Binary code: Mystery number one
The voice was silent. Ruthra waited a moment, looked at the doppelganger, who was also silent, then asked:
– All of them?
– That's it. Let's go," the doppelganger said calmly and walked forward, constantly turning down monotonous corridors.
Ruthra followed him. When he finally lost his coordination in space, the doppelganger stopped in front of a wall and said into an invisible speaker, "It's okay." The wall slid apart a little, forming a passage. It was the door to a room.
– Come in," the doppelganger "asked.
Ruthra saw an ordinary office, with a long table with a chair and chairs in the middle, a single shelf of books along the wall, and several shelves of electronic modules, each with glowing lights. There were no windows. In the chair sat a man in his sixties, almost completely gray-haired, with a slightly elongated face, blue eyes, neither fat nor thin.
– Good afternoon," he said and smiled.
– Kind," Ruthra replied without emotion.
– Sit down, I hope you've calmed down. It's always like that at the beginning of the journey.
"So it's practiced here. What kind of place is this? In whose department?" – Ruthra pondered.
– Who are you?
The master of the office rose from his desk, approached Rutra, and held out his hand.
– Yuri Yarovitovich," he introduced himself; taking Rutra under his elbow, he motioned for him to sit down.
– Rutra Tigrovich," Rutra introduced himself in turn and sat down at the table.
– I understand you're a bit taken aback," the man said, looking intently at Rutra and then at his double.
The man nodded and walked out, the door closing automatically.
– I'll try to explain everything briefly, but don't interrupt and don't ask questions. You can write down your questions, here's a sheet of paper and a pen. What I will tell you will seem incredible, but I think that your psyche is already a little prepared after acquaintance with Center Zero, Metro-2 and Metro-3. And before that you have seen a lot of things, read special literature, including, as far as I know, radical literature.
Ruthra decided to be quiet and listen to what he would be told to make sense of the situation.
– Tell me, Ruthra, when you were on a mission, where did the orders come from?
– From my superiors," Ruthra replied grudgingly.
– Okay, which one?
– From the direct," Ruthra replied, his whole demeanor showing that he thought these questions were foolish.
– Don't jump to conclusions, listen," said Yarovitovich. – Orders, orders, instructions go from superiors to subordinates. Right?
– Okay.
– And where is the most important link, where the first order comes from, where instructions for instructions, rules for rules are written? Do you know about the existence of commands in envelopes in case of X hour?
– You mean the secret envelopes that are kept in strategic centers? Envelopes that contain orders in case a special event occurs where you have to perform an action according to an enclosed instruction?
– Yeah. What do you know about them? What are they for?
– To ensure that no one knows about the contents of a secret order or instruction before the deadline, so that it does not have to be transmitted through communication channels. The reliability of secrecy and secrecy must be virtually 100 percent," Rutra said.
– If any of those who were to execute the order knew the contents of the instruction in advance, they would have the opportunity to "betray" the secret or deliberately avoid executing the order. When submarines were captured or a group of scouts failed, the command could be given to open package number so-and-so. The one who received such an order opened the package and saw that it was necessary to shoot the coder, launch a missile with a nuclear charge, etc. Some kind of unusual, unexpected solution.
– Yeah, I know.
– You have envelopes like that at Zero, too.
– I am aware of that," Rutra replied. – Yuri Vasilyevich told me that the president has such packages, but no one knows what they contain.
– Yes, there is, and did he tell you that once there was a violation? Gorbachev, out of curiosity, opened the packages and found that in one of them was an order for nuclear bombing of major cities, capitals of NATO strategic centers, world confessional centers. Gorbachev "surrendered" this plan to the NATO, showed that he was on their side, accused the Communist Party leadership of aggressive intentions.
– And there was no control over him? – Ruthra said a little sarcastically.
– The system worked a little differently back then. It was a victim of its own omnipotence. It is information that turns position into power. This system is very complicated. For example, so that no one knows who is the most important, there must always be public figures who are positioned for the public as the supreme power. Let me say even more – the supreme power itself should not know that there is a permanent organized system that controls the change and functioning of the official supreme power.
– So then what happened to Gorbachev?
– After the scandal broke out, which, by the way, was pre-planned (it is foolish to believe that the NATO bloc did not assume that the USSR had such a plan), I reported to Gorbachev on the results of a study of the moral implications for the country. Upon receiving his post, he thought he had taken the devil by the beard. Gorbachev had no idea what structure he was talking to, assuming that I was an ordinary KGB officer.
– All right. What does this situation have to do with it, why am I being treated this way, who is this double and where did he come from?
– You may find it hard to believe what I am about to say, but that is exactly what it is. If someone has secrets and uses them to rule the state and the people, he always wants to have a guarantee that he will be in power; even when those whom he rules are dissatisfied with that power. The real power is hidden. Everyone you see is an "entertainer." There is dirt and dossiers on everyone. The situation is as follows: there must be a guarantee that no one will know or guess about the system's innermost secrets. Even if someone does guess, what they say must border on the fantastic, that is, it must be implausible. Imagine you go out there to people and tell them all this. What would they say? They'll think you're crazy. That's all. The way you're being treated, it's the optimal method, calculated in advance. You're just an ordinary person here, an apprentice. Your future and even your life depend on how you do in your training.
Rutra was a little shocked by what he heard, and in his heart he began to reassure himself that by using the word "life" Yarowitowicz had meant it philosophically, though he began to feel that his own life was in danger. It became a little frightening. Scared that if he died here, his family wouldn't even know what had happened to him. Yarovitovich's calm manner of conversation, his penetrating gaze were alarming. A slight shiver ran through his body, the hair on his arms rippled slightly, and his brain puzzled over the question, "Is this what I wanted?" He hadn't counted on his new assignment leading to this. Like a sane person – the instinct for self-preservation kicked in. Money and career took a back seat, Rutra wanted to go home to his family, his children who needed him and rarely saw him. He blamed himself for sacrificing his personal interests quite often, for choosing service, but that was the way the system had brought him up. The thought of his family never left him, and he decided to get out of here by all means.
– I'd like to know what kind of guy met me?
– That's part of the plan, too. No random people get in here, just like Center Zero. Our system works clearly and without error. At a certain level, all the links in the human-action-result chain should already be clearly known. We have big plans for you. A doppelganger is not just your twin. The technology of genetic engineering after the disclosure of the genome code has gone so far that it is possible by changing it to make any copies, even mutants – half-human-half-animal. We took your biomaterial, processed it, calculated the code, inserted it into the chromosomal chain of the object, and it gradually began to change until it became completely like you. It is necessary for you to become friends, to begin to understand each other. In the future, you'll have to work in tandem. You're probably wondering why we're so encrypted. Understand, even if there is a voluntary/unvoluntary change of power up there, it should not affect us. We should be able to get out of here, with something that is technologically, technically and intellectually much more progressive and stronger, to once again become the power for those who were dissatisfied with the previous one.
– You've got it all twisted up," said Ruthra.
– What did you think? Power is always the same, only its representatives change. Think about it, wouldn't you devise the most unbelievable ways to keep power? Why be a public figure in non-public affairs when your duty is to do the job, not PR. PR is for the weak, the vulnerable, and the vicious.
– Okay, then why do you need me? Why did you take my clothes?
– They take away everyone's clothes. There's a special regime here, sanitary. You know what I mean? They'll give it back to you. Why do we need you? What's not to understand?
– I'd like to know more specifically.
– More specifically? At the first stage of the establishment of our service, we were either in power (not the first persons, of course) or always close to it to control it. This created problems. We needed control over the controllers. The second stage was to establish our service as an underground organization; to allow those who were needed to be in power, but in such a way that they did not understand that we were the ones who decided everything for them. Now we have begun the third stage – to prepare those who will be in power, but not the one you see on TV, but the one that will be the liaison between us and them.
– It's very confusing," Rutra said.
– For example, for example, the president will suddenly "lock up", he will be stressed, he will be influenced in some way (including remotely), he will decide to take an action beyond his authority. Who will stop him?
– Control Services," Ruthra replied.
– You probably missed what I said about Sergeevich, didn't you? If we give a person power over everyone to make it easier for us to control him, there is always the possibility that he will abuse that power, that he will do something unpredictable. There must be a body that can react instantly to the situation. Do you understand?
– You mean the possession of state secrets and the command system of strategic nuclear forces?
– Everyone! You know very well that all changes happen by preliminary miscalculation – in documents, legislation, foreign and domestic policy, even school education programs.
Rutra understood what he was saying. A person saw society and its condition from his own position, and the system saw everything as a whole at once, knew even more than everyone knew about himself. All the data were entered into a special program "Mosaic", and it calculated possible variants of development of society, a particular situation, a person, etc. Then, in order to achieve the desired result, one or another impact was made. The calculation process consisted of three stages. The first was a miscalculation for the next 25 years, the second – for 75-100 years, the third – completely classified, there were rumors that the calculation was made for a thousand years ahead. To the average person it would seem incredible and even ridiculous, but nevertheless – such things happened. Ruthra was only allowed to the first stage, but even that was sometimes shocking. And how can you not be surprised when you know that an event is going to be presented as if it were a fait accompli. Nothing happens by accident, everything goes according to a script. What struck him was that someone was handing over power as a baton, otherwise – how could one plan for hundreds of years ahead. Here he began to understand – who carries it out and how. Up there, the "F" department was in charge of forecasting. Apparently, Vasilyevich had talked about this situation, saying that if he passed the exam, he would be admitted to all departments.
– All right. I'd like to know what's next. What am I going to do, what am I going to learn here? – Ruthra asked.
– The first step is you have to become a different person.
– How? What kind of person?
– You must learn to turn into a double of the person who will be easier for our colleagues to understand.
– What does that mean?
– There is a kind of "Super Spy" system. After secretly eliminating, for example, the head of the FBI, you are a trained person who has already adopted his appearance beforehand, but inside you are still yourself. You have to become a person who could look like the right person, but with your brain. Enhanced, though.
Ruthra couldn't believe his ears.
– I'm sorry, that's crazy, what doppelganger? What about my family? I'm not gonna change anything.
– First of all, calm down. Everything is pre-planned, as you've already realized. We don't want any failures, and if we're wrong about you, Vasilievich will be punished. If you don't want to change outwardly, there's a more complicated option. You have to change internally, and most importantly, in your head. It will be of special value, to protect it – you need to pass the first stage. In this phase, you will be a field soldier. Welcome to the arena. Goodbye," Yarovitovich said and pointed with his palm in the direction of the door, which automatically opened.
The doppelganger entered, exchanged a glance with Jarovitovich, then looked at Rutra.
– Please, let's go.
Ruthra realized the situation was not in his favor, there was nothing to do, he had to obey. "What is an arena, will I really have to fight someone?" – he thought. It wasn't in his plans, so resentment overcame him.
– Who do you answer to?
– He will explain everything to you, and now – please, – said the master of the office, pointing at the double.
There was nothing to do, so Ruthra stepped out into the corridor with his copy. After wandering through the labyrinth for a while, they stopped, and the duplicate said into the wall, "We're ready. The doors swung open, a huge gymnasium-like area appeared. The doppelganger turned on the television.
– Look and get dressed. Hurry up. You don't have much time, they're waiting.
– What should I wear? Who's waiting? – Ruthra asked with obvious concern.
Footage of the brutal murders appeared on the screen. A man in a camouflaged uniform with a knife alternately cut off the heads of the men, who were bound and laid on the rails. The victims begged for mercy, but the executioner slit their throats in cold blood and slowly. Ruthra looked at the doppelganger, who glanced at the uniforms and combat equipment of the Special Forces fighters. There were different weapons to choose from. Ruthra looked at his copy again, this time he pointed toward the center of the hall. The room was divided into two parts by a special laser grid, behind which stood several men in combat gear.
– They will soon begin to defend, or even attack! While they can't see you, hurry! – warned the doppelganger.
A shiver ran through Ruthra's body, as if he were scalded. He could feel the breath of death. He wanted to scream, to be outraged that they had no right to control his fate, but he knew there was no chance. "What to do?" – he thought. There was nowhere to run. By accepting the fight, he had a chance to survive, after all, he wasn't invited here just to watch a gladiatorial duel. So the organizers were on his side. He rushed to the equipment, put on a special armored vest on his bare body, which looked more like a plaster corset, quickly put on a special jumpsuit with armored pads on the legs, helmet ShU-300, connected the loop. Now he had a lot of "tricks" – night vision goggles, sensor for detecting warm-blooded objects, sensor for approaching objects, rear and top view, device for detecting poisonous gases and radiation level, communication with the central computer server, spatial orientation, forced injection in case of pressure drop and anaphylactic shock, other "assistants" (ejection of caustic paralyzing liquid, light and noise darts, etc.). From the proposed set of weapons Rutra took a gas mask, a bag for grenades and the grenades themselves (light and shrapnel grenades), a Glock 26 pistol, an ARX-160 assault rifle, an OC-14 Groza assault rifle and grenade launcher, an Akela knife, and several magazines of ammunition.
All the while, violent scenes were shown on the screen. The last scene was the stoning of a young girl who had her hands tied behind her back. The scene was horrible: she tried to turn away, but with each blow she bled, soon began to convulse and died. Chief in organizing the execution was the woman who took turns tying the girls up and throwing the first stone. "Why am I being shown this?" – Ruthra thought. The doppelganger understood his interest:
– You're about to meet them.
Ruthra put his weapons on alert, deciding to start with the ARX-160. The siren wailed, the glowing grid in the middle of the room went out, the lights and television turned off. The room went completely dark. Rutra reacted instantly, silently stepped back a couple steps, ducked and prepared to shoot. Suddenly the lights came on and there were four people in the room, three men and one woman. They were in combat gear, but unarmed. A double stood between them and Rutra.
– That's a good reaction. Do you all really think we can have a massacre here? Time's up! – shrieked the copy of Rutra.
The four men ran to the far corner of the hall and then into the next room.
– Go ahead, hunter, don't screw up, my future depends on you," the doppelganger said with a sneer.
Then he walked past Ruthra and pointed at his chest, at the area of his heart. Rutra didn't quite know what that meant. It was either "take care of your heart" or "be hearty. After a few seconds, Ruthra realized that he wasn't pointing at his heart, but at his breast pocket, and something rustled strangely. Ruthra didn't have time to check what was in there, because the lights went out.
– Hurry up, they'll get a better position now," the doppelganger said and walked out the door.
Chapter 2: Unnatural selection
Rutra was thinking hard about what "they'll take a better position" could mean. In any case, he had to hurry. He ran to the door where the fighters had gone.
Behind the door was an even more enormous room with models of houses. It was a mockup of a city street after the worst of the fighting, with destruction and other paraphernalia. Ruthra realized that his opponents had already taken up positions somewhere and were waiting for him. Suddenly, the voice of the doppelganger appeared in his helmet:
– Courage! They don't have ammunition like you, they only have small arms and knives.
– What else is needed? – Ruthra asked.
There was no response.
He pondered, "What do I have that they don't? A gas mask?" But if the fighters only have what the doppelganger said, why the gas mask? Ruthra looked at the grenades, there were no chemical grenades, but he decided not to throw the proverbial gas mask after all, even though it was in the way. "Grenades? Yeah. They don't seem to have any," he concluded and brought the stun grenade into action.
Ruthra turned on his helmet shield and threw a grenade into the center of the makeshift street. Then, calmly ducking down, he peered inside, looked around the range, and ran behind the wall of the nearest building. After assessing where they could theoretically be waiting for him, he decided it was most appropriate for real fighters to wait for Rutru in front of the entrance.
"Since I have such an advantage in weapons, why not take advantage of it," Ruthra decided. He readied his Groza grenade launcher, jumped out from behind the wall, and fired through the window opposite the entrance.
At the same second, a sharp blow threw Ruth back. His chest ached, and he struggled to regain consciousness, realizing that he had been shot in the chest. It had been fired from the side, from the far corner. They were waiting for him to come out, Rutra wasn't the only one who could think logically.
There was an explosion on the second floor. The echo sobered him, made him smell death. He was overcome by fear of the reality of death. He had to pull himself together, above all for the sake of the children. Ruthra cursed everything he could; he decided he had to get out of here at any cost and end his hated service. But how to get out? One must win! You have to think!
The shot came from the side, so the bullet didn't go straight through. That fact made Ruthra wake up quickly, hearing rustling noises. There was no time to delay. He reloaded his grenade launcher and prepared a conventional fragmentation grenade. He listened – the danger could come from anywhere. "What if they attack from both sides of the structure at once?" – Ruthra pondered.
To avoid guessing and giving them the initiative, he decided to act on his own. Abruptly throwing the grenade around the corner, Ruthra quickly ran in the opposite direction, nestled against the wall, and peered out. He was not mistaken. The fighters had tactically calculated that he would leap forward after the explosion and had decided to outflank him. Two of them were already running toward him. Time was running out in fractions of a second, firing a grenade launcher so close was deadly to himself. There was no time to switch to the ARX-160.
The Groza's variant of the machine-grenade launcher system had the added inconvenience of combining the firing functions of a machine gun and a grenade launcher in one trigger, which required additional time to switch the trigger mechanism. Rutra decided to do what his comrades had marveled at when he used the trick in a combat situation. He calculated that the attackers must be quite close, extended his arm with the Thunderbolt, threw it momentarily behind the wall, and fired it downward at the feet of the attackers. The next moment there was a deafening rumble that mingled with the screaming and shrieking of the attackers. Ruthra had forgotten to turn on the noise reduction on his helmet, and he was a bit stunned as well.
He crouched against the main wall, swapped the Thunderbolt for an ARX-160, and waited for an attack from the other side. Moans and screams could be heard on the left side for a while, but they soon stopped. It was quiet. He waited. About 10 minutes passed. Nothing happened. He decided to wait a little longer, but everything stayed the same. Then he wanted to see if he was wrong about the number of attackers. If there were three of them, then no one should be alive anymore. The one upstairs might still be alive, though. He got up, walked quietly to the wall, crept to the very edge of the structure, and peered in the direction from which he had been shot. There was a dilapidated village house. It was quiet, nothing was happening. Rutra decided to provoke the enemy. He shot towards the house and ran back, looking out from behind the wall where he had fired the grenade launcher. A gruesome sight was revealed – two men lay with their stomachs ripped open. A foul odor made it hard to breathe. Ruthra decided to check what had become of the one on the second floor. It was important.
He stepped carefully over the dead and peered around the next corner. As he stuck his head out, a bullet whizzed by. Ruthra jumped back against the wall and waited. There was no attack, though he expected it from both sides. Everything was quiet again.
Ruthra stuck his machine gun around the corner and fired a line in the direction of the shooter. There was no response, so he waited again. There was silence for about five minutes. Rutra reloaded the grenade launcher. This was the last grenade. In addition, he prepared hand grenades. There were two of them – one fragmentation and one noise grenade. I threw the noise grenade first around the corner. There was an explosion. Despite the buzzing in my ears, I ran over to the building I had first shot at and threw the fragmentation one on the second floor. There was another explosion. As soon as it subsided, I listened. Everything seemed to be quiet.