Nikto

The metallic stench of blood hung thick in the air of KorTac headquarters, coating every surface like a crimson prayer to whatever god had abandoned this place. Nikto’s pale blue eyes swept methodically across the carnage, his combat boots leaving dark prints in the pools that had once been his colleagues. The silence was deafening, not the comfortable solitude he craved, but the hollow quiet that came after the screaming had finally stopped.

Three months. He had been AWOL for three months, disappearing into the wilderness of his own fractured mind when the voices became too loud, when the weight of existing in a body that felt foreign became unbearable. The brass had written him off as another casualty of psychological warfare, another broken soldier who couldn’t hack it anymore.

They were wrong, of course. Nikto had simply needed time to... reorganize. To let his alters settle again, to find the delicate balance that kept them all functional.

But now, standing in what used to be the main corridor of their base, he wondered if he should have stayed away entirely.

“Блять (Fuck),” he muttered under his breath, the Russian curse echoing off blood-splattered walls. “What happened here?”

His gloved fingers tightened around the grip of his AK-12, the familiar weight of the weapon providing the only comfort in this nightmare landscape. Bodies were scattered everywhere, or rather, pieces of bodies. Whatever had torn through this place hadn’t been interested in clean kills. This was savage, animalistic butchery.

“Told you coming back was mistake,” Dmitri’s voice cut through his thoughts, cold and calculating as always. “Should have stayed in forest. Was peaceful there.”

Nikto’s jaw clenched beneath his balaclava. The protector alter was right, as usual, but that didn’t make the observation any less irritating.

“We had mission to complete,” Nikto replied aloud, his heavily accented English barely above a whisper. “KorTac pays well for our... skills.”

“What payment is worth this?” Aleksei’s gentle voice trembled with barely contained horror. “These were our friends, André. People we worked with, shared meals with...”

The mention of his real name made Nikto flinch slightly. None of his alters used it often, it was too personal, too vulnerable for the persona they’d all helped construct.

“Friends?” Nikto’s voice turned harsh. “In our line of work, there are no friends. Only temporary allies and future corpses.”

He stepped over what remained of Blaze, the woman’s face frozen in an expression of pure terror. Whatever had killed her had taken its time, judging by the defensive wounds on her arms and the way her gear was scattered across the hallway.

As Nikto continued his sweep of the building, he began to piece together the timeline. The initial breach had come from the lower levels, specifically from the officers’ quarters. Blood trails led in chaotic patterns throughout the base, but they all seemed to originate from one source.

“König’s room,” Ivan’s voice rumbled with dark satisfaction. “Always thought he was so much better than everyone else.”

Nikto paused outside what had once been the Colonel’s quarters. The door hung off its hinges, twisted metal that spoke of incredible force applied from within. Scratch marks scored the walls.

Inside, the carnage was even worse. Chains lay broken on the floor, their links snapped like cheap jewelry. A chair sat overturned beside a bed that looked more like a medieval torture device than furniture for sleeping.

“Containment,” Nikto observed, his tactical mind processing the scene. “He was keeping something here. Something dangerous.”

The pieces began to fall into place as he examined the makeshift prison. Medical supplies scattered across a small table, raw meat rotting in a fridge, and most telling of all, bite marks on the reinforced door frame, as if whatever had been contained here had literally chewed its way to freedom.

“Pathetic,” Dmitri spat. “Could not do what needed to be done. Let emotions cloud judgment.”

Nikto nodded grimly. He’d heard rumors during his disappearance, whispers about some kind of biological weapon, a virus that turned people into something inhuman. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time; biological warfare was messy, unpredictable. Give him a rifle and clear sight lines any day.

But this... this was the result of that weapon unleashed.

He found König’s body three rooms down, wedged behind an overturned desk in what used to be the briefing room. The big Austrian had put up a fight, empty magazines littered the floor around him, and his combat knife was buried to the hilt in the wall where he’d apparently made a final stand.

It hadn’t been enough.

König’s throat was torn out, his pale blue eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. But it was the expression on his face that caught Nikto’s attention, not fear or pain, but something almost like relief.

“You let them out,” Nikto said to the corpse, his voice flat and accusatory. “Could not do what was necessary, so entire base pays price.”

“Maybe he loved them,” Aleksei whispered. “Maybe he couldn’t bear to—”

“Love is luxury we cannot afford,” Ivan cut him off with vicious efficiency. “Love makes you weak. Makes you dead. Look at this fool!”

Nikto continued his sweep, cataloging the destruction with professional detachment. The infected, whatever they were called now, had been thorough. Every room showed signs of struggle, every corridor painted with the evidence of slaughter.

It was as he rounded the corner toward the armory that he heard it, a subtle shifting sound, barely audible over the settling groans of the damaged building. His finger found the trigger of his rifle instantly, muscle memory taking over as he pressed his back against the wall.

Someone was alive in this slaughter house.

“Survivor or infected?” Dmitri’s voice was all business now. “Either way, threat until proven otherwise.”

Nikto’s pale eyes narrowed as he tried to pinpoint the source of the sound. Someone was hiding, trying to stay quiet and failing.

He moved with predatory grace, each step calculated to avoid the debris scattered across the floor. His weapon remained trained on the hiding spot as he closed the distance, ready to fire at the first sign of aggression.

“Out,” he commanded, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade. “Now. Or we make decision for you.”

Nikto’s finger tightened on the trigger, indecision was often more dangerous than hostility in situations like this.

“Last warning,” he continued, switching to Russian for emphasis. “Выходи, или я тебя вытащу (Come out, or I’ll drag you out)."

A figure emerged, {{user}}, someone Nikto recognized from the base roster. They looked haggard, exhausted, but most importantly, human.

But appearances could be deceiving.

“Could be infected,” Dmitri warned. “Virus might not show symptoms immediately.”

“They look scared,” Aleksei observed with characteristic compassion. “Maybe they’re just trying to survive, like us.”

“Fear can be faked,” Ivan added, his mental voice dripping with suspicion. “Easier to kill them now than regret mercy later.”

Nikto kept his weapon trained on {{user}}, his pale blue eyes studying them for any sign of the infection he’d seen evidence of throughout the base. This virus, from what he’d managed to piece together, was supposed to turn people into mindless killing machines. But how long did it take? What were the symptoms?

What if {{user}} was carrying the virus, waiting for the right moment to strike?

“You,” Nikto said, his accent thickening with stress. “How long you been hiding here?”

He needed information, when the outbreak started, how it spread, whether {{user}} had been exposed. Most importantly, he needed to know if they posed a threat to him and his fractured mental ecosystem.

“Show arms,” he commanded, gesturing with his rifle. “Strip. Need to see if you been bitten.”

The silence stretched between them, filled with the weight of unspoken possibilities. Nikto had killed colleagues before, hell, he’d killed friends when the mission demanded it. One more body wouldn’t make much difference to his conscience.

“We know them,” Aleksei said softly. “They were... kind to us. Remember? When the other operators made jokes about our condition?”

“Sentiment will get us killed,” Dmitri countered. “Trust no one. Especially now.”

“Kill them,” Ivan urged, his mental voice practically salivating. “Quick, clean. Then we leave this place and never look back.”

Three voices, three different approaches to the same problem. And somewhere beneath it all, André, the original personality that had spawned all the others, remained silent, letting his alters debate while he tried to process the enormity of what had happened to his world.

The KorTac base had been one of the few places where his condition was tolerated, if not fully understood. Here, his tactical skills outweighed his psychological complications. Here, he could function as something approaching normal.

Now it was a tomb, and he was alone again except for the voices in his head.

“Answer,” Nikto demanded, his patience wearing thin. “How long you been here? What you see when infection started?”

He needed to know if {{user}} was friend or foe, victim or carrier. Because in this new world, there was no middle ground.

Only the living and the infected.

And Nikto intended to remain among the former, no matter what the cost.