в о е н н а я ( м а ш и н а )

It was far too easy to escape the hospital. The second Decapre opened her eyes, she operated on auto-pilot. From hospital gown to stolen clothes and her bracers, Decapre moved as fast and as far as her legs would take her, ignoring the slight pounding in her head and the aching from the entire left side of her face. Because her mask was missing, and quite possibly discarded, Decapre abandoned her usual braided hair in favor of having it hang and operate as a makeshift mask.

The second she reached a city center and identified the text, it felt as if multiple switches inside her head had been turned on. The sights and sounds assaulted each of her senses and in one moment she could smell food, and then the next moment, leather and then metal. Within a minute her mind had begun to weave out things of lesser importance until only the key factors remained: "Barnaul. Administrative Center of Altai Krai. Population six-hundred thousand, four hundred and one…Western Siberia…" she uttered as she observed the crowds of people, "…Home.”

It was not nostalgia that flooded her senses, not anymore. Decapre tried to sift through her mind for anything, but nothing turned up, and, frustrated, she grit her teeth. The pounding in her head ebbed away for a moment and all she could remember was that she had been hunting something—someone—for her superiors, and that her prime directive would bring her into conflict with another group.

"No," she declared, Russian accent thick, yet monotonous, "Objective is to be completed with the utmost efficiency."

      A taxi pulled up just outside the city's general hospital, passenger door tossed open as a heavy set of military boots were thrown down into the fallen leaves of copper hues--of which crumpled and crunched beneath Dragunov's weight as he pulled himself from the inside of the cab. The door slammed shut behind him, and after a short beat, the vehicle pulled away and left the Spetnaz soldier with only his objective in mind.

      Gloved hands were stuffed into the coat pockets then, head lifted so that he could scan his immediate surroundings, and with a particular amount of haste in his step, Sergei moved along the covered sidewalks and around the few people that followed along it as well. They held no interest to him--save for one, that was, and it had only been due to the personal rumblings that reached his ears.

One of the few perks of his profession was that it allowed him to travel to foreign lands, for operational purposes of course, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to appreciate the culture and people.

The climate didn’t hinder him, these temperatures were something he was used to, but that was most likely the only thing he had in common with the people of Russia. The language was another thing entirely; if it wasn’t for his mission debriefing, he was sure he wouldn’t have even made it this far into the country. Getting around was a feat, thankfully he was literate enough to get the basic necessities and directions.

He was still working over the fogginess that was still present in his thoughts at times. While he was certain he had recovered the majority of his memories, some processes that he kept to himself were lost. It had taken him quite some time to piece the puzzle together, figure out why he was at Bosconovitch’s lab in the first place, but when it finally came to him, he knew he’d need to do some traveling to get answers.

He had been there to destroy and collect assets, but not before documenting them. The attack that left him without a memory for a time had destroyed everything, and so he found himself searching for the source—the old doctor himself.

      A train pulled into the Kiyevskaya station, running east to west along the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line. His destination was eastward--through the garden ring and the heart of the metro to Kurskaya. Sergei lifted his arm enough that the pressed sleeve slid back from the movement, revealing the leather band and silver curve of a watch tucked just beneath the edge of a black leather glove. He tilted his wrist, to which was now held crooked so that he could observe the exact time the tram pulled in, though he kept aware of his surroundings via his peripherals in the few short--albeit valuable--seconds it took to examine his watch.

      And it was, ironically, in that short period of time that his attention was drawn.

      The soldier's head snapped up, initially ignoring the roar of the engine and the grinding of the metal wheels as they scraped along the track, stopping for the hasty exchange of passengers to and from the platform. He was no longer concerned with his immediate objective, but rather the out of place traveler in garbs of black and crimson moving through the throngs of civilians shuffling across marble tiles. Piercing, icy eyes narrowed in suspicion as he watched the other's footsteps, making himself aware of the Swede's every movement--