worked as decoders or nurses. Now, during the third War, women were becoming even more prominent—but not leaders during wartime. It was unheard of. Carmen had never seen such self-assuredness in another woman, such power.

"Wait until we land," Playwright said to Carmen.

"What?"

"Wait until we land!"

Carmen got the message, nodded, sat back in her seat, felt the bulge of the pistol in her pocket.

Okay—so I wait.

Arthur already had his camera out, rotated its tri-lens barrel, and got a wide panning shot of the canoe. The boy hadn't bothered to put a bandage on the Duke's arm: the leader of the un-free world just sat there and bled.