КНИГИ КИРИЛЛА ПОТЁМКИНА

6. FOLDER «KITTEN»

(Location: Bunker «Zaslon». The next morning)

Andrey Voronov surfaced from oblivion at the sound of his own wheezing. His skull was splitting, as if being pounded from the inside with a sledgehammer. His mouth was puckered with the sour taste of copper and old cognac. He found himself on the uncomfortable leather sofa in his office. Fully dressed. His tunic unbuttoned, crumpled.

His organism demanded water — urgently, and a lot of it. His brain, gears grinding, immediately generated a saving lie:

«It’s a dream. The drunken delusion of a broken, grieving old fool… Of course. Just delirium.»

He struggled into a sitting position. His gaze darted to the visitor’s chair.

Right…

Empty. No Katya. No cornflowers on a beige blouse. No warmth of a living body, no light curls of hair…

His imagination immediately offered another picture: the darkness of frozen earth, the lacquered lid of a coffin, and a skull with empty eye sockets, inside which worms were feasting. Remnants of parchment-like, dried skin and dirty tow instead of hair.

Instead of light, curly locks.

The «iron» general felt himself shattering to pieces, like a porcelain statuette hit by a hammer.

He wanted to howl. To shed a single, stingy tear, just for the release. Just so the granite slab would lift from his aching heart.

Voronov shook his head, driving away the delusion. Around him was only the gray, thousand-ton oppressive bulk of concrete and the monotonous hum of the ventilation.

He looked at his left arm. The cast was in place. But…

But the pain seemed to have vanished. His fingers, which yesterday had been burning with fire, now moved freely inside the hardened bandage.

— «Just imagined it,» — he wheezed into the silence. — «Painkillers. Good pharmacology.»

He stood up.

Shame burned his face in a hot wave. The Minister of Defense, «Iron Felix», having conversations with hallucinations. Time to retire. Or go to a padded room.

A lump rose in Andrey Voronov’s throat. The memory of the black tentacle shooting out of Sergeant Petrenko’s throat made his stomach clench. A spasm of nausea. A trembling hand grabbed the decanter. Voronov greedily, gulping, drained it halfway. Wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

No.

He shook his head. He had no right to weakness. He grunted, clearing his throat, and decisively pressed the intercom button:

— «Gromov. Lisitsyn. To my office. Immediately.»

(15 minutes later)

The head of security, Colonel Gromov, and the chief IT specialist, Major Lisitsyn, stood frozen before the desk at attention.

The boss looked awful — rumpled, with red veins in his eyes — but the subordinates’ faces maintained a stony expression.

— «Comrade Minister?»

— «Gromov. I need the security camera footage from my office. Interval: from 23:00 to 01:00.»

— «Yes, sir. Display it on the screen?»

— «Display it.»

The wall-mounted TV panel came to life. Voronov saw his own unpresentable digital reflection.

There he was, hunched over, sitting at his desk.

Stands up, staggers.

Then begins to gesticulate. Nods to an invisible interlocutor. Talks to an empty chair.

The cameras, of course, recorded no daughter. No glow.

No ghosts. No Katya…

Then he drinks… Cognac. Greedily, straight from the bottle, as if there’s no tomorrow.

Then absolute indecency unfolds on the screen. The old, drunk general behaves like a mad alcoholic — crying, reaching out to emptiness, nodding to someone, and smiling foolishly.

Smiling with the mad, happy smile of a blissful idiot.

And also, he, General of the Army Voronov, Defense Minister of a vast country, is on his knees, hugging, gently stroking the empty chair. Pressing his cheek to the upholstery and kissing, almost licking it.

Voronov squeezed his eyes shut.

The end. The psych ward. Disgrace.

— «Enough,» — he threw out hollowly. — «Turn it off.»

Colonel Gromov obediently blanked the screen.

A heavy, sticky, formless silence hung in the Defense Minister’s office. The officers, of course, understood everything. The minister had «cracked». It happens. Stress, alcohol.

But to see this… Like this… It was somehow inappropriate.

— «Lisitsyn,» — Voronov’s voice trembled, but he forced himself to speak confidently. — «Please check the terminal.»

— «For… what exactly, Comrade General of the Army?»

— «For foreign files. Hacking. External interference. In short, you know… Figure it out.»

Lisitsyn bent over the keyboard. His fingers tapped out a drumroll.

— «The system is clean. The perimeter of ‘Zaslon’ has not been breached. The autonomous circuit is normal…» — Suddenly the major stumbled. The clatter of keys stopped.

— «What?» — Voronov asked sharply.

Lisitsyn turned pale.

— «Comrade Minister… At 00:42, during… your, so to speak, incident…» — Lisitsyn glanced sideways at the dead rectangle of the TV panel.

— «Spit it out!» — Voronov barked, barely stopping himself from slamming his fist on the table.

— «A new directory appeared on the desktop.»

— «From where? A flash drive? External network?»

— «There is no source. It’s as if… It just… materialized. Generated straight in the processor core, kind of bypassing the logs. They just aren’t there… The data volume is almost 400 terabytes. You know, that’s impossible. Such write speeds are physically unattainable.»

— «The name?» — Voronov leaned forward sharply. The general’s heart dropped to his boots, then rallied and pounded in his temples.

— «The folder… The folder is called…» — Lisitsyn swallowed the lump in his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, like the bolt of an assault rifle aimed at Andrey Voronov’s heart. — «The folder is called ‘Kitenok’.»

— «What? Repeat that slowly.» — The general didn’t believe his ears.

— «‘Kitenok’. Transliterated.»

— «I know!» — Voronov waved his hand and sank heavily into his chair.

Kitten.

How else?

That’s what he called her in the distant past. In another life. In her childhood…

And there, in that wonderful past, it was just him and her… Father and daughter.

And no one in the bunker, and no one in the world knew this nickname. Even his wife called her Katyusha or Katerina.

It wasn’t a hallucination. The cameras lied. Technology was too primitive to see Them.

— «Open the folder,» — Voronov ordered. His voice had returned. The metallic, brook-no-argument, commanding voice of «Iron Felix».

— «But…» — Lisitsyn hesitated. — «Comrade General… Security protocols… Unknown code…»

— «Comrade Minister,» — Gromov interjected. — «It’s against regulations.»

— «Open it!» — Voronov barked. — «On my responsibility!»

This time he didn’t hold back and, with pleasure, slammed his healthy, whitened fist against the vast surface of the ministerial desk with all his might.

Lisitsyn pressed «Enter».

The computer screen was flooded with the light of strange «blueprints».

What General Voronov saw bore little resemblance to the geometrically correct diagrams familiar to the human eye.

Some kind of multidimensional constructs, incomprehensible formulas written in a language resembling mathematics, but… moving. As if alive. The symbols flowed into one another, as if breathing.

The document’s title glowed with soft gold:

== PROJECT «AEGIS». PLANETARY BIO-DEFENSE SYSTEM [ANTI-MIST].

== NOTE: A GIFT FROM THE SOWERS. FOR THE SALVATION OF THE CRADLE.

— «Immediately,» — Voronov whispered. — «Get Aronov here immediately. And his whole team. Let them figure it out. I want to know what this is…»

Scene: «Zaslon» Laboratory. Level -4. Several days later.

Dr. Aronov did not blink. His inflamed, watery eyes bored into the monitor of the scanning electron microscope. On the screen, a neuron pulsed. A human neuron, grown in a Petri dish.

— «Connect it,» — he commanded the lab technician. — «Protocol ‘Aegis-Test-1’.»

The lab technician, a young guy in a hazmat suit, entered the command with trembling fingers. A signal was sent into the isolated chamber where the cell culture floated. That very digital code from the «Kitenok» folder.

Aronov expected to see activity. A surge. But he saw an execution. A slaughter…

The neuron ignited. On the monitor, it looked like a supernova explosion. The cell, having received the alien mathematical algorithm, began to… accelerate. Its metabolism sped up thousands of times over. The mitochondria worked themselves to death, generating a monstrous amount of energy. The neuron glowed, vibrated, transmitting data at an incredible speed. It was beautiful. Mesmerizing. Divine.

— «The ambient temperature is rising!» — the lab technician shouted. — «Eighty degrees! Ninety!»

Dr. Aronov saw the cell membrane begin to melt. Living matter could not withstand the pressure of the «Gift». The neuron, turned into a tiny biological reactor, worked for exactly 4 seconds. And then evaporated. It simply burned out, leaving behind a microscopic cloud of ash.

— «The re… re… result?» — Aronov asked hoarsely.

— «The data is decrypted,» — the lab technician’s voice trembled with terror. — «In those four seconds, this single neuron processed an array of data equal to a week’s work of our ‘Lomonosov’ supercomputer.»

Aronov took off his glasses. The doctor’s hands shook slightly. Now he understood. «Aegis» wasn’t just an antenna. It was, in a way, an energy vampire. It uses the human brain as a disposable processor. Like a battery that is thrown away when it overheats and leaks.

To cover all of Russia with a shield… it would take more than one neuron. It would take thousands of human brains. Intact. Alive.

— «Classify the experiment record. Security level — highest,» — Aronov ordered. — «I urgently need to see the Minister.»

Bunker «Zaslon». Defense Minister’s Office. Sometime later.

Dr. Aronov, a skinny, sinewy «giraffe», a skeptic and cynic, sat before the monitor, and his hands, with their long pianist’s fingers, were shaking.

— «Andrey Nikolaevich…» — he took off his glasses and wiped them, as if hoping the delusion that had shaken him to his core would disappear. — «This is… this is incredible.»

— «Can it work?» — Voronov asked.

— «Mathematically? I… I’ve never seen anything like it, at first glance these formulas, they are kind of multidimensional, you know… You see,» — the dam broke, and Aronov began to babble, — «they describe several quantum states at once, you see, you see…» — the doctor clutched his head, — «you see,» — he seemed to look at the minister with a kind of hatred, as if having just confirmed his mental deficiency, — «they, these formulas, as you call them…» — the doctor fell silent, an obsession flashing in his eyes… — «This is a real breakthrough! Yes! It is flawless! It is undeniably a breakthrough! This is physics that is ahead of us by… By two hundred years.»

They propose using resonant frequencies to destroy the molecular bonds of the Fog’s «jelly» and… uncharacteristically… incomprehensibly… how to explain it to him? — Aronov lamented, as if talking to himself, instantly forgetting the existence of his direct superior.

— «What are you mumbling about?!» — Voronov raised his voice. — «Express yourself more clearly!»

— «There is one more condition required…»

— «What?!» — The minister slammed his healthy hand on the desk.

— «A hum… hum… A human factor is necessary,» — exhaled the suddenly pale doctor. — «We ran a simulation on the supercomputer.»

— «And?..»

— «Efficiency is ninety-nine point nine percent. This emitter, if built… it could not just stop the Fog. It… It could cleanse the planet. Return our lands to us. Heal… everyone… the infected.» — Aronov looked at the Minister with reverent horror. — «But… The Hu… Human… Where did you get this? Who are these… These ‘Sowers’?»

— «They are our allies, Doctor,» — Voronov stood up. A wave of hot, fierce patriotism rose in his soul. He hadn’t gone mad. He really could do it. He would save Russia.

— «What are you babbling about a human factor?! Answer me!» — This prolonged conversation with, as it turned out, a half-crazy egghead had already begun to cause Voronov physical discomfort, — «…what is this skinny runt spouting? Has the wimp completely lost his mind?»

— «Get to work. I need a prototype. Fast! Yesterday!»

— «Uh… We cannot,» — Professor of Medicine Aronov said in an unexpectedly calmer tone. — «Give me a written order.»

— «Wha-at?!» — General Voronov almost choked. — «What order? Wh-y?»

— «Volunteers,» — Aronov babbled, — «to activate and maintain the shield, a power source is needed… A… A constant one…»

Voronov jumped up, paced back and forth across the office, trying to calm down so he wouldn’t accidentally cripple this know-it-all right then and there.

— «Stop stalling!» — he yelled, no longer restraining himself.

— «Be so kind as to express yourself more clearly in our great and mighty native tongue, didn’t they teach you Russian in school, Doctor?!» — hissing sounds appeared in the minister’s voice. He stopped abruptly and bored his bloodshot eyes into the frightened professor’s face. It seemed one wrong move from Aronov — and, as they used to say in the old days, his head would roll.

— «We need suicide volunteers, Comrade Minister!» — Aronov blurted out, mentally crossing himself.

(Evening of the same day)

When the scientists had left and security had reported the perimeter secure, after a long and rather difficult conversation with the president, Andrey Voronov was finally alone. He walked over to the mirror in the corner of his office.

Adjusted his tunic. Coughed.

— «Are you here?» — he asked quietly.

The air in the room thickened. It smelled of ozone and… wildflowers. The very ones Katya loved so much.

— «I am always here now, Dad,» — a soft, velvet voice sounded behind him.

Voronov turned around.

She was sitting on the edge of his desk, swinging her legs, just like in childhood. Alive. Warm. Real.

The «Sower» who had taken this form was enjoying the moment. He scanned the human Voronov’s psycho-emotional background, closely observing how doubts clouded this organic being’s logic. This aspect faintly troubled the Sower. Time, which always helped with its measured flow of unhurried physical laws, now seemed to be starting to oppose them. Such a thing was happening for the first time in the Sower’s memory. After all, they had always possessed a priceless gift — the gift of waiting for the fulfillment of their own plans. Endless patience always won.

One just had to wait, and the meticulously calculated plan would inevitably be fulfilled in its appointed time.

— «They confirmed it,» — Voronov said hoarsely. — «Your… your Gift. It can really work. But there is another side to the coin. You didn’t tell me anything about that…»

— «Of course,» — «Katya» smiled. — «We mean no harm. We want you to live. Exist. But for life, death is always needed, or didn’t you know that, Dad? We need Volunteers, Dad. The best of the best. The healthiest, the strongest, the bravest. Those who are ready to sacrifice themselves to save your homeland, Russia. Can you find them for us?«

— «You didn’t say anything to me about them essentially being suicide volunteers!»

— «Not all of them. Far from all,» — the Sower said thoughtfully. — «After all, it’s not just about the fog. I think we can… More accurately, you, with our help, can slow it down. When we arrive to help you, we will need, as you call it, support staff.«

— «Why… Why are you hiding? Why not come out to the people openly? How do I explain to the president that I’m communicating with my own daughter’s ghost?»

— «People are scared, Dad. Always scared. They shoot at everything they don’t understand. Remember the hospital. If we come now, chaos will ensue. We need a… guide. A leader. Someone who loves his Motherland more than his fears.«

She hopped off the desk and walked right up to him.

For a moment, deep within her pupils, her eyes flashed purple, but Voronov, blinded by the sudden surge of affection, of physical kinship, did not notice.

— «You’re smart, yo-ou’ll think of something. You will have information, truthful information. It is what will help you convince the presiden-nt. We will help you build ‘Aegis’. For now, you only have technical documentation. Creating a prototype is a complex and lengthy process… and we are still flying, remember?» — Katerina smiled sadly and waved her hand vaguely.

— «I know…» — Voronov wheezed.

— «But for this we need help.«

— «What kind?» — Voronov was ready for anything.

— «We need hands. Human ones. And we need… Clean hands… To set up the equipment, people are needed, and we would like to arrange the site of our future landing. So to speak, our future Galactic Representation… Embassy on your planet.«

She placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart.

— «Can you help us?«

— «I can,» — Voronov exhaled. — «I will create a special corps. I will give the order… I…» — the general hesitated, but, gathering his courage, continued, — «and the volunteers, I mean those…»

— «You mean the true heroes of your planet; we will immortalize their memory. Their feat will be able to protect you from the fog.» — the girl again looked piercingly, with unconcealed kindness, straight into his eyes, straight inside General Voronov; it seemed she was looking into his brain.

— «It must be a choice. Announce recruitment. Free choice. Let them come themselves. Let them believe you, your government, just as you believed me. Us…«

She kissed him on the cheek. Her lips were warm, but the cold from this kiss penetrated straight into the general’s soul.

— «Save them, Dad. Be a true hero. Convince the president. You can do it. A-and… Remember: you are now officially our voice on this planet, we will communicate only through you.«

It happened again, the general, flattered by the Sower’s last promise, blinked.

And «Katya» dissolved into thin air, leaving behind the smell of wildflowers and the indestructible certainty of Defense Minister Voronov that he was carrying out a holy mission…