Section 36 / 39

harder to grip my head, slipping through my fingers, forcing my lips apart and trying to seep through my clenched teeth into my mouth...

Suddenly I feel Irma's thin fingers on my throat. The grip feels like I've run full speed into an iron pipe. My Adam's apple caves inward somewhere, pain shoots simultaneously into my ears and spine. Irma is trying to wrench the rifle from my hand, and I'm being twisted by coughing, but somehow I miraculously manage not to let go of the grip, hanging there like a caught crayfish. The white filth, taking advantage of the coughing, is already in my mouth. I feel it with my tongue, though I don't stop tearing at it with my left hand. Now it'll reach the root of my tongue and I'll choke on my own vomit...

Something hits me on the back and the back of my head. Apparently I've fallen. Strange as it seems, not having to stand on my feet anymore seems to add strength, and I put all my energy into my left hand. A jerk—and the white filth releases my face.

It's like removing an army gas mask after a ten-kilometer forced march, when following the saliva that's accumulated during this time, you're ready to spit your guts out onto the ground.

The inhale scorches my throat, but Irma's hand no longer holds me, and I can breathe. She's still sitting astride me, trying to tear away the rifle. Bam! A heavy, fast blow from her left was aimed at my temple. By a miracle I turned my head, and she hit me above the ear—also painful, but safe. The second blow didn't delay—Irma strikes at the bridge of my nose, and this time it's accurate. For a moment it's like the lights go out... Apparently I managed to lift my head, and now I've slammed the back of my head against the floor again... But I'm still conscious... The white filth is still on my hand: it's crawled onto my elbow and is making its way higher...

All this flashes through my head in one flickering stream, like a dish cabinet has torn loose and the plates manage to flash before your eyes before shattering into dozens of shards, scattering across the floor. It's as if these aren't even my thoughts, because I myself am completely occupied with only one thing—covering myself with my left hand from the third merciless blow. I manage—Irma's fist crashes into my elbow. She immediately strikes again, but I catch her arm. Then Irma springs to her feet, putting all her strength into wrenching the rifle from me. Probably if my body had been the old one, I wouldn't have had a chance. But they transformed me into god-knows-what, and I had enough strength. Without releasing the rifle, I draw my knees to my stomach and kick Irma in the chest. Opening her fingers, she falls on her back.

The rifle is mine!

Mentally I note that the white filth is already on my shoulder, and I need to hurry. Irma screams loudly, fearfully. Who knows how this would have ended if she'd started begging for mercy or simply cried.

But what she had from an earthly woman lost to the creature she truly was: rising in an unnaturally high jump, Irma stuck to the ceiling like the wounded Okamura once did in the hospital, and then again spat white substance at my face. This time I managed to anticipate this and rolled to the side. No more hesitation.

I raised the rifle, and the world before my eyes drowned in a painful blue flash.

8

The smell of burning. The fire suppression system hisses businesslike. Fine cold droplets fly onto my face. A black hole with ragged edges in the roof has exposed solitary stars. So the wind has dispersed the clouds. Yellow-hot tongues of flame, almost choked by the stream of air, suddenly flare up again, triumphantly cackling at the melted edges. Plastic gurgled, boiling, and a long viscous drop fell from the ceiling near my foot.

The white filth has made its way onto my neck and is tickling, trying to crawl under my collar. Probably another time I would have flinched or even jumped like I'd been stung. That me. Who didn't lie in the basement under the little legs of hundreds of reapers. Who didn't grow back a disgusting pink hand. Who didn't kill the woman he was in love with.

Into a mushroom. You were in love with a mushroom, buddy.

I feel around for the dough-like white substance and crush it in my palm. Then I tear it off myself and hurl it as far as possible, without even getting up.

If I understood everything correctly, the worst has already happened. Including the very worst. But there's also something that gives hope. Once I learned pretty well how to multiply optimistic forecasts by the number of days in a year and the number of residents of a megalopolis to get discouraging figures of inevitable disasters. Now, it seems, my brain has switched into reverse mode: I manage to divide the shit that's already happened by ten and dig out the tiniest crumbs of hope in it. Like that imperceptible movement of Irma's eyes—as if a seven-year-old child in her pupils had fearfully covered his mouth with his hand,

blurting out something extra to mama. You gave yourself away, my dear Irma. It happens to everyone.

I sit up jerkily. Just in time to see something whitish crawling again through the plastic debris. I think about whether to fire the Shiva. Then I look doubtfully at the hole in the ceiling. Big. You could think my grandfather's sports car had drilled through it at speed...

Kicking the aggressive jelly as far away as possible, I pick up the radio from the floor.

Something is smoking in the corner, black and oily. I peer closer. Looks like a boot. I mechanically take a step toward it and stop. If it really is a boot, I don't want to see what's in it...

"Alex!" I say into the radio. "Dukhovsky, answer... Dukhovsky!"

The radio station is silent for exactly long enough for various shit to start climbing into my head... Well, or as long as it takes the fat guy to remember which of his substantial sides has the radio hanging.

"...brother, I'm on the line. How are you?"

He pressed the tangent late, and the radio's crackling ate half the first word.

"Is Elza nearby?"

"...earby, brother! She's listening to her daddy right now."

"Where are you?"

"...made it to the 'black sleeves.' Elza missed the 'Don't sleep' signal. Irma too, by the way. I called her on the radio, but nothing. Do you know where she is?"

"Forget about Irma. Did Elza pass the test?"

"...esters ran out! They just went to get them. Everything's fine, ten minutes and they'll bring them!"

"Elza, sweetheart, how are you?"

Her voice is barely audible. I can't make out the words.

"...hear?"

"No, Alex. Repeat for her."

"...hurry, she says!"

"Ask her: who's like a hedgehog, but with one needle?"

"...hat?"

"Elza, daughter!" I decide that directly will be faster. "Who's like a hedgehog, but with one needle?"

Silence.

"Alex, repeat for her!"

"...e can hear! She says, a hedgehog is a hedgehog."

"Why?"

"...w should I know! Buddy, half the camp can hear us. This is, like, a radio."

"Ask her, Alex! Ask her why one needle!"

"...you even conscious?"

"Elza, daughter, why one needle?! Alex, son of a bitch, repeat my question to her!!!"

Quiet... Too quiet, I can't make it out... This moron is obviously holding the radio a meter away from her. I want to tell him to bring it closer, but Alex isn't releasing the tangent—I can hear him, he can't hear me. There's Elza's voice... Alex asks something... Her again...

"...brother, she doesn't want to right now!" he finally responds.

"Did she say that?"

"...ten, you better come here. The child is tired and..."

"ALEX!!! Buddy, I'M NOT FUCKING JOKING WITH YOU HERE!!! Ask her and repeat the answer exactly!" I bring the radio so close I'm touching the plastic with my lips. "EXACTLY, BY YOUR MOTHER, REPEAT THE DAMN ANSWER!!!"

"...alm down, little brother, don't curse in front of the child, what's wrong with you!"

"Elza, daughter, why does the hedgehog have one needle? Come on, sunshine, it's your riddle! Tell daddy—why?"

She says something again. I'm furious at Alex, no words. I bite my lip until I taste blood on my tongue.

"...hear?"

"NO!!! I didn't hear, Alex, I didn't hear! WHAT DID SHE SAY?!"

"...aramu. Got it? Because ma-ra-mu!"

9

In the darkness of the kennels, dogs are barking. Mournfully—nothing like the usual menacing barking of our shepherds. Some kind of high helpless yelping of frightened puppies. I pass by, and they howl mournfully after me.

The windows of the internal security service are lit, but not a sound comes from the building.

"Alex... Alex, answer me, buddy..." I'm repeating this for maybe the fifth time and pointlessly shake the radio. "Come on, answer..."

Silence.

The front doors are open. This is strange, considering they have a closer. Coming closer, I understand the reason—someone's hand is between the door and the jamb. I open it, expecting to see a corpse. But no—it's just a hand. I shudder involuntarily.

The dirty floor is smeared with blood, as if a body had been dragged. There's no one inside. I raise the rifle and enter. "You're almost immortal," I tell myself. "There's nothing to fear!" But this thought sounds about as optimistic as "you're already dead."

Vandlik's office. The glass doors are broken. Inside—dark and empty. The corridor is lit. Nobody. The bloody trail stretches somewhere further.

"A-a-alex!"

My own voice seems alien and echoes far too loudly. Glass crunches under my boots.

"Elza!" and suddenly, getting scared, I stop myself.

Why am I calling her? She's not my daughter... Or... A wild thought pierces me—what if she isn't? What if she just repeated that stupid "maramu" that she heard from Irma? But who do you think did all this?

Sudden banging and the tinkling of broken glass! Somewhere ahead, not far!

"A-A-ALEX!!!!"

At first I almost jump in place, then freeze—listening. Silent again.

"A-A-ALEX!!!!"

I'm almost running, raising the Shiva's barrel from door to door as I go. Before the next doorway I freeze in confusion.

An open, almost empty room, overturned chairs, broken cabinets, some medical boxes... Among the broken glass—dozens of white tester tubes, and in the middle of the room—a huge clot of that same dough-like filth. Like the one Irma spat in my face, only enormous, twice my size. It continuously rotates, changes shape, and rolls around like a huge oily

drop... A lump of nausea rises right to my throat. I lower the rifle and involuntarily step back, trying to cope with my own stomach. Then I aim again, preparing to burn this shit, whatever it is. Before it's too late.

But something stops me: a clear familiar pattern on the shifting white surface. It appeared only for a second and disappeared again, but now I can't shoot. I need to remember where I saw it... "What difference does it make, just shoot!" I tell myself and even move my lips at this moment. But somewhere in the darkness, beneath the surface of agitated consciousness, one and the same thought persistently knocks: until you remember—you can't shoot. This is something very familiar. Something important...

The whitish clot continues to roll from side to side, as if invisible hands are kneading dough... And here the pattern emerges again—now, perhaps, it holds a bit longer than the first time, and I manage to examine it. Diamonds and pentagons, scattered in an intricate order. Remarkably clear and symmetrical... In a moment the pattern dissolved again in waves of the dough-like sea... But I recognized it. I remembered.

It was the standard tread pattern of tactical boots worn in the Conquistador Corps. And this specific one, judging by the sole length, was a very large size. I think, forty-seventh.

"Alex!!!"

At first I rushed forward, but stopped, not knowing what to do. Then I slung the rifle behind my back, grabbed the "dough" with both hands and yanked in different directions. It was viscous, like gum, I had to grab it again, and finally the whitish filth parted, exposing Alex's cropped head. I started scraping this off his head, feeling the dough immediately begin to "flow" into my sleeves. Alex convulsively inhaled when I tore the remains of the mass from his face, and he immediately vomited.

I tore the white filth from his shoulders and hastily threw it off my hands.

"Alex, we have to get up! Get up!" I tried to lift the big guy, but I lacked the strength.

Finally he obeyed and took a step aside. The living mass stretched after him like a stuck ice cream wrapper. Alex kicked his leg and with a powerful blow sent it into the corner. I immediately raised the Shiva. The shot thundered. For a moment everything was consumed by a blue flash.

"Lord God..." Alex croaked.

The corner of the room had turned into a huge black stain. In the floor gaped a hole to the basement, the concrete walls bristled with melted rebar. A bit of smoke—there's almost nothing to burn here.

"Alex, where's Elza?"

He doesn't answer, and I turn around in surprise. Dropping to his knees, the big guy is feverishly rubbing his bright red cheeks and forehead.

"It's over," I say. "I burned that filth."

"On my face..." he mutters, feeling every centimeter of skin. "Is there any left on my face?"

"No. There's nothing left."

"Look carefully... It's on my face, brother..."

"Alex, stop," I gently take his hand. "There's nothing there. Just a face."

For some time he looks at me in confusion. Then once more uncertainly runs his fingers over his cheek.

"It feels like there's a mask..."

I squat down in front of him.

"Where's Elza? Where did she go?"

"Bro..." he somehow averts his eyes. "Everything's bad... Very bad... They brought us here to do the test, and she..."

Finally Alex lifts his gaze to me. It seems tears are about to glisten in his eyes.

"Your daughter killed them all."

He expects me not to believe him. But I just nod.

"Did she spit on you?"

"So you knew?" Alex's eyes bulged. "You knew that she..."

"No. I guessed when I asked you to pose her the riddle. The real Elza isn't here right now."

"What do you mean? Where is she then?"

Glass crunched, and we both jumped like we'd been stung. In the doorway, looking at us fearfully, stood a little girl with a tear-stained face.

"Daddy! He killed them all! He's scary!"

Elza points her little finger at the big guy Alex and begins to cry. My daughter. My little girl. In my head I understand everything... And I remember everything... How she disappeared and how she was found—both with Irma's participation. How I couldn't smell her hair and skin, only shampoo and

soap... And that now, running here, I found an empty building in blood-smeared cuts. But to understand—doesn't mean to believe.

I took a step toward her with the most natural intention—to embrace her. And she, reading this in the movement of my shoulders, stretched her arms toward me.

"Bro..." Alex said uncertainly and took me by the elbow.

"Daddy!" Elza shrieked in fear and, jumping back, stared at Alex. "Careful!"

I turn on my heels. Something's wrong with his face! At first it seems swollen... But the very next moment it becomes clear this isn't edema.

These are blisters, as if someone had stuck huge ripe grapes under his skin. No, probably nuts, but they're changing shape, becoming as if liquid. Under the swollen brows you can't see his eyes anymore...

"Alex..." I exhale, and the barrel of my Shiva seems to turn toward him of its own accord.

His face suddenly returns to normal. No more blisters or bumps... But now before me is not Alex at all! Looking down at me from the height of his two-meter stature with a cold and calm gaze is Colonel Nathan Gog.

Momentary fright and surprise gives way to a feeling of inner coolness, as if my brain has turned into a mechanism. The stock flies to my shoulder. My gaze catches the holster on his belt. He won't make it—I'll just step back one more step and fire...

"Little brother..." says Nathan in Alex's voice. I hear the intonations of fear, even pleading, but his face remains impassive. "Little brother, what are you doing... It's me..."

On his flushed forehead veins swell—like dark lightning has cross-hatched a pre-sunset sky. A creepy, frightened wheeze tears from Nathan's throat, and he comically covers himself from the Shiva with his hand. His right cuff is torn, and the unbuttoned sleeve flaps under his elbow like a dead fish. If not for the petrified expression on his face, he would look pitiful. Mentally I whisper my habitual "twenty-five," pressing the trigger. On the final "five" he'll disappear in a blue flash...

"Farewell, Nathan," flashes through my head. "ONLY GOD JUDGE ME," the subconscious reminds me. STOP! My index finger straightens as if burned. I sharply lower the Shiva—a fraction of a second before doing something irreversible, because I suddenly realize that on the bare

forearm visible from the torn sleeve, there's no tattoo!

Elza looks in surprise from me to Gog.

"God..." I mutter in confusion, not understanding what's happening.

And suddenly my daughter screams in a high childish soprano, repeating again and again a completely un-childlike word. Maybe if not for this, I wouldn't have dared. But she was shouting the word "KILL!"

This cruel command sounded in such dissonance with the very concept of "child" that I involuntarily found myself on the side of the giant with Nathan Gog's appearance. Obeying some intuitive knowledge, I approached him, extended my palm and, grabbing his cheek, ripped toward myself.

Gog's face flew off like a mask. In my hand appeared living whitish dough that, python-like coiling around my wrist, instantly crawled into my sleeve. And instead of Nathan stood, breathing heavily, frightened Alex Pai. I feverishly shook my hand, trying to throw this filth onto the floor. Finally I managed to throw it as far as possible.

"Where is she?" Alex asked, looking around.

Elza was nowhere to be seen.

"Here's what we'll do, buddy," I say, examining the floor. Then I pick up one of the many scattered testers. "Here. Can you handle it?"

Alex nods. Resolutely applies the tube to his finger. The tester clicks loudly. A quiet "pshh" sounds.

"What now?" Alex asks.

I'm not aiming at him, but the rifle in my hands is ready for combat, and he keeps glancing at it.

"Shake," I answer.

Alex obediently waves the tube in the air. We're silent. Finally a short high beep sounds, and a bright green LED lights up on the tester.

"Thank God..." I exhale and only now realize how afraid I was that the result would be different.

I look around the corridor again. Elza is nowhere. I sit down on the floor, right in the doorway, lean against the jamb, put the Shiva beside me.

I have no idea what to do now. Although no... I should just catch my breath.

"How are you?" Alex asks.

"I'll go crazy in a minute," I answer honestly. "But otherwise—fine."

"Here, while you're sitting," and Alex extends a white tester tube to me.

I shake my head negatively.

"There's no point wasting a tester, buddy..."

His eyebrows rise in surprise. With one deft movement the big guy picks up my rifle from the floor and steps back a few paces. He's not aiming at me. But at the same time, examining the Shiva, he finds the safety and switches it to combat position.

"There is a point, little brother," Alex says calmly and throws me the white tube.

I catch the tester mechanically.

"You just don't understand..."

"I swear, if you don't do this, I'll shoot! You would have done the same a minute ago! Come on!!!"

Now he's aiming at my chest. This is unreasonable... But the fact that Alex is ready to shoot, I see in his eyes as clearly as the loaded Shiva in his hands.

"Fine..." and I apply the tester's nozzle to my finger.

Clicking, it pierces the skin and sucks out a drop of blood. I still have a minute or a minute and a half...

"Shake," says Alex, calming down a bit.

I mechanically shake the damned tester, understanding that right now the reagents inside the white tube are counting down the final seconds. The final seconds until a death sentence.

"Alex, you should know something..."

He frowns. Silent. And he still hasn't lowered the barrel. Still hasn't lowered...

"I have, Alex, certain problems... With tests. With them in general not everything..."

I wanted to say "not everything is unambiguous," but at that moment the tester beeped—intermittently and anxiously—and flashed with a bright red light.

10

I involuntarily flinched. Alex stared dumbly at the red dot.

"I'll explain, buddy..." I began uncertainly.

But he's no longer listening. His gaze—somehow unfocused—moves to the area of my chest. I understand that he's going to shoot, and his eyes have dispassionately chosen the aiming point—center of mass, as they taught.

"I'm me, Alex! What are you... Really, you won't shoot..."

He will shoot. He steps back another step. If I were at least standing, then maybe there'd be a chance to jump out into the corridor. But I'm sitting, and the Shiva's barrel is already looking at my chest. In my head a garland of words rushes feverishly, but I simply won't have time to voice them in these half-seconds that remain. I need to choose something. Something that will stop him...

The giant seems calm. He presses the stock to his shoulder, breathes deeply and, exhaling half, holds his breath. As if he were about to make a difficult shot at half a kilometer. Like me, when I whisper my "twenty-five"—necessary for a sniper shot and completely absurd when you've put an inductor to your wife's head. "It makes it easier for him!" I suddenly realize. "He doesn't want to shoot either!"

"Look me in the eyes!!!" I barked as loud as possible, lunging forward with my whole body, pushing the air out in one short impulse; Alex flinched and raised his gaze. "What are you doing, Alex! You want to kill a friend because of a damn red light!"

It's clear he's wavering. Even the rifle dipped in his hands, losing its target. He opened his lips but said nothing. His gaze darted sheepishly somewhere into the corner.

"Lower the barrel, come on! Don't be an idiot! I could have shot you when that shit was on your face! Do you even imagine what you looked like? Do you imagine or not?!"

Of course not, but I need him to understand this himself.

"No," Alex finally says and swallows.

He's looking at me, and now there's some childish helplessness in his gaze. I'm silent. He's waiting for me to explain, but I'm not going to.

Alex swallows again. Large drops of sweat on his forehead testify that I've chosen the right tactic.

"Like who?" the big guy can't stand it.

"You had the face of a guy who was here on the previous expedition. Became a chimera and killed a bunch of people. And you didn't even know about the previous expedition, right? But Vandlik—knew from the very beginning. And Abu, who developed these testers—knew. So I should have

shot you in the head without hesitation. You had the face of a dude who died sixty years ago. But somehow I had enough brains not to do it! And you—will you shoot because of a stinking red light?"

He breathes heavily.

"Let me tell you what I know myself. And you decide for yourself, okay? You have a synth-nuclear rifle in your hands. What do you have to lose?"

He nods uncertainly.

I briefly told him about the previous mission, and about the giant mycelium, about Vandlik who's looking for an absolute weapon, about Virunchik and the cocoon... "How's Elza doing there?"... And I finished with Irma, who wasn't Irma, and how she cut off my hand... Rolling up my sleeve, I showed Alex the junction between the delicate pink skin of my new hand and the ordinary, summer-tanned skin.

"I have a hereditary disease. And it didn't let them transform me. Understand? They didn't succeed. They succeeded, but not completely. And Irma... I had to personally shoot and..."

I fell silent. What happened with Irma and how it ended—still didn't fit in my head. And there's nothing more to tell.

Alex was also silent. He sat squatting, having placed the rifle on his knees, and waves of wrinkles ran across his forehead again and again. And his gaze didn't return from the emptiness somewhere in the lower right corner—there, probably, scenes from my story were now playing out... This went on for quite a long time. I managed to get up to stretch my numb legs, and Alex didn't even bat an eye. And then he turned his gaze to me and asked: "So this isn't your body?"

"It's... It's something like a copy, Alex."

"And where's yours then?"

I thought about it.

"I'm not sure it even exists anywhere, to tell the truth..."

"What about the soul?"

"Well, brother... Science doesn't even know if such a thing exists at all..."

And I stopped. I think I was silent for ten seconds, mentally repeating his words.

"You're a genius, Alex!"

"In what sense?" the fat guy was surprised.