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xp_logs2006-10-25 10:44 pm
x-tarot.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2006-10-25 10:44 pm
Mission Flesh Mechanic: Old scientist and good vodka
Remy and Marie-Ange drive out to speak to one of the few living scientists from the old Soviet experimental program days, and get a great deal of information, but not without exposing more about X-Force then they would prefer*.
"Dis is de place." Remy muttered, climbing out of the car. He and Marie-Ange had driven out of the city after the rest of X-Force had starting working up information. Vazhin had revealed that there had been some sort of bioweapons lab in Chernyakhoskoye, which is where the older woman had been from. The files relating to the research that had gone on there had disappeared, but Vazhin's staff had dug up the name of one of the only surviving scientists who had managed the program.
Remy had taken Marie-Ange with him for two reasons; her precognitive abilities often were triggered by proximity to people involved in events, and might get something from meeting the man. The other reason was old men always talked more freely around pretty young women. He stepped out on to the dirt driveway, surrounded by pine trees.
Marie-Ange shook her skirt loose as she stepped out of the car, straightening the wool with a slight crackle of static. The heavy material was a concession to the chill of a Russian autumn. The skirt was a concession to Remy's suggestion that she dress 'pretty'. That and tights and knee-high boots and she was warm enough to not regret wearing slacks. . . and still showed off her legs.
"Do we have any idea what kind of person we are talking to?" she asked. "Other than old?"
"Forty years working in de Soviet scientific and bureaucratic community. So it's entirely possible dat he's just flat out crazy." Remy shrugged into his coat and headed for the door, with Marie-Ange in tow. He knocked several times, but there was no answer.
"If we drove all day to find dat he's out, I'm going to be very annoyed." Remy scowled, as Marie-Ange pointed towards the red pine needle strewn path through the trees.
"Maybe he is dead." Marie-Ange said, full of morbid humor. "That would just make this trip -perfect-, and be just what we need. More dead bodies." She looked down the path, trying to make out anything amidst the trees. "Crazy, I think is easier than dead. At least crazy people can talk sometimes. "
"Do you hear water?" Remy muttered as they went through the trees. The smell of the lake was close, and they stepped out on the path into a small clearing leading to the lake. At the lake's edge was a rock lined pool, obviously part natural, part built by someone.
"Who the fuck are you people?" The voice was low and rough; the tone built out of fifty years of unfiltered cigarette smoking and hard liquor. They both turned to look at the man sitting in the middle of the steaming pool.
Crass and mostly unclothed, if not entirely. Marie-Ange thought maybe crazy might have been more appealing, but this was probably easier. "If he is naked, I get a raise." she muttered back. She glanced at Remy, and raised an eyebrow, as if to say "Now what?"
"Valentin Timofei Evdikimov? Doctor Evdikimov?" Remy said, stepping to the edge of the pool and noticing the heat steaming off the surface. The man had built his own hot spring. "Colonel Vazhin sent us?"
"Alexi Nikolay'ch sent you? How is the old whoremonger?" The man's tone changed from annoyed disinterest to at least a certain amount of attention. He waded to the edge of the pool and leaned over the rocks, fishing around one handed and pulling a bottle from the lake water on the other side. "Come in. Tell me what Alexi wants now. I've retired, you know. "
Marie-Ange followed Remy, sitting down on a wooden slatted bench and crossing her legs at the ankles. If she was going to be eye candy, she might as well play it up a little. "You worked in Stepnogorsk, yes? And then moved to Chernyakhoskoye?" she asked politely, carefully pronouncing the Russian names.
The man looked at Marie-Ange for a moment, and then turned his attention to the foil top of the bottle. "I see. That's why the bastard sent you. I should have known. "
"It is." Remy was looking casual, slouching with his hands in his pockets. Evdikimov looked up, and then moved to the other side of the pool. The man was naked, and showed absolutely no body modesty.
"The answer to that is a long story, and I'm not going to tell it without a drink. So get in. "
That was not the kind of eye candy she was expecting to be. Marie-Ange looked over at Remy, once again looking to him for a cue. She had most definitely not bargained for nudity, and certainly not in front of a man old enough to be her grandfather. If this Doctor Evdikimov was serious, she hoped the vodka, or what she presumed was vodka was good, because she was certainly going to need a drink. Or several.
Remy shrugged. He'd worked with Russians before, and some of them had their own ways. Especially the older ones, who had grown up straddling both worlds from privilege to privilege. Besides, despite Marie-Ange's sudden look, Evdikimov hadn't done it out of desire or even sexual interest. It was about making them come into his environment, like a supplicant before the court.
Remy stripped off his coat and threw it on the bench. "Spasiba, Dr. Evdikimov." He said, starting to pull of his clothes. He paused as he tossed his shirt on to the pull, seeing Marie-Ange not moving. "Chere, dis is a custom for him. If you don't, you'll be insulting him, and embarrassing me. So, just think. . . clad thoughts, neh?"
Marie-Ange shook her head slowly, out of annoyance, and laughed quietly. "I wanted to be sure he was not putting us on." She said, and bent to unzip her boots. "I have been undressed in mixed company before." Despite the bravado, she was blushing, pink in the cheeks with more than cold.
"Oui, Remy seem to remember dat." Remy said slyly, and was rewarded with a slightly deeper flush. He finally kicked off his shoes and slipped out of the rest of his clothes. The water was hot, more so in comparison to the coolness of the air outside. Remy splashed closer over to where Evdikimov sat, and sunk down on the stone ledges they were sitting at. The older man passed over a small glass of vodka, pepper flakes floating on the top. Remy took it with a nod, and leaned back.
Boots were followed by her tights, and sweater, and both were folded neatly before Marie-Ange had worked up the nerve to slip out of her skirt, and then, as quickly as she could manage, the rest of her clothes were shed before she talked herself back out of it.
The cold air made her shiver, and raised goosebumps everywhere, and Marie-Ange dropped into the pool grateful for both the heat, and the steam, which she could at least pretend gave her some measure of coverage.
Dr. Evdikimov handed over a small glass to her, but Remy motioned her to stop as she started raising it to her lips. He motioned to the glass, and after a few moments, the flakes of pepper began to descend to the bottom of the glass. Once they had all sunk, Evdikimov clinked his with theirs and drank it back in a long swallow.
"Now, what did you want to know about Chernyakhoskoye?"
Marie-Ange took a cautious sip of the vodka first to taste, and then finished it quickly. The warmth of the alcohol was a buffer against the contrast between the cold air and hot water. And a buffer against the urge to either blush hotly, or try to find some excuse to put her clothes -back- on. "There were some projects that you worked on, with young mutants?" she asked, after glancing at Remy and getting a brief nod.
"Not just young mutants." Dr. Evdikimov said. It was interesting to see how he reacted to Marie-Ange. He had watched her nude, entering the pool, but it wasn't in a sexual way. More like a test of the younger people, to see whether or not they treated his traditions with respect. He refilled all three glasses, grating the pepper into the top, to pull the oil from the top of the vodka to the bottom. "Esoteric weaponeering and bioweaponeering shared a facility in Stepnogorsk. Moscow would send psychics and people with strange abilities from all over Russia. Now we call them mutants. Our job was to evaluate their abilities, and to determine how best to turn them into useful assets to State security. "
Marie-Ange couldn't help but mentally compare this to the little she knew of what happened to Remy, to Nathan, to Logan. Not altogether too different, and for a moment, she fell silent, wondering if it was still happening, and certain that it very likely was.
"Like Project: Epsilon in de US." Remy looked into his glass. "So what made you leave Stepnogorsk, Doctor? Even after de date of your transfer dere were still projects dat happened in dat facility. What made you go over into Chernyakhoskoye then?"
"Ah, no doubt the records disappeared. General Lelinov was always concerned about historical parallels; Nazi war crimes. Once Gorbachev came to power, he worried that our efforts for the state would be considered monstrous." Evdikimov took a large gulp of his drink and refilled the glass. "In fact, most of what we did I'd consider monstrous. He must have had them quietly destroyed. "
"Do you know if they were destroyed, for certain?" Marie-Ange asked, brushing some strands of her hair away from her face. The steam was causing them to cling wetly to her skin, and it never failed, wet hair would migrate itself in front of her face every time.
"I would believe so. You might find some fragments at Stepnogorsk, but I doubt it." He put down his glass. "Chernyakhoskoyewas what we had worked for, you know. Twenty years, and that was our chance. "
"Was dat something to do wit' dis 'Mastermold' dat gets referenced?"
"Mastermold. Ha!" Evdikimov spoke in Russian, something complex that even Remy's teaching had lost. "Always with the crude names, the translators. The most basic concepts. It amazes me science can happen at all. "
"Translators think they are funny, sometimes." Marie-Ange said lightly, as if she knew. "What does the translation leave out then, if it is not accurate?"
"It captures no grandeur, no passion. Makes it sound like we were trying to produce tractor frames, or plastic flowers or something." He made a disgusted noise, deep in his throat.
"So what were you trying to produce, Dr. Evdikimov? Because whatever it was might be active again." Remy said, and wasn't surprised by the violent shake of the man's head.
"Impossible. Project: Mastermold was ultimately a failure. Most of the active research stopped by 1982, and the whole facility has been mothballed since '84. I'm sorry, my friends, but there is nothing at Chernyakhoskoye that isn't shut down and gathering dust. Rather like those of us who built it, hey?" He topped up everyone's glasses again, drinking the vodka like water.
Marie-Ange shook her head slowly at his dismissal, frowning. "You are very certain? That nothing could have been left behind?" She waited for the flakes of pepper to fall once again, and sipped carefully at the vodka. Too much, or too fast and she would have a much harder time concentrating. "You must know, if we are asking, that there are rumors, questions. "
"Mastermold is still there, I'm sure, but it simply didn't work." Evdikimov gestured with his glass. "Natalya Ignatova was her name. I won't ever forget that; Natalya Ignatova. She was a normal Russian girl, part of the Young Pioneers. You could have put her on apropaganda poster, so typical was she. "
"But, " Evdikimov raised a finger in caution. "there was something else about her, very abnormal. A silly thing really. The girl could turn a radio on and off from across the room. Change the stations, that sort of thing. Not the old tube radios, but the new Japanese one that her father had acquired. A tiny thing, da? We tested her for six months." He juggled his hands up and down, trying to convey the arguments and options. "Was it psychokinesis, electrokinesis? Was she remaking reality? Six months before was had a classification for the girl: technopathic. She had the ability to directly read complex linkages in structures with any element of electric charge, and control it in a certain fashion. "
"And she went to Stepnogorsk." Remy said darkly, his own history of government experimentation being suppressed to get the whole story.
"Of course. A young idealist young Soviet girl? She was ready to walk there herself if we delayed. A head full of ideas about being the state's front line against the Imperialists." Evdikimov snorted dismissively and took another drink. "Her parents received the Order of Lenin in her name, and little Ignatova became another devoted soldier for the state. "
"What happened to her?" Marie-Ange asked, looking over the edge of her glass. "If she was there, where is she now?" She had a bad heavy feeling in her stomach about this whole situation, and she couldn't tell if it was her precognition trying to warn her, or just Remy and Pete's contagious pessimism finally starting to rub off.
"Sadly, nothing that we'd hoped. After ten years of experiments, we hit a ceiling with her powers. Her control was astonishing, but limited. There is a limit to the amount of complexity the human mind can handle, and while Ignatova's powers were very strong, it's limitations were beneath any of the truly great applications we had in mind." Evdikimov stared into his glass, eyes seeing something back in his past. "That's when we had our second breakthrough. Almost accidental, really. One day, Ignatova touched the arm of her nurse, and made the woman dance. It was extraordinary. Only then did we realize what fools we had been. It wasn't just technological structures, but any electrically driven system. For example, the human body. She could control the bioelectrical impulses that transmit orders from the brain to the body. It was very limited, and exhausting for her, but it was new. So very new. "
Marie-Ange shuddered visibly at the mental images conjured up by the tale. "So, she . . was a, what did you call it, technopath, and then she was a . ." She grimaced. There was just no word she could think of to describe such a thing. "Did she stop being a technopath, when she started to be able to control people?"
"She never stopped being a technopath. It just became apparent that her powers had subtleties we had failed to grasp. Bio-artificing was the new way; building organic machines and electronics. Why, if we could weaponize it, we could grow soldier, outfit them with super characteristics! Imagine a truly organic bomb, a creature that replicates itself to destructive events?" Evdikimov shook his head as he refilled all the glasses. "But the girl's body could not generate the power to control more than one or two people. We felt that might be the result of some innate sense of physical preservation. So we removed her brain. "
Remy stopped with the glass halfway to his lips. "You did what?"
"Removed it to a special interface that Ignatova herself designed, hooked up to a complex worth of supercomputers. Her body was reduced into a genetic mass, which Ignatova began to manipulate and shape into the living flesh circuits that provided the final interface with the computer systems. Remarkable, really. By the end of the first year, the tissue was as integral to the computing as their technological counterparts. "
Marie-Ange was stunned, shaking her head slowly. "She volunteered for this? Was she mad?" She asked quietly.
"She was a believer. Patriotism is as adapt at creating its own fanatics as any religion. I suppose we were all a little mad by then. Ignatova's power, coupled with advanced technology and an unlimited power supply? Who knows what could come of it." Evdikimov gulped at the glass, draining the remaining vodka in a single swallow. "But what came of it was nothing. We theorized that the increased scale caused Ignatova to lose herself, like scraping too little butter on a large slice of bread. The components of the meat computer grew with little effort, but the applications?
Fah, barely anything worthwhile, and the girl grew more and more erratic. Fifteen years of effort, for what? The brain of a rather stupid young girl fitted into the most advanced computers in Rodina, reduced to barely being able to communicate the most simple phrases. After a few years, the state decide its efforts and ours were best used else where, and shut down the complex. There is a caretaker team, of course, in case they ever decide to try and recover anything from the experiment, but it doesn't matter. Ignatova succeeded only in creating a computer with less intelligence than a pocket calculator, her powers wasted. "
Marie-Ange looked at Remy in horror, the pieces of what Evdikimov falling into place in her head. "Remy, please tell me you are not thinking the same things I am thinking? Because this is something out of a badly written late night horror movie. Strange girls who can control machines and people and brains in machines made of people." She rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead, and winced, feeling sick in the pit of her stomach. "It all makes much too much sense to not be related to our, ah, issue. "
"Related but. . ." Remy muttered. He believed that Evdikimov was telling him the truth, at least how he saw it. But Marie-Ange was right. The pieces fit. "Are you certain dat Ignatova couldn't, I don't know, gestate or something?"
"Faugh!" Evdikimov climbed from the spring, turning back to point a thick finger at LeBeau. "I wish she could, but it's impossible. Even if she hadn't been a failure, and even if somehow she became active, that facility is mostly shut. Barely enough power to run the lights and keep the passive systems working. At full power, the best we could do was control the muscles of a person directly interfaced with her. At her current levels, she couldn't even make you blink." Evdikimov looked at the empty bottle for a moment, uncaring of his nudity. "I'm old, and I'm tired of answering questions. Tell Alexi Nikolay'ch that he's chasing smoke." The old man stomped back off towards the house.
Remy turned to Marie-Ange. "He thinks he's telling de truth, but I wonder. . . who where de targets dat dose things attacked again?"
Marie-Ange shook her head. "I think, that Doug and Mark said that none of the people had anything to do with each other. They were, I think, the wrong place, and the wrong time?" she answered.
"Non, not de people. . . de company in Archangel, it was doing cable salvage and new power systems, wasn't it? If Ignatova is awake, maybe dey threatening her power supply." Remy stood up. "Bet you anything dat's what we looking at! De people don't need to be connected; it's de damn targets that are!"
"If it is her, she is trying to. . protect herself?" Marie-Ange said, turning to climb out of the water, and then letting out a unamused squeak at the cold air. "Or is it that she wants access to the new power?"
"I don't know. We could be wrong, but it makes sense." Remy said, staring off into space for a moment, letting his mind click over the information. One of the dangers of intelligence operations was that it was easy to make information fit whatever conclusion that you wanted. The trick was being able to look at them objectively, and Remy forced himself to re-examine the data. Nothing else seemed to offer any other explanation, and even if they were wrong, it needed to be checked.
"Whatever it is, we need to check dis out." Remy said, finally coming back to focus on the present. "By de way, you did well dere, Marie-Ange. A year ago you would have stormed off from de pool halfway between embarrassed and angry. I wouldn't have gotten what I needed without you. Old men like to brag, especially to young women, and you asked all de right questions. Even a couple dat I didn't think of. "
"Do we have anything that would make more sense?" Marie-Ange asked, straightening to wring out her wet hair. "Because unless one of us, I think, sees Baba Yaja and her chicken house, this makes sense." She paused. "Horrible disgusting sense, but sense. And, merci." She laughed, and tossed the now only damp hair back over her shoulder. "Tell me that you see towels, because as much as I am enjoying looking at you undressed, it is -very- cold. "
"I noticed." Remy winked and shook his head. "Dere's a couple of blankets in de trunk of de car. Have to use dem." He scooped up his clothes, walking easily beside her back to the rental parked out front of the house. "Russian custom is to go for a run in de snow after. I guess it's to simulate heart attacks enough to prevent them. "
------
* Note - It was that or "play co-ed naked superheros." and I thought that would give it away too easily.
"Dis is de place." Remy muttered, climbing out of the car. He and Marie-Ange had driven out of the city after the rest of X-Force had starting working up information. Vazhin had revealed that there had been some sort of bioweapons lab in Chernyakhoskoye, which is where the older woman had been from. The files relating to the research that had gone on there had disappeared, but Vazhin's staff had dug up the name of one of the only surviving scientists who had managed the program.
Remy had taken Marie-Ange with him for two reasons; her precognitive abilities often were triggered by proximity to people involved in events, and might get something from meeting the man. The other reason was old men always talked more freely around pretty young women. He stepped out on to the dirt driveway, surrounded by pine trees.
Marie-Ange shook her skirt loose as she stepped out of the car, straightening the wool with a slight crackle of static. The heavy material was a concession to the chill of a Russian autumn. The skirt was a concession to Remy's suggestion that she dress 'pretty'. That and tights and knee-high boots and she was warm enough to not regret wearing slacks. . . and still showed off her legs.
"Do we have any idea what kind of person we are talking to?" she asked. "Other than old?"
"Forty years working in de Soviet scientific and bureaucratic community. So it's entirely possible dat he's just flat out crazy." Remy shrugged into his coat and headed for the door, with Marie-Ange in tow. He knocked several times, but there was no answer.
"If we drove all day to find dat he's out, I'm going to be very annoyed." Remy scowled, as Marie-Ange pointed towards the red pine needle strewn path through the trees.
"Maybe he is dead." Marie-Ange said, full of morbid humor. "That would just make this trip -perfect-, and be just what we need. More dead bodies." She looked down the path, trying to make out anything amidst the trees. "Crazy, I think is easier than dead. At least crazy people can talk sometimes. "
"Do you hear water?" Remy muttered as they went through the trees. The smell of the lake was close, and they stepped out on the path into a small clearing leading to the lake. At the lake's edge was a rock lined pool, obviously part natural, part built by someone.
"Who the fuck are you people?" The voice was low and rough; the tone built out of fifty years of unfiltered cigarette smoking and hard liquor. They both turned to look at the man sitting in the middle of the steaming pool.
Crass and mostly unclothed, if not entirely. Marie-Ange thought maybe crazy might have been more appealing, but this was probably easier. "If he is naked, I get a raise." she muttered back. She glanced at Remy, and raised an eyebrow, as if to say "Now what?"
"Valentin Timofei Evdikimov? Doctor Evdikimov?" Remy said, stepping to the edge of the pool and noticing the heat steaming off the surface. The man had built his own hot spring. "Colonel Vazhin sent us?"
"Alexi Nikolay'ch sent you? How is the old whoremonger?" The man's tone changed from annoyed disinterest to at least a certain amount of attention. He waded to the edge of the pool and leaned over the rocks, fishing around one handed and pulling a bottle from the lake water on the other side. "Come in. Tell me what Alexi wants now. I've retired, you know. "
Marie-Ange followed Remy, sitting down on a wooden slatted bench and crossing her legs at the ankles. If she was going to be eye candy, she might as well play it up a little. "You worked in Stepnogorsk, yes? And then moved to Chernyakhoskoye?" she asked politely, carefully pronouncing the Russian names.
The man looked at Marie-Ange for a moment, and then turned his attention to the foil top of the bottle. "I see. That's why the bastard sent you. I should have known. "
"It is." Remy was looking casual, slouching with his hands in his pockets. Evdikimov looked up, and then moved to the other side of the pool. The man was naked, and showed absolutely no body modesty.
"The answer to that is a long story, and I'm not going to tell it without a drink. So get in. "
That was not the kind of eye candy she was expecting to be. Marie-Ange looked over at Remy, once again looking to him for a cue. She had most definitely not bargained for nudity, and certainly not in front of a man old enough to be her grandfather. If this Doctor Evdikimov was serious, she hoped the vodka, or what she presumed was vodka was good, because she was certainly going to need a drink. Or several.
Remy shrugged. He'd worked with Russians before, and some of them had their own ways. Especially the older ones, who had grown up straddling both worlds from privilege to privilege. Besides, despite Marie-Ange's sudden look, Evdikimov hadn't done it out of desire or even sexual interest. It was about making them come into his environment, like a supplicant before the court.
Remy stripped off his coat and threw it on the bench. "Spasiba, Dr. Evdikimov." He said, starting to pull of his clothes. He paused as he tossed his shirt on to the pull, seeing Marie-Ange not moving. "Chere, dis is a custom for him. If you don't, you'll be insulting him, and embarrassing me. So, just think. . . clad thoughts, neh?"
Marie-Ange shook her head slowly, out of annoyance, and laughed quietly. "I wanted to be sure he was not putting us on." She said, and bent to unzip her boots. "I have been undressed in mixed company before." Despite the bravado, she was blushing, pink in the cheeks with more than cold.
"Oui, Remy seem to remember dat." Remy said slyly, and was rewarded with a slightly deeper flush. He finally kicked off his shoes and slipped out of the rest of his clothes. The water was hot, more so in comparison to the coolness of the air outside. Remy splashed closer over to where Evdikimov sat, and sunk down on the stone ledges they were sitting at. The older man passed over a small glass of vodka, pepper flakes floating on the top. Remy took it with a nod, and leaned back.
Boots were followed by her tights, and sweater, and both were folded neatly before Marie-Ange had worked up the nerve to slip out of her skirt, and then, as quickly as she could manage, the rest of her clothes were shed before she talked herself back out of it.
The cold air made her shiver, and raised goosebumps everywhere, and Marie-Ange dropped into the pool grateful for both the heat, and the steam, which she could at least pretend gave her some measure of coverage.
Dr. Evdikimov handed over a small glass to her, but Remy motioned her to stop as she started raising it to her lips. He motioned to the glass, and after a few moments, the flakes of pepper began to descend to the bottom of the glass. Once they had all sunk, Evdikimov clinked his with theirs and drank it back in a long swallow.
"Now, what did you want to know about Chernyakhoskoye?"
Marie-Ange took a cautious sip of the vodka first to taste, and then finished it quickly. The warmth of the alcohol was a buffer against the contrast between the cold air and hot water. And a buffer against the urge to either blush hotly, or try to find some excuse to put her clothes -back- on. "There were some projects that you worked on, with young mutants?" she asked, after glancing at Remy and getting a brief nod.
"Not just young mutants." Dr. Evdikimov said. It was interesting to see how he reacted to Marie-Ange. He had watched her nude, entering the pool, but it wasn't in a sexual way. More like a test of the younger people, to see whether or not they treated his traditions with respect. He refilled all three glasses, grating the pepper into the top, to pull the oil from the top of the vodka to the bottom. "Esoteric weaponeering and bioweaponeering shared a facility in Stepnogorsk. Moscow would send psychics and people with strange abilities from all over Russia. Now we call them mutants. Our job was to evaluate their abilities, and to determine how best to turn them into useful assets to State security. "
Marie-Ange couldn't help but mentally compare this to the little she knew of what happened to Remy, to Nathan, to Logan. Not altogether too different, and for a moment, she fell silent, wondering if it was still happening, and certain that it very likely was.
"Like Project: Epsilon in de US." Remy looked into his glass. "So what made you leave Stepnogorsk, Doctor? Even after de date of your transfer dere were still projects dat happened in dat facility. What made you go over into Chernyakhoskoye then?"
"Ah, no doubt the records disappeared. General Lelinov was always concerned about historical parallels; Nazi war crimes. Once Gorbachev came to power, he worried that our efforts for the state would be considered monstrous." Evdikimov took a large gulp of his drink and refilled the glass. "In fact, most of what we did I'd consider monstrous. He must have had them quietly destroyed. "
"Do you know if they were destroyed, for certain?" Marie-Ange asked, brushing some strands of her hair away from her face. The steam was causing them to cling wetly to her skin, and it never failed, wet hair would migrate itself in front of her face every time.
"I would believe so. You might find some fragments at Stepnogorsk, but I doubt it." He put down his glass. "Chernyakhoskoyewas what we had worked for, you know. Twenty years, and that was our chance. "
"Was dat something to do wit' dis 'Mastermold' dat gets referenced?"
"Mastermold. Ha!" Evdikimov spoke in Russian, something complex that even Remy's teaching had lost. "Always with the crude names, the translators. The most basic concepts. It amazes me science can happen at all. "
"Translators think they are funny, sometimes." Marie-Ange said lightly, as if she knew. "What does the translation leave out then, if it is not accurate?"
"It captures no grandeur, no passion. Makes it sound like we were trying to produce tractor frames, or plastic flowers or something." He made a disgusted noise, deep in his throat.
"So what were you trying to produce, Dr. Evdikimov? Because whatever it was might be active again." Remy said, and wasn't surprised by the violent shake of the man's head.
"Impossible. Project: Mastermold was ultimately a failure. Most of the active research stopped by 1982, and the whole facility has been mothballed since '84. I'm sorry, my friends, but there is nothing at Chernyakhoskoye that isn't shut down and gathering dust. Rather like those of us who built it, hey?" He topped up everyone's glasses again, drinking the vodka like water.
Marie-Ange shook her head slowly at his dismissal, frowning. "You are very certain? That nothing could have been left behind?" She waited for the flakes of pepper to fall once again, and sipped carefully at the vodka. Too much, or too fast and she would have a much harder time concentrating. "You must know, if we are asking, that there are rumors, questions. "
"Mastermold is still there, I'm sure, but it simply didn't work." Evdikimov gestured with his glass. "Natalya Ignatova was her name. I won't ever forget that; Natalya Ignatova. She was a normal Russian girl, part of the Young Pioneers. You could have put her on apropaganda poster, so typical was she. "
"But, " Evdikimov raised a finger in caution. "there was something else about her, very abnormal. A silly thing really. The girl could turn a radio on and off from across the room. Change the stations, that sort of thing. Not the old tube radios, but the new Japanese one that her father had acquired. A tiny thing, da? We tested her for six months." He juggled his hands up and down, trying to convey the arguments and options. "Was it psychokinesis, electrokinesis? Was she remaking reality? Six months before was had a classification for the girl: technopathic. She had the ability to directly read complex linkages in structures with any element of electric charge, and control it in a certain fashion. "
"And she went to Stepnogorsk." Remy said darkly, his own history of government experimentation being suppressed to get the whole story.
"Of course. A young idealist young Soviet girl? She was ready to walk there herself if we delayed. A head full of ideas about being the state's front line against the Imperialists." Evdikimov snorted dismissively and took another drink. "Her parents received the Order of Lenin in her name, and little Ignatova became another devoted soldier for the state. "
"What happened to her?" Marie-Ange asked, looking over the edge of her glass. "If she was there, where is she now?" She had a bad heavy feeling in her stomach about this whole situation, and she couldn't tell if it was her precognition trying to warn her, or just Remy and Pete's contagious pessimism finally starting to rub off.
"Sadly, nothing that we'd hoped. After ten years of experiments, we hit a ceiling with her powers. Her control was astonishing, but limited. There is a limit to the amount of complexity the human mind can handle, and while Ignatova's powers were very strong, it's limitations were beneath any of the truly great applications we had in mind." Evdikimov stared into his glass, eyes seeing something back in his past. "That's when we had our second breakthrough. Almost accidental, really. One day, Ignatova touched the arm of her nurse, and made the woman dance. It was extraordinary. Only then did we realize what fools we had been. It wasn't just technological structures, but any electrically driven system. For example, the human body. She could control the bioelectrical impulses that transmit orders from the brain to the body. It was very limited, and exhausting for her, but it was new. So very new. "
Marie-Ange shuddered visibly at the mental images conjured up by the tale. "So, she . . was a, what did you call it, technopath, and then she was a . ." She grimaced. There was just no word she could think of to describe such a thing. "Did she stop being a technopath, when she started to be able to control people?"
"She never stopped being a technopath. It just became apparent that her powers had subtleties we had failed to grasp. Bio-artificing was the new way; building organic machines and electronics. Why, if we could weaponize it, we could grow soldier, outfit them with super characteristics! Imagine a truly organic bomb, a creature that replicates itself to destructive events?" Evdikimov shook his head as he refilled all the glasses. "But the girl's body could not generate the power to control more than one or two people. We felt that might be the result of some innate sense of physical preservation. So we removed her brain. "
Remy stopped with the glass halfway to his lips. "You did what?"
"Removed it to a special interface that Ignatova herself designed, hooked up to a complex worth of supercomputers. Her body was reduced into a genetic mass, which Ignatova began to manipulate and shape into the living flesh circuits that provided the final interface with the computer systems. Remarkable, really. By the end of the first year, the tissue was as integral to the computing as their technological counterparts. "
Marie-Ange was stunned, shaking her head slowly. "She volunteered for this? Was she mad?" She asked quietly.
"She was a believer. Patriotism is as adapt at creating its own fanatics as any religion. I suppose we were all a little mad by then. Ignatova's power, coupled with advanced technology and an unlimited power supply? Who knows what could come of it." Evdikimov gulped at the glass, draining the remaining vodka in a single swallow. "But what came of it was nothing. We theorized that the increased scale caused Ignatova to lose herself, like scraping too little butter on a large slice of bread. The components of the meat computer grew with little effort, but the applications?
Fah, barely anything worthwhile, and the girl grew more and more erratic. Fifteen years of effort, for what? The brain of a rather stupid young girl fitted into the most advanced computers in Rodina, reduced to barely being able to communicate the most simple phrases. After a few years, the state decide its efforts and ours were best used else where, and shut down the complex. There is a caretaker team, of course, in case they ever decide to try and recover anything from the experiment, but it doesn't matter. Ignatova succeeded only in creating a computer with less intelligence than a pocket calculator, her powers wasted. "
Marie-Ange looked at Remy in horror, the pieces of what Evdikimov falling into place in her head. "Remy, please tell me you are not thinking the same things I am thinking? Because this is something out of a badly written late night horror movie. Strange girls who can control machines and people and brains in machines made of people." She rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead, and winced, feeling sick in the pit of her stomach. "It all makes much too much sense to not be related to our, ah, issue. "
"Related but. . ." Remy muttered. He believed that Evdikimov was telling him the truth, at least how he saw it. But Marie-Ange was right. The pieces fit. "Are you certain dat Ignatova couldn't, I don't know, gestate or something?"
"Faugh!" Evdikimov climbed from the spring, turning back to point a thick finger at LeBeau. "I wish she could, but it's impossible. Even if she hadn't been a failure, and even if somehow she became active, that facility is mostly shut. Barely enough power to run the lights and keep the passive systems working. At full power, the best we could do was control the muscles of a person directly interfaced with her. At her current levels, she couldn't even make you blink." Evdikimov looked at the empty bottle for a moment, uncaring of his nudity. "I'm old, and I'm tired of answering questions. Tell Alexi Nikolay'ch that he's chasing smoke." The old man stomped back off towards the house.
Remy turned to Marie-Ange. "He thinks he's telling de truth, but I wonder. . . who where de targets dat dose things attacked again?"
Marie-Ange shook her head. "I think, that Doug and Mark said that none of the people had anything to do with each other. They were, I think, the wrong place, and the wrong time?" she answered.
"Non, not de people. . . de company in Archangel, it was doing cable salvage and new power systems, wasn't it? If Ignatova is awake, maybe dey threatening her power supply." Remy stood up. "Bet you anything dat's what we looking at! De people don't need to be connected; it's de damn targets that are!"
"If it is her, she is trying to. . protect herself?" Marie-Ange said, turning to climb out of the water, and then letting out a unamused squeak at the cold air. "Or is it that she wants access to the new power?"
"I don't know. We could be wrong, but it makes sense." Remy said, staring off into space for a moment, letting his mind click over the information. One of the dangers of intelligence operations was that it was easy to make information fit whatever conclusion that you wanted. The trick was being able to look at them objectively, and Remy forced himself to re-examine the data. Nothing else seemed to offer any other explanation, and even if they were wrong, it needed to be checked.
"Whatever it is, we need to check dis out." Remy said, finally coming back to focus on the present. "By de way, you did well dere, Marie-Ange. A year ago you would have stormed off from de pool halfway between embarrassed and angry. I wouldn't have gotten what I needed without you. Old men like to brag, especially to young women, and you asked all de right questions. Even a couple dat I didn't think of. "
"Do we have anything that would make more sense?" Marie-Ange asked, straightening to wring out her wet hair. "Because unless one of us, I think, sees Baba Yaja and her chicken house, this makes sense." She paused. "Horrible disgusting sense, but sense. And, merci." She laughed, and tossed the now only damp hair back over her shoulder. "Tell me that you see towels, because as much as I am enjoying looking at you undressed, it is -very- cold. "
"I noticed." Remy winked and shook his head. "Dere's a couple of blankets in de trunk of de car. Have to use dem." He scooped up his clothes, walking easily beside her back to the rental parked out front of the house. "Russian custom is to go for a run in de snow after. I guess it's to simulate heart attacks enough to prevent them. "
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* Note - It was that or "play co-ed naked superheros." and I thought that would give it away too easily.