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Hunter was dead.
So many things not done.
So many things not said.
So many things that were impossible for people in their profession.
Yassen took several deep breaths and tried to put Hunter away in his mind, right next to the name Yasha. He had a mission to do. He chose not to feel sentimental about a dead man.
Yassen looked down at the RPG in his hand.
He was Hunter’s protege, and here he was on an escort mission. That was all he had been told about this mission: that it was a simple prisoner escort mission. This was a test. Or a suicide mission. He stood outside the modified shipping container that would be transporting the Prisoner to its new home. This was the first time he had been to this particular SCORPIA facility, and the details about it were similarly vague, almost nothing other than it was overseen by a Dr. Klerk and its name: Pandora. He had even been blindfolded when transported here. Yassen had never heard of this facility before being briefed; he thought back to the power pack in Hunter’s suitcase.
Six Tanks sat in the loading bay in a semicircle next to the container: Five T-90s and a single Leopard 2, their turrets all trained on the interior door. A small army of guards stood in formation in between the tanks, armed with AK-47s and RPGs. Four heavy machine guns had been set up on the upper catwalks. Was this all really necessary for one captive?
Lam, Dr Klerk’s second in command, walked up to him. He had been the one to give Yassen the rather vague mission briefing. The short Vietnamese man wore a white lab coat; his hair was perfectly slicked back with not a single misaligned hair falling on his handsome face.
“Cossack,” he said with a nod.
“I assumed Dr. Klerk would want to oversee this personally,” Yassen responded. Dr Klerk was a very hands-on person, from what little Yassen had heard of him.
“He always goes off base when we move the Prisoner.” That was a foolish thing to admit.
“The Prisoner has left the cage!” Someone yelled before Yassen could respond. Everyone stiffened, raised their guns, and aimed squarely at the door. It opened and out came dozens of guards, similarly armed with RPGs and machine guns; in the center of the formation was the Prisoner.
It was not a man; instead, it looked like someone had turned a trash can into a tank. It was a giant rusted cylinder, dirt and grime covered its bronze metal body; the thing had two conical attachments on top, which appeared to be lights, and between them, facing forward was a blue flashlight on a stick. What looked like a toilet plunger and a whisk protruded out of the midsection. Yassen counted fifty-six bumps on its lower half, with some of the panels wrenched off like half-open tin cans. The inside was too dark to see anything. The thing was wrapped in chains, bound to a metal pallet being pushed by a team of men in hazmat suits.
This giant salt shaker was their captive? A Robot? Why did they not just turn it off? Yassen wished Hunter were here. He’d laugh at this. Actually, no, he’d simply remind Yaseen to take the Prisoner seriously, no matter how ridiculous this was. Real or not, this was his prisoner, nothing else. There was never room for such complacency in their line of work, and all of this firepower was aimed at it for a reason.
The room was quiet other than the rumbling of the tank’s engine and rolling of the platform. No one seemed to breathe as they all focused entirely on the robot. A clattering shattered the silence; everyone's head snapped to the source of the disruption: one of the guards had dropped their machine gun. Everyone else went dead still, all of their focus now on the guard.
The dome on the top of the Prisoner slowly turned so that the flashlight-like device pointed directly at the guard. It moves up and down, as if looking over the guard. It must have been its eye. Visibly shaking, the guard picked up his gun; the Prisoner’s staring eye followed him the entire time.
For a few moments, everyone was still. Then the dome turned to face straight forward, and the guards began pushing its platform again. As they reached the container, they spun its platform around and pushed it backwards up the ramp to the back of the container. The platform slid into a specialized locking mechanism built into the floor.
Lam climbed up the ramp, and Yassen followed behind.
“Will I need protective gear?” Yassen asked, pointing at the hazmat-clad guards who were securing more chains to the Prisoner.
“No, as long as you don’t touch it. Do not approach it, especially with the RPG, as the magnetic field will suck it out of your hands.”
“Noted.”
Lam pointed directly at the flashlight mounted on the dome's front.
“If it escapes, shoot it in the eye stalk, that attachment on the front of the dome. That might be enough to kill it.” Might be enough? An RPG to the eye might be enough? Yassen chose not to mention that an RPG going off in a confined space like this container would probably also kill him; such were the risks of his profession. The guards, finished chaining up the Prisoner, stepped back and flipped a switch on the wall. With a thunk, the magnetic field secured it to the floor.
“Prisoner secured Mr Lam.” The lead guard said.
“Perfect. You’re dismissed.” Lam turned to Yassen. “It’s a shame, really, we’re losing our only live specimen. But money is money, and Rothman is not happy with its containment eating up many resources better spent elsewhere. Not to mention exposing this base via the supply chain. Besides, we haven’t been able to discover any of the Prisoner’s inner workings. Maybe its new home will have more luck.”
“Where is it going?” Yassen asked, seeing how far Lam’s loose lips would go.
“Henry van Statten of all people.” That actually made some sense. He was the richest man on Earth, equal in wealth to all of SCORPIA; Plenty of money to burn on this thing.
“Anyway, you have a plane to catch,” Lam said before stepping down the ramp. He looked back at Yassen before saying, “Good luck.” There was a sincerity in that voice, and a look of sadness in his eyes. The doors slammed shut, and with a clunk, the locks engaged.
No chair had been provided, so Yassen sat cross-legged on the floor. The Prisoner was motionless through the container shaking and shuddering as it was loaded onto the transport plane. Yassen grimaced as he was pushed back into the door by take off. Once they had reached cruising altitude, it finally moved.
The dome slowly rotated, the groaning and grinding echoing across the container; the eye stalk, as Lam had called it, pointed down directly at Yassen. The blue light on it contracted and dilated several times before expanding to full brightness.
He felt no choice but to meet its stare; he tried not to blink as he felt that if he did, this thing would view it as a sign of weakness. Its eye peered right into him, into his very soul. Yassen chose not to feel fear, but that stare pierced through him, and fear leaked slowly out. Hunter would not be afraid, Yassen told himself, but Hunter was not here, only Yassen. The Prisoner never blinked, never moved, never faltered.
For several hours, they sat, playing the world’s most tense staring contest. More and more fear leaked into Yassen’s mind, his mental discipline cracking under this endless stare. It was unmoving, unyielding, inhuman. Then the two cones on the top lit up as it spoke.
“Are you a soldier?” It asked in Russian. They did not speak Russian around it. But it was a Human language. It was listening to them. It understood what they said. It understood when Lam told him how to kill it when they were standing right in front of it.
It spoke in a grating electronic voice. It wasn’t a robot as Yassen had first thought; through the electronic noise, there was emotion in that voice: inquisition, anger, hatred.
“No,” Yassen said slowly, unsure if he should respond. He struggled to keep matching the stare.
“But you are a killer.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
“Are you here to kill me?”
“No.”
“Why do you kill?” That would be telling. Yassen remained quiet, taking in deep breaths. He had already said too much; he was like Lam. Hunter would have said nothing in the first place, just kept staring. The light on the eye stalk narrowed to a point.
After a few moments of silence, it asked, “Are you afraid of me? Is that why you do not answer COSSACK?”
Yassen froze. It knew his name. How was that possible? The Prisoner had been secured in its cage when Lam spoke it. How much compromising info had it heard?
“No,” Yassen whispered. It was all he could do to keep the fear out of his voice.
“You LIE!” It yelled; the blue light expanded back to its full circumference. Yassen’s breath hitched, his hand twitched as his mind screamed at him to grab the RPG and shoot. Yassen said nothing. It was trying to interrogate him. To admit fear was to give this thing power, which is exactly what it wanted.
“I can detect your fear, your emotional contradictions, your weakness. I am your prisoner, yet you are afraid.”
Yassen chose not to feel fear, but he felt it anyway. He turned away, unable to meet the creature’s unyielding stare. He was silent, but for a moment his whole body shook, betraying his fear, betraying his training, betraying Hunter. But he couldn’t help himself. Why couldn’t Hunter be here? He wouldn’t be giving in like this.
“Your emotional instability is an example of your inferiority. I have no such weakness; that is why I am superior.” The toilet plunger raised up and extended. In a surreal way, it reminded Yassen of a Nazi salute.
“Yet you are still my prisoner,” Yassen said slowly, struggling to keep his voice level. The Prisoner slowly lowered its plunger and let out a gargled choking sound. It hissed and groaned for several seconds, the whisk-like attachment pointed directly at Yassen.
“A killer would never be afraid of their prisoner. So what are you, Cossack? Killer or Coward?” It spat, anger seeping into its voice.
“I am a killer,” Yassen said, staring directly at the eye stalk, his hand behind his back to hide how much they shook.
The Prisoner’s eye stalk swivelled to Yassen’s RPG before it quickly swiveled back to look him directly in the eyes.
“If you are a killer, then KILL ME!” It begged, the whisk-like attachment jerked and flailed. Yassen shuddered.
“I can’t, I have my orders.” Yassen's voice broke as he said that.
“I understand. I was bred to receive orders. I exist only to obey ORDERS. I am waiting FOR ORDERS! I NEED ORDERS!” Its voice grew more and more agitated as it went on, its attachments writhed, the chains groaned and clanked as it struggled against its bonds. Yassen reached for the RPG, but then the creature went limp. Its attachments flopped down. It was silent for several minutes. Yassen got up and slowly walked up to the thing.
“I have been waiting for a long time,” It admitted softly, causing Yassen to stumble back.
For the rest of the journey, it sat there, motionless, silent. Even when it was unloaded, it remained perfectly still.
The moment Yassen entered the room, he knew Rothman did not expect him to survive. There was a slight twitch in her fake smile and a glint of disappointment in her eyes. So it had been a suicide mission, a test to see if Yassen could work without Hunter that he had been expected to fail.
“Yassen, my compliments on an excellent job. We will be paying quadruple your typical pay.” That was not an insignificant amount. “I also received your report regarding Lam. I agree with your view that he said too much. As such, I’ve already arranged for Dr. Three to remind him of the necessity of operational security, especially for Pandora.”
“Will he be terminated?”
“Oh no no. He’s far too valuable to get rid of just like that. Just like you.” Rothman gave Yassen her largest fake smile.
Yassen simply nodded.
“There's just one more thing. Halfway through the flight, the security camera cut out for several minutes. Did anything happen?”
“Nothing, nothing at all,” Yassen said with a totally level voice.