Building Utopia

1. Introduction

It was a quiet day in Moscow, a day with nothing special going on. Until suddenly a loud bang echoed trough the halls of the Kremlin.

A young woman slammed open the doors to the office of Vasili Stalin, member of the Central Committee of the Soviet-Union. His bodyguard, Lev Beriya, quickly went for his holster en pulled his trusty Tokarev TT, which he still had from his time in the army, and pointed it at the girl who stormed into the office.

It was quiet for a moment, until the young woman spoke up, after she'd regained control over her breathing: "Could you please lower the gun so that I can properly introduce myself? I don't like being in this position, thank you very much. A gun pointed at me doesn't give a good impression, you know."

Lev looked at Vasili -- or Vasil as he called him -- for aproval to lower the gun. Vasil nodded and he lowered his gun -- but he didn't holster it, just in case. He didn't trust this young woman. He didn't know why exactly, but he guessed that it was just his previous experiences playing up.

"Thank you," said the young woman. She turned to Vasil, slightly embarrassed. "Please excuse my entry. I was late for my appointment with a certain..." She tried to remember the name, but could only remember one of them. "Stalin?" she eventually guessed. "Am I in the correct office? Oh dear heavens, I hope so. How awkward would it be if I were at the wrong office?"

Vasil now remembered that he indeed had an appointment with a certain Irish woman, who applied for a job in a research lab under his supervision. He snickered softly. "Lev, holster that gun," he ordered in thick Russian, "that's not how we treat our guests." Lev did as he was told by his boss, though a bit reluctantly. "You don't have to excuse yourself," he continued in English with a very slight Russian accent. "I also forgot we had an appointment, so no worries, Miss."

Vasil stopped for a moment to take a good look at the girl. She was shorter than most women he knew, about 1,68 meters (5'5 feet), with dark brown hair and light blue eyes. A beautiful combination, in his opinion. "Shall we begin, Miss...?" He didn't actually know her name. He hoped his subtle hint would reach her attention.

"Breslin," she answered hastily, almost unintelligibly Irish, "Rowena Breslin. Born and raised in Northern Ireland -- in Newry, to be exact -- the bit which is part of the United Kingdom." She smiled, while Vasil wrote the information down on a piece of paper -- curse his Russian habits. She couldn't read Russian very well, let alone upside-down.

Vasil smirked, "Well, miss Breslin, shall we begin the job interview?"

Rowena smiled back. "Yes, I think I'm quite ready now, since I can breathe properly again."

The conversation lasted quite a while, about an hour or two. Lev never liked these interviews, to boring and of no use to him, but he had to stay with Vasil at all times to protect him: that was his job after all. Even though he didn't like the conversation, he still paid full attention to it and he started to like the girl; she had a nice personality and very good manners. He thought he started to fancy her, and like the hopeless romantic he is, he immediately started thinking of some romantic plans with her. Although he did this with almost every girl he knows, but this time it felt different for some reason. He quickly woke himself up from his daydreaming, he didn't want to get too attached to someone, he knew from experience that that only brought pain. He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts.

The job interview was done. Two hours had past and it was around lunch time. Since Rowena didn't quite know any places to eat lunch, Vasil invited her to join him and Lev and to give her a tour around Moscow. Lev didn't agree with this decision, they just met the girl and they were already lunching with her? It didn't make sense in his head, but he trusted Vasil so he just rolled with it. He thought it was strange, still. They had a lovely lunch in a little cafe called Cafe Gelateria Plombir. Vasil and Lev went there almost every day and everybody who worked in the cafe knew them by name and their regular order. Lev thought it was a bit humorous.