April 21, 1980

"I can't find my shoe!" Valentina protested for the ninth time. She was running around the kitchen, less in any effort to find the missing shoe, Irina thought, than to make as much noise as possible.

She closed her eyes and stood still for a moment, hands on her coat, acknowledging nothing - not Valentina's racket, not Jack making twice as much mess as was necessary to fix Valentina's breakfast, not Katya arguing with Babushka in the next room, not even the shrieks of the unhappy married couple next door. At the moment, Irina wanted nothing so much as to throw them all out of the building, every last one, but she understood that her frustration really sprang from another source, one far more deserving of her anger.

This stupid test, she thought. What is the phrase from the King James? (Christian mythology had been a large part of her studies.) Casting pearls before swine. I am going to perform miracles for people who either will not see or will not care.

Despite the many ways she'd twisted and turned the scenario, Irina had been unable to devise any better means of saving the Rambaldi work than this test. The years she'd spent working with Kovalenko had led, inevitably, to ivory-tower isolation; Irina had always known the danger, but had thought the results of the work they did would make up for the temporary disadvantages in power and connections. Instead, with every passing year, her work on Rambaldi became more damaged, and the bright light of hope had slowly died in Kovalenko's eyes. Now her work was at the mercy of bureaucrats, and - for the time being - there was very little she could do about it.

Poor old man. By the end, Kovalenko had become her mentor and her friend; it was hard to remember that she'd ever scorned him for a fool. Harder still was the realization that she'd doubted him for saying the very same things she was about to stand up and attempt to prove herself. Worst of all was her belief that Kovalenko had died because his faith in Rambaldi had died too.

"Shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe, shoe." Valentina had made a song of it now, and Irina doubted she'd hear the last of it for a while.

Katya came into the kitchen, carrying a tray and cursing so vividly that Valentina stopped and stared. "I swear, she never gave a damn what our food tasted like when she had the responsibility of cooking it herself. Now, she's the czarina."

"Does Babushka have my shoe?" Valentina asked, grinning.

"I think she ATE your shoe. That's her opinion of the food, anyway." Katya, usually the picture of a polished young professional, made a face, grabbed the little girl by her hands and let her swing. Valentina giggled in delight. The two of them, at least, were in high spirits today. Irina sensed that Jack knew her fears too much to join his daughter and sister-in-law; his face was gray and drawn.

"Can you get her to school?" Irina said to Jack. "I can't stay here any longer." Even the action of walking to the lab would be doing something, and she could no longer endure doing nothing.

"I'll get her there, golubka. She might be barefoot, but she'll be there."

Irina kissed him on the cheek and left. But just as she reached the door, Jack called, "Wait - aren't you taking your briefcase?"

He was holding it out, an odd expression on his face. She shook her head, amazed at her own absent-mindedness. "What would I do without you?" Jack didn't have time to answer her before she hurried out the door.

Time to find out if Rambaldi was the only one trying to destroy her future.

**

"Bring the third generator online," Irina ordered. Her assistant did so, flipping the switches so that the electrical current hummed throughout the room.

She lifted her head proudly as the water shimmered in its pool, then began moving upward, as if raining in reverse. But instead of streaking toward the sky, the water began collecting between the black clamps of the Rambaldi device, circling faster and faster, creating a sphere.

Everything was going well. In fact, everything was going perfectly. Was it possible that her suspicions weren't true after all?

Irina expressed her pleasure only with a quick thump atop her briefcase. Stealing a glimpse over at the panel of officials, she saw that two of them looked suitably intrigued. Fat old Savitsky, of course, just folded his hands over his belly and stared impassively.

"When we bring the fourth generator online," she said, "the full power of the Gaia device will become apparent. The water and the air will change at a molecular level, changing the water on the surface into a light, flexible, super-strong polymer. The environment created is warm, completely sterile, a perfect environment for -"

"Show us, then," Savitsky said, not bothering to conceal his boredom.

Irina gestured to her assistant, who snapped on the fourth generator. The water-sphere whirled faster and faster, its surface slowly becoming opaque, glowing red -

Then the sphere wobbled, and the generators whined; in an instant, the red surface vanished, and the water splashed out in every direction. The officials cursed as water rushed along the floor, soaking their trousers and rocking their chairs. Irina felt warm currents in her shoes.

What Irina had suspected for months she now knew was true. Somebody was sabotaging her efforts - and had just destroyed, not only Gaia, but all her work on Rambaldi.

"VERY impressive," Savitsky said.

**

Irina sat in Professor Kovalenko's old office, pretending she couldn't hear the custodian wheeling the mop bucket down the hall past her.

Once Rambaldi's power had seemed so close, so tangible. But the more Irina understood about the way Rambaldi's devices should work, the more someone out there had made certain they didn't work. At first, in despair, she had wondered if Rambaldi had laid a curse on his machines. It had seemed as if only a curse could wreck her work so thoroughly - and destroy Kovalenko's spirit before finally destroying his life.

"I'm sorry, old man," she said, apologizing to the professor who could hear her no longer. "Whoever it is who did this to us - he'll pay for what he's done."

Kovalenko's presence was still strong here, so much so that she could imagine that he had just stepped out for a moment and would be back soon. His pencils and papers were still strewn everywhere. A copy of the newspaper was folded across his desk, no doubt just where he'd set it down when he began feeling ill. A cigar butt was in the ashtray, with indentations in the wrapper where his fingers had held it.

All of that, Irina could have borne. But when she walked to the desk, she could see his handwriting on every scrap of paper - the cramped, almost illegible handwriting it had taken her a year to decipher. On his desk was a tiny photo of Valentina in her swimsuit at the Crimean Sea, displayed as proudly as any grandchild's would have been. Irina studied it for a moment, then dropped it into her briefcase. Jack might want it for his office at the university.

"Comrade Derevko?" The voice from the door startled Irina, and she turned to see Savitsky staring at her. There was a time, she thought, when nobody would have been able to sneak up on me this way. "What is it you've taken? This is all project property."

Irina held out the picture of Valentina solemnly. "Do you want to inspect it? I'm sure it's very important."

Savitsky hesitated, and Irina knew he was debating whether or not to take the picture from her out of sheer spite. After a brief silence, he said only, "You are being reassigned."

She acted as though she were surprised. Best to give him the reaction he was expecting, even if it pained her to feed his ego. "Forgive me, but how can I be reassigned from the Rambaldi project?"

"You mean, because you are the special woman of the prophecy?" Savitsky's smug grin made his bristly mustache twitch. "Surely you're aware that many people have never put as much faith in these occult texts as your late mentor."

Irina protested, "Today - that wasn't a failure of Rambaldi's theory. It's a failure of our technology."

"And you could go on saying that for another hundred years." Savitsky thumped the professor's desk for emphasis; it seemed sacrilege for him to even touch Kovalenko's things. "Perhaps you'd like that? To continue living a life of privilege, reading your old books and dreaming dreams, and never contributing any real work to the bureau."

"That is unfair and untrue." Irina imagined drawing a knife across Savitsky's throat. She hadn't thought back to her old combat training in years, but it was still fresh, still there for her to call upon. "I left my previous assignment only after protest."

"It's been many years since you protested. And it's been many years since Kovalenko had important supporters. After today's failure, it's clear: His project has died with him."

"You no longer care about the devices found in the technology?  The Blood-Speaker, the Cup of Bronze - "

"Listen to yourself! You might be reading fairy stories to children."

Irina forced herself to remain calm. "The Gaia device didn't work today, but even you can't deny that the technology used in its design is real."

"Real, and useless." Savitsky rested his hands on his broad belly. "Everything real about Rambaldi is useless. And it is lost in a jumble of superstition that constitutes nothing but a waste of this agency's time."

"And The Telling?"

"How long are we expected to quake in fear over a machine that doesn't exist? Something that performs all sorts of magical tricks in ways you still can't explain? Too fantastic for even a fabulist like Rambaldi to write down? Foolishness. You have spent your life chasing dreams, Comrade Derevko. Those days are over."

The most horrible part of it all was that Irina found herself believing it. Not his skepticism about Rambaldi; Irina knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this fool was throwing away unimaginable power. Granted, The Telling remained a mystery - perhaps more Rambaldi's fantasy than his prediction - but there was so much of value here that only a bureaucrat like Savitsky could possibly miss it.

Instead, she found herself wondering if - after all - she was not the woman in Rambaldi's prophecies. They couldn't separate her from the Rambaldi work forever - as soon as her connections were restored, she could begin reversing this setback - but they could separate her for a time, and perhaps another woman with her face would find her destiny there.

For years, Irina had lived with the weight of her destiny on her shoulders; Irina had imagined Jack and Valentina's deaths so many times that she now knew her own nightmares by heart. Was it possible it had been a lie after all?

Irina said only, "When will I learn of my next assignment?"

"Very soon," Savitsky replied. "For the time being, you may as well go home. You should leave all the items in this office here. The picture, that doesn't matter."

"Why does any of it matter?"

Her question was meant to be purely rhetorical, but Savitsky grinned broadly. "As long as you ask, Comrade Derevko - since the Soviet Union has spent so much time and money pursuing a fruitless path, why shouldn't other nations have the pleasure?"

At least one other nation believed in some girl out there somewhere who would be identified as the bringer of destruction. Irina didn't envy her, whoever she was.

She squared her shoulders, determined to show no emotion in front of Savitsky. But she couldn't quite bring herself to leave the room - to just leave Kovalenko completely behind. As casually as she could, she picked up something from the professor's desk, almost not caring what it was; her hand closed around cards bound together with rubber bands. "I'd like to take this, if I could. As a keepsake."

"All items important to the investigation need to be turned over - we're getting valuable information in exchange for this nonsense."

"This is a deck of tarot cards," Irina snapped. "It's not unique. Whoever it is you're determined to trick - they can find their own deck."

He let her take it.

She went to her own office next, tossing in her own few personal items; there was no telling where or how she'd be assigned next, but Irina was fairly sure it would involve a change of office, no doubt for the worse. As she began tucking everything into her briefcase, she noticed - almost without caring - a tear in the lining. Irina touched the tear, wondering how she might best mend it; to her surprise, a rough bit of metal scraped against her fingertip.

Irina sucked quickly on her finger, then fished within the lining. After a few moments, she pulled out a long, thin strip of metal. As she stared at it, she realized that a paper clip on her desk was standing on edge, tilting upward as if trying to climb into the sky.

Any change in the magnetic currents in the testing room, any at all - that would have been enough to ruin the test. Such a simple bit of sabotage; she'd had the testing room guarded and the device triple-checked, but she'd never thought to check her own belongings. Ingenious, really. Irina could have laughed, if she weren't almost angry enough to kill.

Carefully, she ordered her emotions, ruling them instead of allowing them to rule her. Her fury at her saboteur could wait; she would find that person and have her revenge, but there was no point in directing her first energies at someone who was no doubt just a cog in a far larger machine. Her frustration at her professional stalemate she could give vent to some other day. It was only temporary, and after all, it might yet prove to be of use. She needed a few months in which nobody would think of her as a threat.

But that left her with nothing but her memories of Professor Kovalenko, her friend, lost forever.

Irina allowed herself to cry for him while walking home, and by the time she came back to the apartment, she was able to greet her family with an easy smile. The worst, she told herself, was over.

**

"What would you have me do?" Katya protested. "Send them back to that monster? He's out with the fellows, and you know what a state he'll be in when he returns."

"Of course I know," Irina answered. Tonight, of all nights, Katya had offered the use of their kitchen to the unhappy wife next door and her two children; the neighbor's husband was a violent drunkard, detested by all. Once, when they'd heard the crying in the hallway and a heavy thud against the wall, Irina had been obliged to forcibly stop Jack from going in there to intervene. Irina had made that mistake herself a few times, early on; nothing ever changed.

We're powerless, she thought.

"Then what's wrong with my asking them?" Katya held out her hands, questioning. "You and Jack can have Valentina in your room for one night, can't you? You and I slept in the same room with Mama and Papa until we were teenagers, after all."

"We can take her for one night," Jack agreed, calling from their room. Valentina, much cheered by the idea, began dancing around the kitchen, twirling between her mother and her aunt. "But, honestly - Irina, I don't see how you ever came to be born, with Katya there in the room with your parents."

"You're so shy!" Katya laughed, but without malice; she and Jack had been great friends for years now. "I'm 32, and I still sleep with my grandmother. If I can get used to her farting in the night, you can handle a little girl in the bedroom for a few hours. Of course, she could sleep in my room, but no child should be subjected to Babushka's bowels. It would stunt her growth."

Jack grimaced. Irina said only, "You did the right thing." Katya, who was already quite sure of this, nodded and went to see to Babushka in the next room.

Irina was still cursing Katya's untimely kindness hours after they'd all gone to bed that night: Katya with Babushka, Valentina on a pallet beside the bed Irina shared with Jack, and the neighbor and her children piled up in the kitchen, using the little bed Valentina usually slept in. Jack had fallen asleep quickly, his arm lying across her waist.

Tonight, of all nights! She was haunted by thoughts she couldn't begin to exorcise, and she longed to forget all her troubles, all of herself, in Jack's arms. But he would never make love with Valentina in the room.

Then again, it was comforting to look over and see her daughter, sound asleep and peaceful. Valentina's round cheeks were illuminated by the moonlight, her dark hair fanned out upon the pillow. Nothing in the world was more beautiful, more precious, than her child; no matter what else came to pass, nobody could ever take Valentina away from her.

That should be enough, she told herself: I have my daughter, my husband. What else could I ever need?

But Irina already knew the answer: She needed the truth.

Applying logic was no comfort: after all, it was possible to sabotage an experiment that might not have succeeded anyway. In the darkness of night, Irina could ask herself the questions she never confronted during the day.

What if Kovalenko had been wrong all along? What if she'd spent the last ten years chasing a foolish dream? What if all Rambaldi's words, about her and everything else, were no more than the rantings of a gifted but insane inventor?

In one way; that might be a relief. At least she would no longer have to fear some vast destruction flowing from her hands and dragging down everyone she loved in its undertow.

But knowing her place in the prophecies gave Irina a sense of purpose - no, she thought, of power. For good or for ill, Irina had known that she had power, and that it arose not from her position in the KGB, but from herself alone. From that fact, she had drawn not just fear, but a kind of strength and solace. There was a certain calm that came from knowing that the world contained nothing more dangerous than yourself.

No. She knew the Rambaldi prophecies were true. Beginning soon - as soon as Savitsky and his lot had forgotten about her, which wouldn't take long - Irina could start to remedy this situation.  But for now, she despised her necessary inertia, and she longed to know her power again.

She rolled over and watched Jack, soundly asleep next to her. Lightly, Irina brushed her fingertip down his forehead, across his nose, past his lips. He shifted slightly; encouraged, she kept touching him, drawing a soft line along his throat, down the center of his chest.

Just as she reached his heart, Jack opened his eyes, drowsy and questioning. In answer, Irina leaned forward and kissed him - lightly at first, then more deeply as he began to respond.

He opened his mouth to her, drawing her tongue between his lips. But just as her pulse began to race, he pulled away. Jack whispered, "Valentina -"

"Is sound asleep," Irina replied, just as softly. 

His hand moved across her belly, his thumb dipping into the hollow of her navel. "We'd wake her."

She shifted closer to him, just enough so that her breasts brushed against his chest. "Not if we were very quiet. Very - slow."

Jack made a small sound in the back of his throat, then breathed in sharply as she kissed his shoulder. "I don't know -"

Irina ran her hand down his leg and squeezed his thigh, a long-familiar marital signal. She'd never tried to translate exactly what that signal meant, but it was something along the lines of, "Please say yes, because I want you so much." She nuzzled his collorbone and whispered, "I've had such a terrible day. Don't you think you should be the one to make me feel better?"

"I'm sorry, my golubka. I'm sorry." He stroked her hair once, then whispered, "Come here." They kissed again, then again; when Jack's hand cupped her breast, Irina had to fight to keep from laughing out loud in pure exhilaration. If she had power over nothing else in the world, she still had power over Jack.

As his fingertips massaged her nipple, Irina bit her own lip, stifling a cry of delight. Their kisses grew more fierce, more demanding, his teeth nipping at her lips, scraping along the length of her tongue. She ran her hands beneath his T-shirt, raking her fingernails along his back. This was all she needed: Jack shuddering against her, his tongue in her mouth, his heartbeat against her chest, nothing in the world but his body and hers -

"Mama?"

Jack froze. Irina looked over her shoulder to see Valentina rubbing her eyes. She suspected her husband was in no condition to answer, so she said, "What is it, malishka?"

"I heard something."

"Just the wind," Irina soothed. "Go back to sleep."

Valentina sighed. "I want my bed back."

"Tomorrow night, I promise." That seemed to do the trick; within a minute, Valentina had rolled over to face the wall and was breathing deeply again.

Irina squeezed Jack's thigh again, but he simply moved his leg away. "I told you," he whispered, so faintly that it was almost just mouthing the words. "We woke her."

"She's asleep now."

Jack shook his head, resolute. Irina wondered how he'd react if she screamed in frustration. No, that was no good. If he wouldn't make love to her for fear of waking Valentina, he'd be completely useless once she'd woken up Katya, Babushka and the neighbor children too.

Guerrilla tactics, then.

Slowly, deliberately, she slid her arm across his stomach, as if simply to embrace him as they fell asleep. But just as slowly, she let her hand move downward, until her fingertips brushed against his cock. Once she had him against the palm of her hand, Irina remained perfectly still. Her triumph was in feeling him, slowly but undeniably, getting harder and harder. His erection swelled beneath her fingers, his pulse beating so strongly she could feel it.

"Dammit," Jack swore softly, in English. Irina just smiled.

After a few moments, he moved against her hand, thrusting against her grip. Irina let him do it for a stroke or two, then pulled her hand away. When he groaned, she murmured, "She's asleep now."

"Not here," Jack growled. For a moment, Irina thought that might be an end of it; instead, Jack crawled out of bed and tugged her hand to follow. They tiptoed out of the room, through the kitchen (stepping over the unconscious neighbor children as they went) and into the hallway.

No sooner had the door slid shut behind them than Jack grabbed her shoulders and shoved her against the wall. "Jack," she whispered, unable to say more before his mouth closed over hers, kissing her desperately.

Yes, oh yes, this was power, this was what she remembered: Jack's insatiable hunger for her, the way he touched her, the way he pulled up the hem of her nightgown to stroke her legs and her belly. She clawed his back, hard this time, reveling in the way he trembled as she gave him a kind of pleasure indistinguishable from pain.

They were in the hallway. The hallway! Maybe it was 3 a.m., but that didn't mean somebody wouldn't come home, or come out - and then, Irina thought breathlessly as Jack's knee pushed between her thighs, then somebody might see them making love -

The idea of it only aroused her more, and she tugged off Jack's T-shirt, letting it fall to the floor. His hands raked through her hair, tilting her head back as he kissed his way down her neck. "We can't do this here," he gasped, his breath moist against her collarbone.

"We are doing this here." Irina pulled him close, close enough that she could feel his erection hard against her belly. "You could have done it by now if you'd taken me already. Just take me, Jack, you know you want to -"

Suddenly, he let her go; the shock of it was like being doused with cold water. But Irina found her surprise changing to mirth as Jack hit the controls for the elevator, then smacked them again and again, trying to hurry the rickety old thing. "Come on, come on," he muttered; Irina tried very hard not to laugh. Finally, the elevator arrived, clacking into position on their floor and slowly sliding its door open. Jack pulled her inside. "This is better," he said, kissing her cheek, then her mouth.

"Much more private," Irina agreed, laughing. As soon as the elevator had descended half a floor, Jack hit STOP, freezing them in place. They smiled at each other, husband and wife, sure of what they wanted, delighting in their shared adventure.

Irina stripped off her nightgown, standing before Jack in the light that filtered in from the floor above, striped with shadows across her body. Then she hooked her thumbs into her panties and pulled them down, shimmying out of them. Even after all these years, she still loved watching Jack undress - he seemed to be shedding layers of control along with each piece of clothing. And he had a wonderful body - broad shoulders, strong legs, sculpted chest and arms, a cock that more than filled both her hands. She set about proving that, touching him everywhere else as well: a soft stroke down his back, harder massaging of his thighs, a kiss at the hollow of his throat.

Jack simply let her indulge herself for a while; then, so fast it surprised her, he spun her about, pushing her almost roughly against the elevator wall. The chill of the metal against her breasts made her shiver. "I know what you need," he murmured, kissing the nape of her neck, her shoulder blades, her spine. Irina's sensitive back tingled as he worked his way down, setting her nerve endings on fire. Just at the moment she thought she could bear it no longer, he pulled her back toward him for another kiss.

She sucked on each of his lips, then his tongue, drawing it far into her mouth, releasing it for a moment, then drawing it in again. His fingers brushed up her thighs, then parted her legs, opening her up. Could he feel how hot she was down there? she wondered dazedly. How thick and full her lips had become, how hard her heart was beating? She knew he could tell how wet she was, so wet it was slipping down her thighs, coating his fingers, telling them both how ready she was to take him inside -

Jack pushed her legs farther apart, and Irina reached up, taking the aged brass rails of the elevator in her hands to slightly support her weight. And then Jack's cock was in his hand, and she was sliding one leg around his waist, and oh, oh, he was pushing inside her, more, then more, then all the way, so deep it almost hurt, still not as deep as she wanted.

He slammed her back against the wall, using the force of it to lift her a little higher, so he could get even deeper inside. With every motion, their stomachs brushed against each other; the hair on his chest was damp with sweat already. The shadows of the elevator's cage fell across Jack's face, revealing his mouth, hiding his eyes. Irina let herself moan as loudly as she wanted. So what if the neighbors realized what was going on? They could learn a thing or two.

"Irina," he groaned, thrusting inside her again, then again. Jack was utterly under her spell, lost to his passion. Lost to her. This, she reminded herself - this was better than any other power in the world.

His hand moved between their bodies, his thumb pressing against her so that, every time they moved, a jolt of sensation shot up through her, belly to heart to mouth to brain. But Irina bit her lip, fighting to hold on, not to come until the moment that he did, until the moment that Jack finally lost control.

One more thrust, one more slam of her back against the elevator wall, and then Jack cried out, stifling the sound against her shoulder. As his teeth nipped into her skin, Irina felt a rush of warmth inside her; she moved against him one last time, letting herself experience it, letting herself climax around him. "Yes," she whispered. "Oh, yes."

After a few moments, Jack pulled back from her; Irina let her hands release the elevator rails. Her fingers were damp with sweat, and they didn't seem to want to uncurl. Jack embraced her tightly, and they stood there for a long time, holding each other. She could feel warmth and wetness leaking from her, making trails down her thighs.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you too." Jack grinned. "Enough to lose my mind and do this."

Irina laughed. But if she thought Jack looked abashed then, it was nothing compared to his reaction when they got dressed and returned to their home - only to find that the door had locked behind them, and they had to knock.

It was her sister who answered, housecoat halfway pulled around her, hair askew. "Honestly, you two," Katya muttered. "You can't wait one night?"

Even in the darkness, Irina knew Jack was blushing. Americans.

**

The next morning, the neighbor came to collect his wife. He was hung-over and, apparently, ashamed of himself; maybe things would go well for the family, at least for the rest of the day. Irina hoped so.

Jack kept trying to catch up on his sleep, catnapping throughout the morning, despite Valentina's attempts to get him to play. Irina was finally able to distract her by showing her Kovalenko's tarot cards. "You think hard about your question - very hard! - and cut the deck. Then you lay the cards out in patterns, and the patterns tell you your future."

"That's silly," Valentina said, frowning at the cards laid on the kitchen table. She was a very practical child. "That's not a fortune. That's just two naked people with some flowers."

"The card is called The Lovers." Irina didn't bother hiding her smile. She put little more store in the cards than her daughter did, but what other card would have described her recent past? "It's a good card to get."

Valentina shrugged. "So, which one is next?"

Irina pulled the card, then quickly put it away. "I tell you what. Why don't you and I go to the park? When we come back, I bet Daddy will be awake."

Happily, Valentina went to put on her shoes. That gave Irina a chance to study the card she hadn't wanted to show her daughter, who was too young to understand that Death didn't really mean death. Usually, it just meant change was coming. For the better or for the worse - you never knew. But the card always meant powerful, undeniable change, on its way soon.

**

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