The Gigahruschevka Sun

Andrei sat like that for another hour, staring stupidly at himself. Curious passersby, mostly residents of the block, stopped near the ajar door to Andrei's cell. Most of them looked at him for a few seconds, frowned puzzled and went on, but others, who already knew about what had happened or assumed it, shook their heads sympathetically, or tsked disapprovingly. The man, who had been plunged into thought to the point of unconsciousness, sat on the sofa, staring at one point. In front of his eyes was the image of his son, who so incomprehensibly and stupidly disappeared. Andrei remembered the last cycles, the past gigacycle, Kolya's trips to school, conversations with teachers, who prophesied a great future for the clever offspring. There were no hints about the teenager's connections with the sectarians. He was a boy, according to his years, a little wordy and preferred to hide his feelings. But the sect and religion had never come to his father's attention.

From the depths of the corridor, seemingly from the stairs, a distant shout was heard, bringing Andrei back to reality. He glanced at the open door, then at his watch and was horrified at how much time had passed since the liquidators had left. Standing up from the couch, he almost collapsed because his muscles were stiff from sitting on the uncomfortable couch for so long. He waddled to the hermetic door, slammed it shut, and looked around the room, which was dimly lit by a lone bulb under the ceiling. In the corner was a desk with a pile of thin notebooks on it. After some thought, Andrei sat down at the desk and began flipping through his son's school notes.

All the notes on the topics of the lessons were, as always, in neat and clear handwriting - another trait that Kolya seemed to have inherited from his mother. Formulas, graphs, drawings, and blueprints with a signature under each as if they had been copied by themselves from printed textbooks. However, on the last one or two pages, it was as if the boy was trying to get even for the excessive order and was pouring his accumulated need for chaos onto the paper. Piles of patterns, dashes, circles were adjacent to incomprehensible inscriptions and drawings of everything that the teenager saw or heard every day around him - boys, girls, teachers, liquidators, monsters from games, monsters rumored, mutants, drug addicts lying on the floor, alcoholics with a bottle in their hand, and, suddenly ... crosses inscribed in a circle, distinctive stars, people with dark eyes and faces, and a bearded man sitting on a throne.

"Really?" - Andrei blurted out.

He began to search his school records with great fury for evidence that Kolya might have been in touch with, or even interested in, sectarianism. In several other notebooks he found drawings with crosses, stars, a bearded man and his followers in various subjects. Here they worshipped him, there they drank something from hands or bowls, here they gathered in a circle and did something incomprehensible.

"Is that so?" - Father repeated again and covered his face with the palm of his hand. - "How could I have overlooked it?"

The man spent another hour or so scrutinizing all of his son's things - clothes, toys, books. He carefully pulled out from under the couch Kolya's stash, which he had known about for a long time, but he found no other indications of connection or interest in the Black Gods or anyone else. Already finished, an important idea occurred to him and he spent another twenty minutes trying to find the missing items. But everything seemed to be in its place - the only thing missing was the clothes that Kolya had played the Liquidators in.

"Sashka Nekrasov," Andrei suddenly remembered. - "Floor 412, Block B. What's the cell?"

He started searching in his notes and soon found the right number. He wanted to set off at the same time, but, looking at the time, realized that it was too late. It was necessary to wait another eight hours before going to visit the Smirnovs. The overexcited man plopped down on the couch, staring at the number 13 on the screen. He tried to run through what had happened in his head, but his brain refused to find new details in the past or present.

Andrei turned off the light and lay down on his couch, leaving the television on. Agitated, he couldn't sleep for a long time and tossed from side to side, thinking about his son's disappearance and his plans for the next twenty-four hours. At some point, unbeknownst to himself, he fell asleep, but his sleep was just as restless. The sight of his own cell mingled with the heavy slumber, giving rise to frightening dream pictures. There was his wife, staring intently into Andrei's eyes, black sludge spilled on the floor, screams, tentacles from under the hermetic door, running around the room little Kolya and, suddenly, the liquidators, pouring fire from weapons, monsters crawling out of the screen and followed by people with dark faces. Everything seen and unseen mixed in his mind, exhausting the already tired man.

The alarm clock chimed exactly at seven. Andrei lifted his heavy eyelids, looked around the empty room and touched his chest. All his clothes were soaked with nightmares. Overcoming fatigue, the man took a sitting position and tried again to remember the past twenty-four hours and decide on the plans for the near future. Nodding to himself, he stood up and began to get ready to leave. Having changed his clothes and consumed a dose of nutritional concentrate, which he did not even dilute with sweeteners, Andrei packed his bag, checked the terminal and left the cell, tightly closing the hermetic door behind him.

According to the reports, it had been a while since the self-collection had flooded the floors that ran between Andrei's cell and the Nekrasovs' dwelling, so it was too risky to ride in the elevator. He reached the nearest staircase and began the long climb three dozen floors up. Upon reaching the right landing, he was all sweaty with itchy feet. The man rested for a few minutes and continued his way to Block B. On the way he came across several people - they looked at the traveler with funny looks of fright and interest. Almost at the very cell he was looking for, a drunken man was lying under his feet - the one in dirty greasy clothes leaned his back against the concrete wall and stared mindlessly in front of him, clutching a bottle with a half-drunk liquid in his palm. Andrei cringed slightly at the sight of him.

Standing in front of the Nekrasovs' cell, Andrei raised his fist to knock on the hermetic door, but stopped. He stood like that for half a minute, imagining a possible dialog with Sasha's parents. Finally, he lightly pounded lightly on the door a few times and waited. After a minute he knocked again, but there was no answer again. He repeated the same actions two minutes later, but even then the hermodoor remained closed. Andrei looked at the ironwork - the door had rust stains and peeled paint, as if no one had ever lived there.

After a little thought, Andrei went to the next door and knocked. No one opened it. He moved on to the next hermetic door and knocked on the iron with his knuckles several times. Soon the door opened, from where the suspiciously angry face of an elderly woman looked at him.

"What do you want?"

"Hello!" he was trying to be emphatically polite.

"What do you want?" - His grandmother interrupted him.

"I've come to the Nekrasovs in..."

"I don't know any Nekrasovs." - She snapped at him and slammed the door shut.

Andrei went to the door opposite, but no one opened it. Behind the next door there was a commotion, but even there they did not want to talk to the unexpected guest. Fortunately, the hermetic door opposite the Nekrasovs' cell opened, though only a few centimeters - a thick chain stretched between the jamb and the door. Holding tightly to the doorknob, the face of a wrinkled and gray-haired man looked at him from the gap.

" Hello!" - Andrei said hello.

" Greetings," the man replied dryly. - "What do you want?"

" I'm here to see your neighbors across the street," he pointed a finger over his shoulder, "the Nekrasovs. But no one opens the door. Do they still live here?"

"As far as I know, yes," the gray-haired man nodded. - "You must have knocked quietly. Try harder."

" Okay, I'll give it a try, "- Andrei frowned. - "Thanks!"

He went to the cell opposite and knocked hard several times, but to no avail.

"You do know that Mikhail is, shall we say, overly impulsive, right?" - came a voice from the still open door across the hall.

"Excuse me?"

" I'm saying that Mikhail is an impulsive man in view of the fact that he likes to drink. You're still a weak knocker, by the way. Try with your foot."

Andrei thought for a while and hit the door three times with the toe of his heavy work boot. Finally, a voice was heard at the door, but judging by its tone, it did not bode well. The lock clicked and the door swung open, revealing a stout man in the doorway.

"Why are you knocking?! " - he smelled a strong breath of booze on the guest. - "Do you want your arm broken?"

"Hello!" - Andrei said on automatic, putting his hands behind his back. With his right hand he opened the flap of his bag and fumbled for the cold handle of a wrench. - "My name is..."

" What do you want?!" - The drunkard stepped forward, causing the unexpected guest to recoil involuntarily.

"My name is Andrei, I'm Kolya's father, he's your son's classmate," he rambled. - "I need to talk to you."

"Classmate? "- repeated the owner of the cell unhappily. - "What do you want?"

"I need to talk. About my son and yours. Coli and Sasha," he clutched the cold weapon tightly, ready to put it into action if necessary. He looked at him with angry eyes, in which, nevertheless, there was a spark of conscious interest. - "Your name is Michael, isn't it? May I come in?"

Shaggy eyebrows quirked strangely over half-drunk eyes. The man hummed, nodded, and headed off into the depths of the room. Andrei followed him. He closed the door and clicked the lock. Soon another door closed in the hallway - the one across the hall.

Still holding his hands behind his back next to his bag, Andrei took a few tentative steps into the depths of the cell behind his host. He staggered from foot to foot and swayed to the kitchen and sat down heavily at the dining table. There was a bottle with thick walls, through which the contents were not visible, and a tumbled glass on the floor. Mikhail angrily rubbed his stiff face and let out a kind of growl. Then he raised his red eyes to his guest.

" Well, what are you standing there for?" - said the master unhappily. - "What did you say your name was?"

"Andrei."

" Sit down, or something!" - Mikhail pulled out a second stool from under the table. - "Let's drink to acquaintance."

The owner's fingers were twitching, as if he was typing rapidly on a keyboard, and Andrei hesitated in the corridor. He didn't want to sit next to this guy.

"I'll stand, thank you. And I won't drink - it's very early."

Mikhail narrowed his eyebrows, looking at the strange alien - they didn't refuse a drink in his surroundings.

"So why did you come? " - there was a tiredness in his voice, as if he wanted to sleep. - "About my son, you say?"

" Yes, about him," Andrei began uncertainly.

"Well, what can you say about Sashka?"

"My son disappeared yesterday. The liquidators came, they said that he went to the Black God," - the man tried to choose his words well. -"They say they don't know where he is. And then they said that Kolya was friends with your son Sasha. And they say he disappeared, too. It's a cycle backwards, isn't it?"

Mikhail listened to the guest as attentively as he could. At the last words he shook his head weakly. Suddenly a woman's voice came from behind him, making Andrei flinch.

" My son went missing much earlier."

Feeling the rapid beats of his heart in his chest, Andrei slowly turned around. Right behind him stood a thin woman with pale skin. Blue spots stood out on her arms. In the sunken, seemingly crying, eyes read either resentment or anger.

"My wife Helena," the host remembered the rules of decorum.

"Hello," the guest said softly.

She only nodded her head in response. Andrei turned sideways to let Elena into the kitchen, but she only wrinkled her nose.

"So what did you say about Sasha?"

" I said," she pursed her lips. - "That he didn't disappear a cycle ago, but earlier."

Mikhail slapped the table with force and glared angrily at his wife.

" Shut up."

" Or what? In front of a stranger are you going to hit me too?"

The owner, moving his jaw, looked at the woman in silence for a few seconds, but then looked away and nodded. Then he picked up the dishes from the floor, opened the bottle, poured the rest into a glass and drained it in a gulp. Wiping his lips, Mikhail began to speak.

"The son got mixed up with the wrong people. He believed in fairy tales. I thought I'd changed his mind, talked him out of it, but no. The guy's gone."

Elena folded her arms on her chest and, listening to her husband's story, snorted quietly a few times.

" We came home from work in the evening. And he was gone. All his stuff was left at home," he fell silent."

" I have almost the same, "- pronounced Andrei. - "Only I went out to get the concentrate. And he's gone."

"What did you say your name was?"

"Kolya."

"I think Sasha said something about him. Are they classmates?

" Yes, a few gigacycles together, they study together."

"And he got involved with the storytellers, too?"

"Storytellers?"

"Yeah. Black Gods who tell tales. About rebirth and self-gathering and all that."

"I don't know about that," Andrei was ashamed to admit it. - "But I found some strange drawings in the notebooks," he described as clearly as he could what he had found on the last pages of the school notes.

"Looks like I'm in touch after all," Mikhail said, listening carefully to the story. - "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," he again felt a strange sense of shame at his own powerlessness. - "I thought maybe you knew

" What about me?" - There was aggression in his voice again. -" Do you think I'd be sitting here if I knew?"

"I had the liquidators. But they wouldn't say anything. They said we don't know where he is. That's all."

"The liquidators..." - Elena repeated with contempt.

" Yes those devils...!" - Mikhail again hit the table with his fist, which made the glass and the bottle jump. - "What's the use of them..."

There was a heavy pause in the cell. Everyone was thinking about the same thing - the missing children. Andrei shuffled from foot to foot, not knowing what to say. Soon the silence was broken by Mikhail.

"Actually," he began, "I have an idea. But it involves certain risks."

"What kind of idea?" - Asked intrigued Andrei.

" I think I know where to look for my son. And, it turns out, yours too."

" Where?" - he was overcome with excitement.

"These Black Gods," Mikhail began slowly. - "There's a church on the 200th floor. All newcomers are supposed to be taken there."

"Why don't you..." - began the wife.

"Shut your mouth, you fool!" - shouted the owner of the cell.

All three of them were silent again. After waiting for the tension to subside, Andrei spoke.

"" If you know where he is, why don't you tell the liquidators? They have to deal with it."

""How old are you?" - Mikhail began irritably. - "Are you a fool? Do you believe in all-powerful liquidators?"

Andrei remained silent, offended by the questions. Elena snorted once more and went into the room.

" Haven't you realized yet that they can't do anything? The Church of the Black Gods is on the lower floors. We should send a military expedition down there. They won't do it for one snot-nosed boy."

He grabbed the bottle and tried to pour himself a drink to no avail. When he realized that the container was empty, he put it back with a loud bang. Mikhail looked at the guest in silence for a few seconds.

" My idea," he began, "is to go there ourselves. And try to pick up my son."

Andrei looked at his host in silence, imagining what might be ahead of them. If the church was on the two hundredth floor, it meant that they would have to travel at least fifty floors through no man's land. What might await them there, no one knew.

" Scared?" - Mikhail asked, and smiled frighteningly. - "If it were easy, you wouldn't be here."

" How are we going to go there?" - Andrei answered a question with a question, not quite understanding the owner of the cell.

"We?" - he blurted out in an even wider smile. - "I like your determination. Andrei, you say?" - The guest nodded. - "On our feet we'll go there."

" You don't have to go there, " came the voice of his wife from the room.

" Shut up, you fool," Mikhail ordered more calmly. Then he turned to the man. - "The journey there and back will take a day or two. In the church itself, I suppose, we will not stay long. We'll probably have to use force, if you know what I mean."

"I think so. "- Andrei thought for a moment. - "I don't have a weapon."

" I'll help with that, but you'll need coupons. Do you have a supply?"

"Yeah, but I haven't counted."

"Will it be thirty?"

"Yeah, that should be enough."

"You'll have to bring me those fifteen coupons. And you'll need a gas mask and two days' worth of food."

" Okay. That won't be a problem."

Mikhail looked at the guest in silence, thinking about something of his own.

"Bring me the coupons. I'll use them to buy weapons."

Andrei looked at his host and the table.

" No," he replied softly. - "You use your own to buy, and I'll pay for the guns later, post facto."

A sinister smile reappeared on Mikhail's face.

" Okay," he nodded. -" When can you get out?"

"Right now."

"Then we'll go tomorrow. Where did you say you live?" - Andrei gave the address. - "Then tomorrow at the same time I'll be at your place. Prepare the payment."

"Anything else you need?"

"No, nothing else. The most important thing is attitude. It's a long way to go," Mikhail thought for a few seconds, then added. - "Now it's time for you to leave."

Andrei stood in silence for half a minute, thinking about what he could ask, but finally headed for the exit.

"Do you have my address memorized?" - he asked at the door.

"Got it, got it," came a voice from the kitchen.

"See you tomorrow, then."

Having already unlocked the door, Andrei looked at Elena, who was sitting on the chair opposite. She looked at him with a strange glance, shook her head from side to side several times and whispered, "Don't go." Without saying anything, Andrei stood for a few seconds, shrugged his shoulders in response, and walked out.