THE OUTLAND

5

— Bitch Hyde! I yelled, pulling off my headset. 

Outside the windows, dawn was already painting the dull gray buildings of our department with a soft pink color. I was left alone in the office again, the last one again. Or the first, depending on how you look.

From the accompanying screen, the bastard general Hyde was grinning at me, frozen. Embracing my fighters by the shoulders, enjoying their unconditional trust. And the credits slid up across the black field. Somewhere I screwed up, somewhere I missed something. According to persistent rumors on the net, the third episode of "Search" could be completed by returning to the base. True, the lucky ones who received this particular ending stubbornly kept silent, posting only the final shots with burning installations and a bottomless muzzle looking between the eyes of the protagonist.

Solid terra incognita. The stubborn silence of the lucky ones gave rise to a second wave of rumors - they say, they will have to pay not with a minted coin, but with the lives of Fey and Froze. I would not like to believe in it, but "Search" was in demand among the audience because it was distinguished by extreme cruelty to the player, intolerance for mistakes.

Okay, I'm not just playing with toys here. Sighing, I called up the reporting program monitor on the accompanying screen. 

“Maybe if we dig in the swamp right away… No, it’s not worth it.

Sighing, I reluctantly turned off the console and poured myself another coffee. Template cap, blah blah blah, to the head of the department, Mashko Eduard, report on the mastered project. From the wall above the screen, a comrade decommissioned from the Moor Red Army soldier looked at me sternly, poking a finger in my soul with a demand to monitor hydration.

- Yes, I drink, I drink.

The coffee was crappy, sublimated from crap that coffee had never been. But it contained electrolytes, trace elements and other nonsense, which is now almost legally regulated. In any case, for the employees of the states - for sure.

In the free space, unuploaded shots of the gameplay went in a long line - almost a chronology of an unlived life. Almost a story about what could happen if one day ... But we didn’t find other worlds, we didn’t really fly into space, we didn’t even really master our own planet, as it turned out.

We were more interested in the fantasies of our neighbors, it is not for nothing that philosophers say out loud that every person is the Universe. And every second person is a voyeur to the core. And so we live - some pass through themselves the invisible, unrealizable and unreal, while others live this more willingly than the abomination outside the window. It’s beautiful there, it’s interesting there, you’re really happy there, because there are those who will cover their backs, there are those who make your heart skip a beat and take your breath away, the world is simple and understandable, and you will inevitably get your interesting story ... Even if you are above five times abused in the process.

After two sips of ersatz coffee, the dream receded, and I cracked the keys much more cheerfully. Addictive gameplay, believable characters — chuckling, I glanced at the printout of Froze's red face hanging on Edik's door. The missing obvious villain, except for the plot twist at the end. We are at war with a certain Conquista, but why and for what? In every war, it is always known that we are fighting enemies - each with the face of Hitler and Mussolini. But for what? No answer. What could the highly developed natives of the Search not share with the savages from the Conquista? What for? How? Unknown. In the first two episodes of the game, there are no answers to these questions, in the third one there is a solid action movie, and the fourth ...

Episode 4 is yet to come.

The door slammed quietly, and the room was immediately noisy and cheerful - of course, our early bird, who else?

- Hello, Rob! - Edik shouted from the threshold, jumped up to me, patted me on the shoulder, drank from a cup, looked at the pictures skeptically - and all this in one smooth movement.

An odious, almost unforgettable personality, Mashko Eduard Semyonovich, or, as he himself insisted at the first meeting, Edik, occupied the entire available area, spoke only and exclusively in raised tones and preferred to spread rumors about himself, extremely happy with every new one. For example, about the fact that he used to serve in a completely different department - the one where you find yourself completely on the other side of the machine. Perhaps he even shot at people - the devil knows. But these are rumors, there is no documentary evidence. And to be interested in Edik himself - there are no fools. About the fact that Edik himself had previously developed something - otherwise why would he have been taken here, and even for the role of boss? Edik this, Edik that. In addition, this electric broom also occupied the post of my direct supervision, which did not add any joy at all.

- How is life? Red eyes, did you sit all night again?

- No, I cried. I snapped. “I still need to write a report.

— By "Search"? Eddie nodded approvingly. - A business! Almost the best toy of the latest synthetic. If I like what I read, I'll have a beer, deal?

He winked at me and rushed off to his office - I think, again to dissect antediluvian toys for the official video channel, which, with the light hand of Edik, became his own a long time ago.

- Mashko-natashko. I muttered as I struggled back to my report.

- I hear everything! A chuckle came from outside the door. - We work, blacks, the sun is still high!

Edik was choleric, explosive, big and noisy. And, like any other choleric person, it gave me a headache. It would be better to be like Froze, whom he admires so much - calm, collected ... I remembered how Froze tried to tear off Faye's head. It seems that I did not really understand my fighters for the three episodes of "Search".

Okay, it's all lyrics. It doesn't make any sense. As in this report, anyway, the game has already been released on all available media many years ago, it is not necessary to rank it, and it makes no sense to ban it - everyone who is interested has long passed everything. But no matter what the soldier does, if only he hesitates, we smile and crack the keys.

Approximate playtime - about a hundred hours without taking into account the fourth episode, adult scenes are available (violence, erotica, adult slang).

— Ohohonyushki, and why the monitor itself can not track the game and generate a report?

— Nifiga yourself Skolkovo with a nanobolt! Edik responded briskly. Who do you think will get paid? Monitor? In the form of extra screens? And how will he drink beer for the report?

- Okay, I understood everything, realized and repented.

- Until I see the report, don’t even think about launching the prefix!

- And it was not in my thoughts. I glanced at the direct dial modem slumbering in the corner. His time has not yet come, but soon, very soon...