Struggle. Prisoners of Darkness

A thief's hat is on fire

The Bulgarians were met by the 42nd drill of the SCK. Those who arrived from the sawmill were not wearing red clothes, and their commander was not wearing a black beret. It was business as usual, but something was wrong. I can't say what it is, but something is there.

They were immediately put to work: half a ton of coal had already been delivered from the cleaning sector to the loading place.

The commander of the Bulgarian 336th Soma, Viktor Valikov immediately instructed everyone to get to work, and he himself began to watch.

Three minutes later Gavriil Zheleznov came in. He had not been under the impression of his dream since morning, but when he saw Valikoff's face, all distorted and contorted by some unknown disease, all apprehension returned. The look of a revolutionary, but in his eyes no willful striving. A torch without a flame. A revolutionary without a torch. He calls people forward, but he stands aside.

"My name is Gabriel," the commander of the 381/253rd Soma introduced himself. "Victor," the man replied, showing no interest.

"I'm the commander of the 381st Soma," Gabriel tried to bring some clarity to the conversation, making it clear that he hadn't come for nothing.

Valikov tried to look respectful, but he failed: "A pleasure." His eyes were thinking about something else: here he was not interested in his charges, or the plagues, or his work — he was interested in something that was somewhere on another planet.

Gabriel had already dreamed of seeing a deputy for "such" a revolutionary, and she turned out to be a rather pleasant, even beautiful, woman. She smiled, pretended that every miner was important to her, gave the impression that they needed her, not the other way around. And none of this really existed. In the new man she saw a potential ally, who could be cleverly abandoned in case of emergency. She saw her subordinates as a good protective shield, on which, if anything happened, she could blame it all. And her eyes, though they were not in the same direction as her boss's, stretched just as far, in a word, to another planet No. 2.

"Yulia Grnifenko," she smiled pleasantly.

"She's going to ruin them all," Gabriel thought and introduced himself to her too.

"You're what? On some business?" — Grinifenko continued, while Valikov was already dwelling in his thoughts not far from the moon.

Gora saw their weaknesses and their desires. That it would not be possible to dissuade them from rebellion with the motivation of futility — they themselves clearly knew that it would be of no use, they needed something else.

"It's not Freedom they want. — Gabriel said to himself. — They want what they need. They don't suffer for their subordinates. They don't want to make them happy. They're not interested in that." It became clear to him that they would revolt anyway, and the only thing to gain from them was a little time.

"Yes, I'm on business. — Gabriel explained himself. — About your rebellion."

Grnifenko's eyes went to his forehead, and Valikov "parachuted" to Earth. Gora did not continue his speech, just waited for their reaction. They remained silent. Then, glancing at each other, they made a questioning pantomime, which resulted in the Deputy's words: "Who told you that?"

"Oh, let us not engage in nonsense…" nodding his head, Gabriel deduced. — Can't you tell from me what my intentions are? So do me a favor, break the comedy in front of the plagues. I have a serious proposal.

Grinifenko's expression changed, but to the end she decided not to concede that fact just yet: "What's the offer?"

Now Gora could spin any phrases — his interlocutors are interested in absolutely certain variant of the development of events of the directions of the "proposal".

"After the explosion, which you've probably heard about by now, almost everyone in the vicinity died. About three hundred people. My people are angry about it. I believe the time has come… But in order to set things right… You understand, don't you?" — he played a note of vulnerability that made them nod.

Gabriel continued: "Here. I need time."

The conversation ended well enough: we managed to get the most important thing for the moment — time.

The commander of the "shock" soma moved towards his own, thinking about what Valikov and Grinifenko really needed. What they can get from this very action. It is clear that they are not going to die there, but after that they will lose power over someone. They will be left alone…

The last thought cut into the reasoning in an interesting way. "They will be alone. — Gabriel thought. — Or rather the only survivors… But to the plagues they will be dead. The plagues will not count them, much less compare numbers.

Though these two will probably pull their clothes over the dead. And then, to understand who was killed we will have to look at faces… No, Valikov has a remarkable face, but I doubt that any of the chums will be able to distinguish him from anyone else.

In general, the meaning is clear, but not to the end: there is nowhere to go in the wild either, only poppies. Maybe they've made a deal with them somehow?

So far we have managed to push back the uprising for two days, we'll see what to do then. In any case, in all likelihood, they will not rebel without agreement. Now they believe that it is possible to blame the entire rebellion on a "third person" — another commander. They need it, generally speaking, only for reinsurance — there is little doubt how exactly they agreed with the Maquis or with someone else. Besides, Gora had promised them five automatic rifles to help them.

After making sure everything was in order, Gabriel headed to Sector 1 to check on the weapons hidden the day before yesterday.

'Oh no, how could they make a deal with the Maquis?' — Gavriil thought. — So that Valikov would make a deal with the Maquis? With Khmelnitsky he agreed? I don't believe in such a thing. And Grinifenko is hardly able to agree with anyone at all. They won't believe her face. Her eyes will not believe. And who will believe her herself, given all this…

They agreed with someone else".

After reaching the place, Gabriel began to slowly get to the truth, but now there was some digging to be done.

The hiding place was a planked and buried hollow in the wall of the sanitary corner. The sanitary corner consisted of a number of showers and several toilet stalls. No matter how the plagues seemed to the plagues, they did not oppose the existence of such cubicles.

As for hiding places, it was possible not to make them — the plagues never looked into the 1st sector anyway. But no one tested their fate: books were simply buried in the ground, mostly where they slept, and there was nothing to say about weapons — they hid them out of principle.

Breaking a piece of the wall, Gabriel saw something he didn't like: there were only four automatons lying around.

And he remembered exactly that there had been five. It was impossible to determine how many magazines had disappeared and whether they had disappeared at all, but one AK-74 was definitely missing.

The ground shook. The sound of an explosion rumbled in the distance. And then there was silence.