Where the Styx Runs Cold, Ch 3: The Iron Curtain's Super Soldiers Pt.3

The silence that followed the slaughter was the loudest sound Hawke had ever endured, and his was the hand that had orchestrated it.

The silence pressed in, heavy and cloying, a physical weight in the Menagerie's echoing vastness. Screams, roars, and the chaotic thrum of uncontrolled power were all gone. Replaced by this: a tomb-like stillness, broken only by his team's methodical, almost reverent movements as they carried out the final, unspoken order.

"Lancet, sector gamma, confirm thermals null," Hawke's low, flat voice cut through the oppressive quiet. His own biokinesis swept the sprawling complex, a grim, careful inventory. Every flickering life sign, every erratic bio-pulse he'd mapped, now had to be a void, a blank space on his internal schematics. Thoroughness was paramount. Protocol dictated no loose ends.

His internal thoughts crystallized into a cold, forced sequence: Subjects: Unstable. Danger: Clear. Containment: Impossible. Extraction: Unfeasible. Resources: Finite. Conclusion: Termination. Justification: Logical. Humane. He repeated the last two words like a mantra, a shield against the rising tide. The feeling was a void, a space where guilt should have been. A luxury operatives like him couldn't afford. But a weariness that settled in his marrow remained, a distaste that coated his tongue.

He watched Breaker, his usual boisterous energy replaced by grim, focused intensity, moving through shattered pens. A muffled thud, the hiss of a specialized chemical dispenser – another "loose end" tied. Ricochet and Static worked together, sweeping corridors, their movements efficient, their expressions unreadable. They were professionals. They did what had to be done. The training and conditioning held. That was the point.

Patch was thankfully absent from this particular horror. She remained in the relative safety of Volkov's lab, her full attention on Shroud, her healing hands spared from this final, brutal act of unmaking. Hawke was grateful for that small mercy, at least.

Volkov himself, bound and gagged, had been moved to a secure holding area near the lab, initially guarded by Breaker. He would be extracted, along with every byte of data Static had meticulously copied from his mainframes. He watched them secure Volkov and the data drives. The General's twisted genius, his horrific research—SHEPARD would dissect it all, find something to weaponize. He could see the gears of the cycle turning, grinding this place and its sacrifices into the next asset.

He focused on the task, on the cold, hard lines of the facility as seen through his powers, on the diminishing blips of aberrant life. Detachment was key. He was the architect of this operation, from start to finish, and this final, grim chapter was as much a part of that design as any other. He compartmentalized the faint, sweetish scent of ozone and something else, coppery and final, that now filled the air. He registered the last few anomalous bio-signatures flickering out under Lancet's precise work.

"All sectors report null thermal and bio-signatures, Architect," Lancet's cool, steady voice came over the comms. "The Menagerie is… quiet."

Quiet. Yes. That was one word for it.

Hawke took a slow breath, the silence pressing in. "Understood. Prepare General Volkov and all secured materials for immediate extraction. Standard SHEPARD clean-up protocols will be initiated on our departure."

Another successful operation. The words felt vast and empty, a new kind of silence hollowing him out from the inside.

***

Silence crept into Volkov's lab like a shroud, seeping under the door and through vents. A deep, terrible stillness settled over Rita like a physical weight. Out in the Menagerie, the chaotic symphony of pain and madness had stopped—extinguished. One by one, the tormented life-songs she felt so sharply had been snuffed out. Her empathy, usually a tool, was now an open wound, throbbing with the psychic residue of countless small destructions.

She sat on a low stool beside Shroud's makeshift cot. His face was pale and still under a portable medical lamp's sterile glow. Patch worked with quiet focus, brow furrowed, her movements precise as she adjusted an IV drip and monitored his vitals. The monitor's rhythmic beep was a fragile sound against the crushing silence outside the lab.

Rita's journal lay open in her lap, pen untouched. What words could capture this? The sheer scale of suffering they had witnessed, the cold, calculated necessity of its end? She ran a fingertip over the blank page. Sometimes, silence was the only honest record.

The lab itself was filled with lingering emotional echoes: Volkov's arrogance, his cruel detachment, the terrified last moments of his "subjects." It all clung to the equipment and air like a metallic scent. She could almost see ghosts of his justifications and ambition dancing in the flickering light of damaged consoles. He saw them as raw material for his monstrous new gods. In the end, SHEPARD saw them the same way.

"His pressure is stabilizing," Patch murmured, breaking the silence. "But he took a nasty hit. We won't know the full neurological damage until we get him to a proper facility."

Rita looked at Shroud's still face, the dark bruise on his temple. Another price paid. "He's strong, Evie. You're a miracle worker."

Patch attempted a smile, a brief, tight curve of her lips that did little to soften the strain etched around her eyes. "Some days, miracles are rare." She glanced at the door, her expression clouding. "It's… quiet out there now."

"Yes," Rita said softly. "Too quiet."

Patch checked a bandage on Shroud's arm, her movements a bit too brisk. "There was nothing else to do for most of them, was there? They were suffering so much."

Rita met her gaze, seeing the doctor's pain and conflict. "What other end was there for them, Evie?" she said gently. "What happened out there was a terrible necessity, born of other terrible necessities."

The lab door hissed open, and Arthur Hawke stepped inside. He moved with his usual control, but Rita's empathy immediately locked onto the strain beneath his iron composure. It wasn't just exhaustion—a sharp thread of a new, unwelcome question was woven through it, bright with the kind of focused intensity that meant he'd found something significant.

He spoke briefly with Patch about Shroud's condition, voice low and professional, then oversaw final preparations for Volkov's extraction and securing the data. He didn't look at the door to the Menagerie. He didn't need to. Rita knew he carried its silence and weight within him, just as she did.

***

The exfiltration from Medved was as sterile and efficient as its pacification. Shroud, stabilized but unconscious, was carefully loaded onto an anti-grav litter. Volkov, subdued and broken, was secured between Breaker and Ricochet, his bluster gone. Static had triple-checked the data extraction, copying all of Volkov's monstrous research and priming the originals for remote wipe. Lancet, with chilling precision, supervised placing demolition charges to turn the complex into a tomb of rock and ice. Plausible deniability, meticulously maintained.

The journey back to the camouflaged MCU was nearly silent. Hawke felt the tension in the air, thick and metallic. The team moved with a shared, heavy stillness, their eyes fixed anywhere but on each other.

Back in the MCU, the air thick with antiseptic from Patch's work on Shroud, the holographic projector flickered. Director Cromwell's image materialized, crisp and impassive.

"Architect," Cromwell began, his gaze sweeping Hawke, then lingering on Volkov in the background. "Report."

Hawke delivered it concisely. "Operation Winter Claw concluded, Director. General Volkov secured. Project Medved neutralized. All research data acquired. Facility sanitized, prepped for demolition." He paused. "One friendly casualty: Shroud. Severe concussion, possible internal injuries. Stabilized for med-evac."

Cromwell nodded fractionally. "Commendable efficiency, Architect. The data will be invaluable. Volkov's debrief will be… thorough." A faint tightening around Cromwell's mouth at that.

"Regarding the… subjects, Architect," Cromwell continued, his tone carefully neutral, but with an undercurrent Hawke recognized—subtle pressure from above. "Initial reports suggested a significant number. It is… regrettable that none proved salvageable for our research divisions."

Hawke met Cromwell's gaze, his own unyielding. "The subjects encountered were, without exception, Director, catastrophically unstable. Their conditions resulted from Volkov's reckless, brutal methods. They posed an extreme, unpredictable threat. The facility's integrity was compromised. Large-scale extraction would have been an unacceptable risk to the squad and mission objectives."

He chose his words carefully: factual, tactical, justifying his decisions within SHEPARD protocol, subtly pushing back against the "missed assets" idea. He wouldn't lie, but he wouldn't offer an easy narrative of missed opportunities. The Menagerie's horror was a weapon against such cold calculations.

Cromwell listened, expression unchanging. "Your assessment is noted, Architect. Preliminary analysis of Volkov's data does suggest… unorthodox protocols." Unorthodox—another sterile word for unbridled cruelty. "Ensure all captured materials, including Volkov, are transferred to the extraction team without delay. Styx Squad will stand down for debrief and refit at Site Beta."

"Understood, Director," Hawke said.

"One final matter," Cromwell added, almost as an afterthought. "The Echo-One device. Its energy signature was unique. Ensure any surviving fragments are meticulously cataloged."

"Already accounted for, Director," Hawke confirmed.

Cromwell nodded again. "Very well. See to your wounded, Architect. Cromwell out."

The hologram vanished. Hawke let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The debrief was over, for now. He'd navigated the subtle currents, defended his team. But the implication lingered: SHEPARD, and its backers, were always hungry, always looking for more pieces for their shadowy chessboard. And the pieces were often living people, twisted into something they were never meant to be.

***

The temporary SHEPARD safe house was a sterile, anonymous box in a neutral European city, designed to be forgotten. Days had passed since the Medved exfiltration. Shroud, airlifted to a specialized SHEPARD medical facility, had a guarded prognosis. The rest of Styx Squad was on mandatory downtime. Breaker punished weights in the gym. Ricochet tinkered with gear. Lancet, Hawke suspected, entered a low-power standby. Rita read, sketched, or observed their unease.

In the common area, Ricochet looked up from the disassembled components of his tactical vest spread across a table. "You know," he said quietly to no one in particular, his usual sharp wit muted, "I keep checking the seals on these things. Over and over. Like if I get them perfect enough, maybe next time..." He trailed off, returning to his work with mechanical precision.

Hawke found no rest. Sleep was shallow, haunted by the Menagerie's echoing silence. So he worked. In his dim, spartan room, he sifted through Volkov's data on a secure datapad: schematics for grotesque augmentations, logs of subjects' descent into madness, and detached experimental notes. He looked for anything missed, any lingering threat, or details to give context or prevent future horrors. It was a grim, self-imposed penance.

Hours bled into a monotonous cycle of scrolling and analyzing. Most of it cataloged Volkov's depravity and disregard for human life. Then, amidst the records of torment, Hawke found an anomaly.

Three subject files: Epsilon, Rho, and Sigma. Unlike the others' exhaustive, horrifying detail, these were abruptly cut short. Last entries were dated nearly eight months prior, before Project Medved's peak activity. Dispositions were vague: "Subject Epsilon: Terminated – Unstable." "Subject Rho: Escaped – Presumed Deceased." "Subject Sigma: Transferred – Decommissioned."

The details were suspiciously sparse. Volkov, despite his madness, was a meticulous record-keeper. These entries felt incomplete.

Hawke's interest sharpened. He pulled their initial profiles. Epsilon: empathic mimicry. Rho: advanced cellular regeneration. Sigma: latent chronal distortion (slowing/accelerating local time). All three were flagged early as having "high stability" or "unique adaptive capabilities"—the kind SHEPARD, and its backers, would covet, the kind Cromwell regretted losing.

He ran their IDs against Medved casualty logs and visual data. Nothing. Epsilon, Rho, and Sigma weren't among the accounted-for dead or neutralized. The official SHEPARD report would list them as irrelevant, long dead or disposed of by Volkov, based on these files. A clean, simple narrative.

But doubt took root. The timing was off. The lack of detailed termination or escape reports was uncharacteristic. "Transferred – Decommissioned" for Sigma was particularly vague. Transferred where? Decommissioned how?

Were these early failures, poorly documented before Volkov refined his processes? Or something else? Had these three, with promising, stable abilities, been part of a separate, more secret branch of Volkov's research? Subjects too valuable, or too dangerous, for the main Menagerie? Had they truly escaped? Or had Volkov hidden them for an unknown purpose?

The questions gnawed at him. These weren't just numbers. If alive, free, and stable, they were different loose ends. Individuals who slipped through a system designed to control or consume them.

And if out there, stable and undocumented, they were vulnerable—to factions worse than Volkov, or eventually, SHEPARD itself.

He saved the three anomalous files to a separate, encrypted partition on his datapad. The entry sat there, unseen by the official report. The safe house room's silence deepened. It became a weighted stillness, a quiet that seemed to hold its breath against the low hum of the datapad.

***

Rita found Arthur Hawke as she often did when official duties were done and unofficial burdens remained: hunched over a datapad, its cool light etching sharp lines on his drawn face. He hadn't slept much since Medved. The stillness he sought wasn't in rest, but in dissecting facts, searching for an order the world rarely offered.

But this was different. She sensed it when she entered his spartan room. It wasn't just weariness or the grim focus of reviewing horrors. There was a new current, a focused intensity, a disquiet less about the past and more about a new, unwelcome concern. He'd found something significant.

He looked up, his eyes—usually quick to assess—holding something more complex. Uncertainty? Perhaps. But also a resolve she recognized from other dangerous moments.

"You're still sifting through Volkov's nightmares," she said softly.

He gestured to the datapad. "Nightmares, yes. But also… anomalies." He trusted her, her discretion and her unique way of seeing. He wouldn't share this with the others yet. This burden needed her counsel.

He didn't just show her the files; he laid out the chain of logic, inviting her not just to see the data, but to see the danger it represented. Three subjects with the wrong dispositions, the missing details, the suspicious timing. He walked her through his reasoning as if testing each link in a chain that might determine three unknown lives.

Rita listened, the room's silence growing heavier. She felt the weight of his discovery, the implications spreading. Three individuals, marked by Volkov's cruelty, now adrift. If Hawke was right, they were ghosts, unknown to SHEPARD.

"And if Cromwell knew?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Hawke's jaw tightened. "Bring them in," he said, his voice flat, echoing their Director's cold pragmatism. "Assess. Utilize. Standard procedure." They would become cogs in SHEPARD's machine, their abilities cataloged, their lives controlled, their freedom lost. Or worse, if unstable, they could become subjects for SHEPARD's "research divisions"—Medved's horrors under a more sophisticated banner. The thought was unbearable, images from Volkov's Menagerie still too raw.

A silent agreement passed between them, forged in too many morally grey operations. Defying SHEPARD, even by omission, was a huge risk.

Hawke's gaze met hers, searching, questioning, but also finding a reflection of his own dangerous thought.

He closed the datapad. The files on Epsilon, Rho, and Sigma were a secret he now carried. "Cromwell doesn't need to know about these," he whispered, the words hardening into a decision.

Rita nodded slowly, the implications settling, a dangerous new certainty hardening within her. "What do you intend to do, Arthur?"

He met her gaze, the weariness now overlaid with a new, dangerous resolve, a spark of the idealist he rarely showed. "I intend to find out if they're truly free," he said. "And if they are... perhaps they deserve to stay that way."

***