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VEDMAK
“Worthless—a failure from the start, like all the rest,” I hiss.
The pathetic youngling stares up with wet, almond-shaped, hazel eyes—Gracile eyes. I strengthen my one-handed grip around its neck, squeezing, cutting off the air to its lungs. The disgusting whelp doesn’t even struggle.
You don’t have to do this. There are other ways.
“Oh, there you are, little peacock. Just in time.” The annoying Gracile, Demitri, who used to possess this corporeal shell is a constant thorn in my side. There seems to be no end to his perpetual interruptions, pleading for me to halt my work.
Please, let him go.
“Why? This creature is useless to me, to Russia.” I rap on the youngling’s head with the cane in my other hand. “Should I let it die slowly in the cold like an injured goat? No. We should all hope for such a quick release.”
Why should he die at all?
“Without torture, there is no science,” I rasp. “Its mind is like borscht. Malformed and lacking in the strength of its body.”
Him, not it—he’s a child, Vedmak. Not that it matters to you.
It’s difficult to hold back the snarl of a smile spreading across these stolen lips. The Gracile lives in here with me. He knows my soul. My desires. I toss the runt into the waiting arms of one of my more successful ventures: Merodach—an enormous Gracile clad in armor—who does as I bid. The intravenous stim keeps Merodach in a permanent rage, yet under my control.
With powerful hands, Merodach holds the youngling’s arms out, splaying it wide open. Vulnerable. It squirms in the dim light of the lab, throwing awkward shadows against the white walls.
Please, stop it. Stop.
“Silence, peacock. Always in my head. Always whining. Enough.”
Merodach watches me, but he’s not confused. He knows of the inner voice.
I stare through the round lenses in my modified Soviet gasmask and study the little creature—past its sad little eyes, and into the void of its feeble mind. Whatever dwells in there it’s not what I wanted.
The laser-scythe ignites, screeching into life—my black walking staff now adorned with a crescent-shaped, cobalt-blue plasma blade that crackles and pops. I trace the edge across the youngling’s cheek. The incision is instantly sealed by the white-hot blade. If it weren’t for this mask, I could smell the burning flesh. Pity.
The pup’s chest heaves rapidly, but still, no words come from its lips. As I suspected, its soup-like mind is useless. No ability to speak. If it can’t talk, it will at least scream. I nod to Merodach.
Merodach’s face breaks into a beautifully evil leer and he begins to pull on the arms.
The youngling shrieks.
“So, you can make a sound.” I laugh, glee filling this chest.
For the love of Yeos, end it!
“Yeos? Oh, how delicious. Are we praying now?” My laughter fills the mask, and it’s difficult not to choke on the stim vapor circulating inside. “Yeos doesn’t exist. Neither do Yahweh nor Ilah. You as a scientist should know this best, little puppet. I am the closest thing there is to a god. Soon, the Logosians and the Musuls and all of Etyom will learn this.”
The youngling is on its knees mumbling incomprehensibly; its face wet with tears. It bores me. I lift the plasma scythe into the air and slice down with a powerful strike. The youngling’s head rolls off its shoulders and bounces across the floor of the lab—its wide eyes still staring off into space.
My Gracile demon is silent.
“Vardøger,” says a deep voice from within the dark of the room.
Aeron, Merodach’s twin, marches into the light, carrying a large crate in his muscular arms.
“Comrade Aeron. The task in Kahanga was a success?” I ask.
Aeron nods slowly, his powerful chest heaving with the Red Mist-induced adrenaline rush. “We obtained some weapons. There was resistance. The Daughter of the Star Breather was there.”
Two quick steps and I’m upon him. The heel of my scythe catches him hard across the face. “I’ve told you not to call her that.”
Aeron doesn’t flinch. “Da, Vardøger.”
The blood in these veins feels hot with anger. “Did you lose the enclave?”
“They killed Nazal. There will be no more alliance with the Kahangans,” Aeron replies.
“Blyat!” I turn to lash out on my prisoner, only to remember it’s already a headless corpse.
“Shall I send a team to kill her?” asks Aeron, sidling up to his brother.
“No, no. We wait.” Damn that little suka. “Our forces are not strong enough yet, and her Opor is not to be taken lightly. Without the Kahangans, we must accelerate the plan. No one kills Mila but me, understand?” The air inside the mask is humid with my breath.
“Da, Vardøger,” Aeron says.
Merodach grunts, as only he can do.
“Did you at least retrieve what I traded so much Red Mist and weapons for?” I ask.
The stimmed-up Gracile slams the huge wooden box onto the floor and rips off the lid, which he flings across the room. It clatters against the wall. Inside sits an ice-covered, metallic contraption: a skeletal cylinder with tubes, wires, and large discs. Across the edge of one of the skeletal pillars is a faded, painted word—TOKAMAK.
You found my brother’s second fusion reactor?
I did indeed, little puppet. It will change everything. My plan is now closer than ever to fruition.
I don’t think it is.
What are you whining about, little kozel?
It won’t work.
You’re lying.
No. I’m not. You know what I know. Look at it, Vedmak. Really look at it.
He sounds smug. I stare at the device, searching its exterior. How can this wretched Gracile know it’s broken from a glance? He’s lying. I strain to pull the information from his consciousness. Normally he fights me, tries to hide his knowledge just as I hide things from him. Not today. Today he offers it freely.
His experience rushes into my consciousness. His work on extra dimensions and the collider, powered by this device, etches itself into my brain. It’s the magnets—they’re cracked and broken. The Tokamak uses a combination of electromagnets and electric currents to contain plasma, which is used to generate thermonuclear fusion power. Without them, it’s useless.
“Fix them,” I say aloud.
I can’t.
“Fix them or I’ll hurt her.”
Vedmak, I can’t. Believe me. Search in my consciousness. You know I can’t. Just leave her alone.
Searching his knowledge once again, I know it’s true.
“Sard it all.” The floor squeaks under my boot as I turn from Merodach and Aeron, leaving them to yank the decapitated experiment to pieces and feed it to the wild animals in my vault.
Where are you going? You said you wouldn’t hurt her.
No, I didn’t.
Stomping across the lab of the fallen lillipad, I make my way to my private quarters. This is probably the only Pistil that remained intact after that cockroach Kapka pulled everything down. But it is mine. And it has served me well.
When lillipad 17 on the northern edge of Zopat fell, the support balloons softened the impact, keeping the structure almost upright and intact. Still, the explosion melted the ice around it and formed a glistening and nearly impenetrable fortress. It couldn’t have been planned better.
Despite Mother Russia providing me an icy hiding place, it wasn’t enough. The pathetic Robusts and their sad little band of resistance fighters hounded me for more than a year. Something else was needed. My little peacock provided it for me—if not under duress. A Gracile invention that can bend visible light. They’d used them on the Creed strike ships as active camouflage. Draped over the lillipad, it—and the constant frozen white-out—keep us hidden.
The door hisses open revealing the dim room.
I prefer the dark. The pain and torture from centuries of limbo have now become a comfort. Cloaked in the familiar gloom, my collection adorns the walls. Oil paintings amassed by the moronic Graciles who knew nothing of their worth. Works by Brodsky, Samokhvalov, and Neprintsev. Masters of the Socialist movement. The true Utopia. Most I found in the ruins of the Gracile fortresses. Mere trinkets to them, and of course of no value to small minded Logosians and Musuls. Now they serve as reminders of my mission. Bring back the glory of Mother Russia.
Past the makeshift bed in the corner, I step to the plate on the wall. The black glove slips off and I press a thumb against the onyx-colored glass. A confirmatory peep and a hidden panel in the white wall shunts back and to the side, revealing my prize: a Robust woman, naked on the floor. Her wrists are bleeding again, raw from a fresh attempt at escape, and her short black hair is strewn about her face. Her skin is smeared in dirt, but I don’t care. I enjoy her this way.
Don’t do it. Not today. Just give her one more day. Please, I beg you.
“But, you so enjoy this, peacock. I know what it is you want from her. I knew it from the moment we took her. Your desire. Your lust.”
No, that’s not it at all. You’re twisting it. You’re always twisting it. I won’t let you do this. Not again.
“Let me? Oh, little puppet? You think I do not learn from our little tug of war? You think I would succumb to your influence again?” Twisting on the valve near the jaw of the mask, a new wave of Red Mist hisses through the hose and into these lungs. “The more you fight, the more I learn to tweak this cocktail.”
Please. My demon’s voice is barely audible.
The Robust woman looks up, just as she had done the first time I’d chanced across her path in the Vapid, Rippers attacking her caravan. It’s amazing what is possible with a beautiful Gracile face. The instantaneous trust. The flicker of light in their eyes. Oh, to extinguish that light. Exquisite.
“Call out to him,” I rasp.
The woman shuffles on the floor toward the back of the closet.
“Call out,” I repeat. “To Yeos or whoever you think is going to save you.”
Stop it! She knows what will happen if she calls out. She knows.
The Robust female climbs to her knees. “Demitri, please. I know you’re in there. Please. You can fight him. I believe in you.”
“Demitri? Oh, how deplorable. You put your faith in this whelp rather than your own god?”
“Yeos protects me. If that is through Demitri, so be it.” She spits at my boots.
My back fist catches her across the jaw, sending her sprawling. “Yeos will not protect you. And neither will the pathetic child who dwells in this skull with me. He may have intervened before, but I learn from such mistakes.”
The intense struggle of my cohabiting spirit to hold on to this corporeal shell is almost to be admired. His single-minded defiance, all to protect this flea-infested tart. But his fight is for nothing. These tests allow me to push the boundaries of his ability to reclaim this body—and thus tweak the stim that ensures my control. I place my boot on the Robust’s chest and press her to the ground before shrugging off my heavy cloak.
“Demitri, please. Help me.”
What would Ida say? What if someone did this to her?
The rage is instant, flowing from my innermost core into the balled fists of this Gracile engine. I lash at the walls, pummeling them until the knuckles of these hands bleed. “Just because you have learned her name, you will not speak it! Ever!”
The pathetic kozel says nothing.
“This pig is nothing like her. This is an animal for my use and nothing more. Let me show you.”
Demitri’s consciousness claws and pulls at me while the stupid pizda under this foot kicks and thrashes, but it is no use. It never is.
