Korovitch got to his feet, and saluted. "Understood, sir. Though if I may, I'm not sure how Verner will react to me not being there two days from now. And for one reason or another, he seems to trust me." He shrugged, almost casually, then turned on his heel. At the door, he looked back. "It's not so much the workload. This is still easier than the Spetsnaz, or mercenary work. It's more... personal." With that, he was gone.
Several minutes later, he was in his quarters with a cup of water, and a small white tablet in front of him. Sighing, he popped the medication into his mouth and swigged the water. After several minutes' lying stiffly on the mattress. Then he was gone, snoring softly.
Dreams soon formed, lapsing from one to the next seamlessly. The first was the same dream he'd had every night for over thirty years. The flashbulb memory recollection of a scene of his childhood. He and the other boys and girls of the Mikengrad orphanage visiting the ruins of Red Square. Luka was eleven at the time. The Orphanage was miserable, not least due to its headmaster, Vladimir Petrikov. He beat the children, and worked them mercilessly. Beyond that, he had unsavory appetites. Korovitch was old enough to escape his notice, but the little seven year old boy, Dimitri, whom Korovitch protected from the torment and danger presented by some of the other boys, no longer smiled, and shook whenever anyone touched him. He was not the first, and would not be the last. Beyond that, Luka himself was in danger. Most children were cowed enough that they would never tell a soul of the abuse present in the Orphanage, but tales were rife that whenever a child showed enough spirit to pose the risk of possibly blowing the whistle, he or she disappeared. Korovitch knew he had been marked out a trouble maker, and often times had wondered if the creak of the headmaster's heel walking by their door might this time be the sound of his oncoming doom.
Red Square's ruin was done up with festive decoration for the season. The orphanage visited it every year, with every child being given a few rubles in his or her stocking the night before as spending money. It was, so far as Luka could tell, the only break in the somber upbringing of the orphanage. So here, the same dream he had every night began. As though he hung in the sky, he watched the children, his young self included, step off the old, battered bus that brought them there. They all buddied up, with Luka pairing himself with little Dimitri. They wandered through the cold and snow for a couple of hours, eyeing the wrecked stonework and annihilated buildings with familiarity. The only excitement was for the stalls, which changed yearly. Peddlers selling their wares. But Luka could enjoy none of it. Dimitri's suffering was a bitter pill to swallow when the boy was so different from how he had been, and Luka was concerned for his own life on top of that.
The trip's ending came looming and he had not spent his rubles. The headmaster and his attendants were currying the children back onto the bus. Quickly, he found Dimitri, tapping him on the shoulder. The boy jumped with shock, turning to face Luka with a look of abject animal fear. The scent of urine hit the air. Luka's eyes, child though they were, were a mask of fury. Taking Dimitri by the hand, he headed towards the bus, veering to a stall at the last moment, selling sweets. When Luka came away, he clutched a thick, foot long candy cane in his fist.
The dream dissolved here, moving to its next well worn scene. Luka being summoned to the headmaster's office when all the other boys were settling to bed. Luka stood in the office, as the headmaster strode in front of him. They both stood on a large, thick rug. New, Luka thought. And as Vladimir strode by him, he saw the switchblade handle sticking from his pocket. The man stopped, and placed a hand almost genially on Luka's shoulder. Then gave a grunt and fell to his knees, with five inches of candy cane sticking from his gut and Luka scrabbling on top of him to put a hand on the man's mouth. The candy cane had been a loose idea formed from rage at the last second, but he'd gone with it, sitting in the corner of the dorm, breaking off the hook and and sucking the tip of the cane with precision to bring it to a rough point. He'd been about to stick it under his pillow when he was called for, and instead put it in the waistband of his pants, covering it with his shirt.
When the man's jolts ceased, Luka cast about worriedly. He was a child after all, even if he had just shed the last of his innocence. Taking a paperweight from Vladimir's desk, he hurled it at the window, breaking the old, chipped glass. He kicked the pointed shards that would cut him, then scrambled through and ran into the cold.
The next dream came along. It too a memory. But as a dream, it was entirely new. He watched himself, a young man with black hair, no grey. No scar. He was in Spetsnaz fatigues, in the great barracks. Many soldiers were housing their families there, and he was no different. He nuzzled the neck of the woman in his arms, his hands on her protruding pregnant belly. Belinda. Then there was a jarring sensation, and he saw a graphic image. Belinda, throat cut, sprawled on the ground; violated womanhood exposed.
The image changed again, and he saw once again himself. This time bent in fury, stabbing furiously at another man in Spetsnaz fatigues. But where Korovitch's showed the Captain's insignia, his showed the insignia of a Lieutenant Colonel. The man was portly, and out of shape. No match for Korovitch, who set upon him in a fury, to end the man who had abused his power to rape and kill Belinda. His love.
What followed next was a blur of images, each time showing him slightly older. Escaping the Spetsnaz compound. Establishing himself as a mercenary. Hundreds of campaigns and assignments, usually in harsh climates on both ends of the spectrum. Again, the kukri flashing down at his face. Signing the form that would attach him to RACDI-Alpha.
Then again, he saw Belinda's violated body. Then it flashed and became Lisa. The two women not dissimilar in appearance. Sticks standing over her. Then the dreams lost comprehension; a stream of nonsensical images as everything drew to a close.
