Ivan hushed him with a free hand, tucking his other hand into his greatcoat, rummaging for an item deep within.

  "Our boss keeps no secrets from us," Dimitri said, pouring himself another shot of kvass, "Vodko, on the other hand…"

  "Otvaali, Demitri," Vodko flipped his comrade off on cue.

  Ivan leaned over to Doc with a wicked glint in his remaining hazel eye. He had finally managed to grab a hold of a dusty old map that had been folded in on itself into a compact paper brick. He unfolded it and stretched it out over the lit display underneath. The map was badly kept as there were multiple stains, wrinkles, and creases in the thick paper. Ivan lined up the X drawn on the map with the X on the lit display below.

  “Is preparation based on previous briefing. Is map of.. almost century old.. uh..” Ivan said as he quickly grabbed the bottle that Vodko and Dimitri had taken turns with and looked at the map which had ‘ofitsial'naya karta kanalizatsionnogo tunnelya..’ written in Cyrillic in an ever fading font in a corner, “What is name.. eh, stochnaya truba? Vodko.”

  “Sewers,” Vodko chimed in as he sipped on the last of the kvass from his cup.

  “Good, that is a... da,” Ivan said as he shook and slapped the bottle upside down over his head with his mouth open only to have but a few drops hit his tongue, “Ah, suka,” he muttered before hurling it over his shoulder and pointing on the map again.

  “Official channels not bother digitize older blocked off tunnels,” Ivan leaned on the map and pushed it down with one hand to keep it in place as he traced his finger over the map, as he curved his finger around the tunnels that were lit up in blue from the screen below.

  “Our plan is knock down wall here, here and here. Then move tanks underground in the tunnel next to steel mill, hide sound of tank with steel mill sound. Before up to then, need diversion to avoid eyes of garrison...”

  “Dimitri?”

  “On it boss.”

  “Wait, tanks? I thought you guys said we needed to use stealth?” Doc leaned towards Vodko and asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Vodko simply shrugged as he listened to Ivan.

  “...Would reduce sound far enough to for engine to build up momentum to ram through wall to the service tunnel of abandoned missile silo. Here,” Ivan poked on the map.

  “It should contain lift big and powerful enough to lift tank to surface. We start operation three days from now, starting at 05:37 on third day."

  “Why that particular time?” Dimitri groaned.

  “Pros of employer paying well. Specific instructions employer left for us.”

  "Tunnel, Distraction, Missile Silo, Take control of the anomaly detection tower, Deliver Doktor to Red Zone, get paid five times the average fee for a job," Ivan ticked them off his fingers like a memory mnemonic.

  “That’s all for the meeting. Also, first things first, but not necessarily in that order, we have a minor mission for you, Doktor. Our employer informed us that we could rely on you for a little preparatory project of ours,” he continued as he stood up

  Doc pushed himself up into a standing position, took off his glasses and exhaled a warm breath that made them fog up, and carefully wiped off dust with a thin cloth.

  “Dimitri, get back on looking who got into box in here.” Ivan said and gestured for Doc and Vodko to follow him, “Davai, davai, zhivee”

  Ivan climbed up the ladder and walked out into the hall, to the men outside. Once doc concluded that the glasses were once again reasonably clean, he followed the others upstairs. Doc stumbled behind them trying to match Ivan’s pace as he tirelessly stomped himself forward with his mechanical leg. The men around him quickly fell in, tugging the worn uniforms straight, pulling holsters to the right spot on their belts.

  After walking for the better part of thirty minutes and only waiting for the occasional moment to let Doc catch his breath, they arrived at an intersection. Ivan continued walking down yet another hall and turned to a large run down corner office at the end of the floor. Ivan grabbed the door handle intending to open it as the doorframe and most of the wall fell down in front of him, leaving him standing with an annoyed expression balancing a door. He let it go and it crashed with a heavy thud amidst the other rubble.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  On the walls, numerous gas masks were neatly arranged, hanging in rows. Below each gas mask, padded riot gear such as shin guards, elbow pads, knee pads and chest protection was neatly folded and placed into the open lockers that lined the walls. Ivan walked over the door on the floor, balanced as he slid down the rubble to a locker and began fitting the gear onto himself. After having finally outfitted himself from head to toe, he grabbed two nearby gas masks and threw them to Vodko and Doc.

  “Put on these,” Ivan said.

  “Gas masks?” Doc answered with a bewildered expression.

  “Da. Gas in… hm.. Truba,” Ivan said with a troubled expression.

  “If you don’t wear that, you’ll only get as far as saying; something smells funny- before you die,” Vodko spoke, his voice muffled by the gas mask on his head.

  “Silent and Deadly. Like a mime with dagger, da?” Ivan continued and laughed.

  Doc’s face turned a few shades paler. Before he could respond Ivan began turning the round metal wheel, dug his heels in and pulled a thick metal door open. Doc hurriedly began trying to put on the gas mask.

  “Follow me,” Ivan said and stepped into the pressure chamber leading out into the sewers.

  As soon as Doc managed to securely put on his gas mask without nudging his glasses off the bridge of his nose, he followed Vodko, who had put on the gas mask as casually as putting on a hat, into the pressure chamber. Ivan pulled the large door behind them, spun the iron wheel on the inside and atmosphere from the sewers as air from the sewers blew down in concentrated smoky bursts as the outside doors swung open and revealed the dark interior. Liquid raw sewage puddles were littered throughout the corridor from the occasional hole in the rusted pipes along the walls. They walked down the hallway for a couple of meters and dodged the occasional rusted tubes that shot out in the walkway as they dodged a few corners before arriving in front of a ladder leading upwards.

  “This is it?” Doc asked, surprised by the comparatively short walk.

  “Da,” Ivan said, climbed up and pushed the manhole cover just enough so that he’d be able to peer out without being discovered.

  Just as he was about to announce that the coast was clear, a tank appeared out of nowhere and it's massive weight slammed the manhole cover shut. Ivan reflexively closed his eyes as he lost balance. A clang echoed. It was at this point Ivan realized that his eyes were still closed, he slowly opened his organic eye, the cybernetic one coming to life a second later as it detected the mental impulse. Ivan's vision swam into focus and he saw a brown blur before him, swimming back and forth and knocking upon his head. He couldn't make sense of what he was seeing, until it suddenly struck him that he was upside down. As he was dangling on the ladder with his mechanical foot preventing his fall, he once again unfolded the paper brick map into something readable.

  “We need new route,” Ivan concluded loudly as he dangled and tried to figure out an alternate route, and rotated the map so that it would also be upside down.

  * * *

  Ivan, Vodko and Doc ran into a run down building after having ventured through the sewers for another twenty minutes and exited through another manhole cover. An emergency engine was humming in the corner, providing power to the fluorescent light that lined the walls.

  “What is this place?” Doc asked.

  “The decline of Western civilization. The city closed half of libraries,” Ivan replied.

  “Budget cuts. Building sold to bank that mafia previously controlled. Owner was shot in head. Bank then declared bankruptcy. So is in kind of limbo. It doesn't exist.” Vodko said.

  “Doktor, project we seek is downstairs,” Ivan said and pushed a button.

  A whirring screech preceded a ding and the opening of doors. They all stepped into the elevator. Doc looked for the floor they would go to, but was somewhat confused as it clearly signified that they were located on the lowest possible floor. Ivan pushed buttons of numbered floors as if entering a password and the elevator descended beneath the supposedly lowest floor. After a long time of screeching and shaking, a ding resounded and the elevator slid open. Ivan led the way out of the elevator. Within was a messy garage where a large tank stood in front of them.

  “This… This is the project?” Doc asked, somewhat confused.

  “Da! The painless T-55, thirty-six tons of glorious reinforced stalinium... Although more like drifting shopping cart with cannon, than tank.”

  “Yes, but-”

  “Da. Generally speaking the protection is superb. The only problem is in that the side armor falls off. Run on liquid potato, and used to shoot shell made out of solid hate for capitalism. Gun no longer works. We have tried to weld a discontinued Finnish Mk5 laser gun-”

  “Railgun, it doesn’t shoot a laser, it shoots superheated plasma. The misconception that made people call it a laser gun was because of the laser cooling technology appli-” Doc interrupted.

  “-Onto the Russian turret. Da, da. Is only 6 years old. Also, old Russian turret doesn’t really work,” Ivan continued with what he was saying before Doc interrupted him.

  “Oh, and we might need to cut open the turret a bit to lower that thing into it as well,” Ivan pointed to a box in the distance, “We picked it up at the museum along with the tank, might be useful.”