The next time I saw Irina was nearly four decades later, standing over the dead body of Josef Stalin.
Stalin lay on the floor of his private quarters in Kuntsevo, sprawled at Irina's feet. She stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head as she looked down at him.
"I'm starting to notice a pattern here." She said it without looking up when I entered the room. She knew it was me, after all; she'd summoned me here from China. "Human gets power. Human abuses power. Human subverts the cause of the workers' revolution."
I crouched beside Stalin's body, letting the mask of my current prime identity--Mao Zhedong, President of the People's Republic of China--melt back into the face I'd worn so long ago as Vladimir Lenin. "I thought he was a great choice, too, Irina. Just like ever
