Chapter 6: The Window to the World
Snow fell at sharp angles, driven by a biting wind that howled through the concrete canyons of St. Petersburg. For Jonathan, now fourteen, cold was just another sensory information that he had to catalog and control.
This was their first live "field test" outside the orphanage's barren perimeter. Their goal: to infiltrate the private residence of a corrupt local politician and plant a listening device.
He moved through the dark streets, not like a child, but like a shadow. The years of "Reverse Training" had perfected his body. He was a slim and agile teenager, and every move he made possessed a supernatural and efficient grace.
He was an elite field operative, and he was completely apathetic.
As he slid down a snowy alley that led to the back of the residence, his innate killer instinct buzzed under his skin, a second nature as constant as his heartbeat.
Guard One. Smoking. On the left.
Jonathan's internal narrative was clinical. She saw the man huddled against the wall, trying to light a cigarette. The dry cough that shook the man was imperceptible to anyone except Jonathan. Seams: Early-stage, undiagnosed lung cancer. The carotid artery is exposed as you tilt your head to protect the flame. Vulnerable. Unnecessary.
Guard Two. At the back door. Limping.
The second guard shifted his weight, favoring his left leg. Seam: Poorly healed ankle fracture. A quick strike would throw your entire system off balance.
Unnecessary.
Jonathan exhaled, a cloud of mist that he instantly dissipated by controlling his breathing. His hatred for orders had turned into a cold, dull fire.
Ignoring the guards as if they were furniture, he approached the brick side wall of the residence. The surface was slippery from the ice, but his fingers, trained to feel the slightest imperfection, found grips in the worn-out mortar that a world-class climber would have missed. He ascended in silence.
A corner-mounted security camera swept the wall. Jonathan stopped, pressing his body against the cold bricks. His innate ability for stealth allowed him to see the blind spot not in the equipment, but in the psychology of the guard monitoring him. He moved at the instant when the guard's attention would inevitably wane, a 0.8-second lapse in his surveillance cycle.
He reached a window on the second floor. It was closed. Using only the pressure of his fingers, he found the weakness in the latch mechanism, applying precise and constant force until it gave way with an almost inaudible click.
He slipped into the dark office. The air was stale and smelled of old paper. He did it all with boring, robotic efficiency. Each step was perfectly placed on the floor beams to prevent the boards from creaking.
He reached the heavy mahogany desk. He took the listening device out of his pocket. He planted it under the desk in a quick, practiced motion.
Mission accomplished. A perfect success.
Jonathan stood still in the darkness for a moment, feeling absolute emptiness. He was following orders. And I hated every second of it.
…..
The mission was complete. Jonathan blended back into the shadows of the office, moving toward the window through which he had entered. His body was an efficient machine ready for exfiltration. His instincts were calm, the task done.
Then, the outside world exploded into blue and red.
Flashing lights flooded the alley below, casting dancing, erratic shadows on the office. A second later, the high-pitched howl of multiple sirens broke the night.
Jonathan froze. He slid to the edge of the window, using the frame as a cover. Below, two police cars and a Militsiya van had blocked both ends of the alley. It was a raid. It wasn't for him. The target was an apartment building across the street. The agents came out, shouting orders, establishing a perimeter.
His main escape route, the same one he had entered, was now flooded with police.
A tiny, metallic voice echoed in his inner ear. "Subject Seven, the situation is compromised. Aborted exfiltration. Return to the secondary meeting point, Sector Gamma. Now."
It was "Scar". His voice was strained by the anger of the unexpected variable.
Jonathan analyzed the new order. Sector Gamma was three blocks away, on the other side of an exposed, uncovered roof. It involved crossing the now illuminated street. The risk of exposure was 74%. It was a bad order, given out of panic.
He looked at the police chaos below. Then, his gaze drifted to the dark civilian apartment building that was right next door. Silent. Disorderly. Full of hiding places. His instinct did not whisper to him to kill; He whispered to her to survive.
The voice of "Cicatriz" sounded again, high-pitched by static. "Seven! Confirm the order! Move now!"
Jonathan, fourteen, stood motionless in the darkness of the politician's office. He had obeyed all the orders of his life. He had followed his "Flipped Training," bending the rules but never breaking them completely. He had shot the knee, not the heart. He had dislocated his shoulder, not broken his neck. He had always been an obedient prisoner.
But this was the first time he was "out," in the real world. And the order was stupid.
Slowly, Jonathan raised his hand to his ear. He grabbed the tiny earpiece. It was his electronic strap. With a simple movement, he pulled it out of his ear and crushed it into his fist.
The silence was glorious.
For the first time in his life, there was no voice. There were no orders. There was no "Scar". There was no orphanage. There was only him and the whisper of his own instinct.
He moved. Ignoring "Scar's" suicidal escape route, he made his way to a window on the opposite side of the office, the one facing the adjoining apartment building.
He opened it. The icy wind hit his face. The jump was three meters through a dark alley. Easy.
As the police shouted orders below, Jonathan leapt into the darkness, into a building that was not on his mission, into a freedom he had never tasted. He moved with feline grace, his fingers finding grip on the brick sill of a third-floor apartment. He picked the lock on the window in less than five seconds and slipped inside, disappearing into a stranger's sanctuary.
The door to the apartment was locked. The air smelled of instant food and dust. He was safe. He was alone. And he had disobeyed.
…..
The apartment was small and dark. The air smelled of stale instant noodles and dirty laundry. Jonathan stood motionless by the window for a whole minute, his body in perfect stillness, listening. He could hear the faint beat of a neighbor's music two floors below and the distant wail of sirens, but nothing in the apartment. It was empty.
He moved. His eyes, already accustomed to the darkness, scanned the room. Stacked pizza boxes. University textbooks. Clothes lying on the floor. And on a messy desk, a lifeline: a laptop, lit up and glowing faintly in the gloom.
The police chaos below would not subside anytime soon. He had time.
With the curiosity of a cat exploring new territory, he approached the desk. The screen showed a pirate streaming site, full of colorful icons and text that I couldn't read. His education at the orphanage had included English, Spanish, and Chinese, but not Japanese.
I had never had real access to the internet. His only exposure to outside culture had been training manuals and the mission files that allowed him to see. This was a new, unfiltered universe.
His finger brushed the touchpad. He clicked on the most colorful icon, one that showed a boy in a straw hat and a stupid smile.
What he saw left him paralyzed.
It wasn't a training manual. It was not a clinical report. It was a chaos of color, movement, and noise. He saw the boy in the straw hat take a blow that, according to his instinctive calculations, should have pulverized his spine. But instead of dying, the boy simply stretched like rubber, before launching back into battle, screaming not about efficiency or neutralization, but about... his friends.
Jonathan frowned. Inefficient. Noisy. Illogical.
Confused but fascinated, he clicked on another. NARUTO. A blond boy in a bright orange suit, being rejected by an entire town, painting monuments and shouting that he would be recognized. Another click: BLEACH. A teenager with a frown and a sword the size of a telephone pole, fighting monsters while screaming about protecting his family.
Jonathan sat down in the student's chair. And for the next few hours, as the blue and red lights of the police silently swept over the wall below, he consumed everything he could.
Their world, built on silence, efficiency, control, and forced obedience, was crumbling.
In his life, emotion was a weakness that needed to be purged. Attachment was a lever that instructors used to break children. The combat was silent, surgical and forced.
In this world, the emotion was power. People shouted their attacks. They were made stronger by their friends, not in spite of them. They fought for choice, for absurd ideals, for unbreakable ties. It was messy, loud, dramatic, and spectacularly inefficient.
And it was the most beautiful thing Jonathan had ever seen.
…..
The icy gray light of the Russian dawn began to filter into the messy room, turning the vibrant computer screen pale. Jonathan had been awake all night, his infiltration mission completely forgotten. The mermaids downstairs were gone hours ago.
He closed the laptop. The soft click sounded abnormally loud in the silence.
He stood still in the student's chair, surrounded by the messy life of a stranger. And that's when he noticed it.
The whisper.
The perpetual voice in his head, his innate killer instinct, the constant calculation of weaknesses and vectors of death... He had shut up. He had been silent for hours, drowned out by the noise, passion, and overwhelming color of the worlds he had just witnessed.
For the first time in his life, his mind was calm.
And in that silence, a new idea took root.
Japan.
The place of origin of this culture that he had just discovered.
It wasn't just a place on a map. It was the philosophical antithesis of his existence.
The Orphanage was control. Silence. Forced murder. Sterile efficiency. A faceless grey collective.
Japan, in the mind of fourteen-year-old Jonathan, now represented individual choice. It represented noisy passion, disordered loyalties, and the freedom to fight for one's own reasons, however foolish or inefficient.
Their internal rebellion, which until now had been a passive act of "do not kill," finally had a tangible goal. It was no longer just a matter of resisting the Orphanage.
Now it was a matter of escaping from him.
He got up and went to the window. The sky was turning a pale gray. The street below was empty, save for a lone garbage truck. It was time to go back to the cage.
As he opened the window and felt the icy air on his face, Jonathan was no longer Subject Seven, the apathetic operative. It was Jonathan, the future fugitive.
He slid down the brick wall into the alley, moving again like a shadow. I would return to the Orphanage. He would accept his punishment for turning off his communicator. I would play the obedient soldier a little longer.
But I would do it just long enough to plan. To gather resources.
His fate was fixed. He would escape from this prison of gray efficiency and travel to that world of noisy choice.