Zhukov's Dogs

by Amanda Cyr

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  © 2014 Amanda Cyr

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  ISBN 978-1-62007-570-8 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-62007-571-5 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-62007-572-2 (hardcover)

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  Dedicated to the underdogs.

  Spoiler alert: we come out on top.

  Prison Cell 046, Eisenhower Building—Washington, D.C.

  Wednesday, November 25th, 2076—9:25 a.m.

  hree days. It had been three full days since Operation Oxford had taken off, and three full days since it crashed and burned. Three full days since I’d held him in my arms.

  I didn’t have a watch, or a phone, or even a clock on the wall, but I knew the patrol patterns of the guards outside my cell and added up the hours that dragged by. Sometimes they walked by in pairs, standing so proud and clean-shaven in their dark brown uniforms, as though the low-ranking canvas jumpsuit somehow made them better than me. Every time they looked down at me in my degrading prison garb, I stared them in the eye and watched as they fidgeted under my gaze and scuffled on. There had been one or two who had felt brave on the other side of the steel bars between us. They would snicker to their patrol partner and linger in front of my cell.

  “Still haven’t shipped this cretin off to the electric chamber?” asked a passing guard.

  For three days, I had controlled my temper when men like this mocked me. There were more important things on my mind, and with the recent injuries I’d sustained during Operation Oxford, I knew it would be foolish to risk hurting myself further. Oh, and I’d learned early on that the bars separating us were electrified. Such a brave guard to poke a wounded animal in an electric metal cage.

  Usually one quick remark was the end of it, but today I watched from my cot in the corner as a short-haired, female guard, new and nervous, replied, “Who’s this?”

  I couldn’t contain a snort from my corner. The noise of amusement seemed to annoy the veteran patrolman. He pulled his nightstick from the holster on his hip and rapped it against the bars, sparks shooting between them upon contact. “This,” he said, pausing to clear his throat, “This is Lieutenant Colonel Zhukov, former second commanding field officer of the Youth Infiltration Division.”

  Hastily the female guard stood at attention, just as any lowly grunt would when presented before one of Special Forces’ most elite—one of the chosen few, hand-picked and groomed from an early age to become an unstoppable force specializing in covert operations. As she raised her hand to salute, just as protocol instructed, her partner grabbed her wrist and scolded her.

  “Don’t show him any respect. Do you have any idea what he’s done?”

  “Why’s he in there?”

  “Bad people go to jail. This here is the guy everyone’s talking about, the one who betrayed us for a bunch of scummy revolutionaries.”

  Scummy was an appropriate way to describe them. Not in the sense they were bad people; they just didn’t practice the best hygiene habits. Who was I to judge anymore? I hadn’t showered in three days. My dark hair was uncombed, and the oily curls clung to my forehead and hung just past my eyes. I was overdue for a haircut, but I didn’t mind having my unusual eyes hidden. If anything, I was grateful I didn’t have to stare into them when I faced the mirror over the sink.

  I watched as the new guard’s face paled. Her eyes darted over to mine occasionally as her partner listed off the charges against me. Unauthorized disclosure of military information. Arson. Destruction of public and private property. Aggravated assault and battery. Conspiracy to overthrow the government. Thirty-seven counts of murder.

  “Thirty-eight,” I said. I didn’t like inaccuracies when it came to my line of work. Even if it contradicted the field report, I knew how many people I had killed that morning.

  The guard whacked his nightstick against the bars again. He must have expected it to scare me like it did the other prisoners he watched over. “Don’t think because your father’s a general, you’ll get any special treatment. You’ll be dead by the end of the week,” he scoffed. “Let’s go, Erin.”

  His partner lingered at my cell a moment longer. She was probably asking herself how an esteemed, high ranking officer like myself wound up locked away in the basement of headquarters with criminals and terrorists.

  Once they were out of sight, I stretched my arms up and locked my fingers together. Like the rest of the gray jumpsuit, the sleeves of the prison uniform were too big, and they slid halfway to my elbows as I stretched, revealing an unusual mess on my arm I’d nearly forgotten about. There were small squiggles in green marker with a clumsily drawn red bird in the center of them all.

  I lowered my hands and pushed the right sleeve up to my elbow so I could better see the drawings. They’d faded since the mute, seven-year-old girl drew them on me. She’d drawn them on all of us with her small collection of markers, for good luck, the night before everything fell apart. I traced the red bird with my thumb lightly so as not to smear the precious ink. Poor Zoe. The military might not recognize my thirty-eighth kill, but she certainly would.

  “Wait! Nik, wait a—” I flinched as Val’s last words darted through my mind, my thumb smudging the wing of the red bird. Quickly, I rose from my cot and hurried to the sink. There was no soap or hot water, but I turned on the faucet anyway and thrust my arm into the cold stream. I scrubbed and scraped until my skin was raw and the child’s drawing was gone.

  “Take care of my brother, Nik-Nak.”

  A slur of curses gracelessly fell from my lips as I doubled over to grip the sink with both hands. Zoe asked me to take care of him. I wanted to take care of him. When three-hundred Grey Men charged through the snow covered debris, I urged my friends on. I ignored their fears and baited them with their dreams of freedom. I pushed them forward and watched the snow turn red around me. As ill as it made me to think of the fate of my friends, I felt a small sense of relief in knowing none of them had made it back alive to tell of my sins.

  “Wait! Nik, wait a—”

  My index finger flicked back. The small, involuntary movement caused a sudden nausea to rise in my throat. All around me, my cell seemed to be shrinking. The reflection in the mirror of the bars behind me crept closer and closer. How many men threw themselves at the electric bars keeping them in? It was a cowardly escape. Even if I was a traitor, I was certainly no coward.

  I pulled my gaze away from the bars and pushed the greasy bangs out of my eyes. With deep, haggard breaths, I stared straight into the empty eyes of a man once feared and respected. Being born with a strain of heterochomia iridum made one eye a different color from the other—my right a pale green and the other a dark brown like my father’s. He said all great men in history had a defining characteristic. He told me when I was young that the world would someday look at my mutation with reverence, not amusement.

  “Zhukov.”

  As I turned to see why I’d been called, a series of sparks cracked between the cell bars. The electricity had been turned off. Everything around me stopped. The natural schemer I thought had died in me was back. I mentally ran through the layout of the basement, scrounged up memories of the building’s blueprints for exits, studied the stature of the two guards outside,
and determined who would be the easiest to disarm even if I was bound. And I did it all in the time it took the stout guard to say, “Approach the bars.”

  I did so without protest. As I reached the now harmless steel bars, a third security guard joined the other two. It was the new female recruit who had walked by my cell only minutes ago on patrol, and she was armed. Poor thing probably hadn’t even figured out how to turn off the safety yet. My hands itched with anticipation as I eyed the firearm in her belt. This was my chance.

  “Turn around. Both hands behind your back.”

  I scratched fingernails over sweaty palms before turning my back to the bars. For a moment, I thought about how they might flip the electricity back on just to watch me fry. There were much more important people who wanted to witness my demise, and these three would be foolish to try and rob them of their entertainment.

  I shut my eyes and listened closely as a set of handcuffs were pulled off a guard’s belt. The sound of the metal sliding apart was followed by a quick clink. I’d handled and been put in enough handcuffs over the years to recognize the length of the chain between them by how much time passed between the slide and the clink. Seven-tenths of an inch. Not quite short enough to put a damper on my plans.

  “Where are we going?” I asked calmly.

  “Right down the hall,” the stout guard chuckled as he reached through the bars.

  Panic surged through my veins, but I remained perfectly still. I knew what was waiting for me down the hall. There was no choice but to escape now. The bands of cold metal closed tight around my wrists, and the guard gave them a tug to make sure they were secure before saying, “Step away.”

  I took a short step forward and opened my eyes to stare down at my filthy, bare feet. The long shadows the prison bars cast on the floor slid aside. With my back to the unsuspecting guards, I felt no need to hide my smirk. The stout guard reached in and grabbed my arm to drag me out of the cell. Just as he pulled me around into the hall, I bashed my head straight into his nose.

  He groaned, both hands releasing me so he could clutch his face. The second male guard dove to check on his friend rather than try to restrain me, a clear sign of his inexperience, which made me laugh. The third guard, however, the short-haired girl who’d patrolled by my cell, reached for the gun at her side.

  I charged at her and watched any sense of duty or collectedness vanish from her face. With all three of them caught off-guard, I quickly hunched my shoulders forward and jumped as high as I was able. Barely did fractured ribs allow me to swing my cuffed hands under my airborne body, and the discomfort made my feet falter as they hit the ground again.

  The female guard freed the gun from its holster and raised it, stance wide and arms shaking. With my hands in front of me, it was easy to disarm her. I seized the barrel of the gun, pushed it toward her and down with a sharp twist, then yanked it away the second her wrists popped. She shrieked and dropped to the floor.

  If I’d known her scream would catch the attention of the guards stationed in the adjoining prison hall, I’d have broken her neck before stealing her gun. Half a dozen patrol guards rushed around the corner up ahead, raising their guns to fire. My reaction time was faster than theirs. I swung my bound hands over the girl’s head, jerked her upright, and pulled her tight to my chest before pressing her own gun barrel against her jaw.

  “Stand down! He’s got Erin!” shouted one of the guards.

  There was something unspeakably vile about using a human shield, but I couldn’t fall any further from grace than I already had. She scratched at my arms and shook so violently with fear, I could hardly keep the gun still against her.

  “On your knees,” I spat. “Weapons on the ground. Slide them over.”

  They all dropped to their knees immediately. A warm, somehow guilty tinge of satisfaction seethed in my chest. Most of the guards slid their weapons in my direction without hesitation, but there were two who held onto their guns so tightly their knuckles turned white. I raised my voice and barked at them, “You dogs hear well?”

  “Hear just fine,” said one of the defiant guards. I recognized him as he slowly got to his feet; he was the one who liked to rap his nightstick on my cell bars as he passed. “Don’t see why we ought to.”

  The tinge in my chest turned into a burning. Traitor or not, it seemed, I did not respond well to disobedience. I gouged the gun harder into my whimpering hostage’s jaw. She gave a cry which made the other guards, even nightstick guard, jump. “So, you want to see your partner’s brains blown out?”

  I didn’t mind baiting them or scaring my hostage. What I did mind was when another crouched guard rose, and then a third.

  “Of course not,” said one of the boys who’d gotten to his feet. There was a quiver in his voice which betrayed his tough-guy facade. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing the reward we get for putting a stop to your escape.”

  “Hear they’re looking to fill your old position already,” sneered the nightstick guard.

  They really didn’t teach these idiots anything about the kind of people serving in the Youth Infiltration Division. You didn’t threaten a Y.I.D. dog; you didn’t disrespect a Y.I.D. dog; you didn’t mock a Y.I.D. dog. Above all, though, you didn’t do any of that when the dog was armed. I’d kill every single one of them for getting in my way and proudly track their spilled blood out of the prison on my bare feet.

  “You could never do my job,” I said with a dry laugh. My index finger tightened around the trigger. It was an all too familiar sensation. My mind reeled. A pounding grew louder in my ears, faster, in perfect time with the heart lodged tight in my throat. Choking me. Killing me.

  “Wait! Nik, wait a—”

  I was not a person who made veiled threats. Y.I.D. dogs didn’t make veiled threats. Y.I.D. dogs didn’t hesitate to pull a trigger. Y.I.D. dogs didn’t think about the seconds leading up to their thirty-eighth kill.

  I wasn’t a Y.I.D. dog anymore, though.

  Why was I even trying to escape? There was nothing left for me. No one left for me. The pounding in my ears grew slower, but not softer. I swallowed. The knot in my throat dropped cold into my stomach. Breathe in; resignation. Breathe out; resolve.

  Without a word, I dropped the gun and pushed the frightened girl away. She scrambled quickly to join the rest of the patrol. Once she was out of the line of danger, I knew I’d be fired upon. Clicks of metal, safety switches flicked off, and all that was left was the shout of ‘fire’ from the nightstick guard.

  About time… Christ, how the hell did I even get here? I thought to myself as I shut my eyes and tilted my head back, waiting for the bullets to fly. I knew I deserved what was coming to me. It was a miracle I’d lived as long as I had. I let out a sigh which had been pent up for seventeen whole years.

  See you soon, Val.

  Basement Level 1, Eisenhower Building—Washington, D.C.

  Wednesday, November 25th, 2076—9:31 a.m.

  hat’s going on out here?” called a voice from down the hall. An executioner stationed in the electrocution chamber, perhaps, poking her head out to see what the delay was.

  “Zhukov tried to escape, Dr. Halliburton,” replied a guard in the firing squad.

  “I’m sure if he fully intended to escape, he would have done so. There’s a reason I requested Grey Men for this escort.”

  I looked over my shoulder to see the woman at the end of the hall. Even if she would be the one to flip the switch on the wall, I felt better knowing she thought as little of the patrol as I did. Executioners didn’t usually have a doctorate, though, and they certainly didn’t wear a magenta suit-dress and platformed black heels.

  “We were only moving him down the hall, ma’am.”

  “And you did a fantastic job,” she said, rolling her eyes before turning her attention to me. “Now then, Mr. Zhukov, would you prefer to follow me or would you rather I call the Grey Men stationed upstairs?”

  I had absolutely no desire to try my luck against Grey Men. Th
ey were the military’s genetically engineered equivalent of a tank, slightly larger than refrigerators in both size and weight. I’d faced off against more than enough of those nameless, brainless lab-rats-turned-soldiers in recent days.

  The disgraced patrol scowled and murmured amongst themselves as I walked down the hall to join Dr. Halliburton. Her sleek black hair was tied into a neat bun with a large, silver beetle clip fastened at the base. Even with her ridiculous shoes, she stood only at five-foot-three, almost a full foot shorter than me. She didn’t look like the kind of person who would take kindly to being called short, either. Through her thick glasses she looked me over intently, and as I approached, she gave a small gesture to the open door.

  I took a deep breath and prepared myself for whatever situation I was about to walk into. There was still a possibility she was a well-dressed executioner; a small possibility, but one I was afraid to overlook given the long list of charges against me. I took a sidelong glance inside the room and saw a simple metal table with a chair on either side and an enormous Grey Man standing in the corner. Relief flooded through me, and my shoulders sagged as I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. I was safe. At least for now.

  “After you.”

  She wasn’t being courteous; she was being smart. I entered the room without a word and took a seat on one side of the table. A camera in the corner moved to focus on me, and I got the feeling some very important people were watching from a safe distance.

  “My name is Dr. Halliburton,” she introduced herself in a stern tone. She opened the leather purse on the desk and fished through, pulling out a thin, magenta tablet before taking her seat. “Oof. Damn, these chairs are uncomfortable,” she said. I wanted to suggest she try sleeping on the cot back in my cell, but I held my tongue and kept my eyes on the camera in the corner.

  Her hand dove into the bag again and scrounged for a stylus, which she proceeded to tap three times against her tablet before finally settling in. She noticed my attention was elsewhere, and seemed to know exactly what I was looking at without needing to turn her head. “Smile for the camera.”