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Previously: Frozen 'Honeymoon'
When he opened his eyes, he first had to get his bearings. Beside him were machines monitoring his vital signs, and in his arm was an IV through which he was apparently being given saline solution. He felt weak, a little groggy, and his head ached as if he’d been drinking nonstop for three days.. overall, he had the feeling that he reeked of vodka from every pore. He allowed himself a few minutes of quiet to think, the memories slowly came back, at first in fragments, then they flooded him. Greenland, a hell of a lot of snow and ice, an underground lab, an encounter with a female phantom who apparently used to work for an organization that sounded like a brothel, a brief argument over a data stick, a fight with several damn huge beasts, the total destruction of the lab, and then...
“If all that was just a fever dream, then I’ve definitely had worse nightmares...”
He was briefly startled by his own voice... was he slurring his words? He sensed a presence beside him, his eyes had to adjust to the darkness before he noticed a white lab coat moving around his bed several times and finally shining a small flashlight directly into his eyes.
“Damn it… put that damn… I’m awake!”
He growled and squinted his eyes.
“Kennedy, welcome back. That was close… your heroic deeds almost came to an end in the ice, which in my opinion would have been a pretty weak ending. You’ve got a pretty high blood alcohol level… have you been drinking?”
Blood alcohol level? So alcohol after all? He furrowed his brow and blinked in confusion, he didn’t remember drinking anything… That didn’t make any sense either.. it would have made him die even faster in the cold. But then he remembered his unwilling companion, hadn’t she been rambling about vodka? A vague grin appeared on his lips, and he thought he understood what had happened. Yelena must have had some kind of brainwave… he was still alive, so it had obviously worked.
“Sometimes you just have to drink this world away...”
Leon muttered, slowly sat up, and took a deep breath. He tapped the IV line twice and asked for it to be removed. The doctor first gave him a 10-minute lecture about how he should rest, that he was on the verge of frostbite, and so on and so forth. But Leon tapped his arm again, and since they already knew him, his request was granted at his own risk.
“Fancy little dress...”
he muttered as he stood on wobbly legs and looked down at himself. He had no visible frostbite, which suited him just fine, all in all, his body had held up well, and once the alcohol hangover subsided, he’d be back on his feet. A nurse accompanied him to his private quarters. It was a very large complex, right in the middle of New York, a sort of military institute that served as a temporary solution.
“Thanks, Cath.”
he murmured as he spent the next few hours sleeping off his intoxication and generally recovering from the ordeal.
“Agent… we didn’t find a data stick in your clothes. Obviously, the mission failed. How do you propose to proceed?”
About 12 hours later, the sun had already risen and the institute was bustling with activity. Leon sat at a large oval table, facing a few high-ranking officials in uniform who had been questioning him for two hours, demanding every bit of information and looking far from pleased.
“The drive is in the hands of another person I encountered there.”
Silence fell, followed by confusion. At first, they even thought Leon was using an excuse to cover up his failure, because it was absolutely unrealistic that a foreign organization would also be interested in obtaining data from a hidden lab that no one was supposed to know about. Leon weighed what he wanted to say... on the one hand, he saw it as his duty to be as honest as possible, because even though Yelena had seemed sincere, you could never be sure.. on the other hand, he didn’t see the point in turning her in... not yet.
“The person refused to give any information. I caught them copying the data onto a flash drive, and then things got really tense in that lab. They fled as everything behind us collapsed, and I didn’t have the gear or equipment to follow.”
That was a half-truth he could live with, but the government officials couldn’t, and they took their time explaining to Leon what this meant and that he had to use everything he’d seen and learned to somehow get his hands on that data. A needle in a haystack, then… well… that was nothing new to him. But instead of giving him a break, he was more or less subtly assigned a new mission, and Leon had to grin… because this mission was definitely meant to simply keep him busy.. and even punish him.
“A trip to Canada… well, as it happens, I still have a slot open… and of course I’m happy to take on this assignment.”
“Canada, then…. a decommissioned military base in the middle of nowhere.. I’m supposed to go around like a total idiot looking for possible live landmines and defuse them if necessary… and on top of that, check if there’s anything out there that nobody’s supposed to know about… I’m not complaining, but are there any side notes I should be aware of, any information on whether there’s still some treasure hidden there, out of which a thousand mutated bastards crawl?”
A friendly but cold female voice rang out from the speakers of his Porsche, which was perhaps racing a little too fast along the lonely roads of the Canadian wilderness.
“Nothing is known about that.”
He shook his head with relief.
“I’ve heard that before… but okay, I’ll be there soon… Mission Cleanup can begin. Kennedy… out.”
Three days had passed since he’d narrowly escaped death, though he didn’t see it quite as dramatically; if you looked at it more closely, he’d been escaping death time and again for years, and the fact that he was still alive was a miracle anyway. He couldn’t get Yelena out of his head… which somehow annoyed him to no end, but he hated not being able to thank someone for saving his life, and he hated even more still not knowing exactly what this woman actually did… who she was carrying out some shitty assignments for at that very moment, or… and sorry, not sorry.. this just came automatically with the life experience he’d gathered… whether she’d keep messing with him and they’d end up facing each other in a boss fight, or whether he’d eventually find out that she was one of his new, modern archenemies. But the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to let it go, he had to focus on other things, he couldn’t carry this experience around with him any longer, he had to stay true to himself and, as always, put the past behind him and only bring it up again when confronted with it.
By noon, he had finally reached his destination. Canada showed itself from its quietest side.. endless forests, dense and dark, with clearings in between, and somewhere within them this outpost, so inconspicuous that one could almost overlook it if one didn’t know exactly what one was looking for. The buildings were still standing, surprisingly intact. No obvious decay, no smashed windows, no chaos, and no vandalism, grass had reclaimed its space, growing evenly between the old paths. Even the fences looked more abandoned than destroyed, slightly rusty, but still standing. Twenty years, and yet everything seemed strangely intact and tidy… hardly comparable to the abandoned bases in other countries.
“You could almost settle down here and start a family…”
Leon muttered as he routinely checked his gear. Pistol, spare magazines, a rifle with a scope, and a knife on his belt. For the mines: hand scanner, markers, a compact bomb disposal kit, sturdy boots, gloves, radio… that was all he needed. He tightened the straps and took one last look at everything.
“…the only thing missing is a front yard full of explosives.”
He slowly set off. The scanner remained silent. No signal, no suspicious beeping. There was a hole in a fence through which he could slip easily, and then he could survey the entire area in peace. This unnatural silence, which had settled between the trees and buildings like a second skin, irritated him. Silence never meant anything good.. that, too, was something one learned over time. The bunkers lay flat on the ground, concrete blocks overgrown with moss and grass, low entrances, half-hidden, but everything open and accessible. It all looked like a morbid, military paradise in the countryside, and Leon doubted that there had ever been a virus outbreak here and that countless infected people had driven the soldiers away... we’d see. He stayed in this area for several hours, he was on guard... Of course, he didn’t take any of this lightly, but he still felt like he was being played for a fool and had the sense that some surprises were waiting for him here as well. Occasionally, he heard a crack in the distance, as if someone had accidentally stepped on a piece of wood… but it could have just been an animal, which was why he didn’t let it rattle him.
At some point, however, it sounded as if someone had used a zipline.. perhaps to enter the area from the tall trees, which finally prompted him to seek cover and hide on the roof of one of the bunkers. He positioned himself between ventilation shafts and empty, open crates, took his rifle in hand, and looked through the scope. His breathing was calm, and he gradually scanned the surroundings, ready to shoot if necessary. Just as he decided to look for another safe spot, he found himself staring directly into the muzzle of another gun. Someone was aiming at him... also using a sniper rifle, and his finger gently brushed against the trigger, because now he had to make a decision within seconds. Pull the trigger immediately... or throw himself behind a wall for cover.
He raised his weapon slightly. Blonde hair... a bit longer, the person was female, looked petite, her clothing suited the surroundings, and she was armed... but only to the extent that she could carry everything on her body. A small, neat, narrow bandage was visible on her hand. He took all this in within a single breath, but then a surprising sense of disillusionment set in, causing him to lower the gun slowly... very slowly.
“You’ve got to be kidding me... Red Chamberline...”
Yelena... again! This fueled his paranoia immensely... what was she doing here, why had he run into her again on the same day... what was her mission and... who the hell was planning all this? He crouched down on the ground, the rough concrete wall at his back, and thought for a moment. He ruled out the possibility that he was imagining all of this... and even if he were, he’d still have to look into it. Yelling across the entire compound would be not only risky but also stupid, so he did what he was quite good at: he set off, creeping slowly and cautiously through the area, using every hiding spot he could find and taking the time to wait and listen often.
“This time you owe me a few more answers, Blondie...”
he whispered, finally holding his breath.
@Yelena Belova | Tsarina.