Chapter Twelve: Project A.S.O.T.I.L.

March 11th, 2027, 8:38 a.m.
Agent’s Cabins, Unit K47 Vessel 08, Indian Ocean

Katia laid on her bunk, her wounds bandaged, and a healing injection in her veins. Foles said it would take about ten minutes for full effect to take place. Shane sat on his bunk, across the room from her, his expression was hard to read, it looked like a mixture between worry and confusion. “You did great out there,” he said, finally breaking the silence, looking at her. Katia moved her head to the side and glanced at him, Foles had temporarily paralized her, to speed up the healing process, which didn’t do much seeing how she felt too weak to move anyway. The others were also there, not making a sound, probably taking in what had just happened. “Hey,” Katia said, beginning to move her fingers, “one step closer to solving this mystery, right?” Amelia glanced over at her, “You really did us a solid, taking all those bullets you know.” Katia looked at her with concern, “It’s okay guys,” she said, "really, I’m alright, I’ll heal.” Shane stared at the ground, and he seemed to be mumbling something to himself. This worried Katia, he must’ve really been shaken up, being the only one to come back unscathed. “You alright?” she asked, they all stared at her, “Who?” they said together. Katia forgot she wasn’t able to point, “Shane," she sighed, “you look a little uneasy, is everything okay?” He glanced over and sighed, “Yeah, just… thinking,” he had a strange tinge of sadness in his eyes and… guilt? Katia never had a chance to ask, because his emotion immediately disappeared as the door opened.

Foles walked into the room, a serious look on his face, “How are we all doing?” he asked. Katia flopped her head in his direction, “Still somewhat paralyzed, and the rest seem to be a bit… shaken.” Foles grimaced, “Well we have to address that later, right now we’re going to talk about the files that you brought back earlier.” He walked over to Katia’s bunk, and motioned for someone to come over and help, “Do you think you can walk yet?” Katia stared at him, “let’s see, I’ve been spending the last two minutes just trying to move my fingers, yeah that seems like a reasonable jump to me.” Foles looked at her unamused, but as always he had a tinge of kindness in his eyes, “Alright then, we’ll have to carry you to the meeting room, or we can have the meeting here.” Katia looked back up at him, “I never said I couldn’t try,” Foles' face eased toward a smile, “We’ll have to help you nonetheless,” he said. He and Shane pulled her up, one arm over each of their shoulders, and she put her legs on the ground. Her knees immediately buckled under her, making them hold her dead weight, she tried a few more times, but was hardly able to help hold herself up. They carried her through the doorway as she tried to get all of her joints to move up properly, which took immense effort. Eventually they reached the conference room and Katia was slid into a chair. Her neck immediately dropped to one side, causing everything to look sideways. Katia looked from one person to the other, “Alright,” Foles said, sitting down, “let’s get down to business. What we know so far, isn’t much, but it’s definitely a start.” He set the files down on the table, as the others looked at them, “This,” he said pointing to the first, “is what our enemy is going at. From our understanding these are some kind of mechanical weapon, made to take, and do major damage.” Foles went to the next file, “Sadly, these blueprints don’t have as much information as we were hoping, it seems to be one of the earlier versions, but we can still learn from it. This,” he continued on, pointing at a picture of a tall man with pale skin, cropped hair, and a white suit. He was standing next to a Khajiit woman, with long hair that went down to about her waist, and a one sleeved, amethyst dress. “Is Alexander Turgenev, and Rajirra Kuznetsov. Turgenev is owner of Yohontov Enterprises, which he inherited from his Uncle, Maksim Yohontov. This establishment is known for their metal working and steel production, anything anyone wants them to make out of any kind of metal, they can do it. That’s why Alexander’s so important for this mission, because he’s supposedly supplying the enemy with these machines.” Katia wasn’t paralyzed anymore, and gradually sat up in her chair, “Do we know anything else about these machines themselves?” she asked. Foles turned, “Yes, they’re going to be sent all over the world to destroy major cities, such as Beijing, Las Angeles, and New York to name very few.”

Chase, who had been very quiet about almost everything during the mission, spoke up, “And what does this mean for our mission, what do we have to do?” Foles raised an eyebrow, “That’s where Kuznetsov comes in, as you know, she is Turgenev’s secretary, well, we brought up some of her files from the UN, and turns out she was called two weeks in advance for a job. Now, we don’t know what this job is, but it’s the first time in eighteen months that she and her boss have met in person, so we can assume it’s important. The job will also be kept more secret, as no one else was informed, which means we can also assume it has something to do with the terrorists we’re after. We intercepted her in London, on the way to a previous job, put her in custody, and had her questioned, she didn’t tell us anything. All she told us was that she was leaving for Turgenev’s hotel in Moscow for her next job, we found the place, and now we have all we need.” He grabbed a completely different file, from their mission folder and slid it across the table to Katia, on it was the information Foles had just given them, and images of things mentioned. “Agent Managan will hide in plain sight and play the secretary’s role, while others wait in the background as employees of Turgenev’s hotel. She will then proceed to find out more about Turgenev and his job, and hopefully some more info on the machines they will be building. After concluding the meeting, we’ll do all we can to get everyone out of there safely, are we clear?” They all nodded, “Alright then, Kuznetsov is supposed to be in England heading to Moscow in three days, so let’s get to it, we’ve almost reached the coast. We’ll then fly from King Shaka International to London Stansted, then to Moscow. Oh,” Foles picked up a small book, “you might need this,” he tossed it to her, and on the front cover said, “The Basics of Learning Russian.” Katia looked at him, “Ha ha, very funny, there’s probably just something you can do to make me know everything in this book with the snap of your fingers.” Foles looked back at her surprised, “You actually weren’t far off.”