by Anderson, S
Nikolai doesn’t even offer the man a glance.
“This is something that your government provided us with. SP-117.”
I’m about ready to drop to the floor when I hear Claymore mumble something about that not being possible.
It’s possible. He used it on me.
“There’s no such thing,” Nikolai says.
“Then this won’t have any effect on you,” Heinrich says, jabbing the needle into the side of Nikolai’s neck. He rubs the spot once the injection is finished.
I count seconds in my head, watching Nikolai’s shoulders, his cheeks, even what little I can see of his eyes. One hundred seconds after he’s injected, I notice a slump in his posture. His breathing grows more labored.
I remember how that shit felt in my blood.
“Bloody hell,” Claymore says.
“Now, General Zolkov, are you a member of an elite team of super spies?”
“Fuck off,” Nikolai says. His words are slow and slurred.
“It will hurt less if you just tell me the truth, General. How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” Nikolai says without difficulty.
“What country do you serve?”
“Russia.”
“What is your weakness?”
Nikolai swallows a few times before he can’t make his mouth close anymore.
“What is your weakness, General Zolkov?”
“Poppy.”
My heart stalls in my chest. I don’t want to see anymore. This is some sick joke. Heinrich is fucking with me.
“You have a poppy tattooed to your chest, do you not?”
“Yes.”
“What is the significance of that?”
Nikolai’s head hangs forward. His entire body looks too heavy all the sudden. “I lost a friend.”
“So your weakness is those you care about, yes?”
“Yes.”
I know that’s not the entire truth. He admitted that I’m his vulnerable spot.
“I don’t want to hurt your friends, General. I just want to talk to one, as I am talking to you now. Tell me, who is the best code specialist in your group?”
I’m lightheaded all at once. It’s me. Heinrich wanted him to give up me back then.
Your brain is truly amazing, Penelope.
Nikolai’s breaths are so strained that my lungs burn as I try to keep time with his. He sags against his binds.
“Who, General? Give me one name, and I will end your pain, let you rest.”
“Me,” Nikolai says.
“No,” I whisper. Heinrich wants a code specialist. He wants me.
“Are you volunteering to join our cause, General?”
“I’m the best,” Nikolai says. His breathing grows harder. He’s having a difficult time lying. “Me. I’m the best. I can do all of it… the best. It’s why I was recruited as trainer. You want me.”
I can’t argue with that. Nikolai does have proficiency in all of our fields, but he’s not the best at this. We both know he’s not the best.
I return to the seat next to Claymore. He’s slumped against his computer now. I wonder if I did hit an artery after all. I can’t be bothered to help him right now even if I did.
My focus is set on the screen.
“Very well,” Heinrich says, waving to a guard to give him another syringe. He stabs him in the back with it.
Nikolai’s labored breathing calms, his body relaxes, and the pain on his face clears.
He’s not Nikolai anymore.
“Release him,” Heinrich says.
The soldiers unlock Nikolai’s binds. He doesn’t try to fight, doesn’t do anything but sit there, staring at nothing.
“Stand General Zolkov,” Heinrich says and Nikolai follows his command without hesitation. “You will now become Subject A and begin your training.”
“Oh God,” I hear myself say. My hands shakes, my entire face twitching as I start to rock.
That’s me. It’s him, but it might as well be me. Right here, right now. I’m not fighting. I’m not questioning.
I’m his puppet.
“No… no… no…” I look to Claymore, seeing the blood run down his leg. “Please don’t tell me this is real.”
“Shade,” he says with a smile. How can the bastard smile at a time like this? “It’s good to see you again.”
“Oh God.” I fall out of the chair, onto my knees, and pry the knife free of his leg. It's a clean wound. Most he’ll need is some stitches and maybe some blood at this point.
He must just be a bleeder.
He shoved the mask down from his face long ago, and I rip it from around his neck, using it as a tourniquet.
“Keep your hands wrapped around that as tight as you can,” I say, cleaning the blade and my hands off on his pants.
“What are you going to do, Shade?”
I kiss his cheek. “I’m going to do what I should have done ten years ago.”
“What?”
“I’m going after Nick, and I’m not going to let him go.”
“I’ll just wait here and bleed to death then, aye?” he shouts as I run out of the room.
15
I navigate my way back to the main corridor with crystal clarity. A major part of my mind is telling me to not trust this. It’s part of the game. He’s made it difficult.
He’s trapping me again.
The part of me that got back up every time Nikolai Zolkov kicked my ass down is telling the paranoid part of my brain to sit down and shut up.
I’ve got this.
The information Claymore gave me infiltrates my mind as I try to figure out where Nikolai will be this time of the day. We’re at a DMG facility in Siberia. When Nikolai was pronounced dead ten years ago, he was really brought here to be experimented on. I’m fairly certain what that adds up to, but I’m not concerned with solving that mystery right now.
I need to find Nikolai.
I hear footsteps ahead of me and slow my pace. Two minions cross the hall a few feet in front of me. They’re too absorbed in their conversation to notice me.
The security around this place really is shit.
I don’t remember seeing guards with weapons in the halls. The footage of Nikolai had some, but that was a decade ago. Heinrich found some other way to keep his secrets safe since then.
I remember what Claymore said about the snow outside, the remote location of the building. It makes sense that they wouldn’t feel as threatened within the facility. What’s someone going to do if they break out? Die of hyperthermia a few feet from the building?
I assess my objective, to find Nikolai, reasoning where he would be. Usually he’s two steps behind Heinrich. Heinrich left because he had visitors.
Where would he entertain guests?
He was prepping me for a game. It’s a stretch, but maybe I was going to be the presentation.
I work my way down the hall to the observation room. The four walls within look identical, but I’ve wondered from time to time if one is a façade that I can’t see through but someone on the other side might be able to see in. I press my ear to the door of the observation room when I get there. Hearing nothing, I move to the next door. Nothing again. I open it and walk in.
Bingo.
A table, some chairs, and monitoring equipment, including a camera on a tripod are inside this room. The set up faces a floor-to-ceiling see-through wall.
Memories of tortures done to me in that room surface, and I shove them down.
I need to find Nick.
No one’s in here, but as far as I can tell, no one was alerted to the fact that I was taken, either.
Think, Penelope
I was unconscious when they originally brought me in. I don’t know if there are other levels and floors to this building. I don’t know how many halls or rooms it contains. I’ve been pretty useless in the information-gathering department.
Work on that, Poppy.
I have to decide what to do and fast. Claymore d
oesn’t have forever to wait for me.
I exit the room, turning to head further down the hall when I hear the echo of leather soles against the tile floor. It’s more than one pair, and voices are added to the noise as they draw closer.
“I’m pleased you gentlemen could make it on such short notice,” Heinrich says. He talks so loud it echoes through the hall. “As I explained in my report, Subject B is proving to be a worthy candidate. Over the past three weeks, she’s pushed further and harder through the program than Subject A has in over a decade.”
He talks about Nikolai and me like we’re just dishes he’s growing some fungus in. We’re byproducts, nothing more.
“What is demonstration you have prepared for us, Doctor?”
I recognize the heavy Russian accented voice, and it confirms the suspicions I had from Claymore’s findings.
The sound of their shoes stops for a second. I can imagine Heinrich stalling them for a theatrical preface.
“I thought it would be interesting to play both subjects off of each other. Subject B has been induced with a hallucinogenic suggestion many times that requires a specific trigger to free her from the effects. I’m interested to see if a placebo effect can be put into action.”
Placebo effect. He was just going through the motions of prepping me earlier, convincing me that this would be just another game.
He wants to see if I’d kill Nikolai of my own free will.
Well, his plan technically worked. I just stabbed the wrong man.
They start walking again, and I run into the observation room, situating myself in the far corner on the floor. I don’t have any place I can leave Claymore’s knife. They’re not big on giving you useless things like socks and shoes, or bras and underwear. I slide it behind me on the floor.
It won’t matter if someone sees it now. I’m going for the gold—free us or bust.
This isn’t how I wanted it to go down. I wanted to get him out quietly and get a head start before Heinrich even realized we were gone.
Very little ever goes the way it's planned.
I’m curled into myself, my forehead resting on my knees when the door opens. I don’t have to look up to know it’s Nikolai.
“Are you going to fight me today?” he asks.
You bet your ass, I will. I don’t say it. I keep my face pressed to my knees.
Something heavy hits the plastic chair in the center of the room. I peek up, seeing it’s a shiny revolver—just like the ones in the dreams.
My palms sweat. My cheek twitches.
I know this is real. I know killing him won’t do anything but actually kill Nikolai.
But conditioning is a fucked up thing.
I can’t count how many times I’ve been in this room. Had this sort of square off with this man and just walked up and pulled the trigger. So many times that there’s a habitual part of my brain that’s seeing me walk through the motions as I stare at the gun.
My hands shake. I clench them into fists.
I will not kill him. I will not kill him. I will not kill him.
“That seems a bit extreme,” I say, nodding to the gun.
“It’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” he asks, cracking his knuckles. “All of this time. Ever since you compromised my mission to kill you, it’s all been about this. One of us completes the mission. The other faces final failure.”
Final failure. That sounds like a 90s video game I used to play.
“So you’re not going to let me make one last argument for who I am?”
His already angry mood darkens. “You’re not her.”
I spread my arms, touching my palms to the walls on either side of me. “You remember that last weekend in Norway?”
He didn’t expect me to ask that. He stops mid-step and stares at me like fire is shooting from my fingertips.
I slowly ease myself up, keeping my hands flat against the wall to help root me in the moment and not give in to the conditioning.
“You’re not her.”
I nod. “Yeah, I got that, but do you remember it?”
His cheek twitches.
“You remember that coffee shop? The one with the waiter who kept making your drinks too strong and bitter because he wanted to ask me out.”
He looks down, not at the floor, but at the memory I’m jogging in his head.
“You wanted to rip his head off. I could tell. But you were a gentleman. You even left him a generous tip.”
“She called me a…”
“A hero,” I finish for him. “You remember I bought you that dorky comic book on the walk back to the hotel?”
I’m overcome with a little ray of happiness from the memory. That was a good day. One of the best. It’s why I kept the comic after he died. I carried it around in my—
“Backpack,” he says. His voice is hollow, hushed. “It was in the backpack.”
“Yes,” I say just as quietly as he did.
His body jerks. I’m getting through to him.
“I don’t want to fight you, Nick.”
I will him with everything inside of me to break free. I know how hard it is. I know the only thing that feels right anymore is the comfort of the routine—even if the routine is something I hate.
He takes a deep breath, shaking his head.
“Please, Nick. Don’t make me fight you.”
“No,” he says, his frame tightening as he stands tall. “No choice. We fight.”
He charges toward me, bypassing the gun. Typical Nikolai move. He won’t go for the easy road. He’ll deliver an ass-pounding with his fists and boots, and then he’ll hand me the gun and encourage me to put myself out of my misery.
I know I have the knife. I can grab it and let him impale himself on it. That would end this before it even begins.
I will not kill him.
I run at him, ducking as he swings his arms. I grab the back of the chair for balance and roundhouse kick him square in the chest. He gets a hold of my waist and yanks me away from the chair. My hands and face hit the ground as he drags me all the way across the room.
“I’m not your enemy,” I say, twisting out of his hold and rolling away.
“Doesn’t matter. My mission is to kill you.”
I crawl as fast as I can to the chair, reaching the gun just as he grabs my ankle.
“No,” I scream. He kicks my side, forcing me to double over and let go of the gun. I cough as I try to catch my breath.
Nikolai grabs the gun.
“That’s not your mission, Nick. Your mission was to help the innocent souls of the world. To be a hero. You told me that was all of our missions.”
I hold my elbow against my side as I try to sit up.
Nikolai points the gun at me.
“You’re the good guy, Nick. You’re the hero. You want to know how I know?”
He’s stone cold, still aiming at me, but he lets me explain.
Blood drips into my mouth. I oddly find comfort in the taste. Pain reminds me that I’m alive. “Ever since I was brought here… every time I realized the you I was seeing wasn’t really you, I killed you. Every single time. Hell, I want to kill you right now even though I know it’s really you.”
His smile is smug like I just proved his point and not mine. He thinks I’m giving evidence to support the fact that I’m not his Penelope. But he doesn’t know this version of me.
“But you,” I say, spitting out the blood pooled in my mouth. “You spent the entire time on the run with me, telling me I wasn’t me, and never once did you try to kill me.”
His eyes widen. I still get a thrill out of surprising this man.
“That’s why you’re the hero,” I say. “You’re the good guy. Me? I’m the one drowning in sin. I kill my friends. My enemies. People I’ve never met. I’ve become the evil you trained me to fight.”
His cheek twitches, but he’s not lowering the gun.
I’m out of words. I’ve pled my case. It’s in his hands now.
; He takes one step toward me, and then another, and another.
I’m bracing for the shot when he kneels down, turning the gun in his hand and holding it out to me. “You’re wrong,” he whispers. His eyes shine with emotions. “She’s… you’re the only one of us who could do that. The only one who can touch that evil and still be good.”
“Nick?” I mouth, more than actually say.
I don’t think he’s broken completely free, but he’s done with this game.
“Save the day,” he whispers, smiling my smile.
I grab the gun and a fistful of his shirt, pulling him forward to plant a hard kiss on his lips. “If you insist.”
We jump up in unison. I turn and shoot directly into the center of the fake wall. A chunk of it explodes into the other room. I hear screams and shouts, a few curse words in Russian.
Heinrich presses his narrow face to the hole. It’s as wide as the black-rimmed glasses that frame his face.
“I hope this skews the hell out of your data,” I say, shooting again.
He ducks fast enough to miss the bullet, and I don’t stick around to shoot again. Nikolai and I take off running down the hall.
“How do we get out of here?”
He looks around, pointing down a hall that’s identical to a million others around here. “There.”
I trust he knows what’s what. “Okay, first we have to find Claymore.”
“Agent MacNeal? He’s here?”
“Yeah, he came to break me out.”
“He did?”
I nod.
He clears his throat. “You two are… close… aren’t you?”
Oh, I’m not even going to deal with that shit right now. “Just…follow me.”
“What are we looking for?” he asks as we turn down another hallway.
“Computer room… servers… large viewing screen.”
“That’s this way,” he says, grabbing my arm before I can make a wrong turn. “You get him. I’ll hold off the guards.”
Guards? I haven’t seen a single one. “There aren’t any—”
“All the technicians are armed,” he says, finishing my thought. His thumb rubs my elbow as our eyes meet. “Stay there. I’ll find you.”
I reach for him, but he’s already in motion. The man moves like the wind.
