Vladimir Slimovich

It was a humid November morning in Brasilia, capital of the Southern Americas Union, known colloquially as the SAU, with the weather report stating that a tropical cyclone was imminent and that people should prepare to take shelter. Everywhere in the dirty city streets, people were rushing around frantically, buying as much food as they could or trying desperately to try and find materials to build shelters. In the worst cases, there were people pleading with others for a place to weather the storm, trying pathetically to show they were not going to rob the people blind. It was utter chaos.

Watching from his villa on a hill overlooking the slums of the city, Vladimir Slimovich felt a helpless watching these struggling people trying to find a way to survive. He was safe in his villa of course, the government of the SAU had ensured that the ambassador from the Democratic People’s Republic of Europe would be safe from a storm, but it apparently didn’t care in the least whether its own people were killed in the same catastrophe. It was one of the few good things about his own nation, he thought as he turned away from the window. The Party, for all its many faults, always ensured that casualties from natural disasters were minimised by providing communal shelters and free food and medical supplies for those who could not make it back to their allocated houses in time.

“Many thanks to The Party that cares for its people,” Slimovich said cynically as he left the room and entered the bedroom, where a South American man named Alfonso el Smitto, who was fiddling with a camera that was pointed at the bed. He looked up as Slimovich entered the room and grinned mischievously.

“Well Senor Ambassador, everything is ready. Shall we finish what you have started?” Alfonso was an attractive blonde man, who was here for one purpose: to film and record the activities between Slimovich and himself that night, then send it to as many media organisations as possible. This would bring disrepute to his country, the country that forbade him to be himself and stopped his activities because they were an “illness”. The country that had only yesterday claimed that it had removed the social illness from their borders, and were prepared to help other nations be liberated from the disease. The country that had performed experiments on the “infected ones” in the camps in the Siberian wastes until they had found how to control desires and urges with injections and brain rewiring.

Now his country would understand humiliation and degradation, like what he had suffered from when he was born. It may even become a catalyst to the change that his nation needed in order survive in this world. Slimovich smiled grimly at that thought, and nodded at Alfonso that it was time to begin.

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Slimovich was woken by a thunderous clap of lightning and the pound of tropical rain on his window. Sitting bolt upright in alarm, he glanced around the room quickly in fear before his mind calmed itself. Looking beside him he saw that Alfonso had already left, which was good because the faster it got out into the SAU’s media the better it would be.

“Thankfully that’s over,” he said and went to go back to sleep.

“Is it really comrade?” a deep, accented voice came from the shadows.

Slimovich sat bolt upright again, searching for the source of the voice. Another flash of lightning revealed who the intruder was: a leather clad man with round glasses and the all too familiar Party symbol emblazoned on his arm. The Party was quick in redistributing justice, Slimovich thought. The Party official stepped forward, smiling pleasantly but producing a small handgun from inside his leather overcoat.

“Listen comrade Slimovich, you and I both know what is going to happen to you. Now, be a good comrade and tell me where the recording is,” he said, priming the gun as he said so.

“By now, good comrade, it should already be circulating through the variety of this country’s media outlets. Make of that what you will, but it is too late to “acquire” the recording through me, and you won’t be able to use your normal tactics of terror to stop it being published across the SAU. I have won,” Slimovich stared defiantly into the official’s cold blue eyes without blinking, daring him to try something against him.

The official did.

Without blinking or hesitating, the official shot Slimovich in both of his arms and then proceeded to pick him out of the bed and dragged him over to the window. Slimovich realised what he was about to do, and tried desperately to shake himself free, but the official’s grip was like iron. Instead, he tried to plea.

“Not into the storm. It takes hours to be killed that way,” he looked vainly for any form of compassion in the official’s eyes.

“You should have thought about that before you disobeyed the Party,” the official sneered, and then threw Slimovich out of the window and into the wild, stormy night.