The chair looked like an electric chair.
It sat in the center of the Kremlin's server room, bathed in the violet glow of the cooling tanks. Thick cables, pulsing with data, snaked across the floor like black vipers. They all converged on the headrest.
Jake Vance sat down. The leather was cold.
"This is madness," Oppenheimer muttered, adjusting a dial on the console. "The neural link was designed for Yuri. His brain has neuro-plasticity. You are... older. Calcified."
"Just tell me it works," Jake said.
He rolled up his sleeve. Taranov strapped his arms down.
"It works," Oppenheimer said. "But the bandwidth is raw. You won't see code. Your brain will interpret the data as physical space. A dream state."
"I've been living in a nightmare for four years," Jake said. "I can handle a dream."
He looked at Taranov. The big bodyguard looked terrified.
"If I start seizing," Jake ordered, "do not unplug me. If you cut the connection while I'm inside, I end up lobotomized. You wait for my signal."
"What is the signal, Boss?"
"I'll wake up," Jake said. "Or I won't."
He leaned back.
Oppenheimer held the connector—a thick, terrifying needle wired into the mainframe.
"Target is the Washington Mainline," Oppenheimer said. "Good hunting, Mr. President."
He jammed the needle into the port at the base of Jake's skull.
There was no pain. Just white noise.
Then, the world fell away.
Jake opened his eyes.
He wasn't in the Kremlin.
He was standing on a highway. But the road wasn't asphalt. It was copper.
The sky above him was a roaring static storm of black and white. It looked like television snow.
Jake looked down at his hands. They were made of grey steel. He wore his tunic, but it was armored plating. In this world, he was the Iron Man. Stalin.
"Okay," Jake whispered. His voice echoed like thunder. "Where is the White House?"
He looked to the horizon.
A vast, dark ocean stretched out before him. The Atlantic.
But it wasn't water. It was a sea of radio waves. Rolling swells of noise. Jazz music, news broadcasts, military encryption—all churning together in a chaotic tide.
Far across that digital sea, a golden city burned.
Washington D.C.
It glowed with a blinding, sickly yellow light. The light of the "Soft Power" transmission. It rose like a citadel of neon and gold, pulsating with the rhythm of the stock market.
"There you are," Jake said.
He stepped onto the ocean. He didn't sink. He walked on the surface of the sound.
He began to run.
The Crossing.
He moved at the speed of thought. The miles vanished in seconds.
As he neared the American coast, the defenses appeared.
They weren't firewalls. They were monsters.
Rising from the golden waves were massive, translucent shapes. Eagles made of dollar signs. They screeched with the sound of cash registers opening.
GAMIFICATION PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
Jake didn't know where the thought came from. The interface was translating the conflict into war.
One of the Eagles dove at him. Its talons were made of censorship algorithms.
Jake didn't dodge. He raised his steel fist.
He punched the bird.
IMPACT.
The Eagle shattered into a cloud of binary code. Ones and zeros rained down like confetti.
"I don't want your money," Jake roared, smashing another construct aside. "I want the truth!"
He reached the shore. The golden city loomed over him.
It was a fortress of Art Deco data. Skyscrapers made of filing cabinets reached into the static sky. The air smelled of perfume and gasoline—the scent of the American Dream.
In the center sat the White House. It wasn't a house. It was a bank vault.
A massive, circular steel door, fifty feet high, blocked his path. It was etched with the seal of the President.
Jake walked up to it. He placed his metal hand on the cold steel.
"Knock knock, Edgar."
The door didn't budge.
Jake focused. He visualized the "Paradox Virus" Oppenheimer had given him. He imagined it as a key. A rusted, jagged key made of contradictions.
He shoved his hand into the steel.
The metal groaned. The seal cracked.
The vault door swung open.
The Black Vault.
Inside, the world changed.
The golden light was gone. It was dark here. Cold.
The room was infinite. Endless rows of black filing cabinets stretched into the void.
Jake walked down the center aisle. The labels on the drawers were glowing.
PROJECT MANHATTAN.
OPERATION PAPERCLIP.
KENNEDY SURVEILLANCE.
"He keeps everything," Jake whispered. "Every sin. Every lie."
He scanned the rows. He needed the leverage. The thing that kept Hoover in power.
He found a drawer marked PERSONAL - EYES ONLY.
Jake ripped it open.
He pulled out a file. It was heavy. It pulsed with a dark red light.
He opened it.
Photos. Transcripts. Recordings.
It wasn't just dirt on generals. It was dirt on Hoover.
Pictures of the President at private parties. Financial records showing embezzlement from the War Bond fund. And something else.
A medical report.
SUBJECT: J. EDGAR HOOVER.
DIAGNOSIS: PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA. UNFIT FOR COMMAND.
Jake stared at the page.
Hoover wasn't just a tyrant. He was clinically insane. And his own doctors knew it. He had blackmailed the medical board to keep it quiet.
"Got you," Jake grinned.
He shoved the file into his tunic.
Then, the lights went out.
A spotlight hit him from above.
"You are trespassing," a voice boomed.
Jake spun around.
Standing at the end of the aisle was a giant.
It was Hoover. But not the man. It was his avatar.
He was ten feet tall, wearing a suit made of pinstriped armor. His face was a blank, white mask. In his hand, he held a gavel that looked like a war hammer.
"This is private property," the Hoover-Avatar said. "Get out."
"I'm taking the file, Edgar," Jake shouted. "The world is going to know you're crazy."
"The world believes what I tell them to believe!" Hoover roared.
He swung the gavel.
Jake rolled. The hammer smashed the floor, sending a shockwave of static through the room.
Jake scrambled up. He felt pain—real pain—shoot through his arm. His physical body in the Kremlin was seizing.
"I can't beat him here," Jake realized. "He's the admin."
He had to log out.
Jake sprinted for the door.
Hoover blocked the path. He raised the hammer again.
"Delete him!" Hoover commanded.
The filing cabinets began to fall. An avalanche of data crashed down toward Jake.
Jake closed his eyes. He thought of Yuri. He thought of the Aurora Dome. He thought of the cold, hard reality of Russia.
"Wake up," Jake screamed at himself. "WAKE UP!"
The Kremlin. Reality.
Jake gasped.
He arched his back, tearing the leather straps. He ripped the needle from his neck.
Blood sprayed across the console.
"Boss!" Taranov caught him as he fell from the chair.
Jake hit the floor, convuling. His nose was bleeding. His ears were ringing.
"Did you get it?" Oppenheimer shouted, looking at the screens. "The download stream... it spiked!"
Jake coughed. He tasted copper.
He reached into his pocket. It was empty. Of course it was empty. The file was digital.
"The drive," Jake wheezed, pointing to the console. "Check the drive."
Oppenheimer typed furiously.
"Files extracted," Oppenheimer confirmed. "Hoover_Medical_History.pdf. It's all here."
Jake lay back on the cold stone floor. He laughed. It was a wet, painful sound.
"He's crazy," Jake whispered. "He's legally insane. And we have the proof."
Menzhinsky stepped over. He looked at the screen.
"This destroys him," Menzhinsky said. "If we publish this... the American military will remove him. The 25th Amendment."
"No," Jake said. He sat up, wiping the blood from his neck.
"We don't publish it."
"Why not?"
"Because if we destroy Hoover, someone competent might take his place," Jake said. "We don't want a new President. We want a puppet."
He grabbed Taranov's arm and pulled himself to his feet.
"Send a copy to Hoover," Jake ordered. "Direct to his personal printer in the Oval Office."
"Just a copy?"
"And a note," Jake said. "Write this: 'I have the originals. Call off the drones. Turn off the radio tower. Or the world sees your medical chart.'"
Jake walked to the window. The Aurora Dome was still glowing, protecting his city.
"We don't kill the King," Jake said. "We blackmail him."
Washington D.C. The Oval Office.
Hoover woke up screaming.
He fell out of his chair. His head felt like it had been split open by an axe.
"Mr. President!" The Secret Service agents burst in.
"Get out!" Hoover shrieked. He scrambled backward, huddling under his desk. "There was a metal man! In the vault!"
The agents looked at each other.
"Sir... there's no one here."
The teletype machine in the corner began to click.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Hoover crawled out. He was shaking.
He ripped the paper from the machine.
He read the text. Then he saw the attachment. A photocopy of his own psychiatric evaluation from 1929.
Hoover went pale.
He dropped the paper.
"Sir?" the aide asked. "What are the orders? The riots in Chicago are getting worse."
Hoover stared at the wall. He looked small. Defeated.
"Call them off," Hoover whispered.
"The National Guard?"
"Everything," Hoover said. his voice hollow. "The drones. The jammers. The broadcasts. Shut it down."
"But sir, we are winning the Soft Power war."
"We aren't winning," Hoover said. He touched his temple, where the phantom hammer had hit.
"We are compromised."
He looked out the window at the Washington Monument. It looked like a tombstone.
"Stalin isn't a politician," Hoover muttered. "He's a gangster."
The Kremlin. Balcony.
The sun was rising.
The holographic dome faded, replaced by the pale, honest light of dawn.
Jake stood with Yuri. The boy was awake. He was holding Jake's hand.
"Is the bad man gone?" Yuri asked.
"He's still there," Jake said. "But he's on a leash now."
Taranov walked out. He looked happy.
"The drones are retreating, Boss. The K-1 is safe. And the jamming signal has stopped. We have clear airwaves."
Jake nodded.
He looked at the city below. The smoke from the factories was rising. The people were waking up. They were hungry, tired, and poor. But they were alive.
"What now?" Taranov asked. "We have food. We have peace. For the moment."
Jake looked at the horizon.
The Cold War wasn't over. But the rules had changed. It wasn't about missiles anymore. It was about leverage.
"Now," Jake said, "we build."
"Build what? More tanks?"
"No," Jake said. He looked at Yuri. "We build a future where this boy doesn't have to be a machine."
He took a deep breath of the freezing air.
"We're going to the moon," Jake lied.
"Sir?"
"Not a fake moon," Jake said. "The real one. Germany failed. America is too scared. We are going to put a red flag on that rock."
"Why?"
"Because," Jake said, looking up at the fading moon. "It's the only place Hoover can't reach."
He smiled.
"And the view will be spectacular."