Taking Lives

Chapter 2. Baptism by Fire

Of those present at the meeting, most now regarded Andrei with either disdain or condescension, and some even with contempt. Only the elderly doctor continued to treat the young man with warmth, as he did everyone else. Apart from him, perhaps only Sergei Vorobyov—a silent man of about thirty, with a gaze that always seemed to stare straight through anyone he was talking to—hadn't changed his attitude toward Andrei.

However, to Andrei himself, Vorobyov seemed rather strange, as he seemed detached, completely indifferent to everything. He seemed always to be thinking about something else, somewhere else. However, despite the impression that he was completely oblivious to the conversation, he always listened attentively, as Andrei soon discovered.

The next day, as they were trudging through the dense forest together in a small group, Andrei struck up a conversation with him. Or rather, a monologue, because Sergei rarely answered, and even less often said anything.

A six-man squad was heading toward a relatively nearby military airfield, hoping that something useful remained there after years of plundering by far more agile hunters. Pavel Gronin himself led the expedition, but Major Rodionov was also with them. Andrei, of course, was still weak and hadn't even regained half his strength, but the desire to participate in the fight against the gang in general, and to prove his worth to Max in particular, bolstered his spirit.

The airfield was twelve kilometers north of "Shelter," as their base was now known, not entirely kindly, by Max Rodionov. Andrei didn't believe they'd find anything useful there after ten years of chaos and looting, but after the embarrassing meeting, he didn't dare discuss orders or voice his doubts.

"How did you survive the epidemic?" Andrey asked Sergey when he'd grown tired of the monologue.

Vorobyov took his time answering, and Andrey couldn't tell from his expression whether he intended to answer at all. Instead, Colonel Gronin's son, Oleg, a tall, blond, blue-eyed man, walked ahead of him and deigned to answer. Apparently, this was a sore subject for him, and he wanted to tell someone about it.

Oleg had a distinctive way of speaking. As Andrei later learned, Oleg had picked up this manner of speaking from one of the soldiers who lived with them in the "Shelter," but that man had died about a year ago.

"It's a long story. I was only nine years old when all this fuss with the virus started," Oleg began telling the story in a condescending tone. "My dad was already the boss at this base back then. Right before the epidemic started, some guy brought me here at his request, and we holed up in a bunker and were stuck there for almost a year. It was a scary time. You're stuck there like a rat, with almost no entertainment, nothing, absolutely nothing. Just the floor, the ceiling, and the walls. Well, there's some furniture, but absolutely nothing to do. If it weren't for old Bernstein, we probably would have all gone nuts. After a while, the food started running out, and the seniors debated for a long time what to do, but in the end, they decided to break out. It turned out to be a brilliant idea. Well, then we lived in that damn valley for eight long years, most of which we had no idea that many more people had survived. And believe me, very soon this new prison became no better than the old one. Except for the sun and fresh air. Diesel fuel was always in short supply, so the generator was only turned on on major holidays, but every time, Bernstein would get on the radio, hoping to pick up signals or some conversations from the survivors. Finally, two summers ago, he succeeded. That's when we realized we weren't alone, although I'd said so before, but no one listened. Anyway, we spent a long time deciding the risks of leaving the valley, and what to do at all, because we had no idea what was out there. The broadcast we picked up was shady – it was about some kind of battle, and there were no other broadcasts. Dad forbade us to go on the air ourselves until it was clear what the hell was going on. But we decided to get out anyway. Think about it: when you've been staring at the same faces for almost ten years, forcing down fish you've long since grown sick of, wild berries, and the few vegetables you were lucky enough to grow, the urge to throw it all away and see what's left of the world overcomes even common sense. There's been no hunting in the valley for a long time now—there's almost no game left. Just damn fish, and even those seem to be in short supply. We'd been slowly clearing the rubble before, and once we made the decision, we threw almost all our energy into it. But the real trick was at the end—there were rocks there we couldn't reach or move. So Dad and Max came up with the idea of ​​pulverizing them with a directed blast. It was risky—we could have collapsed everything again, but we had nothing to lose anyway, and in the end, we were lucky. Well, you know the rest.

Oleg told his story as if he personally made all the most important decisions affecting the lives of his father and those around him. As if everything that happened was his direct responsibility.

"And how many of you were there at the beginning?" Andrey asked, for whom, despite Oleg's irritating manner, the puzzle was only now beginning to come together more or less smoothly.

"Fifteen people," Sergei answered for him. "Two of them didn't live to see liberation and committed suicide a couple of months after it began. Another died of illness a year ago."

Andrey remained silent, unsure of what to say. After waiting a while, he decided to ask the next question.