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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 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 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 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 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 1
PrologueJune 1991 30 years before...Supporting his cheeks with his fists, Sasha watched a tiny bird jumping along a thick branch outside the window. The habits of the bird resembled a sparrow, but shone in the sun like a real parrot, shimmering with outlandish ash-rusty plumage. Inflating her red breast, she shook her fiery tail, turning it into a tiny flame.“Go-ri-tail-ka,” Sasha said quietly, not even realizing that he had guessed her name exactly.The bird seemed to have heard him, looked at him sideways, like a bird, and, lifting its white-fronted head, gave out a familiar, alarming overflow into the evening heat.So that's who woke him up in the morning.Feeling the cold of the radiator with his bare knees, Sasha sat on the bedside table, pushed up to the windowsill, like a hidden hunter, but the object of his interest was by no means a bird. He waited for the footsteps in the hallway to die down. Unfortunately for him, the footsteps died away right behind him.– What are you!
UNDERGROUND 2
Chapter 230 years later...First passenger. 4,273 meters northeastIn the dim light of the lantern, the first November snowflakes were spinning, disappearing into the white muslin that covered the deserted road - in this industrial area, lost among the railway lines and old factory buildings, serenity reigned, which was not disturbed even by the roar from the Highway of Enthusiasts. Yet this serenity was deceptive. The harmony was broken by one false note, against which even Mr. Reeves was powerless, whose hypnotic voice poured into the cabin from the twelve speakers of the BMW X5.Pustovalov woke up from the dope of distant memories and looked towards the copse, in which Colonel Basurov disappeared five minutes ago and once again thought that he had probably bet on the wrong horse.It wasn't just the colonel, though he didn't give cause for concern at first. In the end, for a man who has not passed the temptation of money, Basurov rose quite well by his standards: he managed to sell
UNDERGROUND 3
Chapter 3Although the difference between them was only ten years, Pustovalov called the colonel "you" and this had an extremely practical meaning. Pustovalov generally avoided other meanings when it came to work. In negotiations with Yasin, he did not want to attract too much attention, and the role of Basurov's assistant suited him perfectly.The colonel smiled sourly.- Do you want a take? I almost fell into a hole there.- What hatch?- In the woods. Maybe an abandoned bomb shelter? - Basurov jerked the zipper on his jacket and twisted his face, as if his stomach hurt badly. - And yet, on the other side of the car is a cop.Pustovalov said nothing, but Basurov obviously expected a different reaction.- What do you say?Pustovalov shook his head.“I didn’t look too hard, though. Maybe DPS?- Not.Basurov looked at Pustovalov and screwed up his eyes.- Oh, Sanya. Get on the right path, you would have made a good military man. Did you even serve?Instead of answering, Pustovalov, lik