“Such as he was” – and the Father looked like from American trick, but more precisely – as in American action movie from a video salon in Sheremetyevo, where Colonel Blinchuk recently waited for the flight. “Blade Runner” came to Blinchuk’s mind. But suddenly Korostylyov distinctly muttered: “The Uryupinsk theater of the young spectator” – and instantly the grandeur and brilliance of manner and clothes of the mysterious alien in the eyes (aching, by the way, brutally rubbed) of the Colonel Blinchuk was suddenly shedding to the image of some robot Werther from our TV show.

– Ha. Ha. Ha, – the Colonel said aloud unexpectedly to himself.

– And what the evil beautiful man Seryozha is doing here? – from behind the Father's hood asked his strange daughter, or who she is to him. This time, with the voice of a fully mature, young, but mature, ripe high school girl. She looked exactly like one as well. Very small, plump, ripe round schoolgirl. In the cradle behind the monster’s back. Do not sit on the stump, do not eat the patty.

– I am in the squad, Father, – Nabis said because he was the subject of conversation. – Bad luck for you.

– Or bad luck for you, – the Sitting on the Back remarked. And accompanying gesture was made by the Father.

– We have one and the same Trouble, – Nabis countered. – And that's enough, Father. Get off me. Speak to the one with whom you came for. I'm doing my work here. Sitting and not glowing.

The Colonel suddenly realized: he, the Colonel, is sitting on a chair on the floor of “GAZ-66” body, in more than two meters above the ground. And the Father is trampling on the ground with his huge rubber boots. But his face is above the face of the Colonel… It turns out that he's two and a half meters tall! And the girl on top. A young woman.

However, the Father's face was hidden behind a helmet-mask of the insulating gas mask IP-5, new sets of which, by the way, literally filled up all the rooms of the Headquarters and pile of which collapsed right on Blinchuk not long ago when he tried to open documents' cabinet in his new office… The pipe wasn't connected to the mask, there was no respiratory bag. Flickering in the sun of the “neutral” with the PVC edges, a large hood visor blocked the masked face from above. And lower, the thick, damned leather at first glance, the blackest black coat was falling down. Fakely sparkling in different places too.

Obviously, the clothes have been hand-made. And it was less than a half of the damned leather in it. The braided wire coarsely sewed the parts of the pattern and in the most important places we could see the fasteners with self-made brackets made of thick copper wire. The cloak looked strong but homespun, not brand design. This significantly reduced the greatness of the huge figure, behind the Hollywood superman, freely walking through the world's most dangerous territory, you could see the diligent, inept Soviet man, the direct descendant of Ellie the Cannibal from that hysterical movie by Mark Zakharov²⁷1. Major Korostylyov – Blinchuk remembered him as a Lieutenant on the 16th outpost – had a sharp eye and a quick mind. He also was well-read. An intelligent officer. That is if you did not know how many people he had put in a battle. But further on, it is about the Father.

The sense of provincial dress was sustained by the kind of weapon hanging on the grand cloak like decorations hanging on the Christmas tree. Out of the dozen of guns, strapped, tied, taped and almost nailed to leather in different ways, was the only one real – a shabby KHM with a box store, hanging on the Father's chest like a “schmeisser”. All the rest were the toys. There was plastic bazooka shooting balls and the green barrel of plastic “maxim”²⁸2, and white and grey ugly with a grenade spring-loaded rocket carrier, with which Blinchuk's son once flatly refused to go into the yard to play war. Moreover, there were obviously self-made guns made of wood. Even the ignite, the size of a sawed-off shotgun from the movie about Pavka Korchagin²⁹3, was there. Knock-knock on the glass… “Who's there?” Bach!

The basis for the girl's seat was also self-made. They were a couple of bicycle frames, a basket from a baby carriage, a pile of wire and a massage attachments to the car seats. (Blinchuk could not see the girl fully: plump naked arms were hugging the shoulders of a gigantic coat, a short bare neck, a round, attentive face over a bald of the mask, several rich strands of hair flowing down the cheeks from under the ski cap. Suddenly, Blinchuk remembered that now it is the middle of November, and felt how hot he was, and realized that it was strange, that this was also a special effect…)

– In appearance, my father and I are nothing but clowns, right, comrade Colonel? – Said the lass-girl in the voice of the old witch. Father stepped from foot to foot. – Club props, folk festivals organization. Profession – a master entertainer! But do not be upset. Hello! As an old resident, I welcome you on our planet!

Blinchuk cleared his throat, removed the SKAR's³⁰4 belt from his shoulder and rose to his feet. The seat beneath him slammed, lifting. And it seemed to him that the Father grew taller at the same time as it slammed. Blinchuk was looking at him from the bottom up again.

– Good day to both of you, – he said. – May I come closer to greet you?

– Why not? – The lass asked. The girl. – You are much more radioactive than we are.

At this moment, Blinchuk jumping out of the track's body landed wrong and sprained the leg, the ankle. Kept the cursing to himself. Limping, he approached the alien couple. Somehow, while he was walking the Father suddenly diminished. Blinchuk wanted to rub his eyes, especially since it had just become a habit. Father was not two and a half meters tall, of course, not even two. He was only half a head taller than Blinchuk. An illusion, or what? And with this heat… What the hell is happening to me?!

The Father was stretching the hand to meet him. The only thing Blinchuck had time to notice was an engagement ring, deeply rooted in the thick ring finger, and a deafening handshake followed, which, incidentally, was easily met by Blinchuk, his hand was like a shovel too.

– It's nice, hello, – said the lass from above. – Here they call me the Father, and according to the passport, my name is Kalitin, Valentin Andreevich.

She also stretched a hand to Blinchuk. As a girl, palm down. Blinchuk gently squeezed the palm. The girl lowered her eyelashes, led her chin down, in a word, created an expression of a curtsy on her face.

– Hello, -she said in the same voice. – This is my daughter, Yana. She was born during the Lightning. She cannot walk on the ground, this will kill her.

During the last phrase, Blinchuk decided to play by their rules. According to the reports and the testimonies, what was happening during the Lightning was horrible, many and many refugees also needed psychiatric help. Those, who were lucky to get out of the Zone. And seems that this two stayed in. “How could I not hear that someone was not missing in the Lightning? How many more lies were in reports? We must evacuate them, of course”, he thought nevertheless.

“Now the Father will hit him with all his guns”, thought Nabis, who was listening attentively.

“Something is wrong here”, thought Korostylyov, “they are not lying and they are not crazy.”

Ensign Glyzin wasn't thinking anything, he was covering the chief, but Shultsev, who still had not decided where to put this damned mop, yes, he was thinking. And here is what he thought: “I'll throw it, say, under “shishiga”, while it's noisy and insane here. And I’ll find this poacher later.”

– Sergey Borisovich, it is a suicide to evacuate me and my daughter, – said the young lady, smiling kindly. There were dimples on her round cheeks with a curl near the nose. The word “evacuate” she denoted as a quote by intonation. – Because for you this is the abduction, and for us this is resistance and then certainly your untimely death. Why am I sure of that? Me and my daughter are not able to leave the Zone. And we will fight for our lives. – The girl hugged the Father by the neck and leaned her head on her shoulder. – The main thing is that it’s not about me and Yana. We just came to hand you an invitation. There is an opinion that you are going to be a commandant here for a long time. You will have a good nickname. I was asked to call you. So I strolled under your surveillance camera. – The Father thoughtfully nodded with the stump of the trunk on the gas mask, and the lady continued: – I was nearby, and this is not a big favor, here in the Zone we have plenty of time. On other days, even in buckets. Will you go to talk?

– With whom? – asked Blinchuk hoarsely.

– With responsible and knowledgeable people.

– Here, in the Zone?

– No-no, – said the Father through his daughter. – Sergey Borisovich, Comrade Colonel, personally you cannot go out into the Zone at all. You will perish, and your death will be very violent. You have it written on the face. Even one step into the Zone will kill you. And this will be a pity. A pity not even because of you: death is a girlfriend in the Trouble. But a pity because you seem to be the very useful man as the commandant of QZAI.

– How did you say? What is “QZAI”?

– Kapustin's Qarantine Zone of Abnormal Intensities. This is how it will be called… The Zone. And you will be called Pinya.

– Why – “Pinya”?.. – Blinchuk asked dumbfounded. – Where did you get all this…

– Here is what you have to understand right now… – the young lady continued very seriously, and the Father made a gesture, stopping and apologizing at the same time. – One second, – the lass said in a baritone. – Forgive me for interrupting. – The Father took up his trunk and lifted the mask on his forehead, revealing the face. Blinchuk jumped back, almost stumbling on his sprained leg. However, he would probably have stumbled also on the healthy one. – Here's my face as a sign of trust, – the girl said. – Even my daughter hasn't seen me. And will not see. In the Zone, everything that appears to you, according to personal observations or to the words of eyewitnesses or witnesses, any miracles, any wild assertions that you do not dare to repeat officially on the outside, on the Earth, in reports, at night in a bed to Lubov Antonovna, confidentially at the president's ear, is all true. This is real. Khrushchev's five-storey buildings fly, the dead live, the air is harder than steel, and there is only one step to the moon. Next year, on December 25th, President Gorbachev will resign on the eve of official collapse of the Union. Be prepared for this, by the way. You are now a politician. You have a great power, great influence. Big money. You will be hunted.

Blinchuk licked his lips.

– Are you mind readers, or what?

– Yes, – said the lass. The girl. Yana! – But not we are, I am. Yana is just a year old, she cannot even speak yet. And the future on your face is written in black and white.

– My future? – clarified Blinchuk, not believing that he's generally talking about clairvoyance. “As if Kashpirovsky hypnosis³¹1 wasn't enough”, flashed in his head. “The chargers of water, the diggers of souls.”

– Not only yours, the global future. Don't you try to hide an irony, it's absolutely normal. And, in my opinion, Kashpirovsky is a cheater.

– Well, – said Blinchuk after a pause. – Cannot be clarified without a bottle. Who wants to talk to me? Where is he?

– Sasha-Kharon will admirably take you there. All you have to say is that Petrovich is waiting in his den. There you will also find any bottle you want. And Sergey Borisovich, do not punish Sasha, he does not even know himself that he should take you to Petrovich.

– And where is the “den” and this Petrovich he, surely, knows? – asked Blinchuk.

– You are the officer of a rare type, – Yana said in a deep chest voice of an experienced woman on a hunt. Here's what contained no provinciality – her art of the voice changing. This had a powerful effect. And, apparently, it demanded a lot of effort, because her heavy breathing became audible and she started to break off the phrases with an ellipsis. – Chernobyl had changed you a lot. You used to be… Orders, rolling “r” Instant suppression of the interlocutor… No objections from the lower rank or civilian the status below yours… Is it true? And now you accept other's… their right for justice. Even soldiers. Of course, this is Chernobyl. You do not fight for your shoulder straps, especially when no one is fighting you. Yes, apparently, Petrovich is right. You fit.

Blinchuk ate it all with a woman's passionate gurgling as if he ate a shot of vodka with a pickled mushroom. If it was a man talking he would tear that man apart. With rolling “r”. Besides, she was talking quietly. Or “he”? What the hell!

– That is why, – the woman continued, – the second thing you must understand: here in the Zone everyone knows much more than they say. A very important moment for professional and interpersonal communications. Do you understand? – Blinchuk nodded, as a cobra to a pipe. – Well, go now, you are expected elsewhere.

Blinchuk grunted, frowned for suggestiveness and said casually:

– So, accordingly, I’m supposed to send my group back?

– Why? Your protection is their job.

– And the guide? You are obviously in contravention with him.

– Funny expression. Just let it be. I'm not saying goodbye, Comrade Colonel. See you there in an hour.

– You are in the car with me?.. – suggested Blinchuk.

The Father put on the mask in one jerk.

– Me and little Yana will go straight, – said Yana in s child's voice. – Our own way.

Blinchuk easily turned his back to them and went to the car. He was being observed by eight eyes from the truck's body, but he turned to the cab and knocked on a window. The driver, an elderly man in a fishing sweater, rolled down the window. For some reason, clean cotton swabs were stuck in his nostrils.

– I am expected in Petrovich's den, – Blinchuk said to him. – Do you know where it is, buddy?

Kharon raised his eyebrows, not taking his eyes off, and nodded, starting the engine at the same time. Blinchuk climbed onto the back.

– Shultsev, – he said when sat down. – Get the mop out from under the car, take it back and rinse it. Perform. Did you see his face? – he asked everyone when Shultsev disappeared with a mop behind the toilet booth. – This Father?

Glyzin, Nabis, and Korostylyov exchanged glances with each other in two tricks.

– He's in a gas mask, – said Korostylyov.

– He has taken it off, – said Bllinchuk and now Korostylyov lifted an eyebrow.

– No, Comrade Colonel, sir, – said Glyzin. – He hasn't. I paid attention. It's to blame, of course.

Blinchuk blew out a gallon of air through his lips folded as a pipe, sat down straight, for a bit and put on his helmet.

– Mm, yes, – said Nabis.

– It is strange, but my tower cannot be seen from here, – said Blinchuk. – And these excavators are not mine. Seems that they are showing us some kind of a movie here. And again, it is the summer. Well, I will figure it out. With rolling “R”s, goddamn their mother.

Silent Shultsev came back, climbed onto the truck's body, sat down. Blinchuk pounded his fist on the back of the cab. The vehicle moved and, having left the Stand, immediately turned right.

Archive of Shugpshuits (Book of the Trouble)

File “Fenimore-1”

A fragment

Own decoding

(Orthographic mistakes of decoding corrected – S. Zh.)

(…)We are meeting in Bezhensk, in the park in front of the factory of Madam Lebedeva in the afternoon of 1^st May year two thousand and one. Of course, we knew each other before, that is not possible to live in Akhtubinsk Prezone and not to know Sverzhin-Fenimore, and if not to know him personally, then at least to know about him. Our acquaintance with each other was not at all the superficial, but he agreed for an interview for the first time, though on regular terms. The tracker with the “King Kong” rating, author and co-author of the most famous official tracks, conqueror of dinosaurs, co-author of the discovering of the Staggering Forest. A year ago he went from the Zone to Kazakhstan, poling³²1 the only known for today passage through the Hot (also known as Kazashsky) Corner. Naturally, no one except him would know how many unofficial tracks he knows. A good phrase.

He dresses casually, real jeans, good leather jacket, in his hand can of real beer. He is not armed. We say hello to each other, discuss the latest news about Antipov crew, who only have half-tank of fuel left for today, and there along with Valov they are starting to worry and suspect something. We do not talk about Earth matters, though there is an issue of Komsomolka rolled up, as it seems is showing from opened Fenimore's jacket.

– Okay, this way we’ll end up talking about the weather. – he says. – So, my ink slinger, a jackal of copying machines. Turn on your voice recorder and ask. What if the weather gets worse. See the clouds?

– You have been in the Zone since 1990, right?

– That’s right. Since the 30^th May. Only a few people here are older than me.

– And the regular military service, in fact, you served at the Polygon.

– That was it.

– Tell me about the ”Mother's cracks”.

– And what is that, Shugpshuits?

– What you all call me… Okay. Then tell me about captain Zhitkur.

– Why is that? I don’t know him. How can I know him? This was a legend.

– Vadim, I’m begging you. For real. Stop tricking, since you agreed to talk. “I don’t know this, I don’t understand that…” All the Ten knew captain Zhitkur. The man who walked the city with SMP³³2 and drove a “Willys”.

– But I didn’t serve in the Ten, my dear world dove. I served… No. I signed confidentiality agreement. For twenty- five years. Let’s say I served where now is the Second Epicenter.

– Okay, and doctor Vyatkin?

– I was familiar with him, of course. He was a doctor in Bezhensk till ninety-five, then he disappeared somewhere. But I knew him even before the army. He was deployed at the same time as me, you can say, we were hanging out together. In my unit. He as a Lieutenant, me as a private. Biennial from Chelyabinsk, doctor. Pediatrician, that is characteristic. Awesome guy, wearing glasses, lower lip dangling till navel, all he was dreaming was his rock collection of seventies… Totally civilian person, he was referring to the Commander of the section as: “Comrade Commander of the section”.

– But wasn’t the “headless Corporal” in your section in eighty-seven, in fact…

– You will not manage to live to the old age, Shugpshuits. Hmm… He was. How did you know?

– And wasn’t Captain Zhitkur raking there?