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UNDERGROUND 116
- Well, if security, then yes. May he pass the test! The guy is not a spy. Not a spy, are you? Hehe. We already need workers, and here is a guy with experience and technical education. Automation is on our agenda. And the man took care of it.- He is a student.“Malyok, so all the staff will run away from us,” Palych gently scolded his subordinate and, addressing Victor directly, asked:– Do you understand that this is a restricted facility?- Access Control System?Palych waved:- Not only. The identifying module is secret. But, okay, this is my headache.- But the controller is the same.- The control unit is common, but the proxy and accesses are different, - Palych sighed, - there is a lot of work, but okay, the “malek” setting will be done. You will most likely be installing the system, there is your own hemorrhoids. Can you do it?- If there is equipment, we will dock.- Good.***Dasha and Katya got into the same freight elevator with two old women and some incredibly fat woman
UNDERGROUND 117
Dasha squealed, watching how the horse's face of Sister Feofaniya's face wrinkled in an attempt to outshout her, how it twisted in pain under the onslaught of the auditory cannon, and how, finally, retreating, it merges with the rest of the dullness. Dasha stopped screaming and lay down on the bed. If everyone is insane, why shouldn't she be insane too? Katya lay head to her on the next bed.“Let's stick together,” she said.“You were right,” Dasha said softly, looking at the glass wall – up there, some important people in dressing gowns walked along the thin iron bridge and looked down at them. Like a delegation on a livestock farm.- What are the rights?We died and went to hell.Dasha noticed that one of the members of the delegation - a stout, short man in a suit that looked like a dictatorial jacket or a Japanese kimono - stopped and, clutching the railing, looked straight at her through the dirty glass.Looking closer, Dasha realized that he was looking not at her, but a little
UNDERGROUND 118
- Today, no one left this floor, but in the evening my grandfather left, who settled yesterday. His room was paid for a week. Only ... - the guy smiled mysteriously, - he is unlikely to be the one you need. He is ninety-eight years old. He is a real war veteran. I saw the ID when he took out the passport.- Where is his number?Victoria took them down the corridor to the door at the very end, Boris noted that the room, and therefore the windows in it, were located on the other side.Grandfather's room looked less stocked. The large double bed was made, but the bedspread and pillow were wrinkled. Otherwise, perfect order reigned, as if no one lived in the room, and even more so "grandfather". There was only a cheap suitcase on wheels at the head of the bed. Vindman lifted it easily by the handle, threw it on the bed, and opened it.- Empty. Jacob commented.“Not really,” Boris lifted the check from the bottom of the suitcase and read, “travel suitcase, five nine hundred and ninety, bou
UNDERGROUND 119
Gargantua rang at exactly six o'clock. Boris has already calmed down, realizing that if the old man spent his efforts on a performance with a camera, then he also needs this meeting. They were sitting in a hotel room when some mournful tune played on the phone. Despite his complacency, Boris felt excited when he heard her. Grabbing the phone, he managed to notice the text "number not defined" before answering.“Listen carefully,” the clear voice of that old, long-forgotten Soviet teacher, who had sunk into oblivion during his father’s service, spoke up. The voice of a kind but strict teacher. The voice of a man capable of mercilessly, if necessary, killing the enemy, as he did in the war. Boris did not know how this was possible, but now he believed that he really was ninety-eight years old. Listening to this voice, as if from another era, from an old Soviet movie, Boris had some kind of latent respect for its owner. A person of such age, such skills, who at the same time retained his
UNDERGROUND 120
Vanyusha's station was not so far away - he traveled only forty minutes by train, although it was difficult to call it a station. More like a stopping point with one platform. In contrast to the Moscow region, the local suburban neighborhoods were distinguished by a very sparse development, consisting mainly of dilapidated wooden houses with rickety fences, standing alone in the middle of a field like Mongolian yurts, exposing the majestic immensity, but at the same time still sparsely populated Russia.On a snow-covered platform, located in the middle of the field, surrounded by small copses, Boris was all alone. After walking around the platform for several minutes, stamping his feet for warmth, and constantly looking at the phone, he felt that he was rapidly freezing.In the distance, the beam of the buffer lamp of an electric train flashed. Cutting through the night snow dust, the electric train swam up to the platform in a long arc. Vindman waited patiently, standing at the head
UNDERGROUND 121
Walked fast. The platform was already six hundred meters behind. Looking around, he now saw only its end edge, brightly lit by a lantern, and remembered that he had forgotten to look at the name.Boris was already wandering with the last of his strength, stumbling, swaying from side to side, and one day without noticing it, he headed down from the embankment into some kind of ravine and came to his senses only when he stumbled and fell. He stopped keeping track of time, on flat areas, sometimes decently moved away from the railway. Several times I stumbled over sleepers covered with snow. It seemed to him that he was sleeping, and he heard someone sigh with a wheeze, but this time he knew who was making this sound.Amidst the cacophony of the night, the monotonous signal soon began to predominate. Three tense short beeps, repeated at regular intervals of approximately one second. To Boris, this sound was like Morse code. With every second, the sound became clearer, it became clear tha
UNDERGROUND 122
“So… so…” Boris heard his own voice. He sounded muffled and as if from the outside.A questioning expression appeared on the old man's face.“Blue… so… tank,” Boris stammered.The old man slowly turned to the cartoon Cocker Spaniel painted on the wall behind him and nodded.“It used to be a kids pool,” he said in a clear voice, “then a car wash, and now a place for healing.“Is… healing?”- For healing.Boris shook his head and said, not without difficulty:“Where is the other dog?” Boston... Boston Terrier...The old man raised his eyebrows."I didn't seem to hit you hard."“Cold…” said Boris.The old man did not react to this in any way, only took a steaming mug from the table and inaudibly took a sip. Yes, this is definitely not a kind grandfather. The rich smell of cones hit my nose. He must have brewed them somehow.The old man, meanwhile, turned up the volume on the TV, and a young honey voice accompanied by an orchestra with a song about April showers and May flowers filled the
UNDERGROUND 123
“They will all be driven out soon,” said the old man, and Pustovalov noticed blue circles under his eyes and a sickly gleam in his eyes.Indeed, he is the only one still lying. Trying to move smoothly, Pustovalov got up. Contrary to expectations, the head did not hurt at all. There were rag sneakers under the bed, but before putting them on, Pustovalov looked intently at the old man.We talked yesterday, didn't we?- Quite right.Don't get me wrong, but...“Here…” the old man deliberately interrupted him loudly and continued more quietly, “sometimes you have strange dreams. Perhaps more often than they dream of in ordinary life.- Yeah. - Pustovalov said and immediately repeated again. - Yeah. So dreams?The old man casually approached him.- Well, maybe not quite dreams, but not quite what we call reality. In any case, it is better to avoid talking about such topics.- Why?They attract the unhealthy attention of superiors.– Why is it bad?- By itself, nothing. But it puts everyone
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Epilogue
From the panoramic window, Victor can see the San Francisco Bay, but the waters no longer impress him. He still can't get used to the Golden Gate, but the views are much duller in his research center. Somewhere out there, beyond the countryside, he discovered Sunnyvale Pond. This place reminded him of the Moscow region at all. However, this is rather a minus, Victor is too young to be nostalgic for his homeland.Out of habit, everything comes surprisingly easily to him. A psychologist friend said that there was nothing extraordinary in his phenomenon, he just pulled out a lucky lottery ticket called "beautiful parents." Victor won an international competition, and while still a student, he got a job at the Ames Research Center, and on Sunday he met the daughter of emigrants from Lithuania who work in Los Angeles. Dimon without exaggeration would put "ten". Victor never gave grades to girls. Dimon knows that Victor was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and tries to reach for him. Vi
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209
An old photograph, hitting the slimy walls, slowly spinning like an autumn leaf, slowly falls into a deep well. The well is so deep and bottomless that the round hole at the top has long turned into a bright dot, and is about to completely disappear. And the photo keeps falling and falling. It depicts three boys, three of them are twenty-nine years old. One of them, dark-haired, with curly hair, stands in the middle, hugging his friends. It is slightly lower and seems to hang slightly on their shoulders. All three are smiling. The photo is old, you can see it not only in the crumpled corners, scratches and faded palette, but also in stretched sweaters and old-fashioned shirts with rolled up sleeves.The photo keeps spinning and spinning, and in one of the turns, the image on it changes. Now there are only two boys. They also hug each other and look into the camera with smiles, but the black-haired man standing between them is no longer there. It's like it never happened. Maybe it's a
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208
The old man, Makarov, rushed after him, and only after them did the special forces pour out.Still running up, Boris saw a square hole in the center of the site - not at all like what he saw on the day of his last visit to the plant. Perfectly smooth, carved into cubes that were stacked near the tractor. Next to them lay a completely black device, which he saw in the photographs sent by the Special Metals Research Institute.Boris was the first to run up to the edge of the hole.Below, he saw what he had seen before - the shaft of the mine, only at the bottom of the bowl there was now a well. There was absolute bedlam going on: corpses, blood, weapons, overturned chairs, pieces of collapsed stairs and galleries. He did not immediately notice living people, but when he saw a figure crawling away from the wall, he immediately recognized it, although he had never seen it alive.- Daria! he shouted. - Daria Afanasyeva!The girl raised her head.Makarov, running up, heard Vindman's scream,
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207
Before saying goodbye to life, Dasha managed to become a witness to strange events that replaced each other with kaleidoscopic speed. First, something flew from above right in the center and with a disgusting thud plopped behind the makeshift spectator box. Dasha could not see anything in such a short time, but for some reason she was sure that this was a human body. More terrible than the blow itself were the frightened cries.And here is how a deaf-mute worker jumped from the upper gallery, and with inhuman speed slipped somewhere into the darkness, she saw very well.Just then, a strange movement began. On the right, something overturned with a crash, and someone very frightened shouted something in an incomprehensible language. Apparently it was a command, because right there from the depths of the hall there was a coordinated stomp of feet.Dasha saw four of the six burner paws, above her, the other two were located on either side of her head. From above, the bright light of hang
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206
Only one person directly looked at her - a stern, gloomy old man from the gallery on the second floor. She had seen him before, I think in the ninth block - an ordinary mute worker with the right of free movement. He seemed to her out of his mind, but in his current “hawkish” look there was some kind of repulsive meaningfulness, without a hint not only of compassion, but even of curbed hatred. He looked at her just like a log, dissatisfied with the fact that the log was too thin and would not give the required warmth. There was no life in that look, only cold. This is how a dead man who managed to challenge life itself would look.However, all this, even the dumb old man, she saw fragmentarily, as in a painful dream, and then completely disappeared, only the darkness above her head remained - real or in her imagination. She stopped hearing conversations, footsteps, and the creak of the wheels of the gurney; only dull pops were heard in her head, reminiscent of explosions of a gas-air
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205
- Stole?Boris nodded, pointing to the picture.- On the day of the visit to Novikov, Colonel Basurov, a well-connected former member of the procurement commission of the Ministry of Defense, was with Pustovalov. Most likely, he played the role of an intermediary. He went missing that day. Since Pustovalov himself is a ghost and it is impossible to track his movements, we tracked Basurov's movements before he disappeared in the warehouse. And through him they came across a certain Dementiev. We interrogated him. Dementiev is a professional safecracker, it was he who helped Pustovalov steal the installation. He also said that there were two installations. That is, one working sample, and a spare case without filling - in fact, a dummy. But it looks like the real one. He confirmed that Pustovalov was going to sell the unit to Yasin after learning that he was behind her order on the black market. In addition to Basurov, another person went missing that day, previously in contact with Pus
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204
The car ran into a minibus lying on its side, Boris opened the door, leaned half out of the passenger compartment, exposing his haggard face to the frosty wind. There was a false peace here. Distant screams and shots were drowned out by unobtrusive music, but this tiny lane adjoining Frunzenskaya Embankment bore little resemblance to the island of former life. Rather, the coldness of the future blew from him - the very one that none of them would ever find. Desolation oozed from the planed poplars gathering darkness, from the mangled cars sprinkled with snow, forever left after yesterday's accident, from under the architraves of the shifted "stalinok", from the black windows of the buildings deprived of power supply.Boris looked at the piece of paper with the address and saw how it was distorted by a five-centimeter wall, carved from a dark space ice floe. With a crackling, cascading arc, the wall passed through Windman and, outlining the front facade of a two-story Chinese restauran
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203
He appeared on the bridge in a couple of minutes. Maurice, who was sitting under the window of a high tower, calmly rose and aimed his rifle at him:- One, two, three, and well, freeze! - He said cheerfully.Pustovalov obeyed and, without raising his head, said:“Using your man as bait?” Clever.“You used yours to get out too, didn’t you?”Pustovalov raised his head. Maurice saw through the eyepieces of the night vision device that Pustovalov was without night vision devices and knew that he only saw the outline of a dark silhouette in the window.- Komsomolskaya, - Maurice nodded with a smile, - now I understand why Daniker began to be so lucky before his death.- You're confusing me with someone else. I happened to be there.“Just a subway passenger?”- Exactly.Maurice burst out laughing and at that moment Pustovalov disappeared. He quickly figured out that he just jumped through a hole in the bridge.Still laughing, Maurice jumped lightly onto the bridge and called out:"You're br
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202
Coming up to him, Maurice found a crumpled fireman's heat-reflecting suit and smiled. We must pay tribute, although Maurice was not upset at all. He could have guessed right away that the trick with heat guns only made sense if you were already inside. It didn't matter now. Maurice knew that infrared sensors would not be a problem for him, like everything else that they had already prepared. He knew that the one they were waiting for would go very far, perhaps even manage to reach the very end. Of course, to the end, to which he is allowed to reach. That's why Maurice was here. And Maurice was rather upset if the one they were waiting for deceived his expectations.After walking a few more meters, Maurice saw a shining helmet with a visor-mirror in the bushes, and his smile grew wider. No, as long as he did not deceive his expectations.***Having reached the northern section of the bypass route, Kruchina quieted down and took a step. Moving along the trodden path, he soon came to two
