The Strangelove Gambit

by David Bishop

  Here it comes, the Crest warned.

  Before Wartski could continue, an insistent knocking rattled her office door. "Come!" she commanded. Tempest entered and approached the matron, whispering something into her left ear. Wartski nodded, a cruel smile playing about her lips. "Very well. Thank you for that." Tempest departed again, glaring at Dante on her way out.

  Wartski returned to her desk and opened a drawer, withdrawing a sheet of paper from inside. "Quentin Durward does not exist, but the name has been used as an alias by members of the Vorovskoi Mir over the years - among them one of the most wanted men in the Empire." She turned the paper round to show Dante the image on the other side. It was a picture of him, all too familiar from wanted posters erected in the Tsar's name. "Quentin Durward is an alias of this man, Nikolai Dante, and this man... is you!"

  Dante smiled, determined to try one last bluff. "You've got me all wrong. I know I look a lot like that rogue, but-"

  "Spare me any more of your lies," Wartski replied, reaching into her desk drawer. Before she could pull out the weapon inside Dante kicked at the desk, driving it and Wartski backwards across the office, pinning her to the far wall. She screamed an obscenity at him, struggling to free herself.

  "I hope you don't kiss anyone with that mouth," Dante replied, then leapt towards the office door. He tore it open to find Storm and Tempest waiting for him outside, wielding syringes filled with a luminescent liquid. Dante threw both hands up to protect himself, biocircuitry already extending outwards from his fingers to form blades. But the twins stabbed the needles into his palms, ramming the plungers down to inject the syringes' contents.

  Dante staggered backwards, a chilling numbness shooting up his arms.

  "Crest, what's happening? What was in those needles?

  That was, the Crest started to reply, but its voice was fading inside Dante's mind. That was...

  "Crest? Crest, I can't hear you!" Dante shouted. The twins stepped into the office, standing over their target as he collapsed to his knees. Dante's arms hung uselessly at his side, the numbness now spreading across his chest and down his spine. He looked up at Wartski as she approached, a malicious grin on her face. "Help me," he said weakly.

  "Help yourself," she replied, slapping him across the face with the back of her hand. The blow twisted Dante sideways and he fell, unable to stop himself. His head thudded into the floor and then blackness closed in...

  TWELVE

  "He that masters his wrath can master anything"

  - Russian proverb

  Natalia regained consciousness slowly, as if swimming up from the bottom of a dark river towards the surface. Even when she opened her eyes, the surroundings were at odds with her expectations. The last thing she could remember was shivering on the cold metal examination table in Doctor Fabergè's laboratory, her nostrils filled with the smell of rubber from the gas mask being clamped over her face by Storm. Then all was darkness.

  Now she was sat on the floor of a small stone chamber without windows, just a single wooden door set into one wall. She was shaking, her fingers almost blue at the tips, while her teeth kept chattering together. A heavy metal manacle was clamped around one leg, a chain leading from it to a barred grille in the floor. The smell of seawater and rotting fish hung in the air like a pall. Natalia pulled the thin cotton of her patient's gown closer, trying to keep in some warmth. What was this place? Why had she been put here, it didn't make sense. After the other students were examined by Doctor Fabergè they had spent a night in the infirmary recovering before being allowed to rejoin the elite class. None of them had ever mentioned this place.

  "Hello?" she called out. "Can anybody hear me?" No reply came, just the echo of her own voice mingling with the sound of waves beneath the grille in the floor. "Can anyone hear me? Hello?" Natalia felt a rising note of panic in her voice and told herself to stay calm. A terrible mistake had been made, that was all. Somebody would soon realise and let her go.

  As if in answer to her thoughts, the sound of approaching footsteps became audible. A heavy key twisted inside a lock and then the door swung inwards. Storm stood in the entrance, her face as cold as the stone beneath Natalia's legs. "I have bad news and good news," the towering woman said emotionlessly. "Which do you want to hear first?"

  "What am I doing in here?" Natalia demanded. "Where am I?"

  "The good news or the bad?" Storm repeated impatiently.

  "The bad news."

  "During your medical examination, Doctor Fabergè removed one of your eggs, but it proved to be infertile - you can never have children."

  Natalia was numb to this, still unable to grasp what has happening. "And the good news?"

  "You won't have to live with your infertility much longer. Since you are no longer of any use to the doctor, he has decided you can no longer remain as a student at this institute. Your academic career is being terminated."

  "Are you expelling me?"

  "Not exactly. This chamber is one of the lowest points of the castle. Every time the tide rises, it floods this room with seawater. Within the next few hours you will suffer a tragic drowning - at least, that is what your grieving family will be told. It's the most convenient option for your disposal."

  Natalia shook her head in disbelief. "But why? Why are you doing this?"

  "Patients often say things as they are being sedated. You kept saying two names over and over, mixing them up."

  "Oh no," Natalia gasped.

  "The name of our new fencing tutor, Quentin Durward - and the name of a wanted criminal, Nikolai Dante. You confirmed what my sister, Madame Wartski and I had discovered during the night. These men are one and the same. How long have you known that?"

  Natalia didn't answer, the reality of her situation becoming too much for her. Tears were welling in her eyes, her hands clasping each other helplessly.

  "It doesn't matter," Storm concluded. "You cannot be allowed to leave Fabergè Island alive, but your death must also appear to be accidental."

  "Please," Natalia begged. "I wouldn't tell anyone, I promise!"

  Storm ignored her, pulling the door closed and locked it again.

  "Please, you've got to let me out of here!" Natalia screamed. But she could hear Storm walking away, footsteps fading into the distance. "Help me," Natalia sobbed as water ebbed at the grille in the floor. "Someone, help me..."

  "Where are they?" Wartski demanded. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen, snarling at Scullion. The alien cook ignored her, continuing to stir a huge saucepan filled with a fragrant stew. "I said where are they?"

  "Where are who, matron?"

  "Your kitchen hand and his partner in crime - Spatchcock and Flintlock," Wartski replied. "They were here earlier. The blond one was babbling in a corner and your little friend was feeding him vodka."

  "I'm not surprised if what he was raving about was true," Scullion said. "He seemed to have hallucinated the most unlikely scenario. It involved you, actually. You, a toad and something about leather and rubber. I didn't get all the details, sounded like nonsense to me."

  Wartski made a cursory attempt to search the kitchen but soon abandoned her quest. "If either of those two miscreants come back here, you are to send them to my office. Is that clear?"

  "Painfully so," the alien replied dryly. She stopped stirring and turned to face the matron. "Was there anything else, or can I get back to doing my job?"

  Wartski didn't bother to reply, storming from the kitchen. Once she had gone Spatchcock emerged from a cupboard in the pantry, unfolding himself from the cramped space. "Has the dragon gone?"

  "For now," Scullion said. "What have you and Flintlock been up to?"

  "Better you don't know." Spatchcock bit his fingernails hesitantly. "You won't hand us over to her, will you?"

  Scullion laughed, a guttural sound full of strange mirth. "Wartski and I have never seen eye to eye. The day I make her life easier is the day I die."

  Spatchcock gently stroked one of the cook's tenta
cles. "Don't let it come to that. I don't want you to suffer because of me or Flintlock." He looked around the kitchen. "Where is he, anyway?"

  The alien smiled. "Inside the main drain. I knew that even Wartski wouldn't go looking for him down there."

  Dante came to in a room of blazing light, humming machines, cold steel and glass. He was lying on a metal examination table, heavy clamps pinning his wrists beside his head. Antiseptic was the overriding smell in the stonewalled chamber, the air harsh and acrid. More metal clamps encased Dante's torso, which was stripped naked to the waist, but he could raise his head to look round the room. This must be Fabergè's laboratory, he thought, recognising it from the presentation. Not exactly the homeliest of places to visit.

  "Crest, I need you to analyse the surroundings, see what you can find out about the security system in here," Dante whispered. But no reply entered his thoughts. "Crest? Crest, can you hear me?" Still nothing. Then Dante remembered the needles stabbing into him, the Crest's voice fading away, the numbness creeping up his arms. "Crest?"

  "It can't hear you," a supercilious voice responded. Doctor Fabergè was standing behind him. "Nor can you hear the Crest. All communications between the two of you have been severed. You're on your own, Nikolai."

  "We'll see about that," Dante snarled, concentrating his mind to activate the biocircuitry within his hands. Once the bio-blades were extended he could easily cut his way free and take on the gloating Fabergè.

  "Your ability to create weapons from your hands is also defunct. Tempest and Storm injected you with a suppressant of my own concoction that nullifies all the gifts bestowed upon you by the Crest. For the next two hours you are just as human as I. Even your enhanced healing abilities are in remission." Fabergè walked towards the examination table, a gleaming scalpel held in one hand. "Most surgeons use laser cutters these days, believing them to be more precise than metal blades like this. Laser cutters cauterise a wound while they slice. Personally, I prefer the old-fashioned method." The doctor laid the edge of his scalpel against Dante's chest, letting it nestle amidst the coarse black hairs. "Allow me to demonstrate."

  Fabergè ripped the scalpel sideways, slicing open skin. Blood began flowing freely from the wound. Dante cried out in pain, cursing repeatedly as he twitched involuntarily against his restraints. "See?" Fabergè asked. "You can bleed like anyone else now. If I cut deep enough, you'll bleed to death."

  "I get the point," Dante replied. "What do you want?"

  "From the likes of you? Nothing. Your precious Crest, the fabled weapon of the Romanovs, is old news. After the war the Tsar let me participate in the vivisection of one of your half-siblings. I used the results of that to develop my suppressant, storing it carefully should I ever encounter another Crest's living host. But now I have developed a process that far surpasses your alien biotechnology, that shall beget the next generation of bio-weaponry."

  "Spare me the lecture," Dante said. "I saw your show and tell routine on the data crystal Spatchcock stole."

  "An unfortunate lapse of security," Fabergè admitted, "and one for which your two associates shall be punished. Severely punished."

  "One thing you didn't mention in that sick little presentation," Dante said. "Whose sperm are you using to fertilise the students' eggs? Not your own, I hope - that hasn't been a great success so far, has it? Spatchcock saw where you keep your failures, swimming round the island as underwater sentries."

  "I unsuccessfully tried using stem cells from marine mammals," the doctor admitted. "But all scientific research is a process of trial and error. I have used my own seed quite successfully, adapting eggs taken from Wartski. She's quite devoted to me, in her own way, and gratefully donated them."

  "Better than having sex with her. I'm not sure Flintlock will ever recover."

  Fabergè twisted the scalpel in Dante's wound, eliciting another scream from the captive. "No need to be nasty, Nikolai. We all have our flaws."

  "Speak for yourself," Dante spat back.

  "We also have our successes. You've already met two of mine, Tempest and Storm. I called them the Strangelove twins, for their conception was the product of unusual circumstances - my seed and science, together with Wartski's eggs. The Furies are my genetically-engineered daughters."

  "But they're almost thirty. How long have you been working on this?"

  "The twins were force-gestated to the age of eighteen, given accelerated growth hormones, along with learning implants and simulated memories of their childhood. The sperm for this stage of my experiments has been provided by the Tsar."

  Dante's eyes narrowed as he realised the implications of this. "Your elite class will go home on Sunday carrying his bastard offspring in their wombs."

  "Pre-programmed to be loyal only to him once they are born, the perfect soldiers to enforce his regime," Fabergè said. "Sadly, not all the class will be making the journey back to their families. Young Natalia proved infertile when I examined her earlier today. And since she unwittingly revealed knowledge of your true identity, I had no choice but to arrange an accident."

  "What have you done to her?" Dante demanded.

  "Nothing. The rising tide will cause her drowning, not I."

  "You bastard! She's done nothing to you. She's no threat to the madness you've been brewing in here!"

  "I beg to differ."

  "What about the other students? Won't they notice she's gone missing at the same time as me? Won't that ring any alarm bells?"

  "I've had the rest of the class sedated. I need all the time between now and the Tsar's arrival to implant the fertilised eggs back into their wombs."

  Dante shook his head, steely resolve in his eyes. "It's taken me this long to figure you out, Fabergè. You're clinically insane. You've been playing God for so long you've starting to believe your own legend."

  "I'm not playing God," Fabergè replied. "I am a god, or close to becoming one. I can recreate mankind in whatever image I see fit. Soon the children I have engineered in this laboratory shall rule the Empire. Is that not the definition of a god?"

  "I take it back - you're not mad."

  "Thank you."

  "You're barking mad!" Dante spat. "Wartski should put you on a leash and take you for a walk. She'd probably enjoy that, too."

  Fabergè smiled. "Goad me all you want, it won't change anything. When the Tsar arrives on Sunday he shall reward me handsomely for having caught the notorious Nikolai Dante, a task that everyone else has singularly failed. Whether you are still alive when the Imperial Palace arrives is entirely up to you. The reward for your corpse is almost as generous as that for delivering you alive, so I don't mind which bounty I receive." The doctor placed the scalpel on Dante's chest, then walked to the laboratory entrance. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back. I've something to show you. A blast from the past, I believe the phrase is." He left the room, the frosted glass door sliding closed behind him.

  "Crest? Crest, can you hear me? Crest, respond!" Dante hissed, but no reply came. The suppressant must still be in effect. To escape from this place, he would need to rely on his own skills and talents, instead of letting the Crest save him as usual.

  The laboratory door opened again and Fabergè returned, carrying a familiar object - the Steel Military Egg. Dante had not seen it since his painful visit to the doctor's hotel suite, twelve years earlier. "Remember this, Nikolai? I paid a fortune for this at auction and within a few hours it was stolen from me by a grifter and his apprentice. I became a laughing stock, a cocktail party joke across the Empire, and the living embodiment of that old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted. So I vowed to find the two men who duped me and punish them for my ignominy. I never realised the apprentice was the infamous Nikolai Dante, bane of the Empire. You looked very different as a callow youth. At dinner on the first night you arrived, I knew I had seen you before, but couldn't remember where. It's taken me far too long to put the pieces together, far too long."

  "I know what you did to Di Grizov,
" Dante said, disgust in his voice. "I was with him when he died, cursing your name. He's the reason I came here, to avenge his death and to stop you completing this new weapon for the Tsar."

  Fabergè began laughing, merely a chuckle at first, then a full-throated roar of hilarity, throwing his head back. "How wonderful! And what a roaring success you've made of that mission! Really, Nikolai, you are priceless."

  "Stop calling me Nikolai," Dante warned. "We aren't friends and we aren't lovers. You don't know me, so don't pretend that you do."

  "And who's going to stop me, Nikolai? You?"

  "Remember this, Fabergè: I'll be there when you die screaming. That egg puts a curse on anyone who touches it and you'll be next to suffer."

  The doctor put down the egg and began applauding. "Bravo! Your machismo is almost as admirable as it is pointless. I do hope the Tsar will let me dissect your corpse once he's finished killing you."

  Dante cursed Fabergè, who picked up his prized objet d'art and strolled towards the door, still smiling. "Goodbye, Nikolai. One of the twins will be back in a few hours to inject you with a fresh dose of suppressant. We don't want the troublesome Crest helping you make an escape bid, do we?" Fabergè left the laboratory, still chuckling to himself, the door sliding closed behind him.

  Dante strained against the restraints binding his arms, but they were too strong for him to break unaided. There must be a way out of here, he thought, there must be. Bojemoi, I trained with the best escapologist in the Vorovskoi Mir, I should be able to-

  A broad smile spread across Dante's face as he looked at the scalpel still resting on his bloody chest.

  Natalia had given up calling for help. Nobody was coming to rescue her, she knew that. If Doctor Fabergè knew about Dante, he was probably dead already and none of the other pupils would question explanations about her own absence. They were products of their upbringing, trained from birth to follow orders, to do what they were told, to conform. If only I'd done the same, she thought ruefully, I wouldn't be waiting to drown in here.