(After sitting on this unfinished episode for two years, neglected for lack of time and interest, I've decided to throw up what I've got. The complete story was planned to be five or six chapters long with an M rating.)
The Angel of Lubyanka
Encounter I: Curiosity (beta)
Headquarters, Municipal Department of Peace Protection
Lubyanka Square, Moscow
May 27th, 2016
8:21 PM
The word 'sexy' did not come to mind when she looked at herself in the washroom mirror. She might have been a looker once, before her nose was broken and not set perfectly straight again. The scar which bisected her left eyebrow didn't help, nor the conspicuous limp when she walked. To her peers these traits were badges of a degenerate life, like the frayed fawn suits she wore to work and the bronze bust of Engels on her office windowsill. To her, it was all part of the job.
Cold water splashed over her hands and gurgled down the drain. The faucet squeaked when she grasped it, throttling the liquid's flow to a languid drip. Shaking stray droplets from fingers tipped with plain nails, she sidestepped to the dryer. Hot air roared over damp skin, carrying away residual moisture, and then she was out the door and on her way. She took the stairs down from the third floor, because it was good for her, and took a few moments to adjust her tie before she signed out in the lobby.
The fat, bald figure of Commissioner Baryshev entered as she was laying a palm on the biometric scanner. "Good evening," he hailed. "First time I've seen you leaving early."
"It's going to be a night of firsts." The scanner chirped in approval. "Nikolskaya awaits."
"Nikolskaya? Not another case?"
"Not this time." She resumed her walk, gliding between the sentries posted on either side. "See you tomorrow, Sidor."
She'd always thought, privately, that the Lubyanka building ought to have a grand flight of steps at the foot of its ornate edifice, something more befitting the gravity of the work carried out within its walls. Exiting directly onto street level, she looked both ways before crossing the traffic lanes. The cold spring had finally lifted, and the coming night would be a warm, if overcast, one. All the better for her purposes.
Coming to the roundel in the center of the square, she jumped the curb and jogged up the shallow steps to the inner ring, experiencing a twinge of anticipatory pleasure as her breasts bounced inside her shirt. Then she swung left, orbiting the Embodiment of Loving Unity on its flower-skirted pedestal. The monument was a sign of the times, as alike to the old statue of Dzerzhinskiy in style as it differed in spirit. If Iron Felix stood for Lubyanka's past, the entwined figures which replaced him were very much its present.
On the far side, identical steps ran back down to the curb and more lanes partitioned with white paint. Beyond them lay the woman's destination, marked on the maps and in the tour guides as Arume Street Number 486, but only bureaucrats and tourists called it that. To the locals, among whom she counted herself, Nikolskaya was Nikolskaya.
The aliens had closed the street to vehicles when they took it over, installing an arched gateway to regulate the flow of pedestrian customers. It was bracketed by armed Arume, this position demanding higher trust than the male guards at her workplace. The contrast between guest and gatekeeper was almost comic: she in her suit and scuffed venetians, they in their pristine white leotards and optic enhancement visors. She picked up a hint of a curled lip as they looked her over, but they held their tongues while she passed.
The gateposts were fitted with a matched pair of engraved plaques, the street's rules written on metal with a mirror polish. She knew the words, knew all the regulations of conduct, but she stopped at the left hand sign anyway. Opaque azure orbs stared back at her in the gap between the administration's crest and the first paragraph, framed by snowy hair in an unpretentious bob cut with bangs parted at the center.
She turned her head one way and then another, examining her reflection with a critical eye. The nose wasn't too obvious, though there was no hiding that scar. What about her clothes? Too plain to pass for formal wear, better to try looking casual. Spurred by that impulse, she pulled off the tie and crammed it into a coat pocket. Next came the shirt, the top buttons unfastened and the collar opened to display a healthy expanse of skin. A hand on her hip and a lopsided grin rounded out the ensemble.
Most properties in the Arume streets were directed at two kinds of client: those who longed for the comforting familiarity of the old world, and those who wished to experience the delights of the new without leaving the shelter of the fortified Blue Zone. The woman from Lubyanka was neither. She kept a steady course down the middle of the street, uninterested in the kaleidoscope of neon signs or the couples meandering about.
The establishment she sought lay on the north side, not quite halfway down Nikolskaya's length. In keeping with the proprietor's taste for aesthetic modesty, it was marked only by a pale cyan lantern and an inscription over the doors. The district hosted no less than four of its kind, but this one particularly suited the visitor's wants. She stopped one more time to smooth her hair and straighten her coat, then reached for the doorknob.
Her shoes tapped the polished tile floor inside, timing her stride with a metronome's beat. Statues of white marble, sculpted into classical visions of feminine beauty, stood at intervals along the sides of the entry hall and looked down upon its patrons with serene, colorless expressions. This patron didn't return their gaze. She'd seen them all before, standing among banners of yellow tape in the middle of a cold, rainy night.
The girl at the reception desk checked her ID and waved her through with a perfunctory smile. Crossing the threshold into the commons chamber, she was greeted by a blended aroma of exotic liquor and female bodies, with a background ambiance of low sighs and moans. The room was dark, save for the narrow beams shining down from the lamps above every booth and table. Indistinct forms undulated in the shadows outside the pools of light.
Immediately to the left was the bar, tended by an Arume in a brown waistcoat and rolled-up sleeves. The burnished pin above her breast pocket displayed her name, Arandel, in three alphabets. She was polishing a glass with a square cloth as her next customer walked in, a pretense to keep up traditional appearances while the sterilizer under the counter did the real work.
Her mouth tightened when she laid eyes on the newcomer. "Is there a problem?"
Her voice jogged the visitor's memory: Arandel had been working the bar on that night as well. "I hope not," the woman in the hand-mended suit replied, offering a placating shrug. "I just got off duty."
"Ah." The bartender cleared her throat. "What can I get you, Major?"
"Can't have any booze..." The prospective buyer glanced at the listing printed under the counter's transparent surface. "A large cranberry juice, please. No ice."
"Coming right up." Glasses clinked as Arandel reached under the bar. "Tab or direct charge?"
"Direct." They'd already have her account information from reading the ID card. Might as well take advantage of that convenience, given the absence of alcohol in her evening plans. "Looks like a full house," she remarked. "Business been good lately?"
"Yeah." A tall glass, brimming with dark liquid, clunked as it was placed on the bar. "More people have been coming since the Kiyevskiy bombing. They think it's safer here."
A pleasant chill and tartness together slipped across the major's tongue. "They're right."
Arandel nodded, but a careful eye could see she had some other problem on her mind. "Do you want anything else?"
"Not now, thanks." Another sip, and a pause to savor the aftertaste. "I hope I can find a seat."
"If you don't mind sharing, try booth twelve." Arandel inclined her head towards the far side of the room. "She's already checking you out."
"Oh?" It wouldn't do to respond to a stranger's attention immediately. She drank leisurely and set down the glass, then gave a measured look over her shoulder. "I'll try my luck there."
The bartender smiled. The warmth didn't reach her eyes. "Enjoy your evening, Major."
"Thanks." A protective instinct guided her hand as she laid it atop Arandel's. "Whatever they're saying, don't let it get to you."
Arandel averted her face. Leaving it at that, the major collected her juice and withdrew. Somewhere in the crowd, a voice cried out in ecstasy.
Booth twelve's right hand seat was occupied by a tall girl with lean features and brunette hair cut short – Jean Seberg in that one Godard film came to mind. The glass on the table in front of her was nearly empty. She appeared to be engrossed in a paperback book, the title of which was obscured by her fingers, but the appearance did not deceive: her attention wasn't on the text. The woman coming towards her had seen that attitude too many times to count, most recently in a pockmarked man with a rust-speckled Tokarev and half a kilogram of narcotics under his jacket.
Stop that, she admonished herself, and then she was standing in front of booth twelve and the tall girl was looking up at her and she couldn't remember any of her delicately composed opening lines. "...Hi," she ad-libbed brightly. "Would you mind if I joined you?"
The girl's voice was gentle, precise and neutral. "Go ahead."
"Thanks." The major eased into the opposite side of the booth, weary vinyl sighing beneath her. "I didn't realize it would be so full here."
"Mm..."
Fingers shifted, revealing a name on the novel's cover – a name the woman knew. "Strugatskiy brothers?"
The other's cool indifference warmed minutely. Her eyes, the woman noted, were a dilute emerald hue. "You know them?"
"I've read a couple of their stories." When they were relevant to my work. "What's the title?"
"This? Hard to be a God."
"Do you like it?"
The girl's lips turned up at their corners. "I couldn't say," she confessed, putting the book aside. "I've been turning the pages, but I guess my mind was on something else."
Definitely. "Were you waiting for someone?"
"Maybe I was waiting for you."
The woman from Lubyanka liked the sound of that. "I came for pleasant company and intelligent conversation. Are you on my frequency?"
"I could be." The girl picked up her glass, swirling the orange liquid at the bottom. "What's your name?"
"Berakiel," the major replied. "And yours?"
"Simonova, Nadezhda Natanovna."
"Nice to meet you, Nadezhda." Berakiel leaned forward, laying her crossed forearms on the table. "Do you do this often?"
"It's my first time. My classmates come here with their girlfriends... You could say I'm trying to catch up." The forime smiled self-deprecatingly. "Yourself?"
"First for me too," Berakiel confided. "Call it peer pressure. My coworkers think I'm too dedicated to my job, too much staying late and sleeping in the office."
"What do you do?"
"I work for the insurance company." It was a joke known to all in Moscow. "Stakeouts, crime scenes, whatever they need."
"You're a police officer."
"Detective. In Lubyanka they call me 'Comrade Major' to my face and 'Dirty Vera' when they think I'm not listening."
Nadezhda seemed amused. "Then what should I call you?"
"Vera' is fine." Berakiel interlaced her fingers. "So what's your plan for the evening?"
"I don't have a plan," the girl answered ruefully. "Before you came, I thought I'd stay long enough to watch Mariya and then just go home. You're the first one to speak to me since I got here."
"Seriously?" Berakiel blinked. "A nice young woman comes in, she sits alone, and nobody talks to her?"
Nadezhda shrugged. "It's my height," she said, her expression stoic.
The alien could believe it. Even seated, this girl was taller than her – and her own stature was above average compared to the native women. "I don't mind," she declared. "I think you're very pretty."
"You don't have to flatter me – "
"I mean it." Berakiel sensed this topic made Nadezhda uncomfortable and diverted the conversation's flow. "Did your classmates recommend Mariya?"
"They said I had to see her in person... She's a dancer, is that right?"
The major nodded. "I've only heard about her secondhand, myself."
Not exactly the truth, yet not exactly a lie. Berakiel knew quite a bit about Mariya Igorovna Smolyakova thanks to the scrupulous work of the Lubyanka background-checkers and archivists. Mariya herself was clean, as all who worked in the Arume street had to be: it was her extended family whom the police were interested in.
"Do you go to any other parts of the Arume street?"
"Bars and brothels aren't really my thing." Another patron moaned loudly a few booths away. Berakiel took a gulp of cranberry. "The one down in Tsaritsyno," she continued, "four-eight-eight, they've got a theater. I go there sometimes."
"Is it good?"
"Depends on your taste... Personally, I like what the new director is doing. Last season's repertoire was very tame, very safe."
"And now?"
"This month they're showing 1959 Pink Thunderbird, alternating performances in Arumic and Russian. I saw both."
That detail pleased Nadezhda. "You speak our language very well," she commented. "How long have you lived here?"
"Four years. I was in Saint Petersburg for three before that." Holding the girl's attention felt strangely gratifying, and Berakiel wanted more of it. "You?"
"I'm from Novosibirsk. I came to Moscow to study."
"You've come a long way. What are you studying?"
"Visual arts. I sketch and paint, mostly architecture and landscapes... I play tennis on the side, just to keep fit."
"Interesting combination. You need a good eye and a good hand for both, I expect."
"Yes." Nadezhda finished her drink and set the empty glass beside Berakiel's. "What about you, Vera? Any hobbies?"
"If you ask my colleagues, my hobbies are sleeping on a couch, eating cheap takeout and polishing Louise."
The girl arched an eyebrow. "Polishing – ?"
"Hm?" Realization came to Berakiel a few moments too late. "...Oh! No, no, it's nothing like that. Louise is my riot gun." She gave pause to wet her throat once more. "I suppose my hobby is riding the metro... It's like a game I play, on my afternoons off. I pick a line color and a number of stops, and I explore wherever the train takes me."
"Sounds romantic." Nadezhda cocked her head. "But isn't it dangerous? There are a lot of places in Moscow we're told to avoid."
"I do okay," the Arume assured her, "and not just because I have a badge and a weapon." The juice was starting to lose its cool, though not its strength. "Being polite and listening to people are what matter."
"Nobody... bothers you?"
"I can't say it never happens," Berakiel conceded. "For me, the good experiences are worth putting up with the bad... If I didn't go out there, if I didn't take any risks, I'd miss so much of this city. I wouldn't have discovered the amateur chess-boxing club or the Sviblovo parkour – "
The table lights dimmed, and the murmur of the crowd died away with them. For a few seconds gloom encroached all around, then a brighter radiance flared behind Berakiel. "That must be Mariya," Nadezhda whispered, squinting at the glare.
"Yeah." Berakiel twisted until she could see over the back of her seat. A ring of spotlights were trained on a semicircular stage with a gleaming metal pole reaching up to the ceiling at its center. "Can you see all right?"
"I'm fine." Nadezhda slid her body to the right. "Sit over here, don't strain yourself."
"Thanks."
Berakiel ducked low and scooted around the table's end as Nadezhda raised an arm to shield her eyes. That motion invited the observer's eye to trace the lines of her hand and wrist, follow the contours of her shoulder and down her side to her waist.
[TBF]