Rasputin's Bastards (61 page)

The silence fell away.

“Kilodovich.”

Vladimir?

“Apologies, Kilodovich. Things are taking place in the world of Physick that required my attention. Urgently.”

So urgently you disappear without a word?

“Stop whining. I see that you have learned some things.”

Oh fuck off. What’s going on in the world of Physick that’s so urgent?

Vladimir sighed. “I must apologize, Kilodovich. I have used you once more.”

What do you mean, used me?

“It was important,” said Vladimir, “that my siblings and I escape from the school house in New Pokrovskoye. There has been a fight. You are injured. You need to come back or you will die.”

So you have been using me.
Alexei spat into the void.
Just as Kolyokov used me here — as a vessel for his own designs.

“Hmm. Good. So you are working through your history.”

Do not change the subject. You’re using me what — to engineer an escape?

“And I am paying you for the privilege. Unlike what Fyodor Kolyokov did.”

Paying.

“Alexei. Fyodor Kolyokov used you for more than a vessel to engineer an escape.”

Did he now?

“He used you like a sleeper agent. But instead of sending you into a foreign city or an embassy, he sent you straight into his enemy’s mind.”

This I have guessed. He used me there, to break down his enemy — to turn him into a sleeper agent too. But to do so quickly — in the field — without having him forced to visit City 512. He used me — Alexei felt a rush of understanding sluice through him, like half-frozen runoff — he used me to make all of them into sleepers, didn’t he?

“There. Good. Now you can come back. We have work to do in New Pokrovskoye. You do not have much time.”

Alexei thought about that. He thought about returning to his body, doing more work that Vladimir bade him to do for him. Metaphorical bile rose in his metaphorical throat.

Fuck off
, he said.

“What?”

Babies aren’t used to being told to fuck off, said Alexei. But I’m saying it. I’m done with you, Vladimir.

Suddenly, the weightless void felt more like the sky — and Alexei felt as though he were falling, his stomach catching in his throat. He could see shapes in the darkness, whirling past him. He grasped at the darkness, reaching for something — Vladimir, the pram —

“Kilodovich.”

Now Alexei was lying on flagstones in the courtyard of Amar Shadak’s metaphorical villa. His head hurt. The kid — Amar Shadak — was crouched over him. He looked, Alexei thought, kind of like Ivan, who’d struck him in the head with a rock back in his imaginary spy school, when he’d started asking uncomfortable questions about reality. Little Shadak had probably used the same trick on him now — a rock to the head — to knock him unconscious and bring him here to this much better-made metaphor of a plaza.

“You are a lying fuck,” he spat. “You’ve been working for the fucking KGB all along, haven’t you? This whole plan is fucking compromised.”

Alexei tried to sit up. As he did, ropes bit into his arms and ankles. Shadak had tied him up with metaphorical rope. Shadak slapped him backhanded across the face.

“This is some kind of brainwashing shit, isn’t it? That’s why everybody was acting so fucking strange in the caves, wasn’t it? You slipped some drugs into the food or the air or something — and fucked us all up.”

“N-no drugs,” Alexei heard himself saying. “You are the one who knows about drugs.”

Shadak stood up and kicked Alexei in the stomach. The pain was excruciating. Alexei shut his eyes.

“How far does this — this thing of yours go? The Mujahedeen? Jim Saunders?” Shadak sat down against the wall of the pond. His eyes were narrow with rage. “Ming Lei?”

Alexei tried to distance himself from the conversation, so he could put things together. But it was difficult — while he still didn’t seem to have direct control over his actions, he was so wrapped in this metaphor of flesh that the pain and the twist and the smell of things overwhelmed him. It was a bit like being drunk — his mind was fine, but his body acted as if with a will of its own.

“Untie me,” he heard himself say. “I can explain.”

Shadak looked at him. “You can fucking well explain tied like a fucking ape on the ground,” he said.

Alexei felt himself struggling. The ropes tore at the flesh of his wrists and ankles. Which was puzzling; hadn’t he, just a moment ago, been in complete control of this metaphor? Alexei heard himself sob, his breath rasping inside his skull. He listened then — for something else, a sound that had been at the core of this matter since the beginning:

The rumbling sound of Discourse.

And he realized with a chill that it was gone.

Alexei was alone in this metaphor. Fyodor Kolyokov and the others had grown silent.

Or, he thought, been made silent. What had been the name he’d heard most in Discourse? Rodionov?

Alexei thought back — to the general in City 512, who’d played at executing the poet, to discredit Kolyokov.

Rodionov was coming. They had seemed worried about that. Alexei thought he could understand why they might be worried about that.

Perhaps, thought Alexei, General Rodionov had finally arrived.

“This isn’t supposed to be happening like this,” said Alexei miserably. “This has gone bad.”

“Ha. Bad for you maybe.”

“No. Bad for you too.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not finished,” said Alexei. “And I don’t know how to do it on my own.”

“Do what?”

“Make you,” he said. “I don’t know how to finish making you.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know,” said Alexei. “I didn’t know anything.”

Shadak came at him. He punched him and kicked him and tore at his shirt. He picked up a stone from the ground lifted it over his head. He glared down at Alexei.

“You don’t know how?” he said. “Then learn.”

And with that, he smashed the stone down — into Alexei’s skull.

The void again. Alexei spun in it. It was like being dead. He opened his mouth to cry out for Vladimir, then shut it again. He’d told the baby to fuck off. He couldn’t go crawling back to him now.

No. Alexei thought about what little Shadak had told him to do:

Learn.

Alexei would have to take charge of this realm of memory on his own. He had done something awful — become the agent of Fyodor Kolyokov and those others — to create something in Afghanistan.

But they — the dream-walkers — they weren’t in Afghanistan. They hadn’t set foot there.

They were in City 512.

The place where they all were born.

Where Kilodovich had come from.

That, he knew, was where he would have to go.

And it wouldn’t do to have Vladimir take him there.

Alexei breathed and turned and willed himself to leave Afghanistan for the moment. He blinked, and imagined, and used what force of will he had —

— and the void faded. Alexei Kilodovich steered himself north, and into the heart of old Soviet Russia.

It was a thin, dry snow that fell outside City 512. Comrade General Rodionov was wearing a heavy woollen overcoat and a fur cap but it wasn’t good enough. He was still freezing cold as he got out of the car. He rubbed his hands together and watched his breath cloud in front of him. The dozen KGB men alongside him were better off — they were wearing body armour and heavy gloves and helmets. Some of the men wore crucifixes and charms around their necks. Others lined their helmets with tinfoil, or carried garlic bulbs in their pockets. Some of them etched crosses in the tips of their bullets. Still others muttered little prayers and hexes that their grandmothers had taught them.

Rodionov simply hummed as he got out of the car and started toward the low buildings that hid the top of the shafts. It was a tune that his own Babushka had sung to him when he was tiny — one so old he could not even remember the words or where it had come from. But it had helped him sleep. Now — perhaps it would keep Rasputin’s devilish progeny out of his mind.

It was probably the most effective thing. Alexei Kilodovich found the old bastard’s brain completely impenetrable. He stood beside Rodionov, still a spectre.

Rodionov strode toward the huge open doorway in the nearest warehouse. There were perhaps a dozen men and women lying naked, face-down on the cold concrete, while Rodionov’s men held rifles on them.

“The assault has gone well, Comrade General,” said one of the men — a Colonel by his insignia. He gestured with his rifle to the prisoners. “We have rounded up these ones from the coffins. There are others still — ”

Rodionov held his hand up. His eyes narrowed.

“I do not recognize these,” he said.

“Comrade General?”

“These,” said Rodionov, “are not the dream-walkers.”

“We found them in the coffins,” said the Colonel, but he said it like a question. “Surely — ”

Rodionov hummed out loud. He stepped into the warehouse building, past the prisoners. The building was lined with his men, several of whom he obviously did recognize. He nodded at one or another, as they clutched their assault rifles to their flak-jacketed chests. The space in here was as big as an airplane hangar and all but empty. Alexei trotted along behind him. This following along wasn’t very illuminating, and as they stepped through a metal cage-work structure in the middle, Alexei decided to take another step.

He had, in little Shadak’s metaphor, been able to break the wall and hold a conversation. So he would, he decided, do the same thing here.

“Comrade General,” said Alexei as they stepped into a stairwell. “Stop that music.”

Rodionov blinked.

“Rasputin,” he said.

Alexei frowned. “Rasputin?”

Rodionov nodded. He didn’t precisely look at Alexei — but he was responding to him.

“You healed the Czar’s son and made yourself a place in the court,” he said, “and you used that place to do what?”

“Tell me,” said Alexei.

“To do nothing,” said Rodionov. “Nothing but fuck women and drink vodka and live in nice houses.” He sneered. “Mystics. You could have the world, and you just feed off it.”

“I am not Rasputin,” said Alexei.

“You are Rasputin. You are all Rasputin.”

“You sound as though you have been practising this little speech,” said Alexei.

“I have,” said Rodionov. “Indeed — I have found it useful to practise everything I do beforehand, when I am dealing with you bastards here at City 512. When I do not — well. I become distracted.”

“How is that?”

Rodionov stopped and looked around. “I cannot see you,” he said. “Can you make yourself visible?”

“I am visible,” said Alexei.

“No,” said Rodionov, “you are not. How do I become distracted? Well. I start to investigate the odd appropriations moving to Cuba — for an underwater project that had supposedly been cancelled. Before I know it, I have had too much to drink. My memories are foggy, and I remember another appointment. I decide to review intelligence reports coming out of this division — see whether we have made any headway in Central America. And suddenly I am on my way to the airport to meet an old friend, who does not arrive until next week. So — I practise. I write things down. I leave little tape recordings for myself. Clues. I have done enough of that — and lo! Here we are! Bringing this pestilent time of our history to an end.”

“I see,” said Alexei.

“Except I must ask myself,” said Rodionov, “what distractions might come before me now? Perhaps a ghost walking beside me to keep my eye off the mark?” He shook his head. “Appear — so I may deal with you in flesh. Or walk behind me if it is your wish to view your destruction. Or better, return to your little water tank. Take time to make peace with yourself.”

And at that, Rodionov hurried down the stairs, shouting ahead to his men who had secured the second level. He stepped deftly around the carriage on the landing. Alexei paused and crouched down in front of it. Vladimir glared back at him.

“You,” said Vladimir, “are not being helpful.”

“I am sorry I told you to fuck off,” said Alexei. “That was rude of me.”

“You are forgiven,” said Vladimir. “Now come back.”

“To my body?”

“Yes. Your body is injured. I am spending all my time tending it. We also have a prisoner.” He leaned forward and regarded Alexei slyly. “Holden Gibson.”

“You have Holden Gibson,” said Alexei. “I see.”

“You wanted to kill him, yes?”

“You put me here to stop that as I recall.”

“Things have changed, Kilodovich.”

Alexei looked at little Vladimir levelly. “Now you want me to come back to kill him?”

“I did not say anything. Only it is time to come back. You understand your true self now.”

“I understand,” said Alexei, “that I have been used and manipulated.”

Vladimir sneered. “You have been used — but as you have seen, you did not protest too greatly. We saw the games you played with Amar Shadak’s poor girl. That was not only Fyodor Kolyokov playing that game, Alexei.”

Alexei nodded. That was true. He could come up with any rationalizations:
I was a young man, whose ethical compass was not exactly well-configured at that time; it was a fleeting lapse; I may well have been deceived by a false metaphor such as my dreams of an early childhood.

But the fact was that whatever the excuse, Alexei had done the thing. He had torn Amar Shadak in two and made puppets of the rest. From the lower levels of City 512, he could hear shouting as Rodionov’s men found the empty isolation tanks, and realized that their quarry had left. Then the small-arms fire, as some of those men turned on one another — obscuring once again the KGB’s trail to the dream-walkers of City 512.

Those puppets would never be right, Alexei knew. He had made them badly for his masters, and his masters had dropped the strings. He looked at Vladimir.

“Now,” he said, “you have work for me — to make things right.”

“Come,” said Vladimir.