Mariya Chernov was born 1950, in Volgograd, Russia. Her parents weren't married, not in a relationship, her father didn't know her mothers name, for gods sake. Her father was an Italian businessman, who left as soon as he heard the news, never to be seen again. The other a farmgirl who's hopes of university were dashed with her growing belly. Once born, Mariya was given away, into foster care.

Mariya doesn't remember much of her life Before. Just blurry faces and nondescript rooms, moving around in foster care. She doesn't remember anything of her mother.

When she is four and already showing supreme levels of intelligence, the Red Room acquires another asset.

Two years later, she meets Madame for the first time. She is cold and regal, her features are not particularly beautiful but not particularly ugly. Mariya decides she likes her, right off the bat. Too many people are neutral, she thinks, they shrug and say 'nothing i can do about it, sorry.' Madame is... well, she is cold. Colder than three am with only a ratty blanket for protection, but she is clear about it. You do not walk into a snowstorm blind, after all. It's the midnight freeze that gets you, not the clouds, it's the crystal sky.

"To succeed here," Madame says, voice high and as far as a mother figure that these girls are seeking as she can get, "you must do two things. You must live and you must learn. Live with the cold, live with the death. Live with each other. Learn to fight, learn to lie. Learn to dance. Learn to manipulate. If you do these things, you will be welcomed into the grand halls of Россия ."

The girls nod, frail in their pants and loose shirts, bones still growing, faces still chubby, hair braided. They shift on bare feet, toes flexing against sparring mats.

"Fight," Madame orders, and they do.

They spend all day in the red, in the training room where the mats are plasticy and bright, firetruck red, someone whispers, but Mariya doesn't know what that means. The walls are dark and dusky, as close as black as you can get without crossing over.

"Good," Madame says, as she breaks her first neck. "Again."

She practices her ballet steps every spare moment, she wakes early and practices her moves over and over while still chained to her bed, watching the sun crawl into the windows and along the floor. She doesn't know why she likes it so much, but the easy, repetitive motion calms her mind, gives her a focus that the other girls seem to lack.

Madame looks at her differently than the others, a little warmer, a little colder, a little harsher, a little softer. The other girls do not question, but they do notice.

She is jumped three times in the showers before she kills enough to scare them off.

There's another girl on the program. She's small but older than the others. Her name is Tatianna. She has reddy-gold hair hair that shines in the light. They smile at each other, sometimes.

In their second and third year, they are allowed free time. It's rare, sporadic, but if they do especially well that day, they have a few hours of something close to relaxation while the others run drills or go on training excursions high in the mountains, where the air freezes your lungs and frost gathers in your hair if you get it wet.

Usually, they would read, there's a sacred bookshelf in the corner of one of the rooms, containing a few texts in Russian and English. Usually they aren't allowed to touch it, but Madame makes an exception for them, the good work they do, their use to the regime.

Other times Tatianna would braid her hair, tight against her head. When the others could not hear, she used to whisper about how her mother taught her, she thinks.

Mariya must have had a mother too.

She, unlike the others, cannot remember anything, not even a whisper of a defined memory. She is blank. Russia is her mother.

Maria imagines her and Tatianna, living in a flat in New York or London or Paris, and sighs with happiness. They would be normal, no Russian accents, no deadly knowledge, thinking red is only a color.

She would be named Ada and Tatianna would be called Madison, normal names, Western names.

One day, she tells her. It's quietly, murmured into the hush of dawn while the others are in the showers. Even in the dim light, she can see her eyes shine with happiness.

From then, on their stolen afternoons, they call each other those names when the others cannot hear. Mariya sometimes closes her eyes and whispers it to herself in her bed when the others asleep and her only grounding point is the handcuffs digging into her wrist. Ada and Madison. Madison and Ada. AdaMadison. MadisonAda.

One day, Madame announces a new training exercise.

They have to kill each other.

They stand in the training room, mats spongy underneath their feet. There are benches like gym bleachers against the wall. They sit there, silent, watching the two standing on the mat. One is shivering with fear. She will die.

The weak always die.

She dies.

"You two." Madame's chilling gaze sets on them. Mariya feels frozen in molasses, her heartbeat thuds slow in her ears, each beat echoing like a drum, lasting a thousand seconds. She is scared.

Tatianna looks at her, and she looks back.

They must do it.

The mats are cold against her feet, and the air is frozen in her lungs. Her brain is a rabbit, hunched and quaking with fear. She does not want to kill her.

She will have to.

Tatianna will have to.

They circle around each other, like sharks.

I'm sorry, Mariya mouths, and Tatianna only stares. There is nothing in her gaze but acceptance.

Tatianna — she, she does not have the precision Mariya does, the balance and focus from her ballet she practices so religiously.

Friendship is banned in the Red Room.