Web of light. Part 1. part 35

"... a change in the flight task to verify the results of radar scanning in an inconspicuous mode. One hundred meters altitude, low radar visibility mode."

Meanwhile, the unmanned reconnaissance aircraft has already approached the borders of the 12-mile zone. And nothing. The wall of fog separating the bay's waters from the open ocean was dense enough to almost completely drown the taillights of a self-propelled barge anchored somewhere there, which had somehow dragged itself into the "dangerous navigation zone." At least, the Swallow should have been there according to the narrow-eyed coastal navigation system, but Sazanov did not dare to turn on the universal UAV radar so easily. The fog moved like a living thing, throwing out tentacle tongues from its body, thinning, thickening... It was beautiful, but it got a little boring. The head of the calculation opened the diagnostic window for the engines and power systems of the unit, remotely checking the device for possible problems (according to the test regulations, they did this once every half hour), and did not immediately realize that his neighbor was too intently silent. Stop. The coordinates!

"Lenya, fuck! You're totally fucked up! Get out of here right now..." then he saw an extremely clear contour picture from the course lidar and stopped in mid-sentence. The huge figure, visible from above-from the side-from behind and slowly moving towards the shore, seemed to be a mystical creation of twilight... if it weren't for the inscription "TEST prototype" that was automatically caught through a gap in the fog.

"Do you see it too?" Ivanov asked a little out of place, and the junior officer "fell out" of contemplation back into the real world.

"I see it! Now turn around and... oh, shit!"

On the tactical interface, in the information window from the synthesized aperture sensor, which was constantly searching the near space, an alarm beeped shrilly, detecting a small target almost too late next to the UAV. Having worked out the engine and forced the drone to turn sharply, the operators' calculation already saw the source of the alarm in the optics — a clumsy "stool" with four screws with a camera hovering near the water.

The fog at that moment, as luck would have it, moved somewhere in a few moments, and the naval UAV became perfectly visible against the sky. Damn it!!!

"Welcome to the talk show "you're fucked up," Ivanov, sitting next to the commander, muttered faintly.

And Sazanov suddenly remembered the words of the Chinese: "the cursed bay."

151.

Einstein was once asked: "where did higher mathematics come in handy in real life?" I can say that I finally found it useful that my supervisor "there" disapprovingly called me "disorderly scientific interests." Very disapproving! It all started in high school, when for a long time I couldn't choose between a medic and an engineer, either burrowing into biology textbooks for junior university courses, or plunging into the frenzied (and crooked, as a result) construction of the first thing that came to mind. Thank you, thank you, my character, because looking at a drone that captured the wrong thing, I suddenly realized that I not only know WHAT to convey to the operators, but also know HOW. www.qrz.ru . File archive. Telegraphy. CwTypemorseterminal. The backlight port is the pulse transmission port. 200 characters per minute (teletype standard). Virtual keyboard. Russian. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed how Dar, taking a step onto the sand of the shore, literally "falls through the ground" in a second. By the way, it's an interesting old Russian idiom...

"AN UNIDENTIFIED UNMANNED VEHICLE WITH THE MARKINGS OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY. YOU INVADED THE SET AND CAPTURED FOOTAGE THAT IS THE PROPERTY OF OUR COMPANY. IF THEY ARE PASSED ON TO THIRD PARTIES, WE WILL HAVE TO HAND OVER INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR VIOLATION OF JAPANESE AIRSPACE."

Naturally, the "automatic telegraphic key" program did not recognize large and small letters — there are simply no such letters in Morse code. Naturally, no one has guaranteed that the operators know Morse Code or that the control software has a special module for code recognition... but my haphazard knowledge was enough to realize that the probability of both is very good... After all, a purely combat drone would have no markings at all... probably. And emergency signals and generally signals in the fleet in emergency mode or during radio silence, as two hundred years ago, are transmitted by flags or a lamp. However, the robot helicopter continued to hover, holding its position in the air... And burst into a series of flashes:

"I AGREE," I read in the interpreter window... and dropped out of the "combat meditation". And when did you get there? Suddenly, sweat broke out on his face, and his hands began to tremble... but they automatically gave out a half-forgotten "73" on reflexes to the unfolding helicopter. A single thought was beating in my brain: "did it really get through?!" Now the idea of making a game of big humanoid robots no longer seemed like a genius to me. Especially on the coast — actually at the border of the country! Damn, what's going to happen now?!

Shizuka knelt down in front of me and, taking off her glasses, ran a wet, cold hand over her face: my skin instantly became clear... and dry. I looked into my eyes, saw something there for myself, and immediately calmed down.

"You scared me, you know. Your heart rate was under two hundred and your hands were almost smeared in the air over the keyboard as you typed. Problems?"

"I don't even know" I suddenly felt almost at ease, the block of icy inevitability suddenly turned out to be quite an iceberg... It's still a long way ahead. "Perhaps Kashi will be offered to become a Stirlitz and renamed the Eater of Secret Documents. The resident intelligence spirit, it's a fantasy classic!

"It's a difficult case," Mizuchi repeated my expression, feeling her forehead. Well, yes, it's hot. I got a lot of stress. Damn, the "Cursed Bay", the locals are right. On the other hand, I would have shown up anyway... or I'll show up soon anyway. Probably. However, I thought that "soon" would be in four or five years. Whatever, whatever, I say. You just need to turn on your brain more often...

For a while, I wondered if it was a good thing to get under the "intelligence" of my own country or someone else's. And if America comes out to us first, then immediately drain the Japanese, or vice versa, this is a good "bun" against the exorcist clans... or will they not be interested in the demonstrated level at all? So far, all my vassals and I have achieved is good street repairs... The adrenaline rush was slowly letting go of me, and instead I wanted to sleep more and more, and sitting on the November sand, even if it was dry, was not the best idea. In the end, I decided to just give up and wait to see what would happen. There was no way I could influence the path of information captured by the drone. Link info: "barge in the bay" — "tenant" — "team "filming the movie."" It is possible that the drone operators will actually put the compromising material under the carpet. For them personally — or for their commander — the next round of the Russia-Japan diplomatic scandal will be like a sickle in one place. The amers don't care about the scandal, as their military personnel at the bases of the "unsinkable aircraft carrier" caused problems with the local population, and they continue to do so. And nothing. Maybe they really will believe in the movie... Stop! I went to the second round. Okay. You'll have to put on a good face with a bad game and play out Hiroe's plot to the end. And somehow take care of political self— or just education. It's okay, Uncle Kouji won't refuse an orphan... Damn, I keep forgetting that I'm really an orphan... Tomorrow, everything is tomorrow.

And the next morning, the locals looked in some amazement at the pyramid of twenty-one monoliths, on top of which, having stretched the arrow as far as possible, another stone was laid by the crane of the barge. It's a good thing I reached out, otherwise it would have turned out to be an epic fail in whipping up the mystery in the story "either it was or it wasn't." At least, the crew of the barge honestly said that they had been working all night (in shifts).

The monoliths themselves, outwardly calm, began to exchange energy with each other when folded and tried to stretch the "Path" spell. Because of the shape of the storage, it ended up being a kind of "skein of road" for the spirits, probably the unwise, once in the formation, could get lost inside. I didn't want to leave a kind of cheerful "hello" on the shore, so I decided to do the tried and tested way: arrange a "short circuit" with a wooden jumper and see what happens. At least Kashi and Mizuchi couldn't come up with anything more sane, and they approved my plan.

..Hiroe is the only one from the "directorate" to whom I described in detail the communication with the naval drone. The always self-confident girl pulled her slightly overgrown hair a little mechanically and said nothing. Only in the eyes there is a confused and guilty expression. Hey Hiroe? Hiroe?! Damn it, Doctor, we're losing her! After looking around and making sure that no one was really watching us, I dragged the unresisting girl behind the trailer and... yes, everything was banal. Press her against a corrugated metal wall and kiss her, kiss her until she comes to her senses. According to my estimates, it took about a minute before the first limp, and then animated lips tried to take the initiative in the kiss. Damn, it's great that the girl is only a year older than us, she was already much more mature emotionally... And I'm ready for kisses... physiologically, so to speak.

"I... you..." She couldn't catch her breath.

"We. That's the only way. You promised."

And there is no need to say a mountain of words that "we will walk this path together" or "trust me." One kiss and five minutes in a hug — and no visible effect from the shattered faith in a bright future. And there is one more connection between the clan and its first analyst: the consequences of the "innocent coastal cinema" may surface within a few years. Usually in such cases, the characters of my favorite books about popadants think something like "well, I'm a scumbag" and "I took advantage of it." I didn't feel anything like that-we're in the same boat, you know!

...Hiroe is also a very interesting kisser. A little hesitantly, as if repeating what she saw, and then explained. I think I'm going to have to get some practice soon... Oh, what's going to happen, oh, what's going to happen...

What's next? The next night, Shizuka kept an eye out for the sky from the outer waters, covering the harbor with cotton wool from above — however, there was plenty of fog even without the snake. And the excitement has increased... We built another mound of monolith stones, and the next day I spent most of the daylight in a hollow in the mountains, where Dar and Mizuchi had stolen the trunks of more or less straight trees from all over the area. Hammered in (rather— inserted, like matches in the sand) For free, these trees served as an "insulator" in the canvas of the already built road. Now that the "road" has turned into just a set of stones, albeit not quite ordinary, but not connected to each other, we were able to make out another piece of the ancient path... without approaching the island bank. The locals, satisfied with the free entertainment (someone there had seen the light on that first night of work, and even seemed to see the movement of something big), bombarded us with "true" horror stories about idiots swimming there, and Kashi decided not to push his luck. Totally in favor! In total, we pulled out 64 monoliths, and eight more remained lying on the bottom near the underwater island of Spirits. In a line. However, the remnants of the underwater dam could no longer have much effect on anything... With a solemn gathering of people from among the fishermen, the contract was closed to us. However, there will be another state examination. And the village head (not to be confused with the head of the administration!) he intended to invite the priests to "purify the cursed stones from evil," and no amount of careful persuasion helped Kashi and Patchi to move him from this position — even after half a liter of sake on the snout. They say, the carefully preserved testament of the ancestors. I'm suspicious of this "testament"... we did not ask the names of these "priests". In any case, Shizuka and I destroyed the finished log "closures" into splinters, dried the splinters and burned them. It's not our concern anymore. The locals won't go near the damn stones anyway, not the locals... Well, I hope they will be warned. It's time to go to Takamiya. The next round of "emergency concerns" seems to have ended — the wave of crazy spirits no longer threatens the city. There is no dam, and the "Path of Spirits" will no longer gather, penetrating half of the ancient mountainous region due to the refocused jet of natural magic. We can focus on protecting Takamiya within its current borders, which are clearly outlined by the natural lake shores — moreover, every unreasonable little thing has already become a little bolder and the patrol brigade spotted the first "swallows" last night. And destroyed it. Our "living radar" Ginko, judging by Dofu's stories, enjoyed these nightly outings like crazy... How is it, I wonder, that Zashiki-varashi in my house hasn't completely gone off the rails, left alone? No, I was probably too hasty, deciding that all urgent matters were closed. So go ahead, Amakawa, you have a handful of spirits with you, even fewer people, and an approximate plan for the future... not so little, damn it!