I’m being followed.

I have no idea who that person could be, although I should. This hellhole has dulled my sense.

The best course of action is to lure him away so I can subdue him. Let’s see who this little rat is.

I turn into another lane, then another, then another, until I get to the outer edge of the plant far away from everyone else. The surrounding space is so dark that when I look down, shadows swirl around my feet. Dry branches seem to be attracted to my gravitational force, coming to gather around my boots. I watch my step to mind the noise.

Looking for a door to break into, all I find is an enormous hole in one of the walls, looking like it was formed by explosives. Perfect.

I jump in. If he’s following me, he’ll follow me inside.

It’s even darker in here. This warehouse somehow still has a roof. Annoying. Any lighting this place used to have has either burned out or been repurposed.

Guess I’ll have to abandon the subdue plan and go straight for the kill.

I pick a secluded place near the hole, flick the safety on my pistol, and point it towards the darkness. I can’t hear the sound of dry branches. I can’t hear footsteps. Nothing.

Maybe he knows I noticed him and has stopped following me. So what’s the purpose of staying here? I need to get back to my room soon. Not like I absolutely need to, but even the best of us have to sleep. I might worry Alice too. I wonder if she’s already hit the hay.

A sound whooshes in from outside the hole, as sudden as a tidal wave. I pull the trigger, blinking at the flash of light as the bullet leaves the barrel, followed by a clanking sound of the bullet against a metallic surface.

Did I miss the target? Was there even a target?

Whoosh. I can’t detect exactly where the sound comes from, but I know it’s heading towards me. I fire again into the endless space.

He was fucking close. I can’t see where he is, but I know he’s within arm’s reach, and he has a knife. He was trying to disarm me by slicing my wrist.

We both missed. But I think I know where he is now. A bit to the left, a bit to the left. Bingo.

I pull the trigger once more, waiting for the sound of a body collapsing on the floor.

Another sound reaches my ears before I can fire again—the sound of the knife severing the fabric on my sleeves.

This guy’s crazy fast!

He lunges in for a strike. I dodge in time. However, the tip of his knife jams on my pistol’s trigger. I have to release my grip so he doesn’t cut my trigger finger in half.

“Gotcha,” he says in a toneless voice with a sharp burst at the end.

I recognize this voice.

Maksim Maksimov.

I catch a swatting sound, and land a kick at the source. Then comes the sound of his pistol sliding on the concrete floor.

Bless my superior hearing. A normal human wouldn’t have detected that sneaky pistol pull from his side.

I’ve underestimated him. Big time.

How the hell can a person be so stealthy? He doesn’t seem to step on the floor, he doesn’t seem to even breathe. Zero noises.

He appears to take a few steps back. “Not bad,” he huffs.

“Took you long enough, don’t you think?” I speak up. “What’s your business with me?”

He doesn’t reply. Instead there’s a rustle. He’s drawing a sword.

“Oi!” I say. “That ain’t fair! We don’t do melee here. The hell is that?”

“You’ll know when I slice you in half.”

He steps forward. I move backward, kicking my heel onto a pile of rocks. I pick them up and throw. One of them hits him with a thud. Another one collides with some machine, causing sparks, revealing an unfazed look on his face and the serpentine curve of his lips. And a shashka in his hands.

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He’s an assassin. The most skilled fighters in all of Russia without any superpowers. I take aim and chuck another rock. He parries it, sending it crashing into a wall. Then he charges.

I roll on the floor like a furball, then spring up and run towards the hole.

“Not in the mood for dying?” he says as he chases me.

“I’ve met a few of you before!” I gasp for air, “They’re . . . kinda edgy fucks, ya know? They dance with their swords like gods, but die to the first bullet in their chest . . .”

I’m no slowpoke, but as I lunge through the hole and into the alleyway, I can already sense his presence only a few inches away. Turning back might mean suicide, but in that split second, I can’t help my curiosity.

I turn back.

The shashka flickers under the slightest hint of moonlight as Maksim twirls it. Passing the saber between his hands, he draws it in, the first slash cleaves through the empty nothing. I lean to the side. His swing follows me, and with it, a small piece of my sleeve.

“Don’t you know this is a limited edition? This is the only uniform with the flag printed in the wrong color!” I scowl. Not a reaction surfaces on his face. Not a man who’s into jokes in the middle of a life-and-death battle, I guess.

He picks up the pace again, and I do the same.

I’m sweating now. I haven’t been worked up this hard since the time I was chased down by twenty Silver Vanguards with electroshock weapons. Let’s just say Silver Vanguards are a pretty terrifying bunch.

Maksim’s missed his chance. I have one second of breathing air, and one second is enough.

Will I have to use the mode?

I don’t want to do this. I really, really don’t want to do this.

As if I have a choice.

I close my eyes, lift my chest, cast my gaze upwards and take a deep breath.

Maksimov swings his shashka. It rips off the back of my jacket, the bottom part splits open, and fleetly falls on the snow.

His carefully concealed breath bashes into my auditory cortex. The sounds; the heat; I sense them all—the chittering insect from half a mile away, the gurgling water drops inside an incurvated sink, the body temperature of the guard out in the outpost, holding his KS-23 shotgun with a chipped muzzle. Maksimov’s footsteps only a meter away from me.

Blood pumps through my arteries as they heat up. I can pinpoint where my heart valves are siphoning blood, I can feel the rush of adrenaline erupting inside my skull. My body’s a steam engine.

Every time I put myself in such a bloated, machine-like state, I feel like a drug addict.

I unsheathe my pocket knife. Maksimov raises his hand for another slash. No way he’s going to miss from this distance.

I deflect his slice. I can see the bewilderment in his eyes. No single man should be faster than an assassin. No single man can turn around and block a shashka, or so I heard.

He’s the second-fastest human I’ve ever faced. But he’s still just a human.

I deflect again. He rebalances on his hind leg, aiming at my ankle. I push his blade away with the tip of my knife. He switches to a downward slash onto my neck with amazing transitioning speed. Once again, I parry it without too much of a thought. He keeps changing the angle of his attack, varying between slashing curves and straight jabs. Maybe he thinks the more unpredictable his movements are, the harder a time I’ll have. But my body follows his advances as if it’s second nature. I dismiss every move of his.

Eyes wide, he takes a step back, blade out, forming a defense posture.

“What are you?” I catch the slightest glimpse of hesitation in his words. He bites his lip.

“Why don’t you come at me now, assassin?” I smirk. His grip on his shashka tightens, but he holds his position. I have a couple of seconds to analyze his stance.

If I barge in now, he’s going to go for the most efficient cut. A thirty-five-degree chop is the least distance the blade needs to travel. Judging from the speed of his last slash, it’s going to take him 0.4 seconds. If I lean to the side, he’s going to take another 0.5 seconds. His latency is 0.2 seconds. The scabbard length is seventy-nine centimeters, then he’s going to take an extra 0.5 seconds to get me into comfortable slashing range. He’s right-handed, so if I dodge a couple of times to the right, there’ll be an opening. No, let’s make it three dodging movements. One to the left, two to the right. Then I slice his throat.

I rouse from my train of thought, and there are still a couple of seconds left to make my move.

I’m sweating like a dog in heat. Damn, the side effects are already kicking in. I need to finish this now.

I lunge forward.

However, there isn’t any slash. There isn’t even an attempt to parry my knife. Instead, Maksimov . . . runs.

Typical assassins.

“Get back here, you sly dog!” I dash after him, but Maksim had a head start. Out the alley and on the wider road, I’m only a meter behind.

Our breathing drums in my ears. I go for a knife slash; several of his hairs scatter in the air.

“If I can’t have you dead, I’ll have you bald like me, fucker!” I’m making too much noise, but all this adrenaline isn’t gonna release itself.

Maksimov throws away his sword and springs away. I go for a few more knife slices, but they all miss his nape by just a hair.

Is this guy not human as well? He’s moving like a fucking leopard!

My breaths turn into wheezes. My body is scorching, like I’m taking a dip inside the core of the sun. I’m on full engine.

Two meters.

A meter.

Half a meter.

Striking distance.

He’s a dead man.

A gunshot tears the space apart right as I’m about to swing my knife. The bullet glides over the shoulder of my uniform, and I drop my weapon to the sound of fabric tearing.

Maksimov dives onto the ground. His head is under the snow, hands covering his nape. He chokes for air like he’s forgotten how to properly breathe.

This guy made it to the central courtyard right as he was supposed to die. Someone spotted us in time, fired a shot in the dark, AND that shot happened to dodge the running man and narrowly hit me?

There’s only one other person who can achieve this in the entire facility.

Vice Commander Smolov. Of course, it has to be him.

A flashlight shines directly onto my face, and I cover my eyes with my hands. In my current state, even a flickering flame over the distance can feel like somebody is pressing my eyeballs on a hot grill.

“Hands in the air! I said . . . Hands! In! The! Air!” Then comes the snappy scream, a scream frightening enough to crack the bile of cowards.

I’m in deep shit.