The Gigahruschevka Sun

The loading indicator on the screen was slowly filling up with new pixels, bringing the moment of the game's start closer. Kolya, sitting in front of the TV, looked at the bizarre monsters drawn to keep the players from getting bored. In the dark picture, a liquidator dressed in a hazmat suit and gas mask was spewing jets of bright fire at a sinister creature that was crawling toward him out of the gloom. Kolya bent down to get a better look at the monster and after a few seconds he grumbled unhappily, noticing the inaccuracy of the weapon's image.

There was a light knock on the door.

"It's open!" the teenager shouted, not taking his eyes off the screen.

The door creaked open, letting the sounds of the hallway into the room. His father appeared on the threshold.

" Kolya," Andrei began irritably, "how many times have I told you to lock the door? How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Why should I lock it?" - replied the lad in surprise, "If I hear an alarm, it takes five seconds to lock it!"

He fidgeted on the old worn sofa and cast a brief glance at his father, not wanting to be distracted from the game, which was about to load. The boy knew his father was about to start up an old song he'd heard many times before. The cassette in the tape recorder was making cutting noises - beeping, sniffing, grunting, as if it were being forced to work against its own will. His father slammed the door shut and clicked the lock.

"How many times do I have to tell you...?" - the irritation was about to turn into anger. - "After all, there may not be a signal...!"

At the last syllables Andrei almost snapped into a scream, which caused the teenager to look at his father again. In that second, Kolya's blue eyes glittered with that special color, so reminiscent of his mother. The man froze for a moment, mesmerized by his son's gaze, and sighed.

"When are you going to realize this is serious?" - He continued calmly, waving his hand. - "Five seconds will be enough for Samosborus. You could be..."

"I know," his son interrupted him. - "It'll tear you apart in an instant. Or the black beast would come. I've told you a hundred times. I'll be fighting them right now."

There was no reply, because the tape recorder beeped for the last time and the image on the screen showed a new picture. A liquidator in a protective suit and a weapon at the ready stood in a long corridor with slime-stained walls. Kolya took the joystick and immediately directed the liquidator's figure towards the danger. On the right side of the screen appeared humanoid monsters with tentacles instead of arms and jaws sticking out from under torn gas masks.

My father, rustling his factory pants, took a few steps toward the couch and literally collapsed on the torn furniture.

" Tired..." - the man complained quietly.

"What, did you have a hard shift?" - The guy asked without taking his eyes off the game.

" No, I guess not. Just a normal one. Just the end of the work cycle. Tired."

" Ah, well, good. You can rest now. What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know yet. Maybe I'll play Eliminator."

"Oh, no!" - the kid was outraged. - "You're gonna rub my save card! I'm already level 12."

"To the twelfth?!" - Andrei revived. - "When did you get there?"

"Well, I played today. I came in after school and sat down right away."

"And what is it?"

"Well, you can see for yourself."

My father fixed his tired gaze on the screen. A pixelated liquidator easily destroyed pixelated monsters with a set of brightly colored pixels representing fire. A figure in a gas mask was darting across the screen - running, jumping, crouching, dodging enemy tentacles and thrown slime. Kolya quickly moved his fingers, pressing buttons on the joystick. The teenager dashingly dealt with a variety of monsters, trying to hit the player. Sometimes at particularly difficult moments he leaned his whole body in the direction where he wanted to direct the liquidator, as if he was there on the screen. The man, noticing this, smiled and slowly turned his head to get a better look at his son's passionate actions. With each passing second, his smile grew wider, revealing gray teeth. This warm emotion was so welcome and necessary for the work-weary father.

The television again made cutting sounds, which this time represented an explosion. The screen drew two pairs of eyes to itself. The liquidator in the game dealt with humanoid monsters and reached the end of the factory premises, where it was necessary to destroy the wall with a grenade launcher. Passing into the formed passage the character found himself in a large tunnel, which soon shook for some reason. Pebbles were falling from the ceiling, and the garbage lying on the floor was bouncing slightly.

" Well now something is going to happen..." - Kolya whispered intrigued. - "Probably the main evil one."

Suddenly, the screen flashed brightly several times and a huge monster with a dozen eyes, a lot of outgrowths and holes, emitting slime, crawled towards the liquidator. The man frowned as he looked at the monster.

"What's that?"

" Gigaslizen!" - His son immediately came up with an answer. - "What a freak!"

"There's no such thing."

" How do you know?" - The boy threw back a few seconds later. He was already busy destroying a living obstacle to get to the next level.

" There's no such thing as a big one. Where would they come from?"

The screen flashed with explosions, gunshots, slime spit, and severed limbs. The figure of the liquidator jumped across the screen, dodging the monster's blows, and fired alternately with a machine gun and a grenade launcher.

"In the tunnels. There's plenty of room there," the son parried without taking his eyes off the game.

" I don't know." - The man said doubtfully and rubbed his forehead. - "I've never heard of them."

" You work in a factory. You have only machines there. If you were a liquidator, then you could talk."

The father frowned again, digesting his son's barb. He, as if sensing his parent's mood, distracted himself from the game for a second, looked at his father slyly and smiled contentedly.

" Scumbag!" - The man smiled back and ruffled the teenager's hair.

The monotony of what was happening on the screen was quickly becoming tiresome. The tired father leaned back on the sofa, sighed loudly and involuntarily looked around the room. On the wall opposite, right above the TV set, three rows of posters of the liquidators' service were hanging, depicting sturdy men in protective coats and gas masks with various weapons. Kolya started collecting them right after they appeared in the corridors, advertising the most dangerous service in the gigahrushe. Although Andrei warned the teenager, he kept dragging posters with those whom no normal person would not want to see unnecessarily. Automattician, machine gunner, flamethrower, technician, chemist, medic, engineer, commander, and a few other specialists whose exact position the man couldn't remember. They all appeared as the floor flooded with self-selection.

" Got everyone packed up yet?" - Dad asked, stretching.

"Who? What? Ah..." - Kolya finally realized, "No. There's still this... Two more to collect. A grenade launcher and a biologist. Although we can do without the latter. He's not very tough."

"What do you mean, not cool? You should be a biologist yourself."

"I shouldn't," the teenager countered.

"How not?" - Andrei felt his son's irritation with his actions coming back to life. - "What do you go to school for?"

" Everyone goes, and I go," he answered immediately.

"Well, no. You can go to the factory. There is no need for any school. And you have an aptitude for science," - he tried to find words for a few seconds, but, not finding anything more suitable, added. - "Biologist is cool."

" Whatever you say, whatever you say," the son replied and shrugged.

Although the boy answered indifferently, the irritation quickly receded. The man smiled again, feeling a pleasant warm emotion. With his eyes, profile and blond hair Kolya reminded him very much of his mother. In addition, although he had never seen her at a conscious age, to his father's surprise he sometimes spoke just like her. Despite the fact that the man could not tell at all in what way Kolya repeated her, at certain moments he had the distinct feeling that his son was copying his mother.

Andrei plunged into memories, which were becoming more and more vague with each passing year. For some reason, the man remembered that she loved curtains. Therefore, the grieving spouse many years after her death decided to splurge in her memory and bought two pieces of matter. He glanced at the ajar curtains hanging on the wall opposite the entrance. From the gap between them he could see a pattern of two stripes - green below, blue above - and a yellow circle on the blue stripe. Earth, sky, and sun. Some inhabitants of the gigahrusch believed that if one reached the very edge of the infinite structure, the view from an opening in the wall called a window would be just that. The man stared at the drawing for a few seconds, remembering how the words had been explained to him. The meaning of "ground" was more or less clear - it was a kind of floor, but completely covered with plants. "Sky" was more difficult to understand - as if the gray concrete ceiling above his head did not exist, but somewhere in the unreachable and unimaginable height spilled bright blue paint. "The sun" was the clearest of all - something like a small round lamp that gave you a pleasant warm light that made you want to live. The man smiled again and ruffled his son's hair.

The joy on his face gradually faded, his eyes lost their zest, and in a minute the factory worker, tired from the work cycle, was sitting on the sofa again. As if trying to regain his positive mood, he closed his eyes, imagining his wife. Her image faded with time and with each gigacycle it took more and more effort to remember her face. What remained unchanged was his attitude towards her and their shared child. When his arms sank from physical exhaustion or despair, Kolya would bring back his strength and attitude with one of his own.

The man once again ruffled his son's hair with a slightly strained smile - at that moment there was more sadness than joy in it.

"By the way, I'm out of concentrate," the guy who was still fighting the monster on the screen said casually.

"How?" my father immediately cheered up. - "Why didn't you take it?"

" Yes I finished my lessons and then straight home," - trying to portray a guilty feeling, replied Kolya. - "And then I sat down for the game and..."

The man pressed his lips together, looking at the hairy back of his son's head. There was no strength and desire for a new portion of scolding. He covered his face with his hands, gathering his strength.

" Okay!" - he said and stood up. - "I'll go myself. There's still time."

"Yes!" Kolya suddenly shouted. - "Killed the bastard!"

"Calm down. Don't yell."

"Level thirteen! Sashka hasn't gotten to that level yet!"

"Sashka," the man repeated thoughtlessly after his son.

Andrei pulled a cardboard box out of the closet and took out some food stamps, put them in his bag, and headed for the hermetic door. Then he looked around the room, struggling with the thought of going to the concentrate dispenser. A deep sigh sounded.

" Okay, "- my father said disappointedly. - "I'm going in and out. Lock the door."

" Aha!" - Kolya echoed mindlessly, looking at the new picture on the loading screen.

The man looked at his son for a few seconds, pondering whether it was worth starting another batch of admonitions, but finally he did what he was used to - he waved his hand.

"I'll be back soon," the father said softly, and walked out.

Kolya only hummed in response, studying the liquidator's equipment and the offshoots that he was cutting off with gasoline scissors. Tired of the picture and somehow very slow loading, the guy leaned back on the couch and looked around the room of their living cell. A couch, a table, a bed, a closet, and two pieces of cloth almost completely covering the picture on the wall. Three rows of posters of liquidators on the wall opposite. Kolya stopped his gaze on each of the specialists for a few seconds and for some reason fixed his eyes on the empty place where the poster with the biologist could hang. He pressed his lips together paternally and frowned, thinking about the future. Images of factory workers, fitters, storekeepers, electricians, and other sad inhabitants of the gigahrusch he saw every day flashed through his mind. Imagining himself in their shoes, he wrinkled his nose and thought of the research assistant. He had never had the chance to see them, because they lived on the upper floors next to the research institute, somewhere near the partocrats. It must have been a better and more interesting life there, since his father kept talking about it.

"But he didn't see it," Kolya pondered aloud. - "Nor the tunnels. Although the biologist is obviously cooler than the locksmith. Yeah... We should find a poster of a biologist."

The TV made a sharp sound, announcing the beginning of a new, thirteenth level, and the guy immediately grabbed the joystick, ready to destroy everything alive or almost alive on his way. The time for the game flew by unnoticed. The sticks on the electronic wristwatch went off and on.

An unexpected sensation made Kolya wince and pause the game. He looked at the door, listening to what was happening in the hallway. For a few seconds the boy sat motionless, trying to figure out what was the source of the alarm. He heard quiet footsteps, the beats of his own heart, the quiet noise of ventilation...

Suddenly, a long siren sounded, announcing self-selection, and immediately the red light above the entrance lit up. Kolya jumped to his feet, in two jumps he was at the hermetic door and locked it. His heart was pounding restlessly in his chest. In the corridor could be heard running, negotiating, doors closing, shouting.

" Father!" - Kolya shouted, and thoughtlessly reached for the lock. His hand touched the knob, but at the last moment the boy pulled it away. - "You can't!" - He commanded himself.

The teenager was overwhelmed by emotions, he tried to overcome fear and excitement. Kolya looked at his watch and tried to remember how long ago his father had left, where he could be and whether it was necessary to let him back in if he suddenly returned.

From far away, the terrifying siren of the self-collection was heard again. Kolya pressed himself against the door, listening to what was happening. Someone ran past again. There seemed to be banging on someone's door. A scream. Quick footsteps again. Then silence. Silence. Silence.

And then there was a whisper. Quiet. barely audible. Coming from somewhere far away. Coming closer. Filling the entire hallway. Like there were hundreds or thousands of whispering people. Talking to each other.

Kolya pressed himself against the door, trying to make out anything. His heart was beating heavily in his chest, as if it were trying its best to break through. The heavy breathing made it hard to make out what was going on behind the door. The individual words were drowned in the endless pile of quiet words from countless people. He tried to understand them, but it was as hard as seeing the drops in the water running from the faucet. The strain made his face crinkle, his lips dry.

Suddenly his face smoothed, as if the main source of his suffering had disappeared. The meaningless whispering subsided, giving way to a single voice. It spoke softly and quietly through the thick iron door. The words penetrated the protective wall, soothing the teenager. It was the first time he had ever heard him, but somehow he trusted him completely. The frightened grimace was fading. The hands stopped shaking. But his gaze remained just as stray and restless - no longer because of self-selection, but because of what the voice was telling him. He knew perfectly well that he could not do what the voice was telling him to do from behind the hermodoor - explaining, asking, begging, insisting. The teenager remembered his father's stories perfectly well and was aware of what an open door could do. A merciless self-selection could take him in a split second. So he hesitated. Listened. Frowned. Shuddered. Thought. Kept his fingers on the lock knob.

Time flew by and the guy didn't count how much time had passed from the start of the self-collection to the moment when he clicked the lock and opened the hermetic door.