HYDRA Research Facility 6.02 — Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia
October 1956
Damp, aching and freshly awoken from cryo, the man was led bodily up from the lower floors of the facility and into the main administrative corridor. It was the first time he had seen light in months. Beneath the dim fluorescent bulbs, his pupils shrunk and his eyes watered. Arms restrained by two stone-faced escorts, he did not move to wipe the tears from his face. Instead he focused on his breathing as they led him past one, two, three doors.
At the fourth door, they dragged him to a halt. The soldier at his right punched a code into the keypad and watched as the door opened, seemingly of its own accord. The soldier to his left released his arm and took two steps backward, as his partner gestured for him to enter the open room.
Inside, a tall, heavily bearded man—his military livery as crisp and neatly pressed as a fresh newspaper—sat at one side of a steel table. In front of him rested two stacks of paper: the first a sheaf of onionskin documents, still smelling of the mimeograph, and the other a collection of folded maps.
Something clicked in his mind. An engine rolling over, a key in the ignition. His mission. he thought. What was his mission?
Single-minded, the damp man entered the room, shut the door behind himself and sat opposite the dressed officer, falling easily into an old and familiar routine. He knew now. This was his superior, Major Evgeny Vietlov, and he was to be given his mission.
Leaving no time for questions of where or who he was, no room for thought, Vietlov began to brief the Asset of his new assignment, his manner sober and deliberate.
"We've received intelligence that the insurgents have constructed a small research laboratory in the industrial sector of the city, along the eastern bank of the Danube. Some of those same agents have intercepted communication amongst the rebels that suggests this lab may house a powerful weapon, the exact schematics of which are currently unknown. However, from what we understand of its nature, the potential danger if this weapon were to fall into the wrong hands is significant.
"We've already briefed Agent Mikhailov with instructions to annex the laboratory. He is to lead a covert strike team into the area, secure all exits, and eliminate any overtly hostile members of the resistance the team may encounter. At that point, he has been instructed to prepare any survivors for transport to this base for interrogation, before rigging the building with explosives. We intend for this destruction to appear accidental—a chemical explosion resulting in heat intense enough to destroy the facility beyond recognition. If any of the insurgents should be noticed missing by their comrades, it should be assumed their remains were incinerated by the fire.
"What we require of you, Soldier, is to ensure that the liquidation of this facility does not become needlessly barbarous. We cannot afford to lose such progressive weapons research to Mikhailov's oafish bloodshed. You must secure the weapon at all cost. This is your only task, Asset. Locate and identify the weapon. Neutralize it. And secure it for transport to our facility. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do not leave the vicinity of the laboratory unless absolutely necessary. Do not engage the resistance. The livelihood of the strike team is not your concern. Do not make yourself, or any of your… abilities…" Here he gave a pointed look towards the metal arm. Though the soldier made no sign of it, the muscle of his left shoulder throbbed under the attention. "At all evident to the general populace. Understood?"
"Yes, Major."
"Good." Vietlov nodded, dismissing him. "Outfit yourself in the armory and then report to Mikhailov in the motorbay for extraction."
The Asset was already at the doorway before Major Vietlov had stood from his desk.
He did not remember much from the drive departing the complex. They strapped him into the back of a ZIL-131 with the other grunts and the extra tactical equipment. He set his stare straight ahead, hands clasped to his knees, and from that moment on the drive was nothing but a haze of shuddering metal walls, bumpy roads and the distant bellow of what little cattle remained outside in the barren winter.
He was unconcerned about attracting the notice of civilians, or of being waylaid by any Hungarian troops. Not only had the occupation browbeaten the populace for many years at this point, but traveling as they were, in a windowless military vehicle, he was certain they wouldn't stand out amongst the numerous other armored Soviet trucks that prowled the main roads.
When they reached the outskirts of the city, somewhere near Szigetszentmárton, they abandoned the vehicles in favor of a bulk cargo barge. From there they would make their way into the city by the river. Vietlov had made an arrangement with the captain to ensure the barge would dock nearby. Per the arrangement, said captain would allow them to board, turn a blind eye to the multitude of lethal weapons, and hide them beneath the tarps with the rest of the cargo. In exchange, he and his family would be provided safe passage out of the city and across the border into the demilitarized Austria.
The Soldier assumed much the same position on the barge as he had within the truck, back straight and hands clasped tightly against his knees. Land or sea, it made no difference to him. Still there was no view of the outside terrain. Still there were shuddering metal walls, but they were accompanied now by the sound of ice flows rebounding from the hull. Better to focus on the ice flows, than the pathetic retching noises coming from a soldier to his left. It took an embarrassing amount of willpower to ignore the smell. He was already being reminded how much he hated to be burdened with a strike team, and how much easier it was to work alone.
When they reached Csepel, the captain briefly halted the ship's progress, and allowed them to disembark via a small inflatable boat. Discretion was attempted, the boat was colored with dark grays and blacks to camouflage it against the river, but there was only so much discretion that could be accomplished with what was essentially a standard lifeboat. Their only advantage would have to be speed. He pondered this silently from the rear of the boat as the other soldiers rowed doggedly forward. Lift, row. Lift, row. All of them in perfect unison.
After Serbia, it had been decided that he wouldn't engage himself in any activity requiring a partnership with another soldier. They could not match his strength. And he sometimes had poor control of the metal arm. Like a surgeon with a sledgehammer, sometimes the heavier tool was nothing but a greater liability.
As the boat neared the shore, two of the foremost soldiers stepped into the frigid water, and worked to pull the boat fully onto the bank. When everyone had departed, the same two soldiers unsheathed knives and began to slash the boat to ribbons. Leaving it there would have attracted unwanted attention. Faced with curfew, rationing, and a constant barrage of gunfire, citizens were vigilant for any means to escape the city. And of course, the strike team would have no need of the boat at the completion of the mission. Their departure need not be as discrete. If they did not manage to make it out of the city in the chaos ensuing the explosion, they could simply assume a position within the provincial Soviet militia.
From the riverbank, they pushed further inland, watching as the dead cattails and river grasses gradually gave way to crumbling concrete and steel buttresses. They would travel the rest of the way on foot.
Sergeant Dimitri Mikhailov, the commissioner's son, was the only one equipped with a map, and had elected to lead the party through the remainder of the industrial sector to the lab complex. This posturing didn't bother the Soldier. Vietlov had provided him with any and all necessary maps in advance, and he had committed them to memory, as was standard procedure. He covered the rear of the party, and let himself be lead by Mikhailov without complaint.
About one hundred yards short of the lab—really a very nondescript warehouse, rectangular and built of utilitarian concrete—Mikhailov arrested their march, and signaled for the others to pair off and begin to secure the perimeter. All entrances were to be sealed and all sentries incapacitated. They were to reconvene at the southeastern corner where they would enter the building via an old loading bay, a relic from the time when the complex had housed a more commercial industry, some sort of textiles manufacturing.
What the rest of them did from that point on was none of his concern. The Soldier made straight for the sub-basement where he had been informed that only the classified, high-security research was kept. His mission was the weapon.
While the rest of team moved down the first floor corridor, methodically executing any rank-and-file personnel they encountered, confidant that no worthwhile prisoners would be found on the loading floor, the least secure quadrant of the building, he brought to mind the picture he'd been shown of Dr. Ambrus Csorba. He had some questions for the good doctor. After all, there was no point in searching the building for something when he had no idea what it looked like.
As fate would have it, once he made his way down the access stairwell, he found the man immediately. In the second room, seated in a drafting stool in front of a wide, black lab bench. With his brains blown out his ear, and a pistol in his right hand. It would seem he had avoided answering any questions.
Undeterred, the Soldier shoved the man aside and began digging through the cabinets. Nothing but endless rows of flasks and beakers. Drawers filled with clamps and pipettes and mercury thermometers. Shelves stacked with industrial-sized jars of powdered chemicals and metal shavings. Standing up, he made his way past the lab bench, past a medical examination table and a wheeled tray laden with diagnostic instruments—blood pressure cuff, stethoscope, penlight—and past an eerily familiar metal chair, the adjoining table covered in oscilloscopes and ECG electrodes. In the corner of the room, laden with a disorganized array of pens, papers, and research journals, was an L-shaped desk.
As it was the only furniture in the room that looked more like it belonged in a museum than a hospital, he could only presume it belonged to the doctor. Seemed his style, considering that he would choose to wear tailored oxford shoes beneath his well-worn labcoat. But the surface of the desk was unexpectedly unkempt. If the rest of the laboratory was any indication, the doctor didn't usually leave the desk in such a state of disarray. The rest of the lab was immaculate, tables clear and metal equipment gleaming. So either someone else had ransacked the doctors desk, or this was some foolish, last ditch attempt to obscure the nature of his research and prevent the weapon from falling into enemy hands.
If only to save the doctor some of his dignity, the Soldier hoped that was not the case. Such an attempt would have been embarrassingly futile. The laboratory and the equipment already gave away so much as to the nature of the doctor's research. This was not weapon's lab. At least not like any weapon's lab he had seen before. Gone were the soldiering irons and blast shields. Gone were the circuit boards and mirrored scopes and the prevailing scent of gunpowder. This was a laboratory designed for human research. Whatever the doctor had created, it was not the kind of weapon that he had imagined, or that Vietlov had alluded to, some kind of heat-seeking missile or heavy-payload explosive. He was looking for something that was a weapon in the same way that he was a weapon. He was looking for something human, something dosed with serum or augmented with cybernetic technology. That, or he was looking for the blueprints to do so. The realization caused a strange twinge in his chest, the idea that he was looking for something like himself. If he had a greater emotional capacity he might have called the twinge pity, or maybe regret.
Leafing through the papers on the doctor's desk revealed little of interest. Instructions for the preparation of reagents. Shipping manifests for the delivery of distilled water and hydrochloric acid. One paper that looked to be a grocery list. But beneath the more benign paperwork, there were scraps of pages torn from a lab notebook. Between columns of numbers there were notes scrawled, observations on 'the subject.'
'No anomalies were detected in the subject's blood.'
'The subject continues to be resistant to electro-convulsive shock therapy.'
That was it then. He was looking for a live subject. He would not be recovering plans to weaponize a human. He would be delivering a human that had already been altered. Or he would be, if they hadn't fled after the doctor had given up the ghost, if they hadn't already esc—
Behind him, he heard a noise. Airy, like an exhale. But too heavy. Like someone had been holding their breath.
It wasn't his habit to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions, but it was impossible to ignore such an insistent gut feeling. The subject, it was their breath, he knew it. They were still here.
He carefully piled the remnants of the lab notebook, and set them back on the desk. He turned around. Behind him stood a collection of olive green filing cabinets, most of them listing precariously to one side, and one collapsed to the ground, papers beginning to escape from its upper drawers. No place for someone to hide.
He grabbed the first filing cabinet, one hand on each of the upper corners, and pulled it forward. Watched it fall away from the wall to land face-first on the floor. The sound was loud, but he heard nothing but metal on cement. No cries of pain or surprise. And there was no doorway hidden behind the cabinet. Only more smooth cement.
He toppled the next filing cabinet . And the next. Until he came to the fourth, the one leaning on its neighbor, looking for support. Behind that filing cabinet, there was a wooden frame built into the wall, like a window, but instead of the glass, there was only a sliding door with a small metal handle. Tightly shut, of course.
It was an old dumbwaiter.
The moment seemed to slow for him then, like it always did before battle. With the filing cabinet out of the way, he could hear breathing. Could hear the sound of flesh tapping metal, probably an involuntary twitch when they had heard the crash. He tried to imagine his target. They had to be small to fit in the dumbwaiter. Small, or very, very flexible.
He palmed a knife in his right hand—the pistol wouldn't do any good in close quarters—and reached for the handle with his left. Slid it open in one swift movement. Raised the knife. And paused.
Inside, looking up at him with watery blue eyes, was a little girl.