"Thin World". Chapter 7
The continuation of a fantastic story. And that's all, there will be no downtime. We are entering the home stretch.
Anatoly Sazanov illustration
Backward compatibility warning : In previous chapters, a link suppression system with the name “Balsam” was mentioned. Now I decided to call her SOMN. Old chapters will correct over time.
Crumpled like a giant fist, the soldier’s helmet was furiously dancing in the wind with rags hanging from a pole. A strong wind whistled through the bullet holes. The sky turned black, promising an unprecedented storm.
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Father did not care about the whims of nature. He told everyone to line up at this terrible banner. And Lisa also obeyed, standing at the edge of the system and sniffing quietly. She did not have strong soldier's boots, and her legs were soaked. The soldier next to her - Uncle Ignat - smiled at her furtively, but then again with serious willingness he clung to his father.
He raised his hand, and somewhere behind him the sky began to glow with lightning and fell in thunder, drowning out his first words. Lisa twirled the ears, cut off the whistling wind and the frantic roar. To no avail - nature was broadcasting on all waves.
- Our comrade, our brother, - father chopped the air, pointing to the pole, - died, fulfilling his duty. Our enemies think we will retreat. That we have no honor, like theirs, leaving their wounded to the mercy of fate. But we don’t abandon ours and don’t forget. We remember that we have an enemy. Strong and cunning. We must strike before he comes to our homes. To hit for sure, to beat without a miss. Not sparing yourself. As he did, in memory of him.
My father turned to the pole, put his hand to the visor. Story repeated his greeting and stopped in the drizzling rain. The silent wall of people meeting the wind like a breakwater is a raging sea. Lisa gazed admiringly at them, wishing that she herself didn’t even have a tiny hat.
Father first lowered his hand and raised his weapon.
“We are ready,” proclaimed the father, nodding somewhere behind the line. Lisa involuntarily turned around - there were four huge wagons crowding around, which had arrived several hours ago. The father waited for them and moved forward to meet them as soon as he received the news. “How could you leave Marina?” She asked him then. “You are stupid,” said the father, “She is safe. I took care. ”
And Lisa believed it. And why would she not believe? She was fine here with him. Everyone was their own, everyone smiled at her and gave gifts.
- Little Gavrosh - laughed about her.
- I am not Gavryusha, - Lisa was angry, and the soldiers exploded in laughter.
My father looked around at the silent line and, coughing, was going to say something else. Complete the speech with a percussive chord.
But the storm has spoken before. A gust of wind nearly knocked Lisa off her feet, knocking a cap from her father’s head, and the trees around were dangerously tilted. Lightning streamed the sky, from horizon to horizon, and from the slit they rained down on rain, hail and malevolent laughter of thunder.
And at that moment something clicked. Lisa heard howling sirens, the battle of the drums, the tramp of marches and the singing of pipes. Paints other than emerald and ruby ​​disappeared again from the world, hands again became sharp. “Drone?” She thought, “there are no such drones. It is stronger. Louder. It's like ... like then. When it all began. ”
System has failed.
* * *
The sunset was purple-red. The wind, too strong for the evening, tore the last leaves from the trees and scatter them around. At each break of glass in the window of the school medical room trembled plaintively.
“Tomorrow there will be a thunderstorm,” Oleg predicted gloomily. Marina shrugged her shoulders and, squinting a little, looked at the dim bulb hanging from the ceiling. More than a month she did not see the electric light.
“I thought there was no light anywhere,” she thought out loud. A young woman examining her right arm through diagnostic glasses answered without interrupting the examination:
- And only in school there. Guys gasoline generator set. So ... - she took off her glasses and put them on the table, - everything seemed to drag on itself. I did not find the bullets. Apparently passed through.
“Then I would have a hole,” Oleg put in, not looking at women. He sat, slightly nervously trembling leg. The stool beneath it squeaked to the beat.
“So they ate the cars,” the woman concluded after a few seconds of thought.
“They can do that,” thought Marina gloomily.
- It happens? - Oleg raised his eyebrows in surprise.
- Apparently, it happens, - the woman shrugged her shoulders, - Do not forget - I'm just a veterinarian.
She was no more than thirty. Light blond hair barely covered his neck, neatly framing a round face. A white coat was thrown over a fleece blue jacket and the same blue sweatpants. Looks like she usually wore glasses - she looked slightly narrowed and brought everything right to her eyes. She spoke shortly and firmly, persistently. So the lion is commanded to "sit" in order to pull the splinter out of its paw, and the lion obeys.
- Squeeze the palm. So, loosen up. Again. Only slowly.
Marina complied, watching the tendons walking with interest. “But they are not real,” she thought, “machine tendons are not needed.”
- If everything is in order, - Oleg got up from his seat, - Then I went. I still have to look for Dan. Nastya, will you arrange Marina for yourself?
- Okie-doki, - Nastya with one hand leafed through some reference book.
- And be good, give me a dry bag.
Nastya looked at him in amazement.
“So where is usually ...”
- I'll dig there for a long time, you will get out faster.
Confused, Nastya rose and uncertainly followed Oleg. Before leaving, she turned to Marina, shrugged and said:
- Be right back. Drop the sleeve, no longer needed.
Marina did just that, sadly looking at an ugly hole in a beautiful green sweater. “You have to patch it up later,” she thought to herself. Voices sounded muffled in the corridor, and Marina listened involuntarily.
- If she suddenly tries ... - Oleg's voice sounded intermittently, - ... you report immediately. Clear?
Marina did not hear the answer. “Nodded? Did she shake her head? ”She wondered,“ Oh, that's not all good. ”
When Nastya returned, Marina got up, stretched out and walked a little around the office, looking at the lockers, the snow-white sink, the old tinted scales - even with metal weights - and children's drawings. It was clean and tidy. It is only dark — the light bulb did not give a lot of light — and therefore a little ominous. A dentist's chair, the main children's nightmare, peered out of the room next door, peering, wryly grinning.
- Have you been here for a long time? - Marina asked.
- Three weeks, - answered Nastya, tidying up, - I and my son. Soon should have come running. We are still spending the night at school, - she apologized, - I will place you in the principal's office, there is a royal sofa.
Marina nodded.
- You say, if you need help.
- Rest for now, - Nastya waved her hand, - I will need help tomorrow. As luck would have it, neither Olga Petrovna, nor Yana Nikolaevich, nor Nadia. And it is necessary and to bungle breakfast at all, and children to conduct lessons.
- Lessons? - Marina was surprised.
- Well, well, - the vet shrugged her shoulders, - life has not stopped. I’m also learning, ”she nodded at the table, filled with stacks of magazines and books, brand new, in shiny covers,“ I have to sit at night reading. ”
Marina went to the table and at random opened one of the books. "New directions tekhtsitologii ... Well, a word." She flipped through the table of contents. “Cell types ... Mimicry ... Midas syndrome: replacement of damaged and destroyed cells ... Phew."
Marina looked up from the book and noticed that there was a handle, a half ring protruding right out of the wall. Like a pen from an invisible cabinet. She was painted bright red and hid behind Nastya, because Marina had not noticed her before.
She moved closer and took hold of the pen for curiosity. And then she felt something was wrong. His hand tightened as if in a cramp, the palm squeezed, clutching the handle - or the handle gripped the palm.
- Nast? - Marina called plaintively. Nastya turned around and sighed with reproach.
- Well ... Now wait an hour at least. Here, sit down.
She pushed the stool closer and explained:
- This is a magnetic lock. If drones arrive, you can chain yourself for a while. Like Odyssey before the sirens.
- Wow, - Marina respectfully looked at the handle, - and can not be disabled?
- No, otherwise what's the point? The charge lasts for an hour, then it turns off by itself.
- Well, yes, it is reasonable, - Marina agreed, - You came up with a nice thing.
- Well, - Nastya returned to the books, - We did not invent this. They are used in prisons. Dan brought forty pieces from somewhere, and Kirill installed all over Novozhilov.
- And how, rescued?
- While pah-pah-pah - there was no reason.
She suddenly fell silent and looked at the darkening window with some alarm.
- Andrew and I were lucky. We are of one ... color, or whatever it is. But I remember the feeling when I wanted to tear anyone into pieces who were different from you. It is terrible to remember - she shuddered and looked at Marina, - And you? Have you met a drone?
- Oh, if only once, - Marina smiled sadly.
Nastya nodded and looked at the window again.
- I heard a story about a mother who cut her throat so as not to touch the baby. I do not know what I would do. They say it can be resisted. Just looking around ...
She did not finish the thought. In the corridor, there was a rapid tramp and a little boy of about eight years old flew into the office.
- Mama!
Embracing Nastya, he looked suspiciously at Marina and asked:
- Who is this?
* * *
After a short acquaintance followed by a late dinner. Marina had to eat with her left hand, bowing uncomfortably to the table. Fortunately, the charge ended prematurely. Nastya pulled him out of the wall and went to the basement, where a generator rattled.
- It is necessary to stick on charging. Charging will be a long time, really. Well, nothing. Tomorrow rain, drones in the rain do not fly.
Andrei - the son of Nastya - licked a plate and a spoon clean and slipped into the next room. Marina, stretching her numb hand, peeked in there sneaking. The kid comfortably settled in the dental chair, covered with a rug, turned on the halogen lamp and read a book.
- What are you reading?
- “Cake in the sky”! - said Andrew, enthusiastically swallowing line by line.
Marina showed thumb. “Good book,” she thought, “It’s just as easy with our rocket.”
Nastya returned and escorted her to the director's office. There was no light in it, I had to touch on it. The sofa really was new, soft and spacious. Marina was covered with a blanket, wished a gentle “good night”, and she really fell asleep, lulled by the song of the wind outside the window. I fell asleep and slept all night without dreams. Whether disturbing, whether joyful - any were not.
* * *
The morning was busy. The school canteen turned into a public one, and people leaving “for work” came in early in the morning at breakfast. What kind of work, Marina did not have time to find out. But, remembering the conversation of Denis and Yana Nikolaevich, I began to guess slowly. “If everything is as it seems to me,” she thought with secret hope, “then my parent will remain with her nose.” There were among those who came and people in camouflage, like Dan. These sat apart, not particularly in a hurry, their work did not seem to concern.
She and Nastya went several times to get to the well for water, they fought with the gas burner for a long time - the cylinders, fortunately, remained in abundance - and with sin they welded two huge pots of millet porridge in half. In the load it was necessary to make sandwiches from the loaves and heavily lodged cheese, yellow and sharply smelling. Marina came across an untouched pack of toothpicks, and one thought occurred to her.
People, men and women, young and already elderly - those who were not frightened by the deteriorating weather - came here by seven in the morning. Ahead tired, not anticipating anything particularly good, they got a plate of hot porridge, a marinin smile and - a boat with cheese sails. Someone frowned, as if inappropriate joke. But more smiled. And the children were completely delighted. Andrew was sitting with his classmates, eight or nine years old, and he was important in talking about “that funny aunt.”
The morning is over. The last man left, the children ran to make noise in the classroom. Nastya warmly thanked Marina for her help and rushed off to lead a lesson in natural history. Marina stayed to rest on the director's sofa. Lying in a half-slumber, she looked at a herd of black clouds, furiously galloping across the prairies of the sky.
Thunderstorm was coming.
“Where are you there, sis? Here you would like it. Why didn't we two get here? ”
It did not take long to rest. After an hour or so, when the drizzle outside the window was replaced by a real downpour, the tired Nastya came.
“Marin,” she pleaded pleadingly, “are you like children?”
“It seems to be nothing,” said Marina carefully.
- there is no Olga Petrovna, there is no one to lead the lessons. But I won't chase them home in such weather. ”She nodded at the darkened window,“ could you occupy them with something? ” I have at least an hour nap. Of course, you can drive them to the gym ...
Marina looked sadly at her right hand. She tried to give her the form for which she even let these micromachines into her body, but saw only the familiar outlines of a gun barrel. She sighed and, rising from the couch, asked:
- Do you have pencils, brushes, paints?
* * *
The office where classes were held was an office of the Russian language and literature. Bookcases with shabby copies of the school program, elegant rules of the Russian language, hung over the board. On the far wall are portraits of the classics. Pushkin looked somewhere sideways, thinking of something his own, Gogol looked with sly, as if knowing some secret with Marina. Between them, a crack in the wall was ugly.
Eight kids sat at their desks and squeaked hard with pencils. Four boys and four girls. Three red, three green, two without modifications. Oleg's nephew guessed unmistakably - he was in a black jacket, short-haired and tried to behave just as calmly. When did not forget, of course. Now he was drawing out the contours of a huge frigate, who had settled in his head from nowhere, and every now and then called Marina for a hint.
They all painted ships. Marina did not know children who would not like to draw ships.
In order not to be bored herself, she took a pack of clean sheets, a simple pencil and a dull flower from the window sill as a model. Drew times - just to remember the skills. “Not bad,” she thought, “For such a long break. Well ka, again, with shadows. ” Marina finished the silhouette and was about to hatch, but something embarrassed her. She looked from one drawing to another, and then combined them and looked at the light.
She went cold inside.
The drawings were the same.
Marina took another sheet and again instigated with a pencil. She drew slowly, looking only at the flower, deliberately introducing distortions, bending lines, changing proportions.
The same.
She took up the new sheet, determined to make a difference, when suddenly a raging outside wind broke into the office. He opened the window, with a swing it hit the wall of the cabinet. Bah! - the fragments rang on the floor, the frightened girls screamed. Eight heads turned to the window, and the storm burst out laughing in their faces, tearing off the unfinished drawings from their desks.
- So, people, - Marina resolutely rose from the spot, - Let's go to another office.
They jumped up from the seats and ran to the exit, but did not dare to go out. In the corridor it was dark - the lights did not burn, and there were no windows.
“It's scary there,” they whispered. Marina approached the children and commanded:
- Hold hands. Like a round dance. So, Andrew, come here. Light, come on hand, do not be stubborn. Now whatever happens, hands do not release. All clear?
The children nodded. Marina first went out into the corridor. The wind was already raging here, shaking the doors and rattling with broken light bulbs. Through his howl, Marina seemed to hear the drums.
“What nonsense. Who is there to drum? ”
And then they threw her like a kitten into a green-red pool. Without warning, without the annoying buzz of drones. Like a month ago.
“No, don't!” Marina pleaded. In the distance, beyond the three walls, she clearly saw a grinned scarlet monster. It carnivorous grinned and jumped into the corridor. Marina of the last forces found the cabinet door with her left hand and slammed it, leaving the children inside. She would be glad to turn around, cheer, stop, separate, if necessary. But did not even dare to try.
The monster approached, squinting short-sightedly. It was walking, dragging long front legs with claws.
- Trying to run? - it lisped with a familiar voice.
Marina stepped forward and spread her arms, closing the passage.
- Nastya, - she called, - please, come back.
Nastya stopped for a moment, as if deliberating, and then rushed forward. Marina squeezed her head in a heap of murderous orders. With difficulty keeping her mind, she held on to one single thought.
“She is not my enemy.”
She threw forward her right hand, and, not allowing the rifle to emerge, grabbed Nastya by the shoulder. She grabbed, braked, and wanted to keep her as long as necessary. But the woman snapped, jumped sharply to one side - and only a handful of micromachines remained in Marina’s fist. Throwing them away like sand, Marina rushed across the path.
An elbow hit - and they both flew into the next room, shattering the fragile door. Marina grabbed Nastya, both hands pressed to the body. Received a kick and recoiled. Resist. And then a heavy chair flew into it.
Hardly dodging, the girl tore off the glass door of the cabinet and threw back. Nastya took a blow back. Stuck in fragments poured on a white coat. Turning, she saw an open palm in front of her. And the palm opened, as the lens flap.
Flash.
Ozverev from unexpected blindness, Nastya waved her blade at random. And did not miss. Sensing blood, she felt the marinino throat with her other hand and, clutching it, lifted the girl over the floor. Marina wheezed, scratching a steel arm and trying to inhale.
“If she won't let me breathe,” she thought, losing consciousness, “I will have to shoot. I do not want. I can not miss. I do not want!"
- Mama?
Surprised, naive voice. Nastya's hand trembled. She released Marina and stepped back.
. . -. . “ ”, — , — “ !”
— , — . , . , .
- .
, , , . .
. , , , …
. , . . , - . . .
Forgetting everything, Nastya flung open the door to the frozen office and, falling on her knees, pressed her son to herself.
“My God, you are all intact,” she sobbed, “What good fellows I have.”
- Marina said to hold hands, no matter what happens, - explained Andryusha, - We held on. Where is Marina?
* * *
.
“, ”, — , — “ . .”
. , . . , , .
“ ”, — . , . “ ”. , , : “ — ? , ?”
, , .
— , , , - .
. , . , , . . , — , . -. , . .
.
— ? — . - , . , .
“Defenders,” she heard, “Saviors. Warriors. Marina was gripped by an evil shiver. She wanted to scream, “Hey, it's me! I protected your children! He was not here at all! ”
- Marina, - Nastya quietly called her. Marina closed her eyes, counted to ten, and only then turned around.
- Yes?She whispered with a smile.
- Look at what's on my back?
* * *
The shroud was asleep.
Color and sound have returned to the world. This color was black, and the sound was heavenly thunder. Lisa brought her hands to her face to remove wet hair - and saw fresh blood on top of the steel. She blinked. Hands became normal, got the form and color. And the blood of others remained.
She looked around. A seemingly unshakable formation lay like mowed grass. Like a pile of worms, a snake's nest. Red and green mash.
Her father ran to her and grabbed her hand. Grabbed and dragged to the truck, silently, roughly, almost pulling out of the shoulder.
Opening the canopy, he planted it and climbed himself. When his hand caught on the edge of the body, Lisa suddenly realized: he was glowing red.
She was scared.
- What happened? Why are you red?
- Red? - father was breathing heavily and wiping water from his face with his sleeve, - Something went wrong. She turned off, and ... hacking, perhaps, continued? This makes no sense.
- Who? - Lisa did not understand.
- That's what, daughter, - he looked at her sternly, - I want you to sit here. Silently. Without hanging out. Clear?
- Dad, - Lisa was ready to throw himself on his neck, - don't leave me!
Father started, as if by surprise. I looked at her. Attentively, thoughtfully, almost gently. He held out his hand and stroked his head - for the first time in so many years.
“Of course I won't,” he smiled, “we're family.” But you should stay here. For me.
He suddenly laid his hand on her shoulder and squeezed painfully. Lisa wanted to scream - and could not. I wanted to break free - and could not.
She was paralyzed.
My father removed his hand, and she continued to sit, transfixed, staring in front of her. The raised hand slowly knelt down by itself.
- For the sake of your own good, - the father repeated and jumped out of the car.
Go to chapter 8
As usual, I will be glad to any comments - here or Vkontakte.
Thanks for attention.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/402325/
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