Ken Follett countdown.

Russian language

Dmitry Olegovich Sillov

Law of the Monolith

A steel blade grinded against my teeth, clenched with a spasm. The forester carefully, without breaking a single tooth, unclenched my jaws with his knife, after which he generously splashed it into my mouth from a crumpled green Soviet-style army flask.

Here I was twisted even more, I almost gave myself two black eyes under my eyes with my knees. If alcohol enters both the esophagus and the respiratory tract at the same time, then a person has only one way out. Either fucking die, or return to normal life, wheezing, bursting into tears and choking on your own snot. But the Zone did not yet know the stalker who died from alcohol poured into his mouth. On the mainland normal person Maybe I would have suffocated from such a portion of white that got into my breathing hole. But for our stalker brother to go away like that better world

It's even kind of embarrassing. They will kick you out of the Land of Eternal War into some paradise, where the righteous, out of boredom, hang themselves in packs on the trees of the knowledge of good and evil...

So it seemed inconvenient for me to give oak in this way. So I tensed up so hard that my eyes almost popped out of my muzzle, coughed heartily, as if I was going to squeeze the guts out of myself, and sat down on the bloody grass, breathing quickly, often, like a hunted fenacodus.

- What are you... fucking... doing? – I croaked when enough air had accumulated in my lungs to squeeze it out of me along with the presentation.

“I’m saving you,” the forester said phlegmatically, taking a cigarette without a filter from a silver cigarette case and lighting it with a homemade lighter made from a cartridge case. The air immediately smelled of thermonuclear camel cigarettes, which Uncle Sam supplies to his military contingent based on contaminated lands. – Or rather, not so much you, but the Zone.

- Didn't understand…

I couldn’t say more – I was suffocated. But I wanted to say. For example, why the hell did the forester spend so long in the house? Did you move the table that I used to prop the door? Or was it impossible for him to turn around in the doorway with his oversized rifle?

– What is there to understand?

- And so everything is clear. You have stirred up both the Zone and the neighboring worlds. It's up to you to clear up this mess. Pindos are coming into the Zone to get artifacts; some strange creatures are creeping in from the neighboring universe. The monument has gone completely wild: it not only lifts dead stalkers from the ground, but now it even captures living ones, pumps them with blue energy and sends them to search for you. This is in addition to the fact that Monument fanatics are digging the ground with their noses, looking for the Sniper. Plus “Borg” and “Volya” are doing the same thing, they forgot about the enmity between themselves, give them you. So it turns out that by saving you, I am saving the Zone. As soon as one of the above kills you, all this pandemonium around you will end. I thought I would finish you off myself, but no. It is forbidden. I am an uninterested person - who will believe me that I killed Sniper in order to restore peace in the Zone? And even if I present the corpse, they will still say - no, not the same one. You're lying, you old stump, you want to get a reward for the head of the legendary stalker, take away our group's legitimate swag. So live, Sniper, until one of your enemies sends you to the next world. I guess I'll go.

And left. Bastard. Look, how I laid it out, they say, I am to blame for all the troubles of the Zone, and especially for the fact that the Pindos laid eyes on our artifacts. Logic is an interesting thing. With its help, a competent speaker can both lift a person to the skies and trample him into the dirt to the very top of his head. And in both cases he will be right. The main thing here is to be able to correctly string words like beads onto a thread of reasoning, so that you get a well-founded logical chain with which you can carefully and civilly strangle your opponent. Logic and truth are essentially twin sisters. Each one has its own, and each one turns it out in a way that suits him. At the same time, what I like about the Zone is that if you have a high-quality barrel, you can put a rusty stalker’s bolt on other people’s logic and truth. All over the world, weapons are always a much more powerful argument than any hammering of tongues, even the most competent and justified one.

There was only one catch: I practically had no weapons.

A crooked machete fanatic pretty much ruined my G-3 by jamming the power regulator and messing up the shooting mode switch. However, my Gauss hand cannon still had no more charges in its magazine, so with slight regret I threw it further into the bushes.

Of course, my thigh was pleasantly warmed even through the sheath filled to the brim with energy “Razor”. But even a superknife still remains just a knife - and nothing more. And in the Zone, if you want to survive, you need at least one firearm with a lot of ammunition for it. Which, of course, I didn’t have.

And which it would be harmless to get hold of by borrowing it from someone for good. And at the same time remembering a simple truth: when you are looking for someone else’s weapon in the Zone, you must try very hard so that someone else’s weapon does not find you.

Unfortunately, there were no weapons among what the worms brought with them. In my opinion. Bows are crooked, clubs are inconvenient for me, spears are just sticks with pieces of iron screwed to them. Only one spear turned out to be more or less, something like a staff with a kind of sword instead of a tip. He was clutched by a hand that apparently belonged to the leader of a gang of corpse eaters. All that remained of that leader, torn to pieces by an anomalous bullet, was a head in a bizarre helmet from the head of a rat dog, and this hand. And you won’t understand whether it’s his or not. But what's the difference?

I raised the spear with the dead hand clinging to it and with an effort I unclenched my already cold fingers. A piece of dead meat plopped into a pool of blood with a slurp. Yes, the forester and I have created a depressing landscape here, literally the apotheosis of the Zone, only there is not enough artist to capture all this disgrace. Well, never mind, night will come, mutants will come running and, like real forest orderlies, will devour all the corpses and fragments of bodies lying in disarray in the clearing.

In general, as they say, the Zone is zonal, the mutants are mutant, but I went. Where? Yes, I think somewhere further away from here. I'm tired of contaminated areas worse than bitter radish. I, of course, understand that I am a hereditary sword-bearer, a fighter against evil spirits and a propagator of a very specific truth, which is expressed in the killing of living beings. But the fact is that I was sick and tired of my great destiny, and traveling between worlds, and endless battles for no reason.

Okay, there people kill each other for artifacts, for the sake of profit. At least there is some reason. Why am I fighting? Like, am I cleaning the world? So, even the most heavenly angel, someone is sure to fiercely hate him for his purity and innocence, and desperately wants to blow off his head along with his halo. Purely so as not to infuriate you with its ideality. So it turns out that a fighter against evil should ideally kill everyone in a row, and at the same time never make a mistake. Because anyone killed by him is certainly evil for someone.

Well, in the coffin I saw my purpose. It is, of course, an important and necessary thing - but until it starts to get boring. Somehow, all of a sudden, I had a dream: I’ll get to the cordon, I’ll crawl under the barbed wire at night - and goodbye to everyone who’s been in my throat for a long time. And the Zone, along with its laws, and my stalking, along with the murky bloody destiny of the sword bearer. Fuck it. I’ll find myself a one-room nook and some kind of work on the mainland, I’ll live quietly, without sticking my head out too much, like everyone else. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a girl who is sincere, understanding, and willing to endure the quirks of a gloomy type with a difficult past that I will never tell her about. There must be individual happiness in the world, not for everyone, but only for me alone. And not in the sense of lying down and getting some sleep (although not without this), but in a large and bright room, so that you can only kill the cockroaches in the kitchen, and eat not the disgusting stew from cans, but homemade cutlets cooked by the woman you love...

In general, I was daydreaming, wandering around the Zone with a staff in my hand, on which the blood of the previous owner had not yet dried. And the weather was favorable. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, which is extremely rare in the Zone, a cool, pleasant breeze blew into my face, the birds began to sing... Well, I turned it down, of course. The crows roared with happiness, exposing their feathers to the red rays of the sun and, along the way, the mother shone for the fact that it so rarely crawls out from behind the clouds. In general, in the gloomy, depressive Zone, a bright moment of general happiness has arrived for everyone...

Except me.

Finally, my head, quite shaken by the “electrode” discharge, began to work in terms of analyzing the situation. And this analysis was depressing.

I didn’t like what happened to my coordination of movements. Okay, there I lost the ability to slow down individual time. And to hell with it, even though it is sometimes very, very lacking. Well, no, no, nothing can be done about it now. But I didn’t like the way I fought the worms at all. I fell painfully and incorrectly, I got into an anomaly, although the stalker sense had always warned me about this before... As if the body was mine on one side, and someone else’s on the other... Along the way, it turns out that Krechetov deceived me again, and it doesn’t matter the body is not a 100% clone of my old one. Only now, after the fight, a realization came that hit me so hard that I stopped and raised my hand to wipe the sweat from my forehead...

And he froze with this hand raised to eye level.

I’ve never looked closely before, and what kind of guy in his right mind would carefully look at his own palms? And then, apparently, nailed by such an implausible thought, he accidentally focused his gaze on his fingers...

And I completely went nuts.

They were completely smooth, without papillary lines, so beloved by law enforcement agencies around the world. So if any policeman now wanted to get my fingerprints, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. And the palm readers who read their hands would also have been seriously disappointed, because on my hands there was not even a hint of the lines of life, fate and everything else that should be on the palms of normal people.

I stood there for about a minute, looking at my hands and trying to come to terms with the idea that the body in which my “I” was enclosed was never mine, but rather a biological case for my personality, into which Krechetov shoved me.

But he finally came to terms with it. The cover I got was not the worst, but quite similar to the real me - even such a hardened wolf as the forester did not notice the substitution. Therefore, we will survive. This is not the most important problem right now.

The main thing was different.

The forester turned out to be absolutely right: almost every living creature in the Zone dreamed of killing me. And the inanimate, by the way, too, including hungry zombies and the notorious Monument. Now worms have been added, creatures from the world of the Kremlin, harmful and vindictive. By the way, in that world I have no fewer enemies left than in the Chernobyl Zone. And now those enemies were crawling here with all their might for my soul. Therefore, before preparing an escape from the Zone, it would be good to close the portal that I myself cut between this universe and the world of the Kremlin. My Razor is fully loaded, which means I have a chance to accomplish my plans.

Having formed such a specific goal for myself for the near future, I turned towards the stalker’s “boarding house”, located about one and a half kilometers from here. If you go through the forest and along the edge of the swamp, then you can actually get there in about thirty minutes. Especially if you push a little.

Well, I pushed it. This is not the first time I have walked through the forest, in the good sense of the word. And despite the fact that hanging around in the thicket of mutated trees is dangerous for life, I did not feel that danger. The half-dead dendromutants slowly and creakingly tried to extend their branches towards me, but when they encountered the radiation of the “Razor”, frying right through the sheath, they immediately abruptly lost interest in me.

In general, I actually went out to the swamp half an hour later - and whistled.

From its depths, about a hundred familiar ropes, or even more, were thrown onto the shore. Anglerfish. Mutants of the Kremlin world, living in water or in liquid swampy mud. They live on the bottom, and sensitive ropes called “fishing rods” are thrown ashore, similar to flexible, agile snakes that try to lasso prey and drag it to the bottom, where it is devoured by an anglerfish. They took root in the Zone. Specifically. If just a few days ago there were single specimens, now there are a whole swamp of them. In short, there is an urgent gap between the worlds and... what? Who the hell knows what? I will fix it. Just how - no idea. But it needs to be repaired before the Zone is overrun by mutants from a parallel universe.

It's close now. There are gnawed bones and a rusty machine gun lying around in a familiar place. It was just recently that Savelyev, Nastya, and I killed a detachment of the Borg group here. A few more days will pass, and not even the bones of the corpses will remain; everything will be stolen and chewed up by hungry mutants. And the machine will decompose from the harmful effects of contaminated soil and weakly acidic rain. Two or three weeks, and nothing remains of the dead man in the Zone, as if a pencil drawing had been erased clean with an eraser. That is, it is clear what the oath often used by stalkers “let the Zone erase me” means...

However, I had nothing to do with old corpses. I was much more interested in the potential corpses that were enthusiastically fiddling around at the other end of the huge clearing, where the stalker’s “boarding house” had recently stood. Now in its place there was only a pile of burnt logs and a smoked chimney sticking out of this pile. The “Borgs” did their best, picking Fyf out of a well-fortified wooden house.

The red-and-blacks were still working hard near the ashes, fussing not like children - I could clearly see their fuss from the dense bushes growing on the outskirts of the forest. There, at the other end of the clearing, hanging right in the air was the cut between the worlds, which I had made with my “Razor”. A kind of eye of Sauron with a border of pale lightning, which had managed to increase in size since my absence - along the way, the edges of the cut slowly spread to the sides. Now he was about two meters high. A little more, and either a bear beetle or a medium-sized biorobot will easily crawl into it. I’m even afraid to imagine what will happen then in the Chernobyl Zone...

However, it has already begun.

Directly opposite the cut, the Borg installed some kind of crap that vaguely resembled a multi-barreled Gatling machine gun. Thick electrical cables ran to hell from a large battery pack mounted on a mobile wheeled platform. Did the Borg really decide to powerful electrical impulse weld the cut? Somehow it doesn't look like them. They are not characterized by real concern for nature, which is not in words, but in deeds. Then why is this? And for what purpose did they bring here a whole bunch of covered trucks, lined up at the edge of the clearing?

However, everything became clear quite quickly.

Behind the “machine gun”, on a special seat, sat a shooter in the light branded armor of the “Borg” group in the famous red and black color. A dozen soldiers stood next to the shooter, but they were all wearing exoskeletons. Half have machine guns in their paws, the rest have grenade launchers. Seriously. It’s like, while the “welder-machine gunner” is welding the gap between worlds, the rest are insuring him in case some kind of bio emerges from the gap?

It turned out not quite so.

A minute passed, two, three...

Suddenly, a powerful hairy paw with a huge bicep intertwined with thick veins appeared from the cut between the worlds. Clutched in his paw was a roughly forged ax four times larger than usual. Following the paw, a muzzle poked out, vaguely resembling a human. Powerful brow ridges, small attentive eyes, monkey-like inverted nostrils, a square lower jaw...

It's clear. Neo decided to find out what it was like in another universe. It turned out that it doesn’t matter. About the same as at home. Only there are no destroyed buildings, and a bunch of homos in strange armor spoil the landscape.

There, in the world of the Kremlin, the “new people” were not particularly afraid of ordinary people. And they were even often attacked, in most cases successfully. Especially when those people were not outside the walls of the fortress.

Dmitry Sillov

Dmitry Olegovich Sillov

Any use of the material in this book, in whole or in part, without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.

The STALKER series was founded in 2012

© D. O. Sillov, 2017

© AST Publishing House LLC, 2017

***

Maria Sergeeva, head of the editorial and publishing group "Genre Literature" of the AST publishing house, and Vadim Chekunov, head of the "Fiction" direction of the editorial and publishing group "Genre Literature" of the AST publishing house for supporting and promoting the projects "STALKER" and "KREMLIN 2222";

Oleg “Fyf” Captain, an experienced stalker guide in the Zone for valuable advice during my work on the novels of the literary projects “STALKER” and “KREMLIN 2222”;

Pavel Moroz, administrator of the websites www.sillov.ru and www.real-street-fighting.ru; Alexey "Master" Lipatov, administrator thematic groups social network"In contact with";

Semyon “Gloomy” Stepanov, Sergey “Ion” Kalintsev, Vitaly “Vint” Lepestov, Tatyana Fedorishcheva, Andrey Guchkov, Vadim Pankov, Sergey Nastoburko and Rostislav Kukin for assistance in the development of the “Sniper” project;

as well as a certified Microsoft engineer and MBA graduate Kingston University UK, writer Alexey Lagutenkov for qualified advice on technical issues.

***

What's the most pleasant thing in life when you're dead tired of it?

Of course it's a dream. Quiet happiness. For one - not for all. Individual. Hard-won. Well deserved. It’s better without dreams, so that without distraction you can enjoy the fact that no one touches you, teaches you how to live, is not indignant at the fact of your existence... Doesn’t try to kill you. And even if someone does try, let him do it right. He’ll just shoot you in the back of the head or stab you under the ear with a knife - in this way, working off a stationary target is as easy as shelling pears even for a novice scumbag who proudly calls himself a stalker.

But when, in a dream that you have been dreaming about for a very long time, you receive a sensitive poke in the ribs, a frantic desire to kill instantly appears in you, who has not yet woken up. All the bastards who rudely wake up tired people, tearing them out of the cozy embrace of individual happiness.

I haven’t quite woken up yet, but my hand has already automatically darted to the belt with the sheath, in which my “Razor” comfortably rested - a combat knife that can both chop enemies into a fine vinaigrette and cut the boundaries between worlds.

The blade ripped through the air with a slight rustle, although I still didn’t really understand from my sleep exactly where my blow was aimed. But the goal was obvious: to fucking kill that freak who dared to wake me up so unceremoniously.

“But, but, don’t spoil me,” it sounded in the twilight that filled the cramped space of the forester’s house, in which I decided to sleep, very much hoping that no one would disturb me. And I almost succeeded, because the dim rays of the dawn sun were already leaking through the tiny windows, barely breaking through the lead clouds - those that constantly hang over the Zone, obscuring the clear blue sky.

In this poor lighting, I finally opened my eyes and managed to see who woke me up.

Next to the window stood a gray-bearded man who looked as if he had stepped out of a partisan poster from the Second World War - wearing kirzach boots, a Soviet officer’s sheepskin coat, from under the collar of which a faded paratrooper vest peeked out, and a neat earflap hat, rakishly pushed back to the back of his head.

In his hands the colorful “partisan” held the famous “mosinka” - a weapon with more than a century of history, still used by special forces snipers high class for jewelry work. The rifle was equipped with a PU sight, old and reliable as the rifle itself, to which a half-meter needle bayonet was attached, rather for better balance than for combat use. As I understand it, the “partisan” woke me up with his butt. Although I could have simply poked him under the shoulder blade with a bayonet, after which I would have smoothly moved from an ordinary happy dream to an eternal one. But he didn’t poke. This means he needed me for some reason.

“Look, I know you,” the gray-bearded man said, squinting. – Weren’t you and I once sitting in my guardhouse along with two other stalkers, talking about the fate of the Zone?

- So what, is this a reason to poke a sleeping person in the ribs with a butt? – I grumbled, putting the knife back in its sheath.

I also recognized this sedate forester of about fifty in appearance, who, despite his age, if necessary, knew how to move faster and more prudently than many young stalkers. It was at the suggestion of this radio collector that I first went through Chernobyl 2 and managed to stay alive. And a little later, this esthete sniper helped me and my comrades fight off the Monument fanatics. True, then our paths diverged, but in the Zone it often happens that diverged paths intersect again.

- How did I know it was you? – the bearded man said sedately, continuing to hold me at gunpoint. “I come to the guardhouse, and the lock is knocked out, and the door is locked from the inside. I had to climb onto the roof and enter my own house through the attic. I look - and the adversary on my bed is sleeping, already whistling in his sleep. I thought about poking him with a bayonet, but then I finally decided to take a look at what the Zone’s gift was.

- Did you look?

“Yeah,” the forester responded indifferently.

- Well, I’m thinking now: maybe I should poke it with a bayonet? You, Sniper, are a disgrace in the Zone. Shooting, murders, groups are on their guard, fighting among themselves, chasing you. The monument over there under the Sarcophagus has gone wild, the emissions are getting worse and worse. Also, they say, from you. Like, you promised something to the Monument, but didn’t do it, and now he’s looking for you. So maybe it’s better to let you go, don’t you think? I, after all, am a real forester who is obliged to maintain order in the territory entrusted to me. And the law for us, foresters, is simple: if someone or something is harmful to nature, then that harmful problem must be eliminated before it gets worse.

Hmmm. Along the way, I put the Razor into its sheath a little early. And you can’t reach the “G-3”, the Gauss cannon, which is leaning against the wall near the head of the mattress. The forester’s reaction is amazing for his age, and can only be explained by the influence of artifacts, which this shaggy child of nature knew how to get along with, as if with living beings.

“No problem, you can fix the problem,” I chuckled, relaxing and leaning back against the wall. – Like in those days when you alone held Gidroproektovskaya Street from the roof of the House of Pre-Conscripts while the guys and I fought near the Prometheus cinema. Back then, I remember, we solved a lot of problems together.

“That was then,” the forester said just as evenly. “A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.” How was I supposed to know who I was helping? Look, if I hadn’t told you how to get through Chernobyl-two correctly, you would have stayed there for the benefit of the Mother Zone...

The forester spoke, the long bayonet at the end of his rifle gleaming dully, frozen ten centimeters from my chest. But all this did not stop me from noticing how a strange shadow flashed behind the forester in a small window. It was as if someone had looked into it, instantly copied everything that interested him, and then disappeared. I could have considered this assumption a play of light and shadow if a quiet, retreating rustling had not been heard under the window. If you don't listen, you won't hear.

However, the forester heard. He immediately shut up and froze like a pillar, with his ears pricked up and wondering: either it was the wind rustling the leaves, or it wasn’t the wind.

And then I saw a dot in that window. And he opened his mouth to shout to the forester “to the side!”, although he understood that by the time I shouted it out, it would be too late...

But the forester reacted. As if reading my thoughts, he jerked sharply to the right a split second before the point turned into a short spear that rustled near his left ear.

Whoever threw this exotic weapon knew his job well. If the forester had not evaded, the roughly forged tip would have pierced right into the base of his skull, instantly sending the owner of the exotic rifle to the Land of Eternal War. And so the dart just pierced the log wall above my head with a dull thud.

The shaft of the spear was still vibrating displeasedly, but the forester had already turned one hundred and eighty degrees and, raising his rifle, shot at the window offhand, almost without aiming.

A heart-rending squeal was heard from the other side of the window, which immediately turned into a dying gurgle as the blood of the unlucky thrower gushed out of his throat. And, a moment later, the echo of this screech echoed through the forest, a multi-voiced howl filled with fierce anger.

The time for conversations, threats and showdowns is over. It was urgent to save our lives. The forester, jumping to the window, stood on the side of it. I rolled off my mattress, picked up my G-3, and rushed to the second window, while running, turning the power regulator to minimum, and the fire selector to fire anomalous bullets. It’s just that my latest model gauss weapon shoots artificial anomalies of varying strength and size, depending on how you set the regulator. Maybe hit with “heat”, maybe with “electrode”. Or maybe bullets that expand when they hit the target. True, if you hit the enemy with powerful charges, the magazine will only be enough for two shots. If you save money and shoot with weak anomalies, it is enough for six shots. True, it will not be possible to equip the store again. They are disposable at G-3. And by the way, I don’t care about them. One is full in unloading, and the adjacent one is filled with anomalous energy only two-thirds. In total, if I spend it at a minimum, I have ten relatively low-power shots in stock, after which the G-3 can only be used as a club.

Any use of the material in this book, in whole or in part, without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.

The STALKER series was founded in 2012

© D. O. Sillov, 2017

Maria Sergeeva, head of the editorial and publishing group "Genre Literature" of the AST publishing house, and Vadim Chekunov, head of the "Fiction" direction of the editorial and publishing group "Genre Literature" of the AST publishing house for supporting and promoting the projects "STALKER" and "KREMLIN 2222";

Oleg “Fyf” Captain, an experienced stalker guide in the Zone for valuable advice during my work on the novels of the literary projects “STALKER” and “KREMLIN 2222”;

Pavel Moroz, administrator of the sites www.sillov.ru and www.real-street-fighting.ru; Alexey “Master” Lipatov, administrator of thematic groups of the social network “VKontakte”;

Semyon “Gloomy” Stepanov, Sergey “Ion” Kalintsev, Vitaly “Vint” Lepestov, Tatyana Fedorishcheva, Andrey Guchkov, Vadim Pankov, Sergey Nastoburko and Rostislav Kukin for assistance in the development of the “Sniper” project;

as well as certified Microsoft engineer, MBA graduate of Kingston University UK, writer Alexey Lagutenkov for qualified advice on technical issues.

What's the most pleasant thing in life when you're dead tired of it?

Of course it's a dream. Quiet happiness. For one - not for all. Individual. Hard-won. Well deserved. It’s better without dreams, so that without distraction you can enjoy the fact that no one touches you, teaches you how to live, is not indignant at the fact of your existence... Doesn’t try to kill you. And even if someone does try, let him do it right. He’ll just shoot you in the back of the head or stab you under the ear with a knife - in this way, working off a stationary target is as easy as shelling pears even for a novice scumbag who proudly calls himself a stalker.

But when, in a dream that you have been dreaming about for a very long time, you receive a sensitive poke in the ribs, a frantic desire to kill instantly appears in you, who has not yet woken up. All the bastards who rudely wake up tired people, tearing them out of the cozy embrace of individual happiness.

I haven’t quite woken up yet, but my hand has already automatically darted to the belt with the sheath, in which my “Razor” comfortably rested - a combat knife that can both chop enemies into a fine vinaigrette and cut the boundaries between worlds.

The blade ripped through the air with a slight rustle, although I still didn’t really understand from my sleep exactly where my blow was aimed. But the goal was obvious: to fucking kill that freak who dared to wake me up so unceremoniously.

“But, but, don’t spoil me,” it sounded in the twilight that filled the cramped space of the forester’s house, in which I decided to sleep, very much hoping that no one would disturb me. And I almost succeeded, because the dim rays of the dawn sun were already leaking through the tiny windows, barely breaking through the lead clouds - those that constantly hang over the Zone, obscuring the clear blue sky.

In this poor lighting, I finally opened my eyes and managed to see who woke me up.

Next to the window stood a gray-bearded man who looked as if he had stepped out of a partisan poster from the Second World War - wearing kirzach boots, a Soviet officer’s sheepskin coat, from under the collar of which a faded paratrooper vest peeked out, and a neat earflap hat, rakishly pushed back to the back of his head.

In his hands, the colorful “partisan” held the famous “mosinka” - a weapon with more than a hundred years of history, still used in special forces by high-class snipers for jewelry work. The rifle was equipped with a PU sight, old and reliable as the rifle itself, to which a half-meter needle bayonet was attached, rather for better balance than for combat use. As I understand it, the “partisan” woke me up with his butt. Although I could have simply poked him under the shoulder blade with a bayonet, after which I would have smoothly moved from an ordinary happy dream to an eternal one. But he didn’t poke. This means he needed me for some reason.

“Look, I know you,” the gray-bearded man said, squinting. – Weren’t you and I once sitting in my guardhouse along with two other stalkers, talking about the fate of the Zone?

- So what, is this a reason to poke a sleeping person in the ribs with a butt? – I grumbled, putting the knife back in its sheath.

I also recognized this sedate forester of about fifty in appearance, who, despite his age, if necessary, knew how to move faster and more prudently than many young stalkers. It was at the suggestion of this radio collector that I first went through Chernobyl 2 and managed to stay alive. And a little later, this esthete sniper helped me and my comrades fight off the Monument fanatics. True, then our paths diverged, but in the Zone it often happens that diverged paths intersect again.

- How did I know it was you? – the bearded man said sedately, continuing to hold me at gunpoint. “I come to the guardhouse, and the lock is knocked out, and the door is locked from the inside. I had to climb onto the roof and enter my own house through the attic. I look - and the adversary on my bed is sleeping, already whistling in his sleep. I thought about poking him with a bayonet, but then I finally decided to take a look at what the Zone’s gift was.

- Did you look?

“Yeah,” the forester responded indifferently.

- Well, I’m thinking now: maybe I should poke it with a bayonet? You, Sniper, are a disgrace in the Zone. Shooting, murders, groups are on their guard, fighting among themselves, chasing you. The monument over there under the Sarcophagus has gone wild, the emissions are getting worse and worse. Also, they say, from you. Like, you promised something to the Monument, but didn’t do it, and now he’s looking for you. So maybe it’s better to let you go, don’t you think? I, after all, am a real forester who is obliged to maintain order in the territory entrusted to me. And the law for us, foresters, is simple: if someone or something is harmful to nature, then that harmful problem must be eliminated before it gets worse.

Hmmm. Along the way, I put the Razor into its sheath a little early. And you can’t reach the “G-3”, the Gauss cannon, which is leaning against the wall near the head of the mattress. The forester’s reaction is amazing for his age, and can only be explained by the influence of artifacts, which this shaggy child of nature knew how to get along with, as if with living beings.

“No problem, you can fix the problem,” I chuckled, relaxing and leaning back against the wall. – Like in those days when you alone held Gidroproektovskaya Street from the roof of the House of Pre-Conscripts while the guys and I fought near the Prometheus cinema. Back then, I remember, we solved a lot of problems together.

“That was then,” the forester said just as evenly. “A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.” How was I supposed to know who I was helping? Look, if I hadn’t told you how to get through Chernobyl-two correctly, you would have stayed there for the benefit of the Mother Zone...

The forester spoke, the long bayonet at the end of his rifle gleaming dully, frozen ten centimeters from my chest. But all this did not stop me from noticing how a strange shadow flashed behind the forester in a small window. It was as if someone had looked into it, instantly copied everything that interested him, and then disappeared. I could have considered this assumption a play of light and shadow if a quiet, retreating rustling had not been heard under the window. If you don't listen, you won't hear.

However, the forester heard. He immediately shut up and froze like a pillar, with his ears pricked up and wondering: either it was the wind rustling the leaves, or it wasn’t the wind.

And then I saw a dot in that window. And he opened his mouth to shout to the forester “to the side!”, although he understood that by the time I shouted it out, it would be too late...

But the forester reacted. As if reading my thoughts, he jerked sharply to the right a split second before the point turned into a short spear that rustled near his left ear.

Whoever threw this exotic weapon knew his job well. If the forester had not evaded, the roughly forged tip would have pierced right into the base of his skull, instantly sending the owner of the exotic rifle to the Land of Eternal War. And so the dart just pierced the log wall above my head with a dull thud.

Dmitry Sillov

Maria Sergeeva, head of the editorial and publishing group "Genre Literature" of the AST publishing house, and Vadim Chekunov, head of the "Fiction" direction of the editorial and publishing group "Genre Literature" of the AST publishing house for supporting and promoting the projects "STALKER" and "KREMLIN 2222";

Oleg “Fyf” Captain, an experienced stalker guide in the Zone for valuable advice during my work on the novels of the literary projects “STALKER” and “KREMLIN 2222”;

Pavel Moroz, administrator of the websites www.sillov.ru and www.real-street-fighting.ru; Alexey “Master” Lipatov, administrator of thematic groups of the social network “VKontakte”;

Semyon “Gloomy” Stepanov, Sergey “Ion” Kalintsev, Vitaly “Vint” Lepestov, Tatyana Fedorishcheva, Andrey Guchkov, Vadim Pankov, Sergey Nastoburko and Rostislav Kukin for assistance in the development of the “Sniper” project;

as well as certified Microsoft engineer, MBA graduate of Kingston University UK, writer Alexey Lagutenkov for qualified advice on technical issues.

***

What's the most pleasant thing in life when you're dead tired of it?

Of course it's a dream. Quiet happiness. For one - not for all. Individual. Hard-won. Well deserved. It’s better without dreams, so that without distraction you can enjoy the fact that no one touches you, teaches you how to live, is not indignant at the fact of your existence... Doesn’t try to kill you. And even if someone does try, let him do it right. He will simply shoot you in the back of the head or stab you under the ear with a knife - in this way, working off a stationary target is as easy as shelling pears even for a novice scumbag who proudly calls himself a stalker.

But when, in a dream that you have been dreaming about for a very long time, you receive a sensitive poke in the ribs, a frantic desire to kill instantly appears in you, who has not yet woken up. All the bastards who rudely wake up tired people, tearing them out of the cozy embrace of individual happiness.

I had not yet fully woken up, but my hand had already automatically rushed to the belt with the sheath, in which my “Razor” comfortably rested - a combat knife that can both chop enemies into a fine vinaigrette and cut the boundaries between worlds.

The blade ripped through the air with a slight rustle, although I still didn’t really understand from my sleep exactly where my blow was aimed. But the goal was obvious: to fucking kill that freak who dared to wake me up so unceremoniously.

But, but, don’t spoil me,” it sounded in the twilight that filled the cramped space of the forester’s house, in which I decided to sleep, very much hoping that no one would disturb me. And I almost succeeded, because the dim rays of the dawn sun were already leaking through the tiny windows, barely breaking through the lead clouds - those that constantly hang over the Zone, obscuring the clear blue sky.

In this poor lighting, I finally opened my eyes and managed to see who woke me up.

Next to the window stood a gray-bearded man, as if he had stepped out of a partisan poster from the Second World War - in kirzachakh, a Soviet officer's sheepskin coat, from under the collar of which a faded paratrooper vest peeked out, and a neat earflap hat, rakishly pushed to the back of his head.

In his hands, the colorful “partisan” held the famous “mosinka” - a weapon with more than a hundred years of history, which is still used in special forces by high-class snipers for jewelry work. The rifle was equipped with a PU sight, old and reliable as the rifle itself, to which a half-meter needle bayonet was attached, rather for better balance than for combat use. As I understand it, the “partisan” woke me up with his butt. Although I could have simply poked him under the shoulder blade with a bayonet, after which I would have smoothly moved from an ordinary happy dream to an eternal one. But he didn’t poke. This means he needed me for some reason.

Look, I know you,” the gray-bearded man said, squinting. - Weren’t you and I once sitting in my guardhouse along with two other stalkers, talking about the fate of the Zone?

So what, is this a reason to poke a sleeping person in the ribs with a butt? - I grumbled, putting the knife back in its sheath.

I also recognized this sedate forester of about fifty in appearance, who, despite his age, if necessary, knew how to move faster and more prudently than many young stalkers. It was at the suggestion of this radio collector that I first went through Chernobyl 2 and managed to stay alive. And a little later, this esthete sniper helped me and my comrades fight off the Monument fanatics. True, then our paths diverged, but in the Zone it often happens that diverged paths intersect again.

How did I know it was you? - the bearded man said sedately, continuing to hold me at gunpoint. - I come to the guardhouse, and the lock is knocked out, and the door is locked from the inside. I had to climb onto the roof and enter my own house through the attic. I look - and the adversary on my bed is sleeping, already whistling in his sleep. I thought about poking him with a bayonet, but then I finally decided to take a look at what the Zone’s gift was.

“Yeah,” the forester responded indifferently.

Well, I’m thinking now: maybe I should poke it with a bayonet? You, Sniper, are a disgrace in the Zone. Shooting, murders, groups are on their guard, fighting among themselves, chasing you. The monument over there under the Sarcophagus has gone wild, the emissions are getting worse and worse. Also, they say, from you. Like, you promised something to the Monument, but didn’t do it, and now he’s looking for you. So maybe it’s better to let you go, don’t you think? I, after all, am a real forester who is obliged to maintain order in the territory entrusted to me. And the law for us, foresters, is simple: if someone or something is harmful to nature, then that harmful problem must be eliminated before it gets worse.

Hmmm. Along the way, I put the Razor into its sheath a little early. And you can’t reach the “G-3”, the Gauss cannon, which is leaning against the wall near the head of the mattress. The forester’s reaction is amazing for his age, and can only be explained by the influence of artifacts, which this shaggy child of nature knew how to get along with, as if with living beings.

No problem, you can eliminate the problem,” I chuckled, relaxing and leaning back against the wall. - Like in those days when you alone held Gidroproektovskaya Street from the roof of the House of Pre-Conscripts while the guys and I fought near the Prometheus cinema. Back then, I remember, we solved a lot of problems together.

“That was then,” the forester said just as evenly. - Much water has passed under the bridge since then. How was I supposed to know who I was helping? Look, if I hadn’t told you how to get through Chernobyl-two correctly, you would have stayed there for the benefit of the Mother Zone...

The forester spoke, the long bayonet at the end of his rifle gleaming dully, frozen ten centimeters from my chest. But all this did not stop me from noticing how a strange shadow flashed behind the forester in a small window. It was as if someone had looked into it, instantly copied everything that interested him, and then disappeared. I could have considered this assumption a play of light and shadow if a quiet, retreating rustling had not been heard under the window. If you don't listen, you won't hear.

However, the forester heard. He immediately shut up and froze like a pillar, with his ears pricked up and wondering: either it was the wind rustling the leaves, or it wasn’t the wind.

And then I saw a dot in that window. And he opened his mouth to shout to the forester “to the side!”, although he understood that by the time I shouted it out, it would be too late...

But the forester reacted. As if reading my thoughts, he jerked sharply to the right a split second before the point turned into a short spear that rustled near his left ear.

Whoever threw this exotic weapon knew his job well. If the forester had not evaded, the roughly forged tip would have pierced right into the base of his skull, instantly sending the owner of the exotic rifle to the Land of Eternal War. And so the dart just pierced the log wall above my head with a dull thud.

The shaft of the spear was still vibrating displeasedly, but the forester had already turned one hundred and eighty degrees and, raising his rifle, shot at the window offhand, almost without aiming.

A heart-rending squeal was heard from the other side of the window, which immediately turned into a dying gurgle as the blood of the unlucky thrower gushed out of his throat. And, a moment later, the echo of this screech echoed through the forest, a multi-voiced howl filled with fierce anger.

The time for conversations, threats and showdowns is over. It was urgent to save our lives. The forester, jumping to the window, stood on the side of it. I rolled off my mattress, picked up my G-3, and rushed to the second window, while running, turning the power regulator to minimum, and the fire selector to fire anomalous bullets. It’s just that my latest model gauss weapon shoots artificial anomalies of varying strength and size, depending on how you set the regulator. Maybe hit with “heat”, maybe with “electrode”. Or maybe bullets that expand when they hit the target. True, if you hit the enemy with powerful charges, the magazine will only be enough for two shots. If you save money and shoot with weak anomalies, it is enough for six shots. True, it will not be possible to equip the store again. They are disposable at G-3. And by the way, I don’t care about them. One is full in unloading, and the adjacent one is filled with anomalous energy only two-thirds. In total, if I spend it at a minimum, I have ten relatively low-power shots in stock, after which the G-3 can only be used as a club.

Countdown Ken Follett

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Title: Countdown

About the book "Countdown" by Ken Follett

The man, dressed in rags and having lost his memory, does not even know yet that he is Dr. Luke Lucas, a famous scientist who worked on the creation of a new American artificial satellite. But amnesia does not last forever, and this is well known to people who are ready to do anything to prevent Lucas from regaining his past - or simply remove him if other methods do not work. Who is hunting for the scientist and luring him into the net? Competitors? Foreign spies? Or, on the contrary, CIA agents who have their own reasons for considering Lucas dangerous? Luke, who finds himself at the center of a sophisticated spy game, does not understand who is his friend and who is his enemy, who he can trust and who he should run away from without looking back...

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