Vor: The Playback War

by Lisa Smedman

  Just as Soldatenkof would when . . .

  The thought evaporated. Alexi forced himself to swallow. His mouth was suddenly very dry. He spat on the floor—and when the beam of his helmet light caught the puddle of spit, he shuddered.

  Gripping his AK-51, he walked toward the ceiling collapse, every nerve on alert.

  “Alexi!” Piotr called. “Where are you going?”

  “Stay here, Piotr,” Alexi said. “Or follow me. Whichever you choose. But I have to see what lies ahead.”

  Piotr muttered the Neo-Soviet soldier’s favorite curse—a suggestion that Alexi have intercourse with his own mother—but followed him a moment later.

  Carefully avoiding the broken electrical wires, Alexi climbed over the pile of rubble. It was a tight squeeze; the debris under his boots shifted, and he smacked his helmet against the fallen light fixture. Static crackled in his ear. He could hear Soldatenkof berating the squad for having found nothing yet. The leitenant’s voice was slightly slurred, as if he’d been drinking.

  Alexi slid down the other side of the blockage and found himself in a large room. He shined his light around it—and stiffened at what he saw. Piotr clambered in behind him, and Alexi heard a sharp intake of breath.

  “Oh Christ,” Piotr whispered. “There must be a hundred of them.”

  The room was a laboratory of some sort, filled with what at first glance looked like aquariums. The glass sides of dozens of small tanks reflected Alexi’s helmet light back at him. Several of the tanks were broken—probably by the partial collapse of the ceiling. But about half were intact. The insides of these tanks were frosted over, as if covered by a thin layer of ice. But that icy coating was melting, leaving clear patches. Through them, Alexi could see tiny apelike creatures, about the size of cats, squirming inside the tanks. Each was curled in a fetal position, with muscular arms wrapped around its torso and spines down its back. Even as Alexi and Piotr watched, one shifted inside its tank, scraping its spines across the glass. Both humans took an involuntary step back.

  Alexi glanced at Piotr. “Growlers?” he whispered.

  The other soldier nodded, eyes wide. “The scientists must have been breeding them.”

  Their voices were almost lost in the hissing noise that filled the room. The air held strange smells: ozone, medical disinfectant—and a sharp acidic odor that made Alexi shudder. He suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

  Alexi cleared his throat, then spoke into his helmet microphone. “Leitenant Soldatenkof, do you copy? This is Corporal Minsk. We have located several dozen—”

  The roar of Piotr’s Uzi filled the room, making Alexi’s ears ring.

  “What’s wrong?” Alexi shouted.

  Then he saw it. Scuttling across the floor toward them was a tiny growler with a horn jutting out of its forehead. Its multicolored skin was as pretty as a parrot’s—a wild mottling of red, yellow, and turquoise—but its mouth held a vicious collection of fangs. Despite the bullets that gouged its flesh, it ran straight for Piotr’s leg and sank long, wickedly sharp fangs into his calf.

  Screaming, Piotr pointed his Uzi straight at the thing and blasted it with a hail of lead, oblivious to the bullets that were also pulping his own foot. Alexi brought his own weapon to bear—and only under the combined firepower of assault rifle and submachine gun did the thing finally release its hold. It scuttled away under a bank of cryotanks, leaving a smear of steaming ichor on the floor.

  Piotr sank to his one good knee, groaning. He dropped the Uzi and grenade on the floor and clutched his ruined leg just below the knee. His pockmarked face was white with shock.

  Just then, Alexi heard a cracking noise. He spun toward the tanks, illuminating them with his helmet flash. A row of spines was jutting through the glass of one of the tanks, cracking it open like an egg. Even as he watched, the crack grew and spread.

  “Christ,” Alexi muttered. “I’ve got to get out of here.” He started backing out of the room, AK-51 leveled at the tanks.

  “Alexi!” Piotr begged. “Don’t leave me.”

  Alexi hesitated. The other soldier was still clutching his leg, unable to move. His trouser leg was soaked with blood; a large puddle was spreading on the floor around his boot. Already he was trembling with shock. The only way he’d make it out of here was if Alexi carried him—all the way to the surface. And with something—something larger and even more menacing than the dozens of little growlers in this room—following him every step of the way.

  Piotr’s eyes pleaded with him. But Alexi reminded himself that this was the soldier who had shot Tamara. And that Piotr was a dead man, anyway. If the growlers didn’t get him, radiation poisoning eventually would. The thought steeled Alexi’s resolve.

  “Don’t worry,” he lied. “I’ll get help. Just hang on until I get back.”

  He turned and ran. As he scrambled up and over the pile of debris that had collapsed into the corridor, he glanced, once, over his shoulder. He shuddered at what he saw.

  Four of the glass-walled cryotanks cracked open at once, spilling infant growlers onto the floor. Landing on their apelike feet, they immediately bounded for Piotr. Three of them sank slavering teeth into the wounded soldier, chewing gaping holes in his sides. The fourth clamped its jaws onto Piotr’s face, cutting off his scream. His hands fumbled until they found the frag grenade, which he primed with a last desperate twist. Then the grenade exploded, showering bits of human and growler across the room. A fragment of bloody steel zinged off Alexi’s helmet, knocking the speaker in it out of commission.

  Heart pounding, Alexi ran down the corridor as fast as his feet would carry him. Piotr had said the yellow stripe led to the surface. All Alexi had to do was follow it . . .

  But even as he ran, he knew there was no way out of this dungeonlike corridor. Not for him. Not this time—or any other time.

  Alexi screamed as the thing he had been expecting bounded toward him out of the darkness: a growler about the size and shape of a chimpanzee, but with exaggerated muscles and metallic spikes radiating out of its spine. The creature skidded to a stop, distended its fang-filled jaws, and began to cough.

  Weeping with fear, Alexi leveled his AK-51 at it and squeezed the trigger until the weapon was hot in his hands. The bullets bounced harmlessly off the growler’s hide.

  Then it coughed a wad of acidic phlegm onto Alexi’s chest.

  Collapsed on the floor, dying as a puddle of spit ate into his chest, Alexi was filled with a single thought that kept repeating itself.

  Not again. Oh Christ, not again . . .

  12

  Y ou,” the leitenant said to Piotr.

  “And you!”

  The barrel of the leitenant’s Viper jabbed into

  Alexi’s chest. Startled, he took a step back and looked around.

  He saw shattered gray walls, a dull red Neo-Soviet star emblazoned over a gaping doorway, pavement choked with rubble, and a large crater in the ground to the left. Snow drifted down from an overcast sky. Alexi looked up and saw the glaring eye of the Maw, rising behind the clouds in the east, a dull clot of fire in a leaden gray sky.

  Was he back in Vladivostok? No, the air was too quiet, too still, the landscape too flat and bleak. Somewhere else then.

  The last thing Alexi remembered was the briefing. Had he suffered another blackout? Then it came to him. This must be Tomsk 13.

  Thoughts tumbled wildly through his mind as he fought to find his mental balance. All the while, Soldatenkof kept screaming at him.

  “. . . hear me, Minsk? That was an order, you mindless drudge! Or do you still think you’re too good for this squad?”

  Alexi’s self-preservation instincts cut in. “Yes sir!” he shouted. “I mean, no sir!”

  The rest of the squad laughed.

  They stood next to a helicraft whose engines were still gently chuffing as the rotors wound down. Snow whirled across the ground as if invisible dervishes were dancing. The rear hatch leading to the helicraft’s cargo bay stood ope
n; Alexi heard a washboard-scraping noise and saw Vanya hauling spare tanks for his chem-sprayer down the drawbridge-style door. The other squad members stood around in greatcoats and gloves, holding their weapons and breathing steam into the cold air.

  Alexi tried desperately to remember what Soldatenkof had just told him. His mind came up blank. He glanced down at the leitenant, and the visor of his helmet, which had been stuck open for days, slammed shut, causing another ripple of laughter. Cursing the army’s useless equipment, Alexi forced open the visor—and suddenly had an idea.

  “Pazhalsta, Leitenant,” he said hesitantly. “Could you, ah . . . repeat that order?” He thumped a hand against the side of his helmet. “The speaker in my helmet is acting up again. It’s all static. I couldn’t hear you.”

  The vein throbbed in Soldatenkof’s forehead. He had to unclench his jaw before he could speak. “I said that you and Piotr are to get your worthless carcasses down there.” He pointed at a hole in the bottom of the crater. “You’re to do a recon of the basement-level corridors. Look for intact rooms—for laboratories. Contact me by radio immediately if you find any cryotanks.”

  Alexi stared at the hole in the ground, and the darkness that it led to. A shudder of déjà vu washed through his body. The leitenant was asking him to step into a hell filled with growling demons. Alexi somehow knew that if he went down there, he’d never come out alive.

  “But Leitenant . . .” he protested.

  Soldatenkof was suddenly in his face. “Minsk,” he hissed, “if you refuse a direct order, you’ll be disciplined.” His hand was on his Viper.

  “I’m not refusing to go . . .” Alexi stammered, knowing full well that he was. He glanced at Piotr for support. The pockmarked soldier was pointedly ignoring him, tying the chin straps of his ushanka. “It’s just . . .”

  Inspiration struck. If Piotr was wearing a fur cap, that meant he didn’t have a radio.

  “It’s my helmet,” Alexi said. “Its radio isn’t working properly, and Piotr isn’t even wearing a helmet. We won’t be able to radio you if we find anything.”

  Alexi held his breath. It was unheard of for Soldatenkof to back down once he’d issued an order, no matter how ludicrous it might be. He’d rather shoot his entire squad and carry out the order himself than allow a lowly private to contradict him. But there was a chance that the leitenant might think that locating the cryotanks was important enough to . . .

  “Nevsky!” Soldatenkof shouted. His eyes never left Alexi’s.

  “Da.” Nevsky’s answer was resigned. He stared accusingly at Alexi from under a brow that was mottled with radiation blisters that were as red as the star on his helmet. One hand scratched the bare spot where an eyebrow had been.

  “You’re on the recon with Piotr,” Soldatenkof said. “Move out.”

  Grumbling, the two soldiers began clambering down into the crater. Alexi sighed his relief.

  “As for you, Minsk,” the leitenant continued with a malicious grin. “You’ll stay up top here—where the residual radiation is strongest. Pair up with Irina.”

  Alexi gulped.

  “Now let’s find that growler!” the leitenant shouted. “Boris and Vanya, head north. Irina and Alexi, south. Move out, and prove yourselves worth your rad pills, for once. A bottle of vodka to the team that bags the pup!”

  Chuckling to himself, the leitenant watched as the squad trudged away in twos, then climbed into the back of the waiting helicraft. Alexi saw him reach for something under the seat, then tip a bottle to his lips.

  “Coward,” Alexi muttered to himself—keeping his voice low enough that his helmet mike wouldn’t pick it up. Then he trudged after Irina across the snow-dusted rubble of the research facility.

  After they’d rounded one of the bombed-out buildings, Irina turned and put a hand on Alexi’s chest. Her other hand covered the microphone in her helmet.

  “I know you’re lying,” she hissed. “Your helmet was serviced while we were on leave.” Her brown eyes stared up into Alexi’s. She was a tiny, wiry woman, no taller than Soldatenkof. But her eyes were as fierce as a mink’s.

  She jerked her head to the left. “We can cover more ground if we split up. You continue south, and I’ll scout to the east. Radio me if you see anything.”

  Alexi wasn’t about to argue. Maybe if he was on his own, he could find a place to hunker down and take shelter from the radiation that was probably beaming from every above-ground surface. He glanced at the snow that swirled around his boots, and wondered if it carried a deadly dose of gamma radiation. The snowflakes were melting on his cheeks, trickling down onto his lips . . .

  “Da,” he told Irina. “I’ll keep in radio contact.”

  He trudged away, AK-51 in one cold hand. If he just kept walking south, he would eventually reach the Trans-Siberian Railroad. He could hop a boxcar west to Moscow and lose himself in the huddled masses of that decaying city. . . .

  Then he laughed at himself. Who was he kidding? If the ground was as hot as the leitenant had hinted, Alexi would die of radiation poisoning long before he made the capital. In his imagination he could already feel the gamma radiation beaming in through his greatcoat, soaking into his skin, making it itch. Without the army’s antirad pills, he was a dead man.

  As he trudged along, Alexi’s stomach grumbled. Patting his greatcoat, he found a food paste tube inside one of its pockets. He slung his AK-51 over his shoulder and unscrewed the lid. He squeezed a wad of brown goo from the bottle and touched the tip of his tongue to it.

  He spat to get the taste out of his mouth. The stuff was moldy. Wiping flakes of snow from his glasses, Alexi read the label: sausage. He grunted. More like oatmeal and glue, with a little rancid fat thrown in to help it congeal. But that was nothing new. All through history, soldiers had been forced to make do with substandard rations.

  Alexi screwed the lid back into place and put the tube back in his pocket. Then he started walking again, choosing his direction at random. He wasn’t really hoping to find the growler. He was just hoping to stay warm. And alive.

  Alexi’s boot clunked against something on the ground. Looking down, he shuddered as he saw a helmet that was perforated with jagged holes. The ragged ends poked toward the inside of the helmet. Alexi pictured one of the growlers chewing on the head of a soldier, punching those holes through heavy-gauge steel. He wondered who had worn the helmet, and what her final thoughts had been as she died. Had the MVD soldier realized that the battle was already lost—that her own military was about to drop a neutron bomb on her? Was her ghost laughing now that the growlers were spreading out across the tundra of Siberia, infesting the wasted Earth like an opportunistic disease?

  The radio in Alexi’s helmet sputtered static. Tovarish Alexi! . . . hear me?

  So his helmet radio hadn’t been fixed, after all. The static glitch was still there. But the visor had been oiled—it flopped down again, and instantly fogged up with breath. Cursing the army technicians, Alexi wrenched it open again.

  “Alexi to Irina,” he answered. “Your transmission is breaking up, but I can—”

  Irina’s voice continued to crackle in Alexi’s ear . . . moving toward you.

  Alexi tensed, remembering their mission. The growler they had been sent to kill could be anywhere. He glanced around at the multitude of hiding places offered by the collapsed walls and piles of blasted rubble. He suddenly wished that Irina hadn’t chosen to go off on her own.

  “What was that, Irina? Pazhalsta—please—can you say again?”

  A burst of automatic-weapons fire split the stillness of the snowy air. This time, Irina’s voice was less calm. Her breathing sounded heavy, as if she were running.

  . . . is approaching your . . .

  Alexi saw it then: a low, dark shape sprinting toward him down the gap between two of the bombed buildings. Snapping the butt of his AK-51 to his shoulder, he pointed his weapon at the moving figure, trying to get it in his sights. It was small, the size of a dog—and fast.
>
  Alexi fired a burst—and missed.

  Impossible to hit as it swerved with superhuman grace, the creature zigzagged from cover to cover. Cold sweat sprang from the pores under Alexi’s arms as he tried to train his weapon on the moving figure, knowing that this minute might be his last. The radio in his helmet blared a static-obscured warning.

  Alexi had only a second to aim his assault rifle as the creature burst into the open and hurtled toward him. Then he saw what it was. Too late—a stream of bullets erupted from the AK-51 with a deafening roar.

  The dog Alexi had just shot yelped with pain as a bullet struck it, and flopped over onto the pavement.

  Adrenaline still pumping through him, his assault rifle warm in his hands, Alexi ran to where the dog lay whining. It was a hound—a purebred, by the look of it. A once-beautiful animal, like the wolfhounds Alexi’s grandfather used to keep. Alexi remembered them romping with him and his sister along the turquoise waters of Lake Baikal. He’d known it was impossible for a boy to outrun such sleek animals but had foolishly bet his sister that he could do it, even so. And when the dog won, racing to the finish line drawn in the sand in response to his sister’s whistles, Alexi had reluctantly surrendered his favorite toy dinosaur to her. He didn’t tell his sister that he’d planned on giving the toy to her anyway, on her birthday. It would have spoiled her fun at “winning” the bet.

  Those were the heady days of childhood. Before the Change, before the war. These days, even a skinny dog like this one would be lucky to avoid being butchered for the cooking pot. Alexi wondered what it was doing in Tomsk 13.

  Setting his weapon aside, he reached out to stroke the hound’s grimy fur. As his fingers ran along its neck, Alexi felt the sharp points of shoulder bones under the dog’s wasted flesh. The dog shuddered under his hand—a death throe?

  Three years of fighting had numbed Alexi. But a lump welled in his throat as he compared the memories of his grandfather’s dogs to the wasted animal that lay in front of him. Curse the war, for making Alexi take the life of such a beautiful creature as this dog. Humans could choose to fight and die, but animals were caught in the middle of it. Hungry, scared, abandoned, and without masters to tend to them, they were the true innocents.