Privideniya - Chapter 30

“Don’t turn on the light,” said a voice in the darkness.

Ocelot paused, his hand on the switch that would have set the fluorescent panels overhead flickering to life. A knot of cold dread gripped his stomach momentarily. But, no, those words did not crackle in the air around his ears like electricity. The room was not warm, but it was untouched by the unmistakable cold of the grave.

“Shut the fucking door and come over here.”

The voice was taut now, like an overworked muscle, and annoyed. Ocelot recognized it immediately this time.

He said nothing, but he did shut the door behind himself and crossed the tiled floor to join Vulich next to the window that faced out over the courtyard.

It was full dark outside. Though there was no moon, the searchlights lit the pavement as bright as day.

This was the first time Ocelot had left his quarters since early that morning. He had retired to his rooms after speaking with Novikov and Innokenty. There had been little for him to do in the way of planning, but it had felt good to be alone with his thoughts.

Even Raikov had seemed to know that he enjoyed the solitude. He had not felt the man’s presence since the night before. Though Ocelot knew he was never truly alone, he could do without the interruptions sometimes.

When evening had come, he had tried to sleep for a while, but strange dreams had woken him. So he had wandered here, to the main room where the soldiers sometimes congregated during the day.

It should have been empty at this hour. But Ocelot knew he shouldn’t have been surprised that it was not.

Vulich didn’t look at him as he approached. He was watching the courtyard beyond the window. His breath stained the dirty glass with fog every time he exhaled.

He was tense, Ocelot noticed. And intent.

“Look out there,” he said quietly.

“Lieutenant…” Ocelot chuckled.

“Look out there!” he said again, and this time it was an order.

Ocelot’s expression soured, but he turned to face the window. “What am I looking at?”

“By the fence,” Vulich said. “Do you see that empty trailer out there?”

“Yeah,” Ocelot said.

“Look to the left. Close to the ground.”

Ocelot swept his eyes over the tarmac. He saw nothing at first, but the black asphalt intermittently cut by white heaps of snow.

He almost looked past the strange halo of light, almost dismissed it as an illusion. But then he saw it move.

For a long while, Ocelot said nothing. He studied the hovering glow in silence. It hung in the air, perhaps a foot off the ground. It was taller than it was wide; an oval, rather than a perfect circle. Though it was translucent enough that Ocelot could make out the shape of the fence behind it, there was a distinctly blue cast to the orb.

It was flecked by beams of darker indigo. They lashed across its surface, flickering like currents of electricity arced between circuits.

“Do you see it now?” Vulich said. “Do you see it too?”

“Yeah.”

“So what is it? I’ve been watching it for almost an hour now. It hasn’t moved. It just sits there like that. Sometimes it’s brighter; sometimes you can hardly see it at all.”

“Something wrong with the fence,” Ocelot said, as though that would convince the Lieutenant. “A malfunction.”

“No,” Vulich replied. “It’s not that.”

Ocelot frowned, but said nothing. He turned back to the window, and watched the slowly pulsating light in silence for a while. Vulich had been right. It did grow brighter on occasion, and then dim again. At its most intense, Ocelot could see that the small pebbles and bits of debris that littered the blacktop hovered slightly above the ground near the lowest point of the sphere.

“There’s something wrong with this place,” Vulich said at last, breaking the silence like fine china.

Ocelot glanced at him, and he wished the lights were brighter. He couldn’t make out Vulich’s face, and he suddenly, desperately, wanted to. He wondered if the man’s skin would be paler, if there would be spots of bright feverish color on his cheeks.

Telltale signs of radiation poisoning.

Vulich must have been feeling it. He hadn’t been inoculated either, none of the Gurlukovich troops had. The effects would have begun to show in all of them. Nausea and weakness.

Insomnia.

The Lieutenant would be calling it altitude sickness or exhaustion. He wouldn’t admit that anything was wrong, even as his flesh hemorrhaged and his hair fell out in clumps.

Not, Ocelot reminded himself, that he would live long enough for that happen.

Novikov had told him that this man would be dead by morning. Ocelot wasn’t sure he believed that, though. He had, after all, known obsession before, and when he had been Novikov’s age, the man who had so fascinated him had been the only thing that mattered in the world.

“Do you think so?” Ocelot said neutrally.

“Things happen here that I can’t explain," Vulich admitted. “If you’d told me a week ago that I would be standing here in the dark, too nervous to turn around and see what’s behind me…”

“You would have thought it sounded crazy,” Ocelot said, smirking faintly.

“It does sound crazy,” Vulich snapped. “But today, in the hall… I heard someone say my name. It wasn’t a whisper, and it didn’t sound far away. It was like someone following me right at my shoulder had spoken right in my ear. I turned around, and there was nothing. But before I could even turn back, I heard it again. Just over my left shoulder, right in my ear. It was so close, I could feel breath on my neck. That voice… it called me Alyosha.”

“Cute,” Ocelot said dryly.

“No one has called me that since I was a boy. Only my older sister, my father, and…”

“Who?” prodded Ocelot, when Vulich hesitated.

“My grandfather,” Vulich said at last. “It was his voice. Even though I haven’t been home in a long time, I knew it at once. But my grandfather has been dead for years now. I kept still after that. I could feel someone moving behind me, but he didn’t say more. It was like he had forgotten why he had come. After a few minutes… he was gone.”

“Was there anything else?” Ocelot said.

Vulich was quiet for a moment, perhaps gauging Ocelot’s sincerity. Perhaps trying to decide how much he should reveal.

“It was cold,” he said at last. “Deeply cold. I could see my breath. And the lights dimmed. It stayed like that, until he went away again.”

Ocelot nodded slowly.

“It’s unusual that he was able to find you. You must have been very close to your grandfather, Lieutenant. But even then, that’s not always enough. But you carry his gun, don’t you?”

“I always have,” Vulich said.

“If that pistol was close to both of you it might have helped.”

“How do you know all this?” Vulich demanded.

Ocelot smiled faintly. “What kind of self-respecting Communist believes in ghosts, Lieutenant?”

“One who’s seen what I have,” Vulich said sharply.

“Sometimes,” Ocelot said, “it’s not so bad to have a little faith. It’s easier to believe in things like that - things that can’t be explained - than it is to trust in the machinations of men.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I know they won’t hurt you,” Ocelot said. “They can’t. The worst they can do is make a nuisance of themselves. It’s not so unusual to see them, or hear them. Most people will, at least once. Don’t try to talk to them, though. They don’t have much to say.”

“It’s not just the voice, though…”

Vulich glanced out the window, toward the end of the courtyard where the strange light had been. “Look. It’s gone now.”

“It’s this place,” Ocelot said. “It’s not exactly why they come, but it’s not exactly driving them away, either.”

“Groznyj Grad, you mean? I know the original burned in the 60s. This is just a reproduction…”

“More than that,” Ocelot said. “It’s an exact replica, built from the original blueprints. Even the materials, what could be was salvaged from the site of the original fortress.”

“But why?”

“To cut down on the paper trail. The less material produced, the fewer people who know about the construction. But places have memories, too, Lieutenant. And this building has a particularly keen one.”

Vulich said nothing for a while. His gaze strayed back to the window. “Where do you think it went?” he said quietly.

Ocelot shrugged. “Probably not too far.”

“Will he be back?”

“Are you going to keep watch all night if I say yes?”

“If I don’t,” Vulich said, “then who will?”

“Indeed.”

Ocelot smiled, but he was disturbed. He didn’t know when this man had come to remind him so much of Jack. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on. They did not look alike, or talk alike.

Vulich was younger now then Big Boss had been when Ocelot had first known him.

It wasn’t a physical similarity. It was something intangible. A throwaway phrase, the inflection on a word, a visionary thousand-mile stare.

There was a certain quality that they both shared, one so rare that it almost never occurred in nature. When it did, it was worthy of attention. Ocelot had never been trained to look for it, but he almost always noticed it in a person.

“There is… one other thing,” Vulich said, hesitantly.

“What is it?”

When he didn’t reply immediately, Ocelot laughed. “You look like you need a Confessor. I hate to be the one to tell you, but I'm not ordained…”

“I saw a woman,” Vulich said. His expression was hard, but only because he forced it to be that way. “A… dead woman. I think there’s something far more unsettling about a dead woman walking the halls at night than a dead man. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Ocelot admitted. He had lived a long life, but he could count the number of women he had known well on one gloved hand.

“I knew her well,” Vulich continued, though he didn’t seem entirely certain.

“Of course you did,” Ocelot said. “You always did seem like the type to fall in love with the first woman who fucked you, Lieutenant.”

Vulich was uncharacteristically quiet. Ocelot couldn't see it in the darkness, but he was certain the Lieutenant was blushing.

"Or am I wrong?" Ocelot smirked.

"Yes, you're wrong," Vulich snapped. "You don't know everything, you know."

"But what makes you think I don't know about you? We are not enemies, Lieutenant."

"No?" Vulich said. "You have a funny way of showing friendship then."

"I didn't say we were friends, either."

"Neither did I," Vulich muttered. He turned back to the window, and seemed more nervous now that the phantom had vanished than when it had been there.

He paused, rubbing his jaw as if it ached, but Ocelot knew it was a troubled affectation.

John- Snake- had had those too.

“…She wasn’t the first.”

“Pardon?”

Ocelot couldn’t quite make out the words, and was annoyed at his age, until it occurred to him that Vulich might have mumbled.

“She wasn’t the first,” Vulich repeated, stubbornly, at last, with the air of a wolfhound finally relinquishing a guarded piece of meat. His eyes met Ocelot’s, smoldering with misplaced outrage. “I’m not a charity case, Shalashaska. Never have been.”

"Then why is it so hard for you to talk about?"

Vulich's eyes narrowed. "I think that's part of what she liked about me."

He glanced away before he went on.

"That's not the right word. Liked. I was just a decision for her, not an impulse. Something she thought instead of felt. She knew I wouldn't talk about what we'd done. She always pretended she didn't care what anyone thought, but it would have bothered her if people knew. She would have been embarrassed."

"At least you two couldn't be accused of having nothing in common," Ocelot said.

"We got along. I was flattered that she thought I was the best solution to her problem. She was a Russian, and I think it annoyed her when I wouldn't drink with her. But it was a good two weeks. An admirable campaign."

"Why did she leave?"

"How did you know she was the one who left?"

"Come now," Ocelot said. "Can you really imagine her talking about you the same way you talk about her?"

"She's dead now," Vulich replied coldly. There was a slight tremor in his voice, but Ocelot could not tell if it was regret or righteous anger that infused the words. Perhaps, for Vulich, there was no difference between the two. "I told you that."

Ocelot just smirked. "Then there's nothing wrong with talking about it now, is there?"

Vulich sighed.

"One day, she stopped coming to find me. I didn't know if I was supposed to pursue her, or stay out of her way. But when her father died, she made the decision for me. She took over for him, and there was no time for anything else."

Ocelot glanced up sharply at the words.

"And that's all?" he said, though it was more like a demand.

"That's all," Vulich said tersely. "If there was anything else… she didn't want me to know about it."

It was a strange way of putting it, and Ocelot took note of it. As though there was something more to the story, something that Vulich would never dare speak aloud.

"Did she say anything to you?" Ocelot said. "Earlier today, I mean. Did you hear her voice?"

Vulich shook his head.

"I saw her," he said, quietly. "But I don't think she saw me. She wasn't here about that. I think… she was looking for something."

Ocelot had engineered coincidences for so many years, he no longer believed that they could occur in a natural state. Divine intervention was as artificial to him as a genetically modified apple tree or a lab rat with a human ear growing from its back.

Or a machine that thought like a human being.

"Look," Vulich said. "Look out there."

"Hmm?" Ocelot turned, following Vulich's gaze. Across the yard, was a ghostly blue glow, the color of a dirty halo.

It was the same light as before, but there was something different about it this time. Something that seemed to stare back at them.

"It's closer now, isn't it?" Vulich said.

"Hush," Ocelot said.

The light winked out again, and reappeared a moment later. This time, it had moved. He was sure of that.

Vulich caught his breath. "We should go," he said quietly, but he didn't turn to leave.

The light moved again, darting over the blacktop.

Drifting towards them.

Ocelot's hand dropped to the butt of his gun. He didn't draw, but he liked the reassurance that it was there.

"Should we go?" Vulich said again. He stepped back, glancing toward the door. Uncertain, as though he was gauging the distance, and the time it would take him to sprint.

The phantom blinked out of sight, then reappeared almost directly beneath the window.

Ocelot could see it more clearly now. The blue light surrounded a shadow of dark gray, almost black. Though it was translucent around the edges, it was nearly opaque at the center.

Bolts of vibrant electricity darted across the surface, deep blues and pale indigos, like the colors of an electrical storm. Gravel and trash, debris from the courtyard, swirled around it, suspended as though by an updraft.

"Shalashaska?" Vulich whispered.

"Don't worry," Ocelot said. "It can't hurt you."

But he had never seen anything like this before, and it brought with it an icy, unforgiving chill that stung Ocelot to his very bones.

His hands ached, and he lifted them from the butts of his guns to rub absently at the knuckles of the left one.

And the phantom moved again.

The blue glow that encircled it shifted, and a face appeared like a shape forming in the clouds.

Ocelot recognized it at once, if only because of the scars.

He saw Volgin smile, a smile like none he had ever worn during life. Blue lightning sheeted over the window, and Ocelot jerked back as shards of glass feel at his feet.

He could hear ragged breathing. It took Ocelot a moment to realize that it wasn't another illusion.

Vulich had flinched back when the window shattered, and drawn closer to Ocelot. Seized the sleeve of his coat in hands that trembled, though only a little.

They were still for a moment, there in the dark with the cold beating down on them like rain, their breath billowing like atomic clouds in the air before them.

Ocelot's arm ached, distant and vengeful, like the pain of a phantom limb. Something stirred, like a snake beneath the skin.

The chill faded, and the oppressive feeling of being watched, but Ocelot's anxiousness did not ease. Vulich's grip on his arm had not loosened. Ocelot sighed, reaching over to pat his clutching fingers.

"It's good to know, Lieutenant, that there are worse things than me in this world."

Vulich's eye flicked to Ocelot's hand, then up to his face. And he shoved him away.

"I thought you said they couldn't hurt us," Vulich muttered, and was suddenly very intrigued by the pattern of broken glass on the floor.

"Are you hurt?" Ocelot asked. "Aside from your pride, I mean."

Vulich wiped his hands on his uniform, as though they were suddenly dirty. He looked out over the courtyard

"It looked at you like it knew you," he said quietly.

"He did."

"You know a lot of dead men," Vulich muttered. He edged closer to the window, and looked out onto the courtyard.

"It's gone now," he said. He reached out, tentatively touching one of the jagged teeth of broken glass still framed in the window.

"I'll know a few more before I'm through," Ocelot said. And he smiled ruefully. "Dead men, I mean."

"Shalashaska…"

"Perhaps, Lieutenant, you thought I was trying to toy with you before. Perhaps you were right. But perhaps this time, you'll listen to me."

He plucked one of his guns from the holster, and spun it thoughtfully.

"Leave this place before dawn. The border isn't far from here. You could still see your home again, you know."

Vulich was quiet for a while, for so long that Ocelot began to think that he had no intention of answering at all.

But then he said, "Believe me, Shalashaska, I take this very seriously. You, and Novikov, and the ghost of…" He hesitated there, and Ocelot could almost hear the name rise in his throat, and he could almost hear Vulich choke it down like a mouthful of bad bootleg vodka.

"The ghost of that woman," Vulich said. "Whatever she was here for, whatever she was searching for, it's not really very funny to me. I know what will happen if I stay, but I cannot leave. It's something like fate, Shalashaska. But it’s really not like fate at all."

This time, it was Ocelot's turn to be silent.

"I don't care if it doesn't make sense to you," Vulich said. He was still looking out over the empty yard, and Ocelot could see nothing of his face. Just his shoulders, thrown back arrogantly, and immaculate uniform, and a wave of unkempt hair spilling past his collar. "I never liked you anyway."

"All the same," Ocelot said. "Another sixty years, and I could have started to like you."

Vulich snorted. "You should go. I don't want you bringing any more of those things around. I've hardly slept at all since I got here."

Ocelot left without a word. It was not his custom to say goodbye. But before he stepped out into the hall, he reached to turn on the light.