She awoke to a throbbing headache and incessant banging on the bedroom door. A simple ringtone echoed on the other side,<em>Ding Ding Ding</em>, and her head pulsed like it longed to stay in rhythm with it. When the melody had gone off, rousing her into a half-dazed state, Valeria found herself in the company of dim light and a room she couldn’t recognize.<br/><br/>Heavy drapes pulled over floor to ceiling windows. Plush settee and an armoire. A vanity stocked neatly with bottles of perfume, skincare and cosmetics. Two armchairs across each other with a little coffee table in between. And beneath her, a bed so big she could sprawl across it, sinking into the soft cool comforter, and never reach the edges. Flowers bloomed in tall vases placed around the room, their aroma almost masking the smell of bile. Almost, not quite.<br/><br/>“Miss, please, you must wake up.” The person on the other side continued to knock and the phone continued to ring.<br/><br/>When no answer came from the bedroom, the door opened and a young woman in maid’s uniform burst into the room. She hurried to the bed and thrust the device to the dishevelled woman curled inside the comforter.<br/><br/>“Please, miss, you must answer. Mistress says it is important that it’s you.”<br/><br/>The phone wasn’t hers, either. Wrapping her hand around it, Valeria tried to push herself forward, prone on the bed, and managed to slightly prop herself up with her elbows. The maid read out the number, a number Valeria recognized by the last 4 digits. She pressed the answer button and took a deep breath in an effort to sound sober. To her credit, she almost pulled it off.<br/><br/>Her words slurred a little, betrayed her not yet awaken state. The conversation went as well as she’d expected, the Rear Admiral’s mood even more sour than usual. He claimed he tried to call her earlier, and she wouldn’t answer – she lied her phone had died – and had to go call her emergency contact instead. He’d begrudgingly approved her request for paid leave but that was – the maid told Valeria the date when she’d whispered the question to her mid-call – six days ago. And it seemed she wasn’t going to enjoy her last day off, either.<br/><br/>“Cut the bullshit, Orlova. Your presence is requested at Grand Kremlin by General-Feldmarshal Krieg. I don’t know what you did, but you better get your act together.” He paused, perhaps ready to end the call when he added, “and charge your damn phone.”<br/><br/>The line cut off, but Valeria remained statue-still, hand still holding the device to her ear, the other paused on her knee where she was absently smoothing creases in the comforter. The maid returned with a pitcher and a glass of water on a tray; Valeria sent her back to the kitchen for hard liquor.<br/><br/>“But the Missus said—”<br/><br/>“I don’t care what Anna said. Bring me the strongest thing you find.”<br/><br/>She reached for the pitcher anyway and downed two glasses of water before rising from the bed. Someone had changed her clothes, for she was standing in a long nightgown with a tall, modest collar and cuffed sleeves. She raised an arm to her nose and sniffed, trying to pinpoint the smell of bile that could only be originating from her, and winced.<br/><br/>She’d taken some spare clothes from the armoire and took an ice-cold shower. It washed off the remnants of sleep from her eyes and the smell from her skin. The headache subsided but she knew it’d remain a constant companion throughout the day, a reminder that for the past week she hadn’t been sober for even a moment. The last six days were a blur of hazy memories and sounds, of places she couldn’t recognize and people she didn’t know. How Anna found her, she hadn’t a clue. Her sister – her heavily pregnant and deeply in love sister – must have gone to every sleazy bar in the area in search for Valeria.<br/><br/>And somehow, her sister wasn’t angry in the slightest. When Valeria left the bathroom, Anna was there and so was breakfast, sadly without a morning glass of quality whiskey but it had coffee. Anna did not demand apologies nor promises and did ask not of the bruises on Valeria’s hands. She sat on the bed in silence and styled Valeria’s hair in a neat bun, while the other chocked down a croissant and chased it with coffee, wishing it to turn into rum.<br/><br/>The Grand Kremlin loomed in the distance, a dark shadow behind the curtain of rain. Valeria had the sense to take an umbrella with her when she left her apartment, where she’d changed into her uniform after leaving Anna’s. In this weather, her black fit over sunglasses had earned her odd looks from the passersby, her uniform catching less attention now than it did when she was Captain. Gone were the days of golden epaulets. She did not miss them but that uniform fit better, looked better; it fit her like a glove.<br/><br/>A number of things felt off since her return. The people had changed - and not for the better - her comrades had changed. The apartment in the centre of Moscow felt too big and spacious, meant for someone just as grand. Its furniture and design felt foreign now, too sterile and pristine, not suitable for someone whose hands were stained with blood. But most of all, she thought herself an impostor every time she said her own name.<br/><br/>She sold the apartment and bought a smaller one instead, a little room in an urban area. The furniture was given away in favour of thrift shop finds. Her name and how she felt about it was much harder to change. Valeria sounded wrong, felt wrong, a name of someone who was brimming with ambition and patriotism.<br/><br/>But that was her name and she could not sell or nor give it away nor move on from it.<br/><br/>A Podporuchik greeted her in front of the Supreme Marshal’s office. He requested the glasses to be taken off while he verified her IDs, then said nothing when she complied and folded them in her hands. What was Valeria’s eyes now was a complex system of circuitry. The latticework fanned from the pupil and extended far beyond the iris, over the whites and past, etched into the skin and eyelids. A pair of see-through metallic grey lenses covered the iris, obscuring a vivid olive-green colour specked with yellow. The skin around the eyes not covered by the electric circuits was instead marked by an old burn. A purple bruise bloomed on her right temple, too close to the circuits.<br/><br/>When the process was complete, she put the glasses on and stood by the office door. Once, she may have been anxious, maybe nervous, most likely hopeful. Now, she couldn’t care less what the Supreme Marshal wanted with her.<br/><br/>Finally, the Podporuchik nodded and pressed a button on the phone to announce her. “Sub-Lieutenant Valeria Rostislavnovna Orlova, reporting.”<br/>