The Immortality Game

Marcus nodded and placed a hand lightly on Zoya’s shoulder. “Come on. We must go.” He could barely hear his own voice through the ringing in his ears.

Zoya gave the faintest of nods and kept the gun out as they skirted the corpse and headed out the door.

Moscow

Sunday, June 8, 2138

5:01 p.m. MSK

Tavik gripped the manual override wheel of his classic 2110 firemist green Cadillac, his knuckles white on the faux-leather grip. He liked being in control, which is why he always pretended to be driving despite the autodriver actually running things.

Everything felt out of control now.

There was always an undercurrent of subservience in his life, primarily to his boss Lev Abramovich Romanishin, the gangster who controlled nearly half of Moscow, but also to the rest of Lev’s favored underlings, of which Big Bunny was one.

Fucking Bunny.

Tavik checked the rearview mirror and saw Bunny’s fat face with its bulging eyes and the tiny, smarmy smile that never seemed to vanish no matter what the situation. Tavik gritted his teeth and slammed a palm into the steering wheel. Should have stood up to Lev on this one, refused to take Bunny along.

One of Tavik’s gang had called in sick yesterday and another was on vacation in Sochi. When Lev’s twin brother Viktor had told Tavik about Georgy’s treachery and Tavik had informed him he was two men short, Viktor had foisted Bunny on him. Anyone else and Tavik would have refused, but Viktor was Lev’s enforcer for a reason—the look in his eyes alone made you feel like your days on this Earth were measured in very small increments. And his eyes were the kindest part of him.

Goddamned motherfucking Bunny.

Everyone knew Bunny was a psychopathic bastard. Tavik prided himself on being relatively sociopathic himself, but he felt like the sanest man in Russia compared to Bunny.

Everything would be over and done if not for Bunny. We’d have the chips, Lev would be able to tell that general to go fuck himself, and I might get considered for another promotion sometime next year.

It had all seemed fine in Georgy’s kitchen. They’d been sipping tea with Mama Drozdova, waiting for Zoya to show up with the chips. No one, not even the stupidest of his men, should have needed to be told that the scrawny old lady was insurance to keep Zoya from doing anything dumb. Then Zoya had called. What possessed Bunny to break the old lady’s neck? What was running through that chicken brain of his?

The air car slowed and descended toward a crumbling apartment building, one of a long row of similar drab buildings along Proletarskiy Prospekt. Tavik took two deep breaths as the car settled into an empty parking space near the building entrance. There were three other cars in the lot, and only one of those looked like it might actually be able to fly. He took some more breaths as he waited for his two men and Bunny to clamber out of the car. Don’t be stupid, Tavik; you can’t touch the bastard.

He climbed out to join his men near the entrance. The steel door was too warped to close, so there was no need for a code. Bunny reached to swing the door open and Tavik imagined slamming the huge man’s face into the steel over and over again. He wanted to wipe that fucked up smile off forever. There were few men that could make Tavik hesitate—Viktor, naturally, and Big Bunny. The man was a monster, nearly half a meter taller than Tavik and twice as broad in the shoulders. Even if Tavik could manage to shove him up against the metal door, he wasn’t certain his own men would back him up. Bunny was Lev’s man, and touching one of Lev’s men was a good way to commit suicide.

Tavik placed a hand on Bunny’s bulky shoulder and felt the iron sinews beneath the fabric of the gray solar coat. Bunny turned to Tavik, his thick lips stretching his smirk a little further than usual, his pig eyes boring into Tavik’s with a gleam that almost resembled intelligence.

Tavik held the gaze as long as he could but finally looked away. He pointed at the doorway. “Bunny, as far as I know that’s Zoya’s only remaining relative in there. We need him as leverage. You know what leverage means?” Nothing changed in Bunny’s eyes. “It means we need him alive. Look, why don’t you just wait here? Guard the car. In fact, why don’t all three of you wait here? I can do this myself.”