"Wake up! Wake up! WAKE THE HELL UP DAMN YOU!"
What is this?
"Are you ok, Hans? Say something... no wait, you can't, then do something...."
Wait. I remember. She is waking me....
Hans lifted his head, looking into Zorin's ochre eyes. "About time!" she yelled "I was about to punch you to see if you were still alive!"
That's the sweetest awakening I've ever had....She actually cares if I'm alright!
He stood up, still a little sleepy. It must've been quite early.
Wait a second, how did she get into my room?
"Ah, I know what you are thinking... the door..... I just happen to.... have found the key in my hands...." she waved in the air and pulled out of her apparently empty fist a key ring. "Just a little illusionist trick..."
If doc sees she has taken the keys she'll be executed... or worse!
"So... well... the reason why I came here.... I just wanted to know if you have to sleep in a coffin too."
A coffin? Hans looked at his bed... or to be precise, the thin and ragged mattress he had to sleep on.
I wish I had a coffin. That would really be comfortable.
Zorin must've though the same thing, because she changed subject.
"So.... what is that the Doctor wants us to do tomorrow?"
Hans shrugged: no clue.
"I guess we'll learn it soon enough...." she sat down and made a cigarette appear between her fingers.
A smoke!? Where the HELL did she find it?!
"So.... how long have you been here?"
He raised two fingers.
"Two months?"
No.
"Years?"
Correct.
"And you're just... just their rookie? You looked like someone who could have quite a career."
Really? Do I look so good? Hans' expression brightened.
"I guess you're not too smart then."
He fell from the stars. And the ground felt very hard.
"Oh, come on, I was just kidding" she grinned "You really can get excited for little."
Maybe that's because I don't get to see a lot of people.
"Anyway, what is being a soldier here about? Is it good or..."
NO.
"That bad? Really? I thought it was more like a..... I don't know scientific stuff than a real battalion...."
That's why.
"Anyway, I'd better get going, I suppose they don't like people to walk around at night...."
You could stay a little more...
"I hope I'll find the way to my room.... or maybe I should say loculus."
Hans tried to follow her, but she locked the door as soon as she had crossed it. He could hear her heavy footsteps in corridor, together with the clinking keys.
There was nothing to do. He was locked in again... just like every other night in the last two years.
But it hadn't been an average night.
It hadn't at all.
And the day after was going to be even more peculiar.
oOOo
To begin with, Doc came into his room earlier than usual, bringing him civilian clothes. The perspective of a possible trip outside was awesome.... especially if that meant spending more time with Zorin. And even though he didn't use that word often, Hans felt he could call her a friend.
"...so, well, I just didn't think I'd have seen action so soon. And a secret mission! It seems like they've already noticed I'm the best at this kind of things..."
On the back seat of the, car Zorin was doing all the conversation by herself, but that was fine. Sitting beside her, Hans listened to her endless boasting the way he'd have listened to a sweet and catching music.
oOOo
Doc overheard their conversation while driving. In his head echoed the words the Major had said to him the day before.
"I have decided you will have to handle the best one of the recruits, the cream of the crop."
"Jawhol, Herr Sturmbaunfuhrer."
"You might wonder why.... but I believe your plan is the one which holds more hopes of success."
"Thank you, Herren."
"Besides, that werewolf you have.... I have some ideas about him. But not yet. The first thing is to value whether your new soldier is fit for our plans or not."
"And how will we do so?"
"Very, very simple. You will leave for mission BVMB tomorrow, and you'll bring her and the werewolf with you. Keep him alive at all costs. As for her...." the major grinned, that awful, terrifying grin of his "...you will make sure she has very few chances of returning alive."
oOOo
"...so I'm just wondering, when are they going to give us guns? Do they expect us to run around unarmed or what?"
We probably won't need them.
"But seriously, the cool things about being in the army are uniforms and shooting people, so what is all of this about? If only they gave me enough opponents, I'd show 'em...."
"Don't worry, Soldier Blitz" intervened Doc "When we'll be there, the last thing you'll lack will be enemies."
"Why, where are we going?"
"Right.... Here" Doc bent left, heading to a large red barn in the middle of nowhere. "this is where we leave."
Didn't you just say it's where we go?
Doc didn't answer to Hans' implicit question. He just unlocked the barn's door and walked in.
For a moment, for a single, sweet moment, Hans though he could just run away and be done with Millennium, with the battalion, with the doctor and his experiments. Nothing kept him. No locks. No doors. He was fast enough to run away and be beyond their reach before Doc could even realize it.
But.
Where would he go? Where, outside of the only place he really knew? The shattered memories of his former life in the wild reeked of pain and hunger, but he knew he could find freedom beyond his master's grip.
Was there choice? Could he really decide which way to go?
But the real question was, could he really do without Millennium? Could he really face the real world?
Not yet. But soon.
He followed Doc and Zorin inside the barn. It took a few seconds for Hans to understand what the item he was looking at was: then he realized it was a small, black painted plane. Doc caressed it's wing, grinning.
"Soldiers, take place please. England is waiting for us."