Technologists

Technologists

I once wrote some tales. Now I want to breathe new ideas and new breath into it. Perhaps someone will be interested.

Prologue.

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Morning is like morning. The alarm clock rings again, I get out of bed again, go to the washstand ... Now I am ready to go to work.
Stop, something is wrong. Something I'm completely on autopilot. But where is everyone? Why am I alone at home? Again, the wife left at night with her children to her parents? It seems there was no reason for this, strange. There is no note ... Where is the phone ... Ringing ... Ringing ...
The number can not answer at the moment ... So, it is necessary to call parents ... Hooters ... The number can not answer at the moment ... What kind of nonsense? Where are all gone ??

Yegor waved his hand at everything, once again straightened his hair in front of the mirror, pulled up his tie and left the apartment, heading for the parking lot. The road to the parking lot was through a kindergarten, near which parents and their children always turned, and some caregivers breathed air before the start of the working day. Yegor knew all these people by sight and always greeted them. And kiddies sometimes handed out candy. This time Yegor was amazed at what he saw. The territory of the kindergarten was completely empty. There was not a soul. Moreover, the street was so fascinatingly quiet that silence just hit the ears. Egor paused, looked around, looked at his watch, thinking that he probably got up a couple of hours earlier than usual and that is why all normal people are still sleeping. But the clock was 7:30 in the morning. Normal time. Yegor scratched his head and went on to the parking lot. Surprisingly, he didn’t meet the driver either, he wasn’t in the booth, but Yegor didn’t have to look for his mood, so he got into the car and went to work. Yegor felt even more surprised when he moved along the usual path ...

- Where is everyone? What's going on here? - Yegor thought to himself.

And indeed, where it usually takes about 2 minutes to stand in a traffic jam in front of a traffic light, there was not a soul. The road was completely empty. Moreover, there was not a single pedestrian who usually climb under the wheels, crossing the road in the wrong place. And then no one! So throughout the journey, Egor was the only participant in traffic on the road. And for all the way, he did not meet a single living person. He wondered what was happening. Upon arrival at work, Egor was not surprised that the parking in front of the office was completely free. But when in the office, he did not find any guards, who usually drink coffee at that time and poison fishing trips, and no one who cleaned the glass doors at the entrance. The office and near-office space was completely empty. Not a single living soul. Here Yegor suffered an attack of fear and panic. He did not understand what was happening. I did not understand where all the people had gone. He again began to call the phones of relatives and friends. Phones did not answer. Only a few asked to leave a message on the answering machine. But not more. Then Yegor turned on his work computer and tried to find at least someone who would be on-line in the instant messenger pager. In the network, too, were all offline. Then Yegor began to read the latest news bulletins, hoping to find at least some clue, at least some explanation of what was happening here ... But nothing like that. There are no emergency reports that a hurricane is approaching, or a strong earthquake is expected, there are no reports of imminent dangers or attacks from neighboring states. And all the people seemed to have died out, but there are not even corpses, therefore, they should have been taken out somewhere, but who, and most importantly, why?

“And why did you leave me?” And why did nobody even tell me anything? - Egor thought about himself.

After digging on the Internet did not give their results, Egor went outside, looked around, got into the car and went to ride around the city hoping to find at least one living person. But empty streets were destroying his hopes every second. And at one of the crossroads, Egor saw cars that were standing right at the intersection, from afar it looked like an accident, when he drove closer, it became clear that both cars were waiting for the green light to make a left turn, in his heart Egor hoped that these people open windows of cars communicate with each other, and added gas. He was ready at all costs not to miss these two people, it was the only clue. And so he drove to this intersection, carefully got out of the car, walked over to these two cars, and saw that they were both empty. But one of them was started. He looked inside and saw that the gasoline in the car was left quite a bit, and she didn’t have to work for a long time. When Yegor looked inside the second car, he realized that the gasoline in it was already over and therefore she does not allow the exhaust from the pipe. Already released all that was. Egor lowered his head and walked to his car. He did not fully understand what was happening. He went to the cafe, where he usually dined. The cafe was closed. Egor found a stone, took it and threw it into the glass door of the cafe. The alarm system immediately worked, and Yegor, looking pleased with himself, looked around, waiting for the security organization to arrive. But there was nobody around. Only the sound of the alarm did not stop. Then, when he was tired of enduring this ringing, Yegor made his way inside and cut the wires to the speaker with a kitchen knife. Then he began to host a cafe in the kitchen, in order to cook something for himself to eat, due to the resulting stress a good appetite developed. It was a very interesting feeling, snacking in a familiar place, but in complete solitude and silence.
Suddenly, this seemingly invincible silence was broken by a phone call, indicating that an SMS message had arrived. Egor almost jumped up with joy, he climbed into the phone with great hope to read the message, a lot of thoughts flew through his head, and the main idea was the thought that all this was a joke and now he would be told about it.

However, when Egor saw the message from whom, his joy immediately changed to even more despair. The message that came to the phone was another spam from the mobile operator. But all these proposals, especially in the current situation, did not interest Egor at all.

Time passed, there was nothing to do. In order to somehow entertain himself and get away from the nightmare, Egor visited many expensive shops, having the opportunity to enjoy, testing all kinds of expensive equipment that he always could not afford. Then Yegor began to steal all kinds of expensive cars, on which only very wealthy people rode. He just rode steep cars around the city, sometimes drove into various shops, such as hunting, home appliances, computer equipment, and what he liked to grab with him and pretended to be a tough guy. Having grabbed the trunks he liked in one gun shop, Yegor imagined himself as a modern Klin Eastwood, shooting parked cars at no-use, glass of high-rise buildings and other items that became for him just the decoration of a large theater.

It took one and a half days. Yegor was already tired of fooling around, but there were still no people. When he decided to once again eat in a fairly decent institution, he was disappointed that many products were already missing. Moreover, the peak of the meal, which consisted of what he found edible, turned off the light. This made Egor think about a lot. After a hearty lunch, when Yegor left for the next pokatushki, hiding behind the fact that he was scouting the situation, Yegor discovered that there was no light in the whole city. And this is not surprising, because if all the people have disappeared, then there is absolutely no one to monitor the level of fuel in the urban heat and power plants. It changes things, without electricity it will be much more difficult to survive alone. And if we consider that winter is ahead ... Egor did not even want to think about it. After some reflection, Egor went to the car station, to the station that is engaged in the transportation of fuel. I found a more or less decent truck with a gasoline tank. After making sure that the tank was not empty, also checking that the tractor itself was not diesel, Yegor started the truck and decided to go to the nearest neighboring town. He hoped that all the same, not all the people of Earth disappeared overnight, and that only his city was deserted. On the way to the long-distance highway, Egor drove into the super market, scored all kinds of food that you can eat on the way and went ahead.

It took about eighteen hours on the road. At the same time, Egor every two or three hours made a stop in order to stretch his muscles, cope with human needs and just relax from the road. Even when the night came, Egor was not going to go to bed, he was obsessed with the idea to get to the neighboring city as soon as possible and to find out from people what happened after all in his city, and possibly in the world.

That moment has come true. Five kilometers remained to the city, but along the road, neither oncoming cars nor passing cars were encountered, only occasionally abandoned cars stood on the side of the road, near which there were no signs of human presence. This introduced Yegor into a state of jitter. Most of all, he was afraid that in this city he would not find a single living person. And finally, he enters the city, despite the white day, the roads of the city are completely empty, there are no pedestrians, there are no signs of life, traffic lights also do not work, apparently due to the lack of electricity. Egor stopped right in the middle of the next intersection, got out of the car and began to scream.

- People !!! ??? Anyone !? Can anyone hear me? - tearing out voice Yegor.

But in response, he heard only his own echo, well heard in the absolute silence of the dead city. Egor sat on the road for a while, putting his feelings in order, then he found a less bulky car and set off to scour the city. He looked into all medical and law enforcement institutions. Everywhere there was darkness, silence and the complete absence of signs of life. Then Yegor went to the local airport. He once was engaged in piloting private small aircraft. And had a little experience in this matter. The airport was also completely deserted, which brought wild horror to Egor. In one of the hangars, he found a decent small airplane, imported. He was convinced that the fuel tanks were full, and began to prepare for takeoff. He had not yet had a clear plan where he would fly, and what he would do, he just wanted to look at the Earth from a height of flight, and perhaps then, he hoped, he would be able to find at least one city in which there would be living people. Or some other clue.

Flight by the plane did not last too long, since the capacity of the tanks of this model is not great. Egor flew past one fairly large town, over which there were no signs of life, and in the next town he had to land on the way, otherwise he would risk breaking. No matter how sad it was, but nowhere, there were still no signs of life. After landing, Egor quickly found a place to settle down, right at the airport, and fell asleep.

Yegor was already 32 years old, he had a good family, two children whom he loved very much, in fact, like his wife, and the family answered him the same. By profession, Egor was a psychologist, and worked as a psychoanalyst in one large company. He had enough life, he was satisfied with life in general. He was quite practical and positive person, although it happened that he was beginning to be offended by the whole world, especially when a lot of problems fell on him at one time. Just Egor little versed in technology and had quite a few hobbies. One of these hobbies was just piloting aircraft. Now, Egor did not know what to do with all that he knows how. And even at times it lost its sense to live on.

In the dream, Egor dreamed of his beloved family, colleagues, pedestrians, people, and he smiled in a dream like a child, despite the fact that lately he had managed to get enough stubble, and his suit was soiled, dented, and began to exude unpleasant odors. When Yegor woke up, he was again upset. After all, he remembered that he was in a completely unfamiliar city, at the airport, where there is not a single person, not counting himself. He was also worried about the questions “Where is everyone?” And “What to do next?”.

Gathering forces Yegor moved to the city. This time he first experienced difficulty with transportation. Batteries in cars began to discharge from idle, so the car was not started up immediately. Food was also beginning to show a shortage, as time went on, there was no electricity, everything that should be stored in the refrigerator quickly deteriorated, only various canned foods, chocolate bars and other long-perishable foods that Eger didn’t like as healthy food remained.

At the time of walking around the city, the weather began to deteriorate sharply, it became colder, a strong wind blew out, and soon a heavy downpour began to pour. Egor took refuge in a clothing store, very well. There he found clothes more practical for the conditions in which he fell, as well as warmer. The wind on the streets broke out so much that sometimes even picked up cars, and carried them like toys from place to place. Egor was somewhat surprised and scared. He has never seen such a hurricane. When everything was quiet, chaos was happening in the city. Machines stood at random, some were broken and turned over. Many windows in the windows of the houses were broken. Around were puddles, dirt, fragments of incomprehensible objects and fallen trees, poles and electric wires lying directly on the asphalt. Picture frankly not joyful. And after all Egor understood that now it will be so, because no specials. city ​​services will not come out and will not be taken for restoration work. There is no one to remove the dirt, no one to pull away the trees, no one to remove the wires from the road, and no one to bring the city in order. Well, except that Yegor himself will take care of this, but he clearly did not think to do it. He was still trying to understand what happened to the world ?!

Considering the state of affairs, Yegor began to search for the safest building in which he could live more or less comfortably. He had no desire to go to another city. Especially considering that there is no weather forecast for the next day, and the weather surprises. The main important parameters for Egor were: the presence of bomb shelters, in case of weather anomalies, fire safety and insulation. After all, now there is no central heating, and for warming up you will most likely have to use improvised fireplaces right inside the building. The ideal option of course would be living in a cottage, but they are not so resistant to weather conditions.

Egor recalled with great sadness his relatives, all the people of the planet, even those whom he did not know, and asked himself the question “Well, why did I sometimes want to be left alone, get away from everyone and not see anyone? Why did I need it? If I had not dreamed, maybe all of this would not have happened. God, I want to return everything as it was! Pray, bring people back to Earth! I need them like air! ” With such thoughts, he began to equip his home. To stock up provisions, fuel, and other essentials. As a dwelling, he chose one office building built back in Soviet times. In his opinion, it seemed to him the safest.

To be continued...