2
Tony didn't own any vehicles that wouldn't draw attention, so Michael and Natasha took a cab most of the way to their destination. They got out several blocks away, and started walking.
"Это так же, как в старые времена, Мишенка."
"How exactly does it work that you get to call me Мишенка?"
"You betrayed me."
"You betrayed me, too!"
"Less."
Michael wasn't sure what to say to that, so he refocused on tactics. "We should speak Russian from here on out. If they ask around about us, we don't want people two blocks away saying we spoke English like Americans."
Natasha nodded but didn't say anything. Michael recognized the look on her face as the one she got when she was mentally transitioning into a cover ID. She didn't take on new identities as quickly as Michael, but with a little time the transformation was much more complete, and much less reliant on intensity of personality or people's assumptions about a certain type of person.
"Мы надо пить эти," she said after a few minutes, handing him a small vial full of an unnaturally bright blue liquid.
"Что это?"
"Капитан не рассказал тебе?"
"Нет, он рассказал мне только 'сыворотки'."
"Эти 'мутант сыворотки'. Эти будет позволят нам казаться мутантов."
"Как эти работают?" Michael eyed the vial suspiciously.
"Вирусный генной терапииб но...быстрее."
"Постоянно?"
"Нет, но у етих есть...странные ресультаты"
Michael's look of suspicion deepened, but having once gotten in this far he didn't have a lot of choice. And in any case, he'd found you don't get nearly as far by not doing things. Before he had time to think himself out of it, he drank the contents of the vial in one gulp.
It tasted terrible, sour and metallic like licking an open cut, combined with something musty and dangerous that he was somehow sure was exactly how spiders tasted.
"Интересно," said Natasha.
"Что?,"
"Такое же дело ранше случался."
"Такие же 'результаты'?"
"Да," Natasha switched to English for the technical vocabulary, "It's just perceptual. I can see energy outside of the visual spectrum."
"Like what?"
"Infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays like you're putting out right now."
"Like...I'm putting out?"
"You're also glowing in the visible spectrum."
"How do I stop?"
"Непрекращай, это полезный. Но прекращай рентгеновские лучи, эти опасные."
"Как?".
"Я не знаю. Как ты излучат?"
Michael didn't answer the question. He closed his eyes, his face talking on the same look of calm but intense focus as it did when he broke into safes.
"Лучшье?"
"Да. Ты думаещь ты можно менять цвет твоего света?"
Michael nodded once and the cloud of light around him became gradually more visible as it shifted from white to brighter white to purple and then blue.
Весело?
He was having fun, figuring out the kind of mental pressure needed to tell the energy permeating and radiating from his body how it was supposed to act. But all he said was "Голубизна хорошая?"
"Безупречно. Мы Пришли."
The front lobby of the building looked like pretty much any mixed use professional building: spacious, brightly lit, and painted a color that could have been called seafoam if it were lighter and more saturated, with a pair of elevators on one wall and windows across most of the front. The signs that there was anything unusual going on there were subtle: the absence of a directory on the wall, several very visibly armed guards, and a front desk staffed by two guys with short haircuts who started watching Michael and Natasha the moment they stepped through the door.
Please don't get your feathers ruffled about a woman taking the lead.
Natasha strode over to the front desk and flashed her security badge, speaking very quickly in Russian. Michael hung back, allowing her to take the lead and waiting for some signal of what he was supposed to do next. Michael liked to plan everything out in advance, so that there would be no question of what to do in any eventuality, but Natasha didn't, and there was no point in laying out a plan if she wouldn't follow it. So he waited until Natasha said "Идите слюда!"
Michael approached hesitantly, wiping his hands on the white lab coat he was wearing as though to get rid of excess sweat.
"З-здраствите," he said, "меня зовут Игор К-казимирович Sokolov."
"Он новый." explained Natasha. "Он осматривать системой распределения."
"Рочему меня не рассказывают он шёл слюда?" One of the guys asked.
"Вы знаете Сашу последнее время..."
"Безумный", Michael half whispered, saying what he was fairly sure they were both thinking.
The guard nodded once, and glanced around nervously as though he thought someone might be watching.
Taking his agreement as permission to pass, Natasha and Michael walked past him without another word and got into one of the elevators. Natasha tapped the shimmering dark gray stone on the necklace she was wearing and whispered "We're in."
