Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Six: Advancement

I first encountered him in a corridor. He carried the pungent stench of oil and cordite and was stained with the rusty bloodied scars of battle.

We thumped shoulders. He wiped me out to the floor, like a granite bowling ball striking down a ceramic pin. I flopped onto my knees and hands like a beached whale; bruising them as they smashed into the metal grid floor that lined the waterlogged facility. The crash snapped him out of his automaton daze and he broke the rhythm of his metronome perfect stride.

Six foot, short rugged filth speckled brunet hair and glassy Aegean blue eyes. But the metal arm was by far the most intriguing thing about him:

An abhorrent augmentation, a mechanical mutation, stitched onto his body like a toy soldier with discontinued parts. The Soviet star was branded onto his shoulder, but there was something far more Western about his chiselled jaw line and cleft chin.

Karpov stopped alongside him and the debriefing paused. The stranger with the robotic limb stared catatonically as I wobbled to my feet, wiping grime off my black trousers and rubbing my pain fizzling palms together.

His brow furrowed thoughtfully and his lips twitched in consideration. His fingers twitched as he itched to rush to my assistance instinctively, rocking back and forth on his feet in my direction. His moral debate was displayed on his scrunched face and he stole a timid glance at his handler. Giving into the possessing urge, he pivoted and inched forward a step, boot rattling the floor.

The moment Karpov saw his benevolent streak surface; he was snatched by the jaw, thrown against a brick wall and coshed across the face by a hand.

"Don't even think about it."

The macho demeanour that the stranger had held in his bearing from the moment he toppled me was shattered. Beneath that roughened and tough exterior was something I hadn't seen many dare to display since my arrival at the facility. Fear. He looked like an abused puppy, those wide blue orbs glossy with tears and his face hanging petulantly.

"What do you say, Winter?"

"Sorry, sir. Thank you, sir. He whimpered in an apologetic and submissive voice that was barely above a whisper.

"Leave the child. She was in your way. I'll see to it that she gets punished. Now, be a good little soldier and walk on." Karpov drawled, casting his beady hawk's eyes over to me and then they trailed back to 'winter'.

"It wasn't her fault..." He gritted out with a tearful snarl, in English.

He wasn't given a second's reprieve before a hand mashed his cheek again, fingers whipping his slashed cheek; sending fresh blood drizzling from the knife laceration. The American winced and screwed his eyes shut in agony. He sucked in a stuttering sobbing breath.

"You know better than to speak in that tongue! If you dare to address me, address me in Russian. I will not have you speaking in that capitalist pig language. I will have you thrown back into the machine if you even think about doing that again." Karpov was livid, I could see the hellfire burning in his ebony eyes.

And I could see the concentration plastered on the face of the other man as he attempted to follow the words. "I can't!" He objected. "I can't speak it!" He whined helplessly, a sour stinging tear trickling down his bloodied, hand printed cheek. It intermingled with the blood and a copper line was streaked down his face and dribbled down his neck.

"Learn to! Or I will see to it that you are lashed until you speak it fluently."

I saw the soldier tense and his piercing crystal blue eyes flicked open. Like a switch had been flicked in his brain, his face rearranged itself until it was blank again. The only clue to his emotional disposition was the slight quivering of his lips.