I'm unfortunately not so lucky.
I woke again, dragged from the ice and dumped unceremoniously into a dark room. The walls were padded.
The padding stained with blood.
The soldier who brought me in shut the door behind him, and the room was swallowed in total darkness.
There was no need to put me in here. I couldn't move unless ordered.
So I sat where he dropped me. Waiting.
As my core temperature slowly returned to normal and my pulse leveled out, I let the dark surround me.
I've never cared for the dark.
My little sister was terrified of it; we used to share a bed. She'd clutch me when the candle burned out or the moonlight didn't reach through the window.
She would've been thirteen when they froze me.
I wonder how much time has passed since then.
I hope she's alright. Happy. Living a full life.
But more than anything,
I hope she knows I didn't abandon her.
Our mother did that, disappeared not long after she was born.
I raised her. Protected her.
Clink.
The lock turned. The door creaked open, flooding the room with light.
Blinding after so long in the dark. My eyes squeezed shut from reflex, but still, I didn't move.
"Good," said a familiar voice. "You're still operating correctly, even after so long in cryo."
Zola.
Standing in the doorway with that same smug gleam in his glasses.
So long? How long?
"Get up. We have work for you, X-13."
I obeyed.
I was cleaned up, given new clothes, and promptly reassigned a handler. No name. They never gave names.
We left the Siberian icebox in an unmarked car, traveled to a nearby airfield, and boarded a cargo plane, smuggled aboard like freight.
During the flight, the handler handed me a file. "Read it. Then I'll burn it."
It was thick. Information on a Chinese diplomat.
Where he was staying, his family, medical records, even dental history. Every detail imaginable.
The last page contained the mission objective:
Extract subject alive. No witnesses.
A kidnapping job.
When we landed, he drove me into the city, then peeled off into the shadows.
Handlers always did that. They stayed out of the way. Close enough to observe.
Never close enough to risk their own lives.
On foot, I passed a stack of newspapers.
The date caught my eye: 1961.
Eleven years.
That's how long they'd kept me under.
The scream in my head was immediate and endless.
Eleven years.
Eleven more years stolen.
But my body didn't hesitate.
The diplomat was at home, with his family.
I killed them first.
Wife. Son. Nanny.
Three shots. Silencer. Clean. Efficient.
Then I knocked him out, carefully. A fractured vertebra would have ruined the assignment. I slung him over my shoulder like he weighed nothing.
In truth, he didn't feel like he did.
I caught my reflection in a hallway mirror on my way out.
What I saw wasn't me.
Eyes dull, lifeless.
A black mask covering my mouth.
Hair long, matted, tied in a frizzy ponytail just to keep it out of my way.
A ghost carrying an unconscious man.
Not a trace of the woman I once was.
We rendezvoused in a back alley where the handler waited with a car.
From there, we headed to another airfield. This time, the aircraft was a rickety biplane that looked like it would disintegrate midair if I sneezed too hard.
Midflight, the diplomat stirred. My handler injected him with something, and he collapsed again.
We eventually landed. Vietnam.
They didn't say where exactly.
We got into a car and drove through the outskirts, abandoned buildings, boarded-up homes, playgrounds overrun with weeds.
No people.
No sound.
We pulled up to what might've once been a hospital.
Shattered glass doors, walls defaced with graffiti, empty exam rooms.
A hallway of decaying portraits, doctors long gone or disappeared.
In one of the back rooms, my handler moved a bookshelf aside, revealing a hidden door.
A key turned in a lock.
We descended a ladder into pitch darkness.
The air was rancid, like spoiled meat sealed in a crypt.
Flies swarmed thick in the air.
Every step squelched on the sticky floor.
The tunnel wasn't large. A handful of doors. One of them open.
Inside stood Bucky.
He was dressed in black tactical gear, a mask like mine covering the lower half of his face. His hair had grown, down to the nape of his neck now. His stance was perfect. Straight. Silent. That damned metal arm, glistening, stained with drops of red.
He stood at attention.
Behind him, I saw them.
Three bodies.
One was a rotting corpse in the corner, swarmed by flies.
Another hung from a meat hook, impaled through the shoulder, blood dried and crusted down his side.
The third was strapped to a bolted-down chair in the center of the room.
Head slumped forward. Blood dripping from his face, pooling at his feet and running toward a floor drain.
Fingers missing. Teeth likely gone too.
No way to ID him.
"Remove that one," my handler barked. "Hang him where his friend can see. Move, both of you!"
We obeyed.
Bucky hauled the dead man onto a second meat hook. I strapped the newest one into the chair.
When I turned, Bucky was behind me again.
His face was splattered in blood. Still fresh.
I guess driving a meat hook through a person, they might squirt a little blood.
And I was...making jokes?
Is this who I am now?
Is this what they've done to me?
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I stood still.
"Soldat," my handler snapped. "Wake him up. Continue the work. When you're done, come find us above."
Bucky nodded, then punched the man hard in the face. The man jerked awake with a strangled gasp.
My handler and I left.
Above ground, he popped the trunk and tossed me a duffel bag.
"Set the charges. Support beams. Tunnel entrance. Bring me the detonator when you're done."
Inside the bag, prepped explosive charges. Just needed placement.
I moved silently. No thought. Just obedience.
Even through the concrete, I heard screaming.
Unbearable.
But not a sound from me.
When I finished, I brought him the detonator and waited by the car.
Half an hour later, Bucky emerged.
More blood.
"Well?" my handler asked.
Bucky gave a short nod, then murmured something in German.
We left.
The building behind us went up in flame and dust.
A monument to erasure.
In the back seat, Bucky and I sat in silence.
Two weapons. No words. No glances.
Back in Siberia, we were separated. Physical evaluations. Then cryo.
Again.
Our reward for service.
This is our life now.
A joke with no punchline.
A death with no funeral.
We don't live.
We don't feel.
We don't even breathe on our own.
We wait.
Until someone tells us otherwise.