Lusy

To anyone who finds this,

If you are reading this, it means I have already left this room.

I don't know if I've reached the Arstotzkan Ministry, been detained, or simply vanished. For years they taught me that loyalty was silence, but now I understand that silence only prolongs the life of mistakes.

My name is Hryts Karovska.

For the past nine years, I have worked as a senior reactor systems engineer at the Vezhinsk Nuclear Power Plant in Kolechia.

Everything written below is true.

I possess copies of technical reports that should never have left the plant. These reports describe a design flaw present not only in our reactor but also in other reactors built to the same specifications. The flaw is not theoretical; it is real, measurable, and, combined with foreseeable operating conditions, could lead to a chain reaction of catastrophes.

I have conveyed my concerns through all the official channels available to me. They asked me if I had proof, I showed them the files. Then the files disappeared. The reports were returned, then classified, then rewritten.

Finally, I was told to stop asking questions.

When I refused, I was told I was 'creating instability'. My jobs were given to others, my colleagues stopped talking to me. Men I'd never seen before started waiting outside my apartment. They knew where my wife got her bread, they knew which school my son went to.

Machines and people... Governments can make mistakes; but when a government begins to deny its own fault, that mistake ceases to be merely a technical error.

They didn't directly threaten me— they didn't need to. I was asked to sign documents declaring the reactor's safe. I refused.

The signature they wanted wasn't for engineering.

It was for history.

If the accident they fear happens, there will already be documents stating there is no danger. I will not allow my name to appear on those documents.

That's why I crossed the border: not because I don't love my country, not because I'm looking for another. I just know a reactor doesn't recognize flags, radiation doesn't stop at customs, physics has no loyalty to governments.

If I can manage to reach the authorities here, maybe someone will listen to me. Maybe they won't, maybe these pages will be dismissed as paranoia. Maybe they'll disappear along with me.

If so, let this letter remain– not as proof of my bravery.

I am not.

I am afraid every hour of every day.

If I do not return to Kolechia, my dearest Anna, I never meant to leave you. I left because I wanted all children to inherit a country with rivers still worth fishing in and fields where nothing unseen awaits beneath the earth. Take good care of Nikolai for me.

I pray to God that everything turns out exactly as they assume it is.

No engineer has ever wished so much for the possibility of being wrong.

   — Karovska

Having shed the grandeur of the invitation from a few days earlier, Laschevsky was wearing a cream-colored sweater that itched her skin to protect herself from the cold, had gathered people around her in this freezing chapel, much like a prophet striving to spread her faith and aiming to lead the people away from corruption and towards the God. Of course, the her goal was not to spread a religion; there was a more political reason.

Before Grestin was divided into western and eastern halves as a result of the Six Years' War, it all were Kolechian territory. For this reason, there were Kolechian streets even in East Grestin, which is currently under Arstotzkan rule. However, these streets were no longer safe for those living there —people who considered this their homeland but were treated as outsiders— as they were constantly subjected to extortion and violence by Arstan soldiers. For this reason, the Kolechian government had dispatched L. N. Laschevsky as a diplomatic envoy. She gathered the people living in these streets who had fallen on hard times in one place —a chapel, which had been selected because, due to pressure from the Arstotzkan government regarding their shared religion; merely a cold, concrete building which is no longer used for religious purposes, and distributed documents printed by the government to everyone.

The people living in the town of Kolechian did not have the necessary documents or citizenship, simply because only seven months had passed since the end of the war. Furthermore, the Arstotzkan government had no intention of granting citizenship to these people; it viewed them merely as a group of refugees. For this reason, the Kolechian government had planned to distribute the necessary Passports and documents to these people via a diplomat so that those living on the streets could be safely evacuated to their mother country before the government created further difficulties for the Kolechians living there.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, and the process was being carried out through legal channels. In fact, this repressive government should have been pleased that people who were not of its own nationality were leaving the country. 

However, with the decree that went into effect at exactly 6 a.m. that same day, an order was issued to arrest foreigners living in the Eastern Grestin region who did not have a residence permit. The fact that these refugees were not recognized by the government also lacked a residence permit served as proof that this decree was a sanction directed entirely at them.

This notice was placed on Inspector Vonel’s desk —along with the arrest warrant— when he arrived at work at seven in the morning. It had taken him exactly forty-eight minutes to reach Eastern Grestin with the group of soldiers assigned to him.

“There won't be any problems, don't worry.” she said to the people, bathed in the faint light reflecting off the windows as the sun was just beginning to rise. As Laschevsky's voice echoed through the chapel, the forty-eight Kolechian Passports and IDs reportedly contained in the sealed envelopes she held matched the forty-eight people seated in the wooden pews at the front of the chapel. There was neither one too many nor one too few; as she explained the procedure, she had placed the sealed envelopes containing the documents on one of the desks where the Sacred Book was normally kept and was about to open them when there was a loud knock at the chapel door.

She looked around at the crowd in astonishment, trying to count the seated people two by two with her eyes. Before she could say, “Was anyone missing? I counted that we are-” the door, which wasn’t even locked, was literally smashed open by a soldier’s shoulder charge. The chapel’s heavy wooden door snapped off its hinges on the second blow and flew inward.

Two people in the crowd screamed at the sight of the soldiers’ arrival which stood in stark contrast to Laschevsky’s words, while a baby began to cry. The cold morning air, the smell of mud rising from the soldiers’ boots, and the dull light of the gray sky outside flooded into the room all at once. Within seconds, the hallway was filled with uniforms. “Nobody move!” shouted the first soldier. The second had already grabbed the nearest civilian by the arm. As the soldiers entered one by one, the inspector followed them into the chapel. He was wearing his usual dark coat, the stiff collar of his white shirt was visible through the opening of the coat, which he had buttoned all the way up to his neck. A thin film of condensation had settled on the lenses of his round glasses from the cold air outside. The brown folder in his hand was closed. There was no need to open it, he knew its contents by heart. Although Vonel initially looked around calmly, he scrutinized the situation with an analytical eye. Then he scanned the crowd; panic was, after all, to be expected. His gaze swept around the chapel- suitcases piled along the walls. Mothers trying to hide their children behind them... But what made him furrow his brow slightly was the fact that Laschevsky had organized this group of refugees.

In fact, this gathering had been arranged and carried out so methodically and orderly that even the government that had issued the decree was unaware of it. The inspector’s plan was to quietly knock on the door of every apartment in every building and arrest the people inside. They weren’t expecting shantytowns like the decree stated, these people were already living here and the buildings were pretty decent, not like the Class-7 grade apartments of Fardesto.

However, when they found no one in the apartment buildings one by one, they grew suspicious. They couldn’t have left the neighborhood so quickly; signs of life had been observed here just yesterday, and the border had only been open for two hours. That’s why they opted to stage a raid on the chapel, the most logical gathering place.

And, unfortunately, they were right.

It was clear from the dust on their uniforms that the soldiers had ransacked all the apartments. And when they began handcuffing these innocent people one by one from behind and leading them out of the chapel, Laschevsky, overcome by the intensity and shock of the situation, shouted, “What do you think you’re doing Stop this nonesense-” she gasped. Just as a soldier grabbed her by the arms to arrest her, before she could finish saying, “Let go of me. You have no right to do this!” she saw the inspector glaring at her, and her anger flared even more.

Before she could spoke her anger to him, he simply turned his head towards the diplomat and the soldier. “Soldier,” His voice wasn’t loud. “Don’t touch Miss Laschevsky.” The order was a single sentence; it didn’t stem from a protective instinct or compassion— he was just aware that the woman was still under diplomatic immunity. They couldn’t arrest her, and… under normal circumstances, they couldn’t take her into custody.

The two soldiers pulled their hands away from the woman and turned back to the other civilians. As soon as Laschevsky freed his arms from the soldier’s grip, he straightened his back to confront the inspector: “What’s this? Do you think you have the right to do this? They’re innocent!”

Vonel took a few more steps. Only a few meters separated them when he shifted his gaze from the woman’s face, trembling with anger, to the people behind her.

He opened the folder under his arm and pulled out a single-page official notice. The seal on the edge of the paper, attesting to its authenticity, was still fresh. “It went into effect at six this morning.” He lowered the document. “Regarding the arrest of all Kolechian citizens residing in the Grestin district without a Residence Permit.” A scream rang out as two soldiers dragged an elderly man toward the door. Vonel didn’t even turn his head. “You’re going to object to this…” he said, “…don’t take it up with me.” Her eyes were wide open, not out of fear but out of irritation. Her gaze shifted from the document to him. “You can’t put all these people through this just because of a piece of paper you pulled out of your folder- It isn't even righteous.”

Without taking his eyes off Laschevsky, the inspector continued, “You have diplomatic immunity; they won’t arrest you.” His gaze drifted for a moment to the rest of the chapel. “They’ll arrest them.” There was no threat in the sentence, nor any pity. Only a stark reality. She looked at the people and children who had been arrested, took a deep breath; her voice wasn’t trembling, perhaps she could speak more clearly and rationally when she was pissed. “What do you mean, ‘arrested’— by what right?” she blurted out. “Let them go— they have their Passports and documents; they’re leaving this country anyway.” she said, swallowing hard. Vonel closed the file. “Step aside, Miss. Laschevsky.” For the first time, a faint heaviness could be detected in his voice. “I can’t make anyone’s life any easier here today.” But she did not behaved to that command: “I'm not going to get out of your way or anything—does the embassy know about what you're doing?” she hissed.

And no, they didn't know. Nobody did know, the inspector even learned this was going to happen in the morning. Amid the soldiers’ shouts echoing through the chapel, that question was almost lost. But Vonel knew, Laschevsky knew, and he knew that she knew. This morning marked the beginning of something far greater than the name discrepancy at the border checkpoint. When Vonel failed to answer her question and he began to advance to check on the soldiers, Laschevsky furrowed her brow even more in response to this indifference. “I asked you a question.” she insisted. At that moment, one of the soldiers—perhaps taken in by the tension between the two—was watching them. “Inspector!” the woman exclaimed, reaching for the pale pink coat she’d hung on one of the coat hooks on the chapel wall. “It seems you can’t answer, but I can.”

The soldier—perhaps caught up in the heat of the moment, or perhaps simply due to an excessive sense of duty—completely misinterpreted Laschevsky’s sudden movement. While a woman reaching into her coat to take something out might seem perfectly normal under ordinary circumstances, to him, it certainly wasn’t at that moment. He could swear that he saw she was taking out as the handle of a gun or... the blade of a knife.

That is why, just as Laschevsky was about to confront him, she suddenly found herself on the ground, having taken a blow to the head from the butt of that soldier’s rifle. 

Thud!

When he heard that sound, he turned to confront the woman —who he was certain had been following him, whining and scolding him— and witnessed with his own eyes the moment Laschevsky collapsed to the ground. Her fingers, which had been reaching for the file, suddenly went limp as if her body were a puppet whose strings had been cut, and she fell to the chapel's floor, a thin trickle of blood seeping from her temple through her blonde hair. 

The soldier hadn't yet realized what he was doing; he just thought he'd seen a suspicious movement. “She was on the move!” he shouted, still holding his rifle aloft. “The woman was drawing her weapon!”

Although the inspector took care not to show the slightest hint of surprise on his face, the sight of the blood trickling down the woman’s temple hardened the look in his gray eyes. He shifted his gaze from her hair to the soldier, and then to the coat. He reached for the hanging coat and parted the fabric with the tips of his leather-gloved fingers... The only things he saw in the coat’s inner pocket were a gray-backed folder and a metal canteen. “A gun?” he asked as he pulled the folder out. At the same time, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at Laschevsky, who lay on the ground at his feet.

Inside the folder were documents confirming that all these actions had been approved by the Kolechian government, that they were completely harmless and safe, and that the Passports currently inside the sealed envelopes were genuine. Vonel did not take the folder as evidence; he calmly put it back in its place and slowly crouched down beside the woman. 

“Soldier.” Vonel addressed him with a single word—not by name or rank. The soldier stood up. “Before you take aim…” Vonel’s voice neither rose nor quickened. “…make sure you know what you’re aiming at.”

Silence reigned, at least for a second or two.

The soldier parted his lips and stammered, “Sir, I—”

Vonel cut him off: “You’ll add that to your statement.” He didn’t let him finish the sentence. He looked at Laschevsky's almost lifeless face, at that fresh violet bruise. For a moment —just a second— he felt something stir beneath his professional facade; but it wasn’t pity. It was anger at the disruption of order. A mistake had been made, and that mistake had now reached a point of no return. He glanced around, then took off the glove on his right hand and placed it on the woman’s neck to check for a pulse- he didn't say if he found one or not, “Take a medic here.” He didn’t stand up. “Immediately.” Vonel said, looking at the soldiers. There was no command in his voice— only a decree.

The Grestin Border Checkpoint had only recently opened. Nevertheless, the musty smell clinging to the walls, the heavy soot from the coal stove, and the despair that lingered on the people made it difficult to distinguish it from an old government building that had stood for years. Outside, the queue grew longer with each passing hour, despite the cold; on the officials' desks, Passports, Entry Permits, and records piled up exponentially.

In Grestin, the procedures were simple. If the document was correct, passage was allowed; if incorrect, questioning. If the document lied, arrest. Arstotzka's borders certainly didn't read intentions; they read documents. The stories of the thousands of people waiting on the other side of the border might be different; however, the documents laid out on the desks were subject to the same rules. Refugees, smugglers, traders, tourists, diplomats… Inspectors didn't examine them all with the same eye, but they expected the same thing from them all: consistency.

Inspector M. Vonel, assigned by the Ministry of Information, was on routine inspection duty at the Grestin Border Checkpoint that day. His official duties were to supervise border officials, investigate suspicious transactions, and intervene in politically sensitive cases. He wasn't someone who sat at his desk; he spent most of his day in interrogation rooms, registration offices, and among piles of paperwork.

Since early morning, he had been busy with dealting and questioning three forged entry permits, two attempted illegal crossings, and a single bomb threat. Half an hour had passed since it was revealed that the bomb threat was not real. In the documents room where now Inspector Vonel —who had come to inspect the border checkpoint's orderliness and was tasked today with interrogating the detainees— was currently in, there was a file that had just been placed on the desk... along with hundreds of others.

The reason it caught his eye and, why this file was being handed to him right now, was that the person to be interrogated was no ordinary individual. The interrogator on duty at the border was already questioning those responsible for routine violations. The subjects of the interrogation assignments given to him on inspection days were generally... terrorists attempting to carry out bombings or individuals threatening to disrupt the bureaucracy. The person this file concerned was a Kolechian diplomat —or at least claimed to be one— and even though the documents were incorrect, they pointed to be that way.

Diplomatic documents were different. A refugee's misspelled name was merely a bureaucratic error. A diplomat's misspelled name was an incident requiring clarification between two countries.

He opened the file left on his desk. Passport, Diplomatic Entry Permit, photograph, seals, signatures... At first glance, the documents seemed flawless. Then his eyes fell on the name line.

Lavinia Nastenka Laschevsky, it was the name written on the Passport.

The other document, Diplomatic Authorization, bore a different name: Lavinia Aisatsana Laschevsky.

He stared at the file for a few seconds. It wasn't a single letter. It wasn't a single typo. They were two completely different names.

The door to the room containing the documents was knocked. "Inspector—" A female clerk waiting at the door entered. "The diplomat has begun the fingerprinting process."

Vonel closed the file. "Did she object?" he asked, raising his head.

"She said she has an important meeting." the clerk replied.

"Everyone has somewhere to be." the inspector sighed. The clerk didn't answer.

Vonel was already on his feet. He tucked the file under his arm. He didn't put on his coat; he only adjusted the front of his jacket. As he pushed his round glasses up his nose with two fingers, his hand involuntarily touched the cigarette pack in his pocket. He could light one, but he needed to finish this first.

As he walked down the corridor, two soldiers moved aside. One of them went ahead to open the door to the investigation room first. Vonel was used to this; he neither thanked him nor changed his pace. As he approached the door, he heard the sound of an ink bottle cap closing inside— then, a young woman's voice. The inspector's hand rested on the edge of the file. He paused for a moment. Then the soldier opened the door, he was also the one to first to enter the investigation room...