“You have failed us, Burakovsky,” the guest said quietly, straightening up in the chair.

  “It won’t happen again, Mr. Aquilles.”

  The director of the orphanage swallowed hard. Ever since the moment he helped the guest take off his coat, accompanied him to the office, and sat in front of him, moving around the prepared cigars, ashtray, coffee cups, and wine glasses with trembling fingers, he did not dare to look into his companion’s eyes. He was only staring at the epauletes and counting the stars. The guest was a colonel, though dressed in a field uniform. Burakovsky was not afraid to look further down, to the guest’s belt, where the holster with a pistol hung. He preferred not to think about the privates in masks and with trooper berets, holding rifles and standing at attention behind the guest’s back.

  “No doubt it won’t happen. This was the one and only mistake you could afford. You’ve lost the boy whom you should have protected as the apple of your eye. The most important orphan of this whole institution.”

  “I did not expect such a bold attack, Mr. Aquilles. They took us off guard.”

  “Exactly. They took you off guard. How did it become possible that you let them do it so easily?”

  “The garrison was weakened by the recent mutant attacks, Mr. Aquilles. So all remaining forces were moved to the main gate.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking. Why did your guards not perform the security clearance? Why did not disarm them? Why did you let them in in the first place?”

  “It’s a tragic coincidence, Mr. Aquilles—”

  “Coincidence? It’s a damn blunder. And tragic indeed, because it will cost you this position, and perhaps get you a trial.”

  “They had the HADES license, Mr. Aquilles. The guards are authorized to let the company representatives in without a full security clearance. Additionally, they’d offered help with defense of the front gate overnight. You know, we’d lost quite a few people to a mutant attack, so this reinforcement seemed very timely. And later…” Burakovsky stammered. “There’d been an internal accident overnight, too. Smuggling of artifacts by one of the pupils. We had to deal with it as fast as possible, so the due procedure was… ghm, partially skipped.”

  “Fuck HADES,” the colonel drawled grimly. But something in his voice and slight change of posture made Burakovsky breathe out with relief. “It was a long-prepared provocation, Burakovsky, and you’d swallowed the hook. It’s not entirely your fault, that’s why I don’t expect the tribunal’s decision to be tough on you.”

  “Mr. Aquilles, if you allow me to make up for this misdemeanor… I can collect a squad immediately. We have vehicles, helicopters. I can order my best people to take the boy back by force within a few hours.”

  “No need for that, Burakovsky.”

  “No need?” The director felt taken aback. The colonel was sitting calmly in front of him, slowly dragging his cigarette and sipping from the glass of vermouth.

  “You’re no army man. I will lead the operation myself. And I’ll make sure to turn this hornet’s nest they call ‘Institute’ into ruins. I could not get my hands on these two pricks, Salzman and Montellini, for a while, but now it’s a perfect opportunity. If they die in the Zone, no one will question why. Even HADES. Because their project is long out of control by the company. Salzman is a fanatic, worse than a Worm. He is obsessed with this idea to get to Flux.”

  “But why?”

  Aquilles swept him with an assessing look. It seemed the assessment exceeded expectations, because after a few seconds, the colonel leaned forward and looked Burakovsky in the eyes. Now the director could not look away. The colonel was grizzled, with a massive maw, scar tissue winding across his face. One of his eyes was covered by a black blindfold. The other, though… The other was deep and black as outer space. And it beaconed. Hypnotized.

  “I’ll tell you why. They believe the Zone can be useful to humanity. They believe, at Flux, they can find a source of energy never known before. Something that would replace oil, and also give humans capabilities beyond comprehension.”

  “That’s a good cause, isn’t it?” Burakovsky mumbled cautiously.

  “The price could be the Zone’s expansion. Imagine this ulcer spreading twice as much as it is now. Imagine it infecting the civilized world, taking over entire cities, then countries, converting them into radioactive wastelands. Do you want it?”

  Burakovsky shook his head in fear.

  “The Treaty decrees that the Zone should be kept in its current borders, or minimized, whenever it is possible,” Aquilles said coldly. “And I’m planning to follow this decree. Salzman and Montellini represent a significant danger to the stability of our world and therefore must be liquidated. It had been agreed upon with the HADES leadership. I’m going to do this myself.”

  “But, Mr. Aquilles… Getting to Flux was proven impossible, wasn’t it?”

  “Are you aware of what the Worms do?”

  “You believe that?” Burakovsky chuckled nervously, expecting his companion to smile back. But Aquilles remained dead serious.

  “I always thought it’s nothing more than a whopper… The Worms say there are wormholes. A system of portals leading to the center.”

  “It’s not a question of belief, Burakovsky. It’s the truth. And this boy, Thorne, is one of the keys to finding those wormholes and passing through. The girl is another one.”

  “The girl?”

  “The one accompanying Salzman. She might be even more important than Thorne. The Worms also want to get her.”

  Burakovsky remained silent. He felt sweat on his temples. The colonel sighed, leaned back, and with a thud placed his empty glass on the desk. The director suddenly thought the wine might have unleashed the colonel’s tongue, and he revealed a bit more than intended.

  “You’re dismissed for now,” Aquilles said nonchalantly. “File a proper report. The army representatives will come here tomorrow to start the investigation. For now, this is not your problem anymore. I will deal with the Institute and the missing boy myself. And I’ll take what’s mine.”

  The colonel rose.

  “And remember, Burakovsky… My name is Aquilles, and when I hunt in the Zone, not a mouse can escape from my claws.”

  Burakovsky flinched; a cold shiver ran down his spine. His eyes darted to the tattoo on the colonel’s wrist. It was an old army tattoo, monochrome black, displaying a bird of prey that spread its wings a moment before sinking talons into a curling snake.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I have some old scores to settle with Salzman,” Aquilles grinned eerily. “And Thorne too. Not the boy. His father.”

  For a few seconds, he stood silent, his gaze frozen above Burakovsky’s head. The director assumed reasonably that he should not ask any more questions. Without saying a word, Aquilles turned away and walked out of the office with sharp, wide steps. His squad followed him. The door slammed, and a second later, Burakovsky heard the hoarse voice of the colonel giving orders.

  ***

  The rain would not stop. Streams were running down Adrian’s waterproof cloak that he put on top of the protective suit, as well as down his face, even though he pulled his hood up. Inny was walking slowly beside him. He was throwing nuts with familiar, practiced movements, marking the path between the gnarled, black trees, which looked like the silhouettes of eerie ghosts with outstretched arms. The wind swept the dirty leaves, throwing them in small handfuls at their feet.

  They walked along a narrow forest path, climbed the hills where checkpoint number eleven was located. It was just a small brick house with a tall antenna on the roof. Inny took the measurements herself. Adrian only watched as she stood on the very edge, catching the signal, recording the readings of the sluggishly clicking detector.

  It was four in the afternoon.

  “Were you afraid?” the girl broke the silence suddenly.

  Adrian glanced at her. She was twirling absentmindedly a small tin medallion that hung on a chain around her neck.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the tunnel.”

  “Well…” Adrian frowned. He was not used to talking about his emotions, even with his closest friends, let alone this strange girl he had only met yesterday. So he was surprised when the words came from his mouth:

  “I guess I was. Though… You know, there was no time to think about it, really.”

  “What was there? Apart from the artifact?”

  “Nothing,” he lied. “I don’t remember. It does not matter anyway. There was some other type of radiation. I had hallucinations, I think. Barely found that orb. It was right next to a buff, though. Your colleague, perhaps.”

  “How do you know what type of radiation was there?”

  “I…” He stumbled, confused. “I just felt it, I guess. It felt somehow different.”

  She nodded, as if understanding exactly what he meant.

  “I wanted to say sorry, by the way,” she added, suddenly switching the topic again.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For sending you there. We knew you would pass. But still, it was a tough trial.”

  “Well, if you would not, I’d be right now on my way to the army in a truck. They were waiting for me in the shelter.”

  “You think we’ve kidnapped you for good?” She cracked a smile.

  “I have no idea yet. But somehow, my guts tell me that I’m better off with you, guys, than with the army. I can’t really explain it.”

  “I can. You’ve been touched by the hand of destiny today.”

  “What?”

  “Things will change soon,” she continued in a strange voice, as if not having noticed his question. Adrian glanced at her again. She only looked forward, stepping slowly, like in a kind of trance. “It might turn out Albert Salzman made a wrong choice… Only the strongest survive in the Zone…”

  “Inny, what are you talking about?”

  “What?” She seemed to come to, looked at him absentmindedly. Kept silent for a few seconds, then said, pointing her finger into the sky, “You know, something will happen soon. Some kind of disaster. I can feel it in the air.”

  “Are you okay?” Adrian asked worriedly.

  “Yes. Or, maybe, no. Uncle says, I do get weird sometimes. I don’t notice. Sometimes I think: what if I had stayed there? On that road, beyond the bridge of three rainbows, in the Forest heart?”

  “Can you speak normally? Eh?”

  “Sorry,” she said in a quiet, changed voice. “It’s fine. It will pass. You know why all this?” Her gaze became sensible now. “It’s the Zone. It’s close. Right there.”

  And she pointed her finger beyond a row of trees, to where the elevated ground abruptly ended and a steep slope, covered in thick mud, led down into the valley.

  “I want to take a look,” Adrian said. “Let’s go there?”

  “Ah… Right. You’ve never been so close before. You can feel it too. You just don’t know how to describe it yet. But you belong there.”

  They came out onto the edge of the forest, and Adrian immediately felt the rain grow stronger. Now his cloak trembled in the wind and was heavy with the large raindrops falling from nowhere, as if there were miles of empty space between them and the dark clouds that promised a downpour lasting until nightfall. Inny crouched down and peered out from behind the sharp, wet rocks that stood like teeth driven into the edge of the cliff. Beyond them, the slope led downward, thickly overgrown with low, crooked firs and pines, and tangled with thistles bending under the wind.

  Everything below was churned into dreadful mud. The path had washed out, and it was impossible to descend. All they could do was watch. Inny raised the eyepiece of the binoculars to one eye, let Adrian look through the other, and the two of them stared greedily into the eerie yet majestic landscape unfolding before them.

  The forest sloped far down. From the ridge where they stood to the place where it leveled out was no less than five or six kilometers, covered mostly with shrubs and low trees. Farther off, through the binoculars, they could see a deep cleft in the earth, several ridges of tall, mossy rocks, and between them a winding path that led toward a wide asphalt road. Just beyond the road began a fence and a small settlement of several dozen shacks, enclosed by a concrete wall with defensive structures, a searchlight blinking above the gate. They could make out people in military uniforms and bulletproof vests, weapons at the ready. A few campfires burned, around which others had gathered, dressed in dark, unremarkable clothes, carrying rifles and packs.

  “That’s the Frontier,” Inny said. “It stands right in front of the First Perimeter. The last outpost, protecting us from the Zone… and the Zone from us. And there, you see?”

  Adrian saw. The settlement ended there, at the far edge edge stood a workshop, a few garages with trucks, an armored gate with watchtowers. And beyond… Only a small marshy field, a few abandoned and rusting pieces of metal, and posts strung with barbed wire. The ground was cut through as if by trenches left over from the war. And then the forest. The same as the one behind them, covered in a faint lilac haze, stretching all the way to the horizon.

  “That’s the Zone,” Inny said quietly.

  “Do therizers from the Frontier go inside?”

  “Of course. That’s where the best loot is, they say. But only very close to the Perimeter. A few kilometers in, and the radiation shield begins.”

  Adrian nodded. For a while, they lay in silence, letting the raindrops fall on their faces, lowering their binoculars and simply looking down at the Zone from above.

  “May I ask a question?” he suddenly made up his mind.

  “Go on.”

  “He is not really your Uncle, is he?”

  Before she opened her mouth to answer, a rumbling sound came from afar. A black dot appeared in the sky, circling above the descent into the valley. Adrian could already make out the silhouette of a light military helicopter.

  “A ‘Hawk’,” Inny confirmed. “Coming this way.”

  “You think it’s because of what we did today?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But Salzman said, he will sort it out with the HADES leadership…” Adrian felt his heart going faster. “He said we’re safe!”

  “No one is safe in the Zone.”

  “Shit… Should we go back? Is the Institute in danger?”

  “I think Uncle sent us here for a reason,” Inny said quietly. “I have a bad feeling. Perhaps, it’s better that we hide and wait.”

  “Are you serious?” A wave of cold ran down his back. “If they want to find us in the Forest, we won’t be able to hide forever.”

  “We won’t have to. Calm down. Let’s go.”

  “Where to?”

  “To the escape path. If things go badly for the Institute, there will be our driver, Abdellah, waiting. And, Adrian…”

  She took a small grey orb out of her pocket, holding it with her bare hand. Adrian winced. Inny was smiling.

  “What the…”

  “Take it. I think it’s better if you keep it to yourself.”

  For a moment, their fingers touched, and Adrian felt a light electric current flowing from her palm, through the cold surface of the artifact, and into his hand.

  From now on, the schedule will change to M/W/F.

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