Chunk 25

images, like a deck of cards.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three...

I remembered! As if I opened a door on a bright sunny day.

What kind of mutagen is in your thermos, Irma?

6

We stood near the unfinished sports complex—Alex and I. The complex was already assembled, all that remained was to install the equipment. Thick twilight had fallen. There were no lights here, and only the sky diluted the darkness a bit through gaps in the low clouds. Irma was running at least twenty minutes late. We were genuinely nervous, thinking something had happened.

"What took so long?" Alex whined when she emerged from the darkness.

"Did you lay everything out?" Irma asked instead of answering. "Weapons, flashlights, phones—everything that has power."

"Exactly!" I grumbled. "Can't even call you or just check the time! And you wander off God knows where!"

She let the reproach pass by her ears.

"Check again—nothing electrical! Nothing at all."

Alex demonstratively patted his pockets.

"Does a brain count as electrical?" he asked cheerfully. "There's some activity there sometimes."

"Not yours," Irma answered without a smile.

"Are they there?" I asked.

"Yes. You'll see everything. Wait here, I want to be extra careful."

She went inside. We waited. Alex shifted from foot to foot and sighed from time to time. A minute later Irma returned. She walked slowly toward us, and in each hand she held a large black object. A few more steps, and it became clear—these were some kind of creatures. Most of all they resembled locusts, only enormous, like well-fed cats, and black.

"Don't try this in real life," she said quietly.

"Sweet, these are lobsters!" Alex joked.

Irma shushed him.

"Shut up. If you scare them, they might injure me."

The creatures were alive. They lazily moved their clawed legs, but didn't try to escape. I looked closer, barely recognizing in them the once harmless reapers. The two front legs were tucked under their chests, like a supplicant's. But now these weren't some little claws. These were real blades, no shorter than the body itself, folded double like a straight razor.

"My God," escaped from me. "They're huge!"

"Improved version," Irma nodded.

"Are you saying they're safe for humans?"

"You'll see now. Come up one at a time."

I stepped forward first, hesitantly.

"Wait..." Irma slowly brought the "reaper" toward me and quickly ran it along my body from bottom to top, like a metal detector. "Good. Now you."

Alex also stepped forward.

"All clear," she commented. "If you'd forgotten anything with batteries, they would have attacked."

"Us?" Alex's eyes bulged.

"Well... More precisely, the source of the electrical field. But in this case it would mean—you."

"Are you insane?" the big guy was indignant.

"Better than when they all attack you at once inside," Irma shot back.

Only then did I belatedly remember my artificial kidney. It also had a battery of sorts. The reaper, true enough, didn't react, so everything was fine. Still, the fright responded with an unpleasant dragging ache somewhere under my knees.

"How sensitive are they?"

"I think, sufficiently. And they continue to develop."

"Wait..." I bent down to examine the reaper more closely, but didn't risk approaching Irma any closer. "Irma, what kind of mutagen is in your thermos?"

"Meaning?"

"How could you breed a new species in two weeks? How is that possible?"

"Quit yapping," she cut me off. "Here, hold it!"

And she shoved one of the reapers at me. I took it by the shell, holding it at arm's length. Away from the tiny battery in my body. The arthropod immediately spread its sickles wide, but didn't try to escape. Could it really sense it?

"Watch carefully," Irma said.

She took her reaper in both hands, and it too became agitated, opening its sickles. Then Irma sharply flipped it upside down. And immediately—just as sharply—turned it back to its original position. And again—flipped it upside down.

"One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi!" Irma counted off and flipped it back to normal position.

The arthropod remained absolutely motionless. It had tucked its legs under its belly, like a dead cockroach.

"What's wrong with it?" Alex asked.

"Catatonic stupor. Side function of the nervous system. Give me the other one."

Tossing her reaper onto the snow, Irma did the same with mine.

"And... how stable is this state?" I asked.

"For about an hour you could play football with them."

"Tell me about playing football..." I muttered skeptically and immediately paid the price. Without warning, Irma threw the reaper right at my face, shouting at the last moment: "Catch!"

I automatically caught it and already almost felt it plunging its sickles into me, but the reaper remained motionless. Now the arthropod really did resemble an oblong American football.

"Whoa..." I said quietly, tossing it in my hands a few times.

"Alex!"

The big guy started shaking his head and backing away from me. I think he even managed to say "Don't even think about it," but I'd already hurled the reaper at him. Alex caught it with the clumsy movement of a teenage girl getting her first pass in life.

"What the hell! Shit! Your matrix is so screwed! I almost shit myself!" he said all this while already holding the reaper in his hands. "You're both fucking nuts... Where do I put it?"

And Alex helplessly held out the arthropod to Irma.

"Throw it away," she said indifferently. "There are more inside."

And, noticing the bewilderment on Alex's face, she laughed.

"Okay, boys, now seriously," Irma said businesslike. "The front claws of these creatures are very, very sharp. More precisely, insanely sharp. And they're fast as I don't know what."

"Irma," Alex interrupted in a plaintive voice, still holding the immobilized reaper at arm's length. "Do I just keep standing like this?"

"Throw it on the snow."

He released the arthropod with relief and hurriedly stepped away.

"We have less than an hour for everything," Irma continued. "We put the ones inside into stupor and throw them out here. We bring up the transporter, load up, dump all this goodness at the power station. We wait. They'll come to and start destroying everything that has any electrical charge. Theoretically, in a few hours the whole security system will be down. Then all that's left is the final chord: calmly take the arsenal. Any questions?"

"Yes," Alex nodded. "When the system goes down, won't they send a couple guys to the warehouses? Just to be safe."

"When the system goes down, they'll run to the power station. And there they'll find such a clusterfuck that for half the night they won't think about anything except our clawed friends. I bet my left tit they won't stop them. I think the commandant will declare a state of emergency, and then they'll rush to open the arsenal. And there—empty. Colony without power, battery storage destroyed, weapons and transport batteries dying and nowhere to charge them—there's your long-awaited mission finale. Inglorious, but quick."

"Irma..."

"Yes, my sweet?" Irma turned to me, and her gaze indicated she was tired of questions.

"Will they kill people?"

"They, Lieutenant, will be destroying sources of electrical fields! I can't guarantee someone won't get their headlamp smashed along with their head. I'm not even sure they can distinguish a battery from a person with a battery. But if we still want to get to Earth, there's no time for all this. To work!"

Finishing her speech, she took out a nasal spray bottle.

"Is this necessary?" I asked.

"There's a shitload of them. And we're in a hurry."

I won't lie, even though I didn't trust the pollen, I wanted to feel that superpower at least once more. And I took the bottle.

"No, I pass," Alex grumbled.

"Listen, fatass," Irma said sharply. "We have forty minutes for loading. At most forty-five. We need to be very fast."

"Easy, easy!" Alex raised his meaty palm warningly. "When you called me, you knew I don't use. Nothing's changed."

Irma exhaled noisily, pressing her lips tightly together.

"Fine," she finally said. "As you wish. At least the warehouses are all ready?"

"I programmed a fake electronic key with unlimited access. Leaves a backdated record in the system."

"Hopefully not with our names?"

"You insult me! This is my favorite part of the plan, by the way," Alex smiled with satisfaction, waiting for us to ask which part, but we were silent. "I registered the key in the name of the senior control officer."

"To her personally?!" I exclaimed in amazement. "Well, you're an artist."

"Okay, boys, no time for compliments. Sniff it, Lieutenant, and let's fly."

And I squeezed the plastic sides of the bottle. "Swits—sh-sh-sh."

Inside it was dark. The twilight sky still looked at us through small windows under the ceiling, but until my eyes adjusted, I could see almost nothing.

"Watch your step," Irma warned.

The pollen unbearably stretched out her words. For some time I stared at the gray gloom around me, then on the contrary, squinted. When I opened my eyes, they had already adapted and could see much better.

We found ourselves in the main hall of the future entertainment complex. My brain poured out precise figures without any need: height—four sixty, width—ten meters, length—sixteen... Usually such rooms house arcade machines and billiard tables. Now in the grayish moonlit half-darkness you could see construction scaffolding by one wall, by another—

a drywall covered with film. Nothing more. Literally. Empty.

"Irma, where are the reapers?"

She silently raised her finger. I looked, but in the darkness nothing was visible. Despite the windows being very high, the ceiling dissolved into murk. Although—not completely: strange, barely noticeable reflections played on it, the kind you get on a starry night on the sea surface... Then I understood. The ceiling was black with arthropods. They swayed slightly but made not a single sound—didn't click their chitin, didn't rustle—which made it seem the reapers were intently examining us. I anxiously shifted my gaze to the floor, where every dark spot hastened to take the shape of a predator with spread sickle-claws. My pollen-agitated brain hastily rushed to measure and describe everything: puddle, rag, fragment of plastic packaging...

"We're not interesting to them," Irma reassured, as if sensing my fear. "Do everything as I showed you. Time—the cat took a shit. They and Alex, climbing onto the scaffolding, took reapers down from the ceiling, rocked them, and threw them down. I caught them—under pollen it worked out quite skillfully—and stacked them in a pile. I enjoyed every movement. I was superhuman again. Alex, who refused the pollen, moved irritatingly slowly, and his throws were inaccurate. Soon we had to move the scaffolding. Lining up in a chain, we quickly threw all the stupor-immersed reapers outside, and Irma and Alex climbed back under the ceiling. Twenty minutes later we were moving the scaffolding for the last time. The pollen's effect had weakened substantially, and we were falling behind schedule. I was getting worried for the first time.

"Faster!" Irma also looked nervous and kept rushing us.

And then Alex, who already suffered from his own slowness against our background, grabbed the scaffolding so vigorously that he lifted it too high. The supports knocked against the ceiling. Chitinous clicking sounded.

"FREEZE!!!" Irma managed to bark, and arthropods immediately rained down on us like ripe apples.

I managed to dodge them all—thanks to the pollen. At least three fell on Alex before my eyes, and he frantically shook them off with clumsy, almost hysterical movements.

"Quiet!" Irma shouted. "Don't wave your arms! Freeze!"

Her voice echoed through the hall. Alex finally froze. Honestly, I barely restrained myself from starting to wave and dance too. On the floor around us were at least two dozen reapers. They stirred, but their movements were smooth, like sleepy cats. Those still hanging under the ceiling began clicking their shells one after another, like giant crickets.

"What do we do?" Alex asked, involuntarily raising his voice to shout over the chitinous concert. His voice rang with terror.

"Stand still," Irma answered firmly. "Now they'll understand there's no danger and calm down."

Those near me really did freeze. The chitinous trills on the ceiling began gradually subsiding. And then quite nearby I saw a reaper. It was crawling toward me from behind, moving with the grace of an overfed spider. From my leg to its sickles was about ten centimeters, and it wasn't stopping. I wanted to jump back, but Irma beat me to it.

"Don't! It'll jump!"

Probably, considering I'd used pollen, one could argue about who would be quicker. But something in Irma's tone told me she'd bet on the reaper.

"Irma..."

"Shut up," she cut me off. "Don't move. It doesn't need you."

The reaper extended its dangerous razors forward and carefully felt my leg. Then suddenly with the speed of an angry tarantula it climbed onto my boot and extended its sickle-legs along my leg. Like a cat demanding to be petted.

Fear spread through my body in an unpleasant wave.

"It'll leave now," Irma promised.

But the reaper didn't leave. It carefully scraped its legs on the fabric of my pants, as if checking what they were made of.

"And if not?" I asked quietly, almost just with my lips.

"Then I'll remove it," Irma answered.

"Remove it now!"

"Dangerous. It's behaving strangely."

The reaper froze and wasn't moving at all.

"Fuck! Aren't they supposed to not give a shit that we're here?" Alex asked plaintively.

"I don't understand," Irma answered.

"I have an artificial kidney," I said quietly.

And since Irma didn't react at all, I added:

"And it has a battery."

"Oh shit!" Alex shrieked.

"I thought they wouldn't sense it..." escaped from me.

"Shut up," Irma whispered with just her lips. "Don't think about it. They're sensitive to fears."

"Like chimeras?" I asked carefully.

"Yes."

I waited for Irma to explain, but she was silent.

Easy to say "don't think"... From the very moment we entered here, the thought about the battery in my kidney hadn't left me for a second. I tried with all my might to shove it as deep as possible, but it drilled me from inside, like exhausting dental pain. And when the reapers rained down on us from the ceiling, it burst outside as genuine unceasing panic.

Something warm trickled down my temple. Sweat. Just sweat... I didn't take my eyes off the reaper. It, as if tired of standing, began tucking its legs under itself. It seemed it had decided to take a nap. But something in its smooth movements caused barely noticeable anxiety deep in my subconscious. Probably just ordinary panic, and the best thing I could do was push it as far away as possible. After all, I could risk it and just kick the reaper away with my foot... If I'm fast enough...

"Irma..."

"Shh..." she said. "Just be quiet."

Then it lunged upward. And did it so swiftly that I didn't even have time to realize what was happening. Moving its legs rapidly, it climbed up my legs so fast that when I instinctively kicked at emptiness, the creature was already on my side, and a moment later, having run across my back, it burst out from under my arm and froze right on my chest! I started to raise my hands to knock it off, but realized it would have time to plunge its sickles into me.

So I stood there, leaning backward and spreading my arms—like a soccer player blocking a ball with his chest. My heart pounded like mad.

"Don't move," Irma said again. "I'll remove it!"

"Irma," I tried to speak as quietly as I possibly could, almost without moving my lips. "Hurry..."

She slowly approached, stepping over reapers that sluggishly crawled on the floor. Probably it sensed her electrical field... Or maybe heard something... I don't know. But as soon as Irma extended her hands, the reaper lunged at my face! I turned away and tried to shake the creature off, but didn't even manage to touch the chitinous body—it was already on my back and froze again.

"It found it..." Alex groaned, and panic clearly sounded in his voice. "It found it!"

"Found what?" from terror my ears were blocked, and now it seemed my heart was pounding right in my head.

"The kidney..." the fat man breathed out.

But before the meaning of his guess reached me, the reaper became more active. Its claws dug into my back. I cried out, thinking it was trying to get to my implant, and spun in place. But it crawled higher. Sharp claws ran across my shoulders, and a moment later the reaper climbed onto my head. Chitinous points painfully dug into my skull through the fabric of my uniform cap, causing real pain. I froze and, it seems, didn't even breathe.

"No," Irma said grimly. "It's interested in the brain."

"It's—what?!" Alex even shrieked.

"The greatest electrical activity is indeed in the brain. Especially during stress. It senses this."

"You said just lay out everything with batteries!" Alex almost pleaded, as if the reapers' behavior depended on Irma.

"And isn't this your fucking fear?!" she hissed. "You were thinking about this the whole time, right? While we worked, you were thinking they might sense the impulses in your stupid head?!"

Alex immediately wilted under her crushing gaze. A thick hot drop slid from my head behind my ear. Obviously adrenaline had already intoxicated me, because I risked speaking: "Irma..." I whispered. "Need to do something..."

Without looking at me, Irma with one movement tore off her jacket and, wrapping her hand, made a swift, fencing-lunge-like step toward me. I cringed all over. She knocked the reaper off me with some fantastically fast, almost imperceptible movement. In my head flashed: "Praise the black pollen!" because her speed would make a rattlesnake envious. The reaper managed to grab on as a parting gift, plunging its

legs into me. As if that cat now fell from my head but tried to hold on to the last. And as if this cat had hawk talons.

"Quick, but don't run!" Irma commanded and was first to rush to the exit.

We were outside literally in a few seconds. The reaper didn't follow us. Blood ran down my face in several streams. I took off my cap, scooped up a handful of snow and pressed it to my head. Then carefully felt my scalp. The scratches were quite deep, but no pieces of scalp were hanging. And thanks for that.

"We need to finish," Irma hurried. "But without you. Go get the transporter. Just fast!"

I rushed to the biostation where we planned to borrow an all-terrain vehicle. Twenty minutes remained until the first reapers would start coming out of stupor. There was a danger we wouldn't make it. But at that moment I wasn't even scared that our plan might fail. I was scared by the realization that a bloodless evacuation wouldn't work. There was no doubt left—the reapers would kill.

7

...A wasteland. Millions of sunspot butterflies—like the most delicate flowers swaying in the wind. To the black door in the white wall no more than ten steps remain. Up there indifferent hands lay new brick after new brick on top of the fluttering velvety black-and-orange butterfly wings. And these wings tremble and tear upward, as if trying to make the building itself take flight... And here, below, I must take ten more painful steps. Ten more times lower my foot onto the cloud of butterflies that thickly cover every blade of grass and sparkle with a yellow-hot pattern. Now from that crunch their little bodies make during death, I've also started feeling nauseous. Strongly, irresistibly nauseous, interrupting my breathing and robbing me of will. But I must reach it.

"It's just a dream," a tender voice says in my head.

"I know," I answer. "But what's behind the black door is real."

"And what's there?"

"My greatest fear. I must enter to stop this."

"Stop what?" the voice asks carelessly.

"Stop the nightmare," I answer confidently and step.

Horror and disgust overwhelm me with irresistible force. And it seems I've stepped much more than ten paces... Much more than a hundred... And the black door finally appears right before me. I grasp the handle. I catch my breath, leaning my forehead heavily against the iron plating. Contrary to the midday heat, the door is cold. Cold and wet...

I wanted to open it, but somehow couldn't raise my hands. And when I decided to look at them—I felt I couldn't raise my eyelids either.

Panic instantly flared into a mad, irrational desire to scream, but I couldn't scream either.

The hot wasteland with millions of butterflies finally evaporated from my head, yielding to reality.

In reality there was pain.

Pain pierced my chest all the way to my spine. I wanted to groan, but my body didn't seem to belong to me. The painful attempt to move proved absolutely futile. My body breathed evenly, strapped to the damn metal chair, and I couldn't even just open my eyes.

Meanwhile my ribs hurt even more, as if they were squeezed by giant pliers.

"Multiple fractures," the dark-skinned man's voice sounded.

"Could be worse," the already familiar female voice answered.

The giant pliers disappeared. "Hands," I guessed. "He was squeezing my chest with his hands."

"Unless a rib punctured the lung," the dark-skinned man said doubtfully.

"And if it did? He won't live until morning?"

"Until morning he might live..."

"I'll finish by morning. And then with him in any case—that's it."

Footsteps sounded—the dark-skinned man left. Locks buzzed, the door opened.

"If he starts coughing blood—still call me," he said finally.

"Agreed."

"And if you start feeling bad again..."

"I'll call too," the woman responded. "Go."

The door slammed. I tried to move, but again felt myself just a passenger in my own, seemingly sleeping body. Then suddenly I inhaled deeply. The breath responded with a new impulse of pain, and I involuntarily groaned. Realizing I could move again, I timidly opened my eyes.

My interrogator sat opposite, her nose buried in the tablet.

"Come to?" she asked without changing position.

"You again?"

"Are you upset?" her answers were like fencing thrusts. "How do you feel?"

She raised her head, looking at me with surprise through the semi-transparent surface of the mask. Too bad I couldn't make out her eyes.

"And you?" the tone was strange. In it sounded both hostility and surprise simultaneously.

"I don't know," I answered, because I really didn't understand. "Everything hurts."

"It'll pass," the interrogator said this in a tone as if she'd said "don't give a shit." "We must continue."

"What happens in these moments?"

"Which ones?"

"When I don't remember."

"Nothing. You lose consciousness."

"That time something else happened. That guy on the floor..."

"It won't happen again," she interrupted. "I want you to keep remembering. If, of course, you want to see your daughter. You do want to, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Then strain yourself. The colony was suddenly attacked by unknown creatures. Reapers. Nobody knows where they came from, and nobody was ready. Does this tell you something?"

I nodded. To her dark-skinned colleague I hadn't told anything. Not a word about Irma, Alex, and what we'd done.

"What happened next?" the woman asked.

"I don't remember anything..."

"Let me help," she said, tapping her glove on her tablet. "On the night of the attack you decided to use the situation in your own way. Do you recall what you did?"