Chapter 8: Voice of Reason
You could kill him.
The voice bubbles up through the cracks like magma, hot and hissing.
The resentment is there, just beneath his skin, seething in his pores and singing through his nerves.
They play with forces they cannot control, and then seem so confused when everything backfires. The Soldier catches his breath as he forces himself onto one knee. He hurts: his back, his arm, his legs, his ribs, his very internal organs. He stares up at the scientists and guards. At the other five. At the Colonel.
Silence. Just the buzzing of lights, the hiss of breath.
The electronic, metallic creaking of his bionic arm as his fingers curl into a fist.
You could kill him, right now.
There's no loyalty in him, there never has been. Loyalty requires inspiration. It requires feelings of pride and the belief in something or someone. It requires feeling, and they have stripped him of that repeatedly until all that is left is a shell with a gun.
After this there will be the cold and the sleep, and they will haul him out only when they need him.
He is nothing more than just another weapon.
No, he's not loyal.
Neither are the others.
In the one moment of quiet hesitation the others strike. The Soldier may be an efficient and effective killing machine, and his body may be enhanced, but most of it is still human and he can't quite make himself get up and besides, Josef, Dimitri, Ivan and Maria are doing a bang up job of taking out the guards and scientists who have foolishly entered the training cell with all of them.
Kill him. Now.
His eyes flick up to the Colonel, who stares in shock at his perfect team's complete rebellion. The Soldier can calculate the odds and they're not in the Colonel's favor. If Josef alone could overpower him, what can all five do to Karpov?
It wasn't supposed to go this way.
He ignores the pain. Machines can't feel pain. They only calculate. They feel no loyalty. They only operate. He fixes his eyes on Karpov. Take advantage of the chaos. Take him down.
Josef turns his piercing eyes on the two of them and smiles, a deranged bloodthirsty grin. He takes a step forward.
"Soldat! Protect me!"
Karpov's sharp tone, the way he says soldat just so, suddenly fills in the cracks and abruptly stops the magma flow of rage. The Soldier can't quite feel the pain and definitely cannot calculate the certainty of failure if he's to fight the other soldier again. Karpov's voice is in his ear, babbling… babbling something, he doesn't know what, but it keeps the rage down, keeps the thoughts away, hollows him out and turns him into a weapon once more.
The Colonel hides behind his Soldier and gets through the door to the cell. He could slam the door shut and lock it, easily leaving the Soldier to fend for himself. But he lets the Soldier through, lets him slam the bars with his metal arm and then stands there trembling as the other five stare at them with unconcealed hatred.
He looks up at his Soldat. There is nothing in his eyes. The gaze is vacant. He breathes in and sighs in relief. "Come along, Soldat," he says and marches away. The Soldier follows his order.
The others are too dangerous now. They're liabilities. But Soldat, he will always be the Asset.
The Soldier goes to his cryo chamber without a struggle: another small relief. He closes his eyes.
You could have killed him.
The voice bubbles up through the cracks and his eyes snap open and meet the Colonel's through the thick glass and for one moment, he fixes Karpov with a baleful glare before the cold and the velvet darkness take him.