Zhukov's Dogs

by Amanda Cyr

  Her body hit the ground with a soft thud, not enough to alert the Grey Men I knew were stationed in the hall. Toppling them would prove to be a much greater challenge. There was no backing out now. I unlocked the handcuffs binding me to the bed and pocketed them, certain they’d come in handy eventually. Once free, I pulled my jumpsuit up and zipped the injuries out of sight and mind.

  At first, I planned on saving the morphine. There was no telling what state I’d find Val in, and it was entirely possible he needed it more than me. As soon as I put weight on my feet, though, I knew that wasn’t an option. My supplements had worn off, and my body felt every ache. I wouldn’t make out of the Eisenhower Building, let alone up to the fifth floor, without some kind of painkiller.

  While the injection took affect, I searched the nurse’s station by my bed. The drawers had been emptied, a smart, precautionary move I hadn’t anticipated. All I could do now was hope Val wasn’t too injured and could handle an escape I hadn’t even begun to plan.

  Not loose ends, Aiden’s post-it reminded me.

  The first thing I had to do was dispose of Nishayla. Using the sheet from the bed, I mopped up the blood and wrapped her body, shutting her eyes and folding her hands over the box on her chest. There was a chute in the morgue attached to the medical ward, just down the hall beyond my door and through the lobby. Grey Men and dogs without next of kin were dropped down the chute and carted off to the local crematorium for proper disposal. It wasn’t the funeral she deserved, but it was the only option available.

  I dragged the bundle over to the door, mindful of every little noise it made. I had no idea how many Grey Men stood between me and the exit. There was always one on duty, standing guard by reception, and it was safe to assume at least one more had been stationed in the hall outside my room.

  I left the bundle propped up against the wall and checked the ammunition in the gun Aiden sent. One bullet had already been wasted, leaving me with six. It was somewhat ironic that he hadn’t sent an extra clip in his care package. Part of me suspected this was a test of sorts. Aiden was giving me the chance to save myself and Val, but he wanted to see how determined I was. It was a greater opportunity than I could’ve hoped for, though, given my actions. I peeled the post-it off to dispose of it as evidence when I spotted the number on the back.

  Three.

  There were three Grey Men outside. I wasn’t sure how, but I was certain that was what Aiden’s message meant. Knowing the layout of the medical ward made it easy to predict where each would be. One right by my door, one at the end of the hall, and one at reception. I pocketed Aiden’s note, braced myself against the door with one hand on the handle, and with the other, held the gun close to my chest.

  My nerves were electric, alive and anxious. Six bullets, two floors, at least three Grey Men, and who knew what else stood between me and Val. I’d get there. We’d get away.

  I turned the handle, threw my weight behind the door, and kept my back flush against it until it hit the wall. Less than two feet in front of me, a Grey Man turned, lunged forward with both hands, and opened his mouth to alert the others. The sight triggered memories of a frozen Seattle landscape, fallen friends and the flash of a blade half a second too late. I seized the Grey Man’s collar and shoved the silencer into his mouth before he could call out.

  Three-hundred pounds of muscle fell forward against me. I widened my stance and used the door as support to keep from being crushed under the Grey Man’s weight. His body convulsed as two bullets, fired by his comrades, pierced his back. The bullets caught somewhere internally, sparing me further injury. I shoved him away. His shoes slid on the tile. As he dropped to his knees, I followed, firing over his shoulder at the pair of Grey Men further down the hall.

  The first one went down easy, collapsing with a mangled groan after one shot to the throat. The second moved faster, a bullet intended for his head piercing his shoulder instead and forcing me to waste a second shot.

  I pushed the Grey Man off, ignoring the searing pain in my shoulder and rushing into my room to retrieve the sheet bundle. There wasn’t time to worry if the blood soaking my jumpsuit was mine or a Grey’s. It was possible someone heard the commotion and alerted security, meaning my window of opportunity was closing fast. I dragged Nishayla down the hall, past reception and into the chilly morgue.

  The faint scent of formaldehyde should’ve prepared me for the rows of bodies on metal slabs. Half a dozen sheets covered as many corpses, a sight which wouldn’t have bothered me under different circumstances.

  I lingered by the door, staring at the faceless figures and telling myself there was no way I knew any of them. The S.O.R. wouldn’t have brought the rest of the revolutionaries back to D.C. The only reason they brought Val was because they saw him as something they could use against me. Dr. Halliburton told me the others had been “dealt with.” Fritzi, Tibbs, Anya, and the rest of my friends… They weren’t here.

  I didn’t stick around to confirm my theory. Val was waiting, and time was running out. I searched the drawers under the counter until I found a black body bag. Wrapped in a bloodstained sheet, Nishayla’s body was sure to be found. If she blended with the rest of her surroundings, though, nobody would look at her twice.

  I rolled the bag out on the floor and zipped the body, sheet, and other evidence out of sight. I heaved open the hatch on the wall and dropped the bundle of loose ends into the darkness. If someone managed to tie Aiden to my escape, it wouldn’t be my fault.

  I wiped my hands on my pants as I hurried into the lobby. The three Grey Men could remain where they were; there was nothing to tie them to Aiden. I grabbed one of their guns and headed for the exit.

  I pressed my ear to the double doors, listening for the chatter of dogs up past curfew. Aside from the medical ward, the third floor was home to lower-level officers and two massive dorms packed with pups. This early, they should’ve all been asleep. The first morning drills didn’t begin until 5:00 a.m., and lights-out was at 11:00 p.m.

  Sure enough, as I emerged from medical, it looked as though I had the halls to myself and a clean shot at the stairs. I sprinted into the stairwell and made a quick climb to the fifth floor, home of the most elite division heads.

  The highest authorities of all Special Forces had their offices up here, and I’d only glimpsed the inside of a handful of them. Val wouldn’t be in any of those. He’d be locked up in one of the small holding chambers at the end of the hall. They were called holding chambers, but they were worse than the prison cell I’d spent the last three days in. Closet-sized metal boxes with no bed, no heat, and no light, where they stowed hostages and prisoners to be kept under close watch.

  The long, dark hallway came into view as I reached the top of the stairs. Light seeped out from under the doors of several offices where great military powers sat up, working even at this hour. Each and every one of them knew a thousand different ways to kill a traitor like me. When my eyes locked on the door at the end of the hall, the one leading to the small metal boxes Val was locked away in, any trace of fear I should have felt dissolved.

  Silently I hurried on, looking from one lit office to the next. Even after multiple refurbishings, there were still sections of the ancient building’s floor which creaked under my weight. Every noise, every insignificant sound I would have overlooked in any other situation, seemed ten times louder tonight. In what felt like no time at all, though, I’d made it to the door at the end of the hall.

  I leaned against the cool metal and listened for guards. Only one set of feet scuffled on the concrete beyond. They weren’t quite clumsy enough to belong to a Grey Man, but they belonged to someone sizable, nonetheless.

  This close to highly-trained operatives, I needed to be extra careful. The guard beyond the door could cause a ruckus if I didn’t silence him right away. My best option was to get the jump on him, making it impossible for him to counterattack, but a heavy door like this was bound to make some noise if opened too fast.

 
I held my breath, shut my eyes, and listened. He paced from one end of the room to the other in a symmetrical pattern. I mapped the steps, trying to pinpoint where he was based on my minimal familiarity with the room. As they grew softer, I grabbed the door handle. When they paused at the end of his route, I pushed the door open and rushed inside the bright room.

  The ambush startled the guard, and he stumbled as he turned to draw his gun. Before he even got a hand around the grip, I fired. The guard staggered forward. I caught him under the arms as he fell, trying to keep him from making any noise on impact. Three days of malnutrition and little rest had made me weak, though, and I grunted under the guard’s weight. Without a door to support me like before, my knees buckled, and we both hit the ground.

  I hadn’t made too much noise, and I told myself that over and over as I shoved the guard off and hurried to shut the metal door. As I tried to calm my nerves, I listened for the sound of a door opening, an officer stepping out to see what the commotion was about. Five silent seconds bled into ten. I was safe.

  The short hall in front of me was blinding. It was one of the oldest torture tricks in the book, designed to scorch the eyes of whoever was locked up in darkness, robbing them of one of their most vital senses.

  Six, steel doors, identical to the one I was slumped against, lined the walls. Charts, stowed in clear boxes next to each door, made the cold space feel like a cold hospital. Only three of the six rooms were occupied, something that would make finding Val easier.

  Once I’d regained my breath, I searched the lifeless guard for a set of keys. A single key was fastened to his belt, long and simple. I unhooked it, praying it would open any of the six doors. If it didn’t, if I’d come all this way for nothing, I didn’t know what I’d do.

  I checked the folders until I found the one with Val’s name on it. Somehow, the smile that tugged at the corners of my mouth felt wrong. I was about to be reunited with Val. I should have felt thrilled, instead I felt uncertain. Would he even want to see me after everything? There was no time to worry about my own selfish insecurities. Val had been locked in a steel box for three long days, and even if he hated my guts, I couldn’t let him rot in there.

  The key fit; better, it turned and popped the lock. I yanked the door open and stared at the small square of light, Val curled in its center with his back toward me. He still wore the mismatched, bloody clothes he’d left Seattle in, shoulders rising and falling with shallow breaths as he slept.

  I dropped to my knees and reached a hand out to wake him. Even with the layers, his skin was ice cold, and he shivered out of sleep as I gathered him in my arms. To my horror, he shoved me away. He struggled out of my grip and backed away against the wall, one hand shielding his eyes and the other drawn back, ready to swing.

  The light, I reminded myself, holding both hands up so he could make out an outline and see I meant no harm. It wasn’t that he hated me; he’d been in the dark for three days and couldn’t see who I was. “It’s okay,” I assured him. “It’s okay, Val. It’s me.”

  The drawn fist relaxed. Val squinted through his fingers as his eyes worked to adjust to the light in the room. “Nik?”

  “It’s me,” I repeated.

  Val threw himself at me. The pain which surged through my ribs, as his arms wrapped around me, could have been multiplied ten times, and I still wouldn’t have pushed him away. I pulled him closer, one hand grasping at the material of his coat and the other pressing against the back of his head, as his face buried in the crook of my neck.

  “I thought you were—”

  Val nodded against my shoulder, a laugh muffled between us. “Me, too. I don’t… I mean I don’t know how, but I’m not.”

  No, he was very much alive. Frozen, blinded, and who knew what else, but alive. I pressed a kiss to the side of his head, rested my forehead there, and shook my head with a smile that felt so strange.

  “Don’t scare me like that again,” I said, semi-serious as I laughed. Why I was laughing, I didn’t know. The fact Val was alive and in my arms made the world seem all right. I’d spent three days thinking he was lost to me forever, a casualty of my own carelessness. Having him here, now, defied logic, broke physics, and left me convinced someone had to be looking out for us.

  “I’ll try,” he said, sarcasm undeterred by the last three days of hell.

  I didn’t want to let him go, not now, not ever. We had to move, though. We were far from safe, and I didn’t plan on losing him so soon after being reunited. I pressed another kiss to the side of his head and asked, “Can you move?”

  Val nodded again, grip loosening. He seemed to understand the danger we were in and the need to escape as soon as possible. “Yeah. Got a plan?”

  “Kind of,” I said, reluctantly releasing him and getting to my feet. I helped him up, not overlooking the way he grimaced as he put weight on his right side. Sure enough, the second I let go of his hand, it went straight to his hip.

  I seized the hem of his shirt and pulled it up to discover a square of gauze taped over where he’d taken a bullet three days ago. When I spotted the base of bandages and lifted his shirt further, I found heavy bindings covered his ribcage almost in its entirety. “They patched you up?” I asked in disbelief, free hand reaching to trace the edge of bandages to make sure they were real.

  “Guess they thought I was more useful if they kept me alive,” he said with a shrug.

  They couldn’t have been more wrong. If Val had really been dead, I’d still be sitting on my cot, waiting patiently for my execution. I smiled as I imagined Dr. Halliburton’s reaction to the news we’d both escaped.

  I released Val’s shirt and pulled the Grey Man’s gun from my waistband. “Take this. There’s no silencer, so only pull the trigger if things get out of hand.”

  “How likely are thing to get out of hand?” Val asked, taking the gun and familiarizing himself with it.

  It occurred to me he might not realize where we were, let alone who was holding us captive. It was a risky move, telling the truth, but I was through lying to him. “We are on the fifth and top floor of the Eisenhower Building, home to all three branches of Special Forces, and located in Washington, D.C. I’d say we stand a fifty-fifty chance of shit hitting the fan.”

  To his credit, Val only paled slightly. “Right. Lead the way, then.”

  Fifth Floor Holding, Eisenhower Building—Washington, D.C.

  Thursday, November 26th, 2076—3:18 a.m.

  here was no immediate danger. The same lights were on under the same, shut doors, meaning, in theory, we weren’t about to be ambushed. I beckoned for Val to follow and pulled the steel door shut behind him. The trek down the hall toward the stairs felt longer, more perilous, but we made it, and the first creaky step came with a wave of premature relief.

  Over my shoulder, Val looked around in all directions, and not just for enemies. The old building was new to him and fascinating, despite our peril. I would’ve liked to share this part of my life with him, at least some aspects of it—the yard where I’d commanded my first squadron; the storage bay Aiden and I turned into our personal obstacle course; my barely-used office, packed with random objects I’d collected during missions around the world. The only thing the Eisenhower Building had for me now was an execution order.

  We reemerged on the third floor. A pair of patrolling grunts were halfway down the hall, walking away from us, preoccupied with their own conversation.

  “Why not go all the way down?” Val asked, nodding toward the descending stairs as we lingered on the landing.

  “Because we’re famous fugitives, and there are Grey Men stationed in the lobby,” I explained.

  The patrol turned down a separate hall, giving us a clear shot at the medical ward. I seized Val’s hand and pulled him through the double doors. He froze in his tracks when he saw three Grey Men splayed on the floor, clutching the gun tighter to his chest.

  “I’ve been busy,” I said, coaxing him out of shock with a small squeeze o
f hand. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

  “Is there an exit somewhere in here?” Val asked as he followed at my heels, scanning the enormous medical ward and taking in its pristine vastness. His awe crumpled as I led him into the morgue, eyes locking on the six slabs of sheet and steel.

  I tightened my grip on his hand and guided his stare back to mine. “Don’t.”

  Don’t think about them. Those aren’t our friends. They’re not.

  Val pulled free and walked over to the nearest slab. I didn’t stop him. He wanted answers I wasn’t prepared to face. He laid the gun on the short medical station, took hold of the sheet, and drew it back to reveal an older dog with gray hair and skin. Val laid the sheet back over him without a word then moved to the next slab.

  It cost us precious seconds we didn’t have, but I said nothing while Val examined each face. As he revealed the sixth corpse, a slack-jawed Grey Man, I sighed. “They’re not here, Val,” I said, caught somewhere between relief and disappointment.

  Val draped the sheet over the final face, smoothing the wrinkles out as though he knew the nameless individual. His hands gripped the edges of the table, downcast eyes out of focus on the corpse’s silhouette. I recognized the depressed stare; I’d seen it in the underground after he found out members of the eastern base were slaughtered on the train.

  “You think any of them survived?” he asked, the sadness in his voice twisting something in my heart.

  We both knew the truth, how unlikely it was anyone above or below ground made it out of Seattle. Without thinking, I crossed the room, wrapping my arms around his shoulders from behind and resting my chin atop his head. One of his hands closed tight around my forearm as the other drummed against the slab.

  “We need to go,” was all I could say, any other response too difficult to voice.

  Val took a deep breath and nodded. I released his shoulders and led him across the room to the same chute I’d used earlier. Val looked skeptical as I pulled it open. This was our only reasonable escape route, though, and he needed to understand that.