Subjectivity: Chapter Five

Winter was soon to arrive and with it a dread cold would be brought upon the tundra about. Endless rolling plains of nothingness encompassed the dreary little town. Dying grass long since having replaced the colourful blossoms of Spring time, the land about was a sorry mixture of browns and yellows; a morose furtherance of the reminder of the oncoming of winter. Moreover the rolling plains were made more depressed from the unhappy town sitting in their shared crevices. Squat and rundown buildings sat huddled together, as though they were a village of freezing innocents struggling to stand against the bitter Russian weather. Shutters hung loosely open, still clinging to the false vestiges that warmth could be found in the ominous grey skies overhead. Upon the outskirts of the squalid town one would find the beginnings of a sorry excuse of a forest; sickly, thin trees struggled forth from the unforgiving land’s surface, their craggy beings casting spider webs of shadows across the ground, their bare limbs revealing all below. To the north one would find the freezing shores that gave the small town its worth to the crippled nation and the last remaining pockets of civilization in the largely abandoned town of Polyarny. Southern portions of the city sat abandoned, ruined buildings from the long fallen Union of Soviet Socialist Republics a dank and drab reminder of the poverty that held Russia in such a deadly grip.

Once a shining example of Soviet might, Polyarny had fallen into disrepair following the collapse of the Soviet Union and further into squalid conditions in the economic depression while the Barren brought the world to its knees as countless millions of innocents fell dead in the manner of days. Children had been the first to fall ill in Polyarny; schools reporting students uncounted vomiting in class or blacking out without any indication of sickness. A local state of emergency was called when more and more people began falling ill, and the town council looked to the state, though they were preoccupied with the movement of the Barren in the cities of Russia where the economy had been brought to a standstill. The town, along with its neighbouring port towns down the Kola Fjord of Severomorsk and the capital of the Murmansk Oblast region, Murmansk, were left to their own devices to fend against the Barren. Thousands died and many more were made infertile or otherwise permanently injured from the deadly disease’s wrath. A weak new generation had grown from it, prone to illness and frailty, and so the region fell further into despair. Though time passed and eventually the isolated region recovered somewhat and those who flanked the Barents Sea found themselves once more living peacefully. Such a peace was defined by the grim descendants of the weak generation following the Barren who loathed their forbearers with callous hatred and sought to remove their stain of existence through merciless use of the military town’s location to begin fishing in the Arctic and Barents Seas.

Sonya Volkov was of the most recent generation of Polyarny’s citizenry and found herself overlooking the sorry town from the hills southwest. The frigid Barents Sea rolled in and out, the crash of waves lost at the distance she stood and Sonya found the sight to further the miserable reality of her town. The frail forest’s fringes shuddered behind her as the wind picked up, the autumn winds already greedily biting at her warm flesh. Ignoring the growing chill, the young woman turned, and her tied auburn hair flipped lazily with her movement. Worn leather boots crunched on the dry grass as she stalked toward the forest’s edge, the low foliage obscuring one’s feet from sight. Her form, bound in drab, loose fitting tans and beiges slide behind a thicker tree before glancing about. A frail looking caribou stood, its head bowed as it ate from the forest floor. The beast, normally as one might expect it to be bound in thick muscle upon short narrow legs was far from its archetypical form. Ribs protruded from its sides and its breath was uneven. Sonya frowned at the sorry creatures’ display, the beast was starving and looked to be ill. Turning her heel, she winced inwardly as she heard the heavy crunch of a fallen branch that had been hidden in the tall dead grasses around her, and the caribou lifted its great head, whose massive antlers struck awkwardly outward for a beast of such frailty, revealing the sorry creature to be male. Sony drew completely still as the beast regarded her, and she expected it to run. Though it did not, evidently exhausted from its hunt for suitable leaves, sedges, or mushrooms, it merely ate its fill after lowering its head once more, ignoring the resolute woman. Belted at her waist was an ill-fitting holster which held within it a dented and unclean device looking much akin to a crossbow joined with a handgun. Sonya drew the tool and aimed it at the best before firing. No impact could be seen though the beast instantly stood upright, eyes bright with confusion before they dulled and the caribou collapsed to the side.

No blood was drawn from any wound, and indeed no wound could be seen. Sonya silently thanked her father, for when the middle aged man had gone to Murmansk City for supplies, he had bought one of the micro-dart shooters. The device was simple in purpose, but used electromagnets to send a dart deep into the creature’s body and release a neurotoxin that killed it instantly and painlessly. After waiting out non-existent after dead twitching or writhing, Sonya made her way to the felled caribou. She knelt in the long grass and placed a hand on the beast’s still face before closing its eyelids and speaking aloud an old Russian prayer for a fallen animal, proclaiming “Znayte mir, dlya vashego smert’ byla bezboleznennoy i prineset pol’zu mnogim.” Removing her hand from the beast’s closed maw, she regarded it critically. Though clearly an adult male, the caribou was severely malnourished, looking to be a third of its expected weight. However, two hundred pounds of caribou remained better than no food whatsoever. Hunting had long since been the fallback tradition of those who lived in Murmansk Oblast when the fish were not easily caught and Sonya had taken up the practice, much to her father’s disapproval, when their family had nearly starved to death during one particularly vicious winter. Much to one’s surprise, Sonya easily hefted the creatures hind legs and slung them over her narrow shoulders and began dragging it out of the forest without any real difficulty.

The sun hung low in the sky as Sonya reached the outskirts of Polyarny whose forgotten buildings and forsaken streets sat crumbling and ignored. Leaving the carcass of the fallen caribou, she turned toward one of the squalid buildings and made her way forward. A rusted old door dragged on cracked concrete as she pushed it forward, grunting with the effort as her thin boots slid on the unmaintained ground. The walls of what was once a factory were yellowed with rain and snow having seeped in and great cracks would be found in the wall, allowing streams of grey daylight to wearily shine in. The vast openness of the factory would reveal absolutely nothing, save for the often found cracks in concrete where scraggy shrubbery had made its way upward and sat like living machines, replacing the long lost machinations of man which had been removed, looted or destroyed decades earlier. However next to the door, lost to one who did not look behind the door, would be a less decrepit looking trolley; four solitary wheels supported a four foot by four foot flat bed. Rust was often found on its surface, though Sonya knew better than to worry for the trolley’s structural integrity. Hefting its cold and metal handle, she dragged the creaking piece of industry out the wide metal door and down the crumbling road toward her caribou.

Hefting the still beast onto the bed of the trolley, she began to drag the weighty creature down the tumultuous road and toward her home, closer to the inhabited areas of Polyarny. The streets were completely silent, save for the creaking of the trolley she pulled and Sonya’s chestnut gaze drifted building to building. Sunken in roofs, collapsed walls revealing ruined interiors, and all sorts of dilapidated buildings marked the ruined street’s dreary companions. Silently they all looked down upon Sonya with broken window eyes, their sorrowful gaze a morose reminder of the hardships that had, and continued to, take place in the town. Though Sonya charged onward, evermore eager to be free of the empty parts of town and after some time she began to see the hushed resemblances of life. Buildings became less desiccated and some even flickered with lights inside. As she continued onward, she began to encounter the occasional passerby who spared her no more than a cursory glance before continuing on their way. Many had gazes of broken and beaten down men and women, pushed into the ground by the cruel reality that was poverty in the enigmatic nation of Russia. Sonya ignored their sorry existences, and though a part of her felt pity for them, another, louder, part of her mind loathed them for giving up on life.

Night had all but fallen onto the bleak landscape by the time her cul-de-sac appeared in view. Single story buildings rounded an uneven curve which faced against the rocky shores of the fjord. The buildings, once uniformly a military grey, had fallen into disrepair and sat in squalid sea rain stained colourations. Flat roofs were in need of repair and looked to be decades old; depressions in their surfaces pooled with water. Sonya ignored it all as she made her way to the nearest building on the right. Flat to the ground, the building had a single large window on the right side and a door on the left. A large crack spread the width of the glass and the door hung at an awkward angle. Accompanying the squalid, dirty grey building was a garage whose door had been long since discarded and inside one would find an aged looking vehicle off to the side, which could hold no more than two people at once. Dirty with disuse, the vehicle had the appearance that it was rarely, if ever used. Sonya vaguely recalled her father explaining that, in order to drive the vehicle, it had to be charged which left the house cold and dark for a day. Dragging the trolley into the garage, the chill of the autumn evening left her, and was promptly replaced with the dank, heavy moisture ridden air that clung with a clammy embrace. Contemplating letting her family know she had arrived, Sonya discarded the thought and decided that readying the caribou was more important. With a few silent steps, she placed the trolley between her and a dirty, dented and scratched metallic table. Locking the wheels of the trolley, she planted her foot on a small lever next to the back right wheel, and, after a moment of metallic groaning, the trolley raised itself into the air and after it had reached the level of the table, the silent woman pushed the felled caribou onto the table, lowered the trolley, and after unlocking the wheels, pushed it off to the side to return to its hiding place in the ruined outskirts on her next hunting trip.

The table itself had an angular depression in its close left corner and from the compartment therein Sonya procured a carving knife. Humming a simple tune, the auburn haired woman began to carve the dead creature. Her movements were quick and well trained as she deftly slid the knife between skin and muscle. The sickening sound of flesh being cut could be heard as she worked, though the Russian woman paid it no heed as the flesh was easily peeled back and discarded into a bin for decomposition. Now naked and bereft of its skin, the beast cast a morbid look to it; it appeared otherworldly and bled steadily onto the sloped table which, under its hidden compartments, any run off was collected and fed into the drainage pipes of the small town. Sonya began to carve the beast in earnest; separating meat from bone and placing them in the dirty refrigerator next to the carving table. Fatigue gnawed at her mind and body as she worked away, separating what was useful and what was not, though Sonya ignored it and pressed forward with new vigor, intent on having dinner before she fell asleep for the night. She cursed her weak body for not being able to carry the great beast quicker and her brow knit in anger. It was the fault of her grandfather’s and her father’s generation; those who had carried the illnesses of the Barren with them and passed them on. She knew her limits and she loathed them greatly. With an angry huff she separated the last haunch of meat and tossed it into the refrigerator before turning toward a dirty green door and pulling it open, leaving a noticeable bloody hand mark on the knob.

*~*

The pale moonlight shone through the parted blinds and onto Roe’s bed as he lay awake. Night had fallen over the campus and a peaceful silence had taken place. Only the occasional student could be heard meandering about below, though the extent of their disturbance of the peace of night was little more than footfalls and the like. It had been a week since Roe had been accosted by the protestors and subsequently removed from the situation by the ever peculiar Logan. However, since the incident, the enigmatic Subject had seen nothing of his livelier NELO counterpart. The silent Subject mused that it was indeed possible that Logan had let the truth of his birth become public knowledge, either through purposeful admission of the truth or a haphazard slip in judgement. The growing dissent the TPW had made was beginning to cause larger ripples and certain professors who openly admitted to being Subjects were simply replaced by others, though no one in those classes appeared brazen enough to question the fate of the jobs of those Subjects. The reality of the TPW and indeed all those who stood against Subjects still remained little more than an inconvenience for Roe who now had to watch carefully for any compatriot of the man whom he had injured or his vengeful fiancée. The azure eyed young man was quite sure that, although the interference of bigoted groups in his life was only slightly irritating at this point, it was surely to continue to grow, especially with the supposed murder of President Ehrhardt by Subjects.

Roe’s cool gaze flickered to the side when he heard a rustling of sheets, only to find Stephan mumble in his sleep as he wrestled with tangled sheets unconsciously. Returning his gaze to the open window, he mused that it might be wisest to leave Palmyra University and go somewhere where he could be safe. ‘That would be a coward’s means…’ Roe mused, his brow knitting ever so slightly, ‘I did not run from the Keepers. I will not run from these craven fiends,’ the enigmatic figure spoke silently to himself. Indeed he would not leave; he could not. Roe Speremus had survived the cruel torture of those who deemed him unworthy of existence as a mere child with silence and stoicism, and he would not buckle now. Shifting in his own bed, he smoothed the sheets around him and folded his arms under his pillow, gazing out at the night sky above the building across from his window. The starts shone brightly over the Pacific Ocean and without the light pollution of a larger city one might find in the rest of the world, the details of the grand cosmos were laid out. Twinkling in a thick band, the girth of the Milky Way was exposed to him with countless starts clustered in a band that ran on an angle toward the horizon lost behind the building before him. The moon shone in full grandeur that eve as well, for it was a full moon and cast brilliant pale streams of light into his room, illuminating the small space with a tranquil peacefulness.

Fatigue took his mind for a moment and he stifled a yawn; his body was weary and his mind grew tired as well, though he found that he did not wish for sleep. There was much to do and much to consider. Roe had to plan his next moves carefully. Once more, Stephan tossed in his sleep and Roe looked to him, studying the figure. The sleeping Greek’s sheets where mostly crumpled into a ball in a his un-waking grip and he laid in a pseudo-fetal position. ‘He sleeps as strangely as he acts…’ Roe surmised to himself as he regarded the unconscious Stephan. The outspoken brunet had been the first to notice, far before Roe, that the reserved Subject had begun to lose weight and sleep less and less. Roe saw little harm in the reality of such; he was not anorexic and nor was he ill, he was merely preoccupied. However, Stephan’s now conscious effort to make Roe eat and sleep more normally had begun to wear on him, though the latter refrained from mentioning his growing impatience for Stephan’s worrying, having it explained to him by Vadim that it was out of concern that the emphatic young man did what he did. Roe’s mind drifted to the events of the week previous as his gaze returned to the starry sky so terribly far away. Ehrhardt had been killed by Subjects, however the idea of such seemed preposterous to Roe. ‘Subjects would not kill Ehrhardt… he had just been championing our rights. No, that is most assuredly not what happened.’ Roe sat up in bed and ran a hand through his hair. Pushing the blank covers off his slim person, he rose to his feet and silently grabbed a dull grey robe off a hook next to his bed and made his way to the door of their dormitory.

Opening the door silently, Roe stepped out into the bright hallway. Squinting against the artificial illumination, his gaze drifted from door to door. All were closed and none let light shine from the crack below. Moreover, silence could be found and encompassed all. The Subject turned and began walking down the hallway all the while maintaining enough of an alert mind as to not be caught unawares by any late night students. Though none were found on his way and he rounded the corner of the hall and entered the lounge room. Upon one of the far couches sat an imposing looking figure garbed in a tight fitting black bathrobe that only reached his knees while seated. The man had hair as black as night and it was swept off his face neatly. In his hand he held a sliver thin piece of technology, and his right hand moved over the surface with trained precision. Dark and stormy eyes looked over the tablet critically and strong black brows knit together in angered thought. Roe did not bother to greet the man, knowing him to be the ever annoyed Leonas Pyktis, the Lithuanian with a pension for brooding. Roe rounded the corner of the nearest sofa and procured a book from the thick armrest thereupon before sitting himself and beginning to read. Leonas continued his ministrations on his tablet and the Subject left the man to do as he pleased, perfectly content to merely enjoy the silence without having to hear the intemperate Lithuanian come to loud and inconvenient anger. For his rudimentary understanding of how one made friends, Roe was at a loss for why someone like Vadim had taken Leonas on as friend; one would expect the Russian man to not care for the ever stormy Leonas. Minutes passed as the two remained silent, though Roe could tell that the Natural borne young man was repeatedly looking over at him, and the former expected the inevitable short conversation that would thus suffice for pleasantries for both Subject and Natural. “Roe,” Leonas’ low voice sounded, and the ever removed Subject unintentionally cut an icy glance up at Leonas, though if the frigidity of his look offended the black haired man, he did not mention it. “Now that a few of Vadim’s friends ran their damn mouths about him being a Subject, the TPW and all the other wannabe Nazis are on his ass like cheap man-whores in Vancouver’s Davie Street,” Leonas trailed off for a moment before regaining his train of thought; “anyways, I know you got them off your ass for the most part by breaking that shithead’s sternum. Do you think that… that might work for Vadim?” Leonas’ gave fell for a moment as his ominous gaze became visibly troubled for a moment before he recomposed himself and returned his attention to Roe.

Roe considered the other’s question with careful thought. Indeed, Leonas was correct in that his actions had kept the TPW away from him, but he had not acted violently out of pure self defense, though the truth of his reasoning for his action evaded even himself for the time being. Vadim was outspoken and sociable, and so it was difficult for the reclusive blond to think of an appropriate means of removing the protestor threat from his life. “That is a difficult question, Leonas,” Roe admitted after a moment, and received a glare from the Lithuanian man who evidently would not be satisfied until he received an answer. “I do not know Vadim well enough to aptly determine the wisest course of action, but the most obvious action is for him to leave the university and go somewhere more accepting. Perhaps Canada?” Once more, however, Roe’s words were met with disapproval. Leonas tossed the tablet in hand onto the couch he sat on and lowered himself to rest his elbows on his knees, staring intently at Roe. The gesture of intimidation being taken had been seen by the Subject many times beforehand by Leonas when regarded with information he did not care to hear or when he desired something a great deal. During his many years at NELO, the quiet blond had learned many things about body language, as he sought to understand how his fellow Subjects acted and to further his personal expertise in people; an activity that he was quite sure had benefited him many times over.

Silence fell heavy over the two of them and the tension in the room was palpable as the two merely stared at one another. Roe, deciding that backing down to Leonas’ unspoken duel of gazes would be to allow the latter to gain conversational leverage over him, did not shrink back out of boredom or frustration and merely sat there. “That doesn’t exactly help, you know.” The latter drawled after a long pause. However, he relented and fell back into a more relaxed seated position, sighing. “If I hear you quote me on this, I’ll toss you out a window, but I just want him to be safe, y’know? He has this idiotic habit of running his damned mouth and now with Ehrhardt supposedly killed by Subjects, he’s in real danger of getting himself in real trouble.” Leonas’ words surprised Roe greatly, for the latter had not expected the former to be so open about his concerns. Roe kept silent as he contemplated the Lithuanian’s words. ‘It is a curious thing to be so worried for another and be yet to hostile,’ Roe mused to himself before regaining his train of thought regarding the hotheaded young man’s predicament. “For god’s sake, I saw some damn kid getting the shit beat out of him for admitting to being a Subject around one of those rallies that were outside our dorm building recently.”

Roe leaned back in his seat for a moment, his weary eyes cast upward as he considered his words carefully. “You cannot be there to protect him at every waking moment, Leonas. You know this.” He spoke stoically, his tone carefully guarded and words chosen with utter precision that he did not normally have to fall back on with Stephan or Vadim. “However, as his friend, as it has been made evident to me, that you have an obligation to see to his wellbeing. It may indeed be in your best interest to have him tone down his exuberant tendencies. You have a duty to see to him not damning himself.” Roe’s words evidently struck a chord of truth in Vadim’s heart, for the man stood with a vulgar curse being uttered in another language before, as he had evidently retrieved his tablet in mid stand, tossed it back to the couch and stormed toward the door before pausing. Roe too stood and faced the other who stood away from him, hands clenching and unclenching. The reserved Subject recognised this kind of anger, he had seen it in the Keepers when Logan had challenged them over their treatment of Nobodies, granted they had been much more violent, whereas Leonas merely stood stiffly. Roe silently wondered if Vadim, being a Subject, had been of Mother Natalie’s thirteenth generation and if such was the case had the two met previously. It was possible, though unlikely. Whereas the earliest generations of Subjects had been relatively few in numbers, later generations had pushed the amount of Subjects on the earth well into the multiple millions. The amount of Subjects on the world was an impressive feat; many, many billions of dollars had been put into NELO to expand its nigh-factory production of people and thanks to them the world had quickly regained the lost population over the course of a true human generation.

“… Thanks, Roe.” Leonas muttered earnestly before swinging the door open and leaving in a flurry of long, hurried strides and as quickly as Roe had entered, the other had left, leaving Roe alone once more. The blond instinctively raised a hand to his mouth, stifling a yawn. Placing the book he had left in the lounge room earlier under his arm, he made his way to the door and exited into the silent hallway, his gaze falling to the solitary window at the far end of the hallway where the tranquil night still endured. The dormitory he was in was shaped in an L and the lounge room was in the corner of the hallways. Turning around and making his way down the other hall, he returned to his room after a short pause and disrobed, leaving the bathrobe on the hook he had taken it from, climbed into bed, and found sleep quickly begin to overtake him.

*~*

The establishment was hazy with smoke and smelt strongly of liquor and Stephan coughed as he entered, the environment surprising him greatly. At the suggestion of Vadim, he himself, Stephan, Emiliyia and Roe had ventured to the bar they just entered. Vadim had pointed out that the business did not charge extra to Subjects or demand ID to prove otherwise that one was not a Subject, and such was ideal to the outrageous Russian. Stephan could see the disapproval plainly on Roe’s ever veiled features as he looked back to the ever silent Subject whose gaze had been settled on various tables where drinks had been left, spilled liquor around them and cigarette butts left in dirty looking ashtrays. The four of comrades made their way to a clean enough looking both and took their seats, Emiliyia next to Roe and Vadim and Stephan across from them. Silence fell over the four as they eyed the menus left on the table from previous clientele. Stephan found that little appealed to him, and silently decided to order merely a steak or something simple, hoping the rather humble looking organisation could hold such. The others shortly followed suit, memorising their orders. Comfortable silence fell over them for a long while as Emiliyia merely looked around, Vadim fiddled with his napkin, Roe watched an autonomous vacuum suck up various crumbs off the ground nearby. However it was Emiliyia who broke the silence; “So, Vadey-poo,” she teased lightly, releasing a small chuckle before returning her attention to Vadim as he looked at her expectantly, a finger still twirling a spoon on the table, making an atrocious amount of noise.

The scraping of spoon table abruptly creased as Roe’s hand came down, a fork held between three fingers. Catching the lip of the spoon, he flicked the fork upward and Vadim’s utensil was launched into the air, wherein Stephan caught it above Roe’s hand, who shot him an incredulous look. Stephan laughed heartily at the look of Roe being denied his compulsive desire to silence the sound. Vadim stared at Roe for a moment, totally confused, before rolling his eyes and joining Stephan in a light laugh before returning his attention to Emiliyia. “Yes, m’dear? I’m afraid that my spoon magic was rudely interrupted by someone,” the boisterous Russian shot a fake glare at Roe who only stared back impassively. However their conversation was subsequently interrupted when a waitress arrived. The woman offered light chitchat and threw a few harmless jokes at how young Vadim looked for his age after checking his I.D. before retreating back to the bar to acquire their drinks and food. “Anyways, you were saying, Em?”

The establishment itself was a nostalgia pub to the extent that it drew aesthetic influence from the eighteen hundreds. Stained glass windows sat at the end of every booth on the far walls, dark oaks and mahogany marked the bars, tables and chairs which gave the pub a distinctly Victorian Era atmosphere. The floors, being thick hardwood, resounded loudly with the footfalls of various patrons and employees. Moreover, stately chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, casting long shadows over the interior of the building. Stephan had heard of the pub from a fellow classmate, for the building and been physically transplanted from London, England and moved to the island of Neo-Palmyra. The expense of doing such had been astronomical, however, being a family of vast wealth, the Laevan Foundation saw it as a necessary price to add culture to the metal-borne island. After the expansion of Palmyra Atoll, the island was deemed entirely sterile; Graham City was quite literally built upon massive steel plates and artificially expansions of the earth itself through deep sea dredging and transplanting to Palmyra. Seeing the island as bereft of humanity and but a machination of science.

Emiliyia hummed and hawed for a long moment, overly exaggerating her thinking process, leaving Vadim staring intently at her, ore sure than ever what she had to say was either incredibly important or benign. “Well, I was wondering –“ her words were cut off as the door to the bar was thrown open with callous disregard for its wellbeing as the stained glass shattered, falling to the floor with a clambering of thick, old glass. Six figures stormed into the pub donning white and gold military uniforms and with armbands with two horrific letters thereupon: ‘MP.’ The head figure whose uniform was adorned with two bars indicating his rank of corporal in the joint Union forces spoke first; “this establishment has been found guilty of infringing upon Section 72 of the Pacific Union Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” The words echoed along the walls of the pub loudly and without regard for the formerly jovial atmosphere. Patrons and employees alike turned to give attention to the loud man, many of whom had baffled looks on their faces.

However it was an unexpected voice that challenged the military police; “there is no Section 72 of the Pacific Union Charter of Rights and Freedoms!” Stephan’s gaze snapped to the speaker; Vadim. Emiliyia went to speak to shush him, though she was stopped by the marching of booted soldiers now before their table. The first man of highest ranking narrowed his gaze on Vadim with fury. The other five took point flanking the man, encompassing any exit. A heavy silence fell over the group as Vadim slowly stood, meeting the soldier’s imposing gaze. Stephan dropped the fork in hand and let it crash to the table’s surface with a noisy clamber and stood himself, his gaze narrowed on the man before them. Emiliyia took a horrified look at Vadim before shakily pressing two hands onto the table and pushed herself to a stand as well. Roe remained seated, brows knit in thought for a long moment. Silence continued onward, the tense atmosphere growing as the last of the four hesitated to stand with them. Stephan watched the Subject with worry, afraid that he might not indeed stand with them and throw them to the side in a move of cold calculation. Second guessing of his once warm opinions of Roe began to become shaken as the latter did not rise. Many times had the Greek surmised that there was hidden morality to the man who had so rarely spoken or given any indication to having psychological humanity. His gaze kept focused on Roe who sat there, hands folded before him, eyes dark and brooding but bright with the piercing intelligence that he had so often used as a weapon to disarm those who tried to accost him during classes. Many times had Stephan believed that he would have to do as Roe had done for him; attack another and bring them to their knees, but every time Roe verbally outmaneuvered them with skill and a passing look of boredom.

Roe stood silently, his gaze distant as he looked to the central corporal. Stephan felt hope burst into chest as he saw the enigmatic friend so dear to him decide to do the right stance, if not perhaps the wise act. He stood silent, his form oddly loose and relaxed for a scarce moment before he folded his arms behind his back and spoke. “Life, liberty, and fraternity. They were the three pillars of the French Revolution so long ago. The Union’s founders said that it was that fraternity, that brotherhood, that was most important. That the Union was the embodiment of the global family. That we stood together. Solidarity. Regardless of differences. Yes, I have read your seventy-second section which says that, to have solidarity, you must deny the Subjects’ right to life. You violate your pillars. You violate your cause!” Roe’s voice echoed with determination never heard from the emotionless bulwark. A few muffled gasps could be heard from around the dimly lit establishment as the weight of his words set in with an ominous intensity. Stephan went to bar Roe’s passage as the other tried to hold Roe back from stepping forward, though Roe with an inhumane speed and stood eye to eye with the corporal whose subordinates had drawn automatic rifles trained at Roe. Stephan felt worry explode into his mind and he lurched forward as he saw the weapons raise. “Will you fire? You do not even know if I am a Subject or not.” He stepped forward, the corporal’s handgun pressing into his chest.

The corporal looked as though he was about to call for Roe to be shot when a the man, after a rather resounding knocking sound, slumped forward and the brazen Subject sidestepped, allowing the corporal to crash into the ground, unconscious. Behind him stood Leonas adorned in a full length black coat, eyes ablaze with unfathomable fury. The five other soldiers turned on him as he looked to Vadim, “Vade, I’m sorry. But I won’t let them take away your freedom.” Vadim let forth a strangled cry as he bit back his words, a rare occasion in of itself. One of the soldiers now turned toward Leonas uttered a few words that seemed to be lost to Stephan’s ears in the noise following. A single gunshot rang out and Leonas stumbled backward, clutching his chest. The five soldiers stepped back expectantly and Leonas looked to Roe, “Hey… Roe… you gave some good… advice…” The fiery tempered man fell to his knees, his face contorted with pain. Vadim lunged himself forward and caught Leonas as he fell, and the latter smiled a rarely seen smile, “Hey… Vade… be free, alright?” With that, Leonas Pyktis crumpled forward in the arms of Vadim, blood oozing from his midsection and through the gaps in Vadim’s hands. The soldier who had shot Leonas looked to his gun with a look of shock before with trembling hands removed the tan leather strap over his shoulder and tossed the weapon to the ground.

“I-I’m sorry…!” The man said, his dark skin drawn in unabashed horror. Vadim ignored him completely as he looked to the still corpse of Leonas who continued to pool blood. The man who had shot him, however, looked catatonic with shock and bolted off toward the door and out of view. Vadim’s brow was knit in fury at the man, silently wishing him nothing but terrible things. He cradled the head of his fallen friend, his own frame hunched over the body, shuddering slightly. Stephan watched the scene in frozen horror; his friend being shot, the soldier fleeing, and Vadim just sitting there. Stephan fell to his knees after he composed himself, placing a hand on Vadim’s shoulder who slowly laid the body of Leonas on the ground and closed his eyes before beginning to shudder and tremble. The horrified Greek noticed small tears trickling down the Russian’s face. Vadim’s hands balled into fists on his knees, much akin to a child mid-tantrum, but with a horrible gravity and reality to the situation. After a moment of sitting there silently and shaking with quieted sobs, upon a light squeeze of his shoulder by Stephan, bloodshot eyes met Stephan’s aquamarine gaze that was riddled with sadness, but the great hearted Greek offered Vadim a small smile. Vadim awkwardly lurched to his side and embraced Stephan tightly, and the latter returned the embrace with one of his own. The broken Russian sat there sobbing into Stephan’s shirt and an eerie silence fell over the establishment as the other soldiers, upon a few threatening words to any who would support terrorists, the Subjects, would be disciplined equally to Leonas who now lay dead on the floor. Other patrons at the bar made their way over, looking at the grizzly scene with unveiled horror and dismay, many turning away with short gasps at seeing a man in the prime of his life gunned down and laying in a pool of his own blood. Vadim continued to sob violently, oblivious to the growing crowd and clutched at Stephan’s shirt.

The heartbroken Russian, half crumpled onto his friend, spoke with a hoarse and sundered voice, “T-they shot him…!” He shook his head side to side, “they killed him!” Vadim released his iron grasp of Stephan for a moment, looking to Leonas’ still body, beginning to speak to him, “you didn’t even want to go university… you wanted to go work in the wind farms in Siberia. But I made you… I got you killed…” Bloodshot and wet with tears, Vadim gaze was horrified as he pressed his head into Leonas’ still chest, “I got you killed, Leo! I’m so sorry!” He wailed. Stephan’s gaze snapped to the right as he heard a muffled sob; Emiliyia stood there, her fair face red with misery and eyes puffy with tears, and a sleeved arm covered her lower face, tears streaming down. “I should’ve…” Vadim trailed off, his words choked off as his tears ceased falling, “… It should have been me.” Though it was another individual, one no one expected to intervene, who fell to his knees next to Vadim. Roe’s intense gaze settled on Vadim who spared him a miserable look and the former grasped the latter by the shoulders, hauling him to a seated position to meet his gaze. Vadim resisted weakly for a moment before letting his gaze fall.

“No.” Roe’s voice was stern and brought a few gazes to settle on him, “It should not have been you.” Stephan’s gaze jerked to Roe once more, despairing that the reclusive man’s words might cause more harm than good. Though, if he had taken offense, Vadim did not show such as he merely stared at Roe hopelessly. “Vadim, Leonas and I spoke early this morning. He asked me how I protected myself, so that he might do that for you. He did what he did to protect you. You cannot allow his sacrifice to be vain.” Roe’s words were stern and the deep meaning of them seemed to physically push Vadim, who placed a hand behind his back on the ground, and steadied himself. Stephan took this as a positive note and pushed himself to a stand, Roe following. Extending a hand, the young Greek offered Vadim a hand, silently imploring any unknown power to give Vadim the strength to carry forward. Vadim looked to Roe for a moment, the silent blond nodded, and the ever composing Vadim took the hand and stood, a few steading breaths accompanying his rise.

*~*

The night was still outside and the silence continued on inside the small home. Sonya’s auburn hair was held in a loose ponytail that fell over her chest and waved throughout the bound hair. The silence was permeated with the occasional clack of utensils on flatware. To her right was her younger brother whose dark blond hair was left messy and without organisation, though the boy seemed oblivious to her staring and merely continued to eat the rapidly cooling plates of grey slabs of fish. Her gaze flickered to her father, a weathered looking man garbed in a high collared jacket. He was whip thin and aged, grey hair thin on his pale scalp. The man’s grey eyes flickered upward, meeting her own for but a moment, before returning to her food. Glancing to her mother, a woman of frayed, greying red hair, she scowled ever so slightly. The woman toyed with her food, pushing around the cold fish back and forth. Sonya knew that she was not hungry, she never did eat often; it was a side effect of a disease that had splintered from the Barren. The auburn haired Russian woman continued eating quietly, and though there was no conversation in the room, there was no tension either. Their family had long since learned that, when one of them had something to say, they would say it. Sonya continued her fillet of grey fish, finding it to be over-salted and still having too many bones in it, and thus the young woman made a mental note to cook some caribou the next day to get the taste of her father’s putrid cooking out of her mind. Though it was that very man who finished first and with the scraping of the seat he was on against the worn, uneven tiles below. The thin man collected his napkin and utensils, placed them on the now empty plate, and made his way over to the lime green cabinets and white countertop kitchen wherein, after lowering his dishes into the sink, he turned the knob on an old radio and the news began to play as he washed his dishes.

Sonya idly listened to the news from Moscow; ‘As of this fiscal quarter, the unemployment rate has dropped to a ten year record low of 15%. Economists are heralding the actions of the Prime Minister and President of Russia for their bold actions against the economic turmoil. Others point to the now late President Ehrhardt of the Pacific Union; that it was thanks to greater trade that Russia has been able to recover.’ The announcer’s words abruptly stopped at such for Sonya whose brow furrowed in thought at the mention of Ehrhardt being a late president. Finishing her own meal, she brought her collected utensils, napkin and flatware to the sink and began to clean them off in the basin of cool, soapy water. With an elbow, she turned the tuning dial to another station, and received a grunt from her father who was now making his way to the drab little living room to watch TV. Continuing to clean the scaly residue of the fish’s skin off, the new radio host was found to be in mid-sentence about the death of Ehrhardt; ‘President William Ehrhardt was found dead in his office by government officials with a man holding a still hot gun who screamed ‘Subjects now and forever’ before killing a presidential guard and himself. Critics of the transnational government have implicated the man who found Ehrhardt dead, the representative from America, Doran Laevan. Laevan’s office has released an official statement about the occurrence wherein Laevan is quoted saying ‘William was my dearest friend and I mourn as deeply as his family. To suggest I have killed him is an insult to the man and the great things he has done.’ More details on the story on the morning report where we’ll go live from the funeral of President William Ehrhardt.’

Sonya practically laughed at the absurdity of it all, and with a quick string of curses in Russian, she spoke, “It’s obvious Laevan wasted Ehrhardt. Serves those weak-willed shits in California for trying to control the world.” Spoken in Russian, her words brought the attention of her mother who merely looked at her as Sonya dried her hands off with a stained towel. The elder woman frowned for a moment before she herself stood, a half serving of fish left uneaten. Merely placing it in a badly dented fridge, the product of Sonya’s brother’s antics a few years ago, she left the room in the direction of her bedroom. Her younger brother continued to eat, oblivious to all that was going on around him. Ivan Volkov, named after the great Tsar of centuries past, was in all ways an archetypical western Russian boy. At such a time he was an age of fifteen, no more than a young teenager, but he had a strong jaw, piercing grey eyes and dirty blond hair left in a messy part, long since made disorganised by a hat he would often wear outside. Sonya took a seat at the table once more, now next to her brother on the left, who merely looked at her critically for a moment before returning to his food. “You’re going to be atrociously fat if you keep this up, you know,” her words beguiled a jovial nature, though such was difficult for the ever serious young woman to maintain for an extended period of time. Ivan merely elbowed her, pretending to having done so whilst cutting a segment of fish off before greedily eating the bite.

“If I’m going to be fat, you’ll be a whale.” Ivan spoke with a mouthful of fish, an unsightly display of spray of debris being thrown outward. Sonya scowled, smacking the boy upside the head, “Hit me again and I’m dumping snow in your sheets again,” he threatened, a devious little smirk coming to bear. The elder sister groaned, exasperated, “But, on the topic of the president… presidents, I guess… Who cares, Sonya? We couldn’t be more secluded from the world’s problems. Sure, the Barren hit here like it did everywhere else for a time, but it left and we’re all the better for it. Why even bother caring?” His words struck a pang of truth in Sonya’s mind. Her gaze drifted into the living room where she looked out into the dark outside world through the cracked pane of glass. Outside one would see the occasional passerby, but other than that, the streets of Polyarny were almost always deserted in such a neighbourhood. The kitchen itself was testament to the poor living standards they endured; old, reused countertops and counters, tile that dipped and rose from the ground settling on a poorly laid foundation, walls streaked with discolouration from melting snow or summer rains leaking in, a roof more discoloured than coloured. Though they were the lucky ones, they had a home to call their own. Many others lived within the abandoned military factories along the fjord’s banks. Most would fish and bring enough back to feed their family, but ever since the amalgamation of the Union, drug laundering merchants had frequented the areas, giving the poorest of the poor a means of escaping their squalid, depressing lives for a moment of reprieve. Sonya hated the drug selling curs more than anything; they had ruined a workforce for instead of them working and revitalising the Oblast, they merely sat around, letting their families die or simply run off to more hospitable lands to the south where the futuristic cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg stood like shining beacons of hope. “In the end, I’ll become a fisherman, you’ll keep hunting, and life will go on. Boring and plain.” Ivan spoke again, a tone of great resignation. The boy had often fantasised of becoming rich and famous and bringing his family away from the Oblast. But, after hearing of such, there ever weary mother had condemned the then seven year old Ivan for such wild thinking, proclaiming that their futures were in Polyarny and that to escape such was childish ambition that would see him dead in a ditch on the side of the road.

Sonya nor Ivan had spoken to their ever glib mother for a week afterward, Ivan too emotional and depressed to form a coherent sentence to speak to his mother and Sonya too angry at the bitter woman for crushing a little boy’s dreams. Though as much as she loathed the woman for being so callous, the auburn haired young woman knew that her mother’s words were true; there was no escaping from the squalid living death that was life in the Russian tundra. Scraping a life off meager wildlife and fisheries, little in the form of luxuries could be afforded, and many houses and buildings dated back to the Soviet era, marking them as well over a century old, and many nearing two centuries. “I don’t believe that at all. I will leave this shithole, and if you want and aren’t being a pain that day, you can come too.” She looked to her sibling, though once more found him chewing with his mother closed. Scowling, she pressed a hand on the bottom of his jaw and smacked it upward, closing his mouth, “but if you don’t learn how to eat properly, I’ll leave you here.” She said, her voice deadly serious. Ivan only rolled his eyes, unable to do much more with his mouth forcibly closed. Releasing her grip from his jaw, Ivan continued to eat, though with his mouth closed and thus much more quietly. Sonya knew that, were she to find any way to escape the town, she would have to have something set up. If she stayed, she ran the risk of being contracted for the army and such a risk was much higher for Ivan, since the recruiting officials in Murmansk Oblast remained incredibly sexist, believing men to be superior soldiers. She loathed them for that, knowing her way around a gun much better than her brother and moreover knew that Ivan would assuredly see himself shipped off to Siberia for running his mouth at a superior. Many times had she had to come to his school to pick him up after he told off a teacher.

A resounding knock at the front door caused her to startle for a split second, before she rose, only to find her father answer the door. The whip thin man slowly turned the loose knob of the door and swung it open. Her view was obscured, but by her father’s tone, she knew the visitor to be of ill intent. Keeping Ivan at the table, she made her way to the entrance to the living room whereupon she saw a most horrid sight. Standing at the door was indeed a military recruiter, but they did not don the standard dark green uniform of the Russian soldiering class, but instead the pristine white and gold of the Pacific Union. The man looked to be of Korean descent, his black hair greyed and pulled back under a rounded white kepi, and he had a distinctly regretful look in his eyes as he spoke, his gaze flickering to Sonya for a moment, before speaking in poor Russian. “My name is Staff Sergeant Minjun Ko of the Pacific Union joint military forces based in Murmansk City. Recent changes to the Union Charter have mandated that the Union Military is to actively recruit in an effort to reduce the terrorist attacks in all member nations. I have come for a…” The Staff Sergeant trailed off as he looked down to his clipboard, “Ah, yes. I am here for Sonya Volkov.”

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