Because wjobsessed promised a new chapter to her Activated if I post the conclusion to this story, I present the the third and final installment of Peter's Russian excursion...

Voskresenie

3

Verkhoturye, Russia… 1999

He dreams. Most nights the visions of his subconscious are laughable in their muddled representations of his life. Replays of near misses, recollections of a blurred childhood and rehashes of faceless women blend together, seeping into each other through a tampering of chronological order. Memories and fantasies are set on spin cycle and the jumble leaves him confused and occasionally amused. He's fairly sure even he can't kiss four women at once while flying Superman-style through the atmosphere of Mars.

When he was eight he began dreaming of a solitary moment, the whole of its content wrapped around a single figure. A man.

Peter dreams of him still.

When he wakes in a tiny room exhaling frosted breath in a pant, he expects to see the shadowed form looming above him. The specter is as familiar as he is recurrent but the face is never clear, the intentions even less so. As day coughs up a splatter of rays beyond his thrice-scrubbed window, Peter stares at the plastered ceiling and tries yet again to connect a memory to the dream. It's always on the edge of his recall, just outside his understanding.

It's ten am and the lack of rush hour horns still troubles his metropolitan ears.

He's lying on an under-stuffed mattress counting clumped cobwebs when the cell phone vibrates beneath the thin pillow. Cleveland Moore. It's a call one answers with figurative bated breath and literal heartburn. Boxing had left the successful bookie with a disfigured nose, which gifted his voice with a gasping, streaked tone. It's the last thing Peter's vodka-soaked brain wants to process.

"I've got a man on route," Moore tells him in a garbled wheeze. "Name's Carrero. He'll meet up with you tonight outside Mirand's. Show him a good time, huh?"

Peter sits up and squints past a hangover. "I can take care of this myself."

"Sure kid. You did good finding him and getting in the door but…"

"But you think I can't bring him or his money in." Seeing his paycheck divided in half with what is likely a mass of uneducated muscle, Peter rubs his eyes into focus. "Then why send me at all?"

"Carrero can't learn Russian in a week. Punk sure as hell can't follow leads."

And probably can't spell but that's the beauty of brawn.

"It's just business, kid. You said you won't carry a gun so I'm sending a bit of protection." Pause. "Not hearing much in the way of thanks."

Swallowing , Peter dredges up requisite appreciation and lets it sail in the form of, "Gee, didn't know you cared."

"Smart ass. Anyone tell you that?"

With the finality of a dial tone, the course of the day is decided.

Had he a fridge in this closet of a room, Peter would start his day the way he'd ended the previous; drunk. The trouble with accepting a prison cell as voluntary housing is the dismissal of normal luxuries. He's lucky there's a tub and he settles into the cool water that the tab has supplied. Even the largest water heaters can't be expected to overcome the weather and there's no doubt the heaters in this building were installed in the days of Czar Nicholas.

Clean and passably awake, Peter isn't surprised to find a peeking Screamer waiting for his exit. She's difficult to ignore, sticking out a sunken eye as far as nature and the ajar door allows. Perhaps he's let his beard grow a bit but overall he doesn't consider himself so scruffy as to appear criminal. Certainly the lack of a haircut in recent weeks, resulting in unruly waves, lends a more youthful quality that should put shaking old biddies at ease. In any other country, old hands would brave arthritic pain for the pleasure of pinching his cheeks.

This elderly spy is determined to monitor the hall. Locking and checking his door, Peter turns to the particle board separating him from the woman, crosses his arms and waits. Her eyes widen to proportions only Tex Avery could draw, lightly crusted lids unable to bridge the gap to form a blink. Though it may induce a heart attack, he stands in challenge like a caught burglar with eight different means of escape. Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?

What kind of person calls an old lady out?

…….

Having exited a staring contest as undisputed victor and found day-old fresh pastries on sale, Peter munches his way through the town square, curiously un-square in the tradition of England's finest circular gardens. Only without flowers, hedge mazes or tourists. He can't be bothered to analyze the incorrect labeling of the village hub.

Apparently the nonverbal abuse of old ladies doesn't disqualify him from enjoying scenery.

The morning is resplendent with actual, honest to loving Creator color, something he's become so unaccustomed to in this monochrome world that his eyes have to adjust to the onslaught. Villagers are wearing florals, stripes and a few leisure suits that he can't summon the disdain to mock. It's too pretty. Too perfect. Complaining would be spitting in the eye of a benevolent deity and Peter doesn't own the kind of luck that can survive a retaliatory onslaught by all-powerful beings. Disbelief in gods in no way means he shouldn't be petrified of them. Pastry devoured, his hands are now free to ball into fists when he spies Mirand and Lucy sipping steaming drinks on the bench outside the brothel. It's not an expectation of faithfulness from a one-night romp that has Peter's tongue clamped painfully between gnashing teeth. It's the visual evidence that he shares the same tastes in innocent-looking backwater women as the gutterbug Mirand.

The things it says about him require vodka to banish.

In the same depressing establishment he'd spilt his first drink in days ago, Peter now cozies up to the boulder-armed bartender and accepts a tall glass of something vaguely brown. House special, he's told in a language no longer brutal to his ears. A deep, trusting gulp of the stuff turns his stomach lining into plastic wrap as the coal-like aftertaste settles around his teeth for a long stay. But the effect, once the nausea passes, is possibly worth the lava churning in his veins. House special loosely translates into slow-killing poison but as such, it's a nice way to go. Fingers feel thick after the second chug and by the third Peter considers starting a karaoke tournament.

He's too numb to mind the stranger sidling up next to him. But not too drunk to miss the stench.

Most manufacturers produce men's cologne to attract women, a sensible tradition dating back some four thousand years when someone in Cyprus thought that people ought to smell a bit less like sweat and swine. As happens in business, others seek to break from the routine and create something so distinctive, they become known as singularly brilliant. The maker of whatever Peter's new companion wears breaks even further with polite custom and crafted a scent so foul, the liquid must need chains to hold it down. The chemical seeks to undo what the nasty drink hath wrought and Peter's good mood vaporizes into the fabled sinking feeling.

"Carrero," the pungent bodybuilder mumbles with the faintest movement of anvil jaw.

Identification isn't necessary. Cleveland Moore hires his brawn from a catalogue that features only one model and an apparently limitless supply thereof. Protocol demands that Peter shake the offered hand, though the gesture is unusual for the transaction they're about to undertake. His hand disappears into the meaty grasp of the Caucasian man with the Hispanic name and there is no comfort in the smallness enveloping him. As the brains of the pair, he should be capable of exerting some power over the nondescript muscle but nothing in the blank stare assures Peter of any recognition of position.

"We should get to Mirand's," Peter announces as he rises. "Make sure he's there for you to mangle."

"He ain't." The voice is too slight for the frame but menace doesn't need a baritone soundtrack. "I got this, Chess. Finish yer drink."

Reclaiming his wobbling chair, Peter stares at the figure beside him. The eyes, like a walrus in slumber, are nearly undetectable on the huge canvas of face while a thick goatee hangs like a skirt from his chin. If Carrero's breathing, it's via some other manner than standard lungs because there's no movement in his chest.

"Chess?"

"Boss likes code names."

Ordering another round, Peter reconsiders his stance on guns. "So, what's the plan? I thought we should give him a fair chance to pay, since broken bones

"S'up to Mirand. He fights, we fight back."

If the use of 'we' is meant to unite, it fails. Morning scurries toward the relative heat of midday and Peter thinks he should stop drinking. Altogether.

"And if he has the money?" Which, granted, is like saying Carrero has a working knowledge of calculus.

"Then we break his legs for running and get outta this damn cold."

The length of tan whiskers, which sits equal to an enormous adam's apple, does not wave as he speaks. It's disconcerting.

Peter sips on the house special and runs through the list of monikers Carrero's type inspires. Notwithstanding the vast vocabulary at his disposal, Peter always comes back to Brick. An hour of silence is broken only by the occasional argument over politics by older men who no longer earn bread for the family, preferring to drink away what passes for pensions in Russia. When Brick stands, he brushes invisible crumbs from his pants and it's rather like he's dismissing the populace at large. Not a fan of debates held in a spitting dialect, Peter supposes.

From the street outside the brothel, a light in Mirand's room can be seen pushing through heavy curtains. The shadow that crosses the room fits Mirand's proportions and based on Peter's nod, the mismatched pair enter the building under the scrutiny of the madame, who winks at Peter while Lucy, standing idle behind the counter, blushes in magnificent technicolor. It could be a compliment but he's too busy trailing a determined mountain to bathe in the glow.

The door, of thicker construction that Peter's shabby version, is no barrier for a man built like a monster truck and his technique for smashing immovable objects reminds Peter of car crushes on television. Mirand is alone and presently jumping out of his skin.

"Tell Moore I'm working on it," Mirand pleads as the pile of muscle moves in his direction. There's no way to dodge it and the man's sole hope lies in the possibility that black holes are frequent in Russia.

Cracking his knuckles like every villain in every action B-movie, Carrero uses his brick fist to slam the smaller man to the ground. He sprawls like a fringed afghan dropped from a helicopter, tangled with flopped limbs and a significant bit of saliva dripping from his nose. Blood is spat from his mouth, which tries with clear discomfort to form words. A considerate man, Carrero pulls out a heavy pistol, a manly device of black and waits.

"Just give me a…" It's garbled and ends abruptly when Mirand sees the gun cocked and pointed.

"Thirty thousand," Carrero reminds the lump of flesh who opts to remain on the floor.

Peter, partially out of pity and mostly to avoid accomplice status, steps forward. "Doesn't have to be this way. You've had months to repay. Tell me you have the money."

Because his blackening eyes say nothing to the affirmative, the gun is leveled. The smile suits Carrero's face, something like a drugged clown with one pie left. When the shot is fired, Peter jolts into the unpleasant reality of streaming blood and the fish-like gasping of a dying man. No one runs upstairs at the sound.

No one cares.

…….

Shampoo and liquid soap bottles sprint down the hall ahead of the departing man. The room has been cleared of personal items, sanitized as much as ancient fixtures allow and Peter is locking the door behind him. His backpack is at his feet where he dropped it, the small travel bag having tumbled out of the side compartment, spilling the contents from the mouth of a broken zipper. Leaning down, he collects the escaping items with all the grumbling of a man intending to run faster than his deeds. The previous night had been spent scrubbing off blood that had never physically touched him yet would board the plane with him.

Being watched is no special shock.

However, when the Screamer steps into the hall, fully visible and in no way yelling, Peter registers the astonishing event with an expression he's sure conveys the 'huh?' he's thinking. She's taller than she seems when cowering behind a door and her straight teeth are just beginning to decay. Handing him the fallen bar of soap, she tilts her head toward her apartment in what is either an arthritic tick or an invitation.

Stepping inside her abode, his skin breaks out in goose bumps. In America, retirees congeal toward the warmth of Florida but Russian elderly simply put more blankets on the bed. In a fit of boldness, she takes the useless travel bag from his hands and shakes the remaining contents onto a threadbare sofa. The bag is tossed into a trash bag and Peter holds his backpack tighter against any designs to do the same to his clothes. The musty scent shouldn't be soothing and her approach should be worrying.

But she comes bearing photos.

As no one has ever died from a paper cut, Peter relaxes into a large chair and settles the pictures she's offered onto his lap. Hovering before him, she waits as he flips through yellowed, fragile images of a young woman with straight teeth and a full-wattage smile. And the same necklace the Screamer is fingering. Beyond the pleated skirt and ruffed blouse lives a fine woman who must have beaten off suitors with the single edge shasqua he spots on the wall above her unlit fireplace. Leafing through a few more, Peter stops at a smiling couple at a picnic, standing arm in arm with enough promise to color the washed photo in his mind. The man beside the young Screamer is, by his uniform, a World War II soldier, freshly shaved and gleaming.

A dead ringer for Peter.

"He go to fight," her strained voice explains. "Big war."

"Your husband?"

She sniffs back a flash of emotion. "To marry when come home. No come home." Her tongue clucks in the way old people mastered eons ago to portray disgust. "See you, see Evgeny. Many fright."

A day after watching a man die, Peter finds his deceased twin. In the bar, men talk of sports and industry while a certain sect of women speak on more heavenly matters; sin, redemption and resurrection. Voskresenie.

The Screamer was christened Lada after the Slavic goddess of beauty. She's waited two years for word of a man who'd pledged himself to her before boarding a train. It was her last sight of Evgeny and in his honor, she never rode trains and never married. In what she deemed a curse of the gods, she'd been gifted a long life during which she could mourn her lost love while remaining steadfast in Verkhoturye, waiting as she'd promised. Seeing his doppelganger had been as a ghost sighting, only infinitely more frightening.

Peter kisses her paper mache cheek, swears to be careful on the train and is handed a fabric bag. She'd sown it together years ago but has lacked occasion to employ it. His hygiene products fit nicely inside. He's never purchased souvenirs of his travels, never sought reminders of exotic places outside the stored images in his head. But this, he decides, will serve as a reminder of the tragic events in which he should have had no part.

Debt collection is no place for a man who prefers to talk his way through trouble. Violence is counterproductive, he explains at length to Cleveland Moore through the static of a bad connection. The bookie has neither his money nor means to collect it in increments. Dead men earn no wages.

It's a good lesson for Peter as well.

Intelligence is the only weapon he needs and as the train rumbles back to Ekaterinburg, Peter envisions a future of corporate-level schemes where shady individuals can't touch him. Running his fingers over the smooth fabric of his new bag, he recalls the picture of Lada, beautiful in the dress from which the material came, beaming at a doomed young man wearing his face.

Peter's outcome, he resolves, will be different.