Chapter Text
You squeeze yourself into the 7:49 AM train with the other commuters like you're a serving of canned sardines, before the doors close and seal your fate for the next 45 minutes.The ones quick or audacious enough can snatch a seat, the rest of you have to make do with standing for the length of the train ride. A pair of headphones make the ride significantly more bearable and filter out the noise of the few people who are inexplicably chatty at an early hour like this. But most of the passengers mirror your tired and distant expression, looking past each other out of the windows, where the periphery of the city with its slab construction buildings turns from stretches of industrial areas into a more urban environment. Many of these faces are strangers you know all too well by now, most of them in office attire like yourself when you wait together for the train in the morning or sometimes even take the same one home in the evening.
In a perfect world, you'd be able to afford a nice apartment in the city centre without having to commute for almost two hours in total every day, but the world is far from perfect and the cost of living in a big city is the burden you have to carry as a simple office worker. So you will diligently take the same train as every morning tomorrow again, as well as the day after. But life has gotten a tad better recently, because you sold your soul to the devil for a better paycheck.
Working for a private military company might not be the most noble of professions, but when you spotted the job posting for a position as an HR employee for a company called KorTac, the payment was so good that you had to jump at the chance. And you would be lying, if you'd say that the exceptionally high compensation doesn't help with muting the guilt that arises every now and then when you become aware that you're working for an industry that sells death and destruction. And you learned quickly that, behind the intimidating steel and glass headquarters of this company, it was an office job like millions of others, if you ignored the occupations of the people you had in your database. Others take care of bank employees or hospital staff and you administer mercenaries.
When you started here, you took over operators H-O after the previous holder of this position had retired. The list of people in your responsibility are as diverse as the array of odd call signs they carry with them and which are registered in your database among other bits of information. Sometimes you add another one, sometimes you remove one. Be it because they found an even better paid way to kill people, or because they've been the ones on the wrong end of a knife or the muzzle of a gun. And inevitably, you came in contact with many of them so far.
Kim Hong-Jin, going by the callsign `Horangi`, had called you multiple times in the past, trying to coax you into paying him his salary in advance, mumbling something about a streak of bad luck during a hazy night of poker or a lost bet.
Or a man named `König`, who communicates with you exclusively over mail and had once sent you a row of incoherent messages, partly in German, lamenting over the injustice of the world and then falling into a string of nasty curses that were followed by a lengthy and very formal apology mail a few hours later, explaining the messages with inebriation and a sudden surge of weltschmerz that got directed at the wrong person.
As ordinary as you and your little office job are, the people in your database are far from that.
—
Nikto had spent the whole day in a vegetative state in his room. They gave him his own one again and for once he was somewhat grateful for the mumbling and the violent outbursts he sometimes couldn't suppress, had they given him the luxury of a bit of privacy in this run down base in the middle of nowhere where he was stationed at the moment. He shouldn't be doing nothing, it wasn't good for his state of mind, but one too many displays of “unnecessary violence” and “unpredictable behaviour” and his superior had decided that he was in need of a small break until his mental state was balanced out again with a few nice rounds of his medication and some rest. Mercenary work was dirty and the rules set up by his employer were usually more of a suggestion, but with enough craziness anyone could get a timeout on the substitutes bench.
So here he was, stretched out on the too narrow bed after popping a cocktail of meds that calmed down the raging voices in his head, but also made him drowsy and slightly nauseous. He had been alternating between fruitlessly trying to take naps and mindlessly scrolling on his phone for the most part of the day. Like a child that got grounded by his parents for one too many shenanigans, Nikto imagines the other operators out there with a scowl on his face. The lucky bastards can be outside with the reassuring weight of a rifle in their hands, cutting throats and snapping necks, feeling the addicting rush of adrenaline coursing through their veins that wakes you up better than any line of coke could. Racing hearts and sweat and blood and smoke.
The meds keep him placid though for now and the usual outburst caused by frustration and stress stays suppressed. He reaches for his pack of cigarettes on the bedside table and lights himself one, the first drag warm and pleasantly numbing like always. His eyes wander through the room, yellowed walls from decades of other chainsmokers residing in here, cheap linoleum, a curtain rod without a curtain and furniture that looks like it was last updated some time in the seventies. A half-finished paper model of a cargo ship sits on his desk, an attempt to distract himself from his reeling thoughts and the restlessness with a fickle task, but the tingle in his brain proved to be stronger after a while. And on the small desk lamp sticks a yellow sticky note with a hastily scribbled telephone number on it.
A week ago, Nikto had noticed that he had not been paid for his last job. Through various dark web channels he had checked his concealed bank account where all his hard earned money piled up with nowhere to go, but he saw immediately that something was missing. Growing up dirt-poor gave him a keen eye for his finances, hoarding his payments and living frugally from the ever present underlying fear that there could be nothing again one day.
Also, it's a matter of principle for him. He might not need the money, but he risked his useless life for this damn company and therefore he deserves compensation.
When he complained about it to his superior and sternly demanded the issue to be fixed, he got hastily brushed off and ordered to take care of it himself, gaining nothing but the sticky note with the number of KorTac's HR department. It took all of his restraint to not burst from anger and burn this whole goddamn company to the ground with all of its useless employees. And so the note stuck to his desk lamp for the past week, its sun-bright yellow a mocking reminder to make this call.
Nikto doesn't want to make this call, doesn't want to take care of administrative bullshit like this and talk to a civilian. But what Nikto wants is his money. And he knows that no one will help him, unless he helps himself. Just how it has always been like.
He takes another deep drag from his cigarette and exhales the smoke through his nostrils. With a groan, he gets up from his bed, head spinning slightly from laying down for so long, and he shuffles over to his desk. He extinguishes the smoke in a half empty cup of black tea and slumps down on the chair that creeks slightly under his weight. He takes out his phone from his pocket, the screen cracked since he threw it against a wall a while ago in a fit of rage, but the device miraculously still works. Nikto squints at the note, the writing scratchy and crooked, and after a deep sigh, the dials the number. A few seconds pass, the connection stands and a terribly distorted rendition of “The Spring” from Vivaldi's Four Seasons blares through the speaker, an unpleasantly artificial voice asking him to hold the line every few bars. Niktos features pull into a disgusted scowl.
—
You're in the middle of picking some dry leaves from the struggling spider plant that's residing on your desk when an anonymous number calls you. You startle slightly, dropping the leaves you gathered and brace yourself to pick up the phone.
"Hello, this is KorTac HR department. How can I help you?"
There is silence on the other end and you try again. "Hello, this is KorT-"
Someone cuts in and clears his throat on the other end of the line and then a deep and gravelly voice with a heavy accent speaks. "My employee ID is..."
You barely have time to type the row of numbers and letters into your computer before the man stops again and an interface with a digital file pops up on your screen. There is only a call sign and a first name visible for you. Nikto. Andre. The rest is not filled in at all or redacted, only accessible for a few higher ups with proper clearance, not for some minor office employee like you. You've only seen the name on paperwork before, but you never interacted with him directly so far. Which is no unusual occurrence with the people in your files, where secrecy comes with the nature of this line of work.
“Okay, um… Andre.” You feel weird calling the operators by their call signs so you usually politely prefer to go for the last name, but since that is no option here, you opt for the first name. Although you doubt that this one is real in his case.
Nikto on the other end of the line flinches slightly. He hasn't heard that name in ages, almost forgot he provided it to the shady recruiter when he joined KorTac. It feels like a lifetime since he started here. Since the past corroded his old self away and left… Nobody.
The voice that feels dimensions away speaks again after a moment of silence. “What can I do for you?”
And Nikto feels the urge to scoff. What could she do for him? Maybe organise a proper bottle of vodka for him in the middle of nowhere. How about she'd crack his skull open to fish out the voices that had been taunting him more than usual lately? Maybe she has a nice pointy letter opener on her little desk that could do the job. Then staple him together again afterwards and put another one of those yellow sticky notes onto his forehead - “out of order”. Maybe he could have at least one peaceful day then.
“... Hello? Andre?”, her voice crackles through the line again and he flinches. His thoughts made him trail off again.
His throat is cleared once more, the smudge from a pack of cigarettes a day and rarely used vocal cords swallowed down and he rasps again. “We didn't receive payment for the last deployment.”
You blink at your screen. “Oh, you and others from your team?”
Nikto furrows his brow at her question, but then curses internally. It slipped again. She doesn't know. So he adds curtly, “No. Just me.”
You sit up a bit more straight in your office chair and brush the strange exchange away. It must've been the language barrier. "Alright. Well, let me check the system quickly. Maybe I can find out anything.”
You click through the file to his deployment history. This guy seems to be out there constantly. Barely a week between missions and he's on it again.
After the sound of clacking keys is transmitted through the phone you speak again. “Oh, you are right. There hasn't been any payment. We updated the system recently to a new software and had some issues with that. I guess that's why the payslip wasn't submitted. So it's good that you called! I will ask my colleagues from accounts to fix that as quickly as possible.”
The voice on the other end is polite. Chirping away like he wasn't almost cheated out of a hefty amount of his hard earned money. Nikto feels his pulse rise, even though his meds should be keeping him tranquilised, a vein in his neck swelling with the familiar pressure of bright red fury.
He's always been hot-blooded, that much he remembers from before. Easy to set ablaze, secretly looking-forward to every opportunity to test his strength on another who made his hands clench into a tight fist with a wrong look or thoughtless comment.
Images flicker through his fractured memory. Splatters of blood on worn concrete stairs. His icy blue eyes in a dirty mirror, one of them swollen with a nasty bruise and blood-shot. Sounds enter too. Yelling, shouting, jeering. Groans and whimpers. Pleas for mercy. Spat out curses along which thick, blood-stained saliva. The cracking of bones. The dull impact of a fist against flesh. Skulls against hard surfaces.
“You fucking…” He growls into the phone, pressing the device against his ear. “You fucking incompetant pieces of shit! Suka blyat!”
The curse comes deep from within his chest, resonating there with force as he shouts it into the crackling phone line. It's followed by more expletives in Russian, his brain too caught up with the storm raging there to translate the words that pour out of him like poisonous sewage water, ready to drench everything with its foulness, stench and rot.
God, he forgot almost how good an outburst like this could feel. Like he is in control again, shouting all of his hate and frustrations into the void, crushing everything that irks him, shutting up all the nagging voices, imagined or real, until only his is heard. And then silence once he brought the world to its knees.
When the last curse is roared, Nikto having been shot up from his chair by the desk in the meantime without really realising it, now standing with squared shoulders and his feet planted steadfast on the linoleum in the middle of his run-down room, staring at the yellowish wall behind his bed, his chest his heaving with raspy pants. He is still clutching the phone in his hand, the screen pressed against his ear and now a bit damp from the sweat that has gathered on his forehead and temples during his outburst.
It's quiet now, he can only hear the blood rushing in his ears. Nikto blinks. Once, twice, his eyes feeling dry today, and then a sniffle from the phone speaker draws his attention again.
“I… I'm sorry.” The little voice creeps through the line, quiet and tenuous like a mouse. “We, um…” Another sniffle and a suppressed sob. “Like I said, the new software and… We really do our best here, but sometimes…”
He made her cry. The realisation is like a punch in the guts when her shaky voice breaks with another sob that sounds a bit more distant, like she's holding the receiver of the phone a bit further away when she can't keep it down anymore.
A different set of images enters his mind now. Gentle eyes, heavy with concern. A pair of delicate hands folded in prayer. Those hands wrapped tightly around his wrist, trying to pull him away from something before he breaks free. Sounds. Similar muffled sobs and sniffles like those coming through the phone now. Pleading shouts of something that he knows is a name, but one he can't decipher, like it's spoken in an alien language he is unable to comprehend.
“I will ask my colleagues to make the payment as quick as possible.” Croaks the mousy voice and his proud wide shoulders slump. Something like regret settled into his stomach, uncomfortably hot and too heavy, a sensation that feels awfully familiar somehow.
“It is okay.” He replies, voice not roaring like gunfire anymore, but low and warm, as gentle as he can manage. “I know it wasn't your fault. The software and all…”
A little hum comes in response and he swallows hard, his throat clicking.
“Is the weather nice today?” He asks without thinking after a moment, his eyes fixed on a crack in the wallpaper before him.
There's silence for a beat and then another one before she speaks again quietly. “It's quite nice… yes. And with you…?”
Nikto blinks and then tilts his head to look out of the window, realising he hasn't done this consciously today until now. “It's cloudy here.” He replies and takes a step towards the window, gazing outside with narrowed eyes to where some light breaks through the grey dullness in the distance. “But it looks like it might clear off…”
"That's nice.” She says softly on the other end. “Although I enjoy a grey and rainy day every now and then. It can be very cozy, you know?” A pause. “But for you guys, rain makes your work even harder I guess?”
Nikto lets out a sigh and rounds his shoulders to get rid of the tension there before dropping onto his bed, the metal frame creaking under his weight. “Sometimes yes. Sometimes it's good to stay hidden. But yeah… Water in your boots and damp gear is never pleasant. When a rookie complained about the rain recently, our colonel yelled at him that he's not made of sugar and should stop being such a pussy.”
A small hesitant chuckle sneaks through the speaker of the phone and the corner of Nikto's mouth pulls up slightly with it. "What kind of weird saying is that?"
"I have no idea." He replies and shrugs and then huffs out a laugh himself.
“Can you give me a quick info when the payment is through?” He asks then, looking up at a harvestman in the corner of the ceiling stretching one needle-thin leg.
“Yes, of course!” She replies a little more self-assured again. “It should just take a day or two. Call again under this number when you have time and I'll look into the file for you to check.”
“I will do that.” Nikto rumbles with a nod. “And thank you for your help.”
“You're very welcome. Have a nice rest of your day.” The connection ends and Nikto drops the phone onto the mattress.
A sigh makes his chest expand and he closes his eyes for a moment. He hears the rustling of leaves outside, some birds too. He remembers that he opened the window a crack after taking his meds earlier.
Outside of his room there are two sets of steps passing his door in the hallway. He recognises Krueger's voice, he says something and then chuckles smugly before the door further down that leads out of the barracks where the operators are housed slams shut.
Nikto sits up in his bed again and plants his booted feet onto the ground. Reaching for the crumpled pack of cigarettes on his nightstand, he picks one out and sticks it between his lips. When his thumb meets the wheel of the cheap plastic lighter he carries around with him, a thin ray of sunlight falls onto the worn linoleum before him through the window.
Maybe he should smoke that cig outside in the sun on that bench behind the armoury. It seems to be clearing off.