Round 1 - Ken Rhee (Marc)

"Minutes. You've only got minutes to get this done." That's what Ken kept telling himself as he rifled through one of Dr. Donaghue's many disorderly piles of notes. The doctor was notorious for his self-styled "orderly chaos". He said there was a system to it, but Ken suspected this was nothing more than a ruse to cover up one of the doctor's few weaknesses. What made his mess a weakness wasn't it's lack of aesthetics though. The weakness lay in the fact that it meant he was also terrible at securing important and proprietary notes from people willing to search for them, like Rhee.

The mouse bites on his fingers were barely a distraction, though that didn't keep him from cursing himself for being so sloppy. He had let his excitement get the better of him. He knew this was the day. This was the day he would prove himself and complete the task he had undertaken so many years earlier. Today, he would vanquish his mentor by taking what was most precious to him. The Formula.

Donaghue had recently made a breakthrough. Ken had been in the lab when he heard the Doctor exclaim the cliche "Eureka!" from the adjoining building B-142. What an insufferable academic... It wasn't long until Ken was assisting the doctor with the next stage of his trials: human testing. Soon the term super-soldier would become a household name. The only question was who would take the credit. After years of waiting and playing the student, Ken wasn't about to let that be Dr. Donaghue.

"Ahah!" Ken blurted, despite himself, as he lifted a tattered old leather-bound notebook the Doctor always carried around with him. The fact that he wasn't carrying it when he made his way to building B-142 did not go unnoticed by Ken. If there was one thing Rhee had in spades, it was attention to detail. It would only take minutes before the old bastard noticed he had forgotten it, but that was all the time Ken needed.

With the notebook in hand, Ken moved to the doorway to B-142 and locked it. The doctor wasn't trapped, but he would now have to go through the complex the long way to get back to the common lab. He'd be none to pleased, but Ken didn't plan on being there when he got back.

Slipping on his thick arctic rated coveralls and his goose down filled parka, Ken slipped out of the lab and into the white wastes surrounding it. He headed north. After about 20 minutes, his destination came into view: the Khlebnikov. Something was wrong though. As he approached, Ken realized he wasn't the only one at the sub. Finding a small snow drift to hide behind, Ken pulled out his small pair of binoculars, intending to spy on this unexpected intruder. The stumbling gait gave him away instantly. Fish. What the fuck was Fish doing here? Ken swore under his breath as he saw Fish react to something on the ground next to the Khlebnikov. He'd been sloppy, and now he would have to clean up after himself. He could let Jones go and hope his pain killer induced ravings would be dismissed summarily by the rest of the inhabitants of the compound, but they might also decide to send a party out to investigate immediately. Ken couldn't take that chance.

He watched calmly as Fish stumbled to his ATV and gunned it in the direction of the compound, following the tracks he had made getting here. Pulling his soviet-era PSS silent pistol from one of his parka's pockets, Ken took aim at his moving target, training the sights on the front-left tire of his vehicle. This had to look like an accident. The diminutive weapon only had an effective range of 25 meters, but Ken knew he could hit a moving target from 40 meters with it about 8 times out of 10. Exhaling slowly, he pulled the trigger. "PFFT!" was all the sound the weapon made, easily lost among the arctic winds gusting all around him.

Ken saw Fish fly off his ATV like a rag-doll, with the vehicle subsequently rolling over on top of him. He might have survived the crash, but there was no guarantee anyone knew he was out here, so he'd probably end up freezing to death. Ken wasn't worried about any fallout from the incident. Fish was always high on pain killers, so it wouldn't surprise anyone to find he had killed himself in an ATV accident.

Confident that he'd tied up any loose ends for the time being, Ken made his way to the sub. Popov's body was now completely frozen and covered in snow, so there was no way Ken was going to move him. He moved some snow over his exposed hand, careful to remove the medical bracelet the Doctor had placed on him a few weeks ago near the start of their trials. "Das vidanya, commerade", Ken whispered as he buried the body.

Stepping over Popov, Ken climbed his way up to the top of the sub, finding the hatch and opening it with practiced ease. The thing creaked like mad, but no one was around to hear it. At least no one living.

BANG, BANG

"Oh shut up, Yuri", said Ken, climbing down the ladder into the sub's entrance vestibule. The noise had come from the aft section of the vessel, but Ken was headed toward the bow. He opened a small panel next to the door, revealing a surprisingly clean and modern looking panel of LED lit buttons, showing various Russian characters. Ken performed a quick succession of key-presses and a pneumatic hiss could be heard from the forward hatch. Into a humming control room stepped the medical research assistant. He sat at one of the nearby consoles, with a small vacuum tube screen flickering to life as he typed something on the keyboard in front of him. A series of screeches could be heard coming from the computer bank, the unmistakable sound of a 56.6 kbaud modem firing up. Ken pulled a small hand-held scanning device out from under the desk, plugged it in and proceeded to scan the last few pages of Donaghue's notebook. He then leaned close to a small microphone built into the side of the console and spoke with a heavy accent, before pressing a large green key:

"Rheenovsky, Kenskei"

***

His task complete, Rhee headed back to the base, giving Fish a wide berth. He managed to get back to the common lab in building B-141 without being noticed. The good Doctor either hadn't noticed he was without his notebook, or he was slowly making his way around the compound. Ken placed the notebook right where he had found it, careful to arrange the mess exactly as he had found it.

Minutes later, Donaghue burst into the lab breathing heavily. "Ken, boy! Where were you! I was banging on that damn door for minutes!"

Ken pulled his earphones down, the unmistakable sound of Pink Floyd flowing out of them. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Doctor! The door must have latched itself shut again!"

"Oh, no worry. A slight delay that's all. Now where's my notebook?".

"I'm not sure sir. I can never make sense of your ordered chaos."