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UNDERGROUND 14
Dasha is a thin, petite twenty-three-year-old girl with a charming face that radiates cold beauty and eyes the color of ice. These are not lenses, as many people think. Her eyes are really so light that they seem like a pair of ice floes. The same color can be seen under the feet of the frozen Lake Peipsi. Dasha never smiles. All Dasha's acquaintances know about this, but few people know that this is not true. As an adult, Dasha smiled three times, and three different people happened to witness it. Two of them were young men of seventeen and twenty-nine. Both at the same moment fell in love with Dasha. The third witness of her smile was the forty-two-year-old photographer Bernard Bertin, who at that moment lowered the camera, tilted his head to one side and silently watched until his assistant called him twice.It is not known why this girl smiled so rarely, but when she did, the cold beauty seemed to begin to melt, transforming into something so divine that the tongue did not dare to
UNDERGROUND 15
Kharitonov was hot. And tight. With a mighty hand, he scratched his chest under the shirt with buttons torn off after the fight and yawned loudly. Small bearish eyes on a huge head stared blindly into the dirty glass, behind which the whitened Kalinin Square shone. In the light of the lanterns, a drifting snow rushed along the empty paths and benches.It was uncomfortable for him to sit - like a real bear, he constantly tossed and turned on a round chair, made a lot of sounds - rustled clothes, moved neighboring trays with his elbows, yawned at the top of his voice. Kharitonov was drunk.From behind appeared a strong mustachioed man.– Vano, it was only light.In his hands the man held a tray with two glasses of beer, a sandwich and a bucket of Basket-25 for company.Kharitonov frowned at the tray, pursed his lips, pressing them to his nose like an elephant. Exhaled. Then he took a glass, sipped about a third.“Grey, why the hell did you drag me here?So everything is closed right now
UNDERGROUND 16
- I'm his girlfriend, what can not be seen if we are at the same table ?!Kharitonov again hit the guy on the table. Not so crushing this time.“If you intervene again, I’ll hammer until everything instead of sauce is splashed with brains.” - Kharitonov turned a menacing face to the guy. - Well, who is she to you?- One thing ... a group, - the guy said, releasing bloody saliva.- She says a friend, and you are a classmate ... Not a girl, then?The guy shook his head.“I see, now tell me why she,” Kharitonov pointed at the ugly girl with his finger, “is standing up for you.”The guy was silent. Everyone was silent.Kharitonov pulled out a plastic fork from a plate of lettuce splattered with blood and broke it off with his big, sausage-sized finger. The remaining pointed handle was clenched in a powerful fist, the fist was placed on the bloody stain on the table.Did you get the hint?The guy nodded.Why is she standing up for you?The guy looked at the ugly girl.“She… she likes me.T
UNDERGROUND 17
“You won’t make it in time,” the taxi driver said maliciously.Getting out of the car, Victor imagined how many industrial zones, wastelands, dirty roadsides, fences, garage backyards and urine-smelling nooks and crannies he would have to overcome if he really didn’t have time.00:58 on the taxi driver's clock changed to 00:59.Victor slammed the door and ran into a deserted passage - towards drafts and snowy fogs.He resisted with all his might. Wrestled with circumstances and the pathological bad luck of today, with deadly fatigue and damp cold, with the painful light of new energy-saving lamps that burn five times longer and seven times brighter than before. With a heavy rumble, blocking the roar of engines and a scattering of tram ringing. With emptiness, concealing corners and niches of doors recessed into the walls. With filthy columns, behind which shaped shadows fluctuated, dull reflections sliding along the walls, and with clouds of snow monsters, imposingly descending the st
UNDERGROUND 18
inevitable predestination.Victor reread the phrase in a square with an arrow pointing three cells to the right. How simple. It is strange that the person who solved almost the entire scanword did not write this word in three cells. Moreover, in the middle there was already an “o”, formed by an intersection with a four-letter word, conceived as “a precious stone and a male nuisance”.Victor chuckled, crossed his legs and again began to look at the girl. Maybe the Wi-Fi was up, or maybe she was just looking at the pictures, but her beautiful, focused face again shone with the pale light of the display.Unexpectedly, the aesthetic contemplation of almost absolute harmony was broken by a bow-legged bearish figure. The bear-man appeared in Victor's field of vision, and blocked all the space in front of his eyes, including, of course, the girl.The man grabbed the handrail with his paws, and with the dexterity of an animal, sat down next to the girl. Apparently it was some kind of instinct
UNDERGROUND 19
The faces looked back questioningly. Pustovalov gently pushed the dark-haired girl aside, went up to the door and, with an unexpectedly confident movement, as if he had been doing this all his life, tore off the seal and pulled the fastening lug of the door leaf towards him. There was a soft hiss. Pustovalov put his hand through the crack in the door and with energetic jerks pushed the door leaf to the left.The gorilla wrinkled its sloping forehead.At that very moment, the light went out, and everyone felt what pitch darkness meant at a depth of fifty meters.The light soon came on, but now it burned dimly, as if it lacked power.Pustovalov peered into the tunnel, smelling a thick smell of dust, creosote and metal shavings. To the right was total darkness. On the left it was a little brighter, although Pustovalov thought that the headlights should burn brighter.The girl with the crocodile followed his actions with the same shamelessly childish gaze.– What is there? she asked.Pust
UNDERGROUND 20
- Who? - Asked the brunette.The guy shrugged.What about in the other cars?“I saw someone next door. There seemed to be a person there.“I think there was a bum sleeping there.”- If the train does go, it will not be very soon.- Some garbage and the phone does not work. Does everyone have it?- It does not work for me.- The network does not catch.Listening to conversations in the dark, Pustovalov climbed into the control cabin, lit the floor with a flashlight. There was no subject. A pack of Winstons had also shifted and now lay against the far wall - apparently the "goal" scattered everything around when he stared at his display, but did not notice the most necessary thing.Pushing back his chair, he began to carefully examine the floor and soon found what he was looking for. The trihedral key lay under the control unit near the partition. Pustovalov picked it up, inserted it into the well, and opened the inner door.- Come here! - He said to the shadows in the car.- Praise the
UNDERGROUND 21
Well, thought Pustovalov - the same fragments of the same nightmare. How quickly people approach in a closed space.“For some reason, I just feel like I should have gone back.”"So why didn't you go?" Pustovalov asked.- I'm not used to breaking away from the team. Also, I'm afraid of the dark.- And if everything is closed there, they might not let us out? Katya asked, turning her head to Pustovalov.- They can. - said Pustovalov and looked at Kharitonov. “But there are those among us who will not be deterred.When the bright square of the station appeared far ahead and the path went uphill, Pustovalov shouted to Victor to turn off the lantern.- From whom are we burning? Romik asked conspiratorially.- Did you buy this lamp in the store?Victor switched off the flashlight.What about phones too?- Yes.Kharitonov stopped, letting the others through.- Is that why you came back? he asked from the darkness when Pustovalov caught up with him.– What are you talking about?“You are not
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- UNDERGROUND
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,
- UNDERGROUND
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
