Ragnarok

FIFTY-THREE

Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway

Asya fought the wave of happiness overwhelming her. Being Russian, she wasn’t accustomed to such radiant joy. It fit her like a too-tight sweater, choking her at the neck and chafing in her armpits. She struggled to comprehend how she had become so delighted with life. When she focused on the issue, she could remember Rook, the pit with the dead things and marching Rook at gunpoint back to the pit filled with the little corpses. It was harder to remember how she had become so happy. When she thought about the round wall of light, she felt only warmth and contentment. And then she would forget-everything-and would have to start over, by focusing on Rook.

When thinking back to Rook, and how she met him, and how she had come to this place, it made her angry. The anger countered the bliss. That, and the anger and the frustration felt more natural for her. More Russian. So, she stopped trying to focus on Rook and instead turned her attention to the abduction of her parents.

The thought that someone would take her mother and father filled her with a deep rage. That the same people would abduct her and take her aboard a ship-the ship on which she had met Rook-bound for who knew where, filled her with a desire for vengeance.

Things had gone easily for Asya as a child. But as adulthood had neared, she was given two choices: ballet, for which she had a natural talent, or medicine. Both options would be well respected and would allow her to move from the middle class to the upper echelons of stardom, or at least cement her role in the new Russian middle class.

She had shocked her family by choosing the army instead.

Her athletic abilities helped her excel in combat training, but she was too defiant to rise in the ranks, and was already hindered by the fact that she was a woman. She wasn’t interested in rank, anyway. She just wanted a real experience in her life. She served her time in the infantry, and then when the chance came to leave the service, she did. She traveled around Russia and even went abroad a few times. She thought about settling down somewhere, but for now, she had been happy to keep on the move and see some sights. She was almost to that place she had been seeking-a place of inner contentment bred from pleasure with the decisions she had made instead of those decisions made for her. Then the men that Rook had killed captured her on the streets of Murmansk.

A life interrupted. Her life, interrupted.

The anger she felt filled her like an inflating blimp. She let it rise, pushing out any semblance of happiness. She could now picture the attack on Rook and the anger she’d felt toward the mob. She pictured the people and the injuries they had sustained. She understood now, after having been forced by her bliss to march Rook to the pit, that the others had been under the influence of the glowing wall of light as well.

She became furious.

An entire village of people. Controlled. Their lives stolen. Brutalized!

She let all of it feed her anger. As though a hypnotist had just snapped his fingers, her mind returned in a flash.

Asya Machtcenko opened her eyes and found she was sitting in a chair, in a dark room. It was a computer lab with several desk workstations and flat-screen monitors. All sensations of being controlled were gone. She recalled sending Rook to his doom in the pit. She also remembered handing him the LED and telling him not to drop it. She hoped he had listened to her.

And where is Queen? she wondered.

She got up and looked down at herself. At some point, she had put on a white lab coat. She grimaced. I am no man’s lackey. She was about to take it off, but changed her mind. It might help her move through the lab unnoticed. She needed to get to Rook and see if she could help him.

How long have I been under its control? How long have I been unaware of the things around me?

She stood and scanned the computer displays. They were all on, even though no one sat at any of the stations. She wondered idly where all the money for this equipment had come from. Rook had said the town was remote and they didn’t even have telephones or wireless coverage. The entire lab was covert and underground. To Asya’s way of thinking, a government had to be involved. Possibly even her own.

None of the information on the displays-having to do with the weather outside the lab, the giant, curved metal cage and power levels in a ‘receptor’-meant much to her. She crossed the floor to the room’s only door. She opened it slowly and walked out in a very slow, dreamlike shuffle. She let the focus in her eyes loosen, careful not to stare at anything in particular. Walking was difficult at first, but the more steps she took, the easier it became.

The massive glowing sphere cast brilliant light from the center of the room. She intentionally stayed on the edge of the cavernous space, avoiding the influence of the sphere, but not appearing to do so.

She didn’t see any people, but there were a few of the white creatures with the spooky eyes moving around the chamber. They looked at her with their heads turned awkwardly to the side, almost far enough to break their own necks, she thought, unless they can turn their heads all the way like owls.

She continued her dazed walk, noting whenever a creature would move in her peripheral vision, but none of them advanced on her position. They just seemed restless to her. When she reached the tunnel where she’d deposited Rook in the pit, she moved past it. She realized that she had no way to get him out of the pit.

If he was still alive.

She wanted to hurry, but the lingering creatures might notice. She needed to find a rope or something she could use to help Rook. Something I can conceal in this coat.

She moved to the office where she recalled cutting the plastic bands on Rook’s wrists that attached him to the chair. She also recalled the gun the man had. It wasn’t a rope, but if it was still in the room, she would take it. She checked her pockets and found that the gun she had held on Rook and the knife she had used to cut him free were missing. She didn’t remember anyone taking those things from her, but neither could she recall giving them up.

The office was empty. No knife, no guns and even the laptop the man had used was gone. She waited in the office for a minute so it looked like she had a reason for being there if the white watchers, as she thought of them, were intelligent and paying attention to her movements.

Then she left the room and started around the circumference of the great room again. A few of the watchers were still in the massive space, but some of them were gone. She tried to look covertly around the room as she shuffled along the wall, looking for another place to explore. The next door was labeled with a mop and bucket symbol on the door and the legend: Freiheitsstrafe Schrank. She realized it was German for a Janitor closet. She didn’t think she would find a rope in there, but it might do for her to check on the way back.

The next door was more promising. It had a legend of a lightning bolt on it and the word: Sicherheitsraum. It was one of the few German words she knew. The first part meant “security” and the — raum portion meant “room.” She calmly walked in and closed the door behind her before reaching for a light switch.

She flicked on the light and stifled a scream.

For the second time in one day, she had illuminated the space around her to find it full of bodies.