Czytaj książkę: «Leshy. Echo of Worlds»

Prologue. Old and New

The fracture closed behind him without a sound.

Borland lay on his back and looked at the sky. Gray. Alive — with clouds, with that movement of air called wind. The grass under his hand was wet from rain. The smell — that very smell. Ozone, wet earth, the taste of metal at the edge of perception.

We made it out...

The words came on their own and stayed hanging there — empty, like a cartridge case without powder.

His right hand gripped the Cutter. His left was clenched in a fist — around something hard, put there at the last moment before space closed for good.

Somewhere nearby Vint was talking. Then Gaika. The voices came as through thick glass — the words reached him, the meaning didn't. Consciousness was slipping away, and that was his only salvation from what had happened.

They put him on a stretcher. Carried him.

* * *

It was good to be at Viktor's place; nobody forced their company on him, nobody pried. But Borland understood it himself — something was wrong. No mirror. No words from others, for what was happening inside him — nobody could have found the right words. Something inside had shifted and not settled back. All the old priorities and goals had faded. Inside, it was empty.

Not grief. Grief is something alive, it moves, it changes, sometimes it recedes. This was different. Just — empty.

A few days later he packed his things.

The Zone took him in as it always had. Without ceremony. It simply opened up around him — familiar, silent, with that smell that doesn't change in any world.

For the first weeks he walked. With no route. Just — inward, to where people were rarer and anomalies stood thicker. His instinct worked on its own — he skirted the Electras without thinking, picked his direction by the barely perceptible change in the pressure of the air. The body did everything right. The head took no part.

That was how he lived.

He found a place — deep, where ordinary stalkers didn't go without a good reason. Not a cache — more of a foothold. An old, lonely forester's house in the depths of a dark forest. Walls. A roof. Nothing more was needed. The Cutter lay on a shelf and was silent. Borland hardly touched it — no reason to open fractures when there was nowhere to go. The runic knife lay there too, and only the photo in the medallion was always with him — in his breast pocket.

The Zone lived its own life. Anomalies moved, mutants raised new generations, stalkers came and went. Some came back, most didn't.

Borland became part of that landscape.

* * *

The first time he showed himself to people was a couple of months later, when he decided to help a loner.

Not out of kindness — just because he had decided to. Four men were following a lone stalker's trail. He watched their hunt. The hunters — by their movement, by the intervals, by the way they held their weapons. It wasn't the first time they'd had to kill loners and strip the corpses.

Borland didn't wait to see how it would end.

He came out of the fog from behind — soundlessly, as he knew how, as he had been taught. The first one fell without having time to understand what had happened. The second managed to turn around. That was enough to see, but not enough to do anything.

The third and the fourth ran.

Borland caught up with both.

The stalker they had been chasing came out of cover, looked at what was left, and was silent for a long time. Then he raised his eyes to Borland.

Borland was already leaving.

"Hey." His voice trembled. "Who the hell are you."

Borland didn't answer.

* * *

Rumors move fast in the Zone — faster than people, faster than mutants, sometimes faster than anomalies.

Appears out of nowhere. Lives inside, in the very depths — where nobody goes without a dosimeter and a prayer. Sometimes helps — silently, without explanations, without payment. Sometimes kills — and then it would be better to meet a mutant or take a careless step into an anomaly than to meet him. The slaughters he left behind were neat. That was exactly what was terrifying — not the blood, not the scale, but the neatness. Professional, cold, with no anger and no haste. As if it were a job. As if he didn't care.

Here they christened him Leshy, without even knowing that was what he had been called in the past. Those who had seen him themselves said: the eyes are alive, but they look through you. Like a man who has already counted everything there was to count, and the result didn't please him.

He traded rarely. Only when he needed something specific. The price was always firm — no haggling, no discounts. He put on the table what he had brought, took what he had bought, and left. He asked no questions. The questions he didn't like, he didn't answer — he simply looked, and the other person usually decided on his own that the subject was closed.

Two years passed.

* * *

Borland sat by the wall and looked at the Cutter.

The knife lay on the shelf — where it always lay. The blade didn't glow. Didn't reach for fractures. It was silent, the way everything is silent that has long since stopped being called.

Nowhere to go.

The thought came and went — without pain, without regret. Just a fact. One of those you no longer argue with.

Rain fell beyond the wall. Quiet, steady — the kind that in the Zone usually comes before a surge. Borland listened to it and thought that he would have to fix the perimeter. Anomalies shift after a surge. He had long ago built a maze of anomalies around the house, some drawn in by the methods of the tribe from his past life, others created by Khimik's methods.

His hand found the pendant under his clothes — on its own, without the head's involvement. A habitual gesture, down to automatism. He didn't take out the photograph. He just held the pendant in his palm — warm from the body, light.

The rain fell.

Borland sat.

The Zone lived around him — breathing, moving, grinding down those who gave in, and leaving burns on those it couldn't chew through.

Chapter 1. The Research Center

Lika was late.

She flew down the corridor — heels clicking loudly on the floor, folder under her arm, hair streaming behind her — counting the minutes in her head. The meeting had started seven minutes ago. Seven minutes wasn't the end of the world, if she managed to slip in quietly and sit at the edge. The end of the world would come if she was noticed.

She had stayed too long in the archive and lost track of time. Again.

The search for information about her father was complicated by the total chaos in the archive. The old folders resisted — the paper stuck together, some of the records had faded to the state of shadows, some of the documents in the folders were mixed up as if someone had been sorting them in a hurry and abandoned the job halfway. Lika turned page after page, looking for a name, a date, any mention of her father's last assignment — and didn't find it. The archive kept everything under the sun except what she needed.

Her father had disappeared right here. More precisely — he had gone out on an assignment for this institute and never come back. The official version: an accident in an anomalous zone. The details — classified. The personal file — classified. The assignment itself — classified.

Lika had spent four years to end up on this side of the research center's doors.

A university degree in the field, by correspondence, alongside attempts to get a job here. The competition for lab assistant — three attempts, she got through on the third. And now she had been in the anomalous materials research laboratory for two months, cataloguing samples and writing protocols, and spending all her free time in the archive, among folders nobody had ever properly looked after.

The institute was huge, unwieldy, and in that unwieldiness there was an advantage of its own: nobody was watching what exactly she was looking for.

So far — nothing.

But she had only just begun.

A turn. Another corridor. The office door swung open right in front of her.

Lika couldn't brake in time.

* * *

The impact was mutual.

She flew into someone solid, hard — the folder tore loose, papers fanned out, her heel twisted — and they both ended up on the floor. Lika hit her elbow, hissed, tried to get up by reflex.

She got up. The man — tall, close-cropped, with that particular calm in his face that people have when they're used to surprises — rose after her. Slowly, without cursing. As if the fall had been planned and hadn't surprised him much.

"Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was running, I really didn't mean to, please forgive me," the words spilled out on their own as Lika bent for the papers, "it was my fault, completely, I was just late and miscalculated."

She straightened up.

The man was looking at her.

Not the way people look after a collision — with irritation or bewilderment. Differently. He looked at her face and didn't move. At all. As if he had seen something and frozen with it — unable either to look away or to speak.

Lika fell silent.

A second. Another.

Who is that? Why is he looking like that? Is he someone from management? I've only been here two months and already, already...

The tears came unexpectedly — she hadn't wanted them, it was just nerves, just that look that made her uneasy, and the thought that everything would collapse — four years of effort, the attempts to get in here...

"It's all right," said the man. His voice was even. "Be more careful in the future."

But he still hadn't looked away.

* * *

At the noise in the corridor, a woman came out of the office.

Lika had seen her before — in the corridors, at general meetings. Ekaterina Sergeyevna, head of the Department of Fracture Research. One of those people you look at and immediately understand: this person knows what she wants and is used to getting exactly that. Now she stood in the doorway and looked at Lika with an expression Lika couldn't read.

"Vikki?"

Her voice broke — quietly, almost inaudibly, but Lika heard it.

She turned around.

"Lika." A pause. "Do you know me?"

Ekaterina Sergeyevna blinked. Something in her face changed, the emotions went — quickly, professionally — and it became ordinary again.

"I mistook you for someone else." An even voice. "What happened here?"

"Nothing serious," said the man. "I came out of your office too fast and knocked the girl off her feet."

The informal "you" came out naturally — not a slip, just a boundary that had long since been erased between these two. Lika noted it automatically while trying to work out what was going on. She was waiting for a dressing-down. Or a cold "report to your department head." Or just a look of disgust turned aside.

Instead — she was being covered for.

"Which department are you from?" asked Ekaterina Sergeyevna.

"The anomalous materials research laboratory." Lika spoke quickly. "I'm a new employee, an assistant. I'm sorry for making a noise."

Ekaterina Sergeyevna looked at her a second longer than politeness required. Then she said — calmly, as if she had already decided everything and was simply stating a fact:

"I'll request your transfer to my department. A position recently opened up there — lab assistant for cataloguing artifacts that affect space. Go into my office and wait. I'll be back in half an hour — I need to settle the matter with your current supervisor right away."

Lika opened her mouth. Closed it.

Nodded.

She went into the office. Closed the door behind her.

* * *

It was quiet in the corridor.

"You noticed too," said Vint. Not a question — he said it as a statement.

Ekaterina was looking at the closed door.

"Have you ever seen me make decisions about people for the team this fast?"

Vint didn't answer. That in itself was an answer.

"The ears are different," Ekaterina said after a pause. "And there's nothing at the ends of the hair."

"I noticed."

A pause.

"We need to find out who she is," said Vint. "Before we do anything further."

"We will." Ekaterina was already walking down the corridor. "Go. I'm going to Bishof, then I'll come back to her."

Vint remained standing. Looked at the office door for another second.

Then he turned and went the other way.

Chapter 2. Ekaterina Sergeyevna

Ekaterina Sergeyevna's office was exactly what the office of a person who tolerated no excess should be.

No decorative trinkets on the windowsill, no frames with motivational quotes on the walls. Only what worked: a desk, three chairs, a cabinet of folders — labeled evenly, without abbreviations — and a board on the wall that was clearly not used for show. Diagrams on it, graphs, several photographs of anomalous formations with handwritten captions. In the corner, a safe. Over the desk, a lamp on a flexible stalk, the one item that, judging by its chipped base, the owner had carried with her through several workplaces.

On the desk — only the necessary. A laptop. A cup of pens. A folder of current documents, closed. No clutter.

Lika sat across from the empty chair and waited.

She hadn't digested what had happened yet. Everything had gone too fast — the collision, that look, the instant offer of a transfer, the closed door. Now she was sitting in the office of a department head, a place she had never expected to end up under any circumstances, trying to understand what exactly was going on and how it would end for her.

Why she had been taken on here — she didn't understand.

* * *

Ekaterina began the conversation in Bishof's office without preamble.

"Give me that girl."

Bishof looked up from his papers. Heavyset, close to fifty, with that particular solidity in every movement that people have when they're used to making decisions without hurry. Elbows on the desk, fingers laced — the pose of a man who listens and counts at the same time.

"What girl?"

"The new assistant from your laboratory. Anzhelika," Ekaterina didn't sit down. "I need someone for the lab assistant position, my Solovyova is on maternity leave, the work is at a standstill. She'll do."

Bishof was silent for a second. Then:

"Why do you need this one in particular? What did you see in her?"

His eyes were restless — not from emotion, from the habit of calculating. He was clearly searching the situation for what he might have missed. The girl was perfectly ordinary — no connections, no special achievements in her portfolio. Average discipline: a few late arrivals in two months, periodically vanishes who knows where. Nothing remarkable, to be honest.

"I need her, and that's it," Ekaterina cut in. "I'm not obliged to explain my staffing choices."

"Oh, you really are cantankerous," Bishof leaned back, and a slow smile appeared on his face, the smile of a man who had just found where it was to his advantage to agree. "Fine. I'll give her up. But you owe me a favor."

Ekaterina knit her brows.

"Equipment," he said simply. "I want a new installation for the laboratory. It costs a decent amount, approval goes through three levels. Help me push it through."

"What kind of installation?"

He named it. Ekaterina thought for a second — weighed where it overlapped with her own tasks, and realized that it overlapped quite well.

"Agreed. But keep in mind — you won't be the only one playing with it. That installation will be useful to me too."

"It's always a pleasure doing business with you, Ekaterina Sergeyevna," said Bishof, in an intonation that could have meant respect as easily as relief.

Ekaterina left without saying goodbye. Superfluous words weren't her style.

* * *

The office door swung open sharply — Lika flinched.

Ekaterina Sergeyevna walked to the desk, sank into her chair, laced her fingers and rested her chin on them. She looked at Lika for several seconds — studying, unhurried. Then she smiled. Unexpectedly warmly.

"Let's get acquainted properly. Ekaterina Sergeyevna, head of the Department of Fracture Research. You're on my team now. You start your duties tomorrow; today you have nowhere to hurry. Tell me about yourself."

Lika was taken aback by such direct interest in her person. After two months in a laboratory where at best people looked at her as a function — fetch, record, put away — this kind of attention felt unfamiliar.

"Anzhelika Igorevna Svetlova," she spoke quickly, before her thoughts could scatter. "I'm studying by correspondence at the State Institute of Radiology and Physics of Anomalies, in the faculty of radiological research of solid anomalous matter, third year. I work alongside — I've been here two months. Before that, six months remotely at a private research company, processing field data. I have experience with artifacts, mostly classification and primary diagnostics."

Ekaterina listened without interrupting. Occasionally she made a brief note in a notebook.

"Good," she said when Lika fell silent. "Tell me about your parents."

The pause was short, but noticeable.

"My mother is a doctor, a general practitioner at a district clinic," Lika said evenly. "My dad... my dad was a stalker."

"Was?"

"He disappeared. Four years ago." She was looking at the desk, not at Ekaterina. "He worked on contract for this research center. He went out on an assignment and didn't come back. Officially — an accident in an anomalous zone. Everything else is classified."

Silence.

"That's why you're here," said Ekaterina. Without a question's intonation.

Lika raised her eyes. There was no point in denying it.

"Yes. I wanted to find anything at all. What his last assignment was. Where he went. What happened to him."

"What was his name?"

"Svetlov Igor Dmitriyevich." Lika paused. "In the Zone they called him Bely. Because of his hair — he went gray early, at about thirty, his head was completely white."

Ekaterina wrote it down. Put the pen away. Looked at the girl — attentively, without the guardedness she'd had in the corridor.

"I'll look into it. I promise nothing, a lot really is classified. But I'll see what can be found."

Lika nodded. Something tightened in her throat — she hadn't expected such a simple "I'll look into it." She was used to beating against walls of indifference.

"That's all for today. Go home, rest. Tomorrow at nine — come to me, I'll introduce you to your colleagues and bring you up to speed."

Lika stood. At the door she turned around — wanted to say something. To thank her, probably.

Ekaterina was already looking at the laptop.

Lika left.

* * *

A minute after the door closed behind her, Ekaterina reached for the phone.

The first call — to HR. Svetlova Anzhelika Igorevna's transfer to be processed today, backdated, all questions with Bishof already settled. The second — to the archives department. The personnel file of contract employee Svetlov Igor Dmitriyevich, call sign Bely. Everything there was, including classified materials — she had a certain level of access to documents stamped "secret." Needed by morning.

On the other end they hesitated. She repeated it calmly and without raising her voice — in exactly the tone used by people who are not accustomed to repeating themselves twice. It helped.

Then she opened the messenger. Typed to Vint, briefly:

"The girl from the corridor — Svetlova Anzhelika. Father is a stalker, a center contractor, call sign Bely. Disappeared four years ago. Did you know him?"

Sent it. Closed the phone.

It was getting dark outside. Ekaterina switched on the lamp, opened the folder of current tasks, and looked at it for a while without reading.

Then the phone vibrated briefly. Vint's reply came quickly — which meant he was online, which meant he was thinking about it himself.

She read it. Was silent.

Then she wrote one more message — to a different person this time.

Chapter 3. Bely

For two weeks Vint did the thing he didn't like doing — talking.

Calls, meetings, careful questions to people who might know but didn't necessarily want to tell. Gaika joined in from her side — she had channels Vint didn't, and a persistence that got through where politeness didn't. Two more acquaintances from the old stalker circles — not close, but reliable — sounded out their own contacts.

The picture came together slowly. And the further it went, the less Vint liked what was coming together.

In the official archives — next to nothing. Bely's personal file had been cleaned neatly, with no visible trace of interference; the information simply ended at a certain date, and beyond it was a blank wall stamped "classified." The last assignment — not only no details, not even a direction was left. No coordinates, no handler, no escort group. As if the man had walked into the void of his own free will and nobody was particularly troubled by it.

But people remembered.

Those who were still alive and who agreed to talk.

Bely was one of those stalkers whom the Zone respects quietly — no stories in the bar, no posturing. He walked long, walked deep, came back. The reputation of a man who knows where he's going and doesn't take on what he's not sure of. Several joint runs with different people — always clean, no losses. They said he could read anomalies almost physically, as if he felt them before they showed themselves.

Four years ago he took an assignment from the institute. Alone, without a group — which in itself was strange for a serious run. And he never came back.

The two acquaintances Vint had asked to ask around in their circles turned up three people who knew Bely well. By the time Vint tried to reach them, one was dead — an accident on the way out of the Zone, officially. The second had vanished — simply stopped getting in touch a week ago. The third refused to talk. Briefly, without explanation. Stopped picking up the phone.

It wasn't paranoia. It was a pattern.

Vint sat with that for two days before deciding it was time to talk to the girl.

* * *

Lika liked her new job.

She hadn't expected it herself — she'd thought she would put up with it, as she had in the previous laboratory. But here it was different. Ekaterina Sergeyevna's department worked tightly, without needless fuss — everyone knew their place and their task, nobody wasted time showing off how busy they were. The artifacts that came to her for cataloguing were more interesting than anything she had seen before — some of them affected space in such a way that the measuring instruments behaved unpredictably, and that demanded not just a protocol but a head.

She tried not to ask about her father. Ekaterina Sergeyevna was a person you were better off not reminding — she would call when she had something to say.

Lika waited. And worked. And sometimes, in the lunch break, went into the archive — out of habit, out of inertia.

When the summons to the office came, she understood right away what it was for.

* * *

That man sat by the wall — not at the desk, a little to the side, like someone who had come neither as a guest nor as the host, but as the one who would speak about business.

"Lika, come in, sit down." Ekaterina Sergeyevna nodded at a chair. "You two have already met, in a way. This is Vint — a very good friend of mine and, concurrently, head of the security group during my research in the Zone."

Vint nodded, restrained.

"Hello," said Lika. "Once again, sorry about that incident."

He waved it off briefly — not out of politeness, just closing the subject.

"It happens. A lesson for me — you can't relax within the institute's walls either."

The smirk was brief. Lika didn't manage to work out whether he was joking.

"Lika," Ekaterina put her hands on the desk. "This is about your father."

Her heart gave one heavy beat and sped up. Lika sat upright and tried to keep it from showing.

Ekaterina spoke briefly — about how she had requested archive data, how there were almost no official materials, how most of it was closed at a level above her access. Then she nodded to Vint.

He didn't hurry. He was silent for a second, like a man who had already decided what he would say but was choosing where to begin.

"Bely was a good stalker." Vint's voice was even, without jumps in intonation; it even seemed a little as if he weren't alive. "One of those who don't play the hero in the Zone and for exactly that reason live long. I never got to work with him personally, but the people who did said the same thing: reliable, no showing off, had a good feel for the Zone." A pause. "Four years ago he took an assignment from your institute. Alone, without a group. What exactly it was — nothing remains in the official documents. Literally nothing. As if the assignment never existed."

Lika was silent.

"I got in touch with the people who might know something. Three knew your father well. At the moment I tried to reach them: one is dead — supposedly an accident. The second disappeared a week ago, no contact. The third refused to talk and stopped picking up the phone."

It was quiet in the office. Outside the window the ventilation hummed.

"Listen." Vint leaned forward slightly. "Before we go on — are you sure you want to go to the end? This isn't an attempt to stop you. It's just that you need to understand: the people who were close to your father and to what he was doing — they disappear. Not all of them, not at once. But there's a pattern."

Lika looked at him.

She thought about her father. About four years of searching. About how her mother, every year on the day he disappeared, shut herself in her room and didn't come out until evening, and never explained anything. About how Lika had promised herself — not aloud, she had simply decided one day and that was that — that she would find out.

"I'm sure," she said.

Not right away. But without hesitation.

Vint looked at her for a second. Then leaned back.

"All right. Then listen further. Your father ended up at the center of a game between two structures," said Vint. "On one side — this institute. On the other — a private organization. Who stands behind it, we know only in general terms: some billionaire, the name never surfaced directly. The project was called 'Resonance.'"

Lika didn't interrupt.

"We haven't been able to establish the goals of your father's assignment. But judging by what we've gathered bit by bit — he was hired for reconnaissance. To find out what this project's people were doing in the Zone, what equipment they were bringing in, routes, movements. The usual work of an informant for a man with his skills."

Ekaterina shifted slightly in her chair — took the floor.

"I can add something to that." Her voice was even, without excess intonation. "Several years ago, when I was still an ordinary staff member, very serious funding suddenly appeared for us for projects on spatial bubbles and fractures. Nobody really explained — the money just came, and the work went into an accelerated mode. Now I think it wasn't accidental. Someone needed our groundwork. Hence the rush and the funding — we were being pushed so that they could observe. I think the private institute wants to repeat what we tried to do — learn to create a spatial bubble in a controlled way." A pause. "What's more. Management hinted to me directly that I should stay out of this story. And part of our research is leaking, even now, somehow. Exactly there, to that private institute."

Lika shifted her gaze from one to the other.

"Half a year ago a private military company appeared in the Zone," Ekaterina continued. "They call themselves 'Apex.' They operate autonomously, don't make contact with the locals, stalkers try to steer clear of them. By all appearances — they're the ones overseeing 'Resonance' in the Zone. And they're also, most likely, covering the tracks." Her voice didn't change. "Possibly your father died precisely because of them."

Silence.

Outside the window the ventilation hummed. Lika sat upright, hands on her knees. She looked at the desk — not because she couldn't look at them, but because she was processing.

When she raised her eyes, they were turned on Vint.

"Help me find him. Or at least exact information that he died." Her voice was even. Almost. "You're an experienced stalker. I can't survive out there alone. And I can't trust the first people who come along — the risk is too great."

Vint shook his head.

"I'll pay. I have savings — my father put something aside from every trip."

Tears began to well up in her eyes. Not for show — just pressure from inside that had become greater than she could hold.

"Listen." Vint spoke without harshness, but firmly. "This is a very dangerous undertaking. Apex isn't local bandits and it isn't mutants. These are professionals with the task of cleaning up. This story isn't for you."

Lika didn't answer.

She simply looked at him. The tears ran — quietly, without sobs, without trying to stop them. Her gaze didn't waver. There was no pleading in it — there was a decision, already made, just waiting to be carried out.

Vint felt uncomfortable.

He caught himself at it — at the discomfort — and smirked inwardly. Earlier he would simply have stood up and left. Something in him had changed over these couple of years. The adventures with Leshy, a long break from his family, too much of everything that leaves a residue — he had gone soft.

Leshy.

The thought came sideways, the way stray thoughts usually come — not head-on, but from the side, while you're thinking about something else.

He hadn't heard of him in half a year already. Where that lost soul had gone — unclear. But that he was alive — Vint for some reason had no doubt. Men like that don't vanish quietly.

"I can't keep you company myself," he said at last. His voice became slightly different — not softer, but different. "But I'll think about who can." He paused. "If you've been gathering information about the Zone all this time, you've surely come across this name at least once. The call sign — Leshy. It's not a tall tale and not a legend. A real man. And I don't know a more experienced stalker."

Ekaterina, who had been silent for the last few minutes, changed sharply in the face.

"Vitya." Her voice became different. "Have you even heard what he's become? I'm not sure he can still talk to people at all without consequences for the latter."

Lika stopped crying. She looked at Vint.

"I thought it was just a tall tale," she said quietly. "I didn't expect he was a real person."

"Real." Vint paused. "Finding him is another question. My deputy will help with that. Gaika. She knows the Zone and has a guess where to look for him." A pause — he was weighing whether to say it or not. He decided. "And one more thing. Leshy isn't from this Zone. He came through a fracture. And in the place he came from, he had a girlfriend. Outwardly — your exact copy. That's precisely why Ekaterina Sergeyevna and I reacted the way we did at the first meeting."

Lika looked at him. Silently digested it.

Then she shifted her gaze to Ekaterina. She didn't deny it.

Everything fell into place — both the transfer to the department, accepted in a few minutes, and Vint's look in the corridor that had frightened her. Not because she had done anything. Simply because her face — a stranger's face — had at the same time been dear to someone.

"Viktor," said Ekaterina slowly. "You're suggesting him precisely because you think she'll help him come back to himself. Not only because he's the best guide."

Vint raised his eyes. Frowned, but didn't answer.

"Isn't it too much — using her like this?"

"I agree," said Lika.

They both looked at her.

"I agree," she repeated. Evenly, without a stumble. "I help you — you help me. If equipment is needed — I'll pay. The fee of those who will lead me to him — we'll discuss it." She looked at Vint. "Deal?"

Vint looked away from Ekaterina.

"There's no hundred-percent guarantee that he won't turn you down. And that you'll even find him — I don't guarantee that either."

"Fine," Lika nodded.

Something in her had switched over. Four years — and now: information, a team, at least a direction. It was more than everything she had managed to find on her own in all that time.

"When the team's assembled, I'll write. We'll discuss the details then." Vint stood. Looked at Lika for a second — not appraisingly, just noting. Then left.

Ekaterina watched him go. Turned to Lika.

"I think we should both get back to work."

Chapter 4. Calm

The bar was called "Calm" — without irony, just a name. Inside was anything but calm: the hum of voices, smoke, the smell of fried meat and cheap beer, music from speakers that nobody listened to. Tables packed close, lighting dim — just enough to see the person across from you and not see anything extra.

It was a stalker place. Not in the sense that they checked you at the door — the crowd here was simply their own. People with a certain look, a certain way of sitting at a table, a habit of keeping their backs to the wall. Civilians came in too, but not for long — the atmosphere wasn't conducive to relaxing unless you understood that it was normal.

Lika came in and stopped at the entrance — looked around.

Vint sat at a table by the far wall. Next to him — a woman.

* * *

Gaika was one of those people you remember at once and for good — not because of looks, but because of the way they take up space. Compact, collected, with a short haircut and the gaze of someone used to assessing a situation quickly and without sentiment. On the table in front of her lay a tablet, beside it a mug she barely touched.

When Lika approached, Gaika raised her eyes.

A second.

Then — quietly, almost to herself:

"Well, how about that."

Vint was looking off to the side.

"Sit," said Gaika. Her voice was even, professional — she had already pulled herself together. "My name is Gaika. We'll be working together."

Lika sat. Gaika looked at her for another second — not rudely, just noting — then lowered her eyes to the tablet.

"So. Leshy was last seen in the deep Zone, northeastern sector. No exact address — he never had an exact address. But there's a logic to his movements, there are indirect traces, there are a couple of points where he's been seen over the last year." She turned the tablet toward Lika. "An approximate route. Three days there in normal conditions. Anomalous activity along this corridor is moderate, but there are stretches we'll have to go around. That lengthens the trip."

"What does 'normal conditions' mean?" asked Lika.

"It means nobody's shooting and the weather doesn't spring surprises." Gaika gave a slight shake of her head. "In the Zone, normal conditions are already a good thing."

"On gear," Vint cut in. "What do you have?"

Lika took out a notebook. She had been compiling the list for the last two weeks — methodically, from the sources she'd been able to find. Gaika took the notebook, read it. Nodded several times — sparingly, approvingly.

"Not bad for someone with no field experience." She picked up a pen. "We'll add this and this. Expand the first-aid kit, gas-mask filters — double the supply, there's chemicals in that sector sometimes. And the detector — not the one you wrote down, it's outdated, we'll take another."

"Where do I get all this?"

"I'll order it myself. At normal prices, not tourist ones."

From the depths of the bar, from the far table by the counter, three men stood up.

* * *

The first one you saw at once — not because he was trying, it was simply that a man of that size takes up a separate area in any room. Tall, broad in the shoulders, with that particular monumentality of people whose body is a working tool, not a thing to be proud of. He moved lightly, almost soundlessly — which at his size looked unexpected. On his face — a smile. Open, good-natured, wholly at odds with the biography that could be easily guessed behind the bearing and the gaze.

The second was his opposite — stocky, short, with the face of a man who had long ago seen everything and had long ago grown tired of pretending it didn't irritate him. He moved with a rolling gait, without hurry. Tobacco came off him — stubbornly, thoroughly, as if the smell had become part of his kit. His default expression was displeased, but without aggression. That's just life.

The third walked slightly behind. Medium height, lean — the kind you don't notice right away, until you realize he has already noticed you while you were looking around. His eyes never stopped — they slid over the room continuously, in short quick movements, like a man who can't switch off working mode. Young — noticeably younger than the others. A faint smile stayed on his lips, whose nature was unclear: either he was pleased with life, or his face was simply built that way.

They came up to the table. The big one nodded to Gaika.

"Everyone's here."

"Lika," said Gaika, "this is my team. Get acquainted." A nod at the big man: "Kit." At the stocky one: "Dub." At the young one: "Lis."

Kit smiled wider — warmly, without affectation.

Dub looked at Lika, then at Gaika.

"Has she even been in the Zone?"

"No, she hasn't," Gaika answered evenly.

"Great," said Dub, in the tone of a man who was neither surprised by this in the least nor pleased in the least.

Lis kept studying the room.

* * *

They discussed the gear for about an hour.

Kit spoke little, to the point — clarified the route, asked about the anomalous background on specific stretches. Dub grumbled, but the grumbling was to the point: not the right type of first-aid kit, not the right cartridges for his system, the tool mount needed to be different. Gaika nodded, wrote it down, sometimes argued — briefly and without extra words.

Lis listened, looked around and said nothing. Then he held out his part of the list to Gaika.

Gaika took it. Read it. Raised her eyes.

"Don't get cocky." Her voice was calm, with no raise in tone. "You'll run around with your popgun. But the cartridges you wrote down — rewrite them for the modification of your barrel. These ones will do, cross out the rest."

Lis put the list away without objection. The smile hadn't gone anywhere.

"Mischief not managed." A pause. "But it was worth trying. Luck loves the bold."

Dub looked at him with the expression of a man who is hearing this not for the first time.

"Luck loves the quiet."

"That's just you getting old."

"That's just you being young."

Kit went on smiling. Gaika made a note in the tablet.

* * *

By the end of the evening the details had come together.

Departure — in five days. The route was agreed, the gear assigned person by person, the rest stops marked with backup options. Dub took on the tech and explosives — "just in case, and in the Zone a just-in-case happens often." Kit — fire support. Lis — sniper, in charge of reconnaissance and long-range combat. In the Zone, the danger came not only from mutants and anomalies. People were far more treacherous than the Zone itself.

Gaika led.

"Documents," said Vint. "Ekaterina Sergeyevna will arrange the trip officially. She'll write up the objectives of the outing so that formally everything is clean. No violations on paper."

Gaika nodded — that suited her.

Lika looked at the people around the table. Two weeks ago she hadn't known any of them. In five days they would go with her into the Zone to look for a man who for two years hadn't wanted to be found.

"Questions?" asked Gaika.

There were no questions.

"Then that's all. I expect confirmation on gear from each of you the day after tomorrow."

The company began to disperse. Dub left first — taking a cigarette out as he went, unhurried. Kit said goodbye with a nod, broad and good-natured, like everything about him. Lis disappeared somehow unnoticed — he was there a moment ago, and now he wasn't.

Gaika closed the tablet. Looked at Lika.

"Five days," she said. "Use them well. Get some sleep, stock up, put your affairs in order. In the Zone there won't be time for that."

Lika nodded.

Gaika stood and left.

Lika and Vint remained at the table. The bar hummed around them — voices, the clatter of mugs, smoke.

"Any questions?" asked Vint.

"No."

He nodded. Stood.

"Five days."

Chapter 5. The Perimeter

They met the dawn at the checkpoint.

Officially — a field expedition of the research center, the objectives of the outing spelled out, documents in order, Ekaterina Sergeyevna had seen to it. The border guard at the crossing point leafed through the papers longer than necessary — not because he was looking for violations, he was just used to dragging it out. Dub stood beside him and said nothing, but said nothing in such a way that the guard sped up on his own.

The barrier rose.

"Welcome," said Lis quietly, addressing no one in particular.

Dub glanced at him.

"Shut up."

"I'm just solemnly marking the moment."

"There's nothing to mark. Go ahead."

Lis smiled and went ahead.

* * *

The Zone didn't begin all at once.

First — an ordinary landscape. A field, a windbreak of trees, an old road with broken asphalt, a rusty sign on which nothing could be read anymore. Then the air began to change. Not abruptly — gradually, the way pressure changes before a thunderstorm. The smell became different: denser, with a metallic taste on the tongue, with that particular tang there's nothing to compare to if you haven't smelled it before.

Lika walked third — behind Kit, in front of Dub. Gaika led. Lis had gone ahead to scout.

She felt the first real breath of the Zone at the twentieth minute.

The wind changed direction and brought with it a smell that made something clench in her chest — not from fear, from recognition. As if she already knew this place and just didn't remember from where. Ozone. Wet earth. Something heavy, pressing, like the air in a closed room where candles had burned for a long time. And right after it — a light pressure on the temples, barely perceptible, as if the space around had become a few millimeters denser, creating a sense of uncomfortable tightness

Lika stopped.

Kit looked back.

"First time?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You'll get used to it." A pause. "Or you won't. But it's normal either way."

He walked on. Lika followed him.

She walked and felt the Zone studying her — slowly, unhurriedly, the way you study something unfamiliar when it's still unclear whether it's a threat or not. The sensation was strange. Not hostile. Just — alive. As if the place she was walking through had its own opinion about her presence here and hadn't yet decided what to do about it.

"Keep the detector in your hand, not in your pocket," Gaika threw over her shoulder. "It's quiet here for now, but get used to it right away. You need a reflex, not a thought."

Lika took out the detector.

* * *

Lis came back about twenty minutes later — stepped out of the bushes at the side, soundlessly, as if he had materialized. Took his place beside Lika and immediately started talking.

"Ahead is clear. No anomalies, no fresh tracks, haven't seen any mutants. About three hours to the little village at a normal pace." A short pause, exactly one step long. "You're in the Zone for the first time?"

"Yes."

"It's obvious right away. You walk like you're in a city park. In the Zone you need it different — look at your feet, then at the horizon, then at your feet again. That's the rhythm, it has to become automatic. Otherwise you'll walk into an Electra and not even understand what happened. An Electra, by the way, doesn't hurt. In the sense that there won't be any pain anymore. At all."

"Got it."

"Another piece of advice — don't touch anything with your hands without a command. Nothing at all. Even if it looks pretty. Especially if it looks pretty. In the Zone, pretty kills faster than ugly. That's not a metaphor, that's an observation."

"Got it."

"One more —"

"Lis," said Gaika, without turning around.

"What?"

"Let the person listen to the Zone."

Lis was silent for four seconds.

"I'm instructing. It's useful."

"You're chattering. It's tiring."

"Maybe I'm nervous."

"You're never nervous."

"Maybe I've started."

Dub, walking behind, said nothing. He simply exhaled — slowly, with that particular expression of people who have long since made peace with the inevitable.

The silence held for about ten minutes. Exactly until Lis was beside her again.

"Listen. What's your name? Well, I mean call sign."

"I don't have a call sign."

Lis looked at her from the side — quickly, keenly, the way a man looks whose assessment happens faster than awareness.

"Soika."

"Why?"

"Just because. And because jays are clever birds, they notice everything, remember everything, and they have a sweet voice. It's all exactly about you — you look the right way, not like a tourist, and you have a pleasant voice."

Lika thought for a second.

"Let it be Soika."

"Excellent choice, sis," said Lis. "You agree easily with good ideas in general. That's a valuable quality."

"She just agreed with your idea," Dub said from behind. "Don't generalize."

"Dub, you're just jealous that your call sign is boring."

"I've had my call sign for twelve years."

"Exactly. Twelve years — Dub. No imagination."

"But alive for twelve years."

"That's an argument," Lis agreed.

Kit walked ahead and smiled. Silently.

* * *

The little village appeared toward evening.

A few houses behind a flimsy fence, a tower with a floodlight, the smell of smoke and heated tinned food. A place for breaking in newcomers — the first run, the first night beyond the perimeter, the first real acquaintance with the fact that the Zone has no days off.

Gaika talked with the duty officer — briefly, documents, a nod.

"We spend the night here. Departure at six."

Dub first of all found a spot by the wall, sat down, lit a cigarette. Kit helped with the settling in — silently, methodically, as he did everything. Lis immediately struck up a conversation with someone among the locals, and within five minutes they were both laughing at something Lika couldn't hear.

She sat by the window and looked outside.

Beyond the little village was darkness. Alive — with rare distant lights of anomalies, with that slow movement of air that wasn't wind. The Zone breathed out there in the dark, patiently and evenly. It didn't care who had come or why.

Dad walked like this. Every time he went out there.

Lika closed her eyes for a second. Then took out the notebook and began to write — not because there was anything that needed writing, her hands were simply looking for something to do.

"Can't switch your head off?" Lis sat down next to her, without asking, the way people sit who don't realize it might be inopportune.

"No."

"Normal." He was silent for a moment — a rarity for him, but the pause was real, without any wish to fill it. "On the first night beyond the perimeter your head never switches off. That's the Zone getting acquainted. Looking at who you are."

"And who am I?"

"Don't know yet." He stood. "I'll ask her tomorrow."

Lika looked at his back and thought that she didn't understand this man. Then decided that maybe she didn't need to.

Outside the window the darkness didn't move. It simply was.

Chapter 6. The Zone

The route drifted off on the second day.

Gaika stopped at a fork, checked her handheld, looked ahead. Where according to the old data there should have been an open road to the Marshes, there was something else — the ground heaved up, trees felled at wrong angles, the air over the area trembling finely and badly.

"A surge came through recently. This wasn't here."

"So what now?" asked Lika.

"We go around." Gaika was working her handheld. "A detour of about three hours. But we'll be in one piece."

Dub spat to the side.

"I said we needed a backup route through the plant."

"We're going through the plant."

"I said that back in the bar."

"I remember. Good for you."

Dub looked at her. Understood that continuing was pointless. Lit a cigarette.

"Soika," said Lis, coming up from behind. "See that shimmering in the air over there? Don't go there."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good. Some people do. Out of curiosity. After that they don't plan anything anymore."

"Lis," said Gaika.

"Instructing."

"You're going ahead to scout."

"Already going."

* * *

The cement plant had been dead for a long time — so long that it had managed to become a part of the Zone, not just an object on its territory. Buildings with smashed windows, rusted floor slabs, concrete in cracks from which something gray and stubborn was growing. The silence here was different — not empty, but dense, as if the plant remembered sounds and kept them inside.

There were fewer anomalies than outside, in terms of variety. Gaika explained it as they walked: old industrial sites sometimes work that way — too much metal, too complicated a structure of space, some anomalies, such as Electras, are on the contrary attracted to it, Jelly collects in basements, while all sorts of Gravity Concentrates and sinkholes steer clear of built-up areas.

Lika walked and listened — not to Gaika, to the Zone. Studying its sounds. Somewhere far off something crackled at equal intervals. The wind through the empty windows gave a low, drawn-out hum. Underfoot — concrete crumbs, the sound dry and crisp.

Kit walked slowly. Looked at his feet and around him by turns — the rhythm Lis had talked about.

At a ruined wall he stopped. Bent down. Took something small out of a crevice, examined it, put it in a container. Then found a second one — dimly glowing, irregular in shape.

"Artifacts?" asked Lika.

"Two. This one's rare." He showed the second. "Lucky. The anomaly left after the surge, the artifacts stayed."

"Kit's lucky for us," said Lis, who had appeared from somewhere at the side. "Especially with artifacts. And with trouble, by the way, too. One compensates for the other."

"Is that philosophy?" asked Lika.

"It's an observation of statistics," said Lis. "I'm attentive."

Kit put the container into his rucksack. Didn't comment.

They passed through the central building and came out on the other side.

* * *

There were many of them.

Lika didn't immediately understand what she was seeing — just movement between the ruins, slow, unrhythmic. Then the smell arrived before her brain managed to shape the picture into a word.

Zombies were coming out of the ground.

From collapses in the concrete floor of the plant yard, from pits, from cracks. One, a second, a fifth. Silently — without rasping, without the characteristic sound she had read about in descriptions. They simply walked. Slowly and inexorably, like water through cracks.

"Get ready," said Gaika evenly. "Everyone work. Lika — behind Kit, don't fire without a command."

The next few minutes were noisy.

Kit worked methodically, without fuss — every shot precise, no unnecessary movement. Dub took a position by the wall and held the flank with the expression with which he did everything unpleasant — not angry, just working. Gaika moved fast, chose targets competently, her voice in the communicator even, with no raise in tone.

Lis shot with the ease that comes only when the body knows its business better than the head.

It all ended quickly.

The last zombie fell right at Lika's feet. She stepped back and realized she was gripping her weapon so hard her fingers had turned white. She loosened them. Exhaled.

The silence returned — a different one, the post-battle kind. Ringing.

Dub reloaded. Turned to Lis.

The clip on the back of the head was brief but clear.

"You missed it."

"They came out of the ground," said Lis without offense, rubbing the back of his head. "They weren't there. At all. There were collapses, but around here collapses are knee-deep everywhere."

"Are you a sniper or not?"

"A sniper. But not a geologist and not an X-ray machine. I can't see through concrete."

"Next time check the collapses."

"Next time I'll try not to build a cement plant over their burrow." A pause. "Soika, how are you?"

Lika was looking at what remained of the zombie. Trying to look professionally, as at a fact, not at a picture that would come in her dreams.

"Fine."

"Hands not shaking?"

"No."

Lis nodded.

"Good. For some, they shake after the first time. That's normal if they shake. And normal if they don't. The Zone is different for everyone."

"Lis," said Dub. "Forward."

"Going, going."

* * *

After that they walked at a different rhythm — the Zone pressed more quietly, but more densely. Anomalies turned up regularly. Gaika bypassed them without words, only a gesture — look. Lika looked and memorized.

"This is a 'Flare,'" Lis said, appearing beside her every time Gaika was silent. "See how the air shimmers over it? Like over asphalt in summer, only three times worse. Go around at about five meters." A few steps. "This is a 'Trampoline.' If you step on it — you fly. Beautiful, but inconvenient. Especially the landing." A few more steps. "And this one don't touch at all. I don't know what it's called. Gaika knows, but I always forget, because the main rule is don't touch, not what it's called."

"Lis," said Gaika.

"Instructing."

"You've already said that word four times today."

"Well, you're not wordy, so I'm making up for four."

The chemical fog began unnoticed — first a light haze near the ground, then denser. They put on gas masks without a command, at Gaika's nod.

In the fog it was quiet. Lika walked and thought that her father had gone through such things. Every time. Alone, without a team, without Gaika and her even voice in his ear. Just himself — with a detector and an instinct he knew how to listen to.

Where are you, Dad?

The fog ended after twenty minutes.

Ahead was a forest.

Dark, dense, with trees that grew too close — the branches intertwined so that there were no gaps between them. Light didn't penetrate there. Just a wall of darkness with trees inside it.

At the edge — a cache. Low, almost grown into the ground, with a metal door and a basement. Above the entrance someone's hand had written in marker: "Farther — on your own."

"Rest stop," said Gaika.

Nobody objected.

Dub inspected the perimeter, nodded — clean. Kit opened the door. Inside it was cramped, it smelled of old wood and damp, but the walls held, and the roof didn't leak.

Lis dropped onto a bunk, stretched out his legs, looked at the ceiling.

"Soika."

"What?"

"The first full day in the Zone. Zombies, chemical fog, anomalies, a detour through a dead plant." A pause. "You did well. Seriously. No jokes."

Lika set down her rucksack. Looked at him.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it." He closed his eyes. "Tomorrow will be more interesting."

"Is that good or bad?"

"In the Zone those words are the same thing."

Dub, settling in a corner, glanced at Lis. Said nothing — kept silent with that rare expression that appeared on him when he agreed but didn't intend to admit it aloud.

Gaika closed the door.

"Tomorrow we go deeper. Where we're going, there are no tourists, and the stalkers, if any go there, are out of their minds. In short, it'll be even more dangerous. Everyone rest."

Beyond the door was darkness. The Zone breathed outside — evenly, patiently. It was in no hurry.

Lika lay with her eyes open and listened to that darkness. Her father was there, inside it. Somewhere. Alive or not — she didn't know yet. But she was going.

These few weeks of gathering data and preparation had brought her closer to solving the mystery of her father's disappearance than all four years of searching.