help i accidentally restarted the ussr (oh god i have done it again)

It wasn’t easy being a Russian hacker.

The pay was miserable, the hours endless, and the weight of the State pressed down on every keystroke. Sixteen hours into his latest shift, young Grigori Zhernov hunched over a bank of battered monitors, sweat dripping from his brow. His job was to reinforce the Federation’s censorship net, a digital barricade meant to keep Western corruption at bay while Moscow strained under the “special operation” in Ukraine and the people muttered about shortages and collapse.

Every responsibility in the Russian Federation was a matter of utmost importance. And Grigori was nothing if not patriotic.

He tapped away with determination, sealing digital cracks, patching breaches, keeping the Motherland safe from Western decadence, filth, truth, and foreign influence. “Da,” he muttered. “Impenetrable.”

At last he leaned back, exhausted, and pulled a bottle of vodka from the desk drawer. As he lifted it to his lips, he failed to notice it bump a key on his keyboard.

A monitor behind him flashed briefly: a red warning line of code flickered, then collapsed, in time with the keystroke. Across the corner of the screen, new text scrolled by, in green Cyrillic:

CENSOR-NET OVERRIDE… I. STANISLAV…

Grigori never noticed. He wiped his mouth, sighed, and toasted himself. “For Russia,” he said, swallowing deeply.

The young Russian had no idea what he had just unleashed.

—

Ivan was grumpy.

This wasn’t unusual. But today the scowl bit deeper. ReVival 75 lingered in the center, and the bad news swirled around it. Jared Sykes’ return, losses to Dick and Tsonda, the Universal Title opportunity given to Nate Colton. Enough to sour even a man already defined by bitterness.

His mood worsened as his paranoia grew.

For a good communist, work was the cure for defeatist thoughts. Ivan reached for his office phone, hand hovering over the receiver. He stopped.

Ruslan was in Havana with Gema. Ivan felt it then, a pang of envy; Ruslan had someone who loved him, and Ivan did not. He had been the one to send Ruslan away to breathe; calling him home now, merely to research Harrison, would undo that mercy.

No, he would do this himself.

Ivan pushed his thick glasses up and stared at his hulking, outdated computer. The secure server blinked alive, one of the Kremlin’s quieter databases. It was used for “reconnaissance” on Western adversaries. Lines of stern Cyrillic filled the screen. With heavy fingers, he typed: СТИВ ХАРРИСОН.

The file opened. Marine animal iconography cluttered the profile. An octopus. Tentacles everywhere. Ivan glared and rolled his eyes.

“Octopus. Tentacles. Ridiculous.” His frown deepened. “No octopus ever defeated a bear....”

He printed the file with a single press of the huge button on his mouse.

The dot-matrix printer wheezed and spat, grinding as if etching the words into steel. A half-sheet shuddered out, then the machine coughed smoke and froze.

Ivan rose, yanking the dangling paper, and tore it jaggedly in half. The rest jammed deeper. Another pull, a pained click, and the printer died in his hands.

It seemed printer issues weren’t just a Western problem.

Distracted as he was, Ivan failed to see the glow of his computer monitor flicker behind him. A thin line of text scrolled across the corner of the screen in pale green letters:

CENSOR-NET OVERRIDE… I. STANISLAV…

His monitor refreshed and the Russian server was replaced with a much more unfiltered site with a cheery blue-and-white page. At the center, in bold Cyrillic letters, it chirped:

Нужна помощь? Спроси у Google! (Need help? Ask Google!)

Ivan turned and stared at the source of the noise, and then squinted at the unfamiliar word, his lips curling with suspicion.

“Goggle?” he muttered. “The hell is that?”

Ivan narrowed his eyes while he lowered into his chair, and he spoke to the computer directly.

“Help, I accidentally jammed my printer…”

The cursor blinked expectantly, a silent dare. It dawned on Ivan what he had to do. After throwing a hateful glance at the printer, he began typing upon his yellowed keys.

“help I accidentally…”

The cursor leapt ahead. A list of suggestions unfurling in bold black letters.

Third from the top: “...help I accidentally restarted the USSR.”

Ivan froze. His eyes darted around the office. Lenin to Putin stared down from the walls as silent judges. He looked back at the words, hand tightening on the brick-sized mouse.

Click.

The page was a cascade of images.

First and foremost, a skeletal Stalin clutching his head with the words plastered across the image. Another was Khrushchev riding a bear across a river of fire. Lenin danced with glowsticks to his own “Communist Party.” Gorbachev’s birthmark morphed into a hammer and sickle. Neon cosmonauts looped endlessly across the screen. Some crazy man cosplaying as a Soviet leader was screaming about going to space.

Ivan leaned closer, eyes wide. For a heartbeat, pride swelled. The Union lives. The people remember. Who else would craft such bold, creative images?

But the flood got worse. Crude jokes. Garish parodies. Drunken slogans. His jaw set as paranoia crept in. Why had no one told him? Was he too old? Too irrelevant? Was there a secret cabal of Communists mocking him behind his back?

The monitor’s glow carved deep shadows across his face. He scrolled faster, each grotesque parody twisting the knife.

A cheery ping. Japanese text scrolled. A window exploded open, violent pinks and yellows, strobes stabbing his tired eyes. Two men in matching trunks posed center screen. Beneath them, in block letters:

The Fabulous Hentai Brothers.

The taller one, lean, hair to his shoulders, flexed at the camera. The shorter wore a thick mustache and an afro the size of the page’s banner. They pointed and winked straight at Ivan.

Then the music started.

P. Control by Prince. These weren’t the anthems Ivan loved to listen to in his quiet time. This was something filthy, screaming at maximum volume. Vulgar odes to anatomy and money thundered not just from the computer speakers, but from the office intercom wired throughout the room.

Ivan reeled back. The Fabulous Hentai Brothers looped in a jerking, neon rhythm. It was a degenerate nightmare dressed like propaganda gone wrong. Japanese text scrolled beneath their twerking bodies, promising their appearance at something called Terminus Complex. Whatever that was.

He clicked to close the ad.

That only made the tentacles appear.

Suddenly the Brothers were no longer just dancing. No. They were conducting the chaos. Each pelvic thrust sent pixelated limbs whipping across the screen. One tentacle bounced off the browser’s edge with a wet cartoon splat. Another seductively coiled around the Brothers’ thigh while Ivan stared in horror. The more they gyrated, the more the tentacles multiplied, until the entire window became a seizure of flailing limbs and winks, the soundtrack blaring in hideous sync.

Ivan was helpless to stop them.

—

Arina Timofeyevna walked the corridor outside Ivan’s office, a small stack of files balanced neatly in her arms. Her steps were soft, measured.

She slowed.

A strange sound leaked beneath Ivan’s heavy oak door. A rhythm. English. Something tinny. She tilted her head and furrowed her brow.

She tapped her foot.

She shifted her weight from side to side in a gentle rhythm.

For a moment she wondered if Alexei had brought one of his bizarre dances into Ivan’s office, before remembering he was still in Cuba.

She smiled.

Ivan was cheering himself up.

She adjusted the files in her arms and settled at her desk, toes still tapping lightly to the beat. For a moment, she considered entering his office and congratulating him. But she thought better of it.

Let him enjoy his fun.

—

Ivan was a man possessed.

The music would not stop. It blasted from every corner of his office, rattling the portraits of Lenin and Stalin in their frames. Prince shrieked obscenities from on high.

He tore one speaker free and hurled it against the wall, but the voice carried on through the others. He ripped cables from the ancient computer tower, sparks spitting into the air, yet the screen still burned with the gyrating images of the Fabulous Hentai Brothers, riding an unsettlingly wet tentacle.

The huge office chair toppled, skidding across the floor. His fists hammered the desk until the steel bent and groaned. Papers whirled in the air like snow in a storm.

He smashed another speaker beneath his boot. He stomped the patriotic printer that had betrayed him. And still the chorus swelled, louder, more vulgar, triumphant.

Only one man could save Ivan Stanislav. He lunged for his phone.

Alexei had protected him in Afghanistan. He knew he could count on him again.

—

The Havana sun blared down on Alexei, buried up to his neck in sand. Gema cooed, her oiled skin glistening as she sculpted a crooked fortress around his head.

“How am I supposed to get all this sand out of my jacket, Gema?”

“Oh, Alejandro, I told you to take it off before I buried you!” She removed his hat for just a moment and kissed his forehead.

Buried in the pocket of Ruslan’s overcoat, his phone began to ring. The tone muffled by sand and cloth.

—

Arina adjusted the stack of files before her, still tapping her foot to the beat. Until it stopped. Her smile faltered.

Then the door exploded.

The massive steel desk, computer and all, burst through the oak like an artillery shell. Splinters and debris blasted across the corridor as the wreckage skidded past her desk in a shriek of metal and sparks. Arina yelped and flung herself to the side, shielding her face and arms.

Silence.

She lowered her hands, eyes wide, and peered through the ruined doorway.

Ivan Stanislav filled the frame, disheveled and heaving. Sweat, fury, and shock slicked his face.

His gaze locked on her.

“Set up an emergency meeting," he panted. “Immediately.”

—

The secure chamber lay deep in the Moscow compound, buried far from windows or listening ears. Concrete walls loomed thick and gray, bunker-like, while a single lamp swung overhead, casting pale light across the long table.

Speedy Riggs stuck out like a sore thumb in his bright red-and-yellow communist shirt. Even loyal Speedy couldn’t help but wonder how many people had walked into this room and never walked out. He gulped and glanced at Arina.

Still shaken from Ivan’s desk exploding through Ivan’s office door, she held a notepad in her lap. Her pen hovered, unmoving, as her wide eyes fixed on the man at the head of the table.

Ivan Stanislav hunched forward, shoulders heavy, hair wild, uniform wrinkled from the destruction of his office less than an hour ago. He looked like a man who had wrestled a storm and lost. The jagged crack through his glasses deepened the lines in his face.

“Comrades,” Ivan rumbled, his voice echoing off the concrete. “Grave matters have come to my attention. Matters of conspiracy. Matters of… treachery.”

Arina gulped and glanced at Speedy, then back at the glowering Starshy Praporshchik.

“Conspiracy?” she whispered.

Ivan slammed a bundle of crumpled papers onto the table. Their edges scorched from the ruined printer, smeared with dust and sweat. Across the top page, in garish colors, skeletal Stalin lamenting the inadvertent resurrection of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Speedy leaned forward, squinting at the page. A meme. He rolled his eyes toward Arina, then back at his leader. “Well… that is something…”

Ivan jabbed his finger down at the image. “I have uncovered, with help from the Goggle, a growing effort to revive the Soviet Union. And yet I am cut out. Made fool of. Look!”

More images spilled across the table, Ivan frantic as he tossed them down. Arina stared across at Speedy, desperate to read his mind. Speedy reciprocated.

Then came the last page: the Fabulous Hentai Brothers, their neon trunks frozen mid-loop. Speedy’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

“Ivan…” Speedy said carefully. “Do you… know what these are?”

Ivan stared at the Hentai Brothers. “Of course. Perverts!”

Speedy winced and spoke more slowly. “I mean… everything else.”

Ivan’s voice dropped to a sinister growl. “Evidence.”

Speedy shook his head. “No. They’re called memes. Internet jokes. Pictures people make for fun. They’re not real. No secret cabal. Just kids on computers.”

Arina nodded quickly, her voice soft. “They mean nothing, Starshy Praporshchik.”

Ivan froze, his huge hands gripping the table. His eyes flicked from one absurd image to the next, confusion settling into something heavier. “Nothing…”

Speedy tore his eyes from the lurid image and studied Ivan. The Bear’s shoulders sagged, his scowl hollowing into something quieter. Sadness and embarrassment, heavy and unspoken, had crept in.

“Vanya,” Speedy said gently, “I gotta ask. What were you doing when all of this started?”

Ivan straightened in his chair, puffing his chest as if to chase the silence away. “I was researching Steve Harrison. With Alyosha absent, I took it upon myself to examine his file. To prepare.” His cracked glasses glinted. “Then these two Hentai Brothers appeared and the machine turned against me! These images and music… it poured forth!”

Speedy leaned back, silent for a long moment. He glanced at Arina. She might have laughed if Ivan wasn’t so sincere in his confusion. She shook her head helplessly. Speedy pressed his lips tight.

“Maybe… it wasn’t an accident.”

Ivan’s eyes flashed.

“Think about it, Ivan,” Speedy pressed, carefully. “You were digging into Harrison, right? And suddenly, what? Tentacles, sea stuff, Soviet jokes? That doesn’t sound random. That sounds like somebody setting you up.”

Ivan’s hands tightened on the table edge. His voice was low, dangerous. “You suggest… Harrison is behind this?”

Across the table, Arina gawked at Speedy.

“He is somehow trying to sabotage my match?”

Speedy nodded knowingly. “He’s got this whole marine animal tentacle thing going on, or something, right?”

Arina interjected. “Surely there is no…”

But Speedy cut her off, “... other explanation. I agree, Arina!” Speedy grinned wide. “You were looking into Harrison, then tentacles, these Hentai guys, the music… patterns don’t come out of nowhere, right? He tried to hack your computer. He made all of these!”

“So…” Ivan’s voice was less a growl and more a whisper. “This… is all a joke? All these images, all this… interest… it is not real?”

Silence filled the space. Arina’s chest tightened; her hand rose toward him, then fell back to the notepad. The man who hoisted the Universal Title now looked as if he had lost his country all over again.

Ivan pushed his glasses up with a single, precise motion. He did not look defeated. He looked small, then furious. He rose and stalked toward the door with measured steps. Speedy rose and called after him, steady and deliberate. “Ivan.”

The Bear stopped at the threshold. The hurt in his face snapped into hunger. He turned, and spoke cold and slow, each word a hammer.

“I had no issues with that son of a bitch, but I do now. He turns my life into a mockery, turns my country into a joke. No one infiltrates my computer with gyrating tentacle lovers!” He snarled. “I will give him a much more direct message at ReVival 76! No Goggle needed!”

He let the sentence hang, then slammed the door behind him with a crash.

The room felt suddenly hollow, with just Arina and Speedy standing alone. The concrete exhaled, and Speedy looked back at her. She was visibly shocked and stunned and she channeled her frustration across the table.

“You know that is not true,” she said in careful English, the words sharp. “Why did you say that, Speedy? I thought you loved him.”

Speedy Riggs looked at the ruined pages on the table, the neon faces, the obscene poses, and for a moment he remained silent. His grin had gone. He rubbed his nose, and the sound he made was almost a sigh.

“I do love him, ‘Rina,” he said, the sunshine gone from his voice. “That’s why I said it.”

She blinked with confusion and anger wrapped together.

“You can’t always tell him he’s wrong,” Speedy continued, softer. “He carries more weight than most countries. Give him burdens he can lift, not ones that will break him inside. Even if it’s silly. Even if it’s memes.”

Her eyes softened as the words settled. Speedy scraped his chair back and sat.

“I’m not Alexei,” he admitted, plain and without flourish. “I don’t do knives and shadows. I can’t pull his strings even if I wanted to. And I can’t challenge him ideologically. And you have to learn how to work with him, ‘Rina.” He paused. “Because you’re one of us now.”

She felt a weight lift from her shoulder as Speedy’s words washed over her. “Then how do you move him?”

Speedy smiled and almost chuckled. “You don’t. You aim him.”

She frowned. “Aim?”

“Three rules.” He held up one finger. “One: don’t challenge him in public unless you want a war.” He lifted a second. “Two: give him a hill to charge that matters more than whatever’s eating him.” He raised a third. “Three: put weight in his hands he can lift, not weight in his heart that will crush him.”

She tried to digest it, but Speedy kept going. “Alexei can make him feverish with communist zeal. I can give him kindness. But you, Arina Timofeyevna…” He paused, then let a sunlit grin split his face. “You can warm his heart.”

The idea hit her oddly. Speedy saw the confusion and smoothed it. “Warmth is a kind of aim. It loosens his jaw, lets him laugh. When he laughs he is not Soviet steel. He’s a man who can be carried. Give him something lighter to hold, and he will not be smothered by it.”

She had an idea. Fingers trembling, she fished one of the meme sheets from the table. She started for the door, then stopped and looked back at Speedy, quizzical. “Why three rules, Speedy?”

Speedy smiled wider and shrugged. “I’m a referee, Arina.” He winked. “Everything comes in threes.”

—

It had been a few days. Ivan’s new office smelled of fresh paint and scorched patience. Behind his buffed steel desk, splinters from the Fabulous Hentai Brothers still freckled the corner and scarred the walls.

Arina entered, careful but resolute, carrying something wrapped in brown paper. She set it on his desk without a word.

“What is this?” Ivan growled.

“A gift,” she said. “For your wall.”

He tore the paper with a grunt. Inside sat a framed print of the meme that had started the ruinous comedy. Poor skeleton Stalin.

Ivan stared at the image for a long moment. His jaw worked and his breath rumbled. “Is this some kind of joke?” His voice was devoid of humor.

Arina lifted her shoulders, steady. “No, Starshy Praporshchik. A reminder. The meme is not real. The USSR is not being rebuilt.” She paused and held her breath. “And that is okay.”

For a long breath, he didn’t move. Then, something small cracked across his face, like ice breaking under pressure. Ivan Stanislav slowly rose from his chair, frame in hand, and crossed to the far wall and hung it crookedly on a nail, between a portrait of Lenin and a red banner. He stared at it and felt lighter.

Arina stepped close and, with the smallest smile, slid her arm around his back.

“You should have seen your face when I looked into your office,” she said, soft, a chuckle tucked behind her words.

Ivan let out a low rumble. “That music sure was loud, eh?”

Arina looked up at him and laughed, small but bright. “It was.”

And Ivan’s laugh answered hers. Big and full, filling the room and rattling the frames on the walls.

“DYAAHAAHAA!!”

—

It was the sort of failure the state intended to swallow without notice. Another exhausted keystroke in an endless night. Grigori rubbed his eyes, the vodka warm in his belly as he patched up the censors that were tied directly to Ivan Stanislav.

He tapped his mouse and closed the window. He’d scrub the log in the morning, claim a memory lapse, and move on. No one would be any wiser.

But the ad popped up anyway. A barrage of neon and Western music. The Fabulous Hentai Brothers blasted into his eyes and ears. Grigori froze, bottle midway to his lips, as the sound filled the small room.

P. Control by Prince.

He jabbed at the keyboard, hit mute, tapped close, then cursed and hit them again. But each time the ad replicated louder, brasher, and more absurd. More gyrating. More tentacles. Only when he hauled the power cord free and sent the monitors into darkness did the music stop, and he found peace.

Sitting in the dark, Grigori let out a short, hapless sound that might have been a chuckle. “For Russia,” he said to himself.