Chapter Text
“It’s time.”
She flicked the fading remains of her cigarette off the balcony and into the wind, then retreated. She shivered against the chill, wishing she had bit the bullet and bought that gorgeous wool shawl she had spotted earlier. That was going to bother her the entire trip.
“Are we ready?”
“Almost ready.”
“Dress casual. We want to keep a low profile.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The two other agents in the hostel room were dressed as casually as they possibly could, given the circumstances; they blended in well enough, though their mannerisms and language would give them away as foreigners. They could at least conceal their weapons beneath their winter clothing, something she was grateful for. A more tropical destination would not have been so forgiving.
“2000 hours,” she said, snapping to her wristwatch. “Time to move.”
“Do you really think it’s happening?” one of the agents asked, as though he still had hope it wouldn’t.
“Well.” She sucked in a breath that burned with latent smoke from the disposed cigarette. “We’re about to find out, aren’t we? Let’s move.”
Viper was not normally one to bandy words, especially not with the recent hires. The Valorant Protocol was supposed to be the tip of the spear, and yet she found some of their recent recruits lacking. She understood that the VP’s broader security team could not meet the standard of quality she set for herself and her fellow top-shelf agents, but she sensed a talk with Brimstone was in order after they got back. The two men with her were no blockheads, but there was a certain élan that she felt they lacked.
“We keep to ourselves and take the side route,” she told them, as they threw on coats and scarves and anything else that could keep their features concealed without arousing suspicion. “When we reach the meeting spot, you hang back. I will make contact. If you see something shifty, you buzz me.”
She tapped her wristwatch, where the delicate silent-alarm apparatus was barely discernible from the watch’s band. It was one of the more recent miracles of radianite technology, and she was grateful for it.
They nodded their heads; they understood. They closed the hostel door quietly behind them; the host smiled at them as they left. Viper did not smile back.
Viper was not a diplomat, nor a negotiator for political chess games. She was married to her job and her job was espionage, intelligence, and results, not endless haggling and confab over drinks. To that end, she always hated when Brim tried to force her into the role of negotiation, something she clearly wasn’t cut out for if her experience was a sign of anything. That didn’t stop him, of course, but he at least recognized that her true talents existed in the background where she could freely exercise her skillset without worrying about spilled drinks or faux pas.
And here, in the back alleys of Kabul on a cold December night, she was putting that skillset to good use by slithering from door to door, shadow to shadow, leading her team silently through the urban warren towards the predetermined rendezvous point. The warehouse had been abandoned two years ago and the loading dock was walled in on all sides, making it the perfect place for them to link up before they scurried off to catch their ride to the airport and debrief on the way back to the Protocol’s base.
“You think they’re actually gonna show up?”
“I think you should stop asking questions.”
“Fuck me.” His unmetered bass voice was like the roar of a shotgun in the silence. “Just thought about what if-”
“Your job isn’t about what if,” she said, snipping him off like a dead leaf, cold and unforgiving. “Your job is to deal with what is. Understood?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“No more talking. We move in silence.”
The rookies might not understand the gravity of their engagement here, but Viper certainly did. Viper wasn’t one for talking, but she did read, and she was particularly good at reading between the lines. The information that she had been feeding Cypher was more than enough to confirm her suspicions, but she needed this key link for them to gain anything actionable out of it.
And what if they don’t show up? What then?
Well, that’s a problem for another day, she thought. Don’t worry about the “what ifs”, Sabine. Do your job.
Kabul had so far proven to be resilient in the face of the looming horror of the unknown, though the uncertainty was visibly weighing on its populace. Shops remained opened and streets lit, and taxicabs stuffed with passengers cruised leisurely down broad boulevards lined with pop-up street vendors selling kebab murgh and hot tea in paper cups to any passers-by who were fighting the winter chill. This, naturally, made their job significantly harder, as any suspicious persons would sound the alarm and they would have to abort their mission. Time was of the essence, too; Viper looked down at her watch and swore quietly.
“Alright. We need to double time,” she said, gathering her two escorts close. “Stevens, the map?”
“Right here.”
Kabul’s rapid growth had rendered much of the yellowed paper map irrelevant, but the old city had changed little in the intervening years, and the directions were still fairly accurate. They hit one dead end and nearly ran into an elderly woman out bringing in drying clothes for the night, but escaped any real catastrophe and made it to the rendezvous point with a bit of time to spare.
Perfect. Now let this go off without a hitch.
“Hang back,” she ordered them, by way of reminder. “If you so much as see a sign of movement that’s not our people, you buzz me, then cover me.”
They both nodded. That part of their job, at least, she trusted them to do. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, and the rest of the night would be quiet.
Viper left the safety of her shadowy sanctuary and emerged into the clear night air, feeling the distant warmth of incandescent lights on her skin and bitterly regretting that she had not picked up that shawl. The wind out of the west was cold and promised snow, and standing exposed in the middle of the open concrete did not make her feel any better. Once or twice she swore she saw somebody shift their position in the shadows beyond her vision, but nothing happened; she chalked it up to a stray cat, or a child out past their bedtime and trying to sneak back home without being detected.
Let this go off without a hitch. Please.
She didn’t know who, or what, she could be bothered praying to; nothing had ever answered her before.
Shuffling footsteps echoed like thunderclaps on cold concrete and she saw two bodies emerge from the darkness, hesitant. They were spooked, and with good reason.
She waved them over, trying to instill confidence in them, an effort which was stillborn given their hesitation. They moved as though they were hares under the fox’s watch, springing out of the shadows and rushing her with shaking knees and heaving chests. One was old, and the other young, and she immediately knew who her translator was.
“We’re safe for now,” she assured him, and with quivering voice he translated that to the older man, who appeared not the least bit relieved by that promise. In rushed Pashto, he whispered feverishly at his companion, who turned to Viper with grim eyes to relay the message to her.
“He says the rumors are true. The enemy is moving.”
“Ask him when.”
The translator turned to his companion and issued a nervous question in similarly rushed Pashto. Viper had picked up a few languages in her globe-trotting days, but this was a new one for her. The apprehension in their voices was genuine and they made no effort to mask it.
“He says it has already begun,” the translator replied, and the old informant muttered a desperate prayer under his breath. “They are advancing now.”
“Then we need to move,” she said, her breath fogging upon her lips as she spoke. “You will come with me. Bring him. We have a flight due out before dawn. If we-”
Her watch buzzed, tickling her wrist. A second later, before she could even register the sensation, a silenced gunshot rippled through the cold air. Then another.
The informant and the translator both fell, striking the frigid concrete with muffled, soft thumps and little more than groans of surprise. Viper barely avoided sharing their fate, ducking and rolling into cover with mere inches between cover and the trajectory of the third bullet. It sliced through the air past her and hit a mudbrick wall behind her with a dull thump. She had delayed the heavy hand of providence once more, at least for another minute or so.
One assailant, at least. Silenced weapon. High ground? All calculations pointed in one direction - she needed to move, and fast. The silence suggested they were watching her hiding spot, waiting for her to make a move, but it also hinted at the possibility that the shooter was repositioning to try and flank her. If they were on the rooftops, and had the elevation over her, her window of opportunity was rapidly shrinking. It was time to move.
She kept a low profile and practically hurled herself into the alley entrance, nearly colliding with Stevens. The two agents had drawn their service handguns but had held back, understanding that an engagement now would be a poor choice of action. She was grateful for their restraint, but they had a long ways to go before they could consider themselves safe.
“We need to move,” she urged them, already back on her feet, suffering only bruises and nicks in her escape. “They have the height advantage over us.”
“Airport?”
“Not yet. Hostel. We hunker down.”
“What about the informant?”
“They’re both dead.”
She had confirmed that with a single, quick look back over her shoulder. Neither of them had moved at all, their lifeblood pooling in dark brown puddles on the concrete. There was nothing to be done for them, now; their key agent, the crux of this entire operation, was taking his last breaths under an ambivalent night sky. The mysterious assassin had scored a clean kill on both counts.
“We ought to leave,” Stevens urged. He was clearly the more nervous of the two; though sharper than his companion, he was unsettled by the sudden episode of violence, and his grip on his service pistol was shaky.
“We can wait it out.”
“We should get to the airport.”
“No. We wait it out.”
She knew that’s what they were expecting them to do; any amateur would do the same when their cover was blown. But Viper was no amateur, and she was made of sterner stuff, and the situation was not yet out of her control. True, this was an unexpected development; but when had that ever fazed her? It was just a change of plans, and an adjustment to their timetable, nothing more and nothing less.
“We move. Careful. Check your corners.”
They crept back into the warren of alleyways and side streets, the seething shadows no longer offering comfort but tormenting them with the lurking threat of unseen assailants who were two steps ahead and had set up an ambush. Viper could feel her pulse rising into her throat, threatening to choke her, but she suppressed that fear with years of training and a reminder to herself that nobody, so far, had gotten the best of her.
So far. Hubris could be more fatal than bullets. Keep your head on a swivel. Who is there?
It was a cat, scrounging through a trash can and shying away at their approach. A fucking cat. You’re jumpy, like fresh meat after first blood. Still yourself.
The others were even jumpier than she was, but they kept pace with her and avoided fatal mistakes, checking their corners and angles successfully. When they returned to the hostel, she allowed herself just one sigh of relief, then steeled herself for the next step.
“There’s a reason we travel light,” she reminded them, as she began tearing apart the room in an effort to hastily pack. “Ten minutes. Pack everything.”
She snapped to the plain black leather bag that was tucked beside the nightstand, almost invisible against the burnished dark brown wood of the bedframe. Tucked away inside were hundreds of Afghani banknotes alongside the more familiar dollars. She opted to leave the local currency behind as payment, knowing it would be far more difficult for anybody to trace. After all, it would be rude not to pay for their hostel accommodations after nearly two weeks of stay; Viper had standards, and standards included rewarding good hospitality and treatment in turn. She left a hefty tip, in addition to the payment she knew would be owed.
“Are we heading out?”
“I told you not yet,” she said. “We stick around, but keep active. No rest. Three hours, then we’ll strike out.”
Three hours seemed like enough time, given their circumstances. She knew she was being overly cautious, but given how suddenly their operation had fallen apart she wanted to take no risks with regards to their escape route. Their attackers, whoever they were, were clearly professionals; but surely, they would not outwit Viper. Nobody could.
“Stevens.” The jittery, wiry, black-haired man snapped to attention. “You have everything? All of our comms?”
“Tucked away.” He tapped the slim brown briefcase held between his feet and nervously smiled.
“Call in to Brim,” she said. “Tell him mission is a failure. I’ll brief him on the specifics, but I want to…”
As a heavy silence fell around her, and she suddenly became aware of another presence in the room that was not theirs, she realized that she had made a fatal mistake. She had not realized it until now, her calculations limited to the things she knew and understood and had experienced before. She only now realized that much of what she knew and understood had become irrelevant, and experience could only prepare her for so much.
The hostel room felt darker, as though the lights were being slowly dimmed by an unseen force. The air thickened until it became cloying, and her heart hammered in her chest as though trying to escape. Her eyes jumped to the two agents, who were already drawing their pistols and cocking the hammers as though their assailant was in the room with them.
“Put those away,” she snapped. “Don’t make any moves-”
“You feel it too, don’t you?”
“What the fuck is it?”
She wanted to urge them not to panic, but she would be a hypocrite if she did so. As a dark mist manifested beneath the door and curled upwards in the form of writhing tentacles, she also drew her pistol, though she realized it was too late.
The mist exploded, and the tentacles dissipated only to reform themselves around her in the blink of an eye. Her vision darkened and then was blotted out entirely, but she could feel everything about the invasive entity now curling around her wrists and forearms and dragging her to the floor. She kicked and contorted her body in every possible manner to throw it off, but the alien force anticipated her every move and before long she was bound up and helpless in the cold, merciless grip of hateful radiance.
It burned, but not in a way that hurt her. She could feel the cold, slimy chains constraining her wrists but it was not a frigid grip that harmed her skin. It seeped into each and every pore and penetrated parts of her body and mind that she never even imagined were accessible; her vision wavered, as though there were dust in her eyes, and her tongue lolled about fruitlessly in her mouth. She attempted to scream, but all that came out was a wretched gurgle that reminded her of a death rattle and ignited full-blown panic in her chest. She was aware of the two other agents gasping and moaning just like she was, helpless and locked in, and she was also aware that a door was opening somewhere beyond her vision. Her back was against the wall, literally and figuratively.
“I told you not to wait too long.” The first voice was firm, belonging to a woman, her origins unknown. Uzbek? Turkish? Viper had difficulty placing the accent, and she could barely hear as is; her ears rang as though a gunshot had sounded right beside her head.
“I had it all under control.” The second voice was raspy, baritone, deeper and more confident. “ Mi amiga , you must trust me.”
“Look. They were nearly packed. They would have escaped if we had waited.”
“But we didn’t wait, did we?”
“I call the shots now, Reyna. Good thing, too. They would have beat us.”
The voices were distant, almost inaudible, though Viper felt their presence right beside her. Tightly-laced black boots stood at the tips of her toes, and a figure loomed over her. She was on the floor, pressed up against the wall so tightly by the coiled tentacles that she could not move an inch to see her assailant clearly. She could only look up and see bright magenta eyes illuminating a dark, menacing face.
“This one is wrapped up tight,” the figure said, with a gravelly laugh. “I wonder if she even sees me at all.”
“She sees you,” the other attacker said. “But fear has her locked up tight. She is in her own little hell.”
“Poor thing.”
“She sees such horrors, but it’s all in her head.”
Viper saw more than she ever wanted, but it did not feel like it was all in her head. Visions of a past life that she refused to live again exploded around her, as real as the day she left them.
There was a heartless home, devoid of warmth, her only escape route the textbooks and essays she diligently studied until she could recite some of them from memory.
A cold handshake and a vellum promise, and nights spent burning herself from the inside out to stay ahead in the rat race. Labyrinths constructed not out of rock and stone, but stoichiometry formulas and micromeritic exercises. A quest not for knowledge in and of itself, but an endless path forward.
Success, translating into a life of cold and sterile labs and equally sterile offices warmed by vigorous bodies and an endless flow of coffee. Violent competition for prestige, paper citations, and dollar bills. A lover’s touch, but had she ever truly been a lover?
A revelation, and a terrible consequence for the whole world. The weight of guilt, followed by betrayal, followed by isolation.
Months in the hotel. Waking every morning to gunfire and a dying cityscape, wondering if she deserved her own personal hell.
A world on fire, slowly dying in a race to the bottom. A chorus of voices crying out her name, cursing her to a fate worse than death, the blame for it all squarely on her shoulders. A hell she could have prevented, if only she had maintained control, or perhaps not made that fateful decision so many years ago…
An unending series of nightmares playing on loop, years boiled down into seconds and repeating over and over again until she wanted to scream for mercy. No sound came out of her mouth but a distant groan.
And now, magenta eyes watching over her. But they were not as cold as their owner’s voice was, and they did not look at her with callous disdain. They were curious, more than anything else, as though they wanted to ask questions that their owner’s tongue dared not speak.
“Siktir. They really did come prepared. They have a lot of equipment, Reyna.”
“Tsk tsk. A shame, really. All for naught.” She kneeled over Viper, and only then could Viper get a clear view of her face. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were plump, her jawline could cut steel and her hair was perfect as the night sky. She was equal parts beautiful and terrible, in ways that Viper could not find words to express. She was awestruck, and horrified at the same time. She wanted this to be over.
“I have it all,” said the other woman. “We’d best not linger. Come on. Let’s wrap up.”
“So hasty, Fade. Are you the type to kiss and tell?”
“I have standards, vampire,” the other woman sneered. “Unlike you, I do my job without question.”
“So grumpy.” The woman named Reyna smiled, amused by herself. “Where’s the fun in that, now?”
“We’re not here to have fun. We’re here to do what we’re paid to do. Now are you going to help me, or what?”
“If you insist, amiga .”
Viper felt alarm as she watched Reyna withdraw a sleek black pistol from beneath her overcoat, but she did not draw down on Viper - not yet, at least. Reyna nodded at Viper, as though to confirm something, and then disappeared from view, letting Viper steep in her nightmare for a little bit longer. There were heavy footsteps, what sounded like muffled begging, and then two gunshots. Now her ears were really ringing.
More footsteps, barely audible.
She struggled against her bonds, but the tentacles held firm, the radiance unbreakable. She was nothing compared to them, just a mere husk waiting for her ultimate fate, which now hovered above her. The purple eyes had an oddly calming effect on her, and served to dissipate the waking nightmare slightly, as though they were the cure for a sickness. She let her body relax, if only because this was the end, and struggle was futile.
“You have lovely eyes,” Reyna mused, kneeling over her. The pistol was pointed at Viper’s head, inches from her. “Pretty hair, too. Would you mind letting me know your name? It would be an honor.”
Viper said nothing, because she couldn’t say anything at all. She squirmed in place, and Reyna nodded, understanding the silent gesture.
“Ah, Fade. Give her a little relief, if you would please?”
“Reyna, quit playing with your food.”
“It’s a simple question. It deserves a simple answer.”
“Just kill her already.”
“Allow me this one courtesy, por favor.”
Viper felt life in her veins again, and the nightmare dissipated fully, allowing her to feel real once more. Her head pounded, matching her pulse, but she could speak and think and turn her head, if only for a few seconds. She decided to use her brief allowance of liberty in the way she thought most useful.
“My name?”
“Your name, pretty thing.”
“Fuck you.” She spat in Reyna’s face, hitting her right on her gorgeous red lips. “How about that?”
She expected that would be it, but Reyna only smiled, and withdrew the pistol unexpectedly.
“I like this one,” she said, wiping the saliva off her lips with the back of her hand then licking it clean. “She has nerve. I like that, a lot.”
“Well, you got your answer. Now kill her,” Fade urged, restless. “Come on.”
“Do it.” Viper dared her, openly challenging her, knowing this charade could go on. “Kill me. Do what she says.”
“Reyna. Come on .”
But Reyna, who had enjoyed this entirely affair purely for her own personal reasons, only shook her head, pretending at sadness. “No, I don’t think I will,” she said, then stood up. “Fade, if you please-”
“Reyna. Stop.”
“No, I’m afraid I cannot.”
“You’re just going to leave her here? Alive? She’s seen our faces, Reyna-”
“Not yours, amiga.”
“Still. She’s dangerous.”
“Allow me this one little courtesy.”
“I already allowed you one.”
“Then allow me two.”
Fade groaned, which only seemed to please Reyna. She spared one last glance down at her prisoner - helpless, furious, determined to end it here. Reyna only smiled.
“I like her style. I will grant her this,” she decided.
“Don’t you dare fucking turn away from me,” Viper hissed, but she was immediately silenced as fear gagged her and her bonds tightened again, trapping her with dismal prospects. Reyna leaned over her one last time, offering a menacing farewell.
“I will see you again, pretty thing,” she said, blowing a kiss. “Sleep tight.”
They turned and left, closing the door on the way out and leaving Viper in darkness, howling silently as her nightmare resumed just as vigorously as before. The last thing she saw before her vision darkened was those purple eyes leering at her, beautiful and terrifying.