When Luca crossed the threshold and found himself in the virtual world, a voice sounded:
Hello, Luca! Welcome to Underwelt!
Luca turned around, but the door that closed behind him took on a ripple and melted away, cutting off the way back. He stood in the middle of a hilly plain, where the gray hairs of the feather-grass fluttered in the wind, flecks of poppies bloomed between them, and a little farther, pink gramophone flowers the size of human heads swayed and jingled like a hundred bells.
Farther up were the higher hills, turning into mountains with snow-capped peaks like those painted in cheap pictures.
The landscape was supposed to be peaceful, but somehow I had a feeling of strangeness, as if an enemy was lurking behind me, and all this beauty was only to avert my eyes. My brain felt as if a bug had crawled into it.
I smelled grass and flowers, and the wind blew through my hair and stroked my skin. It felt incredible. I wish I could get rid of the anxiety and the bug in my head! It seemed to him that this bug was broadcasting a badly tuned radio, and manifested either other people's thoughts or voices... I mean one man's voice...
It was a disgusting feeling. Damn nerves! Luca wanted to bring his hormones back to normal, so as not to worry, but he was immediately told that it was not advisable and he did not insist.
Luca, do you wish to change your race?
"Why do you think you are in danger? Luca, think about it, please!" - they said in English, but Luca understood what he was hearing. Really, he didn't understand what it was, and he dumbfounded, alarmed even more. I wonder if it was supposed to be like that, or was it some kind of side effect of the dive?
Okay, if that's what the questioner wants, "Everything seems fine, and the fact that the beta testers, a bunch of young unwanted orphans, were taken to a desert island is just a precautionary measure.
Luca, please answer, do you wish to switch races? - Insisted the game's inskin, and Luca switched to the virtual and asked:
- What can I become?
There was a listing of races. When the voice called a race, its representative materialized next to Luka: Light elf, dark elf, fairy, dwarf...
- I'll stay human," he said, because he didn't want to rack his brains, to make a decision.
Luke, the game class will be available to you when you reach level 10. At the moment you have a standard set of characteristics.
What is "in-game class"? What does "standard feature set" mean? For the first time, Luke regretted that he was not a gamer, it would be hard for him to test the game. As if in response to his mental lament, the voice said softly:
Until you reach level 5 you will be assigned an assistant. Would you like to visualize him as a man or woman?
He'd break his brains if he had to go it alone.
- A pretty girl," Luke joked, and in front of him the air became thick and human-like, ten seconds, and there was a tall blond girl who looked like his sister. Oh, my gosh!
- Hey," she smiled and held out her hand, her shoulder had the same birthmark as his, like the head of a triceratops.
She is the sister! Luca smiled back and touched the palm of the girl's hand...
And he was paralyzed. He watched in horror as her body softened, a pixel wave rolled across her skin... And space exploded with a single word, red on black:
Danger! - yelled that inner voice that helped control her body.
My throat tightened. My head exploded with pain. My heart went into a gallop. The more the pulse increased, the more my head hurt.
The danger of the introduction of an alien object of unclear nature.
Finding a way to counteract...
Searching for a way to counteract...
"Shit, hurry up!" - was all Luca thought as he watched the softened substance that had been his double soak into his skin, oozing molten metal through his veins, and his hands becoming alien, the contagion spreading with the bloodstream, a little more, and it would reach his brain, and then he would be dead...
A way to counteract it has been found! Put the body into a state of conscious anabiosis?
- Yes! Yes! Yes!
The body stiffened like a stuffed animal. It collapsed sideways and froze with its eyes open, its nose on the ground. Luke couldn't even blink, but he could feel the contagion inside him, as if it had frozen, turned to ice. Now it would not reach his mind, would not penetrate the real world.
He lay there for a few excruciatingly long moments. It wasn't Jasenka, for whom he'd almost been put on trial, or his guardian, that had come to his mind - it was Erna. The only person really close to him. And it didn't matter that she was a year older and hated cats...
His thoughts broke off as reality began to melt, went in waves, coiled a murky cocoon around his body. Hysterical voices came from afar. They were spoken in English, so Luca did not understand much.
He
felt himself being rolled onto his back, and through the haze of the
liquid he was submerged in, he could see fuzzy silhouettes. His eyes
hurt, but he couldn't close them. Now they were going to take him out
of his tomb capsule and...
I don't give a shit! It's bad enough
that there's deadly shit going on in the game's non-virtual virtual
world! They definitely wanted to do something to his mind, after
which...
Shit! What should I do? Pretend to be an idiot like he didn't understand anything? Will they believe me or isolate me? The answer was suggested by a strange inner voice, which turned into a text in front of my eyes:
Bring the body out of a state of conscious anabiosis?
At that moment, the liquid flowed out of the capsule, Luke's body was lifted, and he saw that the other test subjects were twitching convulsively in the other capsules, but could not get out of the virtual reality. So he's the only one who can counteract the aggression, and he'd better...
- He`s dead! - shouted the doctor leaning over Luca, and his words were enough to make a decision.
"No! Do not bring the body out of anabiosis. Let them think I am dead, for the dead are not dangerous, they are not watched."
Accepted. The optimum time to stay in suspended animation is 180 minutes. After that time, irreversible changes will occur in your cells, and your suspended state will be terminated.
- Defibrillator! - shouted the same doctor to the side.
Or maybe not a doctor, maybe the doctors are the ones in white suits, with masks and a fucking defibrillator!
- Discharge!
Luke was moved to the couch, and his body arched from the electric shock, but there was almost no pain. Then a second, third shock followed. After the fourth it twitched faintly, his head rolled sideways, and Luke stared at the white, perfectly smooth wall.
The doctors whimpered excitedly, as if they had given some kind of injection (the sensation was muffled), pricked or cut their finger to draw blood - it was necessary to know what caused the subject to go to his death. All the while they were talking, but Luka could only make out swear words, two words were heard more often than the others: "problem" and "carrier. He mentally prayed for one thing: that it would not occur to them that he was not dead, but in anabiosis!
In view of the aggressive interference from the outside, the optimal time to stay in the state of anabiosis: 125 minutes. After that time, irreversible changes will start in the cells, due to which the state of anabiosis will be interrupted.
Will two hours be enough time to escape and hide properly? And in general, can he escape when everything here is touch-sensitive, the door can't be opened without an electronic key, and there are as many cameras as fleas on a stray dog? Not even a window to get out. Okay, we'll know what to do when they move him to the morgue or what's in here instead. Just hope they don't start gutting him first.
Lucky for him they didn't close his eyes, even when they realized he was dead-what respect for a dead body? Meat is meat.
He lay on the couch for a while, staring at the white wall. Then he was transferred to a gurney, but not even covered with a sheet; his head was laid straight up, face up, and he could not make out what was around him, only a blurred outline of objects. But when the gurney was taken outside, his head rolled over again, and now Luca could see the left side of the white corridor with a row of doors.
An orderly opened the last one with an electronic key card, and the gurney shook on the rough floor. The lights were dim, and there was a stench of something that smelled as fresh or as smoky as pouring water on a fire. There seemed to be two doors: the one the orderly had opened, and probably another opposite, which Luca did not see. Naked, immobile, Luca cursed himself for skipping English in school, thinking a foreign language would never come in handy for a future auto mechanic. And if he had, he would have understood from the conversations what they would do to him next.
The orderly wheeled the gurney in and set it against the entrance to the room so that Luca could see the cutting table, the shiny box on a glass stand below, where only scalpels were stored, and the saws lying in trays, some pliers and other tools handy for cutting up human bodies. The instruments, as if they had been brought here from the Middle Ages, contrasted with the monitors and modern diagnostic equipment hung along the walls. Several of the devices bore the five-color emblem of the Manga metacorporation. Luca was rarely afraid of anything, and if he had his body, now he would have felt a chill running down his spine, but imagining himself on that table - and it was as if his soul had gone cold.
Luca
had heard that morgues were cold; here it was hot. So the bodies
weren't stored here, and after they were cut up they were probably
sent straight to the crematorium, hence the smell of burning. So, the
executioners would be here soon, and they had to decide what to do
next. I wish I knew how many people were coming. Wouldn't it be
better to kill them (luckily with the new abilities it would be
easy), change clothes, take the key card and run away? Good thing
they all had masks here, and in the corridor, caught on camera, he
would not arouse suspicion.
While he pondered, the orderly
fiddled with his tools and left. Now what to do? Come out of
hibernation or wait? How long would the process of coming out last?
Would it involve convulsions or something similar? Anything is
possible, so Luka wished to come out of hibernation now. He sighed
convulsively, painfully, and grimaced as blood rushed through his
capillaries and a thousand needles pricked his entire body, as if he
were sitting on his leg.
Luke looked around the room for cameras. Found none, jumped off the gurney, strode to the cutting table, chose the longest and sharpest scalpel, lay down, blocked it with his hand so that those who came in did not immediately notice, and lay low.
Luke did not wait long as two men entered, a tall swarthy man, who looked like a Hindu, and a short, fat woman in a mask. The man said something in English, the woman fiddled with the instruments, and he headed for Luke, who stared at the ceiling and ordered his body to normalize the hormonal background and calm down. The orders had to be given over and over again, for his chest rising in frantic breathing could give him away.
The doctor came over, leaned over Luca, who was holding his breath - he smelled expensive perfume - and turned to the nurse. Come on, do it! Luke had never killed before, so he hesitated, clutching the scalpel with sweaty fingers. The man's eyes met Luca's and his pupils dilated with horror-he understood. Luca drove the scalpel into his eye at lightning speed, pushed his body away. He sprinted toward the woman who had turned, arms outstretched in a defensive gesture. He staggered back, unable to kill the unarmed woman, but she was helping him, opening a drawer to... Never mind. He threw the scalpel, which entered with a crunch between her cervical vertebrae.
The woman's legs trembled, she jerked, and Luke rushed to the dying doctor lying on the floor, twisted his neck and trembling hands began to remove his robe, cap, mask. He could have taken off his pants, but Luca did not; he wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. He took a couple more knives, one handy for throwing, the other a scalpel, already battle-tested, a key card, looked for cameras again, covered his face with a mask and went out into the corridor.
There were cameras here for sure. So we should move quietly and confidently. The dead man was half a head shorter. How careful were the observers? Noticing a red stain on his pocket, Luke covered it with his hand and went to the exit of the corridor. He wanted to run, but he tried to feign confidence.
The task was to go out unnoticed without meeting anyone, to be on the street, and... the hell knows where to run, where to hide. And a man in a robe would not be able to get to the forest unnoticed. A naked man won't go unnoticed either.
Break the cameras, get naked, and run away? Luca tried to remember his way here, how he had pulled himself up in the woods, testing his body's new capabilities. Yeah, that's probably the way to do it. If he'd known where the electrical room was, he'd have short-circuited it and run away. That's how he once punished Erna's violent neighbor. Basically, you could stick something metal in the socket. How long would it take to switch over to the backup generators? How quickly will the cameras get back up and running? There's no other option anyway...
He stopped in front of the door, hesitated, trying to spot something suspicious. At last he opened it with his key-card and felt dazed, ran nose to nose with a man in a green suit, clutched in his pocket a scalpel, but soon realized that the doctor did not care about him: through the open door could see how they were pulling test subjects out of the capsules. All were alive.
Now, a little more walking, looking for an outlet or wiring. Nothing! Only near the exit to the street did he find a plastic panel, bend it back, and find a cluster of wires. With a key card he opened the door and, holding it with his foot, cut the wires with a scalpel, then connected the two with different phases. It sparked. The lights flickered on and off.
Luke ordered himself to mobilize and ran at the speed his perfected body was capable of. It must have been a world record. Once in the forest, Luke threw off his robe, looked around, oriented himself, made a couple of circles between trees - to confuse the traces in case the dogs looked for him - and climbed a tree, from where, like a monkey, he jumped to the next and so galloped toward the sea.
I was hungry, probably a side effect of my powers.
Sitting on a palm tree that had black fruit that looked like fish roe instead of coconuts, he stared at the surf line. Where to hide? On a palm tree? That way the drones would spot it. On land with dogs would find him. He had yet to learn how to breathe under water... Calm down, organism!
It's better to hide in the most prominent place. But where? It would be better to live till evening, it would be easier to move unnoticed in the dark... Though no, they surely had thermal imagers. I wish I could...
Reduce body temperature to 25 degrees?
Side effect: reduced reaction time and thinking ability.
Luke
immediately agreed. As far as he remembered, the range of standard
infravizors - 300 meters. A minute or two, and the guards would run
out to find him. Another couple of minutes, and they're here...
Luca
noticed a black dot of a drone appearing over the jungle, where
thermal imaging cameras can also be, covered himself with sprawling
leaves, descended, pressed himself against the trunk and froze. If
there were motion sensors, too, that would be the end of it. I felt
as if my arms and legs had become rubber, and the friskiness I had
lost. His knees trembled with fear, and for the umpteenth time Luca
ordered his body to compensate for his hormones.
Most likely, first the guards with their thermal imagers would walk along the comfortable asphalt paths, launch the drones, then, when no one was detected, they would start combing every meter. The jungle here is maybe two kilometers long. Or maybe they won't search so thoroughly, they'll rely on the thermal imaging cameras. Maybe they'll think Luke swam away and got eaten by sharks. By the way, are there any? If there aren't, the current will have swept the lifeless body away, and no one knows what he's capable of.
The drone buzzed overhead. When the buzzing shifted toward the airport, Luke took off his overly conspicuous white robe, looking around, rushed to the shore, which had not yet been searched. Crumpled the robe and covered it with sand, tramped to the sea and rushed back, covering his tracks. Let them think he was gone. Three days and they would be sure of it, and the search would cease.
Running from trunk to trunk, Luka made his way to the thicket by the path he had taken from the sleeping quarters to the slaughterhouse and lay down. Fifteen minutes had passed since his escape; the guards should have been let down by now. He'd have to see who it was and what kind of weapons they had.
He sat in the ambush for another five minutes, noting that his heart was beating much less often, his vision had deteriorated, and he was breathing five times a minute now.
Here came the guard. Alone. With a thermal imaging camera and an AK over his shoulder, a silenced pistol in his hand. He was walking, slowly turning his head to the side, peering at the device. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, to stop breathing - it seemed that the enemy was about to feel someone else's scrutiny - but Luke forced himself to watch. The man in camouflage turned his head and stared at Luca's hideout for a long moment. He swallowed his saliva convulsively. This comrade has a bulletproof vest and a machine gun, he is completely naked, he has only two scalpels.
Go, go where you are going! And the guard turned away, and continued walking leisurely. The other followed in the direction of the sea. They behaved confidently, knowing that the prisoner had nowhere to go, and they were right.
They frightened the snake away from him and he beheaded it with an extremely sharp scalpel, tossing its writhing body aside.
There was a silence, which was broken by the engine of what seemed to be a boat... two boats. So they believed the mad fugitive had sailed away after all.
No one was to be seen for some time, but Luca was in no hurry to regain his usual metabolism. He was less hungry and more sleep-deprived. Perhaps the only wish left was to sleep! At first he managed to stay awake, but soon Luca's eyes closed by themselves.
A woman's voice woke him up. Paula, with whom he had recently slept, was walking along the path to the sleeping quarters. And they were not the ones with whom Luke tested the game, the return of the pioneers, he obviously slept. They were all alive, which was great, but there was something wrong with them: the angular shuffling gait, the planting of their heads, the lashing of their arms. The subjects were all silent, walking with the purposefulness of zombies, Paula correcting them without an interpreter, and they understood English perfectly.
What the hell was going on? What had been done to them? How to warn the same Alvaro, and should he be warned? Most likely, he would try to escape, if he was taken alive, would betray Luca, so he could not be contacted. No one must be seen at all!
Thoughts had indeed become clumsy, slow. If only the dogs weren't here, they'd smell him for sure!
The test subjects disappeared from view. Approximately half an hour later a third group set off for their trial: two girls, two boys, and they behaved normally: nervous, whispering, sharing their impressions.
They were returning when the sun shifted to the west, and shadows stretched from the palm trees across the path. There was no trace of the subjects' former liveliness: heads bowed, arms dangling, feet shuffling. What is happening here? What has been done to them?
And then the lines that read on Erna's computer came to mind: "Take away the medium, it's a matter of life and death. Remember: you are not alone." Does that mean he'll get out of here? But what is the medium? Where to get it? What does it look like? If there is a mole on the island who is supposed to help, how will he find the hiding Luke?
No answers came, and the impotence made me want to howl. The message must be about the experiment, since he was the one who had been contacted. Which meant that the host was in the laboratory, where the capsules had been dipped. But what did it look like? What is it, anyway? A flash drive? A disk? A memory card? Quantum computers are different.
There was a chirp in the distance, some anxious shouts. Clary heard the sound of shrubs being torn apart, the sound of panting. Nearby a shot rang out, then a second. There was a shout in a high-pitched male voice:
-
Stop it! - Another shot rang out, and a drone buzzed in the
distance.
Of course, to avoid scaring the test subjects, they
use silencers. Clap, clap, clap. And again the crunch of broken
bushes drowned out the pops. The runaway screamed so hysterically
that it sent a chill down his spine. Then the runaway wheezed,
gurgled...
Clap - the scream was cut off. They shot the fugitive, but did not hurry to get him out of the woods, muttering indecipherable, like there were two voices.
Five minutes later, an electric car with a five-color Manga logo pulled up, stopping exactly in front of Luka's shelter. A guard walked three meters away, went to the electric car, took something, and waited on the road. His partner, who was in the jungle, rustled and crunched his way through the thicket. He was obviously dragging the corpse with him.
A branch cracked nearby, and Luca, lurking beneath the sprawling leaves of some tropical plant, pressed himself to the ground. There was a thorny bush on his left, a tree on his right, and the best place to cross it was right here, through his hiding place in the grass. The noise was getting closer. His hand clenched the scalpel, Luca prepared to lunge and fight.
Swearing in English, the guard stepped on a huge leaf and covered Luca completely. Half a meter from his face, his boots flashed, Alvaro's body drove across the ground. As luck would have it, he turned his head with a hole in his forehead toward Luca, staring with glassy eyes into his very soul.
I'm sorry, little brother!
Without leaving the forest, the guard put the body down, a second guard came up, wrapped it in a black bag, the two of them dragged the corpse to the electric car, placed it on the back seat.
I could hear the sound of a helicopter - someone was coming to visit. I wish I could sneak up to him and try to lift him into the sky! Just when he thought about changing shelter, a third batch of zombie-like test subjects came through.
Perhaps a riot among those who remained with the memory? There are more than forty of them. How many armed men are there? Luca imagined pulling this off not in a Hollywood action movie, but in reality, and faded away. He did not know the location of the buildings, he had no weapons, not even clothes, and most of the test subjects were not combat units, but office hamsters. Even if it all works out, the survivors will call for reinforcements. No, not an option.
So how do we get out of here? Even if Luka gets out, what happens then?
No passport, no money.
This project is handled by Manga. He didn't just see their logo on the bus. This office has its own people everywhere, and they are looking for him and will be looking for at least a week. And for sure his biometric data has been forwarded to the right place.
He'd be better off doing time in a normal prison. Before, only the Croatian police were interested in him; now he is on the MANGA's black list, which means that all civilized countries would take him in under their wing.
I was just now feeling desperate - I don't care if I shoot myself or drown myself. I wonder if you can stop your heart? Luke sent such a mental query and received an answer:
Any manipulation aimed at harming the body was impossible.
And also inhumanly hungry, the feeling of hunger was increasing, my stomach was literally stuck to my spine, and my eyes - to the coconut lying under the palm tree. But until it was dark, it was better not to venture out of the shelter. A cluster of cluster berries, hanging from a nearby bush, beckoned. Reach out and there it was. It was not clear whether they could be eaten, so it was better to be content with a coconut.
Darkness came very quickly. I could see the coconut and the road, and then suddenly it was gray and dark. The darkness was sticky and dense, so I couldn't see anything from ten meters away. The body did not like it, and a suggestion was made:
The suggestion was to improve visibility by:
Activating night vision.
Improving the visual apparatus. Extra ability: vision in the infrared spectrum. Activated upon request.
Now that's really cool! Just like the Predator! Luca wanted ability number two, but was denied:
The option is not possible due to a lack of the necessary micro and macronutrients in the body.
What the hell was that? The answer to his mental question came in the form of a list of chemical elements and formulas of organic compounds - vitamins. The list blinked, and the text replaced it:
Attention!
Danger of starvation!
The body is deficient in the micro and macronutrients necessary for normal functioning! If you ignore the problem, your ability to function will be limited.
Before restriction: 15 minutes.
Holy shit! So it won't be possible to lower the body temperature? And you won't go into anabiosis? Then that's it, we need to eat something immediately. Luke activated his twilight vision and crawled to the coconut, fumbling for it and cursing mentally: it was just a fucking rock!
Activating Twilight Sight requires energy.
Until all abilities are limited: ten minutes.
Luke stood up, ducked behind the bushes-the sensation of nakedness was absolute-and just about to go in search of food when he discerned the silhouettes of guards in the distance, who were probably on their way to sweep the forest for a second round. He rushed into the ambush, picking a cluster of unknown berries that looked like grapes. Lurked.
Eat?
Not to eat? If I don't risk it, it's over for sure...
To
recognize the toxicity of a product, you need a sample.
Whew, thank God. Luke popped the berry in his mouth, took a bite. It was sour, tasted good. The clue text again spewed out a list of nutrients. Watching the guards move leisurely, Luka sent berry after berry into his mouth, he thought that he had never eaten anything more delicious in his life. He thought he had never eaten anything else in his life, and his stomach churned with pleasure. But he was not satisfied with it!
Warning. A catastrophic lack of proteins and amino acids!
If you ignore the problem, your ability to function will be limited.
Before restriction: 20 minutes.
Oh, come on! And where to get protein food for twenty minutes...?
Before my eyes appeared decapitated snake, and I remembered how Luke as a child with the yard hooligans roasted polozoan and grasshoppers on the fire. The poloz was tasty all over, but the grasshoppers were red, and only their legs were eaten off.
Just in case, after waiting for the guards to pass, Luke found the body of the snake, shook the ants off it, removed the skin, assessed the prey: it was small, about thirty centimeters, would it be enough?
He gritted his teeth and began gnawing at the tough, tasteless meat, swallowing without chewing.
As they walked along the paved path, the guards went deeper into the jungle, the sound of twigs crackling in the distance. A frightened parrot cried out.
He nibbled on the snake's skeleton, and Luca sucked on its vertebrae until he was notified:
Up to limit: 240 minutes.
Four hours is something, you can catch grasshoppers or lizards, of which he saw a myriad. A splash was heard, a boat's engine rumbled. The distant glare of the flashlight seemed blindingly bright.
Luca activated his infrared vision for ten minutes and was notified that the range of ability was two hundred meters. Smiling, he looked around and saw a red-orange-green human silhouette in the woods. The second guard must have gone to the sea. The feeling of superiority gave him strength and optimism, Luca felt himself not a hunted beast - a predator, the one from the Schwarzenegger movie. If he wished, he could sneak up on the guard unnoticed and kill him.
A radio crackled in the distance, but Luca could not make out the words. In theory, they would have already discovered the buried robe and thought that the fugitive had sailed away and perished. Now they'll comb the surroundings once more and take comfort, then they can wander, look for sustenance. Luke noted another positive aspect of the lowered body temperature: the numerous blood-sucking gnats did not recognize him as a victim.
After about half an hour, the guards walked back, talking irritably, and once again Luka wished he had learned English. It would have helped him a great deal if he could have overheard whether they thought he was dead, and how long they intended to look for him.
After another half hour he ventured into the jungle, turning on his twilight vision. When the danger moved away, he appreciated his new abilities: the world was black-gray-white, but every detail was perfectly visible. Luke expected to find coconuts or bananas in the jungle, but they did not grow here, but found a fruit similar to the mango, which was edible and tasty.
We also managed to kill a lizard, we had to eat it raw, but we replenished the supply of essential micronutrients. All this time Luka moved very carefully, trying not to break branches and not to trample on the grass. It's unlikely there are trackers here, but it's better to play it safe.
When Lukah ate, he made his way to the surf line and immediately shuddered: the subjects were swimming here. Judging by the liveliness of the conversation, they had not been on a dive, there were six of them: four girls, two guys. Again I had to hide and wait for them to plunge into the water, and then - to fight the temptation to steal my shorts.
But fate was kind to him: when they left, wet gray shorts were left on the sand: apparently, someone had changed into dry clothes and lost them in the dark.
Not afraid to be discovered, Luke walked along the shore, cut his leg, but caught a crab that was trying to burrow into the sand, killed it and ate the white meat, which was not only nutritious, but tasty.
So, the priority is accomplished: he has fed and ensured the normal functioning of the body, and all improvements are available to him.
Time to develop a plan of action. Of the good things: he has a unique ability that gives him an advantage. He got the message that he's not alone, which means he can be taken from here, but don't count on it much.
Now
he must survey the area, map the terrain, and build a shelter in a
place where no one will think to look. Then scout out which
helicopters are coming in, try to get into the cabin and leave the
island. If he could turn invisible, like the Predator, it would be a
simple matter.
As if in response to his thoughts, the helicopter
rumbled, and Luke moved toward the sound. He wandered through the
jungle until he came to a fence, and then walked at a distance of
five meters from it until he saw the launch pad, circled it, noting
that between it and the fence was fifty meters of jungle. The trees
had been left behind on purpose so that the huge green fences with
barbed wire and cameras on the perimeter would not disturb the
idyllic landscape and would not give suspicion to those arriving.
That was probably why the beta testers had been brought in at night.
At this point there were two twin helicopters parked on the site. Try to escape? Damage one car, steal the other. Would it work? I don't think so. He doesn't even know how to get inside. Besides, there's a gunman walking around, and there's two more in the booth. And there are plenty of cameras. No, we can't risk it, we have to be sure.
First, a map of the buildings. The best way to get behind the fence is by sea. I held my breath and swam the necessary distance, dived away from the fence, neatly approached the shore, crawled into the jungle and walked around the area the same way. With normal body temperature, this was impossible.
The hardest part was to run across the lighted path leading to the sleeping quarters and yurt into the jungle, where Luca felt safe and took his time walking to the shore, where he had never been before. Aha, so the island is quite small, two kilometers wide at most. Maybe more in length? Hearing the crackle of branches, Luke lay in an ambush and soon saw a patrol checking the shore and leaving with nothing.
Now was the safest time.
Luca strode across the trampled sand, dived and swam underwater for a long time, looking at the silhouettes of fish blurred in the black water, the dark wall of the reef with rippling seaweed.
Deciding that enough was enough, Luke poked his head out of the water, looked at the strip of shore, the white office building, towering above the trees, swam on, toward the light. It turned out that there was a luxurious villa in that part of the island, to which a cobblestone path led from the sea among exotic plants. Light poured in from the huge windows, silhouettes flashed, music poured.
What was that all about?
Luke was just about to row ashore when he noticed the guards strolling along the shore, and a yacht drifting near a small cape, from where a woman's laughter could be heard.
What is this nonsense? Over the fence they're killing and don't know what's going on, and here they're having a party!
Luke dived again, held his breath, and swam underwater. All was well in the reduction of body temperature, but there was no trace of his former friskiness, Luka became slow and smooth.
The cape was a black wedge into the sea, to the right and left of it were underwater canyons. As he emerged from the water, Luke looked to the island and saw a high wooden fence behind the cape stretching along the shore. Swimming along it, Luka rounded the second cape and found himself in front of a narrow strip of shore, where behind the sparse vegetation was a two-story building, like a barracks. Beyond it, in a fenced-off sector, was another, and there was light in all the windows. Either it was my imagination, or I could hear a child crying.
This was out of the question!
Luke rushed toward dry land, the closer he got, the smoother his movements became. Eventually he went under the water and crawled ashore, helping himself with his hands. He lurched around, glancing around, shifting his scalpels to his other hand. His night vision picked up a rubber duckling, crumbled in the sand. Luke looked closely at the sand and was horrified to find that it had been trampled by dozens of children's feet.
He straightened up, stepped forward, took another step. He accelerated more and more, headed toward the liquid coastal vegetation, and then the motion sensors kicked in, the light came on, stabbing his eyes, blinding them. Luke panicked, rushed back, dived, swam away from the shore toward the fence and the promontory.
Two men ran ashore, swearing in English, which Luka knew very well. Flashlight beams flickered across the sand. If there are cameras, the conspiracy is dead.
A minute later an engine roared and a splash could be heard in the distance, and Luca could clearly distinguish the roar of an approaching boat. He dived, caught hold of a rock and stared upward: The boat was sailing straight over him, cleaving the water. A searchlight slid across the surface of the ocean, a second beam struck the shore.
They're looking for a swimmer. A beam pierced the water. It highlighted the sandy bottom with strange fish, frozen, as if in a photo.
And they are looking for the diver, too. Luke buried himself underwater to the crevasse, dived for a breath of air, reached the promontory and began his dive, while the boat began to sweep the waters, and the men on board must have had thermal imaging cameras.
"If
they let the scuba divers down, it means there are cameras after all,
if not, it means they're just being reassured," Luke thought as
he went down along the rock, found a cavern, climbed in there, and
lay low. Breath should be enough for about ten minutes, and then he
would have to go into anabiosis, but there is nowhere to cling to,
which means that will be pushed to the surface.
So, for the time
being, there's no need for anabiosis. He felt that he was not alone,
as if someone had got inside his head and was trying to settle there.
This had happened before, in virtual reality, but at that moment he
was in mortal danger, and he did not pay attention to the strange
feelings. Now the feeling came to the forefront. It was as if someone
was running their fingers over his twists, searching for something
there, and in the water, vibrating with the roar of the engine, it
was unbearable.
Luca tensed, trying to push the stranger out, sensing that it was his pursuers who had found a way to look through his eyes to see where he was. F*ck you! Luca clutched his eyes shut.
Meanwhile, the boat circled the sea and headed for the anchorage-the murmur receded and disappeared altogether. Luke surfaced, took a breath, noticed two men with flashlights on the shore, plunged under the water again, clung to the seaweed so it wouldn't push him out, thought he'd better put his scalpels somewhere, they were a terrible nuisance. I concentrated on the feeling. There seemed to be a hum of other people's thoughts in the background.
Was he going crazy after the dive? A stray thought occurred to him: what if he could hear someone who could pull him out? Or was it the enemy after all? Clinging to hope, he sent a question to an imaginary interlocutor:
- Who are you? How do you do it?
A voice of self-irony answered, "What a fool! It's us, your cockroaches" - but that's not the kind of thing you'd believe, one step away from death. There was a background noise, as if a radio was being tuned in my head. A sharp pain pierced my temple, and the sensation was gone.
Was it just a dream? Or was it reality, just that something had been done to his mind after all?
There was no one on the beach when Luca ducked out again, but he was in no hurry to get there. In fact, should he? If he moved very slowly, would the sensors pick him up?
Luka swam toward the shore. He could not stay in the water all the time, and it was time to form an idea of what this place was and where it was. Knowledge will help him get out of here.
Taking his time to get out, Luka lay down in the surf, turned on his infrared vision, found no warm-blooded creatures nearby, except birds on branches, got down on all fours, slowly straightened up. Slowly I lifted my leg... and my mind reeled again. He had to relax and wait for the stranger to settle in his mind.
- Who are you? - He asked, sure he wasn't going to get an answer, but the static faded and the answer came:
- Desmond. I am eighteen years old, a telepath. I am in DC.
- Where?!
- District of Columbia. Well, Washington.
Luca was sure this guy spoke English, but he could understand his thoughts, because it wasn't the words that came to mind - the images, which immediately disintegrated into pictures. If Luke had communicated by voice, he would probably have been excited to the point of stuttering. Now his thoughts flickered like soap bubbles released in a draught.
His body offered to lower his stress hormones, threatened to raise his body temperature- Luca agreed.
- What was that? - mentally surprised the unknown Desmond, and his astonishment was also transmitted.
- What do you mean?
- Well, just now, if I understand correctly, you did something to your body, you tuned it somehow.
You'd better be careful; a telepath sees everything he sees.
- Oh, is that what you mean? I don't know. The ability to control the body came on its own. I can hold my breath, go into suspended animation, see in the infrared spectrum.
Desmond thought about it and didn't answer right away, but Luca caught the echoes of his thoughts: "somehow connected," "for some reason," "parts of the same mystery.
- Can you get me out of here? - Luca asked with a sinking heart.
- Where are you? - Desmond asked calmly. - What is going on?
Luca thought about everything that had happened to him, from the way he had crashed his car to the motion sensors that had responded to him. It took a few seconds to relay the information, but Desmond understood everything, caught the message, whereas it would have taken twenty minutes to retell the events in words, and began to answer Luca's questions in sequence:
- I certainly didn't leave you the message. I am not a member of any organization. I hear not only you, but the two girls who are being hunted now. And since I hear only the four of you, it suggests that we are links in the same chain. And another important fact: we all have unique abilities: I'm a telepath, you have body control, one girl sees logical connections and remembers details, the other, the Asian girl, controls devices from a distance.
- Just like the X-Men. But what do I do?
- Did you find out what's going on on the island?
Luca thought about what he knew: it's divided into three parts, with guards everywhere and a Manga running the place. The middle part has a helipad, enclosures where the test subjects live...
- Read more.
Luke thought again about the sixty beta testers, about how they were cheerful and talkative before their immersion in the virtual, but returned from work silent, concentrated, like zombies. Then I thought of the kids on the other side of the island and the luxury villa and yacht on the other, the motion detectors and security.
Desmond
turned out to be an erudite guy. Or maybe he'd read it on the
Internet and said:
You say you can lower your body temperature?
Well, the sensors respond mainly to sudden movements and infrared
radiation. If you pass them slowly and smoothly and your body
temperature is below 30 degrees, they won't work.
Luke didn't hesitate to lift his leg slowly, stepping forward to see if he could trust Desmond's advice or if he was a glitch. The invisible interlocutor continued:
- So go see what's going on. Maybe there aren't any kids. By the way, I can't check anything on the Internet because I'm communicating with you in my sleep... Or not in my sleep. I don't know. You have to go into a state of near-sleep, then I start to hear you.
Luca walked turtle-like through the surf lane, held his gaze on the duckling - as if he were aiming a camera for the telepath to see him too, reached the place where the sensors had detected him, looked at the two poles supposedly for the volleyball net - that's where the sensors are. On the trunk of the palm tree, too. And on a withered tree. It took him about five minutes to cover a dozen yards. In the woods he moved just as carefully, glancing at the nearest uninhabited building. From the sea he could see another building behind it.
When he approached the first one at two hundred meters, he saw no one there with his infrared vision - the walls didn't allow radiation to pass through. The windows in this building were black, even the guard inside was absent.
Focused on his senses, Luca did not immediately notice that the watcher was gone from his head. Joy gave way to anxiety - what if Desmond didn't come back, so at least there was some connection to the outside world. "You're not alone," he remembered. There are three others: Desmond and two girls.
Luke shifted toward the meager remnants of the jungle. Probably the vegetation had been stripped to keep out any crawling muck the kids might have grabbed. He was curious about the second building. What were children doing here, guarded in such a way that a fly wouldn't fly through? It was unlikely they were being treated for cancer. It reminded him of stories about German concentration camps, where experiments on humans were conducted. Or maybe this was a brothel for pedophiles?
Moving from bush to bush, Luca soon saw the end of the house he was interested in, and a fancy playground with a pool in the middle of the yard. What wasn't there: swings, merry-go-rounds, slides, lots of toys. That meant there were children, one hundred percent.
He moved a little farther away, spotted an unshuttered window on the first floor, at the end, got within thirty meters of it, but all he saw was a slender woman, now bending over, now standing up. All her movements seemed mechanical, it was as if she were putting the children to bed. So they were very small, and not fit for pleasure. Or are there different ones, for all tastes, so to speak?
Of course, from the island they will only go to the other side of the world.
Luke, still smoothly, with scalpels in hand, began to walk around the building, but froze, pinned to the spot by a screaming child. The child screamed as if he had been stabbed, and then fell silent. Two men appeared in the yard, dragging by the arms and legs a kicking boy about six or seven years old, with a bag over his head.
What is this savagery? Why?! Luca's mind raced for an answer, but found none. The little boy was carried into a dark building, where the light was immediately turned on, and there the child's mouth was torn open, and he started screaming and kept on screaming until he was hoarse.
Luka had seen a lot, but now what was happening touched something deep in his soul, something about himself, he breathed unevenly and almost succumbed to the furious desire to smash everything here, to destroy, to wipe off the face of the earth with a bulldozer... Even a nuclear explosion!
He was preoccupied by emotion before he realized the Watcher was back in his mind, startled when he heard (or saw?) Desmond's mental images.
- What on earth is going on? - The telepath wondered.
- I would have known! - Luke answered, sending Desmond a memory of what he'd seen a few minutes ago.
The telepath went silent. Luca thought he was gone, but no, he spoke, his head whirling.
- Adrenochromes! I remember what they are called.
- Who? - Luca stopped, he was drawn to the light - there was nothing to be seen at the angle.
- Old jerks transfusing themselves with children's blood to make them younger. They say Rockefeller does it, that's why he lived so long. As for the experiments they did on mice, the old ones did get younger.
- And why put a bag on a child's head?
- To make him suffer, to make him afraid. They say that when you take the blood the child should be stressed," said Desmond. - See, it all adds up: rich people rejuvenate, sponsor research. Although MANGA already has all the money in the world. Probably the founders themselves pump blood from children. The ideal donor is considered to be under the age of eight, I think.
- Fucking vampires. What's it got to do with us test subjects? We're all 18.
-
You don't have any contact with children. So why not keep two
research centers in one convenient, well-guarded place? See, the rich
come to have fun and rejuvenate, and donors are close at hand.
Luke
had no desire to continue the conversation. He wondered what happened
to the children afterward. Are they killed during the blood drawing?
Or are they killed later, when they reach the age of eight. More
likely not, they're cured, fattened, raised like cattle for
slaughter, and their organs cut out.
- Anything's possible," Desmond interrupted his thoughts. - One thing is clear: they're not getting out of here alive.
- They have to be stopped. - Luke didn't realize he was talking out loud, but noticed that his throat was dry because he was thirsty as hell.
His body immediately reacted:
Warning. There is a lack of water in the tissues. In 120 minutes, dehydration will be critical.
- Don't you dare do anything! - Desmond considered his mindset. - I'll think of a way to help you. If you perish, the only witness to their crimes will be lost; the Virgin Islands are many, I don't know where to look for you! Just hang on for a while, my parents aren't the last people in Washington, I'll think of something.
- One more thing. Somebody knew I was coming here. Before I went in as a tester, a message arrived on the computer of an acquaintance I was hanging around with. They asked me to pick up a medium. I don't know what it is.
- I'll think about it," Desmond promised. - There's a girl I hear the faceless ones have come out. Not fake, seems to be real. I'll try to get through to her, there's a real power behind her, and the girl seems to be a hacker, which means she knows what kind of host the quantum computers have.
I wanted to ask him to stay - at least some illusion that he wasn't alone, but Luca pulled himself together. He had hope. It was just a matter of not dying of thirst and hunger.
He was just about to make his way closer to the building where the child had been taken, when a woman appeared with a wheelchair, where the boy seemed to be sitting. Alive. Alive, for now.