"They're just girls," Pats mused more to himself than to his colleague.
"The hours of briefing, the training and testing and this is it?" Vlad scoffed. They had just departed the small single engine plane that took them to this remote West Russian village. It was Vlad's first time setting foot on Russian soil. His 'motherland,' his father had always guffawed. A place of limitless horizons and endless sorrow. Vlad knew little of the place beyond what central intelligence had told him in his briefings. His father was always tight lipped about their families heritage, especially when a teenage Vladimir had awkwardly asked what Russian girls were like.

They trudged across the mush of tundra like slogging through a bowl of oatmeal. The dirt smeared faces of the girls began to emerge shyly from behind the doors, curtains and barn sides from where they watched the helicopter land.
Their dresses were simple. Cute patterns and soft colors. They seemed to have been sheared short revealing the girls' milky thighs and strangely well developed breasts. They kept their faces down, coy and wary of these strangers, but their eyes stayed trained on the men. They walked blithely among the sticky ground and stopped a few metres short of them.

Pats overcame his confusion to speak, "We've been getting a lot of messages..."
"You from vest?" one of the girls asked breathily. She didn't seem to care what Pats was about to say. Vlad and Pats hesitated.
"Yes." The girls' bosoms visibly swelled as they crossed one leg over the other to move in closer to them.
"vut your name, big boy?" Her words emerged like gravel over a silk sheet.
"Vladimir." His hand moved to guard his gun as the girls floating hands circled and neared him.
It was as if he had just vanished. That name was poison to them. Every pair of eyes turned to Pats and their hands navigated nearer him.
"You big vestern man, no?" Pats looked to the girls and to Vlad, confused and overwhelmed.

The training became so clear. One of us, one of them. There's no way two western men would have made it out of this village.
"We've been getting a lot of messages. Too many." Their hands were upon Pats, he was struggling to concentrate. "Our servers are overheating," The girls giggled at the possible sexual nature of Pat's innocent comment. They were beginning to touch each other. "And it's being considered a cyber attack..." Pats fell to his knees.

"Pats! No!" The girls were upon him. He was out of Vlad's view. He tore through the silky smooth crowd of girls to where he last saw Pats. "Pats! Sound off!"
Nothing.
"I'm coming Pats!" Vlad couldn't see anything more than torn clothing and white skin covered in a fine film of dirt in every direction. The throng of girls began to part from around him. Vlad drew his pistol and inspected the scene. The girls all had their backs to him, walking away to their dillapidated homes. No sign of Pats.

In a rage, Vlad ran to the nearest building and turned over everything. The careful eyes of the girls watching him as he went in and out every door until he found the basement. Vlad threw back the storm doors and stepped into the damp cellar. His cheek brushed a dangling light switch and he tugged on it immediately.
The room seemed to go on forever and at every 10 feet was a western man, bound and gagged to a chair. Tables with a single rose in front of each of them, some helplessly watching romantic comedies, an empty chair right next to them; on a never-ending date.

Vlad whirled to get to the plane and call it in. It was too late. The girls were at the door and judging by their expressions, there was no room for a Russian in their town.