by Jade White
“She was Dalit?” Sonja asked.
“Yep. Dalit caste. No one even looked sideways at a Dalit woman with a baby, that’s why it took two years to find her. She was good at what she did, almost a ghost. Russell inherited his ability to blend in and not be noticed in the human jungle from her.”
“Sounds like you misjudged her intelligence as well.” Sonja was smirking underneath her black hood.
“Yes we did. We took the Indian Government at their word that members of the Dalit caste were, for lack of a better term, slow.”
“Sometimes the sharpest wit develops in the worst circumstances.” Sonja said sagely.
“Yes, I know that now. Anyway, Megha, Russell’s mother’s name, plotted her escape while she was pregnant. We still have no idea how she managed to get away, but we think it was with the help of her translator. He was head over heels for her, despite the difference in social standing, I guess being in America helped wash that caste bullshit away, or something.”
“Probably, or maybe he was one of the rare ones who didn’t care about it to begin with.”
“Anyway, after two years of searching, we found Megha and Russell in the New Delhi slums. She was making pennies a day sweeping out gutters with him on her back. She wouldn’t give him up without a fight so we had no choice but to kill her.”
Sonja remained silent. She knew that Splicer babies needed to be removed from their mothers as soon as possible to prevent forming a strong bond. No wonder Russell seemed different than Yuri. He was lucky enough to stay with his mother for two years, despite the extreme poverty, he benefited from it.
“It took him a very long time to forgive me for what had to be done. I honestly don’t think he ever has. The implant kept him complaisant, at least, but his upbringing was anything but easy.” She heard Bankes run his hand through his cropped steel grey hair. “He killed three nannies by the time he was five years old. You figure a tiger cub would be cute, cuddly and harmless, not so when they wrap their sharp teeth around your throat and dig in. He was a sneaky little bastard too. The nanny was rocking him to sleep then BOOM, transformed and went right for the throat.”
Sonja shifted a little in her seat to encourage circulation in her legs. “Stop moving.” One of her guards barked.
“Oh come on, it isn’t like I can go anywhere. I’m out-gunned and we’re probably over open water right now. It would be stupid of me to do anything.” Sonja barked.
“Leave her be.” Bankes said. “After we calmed him down a bit, things went a bit better. He excelled in his academic studies and his physical training was phenomenal. He was the first successful splicer and the government was happy. They wanted to make many more like Russell. Covert ops that could go in and maul a target to death and come out with no one the wiser that we had been involved. Keeps our hands clean, politically.”
Sonja nodded under her hood. She knew exactly why the US and Russian governments created people like Russell and Yuri. She remembered the village that was slaughtered during the field trial of the program.
“So, now you know why he’s such a considerate softie compared to what Yuri was when he had his nuts.” Bankes said. “It complicates things greatly, but it also makes him very malleable. He’s more human than animal so we can work the human angle a lot easier. Getting him to comply with you in our pocket will make his reprogramming that much less complicated. Now, tell me a bit more about you, before we wipe your brain clean.”
“What’s there to tell? You have my entire dossier. Grew up in Pripyat until the Chernobyl explosion. Got moved out. My brothers died of cancer from the radiation, but I managed to get mild super powers. Once the government found out, I was carted off with other girls my age to the Ballet School, is what they called it. We were trained in hand to hand and small arms combat from early childhood.
Once we hit puberty, we were trained in how to use our sexuality to get information out of men. At first, no one wanted to do the practical exam. We were only young teenagers after all. After a few girls got raped in front of us, we decided to take the easy route. Well, it would still count as rape since it was coerced, but we learned, and we became good at it.”
“And you were considered the best.” Bankes said softly as he got up out of his seat and walked to where Sonja was sitting. He silently motioned the two guards to move to other seats, and sat down to Sonja’s right.
“You know you can’t do anything to me while I’m sitting here in cuffs.” Sonja jabbed as she guessed his motivation.
He snorted. “I wouldn’t want to fuck you. anyway. You’re not my type. I just wanted to get you a little more comfortable. Those two meatheads were eyeing you and I didn’t like it. The moment you are in danger, Russell will shake that sedative off and it won’t be pretty, so we need to keep you as calm as possible so he stays in his cat nap. Those meatheads don’t understand it.”
Sonja nodded. She had the basics of how the pair bond worked, but was not intimately acquainted with it. “Maybe you can fill me in. I know the theory; I was briefed on it when they stuck me with Yuri.”
“Alright, you know about the chemical pheromone he uses to attract you. Well, it also links you two telepathically to one another. You can literally get in his head and talk him down so he doesn’t need as big of a dose of adrenal suppressants. When I was his handler, we went through boatloads.” Bankes sighed. “He didn’t have to go under the radar like that. We were in the process of vetting various women. He could have done worse, though.”
“So you’re saying, if I think hard enough he’ll come out of his tranquilization and come after you?”
“Well, not exactly. He’s knocked out so hard that only an unconscious scream of adrenaline from you would jolt him awake. I guess the way it works is, you two protect each other because the same thing would happen to you if he got in trouble.”
“Ah, that makes sense, I guess.” Sonja replied.
“Anyway, you should get some sleep. It’s a decently long flight and you’re probably not going to be allowed to sleep once the reconditioning begins.” Bankes said as he gently patted her leg.
Thanks for the reminder, Sonja thought to herself as she rolled her eyes under the hood. “You’re right, I’m exhausted.” She tried to shift to get comfortable and shut her eyes and tried to snooze for the remainder of the flight.
*
The plane touched down at the undisclosed US Military airstrip. The mercenaries dragged the unconscious Russell off the plane first, and then Colonel Bankes took Sonja by the elbow and guided her out.
She felt warm drizzle on her bare arms, so she knew she was still either in a tropical climate, or it was summer again. She had to rely on her other senses to determine where she was located.
Sonja focused on the voices of the people around her and found them strangely mute. She heard grunts and other nonverbal vocal noises, but no actual speech.
Bankes said, seemingly knowing what she was trying to do.
“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” Sonja said as she was escorted into a large brick building.
She heard a heavy door slam behind her as she was roughly shoved into a hard backed chair. Her hood was pulled off, tousling her bright red hair.
Sonja blinked a few times to adjust her eyes to the bright light that was hanging above the barren room. She looked around and noticed there was nothing around her, no tables, and no chairs except the one she was sitting on. She looked up at Bankes and the two armed guards that were next to her, then to the large white screen that adorned the brick wall directly across from her position.
“You see, we were smart. The chair is bolted to the floor, so you can’t use it as a weapon. We have nothing in here for you to use. The projector is above us in a sealed booth, and the screen is just a large white sheet. You couldn’t do anything if you wanted to.” Bankes said.
“So, you know you can’t drug me into complacency so you’re going to go all Clockwork Orange on me?” Sonja quipped.
“To put
it mildly, yes. We can prevent you from falling asleep rather easily. You might be able to flush out our psychotropic drugs before they can have any reprogramming benefit, but, we can infuse an IV line with ephedrine and adrenaline to keep you from dozing off. You’ll be shown a movie until you break then we can reprogram you.”
Sonja snorted. “What about Russell?”
“We are repairing his implant. We plan on using that to reprogram him. It’s much simpler that way. We could put one in you but your mutate body would reject it. So, we’re stuck doing it the old way, well the old-old way.”
She felt a prick on the back of her hand and looked down. She saw a man place an IV line into her vein and start up the saline solution. “So what are we going to do about the bathroom?” she inquired.
“That will be the least of your concern,” Bankes said as he turned to leave. “Don’t leave her unattended. Two men on her at all times.”
She saw something move towards her eyes and pry them open. “Wow, Clockwork Orange all the way, huh?”
The guard tried not to chuckle. “Yeah, well, at least we have the eye drops. Fight and we won’t put them in, pretty simple.”
“Heh, sounds like a laugh.” Sonja said. She sat there and wormed her foot out of her sandal and felt around the base of the chair with her toes. She noticed that one of the bolts was loose and began to work it open with her toes. One bolt out of four, it seemed as if the chair was hastily bolted down. This could work in her favor.
The screen ahead flickered to life. One of the guards next to her slapped on a noise-cancelling Bluetooth headset. A low-pitched drone filled her ears. Great, she thought, binaural audio waves. A few drops were placed in her pried open eyes as she was forced to stare at the white screen as a hypnotic pattern was projected onto it. She used the mental conditioning she learned at the Ballet School to tune out the binaural waves and focus her thoughts inward as she fished for the second bolt with her toes.
She found the second bolt and began to undo it. Her guard put two more drops in her eyes as the film rolled on. Her toes turned the loose bolt silently as the noise droned on in her headset. While her toes were working at undoing the bolts, she wiggled her eyelids to work the speculums out without damaging her eyes. The two guards standing next to her were oblivious to her machinations. They were busy talking to each other about the football game from the previous night.
Sonja turned the second bolt free and silently placed it on the ground next to the chair. She scrunched her forehead muscles one more time and painfully forced the metal forceps out from her eyelids and on to her lap. She then dislocated her thumbs and pulled her hands out from the straps that held her arms to the chair.
As the guard reached down to put more drops in her eyes, she grabbed his arm and snapped it, breaking it at the elbow. The man collapsed to his knees and was quickly dispatched with a heel powerfully applied to the temple as Sonja surged up from the chair. The first guard was twitching on the floor before the second one could even react.
She turned around and swiftly removed the MP-5 the other guard was carrying and aimed it at his head. The man put his hands up in surrender. Everything happened so quickly he had no time to react otherwise.
Sonja ripped off the headphones and threw them to the ground as the unconscious guard gurgled and choked in his death throes.
She stared into the man’s blue eyes that were peeking from behind thick black rimmed glasses. His square jaw that was lined with blonde stubble was clenched in fear. “Lll...Look,” he stammered. “I have a kid, he’s autistic, and I’m just here because...”
Sonja didn’t care. She unloaded a short burst from the MP-5 into the man’s face and he fell, twitching, to the ground. She needed to find Russell and fast.
She opened the door that Colonel Bankes exited from and jogged down the dark hallway. She heard Bankes’ muffled voice from behind one of the closed steel doors. She slowly turned the handle so as not to alert the people inside. They were all facing away from the door, even the armed guards. Russell was restrained to a standing frame.
His head nodded groggily as he hung cuffed and shackled to the frame, dressed only in his boxer briefs.
“Wait for him to come out of it.” Bankes instructed the man in the white lab coat. “He needs to be fully awake, and tuned in to the woman’s thoughts before we start to reprogram him.”
“How about one more shot of epinephrine?” the ginger haired scientist asked while he pushed his glasses up his wide nose.
“No, the dose you gave him is fine.” Bankes replied. “He’s starting to come out of it now.”
Russell’s amber eyes fixed intently on Sonja as she hid in the shadows. He tried to hide the feral grin of satisfaction that crept across his face, but couldn’t, so he directed it at his nemesis.
“You seem happy to be here, Russell.” Bankes began. “Glad to see it.”
“Oh I’m not happy to be here at all. I’m actually pretty pissed; you must have me hopped up on extra dope to keep me from changing.”
“Nah. Just your restraining collar and the frame. You know that. It’s not like you haven’t been here before.”
“Well I haven’t been here.” Russell said, it, implying he hadn’t been to this particular black site before.
“No, I can’t say you’ve been to this particular area of the globe, son.” Bankes deftly avoided the attempt to fish out the secret location of this building. “Now, your pretty little plaything will be pretty zonked out by now, so I think it’s time to start with your end.”
“Good luck with that.” Russell said with a grin that showed his pointy canine teeth. His face was growing more feral and his hair was growing longer. “Because,” he snapped one arm restraint with super human strength. “This is the wrong,” Russell snapped the other restraint just as easily, “setting!” He broke the two ankle restraints simultaneously and landed in a crouch on the cement floor.
He reached up and ripped the restraining collar off his muscular neck and turned his head around to stretch the muscles. The surrounding scientists hurriedly scrambled out of the room, knowing what was going to happen next.
Russell knew that it was the right setting, but since Sonja wasn’t incapacitated, he was able to break free of the restraints, and he didn’t need Bankes to know that just yet. He reached deep down into his psyche and tapped his rage. He felt his animal self call out and meet the anger head on and the transformation began.
He felt his bones move and change shape underneath his skin, his hair lengthen and his bodyweight double. His human mind went into a type of sleep as his tiger form took hold.
He stood there in all his feline majesty. His orange and black striped fur shone in the bare incandescent lighting. His amber eyes focused on Colonel Bankes and narrowed dangerously as he padded closer to his intended prey.
Sonja heard his voice clear as a bell in her head. “You can come out now. He won’t make a move with me on him.”
She moved out of the darkness and towards the waiting Russell. Bankes’ eyes widened as he saw the lithe red headed Russian step towards the hulking tiger.
“You really thought that shoddy bolt job would keep me contained?” Sonja asked. “And you claimed to have read my dossier. The Ballet School taught me many things that my dossier didn’t even graze.”
Russell growled deep in his throat as he stalked closer to his former mentor. “Tell him, that we will let him live if he tells us where we are and gives us the jet to get off of here.”
“Why would you want to keep him alive?” Sonja thought. “He’ll just come after us again.”
“He might, but he also might not know exactly what’s going on and what’s at stake.”
“You have too much faith in this man. He knows exactly what is going on. His name is on the documents I left in the hostel.”
“They are no longer at the hostel...” Russell said as he nosed Bankes. “He found them and put them in his pocket after he dragged us away.”
; “Hand them over before I get Russell to chew your balls off.” Sonja said as she held out her hand.
“Hand what over?” Bankes said as he nervously eyed Russell.
The giant tiger pounced on the muscular man and pinned him down. Russell allowed a gob of drool to drip down one fang and onto the panicked man’s forehead as he stared him in his ice blue eyes.
“Ok, once again, hand the SD cards over.” Sonja barked.
“You know this will completely ruin me. My career will be over, my wife and kids will be destitute.”
“You don’t have a wife and kids, ” Sonja replied. “That shit won’t fly with me and you know it.”
“Yes, that’s true isn’t it? Did you kill your guards? You must have if you’re standing here.” .
“Maybe I did. None of your concern. Just two less mercs for you to pay.” Sonja said bleakly.
“Yeah, one was an okay guy, but the man with glasses; he was such a shit pump. I guess this was his first ever tour and all he ever did was whine about how he missed his video games and shit, sometimes he even pretended to be sick to get out of missions, I guess.” Bankes was clearly nervous and was attempting to direct the conversation away from the SD cards.
