Chapter 6 - #03.5 Interlude A1

Cradling his suppressed rifle, Artur's hand slowly gripped his Vintorez's barrel tighter and tighter. Meanwhile, his eyes bored into the back of his client's head as the man screamed into their 'use in case of emergency' satellite phone. Of course, he wasn't exactly Artur's client now was he, he was the Commander's. If he had been Artur's, he would've been hit by now for acting like such a fucking cowboy.

"Might create tension in the negotiations? Dmitry, I dont give a damn if it causes tension! If we can't trust them not to fuck us now, then how can we trust them not to fuck with any of our product? If they can't be trusted to do their jobs then any alliance we make with them is worthless!"

He tried not to listen, he really did, he wanted nothing to do with whatever enterprise the other man was getting himself involved in with the South American drug cartels. But the irony of it was hard to ignore. By all accounts, the man was self-destructing his own operation over concerns that someone unrelated to him was putting said operation at risk. It only reinforced Artur's impression of the man being nothing but an impulsive cowboy behind whatever mask of culture he tried to comport himself with.

Still. Amusement aside, they were still on a hunt and the man was compromising the entire outing.

Artur's eyes flicked past the back of the Commander's head and watched the officer scan his sector for a moment before speaking up. "Commander."

After a moment, the officer turned enough to look back over his shoulder, but only for a second before returning to watching his sector.

Artur knew he was pressing the limits of insubordination, but he pressed on regardless. "Commander," he repeated, stressing the rank and raising his voice to get the officer's attention.

Once more turning from his vigil, they made eye contact and Artur jerked his chin at their client, trying to impress on the Commander that he needed to do something.

But raising a brow, the Commander just glanced at the client, who in turn made a dismissive fluttering gesture and continued arguing without a second thought. The officer regarded the older man for only a moment more before his disinterested gaze returned to Artur, then as if nothing was wrong he jerked his head toward the jungle before turning away.

Unwilling to disobey the implicit order, Artur grudgingly turned around to watch his sector and tried harder to ignore the cowboy. He was only somewhat successful.

The expedition had barely begun and he was already beginning to consider whether or not he'd regret agreeing to serve as a guide for this 'hunt'—really, could it even be called that when they were more appropriately armed for an active combat zone? There was nothing to do about it, though. Usually, despite being a bit patronizing in how he regarded those he considered 'the help', their client was for the most part tolerable. But once the man got into a mood, he was entirely too full of himself to recognize anyone else's input. Or, in the current case, realize the position he was in or listen to the advice of those who did—and per the usual, the Commander wasn't going to oppose him.

Maybe the man was someone back home, no doubt someone who'd held a position in Yeltsin's government or used his connections to get fat off the nation's privatization. Here, however, in a place so far removed from whatever cesspool of backstabbing, backroom bargains and double-dealing he thrived in, it was as stark a comparison as the East versus the West. It hadn't taken an hour for him to start fraying at the edges when things stopped going according to plan. And all over a girl with one arm.

Rather than seeing a castaway, someone stranded who'd been drawn in by their helicopter's arrival, he saw a spy for the South American drug cartels he was in negotiations with. Because somehow it made sense to him that a one-armed girl—and one who introduced herself with American English, rather than Spanish or Russian no less—would be sent to get blackmail on him.

Him giving in to his paranoia was doing nothing but putting them all at risk.

Then again, half listening in on the man's summation of what had happened, Artur grudgingly conceded that there was something... irregular, about it all. Of all the islands someone could become stranded on, what kind of one-armed girl could survive on this island, a place where the smallest of the herd animals could put an agitated moose to shame? Furthermore, what kind of one-armed girl could go up against someone like Mikhail and survive the encounter, much less make off with his sidearm?

His lips pinched into a tight grimace. More important than the improbability of a one-armed girl being some kind of agent however, was the detail that said one-armed girl was now not only armed but had reason to be hostile toward them. Moreover, while her initial flight had been chaotic, panicked, when reflecting back on their pursuit she had actually been able to move through the jungle with disquieting ease. Worse, when given the chance, she had been capable of moving without leaving a trail. She'd known the terrain she'd led them on a wild chase... through…

Maybe he was being affected by the Cowboy's paranoia, but his train of thought caught on that and it put a sour taste in his mouth. Had she been leading them on? If assuming she was something other than she had seemed, that put their pursuit and the events of the chase into an entirely different light.

His mind whirred at the possibility and the possible implications. It seemed unlikely. What kind of person would or even could plan something like that? But... she had managed to separate them, and once that had happened she'd managed to acquire Mikhail's sidearm before vanishing without a trace… OK. Looking at it from that perspective, maybe the cowboy did have some reason to be upset.

Regardless, the man should have been smarter about this, and if their client wouldn't be then the Commander needed to be. They should've been setting up base camp and establishing a perimeter by now, and he should've been put on overwatch in case she came back around. But no, instead they were standing around in the middle of the jungle where there was nothing approaching decent cover.

Not for the first time, he looked over his shoulder to check the others' sectors, their position's vulnerability making him overly aware of their lack of body armor. His eyes flicked between the trees, glanced momentarily into the shadows, and peered into the underbrush as best they could. She could be using the trees and foliage to approach under cover and they wouldn't even know until it was too late.

It gave him the all too familiar feeling that he was being watched.

Exchange the humidity and the trees for bombed out ruins and snow, and it was almost like he was still deployed in Grozny; constantly having to watch his back when he should've been able to relax, or while on overwatch, or sleeping... Knowing there was someone out there just waiting to take a shot at you, it was a special type of hell.

Breathing deep, he slowly exhaled and resisted the urge to look beyond his sector agai—the cowboy screamed something unintelligible in his native Georgian. It was loud enough that a bird screeched and took flight somewhere nearby.

Artur let out a slow, shuddering breath. Then there was the screaming, why did people always, always have to resort to screaming?

It was obnoxious, and a sign of a person's inability to resort to rational methods to get someone's attention. More so, it was unnecessary and counterproductive. If you wanted someone to listen closely then you made them focus with your words and listen to what you were saying, rather than verbally beating them. Also, it was loud and loud could be dangerous.

A consequence of being raised by people who lived more off the land than off the state, Artur had participated in hunts and trapping expeditions throughout his childhood and teenage years. Whether it had been coming along as a glorified pack mule to help his aging grandfather, or a full member of the excursions in later years, the concern of falling prey to bears coming out of hibernation or wolves preceding winter had been a constant. However, they were known quantities, the threat they posed was manageable and the actual danger they represented was negligible.

That wasn't the case here, not even close. Here, man hadn't killed off most of the things that posed a danger to him, but instead had created things that could kill with ease. Near everything that had been created and left on this island was deadly and he didn't know enough to predict how they might react to the ruckus the cowboy was raising… If they hadn't already.

Artur nervously shifted his weight and ignored the ache in his leg.

In planning out this hunting excursion, one of the key components had been figuring out where to make camp, with the island's more intact ruins being on the short list from the earliest stages. It had been decided that such places could provide easily defensible positions.

Eventually, the 'Visitors Center' had been selected due to it being centrally located and in close proximity to an interconnected network of utility tunnels that had been dug throughout the island. The one issue had been that, despite the defensive benefits of the location, the region it resided in was conspicuously absent of the animals they were actually there to hunt. When Artur had raised that point, their client had had only been able to say they didn't linger in the area. He'd had been dubious of that, but the intel the client's people had 'acquired' had backed it up. It would be safer to base there, it'd been argued, and by using the tunnels they could go wherever they wanted to unopposed. Yet, neither the client nor the files had been able to give an answer as to why the animals didn't linger in the region, and the other men hadn't thought to question this.

Animals don't just avoid an entire region of an island, even one as large as this one, particularly not animals as large as those they had come to hunt. That meant either something called this region home that those responsible for mapping the island had been unaware of, or there was some other reason they avoided it. Something like a gas leak from a storage area in the tunnels could explain it—or a geothermal fissure, considering the island's volcanism. In either case, they had a chemical sensor and brought NBC-rated gas masks to use in the tunnels. But they didn't know for certain, and the fact remained that animals simply don't avoid anything without good reason. They tended to be smarter than people in that regard.

But there the team was, despite Artur's reservations and every rational argument he could think of to avoid the location in spite of its benefits.

He grimaced, teeth grinding as a stronger than normal jolt of pain shot up his back; his leg yet again reminding him it had yet to fully heal. After a moment, Artur let out a rattling sigh of relief as the pain returned to a dull, continuous ache. It shouldn't even have been hurting, he shouldn't even have strained it. Yet because of the girl, castaway, spy, or whatever the hell she was, he'd done something to it. And, because of her, they were all but standing around with their asses hanging out while their client recklessly announced their presence to anything and everything within a hearing range.

In spite of his medication though, or perhaps because of the clarity it imposed, a knot tightened in his gut and he recalled the moments preceding the mess they were now in: Seeing the glint, mentioning it, taking a shot, her fleeing her cover... and seeing her laid on the ground when she failed to catch herself. It was the look she'd given them that had kept him from taking a follow-up shot, and it stuck with him more and more every time he revisited the encounter.

It had been different from the usual looks of anger and righteous hatred he'd become accustomed to seeing in his sleep. There had been a less familiar sense of determination and assuredness to it. Though all the same, while she'd lain there the all too familiar look of panic at being caught had held him back. In that moment, she had looked far younger.

But if he'd just ignored what he had seen then none of this would be happening. If it had been anything other than a glint among the ferns… but no, that kind of detail was something that had become too ingrained in his psyche to simply disregard. People died when you missed things like that.

The knot tightened as the irony failed to escape him.

The agreement to help with this hunting excursion had largely been contingent upon the Commander getting his medical leave extended beyond the time that his injuries necessitated—far beyond, as it were. He'd wanted a medical discharge, not just extended leave.

In giving the condition, it had been with the expectation that the officer would fail; it had been something to get the man to just go away. Yet, as the days following their meeting had drawn on... as wounded personnel were continually cycled through his shared room, that expectation of failure had become a poisonous hope, hope for the crooked officer's success so he could escape the remainder of his mandatory service.

The generous payout the man had opened with had certainly helped, and it would most definitely help back at the farm, but the slim prospect of getting away from it all had become what really galvanized him into agreeing—if however tentatively. When the Commander had actually come through though… He'd all but thrown himself into rounding out the preliminary plans they had in place. The prospect of being able to decompress out in the wilderness for the first time in a year had been simply invigorating—regardless of said wilderness being in South America, somewhere he'd known nothing about.

There were downsides to what he would be doing, naturally, but so be it. If it took him playing guide and game-tracker to escape the rows of corpses staring up at him from their shallow graves, then he would do it.

Yet... here he was, party to the atrocities he had been trying to escape from. Some form of punishment? Was he meant to suffer for what he'd done? For the decisions he'd been forced to make?

Artur wasn't sure if returning to that bombed out hellhole of a city or morgue of a hospital would be better… at least things were more honest there. He just had to follow orders.

Absently, he found himself tracing the edges of the repurposed tic-tac container in his breast pocket, running his fingers along the rounded bottom edge and—for the first time in a while—wondering how many he would need to take to stop thinking. But as quickly as the prospect of going numb, and just doing as he was told, came, he tore his hand away and returned to watching his wedge of jungle for anything—or anyone—that might be approaching from the rear.

He scanned across the reaches of his sector. Apprehensions aside, he had his role to play here and numbing himself wasn't the answer; wallow in introspection later, when everything was over and done with.

Before he could fully settle into standing watch, a call rang out in the south. He pivoted, ignoring an angry throb from his leg, and found himself of like mind with the three other men. All of them stared into the jungle as a deep, warbling call—like a warped combination of goose and bear—washed over them. It cut off quickly, but the sound had put his hair on end. Even with just a few seconds to listen, he had been able to identify a plethora of highs and lows within the call that paralleled a wolf song to a terrifying degree.

And when the call had quieted, so too had the jungle. The ever-present chorus of birds flying about and bugs in the background had disappeared. It was like… like they were standing in a graveyard, or the gutted wreck of an apartment complex once occupied by dozens of families. Then suddenly the silence was broken, a near cacophony of insect screeching and chirps rushing to fill the void left behind, seemingly louder than ever to make up for their temporary absence. The birds remained silent through, their calls and cries nowhere to be heard and the atmosphere of the jungle all the more ominous for the absence.

Furthest from him, a few meters away, Mikhail twisted his head hard enough for Artur to hear the vertebrae crack with wet, snapping pops. The giant of a man seemed utterly relaxed and unphased in spite of the seriousness of the situation; that was just the man's nature. But then, why wouldn't he be when he had a gun? Mikhail and the Commander though, they didn't have the right perspective; they didn't consider there might be an animal attacking them from behind while they shot at the one attacking from the front.

Artur said nothing of his inner critique, however. Instead, he watched the reserved commando calmly adjust the straps of his heavy rucksack before calling over his shoulder: "Your orders, commander?"

The question brought life back to the officer and after a tense pause he nodded sharply. "We move in thirty." He half turned, making eye contact with Artur. "Yurievich, you're on point." Then, pivoting, he thrust his hand out to their client. "If you would please, sir. The phone."

Artur had to turn away and bite his tongue while checking over his weapon: making sure the safety was off, that the magazine was properly seated, and—after carefully half racking the bolt without ejecting the round—that it wouldn't fail to cycle. He also turned just enough, in order to watch from the corner of his eye as the cowboy hung up, handed off the satellite phone, and hefted his elephant gun. And he did it all without a word of complaint or resistance.

But of course the Commander only did something now, once something had happened that wouldn't make it seem like he was stepping out of line or going against their client.

Artur turned away and began surveying the jungle they had come through with some twenty seconds remaining. However, examining the trees and the thick foliage for gaps that they could slip through, he suddenly found it far more daunting than when they had first broken trail. The small clearing they had stopped in was approximately a hundred meters into the jungle, but even though he could see the trees above the road, the jungle's underbrush was thick enough that he couldn't see anything below that.

His head panned back and forth, evaluating which paths they could take with a critical eye.

On the first pass a number of routes were picked out, and on the second he cut those down to a handful while looking for anything out of place or for any sign that someone might be lying in wait. It was on the third pass, with the cowboy moving close as Mikhail and the Commander closed ranks, that he caught movement far to the left. Some distance out, he just barely glimpsed a long-tailed silhouette flitting through a gap in the underbrush.

Artur hastily tracked right, scanning along the direction he thought it was heading in, but didn't catch a second glimpse. It was something, and that it could move fast was something else. In the short, frantic search that followed, however, he stared into the dark of the jungle and found the shadows growing larger and darker with every passing second, inexplicably extending toward them… A tendril of dread curled around his heart, but he willfully ignored the encroaching darkness and reported the sighting, then shifted the plan to just taking whatever path looked the quickest.

Despite that, part of him sought an explanation for what was happening and he began to wonder if they were simply in the midst of a migration the cowboy's shouting might have triggered. Although it was a 'long shot', as an American might say. Even critically considering the idea for a barely more than a moment he was forced to discard it. While what he'd seen had been moving too fast to get a good look at, that in conjunction with the glimpse he'd gotten and the call that few prey animals would have a need to develop had narrowed the options by a considerable margin. But it wasn't a comfort.

There were only a few predators of note on the island, but among that number… Recalling notations regarding distributed nervous systems and thick rib cages, concerns about the effectiveness of his current weapon suddenly came to the fore. Pulling the Vintorez's stock into his armpit, he weighed whether or not to simply drop it then and there in favor of his Dragunov, adding up the seconds it would take to drop his pack and unstrap it against the benefit of having a more familiar and higher caliber weapon in his hands.

The entire operating premise behind bringing the extra weapons—and the associated weight—had been predicated upon them trying to minimize their presence in order to not draw unwanted attention from the wildlife. That plan may as well have been lit on fire for all it had been adhered to, but the inverse could be applicable. While these animals wouldn't have the learned avoidance of firearms that those in the Urals did, the noise of their gunfire might be enough to drive them off.

Before he could voice the idea, Mikhail reported spotting something at his two o'clock, with the cowboy calling out that he spotted something to the north. Just as quickly as his idea had come it was discarded as he processed the information. He visualized what had been reported: Two on the left, in front of them and behind, another on the right and behind them… with them at the center. It was unlikely, but it sounded less like migration and more like arough—

"It's a damn encirclement," the Commander announced and spat to the side.

Behind him, the cowboy bleated something about that not being possible, but he was ignored and hearing the distinct metallic clatter of pins being pulled Artur realized what was happening.

"Commander," he spoke up, eyes searching for any sign of movement, "I recommend we hold position and use the gas only once we are sure it will be effective. The route back is dense, if we simply wait—"

"No. We move before we're surrounded. Prepare to move in five. Mikhail, disperse along your flank. Make a corridor. We shall funnel them right into our line of fire."

His teeth ground. The Commander was thinking in terms of maneuvering people, not animals. His plan wasn't unreasonable, a variant of the CS grenades they'd acquired had been used to manage the animals at their free-range production facility. However, expecting predators to behave within reason when your assumptions were based on second-hand anecdotes about adverse reactions and notes on hunting behavior was folly.

Despite his thoughts on the matter though, he followed the order and brought up his rifle, ready to move out. A moment later a pair of silver canisters leaking yellow smoke were thrown out ahead to begin dispersing. Unfortunately, there was little to no breeze to carry it and, from what Artur could see through the foliage, the resulting coverage was anemic at best. Then a second pair were thrown out closer to them, and a third popped a little to his left and right.

He hesitated for an instant, his instincts telling him to stay put and warring with just following the order. Then the faint yellow tinge of the poorly dispersed tear gas wafted over and he saw the shadows recede, their sharp edges losing definition. Artur took it as a sign and advanced toward the edge of the clearing.

The orderly, organized retreat they had drilled on the mainland lasted less than three steps.

From his periphery Artur saw the cowboy suddenly appear, hefting his cannon and giving the Vintorez a pointed look. Before he could order the older man back, the cowboy stuck his arm out and pushed him back with surprising strength.

"I think you'll be better off at the center, son," he murmured while staring ahead, his voice just loud enough to be heard and in what he must've thought was a reassuring tone. "Just watch my flanks, will you? I'll handle anything that comes up, you'll see."

Moving before he had even processed what was happening, nevertheless understand it, Artur reacted to the man being out of formation by reaching out to grab the back of his vest and pull him the fuck back. But the fucking cowboy stepped just out of reach, his elephant gun up and at the ready as he aggressively advanced toward the edge of the clearing—he was moving as if he was clearing a room.

The formation fell apart. Mikhail and the Commander fell behind while they covered the rear, and before anything could be done to stop him the cowboy was at the edge of the clearing. Too fast, too rushed, too reckless.

Temper flaring, his blood rushing in his ears, Artur almost didn't hear the rustle of foliage being forced aside before a narrow, muddy-red form surged forth, ivory teeth glistening in a widening maw turned sideways on—The elephant gun twitched onto the target. Before Artur could react, both barrels were unloaded into the onrushing dinosaur and every other noise disappeared under an oppressive ringing.

It dropped, and the foliage behind it turned crimson flecked with white and dark viscera, but for all that the first attacker was dead, the noise had been deafening. Neither of them heard anything of the flanking attack by the second attacker until the vegetation on their left burst apart and a green shape leapt at the cowboy.

Old, long-ingrained instincts kicked in at the sight of its flying form, and just like shooting down a startled pheasant, Artur brought his rifle up, tracked the target for a fraction of a second, and fired on the flying form. Every round hit the center mass, but it did nothing.

An oversized bird's leg sank deep into the clueless Cowboy as it drove into him like a tank through a gutted sedan. His head vanished between the thing's jaws before he could scream, and from around the foot buried in the old man's side a bit of torn lower intestine slipped out along with a spray of bright red arterial blood as he was gutted like a pig.

Artur calmly fired several rounds in rapid succession into the dinosaur's neck and skull, only waiting a beat to see it begin to fall. That done, he pivoted on his toe as he faintly heard targets being called out.

Another of the dinosaurs, identical in profile and build but colored a mottled green, was charging in from the Commander left flank while he was occupied with shooting at something in the jungle on Artur's right. Its strides were long, little foreclaws grasping at the air with each step, and with its body low to the ground it had a very low profile. Artur put the beast's head in his crosshairs and pulled the trigger once, twice, and with the third shot, panic began setting in as the shots did little but carve bloody furrows into its pebbled hide and make it flinch as if it were only being stung by bees.

The officer saved himself. Abruptly turning to face the onrushing animal, he fired once before dropping his rifle. In a smooth, practiced movement he reached beneath his pack and drew an obrez, a cut down Mosin Nagant barely longer than a normal pistol. He turned side-on and fired.

Beside the cowboy unloading both his rifle's barrels, the cracking report from the sawn-off, bolt action rifle was negligible; the muzzle flash was another matter. Excess gases burned bright enough to leave a bright spot in Artur's vision when the pistolized rifle fired, blowing a hole out the back of the dinosaur's neck and dropping it in one shot.

Artur was already turning to assist Mikhail when the Saiga-12 roared and someone screamed. Blood turning to ice in his veins, he turned in time to see the big man fall back, the jaws of his ravaged, bloodied attacker locked around his neck and a foot buried deep in his stomach. Both were dead even if they didn't know it yet but… as they fell Artur's eyes were drawn to the shotgun swinging wide, its sling cut in the attack.

Artur watched, as with each pulse of blood in his ears, Mikhail's finger pulled back on the trigger.

The first shots went wide, but from the corner of his eye he, saw the Commander's front blossom red and his pack come apart as the slugs tore through him. Half a second later, the man crumpled to the ground.

In no more than thirty seconds the rest of his squad had died, their principal had gotten himself killed through his own recklessness, and… and…

Between breaths, Artur's chest tightened and felt as if it had been put in a vice. His squad dead, the HVT lost, and now it was just him surrounded on all sides. Again.

The agonizing pain of shrapnel tearing through his leg shot through him and any trace of despair was crushed beneath a flood of adrenaline. His eyes snapped between the two bodies, alighting on the Commander's pack with its mission-critical contents before re-prioritizing and shifting to the shotgun with its half-capacity magazine of slugs still gripped in Mikhail's outstretched paw. The side of his hand pressed tight against the magazine of his own rifle: eleven rounds fired, nine remaining, and all subsonic rounds with ineffective stopping power.

Just above the ringing and chorus of insects all around him, Artur was barely able to make out a deep, rumbling hiss emanating from somewhere in the surrounding foliage.

He spun in place while retreating deeper into the clearing, listening for whatever warning would give away an attack while frantically looking for the slightest shift in the surrounding foliage. If he could just get enough space to move, then maybe—

The half-formed plan died as he turned and saw thick streams of darkness coalescing, cutting off his retreat.

Before he could even consider pushing past them or gather the will to do so, the streams merged into an opaque wall. He turned to flee, to try and escape to the road... only to find himself surrounded on all sides. Enclosed, isolated—movement at his feet, the darkness. It poured in around him, flooding in, cutting him off from any hope of escape and muting the world beyond with an increasingly intense buzzing, the white noise constantly emitted by his room's faulty intercom.

For an instant and an eternity, the darkness and green foliage of the jungle blurred together and he was back there, staring up at a puke green fabric ceiling with the nauseating stench of disinfectant, diesel, plastic melted onto flesh, and rot flooding in his nose. His blood curdled as the shrill screech a few cots away pierced the white noise. Spinning to stare into the darkness, he saw only roiling black but knew in his soul that something stared back.

They struck once his back was turned. Between nearly deafening heartbeats and the ringing in his ears, Artur heard the snapping cracks of the foliage being violently forced apart an instant before it was on him. He buckled under the blow, his pack absorbing much of the impact as something raked at the back of his neck. Dropping his rifle, Artur grabbed for his knife even as he knew it was far too late.

The expected pain never came. Instead, his collar was suddenly digging into his throat and his fingers only just brushed against the knife sheath before being wrenched down to his waist.

Somehow, beyond the difficulty breathing, Artur managed to recognize his pack's straps digging into his armpits and that he was being lifted up by the scruff of his shirt as his feet left the ground. Then breathing became the priority and blood rushed in his ears as he strained to reach for whatever held his collar.

He kicked out, searching for purchase or to land a blow on whatever held him—one of the winged dinosaurs? His chest constricted and he could all but feel talons digging in around his wrists, holding them in an iron grip. He pulled again but it was to no avail, the best he could do was stumble along with whatever carried him along and keep his head down as he was whipped at by every twig, branch, and razor-edged palm that got in the way.

There was nothing he could do. With every root and rock his feet caught on, his collar pulled tighter and tighter and made it that much harder to even think about doing something. The jungle quickly became a watery, stinging blur of black and indistinct green.

Then it stopped, the pressure on his throat released, he gasped for breath as his feet settled on a hard surface and a pair of grand doors were filling his vision until he was slammed into them and they became all he could see. But he could breathe, and as quickly as his lungs filled he tried to throw back an elbow only for the door to suddenly swing away and whatever was behind him to shove him forward.

Twisting mid-fall, Artur managed to land on his side, turned the landing into a haphazard roll, and half sat up. His hands found his rifle and started to raise it, aiming for the center of a gold blur rushing forwar—

"Enough!"

Some sort of tri-pronged claw shot up from below to clamp onto the rifle's barrel with a metallic clang. He fought against the hold, tried to get his muzzle back on target, but one moment he was pulling against the hold and the next it wrenched the barrel aside. The sight of an uncomfortably familiar pistol put a stop to his struggles and for a split second, another, more worn and battered pistol held by tiny hands momentarily overlaid Mikhail's.

Despite his training his limbs refused to move: He froze. The vision blinked away though, and the whole of his reality shrank down to the bare metal around the locking lug set into the Gsh-18's muzzle.

This was it then?

He waited for the flash and the bang, but the moment seeming to drag on for forever and a second more until the ringing in his ears faded to a faint buzzing and a steadily slowing rush of pumping blood.

"You've come back to your senses then?"

Artur blinked, startled out of his stupor. He was still alive?

He processed the foreign words and blinked again. The voice asking the question was that of a young woman; a quiet, feminine voice accented with the rasp of disuse, but one he recognized. Artur forced himself to look up, beyond the gun and to the disheveled figure holding it: the Castaway.

She was in considerably worse shape than before: skin pasty with a faint shine, her breathing shallow, bloodshot eyes staring down at him through smudged glasses and half hidden behind a tangled curtain of long, curly black hair that hung limp around her expressionless face.

Whatever her appearance though, it did nothing to detract from the intensity of the stare she fixed him with or the unnatural aura of calm she exuded. His mind instinctually drew parallels to certain veterans he'd met—men who executed rebel fighters without a second thought, rather than take them prisoner.

"You're back… good. So, are we done," she asked, though the too calm tone of her voice and her focused expression told him it was anything but a question. His brain raced to catch up when she continued. "You're the last of your team, the rest are dead. It's just you that's left. Frankly, I'd rather not kill you if I don't have to, but if you insist on continuing to try to kill me then I'll end things now and save myself the trouble. What will it be? Do I need to kill you, or Are. We. Done?"

Her words echoed in his head. He tried to answer her, but something held him back. Artur knew this setup, had seen this exact scenario play out too many times for one twisted reason or another on both sides of the war. Those people who submitted had been gunned down where they knelt, left where they fell to feed the vultures and rats.

"I—" His throat flared with heat and he coughed. It felt like sandpaper was coating his throat and embraced the opportunity to hack, spit, and make a show of swallowing while creating and discarding ideas of how to get out of this that would only get him shot. "I do not —" Loosening his hold on the rifle, he made a show of coughing while gauging the distance to the pistol, recognizing only after a second look that she wasn't within arm's reach. His eyes flicked to the strange claw holding his rifle. Maybe he could make a grab for the claw—or the arm? His eyes followed it, pausing on the clearly mechanical joints, back to where it emerged from under her poncho. Whatever it was, it had to be attached to something. A harness maybe? If he pulled it hard enough, could he unbalance her and roll away before she fired?

"I apologize," he began again, "My American, it is noot—"

"It's good enough, I think," she countered, cutting him off before he could commit to an attack. "You did try getting me to surrender back in the forest, didn't you? What happened to your 'scout's honor', Artur Yurievich? Have you forsaken it or did it even exist in the first place?"

Her question and the use of his name brought him up short as she threw them at him like they were physical things. For an instant her comment about his honor almost made him lash out but he remained on the ground, though this time weighted down by the inadvertent truth behind her accusation. He had tried, he'd done whatever he could whenever he could in that hellhole. But quickly enough the guilt was subsumed by a single, immediately relevant question: How had she known his name?

He couldn't imagine how she knew about his offer unless she had a partner, and knowing his name all but confirmed the cowboy's suspicion of her being a spy. But he couldn't do anything about that and if anything it made his situation even more precarious.

Swallowing, Artur nervously licked his lips and, meeting her gaze, he acknowledged that stalling wasn't going to work. Ducking his head while maintaining eye contact, he slowly slipped the rifle's sling over his head and the claw moved it to the small of her back before another emerged from beneath her golden poncho to help hold it.

"And your sidearm. Use your left hand," she calmly ordered.

He met her gaze and nodded. "Da. I unter'stand."

Awkwardly reaching across himself, Artur slowly and carefully pulled the snap-clasp on his thigh holster when something interrupted the light coming in through from the doorway. After what had happened, he automatically homed in on the movement despite what was happening and… and… Artur stared into the roiling cloud of darkness that was pouring in through the entrance.

This time there were no whispers at the edge of his hearing, no voices given to the rightful recriminations and condemnations that lurked in his mind. But the blackness was amorphous now, no longer constrained to seeping along the ground or imitating human form. Like the hand of some monster closing around them, swelling with every second, snuffing out the light.

And at the center of its palm, unperturbed by the darkness surrounding her, the Castaway stood until it seemed to blend and merge with her form. She did nothing but stare down at him with the same unflinching, expressionless intensity. Then her lips moved and two words came forth.

"Drop it."

The voice of the jungle spoke with her in a horrific echo of human speech made up of buzzing, chirps, and clicks.

No. She wasn't a spy. She wasn't even human. She was the darkness: what had given voice to his inner demons, what he'd given the offer of surrender to, what had encroached on them back in the clearing… and what had come to save him?

"Vat… Vat are you?" His eyes widened an instant after the question left his lips, but it had been said.

He swallowed and locked his jaw lest he open his mouth again and stay something even more stupid.

Staring down at him, a tense moment passed where the darkness seemed to grow and he thought at any moment it would crash down upon him, smothering him for the slight as it grew ever more oppressive. Then all of a sudden the atmosphere shifted, her inscrutable countenance cracked: She blinked. Once, twice, then rapidly as if something had gotten in her eyes.

Held at gunpoint as he was, or perhaps because of it, he could see the change come over her. A gradual thing, but whatever energy fueled her intensity seemed to leave her as the stoicism fell away and in its place emerged a bleak look of despair he'd seen so much of in the hospital. It was the look of someone recognizing that they'd lost something irreplaceable.

Even the darkness enclosing them seemed to retreat to a degree.

Whatever effect his slip of the tongue may have had on her, however, it hadn't been enough to make her drop her guard, and Mikhail's pistol remained steady.

"One last time," she said, this time speaking solely in buzzes, chirps, and clicks. "Drop it."

Nodding again, Artur reached to draw his pistol but found himself already holding it, and in his right hand. He quickly placed it on the leaf-strewn floor and slid it away. Then he put his hands up and leaned back on his pack for good measure. There was nothing he could do against her. It. Whatever the being, thing, or entity before him was.

"I do as say. Am done. I surrender." He'd offered it to her in earnest, and she'd returned it.

At the word 'surrender', a hole in the darkness opened and several large beetles buzzed around him, moving in formation like a squadron of bombers before landing like a flight of gunships and then taking off again. It was almost strange enough to make him forget the darkness and the castaway's connection.

Her eyes narrowed, and the skin around them tightened slightly. "You really aren't like the other one, are you," she said in a slow, musing tone. "The big guy I mean. I half expected you to try something by now."

Artur blinked at the non-sequitur and looked back to her. The 'big guy'? Did she mean Mikhail— no, of course she did, there was no one else she could be referring to with that description. Him being like Mikhail though... just entertaining the notion did nothing but highlight the vast gulf in capability between the two of them enough to make him half smile in awkward bemusement. He shot at people from afar, whereas Mikhail… didn't. Where Artur's place was in overwatch, covering the flank and providing supporting fire, Mikhail was the one breaking down doors and clearing rooms one by one.

He could only answer her with a simple, "Niet."

She said nothing more, seemingly falling into introspection and the silence drew on until his arms began to shake from holding them up. Artur looked down to the pistol and glanced back up to her. "Pleese?"

Not responding, she stared down at him a few moments more before stepping back several paces and stowing the pistol beneath her golden poncho before walking past him. At the same time the looming darkness began dissipating, as if nothing more than smoke in the wind.

Seeing it happen however, and backlit as the mass thinned enough for light from the door to shine through, some of the mystery was banished as he was able to see the darkness as nothing but bugs. 'Nothing', of course, being hundreds of thousands, millions, of bugs so densely packed together and moving with such coordination that they appeared solid even as they skittered and flew away at the behest of a master he and Mikhail had been trying to kill.

His eyes tracked one bug as it flew away while carrying another, then another, and another. The terror quickly returned, and as the magnitude of that sank in he stopped trying to track the insects in favor of watching the mass disappear.

Mercifully, the faint scraping of metal being dragged across stone drew his attention. He looked right and saw his pistol, now partially wrapped in thread and being dragged away by neat formations of palm-sized beetles pulling lengths of fine thread that… His eyes locked onto the thread being pulled and the wrapping around his sidearm, watching how it glittered ever so faintly in the dim light... just as the gossamer webbing that had gotten into his and Mikhail's guns had.

Artur slowly twisted to look over his shoulder and stared at the girl, now standing at the foot of a curving staircase with her back turned to him.

Distantly he recognized the metal and wood construction from the files, and only at that moment realized that she had brought him to the Visitors Center. But the realization was secondary to the one that came from seeing the thread: If he checked the other guns, would he find more of the same?

Any further thought on the matter was brought to an immediate halt as several large, multi-legged somethings emerged from her hair: Spiders, a half dozen of them and each as large as his hand, with poisonous yellow bodies spotted with black. They walked along the black curls on narrow legs, across the back of her head, and down the long black hair to where it reached her lower back; picking away detritus stuck in the locks, untangling dark strands... grooming her.

For as normal as she looked, he had to remind himself that she wasn't human. She couldn't be human. She may look it, but nothing human could do what he'd seen her do that day.

Artur forced himself to look away, but in doing so he looked back to the open door—and to the jungle beyond. In an instant, he relived the attack and the seed of dread that had been planted back in the small clearing took root. With the way the Commander's pack had burst apart, his kit spilling out onto the ground… had the slugs damaged anything important?

Artur slowly rose to his feet, and with single-minded focus stepped toward the door. His leg buckled and gave out from under him, but stumbling forward he managed to catch himself on the door frame and prop himself up. The pain was a distant thing and he looked out over a stagnant pond, searched between the trees lining the drive for where he thought they had entered the jungle under their Commander's instruction… at the behest of their client.

Their client, the reckless cowboy whose people had been the ones to handle their travel documents and transport; whom he and the others had been tasked with keeping alive; and who was now nothing more than a disemboweled carcass in the middle of the jungle.

Artur staggered forward another step, but before he could cross the threshold a light touch to his shoulder made him stop. He turned and the girl was standing there, somehow having approached without him noticing.

Brow furrowed in a look of concern, she drew her hand back and glanced outside then back again. "Sorry, but whatever you're planning you're not going out there. I didn't go through the trouble of saving you just to see you get yourself killed."

Artur blinked. "I do not unter'stand."

Her lips parted and she paused for a second before letting out a weary, exhausted sigh that should have come from a person thrice her age before soldiering on. "What happened back there actually happened. I'm sorry, but your friends are dead."

The words were blunt, to the point, and she stared at him as if expecting some reaction.

It took a moment, but it dawned on him that she must think that he was in shock. Understandable, but wrong. "No. I see vat haep'pen, boot I need…" Leaving the sentence open-ended, he actually took a moment to consider what he needed. He needed the satellite phone. He needed to find some way of getting home before his leave came up and he was declared a deserter... But right now he needed to do something about the remains so they could be laid to rest. It wouldn't be right to just leave them.

"I need to care for remains. Lay to rest and gaz'er effects."

Despite them coming together only out of circumstance, some sense of comradery had developed among the group and Mikhail had never been less than courteous. He—they, didn't deserve to be left out there to rot and be picked apart by the wildlife. Nobody deserved that.

She peered at him searchingly before sighing. "I understand," she said solemnly. "However, I have questions that I need answers to and right now you're the only one left that can answer them." She inclined her head to the jungle beyond. "If I bring back your stuff and take care of your friends' remains, will you cooperate and answer those questions for me?"

"Zat is... generous offer," Artur hedged. "I vill answer vataver questions you have— Ef can," he quickly amended. "As apology, da? Boot… Must do myself. Is rest'pons'ability."

As he finished, she grimaced at something then looked back out at the jungle, her eyes staring into nothing for a moment before a look of... resignation?... flashed across her face. He couldn't be sure, it was gone so quickly he might have only imagined it. "I can understand the sentiment," she said, turning back to him. "But do you seriously think you're in any shape to go back out there?"

Their eyes met, then she looked down at his legs—or leg, rather, and Artur self-consciously shifted at her mention of his injury. But he couldn't deny the truth of what she said. "No."

Simply nodding, she turned away without another word and, gesturing for him to follow, headed deeper into the building.

He refrained from automatically obeying her, but as she drew further away his leg gave him a prompting throb. What she was was still in question, she acted human once he had acquiesced to her demands, but even so… he couldn't deny considering the impulsive idea of turning and running, but he swallowed his fear and followed.

The first few steps were fine, but once past the foot of the stairs his leg began throbbing in time with nearly every step. It wasn't debilitating, the pain was a familiar one, but the deep-rooted pulsing convinced him he needed to listen to his body and slow his pace lest he aggravate the injury any further.

Fortunately, noticing him falling behind but not taking offense, the… girl, stopped at the doorway interrupting the mural of dinosaurs grazing (he ignored the velociraptor's painted eyes following him) and held the door.

"Thank you," he muttered out of reflex, and in Russian, but she nodded along anyway.

As he fell into step beside her, she led him through a ruined restaurant with an attached patio leading out to the jungle that had exposed the interior to the elements. Patches of moss and other plants were growing up in places, between the shattered chairs and toppled tables, or growing out of mold blackened seat cushions. Several small birds took flight as they made their way through, fleeing through the spaces left by shattered floor-to-ceiling window frames and disappearing into the trees just outside.

"I'm going to need you to stay here," she stated, stopping at a door leading from the room and turning to him. "For the time being at least. It's the safest place in the building. The door is solid, so if anything comes by and I'm not around to handle it, you'll be fine."

Artur glanced between the door and her before nodding. "I unter'stand."

Turning the handle and stepping back to push open the door, she stepped away and held it while he hobbled through and, taking in the kitchen with a glance, almost stopped as he was greeted with the sight of a large, nearly untouched kitchen that appeared as if it were last used only yesterday: The stoves were clean, shelves organized with various tubs and containers needing to be filled, and the counters bare or covered with cooking paraphernalia just waiting to be put away.

The room reminded him of a time capsule, bringing back memories of similar examples that he'd encountered while ascending apartment buildings in search of vantage points or while on clearing operations. But he didn't linger on the memories of perfectly preserved living rooms. Here, there was nothing symbolic or important. It was just a kitchen.

Eyes roving about the room, he moved over to the closest counter—incidentally the one running parallel a wall with a number of narrow windows and vine entangled vents running its length, making it the best lit area in the large room. Shrugging off his pack and dropping it onto the steel surface, he brushed a thumb over a patch of rust and, looking around again, he revised his assessment. The usual signs of decay brought on from abandonment were present, just not as prominent as they should've been; rust and corrosion had pitted and stained the metal surfaces throughout the room, and along the walls there were signs of water damage, but there was curiously little in the way of mold or dust. Considering how long the structure had been left to rot though, as well as the climate and the state of the building as far as he'd seen, the room was remarkably well preserved.

Artur's gaze settled on a counter toward the center that had several sorted piles of what could best be described as 'stuff' laid out on it. Evidently, this was where she had been hoarding whatever salvage might've been useful… with a rather broad definition of 'useful'.

The door squealed shut behind him and he glanced back to see her throw the front of the poncho back over one shoulder, like it was a cape. Beneath he saw she wore a form-fitting black bodysuit with segmented white armor… and her stump. Seeing it raised a question he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to, but due to the relevancy of it he asked regardless.

"Eef may ask, vith arm, how plan to take care of remains?" She gave him an inquiring look, but as it wasn't one of condemnation or reproach, he continued, "Cannoot burn, and deeg too shallow it do no good. So vat do you plan?"

She looked at him, absently tucking back the cape-poncho with her one hand before rubbing the stump in what seemed a self-conscious way. "I... don't plan on burying them, or burning them," she said, hesitating slightly. She gave an absent wave, and a small cloud of insects gathered around her. In the large room, their wing beats were a low, humming buzz before dissipating.

He shifted uncomfortably at the implied explanation but nodded in resigned understanding.

Climate depending, a deer carcass could be picked clean over a matter of days by scavengers and the like. Of course, that was with larger animals doing much of the work, but with her seemingly absolute command over insects, he doubted it would take very long at all.

It was certainly an ignoble way of treating someone's remains, of that there was no doubt, but he had seen far worse done to bodies with no one to properly lay them to rest. A priest would be incensed, but pragmatism won out when otherwise the result would be the remains being scattered over several square kilometers by the wildlife.

"I see. Zat is... better zan nothing."

"Better than nothing," she echoed in agreement, an odd look on her face before she frowned. "I'm not sure how long this'll take, but once I have everything I'll let you out to get what you need. OK?"

There was little he could do but agree, what else was he going to do? She turned away and moved deeper into the kitchen.

Watching her walk toward the far end of the room, he found his hand brushing over his Dragunov and considered how secure she must feel in her position that she didn't even consider him a threat. He quickly disabused himself of that line of thinking, though. It was the kind of stupidly suicidal thought that only the addled would ever follow through with. He'd probably be choking on spiders before he even put her between his crosshairs.

Unfortunately, the thoughts lingered long enough that, instead of trying to think of what he was going to do when the pickup came, he transitioned into wondering about what might have happened were he using the larger rifle rather than the Vintorez. It was a 'what if' hypothetical of something that was already done, though, and few good things ever came from that sort of woolgathering. Again, he forced himself to move on. Pulling the velcro straps lashing the rifle to the side of his pack, he quickly dropped the butt onto the counter—lest she got the wrong idea—and ejected the magazine. Setting it aside, he habitually pulled back the bolt to eject a round that wasn't in the chamber… only for it to jam.

The previous musing rushed back and Artur could do little but stare at the steel bolt handle, stuck halfway open as it failed to cycle.

So that was the answer then, he'd be dead with the rest of them.

Unbidden, Artur saw himself back in the clearing, trying to use his primary weapon, it jamming as he tried to fire on the leaping dinosaur—the velociraptor, he corrected—and failing. If he'd gone with what he knew and was more familiar with, more comfortable with, then the last thing he'd've ever seen would've been teeth while he tried drawing his sidearm.

Maybe there was something to take away from that, something about not automatically reverting to what's comfortable, but… Artur shoved the thought away, looking up to where the girl was pulling down several grey tubs from a shelf at the other end of the room.

It was sobering. Beyond the pure brute force that her command over insects gave her, the realization that subtlety wasn't beyond her was even more frightening. After all, no one notices the fly on the wall or an ant on the floor… or the venomous spider poised to bite a carelessly placed hand.

Artur watched her meander back to one of the piles, then grab a bundle of stained, yellowed fabric and place it in a tub before gathering them up under one arm. He absently counted the edges: three tubs, for three far larger corpses. The tubs to hold the bones, and the fabric to wrap them… a crude facsimile of a coffin, but one that would have to do.

Here he was just standing there while people he'd spend every day of the last few weeks with were about to be eaten by bugs. What was he supposed to do? What could he do?

Artur's leg throbbed at that moment, as if to tell him there was nothing he could do. His fingers tightened around his rifle until they hurt.

Was he really just going to stay here and… do what, unpack? He should do something, but...

Sighing, he set the rifle down and when the magazines in his vest clicked and clacked, he glanced down at the pouches and, undoing the buckles, shrugged it off.

He initially didn't pay any mind to her returning, instead he let himself be immersed into the mundane task of unloading his vest and mentally taking stock. He knew what had, he'd picked out and curated the majority of their kit, but the routine would hopefully distract him for a bit. The door creaked open as he set aside a pair of pliers and moved on to the next pocket. But when his hand settled on the black antenna sticking out of the pouch, he realized there was still something he could do.

"Vait!" He called out, turning in time to see her halfway out the door. Maybe he couldn't do anything to help her deal with something should have been his responsibility, but if she wanted to question him while she did so then… then it would be something.

She turned, using the toe of her boot to keep the door from closing.

He hid his nervousness at suddenly being the focus of her attention by pulling the blocky, multi-band radio out of its pocket and holding it up for her to see. "All hayve. Ef 'ave questions, I can answer? Or ef somzing haep'pen?"

She looked at it before nodding. "I'll grab one."

"And... name? Ef contact. Pro'per proto'call."

At that, she stopped again and was quiet for several seconds. She stared into nothing, seemingly lost in thought before refocusing on him with that intense state.

"It's Taylor, Taylor Hebert," she said, looking at him searchingly as she answered. Whatever she was looking for though, she didn't seem to find it, and he just barely caught the slump of her shoulders as she turned away and the door swung shut.

-|-

​Damn being safe.

It wasn't the first time he'd thought it, and it likely wouldn't be the last before the day was out.

Blinking against the sweat stinging his eyes, Artur blindly replaced the dust cover on the newly operational Kalash and set it aside with the other guns on his right. Still unable to see, his hand briefly scrabbled about the counter behind him in search of his towel. Finding it, he dabbed at his eyes before mopping his brow and neck while blinking away the last remnants.

His lips twisted into a grimace and, again for not the first time, Artur looked to the top of the opposite wall and the narrow windows placed near the ceiling, the hacked away remnants of the vines that had entangled the fans interspaced between them.

Artur considered breaking them to increase the airflow in the room but refrained—probably wouldn't do much in any case.

It hadn't been immediately obvious, maybe because it had still only been mid-morning when she'd locked him in here, but once the sun had begun rising higher and higher, so too had the heat. He'd been forced to gradually shed layer after layer as the hours had dragged on—which in turn had opened him up to attack from swarms of mosquitoes whenever the girl had left.

Clearing out the fans had helped, but without anything to power them the effect had been marginal at best and done little in the long term. The circulation was still abysmal, and the temperature was too damn high. He was coping as best he could, and he had adapted to the climate somewhat during the time they'd spent on the mainland, but with the still air that meant little.

Exhaling sharply, he sat up and once more reached back to the guns he'd piled on the countertop... only to grab at thin air. Briefly, his fingers brushed over a Kalashnikov's polymer buttstock, but he moved on, absently feeling around for the other guns he knew should be there. However, his fingers only found purchase on rough cross-hatching carved into a pistol grip. He knew that grip. Pulling it down, Artur found himself holding the Commander's obrez Mosin… which had been at the bottom.

Artur twisted to look at where the girl had helped him pile the assortment of arms once she'd brought them back. He'd expected to see at least a few rifles that were just out of reach, but instead saw that the only thing remaining was one of the Kalashnikovs. Somehow, he'd worked his way through servicing the small surplus of arms without realizing it.

It wasn't even that he'd lost track of time, just a matter of moving from one gun to the next and settling into a steady, methodical pace as each weapon was stripped down, inspected, cleaned, and reassembled… The rote process had been a relaxing bit of normalcy, and it had been a nice distraction while it'd lasted.

Lips quirking, he hummed in the back of his throat and glanced right to consider the row of cleaned guns. It had kept him occupied, but now that he was almost done… He'd decide what to do once he reached that point.

Returning to his self-imposed task, he took a few seconds to examine the cut down rifle with a critical eye, mentally comparing it to those he'd known of back home. Those had been crudely made though, their barrels and stocks cut down with haste—or in one case removed from the stock entirely, the barrel cut back to the receiver, and a carved pistol grip attached. Rushed efforts to keep them from being confiscated by the Commissariat as the realities of the new regime were realized.

The Commander's was less an attempt at hiding a gun, and more about making a functional weapon. It struck a balance between the two versions he knew of, having been cut down all the way to the receiver and a pistol grip added, but also having furniture that extended to the mouth of the barrel. It even had a sight, even if it was only a BB soldered to the barrel, and the bolt had been cut and rewelded at a ninety-degree angle so it was flush with the stock.

Turning it over and gripping it by the bit of stock beneath the few centimeters left of the barrel, he tested his hold on it and its feel in his hand. Then in one smooth motion, his hand slid into place to catch the bolt handle between his thumb and forefinger, and he racked it over and back. He'd expected to have to catch the spent brass as it was ejected, but when a shell casing wasn't flung back at him he halfheartedly peered down into the magazine in the vain hope there might be the glint of unspent cartridges within. There was nothing though, just an empty magazine with a leaf spring rising up from the floorplate.

Artur sucked his teeth and grimaced. "So, she thought to look in here as well did she?"

Staring down into the empty space Artur felt something... not quite disappointment, but close enough to leave the same bitter aftertaste. Sighing, he got to work and pulled the bolt from the receiver. Grabbing a pipe cleaner off the counter, he set about ramming the brass bottle-brush into what was left of the barrel to remove what he could of whatever powder residue may have remained—just in case the load had been corrosive surplus.

It was a few minutes later, as he was blowing out the barrel, that the incessant buzzing from the mosquitos constantly swarming him suddenly faded, then disappeared entirely.

Stopping and sitting up, Artur listened… but there was nothing, nothing but the old building's creaks and groans along with the outside background noises, that is. Looking to a shelf across from him, his eyes settled on an overturned glass with a small cockroach trapped within. Rather than skittering around and bumping against the glass as it had been for the past however many hours, it was unnaturally still.

Artur watched it for a bit, just to confirm it wasn't a fluke, but when he finished counting off thirty seconds, then a minute, he knew for sure that she was back.

But for how long?

His attention lingered on the glass, but eventually, he tore his gaze away and forced himself to get back to work. After all, what point was there in waiting to see if she was here to stay when she'd been coming and going all day? Although, while it wouldn't hurt to get things started prematurely save for the room getting a little hotter, if he was wrong the waiting was likely to play hell on his nerves… Artur glanced back to the glass and, seeing the roach was still stationary, decided that he'd start getting things together once he was done with the Mosin.

The mosquitos hadn't been under her control since about noon though, the longest time she had been gone yet—presumably, assuming his observation on how to keep track of her comings and goings was correct.

Soon enough, however, he was setting aside the hand cannon and again his attention drifted back to the glass. The roach was still there, and still calm… although at some point it had turned toward him. Was she watching him? Probably.

His gaze shifted to a shelf beside the roach's and from among other pieces of kit, picked out the broken, twisted lump of plastic and rubber that had been the satellite phone. Artur didn't even want to think about whether or not the Cowboy's associates on the mainland were trying to contact their boss or not… and what their reaction might be to not getting through. The scheduled pickup should still be coming, the commander had insisted on that regardless—just in case they were unable to make contact.

But... recalling some of the Cowboy's conversation had planted the seeds of doubt. If his associates believed there was a hostile force waiting for them on the island, would they still come?

It was a question that gnawed at him, but that was a scenario he didn't even want to consider and it became just one more thing lurking in the back of his mind.

Staring at the roach for a long moment, Artur cast caution to the wind and stood. It was time to get dinner started.

Rising, his feet carried him over to his cooking area and he set about emptying a pot of rehydrated beef—left to soak ever since the basics of a plan had come together some eight hours ago—into a larger, medium-sized pot that could hold the vegetables once it was time to add them. A bit more water was added, packets of seasonings were torn open and stirred in, and the pot was carefully balanced atop the little gas burner he'd been responsible for carrying and set to boil.

It was an ungainly assembly, what with the pot being a bit larger than what the burner was meant for, but it seemed like it would work fine. Once he was sure the setup wouldn't topple over, Artur grabbed the Kalash off the counter and, dropping down onto the plastic crate he'd been using as a stool, got back to work.

Pinching the rifle's foregrip between his knees and thumbing the release at the back of the receiver to remove the dust cover, Artur leaned in close to examine the internals and was soon plucking out lengths of fine, glimmering thread from the bolt carrier and spring.

He balled the sticky, grease-covered thread between his fingers and flicked it away with a grimace.

It was only the first point of failure he'd found in the weapon's mechanisms, but it was the fifteenth overall out of the thirteen guns that had been brought along and he would no doubt find another fault before he closed it up. Their sidearms, primary and secondary weapons; none had been spared from her sabotage, no matter that she had done it while fleeing.

Pulling a penlight from behind his ear, Artur clicked it on and shone the light down into the trigger assembly.

For a few minutes more he searched, looking for the telltale glimmer of her sabotage within the mechanical workings. Eventually, deciding it was as clean as he could discern without a full tear down, Artur reassembled the weapon and checked that the bolt cycled properly. Twisting in his seat, he turned to his right and, gently dropping the butt to the floor, leaned it against the countertop alongside the others.

He looked at the row of rifles and pile of pistols and something about the sight of them all together began gnawing at him. His job during the latter preparation stages had been to familiarize himself with the South American flora and fauna, in addition to the unique species that they might encounter on the island. However, looking at all of the weapons together, even knowing they hadn't been enough, they seemed a bit... much.

Artur tried following the train of thought, but he lost it and with a concerted effort he shook off the feeling as irrelevant. After all, he'd serviced the guns and cleared them all so they were ready to fire, but you needed ammo for that and ammo wasn't something he had on hand.

That girl, even with her ability to disable their weapons, had been very, very thorough in finding every single round that they had brought with them. When she'd let him out to get what he'd wanted, the plan had been to grab a few spare rounds to manually cycle through guns, to make sure they were operational, but there'd been none. Every magazine, recharging clip, box of shells, and spare round that'd been stowed away in their bags had been gone.

A little annoying, if understandable: they'd shot at her, so even if she had a hard counter to their guns, why not just keep it from happening again?

Really, he couldn't even get angry over the fact that she'd slipped away without him noticing and made off with the magazines and loose cartridges for his own weapons that he'd oh-so-helpfully left out. Naturally, in retrospect, he should have realized something was off when she brought him to the lobby and he'd found the floor swept with all their kit and equipment sorted out into neatly organized piles.

So cautious, despite that, when it came down to it, their effort to kill her may as well have been nothing but a bit of strenuous exercise on her part.

He'd almost say it was a sign of paranoia, if not for it not being paranoia when people were—or had been—actually out to kill you.

Grimacing, Artur glanced over to the lidded pot and the blue flame dancing beneath it.

With any luck, it could serve as an olive branch, something that could serve to open some level of amiable dialogue between them. It wasn't much, but for now it was all he had to offer her and he needed to develop a modicum of trust if he wanted to get out of this place intact... Mentally, at least.

Lips twisting even further, his hand came up to nervously scratch at the coarse stubble along his jaw and he leaned back to rest his neck against the counter's cool metal edge.

Practically speaking, he had no reason to think he couldn't survive here—in the building that is—for the week they had meant to stay here until the scheduled pickup came. But it was the prospect of staying here with no one but himself for company that gave him pause.

On returning to the lobby to get what he'd needed, he'd been more... conscious, aware, of the building than the first time around. Contrary to what the team had thought in picking it as basecamp, the place wasn't secure in the slightest. He'd barely had to look to find places where the building was wide open. The patio right outside the restaurant was one glaring point of entry—it let out right into the jungle!—and apparently, an entire wall in the lobby was just... not there. If the tattered plastic sheeting he'd glimpsed beneath the vines was any indication, it hadn't even been finished.

When she'd said the kitchen was the safest place in the building, she'd been right. Really though, aside from the roof—which he couldn't even guess the condition of—it was likely more accurate to say it was the only secure place in the building.

Even assuming he managed to secure the rest of the building and give himself some breathing room, that still left him confined to it for an entire week. Staying here alone, by himself, with nothing but his thoughts and the bones to keep him company for an entire week? Framed like that, the prospect of staying here wasn't a pleasant one. And that wasn't taking into account the possibility that the girl wouldn't return any of the ammo she took, as without a few shotgun shells he couldn't properly set the perimeter alarms or even defend himself if something tripped them.

So realistically, if he were to stay here, he would have to hole up in the kitchens for the whole week. It was doable, but only just. There was no telling what condition he'd be in at the end. So while may not have needed her help, he wanted it. Just being in someone else's company—even someone such as her, no matter what she was—would be preferable...

Artur jerked upright at the sound of rattling metal, his head snapping around in time to see that the stew was only seconds away from boiling over, murky froth already bubbling up from under the lid. The crate was kicked away as he bolted over to the small stove and in his haste, a bit of broth spilled out onto his hand when he took it off the burner—only realizing as it happened that he could've just turned off the gas.

Teeth grit against the light burn and faint jolts that he only then recognized as coming from his leg, he carefully set down the pot to keep from spilling any more. Shifting his weight to one leg, Artur brought the hand to his mouth and sucked at the tender flesh between his thumb and forefinger. It was only after staring down at the pot for nearly a minute that he processed what had happened.

Why had it been about to boil over?

Pulling his hand away and resorting to ignoring the slight burn, he looked to the inside of his wrist to check the time… half an hour?

Artur brow furrowed in confusion as he stared at the dial. The position of the hands didn't change, and the second hand ticked steadily along.

His hand slowly lowered to rest on the counter and he tried to think of an explanation, but... Had he really been sitting there for half an hour? By the metrics that he could check: yes, he had.

Disquieted, Artur absently reached out for the pot of vegetables while taking the lid off the pot to check if the beef was still edible despite his lapse. A cloud of rich, hearty smelling steam billowed out at the same time he picked up a too-light pot, and once it cleared he saw the pool of brown broth already chock full of pale and orange vegetable chunks with cubes of beef scattered throughout.

He racked his brain trying to remember getting up and adding the other pot... but Artur knew he hadn't. The last thing he'd done was finish servicing the guns, but now the stew was ready and… he turned to check the doors letting into the kitchen and saw the small stacks of pots he'd leaned against both were still standing.

Stepping back to lean against the shelf, Artur could do little but stare at the pot and wonder what else he'd lost.

Eventually, he withdrew from his rumination and, ignoring the yawning pit in his stomach with an uncomfortably familiar ease, Artur picked up a spoon to sample what he'd made and found it cooked to satisfaction. If only it didn't turn to ash in his mouth.

Replacing the lid, he checked that the roach was still calm, and seeing that it was Artur reached for his radio on the next shelf over. While the girl hadn't taken him up on his offer, and he hadn't reached out, he was still fairly certain that she'd grabbed one of the radios like he'd suggested. His eyes were drawn back to the glass and the trapped cockroach though.

Initially, it had only been the mosquitos leaving en masse that he'd used as an indicator for when she had returned, the trapped beetle had come later during the prolonged interim period, but...

If she could speak through the insects under her command, then could she see and hear through them as well? It may have been a leap in logic based on little, it was one thing to say she could command insects and another to say they were an extension of her will—as ludicrous as the entire premise was—but he'd had plenty of time to think and it was the only thing that made sense. How else could she have known he could speak English if she hadn't been able to hear him speak it, or know his full name when Mikhail had spoken his first and the Commander his last? How else could she have interacted with him so well while Mikhail had been engaging her?

Putting the radio down, Artur stepped over to the glass and, more confidently than he really felt, he removed it to stare down at the bug. But the bug didn't skitter away: instead, after he stared down at it for a moment, it turned a little and angled itself as if to look up at him.

The corner of his mouth quirked up and the nervousness mostly vanished as his suspicions were proven correct. "As suspect. Ef do not mind, I vould like to speak vith you, Miss." He waved at to the steaming pot of stew. "Ve can talk over meal, da?"

There was no response, unnatural or otherwise, but he knew she'd heard him.

With little else to do but operate on the assumption that she had been listening—and would come down if she wasn't going to speak with her bugs—he removed pans from the doors and went about putting together a pair of functional place settings from what he could scrounge: a pair of plain white soup bowls, spoons large and small, glass cups, an unopened canteen for water, and disposable napkins sourced from his mess kit when he failed to find any. Maybe it was a bit much, but it kept him occupied until a series of irregular bumps at the door a few feet away nearly made him drop one of the bowls while wiping off the dust.

Artur kept cleaning the dishes to steady himself, and only once the door began creaking open did he turn toward it. But rather than seeing a normal-looking one-armed girl, his heart nearly stopped as he was greeted with the sight of a dog-sized abomination with too many legs lurking in the dark room beyond. With a body made up of dark, interlocking plates of mottled chitin that made up its flat back, wickedly barbed legs, and black eyes that glittered in the darkness of the room just beyond the door, it was a thing straight from nightmares.

His free hand twitched, instinctively reaching down to his thigh and the sidearm that wasn't there. Artur held himself back from overreacting though. Whatever this thing being here could mean, it wouldn't do to offend her for trying to shoot what may just be a messenger.

Pushing the door open with a leg nearly two meters long until it locked in place, it scuttled into the kitchen; moving languidly on its ungainly legs before turning side-on at the end of his aisle and scuttling toward him.

He backed away as it approached and unconsciously tried to recall where some of the heavier, longer items in the kitchen were, but fortunately it stopped at the pot. After a few seconds moving back and forth, sticking a leg out over the pot for a moment, the thing rose up on its rear legs like it was an untrained hound trying to steal food off the counter. Angling itself forward, it looked down into the pot and he heard a faint buzzing. He looked away as a cloud of insects streamed in through the door before coalescing.

"It looks good, I appreciate it. But bring it up to the roof would you, more comfortable up here. If you follow the whiptail it will lead the way." At that, the cloud left before suddenly doubling back, "Oh, and watch your step on the stairs."

He said he would and thanked her for the warning, but the words were more automatic than in earnest. Instead, his attention was fixed on the spider-thing, watching it lower itself down and scuttle back to the door. The 'whiptail', as she had called it, wasn't the name of a spider, but the mangled name was enough to make him recall one of the more annoying footnotes he'd come across during his time spent acclimating on the mainland.

The issue had been in regards to a pair of arachnids: the Whip Scorpion and the Whip Spider. Despite their similar names, the two were radically different and it had been a headache correcting his notes after mixing up the two on more than one occasion. But, despite the naming issues, or perhaps because of them, it wasn't difficult to remember what the arachnids had looked like. Comparing the depictions of the flat-bodied, spindly-legged Amblypygi, the Whip Spider, to this thing... he was certain they were one and the same… somehow. The issue was that it was several magnitudes larger than should've been biologically possible.

Artur was hesitant at the idea of following the thing, but casting aside his fear he turned to consider the pot and place settings. It would take multiple trips, which he could do, but… Stepping away to grab his crate-stool, he packed everything in with room to spare and, picking it up, decided the contents had a little too much room to shift about. Grabbing things off the shelf he threw in another canteen, his battery lantern, a few packets of dehydrated fruit, and several extra odds and ends before picking it up again.

The whip spider was waiting, but as he neared it turned and sped away through the restaurant, nimbly skittering over the broken tables and scattered chairs.

Artur took a bit more time picking his way through the room and, reaching the lobby, he found it well lit by the other two lanterns they'd brought along. Somehow, the girl had suspended them a few meters above the neat piles she had sorted the contents of their packs into.

It wasn't the only change: The spider was moving about several large, opaque tubs and a hand-cart that hadn't been here earlier.

He stopped to wait, watching it pick through one of the tubs, withdraw a large metal mixing bowl, then move to another and dig out a yellow sponge and small towel. Dropping the items into the bowl, it carefully picked it up in a smaller pair of barbed forelegs and without a second look scuttled across the lobby and up the stairs.

Artur was quick to follow, but as the girl had warned him he was careful about the steps. Her words of caution proved fortuitous when he tentatively put his weight on the first step and it creaked dangerously beneath him. He ascended, mounting the stairs slowly, ready to drop the crate at the faintest sign the structure would collapse—diplomacy be damned. Still, he made it to the landing safely and found the whip spider waiting.

It allowed him a moment, but just as soon as he'd arrived it turned and departed.

Artur absently recognized the absurdity of the fact that he was following a thing of nightmares through an overgrown ruin, but any unfortunate reactions were kept in check by focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and not tripping over anything. He didn't have far to go and, turning down a short side hall, the spider disappeared into a nondescript door, behind which a narrow flight of stairs led to an open roof access hatch.

The spider was gone when he reached it, ascending with little issue apparently. But he hesitated and, remembering the stairs, warily examined the steep, narrow steps lit by the late-day sun shining in through the long hatch above. Artur didn't even want to think how well they had held up, but… there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't think about how they creaked and groaned as he ascended and found himself stopping as a gentle, soothing breeze blew over him, carrying with it the faint scent of the sea.

Glancing around, he turned and found the girl, Taylor, sitting near a railing running the perimeter of the roof. The area around her had been swept bare of leaves and debris, exposing stained concrete beneath.

Sitting cross-legged on one of their bedrolls, she was stooped over as he approached her from behind. He moved slowly though, just in case she took umbrage… and because at some point since he'd last seen her, she'd changed out of her armored bodysuit and into a pair of black, indecently tight shorts and a telnyashka—which Artur could only assume had been one of Mikhail's spares due to how it hung off her like a short, pale blue and white striped dress.

It also gave him a good view of what else she'd taken from the kit they had brought along, namely the loaded holster strapped to her thigh. Her hand was lingering near it—Occupied with slowly tapping a pen against her knee, yes, but he didn't doubt for a moment that she could drop it and draw on him in a split second if he made any untoward moves.

She sat up as he approached, cracked her neck, and flipped shut a small black notebook and tossed it aside, where it drew his eye to a pile of other miscellanea. There were a number of their things in the pile, her poncho and bodysuit lying among them, as well as their map and the field guide he'd put together for the island, but what caught his eye was a slim backpack-type contraption with four mechanical arms and a quartet of wings like those of a dragonfly—although one of them was skewed, bent and not quite aligned with the others.

Soft tapping and the faint crunch of leaves behind him made him look back and see the spider coming up with the bowl still held in its forelegs. It approached slowly, and he could feel its eyes on him, but then it passed him and set its cargo down among the items before moving away and settling down in the shade of the building.

Looking back over her shoulder, she gestured with her stump at the space across from her. Setting the crate down between them, he turned and carefully lowered himself onto the proffered spot while she started emptying it. Quickly enough, she was serving out measured amounts of stew with the ladle he'd thrown into the crate as an afterthought.

Artur watched her, slightly taken aback, but waited patiently as she served him and made up a bowl for herself.

A custom on her part perhaps, or… He watched her drop the ladle into the pot, replace the lid, and move it well out of his reach.

Or, she didn't trust him to handle the food… which wasn't exactly reassuring.

The hearty scent of the stew wafted up to him, but he refrained, waiting for her to eat first since she had seemed so insistent on taken the initiative and serving the food. But instead she just idly stirred her stew, turning the spoon over and over. The entire time considering him with that too calm look… though, due to her staring, he noticed her eyes were red, almost pink, and the skin around them slightly puffy.

"So," she said, breaking the long, drawn-out silence, "you wanted to talk?"