01. Meeting The Heavy. --Soviet Union. 4th December 1949--
Leningrad looked beautiful in the winter. A shining white ball that glittered and shone in the mist. Like the star perched on a christmas tree.
Children played in the street alone or with friends, catching flakes of snow on their tongues. Caring mothers and homewifes chatted to the other from windows and doorways. Factory workers sang folk songs as they made the long trip home together. Even the local Policeman on watch joined in on the happy scene. Letting young boys admire the Rifle that came with his uniform.
Five years after the Great Siege and the city was recovering. The Nazi regime that burned Leningrad to the ground had long ago been crushed. New schools and hospitals open, and the dead laid to rest. But still some ached from wounds too fresh. There was no help for them, nobody knew what to say to them.
He was no exception.
The large figure of a man struggled as he waded through the deep snow that covered the pathway to his house. His overly-huge body pushing the snow out of the way.
He couldn't see them but he could feel that familiar cold glare. They were staring at him again. Children mainly, especialy girls; but also the wifes and the workers. The Policeman
gave the man a seconds glance and moved on, he was acquainted with the man's line of work.
He unlocked the clamp to the housew and went to open the door. That was when the boy yelled towards him. "Kill anymore criminals lately!?" He questioned (in Russian). Without answering, the man thrusted the door open and slammed it behind him. The boy beckoned to his friends a sign of result and laughed and continued their playing in the snow untroubled.
The single roomed house was miniture, quite comical actually, for a man his size.
The only pieces of interest were the bed hidden in the corner and the large double window that was made opaque with frost. The room was dominated by a central table, on it was a Matryoshka doll, with the others still trapped inside. On this table the man dumped a loaf of bread with butter. Along with a few potatoes he would eat cold, was his entire meal for the day. He was picking off crumbs to settle his hunger when the knocks against his door came. 'Gah' he thought. Bloody children will be pestering him again, think he is idiot to make fun of and laugh at.
Almost ripping the door from its hinges, he was ready to shout at them, maybe hiding behind a hedge or low wall. He was taken back when set eyes on a tidy little women, wearing a neatly buttoned business suit. Defianitly not a local women. She hadn't seen her before, and not noticed her in the street just then.
"Hello Viktor Becetov. My name is Mary DeFlurene." She spoke, offering her hand in a formal hand-shake. Her voice told the man she was American and he chose not to welcome her into his home. He was suspicious of all new people. But she entered anyway, taking his confusion as an oppotunity.
"Net! Do not do that! Get Out!" He screamed at her, grabbing the woman by the arm and pointing to the door. She ignored him and continued to light a cigarette. Which he hated. She then blew the smoke into his face, he saw red.
'RARGHH!!!' He bellowed, slamming the loaf of bread so hard it moulded onto the table. This was what she wanted to see. Quickly finishing her cigarette and removing a file of documents from her pocket. Then calming him down by patting him on the arm.
She asked the man if he spoke good english, to which he replied yes. She then began to read from files.
"So, Victor Becetov. 31 years of age. With basic milatry training you fought during the war as part of the Russian Defensive Militia groups. Is that correct?
("Yes, but we had to defend our homes. What is th--) --After the war you became an executioner for the regime because you could not find a job anywhere else. Not using weapons but instead killing the men with your fists?
(Why do you ask me these ques--) --Have you ever had a family to call your own?"
The man flinched at the word 'family'. With a smug smile on her face she placed the files back where they came from. The women brought his attention to the Matryoshka doll that sat beside her. Watching the man's reactions carefully she removed the top piece, tthen the second. It seemed that there was two bigger dolls, then several smaller ones all alike. Opening the last one revealed a crumpled paper, yellowed by time. The message was scrawled messily in Russian, one of the many languages she had previously become fluent in...
To my beloved darlings Sasha and Natasha.
I picked this set of dolls up at the market and I hope that you like them. I used to play with them as a child and had much. The two larger ones I named after you of course. The many smaller ones I call 'babies'. After our many little jokes we have about them.
Your loving Father
Viktor
Finishing, she looked upon Viktor. Who was refusing to acknowledge her presence and instead staring at his shoes. At the look of them it seemed he couldn't tie knots.
"You lost them both didn't you..." She asked. Again he did not look, but chose to speak.
"The invaders starved us by day, bombing by night. Some of us were lucky. Others were not so." Was all he said.
"Why are you here..?"
"*sigh* Viktor, my name is Mary DeFlurene and I am a major shareholder in the company Reliable Excavation Demolition or RED, as it is more commonly known. Now you may not understand what I am saying here so I will simplify it for you. RED operates on a global basis.
Our one and only goal is to gather some of the most unique individuals in the world, including you and by using a new process called cloning. We hope to mass produce these individuals by 1968 and have them fight for entertainment purposes. We are currently in the process of building a whole collection of maps for ou--"
"I will do what ever you want me to do." He said plainly. Standing up and waiting for the woman to continue.
"Wa-- But I have'nt told you everything! You will be armed with hi-tech weaponry and we may need you to fight or even kill many, many people. You may even die from the experiance!"
"Then very well. There is nothing here for me but sadness behind every conerstone. I want to see the world and meet different people. I am simple man and did not understand much of what you say, but it sounds like a change..."
'Very well' she thought. Smiling as she handed him the simple document needed to sign before his every move was officially watched over RED.
The man and woman left the builiding together. After around 10 minutes a clean-up crew appeared to destroy anything they foundd of worth. The Matryoshka doll set was smashed and the pieces scattered. The files that Mary had 'forgotten' were taken outside and burnt.
Viktor Bectov never excisted. A mercenary called the Heavy Weapons Guy later returned to where the house once stood. A man reported that he recognised him as a large man that disapeared many, many years ago.
The elderly neighbor was shot.