Disclaimer: the following is a work of fiction. Any characters that may appear to resemble actual people (whether alive or deceased) or scenarios that seem to depict real world events – are wholly coincidental and not the intent of the author.
Author’s note: It’s strongly suggested that the Rendezvous series be read in consecutive order. At some point I may provide recaps of the previous installment(s) within the text, but currently there are none.
Rendezvous — a Novella
(Volume IV)
REDACTED
A man sat in an office room. No label on the door. Nothing of much significance besides a desk and a chair.
A fake plant occupied the empty space of the table doing little for the decor.
The shades were drawn, the lights were out except for a small chrome table lamp – the kind that reticulates. The brand name was a peculiar one, ‘Misq’ an off-market bargain bin item usually reserved for cheap MLMs or shady business ventures. And very out of place when compared to the high-end interior. Teak trim and crown moulding suggested the furnishings were temporary. Currently the lamp was bent low – aimed at a sheaf of papers spilling forth from a dossier evidently opened in a rush and just beside a small black book, embossed with a heading that had been worn down from years of use.
The man began to read.
“Colonel S. Fairfield’s Journal Entries”
Entry 1 (Aug. 19th, 1975)
We’ve tracked a strange woman to the USSR nation of Georgia.
Her talents for clairvoyance have caused a mix of locals in the rural areas to call her a ჯადოქარი (jadokari). This is a word that when transliterated means “magic user” or witch. I’ve been instructed to keep a close eye on her.
Entry 2 (Sept. 2nd, 1975)
After observing the mystery woman for less than a month – it seems apparent that she possesses abilities out matching the others we’ve catalogued, tested, and subsequently imprisoned in clandestine facilities meant for housing “their kind”. This is the only option that exists for us humans, a species whose very existence may be threatened. Any feelings of guilt were far-outweighed by innate biological urges for survival. This female and others like her, far too dangerous to be left alone.
Entry 3 (Sept. 3rd, 1975)
While tracking my target I was alerted by superiors that a plot was taking place; some minor Georgian-Soviet official was to be killed in the capital Tbilisi, an explosion orchestrated by separatists. I was warned as a courtesy – as a means to avoid any unforeseen circumstances or crossover between my mission and the puppet-strings being pulled to protect global economic interests. Insurrections, even pivotal ones, were inconsequential to The Mission – which had to be my main goal and prerogative. As a man of science I knew what my paramount concern was and politics would have to wait.
Entry 4 (Sept. 21st, 1975)
Finally.
I’ve witnessed this creature’s powers up close and personal.
It seems my initial inclination to ignore regional disputes – a mistake – as the subject I’m currently tracking is undeniably entwined in the local happenings of the populace here in Georgia (hell, maybe all of Eastern Europe, hard to be sure.). The bomb plot unfolded on a busy street, packed with bystanders, cars, as well as a procession involving the Georgian official in question, when all of a sudden like a thief in the night you-know-who appeared from an alleyway and slipped onto the street briskly melting into the crowd present. The official who was to be made victim of the revolutionaries’ assassination attempt was known to me, but I will not print his name or rank here. Not everything gets redacted, some things are left out entirely until certain folks stop sniffing around for an answer. If ‘The Syndicate’ was aware of my journaling it would not be permitted in the first place. Lesser operators would absolutely receive a demerit; maybe even a reassignment and demotion.
Of course I would be entitled to more leniency, but still. (In my case these scribblings I cannot seem to refuse myself would simply be destroyed by way of incineration.)
The blast radius would’ve –and should’ve extended to include most of the city block where it took place that day, Krestovsk St. destroying countless lives and injuring numerous others, the I.E.D. (Improvised Explosive Device) was abruptly flung 25 metres in the direction of a defunct and mostly abandoned parkade. It happened as the ignition began, so the witnesses as well as newspapers later stated that: an RPG or mortar must have been involved. Some type of projectile. An airborne munition just had to have been the cause. But from my perch on the twenty-second floor overhead, camped in my apartment with a clear view plus the necessary monitoring equipment – I knew it was her.
Entry 5 (Sept. 22nd, 1975)
PHASE 2 of our operations would begin soon but only once I’d been satisfied that sufficient data had been collected.
Acquisition and containment was the entirety of Phase 2.
PHASE 3 was laboratory testing – the most fulfilling of the three. And ultimately, my personal favourite. The devil was in the details after all. And only so much could be learned from hypotheses formed on the fly, without the benefit of lab conditions and stringent controls in place.
Entry 6 (Sept. 28, 1975)
Today I observed ______SHEENA___ as she sat quietly, having what looked to be a tasty, brusque brunch at a local eatery. In moments like these, I almost felt remorse for the defensive actions our agency had to undertake. Far be it from me to have an opinion about choices made by the higher-ups. My career up to that point had been one of pragmatic thinking and maneuvering based on the assumption that the greater good of ‘The Syndicates’ actions would outweigh any malfeasance on my part, and that those above me had judged the pros and cons accordingly.
But just then, as I was starting to have second thoughts, I realized anew the importance of my mission.
This was not a human I was dealing with – no, that much was certain. In the materials handed to me before agreeing to command the operatives that made up ‘XV’ (the covert-ops tag for my band of merry men) there was not only a lengthy history of the subject’s interventions in historic, climactic moments over the last hundred years – but it was labelled as “Data Points on the Entity (to be used in the event of acquisition and interrogation)”. That label alone screamed the need for caution and more than intimated the fact that a sympathetic approach would prove disadvantageous. Ruthlessness and tact was required – nay – demanded.
Any allusions I had formed of her nature being benevolent or human-like were simply a consequence of watching her eat, sleep, and live a mostly monotonous existence.
Consuming food for nourishment seemed such an unassuming thing. Being a meticulous military man with a laser-focused mind and a scientific background it had always seemed a rather mundane thing. Eating.
When you witnessed your enemies stuffing their faces: the result was a strange sensation of shared similarities – and the resulting wave of empathy could be deceptively disarming. Like the feeling you get when someone comes knocking for charitable donations. Only a heartless beast wouldn’t feel a few vague pangs of sympathy. I pushed the preposterous feeling out of my mind. Empathy was not what I needed just now. It proved ephemeral.
I ate my “paper bag lunch”.
Bologna. Bland.
And as I chewed, I continued to observe the subject from my place on a bench, as I did my work seated by an older worn clocktower with what must’ve been a once illustrious but now thoroughly cracked patina a subtle wind blew through the street, scattering some sparse scraps, newspaper scraps and local refuse. I remember glimpsing a blurb on one of them advertising a personal ad. for [FREE CAR, FORD, PICKUP SARKOVA ST.] – my Russian was far from fluent but I could already read a fair amount and subsequently my vocabulary was improving exponentially from listening to the locals who spoke it – rather than the regional dialect of Georgian which was rooted in Kartlian but incorporated a hodgepodge of other dialects, slang, and proved to be real a Rubik’s cube. I did another scan of the street and my mind chugged along while my body focused on masticating. This position kept me hidden away to the side – positioned on an adjoining street perpendicular from the restaurant where ______SHEENA___ sat enjoying her meal. Out of direct line of sight; just as the operating manual advised.
(A ghost barely needs to eat. And moves silently.)
Entry 7 (Sept. 30th, 1975)
Last night she (the entity) appeared by my bed while I slept.
Startled awake, I attempted to speak. But found my mouth quite incapable due a distinct sense of my mouth becoming a pit of cement, swiftly drying from either a mixture of fear and self-preservation or maybe something more otherworldly. Even supernatural in origin. I chose to go with the latter reasoning… as it allowed me to retain some of my internal bravado. Quite necessary for a man in my line of work. I chose to refuse the blatantly obvious fact that I’d been bested in my very first encounter with the subject. There we were, riveted, eyes locked on each other in the dimmed interior of my nondescript apartment, a safehouse provided by ‘The Syndicate’. As a spot for surveillance it was serviceable – in the way of comforts – it left much to be desired.
Then I watched…as I lay motionless, she flitted about the room virtually gliding from spot to spot, inspecting the few items I’d left casually displayed, thoughtlessly strewn about. These were mere props of course. Objects arranged in a way to make it appear as if I’d been staying there for some time. Give the pretense of it being a lived-in domicile. Immobility was not my preferred state: the fact that my limbs weren’t moving and my reflexes had clamped shut was disturbing… to say the least. Reaching for the service revolver I kept tucked under my pillow wasn’t an option – it seemed I had little to no options at the moment. And well, that just wouldn’t do.
She stopped perusing my personal items after some time and turned to face me. She snapped her fingers together, her middle and forefinger emitting a high-pitched click upon doing so, audible in an eerie and transformative way… strangely vivid. The sound instantly jarred me out of my state of semi-paralysis, placably dispelling whatever effect I was under.
“Speak.”
This is what she said with arms crossed casually her strawberry-blonde hair aglow with vibrant inner light. Some would call it auburn and some would say it was copper-coloured or “sandy”. Her presence was viscerally dreadful but also sublimely beautiful. I felt caught; I had no backup, no way of escape, and almost certainly now happened to be under this creature’s spell. All the training I’d received in preparation for confronting one of “her kind” proved to have been in infuriating vain. We had underestimated her – this much was clear to my panicking mind.
(In retrospect, hindsight being 20/20 I realized now that deciding against the neural implant offered by my superiors was a mistake. In my current situation it seemed the very definition of one. Even with the disclosed chance of cerebellum swelling. They said it was pretty remote (less than 14% of test patients exhibited hemorrhagic reactions), hell I’d rather be fully equipped to defend myself with an outfitting of any available tech. – no matter how experimental.
At the time I thought the negatives outweighed the positives. How wrong I was. Damn the R&D team and their “prototype stages”. If I was running that division it’d be different….)
“My name’s Colonel Fairfield, I think you know who I am. And exactly why I’m here.” I finally responded.
What was usually an unshakable wall of resolve, developed painstakingly over the years, returned to me in a sudden whoosh as those words exited my mouth. My muscles slackened considerably. That pervasive stupefaction was gone now –replaced by anxiety and a thick sense of swimming through vertigo. But for the most part I felt like myself. Just obviously not up to the battle of wills apparently playing out, as she had completely nullified my locomotion a moment ago with her presence. What unchecked, uncontained power….
“…what else would you like me to say; besides kindly asking you to vacate my home?”
It was the only retort I could manage. Staunchly curt in tone.
This knack for being able to cooly respond to unknown threats was a trait which had made me an indispensable soldier in my younger years. And had continued to serve me admirably through my career, from enlisted man to officer, and onward. Just the effect of being able to hear my own voice evoking that stoic composure I naturally harboured, really helped, made more clear by the take-no-bullshit tone becoming stronger with every word uttered. It helped immensely. Those who are sure of the mission and that they’re on the side of apotropaism need not fret even in the most alarming of situations or scenarios. Thankfully, I had always found my own hyper-realized ego a soothing concept. Whereas some men run from self-confidence – perhaps seeing it as a sort of weakness – my inclination was the polar opposite – to steadfastly embrace it. As a man of science and action.
Her reply was sharp, serrated:
“My hope is that you’ll explain to me in detail why you’ve been watching me….tracking me. And why, exactly, you have operatives stationed all across this city hoping to catch a glimpse of me?”
She continued.
“It is also my hope that you choose to reveal these things without me having to… well, obtain them through less than pleasant means.”
Her gaze was baleful. The threat wasn’t implied – it just was. Her eyes were deeply striking, twin glimmers of olive and opal sparking feelings of solicitude. They tore a jagged hole into my very being. Easy enough to see into and take what you’d like; yet she chose not to. Then the hue of those dual gemstones shifted. The colour drifted and changed before me and her face along with those two windows into her soul swam out of my vision.
Hmm.
My thoughts separated and dispersed.
Lost in amber oculi.
Awash in a turbulent abyss.
I heard myself respond…but from a distance.
*****
She questioned me for an unknowable amount of time. My memories: a fog of confusion when I tried to recall what secrets I had spilled.
I do believe I kept some things back – that at least some of the classified intelligence was safeguarded, out of the copious data points we’d gathered on her, the myriad files I’d memorized applying my latent eidetic cognition (another one of the talents that kept me in the higher-ups’ good graces) well hopefully a few blips were still locked away safely in my mental recesses. But I had no way of knowing for sure. Just a hunch. A gut feeling – that a few months of resistance training administered by a clandestine psyche-team had paid off, if just a little. Every team associated with this operation lacked designation.
And every member. Of every team. This operation wasn’t even named. It relied solely on serial numbers used for indexing field reports, invoices, R&D funding requests, etc. Compartmentalization was so extreme I had no clue who had actually initiated this current op in Tbilisi – but whoever had requested it, the order came from on high. So it was a small pool, not many potential candidates there were only a handful of men who could’ve given the order. In the back of my mind I was cursing that unknown person for sending me in blind to a firefight armed with not much more than a sling and a few rocks.
I didn’t feel like playing David and Goliath at this point in my career – being hampered by ineptitude from above. I needed every possible resource at my disposal to complete my mission.
END OF JOURNAL 1