That had Danny excited. He’d been working for years to prove to the powers that be that the Variants were normal, patriotic Americans, despite their uncanny abilities, and that they deserved the full faith and trust of the United States government. But even MAJESTIC-12’s biggest supporters — Vandenberg and Truman foremost among them — never seemed a hundred percent comfortable with people who could kill with a touch or twist emotions like Silly Putty. Someday, maybe.
Danny’s attention was drawn back to the present by thunderous applause — Malenkov had finished speaking, and now Beria was heading to the podium. He stood there, watching the crowd and accepting their applause, appearing to soak it in, until he raised his hands and the noise immediately died down.
What if he just shot flames from his hands, right here and now? Danny wondered. Is he that confident? Would he push the world that far?
“Dear Comrades! Friends!” Beria began. “It is difficult to express in words the feeling of profound grief that is being experienced during these days by our party and the peoples of our country, as well as all progressive mankind. Stalin, the great comrade-in-arms and inspired continuer of Lenin’s work, is no more. We have lost a man who is near and dear to all Soviet peoples, to millions of working peoples of the whole world.”
Danny looked around at the rest of the dignitaries up on the dais, pinpointing the other Variants. He could immediately make out Frank and Maggie — their patterns, for want of a better word, were intimately familiar to Danny by now. The two others that had been trailing them were now behind the dais, making it tough for Danny to make them out. He thought about going around to try to catch a glimpse, but the stone-faced Red Army soldiers in their greatcoats, armed with Kalashnikovs, held a very firm line all around the VIP area.
The flickering shadow was no longer around, and most of the other Variants in the city weren’t moving around much — probably listening to the funeral proceedings on the radio.
“Comrades!” Beria continued, warming up as he went; Danny had glossed over a bit, admittedly, as he scanned the crowd and the city. “The grief in our hearts is unquenchable, the loss is immeasurably heavy, but even under this burden the steel will of the Communist Party will not bend; its unity and its firm will in the struggle for Communism will not waver.
“Our party, armed with the revolutionary theory of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, taught by the half-century-long struggle for the interests of the working class and all the working people, knows how to lead the cause in order to secure the building of a Communist society. The Central Committee of our party and the Soviet government have been trained in the great school of Lenin and Stalin to direct the country.”
Laying it on thick, Danny thought as Beria continued to give a history lesson about the leadership of the Communist Party through Russia’s long history of troubles. Even the most caustic critic of Communism had to admit that Russia had experienced its share of woes during the past fifty years, even if much of it was caused by Stalin’s own ineptitude.
“The enemies of the Soviet state calculate that the heavy loss we have borne will lead to disorder and confusion in our ranks,” Beria said, his finger raised high. “But their expectations are in vain: harsh disillusionment awaits them. He who is not blind sees that our party, during its difficult days, is closing its ranks still more closely, that it is united and unshakable. He who is not blind sees that during these grievous days all the peoples of the Soviet Union, in fraternal unity with the great Russian people, have rallied still more closely around the Soviet government and the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
“The Soviet people unanimously support both the domestic and the foreign policy of the Soviet state,” Beria said. “And let it be known that the Champions of the Proletariat stand ready to defend the Soviet people against the enemies of our great, multinational state — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!”
Danny froze in his tracks, and not simply at the mention of the Champions of the Proletariat — Beria’s glorifying nickname for his own Variants.
In that moment, Danny saw the glimmer of a shadow both behind and within Beria, a shadow in the shape of a person, mimicking Beria’s movements and yet also seeming to pull away from him as well.
Or pull at him.
Danny shook his head and shut his eyes; the shadow was gone when he opened them again. Beria thundered on in his speech, seemingly unaffected by whatever just happened.
This was new—really new — and Danny didn’t like it one bit. He’d seen shadows like that before, though. Once, within the depths of the strange vortex that had, at the time, been housed at Area 51 in Nevada, and was now hidden away at Mountain Home in Idaho. The second time was when Danny had been within range of the Soviet Union’s first atomic test — Beria’s vain attempt at killing American Variants that had only barely been thwarted.
Those shadows had remained an official mystery, but Danny feared them all the same. They were, he was sure of it, some kind of intelligence. Some kind of sentient beings responsible for the Enhancement of Variants. And deep down, somehow, Danny knew they weren’t friendly.
For the umpteenth time, Maggie found herself compressed into some slinky dress for some party so she could fuck with people’s heads and get information for the good old U.S. of A. To be fair, the dress was more conservative than usual — it was a funeral, after all — and the ubiquitous champagne was nowhere to be found. But still, it was getting rote. The conversations, the people, the secrets — all of it.
Maggie smiled and laughed at the joke made by Molotov, the foreign minister, even though she really didn’t find it funny. But then she felt a slight pull on her arm, which was entwined with Frank’s. Tone it down a bit.
“Sorry. A bit too much wine,” she said reflexively, nodding to the red in her glass. It was either wine or vodka, and while Maggie could hold her liquor as well as any man, it was still barely lunchtime.
Molotov smiled as the interpreter translated, and then replied in Russian — a language Maggie had studied, but still had yet to master. “Mr. Molotov says it is good to hear laughter in these dark times,” the interpreter said. “The great Stalin himself was fond of laughter, so it is right that there should be some here now.”
Frank nodded and said something presumably nice and diplomatic in Russian, and Molotov left them alone a few moments after that. Maggie felt her smile evaporate — her cheeks were hurting from the effort — and she resumed scanning the room, seeking out the threads of extreme emotion amongst the otherwise sedate crowd in the Hall of Columns, where they had returned for the reception.
“You know, for someone who reads emotions every day, your acting is getting worse, not better,” Frank said quietly, radiating a quiet amusement.
“But that’s what you people do, isn’t it?” Maggie responded, allowing him a smirk. “Someone makes a joke, you laugh.”
“It was a shitty joke,” Frank replied. “And this whole detachment thing… You still seeing your shrink, Mags?”
Maggie sighed. “Three times a week while I’m home. You still seeing yours, or are you relying on the one in your head?”
“As a matter of fact, Dr. Mills is telling me right now that he’d like you to stop projecting,” Frank said. Maggie knew enough about the people inhabiting Frank’s skull to know that there was indeed a psychiatrist named Mills in there with him. “He says your disassociation is getting worse every day. You know what he suggests?”