Напряжение / Voltage: Пролог

Prologue

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:23

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Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:23

The great water was slowly receding, exposing a rocky bottom littered with gray cobbles. Soon the slow exhalation of the northern river would be replaced by inhalation, and the channel would fill up again - as it had been yesterday, as it had been hundreds of years ago. Nature is slow and doesn't like changes. Unlike people.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:27

"How much longer?" The dapperly dressed young man asked, flashing the gold of his watch on his chain.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:28

He was cold in his perfectly tailored suit, his feet were freezing in his fancy shoes, and the angry wind was always trying to tear off his hat.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:29

"Half an hour more, and we'll make it," the short, stout man assured me sedately, glancing up at the sun. But he could not refrain and also clicked the oval of the watch cover, admiring the expensive gift. The caretaker of the forgotten nature reserve liked to look like the guests from the capital. He copied their gestures and words, smoked thin cigars without feeling taste, and even dressed similarly - on his first visit, the guests gave enough to order a fine suit and now proudly walk along the river bank in it. Only high hunting boots with ironed pants tucked into them spoiled the picture, but there were no fools to freeze their feet in this weather.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:31

Hearing the forecast, the aristocrat's companions shivered. The townsfolk. A gentle breeze is a bad weather for them. Though, all of them looked chunky and dangerous, with their guns protruding at the corners under their thickly tucked brown jackets. But not bandits, no. Aristocrats have everything by law, and the right to shoot toys for themselves and their entourage are given to them from the cradle. Perhaps the caretaker, too, would be given a nice chrome pistol - he hoped so. So he helped with all his might. And he did not notice what his duty was to see and what his conscience was to report.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:34

"Unless this one's lying," muttered one of the retinues, squinting at the old man's wheelchair and the fidgeting doctor nearby.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:36

Perhaps the only two people in this strange group were not cold. The doctor wore a warm jacket over his snow-white robe and was quite comfortable in the bracing northern weather of early summer. The other did not care - his face was covered by a mask that supplied his lungs with a wild mixture of painkillers and narcotics.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:36

Sometimes the old man's body would shiver, not from cold but from hatred for those around him, but at those moments, the attendant would unscrew the valve of the cylinder connected to the mask. Then the body, wrapped in the filthy rags that had once been an elegant beige suit, would freeze again, allowing everyone around it to sigh softly.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:38

"What is it, about twenty centimeters deep?" the aristocrat asked impatiently, looking at the rocky ledge from which the wave was rolling back lazily.

Camrad_RIP 16.05.23 в 18:38