Project "Eye" Part 18

_{Photo: AV Photography}

We leave at the old pace. In fact, I really want to finish the story in less than a year, that is, I have until 15 May. This can be called a preliminary "final point." After it there will be a global editing, perhaps some scenes will be rewritten and \ or supplemented, and then the layout of the printed version of the book.

References to the previous parts and appeal to those who see the Oka publications for the first time:

Eye - my personal literary project, the work on which I started in May of this 2015. From a small sketch, he turned into a science fiction work, the chapters of which I post, as I write, on GT.
')
Previous parts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17

---

She got caught. Got stupid.

Fearing chase, Astraea hardly used her module, otherwise Deimos would find it too easy. She was so used to her abilities that she now felt blind and helpless. As it turned out, there were all grounds for this.

She regained consciousness. Squinting, trying to get used to the bright light hitting the face of several lamps on the wall, she tried to understand where she was.

The last thing the elder of the sisters remembered was that she was leaving the building where the underground laboratory was located. Then - a blow to the head, the tramp of heavy army boots.

- The goal is captured, as they understood, the reception, - while one of the fighters reported, the other two clapped her hands behind her back to tighten her wrists in soft handcuff bracelets.

Astraea tried to raise her head to understand who had attacked her. One of the fighters noticed this and another neat but strong blow of the butt on the back of the head cut it completely.

And now, now she is here, in the hands of who knows.

My head ached mercilessly, especially at the point of impact, but the first thing the captive tried to do was to scan the surrounding space using the Oka module. To her surprise, she could not reach even a single mind, even the thoughts of the man standing in front of her remained hidden for her, not to mention mental control.

“Before you begin your attempts to break into my mind — the voice was well set, it was audible,” I dare say that, for a start, it is worth listening to me. Plus, you still can't get out of here, girl. The room is shielded, so finding outside helpers will not work for you.

Astraea only snorted.

“But you must somehow get out of here.”

“Maybe,” her mysterious interlocutor turned around and, limping on his left leg, moved behind the chair on the other side of the table of this mysterious interrogation.

Only when the man sat down, Astraea could see him: high forehead, dark hair, attentive, gray, deep-set eyes.

- So. As I understand it from the intelligence report, your call sign is Astrea, right?

- This name.

- Sorry?

- Astraea is a name. My name is that.

The man did not even budge.

- You know, I saw a lot of John, Michael, Harry, but not one Zeus, Apollo, and, especially, Astrea. Do you know what your name means? Where did it come from?

“Name as a name,” the girl tried to raise her hands from the table, but found herself tightly chained to the metal loop welded to the table, through which her elastic handcuff bracelets were passed.

There was not a single opportunity to escape. It remained only to talk.

“According to Greek mythology, Astraea is the daughter of Themis and Zeus,” the man leaned back in his chair and began to wear black leather gloves from her hands, the goddess of justice. Judging by the reports, you are just another freak killing everyone indiscriminately — her interlocutor leaned forward — am I right?

Astrea turned away, as far as the handcuffs allowed, without saying anything, and lowered her face down.

- Good. So be it.

He threw aside the floor of his raincoat, under which the unknown Astrei was gray, but, this was beyond doubt, his military uniform, and he pulled a pistol from his holster.

- You have a very simple choice, Astraea. Either you will convince me that you can have a dialogue, or I will shoot you right here. You know, my powers allow me to pass judgment solely, wartime bonuses, which for us has not been completed.

“I'm not going to talk, do not understand with whom, even if you have a trunk in your hands,” rage began to boil in the girl’s chest. She was not afraid of anyone before - she does not falter even now.

“Deimos doesn't count. He is not a man, ”Astrea corrected herself.

- Yes? - A look of gray, with a icy-blue tint of the eyes, it seemed, now they will drill a hole in it. - That is, you are not afraid of me? - He raised the gun and sent it to the head of the interrogated.

- I understood everything correctly.

After some thought, the man lowered his gun and continued:

- And what do you need to speak? A, Astrea?

- To begin with, it would be nice to introduce yourself, you know my name.

He laughed.

- And you are not as simple as you seem, girl. Okay, be it your way. My name is Col. O'Connell.

“Another martinet,” Astraea tried to stretch her shoulders stiff from the uncomfortable position, “and the Irishman as well.”

“Let the martinet be, if you are more comfortable, and yes, the Irishman,” O'Connell picked up a cane that had previously stood under the table and was hidden from Astraea’s gaze and approached the girl, “I know a lot about you, Astraea . I know how you and your sister got into the program of the Eye Project, I know about the modules, operations, and your potential. I know who lobbied and financed the development of you as a fighter. I know even the past of your creator, Mike Ivor. But there is one small, annoying problem.

- And what? - Astraea raised her head and carefully looked at her companion.

- The picture does not converge, Astraea. The whole story with your top secret "weapon of retaliation", or what other epithets did not call the policy project Eye, as one big puzzle. The only problem is that it lacks details. And you give them to me.

- Why is that?

O'Connell twirled the cane in his hands, as if thinking, to stun Astraea with a round copper knob, or to wait a little.

Time was painfully, for a long time, as if it had become rubber. The colonel looked at his prisoner, the prisoner looked at the colonel. This staring game continued for a good two minutes, until O'Connell broke the silence that had been broken only by their breathing.

- I am interested in one fact. As it is not surprising, all the strings lead to one point, no matter how hard I try to pull them differently.

The colonel again ran his hand over the floor of his raincoat, in which he was sitting, even though he was indoors, and pulled out a small officer's tablet. Touching the screen several times, he handed it to Astrey.

“I've been looking for my old friend for a long time,” O'Connell faltered, leaned back in his chair and put the cane on his knees, “a former friend and colleague, he disappeared a few months ago and it seems to me that you can help me, but he turn will be able to help me in finding answers.

Astrea listened attentively to O'Connell and only then took the tablet extended to her from his hands. A middle-aged man in a captain's uniform was looking at her from the screen, looking sternly but confidently.

- Have you seen him before in the center?

- You say this is your former friend?

- Yes.

“I've never seen him before,” Astraea replied, and once again, she looked at the screen of the tablet for sure.

Without a doubt, Deimos was looking at her from a photo.

“Why do you think this person can help you?” - Astraea spoke as carefully as she could in this situation.

Colonel O'Connell just grinned and, reaching forward, took back his tablet.

- Maybe because it was from him that you ran off headlong, leaving your sister?

Astraea was stunned. She absolutely did not understand what kind of person was sitting in front of her and how he knew so much, because it is obvious that Deimos would in every way conceal the very fact of her existence, not to mention her abilities, of course, until a certain point, because in his place she would enter would be so. The girl stared at her hands with the skin cracked from the chemicals on her fingers, broken nails and, what upset her most now, with handcuff bracelets on her wrists. Even without the Oka module, she was a trained fighter who could easily cope with a lame colonel.

“You have time to think while I have other things to do,” O'Connell broke the silence.

He got up from his seat and, leaning on his cane and not hiding his own limp in any way, moved toward the girl, took a small folding knife out of his coat pocket, and while Astraea tried to understand what was happening, he cut the bracelets with which he was chained with a sharp movement in the table.

- Personally, I think better when I go, although now it is not easy. Think, Astrea, I think you need friends, ”he said, and walked out the door.

...

Melissa slept badly. Although she spent almost half a year in the center while she was training to use her module and was under the supervision of doctors, now, after a wide surface, this place seemed to her a concrete grave. A huge concrete grave.

Reluctantly, she got up from the government bed and went to wash in one T-shirt: the only advantage of the base is that you don’t have to sleep in clothes.

Already in the bathroom, she noticed on the floor a used disposable machine, which, apparently, remained from the past guest of the room. Melissa picked it up, twisted it in her hands, and then laid it on the edge of the sink.

The machine forgotten by someone caused an avalanche of memories in her mind about the time when she had not yet met Matt and Oliver, when she did not go on the strange task given to her personally by adviser Harris, when she was simply assigned to the intelligence department ...

“Get up, we have a lot of work,” he always got up quietly, without an alarm clock, as if in his head, under his dark thick hair, he had his own.

In response, Melissa could only give something inarticulate. They slept quite a bit and, although she was a trained and strong fighter, she was no longer twenty to indulge in pleasures all night, and in the morning she felt like nothing at all.

But this did not reflect on him in any way, although, quite possibly, the matter was solely in his self-control and responsibility.

- Maybe we still wallow? - She asked this question every time she stayed in his apartment and did not go to the barracks, and each time she received the same answer.

- Melly, honey, you know that we should be in the department at eight, get up.

“That's why you go there at seven thirty, right?

The man sat on the edge of the bed and, throwing back a strand of red hair, kissed her on the forehead.

- I come earlier so as not to arouse suspicion.

“God, every secretary in the department already knows that you are sleeping with me,” Melissa picked up the blanket and closed her eyes again, “but as you can see, no one will do anything for us.”

The man looked at her long and attentively, sighed a little irritatedly, and began to say what he had already explained to his girlfriend:

- Understand, Melly, this is the status quo. As long as we do not advertise our relations, and as long as they do not interfere with our service, the command closes its eyes to this. Because we are helpful. But as soon as any doubts arise in our loyalty, in our executive and subordination, the consequences can be dire. How many young guys from my department got burned on romance and affair with colleagues — he got out of bed and, limping heavily on his left leg, moved to a chair where his form was neatly folded and a cane with a heavy round copper knob stood.

Melissa was always amazed that science could make her a telepath, capable of subordinating the will of other people, but she could not cure the limp of her beloved man.

They talked about it. Richard was wounded in his youth, when he was a lieutenant. Then the doctors were able to save his leg, but he lost a large piece of musculature, and improper healing rewarded him with limp and walking stick. He was not written off for scrap, as is the case with many wounded, but transferred to staff work, where he was spotted by counterintelligence.

“Don't look at me as if you were crippled,” Richard said without even turning around.

- And how do you know that I look at you? “Melissa was always amazed at his ability to“ see the back of his head, ”as Richard himself expressed it.

- I already told you - I feel my back.

He took the things from the chair and began to dress. With socks and trousers, he fiddled a bit because of his legs, but after that, Melissa watched as enchanted, as her lover turned into a tall, handsome colonel of counterintelligence. Following the polished boots and shirt to shine, it was the turn of the tie - another archaism, a relic of the past, without which, however, Richard did not appear at all in public, after - a gray tunic with a colonel's eagles and an intelligence icon on the lapel, and finally a cane .

Melissa hated that cane. However much she gave, in order to see Richard relaxed, walking freely towards her, and not hovering with concentration, although, admit, not without dignity and a certain grace, a breed inherent in him.

For herself, she decided that the whole thing is in posture. Unlike other cripples that she met in life, to call her lover so even before the start of their relationship, the language would not have turned. Richard created the impression of the officer, and the officer of the battle, an honest and decent man, and it was the bearing that played a significant role in this image. Even in their first meeting, when she arrived after studying at the location of his department and came to Colonel Richard O'Connell "on the carpet", Melissa noticed how exactly he holds his back, even with the damaged leg.

But on that first day, she was very surprised that she would be commanded by a person who is hardly older than herself (as it turned out, they have only three years of age difference in favor of Richard), and she is also lame. Usually they were not kept in the army.

- Get up Melly, just have time to eight, - he went to the bed to kiss her goodbye.

Melissa rose as high as possible on her elbow so that Richard would not have to bend too low, which was problematic for him because of his legs.

- Ok, I'll give the keys later.

After the apartment door slammed, she lay down for a minute, just looking at the ceiling, and after one motion she got out of bed. When washing, she noticed that Richard had forgotten to throw away the disposable machine, which he shaved in the morning. He stayed on the edge of the sink.

Just like the one that now lay in front of her ...

Pulling her head, as if throwing off the shackles of memories, Melissa splashed icy water on her face. It took even less time to pack than to wash - she had to go to the medical floor where Oliver was now lying.

He somehow reminded her of her Richard, but at the same time they were completely different. Both had an inner core, strength, but if Richard was only crippled from the outside, then Oliver, to a greater extent, was crippled.

Each time, being near the Steel General, she felt under what oppression of the affairs of her own hands she was.

“There is no more terrible judge than you,” thought Melissa, stepping out of the elevator.

Oliver greeted her with a faint smile and a greeting with his hand raised.

- Well, how are you? - Melissa asked and sat on the edge of the bed, throwing the blanket aside.

“In general, not bad, but now I wouldn’t give up on a good piece of meat,” Oliver was, surprisingly, in a good mood, “there’s no desire to eat.”

- Ok, I'll try to think of something for you. How are you going already?

“Yes,” Oliver sat on his bed on his own, although he winced a little from the pain in the process. “I don’t know what they prick me about, but the stuff is crammed.” How many people we would have saved if we had, at one time, at least half of such drugs.

Melissa smirked.

“Well, what can I say, this is the best of the best hospitals.”

“Yeah, only three hundred meters above us, and yes, the best of the best.”

- What about the head?

“It hurts,” Oliver admitted.

Dr. Ivor was worried about him after the injections of EP-22, and, since it would have been suicide to advertise finding their small team here underground, it was Melissa who was assigned to watch his mental state. Deimos promised that while he was here no one would even pay attention to their existence. He kept his word. Matt calmly moved through the floors, and all the counter, even the operators who were trained by other specialists, either did not notice him, or were mistaken for some old friend of theirs, whose existence, in other matters, was almost immediately forgotten.

Melissa thought about Deimos. His power struck the imagination. She left the center before the operation was carried out and did not find the period of his training with the sisters. And he instilled terror in her.

“Yeah, apt name was picked up for him,” she thought.

In general, the naming process was a very strange procedure. Several operators collectively analyzed the associations arising from the subject during the viewing of the video sequence, and then, based on his reaction, the names were selected. Names, animals, names of gods were used. However, only those who survived amnesia or a serious head injury underwent the procedure - unfortunately, Mike Ivor didn’t have the perfect working material, but people without a past are much more comfortable.But there were also individuals who voluntarily refused old names. For example, sisters.

"Astraea and Adikia, Adikia and Astraea ...", - it scrolled in her thoughts.

Melissa volunteered, as the chances of death were minimal, and she didn’t have much choice. What can a woman in the army? Carry paper and tea to thick-staff members of the headquarters? Not for this, she passed in her youth, on a par with everyone, selection, not for this, she trained for so many years and tried to curry favor.

And now, now she is here, it is not clear which side of the barricades.

“What did this dude do, Harris? And where the hell is Richard? ”

She was again lost in memories, on the day Richard convinced her to agree to the adventurous, secret mission that Harris, the adviser, had brought down to their department from above.

“Honey, please, I need someone from those whom I trust to take up this business,” he told her then.

As it turned out, Richard trusted only two people: her and himself.

No connection, no contact. He only promised her that when the time came, he would find her. And Richard said he did not believe Harris.

From her experience of working with him, Melissa could say with certainty that from Richard’s mouth it sounds like a sentence to a person.

“I do not believe Harris, Melly. He is up to something, something that is ruining our already mortally wounded state from the inside. It seems to me that he is pitting us all, ”Richard told her one evening.

“Bleed? Army and intelligence? ”She asked.

“Take it higher,” he leaned over the bottle, splashed himself some more brandy, and leaned back in his favorite chair, “sets off the army, the Council, even resistance to each other. You have no idea how much effort I have put in these years to achieve a truce with the rebels and settle a lot of issues within the country and the capital in particular, where almost half of the population now lives. But every time I ran across someone's invisible hand that did everything exactly, and vice versa. Do not believe Harris, Melly. "

And so, now she is here, in the center, along with his, Harris, elder brother - Matt, almost a traitor, and the only thing that connects her with the country she serves is Richard.

“Hey, Melly, are you there?”

The woman shuddered and returned to reality - to Oliver's chamber.

- You had the view that it was going to bury someone.

In response, Melissa just smiled sluggishly.

“No, Oliver, it's all right.” Will you sleep?

“Yes, I will not refuse, there is absolutely nothing to do here,” he answered.

- Well, then after the procedures I will not wake you up.

Melissa touched the mind of the Steel General and plunged him into a deep, healthy sleep.

In general, in a dormant state, the human mind is most vulnerable to operators. No barriers, just a bare subconscious. It was there that Melissa was now, trying to find signs of an EP-22 defeat that threatened Oliver. Fortunately, she did not have to go far beyond the example — Deimos opened her mind for her for a moment, and now she knew exactly what to look for.

Chaos.

"How is he still in his right mind?", - work with Oliver did not require high concentration and looking through his mind, Melissa was often distracted by her own thoughts, "In the same place there was no stone unturned. How? ”

However, the fact remains that Deimos was not a psycho in the full sense of the word. A psychopath - quite, considering that they learned from him, and after and from the younger of the sisters - Adiki. Another question is what they talked about with Oliver.

The steel general only said that they have very little time and they need to hurry, and he will explain the rest later. Melissa was tempted to break into that part of his consciousness where memories are stored and find out what happened in the ward then, but with some fifth feeling she understood that she was not worth it.

Plus, in the current state of Oliver, she could trivially harm him with this. Anyway, Matt showed no concern, which means she would follow his example.

...

Astraea spent in the cell a good five, maybe eight hours. It is difficult to watch the passage of time in a room without windows and clocks.

At some point, the door opened silently and O'Connell appeared on the threshold.

The scout got rid of his cloak and was now in a gray tunic, on whose shoulders eagles gleaming dully, defining his title.

Astraea tried to touch his mind with an Oka module, but again she came across a void. The impression was made that the colonel simply did not exist, as she was absolutely sure - now her module is working and she is trying to use it.

- What is a tense face? - O'Connell, still leaning on his cane, moved to his chair. - Oh, I probably know. You can't get in here, ”he tapped his temple finger with his index finger,“ well, that's all right, don't be afraid. The space of this room is filled with electromagnetic interference. For a person and even for an operator - absolutely harmless, but, as you see, they make you, to some extent, blind. By the way, we also have a mobile version of the radiator, otherwise we would not have taken you there, in the industrial zone, ”he added, anticipating the next question from the older sister.

He sat down in a chair and gestured for Astree to follow his example.

- Sit down, dear, I hope you thought well for a time that I was not here.

Astraea looked attentively at the man, but sat down on her chair.

- Colonel ... - She began.

“You can just Richard, you're not my subordinate, at least for now,” he smiled slyly.

“Okay,” Astraea agreed, “Richard, before I finally decide whether I will help you or not, answer me one question.”

- And what?

- What will you do with this person whose photo you showed me when you find him? And why are you looking for him at all?

“This is not one, but two questions,” Richard sneered, “Okay, be it your way.” I'll start with the last one: why am I looking for him? “The colonel succumbed forward, and all merriment flew from his face — now he was extremely serious — because he had disappeared from a research center where he had been for the past few months a week ago.

“What? ..” Astrea began to pummel a bit from such news.

“HE IS OUTSIDE ?!”

- And the answer to the first question is simple - I will do what circumstances require.

“But he's your friend.”

“I buried my friend, Henry Johnson, a few months ago.”

- His name is Henry?

“Yes,” O'Connell was a little surprised, “and what did you call him?”

The girl was silent for a moment, and then, in a low, slightly quivering voice, she answered:

“Deimos.” In the center he was given the name Deimos.

O'Connell silently watched Astrea.

“As I see,” the man finally said, “he really knows how to strike terror.

---

In order to keep readers abreast of the pace of work, and just to chat without fear of being hit by a banhammer on a GT, or else, if you do not have an active account, I created a group in the VK open spaces dedicated to the “Eye” project . We are already one and a half thousand people!

Welcome.

Criticism, ratings, discussions and feedback in the comments, as always, are extremely welcome.

Part 19