Murmansk-13

Tala could see a thin line of blood trickle down the infantryman’s finger, the source barely a knick beneath his knuckle. Oleg shrugged.

“You were bit, weren’t you?” The doctor cocked her pistol, but her expression was impassive.

“You going to shoot me?” Oleg asked as one would ask someone if they were going to a particular shop.

“Do you want to become one of them things?” Dr. Smith asked.

The bold veil slipped from Oleg, his face darkened. “No,” he replied quietly.

“Put him down in that cell,” Dr. Smith gestured to the open door beside him. “I can treat him in there.”

“It was you people who shot him,” Oleg said, turning toward the cell encumbered by Jamal’s weight.

“I know,” replied Dr. Smith with mock sadness, she shuffled the round of keys on the chain. With his back to the doctor, Oleg placed Jamal carefully down on the cell bed and paused to look at his friend. Before Tala had a chance to cry out, the doctor slammed the barred door shut behind him. Quickly securing the lock.

Oleg pounced at the door, but he was too late. “No, not like this.”

“I thought you two would like to have a little more time together,” Dr. Smith said as she backed out of the cellblock, a predatory smile crossing her face.

Oleg pounded on the bars as the cellblock door closed with a hydraulic thunk. “No, you bitch! Come back. Come back and fucking shoot me!”

Tala shut her eyes as Oleg hollered at the door, Diego was looking at her with a lost expression as she slid down the bars of their cell. Tala felt the cold, rough, metal grind along her spine as she clamped furled fists against her ears, sinking to her rump. Squeezing her eyes closed she wanted to block out everything, wanted to be anywhere else. Her cruel mind wandered back to that warehouse, the girl fitting against the canvas as Marcario revelled in her victory. She felt the humidity of the place, felt the leering eyes watching her kill a person and celebrating, the scene spinning around and around. She felt her mind unravelling, like piano strings parting under duress.

Then all she could hear was Oleg, screaming.

☣☭☠

Katja blinked away the tears wetting her eyes, her confused synapses fired wildly as a gale of emotion blew through her head. Artyom had his arm draped over her shoulder. It felt wrong, she remembered the night it all fell apart, when she was woken half-drunk by that strident Klaxon. Her flight into the laboratory department, looking for someone-anyone familiar, vaguely trying to escape the sense of wrongness that guided those elongated first moments.

Katja hadn’t been able to put her finger on it at the time, the stark emptiness of the District as she forced her then plump physique up flights of stairs, sweat glistening against a jumpsuit not unlike the one she wore now.

Seeing Arty had broken the dam on her scattered memories. She recalled the blood in the corridor, the quarantine control door opening behind her, falling into unseen arms. Arty’s arms, the same arms that loosely shepherded her into what appeared to be an interrogation room. Two basic padded, baby blue upholstered chairs sat either side of a Formica topped white table, scarred by old cigarette burns and coffee rings. An over-bright strip light fuzzed above her and a half-filled water cooler lay in one corner, the water tilted in counter rotation to the station.

She remembered trying to pull from those arms, sobbing as she was dragged into the control room. Arty’s arms, only she hadn’t known that then. Now those same limbs felt oily and tentacular, exuding the same wrongness as before. An urgent necessity to flee wailed like the station Klaxon in her head, but she didn’t respond, it didn’t make sense. Nothing did, this was Arty. He’d saved her.

His arm slithered away, he pulled the chair out on the one side of the table, legs skittering across the linoleum, then nervously walked around the other side. He braced himself against the tabletop, palms flat, arms rigid. Arty stared at her from across the plastic expanse, lips twisted in a half smile, eyebrows knitted above nostalgic eyes. “Katja, please sit,” Arty said, pushing himself back upright and indicating the chair he’d prepared for her.

Katja sat, fighting the knot in her stomach and the taste of vomit in her mouth. She felt her lips quiver. “Arty,” her voice sounded strained. “What’s happening here? Why did you imprison my friends.” Her mind flickered to the raw sense of rejection from Tala.

Arty stood behind his own chair, fingers busily tapping the top. “My god, it is good to see you again. You have no idea how many hours I have spent thinking about you. I am so glad you are OK.”

“Arty… tell me, please.”

Arty drummed his fingers, the rhythm intensified, then stopped. He turned as if ready to whirl away, then pulled the chair back and sat in one smooth movement. “You look better than I remembered, it has been a very long and lonely four years, Katja. I missed you.”