New York City was naked.
The glamour was gone. The technicolor lie that Hoover had draped over the city like a warm blanket had been ripped away by Jake's virus.
The sky wasn't blue; it was smog-grey. The billboards in Times Square didn't show smiling models drinking soda; they showed peeling paint and desperate ads for loans. The people in the streets weren't vibrant extras in a movie; they were tired, pale, and scared.
Jake stood on the Torch of the Statue of Liberty. He felt the wind whipping his suit. The golden flame was dead, replaced by a pulsing, angry red strobe.
"It's ugly," Valentina said over the comms. She was down in the wreckage of the Orion, which was half-buried in the mud of Liberty Island.
"It's honest," Jake replied.
He looked across the harbor. The skyscrapers of Manhattan looked like tombstones now. The Empire State Building was just a jagged needle of steel.
"Hoover is broadcasting," Valentina warned. "Emergency frequency."
Jake tapped his helmet.
"...terrorist attack!" Hoover's voice screamed through the static. "The Bolsheviks have detonated a hallucination bomb! Do not look at the sky! Do not believe your eyes!"
Jake laughed. It was a cold, sharp sound.
"He's telling them the truth is a lie," Jake said. "Classic."
He looked at the data cable connecting his suit to the Torch. The "Root Access" key from the Moon was still running, injecting the raw reality code into the American network.
"Can we push it further?" Jake asked.
"Further?"
"We stripped the paint," Jake said. "Now let's show them the rot."
He typed a command on his wristpad.
OVERLAY: SOVIET_REALITY.
The red light on the Torch flared.
Across the bay, the illusion shifted again.
Giant, translucent holograms materialized over New York. But they weren't American.
A massive, spectral statue of a Worker and a Collective Farm Girl rose from the Hudson River, dwarfing the Statue of Liberty. Their hammers and sickles glowed with neon violet light—the aesthetic of the new, cyberpunk USSR.
In the sky, the Soviet star burned, casting long, dramatic shadows over Wall Street.
It was an invasion of aesthetics. Jake wasn't just showing them the truth; he was showing them his truth. The tragic, beautiful, hard sci-fi nightmare of Moscow.
"Look at that," Jake whispered. "Fortress New York."
Manhattan. Wall Street.
A stockbroker named Richard stumbled out of the Exchange. He looked up.
The sky was purple. A giant, glowing Russian woman was looking down at him with eyes made of laser light.
"It's the end of the world," Richard wept.
Next to him, a homeless veteran looked up. He didn't weep. He stared at the hologram's hands—strong, holding tools.
"It looks... strong," the veteran muttered.
He looked at the grey, crumbling buildings of Financial District. Then at the vibrant, powerful neon ghosts.
"Better than this grey crap," the veteran said.
He picked up a brick. He threw it through the window of a bank.
The glass shattered. The alarm screamed.
But nobody came. The police were too busy staring at the sky.
The White House. The Bunker.
Hoover was losing his mind.
He paced the room, kicking chairs over. His aides huddled in the corners like frightened rats.
"Turn it off!" Hoover shrieked. "Turn off the sky!"
"We can't, sir," General MacArthur said. "The signal is coming from the Statue. He's hardwired into the Anchor."
"Then blow it up!" Hoover yelled. "Nuke the island!"
"Sir, the fallout... it would kill millions in the city."
"They're already dead!" Hoover roared. "Look at them! They're looking at the commie ghosts! They're infected!"
He pointed at the screen. The riots had started. But they weren't panic riots. They were inspired riots. People were tearing down the dull, grey American ads and painting red stars on the walls.
"He's gamifying the revolution," Hoover realized. "He's making communism look cool."
Hoover grabbed the red phone.
"Get me the Navy," Hoover ordered. "The USS New Jersey. It's in the harbor."
"Sir?"
"Shell the island," Hoover said. His voice was flat, dead. "Use the 16-inch guns. Turn the Statue into gravel. If I can't have the symbol, nobody can."
Liberty Island.
"Detecting active radar!" Valentina shouted. "Battleship New Jersey is traversing its turrets!"
Jake looked down from the Torch.
A massive grey warship was steaming toward them. Its guns—barrels the size of tree trunks—were elevating.
"He's going to shoot the Lady," Jake said.
"Jake, get down from there! You're sitting on the target!"
"If I disconnect, the illusion falls," Jake said. "The grey comes back. Hoover wins."
"If you stay, you turn into pink mist!"
Jake looked at the battleship. He calculated the odds. Zero.
But then, he remembered the Orion. The massive, nuclear-powered spaceship crashed at the base of the statue.
"Valentina," Jake said. "Is the reactor still online?"
"Yes. But the drive is buried in mud."
"What about the coolant venting system?"
"Active. Why?"
"Dump the core," Jake said.
"What?"
"Vent the radioactive coolant," Jake ordered. "Create a cloud. A fog. Blind them."
"It will poison the harbor!"
"Hoover is about to shell New York," Jake snapped. "A little radiation is the lesser evil. Do it!"
Valentina hit the switch.
HISS.
A massive plume of white steam erupted from the crashed ship. It was laced with glowing green Cherenkov radiation.
The cloud expanded instantly, swallowing the island. It rolled over the water like a living thing—a toxic, neon fog bank.
The Bridge of the USS New Jersey.
"Target obscured," the gunnery officer reported. "I can't see the Statue."
"Fire on coordinates!" the Captain ordered. "Level the grid!"
"Sir, the cloud... it's radioactive. If we fire into it, the shell might detonate the gas. We could cook ourselves."
The Captain hesitated.
"Hold fire," he ordered. "Wait for the wind."
But the wind didn't come. The neon fog sat heavy on the water, glowing with an eerie, beautiful malice.
Inside the cloud, on the Torch, Jake coughed. His suit's Geiger counter was clicking like a calm insect.
"We bought some time," Jake said. "But we're trapped."
"Jake," Valentina said softly. "Look up."
Jake looked up.
Through the hole in the green fog, he saw the sky.
And he saw something falling.
Not a missile. Not a bomb.
A drop pod.
It was black, painted with a red star. It burned through the atmosphere, leaving a trail of fire.
"Is that...?"
"It's from the Red Arrow," Valentina realized. "It's a sub-orbital transport. Yuri sent it."
The pod deployed a chute. It slammed into the head of the Statue, denting the copper crown.
The hatch blew open.
Taranov stepped out. He was wearing a heavy Spetsnaz exosuit. He held a minigun.
"Delivery for Comrade Vance!" Taranov grinned through his visor.
"How did you get here?" Jake asked, stunned.
"Sub-orbital hop from Moscow," Taranov said. "Yuri did the math. He said you might need an extraction."
"I don't need extraction," Jake said. "I need to finish this."
Taranov handed him a heavy case.
"Yuri sent a gift," Taranov said. "He calls it the 'End Game'."
Jake opened the case.
Inside was a device. It looked like a laptop, but thicker. Industrial. Wired with biological components.
"What is it?"
"It's a portable server," Taranov explained. "It contains the logic plague. The same one that infected the missiles."
"And?"
"Yuri says if you plug this into the Anchor... it doesn't just broadcast pictures," Taranov said. "It reverses the flow."
"Reverses?"
"It sucks the 'Soft Power' out of America," Taranov said. "And uploads it to Moscow."
Jake stared at the device.
It was a vampiric weapon. It would drain the concept of "The American Dream"—the optimism, the color, the hope—and transfer it to the USSR.
America would become the grey wasteland. Russia would become the neon paradise.
"It's theft," Jake whispered. "Soul theft."
"It's war, Boss," Taranov said. "Plug it in."
Jake looked at the city. The people were confused, scared, looking for a leader.
If he did this, he would break America's spirit forever. He would turn them into zombies of despair.
But if he didn't, Hoover would kill them all.
Jake picked up the device.
"Let's drink their milkshake," Jake said.
He jammed the bio-server into the Torch's port.
UPLOAD INITIATED.
A sound like a massive inhalation echoed across the harbor.
The lights in New York flickered and died. The neon signs went dark. The color drained from the world, rushing toward the Statue like water down a drain.
The energy surged up the statue, through the cable, and into the device. Then, it beamed upward.
Straight to a satellite.
Straight to Moscow.
Moscow. Red Square.
The grey sludge in the streets began to glow.
The rot vanished.
The buildings, scarred by war, began to shimmer. The holographic projectors roared to life, fueled by the stolen American optimism.
The sky turned a brilliant, hopeful blue.
The people looked up. They felt a sudden, inexplicable surge of joy. They felt... rich.
Yuri watched from the balcony.
"Transfer complete," Yuri said. "Asset acquisition: 100%."
He looked at the map. America was now dark blue—depressed, cold. Russia was bright gold.
"We stole their happiness," Menzhinsky whispered, horrified.
"We redistributed it," Yuri corrected.
New York. The Torch.
The device beeped. DONE.
Jake pulled it out.
The city below was silent. Dark. It looked like a graveyard.
"It's over," Jake said. "We broke the bank."
"The New Jersey is signaling," Valentina said. "They're surrendering. The crew... they're too depressed to fight."
Jake looked at the battleship. The flags were lowered.
"Let's go home," Jake said.
He climbed into Taranov's drop pod.
"What about the Statue?" Taranov asked. "Do we leave it?"
Jake looked at the copper lady. She looked tired. Drained.
"Leave her," Jake said. "She's just a piece of metal now. The light is gone."
The pod blasted off, rising on a pillar of fire, leaving the dark, grey, hopeless city of New York behind.
Jake looked out the window.
He had won. He had saved his country.
But as he watched the lights of America go out one by one, he felt a cold knot in his stomach.
He hadn't just defeated Hoover. He had eaten him.
And he wasn't sure if he could ever wash the taste out of his mouth.