Chapter Fifteen: Escape and Infiltration

March 12th, 2027, 7:48 a.m.
Turgenev’s Private Room, Turgenev’s Hotel, Moscow, Russia

Katia woke up slowly, in a warm bed, with a man’s arms around her waist. The warmth helped ease the pain in her head, which was comforting. She shifted to face the man, but it wasn’t who she expected, this startled her and she fell out of bed. She laid on the ground for a second, trying to figure out what had happened before all this. To her left was a broken vodka bottle, and another that seemed to have spilled, which was about seven eighths of the way empty. “Oh shit,” she mumbled, “not this again, what the hell happened last night?” The fur on her face was all crusty, and there was a horrible taste lingering in her mouth, which was disgusting, but these enough clues to know she wasn’t going to get pregnant. She staggered up, and looked at the man laying in bed, he looked totally exhausted, and probably wouldn’t get up for another while. She limped into the bathroom, and vomited as soon as she reached the toilet, then sat back against the wall. She wiped her mouth and observed the bathroom, there were new towels and another set of clothes. Katia knew which job Chase had been given; room service, so he could get her what she needed to get out of here. But first she was going to take a shower, and hopefully she’d feel better after that. At the moment her entire body ached, and she felt disgusted and violated. She turned on the water, got in, and washed herself, then proceeded on with her mission. She got dressed, put in her earpiece, and attached the body cam to herself, her head still fuzzy and aching. She walked back into the room, it was about eight o’clock in the morning, but Turgenev was no longer in the bed. He immediately came up from behind her, holding a broken shard of glass in his hand, pressing it to her throat. She kicked back in his knee, and shoved him over the bed and across the room, but her reflexes were still far from normal. He had a serious look on his face and seemed determined, like the drugs last night had no afterward effects whatsoever. “What are you doing!?” she asked, but he just charged, “You think you can fool me?” he said, now wearing sweat shorts. He had picked up the other bottle that had been intact, and broke the bottom of it on the bedside table. He swiped once and she dodged, but the second time he cut her arm a small bit. She grabbed his arm the third time, and kicked the broken bottle from his hand, where it smashed into smaller shards on the ground. He just punched her in the jaw anyway, and threw her to the floor, picking up another shard, and walking toward her slowly. She swept his legs, and got up, opening the door to the hallway, and rushing out of the room. She felt another bottle fly past her head, “Well that explains why this hangover is so bad,” she thought, but he grabbed her left leg, and she fell to the floor again. She turned on the ground and looked up, there he was holding a handgun aimed at her head, “I got what I wanted from you.” He spat, “Now it’s time to follow orders,” Katia closed her eyes, but then heard Chases voice down the hall, “Hey!” Turgenev immediately changed his aim and fired, and Katia turned to see Chase’s body fall to the ground. People began opening their doors, saw the man with the gun, and immediately shut them again, he turned back to her, “As I was saying, I already have sent the blueprints, and as you can see, I am not the gullible one.” Katia heard the shot, but it wasn’t directed toward her, and she looked up to Turgenev examining the new hole in his chest, before falling over.

“You alright,” she turned to see Joshua, but she said nothing, and sat there confused. “The fuck just happened? Also, getting drunk, really?” Joshua put an arm behind his head, “Yeah, sorry that one was my bad, didn’t expect you to take that seriously,” Katia got up and pushed him against the wall, “Is everything a joke to you?” Josh wasn’t wearing his sunglasses anymore, so she could clearly see the guilt and fear in his amber eyes. “No, it’s not, I promise,” he chuckled nervously, “I guess I should do some explaining though, also wait, isn’t this my thing.” He immediately flipped them around, now Katia was against the wall, “There we go, just like old times right, anyway, yeah… about leaving for four years.” Katia glared at him, “Quit slacking, get straight to the point, no stalling, I want explanation, now.” He glanced away for a second then back, “Okay, first of all, I’m sorry. I know you probably hate me right now, and I would too, but leaving hurt me as much as it hurt you. So, what happened was I was selected for a Special Operatives Unit, I don’t know why, and never will, all I know was what my mission was. After that, I moved onto taking out criminals, mainly important guys, I was killing people that could’ve caused another world war. After that, moved onto the CIA, and started working on even bigger jobs, and taking out entire terrorist groups and such.” Katia stopped him, “Wait, and you’re telling me you accomplished all of this in four years?” He smiled, “No, two actually, but that’s not the point, or the whole story. After the CIA I was falsely accused of a really bad type of treason I didn't commit, and was given a life sentence in custody, and thrown into prison. After one year of planning, I escaped, did some hacking, and cleared my name, replaced the crime with a guy that was actually dangerous.” This just surprised her more, “Actually dangerous? You escaped a prison and hacked the government’s database! If that isn’t dangerous I don’t know what is!” Joshua raised an eyebrow, “Yes I know but that’s not all of it, you said you wanted me to get to the point, without interruptions. Thank you, now, after escaping prison and clearing my name, I did a few side projects, then eventually got bored and decided to go back to the very beginning. That’s when I found out what happened to Quill Weave, what happened to you, and I finally had another mission, and another chance.” He loosened his grip on her arms and looked to the ground, and Katia tried to read his expression, “Another chance for what?” He looked up, “Another chance to tell you that I’m sorry,” there was another pause. “Did you know,” he said finally, “that when I found you, we never actually met the day of. When I found you that day on the street, homeless, you were in a coma that lasted for a full week. And to just see everyone else walk by, without even taking notice to you, was heartbreaking. I took you to the hospital, where they did a bunch of scans and tests, you were inches from death.” She could see tears in his eyes now, “I saved your life that day, and not a moment has passed that I regret that. I searched the world for months, just to pinpoint where you were, and then I had to find out where you would be next. Do you want to know why?” Katia felt him getting closer, “Why?” she said breathlessly, “Because I love you Katia Managan.” She stood there, unmoving, staring into his eyes, not knowing what to do, but in that moment all she knew was that she loved him just the same. She closed her eyes, leaning in, accepting his embrace and kissing him, and this time she had nothing to feel bad about. The memories that came back were warm and happy, some of him helping her recover from her addiction, and others just spending time together.

After a moment he pulled away, wiping his eyes, “You have to go,” he said, “they’re coming.” Katia’s back still leaned against the wall, “Who is?” Josh looked over at Turgenev, “People have probably already reported shots fired, so police will be in the area, as well as your enemies, I can’t stay here.” Katia stared at him as he pulled something from his jacket pocket, “But-” he put the devices on her wrists, and they enclosed around her hands, turning into gloves with red etchings in them. “A gift,” he said, “What are they?” she asked, “Infernal gloves, at least at the moment, they switch modes but there’s no time to explain, all you have to do is stretch out your hands and flames come out. And if you want to switch modes, just snap your fingers, or at least make the motion, if you’re trying to be quiet.” She almost did this but he said “No, don't try it now, there’s no time!” He brought out his hand from his pocket revealing his own glove, which had etchings in a deep shade of purple. He laid his hand on Turgenev’s body and pressed forward, as of doing this, the body turned to ash and the glove absorbed it. “You need to take my bike,” he said, “and this,” he threw her a piece of paper, which she put into her pocket. “To control the bike, grab the handles, all you need is a pair of these gloves, which you now do, and it will kind of put sleeves around your arms, for better steering. After that just drive, to get out of the sleeves, release your grip completely or shout eject, if you need immediate separation.” They ran down the stairs together, escaping guards and shofers, trying to reach the exit. Outside police sirens wailed, Joshua looked her in the eyes one more time as they ran beside each other, tapping buttons in his forearm, “I love you, and hopefully I’ll see you again.” With that he rippled out of reality, turning completely invisible, as she burst through the front door. Katia ran along the sidewalk, trying not to be seen by the police that were now entering the building, but some already took sight of her, immediately recognizing her. She saw Joshua’s bike in a small parking space, it was silver and definitely looked futuristic. She grabbed the handles and the engine hummed to life, and as he had said, it grew long sleeves that attached to her gloves and ran up her arms, which seemed to connect her to it. She turned it around and it sped forward instantly, reaching one hundred mph in seconds, which she didn’t actually want. She never had the speed explained to her anyway, but as always, she was good at learning things on the fly. She sped forward, the russian version of a S.W.A.T. team in hot pursuit. She knew that some of them were imposters, that were actually trying to kill her, and others were just after her, but either way, getting caught wasn’t an option. She rode along the busy streets of Mosco, swerving in and out of traffic, dodging bullets that were fired at her. This firing of guns stopped some people while they were driving, but also caused some confusion among the federals themselves. Katia, whose hands were unable to fight back, had to just run away, and hopefully she could come into contact with Foles while this happened. She turned on her intercom, with the hands free version of a switch, and tried to get someone online. “Foles,” she shouted over the noise and rushing air, “I kind of have a problem,” within a few seconds he responded, “What, nothing was supposed to go wrong this time!” She looked back over her shoulder, then took a hard left into a tight alley, causing some of the feds to slow down. “Well, apparently Turgenev is also really good at acting, because after I cleaned up, he attacked me this morning.” Foles was thoroughly confused, “I don’t even know what happened last night anyway, after a while your audio and video completely shut off, we’d lost all communication with you.” While exiting the alley she clipped the side of a wall of some shop, nearly taking her leg off, which she had no idea was also encased until hearing the metal scrape against the brickwork. “I kind of got a call from my ex-boyfriend, which is no longer my ex, which is a long story and hard to explain. Anyway, me and Turgenev ended up “having some fun together” because “someone” didn’t tell me about “that” becoming a recurring event between him and Kuznetsov. But in the end, Joshua killed him, but before that Turgenev said something about already sending the final blueprints.” She paused and took another turn that could’ve been costly to her health, “Driving during a hangover wasn’t the best idea, but it’d at least be nice if I had a helmet.” As soon as she said the word, a hemet was immediately fabricated onto her head. “Anything else?” Foles asked, “Chase is dead,” she replied grimly, but still somewhat surprised by the helmet, “but I need somewhere the rest of the squad and I can meet, an extraction point close enough to all of us.” She sped down another busy street, almost causing a car accident, as three federals followed close behind. After a moment of silence Foles finally responded, “If you take a few turns and get back near the hotel there should be an abandoned warehouse a few blocks to the south, we’ll meet there, and get a vehicle that’s able to cloak itself in there, so nobody will be able to find you once you’ve entered.” She looked over her shoulder and took another turn back in the hotel’s direction, “Sounds like a plan.” “Alright,” he said through the static, “I already have the others heading in that direction, we’ll meet you there.” Katia crouched low on the vehicle, giving herself more speed, and took another turn onto a road parallel to the one that led to the hotel. She continued swerving in between the moving cars, as the false police shot at her from behind. Just a few more blocks and she’d make it, but going in a straight line was allowing her enemies to catch up to her. She looked back over her shoulder again, one of them had disappeared, and she knew exactly where they were. Katia looked in front of her, barely veering away from the officer directly in front of her, but he shot out her back tire. At the moment she had been going eighty miles an hour, so she wasn’t about to stop any time soon, across the intersection in front of her was the warehouse, just a bit further. She picked up speed, bullets whizzing by, but as she got ready to cross a large semi truck slowly passed across the intersection, there was no other way to pass than seeing how low she could go. Katia drifted the back tire to the left, facing the same direction as the semi, she felt herself falling toward the warehouse, she let the bike tip halfway before shouting, “EJECT!” As she said this, her arms and legs left the safety of the bike, and she was thrown forward, underneath the semi, tucking in all of her limbs and tumbling towards the back entrance to the warehouse.

She felt the helmet on her head fracture as she came to a stop, and she pulled it off, exposing a large gash on the right side of her head. Her head spun as a hand grasped hers, pulling her to the door as the enemies’ guns were fired. It was Kyle, who risked his life as he pushed her forward through the door, and grabbed the handle on the way in. Katia was extremely disoriented and bruised, she looked up and saw Shane and Amelia pushing a large object in front of the door. As they did this, she looked at Kyle lying on the ground, his back bloody from bullet wounds. Foles rushed over from the middle of the warehouse, pressing two of his fingers on Kyles’ wrist, “He’s still with us, but we need to get him to medical attention as soon as possible.” They hoisted him up as Katia struggled to pick herself up, and they walked over to a large armoured military vehicle. They entered, and put Kyle into a stasis pod kept in the back, while Foles scanned him to find the areas that were damaged. “Well,” he said, “he’s not looking good. One of the bullets hit his spinal cord, unless treated properly, he could be paralyzed for the rest of his life.” The rest of them looked at Foles, as the vehicle turned invisible and started moving out of the open end of the warehouse. “But, on the bright side, knowing Kyle’s father, no other man could mend his son any better, but this means he will no longer be able to assist you three on the mission.” “What is the mission exactly?” Katia asked, Foles turned to them, “Well, if Turgenev really did send the final blueprints, we need to destroy these destructive machines. This means we must find out exactly where the factory is, did you happen to catch this information Managan?” She thought back to the night before, “I think he said something about the Altai Mountains,” Foles nodded, “First we’ll take Kyle back to the safe house, and continue from there.”

After about half an hour, they reached the place Foles and the others had been camping during the last part of the mission. They got out and carried Kyle’s stasis pod to the medical room. Katia slumped into a chair, her entire body ached, and the hangover didn’t help matters either. She sat back and closed her eyes, trying not to think of Joshua, she barely even noticed Shane bandaging up her cuts. The place seemed to have been completely remodeled for the squad when Foles and the others had arrived the first time. It was located in an old abandoned underground bar that had probably been an illegal drug dealing spot as well, by the looks of all the old broken beakers and such. At least she didn’t have to worry about being a russain khajiit anymore, she had gone into the restroom to remove the colored contacts and cut her hair. Which made her feel a bit more normal, everything was still a bit off, but things would get better soon. Foles walked out of the room they had used as a sort of hospital, looking somewhat discouraged, “How’s he doing?” Shane asked. “They’re doing the best they can,” Foles said, “even with Enoch’s brilliance, a spinal injury is still one of the hardest things to fix, no matter what technology you have. But, we have more concerning things at hand, and the world is at stake, probably on the verge of war to tell the truth.” The other two took their seats at the bar they had congregated at, listening for their next instructions. “So, we’ve already had some experts find the factory’s location, and calculated the best time to strike. We’ll fly by helicopter, taking you as far as the hidden road leading to this hidden factory, but you’ll have to be careful. Turgenev really didn’t want anyone getting into this place and hijacking everything, which is exactly what you guys have to do. You’ll get in on the far western side, through a large door, this door is only opened for the transport of new steel to come in, but it only opens at approximately two a.m. and closes at two thirty.” They shifted in their seats, time never had been very well taken care of on past missions, and the way things were looking, this one was going to be tight. “After this, you’ll move towards the inner workings of the factory, placing charges around the perimeter, as well as the inside. Once all charges are placed, you’ll move to the eastern wing, and there’s one of four towers, but this one is the main control and assembly line, which will stop all operations in the factory. This will be heavily guarded, and it will probably take a while for you to get through, especially if you get caught. And in case you were wondering about surveillance, an EMP blast will be triggered to set off the cameras, though it is not strong enough to shut the factory itself down. After reaching the tower, you will go in, take out the guards, and shut everything down. When you complete this we will meet you at the tower, as all sensors will be turned off, and we can fly in with a cloaked vehicle. Once we get you out of there, we will trigger the charges, destroying everything that was either finished or in progress. Are we clear?” They nodded, “Alright, patch up, get some rest, and prepare for the morning. We finish this mission, we finish our overall goal, to temporarily stop Abdallah in his tracks.” After this meeting they went their separate ways and Katia tried to find a way to clean herself up. She ended up using a fabricator to rid herself of dirt, and scanned for any serious injuries, which there were none. Katia fiddled with the healing feature of the fabricator, but most of the options were tagged as “unstable” and not safe for use. She didn’t mind this though, but the fabricator was a nice alternative for bathing. When she finished, she put on a set of comfortable clothes, and put her other belongings on the end table, she’d have to read Joshua’s note later. Even though it was only about nine a.m. Katia still crawled into a bed she fabricated for herself, either way she needed the rest. Her head still ached as she put it to the pillow, but everything will feel better afterwards, because it always did, and it always will.