The Godsverse Chronicles

Change: Chapter 4

The drive from Berlin to Moscow was a little bit shorter than traveling from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City and twice as boring, which was saying something. When I got too tired to drive, I pulled off and found the closest motel I could, and when I was so far from civilization even that wasn't possible, I slept in my car. It was hard to believe the simple act of driving could tire you out, especially since it was literally just sitting and staring, but I found after eight hours with nothing but klezmer music blaring from the radio, if there was anything at all besides static, I was over it.

When I finally made it to Moscow, my heart sprang with joy. The Mozhaysky district was on the outskirts of the city, and Alexandr's bar was circled in red on the map at the center of it. The area was starkly bland, far from the colorful pictures of the Kremlin I usually associated with the Soviet Union.

There was a beige uniformity to the whole city that was covered by a thick layer of snow, which made the area even harder to navigate in my tiny car. Dimitri didn't tell me what time to find his contact, but when I entered the bar, one set of eyes found me quickly.

"Dimitri?" she said in English.

"Da," I replied in Russian before changing back to English. "He told me to find his contact here."

"That would be me," she replied. Her face was drawn into a perpetual frown, and when she looked at me, it was clear she didn't like what she saw. "They call me Maksim."

"Sadie," I replied. Perhaps I should have used another name, but it wasn't like my first name gave much away. "Nice to meet you."

"Don't say things you don't mean," she said in a thick Russian accent. "This is no place for humanity, even in summer. In winter, it is the pits."

"Then why don't you leave?" I asked.

"Pfft," she replied, pushing a beer over to me. "You must be American."

"Why do you say that?"

"Only Americans have such cavalier attitudes about leaving the place they were born." She finished her beer and slammed it down. "Come, I will show you the armory where Kirkorov works."

We didn't speak much after she got into my car and started to drive. She took us out of the city a little ways and into a wooded forest that gave perfect cover to a massive square building surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of it.

"No satellites to eavesdrop," Maksim said, pointing to the sky. "Smart."

"What is this place?" I asked. "Dimitri said they were testing out magical weapons to find a way to destroy the west."

"Ya, ya," she replied. "Just like your government. We are all trying to pull ahead of each other, trying to find ways to kill each other better."

"When you put it like that, it's pretty sad, huh?" I said with a sad sigh.

"It is what it is." She pointed to the far side of the fence. "There is a hole in the fence around the back, behind a dumpster. I know because I made it yesterday. Hard to see and harder to guard. Perfect for one person. Inside, you go to the basement and room 13. It has records of all weapons and their location." She handed me a piece of paper. "This is the file cabinet you are looking for. I paid good money for that information, so don't waste it."

"I won't, but I'm confused," I said after pocketing the piece of paper. "Isn't the dagger inside?"

She shrugged. "Maybe, but sometimes they give out weapons to other countries for testing or as gifts, especially one so small as the knife you seek. If it has no immediate benefits, then maybe it is in Chile, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or with some other despot around the world."