Volper

by Ros Per

  Walking along the road, he jumped up a couple of times, shaking himself off from the remnants of some kind of yellowish substance, which, under the influence of gravity, simply flowed from him along a thin film of the energy that the shield covering Krill’s body and ammunition projected. Returning the blades to his back, he waved his hand, telling me to follow him further. Having caught up with him, I was a little to the left and behind him, and decided to try to get the answers to the questions of great interest to me. Even if he doesn’t answer, It’s not like I’ll lose anything.

  - How far away are we? – Krill, in response, raised one finger. – One minute? – He shook his head. – An hour? - Now he nodded. - Well! Then you have time to answer a few of my questions, - he twisted his nose a little, but nodded reluctantly. - Then, first, can you explain to me how you found me? -

  "The answer that I just waited for you won’t satisfy you, right?" - He typed on the tablet.

  - Of course not.

  “Ellie told me when and where I should wait for you.”

  - How is she?

  “She’s fine, she sends you her regards. She will go with the nearest convoy to the main base. She’ll be completely safe there.”

  - That's good news; if you see her, say hello to her and give my best wishes.

  "I will most likely not see her in the near future; I don’t plan to go down from the upper levels within the next week"

  - The upper levels? So you have bases below as well?

  Krill abruptly stopped on the spot and, turning to me, carefully looked at me, obviously thinking about something. I would’ve given a lot for the opportunity to understand what he was thinking about, because, hoping that he’d be talkative, I kept asking important questions and it turned out to be secret information. At the same time, I understood him perfectly. If information about the approximate location of their base were to fall into the wrong hands, raids are sure to happen there. Having made a decision, he quickly typed a message and showed it to me.

  "That’s it! Stop questioning me!"

  Then he turned away and moved on in complete silence, choosing only the route known to him. So we walked in silence, broken only by the sound of our footsteps. The only moment that strained me in the course of our journey was that no one attacked us all the way there. We just kept going, periodically changing direction, and it all seemed to work out. How did he know where to take us? I couldn’t figure it out, it was either Krill's skill or he just knew a safe way.

  As a result of changing direction many times and periodically making our way through various buildings or basements, we went out to a well-preserved high-rise building of about fifty floors. At first, when we began to climb up it, I thought that the laboratory we needed was on one of the floors, but as it turned out, I was very much mistaken. The end of our journey was on the roof, where Krill led me to one of the ventilation outlets, handed me a tablet with the text on it and, turning around, went back the same way we’d climbed up here. I needed to know if he’d been offended by me, but he offered me no clues. Okay, guess I’ll read the farewell letter which he’d left me.

  “You seem to be a sane man, but ... In general, there are already very few of us left, so giving away even a piece of information is putting our survival at risk. And we have enough problems without the punitive squads of your government coming for us. Now, let’s get to the point. Through the ventilation entrance, near which I’ve left you, you can get into a very old laboratory, about which very few people know, it remained hidden even when the fifth level was being occupied. I don’t know why Ellie convinced the Old Wise Man to do so, but he decided to give you the information on how to get there. Remember it, or better yet, save this text. After the entrance, at the second turn, turn right, then walk past three intersections and turn left, then go straight on until you reach the mine, going vertically downward. I don’t know in which condition it is now, but earlier, there was a ladder made of special brackets, for the maintenance staff to service the ventilation. Go down twelve floors and get into the left wing. There are no turns, so go straight on. At the dead end, there is a large fan, which, in theory, should inject air into the ventilation system; you need to get behind it. The passage that follows it will lead you to another vertical shaft, so go down that mine to the very bottom, until you stop at the filtration bulkhead. You need to get even lower, and what's next - I don't know, the lab territory already begins there. Be careful, because when it was mothballed, it was left in a combat mode, with all the security systems on. By the way, while in the ventilation, you shouldn’t relax too much, as medium-sized monsters like to settle in such places. It seems I’ve written everything you need... Oh, I forgot one thing - only the Old Wise Man and Ellie know about our meeting. Therefore, I don’t recommend you talk to anyone about it, don’t even think of going to other psionic. There aren’t many of our people left, but if you attempt to betray us, they’re mostly high level and… They’ll kill you without even saying a word. And now that’s everything, good luck to you, and thanks again for saving Ellie.”

  Well, now I get it. I should be grateful for this, I think. Stowing my tablet, I began to inspect the ventilation grid and, without finding any bolts or other locking mechanisms, I decided to just pull it out. Often, they just put them in the grooves, and it’s held solely by small clips. The grid wouldn’t open, even when I put my feet on the base and tried to pull it out not only with the help of my arm muscles, but also with the force of my back, which provided a lot more force when one is using the lumbar muscles.

  It still wouldn’t open; I had to get a knife and try to pick it up at the junction with the weight of ventilation grid holding it. In one of the places where I was picking with the knife, a small layer of rust fell off, and only then a gap appeared, in which the frame of the grid began to move freely. I had already thought up some super hidden locking mechanisms, but it turned out that the grid had just been stuck to the base for so many years, and now it was kept there solely by rust. After spending about twenty minutes removing the rust around the entire contour of the grid and hitting it with my foot with all the force I could muster a couple of times, I was finally able to open the entrance to the ventilation path.

  Having examined the passage that I could see, using a tactical flashlight mounted on the right side of the barrel of my machine gun, I was more or less satisfied. The ventilation opening, to my surprise, was quite large: around one square meter, in which, if desired, you can move even while squatting. True, you have to curl up a lot, and the muscles could get tired. But the main thing is that it’s possible, and in the case of meeting some creatures, it’s not necessary to unravel in battle in the poses described in one of the oldest books, in which there are sixty-four of those poses. Well, they are intended for other purposes, but these are merely details. Now I was puzzled by two questions that need to be resolved before I climbed into this ventilation.

  The important question was what I would do with my backpack? Right now, I can climb through that air vent easily, without taking it off, but if the dimensions of the opening decrease further, there will be a problem with going forward, and getting rid of it in a confined space will be a problem. Another problem were the spiders’ webs, which was hanging in different places of the passage. They were scattered at fairly large distances from each other. If it were all in real life, I would’ve burst through it without even thinking twice. And here I am, standing around, looking at it and pondering - is this decoration or do spiders really live here? I don’t suffer from arachnophobia, but if I meet a spider with a carcass that occupies all the space between the walls, it will be extremely unpleasant, especially if I have to wade through the corpse of such a creature.

  Having opened the inventory window in the neural interface, I began to look through the contents of the backpack, choosing what might be useful to me while going into the ventilation system, so as not to take off the backpack once again. By the way, I’d been pleasantly surprised by the undocumented poss
ibility of Carefire’s gift. As I’d later found out, all types of storage with a miniaturization system, like my new backpack, have the function of connecting to a neurointerface or external devices for displaying objects stored within. This feature greatly simplifies the selection of items that need to return to their original dimensions in a special compartment. My backpack had such a compartment in the upper half. The drawback was only that during the process of miniaturization or the return to the original size, the neck of the backpack had to be closed, which increased the time of filling and unloading the backpack. However, if there is already an item in the compartment, the recovery process won’t start.

  So, what have we got here? Extra cartridges, well, I still have enough of that stuff. Grenades as well, they are in the pouches. Food, medicine, and a set for cleaning weapons ... It's not all that I’ve got here. Yeah, here's a repair kit, it could be useful if you need to destroy the grid again somewhere. I pressed the "restore" button and took out a soft case from the backpack, with a set of screwdrivers, a small hammer, nippers, pliers and a bunch of any other knick-knacks inside it. Having fastened a cover onto the belt, I looked through the contents of my backpack again.

  The analyzer isn’t needed, the night-vision device seems to be necessary, but on the other hand, I can use the flashlight on the machine gun. Okay, I won’t take it with me. It seems to me that that's all. Oh, no. I’ll get another rope with a set of carbines and a good descent system, it can be tossed in under the backpack. Well, I’ll get one gas cylinder with a side burner – it’ll burn the web in front of me, so that it doesn’t stick to the weapon. It seems a trifle, but if a lot of cobwebs fall into the bolt group, due to the stickiness, the mechanism could end up jamming.

  Checking the weapon, which was in operational access, and mentally getting myself ready, I climbed into the ventilation system. I decided to crawl, keeping the machine gun on the crook of my elbow. Here, I had to have my flashlight removed from the machine gun and mounted on the right side of my helmet. The saddest part of my journey through the ventilation shafts was that I had been preparing so hard, and until the filtration bulkhead, I didn’t come across even a single cockroach. I was standing on a massive bulkhead, covered with the large cells of the primary filter for the air flow, and pondering how I can get further.

  The total thickness of this filter wasn’t visible, although from my side, the first cells had a width of about a centimeter, but on the second layer, in one such cell, seven smaller ones were already fitted, and with each new layer, the cells became smaller. But six pairs of tight-fitting metal strips, diverging from the center of the bulkhead, and especially the barely noticeable joints between them, gave hope that this filter was open for maintenance.

  After forty minutes of walking around in a circle along the walls of this shaft to examine the premises carefully, and not finding the technical hatch for opening the system of this bulkhead, I just wanted to toss a couple of more powerful grenades and blow everything up, but, finally, I got lucky. At eye level, near the staples serving as a ladder, I finally found the fucking mechanism. To my surprise, both the electronic opening panel and the mechanical one were there at the same time. It seems that the mechanism was built by the military, since there is a safety opening system.

  Fucking engineers! Fucking military men and all those who came up with this garbage! Can anyone explain why there were already twelve filtration bulkheads installed here?! If only they had installed two or three. Even if you want to make sure, let it be five, but not twelve! Not just that, but each bulkhead also had an opening mechanism in a new location, making me “super ecstatic”. Each bulkhead had a second mechanism at the bottom, a mirror image, and until you closed the first filter, you wouldn’t be able to open a new one.

  I am beyond words! Only obscenities are appropriate here. Getting out of the ventilation pipe into a small room, I decided to calm down. Let’s forget about the fact that it took me several hours to get here; the main thing is that I am now in the laboratory and, judging by the equipment surrounding me, I am now in a miniature life support station. Quickly inspecting a small room and finding nothing interesting there, I moved to a grayish plastic door, which didn't even have a deadlock – it just had a turning knob, so that the door wouldn’t open on its own.

  I had almost grabbed the handle, when I remembered Krill’s warning that the base had been left in combat mode. Gently moving my hand away from the handle, I pushed the door that opened in the opposite direction from me, and immediately jumped back, which most likely saved me. The door instantly turned into a kind of sieve, since something was firing at it until the remains of the door were left on the floor. That’s strange, why is there no alarm system? Picking up one of the large fragments of the door, which had been thrown aside, I carefully crept to the doorway and threw it into the corridor at a height of one meter above the floor.

  Big bullets immediately pounded into the walls and floor of the corridor, following the movements of the parts of the door, not keeping up with its speed for quite a bit. Judging by the circumstantial track, there is a turret in the corridor, or something like a machine gun, equipped with a motion sensor. Well, thank god, at least it’s not a thermal sensor, they are much harder to deceive. I’d like to know what speed it reacts to, but I haven’t got any other large pieces, so I’ll have to figure it out on the go.

  Taking out two magazine cases from the machine gun, I stood for some time, examining the colored markers on them. Armor-piercing incendiary is better for use against various equipment, where the incendiary element is a plasma capsule, but the problem is that I took just three magazine cases of these with me. And while I have a lot of armor-piercing bullets, they would do much more poorly under these conditions.

  They are best used against armored mobs or well-protected infantry. Okay, let's choose the armor-piercing-bursting ones; God knows what things or creatures I could be facing next. Replacing the magazine case in the machine gun, I threw off my backpack so as not to be disturbed by it, appreciating the increase in the damage rate of the machine gun. I was quite satisfied with it.

  Automatic submachine gun "MK-176"

  Ammunition: 6.08х42

  Combat Rate of Fire (per minute): 30

  Shooting modes: single, automatic

  Installed modules:

  Collimator sight

  Fire arm

  Tactical flashlight

  Condition: 98%

  Weight: 2.5 kg

  Threaded cartridge "6.08х42"

  Kinetic damage: 12-17

  Penetrating damage: 29-37

  Condition: 100%

  Cartridge weight: 9.3 g

  Preparing three smoke grenades, I threw the first one into the corridor at a slightly different angle, so that after the smoke cloud vanished, I could view the sensors on the doorway. After throwing the grenade, I immediately heard how the machine gun started to fire, trying to hit the small smoke grenade. A moment later, a slight hiss of smoke was released, followed by a sharp pop. Well, the bastard had been shooting and managed to get the grenade, and now things are even better for me. Instead of a gradual release of smoke, the entire space would be filled with the smoke now, flooding the corridor with heavy, concentrated clouds of smoke.

  I ended up so disappointed. The machine gun wouldn’t stop shooting, reacting to the movement of the clouds of smoke, though it was now randomly firing around the corridor. But suddenly, the air extraction system was turned on and that was the biggest problem: I hadn’t taken that into account when planning. Now, instead of a few minutes, the smoke would be there for less than ten seconds. I had to change the plan on the go, and instead of consistently moving under the cover of smoke, I would have to go for a breakthrough. I threw the second grenade out of the doorjamb, putting out only my hand; the third went in the same way, with the only difference being that I had already thrown the last one with all the force I could muster.

  I had to step back, submachine gun in hand, and remove
it from the fuse. One, two – followed by jumping into the corridor and gaining speed blindly through the smoke. A strong blow to my left shoulder almost turned me around, but there was no pain: either the armor hadn’t been pierced, or the bullet had passed on a tangent. Judging by the sound of the active machine gun, it was under the ceiling, twenty meters ahead. I was running, picking up speed, focusing on the sound of the machine gun, counting my steps along the way. Seven steps – and a small ringing noise from the right side of my helmet informed me that another bullet had just passed along a tangent, but hadn’t hit my head, which meant it had almost missed me and I’d been lucky.

  Fifteen steps more – and there is almost no smoke, the next thick cloud is far ahead of me, but the turret attached to the ceiling is very close by. For the moment, it’s shooting in the opposite direction, along a cluster of smoke from the third smoke grenade, which had flown further. Twisting my body a little, I dive forward like a fish and land on the right side, turning onto my back. A well-polished floor, plus the speed gained by the run-up pulls me onward, forcing me to slide on my back. I set the machine gun on my shoulder and shoot the turret, trying to hit the fixtures on the ceiling.

  Even if I didn’t shoot it off, there was a big chance that the turning mechanism would jam. The force of my slide moved me another half a meter away from the turret, but by that time, the machine gun's rifle had come off the ceiling because of the explosive bullets crashing into it, and it fell to the floor. More precisely, it would’ve fallen to the floor, if my slide hadn’t ended at that very moment. The machine gun landed on the joint between the upper and lower half of my body. True, it didn’t inflict damage, but the blow was still very powerful. Shoving the remains of the turret off me and twisting into a fetal position, I grabbed my perineum with both of my hands.