No Way Out at the Entrance

Chapter 2
Coming from Nowhere to Going Nowhere

In any good the keyword is “regularity.” Irregular good is evil, which decides to amuse itself.

A warlock will discuss global laws on the eradication of hunger on a universal scale, but a hdiver will simply silently hand someone an apple or a pie and move on.

The stronger one loves, the more one forbids. If you for sure want to destroy the one you love, allow him everything.

Two ways lead to wisdom: grief or voluntary self-restraint, i.e., in general the same grief, only conscious. If you do not choose the second path, the first one chooses you.

Better to take less but carry it all the way than to take a lot and drop some halfway.

The power of a person is manifested in how well he will be able to restrain himself.

Yara’s summary.

From Kavaleria’s introductory lecture

Freda melancholically contemplated the empty driver seat. “But where??? What did you do with the driver?” she asked in the voice of a person who did not get the joke.

Sashka sensed that she thought him guilty. “Here! Catch!” He threw her the jacket by the sleeve. Freda in horror pushed it away immediately with both hands. The jacket fell. Now, when it was exposed, it did not pretend to be alive anymore.

“No! You did something to him!!! Aagh!” Freda closed her eyes and gave a short shriek, giving a signal to universal panic.

Lara began to squeal in the same second, demonstrating excellent vocal training. Makar in a businesslike manner advised her to cut it out. At the same time he leaned heavily with his stomach on the back of the seat, touching the mirror with his forehead. Incredulously, as if suspecting an invisible man, he ran his hand all over. “Wow, damn! Really no driver! Anyone knows how to drive?”

Showing that it was managing quite well by itself, the minibus dashingly dived between two trailers and went onto the outer lane. The clipped truck groaned like an offended bull.

“Me!” Sashka, recently in his grandpa’s Niva⁷ demolishing the neighbouring fence at the cottage, said.

“Well, so get busy!” Makar encouraged him.

Sashka wanted to climb over, but Freda caught hold of him, “Only try to touch it! I understand! We’re moving by computer control!”

Danny looked doubtfully at the pressed-down seat, the jingling door. He saw a kefir carton and a crumpled magazine. “By satellite!” he said skeptically, observing how the minibus honked angrily at a dog that had jumped out onto the road and made a dashing turn, dousing it with dirty water from a puddle. “Wow! The satellite surmised biological activity and set a course correction, taking into account the direction for splashing the liquid!”

Sashka tried to free himself, but doing this without being rude was impossible. Freda was hanging onto him like a tick. Not letting go for dear life for sure. At the same time, Sashka would not say that she panicked. She was simply such a person. Not a single action could be executed in her presence without her approval.

“What if it’s a show? Put us on some kind of stage and unnoticeably shoot our reaction? And broadcast live? Huh?” Freda put forward a different option.

After hearing that they could be filming her, Lara instantly settled down and fixed her hair. “Can I ask an improper question? Who is the studio decoy here?”

“Me! Really not obvious?” Cyril stated but backtracked on discovering how people were instantly staring at him. “Really! No need to kill me! I’ve already gone to seed! What show, people? Do you see at least one camera?”

“What if it’s hidden?” the precisionist in the suit proposed in a businesslike manner.

Cyril twirled a finger by his temple. “In this heap of junk? Even if they shove some web cam here, it’ll show like the eyes of a dead cockroach! Won’t work for TV!” he said with knowledge of the matter.

Lara tapped her knee with the phone. “I understand nothing! Should be all sticks here!” she complained.

Freda looked at her with an incinerating look. “Sticks are in the forest,” she said and, after letting go of Sashka, sat down.

The minibus finally broke away beyond the limits of the Ring Road and dashed between colourful new constructions. The region here was spacious, new, and the roads wide, free. The minibus swiftly made a turn. As Sashka was not being careful, he butted the glass with his forehead.

“We’ll not get out of here! We’re doomed!” the girl with the death dog tags uttered quietly.

“Don’t be a killjoy!” Freda pounced on her.

“Dog tags” shrugged her shoulders and with a long nail traced a final crossbeam on the gallows. “I’m not! I know!”

Even Rina was starting to be spooked. She was sorry that she had given Kuzepych the promise to keep quiet. But even if she had not, what would she say? “We’re going to HDive!” “Where, where?” “HDive! It’s this guildhall of divers, where they fly on horses through a dead world to get markers from Duoka!”

The minibus turned into a long straight road and it stopped rocking. Passing ahead of Sashka, Danny quickly half-rose. “Miss! May I ask you as an enormous favour to remove your skull?” he turned to Lara.

“Where?”

She was at a loss and immediately received the comprehensive answer, “Not strictly perpendicular to the back, but in such a way that the level of the crown would turn out to be below the level of the upper section of the seat!”

“Huh?”

“Off with the head!!!” Danny simplified to the extreme and unexpectedly deftly, making use of his beanpole frame, immediately tumbled over two seats on his stomach. The endless legs flickered. Escaping from them, Lara with a squeak bent down. It finally dawned on her why the level of the crown had to be lower than the back of the seat. The soles knocked on the back of the seat and Danny already emerged on the other side. He slid into the driver seat, grabbed the wheel, and slammed on the brake. Sashka watched as the pedal pressed down.

“Stop, my beautiful! Whooa!” Danny ordered. The minibus began to brake at the horse word, but it kicked up and continued to fly forward. Danny hung onto the wheel and attempted to switch over to the outermost lane. The wheel obeyed but this again in no way affected the behaviour of the minibus.

“Try braking with the clutch!” Sashka advised. Danny looked mildly around at him as if asking: do you think I do not know? He pressed on the clutch and, switching over serially, began lowering gears. When he reached the first, the minibus zipped out onto the oncoming lane and, after fearlessly cutting the flow, turned into a perpendicular street.

“This is useless, gentlemen! I quit!” Danny announced melodramatically and climbed back into the cabin. He sat down there like an idol and arranged his hands with palms up on his knees. Something that in no way could be grasped stirred in his memory. Something important, elusive.

Cigarette butts were floating in a glass jar a third full of water. Through the paint-spattered glass – cracked, with a whistling draft living in the crack – the Moscow courtyard well-defined by paint looked stingy to Danny. A golden bee was sitting in a sunny spot and cleaning its wings with its legs. Danny blew on it. The bee took off and, angrily hitting against the glass, bounced like a ball to the edge of the frame.

“I said: we’ll all die!” the girl in the black tank top said with deep satisfaction. Frost dripped from her voice.

Cyril touched the dog tags with a finger. “Listen, sunshine!”

“I hate sunshine!” Dog tags” cut him off.

“And don’t you be mad! Canna ask somethin’?”

“NO!”

“Were you ever smothered by a pillow earlier? Eh, sunshine?”

The girl pushed his hand away. “What are you, stupid? I’m not sunshine! I’m Alice, idiot!”

It was not possible to offend Cyril. “Idiot!” he said, turning to himself. “Get acquainted! This is Alice, who has never been smothered by a pillow!”

“Ass!”

“And who actively learns the names of animals!” Cyril looked around triumphantly.

Alice turned away, lapsing into silence. Cyril clearly considered himself the victor; however, Sashka doubted this. A guy must not fight with a girl on the same level and with her weapon: the tongue. They deliberately exist in different dimensions. Well, what does an eagle brag to a dolphin? That it knows how to fly? But a dolphin knows how to swim. Cyril behaved like the bearded philosophy professor, who, after putting on a skirt, set off for the earthen bench and said, rubbing his hands, “Well, grannies, hold on! Now I can argue with all of you!!!”

“I’ll try to jump out! Since the phones don’t connect here, perhaps they will outside!” Sashka shouted and tugged at the door. Asphalt with small puddles gleamed. Sashka stepped back. He did not imagine that they would be going so fast. Freda, with the idea of recording everything, directed the round eye of the cell phone at Sashka.

“Don’t!” Rina shouted, unable to control herself.

“Why not? Must! Jump! What are you waiting for?” Freda demanded impatiently.

Sashka estimated the distance to the lawn. Grass is tempting, of course, but you could miss the mark and splatter all over the tall barrier. Asphalt would be better. He put his head out. The wind cut his cheek. It hit his eyes, blinded him for an instant. “When it’s thirty kilometres, shout!” he ordered Danny.

Danny rolled over on his stomach to the driver seat and stared at the speedometer. “Ninety! Damn! Why no traffic jams? Aha! Traffic light soon! Maybe it’ll brake slightly at least… Yes! Going down! Seventy! Sixty!”

“Jump!” Makar pushed Sashka slightly from behind.

“Tough guy first!” Sashka turned and grabbed his turtleneck. He was so fed up with Makar that he was actually capable of throwing him off the minibus.

“Let go of me!” Makar ordered quietly.

“But why?”

Makar slapped his own pocket with a threat. “Bluff!” thought Sashka. “He puts his hand in the pocket and will fly from the minibus together with me!”

“Forty!” shouted Danny. “Thirty-five!” Sashka pushed Makar away and returned to the door. The speed no longer seemed so great. He will run several metres and then roll. The main thing is that no driver behind decides to pass them on the right.

“Come on!” Danny yelled. Sashka rushed forcefully into the opening and… here something incomprehensible happened. An elastic force caught him and threw him back like a kitten. Sashka realized that he was sitting on the floor of the minibus, clutching Makar’s leg like a lifesaver.

“Full protection, pity! Even if you yank the wheels off, you’ll end up on the bottom!” Rina recalled Kuzepych’s words.

Freda tore herself away from the cell phone screen. “Shot it!” she shouted excitedly. “You were separated from the minibus for about half a metre and then it pulled you back! Did you feel anything?”

“The joy of flight!” Sashka answered in annoyance. The minibus again picked up speed.

“Let’s lean out and yell! Someone will hear for sure! Only better from the other side! More cars there!” Cyril in the heat of the moment wanted to hit the glass with his fist, but Makar held him back.

“No, why? Must take care of the hands!” Makar said peacefully. Leaning over, he pulled out a fire extinguisher from under the seat and competently knocked with one end on the glass four times. The glass was covered with a tangle of cracks, but it held. Makar, not embarrassed, continued to peck persistently. On the tenth blow, the glass collapsed, after hanging onto the rubber retaining it.

“And now we yell! All together! With feeling!” Makar ordered the girls. He himself did not begin to yell. He did not want to compete.

The girls shouted, waving their arms. Lara, whom Sashka was holding by her legs, finally leaned out of the window up to her waist and found herself by the open window on the side of a car unhurriedly passing them. Sashka was convinced that the driver did not see such girls often, but he did not even turn his head.

“Drove past like a robot! Could at least move a little!” Lara said with annoyance, when Sashka and Cyril pulled her back into the minibus.

“You’re too noisy for him. He likes quiet dames with slippers in their teeth!” Cyril butted in.

“Okay, gophers! Don’t want to notice in a friendly way, notice in a bad way!” Makar warned with a threat. Before anyone had time to understand what this “bad way” was, Makar had already rested a foot against the back of the seat and kicked it off. Sashka had never seen anyone stripped down a minibus with this composure.

Makar leaned out the window. The seat back hit the windshield of the Toyota moving in the adjacent lane and flew away to the curb. A crack appeared on the glass. The driver twisted the wheel. Sashka, very near, saw a puzzled fat face and trembling cheeks.

Sashka could not control himself. He leaned out, yelled, and waved the hanky torn from his neck. He was convinced that it would be impossible not to notice him. He could even describe the ballpoint pen sticking out of the stout person’s pocket. Someone pulled his sleeve. Pushed him down into a seat. Danny.

“Calm down! He doesn’t see us! And you calm down! Put the extinguisher back!” Danny took the fire extinguisher from Makar, who intended on finally finishing the Toyota with it.

“He even twitched!” Sashka said dejectedly.

“He twitched because he heard a bang!” explained Danny. “We don’t exist for him.”

“And those people who tried to stop the minibus at the stops? They were doing what, waving their hands at a void?” Sashka had his doubts.

“I suspect that they see the minibus itself. But us and what we throw, no!” Danny followed with his eyes the fire extinguisher, which the agitated hands of Makar nevertheless flung out of the minibus. “Sit down and place your paws on your knees!” he peacefully advised Makar.

“I understand why it’s route D minibus! D for devious!” Alice said suddenly.

Danny snorted with suspicion. It is rare to meet mystics taller than two metres. Otherworldly things usually do not stray into a head placed so high. This is a height of practical things. “Well, ‘devious’, so ‘devious’! Gentlemen! Let’s stop running and howling, and try to figure this out! Has anyone been on the route D minibus before?” Silence. “Then something must exist that ties all of us together. If we understand this, then let’s also understand why we’re gathered here. Let’s determine what we have in common.”

“Besides me, everyone here is a freak,” Alice muttered under her breath.

“Age,” Freda voted. “Who here is older than sixteen, raise your hand.”

Cyril immediately jerked up his hand. “You’re all small fry!!! I’m seventeen!” he stated.

“Cyril! Well-a show that pass again!” Lena asked softly.

“Certainly!” Cyril’s hand eagerly dived into one pocket, then another, and a third. The search was carried out with exceptional determination, but the pass did not appear. Lena waited mockingly.

Danny lost patience first. “Fine, age!” he nodded. “But age is too obvious. There are 300 thousands like us in Moscow.”

“Why so quick about Moscow? What if I’m not from Moscow? Who’s also not from Moscow?” Freda was offended. There turned out to be many “non-Muscovites.” Lena was even from Kiev.

“Fine. It means not only Moscow,” yielded Danny. “For that matter I’m from Novosibirsk. A year ago we dragged ourselves here and now we regularly feel sorry… Let’s think a bit more! Appearance, height, sports training, psych profile, gender sign, all different for us. Useless to search for similarities here.”

“Gender what?” Makar frowned. Sashka noticed that the term “psych profile” also seemed suspicious to him, but he did not risk asking about it.

“You’re a dude or a dame,” Rina explained from the last row. Makar squinted at her, checking if she was serious, and made an understanding face.

“Let’s analyze further. Any geniuses among us?” Danny continued to find out. Cyril again put up his hand.

“Cyril, precious! Lower your paw and continue to search for the pass!” Lena asked with southern softness in her voice.

“Any others besides Cyril,?” Besides Cyril and the modestly blushing Danny, there turned out to be no other candidates. Danny played with the crease on his forehead. “Of course, it would be tempting to acknowledge that if we’re not geniuses, then at least talented in our own way,” he with melancholy raised his eyes and immediately lowered them, “nevertheless I fear that this is the deciding factor here.”

“But wha did you look at me? You, beanpole!” Makar exploded.

“I didn’t look at you!”

“Did too! You eyeballed me and started to talk all sorts of nonsense! Are you hinting that I’m stupid?”

Sashka felt that the showdown could stretch on for a long time. Bad enough that they were travelling from Moscow at one-and-a-half kilometres a minute. “He didn’t look at you. He looked at me!” he said and caught Danny’s grateful glance.

“I looked at him,” confirmed Danny.

Forced to be satisfied with the answer, Makar made a disapproving sound into the broken window. “In sync? This long leader cramps and you bring him a stool? OK! Take care of yourself, guys!”

Freda was tired of filming. She lowered her hand with the phone. “Let’s take it from another side!” she stated. “How did we turn up in the route D minibus at all? Each specifically? Here, you?” she poked Lara.

It turned out Lara was going to try out as a model in a summer collection ad. “I was given a piece of paper in the subway! For screen tests!”

“Rush along on a piece of paper handed out at the subway… In the city, alone! Heavens!” Lena delivered tunefully.

“Do you want to say something?” Lara raised her eyebrows.

“I said, ‘Heavens!’”

The suited precisionist Vlad Ganich was on his way to collect a monitor and speakers from a guy who had phoned him last night. Vlad did not get who he was. Some friend of a friend.

“I immediately sensed that you’re a fan of freebies!” stated Makar. Vlad with indignation straightened his tie.

Cyril informed them that he found himself by chance in the route D minibus. He liked someone and, out of natural shyness, was too timid to approach the person on the street. However, when they asked him whom he liked precisely, Cyril began to beat around the bush. It was clear that he was choosing between a pie in the sky and a bird in the hand.

“Well, everything is clear with this… Will lie to the last! And what are you doing here? Hey you, boy!” Freda fearlessly poked Makar. Makar choked. The last time a female inspector had called him “boy” was in matters of minors.

By chance dropping his line of vision onto Makar’s wrist, Sashka saw three small round bluish scars on the outside of the palm. Clearly tracks of cigarette butts put out against the skin. “Who did this to you?” asked Sashka.

Makar looked at his hand. He clenched and unclenched his fist. The bluish burns were filled with blood and became violet. “None of your business!” he said sharply and, after hiding his hand behind his back, moved to the window.

“He did it himself,” Cyril whispered to Sashka.

“Why himself?”

“Side by side and regular. If it were someone else, he would fidget. Likely, he punished himself for something. Who knows!” Cyril said cautiously.

Freda herself was going to find out about the new humanities-theatrical college, which she by chance had heard about on the radio. Moreover, she had heard it in such a way that she understood neither the name nor the precise address, but only to get on the route D minibus from the Planernaya subway station. And on the whole, it turned out Freda flew into Moscow only the day before yesterday, settled at her coach’s former wife’s, and after a day and a half, had time to go around to seven institutes and three universities.

“On the whole, everything here is vague. Nothing in common,” Danny summed up.

The minibus kept going for a long time. Calm Kievan Lena even managed to snooze, moreover, of the two nearby shoulders, on Vlad Ganich’s. It was unrealistic to sleep on Cyril’s shoulder, because every three seconds he leaped up to meet someone. Vlad did not shake off Lena’s head, but it was noticeable that he was suffering and perceived her as a contaminated object threatening his suit.

Makar leaned out the window with distrust. “Just in case! Seems we’re driving up!” he reported.

***

The minibus slowed down. They had turned from the highway long ago. Monotonous concrete fences occasionally with graffiti stretched out. Reaching the end of the last one, Route D unwillingly rolled onto a broken unpaved road. To the right was a field. To the left was a colourful show of Moscow groves of different sizes, often small birches and maples covered with caps turning yellow and almost supported by nothing. The minibus went along slowly, swaying on the way. After about fifteen minutes, it stopped at some gates. The gates opened. They again set off, drove for about twenty metres, and finally stopped.

Sashka pulled the door and carefully got out. He took a step, expecting the elastic force to catch him and throw him back into the minibus. The bus was standing on an asphalt area surrounded by lilac bushes. Before them was an ordinary two-storey building. Two structures and a gallery connecting them. Low stairs, wide porch, and black double doors. Next to them was a blue doorplate, on which crawled cockroaches of indistinguishable letters.

“What’s written there? Can anyone see?” asked Sashka.

“It says HDive,” someone beside him answered. Sashka turned. Standing next to him was the person by the name of Rina, squinting in the sun.

“You can see the letters from here? What eyesight!”

“Well no, I can’t. I read them earlier,” she admitted with a sigh.

“How?”

“Well, on the whole, I came from here. I was ordered to meet, accompany, and explain nothing. That kind of thing,” Rina shrugged her shoulders slightly, and Sashka understood that she did not particularly like this task. Sashka belatedly realized that she sat more quietly than everybody in the minibus and did not panic.

“So it’s you who dragged us here? I’ll strangle you!” Makar began to yell and rushed at Rina.

Sashka caught him in a chokehold and discovered at the same time that everyone had already got out of the minibus. “Stop!” he ordered and asked Rina, “What next? Where are we going now?”

Rina looked first at the sun, and then at her phone, checking if the sun was slower than the clock on her phone. “Well, come on! They’re waiting for us!” she said and, having turned around, made her way to HDive. Exchanging glances, the rest followed her.

“Only not me! I’m not going!” Freda said and, after passing everyone, went first.

Alice stepped with pleasure on the heads of the yellow flowers shooting out between the flagstones. If somewhere there were no flowers, she specially made a zigzag in order to crush some flowers elsewhere. “If this decoy also counts, then ten of us,” she stated.

“Well, so wha?” Makar was puzzled.

“No wha!” Alice mimicked and tinkled the death dog tags with a challenge.

END OF AUGUST – BEGINNING OF SEPTEMBER