BIOHAZARD,
chapter seven: traitors & consequences!

20 hours left.

          THE ALARMS WERE AWAKENED AGAIN, repeating the same miserable moment as the previous morning. Avery got up heavily, remembering what had happened the night before. As they were almost discovered by their commander and how they would proceed with the heist. There was something that could determine the success or not of the heist: the mission with the Winter Soldier. A key piece with which the team didn't count until fifteen hours ago. Everyone knew that time was running and the final hour was approaching. But by that time, everyone would concentrate on staying alive and continuing the mission, regardless of the consequences. 

          The cadets put on their boots while the same room was illuminated with red lights, a constant murmur was present in the block and that caused a feeling of restlessness to the mercenary. He looked at Violet and she fixed her brown eyes on him, both remembering what had happened yesterday. The Birkin siblings had no idea what was happening, but they knew that both mercenaries were trying to put the pieces in the puzzle - and devise some plan to escape with the book - and then have the new plan.

          The soldiers got up and walked towards the exit of the block, following the same route as the previous day. They searched for gray trays and stayed in the same row as the day before, in silence, waiting for their first meal of the day. As soon as they sat down, Anika and Jake looked at Avery with concern - somehow, letting the mercenary know that something was playing against him or that something was complicating the mission. Violet looked at her partner, placing a hand over his, trying to relax him a little, a warmth that Avery decided not to push away. He looked at the rest of the team. "Today is the day, we must be cautious."

          "Where did you go last night?" Anika murmured, narrowing her eyes. Avery was about to object, but the redhead reproached him. "Do not say "anywhere". Jake and I are not stupid, we could feel how you moved."

          Violet glanced sideways at her partner. "You have to improve the stealth mode."

          Avery rolled his eyes and looked at the two SHIELD agents. "We know where the soldier's book and his code are kept. But there's a problem..."

          "The mission with the soldier," the Birkin siblings said at the same time, looking neutrally at the mercenary.

          "That's not the point," Avery replied, trying not to bother with the agents. "My point is that we have listened to the commander. He...when we get back from the mission, he will use something called the super soldier's serum in us. He wants to turn us into soldiers like the weapon HYDRA has right now."

          "The super soldier's serum?" Jake raised an eyebrow and looked at his sister. "Is not that what he owns...?"

          "Howard Stark? He has a couple of samples but that does not move from the Triskelion," his sister added, staring at him. "For now, that is the safest building on the planet and the most watched, apparently" She fixed her eyes on Avery and Violet. "Are you sure of what you say?"

          "Sure as a Stalinist," the two mercenaries said and the SHIELD agents rolled their eyes at the Russian historical reference they gave. Avery took a sip of coffee and then licked his lips. "We must take the book and flee before we are subjected to that serum. If they catch us, everything can go to hell - we will lose ourselves."

          Violet reclined on the metal bench. "You will be the distraction while we steal the book. Then there will be a blackout and BOOM! We left here as fast as a gazelle," Jake was going to raise his hand and the brunette pressed her lips. "If something fails, a very painful death awaits us so if you wish to preserve your miserable life, do what you must do to survive or to complete the mission."

          The Birkin siblings looked at each other, nodding at the same time. While that reflected some tranquility in the environment and in the two mercenaries. Avery didn't care to look at their faces, since the fact that the four of them were on the same side completely relieved him and he, after all, was the one who would return them home. But first things first, they had to complete the mission at all costs and with their distraction, everything would be perfect as planned. Nothing else could put Muller in complete balance - but that was the calm before the storm. If he had to face one, even if it were an avalanche that would bury him alive, he would do everything possible to achieve the goal. He would be able to keep one foot in the land of the living and the other in the very hell he was in right now - the hours will decide which foot would remain with the other.

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15 hours left.

          Time was running, too fast to be expected. It had been 5 miserable hours since the final phase of the mission had begun. Avery stared at the screen where the psychological training was taking place, clearly starting to get fed up immediately seeing that it was the fifth time the video played. There came a moment when he felt nauseous while sitting and looking at a screen that wasn't drugging him in a hypnotic way like the other cadets who were in his environment. Violet felt her impatience and also wished that this torture - which really didn't affect her - would stop. There were too many times that the word 'loyalty' showed inside his head. Loyalty to them, loyalty to HYDRA. The small team wouldn't swallow that fairy tale disguised as something morbid and sinister as an organization.

          Both mercenaries observed how the elder Birkin fought against the soldier, who, in fact, was kicking his partner's butt. It wasn't news, nobody had beaten the Soldier yet - after the fiasco in the cells in the lower sublevels. Avery analyzed the room and everyone was in the same previous position, nobody moved and everything was as it was the day before. He wondered how someone could be so accustomed to the stillness that showed in psychological training - maybe because the video that was repeated over and over and over again did leave the soldiers in a state such as hypnosis. Or because there would be consequences if someone moved the minimum muscle of its anatomy. Avery watched stealthily as Jake moved nervously, his sister was like that too. Violet tried not to let that video enter her head and corrupt her mind, but boredom had already won.

          Muller glanced at his companion's watch, marking the hours that could already be counted on his fingers. 15:54:35. The green-eyed mercenary swallowed before blinking a little, keeping that low profile of a hypnotized soldier. Time ran and ran very fast. The hours passed, they passed so naturally, taking their fucking time - torturing the team more and more - the murmur of the other cadets, the sound of the soldier's bionic arm, Jake's growls of pain, the air was so tense in that place - that Avery would appreciate it when he got away from there along with the book. And after that? He would continue with his normal life, killing some Russian official who has presented corruption, or plant a bomb in a monument to change the political agenda - or rather, run for his life and stop being a mercenary after this.

          However, this day was different. The whole team was different, something was changing. The soldiers of the highest ranks brought a soldier that there was no doubt that he had suffered a couple of blows. He was panting, he felt that his lungs were bad and didn't suck well the air of the environment. Violet sent a warning glance to her green-eyed partner as all the soldiers followed the prisoner to the Playground. Of course, Avery Muller hadn't forgotten the Playground, a laboratory so gloomy and sinister that anyone could enter and observe Frankenstein in person - and its creator: HYDRA. It was a horror movie, only with a soldier ruined by the Nazis.

          Avery spotted Karpov in the center of the Playground, his expression serious - almost murderous, as he watched as the prisoner was led to the chair the soldier used more than a million times. The prisoner struggled weakly, showing that he was dejected and that what would come for him wouldn't be beautiful. Actually, nothing in that base was nice. The two soldiers finished seating him in that chair and placed handcuffs to hold him there. Avery felt that fear emanated from that prisoner, threatening to come out in the most implacable way possible. The Playground remained in absolute silence, waiting for the commander to speak. A silence so sepulchral that Avery didn't dare to breathe.

          "Soldat! (Soldier!)" Commander Karpov called in a thick voice.

          The Winter Soldier approached slowly, with something in his human hand - something Avery dared not think. Something that Avery couldn't remember again that day that the soldier had taken advantage of him. How could someone so broken be able to corrupt, to abuse someone who was breaking like him? Avery remembered that afternoon he had shown weakness, drowned moans that evaporated in the dark gloom, in an abyss that he couldn't climb. Every touch, every single one, his body trembled, the pleasure corrupted and the most intense pain was inside and he resisted in ways no human could imagine. Like those blue eyes, as cold as a mountain were barely visible, while the dilated pupils drowned him in a black hole. Muller felt weak, something he never wanted to show. He felt the pain of how his body was abused, how he could break it that way - leaving marks that couldn't be erased in the next few days. A nightmare that never ended.

          "YA postarayus' byt' s toboy yasnym (I'll try to be clear with you)" Karpov's voice took Avery out of his trance, out of his own nightmare. He looked at the soldier and then at the commander, who was walking towards the center, clearly addressing the prisoner. "Ty deystvitel'no dumal, chto smozhesh' sbezhat' otsyuda? (Did you really think you could escape from here?)."

          The prisoner sobbed, showing weakness, showing terror in his body - which trembled incessantly. Avery could understand that fear, he showed himself and that wasn't good. Karpov and the soldier slowly approached him, entering his personal space, invading, ready to get any information.

          Karpov insisted. "Otvet'te mne! Ty deystvitel'no dumal, chto smozhesh' sbezhat' otsyuda? (Answer me! Did you really think you could escape from here?)."

          The prisoner gasped and looked at the commander with tears of terror in his eyes, shaking his head. Karpov raised a hand and smashed it against his cheek, a dry sound echoed in the Playground, since the same silence on the part of the cadets was present.

          "Vy igrali s chem-to ochen' tsennym dlya nas (You played with something very valuable to us)" The commander spoke, suddenly looking at the rest. "Vernost', chto-to, s chem ty ne mozhesh' zdes' igrat', chto-to, chto zastavlyayet nas vybirat', pytat' li tebya ili ubit' tebya nemedlenno (Loyalty, something you can't play with here, something that makes us choose whether to torture you or kill you instantly)."

          "Net! Pozhaluysta net...! (No! No, please...!)" The prisoner replied, somehow asking for mercy. Piety was something he wouldn't receive, as Avery didn't have.

          "YA mog by pozvolit' soldatu ubit' tebya medlenno, no ya znayu, chto ty sdelayesh', chtoby vyzhit'. (I could let the soldier kill you slowly, but I know what you will do to survive.)"

          "Yest' chto-to, chego ty ne znayesh'! (There's something you don't know!)" The prisoner exclaimed.

          Avery felt the world stop suddenly, in a fraction of time, in a nanosecond. As if the same world collapsed when the prisoner said those words. Karpov was curious at that comment so he crossed his arms. Muller's team waited expectantly.

          "V etom meste, v etoy zhe komnate, yest' predatel' (There is a traitor in this place, in this same room)." He continued.

          Violet Quinn glanced sideways at her partner, somehow sending a warning about all this situation. Did anyone realize that they were infiltrators? Avery was very meticulous in alternating his gaze from the prisoner to Karpov, assessing how the commander could take that accusation with the rest of the cadets. Jake and Anika stood still, expectant of Avery and Violet's movements - but they were as paralyzed as the Birkin siblings.

          Karpov gave a bitter laugh. "Traitors, the one who is a traitor here is you." He looked at the soldier. "(Raise the load of the staff, hit him and remove every scream of agony out of his body)," Then looked at the rest of the cadets. "Vy budete smotret' na vse, tak chto na etot raz vy poymete, chto eto posledstviya vybora izmeny pered vernost'yu GIDRE (You will look at everything, so that for once you understand that these are the consequences of choosing treason before loyalty to HYDRA)."

          The soldier began to beat the prisoner, who began to scream in pain, generating such a sinister atmosphere inside that there were some cadets who could no longer watch. That was not an examination, that was a reality that soldiers should face if someone - even a close friend - committed treason between those walls. The screams didn't stop, the blows either. Each one had a wider electric shock and each hit was more lethal than the previous one. The soldier would beat the prisoner as if he were using a knife, killing him slowly.

          Avery still felt that edge in his throat, threatening to cut his skin and remove all the blood that was on his body. He didn't realize that after about twenty minutes, the prisoner had stopped screaming, his body limp and lifeless leaning forward. The blood was on the floor, so fresh it stained the soldier's boots. Avery Muller knew that this would be his destiny if he failed in the mission.

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13 hours left.

          Avery came to the block, finding his bed - something set up there. The three remaining beds of his teammates were also with something as well. The small team observed the new uniforms that HYDRA had given them and the weapons that were on the side of the entire team. Muller looked at the team, knowing that it was time to start the final stage - that the theft would be the last task they would have here in Siberia.

          "I can't wait to get out of here," Violet murmured and Avery fixed his gaze on her. "After seeing...that, I don't want them to turn me into a monster like him."

          "That's why we'll get out of here before they know it," Jake replied, pulling on his suit pants. "Although I agree with you, I don't want to be like him."

          "That was very close," Avery said, looking at the group as he put on the belt with the covers of his weapons. "How...How did he realize there were traitors here?"

          "We don't know and we'll never know, the guy is dead," Anika added, putting on her gloves. "He's gone and that will not put the operation in danger. There are less than 13 hours left."

          "We'll make it, little sister." Jake touched her shoulder, already in her uniform.

          Avery didn't doubt it, not even his partner Violet. But there was something that didn't show a good sign for the two mercenaries. Something that the Birkin siblings weren't saying or that - maybe - they were hiding from them. What would happen after they got the book? They would run into the darkness of the forest, hide in the night, run for their lives or die trying to escape. It was as uncertain as the mission itself, but it would be worth the reward. But that wouldn't be exactly a reward, but a consequence. The team finished changing and they left towards the corridors, being with soldiers guarding - as it was of routine way - the corridor. Violet glanced at Anika, who had put something under her pillow before leaving. One question was answered: there was something Avery and she didn't know about it, but when the mission was over, they would know.

          The team walked towards the stairs, where Avery and Violet were the night before and observed that their commander was waiting for them. He smirked at them and they waited patiently, watching as the two soldiers turned their keys and the floodgates slowly opened revealing another door. Avery looked at the code, remembering it as it had been the night before. That opened the other door and revealed what they would soon steal: the Soldier's Book.

          "Today will be a glorious night," Karpov decleared turning around, holding the book in his hand and looking at the rest. "You will be the perfect team."

          A perfect team, the perfect heist, thought Avery. He glanced at Jake's watch, which was very poorly hidden, marking the final hours of the game - 13:45:09. Time was running out and they were on the edge of the abyss. They were the traitors and the heroes.

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