Section 12 / 39

on that particular raid! Now answer me, Gilel—what the hell were you doing in Okamura's room?!"

I tried to look at my boots to avoid meeting her gaze.

"I have nothing to add... We just wanted to support Joyce and that's all... And as for the raid, those weren't my words. And it would be wrong if I started commenting on them."

"That's good, Lieutenant!" Vandlik barked with military fervor and in a completely masculine way. Then she checked her tablet again and continued more calmly. "But then comment on this... By incredible coincidence, it was Okamura, not his neighbor, who was with you on a raid just the day before yesterday. And today that same Okamura shot half his company. Isn't that a coincidence?"

I shrugged. Not because I didn't know what to say. It's just that my heart was pounding so hard that if I'd opened my mouth, either a bark or a sob would have come out. I needed to at least calm my breathing a little...

"Just tell me about the raid the day before yesterday," Vandlik said softly. "You weren't even the senior officer there, Gilel! What do you have to lose! Tell me in detail how it all went. Minute by minute. Even if something seems unimportant to you."

"We went for samples..." I began uncertainly.

"Which ones?"

"Well... Death beetle... Does it matter?"

"Just so I can picture the situation... Why two biologists at once, but only one soldier?"

Her question caught me off guard. Moreover, it was a bullseye question—on a real sampling raid, usually one biologist and at least six shooters from the bio-company go. But Irma didn't need extra eyes.

"I didn't plan the raid, ma'am..." I answered. "But maybe to avoid attracting extra attention—those death beetles are quite smart..."

Vandlik nodded, unhurriedly flicked ash, then checked her tablet again.

"But it says here 'alien creatures brought in—zero.'"

"Yes... Nothing worked out. Like I said—very cunning creatures," sweat broke out on my forehead, and I wondered if it was noticeable.

"And during the raid itself, did anything... unusual happen?"

"Absolutely not."

"Maybe something that could potentially affect a person's behavior..."

"I assure you. An ordinary raid."

"Nobody bit this Okamura? Spit poison at him? Whatever else happens out there..."

"Nothing like that, ma'am."

"Fine. And you didn't notice anything strange in his behavior?"

"No. Honestly, we only met the day before yesterday."

"I see... And you knew his neighbor well? What was his name..." Vandlik searched for the surname in her tablet again.

"Joyce," I prompted.

"Right!" she released smoke from the corner of her mouth without unclenching her teeth.

I shrugged uncertainly.

"We talked. He's a cheerful guy."

"And you decided to see how he was doing," Vandlik continued. "Because to experience what happened this morning..."

"You can say that again," I nodded, emphasizing my agreement in every way. "Poor Joyce."

"Poor Joyce," she agreed. "Uh-huh..."

She took another drag, released several beautiful perfect rings and admired them for a while as they dissolved in the air. Then she suddenly stood up decisively from behind the desk, walked around it, and sat on the desktop, now looking down at me.

"Then you'll be interested to know that his surname isn't Joyce, it's Jenkins."

I was dumbfounded.

"Not a very big difference, I agree," Vandlik continued in a carefree tone, "but if you're going to support a cheerful guy in a difficult moment... you usually AT LEAST KNOW WHAT HIS NAME IS!!!" she shouted the rest of the phrase so loud that my ears rang.

This is the end. I frantically tried to think of something, going through all possible options. But only one word sounded in my head: "screwed." Screwed up to my ears.

"You know where I served before this?" Vandlik stood up and, puffing clouds of smoke, walked to the window. "In the Noria Infantry Conquistadors. Heard of them?"

Had I heard? I probably would have been stunned by this statement if I didn't already feel like a crushed bug.

"Noria Infantry?!" I exhaled, unable to restrain myself.

"Are you a sexist?" she understood my surprise in her own way.

"Not at all, but..." the thought flashed in the back of my mind that a Noria Infantry veteran on a Category A mission was like having a Nobel laureate suddenly turn out to be our technician.

Vandlik smiled.

"Everyone's surprised. There really are few women there. I was one per battalion... So, the main thing they taught us in Noria Infantry was to notice details. The smallest, tiniest signs that something's going wrong. Probably that's where my professional paranoia comes from. That's what you all call me behind my back, right?" she winked at me cheerfully. "And, as a paranoid, I must tell you that your and the captain's lies fell apart in the first second. The moment you got the name wrong, I already knew that everything else was also a lie."

Vandlik sat on the windowsill and the friendliness suddenly vanished from her face.

"Talk."

"And don't even think about hiding anything," sounded in her voice. I waited a bit, gathering courage for another lie, then began uncertainly:

"Well... Since going there wasn't my initiative, I can only assume..."

Vandlik nodded encouragingly, as if to say, go ahead, don't be shy.

"Since it turns out that Irma... I mean the captain... That she didn't have the opportunity to work with this... Jenkins... On raids outside the Perimeter... Then maybe she knew him not from raids at all. I mean—not from work at all."

I looked at Vandlik meaningfully, feeling myself blushing.

"Are you hinting at sex?" she perked up. "I love that! If you only knew how many cases seemed hopeless and inexplicable until sex started featuring in them! Sex is a good reason.

Clear and usually—honest. The only 'but'—why the hell did she drag you along to Jenkins?"

I felt a kind of grim excitement. I stopped caring about the senior security officer and all her tricks. You're not so omnipotent, Vandlik. Just another jarhead.

"I think that's exactly why she dragged me: so this clear and honest reason wouldn't be obvious to the whole barracks," I said confidently. "But I wasn't holding a candle, of course..."

"Nobody holds candles these days, Gilel. More and more often they use a mobile device with a camera," she was clearly cheering up. "But the investigation doesn't yet need those recordings."

Vandlik giggled, jumped off the windowsill, and crushed the cigarette butt in the ashtray.

"So it turns out this Okamura had something seriously short-circuit in his head... I can't understand how such an idiot wasn't filtered out in the entrance tests, but it happens. And your girlfriend, I mean the captain, is sleeping with Jenkins, who shot Okamura. And, worried about her lover, she rushed to visit him. As a woman, I even understand her. And you, it turns out, were brought along as a cover—purely for camouflage. Everything adds up. For now."

I nodded and fidgeted in my chair, expecting Vandlik to finally let me go.

"I hope I don't need to explain that this whole conversation is between us?" she asked.

"No need. May I go?"

"Go ahead! And thank you."

I stood up. From the excess adrenaline I felt like running and jumping. When I was already at the door, Vandlik suddenly called out:

"Why did he decide to take out the trash?"

"Who?" I didn't understand.

"Okamura... This morning he ate everything he found in his room. Rations, canned food, some chips and chocolate bars—about eight kilograms of food! Ate and immediately shit right in his pants," (here I involuntarily winced, remembering the disgusting stinking pile of clothes in the corner of his room). "The room stank so bad your eyes watered. But he, as if nothing happened, threw the shit-covered clothes on the floor, took a shower, put on a clean uniform, and went to shoot his friends. And so I thought..."

Vandlik looked at me attentively. "At what moment did the cretin suddenly feel the urge to throw out a bag of trash? What prompted a person who has a pile of shit in the corner and whose room looks like a dump to suddenly rush to take out some particular trash?"

I did my best to portray surprise and disgust on my face, while a single thought beat in my head like a fly against glass: how could we be such idiots?! Why did we take all the trash? We could have put the cocoon pieces in a separate bag!!!

"It's terrible—what you told about Okamura," I finally said.

"That's what I don't understand," Vandlik nodded, drilling into me with an attentive gaze.

And I hurried out before she remembered something else. And her gaze seemed to leave a huge burn on the back of my head.

*

Straight from Vandlik's I headed to the residential buildings that I'd long been mentally calling "home."

I had the feeling my head was about to burst: I'd been having an almost non-stop internal dialogue with myself, trying to find at least some explanation for that damn cocoon on the wall, but there wasn't one.

Except, perhaps, one—problems had started. Even worse. Some serious shit had started. And the worst shit was that I'd ended up nearby, when in my position I needed to be far away. As they say, farther from the brass, closer to the mess hall. To quietly wait out the end of the contract. Or medical discharge... And I touched my hand covered with the invisible glove again. But even just for my family to get the insurance for my worthless life, first and foremost I mustn't stick my nose anywhere! Not into damn cocoons, and especially not into drug dealers!

On the way I stopped at the pharmacy, bought nasal spray, took out the plastic bottle and hid it in my pocket, and threw away the box. Today you, Vira, are going to be very surprised. And then I'll force you to throw out of your head all the nonsense that you obviously call ideas. Or whatever could have prompted you to get hooked on alien drugs...

At home Vira behaved as usual—as if those two days when we weren't talking had never happened. Well, I decided not to remind her. The conversation

about the shooting on the parade ground started on its own. As if in passing, I said, watching her reaction:

"They say the corporal was a drug addict. Imagine! He was hooked on some local crap. Plant powder or something like that."

Vira shrugged.

"Half the base smokes jah here..."

"I'm not talking about jah, Vira! He was snorting alien shit!"

"Daddy, what's 'shit'?" Elza interrupted, and we had to change the subject.

About three times Vira visited the bathroom, where instead of black pollen, real nasal spray was waiting for her on the shelf. And each time she came out, I first scanned her face with my gaze, trying to understand if she'd used the bottle, and then found a reason to also go to the bathroom and see if she'd taken the spray. No, the bottle hadn't moved a millimeter. Never mind, I'll wait... I'll wait until she herself bursts out with a lament: "Where's my drugs?!"—and then... Oh, then we'll see how she justifies herself...

The phone beeped and I flinched. It was Irma. Vira sat across from me and drilled into me with dissatisfied eyes.

"Hi. We need to meet, urgently," Irma fired off without unnecessary pleasantries.

"You know, I've been home for a while, with my family..."

"He's alive! But tomorrow morning they're sending him to the battleship. Right now is our only chance to find out what happened."

"Thanks, but... If possible, I'll skip this raid. I told Abe I can't constantly go on night runs," I hoped Irma would understand that Vira was next to me.

Irma interrupted:

"You found pollen at your wife's, right? And you want to find out everything about the pollen. So, I'll take a scraping from him for analysis. Maybe we can even ask a few questions. That's all."

I involuntarily glanced at Vira, afraid that she might hear Irma's words from the quite loud speaker... But there was nothing in Vira's gaze except ordinary jealousy.

"How do you imagine this?" Since Vira was listening to every word, I added a few words especially for her. "Is there a request for departure?"

"I have 24-hour access rights to the hospital. So we'll meet there in twenty minutes. Just not at the entrance. Stand on the path."

And she disconnected.

"Work?" Vira immediately asked in a tone that emphasized: "Don't you dare tell me this is work!"

"Yes..." I said as indifferently as possible. "There's an urgent matter."

"Female voice."

The tone was as if that changed everything.

"Our lab chief."

"Irma," she prompted. "Or did you forget what her name is?"

"Vira, stop it! This is serious and urgent! It's about that guy who shot everyone."

"And what does that have to do with you?"

"It has to do with the fact that he's from our bio-company. It's a long story. I'll be back in an hour."

I kissed Elza and started getting dressed. Vira didn't take her eyes off me. "You, my dear, haven't even gone for that damn pollen of yours yet," I thought spitefully and left.

*

It was about half past ten. The hospital building, like everything in the camp, was assembled from sturdy metal-polymer modules united into a whole complex. In appearance—a full three-story building of several wings connected by passages. Everything around was well lit, but a hundred meters away, where we stopped—pitch dark.

Irma had brought the multivisor for some reason and was now examining the hospital through it.

"There are two guards smoking. No one else on this side..." she clicked the mode switch. "Looking inside... In the electromagnetic range—all clear. Thermal... Also. We can easily enter through the side entrance."

"You're joking? You said it was all legal!"

"Are you scared?"

I hate when women say that.

"Relax," she smiled. "I have access rights, it's all legal. But the guards also have the right to call my commander.

And we don't need that. You get it, right? We'll just go in quietly and that's all."

And she walked quickly toward the building. What could I do... I hurried after her, convincing myself that nothing terrible was happening. A few seconds later Irma held her card to the side entrance lock. I kept looking around every second, feeling like a burglar and afraid someone would appear from around the corner. Instead of a welcoming green light, the lock responded with an unwelcoming red and made an unpleasant low sound.

"Damn..." Irma said quietly.

"Not meant to be!" joy rang treacherously in my exclamation.

Irma scorched me with a look that read either sympathy or mockery.

"Nobody's meant anything. Hand over your jacket."

"What for?" I grew wary, but still took off the jacket.

Irma threw it on, put on the hood, and nimbly, like a cat, jumped onto the nearest windowsill.

"Because there are cameras."

And before I understood what her answer meant, the folding knife's lock clicked. Irma applied some effort and the window opened.

"You're crazy! I'm not climbing in!"

"Stop making things up! Get in quick!"

I raised my hands, showing that I pass. I definitely didn't sign up for this. Just then, cheerful footsteps sounded around the corner. Close. Very close. I won't have time to run. Make up something? The guard will call security though, and that means—a meeting with Vandlik. For the third time today.

"Faster!" Irma hissed and extended her hand to me. "Come on!"

Another moment I hesitated. And then I took her palm and pressed my boot against the wall. Irma pulled me damn hard, and I found myself on the windowsill. We jumped into the corridor and crouched down. A moment later rhythmic footsteps sounded below. I froze, praying the guard wouldn't notice the open window.

Suddenly the footsteps stopped. Everything inside me went cold. I clearly imagined him looking attentively at the open shutters. Now he'll take a step toward the doors, apply his card, come in and see us... I looked at the window, expecting that any second his flashlight beam would run along the window frame. Screwed... I really did get screwed...

The recognizable sound of a stream insolently watering the lawn clearly indicated the guard wasn't looking at the window. At least not at this moment. And yet it took about three seconds to realize this. And only then did I carefully release air from my lungs, breathing with relief.

The zipper zipped, and measured footsteps sounded again.

"You're completely sick or what!" I whispered to Irma. "We didn't agree to this!"

And, decisively standing up, I opened the shutters. Good thing I had enough sense to look out before jumping on the windowsill: the guard stood five steps away puffing clouds of vapor from an e-cigarette. Slowly, since with peripheral vision he could notice movement, I leaned back and closed the window. Irma calmly examined the corridor through the multivisor. I crouched next to her, restraining the desire to strangle her. The device in her hands buzzed barely audibly.

"Everything's right," she whispered, as if nothing had happened. "These wards aren't in use. Behind the doors on the left—the working wing."

"Irma," I said barely audibly. "Any idiot will notice us on the monitors."

"Here!" she handed me an ordinary sterile mask from her first aid kit, putting on one herself. "That's if you suddenly want to wave at the lens."

"No way!" I hissed, grabbing her by the elbow. "I'm going back!"

"Really? You think the guard of an empty hospital stares continuously at empty corridors every night? With their empty eyes?"

I didn't answer—footsteps sounded outside the window again. Irma figured out what was happening before me. She jerked me by the elbow and almost dragged me down the corridor. A moment later the door lock beeped. When we turned the corner, I wasn't even sure we'd made it in time. My heart was pounding. We both wheezed like hedgehogs. The guard's unhurried footsteps sounded. He was even whistling something. He stopped. The window shutter knocked. The mechanism clicked. Footsteps again—now moving away. A second later the door opened and the guard went out. I exhaled. From the rush of adrenaline there was ringing in my ears. The whole time I imagined how well we could be seen right now on several monitors.

"Look," Irma suddenly said quietly. "Either we go, or, really—get out! We almost got caught twice because of your whining!"

It sounded like she'd called me a coward. Overall Irma was telling the truth: choosing between a stereo film and empty monitors, I would of course choose the film. If I were the guard. But who knows what they'll do...

"Then let's run," I grumbled and went first.

No matter how hard I tried to step quietly, in the almost absolute silence of the sleeping hospital each step seemed like a ringing slap. My heart was pounding wildly. From how hard and frequently Irma was breathing, I understood that she was actually feeling queasy too. That thought somehow made me feel better.

The magnetic doors let us into the working wing without any problems. Quiet. Around the next turn the corridor was lit. Without agreeing, we both walked calmly and confidently, as if performing routine duties. Running or sneaking would be not only pointless but more suspicious. Truth be told, it's unlikely anyone would think we have the right to be here, but still... Another corridor. Magnetic doors. Another corridor. Another two exhausting minutes of suffocating fear in the bright hospital corridors. Soon we found ourselves in front of the opaque doors of a quarantine box. If the sign was to be believed, Okamura was inside. Ignoring the standard inscription "DO NOT ENTER, DANGER," Irma applied the key card to the lock. Something clicked, and the heavy door budged slightly. I grasped the handle and carefully opened it.

Inside it was completely dark. Judging by everything, our corporal was asleep. I hesitated uncertainly. We can't just turn on the light and wake him up like that... Or can we...

"Guard!" Irma suddenly breathed in my ear and literally shoved me into the ward.

Before the meaning of what was said reached me, she closed the door and we found ourselves in total darkness.

For a moment I was disoriented. I turned my head, trying to make out something, but the darkness was so thick you could poke your eye out. From this I somehow

completely lost orientation, and it seemed it would even be hard to say where was up and where was down. Time seemed to stop.

"Here's who will test you fully..." my own voice suddenly said in my head, and under my ribs the unpleasant tickle of approaching panic fluttered. The familiar sour smell came. You're imagining it. You're just imagining it. There's no smell.

I closed my eyes and inhaled air. It smelled only of hospital and recent renovation. It's fear, buddy, just fear. And yet I was afraid to even move because of the irrational certainty that I'd immediately run into the sharp chelicerae of a swamp spider. My heart pounded like a jackhammer. It seemed behind the noise of blood in my ears you could make out the clicking of spider claws.

"Panic attack," I told myself, with my last strength trying to keep consciousness on this side of reality. "After the neurodesigner you're afraid of complete darkness."

In the endless blackness some lights moved smoothly, as if carried by a current. As soon as I noticed them, they sharply changed direction, then just as suddenly froze. I couldn't understand if they were far away or maybe hanging in the air right in front of my face, but their movement caused dizziness. I was losing my sense of reality.

"Indicators," my own voice sounded in my head. "LED indicators on medical equipment. You're turning your head and it seems like they're moving."

This thought brought some relief. I still couldn't orient myself in the ward, but the space around gradually became real.

"I'm looking through the multivisor," Irma's voice suddenly sounded, and it was like a gulp of air. "He's asleep! Artificial sleep."

I shuddered, finally shaking off the last remnants of panic. Obviously only a few seconds had passed. I wanted to wipe the sweat from my forehead and discovered with surprise that I had a pistol in my hand.

"Irma..." I called quietly, but she interrupted.

"I'm turning off the artificial sleep now!"

"Don't even think about it!"

We needed to get out. I don't know how... But definitely not by disconnecting artificial sleep for a guy who was shot at with an induction rifle today. I wanted to approach and stop her. But as soon as I took a step, panic returned, screaming in my head that right now I'll run into a spider. With my face into its downy paws. And though how absurd this thought was, it paralyzed me, pinning me to the spot.

"Irma!" I repeated. "Don't do it!"

"It's all fine."

And then immediately something clicked. Then one of the medical devices beeped thinly, and silence fell for a few seconds. Finally the bedding rustled on the bed. It sounded like someone stirred. Then strange: the sound was such that he kept stirring and stirring, not stopping. Stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring...

"Irma! What's happening?!"

Another endless moment of silence while Irma answered in confusion:

"I don't understand..."

"Don't understand what, Irma?!"

It seemed to me, one more second and claws, stingers, or god-knows-what-else would pierce me. I gripped the weapon tighter, feeling an irresistible desire to shoot while there were still bullets.

"Irma? What exactly don't you understand?" I asked, feeling panic squeezing my throat.

"Look! You have a flashlight—look!!!"

Right! Calling myself an idiot, I found the holster on my belt, yanked out the flashlight, feverishly felt for the button. The bed was empty.

"Higher!" Irma with the multivisor on her face stood by the bed with her head thrown back.

I raised my gaze without raising the flashlight. There was enough light to see the ceiling well. But to believe what I saw was impossible.

On the ceiling, hunched up, either in a crouch or on all fours, in just his underwear, sat Okamura. More precisely... It looked like Okamura—with the angular muscular figure, black hair, buzz cut "like a marine," dragons intertwined in a tangle on his back and shoulders... But his face... Imagine someone sculpted it from plasticine, then just smeared it with one strong movement of the palm. All the features were like melted wax. Where the eyes should be—just skin that had tightened over the depressions. The nose—an indistinct bulge, and the mouth—a barely noticeable fold, as if cut with a thread in plasticine... I stood, stunned, not