Functional

2. We Are Prepared and Self-Sufficient

She awakens early.  The sun will not rise for at least an hour yet, not that she will be able to see it when it does.  Her bed is the third from the window in the row, with four more girls on her left.  The others are still asleep, but all will have vacated this room before the sun arrives.  She climbs silently out of her bed and dresses in close-fitting black clothes.  Her area is tidied with military precision, and she walks softly to the door at the end of the room.

The door is large and heavy wood, and often bolted.  Now, however, it is open and she slips through it.  Turning to the right, she follows the cold stone corridor to a large hall approximately forty feet from her dormitory.  Rows of tables fill the hall, and it is sparsely populated at this hour.  A group of four men are seated together in the far corner, with a few lone soldiers of either sex spread out across the tables.  On the wall to her left, there are tables pressed against the wall, with a woman standing in the center of them.

She walks to the closest end of these tables and picks up a bowl.  The woman scowls, but possibly not at her, while she ladles breakfast into her bowl.  She takes it and finds a seat away from the others and eats quickly.  She remembers a time when food had delicious-sounding names and variety, but now she and the others eat virtually the same gruel for every meal.  It is filling; that is enough.

When she is finished, she takes her bowl to the pile of used dishes.  Sometimes it is her duty to wash these, but not today.  Leaving the great hall, she climbs the stairs on the opposite side of her dormitory to reach the central landing of the building.  From there, she traverses the courtyard to reach the training rooms.  They are attached to the same building, but the route inside is more circuitous.  The stones outside are cold on her slippered feet; she has no shoes for outdoors yet.  She has to earn that privilege.  When the winter comes in earnest, going to trainings will be more unpleasant than it is now.

The training rooms were once devoted to some less useful purpose, such as dancing for the bourgeoisie.  Or perhaps riding.  She doesn’t know.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  Though it is still early, she is not alone in these rooms.  The sounds the handful of others already there make echoes across the empty spaces.  She goes to her place and begins her warm-up exercises.  Today is a big day.  She is surprised the other Widows are not up as early as she is.

The other trainees ignore her as she ignores them.  There are other programs using this facility, and they do not know quite what to make of the group of young women who train to be assassins.  Time passes and the sleepless night begins to catch up to her.  The feeling of weakness makes her want to work harder, not slow down.  She knows this is what sets her apart from the others, and she embraces the feeling.

“Devotshka.”  A familiar voice cuts through her, and she obediently comes to a stop, hands clasped before her.  Dmitri is standing on the edge of the mat on which she was training, watching her.  “It’s time,” he says shortly.  She follows him toward a briefing room off the main area.  Inside, she finds the other Widows, some entering moments before her.  She finds her place among them and waits.

“Those of you still with us have proven yourselves,” a man wearing a suit under a lab coat tells them.  She has seen him before once or twice; he is the senior officer of this facility.  His name is Sokolov, she is relatively sure.  “You will all be trained to be mission ready in six months.  Your afternoon ballet sessions will be replaced by weapons handling and Americanization.  Today, you will be given your covers.  You need to have them committed to memory by the end of the week, and act only as that person for the remainder of your time here.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” they reply in unison.  Looking satisfied, Sokolov takes his leave of them, and many of the girls find it difficult to contain their excitement.  She is one of the youngest; she had almost been refused for the program.  Not that she had had any choice in the matter.  She works hard to show that it was not a mistake to take her from the previous facility and bring her here.  She hopes that this program will give her more freedom to show what she can do.