Provoking Nemesis

The Lives and Deaths of a Soviet

Baku, Azerbaijan, USSR, 1974 to Seattle, USA, 1992: Natalya was only six when her parents were killed in Baku. Accident? Suicide? Assassination? A Purge was suspected, her mother was a prominent Soviet scientist. But official Soviet records went missing, it seems—and so did the girl. Her father’s relatives in America were told she was dead. Instead, the gifted child was being twisted into an asset for the KGB while most girls were still playing with dolls. There are things in her past she does not recall—perhaps by KGB design. As a young woman, when Natalya failed as a field operative, her handlers lost interest. She was assigned to analytical work in a Soviet basement, unnoticed, and unauthorized as she accessed supposedly-lost archives. When the Soviet Union fell, Natalya fled to America to find her father’s family in Seattle. Now her future is assured. It’s only her past that keeps changing—she’s remembering. NEMESIS: In mythology, a Daughter of Nyx (Goddess of Night), from a word meaning ‘to give what is due.’ Also, an agent or act of retribution or punishment, sent to render justice on the mortal world. To provoke Nemesis, it to incur her wrath.