Russian Supremacy

Chapter 1

Stepan walked into the room with a very sleepy and sullen face. It was a dark room with little necessities other than a bed and a desk. That is unless you counted the flickering light on the ceiling. It was very old and made out of halogen instead of the newer falogen. The walls were painted red and would absorb heat in the summer and release heat during the winter. Vlad waited patiently.
“Well, so why are you here?” asked Vlad with a quizzical look on his face. His voice was low and deep. He also smelled of expensive French cologne. It smelled exotic. Vlad’s face showed great agitation, the veins on his neck throbbed heavily. Stepan noticed the black cape as well, rather unusual attire for him. Stepan took a moment to scan Vlad’s face.

Stepan sighed deeply and began to talk. There was no need to talk loudly as they were in Vlads sound-proof bedroom.” Just because you are rich and have a sum of power, doesn’t mean you could decide to gamble people’s lives for a plan you are not sure of working!”

Vlad’s veins started to pulse harder as he took smaller and quicker breaths. “Stepan, don’t you understand that if this plan works we can take our former glory of the USSR, I haven’t got the time to explain too much, just go to sleep already!”

Vlad walked up to Stepan so close, that he could see fear in his eyes. He did not understand why Stepan feared him; they were good friends. The flickering light bounced off Vlad’s blond hair. “ No Vlad, I can’t stay by while you send soldiers to their doom, for the plan won’t work, I know that very well, as you do!” Vlad could not understand why Stepan would suddenly abandon this plan, for it had been he, who edited it and contributed ideas. Vlad did not quite understand what was going on but he intended to find out.

Vlad started to get a little frightened at Stepan for he looked very chilled now, it was as he was terror-stricken of him for the plans he made. “Stepan everything will be alright, maybe some will die, but we’re soldiers we die to serve our country, our people!”
“No! Yelled Stepan, he looked positively wretched. His eyes were red and his face had a 6’o clock shadow. Vlad was starting to lose his nerve with his eerie friend.

“The plan is fine Stepan! Follow it or we shall accuse you of being a traitor to the army, to the people and to all of Russia!” Vlad screamed.

Suddenly Vlad noticed Stepan’s hand creeping toward his brown robe. Stepan was trying to get his weapon. Vlad quickly responded with a flick of his wrist and revealed an “electrichney” it literally meant electric in Russian. A sleek black rod had strips of metal that when contacted with flesh would electrify the target. Stepan gave out a heartily laugh which made Vlad’s hair rise. What was wrong with Stepan? Vlad wondered “Ah, so I see you are aware of my intentions against you.” Said Stepan. Stepan then also took out his “electrichney”.

Stepan screamed and lunged at Vlad with an overhead strike. Vlad parried with his own blade. Vlad was not fully prepared for the hit and although he was not physically hurt, emotionally he was. Stepan noticed this and took advantage of this moment to thrust the sword into Vlad. The flesh that contacted with the blade caused the electricity to activate.

Vlad groaned in agony as he was burned from the inside out. That was because instead of burning the skin the “electrichney” stuck to the pores of the target. When that was accomplished, it would send volts of electricity to the target. But there was also another mode in which it would slice through objects. This mode was more leaned towards fencing and blocking. Whereas the other was more for stunning or incapitating.

Suddenly Stepan fell to the floor. The electricity stopped shocking Vlad. Both Vlad and Stephan gazed up. Above them towered a 5ft 7” woman. She wore a black leotard and her figure matched one of a slim ballerina. She was as Vlad and Stephan would later know, German. She had wavy blond hair and you can obviously see it been highlighted recently. Her eyes were cold and she had no pupils. Stephan wondered whether she was blind or if she had gotten her pupils purposely removed.
That was a common thing to do these days. Her jaw was set in a determined fashion and her head held high.

She glared at Stepan. Before she could say anything though, Vlad had lunged for Stephan. Vlad’s eyes were blank and he was just attacking and blocking. It was no strain for him to block Stephan’s attacks. He was using all his muscle power. This would lead to permanent affects later but he did not care. His sole option in life was to kill Stephan now. Normally an average person used 20 percent of his muscles in full strength.
You cannot exceed that because the brain stops you. If you went all the way to 100 percent you would leave permanent muscle damage and would gradually make the muscles dissipate. However, Vlad had somehow overridden the brain with his rage. Therefore, he was using 100 % of his muscles.

Suddenly while they were fighting, the woman interfered. She gripped Stephan’s and Vlad’s throats and hissed. “Stop fighting, there are much more important matters to be taken care of.”

Both men jumped up at the sound of the woman’s voice. She stared at them through bloodshot eyes. Stepans glaring eyes darted from the woman to Vlad, finding a way he could attack Vlad without him noticing. “The plan most go on without hesitation, if you don’t we shall be overwhelmed and defeated by the British Army!” Vlad saw her eyes soften. He noticed Stepan was suddenly acting too excessively secretive to Vlad’s liking.

Suddenly Stepan’s, face twisted into a contorted, raging expression. “Get, down!” yelled Vlad. Stepan upholstered his Bulldog V5.6 Pistol and blasted a .35mm laser round through the woman’s stomach. The woman yelped before letting out a groan and falling dead to the ground. “No!” yelled Vlad, his face, a raging storm. He took out his electrichney and stuck his sword through Stepan’s chest so that it went cleanly through. The blood did not fall but just was there. It was on the blade and in the wound. But all Vlad could see was the carnage around him….











Chapter 2

Vlad suddenly woke up. He had a tight pain in his stomach. It was as if a knot was wrapped all around his stomach. He could barley breath. On his face were beads of sweat. He was just about to go back to sleep when he remembered his dream. His eyes paled and he screamed out in horror. He tried convincing himself that it was just a dream. Nothing more. However, he knew that was not true. Last time he had one of these type of dreams it was about his father dying. His father died 2 weeks later and Vlad was left an orphan at the age of 15. He was sent from relative to relative. Nobody wanted to have Vlad. That was until Stepan stepped in. He adopted Vlad and was like a father to him. Stepan was now 37 years old. Vlad was 24. There was a 13-year difference between them but never less, they were the best of friends. Stepan also stepped in the role of father for Vlad.

However, a few years ago that had all changed. Now they were not as close as they were after they joined the army. They were too tired from the numerous battles, and watching their brethren die in combat. As well as not having, time to talk amongst them too often. Vlad sometimes wondered why they even joined the army. Stepan would always scowl at him and say,” We are here to serve our country; you can leave if you wish Vlad, but I must stay!” After a while Vlad had grown to understand what this all had meant. After hearing reports from people about their army’s victory, he understood that his sacrifices meant the well-being of his people.
He got out of bed and got himself dressed in his Colonel Uniform. He got on the elevated platform, which took him down into the Main Corridor. As he was passing into the shower room, he noticed Private Welkin.
“Hey Peter,” Vlad called, “How are things?”
Private Welkin noticed Vlad and cried out, “What’s up, Vladimir?”
“Well, I had...err never mind...,” said Vlad.
“Oh...okay sir,” replied Private Welkin. The private’s curiosity was aroused by Vlads secrecy. However, he quickly forgot it. Private Welkin waved a goodbye to Vlad and marched out of the room.
After he completed his shower, robot servants handed his clothes to him. He then walked out into the kitchen and there placed his order on a using a mindcast. A mindcast translates electricity that forms thoughts and projects them.
The mind cast was about the size of a peanut. It is implanted into the brain through a surgical procedure. It was expensive but nowadays over 7/8ths of the population had them. It was almost an essential to life. It could send mail; explore a wealth of information, order things and many more. The people that joined the military needed to get another implant; a modification. It includes military based features such as weapon info, the statistics of nearby objects (their condition, pulse, any wounds, heart rate and so on).
After the quick breakfast Vlad thought about the peculiar dream, he had last night.
He hoped it was not true but knew that it would not come as a surprise to him that the dreams foretelling would be true. He shivered to think of him killing Stepan. True they were not as close as they were in their younger days. But what would make Stepan so provoked enough to try to kill Vlad. In addition, who was the woman? He had never seen her before in his life. That fact rested on him for a while. For if, he never saw anyone even close to looking to that woman that would have to conclude that this dream was true. But Vlad debated amongst himself that his imagination could have conjured up her. He decided not to
think about that subject again. He would call Stepan today and see if anything was wrong.
Vlad also made a self-note to sleep lightly in case Stepan came while he was sleeping and decided to kill him sleeping. Vlad realized his paranoia and laughed.
Suddenly he screamed out to no one in particular, “Stepan you will not kill me!”

Suddenly, the alarms blared and a robotic, female voice called out, “All GI personnel please report to the front bunkers, Repeat, please report to the front bunkers.” Vlad cursed under his breath as he ran toward the entrance of the compound. He ran past Stepan’s room, but it was too dark for him to see inside it. As he made his way to the entrance he saw civilians rushing toward the underground bunkers, this must be pretty serious. As soon as he got outside a barrage of bullets flew at him. A few hit him in his left arm and one in his right leg, but he hid under the bunkers where he saw Stepan and a few other familiar Privates.

“Okay guys, before we go on with the plan we made yesterday, we must defend ourselves, right now, so our battle plan is, we use our advantages in advance artillery, group one will flank their soldiers from the right and group two will flank them from the left to pack them into a tight ball, and we must hold that position until we can get a clear targeting on our CPLPT and blast them right there!” said Stepan.

“Alright, Group one will consist of Welkin, Ivanovich, and Petrov …” said Stepan. That was all Vlad could notice because he couldn’t wait to see which group he would join. “…, Vlad, and I will also be in group two.” Vlad was curious why Stepan had put him in the same group as himself, he usually wouldn’t do this, but his curiosity quickly dissipated as he heard gunshots and cries of his fellow brothers in arms.

Vlad opened his backpack. It was compact but when you pressed a button all the matter grew 20 x. inside was the necessities .For example his tube full of uranium based liquid. It was the ammunition for his rifle. This was also in his bag. The rifle was a new brand, a DX 23 Aborigine. It was named after the natives of Australia. The rifle was sleek and cold. It was black and no part of it revealed it to be anything else but a weapon used to kill.
There was also a few other things in the bag, such as a picture of his daughter Anna. It was the only thing that he had that someone could see he was humane. Vlad kissed the picture every day before sleeping and it was his most precious item. He also called his daughter every day. He was proud of Anna.
There was one little problem thought in Vlads daughter. She no longer existed. She had died 2 years ago. Yet Vlad still called her every single day. Perhaps it was in hope she would one-day talk to him. Or it might have been that he had merely gone mad.

Vlad took out his DX 23 Aborigine and inserted the uranium cartridges. He carefully leaned his head out of the corner, his gun pointing forward.
He saw a small man hunched forward.
The man was obviously scanning the area for any enemies. Vlad smiled, the man had not seen him.
He lined up the crosshair on his gun to the man’s heart and was just about to shoot when…
He hesitated, what if the man had a family.
He was young; He also probably had a mother and friends. Vlad brushed it aside and thought, its either I kill him or he kills me. Finally realigning his rifles crosshairs, he shot the man in the chest with shaky hands.

He felt horrible about what he had done, but then he remembered the plan. He stuffed the rifle back into the pack. Shouldering his heavy SMG, he hurried to the place where Stepan had instructed him to surround the British army. He encountered few threats and eliminated all of them, his heart growing heavier after each death. He then saw that the Russian army was driving the British into the circle. A voice, filled with static, spoke over the COM link “Okay guys, I’m getting ready to target the bastards on the CPLPT!” Vlad grinned; they would win this battle for sure.

He hurried down the steep hill and would return to his comrades. He saw the panicky ball of British men being forced into the center. Then he heard a gigantic crash-like sound. He looked up into the sky shielding his eyes from the morning sun, to see a giant laser charge fly through the sky. Russian forces looked up in panic, dropped their weapons and ran for their lives. It was already too late for the British to run, the laser charge landed on the ground, completely disintegrating most of the British forces, some of them missing limbs, and others in ashes. Only a few of the British soldiers remained alive. Vlad could hear a glorious cheer far away, as the British forces scrambled and ran up on the hill back to their command post.

He returned to the command center for more briefing. But something was wrong; he didn’t see Stepan anywhere. He grimaced. Perhaps his old friend Stepan had been injured even killed. Suddenly he felt a hand press on his shoulder. He twirled around knocking the person down. He was lucky he had done so as the person was just about to fire a burst of rifle rounds into his skull. The person was dressed in a black cloth. His face was shielded by a black veil.
“Who are you! “, demanded Vlad. The man hesitated.” I am as you stupid Russians say, a killer, a murderer, an assassin.” the man spoke in a nervous tone. “And now it is your time to meet Death! “ The man jumped up. “You were a bad seedling on earth, always succeeding in your ways but that is no more. This is your time to be reaped, by the Grim Reaper himself! “Vlad was getting annoyed of this assassin. “I will kill yo– “. The assassins “speech” was suddenly interrupted by Vlad and his trusty DX 23 Aborigine.
Vlad shot him in the head two times. Also for extra measure or maybe just for spite Vlad kicked the man in the groin. The man’s face was a mix of terror and agony. Vlad had fractured the man’s hipbone. Had the man been dead he would have felt no pain.
One minor problem though, the man was not dead…yet. He would die in a few seconds though. Vlad turned away from the half-dead man and thought clearly on how this assassin could have gotten into the center, he must have ties to someone else that clearly was a traitor. He started walking around the corner; meanwhile the assassin had a few seconds of life left. He took out his gun and pointed it shakily at Vlad’s head. He pulled the trigger but Vlad turned around the corner right when the blast hit the wall. “Damn,” said the diving assassin, and died.


He came back to the briefing room where all the soldiers sat in a big circle around another high commanding officer, instead of Stepan, thought Vlad. They all discussed tactics, when the session was over they were dismissed. Vlad stayed behind to talk to the commander. “Sir, do you know what happened to Stepan?” asked Vlad.

The commander replied, “Vlad, I’m sorry, Stepan was captured by the enemy, he didn’t have any energy to run or fight back.” Vlad felt angry with those British soldiers, and wanted to get Vlad free even if it was the last thing he ever did.















Chapter 3

Vlad had enough soldiers for an infiltration mission. He took his squad to the enemy command center at night. A few hours later Vlad and his squad were about 400 yards away from the command center. The plan was that they would rush the command center. Vlad and Gagarin would plant Detonation bombs along the walls of the command center. They were a low blast power. But it would be enough of an explosion to break the steel walls of the command center.

Petrovs job was to press the switch that activated the bombs and then help Vlad and the others rescue Stephan. Ivanovs job was to try to heal anybody injured and to kill the patrolling guards. Vlad got all the squad members together and said, “Remember this is a hit and run rescue. Injure or kill anybody you see but do not distract yourself from the task of rescuing Stepan. Now I know since this is a big building we probably won’t find Stepan right away.”

Vlad gestured at the seven stories Command Center. “But don’t worry today the Command Center is loosely guarded, most of them are at the Election Booths all over the U.K. Also by the way if you manage to take a British hostage no matter what don’t look at their teeth,” The squad members laughed nervously. That was a routine joke with Vlad. However, Vlad himself didn’t have a perfect set of teeth either; some of his teeth were knocked out from various brawls.

They used a plasma whip to secure themselves on the roof, because the plasma whip can turn sticky, and they scaled the walls and got on the roof. His technician got out a laser cutter, which cut a hole in the roof, and everyone else hoisted the circle of steel-reinforced granite with their whips. Then he assigned special tasks to each one of the squad members, which were Petrov, the technician, Ivanov, the medic, Gagarin, the spec-ops spy expert, and Vlad the Leader. They proceeded to lower themselves down onto the floor checking for Security Lasers. They turned on their flashlights and made their way down the corridor.

They spotted a few guards keeping sentry outside of room. The squad guessed that the room was where Stepan was being held captive. Ivanov loaded his special med gun to sustain to darts filled with a drug. He carefully aimed them at their arms and in a few minutes, the guards were sound asleep. Petrov carefully picked the lock, gained entry into the room, and went through. The team saw this as the room was unguarded, but they were wrong. They walked in and there were a group of guards standing with their guns pointed at them as well as Petrov who was pointing their gun at them. Vlad swore under his breath because he realized Petrov had sold them out. The good news was that they reached the room where Stepan was held, but they had no way of getting out of there alive. Petrov and his British friends tied up Vlad and his remaining squad next to the unconscious Stepan. Petrov sneered at them with his mouse-like smile and went into another room, probably to tell his leader what he accomplished, thought Vlad.

Suddenly Vlad came up with a brilliant idea. He had known that Gagarin was a novice at assassination, which was good; he had a cloaking device that could get them out of this nasty situation. He used his Mindcast to broadcast the team to try it is best to get Gagarin free and then everything would be great, to everyone except Petrov and his British friends. Gagarin was phased a laser knife to his hands from Vlad, as well as a haste vaccine from Ivanov. The laser knife was to untie Gagarin as well as kill the guards and the haste vaccine made Gagarin twice as fast so Petrov would not hear the kill and the guards would not be able to injure him while he killed them.

Gagarin quickly untied his ropes, but held unto them with one of his hands so that it looked like he was still tied up and with his free hand he injected the vaccine. After a few more seconds, the vaccine started to affect Gagarin and he let go of his ropes, jumped into the guard’s back, and started stabbing his neck. Gagarin seemed like a blur and his hand seemed an even messier tornado. Before the other guard could even help his companion Gagarin back-flipped unto the other guard’s back and did the same thing as the first. After that, Gagarin untied Vlad. Then they exited the same way as the last. Then they heard an alarm go off in the building.









The squad glanced at each other and all of them knew what they had to do.
They had gone over the plan repeatedly. A few people would go with Vlad to rescue Stephen. The others would flush out the remaining enemies. “Ok men split up! “, screamed Vlad. He pointed at Gagarin, Ivanov, and a few other Russian soldats.
“You men go with me.” “You kill or capture any of the remaining opposition.” Vlad told the remaining soldiers. They nodded and walked away towards a different direction.

Vlad and his squad searched door after door of the building. At first, the squad was excited and morale was high. Now after opening dozens of doors to find nothing they were beginning to get bored and aggravated. They whispered to each other. “Vlads just pulling us in circles, we aren’t finding anything. I bet he’s one of them, probably a traitor,” whispered one solider to another. Vlad heard all of this but he ignored it, it was better to do nothing then to injure or kill the solider. For if, he injured the solider they would have even bigger suspicions of him. Anyway, what did him, a Colonel, care if some private thought he was a backstabber.

But all of a sudden, the soldier’s faces lit up in glee. They were standing, staring into a room. Vlad walked in to inspect the surprise for himself. Tied up and hanged was Stephan, he wasn’t in good condition but at least he was alive. He had a steady but low pulse.
But his breathing was normal. Vlad was disgusted though.
“Look what they done to him hanged him and beated him like a slave. They whipped him and probably electrified him looking at his burns. But here his is alive. Now that is the fight this glorious man has!”
Some of the solders cheered and some of them stared at Vlad as if he was crazy.

Vlad and the squad set to work to untie Stephan. He was wrapped in a bag and tied with some sort of plasma rope. In a couple of minutes, they had him free. Stephan was still unconscious though. They picked Stephan up to a stretcher and left him there with an escort.
“We must find the others, one of you stay with Stepan“, said Vlad said. One soldier volunteered. They nodded and followed Vlad. After walking a few minutes, they came upon a grim sight. A man was on the floor sitting. His head was in such a position you could not see his face. There was numerous cuts and burns on the man’s entire body. Vlad poked the man in order to wake him up. However, he was already too far away to be waked up by anyone. When Vlad had poked the man, the man’s head had fallen off. But it was now visible who the man was. It was one of the men that were sent to kill the remaining enemies. A few of the soldiers retched at the sight of the gore and one blessed himself.

Vlad then understood that there was no easy way out of this wretched place. He took a moment to sweep the environment with his eyes. He then ordered his squad to put on their Night-Vision Goggles, and a few others to get Stepan down as well. His Mindcast, linked with his goggles, showed no trap in the area. Then he must have been shot down, thought Vlad. Vlad noticed, during his sweep, a long tunnel that was now colored green. He ordered a few men to guard that tunnel. “Alright men, as soon as we get Stepan down and healed, we are going to go back the way we-“said Vlad before he was interrupted by a giant crash from the doorway into the room, which clearly meant the door…caved in. Vlad gave a nervous laugh, “Okay then, we’ll have to go through that tunnel, and the summary for this situation, is that basically…this sucks.”

“Ill inject everyone with a stim pack, which will enable us to run twice our normal speed,” said Ivanov grimly. The soldiers thanked Ivanov and started warming up for the, possibly long, run ahead of them. Gagarin tried to make as much cloaking devices as possible soldiers, only about forty-five percent of the soldiers got a hold of such things. They all ate a piece of bread that most of the soldiers saved from other days. “Okay guys, everyone who has a cloak, activate it and run and those who don’t, will be given a double dose of Stim pack so everyone has a fair percent of living.” Said Vlad. Stepan would be under a cloak with Gagarin, Vlad wanted to lead those who did not have cloaking devices.

Vlad ran into the dark, and winding tunnel in which they ran for ten whole minutes, they got to what seemed the end, since light was pouring out and casting shadows on the weary group of soldiers. As soon as Vlad reached the entrance and was able to see clearly. Whatever killed the soldier was obviously gone, because as they walked out they could see no sign of any enemies and the command center of the British troops was about a mile, and maybe a little more away. He scanned the sky and it was about seventeen, twenty-four, he could tell because he could see that the sun was only starting to rise. Since this mission was really a secret to everyone else besides who came with him, they had to be at the base before eighteen, forty-five, the time when soldiers awoke. But that would be no problem, and he was sure one of the members in his team knew how to turn off cameras without being seen. Vlad was in good spirits when they were walking back with Stepan being supported on his shoulders.

But the night had left many questions he had left unsolved. What information do the British now know about us? What are the British planning to do next? And the strangest question of all, what had happened to the person who had died right next to Stepan. It was strangest because nothing had happened to them.

He wondered how he would explain how he found to the Commanding Officer.
Vlads cheerful face became grim at the thought of the Commanding Officers reaction.
Well at least we rescued Stephan, that is all that matters, He thought. After a few more minutes of walking towards the command center, they were finally there. In addition, it was only 18:20. Vlad nodded at the solider supposed to deactivate the camera. The solider nodded back. The solider put on his cloaking device and drank another dose of his stim pack. He put on his gloves so in case anybody checked for fingerprints on the camera he would not be caught. In a matter of minutes, the cameras were offline. The soldiers proceeded into the hallway and then into the dorms. When all of the soldiers were in their dorms the solider put the cameras back online, being careful of the cameras not seeing him.
If they saw him, their auto turret system would not activate because he had his mindcast Army certificate, which the cameras auto turret would recognize him as a Russian soldier

Vlad carried Stepan back to his room. He could not deposit him in the infirmary because questions would be asked. Anyway, he needed to answer his curiosity…
He opened his mindcast interface. There were many options such as statistics of various body parts. Such as his hand. If he selected it, there would show stats of his hand. For example, the muscles that are active, if it is injured or if its nerves are damaged. He could also select his hand and then select an object. It would tell him the amount of force to use with the hand if he wanted to stun the object or if he wanted to destroy or kill it. This was useful sometimes but usually not because in the heat of battle there was no time to check his mind cast.
But that was why he had a headset. The headset automatically selected the body part he was using and targeted anything alive that was an enemy. It figured out if the person was an enemy by looking at the person’s digital signature. A digital signature was pretty much a person’s ID number. Everybody had one in the entire planet of earth. Anyway, after seeing the number it looks for it in the World Wide Database. There it would see the person’s race, age, and if he was enrolled in any sort of military group. It would then base the danger level upon that.
It also scanned the person for any sort of weapon.

However, that was not the mindcast feature he was looking for; he was looking for the video
Feature on the mindcast. He wanted to know what exactly happened to Stepan while he was in the torture of the horrid British…

He started to run hacking programs on Stepan’s mindcast, he only needed to get that video information and he would erase all traces of him ever being on the Mindcast. He had hoped that he wouldn’t have to fall to this cowardly act but there was no way that he could see it otherwise, he had remembered the headset, if turned off, transferred the information recorded into the World Wide Databank, into the person’s own account, then erased off the headset. Vlad had seen that Stepan’s headset was broken and had a very small chance to fix it. Vlad had entered Stepan’s Mindcast, he needed to act quickly, otherwise he had a chance of being discovered, he quickly scanned the folder with video recordings, he found the one with the dates of time until the time it had been broken, he quickly downloaded the data unto his headset and started to erase him taking anything on the log file. Then he typed a command into the terminal page.

Command: /shut+down
Выход из Системы…
Прекраснова вам Дня, Степан Чайкин

Vlad silently cheered of his success in getting the video file. Then he saved it unto his headset permanently so it would not be erased. Then he took out a cable from his cabinet. For security measures, everything had been sealed only able to get in or open anything with bio signatures such as, eyes and fingers and passwords as well. He plugged it into his headset and connected it to his paper-thin, titanium reinforced plasma-screen television. It had no service because it was used for transmissions. He plugged it in and started playing it.








Chapter 4


It showed a dark room, dimly lighted by a dusty bulb hanging on a wire, in the middle the middle of the room. The room blurred slightly, and the screen went black as Stepan closed his eyes. He could hear Stepan’s heavy breathing, which meant he must have been exhausted. Vlad clenched his fists, and vowed to get back at the British for doing this to Stepan. Suddenly there was a vivid laugh coming from the right, Stepan’s head turned and it showed Petrov kneeling over on a table, laughing his rotten head off. “So, how is it Stepan, is it fun to be hanging up like that?” smirked Petrov. Petrov stuck his hand in the desk and retrieved a plasma whip. “It’s time to have some fun whipping you, eh Steppy?” sneered Petrov. He started to advance to Stepan with the whip being flexed through his fingers. Vlad heard the whip snap against Stepan’s skin. Vlad fast-forwarded through the part with the whipping, he could not stand watching Petrov’s sly grin nor could he handle seemingly, being inside his friend as he was whipped. He stopped to the part where Stepan had noticed one of the operatives that Vlad had sent to check upon Stepan had sneaked quietly in and started to creep upon Petrov. But before the operative reached the place anywhere near Petrov, the weirdest thing happened.

Petrov had sat down on the floor, in deep concentration. He howled like a werewolf, a low moaning sound, almost like pleading. But just as the operative was about to strike, he was knocked across the room by a strange animal. Clearly, Petrov had called it.
It was about 4 feet on all fours and 7 feet standing up. It had a dead smell, rotten and sour. The creature smelled as if it was made out of corpses, foul. Its blank eyes saw nothing but the need to kill. For that was what it was made for. The creature was circling around the operative, as would a pack of wolves would before striking. Then suddenly the thing did attack, it unsheathed its over 1 foot long claws.
The operative tried to get away, to run. However, it was of no use for the creature simply treaded forward with its big paws and smacked the operative. Then he slashed the poor man with his claws and then with his carnivore teeth tore into the operative’s neck. Vlad shivered in horror at the gore. Blood was everywhere in the room. What angered Vlad the most was Petrov, he sported an evil grin on his face, clearly satisfied of the creature’s results. He wanted to kill Petrov,and wipe that grin off his face.

In Russia, the penalty for being a traitor is Death in a gladiatorial type game. Two traitors would be forced to fight to the death with nothing but their hands and legs. The winner would then have a choice, to fight again or to be killed by a firing squad in the “Coliseum”.
The so-called Coliseum was a circle ring 150 yards in diameter. Around it was seats for the audience to witness the killings. The audience was hungry for blood, entertainment. In addition, the games made an example of what would be done to traitors. However, that was not a worry, for the people of Russia were
proud of their country. That was why there were hardly traitors. The games were usually only held approximately every 2 years. The Russians although cruel to traitors, as that was how they were taught to be,
were generous people. Most of the governmental officials were kind too, however there was some cruel and
corrupt officials. When found to be corrupt they were dealt with the same way as traitors. For the governments 1st priority was Supremacy. Russia’s civilians actually had a good amount of free speech.
They could criticize the government and political figures.

After Vlad watched the video, he turned off his television and deleted the video file. He had no use for it now. He had understood what happened to Stepan when he was in the torture of the horrid British. Vlad had also found out what happened to the operative that was killed by some foul creature, he new that zombies were impossible to create, so it must have been some alien being. Well I hope I never bump into something like that, thought Vlad. He started to walk toward the Main Cafeteria for Brunch, or more known as a snack. There was a bunch of people besides him that were eating, the people that went with him on the raid of the British Command Center were happily drinking and telling everyone else what heroes they were. Frankly, they would have been more modest, Vlad thought, but they were already tipsy from their extra strong Vodka. He heard over the announcement that they would soon, be discharged from military services for a year. He had known this and planned to take a vacation in Germany, as well as investigate a series of murders that happened there, for fun of course. He might also take Stepan with him as well as Ivanov, they had been friends ever since Vlad started in the army, but not as close as Vlad and Stepan were to present day.

Later that day Vlad had started packing his thing as tomorrow they would get on the transports that would take him home or the Airport. As he was packing, his newly ordered boxers Stepan came in, looking much better than he had the previous night. “How are ya Vlad?” asked Stepan with a childish grin on his face.

“Much better than you,” said Vlad returning the same grin but making it wider, seemingly more childish. Stepan broke out laughing and his eyes teared. Then Stepan glanced at his Rolex, and let out a yelp of surprise.
“Holy… we’re going to be late!” yelled Stepan and hurried out of the room, down the corridor and into his own room to finish his packing. Vlad who had left a muffin beside the laundry pile started packing vigorously. He was in such a hurry that he packed the muffin and stuffed the boxers into his mouth. He spat out the boxers, folded them untidily and stuffed them into his case, and then he took out the muffin and started eating it. It would have tasted if I hadn’t stuffed it with my scrubbers and pants, thought Vlad. As soon as he heard the announcement he had finished packing as well as registering, in his personal communication terminal, his location and people that he wanted to sit with. Vlad then hurried out of his room to meet with Ivanov and Stepan. They hurried their things onto the platform, received their tickets after entering their security information, and went to the right shuttle.
“ Well, we’re going to have a fun time Ivanov and Vlad,” said Stepan.

“Yea!” said Vlad and Ivanov at the same time. They could feel the shuttle shudder and start to lift off. After they were sure everything was safe to use they took out their Micro-Top and started playing Halo, a game the oddly enough survived through the centuries. The Micro-Top was a cross between a Pocket PC and a Laptop. It had a fully feature webcam, microphone, finger-print reader, bio-metric eye scanner and more.

“So what are you guys going to do in Germany? “ , asked Vlad
. “ Well I was hoping to go hunting over there and try out my new rifle, I hear Germany has magnificent forests. Imagine how it would be to hunt a deer there.”, said Ivanov. Vlad nodded in agreement.
“ How about you Stepan, what are your plans ? “
Stepan replied casually,” Oh. I was just planning to catch some shut eye,I been real tired lately.”
What are you hiding from me Stepan ?,thought Vlad. He had not yet told Stepan that he knew what had happened while he was the prisoner of Stepan.
“How about you Vlad, what are you planning to do in Germany ? “, asked Ivanov.
“ Oh,well you know me,im probably just going to work on a murder case somewhere, they’ll be happy to have a colonel working with them.” Ivanov grinned.
“ And so modest” , Ivanov said in a joking tone.
“ Says the person who when was promoted practically screamed it to everyone.”, said Vlad

Ivanov’s face turned a deep crimson. Stepan laughed at the sight. A few hours later they were still talking.
“…who do you think is a better tennis player , Anna Turkikov or Jake Hong ? “, asked Stepan.
“ Definitely Jake Hong, I mean his moves are so fluid, its as if him and the tennis racket are one.”, Ivanov said.
“ Well, personally I think Anna Turkikov is better, shes much quicker on her feet. Also theres a rumor going around that her reflexes are so good she can dodge a bullet.”, said Stepan.
“ That might be true….but it’s a rumor, it was probably planted by Anna herself., Vlad said.
Vlad looked at his Swiss army watch. It was 2 Am and he was tired.
“ Well see you guys when we land,im tired and its late.” After a few minutes of pleading him to stay a bit more they let him go to bed.
He took off his colonel uniform and his watch and other gadgets. After a few minutes of praying to his daughter he fell on his bed. He was in deep slumber with-in a couple of minutes.

Suddenly Vlad woke up. He was in a small room, it was filthy and dim, Damn,where am I ?, thought Vlad
As though reading his mind a voice boomed “ You are, if you are wondering a prisoner “
Vlad screamed “ Let me out !” He didn’t know exactly how he would be let out though. He did not see any doors or anything. He didn’t see where the voice was coming from either.
Vlad surveyed the room, maybe there was a secret switch or something.He felt around with his hands and ahaha he found a switch. Without even bothering to thing or remember the lesson to never touch stuff that you don’t know what it will do he pulled the switch down.
Suddenly 500 plasma cannons shot in his direction, killing him. Suddenly there was spinning circles and colorful rays of light. They were spinning…and spinning in a melancholy fashion.
And suddenly a ray of light hit a solid object,it was obvious it was a person but the only feature seen was a golden tooth, reflecting the light. The mouth that held it was grinning.

“AAAAGH!” screamed Vlad out in anguish. He opened his eyes and saw that Ivanov and Stepan huddled over his four-poster bed. “Vlad are you alright?” asked Stepan.

“ I think so,” answered Vlad weakly. Ivanov examined him closely. Then he took out his Medical Scanner, and started checking in to what happened to Vlad. Then Ivanov took a deep breath and started explaining to Vlad and Stepan, what was wrong with him. Ivanov started, “Alright Vlad, your mind is in strain right now, there is some poison in you that is forcing your mind to come up with these images, they seem so realistic that if the victim does not wake up before something truly frightening happens, they will die of fear.”

“Gladly enough the poison stops working after the first attempt of killing, so you’re safe now,” said Ivanov.

“You better thank us later Vlad,” Stepan said with a happy grin on his face, happy that Vlad did not die. After this, the three friends parted and drifted off into a deep slumber. All except Vlad, who was scared even though Ivanov had said he was safe. The words of the man in his nightmare, that almost killed him, haunted him throughout the night. Until Vlad finally fell asleep, good for him that he did not have any dreams.

In the morning, Vlad woke up to see that Stepan and Ivanov had already dressed and were already starting to put their shoes on. Seeing this Vlad started to hastily, snatch his clothing from the pile next to his bed and got dressed in nearly twelve minutes. Then he started packing up his things, as soon as he was done he went down to the Cafeteria with his two friends. Everyone else had ordered some kind of exquisite food, but all Vlad ordered was a croissant and a hot tea with lemon. As soon as they were done eating a voice over the com, stated that they would soon be stopping in Germany, so that anyone who chose to come to Germany for the one year break. Therefore, the trio went back into their plush luxuries blue-painted room and started getting their things ready for landing.

After a few minutes, the three friends stepped off the transport and started walking to the passport control. After they had been everywhere and picked up their luggage. They than used a pay-phone to order up a taxi so they could be taken to their three-star hotel where they would be spending most of their year’s break from the army. As soon as they saw their taxi, they knew because the driver got out of the car holding a sigh that had their names on it. They walked over to the driver, told him the destination and paid him beforehand. An hour and a half-later Stepan, Ivanov and Vlad stepped onto the porch of the tidy three-star hotel called “BlackRose Hotel” and quickly registered their rooms. Since the rooms were connected and big, they order two rooms one small and the other medium-sized. Stepan and Vlad were in the medium-sized rooms, on separate rooms and Ivanov was in the other room.

Vlad put down his luggage and looked at the room. About 10 feet in height it didn’t make you feel like being in a cage.. It was wide and roomy,plenty of room for his luggage. The walls were decorated with various portraits of famous germans.