#obey me frameless

[obscurehistoricalinterests]

Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in “Carmilla” and “Dracula” (II)

By Elizabeth Signorotti (1996)

Part I here.

Thesis: Carmilla is a story of female empowerment, and Dracula is a patriarchal response to it.

Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in “Carmilla” and “Dracula” (part II)

At the opening of her narrative, Laura’s potentially powerful nature remains under her father”s control. She emphasizes the “loneliness” of living in an ancient, secluded Schloss with her correspondingly ancient father as a companion. She and her father survive on a “small income” - from his pension and patrimony - and reside in a part of the world seemingly untouched by anything even slightly disruptive: the old road is unchanged, the drawbridge has never been raised, and the ever-present water lilies remain floating calmly on the moat’s surface. Fixed firmly within the parameters of her father’s power as well as his “patrimony,” Laura looks forward only to the infrequent visits of General Spielsdorf and his charming niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt, who live in the “nearest inhabited schloss... nearly twenty miles away.” Yet, she writes, far from living a completely mundane life, the “first occurrence in my existence, which produced a terrible impression upon my mind, which, in fact never had been effaced, was one of the very earliest incidents in my life.” One night while sleeping, Laura recalls,

I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at me from the side of the bed. It was that of a young lady who was kneeling, with her hands under the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; I felt immediately delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was wakened by a sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly. The lady started back, with her eyes fixed on me, and then slipped down upon the floor, and, as I thought, hid herself.

The “young lady” who caresses Laura for a moment plays the replacement mother to the orphaned girl, but she is decidedly no mother. The homoerotic overtones of the ensuing attack on Laura’s breast eclipse the initial mother/child dynamic and establish the nature of the two women’s relationship. For the moment, the “lady,” Carmilla, disappears, only to return thirteen years later. Despite her long absence, Carmilla’s initial attack introduces Laura to the liberating exchange of female sexuality and begins the process of Laura’s ontological shifting. 

Carmilla’s return thirteen years later to the lonely Styrian “schloss” initiates the female usurpation of the traditional male exchange priviledges. Almost immediately after Laura learns that Bertha Rheinfeldt, “in whose society [she] had promised [her]self many happy days” has suddenly and mysteriously died from a strange “malady,” a carriage carrying Carmilla and her mother crashes directly in front of the schloss. Laura and her father (who remains nameless throughout) are rambling along a forest path, and just prior to the crash he confesses that he feels “as if some great misfortune were hanging over us.” The “misfortune” he refers to proves to be his loss of power over Laura upon Carmilla’s arrival. Moments after his confession, the carriage crashes, spilling the two women along the pathway. While Carmilla lies unconscious, her mother, a “distinguished,” “imposing” woman with a “commanding air and figure,” opens negotiations with Laura’s father. She talks to him with “a fixed and stern countenance,” explaining that she has “rapid and secret” business to attend to, perhaps the “secret” business of initiating female alliances. She finally convinces him to invite Carmilla to stay at the schloss until she recovers, then departs to attend her “vital” business. The exchange between Carmilla’s mother and Laura’s father recalls Levi Strauss’ “exchange of women,” but with a significant difference: one of the exchanging partners is a woman. This exchange - one that allows Carmilla to renew the relations with Laura - is the first step in breaching established patterns of exchange by forcing a man to negotiate with a woman for the “charge” of a third woman.

The opening sections of “Carmilla” reflect some common themes of nineteenth-century vampire literature. Laura’s comment on her family’s small income invites comparison with Carmilla’s almost aristocratic appearance and her mother’s demeanor as a “person of consequence.” The vampiric aristocrats have landed, nineteenth-century readers might suppose, to suck dry the middling country gentlefolk. Carmilla’s contempt for the peasantry of Styria conflates the “aristocrat’s hereditary power over others with the vampire’s supernatural power over human beings” (Senf 43). In addition, Carmilla’s mother - depicted as a busy vampire’s mother if not a vampire herself - becomes, as Senf argues, a “negative version of what nineteenth-century women were expected to do and be.” Only a “bad” mother would loose her daughter into a staid patriarchal system and allow her to disrupt social order. A good mother would train her to obey and perpetuate current systems of alliance. Against these more conventional themes of vampire literature, however, Le Fanu develops a tale of female desire - forbidden, exclusive female desire that bonds against male tyranny and resists marriage. Unlike Laura’s and Bertha’s homosocial friendship, which we can assume is of the non-threatening sort, Laura’s and Carmilla’s lesbian relationship assaults patriarchal law and is finally perceived by Styria’s men as anything but innocuous.

Once settled in the schloss, Carmilla and Laura hungrily pursue each other and Carmilla supplants Laura’s father in his position as guide, companion and confidant. Laura recalls that, despite the initial shock of seeing the woman who pierced her breast years ago, she “felt drawn towards” Carmilla. “I took her hand as I spoke,” Laura writes. “I was a little shy, as lonely people are, but the situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand, she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed as, looking hastily into mine, she smiled again, and blushed.” Immediately stirred, “shy” Laura shifts into the bold lover. The two caress each other, fondle each other, and sigh over each other’s beauty, but Laura soon becomes impatient with Carmilla’s refusal to share her history. Carmilla, she remembers, “would not tell me the name of her family, nor their armorial bearings, nor the name of their estate, nor even that of the country they lived in... Once or twice, indeed, I did attack her more directly. But no matter what my tactics, utter failure was invariably the result. Reproaches and caresses were all lost upon her.” Carmilla’s refusal to bear her “ancestral name” is just one example of her refusal to be subsumed by male authority. She is less interested in sharing with Laura her lineage - a primary concern in male systems of exchange - than her sexuality. Under her tutelage, she and Laura share themselves sexually with each other, realizing “the benefits of their own circulation.” Once their “passions have been most vividly and terribly roused,” Carmilla erupts, “You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever.” Despite her mingled attraction towards Carmilla and her fear of Carmilla’s often painful midnight visits, Laura refuses to alert her father to Carmilla’s frightening behavior. Instead, she joins Carmilla in claiming for themselves the right of bestowal and, in so doing, eliminate male control over social linkage.

Le Fanu’s use of the newly restored Karnstein family portraits further suggests the influence of Carmilla’s unrestrained sexuality. Laura reveals that she is “descended from the [aristocratic] Karnsteins,” which explains her father’s interest in the ancient portraits. After unveiling one portrait dated 1698 and bearing the name Mircalla Karnstein, Laura exclaims, “It was quite beautiful; it was startling; it seemed to live. It was the effigy of Carmilla!” The effigy’s resemblance astounds Laura, but what further interests the reader is that “it was a small picture, about a foot and a half high, and nearly square, without a frame.” William Veeder believes the portrait’s lack of a frame “suggests the incomplete, ambivalent quality of the young women’s relationship;” actually, its framelessness strikingly suggests Carmilla’s unrestrained, rampant sexuality and her infectious refusal to remain bound by male forms. In The Flesh Made Word, Helena Michie concludes that frequently women characters are “distanced from their lovers and their readers by appearing as either texts or as works (objects) of art,... [and] the act of unframing oneself, of stepping out of one’s portrait, is a subversive and dangerous move for women.” Carmilla’s unframed effigy accentuates her physicality - as a contained image would not - and the threat she poses to male order. Her sexual power is totally unbound, freeing her to create her own systems of female kinship and to make the “subversive and dangerous move” away from formal rules of male exchange.

Le Fanu stresses male exclusion from Carmilla’s system of kinship when General Spielsdorf recounts his misguided dealings with her. After Carmilla’s lengthy stay at his home, Spielsdorf’s niece, Bertha, becomes ill. Spielsdorf hires a physician to examine her and learns that she “was suffering from the visits of a vampire!” Determined to catch this vampire, Spielsdorf tells Laura’s father,

I concealed myself in the dark dressing room that opened upon the poor patient’s room, in which a candle was burning, and watched there till she was fast asleep. I stood at the door, peeping though the small crevice, my sword laid on the table beside me, as my directions prescribed, until, a little after one, I saw a large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the poor girl’s throat, where it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating mass. For a few moments I had stood petrified. I now sprang forward, with my sword in hand. The black creature suddenly contracted toward the foot of the bed, glided over it, and, standing on the floor about a yard below the foot of the bed, with a glare of skulking ferocity and horror fixed on me, I saw Millarca. Speculating I know not what, I struck at her instantly with my sword; but I saw her standing near the door, unscathed. Horrified, I pursued, and struck again. She was gone! and my sword flew into shivers against the door.

The male agent is excluded from the scene, relegated to an onlooker’s position while Carmilla and Bertha enact an exchange that rests completely outside traditionally stipulated boundaries. Like Laura’s father, Spielsdorf is “cut off from his manly sword, circumscribed by the vaginal crevice, impotent before the phalically swelling vampire... [with] the shattered sword as his emblem.” (Vedeer 205) Spielsdorf’s attempt to subject Carmilla to his own desire - by stabbing her with his sword - fails, as does his attempt to correct this transgressive scene. Uncontainable by male systems of exchange, Carmilla shifts shape - refusing to be bound by the restrictive, one-dimensional roles available to women - and leaves at her own pleasure.

As Carmilla’s power over Laura grows, so too does the alienation between the narrative’s men and women. During a discussion of the mysterious “malady” that has recently infected the young women of Styria, Laura’s father remarks, “We are in God’s hands; nothing can happen without His permission, and all will end well for those who love him.” Carmilla disdainfully replies, “Creator! Nature!... All things in heaven, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains.” Carmilla’s inability to accept God as omnipotent extends from her general refusal to include males in her exclusively female kinship system. Instead, she worships the embodiment of the feminine, Mother Nature, and implies the naturalness of her and Laura’s female union.

The alienation between men and women in “Carmilla” is exacerbated by men’s attempts to sequester information about women. The doctors hired to examine Carmilla (and later Laura, once she has a full-blown case of the vampire malady) facilitate the exchange of information between men about women. Laura reports that after one doctor examines Carmilla, he “was closeted with papa for some time... He and papa emerged from the room together, and I heard papa laugh.” Evidently, the doctor confesses his suspicions about Carmilla, but in utter disbelief “papa” dismisses them. Neither Carmilla nor Laura are told the outcome of the men’s “examination,” though ironically the two women know far more about the malady than any examiner could tell them, placing the men at a continual disadvantage.

The males in “Carmilla” are as ineffectual in their attempts to protect women as they are in their attempts to control information about them. As Veeder notes, General Spielsdorf, who, like Laura’s father, is duped by Carmilla’s mother, “submits to the charms of sex and rank by convincing himself that Millarca’s mother was ‘throwing herself entirely upon my chivalry.’ Such manly protectiveness is in fact a form of emasculation, as Spielsdorf’s diction indicates. ‘She in some sort disarmed me... quite overpowered, I submitted.” By playing upon male chivalry, Carmilla and her mother expose it as a weakness. Both women take advantage of the “separate sphere” ideology common to Victorian discourse in which women, seen as the repositories of innocence and order, require protection from the nobler, stronger sex. Ruskin’s 1899 Sesame and Lilies best defines this separate sphere ideology: man, he claims, is “active, progressive, defensive... eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender... [and woman is] enduringly, incorruptibly, good; instinctively, infallibly wise... not for self-development, but for self-renunciation.” Intelligent as well as sexually transgressive, Carmilla and her mother invoke and subvert an ideological perspective intended to disable and contain women, ultimately disabling the men around them.

Part III can be found here.

[sergeant-morozov]

Computer Case (Metro OCs)

"Comrade Voronin, I found something that might intrigue the generals." Nika contacted Voronin through his radiophone, he had found a working computer case that contained parts which could be used to fix the Red Station's broken computers. Whatever the generals wanted to do with the computer was their issue, Nika just had to wait for a response and maybe some help to carry the case to their station. "I heard you Nika, I'll send a trooper to- ehh.. Where are you again?" The red sniper heard a raspy voice through his device.

"At the-..Uhh, at theee...You know what, could you track my signal? Can you do that?" Nika kept walking around the office, he knew for a fact that he was in the Dead City but that was all, he didn't know where he specifically was since he went to the surface to just stalk enemy factions and for his need for an adrenaline rush. He had been all over the city for almost an hour now and while heading back to the tunnel entrance, he spotted the case and contacted Voronin about it. "No, Do you think we have the best equipment for that? What's around you?" Nika heard Voronin's annoyed voice and continued to look around. "Uhh.. Tables? Broken computer screens and keyboards-" Nika tapped one of the many office cubicle tables, then he heard something that sounded like cement pebbles cracking or hitting the floor- a normal sound in the collapsing old buildings. "Tell me something that stands out, dipshit." The comrade's voice got impatient and only heard the sniper chuckle back "Alright alright, I'm looking out the window and there's just a restaurant neon sign. Ringing any bells, old fuck?" After that the radiophone went silent, Nika kept looking outside from the frameless window but then heard someone walking in the hallway close to the office room. He took out his Lolife pistol and walked over to the doorway, then proceeding to push his back against the wall right next to the door frame. If anyone walked through the doorway, he would have the upper hand.

The footsteps came closer until suddenly they stopped altogether. Nika wasn't going to peek into the hallway, he knew that it would reveal him if someone was just standing in the hallway. "You lastly reported that you'd be in the Dead City? And that there's a neon sign nearby? I think I have an idea so just stay there." Nika flinched after hearing Voronin's deep voice "Copy that, I'll be here- Tell the person you send to bring more filters, I only have few left." Nika quickly informed his comrade before muting his device, if someone was nearby, they definitely knew now where he was. The sniper stepped into the hallway with his pistol pointed ready but no one was there. Nika searched the hallway's corners and the other room nearby but nobody was in the building. "Fucking ghosts.." Nika growled and holstered his pistol, when he walked back to the room he found the computer from, he immediately noticed the case not being there anymore- it was gone without any trace. "Are you fucking kidding me?- No.. No no no no!!" Nika rushed to the spot where the computer had been in before he even heard anything in the hallway, he crouched down to inspect the floor for any traces of the case being dragged away or footprints on the dust. Just as he noticed a footprint- a combat boot print- he got a hit to his head.

Nika opened his eyes after gaining consciousness again just to see a big blurry figure near the same window he had looked out from. He tried to move his arms but quickly noticed them being tied behind his back. The sniper's head was hurting and he could only hear his neck artery's pulse before everything cleared out and he could see the person's gear properly. The computer was right next to the person's right leg. "Ughh fuuck.." Nika sighed deeply and the person turned to look at the red sniper. "Guten Morgen." Hearing that got Nika to fire up, he was embarrassed and annoyed that a Reich member had sneaked up on him and stolen the computer from him. The person in heavy armor crouched in front of the sniper and kept his eyes on him. Nika tried to kick the crouched member of Reich but the member grabbed his ankle and with his other hand he held onto Nika's gas mask's filter. "I wouldn't do that, I'll throw your filter out of the window." With that threat, Nika calmed down and the heavy gunner let go of the sniper and his gear. "That computer is mine, I already reported my found to a comrade." Nika became smug and cocky with his sentence but the gunner's voice didn't change. The enemy gunner then grabbed Nika's radiophone from it's holder, he looked at it for few seconds until pulling out a revolver. "Then you'll report that you lost it." The gunner straightened his arm with the device and placed his thumb onto the button on the side while also pointing his revolver against the sniper's jaw. "Fuck you, they already sent a trooper to my location." Nika hissed while looking straight into the gunner's eyes through the black tinted gas mask goggles.

"You think I didn't hear your conversation? I know about the trooper but he could be anywhere now. Report it.." The revolver clicked and Nika got nervous, the enemy was right on that point. "..Fine." Nika's defeated voice got the heavy gunner to chuckle with a dark tone in his voice, the gunner pressed the button on the radiophone and waited for the sniper to report the loss of the computer. "Voronin? I found a computer with good parts but I think I jumped the gun too early- the most viable parts are covered in shit underneath and unusable." Nika spoke into the radiophone while giving the enemy a bad look. The heavy gunner's eyes told the sniper that he was enjoying the moment, he had won the computer. "What? You found a computer?! You should've told that in the first place!- But it's not worth anything? Not any parts of it??" Voronin's surprised voice turned serious by the end of his sentence. "Yeah, I found one but didn't carefully check what was in it. Only the plastic case is in good shape. So, nope, don't get wet down there."

"Oh good, So come back down before you run out of filters. I didn't send anyone because; 1. People are too busy at the moment, and 2. I have no idea where you are- My guesses lead nowhere." After that the gunner took Nika's device and got up to place it onto one of the office cubicle tables. "Well, nobody's looking for you.. I might as well take advantage of this situation." The gunner spoke to himself and the sniper got more nervous, he wasn't worried of the backup but more worried about his filters. "The fuck you mean?! Untie me and fight me!" Nika had a plan but it was depending on the enemy, he saw the gunner pick up his sniper rifle and throw it over his shoulder then fixing the sling from it to his size. "I'll report to my mentors that I got a computer and a Red Sniper, I get a bonus and maybe something else- who knows." The gunner sounded arrogant before he turned back to the sniper. "Wh-what do you mean with that?" Nika's eyes rounded up as the gunner walked over to him with a bayonet knife. The gunner crouched down next to Nika, teared off the sniper's gas mask which got him to panic and cough, he couldn't breathe in the surface air which at first felt burning his lungs but then it turned into more of a slashing feeling in his chest. "You'll come with me, you carry the computer to Reich Station- act out and I'll make a hole into your abdomen that's the size of a serving tray." The gunner ignored the sniper's coughs and pushed the sniper onto his stomach, he quickly cut off the rope around the sniper's wrists and got up. Nika heard the gunner drop his gas mask which he quickly picked up and put on his face.

The gunner saw Nika looking at the doorway and shot one slug from his modified Saiga-12 shotgun onto the floor near the sniper's feet. The gunner stepped aside and kept his eyes on Nika, the red quickly got the idea that he was indeed supposed to act as a mule for the enemy and carry the computer for him. "I'm short on filters, you dumb fuck." Nika grumbled but hearing the sniper's insult got the gunner to walk closer to Nika and the sniper continued to back off. "Don't fucking hit me! I'll carry it for you then! But I won't be able to do it for long!" Nika looked at the wrist watch that he had on over his jacket's sleeve and then switched his filter, the gunner didn't move or say anything. After swapping the gas mask filter, Nika went to pick up the computer. He walked over to the gunner with the case and gave him a nasty glare, the gunner just giggled before using the stock of his Saiga-12 to get the sniper moving out of the room into the hallway. "Where am I supposed to go?!" Nika growled at the gunner who just poked the red's back with the shotgun's pipe "I'll tell you- just keep walking and be quiet."

Nika kept walking while carrying the computer, the gunner only told the sniper where to walk but nothing else- no questions or small talk. They walked away from the metro station entrance and Nika got unsure whether his filter was going to last- he had no idea where the Reich trooper would enter the underground. "You know, this is my last filter- When are we at your waypoint? If you got any??" Nika asked while walking near the edge of the cracked asphalt and the deep, polluted water ditch. The gunner didn't answer anything until they came across a shallow but wide waterhole that would be at least knee deep for them both. "Drop it and I'll drown you." The gunner threatened before pushing the sniper forward with force. Nika almost lost his balance and started fuming "Don't push me then?! Never learned how shit works? Push too much and-" but Nika's yell was interrupted with the gunner's growl "I know that guns shoot bullets the way you point the weapon and with it, you'll get people to obey. That's enough chemistry for me." Nika however laughed at the gunner "That's not chemistry, you fuck." Though the gunner went silent after that, he didn't hit or touch the sniper either. When getting to the other end of the waterhole Nika started having trouble breathing, he carefully placed the computer down onto the snowy ground and checked his watch- few minutes left until the filter was going to be ineffective of purifying any air. "Pick it up and let's go." Nika heard the gunner behind him and he was deciding whether to obey or attack the enemy and escape- the computer wasn't important in that situation anymore. "I need a filter swap soon." Nika looked at the gunner with a half scared expression and the gunner took a look around before saying "There's an outpost nearby- Our outpost but I'll have to tie you up again."

The sniper picked the computer up and kept walking, the gunner rushed after the sniper and when laying his hand on the sniper's shoulder, Nika stopped "I can carry this but after 15 minutes, I have to swap the filter." but he was lying to the enemy, Nika didn't want to go to one of Reich's surface outposts. He had been there once and in there he almost got killed by the interrogators. The sniper only had 6 minutes before he had to swap the filter. So they continued their walk until Nika was struggling to breathe, he still kept insisting the gunner that he was fine and that he had some minutes left. They finally arrived to a sewer entrance but it was too late for Nika and he collapsed onto the snow, dropping the computer to it's side. The sniper woke up after getting few breaths of air, his vision was once again shaky and tinted- he didn't have his gas mask on but someone held one over his face. At first Nika thought it was someone from the Red Station helping him get air with their air tank gas mask gear but once it all cleared up- it was the heavy gunner holding his gas mask over the sniper's face. In sudden panic, Nika pushed the gunner's arm away and dragged himself away from the enemy until his back hit a sewer tunnel's roundish wall. "Good, you're alive. You lied to me about the filter. Why?" The gunner kept holding his gas mask near his hip while Nika was looking at him with shocked expression on his face and pressing his back against the wall. "Where the fuck are we?!" Nika yelled at the gunner who just stood still. "I don't know yet, I just dragged you down here after you collapsed at the surface. At least here's some breatheable air although it smells bad." The gunner walked over to the sniper and offered his hand for help which the sniper at first hesitated to grab on but did it anyways after a second. "You don't know?! But you dragged me in here anyways?!" Nika continued panicking but for some reason he couldn't get his eyes off of the gunner's face.

"You almost died at the sewer entrance! Calm down, we'll find a way to the metro from here." the enemy placed his gas mask to hang from his utility belt and picked up the computer from the ground. Nika was confused on how the gunner was now calm and not hostile at all towards him but it beat carrying the computer with the grim reaper walking behind him anytime. They kept walking along the side of the sewer tunnel until a man made hole in the wall came across, the gravel walls were full of lurker holes- or that's what they looked like. "You're not.. You? The asshole I encountered in the office?" Nika ran in front of the gunner who then stopped walking and looked annoyed. Nika felt his chest tighten when looking at the gunner's face, the sharp eyes felt piercing and something about the abnormal skin color pattern was lowering his guard and freezing him onto his spot. "Want me to continue the tough guy act? Because I will if you don't step away." The gunner murmured and saw a smile rise on the sniper's face, it started to annoy the gunner more. "Ohh, please- Go hard on me." The sniper's voice got all flirty and he got kicked for it, the gunner didn't warn Nika before kicking him down and walking carefully over the sniper. Nika coughed up and held his abdomen before getting onto his knees. "S-sorry, I don't know what got into me." Nika coughed and saw the gunner walking away, he got up from the ground and ran to the enemy, he still kept checking out the enemy's face and gear. "I think you do but I'm not interested, I'm not even sorry for the kick."

"What's with your skin? Looks like someone splattered different tones on you-" but Nika got cut off by the gunner who was visibly now angered "Why don't you keep your questions to yourself?! I can still kill you!" Nika just lifted his hands up as a mark that he didn't want any harm towards his way. "So uhh, what's your name? I didn't really get that but now that we're this familiar- I'd lov-LIKE to know it." Nika awkwardly giggled and heard the gunner groan "What did I just say? Zip it.." Nika let his questions be for a little while until he got so impatient with them. "Not that I'd tell anyone- pleeaase, tell me! I'm curious, I'll go first; I'm Nika." the sniper laughed but the gunner stayed quiet while carrying the computer through the tunnel. The man made tunnel came to an end in a metro tunnel right before the tunnel had collapsed. Nika saw the gunner place the computer down next to a metro train cart that was half buried underneath the rubble. "Let's take a break, shall we?" Nika kept smiling at the enemy who sat down at the edge of the metro tunnel's elevated platform. "Fine, if your little legs can't go then let's sit down for a minute." The gunner rested his jaw on the palm of his hand, Nika sat down onto the metal rail right in front of the enemy and saw the other man look back at him with no interest in talking. "Your name? Pretty please? And I'm not tiny- by the way.." Nika smiled widely at the gunner who then looked away from him. "Conrad and yes, you're short like a gnome." The sniper stopped smiling and was getting insecure. "I'm average height, you on the other hand.. a giant." to which Nika finally heard Conrad giggle. "Admit it, you're just short." Conrad joked around but Nika just gave him a dirty smirk back "But I got something big going on anyways, so my height doesn't really matter." But he could only hear Conrad's unamused sigh.

"So- heh, I was wondering if you got anything in mind? Anything?" Nika's embarrassed voice got Conrad to stand up and point his revolver at the sniper. "Yeah, Pick up the computer and start walking." It surprised the red sniper but he did what his enemy told him to do. While walking in the tunnel Nika and Conrad started hearing something coming towards them- like a metro speeding through the tunnel. The sniper knew what it was and rushed to place the computer at the elevated platform that went alongside the tracks. "Hey! I didn't tell you to stop-" But Conrad was pulled to the side by Nika who- after pulling the gunner to the side- pinned him against the wall. A gust of wind blew past both men and the sound of a metro going through the tunnel echoed until a loud crash was heard. Both continued to look each other in the eyes until Conrad got uncomfortable and pushed the sniper away from his personal space. "What the hell was that?" Conrad looked towards where the crash sound was heard but Nika froze onto his spot. The gunner turned to look at the sniper's way and saw the computer spreaded all across the tunnel, like if someone had put explosives inside the case and blew it up- pieces everywhere. "Don't get mad-" Conrad heard the sniper's careful voice but it was the last straw for the gunner. "WHA-THE COMPUTER?!?! THE FU-URGHH.. You.." Nika felt the gunner's eyes burn a hole onto the back of his head. "I might've accidentally kicked it down.. My bad, heh-..shit.." The sniper couldn't believe his fuck up, the ghost of the past had ran over the computer- making everything the both men had been doing on the surface, a waste of time. All the things that could've been used to improve or repair technology in the metro- all of it, gone, destroyed.

"Well, heh- Now we can just continue our trip to the closest station, r-right?" Nika turned to look at Conrad with a sorry smile on his face but it didn't soften the gunner at all. "You'll be growing mushroom from your eye sockets and mouth if you don't start running.." Nika heard Conrad growling, the gunner tossed Nika's sniper rifle to the red sniper who barely caught it. "Hehheh- Let's not get hostile here, there's no reason to-" But all Nika could hear was a shotgun shot which made it clear that the reich gunner wasn't joking. The red sniper started running away from Conrad, through the tunnel until he couldn't see or hear the gunner. Nika tapped his chest for his radiophone but soon realized that it was in the office where he met Conrad and found the now obliterated computer. He had to navigate through the tunnels all by himself with a fear of the reich gunner finding him and blasting his head off with his shotgun.