Samara region, Fort Krotovka (coordinates: 53 ° 16 "54 ""With. sh., 51 ° 10 "35 ""V. d .), 2033 AD
- Yes, for... and...! At least stick it to the floor, you fool! – he turned the steering wheel – Don’t loom until we get to the road!
The “Ural” roared, jumped forward and, having made a tricky loop, was able to rise up, jumping at once and landing on the remains of the asphalt. They managed to get away. For now, anyway.
“They are here,” Daria whispered. - They know where I am.
Morhold bared his teeth and pulled a knife out of his sleeve. When one of the cars at the head of the train buzzed from being hit and a little later something barked very loudly, Dasha was seriously scared. But his gaze, completely calm and even, made me more frightened.
The knife, matte, without glare, whistled in the air. The former thug, who promised to deal with Morhold at the end, wheezed briefly as he fell. The knife entered the comrade with a sparse mustache under the lower jaw in one elusive blow. The third Morhold simply broke his nose. By kicking him inside the skull. They were shouting and shouting all around, and practically no attention was paid to them. Except for the railway workers. AK banged several times, and they also calmed down. It’s true, to be honest, Morhold has now attracted the attention of passengers.
“Come on, unfasten the side for me, fellow countrymen...” he was not at all embarrassed by the attention shown to his person. He just shook his AK, kicking two men towards the indicated side. And he pulled the tarpaulin off the cargo of the dead trio. Grandfather, having come to his senses, whistled in surprise.
- No, no, old man, you are not on the same path with us. – Morhold jerked his bag onto the back seat of the three-wheeled motorcycle. - Send everyone back. You see, they don’t shoot at us, you never know, who can survive... Go back, motherfucker, well?!!
The passengers moved away... or rather, crawled away. The shells flew towards the train, even if they were turning the armored cars into a colander. Armed people were running towards the platforms.
- Into the cradle! – Morhold started the motorcycle, which sneezed and roared. – Don’t take the helmet off your head! Fast!
Daria jumped into the cradle and grabbed the welded bracket. The engine sneezed again, and the Ural jerked forward, smoothly rolling down the lowered side. It shook, something crunched under the wheel, and pulled to the side. Morhold turned the steering wheel to the side and leaned forward with his whole body. “Ural” obeyed, growled and walked, walked, rolled forward into the darkness.
There was a whistle above Dasha's head, Morhold fired a fan, the tracers scattered in all directions. Behind them everything was still roaring, dozens of voices were shouting, sometimes even shouting over the cannonade. Morhold drove the car forward.
- Is there anyone behind? – he turned to her. - Look.
Dasha turned around. There, at the station, it sparkled, burned and rumbled. And also, having separated from the gradually receding carnage, two bright points were rushing behind them.
- Yes! Someone is catching up!
- Oh, how bad it is! – Morhold turned the gas, forcing the Ural to go faster.
No longer hiding, he turned on the light. I swore. And I tried to turn it on again. Did not work out. Ahead lay thick, inky darkness. The clouds were clearly not going to clear, as they had been doing for the last few weeks. Morhold looked over his shoulder, not caring about the danger. Two lanterns danced behind, trying to reach the fugitives.
“At least read the spell...” Morhold spat. – What’s his name... lumus?!
Dasha looked at him, not hearing, but realizing that something was not going as it should. Morhold spat again, almost biting his tongue due to a wheel bouncing on some bump, and hit the switch. It buzzed, crunched, and a yellow cone appeared in front of the speeding Ural, illuminating ten meters of dirt and withered grass.
- Yes, I’m like some kind of Harry Potter! – Morhold shouted joyfully and added gas.
The queues rumbled behind them. It hit the cradle, from the side, then again.
- Bend down! – Morhold barked, spitting from another portion of water that flew from the lashing branches. - Get down, motherfucker!
- Where else?! – Dasha squeezed into the cradle of the motorcycle, performing a jig on the muddy ground. - A?!
- Yes, for... and...! At least stick it to the floor, you fool! – he turned the steering wheel. – Don’t loom until we reach the road!
The “Ural” roared, jumped forward and, having made a tricky loop, was able to rise up, jumping at once and landing on the remains of the asphalt. They succeeded.
Morhold bared his teeth, pressing himself against the steering wheel, and looked around again. The headlights of the pursuers flashed not so far away. I didn’t want to get involved with them, and stopping was very dangerous. You never know who is so decisive and decided to take over the entire fort of Kinel? And he didn’t just decide, but took it by storm, and even brought in artillery.
Morhold drove the growling old car forward, trying to understand at least a little of what had happened. The girl, sitting in the cradle, did not stick out. He even began to worry about her life or the integrity of her body, but then Dasha shook her head and turned to him. He nodded, understanding what she wanted to show. Yes, at the scene of the chase I would have done the same.
The pursuers split up. One headlight was already flashing behind, reaching the asphalt. The second car, judging by the sound, continued to storm the mud below. “And if so,” Morhold thought, “then they have something serious and off-road. So what should I do? That's right, there is only one way out: drive along the highway at maximum speed, hoping for no deep holes, and get to the desired turn in one piece. And then... and then we’ll see.”
The Ural was shaking and throwing from side to side. How long will the service life of a restored motorcycle last? Morhold really wanted it to last longer. They stopped shooting. And here's the thing... it's both good and bad.
Good, because you won’t get shot in the back or the back of the head.
It’s bad because the pursuers may actually know about Daria.
And if so…
If so, then Morhold did not know a way out of the situation. Because the prospect of fighting an enemy who had destroyed the fort and the train was frightening. One against how many? God knows. And so it’s clear that they’ll easily turn him into a Budyonnovsky-style stalker, finely chopped, and why the hell won’t he bother them. And then they’ll take you and leave you to die somewhere here, in your native dirt. No, he would prefer another option.
In a ray of light, a fox appeared, fearfully darting towards the side. Morhold grinned at his own thought to himself, who now greatly resembled an animal, and stomped away. As long as the motorcycle is moving, it's worth driving. There wasn’t much left before the tricky turn, and it’s unlikely that the pursuers knew about it. And if so, then he and Daria will have time. And war, as they say, will show the plan.
The engine roared louder, obeying the rider. "Ural", forgetting about its age, quickly rushed forward. Morhold looked back when an old, noticeable tree flashed by. How many years has it been here? Yes, as long as he could remember. What should you remember when it remained on your right hand? Right! Then the swamp begins.
Once upon a time, a very, very long time ago, when no one would have thought to name little Morhold because it was stupid, there was no trace of the swamp. There was a lake (more like a pond, although not a small one). Nothing at all has passed, some twenty years, and here you go - along the strip of asphalt cut off by time, wind, rain and snow, a real swamp stretches. With all the ensuing consequences. Some of them, oddly enough, always turned out to be very unpleasant.
Morhold grinned, bending over the steering wheel. Behind, not far away, the first pursuer rumbled. The second one, its engine howling, kept rushing along the side of the road. The Stalker very much hoped that this would not last long: it was unlikely that the swamp would let him down, although, of course, he would not keep the other one for good. And so it happened.
A motor soon roared from the side of the road, then suddenly died down. Morhold could well imagine what happened: they flew at speed into a completely invisible dirt patch covered with ordinary grass. We got stuck, tried to get out and got stuck in our wheels. And, most likely, now, swearing and looking around, they push out their scooter.
The first one did not lag behind. But the turn was getting closer.
- Open the bag! – Morhold yelled, turning to Daria. - Faster! Get the machine gun!
Dasha clicked her teeth, thrown up on a hummock, and tried to unzip the zipper. It didn’t move, stuck somewhere in the middle.
“Yes, by your leg...” Morhold looked around. The pursuer stopped. The bright dot went out, the engine, so clearly audible just recently, became silent.
- Shit... Did you open it?
Dasha nodded, taking out a machine gun. Sitting in the cradle did not work out very well.
Morhold jerked the motorcycle to the nearest shelter, a stop overgrown with tall reeds. He turned off the engine, gently jumped off the motorcycle and took the machine gun from Daria, the mattely flashing Pecheneg. The headlight went out.
“Shhhh...” Morhold put his finger to his lips and walked away a little.
Dasha froze. I listened to the darkness and emptiness, tried to dissolve in it, the barely audible hum of the cooling engine.
The silence only seemed so. Dasha rubbed her shoulders chilly, throwing on her hood, which had gotten knocked down several times during her escape. The jacket was damp, the trousers were damp, the gloves were almost completely wet. But at least the rain stopped for a while. She looked back, trying to see Morhold, and was dumbfounded. He disappeared. Completely, completely and completely.
Dasha hiccupped, clutching the issued pistol with her hands. She hastily unfastened her belt and pulled the weapon towards herself. The gun is stuck. Somewhere nearby, clearly and loudly, something crunched. Dasha shuddered and jumped out of the cradle. The pistol, caught by something while sitting, fell out. She picked him up near the ground. She froze, looking back to where the glow was still blazing on the very horizon. I squinted and tried to press myself into the ground - someone was walking towards the frozen Ural. Or something.
The dark silhouette, panting heavily and waddling, moved in small steps, freezing and poking its head down. He grumbled something, mumbled under his breath, and slowly, imperceptibly, got closer.
Daria had her first experience with a combat platoon. The gun, oiled and well maintained, barely made a sound. But the grumbling individual, following the trail of the motorcycle, reacted immediately. She jumped from her spot, unexpectedly strong and fast for such a mass, and went somewhere to the side of the road.
Dasha jerked back, raising her weapon and swinging the barrel in front of her. When Morhold's hand fell on her shoulder, she almost screamed. And she would have screamed, only the second hand covered her mouth.
“Quiet,” the stalker whispered. - He won’t do anything to you. This is a stomper, he is kind and timid. Although a curious one.
- Who? – Dasha sniffled, almost bursting into tears from fright.
- Stomper. Most likely, there was some kind of gopher before. There are a lot of them here, they wander around, they eat everything, but they don’t hunt, they are cowards. Somehow our friends are not visible, that’s bad.
- Why did we stop?
It crunched from the side and behind. Dasha flew forward, knocked down by Morhold's push. He himself, turning back, managed to raise the machine gun. The gopher, or whatever it was, was apparently hungry, but decided to attack in a strange way: it grunted and, jumping up and down in a funny way, moved sideways towards them.
Morhold shook his head and took out his cleaver. He stepped towards the beast, which growled threateningly and, with an elusive movement, waved the machete. The animal squeaked amusingly and rushed into the thickets of low bushes.
“Stupid…” Morhold grinned, judging by his voice. -What did you ask?
-Why did you stop?
- The engine gets very hot. Let's go now. At the same time, I checked that our pursuers were there. Haven't heard yet...
There was a growl where they came from. The first roar was immediately followed by a second. Morhold swore and handed the “Pecheneg” to Dasha.
- Don't drop it. I'm going, my dear, I'm going.
The Ural, which in Dasha’s opinion had not cooled down at all, jerked and rumbled. Two bright dots appeared behind them and began to approach inexorably. The motorcycle engine, clearly not rested, ran unevenly, the muffler roared, now completely not letting in any sounds.
- Put on your gas mask! – Morhold shouted. - Alive!
He himself somehow imperceptibly pulled it over his head without putting on the mask yet. He waited for Daria and lowered her onto her face. The motorcycle started moving, rushing off like the same mad goat, shaking and groaning. The light behind was getting closer.
Dasha sat in the cradle, holding an inconvenient machine gun, and tried not to look back. There, at the station, the unpleasant feeling when someone's sticky hand got into her head grew into fear. The feeling of an impending end that, no matter how hard you try, cannot be avoided. A minute ago, when the strange and stupid beast scared her, she did not feel such a feeling.
Yes, I was scared, yes, I was wet with fear, but not like now. There was nothing like an insolent touch on her thoughts, but the inevitability returned.
And Morhold, meanwhile, was in no hurry to accelerate the Ural - even driving for the first time, and even so, Dasha understood this. Yes, they were driving very fast, but not as fast as recently. Why?
Thoughts flashed through her head one after another. Maybe the stalker simply decided to stop and bargain for his own life? Maybe? Yes, if she understands that the pursuers do not shoot only for fear of hitting her. And then what?
There was no answer. The motorcycle moved forward, even slowing down a couple of times and avoiding potholes. Morhold was taxiing, Dasha thought they were approaching from behind. The stupidest thought that flashed through her head was the thought of a gas mask.
A lopsided sign flashed, in the light she managed to read the barely noticeable “Fly...in,” and they drove into a thick, sour cream-like fog. True, it seemed to her that the sour cream shone green. Morhold turned to her and hummed something through the filter. She didn’t understand, then the stalker let go of the steering wheel and clenched his fist several times, pointing his finger at the welded handles. Dasha hastily nodded and clung to them as best she could. And she did the right thing.
The greenery, thick and hopeless, soon ended. When the fog was left behind, Morhold jerked the steering wheel to the side, practically spinning the Ural on one wheel. He jumped out, snatching the machine gun from her and aiming at the fog. He waved at her, ordering her to get out, which she did. Morhold pushed her to the side of the road, forcing her to duck. Dasha sat up and turned around, peering into the fog. Thoughts that had just galloped calmed down.
Strange, but the pursuers hanging on the tail have not yet appeared. The blurry spots stopped far behind, swerving in all directions. The fog began to thin, but the silhouettes of the pursuers were still not visible. The Pecheneg rumbled, spitting out bursts of tracer cartridges. One headlight flashed and went out. The second, having stopped twitching, froze in place. Morhold added a couple more short bursts and froze, pulling off his gas mask. Dasha did the same, listening and wiping her wet face.
She didn’t know what they were being chased on, but the engine of one of the cars worked much better than the Ural one. Even now, probably damaged by bullets, he pounded evenly, only occasionally choking. Morhold, pressed to the ground, moved the barrel of a machine gun.
- Hey, what's your name? – someone yelled from behind the greenish curtain that had begun to melt.
“Wow...” Morhold was surprised. He fired at the sound, not forgetting to ask: “What the hell difference does it make to you?”
They responded almost immediately:
“I need to know who is going to be killed.”
Morhold listened. Once again he fired at the sound, this time at one that he did not immediately hear, missing the main thing: the slightest rustle of tires. The one shouting from behind the fog did the main thing - he distracted attention by rolling his vehicle back.
“I didn’t hit it,” he laughed loudly and deeply, because of the fog, “it was a miss.”
Morhold pressed Dasha to the ground, peering into the newly thickened fog.
– It’s rude not to introduce yourself when talking about such serious things! – shouted into the slowly rotating greenery. - Don't you find it?
– Maybe you’ll throw down the gauntlet again, won’t you? – the owner of the bass asked mockingly. - You're right though.
- And that’s good. – Morhold regretted the missing NVG. - Why can’t you take a nap?
- I want to talk. I haven't had such an interesting time for a long time. Oh yes, my walkie-talkie doesn't work for some reason. So I won’t call for help, don’t be afraid. And I won’t come to you, because you hooked me. Then I'll kill you.
“I just have pimply goosebumps in all my private places...” Morhold tried to take aim by the voice. It didn’t work, the bass resonated, jumped from place to place. It seemed dangerous to poke through the fog. -What is your name, sick guy?
“I’ll add your scalp to the collection,” said the one hiding behind the fog. - To one of the places of honor. They call me Shatun. Have you heard?
- No, but should I?
“Reasonably...” agreed, who called himself Shatun. – We can do it easier, by the way, we won’t have to suffer.
- Do it that way, why endure? – Morhold was surprised. “I’ve always been amazed at such qualities in people.”
- Joker... Did you often promise to cut them for belts?
“It happened,” the stalker agreed. – Do you also like this kind of sexual perversion?
“I can’t deny myself such a little thing.” Only you will obviously need to complicate the process by using pliers. They, you see...
“Listen, balabol...” Morhold tiredly leaned back on the cradle. - Are you going to say something relevant? What are your suggestions?
Dasha swallowed, looking sideways at him and standing up slightly. Morhorld did not stand on ceremony, pressing on his helmet with his heel and sticking her face right into the dirt.
Morhold looked at Dasha’s face turning white in the darkness and did not answer. Still, everything turned out exactly as this weakling thought. This whole dance with horses and sabers turned out to be just for the sake of the strange, albeit possessing an incomprehensible gift, young Daria.
Morhold spat.
- So, what's your name? – The connecting rod was clearly moving away.
“John Rambo, how else…” the stalker was in no hurry to get up, although he removed his leg from Daria’s head. - Let's goodbye!
- See you later.
The engine roared and grumbled, and began to disappear. Morhold glanced sideways at Dasha.
She sat up and pulled off her rubber mask with a creak.
– Surely it won’t work?
- Exactly, exactly. An anomaly, whatever you want. There's plenty of good stuff here. Okay, we need to walk a little more, roll the car and rest. It will be a little dark here before dawn, at least six hours.
He stood up, brushing dirt off his clothes. He helped Daria roll up the gas mask and put it in her bag. He pulled the helmet down on her head again.
- Don’t go anywhere, and anyway, young lady, sit in the saddle. Rolling our mechanical Rocinante is still stupid and destructive. And so you and I will just drive to the desired secluded place. I'll be right back.
- For what? Where?
He didn't answer, putting his mask back on and diving into the fog.
Dasha sighed and climbed into the cradle. The motorcycle crunched, but barely sank. This time Morhold, of course, disappeared, but she was not worried, she even felt a little ashamed for having bad thoughts about him. She looked around, taking advantage of the moonlight breaking through the dense blackness of the clouds, although she could see little.
Tall, dark and wide silhouettes, most reminiscent of barrels. Only barrels for some reason are as tall as a multi-story building. Broken intersection with roads straight ahead and to the left. Red flashes from a huge torch ahead. And a truck that had fallen over on its side, with two numbers, two fives, barely visible on the side.
Dasha stood up and walked forward, trying to look more. There was a ringing sound from behind. And he coughed. She turned around, fully understanding who she would see and what she would hear.
Morhold looked at her thoughtfully.
– Many things amaze me about you, Daria. For example, the fact that you have lived to your age, with all your smallness, in the first place. But besides this, you have enough different things in you that can surprise any person. What did we talk about at the very beginning of our journey?
– I obey and do what I’m told.
- Did you say sit here?
- Understood. – Dasha shrugged. - Sorry.
- Smart girl, baby. – Morhold hung the “Pecheneg” around Dasha’s neck, and, handing over a slightly lighter bag, sat in the saddle. The Ural creaked, tragically and frighteningly, but did not fall apart. And it even started, snorting angrily from the engine and spitting at the muffler. - Here, a bonus for good behavior. And don't worry in vain. I won't leave you.
Dasha pulled out a rectangle wrapped in silver foil.
- What is this?
- Chocolate.
- Thank you.
She fell silent. Morhold, also not eager to talk, set off the motorcycle.
The Ural engine crackled barely audibly. Strange, but the exhausted machine, resurrected by the hands of its dead owners, worked perfectly. Dasha looked around, trying to understand where they were going?
There was a slight bounce on the uneven remains of the asphalt. Krotovka and the platform passengers stood before my eyes. Three men who traded a motorcycle for their lives. Morhold, stubbornly following his own path for the sake of the necessary information. Those who died in the carriages. Those killed at Turgenevka. Dead in the green fog. Dead...
Her road to strange hope turned into a bloody path. A path made by steel, lead and gunpowder. And many deaths.
Dasha took a bite of the incredibly tasty delicacy, tough, hard to the point of a stone, and gradually dissolved it. The chocolate turned out to be pleasant and nothing. Instead of its insane sweetness, left somewhere in the past, on the lips and gums the tongue felt only the metallic salt of blood.
Under the quietly smoldering motorcycle tires, branches that had decayed in the flames crunched. Black and dazzling white, smoky and covered with an icy, shimmering crust of frost, washed and dried to sugary purity by the wind and rain. Straight and curved, thick, thin, small and large. They lay interspersed with loudly bursting round pieces, each of which had four holes on one side - two larger, two smaller.
Morhold, stretching out his long paw covered with fur, picked up the skull and threw it into the vessels that scattered in a fan of glass splashes along the way. The glass cut the air, slashed the rubber of the blood-stained OZK, scratched across the face and tried to sting the eyes. Black homunculi in alcohol fell slowly and smoothly onto the hissing and acrid sweat asphalt. They hissed angrily and disappeared into the long, lazily moving shadows along the edges of the road.
- It's bowling, baby! – Morhold licked his upper lip with a long scarlet tongue covered with sticky saliva. – Every ball for life, one for each throw, motherfucker!
The next ball soared above his palm, spun in a fiery whirlwind, flashing fire from his eyes and, leaving a smoky trail, flew forward to the tight, ripe ears of corn rushing upward.
- Everything will burn, and we will burn! – Morhold winked at her with his extinct eye crying with blood, slowly disintegrating into squealing and scattering rats.
- Death! - squeaked the rat, which became a face.
- I will find you! - howled the gray wolf, hanging over the steel grass.
- You are ours! - the three heads of the dying dragon rasped.
The strong body exploded from the inside, releasing an iron woman with honey hair. Icy eyes stared at the girl, cold lips trembled...
- Hey, what are you doing?! – Morhold shook her shoulder. - Wake up already, or something!
Dasha looked at him, ran her hand over the stubble and the spiky beard that was not even going to soften.
- There is no wool.
“Hm-yes...” Morhold stood up from his knee. Barely noticeable, he stood inside something dark and as if closed. “If you’re going to look for fur, my dear, it’s on your palms.” And even then, it seems like I was with a woman not so long ago. Oh, and you screamed...
- A terrible dream. - Dasha sat down. I felt the thick fabric of the sleeping bag under my butt. -Where are we?
- There is a cache here. Few people know about it, you and I were lucky, they showed it to me somehow.
From the side, in two places, a barely noticeable light was shining through. The stalker sat down next to him and fidgeted, unbuttoning something.
“I’ll take off my boots and rewind my foot wraps, so don’t be alarmed.”
- Yeah. Just don't be afraid.
- Someone's? – Morhold rustled the fabric he was removing. “Before, before the War, everything happened. You think someone like that is screwing your mother, what are we going to do with her? We’ll come to her or to me, but we wandered around for several hours. My feet stink, my sock seems to have been worn out, so my toe is now out. He’ll say, fu-fu-fu and all that, and goodbye to a great time spent...
Dasha grinned:
- Well... and then you come, and she has these fucking tights. And that’s how it will turn out. Everyone's sweating is different, and...
- Yes, I’m talking about the same thing myself. That was the problem – the smell of human sweat, he said, wasn’t it?
- I do not remember. Then, before the War?
- Exactly. – Morhold rustled, clearly making himself more comfortable. – Some anti-sweat deodorants and anti-dandruff shampoos. A fatal disease called dandruff. Thousands died from it, can you imagine?
- Ugh, I believed it. No... back then there was a lot of nonsense in people’s heads. Now everyone would have such problems - how to buy a wallet made of leather, and not from a substitute, what flowers to choose for a birthday, how...
- Yeah. – Dasha wrapped herself up to her eyes. – I would like to live there, at least a little...
– Do you think that everything was simple and good before? – Morhold stirred, pulling the blankets over the tip of his nose. - It’s cold, damn it... It’s harmful to spend time like that at my age. I just wanted to contact you, you idiot.
– You decided on your own, what do I have to do with it? And my age? – Dasha sniffled. The clinging runny nose suddenly decided to give her a hard time. “What if I deceived you altogether, haven’t you thought about that?”
“Did you also trick your way into my head?”
- Oh well. Okay, why aren't you sleeping?
- Scary. Yes, you didn’t finish telling the story.
- A? What are you talking about, cutie?
– About life, about the good past life.
Light from the unexpected moon fell inside through the gap. Dasha, her face brightening, turned to him.
- It's interesting, you know? Mom told me a lot, but she became more and more bored and sad. And who else did I not want to talk to? That grandfather, well, that...
– I understand, I’m not a fool. – Morhold scratched himself. – So, you can whisper with me, like with a girlfriend?
- Good friend. – Daria grinned. – I’ve always dreamed of something like this. So that with stubble, and with a machine gun, and even smoke like a locomotive.
- I would smoke, by the way. – Morhold sat down, wrapped in a blanket. - Now that the fog is coming, I’ll smoke.
- This is not good, you’re coughing. In Kinel, he even woke me up in the morning, I thought, you’re dying, you’ll spit out your lungs.
Morhold reached out and flicked the girl on the forehead. She groaned.
“Don’t try to point out to your elders their mistakes and weaknesses, my dear.” Fine? And don't be offended. Sometimes slight pain helps to absorb the material. You know, huh?
Dasha did not answer. She rubbed her forehead and most likely pouted.
“Okay, okay...” Morhold sighed noisily. I didn't want to apologize. The young girl managed to get him into such trouble that it seemed stupid to him to ask for forgiveness for the click on the forehead. But... - Sorry.
“It hurts, damn it... Hmm-hmm-hmm...” the girl whined and added completely calmly. - Come on, tell me.
- Why can’t you sleep, huh?
Daria shrugged.
– Adre... what is correct?
- Well, yes, I didn’t even think about it. Adrenalin. – Morhold stood up and, wincing because of his stiff muscles, crawled towards the crack in the wall. He looked out and listened.
There was relative silence around. That is, to be honest, it just wasn’t observed. Or didn't you hear? Otradny, as always at night, eerily friendly and joyfully greeting the darkness with the screams of various owners of hungry stomachs, did not disappoint.
The fog had already subsided, allowing the dampers to be raised and oxygen released. Here, in the light of the moon, a rare guest for several tens of kilometers around, he was clearly visible. Dense, greenish as always, it floated just above the ground. Finally, he threw a thick thick blanket over everything he could reach. The thick cream spread and crept, looking for any loophole, ledge or structure. Morhold rejoiced at the resourcefulness of some tramp who took a fancy to this very den and installed everything necessary. Hermetic door, tight shutters on the cracks, closed air circulation. Thank you, my friend, that you can sleep without a gas mask.
Somewhere in the distance some animal was crying. Based on experience, Morhold bet on the bald representative of the dog tribe - there were enough of these creatures in the town. Having bred on carrion immediately after the war, having changed and managed to survive, the dogs crowded out all other creatures, not to mention scattered groups of people and mutants of the genus Homo sapiens.
Rare and relatively peaceful flocks of birds, nocturnal and indeed almost not dangerous, hooted. That is, those who may think about whether it is worth attacking a lonely walking upright beefsteak. There were also plenty of these, relatively small and not particularly similar to their larger counterparts.
To the side of the destroyed dachas, some poor fellow was screaming, clearly becoming dinner. Morhold glanced sideways at Daria, surprised. Wow, how long has it been since the “grub truck”? A little more than a day? And where is the girl who sat there, chattering her teeth, and didn’t believe what was happening? Well, you have to...
- But tell me, why are you so calm? We’re sitting together, in the middle of nowhere, with death and violence all around, and you, unexpectedly, are all calm?
Dasha shrugged.
- How should I know? Something like that…
- Yes, okay. – Morhold quietly lowered the shutter and sat down in his place. He took out his pipe and started filling it. - Past life? Hmm, you know, Dasha, she was... wonderful.
– Well said, everything is immediately clear.
- Yes? – Morhold smacked his lips, lighting his pipe. - Sorry. Conciseness is not always good.
“Ugh...” he crunchily scratched his neck with growing stubble, “well, how can I explain.” In general, people lived on the territory of Lakonica, the ancients, the Greeks. They were called Spartans.
- Spartak, probably. – Dasha yawned softly, like a cat. - Well, it’s what’s his name. Guys, I remember everyone in our yard was shouting: this is Sparta, this is Sparta. Sparta is the champion, it seems.
“Hm-yes...” Morhold chuckled. “Some things survive anything.” Well, let's say you're right. In general, she’s a cutie, she speaks briefly, but succinctly, and was invented by the same Spartans.
“Okay...” Dasha fiddled around, clearly making herself more comfortable. “I didn’t know her life at all.” It's interesting.
- That life, that life. – Morhold took a drag and paused. “She really was wonderful.” Although then, to be honest, a lot of things seemed bad, terrifying, and upsetting. Do you know what terrible problems worried your peers and peers, including me?
– It’s scary to imagine - a new iPhone, all like this straight from France, a week before sales in Russia. It’s an important thing, how can we live without it? You shouldn’t take a picture of yourself in the mirror with a duck’s face, when, well, your lips were so... in short, they stuck out. It’s not for you, you know, to post on Instagram the crap you devoured in what looks like a Japanese restaurant for not so much money. They ate raw fish, and paid for it, and then they made sure to show it to everyone - they say, look, it’s no worse than people’s.
“Well...” Dasha made herself more comfortable. – Is it possible to eat fish? Is she radioactive?
– Yeah... – Morhold grinned, enveloped in smoke. - Right. Even then, sometimes it was not the very first freshness and usefulness. But now, on my word of honor, I would go to such an eatery myself and order some rolls. No, honestly, I would have eaten it. Servings two.
“I would like to eat a piece of hot meat right now.” But we only have dried stuff, and it’s too salty.
- It’s good that at least this exists.
- That's for sure. You know, when my mother passed away, I had to deal with all sorts of crap. – Dasha sat down and stared into the darkness. – I stole a little, not, honestly, I hid in warehouses when. Then Uncle Petya found me; he was friends with my mother. I was assigned to the depot to clean and help. I worked there for a year and there was always something to eat. And then, somehow it happened, Uncle Petya drank seriously one time, and...
– Did you then end up with Kleshch?
- Yes. At least the food there was good. They even gave out bread on Saturdays.
- Bread... I remember in Auchan, well, it’s like a market, only under a roof and without sellers, they bought bread. Always hot, just kind of unreal. You could squeeze it in your hand, Turkish technology or something. My father said that it’s not bread, but real bread that needs to be bought from a factory. He himself loved to remember how back in the USSR, well, long before the War, his grandmother sent him to buy bread. Back then they delivered it several times a day; you had to go and get it hot.
Morhold smiled sadly.
- It was here, in this city. In general, the folder took it and went home. And along the way I picked the crust and ate it slowly. It will come, but half a loaf of bread will come, and then it won’t, like a cow licked it with its tongue. He said that my grandmother was swearing, it seemed like it was harmful to eat so much hot bread. How can you resist, right, Dash? Dash?
The girl was sleeping. She snored quietly and peacefully, wrapped in an old sleeping bag. Morhold finished his smoke, carefully knocked out his pipe and dozed off. The rain began to drum lightly on the lowered shutter.
Morning in the city greeted them with fog, usual, and several pterodactyls lazily flying in the distance. Morhold looked sadly at the Ural, which did not want to start at all, and spat angrily. I didn’t really want to walk around the city of my childhood. The only thing that made me happy was the remaining distance; everything else didn’t seem like the best option.
He tried again. Inside the engine, crunching and spitting oil, it howled, trembled and... and it finally started working.
- Let's go over there. – Morhold pointed to dark humps overgrown with grass and sparse bushes. Further on the first roofs were visible. “You and I need to cut off as much as possible and go to the river.” So, you and I should go there. We go very quickly and unnoticed.
- Fine. – Dasha adjusted the straps of her duffel bag. - It's clear.
Morhold looked around and bared his teeth. On the road, along the very line of the horizon, several dark spots were barely noticeable, clearly visible from here, from a small hill.
- Put on your helmet, you’ll be safer.
- Again?!!
- Helmet on your head! – Morhold tenaciously grabbed Daria’s chin and squeezed it slightly. “You asked to come here yourself and said that you would do everything that I wouldn’t say.” So?
- Well done. Would you like some more chocolate?
Mayer V. Green fog // Quantum. - 1990. - No. 4. - P. 47-51.
By special agreement with the editorial board and editors of the journal "Kvant"
Have you ever seen green fog? No? Don't be upset, this is completely fixable. Now you will see for yourself and show your comrades not only green, but also blue, and red, and in general - multi-colored fog.
Demonstration experience
It is most convenient to conduct the experiment in a school physics room on a demonstration table. For the experiment, you will first need a light source. This could be, for example, a car light bulb designed for an operating voltage of 6 V and producing light with an intensity of 21 cd, or a school illuminator for shadow projection (you just need to move its light bulb close to the collecting lens of the illuminator or remove the lens completely). Any other light source will do, as long as it is small in size and does not illuminate nearby objects too brightly. The easiest way to achieve this is to place the source behind a hole in a large black screen.
So, install the light bulb 1 (Fig. 1) and place a glass bottle at a distance of 20-40 cm from it 2 capacity 20 l. (Such bottles with a diameter of approximately 25 cm and a height of about 45 cm with a neck having a hole with a diameter of 3.5-4.5 cm are sold in hardware stores.) The bottle must be thoroughly washed, immediately before the experiment, rinsed with cold water and the outer surface wiped dry. There should be no drops of water left on the walls of the bottle, either outside or inside.
Close the bottle with a rubber stopper 3 , through the hole of which a glass or metal tube is passed 4 . Rubber hose tube 5 connect to the injection pump 6 . The figure also shows the position of the observer's eye 7 , the distance from which to the bottle can be arbitrary ranging from 1 to 6 m.
Turn on the light bulb, create darkness or twilight in the office and pump air into the bottle. Ask the audience to look closely at the light bulb and, after a short pause, quickly remove the cap from the neck of the bottle. Immediately around the light bulb, within the size of the bottle, you will see wide and quite bright multi-colored rings.
What happens in the bottle?
You pump air and the pressure in the bottle increases. When you pause, the air in the bottle becomes room temperature. At the bottom of the bottle there is a little water remaining after rinsing, and on the walls there is a thin film of water. Therefore, in addition to air, the bottle contains saturated water vapor.
You pull the cap and the compressed air in the bottle quickly expands. At the same time, since the process is close to adiabatic (i.e., it occurs without heat exchange with the environment), the temperature of the air in the bottle decreases, the steam becomes supersaturated and easily condenses into droplets of water on dust particles, of which there are always so many in the air.
This creates fog in the bottle. You can easily detect it if you look at the bottle from the side: at the moment fog appears, the light beam coming from the light bulb becomes visible due to scattering. It is immediately noticeable that the mist in the bottle is quite rare. This indicates that, despite the significant, according to our subjective estimates, dust content in the air, there are relatively few dust particles as centers of condensation of water vapor in the bottle.
Why do rings appear?
Spherical droplets of water that make up the fog float in the air filling the bottle. They are transparent, which means light can refract at them, and they are small enough, therefore, light can diffract at them. Both refraction and diffraction of light can, in principle, produce multi-colored rings. What phenomenon is responsible for the results of our experiments?
The refraction and reflection of light in spherical drops of water explains the rainbow. But you can only observe a rainbow from certain angles. In addition, a rainbow, to a first approximation, does not depend on the size of the drops. In the experiments we carried out, the diameters of the rings continuously changed, and this can only be explained by a change in the size of the fog droplets. Finally, a good bright rainbow is obtained on large drops of water with a diameter of 1-2 mm, and there are obviously no such drops in the bottle. So, we conclude that the multi-colored rings observed in the experiments described are most likely due to the diffraction of light by small drops of water.
What does literature say?
It cannot be that the diffraction of light by many small, round, identical particles has never been discussed in a journal before. And indeed, if you look through the files of old issues of Kvant, you will find several relevant materials. Thus, in 1977, N. M. Rostovtsev described excellent experiments on the diffraction of light on a flattened ball of thin wire, on many particles of lycopodium, and even on red blood cells. Five years later, Ya. E. Amstislavsky returned to these phenomena again, but described them from slightly different positions. After reading these articles, you will learn that multi-colored rings around a white light source are called coronas and are often observed in natural environments. The book by M. Minnart tells a lot and interestingly about the Viennese. In addition, it very successfully formulates the main provisions of the theory:
“a) Diffraction on a relatively dense cloud consisting of water drops of the same size occurs in the same way as on one drop, only the intensity of the diffracted light is greater.
b) Diffraction on a drop occurs in the same way as on a small hole in a screen...
c) Diffraction at an aperture is calculated according to Huygens’ principle: it is assumed that each point of the aperture emits light waves, and it is determined how these waves interfere from all parts of the aperture when entering the eye.”
As for quantitative calculations, you can find them in the mentioned articles, as well as in the article by E. E. Gorodetsky. It is worth recalling, however, that the smaller the obstacles, the larger the corresponding diffraction patterns, all other things being equal.
In general, a lot has been written about the crowns. It is surprising, however, that experiments with artificial fog, amazingly beautiful and simple, are not even mentioned! Only after undertaking a special search, we finally found in the book of P.I. Brounov a description of experiments with artificial fog carried out at the end of the last century.
Self-criticism
The demonstration experiment offered to you always works, but the brightness, contrast, size and duration of the crowns’ existence change quite significantly from experiment to experiment. It would be necessary to study the phenomenon in more detail, but the setup shown in Figure 1 does not allow this.
In fact, it is designed for the experiment to be carried out by at least two people: one creates the experimental conditions, the other conducts observations. This is, of course, extremely inconvenient. In addition, it is difficult to ensure even approximately equality of experimental conditions or to more or less reliably control their changes. Finally, frequent pumping of air is physically tiring and distracts from the main thing. Therefore, another installation is desirable, free from the listed and other disadvantages.
Another way to observe the crowns
The main element of the recommended installation is shown in Figure 2. Glass bulb 1 0.5 l capacity closed with a rubber stopper 2 with glass tube 3 , on which a rubber bulb is put 4 about 8 cm in diameter.
You, of course, yourself guessed that in research it is advisable to use a small vessel and replace the pump with a suitable device that allows you to change the gas pressure in this vessel without much difficulty. Undoubtedly, you already have a good idea of the procedure for conducting experiments, but we will outline it anyway.
The flask must be clean, dry on the outside and without drops of water on the walls, which would interfere with observations. Before experiments, rinse the flask with cold tap water. Place a small light source at a distance of 1-3 m from the eye. Place the flask in front of your eye on a stand of suitable height and close it with a rubber stopper with a bulb. Now press the pear, take a short pause and, releasing the pear, observe multi-colored crowns around the source. When conducting experiments, it is better to hold the flask with two fingers near the stopper, so as not to heat it up in vain and not to leave fingerprints on the walls.
Study
After assembling the installation, get crowns around the light source. Slowly squeeze and release the bulb. In this case, the crowns first increase and then decrease. The result obtained can only be explained by the fact that as the pressure increases, the fog droplets become smaller, and as the pressure decreases, they become larger. This is quite natural, since with an adiabatic increase in pressure, the temperature of the gas in the flask increases, and water evaporates from the droplets, and as the pressure decreases, it condenses into them.
Repeat the experiment again and again. You will see that the brightness and size of the diffraction pattern gradually decreases. After about two minutes, the crowns disappear completely and do not appear, no matter how much you press the bulb. Let's try to explain this.
We have already said that the decrease in the size of the picture is caused by an increase in the diameter of the fog droplets. The brightness of the picture can decrease only because the total number of fog droplets in the bulb decreases. But why is this happening? Maybe the droplets are evaporating? If we accept this incredible assumption for a moment, then a contradiction is immediately revealed: during evaporation, the droplets should decrease and the diffraction pattern should increase, but everything happens just the opposite. The most natural explanation remains - water droplets simply settle to the bottom of the flask.
Indeed, droplets of water condense on dust particles and, settling to the bottom of the flask, carry them along with them. The air in the flask becomes cleaner and smaller, there are fewer and fewer centers of condensation, which means that the fog droplets are formed increasingly larger and rarer, as a result of which the picture gradually decreases and loses brightness until it disappears completely.
It is clear that the ability of the flask to produce crowns can be restored if dust suspended in the air is introduced into it. For example, do this. Open the flask, bring the end of the glass tube protruding from the stopper to the neck of the flask and squeeze and release the bulb several times. In this way, you will blow the flask with room air, which is always somewhat dusty, and you will be able to successfully repeat experiments on the formation of crowns again.
Try introducing different “grades” of dust into the flask, collecting it into a rubber bulb from the spines of books that have stood on a shelf for a long time, from fleecy clothes, etc. Monitor the corresponding changes in the diffraction pattern and make sure that the dust does not allow you to significantly increase the number steam condensation centers in the flask. What if you use smoke?
Bring a little smoke into the flask from a piece of cotton wool smoldering at the end of the wire. By squeezing and releasing the pear, you will get a thick white fog through which nothing good can be seen. It appears because the smoke particles are very numerous, water vapor condenses on each of them, and as a result a lot of very small droplets of water are formed.
Now try reducing the number of steam condensation centers. To do this, open the flask and blow air through it. By closing the flask with a stopper with a rubber bulb, you will again get fog in it. Repeat these operations and make observations. You will find that as the centers of vapor condensation in the flask decrease, the white circle observed in the experiment centered on the light source will have a reddish or, rather, brownish border. Gradually the white circle turns yellow, and the border forms a brownish-red ring. This ring then turns red, followed by a blue one. Each time the picture becomes more and more vibrant and new colors appear in it: crimson, greenish-blue, lilac - you can’t list everything!
But we suggest you do all this yourself. We wish you success!
Literature
- Rostovtsev N. M. How to measure the wavelength of light using a wire. "Kvant", 1977, No. 8, p. 34.
- Amstislavsky Ya. E. Extraordinary phenomena around ordinary light sources. "Kvant", 1982, No. 6, p. 15.
- Minnart M. Light and color in nature. M.: Nauka, 1969, p. 222.
- Gorodetsky E. E. Diffraction of light by a circular hole. "Kvant", 1989, No. 11, p. 46.
- Brounov P.I. Atmospheric optics. M.: Gostekhizdat, 1924, p. 105.
Fog. It would seem that this is the most common atmospheric phenomenon, the cause of which, according to science, is the smallest products of condensation of water vapor. But the milky-white veil, cutting off the traveler from space and time, absorbing all sounds, evokes mystical horror in a person and gives rise to many horror stories.
Let's remember the film "The Fog" (2005) directed by Rupert Wainwright. Residents of a small town called Antonio committed a terrible evil on a very foggy night. They plundered and burned a ship that was carrying a group of lepers. Almost a hundred years have passed since then. Life in the port town passed quietly and serenely until one night Antonio was suddenly enveloped in a persistent fog that smelled of evil. He brought with him the souls of ghosts who could not find peace for themselves...
“So this is a movie!” - you say. But reality can sometimes be more incredible than the most nightmarish inventions of the human mind...
Ghosts of La Mussara
La Mussara is one of the most mysterious places in Spain. It is still unclear why the residents left this village, which officially ceased to exist on January 10, 1960. Representatives of various mystical sects making pilgrimages to this place forgotten by God and people consider the mysterious properties of the fogs of La Mussara to be the main reason for this.
This is how one of the Russian tourists describes this phenomenon:
“Yes, it was a strange fog. It began to emerge from the forest in thick, fatty layers as soon as the last ray of the sun disappeared behind the mountains. The forest, which had not been cut down for the last 50 years and had grown freely, approaching the remains of the walls of once residential buildings, now looked gloomy and inhospitable.
I've seen fog before, but I've never seen anything like it. It was more like some kind of fluid substance, inexplicably holding on to weight.
We carefully approached the edge of the cliff; the edge was still visible in the rising fog, swirling like steam over a cauldron of hell's kitchen. Where just half an hour ago, far below, one could see the first lights in towns and villages, and further, at the very horizon, a gray-blue strip of sea spread out, absorbing everything in its path, either fog or really dense, gray steam ...
People say that on those days when the fog was especially thick, in the evenings some observed an incredible picture: a procession of monks in long cassocks appeared directly from the floating haze, their faces hidden under hoods so that it was impossible to see. At the head of the procession was a monk with a large wooden cross in his hands.
The brothers slowly emerged from the fog, walked for some time without reacting to anything around them, and suddenly disappeared into a gray foggy veil. Those who told this story warned that under no circumstances should you try to make contact with the monks, much less try to look under the hood, otherwise certain death.
Many who stayed overnight in the city, then, describing their feelings, said that in the fog they began to feel uncomfortable, and sometimes physically ill: they began to feel dizzy, chills set in, and they felt a loss of strength.
I didn’t experience anything like that; on the contrary, I felt a clear surge of energy, the mood was great. Moving in the thickening fog, my husband and I joked and laughed a lot, every little thing, every word spoken out of place, delighted us. It seemed like some kind of dope was dissolved in this fog...”
Lost in time
Some people caught in the mists of La Mussara were literally lost in time. For example, a man spent 3 hours in the fog, and his friends searched for him for 10 hours. Or, on the contrary, a tourist who disappeared for several minutes from the field of view of his satellites spoke about several hours of unsuccessful attempts to get out of the fog.
Perhaps this is because in La Mussara there is a portal to another dimension. However, this “door” differs from others in its special power and the large number of those who have disappeared or moved in time or space.
On the outskirts of Moscow is Golosov Ravine. Historians found in the capital's archives a document dated 1621, which talks about the appearance of a small detachment of Tatars on horses with outdated weapons and in old-fashioned clothes from a dense greenish fog at the very gates of the royal palace.
The riders were immediately tied up and interrogated. During interrogation, it was stated that these were warriors of Khan Devlet-Girey, who attacked Moscow 50 years ago! The ancient chronicle is silent about what happened next.
Subsequently, residents of neighboring villages mysteriously disappeared in Golosovo ravine more than once. Historian scientists claim that the archives of the police department of the Moscow province contain documents that report two peasants, Ivan Bochkarev and Arkhip Kuzmin, who disappeared in 1810 and unexpectedly reappeared 21 years later!
The peasants told how, returning home from a neighboring village, they decided to while away the journey and go through a ravine, although they knew that this place was considered unclean. A dense fog swirled along the bottom of the ravine, but suddenly a corridor appeared, flooded with light.
The peasants decided to walk along it and met people covered with wool. The hairy people explained to them with signs that they had found themselves in another world, from which it would not be easy to return, but they would help them. A thick fog descended again, and the peasants moved on. Arriving at their native village, they saw aged wives and very adult children, whom they hardly recognized. It turned out that more than 20 years had passed!
Modern scientists, while studying the bottom of the ravine, have recorded a fairly significant fault in the earth’s surface, through which powerful radiation comes. It is quite possible that this explains the numerous mysterious phenomena occurring here.
Curse of the Green Imperishable
Mysterious fogs, popularly called “blue,” occur in the Russian North. They suddenly appear and just as suddenly disappear. They can have different colors: from milky white to greenish and yellow-orange. They are sticky and cold and can absorb the sound of a human voice.
How many people got lost, disappeared forever in the vastness from Kanin to the foothills of the Urals after meeting this mysterious fog!
The first mentions of it appeared in written documents of the 16th-17th centuries, when representatives of other nations began to come to the polar tundra.
The famous documentarian Alexander Rukhlov wrote about it this way:
“Several centuries ago, Novgorodian Stroganov organized a colony on Novaya Zemlya for the extraction of sea animals and furs. At first the colony flourished, but then suddenly all the colonists began to die one after another. An official of the Arkhangelsk governor, Klingstand, after communicating with the indigenous inhabitants of Novaya Zemlya, indicated “deadly yellow fog” as the cause.
The ancient legends of the northern peoples say that such fog appears on the earth suddenly if people violate the sacred commandments of their ancestors. This Tas Sinyo fog consists of the souls of people not accepted by the North Star. According to eyewitnesses, it either crawls across vast spaces, then shrinks, extinguishes all sounds, does not allow anything to be seen, drives you crazy, kills on the spot, or “envelops” you forever.
The only ones who were not affected by the disaster were the aborigines of these places; the fog did not touch them, while all the Stroganovites died. They accepted the death of the settlers as due punishment for their evil deeds and deeds. The main thing is that they broke the “taboo” - they began to look in the rivers for the “green imperishable” - the shrine of these places.”
Since ancient times, multi-colored pearls have been famous in Rus': white, light blue, reddish and black - they were used both to decorate icons, church dresses and utensils, and in various embroideries, jewelry and ceremonial attire. But it had one drawback - it quickly lost its shine, faded and crumbled.
The mythical “green imperishable” is a special pearl, eternal, unfading, unfading. In the ancient Samoyed epic it was called nothing more than “semsyuga”. Perhaps this word is derived from “pearl”, or maybe it has some other, more ancient roots. The polar pearl acquires such unusual properties only in the rivers of the Far North, receiving its power from the North Star. Northern shamans said that green pearls choose their own owner and can either bring happiness or bring misfortune.
In general, if you collect together all the mystical stories associated with the fog, you will get a large library. This topic is truly inexhaustible. And often the phenomena occurring in the fog are inexplicable by modern science.
Victor MEDNIKOV
On April 26 this year, the capital was covered in green fog.
Strange clouds were moving towards Moscow from the Kaluga region. In just a few hours, the entire sky was covered with a green haze. People rushed to call the city's rescue services.
The appearance of a green substance in the sky over Moscow became the main topic of news releases on all federal channels.
Emergency Situations Ministry employees denied information about any releases of hazardous substances. This vague story continued for several days. The green clouds disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.
It turns out that green fog was known to the ancients.
Tales about him exist on different continents.
Residents of the Arctic Circle - the Nenets - still believe that sharashuts - mysterious warriors - live in underground caves.
They come to the surface in the form of a green mist that can drive people crazy or even... kill.
There are real historical facts confirming the death of people from an unknown fog.
At the end of the 16th century, the merchant Stroganov founded a fur mining colony on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. However, soon, for unknown reasons, the settlers died.
Medieval archives state that the people were killed by “an unknown infection caused by a green mist.
And in one of Albert Einstein's most dangerous experiments, the green fog was simply a side effect.
The great scientist decided to develop the theory of relativity and connect gravity, electromagnetic fields and the behavior of elementary particles in one equation. This is a formula with far-reaching consequences, a unified field theory.
Einstein was able to scientifically substantiate the thesis of the multiplicity of worlds, instantaneous movement in space and time. This equation describes the creation of matter and time - the foundations of the existing universe.
There is a version that in 1943 the American military helped Einstein test his mathematical model in practice. By order of the Navy, a group of scientists was supposed to make the destroyer Eldridge invisible to radar. Very powerful emitters and generators were installed on the ship.
When the technology was turned on at full power, people saw for the first time in history how the unified field theory works.
The same green fog appeared around the Eldridge; the destroyer first disappeared from the radar screens, and then simply disappeared. At that same second, a ghostly ship was seen at several military bases in California.
It is believed that "Eldridge" spent only a couple of moments in a parallel world. But when the ship returned to our reality, out of 180 crew members, only 20 were alive.
The rest died in monstrous torment:
bodies were found that were literally melted into the hull of the ship.
