Mallet-Bompard International Academy (West of Palmyra, Syria)
Day of Initial Deployment
"Hey, Vasily. You awake bud?" an elevated male's voice sounds near me.
My rifle clanks against my helmet as the Tigr-M transport bumps around on the uneven roads of government-controlled Syria, which creates a fine ringing as irritating as a mosquito's buzz. I shift my helmet out of my eyes and look towards the voice which matches the face of my junior, Oleg. He flashes me a self-assured smile.
I'm leaning against one door - and the vibration through the vehicle's frame isn't making anything any better - so I push myself to sit up straight.
"Yeah. I'm a light sleeper; these conditions couldn't be any worse for that." I sigh, gazing longingly out the window.
There's nothing out there. Nothing. Just sand with a few ancient-looking buildings silhouetted against the horizon or made blurry by heat mirages rising out of the barren landscape every once in a while. It's a wonder that any civilization exists at all, but considering the stability of the government and the location, it's fair to say that I overestimate what civilization can be.
I look back into the cabin, but upon meeting the solemn eyes of a grizzled soldier, I avert my eyes to the floor in respect. In this car, two classmates and I are accompanied by two elite Spetsnaz operatives. The driver seems to know where he is going, but I missed the chance for introduction and have yet to see his uniform. A moment of awkward silence passes.
"This is boring. Why are you all so reserved? This is going to be a great trip," Oleg pipes.
As he bounces around, I rest my face in my palm. My other classmate, whose name I can only vaguely recall, turns away. The other operator snickers while the one I had glanced remains stoic. His eyes are blocked behind a tinted visor, but as far as I can tell, he's entirely beyond being amused.
"Deal with it; we are approximately 10 klicks North of position. Luckily, you'll be dropped off first," he pauses, then shakes the thought out of his head, "I respect that you're confident, but don't be so carefree. War isn't a picnic."
Oleg makes a face and emits a fastidious moan. He quietly submits and sticks his hands beneath him. I smile. That child.
I turn once again to the world beyond the window but notice that the desolate expanse that had once been gave way to sturdy desert greenery and housing, providing a good indication that we're drawing near an actual settlement. Shortly before reaching the town proper, we stop in front of a large school built on its outskirts. A gated wall surrounds the campus, but it rolls back without protest as the vehicle rolls in. We turn toward the school buildings, and on the eastern end of the yard, we are met with battalions worth of students training in full woodland uniform.
We come to a halt before one of the smaller structures - it seems administrative in nature - and Oleg alights alongside one of the soldiers from the car. He waves and sticks his tongue out at me, then slams the large door. I watch him head off in his desert flora uniform until he disappears indoors; he'd always been a bit juvenescent, but that was part of his charm, and I think one of the reasons he did so well. The harshness of combat couldn't get through to him.
We pause for a moment in the schoolyard, allotting me enough time to yawn. My eyes wander back to whatever massive training session they've got going behind us. One of the students, caught up in training some form of martial arts, trips over himself and falls onto his face. I burst out laughing, but the visored soldier turns on me like a viper. I can't see his eyes, but I know they must be stern and they make me feel guilty nevertheless. Like a scolded child, I silence and sink a little farther into my seat. The vehicle quickly reverses, and we move back through the gate and away from the school.
We turn back onto the road again with one less face bobbing along at the whim of the uneven pavement. No one says a word for the next few kilometers. After what seems to be a giant loop around the occupied city of Palmyra, we approach yet another small town. There is no military personnel in sight.
Isn't there a bit of a war on? I crane my neck to patrol as many directions as possible simultaneously, but everything and everyone seems to be carrying on as if life is normal.
"Where are all the troops?" I hear myself ask.
"The school you are to attend is strictly civilian."
But I'm on a mission. Oleg gets to go battle it out but I'm going to be stuck in a lecture hall? What?
"So how's going to class going to help me?"
Viper-Visor turns around and addresses my classmates and me simultaneously.
"As far as anyone here is concerned, you two are nothing but innocent international students. You won't be in the same places, so it'll be easier for you to play civvie, but you are not under any circumstances to indicate any capabilities or inclinations different from the average student. Don't be aggressive; don't talk politics; don't draw attention to yourselves at all."
He pauses.
"When the time comes for you to work, you'll know, believe me. Until then, work with the people around you. Act normal. The last thing you'd want would be to antagonize the very people that could keep you hidden if trouble starts."
"I'm going to work with them?" I say, confident that no one else can hear me. "More like they're going to work for me."
The operator grumbles something under his breath and sighs.
"Don't be a smartass. This is your stop, now move along."
I frown but do nothing, as he is my superior. I lean out of the armored vehicle slowly. Seeing my hesitation, Viper-Visor places a hand in the middle of my back and shoves me through the door. I stumble out into the street, trying my best not to look unprofessional.
Surprisingly, I am not accompanied by a soldier. All the better, I guess.
I slip into an alleyway and remove my uniform to change into school clothes stuffed into my suitcase, to better fit into the somewhat urban setting and the 'civvie' persona I'm expected to assume. In this part of the world, you don't want to be the guy walking around in foreign camouflage unless, of course, you have a death wish. After a full wardrobe change, I fold my rifle into the suitcase and head up the road to the visible gates of the school.
The incline makes the climb feel more like a hike, but I pay this no mind, as I had been an avid climber of the enormous mountains in the motherland's densely wooded regions. I shiver while reminiscing times spent with my family traveling hundreds of miles along the Russian road.
The last time I was genuinely afraid of anything was when I was young, too young to understand what was going on around me. That understanding, being grounded in reality and not letting my mind get lost in speculation and infinite awful possibilities, is probably what has made me numb to fear. Uncertainty is still something I feel - as when the Chronos artifact ground the world around me nearly to a halt - but it seems to me now that fear is merely a primal response, an ingrained reaction to the unknown and threatening that only serves a purpose when higher-order processes are absent. Therefore, humans shouldn't be fearful; they are the ultimate higher organisms, intelligent beings, that can think their way through almost anything, situations devised by other humans notwithstanding.
Regardless, I can sense that I'm supposed to be afraid here. Fear seems to permeate everything, lurk around every corner, lie in every shadow, ride on every dry, dusty breeze. I know it's there; in the evenings after classes, when the streets grow quiet and the sky grows dim, I can almost taste it. It's a viscous combination of dread and despair, the kind of fear of death and loss of control that must be the most primitive in existence. It is therefore also the most difficult to dispel and the hardest to resist. I know that it wants control over the hearts and minds of the people it looms above, but I also know that in this part of the world, it has a name: the Islamic State. And in the night, when I can't sleep, in part because I'm tired of taking classes and pretending to be an exchange student and in part because I can almost hear fear slithering through the alleys, I take comfort in knowing that my purpose here is to take a sword to that hydra that deals in darkness and terror.
I fool around with the Chronos artifact sometimes - despite being given strict orders to be careful with it - just to see what it, what we, can do. I've been given a certain amount of autonomy on this mission anyway, so I never feel guilty about it. If anything, it keeps me occupied; Sokolov has taken the liberty to control this operation directly, and so far he's been holding me back.
I'm already getting tired of being held back.
Even though I get frustrated when I think about what I could be doing and the little that I am, I try to keep things in perspective. The Chief of Military Technology is the only man I answer to, and I cede that out of experience and the access to intelligence that he must have, he has a better grasp on the situation than I do. But being on the ground - in the proverbial trenches - is different than sitting in an office, staring at satellite maps, reading aardvarks, and passing edicts. If I was sent here to behead the hydra, cauterize its necks, and leave the beast crippled, then I'd want to start in on the hunt.
I was warned early on, however, that the early stages of the mission would be slow. That very night when I'd been first introduced to the Chronos, I'd spent hours down in the basement lab listening to the Chief, my headmaster, and their bevy of co-conspirators organizing what could arguably be the most significant action I'd ever take in my life.
The gist of it was as such: I'd be sent straight into a powder keg region of Syria, one where they suspected IS leadership was finding refuge. There's a secondary school in that territory that they considered useful. It is a relic of more diplomatically temperate times that admits international students, particularly those looking for a higher-education focus in international affairs or cultural anthropology. I'd be sent there as nothing more than a boldly progressive Russian kid willing to defy warring factions and his own government's leanings for an... immersive education. I - and the few classmates who would be sent as a minor support team - would use the school and its dorms as a sort of base, out of which the Chief would coordinate our true mission: to find and kill the IS leaders that our intelligence sources have tracked here, to render the hydra immobile.
The Chronos artifact, unique to my personal arsenal, would serve as a sort of secret weapon, a tool that the enemy could neither anticipate nor answer.
But running through what has already passed, sifting through the details of the task at hand, will only tide me over for so long; I know myself well enough to realize that. Even forcing myself to sleep at night is becoming more difficult. Now I find myself out in one of the by-streets near the school under cover of darkness again, the Chronos dormant and hidden under my jacket. The last few nights, I've kept myself busy looking for good hiding spots about the campus, little nooks that a Russian on the run could slip into to save his neck. The higher off the ground they are, the more versatile they become, potentially serving as both refuges and lookouts or, better yet, sniper's nests.
I stand below one of them and, with one eye closed, trace the line of sight I'd have from the spot atop a residential building and into the road. It's less of an orderly street and more of a thoroughfare that passes traffic in both directions at all hours during the day. Vehicles mix precariously with foot traffic and the occasional stray animal, making it an optimal place for potential targets to mix in with civilians for cover. Chaotic situations - and innocents - make for effective shields for the right kinds of people, but the prospect of firing down into a crowd doesn't phase me in the least. I'm confident in my own skill, but Sokolov also ensured that I'd be quite well equipped for my task. Just before I left Russia, he requested a private meeting and presented a specialized weapon to me, something he called "a parting gift for goodwill and good luck."
The VS-121 he gave me - a model so new it had only recently moved out of the prototype stage of development - lies beneath my bed, secure in a concealed compartment at the back of one of the suitcases I brought here, ostensibly filled with clothing for a long stint studying abroad. I pantomime aiming it down the alley and into the street from ground-level and visualize the split-second reaction it would require to take a target out from this position.
I silently thank whatever supernatural powers govern the physical world for vertical elevation and angles of depression.
Something makes a heavy thudding noise behind me, breaking the silence of the night. I duck behind the corner of the building next to me and automatically scan the area as I've been trained to. I spot the culprit slinking curiously toward me.
Stupid cat. I look up and notice a low, narrow ledge on the next building over, where the creature had probably been standing before leaping to the ground. It mewls softly and takes a seat a few paces away from me, its tail wrapped around it like the end of a robe. I feel more annoyed than anything by its sudden appearance, especially because it so easily broke my focus. A new idea crosses my mind and I smirk a bit; I decide to indulge myself. Besides, I've been living in a cage since arriving here; in my opinion, I deserve it. I make a clicking sound and the cat's little ears perk up. I back out of the alley, away from the street into a small courtyard, and it follows me. Once it's out of the way of the buildings, I reach under my jacket and turn the Chronos artifact on. The world takes on a slightly frosted appearance and the cat moves as if walking through honey in microgravity.
I settle myself on my feet and take a few deep breaths, adrenaline already beginning to pulse through my veins. I burst forward, crossing the courtyard in instants, and kick the cat as hard as humanly possible. It hurtles backward through the air but, as per all motion in Chronos-altered time, it moves only about a foot before hovering in place. I step back, tilting my head slightly like a hunting dog to study it. I back away to the other side of the yard and click the Chronos back to its idle state. With a yowl of protest, the cat sails across the entire open space and I have to suppress laughter. It lands heavily at the foot of a wall of one of the houses. I whistle at it to see how it might react.
It doesn't get up.
I hear something like a creaky door opening and hushed voices that sound concerned and young. A little girl's voice floats out into the night. I haven't learned much of the local languages yet, but I know a few words here and there. "Kitty?" the girl calls. "Here kitty!"
I turn from the courtyard and the cat lying on the other side and slip back into the shadows, the safest place to find my way back to my dorm, back to base.