Our job is to dig, Vladimir Vladimirovich! Whatever we’re guilty of ourselves, we’ll find abroad.
I went under anesthesia for Botox and woke up as president. Strangers in white coats called me “Vladimir Vladimirovich,” and I switched on Mad Dictator Mode. I ordered: “Change clothes!” Then I gathered the heads of the power structures and scattered a handful of questions.…
I came back from the American prison a hero: I signed a confession that I’d served Russia, and received a little medal and a promise of a senate seat. Spaceflight is out for health reasons, but I set him a task: think up ten urgent reforms “as if you were the boss.” I mentioned Botox. I mentioned the card files. He figured out the rest himself.
I whisper in his earpiece how to carry himself. “Don’t ask three questions at once, Vladimir Vladimirovich, the jarheads aren’t used to it.” I suggested dressing me as an FSO officer and keeping contact from 10 to 100 meters. We’ll work as a pair for the first week.
He recalls lying with a rifle on a hospital floor, waiting for his hour. The hour has come. But the footage from space will show him something he did not expect: a sleeper on the ship, snoring like a dockworker. And the real Putin, beyond Earth, doesn’t yet know he is being watched from two screens.
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