-Shephard's Story-
-Altered States-
Adrian's head felt heavy, like a giant lead weight, as he struggled out of the sodium pentothal haze and back into the world. His eyes tried to focus on something, anything besides the gray ceiling tiles. He moved his head to the left, and to the right, his eyes finally resting on the sweetest of sights.
She had fallen asleep on an old, dusty armchair next to his bed. He couldn't see her eyes, they were hidden behind two heavy lids, her chest falling and rising rhythmically. Her auburn hair was done up in a bun, but Adrian was sure it reached past her shoulders. Her face, oval and smooth looking, was covered in dust and grease, yet at the same time fair in complexion and kind looking. Shephard rose from his bed and tried to suppress a cough, not wanting to wake this angel from her sleep.
Eyes fluttered open and a mouth opened wide, her face turning an embarrassed shade of red. "Oh… hello." Those words were like the tune of a heavenly harp. They were deep hazel, her eyes, and oh so beautiful. Suddenly self-conscious, she wiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of her one-piece jumpsuit. It was unbuttoned near the bust, revealing a black sweater, the hammer and sickle emblem embossed in gray upon it. "I… uh, was just taking a seat, and… well." She tried to explain without disclosing the fact that she had been sitting with Adrian the entire time he had been out. Finally she gave up and outstretched her hand. "My name is Katya."
Adrian took it, knowing she already knew his name. All the same though, "Nice to meet you, I'm Adrian. I think." He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, sighing loudly, still trying to regain his balance.
Katya brought a hand to his shoulder, helping him steady himself. "Yeah, sorry about that, I heard they did a number on you."
Adrian chuckled in a horse breath. "You really know how to welcome a guy." Katya turned another shade of red, embarrassed with the actions of her father and his cohorts.
"I had no idea they were going to…" But Adrian brought a hand up to silence her, shaking his head.
"Seriously, don't worry about it. Without them, I would've died." Katya nodded, and the room grew silent. "So… how do you know the general?"
Katya got up and walked over to a small kitchenette pulling a dark brown pot of coffee out and pouring two mugs full. Quietly, almost as if she were ashamed to admit it, she whispered, "He's my father." She turned to Adrian and held up a mug.
"Sure, got any sugar?" The girl laughed, as if the question were absurd. But she quickly realized Adrian had been serious.
"Oh, right. Yuri said you had lost your memory. Sugar hasn't been available since before the war." Adrian added that little bit of information to his memory, hoping to eventually he would find a piece that would jog one of his own. He took the steaming mug gratefully and lifted it to his mouth, downing the bitter, yet refreshing liquid.
"Not bad, keeps the blood flowing, I guess." Adrian tried to joke, but Katya didn't seem to understand.
"How do you feel?" She said touching his back, sending shivers up and down his spine. They were pleasurable though, not painful.
"It doesn't hurt anymore, I think I'll live." He smiled. Katya smiled back and the room once more fell silent as the two stared into each other's eyes. Adrian hadn't seen someone so absolutely beautiful in… well he couldn't remember.
Maybe she is the first beautiful girl I've ever seen. At least it ruled out the possibility he was gay. Finally Katya broke the stare and looked to the ground.
"The doctor and I set you up in this room. I don't know what father wants to do, but for now, you're welcome to stay." She said warmly. She pointed to a small desk next to the bed, a small, folded pile of clothing stacked on top of it.
Adrian got up from the bed and picked up the snow camouflage fatigues, unfolding them and holding them close. They were pressed and washed, with a few stains splattered across the sleeves.
"I patched them up the best I could. I thought maybe seeing them would jog some memories." Adrian didn't respond, he simply stared. Nothing about the clothing seemed familiar, at all. Dejected, he folded the clothing and set it back on the desk.
"I'm sorry." He said quietly. "But thank you, they look very nice."
"Don't worry I'm sure it will all come back with time." And with that, Katya smiled so wide and so bright that Shephard believed every word.
X X X
"So, what is this place?" Adrian asked Katya as they walked down another set of corridors, on their way to the mess hall and common area.
"It was a secret Soviet missile deployment facility and weapons depot before the wall fell." This place probably had every major American city targeted at one time or another, Adrian pondered. Were there any missiles left?
They came to a large double door access with a key card slot next to it, Katya pulled another keycard from inside her jumpsuit and swiped it over the reader. The doors quickly swung up, revealed the small mess hall and kitchen.
"Happenin' place." He joked, sitting down at one of the long tables in the empty room.
"Well most everyone is out on a run." Katya said, disappearing behind the kitchen area, grabbing two trays, and filling the compartments with a gray oatmeal soup and an apple.
"A run? What kind of run?" Katya's head appeared from behind the refrigerator door.
"Oh, some sort of crime, I suppose." Adrian's eyebrows lifted at this.
"Crime?" Katya's head reappeared.
"Yeah, crime. Ya know, stealing, plundering, all that sort of thing." She thought about what she said for a moment and corrected herself. "But only from the Combine, of course!"
Adrian smiled and nodded. "But of course." Soon she returned with the trays in hand, as well as two canteens of water.
Adrian smacked his hands together and licked his lips. "Mmm, a feast fit for a king!" Katya giggled and dug into her oatmeal. There silence for several moments while the two enjoyed their meals, Shephard couldn't remember the last time he had eaten.
"So," Katya began between spoonfuls. "You're obviously American, I can tell by your accent. The question now is, what part?" Adrian dropped his spoon and washed his mouth out with water.
"I don't know, but you know what? Oregon sounds nice." Katya lifted an eyebrow.
"Oregon?" She said, her Russian accent testing the strange word.
"Yeah, I don't know why. Just sounds nice, I guess. Where are you from?" Katya finished eating and set her plate aside.
"Well, I was twelve when…" Adrian could tell she meant when the war broke out, but he didn't want to drudge up any bad memories.
"Moscow? That's the capital city, isn't it?" Katya was pulled from her reverie and smiled at his suggestion.
"Yes, but no, we lived in St. Petersburg. Good try though."
"Is it pretty there?" Adrian said, trying to focus on the good. Katya's eyes took on a glassy, far off look.
"Oh yeah, in the winter, especially in the winter. The snow, it falls down like a big white sheet all over the city… at least," she trailed off, "it used to do that. We haven't been back since... well no one can enter the cities freely anymore, they're all controlled by the Combine, all of them numbered."She counted off some of the cities on her trimmed nails. "City 19 is Moscow, Berlin is City 16, New York became city 8, London was renamed City 12, the list goes on." Adrian could hear the coldness in her voice, like she was so tired of being sad that she had shut herself off to the sorrow.
But before Adrian could try to console her the entryway doors lifted themselves up and Aaron, looking rather heated, walked into the mess hall. He stopped as soon as he saw Katya sitting across from Shephard and glared at her.
"Sasha wants to see you." He said pointing to Katya. She looked to Adrian with a questioning expression. As she rose, so did he, but Aaron stopped him. "Only the girl." Adrian sat back down and Katya shot him an apologetic look.
As she left the room she turned to Aaron, he took a seat across from Adrian, and said, "Play nice, Aaron."
Aaron smiled sarcastically and waved her off. Finally he turned to Adrian, and eyed him menacingly in silence. He stared right back, knowing he wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of intimidating him. The staring went on for several more seconds before Aaron broke down laughing.
Grabbing Adrian's apple, he stood up and walked out of the mess hall, chuckling all the way back to his quarters.
X X X
The base Adrian found himself in seemed little more than one giant, confusing rat maze. Finishing his breakfast, he had taken it upon himself to go look for Katya, knowing little else that he could do. But several T-intersections and a host of strange, locked doors later, he ended up back in the lobby. Irritated and dismayed, he took a seat at the ancient reception desk and wiped the dust from on top of it with placid interest.
"Yeah, I have those days here too." The voice came from his left. Adrian jumped slightly, startled, but relaxed when he saw the mousy face of Stanley staring back at him.
"Oh, hello. Stanley, isn't it?" The man nodded and extended a hand.
"Hey look, about what happened." Adrian nodded; there wasn't anything more to be said. He didn't know what he had told the small band of rebels, but it was obviously enough to earn him a place to sleep, and a warm meal. That was enough for now.
"I was looking for the general's quarters, know where it is?" Stanley nodded and pointed a thumb behind him at an array of doors.
"Come on, I'll take you there. Besides, mate, you need a keycard to get into the dormitories." The two made their way through one of the locked doors and down a set of stairs, traversing deeper into the Earth.
"How far down are we?" His boot steps clicking in the silence of the hallway.
"I want to say three or for stories. But there's several freight elevators, all designed to truck in anything from tanks to nukes, and believe me, we still have a few of those lying around." Adrian's eyebrows furrowed.
"That's an unsettling thought." Stanley nodded and they turned left at another junction.
"Don't I know it, but a lot of them are so old, I'm talking early cold war, that I have serious doubts about their hardware integrity." Adrian was somewhat relieved to hear that.
"So what do you do here?" Shephard asked. The group seemed so small; he could only guess that there had to be some sort of division of labor.
Stanley smiled, a broad toothy grin. "Me? I work the electronics. Security and research are my main concerns."
"Security of the base?" Stanley began slowing down as they rounded a corner and came upon a long row of doors, keycard swipe pads hastily attached to each lock.
"Yeah, we're about a half day's drive from the nearest Combine outpost, City 17. But just the same we're laced the perimeter outside with sensors. Never good to be caught with your pants down." He winked at Adrian.
Adrian was about to ask him if they'd had any trouble with the so-called 'Combine' lately when their conversation was interrupted by a louder one. Three doors down on their left, Adrian could hear a shouting match ringing like a church chorus through the hallway. Adrian could make out a female's voice, softer, yet filled with contention, as well an older man's, loud and brassy. Yet the conversation remained a mystery, because it was all taking place in Russian.
"Never could understand it." Stanley began. "Ivan and Yuri speak Russian, but they don't seem to get involved. As long as I've been here, the General has been like a mother hen over Katya. Probably to make up for losing her mother." The door to the general's room summarily burst open and Katya, red in the face and fuming, stormed out. She turned to the open doorway and yelled something that Adrian was sure was an obscenity, before turning to see the two men.
Her angry expression faded and was quickly replaced by embarrassment. "Oh, hello Stanley, Adrian." But before she could continue the male voice from inside the room roared.
"Adrian?" It said in English. "Bring him in, I need to speak with him." Katya looked to her left, inside the room, and fumed again. She stomped down the hallway, passing the two men.
"Trouble on the homestead?" Stanley giggled, trying to lighten the situation. Katya shot him a glare and he brought up his hands defensively. "Jesus okay sorry!" As Katya passed Adrian she didn't shoot him the same glare, but rather looked into his eyes longingly, as if she desperately wanted to tell him something. Stanley elbowed Adrian and whispered to him. "Damn Russkies, they have no clue what a joke is."
But he hadn't whispered low enough because Katya, her face red with fury, turned to Stanley, fire in her eyes. From one of the bottomless pockets of her suit, she pulled a mean looking wrench and pulled it back, as it were some kind of boomerang. Stanley and Adrian instinctive dropped to the floor and heard a large clang against the door behind them.
Jumping up from his prone position, Stanley called down to the Russian vixen, who had mustered up all the dignity she could, and sauntered down the hall. "You missed!" She didn't break her stride as she turned and looked over her shoulder.
"No I didn't." And she continued her walk down the hall. Adrian's eyes were still transfixed on her departing figure. The way her suit clung to her body in the most attractive way it could without sacrificing efficiency. How her hips swayed, and her ponytail swished back and forth.
"God…Damn woman!" He heard Stanley cry behind him. Adrian turned and found Stanley crouching front of one of the locks on the many doors that lined the halls. "The girl almost destroyed the locking mechanism on my door! It'll take me hours to get it unlocked, not to mention replaced."
Adrian allowed himself a slight chuckle before moving to the open door. "Hey you know what they say about hell and women, right?" Stanley lifted his gaze from the lock and smiled.
"Yeah, Hell's got nothin' on a girl's wrath. Guess I should be more careful next time." From inside the open door way, the voice boomed again, this time addressing Stanley.
"You'll be lucky if there is a next time."
X X X
"Ah, Adrian. Take a seat." Sasha said, his voice no longer the angry canon it had been. Shephard took his seat and immediately took notice of all the pictures lining the wall. They were all dominated by men in uniforms, some in front of tanks, others in front of planes, an even one or two aboard a ship. The uniforms, they were what caught Adrian's eye though, he didn't know how he knew, but he knew they belonged to the Soviet Union.
The General saw him transfixed on the pictures. "Oh, yes. Well, at least you know why they call me the general now, don't you?"
Adrian turned to Sasha. "How long?"
The man leaned back in a creaky leather and wood chair. "Up until the wall fell. But I'm not here to tell you my story, we need to hammer out a few details." He leaned forward, over his desk, looking Adrian in the eyes. "I'm in a predicament here. Under the sodium pentothal you didn't confess to working with the Combine, now that works in your favor. But I still don't know who you are, or where you came from. The doctor said he has no clue when, or if, you'll ever regain your memory, but he isn't optimistic. Which leaves me in a position I don't quite care to be in. What do I do with you?" Sasha mused, his fingers tracing the rim of a coffee mug.
"General, sir…" Adrian began.
"Just call me Sasha." He retorted.
"Sasha…" Shephard began again. "…Your kindness has saved my life. I don't know who I am or where I come from, but that seems to be moot now. If I don't remember who I am, I might as well start my life anew, but the world outside sounds… strange, to say the least."
The general nodded. "Indeed, it is. Which is why the crew and I have come to the decision that you can stay with us as until we can find out who you are." Adrian nodded, smiling. He was already beginning to feel at home here. "But." The general continued, adding a caveat. "While on my base, you do exactly what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and how I tell you to do it. Understood?" Adrian simply nodded and the general continued. "Our line of work, though, is what many of the Combine higher-ups would call, unsavory, more than likely illegal. I'm not in the business of saving the world, just surviving. I do what I need to in order to keep my crew healthy, and their bellies full. Other than that, we're on our own."
They sounded more like mercenaries to Adrian now, but still, what other choice did he have? "So what did you do after the wall fell?" Adrian asked, trying to change the subject. The general smiled and brought a boot up to the table, tying the laces tightly.
"Why not come and see?"
X X X
The storage room was huge, looming over the two men like a giant gothic cathedral. There were never enough guns, Sasha thought. No matter what state the world was in, guns were always going to be a necessity. The current state of affairs did only one thing to gun sales- tripled them. After the wall fell Sasha had only one alternative. With the Soviet Union in an embarrassing pile of shambles, Sasha did what he did best. He made war- well not made war, he helped arm it. From the Middle East to Northern Ireland. From the Congo to China, Sasha used his connections as a General to take hold of several armories the U.S.S.R. had failed to account for when it dissolved. He was amazed at the amount of money that could be made trafficking weapons. Soon he was well off, more so than during the Soviet Era, and his family, oblivious to his dealings, were living a life of luxury.
Then the Combine came.
His world ended in one sickening explosion. As the cities of man fell to the combine, nations savagely attacked one another, confusing their fellow man for the enemy at hand. In one bright flash of nuclear light, the ancient city of St. Petersburg was destroyed, laid to waste by an ICBM from some unknown source. Sasha had been on the phone to his wife when the bomb struck. She had been trapped in the city with her family, trying to escape as the synth crabs flooded the streets like an infection might the blood vessels. Holding young Katya on his lap, he spoke nervously into the phone. He told his wife he could be there in less than an hour in one of the helicopters he had stored away. His wife didn't have time to question why he would be in ownership of a military helicopter because the line suddenly went dead, along with the several million citizens of the great city.
But none of that mattered now.
"We trade the guns stored here, and in other warehouses attached to the facility underground, to the resistance for food and other amenities." Racks of guns, too many to count, stood side by side, creating great corridors inside the warehouse of deadly killing machines. Adrian reached out and took one of the AK-47's that dominated the room.
"And they all work?" The general nodded. "You bet, you could drop that in mud, throw it in sand, or leave it in the arctic tundra for years, and it would fire like it was hot off the assembly line." Adrian handled the gun deftly, though he didn't remember ever holding one in his life, and pulled the action back, loading an imaginary bullet into the barrel. "Had prior experience?" The general raised an inquiring brow.
Adrian set the gun back down, "Not that I can remember." He quipped. The general laughed and lead them deeper into the warehouse. They filled through another large blast door and into a blackened room, into which Adrian's eyes could not see. "What's in here?" He echoed, the room must be huge.
The general tapped a switch to the side of the door and the room burst into being. Tanks and transports crowded the room, all sitting pristinely in the artificial light, as if waiting for a war that would never come, doomed to be assembled here for all eternity, collecting dust.
"Jesus… They still work I presume." The general nodded.
"With enough petrol stored away that keeping them moving isn't a problem." The general pointed to the other side of the warehouse where a large door stood, giant locks and hydraulic lifts attaching it to the wall. "That's the lift to the surface. We use it to get whatever we're transporting out of the base. It leads up to a carefully concealed cave, big enough to drive one of the transports though." The two men stood in silence for awhile, Adrian taking in the average goings on of the base. So they were gunrunners, he surmised, and well off ones, well at least well off enough to live in peace. "So…" The general began. "Be interested in making a run?" Adrian turned to him, a mischievous grin plastered upon his face.
"I'll try anything once." The general laughed.
"You sure this'll be your first time?"
Who knew?
X X X
Dmitri, He hadn't heard that name in years. Too many years, he thought sometimes. Not since he left.
He defected. His mind spat. His own brother, a colonel of the Red Army, had defected. He had confided in Sasha more than once about his misgivings pertaining to the Party, to socialism in general. Sasha had written him off each time. Until…
"It's a deal we can't pass up." Dmitri exclaimed, as if he were talking about buying a refrigerator.
Sasha threw his mug, full of searing hot coffee, in Dmitri's direction. "You will speak no such thing! It is treason! You've already doomed yourself by even talking to the CIA, if the Party finds out…"
"But they wont…" Dmitri cut him off. "…Because you're not going to tell him." Sasha fell back into his comfortable leather chair inside his office, situated in a private corner of a base just outside of Moscow.
"What about my family?" He pleaded with Dmitri, trying to infuse some sense into him. "If they find out before you leave… they'll have us all executed. Think of Katya for the love of the motherland!" Katya was barely a year old, he wouldn't let the savage KGB have their way with her. Never.
Dmitri seemed to relent. His shoulder's dropped and he turned to walk out. He stopped by the door, one hand on the frame, and turned to his brother. "Whatever I do from now on, I do alone. It is not my place to endanger you or your family." Sasha nodded, he had no control over his brother, and he certainly was not going to hand him over to the Party. And with that he left.
Sasha hadn't seen his brother since. Grasping the crumpled piece of letter in his hands, Sasha swiped his card over the scanner and let himself into the security room. Computers lined the walls and crowded the folding tables. Wires and cables crisscrossed the floor in such a state of disarray that the former general of the Soviet Army was surprised anything worked at all.
"Yeah, but it does. Don't question the artist." Stanley retorted to Sasha's comment, whom, with a wave of his hand, dismissed the argument. He brought out the crumpled piece of paper and flattened it out on the table.
"I need a video and audio connection." The tech read the transponder coordinates and furrowed his brow.
"These coordinates are on the other side of the planet, I'll have to bounce it off one of the old satellites."
"So?" Stanley reread the coordinates and punched them into the computer.
"One of the Combine spy sats will pick it up, you can bet you last pound on that. When they do, you'll have three minutes before they can jack the line and trace it back to us. Whoever you're calling, it'll have to be a quickie." Stanley rechecked the coordinates one last time, for accuracy, but noticed something strange. "Hey, Sasha, this email is dated right before the Combine broke…" But the general cut him off.
"How much time do I have?" The tech noticed the hurried and curt tone and let the subject lie.
"Five minutes, to be safe. Any longer than that, and you'll risk giving us away." The general nodded and pointed to the door.
"But I still have to check the system stats…"
"Go." The general spat. Stanley stood up from his chair and stormed off down the hall.
Sasha sat down in the warm chair, courtesy of Stanley, and watched the monitor as it connected to the satellite and relayed his face and words to the destination.
There was a slight delay, punctuated by a black screen. But before Sasha could worry about connection problems the screen came to life, and he was greeted by a haggard looking man in snow-white camouflage fatigues.
"Dmitri." Sasha almost wanted to curse. But the truth was he was glad to see his brother, even if he was wearing the garb of an American Marine. He looked older, though. The war and ensuing occupation hadn't been good for his health. He was bald now, but not by choice, and his eyes seemed to sag, as if he hadn't gotten quite enough sleep. The man looked as if he had just woken up, which he had.
"Jesus… Sasha?" He nearly cried, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I had no idea that you… well that you survived! So you did get my email…"
Sasha cut him off; this wasn't a time for recounting old memories. "Look… I don't have a lot of time, but I think I found something that belongs to you." He held up the dog tags. "I picked up a stray, he was wearing some of your gear, and these tags." He read off the information on the tags. "I'm pretty sure the kid swiped the shit from a dead body." He could see his brother flinch, the pain registering quite clear. But Sasha also knew he was lying through his teeth. This kid, though still a kid, couldn't have known some of the stuff he did all by himself. Just the same, it was better this way. "Yeah, so, I just thought you'd like to know…"
"Thanks…" Silence. "How have you been?" Sasha looked at the counter at the bottom of the screen, two minutes left.
"I don't really have enough time to… you know." Dmitri nodded. "But I'm fine, Katya too." By not mentioning his wife, he had made her death clear.
"Good, again, thanks. Now we can put Adrian to rest." Sasha could see Dmitri look off screen to someone, beckoning him or her over. "Get this information down to Sergeant Tower, he'll want to know about this." He turned back to Sasha, apologies filling his stare. "Where are you transmitting from?" Sasha looked down at the counter again, one minute.
"I really can't say." And with that he turned off the screen ending the transmission. He hoped it would be the last time he had to do that.