MARIEL

23~ Merely Adequate ~

The morning began as dramatically as the night had ended, and Tira Arcelin only felt a moment of peace when she was finally mid-flight on a private plane to Chicago.

Before the flight that morning, she awoke to a call. The cordless phone on her nightstand let out an ear-piercing ring. She'd advocated for this phone to summon staff and take Kremlin-related calls. Rarely, it went off. Now, loudly, it rang. It snapped her out of the light slumber she'd managed to achieve after the very first nightmare of her life.

When her eyelids opened, it hurt. The skin stung, and her face throbbed.

The phone, screaming in the darkness, sounded angry. She considered destroying it, but she suspected it was ringing because it was important.

The digital alarm clock glowed red. 04:48.

Head still rested upon the pillow, Tira let out a careful breath. Breathing hurt her ribs. She reached for the phone and lifted it to her ear. That movement hurt too. When she moved her lips, a hoarse sound came from her throat as she answered in her native language.

"What?"

"It's Ivan. I'm picking you up in an hour to take you to an earlier flight. It's private. The city is tough to navigate right now." The man's deep voice held indifference as he spoke factually.

"What is happening?" Tira tried to sit up. She nearly gasped. Her abdominals burned, and her ribs and hips throbbed. Rubbing her pounding head, Tira attempted to wake up and begin her brain's processing duties.

It was Friday, February 14th: 24 hours and 12 minutes away from the start of the final training task for the recruits. There was a lot to do.

"The unrest is worse," Ivan said. "The riots have spread throughout the city. Last night, the overnight train blew up and derailed."

"What?" Swiftly, Tira swung her legs from the bed and stared blankly at the wall. She ignored the pain.

"Yes, seventy-four dead, possibly rising, even more in critical condition, and some missing. It's unknown who or what the culprit is, but there's a chance we were attacked."

The room was very dark, and a strange sense of unease crept over her. Images of the nightmare, of Esther bashing her head against the cage, ruminated in her mind. Shaking her head in response to Ivan and also in hopes the images would go away, Tira's eyes darted to the gun on the nightstand. "I will meet you in an hour."

"In an hour. See you then." The line ended.

A long sigh escaped Tira's lips. In the darkness of her room, Tira sat with her feet on the floor, and she contemplated for a moment. At least, she attempted to contemplate, because she couldn't seem to organize her thoughts as well as she typically did at the start of her day. She could not focus and process her thoughts as quickly. Normally, she could approach multiple thoughts at a time, compartmentalize the least important, and problem solve the others in a brief period of time. Right now, her thoughts came, went, and still returned, more as images and questions than analyses.

With a soft groan, Tira stood up. She thought of the nightmare, thinking of Esther's blood-soaked face in the cage, and she closed her eyes as if it would blot the image. It didn't. Tira opened her eyes again, and she forced her mind to change thoughts.

What was happening outside, and would it escalate? Who was the attacker? Petrov had many friends. But, there were foes as well, many of whom resided in Russia herself. Tira wanted to know how the attack would affect the dynamics in the Kremlin, and how it would affect her. Her career.

Her ability to return as Esther's assigned protector.

'Stop thinking and just do. There's no time to think.' Tira switched on the light and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Colorful bruises, blacks, blues, purples, and reds, had formed wickedly across both cheekbones. Also colorful, her left eyelid appeared puffy. Her bottom lip was split, and there was a dark laceration across her nasal bone. She wasn't certain if the laceration stemmed from President Petrov's strike, or from Agent Lipovsky's boot upon her face. It didn't matter because, regardless of how the injuries came about, she needed to figure out a way to make herself slightly more presentable for the recruits.