I feel exhausted; the day has been strenuous and for the first time in recent memory, the only thing I want to do is sleep. My hands feel cold—dead almost—and a dull headache is about the only thing keeping me awake. But orders are orders and a summon from the headmaster is not to be left unanswered. I try to keep my mind occupied from swimming away into dullness by following the lines between the tiles on the floor before me, how they run on into infinity and disappear behind me only to leave rank upon rank of their ramrod-straight brethren up ahead. My arms are heavy and my legs feel stiff - did I always weigh this much? - but I take a deep breath and pull my shoulders back as I approach the heavy oak door to my left.
I turn to face the door, almost at attention, and knock. A deep, resonant voice bellows from within in response. "Come in, come in, don't stand out there all evening."
I resist a grin and open the door, stepping into the room and immediately closing it behind me. I stand stiffly next to it, arms straight at my side, eyes focused on a spot on the wall above and behind the man seated at the gargantuan mahogany desk; I wouldn't dare meet his eyes. "Vasily Zima, reporting as requested, sir."
"Ah, yes. You," he replies in a pensive tone. "How do you think your exams went today, my boy?"
Is that honestly what he dragged me all the way out here to ask? "Quite well, sir." I decide to try a little brown nosing. "I was well trained, sir; a good result was expected."
He chuckles softly. "Alright son, don't go trying to butter me up. If you want me to think kindly of you, perform. Earn it." He rises from his seat, clutching a heavy manila file at his side. "I've got something exciting for you here; are you interested?"
I waver a bit in my rigidity. "I will fulfill my duties sir, regardless of what is requested of me."
He sighs and I steal a glance at his eyes. There is something like sadness there, although I can't name or explain it. "I was afraid of that," he says under his breath. I don't think I was intended to hear it, so I pretend as if I didn't. "Tell me, Vasily, what do you mean by 'duty'?"
I am offset a bit by the question; the use of lone first names is rare here, especially when staff address students. I search desperately for a response, conscious of his appraising gaze. "It is a privilege, sir," I reply, buying myself time. "It is the privilege to stand with others like me in service of our shared morals, to protect the entity that has from our birth protected us."
"The country?"
"And its people, sir." But with all due respect, Headmaster, sir, I didn't traipse all the way out here to your office to be philosophical. Couldn't we save this all for daylight hours? Tomorrow, perhaps, after I've slept for a good twelve hours?
"And her allies?" I simply nod, tired beyond words. He nods in return and motions toward the door. "I suppose then some would say that your priorities are all properly aligned. But come now, son. Follow me."
There is some element of bitterness to his words, but my mind is too sluggish at this hour to try to decipher why. I follow him out into the hall, then through a labyrinth of passages and staircases until my brain—functioning only at half capacity as it is—gives up on trying to remember the way back. At the end of one hall, he steps into an elevator, and I begin to think that all the stairs were simply to confuse me. But as the door closes behind us with a pneumatic hiss, I manage to notice something strange: There are only two buttons in the panel on the wall. He presses the lower one and it glows a soft blue. The car jerks and I feel an instant of freefall; we move down and the doors glide open. He steps out into a sterile white hallway, but I hesitate. The lights are harsh and feel like sharp blades in my eyes. I blink rapidly for a moment and follow him.
I hear the elevator door close behind us with an eerie kind of finality. The hall is short and linear, ending at a metal door with a bold sign welded into it:
LABORATORY
Authorized Personnel Only
I'd heard rumors around campus about the "basement lab," but that's what I'd always assumed them to be, rumors and nothing more. There were gory, outlandish stories associated with it that were circulated mostly by the upperclassmen as a sort of scare-tactic to keep new arrivals in their place. They had never bothered me; hearing them over and over again during my first year here had merely gotten annoying. But now I find myself in a brightly-lit subterranean tunnel, beneath the school's administrative building, after class hours, staring straight at the door to the basement lab.
I feel a chill run down my spine.
The headmaster, grumbling under his breath, fishes an identification card out of his pocket and slips it into a slot in a mechanism mounted on the wall next to the door. A small screen below it glows to life as he places his right hand over it. It beeps, its blue backlight changes to green, and there is a heavy click from beyond the door. It sounds like some colossal latch being released. He returns the card to his pocket and glances back at me. I suppose my face looks as pale and drawn as it feels, as his eyes look initially startled but he grins at me.
The metal door slides away into the wall, far too quietly for something that big and dense. I eye it warily as the headmaster crosses the threshold and I step over the door's track after him. Beyond the door, I can hear the soft, incessant whirring of a large computer, one of those massive things that fill entire rooms with black towers covered in tangles of wires and glittering lights. I do my best to keep pace with the headmaster while assessing my surroundings; after nearly four years of being trained to hunt like a mongoose in the jungle, it's instinctive. The halls are just as white, the lights just as glaring, and although there are spotless metal doors here and there, they are widely spaced and all closed. The rooms here must be large and probably house sensitive materials, I conclude.
I roll my eyes at my own genius. It's a laboratory, Vasily, you dunce.
We round a corner and I find myself face-to-face with a glass wall. Behind it is the computer whose plaintive voice I picked up upon my entrance. My eyes, numbed by tiredness and the bright lights, are momentarily mesmerized by the flashing blue and green and yellow LEDs, frantic on their own but orderly in their rows. I suddenly realize that the headmaster is no longer in my peripheral view and turn around in a panic. He's only a few paces away, watching me from down the hall to my right, his hand on a doorknob. I sheepishly follow him and return to my position by his side.
He seems apprehensive about whatever lies beyond the door, but after only a moment's pause, he turns the knob and bursts into the room with all the confidence of a former intelligence officer. I expect the room to be filled with heavy tables covered in all sorts of nondescript machines, the walls lined with cabinets full of vials and chemicals. Instead, it looks like a boardroom that could have existed anywhere above ground. The table is entirely full, and I scan the attendants of whatever sort of meeting was called in search of a recognizable face. About half of the people seated are in business attire, but have the sharp, quick eyes and intense postures of scientists at work. Another few are in full suits and have dull, haughty gazes; if they're anything, they're government officials of some sort. The rest - only about five - are in full military uniform, and are evidently high-ranking. The chair at the far end of the table is empty, but a jacket lays across its back and it sits at an oblique angle to the table, where a mess of papers are arranged. Someone had been sitting there until very recently, and I look up to find the best candidate for that someone leaning against the head of the table nearer the door.
I study his face for an instant before my entire body goes completely cold.
"That man…"
My eyes widen. I recognize him, but not because he works here at the academy. Everyone here would know his face from kilometers away. He is Igor Sokolov, the Kremlin's Chief of Military Technology.
He rises as we enter the room and shakes the headmaster's hand warmly. "It's good to see you again, Vadim, and on such pleasant terms."
They're on a first-name basis?
He turns to look at me, standing stiffly by the door, and I all but collapse. "Is this the young gentleman?"
The headmaster turns toward me with an encouraging smile. "Indeed, he is. And I must commend you on making such a remarkable choice, my friend."
I sense that something is expected of me, but my mouth is dry and my mind has gone utterly blank.
The Chief leaves the table and moves to within inches of me, offering his hand for me to shake. I take it at a loss for anything else to do. "I'm very pleased to finally be able to make your acquaintance, Gospodin Zima," he says. "I expect your headmaster has informed you of the reason for our being here this evening and of the nature of the relationship I hope to establish?"
In a voice much softer than intended, I meekly admit the opposite. I haven't the slightest clue why anyone's here.
With a questioning expression, he turns back to the headmaster. His face has gone slightly red and he fumbles for his words. "You understand, Igor, that I wasn't certain if everything would fall into place, down to his examination today, and if… if the proper circumstances didn't come together, I didn't want to jeopardize the operation or put him in any kind of danger by revealing classified information to him, and..."
The Chief laughs good-naturedly. "Don't send yourself into fits, Vadim. It's a minor detail. Come then; let's get started."
He guides the headmaster to the only remaining seat - the one at the head of the table - and addresses me again. "Well, young man, considering that everyone here tonight knows who you are quite well, it would be rude I think not to introduce them to you properly." He takes a circuit around the room, naming each attendant and giving a brief biography of each. I nod along and vaguely register a number of doctors of various sciences and Secretaries of this-and-that, along with the obligatory officers, but my head's still spinning from my headmaster's mention of "classified information."
The men talk amongst themselves for a few moments and my mind drifts away. The sound of their conversation is muffled and distant, and, in an irrational stupor, I begin to wonder what it would be like to turn into a horse and sleep standing.
I blink hurriedly and snap alert at the sound of my name. "Vasily?" It's the Chief speaking. "What do you think of that?" I panic internally; I should have been listening. I glance at my headmaster and he gives me a nearly imperceptible nod.
"Respectfully, sir, I'd like to have some time to consider it objectively," I answer honestly.
He looks at the headmaster and shakes his head with a grin. "You really do make them all into your little protégés, don't you?" He returns his gaze to me. "Wouldn't you like to try it out, at very least? I'd imagine you'd be curious."
Try what out? A gun? A tank? A plane? An ICBM? I feel my face heat up and know I'm likely as red as the Soviet flag. My mind races; I struggle to say something not entirely incriminating. "Perhaps if I was more familiar with its capabilities and means of operation, sir," I blurt.
My headmaster winks at me before turning back to the table. Somehow, he knew full well what I was going through. The Chief gestures toward a heavy metal box I've only just noticed sitting in the center of the conference table. "Our colleagues here have determined that it's safe enough; why don't you give it a bit of a try?" Before I can respond, he nods to one of the scientists sitting near him and she reaches for the box. The door faces toward her - away from me - but I can hear a combination lock clicking away under her fingers. Her hand goes still against the box's surface for a second before it beeps, quite like the lock on the door to the lab. She pulls the door open and pauses, a look of awe and admiration on her face. She gingerly lifts an object from within the box and, cradling it in her arms like something living, slowly moves around the table and approaches me. It's wrapped in thick velvet, which she unfolds before presenting it to me like a gift.
What she holds is like nothing I've ever seen. It initially dredges up images of antiquated clockwork machines—intricate little automatons—but I quickly realize that this thing is far more complex and far older. Its copper glimmers under the room's lights, but a few joints are slightly green with patina. There are engravings everywhere on it, some artistic—flowing lines and geometric patterns, even a lion, a stallion, and what looks to be a phoenix—and some linguistic. I can't read them. Is it… Arabic? I feel drawn to it without even knowing what it is, but when I reach out and touch it, I recoil immediately. I can feel it buzzing under my fingers, like a live machine, although it isn't something I can easily explain.
I look up at the scientist and she studies me with a curious expression. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the entire room watching me, holding their collective breath.
I wish to God I'd listened to what they were saying so I'd know what they find so important about this thing.
I lay one hand over it again, ignoring its hum, and pick it up. It fits comfortably in one hand, but I stabilize it with the other for fear of what it might be able to do. I roll it back and forth, a bit lost as to how to use it, trying to play my confusion off like detailed inspection. I hold one half in my right hand, the other in my left, and twist it, not expecting much to happen. It shifts and clicks, the sound echoing much more than it should in a carpeted room with plaster walls. The etchings in its surface begin to glow a hot white and, expecting it to burn, I drop it reflexively and step back. It falls only about a centimeter through the air, hovering instead of crashing to the floor. I look around frantically for an explanation, for a nod of reassurance, for much of anything, but the world looks suddenly blurry.
In a panic, I snatch the velvet from the scientist's hands - she barely responds - smother the object in it, and hurl it across the room. It freezes in mid-air above its box on the table. I look behind me and the scientist is only just beginning to look up in response to the fabric being torn from her hands. Still feeling manic - and not thinking very clearly - I vault onto the table, grab the thing from the air above me, fling the velvet aside, and twist it again so that whatever function I activated is disengaged. It's lights fade to black. Behind me, I hear the scientist's delayed shriek and the dull sound of the velvet falling to the table's surface. I stand on the table - in the presence of officers with enough authority to furnish all the king's horses and all the king's men - with one foot on the metal box, breathing heavily. I stare at the thing in my hands and take stock: I am in the midst of government officials, those officials are in cahoots with my headmaster for something classified, the Chief of Military Technology has chosen me for something, and I'd effectively just made molasses of time with some ancient Middle Eastern artifact.
I look around, not quite sure of anything, much less what just happened or how I'm expected to react. The Chief, who still hasn't returned to his chair, is standing against one wall, as white as if he'd seen a ghost. My headmaster looks baffled, but not particularly scared.
Part of me finds it amusing to see a man of Sokolov's stature backed into a wall like that. He struggles for air, finally breathing, "We've... We've never actually seen a human use it."
I tilt my head in confusion, suddenly feeling authoritative enough to challenge the Chief of Military Intelligence, even wordlessly. A heavy silence has descended in the conference room, and I quickly lose what new and fleeting confidence the thing in my hands brought me. I look to my headmaster, who meets my eyes, then turns to his friend. "Igor, for goodness' sake. Why cower there like a child? You promised it wouldn't be dangerous."
A wry grin slides across the Chief's face. "No, no Vadim, it isn't dangerous." He shifts away from the wall and moves toward the table, toward me. His steps are slow, as if he's entranced. Our eyes lock and, whereas I would ordinarily drop my gaze to the floor out of respect and deference, I feel that somehow now, it would be worse to look away. He steps right up to the table and gazes at me like a religious man would at an object of worship. "No, not dangerous. It's remarkable."