Vampire's Day (Book 2): Zero Model

by Yuri Hamaganov

  His foster family was much better than his real parents, but they had a bad habit of trying to convince him about religion. It was a big mistake, since his previous life had fostered in Walt an aversion to the gods and their followers – he considered that belief in a good and merciful creator was complete idiocy after what he had seen as a child. So, as soon as possible, he ran for an independent life. Although when he escaped, Walt didn’t go wandering, or start stealing or selling drugs; he went to work. By that time he already knew what he wanted in life.

  The next seven years he didn’t like to remember: years merged into one long day. Day after day, without holidays or weekends, working from dawn to dusk, and then hiding in his room to work on lessons. He learned in absentia, making every possible effort to become truly educated. It was hard, but he knew what he was working towards and was eventually rewarded – he got the opportunity to learn at the Faculty of Mathematics in a polytechnic university. He had to work even harder than before while he was there, but he enjoyed the study, and he knew that his efforts would be rewarded.

  In the middle of the first semester, he joined the Physics Faculty as well, much to the surprise of his teachers, who believed that no one could get a diploma in physics and mathematics at the same time. With the current volume of knowledge, the era of the great scientists, genius’ in several subjects, remained in the distant past.

  But Walt continued his studies, passing final exams in both subjects, and received a personal scholarship at the beginning of the second course, which freed him from his job in a restaurant. In the third year Walt had a customized training program developed for him, because the usual training program was too simple, and didn’t give him the opportunity to reveal all his talents.

  By the fourth year recruiters from leading technical corporations were lining up to tell him about the brilliant prospects that awaited him in their firms. He listened carefully and politely, knowing it was in vain, because another customer had given him an offer as well, one who was waiting for Walt.

  Working for the government in those early years didn’t bring him the highest possible income; working for a private office, he could have earned ten or even a hundred times more by selling his development to large capitalists. But such work couldn’t give Walt what he needed the most, which had burned in his mind since the days of miserable childhood living in a dirty trailer – this work couldn’t give him greatness. He wanted greatness, true greatness, and he got it.

  He hadn’t had any popular computer programs named after him, his face didn’t look out from glossy magazines, famous directors didn’t shoot movies about his life, and hordes of teenagers around the world didn’t know anything about Walt. But he wasn’t concerned about this. Walt always considered such glory false and temporary, a cheap imitation of reality, like rhinestones which unsuccessfully try to copy diamonds.

  He didn’t need fake greatness, his glory and status are real, the proof of which is his circle of acquaintances. Why did he need glossy magazines, films and teenagers, when the most influential and powerful men in the world knew about him? When the presidents, general secretaries and heads of major financial institutions were asking for his opinions? Making the most powerful and influential men in the business world hang on his words, making them depend on him – that was force, that was power!

  In recent years, Walt hadn’t had a specific area of work; his previous achievements and the reputation preceding allowed him considerable freedom of action, and so he had tasks that really challenged his genius. He and his carefully chosen team were involved only in the most severe cases, where others had failed.

  If today was the end of the thirties or the early forties of the last century, Walt would have worked in Los Alamos on the creation of the first nuclear bomb, trying not to be late with his invention so that he could help end the war. In the fifties and sixties he would have been in intense correspondence duel with Soviet designers of rockets and spacecraft in the space race. But it was present day, and he was busy instead with a project that should be the greatest scientific breakthrough of the century. Perhaps not just this century, but of all time.

  13. Lines-2

  He required greatness and glory and he got it, as much as he wanted and more. Walt dreamed of a place in the history of science next to Copernicus, Newton, Mendeleev, Einstein – and he achieved this place. And he had so much money that he would never be able to spend it all, his life now richer than any celebrity, whether rock music or movie stars. He had everything.

  So, why wasn’t he sleeping well? Why were the lines coming to him every night? Apparently this was some sort of game of his high-powered and intelligent brain, which had turned against its master, trying to drive him crazy. This was a reminder about the first insoluble problem in his life, the barriers that Walt couldn’t overcome and may not be able to overcome in the future. This was a memory, like the old Russian tanks which he had seen in Berlin, clear evidence of defeat and capitulation. The lines that came to him in a dream, clearly showed that even his mind could fail. But Walt didn’t intend to throw in the white flag; the battle with the unknown was just beginning.

  The lines were gone with the night, as a new day begun. Walt regretted that he’d sent away the girl yesterday, although he always did it, the habit becoming a rule. Despite the absence of wife or mistress, girls need him constantly as a necessary factor for the successful operation; long ago he understood that the young woman's body perfectly relieves stress.

  He has no wife, or mistress either, instead the girls were constantly changing. First Walt had been constantly surrounded by a variety of prudent girls who wanted access to his money and position in society, but over time he became tired by their growing demands, and switched to the employees of a very expensive escort agency, operating under the wing of his bosses and specializing in VIP clients. Girls were beautiful and professionals – they knew everything about sex, had good manners and could entertain customers in other ways, holding conversations on any subjects. And they didn’t ask questions about his work; they were under a strict ban.

  Walt was satisfied with this state of affairs, but he never stayed with the girls at night, afraid to speak in a dream, afraid that he would reveal the Lines. Fear was the real cause; he remembered the pilot of the first rover, who detected the Object. Despite all instructions otherwise, the pilot blabbed to his excessively persistent and insightful girlfriend. Having learned that they both were victims of armed robbery, Walt wasn’t surprised, but it made him even more entrenched in his desire to limit contact with the uninitiated. One of his principles was the complete elimination of unnecessary risks.

  Yesterday he sent the girl away, and calling her in the morning didn’t make sense; it was better to order two for the evening. Now it was time for breakfast. He had spent his childhood and adolescence eating fast food, so Walt was now attentive to his diet, eating the best natural products prepared to the highest level of culinary art. However, he wasn’t the one who cooked, since finding the time to cook was an unnecessary luxury. Instead he had an experienced Vietnamese chef feeding him. Today his breakfast consisted of an omelette with mushrooms and sea lettuce, and Walt ate on the enclosed porch overlooking the ocean. He didn’t open the window because by the looks of the persistent rain, a storm was approaching.

  The sound of the Beatles singing “Eleanor Rigby” rang out and Walt turned to his phone. He changed his telephone every month to a new model to avoid being bugged. This particular phone had been set up four days ago, and he still hadn’t used it, since he rarely called anyone. One of his rules was that all minor calls should be taken by a secretary; Walt picked up only when it was really necessary. But he had to take this call; this song played for only one incoming number, which couldn’t be ignored. The clock, a built-in wooden case of an old-fashioned radio, show 10:55. It was too early, even with the time difference – he shouldn’t be calling now.

  “Walt, we have a problem!”

  14. Lines-3

/>   Hanging up, Walt sat motionless, experiencing an acute and irrational desire to break something. Smash something into smithereens. It was good that he had sent the girl away – now he was so angry that he might have beat and maimed her. He needed to calm down; this senseless anger was counterproductive and illogical. Walt counted to ten, and then turned to the glass wall and the ocean beyond. The rain had intensified, and he could see the tops of the palm trees rocking in the wind. The storm was approaching; and, because of this storm, the military had postponed a launch by twenty-four hours.

  That rocket launch wasn’t supposed to happen; they had to allocate free time before the end of the day, until the Prometheus had landed at the specified point. Until that moment nothing was supposed to happen that could violate completion of the mission. But the storm had begun long before forecasted, advancing from ocean to land, moving toward the testing ground. Because the last three launches had failed, one of the generals canceled the agreements and ordered the launch to be moved to the start of a day before the storm hit.

  The three previous launches had ended in failure, but the fourth was a success – the interceptor missile shot down a satellite target. The interception was carried out by the remote detonation of a cluster warhead; so the target was destroyed by a stream of fragments, at an accuracy of ninety percent. But not all the fragments found the target; some passed the satellite and moved on at terminal velocity until they found a new target: the spacecraft completing a long-term mission, on the last leg of the journey.

  Prometheus received eight direct hits, which destroyed the engine system at the moment when the spacecraft completed a series of braking maneuvers before separating from the lander. Communication had been lost, and it wasn’t possible to find out the extent of damage, as Prometheus fell in an uncontrolled descent from orbit. The angle of entry into the atmosphere was higher than calculated, and it was surprising that the brake system worked at all, dropping the lander in the waters of the Pacific Ocean fifty-six nautical miles from the coast. There was no one waiting for its appearance and no one was ready for it. Prometheus didn’t get taken into the lab, as planned, and didn’t go through all the necessary quarantine barriers. No, it was just fished out of the water by some local fishermen who were there for tuna!

  “Lord!” For the first time since living with his foster family, Walt invoked the God he had never believed in. “We work for seven years, we get the cargo, deliver it to a distance of ninety million miles and then lose it because of some idiot in the last five hundred kilometers!”

  It was necessary to retrieve Prometheus as soon as possible. Instead of relying on numerous deputies, Walt decided to personally supervise the operation before it got even worse. He ordered a helicopter, despite the fact that he usually used a car, assuming that it was safer. Today security could not be taken into account, because time was of the essence.

  15. Surgery-3

  “Don’t stop calling them!”

  The ocean breeze fanned the flames, and the pumps continued to pump sea water, but all that his men could do was not allow the fire to get to the last gates through which the first group would come. Five minutes ago, the leader had reported that they were able to break into the central hangar. From this moment communication was lost.

  “Chief, listen!”

  “Fire… can’t… a lot…”

  “First, first!”

  Bronson tried to call the leader, but the only answer was the roar of flame and gunshots. There were many shots, the bursts of several guns. Clearly there was fighting somewhere in the middle of the burning warehouse.

  “Come on!”

  He couldn’t wait any longer and Bronson led the second group, punching his way with silver streams of carbon dioxide from the fire extinguishers. They had no connection with the first group, but the beacon they’d left was only twenty-seven meters away. However, it was necessary to run these twenty-seven meters through the fire, dodging between the mangled skeletons of trucks and risking being buried under the burning roof.

  The shooting had stopped a moment ago, but then started again, as Bronson and his men continued to move forward, every moment expecting to fight an unknown enemy. Instead of an enemy they came across one of the civilians, who had gone into the fire with the first group. Emil grabbed him and started shouting questions.

  “Well, what did he say?”

  “They were attacked, he kept saying that.”

  “Who attacked them?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “I see them!”

  Through the flames and smoke Bronson saw his soldiers and several civilians who were pushing a cart carrying a large metal ball. It was for this ball that they had gone into the fire!

  The first group opened fire again, but Bronson still couldn’t see who they were shooting at. Just a couple of shadows flashed through the smoke.

  “Get down!”

  The shock wave hit with such force that they were nearly knocked down. This wasn’t like the shots from grenade launchers and hand grenades; Bronson realized that somewhere ahead had begun to detonate ammunition, which exploded because of the fire.

  “Come on!”

  He had no choice; he had to get the damn ball before everything here exploded. He went into the fire, his men lined up in a narrow wedge, cutting through the flames with jets of carbon dioxide. An intolerable heat began to work through his fireproof suit, but Bronson could see the cart, near the burned bodies of civilians.

  “Push the cart back!”

  Soldiers began to push the cart to the door. Explosions were continuing, but he could no longer hear shots. A flaming man fell out of the fire at him, in which Bronson somehow finds his fighter.

  “Close face!”

  The burning man couldn’t hear him, and Chief used his extinguisher, quickly getting rid of the fire. There was a second burning man following immediately, and Bronson once again used a silver stream of carbon dioxide, completely emptying the tank. And then he realized that it wasn’t one of his soldiers, but a woman. He dropped to his knee and shouldered the burned soldier, and, as he did so, he felt his right leg pierced by a sharp pain. The woman had grabbed his leg and clenching her teeth over his high boots and biting through the extremely durable fireproof fabric. With a lightning-quick motion, he pulled out his gun and immediately shot a bullet into the only surviving eye on the burned face.

  16. Surgery-4

  The two soldiers with the cart had already got through the gate and were outside; the other two, one of them wounded, were almost at the exit, when ammunition started to explode. Bronson shuddered from the impact. It felt as if his back and legs had been hit by a sledgehammer, and he lost his balance, falling to the hot floor with burned soldiers hitting him. Chief tried to get up, soldiers coming to help.

  “Faster, the foot is about to collapse!”

  Two soldiers lifted him, while another one picked up the wounded, and together they escaped from hell.

  “Medic!”

  The fire at the warehouse continued, but now it wasn’t their problem. The main problem now lay on the steel cart, towed to a safe distance and surrounded by soldiers. Bronson looked at the charred sphere, while the doctor removed his burned protective suit and applied an anesthetic.

  “Who shot me?”

  “No one. This isn’t bullets or buckshot; you were hit by brick rubble. The armor on your back withstood the blow, but your legs are badly affected.”

  Chief was aware of that without the doctor telling him. He could see his blood-soaked trousers and feel how much blood was in his shoes.

  “Will I be able to walk?”

  “Yes, you will. Why did you go into the fire? We need to get you to a hospital, there…”

  “I can’t go to the hospital yet. Get me the patron!”

  The patron had been trying to solve questions of salvage, so the soldiers quickly led him to Bronson.

  “How many people did you send with us to the warehouse?”

  “T
wenty-one, senor. It seems that none of them returned.”

  “Okay, so it should be. No survivors!”

  “I got it, senor.”

  The ball had already been covered with black fireproof cloth and was fixed for loading on the rover. Bronson was ready to make the call; he wasn’t planning to let anyone else steal the glory.

  “I have the cargo. I repeat, I have the cargo, ready for transportation to the base!”

  “Condition?”

  “Your ball was badly burned. We had to take it out of the fire.”

  “Losses?”

  Bronson thought for a moment. From the first group they had managed to save only two men, both badly burned, so it was not certain if the hospital would be able to save them. Two more soldiers were missing, and their bodies would only be retrieved after the fire was out. The three marines killed in a padded Hummer he didn’t count, they were from the base and so were subject to other commanders.

  “Two killed, two wounded. No witnesses.”

  “Stay on the base until further notice. The receiving team has already taken off and, if necessary, you will offer them support.”

  “Roger that.”

  He had double vision in eyes from loss of blood and was under the effect of a powerful anesthetic, but still Bronson watched the loading of the ball in the armored truck, and only then allowed Doc to lay him on an ambulance stretcher. The work wasn’t finished yet, because now he was responsible for the mysterious cargo.

  17. Lines-4

  Immediately after takeoff, Walt’s thoughts went back to the lines, only now it wasn’t an attempt to solve an interesting scientific problem; he now believed that the lines were the key to the crisis, which was becoming more and more real. First Prometheus crashed, and not where expected. Then the lander was found by fishermen. And then, where it was found, for some unknown reason a battle had begun. The Special Combat Group had been sent for the lander, but in any case it’s another unfortunate accident. Even worse - perhaps it’s no accident, but regularity.