A/N: Bear in mind that this is a world where mentally enhanced individuals--or psychics--exist on a fairly common basis. That and all my Russian comes from translation websites. So, if I get a phrasing or something wrong, please don't blame me. A correction would be appreciated instead of a slam. Thank you.

PROLOGUE -- 1981

The harsh florescent lights shone on the doctor’s glasses, giving him the appearance of blank, dead eyes. He glanced down at the worn clipboard in his hand, then at the pair in the shabby chairs. They had to be the ones. He nodded to them. The woman stood, gripping the hand of a small boy who regarded the doctor from behind a pair of too-large, oval frames. His hair was a dirty blonde, and had probably not seen a comb in a long time. The ratty clothes he wore were three sizes too large, making him trip over the shoes. He whispered something to his mother, who ignored him.

“Does he speak English?” asked the doctor blandly.

“No speak it,” the mother responded, worrying a small handbag. “Only I speak.”

He led them down a beige hall, nodding to a petite nurse, who smiled and blushed. Two doors passed before he turned left, entering into a large, equally beige room. A glass and wire partition separated the entryway from what looked like a ward of some kind. Two large men stood beside a door, one of them leaning against a stretcher with leather straps. The boy eyed this nervously, babbling to his mother who continued to ignore him. She looked as worn as her purse, dark circles under her eyes darker than her smeared mascara.

“You take good care for him?” she inquired.

“Yes, just sign here.” The doctor’s bored tone never changed. He’d seen more than his fair share of children come through his ward. It was cheaper, and, in some cases, easier than orphanages, which made it all the more ideal to parents at their wit’s end. To his surprise, the boy never showed any signs at all of being unstable—which was in direct contrast to his mother’s claims. He checked the chart again.

Mood swings, anti-social, prone to destructive fits…None of that seemed to fit the little boy now looking at him with calm brown eyes. He frowned. It wasn’t his problem. They could just turn the boy over to social services if he turned out to be fine. He passed the clipboard off to the woman, motioning the orderlies closer. “I sign, you take?” she pestered, fidgeting with the pen.

“Yes, we’ll take him.”

The boy’s brows furrowed, trying to understand the strange words. One of the orderlies stepped forward, offering his hand to the child. With a whimper, the boy backed against his mother’s skirts, clutching them. “Máma,” he begged, pulling on the fabric. “Otvezite menja…”

“Plókho! Óchen’ plókho!” she snapped, cutting him off and pulling her skirt out of the boy’s fists. He whimpered, reaching for her, even though she continued to ignore him. The doctor raised an eyebrow, but kept his own mouth shut while the woman scribbled her name on the clipboard. When she set the pen down, the orderlies stepped forward. One peeled the child off her while the other remained near the stretcher.

The boy struggled, crying out and reaching for his mother. She stared fixedly ahead, clenching her fists around the purse. “Máma!” he shouted. “Máma!”

His struggles increased as he began to cry. The orderly lifted him, setting him gently onto the stretcher, one hand on his chest as the straps began to tighten. Squeaking, the stretcher began its slow procession down the hall, into the ward, pulled by the second orderly, the first trailing behind it. The boy began screaming, louder than any child had a right to scream.

“We’ll take good care of him here, ma’am. You can go now,” said the doctor, watching the scene behind the glass. He frowned. It appeared as if the orderlies were having problems moving the stretcher. That was impossible. Each of the men weighed far more than both the boy and stretcher combined. His confusion turned to irritation as one of the lights near the little group began to flicker, and eventually died. Now he’d have to call the janitor, possibly backing up his appointments. He turned to escort the woman out, but stopped, looking back into the ward.

One by one, the banks of florescent lights above the hallway in the ward burst. Glass rained down in sequential showers, while the orderlies shouted, covering their heads. The boy kept screaming, ignoring the shards. The doctor watched in horror as the straps loosened of their own accord. As they released, they slapped against the orderlies, driving the men back. When they recovered from the makeshift whips, they grabbed for his arms, only to be forced back by something unseen by any of them. The boy’s hair stood up slightly on his head, the blonde strands waving like pale seaweeds. His eyes glowed faintly behind the glasses. Cracks began forming in the thick glass partition. The woman screamed then, babbling something in the language she’d spoken earlier. He grabbed her as the window shattered, pulling her down to the floor while crystalline missiles sailed overhead, imbedding themselves in the wall. All the doctor could hear was the scream of a child and the tinkling crunch of shattering lights. Around him, the air crackled with a feeling not unlike static.

Abruptly, silence descended.

The doctor lay crouched on the ground amid the broken glass, scarcely daring to move. He could hear the woman crying, but nothing else. Somewhere behind him, someone stood. “Doc?” It was the smaller orderly. “Doc, you okay?”

“Fine,” he answered, helping the woman up. Both were covered in shallow cuts, but otherwise all right. “What happened?”

Tightness appeared in the orderly’s thick neck. “Jimmy’s dead,” he answered simply. “Glass through the back.”

“And the boy?”

“Knocked out. Got him with some… anne… ane… the drug you gave me to keep around.”

A quick glance around proved the orderly to be right. The boy was now sprawled limply on the stretcher, breathing evenly despite his pale face. Blood flecked the otherwise beige walls, stemming from a larger pool around the big orderly, who lay facedown, a foot long wedge of glass protruding from his spine. A single light rocked back and forth further down the hall, casting the scene in a grisly light. Again, the doctor frowned. The majority of the glass had fallen on their side, making it impossible for one piece to have flown into the orderly.

Something is very wrong with this boy.

He turned to the woman, who looked far more shaken than he. “Is this why you sent him here?” he demanded, boredom long gone. “He does this kind of thing?”

Biting her lip, she nodded. “Yes… cannot… cannot care for longer. Is too hard,” she whispered. “I have no help. Is only me and… when he do this… is nothing I can stop.”

“What about your husband? Or whoever the brat’s father is?” The doctor picked up the fallen clipboard, noting with dismay it was still intact. A contract was a contract… no matter what odd events followed it. “Can’t he help you?”

“No…” She shook her head, edging for the door. “No, he is dead.”

Cold, sinking suspicion wormed its way into the doctor’s heart. “Let me guess,” he muttered, feeling the blood drain from his face. “the boy became… upset with his father and…” He trailed off, unwilling to finish and unwilling to comprehend what exactly he was taking into his ward.

“And tree fell on head. Fine tree, not sick, not chop. No wind.”

The orderly swore. “Boss…” he growled. “wha’d you take in here?”

His mind was racing, adding up possible conclusions, working out ways to get this boy—this thing—out of his ward. “Eddie,” he snapped to the orderly. “I want you to take this nice lady back out to the waiting room. I have some things I want to discuss with her.” He nodded to the mother.

A grunt. “And the kid?”

“Tie him back up and wait for me,” the doctor answered, already on his way out. He passed through the halls with a frantic speed, trusting Eddie to take care of things while he made a call. An old friend owed him a favor, and damned if he didn’t intend on collecting on it. He ducked into his office, fairly diving for the phone. His heart hammered until the other end was picked up.

“United States Ministry of Defense, this is Anthony Davidson.”

No pleasantries were exchanged, just business. Anthony sounded intrigued.

“We’ll take him. Great find, Jack, really. We can always use people like that around here—him I mean, not you, sorry. Anyway, what’s this one’s name? We gotta call him something for registration.”

The doctor paused, glancing at the clipboard still in his hand.

“Nikolai.”

"Take me..."
"Bad! Very bad!"