Deployment — Hokushiro Prefecture, Northern Higane
Age 16 — Year Five of the War
The transport plane droned through the grey dawn sky.
Netoshka sat against the cold metal hull, her rifle across her knees, her eyes fixed on nothing. Around her, two dozen soldiers did the same—young men from the Fengtian Province, farmers and factory workers who had been turned into infantry. They didn't look at her. They had learned not to.
The engines vibrated through her bones.
She thought about Yevgeny Nezvany. The man who had pulled her from the snow in Kholodny. The man who had promised to protect her. The man who had signed the papers sending her to Zeta-9.
He did what he thought was right, she told herself. The words were hollow. They had always been hollow.
She thought about Colonel Sokolov. The father she had never had. The man who knelt before her in that white room and gave her a Knife and told her she was special. The man whose voice had been layered with subharmonic commands she could still feel sometimes, like phantom limbs.
He made me love him so I would kill for him.
She thought about Zeta-9. The white rooms. The needles. The tests. The screams she had learned to silence.
They made me into this.
The plane lurched. The soldiers gripped their rifles. Netoshka didn't move.
Below, through a gap in the clouds, she saw mountains. Snow. Smoke rising from burning villages.
Hokushiro Province.
The uprising was here. The resistance had to be crushed. That was why they were coming.
That was always why they were coming.
---
Insertion — The Valley
The landing zone was a frozen field outside a burning village.
Netoshka's squad dropped from the transport and fanned out, rifles sweeping for targets. The village ahead was already in flames—someone had gotten here first. Bodies lay in the snow. Civilians. Soldiers. It didn't matter anymore.
"Move out," the squad leader shouted. "Secure the perimeter."
Netoshka moved.
The village was a maze of burning houses and frozen corpses. She passed a child lying in the snow, eyes open, staring at nothing. She kept walking.
This is what we do, she thought. This is what I am.
She thought of Dr. Kuryakin at Zeta-9. His cold eyes. His clinical voice.
"Your empathy is a flaw in the instrument. It must be filed away."
She had filed it away. Years ago. So why did the dead child's face stay with her?
"Contact!"
The shout came from ahead. Gunfire erupted.
Netoshka ran.
---
The Ambush — The Fog
The resistance fighters emerged from the burning buildings like ghosts.
They were not soldiers. They were farmers, shopkeepers, students. Old men with hunting rifles. Boys with stolen weapons. They fought with desperation, with fury, with the knowledge that they would die but they would die fighting.
Netoshka's training took over.
She moved through the chaos like water, her rifle finding targets, her body flowing from cover to cover. A man lunged at her with a bayonet. She sidestepped, caught his arm, broke it, shot him. Another fired from a window. She was already moving, already inside, already ending him.
Minutes passed. Hours. Time had no meaning in the fire and smoke.
When it ended, she stood alone in the village square.
Bodies everywhere. Smoke everywhere. Silence.
And fog.
It rolled in from the mountains without warning—thick, white, absolute. It swallowed the village, swallowed the sound, swallowed the world.
Netoshka walked.
---
The Family — The Fog
She didn't know how long she walked. The fog distorted everything—distance, direction, time.
She emerged at the edge of the village, near a small shrine half-hidden by trees.
They were there.
A woman. A girl. A boy.
The woman held the girl close—five years old, maybe six. Both of them frozen, staring at the soldier who had appeared from the white.
The boy stood in front of them.
Twelve years old. Thin. Terrified. Holding a rusted farming sickle in both hands.
Netoshka stopped.
The boy didn't run. Didn't beg. Didn't cry.
He just stood there, blocking her path to his family, waiting to die.
She had seen that look before.
In a mirror. Long ago. In Kholodny.
The boy swung.
She caught his wrist without thinking. Twisted. The sickle fell. The boy cried out.
She had him on the ground in a heartbeat. Her knife at his throat.
The woman screamed. The girl sobbed.
Netoshka looked down at the boy.
His eyes were wide, terrified, but he didn't look away. He stared up at her with the same expression she had worn when the soldiers came for her grandmother.
This is what they made me, she thought. This is what I am.
She thought of Yevgeny Nezvany, carrying her from the flames.
She thought of Colonel Sokolov, kneeling before her, giving her a purpose.
She thought of Dr. Kuryakin, filing away her humanity piece by piece.
She thought of The Curator, whispering in the dark about order and necessity.
All of them. All of them had made her into this.
The knife trembled in her hand.
She released him.
The boy scrambled back, gasping, clutching his wrist. The woman grabbed him, pulled him close, stared at Netoshka in disbelief.
Netoshka stood.
She looked at the family—the mother, the daughter, the son. Three people who would be dead in seconds if she followed her orders.
She thought of the child in the burning village. The one with the open eyes.
Someone has to stop.
She turned and walked into the fog.
---
The Brother — The Clearing
She was halfway across a frozen clearing when she heard the footsteps behind her.
She didn't turn.
"I should kill you."
The voice was young. Shaking with rage.
Netoshka stopped.
"You should."
The brother stepped around her—seventeen, maybe, bleeding from a wound in his shoulder, holding a rifle aimed at her chest.
"You killed them. My father. My uncle. Everyone. You burned everything."
Netoshka looked at him.
"Yes. I did."
His finger tightened on the trigger.
"Why?" he demanded.
"Why did you let them go? My brother. My mother. My sister. You had the knife at his throat. Why?"
Netoshka was silent for a long moment.
Then she spoke.
"I was born in Hell When I was eight, then soldiers came. They killed my Humanity, They burned everything. They took me."
The brother's eyes narrowed.
"They made me into this. They filled my head with lies about your people. They told me to hate you for what your grandfathers did. They trained me to kill. They programmed me to obey."
She met his eyes.
"So I came here. I killed. I burned. I became the thing they made me."
The rifle shook in his hands.
"And now?" he whispered.
Netoshka looked past him, into the fog.
"Now I don't know what I am anymore. I don't know if I was ever anything else."
She turned her back to him.
"Shoot me or don't. It doesn't matter."
She walked into the fog.
The rifle never fired.
---
The Flight — The Mountains
She walked for hours.
The fog lifted. The sun set. The cold deepened.
Netoshka walked.
She crossed frozen rivers. Climbed snowy ridges. Descended into valleys she didn't recognize. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't care.
She thought about the boy's face. His courage. His willingness to die for his family.
She thought about her own face, years ago, in the snow of Kholodny in Rosalvya.
I was him. And they made me into this.
She thought about Yevgeny Nezvany. The man who had tried to save her. The man who had failed.
He did what he thought was right. They all did. And look what it made.
She thought about Sokolov. The father she had never had. The man whose love was a weapon.
He made me love him so I would kill for him. And I did. I killed so many.
She thought about the experiments. The needles. The screams. The white rooms.
They broke me. And then they rebuilt me. And then they broke me again.
She kept walking.
---
The Capture — The Ridge
Dawn broke over the mountains.
Netoshka stood on a ridge, looking down at a valley she didn't recognize. Snow. Trees. A frozen river.
And movement.
Black shapes emerging from the tree line. Moving with precision. Spreading out to surround her.
The Hongse Gui—the Red Ghosts.
She watched them come. Didn't run. Didn't fight. Didn't move.
They surrounded her on the ridge, rifles raised, faces hidden behind black masks.
An officer stepped forward. Thin. Cold eyes. Immaculate uniform.
"Netoshka Nezvany."
She said nothing.
"You are charged with dereliction of duty. Failure to execute orders. Compromising operational security."
She looked at him.
"Take me where you're going to take me."
The officer hesitated. He wasn't used to compliance.
Netoshka walked past him, down the ridge, toward the waiting transport.
The Red Ghosts parted to let her through.
She didn't look back.
---
The Treaty — Linhai
Three days later, in the neutral city of Linhai, the war ended.
Supreme Director Wei Jianyu signed for Riyue.
President Theodore Ashworth signed for Averika.
The terms were simple:
· Riyue kept Nuchi Province and key ports.
· Higane survived as a broken, occupied state.
· Averika withdrew completely, their intervention a failure, their allies abandoned.
Ashworth returned home in disgrace. His nation was exhausted, divided, on the brink of collapse. A new Averikan Civil War was already brewing—factions forming, lines being drawn.
But Netoshka didn't know any of that.
She was in a transport, heading north.
---
The Facility — Beirong Territory
The facility emerged from the snow like a wound.
Concrete buildings. Barbed wire. Guard towers. The Institute for Advanced Behavioral Research.
Netoshka was escorted inside.
Through sterile halls. Past scientists in white coats. Past guards with red armbands.
To a room. A table. Two chairs. Harsh white light.
Dr. Shen Wei waited for her.
He was old. Silver hair. Eyes that had seen too much.
"Netoshka Nezvany," he said.
"Or should I call you Asset N-07? Of Rosalvya?"
She sat down.
"The war is over," he continued.
"But your work continues. You will stay here for several weeks. We will recalibrate you. Remove the emotional contamination. Prepare you for your next mission."
Netoshka looked at him.
"Averika."
"Yes. Their civil war is coming. We need eyes inside. Someone who can move among them, learn their secrets, find their weaknesses."
Netoshka said nothing.
Dr. Shen studied her.
"You don't care, do you? About any of it. The war. The mission. Your own survival."
Netoshka met his gaze.
"No."
He smiled faintly.
"Good. That will make this easier."
He stood.
"Rest tonight. Tomorrow, we begin."
---
The Room — The Silence
The door closed.
Netoshka sat alone in the white light.
She thought about the boy. His face. His courage.
She thought about the brother. His rifle. His hesitation.
She thought about the family. The mother. The daughter. The son. Alive because she had, for one moment, remembered what it felt like to be human.
Maybe that means something.
Maybe it means nothing.
She lay down on the cold cot.
She thought about Yevgeny Nezvany. The man who had saved her.
She thought about Colonel Sokolov. The man who had used her.
She thought about Dr. Kuryakin. The man who had broken her.
She thought about The Curator. The voice that had rebuilt her.
All of them. All of them had made her into this.
And now there would be more. More programming. More missions. More killing.
It never ends.
She closed her eyes.
The war was over.
But for her, nothing ever ended.