The Ural Sanatorium wasn't on any map, but you could feel it from five kilometers out. It was a pressure change in the air, a low thrum that vibrated up through the stolen truck’s chassis and into my teeth. The facility squatted in the center of a wide, snow-blown valley, a brutalist concrete scar against the white. A cluster of low, windowless blocks surrounded by rings of wire and the cold, unblinking eyes of floodlights. It didn’t look like a sanatorium. It looked like a prison for things that didn't sleep.
We killed the engine a kilometer away and went the rest of the way on foot, two ghosts moving through a graveyard of skeletal birch trees. The cold was a physical thing, a presence that bit at any exposed skin and settled deep in the bones. Anja Petrova moved beside me, the heavy case containing the Aegis Conduit slung over her shoulder. Her breath plumed in the frigid air, but her steps were steady, her focus absolute. She had built the cage; now she was returning to kill the animal inside.
The perimeter was a joke for anyone who could see the world the way I did. The fence was electrified, the watchtowers manned. But the real defense was psychic. I could feel the guards, not as men, but as listening posts, their minds extended into the frozen air like a net. They were psychically-attuned, trained to feel the ripple of an approaching mind. But a net has holes.
— This way, — I whispered, my voice a dry rasp in the absolute silence. — There’s a gap between the two on the east corner. Stay close.
I didn’t feel for their thoughts. I felt for the absence of them. The blind spots in their overlapping fields of awareness. We moved through those gaps, the snow muffling our steps. The price of this kind of stealth was a constant, grinding pressure behind my eyes, a mental balancing act that left no room for error. A single stray thought, a flicker of fear, and they would feel us. Petrova followed without a word, her trust a heavier weight than the cold. We were a two-person army, and our only advantage was that the enemy didn't know how to look for us yet.
We reached the concrete base of the main building. The hum was louder here, a physical vibration that seemed to emanate from the very stone. It was the sound of the Echo Protocol, the song of subjugated memory. A low, flat, malevolent tone that promised a world scrubbed clean of choice.
— The service hatch should be here, — Petrova murmured, her gloved hand brushing snow from a low steel plate set flush with the wall. It was secured with a magnetic lock, a standard KGB design.
She pulled the stolen keycard from her pocket. The piece of dark Bakelite she had palmed me in the chaos of the Zurich embassy. A key from her past, now the only key to our future. She slid it into a nearly invisible slot. There was a soft click, and the mag-lock disengaged. The hatch hissed open onto darkness. We had just burned our last secret, announcing our presence to whatever central system that keycard was tied to. The fuse was lit.
We dropped into the service tunnels, pulling the hatch closed above us. The air was different down here. Still cold, but dry, and it smelled of ozone and chilled electrical systems. The hum was a living thing in these narrow concrete corridors, a drill bit working its way into my molars. The only light came from bare, caged bulbs set every twenty meters, casting long, distorted shadows.
A heavy steel door blocked the corridor, a keypad glowing beside it. Petrova didn’t hesitate. Her fingers, stripped of their gloves, moved with the practiced speed of someone who had done this a thousand times. She wasn’t hacking the system; she was speaking its language. Old Ninth Directorate codes. Her past wasn't just a burden; it was a weapon. A green light flashed above the keypad, and the door slid open with a pneumatic sigh.
— They haven't updated the protocols, — she said, a hint of professional pride mixed with contempt in her voice. — Arrogance.
We moved deeper, a virus in the system's bloodstream. The tunnels were sterile, identical. Every junction was a choice that could lead to a patrol or a dead end. But Petrova knew the architecture. She knew the logic of the men who had built this place. We didn't speak. There was no need. I watched our backs, my senses extended, feeling for the psychic tripwires and the minds of the guards. She read the signs on the walls, the numbers on the pipes, the subtle shifts in construction that told her where we were.
The STATIC was worse down here. It wasn't on a screen. It was in the air itself, a faint, visual shimmer at the edge of my vision, like heat haze rising from a block of ice. It was the psychic exhaust of the machine, the waste product of fifty souls being held in a state of perpetual torment. The air tasted of hot copper. The subjugation of Kholodny-12 was a physical presence in this place, a constant, grinding pressure against my own mind.
After ten minutes that felt like an hour, we reached a final junction. A heavy, circular steel door, like a bank vault, blocked the way. The metal was cold to the touch, and the hum was so intense here it made my teeth ache. A stenciled warning in Cyrillic declared the area beyond a high-energy zone. Access forbidden.
This was it. The antechamber to hell.
We had gathered our courage, our few tools, and the fragile, unspoken trust forged in fire and ice. We were in position. I pulled my pistol from its holster, the checkered grip a familiar, solid weight in my hand. The slide was cold against my palm. I checked the magazine. Seven rounds. Petrova shifted the weight of the Aegis Conduit on her shoulder, her knuckles white where she gripped the strap.
She looked at me, her eyes dark in the dim light of the corridor. There were no grand speeches, no final words of encouragement. There was only the shared understanding of the next few minutes. A two-pronged key against a locked reality. Her knowledge, my power. One chance.
I gave her a single, sharp nod.
She nodded back.
We were inside. We were ready. But the silence on the other side of that door was the wrong kind of silence. It wasn't the silence of an empty room. It was the silence of a trap that had already been sprung.
