Chapter Nine
The car stopped, not far from a yard gate leading to a quaint, old-style structure, fully covered in weeds and growth, the entire yard covered in half a metre tall grass. The glass on one of the front windows was broken, and the wooden door was half-rotted off it's hinges. Clearly the place was exposed to the elements, for many years, with no-one to care for it. The state of her grandmother's home, made Yelena grit her teeth in a mixture of anger and sorrow.
Off to the side, Irwine showed himself, rifle in hand, just getting up from atop of a garden shed, where he clearly took position to keep an eye on things. The way he was favouring his leg, made it clear that climbing atop of it proved... straining... to his still-sore thigh.
"You should know that I mean no harm... but if you turn belligrent, or prove uncooperative, you'll make things difficult for yourself. The local authorities will be alerted. We're coordinating with them." - the agent stated calmly, as she gestured for him to get out of the car, turning to face her once he did.
Mistake.
The clipped British accent, the casual way in which he said it, and the idea that this... foreign operative, had any kind of pull with local authorities, made her see red. Her mind flashed back to that Tarvos squad in the airport tower back in Sankt Peterburg, and the way they simply... made themselves at home... supplanting local police and taking over.
The arrogance...! Belligrent?! UNCOOPERATIVE?! You don't want to see me... uncooperative... you smug bastard!
"Yesli by ya khotel tvoyey smerti, ty by umer! I kto imenno eto «my»?!" - the woman's tone turned into a rabid snarl, as she kicked him brutally in the gut, making him double over and collapse to the gravel-covered path, wheezing for breath.
"YELENA...?! What the hell...?" - Irwine's incredulous shout came, as he rushed over limping, to restrain her as she landed a follow-up football kick at the agent, who barely managed to block it, rolling away with a moan, cradling his fractured forearm.
"YELENA!" - Irwine persisted, holding her tightly, as she thrashed against him, nearly berserk with fury. He couldn't understand what brought... this ... on.
"Khm?! Kto takiye «my»?! VOZ?! Otvet' mne, svin'ya! Otvet' mne, ili ya ub'yu tebya, kak ubil etikh ublyudkov Tarvosa! Kem ty sebya vozomnil, chtoby dumat', chto u tebya zdes' yest' kakaya-to vlast'?! V moyey strane?! VOZ?! KTO TAKIYe «MY»?!" - she roared, breaking out of his grip, launching herself at the prostrate figure, both hands around his throat.
The agent gurgled, trying to push her away.
"STOP! Pozhaluysta... YA vam skazhu... YA vam vse rasskazhu! YA nichego ne imel v vidu. YA vam ne vrag! YA NE iz sluzhby bezopasnosti Tarvosa i ne ikh soobshchnikov. Ili ikh poveliteli kliki! My na odnoy storone...! Pozhaluysta, pozhaluysta! My na odnoy storone..." - he pleaded between coughs in Russian, tensing up in pure terror.
"Yelena... stop! STOP IT! You'll kill him... stop!" - Irwine grabbed her again, completely bewildered, pulling her off of the agent. He had never seen her like this. And... literally out of the blue. Complete loss of control, for no reason, the likes of which he couldn't even imagine until now.
This wasn't the cold rage, that accompanied her pain. Or the detached fury, that usually followed. Or icy promises of retribution. Or even the unquenching sorrow, that sometimes manifested itself. This... was something else. Something even darker.
Forcibly, he turned her to face him, and was struck by the blank expression. Not the empty one. Or the hollow expression that signified her segmenting. Just... blank. But her eyes betrayed livid fury, as she began... shaking... in reaction.
Make things difficult for myself... Uncooperative... uncooperative... non-compliant... tool... No. I am not a tool. I will never be a cooperative, compliant tool again. He has no power over me. Nobody will ever have power over me again. In any way. If I want to be uncooperative, I will be. I WILL BE. I WILL BE BELLIGRENT AND UNCOOPERATIVE. I WILL BE. I WILL BE! I WILL BE! I WILL DO WHATEVER I WANT! I WILL BE! I'LL KILL YOU ALL! I'll kill the whole world...
She stopped.
"Let me go. Now. Or I'll kill you." - in a whisper, relaxing fully in his grip. The look in her eyes turned empty. The one he learned to watch out for. For a moment, Irwine couldn't believe it. It was... directed at him.
She meant it.
He complied, stepping back a half-step, incredulousness written all over his face.
"Yelena... it's me! I love you. Remember?" - gently, genuinely hurt by the statement.
For a long couple of seconds, she continued staring at him with that empty gaze that sent shivers down his spine. The man couldn't understand it. What the hell was going on?!
"Yelena... it's me. Irwine...!" - he whispered, unblinkingly.
The woman swallowed hard, turning away. She walked off, to lean on the house's outer wall... then collapse next to it, sobbing softly, as she absently rubbed the Ouroboros bracelet with one hand.
Damaged... damaged...
Then she screamed, a shriek that felt like it would tear her throat raw. It lasted for only a moment though, before she just squatted next to the wall, rocking back-and-forth, hugging her knees up to her chin.
Irwine continued staring, bewildered. Not understanding what just happened. But he was hurt, by what she said. Because she did mean it. If he hadn't let go... one of them would be dead now.
Why?! What... why? I... I don't... I don't get it!
"Is... nnhh... Is it usually like this?" - the agent's pained tone snapped him out of it. Looking down, Irwine could see the older man was rubbing his forearm, as a nasty swelling began to form on it. He coughed again, wetly, rubbing his gut. Some blood misted on his lips.
The ex-Marine scowled.
"Shut up. Uh... c'mon, get up and let's put something on that." - he muttered, helping him up and leading the agent to the other car, where he pulled out a bottle of water, soaking up a rag and fastening it around the man's forearm.
The woman was alone upstairs, in the room she once spend a lot of time in, as a child. Sitting on an old bed, staring blankly at the wall, as night fell over a tranquil seaside landscape outside. A few stars twinkling through the broken window.
She hadn't moved, for an hour. Conflicting emotions and impulses running through her, ranging the entire spectrum from random fury and homicidal urges, to emptiness and suicidal urges, and right back again. Twitching... shuddering... or just sobbing softly. Then stillness would come, where she simply stared out to nowhere. Rinse and repeat. Lying next to her on the bed, was the suppressed Zenith.
The door behind her creaked open slightly.
"Can I come in?" - Irwine's tone sounded, gently. She didn't answer.
His gaze fell on the gun next to her, as he stepped inside.
"I... I hope you don't do that, Yelena." - he said simply.
"Why?" - she asked.
"Because I don't want to lose you." - he was honest.
She was silent.
"What... uh... what happened out there? I don't understand." - he asked tentatively, moving over to sit next to her. She shifted away slightly.
"Get out." - in a keening snarl. But the tone was different, as she shuddered... it wasn't the hollowness from before. The one he came to associate with danger. He shook his head.
"No." - reaching out a hand to embrace her.
"GET OUT! I'LL KILL YOU!" - she screamed, shuddering harder, but didn't push him away.
"No." - he kissed her.
She tensed like a bowstring, gripping his hand in a death-grip.
"Kill me. Please." - she growled.
"No." - he replied simply. Holding her. With his free hand, he made sure to push the weapon a bit further off to the side.
"I hate you." - she whispered hoarsely.
"I love you." - he countered, squeezing her to him.
For over five minutes, she didn't say anything. Staring ahead. But he could feel the shudder abating.
"If I go down there I will cut out his heart." - she finally spoke again. Calmly. Looking at her, he could see that hollowness again. She seemed to mean it.
"Uhm... okay. Why?" - the man decided to take the statement at face value.
"He has no power."
"...what do you mean?" - he frowned.
"He has no power over me. I will do what I want. I will be uncooperative if I want. I will be belligrent if I want! He has no authority. NO authority has authority over me. No power, no agency, no entity in the world, has power over me. Not even God has power over me! None. NONE! NONE! I am free! I am not a tool! And he will not talk to me that way. He will not even LOOK at me that way. I will cut him open if he does, cut out his heart and skin him alive, him and everyone else who... who... who-" - she snapped, then choked off, as if... unsure how to finish the sentence.
Irwine didn't know what to say. The left-angle turns were coming too fast, as he tried to wrap his head around what she meant.
"I could have killed her, you know. Zhao Yun Ru." - she suddenly added, calm again.
"The ex-head of Tai Yong?" - Irwine frowned.
"I could have. I could have killed that arrogant, evil, opportunistic, manipulative, disgusting bitch. Slowly. She would have been screaming the entire time as I mutilated her limb for limb. I had a half dozen chances, over the past three years alone. I did not. Why? WHY?! Why didn't I?" - she turned her head to glare at him.
"I could've killed her security chief... that despicable, cowardly, insecure home-bred rabid dog, Narhari Kahn, at least two dozen times. I could have castrated him, gutted him from the inside out and let him bleed out. I could have made him PAY while his impotent little Belltower yes-men watched. I could've brought Tai Yong down from the inside, from top on down!" - she snarled.
"Yelena... I-I don't... I don't know what you want me to say-" - but she cut him off.
"And Burke... the whole setup at Rifleman Bank... the research, the experiments... I KNEW THE LAYOUT! I KNEW THE SECURITY PROTOCOLS OF THE ENTIRE FACILITY! I could have stopped it all on my own, two years before Jensen had to do my job for me! And then that... frigid... insipid... insufferable hag has the audacity to tell me that I need therapy? Meanwhile she just moved on from what SHE DID THERE, to the test subjects?! BITCH!" - she spat.
"I could have destroyed the Tyrants from within! I could have killed Namir, and Barret, Hardesty and Thorne, Hermann and even Saxon, and made a clean sweep of the whole command staff. And myself. I could have forced Namir to get me into the ops section of the Killing Floor, his access codes, and found out the names and locations of the Five! By now they could all have been dead! Do you understand... the cabal could have been GONE! If I just acted when I should have!"
"That's not fair! I mean... uh, yeah, you could've done a lot of damage from inside, b-but... you were-"
"I WAS WEAK! SCARED! CONTROLLED! MANIPULATED! I WAS PATHETIC! A TOOL! A TOOL! A BOT! A LITTLE MURDER-BOT THEY PROGRAMMED! A YES-MAN! I... was nothing! I was nothing, just like the others!" - she screamed, suddenly scrambling to her feet and rushing downstairs.
"Yelena- don't do anything you'll regr-" - Irwine scrambled after her.
Downstairs in the living room where Irwine told him to stay, the agent could overhear most of it, since the old walls were anything but well-insulated. He shook his head to himself, about to try and make a covert report to his handlers.
To say that she was unstable, was an understatement. This was... clinical insanity. Psychotic episode. Clearly her break from the fold had left her sense of overweening righteousness in conflict with her partitioned mental layering, combined with an overarching feeling of guilt and need for revenge. With a radical dose of anti-authority resentment, and plain entitled conceit and arrogance. Put that in someone with that level of training, experience and ability...
There are few things more dangerous then a trained soldier turning on the former masters. There's no doubt she will have to be dealt with, in due time.
Suddenly, Yelena burst into the room.
"Who is 'we'?!" - she snarled, repeating the same question from before, this time in English, stepping over and slamming him into the wall.
"WHO?! And how did you recognise the code? How did you KNOW, what Code-22 was?! There is a reason I used it, you bastard! And it is a classified code only used by ONE group... To see if you would react to it! And you slowed down instantly." - she added, glaring, her grip on his collar not slackening off. With one hand, a curved blade suddenly appeared from behind her waist, sidling up to his throat.
Irwine rushed in a couple moments later, half-expecting to see the agent dead. To his relief... that wasn't the case for the moment.
The agent belatedly realised his misstep, swallowing hard. It was true... the only way he could have known about the code, was by affiliation. Which of course... Majestic 12 very much was. He had to pick his words very carefully here, staring at that cold rage in her eyes.
Idiot... you should not have reacted. Passed it off as a stray transmission and kept going...
"The code? We have our sources. It pays to be aware of our enemy's operating protocols, to stay a step ahead. I'm sure you're aware of the-" - the agent started, keeping a somewhat measured tone, but she cut him off.
"What sources? And who is 'we'?! WHO? This is the last time I'll ask you..." - the blade drawing a trail of blood from his neck.
"S-sources... in the Russian government – their connection with Tarvos Security... and their financiers... their masters... and it's... kkh... affiliates locally! Ever since... kkh... since the assassination of Kontarsky... we've had... an insider. I work for... for an organisation... kkhh... called Majestic Twelve!" - he decided on dropping the name.
Yelena wouldn't recognise it... very few individuals outside the organisation did, and all of those were highly placed within the Council. The Tyrant Corps were not privy to those details, at any point in time.
She released the pressure, stepping back a step. Eyeing him suspiciously. Off to the side, Irwine looked intrigued.
"And what precisely, is your purpose? Aside from researching rogue operatives' personal histories? How do you factor into the cabal and it's operations?" - she growled.
"We do NOT! As I said, it pays to be aware of our enemies' procedures and operating methods, as well as keep an active surveillance on their assets. Former or current." - he pointed out significantly, taking a breath.
"Do you believe the Juggernaut Collective is the only entity with a vested interest in bringing down the cabal?! Do you have any conception, how many enemies they made?! Powerful enemies. They tend to step over people, as I'm certain you're aware. And some of those people are fighting back! People who would rather see the world NOT be torn in half, by a struggle between a power-hungry cabal of misguided, anachronistic globalists infected with a terminal case of entitlement, like the Illuminati, and a cyber-terrorist cabal of meandering anarchists without a clear purpose, like the Collective! Do you truly believe either side has humanity's best interests at heart?" - he descended into a calculated exercise in demagoguery, injecting some very convincing righteous indignation into his tone.
The woman laughed bitterly.
"Humanity's best interests... spare me! As far as I care, humanity can crash and burn right now. They are doing well to get there, as we speak, with everything that is happening between naturals and the augmented! Idiots, fools, and scared, cruel, manipulated sheep! What I want, is JUSTICE. The only kind of justice that ever existed. Revenge. For myself and my family."
Inwardly, the agent smiled. As far as dissembling went, she was clearly not very sophisticated. And the brief was accurate – nihilistic, cynical, and dead-set on revenge, at any cost. In other words... malleable.
He nodded.
"Fair enough. We can only ever affect things and events directly related to us. Anything else is an illusion, or overreach."
"Isn't that what you're doing though? Overreaching?" - Irwine put in, suddenly.
"You could also ask is the Collective overreaching?" - the agent countered, "Are all the entities that were harmed by the cabal's actions, overreaching? Is miss Fedorova here, overreaching? Maybe we are. Maybe all of us are. Perhaps the cabal in the end, is too large and entrenched, to destroy. Not to mention integrated with the world's levers of power and influence. But together, we might be able to give it a bloody good attempt."
"You know, I do know what 'consolidationist rhetoric' means, mister." - Yelena grimaced... but she couldn't bring herself to disagree with the statement.
The aquiline woman paced away, to stare out the dirty window.
"How do you know so much about me? Details like... like this place, like the picture... why? And why do you care enough to get involved with my own... duty?" - she asked, not turning around.
"Because you are looking for the same individuals that we are. And we can put you in the right direction. Don't mistake me – we have not been able to discover the precise indentities of everyone on the Council of Five" – he lied, "...but unlike the Collective, which is more concerned with undermining their projects and initiatives, Majestic 12 knows that the best way to kill the beast, is to cut off it's head, not wound the body repeatedly. We are more concerned with the... human element in charge."
"Point. So what exactly can you give us, and what's the price of that information?" - Irwine asked, crossing his arms. Not really convinced.
"Special interest groups, for one. For instance, did you know that William Taggart, and the Humanity Front, is just a facade for their bid to influence the the UN resolution on augmentation technology?"
Yelena turned.
"That is not possible. We were assigned to-" - the agent cut her off with a smirk.
"...assassinate him, in Geneva, eleven months ago? I'm afraid not. That was never the true objective. The objective was to make it seem like pro-enhancement terrorists were the ones to make an attempt on his life... so his word would carry more weight on the vote to come. He was never supposed to die there. Just have a close call, but very much survive. Ideally with a few bruises, to sell it better. The aborted assassination... the bombing in Prague... Talos Rucker... the incident in London... do you see the pattern, miss Fedorova?"
She glared... but the logic tracked cleanly.
Need to know basis... and I was certainly not the primary, on that assignment. I didn't need to know. Given the deception involved, I doubt even the primaries, Saxon and Hardesty, did. This must have been Jaron's ears only.
"So what does Taggart have to do with what happened to my family?"
"Himself – nothing, most likely. However, he is in the circle. Not on the Inner council, not one of the Five, but we know for a fact he receives instructions from them, and likely has their contact information available. In theory. He was certainly at least as highly placed as your own team leader, Jaron Namir. And you do know he had direct contact with them, correct?" - the agent explained.
"Yes..." - the woman nodded, recalling all the encrypted communiques.
I really should have dug deeper through the Killing Floor, when I had the chance...
"For right now however, I have more actionable intel to offer. Regarding a certain government official named Yevgeni Madalyuk, and his company's own connections with the cabal."
This... got both Yelena and Irwine's undivided attention.
