A/N: For these interludes, I'm making the titles as homages to certain things. If you want to be adventurous and Google them, you'll uncover my primary creative influences. Of course, if you want to take them at face value, I think they make good chapter titles.

Props to Lakewood and Anysia for beta-ing; however, I kinda rushed this into production before it got a final review. Any mistakes remaining in this chapter are mine and mine alone.

As always, reviews, critiques, and questions are welcomed!

This might be the last update I make to this story before Katsucon. If anyone's going to be there, look for me! I'll be cosplaying my famous Jewish Wolfwood (Check my profile page for a picture) and Taishi from Comic Party.

This chapter was updated on February 12th after an anonymous reviewer pointed out a technical error in my author's notes. The error is solely mine and it has since been corrected. I used the T-72 tank instead of the T-62. Thank you, anonymous specialist! Your pointer helped a lot. If you'd like to do further technical or creative beta work, please get in contact with me! I apologize to my readers for the mistake.

On with the show!

7: Interlude (The Treading Behemoth)

September 5th, 1981
MITHPAC Headquarters
Sydney, Australia
9:55 PM local time

Gef took her time in the shower, lingering under a sharp, cold stream of water. After an hour's worth of aikido practice, throwing and being thrown on the mats, she knew that she needed hot water in order to relax her worked-over muscles.

The cold helped her a little more thoroughly, though. It didn't take much soaping to uncover the numerous scars on her body, and for some reason, her body always seemed to heat up when she touched them.

It makes me feel like the sun is beating down on me, she thought, pausing as she ran over a faded patch of scar tissue on her cheek. Yeah, like I'm back in the desert...

October 10th, 1973
Approximately four miles east of the Suez Canal
Near Rumani, Egypt/Israel (Disputed territory)
4:42 PM

The crashing explosion behind the dug-in foxhole was like the beckoning bellow of the damned for the isolated pocket of Israeli Defense Force soldiers.

All across the battle line, the impacts of artillery could be felt near and far. The more distant explosions resonated with a thunderous whoomp, and when combined with the louder din of closer-landing shells, the sound became all too similar to an extended drum solo.

"We've lost Netan!" the medic cried out, tearing a bandage off with his teeth in order to patch the shrapnel wound in his own arm. "A fragment cut the carotid artery. It's no use."

Private Gefen ben Lebedov, fresh out of basic training, clung desperately to her M-16's plastic pistol grip. She had since bit her lip to near-bleeding in nervousness; her platoon of twenty-four soldiers had earlier been cut in half by a 155mm round landing too close to their other M113 armored personnel carrier, and by the time their motorized rifle regiment had advanced to the front line, they were at one-fourth their strength from even more not-quite-near-misses.

"Any luck with the radio, Avi?" Corporal Berl Kafni, the current ranking soldier, pulled his radioman over. He was the least-damaged member of the platoon; there were only some superficial near-miss wounds on his cheeks. A nasty gash on his forehead from exiting their now-wrecked APC had already been patched up.

"I can't make it through the Egyptian jamming, Berl," Private Abdiel Shahar shook his head, yelling over the repeated kathoom of tank cannons. "I don't even know if they confirmed our calls for fire support."

The loud, roaring diesel engine of a tank passed them close by, almost near enough to reach out and touch. The squeaking, un-oiled sounds of road wheels stopped, and after a moment, the explosion of a tank gun shook the three soldiers.

"Gef, is there anything to the west?" Kafni yelled over the diesel engine of the nearby tank.

"I... I see some tanks moving north..." she peered up out of the foxhole, barely letting the pupils of her eyes over the edge. "Domes. Looks like some of the new T-62s."

"Shit!" Kafni swore. "That was a T-55 not forty yards from us!"

Another volley of artillery started to shake the ground near them.

"Not far off," Kafni called out as the tank started to move away and the clouds of artillery explosions rose near the horizon. They were helpless to stop the Soviet-made tank despite its obsolete gun and poor side armor. Three rifles couldn't do anything in this situation; even now, their most powerful weapon—a radio—lay useless, having been rendered into static by powerful Soviet-made jammers deployed by the Egyptians.

Oh God I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die

Her father's face was still a painful memory; even the news of his death a few days before hadn't been enough to excuse her from duty. He had been one of the top close-support pilots in the Israeli Air Force; the fact that he had died while dodging ground fire in his A-4 Skyhawk, desperately piloting his wrecked plane into the center of a Syrian command APC, did nothing to ease Gef's suffering.

Her mother already rested in a cemetery near the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and the very thought of a gravestone with her name on it struck a visceral, rending fear in the pit of her stomach.

A tearing sound rrrrsshh noise crackled like thunder suddenly raced past the soldiers. Just ten feet behind the foxhole, a fountain of sand kicked up with a flat, crashing thunk.

"HEAT rounds! Take cover!" Kafni yelled out, pulling Gef down to the bottom of the foxhole.

The sound of the tank cannon that had fired the round reached them a second or two later; it was an angry crash that marked the less-efficient cannon of an Egyptian PT-76. It wasn't much for the battlefield, but it was more than enough to kill the soldiers where they were hiding.

"It's no use," Gef cried out, curled in a fetal position at the bottom of the foxhole. Another HEAT anti-tank round crashed near them. "They'll load a white phosphorous shell and they'll burn us to death. We're going to die here, aren't we?"

"Damned if we do!" Kafni pulled her up by the lapels of her desert camouflage. "We're going to kill that damn tank and get out of here, just you wait!"

"I just want to die," she said, her stormy eyes streaking with tears. "Just let me go so I can take the bullet. I'm not going to leave the Sinai alive, so let me just die and be with my family!"

September 5th, 1981
Pan Am flight 24, Somewhere over Minnesota
10:12 AM

A first-class ticket on such an early flight isn't really much of a sought-after commodity.

Richard Sonoma sipped at a cup of coffee—this time regular, with cream and sugar—as he leafed through a sheaf of papers that he had packed into his briefcase just before his early-morning "meeting." He was fortunate that all the other seats were empty; if he was traveling in back, such a situation would have allowed him to kick his feet up on the empty seats, maybe even nap a little. Fortunately, the wide leather seats of first-class made space concerns nonexistent.

So the setting on the bilateral conversion system has finally surpassed the third-generation spec, he thought, examining an engineering blueprint. I didn't think it would be at such a point already. It's not like it matters, though.

He covered the blueprint with a faked spreadsheet showing expenditures in chemical disposal for a nonexistent pharmaceutical firm as he sensed movement a few feet away.

"Can I get you some more coffee, Mr. Sonoma?" a smiling flight attendant asked, thermal carafe at the ready.

"Only if you don't mind me getting used to this kind of service," he grinned, handing over the plastic coffee cup. "I'm not used to anyone remembering my name."

"Well, we do try to treat our first-class passengers nicely," the stew grinned, taking the cup. "Light and sweet, right?"

"Right as rain." He smiled, nodding as she handed back the cup. Sonoma raised it in thanks, taking a sip of the coffee.

I shouldn't drink coffee when I fly, he thought. It makes me jittery. I hate jitters. It's like I'm a field operative again, thrown into a whole new snowy world of death and destruction...

November 18th, 1965
Arzamas-16 Laboratory Facility
2:24 AM

The Makarov kicked out the empty 9mm shell casings as quickly as Dr. Gregor Rachenkov could pull the trigger. Gunshot after gunshot rang out in the once-sealed chamber as the expected alarm klaxons never came.

The brutish security guard in front of the Dollhouse fell, ten bullets being almost overkill for the tough, brawny soldier. Awkwardly, Rachenkov popped the magazine release on the rear of the pistol and reloaded a fresh clip. He resumed his two-handed grip on the pistol, looking in every direction, expecting a swarm of KGB troops to come breaching through the triple airlock, sensitive components in the lab be damned.

"Come out, you Soviet bastards!" he screamed in Czech, smiling dementedly with the knowledge that they wouldn't be able to understand a word of it, basking in the sharp pains coming from his ragged throat. "I'll tear you to pieces, each and every one of you!"

Nothing responded to his frenzied calls. He suppressed the desire to violently cough, his throat already burning from even speaking for too long. The shouting had worn him out, so he didn't even comment when he shot out the security panels for the heavy metal doors.

In a rare moment of human compassion, the Soviet Union had set up an emergency system to heave the doors open and grant a rescue team access to the Shepatavshiy inside. The entire lab could burn down or be blown away by a nuclear warhead, Rachenkov thought as he brought his bony fist down on the large red emergency button. Everyone's life is worthless save for the Shepatavshiy. This time, the alarm was triggered, and a response team couldn't be far off.

The electronic honking of the klaxon, accompanied by rotating red lights, threw on every single emergency system in the lab as a failsafe. Halon gas flooded the workrooms, and the triple airlock system was disengaged, unlocking and throwing open every solid access door. The pneumatic system that regulated the Dollhouse door literally threw the meter-thick reinforced protective doors open; they were fast enough to crush anyone unfortunate enough to be behind them.

Rachenkov ran through the now-brightly lit corridors into where Natalya was kept. The corridors were an ugly shade of teal, normally kept in complete darkness with their spotted red hall lighting, but the battery-powered emergency lights flooded the corridors as the emergency Halon systems were tripped. It was hard enough to see and breathe without it, but the gas kicked up a heavy fog, obscuring Rachenkov's path.

He will be waiting, Rachenkov reminded himself as he almost tripped over a large wrench. He will take her to safety in the West, or anywhere but here. She's still just a young girl, and even a Soviet citizen would be kind to a lost girl, would they not?

Natalya was cowering in a corner, still attached to the IV systems that kept her in a drugged, stuporous state. She was actively cowering from the alarms and the sudden appearance of bright lights and fog all around, but when her almond eyes locked onto Rachenkov's familiar dark blue ones, she shook a little bit less.

"Come!" Rachenkov called, extending his left hand and lowering his pistol. "I'm going to get you out of this place!"

The KGB fast-response team had already deployed from their on-site bunker, rushing towards the lab facility in an eight-wheeled BTR-60 personnel carrier. The Novgorod night had seen another heavy snowstorm close in, and the large APC literally crashed through the lab perimeter fence as spiraling clouds of snow were kicked up by the impact.

"We have an unknown alarm set off in the central lab facility!" Solov, the supervisor and local apparatchik, began to brief the seven KGB soldiers. "The security of the Shepatavshiy is top priority. Get her out, and whatever you do, make damn well sure that she's still hooked up to those machines!"

It didn't take long until the first anti-vehicle land mine detected the rumblings of the BTR. Set up not even an hour ago, simply dropped into the snow, the mines were easily triggered by a large enough magnetic field. The armor of the BTR-60 easily created a field of the requisite size, and the undercarriage was barely armored against anything larger than a stone.

The pyre rising in the distance got him moving. This time, he had come more heavily armed. His camouflage had gone from the usual arctic-warfare issue to a new patterned green-on-white uniform. Even the new M-16 rifle he carried was pressed white plastic, completely invisible against the drifting snow.

I can do this, he thought as he raced from drift to drift, stopping momentarily to check for pursuers or patrolling guards. It'll never happen again if I can stop it from happening. We'll end it here and stop the Soviets. Operational restrictions be damned. Hell, MITHRIL be damned!

The door to the research facility was an easy kick inwards. His white gas mask was already on to filter out the near-poisonous Halon suppression gases.

"You're late," he mumbled through his gas mask as Rachenkov emerged from the Dollhouse corridor. The thin Czech professor was near the entrance, carrying the barely-conscious Shepatavshiy over his shoulders. A bandage covered her upper arm where the IV needle had once been set.

They ventured out, the professor barely protected with his parka, and the agent in his cold-weather exposure gear. The alert klaxons had extended throughout the entire base, and the smoking wreck of the BTR was sure to draw undue attention.

September 5th, 1981
MITHPAC Headquarters
Sydney, Australia
9:57 PM local time

It doesn't even faze me anymore, Gef rinsed off the lather of the soap from her body. Still set to ice-cold, the shower was kicking her heart into high gear, pumping warm blood to her extremities.

No, it doesn't do that much, she shrugged to herself, debating whether or not to shampoo her hair. She ended up electing to wash it, just to get the sweat out.

Gef whipped her wet hair around, reaching for the nearly-empty communal shampoo bottle. I can still feel the helmet whenever I touch my head, though, she thought as she massaged the shampoo into her hair.

MITHRIL doesn't spare any expense for the basic comforts. I think that they understand what we've gone through. They're good at helping us realize that our past shouldn't matter anymore.

October 10th, 1973
The Sinai
4:45 PM

Corporal Kafni had already hauled Gef and Shahar out of the foxhole as the next HEAT round crashed through their position; the 40mm copper dart lancing through the hole cleanly. It had been intended to punch through tank armor, not take out infantrymen, so it didn't have any explosives, but it would certainly be more than enough to slice cleanly through a human being.

"Move it! Get out of the way!" Kafni shouted as the other soldiers made their way, running at a crouch, towards another foxhole towards the east. "Gef, what are you DOING!"

Private Gefen Lebedov had stopped, standing straight up, as another artillery barrage nearby shook the ground on which she stood. The whiz of 7.62mm bullets whipped past her, throwing her sweaty ponytail about her neck with their windy shock waves. She could see the stout amphibious tank, just about a kilometer away, its cupola machine gun sparkling as it fired burst after burst at her.

"GEF!" Kafni ran back after her, grabbing her upper arm. He had been long since wounded in his left hand, and the rough grab threw open the barely-clotted gunshot wound back open.

As Kafni hauled Gef away at a dead run, she felt herself moving her legs involuntarily and her mouth stuck, speaking at a dead mute. The splash of Kafni's own blood on her cheeks only threw her deeper into a daze.

"Metallurgical construct bearings from the Kharkov'sk factory were reputed to contain axles constructed with lower-grade alloy elements, including pyrite compounds mistaken for a formula that was shipped from Arkhangel'sk in February of 1968..." she mumbled, running all along until Kafni literally threw her downwards.

"Snap out of it, Gef!" The medic, whose name patch had since been shredded away from the APC explosion, slapped her briskly across the cheek. She recoiled, unaware of the smeared blood on her face, and suddenly again realized where she was.

"That PT-76... it's still out there, isn't it?" she asked over the crash of another HEAT round.

"Avi, try again!" Kafni commanded, ducking as far down into the foxhole as he could. He was surprised to find something solid, an unused American LAWS rocket launcher. "Get ready to get out of here!"

"No!" Gef suddenly yelled out, grabbing Kafni's wrist as he reached for the LAWS. "You can't get around to the vulnerable point!"

"Gef, stay the hell down! I'm giving the orders here! We're going to cut and run, and this is the heaviest weapon we have left!"

"Let me use it!"

"No way! You're in no condition to fight!"

"I can stop it! The third main road wheel of the series of PT-76s shipped to Egypt is bad! The entire manufacturing batch is loaded with bad axles on the third road wheel!"

"What!" Kafni looked dumbfounded.

The crashing of a HEAT round through the sand took them all by surprise, but this one was close. Too close. The hardened penetrator round sliced through the foxhole and right through the left leg, bone and all, of Avi Shahar and their radio.

The radioman screamed in pain, his leg suddenly severed. Gef didn't waste a second; she was up and had the LAWS in her hand, dashing across the desert with tears still streaking down her face.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed at the tank, racing as fast as her uninjured body could carry her. "Kill me or leave me alone! Kill them, kill us all, just end this!"

She ran fifty meters. One hundred meters. Hardened by every moment of training, she kept running, dashing with adrenaline that a marathon runner could only dream of having.

"Axial components are most vulnerable at their central point of rotation!" she screamed out, sliding to one knee and flipping up the sights of the rocket launcher. The PT-76 fired on her again, the machine gun still incredibly inaccurate. A stray bullet spanged off her helmet. "The centralized drive of a palladium reactor will generate up to seven hundred kilowatts of electricity per minute, transmitting to palladium-based batteries for storage over a period of twenty days!"

Extend the weapon.

"HARDENED PNEUMATIC SYSTEMS WILL GENERATE A BALANCE THROUGH A GYROSCOPIC STABILIZATION SYSTEM WITH SIXTY-FOUR BIT LOGIC!" she screamed, trance-like, rolling to the side to avoid a stream of bullets from the light tank. "THROUGH THIS APPLICATION, HEAVILY-ARMED SYSTEMS CAN FIRE AT HIGH RATES WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY PERCENT STABILITY!"

Unsafe the weapon and take aim. Training. Training. This is what I remember. This is something I've known forever. What am I doing?

"LET ME DIE!"

Sight the weapon and depress the trigger.

"LET ME DIIIIIIIIEEE!"

The LAWS rocket kicked out of its disposable tube launcher and crashed into the center road wheel of the PT-76. True to its form, the rocket's shaped-charge warhead directed the explosion forward and into an inverted cone, directing its force right through its point of impact. The road wheel instantly blew off, throwing the tank's tread straight off as it moved forward. It began spinning towards the right before the driver realized what had happened and stopped moving. The gunner swore, rotating his turret around, but as he came to the point where the soldier was once standing, sighting a rocket at them, there was nothing.

Upon hearing a rapid, ratcheting noise, he looked up at the top hatch of the tank just as it flew open. Breathing rapidly and bearing the look of a snarling wolf, Private Gefen ben Lebedov tossed the grenade she had just primed down inside the tank with an animal scream.

She slammed the hatch closed just as the grenade's explosion blew her, as well as the turret, clear of the tank. A series of secondary explosions followed as the tank's ammunition and fuel stores kicked up, and as she fell unconscious, it became silent save for the distant fall of artillery.

September 5th, 1981
Pan Am flight 24, Somewhere over southwestern Utah
11:30 AM

The no-smoking lights in the cabin dinged on as the captain began his litany about beginning their descent into Los Angeles International.Richard packed his papers back into his briefcase, having lingered a little too long on the new Rockwell detachable weapons mount systems.

Amazing, he thought. I can't believe they were able turn this out only on what I gave them. I hate the fact that it's always one side or the other with the amazing new technology. It pains me to a point where nobody could really see it. They'd have to know firsthand the danger that's inherent here.

November 18th, 1965
Arzamas-16 Laboratory Facility
2:30 AM

The rapid fire of the AK-47 rang out just as the bullets impacted on the outside wall of the lab. Rachenkov felt himself thrown to the ground; Natalya landed on the snow next to him with a sharp whimper. He looked up into the falling snow just as the soldier in white dropped to one knee, firing two three-round bursts from his white-camouflaged assault rifle. It must have been a suppressed weapon, because Rachenkov only heard a series of quick thut-thut-thut noises. He ceased fire, waited for a moment, then hauled the scientist back to his feet.

"You'll have to carry her," he said in a low, controlled voice. "Follow what I say to the letter and you'll get out alive and unhurt. So will she."

Rachenkov nodded, wrapping the parka he wore tightly around him. In a moment, though, he shook his head, shrugging the parka off. He wrapped it around Natalya's shoulders after he helped the young girl to her feet.

"You'll freeze," the soldier immediately observed.

"I will be fine," Rachenkov replied between coughs. "It doesn't matter if I make it out alive. I've done enough for a lifetime. She is just a girl."

Rachenkov couldn't see the expression in Natalya's deep, almond eyes as he picked her up and threw her arm over his shoulder to speed her along. She was a real trooper, keeping up as best as she could, and it was all that the soldier could do but shrug and take up the lead.

"We're not far from a rail yard that supplies the labs," the soldier announced, pointing to the east. "I'll have to hijack one of the switcher locomotives to get us to the nearby Air Defense Force base. I've got transport waiting there."

"We'll follow you, Mr..."

The soldier paused. "I can't reveal my real name," he said coldly. "My callsign is NAPA VALLEY."

September 5th, 1981
MITHPAC Headquarters
Sydney, Australia
9:58 PM local time

It doesn't hit me like this anymore. It doesn't. It doesn't. It's been eight years since the war ended.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head up, catching the cold spray of the shower full-on in her face. She clenched her jaw tight, as if steeling herself against the water. Her hair was long since shampooed and rinsed, her body long since scrubbed clean. Save for the scars and the water, nothing stood between Gefen ben Lebedov and the shower head. She kept soaking, shaking under the water's spray. It would only look to the observer like a cold shower was causing her to shake.

No, it doesn't hit me anymore. The violence, the destruction, the pain and suffering of families, of people... gunfire, explosions, always the same... and it just doesn't hit me anymore...

October 10th, 1973
The Sinai
4:50 PM

By the time she came to—maybe about twenty minutes by her badly banged-up watch—the PT-76 had ceased to burn and simply settled on smoking. The stench of scorched, flaming metal was still present in the air, burning her nostrils with an acrid punch. It was now just one of many peals of smoke, most on the horizon, but far too many within a few miles. The wrecked PT-76 must have been a scout for a rear flank, given its isolation from the rest of the smoking and burning wrecks.

Gef got back to her feet, propping herself up on her rifle for a moment. She trudged the half-kilometer back to the foxhole where the rest of her platoon was, but all that was left was Avi Shahar's body, wounded far more gravely than his severed leg had revealed. She saw fragments all over his chest, the torn parts of his dark tan desert camo soaked with blood. His helmet was off, and she could easily tell the cause of death. A 9mm bullet wound direct to his forehead.

That medic must have been unable to help him, she looked down on the dead, amputated young man. Avi was my age. I never knew him before Basic. Now he's dead in a hole in the Sinai. At least his death was merciful one.

Gef tried to cry. She could feel the tears welling up, moistening around her eyes, and she bit her lip to try and inflict one last pain to force her to break down into a sorrowful, fetal wreck of a human. As her lip started to bleed, the last vestiges of remorse she tried to call forth didn't even answer.

Coldly, she checked Shahar's body for extra ammunition, supplies, and food. She tore off some spare bandages that he carried to patch up a scrape she found on her left wrist, and then realized that she had badly sprained it in the explosion of the tank.

The ripping wake of another tank shell flew past her, and her trained reflexes threw her down to the ground. She saw the shell fly past her head and impact on the desert surface, exploding in a shower of fragments.

So they switched it to anti-personnel rounds, she thought, starting to tear up again. I shouldn't have even tried to fight it. Death is everywhere here.

She stood back up, discarding the empty LAWS tube from her shoulder. A quick hop brought her down into the foxhole; Sachar's bled-out body tumbed aside as she landed on his amputated leg. She heard barely-intelligible static over the radio, panicked voices calling desperately for fire support, air support, medical support, a final intervention from a seemingly deaf or uncaring God, anything.

The crash of another shell resounded near her, this one with the interspersed peppering of another machine gun.

I'll wait here to die, she thought through her tears as she curled up, knees tucked under her chin, finally feeling hot, salty tears run down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth. I just don't care anymore. Dead, living... as long as people who hate each other live next to each other, there'll never be any peace in this world.

The very existence of a saving grace, a final stroke of mercy, any miracle like that was firmly out of Gef's mind as she stood back up in the foxhole. No God could allow this, she looked down at the radio as a hysterical young private started saying every prayer he could think of in Hebrew, English, and Latin over the radio. What peace is there when people make their own fates by killing each other?

She pulled herself up and out. Sure enough, a T-62 was about eight hundred meters away. With one last scream, she cast everything aside: her rifle, her helmet, her survival vest, everything.

"Kill me," she said in a normal speaking voice, throwing her arms aside and her head back, her face wide open and her teeth clenched. She tore off her camo uniform's jacket, exposing a sweat-soaked tan T-shirt. Another shell crashed and exploded behind her, close enough to spray her back with some fragments. It felt like a thousand tiny holes being punched through her camo, and she knew that blood was already mixing in with the sweat on her back. The unearthly whizz of 7.62mm rounds flew past her; she could even see a few in flight, flying like crossbow bolts, straight and true around her.

"Kill me!" she implored again, clenching her fists and taking the smoke-stained sky in for one last time. "I'm ready to die! I want my life to end! Take it! It's yours! Do with it what you will! I don't want to be in this world anymore! KILL MEEEEE!"

September 5th, 1981
Pan Am flight 24, approaching LAX runway 25-Right
12:15 PM

The suburban sprawl of Los Angeles was rushing past the passenger windows of the big 747 as it descended towards the big international airport. He didn't even pretend to be interested in the sights. This wasn't his first time coming into the airport, and he was never big on LA anyway.

I wonder what she'll make tonight, he thought, a soft smile crossing his face. It wasn't a rare sight, but he only hoped that he would have something to show for it. There were no hints of wrinkles or crow's feet even coming close to forming on his face. It wasn't for lack of trying, though. Richard Sonoma wasn't one who walked without an arsenal of jokes and wit to match his normal arsenals.

That pumpkin spice ravioli would be perfect. It's just coming into season, too.

The only trees that he could see were artificially-planted palm trees along some city streets as they swooped by. He wouldn't be on the East Coast this fall, unfortunately; the change in leaves was something that would be as foreign to him this autumn as the aging he constantly yearned for.

It makes me wish that it was cold back home sometimes. Like the night we first met each other.

November 18th, 1965
Arzamas-16 Laboratory Facility
2:30 AM

The gunfire came from another BTR that was rapidly approaching from the security base of the lab facility. No, it was two of them, one from the north and one from the east. NAPA VALLEY tossed his arctic-warfare M-16 over his back and unfolded two LAWS rocket launchers from his back. One rocket, then another, blew the BTRs to pieces, a remarkable feat for the relatively long ranges. He didn't have time to gloat, though.

The professor had done the smart thing: thrown himself and Natalya prone to the ground as soon as he heard the unearthly tukkatukkatukka of the 12.7mm machine guns on the BTRs' turrets. He was able to get back up to his own feet, as was Natalya.

"We're cut off," NAPA VALLEY grumbled as he withdrew a pair of binoculars. "The minefield I planted only covered the ready-response facility from the south. If they barricade the rail yard, we're done for."

"There are other vehicles back in the research hangar!" Rachenkov shot out, slapping his fist into his palm. "We can probably make it if we hurry!"

"You don't mean the prototype..."

"At least it's armed!" the Czech scientist shot back. "You can't fight off a regiment of KGB troops on foot!"

Well... NAPA thought. It wouldn't be the first time...

"If you held your end of the bargain and set the charges, that hangar will go up in fifteen minutes!" Rachenkov pleaded. "It will either be destroyed in the explosion or it can be piloted back to the West! We can make it!"

"Doctor, are you telling me that thing is combat-ready?"

The scientist looked down at the snow. "They fitted the rapid-fire cannon last week, shortly after our last meet," he admitted. "The machine guns are already active, and as far as I know, the anti-missile systems have been operative since Natalya finished the pre-production. It can move, and it can fight."

NAPA VALLEY considered his options. They'd never be able to leave the facility on foot, that was for sure, and the motor pools would already be locked down.

"Is there room for three?"

"It will be cramped," Rachenkov admitted, holding back the urge to cough. I must not appear weak. I have to be able to be strong, for Natalya's sake.

"Fine. If it's the only chance we'll take, we'll use the VUR."

"They gave it a proper name, actually," Rachenkov admitted. "They even named the damn thing partially after me."

"What?"

"They promised me a design bureau," he grinned between coughs. "The Rachenkov Design Bureau. It had a nice ring to it, but it was too little, too late. It's the Rachenkov-65, Rk-65 for short. The Russians were going to call it 'Sugrob,' what you'd probably refer to as 'Snowdrift,'" Rachenkov pronounced awkwardly. "My English is not very good."

"Hurry, professor!"

Rachenkov nodded. "Natalya, can you move?"

The Asian girl still hovered on the edge of consciousness. She looked up at him and let out a noise that was half moan, half affirmation.

"Let's go, Mr. NAPA VALLEY," Rachenkov pronounced with a sudden reservoir of inner strength. We might even make it out alive.

The sounds of alert klaxons and crackling radios carried quite far into the snowy night, but it wasn't long before the sounds faded and they were in the large alert hangar.

"Any guards?"

"One on duty in a secure booth, but it's bulletproof."

"There's an air hole, isn't there?"

Rachenkov just stared at the man.

"One, about the height of your chest..."

NAPA VALLEY nodded, and in a motion with more fluidity and force than a hurricane, launched himself toward the door, breaking it down with his shoulder. Rachenkov saw him roll forward quickly up to a knee and fire a single shot from a white suppressed pistol that seemed to appear from nowhere.

"Any others?" he called back.

Rachenkov shook his head, stunned, as he helped Natalya regain her balance.

The professor led the way into the hangar's main space. NAPA made short work of the lock on the door with a few shots from his rifle.

"It's going to be a bit of a shock," Rachenkov warned him. "The design and execution are all Natalya's, and you know as well as I do the otherworldliness of her engineering ability."

"We don't have time to debate the niceties, Dr. Rachenkov."

"You know, I never received my doctorate."

"If not for scholarly aptitude, you deserve it for bravery, professor."

"You flatter an old man too much," he cracked a gravelly-voiced smile. "Come, it's right through this door."

NAPA VALLEY couldn't believe his eyes. He hadn't yet been able to smuggle in a Minox covert camera to the doctor for fear of his being searched, so the sight of the Sugrob hit him hard enough for him to lightly slacken his grip on the rifle.

"The Rk-65 Sugrob," Rachenkov extended his hand as if to introduce a friend. "The latest in Armed Slaved Weapon design. The world's first independently-balancing two-legged mechanical design with walking and running capabilities."

The machine was truly a snowdrift if NAPA had ever seen one. Its legs were thick, accented with exposed silver hydraulic tubes and armored electrical lines. It reminded him of a cutaway of human anatomy, as if the muscles and veins had been exposed and rendered a silvery, lethal white. The torso was large, even masculine; it was broadly armored about the shoulders and tapered to a thinner, streamlined mid-chest and waist. Armor plating took the place of pectoral and abdominal muscles; as if to accentuate the strength of the machine, the arms were equally armored and adorned with equipment and built-in weapons. The head was barrel-shaped, almost like an old sci-fi movie, with dead black holes for its eyes.

NAPA didn't even look at the integrated weapons. He saw mounted machine guns in the head and an evil-looking cannon sitting on the floor of the hangar. Who knows what this Snowdrift could carry... NAPA thought as he evaluated the cannon. That thing looks like it came from a field artillery gun...

"How do we get in?"

"Climb up that ladder and under the head," Rachenkov directed, moving towards the industrial-plate metal ladder dangling from the side of the Sugrob. "Strap in the belts and I'll direct you to power it on."

NAPA stepped in front of the professor, who followed as he grabbed Natalya's wrists and hauled the girl over his back. As the professor followed, he hoisted himself into the cockpit and strapped in a five-point safety harness. He found a pair of foot pedals, and his arms dropped into the restraints. Each arm had a complex set of controls mounted on handgrips, like a flight stick, and he grasped them with some familiarity.

"Feels kind of like a helicopter..." he said out loud as he shrugged off his rifle, tossing it out the side of the cockpit. It clattered to the floor, thankfully not firing off a round. "I'd hate to leave them a present, but we can't clutter up the cockpit with that."

A crashing sound marked the detonation of a hand grenade nearby.

"They may have followed us!" NAPA hissed, turning to pull Natalya into the cockpit. There was no easy place to put the young Shepatavshiy, so he simply draped her arms through the auxiliary restraint loops behind the cockpit seat. She gently grabbed on to NAPA's upper chest, as if embracing him from behind. "Doctor, hurry up and get in!"

"You think I'm going with you in this thing?" Rachenkov smiled, shaking his head. "I never expected to leave this place alive, design bureau or not."

"Don't be crazy. I can carry you in the hands of this thing, can't I?"

"You'd probably crush me, knowing how much finesse your American pilots normally show," Rachenkov chuckled. "No, my friend, this is your time to shine. I would be an everyday rocket engineer if it was not for Natalya here. She is the key to all this. I do not matter in the least to the Sugrob, nor do I really matter to you in the grand scheme of things. I would just make more rockets. The West does not need another scientist like me."

"Dammit, professor Rachenkov! What are you trying to do?"

"Buy you time. Now go!" he hissed, coughing.

"You're in no condition to buy a sandwich, let alone time. Let me fight them off! You can start this thing up, and we'll all escape!"

NAPA started to unbuckle the harness, not wanting to have this man die after so much effort. He deserves a chance to live, NAPA thought, unbuckling the clasp and starting to climb out of the cockpit. He deserves a chance to—

The click of a hammer cocking stopped him in his tracks. Dr. Rachenkov had somehow hung on to the Makarov pistol he had earlier, and was now holding it at NAPA VALLEY's head.

"If I can't get you and her out of here, I'll kill you, then her, and then fire on the weapon stores until this whole building blows up," Rachenkov hissed, his voice now a whisper from the stress on his scarred throat. "The charges you set wouldn't even matter. You know that I'd do it. The end of the Sugrob is more important than all of our lives put together, Natalya's included."

NAPA VALLEY stared him down, narrowing his hawk-sharp almond eyes. Rachenkov didn't move, still keeping his finger tight on the trigger of the Makarov.

"Go!" Rachenkov hissed. "I am trusting you to take this to the hands that can prevent it from fueling war all over the planet! You must find all the Shepatavshiy you can and guard them; prevent them from being used for such destructive ends!"

Slowly, NAPA put his hands up and nodded.

"Flip the Canopy switch by your left elbow to close the hatch, and then the Battery switches by your right wrist to charge the turbine. It'll take about a minute to spin up to full power. Those controls multiply your arm and leg movements by a factor of ten, what we call 'bilateral angle.' It's set to one, but this can go in increments of .1 up to two. That'd be your normal motions magnified twenty times. Be careful. Just walk like normal and you should be fine."

"Right." NAPA reached for the Canopy switches after he belted himself back in.

"One more thing," Rachenkov coughed harshly. "Tell your masters that this weapon will turn warfare upon its head and bring it far into the future. The introduction of the Sugrob will have the same effect on the world as introducing gunpowder would have on the Mongols. It will multiply brutality and destruction to countless levels."

Another hand grenade exploded in the entry to the hangar.

"Go!"

NAPA nodded, closing his eyes, and tossed his hair quickly out of his way. The Canopy switch was flipped, and the last thing he saw were the cold, hard eyes of Dr. Gregor Rachenkov, the last folds of a smile on the corners of his face.

"Good luck, doctor," NAPA VALLEY breathed as the whine of the turbine started to kick in.

Analog displays indicating Pressure, Power, Ammunition, and Angle started to come to life, the needles moving to their neutral starting positions. The whine of the turbines kicked into a roaring groan as their associated generators kicked in. Two gunshots echoed close to the cockpit, and NAPA felt Natalya throw her arms around his chest, almost as a reflex.

"Don't worry," he said, taking off his white arctic-warfare gloves and patting her surprisingly soft hands. "I'll have you out of here soon."

The whine and roar couldn't totally overpower the crescendo of automatic-rifle fire from outside the cockpit and its accompanying gurgling, strained scream.

My dear... I hope I have been worthy of you. Our parting was early. Maybe I did something good on this earth to make up for being so late.

Gregor Rachenberg died a Jew, never overtly showing his faith, but whispering gently in Hebrew as he fell to the floor, tumbling down the steps of the ladder in a heap. By the time he reached the bottom rung, his eyes were glazed over, lifeless.

The KGB troops rushed towards Rachenkov, covering each other's advances with caution and checking the corners of the hangar. "It's clear!" the private on point called out, patting Rachenkov's body down for weapons as he kicked the Makarov away.

"That thing is going to activate!" the sergeant cried out, suddenly noticing the optical sensor eyes turn blue and the head turn to look at them.

NAPA VALLEY couldn't hear the sergeant over the generators and turbines, but he was an expert lip-reader, and the visual feed from the outside was surprisingly clear. He saw the readout on the central monitor that had blinked on, with a thermal and night-vision view backing it up.

"This is some pretty impressive hardware," NAPA breathed. "Did you do this?" He turned to look at Natalya, who managed a weak smile.

A light blinked on beneath the Angle gauge. It read READY FOR COMBAT in bold Cyrillic letters.

NAPA felt the resistance of the ground push back through the hydraulic arms as he hefted the Sugrob up, coming up to stand almost as if it were natural. He heard a loud hiss and saw steam clouds on the peripheries of the visual monitor. The turbine was running at a loud whine, the generators inaudible due to their fast running speeds. He flicked a switch near a trigger on the left and right control sticks, assuming it was an arming switch for something. He was rewarded with a targeting reticle on the main monitor.

I wish this thing could show my emotions, NAPA thought, narrowing his eyes. I wonder what a thirty-foot tall machine looks like when it's angry?

He tilted a rotational hat switch on the right control stick. The head of the unit turned and the targeting reticle centering on the chest of the KGB sergeant after a moment's fine-tuning.

He didn't think twice before he pulled both the triggers on the control sticks.

September 5th, 1981
MITHPAC Headquarters
Sydney, Australia
10:00 PM local time

The faucets turned shut with an unoiled squik noise, and she toweled herself off rather quickly. In a few moments, she was back in the undress MITHRIL khakis that were required on-base.

I really am doing this, she thought as she combed her hair into place and secured it into a serviceable ponytail. I do think that I've moved so much farther onward with my life after the war. The Mossad and MITHRIL have really brought me to the points at which I needed—and still need—to be.

She gave herself one final check, looking at herself in the mirror. Her bluish-gray eyes gazed back at her.

"I can do this," she said out loud to the empty locker room. "I will do this."

A few footsteps brought her to the door to the mens' lockers out in the hall. "What's taking you guys so long?" she yelled. "We're supposed to be on shift in ten minutes!"

October 10th, 1973
The Sinai
4:53 PM

The tearing sound of two heavy shells roared past Gef's ears, but in the wrong direction—they flew towards the tank, both hitting it squarely at the joint where the domed turret met the hull. She couldn't feel the fire of the two massive explosions, but she looked down just in time to see the turret itself pop off and fly forty meters into the air before crashing down to earth.

She stared, wide-eyed, as two more rounds, their flights marked by phosphorous tracers, flew towards the horizon. The angry PAKOOM of their firing reached her just as both seemed to hit their targets; plumes of fire marked their impact points.

"What..."

She turned, only to face down a sudden sandstorm. As a cloud of desert sand and waste blew up around her, she reflexively covered her face with her arms. In a moment, the wind died down, and she looked back up.

It was standing in front of her, a huge, human-like metallic... something...

Where muscles and bones should be, she saw patched, exposed wires and hydraulics that looked as if they were bleeding dark-crimson hydraulic fluid at some points. Armor was all over the beast, slapped down in all conceivable colors: dead steel, black, desert tan, but all seemed to be over a heavily abused snow-white original coat. Its head was a chipped-down barrel shape, its surprisingly blue human-like eyes augmented with what appeared to be a radar dish, willy-nilly pods, cannons, missiles, rockets, and other weapons. It carried a large cannon in its right hand that looked like—no, it was an Israeli artillery piece, wielded like a rifle. The machine sighted down it for a moment before it turned to look at her, dropping down to a knee and propping itself up on its huge mechanical hands.

Its head bent down at a strange angle, and she saw someone emerge from it. Silhouetted against the setting sun in the west, she saw a hawkish face and a lean, muscular build.

He managed to rappel down a line that he threw from the cockpit, landing firmly on two feet and walking towards her.

"I saw what you did," the man with the chiseled features, almond-shaped hawk-black eyes, and stubble-pocked chin said, looking at her with a strange respect. "Do you want for it never to happen again to anyone?"

He crossed his arms over the black, sectionally-armored jumpsuit that he wore. A shield-like faded silhouette was over the right breast where a unit patch might have been.

"W-what... what do you mean?" Gef almost quivered.

"This will never change," he swept his hand over the horizon. "Arab and Jew, Soviet and American, black and white, Us and Them... humans will never change on their path," he opined, almost sadly. "They will never change, so we must change for them."

Gef felt tears running down her eyes again. Before she knew it, she had thrown her arms around his broad shoulders, bawling like a child into her shoulder.

"Please kill me!" she wept. "Kill me, end my life! Take me away from here! Just let it all come to an end already!"

NAPA VALLEY patted her on the back. He had known that somewhere, somehow, there had to be a Whispered in this region.

"I will tell you what you can do so that you can not only live, but to stop all of this."

She looked up at him, stormy eyes already quivering. "Tell me what to do."

To be continued...

Afterword A/N and glossary:

The Yom Kippur War: Check your history books or Wikipedia for more info, but the long and short of it is that a buildup of tensions led by then-president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, rallied the Arab nations surrounding Israel (As well as most Arab nations) to invade on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. More strategically speaking, most of the Israeli Defense Force was off-duty on that day.

The war lasted for the better part of the month, a rather slow pace for the IDF, which had turned the 1967 invasion into the conflict now known as the Six-Day War. The much-vaunted Bar Lev line of defense was breached on the first day of the conflict by the Egyptian Army, and the Sinai was largely reclaimed. Later UN intervention returned possession of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, who had initially held the legal claim to the area before Israel took it over in the 1967 war.

The war was speculated to be a testing ground for the current generation of weapons systems for East and West. Egypt had made a concerted effort to arm itself with cutting-edge Soviet weapons, including the new, then-powerful T-62 tank, and Israel had the latest export version of the M-60 battle tank. However, no true exposition of the war as a weapons testing ground has ever emerged as concrete evidence.