First entry in Grainthology Vol. 1! Not counting the bonus story, that is. Also found in The Library of Guy. Meta information, such as length, can be found in both those places, though Grainthology Vol. 1 offers more detail.

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If reality is stranger than fiction, then what's stranger than reality? The fact that the Soviet President's quarters need to be boarded shut for the good of the country would be a start. A trusted minister and a newbie Kremlin guard are on the task with questionable efficacy.

-Summary, Grainthology Vol. 1

Note: This story is much shorter than the (rather long) bonus. It is, above all, a character and setting introduction; think of it as a "part one", if you will. Hopefully more is to come in the future.

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The morning sun illuminated the sprawling mass of Moscow city with the first light of October, its timely rays announcing the start of yet another month in the USSR. Within the heart of the great settlement was the heart of the Union, the Moscow Kremlin, the nation’s official capital. Behind locked gates the enormous country was piloted through most remarkable motions with grace unrivaled by any other state in the history of the world. Gone were the days of the Soviet people lumbering through the decades under the thumb of the incompetent and corrupt. Now the vices of man had no hold on the communist project, instead something far greater held the reins. Within the Moscow Kremlin, now an enclave of the Union belonging to no republic, this remarkable something was still off for the night.

“Late morning, isn’t it?” A guard standing outside by the entrance to the Unity Building mused.

Since the new regime took power in ’85, five years ago, the core functions of the Soviet government had been moved into a single new construction within the Kremlin’s walls. Accordingly, this building was well protected.

“Yes. Happens sometimes,” Another replied, this one visibly older. He checked his watch, “Our break is almost over, unfortunately.”

The other sighed quietly, adjusting the rifle on her back. “Never long enough…”

“Hey, our hours are pretty damn good. Still, ought to head back in soon. Better to be in position before the clock strikes than after, it leaves a better impression,” he told his younger companion, who was nodding along dismissively.

“Yes, yes, I know. It still feels a bit, I don’t know, superfluous being here,” she took one last look at the outdoors while unbuttoning her coat in anticipation of entering the heated building. “Let’s be honest with ourselves, if anything actually happened, she,” the guard tilted her head towards the building, “would handle it.”

“Oh, without a doubt,” The older guard pushed through the first set of doors and held it open behind him for the other, “But her time is better spent leading than working Kremlin security. That’s also why she has the ministers, come to think of it.”

The younger laughed. “Guess that makes me a minister, then.”

“Now, don’t get ahead of yourself. I’ve seen you pocket dropped change; such corruption would never be tolerated in the cabinet!” He was half-serious. Devotion, competence, and honesty were the new lifeblood of the Union, and without its purest forms the country would bleed dry.

“Too much work for me anyhow,” she brushed off.

The two strolled past the wood vinyl receptionists’ desk and entered the main office on the right. Inside were dozens of turquoise cubicles, each filled with hardworking men and women managing the odds and ends of the cabinet’s duties, whether it be filling out paperwork or reviewing reports for summary. It wasn’t a glamorous position to hold, but they were respected within the Kremlin for their honest mental labour in keeping the cabinet’s operations well-greased.

Behind the main office were hallways leading off to the ministers’ offices, soundproofed and steel walled. Far more secure than the cubicles the office drones held their line in – important seeing as the ministers typically handled far more classified information than would be permitted to exist in the open space.

It was here the two guards were posted. Their duties were simple, mostly just to occasionally look over the shoulders of the workers. They were all highly trusted and trained individuals, but one could never be too sure in a system of such fine tolerances as the Soviet Union’s new state.

For thirty minutes the guards roamed the medium-sized room, uneventfully overseeing the staff do their magic. The keyboards clicked, the clock ticked, and errors fixed.

Just before the clock hit ten, a door flew open in one of the beyond hallways. The junior guard didn’t yet have memorized whose it was, but the young man that flew out provided that answer in an alarmingly convenient manner.

Only pausing to lock his office door behind him, Ivan “Emmanual” Ivanovich, Minister of Culture, rushed past the bewildered older guard towards the entrance lobby. The two guards’ eyes met and the older jerked his head to tell the other to follow the incredibly urgent statesman.

The younger guard quickly followed Emmanual, who had stopped in the lobby to pick up a newly delivered shipment of wooden planks. With six heavy boards slung under his arms he turned around and spotted the newest member of the security team staring blankly at him.

“Excellent,’ He smiled, though tensely. “Could you please pick up the other six and follow me?”

Although phrased as asking a favour, she knew that she’d best comply and assist the frantic minister with whatever bizarre plot he was engaged in. “Uh, yes, sir,” was all she said as she moved to take the rest of the planks. The crate was unmarked, so couldn’t have come from very far away.

She followed the man past the break lounge and cafeteria opposite of the main office and into the accommodation areas where the ministers were required to live as part of their duties. The closer to their stations the better, yet the newbie guard could still hardly understand why such important people would live on the first floor of a several story building.

Emmanual stopped just past the president’s office. The door in front of them, unsuspecting in its wooden varnish, lead to the president’s own quarters. Though she’d never seen the inside herself, of course, the guard knew that it was a small arrangement containing just the essentials (including its own bathroom). What she hadn’t worked out was what they were doing there, nor why they needed twelve wooden planks.

“Put those planks just beside the door, thanks,” Emmanual told her while doing the same himself.

“No problem,” she grunted, leaning them against the wall. They really were quite heavy, making a dull thud upon hitting the carpet. “So,” she began, “What do you need these for, if I may ask?”

“Uh,” Emmanual exhaled, “So…”

He seemed hesitant to continue. The guard gave him a look; while he outranked her technically, it was her job to keep things orderly in the Kremlin.

He relented. “Ivana wasn’t here last week, you know.”

She nodded. The president, who Emmanual knew on first-name basis, had a tendency to disappear randomly, sometimes for days at a time. As far as anyone knew she might as well have left the planet. This was, at least to the extent of mere disappearance from public eye, common knowledge by this point.

“Well, as you may’ve heard she came in late last night. I saw her, she looked completely exhausted.”

The guard blinked. The president was usually tireless in her duties, working a hundred-hour week on the regular.

“Chances are she’s not going to be getting up for a few hours, but I don’t want to risk it. If you’re going to stick around, help me put these boards on her door.”

The guard could only muster up a bemused head tilt.

Emmanual sighed. “She was away, so she’s going to be moving up her schedule to compensate for the missed work. Therefore, today is, to her, Tuesday.”

It clicked. Since soon after the president had solidified her power, she had made a strange habit of becoming particularly active on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nobody knew why, yet for whatever reason the enigmatic woman would perform various extreme activities with vigor and enact peculiar one-day schemes. These ranged anywhere from something mild as leaping across rooftops throughout Moscow (or other Soviet cities), to endeavours radical as singlehandedly overthrowing backwater dictatorships. That only happened the
one time, though.

At least, as far as she knew.

“Exactly. So, help me board her door. I got these delivered locally just for this, so we’d best act fast. I’m hoping if we can slow her down, if only for a handful of moments, she may cool off a bit before causing too many headaches for the Soviet people,” Emmanual explained as he peeled the covering off a sticky wall fastener.

The young guard nodded and set to work holding up boards for Emmanual to stick to the door. While they laboured, she took the time to ask him some things. “Are you sure this will work? Will she not be upset with you?”

He let out a laugh. “Oh, probably not. Worth trying, though! And trust me, I know her. She likes me too much to be too upset, in fact she’ll probably find it funny in all honesty.”

“Ah. Good to hear?” She decided not to protest further.

The president was an intimidating woman, left foul-tempered from rooting out decades of corruption and bypassing sexism (that persisted in spite of official ideology) by stomping it flat with terrifying displays of power; the country’s transformation was almost singlehandedly her work. This was all to say nothing of her inhuman strength and imposing figure – one closer to a strongman than a typical woman; though not exceptionally tall she seemed to loom over all others wherever she went. As far as the guard was concerned, she was the worst person in the world to get on the bad side of.

Abandoning that topic, she broached another sheepishly, “So, something else, unrelated…”

“Alright, what is it.” Emmanual knew where this was going.

“My manuscript-” she began.

“-Is still being reviewed,” he finished with a hint of exasperation. “Remember, I’m doing this for you as a favour in my spare time. I have much more important things on my desk. Rest assured, it will be done, just give me time.”

“R-Right. Sorry.” She looked abashed. She’d recently written a screenplay for a spy satire-comedy movie wherein a man who’d incessantly begged the KGB to be sent to the USA as a spy is finally granted his wish, only with fake objectives and dossiers as a way to be rid of him. Nevertheless, he is unexpectedly successful. The Minister of Culture had caught her working on it during her lunch break the prior week and asked her to tell him about it, finding it interesting enough to offer to read it for feedback. After six days without a word, she was beginning to get a bit antsy to hear his thoughts. He was an effective politician, but he was also an expert in stories (read: a complete media nerd) and would know better than anyone the cures to her storytelling woes.

“I’m halfway through, so you know,” he supplied as he pushed the last board against the door. “It’s generally quite good, however I do have a few criticisms to make. I’ll get back to you when I’m finished, just in case it goes on to answer some of my questions for me.”

“Thank you! Really!” She smiled. One’s work getting complimented by another was always a wonderful feeling, but from the Soviet Minister of Culture himself was a sublime declaration.

“Finding excellence is my job, I wouldn’t be doing it if I did you the disservice of ignoring your creative exploits.” He put his hand over his chest, a motion which she mirrored. They bumped the back of their hands together, a replacement for the handshake popularized by President Ivanovna among the highest levels of the government in recent years. He continued, “That said, your translations to English could use some work; they’re rather sloppy. I’d suggest trying the translation software the eggheads at Moscow State University have been cooking up. It’s normally behind locked doors, but with my signature I’m sure they’ll let you through.”

“Thanks a ton, honestly.” Her face was starting to hurt. “And yes, I’ll definitely have to look into that.” She giggled. “Part of me was thinking your criticisms would be more along the lines of ‘not enough anthropomorphic animals’,” she joked.

Emmanual rolled his eyes in annoyance at this allusion to his own interests. “No, they aren’t. Just fix the translations, okay?”

“Sorry. I’ll do that.” The guard rubbed the back of her head.

“I could help you with that.”

The guard jumped at the sudden intrusion of another voice behind them, one rather deep and very full. Emmanual just sighed loudly.

“President Ivanovna!” She stood at attention instinctively.

The president chuckled. “At ease.”

The Minister of Culture slowly turned about. Out of the corner of her eye the guard could see he’d aged about twenty years with only six words.

“And here I thought you’d be normal for once and try your front door first,” he groaned.

“On a Tuesday?” The president looked at him as though he’d suggested they fire all nukes at Kyiv. “No way, man. Not a chance.”

Though it was only morning after a long night, the president was fully dressed in her typical daily outfit: a (surprisingly functional) two-piece suit and her blonde hair in a compact bun. Her expression was lighter than usual.

“Right. Silly me.” The minister hung his head.

“See you around, comrade,” Ivanovna said to him with a wink and a playful jab on the arm. She turned to the guard. “And I’m serious about the manuscript. I just saw it on Emmanual’s desk and flipped through a few pages; it looks promising.”

The guard was about to faint. There were many gripes to have with President Ivanovna as a person, but her sense of objective quality was not one of them.

“Wait,” the minister perked up, “You were in my office? Did you even sleep!?”

“Of course! I snuck out through my office while you two made small talk. Didn’t notice me?” She had a sly, teasing grin.

“Right, the connecting passage… I thought that was being repaired?”

“I have my ways,” the president assured him.

“… There’s a connecting passage?” The guard inquired.

The president turned sharply, face suddenly stony. “That’s not for you to know. Not a word, understood?”

There was the Ivanovna she knew. Not the warm, friendly woman who spoke to Emmanual like a longtime friend despite being only barely into her thirties, but rather the stern and businesslike ruler who managed the country with a firm (and, on rare occasion, shockingly violent) hand.

The guard nodded obediently.

“Excellent. I’d best be off; I have a week’s missed work to burn through in a few hours.” The president turned to face down the hall to the cafeteria.

“Good luck,” the minister muttered.

“I’ve done it before, nothing new. Care to join me to grab breakfast? Or seconds, in your case?” Ivanovna pivoted back and leaned in hopefully.

“What the hell, why not?” Emmanual shrugged. “I’d like to take these boards down first, though. Can you lend me a knife?”

“No problem.” Ivanovna produced a blade from somewhere within her suit. One of dozens, the guard knew.

“Thanks. I’ll catch up.”

With that the president was gone, leaving the minister and the guard alone again once more.

“Here, let me help.” The guard took out her own issued knife and began peeling away the fasteners.”

Emmanual thanked her and set to work himself.

“So, uh.” The guard coughed. “You two aren’t, y’know…”

Emmanual gave her a nasty glare. “No, we’re not. Two people can be close friends without being a couple, in an affair, or any other combination you may be thinking of. Besides, Ivana isn’t like that. With anybody. Period.”

The guard apologized profusely for her misstep while the minister nodded along dismissively. “I understand… what do you mean ‘isn’t like that’?”

“Wisdom from a coming age,” Emmanual exhaled. “Some things have always existed but are not yet understood by the populace at large. Someone of my position is bound to realize that, unless they’re incompetent.”

That confused the guard even more, which Emmanual picked up on.

“Some people don’t want relationships, it’s just how they are intrinsically. Seeing as Ivana isn’t even biologically human this should be the least surprising thing about that freak of nature we call president,” he explained.

That would certainly help explain why the president reacted so exceptionally poorly to people making flirtatious comments about her out of country, and reacted with intense aggression within the country. She took it as poorly as she took discovering a corruption scheme: very.

“Didn’t know that was a thing… I trust that it’s not a problem?” She was skeptical.

“No. It isn’t. Frankly I wish more people were like that, it’d certainly make my job easier.” He barked a laugh.

“In what way?”

“I hate shoehorned romance plots,” he said with a smirk.

She held her tongue. She’d considered adding a romance plot to her own screenplay when it was in the early planning stages. Seems she’d made the right decision in taking it out.

When the last board was unstuck from the door and it could finally open again the minister said his thanks for her service and went to join his friend in the cafeteria. She lingered in front of the president’s apartment door for a minute, lost in thought, then remembered she had a job to do and how she’d probably look suspicious if she stayed there for too long. As she passed between the lounge and the cafeteria on her way back to the main office, she spotted Ivana and Emmanual chatting on one of the lounge’s many couches; it looked like a scene through a Moscow café window. The president was visibly happy, no matter how tired she’d been or how much work she had to catch up on.

No matter how stern her titanium fist was in leadership, no matter how measured her every move, she was openly, unashamedly glowing to be speaking to her friend.

“What an odd woman” The young guard said to herself.

She had much to think about.