Chapter 31 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The sun had set an hour ago, but the air was still warm and heavy, thick with the scent of tropical flowers and the salt tang of the ocean.
The island didn't cool down at night so much as shift from oppressive to merely stifling, the heat radiating up from the stone pathways long after the sky had gone dark.
Dimitri stood outside the lab building and checked his watch. Seven-thirty.
He was right on time.
Above him, the sky was spectacular, a canopy of stars so dense and bright that it looked artificial, like something projected onto a planetarium ceiling.
He'd grown up in Moscow, where the night sky was a dull orange smear of light pollution, and then he’d spent a miserable time in a Siberian labor camp where the stars were bright but associated with freezing temperatures.
Here, the stars were beautiful, and enough time had passed since Siberia for him to enjoy them.
The lab door was locked behind him. Mattie was upstairs, nervous but resting in bed, and Petrov was in his room doing whatever Petrov did at night when he was not visiting the brothel, which was mostly drinking vodka and reading scientific journals in that order.
The truth was that Konstantin had stayed in the lab instead of visiting his lady friend in the brothel only because he'd refused to leave Mattie alone while Dimitri met with Dave, so there was that.
Petrov was a drunk, but other than that, he was an okay guy.
Dimitri heard Dave approach before he saw them.
It wasn't the synchronized boot rhythm that he'd come to associate with Dave's arrivals, but rather a quiet rustling of movement from the shadows between buildings, the soft crunch of gravel under multiple feet.
They materialized out of the darkness one by one, eight figures emerging from different directions and converging on his position with the fluid coordination of a single organism controlling eight separate limbs.
Number One walked up to him.
He was the tallest of the Eight, and in the starlight, his features were hard planes and deep shadows.
His expression carried that characteristic quality that all eight shared, a look of calm attentiveness that made their different faces seem almost like variations on a theme.
It wasn't that they were identical. They weren't. Their faces, their builds, and their coloring were all distinct.
But the expression behind the eyes was the same, and that sameness was what made them so unsettling.
"Dimitri," Number One said. "It is a lovely evening for a walk. Thank you for agreeing to accompany me and talk about improving the formulation. I feel a little restless lately." He leaned closer. "We are not alone. Let's keep walking."
Of course, they weren't alone. There were seven more bodies trailing behind them, but perhaps that hadn't been what Number One had meant.
Perhaps there were guards watching the lab.
Dimitri didn't say anything, waiting for Number One to start talking first. The other parts of him were purposefully walking a few steps behind them, either to create a buffer between the two of them and whoever might be trailing them, or to give Dimitri the illusion of conducting an intimate conversation with Number One.
It was almost convincing.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, following a path that led away from the lab building toward the quieter sections of the compound, where the reconstruction crews had finished for the day, and the buildings stood dark and empty.
The sounds of the island filled the gaps: the chirp of insects, the distant crash of surf, the rustle of palm fronds in a breeze so faint that it barely registered on the skin.
"What did Losham want?" Number One asked quietly.
Dimitri wasn't surprised that Dave knew about the visit. Dave seemed to know everything that happened on the island.
"He asked about the harbor fight. Whether I've been using the enhancement drugs on myself."
"What did you tell him?"
"I denied it. Petrov backed me up with the adrenaline explanation." Dimitri glanced sideways at Number One. "Losham didn't buy it, but he couldn't prove otherwise. He tried to enter my mind but couldn't."
"We know about your barriers," Number One said. "They were present even before your transition. Not as strong as they are now, but they were there. What else?"
Dimitri debated whether he should tell Dave about the new assignment that Losham had given him and Petrov. It was obvious that Losham wanted to keep it a secret, but keeping secrets from the hive mind of Dave was difficult.
"I thought you knew everything about what was going on in the lab," he said instead. "The ever-present cameras record everything."
"Losham ordered the cameras turned off. His assistant informed the security office that what happened in the lab was highly classified information."
That was good news. "Is it permanent?"
"Yes," Number One said. "We could've talked freely inside, but Losham posted guards outside the lab. I didn't want to spend too long in there at night. That would have looked even more suspicious than us taking a walk together."
Dimitri smiled. "I doubt that it's fooling anyone, but it is what it is. Privacy is a luxury when you are an eight-bodied entity. You are not exactly inconspicuous."
"Indeed." Number One attempted a smile, which Dimitri had no doubt was duplicated by his other seven parts. "What else did Losham tell you? He seemed very smug returning from the visit to the lab. Knowing him, it could be nothing good."
"You are right. Losham gave Petrov and me a new assignment. He wants us to develop an enhancement formula for humans and submit a research proposal in a month."
Number One was quiet for several steps. "Losham wants to build an auxiliary army."
Dimitri nodded. "That's my read on it."
"He wants to rival his brothers' immortal forces with enhanced humans under his exclusive control." Number One stated it as fact. "He intends to keep the research secret from his brothers."
"I got the same impression, but how do you know that?"
"We know Losham. He is very smart but also quite predictable. His ambitions follow logical patterns."
They turned a corner, leaving the main compound behind and entering a stretch of path bordered by dense tropical vegetation. The darkness here was deeper; the starlight filtered through a canopy of palms and broad-leafed plants.
"You said you wanted to talk about the work I haven't started yet," Dimitri said. "The work that matters. I've been thinking about that all day, and I still have no idea what you meant."
"We will get to that." Number One's voice was unhurried. "First, though, you need a better understanding of who we are and who we were."
Dave was right about that.
Dimitri had always felt that it had been a failing on the part of him and Petrov.
Neither of them had been trained in psychology, but that wasn't an excuse.
They should have spent much more time with the Eight and tried to learn who they had been as individuals because that had a bearing on who they had become.
"I'm very eager to learn about your past," he said. "We should have had this talk a long time ago."
That seemed to please Number One, and Dimitri had no doubt that if he looked over his shoulder, he would see seven identical expressions on Dave's other seven parts.
"We were very young when we volunteered for the enhancement program," Number One said. "The oldest among us was twenty-one. The youngest was seventeen. We have been raised in the Brotherhood's war camp from the age of thirteen."
"You were barely adults," Dimitri said.
"By human standards, yes. Immortals are considered adults at seventeen, but since we live practically forever if we don't get killed, we were babies.
Still, in the Brotherhood, a seventeen-year-old is a warrior ready for battle, old enough to fight, old enough to kill, and old enough to volunteer for an experimental program that hadn't been properly explained to him. "
"Why did you volunteer?"
"Because we were told it was a great honor and only the best were selected.
Because we were told it would make us powerful beyond imagining.
And because we had nothing else." Number One's voice was even, factual, but Dimitri could sense the resentment underneath the words.
"We were selected specifically because we were young, and our minds were still pliable. We were easier to reshape."
"Selected by whom?"
"Dr. Zhao. He reviewed the candidates. He chose those who were stronger, more resilient, and fairly intelligent. Lord Navuh wanted smart killing machines."
Dimitri felt his stomach tighten. Zhao had been dead by the time he and Petrov had arrived on the island, but his legacy was everywhere.
It was in the drug formulas they'd had to fix, and in the eight males walking beside him and behind him whose individual identities had been erased, either purposely or as an unexpected side effect.
"Where did you grow up?" he asked. "I mean, before the training camp?"
"We were raised by our mothers in the Dormant enclosure until the age of thirteen."
Dimitri frowned. "What's the Dormant enclosure?"
Number One looked at him with that characteristic expression of calm attentiveness. "You don't know about the Dormants?"
"I know what you've explained to me. You said that all immortals are born human and are induced at thirteen."
"That's true for the male Dormants. Female Dormants are women who carry immortal genes and are the only ones who can produce immortal offspring. Without dormant mothers, the Brotherhood cannot create new warriors."
A chill ran down Dimitri's back, even though the shirt was sticking to it because of how hot and humid it was.
"So, they're kept on the island specifically for breeding?"
"Yes."
The word hung in the warm night air. Dimitri waited for Number One to elaborate, to soften it, to provide context that would make it less terrible than it sounded.
He didn't.