“Comfortable?” I ask Alice once we’re inside the tunnel.

She shakes her head. Maybe her cold tolerance is so bad she couldn’t even feel the apparent shift in temperature.

“It’s about ten degrees Celsius in here, you see,” I tell her. “That’s enough to survive for normal people who don’t wear dresses. It will get warmer in two weeks, but we’ll have gotten the hell out of here by then.”

The tunnel is not large enough to sit without bending like contortionists. We sit opposite to each other but our bodies touch as if we’re huddling together. Snow gathers on our lashes and brows, and the woman’s face reddens like a matryoshka as she tries her best to dust them off. It’s kinda funny to look at.

“The light.” Her teeth chatter. “It is. . . it is fading. . . I cannot hold on much longer.”

“The light’s fading because it’s nighttime.” I try my best not to snort. “Listen, woman. You’re a dang proud human. You surely can take on a bit more than this. We were born the top of the heaps, king of the hills. What if we didn’t have thick and fluffy fur like Sasha the bear? We skinned it. What if we couldn’t fight Vodka the gorilla one on one? We shot it. Our survival wasn’t determined by our might. It was here.” I point at my temple. “Guile. Our torches lit up the night. Our hoes dug through the rocks. Our ancestor survives thousands of years in ice ages that were even colder than this. They survived because of their guile. I have mine, and you have yours. Tomorrow, we will light a fire and everything will be all right.”

I hear a slight rumble from her stomach, like the creaking of a door that hasn’t been oiled for years. I look at her face again. The pinkish tinge of embarrassment is painted all over it.

“We have bread.”

“I know. But I do not want to bring up eating when you are not yet hungry.” She search for the food inside her dress pocket, then hand them over to me. We brought four loaves, but two went M.I.A during the whole ruckus. The starch is flattened, dry and crumbled, but still looks very much edible.

“Bread didn’t even exist until we invented the way to make it, you know? One point to guile.”

I give her a slice and a half. She tries to break them into smaller, finger-sized pieces. However, no matter how hard she tries, the bread never seems to yield.

“I cannot.” She sighs. “It is too stiff.”

“Then eat the whole thing,” I say. She doesn’t reply. After a while, she brings the slice of bread to her mouth and gobbles down.

Good, good. If she can break the “manners” that she was taught, maybe she could erase her prejudice about killing others, eventually. Seems like one hell of a leap but a man can dream.

Her body shakes as she nibbles the bread, which I can only assume must feel like a log to her. I take the bread from her hand, break it into pieces then push it into her mouth. She might have been surprised, for she blushes furiously, but nevertheless, chomps on the piece of bread.

“Hey, are you familiar with lobsters?” I whisper.

“Yes, I had read about lobsters before.”

“I thought that you must have eaten them, even! Anyway, you know that they are crustaceans with a very hard shell, yes?”

She nods.

“But in reality, their body is just as soft as a slug.”

“Yes. What about lobsters?”

“Let me continue. You like to hear fantastical things, don’t you?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay, then listen. The shell of a lobster never actually increases in size, no matter how much the lobster grows. Then, I ask you, how can the lobster grow in the first place?”

“Hmm. Please allow me time to think about it.”

“Sure.”

She sits dumbfounded for a while before shaking her head. Maybe the cold had frozen her brain, since she’s usually good at this stuff.

I shake my head as well. “Okay. The crustacean shell is like a box. The lobster grows but its ‘box’ doesn’t, so eventually, it will feel trapped. Let’s imagine the day when the lobster feels so confined and unbearable that it will discard that shell. Hiding behind a boulder to shield itself from the predators, the lobster will shed its old shell and create a new one, an even bigger and definitely more comfortable ‘box’." I bring my hands together then increase the distance between them to indicate the expansion.

“But what if the lobster continues to grow and the shell becomes unbearable again?”

“Good question. Then it will do the whole hiding and shedding thing again. It will do so on and on and on until it finally feels comfortable again. But that’s not the main point. Listen, woman, you’re starving, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re cold, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s perfectly understandable. Everything is so insufferable to you because this is the first time you face such harsh conditions. The thing that drives the lobster sheds its shell is that ‘last straw’ feeling. If you just keep dwelling in that ‘box’ of yours—that comfy research facility—you will remain useless for the rest of your life. Think about it. If the lobster had a doctor, it would never grow. When it started to feel discomfort, it would just need to run over to its doctor, ask the said doctor to inscribe some painkiller for it and voila, everything will be the way it is. No need to crawl out of that shell until the day of its demise. I doubt the doctor wouldn’t even help it, you see. People in a position of privilege just wants to keep accruing wealth and status. So the doctor would inscribe as much medicine as possible. Anyway, you need to understand that situations like these are excellent opportunities for your personal development. Nobody can starve in your place or tolerate the cold for you. You’ll have to fend for yourself. If you use the hard times as a launching pad, you’ll come out even stronger than before. What do you reckon?”

The woman leans back, eyes still glued at me but doesn’t seem to be looking at me. She has that look of someone who’s deep in thought and just happen to be gazing at me while thinking.

“Nobody will be with you forever.” That’s her conclusion. I can’t even see the link between my inspiring speech and what she just said.

A moment of silence falls upon us before she lowers her head and continues to gnaw the bread like a small critter.

“We can’t stay here forever,” I say. “They’re coming after you. We will depart in the morning, as it should be warmer by then.”

“Alexei. Please do not mention them. You keep mentioning them, but I do not even know who they are.”

“Pavlyuchenko’s army. I’ve worked for men under his rule. Elites, all of them. Strong bodies, sharp wits, and decked out in some truly disgusting pieces of equipment. They’re like a swarm of hornets. Once they had received the order to chase you down, they won’t falter.” It’s of course not Pavlyuchenko’s army that’s after her, but I assume she can’t tell the difference anyhow.

“B-but. . .” Her face turns pale as she stumbles on her own words, “What do they want from me? I have not done anyone any wrong.”

You tell me. I’m not a runaway lab experiment without a name.

“I don’t know. I’m just a soldier, after all. Ah, crap. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s talk tomorrow. If we manage to find a river or some settlements, we will find food. Then we’ll be fine.”

“Settlements?” Her voice lightens up a bit. “But are we not stranger? Will they let strangers in?” She peers at me as if she were hoping for a particular one.

“If we have no shelter, then we’ll look for foods. If not then we’ll. . .”

“We will?”

“We’ll find another way.”

Then we’ll steal. The end justifies the means and telling her now won’t change jack shit.

It seems that Alice might have sniffed something out of what I said, judging from her frown. Yes, when your companion kills dozens of people under your witness, you will no longer think that they are some kind of benevolent being.

“Let’s go to the settlements.” The words come out of her mouth so easily. Yes, woman, because that’s how easy it is to find such a place.

“Sure.”

The last time I set out was around six months ago, right before I joined Dzyuba company. I met a few ‘Industrial Villages’ then, but I don’t know whether they had been wiped out by Pavlyuchenko or not.

Suddenly, she becomes sheepish. “On one condition.”

“Yeah?”

“You cannot hurt the innocents and anybody who cannot fight back.”

“Only the dead can’t retaliate. If I were to hurt you, would you fight back?”

I can sense the disappointment in her silence. It infuriates me. I decide to lull her. “Besides, we won’t hurt anybody. Food and shelter, alright?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Just let me do what I do best. I promised that I’d protect you, but you have to give me the opportunity. Be good to me, and I’ll do the same. So, what do you think?”

The silence goes on. Alice stops eating; instead, she just stares at her knees. I move around, shuffling until I’m the furthest possible for her. “Just go to sleep. This temperature is perfect for hibernation.” I sigh.

When she finally speaks up, she sounds like she’s choking herself.

“Please.”

“Please?”

“Please, do not hurt the innocents.”

“Nobody is innocent—“

She stares at me, water welling up her eyes, and I shut up. She sniffles a couple times and her chin quivers until she returns to normal. Apart from the tears, she’s like the veterans whenever they’re reminded of the horrors of the battles they fought in. Maybe I’ve triggered some memories she didn’t want to think about.

I look down at her shoes. The cloth is so thin that I could see the skin underneath. She didn’t have to walk too much, but the pair are still riddled with holes of every sizes, revealing the bruises and blisters on her toes and heels.

I rip off the cuffs of my pants. Holding her leg with one hand, I start to wrap the fabric around her foot with the other. It’s still soft despite the cold and numbness. Or maybe my own skin is too rough.

“If my shoes fits, I would’ve let you wear them. Look at your feet. You should’ve told me, I’d have found you a new pair of shoes somewhere.”

“Did you not say that I was imagining things?”

“Well, I was imagining that you were imagining things.”

I go all the way to her heel, then tie it up in a small knot. Not too loose so it will slip, but not too tight to not block blood flows. Then I reach for her other leg.

“Give me.”

“Eek!” She retracts herself and starts covering her body.

Surprised, I ask. “What are you doing, woman?”

“N-nothing.”

I turn over to a girl who has covered everything that can be covered, including her ‘bone zone’, the place where our private part juts out. I really don’t understand her for covering it. After all, it’s just a tool for peeing. Vasilliy and I used to do it together all the time. Many platoons even have a mass tinkle session to avoid taking up training time.

“What are you hiding?” I lean forward.

“Nothing!”

She kicks me away. She doesn’t have the strength so I don’t move much, and to be honest she looks more like a stork paddling than a person fighting.

“What are you hiding? Can I take a peek?”

“I do not know! Can you?” Her voice turns harsh as she puts her hand over her private part. “Let’s ask to look at a woman’s sensitive part! Such a gentleman you are!”

I grab on her legs, hoping that they will stop shaking. “What is a ‘gentleman’? The hell are you on about? Relax! I won’t do anything to you. What are you hiding under your hands?”

Her hands clasp even harder. “Are you not embarrassed?”

“Embarrassed?”

This reminds me. She had tried to cover her body in any way possible, with her jacket, with her dress, with both. I didn’t think about that behavior too much, but now I’m intrigued, or rather, suspicious.

“Yes! are you not embarrassed?”

“Why should I be? I brought you all the way here, I didn’t keep you in the dark about anything. But you keep hiding your private part. You must be hiding something from me.”

“Why... would I hide something there?” She perks up. “Ah. I get that you do not know much about... us... but, please believe me that it is not anything of importance.”

“Then I should have the right to know what it is then, because how can I know whatever is between your legs won’t harm both of us?”

She becomes frantic as I press on. “N-no! It is very very very very harmful. . . b-but only to men! You cannot touch it because. . . I am worried for your safety. . .”

Sure as heck I’m not buying that! I list all the scenario that could happen, things that can harm you if you put it in the “bone zone”. It is your fault if you were to put a knife in front of it, or guns and explosive, right?

So they’re out of the equation. Which means there is only one possibility remains.

A tracking chip.

She attaches a tracking chip to her penis! I’m such a genius! Nodding at my excellent deduction skill, I raise my tone. “Hands off. I want to see what you’re hiding.”

“I will not!”

“This is both for your safety and mine. I won’t concede—”

“Look!”

She points at my jacket. At first, I thought she was distracting me, but then I turn to see a glimmering light coming from the button that she sew onto my jacket, I immediately turn my attention away from the matter at hand.

She exclaims. “Why is it glowing?”

“Fuck. That ain’t good.” I snatch it off the jacket. “Stay here. I’ll be back. And don’t think I’ll forget about that thing you’re keeping away from me.”

“What do you mean ‘that ain’t good’? H-hey, Alexei! Answer me!”

I crawl out of the tunnel without turning back. As I hurriedly run away from the snow tunnel, the button’s light grows more and more intense.