.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Distrust
... ... ...
~ SIBERIA, RUSSIA 1957 ~
Zuzana was not unaccustomed to hardship.
The war had left very little of Europe untouched, though some had seen worse than others. Like Poland, Belgium, Austria, and many more, Czechoslovakia had been under Nazi occupation throughout most of the conflict – had resisted, and had paid the price for it. The citizens of these nations had become accustomed to a certain level of suffering. They became familiar with loss. Familiar with hunger. Familiar with what it was to do without.
She had been all of eight years old when the government had been forced to cede to the Germans. A child too young to understand the fear or fury tight and pinching the faces of the adults around her. She could remember some of what life had been life before in the faint, watercolor memories of youth, such as how the shops had been stocked before, - the plentiful wares and goods both essential and not – or how boisterous the streets had seemed. In the six years it had taken for German control to overtake the country, for the war to escalate into full swell, and finally come to an end…things had looked very different, and she had no longer been a child.
It had taken little over a week for the tiny room she had been issued to become just as changed.
Someone – Zola, she would imagine – had taken great pains to cushion the cold reality of her present situation with gestures of material comfort. Whoever had been placed in charge of collecting her research had also been instructed to bring things specifically tailored to this purpose, and whether or not they had been tasked to make the space as unrecognizable as possible from its origin, that was the outcome.
They had replaced the cot with a new bed nearly as small but far more comfortable and brought furnishings from her own home. One of the parlor chairs, her vanity table and mirror, books and blankets and framed photographs, the toy wooden duck that had belonged to her brother and her grandmother's quilt, the decorative lace pieces her mother had made. The curtains from her own bedroom to simulate windows that were not there. They had brought her makeup, pins, combs, and other things she hadn't had the time to pack, and clothes enough to fill both the plain metal dresser and the chest which now lay at the foot of the tiny bed. Some of these had been her own, but most had been new, better designed for the cooler, northern underground climate.
They had provided little luxuries, too: brand new stockings - still expensive in some parts of Europe - of both silk and nylon, rich French soaps for bathing (and private quarters for her to do so, she later learned), tins of the teas she favored. All, it seemed, in the effort to make her feel more at home and less like the prisoner she was.
Alternatively she supposed they were provided in order for them to have things to take away should she prove resistant or uncooperative. Which was truly just as likely.
It would have taken more than surface comforts to make her forget that she was living in a concrete cage, that she was not the revered guest Zola would have had her believe she was. Still, hostile as the environment was, she had endured hostile before. She was relatively healthy, clever enough to be getting along with, and she was not completely deprived of bargaining power. And perhaps the hope that performing satisfactorily would buy her back a measure of freedom was that of a fool, it kept her from sinking down into a pit of dysfunctional despair.
With the aid of a little travel alarm clock she rose as she had on most other mornings since her arrival - promptly at seven. It was late for a military compound, but that was intentional. Staggering her schedule to run slightly later than everyone else meant that the common areas were more likely to be empty, and she could go about her business of eating or washing or anything else with minimal disturbances.
The routine she had kept at home when readying for her day wasn't quite possible here, limited as she was by the tools available, and by being the only woman in anything close to permanent residence. Still, she managed, forming a new one suited to the new space.
As with any of the mornings before, she dressed herself in something of a tired haze. With a twist and tuck of her fingers, she finished tying the bow at the neck of her blouse and lowered herself to the chair, using the vanity mirror with its familiar, beloved scratch along the left side of the frame to pin her hair back and apply cosmetics.
Perhaps it was silly, or vain, or any number of other things. It allowed her a sense of control over something, even if that something was as miniscule as her appearance in the form of a cake of mascara and tube of lip color. Some – her own mother for one – might have considered it dangerous, drawing attention to herself, but Zuzana had long since learned that it didn't matter how much of an effort she made to be inconspicuous. Her very existence in certain places invited unwanted notice, and nothing she did or didn't do would prevent it. Sometimes, as she had discovered through more than one unpleasant experience, the effort to be plain or drab only drew more scrutiny.
It was better to present as she would have normally and hope that the same station that had caused her benefactors to provide comfort and amenities afforded her enough protection to be left alone.
She was situated in the room almost at the end of the hall which housed all the medical staff. To her right was an empty room and then the wall beyond – solid concrete but for a sealed emergency door which required, or so she assumed, codes and special keys. To her left were the corridor lined with occupied rooms and the guards stationed to either side of the threshold into the outer hall. Whatever it was they guarded, or why, she didn't know. She knew only that in order to go anywhere, for anything, she had to pass them. And that if she were going to be met with some unsavory remark, it was more than likely to happen here, where she was alone, with no witnesses and no superiors to overhear and take them to task.
Closing the door behind her, she looked reflexively toward the far end of the hall, and immediately felt a tiny, anxious lurch in the pit of her stomach.
Though the soldiers faced out and away from her, she recognized one of them. A massive blond giant of a man that stood nearly two heads taller than she.
By all accounts she should have liked him more than the others she knew by sight so far. Unlike most, he never made snide remarks or rude comments. He only ever looked at her. But the way he did...it made her want to shrink as far into herself as she could get. Because she knew that kind of look. She had seen its like more than once before.
Adjusting the fit of her cardigan and forcing her shoulders back, she made her way forward, doing her best to simply ignore the soldiers altogether.
"Doctor," the other man greeted as she walked by, snide sarcasm lacing what might elsewise have been a polite remark.
As usual, the large blond said nothing, his stare heavy and close and uncomfortable. He was, objectively speaking, quite handsome – with a squared, sculpted jaw and clear gray eyes, his neatly combed hair an attractive shade of gold. Still, something about him put her off as surely as the scent of rot, and her eyes slid away from him as quickly as they had lifted, just catching that the name stitched upon his uniform read: Morozov.
Zuzana took special care to skirt the line of cool detachment and politeness when she absolutely had to interact with the soldiers. She wanted to come across as neither unfriendly nor too friendly. The one would invite the abuse to increase. The other...might invite something potentially much worse.
She nodded acknowledgement to the one that had spoken, her mouth forming the same practiced not-quite-smile that had gotten her through the checkpoints in and out of Prague during the worst of the occupation; when her mother's illness had required medicine only to be found, illegally, within the city proper. Then she continued onward, doing her best to convince herself that she was not, in fact, fleeing like the scared little girl she would likely always be inside.
While normally she would have headed to the mostly deserted mess for breakfast before reporting to her desk, today she forewent it. Her stomach was in too many knots for the idea of food to cause anything but a dangerous roiling.
Although the list was lengthy, one of the very last things she wanted to do today was be sick in the middle of a meeting with the head of the medical science team.
Anton Belsky was both clinician and researcher, and highly skilled at each. This wasn't inherently a problem. The problem was that he was all too aware of his own prowess to the point of possessing an ego that might have out scaled the Ural Mountains. Even that she might have been able to tolerate with a healthy amount of chagrined amusement – firmly believing as she did that it required a certain kind of personality to become so accomplished a physician – were it not for the small, unfortunate obstacle that Belsky considered cognitive behaviorism and the concept of mentally-centered therapy to be, in a word, charlatanry.
He was of the firm belief that Zuzana's presence there was redundant and her directive a waste of both time and resources. Not to mention that he was highly skeptical as to her competency, regardless of her focus. Something which he was in no way subtle or restrained about. His first comment to her had in truth been to Commander Andreyev, stating with no small amount of irritation that he hadn't been aware the doctor in question was bringing an assistant. Irritation which had swiftly descended into scorn. Nothing new, but no less tiresome for that.
Though whether it was her age or her being female which irked him the most remained unknown, though she knew full well each would have been plenty on its own.
She had only met with him once before this: an encounter which had comprised mainly of going over her strategy for data collection and being treated to disinterest, put-upon sighs, and a resolute insistence upon picking apart her theorems and practices until she thought her brain might start bleeding. She was less than looking forward to it.
Notes and written report folded against her chest, Zuzana steeled herself before approaching the office and knocking quietly upon the frame of the open door.
"Yes, come," Belsky beckoned shortly, not looking up from the form he was in the middle of signing.
Entering the office, she sat in the chair across the desk, the way he had bid her last time, and waited as he finished with the stack of papers.
Finally he set down his pen and gathered the documents back into a neat pile, setting them aside. Only then did he look up at her.
He was possessed of a very distinctive face. Severe brows set over deep-set eyes leant him a constant appearance of intensity. His lips were thin, bracketed by heavy lines that, she assumed, were a product of the perpetual frown he wore. He wasn't unpleasant to look at, she supposed, but whatever charm he might have had was eradicated by the general air of disdainful superiority.
"Well," he demanded. "What do you have for me?"
Taking a careful breath, Zuzana proffered the report she had prepared. Taking it, Belsky sat back in his chair and skimmed through the contents, thumb tapping idly against his chin.
"Subject displays all signs of cognitive function as described in the files presented—" he read aloud,"this is little more than fluff, Doctor."
Tossing the paper to desktop, he pierced her with a look that was no less than a perfect imitation of pure scorn.
"It's a foundational analysis," she corrected, a bit more sharply than she had intended.
A muscle ticked in Belsky's jaw. It was an obvious indicator of displeasure, and Zuzana gripped her temper forcefully by the jaws and clamped them shut.
She might no longer be accustomed to defending every step she took in her work, but this was not the University, and she did not have the freedom to verbally skewer the challenges thrown at her. While she might be here at the behest, or the whim, of the head of HYDRA, Zola was not here. She could count on the protection of his name only insofar as it reached – a distance she had no desire to test.
Careful to keep her voice as even as possible, she continued. "The report states that I was able to start forming a baseline to work from. As there is no more to report as yet, that is all I have included for now."
"And you still intend to use the…methods you described to me?" Even if his lip hadn't curled upon forming the word, his feeling on the matter would have been perfectly clear from the dripping scorn alone.
"I do, yes," she said, schooling her tone into something mild, placating, and suitably mousy.
It had been a long time since she'd had to play this game of tiptoeing around the egos of volatile colleagues, and she had never been all that good at it. Time had not improved things. It was easier, and more accurate, to look at it through the same lens as maneuvering around armed sentries.
"I can assure you there is plenty of evidence to support my technique, much of which has been gathered by reputable members of the field—" He emitted a shallow snort of hollow amusement, which she ignored in favor of administering a gentle nudge. "This is what Doctor Zola brought me here to do, Sir. He was very specific about that."
Belsky's mouth twisted with grudging displeasure. "Indeed. And we mustn't impede upon the grand design."
She said nothing, merely ducked her head and hoped she came across as suitably agreeable.
The rustle of paper met her ears. The dry slide of a turning page.
"You state that you theorize the process used to erase unwanted data from the subject's mind may in fact be the source of the volatility," Belsky stated, summarizing a passage from her report. "Elaborate on this."
Considering the request for a moment, she weighed her words before speaking them.
"Frankly, Sir, I think it's fortunate that memory is likely more complex than we know yet."
Zuzana paused, momentarily unsure how to translate the contents of the report succinctly. Belsky gestured for her to continue, a hint of impatience in the quick motion of his hand.
"The world's leading experts still only know a fraction of how the brain actually works. The physical brain, that is. We don't fully know what separates things such as the ability to see or speak or hold a pen from conceptual and higher thinking, or anything else."
Shifting in the uncomfortable chair, she smoothed a hand along the fawn-colored twill of her skirt.
"Clearly there are things that we want h—the Asset to remember, things connected to normal muscle function, and to whatever knowledge is required for his work. The problem lies in how to go about separating those things from the things considered to be undesirable, many of which are likely just as deeply imbedded…perhaps into the subconscious. Which we technically don't understand all that well either. Things such as, say, an association with a smell or sensation. A piece of music."
She was hesitant to voice the rest aloud, unsure whether he would interpret any of it as an insult to his team or his work, which certainly wouldn't have been her aim. It was a tossup as to whether professional intellect or ego would win out.
"We don't even know how the mind forms these connections, or how it stores them, let alone how to separate them at the root. In order to have one completely without the other…" Her shoulders lifted in a hapless shrug. "I'm not sure if such a thing is feasible in the long term. I don't know exactly how the memory suppression has been done, or how it works, but I think there may be some correlation to these occurrences of behavior that's worth exploring."
"Such as?"
"Such as…" Zuzana spread her hands in emphasis. "The possibility that the targeting isn't specific enough and we need to find a way to narrow the focus. Or that rather than erasing anything, the treatment is merely having a kind of surface affect—like a cut, that's clotting and repairing because the initial impact wasn't deep enough to hold. Or any other number of things. The mood instability may be a result of the mind trying to compensate for what it perceives as trauma in the way of a fever to an illness. Or it could be something else entirely."
For a moment he was quiet, his eyes lowered to the almost painfully neat surface of his desk, though he didn't appear to be looking at anything in particular. Zuzana waited, channeling her restless nerves into the soundless bouncing of one foot where it couldn't be seen in order to maintain an expression of serene patience.
Finally, Belsky returned his sharp, penetrating gaze to her face. "And you believe you will be able to pinpoint which of these things is causing the problem?"
"With enough time and data, I hope so, Sir."
The lines bracketing his thin mouth deepened, and at first she thought she was going to have to find a way to throw the subtle threat of Zola's orders in his face a second time, when he surprised her.
"Very well," he determined with a brisk nod. "Proceed as you have planned. I'd like a written report each week in addition to those from the observation team—"
Only because he didn't want to be caught with nothing to reference were Zola to check in unexpectedly, not out of any real interest of his own.
She suspected he was simply done with the discussion, ready to move on to things more worthy of his time and attention. Which was more than all right by her.
"—and I will see you back here in two months to reevaluate unless something arises before then."
Returning his nod with one of her own, she murmured a bland: "Of course, Sir."
Dismissed, Zuzana retreated to her own little desk space in the far corner of the lab - glad for the separation and isolation the spot afforded her from the other doctors.
Lifting a hand to suppress a yawn, she reached for the newest packet of evaluation reports and began to prepare for her next session with the Asset that afternoon. She would need to acquire some coffee beforehand – that was certain. Although what she truly wanted was a bottle of vodka the size of her forearm.
Perhaps if she was especially complimentary to the kitchen staff she might be able to convince them to part with one before it was empty. Or perhaps some cooking wine. Just now, she wasn't all that particular.
...
The showers consisted of little more than a rectangular room with a row of metal nozzles set into the tiled walls a meter and a half apart. The floor, comprised of yet more, smaller tiles, was set at a slight decline in toward the grate in the center to allow for easy drainage. Aside from the narrow bench which ran along the opposite wall, there were no other features. The room was utilitarian and plain – intended for distinct purpose and nothing else.
It was routine to be escorted there after training, to be instructed to wash and to exchange used or soiled clothing for fresh. He wasn't certain whether this had always been the way they had seen to getting him clean, but it had been for the length of his memory. He no longer required instruction in order to know what was expected of him here. Which is why it struck him as interesting when one of his guards saw fit to verbalize the command.
"Wash up quick," the guard ordered, short and near to terse. "You've got somewhere to be."
Even as he obeyed, removing sweat-soaked vest and trousers torn at the knee, the Asset considered the notes of irritation carried in the man's voice.
It wasn't uncommon for other things to follow training sessions. There was nothing outwardly unusual or unexpected about this. And on those occasions, he had never heard a guard or a handler voice a complaint of that nature. They complained about other things: about the food, their superiors, being forced to watch him, among a vast number of other things. But he had never heard that specific note of scorn directed specifically at where they were to take him.
Setting his boots to one side, he draped the old clothes over the bench. New clothes had already been set out, alongside a clean towel and bar of soap. He picked up the latter, cradling the smooth off-white rectangle in his right palm and, naked, crossed the tiled floor to the nearest showerhead, Turning the knob to start the stream of lukewarm water, he allowed it to plaster the hair flat to his skull and neck.
Quite consciously he listened through the noise, wanting to hear anything more the man might have to say in regards to the source of his displeasure. Nothing was forthcoming from either guard. They merely stood in silence, watching him with the customary wary disinterest.
Washing was quick business, even when he wasn't being hastened along. He was as thorough as was necessary, and efficient, starting with his head and working his way down. Most of the time forceful scrubbing was not required. There were occasions when more aggressive measures were involved – blood in particular could be tricky to eradicate completely – but when simply removing the sweat and oils produced by normal function, it was not an altogether unpleasant chore. The sensation of the water running smooth along his back and sides in particular had a steadying affect, one which he had reproduced occasionally in the field during especially lengthy or grueling missions.
Bending at the hip to run the soap along the soles of his feet, he heard the guard call to him again.
"Let's go."
Again an underlying note of annoyance that he couldn't quite reason.
He was finished regardless, but the less than subtle rush was unusual. Where were they taking him now? Not his cell, certainly. Not for a mission briefing, as he had not been given any assignments. They would have interrupted his training were he needed for something urgent. So this was something else.
In the time it took to shut off the water and return to the bench to retrieve the towel, he made the connection – to link the very specific hint of displeasure from this guard to similar hints he had heard from other soldiers. Notably directed toward or in regard to the examinations he now had with the female doctor.
Dragging the rough cloth along his limbs to scrape the layer of water from his skin, slowing slightly to account for the seams in the plate of his left arm, he contemplated just what it was about these examinations, or this doctor, that was causing this agitation among the other soldiers. Whatever that precise cause, he couldn't yet pinpoint it. He wondered whether it was truly so simple as that she was female in an almost exclusively male environment, whether this alone was enough to spark such a disturbance, or whether there was something else underneath or in addition to it. As to exactly why this fact would cause a disturbance at all, he couldn't quantify beyond her simply being a change to the status quo.
More observation of all involved was required to formulate any more substantial conclusions.
He donned the new set of tac pants and plain cotton undershirt provided for him, the former typical and familiar, the latter less so. When not in full gear he normally wore the thermal vests that aided the other doctors in their examinations, or else he simply went without. Although it was true that he didn't tend to spend as much time inactive between missions, training, and the cryogenic chamber as he had been of late. Perhaps this was the reason they saw fit to dress him differently.
He had just barely finished with the laces of his boots when they were ushering him up from the bench and out of the room.
It was confirmed upon entering the lift and traveling to the floors above that he was, indeed, scheduled for an examination with the female doctor – which subsequently confirmed his other estimation as to the shared disturbance among the guards.
Whatever the reason for the rush, he didn't know. The exam room was empty when they entered – the doctor not yet having arrived.
The Asset had just lowered himself to his chair as instructed when he heard it: the light, quick tread from small shoes with narrow heels, very different from the heavy, thick-soled boots of the soldiers or the flat loafers the doctors and rare civilian staff wore. He could discern from the sound that she took longer strides than he might have assumed considering her comparatively diminutive height, which implied that her legs were longer than they appeared, concealed beneath the skirts she wore. She walked quickly, with purpose, and though the structure of the shoes would certainly hobble her to a degree, he estimated she might prove quick should the need to run arise.
The sound of her steps preceded her by a matter of seconds - the length of time it would take to travel the length of the corridor to the door. Whereupon they paused, quiet for a brief moment, the sound of steps replaced by the metallic scrape and click of a key turning in the lock.
The heavy steel door opened to admit her and immediately he took note of the lack of the white doctor's coat she normally wore. Its absence pulled his focus in, sparked the compulsion to scan the shape of her clothing for potential weapons. Normally the skirt would be a hindrance in that regard, but today the fit was closer, forming a sleeker silhouette about the hips and legs. The soft brown fabric reached well below her knees, both proving his estimation had been correct and making it easier to determine that there were no holster lines beneath.
He hadn't truly expected to find anything, but not looking would have been unacceptably negligent.
"Good afternoon," the doctor greeted, as unperturbed as usual in the face of his lack of response.
One arm extended to grip the back of the chair and draw it away from the table, but her eyes were focused firmly upon him as she moved to sit down.
"Do you know who I am?"
He did not answer immediately, the question - the shape of it in her mouth - raising a hint of caution. This would be the fourth such examination he had had with her. That he could remember, at any rate, which he understood only meant so much. Was that the reason for the question? Was it why she had forgone the coat? To test him, or else what he could recollect? For what purpose he didn't yet know, thought he suspected that purpose had a crucial impact on that of the overall reason for her meetings with him. Perhaps in time it was something she would make evident.
She made no indication that his pause was anything other than unexpected. Still, there was a weight to her gaze which told him that she was paying close attention to it.
"A doctor," he answered after a moment, and she nodded once, reaching for the pad of paper on which she recorded her notes.
"Very good-"
"Not the same as the other doctors."
Her eyes flicked back up to him with a flutter of dark lashes. He had surprised her - she hadn't expected the clarification. It was a crucial component of the answer to the question she had posed. What, then, made it unexpected?
"That's…not incorrect," she agreed slowly, thoughtfully. "Good."
Fingers closing about the slim artificial yellow shape of the pencil nestled in the fold of her notebook, she settled into her chair, spreading several papers out before her. He watched the movement of the graphite point across the paper as she wrote two succinct lines, underlining the second with a clean, easy swipe.
Though he couldn't make out the contents, he could see that her handwriting was tight and intricate. Like most of the other doctors, she wrote quickly, with a kind of contained haste that made him wonder if she - or any of them - had to exercise a great deal of effort in order to keep up with the speed of their own thoughts. While he had no direct evidence one way or another, simply being there marked her as either quite intelligent or gifted in some way. Simply because he couldn't determine the parameters did not counteract the truth of this.
"All right then," she remarked absently, lifting her head and presenting him with a smile that didn't quite show anywhere but the subtle red curve of her lips. "Let's start with…did you sleep at all last night?"
This was how she always began - the same series of questions regarding his sleep patterns. With the return to it, the Asset set the unexpected variation in her established routine, and the questions it generated, aside for later consideration.
"Yes."
"For how many hours?"
Silently he considered. He had access to neither time-keeping equipment nor a natural light source in his cell. Determining the passage of hours required reliance upon his internal clock, which was often skewed - although he was finding that with the more time spent outside of the cryo-chamber, he was having less difficulty accessing it.
"Three to four," he determined.
"Closer to three or to four?"
A brief pause as he considered the question. "I can't be sure."
When she smiled this time, there was warmth in it, a softening about her eyes that indicated it to be genuine. "That's all right. Did you dream?"
"Yes."
It was not the first time he had experienced dreaming. Nor was it the first time he had done so since beginning these examinations with her, or his having reported as much.
"What did you dream?" she inquired steadily.
He could not report on dreams the way he did missions. The contents had a way of slipping from his grasp upon waking, often to the point where he could recollect only the faintest scraps, something which grated upon the Asset's conditioned predilection for precision and accuracy.
If there was a purpose to dreaming - if it served some function - it was beyond his knowledge. Logic stated that there must be one, in the same manner that there was meaning to pain or to thirst, or even the need for sleep itself. Whether the doctor knew what this purpose was, he couldn't say, but he suspected she must. He might wonder if she wasn't attempting to find an answer to this specific query, considering the repetitious nature of her questions, had it not been for every other aspect of their interactions up until now.
He reached for what little he retained of the previous night's arbitrary collection of images and sounds, summarizing to the best of his ability.
"There was a man: early sixties, slim build, balding, in a four-door sedan—silver. An M-402. I was positioned somewhere above and ahead, administered a kill shot through the windshield—one round to the left eye. Immediate post-mortem reflex drove the car off the road and into a two-meter ditch."
All of a sudden he caught the faint straightening of her shoulders under the smooth lines of the blouse, a twitch of her index finger where she gripped the pencil. Things which might have gone unnoticed had he not been looking straight at her. There was a flicker of something behind her eyes. Recognition, he thought.
Reaching for the file in front of her, she began flipping through pages, skimming the documents within as if searching for something.
As he watched her, he noticed that she had attached pieces of folded adhesive tape to the edges of several pages, creating a tab which allowed it to be more easily distinguished from the rest. There were tiny symbols written in pen on each tab - too small for him to make out. An improved classification system, or so he assumed. Though she was not turning to any of these pages specifically. Whatever she looked for just now wasn't part of what she had marked.
A quiet noise of satisfaction left her as, with quiet triumph, she removed a sheet of paper - the one she had been apparently searching for - and laid it atop the rest of the neat stack. The contents of the page were lightly redacted, a few lines here and there blocked out with thick black streaks. Still, she seemed to have little difficulty deciphering what she needed from it.
For a long moment she combed through the report, eyes tracing the typed lines with a keen, marked interest that seemed out of place considering her reactions to previous recounts he had given of killing.
Taking up her pencil, she made a little note in the margin of the page, and another in her notebook.
"Did anything else happen in this dream?" she asked, and he didn't think he was mistaken in hearing an eager note in the question.
Other things had happened, of that he was at least ninety-five percent certain. But he could not recall any specifics, which he conveyed to the best of his ability.
"Yes. Nothing that I can describe."
"Because you can't make sense of it," she asked, tilting her head slightly to one side, "or because you can't remember?"
"I can't remember," he repeated. If his dislike of the fact came across in his voice or face, she didn't appear to see it.
She gave another of her slow, contemplative nods. "That's all right."
The remark made no sense to him. Acceptable or not, it was the only answer he could provide and required no assurances about it. Why absolve him of something he could neither change nor control?
Making one last note, the doctor set her pencil aside, fingers going to the band of the watch she wore and pulling it from the clasp at the inside of her wrist. Holding the band between her fingers, she angled it so that the clock face was toward him and extended it outward across the table, almost as though proffering it.
Behind him, he felt one of the guards shift, about to dissuade her from doing so, when she inquired: "Can you read this from there?"
The watch was small, but visible enough for him to make out. "12:50 hours."
For an instant her face remained blank, seemingly thrown off by the use of the twenty-four-hour clock. This confirmed that she was affiliated neither with the military nor with HYDRA as the other doctors were - or else that she was very new to it. He thought to adjust to civilian time in order to adequately answer, but she seemed to catch on, erasing the need for correction.
There was a hint of humor in the flash of a tiny smile, the accompanying tilt of her chin.
"I'd forgotten..." she began, only to silence herself, abruptly sobering. "Never mind that."
Rather than return the watch to her wrist, she laid it carefully down on the table beside her, creating a dulled reflection upon the metal surface. It was an unusual amount of gentleness for something so small and so ordinary. From what he could make of it, the piece was not valuable, though it appeared well made in spite of the scratches in the plating. Sentimental value, perhaps.
"We'll move on, then," she murmured, turning to a different page in her collection. "I'd like for you to count backwards from thirty-six. All right?"
She often requested confirmation as to his understanding an assignment, as she did now in the form of a brief upward glance. He answered this as he usually did. "Understood."
"Whenever you're ready."
"Thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three-"
"Stop," she interrupted, holding up a hand, palm out.
He did so.
"Same thing, counting backwards from fifteen."
She studied him as he obeyed the instructions given, watching his face, the movement of his mouth. She was avoiding meeting his eyes, he noted. Had been for the majority of the time so far. In some he might have suspected this to be an indicator of deception, in others it might have been a sign they intended to flee, or to attack. In her, he read something else entirely. He had seen it in her before...of that he was sure, though he did not have enough exposure to be able to identify it. Instinct told him that it was sign of neither misdirection nor potential threat.
"Fifteen," he began, "fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven-"
She made a series of marks on the paper to which she had been referring - tiny checkmarks next to lines of type. "Stop...thank you."
The way she spoke to him was unusual. She used extraneous words and phrases targeted specifically as if for his benefit, to express greeting or praise or gratitude for no real reason other than that it seemed to come naturally to her. He couldn't make sense of why she would choose to do it otherwise, what she might have gained from it. Her orders were often phrased as requests, and she never seemed displeased if he could not answer to her satisfaction. It was behavior utterly unlike any of the other non-targets with which he was required to interact.
"Now if you could count backwards by measures of two," she continued, looking expectantly up at him. "Starting at fourteen, please."
"Fourteen, twelve, ten, eight, six, four..."
He slowed and stopped as he saw her hand rising to indicate he do so, which she noted with an absentminded incline of her chin.
"Very good."
Thumbing through the stack of documents, she extracted what appeared to be a blank sheet of paper, which she then slid across the surface of the table toward him.
"I'd like you to draw the clock that I showed you—"
She was leaning forward in her chair, arm extended with the pencil proffered in her hand.
One of the guards lurched abruptly forward, movement the Asset heard more than he saw. The doctor visibly started. Her arm pulled back, her shoulders drawing defensively inward, and while she managed to curb the flinch from her face enough to hide it from most, his enhanced vision caught the very slight hints of it around her eyes and mouth - the subtle flash of panic directed at a point over his left shoulder.
Whether the guard had brandished his stun baton or made some other vaguely threatening gesture, or whether he simply glowered, was indeterminable. He might have done any of these things to elicit such a response. It might simply have been the advance toward her. Either way, for someone who presented herself to be so calm and in control, that reflex indicated something quite different. Something small and very much afraid.
"The Asset," the soldier snapped, sharp and hard and clearly expecting to be obeyed, "is not to be given weapons of any kind outside of contained areas."
Some of the fear in her face and posture ebbed. A single dark brow rose in subtle skepticism. No...incredulity.
Slowly she turned the writing tool as though to allow the guards to better see it. "This is a pencil..."
"That he could kill you with in ten different ways."
Thirty-four ways.
The Asset watched her eyes flick first to the pencil in her grasp, and then to him, where they rested for a moment. Perhaps she now realized, as he had, that she had been letting her guard down. Something she absolutely should not do in his presence.
It wasn't a significant shift, but it was there. She had clearly still been aware – on some level – of the danger, but she had appeared to be gradually relaxing as she grew subconsciously more comfortable with the room, the situation, the observation. Perhaps even with him. Which was in itself perilous. The table, which she might be viewing as a shield of sorts, was no real hindrance to him. Were he to shove it aside and lunge for her, he would have had the sharp point of the writing tool buried in the crucial vein beneath her jaw before the guards had fully processed his having moved. There was no purpose to such an action - he had neither the order nor the drive to do it. But she would have been wise to expect it of him regardless.
What he found unexpected was that she didn't appear all that shocked or upset by the reminder. There was a hint of nervousness in the brief press of her lips together, but only scant seconds later her shoulders rolled back, her spine straightening to reassume the more collected, confident demeanor of before.
"I understand that," she said calmly.
From her tone alone, he knew that she did, but that she was about to argue. He had no doubt that she had heard and absorbed the correction, yet there had been a reason to her actions which in itself had had nothing to do with the lapse in caution.
"I am not unaware of the situation—" her eyes dropped slightly as if scanning the man's uniform. Searching for a name or an indicator of rank, most likely. "—Lieutenant, but I do have my reasons. Doctor Belsky has looked over and approved my assessment itinerary. So, unless there is some new development I'm not aware of..."
At this, she turned to her left, directing a pointed glance toward the wall-length glass and the people beyond it. For the space of several moments she lingered there, seemingly waiting for something - an intervention, he supposed, which never came. After a while of being met with only silence, she turned back to the soldiers in the room with them.
"May I be allowed to get on with my work, please?"
There was tense a pause before he heard the assortment of sounds which indicated the guard stepping back into place: a rustle of heavy cloth, the subtle creak of sole upon floor, the clink of the grip upon a weapon being adjusted.
"Proceed."
Annoyance flickered across her features then - there and gone so quick that he doubted anyone else could have caught it. When she brought her attention back to him, there was no trace of it. Instead there was a steady resolve, not quite stern, but clearly saying that she would tolerate no amount of nonsense.
"If I give you this, are you going to use it to hurt me or anyone else in this room?"
"No."
For the second time she reached, lightly placing the pencil down next to the piece of paper, and he suspected he was the only one who noticed the faint tremor in her hand when she did.
"Draw the clock, then, please."
...
The intent in leaving her coat behind was not so much to be a test so much as it was chasing a theory.
On the lengthy list of things she needed to accomplish before starting on any plan in earnest was gathering information on how the Asset's memory worked – or didn't work, depending on one's perspective. What little information she had been allowed to view in regards to the Memory Suppression treatment had been heavily redacted to the point of uselessness. Without anything to tell her what the affects were, she had to try and develop an estimation on her own. To do this, she had elected to try a few tests developed by several renowned and respected behaviorists and doctors specializing in the study of cognitive development, brain injuries, and the degenerative effects of age and illness.
Her overall hope was to decipher roughly how much long-term memory he retained versus short-term, how long that memory was capable of stretching, how well it held up, and what kinds of things he remembered versus what things he didn't. Which was where the forgone coat came into play.
Zuzana had wanted to see whether he recalled what she was without the external cue to serve as a reminder. When he answered not only that she was a doctor, with seemingly full comprehension of what that word meant, but also included the clarification that she was not the kind of doctor that he usually worked with...it certainly answered her control question. Whether he could remember the name she had offered or not, he knew exactly who and what she was.
She had been curious as to how, or if, he would describe the differences between his time with her and with the rest of the medical staff. His way of phrasing it as simply "not like the others" was vague, yet clearly defined what he understood to be true as precisely as he was able to be.
If the ambiguity of her directive, or his being there, troubled him, he gave no indication of it. Yet she had expected that he would be accustomed to working with limited information on occasion. A certain amount of flexibility and ability to adjust as needed was obviously necessary to his function, from what she had read of his missions.
None of the progress reports she had been given had made mention of the subject receiving additional memory treatment since the session she had served as an unwitting witness to, which was good. In theory, she might be able to use this same tactic and question to trace lapses in his recall should he forget on his own, or else if he failed to forget following treatment.
His hair was wet today, which was new. Evidently he'd just come from bathing, or...goodness, she hoped they allowed him to bathe like a human and didn't simply hose him down like a dog, though in truth she wouldn't have put it past them. The fabric at the collar of his shirt was dark where water had soaked into it from the curling ends of his hair. There was a hint of dampness at his chest too, as though they hadn't allowed him the time to dry off properly before dressing. That annoyed her.
There was nothing urgent about this. It wouldn't hurt her to wait a little while for them, and there was certainly no need to force him to sit in wet clothes.
She nearly said as much, but elected to hold her tongue.
Even if she had, what would come of it? All they would do was remind her that she wasn't to concern herself with such things, remind her that he was not to be regarded as a person with a need for comfort. Remind her to keep her nose out of where it didn't belong.
Covering her instinctual disdain with a smile as false as her own pretense of calm, she turned her mind resolutely to the matter at hand.
"Did you sleep at all last night?"
"Yes."
"For how many hours?" she asked, observing the way his lifted by an infinitesimal degree as he calculated.
From what she had gathered so far, he didn't sleep much – anywhere from two to four hours a night on average. The number did seem to be increasing each time she asked, which made her wonder whether the cryosleep had had an impact. For getting so little rest however, he was remarkably functional. She recalled the scientists listing the ability to go without sleep for longer periods of time as an effect of the serum, but perhaps it was more that he required less of it overall?
Either that, or it was a contributing factor to the unstable behavior.
When she asked if he had had any dreams, his monotone reply in the assent piqued her interest.
He'd reported dream activity only the once before, and had been unable to describe much beyond a few images. Rail tracks in snow, the steam from a cup of tea. Things too small to make much of besides the fact that he had dreamed them at all.
About four years back, a group of scientists in Chicago had discovered what they deemed to be evidence of brain activity during sleep and tied this activity to dreaming. Though they were still working to develop it, the theory was that dreams were a part of the mind processing information gained during waking hours. That it might be integrally related to things such as emotional learning and the solidifying of memories.
Zuzana had limited experience with sleep studies or the interpretation of dreams, but she knew enough to believe there was a link of some kind. Add that to the extensive evidence as to the relationship between sleep and mental function, any mention he made of dreaming was worth making note of.
The description of the car was what struck her as familiar – something about the specific make and color.
A silver four-door Moskvitch 402…hadn't she read that somewhere before?
It took her longer than she would have, she did eventually manage to locate the report she had looked at days before. She had simply skimmed it initially, not having known she would need it I particular. Now she took the time to read the clipped, concise paragraphs detailing the assassination of someone whose name and identity had been blacked out.
The match was almost exact.
He had dreamed of a mission, a kill he had made over a year ago. A mission that had almost certainly been followed by at least one memory-wiping procedure.
To all intents and purposes, this contained all the signs of an organic recollection, and served as proof positive that he was more than capable of forming and retaining long-term memories, whether desired or not. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be able to remember specifics…but how would he retain the experience or lessons that might have been gained to refine his expertise if he didn't?
She was becoming more and more convinced that she was going to need access to the details of what they were doing – or attempting to do – to him in order to achieve the desired ends. Without that, she couldn't properly discern what was there as a result of a flaw in the method or what that flaw might be.
Zuzana painstakingly wrote out this train of thought, emphasizing this question in the hopes that it might support her eventual request for the information. If nothing else, she would have a documented, justifiable reason in the event that she couldn't make any progress, should it come to that.
Finishing up her note, she posed a follow-up question. "Did anything else happen in this dream?"
"Yes." There was a nearly imperceptible pause before he added, "nothing that I can describe."
"Because you can't make sense of it, or because you can't remember?" she probed gently.
"I can't remember."
She couldn't have described what it was had she been required to do so. There was no real change in his expression, nothing stark or overt, but for the first time since their first session there was something in his answer other than flat, toneless statement of fact. It might have been something in his voice, a mild shift in tone perhaps. Something stilted, short: what it might have looked like if one stripped frustration down to the very thinnest, basest spark upon inception.
He disliked displaying imprecision. Actively disliked it. Because it countermined his function? Or was it more than that?
Was it dislike based in the programming, or in the man?
Guiding a patient through counting exercises was as familiar as breathing by this point in Zuzana's career. She was not above the admission that she had slipped halfway into autopilot in the administration of them, thoroughly occupied by the tiniest, inadvertent sliver of emotion displayed and what it might mean.
She had just slid the blank paper across the table and was about to offer her pencil to continue with the clock test when both of the guards stationed behind him snapped to abrupt and near to violent attention.
While she thought it unlikely that she would ever become accustomed to having them there, she had thus far managed to endure the intrusion by pretending they were just a part of the room's furnishing. For the most part, they had seemed content to do the same, focusing on the man seated between them and doing their utmost to conceal their boredom. In that space at least she had found herself able to displace some of the overbearing stress and discomfort: to sink into the familiarity of the work, the curiosity, the intricate, fascinating, unsolvable puzzle that was a person's mind.
When the guard to the right advanced, brow drawn down and bristling with hostility, she was wrenched sharply back into the ugly reality.
He wasn't near enough to strike her. Part of her brain understood this, just as it understood that if was highly unlikely that these men had been given leave to do so. Even knowing it, she was unable to suppress the reflex to recoil.
"The Asset is not to be given weapons of any kind outside of contained areas."
At first she didn't fully comprehend what he had barked at her. It took a moment for the initial surge of self-preservation to clear enough for the exact wording to untangle.
"This…is a pencil," she clarified slowly, holding the writing tool aloft.
Some of the aggression in the guard's expression transposed into blatant exasperation.
"That he could kill you with in about ten different ways."
Completely unbidden her eyes flicked from the pencil back across the table to the Asset. He had remained motionless throughout the exchange, face as blank as it ever was, yet somehow she imagined she saw an echoing hint of something there which echoed the guard's warning. Even he, impassive and emotionless as he was supposed to be, thought her some ridiculous, doe-eyed woman too stupid to know to protect herself let alone do it.
In spite of the hot spark of resentment this brought her, she gave it the due consideration such a suggestion warranted.
She was willing to grant that perhaps she might not have actively kept the danger of the situation in the forefront of her mind during every single moment she was there. But acclimation was not the same as sloppiness.
Did they honestly imagine she was so foolish as to somehow misinterpret what was going on here? He had been nothing but docile up to now, yes. But the man in front of her was an assassin. Of course he could murder her with a pencil. Every single object in this room was a weapon to him, right down to the mechanisms in the watch she had laid upon the table. If there was a way to cause a person's death with a sheet of paper, she had no doubt that he both knew and was capable of utilizing it.
HYDRA was not about to accept this as an excuse for her to be anything less than thorough. They knew full well that having her here put her in danger. It was the nature of the task.
Searching the uniform of the soldier that had issued the sharp correction, she addressed him with as much patience as she was capable of producing. "I am not unaware of the situation, Lieutenant, but I do have my reasons. So, unless there is some new development I'm not aware of..."
Quite deliberately, she angled her torso to direct an expectant look toward the mirrored glass behind which the observation team would be situated.
She was all too aware that this show of requesting verification from the doctors over the direction of the guards was not going to buy her any manner of favor from them – nothing less than outright and immediate submission would do that. Still, it was important to make it clear that she possessed the authority to make such decisions. Her expertise did not matter to them. The expectations of their mutual superiors, however, did.
She waited as long as she thought would be necessary for the team to deliberate and send someone over to verify if she was not to continue. When no knock came upon either the glass or the door, she looked back at the guards.
"Proceed," the guard ordered grudgingly, moving back into position.
Rather than respond, and risk an open display of irritation, Zuzana choose to redirect her attention across the table.
"If I give you this," she indicated the pencil still cradled between her fingertips, "are you going to use it to hurt me or anyone else in this room?"
There was a moment of silence before he spoke, filled with nothing but the look he leveled at her.
For the space of an instant, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end.
The way that he stared at her sometimes…unabashedly, almost relentlessly, with an intensity that stirred every small-creature instinct in her to run. If he had been any other man she would have deemed him shameless, even crass. But it wasn't that at all.
His regard was utterly devoid of the things she might have expected to see in a stare like that – neither leer nor glower, but assessment. He studied her the way he might have studied a schematic: looking for vulnerabilities and useful features, picking her apart the way he had been trained to do. If he was capable of seeing her as a woman, it was only in the most fundamental of ways, identifying the fact the way he would her height and hair color and potential strength should he ever need to subdue her. There was definitely no interest of any kind in any direction.
It was, in truth, something of a relief. If there was anyone here she absolutely did not want to attract that kind of attention from, it was an enhanced soldier molded to be a brutal killing machine.
Regardless, it made her nervous to be on the receiving end of such cold scrutiny. Which she was positive he could have picked up on blindfolded.
Finally, though it had truly been no longer than a second or two, he answered the question.
"No."
She knew it meant only so much. Even if she had she issued an order not to, it would not have been a guarantee that he wouldn't override directive in order to do incredible damage. Still, she didn't bother lying to herself that hearing it brought her no small amount of relief. Right here, in this moment, he meant it. That had to be enough. If it wasn't…she would never be able to progress.
Decisively she leaned across the table to set the pencil beside the blank sheet of paper and instructed firmly: "Draw the clock, then, please."
She was uncomfortably aware of both guards gripping their weapons just a little more tightly when he took up the pencil. As quickly as she noticed, she promptly ignored it, electing instead to observe him leaning over the paper, overlong hair framing the sharp angles of his face – dark as soot against the marble paleness of his skin.
He truly was good-looking. Not that it much mattered here. It made the situation no more tragic than it would have been had he been less so. In truth, the beautiful shell only made the blank ice underneath all the more unnerving, and all the more dangerous. The human mind tended to associate goodness and virtue with beauty, to trust it, regardless whether that trust was earned. She would have wagered that it was just one more on the list of attributes that had sealed his fate. One more weapon.
From what she had observed so far, the Asset moved and spoke only as much as he appeared to deem necessary. No more. No energy wasted. No fidgeting, no adjustment for comfort or for any other apparent reason. Because of it, this was exceedingly odd to see him move so much and for such a mundane reason – even if in response to an order.
There were several things she noticed as he set about the task she'd assigned. For one, he held the pencil as though he had used one only yesterday, though she knew it unlikely that he was called upon to do much by way of writing in his day to day, let alone drawing. But the way he held it, the studious ease with which he sketched – the way an artist did to etch out the base of an idea before building and refining from it – was unexpected.
She had little to no knowledge of the handling of weapons; it was entirely possible that such activities required the same careful dexterity he used to shape lines upon the paper. Perhaps she had just been making assumptions in her own head about the subject out of ignorance. Perhaps judgmentally.
He used an unconventional grip; balancing it between the middle and ring fingers rather than middle and index, the shaft of the tool settled deeper against the thumb. And, as she realized after a moment of silent observation, he used his right hand.
Interesting…
Everything she'd seen up until this point had led her to believe he was left-handed. She had had him indicate and match shapes on a chart during their last session, and he had used his left to do so, something for which most people innately used their dominant hand. Perhaps he subconsciously thought he might accidentally break the pencil with the left – though that seemed unlikely, considering how much control he appeared to have over it. More likely that he was simply ambidextrous and she was looking for too deeply into it.
When finished, he slid the paper back, mimicking her by setting the pencil neatly beside it. The guards watched him sharply, until they were absolutely sure he had relinquished the object.
While she had expected him to create the rough form of the clock face itself in the most literal and utilitarian interpretation of her request, she instead found an intricate rendering of the watch itself.
He had depicted it the way she had shown it to him – suspended mid-air by one of the straps – copied down to the deep scratch on one side of the old brass casing. The tiny roman numerals were delicate, clear, and exactly spaced. She could make out the very faint lines he had used to measure out the appropriate distance – fine and feathery and just barely visible.
She was no artist herself, but she could think of nothing else to call it. Even those with perfect eidetic memory could seldom reproduce what they recollected like this, not based on any study she had read or heard of.
Was there a practical use to this skill? One which might encourage HYDRA to keep it? Anything they might require him to produce would likely only require simple lines, or else detailed description to scribes or cartographers. He wouldn't need to do it himself, only serve as the vessel. It was well known that artistic creativity often came hand-in-hand with emotional processing and output. She could not see them allowing him to keep such a talent, not when the potential risk of such emotional connections so outweighed such limited gain.
She couldn't have said what made her think to do it, why it felt right to, but impulse had her keeping the sketch flat and out of view of the observation window and sliding it to the very back of her file.
"Thank you," she told him, flashing a light, measured smile. "Just a few more questions for today…"
NOTES:
When I originally started planning this fic (against my own will, mind you) I didn't plan for my OFC to have much by way of trauma in the beginning – pre-HYDRA. But then I made her Czech, out of a combination of an entirely personal, far-away love of a country I really want to visit someday and a celebration of the culture which was neither very religious (fascinating!) or so primeval as to be less chill than it was about female scientists at the time. And I really should have seen it evolving this way, not only because trauma is something every person has and I find value in exploring that, but BECAUSE I made her Czech and because part of my interest in the country is in some of the less pleasant parts of the history – specifically how the Czech people handled it (look into their response to the Nazi threat to destroy Prague). Part of me knew subconsciously that someone who lived there through WWII would have seen some shit, but…I didn't fully put some things together until I was researching rationing. And honestly it didn't change all that much. Things I had planned out for way into the future sort of fell smoothly into place when I thought I was going to have to wrangle with them, and I'm not mad about it.
Fun note: I based Doctor Belsky on Michael Shannon, whom I actually really enjoy as an actor. He just plays bad dudes so interestingly. And, as described, distinctive face!
I'm a little worried about whether these scenes specifically are a bit boring to read - it's a lot of sitting at a table, asking questions, and mainly one-sided introspection. I don't really know how else to handle it, since there needs to be buildup to have payoff. I suppose it's just enabling me to keep my reputation for slow burn. I will add that a lot of the tests that I have Zuzana using are based on real tests for memory and mental-function or mental decline, though I am definitely fucking around with some of the psychology under the excuse that it's the fifties and it's supposed to be cutting edge, even though the tests are modern.
Can I just take a moment to say how much trying to navigate around how the memory suppression machine/memory wiping is supposed to work? I have some theories, all of which seem too sophisticated for the time, or contradict other things. I just can't wrap my head around how they'd be taking such a complex organ that we still barely understand in modern times and be able to separate things out. It's not like they can just stick a hand in there and pick out the blue marbles from the yellow ones, if you'll excuse the awful analogy. Anyway. It's currently the bane of my existence and I still don't know what to do with it.
Thank you so, so much for the comments and the kudos and/or follows. I appreciate you to the depths of my weird, tired little soul. 3
Until next time!