КНИГИ КИРИЛЛА ПОТЁМКИНА

23. THE HARVEST

(Location: Facility «Ark-North». Main hangar. Sometime later.)

In the center of the cyclopean, echoing concrete hall, looking more like a cathedral of a new, dark religion, towered three «Adaptation Capsules». They didn’t just stand there — they were present, like living entities that had invaded our earthly reality.

The devices emitted a low hum, on the verge of infrasound, that made one’s teeth ache, and the diaphragm in the chest vibrated in unison with this alien rhythm. Now, in the cold daylight sparingly filtering through the dusty skylights under the ceiling, Voronov saw clearly: the surface of the capsules was not perfectly smooth.

It rather resembled the chitin of a giant ancient insect or solidified black volcanic lava, along which, like veins under the skin, dark purple, electrical sparks ran. The metal seemed to breathe.

Volunteers lined up in front of the capsules. The best of the best. The elite of the GRU Spetsnaz who survived the Moscow meat grinder of betrayal. Officers who had been through all the hot spots, men forged from steel and will. They stood in a perfectly even formation, but in their eyes, Voronov read not resolve, but a superstitious, sticky terror of these obsidian sarcophagi.

General Voronov, overflowing with grim determination, towered on a rusty iron catwalk above the formation, gripping the railing with his healthy hand until his knuckles turned white. Nearby, invisible to the rest, sat his daughter, Katya. She carelessly swung her bare legs, and her translucent pink heels passed right through the metal, meeting no resistance.

— They are ready, Dad, — she said. Her voice rang inside Voronov’s resonating skull like a silver bell. — It’s time to check the yield.

The general turned on the PA system. The microphone squealed unpleasantly.

— «Sons!» — his voice echoed off the vaults of the hangar, amplifying manifold. — «You have seen what our faith is capable of. We have turned garbage and rust into the technologies of the future! Today we will take the next step.» — He swept his arm over the fighters frozen at attention, as if blessing them for a great feat. — «The Fog is not just an enemy. It is a new habitat. And to survive in it, we must change. Evolve. ‘Aegis’ grants us armor. But any armor needs an operator. Who is ready to be the first? Who is ready to accept the Gift?»

Everyone stepped forward. In a single, monolithic surge.

The clatter of hundreds of combat boots merged into one synchronous, heavy thud. Voronov felt pride — bitter, sharp as a shard of glass. Here it is, the Russian army. Unconditional loyalty to the last breath.

— «Major Sviridov!» — the general barked, choosing, in his opinion, the most flawless candidate.

— «Sir!»

A giant nearly two meters tall stepped out of the formation. Broad-shouldered, with a strong-willed, calm face, as if carved from Karelian granite. Three Orders of Courage on his chest. A man-mountain.

— «You will go first. Set an example for the rest.»

— «Yes, sir!»

Sviridov marched up to the central capsule. The black lid slid aside with a hiss resembling a joyful, anticipating sigh, exposing the innards of the apparatus. Inside, there were no usual contoured seats or instruments. Inside undulated a moist, pulsating pulp, resembling the entrails of a giant living creature or the gaping womb of an ancient goddess.

The major froze for a second. His Adam’s apple jerked in a spasm. It seemed to him that he inhaled a smell clearly not of wildflowers, but the heavy stench of thawed, rotting fish. But he was a soldier. And… once again: he was a soldier. He overcame the nauseating disgust.

Without delay, Sviridov quickly stripped down to his underwear, neatly folded his uniform into a pile, and lay down inside, into this squelching, warm biomass.

— «For the Motherland,» — he said hollowly, mentally reciting a prayer and looking at the gray concrete ceiling of the hangar.

The lid slammed shut with a clang, cutting him off from the world of the living.

The capsule hummed rhythmically. The indigo glow under the seemingly living «skin» of the apparatus intensified, swelling with power. Voronov shifted from foot to foot, awaiting the arrival of his triumph with poorly concealed impatience. He longed to see the lid open, and a supersoldier, an invincible warrior of Light, step out. His firstborn — the future crusher of enemies.

Suddenly, the monotonous hum was replaced by a piercing grinding sound, as if a giant press was methodically crushing a shipping container stuffed with broken glass.

The capsule seemed to shake in convulsions. The noble purple glow was replaced by a dirty yellow, sickly one, resembling pus oozing from a gangrenous wound.

— Dad… — Katya’s voice sounded not with sympathy, but with cold, squeamish disappointment. — A barren flower.

— «What?» — Voronov didn’t understand.

A frantic scream rang out from inside the monstrous machine. A terrifying wail, full of inhuman, transcendent torment, which instantly turned the faces of the soldiers standing in formation gray. The scream was cut short by the wet, nauseating crunch of breaking bones.

— «Open it!» — Voronov yelled, leaning over the railing. — «Emergency release!»

The lid flew aside as if blown off by a shaped charge. Sviridov tumbled out onto the concrete floor like a shapeless sack… He was still alive, but… this was no longer the man-mountain.

His skin blistered and peeled off in flaps, covered in chemical burns, as if he had been boiled alive in acid. His muscles looked spasmed, twisted into knots. Bloody, bubbling foam came out of his mouth in spurts.

He convulsively gasped for air, looking at the general with mad eyes full of childish resentment. He felt betrayed, rolled in the mud, doomed to a stupid and horrific death at the whim of this butcher-general.

— «Empty…» — the hero wheezed, scratching the concrete with broken, bloody nails. — «It’s… empty in there… It’s… hungry…»

He arched his back in a final convulsion and lost consciousness. Medics rushed to him, slipping on the slime that had leaked from the capsule.

Voronov, turning pale as death, spun sharply toward Katya:

— «What have you done?! He’s our best fighter!»

— He is useless, — the daughter answered in an icy tone, not even honoring the dying man with a glance. — He is too… whole.

— «What, what are you talking about?! We killed one of our best soldiers!»

— Dad, you are not building a tank. You are building a Harvester. — Katya jumped off the railing and walked over to the vibrating capsule, stroking its side as if petting a beloved little dog. — This machine runs on Angonium.

— «On… On what?» — Voronov heard this strange word for the first time. It sounded slimy, unpleasant, alien, like the screech of metal on glass.

— Angonium, Dad. It is the energy of pure suffering. The subtle radiation of pain and hopelessness. The Fog is a farm, Dad. It grows fear. And ‘Aegis’ is the harvesting mechanism. — She pointed a thin finger at the unconscious major. — He has a steel core inside. Honor. Duty. Calmness. There are no cracks in him. No rot. No real, black pain. The machine had nothing to ‘eat’. It tried to digest his body because it couldn’t latch onto his soul. He is a dry branch. And we need humus.

Voronov looked at her with a superstitious terror that was slowly being replaced by understanding. A terrifying, icy, rational understanding.

— «You… You mean to say… we need the weak?»

— We need the broken. Those who are already burning in a personal hell while alive. We need those who hate themselves and this world. Their pain is the perfect fuel for transformation.

Voronov closed his eyes.

— «In the basements of the base…» — he said slowly, with difficulty, feeling the taste of ash on his parched lips. — «There… The guardhouse. Deserters. Murderers. Rapists. All those we were going to execute under martial law.»

Katya smiled. Broadly. Too broadly. Carnivorously.

— Very good. Bring them, Dad.

An hour later, a group of people in gray prison robes was led into the hangar under guard. They looked pitiful. Hunched, dirty, stinking, with marks of fresh beatings. There wasn’t a shadow of resolve in their shifting eyes — only the animalistic fear of cornered rats. The formation of Spetsnaz soldiers looked at them with undisguised contempt and disgust.

— That one over there, — Katya unerringly pointed to a skinny guy with a sunken chest and shaking hands. — Private Krotov. Tried to hang himself a week ago. He was beaten by the ‘grandfathers’ [senior conscripts], he wrote a suicide note full of such black, sticky melancholy… M-m-m… I can smell its sweet scent from here. He is juicy.

Voronov gave a short nod to the guards.

— «This one. Into the capsule.»

Krotov resisted with all his might. He squealed as he was dragged to the horrific sarcophagus, digging his heels into the concrete, leaving dirty streaks on the floor.

— «Don’t! Please! Mom! I won’t do it again! B-bitches…»

He was forcefully hurled inside, into that very pink slimy ooze that had recently spat out the mutilated hero. He thrashed in hysterics, scratching the lining, choking on his own screams. But the lid snapped shut greedily, cutting his frantic wails off from the world.

Voronov tensed, expecting another failure. But the capsule… suddenly seemed to sing. It wasn’t a grinding sound at all. It was a low, guttural, contented sound. Like the purring of a sated beast gnawing on a sugar bone. Indigo light flooded the entire hangar. It was so thick, saturated, and «tasty» that it seemed one could scoop it up with their palms.

«The process has begun,» — Katya whispered right into Voronov’s brain, and in her voice, he understood this, he heard it and, it seemed, felt it himself, vibrated genuine ecstasy. — «Do you hear it? Dad. The machine is drinking his pain. His self-hatred. His humiliation. His sweet fear. It is burning away his pitiful humanity and leaving only pure Power.»

A minute passed. Two. A few. The lid opened silently and smoothly, releasing clouds of warm steam. A figure slowly rose from the fog.

It was Krotov. And it wasn’t him. He had grown a head taller. His sunken chest had expanded outward, the muscles under the gray robe bursting at the seams swelled into knots, like steel cables under the skin. And the skin itself had acquired the color of wet stone. But the main thing was the face. The fear was gone. The fussiness had vanished. His facial features sharpened, becoming predatory, monumental, devoid of age and emotions. He opened his eyes.

There was no white in them. Only swirling darkness, a light-absorbing abyss, deep within which purple sparks burned — the distant, cold stars of Angonium.

Krotov took a step out of the capsule. His movements were fluid, like mercury. He looked at the formation of Spetsnaz soldiers — his former tormentors, heroes, «elite». He didn’t look at them as a victim. He looked at them like an experienced wolf — with a predatory gaze, appraisingly examining a flock of sheep doomed to slaughter.

— «We are ready to serve,» — he pronounced. His voice doubled, as if two were speaking: a human and metal. A vibrating bass that made the floor tremble slightly. — «The harvest awaits.»

Voronov felt icy shivers run down his spine. This was a creature of a different breed. A predator of a higher order. A perfect weapon. His weapon. The dream of any military commander.

— See, Dad? — Katya placed an icy hand on the agitated general’s shoulder. — A cracked vessel lets the Light through best. Heroes are useless. We need sinners. We need sufferers. Only from the dirt, from the humus, do these amazing flowers grow.

Andrey Voronov looked at his hands. They weren’t shaking. He suddenly, doomedly and irreversibly, realized that there was no turning back for him. If God had forsaken this world, then he would have to make a deal with the Devil. And lead his army.

— «Colonel Petrov!» — he commanded. — «I am here, Comrade General…» — the colonel’s voice trembled with undisguised terror. — «Open all isolation cells. All prisons in the district. Disciplinary battalions. Psychiatric hospitals.» — Voronov pointed at Krotov, shining with darkness, who stood like a monument to a new era. — «Colonel! I need material. I need Angonium. We will create a Legion of the Damned.»

«And then…» — he added to himself, feeling an alien, cold will filling him to the brim, vibrating on the crown of his head, — «.. then we will feed the entire world to this machine, to ultimately save it from itself.»