… in which most of the characters can finally relax and engage in their favorite activities: scientific work, non-scientific noodles, dream interpretation, and other highly interesting things. Only Bassoon prefers a good night's sleep.
The spacious office was quiet and warm, smelling of instant noodles, fragrant smoked meats, and instant coffee with equally instant cream, which somehow made even the old desks and metal storage racks feel completely calm and cozy. Taking advantage of this long-awaited respite, everyone gathered tried to relax and remained mostly silent. Only Tolyan remained in a state of excitement. As if unable to find his place, he constantly rushed around the room, sometimes sitting down on a chair next to someone, sometimes jumping up from it, sometimes suddenly looking out the window, muttering or exclaiming something.
— Well, never mind! Never mind! Now we'll show them. Let them just try to stick their noses in tomorrow. Now we can do it!
"I would recommend a more cautious optimism about our capabilities, colleague," Pyotr Petrovich said absently, without looking up from his calculations. For at least two hours straight, he had been working with the measurement results brought by Valya: clicking away at his computer keyboard, staring intently at the graphs appearing on the screen, grunting, making notes in his notebook with a pencil, making corrections to the parameters, grunting again, taking a sip from his clay mug, and returning to the curves on the monitor.
Finding no scientific interlocutor, Tolik looked out the window again, walked along the shelves with folders, pulled one out at random, but finding nothing of interest there, he put it back in disappointment. Then he returned to the table by the wall, where an improvised kitchen had been set up. He made himself some coffee and fiddled with a bottle for a long time, adding a little cognac to his drink.
After taking a couple of sips, he scanned the office with a searching gaze. In the corner by the entrance, Bassoon slept like a guard dog. Settling down on a cover from a large machine or other similar equipment folded several times and placing his automatic rifle and rolled-up jacket under his head, the Rosgvardia soldier stretched out his legs, pressed the soles of his boots against the wall, and looked incredibly huge. At the table by the window, almost like in a cafe, Leonid and sleepy Valya sat opposite each other. Propping her falling head with her hand, the girl silently watched as the guy monotonously clattered his spoon on the plate. A little further away, Petrov settled down on the floor and also ate something.
"How can you eat that? There's smoked meat in it..." Tolya showed сare, sitting down with his friends.
"I wanted something hot to eat..." Lyonya explained with a grimace and continued to devour his "Rollton".
"So, is it true that the mannequins were moving?"
"Well, are we going to lie to you?" Valya replied wearily on Lyonya's behalf, having already recounted their adventures to Tolya several times in vivid detail.
"Wow... So, the gaffer was right about those... moving molecules..." The guy paused, suddenly remembering the death of the old professor, and hastened to change the subject. "By the way... Who is that man?"
Tolya nodded toward the sleeping Rosgvardia soldier.
"He's normal," Leonid replied tersely. "Useful..."
"And this one?"
Lyonya looked silently at Petrov and shook his head dejectedly, then turned to his friend:
"Why are you fussing? We decided to wait for the calculations, and then we'll see where to go. Stop drinking coffee. We need to sleep."
"It's coffee with cognac," Tolyan clarified for some reason.
"Then drink cognac with coffee," Valya advised, her eyes almost closed.
"I can't sleep."
"I'm going to sleep," Lyonya pushed the empty bowl away from him. "Who knows what tomorrow will bring..." .
He walked to the opposite wall, removed the overturned chairs and cardboard boxes from the table pushed up against it, spread out his jacket, and lay down on top of it, turning away toward the wall.
"Gosha is probably sleeping there too..." Tolik said, looking at his friend.
"Which Gosha?" Valya asked sleepily.
"The headless one," the guy looked thoughtfully into his cup. "Maybe we should have a shot of cognac? Will you join us?"
The girl didn't answer him. Her head was resting on the table. With her long black hair spread out and her arms folded like a schoolgirl, Valya was asleep.
"Come on..." Tolik grumbled. "You're all so lifeless..."
He looked out the window again, where dark human bodies lay on top of the white snow, as if someone had spilled a whole bag of seeds, opened the stubborn bottle again, and took a swig straight from the neck. Then, choosing a place for himself, he pressed the switch on the wall and fell asleep too. A small circle of light from the table lamp and monitor now remained only around Petr Petrovich's workplace, but, immersed in his calculations, he did not seem to notice it.
"We forced him there..." Petr's melancholic voice was heard in the darkness.
"There were no other options," Lyonya replied after a pause.
"Well, it's all crap... It's somehow inhuman," the historian mused. "And actually, it was you who insisted on going to that warehouse..."
"Everyone agreed. It was a collective decision."
"Don't you feel guilty?"
Leonid turned on his desk and, leaning down slightly, hissed through clenched teeth at Petrov, who was lying on the floor:
"Why are you so worried? You don't like cops..."
"He was... good," he said, embarrassed.
"He was," Leonid agreed, returning to his previous position. "And in a day, he'll be one of them... What else could we do?"
"Bury him and write an inscription!" Tolik exclaimed indignantly from his corner. "It seems like you wanted to sleep, fuck it!"
After this convincing remark, no one said another word, and some had long since fallen asleep...
* * *
Valya lifted the collar of her coat. The wind blew her hair, wrapped its icy fingers around her neck, walking among the dead and piercing the living to the bone. The girl turned to look at the parked car, whose windshield wipers clicked in the deathly silence like metronomes, rhythmically sweeping the thick falling snow to the sides. Wanting to give his friend a particularly stylish ride, Lyonya drove the "Chaika" right up to the embankment. Tolya, dressed in a noble blue-gray suit with a greatcoat thrown over his shoulders, clearly imitating a naval officer, pulled a couple of heavy suitcases out of the trunk and walked with his friends to the gangway.
The Petrograd embankment of the Bolshaya Nevka was deserted at this hour. In two hours, residents would appear here, wrapped in scarves and hats, hurrying about their business. But now only leaden-gray waves silently crashed against the stone walls of the pier and the steel sides of the ship's hull. Valya raised her head to get a better look at the dark silhouette. Even after its modification, the cruiser was still recognizable: the same blade-straight bow plunging vertically into the water, the same three hefty funnels. Only the two covered phased array antenna grids and the pair of cross-shaped masts above them somehow reminded the girl of giant tombstones and crosses on graves. Pushing these frightening images away, she asked:
"And how are you going to sail on this?"
"I'll go," Tolik smiled. "Sailors walk, they don't sail. With the new physical principles, it will be pretty fast. Whoosh! And we're already in Philadelphia. Almost like the Philadelphia Experiment. At least, that's what Gosha says."
"Headless Gosha?" Valya clarified, causing Tolyan to immediately burst out laughing.
"Just don't call him that in front of him. He'll be very offended," the guy paused and looked at his friends. "Okay. Let's say goodbye, you, slackers!"
Lyonya hugged his friend tightly and patted him on the back for a long time.
"We're not saying goodbye. Got it?!"
"Don't give me that 'got it, got it'! Got it? All right, guys... A week or two... There and back... We'll install the repeaters and come back."
Meanwhile, a gloomy sailor descended the gangway. Helpfully taking Tolik's suitcases, he grunted slightly and disappeared inside the ship as silently and quietly as he had appeared. But under his cockily tilted cap, Valya noticed a wide bullet hole in his temple.
"My God, they're all headless here..." she shared her excitement.
"Don't judge people by a hole in their head," Leonid objected sternly, finally releasing his friend from his embrace.
"So... Is anyone going to kiss me or not?"
Valya gently kissed Tolik on his cold cheek.
"Ugh, you're freezing... You're practically dead. At least button up! And you reek of cognac..."
"You don't understand... It's perfume," Tolik smiled condescendingly. "Champaca Absolute, Tom Ford."
A sharp, drawn-out horn sounded from the ship, impatiently reminding them that it was time to set sail.
"They're rushing me..."
Tolya looked at his friends once more. He was about to add something else, but a familiar melody began to play from the loudspeakers installed on the radio room, unmistakably matching the words: "Oh, say can you see..."
"Well, really... What a fool's pates they are? They mixed up the tracks. I wanted 'Farewell of Slavianka,' damn it... That's it! See you later!" Tolik ran up the gangway to the deck. "How's it going? Let's go!"
The guy waved his hand dramatically. And the ship, as if immediately obeying this command, shook all over, rippled like the shimmering hot air above a bonfire, became blurred and weightless, and dissolved into a blue flash. Not even a splash remained in its place. Only the leaden-gray waves continued to roll quietly between the stone walls of the embankment. The girl closed her eyes...
* * *
When Valya opened her eyes, sunlight streamed in through all the windows, cutting through the dusty air in the office with broad golden rays. She was disturbed by such strange dreams. They were too realistic to be mere reflections of her imagination, a jumble of impressions. What were they about? The past? The future? Valya didn't understand. But the scariest thing was that she couldn't tell if she was awake.
The girl went to the window and, with difficulty turning the handle that had seized up with age, threw open the peeling wooden frames. Fresh frosty air rushed in from the street. Breathing it in deeply, she closed her eyes again, although now she knew for sure that she was awake.
"What got you up at this hour..." Petrov's yawning voice came from behind her. "Come on... Where did everyone go?"
"The weather just cleared up," the girl replied in a blissful voice, still squinting at the sun.
"Not, no... Open your eyes! The cor'pses... Where did they all go?"
Valya reluctantly looked down, expecting to see traces of yesterday's carnage, but there was really nothing there: only two Kamaz trucks in the institute parking lot, charred tree trunks in places, and snow. Snow, blindingly white, sparkling in the sun.
* * *
Making his way through the crowd of dead people following Marina, Veksel suddenly felt an unusual anxiety. In the fog thickening on all sides, among the rows of dark figures wandering somewhere, it was impossible to understand what exactly it was. But some kind of invisible excitement suddenly gripped everyone around him, and the old thief felt it too. His daughter squeezed his hand tighter with her cold fingers and turned around.
"Dad!"
Her slightly cloudy but still familiar and lively eyes were suddenly filled with indescribable horror.
"What? What is it, Marisha?" the old man whispered, pulling the trembling girl close and stroking her head, as he had done so many times when she was a child.
"It hurts! It hurts so much. They can feel it... And so can I," the girl whispered, burying her face in her father's shoulder.
"What happened? Tell me, what hurts?"
"The flashes... They're getting stronger. They cause pain," Marina looked at her father. "We're almost there... We just need to go upstairs. It's not that difficult. You have to save me, Dad! All of us..."
"Okay. Okay, my girl. You know I won't let anyone hurt you," Veksel whispered, continuing to stroke her hair.
Trying to get his bearings, he suddenly noticed a strange gray mass ahead. A concrete cone, rising up somewhere. For a while, the criminal tried to figure out what it could be, but when he tilted his head back, he immediately understood. Right in front of him, the silhouette of the Ostankino Tower rose up and disappeared among the yellowish clouds.