Excerpt: Tunguska Butterfly

Arkady never should have listened to that joke.

He couldn't help himself, though, since a good laugh was just what he needed. The winter weather was howling around him, and his stint on sentry duty wasn't set to end for another hour. Not that there was any respite waiting back at the barracks; the old men, soldiers with less than six months left until discharge, were running him ragged with chores and pointless jobs.

Even if he could sneak away, Anya had been giving him the cold shoulder. She just didn't understand that, despite the glamorous uniforms and patriotic posters, army men got room and board from the state, nothing more. Arkady had been earning a little hard currency on the side by sneaking out small items from the cafeteria—let no one say that the Soviet state did not provide for the lunching habits of the illustrious technicians of the V. I. Lenin Nuclear plant! But it just wasn't enough, especially with all that girl's loose talk of marriage…

So when the officer approached Arkady and asked if he'd like to hear a good joke, it was exactly what he needed.

"Don't look so nervous," the officer said. "I won't make you salute me for it."

"T-thanks," Arkady said, relieved. Most of the officers in his unit liked to swagger around, getting all big in the head because they guarded a nuclear plant. It was good to see they weren’t all like that, even if Arkady couldn't quite recall ever having seen that officer before.

"Tell me, comrade: in a perfect developed socialist system, would there be a KGB?"

Arkady wasn't quite sure how to answer that, so he kept silent.

"Of course there wouldn't," the officer said, laughing. "In a perfect socialist system, people will kick their own doors down in the middle of the night and arrest themselves!" He drove the punchline home with a hearty slap on Arkady's back.

When he reflected on the joke later—and there was plenty of time to do so in the stockade—it wasn't really that good. But at that moment it had tickled Arkady just right, and he laughed heartily.

"There's one more thing I'd like to ask you," the officer said.

Arkady nodded eagerly, expecting another knee-slapper.

The officer pointed the muzzle of an AKM assault rifle in Arkady's face—the very rifle that, until a moment ago, had been slung over the sentry's shoulder. "Is this your gun?"

Arkady swallowed hard. There'd be no living with the old men or Anya after this.