Kiara sat at the other end of the window.
"Did you manage to sleep?"
I pushed Maia out of my thoughts.
Came back to reality.
Fatigue weighed heavily on my eyes.
Blood overflowed from my collapsing womb.
"No.
But it's fine."
"I figured.
We're leaving soon.
Ready?"
I made a face full of uncertainty.
"Can I say no?"
She shook her head, smiling.
"Come here.
Our little princess is throwing a tantrum."
I frowned and followed Kiara downstairs.
When I got closer, I heard the shrill shouting:
"You're just going to dump me in the hands of those… those BRUTES?!"
Anichka shouted.
Trix's anger filled the room.
"You yawned through the entire discussion.
And now you say you want to stay?!
The little princess had every chance to say that."
"I didn't understand what you were saying."
She pouted, her eyes watery.
The mercenary placed one hand on her hip.
"Good that you're back.
I'm out of ideas."
Trix clenched her fists.
"I'm this close to shooting this girl."
There was nothing in her tone that suggested bluffing.
Kiara rolled her eyes.
"I'm here for the mission.
I'm nobody's fucking babysitter.
Now, if you want help hiding the body, count me in."
She gave Anichka a dreadful smile.
The girl flinched.
"STOP IT!
You're the worst bodyguards ever."
Trix, teeth clenched, shortened the distance between them.
Anichka took a step back.
"Li-sten here, svoloch'.
I've run out of patience.
I'm not your fucking bodyguard.
Neither are they."
The mercenary pointed in our direction.
"If we're here, it's because nobody in this shithole does what we do.
Now shut the fuck up and obey.
Either that, or I'll make you disappear."
Trix's eyes sparked with rage.
Anichka shrank back, her whole body trembling.
Her eyes brimmed with tears, not daring even to blink.
As if she feared that the second she closed them, she'd already be dead.
Even I felt a chill.
"Did you prepare the nanomalware?"
Trix turned to Kiara.
"Duh, what did you expect?
It'll work for five days, but we need to get out before that."
"Khorosho.
Are you going to install it in you and her too?"
She gestured toward me.
"That's right, while—"
"I can handle much more than five days."
She smiled charmingly.
"If you say so.
I'm going to find and disable the nanofirewall connected to her."
Kiara was referring to the princess.
"Okay, gotova?" Trix asked.
Anichka rubbed at her tears, sobbing.
"Yes…"
Kiara gave a sinister sideways smile.
"To make it more realistic…
I should shoot you.
In the shoulder, maybe?"
That expression of satisfaction was painfully familiar.
A slight shiver crossed my spine.
Was she serious?
My heart started pounding.
Trix narrowed her eyes.
"You really know what I like, huh?
Want a taste of it?"
She uncrossed her arms and handed Kiara a revolver.
The android took the gun and ran her tongue over her teeth.
"We both know a shoulder shot is unrealistic.
I would never miss that badly."
She shot Trix in the shoulder and the leg.
Blood ran down her arm, dripping onto the dirty floor.
But her gaze remained fixed, impassive, as if her own body were irrelevant.
What the fuck was that?
My heart sped up.
A metallic taste rose in my mouth.
My stomach twisted.
Still, I had to hide my discomfort.
I clasped my trembling hands behind my back, trying to contain a panic attack already beginning to bloom.
Anichka's eyes were wide.
Her mouth hung open.
Clearly terrified.
Trix remained motionless.
She didn't even flinch from the shots.
"Now we're ready."
Kiara handed the gun back to her.
Trix wrapped a sloppy bandage around herself.
S-2879 • L10 Tramaluna • D20 Teceli
"Tramaluna weaves the sky in a deep thread. Teceli weaves the step in a silver descent. The tide traces a route in a living curve. The story moves forward firmly, in gentle radiance."
At nightfall, we traveled to the old ghost city of Khalmer-Yu, the heart of the Vorovskoy mir.
Kiara explained how the Russian Brotherhood was divided:
An elite group, the highest rank.
A security group, ensuring harmony with other organizations and internal loyalty.
A support group, responsible for collecting money and recruiting members.
A labor unit.
The lowest group. Robbers. Extortionists. Street gangs. Petty criminals.
Above them all, the highest authority: the Pakhan.
Khalmer-Yu was home to the most powerful Pakhan of the Vorovskoy mir.
"I installed Cloakify in Anichka," Kiara repeated.
The princess moved her trembling fingers.
I had the urge to take her hand and tell her everything would be alright.
But… I couldn't even say that to myself.
Things would either go according to plan, or go terribly wrong.
What awaited her was a mystery.
Trix and Kiara laid out the plan calmly.
I assumed the princess would remain protected.
I kept that in mind;
the Crone sharpened my perception.
Maybe that Egyptian soldier had been right.
Maybe I worried too much about others.
If anything goes wrong, the girl of sixteen cycles will be the least of my problems.
Outside, nothing but the vastness of snow.
Infinite. Silent.
I tried to think of something else.
Impossible.
With every kilometer we drew closer, the feeling that something would go wrong only grew.
It was as if…
I were returning to Burj.
The silence was dense.
Maybe it was only my imagination, but I felt we were being watched, like prey drawing near a predator's territory.
I shook my head.
No.
I had to distance myself from those thoughts.
Five hours later
The military fortress of the Vorovskoy mir, Khalmer-Yu, appeared on the horizon.
Modern structures contrasted with old buildings in ruins of steel and dust—
out there, long ago, a Soviet mining town.
Ghosts of the expelled inhabitants still haunted the ice.
Rusting towers marked what remained of the military testing grounds.
They said the Russian army had even detonated vacuum bombs here, grinding cement and human bones into the same dust.
Nature was reclaiming nanometal and concrete.
Merciless snow.
Pitiless cold.
Every time I inhaled, the air burned my throat.
The ice seeped into my bones.
Winter ruled absolutely.
"I'm stopping here.
We're close enough.
Any closer and they'll track us.
Their identification radius is large."
Kiara slowed down.
Trix lit a cigarette and blew out smoke.
When we stepped out of the car, snow covered us immediately.
The wind cut like blades.
Every step demanded enormous effort.
How the hell did Trix seem so calm without thermal gear?
No biochip could help against that kind of cold.
Kiara sent a file to Trix and me:
C-kify.exe
"Ready?"
Without hesitation, Trix said:
"Itak, nachnem."
Kiara fastened Trix and Anichka with nanocuffs, the same kind used on Denden and me.
The bitter taste of memory rose in my throat.
I took a deep breath.
Suppressed the past.
The present demanded that I stay steady.
I held Anichka's wrists.
Her eyes were anxious, but she tried to smile.
I kept my posture severe.
We followed Kiara, who dragged Trix along with her.
We crossed the first outer wall of the fortress.
The air felt heavy.
An oppressive sensation.
Surveillance.
At any moment, a bullet could tear through me.
My legs trembled.
The storage center rose before us.
Two guards approached us.
"I've never seen you before, but the alarms didn't go off.
What's your unit?"
The question in Russian was direct.
The android guard examined us carefully.
"I am Avtoritet Trinity.
I answer to Pakhan Mikhail Morozov."
Kiara presented a holopass.
"A São Paulo unit?"
"They brought in the fugitive Trix and Princess Anichka Alexeyev," the android guard reported.
The man's eyes widened.
"Alarms are clear… Parol'?"
Kiara: "Zima."
Guard: "Otvet."
Kiara: "Noch'."
"Follow me."
We walked through the oppressive corridors of the fortress.
The looks from the members of the Vorovskoy mir cut into us.
Tension tightened my chest.
The freezing wind tore at my skin.
It was hard to keep walking through the frost.
I rubbed snowflakes from my eyes, trying to wipe away the negative thoughts with the motion.
In the prison barracks, the temperature was milder, but the gray walls and dense silence made the place suffocating.
The air inside felt heavy, thick with nanometal and sweat.
The smell of burnt oil and rust clung to the throat.
The sound of boots on concrete echoed.
Wind whistled through cracks in the structure.
Two iron doors opened onto a long corridor.
We reached the identification area.
An android, Yuri, was seated at a table.
The guard spoke to him in Russian.
Yuri stood and looked us over.
"Welcome.
I see you brought in our most wanted targets.
You came from São Paulo for this?"
His tone carried suspicion.
I swallowed hard.
A thread of sweat ran down the back of my neck.
"Of course.
Do you think I wouldn't hunt Trix?
We have history."
Kiara smiled ironically.
Her eyes sharp. Predatory.
History?
Was that a lie too?
At that point, I lost the thread of what was happening.
My throat was dry.
I wanted to ask, but I only nodded.
Tried to appear indifferent.
"Do you?"
Yuri raised an eyebrow.
"What history?
Everyone who got involved with her ended up dead."
Kiara held his wary gaze.
"The kind that ends exactly like this.
Me out here, and her in there."
Yuri walked around the room.
"It surprises me none of ours captured her first.
We had to wait for a foreign division to do the job."
Kiara shrugged.
"Sometimes all it takes is a new perspective."
Silence followed.
Something slipped past me.
Maybe it was only my imagination.
"Thermal, scent, and heavy-metal checks… everything matches.
If this is an act, it's a very good one."
Yuri's face darkened.
"You know what to do.
As for the princess, she is not a prisoner."
Kiara touched the holoscreen and the gates opened.
Another android appeared and led Trix away.
She smiled before the iron bars closed behind her.
For a moment, our eyes met.
Hers carried courage, almost audacity.
Only a quiet knowing, as if she already knew the ending before I did.
Their footsteps echoed until they vanished.
An unbearable urge surged in me to stop them, but I held back.
If I was going to regret it, it would be later.
"Sovet has already been notified.
The obshchak will record the reward's entry.
Take the girl to the Pakhan."
Yuri gestured to the guard.
"You two collect the reward from the other barracks.
After that, you're dismissed."
We crossed the fortress again.
The glacial wind howled, sharp as pain.
Kiara clenched her fists, huffing with rage.
"What is it?"
I caught up to hear her.
She gritted her teeth.
"My patience is at its limit.
That android belongs to Saymon."
"W-what?!"
"Argh… fuck it. Whatever.
Let's keep going with the plan."
Her aura shut down.
It was better to keep some distance.
Saymon really did get under her skin.
When we reached the transaction building, a small woman greeted us.
"Identify yourself there.
The registered account will receive the money."
Kiara completed the transaction.
We walked out.
The wind punished us.
The cold seeped into the hypodermis.
"I'm sending you twenty-five percent of the reward.
Later I'll give you access to the account.
It's managed by an underworld bank, TenebraCorp.
Users and transactions are nano-encrypted."
I stopped.
An underworld bank?
Reward money?
Did that make me a mercenary?
"N-no… that's unnecessary."
Kiara turned toward me.
"I'm transferring it anyway.
After all, we're talking about two million bireais."
The air vanished from my lungs.
"T-two million?
They were worth eight million combined?!"
"No, that was just for Trix.
The princess's reward is one hundred thousand.
We're transferring that to her."
I licked my frozen lips.
Two million…
Three solar cycles of my work.
I could fund CogniSynth's research for cycles.
I could…
Could I buy a different future?
But… at what cost?
I shook my head.
"I-I don't know what to say. It's… it's…"
Kiara laughed loudly.
"TenebraCorp handles the obnal for the obshchak;
your dolya drops after the hash."
Hurrying, I got into the car.
Relief wrapped around me as I escaped the wind.
I pulled off my mask and breathed deeply.
The android got in right after.
Her eyes gleamed.
"Now the action begins."
"Do you need to map the place?"
Kiara raised the holoscreen.
A holomap.
She smiled.
"No."
Her gaze sparkled with a secret.
"I've been here before. With Maia."
My breath failed for a second.
The cold was already unbearable, but in that instant, a hot shiver ran down my spine.