Work Text:
Irina Spalko liked planning.
She enjoyed it when things were nicely categorized, when she could see the pattern unfolding. Write down numbers. Make her calculations. Watch as events unfolded, compare them to her predictions.
Improve her theories on how things worked.
She had gotten good at it over the years.
This has not always been the case.
Even as a child she had loved order. She would pick up rocks and arrange them into spiral patterns. Smooth rock, sharp rock, smooth smooth, sharp, smooth-
It made her feel at peace. Brought order to the chaotic world.
Perhaps she had been lonely. All the other kids had enjoyed bullying her, stealing her things, laughing at her when she cried and screamed. At those times she had felt out of control, like she could sense everything and everything was too much. She had covered her ears and cried and afterwards felt ashamed.
She had tried to connect with other kids. There had been a beautiful girl, Nina, with her long brown hair that shone reddish in the sunlight and greenish eyes that looked nice when she smiled. One day Irina found an abandoned birds nest with beautiful greenish eggs. She had emptied the egg and given it to Nina as a gift.
Nina had looked at her, said nothing, and dropped the tiny egg to the ground.
“Why did you do that?” Irina had asked.
“I don't want your gross things are you trying to make me as gross as you are?”
Irina hadn't understood.
So she had gone back to her rocks.
Then one day one of the boys, Antin, who was loud and would sneak behind Irina and yell into her ear to startle her when she was doing chores, kicked over Irina's carefully put together spiral of stones.
It had been a loud and chaotic day, and Irina had had enough. She had screamed and pushed Antin.
He had fallen and hit his head on a rock.
He had not died but insisted Irina had attempted to kill him.
And Irina found out that it was not just the children in the village who were opposed to her.
The village was full of her enemies and she could do nothing about it. She had no power.
At this point Irina started to learn things about people. She had to after all. She had to understand the people around, to predict their chaotic behavior, for her to survive. To know how they were connected. Understand the weird feelings she got sometimes.
She had a feeling the fact her father was not around had something to do with the hatred the village felt towards her. Something in human nature itself was opposed to her existence?
So she studied.
There was order to be found in the world. She could look into human beings and predict their behavior. But that was complicated...
She needed to know more. She found small animals and opened them up, looking at their insides. They were like machines made of meat. But was there something more there, something settling into the flesh to give it life?
Her mother walked in on her taking out the organs out of a bird and neatly arranging them on the porch.
She did not scream, or hit her.
But afterwards she did not look directly at Irina. And when the neighbor spat at Irina, calling her a demon child, her own mother nodded in agreement.
So Irina ran. She was older now, soon a woman. She packed her bags. She took things. It was only fair that she would take her mother's food and her neighbor's pocket watch. They wanted her to leave, and she was giving them what they wanted.
So Irina Spalko set out to the city and to learn.
She traveled far and wide, studying with master yogis, psychologists, biologists. She learned control. She studied how to suppress her physical reactions, how to slow down her heartbeat. She took up fencing, exerting control over her body. Honing her body and mind to keep it under control to avoid painful outbursts. She devoured any nugget of information she could use to understand the world. She developed her theories on life force, dedicated on understanding the web that connected human beings.
The web she had always felt disconnected from.
But it had been fine. She had fit well in the Soviet secret police. There were rules. She liked rules-
Sophia Hapgood's fingers brushed against Spalko's.
Irina tensed. She could sense the presence of the other woman.
She had not predicted this when she had interrogated Hapgood and requested her assistance in tracking down the Crystal Skull.
Sophia's hand reached to touch the sample. "I have never felt anything like this."
She was powerful, Irina could tell. When she was close to her, she felt warm.
I should monitor my body temperature.
But it was difficult to focus near Sophia.
She was... Unique.
Irina thought of Nina, for some reason. Even though they were nothing alike...
She had to focus.
"This research... With this we can fully access the collective human subconsciousness."
Irina held her tongue. She wanted to tell Sophia about her research on trying to prove the existence of this energy in living beings. But she had to make sure she could trust Sophia.
"It's fascinating," Sophia said.
Irina nodded. "I have always known. That I was different."
She had always been on the outside, looking in. Observing the humanity, trying to understand it to reach into-
Sensing it in ways no one else seemed to but-
Sophia leaned close and Irina almost felt like her heart stopped.
A connection.
And for the first time in forever she felt excitement over the unpredictability of the world.