Bull and Toad departed again, without a word. Mike caught a glimpse of something on Toad’s face before he pulled the door shut. Disgust? Or maybe it was just generalized hatred of the babysitting duty he’d been burdened with all this time.
Just what everyone wanted to do, right? Shove off to a combat zone, hyped up to see some action, and get stuck wiping a native’s nose for weeks on end without reprieve.
The door finally opened again with a distinct creak of sound and clicked shut. In strode Sergei’s general. The man walked around him in measured steps, the boot heel sounds loud in the empty room, regular as a mechanical watch. Ticktock. Just as unimpressed as he’d been a while ago, just as unmovable, stoic and unpleasant. One hundred percent pure Doctrine zombie.
Fuck this. He had nothing to lose. May as well play with the man a bit. Not like he had any other form of entertainment recently, aside from Bull and Toad. “Why haven’t you killed me?” His bored, flat tone wasn’t an effort—the question just came out that way, indifferent, passing curiosity.
“It took a while to decode this.” The general pointed at Mike’s temple. “Andrew.”
He blinked. Stared at the far wall, gaze unfocused. Feeling numb, empty, the shock of hearing something besides his moniker after all these months. It felt strange. Unnatural. “Did it? Doesn’t say much for Doctrine technology, then. That must sting a bit.” No use trying to deny anything. It was all right there on the chip, and in some corner of his subconscious he’d known what that mysterious visit to the medical tech had been about.
“Cirokko doesn’t have a pulse mainframe. Not one.” The general’s thin lips moved into a sneer. “That’s what your handler doubtlessly banked on—our technological restrictions during the first phases of the invasion.” The general walked around him, now pausing on the other side. “Your mission was to infiltrate our forces. You achieved that by playing a native. To what end? What does your side want to know?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t say anything. Just kept staring at the wall. He knew how this would go; his training had prepared him for it. As if beckoned, the memories resurfaced, fresh as if they’d happened yesterday. Pain lanced through his wrists, and he forced his body to relax, to unclench the adrenaline-fed muscles.
“I can offer you a painless death, Andrew. We will learn the truth. Right at this moment, we could have your comrade, your handler, in the room down the corridor…asking them the same questions. Do you believe they won’t tell the truth in return for mercy?”
He wanted to laugh. Herschel would sooner spit in the man’s eye than say a thing. And Pat? Something in that last meeting, negotiating Sergei’s release…his fellow CovOp had changed. Couldn’t put his finger on what, but he had no doubt Pat would sooner be carved up than betray the natives fighting beside him. The man’s hand, resting on the lizard’s chest, surely no shred of hope to restrain the creature. Not physically.
Death meant nothing. And pain? His shoulders shook with laughter he couldn’t suppress. It bubbled out of him, a soft chuckle, and felt so good that he threw his head back and just let it roll out of him, loud, hysterical, and probably more than just an edge of insanity. Could feel the moisture of tears tracking down his cheeks, over his temples, tangling in his hair, and laughed even harder.
“Ah, what about Sergei Stolkov, then?” The general fisted his hands, but that was the only sign of tension. “Just a pawn in your game, Alliance lowlife? Or was he a traitor? Did he know?”
Was. The word seared through his brain. Past tense. His laughter died an immediate death, trailing off slowly. “You tell me, General. Age-old tactic, to put the ones you want to be rid of on the frontlines of the hottest battle.” Still no inflection in his tone, despite the laughter. He almost didn’t recognize his own voice. Then again, Bull and Toad weren’t much for chatting, so he hadn’t had much occasion to say anything lately.
Wasn’t too difficult to put two and two together and get four. The ligature marks on Sergei’s neck. The general’s sudden desire to dispatch his assistant. With a frontline battalion. To Zasidka Pass. Into the exact same valley that had decimated all comers in the first wave of the Doctrine’s attack.
“He was the best choice.” Voice flat, but something malicious about the smirk in the general’s face. “Before he could disgrace himself any further. But you knew of his defect, didn’t you?” He stepped closer, gripping Mike’s throat with one strong hand.
As intimately as he knew of yours. The words were right there on his tongue. The desire to bait the man, push him beyond the parameters of control, to fuel his own death, was so strong. Thick in his veins. So difficult to resist. The skin between his shoulder blades itched suddenly, old scars pulling, and the ingrained need to survive kicked in. He didn’t say anything, just stared the man straight in the eye, unwavering.
“You will yield, Andrew. They all do. I will get to the bottom of this.” The general’s fingers tightened until it felt like his voice box would give, but then let him go. “You don’t exist…infiltrator. There’s no protection. No law. To us, you’re just meat. Nobody knows where you are. We can torture you for the rest of your life…for years…if we want to, and there’s nobody who cares or can step in our way. You are already dead. Do you understand?”
Already dead, indeed. He could feel the dirt stinging his skin in the rough wind of the rotorwash, the thick, wet heat of Sergei’s blood soaking into his skin. Yeah, he’d yield. He was a bad cut of steak left on the open grill too long, though—the general’s teeth wouldn’t be enough to do the job. And whatever effort was expended wouldn’t nearly match the value of any intel he finally divulged. Buried planetside on a backwater rock for close to a year. Anything he eventually told them would be next to worthless.
“Well then. At least Sergei met his fate like a soldier…whatever else he was.” The general turned away, then left through the door. The next time Bull and Toad came back, they clearly had a different set of orders.
Turned out he’d nicknamed Bull a little too accurately. Mike’s body felt like tenderized meat when the two guards dragged him back to his cell and dumped him on the hard floor. Cold plascrete was a welcome sensation against his face and jaw but made the rest of him throb with a dull ache. Pretty sure every ounce of soft tissue in his body had been massaged thoroughly by Bull’s knuckles.
Such accuracy, precision and technique. No internal damage, no broken bones. Just deep bruises, the kind that wouldn’t manifest fully until tomorrow, and then they would be huge and black as pitch. Tender, nerve endings already abused and hypersensitive.
No doubt the general would enjoy having another little interview with him again in the near future, when his entire body was one big bruise. Mike had no illusions that the beating was an isolated incident.
They must have taken him in the middle of the night, grabbed him while asleep and just dragged him by his arms and shoulders. Mike had to scramble even to get to his feet, but before he’d caught himself, they put him down on that same chair and chained him as usual.
The general was already there, waiting. For a moment, Mike’s groggy brain could only think, Damn, I’m glad I don’t wake up looking at that face every day… He shook his head, trying to focus, shake the haze of sleep from his mind, and the forgotten bruising on his face and jaw, neck and shoulders sent pain lancing through him. That did the trick.
“Good morning,” the Doctrine general said, unsmiling, without a hint of irony noticeable. “You still owe me answers.”
Mike’s eyes weren’t swollen just yet, so he could clearly see the stiff, belligerent attitude in the set of the older man’s shoulders, the glint in his eyes and tension in the mouth that clearly conveyed his intention to get what he wanted. “What’s good about it?”
“You’re still breathing,” the man shot back.
“But damned, so are you!” Mike clenched his teeth. It hadn’t been the best choice of words. The last thing he needed to do was get the man agitated. Still, he’d have a new coll
ection of bruises before he found himself back in his cell, so what was the use in prevaricating? Might as well get his shots in when he could.
The general’s fist hit him full on the nose—a short, vicious punch that came without warning or hesitation. The general stepped to the side and waved Bull over. Unwilling to administer the resulting beating on his own.
Mike just tensed his muscles, tucked his chin and grunted with every ham-fisted impact that slammed into his body.
No questions this time. The general wasn’t yet satisfied that he was pliant enough to offer answers. Smart man, Mike thought sarcastically. Why was he even bothering? If they had the intel on him, they knew who and what he was. Was it a lack of knowledge or lack of appreciation that drove the Doctrine general to think this tactic would work on him? With enough time, it probably would. Mike had a long, high tolerance for physical pain and discomfort. CovOps training had drilled it into him, one beating at a time.
When it was over, Bull stepped back, obeying some unspoken command. The general peered at Mike’s face. “You’d prefer being beaten to death to cooperation? What if what you know will soon be worthless to us? I have no compunctions of disposing of you in the most gruesome way I can think of.” Now a cynical half smile. “Wipe your memory and sell you to a mining colony…how does that sound?”
Mike lifted his head slowly, feeling muscles scream with every increment, and curled his lips into something like a smile. “Andrew Miguel Villanova. Sergeant Major, Alliance CovOps. 523472896.”
“Put him back in the hole. Proceed to stage two.” The general stared at Mike. “We will reach an agreement, Andrew. I have all the time in the world, but yours is running out. You’re an irregular. No rules say you get even the flimsiest of protections…and you’re not under the Doctrine.”
Bull and Toad released him from the chair, and Mike held the general’s gaze, ounce for ounce, until the two Doctrine soldiers hauled him away down the hall. Back to his cell, which was missing a few items. The bed, the mattress, namely.
Sleep deprivation, then. Mike stumbled into the room when they pushed him, listened to the lock click into place. He straightened, rolled his shoulders and worked his way through a series of flows. Loosening abused muscles, working the excess fluid from his body. Shame the general didn’t know about his chronic insomnia, he thought with a smile. Those few hours of sleep he caught before they’d come for him earlier were the first he’d had in some time.
The Doctrine zombies played according to the rulebook. They first tried to disorient him. With no window, and no way to keep the time, the main rhythms he could follow were those of his body—when he slept and when he was hungry, but they messed with that, of course. Food arrived at random intervals. He might get it five or six times in what he estimated was a day or none at all. There was no way to keep track. In addition, his exercise ceased—no contact, no humans anywhere. Not that Bull and Toad or the general qualified.
He spent a bit of time wondering how long he’d have to be out of contact before Herschel and Pat would know something was up. When his absence approached the two-month mark without even a trace of communication, CovOps would start hunting. Until that time? It wasn’t likely to cause so much as a glitch on their radar. They’d check the tracking function in the embedded chip. Pinpoint his location—if the Doctrine techs hadn’t managed to disable that, somehow.
Either way, he was in here for the duration. The confinement got to be tedious, more than any other aspect. He wanted to feel the wind moving on his face, even if the breeze was hot and arid. Started to feel the edges of claustrophobia, the way he imagined a caged beast would. Or one of his father’s green-broke colts, stuffed in a stall for one too many days, when it started to kick at the wooden slats of the walls, squeal and have a fit.
He ate the meager portions of food when they came, not caring if they were laced with drugs. It was food, sustenance, and that was all that really mattered. He wondered how far he’d have to push to make them wipe his memories and sell him off. To forget—a double-edged sword, at best. At times he was sure it would be better, to be purged of the emotion and have the images scrubbed away. It hurt worse than any beating they gave him, that dull throbbing ache deep in his chest that accompanied every thought of Sergei, feeding dry Cirokkan soil with his red blood.
He closed his eyes, pushing the image away, only to hear his lover’s words echoing in his head, and he remembered the feel of the man’s body, bearing down on his back, surrounding him. He didn’t want to forget that.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sergei didn’t mean to but couldn’t help noticing Nikishin log into the Blue System with just a few swipes of his fingers. What kind of feeling was that, having the power to access and know everything? If Nikishin wanted, he could read anybody’s mail, open anybody’s file. What kind of man did it take to have so many secrets laid open for him? It had to be difficult, finding that balance between curiosity and neutrality. Did Nikishin sometimes get tempted to break the rules and access data that had nothing to do with his duty?
“Have you found anything yet?”
Nikishin looked up. “I’m working on it.”
Sergei glanced around. The ship’s ballroom-sized restaurant hummed with activity. Cirokko was just one stop on the route, the cruiser was carrying members of the elite to the core worlds of the Doctrine. “I agree, the food is unremarkable.” He indicated their plates.
“Ah, excuse my manners, Brother Captain.” Nikishin put the pad down reluctantly.
“Are the general’s correspondences really that interesting?” A brazen, risky question. Not something Sergei would ordinarily ask, but these were far from ordinary circumstances. And that niggling curiosity about his predecessors was a burr in the back of his brain. If there’d ever been someone who could find out, this would be the man to do it, and maybe even do something about it.
Nikishin paused, reached for his water—the man had no vices as far as Sergei could see—then pushed his lower jaw forward, something he seemed to do when he was thinking. “It can be hard at times to stop investigating.”
“I can imagine.” Sergei noticed he hadn’t been told to mind his own damned business. “I understand I’m less interesting than a fresh mystery.” He gave a laugh to make it sound like a joke.
Dark brows arching slightly, Nikishin hesitated before taking a sip of water. “Life is full of fresh mysteries. The general has more of them than most, though.”
“What about me?”
“One or two.” Nikishin leaned slightly forward. “They are on the list, but I can prioritize them if you’d prefer.”
Sergei grinned. Most people would find the thought terrifying, and yes, he had exactly two mysteries. Mike, and the fact the general had wanted to kill him. That he had allowed Mike to play him like he had, and that part of him craved nothing more than to find the man to ask him why, so he knew where he stood. “You know how to do this better than me. I’m just military.”
Nikishin glanced down at the pad resting by his elbow. “You’re the fifteenth assistant assigned to the general in his relatively short and illustrious career.” He smiled at Sergei, a warm expression that made creases at the corners of his eyes. “Were you aware you had so many predecessors?”
“No.” Sergei breathed deeply, surprised that the lieutenant would bring up that small fact. They didn’t know how to mind-read, did they? “All I knew was that it was an honor to serve him. A…very good step for my career.”
A shrug rolled through Nikishin’s shoulders. “Ordinarily, it is.” The pad got a frown for a brief moment. “That’s an unusually high turnover for assistants, though. Makes one wonder.”
Sergei didn’t want to influence the investigation—Nikishin had to arrive at his own conclusions and not feel for a moment he had been led there. Manipulating Interior Revision and interfering with an ongoing investigation were things every sane citizen avoided. Most citizens never encountered Revisionists anywhere outside the newscasts or
entertainment shows. Besides, if he worked out the reason for all that, it would get dangerous for Sergei too. He knew well enough what he’d done was illegal. But if he didn’t stop the general, who would?
“What happened to them?”
“Some were transferred to other staff members. Space admirals, even viragos. There are records of…three questionable disappearances. The most recent was the one prior to your predecessor.”
Sergei wondered what would be the best reaction to the revelation. Three. He’d been supposed to be number four. “Any suicides?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Nikishin looked up and studied him in silence, gaze flicking over Sergei as if weighing him on a scale with a slightly different calibration. “Four.”
“Damn.” Sergei felt sudden tension, a tightness in his muscles that made the edges of the prosthesis itch. He wanted to move to relieve it, but that would just scream “guilt,” wouldn’t it. Eight men out of fifteen. What madness. He didn’t flatter himself, much, but they were some of the best and brightest that Liberty had. “I didn’t know that.”
“My apologies. Not the most appetizing dinner conversation.” Nikishin tapped the pad, making it go dark, and shoved it a few inches away. He poked at his food and offered Sergei a smile. “A poor habit I’ve developed, it seems.”
Especially since suicides were considered serious crimes. Those who failed and could be brought back faced the full weight of the law. Reeducation, mindwipe, zeroing—the triad of punishments for serious infractions against the Doctrine. It was received, illicit wisdom that any suicide attempt should involve a remote place and removing one’s head with a large caliber.
“No need to apologize…I do want the investigation to succeed.” Anybody would say that, even somebody who was guilty. “I am probably overstepping my bounds.”
The lieutenant shook his head. “Not at all. It shouldn’t surprise you that you’re a prioritized source for firsthand accounts in this investigation. My interpretations and conclusions are my own, of course, but I cannot base them solely on the general’s official reports and correspondences. If I could, we wouldn’t be traveling to Cirokko in the first place, right?”