Artur Zadikyan
Binary code: Mystery number one
– All right. I'd like to know what's next. What am I going to do, what am I going to learn here? – Ruthra asked.
– The first step is you have to become a different person.
– How? What kind of person?
– You must learn to turn into a double of the person who will be easier for our colleagues to understand.
– What does that mean?
– There is a kind of "Super Spy" system. After secretly eliminating, for example, the head of the FBI, you are a trained person who has already adopted his appearance beforehand, but inside you are still yourself. You have to become a person who could look like the right person, but with your brain. Enhanced, though.
Ruthra couldn't believe his ears.
– I'm sorry, that's crazy, what doppelganger? What about my family? I'm not gonna change anything.
– First of all, calm down. Everything is pre-planned, as you've already realized. We don't want any failures, and if we're wrong about you, Vasilievich will be punished. If you don't want to change outwardly, there's a more complicated option. You have to change internally, and most importantly, in your head. It will be of special value, to protect it – you need to pass the first stage. In this phase, you will be a field soldier. Welcome to the arena. Goodbye," Yarovitovich said and pointed with his palm in the direction of the door, which automatically opened.
The doppelganger entered, exchanged a glance with Jarovitovich, then looked at Rutra.
– Please, let's go.
Ruthra realized the situation was not in his favor, there was nothing to do, he had to obey. "What is an arena, will I really have to fight someone?" – he thought. It wasn't in his plans, so resentment overcame him.
– Who do you answer to?
– He will explain everything to you, and now – please, – said the master of the office, pointing at the double.
There was nothing to do, so Ruthra stepped out into the corridor with his copy. After wandering through the labyrinth for a while, they stopped, and the duplicate said into the wall, "We're ready. The doors swung open, a huge gymnasium-like area appeared. The doppelganger turned on the television.
– Look and get dressed. Hurry up. You don't have much time, they're waiting.
– What should I wear? Who's waiting? – Ruthra asked with obvious concern.
Footage of the brutal murders appeared on the screen. A man in a camouflaged uniform with a knife alternately cut off the heads of the men, who were bound and laid on the rails. The victims begged for mercy, but the executioner slit their throats in cold blood and slowly. Ruthra looked at the doppelganger, who glanced at the uniforms and combat equipment of the Special Forces fighters. There were different weapons to choose from. Ruthra looked at his copy again, this time he pointed toward the center of the hall. The room was divided into two parts by a special laser grid, behind which stood several men in combat gear.
– They will soon begin to defend, or even attack! While they can't see you, hurry! – warned the doppelganger.
A shiver ran through Ruthra's body, as if he were scalded. He could feel the breath of death. He wanted to scream, to be outraged that they had no right to control his fate, but he knew there was no chance. "What to do?" – he thought. There was nowhere to run. By accepting the fight, he had a chance to survive, after all, he wasn't invited here just to watch a gladiatorial duel. So the organizers were on his side. He rushed to the equipment, put on a special armored vest on his bare body, which looked more like a plaster corset, quickly put on a special jumpsuit with armored pads on the legs, helmet ShU-300, connected the loop. Now he had a lot of "tricks" – night vision goggles, sensor for detecting warm-blooded objects, sensor for approaching objects, rear and top view, device for detecting poisonous gases and radiation level, communication with the central computer server, spatial orientation, forced injection in case of pressure drop and anaphylactic shock, other "assistants" (ejection of caustic paralyzing liquid, light and noise darts, etc.). From the proposed set of weapons Rutra took a gas mask, a bag for grenades and the grenades themselves (light and shrapnel grenades), a Glock 26 pistol, an ARX-160 assault rifle, an OC-14 Groza assault rifle and grenade launcher, an Akela knife, and several magazines of ammunition.
All the while, violent scenes were shown on the screen. The last scene was the stoning of a young girl who had her hands tied behind her back. The scene was horrible: she tried to turn away, but with each blow she bled, soon began to convulse and died. Chief in organizing the execution was the woman who took turns tying the girls up and throwing the first stone. "Why am I being shown this?" – Ruthra thought. The doppelganger understood his interest:
– You're about to meet them.
Ruthra put his weapons on alert, deciding to start with the ARX-160. The siren wailed, the glowing grid in the middle of the room went out, the lights and television turned off. The room went completely dark. Rutra reacted instantly, silently stepped back a couple steps, ducked and prepared to shoot. Suddenly the lights came on and there were four people in the room, three men and one woman. They were in combat gear, but unarmed. A double stood between them and Rutra.
– That's a good reaction. Do you all really think we can have a massacre here? Time's up! – shrieked the copy of Rutra.
The four men ran to the far corner of the hall and then into the next room.
– Go ahead, hunter, don't screw up, my future depends on you," the doppelganger said with a sneer.
Then he walked past Ruthra and pointed at his chest, at the area of his heart. Rutra didn't quite know what that meant. It was either "take care of your heart" or "be hearty. After a few seconds, Ruthra realized that he wasn't pointing at his heart, but at his breast pocket, and something rustled strangely. Ruthra didn't have time to check what was in there, because the lights went out.
– Hurry up, they'll get a better position now," the doppelganger said and walked out the door.
Chapter 2: Unnatural selection
Rutra was thinking hard about what "they'll take a better position" could mean. In any case, he had to hurry. He ran to the door where the fighters had gone.
Behind the door was an even more enormous room with models of houses. It was a mockup of a city street after the worst of the fighting, with destruction and other paraphernalia. Ruthra realized that his opponents had already taken up positions somewhere and were waiting for him. Suddenly, the voice of the doppelganger appeared in his helmet:
– Courage! They don't have ammunition like you, they only have small arms and knives.
– What else is needed? – Ruthra asked.
There was no response.
He pondered, "What do I have that they don't? A gas mask?" But if the fighters only have what the doppelganger said, why the gas mask? Ruthra looked at the grenades, there were no chemical grenades, but he decided not to throw the proverbial gas mask after all, even though it was in the way. "Grenades? Yeah. They don't seem to have any," he concluded and brought the stun grenade into action.
Ruthra turned on his helmet shield and threw a grenade into the center of the makeshift street. Then, calmly ducking down, he peered inside, looked around the range, and ran behind the wall of the nearest building. After assessing where they could theoretically be waiting for him, he decided it was most appropriate for real fighters to wait for Rutru in front of the entrance.
"Since I have such an advantage in weapons, why not take advantage of it," Ruthra decided. He readied his Groza grenade launcher, jumped out from behind the wall, and fired through the window opposite the entrance.
At the same second, a sharp blow threw Ruth back. His chest ached, and he struggled to regain consciousness, realizing that he had been shot in the chest. It had been fired from the side, from the far corner. They were waiting for him to come out, Rutra wasn't the only one who could think logically.
There was an explosion on the second floor. The echo sobered him, made him smell death. He was overcome by fear of the reality of death. He had to pull himself together, above all for the sake of the children. Ruthra cursed everything he could; he decided he had to get out of here at any cost and end his hated service. But how to get out? One must win! You have to think!
The shot came from the side, so the bullet didn't go straight through. That fact made Ruthra wake up quickly, hearing rustling noises. There was no time to delay. He reloaded his grenade launcher and prepared a conventional fragmentation grenade. He listened – the danger could come from anywhere. "What if they attack from both sides of the structure at once?" – Ruthra pondered.
To avoid guessing and giving them the initiative, he decided to act on his own. Abruptly throwing the grenade around the corner, Ruthra quickly ran in the opposite direction, nestled against the wall, and peered out. He was not mistaken. The fighters had tactically calculated that he would leap forward after the explosion and had decided to outflank him. Two of them were already running toward him. Time was running out in fractions of a second, firing a grenade launcher so close was deadly to himself. There was no time to switch to the ARX-160.
The Groza's variant of the machine-grenade launcher system had the added inconvenience of combining the firing functions of a machine gun and a grenade launcher in one trigger, which required additional time to switch the trigger mechanism. Rutra decided to do what his comrades had marveled at when he used the trick in a combat situation. He calculated that the attackers must be quite close, extended his arm with the Thunderbolt, threw it momentarily behind the wall, and fired it downward at the feet of the attackers. The next moment there was a deafening rumble that mingled with the screaming and shrieking of the attackers. Ruthra had forgotten to turn on the noise reduction on his helmet, and he was a bit stunned as well.
He crouched against the main wall, swapped the Thunderbolt for an ARX-160, and waited for an attack from the other side. Moans and screams could be heard on the left side for a while, but they soon stopped. It was quiet. He waited. About 10 minutes passed. Nothing happened. He decided to wait a little longer, but everything stayed the same. Then he wanted to see if he was wrong about the number of attackers. If there were three of them, then no one should be alive anymore. The one upstairs might still be alive, though. He got up, walked quietly to the wall, crept to the very edge of the structure, and peered in the direction from which he had been shot. There was a dilapidated village house. It was quiet, nothing was happening. Rutra decided to provoke the enemy. He shot towards the house and ran back, looking out from behind the wall where he had fired the grenade launcher. A gruesome sight was revealed – two men lay with their stomachs ripped open. A foul odor made it hard to breathe. Ruthra decided to check what had become of the one on the second floor. It was important.
He stepped carefully over the dead and peered around the next corner. As he stuck his head out, a bullet whizzed by. Ruthra jumped back against the wall and waited. There was no attack, though he expected it from both sides. Everything was quiet again.
Ruthra stuck his machine gun around the corner and fired a line in the direction of the shooter. There was no response, so he waited again. There was silence for about five minutes. Rutra reloaded the grenade launcher. This was the last grenade. In addition, he prepared hand grenades. There were two of them – one fragmentation and one noise grenade. I threw the noise grenade first around the corner. There was an explosion. Despite the buzzing in my ears, I ran over to the building I had first shot at and threw the fragmentation one on the second floor. There was another explosion. As soon as it subsided, I listened. Everything seemed to be quiet.
He crouched down and began to climb. When he reached the second floor, Ruthra found no one, only a trail of blood that led to another room.
The buildings were unfinished – concrete and brick – so it left a footprint, as if on sand. Ruthra peered sideways into the room. It was a dead end – no windows or doors; though Ruthra couldn't look through it completely – there might be someone around the corner. He didn't take any chances; there were few supplies left, but Ruthra fired his grenade launcher into the room where the blood trail went. There was an explosion. The noise soon died down, and moans were heard. Ruthra quietly began to make his way into the room. He squatted down near the entrance, prepared his assault rifle, turned on his thermal imager, extended his rifle arm into the room and waved it around. The thermal imager showed that someone was there. Ruthra realized that from the moans, but he needed to know where. The thermal imager showed the outline of a body lying on the floor around the corner.
Ruthra stood up, calmly checked his weapons, and prepared for the assault. He decided to check the rear and surroundings beforehand. To do so, he cautiously approached the window opening, keeping a close eye on the exit from the adjoining room. All was quiet outside. "Where could the fourth or the fourth be?" – Ruthra pondered. He looked out onto the landing, looked down to the first floor. There was no one there. So he crept to the window again, stuck out his rifle with the thermal imager on, pointed it in the direction of the cabin from which he was being fired upon. The thermal imager showed nothing.
Ruthra decided to tackle the gunman in the room, carefully approached the entrance, quickly extended his rifle arm inside the room, in the direction where the wounded man lay, and fired a burst. There was a distinctive sound of bullets hitting the body. Ruthra covered his face completely with his helmet mask, turned on his night vision and night scope, and, keeping his weapon cocked, rushed into the room.
On the right side of the wall, a man was lying on the floor. Ruthra shot him in the head for good measure. There was a muffled wheeze. There was silence again. Ruthra approached slowly, kicked the body with force. It turned on its side, and there was an unintelligible sound of something rolling. Ruthra looked carefully in the direction of the sound, it was hard to distinguish in the night vision. The next second he was pierced by a clue: it was a grenade! The dead man had slipped it under him, clutched it with his body, and waited, knowing he would not survive.
Ruthra jumped out of the room. There was an explosion as he flew through the doorway. Shrapnel struck him, one in the leg. He fell, hitting his head; he was slightly stunned and confused, trying to get over the pain and turn off the night vision. Rutra couldn't recover from the surprise, for the doppelganger had said they had no grenades! So it was a hoax. Then what else could have happened unexpectedly? Although, in principle, the doppelganger hadn't specifically talked about grenades.
His thoughts were racing through his head, and Ruthra turned off his night vision, unable to realize what was in front of him. After a moment, he realized that a fourth was running up the stairs, firing at him at the same time. Ruthra rolled over and fired a burst. She jumped aside, then down.
Ruthra didn't stop firing until he ran out of ammunition. Then, quickly reloading his clip, he tried to stand up. It wasn't easy. It had hit him. Now his arm was wounded as well, blood pouring from the wounds. In all the other places where the bullets had hit (head, feet, chest) there was unbearable pain. The defense was solid, but the pain was also terrible. The unprotected places on his body were all stitched with shrapnel. Ruthra fumbled around in his suit, looked in his gas mask bag for bandages, plasters, or tourniquets. There were no medications, but he did find ARX-160 under-barrel grenades. In his haste, Ruthra hadn't noticed them.
The fact that there were no medications was a big oversight on Rutra's part. He had neglected their importance. However, in the current situation, it didn't seem that important anymore. It was more important to concentrate and figure out where the attacker had gone.
The wounds weren't too serious for a fighter of his level, and he could shoot, especially in the heat of the moment, in the face of death, the adrenaline of the wounds no longer felt much. Ruthra stood up, leaning back against the wall. He couldn't walk (much less run), and his right arm was wounded. He jammed the rifle between his legs, loaded the underbarrel, set it to fire from his left hand, turned on the laser rangefinder and the ballistic computer for the grenade launcher. All the time he kept his eyes on the stairwell, waiting for an attack, which had not yet come. To be sure, he checked how much more ammunition he had, though he remembered exactly how much. There were three grenades for the grenade launcher, one of them in the barrel; ammunition magazines – one for the rifle and two for the Glock.
Fear, anger, and a terrible desire to survive pervaded Ruthra. As he realized the real threat, he began to realize that it was impossible to imagine it in everyday life, but here it could literally be felt! His family – his children, his wife, his mother – flashed before his eyes like a vision. His father had died early, and Ruthra did not want to share his fate. He had given his life saving the Soviet Union, which it still didn't save. Rutra wasn't going to die for a mythical idea, he didn't "sign up" for it; if someone suddenly wanted to put his life on the line, he was determined to find out and get revenge.
He was still thinking rationally, but the question remained, why the gas mask? Ruthra stood up, looked out of the window, but there was no one there, so he limped toward the stairs. There was no one on the stairs either. There was no point in waiting. Ruthra went to the landing, looked down, and, pressing himself against the wall, began to descend. Once down one flight, he readied his pistol and fired a grenade launcher into the floor of the landing in front of the exit. Without waiting for the noise to die down, he began to make his way to the exit. There he turned on the thermal imager and stuck out his rifle to analyze the situation. The thermal imager showed nothing. Ruthra looked out, looking around. He thought, "Logically, she could only be where she first fired from, where she had the best cover. But he still decided to check the place he had attacked from in the beginning.
Rutra adjusted the grenade launcher's laser rangefinder and ballistic computer to the house where he thought the enemy was hiding. When the computer made the calculation, he fired a shot so that the grenade would explode, hitting the inside wall of the house. At the same time, Ruthra waddled over to where the first two dead men lay. He crept along the wall of the building from which he had come, so that he could see all the objects at once, though Ruthra himself was also in view. Just as he reached the edge where he could see the dead, shots rang out from the house that had been hit by the grenade. Ruthra lay down instantly, rolling behind the wall where the dead lay. Without getting up, he stretched out his arm at random, orienting himself by the noise. Looking around, he noticed that the dead had no weapons. It was clear she'd taken them. So she had enough ammunition.
Ruthra loaded the last grenade, pressed himself against the outer wall of the hall so he could see a little of the terrorist's hiding place, made a ballistics calculation with the computer, and fired so that the grenade exploded after falling to the floor where the woman had fired from. There was a rumble and a squeal. "Got you, bitch!" – he rejoiced and pulled his leg up, fighting through the pain, and headed toward the house.
Ruthra walked over to where she was hiding, leaned against the wall of the house, and tried to look inside. The house was two stories high, with a balcony at the bottom and a balcony at the top. No trim, it was moulages. He peered behind the lower balcony. No one. Then stepped forward and decided to go behind the perimeter. At that minute, the "creature" popped through the first floor window opening. Her whole face was covered in blood. She pointed her AK-9 assault rifle at him and fired. Rutra, seeing her, fell down on purpose, as it would have taken a long time to run away or bounce aside in his position – a split second could cost a life.
He lay, rolled over on his back, and waited, keeping the exit from the house and the upper windows with the balcony in his sights. The attacker appeared to be in shock and wounded, confused; she was firing her assault rifle in different directions. Lying on his back, Ruthra turned his attention to the ceiling of the main room. It showed the hoods where the night vision cameras had been placed. "So they're watching the battle. Someone's watching and waiting for the outcome. Wait for me to get to you," Ruthra said to himself, and then he realized he couldn't really do anything. "The main thing is to survive," he decided.
The bastard stopped firing, probably out of magazines. Ruthra crawled, sideways, and began to move around the corner of the house. It was safe there; there were no windows or doors. He stood, waiting. His pants and sleeve were wet with blood, something was pouring down his face. Ruthra felt his left cheek, it was congealed blood with a chunk of flesh and skin. He'd been hit, and in the heat of the moment he hadn't noticed. A shrapnel or tangential shot had torn his cheek, oozing blood. Ruthra was worried that he might die from blood loss, so he decided to go for the assault. He had to cover the mask of his helmet, even though it lost his view, but the wound on his face was enough of an argument.
He walked along the outer wall of the hall to the balconies, no one was there, went further, looked through the window opening into the room, also no one. Sneaking up to the door, he shot inside, turned on the thermal imager, probed the situation inside with his usual technique, saw a red spot on the screen with his side vision. While he was looking at the image on the thermal imager, a line of bullets started coming in his direction. The bullets hit the rifle, knocking it out of his hands. Ruthra, too, dropped down to hide, and grabbed the pistol in pain.
He could feel Death approaching, and it was already drawing its scythe over him. He wanted to live. To live, if not for himself, then for his children. It gave him strength and dulled the pain. He fired a couple shots back and grabbed the rifle's belt, pulling it toward him. The electronics were messed up. Clutching the rifle tightly in his left hand, he angled it and fired a burst where the thermal imager showed a spot. Ruthra realized from the noise that the bullets had hit not only concrete and brick, but something soft.
It became quiet. Ruthra waited for groans, but there were none. "I must have killed him," he thought. After waiting a few minutes, Ruthra stood up. At that moment, shots rang out in his direction. The bullets whizzed by with a noise. They were fired from a TKB-059, its sound could not be mistaken – it was not mass-produced and was only given to top-ranking special agents on special operations. "Where is he from, why are the bandits armed so well? The doppelganger is a bastard," Ruthra thought.
Holding his weapon at the ready, he waited for the attack. His head ached terribly, and he couldn't see very well, whether he'd been hit or hit in the helmet. Ruthra felt himself weakening. He had to go for the assault. He spotted a piece of concrete nearby, picked it up with his right hand and threw it, with maximum force, on the floor of the entrance, imitating the noise of an attack. Shots rang out in response. The woman fired indiscriminately. Finally she ran out of ammunition, but Rutra was running low on ammunition, too. He crawled to the entrance and prepared to make his move again. Lying down, he reached forward with his rifle and fired in the direction from which she had fired. This time she yelled and groaned. "So much for you!" – Ruthra thought.
She kept moaning, then she said something in a language she didn't understand; it sounded like a swear word, and she hissed like a snake. Ruthra waited. Suddenly the shots rang out again. Bullets flew into the walls and ceiling, splinters and pieces of concrete raining down on him. He pressed himself against the far wall. Theoretically-she could shoot through the wall; it was hard to gauge its strength. When the shots ended, Ruthra readied his gun. This was the last chance. "Or is it possible to escape?" – He asked himself and looked out toward the center entrance from where he had entered this firing range. It was closed.
There were no options – only an assault. The blood from his cheek poured down his helmet, his neck, his chest. Everything was sticky and sore. Suddenly he heard someone calling him. It was a muffled and pitiful female voice:
– Ruthra, listen to me. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
Ruthra didn't know how to react. She was calling him, from the room.
– Who are you? How do you know my name? – He asked excitedly.
– I'm going to tell you something. It may seem unbelievable to you, but it's true. You won, I don't care, I have no other choice, this is the last chance. Last chance for both of us," she said in a low voice, almost a whisper.
– Two? – Ruthra asked indignantly. – What are you raving about? Say goodbye to your life, you bitch! How do you know my name? Answer me! And then I'll kill you gently.
– Listen to me, please, listen to me! You've already won, listen to me, please," she moaned.
– Speak your nonsense, but hurry up, you'll live a little longer," Ruthra said sharply. – How do you know my name?
– We'll be interrupted soon, so I'll tell you quickly. If you believe me, we'll both have a chance, and if you don't believe me, you'll meet my fate," she hissed in an accent unknown to Ruthra.
He didn't question her further, but waited silently, keeping the exit in his sights.
– You were just an ordinary spy, observing objects, extracting information, then suddenly you're recruited into the top-secret Zero division. Didn't that surprise you? – she asked.
Ruthra decided to remain silent. He knew something unusual was going on, but he couldn't figure out what it was.
– They only take single, unmarried, orphans to Site Zero, and you already had a family. That didn't surprise you? Surprised? – she repeated, then stopped talking.
– It didn't surprise me," Ruthra replied, waiting for a follow-up.
– Why? Why? – she asked.
– What business is it of yours? – he answered angrily. – What's the big deal? Speak quickly! Or say goodbye to your life!
– Don't rush, you'll get there in time," she said calmly. – When I got here, they sent me to the firing range, too, and I have a child up there.
– What, you want me to feel sorry for you? You won't. When you killed, did you feel sorry for anyone? – Ruthra shouted angrily.
– I didn't kill anyone. This footage was edited on purpose," she said pleadingly.
– So I believed you, wait for manna from heaven," Ruthra said.
– You don't believe me, but you'll soon be in the same position as me," she replied pitifully.
– On what grounds should I believe you? – Ruthra asked with obvious curiosity.
– It's not the first time I've been involved in such a massacre. Accordingly, I took care of what to bring with me as evidence.
– And what kind of proof is that?
– I'm gonna throw you a card. Look what it says on it.
– Throw it faster. What I don't understand is, what's the point of all this?
– That's the thing, the point is not at all what you think it is.
– Shut up! You don't know what I think," Ruthra replied nervously.
– This training ground is a test. The strongest survives, to then send him on a field mission, a real battle; not war, but terror. It is necessary for the fighter to be tested, to be able to actually kill someone he considers an enemy to himself. He must be trained like a real warrior. I'm going to show you the document from afar now, so you won't think I'm throwing you something else, then I'll throw it to you. Read it," she explained, showing the sheet and tossing it to him.
Rutra saw a laminated piece of paper in front of him and picked it up. On it was a photograph of this very madam in a military uniform (rank of captain), and underneath it was an inscription: "Manto Olga Davydovna. Senior operative of the Active Measures Department." A little lower in small print was: "Destination: Pakistan, India.
– Did you read it? – She shouted.
– Explain to me what the hell is going on here? – Ruthra shouted back at her.
– Here they train combat terrorists, but not those who are shown in news reports, but their commanders and instructors. They train specialists who will manage events aimed at causing conflicts in different areas of the globe, depending on the national and religious situation. It is necessary for a specialist to be physically prepared, cold-blooded, emotionally motivated, fully controlled with the help of compromise and family ties," she explained.
– Why do you have a card like that and I don't? – Ruthra asked, suspecting a trick.
– Because this is your first time taking the test and my third. You'll get the same one when you leave the hall. I also cheated, I made a fake lost card, or they wouldn't have let me in here with it. I hid it.
– For what? Did you know the outcome? – Ruthra asked.
– No. There's no way I can pass the compromise test, so they keep bringing me back here," she said.
– What kind of dirt? – Ruthra asked.
But instead of an answer, a voice came from the speakers in the hall:
– Trial will be over in one minute, winner exits.
Ruthra realized that he should act instead of listening to her ramblings. Besides, he thought, she was using the time to get into a better position.
