Cats we threw Max, from the room, located next to the camera that I already knew, adding that they will not be needed for experiments. Still from this biological laboratory we were given old equipment, suitable for games balls with badges, small gates and feeders, similar to a maze.
The old shabby cat is just a real circus. She knows how to make all kinds of funny things. Of course, she was trained for a long time. Seeing the labyrinth, Jess jumped into it, reached the feeder and pressed the lever. Not waiting for a treat, incensedly hissed, rushed to the balls, shook them face and paws at the gate so that the signs on the balls and baskets exactly matched.
She sat down again, mewed unpleasantly and looked at us questioningly.
A kitten with a torn ear, called my new friend Marcy, does not know anything of the kind. But he is very affectionate, he climbs on our shoulders, purrs and tickles his mustache.
The doctors came from the laboratory, muttered that the animals had come to us here by mistake, the experiment is not over yet. They pushed the kitten and cat into a cage, and dragged away with them.
We returned two days later, just as unexpectedly.
It seems that with our pets there have been changes. The old cat stopped, as before, climbing through the labyrinth in search of food, lost all interest in the balls and toy gates. But she became more trustful, and completely stopped sizzling. She tried to climb us to play, but she did not hold her paws, and she fell down.
Marcie, on the contrary, loved the labyrinth, without errors found the right path, pushed the balls into the goal, like a real football player.
We played with balls, cats, cubes Logo, ate apples, drank milk. All perfectly! But suddenly she began to cry.
Whats the matter? Is it because our house has crumbled?
Dean! My mom is coming tomorrow. She will take me with her, very far away. The doctors said, we will part, theres nothing to be done. But, I would like to be friends with you always. Lets run away from here?
I answered in the sense that the doctors on duty are exaggerating everything, we will meet again. Believe me! Everything, as Max says, will be Excellence.
Marie was a little cheerful, promised to give gifts, which will necessarily bring Mom Raiss, and again began to play.
This night could not sleep. Although the children here for some reason are considered not too smart, I learned something. Open the doors. Easily! Marie and I showed you how. You just need to click on the worn-out buttons of the electronic lock. Then the light will turn green, click at the door and you can wander around the body.
I crept along the corridors, quietly, like a cat. As if I knew where I could see my girlfriend again.
Mari went to the turnstile to the exit. She saw me, stopped and said something quickly to her accompanying doctors.
There were on duty orderlies.
Marie!? I cried out, I could not think of anything else.
At that moment doors opened at the other end of the corridor. Of them, a very old woman almost crawled out-a pale, thin face, faded eyes, and disheveled gray hair. Something in her seemed familiar. Elizabeth, Maries mother? And not only she.
Dean, its me! Help me!
What kind of miracles?
The big-time nurse grabbed Miss Elizabeth and dragged her deep into the corridor, despite all her cries. I did not think that with respectable parents, the sponsors of the whole organization of the Heirs, you can behave this way.
When I turned, Marie had already gone somewhere.
All this happened quickly, so that Im not even sure if it really was. Marie betrayed me? They are like that, girls.
Well, so be it. Soon they will come to me too.
The choice I made. The name on a piece of paper, drawn from the roller coaster of the same leaves in the baseball cap. I signed the document, handed the message to Max, he praised me and sent a message to the one who was lucky today. Alright enough.
Its time to sleep.
Hello! Im with you again! Messages are sent around the Globe. Companions, branch directors, middle managers and ordinary employees! I look forward to congratulations on my new birthday!
Salute, my dear dogs! Who is it that growls at me here? Ah, yes, a new smell, without the amber of tobacco and medicines. It is necessary to get used.
Now it is possible, as it was dreamed all these years, to run out into the garden on young feet, to eat the living, torn from the branches by their own hands, apples.
To convene an extraordinary board of directors.
Quit smoking now its easy.
Plan a pleasant trip to an exotic country.
Sim-Sim! Open it! You, too, come in handy, a book with a lock. It is necessary only to pull out several pages with other peoples scribbles do not disappear, in fact, good!?
Its nice when, after ninety-eight, youre twelve again, maybe already, and a half years old. Its good to be such a mom. Excuse me, how do these boys go to the toilet in a small way? Unusually, of course, but it turns out, extraordinarily convenient.
Of course, I will quickly understand everything. Everything will be, as my doctor says, Excellence! If a person has worked hard with hard work, he is able to solve any problem. The main thing do not whine, keep your nose in the wind, never give up. Then the whole world will necessarily turn to you face. And, yes, theres one more thing.
You can eat as much as you want, caviar.
New people
Joe pulled the handle to himself, slightly to the left, to the right and the helicopter, dancing in the air, leveled off.
We must land in the area of 3040, Joe scowled. Kerosene was twenty-five, almost thirty minutes. And still need to lubricate the gear of the tail rotor.
Whose state is this? Roger nodded to the plain, covered with millions of bumps and holes.
Rats, of course, Joe laughed. Who else could turn a field into a holey cheese? It took only three weeks of intensive picking.
Rats? Nonsense. We flew here with François two months ago, with a load for a large community of amphibians. In the Allien-5 sector, mostly crocodiles live, then hippos and turtles.
Where do you see the channels? Said Joe maliciously. He handed control to a colleague, straightened his faded helmet on a wet head, took out a broken cigarette from his secret pocket, clapped three times with a homemade lighter, and puffed up. No one. Crocodiles can not live without having to make daily exercise on their smelly ditches. The rats won this fat piece of real estate just a month ago, and now, look, they managed to change everything in their own way.
Fast work. Well done, Roger said sadly, and, casually pressing the handle of his knee, again reached for the flight card. Somewhere here, they say clever people, a rich and ownerless town is flourishing.
Thats right, son, Joe said. But cities in neutral zones are unreliable. Do you remember the brothers Solyar? those that flew on a frame, trimmed with plywood? Their cow was eating everything from machine oil to collection whiskey. They also decided to refuel from the gas station of the forgotten town.
So what? Roger asked after a pause.
Disappeared with the helicopter.
And still have to take risks. He is justified. Pilot shoved the card into the interlacing of wires sprouting under the panel, pulled a smoky mouth near the lips and threw it through the hole in the fuselage. I did not want to talk about it, but in fact, in all our caches there was not a drop of that which is capable of somehow burning. If we stop fulfilling transport orders, soon the helicopter will be taken away for our debts, and they themselves will be determined by the workers in the possession of the millers. Imagine me, the decrepit Joe Penkin, who were harnessed to the mill wheel of the union of intelligent donkeys for days. Maybe you guys like turning turns like fortunes, but Im going away from such entertainments.
You could have warned me, Roger grumbled. Id grab a piece of iron.
Why in advance think about the unpleasant? Joe said philosophically. And about your reputable piece of iron, in the salon, under Franzoiss leather jacket.
Everything with her?
A bucket of cartridges, all in grease.
Okay. Sit down. There is nothing to do.
The helicopter laid a bend over a strip of forest, dropped to the tops of power lines and rushed along the highway, scattering dust clouds and crumpled cardboard boxes. This maneuver was practiced by the Solari brothers, claiming that he introduces the inhabitants of an unfamiliar place to a state of panic.
Local if they are, will they take us for a van of bandits?
Yes.
Will they barricade the road?
Correctly.
And we meanwhile we will make a semicircle, and we will calmly milk the gas tanks on the opposite end of the city?
Exactly.
Will this help?
I do not know.
Again!
Roger snatched up the notebook and began to scribbly scoop the oiled pages with the stub of a chemical pencil.
Whole crop circles, Joe cursed softly. Hedgehogs in the mating season rush around the spikelets and display meaningless patterns. Its time to shoot them, poison parasites with dead fertilizers Transform-10. The colonies of people they caused considerable damage. When do you, Roger, stop believing in the messages from above?
These drawings are all more complicated. Thats a warning, Josh.
From whom?
Of aliens, of course. Look at these ovals, connected by curved lines. If we imagine that they are signs of reason, entering infinity, denoted by three rhombuses
Joe pulled the handle so hard that the facade of the multi-storey building seemed to be a continuation of the highway for a moment. A flock of smoldering pigeons flew from the split windows. In the salon of the helicopter something terrible crashed into the wall, rolled over the skin and spread in the air with a long reverberating ringing.
Im going to throw up now, Roger groaned. How tiresome these maneuvers are!
And I was hoping you would be distracted from gloomy thoughts, the senior pilot smiled humorously. But, look, look, is it not a gas station near the e supermarket?
Its a garbage carrier, Roger said quickly. If the books do not lie, on such wheelbarrows they used to transport containers with waste.
What for?
Well, that did not interfere near the house.
Is not it easier to burn garbage in the yard? Or to prikopat? And it is better to leave it in reserve?
Im not stuck, either, Roger sighed. Well, there are wild rats in the garbage. Or poisonous insects.
Its easier to negotiate with rats than with pigs, Joe authoritatively stated, thrust his hand into the socket of the wiring and, taking out the cracked polarizing glasses from there, hoisted it to his nose. You know, Laurie and Peak are our faithful friends. You can not talk about all rats scornfully. This is the first sign of non-tolerance.
The right canned food! Roger, dismantling the inscriptions on the tags, sat with the butt of a plywood box, which, dryly grunted, showed lines of cans with coiled labels.
A dirty trick, Joe sniffed. Of course, they are spoiled.
Why? Roger on a cowboy stuck a knife in the jar, licked the blade. For thirty or even fifty years of storage nothing happens to them. Botulinum toxins, they develop when Look, beans, kidney beans, sweet corn, mushrooms, soybeans and even he lowered his voice pork. Yes, here, probably, any such forbidden remains. Lets check.
Roger quickly galloped along the steep escalator to the top floor. Here he saw the crooked racks, stationery, faded cards and rolling globes rolling on the hollowed-out floor.
Oops! The pilot exclaimed exultantly. He threw the shooter behind his back, squatted and, surprisingly like a large rat, began to raptly heave piles of papers.
Why do we need this waste paper? We must firmly stand on the ground. We take the most calorie food and quickly leave.
Look, there are beautiful heifers, brand new cars, tricky equipment. Roger was shocked with a bunch of magazines. And there are articles about aliens. Nonsense, of course, but amusing. The world of the past is just a colored dream after a glass of antifreeze.
After an hour the salon filled with trophies; banks, bottles and yellowed leaves, on which schemes of organic molecules alternated with photos of seductive beauties. Roger screwed the buckets, filled with engine oil, so that they do not roll over.
Its done, said Joe contentedly. We fly home, clever.
Wait!
Solari!? Dugong! Luke! Roger cheerfully cursed, with a grating put the shooter on the fuse. What are you doing here?
We want to, Luke replied rudely. How are you?
They were going to look out for your bodies and spare parts, but there was no kerosene. Actually, here we are about this. Alla and Ellina managed to make new friends. So, with your cowboy misfortune?
Nothing special, Luke grumbled. The injector seems to be clogged. The reducer thunders like gravel. Banks flow. Our aircraft needs urgent repairs, and you will help us. Pilots are brothers, after all. Do not you want to look at the malfunction? Luke looked inquiringly at the aviators.
The pilots circled the enchanting barkhans from cars, iron, rusty shields, lampposts, garbage cans and wire twisted by flames mixed with past shocks.
When Dugonja was behind Roger, he very deftly grasped the machine gun by the belt and swung it aside. A metal thing, with a grunt like a vicious cursing, jumped off the concrete curb and dived under the belly of a long truck.
You are what? Roger produhdalal was dumbfounded.
Yes, brother, Solyar smiled apologetically. We were instructed to do it without stupidity. In general, we all were lucky. Welcome to the Citizens Society of Winville.
Piles of wooden cubes on the streets, as if by a click of an ultrasonic whistle, inaudible by the human ear, roared and twitched. Earlier they could be taken for piles of rubbish, in artistic disorder piled along the roadside. But that was the house of the novus. Soon new people appeared themselves. For some time they were ominously silent. Then they moved towards the pilots, fingering almost synchronously, like a multi-legged insect.
When the night fell with a huge black sack, the mills wheel stopped with a vile squeak. Joe unbuttoned the harness strap and waved to the corner of the pit without a hitch, on the gray heap of rags and papers that served as a bed. In a second the old pilot snored.
Roger, left alone, realized that he would not sleep today. I wanted to chat uncontrollably. How did the people get here? What is the future facing? He knew that in three or four weeks such work would be silenced, he would walk like a blind horse, without a glimpse of thought, in a circle, twirl the grindstone of the mill, swallow dust, wipe the sweat. Without rest, without sleep, until it falls, forever throwing back the hooves.
He threw back the strap, sighed sadly and sat down on the box of canned food.
Adhere to the bottle with a broken neck.
Its an ugly drink, he said deliberately loudly, rinsed his throat and poured water into a pitcher for washing.
Joe was speechless.