'Deceiver. Twist us. Gift us conviction.'
Unknown
Chapter 1: The Meet
She kicked viciously at her sheets, playing out her actions against whatever demons her mind had conjured up.
It was a fight for her life, and trapped in her own mind where her consciousness couldn't tell what was real or not, she was determined to go down fighting.
It was a pitiful sigh, tempered only by the fact that whatever was happening to her was not real. A gracious respite given that, by the beads of sweat seeping from her scalp, draining into the sheets beneath her, and the dying whimpers she gave every while, she was obviously losing.
"..O STO…!" the cry died in her throat as she jolted awake, tossing up the covers in a mid fight response. Scared, steel blue eyes, skipped across the room, half in half out of the delirium brought on by the horrors they'd witnessed-real or not.
Her breath came in deep gulps and stammers; her heart punched furiously at her chest; and the echoes of persistent nightmares rang in her ears. She shuddered once more despite her best efforts to fight it.
It had been so real…
A sob escaped her, and she hurriedly blinked back the tears that had started to cloud her vision. Even here, in her own apartment, and away from any witnesses, she would not allow herself to show any weakness.
She lay motionless for a while, too exhausted to even bother sitting up, choosing instead to embrace herself to ward off the sudden cold. She could feel her heart still hammering within her chest, the vibrations that travelled along her arms reminding her of just how fucked up she was.
Maybe if she could go back just a few months or years, she could correct whatever foolish mistake she had made that made her pursuers so pissed at her. Maybe she had known that this would eventually happen thanks to her controversy chasing fetish. She was always looking to expose the next big fish, to rip away the security blanket that the fattest cats wrapped around themselves to shield prying eyes from their backroom deals.
It was probably time they came at her anyway. She'd been poking at their underbellies for too long now, and had even begun to wonder if maybe she had a guardian angel or something.
And now here she was, cowering in the deep cesspit of despair and hiding out in the shadiest corners of the city she could find. 'Be careful what you wish for' she thought.
An icy breeze swept over her and she bit back a shiver. She glanced at her curtain looking for the telltale flutter of an open window but saw none.
'That is what you get for 3 Epra a night, shitty insulation and a cot for a bed'. She chastised herself humorlessly.
Figuring she wouldn't be getting any more sleep, she glanced at the cheap imitation watch she'd swapped for her thousand dollar Omega. Another sacrifice, if she hoped to survive in this murky world.
5 am.
It was as good a time as any to wake up and definitely better than yesterday's 3 am.
She swung off the rickety construct towards her mini-closet, wincing as her feet touched the freezing floor.
Maybe she'd write another scathing article about the state of the country, she thought, pulling on as many additional jumpers as she could find. Yeah, that would get those fat bastards attention, if they were still in the country.
She could almost see the paling visage of her editor at such an action. The hint of a smile appeared on her lips, before vanishing completely, as the funny image was superimposed by one of the images from her nightmares.
Such an action was more likely to lead to increased efforts to track her down, and despite the struggles and challenges she went through each day, she still believed she was having it relatively easy. It wouldn't do to rile up the sleeping hounds.
There may be a new quasi-legitimate government, but the likelihood of radical changes in freedom of expression was likely to remain as similar as those of other post Soviet states- Remote.
They would bid their time and see how thing turned out. What kind of leader the new, self declared interim high councilor, Lor Van, turned out to be.
So, until then she was stuck doing fashion reviews, business editorials and any other fluff pieces that would keep her as far away as possible from the current military and political storm brewing in Estenia.
It was necessary, but she hated every minute of it.
A hand stretched out within a poorly insulated room, as the owner gestured at what seemed to be a band of light tied around his wrist. The flash of images was brief but within it was encompassed a plethora of information on the current situation in Estenia.
His mind skimmed over the millions of signals in a matter of nanoseconds and committed the most pressing matters to memory.
He would need to send a contingent of his best to the Rweln ranges- a 'trouble' spot and highly attractive hideout for the remaining rogue government forces. The terrain would cost him in blood and munitions, but he was prepared to flush them all out at any cost.
A hum emanated from somewhere above him and he nodded in assent. Yes, if the ground forces needed it, he would gladly lend his Rebellions for supporting fire, although he much preferred to restrict the exposure of his only air force to possible retaliatory or capture attempts.
The sound of a shower coming on snapped him out of his reverie and focused his attention on the pitch he had prepared for this occasion. He was in completely uncharted territory, even in shared experience, but he was positive that the meeting would go on.
There was no other choice.
A few moments later found Amelia dragging her fatigued self out of the shower having decided to brave the lukewarm water and the chance of catching a cold. Nothing quite chased away the early morning sloth like wet hair in winter.
She wondered, faintly what she would be writing about today. She already had a number of potential pieces that could be submitted to her editor on short call, but she preferred to keep herself busy. She may have been shuffled off the political journalism scene, but she would be damned if she let herself descend into incompetence.
She grasped the bedroom door handle, wincing a bit at the sharp biting cold that travelled up her hand. She hated winter, just as much as any other Estenian- it reminded her too much of their fragility in this broken country.
She turned the handle and walked out.
The first golden rays of Sol touched the distant horizon and his eyes automatically sought out the lightening hue. He shifted subtly more in impatience than fatigue. If the sun rose before his host had shown up, he would consider this a fruitless approach and take a less passive role in moving things along.
The sound of shuffling feet reached his ears but he ignored it in favor of the view outside. His demeanor darkened with the ruined city he saw- a heavy price for chasing a distant hope.
Would she be willing to lose her life for this?
It would be a torture to remake it into a former image, let alone the purpose he sought to guide it towards. So he needed a follower not a leader. One who knew when to question him and when not to
She would know what to question, and could be taught what not to.
He registered movement in front of him, before the door he'd been facing swung open and he rose up in greeting.
And for the longest time Amelia just stood there.
Her heart thudded painfully in her throat as she tried to think of every possible reason this man was in her house- and settled on the most obvious.
"You're here to kill me." It wasn't a question.
All the scathing articles she'd written about his attempts at a revolution flashed past her eyes and for the first time in her career, she cursed her inability to leave the rich and powerful be. A deathly coldness settled in her abdomen, matched by the temperature outside for the despair it instigated in her soul.
She opened her suddenly dry mouth to say something, before catching herself mid inhale.
No. she would not beg.
If he was her death, then she would face him head on, just as she had done with her pen and ink. Her fighting spirit would allow no concessions.
"Have a seat." His russian was thick and flawless, and as off as it could be, considering she knew where that particular accent came from. Her vision blurred just a little as the terror of his presence finally solidified.
"What are you doing?"
"I have a -"
"Stop." She hadn't meant for her voice to come off as a whisper, but found herself unable to cover up the unsettled horror at his actions.
He tilted his head a little, observing her, before squinting his eyes minutely as he finally caught on.
"I apologize. I thought I could put you at ease by adopting the familiar accent; you seem jumpy."
A beat
She blinked…and snorted before she could smother it.
Something cautionary flashed in his eyes and she caught herself once more before she could slip up against such an unknown.
"You're in my apartment." She deadpanned.
"If I wished your harm, I would have left hours earlier and you would be dead." She didn't miss the reference to how long he'd been waiting in here- it had been deliberate.
He continued after a significant pause,"…however I am here over more serious matters than your prejudicial articles."
He gestured at the chair a few feet away from him. "Sit."
For an instant, her eyes flicked and lingered on the door to her apartment, until she saw him shift ever so minutely, his hand sliding casually to a previously unseen gun strap; the action visible enough to send a message of warning but strangely lacking outright hostility.
He would kill her if she tried to run.
She quietly moved towards the chair, if only for the curiosity of finding out what was so important that he'd waited hours for her to get up.
Lor Van observed the woman as she gingerly took her seat, noting the hints of a not so humble upbringing in the way she arranged herself in it. Her gaze moved around the room once more, in all likelihood looking for a weapon, before meeting his eyes, apparently satisfied in whatever half baked scheme she'd obviously thought up to escape him.
He scrutinized her more closely for a few seconds before nodding in confirmation, satisfied with his observations. She would do.
He turned once more to look out at the shattered city outside as he spoke to her, "Amelia Vidnyi, born 1974 , to Sertia and Gregas Vidnyi. Three live siblings, one deceased brother; a known uncle commonly used as a mafia facilitator. You were educated in your province before moving to the west for a degree majoring Political science and minoring in investigative reporting…all under the funding of the Mafia"
He paused, midsentence, to ensure he had her full attention. Satisfied with her increasingly worried gaze, he turned back to observe the first hints of the city's waking populace.
She was hardly paying attention as he continued on with her life history. He wasn't here to kill her? That was the dominant thought on her mind. Her eyes drifted slowly to the gun on his hip and finally to his mouth as he went on with his monologue, she knew she had been resigned to her fate, but the relief of not sucking in a bullet with her brain was genuine.
Did that mean the hunt for her head had stopped? She would not be too disappointed in leaving this place.
Unless he was lying…
She felt her spirits crumble like a wet newspaper. Ignorance truly was bliss, now all she could think about was just how this man planned to screw her over. This was a form of game to him, wasn't it? He enjoyed playing with his victims before he finally did away with them.
The vein on her temple throbbed as a flash of anger burned through her chest. He was in for a fucking surprise if he thought she would go down easy.
She considered once more the prospect of making a mad dash for the door, he seemed distracted enough with her boarded up window. Maybe she could make it.
A ray of light from the ceiling caught one of the two medals hanging off his uniform, and her train of thought tilted to consider them.
He had probably awarded himself those to seem more important, she thought in disdain, as she did a rapid search of his uniform for more undeserved awards. Not for the first time she wondered just what sort of a man they'd gotten for a ruler. Her father had served in the first war during the Soviet invasion and had almost lost his life on numerous occasions before he even qualified for one of those medals.
That this pig in his arrogance would deem to adorn himself in them was the basest of insults. Whatever little respect she'd held for him at that juncture promptly evanesced. It was time to bring this show to an end.
"What do you want?", she cut him off mid-word.
The cold calculating gaze that turned to meet hers sent shivers up her spine and just before she could attempt to decipher what it meant, it was gone. The mask that slipped on in its place was contemplative at her question.
"A president, Ms. Amelia, and you happen to be the most informed on the suitability of potential candidates."
Something sharp twisted in her chest as she realized where this conversation was going. It was dangerous ground. If Lor Van started leaving out the people in how their leaders were chosen, they would be right back where they'd started, only with a far worse opponent for their next revolutionist- if the speed with which this man had crushed the previous government was anything to go by.
"That is the sole right of the people, you cannot take out their contributions if you hope for any long lasting peace." She couldn't hide the fire in her words.
He gave her a dismissive look as he turned to glancing around at her room," that option has been tried and tested Ms Amelia, and the results so far are why we are here. The people choose fools each turn, and the brave and desperate had to rise up just as frequently to bring them down. Unlike them, I don't suffer the same mistakes repeatedly."
"Then educate them!"
"I am a scientist and a business man, Ms. Amelia, not a teacher. Let the sleeping dogs lie- isn't that how the saying goes? Fools are made to be ruled, whether they choose their rulers or not."
"That's not what you said in the speech you-"
"Public sentiment is invaluable even to me, Ms. Amelia, but not applicable to my goals."
"And what would that be?"
He looked at her for the longest second, before turning away in dismissal.
"Okay, so what? If you already intend to appoint a puppet regime why are you doing this? It certainly doesn't matter who you put there, they won't do anything you don't tell them to."
"Why am I doing this? Hm...Image, goodwill, entertainment, et cetera."
"You're a worse monster than they thought," she thought out loud, "I don't know what drove you to think you could enlist my help, but you are sorely mistaken." She paused for a moment considering her next words.
"I deserve this." She murmured, in self consternation, as she looked down at her hands, a visage of regret marring her countenance," I should have attacked your character more, I should have paid attention to the warning bells…should have seen this coming. You were too clean, too convenient, too good-"
"Don't bother yourself with regret. The outcome now, was inevitable. Your editorial pieces, while fascinating, would have achieved nothing."
"I wish I will be around to see you get your ass handed to you."
He gave a soft chuckle at that. It sounded unusual given the context, "You won't live that long Ms. Amelia."
The reality of the situation slammed into her visibly as she once again remembered why he was here. Her hands and feet tensed as the adrenalin that had dissolved, once more gushed into her system. She sought purchase on the arm of her chair, grasping it tightly.
He could see her preparing to attack him at his words. The slow twitches and stretches of her muscle announcing every obvious thought that raced through her mind.
He turned away from her once more.
"Stop. I have no intention of killing you Ms. Amelia, don't force my hand."
She didn't hear the words, her mind already in a haze of fight or flight. Her breath spiked a moment before she launched herself at his turned back, aiming for the gun hanging from his holster.
In the many moments through the coming years, when she would have nothing to do and inevitably come back to this moment, she would turn the attack over and over in her head, for any glimpse into what followed and would consistently draw a blank.
The warning signs had been there. His laid back attitude around a desperate potential victim, his careless exposure of his weapon to her, his effortless location of her hideout. Nothing in all this should have encouraged her then response in any normal situation, but she was desperate; and desperation breeds a wide variety.
In this case it was stupid and ill thought out. It is true what they say, the most life changing moments in our life are recorded down to the most mundane detail. The hardening of a jaw as a glance was thrown her way, the scrape of her chair as she pushed off towards him, the smell of gunpowder about his uniform and the surprising warmth of the gun butt as her fingertips grazed it.
The next moment was a blank in her memory- and would remain so for a long time to come.
When she regained her focus, she only knew two things for sure. First was that she hadn't gotten the gun, not really, and second, that she'd never had a gun barrel in her mouth before then.
Surprising herself, she slid her tongue along her teeth to check for missing pieces, before realizing what she was doing. She gulped, or tried to, the sound coming off as a strange half cough due to the unnatural position she found herself in.
She was going to cry.
He could see the mist flowing along her ducts as it accumulated, suspended in her eyes, giving them a glassy sheen.
His finger twitched towards the safety as he clicked it off.
What little strength had been left in her eyes, dimmed out as she finally came to the inevitable conclusion that this was where her short life ended. She squeezed her eyes shut, the action forcing the tears she'd so vehemently held back to slide down her cold cheeks.
He stood looking at her for a moment, observing, reading and noting, and seemingly having come to a suitable decision clicked back on the safety.
The slow drag of the metal against her teeth was the most awkward and humiliating thing she would ever experience, irrespective of anything the future would throw at her. At that exact moment, she knew that she loathed, and would always loath Kal Lor Van, with the very essence of her being.
She opened her eyes to find the gun still in her face, but with the handle facing the wrong direction.
She met his eyes. There was a question there and a warning as well. She rose to her feet from her crouched position, not daring look at him as her clammy fingers closed around the gun that had not some minutes ago been in her mouth.
He continued, "My father told me that there is only one way to show a person's real character. Give them absolute power and watch what they do with it." His eyes slid over to her for a beat.
She frowned, her mind reconciling the preceding events from innumerable tangents.
"You have the power now. What will you do with it?"
The temptation was there, oh, she wouldn't deny that. Every cell in her being screamed to shove that gun in his face and pull the trigger. She would be saving so many lives if she did, or would she? She didn't know, the man had just tried to kill her.
Okay, maybe he hadn't really tried, or she would be dead, but he had stuck a loaded gun in her mouth. What kind of person did that? She clicked off the safety. Was it really loaded? What if this was some kind of test, or game? It would be so awkward if she pointed the gun in his face and pulled the trigger to an empty gun.
Especially after he'd symbolically spared her life just to drive a message home.
She was sure she was missing something.
She looked at him expectantly just as he continued his speech," I have the world's most advanced air force at my command, Amelia, and everyone knows it. I just took out a soviet nation's full defense force with four Rebellion jets."
She glanced down at the weapon in her hands then back at him, in contemplation.
His eyes almost glazed over as he continued with…whatever this was, "I could rule you. I could crush you , and you would be absolutely powerless to stop me. It would all be so easy- and ultimately worthless."
She couldn't tell when she knew it, but she had the nagging feeling he wa no longer talking about only her country.
He seemed to have come back to the present as he finally focused back to her and the gun in her hands," Yet here I am, with my gun in your hands and completely at your mercy."
He turned his back to stare at one of her chipped walls, where a boarded up window smuggled in as much sunlight as it could. "You might not know it, but you've been screaming out your ambitions for some time now: with every corrupt politician and business man you bring down with your articles. Well, here's your chance. Prove me wrong."
The implications should have taken a shorter time to hit home, but her mind was still in a frenzy, over how rapidly events were shifting.
She turned over the words in her mind, trying to comprehend what the trick with the gun was. She knew she wasn't supposed to shoot him, but wha-
She couldn't help the gasp that escaped her, snapping her head to look back at him with disbelief as she finally caught on to what he'd been talking about for the past few minutes. What she wasn't been expecting was the look of approval and wariness on his face.
Then whatever doubt still lingered in her head was wiped away as he nodded in confirmation.
"Two years." It was all he said and with it her fate was sealed.
At some point her mind shut down as he explained in detail his course of actions, past, present and future. She had instead settled back into a dazed posture, studying the most dangerous person she had ever met.
He was a contradiction, meant to deceive you into underestimating him and consequently making extremely fatal mistakes, as she had just found out. He gestured languidly at some concept he was explaining, and she studied his hands as he did so. They reminded her of her father, with the almost feminine sculpt to them.
If there was a single memory that she associated with him, it was those greatest words of wisdom he'd once imparted in her presence after an embarrassing war of words between him and his brother.
"Never marry a man with calloused hands little Vidnyi, you will slave away the rest of your life alongside him. The true czars of this world have soft hands, for they never need work a day in their life."
She remembered reaching for his hands and feeling a tinge of disappointment when she found them to be slightly rough- but not as rough as her uncle's.
Her father had been the town doctor, and her uncle a mafia enforcer.
She nodded at something Lor Van had said, her attention shifting back to him in a millisecond, as he took back his weapon.
The ability to say something in so few words and have it impact so heavily on others was the holy grail in her profession.
Extremely difficult to come by even in the most seasoned of professionals but immediately recognizable to all.
And this guy seriously lacked it. Or maybe she was just tired, she didn't know, all she wanted was to just go back to sleep and wake up tomorrow having had the strangest dream ever.
"We are leaving. Pack your things."
Those words struck her out of her stupor.