Panteleyev looks out to the scene laid opposite to the building they were invited in. It’s ever constantly changing every time. China sure has made a giant leap forward since the time the Fregat android and his boss first landed in Vladivostok three decades ago. Piercing the skyline are skyscrapers here and there, something only the bridge pylons in Vladivostok match the same feat.
A visit to the Chinese Navy’s base is nothing unusual nowadays. As the lone representative to Moscow in Asia-Pacific region, the fleet under command of Varyag made several such trips before. However, something in the itinerary given prior bothers him with significant weight.
After many years of intentionally avoiding him, the order came from his fleet’s commanding after an agreement with the naval force of their neighboring country - Varyag is to meet with Liaoning.
“Boss,” the younger subordinate detects the tension radiating from his superior, “are you alright? What can I do to help?”
Whether he can offer help for real is doubtful. This is the past only the third Atlant knew.
“Yes.” An uncharacteristically limited response. Is this, Panteleyev contemplates, the way his commander used to be in his early timid days? Those blue-gray eyes raise, meeting the pair of neutral gray shade under brown brows, “Your social instinct is far better than mine. I need you to examine the phrases I must refrain. Any phrase that may drop an unintentional hint of how I know his past.”
“Glad I can help, Boss. Let’s start.” The plan is to sort out the risky phrases, then add an internal command blocking them from being accessed during conversation. For this, Varyag must say the phrase audibly once before the command activates.
‘You were Varyag before I got the name.’
'We were meant to be in the same fleet.’
‘I saw you before I left, before the collapse of the USSR.’
One by one, dozens of phrases are blocked from potential responses to a conversation. Once believed they cover most of possible ‘problematic’ hints, Panteleyev urges his flagship to consider ‘indirect threats’. “You know, something… you may slip but enough to ruin the work we’ve done to shield the secret.”
By the estimation, they have less than ten minutes left before the encounter. What he can’t cover by that time must rely on the will power alone. To determine which word may turn against him, the subordinate in a white uniform shirt and black tie proposes he’ll take the role of Liaoning in their mock conversation.
“Why did you keep avoiding me before? What is it about me that bothers you?” Panteleyev imitates the questions with likelihood to pop up. He doesn’t expect that to K.O. Varyag. Anyhow, silence and unreadable state are the initial response the smaller unit receives.
“Boss?”
Inside Varyag, his system is in a jumble. A certain phrase rises, clearly from the more emotional than the logical side of him.
“If only—if only I never met you.”
Along with Panteleyev’s perplexed, intangible reply to that disconnected phrase, the ‘Red Atlant’ executes the command in his inorganic brain. This phrase will never pass from his lips again.
Over and over, until there are just three minutes left on the clock, when they at last conclude the preventative measure. Concern overpowered in his eyes, the escort for this visit whispers, “You wish you never met him… true, it would make everything much easier. Except, even the once most-hated unit like me, how important one’s ‘first friend’ is… I understand very well” Again, the android whose task dealt with submarines casts a worried look.
“I never know what he was like before now. Judging from how you’re acting, even to this day you hold him with high regard in your memory.”
What irony. Someone who was notorious for caring of zero other people but his own desire like the youngest Fregat is showing a deep concern for him. On one hand, he is touched. Still, there’s some misinterpretation he must correct.
“Honestly, Yurka, I only ‘knew’ him like… two occasions of waving hands at each other.” Shaking his head full of ruby-colored locks, Varyag makes a quick revelation. “What bothers me is more of… for what he may not realize now that he has lost. Think about Em. If by some miracle Em is back, you wouldn’t mind if he forgets all the vile deeds you did.”
The brown-haired unit nods, almost too readily.
“Except with the return, everything in his brain gets erased. Not only he never remembers the less-than-pleasant interactions he had with you, he also forgets about Nikolka, Vovka, Boryushka and even… Zakharov.” Now a quiet grasp escapes Panteleyev. He might have stayed well away from his siblings when Spiridonov was still around, but it was clear how he valued those three. And for him to completely forget about them…
“That’s… too cruel, Boss,” is all Panteleyev can croak out. To Varyag, he first comprehended that fact long time ago, hence deems it futile to spare any more word. Now he can only lessen the pain on his former friend’s end by playing along - to never let out the slightest hint of the past they shared.
Right on dot to the appointed time, knocks materialize at the door. “Excuse me, sir. Hangzhou reporting, if you’re ready to be escorted to the conference hall?”
Here is yet another fragment of the past haunting the two visitors from Russian Navy, albeit easier to handle. Receiving a gesture from his superior, Panteleyev reaches to the door and greets the unit belonged to Chinese Navy, “Hangzhou, hi! Thanks for coming to get us! How have you been since the last time my brother and I saw you?”
On the opposite side of the door stands an android with reddish brown hair, his face rigid, seemingly to keep his expression in check. Has Hangzhou ever realized he was supposed to be their colleague?
“I’m fine, Panteleyev. So if you’ll please…” that gesture extends toward the Russian unit with higher rank. Varyag nods without a word, raising up to face his own trouble with the usual stoic face he employs as his ‘preferred’ facade since promoted to the flagship position. Personal issues must be buried. All the hopes of the past, of how he used to see Liaoning as a potential good friend, are all but a pointless dream.