Post by Siren on Aug 6, 2022 9:49:24 GMT
“Eyes level. Shoulders relaxed. One arm over the other. Spread your legs - like this, Katya. Good girl. Now gently - with an exhale - gently pull the trigger.”
“I don’t want to do it.”
“Katya, I -”
“I don’t want to do it, Tetushka. It’s loud. It hurts my ears.”
Katarina stood at the edge of the range, the rifle in her hands. A few lanes down from her, Yulia stared at her blankly. Her own rifle still smoked from the tip, her finger resting on the guard.
“It isn’t that loud. Are you wearing your plugs?” she asked. Katarina nodded. Yulia frowned. “Then I don’t understand why you’re crying.”
Turning to the target, she raised the rifle - eyes level - and fired off three quick rounds. Two hit the wall, but one hit the target’s shoulder. Yulia’s frown deepened, but she didn’t comment on it, instead glancing back at Katarina, who had tensed the moment her sister pulled the trigger.
“What?” she asked, candid.
“Yulia, you need to understand that your sister isn’t like you. You’re both very special girls, but you’re both very special in your own ways. Some things that are easy for you might be hard for her, just like some things that are hard for you might be easy for her. Noises are louder. She just needs time to adjust,” Tetushka explained, patting Katarina on the shoulder.
“She won’t adjust if you keep coddling her,” Yulia retorted, firing off another three shots. Katarina flinched again. “That’s how hard things get easier. By doing them. That’s what Leo says.”
“Leo is right, but that doesn’t mean to torment your sister. Everyone learns at their own pace.”
~
“I heard you went to the range today,” Yulia said to Katarina, holding out her tray to the soldier behind the glass screen. He filled her plate with something pale and clumpy. Katarina nodded, wrapping her arms around her torso.
“I missed almost every shot,” she admitted, looking away. “But I did what Tetushka asked. I managed to stay steady.”
“Good. Maybe you can catch up to me, if you try hard enough,” Yulia replied, settling at a table at the far end of the cafeteria. Most of the men and women in the hall gave the girls a wide berth. They seemed out of place - two twelve-year-olds in a military camp - but the distance given was a knowing one, not unknowing. They had been here most of their lives. They were a part of the system, if only a part to be avoided.
“You’re really good at aiming. Way better than me. I don’t think -”
“Don’t say you don’t think you can’t beat me. Leo says -”
“I don’t like Leo.”
“Don’t interrupt, Katya. I was saying, Leo says if you push yourself, you can become anything you want to be. He says,” she held her fork aloft, the potato mush dripping from it, “that the body is a slave, and the mind is its master.”
“What if I don’t want to be better than you at aiming?” Katarina said, voice quiet. Yulia leveled a glare.
“Leo wants us to be good at aiming. Tetushka wants us to be good at aiming. The country wants us to be good at aiming. Do you want to make them sad?”
Katarina shook her head.
“Good. Then you want to be good at aiming, too. It’s easy once you practice enough. It’s just pointing,” Yulia continued. She pointed at Katya, flexing her thumb. “Boom! Hit.”
Katarina smiled, somewhat sheepishly, and raised her own finger towards her sister.
“Boom!” she echoed. Yulia returned the smile.
“Come on. If you… if you hit the target two times tomorrow, I’ll let you be cossack for a week. I’ll even let you use my new flashlight to catch me.”
“The one with the laser?”
“The one with the laser.”
~
Eyes level. Shoulders relaxed. One arm over the other. Spread your legs. Deep breath. Exhale. Pull.
The wooden head of the first target exploded, then the next, then the next. As much as they told her to, as much as she tried, she couldn’t picture them like the people in the videos she watched. She didn’t want to remember the videos. These were wood - wood was easy to shoot. The vibrations numbed her hands, the sound tingled her ears and jaw, but the wood was easy to shoot.
Another target appeared, dressed in fatigues. Another. Another. Done up like soldiers, they flew past the plastic dunes, only to return to splinters with the simple pump of a finger.
“Time!”
A male voice, a loud, raspy bark of a smoker. Leo held his hand up, moving forward. He was an old man. A military man. A patriotic man, with a stern, chiseled face and light blue eyes. He walked with a limp that he got from some war - he never told - and had a plain golden cross around his neck.
“Katarina, twenty-seven. Yulia, thirty-four. Your numbers have improved, Katarina.”
Katarina wiped her hand across her forehead, setting the rifle down on the bench. Beside her, Yulia did the same, turning to give her sister an approving nod.
“Keep this up, and you’ll be ready for your first vacation soon,” Leo said. He didn’t smile - he never did - but praise from him was sparing, so Katarina took it as she would a smile from anyone else. She smiled back, hopping over to her sister to give her a hug.
“I told you you’d do fine,” Yulia said, returning the hug with one arm. “You just needed to keep trying. It’s easy, once you - think about it a little bit. They’re not people, not like us, you know? They’re pigs. Backwards, primitive.”
The hug tightened a bit, and Katarina pulled away. Her smile was gone.
“I -”
“You were thinking about the videos, weren’t you?”
Katarina nodded quickly.
“I was, I just -” she began, but Yulia interrupted again.
“Then you did fine. It’ll be easier once we’re actually there, you won’t have to try and think about it because it’ll be real! You can just focus on aiming.”
On aiming.
She gave Yulia an apologetic smile, then pulled away from the hug.
“I think… to really get it… I’ll just need to do it.”
~
“I don’t want to do it, Tetushka. I don’t - I can’t do this.”
Katarina was crying, but she didn’t care. Maybe out there, but here, it didn’t matter.
“Katya -”
“Don’t tell me I’ve done this before. I know I’ve done this before, but this is different. It hurt to watch, Tetushka. I had nightmares.”
“Katya, I -”
“And every time they told me to think of the tapes, they just popped into my head, over and over again. I don’t want to think of them. I don’t want to remember them. I just want it out of my head. I don’t want to have to see that anymore.”
“Katya. I know.” Tetushka wrapped the girl in a hug, pulling her head against her chest. “I know. This isn’t like the other times. I know it’s different. I know.”
Katarina’s hands tightened, clinging to the taller woman’s blouse, tears soaking the cloth. She bit back a sob, heaved, tried to talk, heaved again, then finally choked out more words.
“Will I have to - do that?”
Tetushka didn’t immediately respond.
“Will I?”
“I think you know the answer, Katya. It - hurts to think about, but it’s what they need us to do. It’s for the good of our country, our people -”
“HOW?”
Katarina pushed away, perhaps a little too roughly, sending Tetushka stumbling back into her desk. She caught herself, a moment of shock crossing her face, but the tenderness returned. The gentle, caring smile. The warm understanding.
“Katya. A lot of these people - have hurt innocent people. Hurt them badly. They made them suffer, sometimes for days, or weeks, or months, then they killed them. Civilians, both from their own country and from others, as well as soldiers from Russia and her allies. If we don’t stop them, they’d only hurt more.”
A hiccough broke through Katarina’s lips, and she wiped her eyes, sniffling.
“But why do I have to hurt them back?” she asked.
And for that, Tetushka had no answer, only another hug. This one lasted longer than the first. It lasted until the tears stopped, until the shaking stopped, until her breathing calmed and her eyes closed. Tetushka held her, and if Katarina had pulled away - even once - she’d have seen that she was crying too.
~
“She isn’t ready.”
“When will she be, then, Anastasya? A year? Two? We can’t wait that long. The Kremlin want results soon, or else you and I will be out of a job, out of our pay, and possibly, if the courts find us at fault for this failure, in prison. Do you want to go to prison?”
“I’m telling you, Leovold. She came to me crying because she didn’t want to hurt anyone. She hugged me so tight I still have bruises. Does that sound like a soldier to you?”
“Rusalka injured you?”
“It was an accident.”
“We can’t afford accidents. Not with any of the Siroty. One mistake could lead to a national disaster, or worse, international. You’re too soft on them, Anastasya. You treat her like a child.”
“She is a child.”
“Because you treat her like one! Look at Vukodlak. I trained her well. She’s obedient, a fast learner, willing and ready to fight.”
“And in doing so, you killed her childhood.”
“You need to leave your heart outside. If I hear about something like this again, I’m relieving you from duty.”
~
The thrum of the helicopter droned, boring holes into Katarina’s head. The tan fabric clung to her body, somehow flexible, yet uncomfortable, and the gun strap hanging from her shoulder dug into the skin. Beside her, her sister sat, eyes closed, lips pursed, hands as still as Katarina’s were restless.
“I will run it by you one more time. The building has - how many rooms?”
“Nine,” Yulia responded without a moment’s hesitation.
“And how many men?”
“Twenty. Maybe more.”
“Be careful for?”
“Tunnels, traps at doorways, corners, soldiers posing as civilians.”
“Which of these men is the primary target?”
One eye opening, Yulia pointed at one of the photos on the board.
“But anyone else you find -”
“Expendable, preferred dead. No one to see, no one to sound an alarm.”
“Good.”
Leo gestured at the diagram of the building.
“Which entrance is presumed safest?”
Yulia opened her mouth to answer again, but Leo held up his hand.
“Not you, Yulia. Katarina. Which entrance is presumed safest?”
“Northeast,” Katarina replied uncertainly.
“Why?”
Katarina paused, nails picking at the canvas seat.
“Less guards spotted on satellite, sunrise glare behind us, and no parallel doorways to the entrance,” Yulia offered, glancing at Katarina.
“Good, Yulia. Katarina, you need to take this more seriously. Katarina. Answer. What will you do to anyone you find?”
Katarina looked at her boots.
“Katarina. Look at me.” Leo grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. “What will you do to anyone you find?”
“Kill them,” she replied.
The time flying seemed to last forever. The time flying seemed to last no time at all. A crux of anticipation, seconds stretching to finite eternities. By the time they landed, Katarina felt like she hadn’t slept for a week, and the dark skies didn’t help.
She and Yulia crept forward through the brush, guns still at their sides. If this went well, they wouldn’t be necessary - not until they got inside.
A man was perched on a stone fence near the northeast entrance. Katarina moved behind him, footfalls muffled by the loose soil, reached up, and touched her hands to his throat. He froze. His hand moved to his gun, then curled, fingers clenching into fists. He tried to talk, but words didn’t leave his mouth. Tilting his head back, she spat on his lips, and even the spasming attempts at movement stopped.
She turned to Yulia, who was already moving in.
“I’ll make sure it’s clear. You follow behind me. When I give the signal, we start to shoot.”
Katarina nodded.
Flexing her fingers, Yulia slid her hands up the man’s shirt, then - with a thrust of her palms - she slipped inside him. Katarina looked away, but that couldn’t stop the crunch of bones, the wet sliding of muscle, the creak of a body being filled by something that wasn’t supposed to be inside it. He bulged for a moment, gurgling, then the bulges receded, returning to the shape he held before. How Yulia did it, Katarina didn’t know.
Katarina, frankly, didn’t care to know.
“Remember the signal,” her sister said in the man’s voice the moment the paralysis wore off. Katarina nodded again, holding out her hand and closing it into a fist.
The pair moved into the building, guns now raised. Yulia took the lead, holding hers casually, turning the corner, nodding, and waving to someone on the other side. Then - her fingers curled into a fist, and her gun roared like a hungry bear. Katarina glanced around the corner as well, her own gun raised, firing indiscriminately at anything that moved. It was hard to imagine the wood like the videos. It was easier to imagine this as the wood. Their heads broke into splinters. The cracks were from split grains.
The screams were imagination.
The girls pushed through the house, clearing room after room, sweeping to the next with a practiced, ruthless precision. As they moved to the kitchen, a man jumped from behind the counter, shotgun raised. Katarina raised her gun, too late - then her sister moved between them, body shuddering as the shell caved in her stomach, before she mowed the man down in turn. She turned to glance at Katarina only for a moment, familiar stoic annoyance on the unfamiliar face.
“Be more careful,” she chastised, before moving to the final room.
A man cowered in the corner, hands raised. He didn’t have a gun. He didn’t have a knife.
Yulia pointed her barrel at him. He spoke in a jittery, floral tongue that Katarina almost didn’t catch. Arabic. He was speaking Arabic. Of course he was, wasn’t he? Why wouldn’t he be, here? As he spoke, she focused, trying to put the smattering of words and phrases she’d learned to the sounds his frightened mouth was making.
Brother, please, no.
She looked at Yulia. He looked at Yulia. Yulia looked at the man.
Yulia pulled the trigger.
The man slumped, sliding down the wall. With a satisfied sigh, Yulia raised her gun to her head, pulling the trigger again. The skin sloughed away from her the moment the bullet passed, leaving a pile of viscera on the floor.
“That wasn’t so bad, now, was it, Katya?”
Katya threw up bile on the floor.
“Oh, come on now. We did it. We won. We did well! That was the man Leo wanted dead!” Yulia insisted, waving her gun at the corpse of the man who’d called for his brother. “We’re finally doing something good for once with our lives, and you’re ruining it with… this?”
Katarina couldn’t reply. She could only stare, dry heaving again and again, leaning back against the wall.
“Whatever, Katya. You’ll get used to it if you keep trying. It’s just like all the times before - you always get used to it, in the end.”
~
“I can get you away from here.”
The words were whispered, the arms warm.
“We can leave together. Somewhere far away, where they won’t find us. Spain, maybe, or Chile, or even the United States. I can’t get the tickets now, but I can soon. I just need to make sure everything is safe.”
“And Yulia?”
A gentle pause. Always gentle.
“I don’t think it’d be smart to let her know.”
“I don’t understand why she - feels like that. Why she thinks like that. It’s been two years, Tetushka. I’ve been doing this for two years, and I just feel - empty. Sure, I can shoot someone vile. Someone who wants to hurt other people, just because they can. I can - I can understand that. But these people - they’re just fighting for their countries, their families. They’re like us. Just like us. And - Yulia, when she does it - when she kills them - she smiles. When we finish, she’s happy. She talks about what we’ll eat tonight while covered in blood. I don’t understand how.”
“You’re lucky that you don’t, Katya. Something inside her heart is broken. You need to promise me you won’t ever act like her or Leo. Life is something precious. Love it, nurture it, live it to your fullest. Love this world, and all the people on it. We’re all living the same lives, and it’s this beautiful tangle of experiences that makes it all worth something. Don’t you ever, ever forget that.”
~
“Katya. Katya, wake up.”
Katarina blinked groggily. Tetushka was shaking her arm, face stoic. Crusty-eyed, Katarina turned, looking to the bed beside her. Empty.
“Where’s Yulia…?” she asked.
“Gone. She’s on a special mission. If we’re going to leave, we have to leave now.”
Leave.
The promise.
“Do you have what I gave you?” Tetushka asked.
Katarina blinked again.
“What you… gave me?”
Tetushka nodded solemnly.
“I don’t - remember you giving me anything,” she said, sitting up, growing a little nervous. She hoped she hadn’t lost it.
“Ah, nevermind that. We’ll be fine without it.”
Katarina relaxed.
“And - what did I tell you?”
The relaxation melted from her body, tension returning in full.
“To - be quiet. And not tell Yulia. And that - you’d be able to get the tickets soon.”
Those eyes. That face. The warmth - always gentle - was stoic. Cold. And, with every word Katarina spoke, increasingly annoyed. Katarina pushed herself back against the wall, a rock settling in her throat.
“Yulia.”
Not-Tetushka’s grip on her arm tightened.
“You were planning all this? Behind my back? Behind Leo’s back?” said Not-Tetushka’s voice. Katarina shook her head. She tried to yank her arm away, sliding along the wall, planting one foot onto the ground beside her bed.
“I - you -”
“I could believe Anastasya would be a traitor, but you? We’re family, Katya. Did you really trust her more than me? Did she sink her hooks into you that deep?”
Katarina pushed at the body, scrambling out of the bed, rushing for the door.
“Get out of her!” she screamed, slapping and kicking as the - gentle, warm - hands grabbed her hair. She turned on the pair, Tetushka and Yulia, grabbing at the face, pulling, twisting. “Get out!”
“Why, Katya? Why did you do this?” the emotion creeping through wasn’t strange on Tetushka’s face, but it was strange from the girl inside. “I trusted you. I loved you. Every day, I tried to help you. Make you better. And this is how you treat me?”
Katarina’s struggles slowed, her hands going limp as Not-Tetushka grabbed her by the wrists.
“I couldn’t do it. I’m not like you. Please, just let us leave. Please. We won’t talk to anyone about anything. We just want to go,” she said, voice falling from shouts to a rasp. Not-Tetushka paused. The pain gave way to the blank stare.
“Leo told me to kill you.”
“I just want to go. We just - want to go. We’re not happy. We’re not.”
"Why."
Katarina couldn't answer. She could only stare. Not-Tetushka released her wrists. A heavy pause, then -
“Go.”
Katarina stared.
“I -”
“Go, Katya. Just go. If you’re not happy, go, before I change my mind.”
“Tetushka -”
“Go!”
Were she stronger, she would’ve argued. Were she braver, she would’ve stayed. But - no, there was something else. Something in the voice that shouted with one’s words in another’s voice. A hint of what was deeper.
A hint of warmth.
Katarina went. She bolted through the facility, stealing a gun and a vest from the guard’s quarters as she passed. She ran across the asphalt, making it to the fence before the sirens began to blare. Quickly, she hoisted herself up it, the barbed wire a simple annoyance, the plummet on the other side into a cold snowbank a bitter aftertaste.
She ran from the life she knew, the people she loved, the purpose she’d served, and into the great unknown. The world, with all it had to offer.
And as she ran - she lived.
~
“Torch it all.”
“Sir.”
“Make sure the drives are burned, too. We can’t have any of this coming out.”
“And the Kutsuki girl -?”
“Vukodlak? She’s being transferred to SSO. They’ll have a use for her, just like they did for the other Siroty.”
“No. The other one.”
“There was no other one.”
“Sir…?”
“There was only one Kutsuki girl. There has always only been one. Is that clear?”
“But - what if she talks? What if she - goes to NATO, or the UN, or -”
“If such a girl existed, and if she talked - then who would believe her?”