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UNDERGROUND 37
“More like an abandoned bomb shelter.- There's a passage further.A narrow corridor led twenty meters. On both sides there were small rooms of the same type with different devices: diesel generators, pumps, control cabinets, fuel and oil tanks. All of them were in a non-working condition and rather neglected in appearance.At the end, the corridor closed in a semicircular stone hall, in the center, surrounded by a bend, there was an inclined concrete ledge under a metal hermetic door. The door had no handles, and, apparently, closed from the inside.- And here is the exit, - Victor said, lighting up the suddenly expanded space, - yes, there is a fitness center right here!Old, mostly broken-down machines lined the curved walls. Two steppers, one broken rower. Several benches for the press with pieces of foam sticking out from under the torn upholstery. In the corner were rusty barbell plates and a pair of ancient boxing gloves for his left hand. Everything was covered with a thick la
UNDERGROUND 38
Dasha watched as the athlete's veined hands deftly deal with bolts and locks. When all the crossbars fell into the grooves, the athlete passed the bracket of a weighty lock through the eye, closed it with a long key and turned around.Dasha prepared for the worst, but the athlete only smiled good-naturedly.- How do I them, huh?The little eyes shone with joy. Dasha decided that there was nothing to fear, but the athlete's partner puzzled her again.- Inga, you're great!Restraining herself so as not to show surprise, Dasha looked at Inga, but her eyes did not deceive - she was standing in front of a one hundred percent man: broad-shouldered, short-haired, with a square, tanned face. Dasha decided that she had simply misheard.The athlete, meanwhile, stopped looking at the girl.Did they harm you?The lively face changed, showing concern, but Dasha did not believe him for a second.- Rather, they received it themselves. - Katya answered gloomily.The athlete laughed cheerfully.- Well
UNDERGROUND 39
Katya was still washing her hair when Dasha had already finished taking a shower and sat down on the sofa near the shower room.The athlete's slender friend - her name was Alina, said that she would come for them in half an hour. There were still fifteen minutes left.Dasha sat with a towel wrapped around her head and thought about the men who had remained behind the iron door. Wonder what they're up to. They probably came up with a new plan and left. There is someone to come up with plans. Dasha has always been a restless nature. There were several things that worried her now. Firstly, she didn’t like this lesbian drugged up on steroids, secondly, she didn’t like her sickly smiling friend who treated her like a patient in a psychiatric hospital, thirdly, she didn’t like that they sort of got out of the subway, but sort of no. Actually, nothing has changed - it's cleaner here, but she is also forced to do what she doesn't want, she has no idea what's going on upstairs, and still doesn
UNDERGROUND 40
“We are closed from the outside,” Alina explained.- Did someone shut you down? Katya was worried.- Our employee. This is part of a procedure that we do every three months. Course of mental and physical self-purification. Exactly for three days, he requires a complete lack of communication with the outside world.- And if something happens - how to call an ambulance, for example?Alina shook her head.- It is much more likely to get the need for an ambulance up there, - the athlete explained, - and then, there is everything for first aid here.What if your employees forget about you? And they won't open? Katya did not calm down.The athlete shook the keys, and Dasha noticed that there were two long keys on the impressive bunch. Two, not one.“There is an emergency exit, as you know. True, not everyone wants to use it, but it is. Well, princess, have you changed your mind? Breakfast or subway tunnels?The athlete accompanied his question with such an infectious and good-natured smile
UNDERGROUND 41
- Does it help? Pustovalov asked. Twenty minutes ago he had adjusted the hinge of the Roman Chair and was now lying on an almost level bench with a bag of money tucked under his head. The legs, however, did not fit. Putting his hands on his stomach, Pustovalov calmly watched Kharitonov, who was clearly suffering from physical pain.Kharitonov was just waving another bottle, but Pustovalov's question distracted him. He looked at him, got up and moved threateningly towards the "Roman chair", but Victor blocked his way, suddenly jumping out of the dark opening with a piece of thin pipe in his hand.“You can be heard from the very tunnel,” he said, wearily sitting down on a bench.- Everything is fine? Pustovalov asked without even looking at Kharitonov.Victor shook his head.- There's a whole bunch of them.- Are they leaving?- I'm afraid it's bad - they come from two directions.So they are looking for.– What did you expect? Romik smiled wickedly.Kharitonov looked from under his bro
UNDERGROUND 42
Katya was already asleep, and Dasha, now looking into her serene sleeping face, felt sorry for her, remembering what she had experienced today. But the "rules of the game" have changed, Dasha herself did not fully understand where this decisiveness came from in her.- What the hell are you shaking me! Katya opened her eyes with difficulty and then closed them again.Dasha told her everything she saw.- So what?"You really don't understand?" Dasha sat down on the bed next to her. This lesbian is lying!“Oh, oh,” Katya drawled and tried to lie down again.Dasha grabbed her hand.- Listen, listen. I saw two keys. Coelum and infernum.- What? Katya asked incredulously. - Listen, shut up.- Just think. Why is she lying that we are closed here from the outside? God, do you even realize how crazy this is! In seventeen hours, no exit will open! At best, we will hear another lie...Katya looked at her wearily.- And at worst .... Her friend's wrists are bandaged, and this fake smile of hers i
UNDERGROUND 43
- Katya, let's go! Dasha looked anxiously towards the exit to the stairs.- Fuck off! - Katya stood in the opening of the open door with the inscription "Only for Paradisum members", outlined in purple twilight. - Just look! For a second!Dasha came up, looked over her shoulder, and the cloud of warmth she was in pierced the cold.The interior of the "Club Paradisum" looked a little like a "paradise". More on the medical office - the same strict-looking couches, thin chairs, glass metal cabinets. But the main thing is the gynecological chair in the corner. A strange armchair, with metal bracelets-clamps on Geppel supports and leather straps on the sides of the upper part of the back. Wires ran from them behind the back.Dasha remembered with horror Alina's wrists and got angry at Katya, who looked at all this with unhurried disgust.“Well, why did you get up,” she pulled her along with her.To Dasha's relief, the door was locked from the outside. Now they were separated from the athle
UNDERGROUND 44
Pustovalov walked along a narrow corridor towards a black cloud - he did not know why and did not feel threatened, his legs themselves carried him. The sand creaked underfoot, like at that abandoned construction site where he had smashed his head a little earlier, failing to jump to the edge of the concrete slab. And he knew that here the sand is exactly the same. Moreover, it is the same sand. There, a layer of quartz hid the concrete base of a giant hangar, which had grown old, but remained unfinished. Here, under the sand, the floor was also light gray, and the same block walls. The walls had been shifted, making the hallway unnaturally narrow, in violation of all building codes. A dim, mortar-splattered, twenty-four-watt bulb illuminated the passage every fifteen meters. There were only nine left before dark. Passing the fifth, Pustovalov heard a child's cry. He had heard it before too. Pustovalov looked down and saw the movement of his own legs. The steps were unusually small and
Latest Chapter
- 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
- UNDERGROUND
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
- UNDERGROUND
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
- UNDERGROUND
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
- UNDERGROUND
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
- UNDERGROUND
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
