Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

The office was so quiet you could hear the clock ticking.

The secretary stood three meters away. He could see the General Secretary's profile; Slava's lips were tightly pressed together, his jaw was clenched, and his eyes were squinting at the map, but he was clearly thinking about something more serious.

The clock is ticking.

Tick, tick.

The secretary dared not move; he didn't even dare adjust his posture—he was afraid of making any sound that would break the silence. He looked down at the tips of his shoes.

Slava sat motionless.

OGAS, which he officially promoted starting in 1987 and spent six years building, was an information network covering the entire Soviet Union that managed the economy, production, and distribution. He saw it as a salvation for the planned economy—using technology to compensate for human shortcomings and using algorithms to replace bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption.

Now someone is telling him that the algorithm itself has been corrupted, and that the technocrats who developed the algorithm have shown signs of corruption. If left unchecked, they will inevitably become the new ruling class in due time!

He could accept it if it was just a matter of the system's periphery being bypassed—he already knew about that kind of thing. OGAS couldn't monitor the whereabouts of supplies after they were signed for, couldn't monitor community officials tampering with data on their terminals, and couldn't monitor the use of substandard materials on construction sites. These were the gaps at the interface between humans and machines, which could be filled by strengthening supervision.

But those algorithms he was once so proud of, written by the Soviet Union's brightest mathematicians and made OGAS the world's most advanced economic management system...

Someone planted a bomb that keeps growing in his proudest work.

The sound of the clock became very loud in the quiet office.

Tick, tick.

Then the clock stopped.

Slava slowly pulled open the drawer on the right side of the table and took out a brass key from it.

On the table sat a Glorious brand mechanical clock, a domestically made clock that required manual winding; a single winding could last for more than a week. It was a gift from Andropov when he was still Chairman of the KGB.

Slava didn't throw it away. He liked mechanical clocks, which didn't need batteries, weren't connected to any network, and weren't controlled by any algorithms; whether they kept running or not depended solely on whether there was still elastic potential energy in the mainspring.

Slava expressionlessly inserted the brass key into the winding hole on the back of the clock and began to turn it.

"crunch-"

One turn, two turns, three turns. The sound of the clockwork spinning was clear and somewhat jarring in the quiet office.

The secretary swallowed hard.

He looked at the reflection in the windowpane—the silhouette of the General Secretary sitting in his chair was reflected in the glass. The short figure had his head down, and his hands were mechanically turning something.

In a daze, the secretary felt that the figure reflected in the glass looked like Comrade Stalin.

The secretary looked away.

Soon, Slava finished winding the clock, pulled out the key, and put it back in the drawer. Then he used his fingers to move the hands of the clock face so that they were aligned with the wall clock.

The secretary secretly made a note to make sure to wind up the General Secretary's clock and calibrate it regularly.

It is now 10:10. The clock, which was set in charge of the General Secretary's office, has started ticking again, and the new and even ticking sound echoes in the office.

Many years later, in a memoir titled "My Fifteen Years with Ivanov," this private secretary wrote:

"...I will probably never forget July 23, 1993. About thirty minutes passed between when the General Secretary opened that document and when he spoke his first words. It was the longest half hour of my life. When I got home, I immediately threw away all my mechanical clocks because that sound always gave me nightmares."

It was perfectly normal for him to have nightmares, because the bloodshed and turmoil that followed in the years were closely related to that clockwork sound.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"Who else has seen this report besides me?" Slava finally spoke calmly.

The secretary quickly replied, "The prosecutor's office should have another copy—I remember Comrade Gerdrian also sent it to the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, but I'm not sure if the Prosecutor General has read it. And—"

He cleared his throat: "According to the contents of the documents, many Kremlin officials were aware of this during Comrade Gerdrian's investigation."

"Hmm?" Slava turned his gaze from the map to his secretary. "So, who do you think knows about this?"

The secretary hesitated. This question from the General Secretary wasn't a solicitation of opinion; it was a test of his knowledge, his judgment, and whether he could be trusted.

"this..."

Before the secretary could even organize her thoughts, Slava suddenly changed the subject, speaking casually as if they were having a chat.

"How is Commissioner Aliyev doing lately?"

A chill ran down the secretary's spine. The events described in the report occurred in Azerbaijan, and Aliyev was the de facto ruler of Azerbaijan—a member of the Politburo, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and a veteran who had been operating in Azerbaijan for decades. If something this serious had happened in Azerbaijan, Aliyev couldn't possibly be unaware of it.

"He can eat and drink well, and is in excellent health," the secretary replied instinctively.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he had misspoke and quickly added, "Ah, he definitely knows about this, but he didn't bring it up at the Politburo Standing Committee meeting these past few days. And if someone in the Central Committee—I mean if—would want to suppress this matter, then it's highly unlikely that it would be brought before the Supreme Soviet."

Slava nodded after listening, his mind racing.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the USSR was responsible to the Supreme Soviet. The Prosecutor General was appointed by the Supreme Soviet. Gerdrian's report was sent to the Prosecutor General's Office, but the Prosecutor General's Office did not submit it to the Supreme Soviet for discussion.

What does this tell us?

Either the Attorney General suppressed the report, read it himself, but decided not to submit it.

Either the Attorney General hasn't seen it yet, or it's been intercepted by someone within the Attorney General's office.

Regardless of which possibility it is, the prosecutor's office has a problem!

Lukyanov, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, was personally appointed by Slava in 1990. Lukyanov has done a good job in legislative and supervisory work, and his achievements in recent years are evident to the Politburo. He has made great contributions to promoting grassroots Soviet democracy and protecting the rights of workers.

But if a problem arises right under his nose at the prosecutor's office, he would either be guilty of negligence or—

No, he didn't believe Lukyanov was involved. Lukyanov was a very disciplined person; he was probably loyal, but he may have been too trusting of his subordinates and hadn't paid much attention to the matter.

He can't be entirely blamed. Even if the procuratorate finds that a certain cadre has seriously neglected his duties, it cannot unilaterally dismiss him from his post. Judicial privilege is one of the privileges of CPSU members.

From 1945 to 1993, Soviet cadres enjoyed privileged legal status. Although the constitution declared that all citizens were equal before the law, the actual status of cadres was mainly determined by the constitution of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The cadres skillfully utilized a joint party-government decree from 1938—the arrest of Communist Party members or probationary members required coordination with the local Party organization. This meant that if the procuratorate wanted to arrest a Party cadre, it had to get past the Party committee first; without the Party committee's approval, no arrest could be made.

What was the result? In a report submitted to the Central Committee on the eve of Stalin's death, the Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union wrote: "In fact, there are two criminal codes, one for Communist Party members and the other for everyone else. There are many examples showing that Party members can go unpunished for committing the same crimes, while non-Party members are sent to prison."

Later, in 1962, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union passed a resolution declaring that "Party members have no advantage or privilege over other workers and should bear dual responsibility for illegal acts—to the Party and to the courts." However, in practice, this dual responsibility often turned into Party disciplinary action instead of judicial prosecution—a prior expulsion from the Party was imposed for the offense, but the expulsion process itself could be delayed or manipulated, ultimately ending without any resolution.

It seems that after this incident, a purge within the party will begin. The main contradiction now is no longer the contradiction of material shortages and the people's urgent need for daily necessities, but the contradiction of CPSU cadres being above the people and difficult to be punished by law.

But as head of state, Lukyanov certainly has some responsibility, and he needs to pay attention to the personnel appointments and removals within the prosecutor's office.

“Remove Lukyanov’s name from the funeral committee and I will chair it.”

"Yes, General Secretary."

Lukyanov was smart enough; he should have known his intentions.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Slava continued to make plans in his mind:

Solomentsev – Chairman of the CPSU Control Committee. He was in charge of party discipline inspection; his committee was responsible for investigating and handling cases involving party cadres and officials suspected of corruption.

Ligachev – in charge of ideology and cadre appointments. If local cadres have problems, the responsibility for their appointments and removals lies with him.

Ryzhkov – Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Head of the administrative system; the State Construction Committee is under his jurisdiction.

Chebrikov—KGB Chairman. He was in charge of security monitoring at the Information Center. The Gedrian Report mentions the Information Center being burned down, and the KGB investigation concluding it was a short circuit. Did Chebrikov's men participate in the cover-up?

The KGB was Slava's biggest concern. Chebrikov was one of his most trusted men; the KGB was responsible for OGAS security. If the KGB failed in its duties regarding OGAS security, if Chebrikov knew that technocrats were tampering with the algorithm and failed to report it—

Slava didn't want to think in that direction, but he had to rule out that possibility.

He took a blank sheet of paper from the drawer and began to make a list. One name after another was written on the list. Occasionally, Slava would stop to think for a while, then shake his head and cross out one or two names before adding more names to the list.

"By the way, which department is in charge of the Gulag system now?" Slava asked seemingly casually.

After a moment's thought, the secretary replied, "You mean the General Administration of Labor Camps? It used to be under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but it was officially closed in 1960 in the context of Comrade Khrushchev's 'de-Stalinization,' and a small number of labor camps were handed over to the judicial authorities."

“Hmm.” Slava nodded and continued writing.

He was, after all, a soldier trained by Andropov, and his style and methods were somewhat similar to those of the KGB-trained General Secretary. Andropov preferred to use mental hospitals for "treatment," diagnosing political prisoners with mental illnesses (such as slow-onset schizophrenia) and isolating and treating them through forced hospitalization.

How teachers act determines how students learn. During Slava's rule, officials who "retired for health reasons" were also sent to "official hospitals for recuperation."

There were quite a few prisoners at that time—anyway, Bislava had fewer people to purge next, and building a mental hospital to imprison them like Andropov did probably wouldn't be feasible, as the cost would be too high.

Perhaps it's time to restore some of the functions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The private secretary didn't dare to look at whose name the General Secretary was writing. He kept his eyes down, looking at the pattern on the carpet, and could only hear the scratching sound of the pen tip on the paper and the ticking of the clock on the General Secretary's desk.

Tick, tick.

It sounded like the death knell's call.

After finishing writing, Slava glanced at the list and nodded:

"Summon the head of the KGB's Tenth Directorate to my office now. Do it immediately."

The secretary turned and left.

“Wait,” Slava called after him. “Don’t go through Chebrikov’s office. Contact the KGB’s 10th Directorate directly. I need him to come see me without Chebrikov’s knowledge.”

The secretary went out.

Half an hour later, the head of the KGB's 10th Bureau walked into the General Secretary's office. He was a major general in a crisp military uniform.

The Tenth Directorate was the KGB's Archives Administration. It controlled the Soviet Union's largest secret archive: from personal files to operation records to surveillance logs, all the information the KGB had collected over decades was stored in the Tenth Directorate's safe!

As General Secretary, Slava had the right to directly access the archives without needing the KGB Chairman's approval. This power was established during the Stalin era—the General Secretary had direct access to KGB archives, which was one of the Soviet Communist Party's ultimate means of controlling the KGB.

Slava didn't exchange pleasantries: "Help me check all the oversight reports related to personnel within the OGAS system that Comrade Chebrikov has signed from 1990 to the present. All of them, including those related to corruption, violations, and irregularities."

The major general had no questions.

Do you need me to go back to the bureau now to retrieve your file?

"No need. Your secure terminal can connect to the archive database; you can check it here."

Slava opened the safe in the corner of the office, where a special OGAS terminal was embedded in the wall, specifically for accessing the KGB's internal systems.

During the initial construction, two sets of network facilities were built for information security purposes. The military and civilian systems were not interchangeable, and only the KGB had the authority to approve limited data exchanges between the two systems.

The major general stood in front of the terminal, entered his credentials and password, and then, as requested by Slava, retrieved all the OGAS-related supervisory reports issued by Chebrikov over the past three years.

Report titles and summaries began scrolling across the screen. Slava stood behind the major general, bent over, his eyes fixed on the screen.

"November 1990 - An employee of the Planning Committee of a certain republic was suspected of using an OGAS terminal to falsely report production output. The case was confirmed and the case has been transferred to the local prosecutor's office."

"In March 1991, the director of an information center in a certain state was suspected of embezzling the OGAS system construction budget. The case was found to be true, and the case has been submitted to the procuratorate for disciplinary review."

"In August 1991, a consortium of enterprises bypassed the OGAS terminal and used manual processing to handle the allocation of materials, which was suspected of rent-seeking. The matter has been reported to the State Construction Commission."

"January 1992—A local government employee abused his OGAS terminal management privileges to grant priority approvals to people with connections..."

The problems in these reports, such as embezzlement of budgets, false reporting of output, and bypassing terminals to engage in rent-seeking, are all old problems, the same old tricks of the game between people and systems that inevitably occur in the process of information technology construction.

But that's not what he's looking for.

He was looking for reports that mentioned things like "the algorithm was modified by humans," "technocrats used the algorithm for corruption," or "the OGAS core code was tampered with."

No, not a single one. None of the reports issued by Chebrkov involved any issue of the OGAS algorithm itself being tampered with!

Either Chebrkov was unaware that KGB intelligence agents within the OGAS system failed to detect the algorithmic corruption perpetrated by technocrats. This corruption was too novel and covert, requiring an extremely high level of technical expertise to detect—the KGB's traditional skills in interpersonal intelligence, surveillance, and interrogation were ineffective in this area.

There is precedent for this. If Bartmos hadn't opened Slava's box back then, Slava would have really thought that the KGB was doing a good job in information security.

The second possibility is that Chebrikov not only knew about this but also didn't upload the information to the electronic system, just to block Slava's view.

Slava believed that Chebrikov had no motivation to choose the second option, because the entire Soviet Union knew that the KGB could only supervise but not enforce. Back then, when Andropov was the chairman of the KGB, he personally signed off on the supervision of the construction issues at the Chernobyl 2 nuclear power plant, but it still wasn't implemented. There was no need for those technocrats to try to shut Chebrikov up.

Moreover, the kind of algorithmic corruption described in the Gerdrian Report requires an understanding of advanced mathematics and cybernetics to detect, which traditional KGB intelligence personnel are indeed very likely to miss. Barthemos could see it because he had a technical background; the university professor could see it because he had spent his life studying mathematics. But ordinary KGB inspectors wouldn't question an algorithm they couldn't understand.

He believed that Chebrikov most likely didn't know, at least he believed it for now.

At least for now.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The major general quickly completed the search, and Slava let him go: "Don't mention today's events to anyone, including Comrade Chebrikov. From now on, all files need both paper and electronic versions. Get back and implement the electronic files as soon as possible."

The major general nodded and left.

Slava sat alone in his office, looking at the Gerdrian report on his desk and the list he had just compiled next to it.

Then he called his secretary.

"An emergency Politburo meeting will be held tonight."

The secretary took out a notebook and began to take notes.

"Notify the following Politburo members to attend: Ligachev, Aliyev, Ryzhkov, Chebrikov, Lukyanov, Solomyantsev... and Ivanova." He recited a list of names.

Then he added, "Oh, right—tell Chebrikov to bring more men."