Готовый перевод Хроники Аскета: Вторжение / The Ascet Chronicles: Invasion: Глава 4

Chapter 4

After all, conservatism is very much inherent in the military. Such a conclusion would be drawn by anyone who entered the Institute. It was located in a former military base near Moscow. The walls of houses painted dark green, an asphalted parade ground, a column of fir trees along the road. Except for the portrait of the President in the office of Colonel Sergachev, my new boss, and the tricolor flag, there were no signs of modernity. One could think that this was not the twenty-first century, but the seventies - so much like a Soviet military town from an old movie.

My escort turned out to be the same Moses Korobkov, who was interrogating me about the reasons that prompted me to go to the military: he was afraid of early death in the stomach of a stranger and convinced me that it was not too late to change my mind. It was a bit of fun to brighten up the boredom of the journey. The only way he left me was to promise me that I would come to him for hire after my legs had been bitten off.

However, when we entered the gates of the base, he stopped sulking and cheered up. Moreover, he took me by the arm (!) to the colonel, saluted me as if he had waved me off, sat down in the chair without permission, and stared at his superiors with faithful canine eyes. He had a wide smile on his face.

Sergachev looked dejectedly at his rival, turned his gaze to me, and said:

"Please, take a sit."

"Yes, Vitya, sit down, there's no truth in your feet!" chuckled Moses Lvovich. "Alexander Vasilyevich, this is Victor Andreevich Korobov, here for your training. Please love and welcome. My boys looked, he has power, asked to go to the Nests, has already climbed into one, very curious, so he was sent to you. Ninety-two points! And just in time, and the main thing is that there will be seven of them, a mystical number. You know, Pythagoras had seven children, and that at the age of sixty, so you also, Alexander Vasilievich, will have seven children, hee-hee!"

"Someday, "Korobok", I'll kill you," said the colonel thoughtfully, "for your idiotic jokes."
T.N.

"What kind of jokes, Alexander Vasilyevich!?"

Sergachev was no longer paying attention to Korobok and spoke to me:

"Victor Andreyevich, this base is full of people who have been exposed to the aliens and have acquired various abilities that are difficult to explain. Some of them, like you, have expressed a desire to participate in the fight against the invasion in the future, and, given your abilities, such help would come in handy. Therefore, a group has been created on this base to provide training in everything that can be useful in operations against the aliens. Everything we know at the moment." And immediately, without transition, he asked a question: "As far as I know, you're a completely civilian, you didn't serve in the military?"

"No, I didn't see the need. I have a bad stomach, that's why category "B"."

"Well, what can I say... it's going to be difficult at first..." The colonel grimaced slightly. "We have the same physical requirements as any of the elite units - Special Forces, Airborne, and the like. You were initiated about a week or two ago - so the body will soon be cleared, but still, physical activity at first will seem very heavy. When we will bring your physical condition to normal, we will work on energy, it does not make sense to include you in the main group earlier. You will have to catch up with me, but I`m not going to have any difficulties - the material is corrected constantly. Of course, the fact that you have not served, it's bad, it's hard to get in shape right away."

Sergachev seemed to me a good man, a workhorse, which is the reason why any structure exists, while the more cunning bosses fight over power. Strangely enough, he didn't ask me why I had chosen his group, but it was better for me: I'm not sure I could have answered clearly.

"Any questions or requests, perhaps?" Sergachev finished his story.

"No, perhaps later."

"All right. There are only seven people in your group, it will take six months of training, and then you'll be part of the mobile cleanup squad. If you can, try to learn faster - we don't know how to fight the creatures, so we hope that your group will gain the necessary experience. That's pretty much it. Korobok, will you escort Victor Andreevich? Kotelnikov is busy now, he'll be here in about twenty minutes."

After saying goodbye to Sergachev, Korobok and I - it's beyond my power to call him by his first and patronymic names - went to meet my future colleagues, or associates, or friends - as the case may be. During the whole way I listened to various suppositions about the similarity of our surnames, about intellectual capacities of the military - Korobok turned out to be a civilian expert, attracted by FSB and it was unclear how he had acquired his rank - and about sexual predilections of high ranking officials and colleagues. Soon I began to choke in a stream of information, oddly enough, useful and interesting. Only too much of it poured out on my head. Fortunately, we were there.

The room I was going to live in for the next six months was small and sparsely furnished. It was about three by four meters, with a bed, a closet rack, a table, and a chair.

I threw my bag into the locker:

"When will you introduce me to the others?"

"Don't you have anything to say about the room?!"

I looked around once more.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's small!!! You can't even put a normal closet in here!"

"There's a bed to sleep in, I'll eat lunch in the cafeteria, study in classrooms and outside, and I don't have a lot of clothes. Why do I need a big room?"

"But it's uncomfortable here!"

"Why?"

Korobok puffed unhappily:

"You, my dear fellow, are so ascetic."

Korobkov was exhausting, only a saint could stand him for long, so I took Sergeant Kotelnikov's appearance as manna from heaven. I could not have imagined that in a couple of days I would hate this man. Before the end of the evening, the sergeant showed me around the town, I got my uniform and learned how to salute properly - it turned out that I had been promoted in absentia to the rank of junior lieutenant, even though I had skipped the military department at the institute. But until the full course of study is completed, I have to stretch in front of every person in uniform, like this. They did not introduce me to my future classmates, saying that they were busy.

From the next day, all hell broke loose.

I got up at six o'clock, jogged three kilometers around campus. My legs hurt, my heart leaps out of my chest, my right side stings, and Kotelnikov rallies and laughs like a horse. The stallion, he's a male. I got angry tears in my eyes and was short of breath. After the run I have no energy at all, the foreman commands me to "rest", I fall to the ground.

I have an hour to get myself cleaned up and have breakfast. With great difficulty I got to the shower, the cold water made me wake up a little. Breakfast is swallowed in the blink of an eye, and Kotelnikov is already calling me after him. We go to the shooting range: I've never seen such machine guns, the recoil knocks out my shoulder. What does he shoot with? My shoulder is fixed, I shoot from the other hand. I'm at the range till noon, then I go jogging again, I do gymnastics. Lunch, an hour of free time.

The hand-to-hand combat classes begin, the foreman teaches how to work with a short sword, I have some experience - thank you, my native group! My arms fall off, my shoulders ache, the muscles in my abdomen are knotted into a single torn lump. A short meditation: focus on the point in the center of the abdomen, run the energy through the whole body, "Imagine a smile the size of the Milky Way!" Sword again, practicing blows, shoulders no longer moving. Dinner. I stare blankly at my plate, no strength to bring a spoon to my mouth. I slowly take my first sip to stay awake. In a minute, the plate is empty. Where did the food go, I do not understand. Kotelnikov calls me into the yard again, we learn kata. Ten o'clock lights out.

The next day I can't get up, the foreman throws me out of bed, rubs my body, and when I get sensitive he kicks me out into the yard. I go for a run, my muscles warm-up, an extra kilometer for being late, after breakfast I go back to the shooting gallery. My shoulder is sore: yesterday I had sort of knocked it out, and now there's a big bruise... We shoot at moving targets. Until the evening the program is repeated.

This is the third day. Or is it the fourth? I can't understand anything, my head is not thinking, my body follows Kotelnikov's commands like a machine, I fall asleep every chance I get. Sleep is happiness. Let me sleep for twenty minutes and you are my friend. And the sergeant is my enemy, he wakes me up. Why did I ask to come here? There was some silly reason, I don't remember what it was.

How long have I been here? I don't know. Now it's not just Kotelnikov who's tormenting me: two more men join him, I don't remember their names, I just address them as "Comrade Sergeant", the pace of training increases, there's absolutely no energy left.

Now I realize that my training was handled by high-class specialists, who determined exactly what workloads can be given to a beginner, which ones are too early. But at that time it seemed to me that a little more and I would die. Every day my teachers were proving that I knew nothing about the limits of my strength and were forcing me to reach those limits. The greatest mystery to me was why I did not rebel, did not refuse to continue bullying myself, and crawled outside at six o'clock every morning for a run. It wasn't pride - rather, it was the influence of Kotelnikov and his comrades. Not particularly educated, these people impressed me with their tenacity, perseverance, and efficiency, and when I was around them, the very thought of retreating seemed mean-spirited.

The pace taken would have killed an ordinary man, but Korobkov assured my tormentors that my body had already begun to change, and they chased me without mercy. One evening I noticed Sergachev next to me, closely observing the class. He called Kotelnikov, a short meeting followed - and they let me go. The sergeant had to repeat the order: I did not immediately understand what he wanted. When I did, I didn't believe him. I had enough power to crawl to the shower and fall into bed.

The next day after breakfast, Kotelnikov did not take me to the shooting range but instead gave me some good news:

"So. We think you're more or less human now, and we can put you in the whole group."

He was silent, letting me understand the meaning of his words, then he added:

"But we'll still be seeing a lot because you can't do much, your breathing is weak, and you have no stamina. Anyway, I'll introduce you to the others - you'll catch up with the material and you'll study with me again. Let's go."

I had never been in that part of the building to which the sergeant led me. We entered a small room, which reminded me of the biology classroom in my old school. The same desks, the teacher's desk, a drawing board with strange symbols scrawled on it, a pile of strange objects on the shelves, and posters of various animals. More specifically, aliens.

There were seven people in the classroom - the teacher and six students. A man with the appearance of a researcher, who was standing near the blackboard and interrupted when we arrived, nodded to the foreman:

"Thank you, foreman, you are dismissed." After that he turned to the class: "Well, gentlemen cadets, let me introduce you Victor Andreevich Korobov, from today he will be trained together with you. Semenov!"

"Yes!" A tall, gaunt, blond man stood up from his seat.

"You are assigned to supervise Korobov, so he should familiarize himself as soon as possible with the material you've already learned. Help him get used to it." He turned to me: "My name is Pavel Sergeyevich Chizhov, I am the curator of the group, I also teach you a course in xenobiology from the Research Department. Take a seat at your desk."

It was hard for me to adjust from the wild rhythm of training that I had gotten into lately, so I began to look at my future colleagues. They all looked alike - physically strong, sturdy, with short haircuts and an elusive aura of superiority and confidence in their abilities. Looking at these people, it became clear what Kotelnikov meant when he said that I was still growing up. I did look a little pale against the general background. With an effort of will, I forced myself to listen to the lecturer's words.

It was a speech about the classification of outsiders. Conventionally, they were divided into "officers" and "soldiers". An officer was any creature of a high level - what he meant by that term, Chizhov didn't explain - capable of using signs, soldiers were called all the rest. And sometimes a soldier was stronger and more dangerous than an officer. Based on the proposed classification, the creatures I knew were soldiers. The abilities of the aliens varied greatly; according to the lecturer, one could go through the entire Nest and never encounter two creatures of the same species. Apparently, the queen was creating a new individual for a specific task. The whole lesson was devoted to describing and showing drawings of different species of aliens; our task was to learn how to classify them and identify their vulnerabilities.

After the lecture was over, Semyonov came up to me:

"Sergey." I shook his outstretched hand. "But you can call me Student, I'm used to it. Where are you coming from?"

"From Moscow, I was checked and found a powerful shell. I asked to come here."

"No, I mean, what division did you serve in?"

"Nowhere." Of course, the question immediately arose as to why I was allowed to join the combat unit. I don't remember how many times I told my story. By the end of my story, the whole group had gathered around me.

"I see," stretched out the Student. "We were wondering why you're getting such an acent on physical training. That's Hawk, Executor, Beerbrewer, Whip, Wicked. Call them like that. In biology, I'll pull you. The best psionik is Executor. On signs refer to Whip. But in general, if you have any questions, anyone will tell you."

That's how we got to know each other. They weren't bad guys, although there was a certain condescending wariness in their attitude toward me. They were all professionals, had fought in various war zones before the invasion and had so much war experience that comparing me to them would be meaningless. On the other hand, two dead beasts and a single descent into the Nest earned their respect, so a certain credit of trust was given to me by the guys. In general, it was possible to communicate. However, it was a bit unusual to be addressed by their nicknames; at first, I tried to call them by their names, but soon stopped: as Wicked explained to me, "There are many Andrews, but Wicked is one".

Xenobiology was not particularly difficult, all I had to do was understand the terminology. The more difficult subject was psionics.

The nickname Executor was given deservedly. Of course, much was given by the teacher, but it was the Executor who explained in practice how to pump energy through the body, enter into a trance, block and exert psi influence, speed up the regeneration of wounds, and much more. The training was difficult, with periods of success followed by failures when the results of my efforts were disconcerting not only to me but also to my teachers. I had to go to the hospital twice, once with exhaustion, then I broke my arm breaking a brick. Not by breaking it, but by going through it.

The Executor's methods were often bizarre, to cite one example. I could not get the "aura of fear" - a mental trick consisting in influencing the brain of an object in such a way that the victim feels unreasonable fear and cannot attack the emitter, i.e. the psionic. The difficulty for me was not in my ability to project emotion but in my reluctance to come into conflict with the victim of the experiment. Roughly speaking, it was necessary to push, while I was circumventing. It took the Executor a long time to break this mindset, and one day he got tired of it.

Another session was held in a small shed behind the main building. My instructor brought in a huge box, in which something was scrabbling, and then he took out three pairs of handcuffs and briskly handcuffed my legs. I knew from experience that there was no use in resisting; the Executor did his work with the callousness and efficiency of a machine gun. Then he began to explain:

"This," he slammed his hand on the box, and there was a muffled growl in response, "Fritz, the man in your jacket had been teasing him for the previous two days." Now I know where it's gone. "You can't run away, you can't fight him off with your hands, he'll bite you, and you can't make him love you. Are you ready?"

"Fuck you..."

"So, you are ready."

The dog jumped out of the crate, circled it, sniffed, and turned in my direction. The sight of the big black Doberman with drool dripping from his mouth made my hair stand on end. My whole body trembled, a hot flash ran through my fingertips, the dog's movements began to slow down, and I realized that I could easily avoid the trajectory of its jump. Fear drove me into an "accelerated rhythm" for the first time in my life - a kind of trance, when the body perceives the environment several times faster. It is impossible to stay in such a state for a long time: the human body is not adapted to overloading, it cannot keep up with consciousness. I was in a state of panic and anger, so much so that I screamed right into the dog's grinning mouth.

The next thing that came to mind was the Executor's face peering up from somewhere above:

"How are you?"

He easily evaded my blow and crouched down on a crate:

"It was not a good thing with the dog. What am I going to tell the janitor now?"

The irrevocably dead Doberman lay on his side in a strange, twisted posture.

"What's the matter with him?" Why is my voice so hoarse? And why my face is wet?

"How can I tell you, Ascet... You overdid it a bit."

I owe my nickname to Korobok. He managed to tell the whole town that the new "super" doesn't drink wine - I used to have a stomach ache, now it is cured, but I still don't like the taste, - doesn't smoke, is not fanatical about women, doesn't play soccer, never smiles, quotes the Bible. That last one is true. I am not a believer, but I have read the Bible. Sometimes it is helpful to insert a quotation from scripture: my experience as a manager convinced me.

That's about how my training with the Executor went. However, psionics was considered unpromising: any alien could easily block the effects of a human, so we were trained with an emphasis on our defense and the detection of the enemy. Signs were supposed to be more effective.

No one could tell what it was. Simply, when the Invasion began, the first psions discovered a pattern: before strong influences, some aliens created energy constructs invisible to ordinary humans, the use of which led to strange and often bloody results. After many unsuccessful attempts, they managed to copy the most common sign and then use it against the creatures. The signs differed in the complexity of their creation and their energy content. As Whip explained, creating a sign required discipline to memorize the sign, patience to build it, and a high filling of the shell. However, the signs now known absorbed no more than twenty units.

To decipher this statement, discipline is required because of the difficulty of remembering the sign. Each sign exists in its own "space," and it makes no sense to perceive it with the eye: intuition and newly acquired psi abilities are involved.

After the sign was "decoded" by the human mind and translated into an understandable form, it took time to reproduce it. At first, a psionic must create a matrix, which requires a high filling of the shell - the energy is taken from there. That is, the higher the fill rate, the more often it is possible to create signs. Apparently, it was the same with the aliens. And only after the matrix has been created does it begin to be "filled" - poured with energy to activate the sign.

Now people knew six first-level signs, and there were stronger ones, but so far we hadn't been able to copy them. The first sign I learned, the Air Wall, stopped flying objects and made firearms ineffective. Compared to telekinesis, it was an easier and more reliable way to stay alive - the Air Wall could withstand not a couple or three shots, but an entire machine gun magazine. Fireballs were especially well-liked because of their simplicity, high killing power, and low cost, and were highly valued by all the psionics on the base. Speaking of which, superiors didn't encourage unauthorized study of the signs, considering it too dangerous. Rightly so, frankly.

Right after I made my first sign, I was returned to the tender arms of Sergeant Kotelnikov. Now, in addition to my basic classes - which were quite strenuous - I had two hours to study the program he had put together. I must say that Sergeant always tried to combine useful with something nice. He didn't make me do pull-ups, push-ups, and things like that. Instead, I ran for about five kilometers, went through an obstacle course, and waved a pole or a short, seven-centimeter-long sword tirelessly. The latter was one of our regular weapons, proving useful against creatures resistant to firearms. I remember the first day I wondered what it was for.

I had six hours of free time left, barely enough to get a good night's sleep. The body kept rebuilding itself. Chizhov claimed that eventually, it would take four hours a night to sleep. This was the moment I was looking forward to. On the other hand, the easier my workload became, the tougher the program became.

After about four months, my sparring stopped ending in defeats, and I was increasingly able to draw the duels. I didn't feel like a whipping boy anymore, and I was glad at first, but after watching the training bout between the Executor and Wicked, I realized that it was too soon to be proud. I was just being spared. I had a long way to go to reach the level of these people.

The program had changed. Now the main emphasis was on signs - the speed of matrix formation, keeping it in a stable state, filling it with energy, controlling the active sign and releasing it, "throw" in our jargon. The control was especially difficult: the instructor made me hold the sign and simultaneously recite poems by heart, spar or do complicated exercises on concentration. If I distracted myself for even a moment, the sign would sprawl, and I had to build it all over again.

There was increasing talk that we could be sent to the Nests. Intelligence had now managed to locate eight Nests in the country, three of them high level. After the horrific massacre that took place during the Oymyakon operation, the Army hesitated to go below the third tier and occupied the first two, mining the exits and occasionally firing on the creatures that crawled in from below. The troops desperately needed new ways to fight the outsiders, and weapons development was going on continuously, but the results were considered insufficient.

Nothing had changed fundamentally in the design of weapons since the Mosin rifle, and now a breakthrough was required. Electronics were failing close to the Nest, and communication was carried out in the great-grandfather's way - that is, by messengers. But psionics, albeit partially, could remove the problem. A strong trained psionic could tell where the soldiers were, what condition they were in, and whether there were casualties in the group. Even at a short distance, even such little things sometimes saved a lot of lives inside an alien space. Therefore, the superiors considered our training the most promising option and demanded results. The best indicator would be effective participation in the storming of the next Nest. Considering that our training was originally scheduled to be completed in six months, and now we were in our fifth month, we should have expected to graduate early.

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