[h1]Russia[/h1]
[h2]Volgagrad[/h2]
Jun stood in the early morning shadows cast by a nearby building as he stood at the edge of the gathering crowd of drunk, sleepy Cossacks. With Makulov's agent, Artyom the two had stood at the periphery of the conference, but never getting too deep. The long reach they were kept at puzzled the Chinese spy, but he felt as he stood just out of view and the light of the torches that milled into the square at the entrance of the old, battle worn Duma building that what had been discussed inside its halls in smoke-filled secrecy was coming to an important head, and that he may be the only agent of China to witness it.

Artyom himself was not far off, he sat in an old unfinished wood chair idly brushing his fingers through his mat of curly hair. In the dim light he had long abandoned his glasses. As the torch-light passed by his face the color of his eyes shone a bright brilliant blue. He was a boyish looking man, with the appearance broken solely by a coarse stubble of unshaven beard he had let show this morning. But like his Chinese counter-part, he was tense and deeply interested in the growing crowd.

“Do we know what's going on, exactly?” Jun asked passingly, breaking the silence between them and the characteristic commitment to not comment that he had held without flaw all mission.

“Rumor and gossip.” Artyom commented, “They say the royal line of the czars is still unbroken. That some royal savior is here in the city among us. I just heard of this last night, so something tells me it got spread around to get people here.” he openly thought, watching a small group of densely clustered women walk passed their hiding spot.

It wasn't really anything more than a covered porch really. Or however it might be described. The building had long lost its windows and doors and signs ran all throughout that over the years people had stripped it down of its most valuable wiring and plumbing. Artyom supposed someone took the copper piping to make a still for bootleg vodka, and the less important metals to make stills for methamphetamine. Graffiti signs had been painted thick over the old floral wall paper that was left with a thick brush, images of naked bird women and other fantastical and terrifying creatures. Over the front door on the inside, someone had wrote, “God watches all” over the empty door frame in pale-blue paint.

But for now, it was the post Artyom and Jun used to watch the milling crowds for signs of violence or disruption. But for the men's apparent sleepy of drunken dispositions they went about well tamed by Jun's standards. And for a post-Government Russia that was more than a surprise. “I'm not particularly surprised the Romanov house is still alive,” Makulov's agent in the city continued on, “There are still Romanov's out there, persons who had escaped or were already living abroad. But we thought they weren't ready to come back, they were all too busy fighting over who simply gets to lead the dynasty.”

Jun nodded apathetically, dynastic politics wasn't his forte and he honestly didn't care. Even for the survivors of the Aisin Gioro clan of Manchus that had produced all the Emperors of the last Chinese dynasty was little more than a note hanging on a footnote in the politics of China from when he was much too young too care for or remember. And to even pretend to care for the House of Romanov was too much of a favor to ask of him.

He had however heard things. “I have heard of a Devil Child.” he said.

Artyom shrugged, “I heard something of God's Daughter living in Russia and a lot of stories going around like that. It was exceptionally profound in the city for a while and when I caught a break I tried  to follow it. I got about as far as Astrakhan before it became a dead-end and I came back up-river.”

Jun looked back outside to the swelling crowd. As it grew he felt an uneasy sensation that someone had noticed him, and was now watching the watcher. It was the old cold sensation that crawled on his spine and stood the hairs up on end. He scanned the bleary foggy faces trying to find out who it was, but found no one else looking his way. He supposed it was just paranoia, but the sinking feeling just couldn't be shaken.

The crowd began to settle, with the traffic in slowing to a tame trickle. The square was packed shoulder to shoulder and the two men had a clear line of sight over their heads from the empty window frames of their first-floor perch. From atop the Duma steps lights flickered on and the events started. Dressed in a heavy robe a large beast of a man stepped out to the microphone and began his speech. "Look at this place. Look at what you carry. You carry torches, my friends, like cavemen!” the bear of a cossack began from between the two mangled stone lions that flanked the wide steps of the Duma's entrance. Stoic forms flanked him at his sides with their arms crossed and shoulders raised like soldiers at attention. The speaker's voice was deep, and boomed over the audience. “And the light flickers in craters that were your roads." he continued to speak, Jun leaned up against the wall, scanning out along the edges of the crowd. In response to him, the gathered Russians grumbled.

"Your buildings, look at them! Look at this statued lion!” he continued on in his loud speech voice, holding out a hand to one of the lion statues at his side, “It used to have a face, my friends, but the face has been gone for some time. This, this right here is Russia. I think this is Russia at its best now!" he went on, and Jun's patience began to lapse. Artyom was listening intently with his hand raised to his chin. He scratched at his coarse stubbly chin as he took mental notes on the tough Cossack's presentation and declarations. For Jun though, he was looking for something. Though all eyes were on the stage there was still a shifty sensation of Jun being watched and he desperately looked to see whose heads were turned the wrong way.

“The Tsar died ten years ago. You all remember what it was like before. We were a strong people! Russia was the stone wall that stood between Communism and everything!” the man continued.

“Who is this man?” Jun asked, leaning his head out the window to look about.

“If I had to guess it's Hetman Apostol.” Artyom answered him.

“Hetman?”

“That's his rank, a Hetman leads the Cossacks. I can't remember what his first name is, I only know him by his last. Like so many other Hetmen.”

Jun nodded, and found something sitting up on a low wall at the corner of the crowd. A round slouched figure in a dark coat and short black hair combed up over his head. The morning shadows hid the details of his face, but Jun was sure he saw the man turn his head and look at Jun. He had to be it.

Without a word, Jun turned for the door and left. Artyom turned in his chair, his brow raised. He called out behind him, “Wait, where the fuck are you going?” he called back. Jun didn't answer his question as he went through the door. “Crazy [i]cyka blyatt[/i].” Artyom cursed when his partner had cleared the empty house.

The air was different outside. Without four walls and a ceiling over him the morning air moved with a soft breeze in the streets. It was further moved by the vodka breaths of the spectators as they cheered, clapped, and beat their feet and fists in passionate agreement with the Hetman on stage. “are we not still Russians? You are the same people who lived in the Tsar's Russia, are you not?” he continued on passionately as Jun entered through the fringes of the crowd, keeping his head low as he parted the crowd to make his way through. Muted cries and jeers of protest followed him before the path sealed back up behind him as he went through. He thought he heard Artyom heckling him as he passed their little guard post, but he kept on through with full determination.

When he left, he came out on a side-street. He looked around and found the wall the man was standing on, but he had moved. He looked around some more looking for the figure, and found down the cratered street the ends of a coat-tail slip through an alley. He darted down breathing in the cool morning air as he went. As he drew further from the speech into the ghostly silent streets his foot falls echoed. When he came to the alley, he found it empty.

He raced through it all the same, and looked down the street he had entered out into now. There was still no sign of the man he had seen, but he was closer now to the stage than he had been before.

“I was told a story years ago,” Apostol's speech continued, “and I tell that story to you now. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. A Doctor, and a good man, stood and watched a pale woman bleed to death on the carpet of her own hotel. The Royal blood of a Princess murdered by terrorists. The Princess was pregnant,” he stopped his search and Jun turned back to the speech. There wasn't much to see of the Hetman passed the tightly clustered bodies but Jun drew near. He came to the edge of the scene and climbed up on a darkened street lamp to see and watch. The story was interesting him as it went, “she carried a child and died with it suffocating in her womb. That is how far they went to destroy the old iron. But the doctor and the good man, they saved the child. They went to show it to its grandfather, but the terrorists who killed the daughter killed Peter the Fourth, they shot him between the eyes and burned down his country! But the child lived. She saw the fire! She grew up in the smoke!"

There was a resounding thunderous roar from the crowd. If there was anymore to be said by him it was washed out by the tremendous thunder and crashing of voices and glass of the mob. Somewhere he thought he heard someone shoot a gun, and looked for a source and found nothing. He supposed it was an illusion until the tanks rolled into the square and Jun watched in stunned silence the column of ratty European-cast armor rumbled into the torch light. Carrying atop them a young girl wearing military fatigues. She looked to have been no older than thirteen, perhaps ten. The clothes she wore hung loose off her small delicate frame.

“I am Regina Romanov, granddaughter of the Tsar. I am going to Moscow! I am going to Moscow! Who wants to follow!?” she shouted over the massive crowd, her voice little more than a waspy screech that echoed in the cool morning air like the angry cry of a small voice. She was answered with energetic, enthusiastic cheers and men rose their fists and cried out their support.

This wasn't just a speech, it was a coronation. Jun looked about, and realized where he was. He jumped down from the lamp-post and slunk away. At the far end of the street he saw the dark-coated man in the middle of the street. Looking towards him. At him. With a nod he acknowledged Jun, and rose his hand in salute, before bowing and slipping away.

Jun didn't follow him. He knew he had been spotted. But the clammy sensation of someone else keeping an eye on him had not lifted. His hands crept to the familiar weight of his hand gun underneath his own tattered coat and he felt safe. Or at the least, should whatever ghost that was watching him came out to kill him he could at the least fight it. But the man he had tried to catch, he knew that wasn't who he should be worried about.

It didn't make his breaths any less lighter as he walked away from the cheering crowd. Their enthusiasm was explosive, and he was afraid if they caught him in their drunken joy then that Russian pride might just end his mission in Russia.

[h2]Yekaterinburg[/h2]

Huei Wen sat alone with the regal looking Russian in the dining room of an abandoned farmhouse, north of the Republican capital. Outside the sounds of camp life dragged on. But the two men were adrift in their own dimension as Wen came face to face with the former general who had been for so long a ghost and a reaving specter in the Russian north. Or for as much as Chinese intelligence had suggested.

Huei Wen didn't know what to think of the officer when he had came to the camp. Walking by foot he had stepped from the wilderness with an absolute Goliathian bear at his side. With the number of weapons holsters, straps, and bags that hung from his frame he looked no different from a foot soldier from a distance. It wasn't until through all the gear the white of his officer's uniform shone from underneath and Wen knew who he was. It was no less announced from the golem that followed him.

Both commanders retired to the privacy of inside the farmhouse were dusty light streaming through the windows basked both of them in a tired yellow glow. Makulov looked different from what Wen assumed he would, but all the while much the same. He was a handsome looking man with a head of blonde hair and a pair of fierce blue eyes. But, while that set him different from he had expected the general still looked dirty, and tired.

He had the air about him much akin to that of a guerrilla fighter in the bush. A thin scraggy beard grew underneath his chin and bags hung under his eyes. He looked hungry and the skin hung loose off his bones making his cheeks shallow and neck shrunken to inside itself. Innumerable lines traced the features of the face making him look years older than he really was.

“You took your time, I'm surprised you made it.” Makulov spoke first, breaking the tense probing silence between the two. Not much had been organized to establish what the two were to lay on the table and neither knew each other's intention. There had been no initiative to discuss what needed to be discussed, and either side held the other in patient mystery.

“I'm not the previous commander.” Huei Wen rebuked. The Russian general's comment had been sharp but he wasn't sure it was meant to be biting, “Besides, you yourself took your time.”

Makulov smiled, “I'm sure I did. I admit I under-estimated you...” he hung his words as he looked up invitingly at Huei Wen, inviting him to answer the question before it could be posed and unsure of what title to use.”

“Wen.” Huei Wen answered. “Huei Wen.”

Makulov nodded, “General Wen. While I knew the Republic was cancerousky dying from within I wasn't sure if like last time the Chinese would scurry back to the east at the first sign of engagement as was last time or press on until the Republic no doubt finally broke. The track record for conquest west has been remarkably poor, no offense. Hence my hesitation and lack of reply. I received your two agents, we talked, and I allowed them to stay.”

“So I heard the reports.” said Wen, “I haven't heard anything from either in a long time.” he matched his hesitation with suspicion. He sensed a political air to the man that made him uneasy.

“They're both well, as far as I know.” Makulov consoled dryly, “Except one dropped off my radar at a certain point and I haven't heard one thing or the other for him. The second I sent to Moscow and the news that reaches my ear tells me he and the man I sent him with did his job admirably. I am expecting the two of them soon.”

“What's the details of these missions, if I can pry?”

Makulov shifted uncomfortably, clearly uneasy over being pressed about what he was up to. “What do you think?” he asked, “At least about one, the other I don't think would have made any news.”

Huei Wen stopped to consider. News had reached him the Republic's president had gone missing but he had dismissed it as rumor. By the time it reached him it had turned into a number of possibilities. He had simply resigned his post, he had fallen ill and died, gone missing, or kidnapped by insurgent forces by either the Chinese or Radek's Neo-Bolsheviks. “One kidnapped the president.” he said, the piece fit well. He hopped not to well.

Makulov nodded approvingly and smiled. “I did, a meek one. Sort of bookish. I didn't know what was at offer with him so took my chances. Seems he paid off.

“The other, some silent bastard I wanted to clean up some things. Mutual enemies to the two of us and the Republic like-wise. I wanted the Mafiya pruned back as far as possible in my area to give me room to breath. I credit the death of a very infamous individual – two, really – to him but since they died he disappeared completely from my radar and my own contacts and informants scattered about the country haven't reported anything back to me yet.”

“Your contacts, how deep do they go?” Wen asked, prematurely.

Makulov denied him and answer and resigned with a curious shake of the head. “I don't even know if we're both going to be allies still.” he said coldly, “How am I going to tell you anything like that if I'm not confident the two of us are working together.”

The subtle suspicion that was brewing in Wen bubbled and turned inside him. But he felt he had little choice on the matter. Ever if late, and objective he had set for the campaign was before him and more man power was better than no man power. Makulov would be consolidation in a land that was so large it could very well soak him up in it. Makulov, if trusty worthy and loyal in Huei Wen's mindset would be the bit more he needed to so inundate the sponge it could be overwhelmed and no man would have to surrender themselves to simply forcing the Republic to slowly cede territory and to cut apart that sponge.

“The offer is still on the table.” he confirmed.

“Are there terms, oaths of loyalty to swear?” he asked.

“Only so far you commit yourself to the communist unification of the Russian heartlands, and you operate as a peaceful body in the formation of a revolutionary government for a future Russia. The oaths will be sworn then. Until that time, the loyalty is to the task its hand, as a coalition with the Chinese and the Siberian authorities, as me as its high commander.”

“What do we get for assisting the Chinese?” he asked.

“Access to our logistics. The Chinese military will arm, supply, and dress your men as supporters of the revolution. You will receive available intelligence from known enemy movements to broad meteorological reports. I can give you ammunition, weapons, and equipment to better enable your men to achieve our common objectives.”

“Seems like a fair deal.” Makulov said, shifting in his wooden chair, “Where is our objective?”

“Moscow, and to close separation between us and Radek's corner of Russia.”

“Great objectives.”

“And we're very nearly in European Russia. I hope a few strategic victories will so break the remains of the Republic's forces we can march straight to Moscow and bring the rest of the government to heel.”

“Then there is something you should know about this capital: it has my men inside of it.” Makulov said, “Not many. But we had been turning neighborhoods into a state of siege in revolt against the Republic. The Duma Capital was in the process of being over-turned before you arrived. You Chinese have done a good job of letting new men into Yekaterinburg, but not so much supplies and my men need foot and ammo.

“I tried to run your lines before and send envoys but they had all been shot and turned back.”

“I wanted the city to starve out, and I had not known.” Huei Wen apologized, “But if I can make an excuse then I would have known if I had my own envoys close to you.”

“I acknowledge that now.” Maklov admitted in a grievous voice, “But I had it in my hopes you might have been delayed just a little longer, that the Republic would attempt to hold every village and town between the front and the capital. But they've been in a state or near constant retreat and consolidation on the biggest targets in Russia.

“If I'm going to be wise general, I'm afraid they might try to envelope you. Or would, but the government now is confused and disorganized. You have breathing room, now.”

“What do you recommend?” Wen asked.

Makulov smiled, and leaned back. “That we take this city, relieve my men, and hold half the Republican Duma as prisoner!”

“You're an aggressive man.” commented Wen.

“I'm a timely man.” he corrected.

[h1]China[/h1]
[h2]Tianjin[/h2]

Warm afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows. Standing behind an armchair Wen Xiaogang, the secretary for the national congress stood at ease as Hou reclined back in his chair. The living room was quiet. The princes of Ethiopia were outside on the deck with their mother. The foreign language was muffled through the glass door wall that separated them from the two leaders.

“The congressional proposal to declare war on the Portuguese fell through.” Xiaogang remarked drly, looking out at the ocean beyond the back deck. Xiaogang was a rather average figure, he was old like so many with a nearly bald head. What hair he had left was slowly becoming silver in color and the rest of his color was fading slowly.

“It's no wonder, really.” Hou remarked with a dry dispassionate voice, “We don't have much in the way of grounds.”

Xiaogang shrugged, a little indifferent. “I was all the while believing it would pass and we'd find ourselves marching off against Spain for one reason or another. It was looking like it had wide support behind it but it fell through the rungs at the last minute with hardly enough votes behind it to leave it on the table. The War Bloc that had formed behind it dispersed and we're back to where we are before. We scheduled another hearing with the military on the status in Africa.”

Hou nodded indifferently. Wen Xiaogang continued, “I imagine Commander Lou will send another officer to tell us the same thing: Ethiopia is a massive nation and the Spanish will just be absorbed and chewed up in its territory. Like the Japanese they can't get far without turning the entire army into a line of men on sentry duty on every road, bridge, and railway, or every river and valley in that country. Then all Hassan would have to do is pick off each sentry man by man and retake the Empire.”

Hou wasn't committed to enter the discussion about war in Africa. He was such a man that any comment made about it to any person might somewhere down the line be interpreted as policy. He was sure that if had any response to the congressional secretary pertaining to the War in Africa or the Ethiopians he might even read into it subconsciously as support for one thing or another.

The silence between the two of them went on for a while until an aid walked into the room and set on the tea-table between them a tea set of two cups, and a pair of dark maroon colored soups; hóng dòu tāng, red bean soup. Xiaogang looked down at the plate, and back up to Hou.

“I asked to meet with Dong Wan Chun today.” Hou answered the question Xiaogang was too late to ask, “He likes red bean soup.”

“I'm familiar with him, he's the Judicial Committeeman, yes?” asked Xiaogang.

Hou nodded.

“So I guess I will have to leave shortly.” the secretary sighed.

“Well not quiet yet, the man has a few minutes yet. You can certainly pass him through the door.” excused Hou, “Unless you have anything else.”

Xiaogang shrugged, “My son's wedding will be in a couple weeks.” he said flatly, “You remember the invitation, surely?”

“I did, and I said I'd still think about it.”

“I hope you make up your mind.” pleaded Xiaogang, “It would be an immense honor for the chairman of The Party and Grand Secretary of the nation to show up and give him his blessings. It might as well do you plentiful good to leave the house.”

“I've been away from the house for a long time, I think I have time to catch up on.” Hou remarked, folding his hands in his lap, “But as I said, I will think about it.”

“I hope you would consider,” Wen remarked, “at the very least, you can take the trip as the last before you retire to behind the curtain.”

From outside the sounds of a car engine could be heard as wheels broke over gravel. Both men looked towards the door. Bowing, Wen Xiaogang stepped away, “Your guest is here.” he said in a low voice.

“He's early.” Hou said.

“I have things to take care of in Beijing in any case, Congress is still in session.” said the secretary as he headed  for the door, “I'll keep you updated as things develop. I may someday have something to bring to your house to sign after all.”

“I trust you'll keep things all in check while I'm away. You were always good at that. I wish you the best to your abilities, comrade.” Hou called out to him. Wen smiled and slipped on his shoes as the judge walked in. The two exchanged polite bows before the congressional secretary left.

Dong Wan Chun was  by no means a small sort of man. He carried a great weight on his bones and was an unusually larger person, the top of his hat brushing the top of Hou's door frame as he had entered. Removing it, he bowed as low as he was tall to the chairman. “How are you doing, comrade?” he spoke softly.

Wan Chun was a pale man, with equally white and silvery hair that clung thin to a balding head. His narrow almond eyes peered out across a long round nose and he wrapped his thick hands in his lap as he sat. With narrow features and his whiter complexion, he was very much a northern man much like Hou.

“I do well.” the chairman said in his dry voice. “Would you like some tea?” he offered.

“Certainly, thank you.” Wan Chun said in a grateful tone. “I've been needing a drink all afternoon, I hadn't had so much a glass of water since leaving the courts this morning.”

“And how is the judiciary running, I hear so little about it.”

“We haven't been nearly as busy as we had been some ten years ago. But the cases of the Red Gang still linger. The attornies and we are still at work covering the lingering court battles of the lesser-known figures.

“It's a great disservice and honor that the IB had to take the matters of law in their own hands and kill off so many of the top names outside of our jurisdiction!” Wan Chun said, taking the moment to petition the leaving Grand Secretary over his matters, “The state should function on a proper use our revolutionary law, not extra judicial assassinations.”

“It is a shame, but I stand by the end decision and the post-mortem ruling of the courts. One way or the other it would have happened. Yan Sing even offered up the responsible officers, we shouldn't dwell on that more than it needs, we need to look ahead.”

Wan Chun sighed as he had a sip of tea, and leaned back in the chair. He made himself fit, even though he looked so much taller in it than anyone else. “So, what had you had in mind to discuss?” he asked.

“The matter of the elections, what are your thoughts?” Hou asked as the judge took a measured taste of the soup.

He seemed to consider the question, hanging quietly on it as he sipped and sampled. “This is fine soup by the way.” he complimented, before falling quiet again.

“The elections,” he began with a pause, “I have decided I wouldn't involve myself in them. I would support whoever it was who won. I owe that to whoever enters the secretariat.”

“I've been thinking about my choice in time to retire.” Hou responded, quick and premeditated, “And about the time I decided to leave China's future to someone else's hand. I want it to go the right way, and I need fellow vouchers to give that weight.”

Wan Chun looked up at him, an expression of stricken surprise muting all else in his face and eyes. “What would be your thoughts?” Hou asked.

Wan Chun sighed and lowered the bowl of soup on the table and looked down at his feet for a long moment.

“I've been thinking of retirement too.” he announced, “And that as a man of my age I am done with devoting my life to politics.” he rose his look to Hou and looked him in the eyes, “I understand the importance of keeping things quiet, so I'll keep what you're suggesting down low. But I'm not a power hungry or ambitious, terrified Congressman, comrade. I have three sons and all of them have grand-children of their own. It's time I lay down my political career in full to spend time as the head of a family.”

He got to his feet, and gently returned his hat to his head. “With all due respect, comrade chairman. I won't be endorsing anyone.”

[h2]Korla[/h2]
[h3]Southern Xianjiang[/h3]

A clear sky lorded over the Friday afternoon. A dry but calm heat filled the air, typical of late July. At the banks of the Kaidu river a simple homly mosque stood overlooking the sandy river as it flowed through the middle of the small city and to the farm-fields beyond. The stone bridges across the river were already full of life as afternoon traffic passed either ways across the river, on bicycles of rickshaws on their way  to work or lunch. For the Uyghur Muslims, it was the end of the Friday afternoon services and finishing their prayers, the faithful rose to their feet.

Erkin Amas, the retired general of the revolution lead his people from the door, have conducted his sermons as elected by the congregation. Pleasantries abounded between he and the meager congregation as they filtered towards the front doors. All were dressed in their bests, soft silk robes of white or blue. They bowed and smiled. Some of the former soldiers among them saluted Amas, joking and laughing in jest.

The mosque central Korla wasn't an impressive structure. It was a new building built from a block abandoned from the war decades ago. The old ones had been destroyed or seized by the provincial government on and off. Their new mosque now looked to resemble a large home or office. Two stories, made of worn concrete and stone. There was no minaret to speak of on the new building, but this had ceased to bother the members of the community and the naked form of the temple allowed them a certain level of invisibility to what they were all afraid of were those anxious types, who still regarded the faith of Islam as foreign as the Christians. Or those wary of the Uyghurs all together.

Erkin Amas had been noting the tension. Those who heard Mang Xhu's words felt strongly for them and it put his people on edge.

“Go home!” a man shouted angrily, greeting the congregation as they stepped out of the doors into the piercing white light of the afternoon sun, “Corrupting people, leave like all the dogs you are and take your foul opiate with you!”

The outburst from the heckler who had so immediately interrupted them as they stepped out from mosque caught the congregation off guard and they stood back in the shadows of the door way. A sudden tension filled the air as the man kept shouting. “You're all disgusting!” the heckler jeered in a loud voice. He was a squat man, with a face well burned by the sun. A head of wild uncombed hair laid across a spotted and dimpled head. “The Revolution should have cast you out. It is your outside ideas that corrupt the nation. You hold us all back. You spoil the image of the China!”

Erkin Amas stepped forward. The tall, sizable former general easily stood over many of his fellow Uyghur and Hui who lived in and around the city. There was still a general tension and unease, afraid they might provoke something. Erkin however, stepped through the door and into the hard light of the Korla sun.

“You!” the heckler shouted, picking out the former general, the appointed Imam, “You lead these people. Take you and your horse fucking back to Kazakhstan where you belong.”

“And what then?” Erkin asked in a polite voice.

“To tell the uncivilized nomads who are your brothers that a great revolution will come. The points of their minarets will  be thrown down.” the small man raved.

Erkin walked up close to him, and the man had to look up at him. Erkin folded his hands in front of him and looked plainly down.

“My people have lived here for thousands of years. Perhaps longer than you and y our family.” he said, “We're one of the same nation. It is not a good idea to throw out your own brothers.”

“Is so if they pollute the house which they live in!” the man argued.

“I disagree, because we have done no such thing. Or have I. Do you know who I am?”

“It doesn't matter, you stubbornly do not renounce your feudal beliefs and liberate yourself for the future. Therefore, you are an anchor to our forward progress!”

“I am general Erkin Amas, of the Western Corp of Revolutionary Volunteers.”

“Unimportant!” scoffed the man.

“And who says so?”

“Comrade Xhu, the new light for China. He will become the next great leader of our nation, and he shall smash your idols and your systems to free all men. Even it means those such as yourself will be put down in blood!”

Erkin sighed, and place his hands on the man. Turning him around he guided him away from the building as he protested wildly. Looking back to his people, Erkin gave them an assuring nod and they went out to the rest of their days.

“I know not who you are, comrade,” Erkin said, “but I ask you to find some new way to vent your frustrations. We do not deserve, nor do we want to suffer your indignity.”

“Bullshit, you are the reason the west is not as powerful as the east!” the man shouted irrationally.

“I can tell you are disturbed, but leave.” Erkin insisted, pushing the man away and pointing out into the rest of the city.

Seeing as how he had been beaten by a giant, the man turned and left. But it did not leave the retired general feeling any better for it.