There was always Krotov too. You didn’t need to copy Krotov’s mind. It copied itself. Krotov was fungal. He spread underground, attaching himself to the country’s root systems, trading information for nutrients. Krotov’s mind wasn’t in his skull: it was diffused in the soil. This thing in front of Nikolai called “Krotov” was nothing but a poisonous mushroom pushed up from the forest floor, born of the mycelium of violence woven through the dirt.
