КНИГИ КИРИЛЛА ПОТЁМКИНА

40. THE BORDER (VOICES AND CHOICE)

The path to the border took much longer than the one who once called himself a human, but now bore the nickname Smartass Jerk, had calculated.

Or simply «SJ».

My new body, rebuilt by the black sludge, knew no fatigue. Muscles worked like pistons, joints lubricated by perfect organics. The Executor’s mind — a cold, calculating algorithm — demanded movement in a straight line. The vector «East» burned in my consciousness as a red line, burning through the fog.

But «I» — the awakened passenger locked in my own skull — pulled the emergency brake. I slowed my pace. To the left, through breaks in the dense curtain of Fog, the direction north could be guessed. Towards Imatra. There, just a few dozen kilometers away, lived Marina. My daughter.

My heart (or that pump that now chased the black substance through my veins) clenched in a painful spasm. I seemed to feel her presence. Not as a sensor, but as a father. This pull of a parent to his own child felt stronger than gravity.

I imagined her face. Frightened, with a childish expression, offended, waiting for the dad who promised to return.

— «To hell with the Tower,» — I wheezed into the damp, rotten, seemingly thick air. — «To hell with your codes. I’m going after her.»

I took a step to the left. Stepping off the «East» vector.

— «Executor. Route deviation. Return to the vector,» — the Voice in my head said impassively.

— «Fuck you,» — I snapped and took a second step.

STRIKE.

It was as if I was once again connected to a bare high-voltage cable. The pain was not born in the body — it exploded like a supernova right in the cerebellum. A white, blinding flash, burning out neurons. My muscles twisted in a monstrous cramp, my knees buckled, and I collapsed into the dirty snow, gasping for air that suddenly tasted like burnt wiring. This was that very slave, electric collar. The remote for which was held by someone lodged inside me.

— «Stand up!» — the Voice barked. But now it wasn’t just a robot speaking in my semi-metallic voice. The intonation had changed. The faceless metal disappeared.

Now, for some reason, a female voice sounded in my head.

Harsh, domineering, hysterical, and… painfully similar to the visions from the TV screen that had recently tormented me in the apartment. The voice seemed to belong to that very bitch from the news channels.

— «Get up, you freak, and follow the route!»

— «Nice to meet you, I am the Smartass Jerk.»

I growled, trying to overcome the paralysis and crawl north. Sand crunched on my teeth.

— «I am… going… to my daughter… Go… f-fuck…»

— «You are going to your grave, cretin!» — the voice of this unknown broad vibrated with anger. — «There is an instability zone in Imatra! Do you even understand what that means? The Fog there is of such density that it will eat through your new hide with acid in a minute. Entropy is off the charts there. You won’t save Marina now. You will just rot in a roadside ditch without even making it a kilometer! You had better voluntarily agree and continue the path to the border.»

The pain receded just as suddenly as it had come, leaving behind a dull, heavy throbbing in my temples. I remained on all fours, spitting out viscous, black saliva.

— «Who are you?» — I wheezed. — «Where did you even come from in my head?»

— «I am the Control Module,» — she snapped, but a purely human exhaustion slipped into her voice. — «But, for your primitive brain… Call me Lana. It is easier to communicate with a low-level carrier this way.»

— «And that… second one? Before you?»

— «Interference. Connection error. Phantom signal. Pay no attention. It has no significance right now.»

— «Why are you helping me?» — I slowly got up, brushing off my knees. — «You are part of the System. You should want to turn me into a vegetable, into an obedient drone.»

— «I want to complete the Protocol,» — Lana answered coldly, like a teacher to a failing student. — «And for that, you must reach the Tower. The Generator ‘Fractal-0’ is there. The answers are there. You must save everyone and launch the CENTURY-LONG CYCLE. And only then, if you are an obedient instrument, will we talk about saving your daughter.»

She paused, and her tone became softer, more insinuating, more affectionate:

— «Believe me, Jerk. I am your only chance to see her alive. The System will destroy everything that does not match the algorithm before the launch of the Cycle. I can guide you through. And now — turn east. Move!»

I stood at a crossroads. The North beckoned. The North called with the voice of blood. But the pain in the back of my head reminded me: I am no longer the master of my body. I am a taxi crammed with strange passengers. And launching some cycle… why would this bitch in my head lie?

It can’t get any worse anyway…

— «Alright, bitch,» — I whispered. — «I will go to the Tower. But if you lied about Marina… I will find a way to carve you out of my head. Even if I have to open my own skull with a can opener.»

— «Accepted, Jerk,» — she chuckled. — «Move your legs, Executor. We have a long way to go.»

I returned to the route.

The walk took a long time. I looked around, stumbled over roots, sometimes stopped just to feel the cold on my skin, realizing that these were perhaps the last crumbs of my humanity.

Finally, rigid silhouettes emerged through the milk of the Fog. Concrete blocks. A watchtower. Concertina wire. The Eastern Border.

The fog dissipated completely here, as if cut off by a giant invisible wall. I stepped out of the white haze and found myself in a cold, ordinary Finnish pre-winter day. This transition was a shock. Snow hadn’t fallen yet, but the ground was hard, ringing. The air smelled of pine needles, wet asphalt, and diesel fuel. It was alive. And because of this, my new biology almost ached. I had lost the habit of purity.

Before me lay the «Nuijamaa» border checkpoint. It seemed abandoned, running on automatics. The bright, blinding light of halogen floodlights flooded the asphalt. No signs of the Fog or incomplete creatures. Near a small wooden blockhouse stood four figures in dark green uniforms. Finnish border guards. They were smoking, shifting from foot to foot, exhaling steam. They held assault rifles on slings. Real, warm, unaltered humans.

— «Executor. Objective — crossing the perimeter. Any resistance must be eliminated,» — Lana’s voice ordered categorically. A tactical interface flared before my eyes: red markers on the soldiers’ heads, movement trajectories, vulnerable points.

— «No,» — for the first time I answered aloud firmly. A deafening internal silence ensued. The +Ang protocol clashed with direct insubordination.

— «Explain the reason for the inefficiency, Carrier,» — Lana demanded, and ice rang in her voice.

— «They are not guilty,» — I mentally snapped. — «They are not ‘incomplete’. They are just boys guarding the line. They are the ones you supposedly ‘preserve’ with your ‘Dawn’. Or the Cycle. If you want this damn ‘Cycle’ to make any sense at all, you cannot force me to kill innocents right at the start. That violates even your twisted logic.»

A border guard noticed me. Not because of a sound, but because I stood out as a motionless, black figure that had emerged from the wall of fog. A blot on the gray road.

— «Seis! Kuka siellä?» (Halt! Who is there?) — he shouted, raising his rifle. The rest reacted instantly. Four barrels stared at my chest.

— «Attack to kill! Immediately!» — Lana shrieked, trying to seize control of my muscles. My hand darted toward the knife in my boot, as if possessing its own consciousness. But I proved faster. At the last moment, with a crunch of my own tendons, I wrested control of my body. I jerked, straightened up, and quickly raised my hands, showing empty palms. I opened my mouth to shout: «Don’t shoot!». But from it came a voice that belonged neither to the Executor, nor to Lana, nor to Me. Inside me, it was as if a playback of someone else’s tape recording had turned on. It was the Voice of the Witness. The voice of some unknown guy.

(JUDGE’S MESSAGE. RESISTANCE PROHIBITED)

— «You don’t need to get involved in this!» — I yelled, straining my throat. The voice was intellectual, even seemed frightened to me, but it was full of determination. I switched to Russian, knowing the Finns would understand. — «Pass this to your leaders!» — I paused, feeling my jaw moving against my will. The soldiers froze, their faces turning white from tension. — «If wars continue, and people do not create a world government, the fog zone will expand!»

This message sounded wild and… stupid?..

I stood with my hands up, a black monster, broadcasting in the voice of a political activist.

«Who the fuck are you?!» — I mentally screamed at this unknown Judge.

The answer to this nonsense I just voiced was a burst of automatic gunfire. The Finns’ nerves gave out. Tracers whistled past, but one bullet grazed my side, tearing out a chunk of meat and kicking up a small fountain of earth behind me. The pain was sharp, but distant.

— «Violation, Executor! Eliminate the threat!» — Lana wailed in my head. — «Destroy!»

I realized I couldn’t get past the border guards without killing them. A battle plan generated in my head with crystal clarity. Three seconds. A dash, a roll, two knife strikes to the neck, grabbing a rifle, a burst at the remaining ones. Death. But the human will of the SJ proved stronger. And more cunning.

I used the knowledge of my old body. The memory of that simple worker I once was.

I remembered. Ten years ago. I was here, at this very spot. A side job. We were replacing the drainage system before the expansion of the checkpoint. Over there, a hundred meters to the right, in the ravine. An old pipe, probably laid back during the Tsar’s time. A meter in diameter. We were too lazy to dig it out then — too tedious, the equipment was getting bogged down. The soil here is soft, swampy…

We just covered it then with branches and earth, laying the new plastic one next to it.

«Nothing ventured, nothing gained,» — the thought flashed.

I dashed into the forest, to the right, ignoring Lana’s hysterical screams. I ran away from the border, toward the bushes. Behind my back, the rifle clattered again. Bullets knocked down branches overhead. They were shooting to scare. They thought I was just a psycho running back.

— «Inefficient! You will perish!» — Lana threw a fit.

— «I’ve already perished, consider me a hero, +Ang. This is my choice now.»

I rolled into the ravine. Mud squelched underfoot. Here it is. The pit. I raked away the rotten foliage, moss, and garbage with my hands.

It turned out to be not easy, but doable for my rebuilt body.

The black, rusty maw of the pipe looked at me. It reeked of dampness, mold, and rat droppings.

The soldiers were approaching. I heard their voices, the crunch of branches under heavy boots.

— «Vittu! Where did he go?»

I dived into the hole. Like a mole. Like an earthworm. I froze, blocking the entrance behind me with a pile of leaves and branches. I had to wait until dark. Five hours, no less.

I lay in the icy, fetid sludge. The water reached my chin. It smelled of rust, rot, and rat shit. An ordinary person in these conditions would have caught hypothermia in twenty minutes. In an hour — lost consciousness. In two — died. But I was no longer an ordinary person.

— «External temperature fixed: +2 degrees. Critical shell cooling,» — Lana commented impassively in my head. — «Initiating forced thermoregulation protocol. Resource expenditure increased.»

It was as if a furnace was turned on inside me. It was not the pleasant warmth of a hearth. It was the real heat of a fever. The black substance, the sludge in my veins, for some reason that’s exactly how I imagined my current blood, began to vibrate, accelerating, generating energy. My skin burned, while the icy water tried to cool it. I turned into a living immersion heater, lying in a drainage ditch. Steam must have been rising from me, but in the darkness of the pipe, no one saw it.

My side smarted. The Finnish border guard’s bullet. I slid my hand under my jacket, probing the wound. My fingers sank into a hot, viscous mess.

— «Soft tissue damage. Remnants of a foreign object in the body. Extraction,» — Lana commanded.

I doubled over from a sharp pain. My own muscles around the wound began to contract, living their own life. They spasmed, pushing the lead fragments outward. I bit my lip so as not to growl.

Clink.

The flattened bullet or a piece of it fell out of the wound and hit the rusty bottom of the pipe. Instantly, black sludge rushed into the hole, sealing it, pulling the edges of the flesh together faster than any surgeon. It was vile. I felt not like a human, but like biomass that repairs itself.

The hours dragged on endlessly.

Above, the voices died down. The soldiers left, deciding that the lone psycho had vanished into the forest.

I was left alone in the dark, underground. In the company of a bitchy AI and a quieted madman in my head.

I thought about Marina. I imagined her face so as not to go crazy from sensory deprivation and the heat burning me from the inside. This pipe became my chrysalis. I crawled into it a human running from bullets. And I will crawl out as something else. Something that does not fear cold, pain, and dirt.

When, judging by my internal clock, twilight thickened above, Lana gave the command:

— «External activity minimal. It is time. Move, Jerk.»

— «I’d like to shove you into this pipe right now…» — I hissed.

Did it seem so to me… or did I hear a chuckle in response?..

«..cking bitch is having fun…»

I crawled. I squeezed into the narrow, rusty passage…

It was very tight inside. The water reached my chin — an icy, fetid sludge. Good thing they don’t have dogs.

«ARCHIVES. OPEN. DAWN.» — burned red before my eyes.

«Zaitsev… Dawn. Legacy. Watchtower,» — I whispered my code, the code of the «Smartass Jerk», which now also became part of the equation.

I felt like a creature of a lower order. Above, in a meter of soil over me, stood concrete pillars and barbed wire — a symbol of human idiocy and borders. And I crawled underneath like a fucking worm. Through the dirt. Through history.

When I climbed out already toward morning on the Russian side, into God’s light, there wasn’t an inch of clean skin on my body. I was covered in a layer of clay, silt, and rust. I looked like a homunculus just born from the earth.

I crossed the border. I stood up, shaking myself off and spitting out the sand grating on my teeth.

Russia stretched ahead. And forty kilometers to the «Watchtower» base.