Timeline C: (x-y)=0.8 (50:12) (n:corrupt)

This story is about a little girl. It could be about any one of those little girls. But it isn't. It's about one in particular. That one.
As of yet, she does not have a name.
It was the first face she had seen in days. At least, the first face that didn't flash and flicker on her computer screen; the first that didn't offer only praise or commands in a curious blank monotone, indifferent to her vocal responses.
The kindly, silver-haired man, the one she had been told she must never, ever talk to, had opened the door, and said to her, in a raspy kind of a voice-
-Hello, little girl.
and:
-Isn't it dark in here?
At this point, of course, she had been paralysed into complete helplessness. He had done the strangest thing, then. He had smiled. And he had said:
-Well you're quiet, aren't you?
She was. There was a pause.
-Well, sometimes it's better to be quiet, he said gallantly. -Otherwise, people find things out; and that's not good, is it?
She said nothing.
He had extended a gloved hand to her, then.
-Won't you come outside?
She was terrified beyond belief of the world beyond the doors; not through conditioning, but through choice, as people did not ask difficult questions when she was indoors, did not tell her things that suggested a huge, scary unknowable thing beyond the walls she was used to. The outside, it was a whole, big... other.
But the man she must never, ever talk to seemed so kind; and wasn't that all right?
She followed him, squinting dizzily at the bright sunlight of the courtyard. Even Russian summer had the nip of cold in the air, this high in the mountains, and the sun shone hard and merciless through the clear, cold air.
He had silver hair, like her.
In fact, he had it tied up in a thick, silver rope that hung down to the back of his jacket, a bit like the tail of an animal.
The look of it was so odd that it made her laugh, a little bit.
He turned, hearing that, and smiled as broadly as she did.
-Ah! You're laughing. The little mouse has a voice. Shall I make you laugh some more?
He had crouched down beside her.
-Then I shall tell you my name. My name, little girl, is "Shalashaska." Shalashaska. Can you say that?
As a matter of fact, she couldn't. The word tickled her mouth and made her laugh, and the more she laughed the more it tickled, and so she laughed more, and so on. Her speech impediment, always ready to take advantage of a moment of stress, leapt in, and (before long) she was reduced to a string of helpless "Sssss"'s by the very way he said it, repeating each syllable, teasingly, until he hissed like a snake.
- I thought you couldn't, he had said, with some satisfaction. -Very few people can pronounce my name. In fact, very few people know my name. Even less my other, special names.
-Now you, he said sadly, -you don't have a name, do you? Not even one.
She shook her head. No.
-Well, he said, I shall give you one. You are Myshka; 'little mouse'. How does that suit you, Myshka?
She was thrilled beyond words, actually. A name! A mouse sounded like a good thing to be, as well. They were small, and didn't get in the way. Wasn't that so? She nodded accordingly.
-And so, Myshka, now you have a name, you tell me; who are you?
Ah. This was going to be a sticking point.
She could feel her cheeks redden, begin to burn with shame; how desperately she wanted not to disappoint the kindly stranger! And yet she couldn't answer. Oh no. Perhaps if she failed in this, he would go away. Maybe he wouldn't come back. Tears began to well, thick and unapologetic, in her eyes.
-There's no need for that, he said. -Just start from the beginning. With your family, for instance. Tell me what you know about your family.
Sniffling, she tried. Opening her mouth to speak felt odd; it was like opening a gate that had long since consigned to being rusted shut. Indeed, a rusty-spring noise came from her throat when she began to speak, but she swallowed it down and tried again, so as not to disappoint the man.
"I... I only had a mother. Sh-She was a soldier," she said. "But they took me away from her before I ever m-m-met her."
-Really? he said.
And there was a pause there.
-And your father? What do you know about your father?
"No", she said, verbal resources exhausted. "I mean, n-n-not a father. I- I didn't have one."
And he had sat down beside her, then, and passed a square of white cloth for her to dry her eyes on.
-Well, I tell you what, he had said, a few minutes later, when she felt a little bit better, and she had stopped crying. -I'll tell you this. You know the men that take care of this place?
She nodded.
-They've sent me to meet you for a very special reason indeed, I think; do you know what that reason is?
She didn't know.
-Because the very same thing happened to me, when I was young, he said, gravely. -Some people took me away from my mother, too. And she was one of the best soldiers. And my father is just a memory, to some; indeed, even to me. I never met him. Now, what do you think of that? I'm an old man, a very old man indeed; and I've never even met my mother.
She patted him solemnly on the knee, with one babyish hand; his knee being just about the only bit of him she could reach.
"That's very sad for you", she had said, solemnly, and she meant it.
- And I think the kind men who run this place have brought us together for a very special reason, he said, equally solemnly. Would you like to hear my theory?
She nodded.
-I am an old man, he had said. Did you hear my knees snap when I knelt down there? You did. Wasn't it like a firecracker going off? As I say, I am a very old man. And, well, I'm sorry to say that I probably don't have long to live.
She gasped; clung at his arm; she wrung his handkerchief in agitation. "No! Don't say that!"
-Oh, but I am. And what the heads of this place- the kind men who brought us together- want, is somebody to replace me, when I am gone to my rest.
She stared, uncomprehending.
-Now you, he said, you are very good with the computers, are you not?
Suddenly, she had looked away, a pinkish bloom spreading across her spare, unhealthy cheeks like the thin wash of a paintbrush. He had laughed.
-Now don't blush, little mouse! Isn't it true? he laughed. -You are much better at computer-work than an old codger like me; indeed, better than a lot of the people here! And that is what the world is about now; computers, is it not? Computers will run the world, one day! So, what would you say to that?
Before she knew what to say, he had knelt in front of her then, his blue eyes to her brown.
-You would have to start the training young, though, as I did. he said quickly, urgently. -Would you be able to do that? Would you see the outside world, and not turn away? Would you do the jobs I have done, and see the things I have seen? To help the kind men who have raised you- raised me- to help them save the world?- Would you be strong enough, Myshka?
She hadn't even to think about it. She flung herself forward, landing untidily, as children do, her arms around his neck, ignorant of the new sensation of another human being.
He had said to her, though it was muffled, -That will be enough, little mouse.

As she had been sent to her new quarters, all whirling skirts and hesitant, halting chatter, he had thought; thank god she did not refuse.
And as she met the strange, somehow faceless men and women who would be her only contacts for the next ten years or so, he had thought; for both of us.
And as he signed a small piece of paper (they made it legitimate, somehow; a human being is culpable, but paper can only tell the truth), and as he walked away from the grey, anonymous walls of the training base, even as he thought back to the last glimpse of a soft, white face he had seen through a closing door, he recalled a snatch of song, something left over from his days v Amerike: "one day will flash/ and send you crashing through the ceiling..."
But he frowned; he couldn't remember the rest; not in English, anyway.


AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Allegedly Sunny was kept as a "computer worker" by the patriots before her rescue. I thought, given the Patriots' track record with the children they seem to acquire, Sunny (unrescused) would have eventually undergone a process similar to Ocelot. Meh. An idea, nothing more.
Also, I remind you that if you actually try this scene with Ocelot's real voice- the full, larynx-shredding, juice-wringing, scenery-chomping large-ham-with-everything Patrick-Zimmerman voice- it becomes hilarious. Well, more hilarious than it is already; but intentionally this time. Try it, but do keep some cough drops on hand.