Chapter 4 - The Red Carpet Treatment
December 5
th
, 1998 - Yes, She's Still In The Promethean Research Organisation Facility, But This Time It's Level B6. That's the lowest one.
This was finally it. Agent Sofiya Sokolov was being taken to the lowest level of the facility.
The night had been a little warmer, but her companion was sorely missed. She tried not to think about what had happened, and instead directed her energies to worrying about how she was going to get both of them out of here. Where she'd been moved to was anyone's guess in this vile centre of counterrevolutionary terrors.
The B6 level had it's own large waiting room set up with a security checkpoint. She could hear thumping and some form of music coming from the room beside her, albeit faintly.
"Hands above your head," said one of the guards.
She complied with the request, and he began patting her down. He made his way down to her legs, and started hesitating a little. Another guard walked in from behind.
"Did you find the radio transmitter in the room?" said the first.
"No, it's not there. We've been informed she might be storing it on her person."
She'd expected this would happen. Hanna might still be getting interrogated. There was no telling how much intelligence she'd already spilled. She felt a spike of anxiety. If they had a leak, then the rational thing to do was to plug it. An escape would be difficult; extracting an unwilling person would be even harder.
She held on to a faint glimmer of hope that her friend was still in there, somewhere deep down. She had to be. If she could just get her back home, then Hanna could be taken to an MVD reeducation camp and...
"On her person?" said the junior guard.
"... inside her person. Private, I order you to check."
The junior guard gulped, and then pulled away Sofiya's outer layer. The effect that her body had on the young man was pronounced. It was clear he'd never seen somebody who kept their body in peak physical condition before. He might not have ever seen a woman naked before.
"I don't know what it is you think you're going to find in - ooooh", she said as his fingers shyly slipped inside and started feeling around.
"I don't... I don't think there's anything here, sir," he said, almost choking on the words.
"Oh you incompetent fool, stand back," said the ranking officer.
He knelt down and took the other man's place.
"Let's see here," he said, and then gave it a shot himself.
Sofiya bit her lip. He was far more assertive with his cavity search. The man pulled his hand out, and seemed surprised by how lubricated it was.
"I bet you're enjoying this, aren't you?" he continued. "Well, if there's nothing in there, maybe it's somewhere nearby."
Sofiya wasn't like that. She wasn't the kind of person who got turned on by things like that. Was she?
Sofiya relaxed her muscles for the incoming probe. She still let out a little whimper as his finger began exploring her arse aggressively. He checked every inch of her several times, delighting in her reactions. The man had an air of casual cruelty about him; Sofiya suspected this wasn't the first time he'd drawn out a search like this. Eventually the very thin pretence was in danger of collapsing completely, and he pulled out as abruptly as he'd entered.
"Harrumph! She's clean," he said.
Sofiya was no amateur. At the first opportunity after she got sent back to her cell, she gave the transmitter it to one of the lonelier cell block guards in exchange for certain favours. Even with the mind blowing orgasm she gave him, she couldn't fully trust him to keep his end of the deal and take it above ground, but the risk of Hanna spilling the caviar on their plan was too high to hang onto it. She was going to need to have a little bit of irreligious faith in her sexual prowess.
They didn't take her through the main entrance; they hurried her into some kind of backstage area, where a team of women applied makeup and fussed over her hair before she was coerced into a new ensemble - an elegant but fashionable white dress that plunged just enough to make use of her ample cleavage and was cut high enough to show off her legs in the heels they forced her into. Sofiya begged them to at least make her lips red; one of the women took pity and obliged.
"There, now you look like a proper lady," said another, giggling.
"More like a very expensive prostitute," said the senior guard.
Sofiya didn't want to look like a proper lady
or
an expensive prostitute! An affordable and accessible prostitute perhaps; a people's whore. Just what in Stalin's name were they up to this time?
* * *
The main room wasn't large - it was huge. There was tiered seating for three-hundred and twenty-four people opposite a respectable stage. That wasn't even counting the booth, an ostentatious space presumably designed for disgusting plutocrats and important officials as they observed whatever horrifying events were to take place here. It was easily 3.14 times the total area of the floor above. It was taller, wider and longer.
There were sound technicians setting up on stage sporadically playing small samples of music. Agent Sokolov paused for a little too long, and one of the guards smacked her arse to keep her moving.
On the far side, there was another entrance - seemingly another elevator. She ran through the blueprints in her mind, and realised that if it was angled like she thought it was, it would take you up close to the airfield. Sofiya was herded into another spot where they apparently wanted her to stand witness to the important arrival.
Over the next ten minutes, more and more people crowded into the room. Many of them were Poles, some that she'd seen here before, but also Europeans of other stripes, too. Some wore their national colours - Romanians, Czechoslovaks, Hungarians and more. Most of them were directed into the seating, and they looked very excited to be here. Sofiya felt dejected seeing this on such a scale; men and women enthusiastically embracing their capitalo-national-papist indoctrination. What could the purpose of this event be? Was this some kind of celebration of their success?
Pride of place was reserved for a group of important looking middle aged people - mostly men - who positively stank of the affluence and the ill-gotten gains endemic to their class.
A team of women ran hurriedly past her in their clacky high-heeled shoes, carrying a large roll of red carpet. Sofiya raised an eyebrow. They unfurled it front of the mysterious elevator.
Sofiya had been taught that in the West, red carpet was an important signifier, a sign of respect reserved for only the most popular rock-stars or visits by heads of state. Back home, of course, all carpet was red, because the communist system respected all citizens equally.
The lights above the elevator lit up, and the room quietened down in anticipation.
It dinged. Out marched four of the most strangely dressed men she had ever seen - and she'd been briefed on the Milan Fashion Week. They were dressed in a similar shade of bright red to the carpet, with black pants and perfectly shined shoes. Their heads bore outrageously tall fur hats that must have at least partially obscured their vision. The old-fashioned military uniforms were contrasted against the modern and sophisticated assault rifles they held. They marched in perfect synchronisation forward, as trumpeters began an awful racket. Sofiya blocked her ears.
