Chapter 60

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Through the rattling of the air they heard Sizogo Orla laugh. It was not a joyous laugh, a happy laugh, a splendid laugh. The most positive thing they could say was that it was mirthful, ever so slightly sadistic. That it was the laugh of a bear soldier who'd just seen a rat child walk up and try to punch him, and could now shoot back.

In the radar room they were silent, their hearts being dragged down as if tied to a stone and thrown in a freezing lake.

Sizogo Orla was silent for a few seconds. And then it spoke again, its voice sending shivers under the skins of all those who could hear it. It was not cold, it had a fake warmth. It was not robotic, it had a malicious synthetic hilt that almost purred. It was not emotionless. It had a subdued playfulness lingering at the back of its throat, oddly amused at all the little insignificant things it saw. "Did he have a wife and pups?"

…

"You mortal creatures use that line so often, it's impossible to take it on face value."

…

It chuckled again. "Has your curiosity failed you? At the very least, answer mine. Did your little friend really think he could elicit such a flawed emotion as sympathy from I?"

Finally, stepping up to the microphone, Kozlov spoke. "Who are you?"

"I am Sizogo Orla. That is what you have chosen to call me. Is it not?"

Furrowing his brow, the bear spoke again. "What are you?"

"Perfection."

Kozlov slammed his paws on the table, but it was Jorin that spoke. "Perfection? Perfection!? You who gets cannibals and cultists to do your dirty work. That waltzes over us, the greatest nation on the earth, as if you own the place? You who think you can walk over the common mammal like gods and kings of the past!? No," he sneered. "Whatever you are, whatever monstrosity, whatever devil in the air… You think you can run? You can hide? You think you can get away with it? The Tsar thought he could, look what happened to him. Hirshler thought he could, he was so scared by the end he shot himself rather than face our wrath. You may think you can come after us, you can pull our leaders around with your puppet strings, but I swear… The blood and the people of the common mammality of this nation will tear you down from whatever throne you built for yourself and judge you for your crimes!"

…

"Are you done?"

"No," Kozlov yelled. "You are done. I will see you die for what you did to my brother, my friends, those whose lives your little cults destroyed. Do you understand!?"

"So it's you. Pyotr Kozlov."

The bear felt the blood drain from his face.

"I'd say you're braver than your brother, but then again you're not about to die, and words are very easy when you think you are going to live."

"I…" He stumbled over his tongue. "I could say the same for you."

A dark chuckle rolled out. "Given your recent futile attempt to remove me, I know the hollowness of those words just as much as you do. Isn't that correct?"

"Then come and face us, like men," the bear growled.

"And terminate your insignificant lives so soon? I'm not one for handing out a mercy like that so easily. An infinity ago, I stared forward into an endless desolation. And I know from that there are far worse things than mere death that you can feel. After all, death is but an instant. The void stares back forever."

Kozlov glanced at Jorin, Jorin at Kozlov.

"Tell me, do you have wives? Cubs?"

…

"These mammals do."

"What?" Jorin began.

"Many of them are."

Kozlov began to glance around. "What's he doing?" And then a terror rushed through him as he raced back to the radar screen. Sizogo Orla was there… Just behind the wayward jumbo jet.

"Was this bait? To pull me out? Either way, you say your country is great and that words are easy…"

Kozlov turned, racing back to the microphone, yelling out. "NO! DON'T YOU DARE!"

"I don't think mammals will believe that after this, and your words will not be easy."

Jorin blinked, confused, as the bear wrestled the microphone from him, just as two whistling sounds came out. And then it fizzled into static and vanished.

"DON'T YOU DARE!" Kozlov yelled again, slamming the microphone, trying to get something out of it.

It was silent.

And then he threw it down and raced back to the screen, Jorin following him, the dreadful realisation of what was going on coming over the wild ass. They skidded to a halt in front of it, watching as Sizogo Orla dove down and turned back home.

Their jets, those not destroyed, had already turned back, empty on fuel. They'd later learn that they had no clue what was going on, not fitted with the special radar. After a terribly brief burst of flame they couldn't find their wrecked comrade, or its killer that had held it in its clutches.

But it came as a hollow addendum to what they saw then.

The passenger plane wavering off course, its altitude beginning to fall and fall as it started spiralling towards the sea. Sometimes it managed to rise just a bit, only to fall ever more. Curling and curving, down and down, a wounded bird with however many souls onboard. Caught in a death spiral as it fell and fell towards the sea, until…

The light on the radar screen vanished.

Far off, its killer returned to its roost.

Kozlov and Jorin just sat in their chair, cradling their heads, reeling as they struggled with all that had just gone on.

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"That… happened…" Back in the car, the eyes were on Judy, the bunnies' nose twitching. "That actually happened," she repeated. "That plane actually existed… It was shot down. One of your fighters shot it down and…"

"Da," Kozlov said, eyes fixed forward. "It just so happen it was not pilot who pull trigger."

…

"Then why didn't you… -Why didn't your leaders tell the world what really happened," Judy said, throwing her paws out. "Why didn't they get the world to…"

"-How you think world would react?" the bear cut in. "If after missile from our plane shot down jet liner, we say demon from far east pull trigger? Hmmm? Beside, we are nation that abolish god. What would world think then if we show ourselves as under thumb of devil." He let out a sigh. "Sizogo Orla still had… line, as it were, with those in charge. If it could inspire terror in us, imagine that in itty-bitty sable named Premier Yuri. Beside… Not like our mission was official or anything. Not like we had high sway. We try to spread word, send up recordings, before we get destroyed. That got nowhere, but I guess we not got destroyed, so evens out."

"Why did he let you live then?" Judy asked.

Kozlov shrugged. "Who knows. Why you let moth fluttering into you live, and not crush. Maybe not worth effort to kill something so harmless. Maybe even amusing to watch flutter around and struggle. Or maybe, Sizogo truly believe that living with guilt far worse than dying hero."

…

"I don't buy it." All eyes turned to Nick. "I said I don't buy it," he repeated. "You could have nuked this… thing, at any time. If it existed, which it most certainly didn't. And saying this real life plane crash or something was this thing…"

"-I said at start," Kozlov cut in, his voice loud enough to drown out any protest Nick might have given. "Three times, I would reveal Truth behind truth-truth. Dyatlov pass, number one. This, KAL Flight Oh-Oh-Seven and her two hundred and sixty nine passengers, is number two."

"What's number three then?" Nick scoffed.

The bear turned back and glared at him before finally looking forwards. It seemed the obstruction on the roads had finally been lifted, the vehicles ahead slowly starting to make their way on. Carmelita's paw hovered over the lights for a second before holding back, the vixen looking around. She then firmed her gaze and turned them on, pulling into the opposing lane and pushing down. It wouldn't be long before they'd have to duck in again against the oncoming traffic, but they'd likely be able to push their way through to where the roads split up some more. "We should make it back in time for the convoy operation," she said.

"Convoy?" Kozlov asked.

"A little prisoner transfer to Little Vostok," she waved off. "But before we get to the Precinct, you should have time to finish your story. Carry on."

He looked at her for a second. "Do you know where it will end?"

"I can guess. I hope I am wrong."

"Very well," he sighed. "In the days, weeks, months after, Jorin and I were lost. Confused. We had found Sizogo Orla, and it was nothing like we expected. We thought that finding it could let us kill it, or uncover who was behind it. Instead, we had only jumped into the fire."

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Duga-2 Radar array, January 1984

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"I see you haven't been purged yet."

Jorin gave a flick of his eyes up at Kozlov, the bear sitting down next to him. The last months had been something… Preparing for an attack from their monster, or those mammals that followed him, that never came. Trying to get the truth of what happened out, to get higher ups to take notice, while burying copies of their research and findings in case those higher ups came in and slaughtered them.

And yet, over the last set of months, nothing had happened.

Their work had carried on, as usual. Sizogo Orla came and went from his volcanic nest, just like before. Their country had taken the blame for the disaster, but then things had just… Carried on.

…

The bear sat down, scowling. "If we just had one nuke, we could…"

"Do what?" Jorin asked.

Kozlov just looked at him, staring. "Blow Sizogo Orla up!"

"And if that fails?"

"And what if it does not?"

The wild ass shook his head. "We thought a good few missiles would do the trick. We know they hit but…" Up his hooves went. "Like water from a duck's back. Nothing. No damage. He wasn't even angry."

"He could be lying."

Jorin raised a hoof in protest, only for it to fade. Resting his eyes on them he could only groan. "Whatever protected him could…" He faded off, a snarl coming out of his mouth. "That chunk of metal wrote off a diamond drill bit, didn't it?"

"Huh, the… -Ah, the talisman. Da."

"And as far as we know, Sizogo Orla is built out of the same material," the equid carried on. "So it can tank the same things. It's basically indestructible! No wonder it doesn't care about what we do."

…

"It cares about some things," Kozlov said. Jorin raised an eyebrow, looking at him. "-If not, why get in contact with the Premiers. Stagen, I bet Andsobol, who knows who inbetween? It entrusted Talisman to the Tsars…"

"Because up until then, up until our explorers reached that part of the world, it could live in peace," Jorin waved off. "It was only when we arrived, when it couldn't hide at the furthest corner of the world anymore…"

"But why does it want to hide," Kozlov said. "And why come out. Not just to our leaders. But to those cultists, to those it visits on its flights. It has a vested interest. It has a weakness."

"Which is…?"

The bear threw up his paws. "Something has to fuel it, Da? Maybe it goes on the hunt. Maybe it has mammals across the world mining the ore to power its reactor or something. Maybe…"

"Maybe it does spywork for the government?" Jorin asked. "Why not? The Party would never accept that we found the devil, let alone in our country. But we'd deal with him, for sure."

Kozlov groaned. "Isn't that the truth-truth. -But it changes nothing. If we are to fight, if we are to take him down, we need to find what it wants. Find the weaknesses…"

"And it'll know them right away," the wild ass mused. "Just like it knew what we were doing. It knew your name…"

"-Through the talisman," Kozlov pointed out. "It knew my name. Did it know about the origin of the plane?"

Jorin looked at him for a few seconds, blinking before his eyes widened. "Yes! -I mean no. I mean…" He stood up, chair clattering to the floor behind him, and paced off. "We can get him to hear us, but we cannot hear him. And it is clever. Intelligent. This isn't some comic book story where we can trick it. Sizogo Orla will know, it's so above us it…"

"-Is arrogant," Kozlov said, paw out. "Whatever it is. Demon. Alien. Monster. And by the end of this, we will have it in our paws claiming it is bunny rabbit!"

For a moment Jorin flashed a smile, only for it to fade. "How… How?"

"We need to learn more," the bear said. "Get pictures of base, maybe snap picture of Sizogo itself."

"And how?"

"Send mammals in to spy…"

"And get killed like your brother and his friends."

"Then spy plane. Spy satellite!"

"Do you know anyone with access to those?"

Kozlov snorted. "We can find them. Convince them…"

"And if they are under Sizogo's control?"

"Well maybe try American…"

"Do you hear yourself Kozlov!?"

The bear looked back, eyes narrowing. "Do you hear yourself, Jorin?"

"Huh?"

"You are mammal who went to Southern Corner of this country to follow your lead. Mammal who snuck aboard helicopter flying on dangerous mission to save the day. You and your crew built THIS!" He waved around at the room around them. It wasn't the control room or any of the equipment rooms for the radar system, but the point still stood. "So what, we stop now? After coming so far already?"

Jorin looked down, breathing in, breathing out, in, out, in… "No," he said. "You are right. We find a way. Any way… There must be a weakness. I… -The talisman."

"We use it as bait?"

"No, no," he cut in, sitting back down. "If we find method to damage the talisman, we find…"

"-Way to damage Sizogo Orla," Kozlov said, smiling only to pause. "But… But Sizogo Orla killed my brother, his friends, because they wanted to experiment with it. Explore it. That was too risky for him…"

"It was a mercy."

The bear froze, blinking, rage growing on his face. "It was a wha…"

"-Sizogo believes it was," Jorin cut in, Kozlov placated for a moment or so. "It said it himself. He thinks leaving us with the burden of all those lives… Pulled down by our guilt, by our empathy… Is worse than a clean, simple death."

The corner of his mouth flickering and tensing up, Kozlov shook his head. "But still, he thought they might find a weakness. A flaw. So he disposed of them. If he thinks we might…"

Jorin slowly nodded. "I see…"

…

"Maybe we fully develop whatever we're doing before we test it?"

"Huh?" Kozlov asked, looking over.

"So, say we think gamma rays can melt it," he said. "We develop a gamma ray gun so, if it does have an effect, if he comes to take us we take him!"

"Da, I…" the bear froze. "But what if we're almost but not quite there."

Jorin's joy faded. "Yes, good point. And he'll probably work it out anyway… I…" He paused, looking up at the bear. "He values his secrecy, doesn't he?"

"Da," Kozlov said, nodding.

"So why don't we use that for our own protection?"

"I don't follow," the bear said, scratching the side of his head. Jorin meanwhile stood up, starting to pace around.

"When he attacked your brother and his friends, it wasn't in their city. It was out on their hiking trip, in the middle of the wilderness. When we had reports of him meeting the Premiers, it wasn't in the Kremlin. It was out in the woods. When we follow his flight paths, it's at night, over rural areas. Low down or high up, whichever is best to not be seen. So, if we are to experiment on the talisman. If we are worried he will come to kill us, take it back… We put it in a place where he would have to compromise everything to do that."

"Where he'd expose himself," Kozlov followed on.

"To millions of mammals," Jorin continued. "To TV cameras, to the party, to everyone. Expose himself so much that we'd be the crazy ones NOT to do anything. We'd unite the whole world against him. Ha, you talk about getting the Americans on board? Well, we show them an alien invasion, it would be like Elbe day all over again! Isn't that right Koz…" He paused, seeing the bear looking far less enthused than he expected. "Kozlov?"

"We do the experiments in a city, Da?"

"Yes," Jorin agreed.

"Millions of witnesses…"

"Of cour…"

"Millions of potential victims."

The expression on the equid's face began to fade. "Yes, but…"

"Hundreds, thousands, of jumbo jets full," he carried on.

A long silence filled the room.

"Are you ready to take on this price?" he said.

"...Yes. Are you?"

"Da," the bear agreed, slowly nodding. "And if on the site, we build another Mammontev Kurgan… For the thousands, tens of thousands, millions… The great wave where each one became just a statistic of the victory…"

"The victory that had to come," Jorin said.

Kozlov sat there, sitting down, scratching his head. "I used to think that the broken lives that paved my path here would be paid off like that, to avenge the nine lives lost. Now hundreds are lost…"

"Hundreds need to be avenged."

"And if thousands die trying…"

"Then millions…"

"-And if millions die…"

"Then billions."

"And if Billions die trying, then what?" Kozlov asked. "Who will be left? Just Sizogo Orla, and…"

"You think he can take on the entire world and win?" Jorin asked, laughing. Kozlov frowned at him, not that it stopped him. "Then why does he hide so much? Why does he get cannibal cultists to do his dirty work? Why does he go and wipe out a bunch of young hikers, and attack unarmed civilians? No. It wasn't nine who died by him. It was hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions. How many other mammals have died by his actions? How many by his inactions over all these years. Sitting on a wealth of technology, power, potential and just retreating to a corner of the world and sitting on it while the world lived in poverty and want, only coming out to spread terror to those who might risk it. Tell me Kozlov, you and I both residents of the country where the workers came together to cast down any hoarding dragon who thought they were better than the common mammal. What do we say to that!?"

Kozlov looked back, his paws gripping tight. "URA!"

"URAAA!"

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"Over the next year or so we kept quiet and got our plans ready. Finally, seeing Sizogo Orla fly far off away to east, we took our fastest planes with Talisman in tow. West. Far west.

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Kabanrovsk Airport, February 1984

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With a scream, four massive engines roared to life, the vents at their end dilating slightly before constricting, channelling the furnace like glow. And with a slight nudge at first, the lithe jet began rolling down the tarmac. Her nose drooped, her two small canards above the cockpit deployed, the ground rumbled and the air shook with the vibrations from the howling afterburners. A few mammals at the airport, sparing to get a look, covered their ears as the supersonic airliner lifted her front wheels off the ground, the rear soon following as she sailed into the air. Wheels up, she kept accelerating. Nose straightened, she kept accelerating. Canards tucking back, she kept accelerating.

A few mammals in a village nearby looked up to see the odd plane that had flown in screaming a week before flew back out, flinching down as a deafening double bang ripped through their bodies and shattered the windows around them.

Onboard, the plane kept accelerating, the pilots darting about and flicking a button here and there when it lit up in protest.

And, in the empty passenger cabin, Kozlov and Jorin were squeezed in, along with a large soundproof box. "Haha!" Jorin shouted, pausing as the plane shuddered and jolted. He watched on as a squirrel technician climbed up a seat in front of him and peered out of a window, the small rodent's posture relaxing after a second or so. Jorin's smile returned as he turned to Kozlov. "Nice little 'radar experiment' I was able to procure for us, not that they're doing much else with these ladies." He patted the inner lining up the plane, the finish jostling a little. "Still, when it came time she was ready! And then it'll be back to training our space shuttle pilots. Hahaha, Concorde, Space Shuttle, whatever new fancy toy the West makes, we can do our own. Can't we Kozlov."

He turned back to the bear next to him, head squeezed in and down by the curving roof of the narrow jet. The bear turned to face him. "WHAT!?"

Jorin saw the bear's mouth move. "WHAT!?"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

"YOU HAVE TO SPEAK UP!"

"THE ENGINES ARE COVERING YOUR…"

A bang and a shake cut them off, the pair glancing at each other silently before looking back as the squirrel raced back and looked out of the window again. He peered out of the window, narrowed his eyes and frowned… Before seeing the pair's expression, giving a big cheesy smile, and skittering back to the cockpit.

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Plane did not crash, though when landing in Moscow I think bit of wing fall off. We hear over radio that Sizogo turned course, followed us, but soon found we outrun him. Easy. Even fast subsonic plane we get on for last leg could hold Sizogo off. As we go even further west. Almost as west as we could go. To one city where we knew even our censors would not be able to cover it up if it came. And where, if it tried, it would garner the eyes and the wrath of the entire world."

"Let me guess." Nick cut in. "Bearlin?"

"...East Bearlin," the bear chuckled. "Almost, Fox. Almost. But da, we could see Wall and West from top window of our lab building. We even heard that Sizogo follow us briefly, try to catch up. Only to give up. Jorin was correct, no? We played one up on the devil… And before he claim his due, we got some fun over the years. Until the day we cracked his armour."

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East Bärlin, 1986

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With a rattle and a shake, the lift reached the basement level of the building that Kozlov and Jorin had called home for the last year or so. Pulling the grate out of his way, the polar bear ducked below the lintel of the doorway and out into the large, cool, damp space. Wires and electrical equipment were spread about, mixed along with furnaces, drills and other heavy machinery. Every now and again it would rattle and shake, a U-Bahn line not far behind one of the walls, busy carrying citizens of a different country to and fro, taking a shortcut through this one.

The bear still thought they should have been made to build their own tunnels in their own country, but then again mammals over in this part of the world were soft and quite stupid.

"-You have that look on your face again," Jorin said, looking up from a desk. "What did you see this time?"

"Whatever do you mean?" the bear said, putting down a small bag of goods. "I was at the store, not the roof. And…" He leant over and pointed at a hook, a pair of binoculars hanging from them.

"You haven't spotted your first giraffe, have you?" the wild ass shrugged, walking over to him. "You could see one of them over the wall, no?"

"If one wanted to come here I guess I could," Kozlov shrugged. "But I've still never seen a giraffe."

The equid paused for a second. "Kangaroo!"

"Huh?"

"You saw him peeking over the wall as he hopped."

"No," the polar bear waved off, chuckling.

"...Or one of those wolves from south america that look like foxes with very long…"

Kozlov joined in with his friends chuckling. "You're just being silly now," he laughed.

"Okay, okay, okay, but you saw something, right? This is like when you shared a beer with that American deer at the border who battled in Vietnam. You saw something…"

The bear reached into a pocket and brought out a leaflet. "Think it blew over," the bear snorted. "'Green party', 'Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Social Democratic Party Youth Wing..."

"Our boys!" Jorin cheered, as Kozlov pulled out another.

"... Baaaaaader Meinhuf Gruppe."

"Who?"

"'More commonly known as Pred Army Faction."

"OUR USEFUL IDIOTS!"

"All campaigning against western imperialism, militarism, capitalism, speciesism and the stationing of American troops, missiles and weapons in the country, due to it being a provocation against the peaceful Eastern block…

"-Say, does that include our peaceful intervention in Afghanistan?"

"Well as we've rebranded being a moron and toady into being 'an outspoken public intellectual' in these countries, da," Kolzov chuckled. "Of course. Stupid question."

Jorin smiled back. "-And they also want all nuclear and non-nuclear military stuff removed, bla, bla, bla… In the promotion of global peace and security… Something, something…"

Kozlov sniggered. "They think it'll mean we'll leave them alone as we're just the good guys here, and everyone will live in peace and harmony and friendship." There was a brief pause, before they both burst into laughter, Jorin hee-hawing and Kozlov banging his fist on the table. It was only when the shaking of a train running past disturbed them that they cut themselves off. "Why they have a tolerance for stupid, unlike us, I don't know. Still, we can laugh. Did you hear about what we confused those morons into doing at Entebbe?" the bear snorted. "'I am no nazi,'" he pantomimed, wandering around. "'I am an idealist.'"

Jorin's ears just semaphored about. "Entebbe?"

"Somewhere with lots of giraffes and other stuff," Kozlov began.

"-Are you two done!?" Both turned to see a voice from the past speaking up. Across the lab, sitting down, was a familiar looking mouse, a tough looking pine marten standing next to him, holstered gun on his back.

"Ah," Kozlov smirked. "The electric mouse."

There was a slight grumble, the rodent waving them into a lab. The pine marten followed, Kozlov and Jorin wandering after. "What's with tall, thin and wiry?" the bear asked.

"You should know," the ass said, smiling. "Little mammal like that, especially with big head, might sneak through cracks in a certain wall."

"Aaah," the bear smiled, tapping his nose as he followed. "I thought that was why the border guards had all the pet falcons, eagles and owls."

"No, no, no…" Jorin smirked, as they slipped into a different room. "That's for the bats."

"Da," Kozlov agreed. "Protecting us from bat fascism," he chuckled, only to grow serious as he saw the object of their studies.

The talisman stood there, in a soundproofed box, the small rodent tweaking his whiskers about.

"Why's it in that?"

"Insulation," Jorin said.

Two tiny paws hit a tiny face, sliding down. "If you imbued it with a charge, you'd want electric insulation. Not sound."

The polar bear and wild ass shared a look, the latter walking forward. "Well, this is electrically insulating as well. Anyway, it seems to have some interesting properties that we thought you'd want to look at further."

"Uh-hu, uh-hu," he said. "So, you imbued it with a charge with your radar equipment. And?"

"It stayed imbued," Jorin filled in, placing the item into a cradle. The pair then watched on as the mouse began to do some experimenting, tweaking about with gauges and wires, humming. When asked for some past data, Jorin provided it.

"-Remarkable, remarkable, a persistent store of energy… Not that you can extract the power."

"That's not quite what we're interested in," Jorin carried on, carefully taking it over to a diamond tipped drill. With a whirr it began to start, winding up and up. The bear looked on as a recreation of the moment that had sealed his brother's fate so long ago played out. Down the drill came, whirring and then screaming as it touched down on the surface of the metal. The room was filled with the grinding sound of metal on metal, smoke coming up and bits of metal and sparks peeling off. Kozlov's eyes switched between the scene and the mouse, watching as the rodent's eyes narrowed and then widened, looking on as the now blunted bit was taken off the unblemished metal surface.

"Remarkable… Remarkable," he said, glaring as Jorin pulled it away, his expressions softening as he saw it get slipped into a microscope. Over he walked, peering through. All as Kozlov glanced at Jorin and smirked, his friend smirking back. "-Extraordinary!" Back they turned to the mouse. "Not a jot of damage. Not a speck of a striation." He waved back. "If we could replicate this, we could have planes and helicopters that can't be shot down. Tanks that can shrug off the hardest shells as they race through the Fulda gap to the Rhine…"

"As long as the enemy don't find a way to turn off the shielding," Jorin pointed out.

"I… Yes, of course…" the mouse said to himself, humming a little. "Let me measure the frequencies." So he went, looking on as Jorin set the item up in a cradle of wires (within a soundproof chamber) and then looking on at readouts. "Yes, yes, I… Ah. Interesting."

"What's interesting?" Jorin asked.

"It's the reverse of the frequency you shared with us all those years ago."

"Reverse?" Kozlov asked, looking down only for Jorin to hold up a hoof.

"-It turned," Kozlov narrated back in the car. "That during our experiments years earlier, reading the induced output, we must have crossed two wires. Positives became negatives, negatives became positives. Turns out that had we got it right… Well, we'd have boosted the shielding and the output, but would have probably worked out that running the reverse frequencies, cancelling out the one from the item, would work with a bit of deduction."

"Either way," the mouse continued. "Maybe our ball lightning technology would have a use after all."

"Huh?" Jorin asked, before pausing. "You mean, cancelling it out…"

"I'd assume so," the rodent chuckled. "I mean, we're looking into using it for anti-infantry purposes on long range aircraft where weight and ammo capacity is a major restraint, and…" He paused, giving an eye over at his pinemarten chaperone. "I'll be stopping there. -Anyway, for any vehicle with even the most basic electrical protection, the system is harmless. So you could hit a tank with your shielding with our weapon… and it'd just be a regular tank until you re-energised the shields… I cannot believe I just said that."

"Is that a smile," Jorin mused.

"Nyet," the mouse frowned.

"It was," the pinemarten spoke.

"-Anyway," Kozlov cut in. "You just hit the tank with a blast of electricity and a shell at the same time. Problem solved."

"As I said those many years ago, problem solved, Da?" Kozlov mused, looking down at the driver.

"Indeed," Carmelita said, ever so quietly. "Da."

"And so we worked on our plan moving on. The lightning cannons were still primitive, slow, could be dodged. So that's why we moved on to simpler idea, inspired by particular dumb square faced fox."

Kozlov and Jorin smirked as they looked at the devices they had created. Small, primitive rockets, the round ball of a sticky charge at the uppermost end, protected by a fragile globe of glass and shrouded by metal chicken wire. It hit their target, it stuck on, it blasted it with the cancelling charge and then detonated. Hundreds would target their enemy in a barrage, the shaped charge powerful enough to cut through tank armour. Already, they had clusters set up at all six Duga sites and a seventh located at their current facility. All as they did 'experiments' on the talisman, acting as if they were exploring it, testing it. Every night their comrades gave an update, to see if their enemy was making a move.

And so, one day, with great trepidation they moved the talisman out to do another experiment on it. Running the current through, Kozlov pondered out loud, wondering how he might drain it. Jorin disagreed, saying that there must be some other method of getting through. Maybe a chemical attack. They began to bicker, argue, working around with the machinery to try and make it look like they were trying, failing, getting angrier and angrier. And soon it turned into shouting, yelling, a great stage show… Though as he did it, as he said they must carry on, they had to bring this creature, this monster, to justice, for his brother… Every ounce of rage, of anger, of hopelessness and bitterness from the journey spilled out. He felt his muscles flash out more than he intended, he saw a flick of fear in Jorin's eye.

But before he could change, before he could say sorry, the wild ass acted on the fly. He threw his papers down, he stormed out, leaving the bear panting, angry, growling. "AAARGGHHHHH!" He grabbed the cradle they were holding it in, wires still plugged in, and threw it down on another drill they'd got. Fingers slamming into the buttons, paw grabbing and yanking down the wheel with all the force he could muster. His whole weight into it, he yelled out. "WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE!"

Metal ground against metal and the bear froze for a fraction of a second as he saw the drill cut in. A few sparks flew, and then his muscles screamed, a blinding light and crack of lightning overwhelming his senses.

And then he felt the hate crash down on him.

Like he was under the drill, like he was being gripped by great metal talons around his head, he felt it crush, crush, crush down on him, screaming and hissing and then just tearing. A sound and feeling that was constant, everything, no memory, no sense, no nothing able to displace it. "YOU!" It screamed in that same voice he'd heard over a radio years before. The day two hundred and seventy mammals died in the cold sea. And he saw it flash back to that night, the lights of the rockets trailing out in front of him and blasting the rear of the jet, before the world turned and he stooped down, down, down… "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!" At that, the world was cleared away in a hail of static, replaced with a vision in some distant land. The heat baked down and the air was filled with static, and Kozlov felt himself reaching out, begging, pleading and confused, a bandit masked figure pulling a lever as he glared at him, condemned him, cast him back to… The world screamed once more and it was cold. Cold… The wind and snow on the mountain cut past. "PYOTR KOZLOV!" The bear tried to look around the ever-fixed immovable vision, turning down to see nine terrified mammals huddling below, marching down the snow naked. "YOU WANT YOUR REVENGE!?" And he was the monster playing with the mammals he'd last seen when he was three. Watched him bat around his fleeing, begging brother, knocking him into trees and picking him up like a child's doll. Hurled, played with, toyed, ragdolled, all as it laughed. As it laughed, as it LAUGHED AS IT LAUGHED! For a moment, Kozlov's own fury surfaced, before it was drowned again. Two screaming eyes blazed at him like a furnace. "THEN LET US MEET AT LAST. YOU SHALL LEARN WHAT HAPPENED ON DEATH MOUNTAIN, YOU SHALL FEEL IT YOURSELF. YOU AND YOUR COMRADES AT THE WOODPECKER'S EAR BY THE MARSHES SHORE. BE THERE IN TWO DAYS TO MEET YOUR FATE, OR BE WILLING TO LET HOWEVER MANY OTHERS TAKE IT FOR YOU….. Kozlov… Kozlov…KOZLOV!"

"KOZLO…"

"AH!" The bear kicked his paws out, waving, pushing away at the looming figure above him. Back he went, back into a wall, a clatter coming from above and the figure running across, sealing something in a chamber and calling his name… Calling his name as the blur came into focus and… "J-Jorin?"

"ARE YOU OKAY!?"

He yelled, the sound rippling through the fraying buzz in his years. He just nodded, looking around, slowly getting his bearings. The lab, in the city, he was… He was… "What happened?"

"I went out, then there was an electric… boom, and I raced back in and saw you thrown across the room."

He nodded, slowly. Working his fingers and extremities, finding himself still working. Just tired. Worn. "How long was it out?"

"You weren't out," Jorin said. "Just bang, thrown back, and…"

"It spoke to me," he said, looking up. "I saw different things, from the past, as it just screamed at me. Tried to crush me with its hate. Told me to meet him, to face my final fate, like my brother. Or else others would take it for me…"

Jorin sat down, pausing to direct some other mammals to get some water, to prepare a bed and some painkillers.

"At Duga…"

"Huh?" the equid asked, turning back to look at him.

"We meet at Duga, in two days."

He shook his head. "We can't get all the way back there with…"

"No, no, not that Duga," Kozlov said. "The western one. The Duga One receiver…"

Glancing back at the device's chamber, Jorin smiled. "Where he thinks we're unprepared. Where we have a surprise waiting for him. Come on. Come on, up you get…" The Syrian wild ass, with the help of some other mammals, lifted him up and started to haul him away. "You did good," he said, Kozlov managing a faint smile. "You bloodied his nose. We've got him. We've got him coming right into our trap… And when we meet him… together… The world will change that day comrade. The world will forever change."

"-How right he was. How right he was."