[b]Outside Kinshasha[/b]

Upon the low slopping incline of the slopping hills outside of Kinshasha was the bed of jungle forest. Though trimmed, and not wild. Cut and parted by wide avenues the landscape of the outer-most edge of the Congolese capital was home to a sprawling network of estates and compounds. The broad sprawling residences that composed the Congolese metropolis hearkened back to the seventies, and the plastered walls and facades of the villas bespoke of an old well-do fruitiness with the bright colors and equally rosy tiled roofs. Leafy palms grew up above the cement walls that enclosed the buildings beyond from the cracking cement or knotted dusty, clay avenues.

Birds chirped and squawked from all around as a single lone white travel broke the lazy peace of the mid-afternoon. Much of the Mont Ngafula commune had been abandoned for economic reasons through the 20th and on into the next century, as a stark foreboding reminder of the Congo's decline during Mobutu's later reign. Between then and the surge in private security contractors in the years before nuclear war, Ngaula was the home of squatters. But now in the post-war it was the realm of the most affluent higher-ups – those who did not choose to live at the city's heart - and the GSA's distant head.

Coming to a stop, the lone white traveler stopped at the entrance of a gated compound. Guards behind the compounds black wrought-iron gate stood to attention at the arrival of the quest. They saluted the man as he came forward.

“Captain Spskorzky.” saluted one, his caramel skin was beaded with afternoon sweat and even under the beaked brim of his cap he squinted through the harsh African sun to see the officer standing just outside.

“Brothers.” Spskorzky answered, coming to lean on the gate's irons. The heat of the sun-baked iron throbbed dully through his uniform as he looked between the two men. “I have an appointment.” he added. His accent was thick, but mutated to the region. A thick powerful Russian tone dominated the very base of his voice, but there was a soft curvature of the words inflictive of French, and even a sort of Yankee casualness. Parted from his homeland and his mother tongue had sapped the original strength of his accent until it had become washed out.

“We were told, but to be honest we never expected you'd come in the middle of the afternoon.” the caramel-skinned guard responded. Taking the keys from his belt he went about unlocking the gate, “Zubata has been waiting.” he added with a tired voice as he opened the gate.

“Thank you.” Spskorzky nodded with a smile, “Anything I should know about today before I go in?”

“Paston's here.” the other guard said. A black native. His unbothered composure suggested he wasn't nearly as drawn out over the heat as his comrade.

“Fucking hell.” the captain swore.

“I thought the same,” the black guard commented, “it's in neither of our position though to ask why he's here. So we can't tell you anything but he's here.”

“It's probably for the best.” Spskorzky admitted, trudging up the long central path to Zubata's private Congolese villa.

The building itself was tall and imposing. Two stories tall with the faint suggestion of a half-attic above, the compound looked to be trying to make it to be as much a palace as what was allotted to it on its miniature parcel of land. And in contrast to the otherwise flat-faced structures that stood so much lower around it, the facade of the house made a more distant, grabbing claim to a more idealized, romantic image of Europe.

White trimmed window framing with decoratively keystone arches lay contrasted against a vibrant cerulean blue plastered face. Pillars reached up to the overhanging roof, meeting it with knotted and inwardly rolled fisted knots of flowers and vines. Perched atop the low tiled ceiling tropical songbirds watched the approaching captain. They stayed for as long as they felt safe, before flying for the cover of palm fronds or the boughs of fruit trees that so made the colonial front yard.

What would have been the ire to the regime that made this district, this house most triumphantly paid homage to the French riviera than to Africa itself. It would have been the last thing to have been seen by Mobutu or his mid-ranking cronies. And most important: it was a complete building.

The rich tropical wood door was a frame to thick tinted glass. In the dark sheen of the glass panes the walls, garden, and street behind was cast in a ghostly reflection. And Spskorzky in the same. The captain was not a man of faint sickly demeanor, he was a man corn-fed and experienced; and it was shown in his face. Vibrant blue eyes shining from underneath a heavy, powerful brow. His face squared, and crowned in short springy blonde hairs.

Pressing his lips thing as he sighed reluctantly, he reached out and knocked on the door. The sound of his knuckles raped heavily on the thick door and he waited. It was a moment before it opened. A man from the Mahgreb in the far north stood in the open door dressed in a suit from the turn of the century. “Asaalaam alaiqum.” he greeted in a faint voice, he was an older man with heavily wrinkled sandy and sun-scorched skin.

“Good afternoon.” Spskorsky greeted, “Zubata is expecting me.”

The Berber nodded, stepping aside. “Master Zubata is in his upstairs study.” he said with a low bow. Spskorsky stepped into the affluent marble foyer. Inside the bowing butler's suit jacket he caught sight of the handgun holstered within.

The air inside was cool, churned by fans running in the ceiling. The home relied on open windows and moving air to relieve the discomfort of the tropical heat that dominated the country through all seasons.

“Let m-” began the butler.

“There's no need, I know my way.” Spskorsky interrupted knowingly, “I'm sorry, but I know you might have more important things to do.”

The butler nodded, giving the captain a relieved and repressed smile. “As you say.” he replied, disappearing through a door off to the side as Spskorsky began the climb up the stairs opposite the door.

The carpet and wood groaned as he climbed. It had not been the first time he had been in Zubata's home, and it wasn't the first briefing he received in his study. The journey through the halls of the home was one of knowing as he passed through a cavern lit by the rarity of dimly flickering electricity, of floral wallpaper, and portraits and photographs of the world before the war. Of men in jeeps, hunting lions and cities clad in the glimmering silver of progress against a backdrop of the Savannah. Scenes of the south, scenes of Zubata's homeland.

But he was not wholly foreign, the Zulu of his native ancestry was not far removed from the Kongo. In learning the language, the songs, and becoming respected as the commander of the GSA it was enough that this African foreign national could pass as a man of authority. Although not universally, his political gymnastics could do the rest, Spskorsky was as much a tool of this as the man's hand and voice, and he had no trouble with doing so.

His mind briefly danced to the thoughts of which jungle tribe, or urban leader he and his unit would be dispatched to visit as he opened the tall doors of reckoning that was the entrance way to the upstairs study. He felt the soft breath of additional fans meet his face as he stepped inside.

Zubata he immediately found, he stood at the window, looking out into the afternoon light as the sun laid across him a robe of golden afternoon glow. Even in the regal, warming glow of the sun the commander was looking old. The process of years of command was quiet truly an impatient agent, pulling Zubata through the years faster than a man should be allowed. Still, he retained the imposing strength of a military officer, shoulder back and spine straight. He gave a stiff look to the side as the officer entered.

Paston however was a much more difficult creature to spot. But he reclined in a cushioned chair just behind a small reading table. Spskorsky had never seen the man's face, and now was not the moment he would. The ghost of a man sat wearing an ivory mask that hid his entire face from view, safe for two holes cut for eyes. The American doctor's gaze was quick to seal itself on Spskorsky, measuring him from toe to head with his dark reading eyes.

“Sir.” the captain called, snapping to attention and saluting both men, sitting or standing.

“At ease.” Zubata demanded, and the captain relaxed, “I have a request.” the XO added, turning from the window.

“Me and my men are ready for anything.”

“As they are needed. I'll put it to the point: we got a beast that needs to be put down. One threatening the far eastern communities we serve. It's already killed three villages, and is coming to threaten hundreds along the shores of Lake Kivu.

“I know it's been just two weeks since you and your unit has had to kill a Ufiti last, but we got a new one.”

“Why us, sir?” Spskorsky asked in confusion, he felt honestly bewildered that after a similar job, they would be called to another the same. He felt his heart shrink that it wasn't some uppity tribal militia to shake down, disarm, and disband, “Why not Coran's unit?”

“Mathiew Coran is hardly the best man, nor does he have the best men for this sort of job.” Zubata retorted with a dry snort, “Someday they may be, but after reviewing the specifics of this case and being briefed myself I am of the opinion he'd be too easily swept aside by this particular Ufiti.”

He turned to Paston, “Can you explain the situation? You're the expert on this.”

The doctor gave a curt nod from the comfort of his borrowed seat. He rose on his cane and looked up to Spskorsky with his faceless eyes. “The information I have received on this suggests this isn't some normal jungle ape mutant that shambled out of the trees.” he said, his voice muffled and softened from behind his plastic, white mask, “This is a big one, a bigger specimen.”

Paston hobbled from around the desk on his cane. His entire body was covered, either with suit or with gloves; in the case of his hands. “We're looking at a specimen one and a half to two times the weight of a normal Ufiti, that you might be used to hunting. Its got almost unnatural strength, we can assume. And it's not just simply accidentally attacked a village, but has been going after several.

“That last concern is what has us worried, soldier. This fucker's thinking. Or it's learned. And it's got the cognitive ability to fucking plan this out we believe. It's repeatedly attacked settlements, and from the data we've collected it's got enough planning fortitude to fucking do it at night, when everyone's sleeping; including animals.

“This isn't some wide-mouthed ape that happened upon a cattle herder with his cattle or goats at day, or a farmer or his help in the field. It's found out where lunch lies. And you know as well as us that these bastards do not stop eating.”

He drummed his cane against the floor as he paced, “It's been elected we need the best to put it down, and you're the best. Know that?”

“Yes sir.” Spskorsky responded.

“Terrific. So with your ego fortified we need that beast put down. But then I – not we – want it back here. In one piece, and not decayed.”

Spskorsky answered Paston's requested with a snorting laugh, “Impossible.” he said with disbelief, “They always rot before you can move the body somewhere. And I doubt anyone has a freezer to hold one.”

“Well I got a theory and did some experiments on tissue samples.” Paston grumbled. He shot Spskorsky an annoyed look, “And I think butter's the currently viable matter. Somehow I think there's some metabolic or bacterial process native to the Ufiti that drives this mechanism, and could be the answer to the question of why they eat. But the later is the question for me to answer. What I want you and your men to worry about is getting the corpse of this specimen into the butter.”

“We'll be providing the truck with the butter.” Zubata said, though as he may have wanted to sound confident in the plan, he could not help but sound distraught and annoyed with the plan; as if told a bad joke that he was the butt of, “Along with the normal transport and covering the typical costs of this mission.

“The monster is stalking the area of Lake Kivu. You'll deploy to what's left of the city of Goma and establish your communications center there, keep a link with us in the west here, and organize tracking and isolated this beast around the lake. All resources are open to you, and all methods. But we're not dealing with militia insurgents, so you're not allowed to be violent.”

“The communities basing themselves around Kivu now are those that settled the region to replace those originally killed when the lake underwent a limnic eruption, soldier.” Paston said in a lecturing tone, “The nuclear war in the north created enough geologic instability as Russia and swathes of Europe were torn apart, and even a few bombs fell scattered across Africa that the water was forced to overturn and release its carbon-dioxide and methane stores. Millions died there, Spskorsky and the people who live there now are our internal migrants and the external migrants that tried to seek sanity when they came to us from the north.

“They're not native, and I doubt they don't want to feel like they're not wanted there.”

“I understand.” Spskorsky acknowledged, “Hearts and minds.” he nodded, repeating the old cliché.

“Fantastic.” Zubata smiled, “I want you and your men on the road as soon as possible. Report it to them, and move out. Re-establish communications in Goma as soon as you arrive and connect with the local operations there and confirm your arrival. Then begin your hunt.

“Good luck soldier, and God bless.”