Far in the east of Novgorod, the Siberian countryside is loosely run as a collection of small territories each operating almost completely independently. The region is notoriously treacherous and costly to maintain, so in exchange for that independence the region is basically ignored when it comes to aid or budgeting.

‘If they want it, they can have it.’ Is basically the gist of the government’s strategy in regard to the region.

This lack of coordination however is exactly how sixty students can vanish without anyone blowing whistles.

Anastasia Kuznetsova’s younger sister, Elizaveta— or Liz as most called her— landed at an airport an hours drive from the vanished school according to the texts she sent her sister. From there, Victor managed to catch her trail by talking with the cab drivers outside the airport. It’s rare for a young girl to make the trip alone, so it wasn’t too difficult to get the drivers name after asking a few making the loop around the airport.

According to him, he last saw Liz on the outskirts of town where he’d dropped her off. He’d thought the location was a strange choice, but he stopped questioning it once she shoved a wad of cash through his plexiglass hole.

“Not trying to get mixed up in any trouble.” The cabbie muttered uncomfortably under Victor’s array of questioning.

“Yeah me neither but sometimes it finds us, huh?” Victor sighed, as-if sharing a lot in life with the broke shift-stacker. “Take me up to where you dropped her. And tell me some things while we’re at it.”

“A…” The man stammered, glancing down at his clothes and then up at Victor. “I’m not working today…”

“I’ll give you ten grand.”

“Did you want a water for the road, beer maybe, or y’good?” The cabbie quickly asked, leaping to his feet to dash off to grab something to eat on the long drive.

ǀ дa ǀ

The roads in the mountains were dangerous and if the weather catches you off guard you could come around a bend and find yourself in a white-out blizzard. That’s why the cab drivers often have seats stacked with cold pizza’s and piles of junk-food. You never know when you’ll need to spend a few nights in your car waiting for the roads to clear.

“And this one here—” The cabbie explained, pointing over another sheer drop as he drove manically around the steep switchbacks of the mountain road. “Like four people have died on this one.”

“I was more interested in the information you have about this town up here. Not the treachery of being a Siberian cabdriver, although it is fascinating.”

“Hah.” The man laughed, stuffing a pile of gummy worms into his mouth. “Girl said the same thing. Well I’ll tell you same thing I told her; it’s a quiet city without too much going on. Mainly exports coal and mana-rock. Whole place is pretty much a B.E.Z. staffing farm. Mom’s and Dad’s work in the mines, labs, or code-farms and the kids are shuttered in one direction or the other through the regional schools.”

“You know it well?” Victor said, catching the cabbie’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

“One of the few who got out.” The man explained, again veering to keep on the road as it peaked a hill and rapidly twisted to the right with almost no warning. “It’s not a bad place, you’ll never meet better people. It’s just everything else, ya know?”

“Right.” Victor said, smiling pitifully. It was an all-too-common occurrence. “So, what have you heard about people going missing?”

“Nothing beyond average.” The cabbie quietly said, again stuffing his mouth with a handful of candy to stop him speaking any further.

With as many answers as he needed the ride grew quiet as they made their way through another valley, switching road qualities exponentially as they went.

After another twenty minutes or so, the cabbie finally finished chewing his worms and pointed to a small mailbox a quarter mile up the road.

“S’right up there.” He explained, switching hands as he was forced to wrench the wheel heavily to keep from plummeting into a wide river that traced the roadside. “That’s where that girl asked to be dropped off.”

“Thanks.” Victor nodded, pulling out his phone to report everything he’d heard to the concerned parties.

“Ah, you might not get much service as you get closer.” The cabbie explained, disregarding the road fearlessly to look into the mirror at the strange passenger again.

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“It should be fine with this one.” Victor shrugged, holding the phone nearer the window just to be sure. Nodding he pressed a button on the side and returned it to his pocket. “So, what; they have their own networks?”

“Mhm.” The cabbie nodded with all the information Victor needed.

Strange that she’d managed to make a friend inside a walled garden, social media and most other communication apps are typically blocked when setting up systems like that.

“Well, you gave me all I needed so here’s as promised.” Victor said, pulling a small silver coin from his pocket as they skidded to a stop on the gravel road.

“Oh shit.” The cabbie clamored as he caught the coin. “This what I think it… Oh my god.”

“It’s ten grand as promised; give or take. Although this time last year it was twelve, so careful holding onto it.”

“Got it. Thanks boss!” The cabbie said, rolling down the passenger side window as Victor shut the door. “Oy you want me to stick around for a ride home.”

Victor turned a stiff grimace to the man who laughed hysterically in response.

“I’s kidding. See ya boss. Be safe.”

Shaking his head as the cabbie sped away with his handbrake still engaged, Victor again returned his attention to the mailbox she’d chosen as her destination.

Was this the friend of hers? The surname written on side said ‘Orlov’, Victor again pulled out his phone and read-over the messages he’d received again.

Sure enough, Lena Orlov.

“Well, that’s our first question answered.” Victor muttered to himself, glancing up the rough path that laid beside the crooked mailbox. Now he had a fork in the road, normally he knew exactly how to handle a situation like this but things would have to go differently this time.

Approaching the house would be the logical choice, if he was able to ask the girls parents they might reveal a clue to what’s really happening in this town. But it could put them in unnecessary danger, and Victor was really striving to prevent that type of thing now.

The other option is to go directly to the school, and see for himself if the students really had vanished.

The better question was, what had Elizaveta done?

If she was at all suspicious based on what she’d heard from the cabbie, she probably would have avoided the house, and gone directly for the school. Afterall, at that point she would have had no knowledge of the other student’s disappearance.

She likely would have prioritized asking the other students.

So, Victor would do the same, he would go directly to the school.

‘Likely straight to the belly of the beast,’ Victor assumed with a chuckle.

ǀ дa ǀ

“How did you get here?!” Lena cried out, wrapping her pen-pal into a tight hug. It was a meeting an extremely long time coming, but neither of the two expected the event to take place in the place it was.

“I figured you wouldn’t just stop answering.” Liz grunted painfully as her bruises were pressed inadvertently from the tight hug. Glancing around once she’d been released from the hug, Liz took in the extent of how deeply she’d screwed up. “What is this place?”

Around her, eleven other girls of a similar age were either laying on the mattresses that dotted the floors, or sitting against the stone walls with broken expressions.

“I’m so sorry…” Lena bawled as she realized the reality of her friends presence for a second time. “Why did you have to get mixed up into this… It’s not fair.”

“I’m here by choice!” Liz countered accidentally, receiving a flurry of glares from her misspeak. “I mean not… I came here to help, but then… well yeah.”

“I’m sorry.” Lena again choked out through sobs.

“Stop. Stop.” Liz repeated, shaking her to bring the girl back to some sort of sense. “Tell me, what is this place? What happened to all of you?”

Again, she received a few silent glares from the other students.

“This place is the lab.” A girl other than Lena answered, realizing the sobbing mess wouldn’t be able to get the words out fast enough. “I guess we’re the new batch of parts.”

“They… they use students as research subjects?” Liz gasped uneasily, she had trouble believing it was could happen in Novgorod but the truth was in front of her eyes bawling.

“It’s not very often, it depends on how long the previous batch lasts.” The girl said, laughing self-deprecatingly. “My parents always said, ‘Ah Olga don’t worry. It’ll probably be your brother’s class’. So stupid, I could have gotten out.”

“That’s it? Shouldn’t we try to escape, or…?” Liz trailed off as dull empty eyes met her from around the wide room. It was obvious many of these girls had been subjected to their first experiments. The thought of escape or freedom had already become a comedic punchline rather than an actual hope.

“There’s no escape. And no one is coming for us either. Trust me it’ll protect your mind if you just accept it now.” Olga said plainly, shutting her eyes as she returned to leaning against the wall with empty thoughts.

“No.” Liz said adamantly. “My sister is one of the new graduates from the Academy. She’s a huge deal, people will come look for me, and they’ll free all of you too. Probably the Novgorod military or maybe she’ll just cover the entire town in holograms and force them to free us.”

“Oh ya?” Olga smirked keeping her eyes shut as she heard the silly threats. “Well, wake me up when they get here.”

“They’ll come.” Liz reiterated, turning her attention away from the girl against the wall and around to the others who’d glanced up at her statement. “They’ll come!”

“What’s the Academy?” One of the girls curiously asked without intending to. Grasping her mouth when she noticed, Liz grinned and waved her over excitedly.

“You don’t know? It’s amazing—” She began; regaling the sheltered group with a semi-accurate list of the huge names and developments that’d come from the secretive Academy. She spoke half to calm herself, and half to calm the others. But the curiosity was strong as she went on and on about how incredible the graduates, and in particular her sister, was.

A few hours slipped by, with the other students in the room slowly loosening up as they listened to Liz’s passionate voice. They recognized the attempt for what it was, but their curiosity towards the outside world overrode their ruggedized minds.

Eventually even Liz grew exhausted and finally fell asleep, but they wouldn’t sleep long as outside the walls, threads were moving that’d inevitable decide their fates.

Three or four hours after the room finally went quiet the doors were slammed open abruptly and unlike usually, not just one student was taken from the room, but all thirteen were.