“Then we extract what he knows and determine his usefulness.” Ivan straightens his cuffs. “Everything, Alexei. Shipping routes, account numbers, the names of every captain and lieutenant he’s ever met. And then we decide what he’s worth.”
“Understood.”
Ivan turns toward the elevator. He does not look back. In the hierarchy of the Baranov Bratva, Ivan Baranov is the architect who designs the structure. I am the one who pours the foundation.
I return to the Processing Room. The door seals behind me.
I am alone with the subject.
The fluorescent hum fills the silence. I let it work, tracking the subject’s physiological responses through the visible indicators: the rise and fall of his chest, the tension in his shoulders, the small movements of his head as he attempts to locate me by sound.
He is afraid. The fear presents in standard patterns. His heart rate is elevated—I can see the pulse hammering in his throat even through the hood. Perspiration has begun to darken the fabric. His fingers open and close in rhythmic cycles, a self-soothing mechanism that suggests a history of anxiety managed through physical motion.
“You’re just going to stand there?” The voice is muffled by the hood, but the tone carries clearly: contempt layered over fear, bravado stretched thin. “I can hear you breathing, you know. Standing in the corner like some kind of?—”
I remove the hood.
The subject’s eyes struggle to adjust. His pupils contract from maximum aperture to a size appropriate for the room’s illumination. His irises are gray, unusually pale, shot through with darker striations that catch the fluorescent light like cracks in ice.
He blinks. Focuses. Sees me.
I wait for the recognition.
It comes in stages. First the confusion, the attempt to reconcile my appearance with whatever monster his imagination had constructed. I am not large. I am not scarred or disfigured. Iwear a dark sweater and simple trousers, my sleeves pushed to the elbows, my hands clean and still at my sides. There is nothing theatrical about my presentation.
This, I have found, is more unsettling than any costume.
Then the assessment. His eyes move across my face, cataloging features, searching for weakness or leverage. He finds neither. His gaze drops to my hands, then to the small table against the wall where my tools are arranged in precise rows: scalpels, clamps, needles, vials. Everything sterile. Everything organized.
Finally, the defiance. It rises in him like a tide, pushing back the fear. His jaw tightens. His shoulders pull back against the restraints. His mouth curves into something approximating a smile, though the expression does not reach his eyes.
“So you’re the one they send,” he says. “The Baranov Butcher. I’ve heard stories.”
I adjust the angle of the monitoring camera. The red indicator light catches the fluorescent panel above.
“They say you don’t feel anything. That you were born without whatever part of the brain makes people human.” He tilts his head, studying me the way I am studying him, though his analysis is corrupted by emotion and therefore useless. “They say you could cut a man apart and eat dinner in the same room without losing your appetite.”
I check the integrity of the ankle restraints. Adequate pressure distribution. No signs of circulation compromise.
“Is that true?” His voice is steady, but his pulse is visible in his throat, beating too fast for the calm he is projecting. “Are you going to cut me apart? Is that what happens in this room?”
I cross to the table and select a tablet from the second shelf. The screen illuminates at my touch, displaying the file I compiled over the past seventy-two hours.
“Subject is male, thirty-one years of age.” I read without inflection, my attention divided between the screen and his face. “Born in Kyiv, relocated to Moscow at age seven following the subject’s mother’s death from cardiac failure. Educated at private institutions in Switzerland and London. Returned to the family business at twenty-two. Current role: liaison to European shipping contacts, a position of moderate strategic value.”
His smile falters.
“Subject demonstrates markers consistent with anxiety disorder, likely developed in adolescence. Preferred coping mechanisms include verbal processing and physical motion.” I look up from the tablet. “Notably, subject was flagged by family security three years ago following a refusal to execute a standard enforcement action. Subject cited the presence of minor children as justification.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The words come faster now. “That situation was more complicated than whatever file you’re reading from. The man had connections to the Odessa group, and killing him would have?—”
“Subject also demonstrates a tendency toward excessive verbalization when under stress.” I set the tablet aside. “This pattern suggests that silence produces greater psychological discomfort than direct confrontation. Recommendation: initial processing should emphasize sensory deprivation and minimal interaction to maximize destabilization.”
He stops speaking.
I let the silence fill the space between us, the hum of the lights and the sound of his breathing the only interruption. His chest rises and falls with increasing irregularity as the absence of stimulus forces him to confront the reality of his situation without the distraction of conflict.
This is the first stage. The removal of everything that makes a man feel like a man. Name, context, agency, voice.
