Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 16: Oath (1)

Dragon Raja 3

Through the small window on the iron door, Dr. Herzog and Bondarev observed Renata. The pale and slender girl was sitting on her small bed, wrapped in a blanket, shivering. The bloodstains on her body had not yet been wiped off, and a web of blood lay over her smooth back.

“When we found her, she was in Room Zero. Zero tried to rape her. But she must have been the one to enter the restricted area first,” the head nurse said, snorting through her nose. “Doctor, I’ve told you before—she’s not as obedient as she appears!”

“Rape?” The doctor frowned. “They’re just children.”

“Doctor, you mustn’t underestimate them. These kids may be young, but they’re precocious. The girls are flirtatious—like that Khorkina, who altered her nightgown to make it tighter around her waist, flaunting her figure to the boys!” the head nurse said loudly. “I know these little girls!”

The doctor’s frown deepened, clearly uninterested in her topic. “How is Zero?”

“We injected him with a sedative; he’s fine now,” the head nurse replied. “He’s undergone the procedure, and the sound of the clappers works on him. No need to worry about him.”

“Wasn’t Zero supposed to be tightly restrained?”

“The straps on the restraint jacket were getting old. We found his wrist straps worn through, but we’ve reinforced them with chains! We were negligent, and we guarantee it won’t happen again!” The head nurse stood at attention and saluted.

“Only the wrist straps were worn through? The leg straps were intact, so he remained tightly bound to the chair,” Bondarev said. “That means he couldn’t run around, right?”

“Absolutely impossible!”

Bondarev turned to the doctor. “What’s the story with the child in Room Zero?”

“He’s the first child to undergo corpus callosotomy. At the time, our surgical technique was immature, and there may have been issues, resulting in his unstable state post-surgery. He is prone to violent outbursts, so he’s been kept in Room Zero, always wearing a restraint jacket. We’ve conducted many hallucinogen experiments on him; he’s a very important research subject.”

“High doses of hallucinogens can exacerbate his aggression.”

“He’s simply a madman.”

“What is his bloodline ability?”

The doctor shook his head. “He doesn’t have a bloodline ability.”

“So we can rule out the possibility that either of them is the intruder? When the alarm sounded, these two children were caught in an attempted rape.” Bondarev said.

“To be safe, we could operate on Number 38 as well,” the head nurse suggested. “Once they’ve undergone the surgery, anyone will become obedient.”

The doctor looked at Renata through the iron window and sighed softly. “Renata has always been well-behaved, hasn’t she? In this place where it’s either always day or always night, and the cold makes one want to curse God, seeing her is like seeing a living flower, making me feel lighter inside. A flower that has been operated on is just a specimen, and there are already enough specimens here.” He pointed to the iron doors of the other rooms. “Leave me one living flower.”

“Doctor, why don’t we discuss this in your office?” Bondarev said.

Their footsteps disappeared down the hallway, and fear’s tears flowed, breaking the composure Renata tried to maintain. She trembled uncontrollably, yet dared not make a sound. She had heard the conversation between the doctor and Bondarev, and in the past minute, her fate had been decided by a single word. She had escaped the surgery.

“Time is of the essence. We must move the entire Black Swan Bay.” Bondarev spoke while still scanning the surroundings with infrared night vision.

“It’s difficult to find a place more suitable than here. This place is a natural hideout; without planes, icebreakers, or dog sleds, there are no other means of getting here. It would be a pity to abandon it,” the doctor said.

“But your research is no longer a secret. The intruder has overheard our conversation. He hasn’t yet managed to leave Black Swan Bay, but he will eventually find an opportunity to escape. We can’t hold him here—he has perfect genes and can conceal his presence. Imagine if the secret of the Dragon Raja were handed over to a powerful figure in Moscow—we’d all be done for,” Bondarev said. “We need to delay the intruder as much as possible. He’s only seen the dragon bones; he hasn’t grasped the full secrets of Black Swan Bay yet, so I think he won’t be in a hurry to leave. In the meantime, we move the important items.”

“What about the dragon bones? A dog sled can’t transport something that massive.”

“Something that large can only be left behind. We can do what Rasputin did—destroy the passage and seal it in the permafrost. Everything else that can be moved, we’ll take. We have a ship.”

“Where’s the ship?”

“You didn’t think I skied all the way here from Moscow, did you?” Bondarev said.

Bondarev inserted a metal cylinder into the iron dock.

“We should move away a bit,” Bondarev said. “This thing burns my eyes every time.”

With a deafening explosion, the metal cylinder shot out a blazing white flare, creating a brilliant band of light in the eternal night sky. The colors shifted from red to purple, resembling a beautiful aurora.

“The Lenin is anchored just 40 kilometers from Black Swan Bay, they’ll arrive soon. This new type of flare is great, the American spy satellites will mistake it for the aurora borealis,” Bondarev said.

“You once said the Lenin wouldn’t come,” the doctor said.

“Moscow wasn’t planning to send the Lenin to resupply Black Swan Bay, but we can now. The Lenin is under my family’s command.”

A black shadow rose on the horizon, the roar of a giant bee’s wings approaching quickly. Snow dust was churned into a tornado by the helicopter’s rotor, flashes of a red star appearing within the white whirlwind. It was a “Mi-26” heavy helicopter, codenamed “Halo,” one of the prides of Soviet military industry. The helicopter hovered above the iron dock, its searchlight cutting through the murky twilight, as the cabin door opened and five captains lined up, saluting Bondarev. Underneath the helicopter, a communication light flickered, relaying a message to Bondarev in Morse code.

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