Date 20th August 1942

time 18.XX

Orange leaves blow in the cold wind across the sky, and the sun is gone from sight. The pine forest is covered by light fog from the train running through it. Maria picks up a cup and then sips the coffer while watching the pine forest view before looking at the document in the bag.

She put the coffee down before picking up the document to read, which was full of Russian and German news. All of this was gathered by Maria's order to Sasha to find and investigate the news. Even though Sasha isn't good at fighting skills, she's outstanding at information investigating. She has a good education. She can communicate in many languages and screen the news. Maria sees that point of Sasha which is why Maria accepted Sasha for the job.

Maria read news one by one that Sasha gathered for her from the North Russia front-line news. There's nothing to worry about in the north because it's starting to be stable and likely to be able to counter back soon, but it isn't confident. The reinforcement army from the north isn't a small one, still, this situation needs to be monitored future if the army from the north can resist the German army. The main thing is to protect Stalingrad.

Maria's companies in the north still can control the situation well. Maria believes in the soldier who's she chooses to command the company, but still, she needs to command and supervise their work. Her companies have been sent to Stalingrad lately. She gives some of them take turn to rest. There's chaos but the soldiers are too tired. It's only lose and lose if they can't fight with all they might.

After she finished reading Russian news, she kept the document in her bag and took German news out to read. The language wall isn't a problem for Maria. She can read the newspaper without any problem. The German newspaper is full of propaganda and some general news. For instance, the Poland Rebellion came out to do a revolution and sometimes there might be some ridiculous news like the Bavaria girl dreaming of the vision. Even if it sounds weird, Maria still read it anyway. Maria wrote the key points in her small memo. 

Maria glanced over the news content which was able to call her interest. The news is about Ernst Heiz Doris, the famous general, which famous for organizing a party often and every party he organizes is always a big one. He organizes it for fun or to show off his or his son's success. There was a rumour that he had a daughter too but never appeared in any news. So it's just a rumour. This time he organised a big party for his son who got promoted and invited many generals to this party at Munich, the big nazi office which was his mansion that he donated to the government.

Personally, Maria doesn't like to attend the party if it is not necessary. She thinks she better spend time working more; however, this news is still useful. Maria opened the paper which was attached next to the newspaper, it was Sasha's memo. Maria scans the memo. She found the name list of party attendees. There a plenty of interesting names. Maria kept reading the name list while thinking of something else before shaking this thought away.

Maria read all of it and then looked at the next page of the newspaper which said the goal of Germany was to conquer the Stalingrad as soon as possible. As Maria predicted this battle would be a protracted battle. There's no way this could end very soon. Because the Soviet Union not going to give up easily too. If the winter arrived, the German soldier would be in a difficult situation. But is the soviet union able to make it to the winter or not? Maria takes a sip of coffee. The coffee ran out and she was about to ask for more coffee. But now the train is slowing down and stops at the station. Maria slowly gathered her stuff into her messenger bag and then got out of the train.

She is now in Igarka city, a small city in the north of Russia, 1 of the 44 secret cities of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union founded this city for the experiment which another country couldn't know. It's a close city that is hard to get in and can't get out; not much of people were allowed to go in and out conveniently like Maria. Most of the people in this city are NKVD Soldiers and GRU Officers. To get the train ticket to this city, you have to have a permit to get the special ticket to be able to go further at the end of the train line to get here.

2 officers help carry the German soldier's corpse box from the train as Maria commanded. The box is perfectly fine. Maria leads the way out of the Igarka city's train station.  The white dust blown by the wind stains Maria's rough cheek. Maria brushes it away with her hand and walks forward, stepping on the orange and yellow birch leaves. Even though most of the trees here are pine trees, there are also some birch trees. It's enough to know the season with the naked eye. On the ground, there was some white dust. Although there isn't any factory that has a chimney to emit smoke.

Maria commands the officers to place the corpse box on the backseat of the car and 1 officer gives her a ride to the Research Insitute. The officers quickly do as Maria commanded. Maria sits beside the driver's seat watching the Igarka city view. This city has a big river from the ocean that comes across the city. The small city that filled with Soviet architectural building blocks, with a peaceful atmosphere; the sound of the wind and the river which is in high tide creates a rapid flow sound. The car slowly passes through the downtown that just a few people walking around, then passes the bridge across the river to the big building. Maria gets out of the car with the officer. 

She calls another officer to help carry the corpse box. Maria walks into that building, its' the simple white building. This is the research institute of Igarka City. When 2 guards see Maria, they immediately salute her and open the door for her. Maria saluted back too. The 2 officers carry the corpse box and place it inside before walking out. She walks to the counter in front of her which are the GRU officers there.

"good evening, Comrade Major"The officers greet the major in front of them.

"good evening"Maria greets back while giving her military identity card to the officer in front of her to verify her identity.

"Comrade Major, what is your purpose to come here and what is in that box?"The officer asks while checking the document.

"I want to see Rurik Mikhailov for asking him to investigate the course inside that box as a special case."As soon as Maria finished speaking, The officer knit one's brow looking at the box curiously but not asking anything more.

" Is this an order from high authorities or not?"The officers asks in mystifying at her request.

"No, it's my personal request"Maria answers with a serious face, making the officer understand that she isn't kidding.

"Roger that. I will call Rurik Pavlovich for you to be her in the moment." The officer talks to another officer before walking inside.

Maria's standing waiting for a while till the doors swing out. The tall man with pale skin in a white gown dashes out; the brown thing hair swings around the anxious exciting face, and brown eyes turn to Maria and rush to hug Maria, holding his daughter up then spinning around shouting.

"Maria, My sweet daughterrrrrrr!" The father tightly hugs his daughter.

"D..Dad, let me go. It's embarrassing..."Maria speaks with a cold and uncomfortable face.

"Dad miss you so much. Can't I just hug you a little bit longer?"Rurik hugs Maria tighter.

"But dad... *sigh* yes, you can"Maria tried to disobey because she cared about her image. But at last, she decides to surrender to her father easily and hugs her father back.

" surprise me by coming here without telling me anything? You should have sent me a letter or called me first."Rurik tease

'Wait. I already told Sasha to contact him before... oh shit...' Maria muttered while frowning and not letting her finish swearing. The familiar voice of her speaks up.

"Let her go. My daughter is uncomfortable"A strong deep voice speaking at the entrance. The big, tall, middle-aged man wearing Ushanka, crossed his arms there with a formidable demeanour. Maria heavily sighs out when she heard that voice.

'goddammit, Sasha, You sent it to the wrong dad of mine' Maria got riled up a little bit when she found out that Sasha sent the letter to her stepfather who's an artillery soldier, not her biological father who's a scientist.

"She's my daughter, sharing the same blood as mine" Rurik, her biological father let Maria go. He's smiling to tease her Stepfather, Oleg.

"You dare to speak that even though you left her when she was 5 years old. I raised her since young and where had you been?!" Oleg raised his voice, Frowning and showing obvious anger, sending the disgusting staring at the person in front of him.

"How cruel, I'm doing dad duty right now. and who is the control freak that forbade her from following her dream?" Rurik gives Oleg a friendly wide smile with a knit one's brow. Rurik's frustrated a bit from getting slapped by the truthful fact. Oleg grabbed the collar of Rurik's shirt, then held him up and smashed him to the wall.

KRASSH!

"Everything I did is to protect my daughter from all this crazy shit! yeah, you never have to struggle along on the battlefield without knowing which second you would get shot, losing everyone around you one by one, losing it all until there's nothing left to lose!" Oleg tightly grabs Rurik's collar shirt pushing him into the wall above the ground

"Dad?! That's enough, Dad" Maria frightened trying to stop both of her fathers. The guards come inside shocked. But Maria uses her hand to stop them and commands them to go out by waving her hand to chase them out. The guard finally left.

"hmm, I'm not surprised if Maria gets violent behaviour from you. Are you certain that is for protecting her? It looks like you tried to prevent her from her dream more. Also, you don't know what I had been through to help my daughter."even now Rurik still smirking teasing Oleg, his face is a little bit more serious.

" How dare you?!"Oleg doesn't make it to finish his sentence, There's a high-pitched voice that shouts up cutting his sentence.

"Can both of you please stop fighting?!" Maria shouts at the top of her lungs, Clenches both fists with anger, making both fathers stop and then look at her.

"Both of you're grown adults. You're 40 - 50 years old. Can you please stop acting like you're 5 years old?!"Maria frowned. She was tired and angry at the same time, making both fathers have no words to say.

"Dad Oleg, get out."Maria is pointing at the exit doors.

"I..I"Oleg trying to say something with a stunned expression.

"GET OUT" Maria insistent, staring into Oleg's eyes, Oleg slowly loose his hands from Rurik's shirt collar and walk out.

"Thank you, daughter" Rurik's smiling sweetly.

"You too. Stop teasing Dad Oleg, and don't say he started first. Oh, please. You are 53 years old. you must know that you should keep that word away and have a manner like adults should have." Maria sent a disappointed look and shook her head to Rurik. Rurik's in silence after being taught by his daughter.

"...""I'm sorry" The arrogant father of her turns pale and apologises to her.

"*sigh* let's talk about work and get it over with. I have something to ask you for help with, Dad" Maria softer her voice tone to look calmer.

"Dad knows a bit of it already from the officer that called me out. Ooo, it's a special case~ but why it must be investigated?" Rurik relaxed but still kept smirking.

" I have been notified by a soldier that this soldier is unusually difficult to die, even though they shot until the magazine ran out. From what I preliminary-checked by myself. He has black blood, which is glossy like mercury and smells like ozone. I have an assumption that this is an Experimental human of Germany, and now our information got stolen by Germany. Now they are making experimental humans by have similar features and properties to me. I want to ask you to help me investigate this if I assumed correctly or not. But I think it will be a big deal if it is true and the Red Army might be more unfavourable than now" Maria explained with a serious face but also contained a lot of anxiety in her mind.

"hmm, interesting. I will help investigate things on my own. I think I will finish investigating tomorrow in the late morning." Rurik put both hands together. He doesn't look surprised at all about this.

"Thank you so much, Dad"Maria delightfully thanked him.

"Are you going to sleep here today? How many days are you staying?"Rurik asks.

"I'm going to sleep here 2 nights. My 2 companies just arrived at Stalingrad. They still need to prepare a lot of things and rest from the long trip. Are you going to continue working, Dad?" Maria looks at Rurik.

"Yes, I have to work overtime. You should take some rest. Tomorrow I will take half a day off to play chess with you. come here at noon."Rurik looks cheerful when talking about playing chess.

"Yes, Dad. I should go now." Maria turns back to walk to the exit doors.

"Okay, goodnight, my daughter. Dad loves you." Rurik says with a sweet voice and a smile blooming on his face to his beloved daughter.

"Goodnight, Dad. love you too." Maria said in a monotone voice before opening the door to walk out. She sees Oleg's back standing there watching the river view.