2022-07-15 05:53:22
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UNDERGROUND 176
In recent days and especially hours, the unhealthy tension around Katya has grown like a snowball. The main source of tension came from Mirzakarim Viktorovich, who was preparing to storm the last peak of the “new world” hierarchy and, for obvious reasons, was drawing Katya into this.He constantly spoke about the “new world” - allegorically, with the help of metaphors and allusions, as if talking about abstract topics, but, nevertheless, it became clear that the “new world” would not be limited to staying in the U-4 shelter. And even more so it will not unfold on the fragments of the former world. They are waiting for completely different conditions, a completely different social structure, and new orders, for some reason based on the old principles of slavery. Such a new "special way". But it is impossible otherwise, said Mirzakarim Viktorovich, the conditions in which we find ourselves are sensitive to human weaknesses like a virus, and we simply cannot afford to coddle with vices,
UNDERGROUND 177
Katya's heart was beating wildly. Intoxicating excitement surged through her, she threw off her clothes, began to quickly put on the disgusting doll dress, listening to what was happening in the living room.The poisonous speeches of Mirzakarim Viktorovich mixed with the bearish growl of Kharitonov. Bears can be cunning, thought Katya, hastily pulling on her dress and answering her own question - yes, yes, her father told her stories about such bears in her childhood. To get a barrel of honey, they know how to be cunning and know how to pour honey into their ears.Kharitonov had already shipped all the boxes and was clearly playing for time before Mirzakarim Viktorovich, continuing the unspoken ritual of worship. Mirzakarim Viktorovich loved such rituals and was in no hurry to expel Kharitonov, but for too long he did not return to the yellow lane, where his subordinates were waiting. All joked, humiliated, weighed out compliments, covered with sweat.Only when Katya appeared in a new
UNDERGROUND 178
Suddenly, very close by, Victor heard:- Yes, pi..dets there, a complete set! Keys, duplicates, radio!- What to report? - There was a second voice.- Yes, it's time to take a bitch. Tell Palych not to let go anywhere yet.Victor panicked, circling in the dark, clenching and unclenching his fists. I wanted to cry in despair. It seemed to him that everything was too complicated, that he was trapped and that now all that was left was to throw himself at the feet of some unknown boss and beg him for mercy, realizing in the depths of his soul that all this was useless. I remembered yesterday's meeting with Pustovalov, how confident and calm he was. How cleverly he would get out of here.But in the ears stood "It's time to take a bitch" and the squeal of a chainsaw, tearing out a heartbreaking scream along with bloodied flesh.Victor put his ear to the door and stood for such a long time, listening. He waited for absolute silence, but somewhere a quiet monotonous unfamiliar sound was heard
UNDERGROUND 179
For four days the dog had not bothered Boris, although once in a dream, he still heard a hoarse and annoyingly ringing bark, but he did not see the dog itself. He returned home and told his wife that the business trip was over, after which he went to the shower, but did not reach the bathroom - he sat down on the sofa and passed out for twenty hours. I woke up in absolute cosmic silence, which happens only early in the morning, had breakfast, watching the adventures of a plasticine man on TV in the kitchen.Then he got up, looked out the window and realized that his former life was over: he would never see the general again, nor Makarov, nor Yakov, and the saddest thing - he would not see Dasha Afanasyev either. He only hoped that the dog would not torment him about this.The next day, the old boss, Lieutenant Colonel Kolmogorov, called and said that on Wednesday he should come to work. The business trip was really over, the captain's rank was returned to him.Boris went with his fami
UNDERGROUND 180
“The main problem is that everyone underestimates her,” Uncle Yegor said, buttering a piece of baguette, “even when you directly tell them that disguise increases the likelihood of surviving in battle by sixty percent, they still don’t take it seriously. It flies past the ears.Uncle Yegor scooped up a spoonful of red caviar and bent over the table, looking at Boris.The one who understands its true meaning wins. He continued even more quietly. - In twenty-five years, I have met only two cadets who realized that it was impossible to disguise an armored personnel carrier in three minutes. Only these two got their fair fives. No, of course, I gave fives to those who did not deserve them, otherwise I would have been sent to the reserve ahead of time. But only these two. Only these two deserved it. I even remember their names.– What did they do? One of the boys asked.Uncle Yegor smiled phlegmatically.- And to this, son, you must come yourself, otherwise ... Do you want to be a good mil
UNDERGROUND 181
Boris went to a two-story old house, on which hung a sign with a dog. On the narrow porch at the door stood two large guards in suits.- Me there. Boris said.- Do you have an invitation?- Which?The guard silently pointed to a small poster by the door. Boris read:"Sunday. The end of the world with the blue dog! Only for the chosen ones. The bar is closed to visitors.- They are waiting for me! - Boris got angry and moved to the guard. He pushed him away, so that Boris almost fell off the porch onto the sidewalk.- I'm from the police. - Boris said, regretting that he could no longer name a more influential department. However, he remembered that he also did not have an investigative committee certificate with him.The door of the bar opened, and a strong, muscular Caucasian man stepped out. A t-shirt draped over ribbed pecs and under an unbuttoned leather jacket bore slanted letters: UFC.Boris felt the heavy scent of men's eau de toilette and some spices.- What's going on here? -
UNDERGROUND 182
In the cosmically vast corridor, the two figures seemed so tiny that I wanted to reach out, grab them and put them in my pocket. Sharp eyesight allowed them to look after them for a long time, until they were swallowed up by an alarming haze. He gave them everything he could - weapons, knowledge, his own experience and something else that they did not know about - like that couple thirty years ago. And still it was very little. But alas, their time had come, and there was nothing he could do about it. Perhaps he would have come up with something more reliable if he knew that the pendulum of fortune had begun to swing in the opposite direction, but he was only a man.At the moment when Pustovalov was saying goodbye to Dasha and Viktor, seventy-three floors above in a spacious room, the former investigator of the military prosecutor's office of the Baltic garrison, Krutilov, who was acting deputy head of the security service for operational work in U-4, got up from his chair. He went up
UNDERGROUND 183
Having launched the most important organizational mechanism, Krutilov approached Igor Nikolaevich, who, seeing the first results, was about to leave the premises.– Igor Nikolayevich, I don’t see Savitsky here.He reports directly to management.“I know, but he usually attends security meetings…”- AND?“If Maurice comes back today…Igor Nikolaevich shook his head.- Such information is not subject to dissemination."Even with what's going on?"Igor Nikolaevich was very tall and in his student years he was a member of the junior basketball team of the city of Bologna. Therefore, he had to lean towards Krutilov so that only he could hear the answer.- Listen, Krutilov, I have already said: this situation is not capable of harming the system. This means that the rules regarding key issues must be strictly observed.“But I can act on my own assumptions?”“Nothing inside is capable of harming the system. I think my answer is clear to you. To complete the task, do whatever you think is nec
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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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
