literature

Ghost Effect. p6

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GHOST:

The first thing Ghost noticed when she woke up was the light. Although her vision wasn’t totally functioning yet, she could tell that it was different. The LED lights of the compound didn’t give off this warm of light, but a more sterile, blue glow. The second discrepancy was the noise. There wasn’t necessarily more or less of it, but again, it was different. Strange whistles and honks had replaced the constant whir and beeping of the machines they used to monitor her vitals. Everything had a sort of muffled quality to it as well, like it was coming from outside the room and the air inside the room was completely quiet.
So from the moment her nerves began to wake up, they were on high alert. Too many things were off for this to be normal. Something was wrong, very wrong. She confirmed this to herself when no examination lights were shown into her eyes, no masked faces peering over her and no Heir standing nearby to observe the process.
No restraints had been necessary for wake-up in over a year, so Ghost was both surprised and slightly angered by their presence. It had been quite a while since she’d spoken, but quiet growls escaped her lips as the cables prevented her from sitting up. It was then that the man stood up.
Ghost froze. He was utterly new to her, a face she’d never seen, brown hair pulled loosely back into a short ponytail and piercing blue eyes that tried to communicate with her all on their own. What most caused her to freeze, however, was the gun he was holding. It was a simple pistol, appeared American made, typical eight-round chamber, yet he held it with a simple familiarity that told her he would not need the last seven. It wasn’t pointed at her, exactly, but there was a sort of implicit nature to his grip that told her it might soon be. His other hand, the right one, had the sleeve pulled up away from it so that the fabric of his jacket gathered above his elbow, exposing the muscular forearm. It brandished nothing, but still seemed to hold an active energy to it.
Ghost almost didn’t realize he was speaking to her until he had finished, too intent on reading his posture. He paused for a moment before starting again. It was a question. Her mind had to process what language he was using for a moment before she could even begin to think of how she wanted to respond. She could not remember ever being in this position before during a mission. Kidnappings were rare for her, and even then, she had express orders not to talk to the target, but to point a gun at their head and ensure their cooperation until they were no longer needed. Her face must have betrayed her lack of focus, because the man repeated himself, this time in what she immediately recognized as Russian.
“What is your name?”
What a bizarre question. Surely if he had found her, and taken her from her compound then he knew who she was.
“They call me –“
“Yes, I know what they call you. What do you call you?”
She stared blankly at her captor, half because of her programming told her to, half because she had no idea how to react to the situation. Why would she call herself something? Heir called her Ghost and that was that. She had no need to address herself, or identify herself to others. Anytime an introduction was necessary, it was done for her and it wasn’t like she held conversations with herself in her downtime.
He seemed to either understand or become exasperated, because he made a small gesture with his empty hand and then moved closer to the bed, speaking as he moved. Immediately, Ghost began analyzing the situation and formulating a plan of escape in her head. As though he’d read her mind, the man explained himself.
“I’m going to remove your restraints now. The buckles are located far enough back that you cannot reach them, but I can still see you while undoing them. My gun is cocked and loaded and while you may be called the Ghost, I should warn you that they called me the Winter Soldier, and I never miss. So while I appreciate your pre-planned flight and fight for survival, I’d rather not put a bullet in your ankle. It will make it much harder to run when they find us.”
She watched him with wary eyes. How did he know what she was thinking, and who the hell was the Winter Soldier? Heir had never mentioned him before, yet the name seemed familiar. The mantra of never missing definitely rang a bell. Heir had told her something of it when she had first woken up from the wipe, that it was what she was to aspire to, that she needed to be the one that never missed. Was he alluding to this man? Were they connected somehow?
Regardless, the moment the restraints loosened enough to allow her movement, Ghost shot up from the bed, moving overtop of this Winter Soldier to get to the door that lay five feet past his right shoulder. Unfortunately, it seemed he had anticipated this. His right hand shot out and grasped her ankle just as she attempted to launch herself into a roll off the bed. This, along with her momentum sent her sprawling face-first onto the floor. Not a moment after, the man sat on top of her, both arms pinned and knocked her soundly on the back of the head with his pistol, sending her spiraling into unconsciousness.
Set in the Marvel, Avengers Universe and centers around the idea that after Bucky failed to return to HYDRA, 
they found someone with a close enough DNA match that they could basically create a Winter Soldier 2.0 they dubbed Ghost.
The timing of her kidnapping is about two months after TWS, but the story takes place two years later.

Narration skips around between several character's, indicated by the all-caps heading.

p5 <<->> p7

I hope you enjoy!
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