The woman who answered the door was thin, almost painfully so. 177 guessed that the woman was at least five kilos lighter than her despite being several centimeters taller. She smelled of dusk, ink, and disinfectant. And she had a hesitant, nervous manner, with almost a hint of listlessness in it. 177 had seen that expression before. It was the expression of a person who, somewhere deep inside, had given up on something. It was a resignation to let what would come, come.

If they're hurting you, thought 177, I will end them. All of them.

But she kept the thought off her face. Instead she smiled, trying to be pleasant, and extended her hand in greeting. Havelock was energetic and outgoing, as always, which compared to the obviously quiet woman who had opened the door seemed almost offensive. But they seemed to know each other, and you could never quite tell with friends.

She stepped into the apartment, glad to see that at least it wasn't a bare cell. The air smelled slightly of tea. Her eyes were drawn to the windows immediately, the part of her mind that always processed that information noting them as a potential point of egress and exit. She saw a small kitchen, a place to sit, a bathroom, bookcases. On the whole it was rather like any other apartment. Better, in fact, than most in the Moscow she remembered.

That was sixty years ago. She wondered what they were like now.

In the center of the room was an easel with the beginnings of a drawing on it. Pinned to the walls here and there were other sketches as well. 177's eye lingered on one- a portrait of someone she didn't recognize- admiring the artistry of it.

So. A nervous woman, living in a well-furnished apartment with a metal door with all the comforts of home and painting to amuse her. What did that add up to? Havelock had mentioned “work” twice, so clearly they had her doing something. She wanted to know more, wanted to understand this place and wanted desperately for it not to be what she feared it was. She wanted to hear the other woman say that she was healthy and happy and doing what she wanted to do. She wanted to believe that what went on here was good and nothing at all like what had happened to her. Wanted to believe it so, so, badly. Yet- whatever she saw- how could she ever trust such a place again?

Still smiling at Claire, she pulled out her phone and typed.



@nathan
Claire Elliot

The doctor took her apology a bit more lightly than she would have liked, but frankly she was more interested in moving on than anything else and so only smiled gratefully.

She sat on the padded table and waited for the nurse to come to draw blood, tapping her nails on the vinyl. After the thermometer incident, she harbored some hope that this wouldn't be as bad as she remembered, but her hope was disappointed. Drawing blood apparently worked the same everywhere.

The nirse who came to do the drawinf turned out to be a fat, dark-skinned woman who smelled nice and had a friendly voice. 177 managed a smile as she gave her arm over to the larger woman, despite a rising tension in her own body that surprised her.

Frustrating. She had thought she was at peace with the past, having achieved equanimity and control. And yet, inside her and without her consent, some circuit in her body clicked and she felt her flight or fight reflex rising, preparing to smash her way out of the room the moment she needed to. She did a calming breathing exercise as the nurse the equipment, which the nurse noticed. She smiled. "A little nervous about the needle, are we?"

No. Not in the slightest. She could take a thousand needles without blicking if she needed to. It was the place far more than it was the pain. 177 stared unblinking at the nurse as she took the blood. The woman gave a nervous smile. "Almost done."

177 forced herself to look away. The deed was completed and her arm was bandaged. She pulled the bandage off as soon as the nurse was gone; the bleeding had stopped almost instantly. She healed quickly. Seeing her blood taken had made ber hungry, but she knew she had a day or two before she needed to feed again.



She accepted the badge Havelock got for her, clipping it to the edge of her shirt after looking it over. There were no visible marks on it to be scanned. She knew about punch cards, but this kind of scanning technology was new to her. Something about magnets, she seemed to recall? But it didn't stick to the doorknobs that they passed.

As they walked, she took in the hallways and the security that they walked through. The doors needed hers or Havelock's card to open, but many of them were simply glass that could be smashed open even by a normal person. Cameras everywhere, which still disturbed her even though she was coming to realize the United States had far more of them than her home. You would have to cut the building's power to deal with those, maybe, or come in disguise. They saw no guards, though 177 would have relished the option to size them up.

But this was no dungeon or prison, she was coming to see. The peolle here disproved that. They were relaxed about the security, people who saw it as a mundane safety measure rather than keeping in the dangerous. No one challenged Havelock on walking through there with a stranger, which in any reasonably secure place would have happened a dozen times. For all their technology, the people here were clearly unused to thinking like they were in a highly secure area.

She preferred that to the alternate, she supposed.

She didn't like Havelock's description of "her own, self-contained apartment". It still sounded too much like a prison for her. In a place like this a room freely given could easily become a prison, as she well knew.

Still, she at least didn't see any 6x6 concrete cells.

The door seemed normal enough, compared to the other apartments she'd seen. At Havelock's instruction, she gave the door a vigorous knock. It felt like there was metal under the wooden vineer.

Nathan Havelock
Claire Elliot

That he was flustered she picked up right away, but what he was flustered about took several seconds longer. If he was a doctor, surely he'd seen- oh. Oh. You could take them that way? For almost the first time since coming to this new place she felt genuinely embarrassed. With as much dignity as she could manage she restored her clothing and sat up. Her face was an almost perfectly blank mask. Only the slightest tinge of redness in them indicated anything was amiss.

Careful of making further mistakes she did the closest thing she could to saying "Ah", resulting in a hissing sound of air rushing past her cheeks. After that he wanted some samples, which she supposed was to be expected, even if the term made her slightly queasy. She took the pot without objection and followed her nose to the toilet room, returning with her face composed and the container full.

She held out the phone with the message she'd typed while out.



When he asked the question she typed.



Nathan Havelock

She'd killed him.

That was her thought as she came out of the fugue. She was slowly putting together what had happened. When he touched her, it had been like she was back there, and she had lashed out, thinking he was her old enemy.

He wasn't. He was an otherwise harmless man trying to help; she saw that now. A horrible rush of guilt and nausea came over her. How could this happen? She knew a million ways to break someone's grip! She didn't have to pick the most horrible ones. She was furious with herself, and terrified at what she had done. The loss of control! What had happened to her? What was happening?

His legs moved as she grabbed at his belt, and he rolled over. She stopped, gaping. He was alive! Relief washed over her, even as she deflected his slow and clumsy attack. The man's face was a ruin. It was incredible that he was still moving. And yet he was alive, even if mangled. That was the important thing.

No deaths. Not tonight.

She looked around. People by the station were already on their phones. She looked at the man again. He was hurt, yes, but surely they would call for help. There was nothing left for her here. It had been a mistake to come out. It was time to leave.

Turning, she ran into the darkness.

@jim

She had gotten as far as YOUR HUSBAND F when the man grabbed her. She had turned her back on in something of a power move, implying she was so in control she didn't have to worry about him, and her considered opinion was that she didn't. She had a weapon, her skills and her strength, and while this man clearly had something of the do-gooder in him he didn't appear to be genuinely dangerous. Thus, there was no need for her to divulge the full extent of her skills by preempting him. If he tried anything, he'd find himself majorly outclassed and she had every expectation she would be the victor in any encounter. She was firm, she was in control, she was ready for anything the man might try.

Such was her thinking. She felt him come closer and move in to grapple. Quite the courageous man, to go in for physical combat with a woman half his size. She let him settle into the hold, testing his intentions, feeling the situation through fully. It appeared he intended only to hold her. She had no intention of waiting for whatever help he had summoned, but she felt his strength and knew she could overpower him at will. Her last thought, before it happened, was that there was no need to force the issue for these next several seconds.

And then his hands touched her neck.

She felt something inside her click, some switch she had forgotten existed flip over. A moment of the past stabbed through her like a blade. Click- the collar of the triangle locking on her. Click- another collar, this one chaining her to a cell call. Touch- Masushita's hand brushing the back of her neck as he spoke lightly, softly. His fingers, thin and cold. His voice, speaking of the next few moment. Click, click, inside her mind. Touch, touch upon her neck. Fingers brushing, arms holding, a voice speaking instructions. Collars, fingers, her throat exposed, rope or cable or hands wrapped about it. Vulnerability. Pain. Control.

No.

No no no no no no no.

Inside her mind, a sudden explosion. She let out a scream of terror and fury that produced no sound. His hands- Masushita's hands- all their hands. His breathing betrayed the location of his nose and mouth and she struck and struck and struck again. It was Masushita's face she struck, paying back pain for pain, laying down an annihilation for the annihilation he had laid on her. She reared back and threw him off her body, tossing him across the concrete like a rag doll. She saw blood on the tip of the tire iron. Instinct took over and she drew it to her mouth, licking.

Clarity shot through her like a bolt of lighting. The world seemed to clear. The sounds, the smells- shouts of confusion and horror, the smell of petrol on the air, Masushita's scent gone from her nostrils-

She looked around, blinking in confusion. She was at the filling station. Yes, she was. She looked down at the tire iron in her hand, her mind seemingly filled with cotton. The past seconds were slipping away from her like a dream upon waking. What was happening?

Behind her, in the car. A man shouting. “Jesus, she's killing him! Get the police!” She looked at the iron she was holding. Saw the blood. Looked at the bloodied face of the man in front of her.

What had she done?

Oh, no.

Only seconds to make a decision. Two of the men in front of the filling station were on their phones. The police would be here soon. They'd find her, they'd find him- she couldn't have it. She ran forward.

The man in the car shouted, “Stop her! Someone!”

The iron in her left hand, her right on the belt of the man whose face she had bloodied. Throwing him onto her shoulder. His feet would drag the ground but it was the best she could manage. She picked the darkest section of the night around her, and ran.

@jim

She smashed the windshield, and the taillights, and was making short work of the back windows when the man who'd drawn near grabbed hold of her weapon and told her it wasn't a good idea. She hadn't bothered with him when she sensed him coming; until he actually interfered he wasn't a problem. She paused, turning and staring at him with bared teeth. She studied him for a moment, then gave him a look of pure contempt. If I had a voice, she thought, I'd tell you exactly how much this man deserves this. I'd tell you how little he carea for what he has and how easily he throws it away. But she didn't have a voice, and she couldn't express any of that. Instead she yanked the bar oit of his grip and let the end clank on the ground as she held it, and kept staring at him.

One of the car doors opened, and the woman ran out, legs bare and missing a shoe.

"You evil skank!" shouted the man inside the car. "I'll kill you!"

177 gave the man who'd grabbed her iron a "see what I have to put up with" gesture, then gave the man in the car the finger. Glancing back at the other man, she raised her eyebrows, looked in the direction the woman had run, then looked at the man who'd grabbed her. Well? Are you just going to let her run away like that?

Turning her back on him, she hefted the bar again and began using the pointed end to carve letters into the paint of the car. A warning, for the man's innocent family.

@jim