Chapter 4

Area 51

           

            The clack of his boots on the polished marble floor echoed down the empty hallway and skipped back to him like a cold, hard heartbeat.  Perhaps a heart not unlike my own, Alexi thought to himself as he stepped on the slick floor, staring down at the reflection of the hazy fluorescent lights.  He pressed his thumb to the small pad outside his room and the lock clicked on the door.  Cold.  Hard.  Without feeling.  Is that what I’ve become? He asked himself as he strode into his private quarters—nothing more than a dorm room, really.  He turned on the cold water and splashed some over his face.  He had just arrived from the mission in Iraq not 45 minutes ago and the jet lag was making his thoughts a bit cloudy.  Cool water ran over his skin, heightening his senses for a moment as he stared in the mirror.  Steel grey eyes met his gaze.  Eyes like knives.  Dead eyes. 

He had been forced to kill the girl, he knew, and while he didn’t feel pity for the girl, he found the murder of innocents a bit distasteful.  Duty, his pa would say.  Duty always wins over emotion; over preference.  A soldier’s life was one where he made duty his king—his god.  To do anything less is to become a traitor.  Alexi nodded to his father’s echoes.  Those soldiers in the cave had known the risk of serving under such a man—even his wife knew.  But the girl…

            He left the bathroom, toweling his face off as he slumped into his bed and lay there, staring at the metal grating that passed for a ceiling.  The girl may have been innocent, but she was also a liability.  How many would die if the blades were exposed?  How dangerous would the world become without their expertise to keep men like Yusuf Ali in check?  The girl had seen it all—had seen him.  She had to die.  Such was the price of war.  He didn’t kill her; he simply paid the price that needed paying.  Not a murderer, an accountant.  And someone had to pay the bills for what terrorism had purchased.

            He nodded to himself, nearly jumping when a knock sounded at his door.  He considered not answering—he needed the rest—when the second pounding sounded.  “Alexi.  I know you’re here.  I waited until the computers logged your entrance, so don’t try any of your crap.”  Alexi was sighing and standing before the Captain had even finished his tirade, shoving his thumb against the pad on the wall and walking back towards his bed even as the door clicked.

            “’Bout damned time.”  The captain spat, “I was standing out th…”

            “What do you want, Rusal?  I’m trying to get some rest.”

            The captain raised an eyebrow curiously, “You might not be a trainee, anymore, Ramizov, but I’m still a captain.  Show me a little respect.”  He stared at Alexi for a moment to make his point, and then continued, “I’m here to see how it went.  I read the report.”  He said, pausing, “She was young.”

            Alexi nodded slowly, closing his eyes.  The captain’s concern was a bit too late; the accountant had already closed the books for today.

            The captain worked his mouth, obviously annoyed.  “Can’t say as I’m surprised.  You always were different—colder than the rest.”

            “You mean more professional.  I may not like killing children, but it doesn’t mean I have to get all sobby about it.”

            “You could at least show some emotion—some remorse.  But the only emotion you’ve ever shown is arrogance: like you’re better than everyone else.  You might be different,” he said and Alexi noted a subtle shift in his tone, something had hardened.  “You might be the second coming of Rhistal,” he continued, but Alexi didn’t feel right all of a sudden.  He reached out with his mind, probing the room.  His mind warbled against the physical reality of things, but eventually focused and Alexi saw without looking.  He nearly opened his eyes in shock at what he saw.  The Captain had a mindblade in his hand.  How the hell did he get that in here?  They were forbidden in the barracks.  His curiosity was interrupted when the captain spoke again, “But you won’t replace me!” he screamed, the mindblade flaring to life as he slashed down at Alexi, the blade of light hissing as it cut metal and mattress clean in a feral swipe.

Alexi un-tucked from his roll to the side and came up on his toes to see the captain spin, swinging the mindblade at Alexi’s head.  He continued his momentum, bending back as the blade flared past his face, the heat singing his eyebrows as it swung by.  He straightened and darted to the side, moving for his door as Rusal swung at his back, slicing Alexi’s shirt.  He might be able to get out the door—get to a spot where others could see and help him.  His senses felt a shift in the psychic pressure behind him and he ducked into roll as the mindblade spun over his head, the captain now moving it with his mind—always faster than a target’s feet.

Alexi quickly scanned the room, looking for something—anything—to use as a weapon.  Nothing readily presented itself and he was forced to dodge into his bathroom as the door was sliced cleanly from its hinges by the whirring rod of energy.  It straightened in the air, parallel to the floor, and dove for Alexi’s chest and he realized he was out of options—and time.  Focusing his will, the newest Mindblade shoved a kinetic shield in front of him, pouring every ounce of discipline into it as he wrapped his mind around the blade.  The blade slowed to a crawl, and Alexi had to strain to hold it back.

The captain laughed form the other room.  “So much for your ‘psychic potential.’  It means nothing without discipline, Alexi.  And you never had that.  Now it will be your undoing.”  As if to prove the point, the glowing tip pressed closer to Alexi.

“Why are you doing this?”  Alexi yelled.

“Because you’re different.” Rusal answered, appearing in the bathroom doorway, hovering a few inches form the ground in a traditional Mindblade stance.  “You’re a liability.  You’ll get us all uncovered or killed.  So instead you must die.  It’s the price that must be paid.”

The echo of his own thoughts more than unnerved Alexi and the blade slipped closer.  The captain was right: Alexi didn’t have the discipline to fight him.  He could already see he was losing.  He tried focusing harder, but the captain wasn’t even exerting himself.  Alexi was losing. 

He realized was going to die today.

The blade drew nearer and Alexi had to crawl onto his toilet, the back of his head pressing the wall behind him as the blade inched inexorably closer.  He could feel the heat on his nose as it drew nearer.  He thought to beg, but sneered at the though.  He wouldn’t give the captain the satisfaction.  It angered him that someone so weak, so average would kill him; that his genius would be ended by this man—this bland, uninspired weakling.  His sneer became a grimace and the blade slid away from his face.

It was only by the tiniest of margins.  But Alexi had seen it.  How had he moved it when he couldn’t even stop it moments before?  He had never been that disciplined.  His focus was never that strong.  He had passed the first few weeks of training on raw emotion alone; his cuts sloppy and his control shaky at best.  It wasn’t until Rusal had hammered into his head the idea of discipline and control that he had overcome his wild flailing and been able to control his blade.  Rusal, the man who now pressed death inches from his face, had made him tuck away his emotion; his rage.  And it had made him a better Mindblade.  Cleaner.  Faster.  Precise…Stronger?

Alexi narrowed his eyes.  The captain had indeed made him a better Mindblade, but had he sacrificed power in the process?  He gritted his teeth and for the first time in months, let his anger fuel his power.  The blade wobbled and slid away a bit more.  Alexi peered over its length to stare at the captain, whose face was now twisted in concentration and covered in sweat.

“You thought to withhold my power…to cripple me so you could reap the benefits of my fall…”  Alexi said, anger seeping from him into his words and mental hands, slowly pushing the mindblade backwards an inch. 

“…you lied and misled me...”  Alexi said through gritted teeth.  The mindblade crept away again.

“…and now you come here…to my room; my sanctuary…” he said, his voice rising.  Another inch.

“…to kill me?” He said, nearly yelling now as his fury tightened like a fist in his stomach.  He glowered at his captain, his mentor, and snorted derisively.  “Your feeble attempt to end me has failed, Rusal.”  Alexi said, and the rage in his stomach flared to life, burning white hot behind his knife-grey eyes.

“And now it’s you who are the liability.”

His anger exploded into a growl, and the blade flipped.  He yelled and pushed his mind, losing his discipline in a ball of fury and hate.  The mirror cracked and everything on the bathroom counter was flung into corners as the mindblade rocketed away.  Rusal let out a sharp breath as he was flung backwards by the concussive force of Alexi’s thrashing mind.  The captain slammed into the wall opposite the bathroom’s split door and raised his hand up in defense against the mindblade as it bore down on him.

Moments later, Alexi stood panting in his bathroom, staring at the slumped corpse of Captain Rusal.  The bathroom looked like someone had driven a car through it drunk.  Broken pieces of the mirror littered the counter and shampoo coated his shower like some sort of modern painting.  The toilet under him was leaking water onto the floor and was etched with spider webs of cracks all over its porcelain base.

He ran his fingers through his hair, taking it all in, and smirked.  He may have lost all semblance of discipline, but he had gained power; immense power.  His eyes slid to his left, peering at the shattered mirror and catching his own grey eyes in the reflection.  He smiled wide and chuckled to himself.

Power.  I have discovered a secret to power that none in the ‘blades can match.  Not even Rhistal.

His chuckle became a laugh, and it grew louder and louder as he looked about his destroyed bathroom.  It echoed off the walls until he was sure someone was there, laughing with him—until he could almost feel the other’s presence, laughing in the back of his mind. 

*****************

Alexi’s eyes popped open and he sat up quickly in his bed.  He blinked to clear his mind and glanced about his room in a panic.  No blood.  The bed was whole.  No dead Captain Rusal.  He had dreamt it; All of it.  Shaking his head, he rolled from his bed and walked into the bathroom—just to be sure.  Everything was in its place.  No shattered mirrors or broken toilets.  No shampoo splattered across the walls.  He pressed his face to his hands, feeling the cool sweat form the intense dream and reached down to run some more water to splash on his face.  The water hit his face with icy clarity and he shot up, staring at his own grey eyes again in the mirror, wide with shock.  He was awake, and clearly nothing had happened.

So why did he still hear laughter echoing in his head?