One year ago.
“Hello! Hello! Yes Charles. Yes I can hear you now. I hope you are getting these pictures. This really is a remarkable moment.”
The screen flickered and, woozily, the image became clearer. There was an empty stage, surrounded by rank upon rank of soldiers in brown uniforms. The soldiers weapons were lowered and faced a sea of people, hundreds of thousands, pressed close together and swaying slightly back and forth like grass in a summer meadow. A glass pyramid loomed above the stage, the great grey arms of The Louvre stretched around the crowd.
“We’re expecting them any moment, Charles. This will be the first time the Council of the Novo Communist Party will have been seen in public together. It is a demonstration of how confident they feel after their devastating attacks on London, Berlin, Rome and Brussels yesterday. The communists, and many ordinary Europeans, now appear convinced that this civil war has been decisively – ”
There was a roar from the crowd gathered in front of the stage. The camera twisted around shakily to reveal wild-eyed, delighted citizens, cheering and clapping and jumping. From the camera’s slightly raised position it was clear that the crowd stretched back to fill the whole of the Champs Elysees.
“They’re here! They’re coming onto the stage now.”
The camera turned back.
“I can see two Lenins! Yes. Just two. The rumours may be true that two of the remaining clones were killed in recent fighting. The Lenins were created by former Soviet scientists in a Swiss clinic. Twelve batches were attempted but, we are told, only five viable adults were created before the clinic was bombed. Who destroyed the clinic remains a mystery. Officially the Novo Communist United Front blame foreign powers but rumours persist that it was the result of feuding within the factions.”
The camera zoomed in, the picture trembling, on two men. One was older, his head bald, his angular face immediately recognisable as that of the soviet icon. The second, though, was much younger, slightly softer looking and less immediately recognisable.
“Of course the latest Lenin, known by his batch number, K3, has been woken much earlier than previous clones. That’s why he looks so much younger than we have come to expect.”
The commentator strained to make his voice heard over the cheering crowd. The noise went up a notch and the crowd strained forward.
“I can’t quite…” The camera flicked back and forth but revealed only a sea of bobbing heads. “I don’t know if you can see, but I think Trotsky has arrived. The artificial intelligence is credited both with creating the Novo Communist United Front and with the military strategy that appears to have won them this war.”
The picture shifted, rocking violently then slipping to the ground so that all that was visible was a forest of legs and feet. There was a loud crack, a deep rumble and then a moment of silence.
“Shit!”
Someone screamed. On the screen, feet started shuffling, twisting, turning and then running. The camera was kicked.
“Oh God!”
Someone picked the camera up. The picture rocked back and forth, coming unsteadily to focus on a pillar of smoke rising from beyond The Louvre.
“They’re saying… They’re saying that someone has blown up Notre Dame… They’re saying that someone has blown up the –”
The picture collapsed into static.
*
Today.
No one came here anymore. The garden had been built so that no one would forget, but it had been allowed to grow wild. The brass plaque, which had once told visitors the story of a people betrayed, was defaced and unreadable. The memorial was a cell dug deep into the earth with only a shaft, a sliver of light signifying hope, open to the sky. It was forgotten.
“Damn the CIA!” He muttered. He was alone, and darkness was beginning to fall.
Lenin K3 crouched in the cell. He could hear the Seine splash by and the chatter of tourists walking around the skeletal remains of Notre Dame. Only the buttresses of the shattered cathedral still stood, like the ribcage of some fabulous beast felled in the heart of Paris.
Lenin stood up and began to pace about the tiny cell. He checked his watch. Hall was late. He should have been here thirty minutes ago.
A gust of wind brought the clink of a glass, someone’s barking laughter and the burbling of conversation from the cafes on the Left Bank.
Lenin K3 kicked out at the wall. Small chunks of concrete crumbled away. He kicked again, making a bigger hole but hurting his foot.
“Govno!” He rubbed at his toe, splashing on one foot through the inch-deep puddles that had accumulated on the floor of the cell. “Shit!”
Lenin K3 looked back at his watch. He thought about sending another message, but decided against it. Hall knew where he was and knew what he had to offer. If he wasn’t here in five minutes… Well there was always India, maybe even the Chinese.
“Damn the CIA.”
*
Lenin B11 ran a hand across his smooth scalp. His baldness annoyed him. He was the product of fantastic science. The Soviet faction responsible for his creation managed to steal the body of his original incarnation, which had been preserved in Moscow for a century. They cloned him hundreds of times and winnowed out the weak. They removed the faulty genes that would have made him prone to the heart disease that had killed both his original and his original’s father. They removed susceptibility to dozens of other illnesses from AIDS to yellow fever. They filled his head with the knowledge of every recorded word and action of his original. They constructed for him memories of every event they considered significant in his original’s life.
So why, he wondered again, couldn’t they fix it so he could keep his own hair.
It annoyed him. And so did this bezdelnik, Altukhov.
“So you see, Comrade Lenin, we were following him using the locator in his vee-phone. When he dropped that…” Altukhov shrugged and shuffled uncomfortably. He was transcribing an intricate dance onto the carpet in front Lenin B11’s desk. “We know he was near Notre Dame. We searched everywhere. We could not find him.”
Stalin loomed out of the dim alcove where he had been lurking. He flickered slightly as the holographic projector strained to keep up with his rapid movements.
“You idiot! You traitor!” Stalin grabbed the cap from his head and made to strike the messenger with it. His hand passed harmlessly across the man’s face breaking only the illusion of Stalin’s own solidity. Still Altukhov rocked back, stung.
“But sirs!” He looked pleadingly at Lenin B11. “Our men are on every bridge. No one can leave the Ile de la Cité without our knowledge. We will find him. We are doing our best.”
“Your best?” Stalin roared. Tiny flecks of spittle flew across the room, each following its own distinct arc, until they winked out of existence at the limit of the projector’s range.
Stalin took a breath and primed himself for a tirade.
“Quiet.” Lenin B11 said softly and sighed.
Stalin stopped. His whole body seemed to quiver with pent up anger, but he said nothing.
Stalin stalked across the room to the one of the great windows that stretched from ceiling to floor along one side of the office. Somewhere in Assemblée Nationale cameras shifted and Stalin looked out across the Pont de la Concorde to the broken stump of the Obélisque. Lenin noticed that Stalin faded slightly in the light from the windows. He allowed himself a brief smile.
“Comrade Lenin? Is there anything- ” Altukhov was edging back towards the door, desperate to escape.
“Check every face that comes off that bridge. That raskolnik went there for a reason. I want to know why.”
The door shut behind Altukhov. Stalin wheeled to face Lenin.
“Your brother is dangerous. We should kill him.”
Lenin waved a hand. “Not yet. He may still be useful.
“We should kill him now.” Stalin waded through Lenin’s desk, hip deep in the ancient mahogany. “He knows too much.”
“For the last time. No.” Lenin stood up. Stalin took a step back. “You are very keen to kill off my incarnations, aren’t you comrade? How many would that be? Three? Four? Hundreds?”
Stalin stopped for a moment, looking away. “Nothing is more important than the revolution.” He walked back to the window and the ruins of Paris. “No one is more important than our work.”
*
Lenin K3 was impressed, despite his anger at being kept waiting.
Hall appeared silently in the room. Lenin had not heard him approach. Hall had stepped into the cell and was shaking his hand almost before Lenin was aware that the CIA man had arrived.
Hall was big, but lean. He looked as crisp and sharp as the Italian suit he wore. His head was shaved and the mahogany skin of his scalp reflected the last of the day’s light. When he smiled he bared his teeth and reminded Lenin of a wolf he had seen once as a boy. He looked dangerous.
The man would make a terrific assassin, Lenin K3 thought, and felt a moment of fear.
“You’re late.” Lenin straightened himself.
“Precautions.” Hall took out what looked like an expensive vee-phone and waved it in Lenin K3’s direction. “They’re essential, if you want to stay in the game.”
“I didn’t know we were playing games.”
“Didn’t you?” Hall looked slightly disappointed. “Never mind. We may not have much time. This island is crawling with your men.”
“They aren’t my men.”
“Oh? But you are still part of the Leadership Council of the Novo Communist party, aren’t you?”
“I have no power.” The words had to escape through Lenin’s clenched teeth. “My brother and Stalin control everything.”
“Then you are not going to be much use to me.” Hall turned to go.
Lenin watched as the CIA man took the first few steps two at a time. He was bluffing. He would not go to all this trouble and then simply walk away. It was a game. The man was playing for position. Lenin would not be toyed with. He stood silently.
The steps receded further.
He was really leaving.
“I have information!” Lenin called after Hall.
The steps paused.
“I have access to the Assembly building. I can get you inside.”
Hall reappeared in the cell. A broad smile on his face.
“I think we can do business, Vladi.”
*
Stalin shimmered into life in the small room. Three men sat patiently. They had been waiting for some time.
“Are we ready?” Stalin asked.
They nodded.
“Where are the files?”
One of the men held up a small black box.
“Are they convincing?”
“They will resist even the closest scrutiny.”
“Tonight then.”
Stalin disappeared.
*
“They’re up to something,” Lenin K3 said.
“We know that. What is it?” Hall asked.
“Something big.”
Hall sighed. “Of course.”
“It involves Stalin. I think they want to set him free.”
“Free?”
“Distributed processing, spread across every network he can access. They want Stalin to know everything. Control everything.”
“When?”
“Soon. I think. The technicians have been busy for weeks.”
“Jesus.” Hall wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand. “Your brother really wants to give that thing… that lunatic… so much power.”
“He thinks he can control him. Like we did before.” Lenin K3 leant back against the wall.
“But Stalin killed the real Lenin.”
Lenin nodded. “Probably. But he had already been weakened by the strokes. My brother believes that as long as he is strong, Stalin won’t dare act against him.”
“But we know for a fact that Stalin’s already killed three of the other Lenin clones.”
“My brother knows about them. I think he approved the murder of our brothers.”
“Jesus.”
“You’re surprised? Once, supposedly, we said that even if three quarters of the world’s population were to die it would be acceptable, so long as the remaining quarter became communists. There is no morality, no justice, only victory for the cause. He believes that. Every word.”
“And you don’t?” Hall grinned. “This is something I never expected to see. A Lenin on the side of apple pie and the capitalist way.”
Lenin K3 looked disgusted. “Mister Hall, I think you are all as bad as each other.”
“So why are you here?” Hall’s grin turned to a sneer.
“For the moment, mister Hall, my enemies enemy must be my friend. It is the same for you, no?”
*
“I have the proof.” Stalin flickered to life in Lenin’s office.
Lenin B11 looked up. Stalin seemed bigger than normal. Lenin wondered if he had been fiddling with his projector again. He would have to talk to the technicians.
“I have the proof!” Stalin increased his volume several notches. “You’ll have to act now.”
“Proof of what, comrade Stalin.”
“Treachery!” Stalin punctuated the word by jabbing both hands before him at chest height, as though he were grabbing someone by the throat.
Lenin B11 signed his name with a flourish on the bottom of a document and then stood up. “Now, who is guilty of treason this time? And what have they done?”
Stalin just waved at a space a little to his left.
A new hologram appeared. There was a small, richly decorated room with blood red walls and dark wood floors. It was dimly let except for a pool of light around four men planted deep in leather armchairs. A small table sat between them. On the table sat a bottle of brandy and four thickly filled glasses.
Three of the men were in military uniforms. On the left was an Indian major in a Sikh’s turban. On the right was a Chinese general, his chest a mass of medals. A third soldier faced Lenin. He wore a dark blue, American, uniform.
“It is happening again.” Stalin was whispering, his voice almost lost in the low hiss of his speaker system. “The great powers are preparing to attack us again. The whites can never allow the revolution to succeed.”
The fourth figure had his back to Lenin B11.
“Who is this?” Lenin asked.
The image twisted. The fourth face was revealed.
“My brother?”
*
“You know, your pictures don’t do you justice.” Hall ran his hand across his smooth scalp. “You have much more hair than I was expecting.”
“I won’t start going bald until I am thirty, perhaps even older. Some of the trigger causes may be environmental.”
“Why didn’t they just change the genes that make you go bald?”
Lenin K3 shrugged. He hadn’t given it much thought. “I suppose one of their goals was to keep us looking as much like our original as possible. And maybe they thought going bald had an important psychological effect on the original.”
Hall stopped. “They thought Lenin started the revolution because he went bald?”
“No.” Lenin laughed. “Well… maybe.”
“Jesus, think of the trouble that could have been saved by a lifetime supply of Regaine.” Hall laughed loudly.
They were approaching the gates to the entrance of the Assemblée Nationale.
“By the way, how’s your French, mister Hall?”
“Trés bien, merci beaucoup.”
Lenin smirked. “Better let me do the talking.”
“What?”
“You sound like John Wayne.”
“My French is great.”
“I’ll do the talking.” Lenin insisted.
“Merde!”
They set off towards the National Assembly and the waiting guards.
*
Trotsky and Marx were arguing again as Lenin K3 entered the suite that had been their home since the revolution. He stopped by the door and watched, unwilling to get involved in another pointless row.
Trotsky was insisting, again, that the average man would be raised to new heights in a truly communist state. He rumbled around the room on four rubber tires. His body was a black box decorated with a single red star. Trotsky was about the size of a milk crate and the oldest of all the council. He had been created by a faction in Britain in 2019 and had, in a way, been the inspiration behind them all. Once one faction had built their own oracle it was inevitable that the others would try and do the same. At one stage there had been almost a dozen Trotsky artificial intelligences, but the war and infighting amongst the United Front factions meant that only this one, the first, had survived.
Above the box that housed Trotsky’s processors and electric motor, was an animated hologram about one foot high. It flailed dramatically as he spoke. Trotsky’s dark hair seemed to writhe in a windstorm.
“As I said in Literature and Revolution,” Trotsky was bellowing. “Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonized; his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.”
Trotsky wasn’t a proper artificial intelligence. He was only a cleverly programmed intelligent system. They were working on a new version, Trotsky 2.0, but no one was sure if the new Trotsky would join the Novo Communist leadership. The factions were supposed to be working together but they hated each other more than they loathed their real enemies. Stalin was determined to keep any new Trotsky out.
Marx, who’d been in one of his depressions for weeks, was shaking his head. Each cycle brought a gentle wheeze from the pneumatic pumps that powered his body. “We are repeating history as tragedy,” he said. It had become his favourite phrase.
Trotsky snorted and wheeled away.
Marx was a true AI encased in a robotic body. When he was on official business his maintenance crew fitted him with a plastic suit that, from a distance, allowed him to pass as at least approximately human. But the suit caused his systems to overheat and restricted his movements so, in private, he went ‘naked’ with the pumps, pistons and wiring exposed. Lenin found it unnerving, particularly because his face, with its familiar mass of unkempt hair remained in place.
Like the Lenins, Marx had been given a reconstructed set of memories from his original incarnation and a database of all his recorded thoughts. Unlike the Lenins he also possessed a vast store of knowledge. This had begun as a database of the information that Marx would have accumulated in his lifetime of writing and research. But, since his creation by a team of German academics, Marx’s store of knowledge had grown vastly as he voraciously acquired every database that became available to him. He constantly required upgrading.
Perhaps more than any of them, Lenin K3 knew, Marx was discontent with what was happening around him. More than any of them he was angry at what had been done in his name. During his last maintenance check he had stolen a small screwdriver. With it he had carefully inscribed ten words across his chestplate. They read: “All I know is that I am not a Marxist.”
Marx watched Trotsky wander away. Lenin coughed. Marx turned and shrugged theatrically. Pfft! His pneumatics sighed.
“Things go from bad to worse my young friend.”
Lenin K3 shook his head. “I think I may have found a solution.”
*
Lenin K3 led Hall past the guards and past the main entrance. They went around the side of the building and down a flight of steps to a metal door. Lenin produced a key. The hallway inside was dim and empty. Somewhere a pipe dripped, the deep splashes resonated into the distance.
“You communists sure do know how to live in style.” Hall chuckled to himself.
Lenin grunted. “Come on.”
Lenin K3 bustled though twisting corridors turning one way then the next so that Hall began to feel that they must be going in circles. Then, abruptly, Lenin stopped in front of a door marked SB101, produced another key, and stepped inside.
The room was almost empty. A bare desk with an old-fashioned terminal, a filing cabinet and a bare light bulb that struggled against the dirty grey paint to brighten the room.
“Floorplans, guard rosters and communications are on that.” Lenin pointed to the terminal. “It’s primitive, but it’s under Stalin’s radar.”
“Fine.” Hall nodded. “Where is Stalin?”
“His processing unit is in the Council Room. It’s very well protected.”
“You let me worry about that.”
“Don’t be stupid Hall. You can’t just charge up there. There are hundreds of guards between us and him.”
“Then what do you suggest, Vladi.”
“The only time the guards leave the Council Room is during our formal meetings.” Lenin K3 brought up a map on the terminal. “There is only one entrance and there are lots of guards outside and no one is allowed in without an order from a member of the council.”
“Which you’re going to give me.” Hall was standing behind Lenin, one hand on his shoulder.
Lenin nodded.
“But no matter what order I give, there is no way you can take a weapon into that room. There are all sorts of scanners and sniffers. The guards are ordered to kill first and ask questions later.”
Hall shrugged. “Don’t worry. You get me into that chamber and I won’t need any weapons to finish the job.”
“I believe you.”
“You’d better.” Hall reached into his pocket and removed a pen. “This is a communicator –”
Lenin raised a hand. “It won’t work in the Council Room. It’s shielded against everything up to and including a nuclear blast.”
“This will work. It communicates with this,” he showed Lenin his vee-phone, “using quantum entangled particles. It can’t be blocked.”
Lenin looked unconvinced.
“Trust me,” Hall patted his shoulder. “When you’re all together in the Council Room twist the top, like this, and I’ll come running. Okay?”
Lenin nodded. “Okay.”
*
“Comrades, welcome to this special meeting of the Council of the Novo Communist Party of Europe.” DeVille was a small man with narrow eyes squinting from behind thick glasses. As chairman of the Party he was theoretically powerful. The Council was only supposed to be a source of advice, a brains-trust, but the truth was that Stalin and Lenin ran the party and DeVille did as he was told. “Our first order of business is the minutes of the previous meeting. Does anyone have any comments?”
The Council Room was vast, dwarfing the table in the centre. The lights were dim, a single spot illuminating the table. DeVille’s voice echoed dimly off distant walls. There were twelve spaces at the table but only six were filled.
“No comments?” DeVille waited.
Three of the chairs had once belonged to other Lenins. Now D2, G15 and J1 were gone. Killed by their brother.
“Good! Then can I take it that the Council is happy to agree those minutes as an accurate record of our previous meeting?” DeVille looked around the room. No one was paying attention. “Excellent.”
Also gone was Rosa Luxembourg, turned off when it became apparent, according to Stalin, that her programming was inferior. Everyone had agreed that Bakhunin should be turned off. In the euphoria after the flattening of London, Moscow and Berlin his constant whining got on everyone’s nerves.
The final empty seat had belonged to Castro’s clone. One day he said he was going out for a walk and never came back. Three weeks later he was appearing on American talk shows, wearing Armani and advertising Coke and cigars. He sent them all a postcard from Miami. The revolution begins now, he’d written.
“Now, matters arising from the minutes,” Deville struggled on against the apathy. “I have a few issues to raise…”
Lenin K3 looked around the council room. Trotsky and Marx were sitting together opposite him. Stalin was sitting to the right of DeVille at the head of the table. Lenin B11 was on the Frenchman’s right.
“…Thirdly,” DeVille shuffled some papers looking for his notes. Lenin B11 leaned over, rested a hand on DeVille’s arm, and whispered something in the Frenchman’s ear. DeVille went white and appeared to choke. He turned to look at Lenin and nodded quickly. “Actually, comrades it has brought to my attention that as this is a special meeting, perhaps we should move at once to the main business on the agenda. Comrade Stalin, you have something to say?”
“I do indeed Comrade DeVille. Please watch.”
The hologram of the room appeared. The three soldiers from different countries sat in a room with a fourth man who had his back to the camera. Slowly the camera’s point of view twisted. A fourth face was revealed. Knowing that he had never been in that room, or met those people, it was several moments before Lenin K3’s mind accepted that the face of the fourth man was his own.
“Treachery.” Lenin K3 could not be sure if the words came from his own lips or Stalin’s speakers.
“Betrayal!” Stalin screamed.
Lenin K3 reached into his pocket for Hall’s pen.
“Sending for the cavalry?” Stalin’s smiled broadened. “See here, comrades, our fried is condemned by his own hand.”
Stalin pointed to the table. A silver vee-phone sat on the table. A green light on the top of the phone was flashing.
“I took this phone from an American agent, an assassin, captured by my security unit this afternoon. This traitor gave orders for this -” Stalin paused, summoning his bile to spit the next word, “- negro to be allowed into this room tonight so that he might kill us all.”
Lenin K3 stood up. He opened his mouth to speak but his brother cut him short.
“Is this true?” B11 asked.
Light spilled into the Council Room. The great doors had been flung open. Six guards dragged in a bloody, limp lump.
“Do you know this man, brother?”
Lenin K3 knew there was little point denying the charges, he was dead now, no matter what he said.
“I have never seen him before in my life.”
“Oh?” Stalin gave a signal. “Then you won’t be upset by this.”
The guards threw Hall to the ground. Two of them pulled out pistols and fired. The percussions boomed around the high-ceilinged room. Hall twitched, and then was still.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Comrade Stalin!”
Everyone turned. More surprising than the shots was the fact that it was DeVille who’d found his voice first.
“Comrade Stalin! You know that weapons may not enter this room. I demand –”
The guards shot DeVille. They hit him three times before he fell.
Lenin B11 leapt to his feet.
“What –”
The guards shot him as well.
Stalin was laughing.
Lenin K3 slumped down into his seat. “Shit!” He looked across at Marx. “This is very bad.”
Marx said nothing but, slowly, he raised himself to his feet. For the first time Lenin noticed the surprising bulk of the machine. Marx’s familiar face, the massive, grey beard and rheumy eyes encouraged the illusion that this was an old man. Lenin K3 suddenly became aware of the machine. It was as if Marx was unfolding himself. The robot reached down and patted the top of Trotsky’s box.
“Now,” Marx said. “This is your chance.”
From beneath the table Marx heard Trotsky’s electric motor rise to a high-pitched whine, there was a sudden squeal of rubber on the wooden floor, and then Trotsky emerged into the pool of light. He shot across the floor and, in a moment, was lost in the darkness of the room.
Lenin looked up following the direction of the robot’s path.
Trotsky was heading straight for the blinking lights of Stalin’s processing unit.
Stalin took another moment to realise what was happening.
“Stop him!”
Every light in the room came on. Lenin was dazzled.
Stalin roared. “Shoot him!”
Lenin blinked. He looked at the guards. Marx was amongst them. He moved with incredible speed. The guards were disarmed before they could react. Six guns clattered on the floor. Six bodies followed them with softer thumps.
Trotsky slammed into Stalin.
“You can’t –” Stalin’s voice rose to a scream.
There was a flash of blue light that arced across Trotsky’s casing and then there was a pop.
The lights went out and the Council Chamber was plunged into darkness.
After a moment, emergency lighting came on and a soft glow filled the whole chamber.
Stalin was gone.
A dirty smudge of smoke rose from Trotsky and the acrid smell of burning plastic began to fill the chamber.
Lenin K3 and Marx were alone.
Marx walked over to Trotsky and prodded his casing with a foot. The box rolled over, inert.
“At least he got his revenge,” Marx said. Then he ripped the covers from Stalin’s processing unit. Methodically he removed circuit boards and components and crushed them to dust in his hand.
Lenin K3 watched silently.
Marx walked back to the table at the centre of the room. He checked DeVille and Lenin B11. They were both dead. Lenin K3 thought he heard the robot sigh, but it might have been his pneumatic limbs.
“You’ve been enhanced,” Lenin said. “You knew this was going to happen.”
Marx nodded. “Something like it. I’ve been pilfering military technology for months.”
“I’m glad. I’m glad it’s both of us who survived. We can start afresh,” Lenin K3 said. “You and I can take control and run things properly. ”
Marx looked up.
“You’re just like him,” Marx nodded at B11. “You don’t understand a thing, do you?”
“What do you mean?” Lenin stood up. “I fought my brother and Stalin all the way. I want things to be different. I’m on your side.”
“No you’re not.” Marx ran a hand across the words on his chest. “You don’t want things to change. You just think they’d be better if you were in charge.”
“But they would be better. I don’t want to be like them.”
“Prove it. Walk out the door now and don’t come back. Let people make their own choices.”
“But they need me. The party needs us.”
Marx shook his head. “No, they don’t. They don’t need us. And the party is corrupt and stupid. Walk away.”
“I can’t.” Lenin slammed a fist on the table. “Communism –”
Marx flashed across the room. He gripped Lenin by the throat, lifting him clear of the ground.
“Communism will be better off without you.”
Lenin thrashed frantically.
“You could never make better people by pointing a gun at their head.”
Lenin tried to speak but no words would form.
“You couldn’t make people free by putting them in cages.”
There was a crack and Lenin went limp. Marx dropped the body to the floor.
Marx looked around him for a moment.
“What a mess.”
He shrugged and walked towards the door.
“What we need is a revolution.”