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2024-10-29 19:42:56
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OUTCAST 1
I do it sometimes. I'm crazy, what do you think? - may be. Not often, but sometimes I want to - and I do it. If you turn everything off and turn nothing on. I mean turn everything off. And then there is silence and darkness. At first, it's stressful. I can’t believe that, really, nothing will now burst through some sense organs into your brain. You need to sit in this for a couple of minutes to believe, to make sure that in fact absolutely nothing is seen or heard, nothing touches you, does not impose itself and does not take your attention.The clock is turned off and it is impossible to understand how long the buzz of emptiness lasts. But it feels like it's short. Then the fear begins. No need to be afraid, you need to continue to sit and listen to yourself. The fierce horror from the emptiness grows quickly and suddenly it already seems that something is about to burst from animal fear. From that momentary joy of freedom nothing remains, nothing frightens as much as nothing. It doe
OUTCAST 2
Realizing that the program would now be buggy for about five minutes, I was distracted by the news bulletin on the air. An hour ago, Argun fighter aircraft took off from the airfields in Urga and Morabon. Despite the expectation of a strike, 30 "hawks" caught the Horde by surprise. They suppressed part of the air defense, lost 5 vehicles and retreated to the east, meeting the Horde fighters, who raised the alarm and flew to rescue Kaulnin. After 30 minutes, 10 heavy bombers approached Kaulnin, at the same time strategic silo-based complexes reached the target. The air defense of the Horde shot down 2 complexes out of 4. The surviving 2 hit the power plant and the communications center, cutting down the light below and, accordingly, communications. 5 bomb carriers plowed the airfield, turning the runways, all ground buildings, planes and helicopters standing on the ground into a mess. Another five bombers marched west of the city on the location of the 22nd division, covering Kaulnin,
OUTCAST 3
Do you think he was able to pass 20 wagons like that? - could. From the third car, he simply stopped distinguishing people in front of him - he walked, as if pushing through thickets or swam through some kind of viscous muck. This was not invented in any computer shooter. Three soldiers who were with him this march, having left the last car, collapsed exhausted into the mud. Ratmir came across a wooden pallet and lay down on it. An electric locomotive whistled ahead, Ratmir waved his hand, and 600 lucky evacuees slowly crawled eastward in a cheerful string of lights. Their savior got up from the pieces of wood to meet the next echelon, surprised that for some reason his lower jaw and eyes were tired the most. He didn't feel his arms or legs at all.Yesterday, almost simultaneously with the air raid on Kaulnin, the Argunians went on the offensive with their ground units, surprisingly and shamefully easily, using the surprise factor, crushing the Horde troops covering the border. The Ur
OUTCAST 4
I have several rules for playing the stock market.First, I am a classic conservative player. So I play slowly and carefully. Of course, those who do not take risks do not drink champagne, but I do not like champagne either. I saw risky guys - they very quickly switch to vodka, and then disappear, leaving debts and suicidal remarks in the chat.Second, my personal. I don't play the stock market where I do something else.Therefore, I am now immediately looking for something to play away from the Apollo Z system, although there are now jumping rates because of the war, like announced ones, and you can earn money. There's a reason I'm not going into Zera's system right now.First, I looked at the interest rates on time deposits. The dictatorship in system X Harpies on the 7th planet gets government loans at 5(!)%. It's a well-known fact, this is not good, the budget there, most likely, will collapse soon, their business smells like a revolution, a civil war or the collapse of the empire
OUTCAST 5
She and her friends were sitting, as usual, at the reception, the three of us at a wide table that stood on the stairs on the landing between the floors. Along a wide corridor, emerging from a painted green door, walking along a gray carpeted path, people sometimes approached them. They walked for 10 meters along a windowless passage, lit by a soft, matte gray light from long lamps in the ceiling and walls, in silence. Most were focused and businesslike, some were solemn or even pretentious. Most hid their anxiety, or maybe didn't feel it, and looked rather casual, as if nothing extraordinary was happening, as if what was happening was just a small everyday necessity. It's like going to the bath or something...Approaching the table, trying not to look the girls in the eyes, the guests showed their tickets. The girls smiled sweetly and said where to go next - to the upper or lower floor. Most walked down the stairs and there they disappeared into the brown doors. At those doors stood
OUTCAST 6
Above to remember a woman, for example, that conductor ... He scrupulously restored her eyes, knees, ankles, palms before his eyes. Slowly I walked my memory along my back, along the bed of a hollow along my spine. In the groin it became heavy, nervous electrical discharges moved from the lower back to the pubis. And then Ratmir remembered - right behind her coccyx she has a hole. No, not “that one”, but between it and the falcon there is a small hole. Ratmir was stuck on this memory - the gray morning light from the compartment window cast clear shadows, and the hole was visible like a small crater on the moon - clear, with sharp outlines.Did he think this morning that he would remember this hole before he died? Ratmir felt his shoulders trembling at this thought, and his lips stretched out in hard-to-control laughter. The fear is gone. The captain knew that now his eyes were shining bravely and cheerfully, and his face had acquired the cheerful confidence of a predatory beast, and
OUTCAST 7
Sent to the news agency marked URGENT!:“The 5th battalion of the international brigade, with the forces of one company of tanks and infantry, occupies Lindach at these hours. According to the battalion commander Erich Kloss, who personally heads the operation, the capture of the city passed without losses. The resistance of the militants is broken. More details from our correspondent in Lindach soon.” And I attached a video and photo to a text file.Then I went into the program, where a satellite panorama of Vastu was given, went down to the streets of Lindach, looking around what was where. On the outskirts along Awakening Street, they dug a trench and dragged corpses there. In the western part of the city, something burned and smoked. Tanks spread across the main squares. The infantry combed the houses, herding someone in crowds to the trenches, and someone to the central square.“In the western part of Lindach, the militants put up desperate resistance to the soldiers of Kloss, bu
OUTCAST 8
In retaliation, plasma and mortars again hit the 9-storey buildings of Ratmir and the sports center in short bursts ... So the day passed. By evening, Ratmir popped into the reception of the sports center to see what was happening with the wounded. 11 guys were lying on mattresses, under droppers. Another five “heavy” ones were loaded onto the bases from PAKs under tents, preparing to be sent to the rear, to the regimental doctors. Ratmir helped to drag a fighter laid on a tent onto the platform. At the moment when the tent was being pulled up, the anesthesia slipped off the guy and he began to moan, looking around frantically. Then he realized that he no longer had legs ... His paws were crushed by a stove in a collapsed apartment, where a tank hit in the afternoon. Doctors, doing everything right, amputated both limbs to the hips. Now this guy looked into the eyes of Ratmir - the first one he saw. The captain felt like he was about to lose consciousness at that look. There, in these
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Epilogue
We were again alone on the same sidewalk of a narrow street in a seaside town. Indistinct music was heard from the cafes along the coast, and there was a wall of cypresses and tall yellow grass all around. We ended up at that point and second at which we parted many, many lives ago, in that August, when the local sea is the hottest, and the nights are warm, like fresh milk, and the smell of flowers is dense, like a wall.It was us, but not us. She had visibly matured, it was no longer the same young girl with electric sparks in her black eyes. Wrinkles, bitterness and memories of many years and destinies were written on her face. I, too, felt like an old doll taken out of the closet, faded and dusty.- I love you, I've been looking for you all these years, I could not calm down, I've been looking for you century after century - in all galaxies. I can't live without you, I traded everything for this moment to bring you back. I can't be happy without you, let me come back to you.I spok
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85
“The diamond coffin that Seth lured Osiris into was cheaper than this box,” Daniel Fogg touched the luminous blue case of the medical capsule and freezer in one bottle with his finger.- Do you feel sorry for the money? Powell asked, solemn as before a prayer, in a strict black suit, with a neatly trimmed gray beard, standing at the control panel of this wonderful machine, a unique apparatus, his brainchild.- Too big risks. It has never been tested on humans, and immediately on such a patient. And the donor is doubtful.- She was checked from all sides, she fits exactly.- I'm not talking about medical indications. Psychologically, you may not be ready. The fact that she went through an initiation through Death does not mean that she will go through Love as well. Without verification, it is dangerous to immediately put into action.- Wagner passed, and they are from the same test.- OK let's see. Such stakes, and it all depends on one girl.- She loves him. Here, she’s already coming
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84
Turntables, ripping up the blue summer sky with smoky jets of NURSs, plowed a section of the track in an open area near the edge. Having gained a little height, they went to the circle, so that in a minute they would return and hit again. Ratmir with officers and guards in three jeeps noticed two black circles approaching from behind the clouds in time, turned off the asphalt into the forest, hiding under the crowns of trees. This saved them from the first blow. But the pilots of the Antean pair of fire support helicopters had already seen these three machines and bit the bit, imbued with hunting excitement. Their rumble over the forest began to grow again, now they will beat at random, covering the green sea under them, they will feel below with thermal imagers and metal detectors, look out with their eyes, reflections of the painted sides of the car or, maybe, dust from under the wheels. Abandoning the cars, the Ramirs scattered and a loose flock of saigas ran deep into the thicket,
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83
He sat smiling in his chair, looking around the cleanly tidied white with a matte tint interior of his ship, silvery walls, plasma with elegant Polina (he came up with a new outfit for her, having downloaded it from a fashion site). She said with her pleasant timbre that the flight was proceeding normally, five more days to the destination. For two weeks of the flight, I was in high spirits. It turned out that in such a state it was even more difficult to endure the flight and forced inaction in a confined space without communication with the outside world than if you were flying in melancholy and sadness.Sanya played chess as best he could, but this, of course, could not distract from worries about a future trip through time and, possibly, a meeting with Chernaya. Changing musical tracks, I turned in my hands a carved medieval golden key on a leather cord, looked at cast patterns on it and intricate hieroglyphs. I remembered day after day, evening after evening, moment after moment,
- OUTCAST
82
Volos and Lilith rarely slept together that month. Although we finally managed to rent a normal, or rather, luxurious apartment in the City of Manowaha, everyone had too much work, traveling, and very rarely crossed paths for an hour or two. Today they decided to give themselves a holiday, postponing this Saturday evening all business until Monday morning, warning everyone they can not to be pulled even in the event of the Third Coming.They dined on a balcony overlooking the huge diamond of Manowach sparkling with fire, the black night sky, the leaden ocean behind the purple colors of the embankments, the moths of airplanes in the sky and ships in the ocean, enjoying the comfort of a home furnished in the latest fashion. Lilith was in seventh heaven from everything that happened to her during this month. After a poor childhood and student life, after space flights on cheap transport vehicles, after tents in Choban, medical wards in Alam and the stone jungle of Oralon... She found her
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81
Maat was flying in a glass-case-like mini-metro that connected the Bahdi spaceport to the Belau lake and oasis, located in an uncontaminated area. A hundred kilometers, sparkling like a bunch of candies in gold pieces, the train rushed by in 40 minutes, allowing soldiers, officers and civilian personnel of the base of intergalactic peacekeepers to leave the garrison in the evening or on weekends and relax near the water in the shade of palm trees, without protective equipment. Three new hotel buildings, restaurants, sports and massage parlors - everything was built to the glory, as in the best resorts in the universe.In the month and a half that the military settled here, the Bahdi Cosmodrome turned into a considerable city. About 100,000 inhabitants of Parta came here after finding work or humanitarian aid. For them, several neighborhoods of temporary housing were also rapidly erected. And these were not dull rows of tents and wagons to the horizon. Everything that Wallos and his fe
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80
- Where are you stuck? - severely met my appearance from behind a closet in the old Wolverine hotel, she got bored, sitting on a shabby sofa, watching TV news about the death of the Bounty.- Dropped by Wagner, he had an exam.- Passed? Masa asked quietly, becoming more serious.- Passed. Satisfied?- Of course. I believed in him. The Love Exam is difficult, for example, you are not ready for it. Bounty, over there, was not ready either. This chocolate loved only himself. From people he needed only their boundless love for him and admiration. He does not care that for this, he had to turn people into cattle. Don't laugh - I love people. For real. I do what they will hate me for, what they will kick me out and curse me for, everything that people need to be people and grow.What makes you think they need it? There is an easy way to find out. What people are willing to pay for is what they really need. Everything that is not in demand is just a wishlist. Your games of freedom are not in
- OUTCAST
79
Gilats looked at Thomson, and saw Wagner hanging in a noose in the bathroom, his tongue hanging out, his face blue and his eyes bulging. He recalled how they sent him a video, how they removed the guy from the rope, put him on the bed in the hotel, saying that there were no signs of violence. Sources gave him the info, how it really happened. And Gilats, looking at the powerful hands of the general, imagined how this strong man in an expensive suit dragged the frail body of the boy along the floor, as he held it, while his fighters put on a rope.Now, looking into the square face of the CEO of Galaxy Sec, the co-chairman of the State Construction Commission with an effort made an indifferent and even benevolent look:- At least you know what kind of hematogen Powell is preparing there instead of Bounty?- He calls his project "Twix". I only know software. He wants to combine fiery software shells with what is left of the New Testament and cover from above with a united circuit with co
- OUTCAST
78
A month after the nuclear war on the Great Continent, the situation began to more or less clear up. In Bormunt, a small town on the left bank of the Ramira, which became the capital of the self-proclaimed Anarchist Republic, covering all the uninfected territories of eastern Lavender, from the Gray Mountains in the west to the Swamps in the east, from the river in the north to the sands in the south, in total - a square of 500x500 km. , the Council of Commanders gathered to discuss the situation and plans.The Republic was governed by direct Internet democracy - all residents (indigenous and refugees), about a million people, had their own profile in the Republican Network and the right to vote on any issue of governing the country, without representatives. The code of laws was adopted by such a general vote for five years, without the possibility of change during this period. The Network Moderator, civilian ministers and territorial leaders were elected for a year without the possibi
