Chapter 6 - On Thin Ice

The pod hissed open with a burst of vapour as England's consciousness returned in fragments. Reality assembled itself in disjointed pieces. The cold air stung at his exposed flesh as the harsh glare of lights strung along in dandelion clock shapes that seemed both familiar and wrong. His enhanced physiology fought against the lingering cold, every nerve firing in a cascade that made the world pulse and swim at the edges. The weight of his own body feeling simultaneously leaden and disconnected. He stumbled out, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. As he breathed, the room seemed to breathe with him, expanding and contracting with each blink. Through the haze, a figure solidified several feet away: Moore. But she looked wrong, like a photograph that had been subtly altered. His combat-trained mind tried to catalogue the changes but they kept slipping away from him. Dark brown hair falling loose instead of the raven-coloured French braid, warm-toned skin where there should be pallor, and modern makeup framing her soulless eye. Each detail refused to settle into place, making her seem increasingly unreal.

"You!" 

The rage felt real enough. His hand found her throat, lifting her off the ground with enhanced strength that seemed to belong to another person. Up close, the changes in her appearance became even more dream-like. When she opened her mouth slightly, light glinted off metal fangs where natural ones should have been. The wrongness of it sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the cold. Movement flickered at the edge of his vision - a figure in tactical gear that looked like it belonged in one of those science fiction magazines he'd sometimes glimpsed before the war. Before the war? How long ago was that really? The masked figure, labelled "SPECTRE" according to their shoulder patch, reached for their weapon but Moore raised a hand. Even as she dangled from England's grip, she remained perfectly composed.

"Stand down, Major," Moore calmly ordered through her strained throat.

England slammed her against the wall, "You...betrayed...me!"

The masked figure held position at Moore's signal, their stillness unnaturally perfect as if they were a living suit of armour. Moore's new appearance swam before England's eyes - evidence of time's passage that his mind refused to fully process.

"Did I?" Moore's words seemed to echo slightly despite the room's acoustics, "You're still... alive, aren't you?"

The weight of those words knocked something loose in his mind. His hand opened reflexively, dropping her. She landed with impossible grace and adjusted her coat, the fabric of which looked too wrong. Those metal fangs caught the light again as she spoke and for a moment, he wasn't sure if he was awake or still frozen in that pod, dreaming of a future that couldn't possibly be real.

"I didn't betray you, Major. I saved you," Moore spoke calmly, "You're far too valuable to lose to the sands of time, let alone to the side-effects of your procedure."

England's muscles trembled with suppressed violence, the sensation both immediate and strangely distant. His own body felt like an ill-fitting uniform, present but not quite right.

"Side effects? I feel the same way I did before I was your lab rat," Did he though? England had no way of knowing what he'd felt before when 'before' was so far away it might as well be fiction?

"Psychologically speaking, yes. I am aware of your shell-shock, or post-traumatic stress as they call it these days," Moore's modern appearance shifted in and out of focus as she spoke, like a fog attempting to clear. 

"What do you mean 'these days'? How long was I out for?" England's voice sounded hollow in his ears, as if coming from the bottom of a well.

"Roughly eighty-four years." Moore replied with casual precision.

The room seemed to tilt sideways. England's enhanced reflexes kept him standing but his mind reeled at Moore's revelation. Eighty-four years? The number refused to make sense, sliding away from comprehension like water through his fingers. His world was a fog and this revelation was like a gust of wind that did nothing but stir it.

"Is that what I am now?" The words felt disconnected from England's mouth as he asked Moore about his current status, "Just a weapon you can pull out of storage and point at your enemies?"

"With respect, Major, I'm not the one you should be asking that," Moore's painted lips curved slightly as she pointed upward before moving her hand back down with efficiency, "Now, we can continue wasting time arguing about this or we can get a move on."

"Get a move on?" A bitter chuckle echoed strangely in England's head, "To where? I don't even know where we are."

The click of Moore's heels against the concrete floor sent vibrations through his bones. Each step seemed to ripple through the air like stones dropped in still water. She moved to a console that glowed with impossible light, her fingers dancing across its surface in a way that made his eyes hurt.

Moore turned to face England, "Would you believe me if I told you the Ivans are causing trouble again?"

"What do you mean 'again'?" England growled, "There wasn't another Great War while I was gone, was there?"

"Hardly," Moore replied as she casually waved a hand with painted nails, "Only a few smaller conflicts similar to the revolts you helped put down after the first World War. Only, instead of revolutionaries, we're helping out one half of a country take out another half."

"So proxy wars, then?" England asked, his mind trying to pierce through the fog of confusion.

"Pretty much," Moore replied, "And yes, some of them did end in stalemates or straight-up losses. But we handed the Soviet Union their collective arse on a silver platter in Afghanistan, which led to its collapse in '91. So, the way I see it, it all worked out in the end."

England continued to glare at Moore, his anger a beacon through the fog, "If the Soviet Union's gone, how can the Russians be causing trouble?"

"It's a long story involving an election that one of the former Soviet territories were unhappy about," Moore casually explained, "Russia going to war with that state for a decade, successfully annexing a peninsula in the process, then launching a full-scale invasion about three years ago. Sure, there have been peace talks as of late but those talks were orchestrated by a Yank who thinks he's Alan bloody Sugar."

As Moore turned around to press a button, a wall panel slid open with a hiss that seemed to last too long. Inside, tactical gear hung alongside his uniform like shadows given form. England stared at it, trying to anchor himself in the fluid present but time continued to feel unreliable. His memories of combat gear from the war kept overlapping with these sleek, modern pieces, creating impossible hybrid images in his mind. The smell of the gear was different too. Not the oil and leather of his time but something more synthetic and alien.

"I would have given you something more for the times to go with your new toys," Moore said, those metal fangs catching the light in a way that made them seem to float independently of her face, "But these old threads have become iconic. All part of your legend."

England watched Spectre move forward, their motions too smooth and precise for a person, like watching a film played at slightly the wrong speed. The tactical gear and uniform was laid out with military precision, but even that familiar pattern felt wrong, distorted by decades he hadn't lived through. He reached out to touch the fabric, his fingers trembling, half-expecting it to vanish like a mirage.

"And what exactly am I suiting up for?" England asked as he tried to maintain the professional edge in his voice, though it still felt like someone else was speaking through him. Focus on the mission, he told himself. Focus on what's real. But what was real when one had slept through nearly a century?

Moore's smile didn't quite connect with her eyes, creating an unsettling disconnect in her expression, "I'll tell you when we go somewhere a little more private. But know this, Major, the world has changed but your purpose remains the same. We need you to help stabilize it, just like before."

The fog in England's mind seemed to thicken as the weight of his past and the unknown future pressed down on him. He nodded, though whether it was a gesture of acceptance or perhaps resignation, he did not know. As he prepared to step into this new world, he felt the old one blur into just a memory, faded by time and the haze of his mind.