Path part 1-6

The prologue.

The most ordinary day, or rather night, the most ordinary shift at a part-time job in a taxi. I pick up a customer at the address, another dyed blonde eager for a drink and dancing at the club. I've never understood such a pastime. Everything is as usual, the road is shiny with puddles in the holes in the asphalt, moderately broken but still allowing you to drive at a fairly decent speed, the joints of the overpasses protrude. From behind, the heart-rending howl of engines running at top speed approached. Walking at a speed of ninety, I am bypassed by two "chepyrki" (ВАЗ-2114), painted, tinted in trash, with loud rhythmic music bursting out of the windows. They pass and disappear ahead of us behind a smooth turn of the city chord. There's an interchange four kilometers away, so I'll have time to admire the jerks in the oncoming lane. I slow down automatically, there are speedcams ahead on a trellis farm thrown over the road, as soon as these assholes are not caught. The descent is smooth, and a couple can be seen flying around the bend on the oncoming lane. One of the "чепырок" flies into a puddle and catches an aquaplane at a speed of 180 degrees. Time has slowed down, and I'm watching what's happening in slow motion. The idiot skids, throws under the second one, and now two idiots are looping in the oncoming lane, hitting him with a swing against a metal bump on the right side, pieces of bumper fly, sparks, the car crumples into a shapeless lump of metal and plastic. Consciousness notes all this as if automatically. The second one hits the side of the high curb of the dividing strip, the car bounces, it flies sideways onto the divider and hits the metal fence post with all its might. Glass splashes, the rear bumper, torn off by inertia, slowly takes off, the car begins to tear in half, I see a long metal pin fly out from under the bottom and fly in a smooth parabola, rotating, in my direction. "Fucked up!" A piece of metal flies through my mind with a pop like a gunshot, smashes into the windshield, a blow to the chest, and the pain flares up and goes out. I slam on the brake, the car stops abruptly, I feel the jolts of my ABS in the pedal, the passenger squeals across the front seat, burying her face in the headrest. My swallow got up, the engine stopped, the locks clicked, automatically unlocking the doors.

"What are you doing!" Flying from the back seat. "You don't know how to drive at all! I'll report it to the dispatcher. They'll recruit anyone with purchased rights."

"You need to buckle up, you fool!" He floats listlessly in his thoughts. I look at the ragged hole in the windshield with cracks radiating in all directions. I look down, and there's a pin sticking out of my chest with a cut-off bolt at the end. "Why doesn't it hurt?" My consciousness begins to swim, and a hot feeling spreads in my chest.

— There's something sticking out of your seat, I've hurt myself! What's it? Is it sticky?" The ceiling switch clicks, flooding the interior with white LED light. "Ah-ah-ah!" It comes from the back seat.

"What are you screaming about? My ears are already ringing. Or is it just my imagination?" The ringing in my ears is getting louder, and black flies are in front of my eyes. "Why is there no pain?"

* * *

Darkness and silence, no sounds, no movement, no sensations. Only on the verge of perception is a feeling-a whisper-a thought:

"Forget everything, accept peace and oblivion, forget pain and fear, memories bring pain, why do you need them? Forget it, forget it, forget it..."

"Who am I! Answer me!" A thought flashes by. "I don't want oblivion! I want to remember!"

"Are you sure you want to?" It was as if a strange alien thought-feeling appeared nearby, there are no comparable concepts. "Are you sure that's what you want?" She repeated.

"Yes! Yes, I do. Give me back to you. You are welcome."

"As you wish."

And I remembered everything, my whole life, kindergarten, school, college, the army! I remembered my wife, my children, and my job at the factory. I remembered everything every day, and most importantly, I remembered my death.

"Fuck, did I die? Yes?"

"The biological shell has stopped functioning. But he died, it's pretty controversial, don't you think." They answered me.

"I think means I exist. So what is it?"

"Right."

"And what's next?"

"As you wish. You want to go back, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. Can I?"

"May. But with some condition."

"Like what?"

"People like you, those who have given up oblivion, are offered to return for a reason. They need to help the world they're being sent to. You will be given the skills and gifts to be able to cope with the task assigned to you."

"What are these gifts and skills?"

"Different, for example, how do you like absolute memory?"

"Normal."

"Is it okay?! The brute."

"And which world will I be sent to? What should I do there?"

"One of the worlds you know."

"What kind of acquaintances?! I've never been anywhere but Earth."

"Many of them are described in your fiction."

"So you're giving the authors plots! But why?"

"We can't interfere directly, but with the help of people like you, it's acceptable. You are bound by the laws of that world and you are mortal. Therefore, based on our forecasts and assumptions, we, in other worlds, using means of information delivery, such as books and others, raise people like you. And then we send you to help other worlds. Remember, what you have described is not identical to what you have in reality, but it is close, but not the same, and the forecasts are not absolute. Foreknowledge can fail you. Check it out."

"And if I fail? I'm not a superhero!"

"So we'll raise the next ones."

"What about me? What will happen to me?"

"If you don't break down, we'll send you somewhere else. There are many problematic worlds."

"What does it mean if I don't break down?"

"There are quite difficult situations there, but after all, a reasonable person cannot live in a vacuum, he acquires friends, relatives, and just reasonable relatives. Not everyone can stand losing then, oblivion awaits them. And after oblivion, what good are they? They leave for another incarnation in the usual way."

"And in case of victory?"

"You win first! If you win, we'll talk."

A crazy thought flashed through my mind:

"Oh, I'll turn around!"

"And so that you don't get distracted, I'll change the boundary condition. That's not why you're being sent there!"

"For what reason?"

"For everyone, for everything! As they like to say in your homeland. That's enough talking, you should go."

It feels like I'm falling, falling faster and faster. A dazzling white dot appeared ahead and began to grow rapidly. The dot turns into a cloud of light, the feeling of the body comes, it is compressed as in a vice, there is a soft elastic tightness and darkness around. I'm not breathing, what's going on? The darkness pulsates, strange sounds are heard, as if someone is moaning. My body is squeezed to the point of severe pain and pushes forward with my head, suddenly I am pushed into the light, it blinds everything around me with muddy, some colored spots, voices. Someone hits me in the ass, it hurts so much that I want to scream, I take a breath, my chest explodes with wild pain, I scream and pass out under my own scream.

Part 1. Chapter 1.

Eugene (Mendoir March — April 2355)

March 11, 2355

The realization came somehow suddenly, I saw a giant bending over me, he smiled at me and said:

"Who is it that I have here, so small, and no longer sleeps."

Damn, is he talking about me? And why is it small?! I tried to feel myself with my hands, and I broke off so abruptly, my hands! My fucking hands! THEY DIDN'T LISTEN TO ME! He tried to touch his face and stuck his finger in his own eye. Your mother's! I tried to swear, but instead it just came out.

"Augomugoao!"

Ooooh! I can't even speak properly! A complete polar fox! Have arrived...

The man picks me up, and I realize that my head is being pulled back so badly, I straighten it out with a noticeable effort, and slowly look around. It's nothing like the decor, laconic, futuristic, all kinds of screens, a huge window in the wall floor, furniture made of polished metal bent. A tablet is lying on the table, transparent glass, with glowing orange symbols. I'm the one who got into the future, and that's bread! I would have cast my voice in the Middle Ages, but it was really tough back then. There are no normal toilets, no medicine, you'll shudder when you think about dental treatment, the church is militant with all sorts of inquisitions! So I'll try to look at my hand anyway, if my bring it up to me face quietly, slowly... Oh, it worked, the hand obeyed! Adults don't have such hands, the fingers are plump, the nails are pink, so I'm a child, not a "Gulliver" in the land of giants! And the question about my little one remains open. How can I check that? What an ambush... Oh, I thought of it! I start kicking my legs and groaning! There is a contact! The guy bends down and takes out a metal pot from under the sofa, well, the most ordinary kind, my boys had the same in a previous life, only plastic and not stainless steel. So take off your pants and put me on an iron friend, slowly lower your head and!

Oppa! And HE's not there!That is, the dignity of a man! Fuck! Bitch! AAAhh! This is a boundary condition change, it's just fucking mean! But I really wanted to go to the bathroom, so we're doing it, hmm, it feels strange, different, damn it! Of course they are different, the platform is different!! Ehhh! Well, there's no way out, we'll get used to this one!

So it's done, they're probably carrying me to the bathroom. Exactly! Oh! The mirror! Come on, come on, let's look at ourselves, small as small, about a year old, a smile, oh, dimples formed on the cheeks! There are about eight teeth in his mouth. There's not enough hair yet, and the color is so strange, reddish like. The eyes are green, not GREEN like malachite! So they washed me, put my pants back on, and carried me back. We look around, it's spacious, there are a lot of windows, all kinds of equipment, oh, this is probably a TV! No shit, it looks like two meters diagonally! There are columns of one and a half meters on the sides with grids on the outside, columns probably. Everything turned off is flashing red lights! We returned to the same place we came from, the guy sat me on the couch, propped me up with pillows on both sides, put some crap with a pen in his hand, I shook it, and it started to sparkle, lights inside, bah, it's a rattle, so let's look at it more closely. Well, what can I say, nothing special, a transparent plastic ball with another ball inside, the second one with built-in LEDs, the handle is also made of plastic, only soft to the touch. And everything. Then I heard a "pssssssss" sound from the right, and there was a piece of wall moving so slowly, and the opening we entered was closing, Close. And on the wall to the right, a green circle lit up, about ten centimeters in diameter, and the circle itself seemed to be hanging in the air without touching the wall, wow! A hologram in no way.

Then I felt that someone was looking at me, so we turned our head slowly to the left. Wow! What a huge cat, bigger than my head, hefty, sixty centimeters at the withers! Thick long paws, a meter-long tail like a tube, and only the tip bends back and forth. He stands on the couch next to me and looks at me so intently with his green eyes.

The man sat down at the table and said:

"Is Barsik awake, Zhenya, and you're on guard duty?"

The cat looked at the man, stood on the pillow with his front paws, and folded into a ball, so that his head was right under my hand. I reached out and ran my fingers into the fur, and the fur was soft, I scratched him behind the ear with my little fingers, went down on his cheek, the cat threw his head back, purred like an engine. I was looking at the guy, and he turned sideways to the table, pressed something with his hand under the table, and in front of him a hefty hologram lit up for about a meter and a half. He put gloves on his hands with metal claws on the tips of his fingers, and as he began to feel in the hologram, he pokes somewhere from the left, then moves back and forth with both hands at once, then launches his hands into the hologram itself with fingers spread out as if holding something and twirling his palms as if turning. Bah, it's a big deal to see! I wish I'd been like this in a previous life!

The man looks to be in his thirties, has light

hair and light-colored blue eyes, is wearing what looks like a pair of light-colored overalls with hip pockets and a white T-shirt with a large blue inscription ALC "LOKI EI-14" TAS NAVY on the left side. She wears soft-looking short moccasins made of white material.

I stared at him for about twenty minutes, but in the end he couldn't stand it, got out from behind the table, walked through the hologram, came up to me and said:

"Why are you looking at Dad like that, my daughter? It was like seeing it for the first time." And he smiles, well, I give him a smile back, he bends over to me and covers me with love, tenderness and some kind of joy mixed with delight! Damn, why am I so overwhelmed! Didn't you feel anything like that just now?! The guy kisses me on the forehead and returns to the table. The feelings went with it! Oh shit! So it was his feelings!! That's the second bonus, I'm an empath now, no, an empath girl, cool!

"Maybe turn on the cartoons," says "Dad" from the table. "Well, that's how it is." And he presses something on the table, it buzzed above his head, clicked, and right in front of me, two meters away, a three-dimensional picture appeared in the air, in it, on a blue background, some icons were scattered in groups, the numbers 11:03:2355 10:22 were lit in the corner, the date was decided on the 24th century! The icons are signed with different abbreviations such as "СПиКРК on 1UO" go understand. Here the cursor appeared, it hovered over the icon with the image of a small folder for papers signed "miscellaneous", several windows flashed in a row, voila, a picture with a roaring lion appeared!!! I went all over the "screen" and no, well, it can't be! Tom and Jerry! Hold me seven! It was worth dying to watch these cartoons again in a new life! Oh ha ha ha I can't believe it! Well, let's see!

Two hours have passed.

Something's bothering me, some kind of discomfort, damn, I'm hungry! And this "dad" is stuck in his punch line and it's like I'm not there! So we need to get his attention somehow, maybe yell?! Okay, I'll try:

"Aaaaaaaaaaa! Oooooooh aaaaa! Waaaaa!"

Oh! He looks at me.