Quaranteam: Ruins United Ch. 05

He carefully sat himself into his Herman Miller, placing the stack of reports he brought from the meeting on the desk. Hmm. I don't get what the hype is about, it's just a chair. Or maybe I'm just too infatuated with IKEA.

The intercom beeped.

"Danila Kirillovich, your visitors have arrived," Lida informed him.

He leaned to the box and pushed the button.

"Please, let them in. Thank you."

Not half a minute later the door opened, letting them in, and he stood up behind his desk, eyeing the visitors. A tiny strawberry blonde and a tall anthracite brunette, both dressed in black head to toe - immaculate business suits, high heels, identical masks and tiny leather paper folders, too small to be carrying anything substantial - approached the desk with the air of supreme confidence around them. Minimal makeup, no jewelry. All business. I've seen the likes of you before.

"Ladies," Dan gave them a polite nod. "Danila Koval, nice to meet you."

"Likewise, Danila Kirillovich," the brunette mimicked his nod. "Irene Bakeeva."

"Yuliya Zaitseva," the blonde chimed.

"Please, get comfortable," he gestured to the chairs and sat back into his own. "I know what brings you here, so I'd rather we don't waste time dancing around the topic. Ask your questions."

"What, no exchange of pleasantries and small talk, straight to business?" The blonde's raised brows and smiling eyes showed surprise.

Dan slowly gave the both of them a measuring look. From what little of their faces was on display, he estimated the both of them being around the same age as him.

"Moscow university graduates, because there's no getting into a major bank without that, then what, fifteen years of carving your way up the corporate ladder in the predominantly male field?" He raised one brow. "You two already heard it all, I feel no need to add more bullshit to butter you up."

The door opened, not giving the two women time to process his answer, and Lida walked in carrying the coffee tray. She sat it on the coffee table - three white porcelain cups, a coffee pot with a creamer and a sugar bowl, all melchior - and poured the coffee. The air filled with a fine aroma of mocha black, and Dan suddenly felt himself at home - safe, relaxed and absolutely confident.

"Anything else, Danila Kirillovich?" Lida asked, putting his cup on his desk.

"That'll be all, Lidia Efimovna, thank you," he responded, and she left, closing the door behind her.

"No buttering up, huh?" The brunette smirked under her mask, adding sugar and cream to her cup.

"Please, it's just good manners," Dan shrugged, taking a sip of black unsweetened liquid. "You can show your courtesy by turning off your phones."

They exchanged glances and pulled their phones out, both iPhones, Irene's in a black case, Yuliya's in a pink one, which made her visibly embarrassed. Dan chuckled inwardly. Phones were switched off and placed face-down on the coffee table.

"Thank you," he nodded. "Now we can begin."

"Danila Kirillovich," the brunette started.

"Call me Dan, please," he interrupted.

"...Dan, you got a lot of people up in Moscow worried, and even more - annoyed. Some see your tax standoff as a foolish and a childish move, but our sources say you're anything but a fool. Are you pushing for economic independence? Special economic zone? What is your strategy here?"

Dan smirked.

"My goal is to protect the people," he simply said.

There was a pause, and they definitely expected him to continue. Every second that he didn't, their eyes got bigger and their brows crawled higher.

"Wait, what?" The blonde was looking at him with a mix of disbelief and amusement. "You mean... this is not a politician-speak, you're not trying to bullshit us or anything?"

"Is it so hard to believe there's somebody in power now that cares about the people? For once? Look, I'm not poor, I'm not looking to grab some cash and run away like a lot of my predecessors. I could've just said fuck this and move to US, I hear they have a shortage of men now, but I didn't. Yeah, I'm here to protect the people, whether you like it or not. Next question."

The blonde cleared her throat.

"Your idealistic motivation might've put the people in a lot of danger, actually," she said and, seeing Dan's raised eyebrows, hurried to continue. "Please, let me explain. The Kremlin right now is deciding whether it should punish you by cutting you off completely."

"They already did that," Dan shrugged. "We didn't receive any social transfers or salaries from them this month, so we don't expect the next ones either."

"People still have their savings accounts in Sber, some of them keep pretty substantial amounts there."

"Sber is the biggest bank in Europe and a public company. If they steal our money, at first, their stocks will dive. Then the word gets out and they will experience a bank run all over Russia. Even with eighty percent of the population gone, those who remain are economically active and can empty Sber's coffers in a day. Then the panic will hit the entire sector and Moscow will have a bank crisis worse than 1998 on their hands," he took a noisy sip of his coffee and put the cup down. "Now tell me, what's the actual reason you came here to tell me scary stories?"

They exchanged glances again. Surprise, I see through bullshit too.

"This only delays things," Irene turned to him. "If Ivanovich puts her foot down, Gref and Nabiullina will disappear, and Sber will cut you off."

"I still don't understand how that concerns you. Kuban Invest never did personal accounts," he smirked. "How about you stop dancing around this and just tell me you want to become the main bank of the new Kuban Republic?"

The women immediately tensed. Bingo. He leaned back in his chair, the smile wiped off his face completely.

"You will need one anyway when it happens," Irene said diplomatically. "We just want to be prepared so the local economy doesn't spiral out of control."

"And profit from it, of course," Dan nodded.

"We're a bank," she threw her hands up. "What else would you expect?"

"I would expect you not to squeeze the local population to the last kopek. There's a lot of profit for you in the long run, so if I can be sure of your patience in the short one, we can talk."

"We're a private entity," Yuliya huffed. "You can't tell us what to do."

"Not if you become a state bank, in which case we own your asses and can replace the entire board in less than a day. Just play by my rules and nobody loses their job. Is that clear?"

The blonde visibly gulped. Irene silently nodded, looking at him with wary eyes.

"Good. Tell your chairman to start building the personal accounts branch and get ready to open hundreds of thousands of social accounts in a very short timespan. New client applications will be done remotely, through my digital department. Online and mobile banking - my people will work with yours to ensure the highest quality of service to completely remove the need for people to visit any offices."

The women visibly relaxed, leaning back in their chairs. Too soon.

"You didn't fail the mission your board gave you only because I foresaw this outcome and was expecting bankers to show up nearly immediately," he looked at them pointedly. "You just happened to be the first to come and your bank is big enough to pull this off."

He took the cup and downed the rest of his coffee, then put it back.

"Now, I don't really have to say this, but I will - whoever you heard all this from, that wasn't me. I never said anything like that. If you, or anyone else on your board, implies that the current administration plans to secede, I'll make you regret it. Keep it quiet, blyat."

"Are you always like this?" The blonde asked.

"Like what, an asshole?" Dan chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much."

He pushed off the desk with both hands and stood up.

"Nice meeting you, ladies. I'm sure you too have business to get back to."

He saw them out and even played a perfect gentleman, helping them get their coats on, then turned to Lida.

"How much did you hear?"

"All of it," she adjusted her glasses. "You know, you remind me of Samoylenko."

"Oh?" That comparison definitely surprised him - Big Sam was a mayor of the city back when Dan was still in middle school, a legend to the older generation. "What was he like?"

"Well, a gangster, those were the 90s, who wasn't? But he was an honest man, straightforward and just. The last in the line of mayors who actually cared about the city. Well, before you, I mean."

"I'm not a mayor," Dan smiled.

"Technicalities," she waved him off. "You're a good man, Dan. I hear whispers, and they say you're the hero of your people and a man of principles. But I also know that even here in this building there are those who hate your guts and can stoop very low to get rid of you."

"Ominous, but not really new," he frowned.

"I wish I could've been of more help," she shook her head. "It's been quite a while since I've done counterintelligence work..."

-//-

He arrived home before lunch, after checking in on the nerd crew still busy raking through the remains of the local IT crowd, made ramen and fed the hungry women who were way too busy with their work to worry about the kitchen duty, offloaded the reports to Tash and kicked back in his chair, mindlessly scrolling the news channels. The day was slowly rolling forward, the sun was setting behind the concrete boxes of the neighborhood. Tash found him in the same place he landed hours ago.

"What are you watching?" She asked, sitting down behind him on the couch and not breaking eye contact with her laptop.

"Nothing good, everything sucks ass," he sighed. "Except good journos started coming back after years of being suppressed, they will make a good presspool. I guess cops and feds are too busy to deal with dissidents right now, all the better for us. We still need to circumvent RKN blocks, lots of info still requires VPN to access, maybe Lara can help with that..."

"You never finished telling us about your secretary," Rina mused, entering the study with her eyes glued to her laptop and landing beside Tash. "Is she hot?"

"She's, like, sixty," Dan chuckled.

"I'm not kinkshaming, the question still stands," the brunette drawled slowly, stumbling on words - most of her processing power went into the laptop.

Dan almost came up with a quick and witty retort, only to be interrupted by the phone. Maria Rudenko. He picked up and put the phone to his ear.

"Masha, I missed you at today's meet."

"Y-yeah, I'm really sorry, Dan, there's something weird going on with my entire body, and this brain fog doesn't help. I tried to sleep it off to no avail," she sounded confused and unsure, but her usual business-like demeanor still showed through.

"Brain fog? Brazhnikov said you had stomach flu."

"I think I had that too, my weekend is pretty hazy in my head right now. Look, Artemi sent me to you with some papers to sign."

"Leave them in the office, everything can wait until tomorrow."

"I can't, Dan, he said it's urgent and he needs them now. I'm downstairs already anyway."

"That fucker... alright, wait a sec, I'll buzz you in."

He disconnected and stood up.

"This won't take long," he said, addressing his women.

"Uh huh," an uneven duo was the answer - they were too absorbed in their respective screens.

Dan sighed and walked out, leaving the door to the study slightly ajar. He pushed the button on the doorphone near the front door.

"Third floor, take the stairs," he said, leaning to the box, then released the button, unlocked the door, pushed it open and stood in the doorway, waiting for Masha to appear.

It took her a minute. Eyes glued to the stack of papers in her left hand - what is it with all of them today, spinning her golden Parker in the fingers of her right, she entered the dimly lit hallway and headed to the open door.

"It doesn't make sense, Dan," she said. "There's nothing in here that couldn't have waited until morning. I'm sorry to waste your time but..."

She finally tore her eyes away from the papers to look at him. The next second her right arm went up in an awkward gesture, completely detached from the rest of her pose, then down - fast, aiming the sharp fountain pen at his neck.

It was too late to block it, so Dan turned his torso to evade, only to be assaulted by her left arm, throwing papers in his face and aiming for his throat with perfectly manicured fingers. She was surprised, judging by the split second Dan took to look at her face. He'd be surprised too, if he wasn't too busy fighting for his life.

"Masha," he growled, evading and blocking her flailing arms. "Kakogo huya?!"

"I-... I-... what?" Her voice, trembling with fear, was dissonant with her brutal attacks. Blocking another couple of stabs and grabs, he saw an opening. She was fast and strong, but she was no fighter. A carefully placed uppercut knocked her unconscious, and she collapsed on the floor, losing her mask in the process. He carefully circled her body, pulled the door closed, then dived into the closet to pull out a pack of heavy duty cable ties.

"Dan?.." He stood up and turned to meet the wide scared eyes of his women.

"Girls, meet Masha," he winced and shook his right hand. Damn, that's how I broke my wrist the last time. "Masha can't talk right now, because she's taking a nap," he groaned, turning the girl over, then began to tie her hands.

"Dan, what are you doing?" Apparently, Rina's shock has passed quickly.

"Tying her hands, because she keeps trying to stab me with her Parker," he nodded to the pen, lying next to her on the floor. "I really want to get some answers from her when she comes to her senses."

"You think she's going to talk?!"

"I think so, yeah," he finished and stood up. "She acted like she wasn't controlling her body, looked even more surprised than me. Never seen anything like that before," he stopped to catch his breath. "Fuck, she's strong. Help me to drag her to the kitchen? We can sit her on the couch."

"...because it's impolite to keep guests by the door?!" Tash's voice had a hysterical shrill to it.

"Exactly," Dan grabbed Masha's arm and looked at Rina questioningly. She complied, taking the other arm, and they dragged the unconscious girl into the kitchen, sitting her down on the end of the couch.

"Are you sure she acted against her own will?" Tash asked behind his back in a trembling voice.

"She's not dumb," Dan shook his head. "She can't take me in a fight, and she knows this. But whoever put her up to this didn't."

"What do you think?" Rina asked, sitting down beside unconscious Masha and preparing to hold her down.

"I've heard all kinds of crazy stories about hypnosis, NLP and all the other shit. I would never believe any of that until now. Alright..."

He stepped closer to the unconscious girl and slapped her cheek.

"Wake up, warrior princess!"

Masha's head jerked, and she groaned, slowly turning her head left and right.

"Ohhh... what the fuck... what was that... ow... my head hurts... motherfucker... my jaw hurts!"

Her eyes were slowly focusing on the surroundings. The second they met Dan's figure, her entire body jerked forward, desperately trying to break out its arms from their restraints. Rina had a hard time holding her down.

"Snap out of it and meet my partners, Masha," Dan slapped Masha across the cheek once more. "The one holding you down is Marina, that redhead pixie is Natasha."

"Ow!" The force of his slap made the girl turn her head to Rina, with whom she established eye contact as soon as she could focus again, and her body immediately relaxed. "Oh... nice to meet you... sorry about the circumstances..."

"You really don't know what's going on, do you?" Rina frowned.

"No, I swear... I feel like I'm losing my mind... my body doesn't obey me..." Masha was nearly crying.

"But you don't want to attack me? Only him?" Rina nodded in the direction of Dan, who was observing them with his arms crossed. Tash was seemingly frozen, a deer in headlights.

Masha shook her head and slowly turned to face Dan. Her body immediately jerked forward again, pulling Rina with her, and now Tash darted forward to help.

"Hey, Masha, Masha!" Rina barked. "Look at me!"

She forcefully turned the tall girl's head to face her, and her body immediately relaxed and stopped resisting. Rina frowned more.

"Dan, out of the kitchen," she ordered.

"Uh... what?"

"Now, blyat!"

Grumbling incoherent disagreements, Dan left the kitchen and stopped in the hallway right after turning the corner.

"Now look around," he heard. "No violent urges? Everything okay? Tash, go get my sleeping mask from the nightstand."

Tash nearly collided with him, turning the corner, ran into the bedroom, rummaged on the nightstand, then ran back, bewilderment mixed with focus on her face.

"That's it," he heard some time later. "You can come in now."

"Are you sure?" he called.

"She only attacks you if she can see you. I have gathered enough empirical evidence to support that theory," Rina answered.

Dan cautiously turned the corner and entered the kitchen again. Masha, blindfolded, was sitting on the couch, clearly nervous but not making any sudden movements.

"I'm sorry, girl, your hands stay tied for now," he said glumly. "Until we resolve this situation."

"Dan, you're bleeding," Rina nodded to his shoulder. Tash gasped, and he looked - blood had soaked his t-shirt around the several places Masha got to with her pen. He grunted and turned to the first aid cabinet on the wall.

"I'm so sorry, Dan," Masha was nearly crying. "I don't know what the fuck is going on..."

"I'm sorry I had to knock you out," he shrugged, tore the t-shirt off himself, then winced while generously pouring peroxide over his wounds. "Okay, tell me about your weekend in detail, starting Friday afternoon."

"Um... there's not much to tell, I guess... we had coffee at Eldar's place, then I went home... On Saturday, Artemi came and we... um... we made love..."

"You what?!" Dan stopped taping hemostatic sponges to himself and turned to her. "The fuck, Masha? I thought you liked Eldar, since you actually agreed to go out with him on the weekend!"

"No," she responded, clearly confused. "Why would I do that? Me and Artemi are dating."

"Since fucking when?"

"Uh... I don't know... for some time now?"

"Okay," he threw his hands up. "Then what?"

"Then I must've been feeling sick... because he went home and I went to sleep... He's so sweet, you know," her voice became uncharacteristically dreamy. "He called, like, ten times to check up on me... and I slept through all of it... I slept twelve hours non-stop, I think?"

Rina's eyes became wide with horror and she turned to Dan.

"Masha," Dan began cautiously. "Have you been vaccinated?"

"Yeah, of course. BCG, polio and tetanus, like everybody else."

"No, the DuoHalo vaccine, Sputnik Q. Did Brazhnikov give it to you?"

"Haha, no," she laughed weakly. "I think I would've noticed those mindblowing orgasms everybody's talking about!"

"It doesn't add up," Rina said, looking at Dan. "Stand up, girl, we're going to the bathroom."

"What for?.."

"I'm going to give you an exam, don't worry, I'm a medical professional," she explained to the girl, then turned to Dan again. "I'll confirm my suspicions, you take your time confirming yours. Tash, with me."

The trio left the kitchen and locked themselves in the bathroom. Dan tiredly dropped to the couch.

Brazhnikov, Brazhnikov. Where do I start? He pulled the phone from his pocket, opened the recents list and tapped a number.