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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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Looking back at the dark station, at the end of which a heavy bas-relief depicting Lenin was attached, he began to rise. Unlike the others, he went not along the central, but along the left escalator.Pustovalov quickly caught up with Kharitonov, who was lagging noticeably behind, and now they were climbing up the neighboring escalators. The giant looked up at Katya, but hearing a thin peep on Pustovalov's watch, he turned his head.What will they do to you when they catch you?- What are you talking about, buddy?Kharitonov spat, starting to fall behind Pustovalov.- You have an interesting watch - it goes backwards.Pustovalov chuckled.“I think I understand why no one can stand you.Kharitonov wheezed, trying to laugh and suppress his shortness of breath at the same time.The next second, a sharp whistle made them turn their heads.A fat man was descending down the third escalator, to whom the guys whistled and shouted, but the fat man ignored them. He looked unusual: a gleaming ba
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Pustovalov was the first to run down the escalator, but was soon overtaken by an Asian. Dasha ran after her, followed by Kharitonov, stomping deafeningly and threatening to break through the escalator. Victor ran after Dasha, and Romik and Katya ran along the nearby escalator.- Aaaaaaaaa!!! - It sounded furiously from above. Someone up there with superhuman strength scattered fences.Katya squealed in fear somewhere behind the left under the clatter of feet.The Asian was the first to jump out at the station, and disappeared under the arch. Pustovalov ran out next, noticing that the Adidas bag had disappeared, as well as the padlock on the metal door. The Asiatic has already overcome half of the hall, and sped off up the stairs of the transition to Rimskaya.Pustovalov ran on, passed the nearest pylon and hid behind the next one. Kharitonov, who overtook Dasha, followed him. Both were breathing heavily. Pustovalov wrinkled his forehead, peering around the corner. In the center of the
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- Terrorists?“Well, ISIS or something like that.- And what can be captured on Ilyich Square?- How do I know! I'm just saying we don't know everything.Kharitonov again caught up with Pustovalov.Are you sure we are on the right track?– Do we have a choice?- I'll go back. Katya stated.- Are you joking? Roman was surprised.“What makes you think they need us?”“This is a shock,” Victor “explained”.- It's not a shock! Do you think they're sitting there waiting for us? They have some business there. We just got caught in a hot hand.- You squealed all over the subway!“What, you want to go back to those monkeys?” Kharitonov turned to her.- The monkey is you!“So, back in the carriage, I was right about you?”- Yes, you went!Victor quickened his pace, caught up with Pustovalov, who was quickly moving away from everyone, who took out a Simon Coll chocolate umbrella from his backpack and began to unwrap the wrapper.- Listen, on the "Ploshchad Ilyich", in that room, what did you see
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Pustovalov crossed the tracks, climbed onto the platform from the tunnel side, peered through the grated door into the opposite portal, the only place that bothered him. However, he understood that it was foolish to set up an ambush there.Pulling up the strap of his backpack, he tucked the Walther into his belt, then climbed over the railing and climbed onto the platform. Silently stepping, he reached the first opening. Looked into the hall. On the marble column opposite, a bright blue sticker pointed with an arrow "exit to the city." It was from there that music and a mechanical rumble rushed, which, as Pustovalov now understood, was emitted by a working escalator.Leaning his back against the wide end of the wall, he began to shift to the left, gradually opening up a view. Silver-crystal, like corkscrews, lamps of the main hall and a row of pylons appeared before my eyes. A double staircase led from the center of the hall into the space above the opposite paths. The deserted hall e
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“There is nothing upstairs. Nothing that you so aspire to - all this simply does not exist anymore. But you exist and you are not alone. And the sooner you understand this and stop resisting, the better for you.Pustovalov bit his lips, as he always did when deep in thought.At that moment, the front escalators turned on. This time all three and all downhill. And immediately in front of them grew the rays of lanterns - judging by the power of the light fluxes - professional ones. Someone was already running up the escalators.Turn around without dropping your hands. – Quietly said Pustovalov.The fat man turned to the escalators with a fixed smile. The wind from the tunnel blew his dirty hair.Pustovalov inaudibly stepped back. Opposite the transition to the Taganskaya, he clung to the column, not taking his eyes off the fat man.He stood motionless with his hands raised under the dome of light of the only chandelier that worked in the hall.Pustovalov looked into the passage - the st
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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
- UNDERGROUND
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
- UNDERGROUND
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
