“What do you value most in life?”

“Love and friendship.”

(from Rina's interview with the program ‘Lighting the Stars’)

Nikolai went to bed late, but still woke up early. Yesterday's discovery didn/t go out of his head, and intuition suggested that the parameters could change in other places. Nikolai dialed Lev, apologized for the early call and told about his research.

“Send me all the statements,” Jaguar replied. “I'll look at it later. Keep the equipment for now. And I'll try to find out something about Korean village.”

“You and Yana are on vacation,” Nikolai sighed.

“She is also interested in such cases. I don't think she'll mind the tour. Compatible business with pleasure. What should I bring you?”

“Bring me the news,” he laughed and wished Lev a happy journey.

Having put an old notebook and notebook in a bag with equipment, Nikolai decided to go to the office early and study the videos and audio recordings made the day before Vika's arrival in order to devote the rest of the day to a new trip. But as soon as he got out of the car, he was called by name. Nikolai looked around and saw that Violet Volkova was heading towards him. He waited until she came up, involuntarily noting that this summer dress suits her very well, and smiled affably. However, Violet remained serious.

“Have you been waiting long?” Nikolai asked after the greeting.

“No. Your assistant has already arrived, but I decided to wait for you downstairs.”

“Is Vika in place?” Nikolai was surprised, because he allowed her to come an hour later, and invited Violet: “Let's go!”

“Let's talk in my car,” she suddenly asked and nervously pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. “The topic is too delicate…”

“Good!” Nikolai agreed easily.

He was sympathetic to the fact that not all clients dare to tell secrets in the office. He even came to someone's house.

It was cool in the cabin, apparently, Violet had recently turned off the air conditioner, and it smelled pleasantly of sea freshness. Nikolai settled comfortably into the seat. Violet involuntarily yanked her seat belt, as if she was going to fasten it, and then smiled sheepishly.

“If it's easier for you to talk on the road, then let's take a ride.”

“No, I... I still have a long way to go home. I took the girls to my mom's because Volodya and I are leaving for two days after lunch.”

“Nothing serious has happened, I hope?” Nikolai asked.

“No, no. This is a planned trip. We are going abroad to the kennel for puppies. So this is a business trip.”

“Business and troublesome…”

“Troublesome and joyful,” Violet laughed softly, drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, and then turned to Nikolai.

“We haven't told you everything about Rina. Volodya thought that you would not take us seriously if we stunned you with such information.”

“Intrigued! And what is this secret?”

Violet sighed, pulled a strand of hair behind her ear again and, looking at Nikolai with her amazing eyes, asked:

“Tell me, do you admit the presence of abnormal zones? Do you believe that such places can exist?”

“Like the Bermuda Triangle?” he asked with a half-smile, but his heartbeat suddenly quickened from a vague premonition.

“Yes.”

Violet fell silent in anticipation, and Nikolai realized that if he had laughed or otherwise shown his disbelief, then the conversation would have ended there. It was not so much his words that mattered to Volkova as his reaction. And, apparently, he passed the test, because Violet smiled and nodded almost imperceptibly - not to him, but to her thoughts.

“I believe you,” Nikolai said, although the words were already superfluous.

“Good,” Violet breathed out and began to tell about a certain island where she, Vsevolod, Rina and other people found themselves five years ago.

Nikolai listened with interest, thinking that he needed to look for information about this town, Tivastopol, near which everything happened.

“It was under such circumstances that we met Rina,” Violet concluded the story. “We've been friends ever since. For Rina, we are like a family that she does not have. But no one knows about what we experienced on the island. And if you do, who will believe it?”

“I believe it,” Nikolai replied. “I have come across some events that are difficult to explain.”

“Here!” Violet was delighted. “I felt it. That's why I told Volodya that I could trust you. After the island, we all had a good life. Volodya and I got married, we are raising two daughters, bought a house, equipped a training ground, and are going to open a nursery. Elvira and Valeriy are also together, recently they had a long-awaited baby. Well, you already know about Rina. But she was the only one who discovered such abilities after the island. She is able to open and close portals to other parallels. It's hard to explain…”

“Did she use these abilities with you? Let's say recently?”

“I don't know. She was afraid of her skills, so she would hardly use them just out of curiosity. Only now sje closed the portal on the island and that's it.”

“But your husband assumes that Rina could accidentally open such a portal and disappear there?”

“Yes. That's what we're afraid of.”

“You bet. If Rina disappeared in another parallel, then I can hardly help here. I don't have such abilities,” Nikolai replied, and Violet, who at first fell for his serious tone, smiled.

“Yes, I understand, but I think it's important. Just please keep this conversation between us. I'll tell Volodya myself that I met you.”

“Of course! I won't even dedicate an assistant.”

“Will you take this case?” Violet asked hopefully.

Nikolai hesitated with the answer, and then nodded.

“Yes. You just need to sign the contract. I will ask Vika to prepare it and send it to you by mail. When you can, bring the original.”

He said goodbye to Violet and went up to the office. The assistant was already at the workplace and was typing something quickly. Nikolai noticed out of the corner of his eye that she was writing a private message to someone on Facebook and hurriedly looked away.

“Good morning, boss!” Vika greeted him cheerfully and looked up at him.

“I was expecting you later,” he replied with a smile. “Couldn't sleep?”

“I couldn't sleep,” Vika sighed. Nikolai noted that she didn't close the chat when he appeared, as if she had no personal secrets. “I've been thinking about our trip.”

“You don't look like you've had a sleepless night. You look great as always,” Nikolai complimented her.

Vika obviously liked his words, because her cheeks turned a little pink, and a smile touched her lips.

“I found the Korean band you were talking about. I was just writing to the soloist, Rim Chin hwa, directly. Let's see what the answer is. It seems that he and Rina really knew each other. I found a cover she made of a Korean song.”

“Do you think he will answer?” Nikolai doubted.

In his view, celebrities of the stage didn’t condescend to communicate with fans in person. However, he was not familiar with any celebrities – neither Russian, nor, moreover, Korean.

“I hope so! And I also called the orphanage where Rina was brought up and got Nuliya's phone number!” Vika blurted out solemnly.

“Good,” Nikolai replied with restraint and, apparently, offended the assistant by the dryness of the answer, because her smile immediately faded.

Vika silently handed him a piece of paper with the number, Nikolai mechanically took it and went to his room. The assistant coped with the task perfectly, but his thoughts were occupied with a conversation with Violet. Was it by chance that Gennadiy Sergeevich sent Vsevolod here?

Nikolai attached a sticker with Nuliya's phone to the monitor and dialed Gennadiy Sergeevich. The phone was picked up when he was about to drop the call.

“I'm listening, Nikolai,” the caller replied wearily.

“Gennadiy Sergeevich, does the name of the city of Tivastopol mean something to you?”

There was a long pause in the phone, which said a lot without words.

“There was an island next to it, where the military unit was located. More than twenty years ago.”

“I can't know all the military units, Kolya,” Gennadiy Sergeevich laughed softly. “What are you interested in? I'll try to find out if it's related to our case.

“I don't think it's related to our case,” Nikolai replied, emphasizing the word ‘our’. “But it is connected with the disappearance of the singer whose friends you sent to me.”

“I don’t know who is missing from them. Someone close, and I thought you might be able to help. Is this a missing girl singer?”

“Yes. The one that is being written about in the press now. Dimitri Lebedev's ex-fiancee.”

Gennadiy Sergeevich was silent again, and then cheerfully ended the conversation:

“Good! I'll try to send you information about the missing island.”

Nikolai said goodbye and, putting down the phone, smiled. Gennadiy Sergeevich, without noticing it, made a mistake, because in a conversation with him Nikolai didn’t mention that the island was gone. Nuliya didn't answer the call, and Nikolai just entered her number into the phone, and threw the sticker away. Then he spent a whole hour before the pain in his eyes watching the video taken the day before in an attempt to spot at least some shadow, but the cameras did not record anything strange. The audio recordings also turned out to be clean, without extraneous sounds and interference. Disappointed, Nikolai turned off the computer and got up from the table. The day was just getting hotter, and if you hurry up, you can explore the military camp – the place where it all started.

“Vika, how are you? Will you stay with me or in the office as the head?” he asked for form's sake, already knowing the answer.

The assistant flashed her heavenly eyes and smiled broadly.

“Won't you be scared?” Nikolai teased, recalling her frightened squeal.

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“Forewarned – armed,” Vika reported briefly and got up from the table.

Today she was wearing blue leggings, a long tunic with a hood and high lace-up boots. Apparently, she was counting on a trip and dressed comfortably. Nikolai also changed his usual business suit for the second day and dressed in jeans and a polo.

“By the way, Rina's friend from Korea, Chin Hwa, answered. He didn't know anything about her disappearance. And he seemed upset. He asked me to tell him the news.”

“All right,” Nikolai said.

They got there quickly, only once making a short stop to have a snack in a cafe and buy water for the road. Nikolai decided to go straight to the town, and leave the park for the last time.

They selectively entered houses, took measurements in entrances and unlocked apartments. Vika followed Nikolai like a silent shadow, and the curiosity that was initially read on her face was replaced by a gloomy expression with each house explored. Sometimes she looked around furtively, as if she was afraid of someone's sudden appearance, and stayed close to Nikolai. He also tried to concentrate on his work - he took measurements, dictated data to Vika, but the situation still made him uncomfortable. Even the fresh entries on the entrance walls, which were left with paint by stalkers, did not calm down, but only added touches to the overall picture of the post-apocalypse.

Immediately after the incident, posts were set up near the garrison. Investigators and the military worked in the town. Thanks to the efforts of the latter, things were taken out of the deserted houses, but still there were some ‘little things’ in the form of a forgotten doll, a child's car, a half-rotted slipper or a book that served as a reminder that people once lived here. The tragedy itself was silenced, the case was classified and sent to the archive. Maybe someone, like Nikolai a few years ago, tried to find out the truth, but hardly succeeded.

The measurements were finished by the evening. And even though they were both tired, they decided to stop by the amusement park again.

Nikolai parked the car next to an ancient wreck on wheels and took a bag of equipment. Vika went outside and cast a wistful glance at the gate visible in the distance, but did not complain. Nikolai hesitated a little while tying the shoelace on his sneaker, so Vika disappeared into the park without him.

“Kolya!” she suddenly shouted. “There's a person lying here!”

He ran up to her and saw a young man under the fence.

“Drunk?”

“It doesn't look like it. There is no smell. Kolya! He hit his head! Blood… Oh!”

Vika recoiled in fright, because the man groaned loudly and moved.

“Thank God, he's alive!”

Nikolai gently pushed her aside and bent over the stranger. He took a long breath and tried to sit up. Nikolai helped him, and when the man leaned back against the concrete parapet and looked up at him, he asked:

“Are you ill? Should I call an ambulance?”

“N-don't,” the stranger replied and winced when he touched the back of his head with his hand.

There was blood on his fingers, and Nikolai looked back at the assistant who was nervously trampling next to him:

“Vik, bring the first aid kit!”

Peering into the guy's face, she suddenly turned pale, but, catching herself, took the keys handed to her and took off.

“What happened?” Nikolai turned to the stranger, who looked to be the same age. “Did you feel ill? Or did you fall?”

“Fell,” the man answered after a pause and cautiously stretched his neck, as if looking at someone over Nikolai's shoulder. “I tried to climb over the fence and fell off.”

“Why over the fence? The exit is nearby!”

“It's closed there,” the man answered, looked back at the exit and, seeing the gate wide open, quietly exhaled: “I wasn't imagining it! And everything was colored again, it was black and white.”

He stopped abruptly. And Nikolai, not caring about tact, because when a person feels bad, they have to forget about tact, asked:

“Do you have some kind of disease?”

Young and seemingly strong men just don't lose consciousness and don’t mumble something about the appearance or disappearance of color. Maybe the guy has a brain tumor? But the stranger resolutely shook his head and obviously immediately regretted it, because the careless movement caused him pain.

“You need to go to the hospital,” Nikolai said decisively, taking out his phone.

“No!” the stranger objected in a categorical tone and shifted his gaze to Vika who ran up to them.

He involuntarily lingered his gaze on her slender legs, admiration flashed in his dark eyes, and Nikolai relaxed: if the guy admired Vika's long legs, like a mannequin, it means that he doesn’t feel so bad.

Vika, of course, could not help but notice the interested look, because she quickly shoved the first-aid kit to Nikolai and stepped aside. Her face was still pale, and by the way she was impatiently marking time, Nikolai realized that the assistant was nervous for some reason. She didn’t offer help, so he unpacked sterile napkins himself, soaked one of them abundantly with a solution of peroxide and applied it to the wound on the man's head.

“What's your name?”

“Yura.”

“Maybe we should call an ambulance after all?” Nikolai suggested changing the napkin.

“Don't. I'm feeling better now. Thanks! I'll take the car, I'll drive myself.”

Nikolai doubted that he would get there himself. And not only because this Yura, who didn’t really explain what happened to him, swayed when he got up, but also because that ancient clunker that Nikolai saw near the park risked losing all the nuts on the first bump. But Yura, muttering the words of farewell indistinctly, already staggered towards the exit.

“He's not going to make it in this condition!” Vika whispered loudly, looking at his back. “If we let him go and he gets into an accident…”

She hugged herself with her arms, pressed her lips together and watched Yura relentlessly until he disappeared from sight.

“Vika?”

“Ah?” she shook her head.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she answered after an involuntary pause. “I was scared when… When I saw the blood!”

“Does the sight of blood frighten you?” Nikolai doubted, remembering how one winter, while digging in a desk drawer, he accidentally cut himself off on a stationary knife. The cut was then treated by Vika, and it was not noticeable that she could not stand the sight of blood.

“Yes, it scares me,” the assistant answered confusedly, apparently also remembering that case.

Nikolai held her gaze for a while, but did not pry. Moreover, Vika already smiled and asked in a deliberately cheerful tone:

“Well, boss? Shall we continue? Otherwise we'll go home again at night. Keep in mind, then I'll take advantage of your offer and come to work late tomorrow!”

They dealt with the park quickly. Nikolai took measurements in several places, Vika wrote everything down, and both of them, with obvious relief, headed for the exit.

“The journey to the past is over,” Nikolai muttered, not so much to his assistant as to himself. “Of course, we will not go to other places – to Korea and to the North in Russia. My friend is in Korea now, he will find something to complete the picture. And we will try to get through to the town in the North. Now let's get down to the present. It will be necessary to go to the place where, according to Gennadiy Sergeevich, everything is just beginning. It's about a hundred kilometers from here. It's a long way, but what can I do? You will need to book a hotel. I can't do it in a day.”

“Will you leave me in the office?”

“If you want to go, we'll go together,” he shrugged. “Then order two rooms.”

“I'll do it,” Vika nodded and after a pause asked: “Kolya, what is the purpose of our research? Prevent a new tragedy?”

“To prevent a tragedy is a noble goal… On it, as on a hook, you can catch any simpleton.”

“But you're not a simpleton.”

“I just know some people and their appetites well. And, believe me, their goals are not always noble,” he replied evasively.

Gennadiy Sergeevich never revealed all the cards, but Nikolai didn’t expect this, because he understood that his research was hardly needed in order to avoid new tragedies.

“I see,” the assistant nodded. “It is clear that you should not poke your nose into high goals… of people in high positions.”

“Something like that.”

“And if our research is used for bad purposes?”

After asking, Vika stopped, forcing Nikolai to slow down too. She boldly looked into his eyes and pressed her lips tightly together while waiting for an answer.

“They will never tell us about it, Vita. You know… I couldn't refuse. And because I am obliged to Gennadiy Sergeevich. And because I want to find out what happened to my father and the residents of the town.”

He didn’t add that in case of refusal, there would be a way to put pressure on him, so it's easier to just do the tasks and not ask unnecessary questions. Nikolai ended the conversation on a cheerful note:

“But let's hope that our research has a good purpose.”

“And how fast does everything happen? How much time passes from the beginning and… to the end?”

“Not enough, Vika. That's why I didn't want to be distracted by other things.”

“But the search for the singer is an exception, because the task comes, though not directly, but from Gennadiy Sergeevich.”

“Yes. Although I don't see any connection between these cases.”

When they had already reached the car, they were suddenly called out:

“Hey! Wait!”

Nikolai looked around and saw Yura, who detached himself from his clunker and, smiling shyly, headed towards them.

“The car didn't start. Looks like the battery is dead.”

“No wonder,” Nikolai answered evenly.

“This is not my ‘dinosaur’, friend. Alas, there was no other car. I see you have metropolitan numbers. Can you give me a lift? I just don't have the strength to wait for a tow truck and other fuss right now, my head is bursting…”

“No problem.”

Vika glanced at Nikolai as if she didn't like his decision to take a passenger. But before he could answer her, she had already taken her seat with a deliberately indifferent look.

They drove a good part of the way in silence. And although Nikolai didn’t like to talk on the way, the silence hanging in the cabin seemed unbearable to him.

“And what brought you to the park? “ he asked.

“Apparently, the same as you. I'm a photographer! I take a series of pictures with abandoned objects.

Vika snorted softly, Nikolai squinted at her, but said nothing. Yura's answer satisfied him, and he decided not to ask further, in order to avoid counter-questions.

Vika's neighborhood was the first on the way. Nikolai drove her and, as usual, waited for the lights to turn on in the apartment. He never asked who Vika lived with, but judging by the fact that every time the apartment met her with dark windows, she lived alone.

“Is this your girlfriend?” Yura asked as they drove away from the house.

“No. My assistant.”

“I see. Beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Nikolai replied.

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“Interested?” Nikolai chuckled. “Remember, I'm not a matchmaker. And I'm not going to give my assistant's phone number without her consent.”

“It's a pity,” Yura sighed deliberately loudly. “And I've already decided to marry her.”

“So hooked?”

“Mm... I signed a contract that I am obliged to get married before the end of this year. And there is no suitable girl.”

“How is this a contract?” Nikolai was interested, and Yura amused him with a story about how he picked up and dragged a street dog to his sister. And sister agreed to keep the dog only after Yura promised to get married.

“I'd keep the dog for myself in that case,” Nikolai laughed.

“Yes, I realized too late! And now Manya doesn't give me Pencil, but she hid the contract. So that… Stop here! Thanks, I helped out!”

They shook hands at parting, and Nikolai went home. But he didn't go to bed, and for a long time he looked through new and old records. He was looking for something in common between completely different villages at first glance: at first, minor signs like the mandatory presence of nearby reservoirs, forests, then added more specialized ones and set a search for settlements based on the identified markers. But even then, the program gave out too large a list of cities, towns and villages.

“My native country is wide…” muttered Nikolai, looking through a selection in which it was possible to get lost, as in the taiga.

Then he went back to the notes made by Vika under dictation and made sure that the parameters in the military unit, the town and the amusement park practically coincide, but are strikingly different from those they once made with Lev. Nikolai decided to combine the town, the part and the park into one zone, since they were located next to each other. But he needed to know how things were going in other zones and whether new ones with similar parameters had appeared.

It was three o'clock in the morning, but Nikolai knew that the right person, with whom Jaguar had once introduced him, was not sleeping. The hacker, nicknamed Rubik for a whole collection of cubes of the same name, answered after the third ring.

‘Rubik, I need help,” Nikolai said in response to a lazy ‘hello?’

“No question,” the hacker drawled, recognizing him. “Do you know the tariff?”

“I pay double for the urgency.”

“Okay. If the attack is on the Pentagon, then it's a triple,” either a joke, or a hacker seriously suggested.

“No,” Nikolai laughed. “I need to select from the list of settlements that fit the parameters I need. The maximum match is required.”

“No question,” Rubik repeated and told where to send the task.

Nikolai stretched, got up and went to the kitchen. He didn't turn on the light, took a can of beer out of the refrigerator and went to the window. The house opposite was dark with extinguished windows, only one was burning in the last entrance on the top floor. Apparently, someone was suffering from insomnia, or maybe he was also working. Sipping an ice-cold beer, Nikolai thought about these changed parameters that were bothering him. Does this mean that something terrible is waking up again in the town of his childhood? But it was these changes that gave a hint how to find other ‘zones’. Crushing the empty jar in his fist, he thought that he would give a lot for these places with something terrible waking up not to be.

Nikolai didn’t know how long he stood there, looking at the neighboring house, in which the last window went out. He woke up from a quiet beep of his mobile phone, notifying him of the received message.

Rubik didn’t exchange greetings. First of all, he threw away the wallet number and the amount he asked for. And already in the second message he sent the names of the settlements, their coordinates and a map with red ‘flags’. Nikolai quickly tapped out an answer, promising to make a translation right away. Then he rushed into the room and unfolded the map on the monitor.

There were five settlements – counting two ‘from the past’ (Nikolai asked to watch only Russian ones) and three new ones, about one of which Gennadiy Sergeevich had already told him. Looking at the map, he found another pattern: the ‘new’ settlements were located not far from those in which a tragedy had already happened in the past. One of them is in the North near the ‘infected’ area. The second one, which Gennadiy Sergeevich mentioned, was located a hundred kilometers from the one in which Nikolai was born. And the third one is in the middle between these two. Nikolai connected the villages with lines and made sure that they were all on the same trajectory.

“The infection is spreading like oil on water,” Nikolai muttered and turned cold from this thought, because he clearly imagined how the ‘spots’, spreading, connected into one huge, stretching from the North to the village near Moscow.