Gatac

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

  It was cold as shit in the reception area with the door hanging open, but Ky was sweating rivers from just above her eyes and from the palms of her hands. Her left hand was clinging to the stock of the twelve gauge and her right hand was at the foregrip and fuck!, she couldn’t get the pump gun to do the pump gun thing. She needed it to just fucking work. She needed it because Viktor was here and he wasn’t leaving anytime soon, either. The scene had gone from Viktor asking for Anne to Viktor putting hands on the doc real fucking fast. Now that motherfucker had the doc in a headlock and a pistol to his head like it was nothing.

  “Fuck off!” Ky screamed, waving the gun like it meant anything. He didn’t even flinch. “I will blow your fucking head off, you piece of shit!”

  Ky didn’t want to blow Viktor’s fucking head off. But, fuck, what else was she supposed to shout, huh? He had a gun, she had a gun. You had to make the other guy more afraid of dying than you were. Right? The biggest problem was she couldn’t exactly threaten him if she couldn’t keep a bead on his head. Her hands were shaking and there were tears and sweat in her eyes and she couldn’t see the sights and fuck, the shotgun was heavy. You ever lift one of those bad boys off a table? Easy enough, right? Yeah, well, now hold it out for a minute. Ky had been trying for two minutes. The only thing keeping the twelve gauge aimed even roughly at Viktor was that if she let it drop, he’d kill her first.

  “You know why I came to you,” Viktor said.“She’s not fucking here!” Ky shouted. Her breath sped up and she noticed it sped up. So she tried to rack the shotgun, straining against the locked action.1For this installment of Robert Ruins Movies, count how many times supposedly badass characters rack a pump-action shotgun just to intimidate someone. Also count how many times it actually spits out a perfectly good shell. If A != B, be sure to leave a snarky remark about it at the Internet Movie Firearms Database. I mean, we talked about action releases way back in Chapter 6, are they just pressing those all the time? If you want to go easy on the movie, assume the character has Sean’s habit of carrying uncocked with an empty chamber and chalk up the first rack as a freebie.But really, generally, don’t fall for the ‘character maniputes aimed firearm to make clear they’re really serious about his threat’ cliché. Aiming a gun at anyone under any circumstances is already a death threat. Pying with the gun afterwards either shows the character wasn’t ready to shoot before or they’re not actually achieving anything. Even the only semi-justified one — manually cocking the hammer on a DA/SA pistol to get the lighter single-action pull — is dubious in practice. Plus, if you’re pying with the gun’s controls, you’re probably not paying attention to the point of aim or keeping a stable grip. Does that sound like something a professional would do? Sort out your weapon handling before you start aiming at whatever you want to destroy, is what I’m saying.Obviously, the movie gets a pass if the character’s incompetence with the weapon is the intended message of the scene. But that’s a rare occasion indeed. She didn’t know what was wrong with it, fuck —“Shoot,” the doc croaked.“You will kill us both, if you shoot,” Viktor said.

  Maybe just fire it. Just…try. Who knows, maybe that’d hit him…maybe not, though. Maybe scare him enough for the doc to turn the tables. Maybe…no, the rest of the maybes weren’t any better. Fuck! She was a fucking nurse. No, a little kid pretending to be a fucking nurse. Why the hell did it have to be her? If Anne’s almighty God existed, he surely had it in for Ky.

  “You will certainly kill the doctor,” Viktor said. “Be reasonable, girl. Put the gun away.”“Fuck you!” Ky shouted. She didn’t shout it at him. She couldn’t see shit anymore, least of all him.

  This was not a very stable situation. That’s why it changed.

  It would have been a lie to say things had gone well for Viktor so far, because if they had, he would have found Anne at the doctor’s clinic, or they would have at least told him where she was, or failing even that, known where she was and refused to tell him — it was becoming abundantly clear they didn’t know a thing, but the only way to be certain of it had been to deliver the threat. Still, it was not as bad an outcome as he had feared. Perhaps he had become overly sentimental, giving the girl precious seconds to fetch the shotgun hidden under the counter. He was, at least, fairly certain he would have been forced to shoot her at that point, if he hadn’t already known what it was she was reaching for and that it would never be fired by her hands. The girl had a mouth on her, but no trigger finger to go with it, and after a minute of peak votility in the situation, she was defeating herself, breaking down into shouting and crying without ever coming close to firing. This was good. This meant he could back it off a little, maybe let the doctor go, and conduct this interview in a slightly more civilized way.

  But then Viktor saw movement on the girl’s face, a change of expression, eyes shifting, the shotgun all but dropping from her hands — but he couldn't turn to see what had caused it without letting go of the doctor. So he decided it was better to gamble on having two people he could hurt at a moment's notice rather than let them both go and waste time reassessing the situation. It wasn't the worst choice to be made, but when he heard Anne's voice behind him, the only thing he could do was smile.

  “Easy there,” she said. Now that the girl was no longer shouting, Viktor could actually strain to make out the soft steps of Anne circling into a better position to his side in the waiting room. He gnced to the side, seeing the pistol in her hand aimed at his head. A clear enough statements of intent. “I am here,” Anne said. “You have what you want. Stand down.”

  Viktor was a nice guy. Which is why he let Dolr go and took a step back, letting him colpse to his knees2Incidentally — and this is actual practical experience on my part — never ever ever deliberately Ptoon onto your knees like this. Superb way to hurt yourself on anything harder than a training mat. If you have to drop to the ground, do it to the side, letting your calves and the meat of your thighs cushion the impact. Sure, it looks dorky, but it works. into a wheezing mess. The girl looked to Anne for an instant, then rushed to Dolr’s side.

  “I will take it from here,” Anne said. “Go on.”“You gonna…shoot him?” Dolr wheezed, sucking in air while the girl struggled to embrace him without losing control of the shotgun.“I just might,” Anne said, eyes focused on Viktor.“Take it…outside, then,” Dolr said. The girl helped him to his feet and pressed the shotgun into his hands. He said what he needed to say to her with a cp of his hand onto her shoulder.“You heard the man, Viktor,” Anne said. “Weapons on the counter, coat on the floor. We will take a little walk.”“Whatever you say,” Viktor said. He looked at Anne, wearing a long coat and a bck coverall and boots, most definitely not the Dolzhikov suit he had st seen her in. Instead of her usual gear, she was using a drop holster3Attached to a belt up top and a leg strap at the bottom, the drop holster is the most iconic ‘gunfighter’ holster. Hard to conceal, but quick on the draw — at least that’s the sales pitch, and was certainly the wisdom when this book takes pce. That said, how often do you get into a duel situation where the draw is with your arm at your side?, just about hidden under her coat. Something like concern pyed over his face too quickly for him to hide.“Yeah, and fuck you!” the girl spat at him. “She’s gonna waste your ass for this, you commie piece of shit!”

  Viktor did not respond to her. The pistol in his left hand was the first to come to a rest on the countertop, then the compact piece tucked into a belly holster, then the knife — the knife he wore the way he'd taught Anne, in a sheath on the back of his belt. Then he shrugged out of his coat, letting the well-worn bck leather straps of his shoulder holster py out their visual contrast against the bleach-white shirt underneath.4Dress to intimidate, I guess. This arrangement is something you want people to see when you swing open the coat. Anyone doing CCW would at least try to match color, but likelier still they’d use a weapon small enough to be carried in a way that conceals better than a shoulder holster. I mean, sure, we all love John Wick’s smart bck suit and his compensated H&K P30L plus the tacticool belt with the magazine holders underneath, but have you considered what that looks like when you sit down on the subway or bend over?Footnoting the footnote: oh dear, this was written when we were still on the first movie, before the sequels started worshipping at the shrine of TTI Customs. Not that I mind the ter movies, but the first still has a lot to offer and is all the more effective for how much restraint it has in the opening.

  “Outside,” Anne said. “Start walking. I will tell you where to stop.”

  For a minute, Anne was ready to shoot Viktor, and not just once. She knew better than to take any chances with him. If that meant dumping the entire magazine into his center mass at the first hint of a twitch, so be it. It was only when she had him outside in the backlot, on his knees with his fingers locked behind his head, that her trigger finger left the trigger. Anne stared at the trickle of Dolr’s blood on the sleeve of Viktor’s fine white shirt. He was — well, he was still a threat, but not an immediate one, and ready as she was, at no point in this encounter had she actually wanted to shoot him. Wanted any of this.

  But Anne never got what she truly wanted.

  “You came here after all,” Viktor said.“Not for your sake,” Anne said. “What is going on, Viktor?”“You first,” Viktor said.“Viktor Andrejevic,” Anne said, “I am in no mood to answer questions. I risked life and limb to end the threat to the family and now find an ambush set for me by a man I thought was on my side. If anyone needs to expin anything, it is you.”Viktor gave a cough at her dispy of Russian. “You act the part of a traitor,” he said. “You went to the marina after the meeting, with the cop, after Nikoi told us all to stay out of it. I called Ilya, I called you — ”“You followed us,” Anne said.“Of course I followed you,” Viktor said. “It is a difficult habit to break. If you had gone to the safehouse as ordered, I would have followed you there, collected the files and delivered them. All would have gone well. Count yourself lucky I still worry about you.”“Maybe you should not have expressed that worry in bullets,” Anne said. “Without Ilya, there is no way to —”“There never was a way,” Viktor said. “Tell me I am wrong.”“Ilya and Nikoi were in league,” Anne said. “But you had no way of knowing that.”“Sometimes, we must act without knowing,” Viktor said. “When I must choose between you and Ilya Sidorov, there is no world where I will choose him.”“…I wasn’t sure,” Anne said. “Whether you were hitting or missing.”“Of this you should be sure, by now,” Viktor said. “I gave you a chance. I trusted you to fight. When I saw you swim away, I returned to Alexander. We waited for you. He waited at home and I waited here.” He frowned. “Tell me what is going on with you, Anne.”

  Anne was getting tired of not knowing that.

  “Get up,” Anne said. “Go back to Alexander and tell him what happened here. No need to sugarcoat my mistakes. Tell him I will bury them myself.”Viktor made a show of slowly rising from his knees to his feet. The lower half of his scks was soaked with half-melted snow and mud, but Anne couldn’t think of how to apologize for that, so she didn’t. “You are not putting my mind at ease, Anne,” he said.“Your peace of mind is very low on my list of priorities right now, Viktor,” Anne said. “You were out of line with Ky and Dolr.”“Anybody who aims a gun at me is a threat — gangster or girl,” Viktor said. “I thought you had learned this.”“She is just a kid, Viktor,” Anne said. “Start walking.”“A kid with a gun,” Viktor said, taking his first slow steps.“Did she draw first?” Anne said. “How much time did you have to shoot her before she even had the shotgun in her hands? Five seconds? Ten?”Viktor said nothing.“I see,” Anne continued. “Keep moving.”“We both know there's nothing you can do if I decide to just stand here,” Viktor said. But he kept walking.“Nothing I particurly want to do,” Anne said.“Whatever road you are on, Anne,” Viktor said, “you seem to be going down that road very fast. Perhaps faster than you want.”“It is none of your concern,” Anne said.“If that is how it is, then please answer just a few questions for me,” Viktor said, “and I will leave you to your work.”“Thieves don’t ask questions, Viktor,” Anne said.“Friends do,” Viktor said. He stopped and stood, his hands still raised.Anne considered it. Considered everything. She lowered the gun. “One. Make it count.”“When did you decide to abandon us, Anne?” he asked.“I haven’t, so far,” she said.“You should not wait much longer,” Viktor said.

  He waited a moment, then turned his head. When he saw her putting her gun away, he lowered his arms.

  “There is another thing you have to tell Alexander,” she said. “Tell him I am sorry.”Viktor nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Go about your business now. I will take care of things.”

  Anne trundled off that way, then, leaving Ky's sobs and Dolr's soft encouragement behind her. She was of no more use there. For a moment, she wondered if Kyrill was still alive despite all and conscious enough to answer a few questions. She wondered if all of this could have worked out if Sean was still on her side rather than maturing all too soon into a complication. But that thought was dispelled when she opened the door to the small patient room. There, she found Boris Dolzhikov in bed, looking like he'd stepped into the boxing ring with a freight train and gone the distance. He had been extubated so recently the skin where the tube had been fixed with adhesive tape retained a slight reddened hue. A dribble of blood and saliva traced dashes over his gown and the bed sheets. Actually, the tube was on the floor and the bulky ventitor at his bedside was still turned on and pumping air, too, so odds were good he'd done it himself, and if she was a betting woman she would have put a few dolrs on him hiding a medical instrument under the sheets as an improvised weapon. He had prepared himself for battle. Given the history, it would not have been wise for him to have a conversation with Viktor while being completely unarmed. And the ck of Kasimir at his side…Anne wouldn’t miss him, exactly, but she wondered how he must have died. Not well, she imagined.

  What would it be like if the people in her life only knew violence from TV?

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said, nodding to him and closing the door behind her.“Simmons,” he wheezed. “Still alive,” he added.“I do what I can, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said. “Is this the work of your nephew?”“Bah, nephew,” Boris said. “We must call…things by their…names. My son. Yes, this” — Boris slowly turned his head, showing off his injuries — “this is what…he thinks of his father.”“I am sorry to hear that, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said.“Tell me about the…traitor Ilya,” Boris said.“He is dead, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said.“I see,” Boris said. “But you do not sound…finished with this, Simmons.”“I am not, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said. “I do not say this lightly, but under the circumstances, a confrontation with your son —““No, no,” Boris said, though not with a lot of conviction. “I cannot…send you to hurt him. Whatever he has done…he is my blood.”“I see, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said.“But at the…moment,” Boris said, “I cannot…stop you either.”

  Anne betrayed no reaction. Of course he wanted to encourage her to kill Nikoi, couldn’t brook him being alive any more than she could, but he hadn’t actually sanctioned the kill. No doubt he dreamed he had just set a trap for her. To see a man she had feared for so long brought low like this was disquieting, almost…sad. On any other day, she might have felt it enough to be moved. Instead, she watched his arms closely, not that they were hard to follow. It took him several seconds to free his good arm from underneath the linen. The scalpel he had palmed with his left hand went back into the stainless steel dish on the nightstand with a clinical clink.

  “Ilya's death leaves…a hole in our…ranks,” Boris said. “It interests me…if you think that Alexander…Arkadyevich would make a good…Thief, one day.”Anne nodded. Might as well. “He would, Mr. Dolzhikov,” she added.“In our ranks,” Boris said, “there is…always room for good….men. Men who will stand by us…in hard times. You understand this.”“I understand, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said.“Good,” Boris said. “One more thing, Simmons. When you see the rooster…remind him of proper manners. We do not…need to threaten little girls. That is…is all.”

  Anne had been taught these kinds of manners. Which is why she nodded solemnly from pure reflex and actually considered biting her lip. Considered it pretty hard, in fact.

  “All due respect, Mr. Dolzhikov,” she said, “but do not speak to me of little girls.”Boris stared up at her. “Watch your tone,” he said, but left it at that. Then he turned away from her and her eyes. Had he ever actually believed himself better than her? Or had he just py-acted his superior attitude all those years?“The women in Ilya’s basement,” Anne said. “You must know about them.”“Of course,” Boris said, marshaling his strength. “I was not in favor, but Ilya saw profit in it and damn the boy, but he was right. The money it brought us drew too much of my attention. That is how their plot escaped my notice.” He smiled. “But you ended his treachery. Good.”“His idea of ‘business’ must end as well,” Anne insisted. “We may be murderers, but we are not sve-traders.”“You do not decide who we are,” Boris said. “I do. Now listen, girl, and finally learn it. Life is a market and we are all product. Some fetch a better price than others. And if you will not sell yourself, someone else will sell you.” He paused for a long, shallow breath. “Capitalism!” he spat. “That is how we live. I thought you understood when you begged my permission to kill for the Jamaicans — but no. You prove again you understand nothing. I have given you every opportunity to learn, but you are entirely too stubborn.”“Stubborn,” Anne repeated. Would hearing the breadth of Sebastian’s schemes hurt the old man? Perhaps. It didn’t matter. She knew exactly what to say instead, though she did hesitate. Maybe some minuscule benefit remained to be extracted with cordiality, but she wasn’t wearing the suit anymore, was she? No more call for speaking Russian. “Very well,” she said. “We will trade in truth. Do you know how I truly regard you, Mr. Dolzhikov? You disgust me. You have disgusted me from the moment you took your bruised ego out on Viktor, the night we first met. The night I first killed in your name. If I have managed to consistently disappoint you, I shall consider that one of my prouder achievements.” Boris moaned an incoherent protest, but Anne talked right over it. “Now, about the women. There is no point in debating morality with you. I will point out the obvious problem instead. They are living, breathing evidence of our collective crimes.”“It was just…business,” Boris said. His breaths came faster now, faster and shallower. “You need to…understand —”“No, you need to listen,” Anne said. “We are the only two people left who know of their existence. I could walk away from their plight and leave them to starve in the dark. They would be dead before anyone would think to check the basement again. Or I could be a good soldier. I could go kill them myself and bury them far away from here.”Boris just stared at her.“You procim yourself a capitalist and so you must see in both of these eventualities a debt owed to me,” Anne said. “I well know how you despise the feeling. I should like to tell you what I am actually going to do, then. I will deliver these women to their freedom. And it won’t be as a favor or an injury to you. It will be because I choose to do it for myself.” She smiled at the end of her little sermon. How good it felt to speak without apology!“Simmons…” Boris croaked.“Now that our mutual animosity has outgrown whatever convenience our association once held, I see no more reason to suffer you your pretense of authority,” Anne said. She could see in his dull eyes that some of her words were going over his head and it brought her no small measure of satisfaction. “I am quite done with the name ‘Dolzhikov’. I have been party to much harm done in the name and although I cannot undo that harm, I need not stand for more of it. Instead, I will see it ended.” Her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward to loom over him. “Your son Nikoi. Where is he?”

  Boris spent a considerable amount of his strength on producing a horrible little hacking sound.

  “You…don’t scare me,” he said. “Little bck girl, you don’t…have the character. You never had. Arkady was…very wrong about you.”“I see,” Anne said. She didn’t budge. “I suppose a man in his final moments can be quite picky when it comes to what and who he is still afraid of. Or you truly don’t know a thing and wish to cover your ignorance with bluster.” She snorted. “So be it.”

  Boris hadn’t even finished processing the phrase ‘final moments’ when Anne reached around her back and drew her big knife from its sheath. The bckened metal of its edge barely glinted in the harsh overhead lights. Her right hand shot out for his face. There, her palm pressed down over his mouth while her weight forced his head to sink into the pillow. He would have screamed, if he could; all he could do instead was fil his left arm.

  “Before I stick you, Boris, I want you to know my aim,” Anne said, paying his struggle no heed. “I want you to know this is murder of the simplest sort.”

  Boris wasn’t quite as helpless as she had taken him for. One of his swings hit her side, but contrary to expectation, it didn’t force the breath from her. Instead, she swallowed the burst of pain and moved in for the kill. In his desperation, Boris tried to grab for her left wrist to keep the knife away, not caring for the blood drawn by his hand pushed against the edge, but he had neither the muscle nor leverage to stop her. All he did was paint a jittery red line on the linen as Anne pushed the knife towards his neck.

  “Don’t imagine you can…make me fly mad,” she breathed, “or move me…to an act of mercy or…even that I should profit by…this act.” He let go of the knife and she brought it yet closer, until its point was at his throat, just shy of piercing the skin. His hand spped at her back, leaving bloody trails on her coverall. The heat of her breath brought tears to his eyes.

  “I just want you dead,” she said.

  Perhaps, if she had gloated for longer, he might have thought to grab the discarded scalpel and stab her first. Perhaps, if he had ever truly respected her, he would have known better than to drop his guard around her. Perhaps.

  As it was, she pushed her bde into the flesh, sending pink blood spurting onto the white linen. Even the sharp edge wasn’t quite enough to slice the muscles, but Anne didn’t care. With measured cruelty she moved the knife here and fro, carving up the side of his neck. What little remained of Boris’s life was wasted on chortling and twitching. Still she pressed her hand against his face, waited a good long minute for him to choke and bleed out and stop moving altogether before she let off and inspected her work. And what a piece of work it was! Blood soaked the sheets and a few wild spurts had traced little arcs over the pillow and against the bedstead, though none had reached the wall. She had abandoned decency and doubt. In her mind, she held not even the smallest pinprick of fear that his end might be avenged on her. Boris Dolzhikov was dead and Anne was almost free.

  “This is the portion of a wicked man with God,” she whispered, “and the heritage which oppressors receive from the Almighty.”5Job 27:13.

  Anne found her way back into the operating room just as Dolr finished up putting in the stitches. Ky’s hands had grown steady enough to stick a ft gauze dressing on top of it and tape it in pce.

  “How is it?” Anne asked.“Under control,” Dolr said. He turned his head toward her and regarded the bloody knife in her hand. “What the hell is that?” he said.“Murder,” Anne said.“Jesus,” Dolr said. “Well, don’t just stand there, wipe it off before it drips all over my floor.”“You…” Ky said. That was all she said.“I’ll get it ter,” Dolr said.

  Anne wandered to the side of the room, but her strut made way to looking like she might topple over in the middle of it. The day’s business had taken its toll on her and Boris’s parting gift hadn’t helped. Even if her heart was still numb, her rib was more than happy to advertise itself. Anne soldiered on, made it to the supply cart, wiped her knife on some surgical gauze and dumped the dirty material in the little biohazard garbage bag attached to the cart’s side. She put a hand on the cart and shallowed her breaths out, trying to reduce the pain.

  “When were you…going to tell…tell me about Boris?” she asked through clenched teeth.“I wanna say never,” Dolr said, “but I might have figured out a way to charge you for it. In that case, whenever you were ready to pay.”“Kyrill?” she asked.“What about him?” Dolr said. “Nikoi picked him up.”“Nikoi…killed him,” she said. Her left hand struggled to repce the knife into its sheath behind her back.“Yeah,” Dolr said. He looked down at the floor for a moment, gathering his anger. “What, you gonna lecture me about that?” he asked.“…no,” Anne said.“Fuck him,” Dolr said. “Fuck Nikoi and fuck you, too. Fuck all y’all for dragging us into your shit.” He turned to look at her. “You ever think about how many people got dead because of you?”“By my hand or…by my choices?” Anne asked coolly. “I keep both…tallies.”Dolr’s stare bounced off her, so he turned away again. “You would,” he mumbled.“So what do I…owe you now?” Anne asked.“Right,” Dolr said, “you want a bottom line. So, add Viktor, subtract Grandpa and divide by Kyrill…carry that slow-motion suicide shit you got going —”“Dolr,” Anne chided him.“Yeah, let’s call it even,” he said. After a moment, he added “I'm just gd my two main girls are still kicking after all this.”“Very…generous,” Anne said, steadying herself on the supply cart and turning her head to look at Ky. “Viktor will not…put a finger on you…ever again. I promise.”Ky looked up at Anne. “No,” she said. “Don’t…”“Back that up real fast,” Dolr said. “That’s the kinda promise that’s gonna get me buried, sister. I ain’t going in on that with you. I run a business here. When we get our feelings hurt, we put it on the fucking bill.”

  Ky just stared at Anne, offering no alternative expnation for her plea.

  “So why are you here?” Dolr asked.“I wanted to…” Anne said. “I wish you to…tell the council…about Kyrill’s death. About…the circumstances.”“Huh,” Dolr said. “Answer’s no, though.”“Dolr…please,” Anne said. “I need you...for this. Whatever the price —““No,” Dolr repeated. “Fuck that. I ain’t sticking my neck out like that. You wanna hear about politics? This week I had enough politics in here to st me a fucking lifetime or two. Hell, what makes you think they would listen to me? Get real.” Anne had no response except to slump her shoulders. He continued. “You getting enough air over there? You’re breathing like a bulldog with heatstroke.”“I…took a few blows…I shouldn’t have,” Anne said.“Can't be too bad if you're still walking around promising to jack up motherfuckers,” Dolr mused. He motioned for her to sit down, indicating a chair in the near corner of the room. “Now, about those blows,” he said. “That sounds like an actual fucking reason to come here. Let’s pretend it’s that, yeah? Tell me what it is.”“I may have…overpyed my hand,” Anne said, not moving from where she was barely standing. “I used the lidocaine.” She needed a moment to sort her memory. “One ampule. Nerve block at…six or seven, on the left.”“The dentist 2 percent shit?” Dolr asked. Getting no immediate answer from Anne, he rolled his eyes and walked over to steady her, helping her limp over to the chair and easing her down onto it. “Yo!” he said, bending down to catch her tired eyes. “2 percent?”“Yes,” Anne said, then took a breath as deep as she dared. Clearly too much, though, as it made her wince.“The whole 10 CCs?” he asked.“Yes,” Anne said. Her eyes bulged in an attempt to stay open. "But it is fading. I need you to…top me up."“You’re not a fucking car,” Dolr said. “I can’t just ‘top you up’ with fucking lidocaine.”“Give me something,” Anne said, looking up at him. “Something. I am…I am not picky.”“Is that right?” Dolr said, standing up and putting a little distance between himself and her. “Hey, how ‘bout some fentanyl? That’s a good one. Guarantee you’ll be feeling nothing with that.”“No, nothing like that,” Anne added. “I need a clear…head. I will…make do without.”6There are actually plenty of alternative pain management options to opioids in a clinical setting, so turning down analgesics against medical advice is not a good move. Effective pain management isn’t just for patient comfort, but an important part of healing. Unfortunately, crime novel protagonists rarely want to take time out for hospital stays, so here we are.“See, you are picky, ‘cause what you want is a strong long-acting analgesic and full motoric function despite nursing the exact injury God put in this world to slow anyone’s roll, oh, and all that without side effects,” Dolr said. “Why didn’t you say that from jump? You want that It’s-All-Good-trazine. Shit, you can pick it right up at my favorite pharmacy, corner of 35th and Fuck You.” He endured Anne’s gre. “Hey, I ain’t the one asking for a miracle. There’s a couple more ‘caines we could try, if you wanna try, but they’re all gonna fuck with you one way or another. I can’t even tell you what they’re gonna do to you when we start mixing and matching. Oh, and you hear ‘bout respiratory depression?7Every living human has something called ‘respiratory drive’, i.e. the unconscious mechanism that keeps us breathing. Rib injuries already tend to shallow out breathing to minimize pain — much like other localized injuries tend to lead to people unthinkingly assuming a compensatory posture that also minimizes pain in the moment, even if it might not be long-term good for you. (Also, watching for compensatory posture is one way medical professionals can quickly assess gross injury patterns before even getting their hands on you.)Anyway, a depressed respiratory drive in general is not a total stop of breathing, but when it does get severe enough, it can make already shallow breathing much worse. Now I don’t know about you guys, but I have a pretty serious oxygen addiction. I need to keep breathing even when I’m too asleep to think about it. If my body can’t take care of that by itself, then I’m in what medical professionals call ‘deep shit’. So you’ll want to be very careful with the dose for any medication that is known to lower respiratory drive.Also, you are now consciously breathing. You are now feeling your tongue wiggle inside your mouth against your teeth. And now you’re mad at me. Behold, the power of literature. You barely get any air as it is. Opioids do not help. Too much of any of this shit, you stop breathing. I don’t care how bad you are, that’s gonna end you.”“Dolr —”“Don’t ‘Dolr’ me when I’m dropping science on you, sister,” he said. “Now let me see what you got going on.”

  Anne tried to undo the zip of her coverall, but couldn’t quite summon the dexterity, so Dolr did it for her, slipped her arm free from the sleeve and lifted her undershirt to look. The whole left side of her chest was numb and her right arm seemed to move normally again, but insofar as that might have created the impression everything was alright, the bck and blue bruise running up from just above the waistline to the strap of her sports bra served to dispel it quickly. Dolr slid his hand down her side, pushing his fingers against her ribs. It took Anne a few seconds to realize she had to grunt for pain to let Dolr locate the injury.

  “Cough up anything green, yellow or red?” Dolr asked. “Feeling dizzy, pain in your guts, pissing blood?”“No,” Anne said. “Just the ribs. No…internal injuries.”“You give me symptoms, I give you a diagnosis, that’s how this works,”8Let’s talk patient-doctor retionship for a bit. Recent decades have seen a significant shift away from doctors as unquestioned authorities to patients becoming more involved in their own healthcare. Now there’s a lot of good to be said about researching your condition — after all, you know best what you’re feeling, where you experience pain and how strong it is, plus you have a whole lot of context about your life that your physician likely doesn’t have access to, if they don’t know the right questions to ask you. On the other hand, people who self-diagnose and then pretty much expect their doctor to just sign off on that are becoming more common, too, not to mention people who don’t like the answers they get and go at it completely on their own. I get it, we all want to be mature and independent and not feel intimidated by experts of whatever fvor, but at the end of the day, what matters is that you’re healthy, not that you get to feel smarter than your MD.So, two things from me: one, nobody is infallible and there’s no shame in getting a second opinion — a good doctor should work with you on that, I feel, and give you the information you need to make informed decisions about your health. Two, what do you call alternative medicine that works? Medicine.Okay, I lied, one more thing: get vaccinated, damn it. Even that guy who conducted the study linking autism to vaccinations has since admitted it was bullshit. Those shots are not just for you, they’re for everyone around you, too. Do you have a legit medical condition preventing you from being safely vaccinated? Congrats, you’re one of the people who’s kept safe by everyone else getting their shots. Dolr said. “Got yourself a nice bruise for sure.” He paused for a moment, seeming to decide what to make of that piece of information in particur and this whole fucking mess in toto. “Gonna ultrasound you after I set my shit up. Probably nothing too serious since you walked yourself in here. Now the rib might be cracked, but nothing feels broken yet. Either way the smartest move you can make is to not get your ass kicked again. Let’s start with some ice.”

  While Anne fought with her breathing, Dolr hurried off to the supply room. After a minute or so, he returned with a freezer drawer full of cold packs. He retrieved one, wrapped it in a surgical towel and gently put it against Anne’s side, pcing her right hand on top of it.

  “You hug that ice as long as you can stand it,” he said, knotting the top of her coverall around her waist to keep it out of the way. “Ice, ice, ice. Pneumonia’s no fucking joke. Cough until you’re free at least every hour and don't sleep lying down. Chair or inclined bed only. Best you get a friend to watch you, if you got any.” She didn’t acknowledge the barb so he continued. “For the pain, you stick to ibuprofen, 400 milligrams with your meals, no more than four a day. First couple of days you augment that with some paracetamol in between to prevent breakthrough, 500 milligrams, also no more than four a day. Don’t mix those up, strictly alternate.9Again, not a doctor, but apparently this is safer than a higher dose of either drug by itself, as ibuprofen and paracetamol use different pathways to metabolize and break down - ibuprofen is processed in the kidneys, while paracetamol is processed in the liver. (This is also why paracetamol overdoses can lead to liver damage.) If you get any of the symptoms I asked about or the pain gets real serious or you feel like you can't breathe —““You will be the first to…know,” Anne said, letting the cold soothe the worst of the pain. “How much?”“We’ll get to that,” Dolr said. “And this one’s free: you ain’t gonna kill Nikoi like this. Best you don’t try.”“What makes you —” Anne began.“Little thing called knowing you, Simmons,” Dolr said. “You ain’t half as complicated as you think.”Anne thought for a few seconds. “I suppose it is pre…predictable,” she said. “I see no other way. If Kyrill truly…is dead, then there is…nobody left to…expin anything to the council. If I don’t stop…Nikoi, he wins.”“So, you gonna fade him?” Dolr asked. “Just like that?”“After I find him,” Anne said. “You know, on second thought…just sell me a few…a few more ampules of lidocaine and another kit. On my own cognizance. Two or three should —”“— be enough to kill you,”10Dolr is lying to Anne here, though not by much. An ampule of the kind Anne used contains a total of 200 milligrams of lidocaine. Going by bodyweight and what I’ve turned up as a ‘conservative’ 35mg/kg limit, Anne could safely take several more ampules. And it is actually possible to exceed even that limit with local injections using epi, as that keeps the lidocaine near the injection site and reduces its systemic effects. However, the possibility of injecting into or near a blood vessel (or just tissue with a lot of fine blood vessels) does all add up to the possibility that the anesthetic’s concentration in blood psma becomes unacceptably high, at which point you’re at risk of contracting LAST - Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity. The tricky part here is that this can kick in at up to an hour after giving local anesthesia. And once it does kick in, you’re probably going to have a seizure, followed by cardiac arrest. Unless you’re already in a hospital, that’s bad news.Also, these nominal limits do presuppose hospital use. If you bring in a safety factor to account for amateur use, exertion, existing and expected further physical trauma as well as a ck of monitoring by a medical professional, you may start to see where Dolr is coming from. Plus, you know, we also need to consider the implicit ‘White Man Default’ problem here — a lot of guidelines about drugs and medical procedures are based on studies conducted mostly on caucasian penis-havers and don’t take into account how the same drugs might affect people who are, well, not that.Somebody call Max Payne and ask where he gets his pain pills… Dolr said. “Think about yourself for a hot second. You’re riding the edge, sister. With that rib busted, you’re slow and brittle. You don’t have another fight in you right now. That’s my professional assessment. The sooner you get hip to that, the longer you’re gonna live.”“If you have a practicable suggestion, I will be gd to hear it,” Anne said. The breaths came easier now. “But you should know I will take him down. With or without your help.”“He ain’t worth it,” Dolr said. “You know that.”

  He went to clean his hands at the sink. He thered up and ran cold water over his hands, for well past too long.

  “You know where he is,” Anne said.“No,” Dolr said. He turned off the sink, his hands waving side to side as if they were trying to pick a way to turn. They went to the left, where a clean towel waited. “We got some intel, though,” he added.Anne scoffed. “How did you come by this information?” she asked.“I didn’t do shit,” Dolr said, then kinked his head Ky's way. “I haven't been changing bedpans around two Russians hopped up on painkillers.”“Kyrill was out cold and Boris was intubated,” Anne countered, looking at Ky. “Suppose I don't believe either of them talked.”“They ain’t need to talk,” Dolr said. He was still rubbing his hands in the towel.Anne fixed him in her sights. “How much?”“That’s for Ky to say, it’s her find,” Dolr said.“Whatever it is,” Anne said, “I will take it.”“Whatever it is, whatever it takes, huh?” Dolr said. He bent over, his nice clean hands gripping onto the sink. “The fuck you care that Nikoi ‘wins’? How the hell is he your main problem right now?”“This isn’t the time for bsphemy,” Anne said.“Actually, it fucking is,” Dolr said. “Because it’s my st hope you’ll take a fucking hint, Simmons. I do give a shit about you. It ain’t business and it ain’t professional, so I know I shouldn’t, but I fucking do, so there it is. Fuck you for needing it spelled out.” Dolr stared her down. “But you know what? I still told you about that breadcrumb Nikoi left even though I cold fucking know you’re gonna get yourself killed out there chasing him. I ain’t here to save you from yourself, somebody smart told me that’s not my thing to do. I’m here to give customers what they pay for and it’s just my fucking luck you got more Benjamins than brain cells. So if you got your heart set on dying, fuck, I’ll sell you the damn casket.”“Dolr —“ Anne tried.“You want lidocaine, you get lidocaine,” Dolr said. He took a breath. ”Fine. Now listen and listen good. One more shot. Once that goes in, you got maybe two more hours on your feet, tops, so don’t waste ‘em. If you get a numb feeling in your mouth or taste metal or hear a ringing in your ear, you stop whatever you’re doing, grab whoever is closest and make them call an ambunce for you, you’re gonna need it. I’ll just pretend we covered the usual AMA11‘Against Medical Advice’, not the Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’. shit. Now you and Ky handle the business side. And when you’re done with the first cold pack, I’ll give you the shot — if you pass the ultrasound.”“Just give me another kit, please,” Anne said. “I can administer it myself.”“You’re lucky you didn’t fuck it up the first time,” Dolr said. “Nerve blocks are serious shit. I should do this one.”“Or, since you do care about me, you could decide to put me out with Ketamine,” Anne said. “After all, such a trick is not beyond you and that is a risk I cannot take.”

  Dolr must have noticed her still being armed. So far, he had ignored it. She put a hand on the holster at her side, though. Ignorance was no longer an option.

  “Anne, you know I don’t py —” Dolr began.“Neither do I, George,” Anne said. “I did it once, I can do it again. Get everything ready.”

  For a moment, Dolr looked ready to protest, but then he slumped his shoulders and started for the patient room.

  “Fine,” he said on the way out. “Nice knowing you.”

  Dolr had left the OR. Anne's hand was no closer to her money clip and its crisp new bills. She wasn't even any closer to Ky, who still sat on the gurney like a tiny dying star trying to colpse on herself.

  “Are you okay, Ky?” Anne asked. It seemed like the least bad phrase to open with.“No,” Ky muttered.“I am sorry,” Anne said.“Okay,” Ky said.Anne sighed. “I truly am.”“Okay,” Ky repeated.“I understand why you don't want me to do anything to Viktor,” Anne said. The cold against her ribs had its own bite, but it dulled the pain as well as could be hoped for. “But I know him better than you do. If I…talk to him, he won't do this ever again. You don't need to be afraid of him anymore. You know, he is a nice guy —”“I noticed,” Ky said.“You don't want to test him, that is true,” Anne said. “You got off easy, considering.”“Well, as long as you're okay with it,” Ky said. “Okay, okay. That…that fucking word. Everything's okay. Everybody's okay.”“You are not,” Anne said.“No,” Ky said. “I'm not…I'm not okay. I'm not like you or your friends.”“They are not my friends,” Anne said.“That’s the trick, huh?” Ky said. “That's why you're okay. Nobody you have to give a shit about. Just warm bodies and it’s all the same to you when and how they get cold. They hurt you, you hurt 'em right the fuck back, you teach 'em not to mess with you, that's how it works, yeah? You just don't let anybody fuck with you, if they spit in your face and ugh, you fuck ‘em up and good.” A few seconds of silence followed. “Must be fucking nice when people respect you,” Ky added.“I wouldn’t know,” Anne said, dragging herself and the chair a step closer to Ky. “They don’t respect me, they are just afraid of getting on my bad side. You don’t have to be like me, Ky. You can be —”“And here it comes,” Ky mumbled.“Here comes what?” Anne asked.“The hug and the speech,” Ky said. “Don't give up, stay positive, make something of yourself. Everyone's trying to protect me, you, the Doc, that cop. Are you okay, Ky? How about some hot cocoa? Come on, we’ll throw in some marshmallows, too, won’t that be nice? You can tell us about your feelings, it's alright to cry, it's alright to be weak and sad and fucking useless.”“You are a good nurse, Ky,” Anne said.“Yeah, and what’s that good for?” Ky said. “Fuck being a ‘good nurse’, I needed to fight back for once in my fucking life. I had him! How fucking simple did it have to be? I had the shotgun and that asshole right in front of me and he wasn't even aiming his gun at me and I…I was fucking useless. Again. By the time I saw him move he was choking the doc and threatening to air out skulls like it was nothing to him. Yeah, what a fucking nice guy. But it doesn't matter I fucked it up and almost got us both killed, right? Don't give up! Get up! Move on! I keep getting this fucking hug and speech, no matter how many times I fuck up. So apparently being me is 'okay'. But every time I look around I see people like you, people who are stronger than me, tougher than me, just doing whatever the hell they want, taking whatever they want. And I cry in a corner and get the scraps with a pat on the head, because that's what 'okay' means. Is that supposed to help me? The hug and the speech? 'cause from where I'm sitting, being 'okay' makes me just another victim.”“Ky —““I'm so fucking tired of this,” Ky said. “I'm so fucking tired of falling down. Oh, look, she’s getting up again! She’s fine again! Everything’s okay again!”“Ky, that is not —““Let me fucking finish!” Ky shouted. “Shut the fuck up, Anne. I'm talking! You got that?”

  Anne just nodded.

  “Finally,” Ky said. “Fuck, you don’t know how good it feels…when you make someone listen to you. I’m not asking for the fucking world here, am I? I just…I don't want to be pitied anymore. I wanna hear I’m fucked up, just once, yeah? But no, anybody sees me, they gotta try to pick me up. They tell me they know I'm hurting, or that being so fucking raw all the time is good and noble, or how fucking together I am, or —” Her eyes were clear, but staring off into nowhere. “Everything is just so fucked up. It’s always been fucked up.” In a snap, her eyes came into focus on Anne. “Why the hell am I not dead already? I’m fucked. Everything sucks and it’s gonna keep sucking, just day after day after day of this shit. Yeah, I’d be better off dead. I don’t even care how much it hurts if it just hurts once. If that’s the fucking end and then it’s all just over. Better than being so fucking okay all the fucking time. There, how’s that? What do you have to say to that? And don’t even try that ‘hell’ bullshit with me. I had enough of that.”“I know you are profoundly injured, Ky,” Anne said. “I want to see your burdens eased, but…I don't know how to help you.”“Hallelujah!" Ky said. “There we fucking go. Just admit it. Cut the crap. Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth. 'I don't know.' 'I can't fix this.' 'It's not gonna be o-fucking-kay.' Is it so fucking hard to say that?”“Yes, it is,” Anne said.

  Silence.

  “And fuck the Doc, too, telling you to pay me like that’ll help,” Ky said. “Like I ain’t sold enough already.”“Well,” Anne said, “this transaction should be less sweaty.”

  Ky's spindly body did a neat little trick where it went through all the motions necessary for ughter while producing a sound entirely unlike it.

  “Wow,” she said, after she stopped not ughing. “So that’s what it is. I'm a punchline. I'm a fucking joke.”“No,” Anne said. “No, you are…I am sorry. I got nervous and tried to take some tension off with a jest. That was thoughtless and unkind of me.”“What, to tell me how you really feel?" Ky said. “It's nice to know you even have feelings, you…you condescending12Yeah, Ky learned this word earlier. Hell of a character arc, huh? bitch.13I think that if there’s even one pce in the book where the b-word should be used, it’s here. Fuck your 'sorry', Anne. I don’t need it.”

  There was a right thing to say here. There had to be. Anne said nothing.

  “What I need is some fucking truth out of you," Ky says. "Because I gotta get tough if I’m gonna make it one more fucking day. And you’re tough, right? I bet you saw what they did to Boris and thought, shit, I can do better than these fucking amateurs. So you did! Nice work, he’s fucking dead. You killed the big bad wolf. You’re ice cold like that. You’re the — what’d you call yourself? Violence professional.”“There is no fulfillment in any of this, Ky,” Anne said. "Neither knowing nor doing."“But there’s money in it,” Ky said. "And people taking you seriously. Respect sounded nice in my head but fuck, I’ll settle for everyone shitting their pants when they see me. Oh, wait, that’s actually a bad thing, is that what you’re saying? That thing you’ve been doing all this time, what you’re so fucking good at, that’s bad and you secretly fucking hate it?"“I don't…‘hate’ is the wrong word…but I don’t do what I do without a reason,” Anne said. “A good reason.”“Oh, yeah, and there's a hell of a lot you'd do for a 'good reason',” Ky said. “Like, you got it in your head now that protecting me is good, right? And you said you’d fight Viktor, a dude who nobody fucks with, just to keep me safe, if you had to? That's what you were talking about. That’s what you fucking promised. You were gonna fuck him up and solve all my problems for me. And you know what? I actually believe you. Because Simmons can get everything she wants if she just fucks up the right people. That’s your whole deal. So what about somebody else who has it in for me? Who's to say how far you have to go to stop him, huh? You wanna tell the world: don't ever do what this motherfucker did to little Ky. Make sure everybody gets it. How do you do it?”“These questions have no easy answers,” Anne said.“Well, fuck ‘easy’, just give me a straight answer,” Ky said. “Like, whatever, you're working a guy over. Some guy who deserves it, there's your good reason. How do you do it?”“Suppose I don't want to answer that,” Anne said, her expression falling.“Then we're both wasting our fucking time here,” Ky said. “I'm so fucking tired of going in circles with your mysterious badass bullshit. I’m so fucking done looking at you like you’re better than me. I don’t know if you’re serious about protecting me in your own fucked up way or if you’re just pumping me for what I know so you can fuck off and have fun. And I don’t care! What’s the fucking difference?” Anne had no chance to answer her. Ky continued, quieter. “But I guess I just gotta know, can’t touch a scab without scratching, I just can’t leave fucking well enough alone. So, if you want this fucking address so bad, if you wanna go out there and keep killing people for good fucking reasons, you're gonna tell me exactly how fucked up you are. Because I am looking at you and I can't see it."

  Ky stared at her, took her in from top to bottom as if for the first time.

  "But that’s just it, huh?” she said. “Viktor was always such a ‘nice guy’…until the moment being nice wasn’t the best py anymore. And you…fuck, I thought you were more than this macho psycho bullshit. I don’t know why, but I thought there was something. That’s just what you wanted me to think, huh? Whatever. I shoulda known better. I’m just a sucker like that.""You are human," Anne said. Her side was cold, almost numb. “What would you have done?”“…about what?” Ky asked.“About Viktor,” Anne said. “If I hadn’t shown up.”“The fuck do you think I could’ve done?” Ky said. Her stare faltered. “He was waiting for you.”“If I hadn’t shown up,” Anne repeated. “Do you think he would have waited until Judgment Day for me? Let you go at some point with an honest apology?” She took a breath. “What if he had killed Dolr, right in front of you?”“He wouldn’t —“ Ky tried.“He was two hairs short of it,” Anne said. “Suppose he did pull the trigger. Dolr is dead. You are next in Viktor’s sights, but you have the shotgun. What do you do?”

  Ky looked away.

  “It is not quite so simple, is it?”14Yes, I know, Anne shouldn’t be giving speeches in her condition. I’ll spare you the repeated description of wheezes and pausing to catch her breath if you’ll believe that getting all this out is just that important to her. Anne said. Judging that the ice pack against her side was now warmed up enough, she unwrapped it and put it directly against her undershirt. “What about me? I am a violent person. Who could intervene, were I to attack you right here, right now?” Anne let her left arm sweep the room. The answer wasn’t in there, so she took another slow breath. “Perhaps you are certain I am no actual threat to you. Or you believe that, if you ever saw me become one, you would be driven to defend yourself and that would tell the tale truly.”

  Ky nodded without meaning to. But she did nod.

  “Discard such fantasies right now,” Anne continued, freezing Ky in pce. “They are less than useless. To think about hurting someone and then actually doing it, to not just dream of violence but to wield it? That requires skill. And everyone who has ever preyed on you, everyone who will ever raise hand against you — they can see you ck it. They can read it from your eyes and your motions, pin as day. The good news is this skill can be acquired and the means to do so are well within your grasp. But first you must decide to do so. It was simply ignorance up to this point, but if you do not study from here on, you will have chosen to be a mb.”

  Ky looked away. Turned to walk away, in fact, but she couldn’t seem to get her feet off the ground, so instead she just twisted her torso and looked past Anne. Tried to see anything else at all in the room.

  “You say you hate thinking I am better than you,” Anne said, “but you believe it nonetheless. Just as you believe there are strong people and weak people. You believe you are weak and that is all there is to it. You are letting yourself off easy with such a notion. If you never try to improve your lot, you never risk the pain of failing at it. Instead you can just keep telling yourself you need someone strong — someone other than you — to save you. And I believe you do wish to be saved.”

  Anne’s left arm swept the room again. It seemed smaller with every breath.

  “So who should be your champion?” she said. “Dolr just failed you, not an hour ago. I am obviously not to your taste. But if you can just hold out long enough through all the miseries and indignities of this world, they will surely come to you eventually. And then everything will be alright and you will be happy. Won’t you?”

  Ky looked away again. Anne sighed.

  “I have some bad news for you, Ky,” Anne said.“Fuck you,” Ky whispered.“You are waiting in vain,” Anne said.“Fuck you!” Ky said, squeezing her eyes closed.“There is nobody,” Anne said. “That is what you are afraid of, isn’t it? But it is the truth and all our fond wishes for a better, kinder world won’t change it. There is nobody who can make you whole again, nobody riding to your rescue, nobody who will ever care more for you than they care for themselves. Not in this life, not in this world, not before the Savior returns and the Lord sits in judgment over us all. Nobody…but you. You have to save yourself, Ky. All you have here and now is who you forge yourself into. There will never be a better time to start than now. No matter how miserable it feels today, it is possible — and it won’t be any easier tomorrow. You can hide here from the world and its vices for as long as Dolr will have you, but you are not safe here. Never were, never will be. You know that in your bones. Don’t you?"

  Ky said nothing. Anne paused, thinking for a moment. Perhaps she had said enough, but that was not a chance she was going to take.

  “You wanted to know exactly how ‘fucked up’ I am,” Anne said. “Sit down and answer for yourself, honestly: what can you actually accomplish with your shotgun? Have you ever even fired it? Cleaned it? Did you make any effort to acquaint yourself with it, or did you think it was just a magic spell that would rid you of any danger at your convenience? It isn’t. When you wield a gun in anger, pulling the trigger is just as bad as not doing it. Now, forget Viktor, forget me. Substract the emotion and familiarity that might justify your hesitation. Picture a stranger who has cornered you with ill intent. Are you going to let them rob you, hurt you…kill you? Are you going to point a weapon at them and choose not to come all the way? You might as well just hand the gun over at the start and ask them to shoot you instead. Would you make it quick and clean and close my eyes with a soft touch, please and thank you, Sir.”

  Ky said nothing, but she folded her arms closer to her chest, as if colpsing on herself could take her away. The look Anne gave her betrayed no kindness.

  “Is that how you will meet your end, Ky?” Anne sneered. “Or are you going to fight?”

  Ky looked at her again. Her eyes were red, but there were no tears.

  “Are you going to bring them down with bullets and fists and teeth and whatever else you can bring to bear?” Anne asked. “Are you going to tear free from anything and everything that holds you back? Are you going to harden your heart until the only way — the only possible outcome — is that you prevail, no matter the odds, no matter the pain, no matter what it takes? That is the pce you must reach if you wish to wield violence. And when you have an answer for that, you take away this nice story of fighting for your life or someone else’s, you take away all righteousness, you take away any and all excuses and ask the st question that separates you from being ‘strong’: can you kill someone simply because you choose to?”

  Anne tapped the holster hanging from her belt. Then she took a breath.

  “You think on all that now,”15Thank you for coming to Anne’s TED talk. she said. “I know it is a lot and I know it is not easy. But you think on that and you don't stop thinking until you are sure, one way or another. You will find out what manner of woman you are and so you will know what manner of woman I am.” She sighed. "Does any of this satisfy your curiosity, then? Was that enough ‘straight talk’?”

  Ky nodded, slowly.

  "That's the most you've ever told me about yourself, Anne," she said.“It is the most I have ever told anyone about myself,” Anne admitted. “I suppose decent folk don't think like me, do they.”“I don't know,” Ky said. “I don’t…I don’t know.”Anne waited for a few seconds. “About the information,” she said.Ky said nothing, just stared at her.“The information, Ky,” Anne repeated.“It’s just some paper,” Ky admitted. “I don’t…I don’t know if it’ll help.”“That is for me to judge,” Anne said. “Hand it over.”Kyle closed her eyes. “No,” she said. She took a breath and looked at Anne again. “It’s…you want it, that makes it worth something. Yes?”“…yes,” Anne said.“So,” Ky said. ”So…so, you either pay up or…you let this go.”"I am far past letting this go," Anne said.

  Anne’s right hand dug the money clip from her pocket and held it out in front of her, where she visibly weighed the whole clip in her hand.

  “What is it going to be, Ky?” Anne asked.“…two,” Ky said.“Are you set on the price?” Anne said. She pulled herself to her feet, then crossed the st few steps between the two of them and held out the clip to Ky. “I have a counter-offer. Seven five.”“Deal,” Ky said and snatched the money clip from Anne’s hand. Notes stripped, the bare clip returned to Anne’s care.Anne smiled. “You could have protested,” she said, pocketing the empty piece of metal.“Get while the getting’s good,” Ky replied, her eyes fixed on Anne’s.“Fair enough,” Anne said, withdrawing the smile from her face. “We have a deal, then.”“…good,” Ky said.

  Reaching into the hidden pocket of her jeans, Ky produced a folded-up invoice and handed it over to Anne. It billed for several weeks of construction work on an older office building, made out to a corporation name Anne didn’t recognize. A fake name, certainly. Her eyes fixed on the location of where the work had been done. Up in Eastchester, of all pces…just about as far away from Little Odessa as possible while still being in New York City, like that mattered.16Wakefield would actually be farther still, but unlike me, Anne doesn’t have Google Maps to inform her about these niceties. Well, it might’ve mattered to somebody, but not to her. She didn’t think to ask how Ky had come by it, had no doubt it came from either Kyrill’s or Boris’s possessions as Dolr had implied, snatched away at an opportune moment. Whether this would be the confrontation she wished it was or merely another piece of the puzzle or even a trap…well, what did it matter? She had somewhere to go now, something to do. An excuse not to give up.

  “While I will consider our business settled,” Anne said, “there is one thing you can do for Detective Collins, if you feel up to it.”“And what’s that?” Ky asked.“Wait an hour, then call him,” Anne said, folding the invoice and pocketing it. “Tell him I am going to return some files tonight. He will know what I mean.”“…okay,” Ky said, wincing at her choice of word. “I can do that," she added, with a smaller voice. “You’re not gonna…like, you’re protecting him, right?”

  Anne sucked in a breath as she wandered back to her chair.

  “I want to steer him toward a good deed,” she said, lowering herself down again. “The danger that puts him in is his problem.”“Anne," Ky asked quietly, "would you…hurt me? If you ever…had a good reason to.”Anne thought for a moment. “I wrapped my wickedness in a sweet lie,” she said. “The truth is…the truth is there are no good reasons to hurt someone, Ky. Justifiable, maybe. But never good. And I don’t hurt people for good reasons, in any event. I kill people for money. That said, in your case…I would be expensive.”

  Ky’s spindly body did a neat little trick where she actually ughed, ughed like a cinch knife, short and sharp.

  “Wow, Anne,” Ky said. “Does that mean you’ll come to my sleepover?”“…I suppose I well earned your derision,” Anne said. She took another deep breath and rose to her feet. “I shall leave you to your thoughts. I said all I meant to say to you and then some.” She turned away and walked toward the door.“Good luck,” Ky called after her.

  Anne said nothing.

  What could be said was that Anne’s remaining treatment at the clinic went along efficiently. Dolr made good on his threat to ultrasound her side, but found nothing she didn’t already know, nothing that would have swayed her from her course. A cooler full of ice packs and another field kit with a full set of lidocaine ampules served as parting gift, as he made no attempt to collect any money from her, perhaps knowing she had given it all away. Made no attempt to meet her eyes or shake her hand or do anything that could give this transaction a sense of finality. Anne didn’t try, either.

  What couldn’t be said was everything else.

  With the cooler in her hand and one of its ice packs held against her side by the zipped-up coverall and a loose bandage wrap, Anne picked her way outside, ascending the concrete steps to Dolr’s backyard with a grimace and the sound of the steel door smming shut echoing behind her. Even her mind was numb. She had gone so far that pnning beyond tonight seemed ughable. The rock she’d been pushing up the mountain for sixteen years had come a-tumbling down, and now she had no way to catch it, not with all the swiftness and strength she had ever had. Except…no. That wasn’t how this had come about. At once she chided herself for another zy thought. She hadn’t just let go, after all, but kicked that son of a gun squarely off its perch. She had done it to the rock and to herself and the Thieves. Yet none of this quite touched her anymore. Even watching the rock roll down the slope was no longer of value, neither education nor entertainment. All that mattered was putting one foot in front of the other until she was face to face with Nikoi. And if she was still on her feet after that, after all that limping and stumbling, she would have to run, somehow.

  It took her a moment to acknowledge Viktor was back, and so was her car, just parked right there in the yard with Viktor behind the wheel. Part of her entertained the notion it wasn’t actually there, that this was a fantasy or survival mechanism cooked up by her clearly malfunctioning brain, but that was untenable in light of further sensations. It didn’t just look like her car, it made the right sound when the driver’s door opened and the snow crunched under Viktor’s foot. It felt right when she came close and brushed her left hand over its hood, feeling some warmth yet from the still engine bleeding through. Her eyes were locked on Viktor’s. The sun had almost dropped behind the houses around them.

  “Come,” he said, betraying nothing.

  He turned from her and walked to the back of the car. There, he opened the trunk and stepped aside for her to take a look. Ballistic vest, AKM, load-bearing gear filled with topped-off magazines, a bck duffel bag full of party favors of the explosive kind, to judge by the shapes printing against its sides. The more expensive half of her weapons stash, then. Far too much for him to have rushed to retrieve in half an hour. No, he must have fetched her car earlier and prepared the gear for her, waiting for her to show, waiting for her to come back and finish this. Well, not just her; next to her things, she saw his rifle in the trunk as well.

  “Perhaps,” he offered, “we should both be mad dogs.” He smiled. “Whatever you do next, we will do together. I will go and fetch my other things from inside. We will expin it to Mr. Dolzhikov ter.”“He is no longer a factor,” Anne said. It wiped the smile right off Viktor’s face.“…bozhe moi,” he said. “I…see.” Anne gave no reply, so he nodded to her, for her. “A clean sweep, then.”“It is personal now,” Anne said.“It was always,” Viktor said. “Do not think I was a good soldier through blindness. Forgive and forget…but never really forget. To be a Thief is to deserve a bad end. The council will not soon forget our actions, either, but that is a problem for tomorrow.”

  Anne gave a short ugh. Letting it out hurt less than holding it in.

  “Stop helping me,” she said. Turning her head to take in Viktor’s confusion, she gathered her strength. “Just…stop,” she repeated.“Anne…” Viktor tried.“I can’t do this with you any longer,” she said. “I can’t…watch you destroy yourself for me.”“Yet you expect me to do the same,” Viktor replied. “You expect me to tell Alexander you are —”“Don’t,” Anne cut him off. “I will tell him, but…this is for me. He and you have no part in this.”Viktor didn’t like nodding to that, but he nodded. “Of course,” he said.

  Anne lifted the AKM from the trunk. She pulled the bolt handle on its right side backwards, making sure the chamber was clear. Then she let the bolt handle go and instead put her thumb on the button at the rear of the rifle's receiver, pulling off the dust cover and popping the main spring out.

  “You can go now,” she said as she removed the bolt.“I can,” Viktor said. “But I will wait until you are ready.”Anne snorted. Rifle wedged in her armpit, she held the ft of a screwdriver against the pushpin by the front sight and grabbed the compensator17Many military service rifles mount a fsh hider as standard muzzle device. It is supposed to, well, hide the fsh of the muzzle bst when firing, making the shooter harder to locate in low-light situations and also helping to preserve the shooter’s own night vision. Some fsh hiders have funky extras such as including a wirecutter or being designed to accept a suppressor on top, but mostly, they’re pretty simple devices.The AKM went for a compensator instead, a device which redirects part of the muzzle bst. This is supposed to compensate for the muzzle climb experienced particurly with sustained automatic fire. Compensators (also called muzzle brakes) are often found on hard-recoiling weapons, from artillery and tank cannons all the way down to handheld firearms. When it comes to handguns, they’re common on competition pistols, where minimizing muzzle climb helps with follow-up shots on a target. Some handguns are built with ported barrels which serve the same function, trading reduced barrel life and ck of modurity for compactness.Here’s the kicker: that vented gas has to go somewhere. The AK-74’s muzzle brake, for example, is infamous for spreading the bst sideways, which isn’t great for anyone standing to the sides of the shooter. A compensated weapon is also liable to kick up dust if used from a prone position. And, naturally, a compensated weapon can’t also be effectively suppressed. mounted to the AKM's muzzle, a little piece of metal pipe that might have been mistaken for a whistle forged from tank armor. It took entirely too many rotations to remove. She then retrieved a metal tube the size of a 2 D-cell fshlight from the trunk and began to twist its thickest part, unscrewing the adjustment colr almost entirely.18The PBS-1 suppressor for the AKM was issued by the Soviet Army and saw some use in the field during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That much, I feel comfortable stating as fact. By comparison, the data on suppressors for the AK-74 and its derivatives is scattered and dubiously sourced — apparently those were the PBS-4 and -5, with the -5 in particur being used for the very short AKS-74U (perhaps better known in the US as the ‘Krinkov’, for some reason), but you quickly end up deep in the rabbit hole for Soviet/Russian special forces and experimental ‘silent’ weapons. Did you know that ‘Spetznaz’ is just Russian for ‘Special Forces’? There were a lot of different Soviet ‘Spetznaz’ units. Best just not to dwell on it too much. “You never told me how you got kicked out of the Army,” she said. Pushing against the now loose rear cap, she brought it forward and kinked it to the left until it locked.“I do not speak much of my past, that is true,” Viktor said. “Perhaps I would tell such stories if I knew why they are now important to you.”“They are not,” Anne said, threading the suppressor onto the muzzle until it was all the way on the thread. “But I don’t want this to pass in silence. It seems as good a topic as any.” One more push on the suppressor’s rear cap and it sprung back, its crowned rear ring gripping the pushpin and keeping the suppressor from coming loose again.Viktor smiled. “I was never in the Army,” he said. “I was in the VDV.”19Soviet (and now Russian) Airborne Forces.“Well then,” Anne corrected herself, “you never told me how you got kicked out of the VDV.” Now it was just a matter of screwing the adjustment colr back on until it sat tight against the rear cap. Turning the rifle around in her hands, she then looked through the opening at the front of the suppressor, tilting the open innards of the gun toward the sparse daylight breaking through the cloudy sky.20Anne’s checking the alignment of bore and suppressor by looking down the barrel from the muzzle end. Of course she’s only doing it after making very sure the weapon can’t fire. Alignment should be checked every time you mount a suppressor, though you’ll probably want to shine a fshlight in from the chamber end for better light. Again, make sure the weapon is not loaded. If you don’t feel comfortable putting your face in front of the muzzle (and I don’t bme you), you can also get alignment rods to insert through the suppressor and into the barrel; you’ll quickly notice a misalignment because it won’t go in all the way.Basically every reference I found to the PBS-series suppressors mentions that AKs can be difficult to suppress because a) the muzzle thread isn’t quite concentric, b) the bore axis isn’t always dead center down the barrel, either and c) the added backpressure on the gas system means you can get a rifle that’s quieter at the muzzle than it is back at the ejection port, especially as most AKs are already overgassed even without a suppressor. The st one is more of a long-term issue (ear safe this ain’t), but the first two can combine to give you what’s called a baffle strike, i.e. the bullet fresh out of the muzzle not going straight through the middle of the suppressor, but hitting a part of it in flight. Needless to say, that’s several different kinds of bad.The PBS-1 setup used in Afghanistan deals with these issues in two ways. The suppressor itself is slightly overbored, i.e. has holes in the baffles that are rger than the projectile passing through. This prevents baffle strikes on less than ideal alignments but also makes the gas seal leakier, reducing effectiveness. Further, the subsonic ammunition issued alongside is substantially weaker than standard ammunition, reducing gas backpressure to the point where it doesn’t even cycle the action. As we’re going to see, Anne doesn’t use that. The goal here is merely to reduce the muzzle bst rather than trying to be truly silent. The wipe was long gone, of course.21Some military-issue suppressors use so-called wipes, which are basically solid rubber disks stacked into the suppressor body that the bullet is intended to shoot through. They’re better at sealing gasses behind exiting bullets because the rubber springs back after the bullet passes through, but the wipes rapidly lose effectiveness as they’re shot through repeatedly. You can also imagine that the bullet having to force its way through the wipes isn’t great for maintaining either velocity or accuracy while passing through the suppressor, which is why suppressors built around wipe stacks are very niche, usually only used for military ‘sentry removal’ pistol-caliber weapons that need to be very quiet for a few shots only.The PBS-1 is a hybrid, with a rubber wipe just in front of the muzzle and conventional baffles/expansion chambers beyond. Apparently, that wipe was good for about twenty shots. Naturally, if you’re mounting a suppressor with the wipe(s) inside, you can’t check bore alignment as no light will shine through. But the suppressor body was still intact and looked like it lined up correctly. Good.“There is not much to say,” Viktor answered her. “Operation Whirlwind, 1956.22As in, the Soviet response to the Hungarian Revolution. Colonel Polushkin led us into battle at T?k?l and after we took the airfield, we marched on Budapest.” Viktor paused. “A pretty city.23Have been to Budapest, can confirm it’s pretty. I wish I saw it at a better time.”“And it was there you fell from grace?” Anne said, repcing the bolt and main spring of her weapon.

  Viktor chuckled to himself.

  “The story I told you,” he said, “about how I killed the first time, drunk and without inhibition. It was that day. It was not the only time that day. The Starshina24One of those military ranks that has meant many different things in different times. In the context of the Soviet VDV, a senior non-commissioned officer. had a list of partisan hideouts. We drove to each and every one of them and went in to kill the partisans. And if there were others in the house, more partisans…I shot them, too. One woman, I had already wounded when I ran out of bullets. She screamed and cursed me when I walked out and got more ammunition. I finished her quickly after that, because she made a lot of noise with her screaming. I was not sure if she was the st one in the building. And I had to make sure.” Viktor paused. “The crime was very simple, you must know. After the city surrendered, the bureaucrats came to look at everything. They counted the deaths and found one too many. One of the men in one of the houses was important, you see. Fifty-six, they were alright to kill. This one, that was murder. We could not say afterwards who had fired that one bullet. So we were all guilty.”“You were set up,” Anne said.“Maybe,” Viktor conceded. “But mistake or not, if I shot him or my friends shot him, it did not matter. I was there to kill, so I killed him. If another man was also guilty, I cannot say now, but I was.”

  Anne considered that.

  “So prison was my new home,” Viktor said. “And I enjoyed the reputation of being a murderer, so do not think too highly of me. The fear of others suited me, but it kept me prisoner as well. Until Arkady came and took me away with his lies. Arkady, you must know, he lied to me many times, as he must have lied to you. But I know he wanted me to be a good man. That is the highest love I ever knew.” He paused. “I tell you all this because I knew you on that first night. I knew you could be a good woman. Your technique was…fwed, but you did not have my false confidence. You had a wolf inside you and you did not trust yourself to keep hold of its chain. It was good to see. That much I could teach you, and bring you to pride and joy in your work.”“I…I don’t enjoy killing,” Anne said.“But you enjoy power,” Viktor countered. “And you only feel powerful when you kill. It is the only time when your hand and your heart are one.” He paused. “You can change what you admit about yourself. I hope I am a useful example to you.”

  Anne snapped the dust cover on the AKM back in pce and returned the rifle to the trunk. One st look at the death inside, then she closed it.

  “Thank you, Viktor,” she said. “For everything.”“Let your parting gift be more than words, Anne,” Viktor said. She walked around the car, opened the driver’s side door, but hesitated to get in. Instead, she turned her head to look at him. “Thank me by surviving,” he finished.